Harry Potter and the Stitch in Time - Lowten - Harry Potter (2024)

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

Chapter 1 - A Storm in a Teacup

"Did anyone here order a Hippogriff for Mr. Black?" Harry quipped as he tried to get Buckbeak to fly steadily outside the escape route he had just made. Hermione was clinging to his back, and Harry tried not to be aware of her chest pressed against him. The thin tops they had both decided to wear earlier that day (as the summer was quickly coming to the Scottish castle) were not doing much to help. In the room, Sirius just sat on the floor and stared at the hole in the wall that replaced the window of the office they were using as his cell while they waited for the executioner.

"Sirius, please get a move on, we don't have all night," Harry said. That seemed to get through to the half-starved man and he got up and came over to the window. It took a few moments but Harry was able to see hope rekindle in the man and relight the fire in his eyes.

Hermione gripped Harry tighter but turned her head so she could talk to Sirius. "Can you please hurry up and get on, Mr. Black? We are on a very tight schedule. Things will be bad if we aren't back in the hospital wing in…" Hermione checked her watch. "Fourteen minutes. Like, Harry and I ending up in your old cell bad."

That seemed to spur on Sirius, and he leapt out of the window and landed on the back of the Hippogriff. Harry could feel Buckbeak struggling with three people on his back, so he directed the noble steed up to an open air walkway that was originally made as access to the castle’s “merlons and machicolations” (at least that is what Hermione said were the proper names for them) as close as possible to the hospital wing. Harry and Hermione dismounted, and Harry turned to his godfather. "Just go for now, we will be fine. Find somewhere safe to hide out and send me a message in a few weeks, we can work out what to do then."

"Harry, I don't know how to thank you." Sirius said seriously.

"Not getting yourself and Buckbeak caught will be a great start, so go now." Harry grabbed hold of Hermione's hand and pulled her through a door and down a set of spiral stairs, making their way to the hospital wing. They had managed to get about halfway there when Harry heard someone coming up the corridor they needed to go down. He suddenly realized two things: first, it was probably a prefect doing their evening patrols, and second, the most direct route to the hospital wing from here was also the way that they would go if they were going to Gryffindor Tower. Harry put these two things together and came up with a spur of the moment plan. He pulled Hermione into one of the window alcoves and pushed her against the wall. "Hermione, sorry about this, but I need you to trust me and just follow my lead, OK?"

Hermione nodded, a confused look on her face that Harry saw a turn into surprise as he pressed his lips against hers and started kissing her. It was almost thirty seconds of Hermione just standing there, like a rabbit caught in the headlights. However, she then started to kiss him back and Harry was a little surprised that she seemed to be getting into it. He was actually enjoying himself so much that he almost forgot why he was doing this, but the sound of a cough behind him was enough to bring him crashing back down to reality from where had been walking on the clouds.

Harry didn't have to fake his embarrassment when he turned to find fellow seeker and Hufflepuff prefect Cedric Diggory standing there. "The two of you are out after curfew," Cedric said, trying to sound stern but just sounding exasperated, as though Harry and Hermione were probably the third or fourth couple he had caught snogging in a corner this evening.

"Uh sorry, we lost track of the time," Harry offered.

"That will be five points from Gryffindor each and you better hurry back to your common room," and with that he left to continue his rounds.

Harry grabbed Hermione’s hand and they started running down the corridor to the hospital wing. As they ran, Hermione told Harry between pants, "About that kiss, we will be talking about that later."

Harry just agreed with "Later." The two made it to the hospital wing just as Dumbledore stepped out.

---ϟϟϟ---

Sirius watched his godson disappear through the door and wanted to go after him. But, he knew he couldn't so he slid up the back of the Hippogriff that Harry had called Buckbeak so that he was seated just behind the wings, where you would put a saddle if you had one.

"Well friend, I don't know what you did, but Harry said you couldn't be caught either, so why don't you and I get out of here?" Sirius asked the beast. Buckbeak looked back at his new rider with a solid thirty second stare where Sirius only just remembered not to blink from his lessons with Professor Kettleburn all those years ago. Then, the Hippogriff nodded and a few seconds later they were in the sky headed south-ish (Sirius didn't exactly have a compass). He tried to get an idea of where he could go. He had no money, and his face was splattered all over the Daily Prophet and the muggle media. There was nowhere he could go, and he didn't even have a wand he could use to clean himself up and change his face. Hell, he didn't even have his knife anymore, they had taken that from him while he was unconscious.

What he really wanted was somewhere like home, only he didn't exactly have one. He had been kicked out of the House of Black when he was fourteen, and the wards on the Black townhouse would probably kill him if he tried to go there. The flat he rented in Horizont Alley, a residential street just off the end of Diagon Alley, would have been stripped of anything belonging to him and rented to someone else years ago. Actually, given how long it had been, probably three or four someones by now.

Not that that flat had ever really felt like home, it was just a cheap place to live while you established yourself after Hogwarts. Honestly, the Potter cottage always felt more like home to him. He would laugh and joke with James, while Lily would berate him over something he had done in the same way she would berate James, but it was mostly a happy place, a bastion of love and calm during the war. But now, Potter Cottage was a ruined shell of what it had once been. He knew that James and Lily would have preferred the place torn down and something new built there, but when he had visited he saw that it had been appropriated by the Ministry as a shrine.

The only other place that he had ever felt at home was with Uncle Charlus and Auntie Dorea. He recalled how he and James had shrunken everything they owned at the end of their third year and Sirius had hidden in James's school trunk so that James could smuggle Sirius to his home and hide him there over the summer. Of course, that hadn't worked; Uncle Charlus had found him in under ten minutes, as the wards had reported an intruder to him and he had searched everything they had brought with them. But instead of being angry, the older man had taken the time to listen. Once Sirius and James had explained everything to him, Charlus Potter, the head of the House of Potter, had offered him sanctuary from his family. That had led to Sirius being kicked out of the Black family, but he was actually happy about that.

Now there was a thought: Potter Manor. Sirius knew that his uncle and aunt must be dead, there was no way they would have left him rotting in Azkaban or let Harry live with Lily's horse-faced bigot of a sister. But better yet, he didn't think anyone would think to look for him there, and he was still technically under sanctuary from the Potter family so the wards on the building should recognise him. And, he doubted anyone would think to look for him there.

Buckbeak flew for hours until the sun started to peak over the horizon. Navigating from the air at night wasn't exactly easy, but it was impossible during the day if he didn't want to be seen, so he set down in a large forest. They would rest here, and he would see if Padfoot could find something edible both for him and the Hippogriff from the nearest muggle town. They would be able to reach Potter Manor sometime the next night, as he could already see Snowdonia (the largest mountain in Wales) from the air, so he knew he was going in the right direction.

---ϟϟϟ---

Harry and Hermione were released from the hospital wing the next morning as they hadn't actually been injured, whereas Ron was kept until lunch whilst Madam Pomfrey fussed over the results of fixing his broken leg. It didn't matter how much the three of them assured the medi-witch that everything was okay, Ron had come to her hospital wing on the night of the full moon with the marks of a large dog bite on his leg, and there were reports of someone she knew to be cursed with lycanthropy loose on the school grounds. She wasn't going to release him until she had the results of the moonstone potion confirming or denying his infection. Harry and Hermione had wanted to stay and keep Ron company, but Madam Pomfrey had run them out of the hospital wing with orders to go eat breakfast.

"Harry." Hermione said as they were walking alone down a corridor.

"Yea?" Harry replied cautiously, as he had an idea where this was going.

"We need to talk about last night." Hermione sounded resolute.

"What bit specifically? That my godfather is innocent? That we broke a bunch of laws ourselves? That the Minister of Magic is a bloody idiot, or…" Harry trailed off.

Hermione wasn't going to let him off easily. "The kiss, Harry, we need to talk about how you pushed me into an alcove and with barely a word kissed me like that." Her tone was carefully neutral.

"I didn't have enough time to come up with a better plan. I thought that if whichever prefect saw what they expected to see while they were on their rounds, they wouldn't have questioned it and would quickly send us on our way."

"Harry, I'm not concerned about that. For a spur of the moment plan, it was quite a good one. But Harry, the way you kissed me…I know you very well. You are not that good of a liar. That kiss was more than just a way to avoid a prefect looking too closely at us."

Harry felt his adrenaline spike as Hermione spoke, but he knew his friend as well as she knew him; she wouldn't drop this until she was convinced Harry had told her the truth. He sighed before he said. "Hermione, your friendship means everything to me and I am afraid telling you this could end it, but I have liked you for a while now. I know you don't feel the same way about me, how could you? I'm a skinny trouble magnet who makes your life far more complicated than it needs to be, and I do stupid things like getting mad at you for looking out for me, but yes I have wanted to kiss you for a while now and I shouldn't have used last night as an opportunity like that." Harry may have been the Gryffindor who faced a Dark Lord, a basilisk, and a swarm of Dementors, but not even he had the courage to look at Hermione as he spoke.

"Harry look at me." Hermione said, and when Harry hesitated she put her hand on his chin and gently tilted his head to face her. Harry saw she was smiling. "You silly prat. You could never lose my friendship over something like that. And what's this crap about me not returning your feelings? Yes you are a trouble magnet, and when you got mad at me over the broom it really hurt. But Harry, you are also the boy who jumped on the back of a troll for me, you’re the boy who came and sat with me every night under your invisibility cloak while I was petrified, and you are the one who helped this bushy-haired bookworm actually have friends. I have had feelings for you for a while as well, but I never thought someone who could have almost any girl in the school he wanted would ever choose me." Hermione had pushed him against the wall during her little speech, and when she finished she leaned in and pressed her lips to his.

The kiss was far gentler than the one the night previous, but all that it lacked in physical intensity it more than made up for in emotional intimacy. Last night had been desperate, as both had feared that it would be the only time either of them would get to experience it with the one they truly wanted. Now, however, the two of them felt like they were sharing something together and the sweet chaste kiss meant the world to each of them.

Once they parted, each wearing a cheek-splitting smile, Harry asked the all important question, "Hermione, would you be my girlfriend?"

"Yes Harry, I would love to be your girlfriend." And the newly minted couple went to breakfast, wondering as they entered the Great Hall what all the commotion was about.

---ϟϟϟ---

Ron was finally free in time for lunch, as his moonstone potion test had come back negative. Harry and Hermione were eager to tell him everything that he had missed the night before, but they knew Ron would prefer to eat first. As he had literally been trying to put himself between Harry and a man he thought to be a crazed murderer, Harry was feeling more amused at Ron's obsession with food rather than annoyed by it.

The three of them finally finished lunch, where Ron ate about as much as the other two combined. Harry didn't understand how Ron didn't look more like Dudley, but somehow Ron remained in a perpetual state of ganglyness. Once they were out of the hall, Harry and Hermione pulled Ron out onto the castle grounds well away from everyone and told him about everything he had missed while he was in the hospital wing. The time turner, saving buckbeak, the Dementors and saving Sirius.

"Then, once we sent Sirius away on Buckbeak, we were racing to get back to the hospital wing on time. However, we ran into a prefect," Harry explained.

"Ouch, bad luck. How did you avoid getting dragged off to Professor McGonagall?" Ron commiserated with them over their luck.

Hermione blushed. "Harry had a sudden brainwave wave and pushed me into an alcove and started snogging me." Ron tensed up a bit. "The prefect thought we were just another couple out after curfew to find some private time, and just took a few points and sent us back to our common room. Of course, we went to the hospital wing instead."

"That was actually a pretty good plan," Ron admitted. "Get caught for something trivial so that no-one looks at the big thing.”

"Anyway, you saw us getting back into the hospital wing and what happened with Snape and Fudge, but there is something else we need to tell you, Ron. After Hermione and I left the hospital wing this morning, we got to talking about that kiss and… well… we decided we were going to try being boyfriend and girlfriend," Harry told his red headed friend, worried about how he would react

Ron looked at Harry like he had been speaking in another language, and after almost a minute of silence asked, "why?"

"What do you mean why?" Harry asked as Ron's question had clearly been aimed at him.

"Well, it's Hermione. Bushy hair, big teeth, and books, and you’re you, the Boy-Who-Lived, Gryffindor seeker, slayer of Slytherin’s monster. You could have almost any girl in the castle, why pick Hermione?"

"What's wrong with Hermione?" Harry was getting annoyed now.

"Nothing, it's just she's so…blah," Ron said.

Harry was definitely getting pissed now, but Hermione suddenly had an idea and stepped in front of Harry, putting herself between the two boys. "Ron, I need you to answer some questions quickly. Do you love your sister?"

"Of course."

"Now think of how you feel about her, now think about how you feel about me. Tell me, do you see me like your sister?"

Ron's eyes grew wide, "Damn Herms, you're right, you're like my sister. That explains why we are constantly bickering."

"Don't call me Herms! But as you see me like a sister, you don't see what other boys see. As neither Harry nor I had a sibling growing up, we didn't fall into seeing each other like that," Hermione explained to Ron, and both the boys understood. Ron just didn't see the appeal with Hermione but hadn't made the connection to why he also couldn't see any with Ginny. With Ginny, he knew why the block was there and was able to look past it and see how she would look to others. He hadn’t realised there was anything to look past with Hermione.

"Well, congratulations and good luck to you both, I guess. Though Harry, if you hurt her I'll bounce you off every wall in the castle," Ron grinned at Harry as he said the last bit, causing Hermione to roll her eyes.

"What is it with boys thinking we can't protect ourselves? I know enough curses that I could bounce Harry off every wall in the castle myself, thank you."

Harry's protests that he wouldn't do anything to hurt Hermione fell on deaf ears as the two pseudo-siblings bantered. "Well it's a brother thing. It's what Percy, Fred, George, and I all agreed we would do to any boy who messed with Ginny when she came to Hogwarts. If you're my sister now then Harry gets the big brother act."

"Little brother. I'm older than you," Hermione quipped.

Ron shrugged. "I only know how to be a big brother to a sister."

The banter continued for a few more minutes until they got back to explaining their morning to Ron. "There was a huge commotion when we got to the Great Hall for breakfast. Snape told everyone that Lupin is a werewolf, so Lupin is quitting," Hermione told Ron.

"We tried to talk Lupin out of it but he has convinced himself that Snape is actually right and it's too dangerous for him to be here," Harry continued.

"Slimey grease faced bastard." Ron went off on one of his tirades against Snape, causing the other two to laugh as they walked around the lake.

---ϟϟϟ---

Sirius was flying over a fameliar section of the Brecon Beacons National Park when he saw it. Potter Manor wasn't the largest or most opulent manor owned by an old British wizarding family, but it wasn't the smallest either. It was situated in a small natural valley that opened on the south side, giving the grounds a lot of shelter from the winds and plenty of sunlight. The Manor itself was a red-bricked four storey tall building that had about 20 rooms in total, including a dining hall and ballroom for whatever functions the heads of the Potter family wanted to host.

Sirrus crossed over the wards, and while they felt weak they were still functioning and welcomed him home. He set Buckbeak down right outside the front door and dismounted. "I need to go inside and have a look around, OK? You should stay inside the wards, but there should be something around here you can eat. If not, I will go into the local village soon and get us something." Sirius was stalling and he knew it. In all probability he would find the bodies of his aunt and uncle inside and he didn't want to see that. After a full five minutes of preparing himself, he stepped through the door into the entrance hall of the Manor and walked straight back out again. The entrance hall was littered with bodies.

Sirius stumped over to where the path was being overrun by grass, fell to his knees, and threw up what was left of his rather meagre lunch. Images of what he had just seen raced through his head, and while one part of him was fighting the need to be sick again, another was going over what he had seen with cold detachment. The bodies had been left out for over ten years, so whether by decay or because insects had gotten at them all the flesh was gone, but wizarding clothing had preservation charms on them, so it had been easy for him to spot his auntie Dorea. He had helped James pick out that dress for her as a birthday present a few years before he had been sent to Azkaban. The other bodies he didn't know, but given that they were all in Death Eater robes and masks he didn't much care who they were.

Buckbeak came over to Sirius cautiously and laid his head on Sirius's shoulder, offering the man a little comfort until he was ready to go in there again. His second time inside he was able to hold himself together. There were five bodies in the entrance hall, but Sirius only had eyes for one, the woman who had taken him in when he was a desperate child. He knelt down next to what remained of one of the best people he ever knew "I'm so sorry auntie. You shouldn't have been left here like this. I should have been here sooner. They said I killed James and locked me away. But I didn't do it auntie, I promise I never did that. I know I wasn't always the best growing up, James and I did loads of stupid sh*t and swore that it wasn't us, but you must know I would never do that." As the man spoke, he started to weep over the body of the woman who had been more of a mother to him than his own.

He couldn't have told anyone how long he knelt there mourning his loss, but when he came back to himself he noticed he was holding his aunt’s wand and the bodies of the Death Eaters had been smashed to pieces in his grief stricken rage. He went looking for his uncle, whose body wasn't among those in the entrance hall. He wandered the house looking for any sign of his uncle. There wasn't anything worth noting on the ground floor, the only real difference was that the house plants his aunt had loved had all died long ago from a lack of food and water.

On the next floor he found another dead Death Eater; Uncle Charlus and Aunt Dorea had put up a fight and taken a fair number with them. As he started climbing the stairs to the third floor he heard something, not a bang or crash or anything that could be mistaken for a footfall, but a low constant sound that was like the sound Lily's old muggle radio used to make while she was looking for a new station. Sirius didn't bother looking on the third floor, instead following the sound to the fourth floor and passed a sixth Death Eater's body. The sound was getting louder the closer he got to his uncle's study. Sirius started to run towards the study, noticing there was a slight glow from within. He ripped open the door, a part of him furious that someone would use this place and not even have the decency to bury his aunt, but as he opened the door the sight before him knocked all thoughts from his mind.

Someone was in the room, yes, but he could hardly blame them for not doing anything, as the man was trapped in a maelstrom of magical energy. In the centre of the energy field, his Uncle Charlus was wearing an expression of fear as he held a broken time turner. Sirius could see him starting to spin and the sands of time starting flying everywhere. Then, after about seven seconds, time Inside the 'time storm' would reverse, leaving Uncle Charlus to replay the same seven seconds again and again until someone did something about it. Sirius watched the storm as it replayed again and again, looking for a way to get his uncle out of there. He positioned himself to the left of his uncle and lined up the shot, hoping that his aunt's wand would work well enough for him so that he could pull this off. Just as the time loop started going forward again, Sirius hit the time turner with a banishing spell, sending the time device sailing across the room and into the wall. As soon as he cast the banisher he cast a summoning charm on his uncle’s belt, pulling the man into his arms, then as fast as he could he threw up a shield charm.

Uncle Charlus yelled in range, fear, and surprise, but it was drowned out by the sound of the much larger time storm that raged on the other side of the study. The original time storm was still affected by the spells on the time turner that held the sands of time in check. Smashing the already broken device against the wall removed those protections entirely. Everything in the time storm must have aged a thousand years in the span of a few seconds, but thankfully the sands of time are volatile. As much as the time turners acted to keep the rest of the world safe from the sands, they also kept the sands from decaying. After a minute they seemed to be gone; the wall and the furniture that had been in the storm were all going to need to be replaced, but that was a small price to pay as Sirius had his uncle back.

Chapter 2

Chapter Text

Chapter 2 - A Return to Normal

Charlus sat in his study rereading the last letter he had gotten from his son. James had gone on for three pages about how little Harry, Charlus’s grandson, was doing. 'Harry is already walking,' 'Harry can fly better than he can walk,' and 'Harry called me Pongs, I know he was trying to say Prongs but Sirius heard it and has taken to calling me Pongs,' were some of his favourites to reread. The letter was only three days old, but it already looked like it had been batted around his desk for months because of how much he and his wife liked to read the letters their son sent home. It was a pity that they wouldn't be able to see them tonight for Halloween this year, but there was a war on. It saddened Charlus just how many times he had been able to say that in his life. With the muggles declaring war on Germany twice and Grindelwald getting involved, and now the so-called Lord Voldemort, he had been around for too many wars.

A bell sounded out, indicating that they had a visitor. Maybe James had brought Lily and Harry for a visit anyway, or maybe Sirius had come by. It had been a few weeks since he had heard from the boy he had all but adopted, but Sirius was busy with Dumbledore’s burnt chicken club. Charlus didn't like that Sirius had followed Dumbledore, the headmaster had some very funny ideas about how to fight a war, ideas that would get people on his side killed. But with word that Voldemort had marked James, Lily and little Harry for death, Sirius was never going to rest on his laurels. He was determined to protect his brother and godson, and nothing that Charlus had said had dissuaded him.

Charlus froze as a scream filled the house. It was his wife's voice and she wasn't screaming in surprise or in joy at seeing her grandson, it was a scream of terror. She would only scream like that if there was real trouble. "Dorea!" Charlus shouted as he started to rush down the stairs wishing as he went that his old knees weren’t slowing him down so much. There was the sound of spell fire, and now the screams of his wife changed to shouted spell incantations, and screams of pain were added to the noise. His wife may be as light as any Potter, but she had been raised as a Black, and when it came to defending her home there was no way she would hold back.

Charlus got to the bottom of the stairs that lead up to the family floor and to the balcony looking down into the entrance hall, where he saw his wife exchanging spells with six masked Death Eaters. He drew his wand and started to fire bone breakers down at the enemy. Dorea was using a decorative marble column as cover, and a number of the Death Eaters fell.

Suddenly, there was a shout from the doorway. "OH MERLIN HELP!" Charlus looked at where the shout came from and saw Peter Pettigrew, one of James's friends, and someone who James had convinced him to add him and people he brought with to the ward list in case of an emergency. Charlus then realised that Peter must have brought the Death Eaters here, that's how they had gotten through the wards with only a visitor warning rather than an assault warning.

However as Charlus suddenly understood the truth, his wife just heard a cry for help from someone she had known as a boy, someone she had mothered when he and her son's other friends had stayed at the manor for the odd week here or there. Charlus shouted for her to stop, but her maternal side didn't let her listen. She strode out from her cover, and in a flash of green light three more bodies littered the entrance hall, two Death Eaters and his beloved wife.

"Excellent, it's just the old man left now. The Dark Lord wants them both dead, and I am being given the manor for providing our Lord with the location of the rest of the Potters." Charlus felt his blood run cold. His son had made Peter his secret keeper; Charlus was one of only a handful of people who knew that, meaning that he realised his son and what was left of his family were in terrible danger. With that in mind, he decided to run. If he could get back to his office then he had an escape. His old legs screamed in pain as he pushed them to go faster. He was at the top of the stairs and one of the Death Eaters was coming up behind him. A simple tripping jinx took care of the pursuer, and judging by the crunch of bones when the man fell down the stairs he wasn't going to be killing anyone again.

Charlus made it to his office and pulled out his old time turner. The plan had been simple: if Death Eaters attacked the manor, they would lock the place down, preventing all travel and communications from leaving the building. Then they would start to assault the wards, chipping away at the maker's protections until they could get in. During this time, the people in the house would be trapped, unable to do anything. But Charlus had planned for that. He had intended to use the time turner to go back in time and leave the manor before it was put in lock down. Simple, but it relied on the delay that the wards would have on any attackers, which was something Peter had ruined. Now he had to get out of here and warn his son that his house wasn't safe.

He slipped the chain of the time turner around his neck.

There was banging outside the door.

Charlus fumbled with the time manipulating amulet looking for the little North spin.

The door opened and Charlus looked right into the face of Peter.

Charlus spun the time turner, not bothering to count the turns.

Peter fired a curse at Charlus, but instead of striking the man Peter somehow managed to hit the time turner.

The sands of time, now free, went wild.

---ϟϟϟ---

It took about ten minutes of Sirius holding onto the man who had been a father figure to him in order for both of them to calm down enough to be able to speak.

"Sirius? Is that you? What happened to you - no, we don't have time. We need to warn James. Peter is the traitor you have been looking for. James and his family are not safe, we need to get there now!" Charlus was half frantic.

Sirius didn't let the man up but instead hugged him closer. "It's too late, Voldemort already got to them. James and Lily are gone," he told his uncle. It took a few moments for the words to register to the old man, but when they did he broke. With no goal to focus on, his mind turned to what he had lost, and Charlus Potter started to mourn the loss of his wife, his son, and his daughter-in-law, all of which had happened in the last few minutes from his point of view.

Sirius suddenly found that for the first time in over a decade he had to be the strong, put-together one. The last time he remembered being in that role was when Lily went into labour and James couldn't think straight. It had been a lot easier then, he wasn't fighting his own demons, he had just had to focus on pointing James in the right direction. Now, he was having to hold together the man who had held him together when he had run away from his mother.

The two men spent the night grieving, shedding more than a few tears as they cremated their aunt/wife on the manor’s grounds. The Death Eater bodies were just thrown in a pit and incinerated like trash. After their little service, Charlus insisted on Sirius filling him in on everything that had happened over the last twelve and a half years. Sirius told the old man how he had found James and Lily, how he had gone after the rat, and got sent to Azkaban without a trial for Pettigrew’s crimes. About discovering that Pettigrew was hiding in Hogwarts near Harry, breaking out of the prison, finding Harry in the muggle neighbourhood. About trying to catch the rat, how Pettigrew had slipped from his fingers at the last moment, and how Harry had saved him from the Dementor’s Kiss twice.

To say that Charlus was angry was like saying the Atlantic is a body of water: accurate but a complete failure to grasp the scope of the issue. The man was livid that someone could send one of his boys to the Dementors without a trial; it was clear that if Charlus had his way then heads were going to roll.

---ϟϟϟ---

A little over a week after freeing Sirius, the trio of Harry, Hermione and Ron were sitting in their compartment aboard the Hogwarts express as it steamed its way south towards London and discussing their summer plans.

"The Quidditch World Cup is this year and Britain is hosting. Dad said he might be able to get tickets for us all, you two as well," Ron was excited at the prospect of getting to see world-class Quidditch.

"Well, my parents and I usually take a trip to the continent for a week or two, but I'm sure if it's after that they wouldn't mind. They tend to be busy with patients a lot and don't have a lot of free time to spend with me."

The conversation was interrupted by a tapping at the window. They all looked and were rather surprised to see a small pygmy owl beating its wings as fast as it couldn't trying to keep up with the train. Harry opened the window, reached out, and quickly but gently took hold of the owl that was small enough that it could sit on the palm of his hand. "OK, let’s see who you are looking for," Harry said as he flipped over the small envelope, only to find his own name in a neat hand he didn't recognise.

Harry untied the letter, and the owl, evidently excited that it had completed its job, started flying around the compartment and disturbing both Hedwig and Crookshanks. Harry ignored it and broke the seal on the small envelope, which then grew in size to one that was a little larger than the normal ones he got. Inside wasn't a letter, though, but three more envelopes the size he was more fAmeliar with. He pulled them out, hoping that Fred and George hadn't heard about Russian nesting dolls and set up a prank. He found that one envelope had his name on it, one had Ron’s, and the other was addressed to the Dursleys of all people. Harry tossed Ron's letter to him and opened his own.

Dear Harry,

I hope this finds you before you reach your aunt and uncle. I know your aunt has a rather negative view of magic and it's best not to rub it in her face if you want a quiet life.

Firstly, Buckbeak and I found somewhere we can rest up and recuperate. The Dementors may still be looking for me, but I can promise you they can't get where I am now. I can't say much here, but I got in contact with an old associate and we think that it might be possible to clear my name. If all goes well, I should be able to come and get you from the Dursleys in a week or two, three tops.

Speaking of your relatives, can you tell me how you ended up there? I know that it was in your parents’ will that you were never to be placed in their care on a long-term basis. Your mother added an exception that you could stay for short times if you developed a good relationship with your cousin, but permanently living with them was outright banned. Any information you can send me on that would be helpful.

There is something I never got around to telling you during our brief meeting. It was I who sent you the Firebolt. --

"Ha!" said Hermione triumphantly, who had been reading the letter over Harry's shoulder. "See! I told you it was from him!"

Harry sighed before saying. "Yes, you did. And you know what, I agreed with you, but before I could say anything or make a decision you went behind my back and got the broom confiscated. It wasn't getting the broom checked that was the problem, it was going behind my back. Now I really don't want to fight any more over this, so can we please drop it?"

Hermione's triumphant look dropped from her face and Harry saw her lose a little of that energetic spark of passion, a major part of his girlfriend's personality, as it dimmed when she withdrew into herself a little. Harry wondered if he had gone too far, but it was important to him that Hermione needed to talk to him first before making decisions for him. If she had spoken about her worries and how she wanted to get the broom tested with him first and he had disagreed, and then she went to McGonagall, that would have been one thing. It would have been Hermione protecting him from himself. However, going behind his back from the start had basically said that Hermione didn't think he could be trusted, and trust was important in friendship and even more so in a relationship.

Harry still didn't want Hermione to feel bad, so he pulled her into the seat next to him, put an arm around her, and gave her a little peck on the cheek. "Just at least try to talk to me first next time, OK?"

Hermione blushed a little at the kiss but snuggled into Harry and they went back to the letter so they could both finish reading it.

There is something I never got around to telling you during our brief meeting. It was I who sent you the Firebolt, but it’s not the first broom I bought you. I was also the one to buy you your first broom. Well, toy broom, it barely flew high enough to keep your toes from dragging on the ground and only reached five miles an hour if you had a good gust of wind at your back, but you loved it. As soon as you got on that broom you took off around the house. It took your mum bribing you with a bar of your favourite chocolate, a Milkybar, before you gave up the broom.

I watched you in your ĺast game, and your father would have been amazed at the skill you have in the air. James was a great flyer himself, he played chaser, and I don't think he could have pulled off even half of what I saw you do in the air. You should give some serious thought into going pro when you graduate.

Anyway this letter is getting a little long and I will hopefully be seeing you relatively soon, so take care until then.

Sirius

P.S: I included a letter for your aunt and uncle telling them that I intend to have you come live with me, just so they aren't blind sided by this.

"Well, that sounds hopeful," Harry concluded. "Hey Ron, what does your letter say?" he asked out of curiosity.

"Apparently Sirius bought the owl and he's giving him to me, he says he feels a little guilty over depriving me of a pet. I don't get why he feels guilty though. Now that we know what Scabbers actually was, I feel sick every time I think about that thing sleeping in my bed. I'm glad Sirius drove it off, I just wish the rat hadn't escaped," Ron grumbled.

The little owl saw that Ron was feeling down and started to fly around Ron's head as fast as he could, doing little loops and hooting in an attempt to cheer up the boy. Ron tried to ignore it, but soon he smiled and put out his hand for the little owl to perch on, and grinned widely when the little owl settled there, gripping his finger tightly.

---ϟϟϟ---

Once they got to King's Cross, Ron grabbed his trunk and rushed off to see his family, leaving Harry to help Hermione get her trunk down from the overhead rack. Being so full of her books, it was rather difficult not to drop it. While Harry struggled with her trunk, Hermione tried to convince Crookshanks to get into his carrier. "Please Crooks, it's only for a little while. I promise you can have a tin of sardines as soon as we get home." Hermione bribed her cat, and Harry was surprised to see that it worked. He set her trunk on the floor of the compartment, and then realised that he and Hermione were alone for what would probably be the last time until September.

He stepped over to her and placed one hand on the small of her back, and as she turned to him to see what he wanted he wrapped his other arm around her and gently pulled her to him. He paused for a moment, making his intentions obvious and giving his girlfriend the opportunity to turn him down if she wanted to, but instead she just smiled at him, inviting him without words to continue. Harry pressed his lips to hers and Hermione learned in, pressing herself against his body as the kissing started to heat up. The two stayed together like that for a few minutes, until they remembered that they had people waiting for them. Hermione rushed off to get a couple of trolleys while Harry got his own trunk out of the rack. Soon the two walked through the barrier and they were back in the normal world.

As it happened, Vernon Dursley was standing about two metres from the two dentists that Harry had met briefly just before his second year. Hermione abandoned her trolley, leaving Harry to grab it and follow as she rushed her parents and pulled them both into the rib bruising experience that was one of Hermione’s more enthusiastic hugs. Harry was just going to leave Hermione’s trolley next to her and slip off with his uncle, but Hermione grabbed his arm and pulled him over to her parents.

"Mum, Dad, you remember Harry, right? You met him when we were getting my school supplies two years ago," Hermione reintroduced him to her parents. "Well, since my last letter home, Harry and I started dating." Hermione sounded really excited to tell her parents that bit of news.

Hermione’s father started to give Harry a once over, while her mother smiled and reached out to shake Harry's hand. "It's good to see you again Harry. Hermione has told us so much about you in her letters home that I feel like I already know you."

Harry didn't know what to say to that, so he fell back on introducing his uncle, whom he could see was starting to get annoyed at the delay. "It's nice to see you again. This is my uncle Vernon Dursley, he's a director for the drill manufacturing firm Grunnings. Uncle Vernon, this is my girlfriend Hermione and her parents, Doctors Dan and Emma Granger, whom Hermione tells me are both dentists." A lot of tension that Vernon was holding in suddenly vanished, he had likely assumed that Hermione’s parents were magical like Harry and Hermione, but once he learned they were “normal” and had a good respectable job like dentistry, he was far more willing to talk with them.

Vernon put on what he obviously thought of as a winning smile and shook the hands of the other two adults. "Pleased to meet you." The five of them chatted for a few minutes, Vernon using it as an opportunity to see if the two dentists needed new drills for their practice. As the answer was a maybe, Vernon was rather upbeat as they drove back to Surrey. He had even encouraged Harry to exchange phone numbers with Hermione, though he pocketed the Grangers’ number as soon as they were in the car, obviously planning to use it to try and sell them expensive dental drills. Harry was left with a little hope, though, as Hermione still had the number for the Dursleys and Vernon couldn't afford to be rude to Hermione when she called if he wanted to sell to her parents.

Once they got back to Privet Drive, Harry's Aunt Petunia managed to destroy what little good mood he had in minutes. Apparently this year Harry was home the day before Dudley was to get home from Smeltings, so Harry was instantly given a whole bunch of chores to do, the worst of which was to scrub the barbecue grill with wire wool until his aunt thought it was clean enough. All of this because Dudley had apparently asked to have a barbecue with all of his friends from Little Whinging the day he got back so that they could all catch up.

---ϟϟϟ---

Charlus Potter was not having a good day. He had been to Gringotts three times, the Ministry of Magic four, and even St Mungo's once. In a way he could understand the security, you didn't want just anyone to be able to claim they were a dead man and get access to rights and property that weren't theirs. On the other hand, he wasn't the one who had messed up and declared him to be dead when he was still alive. The fact that it was entirely reasonable to think he had died in the attack on his home was irrelevant. Over the course of the day he was slowly able to prove to person after person that he was Charlus Potter, Warlock of the House of Potter, and that he was (despite whatever bits of parchment they had that may say otherwise) still very much alive.

One side effect of this that he was very much going to enjoy was that warlock McLaggen (who was a bit of an upstart as far as Charlus was concerned) was to be stripped of his seat in the Wizengamot. Seats were appointed for life, and there were only so many seats available, so Charlus's seat had been allocated to McLaggen after Charlus was declared dead. It did, however, mean that McLaggen would automatically get the next available seat if he was still eligible for it when one became available.

Things had been both easier and frustratingly harder with the goblins. The goblins had a much more streamlined test and set of parchment work to declare someone alive again. However, their system assumed that you had probably faked your own death to get out of a debt or to commit tax fraud. Which, while probably true for most people they had to deal with 'coming back from the dead', just put a bunch of red tape between him and regaining control of the family wealth. It didn't help that the wealth in question had passed to Harry. As a well-known figure and a minor, Gringotts had acted to put a freeze on the Potter family accounts to keep people from trying to steal from the Boy-Who-Lived. Getting the freeze removed and granting access to Charlus was going to take some time, but the process had started.

Now, Charlus watched while disillusioned as the students got off the Hogwarts Express. It was easy enough to spot Harry when he stepped off the train with a young woman, he looked so much like James did at that age. He followed the boy and the girl through the barrier to the muggle side of the train station and watched as the young pair met up with their families. As he watched Harry being introduced to the girl's parents, he couldn't help but remember the time James had brought Lily to meet him and Dorea, and he Apparated away to be alone for a while with the memories of his lost son.

Chapter 3

Chapter Text

Chapter 3 - Escape from the Dursleys

Charlus Potter was not a happy man, Forget the fact that from his point of view he had lost both his wife and son, but now that he had his position in the Wizengamot back, it was time to see what he could do for his other son, the one he took in as a teenager who had an execute-on-sight order hanging over his head despite never having had a trial. Charlus strode into the Ministry of Magic like he owned the place. There wasn't a queue of people waiting to get past the Ministry's welcome wizard, so he just strode up and placed his wand on the desk to say 'I'm in a hurry and I don't have time for you.' The welcome wizard took the wand, set it on the device, and checked the wand's particulars against the information Charlus had given him. Then Charlus was let into the Ministry.

His first port of call wasn't to deal with Sirius but to deal with Harry. Charlus strode into the Department of Wizarding Children. Their main focus was actually a sub-level, the Department of Education. They were mostly concerned with setting the standards for the OWL and NEWT exams and writing and marking the actual tests. However, the department as a whole was also the one that dealt with legal disputes over who was a child's legal guardian. As Charlus intended that to be himself going forward, he had to file a dispute in the office, which ended up being as quick as signing a form saying that he was doing so, for what minor, and who currently had guardianship. The department would then look into whether there was any point in going forward, and if there was then they would send Charlus a small novel of parchment work to fill out.

Charlus was done quickly and then made his way to the DMLE. There was a witch sitting at the reception waiting to deal with any members of the public who were coming to the DMLE, most likely to report a crime.

"I need to speak to whoever is in charge of the DMLE," Charlus said before she could launch into some pre prepared speech.

"Uh… do you have an appointment?" She asked, probably knowing he didn't as if someone had one she probably would have been informed.

"No. Just tell whoever it is that Warlock Charlus Potter is here to see him on a matter of urgency.

The receptionist really didn't want to go to her boss, who she referred to using female terms, which surprised Charlus because of all the departments in the Ministry the DMLE was notorious for being difficult for women to advance in. The head of department had been a man for as long as he could remember. Not that it mattered to Charlus, as long as they did their job and helped with his son, then she could be a leprechaun for all he cared. However, despite the fact that the receptionist didn't want to go to her boss, Charlus was still a member of the Wizengamot and so she couldn't give him the brush off. The reluctant woman disappeared for five minutes to go check with her boss, but when she came back it was with an appointment for him in an hour.

Charlus sighed, he should have come here first and then he could have filled the wait in the other department. Alas, he had nowhere else to be, so he sat down to wait. As a member of the Wizengamot, Charlus could call on the Ministry elves when he was in the building the same way the heads of departments and the senior staff of the Minister could. The elves were limited in what they could do for him; he wasn't their owner, just a guest in their house, but that was enough for what Charlus wanted.

"Elf." He stated to the air and there was a little pop next to him. Charlus didn't see anything but that was the way with the Ministry elves.

"How's can I be serving you?" A little voice asked.

"Tea, Darjeeling if you have it, double sweet, with milk please," Charlus ordered.

"Right away sir." There was a little pop as the elf disappeared to get him a cup of tea.

A minute later there was another pop and there was a steaming cup of tea floating in front of Charlus. He took a sip and smiled. "Good tea, thank you." Charlus heard a happy little squeak and then the elf popped away to go do some other task. Charlus felt a little sorry for the elves who were bound to the Ministry instead of a family. Elves loved being a part of a family, and apparently the emotional connection families have with their elves affects their magic, which in turn affects their mood. People don't get emotionally attached to Ministry elves.

After an hour of waiting, a second cup of tea, and a trip to the restrooms, it was time for his appointment with the head of the D.M.L.E. He was shown through the department, past the room where the aurors had their desks for doing paperwork, and to the office of the director. Charlus was surprised to see the name of Amelia Bones on the door. She had been the auror that Sirius trained under when he joined the force after leaving Hogwarts. She was a few years older than his boys – boy, he remembered James was gone – but she was still young to get the position of a head of department.

Once he was shown in by Director Bones's secretary, he looked around the room trying to pick out what kind of person Bones was. No pictures of her with influential figures, so she probably wasn't a brown noser and most likely got her job by being good at it. Very few personal items, in fact everything except a brightly coloured mug and a framed photo of the director and a young girl with a strong family resemblance was functional and easily replaced. This told him Director Bones was here to work and she wouldn't appreciate being sucked up to. Good, he could work with this.

"Warlock Potter, my receptionist said you were quite insistent on seeing me. What do you need help with?" She asked as she sized him up.

"I'm here to talk about Sirius Black."

"Do you know where he is? I'm sure you want to see justice done for your son." Charlus could hear the slight shift in her voice that spoke of an old anger. Did she also feel betrayed by Sirius?

"Funny you should mention justice for my son. Tell me, Director, have you ever read the transcript of Sirius's trial?"

"Well no, I was on compassionate leave when Sirius was arrested, my brother and his wife had died and I had to take in my niece. When I got back to work after six months, I was told what Sirius was convicted of so I'm well enough aware of the charges, and I felt no need to go digging in the files."

"Well that's a pity. Here, perhaps you should read my copy." He handed her a rolled up scroll of parchment.

Director Bones cast a quick detection spell on the scroll before taking it. She unrolled it, glanced at it, and then rolled it back up and held it out to hand it back. "I think you handed me the wrong piece of parchment, this one is blank."

"No, that's the right one and it's a completely accurate recounting of the trial, because there wasn't one. Not only that, I know for a fact that Sirius wasn't the secret keeper for my son. Peter Pettigrew was the secret keeper, and he was also the one who led the Death Eater attack on my home that killed my wife and trapped me in a God Damned Time Storm for the past twelve and a half years."

That statement had shocked the director and after a few minutes while she processed the information, then everything he wanted started to happen.

---ϟϟϟ---

Harry was having his usual summer filled with chores. Petunia had entered her garden in some competition so she was working Harry hard to get everything to her liking. They had already made five trips to the garden centre for what Petunia called 'bedding plants' that Harry had had to plant around the garden. His aunt was so focused on this competition that even Dudley was having to help for an hour or two each day, though he was helping Vernon build a new patio and fire pit.

The one thing that made this summer more bearable than any other though was Hermione. She would call maybe three times a week and they would chat for maybe ten to fifteen minutes. Her phone calls were only spoiled by Vernon insisting that he talk to Hermione’s parents for a few minutes and by Dudley trying to tease Harry for having a girlfriend. Dudley soon stopped trying to tease Harry though when he would just laugh and say that Dudley was just jealous that Harry's school has girls while all Dudley had to look forward to was months of nothing but big sweaty dudes, but who knows, maybe that's why Dudley liked his school so much.

Harry had been back at the Dursleys for two weeks now and he was starting to worry about Sirius. His letter had said that he would pick Harry up in two weeks, but those two weeks had passed and nothing. Harry asked Hermione if she had heard anything every time she called, as she was having the Daily Prophet delivered every day, but the paper hadn't said anything and the both of them were sure that if Sirius was captured or if he was found innocent then, either way, it would be front page news.

As much as those phone calls helped to keep Harry calm, they were over for at least the next week as Hermione’s parents were taking her to France for a week. She was excited to go but had admitted that she was going to miss talking with him. Harry was going to miss talking to her as well, doubly so given that all Harry would have to talk to was the Dursleys.

---ϟϟϟ---

Charlus was sitting in the family room with Sirius after a hard day of cleaning up the house. While Charlus was suspended in time, the house wasn't, and thirteen years had left their mark. All the plants in the house had died, and along with spoiled food and decomposing bodies there was mould and rot throughout the house. A lot of magic had been needed to reverse the damage, and even then a lot of the soft furnishings had needed to be vanished as they were just beyond repair. Over the last week and a half, they had restored the house to a home, even if it was somewhat unfinished right now.

The next step would be to replace what was beyond fixing, which meant going shopping. There was one problem with that, so far they had kept it out of the media that Charlus was alive, but if word got out there was a good chance that someone would assume (correctly) that the still-on-the-run Sirius Black was at Potter Manor and would come after him. They wanted to keep his return quiet until after the next meeting of the Wizengamot, where Charlus could officially demand a trial for Sirius.

A tapping at the window got the two men’s attention, and Sirius put down the book of law he had been reading in preparation for his trial and went to let the owl sitting on the sill in. The owl hooted in thanks, flew over to Charlus, and held out the letter that was tied to its claw. Once relieved of his burden, the owl gave a soft hoot and flew straight back out the open window.

"Who's it from?" Sirius asked.

Charlus flipped over the letter that was addressed to him and examined the seal. "Ministry," He said as he popped the seal. Instantly the envelope became much bigger and heavier as it became large enough to hold an entire file of parchment work.

Charlus pulled out the cover letter and after a few moments to read it he grinned. "They have awarded me custody of Harry and someone from the DMLE will be here tomorrow so I can go get him." He looked through the letter quickly. "Ah it's okay, Amelia Bones is the one coming. She cited the sensitivity of anything related to the ‘Boy-Who-Lived' required her personal attention. What a thing to call Harry. I will have to see what I can do about this nonsense."

Sirius relaxed as Charlus said the DMLE representative would be Amelia. His old partner had come to the Manor with Charlus after he had told her about his lack of trial. She had wanted to hear it in his own words, and she had Sirius swore an Unbreakable Vow to remain under house arrest or to go where she told him until they were able to secure him a trial. "So the pup will be here tomorrow?"

"Unless something unexpected happens," Charlus confirmed.

"Then I will go make sure that his room is ready for him." And with that a very excited Sirius forgot all about his fatigue and went to start getting Harry's room ready for him.

---ϟϟϟ---

Director Bones, Sirius, and Charlus Portkeyed into a thick strand of trees that were part of a park in Little Whinging in Surrey. "Is this really what muggles wear now? I preferred the sixties, they at least had some colour then," Charlus grumbled as he examined his muggle suit that Amelia had transfigured for him. Sirius had transfigured his own robes into a pair of jeans and a black tee-shirt, but Amelia had then transfigured the tee shirt into a polo shirt.

"Yes that's what muggles wear now, and we need to blend in,” said Amelia who was wearing a womens trouser suit in a dark purple. They walked from the park to Privet Drive. Amelia had a map of the area that they kept referring to, but eventually they found it after going in the wrong direction at first.

It was Amelia who knocked on the door, and soon it was opened by what they assumed was a human as it was walking upright, even if it looked more like a baby whale.

"Hello?" The whale pretending to be human said, asking them who they were and what they wanted by his tone.

"Hello, are you Vernon Dursley?" Amelia asked, checking some of the paperwork in her hands.

"Yes, that's me. What is this about?" His tone was both curious and cautious.

"We are here to talk to you about your nephew, one Harry James Potter." Amelia answered him. What she didn't know was that she had done an excellent job of disguising them as muggles. Vernon had looked them over, and after not having found anything unusual about them had decided that they couldn't be magical. When they said they were there to talk about Harry, Vernon thought that they were with muggle authorities and so he turned and shouted into the house. "Boy! Get your ass in here! What have you done now?"

Harry came into the hall from the other end and with a slight tremor in his voice said, "I haven't done anything. I have been helping Aunt Petunia with the plants all day." The dark earth on his hands told Amelia that the boy was telling the truth.

"Mr. Dursley, we are not here to accuse your nephew of anything. Maybe we should talk to you and your wife inside?" Amelia placated the large man before the situation devolved into a domestic disturbance.

Vernon, who still hadn't worked out that they were magical, nodded and invited them in. Soon a smiling Harry, who had recognised Sirius and had worked out why they were probably here, was making everyone a cup of tea as they sat or stood around the kitchen.

"My name is Amelia Bones. I am the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement." Vernon shot Harry a look but Amelia pressed on. "This is Sirius Black, Harry's godfather, and this is Warlock Charlus Potter, the head of the House of Potter and Harry's paternal grandfather."

There was a sudden loud crash and everyone turned to see that Harry was staring at Charlus, a pile of broken China at his feet.

---ϟϟϟ—

Harry heard his uncle bellow from inside the house and went rushing in. "I haven't done anything. I have been helping Aunt Petunia with the plant all day." And he had been, his aunt had taken Harry to the garden centre again today and had him carry about a dozen trays of plants and the same amount of solar powered lanterns. His aunt apparently had decided to make the lights a feature by putting the bedding plants around the lights to draw the eye. Or at least that was how she had described it. And since they had gotten home, Harry had had to install the lights and plant the trays of flowers around them. He hadn’t had time to do anything that might have upset anyone.

Then Harry saw who was at the door. He didn't recognise two of them, though they both looked vaguely familiar. He did recognise Sirius who put his finger on his lip in a shushing gesture while Uncle Vernon was looking at Harry, so Harry didn't say anything. He was surprised when his uncle invited three magicals into the house, but was much less surprised when he was ordered to make the tea. He quickly asked everyone how they liked their tea and set about making it.

"My name is Amelia Bones. I am the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement." Vernon shot Harry a look but Harry ignored it. If he was right he would be out of here before his uncle could do anything. "This is Sirius Black, Harry's godfather, and this is Warlock Charlus Potter, the head of the House of Potter and Harry's paternal grandfather."

Grandfather. The word echoed in Harry's head, and he didn't even notice he had dropped the teapot he had just pulled out of the cupboard. He had a grandfather . That couldn't be true, Harry was the last Potter; he had been told that a lot and he said as much to them while staring at Charlus. If he was Harry's grandfather, then where was he all Harry's life and why had he abandoned Harry here?

It was Sirius who answered Harry's questions, both the ones he asked and the ones he hadn't. "Harry, do you know what a time turner is?" Harry said he did and Sirius continued. "Well, the sand in a time turner isn't regular sand, and it can be incredibly dangerous. Just before the attack on your parents, Peter Pettigrew led an attack on your grandparents. Your grandmother was killed, and Uncle Charlus here was caught in a time storm when he tried to use a time turner to escape and the turner was hit by a spell meant to kill him. I found him still caught in that time storm only a few weeks ago."

Charlus picked up the thread. "Harry, from my perspective it was only a few weeks ago I was reading letters from your dad where he was gushing about you learning to walk and complaining about you calling him Pongs as you struggled to say Prongs. I know I missed a lot, but I'd love the opportunity to try and catch up. What do you say?" Harry saw that the older man (who looked like he was in his fifties but judging by the way magicals aged was probably in his eighties) was just as worried and unsure of the situation as Harry was, but held out his arms for a hug despite how uncertain he felt. Harry did the only thing he could, he gave his grandfather a hug. As hugs go it was quick and over in a few seconds, but both of them considered it a starting point to build from. Harry went back to making the tea, not even noticing that Amelia had fixed the teapot while Sirius had been talking.

Over tea, it was revealed to Harry and a too-scared-to-be-rude pair of Dursleys that the Ministry of Magic had awarded custody of Harry to Charlus as his nearest living magical relative. It had also been found during the investigation that the legal steps to put Harry into the custody of the Dursleys hadn't been done, and as such, while Petunia was considered Harry's next of kin at the time whoever had placed Harry there, had done so illegally. Petunia wasn't in trouble over that, but they had asked who had brought Harry here. That had led to the story of how Harry had been left on their doorstep overnight with nothing but a letter telling her that her sister was dead. Petunia fetched the letter and gave it to Director Bones.

While the Dursleys spoke with the director, Sirius went with Harry to retrieve his belongings. A quick spell was enough to open the cupboard under the stairs and Harry was careful to make sure his godfather didn't see the inside of the cupboard while Harry withdrew his trunk. He just wanted out of this house as soon as possible, and all letting Sirius see that would do is slow things down and make Harry talk about stuff he would rather forget.

Next it was upstairs, where Harry collected his clothes and of course Hedwig, who was asleep in her cage. Sirius frowned as he looked around the room that was still full of broken or half-broken things. "Aren't you going to grab the rest of your things?"

Harry shrugged. "None of it's mine, it all belongs to my cousin. Most of it's broken anyway, I think the only thing that's not broken are the books. Dudley isn't the type to read." Harry quickly walked past his godfather and down the stairs before Sirius could start asking questions.

Harry was back in the kitchen just in time to see his aunt hand Director Bones an old letter that was written on parchment. "That was the only thing we had from you lot until Harry was eleven, and that was only his school stuff." Aunt Petunia didn't sound happy.

The Dursleys almost happily signed some parchment work and it was done, they were no longer Harry's guardians. Harry didn't live there anymore, he was free. The two Potters, Sirius, and Director Bones all left as soon as politeness would allow, though Harry knew that for once the Dursleys would have preferred to ignore manners and have them just walk out without saying a word. Harry did ask his uncle that if Hermione called if he could tell her he had moved and that he would send her a letter. His uncle agreed, but they both knew it was so he could have one last shot at selling them dental drills.

"OK Harry, we are going to be travelling by Apparition, have you ever done that before?" Charlus asked.

"No sir, I haven't," Harry answered honestly.

"I would prefer you called me grandfather, at least for now. Sir is way too formal for family. Now, side-along apparition is easy for the passenger, that's you. All you will have to do is hold onto my arm and I will do the rest. It will feel… uncomfortable, but it won't hurt. You may feel a bit woozy afterwards, but it will only last a few seconds. OK?" The older man, who's hair (though grey with age) was as untidy and messed up as Harry's own, smiled reassuringly at Harry.

They walked to the park, Director Bones explaining why. "While witches and wizards can Apparate from anywhere to anywhere else in their range, the further you travel the more energy it takes, and wards can stop you leaving or arriving at a place. It's considered the height of rudeness to Apparate in or out of someone else's home or business, so we need to find a spot that can't be seen by any muggles. There is a convenient bunch of trees and thick bushes in the park that we can leave from."

They got to the trees and Harry took his grandfather's arm while Director Bones took Sirius's. Harry's grandfather was right about one thing, Apparition was uncomfortable as hell, but he soon forgot that as he looked at the red brick building in front of him. It was huge; not Hogwarts huge, but it was a mansion by any definition of the word Harry knew.

Chapter 4

Chapter Text

Chapter 4 - Reunion

Harry was almost too distracted by the building in front of him to hear Amelia Bones address Sirius. "Prisoner Black, you are one again confined to house arrest as per your Unbreakable Vow. Be warned that leaving the property without reporting to St Mungo's for treatment or turning yourself in to myself or any active D.M.L.E. officer within an hour will result in your death by violating your Unbreakable Vow. Do you understand these conditions?" Her tone was formal.

"Yes, Director. I understand." Sirius replied formally before switching to a more jovial tone. "It's almost like you don't trust me boss."

"I don't. I still remember the time you added flobberworm mucus to the tea urn in the brake room." She looked more like she was trying to come across as angry at the prank rather than actually being angry.

"Like I told you at the time, that wasn't me. You never found any evidence that it was me, did you." His grin left little doubt that it was Sirius who planked the tea.

"Um, excuse me, but what's an Unbreakable Vow?" Harry asked out of sheer curiosity.

It was his grandfather who answered. "An Unbreakable Vow is a spell where you bind a willing person to a course of action weighed against their very life. For example, if you took an Unbreakable Vow to always eat your green vegetables, if you didn't one day then you would suddenly fall over dead. That makes it an incredibly powerful and useful spell, but one that you don't use lightly. Director Bones here is juggling wanting to do her job and get Sirius a trial and her duty to protect the public from an escaped prisoner, so the compromise is that Sirius is under house arrest until his trial is scheduled. Just promise that you will be very careful before entering into an Unbreakable Vow. They are incredibly serious and incredibly dangerous if worded even slightly wrong. I'm sure you can think up a few vows that, while well intended, could easily result in disaster," The man explained.

Harry could definitely think of a few ways that could be a disaster; if his aunt and uncle had ever known about this then they probably would have made him take a vow to never use magic again. Then, when they continued to treat him like their slave and pushed him too far, one case of accidental magic would end it all. Director Bones said her goodbyes and then disappeared suddenly, and Harry got to see what Apparition looked like from the outside. The three men made their way up the driveway to what Harry's grandfather called Potter Manor.

Just the entrance hall was bigger than the Dursleys’ house. In fact, Harry thought if he took out the stairs then both the house and the garden would fit inside. Sirius and Harry's grandfather gave Harry a tour of the manor. The ground floor was set aside for entertaining and business, as there was a large formal dining room, a ballroom, and a few office spaces. The first floor was a mix; the east side of the manor was a bunch of guest rooms whereas on the west there were rooms to invite guests when they were visiting, such as a library, a semi formal dining room, a sitting room, and a game room. The second floor was given over to family space, an informal dining room, a few places to relax, a few private studies, a potions lab, and of course a number of bedrooms.

Harry's grandfather showed Harry what room he would be his now, and Harry was overwhelmed as he looked around the room with more floor space than his dorm room at Hogwarts. "Why don't you get settled in? Then you can come find us when you're ready," Sirius smiled at him.

Harry set his trunk down at the foot of the bed and opened Hedwig's cage for her. The snowy owl climbed out of the cage and gave Harry a light nip of his fingers before letting out a soft hoot. "I'm not sure either Hedwig, it just seems too good to be true."

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Over the next few days Harry settled into life at the manor. He was given a few chores to do, but the house was warded so Harry could use magic to do those chores without the Ministry knowing, and the chores were much less than he had to do in Privet Drive. Mostly he had to keep his own room and bathroom neat, and he needed to clean and tidy a few of the other family rooms. But as the cleaning was done with magic, it only took a few minutes for him to do a room.

The biggest part of his day was spent with his grandfather, who Harry quickly learned wasn't as cold and aloof as his first impression had left Harry with. His grandfather had just felt awkward and didn't know how to do any better in such an awkward situation. Harry couldn't exactly blame the man he hadn't known what to say either. Harry, Sirius, and Grandfather Charlus spent the first week just getting to know one another. Harry was not the happy bubbly little kid that they remembered having sat on their laps when he was younger, and Harry had very little memory of the two of them, only a vague sense of familiarity.

In the evenings Harry was left to do his homework, only instead of doing it while hiding in his room he was given one of the private studies to work in. The only interruption was when Sirius or Grandfather Charlus would bring Harry a snack to munch on while he worked. Sirius, as he was under house arrest, was always about either in the manor itself or out in the grounds. Grandfather Charlus, however, spent most evenings away from the manor trying to arrange events for Sirius’s upcoming trial.

Soon the time came when Hermione was supposed to be back from her family's trip to France, so Harry waited a day and sent her a letter in the morning with Hedwig, explaining what had happened and how he had moved in with his suddenly alive grandfather. Hedwig must have really pushed it because he got his reply that evening.

Harry,

I spoke to your uncle yesterday and he said that you had moved out to live with your grandfather and your godfather. I'm really happy for you. I'm going to miss being able to talk to you on the phone as I assume your grandfather's place doesn't have one. But my parents will be happy that they don't have to listen to your uncle trying to sell them drills again.

Our trip to France was great. Did you know that the Louvre has a magical section? We got to see wizarding paintings of historical French figures. It was quite amusing to listen to Napoleon talking about how he planned to deal with the British.

Maybe your grandfather will let you come for a visit at some point. I know the only reason my parents didn't invite you before now was because they didn't want to be cornered by your uncle all day pressing them to buy his drills. Or maybe I can come visit you. The Brecon Beacons are quite a way but I live quite close to the Leaky Cauldron, so if your grandfather's place is on the Floo network then maybe I could Floo from there.

I have really missed you this last week.

Love,

Hermione

P.S. My parents were glad to put up with your uncle so we could talk. He was just the cloud that came with the silver lining

Hermione had actually dotted the I in her name with a little heart and Harry couldn't help but think it was cute. He spoke to his grandfather about the letter that evening over dinner. "Grandfather, I got a letter today from Hermione."

The old man smiled at Harry and asked, "That's your girlfriend, right? The one you say is absolutely brilliant and incredibly smart. When can I meet her?"

"Actually that was one of the things the letter was about. She mentioned me going to visit her or her coming to visit us, but that it was a long way from here to London and she asked if we are on the Floo network."

"Ah, no we aren't. Not currently anyway. There is a yearly fee to have a fire connected to the network and I haven't had ours reconnected yet. There was no need, as Sirius is stuck here and I can Apparate. Though now you mentioned it, I should probably get it done. Your lady lives in London right?" He asked and Harry nodded. "Why don't you send her a letter and tell her we will be in London tomorrow, and if she wants to she can meet us at the Leaky Cauldron at one o'clock."

Harry grinned at his grandfather and said "Thank you!" before running to get some parchment so he could send the letter to Hermione.

---ϟϟϟ---

The next day, Harry was surprised that he and his grandfather weren't just going to lunch, but apparently they had other plans. Harry was out of the manor by 9am, a good four hours before their lunch date. After walking off the grounds, Grandfather Charlus took Harry by Side-along Apparition directly to Diagon Alley. Apparently their first stop was Gringotts.

They were there early enough that they didn't need to wait to see a teller, and soon they were barrelling down the goblin tracks to a vault. Harry was surprised that the vault they were going to wasn't number 687. He asked his grandfather about that, and apparently vault 687 wasn't the Potter vault at all but the vault his grandfather had set up for his son, Harry's dad, to teach him about money. James wasn't the best with money growing up, but with the help of Harry's mother after they had been married, they had almost been able to get the vault back up to the level Charlus had put in there when he opened the account for James.

Harry offered to return the money to Charlus, as he was sure the money had come from him originally so it was rightfully his, but his grandfather flat out refused. While Grandfather Charlus got out a bag of Galleons he lectured Harry that "money was supposed to flow down the family line, not up it" and how "it is the responsibility and the privilege of the older generations to provide for the younger ones." He did tell Harry that if he ever needed advice or help managing the money in the vault he would be more than happy to help, but that he would be insulted if Harry ever tried to give him money like that again.

They stopped by another teller on the way out and Grandfather Charlus changed about a third of the gold he had pulled out of the Potter vault into regular British pounds. After that visit, it was just after ten o'clock and their next stop was Madam Malkin's Robe Shop. Apparently the fact that the only wizarding robes Harry owned were his school robes wasn't good enough. So an hour later, Harry stepped out of the shop in a set of green robes that were so dark that if Harry was standing in the shadows you had to look twice to see they weren't black. He had two other sets of casual robes, but these were the closest to Harry's school robes and the ones he felt the most comfortable in.

Next they Floo’ed from the Leaky Cauldron to the Ministry of Magic. Harry had never been to the Ministry before and he was amazed by just how lavish it was. The floor, the support columns, and the walls all looked to be solid marble. There was a fountain in the middle of the room that had a bunch of statues that looked like they were made of solid gold. There was a witch and wizard standing together, wands raised as though about to cast a spell. And surrounding them was a centaur, a goblin and a house elf, each of them looking up at the witch and wizard with a look of admiration on their face. Harry had to fight not to laugh at it when a thought popped into his head. 'Even if the statue was solid gold, it was probably cheaper than the cost of paying a centaur and a goblin to look at a witch or wizard like that.' None of the goblins or centaurs he had met would do it. In fact, Harry was sure the centaur Bane he had met in his first year at Hogwarts would kill anyone who asked.

Harry and his grandfather had to sign in and present their wands to the greeter at the front desk. Then, after a quick ride in a lift that took them down to lower levels, Harry got his first introduction to Ministry bureaucracy, as they arranged to reactivate the Floo connection to Potter Manor. By the end of it, Harry was just glad they were reactivating an already existing connection that had been closed due to non-payment of the yearly bill for a Floo licence.

While they were queuing or waiting for some office worker to process some piece of parchment that they had just filled out, Grandfather Charlus explained how the Ministry worked. He told Harry about how the Minister of Magic selected the Heads of Department and each department was completely separate from the others. Then each department had sub-departments in it that focused on specific things. For example they were currently in the Floo Regulation Office, which was a sub-department of the Department for Magical Transportation. And according to the fine print on the paperwork they were dealing with, the department was headed by Terence Popping.

An hour and half later, they were finally able to get out of the Ministry and the Floo to the Potter Manor had been reactivated. They had about half an hour before they were due to meet Hermione, so Harry and Grandfather Charlus Floo’ed back to the Leaky Cauldron. Harry greeted Tom the toothless bartender, whom Harry liked after the previous summer, as the man had always treated Harry as a person rather than some hero. They sat down near the bar with a couple of butterbeers and his grandfather asked Harry about Hermione.

"Um, well like I told you we met first year on the train going to Hogwarts, but we didn't become friends until Halloween. I hit it off with my best mate Ron Weasley almost immediately, and Hermione and Ron just couldn't get along. Hermione had trouble making any friends at all because she is a very bookish Gryffindor, and she quickly got a reputation as a teachers’ person and a know-it-all. Especially from Ron, who is basically Hermione’s exact opposite. Hermione is scared of heights, Ron loves to fly; Hermione loves to read, Ron hates it; I could go on. Anyway Ron's mouth can get away from him and on Halloween Hermione ended up crying in a girls’ toilet. Later at the feast, Hermione still hadn't joined everyone and we were told there was a troll in the school. Everyone was sent back to their common rooms where they would be safe, but I realised that Hermione didn't know so I went to get her. Ron and I ended up saving Hermione from the troll and then we were friends."

Harry went on telling his grandfather about how Hermione had always stuck by him and supported him during everything that had happened to him. Harry didn't even realise that, because he was focusing on reasons his grandfather should like Hermione, he was also giving the older man the full story of what had happened at Hogwarts over the last three years.

"Then Hermione helped me pull Sirius onto the back of the Hippogriff and we flew up to one of the towers. We sent Sirius away on the Hippogriff and rushed back to the hospital wing. Of course, we just had to run into a prefect checking for students out of their common room after curfew. I knew that we needed to get away quickly so I kissed Hermione. Well that kiss quickly grew rather, uh…heated and we got completely caught up in the moment. The prefect just assumed he had caught just another couple out after hours, so he took some points and sent us on our way. Only Hermione and I both rather enjoyed that kiss more than we thought we would, so we talked about it and decided that we would try being a couple. So far it's been brilliant!" Harry finished.

Harry didn't know that his grandfather was using all of his self control to keep calm after hearing everything that had happened at the school. "Well if this young lady lives up to even half of the praise you are heaping on her, I'm sure she is a wonderful person," he said and grinned as he looked over Harry's shoulder.

Harry turned around to see a blushing Hermione standing there with her parents. He blushed deep to match Hermione's and stammered out a question. "Uh… how…How long have you been standing there?"

"Just before you started to describe your first kiss," Hermione's mother Emma smiled as she answered for her daughter.

Grandfather Charlus stood up to greet their guests and shook Hermione’s father Dan's hand before kissing the back of both Hermione’s and her mother's hand. He then had Harry do the same. After he shook hands with Dan and kissed the back of Emma's hand, feeling incredibly awkward the whole time, Harry went to do the same thing for Hermione. However, she wasn't having any of it and pulled Harry into one of her amazing hugs and kissed him on the cheek, causing the three adults to chuckle.

The five of them had an enjoyable pub lunch, and Hermione told Harry about her trip to France in detail. She had apparently visited a few magical sights in France that Harry's grandfather had also visited a time or two, and they quickly started talking about how things had changed between his visit decades ago and Hermione's visit. Soon they were finished with food, and after a few minutes (with the permission of the Grangers) Harry's grandfather gave Harry a few galleons and sent him and Hermione to Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour to get themselves dessert.

Harry had spent plenty of time in the Alley the previous summer so he knew where the ice-cream parlour was without even thinking about it. The two teens each got a three scoop sundae with their choice of toppings. Hermione got a scoop of three different types of chocolate ice cream and loaded them up with whipped cream and a caramel sauce. Harry stuck with the classics (vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry) with chopped nuts and caramel sauce.

As much as the two appreciated the ice cream, they appreciated being away from the adults more. Instead of sitting at one of the outside tables in the sun, they opted to sit in a booth inside the ice-cream parlour that offered them a little more privacy. Harry was stuck eating his ice cream with his left hand, because Hermione had snuggled up to his right and put his arm around her shoulder. As inconvenient as that was, Harry pulled Hermione in tighter. They had both missed being able to simply innocently touch each other since they had last seen each other at King's Cross Station. They also missed sneaking off to snog for half an hour, but the middle of an ice cream parlour wasn't the best place to do that.

---ϟϟϟ---

Charlus sat across from the two dentists and smiled. "You have a lovely daughter. And Harry seems quite taken with her."

"Thank you, and trust me his feelings are returned. Ever since she came home from her first year at Hogwarts every other conversation she has had with us has somehow involved Harry. And that's only gone up since they started dating this year," Emma smiled as she recounted her daughter’s behaviour.

"You know, on a lot of things they are behind their peers. Not academically, if Harry is to be believed your daughter is the top student in her year. I mean the things most magical children learn before coming to Hogwarts. Manners, customs, how the wizarding government works, their rights, a basic understanding of our laws. Those sorts of things. Tell me, did your daughter tell you about Sirius Black?"

A little surprised by the out of the blue question Dan answered for them. "You mean the innocent man with a kill-on-sight order on him despite the fact that he never had a trial?" It was obvious by his tone that Dan was not a fan of the particular fact.

"Precisely. What your daughter doesn't know, because Harry didn't find out until you went to France, is that I sort of adopted Sirius when he was a teenager. He had a troubled home life that's not my place to discuss, but the point is one of the rights I have as a Head of House is to offer shelter and support to anyone who wants it and I feel deserves it. Your daughter helped save what is essentially my adopted son from the gallows, so I want to offer her something similar. " He held up his hands silently begging for the two parents to give him a little longer to explain. "Now, I know Hermione has no need to be sheltered from you, I don't mean to take her from you. However, it would allow me to officially advocate on her behalf, as Hermione would basically be recognised as a member of the House of Potter. That would give her a lot more legal protection in our world. The laws are all written with the assumption you are part of a House. It's why being cast out of your house is so painful, and it's the biggest obstacle muggleborns face in our society."

Telling Dan and Emma that he had no intention of taking their daughter away from them and instead was trying to help her prevented them from blowing up, but they still had questions. "What would this involve, practically?" Dan asked.

Emma added another question. "And what happens when Hermione and Harry break up? They are teenagers, so it's bound to happen eventually."

"Well to answer Emma's question first, her relationship with Harry has no bearing on this offer. If the two of them break up, then the worst it would mean for this is that I keep their affairs separate. If they split and remain friends, then we will have to play it by ear. The only way it could be complicated is if I die before Hermione gets married. Witches join the house of the wizard they marry, so being with Harry would make him her Head of House then. But Hermione would have the right to leave at any time and that would put her back where she is now, no worse off.

"As for the practicalities. Hermione would get a room in my manor whenever she stayed over. I will be doing that anyway as Harry's girlfriend, but she gets to use that room as long as she is a member of the House, not just while they are together. I will offer her the same lessons I'm going to be giving Harry. But the biggest change is that for legal purposes I would be considered her guardian in the magical world." The two Grangers stiffened at that. "Remember that the only wizarding institution that recognises a muggle parent’s parental rights of a magical child is Hogwarts, the Ministry considers her guardianship to be held by the school. I will be able to take a much more proactive hand in helping the young woman who saved my boy than any overworked professor. And of course, I won't make any non-emergency decisions without consulting you first, and even in emergencies I will do my best to talk to you, time permitting."

The three of them talked for forty-five minutes and in the end they decided to leave the decision up to Hermione, but they were going to make her write to a few other magicals she knew and get their opinions before making her decision. They went to find the two teens and found them in the ice-cream parlour, kissing and cuddling as much as they could get away with in a public setting without being thought of as indecent.

Chapter 5

Chapter Text

Chapter 5

Harry and Hermione, while holding hands, stepped into the Floo fire at the Leaky Cauldron and were there first to step out of the Floo fire in Potter Manor in over twelve years. Hermione needed to be holding on to either Harry or his grandfather, or the wards at Potter Manor would have bounced her right back to the Leaky Cauldron, as she was a complete stranger according to the wards. Travelling in with a Potter gave Hermione a one time pass, and Charlus (who Floo'ed in a few seconds later) was going to add Hermione to the wards as a friend, at least for now.

Back at the Leaky Cauldron, before the Grangers left, Charlus had made Hermione the offer to bring her into the House of Potter. Hermione had at first been worried about her parents and about how it could affect her and Harry's relationship. However, as soon as she was told that it wouldn't affect any of those things and would give her a leg up in the magical world that most muggleborn only got if they married the 'right people', Hermione was all for it. That both her parents and Harry's grandfather had insisted that Hermione speak to at least three adult witches and wizards that she trusted before she made her decision made Hermione more convinced that she would say yes.

Once Mr. Potter was through the flames, Harry asked him if he could also invite Ron over so he could show his friends around at the same time. Mr. Potter had agreed, but when Harry went to floo directly to Ron's home he was gently stopped.

"Harry, do you have an invite to Floo over their house whenever you like?" His tone was firm but not accusing.

"Um, not in so many words, but Mrs. Weasley said I was always welcome at the Burrow." Harry was confused.

"While I doubt that the Weasleys would take offence (from what I remember of the family they are pretty laid back about such things with their friends), it is impolite to randomly Floo into someone's home. Think about it this way. If you were to go there without the Floo and if you would knock on the door and wait for someone to invite you in, then you wouldn't just Floo to their home. In that situation, you use a Floo call." He then went on to explain how to make a Floo call, where you only put your head in the fire. It was possible then for the person on the other end to invite you over or even for you to hand things back and forth, or the caller could take someone's hand and pull them through their side.

There were advantages and disadvantages to this and Hermione got to see them as Harry made the call. First, Harry had to get right down on the floor. Then after throwing a pinch of powder from a box they had just bought before coming here into the fireplace and igniting the fire, Harry had stuck his head in the green flames. The advantages that Hermione could see were mostly analogous to a telephone but the ability to pass things back and for was brilliant. Though, the advantage Hermione was mostly enjoying right now was that, with Harry on his hands and knees with his head in the fire, she was left with a rather nice view of her boyfriend’s butt. Hermione liked to think that her attraction to Harry was to his bravery, his tenacity, his heart, and his mind, and while that was true, she was also a fourteen (almost fifteen) year old teenager and could get as distracted by looks as any teenager.

While Harry had his head in the fire, Sirius walked into the room to see who had arrived. "Hey uncle Charlus." Then he noticed Hermione. "Oh hey Hermione. I see the Floo is back up. Did you all have a good lunch?"

"Lunch was delightful." Mr. Potter told Sirius, and Hermione nodded her agreement.

"You're looking a lot better Sirius." Hermione said; it was true, the man did look a lot better since the last time she had seen him. Not great, though, even with magic recovering from so long in Azkaban and then a year on the run will take time.

Sirius grinned. "A few hot showers, a warm bed, and good food will do wonders. Not to mention real clothes help me remember that I am in fact a man. Who's Harry calling?" He directed the last question to Mr. Potter.

"His friend Ronald. You know, the one you owe an apology to for breaking his leg?" Mr. Potter told Sirius in the way only a parent can when talking to their kid. Before any of them could say anything else, there was a flash of green light as Harry pulled Ron through the fireplace and into Potter Manor.

Harry spent the afternoon showing Ron and Hermione around the manor. The first stop was the stables, apparently in the past the family had kept horses, but since there were no horses now the stables had been repurposed to house Buckbeak. Then it was a tour of the grounds, which on their own weren't much (just grassy hills broken up by the odd rock or stream), however what the manor did have was a view. When you looked downhill, you got an incredible sight as the horizon was filled with rolling green hills and the blue sky was dotted with fluffy white clouds. As they walked, Harry filled Ron and Hermione in on everything that had happened since they had last seen each other at King's Cross. He told them how his grandfather and Sirius had turned up with the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and how they had brought him here. Ron was surprised that the head of the D.M.L.E. knew where Sirius was and was a little put out that Harry had waited a few days to tell Ron what was going on, despite him being in the country and freely available. Harry explained that he had wanted to get all the changes right in his head before talking to anyone else. Ron understood and focused more on the director of the D.M.L.E. knowing where Sirius is. "I mean, after everything you did to save him, it would be a right pile of dragon sh*t if he was dragged off now."

"Both she and Grandfather Charlus are working to get Sirius a trial. Apparently Sirius was a rookie Auror working for the D.M.L.E. before he was arrested and Amelia Bones was his training officer. Sirius told me she was on compassionate leave since the start of that October, her brother and his wife were murdered by Death-Eaters and she suddenly had the responsibility of being a parent to her niece, you know Susan Bones?"

"Hufflepuff, our year, the one with the massive..." Ron made a motion with his hands over his own chest to indicate boobs.

Hermione couldn't keep herself from shooting Ron a disapproving look. "You know there's more to the girl than her chest right."

Ron shrugged. "Yeah of course, but 'that quiet mousey Hufflepuff girl' could mean six different girls, only one girl in our year has melons like that.”

Hermione was annoyed, not just at Ron but that (at least in the moment) she couldn't refute his logic. Harry soon had them both distracted from what could have developed into a fight by taking them inside. Hermione was a little embarrassed that Harry actually had to stand in front of her and physically block the books from her before she stopped staring in wonder at the library. Honestly, if accepting Mr. Potter's offer would mean she could read those books, it would take a serious downside for her to turn it down. She could easily see herself coming here every day of the holidays while her parents were at work and losing herself in the books and Harry's company.

As bad as Hermione was in the library, Ron was worse in the game room and practically begged Harry for a game when he saw the deluxe chess board built into one of the tables. Harry ended up caving when Hermione said it was okay with her, but only if she could borrow a book from the library to read during the game. Harry of course let her, and she was back within five minutes with a book on the Potter family's contributions to the field of potions.

Both of them had to use the chess pieces provided, and both sets of Wizarding chess pieces refused to offer any advice and instead were focused on acting out their deaths and attacks. It meant that Harry had one of his worst losses in over a year, but it did make the game both a better representation of how much Harry had actually learned of the game and more entertaining. While they were playing, Ron told them that his father had gotten tickets to the Quidditch World Cup and that both Harry and Hermione were invited. That surprised Hermione, who wouldn't have thought she would be included in a Weasley family trip. Harry she could understand; even if he had found his family, the Weasleys had already half adopted him.

"I'll need to ask my grandfather," Harry said, and even though it was clear that he didn't know if his grandfather would let him, Harry couldn't keep from smiling. It was easy to understand why, Charlus would make his decision purely on whatever he thought was best for Harry, not on how bad he could make Harry feel by denying him the experience.

"I'll need to ask my parents as well," Hermione said, not looking up from her book. "Though given they got a full explanation of Floo powder earlier today and just how cheap and quick it is to travel by magic, I'm sure they will let me go for a few days. But if the match lasts longer than that I might have to leave early."

"Only the real hardcore nutters stay for the whole time if the match lasts longer than a day," Harry agreed with her.

Only Ron took offence. "Hey!" He sometimes bragged about a Chudley Cannons Quidditch game he had been taken to when he was nine that lasted three days, and Ron had sat in the stands watching the game the whole time fearing that if he took a nap the Cannons would win while he was asleep. That the Cannons were already 300 points in the hole by the end of the first day hadn't dampend Ron's spirit that they could win one bit.

Harry just laughed and said. "See what I mean, hardcore nutters." And the three of them burst out laughing.

---ϟϟϟ---

Harry watched his two friends leave for the Burrow with a smile on his face. Hermione wanted to talk to Mrs. Weasley, so she was popping to the Burrow for half an hour before Floo’ing back to the Leaky Cauldron where she would be picked up by her parents. Harry was just about to leave the Floo room when the fire flashed green again. He turned, a little startled and expecting to see either Ron or Hermione coming back because they had forgotten something, but instead he saw Director Bones's face sitting in the fire. Having been on the other end of this only a few hours ago, Harry understood what was happening and said. "Good evening Director Bones. What can I do for you?"

"Good evening Mr. Potter. Can I come through? I need to talk to your grandfather and Sirius." Her voice was calm but she seemed happy as she spoke.

Harry agreed and stuck his hand into the fire, and when he felt Director Bones grab hold of his hand Harry pulled her through into Potter Manor. As she waved her wand over her robes cleaning off the soot and dirt that was unavoidable when making a Floo call, Harry asked. "How did you know about the Floo? We only had it reconnected today."

"You have a wanted fugitive living here under house arrest. I'm monitoring any mention of the manor in paperwork at the Ministry. A copy of the paperwork to reactivate the Floo came across my desk less than an hour after it was filed," she explained.

Harry started to lead her up the stairs to where Harry knew his grandfather and godfather were, only to find Grandfather Charlus coming down the stairs. Harry guessed there must be some type of alert that someone had come through the Floo and he was coming to investigate. The two adults exchanged pleasantries and Grandfather Charlus invited Director Bones upstairs to the family area. They all gathered in the small family kitchen and sat around the dining table. With a quick wave of a wand from Sirius to light the stove, Harry busied himself making tea for everyone.

"I have managed to secure a trial date for you, Sirius." Director Bones's words had smiles appearing on everyone's faces.

"When?" Sirius asked excitedly, like a dog who was just told he was getting steak for dinner.

"That's the bad news. It's in three days, which doesn't leave you much time to prepare. If you don't have one already, I suggest you find yourself an advocate quickly. Fudge is going to lead the prosecution himself, not sure why but my guess is that someone is putting pressure on him to have you Kissed."

"It's probably Malfoy. He probably thinks that if I die then his son will be the next in line to inherit the Black family gold and properties, which of course he would control and manage until his son comes of age," Sirius guessed.

"He thinks?" asked Director Bones.

Sirius grinned. "I may have instructed Gringotts to move all Black assets into my personal name and made a will giving it all to my godson if I die before having a kid of my own. Of course, they could try and contest it if they wanted, but to do that they would need to go before the Wizengamot and get them to vote to strip 'The Boy-Who-Lived' of his inheritance. Anyone voting to take money from Harry would be murdered in the press."

Harry was shocked to hear that Sirius had left him everything in his will, but he was more concerned with the idea that Malfoy was pushing the Minister of Magic to get Sirius executed. "Is that why Minister Fudge refused to listen to me and Hermione when we said we saw Peter Pettigrew?"

Harry had told this information to his grandfather and Sirius over the last few days,, but this was Director Bones first time hearing it. She stood up in surprise and fixed Harry with a stare that could teach Professor McGonagall a thing or two and demanded. "Mr. Potter, are you telling me that the Minister of Magic had two witnesses that reported seeing a man thought murdered alive and he did nothing about it?"

"He said that Hermione and I must have been Confounded and that we didn't know what we were talking about, and proceeded to try and have Sirius kissed." Harry told the now-angry Director Bones.

"Oh, if I find evidence that Fudge was involved in arranging an assassination, I will have that greasy peace of filth in Sirius's old cell."

Grandfather Charlus, not one to let a declaration like that go unremarked, lifted his fresh cup of tea towards the director in a salute. "Here here."

---ϟϟϟ---

While Harry was drinking a cup of tea with Director Bones, Hermione was having a cup with Mrs. Weasley. Ron had run off to speak with Fred and George before his mother could give him some chore to do so that she and Hermione could have some privacy. The older woman may be a housewife and almost the complete opposite of what Hermione wanted for herself, but Hermione had met the woman a few times and she seemed down to earth and type to care about children regardless of if they were her own, if the way she had fussed around last year making sure Hermione and the others had everything for school before they left the Leaky Cauldron.

"So what is it you need advice about dear? Ron told me you started dating Harry recently, I assume your own mother has given you the wands and cauldrons talk, but if you need any advice on the magical aspects I'm willing to help."

Hermione shook her head. "No, it's nothing like that. One of the sixth or seventh year muggleborn girls takes all the first year muggleborn girls aside every year and teaches us the charms to stay clean and the third year girls the potion to prevent 'accidents'." She paused before continuing. "You've heard about Harry's grandfather and godfather right?" Mrs. Weasley nodded; as Hermione expected, Ron had said he had told her everything he was awake for, leaving out the parts about time travel and rescuing a fugitive. Even if he hadn't been involved in those parts it would have been enough to make his mother 'blow her top.' "Well, Mr. Potter has made an offer and it sounds great, but I wasn't raised in the magical world and I want to make sure I'm not missing any dangers or obligations out of ignorance."

Mrs. Weasley agreed and Hermione explained the offer to her, and the two women sat and went over all the implications accepting would mean. There were some things that gave Hermione pause, but as they talked them out it wasn't that bad at all. For example, if Hermione accepted then Charlus would have the right to pen a betrothal contract for her, but Hermione could void the contract simply by leaving the House of Potter. The way Mrs. Weasley explained it, each wizarding house was like its own little country of one family, you could “immigrate” to another House any time you wanted so long as the House agreed to take you. But while you were a member, you were expected to live by their rules, and in exchange you had the support of the house behind you. That would be a shield against a lot of the muggleborn discrimination Hermione would face.

After about half an hour Hermione Floo'ed back to the Leaky Cauldron where her parents had agreed to pick her up.

---ϟϟϟ---

Hermione and Ron were both surprised to be called as witnesses for the defence in Sirius Black trial, not because they didn't have anything to say but because of how last minute everything was. They were contacted by Charlus the day after they had visited Harry and only two days before the trial. Harry met with the two of them at the Ministry about an hour before the trial was supposed to begin. Ron's mother was with him, whereas Hermione’s parents were both at work. Hermione gave Harry a hug as soon as she saw him. She was excited and nervous about the trial, but as soon as she saw Harry she realised that he needed her support. Not only was Harry worried about standing up in front of so many witnesses, but despite the fact that Sirius was innocent there was always a chance that the trial would be decided against him and that would mean that Harry's godfather would be executed not long after he and Harry had reunited. Given that, how could Harry not be worried about what was going to happen? Sirius had come in with Madam Bones earlier in the day to avoid the crowds and was waiting with her in her office, at least there he wouldn't be targeted by the press or attacked by anyone who hadn't heard that he was having a trial.

"Come on Harry, it'll work out." She slipped her arm around his waist.

"Well I certainly hope so, because I want to give that Sirius Black a piece of my mind. Breaking my son's leg like that. What was he thinking? He better get off so he can take his bollocking like a man." Mrs. Weasley was annoyed. At first, Grandfather Charlus looked as though he was going to say something to Mrs. Weasley, but given she made it clear that she was only going to lecture the man for breaking her son's leg, he just shrugged and decided that Sirius probably deserved at least that much for what he did. If all Sirius got was a scalding from Mrs. Weasley, then Harry would be very happy with the day's outcome.

Soon they opened up the courtroom, and Harry and the others were directed to go in and sit in the witness section. Charlus left the teens in the care of Mrs. Weasley. As a Warlock and a member of the Wizengamot, Charlus had chosen to act as Sirius's advocate, and he went to sit next to where Sirius would sit when he came in, which was a large black wooden chair that was covered in runes and had a chain dangling from each armrest. Harry really didn't like the look of it, but apparently that's where people facing trial always sit in wizarding Britain.

People started to file in and take their seats. The most common question Harry heard was "Why are we giving Sirius Black a new trial?" Harry took a little comfort in that if people thought this was his second trial, it may help when they find out he never had one originally. At least he hoped so.

Harry and the others watched as the Minister of Magic took the podium that, from the quick lessons his grandfather had given both Harry and Hermione as he prepared them for the trial, was where the person acting like a muggle judge would sit. Cornelius Fudge didn't look happy, and he had a few people sitting just below him. One was Director Bones, but he had no idea who the other two were. All he knew was that one looked like someone had stuffed a toad into a set of witches’ robes and the other was a young man who looked like he hadn't slept properly in days.

Once it looked like all the Wizengamot were in their seats and ready to act as jury, Fudge banged a gavel and called the courtroom to order. He rattled off the time and date before he called for an auror to bring in the accused. A set of doors opened and Sirius came striding into the room, looking confident and like he owned the place. He walked right up to the chair and sat in it. The chains instantly wrapped themselves around Sirius's arms and held him securely in the chair.

Cornelius Fudge looked down at Sirius before saying "Sirius Orion Black, you are charged with the murder of one Peter Pettigrew, the unlawful killing of a dozen muggles, conspiracy to murder James Potter, conspiracy to murder Lily Potter, conspiracy to attempted murder of Harry Potter, and offering aid and assistance to an enemy of the Wizengamot in a time of open war. Do you wish to enter a plea of guilty and save everyone here the time and bother of this trial? If you do, I'll offer leniency and let you return to your cell without feeding you to the Dementors.

Sirius just smiled up at the minister of Magic before saying "Not guilty." The trial had begun.

Chapter 6

Chapter Text

Chapter 6

Cornelius Fudge looked down at Sirius before saying "Sirius Orion Black, you are charged with the murder of one Peter Pettigrew, the unlawful killing of a dozen muggles, conspiracy to murder James Potter, conspiracy to murder Lily Potter, conspiracy to attempted murder of Harry Potter, and offering aid and assistance to an enemy of the Wizengamot in a time of open war. Do you wish to enter a plea of guilty and save everyone here the time and bother of this trial? If you do, I'll offer leniency and let you return to your cell without feeding you to the Dementors.

Sirius just smiled up at the minister of Magic before saying "Not guilty.”

"Mr. Black. Is-" A short toad-faced woman who was sitting in the row directly below the minister started to say.

"I object!" Charlus stood up from his chair next to Sirius's. A few whispers went around the room at this but nothing intrusive.

"What on earth for, Warlock Potter? I know you haven't been to a trial like this for a while, but our procedures haven't changed in over 50 years so even you should know it's customary to wait until something objectionable happens before you object," Cornelius Fudge said as he looked down on Harry's grandfather and godfather from His podium.

"Indeed it is, minister, indeed it is. That's why it's most disturbing that the prosecution, when finally giving my friend here a trial after illegally keeping him in Azkaban for over a decade, despite procedures and laws in place to prevent such things, has managed in two words to already have breached procedure. This is not Mr. Black, this is the rightful Heir Black of the House of Black, and named Regent of the House of Potter. Or, as it is customary to address him in a formal setting such as this, Heir Black. Now, Madam…" he trailed off waiting for the woman to give everyone her name.

The told faced woman shifted herself in her seat trying to make herself look taller and more important. "Umbridge. Madam Dolores Jane Umbridge, senior undersecretary to the Minister for Magic." She said in as hoity a voice as she could.

Charlus smiled. "Of course, Madam Umbridge. Now, if you could show my friend the respect he is owed." His tone made it clear that it wasn't actually a request.

Umbridge bristled at being told what to do, but after a prolonged silence Hermione leaned in and whispered, "I bet she is trying to think of a reason to ignore your grandfather."

Eventually Madam Umbridge seemed to realise the silence was stretching too much and she gave in. "Very well, Heir Black . Let's start with the easiest and most distasteful thing you did. You were the secret keeper for the Potter family, and only you telling a person the hidden secret could anyone have known it. As such,, it is only by you giving the information to the self-styled Dark Lord that he was able to kill James and Lily Potter and attempt the murder of their young son. I offer for evidence a list of testimony from prominent members of our society that they heard you practically bragging about being the Potters’ secret keeper."

The Umbridge woman then went on to list a number of names and go over their testimonies. There were a lot of names that Harry recognised, in there, unfortunately including Lucius Malfoy. She went over each testimony and they had the ring of truth to them; they all seemed to be genuine accounts of people hearing Sirius say he was the one the Potters trusted. If Harry hadn't known the truth, he would be ready to convict Sirius after hearing those, and it seemed that most of the Wizengamot was falling into the “convict him” category.

Then it was time for Sirius and Charlus to put forward their defence. "Well, that is a wonderful put together compilation of half the story," Charlus stated as he opened the defence. "Heir Black, do you refute the claims that were made in those testimonials?"

"No." There was a murmur of anger that rippled around the room at Sirius' answer. "I do, however, refute the conclusions. I did say I was the secret keeper for the Potters, I said it a lot especially when I knew known Death-Eaters were eavesdropping on me. Because, while I said I was the secret keeper, I was in fact not. I was a diversion, a decoy, a fake meant to keep the real secret keeper safe from being hunted. No, the real secret keeper was Peter Pettigrew."

There was a mixture of shock and disbelief at Sirius saying that Pettigrew was the secret keeper. Harry wasn't surprised at that, the people of wizarding Britain had been told for years that the man was a tragic hero, a man who had sacrificed his life to give the Aurors a chance to capture Voldemort's top lieutenant. Just telling them that Pettigrew was in fact the villain wasn't going to be enough.

"Minister Fudge, I would like to enter into evidence this letter penned by my son James Potter and signed by both him and his late wife Lily. Scribe, would you be so kind as to read this out to the court." Charlus pulled a letter from in his robes and held it out to the young haggard man who was sitting near Madam Umbridge. The scribe pulled out his wand, and a quick spell had the letter flying across the room to the man, who opened it and started reading it out loud.

"To the D.M.L.E., the Ministry, the Wizengamot, and whomever else this may concern,

I, James Charlus Potter, and my wife leave this statement in the event that the worst happens and we are unable to make this statement in person. Duplications of this letter should be found in our will, my parents’ possession, with Sirius Black, and with Peter Pettigrew

Sirius Orion Black III is not, nor ever was, the secret keeper holding the location of my family. Due to the well known close friendship, and that Sirius is my brother in all ways but blood, it was reasoned that the forces we were hiding from would target Sirius for our location, and as no man has the will to keep his mouth closed forever, it was prudent to choose a secret keeper that they would not suspect. Our secret keeper was Peter Pettigrew.

If our secret was discovered, we ask that if Peter is still alive that you do all you can to help him, for his treatment at the hands of the Death Eaters would have been terrible.

Thank you for your consideration,

James Charlus Potter

Lily Potter

Harry felt sick, his dad had so much faith in the rat that he thought the only way that Wormtail would betray the secret was under torture, yet the man was a spy, a traitor who sold out a man who loved him like a brother.

Charus then continued. "That letter was handed to me by my son the last time I saw him. It has been sitting in the Potter family vault since that day, until I retrieved it yesterday. During that time, the vault has only been accessed by myself. There is no doubt in my mind that that letter is a true accounting of my son's words. To further prove this, I call Ronald Bilius Weasley to the stand to testify to the evidence of his own eyes."

Harry, Hermione, and Mrs. Weasley all gave Ron some encouragement before he stood and went to stand in a witness box where he could easily be seen by everyone. "Mr. Weasley, you met Sirius Black a few weeks ago while at Hogwarts, correct?" Charlus asked, and Ron answered that he had. "Good, can you please explain to the court what happened that day?"

"Well, it all started with the appeal to save a Hippogriff from being executed. The appeal was lost, so me and my friends Harry Potter and Hermione Granger went down to see Hagrid who is the gamekeeper at Hogwarts and also our friend. We wanted to offer him our support because he loved that Hippogriff and needed us. While we were there, we found my pet rat that had gone missing…" Ron proceeded to tell the court everything that had happened that night only leaving out the time travel stuff that he had only known later anyway. Once Ron was finished, it was Hermione’s turn to tell almost the exact same story, with hers only really differing during the part where Ron was dragged off by Sirius. Harry had ended up holding the hand of Mrs. Weasley during both telling of that part of the story. It was obvious that the woman was not going to let Sirius get away with what he did, even if her response wasn't going to be having him arrested.

Then it was Harry's turn, and he told his story that was almost identical to Hermione's. Once he was finished but before he returned to his seat, Madam Umbridge stood up. "It doesn't matter what these three children say, they have obviously had plenty of time to rehearse these lies."

"We are not lying, but if you really wanted our story fresh then maybe when we tried to tell the minister himself less than an hour after it had happened, he should have actually investigated rather than just decide we were all confounded without any evidence so that he could execute an innocent man who never even had a trial," Harry snapped back at the woman.

Harry's statement caused a ripple of murmurs to pass around everyone in the room. While all of them sounded angry, they seemed evenly split between being angry at Harry and Umbridge for both of them speaking out of turn, while there was also a good amount directed at the minister for the idea he deliberately tried to execute a man he had in custody after being told that the man hadn't had a trial. Many of the Wizengamot felt that executing someone without a trial, especially a pureblood heir, was a step too far. Even the darker elements of the Wizengamot were shooting the minister looks; they also relied on their right to a trial to get them out of trouble when they or their families got caught.

"Thank you Madam Umbridge, and thank you Harry. May I remind both of you that this a courtroom, not a Hogwarts debate club, you don't just shout out things here." Warlock Potter, for it was definitely Warlock Potter and not Grandfather Charlus here, admonished the two of them. Of course, an accusation that both he and Umbridge were acting like teenagers hit her harder than him, given that Harry actually was still a teenager and it was a lot easier to forgive him such a slip than Umbridge.

Then Charlus turned and stared right at Umbridge. "Also, Madam Umbridge, may you take care in who you call a liar. The Heir Potter may be underage, but we are discussing whether the person sitting here," he indicated Sirius, "is guilty of assisting in the murder of his parents - my son. If you think for one moment that either of us would lie on behalf of someone we believed to be guilty of that, then you don't have the sense that magic gifted a flobberworm." For a second, Harry thought that the Umbridge woman was about to start yelling at his grandfather, but she looked him in the eyes for a few seconds and then all her defiance seemed to melt and she stammered out an apology.

In the end the Wizengamot voted to acquit Sirius of all the charges. The press was waiting for them as they walked out of the lift into the Ministry atrium.

"Mr. Black! Mr. Black! Anything to say to the Daily Prophet ?"

"Mr. Black, how does it feel to be free after so long?"

"Do you have any idea where Peter Pettigrew is?"

"Do you intend to sue the Ministry for your illegal imprisonment?"

The questions just kept coming, and flash after flash went off taking not only photos of Sirius but of all of them. Harry winced a little when he realised that one reporter was taking a picture of him with his arm around Hermione, and he guessed that one of the celebrity gossip rags would have the story of him and Hermione dating in the next few days.

Sirius decided that it would probably be easier if he stopped and gave a statement. "Right, I'm not great at public speaking so I'm just going to give my statement and that's it. I am of course happy to finally have the freedom that was denied to me for so long, but I don't yet have justice. There were three people who signed off on my incarceration without a trial: Albus Dumbledore in his role as Chief Warlock, Bartemius Crouch as the then head of the D.M.L.E., and Millicent Bagnold the Minister for Magic at the time. Each of these people need to answer as to why they denied me a right that has been guaranteed to every British citizen, muggle and magical, for hundreds of years. And it will require more than a simple apology to right the injustice. But those are battles for another day. For now I intend to go home and spend some time getting to know my godson, learning about his life, and putting myself back together. Now, if you'll all excuse me, you are keeping me from spending time with those I consider family."

Harry couldn't help it, at being called family he rushed over and wrapped his arms around Sirius and channelled his inner Hermione. Flash bulbs popped all around them and it wasn't difficult to guess what picture was going to be on the front page tomorrow.

After wading through the crowd they all, Molly and Ron included, Floo'ed to Potter Manor. Almost as soon as the soot had been cleaned from their robes by a few waves of the adults’ wands, Mrs. Weasley reached out and grabbed Sirius by the ear. "Sirius Black, what the hell did you think you were doing! You broke my son's leg, snapped the bone in three places according to the report I got from Poppy."

"Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!" was all Sirius said as Mrs. Weasley continued to yank on his ear.

"Don't give me Ow! How many times did Ron scream ‘Ow!’ before you finished dragging him down some dark dirt-filled tunnel! Did you stop, did you help him? No, you just kept dragging him. He got dirt in his cuts, Madam Pomfrey had to clean them out and remove the infection. If left untreated my son could have lost his leg." Mrs. Weasley continued to deliver her in-person howler.

"Uncle Charlus, aren't you going to help me?" Sirius practically begged.

"I already did. Molly has promised not to kill or maim you. But you did break her son's leg, so I suggest you just take your deserved punishment. I'm going to go put the kettle on. Do you still prefer the Earl Grey, Molly?

"Please Charlus, that sounds delightful." Molly answered in a perfectly present tone. If Harry hadn't seen her do the exact same thing when he first met her, he would have been taken aback. Hermione had never seen Mrs. Weasley like this, though, and wasn't sure how to deal with it when she turned back to a still squirming Sirius and continued to yell at him.

Grandfather Charlus started to herd the trio of teenagers out of the room and straight up to the family area of the manor. Harry hadn't shown Hermione and Ron this part of the house the last time they were there, mostly because he wasn't sure he was allowed. The way his grandfather had explained it was only family, but it seemed that close enough friends also counted.

"How do you know my mum?" A confused Ron asked grandfather Charlus.

"During the war Potter Manor played host to a number of people, injured people who were fighting and rescued muggleborn and their families. A lot of them needed medical help, but St Mungo's wasn't always safe. Your mother is pretty good at healing charms and potions, and she often came by to help people. Of course, her two brothers were frequently among the injured so it's not surprising she would want to help." By the time he finished talking, they were in the family kitchen and he was setting a large copper kettle on the stove to start boiling. "Earl Grey okay with everyone or should I make two pots?"

They all agreed that the tea was fine and Charles started putting the pot together. "Huh, I knew mum was good at healing charms and potions but I never knew she was that good," Ron said between munching on a biscuit from the plate Harry had just put on the table.

"Your mother was in an apprenticeship to become a mediwitch but she had to give it up when she got pregnant with your oldest brother…what was his name again?"

"William, but everyone calls him Bill. He's a curse breaker at Gringotts now," Ron answered.

Charlus mumbled something to himself about missing so much and set the tray of tea things down on the table, letting everyone help themselves. Just as most of them finished making their tea the way they liked it, Mrs. Weasley came in and joined them all at the kitchen table.

"So what concessions did you wring out of my nephew?" Charlus smiled as he sipped at his drink.

Mrs Weasley gave him a similar smile as she started to fill her cup with tea. "He is going to tutor Ron for the rest of the summer to help get his grades up. If memory serves, Sirius was quite good at Transfiguration and Charms, and Ron needs help in both of those areas. Potions as well, but Sirius said he wasn't great at them."

"Hey, it's not my fault for potions, Professor Snape has it out for us!" Ron protested.

Mrs Weasley sighed. "You can't just keep making excuses, Ron. Whatever the responsibility, you need to do better."

Hermione jumped in. "In this case Mrs. Weasley, I need to agree with Ron. Professor Snape barely teaches at all. His usual method is to just put the recipe on the board and tell us to brew it. He then walks around insulting any students he doesn't like. His favourite targets are Harry, Ron Neville Longbottom and myself. And if he grades Ron the same way he grades my work, then I'm positive that Ron's grade is actually higher than whatever Professor Snape gave him. My potions are often exactly what the book says they should be, I brewed a N.E.W.T. potion perfectly in my second year, and I have never gotten higher than an Exceeds Expectations."

Harry knew that Hermione was telling the truth, but she was also laying it on a bit thick. She had often told Ron that he needed to study more and read a few books on the fundamentals of potion brewing. Ron, however, would rather play chess than read.

"Well, I planned to go over Harry's education with him and I'm no slouch when it comes to potions. How about I help Ron with potions, Sirius can do Transfiguration and Charms, and we will see what we can do about the rest?" Grandfather Charlus offered and Mrs. Weasley accepted instantly.

Ron groaned but Harry, knowing his girlfriend would want to attend such lessons as well, asked. "Can Hermione join us?"

Hermione gave Harry a grateful smile before giving Grandfather Charlus a hopeful look. Harry's grandfather just smiled at her and agreed that if Hermione’s parents agreed then she could come over for the lessons as well.

Hoping to change the subject before he was volunteered to do any more school work, Ron asked, "Why was Fudge the one in charge at Sirius's trial? I thought that was the job of the Chief Warlock, but I didn't see Dumbledore there at all."

"Well there are two reasons: one, Dumbledore was involved in sending Sirius to prison, he has a conflict of interest so had to recuse himself from running the case. The reason he wasn't there at all was because Fudge was convinced that Dumbledore would vote to free Sirius, and so scheduled the trial while Dumbledore was away at the International Confederation of Wizards’ annual meeting. It’s also why we were only told that the trial was approved three days before. Fudge didn't want us to have the opportunity to gather any support," Charlus explained.

"But that's not justice, it's politics. How can it be legal to do that with people's lives?" Hermione's outrage was clear in her voice.

"Well, to change it you'll need the Wizengamot to agree to it, and the current system gives the power to the Wizengamot. So while I wish you the best of luck, it will be a long, uphill road to change it." Mrs. Weasley explained.

---ϟϟϟ---

Remus Lupin turned up at the manor the next day, holding a copy of the Daily Prophet in his hand. Sirius hadn't told Remus anything that was happening because after the events at the end of the school year there was a possibility that an Auror was keeping tabs on Remus with the hope that he would lead them to Sirius. It was a little weird for Harry, because as much as he liked the man he still saw Remus as Professor Lupin, and having your professor suddenly hanging around socially was not something Harry really knew how to deal with.

Hermione’s parents had readily agreed when Charlus had scheduled the lessons around the Grangers' work schedule. Five days a week, when they went to work in the morning, they would drop Hermione outside the Leaky Cauldron and then pick her up from the same place on the way home. This wouldn’t interrupt the limited time they had to spend with their daughter.

Charlus and Sirius looked over the results of the trio’s end of year tests and Charlus tested them on their potions skills. While Hermione got some praise for her potion, Charlus did say that it was obvious that Hermione had learned out of a book instead of being shown the correct technique because she had misunderstood some of the fundamentals. Grandfather Charlus was also disappointed in Harry for choosing Divination rather than a useful subject when he confessed to not having the sight. His grandfather decided that he would tutor Harry in either Runes or Arithmancy and Harry would try to test into one of those subjects in September. Harry spoke with Hermione about which of the two classes was better, and Hermione went on for half an hour about how interesting Arithmancy was, but in the end said that Harry would probably enjoy Runes more than all the maths in Arithmancy.

Sirius, it turned out, was a great teacher. He was fun and engaging despite the work they were doing; the four of them spent a lot of time laughing. Sirius had a knack for teaching the principles of Charms and Transfiguration not through turning pineapples into teapots or making a book dance, spells that taught the fundamentals but were of little practical use. No, Sirius taught using prank spells, and while those prank spells had just as little everyday utility, it was easy to see that they would see a lot more use for the three teens that seemed to get into some type of trouble every year. Sticking your opponent’s feet to the floor may not sound like much; not until you have had to out run a herd of hungry giant spiders, and then it suddenly seemed a lot more practical.

Potions lessons with Harry's grandfather were totally different from the dungeon torture that was Snape's class. For one, Charlus had a potions lab on the family level that was full of sunlight, making it a lot easier to see what you were doing. There was also the lack of being looked down on like something disgusting their teacher had stepped in. Combined with the fact that he actually taught the lesson rather than just giving them a list of instructions led to all three of them wishing the man would replace Snape as Potions Professor.

For the first few Potions lessons, Grandfather Charlus had them work not in the potions lab but the kitchen. He had them chopping, dicing, mincing, crushing, and skinning all sorts of fruits, vegetables, meats, and fish. The techniques could easily be practised on the much cheaper food than on the potions ingredients. Best of all, Grandfather Charlus used all those ingredients to make lunch. The fact that food was involved kept the ever hungry Ron focused on their work. It helped Harry too, who was familiar enough with cooking that he could see how the skills transferred over now, and it helped Hermione the opposite way. It did improve on a few of her misunderstandings she had made having only learnt from books, but where it really helped was her confidence in the kitchen. Hermione had never learned how to cook; with her going to boarding school for most of the year there just wasn't time to learn. Even when she was home, the family wanted to focus on spending every moment they could together making up for the time they lost during the rest of the year.

It wasn't all work though. The three teenagers only had about two and a half to three hours of lessons a day and they tended to be together for the nine to five. They didn't always spend their time at the manor, though, with Harry and Hermione often being visitors to the Burrow, mostly so that Harry and Ron could take advantage of the cover provided by the Weasleys’ orchard and the presence of Ron's siblings to play a few games of Quidditch.

---ϟϟϟ---

Two days after Sirius was found not guilty, Hermione approached Mr. Potter, nervous about what she was there to talk about. Sensing Hermione’s nerves, Mr. Potter, guessing what she wanted to talk about, calmly asked, "So you've made your decision on whether you want to accept my offer of shelter?" He took all the care he could not to agitate the girl further.

Hermione nodded. "Yes sir. I mean, yes I made my decision, not that my decision is yes - I mean, it is yes, I didn't want to imply that it's a no, just that I was only answ…" Hermione was rambling in her nervousness and then caught herself. "I'll just shut up now."

Mr Potter couldn't help but chuckle at Hermione's rambling. "Calm down, Miss Granger. Is there anything you want to discuss with me first?"

"There was one thing I was worried about." Hermione admitted, squirming a little in her chair.

"Oh? Please tell me and I will see what I can do to relieve you of your worries." It was easy to see how the man had gotten a lifetime appointment to the Wizengamot, he just had a way about him that made him easy to talk to.

"Well, I was a little worried that you would have the right to write up betrothal contracts for me," Hermione said.

"Ah yes I forgot about that. Would it ease your mind if I promised never to include you in one without your permission? I'm looking to repay you for helping rescue one of my boys, not because I'm looking for some bargaining chip." His answer satisfied Hermione and she readily agreed to become a ward of the Potter family. It was easy enough, all it required was Hermione’s signature on a document that Charlus had already had drawn up in anticipation of Hermione agreeing. The only downside was that it needed to be signed with a blood quill.

That done, Hermione was shown a room in the manor that was hers to use whenever she needed it. There were no plans for her to use it soon; her parents specifically wanted Hermione to themselves as much as possible, having really missed their daughter during the school year. But Hermione found it comforting that she had another place she could go if she needed it. She was also added to the manor wards as family, giving her the right to come and go through the wards whenever she wished, just like having the key to her parents’ home. The best part, however, was in the library. Some of the bookshelves had charms on them to prevent anyone outside the family from reading them, and while there were some books that were still restricted from her there were a lot more she was now trusted with.

Both Harry and Hermione agreed that this was looking to be their best summer ever.

Chapter 7

Chapter Text

Chapter 7

It was Saturday, and while Hermione would normally be spending her day with her parents it just wasn't possible today, her father had an emergency that he needed to help a patient with. Something about a night out, stairs, and too much alcohol. Her mother also had a bunch of paperwork she had been pushing off to spend time with Hermione. So there was no fun day trip this week, but instead she was given permission to invite her friends over for the day, on the condition that while they were in the house they would be quiet enough to let her mother focus on her work.

Hermione's mother drove them to the Leaky Cauldron so she could Floo Harry and Ron. However, Hermione decided she wasn't going to to kneel on the floor with her ass stuck out to a bunch of strangers in a pub, so she Floo'ed directly to Potter Manor instead, then after talking with Harry, Sirius and Uncle Charlus, Harry Floo'ed Ron and the three of them Floo'ed to London and joined up with Emma, who was waiting with the car.

Realising that she was playing host to three teenagers, Emma stopped by a supermarket on the way home and gave Hermione ten pounds and told her to go buy them snacks and something for lunch. Ron had never been in a muggle supermarket before and was almost overwhelmed by just how much food there was on display that he had never seen before. Sure, he knew his carrots from his potatoes but he had never seen curry or Mexican food, and while he could identify crisps from the images on the package he had no clue what corn snacks were. The biggest shock for Hermione was that he had no clue what a pizza was. That had settled what they were having for lunch, as far as Harry and Hermione were concerned. They did spend a few minutes debating toppings and deciding if they wanted to get one or two garlic bread baguettes. They also grabbed two large bottles of juice (Hermione’s parents weren't fans of fizzy drinks and Ron hadn't really liked the idea of cola), a large bag of corn snacks, and a bag of unpopped popcorn.

Back at the Granger house, the three teenagers sat down in front of the TV and had a movie marathon. They watched Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Monty Python's Holy Grail. Harry and Ron had lucked out a little because Hermione’s collection of tapes were years out of date, and so Hermione had to choose from her father's collection, which had a distinct lack of what Harry had heard of being called 'chick flicks.' Harry had enjoyed Star Wars especially, as he could easily see himself in Luke, an orphan sent to live with his uncle only to learn he had power and his father was murdered. Hermione was like Leia: smart, strong and sexy. Well, Hermione was more cute than sexy, but he liked her the way she was. Then Ron was definitely like Han: funny, loved to fly, and despite everything, when you needed him Ron was there to help.

Ron had a lot of trouble understanding Star Wars, not the story itself but the setting. The idea that they were flying between planets was completely new to him, and when Hermione had told him muggles had been to the moon his disbelief had Hermione lending him a book to take home with him. Ron did admit that the light swords were cool though, and had a much easier time with Holy Grail, as there was no technology in it that he couldn't get his head around and they all found the jokes funny. The boys enjoyed Raiders more than Hermione, but by the time that film had come on Hermione had seated herself across Harry's lap and the two of them were sharing a large bowl of popcorn, the pizza and garlic bead having been finished off some time about halfway through Holy Grail.

---ϟϟϟ---

When Harry got back from his day with Hermione and Ron, his grandfather and godfather had news for him. Apparently, while he was out the Ministry had sent the Potter family four VIP tickets to the Quidditch World Cup. It was an obvious attempt to buy some favour from them and try to convince them not to sue the Ministry for their complete failure to give Sirius a trial.

"So what if we accept the tickets we can't sue them?" Harry asked. "If that's the case I say send them back, Sirius deserves way more than going to see a Quidditch game."

Both Sirius and Charlus laughed at that. "Harry, the Ministry can't say that the tickets are so we don't sue them. That would be bribery, and Sirius can file his intent to seek reparations any time in the next decade. This is only a delaying tactic. We will string them along until they do something that we don't like, then we will hit them with notice to sue when it benefits us the most," Charlus explained.

"So we get to go to the World Cup?" Harry asked cautiously, not wanting to get his hopes up only for them to be dashed.

"Not only do we get to go, we get to watch from the top box, the same one the Ministers of each other country and a bunch of other VIPs will be sitting in." Sirius grinned, and the conversation then quickly turned to all the things they could expect at the World Cup.

Harry was surprised that there would be camping involved and was shocked when Charlus explained exactly what camping ment to a wizard. Wizarding tents sounded so amazing to Harry. Charlus described the family wizarding tent to Harry, and the only way it could be considered roughing it was when you compared it to the manor. The tent had six bedrooms, a kitchen, a dining room that could seat twenty people at a squeeze, and a lounge to relax in. The tent was bigger than the four-bedroom Dursley house.

Harry was even told he could bring either Ron or Hermione as they had four tickets. That left Harry with a bit of a dilemma on his hands: who should he ask, his Quidditch obsessed best friend or his girlfriend? On one hand Hermione wasn't a fan of the sport, but she would enjoy the international crowd around the game, seeing how witches and wizards from around the world differed. Ron, however, would love to see the game itself. Harry honestly didn't know how he was going to choose, but he was eventually distracted from his dilemma by a simple question from his grandfather. "So Harry, your birthday is next week. What do you want to do to celebrate?"

---ϟϟϟ---

Harry didn't get to see Hermione and Ron again till their next lessons on Monday. He led them into the library as normal but he knew that Sirius wasn't going to be there for another ten minutes. "Guys, I have a couple of things to talk to you about." The nerves in Harry's voice were all too easy for Hermione to spot. Ron, however, was too excited about something to notice Harry was nervous, just saying "I got something to say as well once you are done, Harry!"

"Well the first one is easy, it's my birthday Sunday and you're both invited over. Hermione, I know your parents want you to spend your weekends with them so they can come over as well if they like. We are keeping everything pretty small, just friends and family."

"Of course I will be here mate. Wouldn't miss it!" Ron answered immediately. A smile broke out over Hermione’s face as well, she was sure with her parents being invited as well she would get to come, if for no other reason than her parents’ curiosity of where she was going every day and to see where Harry lived.

"The other thing is a little harder. Sirius got us tickets to the World Cup next month. But he got four tickets and I'm allowed to invite only one of you. I can think of good reasons to invite both of you and I don't want the one I don't choose to be mad at me."

Hermione quickly pulled Harry into a hug, kissed him on the cheek and said, "Harry, have you already forgotten that Ron invited us both to the Quidditch World Cup? Do we need to get your head checked?" She joked.

Harry couldn't believe it; he had completely forgotten that Ron had already invited him and Hermione, and he had accepted. His grandfather had been teaching him, Hermione, and Ron a little about manners and protocol in the wizarding world, but he wasn't sure what he was supposed to do now. Did he now go with his family or did he stick with the commitment to go with the Weasleys?

Ron burst out laughing at the two of them. "I really should have gone first, I was going to tell you that Dad got the final travel details while we were at Hermione's on Saturday."

Harry was saved from having to say anything because Sirius chose that moment to walk in, a slice of toast in his mouth that he was somehow able to speak around. "Wands out." He looked them over when they didn't immediately pull out their wands, as normally Harry and Hermione at least were eager to practice and even Ron usually wasn’t this recalcitrant. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing, I just forgot that Ron had already invited Hermione and me to the World Cup, and I had accepted before you got the tickets from the Ministry."

"Ah I see. Well two points. I know you're not used to it, Harry, given how you grew up, but you really need to ask permission before accepting an invitation like that. I'll let it slide this once but don't let it happen again. Next, I will talk with Ron's parents and sort everything out, so don't worry about it." With that Harry was able to relax and get back to the lesson Sirius had planned, making a realistic illusion with sound. It was a brilliant exercise for visualisation that would be a big aid in Transfiguration, and it required precise wand movements with control over the flow of your magic. It would help in any wand subject, really, but more important it was fun and just Sirius's style for teaching.

---ϟϟϟ---

Harry's birthday was small and quite quiet. Ron and Hermione came, of course, as did Mr and Mrs Granger. They spent the morning in the manor just relaxing. Hermione showed her parents the room that was hers whenever she needed it, and they were happy to see that both Sirius's and Charlus’s rooms were between Harry's and Hermione's rooms. Ron gave Harry a card signed by all the Weasleys, a box of cakes and pastries under preserving charms from Mrs. Weasley, and a new pair of Seekers’ gloves that were enchanted to keep your hands dry so they didn't get slippery in less optimal weather.

Hermione and her parents gave him a stack of books. One was practical, a guide to charms you would use a lot in everyday life, such as a charm that would automatically sort your groceries and put them away. The rest of the books, though, were fun; Harry now had the complete Lord of the Rings book set and couldn't wait to read them. Sirius got Harry a complete brand new set of Quidditch armour in Gryffindor red and gold, and Charlus got Harry a new trunk that had multiple compartments in it, including wardrobe, library, writing desk, potions workstation, and general storage. It was also light as a father and would shrink down or return to full size with just a simple tap of a wand.

They spent the afternoon at the same zoo where Harry had talked to a snake for the first time. Apparently Sirius had spoken to the Grangers to find somewhere to take Harry, and they had recommended the zoo. As Harry hadn't told any of the adults about his previous trip, they had all thought it a great idea. Luckily Harry actually found it amusing and went out of his way to introduce Hermione and Ron to the snake. Harry had to explain the concept of a girlfriend to the snake, who thought the idea of a mate you weren't mating with was stupid in the extreme and encouraged Harry to just get on with it. Harry blushed a lot during the conversation, and quickly as he could he changed the topic. The snake told him about his trip outside and how it had taken the zookeepers three days to find him before they had put him back in his enclosure. Of course, he asked to be let free again but Harry refused.

At one point, Hermione pulled on Harry's arm and got the two of them intentionally lost. "Finally, I have been looking to ditch the adults for a bit all morning."

"Why?" Harry asked suggestively, having a good idea what his girlfriend had planned.

Hermione just grinned at him and pulled him around a corner that led to a staff-only area. They stayed on the right side of the door that barred the public from the back area, but they were out of sight. Harry didn't need any more prompting and pushed Hermione against the wall and pressed his body against hers. She responded instantly and pressed her lips against his. "Happy." Kiss. "Birthday." Kiss. "Harry." Kiss. Hermione said as she pulled at Harry's waist, encouraging him to press against her a little harder. Soon tongues started to explore each other's mouths, and the seconds quickly melted into minutes and then longer. Neither Harry nor Hermione had any idea how long they had been separated from everyone when suddenly they were interrupted by a loud fake cough, one that was in a suddenly scarily familiar voice. The two teens broke apart and turned to see Hermione’s father standing there with a stern expression on his face.

"And the two of you think this is appropriate behaviour?" He demanded.

Hermione, though, was not exactly one to be meek and step down from a challenge like that. "Considering Harry is my boyfriend, we are both completely clothed, and stepped away from putting on a public spectacle on his birthday. Yes, I think a few minutes of snogging is completely appropriate." And she stood there hands on her hips staring down her father.

It became a contest to see which of the two stubborn Grangers would back down first, and Harry just felt awkward standing there between the two. He knew who he wanted to win, but he was a little afraid to say the wrong thing and to not see Hermione again until the first of September.

"If suddenly disappearing without telling your mother or I is acceptable, you have forgotten a few things."

"I live in a boarding school. If I had to tell you before doing everything, I'd never get to do anything." Hermione argued back. "I'm not a little girl any more."

"It's still not safe for you to go off on your own."

"I wasn't on my own, I was with Harry."

Finally Harry had had enough, now he was annoyed. "Both of you, that's enough. Mr Granger, I do not appreciate the insinuation that I would let Hermione come to harm. She means the world to me and no one is going to hurt her while I'm around. Hermione, that's your dad who was worried about you. Do you realise how lucky that makes you? Both of you need to stop this."

It probably wouldn't have worked but for one line Harry said and because they were overheard. Both Hermione and Mr Granger were suddenly reminded that Harry was an orphan. Hermione realised that Harry would give anything for his dad to burst in on him and play the overprotective father, yet her response was to yell at her dad for being worried about her.

Luckily for everyone Mrs Granger heard the raised voices and found them before anything else was said. Hermione’s mother was far more aware that her daughter was growing up. "See Dan, I told you they were fine."

"But they just disappeared and they were…" Mr. Granger stated but his wife cut him of

"They were doing nothing more than what Hermione and I have already talked about." Mrs. Granger said firmly, causing Hermione to blush a little. "Neither of them look like they were going to remove any clothes, so just drop it. Or do you want me to call my dad and let him set the rules on how we celebrate your birthday?" She threatened him.

"That's not what this is about, they went running off without telling anyone. Anything could have happened…" They all left to go find Grandfather Charlus and Sirius, the argument continuing in whispers until they met up with Harry's family, who didn't seem anywhere near as concerned as Mr Granger.

"Dan, I think you are forgetting that your daughter is a witch. There is probably nothing in this zoo except for me, Uncle Charlus, and Harry that Hermione isn't more than capable of handling herself. She may not be allowed to do magic normally, but she is allowed to defend herself in an emergency," Sirius reassured Mr Granger.

They continued around the zoo until the evening, when Charlus took everyone out to dinner. It was a very nice magical restaurant by the name of Ambrosia, apparently one of three magical restaurants in Britain that were considered high end and the only one in London, as the other two were in Cardiff and Edinburgh. Harry recognised a few of the other diners as members of the Wizengamot from Sirius's trial. However, he wasn’t happy to see the Malfoy family already seated at one of the tables. Draco hadn't seen Harry or Hermione yet, and Harry hoped it would stay that way. If the blond daddy's boy saw Hermione, even he was smart enough to work out that Hermione’s parents were with them and there was no way he would avoid making a scene.

The food was great, the adults even let each of the teens have a glass of wine with their dinner as it was a special occasion. They got to deserts before the inevitable happened; as the Malfoys left they walked past the table that Harry and his family were sitting at. And inevitably, Draco couldn't keep his mouth shut.

"Mother, father, if you are suddenly wondering about the smell then it's because there is a mudblood in here." Draco was wearing his customary sneer as he looked at them.

Harry, Ron, and Mr. Granger were all about to jump up and defend Hermione, Dan having worked out from context that this boy had said something disgusting about his daughter. However, Charlus was quick with his wand and froze everyone sitting at the table except him and Sirius.

Sirius stood up and at first addressed Draco's mother with a nod. "Hello cousin, it's been a while."

"Sirius." She nodded back to him.

Then Sirius turned to draco. "Draco Malfoy, for your uncouth behaviour in front of polite company, you are hereby disinherited from the Black family." As head of the Black family, what he said about the family was law. While it was true that Narcissa was a Malfoy now, her son was still in line to receive a trust from the Black family as an acknowledged potential Heir. But that could be cut off purely on Sirius' say so, and if Harry was right Sirius had just done so.

Harry watched as what little colour that was in the faces of Lucius and Narcissa drained from their faces. Before they could say anything though, a pissed off Draco opened his mouth again. "You can't be serious! I'm the Black heir, the only heir, you can't just disinherit me!"

Sirius grinned and Harry didn't understand why until he said. "I can in fact be Sirius, have been all my life. But what makes you think you are the Black heir? You most definitely are not, or have you ever been. Harry has been my heir ever since he was born and I was named his godfather. While it's admittedly true that Harry is a placeholder until I have a kid of my own, you were at best second in line."

At that, Lucius Malfoy stepped in; he put a hand on Draco’s shoulder to silence him and addressed Sirius. "Surely you jest. A half blood with no breeding, the heir to a noble House he has no blood tie to."

Now it was Charlus turn to speak, though he did it without standing up from his chair. "It's clear to see where your son got his prejudice from, Warlock Malfoy. You are, however, incorrect in your belief that Harry here has no tie to the Black family; his paternal grandmother, my late wife, was a Black from the main family line before she married me." The look he was giving the three Malfoys was enough to convey just how he felt about them. "And I would remind you that if you want to compare breeding, the Potter family is one of Britain's oldest magical families, with the creation of the Skele-Gro potion and the pepper up potion credited to us. Compared to you, a family that was run out of France for dealing in bad faith only a few hundred years ago, Mauvaise-foi. Kind of difficult to prove the veracity of your claim of being an old pureblood House when none of your bloodline can write or speak the original name of your family. Do you even know what it was? It's not like your father could tell it to you." Charlus sat there and tore the Malfoys down while casually sipping on his glass of wine.

Narcissa, sensing that her family had lost that battle and that any more would just see their names dragged down, directed her family to leave. Once they had left Charlus released them all from the spell that had them all just sitting there. "Sorry about that, as much as he deserved it, if Harry had punched that brat like he looked like he was about to, then it could have escalated quickly. And Dan, if you had so much as yelled at the boy, his father would have gotten the aurors involved. That would have been a disaster. There is enough anti-muggle prejudice that the best you could hope for is to have all your memories of the magical world obliterated and Hermione taken from you under the guise of it being to save her from the vicious magic-hating muggle. I didn't have time to stop just those two, so I had to use one spell to hit all of you.”

Dan didn't look happy at being frozen like that, but once Charlus explained the consequences that he was protecting the Grangers from, he understood and thanked Charlus.

"What was that bit about them not being able to say their true family name?" Hermione asked out of curiosity.

Charlus chuckled. "Oh that's an old story. Back during the French Revolution there was a family of magicals that tried to play both sides. The details aren't important, but they were caught out and a bunch of wizards on both sides called a short truce to deal with the traitors. They cast a bloodline curse that made all of them only able to call themselves Malfoy, from the French Mauvaise-foi which means bad faith. I believe the idea was to give everyone that the family dealt with fair warning of just how treacherous they were. The family was then kicked out of France and unfortunately came to England."

"What was that bit about disinheriting the boy?" Emma asked.

Sirius answered that one. "It's an old Black family tradition. Potential heirs are given a trust fund of ten thousand gallons when they come of age. Uhh… a little under fifty thousand pounds." He said after doing a quick bit of mental maths. "The idea is to see which of the heirs is better at managing money, and from that to see who is the best to take on the role as the family Warlock. Uh, head of the family," Sirius added, seeing Dan and Emma's confused look at the term Warlock. "Basically I took that away from him."

"Fifty thousand pounds, just because he was a little rude?" Emma asked, shocked at the numbers involved.

"It's not enough," both Harry and Dan said at the same time, causing Hermione to laugh as the two of them looked at the other surprised.

"Not just a little rude. Extremely rude. He basically said Hermione had dirty blood because you and Mr Granger are not magical," Ron explained.

"Mum, there is a section of the magical world that has a very…well, racist view, and I as a first generation witch am the equivalent of a black girl. Worse, I'm a black girl who gets better grades than their kids. What that boy just did was the equivalent of calling out that word, in the middle of a very nice restaurant," Hermione explained.

Sirius picked up where Hermione left off "It's extremely uncouth behaviour, but it's also the mindset behind it. Being a Warlock of a House gives you a lot of legal clout in our world, so by cutting him off like that I am preventing someone with that mindset from wielding that influence against people like Hermione. Basically the boy showed he was completely unfit in my eyes in what was probably the most effective way possible."

The conversation was interrupted by a waitress who brought over a tray of desserts for the table. Considering that they were already eating their desserts they thought there must have been a mistake only for the waitresses to explain. "These ones are on the house. A lot of the staff here are first generation witches and wizards. The Malfoys are…not pleasant to serve, but part of the job is that we have to remain polite and courteous to all the guests. Seeing them put in their place like that has turned a long day of work into something worth remembering. Enjoy your desserts. They are something new our pastry chef is working on and aren't available on the menu yet."

Their waitress excused herself to go deal with the other customers and they finished up their desserts. The second dessert was absolutely delicious, and they all made a point to give their feedback for the chef when the waitress came back with the bill. Harry couldn't be sure, but he was sure his grandfather also left quite a generous tip, assuming the coins in the small bag he handed over were mostly galleons and not sickles. All in all, despite the few bumps, Harry could honestly say that this had been by far his best birthday ever.

---ϟϟϟ---

The next two weeks were routine. Harry, Hermione, and Ron spent their days learning and goofing off in Potter Manor. Sirius taught them Charms and Transfiguration, Charlus taught them Potions and etiquette, and even Professor Lupin got in and gave them all a few lessons in Defence Against the Dark Arts. Both Harry and Ron were presently surprised to find that they did a lot better at Potions when they had a teacher who actually explained why something was done the way it was.

Charlus also made sure to teach them three charms every potioneer should be using regularly. The first spell was a charm to clean and reshape your knives between chopping up ingredients. It would prevent cross contamination of ingredients and it made slicing a lot of the ingredients easier. The second spell was the Bubble-head Charm, to prevent them from breathing in the fumes from anything they were brewing. It was simple, and Harry could think of a few times this spell would have saved Neville a trip to the hospital wing - he was going to have to teach the boy these spells as soon as they got back to school. The third was a modified Protego that only let the caster add anything to the cauldron it was cast over if they were deliberately trying to add it to the Cauldron. It was meant to prevent you accidentally dropping an ingredient into your cauldron at the wrong time, but the three teens realised it would be perfect for preventing Slytherins from throwing random ingredients into their cauldrons from across the dungeon.

After those two weeks, the excited teens were getting ready to leave for the Quidditch World Cup final. Their trip was early in the morning, so Hermione got to try out her room at the manor for the first time. Harry did try to use his invisibility cloak to sneak into Hermione’s room like they had arranged that evening, but he was still caught by his grandfather, who sternly told him to go back to bed with a reminder that the cloak was a family heirloom and that he was a lot better acquainted with its use than Harry was.

Chapter 8

Chapter Text

Chapter 8

Harry was woken up suddenly by a big black dog excitedly jumping all over his bed. Sirius had apparently decided that it would be a fun prank to wake his godson by giving him a fright, but this meant that Harry refused to take the blame for what happened next. Groggy from sleep and suddenly waking to find a giant mass of fur and teeth looming over him, he reacted violently and kicked out as hard as he could. It turned out that was pretty hard, as he sent the dog flying from his bed and bouncing across the massive room Harry now had as a bedroom.

Upon landing, Sirius instantly turned back into his human form and winced. Harry, seeing that it was actually Sirius, immediately switched from fear-induced violence to concern for his godfather. He fought with his covers for a few seconds, having gotten a little tangled when he kicked Sirius, before he freed himself and went to check on his godfather, helping Sirius pick himself up off the floor. Sirius winced as he stood and clutched at the side of his chest. Harry was worried, but his godfather waved it off, saying, "I'll be fine in a second," only to wince again as he tried to stand up straight.

Harry made his godfather sit on the edge of his bed and was about to go looking for his grandfather when Sirius told him to wait. He proceeded to pull out his new wand from Olivander's and cast a diagnostic charm on himself. Harry had seen Madam Pomfrey use that charm a number of times, and he knew exactly what the white light coming from Sirius' chest meant: a broken rib.

Sirius healed himself pretty quickly with the practiced ease of someone who had done the spell a hundred times. Harry was sure Sirius was about to flip out on him and braced for it, ready to tell Sirius that it was his own fault for jumping all over him while looking like a monster, but as soon as his rib was healed Sirius just laughed it off, saying "When you pull a prank you need to be prepared for the consequences. Normally it's so you can see and have a good laugh as the prank goes off, but if a prank goes wrong and someone gets hurt then that's on you as well. So it's my fault, not yours."

Harry was relieved Sirius wasn't mad, and now that everything had calmed down he asked how Sirius knew how to fix a broken bone. His godfather told him all about the Auror training he got after Hogwarts and how basic field medical spells were taught to them all. The main idea was to keep the Auror going until they could get a qualified healer later, but most got good enough with healing cuts and broken bones that it was rare they needed to see a healer for that. Harry asked if he would teach him those spells and Sirius agreed to consider it. With what the trio had told him and Charlus about their time at Hogwarts, he couldn't say the spells wouldn't be useful.

Harry went to get breakfast started as Sirius went to wake Hermione and found his grandfather already in the kitchen drinking tea. The two exchanged good mornings and Harry set some bacon to frying while he sliced up some tomatoes and lettuce to make BLTs. Cooking at the manor was so much more rewarding than cooking at the Dursleys. For one, Harry was only expected to cook one meal a day here while Sirius or grandfather Charlus did the rest, and secondly Harry was expected to eat the food he cooked. And of course, the people who ate the food always appreciated the food, even if they occasionally forgot to say thank you. Sirius walked in just as the first load of bacon was ready, so Harry used it to make sandwiches for Sirius and his grandfather before adding more to the pan. Hermione soon followed and smiled at Harry and gave him a kiss on the cheek when he gave her a plate with her breakfast on it.

---ϟϟϟ---

They travelled by portkey to the World Cup. The Weasleys had plans to go the morning of the game and come back the next day, which would interrupt Arthur and Percy's work schedule the least, but it would have meant getting up at four in the morning. Charlus had decided to go a day earlier so their portkey was at ten am instead and had spent some gold to have a private portkey. As long as it was outside the manor wards by the right time, then they wouldn't have to travel the ten miles to the nearest portkey point that had been set up. Charlus and Sirius had agreed to take any of the Weasleys with them that wanted to go with them a day early. Ginny, Ron, and the twins had all decided to go the day before, rather than get up so incredibly early, and all the other Weasleys could Apparate over at any time and so didn't need the port key.

The underage Weasleys all Floo’ed to the manor about an hour before they were due to leave. Harry gave the three that hadn't been here before a quick tour while Ron baited Hermione into a game of chess. The twins were as over the top as normal, bowing to Harry and calling him “m'lord” for living in such a swanky posh manor now, and Harry couldn't keep from laughing. Ginny was just as shy and withdrawn from Harry as she ever was; apparently she still hadn't gotten over her crush. Harry felt for the girl, but even if he wasn't with Hermione, Ginny just looked too much like Harry's mother and he wasn't into that.

The next day, Harry discovered that Portkey travel wasn't for him. He had thought Floo and side-along Apparition were bad, but portkeys were just on a completely different level of hell. It was like a combination of being sucked up by a vacuum cleaner while being tumbled in a tumble dryer. How any of them were able to keep their feet when they landed Harry couldn't understand. They were greeted by a couple of Ministry workers who were up to the Ministry's usual standard for blending in with muggles. That is to say, they may as well have been carrying signs that say 'I'm a wizard'. The Potters and Weasleys were given directions to their camp site and sent on their way.

It was a ten minute walk to the campsite from the portkey point, but as it was a walk through the British countryside on a nice summer day, no one except Sirius, who was carrying the bag with the tent, felt any need to complain. Hermione hung back a little from the group with Ginny, the two witches cackling at whatever “girls only” thing they were talking about. Sirius and Charlus were talking about a match they had both seen when Sirius was still a teenager, and that left Harry talking with Ron and the twins.

"Toffee, Harry?" One of the twins (George, Harry thought, but he wasn’t sure) offered Harry from a paper bag he pulled out of his pocket.

Harry didn't need Ron's warning of "I wouldn't, mate," to guess that the toffees were pranked; these were the twins after all. However, he had a better idea. As he reached out to take a toffee, he turned his head towards Ron so he was facing away from the twins and said, "Why? So there's more left for them to offer you?" Harry couldn't help that sounding harsh, but he thought up this little plan in seconds and didn't have time to come up with a better line. He did wink at Ron though to tell him he was turning the prank on the twins.

Hardy took one of the bristly-wrapped confections and unwrapped it. The twins had an excellent poker face and each of the twins also pulled out a toffee to keep up the ruse. Harry unwrapped his, and he had to give it to the twins. Whatever this was, it looked and smelled like real toffee. Harry mimed popping the sweet into his mouth, but instead palmed it and proceeded to pretend to chew. "This is excellent, thanks George." Harry's words had the twins stare slack jawed at him, and that was when Harry saw his opportunity and took it, popping the sweet into George's open mouth and watching to see what would happen.

The magic in the toffee activated almost immediately, and the toffee moved itself to the boy's teeth and then glued them shut, then splitting into segments and glueing different parts of the teeth, letting the victim breathe through the gaps if they have a cold. Harry was a little impressed. "Nice try, but you'll have to do better than that to prank the heir of the Marauders,” he said. The four of them burst out laughing, the fourth being Sirius who was watching them, as George couldn't laugh with his teeth glued together. Fred, however, caught the line about the heir to the Marauders and as soon as he finished laughing at his twin's misfortune he begged to know what Harry was talking about.

"Oh, didn't I tell you I found out yesterday my dad was one of the Marauders? I even know who all the others were." Harry bragged, playing it up a bit. If he knew the twins, this would lead to a better prank than the toffee did, and he was sure Sirius would find it hilarious and would play along. He wasn't disappointed; Fred practically begged Harry to tell him who the Marauders were, and the only reason George wasn't joining his brother was that he was too busy licking the toffee off his teeth.

Ron, who couldn't see what Harry was doing, was laughing his ass off, but for this to work Harry needed Hermione and Ron to be in on it. He ran to get his girlfriend, telling Ginny he would return her in a few minutes, and in a quick huddle he told his friends his full plan. Hermione wasn't 100% on board with pranks, but agreed that Harry's didn't cause any harm and that she would go along with it. After all, the twins deserved it.

Harry then turned and addressed the twins. "Okay, here's the deal: Hermione, Ron, and myself all know the identity of all of the Marauders. All you have to do is convince one of us to tell you and we will."

Fred looked like he was about to start begging the three of them, but Ron held up a hand to stall him and said, "However, if you do it by annoying us or pranking us till one of us gives in then all you will get is a name."

"If, however, you earn the name from one of us, then it will also come with an introduction to at least one, possibly two, of the Marauders," Hermione finished for them. The trio laughed at the look of awe on the twins' faces and Hermione went back to her conversation with Ginny. Harry glanced over at Sirius and saw that the man was beaming with pride at Harry. He went back to talking to Ron about who he thought would win the match tomorrow.

They quickly got to the campsite and Grandfather Charlus gave Harry the money to pay, saying he got confused by muggle money ever since they got rid of the shillings. That made some sense to Harry; he himself may have been alive when Britain completed going decimal with its currency, but as it was eight months before he went to live with the Dursleys he never learned the old money system. However, his grandfather would only have used the newer money a handful of times in the ten years between the money starting to change and him getting caught in the time storm. Harry paid the campground owner and he was given a map and directions to their plot.

Putting up the tent was a chore. Charlus was the only one of them apart from Hermione who had any clue what needed doing, Sirius had always just used magic and Harry and the Weasleys had never been camping before. Still, with Hermione and Charlus telling them what to do, they had the tent up in just over half an hour. The tent was a large older style A-frame tent made of green canvas rather than the more modern dome tents with the ultra thin nylon walls. Even without the expanded space inside, it looked like it could comfortably hold eight adults, so the two adults and six teens looked like they would be completely comfortable. Of course, being a magical tent there was basically a large house inside. There were six bedrooms, so everyone would be sharing with at least one person once the elder Weasleys arrived. Ginny and Hermione would share, as would the twins, Harry was bunking with Ron while Grandfather Charlus' roommate was Sirius. This left two bedrooms for Percy, Charlie, Bill, and Mr. Weasley when they came tomorrow.

Once the tent was up, the teens decided to explore the campground. It was almost luckily the tent was green as they were right on the edge of a large collection of Irish families. A lot of them had draped their tents in green shamrocks. They did bump into Seamus Finnigan, who was excited to see so many of his fellow Gryffindors and introduced them to his 'mammy'* Mrs. Finnigan was a feared woman who, after taking in that they were British, was insistent that they would be "supporting Ireland of course." Which they could honestly say they were, most of of Ireland may not be part of the UK anymore but they were still British* and the UK's closest neighbour.

As it probably wasn't covered in the Irish news, Harry told Seamus about Sirius Black being his godfather and how Sirius had found Harry's grandfather alive and caught in a time storm. Seamus hadn't understood what a time storm was until Harry explained it, but his mother had and she was astonished that Charlus had escaped it unharmed. Apparently it's rare for a whole body to be caught in such a way, and the longer you are half in and half out the worse the long term effects are.

They ran into a few more people they knew, including Lavender and the Patil twins, who were quick to congratulate Harry on finding that Charlus was alive. Lavender was also interested in any gossip she could get out of Hermione on her relationship with Harry. They then ran into Oliver Wood, who was headed to see Katie and Angelina (apparently Alicia's parents hadn't been able to get tickets). With most of the Gryffindor team there, their former captain told them that he had been signed by Puddlemere United as a reserve keeper, an amazing position for a player just out of Hogwarts. He asked them who had gotten the captain's badge, but when they all confirmed that they hadn't received it they worked out that Alicia must have been given it.

The group of schoolchildren continued exploring and soon got to see wizards from all around the world. Some looked so much like British wizarding folk that it was only the languages or accents that hinted at them being from further away. Others though were more obvious, there was no way that wizarding culture in Britain wouldn't erode the tendency some of the people had to wear extremely bright colours. It would take a strong personality to stand out that much in British wizarding culture. Maybe that's why Dumbledore did it, Harry thought to himself. Maybe it was a display that said he was going to do things his way. Or maybe Dumbledore was just colour blind. Either could be true.

Hermione was really interested in the international witches and wizards, especially when she saw some African teenage wizards doing their magic without a wand, a feat that was considered only possible for the extremely powerful by the regular European school of thought. There were a lot of Japanese magicals here to watch as well, as Quidditch was pretty popular over there and their team had only been knocked out by Ireland in the last round. A lot of them probably bought tickets early, hoping their country would make the final, but instead they played off against Norway for third place yesterday, winning by 30 points. It probably explained why the Japanese were smiling so much; they hadn't had a team make it past the first round for the last thirty years, so to get third place was a massive improvement.

Soon after that they found themselves in a sea of red and black, and all the tents seemed to have a picture of one guy staring intensely out of the photo: Viktor Krum, the Bulgarian seeker. Harry realised that they had put the general visitors between the Irish and the Bulgarians to create a buffer, probably in an attempt to keep both sets of fans as civil as possible. They decided at that point to loop back around to their tent. There was apparently some entertainment later in the evening but until then there wasn't much to do. Luckily the tent came fully stocked with chess boards, cards, and board games. Harry's mother had even added a few mundane board games when she and James had borrowed the tent, so there was also a copy of Monopoly.

---ϟϟϟ---

The entertainment turned out to be hundreds of stalls and carts popping into the campsite. Some were just businesses selling trinkets and foods from around the world, but a lot of the stalls had the Krum poster that the Bulgarians all had hanging on their tents and were also selling the green shamrocks that the Irish were decorating their tents with. There were also figurines of the players, hats, scarfs, jerseys, basically if you could slap a team logo on it they were selling it. Harry even caught Hermione looking interested in a set of Irish-themed witches underwear set, though she blushed and refused to look at Harry for ten minutes when she noticed that he had caught what she was looking at.

The twins were doing everything they could think of to make the rest of them laugh and have a good time, though it was obvious why. Sirius had even pulled Harry aside and congratulated him on the prank, but insisted he had to be there when the twins were told he was Padfoot, just so he could see the look on their faces. Hermione found a Japanese food stall that was selling sushi bento boxes and she got one each for herself and Harry. She offered Ron the same, but he refused to even consider the sushi when he saw that it included raw fish, opting instead for a yakitori bento. Harry was surprised to find he enjoyed the sushi, but he did find the texture of the raw fish weird.

Some of the stalls were also games, and one attracted Harry's attention. From America, it was called the jinxed broom, and it obviously took its inspiration from American mechanical bulls. The idea was for every minute you could stay mounted on the broom without touching the floor you earn a point, and then you could cash in your points for a prize. It was a galleon per try, and you could accumulate points over multiple tries If you wanted to spend all your money. Harry remembered his first ever Quidditch game and he was sure he could handle it.

After checking with Sirius and Charlus to see if it was okay, Harry joined the line of other teenage boys all eager to try their luck on the game. A few of them did rather well, but only one lasted more than three minutes. On his turn Harry paid the guy running the stall his galleon and mounted the broom. The broom instantly started to fly around the roughly fifteen foot by fifteen foot by fifteen foot area that was covered in charms to prevent injury. The broom bucked, spun around making Harry corkscrew, and made almost impossible turns, yet Harry kept his grip. Harry could hear Hermione and the Weasleys on the side line clearing him on

"Go on Harry."

"You got this."

"Just like your first Quidditch match."

One thing Harry hadn't counted on was that he had no idea how long he had been on the broom. While watching from the sidelines there was a large clock everyone could see, and the guy running the game would announce after every thirty seconds. On the broom however, he wasn't able to look in one direction long enough to see the clock, and the announcer was all too easy to lose track of. So all Harry could do was hold on for the ride for as long as he could. Eventually, he finally lost his grip during a particularly wild maneuver that involved the broom shooting up then doing two successive one-eighties right after one another, and before Harry could adjust his grip he was thrown down onto the cushioning charms below him.

"Absolutely incredible folks, this young man just lasted for six minutes and 47 seconds. It's proof of what I have been saying, folks, this is a game of skill that is completely doable." The guy running the game announced as he walked over to Harry and gave him a hand to get back to his feet. "Might I have your name, young sir?" The man asked, his American accent quite thick. Harry gave the man his first name only to find that the man had hit him with a silent voice-amplifying charm.

Harry could hear a few whispers of "It's Harry Potter!” from the crowd but thankfully a lot of the people watching were foreign and had not heard of his name, or if they had it was not important enough for them to remember. "Well Harry, you have managed to build up six points in only a single round which means you get to choose any prize you like. What do you want?" The showman asked him.

Harry thought for a second, then called Hermione over and had her pick the prize for herself. Hermione gave Harry a kiss before choosing a large fluffy stuffed dragon in red and gold. The guy had obviously done a little research on magical Britain, because all four of the Hogwarts house colour schemes were available. The dragon came with a little clip that the owner carried, and the dragon would hover along about half a foot off the floor lazily and uselessly flapping its wings as it followed the clip. It also boasted an illusionary fire breath and warming cuddle function, and it was the same size as a small Labrador. Hermione called it Sparky, and when she hugged it she commented that it was like it had just come out of the dryer.

Unfortunately, the guy running the stall was nice about it, but basically banned Harry from trying again. He explained that the cost of the prize Harry earned was more than what Harry paid to enter. Most people needed to try three or four times to win six points, and this was after all his business. Harry was disappointed but understood where the man was coming from.

They explored the other stalls and played a few more games, but no more wins as spectacular as Harry's bucking broom ride. Towards the end of the evening, once it got dark, there was a wizarding fireworks display. Harry wasn't sure what they did to keep the muggles from seeing it but they must have done something, because there was no way watching a lion made up of red firework sparkles and a leprechaun made of green firework sparkles do battle for ten minutes wouldn't have had every muggle for miles coming to see what was going on. The two combatants remained in a deadlock the whole time with neither side winning. The point was to get everyone excited for the match the following evening, not to stir up trouble from one side of the other. After that was over, they all went back to the tent for some hot chocolate before going to bed.

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The next day started rather lazy. There was no entertainment in the day and everyone knew they would be up late watching the game, so they decided to sleep in till around lunchtime. Only then did they have to get up, because everyone was getting hungry and the rest of the Weasleys were due to join them soon. Charlus and Sirius took over the kitchen, and after three quarters of an hour everyone was happily eating.

About half way through their lunch there was a call from outside the tent and Ginny ran out to find her dad and three oldest brothers. While everyone else was greeting the four, the twins slipped back into the bedrooms and made Harry, Ron and Hermione's beds, leaving a card on each pillow so that they would know who was responsible, an obvious attempt to butter them up to get the identity of the Marauders from them.

They spent the afternoon mostly just anticipating the start of the match, as there was little to do otherwise. Harry and Hermione showed Mr. Weasley how to play Monopoly, but despite being eager to learn the wizard just wasn't very good at it. He often got the different bits of money confused, which was a feat in itself because the notes all had their number printed on them in large font right in the middle. Harry and Hermione did end up sneaking off for a walk in the woods alone, they told everyone it was a walking date but in truth it was little more than a snogging session once they were sure enough they were far enough away not to be disturbed.

Finally it started to get dark and a bunch of torches lit up, showing everyone the way to the stadium. The sides of the path filled with vendors selling to the people as they walked past as they made their way to the stadium Harry saw a stand selling omnioculars and got a set each for Hermione, Ron and himself. They were ten galleons each, but as they would also automatically record the whole game and let you watch it back again and again, Harry thought they were a good price.

The crowds thinned as they climbed higher and higher in the stands until they reached the top box. Cornelius Fudge, the British Minister of Magic, was already there along with two people who appeared to be the Irish and Bulgarian ministers. Other seats in the box were already filled with people that looked influential. Harry recognised a few members of the Wizengamot from Sirius's trial, including unfortunately the Malfoys. There were also witches and wizards he had no clue about but assumed they were either the owners of big companies who had sponsored the cup that Harry didn't know, or were important people from Ireland and Bulgaria.

Once Fudge saw Harry he pulled him into a conversation he was having with the two foreign ministers. "Ah, and here we have Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, who defeated He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named." The Irish minister's eyes went wide and she shook Harry's hand. The Dark Lord had led more than a few raids into Ireland, refusing to see it as a separate country. The Bulgarian minister, it appeared, did not speak English and he only realised who Harry was after Fudge kept pointing at Harry's forehead, but once he understood who Harry was he also eagerly shook Harry's hand.

Harry was rescued a few minutes later by his grandfather. "Minister, I need to get Harry seated, so I'll be taking him now,” and started to turn Harry away from the group. However, as he did, he leaned in and whispered something to Fudge, and Harry almost wished he hadn't heard it. "If you pull my heir into another publicity stunt like that without both his and my permission, I will drag you before the Wizengamot where I will gut you. Clear?" The colour drawing from Fudge's face was all the answer Grandfather Charlus seemed to need, and neither the Irish nor Bulgarian minister showed any sign of having heard what was whispered.

Harry was shown to his seat and he sank down into it next to Hermione, ready to watch the match. The leprechauns’ display was interesting, but Harry only picked up one coin to look at it when they were told by Sirius that the gold was fake and would vanish in a few hours. Harry honestly couldn't tell the difference between the leprechaun gold and a real galleon he pulled from his pocket. The veela annoyed Harry, for some reason they barely affected him at all and he and Hermione had to tackle Sirius to keep him from jumping from the top box to go meet them. Years in Azkaban had destroyed all of Sirius's mental shields. Grandfather Charlus just looked sad as he sat in his chair, staring off at nothing while he idly stroked the wedding ring he still wore.

Soon, though, all that was forgotten as Ludo Bagman, the Head of the Department for Magical Sports and former beater for the Wimbourne Wasps, stood up, and after a quick voice amplifying charm opened the match. "Witches and wizards, we are here for the final of the 1994 Quidditch World Cup!" A cheer rose up from the crowd. It was time for Quidditch.

Chapter 9

Chapter Text

Chapter 9

The match was amazing. Ron and the twins had predicted an Irish win but Viktor Krum catching the snitch despite how unlikely that was, because a seeker will almost never catch the snitch if their team is more than 150 points behind. This match had the perfect conditions for it to happen. The Irish side had dominated the Bulgarians, and after a game that was a little over two hours it was clear to see that the Bulgarians weren't going to score enough to get them back in the running. The longer the match went on the more embarrassing the score difference would have gotten, so Krum caught the snitch when he had the chance. That let the Bulgarian team walk away with their heads held high

As they were in the top box, they got to meet all of the players for a few minutes after the match and Ron got all of them to sign his programme. Harry was happy enough with shaking the hands of the players, as he could see just how tired they were after the game, and despite that they were forcing themselves to play nice with the VIPs. Then it was back to the tent for the after-match party; they were too keyed up from the match for anything else. While Ron was giving his blow by blow of the match to no one in particular (as they had all seen the match for themselves), Harry and Hermione snuck off to Hermione’s room to snog. Or at least they thought they were sneaking off, but Sirius's quiet warning that the door was to "stay open" told them that at least one person had seen them leaving.

Soon, however, fun gave way to fatigue and Harry was kicked out of Hermione’s room by a sleepy Ginny. When Harry got to the room he was sharing with Ron, the redhead jokingly gave him a hard time about all the lipstick on Harry's face, and it was only after Harry had checked himself in the mirror that he remembered that Hermione didn't wear lipstick. She did use a wet look lip balm sometimes when she wanted to play up her feminine side, but it wouldn't leave lipstick marks. Harry looked over at Ron and found him snigg*ring at Harry for falling for the trick. Harry threw his dirty sock in his mate’s face who kept laughing as the went to bed

Harry didn't feel like he had been asleep for five minutes when he was shaken awake by Sirius. "Get up and get dressed quickly." Then he was gone presumably to wake some of the others, leaving a confused Harry and Ron behind. They both quickly got dressed, pulling on the clothes they had just taken off rather than digging out fresh ones. They came out of the room about the same time as the twins and asked them if they knew what was going on, which they didn’t. Hermione and Ginny followed, and they were just as clueless as the rest of them.

They all went in search of the adults and found them clustered around the door that led outside the tent. "What's going on?" Harry asked when they got there.

Grandfather Charlus looked over at Harry for a second before turning back to look out of the doorway. "There are explosions on the other side of the campsite. We don't know what it is yet, but they are coming this way. I want you all to be ready to run just in case."

"Do you think it's the Bulgarians being sore losers?" asked Ron as Sirius gave the teens a look over and then transfigured Ginny's nightgown, dressing gown, and fuzzy slippers into robes and a pair of boots.

"I hope that's all it is, Ronald." Charlus said, sounding worried.

"What else could it be?" asked Ginny as she examined the new outfit Sirius had given her. It was cut more like duelling robes that let her move easier, and they were a dark forest green that not only looked good with her ginger hair but also would be harder to see in the dark than the pale pink she had been wearing.

No one answered Ginny, instead all straining to listen to what was going on outside. They could hear the explosions getting louder, but it was the screams of terror that they could now hear that set them on edge the most. Then they heard the sentence that chilled them all to the bone. "It's Death Eaters! The Death Eaters are attacking!"

Instantly Charlus took charge. "Sirius, Arthur, William, the three of you come with me, we will help hold them back until the Aurors arrive. Charles and Percy, the two of you are in charge of the rest of you. Take them through the woods and as soon as you can start side-alonging them to somewhere safe." Percy tried to say that as a Ministry worker he should join everyone fighting the Death Eaters, but Mr. Weasley put his foot down and told his son that he had been given his job to protect the kids.

Less than a minute later, Harry was with Hermione and the Weasley children (minus Bill) as they ran towards the woods, while Sirius and Grandfather Charlus went towards the danger. It felt wrong to Harry. He was the one who was supposed to run towards the danger. Yet his family was running towards it while he ran away. What if they got hurt? What if Harry lost them both and he had to go back to the Dursleys? He turned about to go back to help, to keep his family alive, and plunged his hand into his pocket to draw his wand, only it wasn't there. It must have fallen out of his pocket when he got changed for bed. It was probably sitting in his room back at the tent.

Harry suddenly felt his anxiety rocket up a few notches. He was out in the woods at night while there was an attack by the people who followed the man who had killed Harry's parents, and he didn't have his wand. It was like being completely naked while locked in a room full of bees. He considered going back for his wand, but that would mean that Hermione and Ron at least would follow him and he would be leading them to danger. It was one thing to risk himself for his wand, but risking those two to a crowd of terrorists wasn't worth it. Especially Hermione, as a muggleborn she would be as much of a target as he was.

After they were deep enough in the woods, they stopped so that the girls, Ron, and Percy could catch their breath. The rest of them were physically active in their lives; whether it be Quidditch training or dragon wrangling, both built up stamina more than reading books or office reports or playing chess. They looked back the way they had come from, but the trees kept them from seeing anything directly, too thick to get more than the odd glimpse of the campsite from this deep during the day. In the middle of the night, it was impossible. However, they could see flashes of spell fire coming from the campsite, the pillar of white smoke that was rising from the campsite provided an excellent screen to reflect the light of the cast spells.

"Are we safe here?" Ginny asked nervously as she gripped her wand, peering into the darkness looking for threats.

Charlie, who was doing the same as his sister only showing a lot less nerves, answered. "I think so, for the moment anyway. Everyone catch your breath, we will set off again in a moment." Hermione groaned a little at that. As much as she would push herself for something she felt passionate about, like stopping Quirrell or rescuing Ron and Sirius, Harry knew her muscles must be aching.

After a minute they started off again, this time at a fast hiking pace rather than the run they had been doing before. A few of them lit their wands to provide light so that they could avoid tree roots. Harry thought they were making good time until there was a flash of light directly ahead of them. Maybe the Death Eaters had planted people in the woods, and the ones at the campsite were just there to send people scurrying into the woods, or maybe they had gotten turned around in the trees. Hopefully it was just some random person and the flash was from a regular spell rather than a curse.

Whatever it was, everyone in the group froze. The wand lights went out as the casters ended them, not wanting whoever it was to know there was anyone there, at least until they knew if it was someone friendly. Charlie told them all to spread out and get a tree between them and where the flash of light had come from. Harry felt a stone under his foot as he crouched behind a wide tree with Hermione, and he bent down and picked it up. He felt the weight and it was acceptable; a rock may not be a wand but it was better than nothing.

After a few moments a figure came walking towards them. They were wearing black robes and their face was obscured by a white mask that completely obscured who it was. "I saw the light, you may as well come on out." They said, and even their voice was altered so that it was impossible to make out who was hidden under the mask. Charlie seemed to consider those words for maybe a quarter of a second and replied with a well thought out counterpoint that eloquently said all that needed saying. He shot a stunner at the Death Eater, but it seemed they had expected something like that and a shimmering quarter dome of Magic sprung up between them as Charlie's spell bounced off and into the trees.

At first it looked like the fight should be an easy win for them, as it was one person against seven people with wands and Harry with his stone. However, Charlie was the only one who was regularly using duelling combat magic, and he was used to hitting dragons the size of a bus. Percy was trying, but his stunning spells were too feeble to penetrate the Death Eater’s shield charm. The twins and Ron only seemed to know prank jinxes, and they were equally ineffective against the shield. Hermione was frozen trying to work out the best spell to cast, and Ginny was trying to hit the man with her bat bogey spell, but the Death Eater dodged both Charlie's spells and Ginny's as well.

The Death Eater, on the other hand, seemed to be some type of combat veteran or a duelling champion. The only thing that had kept any of them from being hit was that they were half-hidden behind the trees. Harry tried throwing his rock, but it was about as effective as one of the twins jinxed as it also bounced off the quarter dome sheltering the terrorist. Harry knew there had to be something he could do, he wasn't going to just sit there and wait for some follower of the man who had murdered his parents fight through his friends and then kill him. A small voice inside him told him he should run for it, but he crushed that thought as it arose; he wasn't going to leave Hermione or Ron here like this. If only he had a wand.

Harry looked over at Hermione who was still barely casting as she tried to think of the perfect spell. Harry looked around the tree and had an idea. He snatched Hermione’s wand from her hand without asking, leaned around the tree, and cast. Not a curse, nor a hex or jinx, but a simple cutting charm. The cutting charm wasn't often used in fights, as for one it was easily blocked by a shield, it was slow, and the cutting hex was way more effective. It did, however, have one advantage right now. Like most charms, the cutting charm was an invisible spell, and it was also on the second year Hogwarts curriculum so Harry could cast it without a problem, even with a wand that wasn't his.

Harry didn't aim for the Death Eater, as that would be pointless. He instead aimed for the tree branches directly over their head. The spell cut through the branches like butter, and a log about half a foot thick came hurtling down towards the robed figure. Unfortunately, the falling log wasn't as silent as Harry had wished, and they jumped back. However, as they were avoiding the log that would have turned their head into something that resembled strawberry jam, they failed to avoid the bat bogey hex that was coming their way from Ginny.

Suddenly the boogers in the person’s nose were transfigured into live bats that really didn't want to be in their nose any more. The results were not unlike the slug vomiting jinx that Ron had hit himself with in their second year, only a lot less nauseating and far more painful. The bats pushed off the Death Eater’s mask, and Harry had no idea who the revealed man was. He looked to be around the same age as Sirius and Remus, but that's all Harry could tell. The Death Eater responded by shooting an exploding curse at the tree Charlie was hiding behind. The tree exploded and would have easily killed the dragon-obsessed Weasley if he hadn't thrown up his own shield. Even with the shield, though, Charlie was sent flying backwards away from where the tree had been.

Percy, who was closest to Charlie, wasn't so lucky. A chunk of wood came flying at him from his left and embedded itself in his side just below his ribs. Percy screamed, understandably as the injury was probably more painful than anything the man had felt in his life. The Weasleys, Harry, and Hermione all stared at Percy in shock. In those few seconds, the man in Death Eater robes pointed his wand in the air and muttered a spell that Harry couldn't hear. A green mist flowed from his wand and up into the sky where it formed a giant skull about two meters wide (6ft 8inch). The mouth opened wide, and just like the basilisk in the chamber of secrets, a giant snake came slithering out.

Harry spared little thought for the illusion in the sky and instead focused on the man who had just hurt someone Harry had been friendly with for almost three years now. There was nothing he could do about the shield the man still had up (something he was going to have to fix once he got back to school), so Harry used the pile of wood at the man's feet. He cast two more quick cutting charms, forcing the Death Eater to move forward closer to the pile of wood, and then hit the wood with an incendiary charm.

Normally, fresh-cut wood doesn't burn that well, but maybe it was an inherent part of the fire making charm that it didn't care about that, or maybe it was that magic worked at least somewhat on intent and desire, and Harry had no clue that fresh-cut wood was normally too wet to burn. Either way, the wood caught fire and the Death Eater, suddenly surrounded by fire, proved that he was no courageous Gryffindor and turned on the spot, disappearing.

As soon as the man disappeared, Harry felt a relief in his magic as though a slight pressure had been removed. The Weasleys all rushed to their down brother, but before they even got to him the air was suddenly filled with cracking sounds as the woods around them started to fill with red robed aurors and people dressed in random assortment of outfits, from a muggle suit to just boxers and a dressing gown. The new arrivals all started shooting off red stunning spells. Harry grabbed Hermione and pulled the two of them to the floor, covering her from the spells by shielding her with his own body. It was clear after a few seconds that the people Apparating in were firing blind, as most hit nothing but trees. Ron and one of the twins were hit and went down, but that was all. A few seconds later a shout went through the group of aurors. "Cease fire! It's a bunch of kids! I said cease fire!"

The spells stopped, and quickly the aurors rushed in and started asking questions. The saw Percy with the chuck of wood sticking out of his side and quickly slapped magic suppression cuffs on him and Apparated him to St. Mungo's. The not-stunned twin and Ginny both protested the cuffs, but a hard-faced auror told them that it was standard procedure until it was determined who were the aggressors and who were the victims, and that questions could be asked once everyone was unable to keep firing spells at people. They treated everyone as suspicious, taking their wands until they got to Harry. Apparently, accusing the Boy-Who-Lived of dressing up as a Death Eater and attacking people was not something they were prepared to do, probably something about how the Prophet would crucify the Ministry if that story ever got leaked.

After that, they were more prepared to listen to what everyone had to say. They determined that the man they encountered was an anchor for the anti apparition and anti portkey wards that were being held up, which was why he was able to Apparate away and why the aurors could suddenly Apparate to the location of the dark mark. Eventually, the concern of the aurors was shifted from asking immediate questions to finding responsible adults. Ron and apparently Fred were woken up and everyone was given back their wands. Hermione shot Harry a glare when her wand was returned to her, and Harry knew he would have to explain himself to his girlfriend soon. They were side alonged back to the campsite by the aurors. The Death Eaters had apparently all escaped using illegal emergency portkeys as soon as the ward had come down. The children were taken to an administration tent with other minors while the adults responsible for them were located.

Eventually the eldest Weasleys, Sirius, and Grandfather Charlus came into the tent, escorting a bunch of lost pre-Hogwarts age kids that looked like they had gotten separated from their parents in the crowd of panicking people. Ginny ran up to her father and told him what had happened to them. Mr. Weasley looked understandably panicked when he was told Percy had been taken to St Mungo's because of a piece of a tree sticking out of him. He hung around just long enough to sign a form to give Bill the right to sit with his siblings while they answered the DMLE'S questions, and after a reassurance from Grandfather Charlus that he would make sure that the rest of them got home safely, Mr Weasley Disapparated right there in the tent, presumably going either straight to St. Mungo's or to the Burrow to get his wife before continuing on to the hospital.

With them now having a responsible adult (Charlie needed to be questioned himself so wasn't considered suitable), the officers started to take their witness statements as soon as there was a room free for them to do so. They were each taken into a side room by an auror one at a time. Harry didn't know if it was by design or coincidence but they talked to them from youngest to oldest. When it came to Harry, they were very interested in the fact that Harry saw the face of the person under the mask. That Harry didn't recognise the man at all didn't seem to bother them. He expected them to make an appointment for him to sit with a sketch artist or something, but the D.M.L.E had a much more effective way to deal with it, taking a copy of his memory. It was a weird feeling having the memory extracted from his head, then copied before the original was replaced. While the memory was outside of his head, Harry knew what had happened to him but it was like he had read it in a book rather than having experienced it, only for the full reality of the events to return to him once the memory was replaced.

While the aurors bottled the copy of Harry's memory, Grandfather Charlus explained that memories were not able to be used as evidence at a trial. The fact that most witches and wizards were somewhat familiar with memory modification charms, as they are taught in the O.W.L. to preserve the Statute of Secrecy, meant that memories were just not considered reliable. It was also why they didn't rely on truth potions, because they only made you tell the truth as you knew it, and if your memories were modified then what you believe and the truth may be entirely separate. Memories were, however, a great tool for the D.M.L.E. An auror examining a victims memories could get leads on where to look for evidence they could use, or in this case who to investigate once they had seen his face.

As Harry was waiting for Hermione and the Weasleys to finish their interviews, he spoke to others in the administration tent and found out what had started the riot. Apparently it turned out that the muggle owners of the campsite had a daughter who was a muggleborn witch. She had yet to receive her Hogwarts letter yet, so no one had known that the girl was a witch, at least not until the wrong person had seen her perform some accidental magic. The Death Eaters were accusing her and her family of stealing magic. That had quickly devolved into an attack on the family, with them being levitated forty feet in the air by the Death Eaters while they burned down tents and attacked people.

Harry was also cornered by Hermione and made to explain why he had grabbed her wand like he had. Harry explained how he had found that he didn't have his wand and it would have taken too long to explain his plan at the time. He also pointed out that Hermione was so preoccupied trying to work out the perfect spell that she was barely casting at all, so her wand was the logical one for him to grab. Also, as Hermione had shown in their first year when they found Fluffy, Hermione could use his wand well enough and Harry had gambled that it would also work the other way. Hermione wasn't happy, and Grandfather Charlus, who had been listening, gave Harry a lecture about keeping track of his wand. Hermione had forgiven him quickly enough, though.

The sun was coming up by the time they were let go to return to their tent. They were lucky it was still there and that it hadn't been added to the burnt-out and destroyed tents that littered the campsite. The first thing Harry did was check his room for his wand, which was half-under his bed next to where his pile of dirty clothes had been before he put them back on when he had woken up. His wand in hand, Harry felt a lot more comfortable and he retired to the main living space to find most of the Weasleys were arguing with Bill. They all wanted to go to St. Mungo's now and check on their brother, but Bill was refusing to let them, telling them that they needed to get some sleep and how it was too early for the healers to be able to tell them anything.

Harry wanted to go to the hospital to check on Percy as well, as it was his idea to turn the trees into weapons. If he hadn't done that, then perhaps whoever the masked madman was wouldn't have thought to make the tree explode. Maybe if Harry hadn't screwed up so badly, then Percy wouldn't have a lump of wood where his spleen should be. At the same time, though, Harry had listened to Hermione and Ron complain about waiting for hours to hear if Harry was going to be okay after another life or death situation to know that Bill was right, they would just be waiting. And they wouldn't be the only ones waiting for news of their loved ones, St. Mungo's was probably full of the injured and their families right now. The Weasleys would be just one more family out of hundreds trying to find out from busy overworked staff what was happening to someone they cared about. Bill was making the right call, but it didn't feel right.

It didn't matter though, out of the Weasleys only Bill and Charlie could Apparate and Charlie agreed with Bill that it was better to get some sleep. The others grumbled about it, but they eventually gave in and went to bed. Harry and Hermione decided that they forgo their bedrooms and cuddled up on the sofa instead with the blessing of Grandfather Charlus, who could see they just needed a little support from each other and weren’t about to take any additional steps in their relationship tonight.

---ϟϟϟ---

Bill popped to St Mungo's as soon as he woke up before even having breakfast and came back after about twenty minutes. Percy was going to be completely fine, though it was going to take a few days. Despite the fact that his injury was caused by a wizard casting a spell, the injury itself was completely mundane. Although the process of healing would be slow because they literally had to regrow his spleen and fix a lot of other damage, the healing would be fully complete and after about six months Percy wouldn't even have a scar.

With the news delivered, Charlie's brothers and sister calmed down and were a lot less frantic about getting to the hospital. Harry also felt a wave of relief wash through him; his mistake hadn't gotten Percy killed. They eventually got the portkey back to Potter Manor that they were scheduled to take, and from there everyone Floo'ed to St Mungo's hospital.

Chapter 10

Chapter Text

Chapter 10

Finally, Dumbledore thought as he arrived back at his office in Hogwarts. Between his week on a cruise ship in the Mediterranean, the summer meeting for the international Confederation of Wizards, and the running back and forth between Beauxbatons and Durmstrang he had to do for the preparations for the Triwizard Tournament, he hadn't been in the country for weeks. It was a pity that the Triwizard Tournament had been restarted, as it meant he had to miss the Quidditch World Cup final. He had lobbied for it to be held in Britain this year so that he would get the chance to see it without travelling, but alas it seemed that luck wasn't on his side this time. Brazil had won the bid for the next World Cup in three years. so maybe he would be able to go watch that one.

Now, though, he had to catch up with what had happened while he was away. He winced when he looked over at his desk and saw the pile of envelopes there waiting for him. One of the Hogwarts elves had sorted them into the order in which they arrived, so with a sigh he opened the first one. He read a bunch of drivel about a proposed bill to standardise the thickness of cauldrons. Boring, but potentially a good thing, so he moved it to his “worth an in-depth look” pile.

Next was a circular for a proposed bill to sanction muggleborn who don't completely renounce the muggle world. That one went in the “hard no” pile, a.k.a. the bin. He did, however, make a mental note to let it go far enough that he could be seen to squash it publicly. It never hurts to remind the sheep who their shepherd was. After that was a notification from Gringotts that the student fees had been transferred to the school account, followed by a note from his goblin inside Gringotts that wages for the History of Magic professor and the Care of Magical Creatures professor had been transferred to his war chest account. Binns had no use for gold and Hagrid hadn't noticed that he was doing two jobs while only being paid for one.

Next up was a notification for a trial he had missed. He was just throwing it away when he noticed the name of the defendant was 'Sirius Orion Black'. Depending on the outcome, this could either be very good or very bad. If Sirius had been able to convince the Wizengamot that he was innocent, then that was a wild card in preparing Harry to deal with Voldemort that Dumbledore really didn't need. There was also the fact that fingers could be pointed at him over the fact that Sirius went to Azkaban without a trial in the first place. He wasn't the main force behind it, but of the three that signed off on skipping the trial, he was the only one who currently still held the same office. He was going to need to discover what had happened.

It ended up worse than Dumbledore could have imagined. Sirius had found Charlus Potter alive and caught in a temporal storm, which explained why the wards of Potter Manor never faded. Dumbledore had assumed they were linked to Harry for control while remaining powered by being connected to a layline or something similar. Apparently all Dumbledore had done was to prove an old advice about making assumptions.

So Charlus was alive, Sirius had been cleared by the Wizengamot, and the two of them and Harry were now living in Potter Manor. Harry was now shielded behind a man Dumbledore had no hope of cajoling or manipulating, and he should expect to see the man as an irate parent. After all, Harry would tell Charlus everything, and when Harry laid out his life story from his point of view, Dumbledore didn't come across as looking that good. Not checking up on Harry's welfare while he was at Privet Drive, and then when Harry got to Hogwarts: a troll, a Cerberus, a trip into the Forest, a possessed teacher that tried to murder Harry during a Quidditch match, a Basilisk, school-wide bullying, and a colony of Acromantula. He was just glad that he could lay the Dementors at Fudge's feet.

The one silver lining he could find was that as he went through the court transcript it seemed that he hadn't been implicated too much. Yes, it was true that he had been mentioned as the one who suppressed Lily and James's last will and testimony. but he had long ago prepared counters for those attacks he could face. Now he just needed to rework his strategy to work out another way to make sure Harry was prepared to deal with Tom.

---ϟϟϟ---

Harry had only relaxed when he saw with his own eyes that Percy looked like he was going to fine. When he apologised, Percy accepted it straight away and then told Harry thanks for pushing the Death Eater back enough that the man needed to retreat. According to him, if Harry hadn't stepped up when he did the masked man would’ve kept playing with them until someone actually died. Percy was happy to hear that the man had been unmasked and they had all given their descriptions of him to the aurors, so there was a good chance that they would catch the person responsible for Percy's near miss with death.

Charlus had Harry, Hermione, and Sirius leave when Percy's girlfriend Penelope Clearwarter came rushing in, also so that he could recuperate in the care of his family. Besides, they had to take Hermione home anyway. By now both Sirius and Charlus had been to Hermione's home, either to collect Harry after a visit or to take Hermione home if she had to leave Potter Manor early for some reason, so it was easy enough for Charlus and Sirius to side along the two teens to a secluded spot on the Hampstead Heath near Hermione’s home.

The walk to Hermione's from there was short and quite enjoyable, as the early afternoon sun felt great on their skin. The Grangers were still at their dental surgery, but Hermione picked up the phone and gave them a call to tell them she was back, only to learn that it was a slow day and her parents would be home in a little under three quarters of an hour. Charlus decided that they would all wait there, as he wanted to talk to Dan and Emma about what had happened at the World Cup. Hermione had asked him not to at first, but he was adamant. He had promised Hermione's parents that he would keep them in the loop as much as possible and he intended to honour that, especially as it was possible that Hermione could be called as a witness if that Death Eater was ever caught.

Of course, Hermione was nervous about telling them, afraid that they would pull her out of Hogwarts. As a muggleborn, that would mean Hermione’s wand snapped, her magic bound, and her memories erased. Charlus had assured her after she confessed her fears that if Hermione wanted to keep learning magic, then he would make sure she could do just that. He would even pay for her education as if she was his own daughter, as that's what being under the protection of a House meant. After all, it was exactly what he had done for Sirius.

Hermione need not have been so worried. Her parents were shocked that the event was targeted like it was, but such things happened even in the mundane world. It was only a few years ago that the Olympics were targeted too. Dan and Emma also couldn’t find any fault in the decision that everyone made. Sending the kids to safety with a few responsible adults was the right call with the information they had at the time, and it was only bad luck that they ran into another one. As for them all fighting, they had been told by Professor McGonagall before Hermione's first year that the reason there was a class called Defence Against the Dark Arts was because every witch and wizard had the potential to turn their wand into a weapon, and the easiest way to prevent all out anarchy was to give everyone some self-defence training. Because of all this, Hermione's parents were not as blindsided and reactionary as she had feared. They weren’t happy, and wanted Hermione to avoid large gatherings for a while, but there was no talk about removing her from Hogwarts.

They took a few days off from lessons, as Hermione’s parents wanted her home for a few days and Ron's were pretty much the same. What really surprised Harry was seeing his own face on the cover of the Daily Prophet under the headline ‘Boy-Who-Lived attacked by Death Eater at World Cup!' It turned out that someone in the auror department had talked to a reporter named Rita Skeeter and had given her a copy of the interview Harry gave to an auror after the attack. Skeeter had published nearly the entire thing, including what looked to be a photo of the man taken from the copy of Harry's memory.

The article may have started by talking about how Harry was attacked, but it also gave him some much-needed information about what happened to everyone else during the riot. At first Harry was happy to learn that there were no fatalities, until he learned later that the death of a house elf belonging to the Head of the Department for International Magical Cooperation was listed under property damage. There were about ten people in a similar situation to Percy with major injuries, and there were a lot of people with minor injuries.

The article whipped a public already angry at the attack into almost a mob-like state. The crowd latched onto the photo of Harry's memory and suddenly he was the most wanted man in magical Britain. The public seemed to blame the whole raid on that one person, and it didn't take long for the D.M.L.E. to have a name: Randall Parkinson.

Charlus was told about the man as a member of the Wizengamot. Randall Parkinson was apparently the younger brother of the father of Harry's year mate Pansy Parkinson. He was too young to have been involved in the last war, only in his third year at Hogwarts when Voldemort killed Harry's parents, so the biggest thing the D.M.L.E. wanted to do when they caught him was to discover who it was that recruited him. Unfortunately, Randall Parkinson went into hiding and no one could find him.

After a few days, Charlus started up the lessons again, starting out by handing each of the three teens a present. Surprised, they found that they each had a professional duelist-grade forearm wand holster made of deep black leather and looked very practical but at the same time stylish. The underside that pressed against the arm of the wearer was made of acromantula silk, and it was enchanted to stick to the arm of the wearer without the need for uncomfortable straps.

"Harry, if your stories of what has happened to you since you rejoined the magical world are even half true, they tell me one thing. You are a magnet for trouble, and these two are just as likely to be in the thick of it as you are. You actually left your wand in the tent at the World Cup when you needed it the most. That cannot happen again. You got lucky once, so learn from your mistake and don't rely on luck next time. Keep your holster on your arm at all times and practice putting your wand back in there until it becomes an unconscious habit." The three teens thanked the man effusively.

---ϟϟϟ---

They cut their trip to Diagon Alley way too close to the start of the year for Hermione’s liking. She preferred to read all her new textbooks cover to cover a few times before leaving on the Express, but as they picked up their books this year Hermione complained to Harry that she would barely be able to read half of them only once.

Harry was more nervous about trying to transfer to Ancient Runes. His grandfather had written to Professor McGonagall to request that Harry be tested to see if he could join that class and the professor had agreed to let him try, not that there was any doubt that she would let him try to leave Divination. The Scottish professor may try to keep her opinion about the subject and her colleague to herself, but it was no secret to any of the students how she felt. The question had been whether Professor Babbling, the Ancient Runes professor, would agree to let him try, but she apparently had.

Sirius also bought all three of them brand new multi-compartment trunks for school. Mrs Weasley tried to protest the charity, but Sirius argued that he couldn't get one for Harry and Hermione and leave Ron out. Hermione loved her new trunk, especially the large library compartment, as she had a lot of books at home that she would love to take to Hogwarts with her. Ron bought himself a cage for his owl Pig at a second hand store while grumbling that Ginny had named the owl before he had gotten the chance, and now the owl refused to answer to anything but the ridiculous name she had given him.

Then it was off to Madam Malkin’s for dress robes. Harry basically got no say in what he was going to wear but deduced that formal robes meant a formal event, which meant a date. So Hermione told him she would pick the colour of his robes so that their colours would complement each other while Sirius took charge of the style and cut of the robes. Harry saw the look of fear in Ron's eyes when his mother was going through the budget racks looking for robes for him, so he told Ron that he would buy Ron's robes for him as a Christmas present.

The first of September brought with it a lot of the usual back to school rush but it was also completely different from any Harry had expressed before. Harry had never felt homesick before, at least not going to school, he had actually only felt something similar when he went home for the summer. But also it was because Harry had spent the previous evening at the Grangers.

Hermione’s parents lived in London, only a handful of miles away from King's Cross, so Dan and Emma had offered to let Harry stay the night and drop him off the next morning. The Grangers were almost the exact opposite of the Weasleys on the first of September. Everything was checked and packed away the night before, and the school trunks were loaded into the back of the car before they went to bed. If somehow everyone slept late until half past ten even, then they still would be able to get in the car and go and still be on the train on time.

Of course they were all up earlier than that, and after a large breakfast Harry and Hermione were each handed a packed lunch of a chicken pasta salad and were dropped off outside Kings Cross with an hour to spare. The teens were actually on the platform a few minutes before the Express arrived, along with only a handful of students and their families. They were some of the first on the train, and Harry had a relatively easy time loading their trunks into the overhead storage in their compartment, the charms on the luggage making it easier to lift than it should be. Harry also placed Hedwig's cage up there and covered it with a cloth that Sirius had charmed to dampen sound so as not to irritate Her Highness. With the number of books Hermione had in her trunk, without the charms on it Harry was sure the trunk would be too heavy for the overhead rack to support it. And he had seen people like Crabbe and Goyle swinging off the racks a few times without an issue.

Hermione waited for Harry to sit, then she laid down on the same bench using Harry's lap as a pillow while she pulled out her new History of Magic textbook and started reading. Hermione’s cat Crookshanks soon escaped from his carrier and settled in to sleep on Hermione’s stomach, technically turning it into a cuddle pile. Ron joined them a few minutes after the train had left the station. He and his family had once again only just made the train on time. "Does your family have a curse on it or something? How can you always be so late getting to the train?" Hermione asked as Ron stowed his own trunk and owl in the overhead rack.

"Probably either that or karma for all the crazy Fred and George bring with them. Still, we always get here on time," Ron said as he collapsed into the bench opposite. “So what are you reading, Hermione?"

"History of Magic textbook. There is an interesting chapter in here about the emigration of magicals from Britain and Europe to the new world. Apparently there is some speculation that the American witch burnings were kicked into such a frenzy by French magicals to weaponise the muggle population against pro-British Empire magicals."

Ron started to cover his ears and say loudly that he didn't want to study yet, causing both Harry and Hermione to laugh a little. Harry and Ron chatted about Ron's chance to get on the Quidditch team this year as the new keeper, with Harry thinking he had a good shot. Ron was a great keeper at the Burrow, and Harry had seen plenty of shots at the goal against both Ron and Oliver Wood, the former keeper who had just graduated. Ron wasn't as good as Wood, of course, but the difference wasn't as much as most would assume. But also Harry was sure both of them ran Quidditch drills in their dreams. Malfoy eventually came along for his regularly scheduled verbal sparring match, and Harry was honestly thinking he might have to let Draco win one soon, it was starting to feel like he was bullying a kid.

---ϟϟϟ---

To the dismay of most everyone but especially to Harry and Ron, at the feast Dumbledore announced that there would be no Quidditch this year, which was only assuaged by the subsequent announcement of the Triwizard Tournament. It actually sounded like fun to Harry until Dumbledore mentioned that the tournament was discontinued centuries ago because of the death toll and that the draw was going to take place on Halloween. Suddenly the event changed in the minds of the trio from a fun little tournament to a horrible and gruesome trap.

The first thing the three of them did once the feast ended was run up to the owlery and write a letter to Sirius and Charlus, telling them about the Triwizard Tournament and their suspicion that Harry would somehow be forced to compete. Hedwig wasn't too happy about flying all the way back home already, but Harry offered to let Hedwig rest her old body and he would just use one of the younger owls to send the incredibly urgent letter that his grandfather needed to read as soon as possible. Hedwig's vanity quickly had her taking the letter before flying out the window and heading south.

At breakfast the next morning, Professor McGonagall approached Harry as she was handing out the Gryffindor time tables. As she handed Harry the slip of paper that was going to dictate how he spent about a third of his life for the next year, she told him, "You will be sitting your placement test for Ancient Runes and Arithmancy this afternoon. Come to my classroom after the end of your last lesson, which for you today is History of Magic. Maybe you can study for your tests instead of taking a nap." She gave a rare thin smile to Harry.

"Um professor, it's only supposed to be Ancient Runes. I didn't ask to take the Arithmancy test," Harry protested.

"No you didn't, but your grandfather did. If you pass the Arithmancy test, he wants you to take that course as well. But I will remind you that it's your education and your choice. My advice: take the tests, see how you did, and if you pass only one, take that class. If you pass both, do what you want. You can do both like Miss Granger here or you can choose one. Both are good solid options for your career after school."

Harry sighed and agreed. He didn't have a hope in hell of passing the Arithmancy test anyway, he had looked at Hermione’s notes a few times, and while most of it was the type of maths he did in school in Surrey it was difficult to know when to do what. For example, breaking down the lumos spell, one of the examples Hermione showed him from the first chapter of her first Arithmancy textbook. The spell only had one component: the incantation. The spell had five letters, and five and one were both prime numbers, so for some reason Harry couldn't understand you had to subtract the one from the five leaving you with a four that wasn't real but still meant you needed three points of will from the caster to make seven. This meant that the spell had the numbers one, three, and five that somehow added up to seven, which was important because they were all prime numbers that were magically significant. Well, all except the number four that was somehow both there and not there in the equation.

Harry could follow each and every individual sum, but the when to do what was and why was confusing to him. And that was for a spell you could teach any witch or wizard in under three minutes even if you didn't speak the same language. There was a reason it was one of the first spells Flitwick ever taught. But the point was, if Harry couldn't understand the whys of the Arithmancy behind an example that was probably the very first example in the Arithmancy class, then it didn't really matter that he could follow the pure mathematics of the subject.

Runes, though, Harry had a high hope for. They weren't easy, but he had understood the explanations Hermione had given him over the summer when Harry's grandfather had expressed his desire that Harry (as he was not a Seer) transfer out of Divination. So Harry had studied Ancient Runes, both with Hermione as she went over her class notes with him and on his own with a few books from the Potter library.

Harry and his friends looked over their timetables and winced a little. "Any day with both Potions and History of Magic was just cruel and unusual punishment. At least it's Potions before History and not the other way around. Can you imagine a groggy student in Snape’s class? Poor bloke is liable to be skinned alive by the dungeon bat. This is, of course, unless they are wearing green trimmed robes, then Snape would take points away from Harry for blinking too loud and disturbing the rest of the poor delicate Slytherin who is obviously overworked," Ron animatedly said, causing Harry, Hermione, and a few of their year mates to giggle with his hyperbole. That the giggles also included Lavender and Parvati had Ron's chest puff up a little in pride.

The mail came in soon after that, and Hermione got a copy of the Daily Prophet. This surprised Harry, but she told him that she had been getting it delivered for a few weeks now and then complained a little about him not listening. Harry also got a letter back from Charlus that basically said he would look into the Triwizard Tournament, and as the participants weren't going to be chosen until Halloween there was no point worrying yet. Soon they had finished their breakfast and the Gryffindor fourth years started to make their way to their first class, which was thankfully Charms with Flitwick, a nice fun class to kick off the year.

---ϟϟϟ---

Potions turns out to be its regular disaster. Harry, Ron, and Hermione had instinctively cast all the safety charms that Charlus had insisted on, prompting Snape to start shouting at them. "What do you think you are doing? This is not the class for foolish wand waving. This is the noble art of potions, so why are you three waving your wands around?!"

"These are standard charms to use while brewing…" Hermione tried to defend them but was cut off.

"Charms like that are nothing but a crutch for inadequate brewing and I won't have them in my classroom! And I will not be questioned by some know-it-all Gryffindor who needs to learn when to shut up!” Snape shouted in Hermione's face, spraying her with spittle.

Harry didn't like that one bit, and if there was something that could rile him up it was someone who was attacking one of his friends, and that went double for Hermione. So Harry parroted back what his grandfather had told him. "Well, any competent instructor would realise that in a mixed class like ours there are always going to be people who aren't as adept as a potions master and would insist on the safety charms. Personally I think you just don't like us preventing Malfoy from lobbing things into our cauldrons from across the room, giving you an excuse to deduct points from Gryffindor and fail us for what were perfectly good potions!"

Harry's outburst had the effect he desired. It took all of Snape's attention from Hermione. Unfortunately Harry couldn't make that attention disappear and that attention was entirely focused on him now.

"How dare you speak to your professor like that! You really are as arrogant as your father."

Harry was seeing red now. He had seen what a competent teacher of potions could do over the summer, and he found Snape lacking. He probably should have backed down at this point and accepted his punishment, but he didn’t even consider that. "Professor? I hardly think that 'The recipe is on the board' counts as enough teaching to earn the respect due to a professor. Heck, I'd expect more from students helping each other."

The whole class went silent and stared open-mouthed at Harry as they waited for Mount Snape to blow its top. They didn't need to wait long. "Potter! Headmaster's office! NOW!" And he grabbed Harry by his robes and pulled him out of the classroom and up the stairs. Not that Harry cared one bit, he had had enough of Snape and it was time to have this out once and for all.

Snape shouted the password to the gargoyle that guided the entrance to the headmasters office (though according to Hermione it was only a grotesque as it did not have a water spout that gargoyles apparently needed) and it stepped aside and let them pass. After climbing the staircase, Snape opened the doors to the headmaster’s office with a flick of his wand and half-threw Harry inside, sending him stumbling into the room. Harry was sure he was supposed to turn and see Snape stride into the office all impressive and intimidating, but instead he reached into his robes and pulled out a pinch of Floo powder. At his grandfather's and godfather's insistence, he had started carrying some with him whenever he was away from the manor, and now he threw it into the fire. "Potter Manor!" Harry called before sticking his head in the green flames, sure his grandfather would want to be there for this.

Chapter 11

Chapter Text

Chapter 11

Charlus was quite reserved and did not assume that his grandson was in the right just because Harry was the one who called him, though that Harry had done so without being ordered was a point in Harry's favour that he at least thought he was in the right. So Charlus let Harry pull him through the floo to Dumbledore's office. As soon as Harry returned with his grandfather, he and Snape started to throw accusations at one another, sniping and bickering trying to outdo each other. Charlus was reminded of having been called to the school on occasion to deal with James and this man when he was still a boy.

"What's this, Potter, now that you have your grandfather back you're going to hide behind him just like your father did? He won't be able to save you from your mouth. I will have you expelled for the way you talked to me," Snape pushed.

That seemed to be the final straw for Dumbledore, who stood up and shouted. "Enough!" The word was so loud that it had to have been magically amplified. "It is I who will decide if someone is to be expelled, Severus, not you. And I won't be making a decision until I have heard both sides of the story."

Both Harry and the professor started trying to explain at the same time, which quickly devolved into the two of them shouting at each other again. Dumbledore silenced them this time with a flick of his wand and a bang like a starting pistol. "One at a time please. Severus, you may go first. Harry, please indulge us. We will listen to your side in full momentarily.”

Dumbledore finally seemed to get the irate pair calmed enough that explanations were possible. "Potter, Granger, and Weasley were disrupting my lesson by casting dangerous spells on their cauldrons. When I called them out on it, reminding them that they were in a Potions class and foolish wand waving was off the table, Granger decided to be belligerent as usual, so I dressed her down as she deserved. Potter, in his arrogance, decided that he would launch a string of verbal attacks against me. As a teacher and one of the Heads of House, I officially recommend expelling Potter from Hogwarts," Snape finished.

Charlus listened to the man and it was clear to him that Snape's version of events was heavily edited. He didn't need the fact that he had to hold Harry back from intruding three times, either. For one, he knew the spells they were casting, as he had been the one to teach them the spells, and they were supposed to be standard in any potion lab.

"Okay Severus, now Harry, it's time for you to give your side of things," Dumbledore was calm and trying to give off the air of a wise old man judging from on high. To Charlus it just looked staged, but it probably worked well on the students.

Harry took a breath before speaking. "Hermione, Ron, and I were casting some standard safety charms, specifically the Cauldron Shielding Charm and the Bubble-Head Charm, when Snape came over and started being completely unreasonable, shouting at us that he wouldn't allow us to use any wand magic in his class. Hermione tried to say that we had been taught to always cast the safety spells before brewing. Snape just started yelling at her, insulting her, and spitting in her face like a crazed lunatic. To redirect him away from Hermione I told him exactly what I thought of his inability to teach and-..."

Harry was cut off by Snape. "Who do you think you are to judge my skills as a Potions master? You are nothing but an arrogant child who struts around this castle as if you own it…"

Charlus had heard enough and shouted over Snape, “Shut up! You were given your opportunity to speak and were allowed to finish uninterrupted. You are supposed to be an adult here. Act like it."

Snape shot a murderous look at Charlus and Charlus started to understand the man a little more. But he ignored Snape and turned to Dumbledore. "Now,, there are a few points I feel need to be considered here, but before getting to those, I have two concerns. First, I'm worried that a professor is preventing the use of standard safety charms, charms that should be mandatory in a classroom. But more importantly, what is this about your professor spitting in the face of Miss Granger?" Charlus’s voice went ice cold in his last sentence.

Dumbledore looked momentarily taken aback by how upset Charlus was at a slight against a girl Dumbledore must have thought he barely knew of. Dumbledore was just about to assure him that it would be looked into, but Snape couldn't keep his mouth shut for two minutes.

"Who are you to say what should be taught in my classroom?" The dismissal was clear in his voice. "I am a recognised Potions master and am widely considered a prodigy in the field. What would you know about anything?"

That was probably the worst thing Snape could have said. Charlus drew on his considerable experience as a member of the Wizengamot and turned on Snape. "You may have your mastery in Potions, Snape, but I am a recognised Grandmaster. I have held my position as a Grandmaster for longer than you have been able to hold a stirring rod. I have over twelve different Potions credited to my name and I have been credited with assistance on about thirty more. So when I say that such safety charms are a standard practice in any halfway decent potions lab, you, journeyman Snape, say 'Yes sir'." Charlus’s voice was calm and full of authority in a way that very few ever learned to pull off. "And I asked you about spitting in the face of Miss Granger."

"I merely yelled at the insufferable know-it-all," Snape said, avoiding the truth.

"Don't try and fob me off with a half truth Snape. I have sent a lifetime dealing with Slytherin doublespeak. Let me inform you of something you have clearly missed. Miss Granger is under the protection of House Potter. Under MY protection, because she defended Sirius Black, another under my protection, from those like you who would unjustly target him. Spitting in the face of a lady is a grave insult. One I or my heir in my sted are honour-bound to respond to. Honestly, you are lucky it was Harry in the room with you. I would have just challenged you to a duel and been done with it."

Charlus then turned to Dumbledore, leaving Snape fuming. "Given the circ*mstances I would say yelling at this, Professor, is a proportionate and appropriate response,, wouldn't you Dumbledore?"

Dumbledore hesitated a second under Charlus's cold stare but regained his composure quickly. "I'm afraid I can't agree. We can't have students attacking our professors, verbally or otherwise."

Harry snorted to himself and muttered under his breath, loud enough they all heard him. "Don't you need to actually teach to be considered a professor?"

Snape started shouting again. "The boy is clearly unrepentant. He needs to be expelled. Casting magic in class when forbidden, shouting at the professor, now this cheek here in front of us all. What are you going to do about it?"

Snape was looking at Dumbledore, obviously expecting him to rule in his favour, but unfortunately it was Charlus who spoke up. "Why thank you, Snape, for reminding me about the other point. Journeyman Potions Master Snape, please explain to me the rationale behind banning the use of Charms that are standard practice in every commercial potions lab in the county, the charms every book on setting up your own potions lab at home, recommend you use before even trying to make even a boil-curing potion. Charms that do no more than clean equipment, prevent the brewer from inhaling any fumes, and prevent other ingredients from accidentally being dropped or maliciously thrown into a potion."

Snape was quiet for a while, trying to think of what to say before saying, "Any reasonably competent brewer shouldn't need such crutches when they brew. A true potioneer only needs their skills with a cauldron"

Charlus wasn't impressed. "And here speaks a complete idiot. A school is not a place where you have rooms full of, how did you put it, 'true potioneers'. By definition, they are amateurs just learning the craft. Even the exceptionally talented are sharing a lab with those who struggle to get the recipe right, as well as children who can act out and throw newt eyes at each other. That's why it's important for your class to use the proper safety charms. That's why it's standard practice. I know for a fact other schools make it mandatory, even Slughorn taught the charms to all his students. Yet you seem to think it's acceptable to target a student for doing the right thing. What's next, detention for finishing your dinner? Or maybe points loss for breathing? It's no wonder Harry lost his temper and shouted at you. Someone needs to give you a goddamn wake up call."

Now Dumbledore decided it was time for him to step in. "I've said before, no matter Mr. Potter's rationale, we can't have students yelling at their professors without repercussions. This is a school, after all, imagine what would happen if all the students started to behave this way."

Dumbledore made it sound all so reasonable, but Charlus wasn't unused to the kind of talk, as it was fairly common among politicians and he had learnt to look past it long ago. "Quite right headmaster. This is indeed a school, and Snape here does hold the position of Professor. With that title comes not just a job, someone with that title holds a position of authority and respect over the future of magical Britain, and with that privilege it is also his duty to uphold certain standards of safety and behaviour when in the presence of students. Preventing safety charms and spitting in the face of a young woman falls well below the standards I would expect of an instructor of one of the core classes at what is supposed to be one of Europe's premier schools of Magic. You will have representatives of two other schools staying here this year. It would be a source of national embarrassment if such behaviour was repeated in front of such illustrious guests. I do mean if either of them were to repeat their actions, but as children cannot be expected to react perfectly in stressful situations - they are, after all, still learning - then it is incumbent on the adults to behave to the high standards we expect of them, is it not?"

Dumbledore thought for a few minutes while Harry and Snape glared at each other. "You definitely have a point, Warlock Potter. And I feel that this is being blown out of proportion by the enmity of the individuals involved. I suggest that young Harry here loses ten points and serves two nights of detention with his Head of House. I will speak with my Potions professor as well and advise him to act more the part of a professor. Good enough?"

Charlus pondered the question for a few minutes before answering. "On the provision that Harry and any other student will be allowed to use the standard safety charms in Potions class."

Snape scoffed at that, and Charlus fixed Snape with a cold look. While looking him straight in the eye Charlus said, "As I was saying, on the understanding that the students be allowed to use the normal safety charms in class, or I will use my position as a Grandmaster to get journeyman Snape reassessed. If he is actively dissuading the use of the established safety procedure, perhaps he was awarded his mastery before his time and needs to spend a few years retraining under another master."

Snape paled at that announcement. Harry didn't know (like the other three in the room did) that the core subjects in Hogwarts required the professor to hold a mastery in the subject, and Charlus was threatening that if Snape didn't shape up Charlus would remove him from the school, and in a way that Dumbledore couldn't protect him from.

"Now Charlus, isn't that a bit much over such a small matter? I'm sure that Severus's classes are perfectly safe. There is no need for such drastic action," Dumbledore tried to calm Charlus and get him to back down

"Well, considering that your Potions professor has been bullying my grandson for over three years because of a grudge he has towards Harry's father - a father that had been dead for almost ten years before these two met, and of whom Harry doesn't even have any real memories - I'm not exactly in the mood to be overly forgiving," Charlus told the headmaster in a calm tone that Harry remembered from the lessons on etiquette and politics. This was the tone that you had to cultivate to conceal your emotions and give nothing away. Hermione had called it a poker face.

Dumbledore sighed and suddenly looked a lot older. "Charlus, surely it's better to forgive such small infractions and not let them eat at you."

"You speak of us forgiving him while he still holds his grudge and abuses his position. Forgiveness can only be granted after the end of the transgression and the perpetrator has demonstrated remorse. It certainly should never be given to a bully who is still tormenting his victims. And when they rightfully push back, the bully then acts all offended and abuses their position to punish their victim," Charlus told Dumbledore, still using the neutral tone. "Now, will the students be permitted to use the appropriate safety charms, or do I need to go home and start writing letters to my old colleagues?"

Charlus had Dumbledore backed into a corner and everyone in the room knew it. Even before Dumbledore said anything, Harry was suppressing a smirk and Snape looked like he wax considering throwing both Harry and Charlus out of the window. Dumbledore seemed to deflate slightly as it became obvious that Harry hadn't kept anything from his grandfather, and Snape's behaviour had made the old Warlock unwilling to compromise. "Fine, which safety charms are you referring to?" He asked. What Dumbledore didn't know was that Charlus already considered that he had compromised enough by not taking Harry and Sirius and leaving Britain behind for good. That was more to do with Harry's desire to remain with his friends, and more specifically Hermione. If the pattern of Harry's school life continued, though, Charlus was sure he could convince Dan and Emma that leaving the country was a far safer solution, and with Hermione leaving with them he was sure that Harry wouldn't protest all that much.

Charlus prompted Harry to tell the headmaster the three charms that he had been taught to make brewing safer: 'Sanuspirantes', the Bubble-Head charm, 'Protago Lebes', the Cauldron Shielding charm, and finally 'Emundareranferro' the Tool Cleaning Charm, to clean their tools between ingredients. Dumbledore agreed to the usage of the charms and so (begrudgingly) did Snape, although Harry was sure he hadn't heard the last of this from the dungeon bat.

Harry was sent away after that, and the last thing he heard before the headmaster's door closed was his grandfather's voice saying. "Now that Harry has gone, I have a few a few questions about what the f*ck you have been doing least thirteen years, Dumbledore."

---ϟϟϟ---

Harry hadn't ended up going back to Potions. By the time he and Snape had returned to the classroom everyone had left, they had spent about a third of the lesson in Dumbledore’s office, and once some of the Slytherins left (meaning that Snape couldn't punish the students who left without also punishing his own house), all the Gryffindors would have left, except maybe Hermione. Instead, Harry found Hermione and Ron in the library with his things. Hermione had opened a few books on Runes and Arithmancy, obviously intending to quiz him on the subjects before his tests in them later today. At first, it also looked like Ron was doing his homework, but when Harry got close enough to look at the parchment it turned out Ron was working out his fantasy Quidditch team for this year.

Hermione hadn't noticed Harry yet and was telling Ron about how all the maths he was doing was the same type of stuff they did in Arithmancy, and if he focused he could probably transfer to the other class and get an O.W.L. that was actually useful. Ron, of course, was not interested in switching to a course where he would have to work hard to catch up, but that didn't stop the most academically inclined of the trio from trying to encourage him into doing better.

Ron was the first to spot Harry as he was the one looking towards the door to the library. Any talk of taking Arithmancy died right then as they both wanted to know what had happened. Harry explained that he had Floo'ed Charlus and that he had only lost a handful of points and had two evenings of detention with McGonagall, both of them were relieved. Hermione admitted she had visions of Harry having detention with Snape every weekend until Christmas.

"When I said that Snape spat in your face and that was what started me shouting at Snape, Grandfather looked like he wanted to crucify Snape then and there. He told both Snape and the headmaster that, as you are under the protection of House Potter, as the Heir of the House I had no choice but to shout at him. It was amazing to see Snape taken to task for once."

Hermione smiled. "Honestly, a part of me wishes that you hadn't done that. He is a professor, even if he doesn't behave like it," she added the last bit after she noticed the looks on Harry and Ron's faces. "But I admit a part of me wanted to join in and shout 'say it, don't spray it,’” she admitted.

Hermione quizzed Harry on his runes and Arithmancy until lunch, then after a quick meal it was right back to the revision. She actually convinced him to skip History and keep revising for the tests. It was that more than anything that told Harry just how much Hermione wanted Harry to join her in her other classes. She even convinced Ron to try and take decent notes in History of Magic for them, saying that she would make him copies of her History of Magic notes for the next month in exchange. So Harry and Hermione spent the last lesson of the day in the library. If someone was in the library and working, even if they were supposed to be in class, Madam Pince just assumed they had a free spot in your timetable. So they were left alone, and as it was the first full day of term and no one had any homework yet, they had the library all to themselves.

Hermione ended up spending just under three hours waiting outside the classroom while Harry took his tests. Each test was only an hour long, but Professor McGonagall, who was supervising the tests, gave Harry a thirty minute break between the tests. He had sat the Arithmancy one first, and when he left the classroom after the test he looked dejected, assuming he had failed the test. Hermione had reminded him that the Arithmancy was always a long shot at best, and as it was sprung on him as a surprise this morning no one was going to judge him for not passing. Hermione was more anxious about the Runes exam than the Arithmancy one, because she really wanted Harry to join her in at least one of her other classes. While she would have loved to have Harry in Professor Vector’s class with her as it was her favourite subject, she never really expected it to happen. Professor Babbling's class, however, Harry had a really good shot at.

Hermione actually ended up knowing Harry's Arithmancy mark before he did, as Professor Vector turned up to collect the test for Arithmancy ten minutes into Harry's Runes test. Seeing who was probably her most high–strung student waiting outside the class for Harry as she wrung her own fingers together, the professor had decided to transfigure a bench right there and mark the test. Harry hadn't actually done all that badly, he got a lot of marks for getting the pure mathematics correct. He even got a few of the methodologies correct, but it was obvious that this was more of a lucky guess than any form of knowledge in the subject, so even though Harry just scraped an Acceptable he wasn't going to be allowed to join the Arithmancy class.

Professor Vector even confided in Hermione that it was a pity, as she was sure if Harry had joined her class last year then he had the potential to be one of her better students. Scraping an Acceptable on an end-of-year test like the one Hermione sat at the end of last year, even if it involved some lucky guessing, was something to be proud of. Professor Vector sealed Harry's marked test in an envelope along with Harry's mark and a note explaining her decision not to accept Harry into her class, asking Hermione to give it to Professor McGonagall when Harry finished his Runes test.

Eventually Harry came out, and this time he just looked tired. Hermione wasn't able to work out either way whether Harry thought he had passed or failed. What she could see was that Harry needed a hug, even if he couldn't see it for himself, so Hermione handed the envelope from Professor Vector to Professor McGonagall (who had walked out just behind Harry) and then pulled him into a hug. Harry leaned into her, glad for the support both physical and emotional, while Professor McGonagall read the letter from Professor Vector and then gave Harry the results of his first test. Harry was actually surprised he had a passing score, but agreed with the assessment that it was purely down to his mathematics ability and not his understanding of the principles of Arithmancy. Unfortunately, Harry was going to have to wait for his Runes mark, as it was now dinner time for everyone, including Professor Babbling. She probably wouldn't even start marking his test until early this evening, and so Harry shouldn't expect his score until tomorrow at breakfast.

---ϟϟϟ---

Despite it being their third day back at the school (if you count the first of September as their first day), the next day was Saturday, so after one day of class it was now the weekend. Harry had planned to go straight down to breakfast with Ron and Hermione, but he was waylaid by the Flying Foxes of Gryffindor, the three chasers, Harry's teammates Angelina, Alicia and Katie. "Harry, we are having a team meeting. Can you run up and get Fred and George?” Angelina asked him.

Harry sighed, he obviously wasn't going to get to breakfast quickly; he told Ron and Hermione to go on without him, giving Hermione a quick kiss on the cheek as he told her that it looked like he was going to be busy for a while. He ran up the boys’ stairs to get the twins. Apparently the Gryffindor chasers refused to go up because they had heard horror stories of just what they might see. A short while later, Harry and the twins joined the girls in the comfortable chairs next to the fire in the common room that was currently unlit, as the lingering warmth of the summer would still hold for a few more weeks.

"So what's this all about?" Fred asked as he looked over at the girls.

"Devastated that without Quidditch to practice for the three of you won't be able to hang around Gryffindor’s two most eligible bachelors?" George finished.

"Hardly," answered Angelina, which was a lie. It was an open secret that she and Fred were dancing around each other and would probably start dating soon if they weren't already doing so in secret, and it was no secret that Katie had a thing for George. How the two girls could tell the twins apart had always confused Harry, but according to them the twins were quite different from each other, they just played up their similarities so much it was difficult for most to see.

"This is about the lack of Quidditch, though. I know you two," she indicated the twins, "are not interested in a Quidditch career, you have your plans to run a joke shop, and Harry you haven't ever said either way, but Katie, Alicia, and I are definitely looking for a Quidditch career after Hogwarts. And we aren't the only ones, there are at least two players on every team that are looking to go pro after Hogwarts," Angelina said.

That got Harry thinking. He wasn't going out of his way to search out a Quidditch career, but it was a well paying job if you could get it. If some club wanted to offer him twenty-five to fifty thousand galleons a year to chase a snitch then he would be crazy to turn it down. He just had to remember that Quidditch was a career that would only last at most years. And he would need to be prepared for something to do after.

Katie then took up the talking point. "Just think what a whole year without any Quidditch will do. The professional scouts come to those games and use what they see here to help decide who gets a spot on their teams. This Triwizard crap is hurting the career opportunities of at least nine students so that one student has the chance to show off. It's ridiculous and goes against the school's responsibility to its students."

Harry couldn't help but give a slightly mad laugh at the idea that Hogwarts has ever had responsibility to its students. His last three years had already proven that at least Dumbledore didn't seem to care. None of them called Harry on his laugh, and it was Alicia's turn to speak. "We have to do something about this, to convince them to bring back Quidditch this year. I think first we should talk to the other teams, we’ll need a united front on this. Fred, George, I heard you have known the Diggorys for a while outside of Hogwarts, can the two of you try talking to Cedric and getting him to bring the Puffs to a meeting? And Harry, can you approach the Claws? The three of us will approach the Slytherins. Let's try and meet in the Charms classroom at, say, three o'clock today. I really want to get this done quickly so that if we can get it changed there will be plenty of time to sort out the logistics of the games and give the scouts time to arrange to attend."

They all agreed to that and Harry went down to breakfast. Not only was he hungry, but the Great Hall was his best chance to run into a member of the Ravenclaw Quidditch team at this time of day. He glanced over at the Ravenclaw table when he walked in but didn't see any of their Quidditch players, so he sat down between Ron and Hermione where they had saved him a space. "Hey, has Professor McGonagall been looking for me?” Harry asked, wondering about his Runes test as he loaded his plate with toast, sausage, and baked beans.

"Not yet, but she may have just seen that you hadn't come down yet," Hermione told him as she was finishing off her own breakfast of what looked like toast and eggs.

"What did the flying foxes want anyway?" Ron asked as he added food to the dirty plate in front of him, telling Harry that this was at least his second helping.

Harry told his two friends about how the lack of Quidditch was hurting those who were looking to make Quidditch their livelihood after Hogwarts, and how the girls wanted to try and change that and wanted a meeting with all the teams this afternoon. Both Ron and Hermione were supportive, but for completely different reasons. Ron wanted to try out for the Gryffindor team and maybe play professionally in the future, but he still had a few years so his main focus was just wanting the Quidditch back. Hermione, however, was actually quite angry at the school when she realised that the Quidditch players with professional aspirations had been cut off at the knees like that. As Harry ate his breakfast, Hermione gave him a few suggestions on how to reverse the decision to cancel Quidditch for the year that Harry should bring up at the meeting. Most of them Harry was sure his teammates had already come up with, but a couple of them he was also sure they wouldn't have.

Harry scanned the Ravenclaw table again and this time was able to spot Cho Chang sitting and having breakfast with a few of her friends. Chang was the Ravenclaw seeker and was pretty popular in her house from what he had heard, so that made her the perfect one for him to approach. Harry wired off his mouth to remove any crumbs or tomato sauce that he might have gotten on himself from breakfast and got up to go over to the Ravenclaw table. He supposed he was lucky now he was with Hermione, because last year he had had a crush on Chang and he would have been nervous talking to her, but his relationship with Hermione had shown him just how shallow his crush on Chang was. He knew nothing about her other than she played Quidditch and was a Ravenclaw, whereas he could write a six foot essay on Hermione and still have more to write.

"Hey Chang. Do you mind if I sit here for a few minutes? I was hoping I could talk to you," Harry said, trying to be as friendly as he could.

Cho's friends all started to giggle at that, but Cho rolled her eyes at them and told Harry he could sit. He grabbed a clean goblet from the table and poured himself a glass of pumpkin juice. "This is about the fact that there is no Quidditch this year. Am I right in assuming that the Ravenclaw team is just as disappointed as the Gryffindor team? Especially those of you considering professional careers in the sport?" he asked.

"If disappointed is your way of saying royally pissed off, then yes. I'm hoping to sign with the Harpies, the last thing I need is a year without any of the scouts seeing me fly." And she really did sound angry, that was a side to her he had never seen before but he supposed everyone got angry sometimes.

"Well that's good, well not good - damn it, you know what I mean." Harry stumbled over his words, prompting Cho and her friends to have a quick giggle at his expense. "As I was trying to say…Angelina, Alicia and Katie are putting together a meeting of all the Quidditch teams in the Charms classroom at three o'clock this afternoon. We want to discuss our options for bringing Quidditch back this year, and I was hoping you could get your team to join us."

"What do you think your chances are of succeeding?" One of Cho's friends, whose name Harry didn't know, asked.

"I'd say we have a fair shot. There are a few ideas that could get us our games back. But that's what the meeting is about, listening to everyone's ideas and seeing what we think could work, and deciding what to go forward with. Are you all in?"

"We’re in alright, I'll see you at three. After all, I need to pay you back for beating me last year." She finished with a wink and a laugh. Harry laughed too, he knew it was part of her game strategy to flirt with the other Seekers. Diggory,he could understand, but how she did that with Malfoy without throwing up was something that was always going to be completely mental to him.

Harry stuck around for a few more minutes just to be polite and to finish his pumpkin juice before he made his way back to Ron and Hermione. Ron was just polishing off what was probably his third helping, while Hermione had pulled out a book and was now reading it. Harry grabbed himself a couple of apples to snack on later and was just considering putting himself together a breakfast sandwich when Professor McGonagall came walking up to the table looking directly at him.

"Mr. Potter I have a note here from Professor Babbling. She says that she hopes that you purchased the necessary books over the summer because you will need them on Monday." The head of Gryffindor said in her usual clipped tone. It took Harry a few moments to work out exactly what she meant, but he did finally put it together and a smile spread over his face. Professor McGonagall dropped her poker face and smiled at Harry, who was now being hugged by an equally happy Hermione congratulating him. "Yes, congratulations indeed, but remember. Now that you are in the class, you need to put the work in. If you don't, you can always be moved back into Divination," she told him as a warning.

Professor McGonagall was just about to walk off when Harry asked her. "Professor, what grade did I get?"

"An Exceeds Expectations, Mr. Potter. I expect you to score this high or better at the end of this year, or you'd better have a good excuse why." Then she went back up to the staff table, leaving a happy Harry and Hermione and mildly grumpy Ron at the Gryffindor table.

Chapter 12

Chapter Text

Chapter 12

At ten minutes to three o'clock, Harry and the Gryffindor Quidditch team were waiting in the Charms classroom to see who would come to their little meeting. They were sure that most of the school’s Quidditch players would be there, with Slytherin as the only house that may not have their full team turn up. First in was the Hufflepuff team, who had all decided to arrive at the same time. Hufflepuff was the only team who wouldn't need to replace at least one player who had graduated last year. The Ravenclaws made their own way in over the next few minutes, and the Slytherins came in about thirty seconds after the meeting time, probably as some sort of statement only a Slytherin would understand. At first Harry thought he had been right and only half of the Slytherin team had shown up, but then he realised that they were down three players as their keeper/captain and their two beaters had finished with Hogwarts at the end of last year, so there were only four members of the Slytherin Quidditch team at the moment. The entire current Slytherin team had come; unfortunately that did include Malfoy, but every silver lining had to come with a cloud.

Once everyone was settled and sat at the desks like it was a class, probably more out of habit than anything else, Alicia stood up and walked to the front of the room. "Okay, we all know why we are here. The school has decided to abandon Quidditch for the year in favour of this tournament. Now I don't know about all of you, but I know at least some of you are looking at Quidditch careers after Hogwarts, and that includes me. The point of a school is to prepare us for our roles as members of society after we leave, and probably the biggest part of that is our careers. In that light, abandoning Quidditch, a viable career path for a number of us in this room, for a tournament where only one Hogwarts student gets to compete, goes against what a school is for."

As she spoke, Harry was writing down everything she said. Hermione had made one suggestion that was a bit of a nuclear option, but if it came to that then this speech would be pretty useful, so he copied it down word for word.

"That brings us to the reason we are here. We all want our game back. But how do we do that? I felt we should start a petition among the students, but I don't have much else beyond that. Any ideas?"

"Take the petition to our Heads of House?" Cedric Diggory suggested.

"All of us take it to Dumbledore?" Was the suggestion of one of the Ravenclaws.

"Send the petition with a cover letter to the school governors?" That suggestion came from Malfoy, and Harry actually thought it was a good one.

But not as good as the one Hermione gave him, so he stood up and said. "What about the press? Not the Prophet, but something like Quidditch Weekly surely would be interested in a story that has potential future Quidditch stars being hamstrung by a school tournament? It could even get the public support for us to have our Quidditch back. Like Alicia said, these are our futures that are being messed with. We shouldn't look over any avenue of getting this sorted out. I suggest we do the petition and each team takes it around their house and gets as many signatures as they can, and then we try Dumbledore first. He will probably say no, then we try the governors," Harry nodded at Malfoy for the suggestion. "Does anyone here know who they all are? And if the governors don't reinstate Quidditch, then we go to the press with our petition and tell them the story."

That got a lot of the Quidditch players agreeing with him, and they all started working out the details and writing up their petition. It was weird to actually be working with the Slytherins for a change, but they were surprisingly good at this type of thing. Harry even got a few nods of approval from the Slytherin chasers for the plan to go to the press.

Harry had a surprisingly easy time getting signatures on the petition, and for once it had nothing to do with the Boy-Who-Lived crap. He was Gryffindor’s star seeker asking them to sign to bring back Quidditch; most of the House had signed immediately after being asked. The teams thought they only really had September to get this sorted, or the professors would claim it was too late in the year to change any of their plans, so they had to be quick. However, they were extremely quick; they finished writing the petition at around four o'clock on Saturday, and by five o'clock on Sunday over ninety percent of the students had signed it. One brave Gryffindor had even taken the petition to Madam Hooch and gotten her to sign it.

It was considered too much for all twenty three current Quidditch players to take the petition to Dumbledore, so only the team captains went (or the person their team had nominated as captain, in the case of Gryffindor and Slytherin) to deliver a copy of the signatures to the headmaster and to formally request that Quidditch be reinstated this year. From Alicia's recounting, Dumbledore had basically dismissed their concerns over how it could affect their chances at a Quidditch career, and with some flowery words told them not to worry their little heads about something so trivial. They sent copies of the complaint and the petition out to the school governors that same night.

---ϟϟϟ---

Monday, along with its other lessons, had Harry's first Ancient Runes class. A few of the students were surprised to see Harry transfer to this class, but when he confirmed that he had tested in and got an Exceeds Expectations on his placement test, they were happy enough for him to join. Their first class of the year introduced a new aspect of Runes to the class, their use in enchanting and warding. They were going to work on warding a jewellery box so that only the owner could open it. One of the boys had scoffed at how girly it was, so the professor had said he was going do the exact same project but on a full sized trunk instead, and the sight of him lugging around a trunk to bring it to class would be a lesson to him and the rest of the class that she was the professor and she knew what she was doing. Then she proceeded to hand out small plain wooden jewellery boxes to everyone else that were about the same size as the boxes Ollivander used for wands and would easily fit inside someone's robes pocket. Then she delivered a large wooden trunk that was big enough to hide a person to the Ravenclaw who couldn't keep his mother shut.

After class, Harry went and found Neville as he hadn't really had a chance to catch up with the boy yet, what with needing to sit his placement tests and then getting pulled into the Quidditch drama. After catching up on the stuff that had happened over the summer, Harry offered his and Hermione’s help to catch Neville up on his potions. He explained how Snape had glossed over teaching them a lot of the basics that the grease ball saw as too obvious to bother teaching, and how even Hermione had gotten some of it wrong. He also offered to teach Neville the charms that kept people like Malfoy from throwing stuff into their cauldrons and the charm that meant that any noxious fumes from their potions wouldn't be breathed in. Neville accepted almost immediately and thanked Harry for agreeing to help him, apparently his gran was getting rather upset at him because of the cost of constantly replacing the cauldrons he melted.

The next few days were relatively routine: classes, homework, helping Neville, hanging out,, and of course sneaking off with Hermione so that they could continue the inspections of each other's mouths using only their tongues. It was embarrassing when they lost track of time one evening and they were found by a prefect in an empty classroom enjoying their time alone, but they got away with a warning as they were close to their common room and it was only a few minutes after curfew.

On Wednesday, Harry and his fellow Gryffindor fourth years got to experience their second Potions lesson of the year. Harry, Hermione, and Ron all cast their safety charms as soon as they were setting up. Snape glared at them, but despite the pulsing vein that was visible on the side of his temple, he didn't say anything. Neville hadn't been able to work out the charms yet, so Harry cast them for him; he was working with Neville today so he could show the other boy some of the things his grandfather had taught him while working on today's potion.

Snape set them an annoying tricky potion, and Harry would have thought that Snape was doing it just to spite Harry but he did the same thing after every summer holiday, so this was probably the same potion they would have brewed last Friday if the lesson hadn't been interrupted. With Harry now understanding the fundamentals in a way he never had before, he was able to coach Neville through it and together they made what Harry thought was a decent attempt at the potion. At the end of the class, Harry took not one but two vials of the potion and labelled one as his and Neville’s and pocketed the other, making sure Snape saw him do it.

"Potter, why are you taking a vial of potion! Why do you need an ageing solution?" Snape demanded, his usual derision in his voice and the ever present sneer in full force on his face.

"My grandfather wants to keep track of my Potions education, so he wants me to send him a vial of each potion I make in class. Is that a problem professor?" Harry asked as innocently as he could. Snape just went back to what he was doing, refusing to say anything, so Harry just went back to his clean up. Grandfather Charlus hadn't asked anything of the sort, but Harry was sure that telling Snape that his work was being checked by a certified Grandmaster would keep the petty professor from marking him down unfairly.

After classes were done for the day, Harry had returned to the common room, where he was pulled aside by the twins.

"Harrykins, how are you doing right now?"

"Any real pressing things taking up your time?"

"Any head injuries affecting your memory?"

"Or maybe you are acting like a Malfoy and dealing in bad faith?" The twins bounced back and forth in their speech like they normally did.

"What are you guys going on about?" Harry asked, genuinely confused.

"Did you, or did you not, make a deal with us to introduce us to at least one of the Marauders?"

"If only we convinced you."

"Either little Harrykins was bluffing or he had set the price too high, right Fred?"

"Right you are George. And I think that some rather extreme pranking may be in order, don't you?"

Harry suddenly remembered the prank from the World Cup. "Damn, sorry guys, the plan was to tell you just before you left to go home after the World Cup, but with everything that happened I completely forgot all about it. Genuinely sorry about that. It’s Sirius, he is Padfoot, and Professor Lupin is Moony. The prank was you would have spent the entire time in their company, then found out just before you left," he explained. "Still, Sirius did say he would be happy for the two of you to write to him." Harry offered up as an olive branch.

Both the twins looked at Harry for a while before they burst out laughing. They both considered it a brilliant prank that what they wanted was right under their nose, a few times when they were in the tents sitting room even almost literally. They were ecstatic to receive an invitation to be pen pals with one of their heroes.

---ϟϟϟ---

It wasn't until Friday that they heard anything about the petition they had sent the school governors. Apparently they were in a deadlock over the issue; some didn't want a disruption to what was considered a prestigious event and others wanted to give the students who earned it their shot at being signed for a team. Both sides seemed to be unwilling to budge from their positions. This led to the second meeting of the 'Quidditch Liberation Team', as Fred and George had taken to calling them. A few additional people had joined them for this meeting, like prospective team members and a few hangers on like Lee Jordan and Hermione who were close friends of some of the players. Unfortunately, that meant that Malfoy had his two bookends Crabbe and Goyle back, but as Harry had Ron and Hermione he couldn't say much.

The conversation was centred around if it was time to write to Quidditch Weekly. Some wanted to give the governors an opportunity to render a decision first, but Hermione spoke up. "If you wait for a decision to be made, then the governors would have to undo it. That would be a loss of face for them and they could dig their heels in. If, however, you can swing an opinion before the decision is made, then it should be easier for them to agree to resume Quidditch."

One of the Slytherin chasers said that Hermione’s plan sounded almost Slytherin. Hermione nodded at the boy accepting the compliment as it was intended, but Malfoy just scoffed. It was perhaps an indication that Draco had lost some of his position in his house because none of the Slytherins, not even Crabbe and Goyle, paid him any attention as he scoffed at Hermione. It made sense to Harry now, after the lessons he had had from his grandfather over the summer. A lot of Malfoy’s power would have come from everyone believing that he was the Black Heir. Warlock Black had a lot of power and people would have wanted to get close to that power. But that potential future power had been stripped from the big-mouthed blond bigot in a very public way. It wouldn't have taken long for word that Malfoy had been completely barred from any possibility of ever gaining the headship of the House of Black to spread around those who cared about such things.

In the end, they decided to send the letter to Quidditch Weekly. More accurately, everyone decided it was going to be Harry who sent the letter with the four team captains signing as well in support. It was hoped that they could exploit Harry's celebrity status to get the press on their side. Harry wanted to protest more than he did, but Hermione pointed out that it was a good strategy. At least Harry would be using it for something worthwhile and would get something he wanted for it.

Less than twelve hours later they got a reply. The editor was really interested in sending someone to interview the Quidditch teams, but there was a problem. Hogwarts being a school meant that adults couldn't just walk onto the grounds to talk to students whenever they wanted. Except for some very specific exceptions from the Ministry and the school governors, an adult wanting access to the school to speak to a student needed both the permission of a professor (either their head of house, the headteacher, or their deputy) and the parent or guardian of the student. As the professors whose permission they needed were the very ones likely to be targeted by the article they wanted written, there was little to no doubt that they wouldn't get it. They needed to find a way to do this without the professors getting in the way.

Harry briefly considered seeking the reporter in through the tunnel from the Shrieking Shack, but decided against telling a journalist about a secret way in and out of the school. Cedric was the one who had the idea that they should write to their parents. If they could get enough of the parents to take them out of the school for a day or even a few hours, then they could go and speak to the journalist in the Three Broomsticks or something. A few of the parents did agree, but most refused. Molly Weasley sent back a rather harshly worded letter that basically told the twins that they should do something useful with their time without Quidditch and finally do some studying. Harry thought Mrs. Weasley had that one completely backwards, in his opinion. The saying “Idle hands are the devil's playground” existed for a reason. Harry was sure if you kept the twins from flying, they would end up pulling more pranks this year than they had during Harry's first three years at the school combined.

It was Sirius though who came out at the top though. He refused to let Harry leave the castle, but he came up with a different solution, one that let every member of the Quidditch team talk to the reporter and for none of them to break a single school rule in doing so: the two way mirrors they had (Harry had one and Sirius the other). The reporter would visit Sirius at Potter Manor on Wednesday evening, and the 'Quidditch Liberation Team' would meet up in their usual spot at the same time, using the mirrors to give their interviews.

---ϟϟϟ---

There was more to the weekend than Quidditch. After seeing Harry, Ron, and Hermione use the charms in their Potions class that week, they were asked by the rest of the Gryffindor fourth years to teach them the charms. The girls especially loved the idea of the Bubble-Head charm as they really weren't too fond of the smell in the Potions classroom even when they went brewing, and it only got worse once the cauldrons were lit. Harry unfortunately couldn't help as he had his first detention with Professor McGonagall over his losing his cool in the first Potions class, but luckily for him Professor McGonagall put at least some of Harry's reaction down to stress of having a surprise extra exam placed on him that day that he would have only a few hours to prepare for, so she went easy on him. Instead of writing lines or scrubbing floors, Harry was just told to do his homework.

It wasn't as fun doing his homework in the corner of McGonagall's classroom as it was doing it with Hermione, but at least he was only doing work he was going to be doing anyway. Apart from asking the odd question of his professor when he got stuck, he worked in relative silence for a few hours before McGonagall let him go. Once he got back to the common room, Hermione and Ron had finished showing the Gryffindor fourth years the charms and he found them off in a corner while Hermione laughed at something Ron was saying. Harry walked over to the two of them and caught the tail end of some joke Ron was telling. "Then the wizard says, ‘That's not a troll, that's my wife!’" And the two teens started laughing again.

Ron spotted Harry first and waved him over. Harry sat next to Hermione and she twisted around so that her legs laid across his lap and she leaned back using the arm of the soft sofa as a pillow. "So how was your detention?" Ron asked.

"Not bad. McGonagall just had me doing my homework. Saves me from needing to do it later. How did your demonstration go?" Harry asked.

“All the fourth year Gryffindors can now do at least one of the spells,, and they are going to keep practicing,” Hermione answered. “Lavender said she was only learning to annoy Snape. Of course, a bunch of others heard that and wanted an explanation, so I told them about how Dumbledore approved the safety charms despite Snape not liking them, so the others all wanted to learn as well." Hermione was smirking by this point. " I'm pretty sure most of the students in the school will be using the charms in the next few weeks, some because they are good practice, others just to get back at Snape."

Harry smiled at that. Ron spoke up. "I'm just curious how much less students will need the hospital wing. If there is a big enough drop, maybe Madam Pomfrey will force Snape to make the charms mandatory."

"I'm more worried Snape will be a harsher marker for any students using the safety charms," Hermione said as she started to unpick a lock of her hair that appeared to have a small tangle in it. Harry told her about telling Snape he was sending samples of his brewing to Charlus, so Snape would think any unfair marks would be spotted and contested. Hermione thought that was genius but insisted they actually sent the vials, so if a mark ever seemed wrong Charlus could check.

---ϟϟϟ---

It took a full week more of interviews before the article came out in Quidditch Weekly. Harry didn't subscribe, so it was only when the teams got together again the day the magazine came out that Harry got to see the article. Unfortunately even though he knew it was coming, the article contained a large picture of Harry. Luckily there were also pictures of the team captains as well, but Harry's face had more page space than the article itself, which was basically just a rehash of the points the Quidditch players had made rewritten by a professional so they sounded a hell of a lot more convincing. Now they just had to wait and see how this would all play out.

Nothing happened until the next day at breakfast. When the mail arrived, suddenly the Great Hall went dark; not the pitch black where you might think you had gone blind, but more like all the windows suddenly had closed curtains. The cause of the blockage of the natural light was the onslaught of owls in the Hall. Over two-thirds of them were dropping their mail in front of six people: the four captains/acting captains of the Quidditch teams, Harry, and Dumbledore. Of the six of them Dumbledore had by far the most mail, his own pile of letters must have been twice as big as the piles Harry and the Quidditch captains had combined. Harry had the next largest pile, and he was just starting to look at his mound of mail when a few staff started to point at the smoke that was coming from Dumbledore’s pile. Realising what it was, Harry barely had enough time to cover his ears before suddenly multiple Howlers went off at the same time. It was impossible to understand any of them individually, but Harry heard the words 'Quidditch, scout, restore, and Harry Potter' quite a lot.

Harry didn't wait for the fall out; he grabbed as much of the letters he had been sent as he could, stuffing them in his pockets and carrying even more, Ron and Hermione following him by doing the same. They quickly left the Great Hall and made their way to the classroom that the Quidditch Liberation Team had commandeered. Luckily, Quidditch Weekly was released on a Saturday, so with today being Sunday Harry wouldn't have to go to class. It wasn't long before the rest of the Quidditch players started to show up, all interested in finding out what the letters said. Harry and the captains put them to work opening letters and sorting them into pro-reinstatement of Quidditch and against the reinstatement of Quidditch, and 'other' for all the letters that were sent that had nothing to do with Quidditch. Harry's “other” pile mostly had a few proposals of marriage and offers of a sexual nature, but he just burned them right there with a quick Incendio. Harry was quite happy with his relationship, and Hermione got a little smile whenever she saw him burn one of those letters, so he was more than happy to keep doing it.

There was one letter from a professional team that basically offered Harry a spot on their team as soon as he graduated. Unfortunately it was the Cannons, the perpetual last place of the British Quidditch league for the last forty years, and while Harry was sure he was better than their current seeker and could actually win them at least a few games just by catching the snitch before the Cannons could even rack up a 150 point deficit, he had too much pride to play for a team that was only still in the league out of pity.

By the time they had finished sorting the letters, the pro pile had the con pile beaten by about twelve to one. If the letters Dumbledore and presumably the governors as well had received followed the same ratio, then things were as good as they could possibly hope for. Unfortunately, doing what they had was always going to rustle a few feathers, and eventually a worn out first year had come looking for them with a message from the headmaster and the heads of House requesting their presence for a meeting. By the look of it, the poor first year has been running around the school looking for them.

"Guess it's time to face the music." Cedric Diggory said before standing up and waiting for everyone to follow him. Even the hangers on like Hermione and Crabbe and Goyle went with them, intending to take their lumps with the players.

A/N

It's not actually said what year the Slytherin beaters graduated in the books, we are just told that it's now Crabbe and Goyle in 5th year. So I made the decision that they were gone for the fourth year.

Chapter 13

Chapter Text

Chapter 13

Sirius and Charlus stood shoulder to shoulder as they walked into Gringotts, both projecting the image of the powerful warlocks they happened to be. They had timed their visit so that there weren't the crowds of witches and wizards queuing to see a teller, so they only had to wait in line for a few minutes.

"We are here to discuss banking irregularities with Gleamshard," Charlus told the teller once it was his turn. If there was any way to get goblins to take you seriously it was to mention banking irregularities. That meant a loss of gold. It could be the bank or a customer, but someone was going to lose gold, and while the fines for a customer defrauding the bank were steep, the Ministry of Magic made sure that the compensation to the vault holders was just as severe when the bank was at fault. Apparently both sides thought that potentially bankrupting the other was a good way to keep people honest.

The teller looked annoyed, but he got up off his chair and went to speak with Gleamshard, the bank manager that handled the Potter accounts. Charlus had expected there to be loss and stagnation in the accounts, which was to be expected when there was such a long gap between the account holder dying and the next taking over, but what caught his eye was that some income he expected to see was missing. That needed clearing up now, he wasn't going to stand by while his family was defrauded of money. Especially as the money was rightfully Harry's.

After a wait that was probably longer than it needed to be (and as such an insult from the goblin), the teller returned with a bank runner. Bank runners were basically Gringotts’s entry level positions, glorified errand boys, and this one was tasked to show them the way to Gleamshard's office (and presumably make sure they didn't poke their noses into something that was not their business). The runner led them through a maze of corridors that had to be internally confusing with the number of twists and turns. Charlus remembered the first time he had been led to a manager's office; he had admitted to himself that if he was inclined to grab something and run he wasn’t sure he could find the way out.

Soon the goblin was knocking on a door and after an exchange in the goblins' own language, Charlus and Sirius were let into the office of a goblin that obviously had at least some human heritage a few generations back. They were directed to sit. "So, teller Coppertooth tells me you want to discuss some irregularities. Please tell me what you have found and I will do my best to clear it up.”

Goblins worked best when you treated their time with respect so Charlus jumped right in. "There isn't any sign of money going into the account where there should be. I can't walk through Diagon Alley without seeing some product or other with my grandson's name, title, or even his likeness on them. Yet I find no evidence of any royalties paid, either to his personal account or to any account owned by the Potter family. Now, I don't know who, but someone has been stealing from my grandson and I want to know who it is, I want their vaults emptied, and I want their heads on spikes." Charlus told the bank manager in a perfectly calm voice.

The three of them spent the next three hours going over accounts and ledgers, but they couldn't find any sign of money being paid for the rights to use Harry's names or likeness. Eventually Gleamshard came to a conclusion. "Warlock Potter, Warlock Black, you are right that Heir Potter is being cheated. It is definitely law that they are required to obtain permission before profiting off someone's name and likeness, and such permission nearly always requires financial recompense. However, while the Bank can charge payments that people are legally required to pay, unless there is an agreement to pay royalties for the use of Heir Potter's name and image or an arbitration ruling from the Wizengamot, there is nothing Gringotts can do. What I can do is give you this." He slid a business card across the table to them. "That is a law firm that is good at dealing with financial irregularities. I recommend you make an appointment and go see them."

Charlus picked up the business card and read it

Gripsack - Anne Twist

Specialising in financial law

Floo - golden tongue

Charlus raised an eyebrow at Gleamshard and passed the card over to Sirius, who burst out laughing a few moments later.

"They truly are good at their jobs. A lot of people refuse to use them as the one partner is a goblin and the other a muggleborn, so they have to be good to remain competitive. But I haven't heard of a client ever being unsatisfied with them. If they don't think you have a case, they will tell you up front, and Miss Twist has brought in an idea from the muggle world. 'No win, no fee.' I recommend you give them a try."

Charlus and Sirius agreed that they would do just that, and after a polite exchange were shown out of the office and down to the lobby. Once there, the two made their way out of the bank and to the Leaky Cauldron for lunch. They had expected the meeting at the bank to go long, they ended up missing lunch so it was quicker and easier to get a couple of steaks from the pub than it was to go home.

"So uncle, what do you think we should do now?" Sirius asked as he put two pints of hobgoblin ale down on the table the two were sharing.

"Legal council is the next step. Pity, I was hoping to avoid that. But if I have to change Harry from The Boy-Who-Lived to The Boy-Who-Sued-Everyone-That-Robbed-Him, then that's exactly what I'll do. It's one thing to mention him in history books or a news article, but they have an entire collection of twelve The Adventures of Harry Potter books, posters, and toys for kids. I saw three shops with a notice in their window saying that they were Harry Potter's favourite store to buy something. They f*cking took James and Lily's house. It's like they systematically tried to strip every last knut from him that they could, while deluding themselves that he was growing up as some pampered Prince." Charlus wasn't shouting but it was clear he was angry.

Sirius was just as pissed off but said, "Thirteen." At Charlus's questioning look, he clarified. "Flourish and Blotts had a poster advertising that the new Harry Potter Adventures book will be released on October the 24th. Exactly one week before Halloween. Just enough time for all the mummies and daddies to rush out and buy them to give to their kids on Halloween."

The two of them didn't enjoy their dinner at all, their mood ruining it for them despite the steaks being cooked perfectly. They spent the time focusing on the parchment work they got from the bank, putting it in order to present to the solicitor. Sirius even went out into muggle London and found an instant Polaroid camera and took photos of the books, posters, toys, endorsem*nt signs, and the advertisem*nt for the upcoming Adventures of Harry Potter book. The instant photos were added to the pile of evidence.

After dinner, they Floo'ed back to Potter Manor just to turn right back around and Floo call Gripsack and Anne Twist. Technically they could have Floo called from the Leaky, but it was too easy for someone random to overhear your private conversation, and more importantly it was difficult to be seen as a respectable member of society if you went around pointing your ass into a pub full of strangers. Floo fireplaces were generally wide enough for two people to stand in together, so Sirius and Charlus both stuck their heads into the green flames and said "Golden tongue."

"Welcome to Gripsack - Anne Twist financial solicitors, what can I do to help you today?" A young well-dressed witch who looked like she had only been out of Hogwarts for at most three years asked.

"We were hoping to make an appointment to speak with someone regarding my godson's name and likeness being used without his or his guardian's consent, and he is receiving no consideration for its use." Sirius spoke first, putting on his most charming smile at the sight of the attractive witch.

"If you are interested I have a slot open right now if you want to come through, or I can make an appointment for you sometime next week." She answered, completely ignoring Sirius's attempt at flirting.

"We'll take the appointment now, thank you," Charlus said, and the two of them awkwardly got up and stepped through the open connection. They cleaned themselves off with a flick of their wands, removing the soot from the fire, and they were quickly shown into the office of the two legal professionals. For the second time that day, Sirius and Charlus went over the financial statements and the evidence they had, this time with people they thought could actually help them.

"And what exactly are you hoping to get from all this?" Madam Twist asked.

"We want them to stop using Harry's name and image, and we want to sue for as much of the gold they made off him as you can. They were stealing from what they believed to be an orphan, so I don't care if you put them in the poor house. I'll make an exception for any worthwhile charities that used him to raise money for good causes, and genuine history books, but that's it. And I want you to go after the Wizengamot. They took Harry's parents' house. Yes it is a ruin, but they still need to pay for it. Again, they stole from an orphan; make them pay."

Both Gripsack and Madam Twist smiled widely at that. "Excellent, we think we can help you. However, there is the matter of our fee," Madam Twist said as her partner nodded.

"The Potter family is more than able to pay,” Charlus said without even pausing.

"Oh, no doubt about that. But given your motivation is punitive, you might want to consider our no win no fee option. Instead of a fixed fee, we would take a fixed percentage of the winnings or settlement. It will cost a little bit more than if you pay upfront, but it would make us well motivated to squeeze them for every last Knut we can. After all, if we are paid a percentage, the more you win the more we get paid." Gripsack explained.

Charlus thought about it. What was more important to him, getting as much as he could for Harry or sending a message to the wizarding world that Harry Potter was protected? Phrasing it like that in his head made up his mind for him. Harry was the next Warlock Potter and possibly the next Warlock Black, he would never want for gold for the rest of his life. It was more important to send a message. "What percentage are you thinking?"

"Standard is 20%." Madam Twist said.

"Done," Charlus agreed. "Go drain their bank vaults dry. And if they start selling assets to pay - buildings for example, offer them ten sickles on the galleon." He grinned at the two, feeling particularly vindictive.

---ϟϟϟ---

Harry joined every member of the Quidditch Liberation Team in the headmaster’s office, where Professors Dumbledore, McGonagall, Snape, Sprout and Flitwick were all waiting for them. A copy of Quidditch Weekly was on the headmaster's desk, along with what had to be hundreds, possibly even over a thousand letters.

"I hope you all realise the position you have put me in," Dumbledore said as he looked at them all over the top of his half moon glasses, giving them all his 'I'm so disappointed in you' look.

Cedric just shrugged. "With all due respect sir, if the public knowing the truth about what you are doing leaves you in a bad position, maybe that's a sign you should reconsider your actions."

"Who are you to question the decisions of your professors?" Snape snapped at Diggory, not as venomously as he shouted at Harry whenever he had an opportunity, but still harsh.

Chang didn't look happy at Cedric being talked to like that and she stepped forward "And who are you to risk mine and others chances at our Quidditch careers just so one student can try and show off? I once heard a muggleborn say something about the Tao of Spock. When I asked him what it meant, he said, 'The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one.' Quidditch is an important part of wizarding culture, it’s the stress relief from daily life for a lot of people and the economy around it supports a lot of jobs. Hobbling us for a year so that one student has the opportunity to win eternal glory and a thousand galleons isn't only wrong, it borders on the absurd."

"Well, Miss Chang, it would seem that the governors agree with you. Or at least, the governors don't want to go against the public will as demonstrated by all the letters they and I have received. So we will be reinstating Quidditch, but with some provisos. All of the organisation is on you. The staff will be too busy to aid you in any way. The Quidditch pitch will be out of commission from mid May, it will be off limits to students as it is needed for preparations for the Triwizard Tournament. You will also need to invite both Beauxbatons and Durmstrang to field a team each and participate. No Quidditch can be held on the day of a Triwizard event, and no Triwizard champion is permitted to be on a Quidditch team. We can not risk a Quidditch injury preventing their participation in the tournament," Dumbledore told them, and the Quidditch Liberation Team cheered.

They all returned to the classroom that they had adopted and began to go over what they needed to do. That's when they started to realise just how much harder this was going to be with two extra teams. With four teams and each team having to play three matches, that meant six matches. With two more teams and assuming each team would still play every other team, that meant fifteen games. Fifteen games to fit in around the tournament, which seemed almost impossible with the Quidditch pitch booked for two months solid to get it ready for the final task.

Then Harry had a brain wave. "Guys, why do we have to use the Hogwarts stadium?"

"Because that's where the hoops and the stands are Potter, I know it's hard but try to keep up," Malfoy sneered at him.

Harry rolled his eyes at Malfoy before pretending that the Slytherin hadn't said anything. "This is now an internal event, right? I know we can't do this for all the games, but why don't we see if we can borrow a professional stadium for the last few games. We could even invite the public to those games and maybe split the take fifty-fifty with the team. That should cover the stadium's costs, and our half can go to a charity with the winning team picking the charity."

That had a few of them stunned. Dumbledore had obviously grown the Quidditch tournament to try and bury them under the workload, to get them to quit and put the blame on them or to punish them under the workload. That the solution was to lean into the increased size, complexity, and notoriety to make their little Quidditch league a bigger affair than before was the ultimate “Gryffindors charge forward” strategy and it would release some of the pressure of the time constraints. After all, Dumbledore only said the pitch was off-limits, not that the Quidditch had to be over before they started work on the pitch. With that decided, there was a lot to do. Letters to write, invitations to send to the two other teams, scouts, and Quidditch Weekly at least.

That night at dinner, the four Hogwarts Quidditch captains (the unofficial ones having been made official by their Heads of House an hour before) did something that no one in the school could remember having happened before. They stood together in front of the hall full of Students, with Cedric the one who was nominated to talk as the Hufflepuffs generally had less friction with the other houses.

“We, the Quidditch captains of Hogwarts, have an announcement to make. After negotiations with the professors, Quidditch will return to Hogwarts this year." There was a massive cheer that went around the Great Hall at that, and after a solid thirty seconds of noise Cedric had to quiet them down. "Now, due to the Triwizard tournament there are going to be a few changes. First, we will not be competing for the House Cup. This is because we are inviting both Beauxbatons and Durmstrang to field a team as well, and they cannot participate as such in the Cup.

“Their participation will mean more games that we will have to cram into a shorter time, as we cannot interfere with the tournament. To facilitate this, we are making a slight rule change to the game. Matches will have a time limit this year of eight hours. Most matches are shorter than this anyway, but if the time runs out then the score at the time will stand as the final score. This is to allow us to guarantee that we can play two games in one weekend. Now, we will be holding our tryouts for our teams next weekend. Hufflepuff will be Saturday from ten am to one pm, followed by Slytherin from two till five. Sunday will be Gryffindor first with Ravenclaw after that, same times as before. Time is limited, so serious applications only please."

The students were really excited at the announcement, and the more Diggory spoke the more excited they got. There was a little murmuring over the time limit on the game, but they had to admit that for over 90% of games the rule change wouldn't affect the game at all, and a time limit (while unheard of in official games) was fairly common in pick-up games. But the fact that (as some of the students who were quick with mental math were telling their friends) there would be fifteen games with six teams each playing every other team was enough to quash any annoyance over the time limit.

When Alicia sat down at the Gryffindor table, it was like she was a hero. A few people in the house came rushing up to put their names forward to try out. Harry was both happy and a little betrayed to learn he would have to try out again for his own spot. He had never had to do that under Wood, but at the same time he knew it was the right thing for the team. You don't want to risk missing the new talent because you are stuck on old favourites. Harry wasn't exactly worried though. He was an amazing flyer, a natural in the air, and he had the best broom available. The position was as good as his. And it wasn't like he was the only returning player trying out, the only person whose spot was guaranteed was Alicia's as the captain. In fact, Professor McGonagall had made her captain on the understanding that she wasn't allowed to enter her name into the tournament. Honestly, Harry was sure she would rather play Quidditch, he knew he would.

After dinner, Harry went with Hermione to post the letters everyone had written earlier. He had written the one to Quidditch Weekly telling them what had happened and inviting them to cover the games. Hermione had written to the Beauxbatons headmistress because she could speak and write passable French, while Malfoy had written to the Durmstrang headmaster claiming he was an old friend of Draco's father. Everyone else had been assigned letters pretty much at random amongst the letters of gratitude to the governors and invitations to Quidditch scouts. Harry and Hermione were given the task of sending them all off. They felt a little sorry for the owl who was delivering the letter to Durmstrang as that was a particularly long trip, but when he had asked for a volunteer one of the school owls had done so without any hesitation. They did, however, make sure to shrink the letter down so that the owl could still hunt during their trip without the letter getting in the way.

---ϟϟϟ—

The next week went by normally, except in Potions where Gryffindors were suddenly having fewer trips to the Hospital Wing now that most of the House had started using the safety charms in class. A few older students had even taken to casting the Bubble-Head Charm on the younger Gryffindor students and the Shield charm on their cauldrons. Whether it was because of less accidents, blocked sabotage, or just the noxious fumes not being breathed in (or most likely a combination of all three), but whatever the cause the lower numbers of Hospital Wing admissions had been noticed, first by Madam Pomfrey, then Professor McGonagal,l and finally the students in other houses. Some Ravenclaws and a few Hufflepuffs had even approached their Gryffindor friends and asked to be taught the charms as well. The best part about that, at least if you asked Harry or Ron, was how much it was obviously pissing off Snape. Even Hermione admitted taking a little vindictive delight at just how much doing things properly was getting to getting to the oil slick masquerading as an adequate teacher.

On Friday morning at breakfast, Ron was nervously yacking Harry and Hermione's ears off about trying out for the Gryffindor Keeper position. They were released when Ron was interrupted by the morning mail and Harry spotted his snowy owl swooping in with a letter. After thanking Hedwig with the obligatory slice of bacon, he opened up the letter to see it was from his grandfather.

Harry.

Hope you're doing well in your studies. After looking into some records I noticed that you weren't being paid for stuff you were supposed to be paid for, like the Adventures of Harry Potter books that use your name and likeness.

Because of this and some other things notable by their absence, I hired solicitors 'Gripsack - Anne Twist', who are also looking into shops who have been advertising that you endorse them. Most stores have folded as soon as they receive a letter from our solicitors and have taken down the signs and sent letters of apology to you through the solicitors. (You'll get the letters eventually, but they are with the solicitors for now as evidence).

One store owner however has claimed that he has your blessing to claim your endorsem*nt, Florean Fortescue's ice cream parlour. If they do have permission, can you please send a letter to 'Solicitor Anne Twist' and confirm that for their records. Also, be aware that I have given them permission to contact you directly if they have any more questions. Please do your best to answer them as promptly as you can.

Love from

Grandfather Charlus.

P.S. It's customary for students at Hogwarts to write home once a week. Hint, hint. - Sirius

Harry felt a little guilty after reading Sirius's postscript. Until this year, he hadn't had any family to really write home to, so his lack of communication was probably down to that. But that didn't change the fact that he had a family now, and it was his place to write to them. More importantly right now, though, was that he needed to write to the solicitor's office. Florean Fortescue did indeed have Harry's permission to say that Harry endorsed him, it was Harry's thank you after all the ice cream and homework help he had given out before Harry's 3rd year. But it was the only time he had been asked about endorsing a shop, and the only time he gave permission.

Harry showed the letter to Ron and Hermione. Hermione was incensed that Harry wasn't receiving any compensation for the books. "Harry, don't you realise how bad that is? Those books are wizarding Britain's equivalent of best sellers. They may be trash books with little to no plot or character development, but I never complained about them because of two reasons. They are aimed at kids, so their simplicity is to be expected, but I also assumed that you were being paid for them. They are using you to sell that trash and it pisses me off."

Harry put his arm around Hermione and pulled her closer to himself trying to help her calm down. While Harry was doing this, Ron picked up the letter. While he didn't care too much about the books or shops claiming to be where Harry Potter bought his wand polish, he did however notice the name of the solicitors, and he burst out laughing. It was only when he started saying the name and making it sound like “grip sack and twist” did Harry and Hermione realize it, and the two of them started laughing along as well.

Chapter 14

Chapter Text

Chapter 14

Saturday rolled around, with the first two houses using the pitch to find their Quidditch team today. Harry would be retrying out for his team, which was weird for him since he had already been on the team for three years but this was the first time he was going to try out. He, Ron, and Hermione all went down to breakfast together, Ron talking Harry’s ear off all the way about trying out for keeper, so Hermione quickly decided that the newspaper was more interesting when the morning copies were delivered. However, she grabbed Harry and pointed to the front page as soon as she unfolded it.

Harry looked over to see an artist's impression of himself that had distinctly goblin features playing with a few handfuls of gold coins along with the headline, 'The Boy-Who-Sued'. He instantly pulled the paper to him and started reading, and Hermione pressed into his side so she could read it as well.

You read that headline right, readers, our beloved saviour has become the Boy-Who-Sued. Last night, while going over the public daily filing at the Ministry for Magic, a Daily Prophet researcher discovered that Harry Potter and his guardian and grandfather Charlus Potter (for a recap of Charlus Potter's return from the grave, see page 3) have filed to sue a staggering number of people in the past twenty four hours.

The boy with the lightning scar has filed for arbitration against G.C. Rowling and Avalon Publishing, the writer and publisher responsible for the popular young magicals series "The Adventures of Harry Potter", a book series that is set to release its thirteenth book in under a month. Mr. Potter's legal team has also filed against two printing companies and four different manufacturers of toys and collectibles. Even the popular Mr. Mulpepper's Apothecary of Diagon Alley has been included, and not even the Ministry itself was saved from being served notice, as they too are on the list.

We reached out to Warlock Potter and the solicitors of GripSack - Anne Twist to see if they had a comment, and while no response was received from Warlock Potter we did receive this statement from Anne Twist, senior partner at the law firm in question. "These companies, organisations, and individuals have systematically defrauded young Mr. Potter for almost his entire life. While Mr. Potter was hidden from the magical world and kept ignorant of his place in our society, people saw an opportunity to exploit his name and fame for their own profits. Hundreds of thousands of Galleons, possibly even millions, and of that money not one Knut has gone to the Potter family. That is essentially stealing from a child, and that has to stop now. However, we are not being unreasonable. Books discussing young Mr Potter in a historical context, or where his name, likeness, and/or story have been used to raise money for charity, are being forgiven and have the blessing of Warlock Potter to continue...

Harry put the paper down and Hermione pulled it closer over to herself and continued reading, still pressed against Harry.

"Is it true, Harry? Are you suing a bunch of people?" Ron asked, who had only read the headline.

"Sort of. Grandfather is the one doing it in my name," Harry explained before telling Ron and Hermione about the letter he had gotten a few days ago.

"So what are you going to do with the money if you win?" Ron asked.

"No idea." Harry admitted. "Thanks to grandfather and Sirius I have everything I could want. I have all the clothes I could want, I have a top of the line broom, I have books, and a great home. I already have all the gold I need for Hogsmeade trips. Honestly I have no clue what I could use it for. What would you do with that kind of gold?" Hardy asked looking for ideas

"Buy my weight in chocolate frogs," Ron answered in a mock serious tone, causing Harry to laugh and for Hermione to mutter something about teeth. "What about you, Hermione?" Ron asked. "If you had a load of gold, what would you spend it on?"

Hermione shrugged. "Assuming I was in Harry's position with a private library, I’d spend it on experiences. Try new things, visit other countries and cultures, go see the seven wonders of the world."

That actually got Harry thinking. Even if he didn't leave the country, how many things had he missed growing up that both wizarding and muggle children took for granted? He could visit a few theme parks, take some trips to the beach, go for a walk around the lake district, go to the cinema, or bowling, or laser tag. None of those things were particularly expensive, and with the Knight Bus they should be pretty easy to get to. Maybe he should look into doing that next summer.

---ϟϟϟ---

Harry walked down to the Quidditch pitch with a bunch of other Gryffindors. Most of them were looking to try out for a position on the team like him, Ron, and Ginny, but a few like Hermione were there to cheer on their friends. Alicia had everyone run a few laps and do a few drills before anything else, which turned out to be a good move as that got rid of a lot of dead weight that would have slowed everything down. Then Harry got to watch the chasers try out. There were only two, Ginny and Demelza Robins, and while they were decent flyers they didn't stand a chance. Not because they had no talent, but because they couldn't match the sheer level of teamwork that the current players had. Even so, Ginny and Demelza were definitely people to look out for when Alicia and Angela finished Hogwarts in a couple of years.

With the chasers finalised, it was the keepers who were next, which was also the most contested position. Most people in Gryffindor thought that they had a pretty good team already, so there hadn't been much contest for the positions that were already filled previously. The keeper spot, however, was open and every hopeful in the house had turned up to give it a shot.

The first trial they were given was that they had to save at least one goal from a penalty shot by each of the chasers. Ron made it through that round with two out of three, missing the one Katie had thrown. But at least half of the hopefuls hadn't lasted that first round, leaving only ten for Alicia’s more complicated set of tests. The keepers would have a chance at saving nine shots at the goal each, but they would be more complicated than one on one penalty shots. The chasers would be working as a team in the same way they would in a match, and the person who saved the most would be the new keeper.

A lot of the hopefuls had promise, but still needed a few years to practice before they would make the cut. In the end there were two clear stand outs: Ron and a fifth year student by the name of Cormac McLaggen. Both had scored the same, so everyone else on the team was summoned by Alicia to discuss it.

"Well, our opinion is obvious," both the twins said in unison. "He is our brother after all."

"I need to agree with the twins. Not just because he is my friend, but we won't have a lot of time for team bonding this year and Ron already knows how to work well with Fred George and I. That's a lot less work on the whole teamwork part we would need to do," Harry said

"That would be three Weasleys on the team, though, and I'm worried how that will look," Alicia said as she looked across the pitch at the two, who were eyeing the other up trying to determine who was more likely to get the spot.

"Well I don't know about Ron, but I would speak against McLaggen." Katie shot a disgusted look at the teen in question as she spoke. "He is a braggart and in no way a team player, he will spend so much time trying to tell you how to play your position that he will forget to play his own."

That was the death nail for McLaggen's Quidditch aspirations. Someone could be as good as Viktor Krum, but if you couldn't trust them to do their job and to let the rest of the team do theirs, then you didn't want them on your team. So the keeper spot went to Ron, who was ecstatic about being on the team.

There were no challengers for the beater position. Privately Harry thought that it was because the whole house feared being the twins favourite test subject for the rest of the year if they tried out for the spot. That meant that the only position left to finalise was the seeker. Harry was actually surprised to find Ginny was trying for the spot as well. When Alicia asked her what was going on, Ginny responded with. "Well Harry often ends up in the hospital wing, so I thought it might be worth having a reserve." Harry actually thought that was a good idea. Maybe if they had a suitable reserve in his first year they would have won their last match of the year when he was in the hospital wing. And Ginny would be a pretty good understudy for not only him but for any of the chasers as well.

Still, there was the official seeker trial to do. Alicia had a bucket of golf balls, and she had Harry and Ginny race to catch them. Harry caught all of them until Ginny had complained about his broom advantage, so just for fun Harry had tried switching brooms with Ginny and tried again. That was actually a much worse result for Harry, Ginny caught six out of the ten of the balls thrown this time. Even then, however, two of Ginny's catches were so close that it could easily have gone the other way. In the end, it was clear that Harry was the better seeker, but more than one of Harry's team members said that Ginny was better than Harry was in his first year on the team. They finished up not long before lunch, with the new Gryffindor Quidditch team of Alicia, Angelina, Katie, Fred, George, and Harry (with Ginny in reserve), went to shower and get cleaned up before sating the appetite they had worked up.

---ϟϟϟ---

On the nineteenth, Harry got up early and made sure everything was ready. It was Hermione’s birthday, and Harry had to do better this year than he had so far. He gave himself a break for his first year, as they weren’t friends for her birthday that year. His second year he had messed up and forgotten it until it was a week too late, and he still felt bad about that. He thought he had done okay last year, with a card and book with some quick birthday wishes on the right day.

But this year was different, this year he wasn't just Hermione’s friend. He was her boyfriend, and that meant that he needed to step up his game. It didn't help that it was a Monday and Harry had been too busy with Quidditch tryouts to do anything yesterday when they could have had the whole day. But he had spoken with Sirius over his mirror a few times over the last week looking for advice on what to do, and he had a plan now. He checked he had everything he needed for later, and once that was settled he picked up Hermione’s presents and made his way down to the common room to wait for her. He knew he wouldn't have to wait long, Hermione was always an early riser so she could double check her homework. Sure enough, she came down the stairs to the girls' dorms only about five minutes after Harry got to the common room.

She smiled when she saw Harry standing there with a few wrapped gifts in his hand waiting for her. "Happy birthday Hermione," he said, feeling his own face form a smile to match hers.

Hermione walked up to Harry, and ignored Harry offering her the present to press herself against him, wrap her arm around his neck, and pull his head down so she could kiss him. When she broke the kiss, she gave Harry a seductive little smirk and said, "Now it's a happy birthday," causing Harry to blush a little before taking the gifts and card.

The card was a fairly common muggle birthday card of a cute teddy bear holding up a heart-shaped pillow with the words “Happy Birthday” stitched into it. However, it was special because birthday cards were not something that magicals seemed to do; it was a connection to something they had in common, both learning about the magical world as they went. Harry wished he was the type who could write good heartfelt messages in cards, but all the card had was a simple wish that she had a perfect day.

Next Hermione opened her first present, of course a book, because Harry knew how much of a bibliophile Hermione was. This book, though, was a novel by a magical author rather than a textbook or a research book that he knew she could buy for herself. He wanted to get her something she could enjoy, not give her more work.

"Oh this looks good, thanks Harry," she said as she gave him a peck on the cheek before opening the second, smaller gift. She pulled off the paper and her eyes went wide when she saw the long jewellery box. She flipped open the lid to reveal a beautiful locket, teardrop shaped with a slice of periwinkle blue agate set in faux gold. It hung on a fine gold chain. Hermione became really excited and almost demanded Harry put it on her immediately. Harry loved her reaction, and as she bundled up her hair he stepped up and placed the necklace around her neck. The chain was long enough that she could easily wear it under her school robes if she wanted to. Once Harry was done putting the chain around her neck, Hermione readjusted her thick mane of hair and continued to examine the locket. She opened it up and found that it was magically expanded so that she could store up to seven full-sized photographs.

"It's also enchanted to protect any photos you put in it. You could wear it while swimming in a lake and the photos in it wouldn't be damaged at all," Harry told her.

Hermione completely abandoned the idea of checking her homework this morning (it was just an extra precaution anyway) and instead decided that she and Harry were going to take advantage of the common room being empty to start the day a little differently. She pulled him to one of the sofas and down onto it with her. Understanding what Hermione wanted, Harry leaned in and claimed her lips. The two remained attached at the lips until they were interrupted by one of the sixth-year girls who left the common room to go do something almost immediately after seeing them.

---ϟϟϟ---

Harry tried to keep Hermione’s birthday running on a high note, which was not that easy when most of the day was spent in lessons. He had sent Hedwig to Hermione’s parents two days earlier so that the dentists could send something for Hermione if they wanted to. He knew they had already given her her birthday present before she left for school, but he was sure they would like to send her a card, a letter or possibly something else. He had guessed right and Hermione was pleasantly surprised when Hedwig turned up at breakfast with a card, a letter and a small box of Cadbury Roses chocolates.

"I'm surprised your dentist parents sent you chocolates," Harry commented as she opened the box and took out a chocolate wrapped in purple plastic.

"They are dentists Harry, not monsters." Hermione joked. "While I didn’t have sweets as much as most kids growing up, I still had some. I was just taught moderation." She put on a fake snooty accent and Harry laughed.

Harry had made sure to remind Ron the night before that it was Hermione’s birthday, which was good because the redhead had forgotten the date. Ron came down to breakfast halfway through, wishing Hermione a happy birthday and giving Hermione a book that he had gotten second hand in Diagon Alley over the summer. However, it was in good shape and Hermione looked interested in the book that was about famous Muggleborns and what they had done to become famous.

During class, Harry wasn't able to keep up Hermione’s spirits constantly, but as they didn't have Snape teaching them today he didn't have to worry about Hermione’s good mood being stuffed in a blender and set on puree. After class, though, was where Harry intended to bring it all together. He disappeared right after class to make preparations, running around and making sure everything was ready while tasking Ron with getting Hermione to one of the old unused classrooms in one hour.

His first stop was to the twins, who Harry had asked a few days prior to arrange some food, and they assured him that they had everything under control. Then Harry found Lavender and Parvati to check their progress on sprucing up the classroom a little. They both seemed to think it was cute and romantic to see him running around like a headless chicken trying to make sure everything was perfect. Harry had even convinced Alicia to lend him her wireless for the evening, as well as to show him how to change stations on it and recommend a few stations that play music that they would like rather than a station catering to witches and wizards who haven't had a clue about trendy music for over a century.

With ten minutes to go, all that Harry had to do was help finish the room. Luckily, Lavender and Parvati had pretty much finished when Harry got there, and the twins were just behind Harry carrying two platters, one filled with sandwiches and the other with small pastries like custard slices and chocolate éclairs. They also had a crate with bottles of chilled butterbeer and pumpkin juice.

Harry set up the wireless as Hermione's friends arrived. Besides Harry, Ron, the twins, and her dorm mates (including Lily Moon), Harry had made sure Neville and Ginny would come, as well as her few friends from Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff whom she mostly hung around with in the library: Padma, Su Li, Susan Bones, and Hannah Abbott. Hermione’s main friends may have been Harry and Ron, but Harry knew she liked to get away from them and enjoy some time with just the girls as well. With everything done, all Harry had to do was wait. He knew he was just being nervous, but that didn't stop him from worrying that Hermione would hate everything.

The time for Hermione to arrive came and passed. Harry knew that Ron arriving with Hermione exactly on time was about as likely as the Cannons winning the British Quidditch League, so he wasn't worried. But as five minutes passed, Harry was starting to worry that Ron hadn't been able to convince Hermione to come with him when he heard Hermione’s voice outside in the corridor.

"Honestly Ron, why would you have left your copy of the standard book of spells in here-" Hermione's voice grew louder as she walked towards the classroom, but she was cut off when she opened the door and everyone shouted "Happy birthday!" The twins even had come up with a version of party poppers that they let off, showering Hermione not in confetti but a rain of rainbow sparkles, which were both far prettier than confetti and far easier to clean up as they vanished as they hit the floor.

Hermione’s face broke into a huge smile as she looked around and saw the room, and more importantly her friends. Seeing Harry in the middle of everyone, she was able to work out that it was him who put this together and quickly pulled him into one of her patented rib-cracking and totally awesome Hermione hugs. "Thank you Harry. Thank you, thank you." It was only when he looked down that Harry saw Hermione actually had tears in her eyes. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her in a little tighter as she buried her head in his chest. It took Hermione a minute to compose herself. “I was never popular enough to have such a party before I came to Hogwarts, and then I was here for my birthday so I thought it would never happen," Hermione explained through her happy tears.

Before Harry could work out what to say or do, Lavender and Parvati pulled Hermione off to the ladies’ room just down the hall so she could fix up her face a little. Harry was confused by that, but luckily for him Ginny came up to explain it to him. "It's okay Harry, you have done well."

"Except Hermione is so overwhelmed she needs to run off for a few minutes…"

"Harry, Hermione may not be the kind of girl who has to be made up all the time, but even she likes to look her best for something like this. Lavender and Parvati knew this was going to happen, that's why they came prepared. Just give them ten minutes and Hermione will be back. Just tell her she looks nice when she comes back and you'll be golden," Ginny explained.

Of course, Ginny turned out to be right. The three girls came back shortly after and Hermione looked amazing. She has switched her school blouse for a pink top that hugged her figure, had ditched the school robes and was wearing Harry's birthday present to her out in the open. Harry could tell that she was wearing a little makeup now, because she looked a little better, but apart from the shiny lip balm he couldn't tell what exactly she had done except make herself even more beautiful than she always was. But he had to admit his opinion was a little biased.

Hermione mingled with the guests and Harry put on the wireless, and pretty soon they had a nice relaxed atmosphere. At one point even Professor McGonagall stuck her head in when she heard that a lot of students were hanging around in an old classroom, but she left pretty quickly when she saw they weren't causing any trouble. About halfway through the evening, a song came on the wireless that apparently was one of Hermione’s favourites, so she pulled Harry into the middle of the room for a dance. It seemed then as if the girls decided as one that if Hermione wanted to dance at her birthday party then they were all going to dance. Ron ended up dancing with Susan, while Neville ended up dancing with Ginny and Fred and George seemed to take turns dancing with every other girl there. It was just some silly fun but everyone seemed to have a good time.

When the evening was over, Harry and Hermione headed back to the Gryffindor common room together. Harry didn't realise it, but they were walking past the alcove where the two shared their first kiss. Hermione did notice, though, and she pulled Harry into the alcove. "Harry, this was my best birthday ever. My parents always tried to make my birthday special, but I had trouble putting down my books long enough to make friends when I was younger, and it just never worked. Eventually my birthdays just became a family thing and I would do something with my parents, but then Hogwarts came and I lost even that the first year. The next two years, you and my friends wish me a happy birthday, and I thought that was as good as I was ever going to get. But then you did this for me, and it's the birthday I always wanted. Thank you Harry."

Harry was going to tell her that it was the least she deserved and promise to do this forever every year from now on, but Hermione pressed herself against him and took his lips with hers. Soon their mouths opened and tongues started to feel and press against each other as the two lost themselves in the moment. They were late getting back to the common room, but not so late that anyone said anything, although Harry did get a look and a smile from Ron, who had easily worked out exactly what had taken so long to keep them from getting back on time.

Chapter 15

Chapter Text

Chapter 15

September gave way to October, with the Quidditch plans coming along nicely. Both Beauxbatons and Durmstrang sent back a reply that they would love to be involved in a small Quidditch league. Both schools did however request that they be allowed to bring seven more students and that those seven not be restricted to the same age requirements as the champion delegations. Luckily, they had been able to convince Dumbledore to let them bring the extra fourteen students pretty easily.

Speaking of captains, Alicia was now confirmed as the Gryffindor captain, and it was like she was possessed by the ghost of Wood’s captaincy. She was scheduling practice as often as she could; even when the pitch was booked she had the Gryffindor team running drills over the Black Lake. It got to the point where professor McGonagall had to step in and tell Alicia to calm down a little, as the entire Quidditch team was often late handing in their homework given they just didn't have time to do it.

For the last weekend of September, Harry got to experience his first legitimate Hogsmeade weekend. On Saturday he, Ron, and Hermione all went down together. The both of them had a lot of fun showing Harry all the sights he had missed by having to be careful when he snuck out last year, while also filling up their supply of chocolate, sweets and snacks. On Sunday, Harry and Hermione went back to the village together for a date. There were a few places that Hermione hadn't visited yet because Ron was against them, so they started off having breakfast in Madam Puddlifoot's Tea Room. If he was honest, Harry preferred breakfast at the castle. Not because of the atmosphere, the cosy booth where he and Hermione could pretend that the rest of the cafe was empty was kind of nice. No, it was the food. Harry preferred something more substantive for breakfast, but the tea room only had sweet pastries and he was still a little hungry when they left, though he had to admit the tea was good.

After that they spent most of the morning in the book shop. Hermione lost herself in the room full of books, and Harry found it so cute he couldn't bring himself to interrupt her. In the end, they both walked out with new books. There was actually a slightly more up market restaurant in the village than the Three Broomsticks, so Harry took Hermione there for lunch. Most students didn't bother going there as it was a little pricey compared to the pub. Harry wasn't worried about the cost of a one off though, he was a lot more secure in his money now he had had a few lessons in it from his grandfather. He also now knew about the trust he would be getting from Sirius, as well as the fact that he wasn't going to be kicked out on the street the second he turned eighteen. That was what the Dursleys would have done to Harry; he knew that even though they had never said anything. The restaurant food was delicious. The braised lamb shanks with mint were absolutely delicious and the meat melted in their mouths. It was also not as expensive as Harry had assumed. Because of their age they couldn't order any alcoholic drinks, and that cut the bill down to under four galleons. Harry thought he would definitely bring Hermione back here for their last Hogsmeade weekend before Christmas.

---ϟϟϟ---

On the evening before Halloween, the trio were lined out with all the other Hogwarts students to greet the people coming from the other schools. It was cold, but thankfully the British weather had been relatively kind and remained dry. Normally they would be wearing their cloaks if they were going to be outside this long this late in the year, but the professors wanted the school to look impressive so had forbidden them. A few of the older years were casting warming charms on the lower years. The three fourth-years had all actually learned that one from Sirius over the summer, so they were helping out their year mates. Lavender and Parvati both gave Ron wide smiles when he hit them each with the charm.

Harry wondered not for the first time if they should try to set Ron up with someone. It looked as if Lavender and Parvati weren't against the idea of dating him, but Harry didn't think they were a good match for Ron. The two gossip queens shared hardly any interests with Ron and any relationship he had with either of them would be like a firework: colourful, exciting, and ending quickly, probably with a bang. Plus, any girlfriend of Ron would instantly be having around him and Hermione, and Harry was sure he didn't want one of the school’s biggest gossips around him that much. Maybe he should ask Hermione, she had casual friends in every house through studying together in the library. And while Ron probably wouldn't date a Slytherin any time soon, there was no reason he had to only date Gryffindors.

"So how do you think they are getting here? International portkey?" Hermione asked, as if either Harry or Ron would know something she didn't.

"No clue but probably not," Ron answered. "My dad says witches and wizards like to show off and look impressive." He nodded at the neatly lined up Hogwarts students to emphasise his point. "And a portkey, while practical, is hardly intimidating is it?"

"Maybe they'll come riding on the backs of dragons." Colin Creevey, who was standing close enough and had apparently been listening to their conversation, suggested.

"Not likely. Dragons are almost impossible to train and moving them from one country to another requires the Ministry to agree. Also can you imagine flying here from France. They'd be exhausted by the time they got here. And it's hard to look intimidating when you're trying not to fall asleep during your dinner," Harry joked

Ron was right about them showing off. The Beauxbatons showed up in a massive carriage that was almost as big as a house, pulled by winged horses the size of elephants. Apart from the headmistress, Beauxbatons itself didn't impress Harry at all. The students looked like pampered rich kids who hadn't done a day of work in their lives. Well, that and cold, apparently none of them had thought to dress for Scotland in late October or knew how to cast a warming charm. Harry had trouble imagining them wrestling a mandrake into a new pot or chasing down a Blast-Ended Skrewt that got out of his enclosure. Hell, some of the girls looked like they would cry if they were told they had to milk their own flobberworms.

Durmstang arrived via a boat that seemed to sail under the water and surfaced in the Black lake. From a distance, Harry first thought that they had forgotten that they were supposed to bring students and had brought a team of fully grown witches and wizards, but when they got nearer he saw that they were students wearing thick furs, which had made them look bigger than they actually were.

"Harry look, it's Viktor Krum!" Ron's voice joined the mass of other students who had recognised the internationally famous Quidditch player. Harry recognised him too, but instead of excited he felt as if any chance Gryffindor had of winning Quidditch this year went up in smoke. It would be on him to outfly Krum, and while Harry knew he was good he wasn't on that level yet. The only hope Harry had was that Krum was chosen as the Durmstrang champion, as then per the rules set by Dumbledore he wouldn't be eligible to play Quidditch for his school. Still, if Krum wasn't chosen Harry would get to go up against the seeker who was one of the best or possibly even the best in the world.

That was an opportunity. If Harry could hold his own against Viktor Krum while being watched by scouts, then he was sure to get offers from teams to play for them. He didn't think he would play Quidditch for the rest of his life, but if a team was going to offer him twenty to thirty thousand galleons a year to catch a snitch he would gladly do that for a decade or two. He would still need a job after that, as magic gave the people who had it a remarkable ability to heal, and it meant that living till he was a hundred and fifty years old was entirely possible. So he would need a good career after he was too old or to beat up to continue with the sport.

With the second of the schools now having arrived, Harry and the rest of Hogwarts followed their guests into the castle. The Beauxbatons students were already sitting at the end of the Ravenclaw table, probably feeling more at home with the blue of the Ravenclaw heraldry matching up with the lighter blue of their uniform. The Durmstrang all turned to sit at the Slytherin table so quickly that Harry guessed they had been instructed to sit there before they arrived. Harry, Ron, and Hermione took their usual spot at the Gryffindor table. The twins came rushing over as soon as they got in the hall, standing on either side of Ron so that he would have to keep changing which way he looked as they did their twin speech thing. "Harry, Ron!"

"Did you see him?"

"Viktor Krum."

"Do you think he is here for the Triwizard tournament?"

"Or is he here for the Quidditch tournament?"

Ron gave up on looking at his brother's and just looked over at Krum. "Of course he is here for Quidditch. He is the best seeker in the world."

Harry gave Ron a look. "As the seeker who would be against him, I hope he is chosen as the Durmstrang champion. If he ends up playing for the Durmstrang Quidditch team we can kiss any chance of winning goodbye."

That got Ron to pale a bit as he realised he was now on a team that would probably be competing against Krum. The twins both nodded and the one on the left said, "If Krum is playing, the rest of us are going to be competing for second place."

Harry was sure the twins wanted to say more, but they were forced to find their seats quickly as Dumbledore started to give a speech welcoming their visitors. The trio listened politely as Dumbledore talked about international cooperation and using the Triwizard Tournament as an opportunity to make friends with people from other countries, and to learn things that they would never be exposed to if they didn't broaden their horizons. Basically, Harry reflected, it was exactly the sort of speech you would expect at an event like this.

At the end of Dumbledore’s speech the tables filled up with food. The Hogwarts-feast classic British dishes that had stood the test of time were there, as were other offerings available from France and Eastern Europe as well, both so that the British students could try something new and so the visitors could have something more familiar to them. As they were eating, Harry tried some of the foreign looking foods. He particularly liked a fish stew Hermione called bouillabaisse and some dumplings that another Gryffindor said were called pierogies. As they were eating, a beautiful blond girl in a set of Beauxbatons robes, who Harry had to admit looked stunning, came over and asked in a strong French accent if she could have the bouillabaisse as they had finished their own at the Ravenclaw table. All of the guys sitting around Harry were staring at the girl as though they had never seen one before, and Harry thought it was pretty pathetic. Sure the girl was hot, anyone who wasn't blind could see that, but she was just a girl.

"Sure, you can take it," Harry said politely. "And sorry about my house mates, they apparently have forgotten their manners." The French girl was surprised, Harry could see that as she looked at him, but he had no idea why. She continued to stare at Harry as she picked up the soup, and even gave him a look over her shoulder as she walked away. "That was weird," Harry said as he watched the girl walk away, still not noticing that every boy around him (and even one of the girls) had gone glass-eyed and were staring longingly at the French girl.

Hermione on the other hand had noticed. "I think she is Veela, Harry, and she is surprised that you are not turned into a vegetable by her presence. Unlike some people," she said the last part, giving Ron a look as he was still looking dazed with his fork held halfway to his mouth, the food it once held having already fallen into his lap.

"Must suck to be her,” Harry said thoughtfully. Confused, Hermione asked Harry to elaborate. "Just think about it. Imagine trying to find any male friends when just being around them makes drooling the most interesting thing they say. And none of the girls can hang with her and their male friends or boyfriend at the same time, so they have to choose her or all their male friends. One vs many, I bet she loses out a lot," he explained his thought process.

Hermione thought about it for a moment and realised Harry was right, and probably more than he even knew. Hermione knew just how catty girls could be if they felt slighted, and a good looking girl who could make all of their boyfriend's heads turn would easily have a lot of the Beauxbatons girls feeling vindictive. Hermione was just glad that the Potter men seemed to have some type of immunity or emotional control that kept them from turning into complete idiots around Veela. She had seen it at the World Cup, as both Harry and uncle Charlus had been unaffected by the troupe of dancing Veela from Bulgaria. She glanced up to see that Ron was still glassy-eyed and gave him a light kick to the shins to bring him back to himself, before holding out a basket of bread rolls to him so that it looked like she was just trying to get his attention. Ron took a couple and thanked her.

Soon everyone had eaten, and the food, plates and everything else on the tables dissolved away into nothing. Dumbledore stood up again and addressed the hall. "Excellent, now that we have had an opportunity to meet our guests and to stave off the pains of hunger once more, it is time for us to officially begin the Triwizard Tournament." Dumbledore flicked his wand and the main doors to the Great Hall opened, revealing the school caretaker Filch standing there carrying an ornately carved wooden box. The man quickly strode up to Dumbledore and opened the box for the old headmaster. Dumbledore reached in and took out what looked to be an old clay goblet that was possibly hundreds of years old and held it up for everyone to see. Then he tapped it with his wand and blue flames erupted from inside the goblet, casting Dumbledore in an eerie light.

"This is the Goblet of Fire. It has been used to choose the champions for each school since the very first Triwizard Tournament. Anyone wishing to represent their school will have twenty four hours to write their names on a piece of parchment, along with the school they are representing, and place it in the goblet. This time tomorrow the goblet will make its choice. I warn you now that the Triwizard Tournament is not for the faint of heart and you should not enter unless you fully intend to go through with the tournament, because if your name comes out you are bound to compete. The goblet will be placed in the entrance hall, where it will be behind wards keeping anyone under the age of seventeen from approaching the goblet. All students who are of-age are excused from the normal rules of curfew for tonight only. To all of you who submit your names, I wish you good luck." And with that Dumbledore strode out of the room carrying the Goblet of Fire, and the doors to the Great Hall closed behind him as he stepped through them.

Ron shook his head and commented. "He always has to add a flair of the dramatic," which had Harry and Hermione trying not to laugh.

---ϟϟϟ---

The next day the trio spent a lot of time hanging around the entrance hall watching people, hoping to see who put their names into the Goblet and have a laugh at the under age students who tried and failed to get their names in. There were actually quite a few under age who tried to get past what Hermione had recognised as an age line. There were about eight underage Hogwarts students, including the Weasley twins; four of the eight were from Gryffindor. There were also a pair of Durmstrang students who were obviously there for their school’s Quidditch team who tried and failed to get their names in.

The results were spectacular. The twins and one other Hogwarts student had tried ageing potion and had grown large Dumbledore like white beards, the Durmstrang students had tried to throw their names into the cup from a distance and the slips of parchment had exited in purple fire and turned back and flew at the ones who had thrown them, and when they hit bathed them in purple fire like a human torch. There were a few seconds of panic from everyone around them as they looked to be doubled over in pain, but it very quickly became apparent that instead of hurting them the fire was tickling them. All the attempts were equally funny and harmless, and the trio weren’t the only ones to spend a lot of time watching. Harry tried to get Ron to try to add his name just for the laugh, but unfortunately Ron refused, saying that if Harry wanted to see what would happen he was more than welcome to go try himself.

Both the Durmstrang and Beauxbatons had done their submissions en masse as they came in for breakfast. Harry felt a small bubble of hope as he watched Viktor Krum enter his name into the goblet. If Krum was chosen to represent his school in the Triwizard Tournament, then Hogwarts had a chance in Quidditch. If Krum wasn’t chosen and did end up playing Quidditch, Harry would have to make a point to go with all of his games so that he could see what he could learn from the international player.

They sat down for the Halloween feast (which was where Harry had only just realised the date) with pumpkin soup, fresh baked bread, potatoes fritters cut with jack o'lantern faces, beef stew with the vegetables cut to look like eyeballs, roasted meats and vegetables, and once again there were a bunch of strangers foods that Harry and Ron didn't recognise, though Hermione knew some of them. The atmosphere in the hall was one of excitement as the minutes ticked by, and the moment for the Goblet of Fire to make its decision approached. The hall was even more full than the day before, with more people at the teachers table. Harry recognised the Minister for Magic and Ludo Bagman, but there were also three others that Harry didn't recognise. Judging by the fact that one of them had an expensive looking camera around his neck, Harry guessed that he was from the Prophet .

A couple of Hogwarts students submitted their names during the feast, right before the entrees were replaced by deserts. There were pumpkin pasties, apples baked with cinnamon, candied nuts and a wide selection of Halloween-themed sweets from licorice bats to gummy lips with hard sugar fangs. There were also foreign desserts like bright orange macaroons and baklava. The teenagers all dove in excitedly and in almost no time at all it was all gone. Once the last of the feast disappeared, all the candles apart from the ones in the floating pumpkins went out, leaving the whole hall in an eerie and ominous light. The only other source of light was the blue flame of the Goblet of Fire, and Dumbledore stood over it casting himself in a flickering blue light. "Like I said, he loves to be dramatic," Ron joked.

"Well ladies and gentlemen, if my calculations are correct the Goblet should just about be ready to render its decision. In a few moments I will read out the first name, and I would like the selected students to please rise and go through that door there," he pointed to a door to his left, “The other champions, myself and the other judges will join you shortly." Dumbledore must have spent time practising the timing of his speech, because as soon as he was finished the flames in the Goblet turned red. Propelled by a tongue of flame, a singed piece of parchment came flying out. Dumbledore snatched the fragment with reflexes that hinted that he may have been a decent seeker in his youth. He held the parchment over the Goblet just as the flames faded back to blue so that he could read the written words in its light and said loud enough for everyone to clearly hear, "The champion for Durmstrang is…Viktor Krum!"

Cheering and applause erupted around the room. "Who else could the Goblet have chosen?" Ron said loud enough for Harry and Hermione to hear him over the sound of hundreds of people cheering in an enclosed space. The man with the camera around his neck quickly snapped a few photos, and the woman seated next to him with blonde hair set in elaborate curls (which gave a distinct impression that the woman was refusing to acknowledge that she was getting older) scribbled away with her quill.

"Just be glad we won't have to play him at Quidditch!" Harry shouted back.

"Good, the last thing I want to see is him using that wonky feet thing on you Harry," Hermione sounded relieved as she said it.

"Wronski Feint," Harry and Ron corrected her at the same time. Hermione just shrugged, and it was only the slightest hint of a smile on her face that told Harry that Hermione was fully aware of the real name of the move and was just teasing them.

The trio were interrupted by Dumbledore who was holding another piece of parchment as he read out. "The champion for Beauxbatons is…Fleur Delacour!"

There was another wave of cheering this time, though more subdued than it was for the internationally famous Quidditch star, as the blond girl who had asked for the fish soup the day before stood up and made her way through the hall and out the door. As she walked the photographer took more photos.

"Look at the Beauxbatons girls," Hermione pointed, and Harry saw a few of them openly crying that they weren't chosen. He wondered why not being chosen to compete in a tournament would be enough to cry over. Maybe his first impression that the Beauxbatons students were soft was right. He watched as the blue flames flashed red for the third time and the parchment that decided who would be the Hogwarts champion was spat out. Dumbledore snatched it out of the air and held it over the goblet just as he had done with the previous two. This time, however, almost the entire hall was on the edge of their seats. Students and teachers alike all wanted to know if the champion would be from their house. After a drawn out moment that felt like a full minute Dumbledore said, " the champion for Hogwarts is…Cedric Diggory!"

The whole hall burst into a cacophony of sound. They had been loud for Krum and polite for Delacour, but Diggory was one of their own. The Hufflepuffs themselves were as loud for Diggory as the whole hall was for Krum. Diggory made his way to the room and he too had his photo taken by the Prophet ’s photographer. Dumbledore smiled at everyone before saying. "Well, we have our three champions now so I will-" he was cut off when the Goblet turned red for a fourth time and spat out another piece of parchment. Dumbledore caught it seemingly on reflex, and even before he read out the name Harry felt a weight settle in his stomach. He didn't need the headmaster to say anything to know what was written on the parchment.

With a dour look on his face, Dumbledore read, "Harry Potter." The entire hall went silent.

Chapter 16

Chapter Text

Chapter 16

"Well, we have our three champions now so I will-" he was cut off when the Goblet turned red for a fourth time and spat out another piece of parchment. Dumbledore caught it seemingly on reflex, and even before he read out the name Harry felt a weight settle in his stomach. He didn't need the headmaster to say anything to know what was written on the parchment.

With a dour look on his face, Dumbledore read, "Harry Potter." The entire hall went silent.

Harry's mind went crazy for a few moments, and it was only when Hermione took hold of his hand and gave him a fixed point to focus on did the storm of repetition settle down enough for Harry to make out what was going on around him. Once again the whole school was staring at him, only this time the addition of the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang students meant there were more people staring at him than ever before.

Hermione was talking next to him and Harry forced himself to listen. "Harry, we'll sort this out. Ron, get Professor McGonagall and go contact Sirius or Uncle Charlus. Get one or both of them here now." Harry saw Hermione reach into her robes and pull out an individually wrapped pinch of floo powder and hand it to Ron, who took the powder and quickly got up and rushed off. "Harry, Dumbledore is saying you need to go into the back with the other champions. I'll come with you, but if anyone tries to send me away I'll need you to back me up, OK?" Hermione said as she stood up and via their still grasped hands gently pulled him to his feet.

Harry squeezed her hand, and as they walked to the side door the photographer came running around the table and started to take Harry and Hermione’s photos. His shock at his name coming out of the Goblet was quickly fading away as his brain started to kick back into gear, getting replaced with anger. He pointed his wand at the photographer, and with a quick 'Expelliarmus' the camera came flying out of the man's hand. Letting go of Hermione’s hand, Harry caught it and popped open the back to over expose the film. He then closed the camera back up and handed it to the man as he walked past.

The photographer started to shout at Harry (using language that shouldn't be used in a school) but he didn't care at the moment. Dumbledore shot Harry one of his 'I'm disappointed in you' looks, and Harry honestly didn't know what it was for. Was it destroying the photo of himself before it was splashed all over the newspaper, or did the headmaster believe that Harry was behind his name coming out of the Goblet of Fire? Either way he didn't think he could care. Taking Harry's photo without asking had been rude, and he hadn't entered his name to compete, so he wasn't bothered that the headmaster was upset.

"Harry, you need to go through there. Miss Granger, you may return to your seat," Dumbledore said, but Hermione didn't say or do anything but just stayed with Harry as he made his way to the door.

Standing in the trophy room stood the other three champions: Viktor Krum, Fleur Delacour, and Cedric Diggory. Cedric was pricing back and forth, Krum was looking at Harry and Hermione, and Fleur (who had been looking at some of the trophies) looked up when they walked in. "Do zey want us back in ze hall?" The french blonde asked, obviously a little confused.

"No, Harry's name just came out of the Goblet. I assume the professors will be here in a moment to sort everything out,” Hermione said while Harry tried to think of how his name had come out of the cup.

"But there can be only three champions, and this little boy is too young to compete," Fleur stated as if just by her saying something it should be law and everyone should do as she bid.

"Well someone needs to go tell that bloody fire Cup because it doesn't seem to agree with you," Harry's voice was filled with venom not because of the little boy comment but because of the attitude Delacour had with Hermione. Fleur was taken aback by the tone of Harry's voice. He had no way of knowing this, but Fleur hadn't had a man talk back to her like he just had for years. Women yes, but men were putty in her hands. Twice now Harry hadn't reacted to her like a normal man. If he wasn't so obviously with the girl by his side, Fleur would have assumed he was gay, but that obviously wasn't it and there were only a few other things it could be.

"Harry, how did your name come out of the Goblet?" Cedric asked in the same friendly and polite way he always talked to Harry.

"No idea. I didn't have anything to do with it. All I know is that the goblet spat out my name just like it did yours. For all I know it's still spitting out names and we will have more people join us in a moment," Harry told his side to the Hufflepuff as Hermione slipped her arm around him and leant into his side, taking comfort from his presence as well as offering her support.

They all turned and watched the door, waiting to see if it would open again. Minutes slowly passed and no students came through the door. "Vell I can guess that ve vill not have any more champions. Professors are probably dismissing other students," Krum spoke up for the first time, and everyone agreed. Finally the door opened, and Harry saw Dumbledore leading the two other headteachers, the two people from the Ministry (one of whom was the man who had done the commentary at the World Cup) and the photographer and the journalist, as well as Professors Sprout, Moody, and Snape.

Almost immediately the three champions started to demand answers. Dumbledore ignored them all and walked up to Harry and Hermione. "Miss Granger, you can leave. Mr. Potter will meet with you in your common room shortly," Dumbledore said calmly, trying to dismiss her.

"Hermione isn't going anywhere, professor," Harry said with a steel in his voice that said arguing with him on this would result only in a far bigger argument than was worth it. Dumbledore may win, but the effort required just wouldn't be worth it.

Snape bristled at Harry's tone and was about to start shouting and docking points, but Dumbledore held up his hand to stop his potions professor from exploding on them. "Very well, Miss Granger can stay," He tried to sound magnanimous, like he was granting Harry some great boon. "Now Harry,, please tell me, did you put your name in the Goblet of Fire?"

"No sir, I didn't."

"Did you ask an older student to put your name in?" Dumbledore asked calmly, as though they were chatting about the weather.

"No sir, and are you saying that's all it would have taken? That's ridiculous."

That was too much for Snape. "Why you arrogant piece of sh*t, who do you think you are!? Just because you found a way to break the rules like you always do doesn't give you the right to question your betters! You are nothing and it's time you learned that! Two hundred points from Gryffindor for subverting the protections on the Goblet of Fire, and detention every weekend for the rest of the school year!" Snape was shouting at the top of his voice. The pure hate that was obvious from the man set every visitor to the castle save for the headmaster of Durmstrang on edge.

Snap was just advancing on Harry to continue his verbal assault when a voice from the entrance to the room called out. "Enough!" Harry looked up and saw that, while his and everyone else's attention was on the explosion that was Snape, they had missed three more people walking in: Professor McGonagall, Sirius Black and Grandfather Charlus. It was his grandfather who had shouted, stopping Snape in his tracks, and he wasn't done yet.

"Harry explain, now!" His grandfather was pissed, and as much as it reminded Harry of Vernon in one of his moods, Hermione’s reassuring squeeze of his hand was enough for Harry to remember that his grandfather wasn't Vernon, and even if he was mad at Harry, and not just angry at the situation, Grandfather Charlus would never lower himself to acting like Vernon. He explained how his name had come out of the Goblet of Fire and he had no idea how it had ended up in there.

Snape scoffed at Harry saying he hadn't put his name in, and Sirius turned on him. "Shut it Snivellus. In the real world we need stuff called evidence." Sirius shot the unnamed man from the Ministry and Dumbledore both a dirty look before continuing. "Actually, what are you even doing here, Snape? I understand why Minnie and Sprout are here." Professor McGonagall pursed her lips in annoyance at the nickname but all the Hogwarts students had to struggle not to smile. "Their house members are here. Same for the head teachers. Uncle Charlus and I are here as Harry's legal guardians to sort this out. Bagman and Crouch are here because they represent the Ministry in this matter. What I don't see is any reason for a snivelling git who can't let go of a school grudge and who abuses his authority as a teacher to bully a minor. You have absolutely no responsibility to be here, go crawl back into your dungeon where you belong."

The Hogwarts students all stared at the two of them in shock, expecting Snape to snap back at Sirius, but he only turned around and walked out of the room. Harry realised from Sirius calling the Ministry man Crouch and the look of contempt his godfather shot the man that this must be the Crouch who had sent Sirius to Azkaban without a trial.

"As entertaining as all this is, it doesn't matter whether or not Potter put his name in the Goblet," Headmaster Karkaroff interjected himself into the conversation. "Potter is ineligible to compete under the rules. He is both under age and the rules state that each school may only have one champion. He should be disqualified, then we can move on with the tournament."

That sounded like the most reasonable thing that had been said since his name came out of the Goblet according to Harry, but Crouch stepped in. "Unfortunately, it's not quite that simple. You see, while we all agreed that the tournament would be only between of-age students, it was considered too much work to rework the Goblet when we could just keep underage students away from it. So even if that was a rule for this tournament, the Goblet of Fire does not recognise it as such, and it's the Goblet of Fire with which you all now have a binding magical contract. The penalty of breaking such old magical contracts is that you forfeit your magic. You will have to compete."

"But what about the limit of one student per school, that is part of the original rules is it not?" asked Professor Sprout. "Surely that is grounds to get Mr. Potter out of the tournament wIthout harming him."

"Unfortunately not Pomona, the Goblet's original contract was written with the idea that over time new schools would be founded and who the most prominent schools are could change. It was also thought that the number of schools didn't necessarily need to be fixed at three. There was a possibility we could want five or even seven schools in the future, so they left the number of schools open. Whoever entered Mr Potter has apparently entered him under a fourth school, one where he was the only name entered so thereby guaranteeing his name would be chosen," Dumbledore speculated.

"Aye, sounds like a good way to kill someone off," Professor Moody spoke up for the first time. "The champions are forced to be in a known time and place while already facing down, uh…challenging tasks. It would be the perfect situation where you could do something and make it look like an accident."

Those words sent a chill down Harry's spine, and he felt Hermione grip his hand tighter and pull his arm into her body. Before he could say anything though the Beauxbatons champion, Miss Delacour scoffed and said. "'E is just a boy, who would want to kill him? Ze boy is just a cheat who is in over his 'ead now. There is no need for all zis talk of plots."

Harry saw red at this and turned to face the girl. "I did not enter my name, and something has tried to kill me every year since I got to this school." He didn't notice but Dumbledore went pale as the reporter from the Daily Prophet started to quickly take notes. "And don't go telling me I'm in over my head. I have dealt with things that would leave you a blubbering wreck!"

Delacour was taken aback by the venom in Harry's voice, but it was clear she didn't believe him. Madam Maxime stepped forward and stood half in front of her champion, shielding her from Harry. "Surely you will not allow your student to talk to my champion in such a way?" she said in a demanding tone while shooting looks at both Professor McGonagall and Professor Dumbledore.

"Yet you allowed your student to call my grandson a liar," Charlus said before Professor McGonagall could say anything. Dumbledore was too busy looking at the reporter.

"Well he clearly is a liar," she said as if that cleared everything up.

"Well let's find out, shall we?" Charlus said with a hint of annoyance in his voice. "Harry, do you remember what I told you about Unbreakable vows?"

That surprised Harry and it took him a moment to remember what his grandfather was talking about. He recalled how Sirius was bound to Potter Manor until released by the head of the D.M.L.E or he would die. "Yes grandfather, I do."

"Good then what do you say to taking an Unbreakable Vow to answer my questions truthfully for the next five minutes?" That caused a gasp from almost everyone in the room, but Harry didn't have any reason not to trust his grandfather so he quickly agreed. Grandfather Charlus asked Sirius to be the border, and Dumbledore tried to object but despite him being the headmaster he had no authority to overrule a guardian. Harry thought the process was simple enough when his grandfather explained it to him, so the two kneeled in front of each other with their wand arms grasped. "Do you swear that every answer you give to my questions for the next 5 minutes will be nothing but the truth as you know it?" His grandfather's tone was solemn and serious as he asked the question.

"I swear," was all Harry needed to say and suddenly a rope of fire snaked out of his godfather's wand while everyone in the room watched.

Harry felt a little self-conscious, but more than that he was angry at being called a liar, so even though he was technically putting his life on the line he barely gave that any thought. He did notice that Hermione looked nervous and was wringing out her own fingers.

Grandfather Charlus wasn't going to waste the time and asked the first question almost immediately. "Harry, did you put your name in the Goblet of Fire?"

Harry looked his grandfather directly in the eye as he answered. "No, I didn't put my name in the Goblet of Fire." The answer was as clear and unambiguous as Harry could make it.

"Did you ask anyone else to add your name for you?" Charlus asked, just as serious as his first question.

"No. I had no intention of taking part in the tournament, so I did not ask and would not have asked anyone to add my name to the Goblet," Harry shot the French women a look and they both looked away in shame.

"Do you know who added your name to the Goblet?" Grandfather Charlus’s voice got a little softer now he had proof that Harry wasn't involved. Harry couldn't blame him, over the summer both Sirius and Grandfather Charlus had told him plenty of stories about his father and a few about his mother, and a lot of the stories involved his father getting into trouble in some fashion. It was natural his grandfather would have a few doubts in the back of his head.

"I don't. I could come up with a list of names of people I would suspect, but it would mostly be guesswork." If he had to guess, it was probably one of Voldemort's followers. The question was whether or not this was on Voldemort's orders or if it was one of them doing it on their own in revenge for his part in unmasking the Death Eater at the World Cup? Maybe Pansy Parkinson had convinced one of the older Slytherins to do it in revenge for her uncle? There were just too many plausible theories that fit the very little evidence that they had.

Harry thought they were done so stood up and offered his hand to help up his grandfather. As he was doing so the reporter, a woman who looked to be in her forties with curly blond hair and wearing robes cut for a witch half her age, spoke up. "Warlock Potter, Mr. Potter here mentioned yearly attempts on his life while at this school, could you please ask him to elaborate on that?"

Charlus looked at Harry and asked. "Do you want to say anything, Harry?"

Harry thought about it for a second before saying. "Only that I have enough trouble on my plate right now and inviting more would be foolish. I have almost no time to get ready for a tournament that was made for people three years older than I am. Splitting my focus to deal with the fallout of those stories being published is likely to get me killed."

His grandfather nodded at him in approval, then said to the woman. "I think my Heir is quite right on this matter." The way he said it suggested that he had never intended to let Harry answer the question, he was just testing how much of his lessons over the summer had sunk in. Harry's grandfather then shot Crouch a look. "Now, we have established that Harry is not a willing participant in this sideshow, do you still say he is under contract to complete?"

"I'm afraid so. The rules of the tournament and the Goblet are clear. If Mr Potter does not complete, then his magic is forfeit to the Goblet. There is nothing that can be done about that." Crouch said.

"Then I will be holding the three of you," he pointed at Crouch and Bagman, leaving one person still to name, "personally responsible for the danger Harry will be under. If anything happens to him, I will make sure you all end up in Azkaban. And that includes you, Dumbledore.” He finally pointed at the headmaster. “I told you only a few weeks ago that if stuff like this continued to happen to Harry under your watch I would do something about it. You failed your last chance." This surprised Harry, he had no idea that his grandfather had such harsh words with the headmaster over anything but Snape. Dumbledore, however, didn't look too put out, almost like he thought Grandfather Charlus couldn't do anything. Harry wasn't so sure though, Dumbledore was powerful politically as well as magically, but no one was perfect and Harry had quickly developed a faith in his grandfather. If he was confident enough to be issuing threats then he thought there was something he could do.

While the exchange was going on between the adults, Hermione pulled Harry back to stand by her and leaned into him, getting as close as she could, almost as if she was afraid that she could lose him. Harry understood; he had been lucky for three years now, how much longer could he be lucky for? If it was the other way around, he knew he wouldn't hold up as well as Hermione was. In their second year, when she had been petrified it had hit him hard, and that was when they were just friends. Since they had started dating, those feelings had changed and gotten deeper and more complex. The thought of losing her was an almost physical pain. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and tried to tell her without words that he wasn't going anywhere.

"As much as I'm sure you will need to sort out what having Harry as a fourth champion means and what needs to be done about it, most of us don't need to be here for that. Why don't you tell us what we need to know and then we can leave, instead of having us stand around doing nothing. I bet most of Hufflepuff is currently waiting for me to get back," Cedric interjected. Both Krum and Delacour voiced their agreement with this, and Harry couldn't blame any of them, it must be uncomfortable to stand there watching a bunch of people arguing back and forth about someone else. Crouch and Dumbledore seemed to agree and no one seemed to object, so Bagman decided now was a good opportunity for him to give his prepared speech, even if it didn't sound right now that Harry's name had come out of the Goblet.

"Well we have our lucky champions who are going to be competing for fame, for glory, and for one thousand galleons in cash. The first event will take place a little over four weeks from today on the twenty-sixth. The first task is designed to test your courage and daring. You are only allowed to start the event with your wand, and you will only discover what the task is an hour before the start. You also need to remember that none of your teachers are allowed to help you prepare outside of you asking them to teach you a specific spell or similar. That means they cannot give any hints or suggestions on what you should do or learn, but if you feel your strategy for a task needs you to learn a specific spell you can ask them to teach it to you. However, this limitation only applies to your teachers, your fellow students can support you in any way so I suggest you lean on them.

You will all have unrestricted access to the Hogwarts library, which includes the restricted section. You are also permitted to leave the castle whenever you want to go get anything you think you need for the tournament, and lastly you are all excused from end of year exams and can sit your N.E.W.T.s or equivalent, either this summer or next year after spending an additional year in school if you wish, without any additional school fees. Any questions?" Bagman finished.

Thankfully there were no questions, though Harry did notice Hermione got a little excited at the idea he would have unrestricted access to the restricted section. The idea that there was a section of the library Hermione wasn't allowed to devour had tormented his girlfriend ever since she had learned of it in their first year. Cedric and the other champions left after that, Professor Sprout and the two visiting headteachers following them.

"I want a full copy of the tournament rules," Sirius said while looking at Crouch. "I know how much respect you have for following rules, but you don't mind ignoring them if it suits you, so I want to check them myself."

Crouch shifted a little uncomfortably but didn't say anything, only for Moody to push him as well. "It's your actions that lead to this, Crouch. Give the man a copy of the damn rules." The ex-Auror growled at him.

It was clear that Crouch didn't want to, but with both Sirius and Moody against him and no one backing the other side, the man who had worked in the Ministry for decades and was used to politicking and power plays knew he held the losing hand. "Fine, I will have a copy sent to you when I return to the Ministry. Now what are we going to do about Mr. Potter?"

"Well, given that apparently you have managed to trap my grandson in a tournament that is designed for people with three more years of magical education than he has and you can't help him prepare, Sirius and I will be making regular trips to the castle to provide him with the training he needs," said Grandfather Charlus.

Dumbledore didn't like that. "That hardly seems sporting." He complained.

"Sporting!?" Sirius practically spat the words at the headmaster. "Tell me what's unsporting about someone three years the junior of every other champion trying to catch up? And while you’re at it, tell me what consideration is sporting when we are dealing with Harry's life? The life of your student! What the f*ck is wrong with you?"

Dumbledore didn't say anything, he just looked at Sirius with a look of abashed shame. Not much more was said after that, and eventually Sirius and Charlus finished arguing with everyone and decided to escort Harry and Hermione back up to their common room. However, Charlus did have one parting shot for Dumbledore. "I warned you what I would do if I didn't see any improvement in the way this school treated Harry. So far I'm not impressed. I may not be able to pull Harry out before the end of this damned tournament, but there's nothing stopping me after that. You have until then to prove to me that this is a safe place for Harry."

They found Ron waiting in the Great Hall outside the door to the trophy room, and he fell in step next to Harry and the rest as they left. "You're thinking of transferring me to a different school? Harry asked nervously.

Charlus looked down at Harry and the hard expression he had been wearing and directing at Dumbledore and the Ministry flunkies softened. "No Harry. Hogwarts is the only magical school in Britain, and Potters don't run from their home, we defend them. I do however want the headmaster looking in that direction for trouble. It's clear to me that what this school needs is to be free of certain influences. You're not leaving, he is, and he can take the piss poor excuse of a potions professor with him.”

Chapter 17

Chapter Text

Chapter 17

Charlus and Sirius floo'ed back to Potter Manor. As soon as Sirius stepped into the entrance parlour after Charlus, the older man turned and said. "You get everything ready for us to go train Harry. Use his spare expanded trunk, I still can't believe we both bought him one, and raid the library. Also go buy anything you think may help, potions that will help with the training, a set of duelling robes with as many enchantments and reinforcements the tournament will allow, you know the sort of thing. I'm going to go write some letters and start kicking up a fuss. I need to write to the Daily Prophet as well as to Gripsack - Anne Twist, they can kick off the legal proceedings."

Sirius wasn't surprised that Charlus was all business like this and just stated he was on it as Charlus walked off to start his own list. Raiding the library was first, grabbing books that Harry normally wouldn't be allowed to read yet but Sirius started to pile them up. Harry was just too young to be trusted with such spells normally, but exceptional circ*mstances required exceptional measures, and Sirius knew that Charlus wouldn't hesitate to give Harry everything he needed to survive the tournament. Age appropriate can wait for a time when people weren't trying to off kids by sticking them in deadly tournaments.

With the books from the Potter library packed into Harry's spare trunk, Sirius went and Floo'ed to his old home in Grimmauld Place. He hadn’t been here for well over a decade, but he knew it was his now from the bank when he was going over the paperwork after he had been found not guilty. The house was in complete disorder, and he froze at the sound of his mother's voice demanding to know who was there. It took him a moment to remember his mother was dead and work out it must be a portrait. "Shut up. I am the Warlock Black, and as Head of the House of Black I claim all within this house that is my due." At his words he could feel the house's wards shift to him so that they were under his control, as well as a House elf bound to him. It had to be his mother's elf Kreacher, and while he was supposed to come and present himself to Sirius the man didn't particularly care that the elf stayed away.

He made his way through the house, stopping only for a moment to smile at the portrait of his mother trying to scream at him, but as the officially recognised Warlock of the House she was bound to follow his order to shut up. He made his way up the stairs and into the Black library and started searching the shelves for some specific books. The Potter library had a few darker books for use as self defence when needed, but the Black library was chock-full of some of the darkest spells known to the magical world, and while he wasn't grabbing the more disturbing books there were a few with spells that he was definitely going to give Harry and his friends. With the books he wanted, he Floo'ed back to Potter Manor and dropped them off before turning right back around and Floo’ing to the Leaky Cauldron. A few people there recognized him and tried to pull him into a night of drinking. They hadn't heard about Harry's name coming out of the Goblet yet, so they had no clue that Sirius wouldn't be in his regular party mood. He gave the revellers a polite brush off and made his way to Gringotts.

The goblins didn't follow wizarding holidays, so the bank was still open, but being Halloween there were almost no humans in the bank apart from a few drunks who had already celebrated their way through the gold in their pockets and were here to get some more. Sirius walked up to a free goblin and after being given leave to speak said, "I need to make a withdrawal from the Black vault, and I need to talk to a goblin about having the corps of a basilisk rendered down." The goblin looked a little taken aback by that and quickly started to sort out what Sirius needed while the man grinned to himself. If his godson was going to need duelling robes, then he was going to make a statement and have them made out of the basilisk that Harry killed himself.

---ϟϟϟ---

Harry, Ron and Hermione saw Charlus and Sirius off through Professor McGonagall's floo before the Scots witch sent them back to Gryffindor Tower. The three were drawing their feet because they knew that the response in the Gryffindor common room was going to be a huge party. They just knew Gryffindor weren't going to like that Harry wasn't happy with being chosen to compete. Whether they thought Harry a cheat or if they believed Harry wasn't behind it, the house would want Harry to charge in and win them glory like a good brave lion.

"Anyone up for a trip to the library instead?" Ron asked, and his two friends stopped and turned to look at him in shock. Hermione even gave his shoulder a poke as if to check that it really was Ron and not an illusion.

"Do you think it's Polyjuice? Maybe it's a compulsion charm?" Hermione suggested. "But I don't think there is a compulsion charm strong enough to make the real Ron Weasley say those words. Maybe we should take him to Madam Pomfrey, Harry? He must have a brain virus or something."

Both of Harry's friends saw Harry hide a smile at their antics and counted it as a win before Ron said. "Seriously though Harry, you told me that they said you had unrestricted access to the library. Curfew is a restriction so you can ignore that rule in the library. All you have to do is say it's tournament prep. You can let that lot party themselves out before we need to face them."

They spent a few hours in the library looking for books on the spells they would be taught over the next three years. Hermione’s idea was that the tournament would probably be designed so that it's able to be completed using magic on the Hogwarts curriculum. It was designed by the British ministry after all, and even if they are trying to be fair they would have the Hogwarts curriculum that they remembered in mind when judging how dangerous something is. They discounted History of Magic, Arithmancy and Astronomy, reasoning that passive classes like that would be less useful than classes where you actively did magic. So instead they focused on Charms, Transfiguration, and Defence Against the Dark Arts. Considering that Harry had been told he could only take his wand in the first task, it seemed like a good thing to focus on those core subjects.

Hermione was just starting to whittle down the list of spells; as much use as turning a tortoise into a teapot might help as a way to teach the fundamentals of the subject and further a student's understanding as a stepping stone for learning further magic later, it wasn't likely that Harry was going to have to use such a spell for the tournament. They were intruded by a loud cough from the doorway.

They all turned to look at an annoyed-looking Professor McGonagall. "What do you think you are doing out of bed? It's way past curfew." She glared at them all, her lips pressed together in her anger and demanding an answer with her stare.

"Preparing for the tournament, professor." Harry was going to say more but he was cut off by the professor.

"Don't be ridiculous. You need to get to bed now. I just broke up a party in the Gryffindor common room and was accosted by Miss Johnson, who was demanding I let you play as seeker tomorrow. And also wanting to know where you were, Mr. Weasley."

That hit Harry hard. He had been really looking forward to the Quidditch tournament, but with his name coming out of the Goblet he had forgotten about it while he tried to deal with the latest thing to try and ruin his life. Now that the professor brought it up,, he remembered that they were meant to kick off the tournament tomorrow with the Gryffindor vs. Ravenclaw match, with Sunday being Slytherin vs Hufflepuff. The idea was that they would be able to put on a bit of a show for the visiting schools while giving their teams the opportunity to see the Quidditch facilities the school had available.

Ron, however, who still had his place on the Gryffindor team, went red. "Oh crap. I need to get some sleep.” He quickly started to pack everything away.

"Oh crap indeed Mr. Weasley," Professor McGonagall snarked.

"Professor please, is there any chance I can play tomorrow?" Harry half begged as he and Hermione started helping pack everything away.

"I'm afraid not, Mr. Potter. The headmaster was quite clear on the matter, no champion can play on a Quidditch team. And given that the training for either one will be an incredible demand on your time, I am forced to agree with him. As much as I would love to have the first ever Triwizard Quidditch cup won by Gryffindor, Miss Weasley will be taking your spot tomorrow." Professor McGonagall sounded almost as disappointed as Harry, considering she had practically press ganged Harry onto the team in her desperate attempt to win the Quidditch cup.

McGonagall marched them back to the common room, and as they walked Harry was trying to think of a winning argument that would let him reclaim his place on the Quidditch team. However, every argument he could think of couldn't trump the fact that the Triwizard Tournament was dangerous and had to be his main focus, and it was really upsetting him. It must have been obvious because Hermione even came and put an arm around him to comfort him despite him not saying anything. Harry was grateful for that, he needed the reminder that not everything in his life was going bad right now. So he pulled her closer and let the familiar scent calm him down.

They claimed through the portrait hole and found that even though most of the Gryffindors had gone to bed, Alicia Spinet was standing there with a murderous expression on her face. "So finally come back to the common room then. We all thought you were being lectured by Professor McGonagall until she came to shut down the party. Ron, you need to get to bed now, Harry you as well because I will be getting you up first thing so that we can go beg for you to keep your place on the team."

Harry tried to tell her he had already asked Professor McGonagall, but she just snapped at him to shut up and get to bed as she walked off up the girls staircase. Harry just watched her go. If it had been almost anyone else he would have been mad at being talked to like that, but Alicia was under a lot of stress from helping to put together the Quidditch tournament and being the Gryffindor team captain trying to get everyone together to practise. Harry knew she was just lashing out, and that she would probably feel bad and apologise after tomorrow's game.

Hermione gave Harry another quick hug and after an almost whispered "We will see what we can do in the morning. Good night," followed by a quick kiss on the cheek, she followed Alicia up the girls staircase. Harry and Ron went off to bed only moments later.

---ϟϟϟ---

Sirius and Charlus started the first morning of November early. Both of them hadn't had much sleep the night before, their anxiety over Harry in the tournament kept them awake most of the night. Charlus was already on his fourth cup of tea that morning and his foot was bouncing as he wanted to be up and doing something but knew he couldn't yet. He and Sirius had already spoken to the people they could, sent the letters they needed, and packed the things they were going to give to Harry. There wasn't much more they could do now until people finished waking up and started arriving at work. So all they could do was sit and watch the clock.

A bell went off saying there was someone in the floo, so Charlus left his tea on the table and made his way down to the ground floor where the Floo fire was. He was halfway down the stairs before he noticed Sirius was just behind him.

When they arrived at the Floo fire they found it burning green with the face of a goblin staring out at them. "Morning Gripsack, I assume you got my letter then?” Charlus greeted him, his tone all business.

"Morning Warlock Potter, Warlock Black, yes I did. Anne and I will take the additional job, but as this is not a matter with a likely financial settlement you do understand it will need to be billed separately and will require an up front retainer?"

Charlus just nodded. He was unsurprised that Gripsack wanted to get the matter of gold dealt with first. With over half of their race being employed in a bank, talking money was probably the most common conversation any goblin was likely to have. "That's fine. I will send a letter to Gringotts within the hour with instructions to send you the retainer." He confirmed the vault number and how much the retainer should be. They talked for a few more minutes and Gripsack confirmed what Charlus wanted them to do and said they would get on if the second the bank confirmed the retainer was sent.

During the conversation, Sirius was standing there listening to everything his uncle Charlus was planning and had trouble keeping the grin off his face. Jams had always been a prankster at heart but he was almost careful not to go too far with his pranks. That was, unless he thought the target deserved it, like Snivellus had after he joined Lucius Malfoy and his band of Death Eater wannabes. Then, James could be vicious. Sirius had always thought that James got it from his mother's Black blood, but as he listened in Sirius was coming to realise that maybe James had gotten it from his father. Sirius checked his watch to see it was half past nine, so as soon as the call with the solicitors was done it would be time to go make their complaints to the D.M.L.E.

---ϟϟϟ---

Sirius and Charlus arrived at Hogwarts through the Floo in the headmaster’s office, which was weird as they had been trying to Floo to Professor McGonagall's office. Dumbledore was sitting behind his desk and he was smiling at them both. "Ah, Mr. Potter, Mr. Black it's a pleasure to see you this morning."

Sirius and Charlus both nodded their heads at the man in greeting and wished him a good morning. "Now that the pleasantries are done with, we're off to go see Harry," Sirius said pleasantly enough, but both he and Charlus suspected that Dumbledore was about to make things difficult. Why else would he redirect the Hogwarts floo system and be waiting for them? Sirius wanted to force him to actually say it.

"Ah, I'm afraid I can't allow that. As a judge of the Triwizard Tournament, it's my duty to uphold the integrity of the tournament. Allowing you to assist young Mr. Potter, while the other champions do not have such assistance, is unsporting. As headmaster of the school, I am refusing you access to the school at this time. I'm sure you understand," Dumbledore told them, keeping his calm voice present and a sad look on his face.

Charlus just shrugged before saying, "Then as Harry's guardian I am hereby giving you, the headmaster, notice that I am withdrawing Harry from the school for the day and I will return him later tonight."

For just a moment a smile flicked over Dumbledore’s face before he could school his expression back to a sad look. "I'm sorry Charlus, but I have reason to believe you intend to have Harry practice magic outside of school, and that is a violation of the reasonable restriction on underage magic, and as such I can't let you take him from the castle at this time."

If Dumbledore thought that Charlus was going to scream, shout and do something unreasonable so that he would have an excuse for more restrictions, he was disappointed. Instead Charlus just shrugged again before saying, "If that's the way you want to play this, then fine." He then turned to Sirius. "Sirius, Floo back to the Ministry and tell Director Bones we will be adding Dumbledore to the attempted murder investigation. Tell her that he is now adding additional obstacles outside of the rules and requirements of the tournament. I will Floo back home and start writing letters to all the governors informing them that I advise them to begin searching for a new administrator for the school, as the current headmaster is under investigation for attempting to bring about the death of a student."

They turned around to return to the floo, and Sirius was already reaching into his robes to grab a pinch of Floo powder when Dumbledore called "wait! Maybe I was a little hasty."

Charlus turned to give Dumbledore a look. "I'm not going to play games with you Albus, and I'm not going to negotiate over Harry's life. Aurors will be here this afternoon to take statements and start their investigation. We will have full access to Harry and any students who choose to help him outside of class and curfew hours. I don't have the time to waste on you right now." The threat that Charlus would do whatever it took to get Dumbledore out of his way was left unstated. He just looked at Dumbledore intently for almost a full minute before saying. "So are we allowed to go see my grandson?"

Dumbledore silently gave in, and the two men left the office and made their way through the school to Professor McGonagall's office, where they found the head of Gryffindor waiting for them to come through her floo. They explained that they had Floo'ed in at the time they had arranged, but that the headmaster had redirected them to his office. Understandably the Scots woman wasn't happy about this and blamed 'Albus the interfering old busy body'. "Harry is at the Quidditch pitch. It's the first match of the year today, Gryffindor vs Ravenclaw." she explained, and instantly the two men understood why she was upset. Charlus had talked with the woman enough when James was on the Quidditch team to know that she was obsessed with the sport, and no Gryffindor who had passed through the school while she was their head of house would ever make it past their first year without finding out the same thing.

The three of them walked down to the Quidditch pitch, where Sirius and Charlus would then bring Harry back up to the castle and allow the professor to watch the Quidditch. As they walked, McGonagall filled them in on what had happened since they left. She told them about finding Harry, Hermione and Ron in the library, and that "The first thing this morning, Miss Johnson, the Gryffindor team captain, pulled Harry to my office so that the two of them could beg that Harry be allowed to play. I wish I could have let him, but Albus was clear no Triwizard champion can be on the Quidditch teams. And honestly, on that Albus was right. There is no way Harry could do both. It was clear Mr. Potter knew this as well but Miss Johnson was less willing to listen. I had to threaten to remove the Gryffindor team from the tournament entirely before she would accept that she had to go with the alternative seeker."

"That's the Weasley girl right? Harry wrote home about it, at least when he remembered to start writing home," Sirius replied.

McGonagall nodded. "Yes, she is a great flyer but she doesn't have that spark that Harry has on a broom. Still, I'm not giving up on a Gryffindor win yet. But then there was an incident at breakfast. A lot of the Hufflepuffs were calling Harry a cheat and were being more than a little rude. Some of the Slytherins, with whom Harry has a more antagonistic relationship with, started to try and incite the Hufflepuffs to go further. It didn't help when the Daily Prophet arrived with their coverage of the event, which was almost all about Harry and only mentioned the rest of the champions at the end. And while the Prophet didn't call him a cheat, it didn't say anything about it probably being done to target Harry. After that, half of the Puffs seems almost ready to lynch him. It was only after I stood up and informed the school that Harry had proved he wasn't responsible for entering his name by taking an Unbreakable Vow that everyone calmed back down."

Charlus just sighed at that. Kids were often reactionary, and with what should be considered the true Hogwarts champion being a Hufflepuff he could easily see how speculation in the common room could become accepted fact in a few hours and for them to turn on Harry. He was just thankful Professor McGonagall had intervened early enough that it hadn't become a problem. "Just make sure to monitor the situation, please. Harry is going to be under a lot of stress, and while I like to think he wouldn't lash out, we both know everyone has a point where they break." He said the last part cautiously so that it wouldn't come across as a threat. Luckily the professor understood and reassured him that she would monitor the situation, and also stated that from what she knew of Harry he wasn't the type to snap so easily.

They found Harry and Hermione sitting together in the Gryffindor stands watching the game and cheering for their friend Ron. Harry didn't want to leave, as it was Ron's first match and he wanted to support his friend, but both Charlus and Sirius insisted so both he and Hermione followed the two men back up to the castle. Hermione was barely interested in Quidditch anyway, and only the fact that her friends, first Harry and now Ron, played the sport had her attending. Of her two friends, right now Ron wanted support whereas Harry needed help.

They borrowed one of the empty classrooms and Sirius transfigured the desks and chairs into a meeting table and more comfortable chairs. The four of them sat down, almost as if it was a war council. Charlus took the lead. "I will go over what we did since yesterday. I started by sending off a bunch of letters, first to get Snape reassessed as a potions master. I warned him and Dumbledore at the start of the school year, and his attitude last night was too much, so no more chances. I also sent a letter to Gripsack and Twist, asking them to do a few things. First I want them to get a copy of the Triwizard contract and the full Triwizard rules. Their primary goal is to find you a way out of the tournament without losing your magic, but even if they can't then I want them to find any and every little rule we can use to our advantage. I also visited the D.M.L.E. this morning and had them open an investigation into whomever put your name in the Goblet. I want them charged with attempted line assassination, which is a mandatory Dementor’s Kiss offence. I also told them about some of the stuff that has happened to you two and your friend since you came here, and requested an investigation into child endangerment be conducted against Dumbledore," Charlus finished, leaving the two teens stunned.

"Wait, you're actually going to try and get rid of Dumbledore?" Harry asked.

“Look at everything you told me about since you entered this school. Can you tell me there was a year when not only you but also a lot of other students weren't in danger? In your first year, he used a school as a bank vault to hide something that he knew someone incredibly dangerous was after. In your second, he didn't close the school when students were being attacked, and now he has brought a deadly blood sport to the school putting students in danger. Can you honestly say these are the actions of a good head of a school?"

That got Harry thinking as Hermione nodded in understanding. Grandfather was right, Dumbledore hadn't made the best choices of the four years Harry had been at Hogwarts. And he was also the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, why did grandfather Charlus have to get Sirius a trial? Dumbledore could have demanded one. Maybe it would be better if he was removed from the school.

Sirius started to fill them in on what he had done. "I have your second trunk shrunk down in my pocket Harry, and I have selected a bunch of books from both the Potter and Black libraries. Uncle Charlus and I will be operating under the assumption that you will be forced to compete until you are officially out of the tournament. So, we will be helping you to learn spells we think will help keep you alive. One of us will be here for at least two hours three times a week, as well as a six hour section on one of the weekend days to help train you. I also visited Gringotts and made arrangements for them to harvest the basilisk you killed. Basilisk hide is extremely durable and magically resistant, which only increases with the age of the basilisk. I intend to use the hide to have made a set of dulling robes for you, it's not perfect protection but it's the best I can make sure you have. Do you think you can let the team into the chamber tomorrow?"

Harry was even more stunned by Sirius's plan and could only nod his head. He had never thought of harvesting the basilisk. Hermione, however, had a question. "Doesn't the basilisk belong to Hogwarts? I mean it belonged to one of the founders, didn't it?"

Sirius shook his head. "No, while Hogwarts could potentially make a claim, if they did they would be admitting that they were responsible for all the damage that the monster caused. And there is a law that grants the slayer of a rampaging magical creature harvest rights. It was mentioned as a way to ensure people breeding dragons for their blood, heartstrings, and other useful parts took responsible precautions. The result is Harry owns the carcass, and even after we take what we want to keep from it, the rest should net him a fairly tidy sum. Basilisk heartstrings can be used in wands, the bones can be ground down and used in almost any potion that requires serpent bone, the blood has many uses just like dragon's blood. Like most animals, there is a use for almost every part of it, and given the age of the Basilisk those parts are bound to be full of old and powerful magic, and as such will fetch a premium."

"As important as getting Harry his due is, let's return to talking about the tournament. Professor McGonagall said she found you in the library after curfew last night. Since I doubt you were doing homework, what were you working on?" Charlus asked the two.

Hermione pulled out her school bag that she carried with her almost everywhere while they were at school and pulled out the list they had made the night before. "This is a list of all the spells that we will be taught here at Hogwarts for our fourth, fifth and sixth years. These are the spells the task organisers would expect a seventeen year old to be able to cast. Now, the marks here," she indicated a cross, tick, or a circle that were next to about two thirds of the spells, "indicate whether or not we think it's important for Harry to be able to cast for the tournament. For example, the cheese making charm here is not something I think we need to look at, but the Bubble-Head charm here could easily be part of the task. Luckily you already taught us that one over the summer," Hermione finished explaining.

Charlus pulled it over and read the list, looking over the priority they had already set. There were only a few he didn’t agree with, like the Point Me spell that only made your wand point north, as there were better spells for finding your way that he knew. "This is excellent. This will help us make a training schedule. Great work. Now do you have any clue about a good place for us to train?"

Chapter 18

Chapter Text

Chapter 18

Gryffindor won their first Quidditch match, Harry and Hermione learned as soon as they opened the portrait hole, as their ears were assaulted with the sounds of a celebration. Unlike the night before Harry had no trouble joining in the revelry, so he and Hermione climbed in and went looking for Ron. As it turned out, he was surrounded by girls, as he was the only unattached male on the Gryffindor team he was getting a lot of attention. Ginny, as the only girl to not have a boyfriend, was also getting similar attention from the Gryffindor guys. When Ron saw Harry and Hermione, his already wide smile stretched into a full on grin. "Neville already told me Sirius and Charlus turned up and you had to duck out early, come sit and I'll tell you what happened!" Ron shouted a little to be heard over the party.

Ron got Parvati to move from her spot on the sofa next to him, but she chose to sit herself in his lap instead, causing Ron to flash her a smile like he had won the lottery. Hermione, seeing that there was only one seat available, decided to copy her roommate, and after manoeuvring Harry to sit next to Ron she took Harry's lap. When she felt Harry's arms wrap around her to keep her from sliding off, she snuggled into his chest. Ron proceeded to give them a full blow by blow of the match. He wasn't Wood, but then Wood was a lot more experienced of a keeper. Still, Ron had done well, saving about half of the shots at goal during the game.

There were some who had questioned the number of Weasleys on the team, as Fred, George, Ron, and Ginny made four out of seven,,with two of them other three being the ones most likely to be the future Mrs. Fred and George Weasley. But after today's win, those people who were doubting them would now be keeping their mouths shut. It wasn't favouritism that got every Weasley currently at Hogwarts on the team, it was pure talent.

The party continued for a few hours until Professor McGonagall poked her head in about an hour after curfew and told everyone it was time to go to bed. Hermione, slightly tipsy because someone had spiked the large jug of pumpkin juice the older years were drinking from, gave Harry a good night kiss that guaranteed what he would be dreaming about that night, then made her way up the stairs to the girls' dorms.

---ϟϟϟ---

The next day was Sunday, and while most of the school and their visitors would be going to watch the Slytherin-Hufflepuff Quidditch match, Harry, Hermione, and Ron were going with Sirius and a troop of goblins to harvest the basilisk. Seeing half a dozen goblins with long blades and other tools quickly spread around the school, and news that Harry was going back into the Chamber of Secrets to have Slytherin’s monster cut up and harvested for its valuable parts quickly spread around the school. Some of the Slytherins seemed to find it almost sacrilegious and wasted no time in coming to Harry to complain and mouth off. Draco was, as always, the first to come and try to tell Harry he had no right to do it. Harry just ignored him.

After Draco came someone that Harry couldn't just ignore. "Potter, Black, you will stop this foolishness immediately. You have no right to a relic of a founder of Hogwarts. As Head of Slytherin, I claim the basilisk and all its bounty to be the property of the school," Snape yelled as he followed them through the school towards the girls bathroom on the second floor.

"Really sure you want to do that greasy?" Sirius quipped. "Harry's claim is based on the fact that he killed a rogue monster. Are you claiming that this monster wasn't rogue and was the property of Hogwarts all along?" Snape was just about to answer but Sirius cut him off and said, "Careful how you answer now. You claim the corpse for the school, and the school is liable for all the Damage the snake did. Imagine how much the school would lose in payouts to the families of the attacked students? Hell I might even sponsor the lawsuit myself, after all Harry was attacked by it so he would also have a claim. And grouping all the lawsuits together makes it easier to show a pattern and strengthen our case. Can you imagine what the governors would do to a staff member who loses the school so much gold? You'd be fired inside a week." Sirius actually sounded like he hoped that Snape would try to push it.

Snape gave Sirius a look that would curdle milk but turned and strode away from them, his robes billowing behind him as he went.

"Do you ever wonder how he gets his robes to billow like that?" Ron asked as the dungeon bat disappeared around a corner.

“He puts a feather light charm on them," Sirius answered. “It was the fashionable thing to do when we were in school. Harry, one of your mother’s friends Pandora was the one who started it. She wanted her robes lighter because we had a hot summer, but everyone thought it looked good so soon everyone was doing it."

Harry didn't care about Snape's robes at all, but he was happy to learn something about his mother. "But why did you stop Professor Snape? If he had claimed the corpse, you would have been able to get him kicked out of the school. You said yesterday that you wanted that.”

"True, but that would have put the carcass in legal limbo while who owned it was sorted out. During that time, it would be in the ministry and would start to go missing. Some bureaucrat would say that this part or that part was too dangerous to be out in public, and people with sticky fingers would help themselves to more valuable parts. We need the hide as soon as possible if we are going to make Harry a set of duelling robes from it in time for the first task." Sirius explained to Hermione who nodded her understanding.

"You’re talking like the basilisk is worth a lot of money?" Harry asked.

"It is, Heir Potter," One of the goblins said. "The specimen is almost one thousand years old if the story of it being left here by Slytherin himself is accurate. That makes it big and full of Magic. Warlock Black said he is having duelling robes made for you. One set of robes would be worth almost twenty thousand galleons. And a sixty foot basilisk might have enough hide for ten sets of robes. Now, the hide is not worth as much unworked, but it is still about two thirds to three quarters the cost. That's just the hide; if you and your guardians decide to, almost every part of it can be sold or it has some use or another. The venom is prized by curse breakers for its ability to destroy cursed objects, the heartstrings can be used in wands like dragons’. The list is extensive.” Harry did some quick mental math and came up with high end values of a hundred and fifty thousand galleons from just the hide. He resolved then that he would speak with Grandfather Charlus about it because it was honestly too much money, it was almost three quarters of a million pounds.

The actual trip to the chamber was uneventful, but the harvesting of the basilisk was genuinely interesting if more than a little gross. There was some commotion from everyone, including the goblins, when they actually saw the size of it. Apparently it was one thing to be told Harry had killed a sixty foot long snake with a sword. It was something else entirely to see the snake itself. Ron just stood there, mouth open in shock. Hermione burrowed herself in Harry's chest, needing to be reassured he was okay. Sirius pulled Harry and Hermione into a hug; Harry doubted he intended to include Hermione in the hug but she was clinging to Harry so tight she was included. During Sirius' hug he was vowing to Harry that he would do everything he could do to keep Harry safe from now on.

The team of goblins, however, had a very different reaction. They all congratulated Harry on proving himself to be a true warrior. One of them even said he was going to place a bet on Harry to win the tournament. Apparently, according to that particular goblin, a bunch of school kids didn't have a chance against a true warrior like Harry. He chose not to say anything about being called a warrior by the goblins. He knew they were a rather warlike people, and so denial of the title might be seen as insulting, and he also didn't want to come off like some kind of bragging fool like Lockhart. If the goblins thought what he did was impressive, then let them. Personally Harry just thought he was bloody lucky he wasn't dead.

---ϟϟϟ---

Over the next week, Harry's life fell into a routine. He would attend his classes as normal, and then he would have an hour to himself to relax. After that he and Hermione (and maybe Ron depending on if he had Quidditch practice) would meet up with either Sirius or Charlus to practise for the tournament until dinner, after which was homework. Ron as usual put his homework off to the last minute, but both Lavender and Parvati were volunteering to help Ron with it, so he wasn't pestering Hermione for her help, which was good for her as she was starting to show signs of stress.

Harry understood she was worried about what would happen at the first task, he was as well, but Hermione was throwing herself one hundred percent into finding ways to keep him alive. She was even learning the spells that Sirius and Charlus were teaching Harry, and he suspected it was so that if he needed help she would be prepared to jump in and help him. That's not to say Ron wasn't helping him, he was. However, the difference was that Ron was also focusing on his Quidditch training and getting a break twice a week. Also, Ron seemed to have more of an unshakeable faith that Harry would be okay. "Harry is always fine, and he is already more prepared for this than anything else we have done," Harry had heard his red-haired friend say to Hermione on a few occasions.

Monday came, and Harry, Ron, and Hermione tracked into the empty classroom they were using for training. The three of them were surprised because both Sirius and Charlus were there, when up until now there had only ever been one or the other, and they both had rather grim expressions on their faces.

"Who died?" Ron asked, trying to lighten the mood somewhat, but the looks that Charlus and Sirius gave Harry killed the humour before it could start.

Harry was worried now and asked "What's wrong?"

Charlus pulled an open letter out of his pocket and held it up so Harry could see what it was. "I got this letter from Molly this morning. I had asked her to write to her son Charlie and ask him to recommend some spells and strategies for dealing with large animals. Given he works on a dragon preserve, I guessed he would know a few and I wanted to cover all our bases for the tournament. She got a letter back from him last night. He said he couldn't help without breaking a magical contract, but that he was going to be in the country for a few days starting from the twenty fourth until the twenty eighth, and that he hopes he will have enough time away from work to pay her a visit."

It was Hermione who understood first. "No. No no no. They wouldn't. It's a school tournament, they wouldn't."

"We think so. And that's what we are going to assume going forward," Sirius answered her.

From Hermione’s reaction, both Harry and Ron were able to peace it together. Charlie was going to be in the country for the tournament, Charlie worked in Romania on a dragon reserve, Harry was going to have to fight a dragon. Harry felt a sudden need to sit down, and Hermione was instantly by his side checking to see if he was okay. They were forcing him to fight a f*cking dragon. It was insane. For a moment he wanted to run, to get away from this insane school and the mad magicals. However, almost as soon as the thought crossed his mind, he dismissed it. While he could easily live in the muggle world, that world had nothing to offer him. He would have his memories of his friends, his grandfather, his godfather, and his girlfriend wiped away, then be returned to the Dursleys were he would be treated like a slave until he was thrown out on the streets at the age of eighteen.

No, the magical world may be insane but there were people here he cared about, and of them Hermione was the only one who could function in the mundane world. Besides, magical people may be insane, but magic itself was amazing. The magical world was his home, and he wasn't going to run away from his home. Still, even if he resolved not to run, there was the matter of a dragon that was going to try to eat him in three weeks, so no one was surprised when Harry started feeling sick and as though he couldn't breathe. His heart was racing like it knew his end was coming and it wanted to use the little time it had left to fulfil a lifetime's worth of heart beats.

Hermione was the first one who recognised that Harry was having a panic attack. She took his hands in hers and started trying to get Harry to focus on her. Luckily, Charlus had expected such a reaction, and while wizards didn't deal with panic attacks the same way muggles did, like most areas of medicine and healing the magical world was the more effective of the two. Charlus pulled out a vile of potion and passed it to Hermione. "It's a calming draft, get Harry to drink it."

Hermione did just that, trusting an unlabelled potion from Charlus much more than she would from anyone else. She popped the lid and held it to Harry's lips and with a little soft encouragement he drank down the liquid. Harry's panic attack subsided in moments, and it was a far calmer but still scared Harry that pulled Hermione into a much needed hug.

"When you're ready Harry, I have a plan for how you can deal with a dragon," Sirius offered up in a reassuring tone.

Harry took the next few minutes, and Hermione helped to get him centred again. Ron obviously wanted to help but didn't really know what to do, and Sirius and Charlus seemed to understand that all they would be doing is crowding Harry so they left it to Hermione. Once Harry was back on an even footing and was ready to continue, but still holding Hermione’s hand for comfort, he turned to his godfather and asked, "So what's this plan then?"

Sirius grinned slightly and pulled a snitch out of his pocket, held it up for Harry to see, and said. "This." Everyone looked at him as if he was insane, but he didn't seem phased at all by that. "Now, I don't know how much you know about dragons but the biggest problem when dealing with them is that their hide is incredibly resistant to magic. You need about half a dozen wizards all casting the same spell on them at the same time to overcome this. It's why Auror and duelling robes are made from dragon hide. But it's only their hides that are magical resistant. There are points on a dragon unprotected by their hide, the eyes and mouth being the main ones. So we will be focusing a lot of your training over the next three weeks on your aim. If you can bullseye a flying snitch, then you can hit a dragon's eye or send a spell into its open mouth."

Sirius cast an Engorgio charm on the snitch until it was the size of a beach ball, then set it flying around the room. "Well you three, the goal is to hit it with a colorization charm. Do you all know it?" All three of them nodded. "Good, Harry you can cast in green because of your eyes, Ron you can cast in red because of your hair, and the lovely Hermione gets to cast in blue as I know it's your favourite colour. Once you can all hit the ball consistently with it at this size, we will make it smaller and do the exercise again. Hopefully by the time we get to the first task you'll be able to hit the snitch at its regular size," Sirius finished explaining.

The exercise was rather easy at first, the beach ball size of the snitch being hardly any challenge for the teens. But true to his word, Sirius quickly started to reduce the balls size. When it got down to the size of a *football, they were missing half the time and that seemed to be a good size for them to be practising at. But as Sirius said, it was "a good start, as the inside of a dragon's mouth is a good target and the ball was already a smaller target than an open dragon mouth." Considering the best opportunity to cast a spell into a dragon's mouth was right before it was about to breathe fire on you, this wasn't comforting, but it was the start of the training.

After that grandfather Charlus took over the training for the day. He gave them five minutes to get their breath back and have a drink of water, then he had them all listen to him. "I'm going to teach you all a spell. This spell is a restricted spell, it's not illegal to know or to use, but you won't find it in any book of spells legally published in Britain, because this spell is one that can easily kill and has little use outside of killing. Harry and Hermione, as members of the House of Potter you would have both been taught this spell at the age of seventeen for self defence, unless you proved yourself to be too irresponsible to be trusted with it. Due to the tournament we are bringing the time table up a bit. Ronald, I don't know if the Weasley family knows the spell, or if they make a habit of teaching it to people, but as you are likely to fall into trouble alongside Harry I won't have you unable to defend yourself and your friends. Now, I am trusting you each to exercise your judgement on when it's appropriate to use such a spell. If I find out any of you have misused the spell I'm about to start teaching you, I will drag you to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement myself. This is serious business, is this understood?"

They all replied in the affirmative. Hermione was almost too nervous to learn the spell after Charlus’s little speech; she almost seemed weighed down by the idea of learning something so potentially dangerous. But she had people to protect and she wouldn't let her fear stand in her way of getting a tool to do just that. Ron seemed almost eager to learn, excited by the idea of knowing such a powerful spell. Harry split the difference between his two friends, he didn't have the reservations Hermione had (he was after all going to face a dragon in three weeks and he didn't think a stunning charm was going to cut it), yet he wasn't as excited as Ron. He just felt determined.

1. ---ϟϟϟ---

Sirius took the lead in training the three teens over the next two weeks, giving Charlus time to work on other things, like dealing with the paperwork he was getting from Gripsack, Anne Twist. All of the stores who had Harry Potter endorsem*nt signed in their windows with the exception of the ice cream parlour had removed them. Ms. Twist had recommended Harry take a photo with the owner of the ice cream shop that he could display alongside the endorsem*nt. Charlus considered it, it would legitimise the ice-cream parlour and show that Harry was willing to play the game. He would have to talk to Harry about it, but it looked like he could draw a line under the endorsem*nt stuff and call it a win.

Avalon Publishing, however, was pushing back. They were claiming that their disclaimer at the start of the books that the books were entirely fictional was all they legally had to do. That wasn't all, the Ministry were claiming that they had the right to declare the Potter cottage in Godric's Hollow as a historic landmark, and they weren't going to be returning it. Charlus didn't hesitate to sign the paperwork that the solicitors had kindly already filled out for him so that he could call both Avalon Publishing and the Ministry before the Wizengamot.

The more complicated matter of one Severus Snape was next. It took Charlus a while to reconnect with his contemporaries in the field of potions. Two he was sad to hear had died, one of which was sadly recent, only a month before Sirius had pulled him from the time storm. It took a lot of letters back and forth before Charlus could ask for a favour, but the catching up was done and it was time for him to move forward.

He pulled out some parchment and started writing his letters to the other grandmasters of potions. Unfortunately, at this level it would require each of them to be sent a personal letter, not just a generic (and then duplicated) letter that was the same to all of them. Charlus was extra careful to make sure he went over every point of contention he had with Snape, such as the fact that the number of students taking their N.E.W.Ts had dropped considerably ever since Snape started teaching potions, the strain this put the healer profession, and how Britain was starting to fall behind other countries in Potions innovation. He wrote about having to go to Hogwarts and force Snape to allow students to use standard safety charms and how the man was a terrible teacher who obviously needed to be reassessed on his Potions master certification, as he obviously needed more real world experience.

Lastly Charlus also had a letter from Quidditch Weekly. They wanted to interview Harry about losing his place on the Quidditch team, which of course needed Charlus’s permission as he was Harry's legal guardian. Charlus actually gave the letter to Sirius and told him to show it to Harry, and the two of them would decide what to do with it. Charlus was really happy he had given Harry and Sirius the decision when they came back to him with their choice: Harry would agree to an interview, but only after the first task and before he started preparing for the second, as he was too busy now to do an interview. Charlus wrote up a letter to the magazine saying just that, and the reply came in a day later saying that the magazine was disappointed not to have an opportunity to talk to Harry sooner but understanding the need to not interrupt training before a big match.

After reading the letter from Quidditch Weekly, Charlus realised he was officially out of stuff to do for a while, and he didn’t like it. Ever since Harry's name had come out of the damned fire cup, he had thrown himself one hundred percent into helping keep his grandson alive. Working kept him from feeling hopeless. When he stopped, that's when the darker thoughts settled in, thoughts like, 'Y ou are a failure of a Warlock, the Potter family will die out because of you ,' and ' you couldn't keep James safe, what makes you think you can keep Harry safe? ' He knew why it was so easy for his thoughts to turn that way. To the world, almost Charlus’s entire family had been dead for over a decade, but for him it wasn't even six months yet. He was still very much in mourning, and the grief often pushed his thoughts into a depressive spiral. It was little wonder people often died of a broken heart. Charlus could admit to himself that if it wasn't for Sirius, Harry, and to a lesser extent Harry's friends, it would be the easiest thing in the world for him to lose the will to keep going. Charlus picked up a photo of him and Dorea from his desk and stared at it longingly. Even with everything he had to live for, he could admit to himself that a part of him just wanted it to be over so he could go join the woman who he had pledged his soul to all those years ago.

Charlus got up from his desk and left his office to look for something to distract him. Sirius was at Hogwarts helping Harry train, so there was no distraction coming from there. He considered going to a pub (either the Leaky or the Three Broomsticks), but decided against it as the last thing he needed right now was alcohol. Then he had an idea. Harry's aunt and uncle probably didn't know what was going on with him. Yes, there had been some tension between Harry and his family when Charlus had gone to meet Harry and bring him home, and the fact that they didn't fight for Harry's custody or visitation rights said that things weren't as good there as Harry deserved, but you don't raise a boy for almost a decade without coming to care for him. Charlus would pay them a visit and apologise for the lack of contact and fill them in on what was happening. Maybe they would have some advice on how to help Harry though this, after all they had been like his parents for so long they must know him better than anyone.

A/N

*by football, I mean the ball used in the game that Americans wrongly call soccer.

Chapter 19

Chapter Text

Chapter 19

Professor McGonagall was surprised on Saturday afternoon when there was a firm knock on her office door. "Come in" she called curtly, readying herself to give whatever student it was a lecturer about the difference between knocking on a door and trying to knock one down. However, when it opened, instead of a student there were two red-robed Aurors standing there with grim expressions, who walked in and closed the door behind them. The Scotswomen had taught both of them so she knew who they were immediately. "Shacklebolt, Tonks? What has happened?" Images of a seriously injured Gryffindor student started to come to her mind.

Seeing the conclusion that Professor McGonagall had jumped to, Shacklebolt held up a hand and said. "It's nothing like that, Professor McGonagall. However, due to an irregularity, we have found we need you to come with us to the D.M.L.E. to answer some questions." That shocked the professor, but when she tried to object she was informed that she was going to the D.M.L.E. and that she didn't have any say in the matter. They did, however, Floo from her office to the D.M.L.E. so none of the students saw their professor being walked out of the castle by Aurors.

In the D.M.L.E. she was shown to an interview/interrogation room, and after confirming her identity and some paperwork it was time for the questions to begin. First Auror Tonks read the Scottish witch her rights. "Minerva McGonagall, you are being interviewed under suspicion of attempted murder of a minor. You do not have to say anything, and you may not be magically compelled to answer any questions. You may, however, volunteer to take Veritaserum or offer an Unbreakable Vow of truth if you wish. It may also harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on before the Wizengamot."

McGonagall was shocked again. "Attempted murder of a minor, what the hell are you talking about?" She demanded.

Shacklebolt took the lead again. "We have found evidence that you may have been the one who put Harry Potter's name into the Goblet of Fire. Can you tell us your point of view from the arrival of the other schools up until the Goblet of Fire made its decision?"

The Scots witch was shocked again, how could they suspect her of putting Mr Potter's name into the Goblet of Fire? She explained how after the arrival of the foreign students, she was busy shepherding her House students around, getting them back into the Great Hall for the feast. After the feast there was more shepherding of students, getting her Gryffindor prefects to shuffle the lower years back up to their common room, before returning to her office. "There was no point watching the Gryffindors; they would be up half the night with their excitement. Especially after Karkaroff brought that famous seeker of his. It's better to let them burn the excess excitement from their system in one night rather than wasting time trying to calm them over the next week. So I went back to my rooms and poured myself a scotch - it wasn't my night to patrol so I was off duty - and did some homework marking I had left to do, as I lost the time I would normally have done it on that day. I went to bed around ten after telling a portrait to watch for any emergencies in the Gryffindor common room." She then expanded her next day, mentioning where she was and who would have seen her there, right up until the start of the Halloween feast. She never once said anything that could be considered even attempting to put Harry's name in the Goblet of Fire. "Right, now I have told you what I was doing. I want to know what evidence you think you have that you dragged me in here like a common sneck-drawer" (sneak thief), as she slipped into Scots at the end in her frustration and anger.

Shacklebolt pulled out a clear plastic document holder from his pocket and slid it across the table. For the most part, the magical world didn't use muggle things like this, but the DMLE liked having this to protect evidence while still being able to read it. "Can you identify this document, professor?" He asked.

McGonagall picked it up and had a look. "It's an essay on animate to inanimate Transfiguration, one I gave to my fourth year students in late September to early October in preparation for turning live animals into objects. It's not signed, but by the look of the handwriting it's Mr. Potter's essay."

Shacklebolt took the essay back. "You are correct, it is a Transfiguration essay written by Harry Potter. But according to Mr. Potter, it was signed and was handed in to you. As you know as the Deputy Headmistress, the Goblet of Fire requires a name written by that person. Harry Potter's signature was in your possession, and then the next thing we know it's coming out of the Goblet. So if you could, please explain to me how that signature got from your office, where it was under lock and key in your possession, and into the Goblet of Fire." However, McGonagall couldn't explain it, at least not to any satisfactory level. There were too many ways it could have happened. While she locked her door, the school was full of people who could get around such locks. It was an office for a school teacher, not the Department of Mysteries; there just wasn't the need for ridiculously high levels of security.

After thinking about it for a minute, the Scots witch decided to take a leaf out of Mr Potter's book. "I waive my right against magical compulsion and request to take an Unbreakable Vow of truth." She chose the vow despite it being the more dangerous of the two because it offered her more freedom in her answers, or more specifically not answering. Veritaserum made you answer a question that was asked of you: any question, asked by anyone. The Vow, on the other hand, gave her the option to not answer a question if she didn't want to, so long as what she did answer was truth. Auror Shacklebolt accepted the Vow while Tonks acted as their binder. "I, Professor Minerva McGonagall, did not enter Harry Potter's name into the Goblet of Fire, I did not knowingly help another person to do so, and I have no knowledge of who entered Mr. Potter or of anyone who has aided them, knowingly or unknowingly."

The atmosphere in the interrogation room changed almost immediately. The two Aurors became a lot warmer in their tones and their posture relaxed, as though they were no longer holding themselves ready to fight back against a sudden attack. The questions also shifted; now they were asking about her office, the protections on it and who had access. Of course, she answered as many as she could, but unfortunately there just wasn't a lot to go on. The headmaster and Madam Pomfrey also had access to her rooms in case of emergency, but she could only think of maybe four members of staff who wouldn't be able to overcome the charms on her door. One was a squib, one had no wand, one had her head in the stars, and the last spent so much time drunk McGonagall didn't think she could see her door let alone point a wand at it.

---ϟϟϟ---

Charlus was trying to work out what was best now. Well, he was trying to think about what was best, but thoughts about what he could get away with kept pushing those thoughts aside.

He had gone to visit the Dursleys. He hadn’t known what he was expecting, it was obvious when he met them the first time that the Dursleys were not a loving family for Harry. They hadn't even asked Harry if he wanted to stay with them, they had practically jumped at the chance to be rid of Harry. But Charlus expected some level of familial concern for him. Instead, as soon as Vernon Dursley opened the door and saw Charlus, the verbose verbal vitriol that came from the man was, in a word, disturbing. In only a few minutes, Charlus learned more about Vernon Dursley’s view on magicals than he ever wanted to know. There was no way a man as prejudiced as Dursley had raised a child he knew was magical in any way that wouldn't be considered abusive.

So how abusive had Dursley been, and what should Charlus do now? There was a chance the abuse was minimal; only a few comments that were best left alone. But Charlus had an impression that it was worse than that. It would be easy enough to find out, he could always ask Harry. But the boy was preparing for the first task of the damned tournament, and Charlus was worried that splitting his attention was not a good idea. Harry was going to face a dragon, and Charlus didn't want to risk him potentially getting seriously hurt by such a monster because he was preoccupied by reliving a traumatic event while he was learning the spells he was going to need from Sirius.

Did he go to Harry now and risk Harry's focus when dealing with a dragon, or did he wait and risk that Harry needed help now? It was a difficult question, and the only one with the answers was Harry. Well, and the Dursleys, but they weren't going to tell him anything and there were laws against making them talk. 'Of course laws are only a problem if you get caught'. And there were the thoughts about what he could get away with again.

"What would you do, Dorea?" He asked the photo of his wife, who was sadly smiling up at him from the frame that was sitting on the small table next to his chair. "Ha. Stupid question I know. You always did have a nasty streak in you from your Black side. You'd kidnap the Dursleys, force feed them Veritaserum, and if they had hurt one of your babies then the bodies would never be found." He poured himself a glass of Firewhiskey and saluted her with the glass before emptying it down his throat. "I miss you. You know that right? Not a day goes by where I don't wish you were still with me. You'd know what to do, you'd know how best to help Harry. You also wouldn't accept me wallowing in self pity like this, would you?" Apparently the Potter tendency to brood on things was their least attractive trait, according to his wife. Eventually, he decided he would get the information he needed from the Dursleys. He just had to remember where he put the book with the Veritaserum recipe.

---ϟϟϟ---

While Harry was busy training, the first of the visitors' Quidditch matches was coming up, Ravenclaw vs Beauxbatons. It was amusing to watch the mood at the Ravenclaw table sour a little to their guests in the run up to the match; some of the Beauxbatons students even retreated from the table to get away from the numerous arguments. It was during a rather loud quarrel between the two teams centred on a bet that the losing team would shift the blue of either their robes or their house crest to the blue of the winning team. The French champion, having apparently had enough of the noise, left the Ravenclaw table and sat in a free spot next to Harry on the opposite side to Hermione. Hermione shot her a look for sitting next to Harry, as even though he may not fall victim to a Veela's mind magic she was still a beautiful young woman, and despite how irrational it was Hermione couldn't help but want to stake her claim on Harry.

Seeing the look Hermione gave her, the French champion flashed her a nervous smile and said, "Excuse me. I'm just getting away from ze noise at ze Ravenclaw table. Monsieur Potter here has shown he is not ze type to turn into an idiot or start doing something ridiculous trying to impress me."

Hermione relaxed, but still felt a little ashamed of herself. She knew that Delacour was a Veela, Harry had confirmed that for her after the Weighing of the Wands, and for a moment she had let herself feel threatened by that despite knowing that Harry seemed to be immune to the effects. "Hi, I'm Hermione, and obviously this is Harry. We were never really introduced on Halloween."

Delacour nodded. "Call me Fleur. And I understand you were both rather preoccupied that night. Do you know how it happened yet?"

"Not much. I know the Aurors found that my signature had been taken off of an essay I did for homework, but it's not like those pieces of homework are kept in a bank vault. Almost anyone in the school could have gotten one. I'm really pissed off… uh angry -" Harry switched from the colloquialism to correct English, as it was obvious English wasn't Fleur’s first language - "at the lack of proper security for this event. What if someone had decided to add the name of a first year? It's not like they'd have a hope in hell of fighting the dragons they have for the first task."

Harry didn't even realise he had said something off until Fleur started giving Harry a nervous laugh. "Dragons, very funny Harry…" Harry just looked at Fleur with a sad expression on his face. "Non. Dis-moi que c'est une blague." In her horror at the idea she had slipped back into her native French, Harry didn't understand a word of it but he was sure he could guess the meaning and was proven right a second later when Fleur switched back to English. "Tell me you are joking…Please." She was almost begging with that last word.

"I wish I was." Harry nodded at Ron, who was currently staring at Fleur while drooling, his dinner completely forgotten. "His older brother works at a dragon preserve in Romania and sent a letter to his family that he would be in the country for a few days in November on work business. The dates were enough of a warning that I had my grandfather look into it at the Ministry, they are importing four dragons a few days before the task and sending them home again a few days after. I can't think of any reason to do that other than for us to have to fight them for the first task." Harry explained, purposely leaving out that Charlie had been trying to tell them about the dragons without telling them and giving the impression that it was just luck that Harry had found out.

Fleur seemed to lose her appetite and desire to chat after that and just sat there playing with her food for a few minutes. Harry understood, he hadn’t exactly reacted great either when he was told he would be fighting a monster that was measured in tons, had razor sharp teeth and claws, and had the ability to breath fire. Fleur soon gave up, and after thanking Harry and Hermione for the information she excused herself, saying she needed to go start training.

“Why did you tell her about the dragons?" Hermione asked curiously.

"Didn't mean to. I was thinking about how annoyed I am with the complete balls-up of security this tournament has been and it just slipped out." Harry explained. "Though now I have told Fleur I need to tell Cedric and Krum too."

"Why?" asked Ron, who was starting to come around after being hit by Fleur's presence.

"Well when it was only me who knew, it was something helping the champion who was underage and didn't volunteer. Now one of the true champions has been told, then fairness says they all should know," Harry explained.

Hermione leaned over and gave Harry a quick kiss on the cheek. "Sometimes you are far too noble, Harry. "

Harry just smiled and put an arm around her.

---ϟϟϟ---

Harry was seated in the champions tent with Charlus and Hermione waiting for the other three champions to arrive and for the first task to start. The last few weeks since he had been told about the dragon had been hell, and Harry's impression of Sirius as a man who was always the joker and incapable of being the responsible one were shattered. Sirius had Harry practising as often as he could and would be like a drill sergeant, pushing Harry until Harry physically and mentally couldn't go any further. If Harry was honest with himself, if Sirius hadn't obviously hated it as much as Harry, it may have driven a wedge between the two. However, as Sirius was only pushing so hard because he was terrified of losing Harry it had somehow brought the two closer together.

But Harry had gotten a few days off. The day of the Weighing of the Wands had been interesting. A reporter from the Prophet, the same one who had been there on the night the names came out of the Goblet of Fire, had tried to corner Harry, but Grandfather Charlus had been there and insisted that the only way Harry was giving her an interview was with himself there to supervise. Because of that, the interview had ended up mostly boring. Harry had the impression that the questions he was asked with his grandfather right there were not the questions the woman would have asked if she had gotten Harry alone. Instead, he was asked a load of questions about how he was enjoying living with his grandfather and about Hermione, as she had been with him the entire time after his name came out of the Goblet. He had answered the questions truthfully, having nothing to hide. Skeeter was obviously disappointed with the lack of any juicy stories, but Harry's home life was better than it had ever been.

Harry had also been given half days to go watch a Quidditch match each weekend. That had been Hermione stepping in on Harry's behalf and telling Sirius that he needed a break, or he would snap either physically or mentally and lose more time recovering than would be lost to the break. Harry had pulled Hermione into a secluded alcove on their way back to the common room from the evening’s training that night to tell and show Hermione how grateful he was to her for arranging that.

The time had been hard on Hermione as well. She was already scared that she would lose Harry to the tournament before hearing about the dragons, but now Harry was spending most of his free time with Hermione, as she either hugging him or sitting in his lap as she did everything she could to stay close to him and reassure herself that Harry was still alive. Even now, in the champions tent where only the champions were permitted, she was cuddled up to him with her head buried in the chest of his new basilisk hide duelling robes.

The robes Harry had only gotten this morning from Sirius. They were black with green trim to match his eyes, and he had the Potter family crest over his heart. Sirius had even told him that there was another set being made for him in a larger size for when he grew out of this set. Something about it being a good message that, if he ever needed to wear duelling robes, the robes being made from a class five-X monster that he had slain in single combat.

"Harry, I have learned something that I need to talk to you about," Charlus interrupted Harry's thoughts, and both the teens turned to listen. Harry was hoping to find out what had been on the man's mind for the past few weeks, but his hopes were dashed. "This morning I learned a little more about how preparations for this task are being handled. The Ministry is insuring the dragons in case of death, which tells us two things. First, you are not required to kill a dragon today, however if you can without endangering yourself I want you to kill it anyway. Can either of you tell me why?

Harry thought about it but Hermione had the answer first. "Because it will cost the Ministry gold to repay the dragon reserve and the international law on dragon hunting says that any wizards or witches who kill a dragon outside of a recognised dragon preserve can claim the dragon carcass. So Harry could sell the dragon parts just like he is selling the basilisk parts, making even more gold."

"Excellent Hermione. But there is one point you missed, maybe you got it Harry?" Grandfather Charlus asked, but Harry didn't know. The older man filled them in. "It would also be a powerful message to whomever put Harry's name into the tournament that he isn't some weak teenager who they can push around, that Harry can and will defend himself when necessary," he explained calmly.

Harry thought about that. "Wouldn't it be better to have them underestimate me? If they think I'm weak then I can get a hit when they don't expect it." It was a Slytherin move, Harry knew, but he did have a Slytherin side and no one would expect it from a Gryffindor.

"As much as that might be a good plan for some, it won't work for you. There are already rumours about you killing a basilisk and you are fighting a dragon today. That alone, unless you lose, which could kill you, will make people take you seriously. So we go with intimidation and have them second guess everything. Nervous people make mistakes."

Harry thought about that. There was a good chance Wormtail was either behind this or was involved in some way. He could easily see him being intimidated by someone who was able to fight a dragon, but also Scabbers had lived in the dorm with Harry for two and a half years, he knew the real person.

"What about the other thing?" Hermione asked, interrupting the silence.

"Hmm?" Grandfather Charlus asked.

"You said that the Ministry insuring the dragons told you two things, and the first was that the champions wouldn't have to kill a dragon. Because I assume if it was needed to kill them, then the Ministry would have just bought the dragons rather than renting and insuring them. What was the second thing?" Hermione asked, her curly hair tickling Harry's cheek.

"Oh right. It tells us that the Ministry has accepted financial responsibility for the tournament. I will be speaking to our solicitors later, and while I expect them to say it's better to wait until the tournament is over so that all the damages can be calculated in full, I will be directing them to go after Bagman and Crouch, the Ministry people responsible, for every galleon they can. It’s time someone reminded the Ministry heads that they are not above reprisals for what they do. Sending a few of them to the poor house is just the kick up the backside they need," Charlus explained as he walked around the otherwise still empty tent.

"Why not sue the Ministry itself?'' Hermione asked.

Harry knew the answer to this one so he answered. "There are a few reasons. First, if the Ministry pays, the people responsible learn nothing as they don't lose anything. But also beyond that, Ministry funds are paid for by taxes. If you drain the Ministry of gold, then either they have to increase the tax on everything and everyone to cover the loss, or they have to cut staff and services. Either way it's the regular witch and wizard who lose out."

"Oh, I hadn't thought of that." Hermione answered, and even though Harry didn't have the angle to see her face he just knew she was biting her bottom lip as she thought. "I just always saw the Ministry as being responsible, like going after a business who sells a dangerous product," she admitted

"Well, Sirius and I talked about this before when we were talking about him going for compensation for all the time he spent in Azkaban," Harry told her. He would have said more, but at that moment the tent flap opened and Viktor Krum walked in giving Harry a nod. Viktor had been relatively friendly with Harry ever since he had told the other two champions about the dragons; they weren't holding long conversations or anything, just a nod and a smile when they passed by each other. Harry's impression was that Viktor now saw Harry like he saw himself, a sportsman, fair competition on the field but any animosity and competition between them was going to stay on the field. Viktor was going to do his best to beat Harry into the ground, but once the game was over he would also be the first to offer Harry a hand to get back up again.

Krum poured himself a glass of water from a table of drinks that had been set up on the one side of the tent for them, then found a place to sit and wait. The conversation between Harry, Hermione and Charlus dropped off to nothing but idle chat and wishing Harry good luck. Over the next five minutes Cedric and Fleur both turned up as well, and Charlus excused both himself and Hermione. Before leaving, Hermione gave Harry a quick kiss on the lips and whispered. "That was for luck, and if you don't get too badly hurt I promise you there will be more later." Then she ducked out of the tent following Charlus, leaving Harry a little worked up.

"You have a good witch there Harry," Viktor commented, a knowing smile on his face. He had obviously heard what Hermione had said, or maybe guessed since girlfriends of professional Quidditch players probably did something similar often enough that Viktor may have seen it plenty before.

"Oh you don't know the half of it," Cedric teased. "I caught them snogging In a corridor after hours last year. I swear they were about five seconds away from pulling each other's robes off."

"Uh, that was actually our first kiss you interrupted," Harry confessed, shocking the other three, who then spent the remaining time before the task began teasing him. It was much easier to put up with that than worrying about the task that was rapidly approaching. The fun and teasing ended when the judges walked into the tent ten minutes before the start of the task. Bagman gave a speech about doing their best and making their schools and country proud, like many politicians' speeches: predictable, boring, and more about stroking his own ego and listening to himself talk. Then he drew out a cloth bag and had each of them draw a model from it. Harry sighed as he looked at his model. 'The Hungarian Horntail. Just great.' He thought.

Chapter 20

Chapter Text

Chapter 20

Harry sat in the tent as he listened to the other champions attempting their tasks. Fleur had gone first, and the three other champions sat listening to the oohh's and aahh's of the crowd and the commentary from Bagman that seemed almost tailored to wind them up without giving them any information. Eventually, Fleur seemed to get her egg when a loud cheer sounded out from the stadium.

Then it was Cedric’s turn, and Harry and Krum sat through listening to his attempt, which felt similar because they knew that they too would be facing the same thing shortly. Harry couldn’t tell if it was that Krum was getting more nervous now there were only two of them, or if it was just that Harry only had one person drawing his attention instead of two now that Cedric was gone, but Harry was definitely noticing more twitching and signs of nervousness from Krum that he got during Fleur’s task. And going by how nervous Harry felt, he wasn't going to blame the man if he was sane enough to be afraid.

It seemed to take an hour for Cedric to finish and for Krum to be called, but it was probably closer to fifteen or twenty minutes. While Krum was doing his task, Harry went over his preparations in his head. Sirius's strategy was a bold one, definitely not one where Harry would be playing it safe, but as Hermione had said, "Harry, your specialty is boldness and not playing it safe. You know the spells and you know you can hit your target. You got this." Hermione’s belief in him was absolute, and that more than anything was how Harry was able to stand tall, walk out of the champions tent, and enter the arena without his knees knocking or his hands shaking when it was his turn. He had to squint against the bright light for a moment as he stepped back into the sunlight, and when his vision cleared he took in the sight before him.

The arena was made to look like the side of a mountain, with short tufts of grass scattered between borders and shallowly packed into compressed dirt. About seventy feet (approx 20 metres) from the centre point, the stands were lifted up by about ten feet (approx 3 metres) of a sheer unclimbable stone wall, with benches for people to sit in concentric circles, each one a little higher than the one in front. It reminded Harry of pictures of the Roman Colosseum he had been shown in his history lessons before his return to the magical world. From that came a memory of his teacher telling the class a phrase the gladiators used to say before they fought. He couldn't remember the Latin, but he could remember the translation was 'We who are about to die salute you.' Considering the massive dragon at the centre of the arena, crouched over her eggs and looking at him as though he was a threat, the sentiment seemed oddly fitting.

Harry quickly ran through everything he knew of this species of dragon in his head. Hungarian Horntails, average length fifty feet from nose to tip of the tail, though this particular one looked closer to forty. They were classed as five X dangerous creatures by both the Ministry and the International Confederation of Wizards’ magical creature guidelines, making them known wizard killers. Harry was going to have to speak with his grandfather about the fact that the other champions only had four X dragons. That hardly seemed fair. Horntails also had one of the longest ranges for their fire breath and used their spiked tail as a club.

Harry started to walk around the outside of the arena, keeping as much distance as he could between him and the dragon that remained crouched over its eggs watching him and also trying to keep an eye on every person in the stands around them. She was nervous and twitchy, but Harry decided to go for it. If he could hit the dragon in the eye while she was standing there, it was possible this could be over before it even had a chance to really start. He made sure he had a clear path to run down as soon as he finished casting, if he got this wrong then he would have a very pissed off dragon coming after him, and in such an event standing still didn't seem like a good plan. He planted his feet and raised his wand. Sirius had been drilling this spell into his and his friends' heads for weeks now, and Harry was sure each of them could cast it in their sleep at this point.

"Fulmenactus!" Harry conjured pure electricity in the form of a lightning bolt and sent it careening towards the dragon. He was aiming for its eye, a weak spot where it would have no protection against magic and where the lightning would surge into the dragon's body and move through it, paralysing its nerves and knocking it unconscious. If Harry was honest, he loved the idea of him and his friends having a lightning spell. Not only was it powerful and a good way for them to defend themselves, but it was also oddly on brand considering the first thing most witches and wizards did when they met him was to check out his lightning bolt-shaped scar.

Unfortunately, Sirius's master plan had a fatal flaw to it. Harry had a good chance of hitting the eye, and he was on target. However, none of them had considered what a dragon (or really anyone) would do when there is a bright light coming towards their eye: they blink, closing their eyes to shield themselves from the bright light. And while the eye itself may not have the magical protection of its hide, its eyelid certainly did. The spell onliy partially bounced off the eyelid, which was honestly worse than if the spell had been completely deflected. Now the dragon had enough of a shock to hurt it, but not enough of one to slow it down at all. After a quick shake of its head as it tried to shake the spots from its vision, the dragon turned to the fool who thought it could attack it and pounced.

Considering its size, it was surprising that the dragon could move so fast. However, according to some of the books Hermione found when they were researching dragons, they had a natural version of a feather light charm on them, else their wings wouldn't have been big enough for them to fly. Harry, though, was too busy making sure he wouldn't be where the dragon landed to think about any of that. He was sprinting back the way he came, and when everyone felt the ground shudder from the massive lizard landing, he quickly dove behind a large boulder that was just big enough to shield the skinny boy from the monster.

Harry had hoped to be hidden before the dragon could look around for him, that would have bought him a few seconds to breathe. The dragon, however, had other plans, and Harry could hear it taking a deep breath. Knowing what was coming Harry cast the fastest and strongest Flame Freezing Charm he had ever cast in his life. The stream of fire was continuous, and Harry was trapped behind the rock the whole time. He couldn't end the charm, because even if the rock he was taking cover behind stopped him from being cooked by the flames directly, the massive amounts of fire to his left, right, and over his head would have killed him just as well, so Harry couldn't even fire any spell back

Five seconds, just crouching there ready to move when he got the opportunity.

Ten seconds.

Twenty.

Thirty.

It was only then that the flames stopped, and Harry ran as soon as he could. He had been in a good approximation of a runner’s start position, so he was moving quickly enough that that was the only thing that saved his life, as again the dragon leapt and landed exactly where Harry had been moments before.

Harry fired off a simple spell over his shoulder at the dragon; it didn't matter what spell he used as it wasn't going to affect the dragon anyway. However, it was something for the dragon to focus on, a sign that the weak and pathetic two legged thing was still hiding out, and it provided the dragon all the motivation it needed to keep chasing Harry. He wanted the dragon to be close now, his only chance of ending this without dying was for him to land a solid hit on the dragon's other weak spot, its open mouth. The only time that was going to happen was when the dragon was just about to breathe fire. So Harry ran, ducking and dodging every attack the dragon threw at him. It was to Harry's favour that the arena was so small compared to the dragon, it meant that the dragon couldn't start running at its full speed. Still, Harry was glad of the basilisk hide robes Sirius had ordered to be made for him. He had felt the dragon's claws or scales sliding off the robes too many times already, and he knew each time would have resulted in a horrible injury if he had worn his regular school robes.

---ϟϟϟ—

The dragon was getting frustrated, she was trying to squash the annoying bug that had dared to come and threaten her nest, but the little thing was zipping behind boulders and dodging her attacks, and she was growing more and more angry every time. And it didn't even have the courtesy of just running away terrified of her. No, it kept pointing its stick at her and making the bright annoying lights. She was going to enjoy eating it when she caught it.

---ϟϟϟ---

Hermione was sandwiched between Ron and Charlus, with Sirius on the other side of Ron. The bushy haired girl was frantic as she looked down into the arena and watched as the dragon chased Harry. The only thing that kept her from trying to jump into the arena to save him was the fact that Harry, even while frantically trying to stay a half step ahead of the dragon, was still somehow in control of the situation. He was leading the dragon and keeping the dragon's attention focused on him with random prank spells. Oh, and because Uncle Charlus had his hand on her shoulder holding her in place. Harry barely dodged another swipe of the dragon's claws, and only the fact that Hermione was biting down on her lip prevented her from screaming out to Harry in fear.

"It's okay Hermione, you know Harry will be fine. He does stuff like this every year and he is always fine. The only difference this year is that we are watching it. Normally we are too busy trying to catch up." Ron said, trying to comfort her.

"Trying to catch up? That's a good spin on being knocked out, petrified, or too injured to keep up with him," Hermione said.

"True enough," Ron shrugged. "But my point stands Harry will be fine, none of us like it but when something is trying to kill him, Harry is amazing." The absolute faith Ron had in that statement had a calming effect not just on Hermione but also on the two adults who were sitting there just as terrified as Hermione, only hiding it better.

Charlus and Sirius were basically thinking the same thing as they say there listening to Ron. This has to be the last time Harry has to face something like this. This tournament will be the last time Harry will have to fight for his life. They may not have been around for most of his life, and they may have dropped the ball not expecting Harry to be pulled into the tournament despite the kids being worried about it. But that was going to be their last failure.

Then everyone was dragged from their thoughts as Harry stumbled, and the dragon was on top of him instantly. He screamed out in pain and they could see his left arm was trapped under the dragon's clawed foot. He was trapped and there was no way he could escape from this. Hermione screamed his name, drowning out the cries of fear and dismay from everyone around her. The dragon drew in a deep breath and Hermione started shouting, knowing what was about to happen.

---ϟϟϟ---

Harry let out a scream of pain as his left arm was trapped beneath the dragon's claw. The dragon put a lot of its weight on the foot, making sure to keep him pinned, and it was just too much for the bones in his arm. As they started to snap and fracture, Harry fought to keep his focus; if he lost it now, he was dead. However, he was so distracted by the pain that he almost missed the opportunity. It was only when he heard Hermione's voice screaming over the crowd. "NOW HARRY! DO IT NOW!!" that he realised that the dragon was drawing breath ready to burn him to a crisp.

Harry did the only thing he could, what he had been training to do for weeks. He pointed his wand up and directly into the dragon's open mouth and cast "Fulmenactus!" He pushed as much magic as he could into the spell, this was all or nothing. Lightning crackled around the tip for a moment and suddenly Harry was blinded as he stared into a massive bolt of lightning that was brighter than he had ever seen the sun. The bolt crashed into the back of the dragon's mouth, and this time the dragon had no magical hide for protection. The magically-charged electricity quickly made its way down through the dragon looking for ground, and as it travelled it cooked everything it passed through. Blood boiled, and nerves were overloaded.

Harry had no idea of just how devastating his spell had been to the dragon. His eyes would take some time to heal after that blast of light, and he also had a new problem to deal with. The dragon was now either dead or unconscious, which meant that he now had an unresponsive dragon on top of him. If he was going to finish this bloody task, he needed to get out from under the excessive weight. He cast a quick Wingardium Leviosa, just enough to lift the dragon enough to let him crawl out, and when he stood up the stands around him erupted in cheering. With what little eyesight he still had, Harry looked around and saw that a few of the dragon handlers were now in the arena with him, realising they had been rushing to help him before the dragon was dealt with. Harry made his way slowly over to the nest (no problem now that the dragon could do nothing to stop him) and grabbed the golden egg. It was lighter than it looked, and Harry tucked it under his good arm and walked out of the arena with his left arm hung limply at his side.

As soon as Harry stepped out, some Ministry person walked him to a tent he hadn't seen till now, and he was relieved when he was directed into the tent to see Madam Pomfrey there, seeing to the other three champions.

"Your bed is over here Mr. Potter, now come get on it so I can see how much you have hurt yourself this time." She sounded irritated but not irritated at him, so he decided that it was best to do as she said.

As Harry sat he told her, "I think the biggest issue is my left arm. The dragon decided to stand on it."

The healer nodded and began casting diagnostic spells. "Well Mr. Potter, your bones are crushed. I'm sure you know what that means.”

Harry sighed. "That you're gonna pull a Lockhart, vanish them all, and make me drink Skelegro to grow new ones," Harry said dejectedly.

"You should be grateful that Skelegro is available. The recipe was developed by our ancestor and is considered one of the Potter family's greatest contributions to the wizarding world," Charlus interrupted as he had walked in with Sirius, Ron, and Hermione.

"Yeah but the stuff is disgusting, and regrowing an arm full of bones sucks,," Harry whined, too tired to really protest much harder than that.

"It could be worse, mate. You were up again the next day last time, I bet this time will be the same," Ron said cheerfully. "You were absolutely awesome out there. All the other champions focused on getting around their dragons, you were the only one who just straight up duelled one." He looked like he was going to say more, but Madam Pomfrey gave him a look that said he was going to be quiet now or he wouldn't like the consequences. She finished fixing Harry a pain relieving potion which she handed to Grandfather Charlus and said, "Once I vanish the bones in his arm, give him that and he will be okay to go get his scores from the judges when they are ready. After that I will want him in the hospital wing to administer the Skelegro and a few other potions. He will have to spend the night in the hospital wing, but he should be fine by the morning."

Charlus took the potion, and Harry just sat there as the medi witch waved her wand over his arm. A lot of the pain he was feeling in the arm vanished, along with the bones. Then Charlus, after giving the potion in the vial a quick shake, held the pain reliever to Harry's lips so he could drink it down. Harry had had more than a few pain relievers from Madam Pomfrey over the years, and he tried not to pull a face at the familiar flavour that Harry described as if someone had used the water a troll had smoked its feet in to make a cup of tea, and they had then used yoghurt instead of milk.

"So I already spoke to the dragon handlers and confirmed that the dragon is dead," Charlus said once Harry had finished the potion and Madam Pomfrey moved off to see to the other champions who were behind privacy curtains. "They aren't happy that one of their breeding females is dead, but they are blaming the Ministry, not you. I also informed them that you will be exercising your rights and claiming the carcass, but you will need to make the actual declaration yourself."

Harry nodded but didn't say anything, he just didn't have the energy to waste on questions. Hermione sat on the bed next to him and pulled his good arm around her shoulders. Harry gave her a little squeeze, pulling her against him. He knew she had been afraid, she had just watched him fight with a forty foot dragon, even just considering the idea of watching any of friends or family go through that was enough to scare him into wanting a hug.

It was a good ten minutes before they were called back to the arena to receive their scores, and it was only when they emerged from behind their own privacy curtains that Harry got to see the other champions. Fleur looked mostly fine, but one of her thighs was bandaged up tightly and she was walking with a slight limp. Viktor had his hands in a cauldron of potion that was floating in front of him. Finally, Cedric had half of his head covered in a thick oily orange paste that Harry was pretty sure was burn paste. The other three champions were also checking out the injuries of the others. "How is it that 'arry looks the least injured of us?" Fleur asked in surprise.

Harry realised with his arm in its sleeve it looked fairly normal even without the bones, so despite looking tired he didn’t look injured. He picked up his floppy arm with his other hand and showed them his lack of bones. "Bones in my arm were crushed and Madam Pomfrey vanished them. I think you actually may be the least injured Fleur," Harry placated. "So did you all get your eggs?" They all confirmed that they had gotten their eggs, but they crossed into the arena before any of them could elaborate. The corpse of the Hungarian horntail was still where Harry had left it. The four champions were directed to stand before the judges podium.

The whole time they were walking out Bagman was waffling on, trying to keep the crowd entertained while everyone waited for the scores. Once they were in position, Bagman instantly switched to recap mode. "Okay, first up we had Miss Fleur Delacour of Beauxbatons, France. Miss Delacour faced a Swedish Short-snout and used charms to great effect, overloading the senses of the dragon and providing distractions so that she could sneak up to the nest unnoticed. Unfortunately, once she had the egg her dragon did notice her retreat, and Miss Delaccour suffered an injury to her leg during her retreat. Judges, how do you score her?"

Crouch went first. "You did well but you got a little over confident once you had the egg." He raised his wand and a number seven floated in the air over his head.

Dumbledore went next. "Excellent charm work and a lovely strategy, I also award you seven points," and he, like Crouch, displayed the number with a flick of his wand.

"You made your school proud today, and you were the least injured of all the champions. Eight points." Madam Maxime said as she displayed her score.

"While you were the least injured, you were also the slowest, if you had been more bold you may have finished the task without injury. Five points, "Karkaroff said.

"And I will give you a six," said Bagman as he smiled, sending his score into the air. " That gives Miss Delacour a score of thirty three out of a possible fifty. Let's hear it for Beauxbatons!" Bagman finished, getting the crowd to give Fleur a round of applause.

"Next we have Cedric Diggory, who fought a Welsh green dragon. Diggory used Transfiguration to create multiple targets for the dragon to focus on and got caught in the dragon's fire when the dragon resorted to an area attack to deal with the large number of animals around it. And yes ladies, Madam Pomfrey has already assured us that the star of Hufflepuff will make a full recovery, and that includes his good looks. Barty, over to you for the first score."

"While you were indeed faster than Miss Delacour, I can't ignore that your strategy failed completely to account for the dragon’s fire, a feature that even a first year student should be well aware of, so I am giving you six points." Crouch said.

"Your Transfiguration was brilliant and your plan well executed, but Director Crouch is right that you forgot to account for the fire. Seven points. However you made Hufflepuff proud today, you proved that it isn't just Gryffindors who are brave or only Ravenclaws who have the mind to solve problems," said Dumbledore.

"I agree with the other judges’ stances, six points," added Madame Maxime.

"Forgetting the fire is unforgivable. Four points,” Karkaroff scoffed.

"And I will give you six, for a total of twenty nine points. Give the Hogwarts champion a round of applause everyone." The applause Cedric got was of course much better than Fleur's, as the hogwart students that comprised the majority of the viewers were far more invested in his success.

"Next we have Mr Krum, international Quidditch star and our third contestant. Krum used a Transfiguration spell to create a tunnel under the arena directly to the eggs, and while that worked extremely well, he got his hand severely burnt and his wand destroyed when he reached out to collect his egg."

"Well Mr Krum, your plan was well thought out for the most part. You were well protected from the dragon while in your tunnel. The flaw was that you couldn't see what the dragon was doing, so you couldn't see that it was waiting for you to come out by the nest. But you got your egg and made it out. Seven points,” said Crouch

"A solid plan, with the problems Crouch already mentioned. Your Transfiguration was impeccable and you were the second fastest to retrieve your egg. Eight points," Dumbledore gave his score.

"I echo Dumbledore’s sentiments, eight points" came from Madam Maxime.

"Viktor, you represented your school well and showed how powerful our students are. Ten points!" said Karkaroff, setting off a round of boos from the crowd.

"Well that just leaves me," said Bagman. "And I will score you a seven, giving you a total of forty points. That means you take the lead from Miss Delacour. Let's give him a round of applause.

"And finally we have Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, the only champion who decided to duel his dragon. Mr Potter's strong opening move was unsuccessful due to the dragon's hide, but in a moment of desperation he was able to land a hit inside the dragon's mouth and slay the beast. So to the scores, Crouch!" Bagman said. The other three champions looked at Harry in shock when Bagman said Harry had slain his dragon.

"Your opening move was well executed and decisive. I'm not sure how many noticed that you aimed directly at the dragon's eye, which is a weak spot if the spell doesn't have a visible effect, a mistake but one easy to make. Even when your plan failed, you played for time until you saw an opening and you took it. Nine points."

"Harry, I am dismayed that your first instinct was to kill the dragon. You need to learn that there are better ways to do things. Four points" Said Dumbledore while he gave Harry his 'I'm so disappointed in you' look.

"While I don't feel that killing the dragon was unreasonable in the situation, I do think you committed to fighting the dragon far too quickly. Seven points," said Madam Maxime. Harry understood how it must look from her perspective, but he agreed with his grandfather that killing the dragon sent a message to whomever put his name in the Goblet and that was impotent.

"Your actions were bold and decisive and your spell was powerful for a fourteen year old. You should be proud of what you did here. Eight points,” was Karkaroff’s contribution.

"And last and most definitely not least, Mr. Potter you faced down a dragon in single combat and it was probably the most thrilling thing most of the people here will ever see. I award you ten points, for a total of thirty eight points. Can we get a round of applause for our brilliant champions?" The stands went wild just like at the Quidditch matches. "With only eleven points separating our lowest score from our highest, it's still all to play for in the next round. Now we will see you all again in February for the second task, and until then stay in school kids!" Bagman finally finished up his commentary and the champions thought they were free to go, but the jovial man came running up to them.

“Wait, I need to give you some information about the second task, the eggs you have collected are clues to the second task. You have until February twenty sixth to prepare. You are not restricted to just your wands this time, but apart from your wands you have to make anything magical you use yourself.” Considering the dragons were meant to be a surprise, Harry was worried how much more dangerous they were going to make the second task when they had a clue for three months to help them prepare. Then again, he had already fought a five X dragon, how were they going to top that? A nundu? Not even the Ministry was crazy enough for that.

With a ministry official there talking to them, Harry seized his chance. "Director Bagman, as the head of the Ministry department responsible for this tournament, I, Harry James Potter, claim the carcass of the dragon that I slew in single combat while it was outside of a dragon sanctuary," Harry said firmly and clearly. The three other champions looked surprised again, apparently none of them had thought about Harry being able to claim the dragon.

"Ah, actually Mr. Potter, the Ministry is claiming the dragon to recover the cost of compensating the dragon sanctuary for the loss of a breeding female. I'm sure you understand."

The Ministry wasn't exactly in Harry's good books since his conversion with Fudge at the end of his last school year, and since then nothing they had done had warmed Harry up to them. In fact with everything that had happened Harry was feeling colder towards them now than he did then. He looked Bagman in the eye and said, "No I'm afraid I don't understand. The law is clear on this. Any wizards or witches who kill a dragon that is not in a dragon preserve area can claim the carcass of the dragon in compensation for having to fight a dangerous creature. The law was made back in the sixteen hundreds to encourage witches and wizards to deal with the dangerous creatures roving around." Harry said. He knew the law and the history behind it; his grandfather had made sure he knew it after they decided to have the basilisk harvested, which fell under the same law. There was a possibility Dumbledore would corner Harry and pressure him over it, so making sure he was armed with the truth was prudent. "Has the Ministry brought in some new law I am unaware of, or is the Ministry trying to prevent me from what is rightfully mine?"

"Now, Mr. Potter, it's nothing like that. However, the Ministry works on budgets, you see, and after my department had to refund a lot of the tickets for the World Cup and pay for damaged property, we need the gold from the sale of the dragon parts to cover what we owe the dragon preserve."

"Then perhaps your department should have done a better job at keeping underage wizards from being forced into this tournament. My declaration is made, either my godfather or grandfather will sort out the details. Good day Director Bagman." Harry turned and walked away, making his way back to Madam Pomfrey so he could get the unpleasantness of healing done with.

Chapter 21

Chapter Text

Chapter 21

All of the champions ended up staying the night in the hospital wing. Even those of them that had escaped more serious injury had fallen victim to Madam Pomfrey's belief that any injury, no matter how slight, needs a night in the hospital wing for observation if she can get away with it. Not that Harry was able to have a conversation with any of them, as the privacy screens they each had around their beds also had one way silencing charms on them that were meant to keep any emergencies or loud patients from disturbing the rest of any other patients, but also still let Madam Pomfrey hear any sounds of distress that a curtained-off patient might make.

What Harry did have was Hermione. After she had learned what Harry went through the last time he had needed his bones regrown, she had argued that just because Harry couldn't have a pain relief potion with the Skele-Gro didn't mean that he had to sit alone with nothing else to think about apart from how much it hurt. A distraction, even a non-energetic one, would help Harry get to sleep sooner and have a more restful night. This led to something that was a first for Harry, but something he should have expected from his adorable bookworm girlfriend. Hermione rushed back up to their dorms and came back a few minutes later with her copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a book Harry had heard of but had never read. Hermione then seated herself next to his bed, opened the book to Chapter One, and started reading it out loud to him.

Harry had to admit that the experience was a lot better than the last time he had regrown the bones in his arm. The pain was the same, but with something else to focus on he was able to ignore it a lot easier. Because of this, as well as the fact that he had used a lot of magic on the dragon, he was able to fall asleep quite early.

When he awoke early the next day, Hermione was gone and his arm felt a lot better. Madam Pomfrey was already up and about checking on Cedric’s burns, so he didn’t have to wait long to be discharged. Harry checked his watch as he walked through the school corridors and felt it was early enough that he didn't think Ron or Hermione would have gone down to breakfast yet, so he made his way up to the common room and collapsed into one of the more comfortable chairs were he could see both sets of stairs that lead up to the dorms.

Surprisingly, it was Ron who came down first, and once he saw Harry he flopped down into the seat next to him. "You alright mate?" Ron asked, nodding to Harry's arm to indicate what he was asking about.

"Good as new." Harry showed off, flexing the arm to show it was working again.

"Good." His best friend grinned at him, but then fell silent. After about a minute of silence for the two of them, Ron finally broke it. "Listen Harry, you need to talk to Hermione.” He sounded uneasy.

"Why, what happened?" Harry was a little worried now. Had he done something to annoy Hermione? Was she planning to break up with him? Was she arguing with Ron again? Was she getting too pushy with Ron and his homework?

"Once she got back from the hospital wing she was in tears, mate. It's seeing you hurt all the time. She is worried that one day soon you're not going to walk out to the hospital wing after another of your adventures." Ron didn't look at Harry as he said that, but Harry felt the words like a physical blow. Hermione was hurting and it was in part his fault. While he couldn't really be blamed for the dragon, there were plenty of things that had happened where he could have chosen better. Yes, some of the things they had done were important, but others (like transporting a baby dragon through the school in the middle of the night) were stupid - what was stopping Hagrid from taking the dragon himself? Also, agreeing to the damned wizards duel with Malfoy. That was two examples from just his first year. He briefly considered the injuries he got playing Quidditch, but decided that was different. Quidditch was a known risk, and while he was likely to break a few bones the chances of more than that were slim.

"What can I do?" Harry asked, hoping his friend would have some advice.

"Don't ask me mate, you know I'm not good at this type of thing. But Sirius and Charlus both said they would be here this afternoon to talk to you about stuff, so maybe you can ask them?" Ron suggested. Harry considered Ron's words; he agreed the redhead probably wasn't the best one to ask, but his suggestion to speak to his grandfather had merit. Grandfather Charlus was happily married for a long time, and if anyone would have advice on how to keep a lady happy it would be him.

It was another hour before Hermione appeared at the foot of the girls stairs, and in that time Harry had what felt like all of Gryffindor come up and congratulate him on his performance against the dragon. He was flattered by a lot of what was said, but some of it seemed to go too far; phrases like "amazingly powerful" and "unstoppable" didn't really fit him in his own mind. 'Bloody lucky git' seemed to fit much better. Though, Harry did admit to himself that he liked the title 'Dragon Slayer' that everyone seemed to now want to call him a lot more than 'The Boy-Who-Lived.'

As soon as Harry saw Hermione, he sprang across the room and pulled her into a hug. She seemed to melt into his arms, and when she looked up at him for a quick kiss he could see a few signs that she hadn't slept well. Harry could only guess, but given what Ron had said he wouldn't have been surprised to find Hermione had nightmares all night where the task yesterday had gone a lot worse. He thought about asking her but didn't want to push her eather so instead asked, "You ready to go down to breakfast?"

"Sure." Harry put his arm around her, holding her close and trying to reassure her that he was still here and that he wasn't going away. He called over to Ron that it was time to go down to breakfast, and their friend quickly caught up to them. On the way down to the Great Hall, they bumped into a few Ravenclaws, who like the Gryffindors seemed rather impressed by Harry taking down his dragon the day before. Some even asked him if he would be willing to teach them the spell he used, but he used the excuse that he would be too busy preparing for the next task to teach anyone anything. And neither Ron nor Hermione felt like volunteering that they were also able to do the spell.

As soon as Harry walked into the Great Hall, the sounds of everyone talking died down and people turned to stare at him. He sighed as he took a seat at the Gryffindor table. It looked like he was going to have to deal with the staring again. As he was eating his breakfast the morning post was delivered, and Harry was a little surprised to have an owl deliver him a copy of the Daily Prophet , considering he wasn't a subscriber. He understood as soon as he unrolled it and looked at the headline.

Boy-Who-Lived now Dragon Slayer!

Underneath that was a picture of Harry standing in front of the dragon, the tip of his wand glowing as he walked away from the carcass behind him. His new basilisk hide duelling robes added to the look. He didn't think he had at any point looked as badass as the picture was making him out to be, so he suspected that someone at the Prophet had charmed the photo to look more dramatic. He started to read the article.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is of no surprise to those of you who keep abreast of the happenings of our world that the first task of the Triwizard Tournament was yesterday. And as you have no doubt deduced by the title of this article, each of the four champions was matched up against a dragon. Now the first impression I had when I saw the dragons was I wonder how Mr. Potter will measure up to the older, more advanced students. At least, until I saw the dragon Mr. Potter was to face. This dragon was noticeably larger than any of the dragons the other champions had to face, and I made a note to look it up later.

I was able to confirm that the dragon was a Hungarian Horntail and was the only dragon involved that is classified as a 5X creature by the Ministry. That's right, my dear readers, the national treasure that is Harry Potter, the youngest champion by three years (half of the amount of Magical education) compared to all the other champions who entered that arena, was given a creature classified as a known wizard killer and impossible to train or domesticate. His fellow champions were only given 4X dragons, creatures considered dangerous and require special knowledge, and only trained wizards should attempt to handle them.

This disparity in dangers faced by the champions has called into question just how impartial and fair the tasks are. There are even rumours flying around that this is a deliberate attempt by Bartemius Crouch to kill young Mr. Potter, given that Mr. Potter's ties to Sirius Black, the man Bartemius Crouch sent to Azkaban without a trial.

Now all this isn't to say that the Boy-Who-Lived wasn't up to the challenge, especially as young Mr. Potter walked into the arena wearing what I since learned to be basilisk hide duelling robes made for him recently from the hide of a basilisk he killed. [A basilisk is also classified as a 5x dangerous creature]. Young Mr Potter then showed off an emergency power, talent, and ruthlessness by immediately setting out to kill his dragon. And he succeeded. Mr. Potter is now the only person in almost two centuries to slay a dragon in single combat.

The article went on to do a complete recap of each of the champions and how they went about retrieving their eggs, praising each champion for their efforts, and also went over the scores, taking the time to question Karkaroff's ability to judge such a competition.

---ϟϟϟ---

Charlus had spent the morning in the Ministry arguing Harry's claim on the dragon corps. Despite the law being clearly on Harry's side, the Ministry was determined to claim the beast to sell and recover the gold it had lost insuring the beast. Even threatening to take the matter before the Wizengamot hadn't been enough to get Bagman to relinquish their so-called claim on the dragon.

Luckily the Ministry wasn't the one holding the corpse. They had outsourced the job to the goblins, and goblins were sticklers for following laws and weren't too fond of the Ministry as well. Though Charlus had to admit, when the Ministry office for leasing with the goblins was part of the department for 'Control of Magical Creatures', then he could understand why the goblins could feel more than a little insulted. He had sent a letter to Gringotts explaining Harry's claim on the dragon and how he had stated it to the Director of Magical games and sports. The bank wouldn't just give Harry the dragon, but they wouldn't give it, or more accurately the profits from selling its parts, to the Ministry either. They would take great pleasure in forcing the Ministry to send a representative to an arbitration meeting where they could determine the true owner of the dragon.

Luckily, whoever it was who got to say what happened to the harvested materials didn’t stop the rendering from being done. Sure, the Ministry wanted to sell it all and Harry wanted to keep some of it, but it didn't stop them breaking it down ready to sell off or move to storage. Hopefully the disagreement of ownership could be dealt with before the rendering was finished. If not, well, it's not like Harry needed it any time soon, and the longer it was kept out of the Ministry's hands the more it was going to hurt them. Charlus would just need to send a letter off to Gripsack - Anne Twist and inform them what was going on. He was seriously considering putting the duo on retainer with the amount of work Harry was generating for them.

---ϟϟϟ---

By lunch, most of the school had calmed down. There were still some elements that were too excited, Colin and Dennis Creevey were as always overly impressed by anything Harry. On the other hand, there was the section of the school population that was against Harry and as he tried to enjoy his lunch one of them came walking over.

"Hey Potter. You think you are something special, don't you? Well, just remember you got lucky. We all saw you running from the dragon like a coward. How did you get into Gryffindor when running away seems to be your go to option?" Malfoy said loud enough for his voice to carry through the hall.

Harry set down the sandwich he was eating next to his bowl of soup and looked over at the Slytherin. "Mauvaise-foi, you seem to not understand the true meaning of courage - not surprising from you. What does surprise me is your complete lack of cunning, a trait that all Slytherins are supposed to possess. How cunning can you be when your first instinct upon seeing someone whom you saw slay a dragon only yesterday is to try and provoke him? After all, you can't capitalise on any perceived advantage you could get, on the off chance you do somehow manage to provoke me, if you are too preoccupied spending the next month drinking your meals through a straw."

"You think I'm afraid of you, Potter? You're nothing. Just another half blood with delusions that you actually matter," Malfoy said while looking down his nose at harry.

"Why would I care if you're afraid of me? You act like these little verbal spats mean something to me when you are the one always seeking me out. Just go back to your lunch and leave us alone. It would make everyone happier," Harry said.

"Well, everyone but the rest of Slytherin, but you're their problem and not ours," Ron quipped at the end, causing a bunch of the people around them to laugh at the blond Slytherin who turned and walked off in a huff.

After lunch, Harry, Hermione, and Ron met up with Sirius and Charlus in the entrance hall and made their way up to the empty classroom they had been using. Once they were in grandfather Charlus turned to Harry and said, "First things first, I know I said it yesterday before Madam Pomfrey kicked us out, but I'm proud of you. You did amazingly well yesterday, and killing a dragon in single combat is the sort of thing they will be talking about for years. But now that the first task is over, there are things we need to talk about."

"Well that sounds ominous," Ron said as he and the other teens tried to work out if it was going to be good or bad news.

"The Ministry has decided to contest your right to the slain dragon’s carcass. They have given it to the goblins to render and I have served them with notice that ownership of the harvested materials is contested. They will schedule a hearing at some point and you may well need to attend it, but given that the fact you slew the beast is national news you can probably get away with sending them a sworn statement saying that you claimed the dragon," Charlus told them.

"I'm not surprised Bagman is trying to claim the dragon, he always was the selfish type. I used to read about his antics in Quidditch Weekly ," said Sirius. "And speaking of Quidditch Weekly , you need to remember you agreed to give them an interview once you finished the first task."

Harry had forgotten that, but Sirius was right, he had given his word. “Can you please set that up Sirius?" Harry asked.

"Nope pup. Setting up the appointment is well within your ability. I have the name of the bloke you need to send the letter to, here." Sirius dug around in the pocket of his robes for a second before pulling out a letter and handing it to Harry. "Try to schedule it during one of the Quidditch matches. You can then watch the match and answer questions at the same time," his godfather suggested.

"Now, getting back to more important topics. I have a final valuation for your basilisk from the rendering team. After taking the parts out you wanted to keep, you are looking at a little under seven hundred and sixty thousand galleons," Charlus told Harry.

The three teens' jaws dropped at the sum. Both Harry and Hermione quickly converted that into pound sterling in their heads as they were still more familiar with the mundane currency, and their minds boggled at the number they came up with. It was just a little under three point eight million pounds, a staggering fortune to them. A little nervous, Harry started asking his grandfather questions. "You said this would be my money, right, so that means I get to decide what to do with it?" He was obviously still overwhelmed by the amount of gold. It was “never needing to work a day in your life” money if you were careful.

At his grandfather’s nod, Harry did some quick mental math. "I want to take a hundred and eighty thousand of that gold and use it to compensate the victims and the person who helped me go after it. So twenty thousand each to Mr. Filch for his cat, Colin Creevey, Justin Finch-Fletchley, Penelope Clearwater, and Hermione. The same to any family of Sir Nick and Myrtle, and of course Ginny and Ron. Ginny was just as much of a victim as everyone else, and I couldn't have gotten down there and back without Ron's help." Harry half expected his grandfather to shout at him over the idea of wasting money, but he was just beaming a wide smile at Harry.

Hermione, however, seemed to have other ideas. "No Harry, you can't go wasting your money on me like that. It's too much, you should keep what you want to give me for your future. Twenty thousand galleons can buy you a house in some parts of the country. You shouldn't waste it on me."

Harry pulled Hermione into a hug to get her to stop rambling. If they were alone he might have given her mouth something else to do instead, but with his grandfather and godfather in the room Harry didn't feel anywhere near comfortable enough to try and pull that off. "Hermione, there is no way I could treat you any worse than all the other people who got petrified, you out of all of them deserve it more than any of them. You stood by me when everyone else thought I was some type of madman setting a monster loose on the students. You are the one who found the information on the basilisk. You deserve more than the others, but if I gave my girlfriend more then there would be an allegation of favouritism."

"But what about you and your future?" Hermione tried to insist.

"Did you miss the part where I'm keeping over half a million galleons? And don't forget that I will probably also have quite a bit of gold from the dragon, though I was thinking about having the hide turned into a cool coat and accessories. If Grandfather wants people to be intimidated by me killing a dragon, then casually wearing its skin everywhere seems to be the best way to get that done. Plus a long dragon leather coat will be really cool."

Ron was specifically keeping his mouth shut about the gold. Harry knew his friend well enough to know why, Ron didn't feel like he deserved it either but also didn't want to give up enough money that would be a major advantage to him and his sister when they finished school. But still, Harry turned to Ron and said, "And before you can even start. I never would have survived the Acromantula without you, and you had to deal with Lockhart. I say you earned every knut."

"I didn't say anything mate," Ron said, but the smile on his face said everything Harry needed to know.

"It's your gold Harry, if you want to donate some to the victims then i think it's a brilliant idea. Just remember that it's gonna take a while to sell the entire basilisk, if you want to get the most gold possible for it. So it's unlikely that you'll be sending out any gold any time soon, I would be thinking maybe over the summer. Now I have a lot more to talk to you about," Charlus said. “First is Snape. He is going to be informed in the next few days that his mastery is under review, so I want the three of you to keep out of his way. He has already shown he is not the most even tempered with the students, and I don't want him targeting you three in retaliation."

"Next is Dumbledore. I had it confirmed last week that Dumbledore is also under investigation and his suitability to work as an educator will be questioned. Some of his decisions in the last few years have been extremely risky. As the school's headmaster, his primary responsibility is the safety and well being of the students, and some of the things he has done are most definitely not in the interest of student safety. Hiding a magical artifact from a known criminal in a school, for instance, is absolutely too irresponsible a thing for a school headmaster to do.”

Hermione chewed on her lip as she was incredibly nervous at the idea of going after Dumbledore. Ron however just whistled and said, "Damn Mr. Potter, you don't do anything by half, do you?"

"No, Mr. Weasley I don't, but please I have more to say. Harry, you know the book series that was using your name? Avalon Publishing has dug its heels in, and we are taking it before the Wizengamot in two weeks."

"Two weeks? That's not a lot of time to get ready," Harry said, sounding offended.

"Ah…the truth is I have known about this for a few weeks, but I didn't tell you before now because after we found out the first task was a dragon I didn't want to risk drawing your attention away from your training," Charlus admitted.

Harry didn't like that at first, it felt like his grandfather was manipulating him in the same way he had come to feel Dumbledore had been. Yet he also had to admit to himself that his grandfather had a point, he probably would have gotten distracted by the idea of the trial. Would he have let his training suffer? He doubted it, he was looking at a fight with a dragon after all. Yet at the same time, would he have taken the risk if he was in his grandfather's position, or would he have done the exact same thing? He honestly didn't know, and that was what was keeping him from feeling angry at his grandfather right then. "Tell me what's going on."

Charlus nodded and said, "Gripsack - Anne Twist is handling everything. You won't need to do anything, and for the most part all I need to do is sit at a table during the trial and let them do the talking. There really is nothing for us to do that hasn't already been done. There is some documentation both you and I need to sign next week, but that really is all."

They continued to talk for a bit about what they had all put off for the last few weeks while they had been focusing on preparing for the tournament, Before Sirius pulled the topic back to the main reason why they were there. "So pup, have you done any work on your egg yet?"

"No, I'm not even sure where it is right now," Harry admitted feeling a little sheepish. He had been so focused on getting his arm sorted out that he had forgotten about the egg.

"I have it, Harry," Hermione admitted as she started to dig into her ever-present school bag. "You left it in the hospital tent after the first task, so I grabbed it then. I…had a little trouble sleeping last night so I had a look at it. There are no marks at all on it, it's just a smooth egg that has a groove going around it as a hinge on one side, so it looks like it opens. I didn't want to open it in case there was something that would only happen once and I didn't want to risk Harry missing it." She pulled out the egg and held it up.

Harry took the egg and had a look at it. Hermione was right, apart from the groove where two pieces of metal had been fitted together and the small hinge that connected the two, there weren't any visible marks on the egg; it was just a smooth gold surface. The egg was soon passed around to everyone to see if they could see anything, but it eventually was passed back to Harry and they all encouraged him to open it.

Harry dug his nails into the thin groove and pulled the two parts of the egg apart, and immediately dropped it as he clamped his hands over his ears to shield them from the extremely loud screeching and wailing that came from inside the egg. Acting completely on instinct, Charlus whipped his wand towards the egg, and with a quick jabbing motion the noise cut off. Everyone let out a sigh of relief as they tried to get the ringing out of their ears.

"What the f*ck was that?" Harry asked, only to have Charlus and Hermione admonish him for his use of the swear word in stereo. He picked up the egg and he could feel it vibrating slightly from the sound it was still making, even if none of them could hear it because of the silencing charm. As he picked it up, he noticed that the inside had a mark engraved on the inside of the egg. "Hey guys, look at this." He pointed out the mark to them. It was a small engraving of a simple equilateral triangle.

"It could be a rune of some type," Hermione suggested. "Unfortunately it's so basic that it could be from a few different rune sets. I will help you find out what it is." Harry smiled at her, knowing the rune was as good as found with Hermione helping him.

---ϟϟϟ---

Later that same evening, Harry was able to get Hermione alone so they could talk, and the two of them took a walk up to the Astronomy Tower. Due to the fact that it was just before curfew and the December cold had arrived a few days early, the tower was free of students except the two of them. Hermione had dug her way into Harry's cloak and was snuggled up to his side. She said it was to stay warm, but her hand also squeezing Harry's ass told him that it was at least in part more an excuse to get her hands on him. The fact that Hermione could easily cast a warming charm or her bluebell flames for warmth only confirmed his suspicions.

A part of Harry wanted to put off the conversation he was about to start, but he had talked with Grandfather Charlus earlier and the advice he received was to talk about it early rather than letting it build up.

"Hermione?"

"Hmm?"

"Ron told me you were upset last night when you returned from visiting me in the hospital wing." Harry pulled her in a little tighter as he said that trying to reassure her that everything was fine. "Uh… do you want to talk about it?"

"It's nothing Harry, I was just being silly." Hermione tried to brush it off.

"You know I was scared as well. Not in the hospital wing, I knew I would be fine by then, but during the task I was terrified. I wanted to be anywhere but in that arena, and when that dragon came after me I was sure that my luck had run out. It wasn't the idea of dying that got to me, it was never seeing Sirius or Grandfather or Ron again that scared me, and the idea of never seeing you again terrified me." Harry told her. "Grandfather told me earlier that part of being in a relationship was being open and honest with each other, and I didn't want you to think I wouldn’t understand."

Hermione leaned in and kissed Harry on the cheek before saying. "Uncle Charlus is right, and yes I was afraid of you dying, but I knew what I was getting into when we agreed to give our relationship a try. Heck, we had just come out of another life-threatening situation the night before. But as much as being with you feels right, sometimes I just need to cry out the fear and frustration. Just promise me one thing, Harry."

"Anything," Harry said, and he meant it. Hermione wouldn't ask him to promise more that he was able to.

"Do your best to keep out of stuff like this in the future. I know it's not always something you have any control over, like the tournament, but I want you to do your best."

Harry, who had already made a similar promise to himself earlier that day, readily agreed to the promise. It wasn't long after that the two teens forgot everything else but each other, hands and tongues quickly got involved as the two ignored the stresses of the tournament and started to act more like the teenagers they were.

Chapter 22

Chapter Text

Chapter 22

Charlus watched the car below him as he followed while Disillusioned on a broomstick. He wanted to question the driver and his wife but was having a surprisingly difficult time.

It had started before the first task of the Triwizard Tournament when he had gone to visit Vernon and petunia Dursley. He thought over that encounter again in his head. He had Apparated to a clump of trees and bushes in a nearby park and walked the rest of the way. It was a pity he couldn't just Apparate to the street just outside the house, but the Statute of Secrecy strongly discouraged Apparating or Disapparating where muggles could see you. The street looked exactly the same as it had when he visited over the summer, and only the cold and lack of blooming flowers showed that so much time had passed.

Charlus knocked on the front door of Number Four Privet Drive and waited. From inside the house he heard grumbling and the scraping of a chair, and then the door opened revealing the rotund man his daughter-in-law’s sister married.

"Oh it's one of you people. I don't care what the freak has done, we are not taking him back." Vernon's voice was already angry like he was psyching himself up for a fight.

Charlus was taken aback by what Vernon had said and tried to calm everything down. "Harry hasn't done anything. I just thought you'd want an update about your nephew. He was pulled into a situation that could get him killed and I thought you would want to know so you could help support him."

"Support him? He is nothing but a freak. I'll be rooting for the kid alright, rooting for him to finally do the world a favour and die." Then before Charlus could say any more Vernon had slammed the door in his face.

Charlus had drawn his wand to try and break in, wanting answers. But the second he cast a spell on the door, strong wards had reacted and sent him flying into the street. He had had to leave with there being nothing he could do.

Charlus had tried again the next day, only early enough that Vernon would still be at work. Surly it was just Vernon who was the problem, *women are naturally more caring and Harry was her blood, her sister's boy. Only now the wards wouldn't let him anywhere near the house. He tried to find a weakness or a way around them, but he couldn't. Eventually Petunia saw him and came out of her house just enough to tell him to clear off.

In that moment the wards around the house saved the lives of Petunia and Vernon, as suddenly Charlus realised that this hadn't been a good place for Harry to grow up and he wanted to kill the people who had hurt his grandson. But he couldn't get through the wards and that forced him to leave and calm down. Normally Charlus wasn't a killer, but to him six months ago had been the height of a war, and when you're at war you kill the people who are threatening your family. Being forced to go and calm down, however, hadn't gotten Charlus to give up. Brewing Veritaserum took three weeks, so he got right to it.

While the potion was brewing the first task of the tournament had come and gone, and in that time Charlus had been planning. The wards only protected the Dursleys while they were in their house or very close to it, but they weren't in their house all the time. Vernon would have to regularly go to work and that left Petunia to run errands. He was following Vernon right now, and he was going to grab both of them and get the truth from them. He was going to pour Veritaserum down their throats and get every cruelty ever inflicted on Harry from them, and then he was going to decide what to do with them.

To do that, though, he needed them both, and the only way he was going to guarantee he could catch them both was to watch the house for a time they were both out,, and then to take Petunia first and then go and nab Vernon from his place of employment. Easy enough with Apparition, but in order to Apparate to the place Vernon worked when he needed to, he would need to be familiar with it already. And with the hearing against Avalon Publishing just around the corner, it would seem that he would only catch the two before that if he got lucky.

---ϟϟϟ—

Harry sighed in frustration. Translating Runes wasn't easy to begin with, trying to translate the Triwizard clue of a simple triangle, one of the oldest and most wide spread Runes, was bordering on torture. They had started with Ron's help going through all the books Harry and Hermione had thought might be useful and placing silk ribbons in between every page that had a triangle rune on it. That had allowed them to discard about a third of the books, but that was where Ron's helpfulness had come to an end. It wasn't lack of trying or willingness on his part, but as he didn't take Ancient Runes the work was just beyond him.

So Harry and Hermione were sitting in the library, going through book after book listing out every possible meaning for a simple triangle. So far the had come up the number three, three things together as one cup/chalice/Goblet, cauldron, man, a man's genitalia, a woman, a woman's genitalia, change, it could even have been the Greek letter delta which can mean four. Also, an even bigger issue was that a triangle could have vastly different meanings depending on which way the triangle is pointing. For example, if the point is up it's considered masculine In a number of sources, whereas the down means feminine. There was no way to know which part of the egg was top and which was bottom. Eggs in a nest tend to lay on their sides, some people say you store eggs side down, others the opposite. There were just too many variables.

Harry pushed his glasses up and ruled at his eyes hoping to clear away at least part of his headache but knew the effort was in vain. He had had the headache ever since he had potential this morning just before lunch. It was obvious as soon as Harry walked into the dungeon classroom that Snape was in the bad mood Grandfather Charlus had predicted. Before Harry could even reach his seat, Snape had taken five points from him for not wearing his robes properly. Harry had his top button undone just like about half the class, yet he was the only one singled out for losing points. Then Snape spent the first ten minutes of the lesson once everyone started brewing to find as many ways to take points from Harry as possible. He took points for Harry's cauldron not being cleaned properly because there was a little soot on the bottom, on the outside. He docked points for Harry's homework being illegible and said he would need to do it again. He then burned the homework Harry had handed in, so he couldn't even take it to Professor McGonagall to complain. When Snape had noticed that this wasn't getting to him, he took to glaring at Harry for the rest of the lesson. That was stressful enough that Harry had a massive stress headache by the end of the lesson and it stayed with him the rest of the day.

---ϟϟϟ---

Harry rubbed his hands over the jar of bluebell flames Hermione had made for him that morning. They were at the Quidditch pitch watching the Slytherin vs Durmstrang game, right at the back of the stands away from the crowd so that the conversation Harry was having with the reporter from Quidditch Weekly wouldn't be interrupted as much. Hermione had brought a book, and with her own jar of bluebell flames to keep her warm she had mentally shut out the game and started to read.

"So Harry. When last we spoke, you were fighting for Quidditch to be reinstated this year and had plans to play as the Gryffindor seeker. Quidditch was brought back of course, but with the rule that no one participating in the Triwizard Tournament could be on the Quidditch team. Then your name came out of the Goblet of Fire and you had to give up your position on the team. In your own words, tell me how you felt about all that," The reporter, Mr. Scratch, asked Harry.

"Well when Quidditch was brought back - and we have your article to thank for that, it never would have happened this year without the public support you helped generate - all the Quidditch players were over the moon. Dumbledore added the rule about the Triwizard champions being ineligible and then told us that Durmstrang and Beauxbatons would also be fielding teams, and that the professors wouldn't have the time to organise any of it and it was on the Quidditch captains to do it. Everything was going great, but then on Halloween…" Harry paused for a moment before continuing. "Then on Halloween, to mine and almost everyone's surprise, my name came out of the Goblet of Fire as well. I was shocked and angry that someone would try and force me into the tournament. There was a big argument between my grandfather and the people from the Ministry, but apparently as my name came out of the Goblet I am bound to compete in the tournament. I am particularly gutted about that. I love flying, for me at least being on a broom is one of the best feelings in the world. It's like you leave all your stress and anxiety on the ground and can just be free. And the tournament has taken not just Quidditch, but any time I had to just grab my broom and fly from me. I have to dedicate so much of my time to preparing for a tournament I am under qualified to participate in just so I don't die in the tasks," Harry responded, trying to be as honest as possible.

The reporter quickly wrote what Harry had said before continuing. "Well that's quite the story. A lot of the best flyers in the Quidditch league describe flying in the same way you do, like they are just more at home in the air than on the ground. Have you ever considered going pro?"

"Not before this year. At least, not seriously, I bet everyone who flies has at least the occasional daydream about being a professional Quidditch player. But it was when all the Quidditch players this year were fighting to get Quidditch back because it was their best chance to get the scouts to see them fly and to earn a spot on a team that had me seriously thinking about it for the first time. I don't think I will want to make Quidditch my entire life after Hogwarts like some people do, but I think I would like to play professional Quidditch for a while. I could easily see myself playing until my mid thirties before moving on, rather than staying in coaching or some other aspect like a lot of players do," Harry explained. He didn't have to clarify to the reporter that most players gave up playing in their mid-thirties, despite magical people easily living until their hundred and fifties. The stresses of playing any professional sport builds up over time even with magic healing, and most players move on before the damage builds up too much. There were always a few players who stayed of course. Harry thought the oldest current British player was fifty-six.

"What team do you dream of playing for? What is your favourite?" Mr. Scratch asked.

"I don't really have a favourite team. I was raised in the muggle world and never learned about flying brooms or Quidditch until I was eleven, and the only non-school game I have seen was the World Cup final over the summer. As much as I love the sport, I haven't had a chance to find my team yet. I have friends who support the Cannons, the Catapults, the Harpies, and my old Quidditch captain Oliver Wood is now flying for Puddlemere. Honestly I would love to fly with Wood again, but the only teams I can't see myself playing for are the Cannons and the Harpies. The Cannons because I actually like to win, and I just don't see the Harpies changing from being a witches-only team any time soon." Harry laughed.

"Well that's interesting. You said you hadn't heard about broom flying until you turned eleven, but I was informed you made your House team in your first year, so that could have only been a few months. Can you explain that timeline to me?"

Harry shrugged. "Sure. I learned about being a wizard and the magical world on the 31st of July 1991, my eleventh birthday. I think I may have seen a flying broom in the window of Quality Quidditch Supplies that same day, but I had no clue what Quidditch was at that point. I heard a few people talking about Quidditch once I got to the school, but it was just one of many things I had no clue about. Then came our first flying lesson." Harry went on to explain what had happened with Malfoy and how Harry had caught the Remembrall, and how he was put on the Quidditch team before he even knew what the sport was.

Mr. Scratch was of course astonished by Harry's claim. Being put on the House team after one aborted flying lesson was understandably unheard of. He did say he was going to have to verify that claim, only for Hermione to pipe up. "I was there and saw it happen just as Harry said, I was even the one to tell Harry that his father had also been on the House Quidditch team after that lesson because Harry didn't know,” she said.

Slytherin vs Durmstrang was a long one for Hogwarts as it took almost four hours for the snitch to be caught, and in the end the Durmstrang team took it 300-180.

---ϟϟϟ---

Charlus was bored out of his mind. He had been sitting in front of the Wizengamot for most of the day while Ms. Twist did all the talking. Avalon Publishing, its owner Marlon Avarite, and his law wizard were claiming that the disclaimer they had at the beginning of their books was all they needed to be able to continue to publish the books. Ms. Twist was countering that Harry had the right to his own name and likeness, that Avalon Publishing and their writer, someone they were refusing to reveal, were causing real harm to Harry. Some people were unable to separate the real Harry from the one in the books and expected Harry to be more like the character: brash, arrogant, and spoiled when the opposite was the truth, and how people went into meeting Harry with expectations no real person could meet and were disappointed when Harry couldn't live up to the hype.

During all this Charlus had nothing to do but sit there twiddling his thumbs. He of course wanted to help, but this was a fight best left to the law witch. She was the one who knew what she was doing. Luckily Ms. Twist indeed seemed to be winning, Charlus did have an idea for if they lost but it was definitely in poor taste: the law works both ways. If they lost, his plan was to write his own books such as Marlon Avarite and the Way of Avarice, where Marlon Avarite, the owner of the company Avalon Publishing, would do anything for a galleon. The books would then be given away to everyone who bought a Harry Potter book. It wouldn't stop Avalon from publishing the Harry Potter books, but it could destroy the reputation of the man who owned it. Once the company was in enough financial difficulty he would swoop in, buy it, and find out who had written the damn books in the first place and go after them. Was his plan immature and petty? Yes it was, but Charlus had more than enough money and motivation to do it anyway. After what he suspected from the Dursleys, he was officially out of mercy.

---ϟϟϟ---

"The result of the trial is a bit of a mixed bag, but mostly good news." Charlus told Harry as they were once more training in the disused classroom. As none of them had discovered the answer to the egg yet, it was just some general training of spells and skills Sirius and Charlus thought were good for them to know. "First, the Wizengamot believe that you have the right to your own name and likeness if it is being used for a fictional work. Avalon and all other publishing companies are banned from selling fictional books about you. They can still make and sell history books with you in them, but the story books can't be made anymore without your permission. However, the Wizengamot didn't go as far as we would have liked to make the publisher buy back the books already sold, instead deciding that Avalon Publishing owes you thirty percent of the gold they received for the books. And, as they have released thirteen books in that series and they all sold rather well, it should be quite the pay off."

"Do I really need another pile of gold? After the basilisk I don't even need the money from the dragon. What am I ever going to do with more gold?" Harry asked. And it was true, he was only fourteen and he had enough money to live off for the rest of his life if he was careful with it. Plus, there was no way Harry wasn't going to have a career. He would make his own gold.

"While I would never advise you to turn down gold, especially in a case like this where it's also about taking back from the people who stole from you, if you are truly uncomfortable with the money then you can always find something else with it. You could start a community project or fund a charity. You don't need to make any decisions now, though. I suggest you focus on the tournament, let's worry about keeping you alive before we worry about gold," Sirius said comfortingly.

“How is your egg research coming?" Charlus asked, shifting the conversation to the main reason he and Sirius visited the three teens.

"Mixed," said Hermione. "We have been researching all the possible meanings of a triangle rune and we have been almost too successful." She pulled the list out of her bag and showed him.

Charlus looked at the list and smiled. "I think the best thing to do is to try out as many of these as we can to see if we can eliminate them as possibilities via trial and error. But how can we do that? Some of the symbols have pretty abstract meanings, like the number three. How do we test that?" Charlus asked, hoping they had an answer.

"You can't test something like the number three, but what about the ones that represent things like elements? You have water and fire if you consider it an alchemical rune depending on which way is up. We can test those and see if they do anything easily enough," She pointed out to them.

They got lucky on their first try, which was water because it was easy to conjure and had almost no chance of hurting the egg. Harry placed the egg on the table and opened it so it was like two bowls, and as soon as the screaming started Charlus used Aguamenti to fill it with water. Instantly the sound changed from a horrible screaming to a rather sophisticated melody. They could tell there were words to a song muffled in the melody, but it was impossible for any of them to make out.

But it was a start, and it was proof they were on the right track. It was Ron who came up with the idea that they needed to have their heads under water with the egg. Sirius transfigured a desk into a large wooden cauldron, Charlus filled it with water, and Harry put the egg under the water before opening it and let the egg sink to the bottom of the over-large pot. He stuck his head in to test it, and as soon as he did he heard the song as clear as if it was being sung right next to him.

After he heard the whole song, he took his head out and told everyone else. Hermione wrote it down and everyone except her took a turn listening to the song, Hermione only refusing because if she got her hair wet it would frizz up even more than normal, and it just wasn't worth the effort to fix it again afterwards. Once they were all dry, the egg was closed, and the cauldron was once again a desk that they were all seated around, Grandfather Charlus asked Hermione to read out the clue again.

"Come seek us where our voices sound,

We cannot sing above the ground,

And while you’re searching, ponder this:

We’ve taken what you’ll sorely miss,

An hour long you’ll have to look,

And to recover what we took,

But past an hour the prospect’s black,

Too late, it’s gone, it won’t come back.”

"Well the first part is easy," said Ron. "Where their voices sound is underwater. And unless they plan on building another arena for the second task, the only body of water big enough for a challenge is the Black Lake."

"Oh yeah, the Black Lake in February, really easy," Harry grumbled.

"I didn't mean that, just that it's easy to work out what the clue means," Ron said a little defiantly.

Sirius cut them off. "Either way it looks like I need to talk to Moony, he is the dark creature expert. I will find out what you can expect in the lake and how to deal with them." Their plans made, Sirius started their regular training while Charlus said his goodbyes and left, saying he had stuff to work on.

---ϟϟϟ---

Harry smiled as he looked at a panicking Ron. Earlier that day, Professor McGonagall had announced the Yule Ball and informed them that it was the type of event one took a date to. For Harry a date was mandatory as a Triwizard champion, but as he had a girlfriend there wasn't any real pressure on him to find a date. Yes he needed to officially ask Hermione, but she had already basically agreed over the summer when she insisted on having a say in the colours of Harry's dress robes. It was easy to ask a girl when the answer was practically guaranteed to be 'yes.' Ron, however, didn't have anywhere near the level of confidence Harry had. Sure, he was doing well with girls this year, being on the Quidditch team had helped him a lot there, but he was still single and hadn't had a date yet.

"You should just ask Lavender, mate. She has been all over you a few times this year, I'm sure she will say yes." Harry insisted as he watched Ron fretting in the dorm room after they had gone up to bed.

"It's not that easy Harry. What if she says no?" Ron was practically whining as he said that.

"She won't." Harry insisted.

"How do you even ask a girl out?" Ron asked, trying to put a plan together.

"Maybe ask her to Hogsmeade as well as the ball?" Harry suggested, in part because he was hoping if Ron was occupied with Lavender then he and Hermione could go off for a date on their own without feeling like they were leaving their best friend behind. With Ron currently having a high level of anxiety, the two of them ended up talking for another hour trying to hash out a plan for him to ask out Lavender.

The next morning Harry and Hermione were down for breakfast pretty early, so Harry took the opportunity to ask Hermione to the ball without an audience and she had pulled him into one of her rib cracking hugs and accepted. Over breakfast, Harry brought up Ron's worrying over asking Lavender to the ball, only for her to sigh in frustration.

"You had it from Ron’s side, but I had it from Lavender. All last night it was ‘do you think Ron will ask me?’, ‘What will I do if he doesn't ask?’, ‘What if he likes someone else?’ It was maddening, and because I'm friends with Ron she expected me to know his feelings and opinions on everything. And the more I said I didn't know something, the more questions she asked. I didn't manage to get any reading done last night."

Harry laughed. "So she is afraid he won't ask her and he is afraid to ask because he is worried she will tell him no. God it's like something out of a cheap teenage romance novel."

"And what's wrong with teenage romance novels?" Hermione asked, her tone telling Harry something was up.

The hard edge in her voice was enough to tell Harry that those types of books must be a guilty pleasure of his girlfriend. "Nothing, but from what I have heard you can't exactly describe them as accurate, can you?"

“True enough,” Hermione said, mollified. "Wanna go watch the train wreck once we are finished with breakfast?" They laughed as they ate their food, looking forward to seeing Ron and Lavender dance around each other until one of them acted like the Gryffindor they were.

---ϟϟϟ---

Charlus spent most of the next three days from the day he went with Sirius to tell Harry the result of the hearing waiting outside of Number Four Privet Drive while Disillusioned, waiting for Petunia Dursley to leave her house while her husband was at work or for them to both leave the house together. On the third day his patience was rewarded, and the long necked shrew of a woman went out for groceries. He waited until she was walking past an alleyway and reached out and pulled her in before Side-Alonging the surprised and screaming woman to a room he had prepared in the manor.

He stunned her and popped off to collect her husband. Vernon was easy to catch a frequent vista to a cafe near his place of employment Charlus didn't have to wait long for Vernon to leave the safety of too many eyes keeping Charlus from acting. Vernon put up more of a fight than his wife, actually managing to take a few swings at Charlus, first before he could Apparate them away and second after they had arrived at Potter Manor and he saw his unconscious wife lying on a sofa.

Charlus stunned Vernon and set about setting everything up how he wanted it. The two Dursleys were placed in chairs and secured so they couldn't move, and after making sure he had the Veritaserum he revived the . "Now it's time for me to learn the truth about what happened to my grandson."

Chapter 23

Chapter Text

Chapter 23

Charlus spent well over twelve hours asking questions of the Dursleys, needing to dose the two repeatedly as the effect of the Veritaserum wore off multiple times. Every answer he got was enough to drive him into a rage. Slowly, the Dursleys' answers built up a picture of Harry's life with them. Barely enough food, no new clothes, sleeping in a cupboard, overly harsh discipline, no love or affection, beatings, and worked until he dropped. It was heartbreaking.

There were two reasons he hadn’t killed them or worse. One, the director of the DMLE herself was well aware that Charlus knew about these muggles, so if anything excessively violent was to happen to them then he and Sirius would be the first people she would investigate. And as much as Charlus was prepared to spend the rest of his life in Azkaban for Harry if he had to, Harry didn't have enough family that he could lose any from his life.

The other reason was the result of a simple question he had asked the Dursleys again and again throughout their interrogation. Why? He had asked repeatedly for their motivation,, and each time the two had clamped up and gone silent. That was something that was impossible under normal Veritaserum conditions, which told Charlus that there was something else happening that was preventing them from speaking the truth about something. He wanted to find out what was going on before he went ahead with any of the particularly nasty things his imagination was conjuring to make the Dursleys pay for what they had done to his grandson.

Now, without the effects of Veritaserum, the Dursleys were stuck to chairs and looking terrified. They remembered everything they had said in the past twelve hours and it was obvious they weren't expecting Charlus to be merciful. They wouldn't be if it was their Dudley that had been treated that way. When Charlus pointed his wand at Vernon and started muttering spells without saying anything to them, it didn't surprise any of them that the big overstuffed walrus of a man cried out in fear and pissed himself, even if all the spells were diagnostic charms used by healers. The first check was easy; despite living with Harry for years, there shouldn't have been any active magic on them, maybe only some magic residue if Harry had lost control of his magic over the summer and done a little accidental magic around or on them. So when Charlus found signs of active spells on the two of them, the next step was to find out exactly what the spells were.

---ϟϟϟ---

Harry was sitting with Hermione on his bed in his dorm, listening to her grumble. "Why did he have to choose Lavender, though? She is so annoying, and all she ever wants to talk about is hair, makeup, and boys."

Ron had asked out Lavender after Harry pretty much told him to just do it. Ever since then, the two of them had been all over each other and it was winding up Hermione. "Well I wouldn't worry about it too much. You know as well as I do that it will probably burn out before long. Most relationships our age do." Realising what he had just said, Harry quickly added. "Hardly anyone gets to find a relationship as perfect as ours their first time."

Hermione laughed at Harry quickly backpedalling to show he didn't mean his words. "I know what you meant Harry, and you're right. Ron dating Lavender probably won't last long, but she was bad enough asking all sorts of questions about Ron when they were just interested in each other. Now that they are together it's going to be so much worse."

Harry grabbed the bottle of water he kept on his night stand and offered it to Hermione (who refused) before he quickly drained a quarter of it and returned it to its normal location. "Just tell her it would be more of a bonding experience if she was to learn the answers from Ron. Besides, just think of the benefits."

"What benefits?" Hermione asked, confused.

"Well for one, he and Lavender will be on their own date during the next Hogsmeade visit. That means we won't have to ditch him so that we can have some time alone." Harry gave her what he thought of as his seductive smile.

"Oh and just what do you plan to do to me on this date you're planning?" Hermione asked, teasing Harry a little. "Because whatever it is, you'll have to be quick. You said you'd buy Ron his dress robes for Christmas, remember, so that means you need to take the two of them shopping at Gladrags."

Harry suddenly had a vision of what Lavender would be like buying dress robes and couldn't suppress the shudder that went down his spine. "Any chance I can fight another dragon instead?" Harry joked.

Hermione laughed. "Nope, and do me a favour: stay away from any more dragons. At least any fully grown ones, the first task scared the hell out of me."

Harry pulled her closer to him. He really shouldn't be joking about the dragon, he knew it had scared not only Hermione but his entire family. Yet sometimes the only thing that kept him from panicking about the tournament was for him to make flippant jokes about it. It probably wasn't the best method to cope with the stress, but it was effective.

They chatted and hung out together until it was starting to get towards the time when some people started to go to bed, so Hermione told Harry goodnight and left, as the chances were that their quiet and out-of-the-way spot was about to get a lot more crowded. She gave him a kiss that practically guaranteed that she would be making an appearance in his dreams that night, and with one last "night Harry" she disappeared down the boy's staircase.

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Vernon Dursley was afraid. He was locked in a small windowless bedroom at the mercy of someone with whom he had no hope to fight against, and he had not too long ago finished giving about a thousand reasons for the man to straight up murder him. Petunia was in a slightly better state, but that was because she had passed out a while ago, too exhausted by everything that had been happening.

Vernon looked back on everything that had happened that day, and the freakishness that had made both him and his wife answer all those questions was disturbing on a deep level. Yet there was one thing that was disturbing him more, that one question that had been repeated again and again. "Why?"

Why had he and his wife done everything they had? Didn't they pride themselves on being normal? Being forced to recount everything he had done over the years had shown him that what they were doing was anything but normal. Normal would have been raising Harry, if not like his own son, then at least fairly. It wasn't normal to make a child sleep under the stairs. They lived in a four bedroom house, there was plenty of room for the boy. Why had he acted so freakishly? It disturbed him that he didn't know the answer.

It seemed to upset the freak’s freaky grandfather as well. He kept getting more and more agitated. Vernon had half expected to die considering how agitated the man was, but instead all that had happened was that he had waved his stick around making Vernon and Petunia glow in different colours. It didn't mean anything to Vernon, but it seemed to mean something to the old freak, and whatever it was it had stopped him from hurting them and he had instead locked them in this room.

The door hadn't budged when he tried to open it, the walls felt like they were solid, and there was no window. Escape was impossible. Vernon would have thought it was a dungeon or a prison cell, but the furniture in the room was the type of thing you would expect to find in a bed and breakfast. Vernon could do nothing but lay on the bed next to his wife and wait for the morning.

Charlus didn't know what to do again. He was in his room alone with a bottle of Ogden’s while he tried to work it out. The problem was that he had found that both Vernon and Petunia were suffering with mind altering charms. Normally this would have been good news, Harry's family weren’t responsible for what happened, so he could undo the charms and let them go. But, and it was a massive but, the charms on the two Dursleys were not compulsions to mistreat him. They were charmed to prevent them ever developing a familial bond with Harry and to encourage animosity between them. Normally this would lead to an unloving home with lots of shouting and arguments.

This meant that the abuse was all on the Dursleys. They were not what anyone would consider good people, at least not in his opinion. But they also were not entirely to blame, without those charms Harry would have had a chance to be one of the family, or at least in a less hostile place to grow up. So could the Dursleys be held responsible? And what of the caster, how responsible was he? Charlus was referring to the mystery magical as a he because he was sure he knew who it was; after all, not many people knew where Harry lived, and some of the petty bullsh*t they subjected him to had started on day one.

"Why couldn't this be easy?" He asked the empty room. "Why couldn't it have been either bad Dursleys or good Dursleys with magical compulsions on them? I had plans for both of those. Now I'm stuck in some crazy limbo where it's both?" In his head he admitted a part of him just wanted to kill them both for what they had done to Harry, but another part, the part his wife had always jokingly called his soft side, wanted to be lenient. He was barely going to get any sleep for the rest of the night.

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The walk to Hogsmeade was a cold one this time of year. Ron and Lavender were walking with Harry and Hermione, and the new couple’s constant act was starting to grate on their nerves. It had started out as cute and funny but Harry was sure if he had to listen to Ron call Lavender "Lav-Lav" one more time he was going to charm a snowball to bury itself in Ron's mouth.

"So Lavender, what colour are your dress robes?" Harry asked. Even talking fashion with Lavender would be an improvement, and the sooner Harry could finish shopping for Ron's robes the sooner he and Hermione could peel off from them and go and have a date.

"A fairly bright teal neckline that falls down to an almost black teal on the bottom. It even has rhinestone stars in the shape of my zodiac sign," she answered, and you could see her getting excited that the topic of conversation was turning towards fashion.

"What's teal?" Harry asked, having heard the name of the colour before but not being able to picture it in his head.

"It's a mix of blue and green, Harry," Hermione said.

"Like the bathroom across from your room at Potter Manor?" Harry checked.

"Yep, though that's a pretty pale example. Lavender's dress robes start at about the same shade but get darker pretty quickly." Hermione had apparently already seen Lavender's robes; not surprising considering that the two of them shared a dorm.

They finished walking the rest of the way to the village talking about robes and current trends in witches fashions. They were pretty glad to walk into Gladrags if for no other reason than it got them in and out of the snow. The shop was pretty crowded with Hogwarts students all looking for something to wear for the ball, but as about three quarters of them were witches looking for witches’ robes and their group was looking for wizards’ robes, the section they were looking in was a lot less crowded.

Lavender practically dove into the men’s section, pulling out robes and holding them against Ron's chest so she could get an idea of how they would look on him. All the time she was giving a running commentary of what she was doing. "Let's see here, how does this look? Nope, too baggy, with your lanky frame we should probably look at something slim fit. Oh yes that's better. Now should we go with a laser effect? Oh definitely, even with a stole you look gangly without a bit of additional bulk. Now what about colour? Oh how about a dark bottle green, it will go well with my teal dress."

"I'm no Slytherin, I should probably not wear green," Ron protested.

"Don't be ridiculous Ron. Fashion has nothing to do with what house you are in. Look at professor McGonagall, she often wears green tartan. And no offence here, but it is the biggest crime ever to fashion that weasleys always end up in Gryffindor. If there is one colour you should never wear, it's reds. Now, go try on the green robes please," Lavender practically pushed Ron into the changing area as she spoke.

When Ron came out, Harry had to admit he didn't look half bad in the green robes. He was overjoyed that they were done in less than half an hour, but apparently he didn't understand shopping for robes at all because there was some quest not just to find robes Ron looked good in, but specifically to find the absolute best set of robes for Ron. Lavender (and a not as reluctant as her protesting would indicate) Hermione spent the next two and a half hours treating Ron like a dress up doll, which was only slightly worse than the role they had Harry playing, the designated 'holder of the maybe pile.'

What really had Harry grinding his teeth at the end where he sighed the pay slip, pressed his Gringotts key into it, and tapped it with his wand to imprint his magical signature (a way stores had found you pay for for things without having to walk out of Gringotts with too much gold) was that the robes they ended up getting for Ron were the very first set he tried on. Due to the high demand for alterations caused by the ball, the robes were now with the Gladrags seamstress. They would be altered with a list that an assistant had pinned into them before they would be sent to Ron by owl post.

Harry and Hermione split off from Ron and lavender not too long after that. Harry had made reservations at the restaurant in Hogsmeade again, and as the reservation was for two there was no room for Ron and Lavender on this one. However, Harry did spot Ron a couple Galleons to take Lavender somewhere like Madam Puddlifoot’s, and the robes had actually come in a little bit cheaper than Harry had budgeted for.

The restaurant was in full Christmas mode inside with decorations and a Christmas menu. They weren't the only Hogwarts couple in there either, though they were definitely the youngest; most of the other Hogwarts couples in there looked to be in their final year or close to it. Harry even spotted Cedric and Cho off in one corner as he and Hermione were shown to their table. The food was absolutely delicious. The British wizarding world hadn't had the influence of American media so they didn't have turkey on the menu, but instead had goose roasted in truffle butter with root vegetables roasted in the rendered fat. It was incredibly rich and decadent, but definitely worth it.

---ϟϟϟ---

It took him two days, but Charlus made his decision. He was surprised that Sirius hadn't found out he was keeping two people prisoner in the manor in that time, but all the running around he was doing to help Harry prepare for the second task and spending his free time out socialising to catch up on everything he had missed while in Azkaban, he wasn't actually at home all that much during the day.

Charlus couldn't bring himself to hurt them because of the magical compulsions they were under, but he couldn't let them go free either, so he handed them over to the authorities. Not the wizarding authorities, they would be very quick to charge Charlus for what he had done, so that left the mundane police. Charlus layered both of the Dursleys with compulsion charms of his own that would make them go to the police and confess every significant crime they had ever committed.

Then he modified their memory of what had happened to them over the last few days and replaced it with memories of the two of them talking to each other and deciding they didn't like what they had become. He even added a conversation with a priest that had told them they could only be forgiven of their sins after they had atoned for them, and how that had been what had put the idea of confession to the police in their heads. He used Apparition to drop them right outside the biggest police station in Surrey and watched as they walked into the station with a defeated and resigned look on their faces. Feeling justice had been done and feeling rather proud of himself, Charlus popped to the Leaky Cauldron and bought himself a pint of his favourite brown ale.

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Grandfather Charlus had been right about the goblins finding in Harry's favour as to the ownership of the dragon carcass. Harry had received a letter from them two days before the end of term asking him what he wanted to do with the harvested parts and asking how he wanted to pay for their services. Harry thought about it for the day before sending a letter back with Hedwig with pretty simple instructions. He would keep the hide but he wanted the rest sold, and the rendering team were to take their payment out of the gold made selling the dragon. The rest of the gold was to be set aside so he could donate it to charity.

Harry didn't like the idea of profiting off killing a mother defending her nest. Yes it was just an animal, even an incredibly dangerous one. He had just tried to stun it with the first lightning bolt, and the killing blow had only been used when it was him or the dragon, yet he still didn't feel right keeping the gold. He didn't know what charities there were out there, but he was going to ask around. Ron had grown up in the magical world so maybe he would know, and Hermione would probably know where to find a book on it. And if all else failed, he could just give the money to the wizarding hospital Sirius had told him about.

Soon the Christmas break started, but unlike most years the castle remained almost two-thirds as full as usual. Nearly all of the first and second years pretty much disappeared overnight. While there were more third years than normal for Christmas, most of them had gone home as well; the ones who stayed were probably the ones who were lucky enough to get a date for the ball.

For Harry, it was kind of surreal. He was staying at Hogwarts like he did every year, and while he was actually looking forward to the ball and was enjoying practising a little dancing with Hermione for the opening dance, in truth he thought he would for the first time since he started Hogwarts and go home for the holiday. It wasn't about getting away from the castle, nor was it about seeing his grandfather and godfather. The two of them, and also ex-Professor Lupin, visited the school often enough to help him prepare for the second task that he didn't really have an opportunity to miss them. It was the idea of a real Potter Christmas and what he could have had this year (if it wasn't for the bloody tournament) that made him wish he could go home like the younger students.

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Charlus reread the letter in his hand and grinned as he passed it over to Sirius, who was halfway through his breakfast at the time. Sirius set aside his cutlery and gave the letter a read, a wide grin also appearing on his face. "Oh, please let me be the one to go tell Albus and Snivellus about this." He sounded as though Christmas had come a week early.

The letter was from the Secretary of The Most Extraordinary Society of Potioneers, the body that governed what it was to be a Potions Master in magical Britain. It was officially informing Charlus that his petition to have Journeyman Potions Master Severus Snape reassessed on his certification due to his disregard to established safety protocols has been accepted. The letter went on to outline what was going to happen and over what timeline. It did say that it was on Charlus, as the one to make the complaint, to make the arguments that Snape needed to return to the level of Apprentice.

The society had decided to hold the evaluation during the Christmas holidays in consideration of Snape's current employer. They wanted to keep the disruption to the students as low as possible. If Snape was found to be unsuitable for his role, the Society of Potioneers would also appoint a Potions Master to the school to teach, either until the end of the school year or until the school could find a replacement they were happy with.

"No, the Society will inform Dumbledore and Snape directly. And it's probably for the best if we aren't there. I do want you to mirror call Harry though, tell him what's going on and that it's probably a good idea if he and his friends keep their heads down for the next few days," Charlus told him. Sirius was a little put out that he wouldn't get to see the look on Snape's face when he found out, but agreed it was probably for the best. He finished his breakfast before going to contact Harry.

---ϟϟϟ---

Harry had breakfast in the Great Hall with Hermione, Neville, and all of the Weasleys who were currently attending Hogwarts. It turns out Neville had asked Ginny to be his date to the ball the night before, and all of her brothers were giving Neville the big brother treatment, threatening him with everything from public embarrassment to defenestration if he was to hurt Ginny in any way.

Harry, who could see that Neville was starting to have second thoughts about asking out Ginny and remembering the time he had been on the receiving end of the same treatment by Ron when he realised he saw Hermione like a sister, decided to break the tension by turning to Ron and joking. "I'm not surprised at the big brother routine. I am surprised that you know what defenestration means."

Ron just grinned at him. "I don't. It's just what Percy said he would threaten someone with when someone asked out Gin-Gin and it sounded cool." Everyone, including Neville, laughed at that.

"For the record, you were threatening to throw my date out of a window," Ginny said as she gave her brother a small shove.

"He wouldn't be the first, at least I know I can bounce!" Neville joked, and Harry remembered him telling a story their first year about his uncle (or was it his great uncle?) dropping him out a window.

Harry was just about to say something when there was a shout from the professors’ table. "POTTER!!!" Harry's head, along with everyone else's, whipped around to where the noise was coming from to find Professor Snape looking at him like he had just discovered Harry had pissed in his cornflakes.

"Potter, that's it, I have had enough of you and your behaviour. Detention! Everyday! Until I'm satisfied you can behave like a proper student should. Get to my office now!" Snape was screaming at him looking like a madman.

Harry had no idea what was going on or why Snape was targeting him. He would be the first to admit he wasn't the best behaved student in the school, but he was far from the worst. He had been far too focused on preparing for the tournament and spending time with Hermione and Ron that the worst thing he had done since his name had come out of the Goblet of Fire was to hand in a few pieces of homework late. He couldn't think of anything he had done to warrant such a harsh punishment. So he summed his thoughts in one quick succinct sentence. "What the f*ck did I do?"

Luckily, none but the people around Harry heard him, and they weren't going to say anything. As Harry hadn't moved, Snape left the professors’ table and stormed towards Harry, his robes as always billowing behind him. Following him was a protesting Professor Babbling, demanding to know what Harry could possibly have done, as from her perspective Harry had just been sitting there eating his breakfast with his housemates, not unlike almost every student currently in the great Hall.

Instead, Harry ended up in Professor McGonagall's office. Professor Babbling had brought him and Professor Snape here after he refused to tell her why he was issuing the detentions. He was currently surrounded by shouting professors when he heard his name being called from his robes pocket. He pulled out his communication mirror and found Sirius's face grinning at him, which quickly fell when the sounds of what was going on around Harry made its way over the mirror connection. "Harry, are you okay?"

"Not really, Snape has snapped and is trying to put me in detention every day until he says so, and I have no idea why. He just suddenly started shouting over breakfast," Harry explained.

"Ah, I think I know what's going on. I was calling to tell you Snape's Potions Mastery is being reviewed, I was going to suggest keeping out of Snape's way for a few days."

Harry could only reply with, "Well, you're late."

With Sirius able to tell Professor McGonagall why Snape was suddenly targeting Harry, she told Snape that he wasn't allowed to punish a student for the action of their guardians, with a tone of voice that sounded more like she was telling Snape to 'grow up.' Harry was able to leave not long after that and made his way back to the Gryffindor common room, eager to tell Ron and Hermione that Snape was under review. This was the best Christmas present ever.

Chapter 24

Chapter Text

Chapter 24

When Harry woke up on Christmas morning, in his sleep-induced confusion he wondered why it felt like there was a weight on his legs. He opened his eyes and saw a pile of brightly wrapped parcels, but it still took his brain a few seconds to fight off the cloud of sleep and realise what he was seeing. There were a lot of Christmas presents, like three times the ridiculous amount of presents Dudley would receive. At first, Harry assumed there was some type of mistake, and that whatever magic it was that sorted the presents had failed and placed not just his gifts but all of the Gryffindor fourth years gifts on his bed. He started sorting through them, checking the names so he could give them to the proper recipient, yet they were all addressed to him even though there had to be close to a hundred. Most of them were signed either from Uncle Sirius or from Grandfather Charlus.

Among the pile of presents Harry found a letter and decided to open that first. He quickly checked the signature at the bottom and found it was from his grandfather.

Harry,

Happy Yule. It's a pity we can't be together as a family this year but maybe it's for the best. I'm honestly not feeling much of the festive spirit this year and I fear I would have been a disappointment. Now I'm sure by now you have seen the pile of gifts you have. Don't get used to this amount, I have over ten years worth of Christmases to make up for so I decided to splurge. Plus, there are plenty of things you would have accumulated growing up that you should have had. So enjoy your day and enjoy your date tonight. Just please remember to behave like a gentleman.

Love,

Charlus

Harry re-read the letter again and wondered why his grandfather wasn't feeling the Christmas spirit. It took him a moment, but he then realised that, despite it being Harry's first Christmas he could remember with any real family, for Grandfather Charlus it was his first Christmas with most of his family gone. He had heard the holidays are when losing someone hits you the hardest, and all he wanted to do right then was give his grandfather a hug.

Putting the letter down, Harry started to sort through the presents. There was one each from Ron, Hermione, Mr. & Mrs. Granger, Mrs. Weasley, and Hagrid. Then there were about forty from Sirius and Grandfather Charlus, quite a few less than Harry originally guessed but still a ridiculously large number of presents. Mrs. Weasley had sent him the usual Weasley jumper and a tin of homemade mince pies, and Harry immediately pulled on the wool jumper. Ron had gotten Harry a large box of chocolate frogs. A box of homemade treacle fudge from Hagrid made Harry glad he didn't have any fillings when he tried a peace. Dan and Emma had sent him a book called The Dangerous Book For Boys, and a quick flick through it showed lots of interesting things, everything from how to tie knots and build tree houses to poetry. He would definitely give that a read later.

Hermione had gotten him a bottle of cologne and pair of silver cufflinks with the initials H.J.P. engraved into them, which he loved. Harry had caught Hermione doodling on a bit of scrap parchment, writing her name but with his surname. Harry knew from his time in school that it was something girls did, he had seen enough of his female classmates do exactly the same thing with whatever celebrity they had a crush on that week. However, he couldn't help but notice that if he and Hermione got married they would have the same initials.

The pile of presents from Sirius and Charlus had its share of cool things, but the main majority of it was clothes and books. A new pack of socks or underwear may not be exciting to most, but Harry, having not had such things for most of his life and using only his whale of a cousin's castoffs, appreciated it all. The new pyjamas that were enchanted to keep him warm even in the middle of winter were definitely appreciated. He also had a complete new Quidditch kit, a new broomstick servicing kit like the one Hermione had gotten him last year, a set of Gobstones, Exploding Snap cards, and a small pile of books, including what looked to be a handwritten book full of prank spells and their counters made by the Marauders. There was also a large tub full of sugar fruits and candied nuts that had Harry's mouth watering, and a bottle of Sleekeazy’s Hair Potion. Apparently Harry's great-grandfather Fleamont had developed it to control the Potter curse of wild hair, but it had also worked for almost everyone else so it had become hugely marketable. Fleamont had sold the rights to the recipe for a tidy sum of galleons and a small stake in the business of the brewery that bought it.

When Harry was finished opening his presents, he finally decided it was time to get up. He dressed himself completely in new clothes he had received for Christmas and pulled open the hangings around his bed to find his dorm mates busy opening their presents as well. There was a chorus of good mornings and holiday wishes between them, and Harry set about putting his new clothes away in his trunk. "Hey Harry, thanks for the robes," Ron called out as he opened up the package that contained his robes for that evening.

"No problem, mate. Just don't drip any food on them tonight, yeah?" He teased Ron, and the two of them had a laugh.

Once Harry was finished putting all his new stuff away, he made his way down to the common room where he found Hermione waiting for him. As soon as she saw him, she ran up and tackle-hugged him, ending up with her arm around his shoulders and her legs around his waist while she said "Thank you Harry, thank you, I love it!"

Harry was just able to keep his feet from the tackle and couldn't keep the smile off his face. He had gotten her a necklace with a locket pendant enchanted to be bigger on the inside that could hold forty-nine regular sized photos, and it would randomly select one when you opened it. On the front of the locket was a large Lilac Aquamarine gem that had been carved into a Heart shape. It wasn't an expensive gem but it was a very close match to Hermione’s favourite colour.

The rest of Christmas Day was surprisingly fun. After breakfast, the trio decided there was no need to focus on preparing Harry for the tournament today. They had already worked out that Harry would need to retrieve something from the lake, all three of them were taught the Bubble-Head Charm over the summer, and Grandfather Charlus had already promised that he would teach Harry an amphibious potion in the new year. Therefore, most of Harry's preparations for the second task were well in hand, so taking a few days off was probably one of the best things he could do. The three of them joined the twins in kicking off a school-wide snowball fight. The older years used magic to make small castle-like ice forts all over the designated fight zone, and the students formed teams pretty much along House lines.

The fight quickly got ridiculous as snow started to fly everywhere. Harry was rather happy when he managed to get Goyle in the face with a snowball, and he laughed as the Slytherin boy over-acted dying, only to find it was all a distraction. While Harry was laughing at Goyle, about ten Slytherins from the younger years came running out from behind one of the forts and they all started pelting Harry with their snowballs. It was a surprising Slytherin move for someone Harry had always considered a bit of an unthinking brute, and it was only a bit of snow, so Harry took it all in fun.

Lunch that day was split into two sittings. The younger years went first and had the normal Hogwarts Christmas lunch, though apparently they all sat at the Hufflepuff table as there weren't enough of them to bother with spreading out over all four tables. Once the younger years were done, the students attending the Yule Ball had a much more simple lunch. As the Yule Ball included a meal, it wasn't worth doing a full Christmas dinner for them. After lunch, all of the girls disappeared up to their dorms to get ready. Harry, Ron, and most of the other boys in their year thought that was ridiculous, and when they said so the older boys from the sixth and seventh years just told them to get used to it.

Most of the boys, Harry and Ron included, went back out into the snow for round two of the Great Hogwarts Snow War. After about two hours, Professor Snape came out and told all the boys that it was time for them to go get ready. He was even relatively civil about it, although Harry was sure that was due to there being a large number of Slytherins partaking in the Snow War, and also because Harry was so covered in snow that he was sure Snape hadn't realised Harry underneath that layer. So the Snow War was left to the younger years, and the Gryffindor boys who were attending the ball made their way up to the dorms.

The hot showers after that felt like heaven, the water washing away all the snow and bringing feeling back to numb fingers and noses. After the shower, Harry decided he would use the Sleekeazy's he had been sent for Christmas. It was simple enough to use, just spread a little on his hair then style as normal. Harry ended up getting a little help from Seamus as he had no experience actually styling his hair, as before now the best Harry could hope for was clean and not knotted.

His robes were a very dark blue with a hint of purple, rather like the night sky. It was basically a very dark version of Hermione’s favourite colour, which made sense given that Hermione had chosen the colour to match her robes. Harry hadn't seen her robes yet, but he would bet all the gold he had in his trunk she would be wearing her favourite periwinkle blue. Harry's robes also came with a stole he was supposed to wear, which was weird to Harry, who had grown up only seeing the occasional precast on TV wearing one. However, in reality it was no weirder than a tie, and at least he didn't have to struggle trying to tie the stole into a perfect Windsor knot.

Despite having gone up to get ready for the ball almost two hours after the girls, Harry and the rest of the boys were still down before the majority of the girls, including Hermione. So they settled in to nervously wait for their dates. When the girls came down, it was clear that they had all put in a lot of effort to look as good as they did. The older girls, who were probably more practised at making themselves up like this than their younger counterparts, came down first with Colin Creevey snapping photos of them all. He told the girls as he did so that they could order copies from him over the next few days, and he would deliver them as quickly as he could.

A lot of girls also pulled their dates to one side and had Colin take couples photos. Harry was just thinking he would definitely need to get Colin to take a few photos of him and Hermione when Ron elbowed him in his side. Harry looked at Ron and saw he was staring at the stairs to the girls' dorms, and when Harry turned to look his jaw dropped. Standing there arm in arm were Lavender and Hermione, and Harry had to look twice to see it was Hermione.

Lavender was easy to spot, as one of only three black girls in Gryffindor she was wearing a teal dress that started almost white at her collar and faded to black. About halfway down her skirt were the star sign rhinestones she had told them about during their shopping trip, sparkled with what Harry assumed was a magical light. The girl looked stunning. However, despite how good Lavender looked, to Harry she looked like a wallflower next to Hermione, although he had to admit maybe he wasn't objective in this regard. He hadn’t recognised Hermione at first because she was absent her regular mass of bushy hair. Instead, Hermione had her hair tied in an elegant knot and draped over her one shoulder. She was wearing a strapless periwinkle blue gown that Harry was sure had to be held up by sticking charms.

"Hermione…you look…um…wow," was all Harry could get out.

Hermione smiled, obviously pleased that she was able to stun Harry beyond the capacity for normal speech, and replied "You don't clean up half bad yourself." Then she hooked his arm with hers and pulled him over to where Colin was taking photos. There was a little bit of a queue, as Colin was focused on getting pictures of the girls as they came down the stairs, but when it came to their turn Harry had regained enough of his brain to ask Colin, "is there any chance you can do both magical and non-magical copies? Hermione’s parents would probably like to have non-magical pictures, but I'm sure my grandfather and godfather would prefer magical photos."

"Sure, I can do that. That's why I have two cameras, there are plenty of muggleborns like me whose parents have to be careful. That's why this second camera has regular film in it," Colin said as he held up a second camera he had hanging around his neck. Harry and Hermione posed for a few photos following Colin’s advice on how to stand and where to put their arms, and then the couple got out of the way for Lavender and Ron. Harry suspected that Ron would probably ask Harry for a loan of the gold when Colin came around and asked what prints everyone wanted, but he was fine with that. The Weasleys had done enough for Harry that paying for a few photos was the least he could do.

Harry offered Hermione his arm, and when she took it the two made their way down stairs to the Great Hall. Just before they got to the hall they were called over by Professor McGonagall. "Miss Granger, Mr. Potter, the two of you look brilliant this evening. The champions and their dates are to wait in the trophy room until they are announced. Then you will enter and make your way to the champions table."

Harry and Hermione thanked the professor and turned down a side corridor that would take them to the trophy room. When they got there, Cedric was already there with his date Cho Chang. Cedric and Cho had only officially started dating since Halloween when Cedric’s name had come out of the Goblet of Fire, but the two had been dancing around each other since the start of the year, especially during the Quidditch liberation meetings. Cedric waved them over, and the two duos started chatting. Given that there were not only three Quidditch players but specifically three Seekers in the group, the conversation was inevitably focused on Quidditch. It only got worse when Victor Krum walked in with Alicia Spinnet as his date. They were discussing the merits and feasibility of the Sloth Grip Roll when Professor McGonagall walked in with Fleur Delacour and her date, a Beauxbatons boy that they had seen around a few times but didn't know the name of.

"Right, I will go into the hall in a moment and then I will announce you to the Hall. You are to walk in and make your way directly to the champions table where all the judges will also be seated tonight. After that dinner will be served, and once that is over with you will perform the first dance. Once that is over, you can enjoy the rest of the night as you see fit," Professor McGonagall instructed.

She had them all line up next to the door that led into the Great Hall, in the same order that the champions’ names came out of the Goblet of Fire, so Harry and Hermione were last. Professor McGonagall went into the Great Hall, and less than a minute later the ambient noise from the hall disappeared and they could just hear Dumbledore giving a speech, but could only understand about one word in three from where they were.

After a few minutes, they clearly heard Professor McGonagall saying, "The champion of Durmstrang, Victor Krum and his date, Miss Alicia Spinnet!"

Victor and Alicia walked out together and there was a polite applause. About a minute later, Professor McGonagall repeated the same thing with Miss Delacour and her date, followed next by Cedric and finally Harry. He and Hermione stepped into the Great Hall together and were both a little shocked at how different it looked. The regular House tables were gone and were replaced by a large number of smaller round tables that could seat four to six people. The House banners and Christmas trees had also been removed, and the entire Hall had been redecorated into what Harry could only call a fantasy winter wonderland.

Harry led Hermione to the champions table where the other champions were now waiting along with Dumbledore, Madam Maxime, Karkaroff, Bagman and surprisingly Percy Weasley. Once Harry and Hermione arrived, everyone started to take their seats. Cedric held out a chair for Cho first and all the boys copied him, even Dumbledore who held out a chair for Madam Maxime. Once the ladies were seated, Harry and the others took their seats. Each plate had a menu sitting on it and they all started perusing it. Each option was a full three course meal. There were three options for each, and from what Harry could guess each option had a dish representing the food from the region of one of the schools. The starters were a baked camembert (which Harry guessed was French as it was a French cheese), potted shrimp (which Harry knew was classic British), and gravadlax which the menu said was cured salmon. The mains were pork chops, coq au vin, and a slow cooked beef stew that was popular in pretty much every European country. And for dessert there was a classic British apple pie, French macarons, and a chocolate cake called Kladdkaka.

Harry was wondering if a waiter was going to come around and take their orders when Dumbledore said clearly to his plate "gravadlax", and something that looked like smoked salmon appeared on his plate along with some dark brown bread. Harry got the idea immediately and ordered the potted shrimp as he didn't know if he would like the French cheese, never having tried it before and knowing some of them can have a rather strong flavour. Hermione, it seemed, didn't have the reservations he did and immediately ordered the cheese.

"So Percy, I was expecting to see Crouch, not you, how did this definite upgrade come about?" asked Harry.

Percy didn't like how Harry disparaged his boss, but given that Crouch had been one of the people to throw Sirius into Azkaban without a trial no one was going to call him out on it. "Mr Crouch is not feeling too well at the moment, and someone from the department had to be here. Being Christmas Day most people had plans with their family, and I actually have more family here than anywhere else, so I was happy to take the role."

Harry realised Percy was right, with him here five of the nine Weasleys here in the hall right now. "You're right, even Ginny is here with Neville."

"Oh, Longbottom asked out Ginny? I'll have to have a word with him later," Percy said, overly psyching himself up to give Neville the big brother act.

"No need, Ron and the twins have already adequately warned Neville of just what the consequences would be. Ron even borrowed your line about defenestration," Harry informed Percy.

Percy laughed. "I never actually intended to use that one. I'm more surprised Ron even knew what it meant."

"He didn't," Hermione told him,"Ginny had to tell him afterwards." Percy just laughed even harder. "So how are things in your new job?" Hermione asked.

"Busy; there is a lot of work and a lot of it is boring but important, like trying to set up an international standard for cauldron thickness. It's a safety issue, as if you overheat one that's too thin it melts and causes accidents. It's important, but in reality it's just reports on everything from cost impact, St. Mungo’ addition rates, and a lot of other boring stuff," he told Hermione.

Hermione nodded and said, "Sounds worthwhile though. Have you done a comparison of how much it costs to treat the injuries compared to the cost impact of the thicker cauldrons? Maybe you can make an argument for a reduction in taxes and offset the cost?"

Harry tuned out the two of them at this. How the Ministry goes about regulating the thickness of cauldrons didn't interest him at all. Instead he turned to his potted shrimp and started to dig them out from under the layer of butter, and put them and some of the butter on the bread that also came with it.

Krum, who was sitting next to Harry, had the same thing and was copying what Harry was doing, the dish apparently being new to him. "Is this sort of thing where the name Potter comes from?" He asked

"That is one of the origins of the name, but my family name is from making and potting Potions. Back then the practice was to use ceramic pots to store potions as glass was still really expensive." Harry repeated what his grandfather had told him about the family name.

Krum nodded along and then asked another question, and by his tone Harry guessed that this question actually interested the Durmstrang champion a lot more. "I was reading your country's Quidditch magazine and it was saying how we have you to thank for the Triwizard Quidditch cup this year."

"Well I wouldn't say it was thanks to me, all of the Quidditch players banded together and it wasn't even my idea at first. I just agreed to let them use my fame to get the magazine involved," Harry said, playing down his part as it had truly been a group effort.

"Still, a worthy thing to use your fame for. Ever since I joined the Bulgarian national team people have wanted me to support this or that cause. Some of them are worthwhile but others definitely weren't when I looked into them. Making sure that your school's sports program isn't cancelled for an entire year is definitely a worthy place to start,” Krum said. "You just need to be careful in the future."

Harry nodded in understanding. He was planning to donate the proceeds from selling the dragon parts he wasn't going to keep and had been looking into some charities, and a few that he had researched turned out to be, if not outright scams, definitely rather unethical. For example, there was a charity to promote reading and learning that donated books to a library in Hogsmeade. However, the charity was run by the owner of a publishing company and every book that was bought to donate just happened to be from that specific publishing company. It did some legitimate good, but it was just a way to get the public to buy more books and increase his profits.

"Alicia was also saying that you are as good on a broom as I am," Krum grinned, and Harry was sure they had reached what Krum really wanted to talk about.

"I wouldn't say that. I got to watch you at the World Cup, and while I think I'm good I'm not on that level." 'Yet,' Harry finished in his head.

"Don't sell yourself short Harry. You have caught the Snitch in every game you played except one, when Diggory here beat you, but let's be honest you would have at least had a fair chance at getting the Snitch if the dementors hadn't attacked the game," Alicia said.

"And don’t forget you caught the Snitch in under five minutes once,” Diggory jumped in. "You could definitely play professionally if you wanted."

"I'm not saying I'm bad at playing seeker, I'm saying I'm not at the level needed to play at the international level." Harry wasn't going to let himself be inflated in front of Krum too much. If he did, then it would be just his luck that he and Krum would have to fly for the final task and Harry would be worse off if someone on Krum’s level expected more from him.

"We should have a pickup game sometime," Alica suggested. "Two of Hogwart's best players are sidelined due to the tournament, and I'm sure Victor would love a no frills pick-up game. What about you Fleur, do you play?"

"Not really. I have played the occasional game but Quidditch is not really my thing. I prefer to keep my feet on the ground," the French champion said.

"At last, someone with some sense." Hermione beamed at the girl.

"Says the girl who has never missed a Gryffindor match," Harry teased.

"I wasn't watching Quidditch. I was supporting my best friend." Hermione shot back.

With the ice broken between them, the dinner was rather enjoyable. For the most part the teenagers talked between themselves and the adults did the same. Before they knew it, they were finishing the last of their desserts and it was time for the opening dance.

Chapter 25

Chapter Text

Chapter 25

Harry offered Hermione his arm and led her out onto the dance floor, feeling a little nervous. His grandfather had given him, Hermione, and Ron a few lessons in dance over the summer as part of their etiquette lessons,, but it was only a few hours’ worth, and this would be his first time dancing in front of anyone. Harry hadn't even been allowed to attend the occasional disco his school had thrown for the kids, as his uncle had refused to pay the one pound entry fee for him and would instead give Harry a lecture about being a burden, before giving Harry a bunch of extra chores so he could "earn his keep." Hermione was smiling at him, but he knew her well enough to know she was a little nervous as well. Everyone was going to be watching them, and if they tripped over the other's feet now it would be the talk of the school for weeks. Still, the two of them were Gryffindors, and Gryffindors didn't run away just because they were a little nervous.

Once they and the other champions reached the centre of the space Dumbledore had cleared for dancing, they all turned to face their dates and waited for their signal to start. The first note came as the musician drew a bow across the strings of his instrument, and Harry took Hermione’s hand in his and snaked his other around her waist, pulling her in a little closer than protocol said was necessary. It was nothing indecent, however, and as he and Hermione were an established couple he could get away with it.

The first dance was a waltz, which was thankfully the dance his grandfather had spent the most time on given that it was the most common. Harry started to lead Hermione through the basic steps and soon the rest of the world fell away. It didn't matter that they were being watched by hundreds of students, to them for the moment they were the only ones there, and he started to feel more bold. He added in a few more complicated steps that he had learned, and when Hermione smiled at him for that Harry even added in a few twirls for her. It wasn't perfect, neither of them were well practised in dance, and nor did it hold any particular interest for the two. But they definitely did well enough that they had nothing to be embarrassed about. The same couldn't be said for Victor and Alicia. The Quidditch star may be one of the most elegant of flyers, but on the ground he was much less so, and as the two danced it was clear that he also had two left feet.

After about five minutes more people, starting with the headteachers, started to join the dance, and soon almost everyone was dancing. There was half an hour of ballroom dancing to fulfil the traditional requirements of the ball, and after that the band, a popular vampire group called 'the Neck Romancers', switched to more modern music. The students relaxed the uptight formal dancing and went for something more fun and relaxed. Harry and Hermione stayed on the dance floor for a few more songs, just having fun before going to find their friends.

They found Ron and Lavender sitting next to the drinks table, each with a Goblet of pumpkin juice. Lavender had the shoe of her left foot on the chair next to her and was rubbing at her foot while shooting a guilty-looking Ron a few annoyed looks. It was obvious to both Harry and Hermione what had happened.

"How bad is your foot?" Hermione asked as she and Harry took a couple of nearby chairs and moved them to sit next to their friends.

"Not broken," Lavender admitted.

"Hey I already said I was sorry!" Ron protested.

"Maybe I should put a feather light charm on him?" Harry joked. "Then at least next time it won't hurt." They all, including Lavender, had a chuckle at that.

"So are you two having fun?" Lavender asked Harry and Hermione as she continued to massage her abused toes.

"It's been fun, even if Harry got distracted talking Quidditch with Krum and Alicia. I ended up talking with Fleur about Beauxbatons. Did you know that because Nicolas Flamel is one of the school's founders they have alchemy as a core subject? It's taught from year one. My French isn't brilliant, but I was thinking about sending away for the books they use. It sounds incredibly interesting!" Hermione lapsed into talking about a subject that had caught her attention.

Harry realised that Lavender was only being polite, and while she was nodding along with Hermione she really wasn't interested in such an academic discussion. He let it go on for almost ten minutes, thinking that Lavender deserved it a little considering how often Hermione complained about Lavender talking her ear off about boys, fashion, hair and makeup. But after that Harry interrupted Hermione and asked her if she would like to go and dance a little more.

Hermione happily accepted, and almost as soon as they reached the dance floor the music switched to a slow romantic song. Hermione smiled at him, stepped in really close, and wrapped her arms around his neck. Harry put his arms around her waist and the two of them started to sway back and forth in time to the music. As they danced, Harry couldn't help but look directly at his girlfriend, and as the seconds ticked by the more he wanted to kiss her glossy lips. They danced together for a few more songs, but soon Harry asked her if she wanted to go for a walk in the flower garden. Hermione agreed; a few hundred dancing teenagers in one room, even if it was a room as large as the Great Hall, tended to make the room rather hot and humid, and a breath of fresh air was definitely welcome.

They walked around and spotted a few other couples who were doing the same as them. The garden itself was magically warmed so that the plants didn't suffer in the winter frost of a Scottish climate on one of the longest nights for the year, so neither of them felt cold. The path around the garden was dotted with small semi-private alcoves with a bench, but it took the couple a while to find one that wasn't occupied. When they found one and sat down, with the sweet scent of probably thousands of blooming flowers around them, Harry leaned in and pressed his lips to Hermione’s. Hermione responded eagerly, gripping the two sides of Harry's stole and using them to pull him into her. Soon tongues got involved and the two of them forgot about everything else.

Neither of them could have said how long they stayed like that, but they were brought crashing back to reality by a rather unwelcome voice. "Granger, Potter, that will be fifty points from Gryffindor each for licentious behaviour." The two of them sprung apart in shock, only to find Snape standing there glowering at them like they were in the middle of torturing his favourite bat. Harry and Hermione were just about to protest his accusation of inappropriate behaviour when he cut them off. "I expected better of you, Miss Granger, but it appears you are nothing more than a gold digging harlot with…"

Snape's rant was cut off short because he wasn't expecting Harry's fist connecting with his nose. With a look of absolute fury on his face, Harry stood between Hermione and Snape and said, "I’ve told you before to shut the f*ck up about Hermione, Snape." He wasn't going to let the greasy dungeon bat talk about Hermione like that.

A look of absolute loathing crossed Snape’s face, and the greasy Potions professor whipped his wand out and flicked it at Harry. Harry didn't have his wand in his hand, so there was nothing he could do to stop a force taking hold of one of his ankles and pulling it straight up in the air, leaving Harry dangling upside down by his one leg. "You will pay for this, Potter! Think you and your grandfather can take my mastery from me do you? Well think again!"

Harry was very happy that, like most muggleborn wizards, he wore trousers underneath his robes, and also that his robes came with a belt. This meant that when the lower half of his robes fell, not only did they not reveal anything, but they also didn't fall far enough to cover his head. Therefore, Harry had a perfect view of where Snape was, so he pulled out his wand intending to hex Snape. Unfortunately for Harry, Snape saw him going for his wand and snapped off an " Expelliarmus ".

Harry's grip on his wand tightened reflexively, trying to keep his wand from flying out of his hand. However, he needn't have bothered because Snape's spell never hit him. In his rage at Harry, Snape had forgotten about Hermione, and as Harry had purposely stood in front of Hermione to shield her from the asshole masquerading as a professor, he never saw her draw her wand behind Harry's back. Hermione’s " Protego " sprung into place between Harry and Snape.

Harry saw his opportunity as Snape was dodging his own spell reflected back by Hermione's shield. Pointing his wand at Snape’s foot, he yelled “Stupify!” .

The spell stuck true, and both Snape and Harry collapsed to the floor, Snape from losing consciousness and Harry because there was no longer any magic holding him up. Harry climbed back up to his feet, really wanting to give Snape a good kick for what he had done, but he had to deal with a panicking Hermione freaking out over them attacking a teacher. Harry pulled her to him and tried his best to be her rock so that she could start to pull herself back together. Unfortunately the flash of spells had drawn the attention of other students who came to see what had happened, and seeing Professor Snape unconscious at Harry's and Hermione’s feet a few of them understandably ran off to find some professors.

---ϟϟϟ---

Harry and Hermione found themselves in the headmaster's office, Harry shielding a still panicking Hermione from a ranting Professor Snape. Dumbledore raised his hand, silencing Snape as he was threatening to have Harry sent to Azkaban. "Harry, I'm not sure I can let this go. Attacking a teacher is serious."

Harry was still riding his fury and gave the headmaster a challenging look as he said, "I really don't care what you can or can't do, professor."

It probably wasn't the best thing Harry could have said, but Moody the ex-Auror had the most experience in these sorts of situations and tried to establish motive. "Potter, can you at least tell us in your words why you felt it was necessary to break Professor Snape's nose?" His words were measured and had a calming effect on Harry.

Harry took a deep breath to give himself time to work out how to phrase it delicately before he answered. "Snape decided to vent his vitriol on Hermione and myself, and in doing so cast such aspersions on Hermione's moral character, likening her in the most unflattering terms to a socal climbing scarlet woman. I couldn't leave such a baseless accusation pass unchecked." Harry let out a sigh at being able to phrase it delicately.

Professor McGonagall, who had been glaring at Harry up until this point, turned her glare at Snape. "Are you telling me that a professor of this school accused one of my witches of such indecent behaviour without reason?" It was easy to see that the Scotswoman, who was already on the verge of losing her temper, was starting to boil over.

At this Hermione spoke up, her voice still trembling; as she was a muggle born, if she was expelled then the normal process would have her obliterated of all knowledge of Magic, and Hermione loved magic almost as much as Harry did. "To be specific, he accused Harry and I of licentious behaviour, took a hundred points off us, then proceeded to call me a gold digging harlot. He was about to say more but Harry interrupted him. Snape then hit Harry with a spell leaving him hanging upside down in the air and went to hit him with a second spell, but I put up a shield charm between them. Harry was able to cast around it and hit Snape with a stunner."

It spoke volumes to Professor McGonagall that Hermione hadn't referred to Snape as professor once as she spoke. The head of Gryffindor may not be the most hands-on Head of House at the school, but even she had noticed Hermione’s tendency to always refer to someone with their title. "And what were you and Mister Potter doing to be accused of licentious behaviour?"

"We were kissing, professor." Harry said a slight note of defiance in his tone. "And I mean just that, kissing. Hands weren't anywhere inappropriate, clothing was still completely on. Nothing I wouldn't have done if Hermione’s parents were right there to watch. So nothing that would be considered worthy of losing a hundred points."

Dumbledore sighed and ruled at the bridge of his nose. "Severus, what do you have to say about this?"

"Potter and Granger drew their wands on me and they should be expelled."

"Dragon sh*t. I hit you and I am the one who stunned you. All Hermione did was cast a shield charm, that is a defensive act and can in no way be interpreted as turning her wand on anyone." Harry stepped in, cutting off any attempt to target Hermione. She may be part of the House of Potter now, making Grandfather Charlus her guardian as far as the Ministry was concerned, but he didn't want to risk some overzealous Ministry jobsworth wiping her mind before establishing the facts.

Before any more could be said, the blazing fire in Dumbledore’s hearth that was fighting off the late December Scottish freeze turned green, and Grandfather Charlus stepped out. He gave the room a quick look over taking in a feel of the atmosphere. Hermione’s fear, Harry and Professor McGonagall’s anger, Moody’s almost bord indifference and Dumbledore’s look of exhausted exasperation. "Okay, can someone tell me why I'm being called here at nine o'clock? Moody, you're neutral and have experience investigating, you tell me what's going on."

Professor moody gave a slight smile at being seen as a professional and proceeded to give a report on all the accusations so far. Charlus nodded along silently as Moody recapped who had said what and what Harry had admitted to. The more he heard, the more pissed off Charlus became. At the end, he hissed, "Albus I believe we spoke at the beginning of the year about Harry's obligations if Snape were to start insulting Miss Granger again. Miss Granger is a member of the House of Potter. She is under our protection, and as the future Warlock of the House Harry was obligated to act in her defence. I also warned you that if Snape didn't get his act together he was going to push too far one day."

"You also said that you would give my potions Professor a chance to reform, but it seems you decided to go back on your word there." Dumbledore accused.

"Mind your tongue Albus. I don't take kindly to being called a liar. I gave him his chance, and when Harry's name came out on Halloween your Professor proved that he hadn't improved one bit. He had his chance and he wasted it." The way Charlus said the word 'Professor' made it clear to everyone in the room that Charlus didn't think Snape was worthy of the title.

The two old men stared each other down for a minute, seeing who would give first. In the end it was Dumbledore who backed down. "For now I think it's best these two go home at least until the start of term, we can make a decision about what to do then." Dumbledore said. The fact that the school may very well be missing its potions professor by then was left unsaid.

"Um, my parents went away for Christmas this year," Hermione nervously informed them. "There is no one at home for me to contact."

Charlus sighed "Well, you will have to come with me then. You have your room at the manor whenever you need it, and we can inform your parents when they return." Hermione accepted this and cuddled back into Harry. After her near panic over the idea she could be expelled, she really needed the comfort.

Dumbledore called on a Hogwarts elf to pack up Harry and Hermione’s belongings into their trunks and have them brought to the office. Hermione was shocked out of her panic learning that Hogwarts had elves, and the only thing that stopped her going on a rant about slave labour was that she was already in hot water and didn’t want to risk rocking the boat. The Hogwarts elf did at least look better dressed, fed, and happier than Harry had described Dobby.

The elf returned after an awkward five minutes of everyone standing around and glaring at each other without saying anything. Charlus had to give Hermione a pinch of Floo powder, as dresses don't have pockets and Harry hadn't thought to carry an extra pinch for her. Soon the three of them Floo'ed to Potter Manor, only to find a nervous Sirius pacing back and forth in the floo room waiting for news. He hadn't come because he and Charlus were informed it involved Snape somehow, and Charlus hadn't wanted to antagonise Snape even more when he didn't know what was going on. So after Sirius's initial surprise at seeing the two teens, he demanded to be told what had happened, and they spent the next half an hour doing just that over some hot chocolate. Just before Harry retired to his room, he hugged both Sirius and Charlus and wished them both a merry Christmas. It may not have been the best thing given the circ*mstances, but it was the first real merry Christmas Harry had been able to offer either man, and that almost made it worth it.

---ϟϟϟ---

The next day Harry and Hermione sent Ron a letter telling him everything that had happened from their point of view and apologising that they wouldn't be able to help him with his Christmas homework. They also asked him how his date with Lavender had ended and to send his reply back with Hedwig, as Harry hadn't had the chance to tell her that she should fly home before he Floo'ed. Harry sent the letter with his grandfather's owl, a rather dignified looking barn owl who answered to the name of Pat.

After that, Harry and Hermione decided to tackle the homework the professors had set for the Christmas holidays. It was mostly light, given that most of the professors had assumed that they would be too preoccupied by the ball to get to the homework for at least a few days after it. Snape, however, had set them all a two foot essay on how the colour of any hair added to a potion could affect the brew. Harry was almost completely lost about this, but Charlus had overheard them talking about it in the library and had decided to explain it using Sleekeazy's Hair Potion as an example, as that potion had negative effects if it was used by anyone with red or ginger hair.

The day after Christmas was pretty quiet. As it was a national holiday in both worlds, there was nothing really to do unless you wanted to hit the muggle sales. However, as Harry and Hermione had been sent home from school, even if it was only for the holidays, it sort of felt like pushing their luck to even ask Charlus if they could go. After dinner Sirius excused himself for the evening, saying he had a social engagement, and Charlus sat them down saying it was time for them to talk. Feeling like they were marching to their executions, the two teens took a seat in the family room with the much grumpier-looking than normal Potter Warlock. Hermione took Harry's hand and held it tight for comfort as they sat next to each other.

Seeing they were ready, Charlus started to speak. "Well I have two things to talk to the both of you about, and we will get the obvious one out of the way first. I have been thinking about this all day. Harry, you know I will support you when you need it, so why did you let Professor Snape goad you like that? I sent you a letter telling you that the date for Snape's assessment had been finalised and you should avoid him. So why did you not send me a letter or Floo me? I could have added his unreasonable behaviour to his assessment, instead you broke his nose. Why?"

Harry did feel a little ashamed. Now, in the aftermath with the three of them sitting calmly, it sounded so unreasonable. "In the moment I just wanted to shut him up. What he was saying about Hermione, it made me so mad to listen to anyone saying stuff like that about her, and he wasn't stopping. So I had to stop him," Harry tried to explain.

Charlus nodded. "While I can't say you did the right thing, I must admit if someone was talking to my Dorea like that I'm not sure I wouldn't have acted the same. Hermione, I don't know if your parents will feel differently, but I cannot find any fault With your actions. Your only action was to put a shield between two people who were fighting. Nobody can claim you did anything unreasonable. Harry, while I understand why you acted the way you did, part of being a man is accepting the consequences of your actions. The school will almost definitely decide to reprimand you when you go back in January. I will do all I can to make sure Dumbledore doesn't go too far, but considering that he is likely to lose his Potions professor in the next few days I wouldn't count on him being overly forgiving. My suggestion is that you accept your punishment with your head held high. Just keep reminding yourself of why you did what you did." Charlus finished with a subtle nod at Hermione.

Harry looked at Hermione and with a squeeze of her hand he nodded and said, "Worth it."

Charlus nodded at Harry with a look of pride in his face. "Excellent. Now the second thing I wanted to talk to you about is the complication you being sent home puts on Snape’s reassessment. For the most part I won't be here for the next few days at least, and as it's unfortunately being held at Snape’s current place of employment, the school that has just sent the two of you home, I can't just take you with me. Sirius is speaking to a friend about getting you some more training for the Triwizard Tournament while you're here. If all goes well, your former Defense Against the Dark Arts professor Remus Lupin will come and give you some specific instructions on dealing with the types of creatures that you are likely to find in a Scottish lake. Is that okay with you?"

Harry grinned when Lupin’s name was mentioned. "That would be perfect. Professor Lupin is a brilliant professor and he knows magical creatures really well." He was exactly who Harry would want to teach him this stuff.

"Now before you leave, Miss Granger, I popped by your house and your parents are still not home. I left them a letter explaining that you are currently staying at the manor and that I will check in daily so that I can update them as soon as possible."

"I don't suppose we can not tell them?" Hermione asked as she chewed her bottom lip from nerves.

Charlus shook his head. "No, I promised them when you joined the House of Potter that I wasn't trying to usurp their role as your parents. I will only interfere without their permission if I can't reach them. Do you know where they are or when they will be back? "

"No, they said in their letter they were going to take a romantic couple’s trip this Christmas, but they didn't give me any dates or tell me where they were going. I don't even know if they are in the country. I mean, I think they are, they probably would have said if they were going abroad, but I can't be sure." Hermione was rambling. "I have never been sent home from school before. They are going to be so disappointed in me."

"No they won't, Hermione," Harry said, trying to make her feel better. "Nothing you did was worth losing even a single house point. My guess is Professor Dumbledore wanted to keep us and Snape apart until everyone has a chance to cool off. No-one is going to be disappointed in you for that."

Hermione pulled Harry into a hug, looking for some reassurance and comfort, and Harry was glad to give it. The two of them ended up remaining cuddled up, or as his grandfather would say *cwtching, for the rest of the evening, only taking a break to grab a book from the library for them to read together.

Chapter 26

Chapter Text

Chapter 26

Potter protective or potioned?

Harry groaned when he read the headline in the first Daily Prophet since the Yule Ball on the twenty-seventh, as the paper didn't print on Christmas or Boxing Day. He really didn't want to, but he read the article to find out what damage control was needed.

My dear readers, for years now we have lived with the legend of the Boy-Who-Lived, the Vanquisher of You-Know-Who. In the recent years since young Mister Potter returned to the spotlight when he started attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, there have been rumours surrounding the boy. Killing a troll and talking to snakes are the least outlandish and widespread among the students Harry shares his classes with. Some of the most fanciful even go so far as to accuse Potter of killing a professor and setting a monster loose on the castle to attack muggleborn students.

Personally I ignored any rumours indicating that the Boy-Who-Lived had a violent streak, but, my dear readers, something that happened during the Yule Ball has forced me to reassess that. Ladies and gentlemen, I can reveal that Mr. Potter, in a fit of rage that night, broke the nose of Severus Snape, Potions master and Professor of Potions at Hogwarts.

"Potter and Snape have been at each other's throats since day one," said one student. "Professor Snape is the only one of the professors who tries to keep Potter under control," said another. In fact, every student I was able to get a comment from agreed that Harry Potter and Severus Snape truly can't stand each other.

However it is the sudden escalation of hostilities from Harry Potter that has this reporter worried. "Snape has said some worse things to Harry before, but I never thought Harry would punch him,” said one of Harry's classmates. So why the sudden change? Could it be just teenage hormones as he tries to impress his first girlfriend, or could it be something more sinister?

Pansy Parkinson, in the same year as Harry and his girlfriend Hermione Granger, had this to say. "Granger has been following Potter around since first year, but Potter never looked at her twice. Rather understandable, as Granger is a rather plain buck-toothed muggleborn with weird ideas. Then suddenly they were all over each other. Now Granger, despite all her failings, is incredibly smart, I wouldn't put it past her to be able to brew a love potion."

Now, my readers, as you will know, love potions are banned at Hogwarts, and this reporter for one hopes that the staff at Hogwarts will take this accusation seriously and will investigate appropriately.

Rita Skeeter, reporter for the Daily Prophet

Harry cursed and passed the paper to Hermione, who was anxious to find out what the paper said that had annoyed Harry so much. Soon all four of them (Harry, Hermione, Sirius and Charlus) had read the article, and no one was particularly happy about it.

"Harry, come with me for a second," Charlus said, standing up and walking out of the kitchen. Harry followed his grandfather into his potions lab. This was one of the only places in the manor Harry didn't have free access to, not because his grandfather wanted to keep things from Harry but just that there was often a delicate potion brewing in there, and as Harry wasn’t a Potions prodigy it was too big a risk for him to be in there unsupervised. Especially given that there was a risk of accidentally turning a potion into a dead poison.

Grandfather Charlus pulled a glass bottle from a shelf and started adding things to it, giving it the occasional shake or swirl. "I'm sorry I have to do this Harry, but I'm gonna have to test your blood for love potions," Harry was about to object but Charlus didn't give him the opportunity. "I trust Hermione, Harry, but if I don't test you now, when it was just in the paper, people will say Hermione got worried about being found out and gave you a purging potion. By testing you right now, I'm not accusing Hermione but protecting her reputation." That got Harry to calm down. A test to prove Hermione innocent was a lot easier of a pill to swallow than his grandfather not trusting Hermione. As far as Harry was concerned, Hermione had earned his trust a thousand times over, even when they had clashed heads it was always about her protecting him.

When Charlus handed Harry the bottle and a Potions knife, Harry cleaned off the blade with the spell his grandfather had taught him over the summer, which earned him an approving nod from the man, before using the knife to slice open a finger and adding a few drops of blood to the flask. The liquid inside fizzed and bubbled when the blood was added, then turned black. Harry looked at his grandfather to see what that meant, only to see a relieved look on his face. "Out of curiosity, what would it have done if it was positive?" Harry asked.

"Oh, the same thing, the black is your blood burning off. However, if there was any love potion in your system it would have also started to glow. Now give me that finger of yours." Harry held out his finger and his grandfather healed it with a quick tap of his wand.

They went back into the kitchen and Hermione shot them both a glare. "So Harry's clean for love potions then." She had obviously worked out why Charlus had taken Harry away, and she was clearly offended.

Harry went to apologise and explain, but Charlus put a hand on his shoulder and said, "Don't blame Harry, I'm the one who did it. And as I explained to Harry when he said there was no chance you had slipped him a love potion, it wasn't about protecting him, it was about protecting you. I did the test straight away, meaning that no one can claim you gave Harry a neutralizer or a flushing potion. Neither of us thought you had done it. But when something is said, we have more than just our faith in you to refute it now." Hermione calmed down a little after Charlus explained and she let Harry pull her into a hug. Before dating Hermione, he wasn't much for hugs, but his girlfriend was the hugging type and he had quickly grown to love hugging her as well. "Now, I'm off for the first day of Snape's reassessment. Sirius, you got everything until I get back?"

Sirius, who definitely wasn't a morning person, looked up from his coffee and said. "Sure I got it. Moony will be here soon as well to teach these two everything he can about what's in the lake."

Charlus nodded, said his goodbyes and made his way to the floo fire. A pinch of sparkling green powder later and Charlus stepped out of the headmaster's fire at Hogwarts. Charlus wasn't the first of the grand masters of the most extraordinary society of Potioneers to arrive, as two others were standing there in the office but at least he wasn't the last. "Dumbledore," Charlus nodded as he greeted the man. Even if he was still a little angry at the headmaster for how he handled his potions master, this was Dumbledore’s office and that demanded at least some courtesy.

Charlus looked over the two who were already there. One was Horace Slughorn, and Charlus smiled a bit at that. Slughorn had held the job of Hogwarts Potions Professor before Snape, and he was very likely to understand just why Snape was a problem with the way he currently was acting while holding a position that had the potential to greatly affect the country's future. The other was Tiberius Falter. He was fairly new, only having gained his grandmaster status a few years before Charlus had gotten caught in the time storm. His specialty was inventing medical potions for St Mungo's. It was a specialty that required a lot of skill, and even if Charlus had never gotten to know him socially he had Charlus's respect. Considering a Potions N.E.W.T. is essential to start a healer's apprenticeship, hopefully Charlus would be able to swing his vote to demoting Snape.

The assessment had seven people total in it. One one side would be Snape arguing his case for him to keep his mastery qualifications. Charlus would be his opposite, arguing for his demotion. The other five would take a judging role and would vote for the outcome. Well, technically both he and Snape also had a vote but as people in their positions hardly ever voted for the other side, those votes were mute points. There were a few unanimous votes over the years, but it was basically just a way for one side to say they were wrong after the assessment.

Soon the other three arrived, all witches - Salem Matches, Dawn Lonshop, and Falon Jones. Charlus only knew Dawn Lonshop, who was the owner of the company that his father had sold the Sleekeazy's potion to, as her speciality was cosmetic potions. The other two he had only read a little about from his other friends in the M.E.S.P.

---ϟϟϟ---

"So Sirius told me that you're going into the Black Lake for the next task. Now, can you tell me what creatures you are likely to encounter while you are in the lake?" Remus asked Harry and Hermione.

Hermione could probably answer better than Harry, but it was him who was going to be facing the challenge so she let him answer, "Well obviously there is the giant squid, and the clue was in Mermish so I guess merpeople. And it's a Scottish lake, so I should also be on the lookout for kelpies and grindylows, plus whatever Bagman or Crouch decide to dump in the lake to make the tournament more challenging."

Hermione had found out the part about the clue being Mermish a few days after they found the clue when she looked up languages that change under water. Harry was lucky she had thought of it, as he never would have thought of that and he would have completely missed that it was a hint about merfolk.

"Correct. Now merfolk tend to live at the bottom of lakes so while we can't rule out something else it seems likely that you will need to go deep. Can either of you tell me the biggest issue witches and wizards face when combating creatures underwater?" Neither Harry or Hermione could answer that one. "Magic often doesn't work the same under water. A lot of spells impact on the first thing they come into contact with. When you are underwater that becomes the water itself, rather than whatever you are pointing your wand at. So you will have to learn a few new spells if you are going to be safe down there. The two of you are muggle-raised, what can you tell me about how muggles protect themselves when they go diving?"

Harry's life had been a little too sheltered for him to know much, but Hermione had been scuba diving in the Mediterranean over the summer and she had seen the weapon the tour guide had on his boat, though whether it was for emergencies or to impress tourists she didn't know. "A harpoon gun."

"Exactly. Now the spell I'm going to teach you is called the Silver Javelin curse. It was designed to kill werewolves, but as the spell conjures a silver javelin and sends it hurtling towards whatever you are pointing your wand at, it will work under water in the same way a harpoon does."

Harry was hesitant to learn an anti-werewolf spell. As far as he was concerned werewolves were people, and learning a spell that was made purely to kill them was almost as bad as learning the killing curse. Remus had counted every one of Harry's objections, reminding him that, while transformed, a werewolf who wasn't under the effect of wolfsbane was a monster who would not only feel there was nothing wrong with killing people but would actively seek them out to do that. He had finished by saying. "Honestly Harry, if it was me and your choice was to kill me or for you to let me attack anyone, I tell you this now, I would rather you kill me. I would rather never wake up than to wake up and find I had ripped some poor innocent sod to death."

After that, Harry had agreed to learn the spell. Argenti Incarnum took most of the day to learn as the two of them tried again and again to shoot silver javelins at wooden targets Remus had transfigured out of a pile of Firewood. For a change, Hermione was the one who got this defence spell first. She was no stranger to being the first to get a spell, it was rather common in most of their wand classes, but D.A.D.A. was the only exception. It had little to do with Hermione being a little slower in that class than others, a fact she blamed on half of the teachers they had had for the subject so far being absolutely worthless, and had way more to do with Harry being way better at D.A.D.A. than any of his other classes.

By the evening both of them were able to shoot a javelin more times than not, and they were even close to hitting the target. The rest would come with practice. Though they were practising at fifty feet, and according to Remus the spell only had a little over twenty feet effective range underwater, something about water resistance slowing down the javelin.

---ϟϟϟ---

"Well, where to begin?" Charlus said as the hearing finally got started in the same empty classroom that they had been using to prepare Harry for the Triwizard Tournament. Dumbledore obviously thought he was making some type of psychological power play with Charlus by assigning them this room for the assessment, but honestly Charlus didn't care. He was more than happy to have Director Bones haul Dumbledore into the D.M.L.E. to answer for endangering the last hair of the House of Potter if he needed to. Dumbledore had enough political enemies on the darker side of the Wizengamot, Charlus could easily use them to hamstring the old fool if he needed to. Not that Charlus wanted to associate with those types if he could help it, but if it came to it they would be useful tools.

"Let's start with competency. Now I will admit that Mr Snape does have some talent in the art of brewing. I bet we could set him any advanced potion to brew and he would be able to provide a respectable potion. However, what of the basics, the very fundamentals? As unusual as it is, I would like us to first go and inspect the classroom and private laboratory here at the school before we do anything else." Charlus said his opening piece, getting straight to the point rather than beating around the bush. The five assessors talked amongst themselves for a few minutes until they agreed to go and inspect the labs. It didn't take long to get there, but Charlus was pleased to note the looks of surprise that they kept going down past the ground floor.

As they walked a familiar redhead came running up. Apparently they had been seen in the castle and word had gotten back to Ronald Weasley. "Warlock Charlus, is everything okay? Are Harry and Hermione alright?"

It was obvious that Ronald was panicking and it took Charlus a second to realise he was afraid that he had been called into the school to expel Harry and Hermione. Unfortunately, before Charlus could say anything Snape had to butt in. "Five points from Gryffindor Weasley for sticking your nose into matters that are none of your concern."

Unfortunately for Snape, he had used a poor choice of words and Charlus was rather fond of the Weasley family. "You know, your Professor is right Ron, if you go poking your nose where it has no business to poke, then eventually someone is just going to break it for you." He finished by giving Ronald a wink.

As Ron was fighting down a laugh, Charlus also reassured him about his friends. "Harry and Hermione are fine, they will be back when the new term starts. I believe they are working on Harry's strategy for the second task today. Now, I would love to stop and chat but I unfortunately don't have the time. I'll tell Harry and Hermione you were asking after them."

"Thanks Warlock Charlus," said Ronald before leaving.

The seven of them arrived at the potions classroom, and Charlus started to point things out to the assessors. "Look at this place. A dungeon isn't exactly suitable for a Potions lab. Where’s the ventilation in case a potion starts giving off fumes? What's to stop steam from condensing on the cold ceiling and raining down into brews? And don't get me started on this lighting. How is a student supposed to read a recipe or see the colour their potion has reached in this place? These are the mistakes of an amateur, not a master who has been given the honour of being recognised as a Potions Master." Charlus went on to criticise everything that appeared to be an aesthetic choice for Snape that had even the slightest chance to affect how well someone can brew. He even went as far as to criticise Snape’s long hair, as it was possible to drop a hair in a potion and ruin it.

Snape of course tried to rebut everything Charlus said. He claimed that the choice of classroom was to keep the other classes from being affected by the frequent mistakes that novice potioneers made. "Imagine trying to learn Charms or Transfiguration while having your nose assaulted by another idiot who couldn't tell the difference between stink sap and flobberworm mucus."

Charlus had jumped right on that. "Maybe if they had enough light then they would actually have a chance to read the labels properly. And are you saying you failed to teach them the difference between the two?" Snape didn't say anything to that, but the look he shot Charlus could have curdled milk. "Now, while we are here looking at this room I want you to consider the first rule this potion master sets for any students in his class: 'no wands.' Can you imagine telling students that they can't use their wands? I don't know about you, but the first lesson I would be teaching any novice is the charms to clean your equipment between ingredient preparation. And if I was forced to teach here, then also the floating light charm. I would also be casting the cauldron shielding charm on all the cauldrons to prevent condensation raining down into the cauldrons and the Bubble-Head charm on everyone until they were old enough to learn the charms themselves.

"Yet this supposed potions master actively prevented students from casting those spells, even if they learned them elsewhere. I had the opportunity to give three of his current fourth years some extra tutoring over the summer, and I taught them those spells and told them how to use them and why. When those same three students tried to do that when they came back, Snape actually tried to punish them for it. It was the fallout from that attempt to punish Potions students for practising industry standard safety charms that first made me start questioning his ability to hold the rank of potions master." Charlus was practically giving a speech as the five Potions grandmasters inspected the lab, noting all the potential problems with it.

"They were definitely taught those charms when I was the professor here," Slughorn spoke up for the first time. "Severus, I am very disappointed in you if you truly tried to punish students for using protocols put in place to keep them safe."

"Oh, it's true all right. When I came to the castle in the aftermath, as two of the students are members of the House of Potter, Mr. Snape said…what was it exactly?...Oh yes, 'such spells are nothing but a crutch and are unnecessary for a true Potioneer,'" Charlus told them. As the day went on, it was clear that the assessors were not happy with everything Charlus was telling them. By the end of the day, Charlus was happy with what he had done. Tomorrow Snape would start his defence of his position. Charlus said goodbye to his colleagues and Floo'ed home.

---ϟϟϟ---

The next day they got word from the Grangers that they were home, via a letter brought by Hedwig at breakfast. When Ron had sent his reply back with Hedwig, Harry had then asked her to go watch for the Grangers. Her Grand Owlness had extorted an entire pack of bacon from Harry for doing this for him but she had agreed. Charlus had to go into Hogwarts again to deal with Snape's assessment. The M.E.S.P. really wanted the assignment done before the new year so that they would have the time to assign a Potions Master to the school before the students returned if Snape lost his qualification. "Sirius, can you take Hermione to her parents this morning and explain what happened, please?"

Sirius had agreed, and after breakfast they all made their way to the Floo. Technically Sirius could have Side-Along Apparated the two teens to London, but the more people you took and the longer the distance caused the difficulty of the Apparition to increase, and whilst he was confident he could have taken one of them his head was still a little too scrambled for him to risk taking both that far and not risk leaving part of someone behind. It was a lot easier to Floo to the Leaky Cauldron and to Apparate them from there, where the trip was only a few miles.

They appeared in a back alley close to Hermione’s house and walked the rest of the way. Hermione fished a key from her pocket and opened the door inviting them all in. "Mum, dad, I'm home!" Hermione shouted into the house. "I have Sirius and Harry with me."

"In the kitchen love," came back the call from her father.

It turns out that they had accidentally interrupted the Granger's late breakfast. Hermione busied herself making a pot of tea for everyone as her parents finished their breakfast and engaged in some unimportant small talk. Once they finished eating, everyone took their tea into the living room and Emma asked the all important questions. "OK, what happened, and where is Charlus? Isn't he the one who is supposed to look after Hermione in the magical world?"

"Uncle Charlus is at Hogwarts doing everything he can to get the teacher behind this removed from the school, so he asked me to bring Hermione here and explain what's happening this morning, which is a longer story." The Grangers had already heard most of it, Charlus was keeping them updated like he promised and Hermione hadn't skipped much of the details that had happened in her letters home. Still, it was easier to explain it all from the start of the year rather than risk missing something that they thought the Grangers knew.

Hermione was the one to explain the Yule Ball to her parents and how Snape had talked to her and Harry. Dan had naturally assumed that she and Harry had been doing more than they had when Hermione had quoted Snape's tirade. After she had to explain exactly what she and Harry had been doing, which while completely appropriate was mortifying for the teens, Dan calmed down. He realised that when he objectively thought over the chain of events, a middle aged man basically accusing his daughter of being a whor* and his daughter's boyfriend breaking the man's nose for it, it called for a different response. He got up from his chair and walked over to Harry and shook the boy's hand. "Good lad Harry. You did a great job." Which, after a moment of surprise, got Harry to grin and promise that if it was ever necessary he'd do it all again.

While the Grangers were not exactly happy with the situation, they were relieved that all Hermione had done was a shield spell and nothing that could be considered attacking a teacher. The discussion soon turned to where Hermione was going to spend her time until she needed to go back to school. She wanted to stay at Potter Manor with Harry and argued that he needed her help preparing for the tournament. Dan and Emma, however, wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to spend some time with the daughter they missed and loved.

It was Sirius who suggested that they use the same schedule they used in the summer, where Hermione could go to the manor in the morning to join Harry for his lessons, then back home later in the day once her parents were finished with work. Sirius even offered to personally Apparate Hermione back and forth to save the Grangers the trip to the Leaky Cauldron. Hermione’s parents had accepted the offer, as it was clear they would have a moody teenage daughter on their hands if they had to cut her off from her boyfriend AND the extra lessons for the rest of the break. They did, however, invite Harry to join them and Hermione for their dental association's New Years party. As the Yule Ball was interrupted by Snape, perhaps this would be a good substitute.

Harry, with a nod from Sirius, had quickly accepted, and Sirius left to go get Hermione’s things. Hermione pulled Harry into the kitchen so that her parents could have a few minutes to talk, and Harry had spotted the morning's newspaper still folded and unread on the breakfast table where Dan had left it. He hadn't paid any attention to it before, but now he noticed the headline: Child abusers plead guilty to startling list of charges. The picture below it was a courtroom artist’s impression of Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia. "What the f*ck!?"

Chapter 27

Chapter Text

Chapter 27

"What the f*ck!?" Harry shouted as he grabbed the newspaper off the table and started reading.

Child abusers plead guilty to startling list of charges

Vernon and Petunia Dursley, of Surrey, yesterday pleaded guilty to a long list of charges of child abuse. Police were alerted to the crimes by the Dursleys themselves after they walked into their local station and gave full confessions to everything they had done to their orphaned nephew, who can not be named for legal reasons. The Dursleys have been sentenced to five years, and leniency was given due to the fact that the Dursleys confessed when there was no police investigation into them, proving to the judge that they were "truly remorseful for what you have done. "....

Harry didn't bother to read any more; he just stood there staring at the picture of his aunt and uncle in the docks. Hermione rested her chin on his shoulder so she could read the paper and see what had disturbed Harry. Sirius called Harry's name from the other room, sounding concerned. When nobody answered him, Sirius soon came looking to investigate.

Seeing it was the paper that had set Harry off, Sirius took hold of it and pulled it out of Harry's hands. Hermione immediately took the opportunity to encircle her arms around Harry so he was leaning backwards as she supported him. "Are you okay Harry?" She had known the Dursleys weren’t great. She had noticed their first Christmas that Harry had eagerly signed up to stay at the school when he found he could, which was definitely a sign that things weren't okay. And then she had heard Harry's complaints about them over the years before she then met Vernon Dursley. Through all that, she had never suspected that anything was bad enough that the authorities would care about, and nothing like what they had apparently admitted to the police.

"I… how many people in the magical world do you think get mundane newspapers?" Harry asked, and it was clear that he was nervous.

"Um. A few? Definitely not many. I also don't think I ever saw a not- Prophet newspaper at Hogwarts."

"But it's not zero and a lot of students are home for Christmas," Harry said.

"Not that many, most of the school stayed at the castle for the Yule Ball, remember?" Hermione tried to reassure him.

"The biggest problem is going to be if someone who does get the muggle newspaper sends the article to the daily prophet for them to investigate," said Harry.

"Harry, you are not named in this article." Sirius said. "How many people in the wizarding world actually know your relatives' names? And I mean their full names."

That finally got through to Harry. Normally he just called them 'the Dursleys' or his aunt and uncle. The only people outside of a few of the professors who would have a significant chance to have heard their full names were the Gryffindors in his year. Of those, the only ones who would have a significant chance to read a mundane newspaper were Hermione and Dean Thomas. Luckily for Harry, Dean was still at the castle so there was almost no chance he was going to read the article.

Hermione felt it as Harry relaxed in her arms. "Sirius, you need to go tell Uncle Charlus what has happened." Hermione looked at her parents, who understood what she wanted and gave her a nod. "Harry can stay here with me while you sort it out. In the meantime, Harry, we are going shopping."

Confused Harry asked "shopping?"

"Yep, you and I will both need a new outfit for the New Year’s Eve party and it will give us a chance to talk.”

---ϟϟϟ---

While Hermione was dragging Harry around London looking for the perfect outfit, Charlus was taking advantage of the fact that Snape's assessment was being held in his place of employment. He had approached the students at breakfast and found two of-age students from each house, one witch and one wizard, and had brought them to the assessment to testify as to how Snape conducted a regular lesson.

Charlus had offered them five galleons to give their views,, but had also offered to double it if they took a truthfulness potion. Unlike Veritaserum, the potion Charlus supplied, after brewing it in front of the other assessors, didn't force you answer any questions, nor did it compel you speak any more than you wanted to. All it did was change the colour of your skin to indicate if you were telling the truth or lying. Unsurprisingly, only one of the volunteers refused the potion.

Of the eight students, seven of them described a very similar lesson to each other. Snape would write the steps to make the potion on on the board and tell them to do it and would walk about the class, belittling the efforts of any students he didn't like while letting students he did like sabotage the potions of other students, where he would then dock points from the victim for not following directions.

The one student who differed in their retelling was the Slytherin boy, who sang the praises of Snape, going on for ten minutes about how informative Snape was when he was teaching and how the school was lucky to have such an accomplished Potions Master teaching the students. Unsurprisingly, he was the one person who didn't take the truthfulness potion.

By the time they were finished listening to the students, none of the Potion Masters in the room were happy. Two were absolutely livid; one was Snape who was angry at the students who had told the truth, seeing the Slytherin girl in particular as having betrayed him and the House of Slytherin. The other was former Professor Slughorn who found Snape's utter lack of teaching and responsible supervision an insult to the title of professor. He looked like he wanted to put Snape through the kinds of punishment that Filch often threatened the students with.

After another hour the British addiction to tea came into play, and the assessment was put on hold for fifteen minutes to give everyone an opportunity to grab a cup of tea and to deal with the consequences of their previous fix. When they left the classroom, Charlus found Sirius was leaning against the opposite wall waiting for him, a serious expression on his face and a newspaper rolled up in his hands. "What's happened? Did the Grangers overreact?" Charlus asked, worried.

Sirius gave a half laugh at how wrong Charlus was. "Overreact? Definitely not, when Dan heard why Harry broke Snivellus's nose he shook the boy’s hand, told him he did a good job, and invited him to a New Year’s Eve party. He and Hermione are out shopping for it right now."

Charlus was still worried, but now he was also confused; if Hermione’s parents had reacted well and Harry was okay, what could have gone wrong enough that Sirius needed to interrupt dealing with Snape? And speaking of Snape, he had been just behind Charlus as he walked out of the disused classroom and heard everything that Sirius had said.

"What! That spoiled brat breaks my nose and turns his wand on me and you're rewarding him by letting him go to a party!"

Sirius was tempted to throw the newspaper at Snape over calling Harry a spoiled brat and proving just how delusional Snape was about Harry, but decided against it because he knew that Harry definitely didn't want news of this getting out. After what Snape had done to Moony at the end of the last school year and how much of a vendetta the grease stain had with Harry, Sirius had no doubt it would be all over the school before the end of the day just for Snape's petty revenge. Instead he just looked straight at Snape and said, "Yep, considering he was defending a lady’s honour I felt that Harry deserved a night dancing with said lady without you there to spoil it. Now beat it Snivellus, I actually have important business to discuss with my uncle."

Snape’s hand twitched towards his wand for a split second before he turned and stormed off down the corridor, his robes billowing behind him as he went. "I can't believe he is still doing the feather light charm on his robes. The rest of us grew out of it in a year."

"I gave up on understanding fashion when Lily came to visit wearing trousers that were three times too wide below the knee." Charlus said.

"Bell bottoms, they were the height of muggle faction in the seventies," Sirius said as Charlus, with a nod of his head, led Sirius back into the classroom he had just left so that they could talk.

"They were a tripping hazard," Charlus grumbled, to which Sirius just laughed.

Snape's defence of his Mastery had turned out to be exactly what Charlus had expected. The grumpy Potions professor had set up four cauldrons and started prepping ingredients. He spent the next few days brewing four extremely difficult potions at the same time. It was one of the first tests potions masters did before they could start the process of gaining the title of Grand Master. Snape’s plan was to try and get them to look solely on his skill as a brewer, and it was a good strategy as being an effective brewer was the core of what it meant to be a Potions Master. But it wasn't everything.

Charlus also couldn't help but smile. In Snape's haste to complete every task at the right time for every potion he was brewing, he had fallen back on his bad habits and hadn't used even one of the standard safety charms. This was a rookie mistake, not in brewing but in common sense. He was being reassessed on the grounds of ignoring safety protocols, and here he was making that exact mistake in front of the assessors.

Once they were inside with the door closed, Sirius just handed Charlus the newspaper and the old man winced when he read the headline. "Did Harry see this?" Charlus asked, even though he already knew the answer from Sirius's expression.

"Damn right he did. He was the first to see it and almost had a panic attack over everyone finding out about his life before Hogwarts. Luckily Hermione was there, she was able to stop him from freaking out too much and I'm pretty sure the reason she dragged him out shopping is to distract him from everything," Sirius told Charlus as he stood looking out the window at the Hogwarts grounds.

"f*ck! Harry was supposed to be here in the castle during all this, well away from everything," Charlus swore as he ripped the newspaper apart in frustration.

Sirius turned to face him. "You knew!? You knew what they did and you let them live. They kept him in a f*cking cupboard and treated him like a Malfoy treats a house elf. I'll f*cking kill them myself."

"Sirius, wait," Charlus ordered and Sirius obeyed. "First, don't think I knew about this for long. I only learned something was wrong a few weeks ago and I had to investigate. That wasn't quick. I kidnapped the two of them and shoved Veritaserum down their throats and got all this a few weeks ago. I also found they were charmed. It wasn't heavily, but they WERE charmed never to see Harry as family. Given that Harry's treatment was brought about by charms, I thought it might be too much to kill them. I couldn't take them to the DMLE without my kidnapping them coming out, so I removed the old one and put my own compulsion on them, pushing them to go to the muggle police, turn themselves in, and confess everything they had done." Charlus told Sirius.

"It's no were near enough," growled Sirius.

"Think about it, lad. Who put the compulsions on them in the first place?" Charlus demanded.

That stopped Sirius. "What…wait, you don't mean?" Sirius asked and Charlus gave him a nod. "The only ones who knew where Harry was were Dumbledore and McGonagall, so it must have been one of them. Minnie would never do anything like that so that just leaves…"

"Dumbledore, exactly. And now I have a paper trail that proves that Harry's home life was bad, and I have Ministry records proving that Dumbledore was the one to put him there. One sworn statement that I found a compulsion charm on the Dursleys will be all I need to spin a tale that has people asking some very hard questions of Dumbledore and get him kicked out of the school. And given everything that has happened to those three kids since they arrived here in September ninety-one, he needs to go. I don't know what is going on with Dumbledore, but he obviously isn't focused on protecting the school. Now, I want to make sure that someone I approve of is in possession to take control of the school before I act. It would be pointless to do all this only for a blood supremacist to take over. So you tell me, is that a good enough reason to leave those two pieces of human filth live?" Charlus let the hate and the loathing he was feeling fill his voice for the last sentence.

Sirius was taken aback at first but quickly thought through everything Charlus had said to him, and he now understood exactly what his uncle was planning and why. By the time he was finished thinking it through he only had one question for Charlus. "So what do you need me to do?"

"Good lad," said Charlus before explaining.

---ϟϟϟ---

Harry collapsed on the Grangers’ sofa with a few bags of clothes at his feet. "Have fun?" Emma asked, eyeing the exhausted teen.

"Hermione has been lying to me all these years. She pretends to be all sweetness and nice, but in reality she is a dark and evil witch," Harry moaned. "She treated me like a dress up doll for hours. 'Try this on Harry,' 'How does this fit Harry?', 'that's not your colour Harry.' And she ignored my pleas for mercy."

Hermione returned from the kitchen carrying two large glasses of orange juice, handed one to Harry and sat down next to Harry on the sofa. "Oh don't act like such a baby, it was only a few stores," she huffed, causing the adults to laugh.

In all honesty, it hadn’t been that bad of a trip. They had gone to a mundane bank so Hermione could withdraw some money from an ATM using a card her parents had given her, and then they had gone to Diagon Alley so that Harry could visit Gringotts before a few clothing shops. It was mentally draining more than anything else, because clothes Harry thought were perfectly fine for him hadn't met with Hermione’s approval. In part it was because Harry was so used to wearing his cousin’s cast-offs that regular fitting clothes felt uncomfortably tight and constricting by comparison.

Still, Harry was rewarded by Hermione modelling her outfits for him, and he was sure some of the outfits she had tried on were just to get him to blush. There was one with such a low neckline and short skirt that it bordered on indecent, but she had just struck a few poses for him asking his opinion before changing out of it and adding it to the discard pile. "So what did you get?" Emma asked, prompting Hermione to start going into detail about everything they had bought.

It was early evening before Sirius and Charlus turned up to collect Harry and invite the Grangers out to dinner as a sort of thank-you/apology for them suddenly having Harry for the day when they may have had other plans. They ended up taking a taxi to a mundane Italian restaurant that Dan and Emma recommended. By the end of the evening, when everyone had filled themselves with pasta, pizza, garlic bread, and tiramisu, they all were laughing and having a lot of fun. Sirius and Charlus both reassured Harry that they didn't think what was in the paper would reach the magical world and no one told him that his grandfather was the one behind it.

---ϟϟϟ---

Harry was seated in the living room of the Grangers’ house, all dressed up and waiting for Hermione. It was New Year’s Eve, and he and Dan were waiting for their ladies to finish getting themselves ready. Just like at the Yule Ball, the women took a lot longer to get ready, leaving the men waiting with very little to do. Dan had pulled a couple of beers from the fridge and handed one to Harry. If he was being honest, the beer wasn't all that enjoyable; it was bitter and he couldn't keep himself from pulling a face after trying his first sip. Dan had just chuckled at him before saying, "It's a bit of an acquired taste, but after a few sips the bitterness mellows out." Harry nodded and took another sip. Dan was right, it wasn't quite as strong the second time, but Harry still thought he would prefer something sweeter. "So Harry, how are things between you and my daughter?" Dan asked.

"Things are great. Why, did Hermione say they weren't?" Harry asked, worried that something was wrong or that Hermione was thinking about breaking up with him.

Seeing how his words were taken Dan quickly walked back what he had said. "No no, it's nothing like that. I'm just being a father and prying so that I can watch out for my little girl." Harry relaxed when Dan explained what he was doing, and he supposed that's exactly what a father might do. He was just taking a sip of his beer when Dan asked, "So are you sleeping together yet?"

Harry inhaled a little in shock at the question, and as he was drinking at the time it wasn't air that ended up on its way to his lungs. He immediately started coughing to clear his airway, and thanks to a fluke of evolution and the fact that beer is carbonated, a good portion of the beer ended up ejecting from Harry's nose.

Dan couldn't help laughing at the sight as he passed Harry a towel. "Sorry kid, I was expecting a spit take, not beer snot."

Harry took the towel and quickly wiped off his face. He wasn't bothered by Dan laughing; he was pretty sure he would have laughed if it was anyone but him. He took a few extra seconds wiping off his face to consider how he was going to answer the question. "I'm not going to answer." Dan raised a single eyebrow in surprise at Harry's answer but he continued. "It's not because I have anything to hide or be embarrassed about, but because I wouldn't want to violate Hermione's trust. If you want to ask anything about that type of thing, ask Hermione."

Dan was obviously surprised by Harry's answer, and honestly a little impressed. Not by the implications that the two teens had done something that was worth being secretive about, he suspected that anything that had done would be quite tame. No, he was impressed because Harry had looked him in the eye as he told him he wasn't going to violate his daughters trust, even though it was clear that he was incredibly nervous about the potential reaction. All Dan could do now was give him a nod and say, "Fair enough."

The two of them sat there in an awkward silence drinking their beers until the ladies came down the stairs fifteen minutes later. Emma was dressed up nicely, but Harry barely even noticed, his attention entirely drawn to Hermione. She was wearing a midnight blue co*cktail dress, and Harry guessed that she must have used Sleekeazy's again because her hair was once more tied in an elegant knot that draped over her shoulder.

"Wow," was all Harry was able to say, which had the effect of making Hermione blush.

The New Year’s party was just an excuse for a network of private dentists and their families to see each other and blow off a little steam. As was expected of this type of party, while the teens were invited and welcomed, the truth was most of the adults just wanted them to stay out of the way. Harry was introduced to most of the adults there and they all asked him and Hermione the polite questions that were expected of them, but soon the meet and greet part was over and Hermione led Harry to a corner of the room where all the other teens were congregating.

Hermione had known the other teens for years, as her parents had taken her to some function or other. She tried to introduce Harry to them, but a short girl who looked to be maybe a year older than Hermione (and either had a very bubbly personality or was suffering from one hell of a sugar rush) leaned in and half said, half squealed. "Ohh Herms, is this the tall, dark, and handsome you were telling me about at the start of summer?"

"Hey Bethany. Yes, this is Harry, my boyfriend." Hermione answered, blushing a little for the second time that night.

"Oh you sure can pick em, girl," Bethany said while looking Harry up and down. Hermione just rolled her eyes at the girl before introducing Harry to everyone. While the teens were mostly strangers, as even Hermione only saw each of them only two or maybe three times a year, it seemed to make it easier for Harry to cut loose a little and have some fun. Why hold back when, to these people, he wasn't the Boy-Who-Lived? He was just Harry, some random guy whom a girl they knew was dating.

As Hermione’s dress didn't have pockets, she seemed to have decided pretty early on that Harry's pockets were fair game. It wasn't long before she had stashed her wallet and pack of mints in his jacket pocket. There was a buffet of food that they could help themselves from, but they had to buy any drinks from the bar, so Hermione was dipping in and out of his pockets all evening. There was a DJ playing music, and while Harry and Hermione weren't the first teens to get up and dance, they were probably the best. The two of them had had a few lessons in dancing the classics, and while it was true that very little of the stuff they had learned could be used in the more modern dancing, it did at least give them the confidence that they could move together. So as the time grew later, the two danced their way through at least forty, maybe even fifty songs.

At five minutes until midnight, everyone quickly moved outside. The dentists hadn't hired anyone to let off fireworks, but they were in London so there were plenty being let off by everyone else, and there was going to be an amazing view right where they were. Harry had needed to put his new suit jacket on Hermione to keep her warm. "Ten!" The first call went up from someone.

"Nine"! Harry joined in the count down

"Eight!" Hermione joined in

"Seven!" Pretty much everyone was counting down with them now

"Six!" Hermione quickly pulled a roll of mints that she had stashed in his pocket earlier and unrolled a few.

"Five!" Hermione slipped one of the mints into his mouth, surprising him a little and popped one in her own mouth.

"Four!" It only took Harry a second to realise why Hermione had given him the mint and he smiled at her as wide as he could manage.

"Three!" Harry pulled Hermione in close to him so that she was almost leaning on his chest

"Two!" He circled his arm around her waist, holding the girl who was smiling at him as close as he could

One." Harry didn't even wait for it to get to everyone shouting “Happy New Year!” Instead he leaned in and pressed his lips to Hermione's. As everyone else was shouting and singing 'Auld Lang Syne,' Hermione curled her arms around Harry's neck and pulled his head down towards her, encouraging him to kiss her deeper.

---ϟϟϟ---

It was past two in the morning when the London black cab pulled up outside the Grangers’ house and the four of them climbed out, and it was even later by the time they were all inside and Harry and Hermione helped two rather drunk dentists up to bed. Not that they needed a lot of help, they were just a little too unsteady on their feet to risk climbing the stairs alone without worrying about coming back down to them the quick way.

Harry had just finished changing and getting into the guest bed at the Grangers when there was a soft knock at the door, which opened to reveal Hermione also ready for bed wearing a set of thick winter pyjamas. "Shove over, I'm sleeping in here tonight," she said, and Harry’s brain pretty much shut down.

"Uh what about your parents?" he asked as Hermione sat on the side of the bed.

"They won't wake up for the rest of the night, Harry. And I want to cuddle." Hermione watched Harry, waiting to see if he was going to shift over or not.

"Just cuddling?" Harry asked, both cautiously but also with a little disappointment as he slid to one side making room for her.

"Just cuddling," Hermione confirmed as she pulled back the covers and got into bed next to her boyfriend. The two teens cuddled up together and got comfortable, and just as Harry was falling asleep Hermione said, "Night Harry, love you."

Harry was already half asleep but he answered, "Love you too Mione."

Chapter 28

Chapter Text

Chapter 28

Charlus was at Hogwarts for the last time as part of the Potions Master committee. It was the second of January, and they were to decide on whether Snape would return to the level of Apprentice or retain his title as a Potions Master. The seven of them were meeting in Dumbledore’s office this time, as the result directly affected the school and he and Professor McGonagall were sitting in. Charlus was the first of the non-Professors to arrive, finding Dumbledore, McGonagall, and Snape all waiting on them while Having a cup of tea. Charlus joined them and poured himself a cup after being sure to cast a few charms on everything to check there was nothing like a loyalty draft in there.

"Surely that's going too far," Dumbledore complained. "As if I would let someone spike the tea."

Charlus shrugged as he poured himself a cup. "This is a hearing deciding the fate of a Potions Master. He wouldn't be the first, nor would he have been the last, to try and use their skill as a brewer to solve the problem."

"Still, it's a little rude to think I would allow such a thing." Dumbledore didn't sound happy.

"Oh, can it Albus. You know full well that it's a legitimate concern. And you can hardly say Severus's attitude invokes trust in people," McGonagall said, shutting down the argument.

Soon, one by one Horace Slughorn, Tiberius Falter, Salem Matches, Dawn Lonshop, and Falon Jones arrived by floo and helped them to tea. Charlus was happy to see all bar one of them cast charms on the tea to check it was just tea. He even flashed Dumbledore a smile about it, which had the old man pouting.

After about ten minutes of catching up where they all talked about what they did for New Year's, Dumbledore stood and started talking about why they were there. Technically he was only supposed to be here as an observer, but as they were meeting in his office at the school he ran it wasn't unreasonable for him to say a few words. It was mostly waffle, with Dumbledore saying how much Snape had his complete trust, and tha. "I assure you that your point has been heard, and if and when you decide to vote to keep Severus as a Potions Master, I guarantee that your recommendations will be heard and Professor Snape will update his teaching where necessary."

Dumbledore would have continued, but Charlus stood up and cut him off. "Well, that's enough of that. Dumbledore, you have had years to get your Potions professor’s teaching up to scratch, but you haven't done anything. You can't even say you knew nothing about it, as the number of students who get their N.E.W.T.s has very obviously plummeted, and there are hundreds of complaints about his teaching on record. But you never changed anything then, and I don't think we can trust you to do better now. I don't need any more time. I cast my vote now, and I vote to return Snape's title to that of Apprentice."

"And I, of course, cast my vote to keep my status as a master brewer," Snape said, speaking for the first time. It was no surprise to anyone that Snape voted to keep his place.

Tiberius Falter stood up next."Well, there has been a lot of back and forth on this subject since Christmas, and I can't ignore that even with his lack of appropriate safety spells this brewer has the skills needed to stay being recognised as a grandmaster. So I vote that Potion Master Severus Snape keeps his status as a potion master.”

Next was Dawn Lonshop. "As much as I can agree that Severus Snape has great talent at brewing, a master needs to be proficient with the whole field and Snape demonstrates a weakness in a fundamental practice of the art. I feel that a few years’ review as an apprentice will help make him a far better potions master in the future. I vote that Severus Snape be returned to the rank of apprentice." She sat back down.

It was now two votes all. Charlus was feeling a little worried now. If he failed here, Harry would be in the crosshairs of Snape for the rest of his time in Hogwarts. And even if they decided to run, Harry was stuck here until at least the end of the tournament.

Next Falon Jones stood up. "I have to agree with Potions Masters Potter and Lonshop. In an evaluation that was only called because of the complete lack of safety protocols, Severus Snape demonstrated his brewing and failed to use the safety charms. That tells me that his bad habits are so ingrained that only time as an apprentice where his brewing can be monitored and corrected is likely to have any real effect. I vote that Severus Snape be returned to the rank of apprentice."

Charlus relaxed a little, it was now three-two and he only needed one more vote to win. It wasn't a win yet but it was also far from hopeless.

The only two left now were Potions Masters Salem Matches and Horace Slughorn, and Slughorn gestured for Matches to go first. Matches stood up. "I vote that Severus Snape is reduced in rank to that of apprentice, if for no other reason than it will remove him from his position at this school. I have seen what Hogwarts potions qualifications have done in the last fifteen years. Industries that require competent brewers are suffering because of this man." Matches sat back down

Charlus couldn't help the grin that spread over his face at the vote. Snape was now only Apprentice Snape. His reaction was understandably not as happy as Charlus’s was. Snape snarled in anger and threw his teacup at the window of the headmaster's office, shattering both the fine china cup and causing the windowpane to crack into a spiderweb pattern.

"Well my vote seems pointless now" Slughorn spoke up as Dumbledore fixed the widow with a flick of his wand. "For the record, my vote was with the consensus to vote for apprentice status for apprentice Snape. However, we now have two more matters to discuss. First, who is this promising young apprentice to be apprenticed to?"

Tiberius Falter, the one who had voted for Snape to retain his potions master status, spoke up. "If I may, I would be happy to take you on as my apprentice. My work with St. Mungo's creating new treatments and antidotes would be a good place to utilise your skills while you finish up your apprenticeship."

Charlus was surprised by the offer and thought it was a brilliant idea. Snape was far too advanced for a traditional apprenticeship as he would just feel patronised and insulted. A work apprenticeship as a St. Mungo's research brewer, though, would be a good use of his talent and a good way for him to start working off the debt he owed to the medical community for the lack of Potions N.E.W.T. graduates for the past few years.

Snape quickly accepted the offer, so Slughorn quickly moved on to his second order of business. "Now, we need to select someone to fill the role of Hogwarts Potions professor until the school finds a permanent replacement or the school year ends. Now I have a candidate in mind who not only has years of experience as a Potions Grandmaster but is completely fAmeliar with the situation here and knows exactly what is needed to bring the standards up. Best of all, he is currently without a current project so he has the time to do this."

This had Charlus interested, so he leaned in and asked "This man sounds perfect, who is he?" The other three Potions Grandmasters all turned to look at him, and after a few moments Charlus realised exactly where this was going. He also realised they had planned this before they had gotten here. Falter voted in Snape's favour and then offered to be his master in an apprenticeship tailored to his level of skill, and the rest all agreed to place Charlus as the Hogwarts Potions Professor. Before he could even think of objecting, the five Grandmasters all voted unanimously to make him the Professor, looking rather smug about it. Charlus couldn't even be mad. The tribunal had just given him the perfect opportunity to stay in the castle where he could keep a close eye on Harry.

The only people who didn't look happy were Snape and Dumbledore. Snape had just accepted becoming the apprentice of a man he now realised had tricked him into the position. While Snape could choose to end that apprenticeship, there would be consequences. For one, he would lose out on the opportunity to work at what was probably the best-funded Potions lab in the country where even the most restricted of Potions ingredients were readily available. Secondly, he wasn't sure he would be able to get another apprenticeship in Britain if he walked away from this one.

Dumbledore didn't like that the man he had been losing ground to since July was now going to be moving into the school. Sure, he could block it, but he would deprive students of a Potions education, a core subject. He would have to justify to the Ministry and to the governors his reasons for jeopardising an entire year's worth of O.W.L. and N.E.W.T. results, and the only justifications he had were personal. It wasn't like he could openly complain about Warlock Potter taking his guardianship of Harry; everyone considered the current state of affairs as exactly as it should be. The only silver lining that Dumbledore could see was that Charlus looked just as surprised by the move as he felt, which meant this wasn't part of some plan of Potter's so that he could get into the castle. And maybe if Potter was busy working at the school, then perhaps it would be easier to watch him and keep him too busy to keep interfering.

"Well," said Charlus after a few moments. "Looks like I need to go tell Harry about my new job. Albus, I will be back in two days once I set everything I need in order. I will expect the information I need to teach to be ready by then, and I will be needing a classroom with windows that open and good lighting. I will set everything else up myself." Charlus strode over to the fire, and with a flash of green he was gone.

"Well, he took that better than I thought he would," laughed Slughorn.

---ϟϟϟ---

Harry and Hermione were just finished practising the silver javelin curse when Charlus got home from his trip to the school. They were able to cast the spell reliably by now, but as the spell made a physical object rather than a burst of energy it was taking them a bit longer to learn to aim the spell effectively. When Harry heard the chime that told them that someone had arrived by the floo, he rushed to the stairs, and when he saw his grandfather coming out of the floo room he quickly called out and asked, "What's the verdict? Has Snape been fired?"

Charlus just looked at Harry and smiled. Harry understood straight away and couldn't keep from pumping his fist in triumph as he chanted, "No more Snape. No more Snape."

Hermione came up behind Harry, and seeing her boyfriend acting like a kid she gave him a playful shove and told him, "Try acting your age. Uncle Charlus, you said the Most Extraordinary Society of Potioneers would appoint a Potions Master to teach the school until Dumbledore can find a replacement, do you know who they are appointing? Do you know them personally? Are they any good? What about teaching? Are they any good at that?" Her rapid-fire questions showed that Hermione was just as excited as Harry.

When he reached the top of the stairs, Charlus said, "Harry, go get Sirius. I want to tell you all and Hermione’s parents the results, so we will all pop to London." Harry and Hermione were both a little disappointed not to have Hermione’s questions answered, but nothing could keep the grin that learning Snape was gone off their faces.

Soon the four of them were Apparating to the little alley just around the corner from the Grangers, with Hermione pulling a key from her bag and letting them in. Her parents weren't home yet, but that wasn't uncommon as sometimes a patient's care took longer than expected, and the two elder Grangers would rather stay behind for an extra half an hour than leave some poor sod in pain. Hermione was playing hostess, making everyone a cup of tea and pulling out the good biscuits when they all heard the Grangers’ car pull up outside the house. Harry quickly stopped pestering his grandfather to tell him more about what had happened and Hermione pulled out two more cups for her parents.

When the Grangers entered and saw they had guests, they quickly excused themselves to go change out of their work clothes, and when they returned the pot of tea Hermione had made was just ready for serving. "So, what happened with the assessment?" Emma asked, revealing to Harry and Hermione that either Charlus or Sirius was keeping the two muggles more up to date than they had guessed.

"Snape is probably packing up his things as we speak. He won't be making any more comments about Hermione any time soon. He has himself a nice backroom apprenticeship where he has little to no need to interact with the public. He could easily be there until Harry and Hermione have finished with school, and even then there is a good chance he will prefer to stay where he is now," Charlus explained.

Dan nodded to Charlus, a mix of satisfaction and gratitude on his face. "The only question now is will his replacement be any better."

"Well about that. The M.E.S.P. assessors, in their infinite wisdom, decided to appoint me to the job," Charlus told them, not able to keep the light sarcasm from his voice.

There was a chorus of support from everyone there. Harry and Hermione were especially excited, as they had experienced Charlus teaching them before, and they were looking forward not only to his far superior teaching but also to the lack of favouritism towards Slytherin. Without Snape there going out of his way to protect Slytherins from the consequences of their actions, the house of the green was about to have an abrupt dose of the real world. "Do you know who is going to be the new head of Slytherin?" Hermione asked.

"Only that it won't be me. I'm pretty sure it's in the Hogwarts bylaws that only a former student of the school who was a member of the House can be its head, and I was no Slytherin."

"What House were you in?" Harry asked, suddenly realising that he didn't know what House his grandfather was in. He knew his father was in Gryffindor, and thought that perhaps it was a family trait like the Weasleys all ending up in Gryffindor, but he had never asked before now.

"I was a Ravenclaw," Charlus said with a shrug. "The hat said I could have fit in Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw, and I had heard Ravenclaw had a private library so I decided to go there. As to who the head is, do you know which of the professors were Slytherins in their day?"

"Professor Vector has a small Slytherin badge in her classroom, it's not big but you can see it if you look for it, and I don't know what House Professor Sinistra was in. I think all the others were in different houses," Hermione said.

"How is Vector in class?" Harry asked, as Hermione was the one who took her class. "Does she play favourites?"

"Not along House lines. She loves students who excel in arithmancy though." Hermione said, sounding a little smug.

"I take it then that you are one of her favourites, kitten," Dan said, giving Hermione a look of fond exasperation.

Seeing that her daughter was a little embarrassed at her father using her old nickname in front of her boyfriend, Emma decided to pull the conversation back to the main topic. "I for one am just glad there is going to be someone we trust watching what's going on at the school. You may have gotten rid of one bad teacher, but I still don't trust that headmaster you have."

Charlus nodded as he said, "I'm working on dealing with the headmaster. I just want someone I trust in position to step into the role before I do anything."

That caught both Harry and Hermione by surprise. Sure, they were aware that Dumbledore had made a few decisions about the tournament recently that rubbed Charlus and Sirius the wrong way, but this was the first that they had heard that Hermione’s parents were dissatisfied with the headmaster, and it was also the first they had heard about Charlus going after Dumbledore.

When they asked about why, Charlus had started going over everything Harry had told him about his time in the school, starting with sending Hagrid to inform Harry about being a wizard and finishing with Dumbledore's action trying to prevent Harry from being tutored for the tournament. Once he was finished he said, "What it all boils down to is that Dumbledore is not thinking like a headmaster. In that position, it's his responsibility to keep the students as safe as possible. For example, he never should have let the Philosopher's Stone on the grounds while he knew someone was trying to steal it. That puts the students between the stone and the would-be thief. And from what you have told me, he has made questionable decisions like that every year since you started there. Whatever his main goal is, it's not keeping the students safe, and as headmaster that should be his number one focus," Charlus explained. The two teens had to admit that Charlus had a point, they could see exactly why Charlus would want Dumbledore to move on.

---ϟϟϟ---

The rest of the Christmas holiday was uneventful. Charlus moved into the castle a few days before they went back, while Harry stayed in the manor with Sirius. The night before returning to the school, Harry went to Hermione’s as she lived rather close to Kings’ Cross and it was a lot easier for Harry to get a lift in with them. Hermione had tried to join him and cuddle up for the night again, but this time they were caught by her mum who had given the teens a lecture on trust and respect before sending Hermione to her room.

The train ride was relatively uneventful apart from the fact that Harry and Hermione had ended up in the role of pseudo-prefects, as nearly everyone else on the train was from the lower years. During the welcome back dinner, Dumbledore announced that Snape had left the school, leaving out that he had lost his Potions Mastery. Before Dumbledore could introduce the new Potions professor, there was a loud cheer from a few of the Gryffindors, and then two-thirds of the students started clapping and cheering, none louder than the practically ecstatic Gryffindors. Dumbledore actually had the audacity to look surprised at just how many of the students were happy that the former Professor Snape was gone. Either he was completely out of touch with the students, or he somehow felt that his constant repeating of the phrase 'Professor Snape has my complete trust' did more than annoy everyone who heard it.

Once everyone had settled down to listen again (courtesy of a cannon blast charm from the headmaster) he went on with what he was saying "Taking the role of the Head of Slytherin will be Professor Vector, our Arithmancy instructor. A few of our younger Slytherins may be unfAmeliar with their new Head of House, as her subject is only offered to those third years and up, but rest assured she will be more than happy to help you with anything you may need. Potions lessons will now be covered by Professor Charlus Potter, who is temporarily on loan to the school from the Most Extraordinary Society of Potioneers to cover the hole left by Professor Snape."

There was polite applause from most of the school. Harry and his friends of course clapped and cheered loudly for him, whereas some people like Malfoy had obviously worked out the family connection between Harry and the new professor and refused to even clap.

The comments over, dinner was served and Ron had his first real opportunity to catch up with Harry and Hermione. "So what exactly happened with Snape?"

At the question from the redhead, all the other Gryffindors around them stopped talking to listen in. There was no point hiding any of it, so between them Harry and Hermione gave a full breakdown of what had happened. "And then Dumbledore sent Hermione and I home for the rest of the holiday. I suspect I'm about to get a note either right after dinner or with breakfast tomorrow telling me to go to the headmaster's office, where he is going to do everything short of expelling me." A lot of the Gryffindor students were happy that Snape was gone, but none were happier than Neville. Harry could understand that, Snape unfairly singled out Neville so much that the man who was supposed to be Neville's teacher and a trusted adult he could go to for help was the form of Neville's boggart.

In return, Ron told them all that he had done while Harry and Hermione were away and all the rumours that were going around about Harry and Snape's altercation, some of which were actually quite entertaining. One had Harry on his deathbed in St. Mungo’s from some dark curse Snape had used on him, while another had it that he and Hermione were sitting in jail cells for attacking Snape with the Cruciatus curse. You would have thought that, compared to those rumours, the reality that Harry had broken Snape's nose for insulting Hermione would be a letdown. However, everyone around Harry seemed to be drinking in the story like it was the story of Beowulf or something.

During dinner, Ron also told them what he had been up to while they were gone. Someone had come up with the idea to have a chess tournament, and Ron had been helping to plan and organise it. "So far we have decided that it will start with thirty-two players, and the first two weeks will be like a regular tournament. Everyone will play two games and if you lose one you are out. After that we will be down to eight players and we’ll go into a group where everyone will play a match against each of the other players. There will be a five Galleon entrance fee and the winner will get half of the total pool, which is eighty Galleons. The second-place player will get half of that, forty Galleons, third place will get twenty. That leaves twenty gallons for us to get a few blank chess sets, as we don't want anyone playing with experienced chessmen who can win the game on their own, and to have three trophies made." Ron explained, sounding surprisingly passionate about the tournament.

"That sounds interesting, are you inviting the other schools?" Hermione asked.

"Yeah, we are hoping each school will put forward at least ten players, but if not then we think there is enough interest in Hogwarts to fill up any remaining spaces."

"Sounds cool." Harry nodded to his best mate. "You gonna enter?"

Ron's ears immediately turned red. "About that. You see I don't have five Galleons-"

Harry held up a hand cutting his friend off before he needed to ask. Ron loved chess and had a good chance of placing in the top three. "Ron, I already said you will have a cut of the gold from selling the basilisk, I don't mind letting you borrow a few Galleons from me, and then paying me back later when you win or when you get your gold from the sale of the basilisk parts." Harry knew that his red-haired friend wouldn't accept just being given the money.

A grin spread over his mate's face. "Thanks, Harry.”

"Speaking of the basilisk, how is the sale coming along?" Hermione asked out of curiosity. "I would have thought ancient basilisk parts would sell really quickly."

"According to Gringotts, it's because a lot of basilisk stuff is heavily restricted. Places like St. Mungo's and certain potion brewing companies with the right licences can buy as much as they want, but they don't have unlimited funds to buy it and they don't actually need that much. So they are looking for legitimate buyers all around the world and shipping the parts to them, as well as telling anyone without the correct permits who wants to buy some to go to the Ministry and get them. When you consider the bureaucracy at the Ministry for licences and then the insane level of bureaucracy for shipping restricted materials, it's slowing everything down," Harry explained.

Soon dessert was finished and everyone started to make their way back towards their common room. Harry was about halfway back when a Gryffindor first year came running up to him and handed him a note, saying she was told to deliver it before running off.

Harry unfolded and read the note and sighed, "Just what I expected." He then handed Hermione the note as it was addressed to her as well before he turned to Ron. "Do you know where Grandfather Charlus’s rooms are? The headmaster has summoned Hermione and me to his office and I want him to come with us."

"Yeah, I know the way, here." He turned back the way they had been coming from.

Chapter 29

Chapter Text

Chapter 29

Like most professors, Professor Potter's rooms were in the same corridor as his classroom, and the new Potions classroom was on the ground floor. Charlus tried not to take it as a less than subtle hint about his welcome that his rooms were the closest to the main doors. After the feast he made his way back to his rooms, intending to go over what he planned on teaching the next day, but as he was just settling into an armchair with his notes and a glass of Ogden’s there was a knock on his door. Knowing it could only be his grandson and possibly his friends, he called for them to "Come on in!" When the door opened revealing the full trio he just asked, "Is this a social visit or has the headmaster called you already?"

Hermione held up a note and told him that the headmaster had called her and Harry, which had surprised Charlus. Surely Albus couldn't mean to try and punish Hermione for a shield charm? He sighed and put down his papers and tapped his whisky with his wand, casting a stasis charm. Technically the charm was made for potions if you had to take a break in brewing, but it serviced just as well at keeping the ice in his glass from melting before he got back.

On the way to the headmaster's office Charlus decided that it was probably best if Professor McGonagall was there as well, so they stopped by her rooms to get her. As Ron wasn't called to the headmaster's office, he made his way back to the Gryffindor common room, telling Harry and Hermione that he would be waiting for them when they got back. The gargoyle moved aside when Professor McGonagall said the password, and soon they were knocking on the headmaster's door.

"Come on in" called the voice from inside and Charlus walked in first. He saw a slight frown of frustration cross Dumbledore’s face at seeing him and Professor McGonagall escorting Harry and Hermione, but he didn't say or do anything about it. Charlus assumed that Dumbledore had already accepted that with him in the castle now, any time Dumbledore tried to talk with Harry, he would bring Charlus.

"Please everyone sit down." Dumbledore gestured to the two chairs in front of his desk. Charlus kept a straight face as he decided what to do. Yesterday, the headmaster had invited himself into Charlus’s new office and started talking about procedures for the school, only instead of accepting the chair Charlus had for guests/students, he had transfigured one of them into a gaudy overstuffed armchair. Dumbledore had been showing Charlus that despite his assignment to the position by the Most Extraordinary Society of Potioneers, this was his castle and what he says goes. This was another one; he had called two students so there were only two chairs, forcing them to choose who got to sit.

Harry was just offering the chairs to the ladies and leaving the gentleman to stand, which would have been a fine move if Charlus didn't have a better idea. "No, Harry, give me a second, I have this." Charlus may not be on the level of McGonagall or Dumbledore, but he did have his N.E.W.T. in Transfiguration. A quick wave of his wand, and where there had been two chairs before there was now a large sofa that could comfortably seat all four of them. It wasn't a brilliant Transfiguration, the sofa was rather boxy in shape and it was all one solid colour, but it was functional and it looked a lot more comfortable to sit on than the ornate wooden throne Dumbledore had. However, Charlus expected that the headmaster had laid enough cushioning charms on his chair that it felt like sitting on a cloud.

The four of them sat down, with Charlus and McGonagall sitting at either end and the two teenagers sat between them. "Right, let's get down to business, shall we? We need to talk about how to punish the two- '' Dumbledore started, but Harry cut him off.

"Excuse me professor but I must not have heard you correctly. Did you just say the two of us? All Hermione did was cast a shield charm, something that is in no way deserving of punishment," Harry said, advocating for Hermione.

"She was involved in the fight, and as such is just as culpable," Dumbledore said, sounding a little smug."

"A fight that was started by your employee. Let's not forget who the one who started to fight was. Miss Granger would never have cast a shield charm if someone you employed at a school wasn't casting spells at a student," Charlus said with a hard edge in his tone. He knew that there was no chance Harry would walk away without punishment, but that didn't mean he was going to let Dumbledore do whatever he wanted; the punishment had to fit the circ*mstance and Hermione hadn't done anything wrong.

"Professor Potter is right Albus. Miss Granger only cast a Shield charm, so punishing her is not appropriate." Professor McGonagall said sternly.

"So you think. I disagree, I thi-" Dumbledore started but again he was cut off this time by Professor McGonagall.

"If that's how you want to play it, fine. Miss Granger, five points from Gryffindor for using magic outside of class. There, it's done. Now Albus, move on. Miss Granger, why don't you go wait outside?" Professor McGonagall was starting to get a hint of Scots brogue in her voice that was a sure indication that she wasn't as calm as she looked.

Hermione gripped Harry's hand, probably intending to stay and support him, but Harry quickly whispered “Go,” to her, and she nodded and walked out of the office before headmaster Dumbledore could object.

"Well, on to Mister Potter. I trust you aren't going to try to argue that breaking a professor's nose is something that should go unpunished?" Dumbledore sounded condescending as he spoke.

"Of course not, as long as the punishment is proportional to the situation and not an abuse of authority from a headmaster throwing a hissy fit because he lost his pet Death Eater," Charlus said.

"Still, I think detention every Saturday for the rest of the school year and the loss of Hogsmeade privileges is quite reasonable," Dumbledore said, his voice beyond any inflection.

"That isn’t happening. For one, you don't have the authority to keep me in the castle. I can go to Hogsmeade whenever I like." Harry said, himself sounding a little smug.

Dumbledore was overly not happy with Harry talking to him like that but he stayed calm and said, "I think you will find I have the authority to ban any students from visiting the nearby village."

"Students, yes. Triwizard champions, nope," Harry said, a slight cheeky smile reminiscent of the one his father used to wear on his face.

Charlus jumped in before Harry got too cheeky for his own good. It was nice seeing Harry's confidence build, a feat he credited as much to Hermione’s influence as his own, but he didn't want to risk Harry crossing the line here. "He is right, you know. The Triwizard champions were all supposed to be of age this time. When you consider that and the difficulties of the tasks, it was written into the contract that the champions could leave the castle whenever they needed for tournament purposes. Any attempt to keep Harry from leaving the castle would probably be seen as interference by the Goblet, and your signature is on that contract Dumbledore. I hate for you to lose your magic for breaching the terms of the contract you failed to keep my grandson out of.” Charlus then just looked at Dumbledore for a full thirty seconds without doing anything. Finally, he added, "You know, the same could easily apply for excessive detentions. Preventing Harry from preparing for the next task. The Goblet could see that as interfering. Out of curiosity, Professor McGonagall, if a different student were to punch another student and break their nose, what punishment would you give them?" Charlus turned to the professor and asked.

Professor McGonagall thought about it for a few seconds and said, "In the past I have given between three to six detentions for a fight resulting in a broken nose."

"Compared to that, every Saturday for the rest of the school year seems excessive, don't you think Albus?" Charlus turned back to the headmaster.

"Well in this case he struck a professor, someone who was in a position of authority," countered Dumbledore.

"Authority he was in the middle of abusing," Charlus shot back.

"Then he should have come to me, not taken matters into his own hands," said Dumbledore. Harry let out a snort of derision. "And what is that supposed to mean, Mr. Potter?"

"I think what Mr Potter is trying to say, Albus, is that he wanted something more to happen than him having to listen to a lecture about how Professor Snape has your complete trust while you do nothing about him," Professor McGonagall snapped at the headmaster. "Let's face it Albus, Severus has been punishing Mr. Potter since he arrived here at the school. Everyone has their breaking point, and Severus found Mr. Potter's and it blew up in his face. If you had done something about his behaviour sooner like I kept asking you to, none of this would have happened. But no, the great Albus Dumbledore had to keep giving him chance after chance to change on his own. Well he didn't, and he finally pushed a student too far."

"He was still a professor," Dumbledore tried.

"Exactly, he was the professor and Harry is the child. You can't expect a teenager to act with the restraint and control of an adult when they are in such a hostile situation," Charlus countered. Harry glared a little at Charlus for being called a child, but Charlus didn't say anything; Harry would learn one day just how young a fourteen year old is in comparison to him.

Dumbledore didn't look happy that every point he raised was being countered so easily, and he really didn't seem to like Professor McGonagall disagreeing with him. Charlus thought it was Dumbledore’s own fault. The man, by the look of it, had been letting things slip for years, barely doing enough and only patching up the leaks in the cauldron. Now, when the cauldron had split, he still didn't want to own up to the fact that it was his responsibility to keep things from getting this bad in the first place.

"I suggest that Mister Potter serves a week's detention with me and loses 50 house points," suggested Professor McGonagall. "I can be flexible around when he serves them to accommodate his Triwizard preparations, with a minimum of two a week until he has served them all." She nodded to Charlus, telling him without a word that she wasn't going to do anything to risk Harry in the tournament.

Dumbledore realised that this wasn't going to go his way unless he evoked his full authority as headmaster. If he did, that was going to cost him respect from Professor McGonagall, and when word got out the other professors as well. That respect bought him enough good will that burning those bridges wasn't worth it so he did the only thing he could. "Very well Minerva, but make sure they are a suitable punishment. No detentions where he just does his homework." Then he turned to Charlus. "Now in regards to your new position and the Triwizard Tournament. While you are filling the role as Professor, you are bound by the tournament rules on how professors can interact with champions. That means you will no longer be able to help Mr. Potter with his preparations for the tournament."

Charlus couldn't help it; he let out a string of language that made him glad Miss Granger was no longer in the room. "f*cking son of a bitch!" A few things in Dumbledore’s office started to shake a little as Charlus almost lost control of his magic in his anger. Harry put a hand on his shoulder and calmed him down.

A little ashamed of his outburst, he turned to Professor McGonagall. "My apologies for my uncouthness."

The Scots woman waved it off. "Don't worry about it. I have been a teacher for decades. Trust me I have heard worse."

"Still, when there are ladies present, it should be that gentlemen also are present. Especially when the gentleman needs to set an example for younger generations," he apologised for his slip in manners.

Charlus wanted to argue with Dumbledore about the restriction, but in this case it truly wasn't something that the headmaster could have planned out or done anything to prevent. There was no point getting into an argument with Dumbledore over this, he would be better off spending his time and effort to find a way around the restrictions. For example, there was nothing preventing him from teaching a few new Potions to his new ward, and if she decided to teach Harry about it then she wasn't bound by the same restrictions he now found himself under.

"Will there be anything more, headmaster?" Charlus asked. Dumbledore did have a few bits, they all related to if Charlus was ready to teach his classes starting the next day. Charlus replied that he thought he was ready but that he may have some questions in the coming days, as while he had had a couple of apprentices over the years he had no experience as a professor. He then used the fact that there were classes in the morning and that both he and Harry needed to be well rested for them to end the meeting.

As the two left the office, Professor McGonagall remained behind to speak with the headmaster. Harry and Charlus found Hermione waiting for them on the other side of the gargoyle. "So how bad is it?" Hermione asked, anxious to know what Harry's punishment was.

"Fifty points and a week of detentions with McGonagall, but I can move the detentions around to fit around my tournament prep," Harry said, and he could see Hermione relax as he told her how light his punishment was compared to what they had feared.

"That's Professor McGonagall, Harry, and that's great. I was worried Dumbledore would try to expel you or have you clean the whole castle with a toothbrush," Hermione said as Charlus escorted them back to the Gryffindor common room.

"Cleaning the castle with a toothbrush? Seems like a weird way to punish someone," Charlus said, wondering how Hermione had thought of that.

"It's a common punishment in mundane militaries. The purpose is to make the task as annoyingly difficult as possible. It also takes forever, and means the person being punished will be on their hands and knees for a long time." Hermione explained. Charlus could see how that would work, but he couldn't see Hogwarts doing something like that.

"Dumbledore actually wanted to punish me a lot more, but grandfather and Professor McGonagall forced him to be reasonable. He was going to have me in detention every Saturday and totally ban me from Hogsmeade," Harry told Hermione.

Hermione’s response was to point out all the reasons why Dumbledore couldn't do that to a Triwizard champion. Charlus had already left them at the portrait of the Fat Lady before Hermione had finished and started making his way back down to his rooms. He collapsed in the comfortable armchair he had left less than an hour ago and after a quick flick of his wand to remove the stasis charm. He sipped at his Firewhisky as he started to plan what he was going to do going forward.

---ϟϟϟ---

The next few days were a mix of routine and new for Harry. On the side of routine, most of his classes were exactly the same as before, and he spent a good chunk of time prepping for the second task. He was used to all of this from before Christmas. Even his detentions with professor McGonagall, while different in what she had him doing, he had some experience with. During his first detention with his Head of House, the Transfiguration professor had given him the Christmas homework from the first years and a marking guide and told him he would be marking and correcting the essays. He was told that any he was unsure of he could leave to one side, but that as a fourth year he knew more than enough Transfiguration to correct first year work.

However, on the side of the strange and unusual was things like looking forward to Potions. Professor Potter, and no Harry hadn't slipped up and called him grandfather in lessons yet, was a far more popular professor than Snape and his lessons. It wasn't just that Professor Potter held his lessons in a brightly-lit well-ventilated classroom, or that he explained all the hows and the whys while talking them through making the potions they were working on. He also had a much warmer attitude and didn't insult any of the students. The only ones who weren't singing the praises of the new Potions professor were a handful of Slytherin students, who were upset at the loss of the favourable treatment they had always gotten from Snape.

The other main thing that was weird was how happy a lot of the school was with Harry. On his first full Friday back, no less than twelve students had come and asked to shake the hand that had broken Snape's nose. It didn't matter how much Harry said he had very little to do with Snape being sacked, a lot of the students still seemed to want to give Harry the credit for that as well for some reason.

On the Friday of their first week back, Harry got a letter from Gripsack–Anne Twist during breakfast.

Mr. Potter,

We were directed by Warlock Potter to look into the legal status regarding your parents’ home 'Potter cottage, Godric's Hollow, Wales.' The focus of this investigation was to discover who legally owns the property and, if the Ministry has taken possession of the house, could we either return the property to you or force the Ministry to pay you for the property they took from you.

It is our sad duty to inform you that the ministry has legally taken the house and has refused to pay for it. However, while going through the documents for this case, we have discovered that the ministry specifically mentioned the building in their documents and failed to mention anything else. This means that anything inside it, and more importantly the land that the house sits on, still belongs to you as your parents’ next of kin.

This has presented us an opportunity that we need your permission to go forward with. As the Ministry is storing their property on your land, while refusing to pay for said property, it is the recommendation of this firm that you sue them for rental/storage fee arrears, and that you set up a standing charge going forward.

Sincerely,

Gripsack

Harry re-read the letter again and realised he would have to talk with his grandfather about it before he made a decision. He looked over at his grandfather, who was sitting up at the professors’ table, and saw that he was reading a suspiciously similar letter. Harry wanted to go and talk to him, but lessons would start soon and he didn't have time.

"Is everything alright mate?" Ron asked, sounding concerned as he built himself a second breakfast sandwich.

"I'm fine," Harry said as he folded up the letter and put it in his school bag.

"So we should drag you to the hospital wing then?" Ron joked, causing Hermione to laugh.

When Harry looked at them confused, Hermione said, "Harry you would say you're fine after waking up from a three-day coma, or after fighting a sixty foot snake, or a horde of Dementors. You say you're fine when you want to avoid the hospital wing but know you need to go. Honestly, you saying your fine is practically a cry for help at this point."

Harry couldn't really say anything about that, they were right after all. "It's just some legal stuff I'll need to talk to my grandfather about. Just not sure what I'm gonna do about it."

"Are you in trouble or is Uncle Charlus suing everyone again?" Hermione asked, a little concern in her voice that it may be the first one.

"Grandfather's solicitors want to sue someone again, I'll tell you more once I have spoken to him. I won't have a chance to talk to him until lunch, but it is conveniently right after Potions for us today," Harry said.

---ϟϟϟ---

It was only Harry's second Potions lesson since coming back from his enforced Christmas break. Professor Potter had spent the last lesson drilling the standard safety charms into them and had told them repeatedly that he expected them to use them or he would be taking house points. Pansy Parkinson had scoffed at the idea and had been the first Slytherin to lose house points in a Potions lesson for over a decade.

Professor Potter's style was for the whole class to work on that day's potion step by step together. Today they were working on the Blood Replenishing potion. The first thing they had to do was mince up a pound of giant newt livers, and Professor Potter first demonstrated how to mince the liver and showed them the consistency they were aiming for. Then, while the class was mincing their own, he walked around the classroom looking for anyone who hadn't understood, all the time lecturing on the properties of giant newt livers and explained what role they played in the potion and how they would react with the next ingredient they were going to add.

By the end of the class everyone, including Neville and people like Crabbe and Goyle, had a usable Blood Replacement potion. Sure, some were better than others; Hermione’s and a few others were particularly of a quality St. Mungo's would use, while everyone else's ranged from “over the counter at an apothecary” to “better than nothing in an emergency.”

The homework was for them to write an essay on the potion explaining each ingredient and step and why it was done the way it was. Essentially, Professor Potter wanted them to write up what he had told them in class, both so that they would have something to revise at the end of the year and so that in the future if they ever needed to brew the potion they had a full step by step guide on how to do it.

The students' opinion of the lesson was extremely positive. Neville said he had never felt so comfortable in a Potions classroom before and was determined to give the subject his all this year. Even Hermione admitted she had learned a lot about the intricacies of the potion that were not in the books she had read.

After the class had let out and everyone was headed to lunch, Harry hung back to talk to his grandfather. Seeing him standing there, Charlus smiled at Harry and asked, "So how was the lesson?"

"Best Potions lesson we ever had. If Snape had taught even half as well as that, then Britain would have far more Potions Masters about," Harry said honestly. "What have your other classes been like?"

"Good. My sixth year N.E.W.T. class has practically been begging me to teach next year as well," Charlus said.

"Well I'm all for that, but it's not me who needs convincing. Dumbledore that would never let you stay," said Harry. "Still, I'm not here to talk about classes. I got a letter from Gripsack this morning."

Charlus nodded. "I got one as well. What do you think? Should we approve for them to go forward?"

"I'm not sure. On one hand, they basically stole mum and dad's house, so I shouldn't have any sympathy for them. On the other hand, I'm not even sure I want it. I…I remember that night, and I'm not sure I could ever go in that house without reliving it. Plus it's not like I need the money, and it's not like the people who took it will be the ones who have to pay. The payout will come out of the money from the taxpayers. Is it right for me to take money away from other essential services? Yet if we roll over and let them win, they will just think they can keep doing this type of thing. I'm not sure what the right thing to do is.” Harry was fed up feeling like the rope in a game of tug of war, pulled in two opposite directions until one side gave way to the other.

Charlus was more distracted by one of the first things Harry said. "You remember that night?" he asked carefully. And when Harry nodded, Charlus did something that he rarely did and pulled Harry into a hug. It took the two men a few minutes to compose themselves, and when they did they went back to the conundrum at hand.

"Harry, I suggest we move forward, but gently. We unofficially present the Ministry with the bill for the last thirteen years and tell them they can return our property, or they can pay the back rent and keep paying going forward. That gives them the choice of whether or not to use Ministry funding or to just give back the house," Charlus suggested.

Harry liked that idea. He may not really want to own the house, but he really didn't want his parents house just taken either. The question he would have to answer now is what to do with whatever he got. If he got the house back, did he just want to tear it down and have a new house built there? If the Ministry paid up instead, did he want to keep the gold or did he want to use it to do something worthwhile? He really needed to talk to Hermione and Ron.

---ϟϟϟ---

After classes were done for the day and the trio had done the Triwizard prep lesson with Sirius and now Remus as well, Harry pulled Hermione and Ron into a quiet corner of the common room. He told them all about the letter he had been sent and how he was questioning what he should do with whatever he got as a result. That then led into him telling them that he was having trouble finding somewhere to donate the gold he got from selling off the rendered dragon parts as well.

Ron managed to suggest a few charities. "Well there is 'Bitten', a charity that helps people who are bitten by werewolves. They aren't popular, so they always need funding. There's 'New Hope', they help squib children learn how to live in the muggle world. Or there is the 'M.S.P.C.M.C', the Magical Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Magical Creatures; they are quite popular and do a lot of work rescuing abused Krups and Kneazles. Oh, and don't forget the Blood Curse Research Foundation. They are looking for ways to free families from old blood curses. They are all charities with pretty good reputations."

"Or you could do your own thing,” said Hermione. When Harry looked at her confused, she said, "You could wait and see what you get all together and put it all in one big pile, and then do something you think is worthwhile with it. Start a Hogwarts scholarship, start an organisation that you think will make Magical Britain a better place, it could be anything you feel passionate about."

Harry nodded with a completely serious expression on his face and turned to Hermione and said, “Hmmm, something I'm passionate about. I think I have just the thing. I'll start the Hermione Granger Appreciation Society."

It took Hermione a moment to realise he was teasing her, and Harry quickly had to duck a cushion being thrown at his face. Unfortunately for him the cushion was only a distraction, and a moment later Hermione was on top of him pinning him to the sofa as the two of them laughed. The silly fun was exactly what Harry needed.

Chapter 30

Chapter Text

Chapter 30

January passed without very much going on as far as Harry's school life was concerned: classwork, homework, prepare for the tournament, rinse and repeat. The closest thing to drama in Harry's school life was that Ron and Lavender had an argument and split up. Apparently Ron had a lack of listening skills and didn't remember most of what she talked to him about.

Harry had some sympathy for his mate, as he had overheard a few conversations between him and Lavender, and if Harry was brutally honest a lot of what she said was just uninteresting gossip. Honestly, who would care enough about two sixth year prefects giving each other 'the look' enough to not only remember that someone said it happened but to care about a possible new relationship?

Hermione had a bit more sympathy for Lavender. According to her, as she and Ron were dating it was Ron's responsibility to take an interest in what interested Lavender. Harry didn't disagree in principle, but had debated with Hermione that it was also on Lavender to try and curate which of her interests she was discussing with each person. "For example 'Mione, you love Arithmancy and I love that you enjoy it. However both you and I know I'm not a fan. So as I didn't get into the class, you don't talk to me for hours about numbers and spell formulas. Instead you tell me about other things that interest you, such as what's happening in the latest novel you're reading or the latest bit of Magical lore you have found; something we both find interesting. I do the same for you, I don't talk your ear off about Quidditch, because I know unless myself or Ron are the ones on the broom you're not particularly interested."

Hermione conceded the point. "Fair enough. A couple does need some interests in common, but you don't have to gel on everything. I suppose the problem with Ron and Lavender is that Lavender is interested in fashion, boys and gossip, whereas Ron is pretty focused on food and Quidditch. Their relationship was doomed from the start."

"Exactly. Unlike ours, because we were already friends for years. We know that we have more than that." Harry leaned in and kissed her, then gently pushed her backwards, pinning her to the sofa they were sharing. "Speaking of our relationship, there is a Hogsmeade visit next month around Valentine's Day. Would you like to go together?"

Hermione’s response was to pull him down on top of her and kiss him before asserting, "of course I want to go on a Valentine’s date with you."

"Oy you two. Keep it clean in the common room." One of the older students called at them. "The rest of us still need to sit on those chairs tomorrow." A few others around the common room chuckled at the now blushing couple.

---ϟϟϟ---

Harry spent a week of his free time looking into the charities that Ron had told him about and decided where he was going to send the gold he got from the dragon. He decided to split it, with half going to the Magical Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Magical Creatures, and the other half would go to the Blood Curse Research Foundation. The donation to the M.S.P.C.M.C. came with a request from both Harry and Hermione that they look into also helping abused house elves.

Harry had taken a trip to Gringotts that weekend with his grandfather. A few quick forms, a presentation of his vault key, and a signature with a blood quill later, Harry's vaults were a few thousand galleons less and he was sure that the gold was going to be doing some good now. Harry also took the opportunity to take the dragonhide to a magical leather worker and describe just what he wanted made from it. He was back in the castle in under two hours.

Harry hadn't told any reporter or sent any letters to the papers about his donation, so he was surprised two days later to find that he was once more front page news. "The boy who gave to charity" may not have been the Prophet's best headline ever, but it got the message over. It went on to explain that Harry had donated the proceeds from killing the dragon to the two charities, and as he read on he learned how the press had found out about the donations. There was an open letter to him from each charity in the paper.

The M.S.P.C.M.C. 's letter was first.

Dear Mr Potter

Thank you for your donation of 8734 galleons. That is an incredible amount of gold for a charity such as ours. That the gold came from the sale of a dragon that herself needed saving from the cruelty of the organisers of the Triwizard Tournament feels particularly just; in our opinion we at the M.S.P.C.M.C. hold no blame for the competitors who had no real say in the tasks and had to complete it in very dangerous circ*mstances. That being said, we would like to take the opportunity to condemn the organisers who thought mentally torturing a mother protecting their young for entertainment was in any way morally acceptable.

We thank Mr Potter for his donation and promise to use it to protect all the magical creatures we can from the abuse of uncaring wizards.

The M.S.P.C.M.C.

The letter was a bit confrontational, but Harry couldn't disagree with anything that they had said and the message that they would try and protect all magical creatures left him and Hermione hopeful that they were including house elves.

The letter from the Blood Curse Research Foundation came next.

Dear Mr Potter

We at the Blood Curse Research Foundation would like to thank you for your very generous donation. Blood Curses are all too common in our world and are a source of unbelievable heartbreak for many. Even those of us lucky enough to be free of such tragedy ourselves often know someone who isn't so lucky.

The Blood Curse Research Foundation has existed for over two hundred and fifty years, and in that time we have successfully found cures and counter curses for over fifty blood curses. Yet despite the progress we have made, there is still a lot more that needs to be done. Research work like this is expensive and requires highly skilled people working together, so we are taking this opportunity to ask the public if they too can put their hands in their pockets and help. Even as little as a galleon will put us a little closer to saving a family from generational heartbreak.

Sincerely

Blood Curse Research Foundation

The second letter was more of what Harry would have expected, and he didn't blame them at all for using the opportunity his fame had presented to raise money for their cause. He may have an issue with individuals ushering him for personal gain, but a real charity that was using the gold to do good he had to respect.

The response from the school was varied. Some people like Malfoy wouldn't say anything good about Harry unless they were being forced at wand point, and to those people Harry was just buying good publicity. It made sense that they would think that; after all, that's exactly what their families donate to charity for. Then, when they were accused of being evil genocidal Death Eaters, everyone would say, “Look at all the good they do, they can't be evil.”

A lot of people thought he was crazy for giving away so much gold, and Harry could see where they were coming from. He had given away the equivalent of almost a hundred thousand pounds. That was enough money to keep five or six families for an entire year, longer if they were frugal. Not that their opinion bothered Harry. He knew he had enough that he had no need of the gold from the dragon, and he was happier knowing that instead of just sitting in his vault the gold was doing something to make the world a better place.

The majority of people seemed impressed with Harry for what he had done. Harry was even surprised to have a few students come up and thank him for donating to one of the charities. Those thanks often came with a personal story as to why they personally supported the charity. One of the people who came to thank him was a total surprise. Harry and Hermione were walking along one of the school's many corridors a few days later when they were approached by a Slytherin in their year. Daphne Greengrass had never been friendly to Harry or any of his friends, but this time she immediately pulled a very surprised Harry into a hug and it was only her constabulary repeating. "Thank you thank you thank you," that clued Hermione in as to why one of the most attractive girls in the school was hugging her boyfriend and kept her from hexing the girl into next week.

Instead all Hermione had to do was say, "I'd like my boyfriend back now please," in a jovial tone, and the blond girl blushed and released Harry.

Once she had composed herself, Greengrass told them exactly why she was so happy with Harry. "Thank you for your donation to the Blood Curse Research Foundation. Thanks to you they were able to accept three more families into their program. The Greengrasses, we…we suffer from a blood Malediction. I got lucky that it skipped me but my little sister…I hate seeing her suffer. And there is a high probability that any kids I have will also suffer from this curse. We have been applying to have our curse looked at for years, but places were limited and we were never selected. With the money you donated they were able to add more research slots and we have finally gotten lucky."

Greengrass was getting more and more emotional as she spoke, and once she was finished talking Hermione pulled her into a hug sandwiched between herself and Harry. It took her a while to compose herself; it was obvious she had been carrying this for a while and this was the pressure being released.

Once everyone was calm again and they were talking, Harry had a question. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I heard your family had a pretty big trading company. How come you didn't donate enough gold yourself?"

Greengrass gave a small slightly annoyed huff before she answered. "Yes, Greengrass Trading is one of the largest trade companies in magical Britain, but with that size comes responsibility. Before the family can take out any profit, first we need to buy new stock, pay wages, pay import taxes, income taxes, and trade taxes. Out of the profits, we need to pay for the families’ living expenses, and most of what's left go directly to Potions Masters to brew the potions my sister needs to relieve her symptoms. There isn't enough left to make any significant donations like that," she explained. "Thanks to this curse, my family is the very definition of asset rich but cash poor.”

Harry understood now and felt like an ass for asking. The three of them talked for a while, and after apologising to Hermione for what she was about to do, a smiling Greengrass kissed Harry on the cheek before thanking him once more and leaving the couple to get on with enjoying their free time.

---ϟϟϟ---

Valentine’s was approaching, and this year it was on a Tuesday so the Hogsmeade weekend this year was a few days before the holiday. Harry and Hermione almost cancelled their date plans to hang with Ron for a regular Hogsmeade weekend, given that he and Lavender had so recently broken up, but their red haired friend wasn't having any of it. It was only then that he revealed that he, Dean, Seamus, and Neville were all going to hang out for what they were jokingly calling Singles’ Awareness Day.

So, after breakfast, Harry and Hermione made their way to the carriages that were taking the students to the village. Being the Valentine's trip, most of the older students were paired off. Harry and Hermione joined the stream of Hogwarts students walking hand in hand through the village, but for the most part their destinations were a little different. Most girls were drawing their boyfriends towards Madam Puddlifoot’s Tea Shop, but Hermione was drawing Harry towards Tomes and Scrolls. Judging by the look on some of the faces of the guys being dragged to the tea shop, Harry thought he might be getting the better end of the deal.

They spent an hour going over books. Harry insisted that he was paying, and that for every academic book she chose she also had to select a novel. He loved how studious his Hermione was, but also knew that if she wasn't careful she would lose herself in her studies, and as he had learned last year all work and no play lead to a stressed out and irritable Hermione. When he was paying for the books, Harry looked at the stack and, picturing himself carrying the stack for the rest of the day, asked the clerk to cast both shrinking and featherlight charms on them. This luckily turned what would have been a heavy stack of books into something he could put in his pocket and forget about.

After Tomes and Scrolls, it was to the Honeydukes, which was in full Valentine's mode. Almost everything they sold could now be bought in the shape of a heart and in reds, pinks and pastel purples. They even had some limited edition Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Love Hearts. Harry did buy Hermione a nice box of Valentine's chocolates, but for the most part the two of them were more interested in restocking their dwindling supply of snacks from the regular stock. It would be about six weeks until the next Hogsmeade trip, so almost every Hogwarts student bought what looked like a ridiculous amount of sweets. Six large bars of chocolate may look like a lot, but a bar of chocolate split up over a week was a lot more reasonable.

Harry also bagged himself half a pound of jelly slugs. The slugs were just gummy sweets in the shape of slugs, not very different from gummy worms that were available in the mundane world. Lastly, he grabbed a large bag of mixed hot and fresh candied nuts for him and Hermione to snack on as they walked around the village, as candied nuts were always best when hot and fresh.

Hermione also got herself a few bars of chocolate, as well as a box of sugar quills and two bags of teeth flossing string mints. Being a date Harry tried to pay for all the sweets, but Hermione had other ideas. "Harry, it's sweet that you want to pay for everything, but I want to do nice things for you as well. Besides I am not the type to be happy as a kept woman. So hand me your stack of sweets and I will buy your sweets." Hermione's smile had Harry happily accepting as he handed her his pile of sugar.

Hermione was happy that Harry didn't argue with her about paying for the sweets. They would never truly be equals as far as gold was concerned, not with the piles of gold her boyfriend had. But just because she couldn't match his frankly insane amount of gold didn't mean she couldn't contribute. Buying Harry a pile of sweets may not match up to the stack of books Harry had gotten her, but it was something and the principle let her hold on to her pride.

The two of them wandered around the shops arm in arm, slowly munching their way through the bag of nuts. They visited a lot of the staples for Hogwarts students like Scrivenshafts and Zonko's, but apart from buying a few extra bottles of ink neither store had much to interest them. They also checked out some of the shops that were less likely to receive a visit from the average Hogwarts student.

The Magic Neap was a grocery shop that Harry pulled Hermione into, as they had a display of flowers for Valentine’s day. While Harry bought her a single red rose, Hermione looked around the shop to see what passed for groceries to the wizarding world. It was like a cross between a greengrocer, a butcher, and a bakery. The only part of the store that didn't look like fresh organic produce was the drinks section. One thing that did surprise her was just how cheap the food was here. One magical knut was worth about the same as a mundane penny, yet a six pounds of potatoes that only cost a Sickle didn’t even convert to 30 pence; she would expect that to cost about one-fifty in a mundane shop. Maybe magic just made growing food easier?

Harry quickly returned with the rose and gave it to her, and in response she gave him a quick but searing kiss and let him lead her out of the shop. They visited a few more shops, and just as Hermione was getting hungry enough to suggest going to the Three Broomsticks for lunch, Harry revealed that the two of them once more had reservations at the nice restaurant again.

---ϟϟϟ---

It was the night before the second task, and Harry was getting nervous. Hermione, Ron, and Grandfather Charlus had teamed up together to distract Harry. The four of them were lounging around in Professor Potter's sitting room drinking butterbeer and going over Harry's checklist for the task.

"Okay Harry, so you have the wetsuit my parents were able to get for you that we modified with warming Runes. What else do you have?" Hermione asked.

“I have the knife Sirius got me and the diving goggles. I have the Hawkeye Potion that you taught me to make after grandfather showed you, it will make me able to see better in the lake for a few hours. I have the emergency Gillyweed potion as well in case my Bubble-Head Charm gets popped. I also need to check the Marauders’ Map just before the start of the task. It covers a large part of the lake, and if they have an official down there watching the checkpoint in the merpeople village then it could tell me exactly where I need to go." Harry ran through his checklist. "The wetsuit is next to my bed, the knife and the two potions are in the pocket. First thing as I'm getting dressed tomorrow I will put on the wetsuit under my robes. and the map is in my trunk, I will give that to Hermione first thing tomorrow as well. Is there anything I'm missing?"

"Your flappers mate," said Ron

"Flippers." Corrected Hermione causing Ron to huff.

"I have decided not to use them," Harry admitted. “As much as they would help if nothing goes wrong, if my Bubble-Head is popped there is no way for me to reapply it. Can't exactly say much with a mouthful of lake water. So when I'm taking the Gillyweed potion, I wouldn't have a lot of time, and that potion makes your feet transfigure into flippers. I might not have the time to take them off before taking the potion, so I figured it's better not to take them. What do you think?" He asked them.

"Why not just use the Gillyweed potion from the start?" asked Ron.

"Because I can't cast any spells while unable to speak, and I don't know about you but talking underwater is not something regular people can do," Harry grinned as he gave his best mate a bit of friendly banter.

"At least I'm not some skinny git who doesn't know how to use a comb," Ron shot back grinning, and the two boys chuckled, causing Hermione to mutter something that sounded suspiciously like the word "boys."

Just then, there was a knock at Charlus’s door. Being the closest, Ron jumped up and opened it, revealing Professor McGonagall standing in the doorway. "Ah Mr. Weasley, I was hoping to find Miss Granger, or if she is not here perhaps you or Professor Potter would know where she is. I have already checked the common room and the library."

"I'm here professor," Hermione called out.

Ron stepped aside and the Transfiguration professor strode in, giving a respectful nod to Charlus. "Miss Granger, the headmaster has asked to see you immediately."

Suddenly a bunch of pieces fell into place in Harry's head, and just as Hermione was standing up to go with their head of house he shouted. "Oh f*ck no! Hermione, sit down!" Hermione was surprised at Harry's sudden outburst, but trusting he had his reasons she did as he said. Harry meanwhile turned to their Head of House and said, "No f*cking way is the headmaster putting Hermione at the bottom of that goddamned lake."

"Mr Potter, five points from Gryffindor for your disrespectful tone. Now tell me what you are talking about." Professor McGonagall was angry now.

Charlus, who was only a split second behind Harry realising why the headmaster would want to see Hermione tonight, also realised that professor McGonagall didn't know what she was involved in. "Mr. Potter, ten points to Gryffindor for having the courage to stand up to authority to do what's right." Charlus said while watching Minerva. As he hoped, he could see her lips thinning, a telltale sign she was getting angrier.

"What de ya think ye dooing?" She demanded, the Scots brogue sliding back into her accent.

Charlus had to keep from smiling as he looked at her. If he could play this right, he could wind up her temper and set her loose after Dumbledore like a Nibbler after something shiny. "Me? You're the one who is trying to put a girl in your care at the bottom of a lake for a blood sport. And I also happen to know that due to her being under age her parents haven't given consent for her to be involved. How do I know? Because they would have been in touch with me to ask if it was safe, and I would have told them no it isn't safe. If they had given it anyway, as her magical guardian I would have revoked it. That means you are currently technically aiding in a kidnapping."

As Charlus spoke Minerva's eyes went wide with realisation of what Dumbledore had planned, and it was clear that she wasn't happy. "If you'll excuse me, I need to go and have a word with Albus," she said before she turned around and stormed out of the room.

Charlus was satisfied at the thought of what the angry Scotswoman was going to do to Albus, but he felt a twinge of regret as well. In general he liked Minerva, and that wasn't exactly the right way to treat a friend no matter what she had unknowingly been involved in. "I'm going to go as well. You three stay here. If I am not back in an hour it means I have volunteered to be put at the bottom of the lake instead. The contest Harry is in may need a hostage, and it's better that it's an old man like me rather than a ch… rather than a minor." He had almost called them children, and he knew how much that could hurt a teenager despite how young they were compared to him.

Charlus got up and followed after pr McGonagall. None of the three teens failed to notice that he wasn't exactly in a hurry to catch up with her, so Dumbledore was in for at least a few minutes of being on the wrong end of an extremely upset Professor McGonagall.

"They were going to me at the bottom of the lake," Hermione said, her voice sounding unnaturally calm.

"Can you picture Harry doing anything but his absolute best to finish the task if you were the one down there?" Ron asked rhetorically.

Harry, however, could see that what Hermione needed right now was a hug, so he walked over to her and (in a feat of strength he definitely couldn't have done before the summer) slipped one arm under her legs and the other behind her back and lifted her right out of the chair. She let out a start of surprise at being manhandled, but didn't do anything to stop him. Still carrying her, he sat in the now empty chair and put Hermione down in his lap, where he then wrapped his arms around her. "No one is putting you at the bottom of that lake. I promise."

Hermione didn't start crying or anything like that, but she pressed herself into Harry, needing the comfort her boyfriend offered. Especially as one question kept bouncing around her head. They haven't asked her parents, they hadn't asked Charlus, so would they have even bothered asking me?

---ϟϟϟ---

Charlus could hear shouting and crashing as he walked up the stairs to the headmaster's office. He couldn't keep from grinning as he heard phrases like "you dim witted old fool!" and "what the hell were you thinking?" echoing down the spiral stairs. He had just gotten to the top and heard the sound of something smash that he hoped had been expensive when he knocked.

The two inside the room were too preoccupied with each other and nobody answered, so Charlus knocked again. After his third time knocking, he opened the door and just walked in. The headmaster was seated at his deck as normal, trying to calm Minerva down as she ranted at him half in English and half in Scots Gaelic and used her wand to launch the occasional tea cup at the headmaster. Unfortunately, Albus had a shield spell around him and the cups just shattered uselessly against it, leaving the headmaster completely fine except for needing to cast a few repairing charms later.

"Ah Charlus, do me a favour. Pop the old fool’s shield for me, will you? Then I can get him with the next one and teach him to trick me into taking part in a kidnapping." The Scots brogue was more pronounced in her voice than he had ever heard it before, and considering some of the things James and Sirius had done as boys that was saying something.

"As tempting of an idea that actually is, I need to ask the headmaster a question before I let you give him a concussion and leave him unable to answer," Charlus said.

Desperate for any form of distraction he could get, Albus clung to Charlus’s question like it was a lifeline. "Yes Charlus, please, what answers can I offer you?"

"What happens to Harry if you don't have a hostage for him to rescue tomorrow?"

"It would be considered a breach of contract by the Goblet. It's unclear whether Harry or one of the organisers would suffer the penalty, but someone would lose their magic," Dumbledore admitted. Charlus even had the impression he was trying to keep from sounding smug.

"Well as Miss Granger's magical guardian, I hereby declare that she is not permitted to take part in this or any other part of the Triwizard Tournament." Charlus said, standing there proud as he spoke. He could see Albus nodding and agreeing right up until he said “not permitted”, then his face fell.

"Charlus I'm sure you can see that this is not an option, I give my word that the girl will be safe." Dumbledore tried to persuade Charlus to change his mind.

Charlus just laughed. "Take your word? If you told me the sky is blue I'd feel the need to check. You say Hogwarts is the safest place in the country, but you bring dangerous artefacts being hunted by dark wizards here and you hire professors who try to Obliviate students. You said Snape would start acting professionally, yet he never did. You said Harry going to the Dursleys was for his protection, but he needed protection from them. The very fact that you have now given your word that it's safe has me more convinced than ever that keeping her out of that lake is the right choice."

"Then it will have to be Mr. Weasley. I'm sure he has the courage to-" Dumbledore started but Charlus cut him off.

"No!" He thundered loud enough that someone in the Slytherin dorms might have heard him. "You aren’t putting Ron down there either."

"Then who would you suggest for Harry? He has no siblings and no other really close friends that fit the requirements of the tournament," Dumbledore was sounding annoyed now.

"Why do all of your plans involve putting children at the bottom of a lake in February, you senile old twit? If you need to put someone down there, make it an adult. Heck if it means keeping Miss Granger safe, then I'm duty bound to volunteer myself. So no more of this bullsh*t about sending children down there. It's bad enough you let Harry get dragged into this mess, now you want more children involved. How the f*ck are you in charge of a school?"

"Very well. Charlus, you will be Mr Potter's hostage. You will need to drink this potion, and you will fall into an enchanted sleep until your head breaks the surface of the water at the end of the task." Dumbledore looked defeated and emotionally wrung out as he spoke.

Charlus took the offered potion and cast as many detection charms as he could to ensure that was exactly what the potion would do. Satisfied, he sat in a chair and prepared to down the goblet, but before he did so he turned to Minerva and said, "Do me a favour and make sure the kids know what's going on, and tell Harry I wish him luck. Also keep an eye on Dumbledore, I don't trust him as far as a firstie with no wand could throw him.”

Chapter 31

Chapter Text

Chapter 31

On the morning of the second task, Harry awoke with Hermione in his arms. No one had come to tell them what was happening with the task but given that Charlus had not returned they assumed that he was now officially Harry's hostage for the task. The three teens had considered going back to Gryffindor Tower for the night, but their paranoia was running at full blast so instead they decided to stay in Charlus's quarters.

They had locked the door both physically and magically, and Harry and Hermione had taken the bed while Ron made himself comfortable on the sofa. Harry looked at Hermione and found she was already awake and was watching him sleep.

"You have a cute snore, Harry," Hermione said before she stretched up and kissed him on his nose.

"I hope it wasn't too bad." Harry asked, slightly worried. Ron snored like a buzz saw but none of the guys had ever said anything about it.

"No. Like I said, it was cute. I could easily sleep next to it. Besides, any noise you made was more than made up for by you cuddling me all night. Normally I only have Sparky to cuddle with and he doesn't cuddle back." Hermione cuddled into his chest as she spoke about cuddling.

It took Harry a moment to remember who or what Sparky was, but then he remembered the stuffed dragon he had won for her at the Quidditch World Cup. "Well I'll just have to apologise to Sparky for stealing his cuddle monster for the night."

Hermione giggled at Harry's words and the two of them just laid there for a few more minutes until a call of nature said it was time to move. After a few minutes where each of them visited the facilities, Hermione said, "Do you think Ron is awake yet? We really need to change out of yesterday's robes." She indicated the creased and dishevelled robes that they had slept in.

Harry opened the door to the living area and called, "Hey Ron, time to get up."

Hermione looked at Harry like he was doing something wrong, but Ron just rolled over on the sofa and mumbled something about five more minutes and dancing ostriches.

Harry looked at Hermione and saw the look she was giving him. He shrugged and said, "It's like this every morning. He will sleep until one in the afternoon if you let him. Hey Ron, up now or I'm giving your breakfast bacon to Hedwig!" Harry called the last part over his shoulder.

"Not my bacon!" Ron called out as he sat up, almost like it was his battle cry.

Both Harry and Hermione laughed as their friend looked around confused. The trio made their way up to Gryffindor Tower, had a shower, and got ready for the day. Harry's mood changed as soon as he saw the wetsuit he was to wear for the task, putting it on and everything he had to go with it right then. He wasn’t going to risk not having the opportunity to come back and change closer to the task. He switched out his wand holster for one that had a slot for a knife and transferred the two items into it. His potions and goggles went into a zip up pouch that was built into the leg of the suit and he covered up the whole thing with his robes.

If someone looked closely, they would be able to see that he was wearing something thicker than normal under his robes, but as he checked himself in the mirror it looked more like he was wearing two thick jumpers to combat the February chill than he was wearing a special outfit for the task. He slipped his shoes and socks on, and realising that he was going to need to leave his shoes and robes on the side of the lake, asked Ron if he would grab them after he was in the water.

"Sure mate. I know I was a little slower than some but I got the summoning charm down before Christmas," Ron agreed.

Harry pulled out the map to look for his grandfather, but unfortunately he wasn't on the map. That meant it was likely that the merpeople were holding them in a part of the lake that wasn't on the map. That did eliminate a large chunk of the lake, which while not the most helpful was at least more of an idea than the other competitors.

There was one name on the map that worried Harry though. Professor McGonagall was now standing in the common room next to the only way out of the tower. He worried she was there to grab Hermione, so quickly checked to see where she was and sighed when he saw she was still in the shower. A brief thought about his girlfriend in the shower was pushed aside as he stormed down the stairs to confront his head of house. He didn't care if he had to duel her, McGonagall wasn't going to take Hermione and use her to replace his grandfather as his hostage. Sure she had been pissed off when she learned what was happening last night, but she was still the professor who built a chess set for a death trap in a school. Harry didn't trust in her ability to not be talked around by the headmaster.

When Harry got to the common room he was surprised to see Professor McGonagall relax in relief. She came walking over to him. "Mr. Potter, I have been looking for you all last night and all this morning, where have you and Mr. Weasley and Miss Granger been?"

"We were hiding Hermione so the headmaster couldn't put her in that bloody lake," Harry said stiffly.

"That's what I was looking for you to talk about. The headmaster has accepted your grandfather as a substitute hostage and Charlus asked me to tell you," The professor said. "I spent two hours looking for you last night to inform you and only just now had a painting pass me a message from the Fat Lady telling me the three of you had returned. So where were you?"

Harry almost felt bad, but not quite; he had done his best to protect Hermione and if the professor couldn't accept that it was her issue not his. He did however see no point in keeping it secret. "We spent the night in Grandfather Charlus’s rooms. The exact same place you found us before." How the Scotswoman hadn't tried there Harry couldn't work out. What Harry didn't know was that the professors’ rooms had extra wards on them to guard the privacy of the professors, and when they had magically locked the door the wards had gone into 'do not disturb' mode. Unless there was an emergency, there was a subtle Notice-Me-Not charm over the door.

"Well that explains why I didn't find you. As you had worked out last night, the second task has you recovering a hostage from the Black Lake, and your grandfather has agreed to fill the role as your hostage. Dumbledore has accepted this so you don't have to worry about any last minute changes. Also, you are expected at the lake by eleven o'clock with the task starting at midday. Any questions?"

"Any chance you can tell me where in the lake he is being held?" Harry asked sarcastically, knowing there was no way she could tell him even if she knew.

"I'm afraid not, Mr. Potter, but I do wish you the best of luck." With that she made her excuses and left through the portrait hole.

---ϟϟϟ---

Hermione convinced Harry to eat a decent breakfast to keep his strength up during the task, but now Harry was wishing he hadn't listened. He was standing on a new dock that the organisers had built for the task with the other three champions and the nerves were upsetting his stomach. The other champions didn't look much better than him. Cedric was staring at the water with a worried look on his face, Krum was pacing trying to bleed off his nervous energy despite his face looking stoic, and Fleur was just on the calm side of panicking as she muttered about someone named "Gabrielle." The rest was in French so Harry couldn't understand it, but guessed that the Veela girl who obviously had trouble with guys was more attached to her best friend or something.

Bagman was giving the commentary again and was trying to play hype man for the crowd, but he wasn't having a lot of success. It was obvious to the spectators that they weren't going to be able to see anything of this task and were just going to be stuck looking at the surface of the lake for an hour, and they weren't happy about that.

It was getting close to their starting time, so Harry pulled off his robes, shoes, and socks and left them on the dock. He was immediately glad of the warming runes Hermione had stitched into the inside of his wetsuit, because he was still warm while he was sure a few people around him who were still fully clothed were shivering a little. Seeing Harry discard his robes, the other champions did the same. Krum was just wearing a pair of swim shorts not unlike what was normal to see on any beach on a hot day. That it was currently the middle of winter and it didn't seem to bother him at all how cold it was and it made Harry wonder just how cold it was at Durmstrang

Cedric was in shorts and a tee-shirt but he was quickly casting warming charms on himself. That had been Harry's original plan, but they had switched to his current solution as if he needed to use the gillyweed potion he couldn't cast the charm silently. This worked better and it meant one less thing to concentrate on while he was under the water.

Fleur was wearing a swimsuit that looked like it had come from a high faction catalogue. It was a silvery one-piece that did very little to hide just how good-looking the French champion was. However, she didn't seem to bother with warming charms, she just suddenly seemed to start just radiating heat like a furnace. Harry's best guess was that it was some alternative use of the Veela innate affinity for fire magic.

"Witches and wizards, the second task of the Triwizard Tournament is just about ready to start. In this task, each of our champions has had a person dear to them taken and trapped at the bottom of the lake. Our champions will have one hour to find them and return them to the dock they are currently standing on." Bagman's commentary told them just how close they were to the start of the task. "The champions are apparently ready, raise an arm into the air if you are ready please."

They all raised a fist into the air signifying they were ready.

"Okay champions, when you hear the sound of a cannon blast charm the task will have started and you will be free to go about your rescue in whatever manner you have planned." He paused for somewhere between thirty seconds and a minute before he started counting down. "Five. Four. Three. Two. One." Then there was a bang like a cannon going off and the task had begun.

Fleur and Cedric were the fastest off the dock, they just cast bubble head charms on themselves and dove into the water. Harry pulled his goggles and the Hawk-eye potion out of his pouch and swapped out the goggles for his glasses that he also left on his robes. While Harry was getting his eyewear on, Victor was muttering to himself and waving his wand about and suddenly his upper body transformed into the head of a shark before he too dove into the lake.

Harry smiled to himself, as now that those three were gone he could enact his plan without the risk of being copied. He pointed his wand towards the castle's boat house and summed one of the boats that the first years used to cross the lake every year. Sure, he didn't know where in the lake the hostages were (he had double checked the map before he had come out here and had then given it to Ron to hold during the task), but Harry was well aware that they weren't in the third of the lake closest to the castle. So, why would he waste his time swimming through that part of the lake when he could just as easily sail over it? He also summoned himself a large rock so that he wouldn't need to actually swim down to the bottom. Harry didn't have much experience swimming, only the mandatory lessons he had had to take in his junior school in Little Whinging, so he was trying to tackle this task with his head rather than by brawn. Luckily he had Hermione to help brainstorm his strategy.

He climbed into the boat as soon as it arrived, and a quick tap on the side of the boat had it speeding off to where he wanted it to go. While he waited for the boat, Harry also drank down the potion and cast his own bubble head charm. The effect on Harry's eyesight was immediate; he could see details much further away than he could before and everything was so much brighter now. It was a pity he couldn't use this potion all the time, but apparently using it too much would damage your eyes and turn you blind. Harry was blind enough already, he didn't need to risk it getting worse.

The drawback of being the last champion above water was that Harry had to listen to Bagman prattle on longer than any of the others. Luckily, he was soon at the location he planned, and clutching the rock to his chest he jumped into the lake. For the first few seconds as he sunk under the surface of the lake he panicked. Something about the idea of breathing underwater had flipped a switch in his brain. Strangely enough, Harry's body did hold his breath and refused to breathe, but he did eventually start breathing heavily, quick and deep breaths. It took Harry a minute to calm himself down and start focusing on the task.

He looked around as he sank and saw nothing. The bottom of the lake was still too far away to see through the murky water. He could still see the light dancing on the surface and the shadow of the boat, but there was nothing he could do yet except cling to his rock and sink. Soon the lake bed came into view. It was a forest of some type of seaweed that looked like it was being cultivated, as it was growing in neat rows. Harry hadn't thought about it until now, but it was obvious in hindsight that merpeople would need food and would likely farm their own.

Harry let go of the rock, staying a good twenty feet over the plants. According to Moony, Grindylows liked to hide in dense seaweed and ambush anything that swam too close. There was a chance that the merpeople wouldn't let the wild water demons around their crops, but it was just as likely that they would leave them there to attack any wild animals that may try to eat the crops they were growing.

He looked around and tried to get his bearings, only to realise he had no clue what direction, apart from up and down, was which. Luckily there was a spell for that, but unfortunately to do it you needed to balance your wand on the palm of your hand. Underwater, wooden wands floated. He did have a plan for this, but it was a little risky and he had hoped he wouldn't need to try it. Unfortunately, as he had lost all sense of direction as he panicked, there was no choice now.

Harry held his hand out flat, palm down, and balanced his wand under his hand. Now he just had to hope that his wand didn't end up floating away as he said "point me". The wand swung around so that the tip was pointed north, and Harry quickly grabbed hold of his wand before it tried to float away. The lake ran mostly south to north, with Hogwarts on the east bank, so if Harry wanted to check the lake area that wasn't on the Marauders’ Map he needed to travel northwest from here.

He had been right about the Grindylows, he saw a few of them as he swam overhead, but he was just beyond where they would feel the need to abandon their hiding spots and come after him. Still, he was doing his best to remain alert and kept his wand in his hand. His caution ended up being warranted, because when he got towards the end of the farm, what he thought at first was a wild patch of seaweed sprung up and attacked him. Harry used an overpowered Aguamenti charm to both push the kelpie away from him as well as push himself aside as the vaguely horse-shaped sea monster covered in seaweed swam hard at him, its razor sharp teeth bared and ready to turn Harry from Tri wizard champion to fish food.

As soon as the kelpie passed Harry, it started to turn back towards him. He swung around, wand raised,, and started casting. "Argenti incarnum! Argenti incarnum! Argenti incarnum!" Silver javelins shot at the kelpie, with the first javelin glancing off the flank of the creature, giving it a small cut but doing nothing in the way of real damage. The second javelin missed entirely, but the third was a solid hit. Harry was almost relieved, but then he noticed that having a spear stuck a good six inches into the side of this thing barely even slowed it down.

He wanted to run, but there was no way he could outpace a kelpie in the water. It would be like trying to outrun a champion racehorse while his own leg was broken. He once again had to dodge using the Aguamenti charm as an assist, pushing the two of them in opposite directions. Harry followed up again with the silver javelins and again they did little to slow down the water demon that was coming after him. He knew he had to think of something now. If he didn't, this fight was going to be a long one, and even if he won it he was going to be exhausted at the end of it. He tried to think of a way he could end it quickly, but unfortunately, the only combat spell he had that was effective underwater was the silver javelins and they weren't doing much.

But then Harry remembered all the other big monsters he had been forced to kill had a shared weak point, and there was nothing to say that it wouldn't work just as well for the kelpie. It was going to be risky, an all-or-nothing move. Harry had to dodge the kelpie again, and this time it almost clipped him as it went past. He considered trying to play it safe and to wear it down, but there was no guarantee that this thing would die any faster than Harry would run out of energy.

The timing was going to be critical for this. He focused on dodging for a few more of the kelpie attacks. Luckily the kelpie seemed confused by the sudden and unexplained water currents that were keeping it from its prey, but it kept attacking. The incantation for the spell was long, so Harry had to just start casting and hope it wasn't too early. "Argenti incarnum!" He finished the spell just as the kelpie opened its maw, and the silver javelin struck true. Unfortunately for Harry, by a million to one shot the javelin hit the kelpie at the back of its mouth but off to the side, it came poking out of the back of its head by a clear foot but had somehow managed to avoid hitting the spine or gill system or anything that would put this monster out of the fight.

The kelpie kept charging at him, now incredibly pissed off at him. Harry couldn't dodge this time, so he grabbed the back end of the javelin. That actually helped, as now the sharp teeth were at the other end of the spear, and as long as Harry was able to hold on then he was keeping himself the javelin’s length away from becoming seafood. Unfortunately, the kelpie was thrashing around and the javelin was slowly working its way deeper into its mouth and out the back of its neck. Harry tried to do the curse again, but because of all the thrashing about it was hard to keep his wand level and he missed every shot. The javelin sank deeper, and quickly Harry's hand was only a few inches from those teeth.

He let go of the handle while shoving it, and by extension the kelpie’s head, to one side. Acting purely on instincts at this point, Harry swam forward and this time wrapped his arms around the beast's neck. Unfortunately, Harry had forgotten that the seaweed-like hair that gave kelpies their appearance and mane was not like the hair of normal creatures. Kelpie's hair had more in common with Devil's Snare than just the colour green, and almost immediately the hair began to entangle Harry's arms.

Normally this was when a kelpie would drag a human victim underwater and drown them. As they were already underwater and Harry wasn't going to be drowning just yet, the kelpie started to swim around, flailing about in every direction and doing any weird move it could think of to get at Harry, who was starting to feel like he did in the bucking broomstick ride at the World Cup. It was only when he felt the kelpie hair begin to tug his wand from him that Harry realised he had managed to hold on to it. He instinctively set off a cutting hex to get the hair off his wand.

It only took Harry a second to realise that cutting spells underwater apparently worked, but only at point-blank range. He twisted a little, pointing the tip of his wand towards the monster and started casting. "Diffindo! Diffindo! Diffindo! " He kept repeating the spell until the head came free, leaving him clutching a bloody stump as the blood turned the water murky.

Harry sighed in relief as he caught his breath and tried to work out where the kelpie had brought him as he swam around. He couldn't see the farms any more, so there was a good chance that it hadn't taken him back the way he had come from. He looked around trying to see if he could see anything. Logically, as he had just left the cultivated field of seaweed, there should be some other signs of civilization nearby, but swimming people didn't exactly leave paths in the ground for him to follow

After a few minutes, he decided that the best thing for him to do was to follow his original plan. He did the Point Me charm again to get his bearings and started swimming. It wasn't long before he came across another field of seaweed, this time long strands of thick kelp that had to be ten to twelve feet tall. Harry wondered if this was more food or some type of rope, but whatever it was it was a sign that he was going in the right direction. Wary of having to fight another kelpie, Harry decided to swim around this, feeling it was tall enough and thick enough that it could hide a small herd of the bloody things.

Either the field was a lot larger than he predicted or he was a much slower swimmer than he thought, because it was taking him a long time to swim around. Harry was just considering going up and over when he heard a line from the clue, "we cannot sing above the ground." It was coming almost directly from the north, so Harry turned and went that way. As he travelled, he started to see signs of people. Not human or even any of the other races he was familiar with, but strange stone and mud buildings that were obviously homes, the occasional Grindylow tied up as a pet like someone might tie up a dog. And as he swam, the buildings got closer and closer together like he was going into a village. Merpeople started to come out of their houses looking at him. A few of the smaller ones who were obviously children were pointing at him and excitedly saying things to their parents. He supposed that a human in a mervillage was an unusual occurrence.

As Harry swam towards the source of the song, he found himself in a village square of some fashion. The centre of this space was dominated by a twenty-foot-high statue of a merman holding a trident. There was a crowd of merpeople around the statue. At first Harry thought it was something to do with the task, maybe to ask him riddles or something before he could take his grandfather, but as he got closer he started picking up on the tone of the crowd and it wasn't friendly. In fact, if he was right this was more of an angry mob.

Fearing for his grandfather, Harry rushed forward and swam up a bit as well to see over the crowd, and was almost sick. Grandfather Charlus, Cho and Alicia were tied to the statue with what appeared to be kelp rope, and they were completely fine. However, it was the fourth hostage that had Harry almost lose his breakfast. It was a girl who looked to be a 10-year-old mini version of Fleur, covered in small cuts and bruises. For a fleeting moment, Harry hoped that the merpeople were worked up and angry over the condition of the girl, but his hope was shattered when one of the mermen picked up a stone and hurled it at the small girl while shouting "Die you stinking Veela!"

Harry didn't stop to think, his wand snapped up and he shouted "Argenti Incarnum."

Chapter 32

Chapter Text

Chapter 32

Harry didn't stop to think, his wand snapped up and he shouted "Argenti Incarnum."

The silver javelin shot forward from his wand and shattered the stone before it could hit the little girl. "The next person to move gets one of those through the heart!" Harry bellowed at the top of his voice.

All the merpeople turned to look at him. Anger and fear rippled through the crowd but Harry held his ground, wand ready to cause some serious damage. These savages were attacking a little girl, as far as he was concerned they had lost their right to be treated as anything more than scum.

"You dare to order us around in our own village, wizard!" one angry voice from the crowd shouted.

"I don't care where I am, or who the f*ck I'm talking to. If you are attacking a helpless little girl I'm gonna stop you." The anger was rolling off of Harry now.

"All by yourself?" Another voice jeered at him.

Harry's eyes scanned the crowd looking for the one who had shouted but couldn't pick them out, so he aimed his comment at the whole crowd. "I'm not exactly afraid of anyone who needs to be in a mob to attack an unconscious little girl."

"That's no girl, that's a Veela. You have no idea what their kind has done to us!" This time it was one of the merpeople in the front and he saw who it was that spoke.

Harry pointed his wand right at the merman’s chest. "You’re right, I have no idea what her race may have done to yours. But I do know she is too young to have done anything to you or your kind. Now, I see what you have done to her. Should I follow your example? Visit the sins of the father on the children? Should I act like you are and go find your kids and make them suffer for your crimes? That's fair, right? That's how you view justice?" Harry paused for a moment, and when the merman said nothing just floating there looking uncomfortable he shouted. "Well, answer me!"

The merman remained silent, just staring at the wand pointed at his chest. A few of the merpeople started to swim away, either in fear or in shame Harry had no idea. He was just thinking that the mob would disperse when a stone came flying at him. Stones moved slower in water than in air, so he had the time to raise his wand and send another silver javelin to shatter the rock mid-water. Unfortunately for the merman who had thrown the rock, Harry saw who it was and, on a reflex honed by Sirius's training, sent a silver javelin at that man as well. Luckily for the merman, Harry was able to twist just enough at the last moment that the javelin buried itself in the ground right in front of the would-be assailant.

Harry pinned the merman with a look that said he was lucky to still be alive and turned back to the crowd. "Next time I won't miss. Get out of here." For the most part they did, and after about two minutes of Harry floating there looking menacing there were only about ten merpeople left. He cautiously swam over to the hostages, keeping one eye on the ten merpeople who had stayed. They did nothing, so Harry started to consider how he was going to take all the hostages. There was no way he was going to leave even one hostage here when, for all he knew, the merpeople would attack them like they had the little girl.

Getting them out of the kelp rope would be easy enough, he had a diving knife for exactly that type of thing. The problem was pulling everyone along as he swam to the service. Pulling along one person would be difficult enough, but four was almost impossible. What he really needed was for one of the other champions to turn up and help, but as he looked around he couldn't see them.

Then Harry had an idea. He pulled out his knife and cut the bonds holding his grandfather. Once the older man was free, Harry put the tip of his wand just under the old man's chin and cast. "Sanuspirantes." Instantly a bubble of fresh, clean, breathable air bubbled out of the end of his wand and settled over the nose and mouth of his grandfather, who woke up a few seconds later.

Charlus was confused at first, not that Harry could blame him. He had woken up unable to see as well as cold and wet at the bottom of a lake in February. Harry quickly told him what was going on as Charlus pulled his wand out of its holster and started applying warming charms to himself.

"So let me get this straight, the merpeople - instead of looking after the hostages as they were obliged to do - were torturing a little girl and you need my help to get the other three hostages out of here," Charlus recapped. Harry agreed, and Charlus nodded. "You did the right thing son. Come on then, cut the other ones out. I'll take the little girl and you can bring the others. You're younger than me, you can pull the heavier load. Actually, we should wake another up to help. Which of the other two do you want to wake up?"

Harry thought about it for a second before swimming towards his Gryffindor Quidditch teammate, but before he could reach her one or the merpeople swam up and placed himself in front of Harry holding a trident that he was pointing at him. He shouted, "You may only take your own hostage!"

Harry didn't even stop to think if it was possible, he just flicked his wrist holding his wand and called out "Diffindo". The head of the merman’s trident slowly fell to the ground, useless. Harry snarled at what he thought was a guard, one who hadn't bothered to stop the mob from attacking a little girl. "Get out of my way."

The merman looked at the end of his weapon that until recently had a trident head, then to the tip of Harry's wand still glowing with power as it was pointed at his chest. The merman showed why he would never be sorted into Gryffindor as he turned and swam away.

Alicia was harder to calm down than Charlus when Harry woke her up, but once he explained the situation to her she was onboard. However, she didn’t have her wand on her, opting to leave her wand with the headmaster as she wouldn't have had the opportunity to use it if the task had gone the way it was supposed to and she hadn't wanted to risk losing or damaging it. So it was quickly decided that Alicia would carry Cho, Charlus would carry the little girl, and Harry would swim with them, keeping his wand out and covering them.

The three of them swam directly up, going straight for the surface, with the two awakened hostages each pulling an unconscious one with them. To Harry's surprise they were allowed to swim away with the hostages without any more merpeople trying to stop them, but he did have his wand out the whole time carefully watching. Swimming up to the surface took a lot longer than he would have assumed. Either thanks to the rock he had sunk faster through the water than he had thought, or pulling two unconscious dead weights up through the lake was harder than he had anticipated. After some time they broke the surface, and almost immediately cho and the little girl woke up. Cho was a little surprised at first but it didn't take more than a few seconds for her to remember what was going on. And while she was definitely giving Harry a few questioning looks, her priority was to get out of the Scottish February water first.

The little girl, however, was clearly scared and was calling for Fleur. Harry could understand, the small girl was a Veela, waking up and finding herself somewhere she doesn't know being held by a strange man. It was probably a nightmare scenario for the poor girl. Add in that she was cold, wet, most likely hurting from the abuses she had suffered at the hands of the merpeople, and nobody around her spoke more than a few words of French. Grandfather Charlus may have visited the country a few times, but he had taken a book of common phrases he would need and had long since forgotten them in the few decades since he had last visited.

Harry looked around and saw the boat he had used earlier floating on the lake quite a ways off. Thinking it was better to get everyone out of the lake quickly, he pointed his wand at the boat and used a summoning charm. The boat started to come towards them at a fairly fast pace, and Harry was watching carefully when to end his spell. The last thing he needed was for something the size of the boat to hit one of them in the head. As he was casting, the little girl who was currently fighting with Grandfather Charlus spotted the scar on Harry’s head. She started babbling in French that was mostly unintelligible to them, but she did say the name 'arry Potter and she was now struggling to get to him.

Harry guessed that his 'legend' had spread to Britain’s closest neighbours, and the little girl probably saw him as a hero. He briefly even wondered If those Adventures of Harry Potter books had been translated into French. He held out an arm to the girl so she could grab it and told his grandfather to let her go. The girl jumped into his arms and pressed herself against him, crying and jabbering in French. Harry was really starting to wish he spoke a little French so that he could calm the girl.

The boat arrived, and after stopping it Harry floated the girl up into the boat. Grandfather Charlus, seeing that climbing into the boat would be a problem (especially as the boats were not really sized to fit five people), floated Cho up into the boat the same way while Harry flouted Alicia. The three girls and Grandfather Charlus were all shivering at this point, the warming charms they had used only meant to ward off chill winds, not ice cold lakes. Harry, having worked with Hermione to put warming charms on an insulated wetsuit, was the only one who was rather comfortable with the temperature.

Harry levitated his grandfather next, and then Charlus floated him up and into the boat while the girl looked afraid. Harry immediately started casting drying and warming charms on the child. She may be acting a bit bad to his grandfather, but a child is a child and he wasn't going to let her freeze because of what she did while scared. While Harry was doing that for her and himself, Charlus was doing the same for Alicia, Cho, and himself.

Harry sent the boat back towards the docks with a tap of his wand, and when he sat down he once more had the girl attach herself to his side like a limpet. Hermione had told Harry after her trip to France that a lot of French and English words were the same or similar, so he started tiring to explain to the girl who Charlus was.

He pointed at his grandfather then back at himself and said to the girl, "grandfather." The French girl looked confused, so Harry tried again using more words for grandfather. "Grandad? Grampa?" Then he remembered a coffee advert from the TV, with a French woman in that ad calling her father “papa”. Harry had no idea what a French woman calling her father papa and him calling her Nicole had to do with selling coffee, but maybe papa was French for dad, so he tried, "grandpapa?" At this the girl seemed to understand

"Grandpère?" She asked curiously.

It sounded right-ish to Harry so he guessed she finally understood, and he used one of maybe five French words he knew to say. "Oui. Grandpère? Charlus Potter." He tried to copy her pronunciation, although judging by the look on her face he didn't get it quite right but she seemed to understand, as she stopped giving Grandfather Charlus as many dirty looks. Harry also pointed at the dock in the distance towards which they were heading. "Madame Maxime is there and I hope your parents are as well."

Harry didn't know how this girl was related to Fleur, he guessed sister but it could be her cousin. He just hoped that however they were related the girl would know Fleur well enough to recognise the name of her headmistress, and would know he was taking her to someone she could trust or in the very least could speak French.

The girl seemed to understand a little more, however, as she stood up on her seat and started excitedly looking at the dock, trying to see what she was calling "maman" and "papa". It was still too far away to really make out any individuals on the dock though.

"So, Potter, you're not the one I expected to pull me out of the lake," Cho half-accused, half-asked for an explanation.

Harry gave a significant look towards the little girl before turning back to Cho and saying, "The merpeople weren't playing nice. I decided it was best to get you all out if there." Cho looked at the girl, and seeing the forming bruises on her exposed skin just nodded, though Harry was sure she would want more details later.

They were getting closer to the docks now, and Harry could see there was some sort of commotion going on. They were still too far away to make out any details, but there were people rushing around, so something had definitely happened. Pretty quickly, the activity on the shore by the dock had the attention of everyone in the boat. Harry was wondering if there had been an emergency with the other champions?

Suddenly, the boat lurched to one side as if it was hit by something under the water, and Harry thought it must be the merpeople. The boat was hit again, this time on the other side, and Harry tried to look over the side to see if he could see how many were down there. However, Harry didn't see any merpeople. He couldn't tell what it was, it was as long as a merman but it was the wrong shape. He couldn't see it clearly through the light reflecting on the surface of the water, but it was too stocky and thick to be a merman. And it wasn't big enough to be the giant squid, so Harry had no clue what it was. Did they add something to the lake for the tournament?

Before Harry could think what to do, the boat was hit again, and the little girl who had been standing on her seat and hadn't understood Charlus and Alicia when they told her to sit down, was knocked off the boat. Harry didn't have time to think, he dove into the water after the girl. Unfortunately he hadn't had the time to use the bubble head charm, and his goggles were around his neck rather than on his eyes. So when he looked around under the water, not only did it sting his eyes, but when he saw the shark and let out a manly shriek of terror, he couldn't just breathe in again. Harry whipped his wand out of its holster and did the only spell he thought he had a chance of pulling off non-verbally: a Lumos charm.

Sharks are predators, predators that have survived since the age of the dinosaurs relatively unchanged. Evolution had gifted sharks with some pretty good reflexes to deal with anything they were likely to encounter. However, those reflexes were never meant to deal with a sudden blinding flash of light. The shark's instincts quickly came up with, "I don't know. Might be dangerous. Abandon attack and circle back." So, instead of biting Harry's wand arm off, the shark turned and swam away.

Harry took full advantage and quickly got to the girl and got their heads out of the water where they could breath. As Harry struggled for air, he shouted at the people in the boat. "Shark! It's a shark!" Then, after breathing in another lung full of air, he shouted. "Summon the girl!" Harry pointed his own wand at his face and cast a Bubble-head charm on himself, then he dove back under the water.

His eyes were still being enhanced by the potion he had taken, so he could still see, but the dirty ice water was stinging his eyes terribly. He could see the shark circling, definitely going to attack soon. Harry saw the girl's lower half disappear as she was lifted magically from the water and was able to relax a bit now. Sure, he was in a freshwater lake with a saltwater shark, which was enough to tell Harry that this wasn't some lost shark swimming upstream. There was magic involved here somewhere, if there wasn't the shark would have died if not for some magic helping it "breathe".

It swam closer, and Harry raised his wand and shot a few silver javelins at it. It was towards the extreme range of the spell, but one caught the shark in its side. Unfortunately, the shark took the hit barely even noticing that a few feet of metal had just poked a hole in its side, but it did turn and start swimming directly at Harry. He started firing silver javelins as fast as he could, which were a lot more effective than the one that had hit the shark in its side. Not only was it closer now, meaning the javelins hadn't lost most of their power, the shark was also swimming towards him, making the javelins hit harder and leaving deep gashes in its nose.

Then something Harry didn't expect happened: the shark turned and swam away. He didn't know much about sharks, he had seen a little of the Jaws film when his uncle had been watching it on TV and Harry was cleaning the room with the TV. That movie had told him sharks were monsters. However, the reality of sharks didn't make a movie as exciting, so Harry had no idea that if a shark thought what it was hunting was too much hassle it would just go hunt something else.

The next thing Harry knew, he was before being levitated out of the water and back into the boat by Grandfather Charlus, with Alicia and Cho holding onto the little girl. Neither student had their wands on them, but they had the little girl wrapped up in a hug between them, offering the small girl both comfort after being knocked out the boat. None of them but Harry had any idea what the word "requin" she kept saying meant, but it was obvious it was something that terrified the girl.

Grandfather Charlus turned to the girl as soon as Harry was in the boat and started to once again cast drying and warming charms. Harry, who had a wand was more than capable of casting his own charms, but before he could even think about it Alicia demanded answers from him. "Harry, what the hell was that?"

"A bloody great big shark is what it is." Harry said, and everyone in the boat save for him and the girl froze and turned to look at him in horror. "I think I hurt it enough to scare it away for now, but let's get back to dry land and get out of this boat as quickly as we can." Everyone agreed with that and they rushed back to the dock as quickly as they could. Luckily, the shark didn't bother them again, but that hadn't stopped Harry and the rest from watching the water like hawks for the entire trip.

Back on the docks, there was a crowd waiting for them when they arrived. There were the heads Dumbledore and Maxime, Ludo Bagman, Ron, Hermione, and a man and a woman whom Harry had never seen before but who looked incredibly relieved when they saw the girl in the boat with them. As the girl immediately threw herself into the arms of the two mystery adults while all three excitedly spoke in French, it was easy to guess that the adults were the girls’ parents.

Everyone was quickly hurried out of the boat and into a tent that was set up as an emergency room to deal with any injuries. Worryingly, Madam Pomfrey had come out from behind a curtained-off bed and after doing a few quick diagnostic charms had told them all to wait before she disappeared behind the curtain again. Apparently whoever she was treating behind there was hurt enough that everyone who wasn't dying had to wait.

Hermione, who along with Ron had followed them into the hospital tent, handed Harry a bag she was carrying. He looked inside and not only were his shoes and robes in there but a pair of his jeans, a t-shirt, a jumper, and a pair of boxers. Harry gave her a quick kiss for being so thoughtful and drew the curtain around one over the beds to change into the fresh clothes. As he changed, he discovered he would still need to shower and change once he got back up to the common room; drying charms may get rid of the water, but everything that was in that water was left behind, so Harry was still covered with a thin layer of lake muck.

When he emerged wearing real clothes, he saw that the judges except for Karkaroff and Crouch were all standing there waiting for him. As soon as they saw him, Dumbledore asked what had happened in the lake. "Harry, the merpeople are saying you threatened them and took all the hostages. We need to know your side of the story."

So Harry told them of how he found a mob of merpeople all hyping themselves up to attack an unconscious little girl, how he had already seen a number of cuts and bruises on the girl, then a merperson had thrown a rock at the poor girl. He told Dumbledore how he had made a judgement that it was unsafe to leave the hostages in the care of those merpeople and had done what he considered necessary to bring them all back.

Harry hadn't noticed the French parents, as they were sitting on the bed next to the one he had drawn a curtain around while they waited for Madam Pomfrey to finish helping whoever it was she was helping behind the curtain so she could give the little girl a check up. They, however, had seen Harry, and when he was asked what happened in the lake they had listened out of curiosity. They had assumed all the bumps and scratches on their youngest family member were from when they had seen her fall out of the boat. However, when he painted a picture of the cruelty the merpeople had inflicted on a child, they weren't happy.

The woman, who was assuredly also a Veela as she was starting to sprout feathers on her arms, strode around the corner and grabbed Professor Dumbledore by his robes collar and shouted "'ou put my daughter in a siren village! Are 'ou insane?! We are lucky zey didn't didn't murder her on sight! What kind of death trap are you running here?" She was so angry at this point she lost her grasp of English and fell back into yelling at the headmaster in French, but what had been said in English was enough to understand that the girls’ parents hadn't been informed that there were merpeople in the lake when they had agreed to let their youngest be a hostage.

Dumbledore and the other judges, seeing that they weren't going to calm the adult Veela down any time soon, took her and her husband out of the hospital wing with the excuse that they didn't want to disturb patients. Harry thought it was more likely Dumbledore wanted to retreat to his office where there wouldn't be any witnesses to him being yelled at. Once they were gone, Harry turned to Ron and Hermione and asked, "So, who is Madam Pomfrey still working on? It must have been pretty big for her to still be working on them."

Hermione and Ron immediately looked a little sick. They looked at each other for a second as if trying to see who was more willing to tell him what had happened. In the end it was Ron who spoke first. "It was the shark, mate. Apparently Crouch had added it to the lake without telling any of the other judges. When you took the boat you went right over it without knowing. The other three champions though…" Ron trailed off, leaving Harry with some pretty gruesome images in his head.

Hermione piped up for a second. "It was bad, Harry. A few minutes after you jumped into the water the other champions started to climb back out of the lake. We don't know the specifics, but all three of them were covered in blood and…and…." Hermione developed a greenish tinge to her complexion and couldn't say any more. It was clear that whatever state the champions were in at least part of it was making feel nauseous

Ron took over again. "Harry…Krum, he, he… the shark bit off his arm. Fred and George said they think the shark ate it, because when Madam Pomfrey tried to summon the arm to reattach it nothing happened. Without it, well, Krum's Quidditch career is over." That last part had Ron pretty upset.

Harry understood, Ron was a big fan of Krum’s Quidditch and the idea that one of the world’s best Seekers would never be able to play like that again was devastating to any Quidditch fan. No matter how good you were, one of the core things you needed to do as a Seeker was control your broom with one hand while catching the snitch with the other, and if Krum couldn't do that any more his chances of playing high level Quidditch were basically zero.

"Krum must be devastated," Harry said sadly, looking over at the curtains. “What about Diggory and Delacour?"

"Beaten up and a few bite marks, but nothing permanent. They were lucky it was just a normal non-magical animal, since there is no magical contamination in the wounds there won't even be any scars once Madam Pomfrey is finished. What about you, Harry?" Hermione asked.

Harry just grinned slightly at her, trying to lighten the mood, and said "Oh you know me, I'm fine." Both of Harry's friends groaned at him for that one.

Chapter 33

Chapter Text

Chapter 33

Eventually Madam Pomfrey had gotten around to dealing with Harry and the hostages. Harry was the worst off, with a nice collection of minor cuts and bruises, but he insisted that the little girl he now knew to be Gabrielle Delacour, Fleur's little sister, was healed first. Madam Pomfrey had just nodded at him and went to deal with the girl.

Grandfather Charlus went and spoke to Madam Pomfrey as well, and Harry overheard him asking her to do a "full documentation" of the girl's injuries. He was sure the girl's parents, who were still off shouting at Dumbledore, would want a copy considering their Veela daughter was placed in the hands of merpeople, especially as it was done without their informed consent. Madam Pomfrey had agreed and began to work on the girl, surprising everyone there be being able to talk to the girl in fluent French

"So how do you think they will score the task?" Ron asked

"Who cares?" said Harry, just glad it was over.

"Nah mate, think about it. Technically you were the only one to finish the task, you rescued all the hostages from a real situation not just a fake one, and they can't even use the shark as an excuse because you fought that off as well."

Harry shrugged. "And technically I cheated by waking up two of the hostages early and getting help from them."

"Non, your friend is right," came Fleur’s voice from the bed next to her sister’s. "You saved my sister. Veela and ze siran, Uh… ze merpeople, we do not get along. There is no way zey would have let me take her from the village. They would have tried to kill us both. Whatever the judges say, Monsieur Potter, you will always ‘ave ze gratitude of me and my family."

Harry was just about to insist it was nothing when a man's voice came from the entrance to the tent. "My daughter is correct, Heir Potter. Your actions today protected one of the three most important people in my life and I would officially offer my gratitude and acknowledge that my House owes you a debt." Both of Fleur's parents stood in the entrance. Madame Delacour rushed straight to her daughters to see how they were doing while her husband came to talk briefly with Harry and his group.

Harry almost reflexively went to say it was nothing and that they owed him nothing, but the lessons he had had from his grandfather kicked in. If Harry acted as his instincts told him to, he would be insulting the family, and just because he acknowledged something it didn't mean he had to collect. "You’re more than welcome, Monsieur Delacour. We're just happy your daughter is safe."

"As are we. If you ever have need of my family, don't hesitate to ask." The man nodded to Harry and Grandfather Charlus then he went to check on his daughters. Soon Madam Pomfrey finished with Gabrielle and came to fix up Harry, healing the cuts in seconds and giving him a pot of bruise paste to deal with the rest.

Hermione immediately took charge of the bruise paste and told him to take off his jumper and t-shirt. Sirius and Charlus then had a good laugh at Ron teasing Harry about being whipped. Harry just laughed as well, which after the last few hours felt like a minor miracle. Madam Pomfrey accepted it as it let her move on to the other hostages and deal with them.

Once Harry and the others exited the tent, they discovered that plenty had been going on while they were waiting for Madam Pomfrey. It was the twins who told them that Barty Crouch had been arrested for releasing the shark into the lake, so because they were a judge down they had delayed the awarding of the points until at least tomorrow.

"That was fast. I would have thought it would take the D.M.L.E. longer to hear about the shark," said Harry.

"Harry, the Aurors were already here," Hermione said, sounding exasperated. "How did you not notice them before the task?"

That surprised Harry and all he said was "uh…" as his brain tried to catch up.

"Harry, the Aurors are investigating whoever put your name in the Goblet as an attempted murder. The tasks are the most likely time for whoever it is to try something. Of course the Aurors were here watching. Then someone added a goddamn shark to the lake. Of course they are going to arrest them and question them. Especially as it is Crouch, who has history with Sirius," Ron explained to Harry.

Harry's brain finally caught up. "Sorry, I was just too focused on Grandfather being at the bottom of the lake. I wasn't paying enough attention to what was happening around me." He felt rather stupid now.

Hermione, who was pretty in tune with Harry's moods, saw where his thoughts were going and decided that she wasn't going to let Harry start thinking that way again. He had made great strides in becoming more confident since he was taken in by Charlus, and she wasn't going to let him backpedal. "Harry, everyone gets distracted or tunnel vision sometimes, it's normal. That's why we have friends and family. They pick up the slack when you can't, and in return you do the same for us when we can't. You had more than enough of a reason to be distracted, so don't worry about it." She pulled him into a side hug as they walked.

---ϟϟϟ---

Head Auror Rufus Scrimgeour waited outside the office of the Director of the D.M.L.E., Amelia Bones. After five minutes, at some unknown signal, the director's secretary said it was OK for him to go in. Scrimgeour entered the office that he hoped would be his one day, even if he only wanted it as a stepping stone to get the minister's office.

"What's the problem, Scrimgeour? I already have the Minister breathing down my neck because we have arrested a head of department. He is worried that this will become a media circus, worse I can't say his fears are without merit. Please say you're not going to make my life harder." She didn't even look up from her mountain of paperwork as she spoke.

"Ma'am, I don't know if it will make things easier or harder for you, but prisoner Crouch while under interrogation has shown signs consistent with hostile mind magic. I'm requesting permission to have him moved to the secure ward at St. Mungo's and for him to undergo a full mind magic sweep," Scrimgeour said.

The director sighed and looked up at him. "Are you sure there is mind magic in play?"

"Yes ma'am."

"And you have at least tried to hit him with a finite charm first?"

"Yes ma'am." He had to force himself not to grumble. He had made that mistake once as a rookie and had never been allowed to live if down.

“Fine, take him to St. Mungo's secure ward for a full O.P.C.C.&.I. scan. I assume you have the parchment work ready for me to sign?" Scrimgeour didn't say anything and just added the small stack of forms to his boss. Bones gave them all a quick look to make sure she was signing what she thought and then added her signature to the documents before handing them back. "Just make sure this doesn't leak to the press. We don't know what the scans will reveal yet. Last thing we need is for someone to tell the press a ministry head is the victim only to need to walk that back later."

Scrimgeour nodded. The ministry would look ridiculous if they blamed everything on mind magics and then found out Crouch was actually guilty. "Understood ma'am. But…how to put this delicately, ma'am…ours isn't the only department that leaks. The minister’s office-"

Director Bones cut him off. "I am well aware of our minister's predilection for blabbing to the press. Let me worry about him. Just get the scans done." Scrimgeour recognised the last sentence for the dismissal it was and he strode out of the office to go make the necessary preparations for a prisoner transfer.

---ϟϟϟ---

The day after the second task was an absolute storm. The Prophet had the story about the shark eating Victor Krum's left arm in a special evening edition the day before, and at breakfast there must have been well over a thousand owls dropping letters and howlers off for Dumbledore. There was a huge commotion from the hospital wing as well, as at least twice as many owls tried to deliver letters of condolence and get well soon gifts to the international Quidditch player. Hermione even suggested that it would be even worse over the coming days as it was likely that only the British news had gotten the story out so quickly. The magicals from around the world were probably only finding out today with their morning paper, which meant their response would only likely appear tomorrow at the earliest.

That's not to say a ridiculous amount of mail was the worst thing that happened that day. At lunch the minister for magic turned up with a man Harry recognised as the Bulgarian minister of magic, having met the man earlier at the World Cup. There was also a man and a woman whom Harry took to be Krum’s parents with him, and none of the three Bulgarians looked like they were anything less than pissed off. To the trio, it looked like Fudge was in full ‘pass the buck’ mode, and for some reason they didn't know the Minister of Magic was pointing the finger directly at Dumbledore. Dumbledore of course didn't want to have all the students witnessing him being shouted at, so he quickly bundled them all up to his office.

Alicia was the only student who had been allowed to visit Krum in the hospital wing, and it was from her that Harry learned that Victor was not doing well. Physically he was recovering as well as Madam Pomfrey could expect, but he was taking the loss of his arm badly. Of course, losing a limb would be a terrible blow and not something you could just get over, but Victor had also lost his position as one of the world’s best Seekers, something that was most likely a core aspect to who he saw himself as. It was going to take a lot of work, most likely with a mind healer before Victor even started to recover.

---ϟϟϟ---

Sirius Black had spent most of his time since the summer when he had finally been granted his freedom living life to the full as much as he could. He had tried to turn everyday into a party. Even when Harry's name had come out of the Goblet of Fire, he spent some time most days preparing his godson as best he could, then it was right back out trying to catch up on all the living he had missed whileche was in Azkaban.

Since Christmas, however, he had started to pull himself back together. Now he was outside the D.M.L.E. director’s office flirting with a secretary while he waited to speak to Amelia Bones. That the young woman was ten years his junior didn't seem to bother him in the slightest, and Sirius was charismatic enough that the young woman wasn't too bothered about being distracted.

The door opened and the person Sirius was there to see stepped out. "Black, if you would please stop harassing Miss Moonshine, as she has actual work she needs to do, unlike some." Her tone was cool and no nonsense, but Sirius knew her well enough to see she wasn't actually upset.

"Afternoon boss," Sirius said using the same title he had given her when she was his reporting officer. "I was hoping to have a word about what went down yesterday."

"You know I can't talk about that Black. It's an ongoing investigation," Director Bones said by rote.

"Amy, it's me here. I know the drill. What I need to know is whether Harry is out of danger. Your lot arrested Crouch yesterday. Was he the one targeting harry?

Director Bones didn't answer but instead asked. "Have you had lunch yet, Sirius?"

Sirius understood straight away that if he wanted information he was going to have to play along. "Nope. I was going to go to this muggle place I know nearby once I finished up here. But I would love to have lunch with an old colleague and catch up. My treat."

The director nodded and took her D.M.L.E. badge and left it in her office. "Miss Moonshine, I am going out to lunch. If anything comes up I should be back inside an hour." Then she quickly transfigured her robes into muggle attire and led Sirius to the D.M.L.E. Disapparition point so he could Side-along her to where they were going to get lunch.

They appeared in a side alley off a generic-looking city street, and Sirius led her out onto the street. There was a fish and chip shop that was right next to a chain bakery that sold sandwiches, cakes, and pastries. Sirius asked what Amelia would prefer in her sandwich, and then he went and bought two sandwiches and a large bag of chips. After that, the two former colleagues went and sat on a park bench to eat, the bag of chips open on the bench between them.

"So what can you tell me?" Sirius asked before taking a bite of his coronation chicken sandwich.

"Not much," admitted Amelia. "For a start we don't know much yet. All we know is that Crouch is under some pretty serious mind magic. We do not know who did it, how long he has been under it, or even if he was made to target Harry. It's still possible that the shark was meant to attack one of the other champions. The Diggory boy's father works in the Ministry and he has ruffled a few feathers. The Delacour girl is Veela so she is a target for any anti-'half breed' activists." She used air quotes around the term half breed. "And Krum until now was one of the best Seekers in the world, everyone from rival countries to illegal gambling cartels could have a reason to hurt him. Hell the mind magic might have nothing to do with the tournament , and Crouch may have just wanted to get at you through Harry and didn't care what happened to the other champions. Sure, the most likely explanation is he was forced to target Harry, but you still remember how to conduct a proper investigation. You need to cover all angles."

"I wouldn't be surprised if he did it to get to me. He has proven he doesn't care about what happens to innocent people. Though I will admit his animosity towards me makes him the perfect target to control. If everything had gone perfectly, then it's not like the Aurors would need to look far for a motive. So what's happening now?" Sirius asked, fingers crossed that Amelia didn't clam up about an ongoing investigation.

"I really shouldn't say, but you know enough to work it out for yourself anyway. Crouch is in St. Mungo's and the Aurors are waiting on the evidence. Once Crouch gets his brain unscrambled, the healer's report and how he responds under questions will tell us where to look next," Amelia finished and took a bite of her roast beef and horseradish sandwich.

"So how's life been treating you?" Sirius asked and the two sent the rest of their lunch catching up as old friends.

---ϟϟϟ---

It was at dinner that night that three of the four champions were called in front of everyone to receive their scores. "Students, if I can have a few minutes of your attention and then we can dig into the wonderful selection that the kitchens have for us today?" Dumbledore said from up at the professors table. Harry looked over and had to keep from sighing. Once he had everyone's attention, Dumbledore continued. "Can Mademoiselle Delacour, Mister Diggory, and Mister Potter please come and stand at the front here?"

Harry and the two others stood up and walked to the front where everyone could stare at them. As he walked between the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw tables, Harry looked at Dumbledore and noticed that, despite the fact that the man was trying to look as happy and grandfatherly as he normally did, he also looked tired. He must have had a lot of pissed off politically powerful people shouting at him all day, probably demanding answers he didn't have.

Harry lined up with the other champions facing the students and Dumbledore continued to talk behind them. "The matter of the score from yesterday's event still needs to be officially announced. Earlier today, I and the other judges, with the British Minister for Magic standing in for the Director of International Cooperation Bartemius Crouch, came to a decision. Once all the facts were in and we found that the shark had been magically enhanced, it was felt that it was not something that the champions could be readily expected to have prepared for and that this should be reflected in the scoring. That being said, it is also worth noting that Mr. Potter dealt with the same conditions as the rest of the champions, and was not only able to rescue his own hostage but saved the other three from a…deteriorating situation at the bottom of the lake, as well as facing the shark in combat during his return. As such, the judges have decided that the three champions who didn't retrieve their hostages will each receive forty points, whereas Mr. Potter will receive the full fifty points. That means, going into the third task,, the scores are:

Mr. Diggory 69 points.

Mademoiselle Delacour 73 points.

Mr. Krum 80 points.

And finally Mr. Potter on 88 points."

There was polite applause after each score. Normally there would be more enthusiasm, but the students weren't really into it. The tournament had been a game, a lark, just a bit of fun, but now someone was in the hospital wing with a permanent injury that had destroyed the rest of his life. Dumbledore spoke for a few more minutes, telling them the date of the final task and that the champions will get more information about what the task is exactly one month before.

Harry and the champions were soon let go to return to their seats and enjoy their dinner. That night was one of Harry's favourites, a rich and filling shepherd's pie, but his heart wasn’t fully into enjoying it.

---ϟϟϟ---

It took St. Mungo's a week to straighten out Director Crouch’s head. They compiled their reports and shipped them along with the director back to the D.M.L.E. Not for the first time, the officers who actually read the reports were really frustrated by the laws that said just what could go in these reports. The only way to determine what needs fixing is to do deep Legilimency on the subject, meaning that whomever it was who wrote the reports had delved deep enough in the memories to know exactly what Crouch did about who, what, why, where and when of the crimes that were being investigated. However, including any of that information in the reports was considered a violation of the right against being magically compelled to testify without consent.

While the paperwork was being examined, Tonks and Robards were handling the questioning. This was Head Auror Scrimgeour's idea, with Tonks and Robards trying a variation on good cop bad cop. Robards was going to be respectful to his former boss, whereas Tonks was to play the young annoying newcomer who didn't know how things were done. Basically, it was Tonks’s job to be as annoying as she believably could and keep Crouch's stress levels so high he made a mistake.

Of course, interrogation is just another form of battle, and as anyone veteran of battles of any type will tell you, the plan never survives first contact with the enemy. In this case, the plan went out of the window with the first four words that came out of Crouch's mouth: "I need to confess." That had of course shocked everyone, not just the two Aurors in the room with Crouch but Director Bones and Head Auror Scrimgeour as well, who were watching from behind an illusionary wall.

"It started thirteen years ago, after my son was sent to Azkaban for his crimes. My wife was dying and she couldn't stand the idea of her little boy rotting away in Azkaban for the rest of his life. She hatched a plan and made me promise to help her. I knew it was wrong, but it was my dying wife's last request. I couldn't not do it for her. And I thought I could deal with it myself." Crouch stopped for a second to take a sip of water.

"My wife was always good at potions, and she had a few months to live. She made a lot of Polyjuice Potion and a bottomless flask. I applied for a deathbed visit so my wife could see her son one last time before she passed. It was easy after that. No one would suspect the head of the D.M.L.E. who imprisoned his own son of trying to break him out, so no one checked to see if we were carrying anything we shouldn't be. We were given the use of a private interview room, and from there it was easy. We had two doses of Polyjuice in one bottle, and the rest in the bottomless flask. My son's hair went in one and my wife's in the other. A quick switch of clothing and a drink of the Potions, and my wife took our son's place and died in that hell.

"Once I got Junior home I locked him in a room I had prepared for him. You have to understand, I never intended for him to roam free. He deserved to be locked away where he couldn't hurt good people. But he soon recovered from his Dementor exposure and he was growing strong. At first, all it needed was a few potions to keep him down and compliant, but soon I had to employ stronger and stronger magic to keep him locked up. Eventually, the only way I could hold him was with the Imperius curse. But either age is catching up to me or he is getting stronger, because he started to fight me off a little." Crouch paused for another sip of water. The Aurors didn't say anything, as the last thing they wanted was to interrupt and risk Crouch no longer being included to give full confession. Though it was more about junior now than Barty, he would be lucky to get life in Azkaban at this point; aiding in a jailbreak from Azkaban was a Dementor’s Kiss offence.

Crouch continued. "It was easier to keep him under control if he was closer to me, so during the World Cup when I had to stay at the campgrounds for days to oversee the final preparations I took him with me. It was stupid. When the riot started I was distracted trying to save the muggle family, my control slipped, and Junior got free. He was the one who sent off the dark mark.

"But I got Junior back under control, and when I interrogated him later he hadn't done anything to anyone, he had just stolen the wand and cast the mark. He hadn't hurt anyone. I convinced myself that nothing of consequence had happened, so there was no need to turn him and myself in, I just needed to beef up my containment.

"Just as I thought everything was fine he turned up. I know Black had said he was still alive but I hadn't believed it. Peter Pettigrew bold as brass knocked on my front door and stunned me when I opened it. He freed my son and they took me captive, then Pettigrew left for a few hours and returned with what looked like a baby at first. But when he unwrapped it I saw it was the disgusting product of some of the most evil magic I had ever seen. Someone had taken a dead wizard child, maybe about a year old, and constructed a homunculus from it, then put some type of spirit in it. It spoke to me and told me who it was: You-Know-Who. He explained that the Potter boy hadn't killed him all those years ago, that had been broken, but he was not dead.

"He told me that the Potter boy was the key to restoring him to his former glory. Then the three of them interrogated me. They used everything from Legilimency to Veritaserum to get all the information they could about the Triwizard Tournament. Then they put me under the Imperius curse and used me like a puppet to turn the Triwizard Tournament into one big trap for Potter."

Silence hung in the air after Crouch finished his statement as they contemplated just how bad the situation was, which was finally broken by the director of the D.M.L.E. herself. "Well, f*ck."

Chapter 34

Chapter Text

Chapter 34

Harry and Charlus were seated in the headmaster's office, with him mediating the meeting with Professor McGonagall and Director Bones. "We finished questioning Crouch last night," the director explained. "It's not good news, I'm afraid. Crouch was under the Imperius Curse for most of the school year and he was the one who put your name in the Goblet of Fire, Mr. Potter. Once we broke him from the Imperius Curse, Crouch gave a full confession. He broke his son out of Azkaban and had him under the Imperius himself for 10 years, until Peter Pettigrew showed up with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named possessing the body of a small child.

"Apparently this whole thing is a plot to kidnap and murder you, Mr. Potter. From what Crouch understands, the intention is to use your blood in a ritual to resurrect He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named to his full adult state with all of his powers intact. Crouch couldn't do anything to save you while under the Imperius, but his orders didn't preclude him trying to kill you, so he introduced the shark to the previous task with orders to kill all the champions. When he was arrested after Krum's injury, he lost control of his Imperius curse and the shark came after you under its own power. We suspect this is why you were able to chase off the shark, whereas it was more persistent in going after the other champions," the director concluded.

Harry really didn't know what to feel at that moment. Someone had just tried to kill him to stop someone else trying to kill him, and in the process had seriously injured the other champions while also destroying Krum’s chance to play professional Quidditch for the rest of his life. But what if he flipped it? Would he have sacrificed his own life to prevent Voldemort rising again? …of course he would have. He had gone into battle already expecting that to be the outcome. Hadn't he gone down after the Stone in his first year expecting that Voldemort would be there, just on the hope that he could prevent the dark wizard from returning?

But one part of the story didn't make sense to Harry. "Wait, he broke his son out of Azkaban. Why was he in Azkaban?"

The director sighed. "Barty Crouch Junior was convicted of being a Death Eater and for torturing Aurors Frank and Alice Longbottom into a state of permanent insanity by way of the Cruciatus Curse. It was believed until now that he had died in Azkaban."

"So Voldemort is possessing a child," Charlus started, and didn't that thought make Harry sick. "He now has two of his people with him. Peter Pettigrew, a man who is only free because Crouch refused to give my nephew a trial, and Crouch’s own son, a man who is only out of Azkaban because Crouch let him out. And Crouch's way to fix this was to try and end my line to stop some restoration ritual where my grandson is a key ingredient. f*ck dragging this bastard before the Wizengamot, Bones. Just let me in a room with him for five minutes." Grandfather said, sounding incredibly pissed off. Not the loud kind of pissed off either, but the quiet kind that left you with the impression he was trying to work out the most painful way to kill Crouch that would take up those entire five minutes.

Director Bones sighed. "You know I can't do that. But if it's any consolation, I don't think there is any way Crouch will be able to avoid the Kiss once this goes before the Wizengamot."

“Sod Crouch, do you know where Voldemort or either of his two helpers are? Can you catch them?" Harry asked.

"Unfortunately no. They were staying in Crouch's family home, but by the time Crouch had been freed from the Imperius Curse the three of them had left. Apparently they have started the ritual already, as it takes months to build up; not surprising considering the amount of magic it would take to build a new body. They need you for your part in the ritual on the same night as the third task. We don't know how they intended to kidnap you, but rest assured that we will do everything we can to keep you safe. You are going to have a twenty-four-hour-a-day Auror escort until We have either captured all three or the time for the ritual has passed." Director Bones tried to sound reassuring, but considering how much they didn't know it was hard to be reassured of anything.

The conversation went to deciding how Harry was going to be protected going forward. Because Harry being kidnapped would result in the return of Voldemort, the Auror department was putting a lot of effort into keeping him safe. Each week there would be three Aurors assigned to him: one with him, one sleeping, and one on recreation/stand by. Harry was also going to have to move out of the Gryffindor dorms and into a room that the Aurors could guard him without disturbing the other students. Apparently Hogwarts had rooms for professors with families tucked away somewhere, with multiple bedrooms for the Aurors as well as for him.

Grandfather was going to be moved to those rooms as well. The Aurors didn't want to risk him being caught and used as bait to get Harry to slip his Aurors and risk far more than himself to save someone he cared about. And when Grandfather Charlus pointed out that Hermione was in the same position, as Harry would be even more likely to try and rescue her than him, her sleeping arrangements were changed as well.

---ϟϟϟ---

The family quarters had five rooms total, Harry saw after the meeting. One living room with comfortable furniture and a small kitchenette, three bedrooms, and a bathroom. Charlus was given the master bedroom, as some strange bylaws building the Hogwarts wards said that that was where a professor needed to sleep if the rooms were in use. The other two rooms were split by gender. Harry or Hermione would need to share with whichever auror was sleeping there that week, but they were both used to sharing with more people so it wasn't as if they couldn't handle it.

Professor McGonagall soon showed up with Hermione, who had obviously been told what was happening already as her trunk was following behind her like a lost puppy, Crookshanks was riding the trunk like it was his own personal palanquin. Once she saw Harry, Hermione pulled him into a hug and asked him if he was doing okay. Strangely, he could answer truthfully that he was. It wasn't like Voldemort trying to kill Harry was anything new and with Grandfather Charlus around now he had never had more confidence in the adults around him that they would sort it out before it got to the point where he was in danger.

Soon the director came back and introduced them to the three Aurors she had brought with her, Theodore Belmont, Finley Clockwork, and Claire Fenton. Auror Belmont pulled Harry and Hermione aside almost as soon as his boss had left and lectured them on being good protectees. Harry needed to remember that while keeping him safe was the key to this, they weren't just protecting him but also everyone that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named would target if he was able to resume his campaign of terror. They weren't to try and slip their protection at any time, and if they wanted a bit of private time for any reason he just needed to inform them and they would do anything they could to accommodate him without putting him at risk.

Auror Belmont specifically told them that nothing they did would be told to anyone by the Aurors unless they broke the law for a serious crime. No one was going to say anything about a prank or swiping a bag of your mate’s sweets to help yourself to a few without asking. They even told the blushing teens that if the two of them started humping like rabbits the Aurors wouldn’t breathe a word of it to the school or their guardians.

"Let me be one hundred percent clear here. Our job is to protect the two of you, because it's our job to protect him." He pointed at Harry. "And we can't do that if you two keep sneaking off. So if you two want to do anything your parents or your grandfather would disapprove of, all we as your body guards care about is if you are safe. So we will check out whatever room you two want to use to make sure it's secure, then we will wait outside. We aren't your parents, we really don't care."

Neither Harry or Hermione felt that they needed that little speech, especially as they weren't ready to try anything that would upset their guardians just yet. While there was plenty they did that they wouldn't want anyone in the same room as them during those times, nothing that needed to be kept particularly secret.

---ϟϟϟ---

After she had told the Potters what was going on, Amelia Bones made her way back to the Ministry. The Auror offices had their own separate Floo fire from the rest of the Ministry. Aurors and regular law enforcement often had to respond quickly, and it could be dangerous walking a prisoner through the Ministry atrium. But Bones was alone this time, and she wanted to see if one of her Ministry colleagues was in the building yet. To do that, she needed to check the sign-in records at the main lobby, so she Floo’ed directly into the lobby like everyone else.

A quick flash of her ID had the sign-in records for the day passed over to her, and she quickly found out that who she had needed was in. She thanked the welcome wizard as she handed him back the lists and made her way to the lifts. She had gone to see the Potters early, so a few Ministry workers were still arriving for their shifts and she joined a packed lift going down. It was particularly annoying that the lift needed to stop on every floor, even if no one wanted out or in, because it had to stop to see if there were any memos waiting to go down. After the first few stops, the lift was empty enough to breathe again, and by the time she got to her stop she was the only one in the lift at all.

She stepped out and walked along the dark corridor and then down a set of stairs before she reached where she was heading: the Department of Mysteries. She banged on the door twice, then waited. Soon the door opened and a person with a hooded robe shrouding their face in darkness stood there. "Director Bones. What can the Department of Mysteries do for you today?" Even when they were speaking, the Director couldn't tell if it was a wizard, a witch, or even a goblin on stilts that was talking to her.

"I need to talk to Director Croaker. Immediately." She added the qualifier at the end, knowing that if she didn't an Unspeakable was just as likely to take a message and she'd be lucky to hear back from Croaker in a week when whatever project the Unspeakable was working on was over and they finally decided it was time to deliver the message. Honestly, some Unspeakables were just not all there. Or maybe it was just the one and she had been unlucky enough to run to the same one repeatedly.

Everything was blurry as she walked through the Department of Mysteries. It was a fairly simple idea that was surprisingly effective at stopping anyone from stealing D.O.M. secrets: hex the vision of whomever it was you were escorting through the research area. If they couldn't see anything to begin with, then they couldn't remember it later.

Soon she and the featureless Unspeakable stopped outside a big blurry box of colour that was a different colour to the rest of the walls. Her assumption that it was a door was confirmed a moment later when she heard the Unspeakable knocking on it. A voice called for them to enter, and just as Director Bones walked through the door the spell affecting her vision vanished, and she could see the inside of Director Croaker's office. The man she was here to see was looking at her with a curious expression before inviting her to sit.

"Director Bones, to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?" He asked.

"Well Director," she replied, keeping it formal because she was here in her official capacity, "as I have no doubt you have heard, if not by any other means but because it’s been the topic of gossip in the Ministry for days, my people arrested Bartemius Crouch a few days ago." She paused for a second here and the director of the Department of Mysteries nodded to say he had heard about it. "What you may not know is that I had him back for an interview last night."

At this point Director Croaker interrupted. "You know I can't do anything to make him talk, Amelia."

Bones smiled. "No need, he spilled everything as soon as he was in the interview chair." Croaker's eyes widened in surprise, obviously thinking Crouch wasn't the type to be cooperative. "To be fair, considering what he had to say I'm not surprised he told us everything. For all the man's faults, there were things he wouldn't ever compromise on. He was under the Imperius Curse, that's why he trapped Potter in the tournament and released a god damned shark into the lake. The problem is who exactly it was who put him under the Imperius."

"Who?" Asked Crocker.

Instead of answering, Director Bones held up a vial filled with silvery memories. "See for yourself." She then handed Crocker the vial.

Forty minutes later, Croaker pulled out of the memories in his pensive and looked like he was going to be sick. "He's still alive." It was a statement, not a question, as he collapsed back into his chair.

"How, though? And that's an official question from the head of the D.M.L.E. to the D.O.M. How is he alive, what do we need to do to change that, and what are the elements he needs for the rest of this ritual? Hopefully we can catch them before they can attempt to complete the ritual."

"I don't know. At least not yet. Give me some time and I will have my people see what they can discover. For now I recommend keeping the Potter boy as far away from You-Know-Who and his lickspittles as possible. I don't doubt that the element that the boy represents in the ritual can be substituted with another witch or wizard, but they wouldn't go through all this elaborate over-planning if he wasn't the one who would result in the best outcome. By which I mean best for them, worst for us," he clarified.

---ϟϟϟ---

Whilst Directors Bones and Croaker were having a productive meeting in the Department of Mysteries, Cornelius Fudge was having a far more confrontational meeting in his office with the Bulgarian Minister for Magic Oblansk. Oblansk was in a far less jovial and fun mood than the last time the two had met at the Quidditch world cup.

"I don't care about your sympathies, Fudge. One of my citizens, a national treasure to my people, has been seriously injured by the actions of your Head of International Cooperation. My people are calling for his head. Anything less than that and you're gonna have a lot of trouble from Bulgaria in the future."

Fudge was holding his bowler hat in his hands fiddling with the rim as he spoke. "Minister Oblansk, I understand, I truly do. You have my word justice will be done here. But you have to understand there is evidence that Crouch was under the Imperius Curse, and as much as I don't like the man personally he was the Head of the D.M.L.E. during our civil war with You-Know-Who. The man just has too much support for me to do anything but allow normal justice to take its course. If he is guilty, the Aurors will find out and he will be convicted. If he is a victim, then whoever it was that Imperiused him will have his head on the chopping block. Just like they do everywhere, investigations take time."

That seemed to mollify Oblansk a bit, but not nearly as much as Fudge had hoped. "Well, whenever you are done I expect the guilty party to be handed over to Bulgaria to deliver justice."

"Uh, well, that will unfortunately be up to the Wizengamot. I can't authorise that myself. I can and will advocate for it on behalf of your country though." Fudge was nervous and hoped this would be enough now. Bulgaria was one of Magical Britain's biggest suppliers of wheat. British wizards seemed to think they were above farming, something so basic and mundane as wheat was way more expensive than what the Bulgarian Magical farmers sold their crops for. Apparently Muggle wheat was so expensive because it took an entire year to grow a field full, whereas with magic it was possible to get six to eight crops in a growing season. If the Bulgarian wanted to, they could double the cost of wheat, and it would have a huge knock-on effect to Magical Britain's economy. The problem was Oblansk knew that as well.

Oblansk nodded. "Very well, I know that such things can only move at the speed of government and that's a speed that makes sloths look fast. I will wait and see what happens." Fudge let out a sigh of relief. But then Oblansk continued "Now, let's talk about compensation."

All the tension that had left Fudge when Oblansk had agreed to wait returned in an instant, and the British minister felt as if the tension had made a whole bunch of friends while it was gone and had invited them back for a party. "Com-compensation?" He stuttered out.

"Why of course," grinned Oblansk. "Your Head of International Cooperation has destroyed the career of a world class seeker, possibly the best in the world. The boy was signed to the Bulgarian national team for the next five years. His pay was negotiated at a million galleons a year, and he probably would have played until he was thirty. So he has lost out on thirteen million galleons, and my national team has lost the twenty thousand galleons it has invested in the boy’s training. Someone has to compensate them for those losses."

Fudge was sweating now. "Thirteen million? The boy did sign up for the tournament of his own free will."

"Ah but the shark wasn't part of the tournament, was it? It was an extra that was added by an Imperiused judge. So it isn't covered under the tournament's waiver of liability," Oblansk insisted.

"You also can't guarantee that Krum would have played for thirteen years. You never know when a Quidditch player is going to take a bad bludger to the head and have to retire from the sport. Very few players last until they are thirty," Fudge countered. "And any compensation should come from the guilty party, not the Ministry."

The two ministers were negotiating now and would be for the next few hours.

---ϟϟϟ---

After settling into their new protective custody rooms, Harry and Hermione went to find Ron and inform him of what happened. The two teens got more than a few odd looks at being followed everywhere by an Auror, but it was no worse than it had been at other times for Harry and the trio by association. At least this time they weren’t whispering behind their hands accusing Harry of being the Heir of Slytherin or some other ridiculous conspiracy.

Ron was just coming out of the Great Hall when they found him, as breakfast was just finishing. Luckily for the couple Ron thought ahead enough that, when his two friends missed breakfast, he made them each a breakfast sandwich. The sandwiches were very much to Ron's taste, fully stuffed with bacon, sausage, and egg. Not exactly to Harry or Hermione’s taste, but the two teens were suddenly reminded of having not eaten since dinner last night and were too grateful to care.

The trio walked to class and, between taking bites of their on-the-go breakfast, Harry and Hermione filled Ron in on everything they had learned that morning. Ron listened, taking in every detail and then said, "You-Know-Who's plan doesn't make sense."

"What do you mean?" Auror Belmont, who was following them, asked.

"Why put Harry in the tournament at all? All that has done is put him and everyone around him on guard. Maybe we assume that the reason to enter Harry in the tournament is because something about the tournament opens a hole in Hogwarts protections, creating a window to grab Harry. That makes sense, but what extra opportunity do you get by Harry being in the tournament rather than just letting him watch? If they had done nothing, during the final task Harry would be seated in the audience watching the match. No one watching out for him, no Aurors looking for kidnappers or plots, you get what I'm saying? All this has achieved is putting us all on edge and making Harry train like there is no tomorrow. Anyone who tries to kidnap Harry now is going to get a lightning bolt spell straight to the face, how is that an improvement over a blissfully ignorant Harry sitting in the stands?"

"That is a disturbingly good point," Hermione said.

"Tell me about it. If I get kidnapped now, I'm just gonna feel embarrassed that such an overcomplicated plan worked," joked Harry trying to bring a bit of levity to the serious topic.

"Harry, be serious!" Hermione rebuked him.

Belmont however said, "It could be for a number of reasons, perhaps something about the last task makes it easy to kidnap a champion. I will have my colleagues look into that, but there could be other reasons. For example, it's got to be embarrassing to be the Dark Lord beaten by a baby. It's possible that they want to make Harry look exceptionally powerful in the eyes of the public, so that when You-Know-Who kills him it's a statement of just how much more powerful he is by comparison. Or it could be some other factor that we can't see yet. Whatever happens, you have a good head on your shoulders, red. You should consider joining the Aurors once you’re finished with school."

By this point they were all at their first class of the day, and the four of them filed into the classroom where Auror Belmont stood at the back to be out of the line of sight of all the students once they took their seats, minimising his disruption to the class.

At dinner that evening, Harry and Hermione were grilling Ron about the next round in his chess tournament. Ron had routed his first opponent last Sunday, a sixth year Ravenclaw, and the next round was this weekend. Ron was double-booked for the weekend, as Saturday he was playing chess and Sunday he was playing Quidditch for the Gryffindor vs Beauxbatons game.

Suddenly the whole dinner hall went silent. The three looked up to see what was happening, and everyone was already staring at the hall's main doors. Standing in the doorway like a deer caught in the headlights was Victor Krum, the left sleeve of his robes pinned up so it didn't flap around uselessly only emphasising the missing limb.

Harry wanted to do something to help, he knew he wasn't at fault but it was he who was the main target. He just didn't think there was anything he could do. What do you say to someone who lost an arm just because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time? 'I'm so sorry, the shark that was sent to kill me bit off your arm' just didn't seem to cut it.

They watched as Krum looked around the hall at everyone staring at him, then he braced himself and went to sit with the other Durmstrang students. Most of the eyes in the hall, including Ron's, followed the Durmstrang champion’s progress, but Harry's eyes were determinately staring at the bowl of beef bourguignon, a French twist on the beef stew that was a Hogwarts staple.

"I really should say something to him," Harry said out loud. "I mean it was because of me he was caught in the crossfire. I should at least apologise for that."

"I don't know mate, if it was me I think you would be the last person I would want to speak to me. You could just be making everything worse,," Ron advised.

"But Harry would definitely be making it worse if he ignored Krum," Hermione said as she buttered some crusty French baguette for herself.

"So damned if I do, damned if I don't," moaned Harry.

"You could always try a letter," Ron suggested.

"Does he even read English?" Harry countered. "He has all the respect for learning another language. It's not something I could do, but we don't know if he just learned to talk or if he learned reading as well."

"You're grasping at straws Harry. I get you're nervous, I would be too, but you have to do something. If he can't read English, then he probably has a friend who can help. You know what you need to do."

Harry let out a sigh. Hermione was right, he did know, he just needed to act like the Gryffindor he was and actually do it.

Chapter 35

Chapter Text

Chapter 35

Harry was surprised just how quickly Crouch was brought to trial. Only a week after his confession, Harry and Charlus were both sent notices to appear for the trial: Harry as an injured party (having his name entered into the tournament) and Charlus as both Harry's guardian and as a member of the Wizengamot. The trial was set for the following weekend. When Harry asked his grandfather about why everything was moving so quickly, he got a lesson on politics for him, Hermione, and a poor Ron who hadn't run away fast enough. At the end, Harry was asked by his grandfather to sum up.

"There are two main factors in the trial being scheduled so soon. One is because the British wizarding world is so small compared to muggle Britain. The smaller size means that the systems in place just aren't as complex, so it takes things a lot less time to move through the system. The other main factor is politics. This is an international incident because of what happened to Krum, so because of that the Ministry is most likely under pressure from at least the Bulgarian Ministry to get things done to a reasonable conclusion.

"However there are probably other groups that add pressure as well, such as the international Quidditch League who have the influence to shape public opinion of Britain's magical society. This means Minister Fudge is likely putting pressure on everyone he can to get this matter pushed to the front of the queue." Harry summarised the past thirty minutes of lectures from his grandfather.

"Excellent Harry! Now, we will need to go out and get you some formal robes that would be appropriate to wear in front of the Wizengamot. Hermione you as well, I intend to take you along too. It will be a good opportunity to teach you the intricacies of the wizarding legal system. Of course I will need to get permission from your parents first, but that shouldn't be a problem," Charlus told them. He then turned to Ron and asked, "Ronald, do you want to come as well? I can always ask your parents if they will give permission."

"No thanks. I have had plenty of lectures from dad about how trials work, after all his job in the Ministry is also part of the D.M.L.E., so trials are part of his job. I would just be bored out of my mind," Ron explained.

Hermione was excited for the opportunity to learn by actually seeing the system. It was one thing to learn this stuff from books, but that was more about laws and rights; seeing it in practice would provide a lot of context the books left out.

This weekend was the second round of the chess tournament and Ron was playing again, this time up against a Bulgarian. Harry and Hermione had agreed to come and watch, though chess really wasn't a sport for spectators. No matter that one of the seventh years had enchanted the boards with a Protean Charm so that they displayed the current layout of the pieces on a poster, making the game much easier to follow for the people watching. It was still a game where one person told their piece what to do, and then their opponent did the same. Sure, there was a little entertainment when a piece was taken and you got to see the little enchanted figures fight, but it still got repetitive quickly.

Hermione had actually brought a couple of books with her and had ended up lending one to Harry, a well-thumbed copy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Hermione had obviously read it more than a few times before, and Harry was surprisingly hooked after the first few sentences. They looked up to see that Ron of course won his match against the Durmstrang competitor, who actually looked rather impressed with Ron's skill at the game.

---ϟϟϟ---

On Monday morning Harry received a letter from Krum thanking him for the correspondence Harry had sent offering his sympathies. The letter was very formal and thanked Harry for not only the letter but for his recommendation that, if Krum wanted to get a legal representative to help sort out the mess he was in, Harry strongly recommended the services of Gripsack–Anne Twist. From Krum’s letter Harry guessed he wasn't in the mood to be friendly. It didn't help Harry feel any better about the whole situation, but there really was nothing he had done to be blamed for or could do to improve the situation.

Hermione also received a letter from her parents that had a note giving their written permission for Hermione to be taken out of the school for any shopping that may be required and to attend the trial in the Wizengamot. Hermione’s parents also wanted her to convey their thanks to Charlus for keeping her out of the shark-infested lake. Hermione hadn't actually told her parents about almost being used as bait in the task, so that proved that Charlus was making good on his promise to keep them informed, and they were apparently rather happy with his results.

They had taken the note to Charlus right after breakfast, and as Professor McGonagall was still in the hall watching the students as they started to make their way towards class, they had quickly headed over to give her the written permission as Hermione’s head of house.

"Ah Minerva, can you wait up a second?" called Charlus over the sea of student heads.

The professor in question had looked around to see who called and nodded. It took a few minutes for the students to clear enough for them to reach the professor, during which time both professors had needed to shout at students for doing something stupid, from a Ravenclaw who was walking with his head in a book to a Hufflepuff who was dancing around her friends while going up the stairs.

"Charlus, what can I do for you?"

"I need to take these two out of the castle a few times this week," He put his hands on Harry and Hermione’s heads to indicate he meant them and not Ron. "It will be outside of class time, a couple of evening trips and then all day Saturday. Maybe Sunday as well, depending on how long Crouch’s trial takes."

When he mentioned the trial, Professor McGonagall nodded a little in understanding. "You will need written permission from Miss Granger's parents. I know you are her magical guardian, but Hogwarts policy is that muggle parents have equal rights."

He held up the note from Hermione’s parents. "I already have that right here." He held it out for her. " What about Harry, do you need it in writing from me as well or is my word good enough?"

Professor McGonagall took the note and gave it a read through. "This is fine, technically you don't need to supply a written permission as Mr. Potter is fully your ward, but it would be easier for our records if we had a written note."

"No problem, I will get that to you at lunch." And with that Charlus followed a group of Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws who were on their way to his classroom. By coincidence the trio had Transfiguration first thing today, so they walked with their professor, after all they couldn't be called late if they arrived the same time she did.

---ϟϟϟ---

Charlus took Harry and Hermione to Diagon Alley that very evening. His reasoning was that they had no idea what kind of backlog the tailor would have, so it was better to get in as early as possible. They Floo'ed from Charlus’s office to the Leaky Cauldron and then went straight to Twilfit and Tattings, the more upmarket robe retailers in the ally. Charlus had taken charge, quickly laying out the specifications he needed; these robes were formal business not formal ball, and they needed to have the Potter crest on them. After that, Harry and Hermione were given free reign to choose things like cut or colour.

Bright colours were out, especially as it was a trial they were attending, and so was purple. "The robes that the Wizengamot members wear are purple, a hold over from when purple dye was incredibly rare and expensive. If you wear purple in the Wizengamot, for a trial or any other type of meeting, it is considered a declaration that you are gunning for a seat. Witches have a little more leeway in that they can get away with a purple accessory of some type without people considering a declaration, but if your robes are purple, or have a purple trim or even lining, it's considered a declaration of intent," Charlus answered when Hermione asked why they couldn't wear purple.

"Now, neither of you are Warlocks and are still in Hogwarts, so it would be assumed to be a mistake rather than a declaration. But, and it's a big but, it would tell everyone there that you're ignorant of the protocols and I would be considered to have failed to educate you," Charlus finished his explanation.

"That's not written in any of the law books I have found," Hermione complained.

"Technically there is no law enforcement of these rules. They are just accepted practice. Try Wizengamot Practice by Erskine Miggin*, it's the definitive rulebook that the Wizengamot uses if a rule needs to be checked or looked up. I have a self-updating copy in the Potter library if you're interested in borrowing it." Charlus said.

Hermione of course jumped at the opportunity, and with that settled they went back to choosing their robes. Harry had chosen a set in a more modern style in charcoal grey with (at Hermione’s request) a green trim to match his eyes. Hermione also went with a more modern cut, only she went with a black material that also had a silver pattern embroidered into it that looked really good on her.

The order placed and paid for, the three made their way to Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour before they returned to the Leaky Cauldron and Floo'ed directly back to Charlus's office in Hogwarts.

---ϟϟϟ---

Saturday eventually came around. Harry and Hermione met Charlus right after breakfast, and they were quickly joined by Krum, Karkaroff, and Dumbledore. They all made their way up to the headmaster's office and Floo'ed to the Ministry from there. When they emerged it was into a massive crowd of people. Not only had they arrived at the same time as everyone arriving for work, there was also the entire Wizengamot, their aides, the extra D.M.L.E. staff brought in to provide security for a full meeting of the Wizengamot. Add to that everyone who was there just to watch, from the press to concerned citizens, and it was like the main stage at Glastonbury. The lifts dinged often and did their work shuttling off the crowd one group at a time, and the group from Hogwarts waited their turn. As they waited, Charlus told Harry, Hermione, and a bored Krum who was listening in about the Ministry.

"The Ministry itself is actually a fairly new institution, only about six hundred years old. That's why places like Hogwarts have so much autonomy from the Ministry. Hogwarts is older, and the agreements it had with the Wizengamot and druid councils of the day were grandfathered in. The Ministry was constructed as a direct response to two factors. One, the wizarding population exploded from maybe ten thousand to maybe eighty thousand in a generation, meaning a more complex system was needed to police the laws and handle the day to day running of things. The other was the implementation of the International Statute of Secrecy. Because of the law, there needed to be trained witches and wizards available to go modify memories and keep magic a secret.

“Of course, the Ministry was originally a lot smaller than it is today. Over time, a bunch of groups got added to the Ministry as departments. For example, the Department of Magical Games and Sports was originally just a group of wizards who had set up a place where the different teams of different magical sports could challenge other teams. The Ministry also created other departments as needed, like Floo regulation when it became necessary. Over the centuries it grew to what it is now,” Charlus explained, having the full attention of all three teenagers as there was little else to focus on.

Eventually it was their turn to take the lift, and Dumbledore set the controls to take them straight to the lowest floor, which contained the Wizengamot chamber, a number of courtrooms, and according to the voice in the lift something called the Department of Mysteries. The big event today was in courtroom one. According to Charlus, courtroom one was the largest; it had not only room for the entire Wizengamot to sit in judgement but room for the press and the public as well.

As Crouch had already admitted his guilt, the 'trial' today was more about determining how much impact his crimes had and to determine what exact form justice would take. Because of this, Harry and Krum were allowed to join everyone in the courtroom, or they would have been made to wait in a nearby lounge until they were called to give evidence. Harry and Hermione were allowed to sit with Charlus as they were members of his house, but Krum and Karkaroff had to go sit in the seats reserved for witnesses. While everyone was filing into the room, Charlus one more started explaining things.

"As you look around, you will see that there are forty nine regular seats for the sitting Warlocks of the Wizengamot. Seven times seven so it incorporates strong magical numbers." He then pointed to another area. "And over there are the thirteen spaces given to anyone who holds an Order of Merlin, First Class. It's rare that all of them are filled because we don't normally have thirteen living witches or wizards who have earned the honour. Something like ninety percent of the awards are given posthumously. Normally having thirteen means something really bad, like a war has happened recently," Charlus explained.

“What happens if there are more than thirteen people who have an Order of Merlin?" asked Harry.

"An Order of Merlin, First Class, as it’s only the holders of First Class that can take a seat in the Wizengamot. If there are more than thirteen holders of the honour, then someone has messed up. Hopefully by giving them out way too much when they weren't deserved, or otherwise by letting something terrible come about where there were enough situations for fourteen people to legitimately earn one. However, if such a thing happens, then the seat priority goes to whomever has held the honour the longest." Charlus then went on to explain the procedure for a session like this and how it was different from a trial that needed to determine guilt.

Crouch was eventually brought in, and as Harry looked at the man the only impression he had was that he looked like he had given up. There was a lot of boring waffle that took them half an hour to say, which basically amounted to a pile of standard information that was required for Ministry records. It was all stuff like who the law wizards were, what was Crouch's full legal name, date of birth, and blood status. Even Harry and Hermione’s names and information were taken down as witnesses. Harry could understand the need for a lot of the information to be on the record, and he felt a little sorry for the poor court scribe who was busily taking down that information, but it really was a mind-numbingly boring half an hour.

Once everything was recorded, Dumbledore knocked on the desk in front of him to get everyone's attention and addressed the courtroom. "Witches, wizards, and of course our esteemed Warlocks, as Chief Warlock this hearing is started. Defendant Crouch, I have parchment work here indicating that you pleaded guilty to the charges of 'aiding in the escape of a lawful prisoner, providing assistance and succour to an individual you knew to be a fugitive, attempted murder of eight individuals (three of whom were minors), grievous bodily harm, and repetitive use of an Unforgivable curse.' This is your last opportunity to change your plea to not guilty. Do you wish to amend your plea?"

"No Chief Warlock. My recorded plea will stand," Crouch said.

That had almost the entire courtroom staring at Crouch, stunned. There was absolutely no way that he was ever going to be free again for the rest of his life after an admission like that. Hell, he would be lucky if he didn't get the dementors kiss.

"Then it is my solemn duty to pronounce you guilty of all charges. You will of course spend the rest of your life in the maximum security ward of Azkaban, after your admission to multiple uses of an Unforgivable curse there is no lesser option available to you. However, your crimes as they are may require additional punitive measures to take place. To this end, I move this criminal hearing to a sentencing hearing. And seeing as the prisoner is being so cooperative, I ask that he give us a full accounting of the story from his own point of view," Dumbledore said as he moved the trial on.

Crouch did exactly as he was asked and told his story. He told them of his son rotting in Azkaban and his wife rotting away to a blood curse that was eating away at her body and spirit. He told them how his wife had begged for him to save their sweet, innocent boy from the Dementors. He explained that the more his wife advocated for their son, the more he had come to second guess giving his own son little more than a show trial.

He told everyone how he had eventually agreed, and how his wife had obtained Polyjuice while he arranged a deathbed visit between his wife and son, and how the two of them had switched places. He explained smuggling his son home and nursing him back to health, finding the Dark Mark on his arm, and then feeding him Veritaserum and discovering that not only was his son a Death Eater, he had enjoyed torturing the Longbottoms and was planning to continue his crusade now that he was free.

Crouch told the courtroom how he had planned to kill his son rather than let him go free; however, the promise he had made to his wife and the fact that it was his own son had meant that he hadn't been able to do it. He may be a criminal, a murderer, a traitor to wizarding Britain, but he was still his boy. So he decided that he would make sure his son fulfilled his lawful sentence, only as it couldn't be done at Azkaban anymore he would be kept at Crouch Manor in secret.

He explained how he kept his son under the Imperius Curse to force his compliance and to keep the world safe, as he wasn't strong enough to do anything more permanent. And then he told everyone about He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named turning up at his house with Peter Pettigrew.

Immediately the whole courtroom was in an uproar, some screaming how it couldn't be true while others were screaming at Crouch calling him a liar. There was absolute pandemonium in the room as people started yelling not only at Crouch but other Warlocks who disagreed with them.

BANG!

There was a sudden sound of an explosion and Dumbledore yelled, "Silence!" Immediately, the whole courtroom turned and gave the man their full attention. "This is the highest court in magical Britain. You are the Warlocks charged with the dignity of this country. I will not have you behaving worse than the school children who are present here. You will all have an opportunity to disagree if you want to, but it will be done in the orderly and dignified way of this body, not as a mob of hooligans."

Charlus, seeing an opportunity he had hoped for, stood up. “Point of order. We have someone here today who can confirm by the evidence of their own eyes that You-Know-Who is not as dead as we would wish. I would also like to add that Mr. Crouch here has already admitted to crimes that will see him spend the rest of his life as a prisoner, maybe even kissed after we deliberate on the matter of him helping a prisoner escape Azkaban. He has nothing to gain by misleading this body."

Director Bones also stood up from her seat. "I would like to echo the point that Warlock Potter has made in regards to Crouch’s motivations, but just would like to add that Crouch has confirmed his belief that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named arrived at his house under the influence of Veritaserum. I am, however, legally required to remind this body that Veritaserum only makes an individual say what they believe is true. It is possible to believe something is true even if it is not, especially when you consider illusionary, Transfiguration, and mind-altering magic are all easily done by any reasonably competent individual. That being said, I can confirm that Crouch believes what he is telling this court.”

A few of the warlocks looked bored at Director Bones's statement. Harry assumed it was because they had heard it so many times before that it just grated on their nerves. It was understandable, Veritaserum was extremely unreliable not because the potion didn't work but because it was too easy to make someone believe something else. That's why it was considered a really valuable investigation tool by the D.M.L.E. but was not accepted by the Wizengamot for a trial. At least, not for more than proving someone believes what they are saying.

However, the majority of people were looking around to see who it was that Warlock Potter was referring to when he said that someone there had seen Voldemort alive before now. More than a few eyes came to rest on Harry; some people were apparently intelligent enough to put together Harry's past and the fact that Charlus was the one who had said it together.

A few people started calling for whomever it was to stand and tell them. Harry hesitated for a moment and looked at his grandfather to see what he should do. Grandfather Charlus gave Harry a nod, so he stood up and waited a moment for everyone to stop speaking. "Um well… uh, yes I can confirm that Voldemort," the Wizengamot flinched when Harry said the name, "is still alive. There was an incident my first year at Hogwarts and Voldemort," a second flinch, "tried to kill me. He was hurt badly, he didn't even have a body anymore, but he was alive, he had magic, and he was looking for a way to get his body back."

There were a few gasps at that, and before Harry could say any more Crouch said, "That is what You-Know-Who wanted with me. He has a body now, but it's artificial. It's also small, fragile, and dying." Harry was going to start talking again, but Crouch pressed on so Harry sat back down. "He wants to use the tournament to capture Harry Potter and use him and his blood in a ritual that will restore him to a true body.

"They interrogated me about the tournament and how everything was going to work. It…it was hard. I tried to resist, but it was impossible. You-Know-Who broke into my mind and he learned everything, including where I was keeping my son, a follower of his that never abandoned him. I was put under the Imperius Curse and I was made to pretend nothing was wrong. They made me put Mr. Potter's name in the Goblet of Fire under the name of a fourth school."

"Their plan was to kidnap Mr. Potter during the first task. However I was fighting the Imperius. I couldn't go against an order, but I had a little freedom outside of it. My orders were to run the tournament and to make sure Harry was afraid, so I made a plan. My thought was if Mr. Potter died before the third task, then You-Know-Who wouldn't be able to use him for the ritual. If I killed Harry Potter, the magical world would be safe from the second rise of Voldemort. One kid to save hundreds of lives. However, the only way to do it was as a part of the tournament. I had the Department of Magical Creatures procure a mundane shark and then I modified it, they had no way of knowing that it wasn't an official part of the competition.

"I added a bunch of charms to make the shark attack any of the champions in the lake, and then I snuck the shark into the lake on the day of the task. It would have all been over, everyone would have been safe, but then Mr. Potter decided on a strategy I hadn't even considered. All the other champions got into the Lake and swam towards the hostages, but Mr. Potter summoned a boat and sailed right over the shark while it was more interested in hunting the other champions.

"It was a disaster. I tried to end the enchantments on the shark quickly to save the lives of all the other champions, as without Potter dying the other deaths were pointless. Yet I wasn't fast enough to do it before Mr. Krum lost his arm. Of course, then I was discovered, arrested, and taken to St. Mungo’s where I finally got the help I needed to break free of the Imperius Curse."

There was silence after Crouch finished giving his side of the story. About half the people in the hall were now staring at Harry, who was just trying to think what he would do in Crouch's situation. He would try to stop Voldemort returning, he had done that before, but would he kill an innocent person to stop it? He didn't think so.

Some people started to ask what they were going to do about Voldemort, with a few even calling for Harry to be arrested and either killed or put somewhere secure. But before those voices could gain any traction, Dumbledore stood and got everyone's attention. "I will remind everyone that this is not a session of the Wizengamot but a sentencing hearing. We are here to debate what punishment should befall Mr Crouch."

The actual debate took almost two hours, with almost everyone having a different opinion. It was rather disturbing having to listen as Crouch’s life was carved up and doled out to people. In the end it was decided that Crouch would spend the rest of his life in Azkaban, even if some people wanted him kissed. As everyone in the family was now a convicted criminal, it was decided that every asset that the family owned, save for a house elf, would be sold and the gold would be split between the victims, with Krum getting around 80% and the house elf.

Harry had needed to hold Hermione’s hand and soothe her as they were talking about the house elf, the more they talked about her as an “it”, the more it hammered into Harry and Hermione just how much it was straight-up slavery. Yet there was nothing they could do about it here, if they spoke up the best they could hope for was being thrown out of the courtroom. The only compensation they seemed to have was that Krum did not seem to be like Malfoy, and whoever this elf was they would have a much better time of it then Dobby had.

The remaining 20% of the gold from the Crouch assets would be shared between everyone that was in the lake with the shark. A few of the darker families tried to protest the Potter family getting a double share, but before Grandfather Charlus could say anything Regent Longbottom, Neville's grandmother Augusta, stood and reminded them that the entire Potter family was in danger and that Harry and Charlus were in fact different people.

As soon as the court was adjourned, Crouch was taken away by the Aurors, and a number of Warlocks all stood up and demanded an emergency section of the Wizengamot be called for tomorrow. There was more than enough support for that and the Chief Warlock could only agree to it.

---ϟϟϟ---

Later that evening, Harry made his way up to the Astronomy tower, wanting to be alone. He was still thinking about everything he learned today, specifically about how he was the key to Voldemort’s return. He kept thinking back to the decision he'd made when he was 11 when he decided to go after the Philosopher's Stone. If Voldemort came back, it would be so much worse for everyone.

Back then the decision had been easy. Hell, what did Harry have to lose? Sure he had a couple of friends, but he didn't have any family. Risking everything was easy when he didn't have a lot to lose and was acutely aware of the approaching summer where he would be sent to live at the Dursleys. Now, though, he had his grandfather, his godfather, and most importantly he had Hermione. He would never need to return to the Dursleys again, he had everything to live for. Even as he looked at the ground over the railing, he knew that he couldn't ever do it.

He stood there watching the moon rise, and eventually he heard someone coming up the stairs behind him. He didn't have to look around to know it was Hermione, her slightly laboured breathing and sound of her footsteps had given away that it was her already. Still he didn't say anything, he just leaned on the rail and watched.

Hermione placed an arm around him before asking, "Need to talk about it?"

Harry leaned into her a little and said "No. It's just the same old sh*t that comes with my life. I just needed some time to process it all."

Hermione bit her lip nervously before she mustered her courage and said, "Don't take this the wrong way Harry, but I can't help but notice you heard you were the key to Voldemort's restoration today, and now you're standing on top of the school's highest tower."

Harry sighed. Hermione really knew him too well. "I'm not going to jump Hermione."

Harry could feel her relax against him. "Good. Then what are we going to do?"

"I don't know yet, I just know that giving up or running away to hide are not the answers," Harry said, the two stayed there for another two hours just watching the moon and the stars until they were discovered by Professor Sinistra, who took ten points from each of them and sent them to bed.

Chapter 36

Chapter Text

Stitch in Time - Chapter 36

The day after the trial, Harry and Hermione (much to the annoyance of the Aurors who were watching them) were swamped at breakfast with students wanting to hear what had happened. The trial did involve an international sports celebrity, after all, and the news about it wouldn't break until the Prophet was delivered. Krum was too surly for anyone to feel comfortable asking him, so they all wanted Harry and Hermione to tell them. They might have told everyone to bugger off, but one of the people wanting the news was Ron.

Even if it would only get them their answer half an hour earlier than just waiting for the paper Hermione gave in and explained what had happened. While Hermione was recapping, Harry was worrying about the special section of the Wizengamot that would be starting in a few hours. He didn't need to be a seer to know that someone was going to propose either killing him or locking him away to keep him from being used in Voldemort's restoration ritual. Harry would be lying if he said he wasn't nervous.

Even Charlus was nervous. He had pulled Harry into his room before they had left the suite this morning and ordered Harry to keep his invisibility cloak on him today. The fact that Charlus had taken Harry away from his Auror protection was more than enough to tell Harry not only how nervous his grandfather was but that they may not be able to trust the Aurors. If the Ministry ordered Harry detained, then it was the Aurors who would be given the job to do it. Harry had also grabbed the Marauders' Map, as with that and his cloak he could probably hide in Hogwarts for a week or more without anyone finding him.

Harry shook himself out of his worries and got back to listening to Hermione as he ate his bowl of porridge that he had chopped up an apple in and then sweetened with honey. He was probably just being paranoid, but it was hard not to jump to the worst possible conclusion when the warlocks had immediately called for a special session right after learning that Harry was in some way a key component in resurrecting the country's boogeyman. He tuned back in to listen to how the students were taking the tale of what happened yesterday. The fact that Crouch had been under the Imperius Curse yesterday, yet admitted to crimes so terrible that he had earned himself a life sentence in Azkaban anyway, captivated the students who were listening,

Luckily for the two of them, the mail arrived, freeing Hermione from recapping yesterday's trial and providing Harry with a distraction as a parcel was dropped in his lap by three large eagle owls. He checked the label to make sure it was for him, and noticed it also had the logo of the company who had sent it. A huge grin spread over his face; they were finally here.

"Hermione, Ron, we need to get out of here for a few minutes," he told his friends in a low voice.

"Harry, mate, I haven't finished my breakfast yet," Ron complained.

"Trust me, I'm sure you'll love this more than breakfast," Harry insisted.

"That, Harry, is blasphemy," Ron said in mock seriousness.

Harry just laughed. "Come on mate, trust me. And it's Sunday, you can always grab a second breakfast."

Hermione was already standing at this point, waiting for the two boys to get up. When Harry stood Ron followed, but he wrapped the last of his sausage and bacon between a slice of toast and started to eat it as they walked. Harry led them to an empty classroom. The two Aurors with them insisted on checking the room first, but it was clear of anything that you wouldn't expect to be in a classroom. The two Aurors then stationed themselves outside the door where they could stop anyone from getting in. Also from leaving, Harry thought, his paranoia reminding him that it was still around.

"Okay Harry, what was so important that you had to interrupt breakfast?" Ron asked.

"Really Ron, is your stomach the only thing you care about?" Hermione asked, exasperated by their ginger friend.

"Nope, there is also chess, Quidditch, and which of the single ladies in this school is the hottest," Ron said without hesitating.

"Yeah, Ron needs to know which girls he doesn't have the guts to ask out," Harry quipped at Ron's expense, causing both his friends to laugh. "Seriously though, I think you guys will love this." Harry said as he laid out his package on what used to be a professor's desk. He unwrapped the package and pulled out not just one but three large coats. Each one was made of a dark leather that shone in the light coming through the window. One had a periwinkle blue lining, one had maroon, and the third was a dark bottle green. Harry slid the green lined one towards himself and pushed the periwinkle towards Hermione and the maroon towards Ron, saying, "Thanks for helping me prepare for the tasks, guys. I had the Horntail’s hide turned into these coats for us."

He unfurled his coat to reveal that it went from his neck to around his mid calf, completely covering everything along the way apart from his hand. This was intentional, dragon leather was naturally magic resistant, and a lot of hexes, jinxes, and even a few low-power curses were completely useless against dragonhide. This cut of coat meant that most of the body of whoever was wearing it was covered. it wasn't enchanted like Auror robes or anything like that, but at the same time Auror robes didn't look as cool.

Harry slipped his on to see how it fit. The charms on the coat immediately pulled on some of the seams, making it fit him perfectly. He wished he had a mirror to check how it looked, but then noticed that Ron and Hermione were still looking at their coats.

"Well, aren't you going to try them on?" Harry asked.

"Harry, how much did this cost you? This is a lot of dragon hide," Ron was obviously embarrassed.

"Nothing," Harry shrugged. "I traded the rest of the hide and a contract to sign any certificate of authenticity he needed for whatever he made from the hide, for the coats. It didn't cost me a knut. Apparently he thinks he can sell dragonhide items made from a dragon slain in single combat by a celebrity for a premium. I was able to negotiate three coats instead of one."

Ron visibly relaxed and tried on his coat, his instantly resizing to fit him as well. Harry thought the coats were tighter fitting than robes, but looked similar enough to open front-style robes that they easily fit in the magical world. In addition, the coats were similar enough to mundane long coats that no one would look twice if they walked down any non magical street in the UK wearing them. Well, maybe if they did it in the middle of the summer, after all leather tends to be heavy and doesn't have a reputation for keeping you cool, though these coats did have charms on them to keep whomever was wearing them at a comfortable temperature. It wasn't strong enough to go anywhere too exotic, but within Britain they would likely be fine.

Hermione was still looking at her coat, but unlike Ron she was closely examining hers and running her hands over the smooth leather. "Hermione, you should try it on," Harry insisted.

Hermione did just that. Her coat was a little different from Harry and Ron's; because it was a women’s coat it was cut a little differently, the waist tapered in and the lower half flaring a little. Yet it was still clearly like the ones Harry and Ron were wearing. The cut of the coat did a lot to show that Hermione had a figure, something that the school robes did a lot to hide. Harry thought Hermione looked both dangerous and absolutely stunning in the new coat.

"It's a pity we don't have a mirror in here." Hermione said as she looked down trying to get an idea of how she looked in the coat. She was so busy doing that she hadn't noticed that Harry was just standing there staring at her.

"Hermione, you don't need a mirror, you just need to see the way Harry is looking at you," Ron joked.

Hermione looked up to see Harry and noticed that he was looking at her so intently. She blushed at his behaviour, but she wasn't the shy type and decided that Harry needed a proper thanking. She walked up to him, grabbed ahold of the opening of his new coat, and pulled him into a heated kiss that only stopped when Ron coughed loud enough to remind them that he was still there. When the two broke apart he said, "Don't expect me to thank you the same way mate." And the three of them laughed.

---ϟϟϟ---

Charlus took his seat in the Wizengamot and waited. While there were definitely important topics that needed to be discussed here today, he was also afraid of the possibility that it would descend into a mob mentality. It would be all too easy for a group like this to decide to sacrifice Harry's magic, if not his life, to prevent Voldemort from returning. And sacrificing Harry's magic would be exactly what they would be doing if they put Harry in some type of protective custody. If Harry couldn't participate in the final task, he would breach a magical contract.

Dumbledore brought the meeting to order, and immediately a number of warlocks signalled that they wanted to be heard. Dumbledore gave the floor to Warlock Ogden, who was a rather fair-minded member from what Charlus remembered. He mostly brought bills to the chamber in regard to commerce and trade, most of which would benefit businesses like his family distillery.

"My fellow warlocks, after the revelations yesterday I say we need to prepare to deal with the threat before You-Know-Who can start another war. A war that this country cannot afford, as we had barely recovered from the war of Grindelwald when You-Know-Who started his reign of terror. Businesses were stretched to the absolute limit. Another war could see long standing staples of the Wizarding World disappear forever.

“We need to provide the powers and the funding that the Auror force needs so that they can root out these subversive elements of our society. We also need to buy them the time they need to investigate and act. Harry Potter is not only one of the most famous people in our world, but You-Know-Who also seems to believe that the poor boy is the key to his restoration. I recommend that Mr Potter be taken into protective custody where it is impossible for him to be kidnapped, until this matter is either dealt with or You-Know-Who has returned, at which point keeping the boy locked away would be like closing the barn door after the hippogriff has flown off."

Charlus immediately added his name to the crowd who wanted to speak, but Warlock Nott was given the floor next. "My fellow warlocks, let's not get carried away here. Let's consider what the esteemed Warlock Ogden just proposed, shall we? We should take an innocent teenager and lock him away even though he has committed no crime, a boy who is beloved by the witches and wizards on the street. I for one won't be agreeing to that because I'm sure any of us who vote to do that will be lynched the moment we dare to step foot in public." Warlock Nott then sat back down.

Charlus was surprised at first, he was well aware that Nott was one of Voldemort's supporters. He would have thought that Nott would be in favour of isolating Harry. Then Charlus realised that it wasn't any concern for Harry that had him speaking against this proposal, Nott wanted Harry out in the open because he wanted Voldemort's return, and to facilitate that they wanted Harry vulnerable.

Charlus was struck by a brief moment of indecision. Was he doing the right thing if those were the people who agreed with him? He quickly thought over everything again and realised that he was already doing the right thing. If they threw him away it was going to cost Harry his magic, but it would only delay the return of You-Know-Who. Once You-Know-Who was back he was going to target Harry, if for no other reason than plain old spite. No, if Harry was going to have a chance to survive this, he needed his magic and people backing him up.

Charlus didn't wait to be called, he just stood up and glared at the Chief Warlock, practically daring Dumbledore to give the floor to another warlock. Dumbledore seemed to notice and gave Charlus the floor next.

"My fellow warlocks, I must protest this ridiculous line of discussion. Firstly, this body has no legal right to order the detainment of any citizen if they haven't been accused of a crime. Secondly, it is impossible for Harry to be kept out of the Triwizard Tournament without him breaking a magical contract, which while he is young enough that he would probably survive the shock, that's not guaranteed. It is guaranteed, however, to significantly shorten his life. Most Muggles only live until their eighties, seventy years less than the average wizard. To do such a thing to a boy who has done nothing to warrant it is immoral to a degree that I would argue that anyone behind such a thing would deserve a few decades as a guest of the Dementors.

"Thirdly. Harry is the last Heir to the House of Potter. If you vote for this, I will be well within my right as the Warlock of the House of Potter to declare blood feud on you for line assault, and trust me I would be more than happy to do so." Charlus stared right at Ogden as he spoke, making it clear that he was more than willing to destroy the man if it meant protecting his family, before continuing.

"What the hell is wrong with you people? We haven't even tried to find a different solution, yet we're ready to jump to sacrificing the magic and future of an innocent teenager already? Are you sad*stic, stupid, or insane? Because those are the only three options I can see for jumping to such an extremely disgusting solution before even trying for another option." As Charlus continued his impromptu speech, more than a few people around the room started to look ashamed. "Now, let's move on from this ridiculous disgrace of a discussion and focus on what's important: working out a way to prevent a war." With that, Charlus sat back down in his seat and waited to see what would happen.

The proposal to detain Harry was quickly dropped and no one who had nodded along with Ogden dared to look Charlus in the eye.

---ϟϟϟ---

While the Wizengamot meeting was happening, Sirius was at Potter Manor talking with the Delacours and Miss Anne Twist. The Delacours wanted justice for what had happened to their youngest daughter, and Charlus had asked Sirius to help them. The Delacours were currently staying in the manor where they could conveniently meet with law witches and wizards from Britain, as they wanted a British law firm rather than a French one due to familiarity with the local laws. They had originally intended to stay at a hotel while they worked out who they wanted to hire, but Sirius was feeling a little lonely in the manor all by himself and didn't think it was a good strategy for the Delacours to waste their gold on a hotel room in case they needed it for legal or solicitor fees. Plus, Sirius had to admit that Apolline Delacour, as a Veela, was very easy on the eyes. He was just glad he had only caught himself staring a few times.

"So Miss Twist, Sirius here has recommended your firm to us," Sebastian Delacour said to the woman sitting across the table from him.

"We have had the Potter family as clients for some time now, and I believe they are quite happy with our work. If I may, what exactly are you looking to achieve? If, after I understand what you need, I think my firm is a good fit for you I will make our offer, and if I think you'll be better off with another firm I will do my best to recommend whomever I believe is most suitable for you."

"You would recommend a different law firm?" Apolline asked, surprise in her voice.

"If it's in your interest, yes. Quite frankly, we are not hurting for clients enough that we need to trick people into signing with us. I would much rather point you to another firm that could help you and leave you with a positive impression of us, so that if we would ever be a better fit for you in the future then you won't have any problems coming to us. Not to mention how much damage to our reputation a disgruntled former client can do if we misrepresent ourselves and our chances of victory," Miss Twist explained.

The Delacours nodded their understanding and Sebastian started to explain. "It all started with our daughter being chosen for the Triwizard Tournament. The whole family was invited to come and watch the second task, a free trip to see the legendary Hogwarts, the school of magic that inspired the creation of places like Beauxbatons. So we came.

"Once we were here Dumbledore approached us and informed us that they needed Gabrielle to be in the task. They wanted someone for Fleur to rescue. We were told that Gabrielle would be completely safe and it was implied to us that our little girl would just be waiting in a room for Fleur to collect her after having gotten past a number of obstacles. However, our daughter was potioned and put at the bottom of a Scottish lake in the custody of merpeople."

"Our Veela daughter, a being of air and fire, was put at the bottom of a Scottish lake in the middle of February in the custody of a race of people Veela have been at war with for centuries. That is a total breach of the trust we put in them. It was only through the actions of young Mister Potter that our daughter is even alive right now, there is no way those watery basterds would have let either of my daughters leave that lake alive if they were given the opportunity." Sebastian was obviously trying to keep his temper in check at this point.

"So who is it you hold responsible?" Miss Twist asked calmly as she wrote a bunch of notes on a mundane writing pad using a fountain pen rather than a quill.

"Bagman and Dumbledore. Bagman was the Ministry member who had the final say on the tasks, and Dumbledore was the go-between for the tournament officials and the merpeople." The way she said merpeople it was obvious that Apolline was forcing herself to remain civil. Whether it was because of the long war or because of the attack on her children Sirius couldn't tell.

Sebastian also added, "Don't forget that Dumbledore was the one who lied to us and said that our daughter would be perfectly safe."

Miss Twist made a few more notes, then looked Sebastian right in the eye as she asked, "Okay, now an important question. Are you looking to make as much gold as you can from this, or are you looking to make those two hurt as much as you can?"

Sebastian's eyes held the gaze of the law witch and said, his voice as cold as ice. "My family is comfortable enough already. What I want is justice. I want them to pay for making my little girl suffer and don't care how it's done as long as it's legal."

"Good, I think we can help you. You definitely have a case and it's one we are well equipped to handle. The one question now is gold." She started to explain the options to the Delacours, and Sirius excused himself from the room to go and make a pot of tea. After all, going after Dumbledore was a joint venture, my enemy's foe is my ally and all that. The Delacours’ financial business, though, was absolutely none of his business.

He did check on their little girl as he went past, as she was in the game room on her own. But when he poked his head around the door, she was still curled up on one of the chairs reading a French translation of one of the Adventures of Harry Potter books, so he left her to it. How anyone could risk a little girl like that he didn't know, but he did know that anyone who could had absolutely no business working at a school.

---ϟϟϟ---

When Dumbledore and Charlus arrived back at the school, it was through the Floo in the headmaster's office. Despite the clashes the two had been having recently, they were civil enough to share a Floo. They also ended up leaving the office together, not out of any sort of camaraderie or a wish for the other's company, but because they both had the same motivation and destination. It was almost time for dinner, and the two old men were hungry.

They were walking down one of the castle's many corridors heading towards the grand staircase when Professor McGonagall came rushing up to them. Charlus, seeing that it was something important, sped up his pace and as soon as he was close enough he asked, "Minerva what's wrong?"

"Charlus, it’s Harry. We can't find him." She was obviously Agitated. "The Aurors responsible for watching him told me a few hours ago that they had lost track of him."

"What about Ron and Hermione?" Charlus asked, not panicking just yet.

"They are in the library and say they have no idea where Mr. Potter is," Minerva answered.

Charlus wanted more. "How are they behaving? Are they acting worried?"

"Ah no, they are just studying." The Transfiguration professor answered, and then she paused and rubbed her temples. "And if Mr. Potter was missing and they didn't know what was happening, then they would be getting into all kinds of trouble trying to find him. So they know either where he is or what he's up to. I'll have all three of them in detention for a week for this."

"Maybe it's worth hearing them out first this time, Minerva. Tell me, do you know what was debated in the Wizengamot today?" Dumbledore said as she caught up to them.

"Not really. I heard someone saying it was something to do with You-Know-Who coming back and putting Mr. Potter's name in the tournament. Which, after what was in the paper this morning, makes sense."

"That's pretty accurate. However, one of the solutions proposed was to lock away my grandson so he couldn't take part in the Triwizard Tournament. Harry was there yesterday when the idea was first proposed. My guess is he is hiding from the Aurors because they would be the ones who would arrest him if the Wizengamot ordered." Charlus gave the headmaster a significant look then said, "He is probably hiding somewhere close by until he hears the results of the session." He was careful not to mention the cloak to Minerva as he had no idea how much she knew about it.

The Transfiguration professor, though, seemed to know plenty because she swore to herself then said, "I bet he was right there in the library with them under that bloody cloak of his." She then turned around and started to storm off towards the library before she paused, turned back to them, and asked in an annoyed tone, “I assume the Wizengamot took their head out of their arse long enough to realise that imprisoning Mr. Potter was a stupid idea?"

"Indeed they did, though I would credit it more to Charlus here pointing out some rather unhealthy consequences for any members who voted to basically strip young Mr. Potter of his magic," Dumbledore said with a knowing smile.

Her question answered, the Head of Gryffindor started to march back to the library. Charlus decided it was a good idea to follow, while Dumbledore decided that his presence wasn't needed and that he would do far more good in the Great Hall monitoring the rest of the students, and of course eating his own dinner. A few minutes later, Minerva stormed into the library with Charlus trailing behind her. Charlus was actually a little amused at his grandson’s antics this time, especially if Minerva was right and Harry was actually just sitting there with his friends in the library.

"Okay, where is Potter?" Professor McGonagall said as she stormed up to Ron and Hermione.

"We don't know Professor," Ron said immediately.

Charlus walked around the stack of books and gave the two teens a small wave as he looked closely at the Scene in front of him. Ron and Hermione were sitting on opposite sides of the rather long table with their homework spread between them. Charlus didn't bother casting the Homenum Revelio charm, it was useless against the cloak. Instead, first he looked at all the chairs around the table, seeing that none of them were out enough from the table for someone to be sitting on one of them. Then Charlus looked at all the homework stuff again. One of the books looked like it had just casually been left open on the table, but if Charlus was right then he knew exactly where Harry was.

Charlus walked up to the table and said, "Good news Harry, you’re not going to be carted off so you can stop hiding now." And he reached over the table, grabbed something invisible, and pulled it away, revealing his grandson lying on the table right where he could read the open book.

"Evening grandfather," Harry said with a smirk. "So the Wizengamot didn't vote to lock me up in a tower somewhere until some beautiful princess came to save me?"

Ron, Hermione, and Charlus all laughed at the absurdity of that mental image and Harry took the opportunity to swing down off the table and stand up. "No Harry, they are going to continue with your bodyguards for now and they want to try and put something in place for the third task so that they can track you and follow you if they need to."

"Seems reasonable. So, it's about time for dinner, who’s hungry?" Harry asked, hoping that Professor McGonagall would let his disappearance go. However, hope and reality don't line up as often as people would like, so it wasn't surprising when the Head of Gryffindor put her hand on his shoulder and said, "Not so fast Mr Potter." It looked like it was time to pay the piper.

Chapter 37

Chapter Text

Chapter 37

Harry didn't get into too much trouble for ditching his protection. Once it was explained that there was a possibility that the Wizengamot would order Harry placed in protective custody, robbing him of his magic and possibly even his life (as it wasn't uncommon for the body to go into shock and die if it lost its magic), everyone seemed to understand. It helped that Harry had hidden in the library, a place that was monitored by a member of staff who could intervene if something had happened. What Harry did get into trouble for was misusing the furniture in the library, as Madam Pince had taken exception to him lying on the library tables. His punishment was a night of detention scraping the gum off the bottom of all the library desks. It wasn't one of Harry's better detentions, but he'd do it again over any detention he had had with Snape.

The final for the chess tournament was that week, so both Harry and Hermione went to support Ron. Their friend actually made it all the way to the final round, but lost to a witch from Durmstrang. He was obviously disappointed he lost, but was delighted at getting second place which came with a trophy and a cash prize. They handed out the trophies at dinner that same evening, with third place going to another Hogwarts wizard. With Ron's success on the Quidditch pitch as well as in the chess tournament, a few of the witches in the school were starting to pay serious attention to him. Ron was loving it; breaking up with Lavender had been a blow to his ego, and having other witches show interest in him had done a wonder for that same ego.

The weeks started to tick by with very little happening from the perspective of the students. The bodyguards were still rotating out every few days, but Harry, Hermione, and even to a lesser extent Charlus and Ron had just learned to live with it. The Easter break was approaching and almost every student signed up to go home, for the most part because they hadn't gotten to see their parents at Christmas. Harry thought he was going to stay, because obviously Grandfather Charlus would be here over the break to watch over the other students who stayed. But apparently his grandfather had signed not only him, but Hermione and Ron as well to go home for the break.

It was when he was told this that Harry realised that his grandfather was up to something. He tried to ask, but grandfather Charlus refused to tell him, saying that he would tell everyone what was going on once they were away from the school. Harry spoke with both Ron and Hermione, but none of them had any idea what was going on.

---ϟϟϟ---

Because of all the security around Harry, he was not allowed to go home on the train; as such, neither were Hermione or Ron. As it made no sense for the Weasleys to go home two different ways, they were joined by the twins and Ginny. They instead all Floo'ed directly from Charlus’s office to Potter Manor. Neither Hermione or any of the Weasleys were surprised to find that their parents were there waiting for them, but while Harry could see Mr. and Mrs. Weasley Floo’ing to Potter Manor just to greet their children, it was a lot harder for the Grangers to stop by.

In fact, the only way the Grangers could have gotten here was if Sirius had brought them, but it also made it more awkward to take them home with Hermione. If it was just her, Sirius could have side-alonged her straight home, but now it was probably going to need a Floo trip and a few side-alongs to get all the Grangers home. That told Harry that something more was going on, and that it was going to take less effort to tell them all at once than separately.

Of course, the adults decided that they weren't going to just come out and say what was going on. No, they all had to go to the kitchen and sit around for ten minutes talking about absolutely trivial things while drinking tea. The only adults who weren't there were the Aurors, who were doing a sweep of the manor after coming with them from the school. Now Harry could understand Mrs. Weasley and Mrs. Granger asking Charlus about how their kids were doing in potions, but talking about how Charlus is finding life in the castle, or how well Mrs. Weasley's latest chicken casserole had worked out, was tantamount to torture for the teens, especially the trio who had been waiting days to learn what the hell was happening.

Eventually, the adults decided to stop teasing the teens and tell them what was happening, leaving it up to Charlus to do the explaining. "We guess you are all wondering why you were told that you were to leave the castle these holidays, and why I'm not at the school watching over the students who stayed. The truth is that I and a few parents are rather dissatisfied with the headmaster's actions of the last few years. Everything from hiding the philosopher's stone in school to putting a Veela child in the custody of merpeople. In the next hour up at the castle, someone from the Ministry should be arriving to inform Albus that he is the subject of legal proceedings in regards to those issues and more."

Mrs Weasley took over. "While Charlus isn't the only one behind what's about to happen to Dumbledore, he is the one Dumbledore is going to see as being responsible. So we wanted all of you out of the castle while this was going on, in case he tried to retaliate and one of you got caught up in it."

Harry was surprised. He knew his grandfather wasn't happy with Dumbledore, but so much had been happening and he hadn't heard a word of it. "Why didn't you tell us anything about this sooner?" he asked his grandfather.

"Because I didn't want you and your friends talking about it in Hogwarts. With all the students, paintings, ghosts, and staff, it's practically impossible to guarantee a secret conversation in Hogwarts and I wanted Dumbledore blindsided by this. It is not only me who is going after him. The Delacours are suing for what he did to little Gabrielle, and the Changs as well as while their daughter agreed to it, they were never asked and she is under age. Add to that everything he failed to do when he claimed guardianship of Harry in the magical world, and we are going to hit him with everything all at the same time. We will have every case heard in the Wizengamot one after the other, burning through his reputation and goodwill, with case after case getting worse for him," Charlus said, sounding quite vindictive.

---ϟϟϟ---

Dumbledore watched as the messenger from the Ministry left through the Floo. Normally such correspondence were just owled, but someone, probably Charlus bloody Potter, had paid to have a wizard deliver them. He looked at the documents again, and then in fit of pique through them across the room.

Charlus Potter had been nothing but a thorn in his side ever since he had returned. Why couldn't the man just accept that he had a good reason for everything he was doing? It wasn't like Dumbledore could explain it to the man. Who would accept that, because their grandson was cursed to keep the world safe, the boy would have to die? Not Charlus, that's for bloody sure. The man was just the type to let the whole world burn if it meant keeping those he loved safe. Worse, the whole family still had enough of the Peverell tendency to charge at anything that stood in their way, even death itself if the legends were true.

Dumbledore grabbed a lemon drop from the bowl on his desk and popped it into his mouth. This situation was going to take some very careful thought and planning. The biggest problem was that all the charges against him were true, he had done everything he was accused of. So, his goal here was to see what charges could be refuted, what charges he could buy off with his political capital, and which ones he would have to take on the chin.

He also had to consider what concessions he would have to give and what he could do to mitigate them. After having already read all the documents, Dumbledore was positive that there was a good chance he was going to lose Hogwarts, at least for the time being. He needed someone to hold the spot until he could take it back. His first thought was McGonagall, but Minevra had sided with the elder Potter far too much recently and he wasn't sure he could trust her to lead by his example while he was temporarily away from the castle.

---ϟϟϟ---

Harry was quite happy with the arrangements for the holiday. They had two weeks away from the school, and Ron and Hermione would be over most days as the adults really wanted Harry to continue to train for the tournament. Charlus and Sirius would mostly be busy, but Lupin had agreed to come and teach them.

The big surprise was they were all going to spend the long Easter weekend at the Burrow. And by all they meant all, even Hermione's parents. The only thing that they wouldn't be doing was sleeping there. While it was possible to squeeze Harry and Hermione in with Ron and Ginny, squeezing in the Doctors Granger, Sirius, and Charlus as well was just impossible. The solution was that the Grangers would join Charlus Harry, Charlus, and Sirius at the manor, but they would all Floo over for breakfast and would be at the Burrow at least until after dinner, until they had to Floo back to Potter Manor to sleep.

Harry wondered how it had all happened, especially the Grangers getting invited, but it seemed that Mrs. Weasley was ever so happy to have the guests, and he could imagine just how much Mr. Weasley was looking forward to showing off his collection of plugs and asking about rubber ducks. Harry himself was looking forward to being able to have a pickup Quidditch game at the Burrow. With his prep for the final task, classes, and now being followed by two Aurors who got nervous when he was so exposed,he hadn't had much of an opportunity to fly for a few months now and he was missing it.

Charlus was spending most of the week in a meeting room at the manor, with all types of people coming in and out. Harry was only slightly surprised when he found Cho Chang along with Fleur Delacour and her sister Gabrielle in the games room when he, Ron, and Hermione were taking a break from their training. The three girls had quickly explained that their parents were meeting with 'Warlock Potter' and the law witch who was handing their cases, so they had been shown where they could wait. Harry immediately started playing host and offered them drinks and snacks, but they all refused.

Gabrielle had quickly recognised Harry and thanked him, with her sister acting as interpreter. It was obvious that the girl had developed a crush on him, but it was so innocent and cute Harry couldn't help but smile at the little witch. Before long the trio had to get back to their training. Fleur was surprised that Harry was training for the third task so much already, as she was only twice a week at the moment. Harry had bitten back his comment about that being why he, the youngest champion, was winning, but unfortunately Ron wasn't quite so tactful.

The mood immediately became tense as a champion and the girlfriend of a champion both bristled at the statement. Luckily, they could both see that Harry was upset with Ron for saying it, and both girls had enough self control not to pick a fight while they were guests in Harry’s house. Hermione, seeing everything, did the best thing she possibly could and removed Ron from the situation by saying she was off to grab a quick drink and a snack, as she knew Ron would follow her, giving Harry a chance to apologise.

"Sorry about Ron. He sometimes doesn't think before he speaks. I promise you his intention was to show support for me, his best friend, not to put down anyone else."

"But zee rude boy is right, non?" Fleur said, sounding annoyed though not necessarily at Harry or Ron. "You are training constantly like ze demon. And it 'as paid off. You killed ze dragon, saved my sister from ze merpeople, and chased off ze shark. It was all you and you did it because you put the work in. I think if Beauxbatons is to stand any chance then I need to, as the English say, 'step up.'"

"Don't be too hard on yourself,” Harry said. “I have been working under the assumption that someone was using the tournament to kill me ever since Halloween. It's kind of a strong motivation to put my all into training."

"How did you manage to not go crazy at the idea that someone wants to kill you? I'm sure I would have locked myself in my room for a week." Fleur asked, sounding genuinely curious.

Cho let out a mirthless laugh. "Potter is well used to something trying to kill him. What's this, the third attempt to kill you in four years?"

Harry thought about it for a second "let's see. The broom incident, the time in the Forbidden Forest, and when Quirrell tried to kill me were all in first year. Second year was the basilisk, and the Dementor who tried to eat my soul was third year, when I also thought Sirius was trying to kill me but he wasn't. Professor Lupin was trying to save me but forgot his Wolfsbane so he didn't mean it, and then the horde of Dementors. The death eater at the World Cup, and the tournament that has a dragon and a shark." Harry was counting them off on his fingers as he spoke. "So ten, in the last four years," he shrugged. Cho and Fleur both looked shocked, and Gabrielle was looking at the two girls wondering what Harry could have said to make them react like that.

"Is zat normal at 'ogwarts?" Fleur asked cautiously.

Cho shook her head. "No, absolutely not. For most of us it's just a school. It's Potter and his friends who go looking for trouble."

The muscles in Harry's jaw clenched. "It's more like trouble won't leave me and my friends alone. I wasn't looking for trouble when someone tried to jinx my broom in the middle of a Quidditch match. I was in detention doing as I was told when I was attacked in the Forbidden Forest. I was sitting in a train compartment with my friends when the Dementor attacked me."

The three girls were a little taken aback by the anger in Harry's voice. Gabrielle had no clue what was going on and looked a little scared, which more than anything else got Harry to calm down quickly. He flashed the girl a smile and gave her a quick apology for starting her, which her sister translated for her. Luckily Lupin appeared at that moment and told him it was time to get back to training. Harry said his goodbyes, feeling awkward that the reason he had stayed was to apologise for Ron, but then he had ended up blowing up at Cho himself.

---ϟϟϟ---

The day after Harry had run into Cho and the Delacour girls, Dumbledore was walking around Hogwarts musing to himself about his strategy for the upcoming cases in front of the Wizengamot. More specifically, he was working on his contingency plans at the moment. He needed to work out who he wanted to take the role as Head temporarily if he lost his position. As he walked down the Transfiguration corridor, he was reconsidering his position on Minerva. Sure the two of them hadn't seen eye to eye that much this year, but she had a long history of following lead. She had also done a perfectly wonderful job two years ago when Malfoy had convinced the board to suspend him.

Dumbledore had almost finished thinking himself around to it when the door to Professor McGonagall's office opened and the witch in question stepped out with a wide smile on her face, followed by none other than Charlus Potter who also had a happy look on his face. The two looked like they had just been sharing a joke. Then Charlus looked down the corridor and spotted Albus walking towards them, and his expression switched to one of guilt. He then whispered something to Minerva and she too looked at him with a guilty expression on her face for a moment.

"Ah…ah good afternoon Albus," Minevra stuttered.

"Dumbledore." Charlus nodded. The old hand at the political game had schooled his expression quickly and now just looked normal instead of guilty.

"Minerva, Charlus. I'm rather surprised to see you here today Charlus, I was under the impression you were taking the holiday off," Dumbledore probed for information.

"Oh, I just had a little business to discuss with Minerva so I popped in for a few hours. I was just about to make my way to my office, pick up a pile of marking I forgot, and Floo home." It was a skillful evasion, but Dumbledore caught it. Charlus didn't want to say what he was talking with Minerva about, so it was obvious he was hiding something, and it didn't take a genius to work out what. Charlus was angling to make Minerva the new headmistress, and Minevra was conspiring behind his back to steal his position.

"Ah, the endless marking. If there is one part about being a teacher I don't miss, it's the endless marking," Dumbledore admitted, and the other two nodded. It was just a fact of being a teacher at their level, marking of assignments and homework was a never-ending struggle that you could never beat, only ever fight to keep manageable.

Dumbledore bid the two professors farewell and continued with his walk and plotting. Now he not only needed to come up with a new candidate to replace him, but he also needed to prepare his arguments as to why Minerva wasn't suitable for the position, now that he knew what his opponent was planning.

As Dumbledore walked away, Charlus turned back to Minerva smiling and said, "Damn, that was awkward."

"Well then you shouldn't have been making all those jokes at Albus's expense then, should you?" The Transfiguration professor said, her own smile back on her lips.

"It's not my fault that the man is nuttier than a sack of peanuts. If he didn't want people to make jokes about him then perhaps he shouldn't act so different."

"That's true enough. His wardrobe alone would be enough to get him made fun of. And what are the chances he would be walking outside my office right as we were leaving after your bad jokes?" She asked rhetorically.

The question may have been rhetorical, but Charlus knew the answer to be one hundred percent. He orchestrated the whole thing with the Marauders’ Map in a pile of paperwork that he had been carrying. He had waited until Dumbledore was walking down the corridor to have them leave. He wanted Dumbledore to think that Charlus was going to try and install Minerva as headmistress, and he would then be so busy preparing counters to her that he would be blindsided by Charlus’s actual choice.

It was a lesson he had learnt from his wife long ago. "Make them see what you want them to see, and then they won't be prepared for the truth." He had perfected it during his lifetime in politics, and he was going to use every trick in the book to get at the people who had hurt his family. Dumbledore was just the first of the big players on his list.

---ϟϟϟ---

Easter at the Burrow was brilliant. Mr. Weasley had applied to the Ministry for an underage magic waver for the long weekend for educational purposes, which was the same way that Lupin could train Harry and his friends while they were at the manor. To cover the educational requirements, Mrs. Weasley spent a couple of hours each day 'teaching' the teens a few charms that were used in the kitchen. In reality, the teens spent the first two days of the holiday making homemade chocolate eggs and cakes for Easter Sunday.

It was a lot of fun, and according to Mrs Weasley was surprisingly good at helping you visualise what you were doing. The decorations on the chocolate eggs and cakes got more and more elaborate as the lessons passed. By the end of it, Hermione’s eggs had an intricate paisley pattern made of white chocolate on dark chocolate eggs.

Mrs. Weasley also taught them the basics of a number of spells that normally wouldn't be taught in Hogwarts until their sixth year. She taught them to duplicate food and drinks. To save money, the Weasley matriarch had bought only three bars of muggle chocolate: one dark chocolate, one white chocolate, and one milk chocolate. She then taught the teens how to duplicate them. They needed muggle chocolate because magical chocolate makers charmed their products to be unduplicatable to protect their business. Mrs. Weasley had done the same with all the other backing supplies.

By the time the baking and egg making was done, five of the six teens had the duplication spell and the refilling spells down solid. The only one who didn't was Ginny, who struggled with the admittedly N.E.W.T.-level Transfiguration spells. Harry suspected that the only reason he and Ron could do it was because of all the training they did together for the tournament. Hermione was just amazing at learning spells, so he wasn't surprised she had caught on to them so quickly after they were explained to her.

After that there was flying, chess, delicious food, and of course good company. The Weasleys as always were brilliant hosts. There was some trepidation from the adult Grangers after they had stepped out of the house their first visit. Having arrived by Floo, they hadn't seen the Weasleys' home from the outside yet, and once they had they were nervous to go back in. Harry and Hermione had to explain to the Weasleys that to people who didn't understand magic and how it worked, the house looked in danger of collapsing at any moment.

Then they had to explain things like permanent sticking charms and unbreakable charms to the Grangers to get them to understand that magical construction followed different rules than mundane construction. Though privately, now that it had been pointed out, Harry just hoped no-one was powerful enough to cast a large enough Finite Incantatem at the house, as if the magic holding it up went away then the house would quickly come crashing down.

Easter Sunday was a blast. Mrs. Weasley had made chocolate eggs for everyone the size of dragon eggs that were filled with rich silky caramel, and the teens handed out the eggs they had made for everyone. Dan and Emma had gifts for everyone as well, getting everyone a Cadbury’s easter egg. Harry was surprised that the dentists would join in with all the sugar, but they then also gave everyone a full teeth cleaning kit that had two tubes of toothpaste, a new toothbrush, dental floss, and a bottle of mouthwash. For the adults they had a few bottles of what was apparently a good wine.

After a dinner of roast lamb, the twins (with the blessing of their father) took over the entertainment. Apparently they had been developing their own brand of magical fireworks. According to the twins they weren't much yet, but they were as good as a professional mundane fireworks display. Harry could sort of see why the twins didn't think they had much to brag about, they were comparing themselves to things like the fireworks that had made giant battling mascots in the sky over the Quidditch World Cup campgrounds. However, considering the twins were not even yet seventeen, it showed that they were quite talented and driven to have gotten this far already.

---ϟϟϟ---

The Monday the day after Easter Sunday was a recognised holiday in Britain, and that had carried over to the magical world, which was the only reason they had to wait until Tuesday for the case against Dumbledore to be heard by the Wizengamot. Harry had asked his grandfather if he could go and watch, but the old man had put his foot down and ordered Harry to focus on trying for the final task of the tournament.

"The tournament is your top priority. It is the last opportunity for He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named to take advantage of the tournament and take you. I will deal with Dumbledore, you just need to focus on your job in all of this, and that job is to survive." He pulled Harry into a hug. "You are the only member of my blood family that I have left, if something happens to you it will destroy me. So please do everything you can to be prepared for whatever is going to be thrown at you. Once we know what the task is, I will work with people to find a way to keep you safe, but until then I will work on removing another threat from our lives. Okay?" He held Harry a little tighter as he spoke.

Harry was trying to hide that his grandfather had actually brought a tear to his eye. He just wasn't used to anyone but Hermione showing such affection. "Sure thing, gramps. I'll do my best."

Chapter 38

Chapter Text

Chapter 38

On Tuesday morning Charlus made his way to the Ministry early. He wanted the opportunity to see how all the other warlocks were reacting as they came in. He signed in at the reception desk and then found a convenient place that was out of the way but would let him people watch.

There were a number of people who were rather happy. Warlocks like Nott and Selwyn who were known to often butt heads with Dumbledore politically were rather gleeful about the opportunity to bring Dumbledore down a peg or two. Warlocks Griselda Marchbanks and Tiberius Ogden, two people Charlus was fond of because they showed him the ropes when he first joined the Wizengamot, both shot Charlus angry and disappointed looks as they walked passed. They were long time supporters of Dumbledore and he was going to have a real uphill struggle to convince them of Albus's guilt, but it was possible as the two were principled. Unlike Warlock Diggle, as it was an open secret / unconfirmed rumour that he and Albus were an item. Albus would have his vote no matter what evidence was presented.

Then there were the neutrals, like Warlocks Greengrass and Smith who were the hardest to predict. They had no strong opinions of Dumbledore or Charlus, and their votes would come down to their own personal sense of justice. Though Charlus was sure that Harry had earned enough good will from the House of Greengrass that their warlock would vote in Charlus’s favour once he heard the charges.

Eventually the Changs and the Delacours arrived, joining him in his people watching. "So what's the lay of the land looking like?" Yufei Chang asked when he and his wife Mei sat on the stone of the Fountain of Magical Brethren next to Charlus.

"Honestly mixed. Dumbledore is a polarising figure, so there are plenty that will vote against him without any pushing on our part. On the other hand we have a real uphill struggle with those who support him. In the end I think it may come down to the neutrals. They are the ones who will evaluate the evidence on its merits, and luckily enough for us they hold a large enough portion of the seats that with the votes from those who don't like Dumbledore it's enough to reach a majority.

"That's not to say I'm putting all my hopes on that. With the evidence that we have and by presenting it all at once, I think we can probably convert a few of his supporters. It helps that the Potter family is considered a lighter family, a lot of Dumbledore’s allies are people who politically consider me one of them. It may just be enough of a wedge to split his support," Charlus explained.

"Sounds like you have this all planned out," Apolline Delacour said as Miss Twist also walked up to them.

The six adults chatted for a bit as they watched the other members of the Wizengamot arrive. As it always would when a group contains a teacher and a parent of one of the teacher's students, the conversation quickly turned to how Cho was doing in potions. Luckily she was almost a straight O student and Charlus predicted that the young Miss Chang would likely score an Outstanding on her O.W.L.s at the end of the year, so Yufei and Mei were both happy.

Soon enough it was time for them to make their way to the Wizengamot chamber. Charlus had to split from everyone when they got to the chamber; as a sitting member of the Wizengamot, he was expected to sit in his official seat. The Changs, Delacours, and Miss Twist were unfortunately required to sit in the visitors section until they were called to the floor to speak.

As this was a civil matter brought by a Warlock to the Wizengamot and not by the D.M.L.E., the rules were different. Most importantly, this matter was held in the Wizengamot chamber and not in a courtroom. Fudge took the role of the Chief Warlock for the day, as they were meeting on an issue where Dumbledore was the defendant. Given how much the minister was in the pocket of Malfoy, but also respected Dumbledore and had been involved with illegally trying to execute Sirius without a trial (though whether it was knowing that it was without a trial was up in the air), it was impossible to tell which way the minister would lean. As laughable as it was, this actually may be a case of a man being so corrupt that, with all the different elements pulling him in their direction, he could genuinely be neutral.

The trial was opened, and a lot of the annoying boring procedural stuff was gone through. Once they finished marking dates, names, ages, blood status, charges, and the shoe size of everyone in the room, it was finally time for the trial of Albus Dumbledore to begin.

"Will the accusing parties please make their way to the floor," Fudge said, obviously enjoying sitting in the big chair for a change. Charlus, Yufei Chang, Sebastian Delacour, and Anne Twist all left their seats and made their way down into the speaking well that was at the centre of the round room.

Once they were all there Fudge spoke up again. "Whom do you accuse and what grievance do you wish addressed?" The words were more traditional than actually needed, everyone already knew who and why they were here, but the tradition had persisted even after they started requiring notice to be given to the defence so that they had adequate time to collect the evidence to refute the charges.

It was Charlus’s job as the highest ranked (as a sitting member of the Wizengamot) to answer, so he did so. "Acting Chief Warlock Fudge, I accuse the Chief Warlock Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, Warlock of the House Dumbledore, of endangering the young witches and wizards entrusted to his care in his role as Headmaster of the most prestigious Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. In this matter, I and the people with me request an address of grievance and that Warlock Dumbledore be barred from ever holding a position of authority over a minor for the rest of his life."

"Very well. Warlock Dumbledore, how do you respond to these charges?" Fudge said as he looked to Dumbledore, who was himself seated in the visitors’ area as he did not have a seat on the Wizengamot itself.

Dumbledore stood and addressed the whole room, though he directed his words to Fudge. "I of course refute the charges and accusations, Acting Chief Warlock."

Fudge just nodded as that was the expected answer and said, "Then Warlock Dumbledore, please proceed to the speaking area, as I declare there is deviation in opinion and call for trial so that the truth can be ascertained."

The formulaic intro to the trial completed, it was now time to get down to the business of actually presenting the case, and for that law witch Twist took over. "Acting Chief Warlock, Warlocks of the Wizengamot, I will now present our list of charges:

1. Warlock Dumbledore is culpable in one act of kidnapping, namely one Harry James Potter on 1st of November 1981.
2. Warlock Dumbledore did knowingly ignore the wills Of Lily and James Potter and appointed himself as magical guardian of one Harry James Potter.
3. Warlock Dumbledore abandoned his responsibility as magical guardian of one Harry James Potter.
4. Warlock Dumbledore failed to facilitate wizarding child services to perform any wellness checks for one Harry James Potter and failed to perform any such wellness checks himself.
5. Warlock Dumbledore is responsible for medical neglect of one Harry James Potter by not getting him inoculated to magical diseases.
6. Warlock Dumbledore did knowingly put all the students of Hogwarts school in danger by using the school to hide a magical artefact that he was aware a known killer was trying to obtain.
7. Warlock Dumbledore violated the parental rights of Yufei and Mei Chang when he put their daughter Cho Chang in the second task of the Triwizard Tournament without even seeking their approval, risking the life of a minor.
8. Warlock Dumbledore violated the parental rights of Apolline and Sebastian Delacour when misrepresenting the danger of the second task, by not disclosing the presence of merpeople in the Black Lake in order to gain their parental consent to allow their eight year old Veela daughter to participate in the second task of the Triwizard Tournament.
9. Warlock Dumbledore attempted to violate the magical guardian right of Warlock Potter when he attempted to place Miss Hermione Jean Granger, ward of the House of Potter, in the second task of the Triwizard Tournament.

It is our intention to show the Wizengamot that Warlock Dumbledore is responsible for all these things and that every act was done knowing it was dangerous and illegal." Law witch Twist finished her speech.

"Warlock Dumbledore, how do you answer these accusations? And do you have a legal representative? I don't see one," asked fudge.

"I have decades of experience leading this chamber. I do not feel any need for a representative, Acting Chief Warlock," said Dumbledore. Charlus couldn't help but smile at that, it was often said a man who represents himself has a fool for a client, and if Dumbledore wanted to hamstring himself like this then he wasn't going to complain.

Dumbledore continued. "I of course have an answer for every charge levelled and only wish they had asked me about everything before all this. It would have saved the esteemed warlocks their time in attending this trial when they could be at home with their families." He had the air of a man who didn't have a care in the world. Charlus would have been nervous if he hadn't seen the man's control in the past. You don't judge a book by its cover, and similarly you couldn't judge the emotional state of one Albus Dumbledore by the look on his face.

"Then I will start with my first charge. Warlock Dumbledore, what legal authority did you have to take custody of Heir Potter on the first of November nineteen ninety-one?" Law witch Twist asked.

"Officially none but unofficially the law of common decency, was I supposed to leave a child crying and alone in a destroyed building? No, it was better to have him out of that situation as soon as possible."

"Yet the man you sent refused to surrender Heir Potter to his godfather and legal guardian," Twist countered.

"Mr. Hagrid is a good man who is a rather loyal and committed friend of mine, but he is not the most intelligent of people. Thinking on the fly and changing the plan are not his strong suits. Hagrid didn't know who he could and couldn't trust, so in the interest of Harry's safety he decided to follow the instructions he already knew would keep the child safe. Is it not better to protect the child first, and then let the people who know more about the situation make the decision where the boy is to stay long term after everything has calmed down? Mr. Hagrid had never seen a document that said Sirius black was the boy's godfather. Imagine what would have happened if the wrong person had turned up claiming to be the child's godparent and Mr. Hagrid had believed them and surrendered the boy to them? It doesn't bear thinking about.

"As to kidnapping, while I may not have had legal authority, I placed the boy not in my care but in the care of Lily Potter's sister, young Harry's closest living relative. One I could guarantee that, as a muggle, had absolutely no connection or affiliation to any member of the terrorist organisation calling themselves the Death Eaters. It seemed the best possible and most reasonable course of action." Dumbledore finished his defence to the charge of kidnapping Harry.

Charlus looked around the room and saw people nodding along with Dumbledore’s words, but wasn't bothered by this. The kidnapping charge was always their weakest line of attack. They almost didn't include it, especially as it didn't paint Hagrid, someone Harry was quite fond of, in the best light. But when they had spoken about it with Miss Twist, she had insisted on keeping it not because she thought she could win it but because it set up a pattern in front of the Wizengamot.

"What did Harry's aunt, Mrs. Petunia Dursley, say about holding her nephew until legal custody could be determined?" The law witch asked. Immediately Charlus understood why Miss Twist had insisted on pursuing the kidnapping case.

"Well I never actually spoke to her." Dumbledore said.

"Oh I understand you're a busy man after all. It's only natural that you may have needed someone else to speak with them. Can you tell us who it was who spoke with them and what it was they reported to you about what Mrs. Dursley said. Don't worry about it being hearsay for now." Miss Twist asked him in a pleasant and respectful tone. Charlus had to really fight to keep from laughing, she was actually going to force the old bastard say it himself.

"Ah well… that is to say… I handled the drop-off myself, only there wasn't really any opportunity for any real discussion. I wasn't there for very long you see, only a few minutes." Dumbledore was now being very careful with his words.

"Surely they said something. I assume you just told her that her sister was murdered by a Dark Lord and her nephew had killed him. People tend to react to news like that. Did they have any concerns about housing the boy?"

"Like I said, I was only there for a few minutes, everything happened pretty quick," Dumbledore said, saying nothing.

"Well if you won't tell the Wizengamot, I most certainly will. You didn't speak to the Dursleys at all did you? No, you arrived in the middle of the night and left a toddler on a muggle doorstep, in November, with nothing but a letter telling the Dursleys that Harry's parents were dead and that it was now their responsibility to raise Harry. No mention of any legal proceedings to determine who was rightfully the legal guardian. A boy left on the doorstep like a pint of milk!" That had a few members of the Wizengamot gasp in shock that Dumbledore, the man entrusted with all of the wizarding Britain's school-age children for decades, had left a child on a doorstep.

"The boy had plenty of charms on him to keep him warm and safe. You make it sound far more dramatic than it was."

"Oh really, tell me how long those charms would have lasted? Maybe eight hours? Would it surprise you to learn that the Dursley often visited the sister of Vernon Dursley, Vernon being Petunia's husband and the uncle by marriage of Harry Potter? It takes the Dursleys six hours of travel each way to make that visit using muggle methods of transportation. Because of that, it was common for them to spend the night at his sisters and travel back the next day. Did you even take the opportunity to check if anyone was even in the house?" This was mostly fabrication and exaggeration on Twist's part. Yes, the Dursleys visited Marge occasionally, but spending the night there was uncommon and certainly didn't take them six hours to travel. It was just a convenient narrative to showcase a very realistic possibility that the Dursley family may for some reason have not been home.

"I did, a quick Homenum Revelio charm was enough to tell me they were in the house. While my methods may not have been the most socially acceptable, given the constraints I was working under there was never any risk to young Mister Potter," Dumbledore said, sounding annoyed at the implications.

Charlus once again watched the crowd. There was definitely more than one person who he would have considered on team Dumbledore that was looking at him like he had lost his mind. Charlus didn't think it was enough to get them to vote on this in his favour, but it had done something important. It had burned through a lot of Dumbledore’s good will among his supporters. This first attack wasn't about winning the war that this trial had become, it was a strike to wear down the defences and leave the old bastard vulnerable to what was coming.

With the arguments presented, the Wizengamot voted and unsurprisingly found in favour of Dumbledore. While he hadn't had the legal right and had done it in a most questionable manner, the truth remained that he had placed Harry with his blood aunt, someone who could in no way be connected to the troubles of the wizarding world. Of course, that Dumbledore had now admitted that he placed Harry there without assessing the suitability of the Dursleys, to the Wizengamot itself, was going to bite him in the ass in a few charges if Charlus was reading Miss Twist's strategy correctly.

The next charge was that Dumbledore ignored the wills Of Lily and James, so Fudge called on Miss Twist to give her opening argument for the charge. "The wills of Lily and James Potter had a number of provisions in regards to their son and how he was to be taken care of in the event of their death. The late Potters left three known copies of their will. One in a safety deposit box at Gringotts that was stored along with other important documents, one with the Warlock Potter at Potter Manor, and one on file in the Ministry's office of probate. Yet despite all of this, the wills Have still not been probated.

“The copy at Potter Manor was inaccessible as the war wards wouldn't allow any non-Potter through. The copy at Gringotts was locked away until whomever had the key retrieved it. And finally, the copy that was legally required to be read and executed by the ministry itself was never opened. When I and my firm investigated, we found the document sealed under the authority of the office of the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot.

“Albus Dumbledore abused his authority as Chief Warlock, the result of which was that there was nothing to contest where he illegally placed Heir Potter. Heir Potter’s godfather, the then-Heir now-Warlock of the House of Black, was wrongfully accused of being culpable in the murder of James and Lily Potter, as the evidence of his innocence was in the will, preventing Sirius from being able to take custody of Harry Potter. Most disturbing of all, the Potter will expressly forbid the Dursley family, who were known to have an anti-magic worldview, from ever having custody of Harry Potter." Miss Twist passed out a bunch of documents that supported everything she had just said.

"All this evidence seems to point at Warlock Dumbledore abusing his authority to prevent the natural course of law in our society to impose his own disturbing vision of how things need to go onto everyone, and hang the consequences. So what if an innocent man had to endure over a decade in Azkaban, so what if the boy whom this country owes its very freedom never knew love growing up, so what if our laws were completely ignored, doesn't Warlock Dumbledore know what's best for everyone?"

Then it was Dumbledore’s turn to answer. "I admit I made a mistake there. But I beg the indulgence of the honourable warlocks as I explain why I made such a mistake. I was sure the Potters’ wills had names in it that could look after little Harry. I can even tell you some names I knew were in there. Charlus and Dorea Potter, both were believed to be dead. Alice and Frank Longbottom, Alice being Harry's godmother, who would have been perfect if not for the actions of a few Death Eaters only a few days after the death of the Potters. And of course Sirius Black, the man I had been told had confessed to being responsible for giving Voldemort the locations of the Potters.

“Given the situation, is it not understandable that I believed that the Potters’ judgement was compromised? Remember at the time we were still discovering Death Eaters who had been able to hide their identity. Who was to say that the next name on the list wasn't just as disastrous as I believed Sirius Black to have been? But muggles were safe; they weren't Death Eaters, that at least I could be sure of. And the more people who were attacked or brought in as Death Eaters, the more I was proven to be right that the best place for Harry was with his mother's sister. Maybe I did the wrong thing, but I did it for the best of reasons."

Charlus listened as Dumbledore spoke, and even he was almost swayed by the man's words and believed that Dumbledore had broken the law for the right reasons. The vote was close for this one, but it actually broke against Dumbledore. Even so, it was obvious that Dumbledore had won some of the people he had lost on the first charge back.

Fudge called a fifteen minute pause in the proceedings at that point so that everyone would have a chance to stretch their legs and use the facilities. Charlus and the others all had to take that opportunity as well, but while they were walking Charlus turned to Miss Twist and asked. "How do you think this is going?"

Miss Twist looked him in the eye and gave him a smile. "Exactly as I planned. Remember our main goal here is to get the man away from children. We are burning through all his good will and political favours, the next three charges I will tackle as one and by the end of what I have to show the Wizengamot, they most definitely won't feel inclined to vote in his favour." Charlus couldn't help but smile back. The smile Miss Twist had flashed him was that of a hunter that was hounding her prey exactly where she wanted them before she went in for the kill. He had known a few women that had that same smile sometimes. He had respected each and every one of them. Of course he had also married one.

Charlus had just enough time to order a cup of tea from an elf, and with a little magic to immediately cool it to drinking temperature, he was able to finish it before it was time to make his way back into the hall. There was a few minutes of waffle as the scribe took down a few bits about the fact that was a break and how long it was for. Charlus had no idea why that information was noted down, but there was apparently some rule that said it had to be there. Then Fudge once more turned the meeting over to Miss Twist to continue with the allegations.

"I am going to cover the next three charges all at the same time. This is because a lot of the events all happen together and it will save me either having to split things up in a confusing way or from being needlessly repetitive. The charges are that Dumbledore abandoned his responsibility as magical guardian, that he prevented wizarding child services from performing mandatory assessments, and that he was actively neglectful of his responsibility of care.

"I have here sworn statements from Petunia Dursley and Vernon Dursley, confirmed under the influence of Veritaserum, and a magically sworn statement from Harry James Potter. From the time he was left on the doorstep of the Dursley resistance up until Heir Potter received his letter of acceptance into Hogwarts, and apart from the occasional random magical who happened to recognise Heir Potter when he was out shopping with his aunt, the family had no contact whatsoever from the magical world. In the almost ten years that young Mr. Potter lived in that house, not one magical person, including the man that had appointed himself Harry Potter's magical guardian, ever visited them.

"Please consider the duties a magical guardian is required to perform. Teaching the child about our world. How to recognise an Auror and call one in an emergency. How to get to St. Mungo's in an emergency. How to Floo. How to call the Knight Bus. And most importantly, our most sacred law of all, how not to breach the Statute of Secrecy. Every child born of our world is taught to hide their powers from non magical people. Warlock Dumbledore failed to do this, and it resulted in a major breach a number of years ago when Heir Potter had a feat of accidental magic and vanished the glass of a reptile enclosure at a mundane zoo. Unknown to those who didn't know he was a wizard or even that magic was real at the time, the whole event was caught on muggle security cameras.

“Luckily for us, the magic was seen by another wizard who then reported it and an Obliviation squad was dispatched before the footage could be distributed and our world exposed. The ministry had an open file on this until just a few weeks ago, looking for magicals who had fled the scene instead of informing the Aurors. Because of the nature of the incident, it was suspected that a muggleborn was responsible, and because of that Mr. Potter was never suspected to be involved. It was only through luck that this incident was not a major breach that could have massive ramifications on our way of life."

Charlus took the opportunity of the pause in Miss Twist's speech to stand up and say, "I would like to note that the case has now been closed and the fine has been paid by the Potter family, and Harry Potter himself is very apologetic about the whole incident. All our children have such outbreaks, that is just a fact of life that we deal with everyday. This incident only came about due to ignorance, and it is the assertion of the House of Potter that the blame for that ignorance lays solely on the shoulders of Warlock Dumbledore." And with that he returned to his seat.

Miss Twist nodded at Charlus and took over the talking again. "Ignorant is a good way to put it. No child can learn that which has been purposely hidden from them. And just as Heir Potter didn't know how to call the Ministry to report an issue, nor was he shown how to get to St. Mungo's. I beg the indulgence of the Wizengamot again here and ask that everyone here who taught their children how to get to St Mungo's in an emergency while they were visiting for their inoculation potions, please light up your wands."

Soon almost everyone in the room was holding up their wand with a glowing tip. There were only nine people in the hall who hadn't. The Changs and Delacours hadn't had their children vaccinated in St. Mungo's, having had them done in other countries. Dumbledore and Doge were known to be gay and didn't have children, and the rest were like Miss Twist, a little on the young side for parenthood yet. Every other person seemed to agree that the time to teach your child how to get help if they were hurt was when you took them for their potions. It's not like it was difficult, a wave of a hand to summon the Knight Bus and tell the driver you need an emergency drop-off at St. Mungo's. It was free and you would be dropped off there first, jumping to the front of the queue.

"I would ask warlock Dumbledore why he didn't instruct Heir Potter the same time everyone else learned, but I already know why he didn't do it when Harry was inoculated. Because the Boy-Who-Lived, Harry Potter, was never inoculated while Warlock Dumbledore was his magical guardian!"

A loud gasp shot around the room, which was full of witches and wizards who were parents, all of whom having had it drilled into their minds by healers that the inoculations were important if they didn't want their child to die. All it would take is one outbreak of dragon pox or spattergroit and the boy would probably have died. As parents, they found it completely irresponsible not to vaccinate a child. Miss Twist felt a warm glow of satisfaction as the crowd started to turn on Dumbledore, and she was reminded of a line that she had heard a lot on the TV growing up: 'I love it when a plan comes together.'

Chapter 39

Chapter Text

Chapter 39

The Wizengamot took a break for lunch, and as Charlus sat in a muggle pub a little up the street from the visitors’ entrance to the Ministry, he was only a little surprised to see Warlock Greengrass walk in. After all, the pub was one on the mundane side of things. He was less surprised when, after ordering his meal from the bar, Warlock Greengrass took a seat opposite him.

"Warlock Potter," Greengrass nodded at him.

"Please, Warlock Greengrass, call me Charlus, especially here." Formalities said that they had to greet each other by their title until given leave to do otherwise.

"And please call me Castor. I need to ask you a question." Castor sounded stiff and formal.

Charlus could guess what question was coming. "Ask away, but be aware that if it's too closely related to the trial I won't be able to say anything." He didn't think it had anything to do with the trial, but he had to say that just in case.

"Did your grandson know that the money he donated to the blood curse research foundation would aid my family? Or more specifically, did he do it to gain my favour for this trial>" The man tried to sound like he wasn't accusing Charles, but he wasn't completely successful. Although in fairness it was rather difficult to phrase 'Are you trying to buy my vote' in any way that wasn't accusatory.

"You can relax; as far as I'm aware Harry had no idea your family even has a curse, let alone asking for your family to have preferential treatment. There is no attempt to buy your vote here. Honestly I think our case has enough evidence that all I ask is that you vote for the truth."

"You think I wouldn't?" Castor sounded a little offended by the suggestion.

"Honestly I don't know. You joined the Wizengamot after I got caught in that damned time storm. So I don't really know you all that well, you wouldn't be the first or last Wizengamot member to vote strategically against one issue to get support on a different one," Charlus said just as the barman brought over Castor’s lunch and set it in front of the man.

Castor conceded to Charlus’s point. "I have had to do that a few times, it's the only way to get some things passed. But we are talking about a tax tweak here or a budget increase there, not criminal child abuse claims. That man is in charge of my daughters’ school, if you show he is abusive to any students I will have him out of that school, even if I have to spend the rest of my life in Azkaban for using unforgivable curses to do it. I will protect my daughters."

Charlus smiled, he knew he was right about this man when he looked into him. He lifted his drink to the man and simply said, "here here." After that the two sat together eating their lunches and talking about an upcoming bill that was proposed by Warlock Hallow that would result in a full audit of Ministry spending over the last ten years.

---ϟϟϟ---

Once everyone was back from lunch, the trial resumed. Miss Twist was once more centre stage and she pulled out a trump card no one was expecting. "Warlocks of the Wizengamot, the next charge is that Dumbledore put the lives of every single student in Hogwarts School at risk multiple times in the 1991 - 92 school year. To do this, the prosecution would like to call their first witness professor Minerva McGonagall."

McGonagall, as much to Charlus’s surprise as everyone else, was soon led into the chamber. Charlus hadn't planned in involving the professor at all, he had even intentionally set her up to a red herring. His work wouldn't go to waste, in fact he was more sure than ever now that Dumbledore would believe that Minerva was who he wanted to take over as head teacher. Still, he couldn't help but worry that Dumbledore, really focusing on her, would have come up with counters to anything she could testify to.

"Professor McGonagall, can you please recount for us the unusual events of the 91 - 92 school year."

"It started around mid-July when Headmaster Dumbledore approached me to say he was going to be using the third floor to secure something. I had some trepidation about that, I thought he had found an artefact in the castle that couldn't be removed that needed to be secured, but I accepted Albus's assurance that he had the matter well in hand.

"About a week later, Dumbledore asked me to enchant an obstacle that would deter students who were trying to get where the artefact was being stored. I did as he asked, spending the next few weeks building an enormous wizarding chess set. I thought watching a few chess places smashed into pieces would deter any students from trying to proceed towards whatever artefact was being kept away from the students. A few of the other professors added protections as well: professors Snape, Quirrell, Flitwick, Sprout, and Hagrid.

"That was it for a while, the students came back and Dumbledore gave a warning to the students that part of the castle was dangerous and off-limits, and we went on with everything like a regular school year. That is to say, a bunch of students got up to mischief that had all the professors ready to pull our hair out." That last line got a chuckle from everyone in the room as they remembered the mischief from their own years in the school.

"Then Halloween came. To understand this, you need to know that Quirrell's protection for the artefact was a mountain troll. That troll was placed in a room where the doorways were too small for it to leave, and to get to the school it would have had to get past my chess set and a few other professors' protections, so I believed it was perfectly safe and it wouldn't get out into the castle. So when during the Halloween feast Quirrell came bursting into the Great Hall screaming about a troll in the dungeon, I was afraid something had gone terribly wrong. Albus quickly sent all the students back to their common rooms.

"I and the other Professors immediately started looking for the troll. Eventually, we found the troll already unconscious. Two students, Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley, who had gone to retrieve a third student from the bathroom who didn't know about the troll, had encountered it well away from the dungeons, and in a move born of desperation had levitated the trolls own club and dropped it on its head.

"Once the students were checked over and found to be unhurt, they were sent back to their common room and we Professors set about dealing with the troll. It was then that we noticed that this troll we were dealing with wasn't the one that was guarding the mysterious artefact. That should have been impossible, there are a lot of wards on the castle and many of them have to do with keeping away magical creatures. It's a necessity because we are so close to the Forbidden Forest. One of the wards is an anti-troll ward, and any troll approaching the perimeter of the school is given a bunch of mental compulsions to go back where they came from. This ward was of course lowered to allow Quirrell to bring in his security troll. Dumbledore, however, failed to put it back up once the troll was in place. This allowed the other troll in and put every student and staff member at risk.

"After that, a little investigation revealed that someone had intentionally let the troll in to cause a distraction so that they could try and steal the mysterious artefact that was being guarded. This being the case, we started to demand answers from the headmaster, and after a lot of prodding he revealed that he was hiding the Philosopher's Stone for his old friend and mentor Nicholas Flamel. Worse yet, he was hiding it in the school because an as-yet-unknown dark wizard was trying to steal it.

"We Professors went happy but there wasn't really much we could do about it. We gave the headmaster our formal letters of protest. But if we did any more than that, then it would have just advertised there was something happening and made even more trouble for the students. Then it turned out the dark wizard was Professor Quirrell, who was voluntarily acting as a host for a disembodied spirit of You-Know-Who. This was revealed when Dumbledore left the castle and he tried to steal the stone. Unfortunately it was the students who were the ones to stop him, not any of the professors; how any of them didn't die I don't know." The professor finally finished giving her recollection of the events.

During this time, Miss Twist had been taking notes and now it was time for her to ask any questions she may have had. "Professor McGonagall, you said that originally that you thought the artefact in question was something tied to the school, why did you think that?"

"There have been a number of artefacts found over the years linked to school. Some of them are well known and relatively harmless, for example the Sorting Hat and the Book of Names. Others are more dangerous in the wrong circ*mstances, for example the gargoyle that guards the entrance to the headmaster's office that will attack anyone trying to break in, or the suits of armour that will try to attack anyone that invades the school.

"We once found a stone cauldron that vanished any potion poured into it. It was a relic from before there was a reliable wand spell for that and was intended for disposal of any failed potions made by students. Unfortunately, according to the cauldron, potions included anyone with a potion in their system. We eventually destroyed it because it was dangerous to have in a school where more than half the students have a potion or two in their system at any one time. I just assumed something like that was found and that Dumbledore, one of the most accomplished wizards of our time, was working on studying and dismantling it."

"Very well," Miss Twist said as she marked off something from her notes. "Next question. Why did Dumbledore send the students back to their common rooms? You had just been told a troll was in the dungeon. Two of the House common rooms are in the dungeons. Wouldn't it have made more sense to keep all the students in the easily defended Great Hall, with half of the professors to protect them and for the other half going to subdue the troll?"

Professor McGonagall winced as she realised the truth of the question. "In hindsight that should have been how we proceeded given the information we had. But I should also point out that had we done that then Miss Granger, the student who was in the bathroom, would most likely have died."

"Are you sure about that? If the students hadn't been immediately cut off from the professors, they could have told you that Miss Granger was in the bathroom and it could have been the professors that retrieved her."

Dumbledore stood up and spoke up. "I protest. Professor McGonagall is knowledgeable in a great many things, but how things may have played out if different choices were made is pure speculation."

Fudge thought about it for a few moments but then decided that Dumbledore was indeed correct In his protest. It was pure speculation and didn't meet the standard of evidence. He quickly instructed the Wizengamot to disregard the question and for Miss Twist to move on.

"My last question is, you said Dumbledore left the school and that's when the attempt on the stone was made. Why would the headmaster of the school suddenly up and leave? I believe that the events were around the same time as the end-of-year exams, was it not? Isn't that an important time for the headmaster to be at the school?"

Professor McGonagall nodded as the question was asked then said, "True, but Professor Dumbledore is also the Chief Warlock and the Supreme Mugwump. It isn't uncommon for him to leave the castle to go take care of his other responsibilities. On that particular occasion, I believe he got a letter from the Ministry. He handed off some patchment work to me and left."

Miss Twist smiled. "So Dumbledore prioritises his other commitments over the school?"

"I didn't say that. It depends which role has the most urgent need," Professor McGonagall said.

"But by having two other such responsible positions, doesn't that mean that the school has to lose out at least some of the time?" Miss Twist pressed.

"Well I can't say he is always able to give the school his full attention, so I can't really disagree with that statement," Professor McGonagall said.

Miss Twist finished her questioning, and now Dumbledore had his opportunity to ask any questions he had for the deputy headmistress. "Professor McGonagall, in all the years we have worked together, we have come to know each other quite well, yes?"

"Yes," the Scotswoman agreed.

"During that time, have you ever seriously questioned my decisions before Charlus Potter's miraculous return to us?" Dumbledore looked calm, like he didn't have a care in the world as he spoke.

"Well no. But hind-" She started but Dumbledore cut her off.

"So you were quite happy with how things were going until one misguided and over protective guardian started stirring up trouble for their ward."

"That's not what I…"

"Come now, your views on these topics have suddenly flipped completely after only a few conversations with Warlock Potter. Is it not true that, while I did take frequent trips away from the school, you and I both agreed that it was brilliant on-the-job training for you, so that you would be ready to take over the position once I am no longer fit to hold it?"

"That's true, but recent events-"

"My, Minerva, I didn't realise you were quite so wishy-washy. Next you'll be telling me you want to switch to teaching divination." There were a few titters from people around them. While many of the people here were finished with Hogwarts before McGonagall started to teach, there were more than a few who were familiar with the woman, and her stance on Divination wasn't exactly a secret. Dumbledore finished his questions and returned to his seat.

Charlus sighed. Dumbledore’s questions had little to do with the case and were mostly about hurting Minerva's reputation. Charlus had never intended to have Minerva take the role as Head of the school, in part because of how close she had been with Dumbledore. He had even set Dumbledore up to believe he was going to support Minerva. That, however, didn't mean he enjoyed watching Dumbledore tear her down like that. The woman was a brilliant professor and she would be a great headmistress someday, she deserved better from Dumbledore.

The arguments for this charge continued for another hour, going back and forth. Miss Twist questioned the sanity of having a full grown Cerberus in the castle behind a door that had no magical protections on it to stop it being opened by a first year with the Unlocking Charm. Dumbledore argued that it was for Hagrid. The groundskeeper couldn't legally use a wand for a more complex unlocking charm, so a simple lock and key in a magically reinforced door was the best option.

"What about a magical lock with a magical key? Did you not employ such a simple defence later in your elaborate trap?" Miss Twist asked, hoping to catch Dumbledore off guard by suddenly calling it a trap. Unfortunately, the man hadn't fallen for it.

"I don't know what you mean by a trap."

"What I mean is that either your defences were incompetent by design, or they were a trap. Let's look at what it took to get past them all. The first one needed only a first-year charm and any type of music, the second a plant identified in first-year Herbology and a first-year charm. Third was essentially a game of Quidditch, fourth a game of chess, sixth a logic puzzle. These aren't defences to stop anyone, they are delaying tactics. Obviously meant to keep the thief busy until you could turn up and deal with them yourself. However, you were far too cavalier and also brought dangerous creatures into a castle full of kids. Not only that, you locked said creatures in rooms completely on their own, practically guaranteeing that they would try to escape, and the only way they could have gone is into the school. The only reason you didn't have any students die was luck. Pure and simple." By the time Miss Twist finished her speech, she was practically ranting at Dumbledore for what he had done.

Soon it was time to vote. Dumbledore may have tried to defend himself on this one, but it wasn't happening. He had lost a lot of the warlocks when they had heard about the troll roaming the halls of the school, the Cerberus had just fixed their opinion on the matter. Over two-thirds of the Wizengamot voted to find Dumbledore guilty of child endangerment. Whatever else happened now, his days as headmaster were done.

There wasn't enough time for them to start on the next charge so Fudge called it for the day, telling everyone they would be meeting back there the next day to continue. While Charlus was chatting with Miss Twist, the Delacours and the Changs, all of them rather happy with the trial so far, Director Bones of the D.M.L.E. came and asked if, before he left, he could meet her in her office for a discussion. Curious, Charlus made his way up to her office as soon as he could.

---ϟϟϟ---

As soon as he arrived back at Potter Manor, Charlus was bombarded with questions about what had happened. Harry, Ron, and Hermione were all rather disappointed to learn that the trial wasn't over yet and that it was only on pause until the next day. Sirius had expected as much, as he had far more experience with Ministry trials from his time as an Auror. Though admittedly, his experience with civil trials like this one was more as an Auror guard than giving evidence in a case on which he had worked.

Charlus explained what had happened so far though, and they were all happy to hear that Dumbledore had already been found guilty of some of the changes. They were a little disappointed that no decision had been made on how to punish Dumbledore yet, but Charlus explained that all of that wouldn't happen until there was a verdict on all of the charges. "That way, they only need to go through one sentencing hearing instead of multiple ones. Though given that one of the charges that he has already been found guilty of was endangering the lives of the Hogwarts students, I seriously doubt that he will be able to continue on as the headmaster."

"What about the Triwizard Tournament, isn't Dumbledore bound to be the headmaster until it's over?" Hermione asked.

"I doubt it, but it depends on how the contract is worded. The contract probably requires action of whoever holds the possession of headmaster. However, if it requires Dumbledore specifically, then he can still lose his position as Headmaster and just become an overseer for the tournament. If on the off chance the contract requires Dumbledore to be the headmaster, then they will just have the new head act as an overseer who needs to approve everything until the tournament ends. Whatever way it has to be done, Dumbledore won't be the one making decisions any more, and he would have as little contact with the students as would be feasible." Charlus explained.

The teens all had more questions, but Charlus was more interested in what they had been doing for the day. Ron was actually rather excited by what they had done, so he explained. "It was brilliant. Sirius gave us some actual auror training. He had us practising real battlefield tactics rather than duelling, mostly working on being outnumbered. First it was all of us against Sirius. That was amazing, but was apparently all about teaching us teamwork. But then we all took turns being the one on our own. Harry is becoming a demon with his wand. Even with Sirius's help it took us ten minutes at the end to take him down, and even then Harry had me and Hermione tagged with multiple prank spells before we could stop him."

Hermione nodded along with Ron's praise of Harry's skills. "Harry's training is really paying off. I just wish it wasn't something Harry had to learn." She took Harry's hand off the table and held it.

"Yeah," agreed Harry. "The practice is kind of fun, but the idea that I will probably need all this training is a lot to take in."

Charlus was just trying to work out what words of comfort to offer his grandson, however Hermione got there first. The bushy-haired girl wrapped her arm around him pulling him into a side hug and offering him wordless encouragement.

This gave Charlus both a warm feeling, knowing that Harry could inspire such feelings in the people who cared about him and it gave him enough time to come up with a few words. "Harry…it's not fair that you have to go through this. It's hard and it's scary, but trust me we are working on everything we can to help you. After the trial today I spoke with Director Bones. She and a few others are working hard to find ways to help you. From what we know of what He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named wants to accomplish, he will need to take you away from the school, and the magic he needs you for won't be quick. Director Bones has already tasked the Unspeakables with coming up with a way that they can track you wherever you go. There will be a full three squads of Aurors on standby, ready to follow you and do whatever it takes to bring you home."

Harry was surprised at just how much planning was going on that he had no clue about. The Unspeakables were supposed to work on top secret magic projects, yet they were being tasked with coming up with ways to find him if he was kidnapped? And a squad of Aurors was seven people, so they were planning on having twenty-one highly trained dark wizard fighters just on standby to save him? Harry didn't even realise that Britain had so many Aurors. Aurors weren’t the regular law enforcement officers, they were the highly trained fighters who specialised in fighting and catching dark wizards.

But as he thought about it, it wasn't just for him was it? Sure, Grandfather Charlus’s main focus was doing all he could to make sure Harry got through all of this in one piece. But everyone else? They wanted to stop Voldemort, not specifically for him but because the whole country would be thrown into another war if he was ever able to return. Everyone was trying to protect someone, but it was someone important to them. That was a surprisingly comfortable thought. The idea that all this was being done for him was a lot, but the realisation that this was for everyone kept him from feeling like there was an extreme weight on his shoulders.

Eventually six o'clock rolled around, and both Ron and Hermione had to go back to their homes, Ron flooing and Hermione being Side-Alonged by Sirius. When he and his grandfather were alone, Harry asked. "Do you really think I can do this?"

"Harry, you are amazing. I don't think you realise just how strong you are. You have already faced things that would make full Aurors quit rather than face what you went on to defeat. I have seen you during your training and I watched you during the tasks. Trust me when I say, I don't think anyone has what this will take more than you. Remember, we aren't looking for a miracle, just for you to hold things together until the rescue party arrives." Charlus then decided to take a leaf out of Hermione’s book and pulled his grandson into a hug. "Trust me. You've got this kiddo."

Chapter 40

Chapter Text

Chapter 40

Charlus was once more back in the Wizengamot chamber, the Changs and Delacours sitting next to him while Miss Twist did what she was being paid to do: tear down Dumbledore’s reputation and get him convicted for the crimes he had committed.

"Warlock Dumbledore, how many hostages were put at the bottom of the black lake for the second task of the Triwizard Tournament?" Miss Twist had rolled together the last three charges of endangering the hostages, or attempting to in Miss Granger’s case, into one narrative to prevent repeating everything three times.

"Originally there were to be three, however Mr. Potter's inclusion meant we had to up it to four," Dumbledore answered simply and honestly. Everyone knew the truth here, so the question was more about establishing the fact for the transcript than actually looking for information.

"And can you tell me the ages of all of the hostages please." Miss Twist asked.

"Well, Miss Alicia Spinnet is seventeen, Miss Chang is sixteen, Miss Delacour is eight, and while I'm not sure I believe Warlock Potter is in his late 80s or 90s, depending on how you count his time caught up in a time storm."

"And how old is Miss Granger?" Miss Twist asked.

"Miss Granger was never used as a hostage," Dumbledore said.

"And that's not the question I asked. How old is Miss Granger," Miss Twist insisted.

"It's not relevant." Dumbledore insisted back.

"Considering I have sworn statements here from Warlock Charlus Potter, Harry Potter, Ronald Weasley, Hermione Granger, and Professor McGonagall that you intended to put Miss Granger at the bottom of the lake to act as Mr. Potter's hostage, and it was only Mr. Potter realising that fact at the last minute when you sent for Miss Granger the night before the task that saved her from being put in the lake. That is the base for the charge of attempted violation of a magical guardian's rights and responsibilities. It is incredibly relevant and I insist you answer my question."

"The girl was never a hostage because her magical guardian forbade it, so your charge is ridiculous." Dumbledore still refused to answer.

"If you won't tell the Wizengamot, I will. The girl is fifteen. Fifteen years old, and you attempted to put her at the bottom of a lake in the hands of merpeople, without once contacting her parents or talking to her magical guardian beforehand. Just because she was in the company of her magical guardian when the messenger you sent to collect her found her, and he put a stop to your idiotic idea in her case, has no bearing on the fact that you actually tried to do it."

"I think a better question is what was a fifteen-year-old witch doing in the personal chambers of a male professor so late in the evening?" Dumbledore accused.

Charlus went to jump up and challenge Dumbledore to a duel right there for bringing his charge’s reputation into disrepute. Fortunately for everyone, Sebastian Delacour and Yufei Chang each put their hands on his shoulders and pulled him back down into his seat.

Miss Twist bristled at the vile accusation Dumbledore had just made and knew she needed to squash it fast. Here and now fast. There were members of the press here because of who the accused was. If such a story was to appear in the papers, it would take months to fix the reputations of both of them. She had to come up with a strategy quickly, but luckily after a moment she knew exactly what she was going to do.

"Warlock Potter. Can you please describe for everyone here the events of that evening for us?" She asked, trying to implicitly ask Charlus to just follow her lead without saying anything.

Charlus took a deep breath to center himself and nodded before he stood up and began to tell everyone what happened. "It was the night before the second task. My grandson Harry was understandably nervous. The tasks were designed with of-age students in mind, and Harry had already worked out from the clue each champion was given that the next task was going to be retrieving something for the Black Lake.

"To help deal with his nerves, Harry brought his girlfriend Hermione Granger and his best friend Ronald Weasley, the two who had been helping him prepare the most, to my rooms so that we could go over his preparations one more time. There was a lot of talking over the things Harry had prepared, we drank some hot chocolate, and pretty much tried to reassure Harry that we all had faith in him. Then Minevra – sorry, Professor McGonagall - arrived, looking to ask me if I happened to know where Miss Granger was because the headmaster needed to see her. Harry worked out that meant the headmaster intended to put his girlfriend into the lake and he had a few less-than-respectful words to say about that."

Charlus was going to continue, but Miss Twist stopped him. "So in answer to the accusation of a few moments ago, would you agree that, while in your rooms with your grandson, your magical ward, and a friend of your grandson, you were in fact acting as a responsible adult, and that you were supervising them and helping a family member deal with some stress brought about by Albus Dumbledore not having sufficient safety protocols in place to prevent Mr. Potter from being entered into the Triwizard Tournament?"

"I would," Charlus answered.

"I would like to draw the Wizengamot’s attention to the signed statements I mentioned earlier. Each one corroborates what Warlock Potter just said, that they were going over last minute checks for the second task. There is no question of inappropriate behaviour anywhere but with Dumbledore’s handling of the tournament. His accusation is nothing more than an attempt to discredit his main accuser and to disrail this hearing. I would also personally like to add that I feel it's utterly disgusting that Warlock Dumbledore would try to drag a perfectly respectable young woman's reputation through the mud just to try and save his own worthless ass."

There was a little upset over her last sentence, and Miss Twist was fined ten Galleons for breaking decorum. But she considered it worth it, especially as if it worked then it was billable.

One of the seat-holding warlocks then stood up, indicating he had a question, and Fudge gave him leave to ask it. "Forgive me if I'm wrong, but as Warlock Potter is a professor, isn't he barred from helping a student prepare for a Triwizard task?"

Charlus stood up to answer before Dumbledore could use this as an opening to try and cast more aspersions. "You are correct, as a professor I am limited in what help I can give my grandson in regards to tournament preparations. However, Harry had his two friends for that job. Where I am not limited is that I can tell my grandson, and not so coincidentally my favourite student, that I had my full confidence and unwavering faith that he would do amazingly. The tournament rules and contract are very specific in their requirements, probably because the professors still need to teach them their regular lessons. We cannot give any magical instruction beyond that which we normally would in regards to our classes. Encouragement is fine and not covered under any of the restrictions. Also, I assume every other champion received encouragement from their families. Should my grandson be further handicapped in this bloody tournament? He already has to deal with having had less education. Do you wish to rob my boy of a few kind words?"

The edge in Charlus’s voice had the few people who had been nodding with the questioner sinking back into their seats and trying to make themselves as small and unnoticeable as possible. The one who had asked the question couldn’t do that as Charlus was looking right at him. "I withdraw my question," the man said before sitting down, doing everything he could to look like he wasn't intimidated by Charlus.

"So getting back to the topic, Warlock Dumbledore," Miss Twist said, getting the proceedings back on track. "You called an underage girl to your office with every intention of putting her at the bottom of the lake without any intention of asking her parents or her magical guardian."

"I was going to ask Charlus after I found out if the girl was open to the idea," Dumbledore said. “It seemed pointless to do so without asking if the girl was willing first.”

"For one moment let's pretend I believe you. If what you are saying is true, what was your backup plan if Charlus had refused? You didn't exactly have a lot of time at that point. It was, what, fourteen or fifteen hours until the start of the task?"

"I would have asked his grandfather." Dumbledore said, looking innocent as he spoke.

"Oh, then why was your first thought when confronted to switch to Mr. Ronald Weasley, another underage student. I have even more sworn statements here, one from Professor McGonagall and one from Warlock Potter that, while Warlock Potter was standing right in front of you, you didn't even consider Warlock Potter as a candidate until after he yelled at you to stop trying to put kids at the bottom of a lake. And I would also like to point out that Hogwarts is in the North of Scotland and the Weasley home is in the extreme south of England. It would have taken an owl more than a day to make the round trip. The task would have been over before you got a reply. What was your plan, to chuck the kid in the lake and hope you received a permission form you could check in the records after? Or did you plan, as I suspect, not to bother with the permission forms?" Miss Twist was hoping that her line about owls wouldn't be called out. It would have been easy for the headmaster to Floo to the Burrow and get the permission form in under 30 minutes if he had been inclined, but with the pattern with the other hostages she was sure he didn't intend to bother.

"Not bothering with parental permission would definitely follow how you dealt with Miss Cho Chang's inclusion in the task. Warlock Chang, if you could stand up and tell us the story your daughter gave, please?" Miss Twist wanted to quickly move on and establish a pattern before someone spotted her omission of the floo network.

Yufei Chang stood up, straightened the stole on his formal robes, and began to address the Wizengamot. "Honoured warlocks, I got this information directly from my sixteen year old daughter. The night before the second task of the Triwizard Tournament, my daughter Cho was helping her boyfriend, Cedric Diggory, with his final preparations for the task until just before curfew. When she returned to her common room, as she is a Ravenclaw and the Diggory boy is a Hufflepuff so they couldn't use the common rooms, she found her Head of House waiting for her with a message that the headmaster needed to see her. Professor Flitwick gave her a pass to be out after curfew and the current password to the headmaster's office, and let her get on with it.

“My daughter, curious as to what the headmaster could want, hurried to see him. Once in his office, the headmaster told her that, in order for Cedric to compete in the second task, they needed someone close to him to act as a hostage. He then explained to her that if Cedric had no hostage to rescue, he would forfeit the second task and be in breach of the binding magical contract he made with the Goblet of Fire." Warlock Chang was incredibly angry as he finished recounting what his daughter had told him.

"That man manipulated my underage daughter so that she believed she had no choice but to agree or else it would be her fault that her boyfriend at best became nothing more than a squib. He coerced her compliance, strong-arming her into giving permission that, due to her age, was invalid from the start. The worst part is, if his plans had gone as he intended and the Bulgarian boy hadn't been seriously hurt, then nobody would have cared enough about all this to do anything. It's only because we have such a stark reminder of how close she came to getting hurt that we aren't just continuing with the status quo and leaving this man in charge of all of our children." Warlock Chang looked ready to duel Dumbledore right there in front of everyone.

"Warlock Chang, can you please tell us if Dumbledore explained exactly what being a hostage would mean for your daughter?" Miss Twist asked.

"He told her that she would be put in an enchanted sleep and she would wake up after she was rescued. That's all, he didn't tell her any details but that," he answered, still glaring at Dumbledore as he spoke.

"Esteemed warlocks, there is a principle in our law that is commonly called informed consent. At its core the idea is simple, you have to have a reasonable opportunity to understand something before you can consent to something. For example, if you sign a loan agreement, the contract has to contain how much interest you will be charged. That gives the person signing the contract a fair opportunity to read it before they sign. My understanding of how Warlock Dumbledore handled the situation is that he kept any opportunity of understanding the risks away from Miss Chang. So in addition to being underage, we have a second legal principle for why her consent to be part of this task is not legally valid. This is the exact same problem as what happened with the Delacour girl. Madame Delacour, can you please tell us the story of what happened from your point of view?" Miss Twist asked.

Apolline Delacour nodded, stood, and started speaking. She had her allure suppressed, but she still had the attention of almost every man in the room. "It started with our family being invited to watch the second task of the Triwizard Tournament. Given that our daughter as a champion was bound to the ceremonies of the tournament, we hadn't seen her since the last day of August, the Yule ball preventing her from returning home for Christmas. Because it had been so long, we jumped at the opportunity to see Fleur and the three of us – my daughter Gabrielle, my husband Sebastian and myself – all made our arrangements to travel.

When we arrived it was just as you would expect, we spent a little time with Fleur but she was mostly busy preparing for the task, so we did a little sightseeing of the lovely little village by the school. The day before the second task we, that is to say my husband and I, were approached by the headmaster of Hogwarts. He told us that a main component of the second task was that the champions had to rescue someone they cared about. Their first choice for Fleur, her date for the Yule Ball, had fallen flat. Apparently our daughter and this boy didn't click romantically and had quickly drifted apart, and our daughter didn't care about him any more than any other random student.

“So, he asked if our daughter Gabrielle could stand in as hostage; as Fleur's sister it was a given that she cared deeply for her. My husband and I were apprehensive, we said it didn't sound safe. How could it be safe, as they had already used dragons in the first task? When we asked Dumbledore that very question, he assured us that the hostages would be in a safe room while their champions faced the trials of the task and the danger would have passed before Gabrielle was retrieved. He also pointed out that our Fleur was under a magically binding contract and that she could lose her magic if she was unable to complete the task for any reason. Veela are mostly human, but we are more tightly bound to our magic and we can't live without it. Dumbledore also assured us that the hostages would be under guard to make sure that if anything unexpected happened, there were fully qualified people there to deal with it and keep them safe."

"What did Dumbledore tell you about the guards?" Miss Twist asked.

"Nothing specific, but he gave the impression that they would be witches or wizards. If he had told me the truth, I would never have given my permission for my little girl to be involved in that travesty." Madame Delacour said, unconsciously scratching her arms as she was so angry that her magic was building up in them ready to start shouting feathers.

"And what was the truth?"

"The idiot gave my daughter to the merpeople!" She spat out the word “merpeople” like it was something disgusting.

"Can you please explain why that is important?"

"It's important because they hate us. The merpeople have been trying to destroy all the Veela for almost three thousand years. Our people both come from the Mediterranean, we used to live together, some even say we have a common ancestor because the Veela allure is so similar to the siren’s song. The merpeople even used to transform like we do. We transform from a human form to an avian hybrid form, and they used to have a human form along with their aquatic forms. But for some reason the merpeople lost their human forms, and they blame the Veela.

“I honestly don't know if the Veela of the time had anything to do with it. As it was around three thousand years ago, no one knows for sure what happened. The only facts that are known are that the merpeople have hated my kind and have done everything in their power to kill us whenever they have the opportunity. In fact, I truly believe the only reason she was still alive when Mr. Potter arrived at the merpeople village is because they intended to use her as bait so that her sister wouldn't retreat when they tried to kill her. Dumbledore almost cost me my daughters by deceiving me about the dangers and placing my little girl into the hands of her would-be murderers."

"Thank you, Madame Delacour," Miss Twist said.

This time Dumbledore chose to ask some questions. "Madame Delacour, you said in your statement that you knew the first task involved dragons. Correct?" Madam Delacour nodded that she had. "You also said that I told you that your younger daughter would have guards protecting her. Is this correct?" Again Madame Delacour answered that it was. "Is it not responsible to conclude that you were informed of the possibility of there being some danger? After all you don't need a guard to protect you if you are perfectly safe."

"There is a difference between a reasonable risk with qualified guards on standby to intervene if something went wrong, because at the moment we couldn't think of a better way to keep our eldest daughter from running afoul of a badly constructed magical contract, and putting our daughter in the hands of monsters who want to genocide my entire people. Putting Gabrielle in the hands of merpeople is something we never would have agreed to, and you must have known that as it's why you hid the truth from us." Madame Delacour looked like she was considering seeing just how well Dumbledore’s beard would burn, and she looked calm compared to her husband who looked like he was pondering something much darker.

The arguments continued back and forth for another few hours, but Miss Twist had clearly established the pattern of how Dumbledore had failed each of the underage hostages and attempted it with Hermione. If it had just been one case or another, there was almost no chance Dumbledore would face any consequences, but together was a different story.

Dumbledore had tried to say he didn't know that the tensions between the merpeople and Veela were so grave, and that he had believed the merpeople in the Black Lake would have honoured the agreements in place for the tournament. Miss Twist had countered that if it was true he knew about the tensions, then it was criminally negligent to include the lake at all, knowing that Beauxbatons was known for accepting Veela students and that there was a fair chance one may have become the champion.

Eventually the Wizengamot found Dumbledore guilty on two of the three charges. Dumbledore had enough allies in the Wizengamot that, because Charlus had intervened and Hermione wasn't put in the lake, then it was no harm, no foul. That's not to say her case wasn't important, it had been a major factor in establishing the pattern for the other two.

With determining guilt or innocence over, it was time to turn to the matter of sentencing. Dumbledore had been found guilty of interfering with wills, neglecting his responsibility as Harry's magical guardian in various ways, endangering all the students in a school because of the trolls and Cerberus in the ‘91-’92 school year, and directly violating parental rights of two underage witches by using them as hostages without appropriate parental permission.

Now the real fighting would begin, as the whole Wizengamot debated what exactly the punishment would be. Of course, there were some who immediately called for the harshest punishments for Dumbledore. Fines that would bankrupt the man, removing him from all his political positions, and removing him from Hogwarts. Those calls obviously came from the darker elements of the Wizengamot like Warlock Nott, with whom Dumbledore had often butted heads. It was only the fact that it had been a civil trial that stopped them from calling for life in Azkaban. The other side was led by Warlock Doge, Dumbledore’s not so secret partner, and were for Dumbledore to pay each victim one hundred Galleons and call it a day. The final judgement would be somewhere between those two extremes, though some in the centre like Warlock Greengrass were adamant that Dumbledore would at least have to lose any position at Hogwarts and be barred from working any jobs where he would have a duty of care over under age witches and wizards.

---ϟϟϟ---

With the sentencing, the trial had run a few hours late. The Wizengamot had decided to spend the extra time rather than coming back again for another day, so when Charlus Floo'ed back to Potter Manor he found a crowd of people anxiously waiting for news. Not just Sirius and the teens, but Hermione’s parents and about half the clan of Weasleys were all there.

"Dumbledore has lost his position as headmaster." Charlus said, getting a cheer from a number of the teens. That was what everyone really wanted to know, so he got it out of the way. With that, he had Harry go make tea for everyone. If he was going to explain everything in detail he wanted a drink to help keep his throat from drying out. Hermione and Ron went with Harry to help him make and carry enough tea for twelve people. While they were doing that, Charlus took the opportunity to go and change out of his formal Wizengamot robes. When he returned, the trio were back and there was a cup of tea waiting for him

Charlus settled into a chair and started to explain everything. "In the end, Dumbledore has been found guilty of four charges: blocking James and Lily's will, abandoning his responsibilities when he was Harry's magical guardian, endangering the whole school with all the things he did with the philosopher's stone in Harry's first year, and putting the Chang and Delacour girls in the lake without consulting their parents."

The only ones who were at all surprised about the philosopher's stone were the Weasley twins and their sister. Charlus had already spoken to both of Hermione’s and Ron's parents about everything Harry had told him. Dan Granger was the first to ask a question. "You said he was convicted of putting the other girls in the lake. Does that mean he got away with trying to put Hermione down there?"

Charlus nodded. "Unfortunately, yes. As Hermione was never actually put in the lake, Dumbledore was able to sway the vote enough so that he wasn't convicted of that crime. However, I'm sure that without Hermione’s case it would have been harder to establish the pattern for the other two."

Emma nodded and said, "Once is happenstance, twice is a coincidence, and three times is a pattern."

"In response, the Wizengamot has decided that Dumbledore is no longer to be considered fit to hold a job where he has any responsibility for the safety and well-being of a minor. As such, he has lost his job as headmaster. There is currently a team looking into how the contract of the Triwizard Tournament will affect that. Whichever way it pans out, if Dumbledore has any role until the end of the tournament, it will just be rubber stamping the decisions of the new head," Charlus explained.

"Do we know who the new head is going to be?" asked Mr. Weasley.

"It's not a matter for the Wizengamot, so it will take a little time, but I had a conversation with somebody today and I think I have convinced him to throw his hat in the ring." Charlus decided to be a little cagey and not reveal who he was going to push forward. The trick was going to be to get the governors to go along with it. "In addition to not being allowed to work with kids any more, the Wizengamot has fined Dumbledore ten thousand Galleons."

There was a few whistles from the Weasleys. The older Grangers weren't used to doing the converting in their heads, so Dan asked for the number in pounds. Hermione answered before Harry, the only other person in the room used to thinking in both currencies, could finish getting the maths straight in his head. "Forty-eight thousand pounds, give or take a few hundred, depending on how the Galleon is doing against the pound at the moment."

"That's not pocket change," Emma nodded in satisfaction. "What will happen to that money now?"

"Normally it would go directly to the victims, but as the victims include every student who was at Hogwarts in the ‘91-’92 school year, Mr. Chang proposed, and all of us parents and guardians agreed, that the gold was best donated to the school rather than spreading out around so many people. When that was proposed to the Wizengamot, they agreed. Beauxbatons will get some because of what happened with Gabrielle, but the majority of it will go straight to Hogwarts."

Everyone seemed to think that was probably the best way to handle this. After all, giving hundreds of people a few Galleons each would be more work for very little individual benefit, whereas Hogwarts would be able to invest it in something that would aid students for years to come. Also, Charlus hoped that being responsible for such a massive donation to the school will give him some goodwill with the governors for his plan to get his choice for headmaster into position.

Chapter 41

Chapter Text

Chapter 41

Charlus’s holiday was cut short as he was called back to the school for the emergency job of appointing a new head. The professors were all called into a meeting with the governors, with the agenda being suggesting people to take up the job. When Charlus walked into the staffroom there was predictably some grumbling. Mostly it was about timing, like "could have bloody waited until the visitors left. This makes the school look bad." And "couldn't we have at least gotten a courtesy warning? I had to cancel plans to be here." Charlus naturally ignored them and took the chair that had become his in his time since Christmas.

As soon as the last of the governors arrived, the meeting started. Professor McGonagall was the name put forward by most of the professors, but before they could even get to the point where anyone got to voice opposition to that idea Minerva herself shot down the idea. "I'm not yet ready for that responsibility. If you would have asked me at the start of the year, I would have taken the job without a second thought. Yet this last year has me re-evaluating a lot of my decisions, chief among them how ready I was to follow Albus's word with everything that was going on. I would like to keep my current post, and I would very much like to remain in consideration for the job in the future. However, for now I must decline."

Charlus was quite surprised by Minerva's decision. Nothing she had said to him made him suspect that this would have been her decision. In truth he was relieved that he didn't have to speak out against her having the job, he liked Minerva even if he didn't feel she was right for the job. Other names were not as widely supported. Someone suggested Griselda Marchbanks, but she was older even than Dumbledore, and while her mind was as sharp as it ever was, the daily grind of administering a place like Hogwarts would be too taxing physically. Another suggested Slughorn, as a former professor and Head of House.

Minerva actually put Charlus’s name forward, but he declined that right away. He was a good Potioneer and he was a fair hand at teaching, after having had a few apprentices to practise on over the years, but he was not an administrator. However, when he turned down the post he decided it was the best opportunity to give his own pitch. "... so that's why I must decline. But I think we are considering this wrong. We keep looking for someone with experience teaching, yet the position of the head of the school is not a teaching one, it's an administrator. We don't need someone who knows how to encourage students to do their homework or who knows the best way to keep a class's attention, we already have those. What we need is someone who can look after the school's financial needs, stretch every Galleon as far as it will go so that we can get as much as we can for the students. Someone who can see if the skills being taught are actually ones people need in their lives and in their workplaces. With all of that in mind, I suggest we offer the position to…"

---ϟϟϟ---

The trip back to Hogwarts on the Express was a little weird for the trio, as they had two Aurors in the compartment with them. One insisted on sitting next to the door while the other next to the window. They were going to stay with at least Harry and Hermione until they got to the castle. Technically Ron wasn't under their protection and was free to go do whatever he wanted, but given how close he was to Harry and Hermione it was strongly recommended that he stayed with them.

Whenever one of their friends came to say hi, the Aurors insisted on doing a full security check and had Harry and Hermione confirm who they were to let them in. While everyone understood that the Aurors were just doing their jobs, their friends of course hadn't wanted to stay. Harry honestly wondered why they hadn't just Floo’ed to the school, it would have been easier. In the end, Ron had drawn Harry into a game of chess while Hermione had pulled out a book on the arithmancy of spellcraft and got lost in reading. Once they got to the station, the trio rode up to the castle in a carriage like everyone else, but the guards came with them. Up at the castle, they were taken to one side and the guards switched. It looked like Belmont was back on rotation for a bit, though they didn't recognise the other Auror with him.

Finally, the trio made their way back into the Great Hall. It wasn't a feast, as there weren't any feasts for returning after Christmas or Easter. It was a late dinner though; it was a long train ride, and that meant hundreds of hungry teenagers all arriving at the castle. The trio all quickly took their seats and helped themselves to chicken pot pie, mashed potatoes, and carrots while catching up with everyone who had stayed in the castle.

"So who's the new headmaster?" Ron asked Neville, nodding to the blond-haired man who looked to be in his mid-forties now sitting where Dumbledore used to sit, looking around at everyone.

"Don't know, this is the first time we have seen him as well. We know he got here yesterday but he hasn't been outside of the headmaster's office until now. Hannah thinks that he has just been too busy doing a load of parchment work, which makes sense to me."

"There is probably a lot of stuff a new headmaster needs to know quickly to run a school. Especially when starting in the middle of the school year while the school's hosting an international event," agreed Hermione.

"Speaking of international events, look at who just walked in," said Harry as he spotted Victor Krum and Alicia entering arm in arm and heading for the Gryffindor table.

"Wait, Krum has two arms!" Ron whisper-shouted at the people around him.

Neville nodded. "Yeah he got a prosthetic over the holiday. Alicia said it's not as good as a real one and he won't be able to play professional Quidditch with it, but for day-to-day life he should be fine with some practice." Everyone tried to catch a glimpse of the arm as Neville spoke, but it was under a sleeve and a glove so nobody could see anything.

"I wonder why it took so long for him to get one?" Harry mused out loud.

"It takes time to make them," said Ron. "They have to be made specifically for each individual so that it fits them perfectly, then it needs enchanting, and Krum needs to have rune tattoos done on his arm so that he can control the arm. It's not a quick process. Or cheap for that matter, he may have had to wait until he got the gold from Crouch to start."

Dinner continued and people chatted about what everyone had gotten up to over the holidays. There was some interest from people who thought Harry may have witnessed Dumbledore’s trial, but once Harry confirmed that he hadn't been there nobody pressed him for any details. As the last of the food disappeared, there was the sound of a spoon against a glass, and everyone turned to the head table where the new headmaster was standing ready to address the hall.

"When I was writing this speech I wondered how I should address you? Children, witches and wizards, ladies and gentlemen? It was having questions about something as simple as this that showed me I also have a lot to learn, and where better to learn than Hogwarts? So, I will address you as equals as long as you show me and this school the respect it deserves. My fellow learners and seekers of knowledge, I am Castor Greengrass, and it is my hope that together we can all make this a school we are proud to say we came from."

"It's going to take me some time to get up to date on all of Hogwarts’ policies and see what and where any changes need to be made. However, I can tell you now that going forward the goal is going to be respect and responsibility. You will show your professors the respect they deserve, but so too will your professors give you respect unless and until you demonstrate you are unworthy of it. You will also respect your fellow students. Purebloods, half-bloods, first-generation magicals, in here you are all the same: students of magic.

"Tomorrow will be my first full day as headmaster of this most prestigious school and I sincerely wish that from now everything will go smoothly, yet I have been around long enough to know that things really go as smoothly as we hope. This is why the first change I will be making is an open door policy. Between the end of classes and the start of dinner, there will be no password required to knock on the headmaster's door. If something happens that you truly believe is best brought to my attention, please feel free to come and talk with me. No one can fix a problem they are unaware of.

"To our guests. I know that you haven't seen Hogwarts at her best recently. The actions of a few men have left a bitter taste in our mouths. It is my hope that we can move past this disaster of a first impression and we can show you the true spirit of Hogwarts. Now, it's late, and after our excellent dinner I am starting to feel the effects of a long day. Effects I'm sure plenty of you are feeling after a long day travelling as well, so off to bed with you all."

Everyone started to make their ways to their common rooms. "So what do you think of the new headmaster?" Ron asked.

"Honestly, it didn't sound bad at all. Of course, the test will be in how he acts going forward. It's easy to say the right words, actually following through is a different story. I just hope he can live up to even half of what he said,” Hermione replied.

"Oh he will Granger, you can be sure about that." They turned, and just a few feet behind them, waiting for her opportunity to leave the Great Hall just like the three of them, was Daphne Greengrass with a smile on her face.

"Uh…" Hermione stammered, worried she had accidentally caused offence, but Daphne waved her off. "Don't panic Granger. All you said was you didn't know the man, that's hardly offensive. I, however, do know him. One of the earliest lessons he taught me was that in business you should always be seen to stick to your word. Because if you don't, then your customers will go elsewhere. He will do his best to follow those words with actions."

Hermione nodded in understanding. Harry, however, asked, "How do you feel having your father as headmaster? You'll get to see him more often at least."

Daphne shrugged. "And every House point loss, detention, and piece of late homework is going to be reported to him directly. So it's good and bad."

"I don't think so. At least grandfather has never mentioned any of that stuff to me since he started teaching potions. Maybe they are telling him and he just isn't mentioning it, but I don't think so," Harry pointed out.

"Well, I'll just have to wait and see. Have a pleasant evening." She bid them farewell as they had now passed the doors of the Great Hall, and the Slytherin girl turned towards the dungeons while the tired Gryffindors faced the looming threat of multiple flights of stairs. Though Harry and Hermione had to admit they had less of a climb than the other Gryffindors, as the three teens and the two Aurors following Harry hit the stairs.

---ϟϟϟ---

The day after Harry and the others returned to Hogwarts, Harry was handed a letter by a Hogwarts house elf. He thanked the little elf, who seemed happy to get his thanks, and opened the letter.

Heir Potter,

I was hoping that at some point today you could come and speak with me. This is a personal matter and nothing you need to be concerned about.

Hopefully,

Castor Greengrass

Harry re-read the note again and thought about it. From his lessons with his grandfather over the summer, he knew it was significant that Headmaster Greengrass hadn't signed the letter with that title, and that he had addressed the letter by invoking his status as the next warlock of House Potter. Unless Greengrass was making a massive breach in etiquette, this truly was a meeting where he would be talking with the man, not the headmaster. If Dumbledore had ever said that, Harry wouldn't have believed it. Dumbledore seemed to define himself by his headmaster role, while Harry seriously doubted that Greengrass had even started to think of himself as the headmaster yet. He wasn't an expert, but he was sure it took some time to shift your self image like that.

Harry told Ron and Hermione where he was going and decided that it was best not to waste time. He had to walk up three flights of stairs before he was on the same level as the gargoyle that protected the entrance to the headmaster's office. As he approached the gargoyle, instead of asking for the password it said, "are you sure you should be bothering the headmaster with whatever it is that you want to discuss? Have you tried your Head of House first?" It was obviously a message to get students thinking If they should try another teacher before bothering the headmaster.

Harry held up his note. "The headmaster asked to see me."

"Very well, go on up then." With that he stepped aside and cleared the way to the stairs, and a few moments later Harry was knocking on the big double doors that barred the way to the actual office. A few seconds after that, he was granted entrance to the office.

The inside of the office hadn't changed much since Harry had seen it last. Fawkes’s perch was gone, as were a number of books and ornaments that must have been the former headmaster's personal property, but everything else looked much the same.

"Ah Mr. Potter, please have a seat," Headmaster Greengrass offered, gesturing at one of the comfortable sofa seats under the window. "I will be with you in one moment." The headmaster went back to writing something on a piece of parchment. Harry's bodyguards waited by the door were they could see everything, but were far enough off that Harry could have a private conversation

True to his word a few minutes later Headmaster Greengrass sat in another of the chairs near where Harry was sitting. "Mr. Potter, would you like a cup of tea?" The headmaster offered.

"Please, headmaster." Harry nodded.

A tea tray with everything needed appeared on the table and the headmaster started pouring. As he did, he spoke. "Considering the subject I wish to talk about, addressing me as headmaster is probably not a good idea. Mr. Greengrass will be fine for now." He handed Harry a cup of black unsweetened tea and Harry added both sugar and milk from the tray.

"I must admit Mr. Greengrass, I am curious as to why you asked to speak to me," Harry said casually, not wanting to come across as rude.

"Well, the first and biggest part is to say thank you. My daughter Daphne already told me she had thanked you for your donation to the blood curse research foundation. However, considering the good that it's doing for my family, I wanted to thank you and shake your hand myself." He held out his hand and Harry shook it, feeling a little awkward. "I'm not sure if you would understand this, but the worst thing a parent can imagine is watching one of their children die knowing there is nothing that they can do to stop it. That is the current prospect for my daughter Astoria, yet thanks to you, for the first time in years there is hope, and I can tell you hope is power that dwarfs magic. People will do incredible things in the name of hope. So for returning hope to my family, you have my heartfelt gratitude."

Harry just felt embarrassed. He didn't feel like he deserved any of the praise that Mr. Greengrass was helping on him. All he had done was donate some gold to charity that he didn't think he deserved in the first place.

"Now, I'm hoping to ask you about your time at Hogwarts so far. I have asked around and I have heard a lot of rumours and things I believe to be exaggeration. Now I'm asking you this as Mr. Greengrass, father of two students, not as the new headmaster. That means this one time you can tell me everything and no one will be punished for any wrongdoing. For this one conversation, I am offering you and your friends complete immunity. Thus is the only way I can truly understand what this school needs."

Harry considered it for a few seconds. There was plenty that had happened in the school that the new headmaster should be aware of. "Very well sir. Let's start with my letter of acceptance and the introduction I got as a muggle-raised magical to the magical world." Harry sat there for a few hours telling the new headmaster almost everything. He had purposely left out things like the Marauders’ Map and sneaking out to Hogsmeade last year. He wouldn't get in trouble for them, but any reasonably competent headmaster would ask to at least see the map and would close off every secret tunnel in and out of the school, and there was every possibility that Harry would want to use them himself. Besides, he didn't want to cut the Weasley twins off from their supplier for the great parties they threw.

---ϟϟϟ---

There were a few subtle changes in Hogwarts over the next few weeks. For example, Hagrid told Harry and his friends that the new headmaster had added a few responsibilities to his gamekeeper job. He was now to take a weekly trip into the forest and collect all the things like snagged unicorn tail hairs he could find. The headmaster was now going to be selling those items to raise gold for the school, gold he immediately used to improve things around the school.

The first recipient of the improvements was Mr. Filch, who got a full set of enchanted cleaning tools that did whenever he told them. Next, new books started to appear in the library. There was even some chatter about new school brooms for next year. The most notable change, however, was the food; apparently Headmaster Greengrass was more open to changing it than Dumbledore had been. That had been made evident the first Saturday after everyone was back, when instead of something from the usual Hogwarts fare there was pizza. None of the old dishes had been removed from the menu and would all still be served, there were just new dishes added: pizza, curry, and chilli to name three.

The changes were small, but each one added to slightly happier students and staff. The consensus among the students was that they would only have small changes this year. Any big changes would probably come about after the school holidays, when they had the time to change everything without risking massive disruptions and looking like fools in front of the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang students.

The Quidditch tournament that Harry still wished he could be involved in was proceeding well, and Gryffindor was holding their own. There were only three more games to play: Gryffindor vs. Durmstrang, Hufflepuff vs. Beauxbatons, and Slytherin vs. Ravenclaw. However, the Quidditch pitch, as they had been informed it would be, was off limits.

With all of the attention that the fight to bring back Quidditch this year had generated in the press, even if it was confined to the sports publications (and unfortunately the influence of Malfoy and his father) the Ellis Moor Quidditch Stadium had agreed to host the last three games as charity events. The stadiums were going to sell tickets and concessions as normal, but after they took out their costs the winning team would get to decide what charity would get the rest of the gold.

When it was announced that all the Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang students could buy tickets for half the normal cost and were permitted to attend the matches with a signed permission form from their parents if they were under seventeen, the whole school went nuts. Everyone was sending owls home asking for permission and some gold for the tickets. Harry and Hermione had immediately asked Charlus so they could go and support Ron.

However, Charlus had immediately put his foot down and said no. The fact that there was a crazy Dark Lord out there trying to kidnap Harry had Charlus way too concerned with the possible danger of letting either Harry or Hermione out of the school's wards. Any protest the two might have made died when one of the Aurors who were shadowing Harry said that, due to how insecure the stadium was, it was the official recommendation of the D.M.L.E. that Harry and any other persons of significance did not attend any of the games held away from the school. The problem was, the D.M.L.E. included Ron in that.

Apparently the Aurors had been watching Harry since they were assigned to guard him, and they had identified four people who they believed Harry would surrender himself to save if they were kidnapped. Hermione, Ron, Charlus, and Sirius were all on the list, and if Harry was honest with himself the Aurors were right. There was no way Harry could stomach leaving any one of them in Voldemort's clutches if there was even a chance he could do something about it. Because of this, one of the D.M.L.E Aurors had pulled Mr. Weasley aside at work and had recommended that he and his wife refused Ron permission to leave the castle to play in the Quidditch game.

Harry lent Ron the use of Hedwig so that he could plead his case with his parents. Unfortunately, the trip between Hogwarts and Ottery St. Catchpole was one of the longest owl flights in Britain. Over that next week, Hedwig had flown the entire length of the country multiple times.

The argument between Ron and his parents was in essence that Ron was saying that his brothers Fred and George were already going and they had given permission for Ginny to go, and as he was looking to pursue a career in Quidditch this was an amazing opportunity to be seen by the Quidditch scouts. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley's counter was that Fred and George were of age and hadn't asked permission, there was no threat of Ginny being kidnapped, and that the D.M.L.E. thought it was not just in Harry's but Ron's best interest that he stayed in the school until after the day of the third task.

It got to the point that Mr. Weasley actually came to the school to talk it through with Ron. It was touch and go, but in the end a compromise was reached. The four Weasleys would only be allowed to attend the match they were playing in and couldn't go watch any of the others. Technically the twins were already of age and could give themselves permission to go, but they had agreed for the sake of peace and the Gryffindor team. The Weasleys were also to stick together as a group any time they were off the pitch, with the obvious exception of Ginny who needed to use a different changing room. Alicia, Angelina and Katie had all promised to keep Ginny with them while she was away from her brothers.

The younger two Weasleys didn't like how overprotective everyone was being, and Harry felt a little guilty as the restrictions were to protect him. However, despite how he felt, Harry's instinct said that Mr Weasley was right. If Ron was taken it would be a trap for Harry, and Voldemort wouldn't just let Ron go if Harry surrendered himself. Ron would be lucky if Voldemort killed him. There were plenty of fates worse than death, and Voldemort and his followers were sick enough not only to try them but to enjoy doing it.

---ϟϟϟ---

One month before the final task, Harry and the other champions were called down to the Quidditch pitch by Director Bagman. They were given the details of the maze and also told how the task would work. The idea that the points they had accumulated so far would determine head starts and that the first to the Triwizard Cup at the centre of the maze would win was a simple one. Knowing that the last task was a maze gave Sirius some ideas on spells Harry needed to know, and it gave Hermione a good idea of what spells to look for. With that, Harry's training for the last task kicked into overdrive.

Ron had the idea of flying over the maze and taking a photo to construct a map of the maze so that Harry would know the shortest possible route to the cup. Unfortunately, as Ron flew over he could see that the maze was changing its layout as he watched. There were some sections that didn't seem to move, but whether that was by design or because those spots just weren’t moving in that moment was impossible to tell.

It was a pity it hadn't worked, not just because it meant Harry would be going in blind but because Ron was feeling guilty that he wasn't able to help as much with Harry's preparations as he thought he should be. Ron just didn't have the time, as nearly all his free time was either being taken up by revising for the fast approaching end-of-year tests or by the Quidditch team, who were practising over the Black Lake any chance they got. Gryffindor was already guaranteed at least third place, and if they won their game by enough points there was even a fair chance they could actually win the first ever Triwizard Quidditch Cup.

Despite Ron's concerns, Harry was fine with it and only wished he had the opportunity to support Ron playing Quidditch. It was rather disheartening that now that things were going better for Ron, Harry couldn't support him the way the guy who had stood by him since he returned to the wizarding world deserved. Hopefully after the tournament everything would calm down again, and Harry could just spend the summer goofing off with Ron and Hermione.

Chapter 42

Chapter Text

Chapter 42

The last month before the final task was filled with training. Every evening, every weekend, every hour Harry had free, Sirius was there either teaching Harry a spell that Sirius already knew or one Hermione had found that they thought might be useful. Add to that a lot of physical training, and Harry was facing the month from hell.

During this month, almost the entire school became obsessed with the Quidditch tournament. Slytherin had played Ravenclaw first, a good match to kick off the games in the professional stadium because both teams had plenty of experience with each other. Slytherin had won, but it had been close and, from the accounts Harry was able to get afterwards, a good match to watch with plenty of action.

The next game was Hufflepuff vs Beauxbatons, which had been great for Hogwarts morale but less exciting for the crowd. Of the three schools, Beauxbatons was the only one who didn't have organised Quidditch teams and only had pick-up games organised by the students. They had put a team together for the Triwizard Quidditch Cup just to participate, and the more organised and experienced team had walked over them.

The last match was Gryffindor vs Durmstrang. Durmstrang was always going to get the last match once it was confirmed that they were indeed going to play in front of the public. The last game getting scheduled between a Hogwarts team and a visiting team made sense, and they wanted the teams that would be the most entertaining, which wasn't Beauxbatons. The bit that had caused a little tension was which Hogwarts team would get to play them for that match, but they had drawn lots at the start of the year to work out when each team was going to play and Gryffindor had won the last match.

It was a real shame Harry and Hermione were stuck at the castle for the game. One stroke of luck was that the Wizarding Wireless Network had decided to cover the game, so Harry and Hermione were able to listen. The bad news was that Sirius didn't give Harry the time off from his training to just sit and listen. Luckily, though, Sirius had Harry running laps around a clearing between the castle and the Forbidden Forest, so Harry set the wireless in the middle of the loop he was running, cranked up the volume, and listened as he ran.

Hermione wasn't running with him; for the most part, she took the time Harry was doing physical training to revise for the exams that were just around the corner for her. Sirius, however, had shifted into his animagus form and was running next to Harry. Harry had asked if it was worth him learning to be an animagus on the off chance he could have a form that would help him either in the task or in avoiding being captured. Unfortunately, according to Sirius it would take too long and too much time away from other training. He had, however, told Harry that if he wanted to learn after the tournament was over he was more than happy to teach him, and subject to their parents approving Ron and Hermione as well.

As Harry listened to the match, it sounded like there was a lot of action from the chasers, and Harry cheered every time Ron saved a goal. His friend did save more than he let in, but unfortunately the Durmstrang chasers had the edge over the Gryffindor chasers. Though Ron had a better average than Blet the Durmstrang keeper, there were just more shots taken at the Gryffindor posts, so the Durmstrang team was inching a lead. Sirius had Harry switch to running spell drills, just practising casting the spells he had already mastered. They both knew it was pointless to try Harry on something new while Ron was playing in his big Quidditch match.

Durmstrang may have been leading but they didn't have the world class seeker they had hoped for at the beginning of the year. The Gryffindors, on the other hand, had Ginny Weasley. Ginny was no Harry, especially when it came to playing seeker. However, she had taken something with her that none who had watched her in the other matches this year would have accounted for when planning their strategies, a brand new Nimbus 2001. She and Ron had asked if Ginny could borrow the gold from Harry for the broom and then pay it back from the basilisk gold. Harry hadn't had a problem with that, and the 200 Galleons the broom had fallen to now that the Firebolt was the top dog was not an amount of gold he needed to worry about. So, Harry had ordered the broom for Ginny and made a note to get the money back from the basilisk fund.

Harry was just starting his warm down when the commentary on the wireless shifted to excitement as the Snitch chase began. Ginny's opponent was a Durmstrang girl by the name of Vovk who was constantly following Ginny in the chase, snapping at her heels and trying to unsettle the younger Gryffindor girl into making a mistake. Unfortunately for Vovk, intimidation tactics don't have a good track record against Gryffindors, and Ginny held her nerve long enough to snatch the snitch from the air, winning Gryffindor the match and the tournament. As the oldest Gryffindor left in the castle who wasn't Hermione, Harry took it upon himself (with Sirius's help) to make sure that there was a massive party waiting in the common room when everyone got back.

---ϟϟϟ---

The party was a success. Harry and Sirius weren't quite up to the same standards as Fred and George, but Sirius had something the twins didn't: a pile of gold that was bigger than he could ever spend. Sirius made a quick run to Hogsmeade and bought out Madam Rosmerta’s entire supply of butterbeer and a selection of sweets from Honeydukes. Harry was in charge of asking the elves to supply the rest of the food and trying to find some music. Luckily, a second year had a wireless that she was happy to lend Harry for the evening.

The last touch was decoration, and Hermione was convinced to help by Harry. It took a little pleading on his part, as the end of year tests were next week and Hermione was of the opinion that everyone should be taking the evening to study rather than partying. But she admitted that even without a party there was little chance that there would be any studying done that evening.

When all the students got back to the castle, word of the Gryffindor party soon spread around the other houses, and quite a few members of other houses turned up to celebrate a Hogwarts win. The younger two Weasleys were loving all the attention they were getting. Ginny was being called the woman of the match for catching the Snitch, and Ron was getting plenty of recognition because if he hadn't been such a good keeper the points difference would have quickly become too much for Ginny to overcome with the Snitch.

Harry and Hermione spent the first half of the evening listening to Ron give a blow-by-blow recount of his point of view of the match. They weren't the only ones either, as quite a few people, including some from other houses, were hanging on his every word. For the second half of the evening, Hermione had pulled Harry onto the dance floor, and despite the fact that Harry's legs were aching from all the exercise he had done earlier he found he couldn't refuse Hermione when she wanted to dance with him. He wasn't the only one to get dragged onto the dance floor; he wasn't surprised to see one of the girls who had been listening to Ron pull him to the dance floor as well. What surprised Harry was the girl who was doing the dragging: Susan Bones. Susan had a reputation of being rather shy and a bit of a wallflower, so Ron must have really caught the Hufflepuffs eye for her to be acting so bold.

---ϟϟϟ---

The night before the third task, Harry and Charlus were both called to the headmaster's office. Harry was a little apprehensive at being called into the headmaster's office, to him it was either because he had done something he couldn't recall or he was about to be hit with one more tournament bombshell. When they got there, Headmaster Greengrass wasn't alone, but instead joined by Director Bones and two other wizards who Harry didn't think he had ever met before.

"Good evening Professor Potter, Mr. Potter, please come in and join us," The headmaster said as he ushered to a couple of chairs.

Once Harry and Charlus had taken their seats, it was Director Bones who took over. "Charlus, Harry, it's been a while. As you know, the Triwizard Tournament Third Task is tomorrow, and that's the window of opportunity that You-Know-Who intends to use to kidnap you, Harry. We are here today to hopefully prevent that, and to give us the best possible opportunity to come and get you if you are. This is Director Croaker of the Department of Mysteries," she indicated one of the wizards Harry had never met before, "and this is Auror Moonshine. We are going to spend the next few hours going over the plans we have and making the necessary preparations."

The plan, while not simple, could rather easily be summed up. The Aurors acting as Harry's bodyguards were getting some reinforcements. For the next twenty-four hours at least Harry's, Hermione’s, and Charlus’s privacy was revoked, there would be eyes on them at all times. That part was to prevent any attempt to kidnap Harry outside of the task. The Aurors couldn't go into the maze with Harry, so they were going to be patrolling the outside of the maze and flying over it on brooms. Once the champions were in the maze, they were going to make sure no one got inside to kidnap Harry.

The last thing was tracking magic. Croaker and Moonshine were going to load Harry up with every form of tracking spell they knew, and Croaker gave Harry a ring that could cast a beacon spell if Harry put magic into it. The spell was supposed to make it really easy to track someone or something when it was set off. Lastly, they were going to monitor Harry's Trace report back at the Ministry. Normally, as a Hogwarts student Harry's Trace report was not looked at while he was in school. There were going to be two full squads of aurors waiting for any kind of signal from Harry to come and retrieve him.

It was annoying to be told that he wasn't going to have any privacy for the next twenty-four hours, but in a way it was also reassuring. Harry knew that this wasn't really about him, this was about preventing Voldemort from coming back, and he hadn't felt this secure since before his name came out of the Goblet of Fire.

---ϟϟϟ---

The task was held on a Saturday, so Hermione and Ron had just finished their week of end-of-year tests. Hogwarts always held the unimportant in-school tests in the weeks before the external O.W.L. and N.E.W.T. exams. For one, it gave the students taking the exams a little longer to revise, but it also meant that the examiners who marked the exams for the Ministry only needed to come to the school once. This meant that, despite it being the morning of the Third Task, Ron was on his post-exams high. "No more hard work until December."

Harry just grumbled as he picked at his breakfast. He hadn't had to sit any of the tests, as Triwizard champions were exempt from them. Hermione had found a way to keep from fussing over her results like she usually did, instead fussing over Harry. "You really should eat a full breakfast Harry, you want to be at full strength this evening."

Harry knew she was right, but just like with his first Quidditch matches he was nervous and it was upsetting his stomach. He wasn't nervous about the task, he felt he had prepared as much as possible for that, and even if he didn't win he would put in a good showing and walk away. No, what he was nervous about was the possibility of having to fight Voldemort.

As much as Harry was convinced that Director Bones had done everything she possibly could to keep Harry safe, he knew how his luck ran. There was a better than average chance that by the end of the day Voldemort would be back. And even if Voldemort wasn't holding a grudge for the whole “destroying his body” thing from when Harry was a toddler, there was no way Voldemort wasn't going to try and kill him after Harry had stopped him and Quirrell from stealing the philosopher's stone.

Harry spent more time fiddling with his bowl of cereal than actually eating it, but eventually he finished enough of it that Hermione was satisfied. The trio were just about to leave when Professor McGonagall approached them with a smile on her face.

"Mr Potter, please come with me, there is a surprise for the champions," she told him.

Before Harry could say anything, one of Harry's bodyguards stepped in and put a hand on Harry's shoulder. "There is nothing on the schedule about an event, what is going on, professor?" He added the last word with a slight stutter, as judging by the man's apparent age (about a few years younger than Sirius) Professor McGonagall would have been one of his teachers when he was a student here, meaning standing up to her probably wasn't the easiest thing for the man.

Professor McGonagall let out a sigh as she obviously wanted to surprise Harry, but the Auror was right to be cautious. "The champions' families are invited to spend the day with them. I was going to show Mr. Potter to where they are waiting."

"They will all need to be security checked first. I don't appreciate this being swung on my people at the last second like this." The Auror really didn't sound happy.

"My apologies, Petters, I was under the impression you and your teams were informed about this. It is a traditional part of the tournament and I believed you were given a full copy of the scheduled events." Professor McGonagall obviously liked being questioned by a former student as much as the Auror enjoyed questioning her.

"Well apparently someone didn't include this on the lists we got."

Deciding to end the exchange that was getting increasingly awkward to listen to, Harry stood up and held out a hand to Hermione and asked her and Ron to come along as well. McGonagall tried to say it was families only, but Harry shot that down immediately. "Professor, I will decide who I count as my family." He walked off without saying anything more. He didn't need the professor to lead him to where the families were, that's what the Marauders’ Map was for. When he checked it, the families were waiting in the same side chamber that the first years waited in before the sorting. Hermione, Ron, and the bodyguards quickly caught up with Harry as he went to meet with his grandfather and godfather.

After the checks were done and the Aurors were convinced that Sirius was exactly who he claimed to be, the entire group of them made their way up to the shared accommodation that Harry, Charlus, and Hermione shared. The other families all went for a walk around the grounds, but not only were the Aurors uncomfortable with Harry just wandering around, there was also very little point in it. Why would Charlus or Sirius, who were at the castle regularly, be interested in sightseeing? Everyone was far happier in the living room of the suite just relaxing and talking.

---ϟϟϟ---

At seven o'clock, Harry and the others made their way down to the Quidditch Stadium. The Third Task was scheduled to start at eight, but the champions had to have one final briefing on the rules, and there was likely to be some press pictures and such.

Just like the First Task, there was a place set aside for the champions to wait, but as they were using the Quidditch Stadium they used one of the locker rooms. Before Harry went in, he turned to say what he feared may be his last goodbye to the people he considered family, but before he could say anything Hermione pressed herself against him and claimed his lips. This wasn't the chaste peck on the lips that they often shared, nor was this a passion filled snog that they did when they had some time when it was just the two of them. In this kiss Hermione was trying to tell Harry how important he was to her, and that she wasn't going to accept him saying goodbye. She was showing him a very real reason for him to do everything he could to make it back to her.

When Hermione broke the kiss she just quietly said, "Good luck Harry." She turned and walked away before he could even try and say goodbye.

Ron gave Harry a fist bump and said. "You got this mate."

Sirius pulled Harry into a hug and told him. "Remember, cast first and don't stop moving."

Then Grandfather Charlus pulled Harry into a hug as well. "You can do this Harry, stick to the plan and remember you have something worth fighting to come home for. Good luck."

Harry walked into the changing room and found Krum already there with Bagman and the three headteachers. After a quick nod to his fellow champion, Harry sat down on one of the benches and waited. He didn't have to wait long as within five minutes both Cedric and Fleur had arrived.

Once they were all there, Bagman didn't waste any time in getting down to telling them what was happening. "Right then, as you all know we have a maze for you today. The Triwizard Cup will be at the centre, and the first to lay their hand on it will win the tournament. You will be entering the maze in the order determined by your points so far. Mr Potter, you have 88 points and will enter first, Mr Krum you have 80 points and will enter second. Miss Delacour with 73 points will go third, and Mr. Diggory with 69 points will enter last.\

“Each point is worth twenty seconds of head start, so after Mr. Potter enters, Mr. Krum will enter two minutes forty seconds later. Miss Delacour will enter two minutes twenty seconds after Mr Krum, or five minutes after Mr Potter. Lastly, Mr. Diggory will enter one minute twenty seconds after Miss Delacour, or six minutes twenty seconds after Mr. Potter. These times are significant leads, but don't be disheartened; the maze is large and complicated enough that those leads can be overcome. All that's left for me to say is do your best, and your schools and countries will be proud of you whatever the outcome is. Good luck." With that he walked out, leaving the head teachers with their champions.

Headmaster Greengrass pulled Harry and Cedric to one corner of the room while the other heads did the same with their champions. "Right boys, I want you to know that, while I and every Hogwarts student out there is rooting for you to win, that is not as important as being able to walk out of this. If you get opportunities, take them and definitely try and win, but I would much rather one of the other schools win than have you get hurt." He gave Harry a look, then said, "Remember there is a good chance that there is more in that maze than we put in there. Be cautious. Treat everything with suspicion. And whatever you do, don't let your guard down." After that, he had to go and make sure everything was going according to schedule outside.

Harry turned to Cedric and held out his hand. "Just wanted to say good luck."

Cedric snorted in derisive laughter but shook Harry's hand anyway. "Harry, look at how the tasks have gone so far. It's going to take a miracle rather than good luck for anyone else to win this. And of all of us, you deserve it. You duelled a dragon and won, you saved all of the hostages from real danger and you saved that little girl again from that bloody shark. Even if a miracle does happen, it won't change the fact that it's you who deserves the win."

The two Hogwarts boys thought they were talking quietly enough that nobody could hear them, but unfortunately that wasn't the case. Fleur walked over to them and said, "Oui, I agree with Monsieur Diggory. Without you, my little sister would have died. While I will still do my best to win, no one deserves the win more than you."

They all sat around in silence for a while until they were summoned to go stand on a stage in front of everyone while Bagman did his usual bit to hype up the crowd. Considering that the Ministry was well aware of what was planned for this task, Harry couldn't fathom why they still had spectators at all. Sure, the champions were bound to compete, but the only excuse Harry could come up with for the crowd was that the public who had been allowed to come and see this last task had had to pay for their tickets.

---ϟϟϟ---

Hermione and Ron watched from the stands seated between Uncle Charlus and Sirius. Now that Hermione was away from Harry, she was letting her nerves show. Up until now she had been putting on a brave face all day so as not to add to Harry's problems, but now she was hugging her knees to chest wishing that it was a safe Harry she was holding.

Eventually all the hype and explanations were given, and Hermione watched as Harry and the others were moved to the starting point. There were more words being said but Hermione was too focused on watching Harry, terrified that this may be the last time she would ever see him. Part of her was screaming that she should follow Harry, to fight by his side and keep him safe. Unfortunately, she knew if she did that Harry would forfeit the tournament, and that itself could kill Harry.

"Don't worry Hermione, Harry has got this. Remember the troll, giant spiders, the basilisk, a werewolf, Dementors, a dragon, merpeople, a shark, and of course Voldemort himself three times. Harry has come out on top every time," Ron said, trying to offer her some comfort

"Ron, you can't seriously expect Harry to beat Voldemort if he needs to," Hermione snapped at him.

"I believe it, Hermione. I have to," Ron whispered without looking her in the eye. Realisation struck Hermione; Ron was clinging to that belief because the only other option for him was to panic about his best friend.

A whistle was blown, and Harry jogged into the maze diapering from view. A small part of Hermione was just thinking how terribly this task was designed from a spectator’s point of view when Ron pulled out the Marauders’ Map. "I borrowed this from harry earlier, thought it would help us see what's going on." Hermione thought that was brilliant and quickly opened it up and said the passphrase. The walls of the maze weren’t on the map, but it was better than nothing.

Hearing the passphrase, Sirius looked over and spotted the map. "Here, pass me the map a second." Hermione reluctantly passed it over.

"I, Padfoot the barking mad, do demand editing access," he said as he held his wand against the map. Then, with a lot of concentration, constant checking of layout of the maze, and about a hundred and fifty small waves and twitches of his wand, over the course of a few minutes a number of lines appeared on the map showing the layout of the maze. The other three were so busy watching Sirius that they missed two more champions entering the maze. Finally, he tapped the map again and said, "Update managed."

"It's that easy to edit the map?" Ron asked as he took the map back from Sirius.

"For me, yes. Any of the four Marauders could do it. Our magical signatures are encoded into the spell work, preventing anyone else from being able to edit it, but I was always the best at changing the artwork." Sirius shrugged.

The four of them then started to watch the dot labelled Harry as it made its way through the maze. Left, left, straight, right, pause, straight right, long pause.

"Why do you think he keeps pausing like that?" asked Ron.

"Traps and obstacles," Charlus reminded him. "Harry is probably running into them. I just wish I knew what was happening."

After about half an hour, Hermione pointed to something on the map. “Look there, coming towards the stadium!" She pointed her finger at where Barty Crouch's name was quickly headed towards the Quidditch Stadium from the edge of the map.

"It's Junior. Stay here, I'll grab an Auror and go deal with this. I won't let that bastard anywhere near the maze, let alone Harry." Sirius said before transforming into his animagus form so he could run faster and sprinted down the stairs of the stadium.

Charlus huffed something under his breath but stayed where he was and watched the map. They saw as Sirius ran up to two Aurors, pause for about forty seconds, then all of them sprint off towards where they had seen Crouch's name on the map. They watched as Sirius ran right past him, then started running around in circles looking for Crouch. The Aurors ran past Crouch as well.

"Is he flying?" asked Ron.

"Too slow for flying," Charlus said, trying to work it out for himself. "Maybe invisible?"

Then Hermione saw Crouch walk right through where she knew there was a wall. "Wait." She opened the map up a little more looking for something. "That's it. He is in a secret tunnel. The one that comes out at the Whomping Willow. Come on, we can get to the Willow faster than Sirius can or Crouch can. We can stop him as he climbs out.

The three of them got up and ran down the stairs as fast as they dared. They ran to the first set of aurors they could see and Charlus yelled to them, "Sirius was wrong, Crouch is in a secret tunnel under us. The exit to the tunnel is next to the Whomping Willow. We can get to the exit first if we hurry."

They were just about to turn and rush out of the stadium when there was a loud explosion from inside the maze. Suddenly, Hermione realised what she had missed. The tunnel ran directly under the Quidditch pitch, Junior didn't need to exit at the willow and sneak around to grab Harry, Junior was already in the maze with Harry.

Hermione pulled open the map to see where Junior and Harry were, only to see them practically on top of each other. Suddenly the two disappeared from the map, and Hermione knew that meant they were gone from Hogwarts. The strength in Hermione’s legs gave out and she collapsed to her knees as she cried out, "HARRY!!!"

Chapter 43

Chapter Text

Chapter 43

Harry found himself waking up groggy; fighting off the fatigue was taking a while. As he was waking up, he tried to remember what was going on. The last thing he remembered was running through the maze, when suddenly the floor had exploded in front of him and a man he had never seen before climbed out. In his surprise, Harry wasn't fast enough to react when the man had sent a stunner at him.

Well, that explained why he was having so much trouble waking up; he hadn't been asleep, he was fighting off a Stupefy. He tried to take in his surroundings. The first thing he noticed was he couldn't move. Judging by the tight bands he could feel around his chest, he was tied up. The second thing he noticed was he was standing up, not laid on the ground, and there was something hard at his back. Thus, he was tied to something, not just tied up.

The third thing he noticed was voices. "You did well, young Barty. You were right, using Wormtail's knowledge of the secret passages and having him remake that map he and his friends made in school was inspired." The low raspy voice of Voldemort sounded all too close.

"Master, I'm glad you are pleased. I'm just happy that it means I can stand by you tonight as you are reborn."

"You have served me well, and you will have a place of honour in my rebirth ritual tonight." He then took a deep breath. "Wormtail, bring me before Potter. It is time our guest stopped being so rude to sleep at my little party." He laughed at his own joke.

"Yes my lord." Wormtail’s voice answered. There was some shuffling noise, and the next thing Harry knew it was like someone had hit him with a shot of pure adrenaline and the last of the Stupefy spell suddenly vanished. Harry's eyes snapped wide open, and standing in front of him was Wormtail, carrying what at first looked like a baby swaddled in blankets. The biggest difference, however, was that the baby was pointing a wand at Harry and had Voldemort's face on it.

"Well good morning Harry, you don't mind if I call you Harry, do you? After all, I hear you’re not afraid of using my name, so it's only fair to return the courtesy." It was more than a little disturbing to hear the voice of Voldemort come from the body of a child

Harry really didn’t care what Voldemort called him. He did consider snarling off, but decided that while he was bound like this it was probably a bad idea. "Sure Tom, you can call me Harry." Well, apparently Harry's brain and mouth weren't communicating well at the moment.

"I see Dumbledore has been telling tales." Voldemort laughed derisively at Harry. He considered correcting Voldemort, but finally the message of 'wait until you can fight back' had reached Harry's mouth. "Now, it's a special night tonight. It was going to be a surprise party, but that pathetic fool Crouch had to spoil the surprise. You will get to be a part of my rebirth. We will begin shortly, and you will finally understand the power you have set yourself against." Voldemort then turned to Wormtail and said, "It is time."

"Yes my lord. Right away my lord." Wormtail stepped away, and with him out of the way Harry got his first glimpse of a massive cauldron that looked big enough he could use it as a bath. It had some type of potion in it that was clear like water, but it had a slight glow to it. There were green flames underneath the Cauldron and steam was coming off the surface of the strange potion.

Wormtail unwrapped the bundle that was Voldemort, and after discarding the blankets gently lowered the baby sized monster into the potion. While they were doing that no one was looking at Harry, so he took the opportunity to try and escape. The first thing he did was make sure he was still wearing the ring the Unspeakable gave him. He was, so he pushed a little power into the ring and activated the first of its functions. Hopefully there was now a signal telling the D.M.L.E. where he was. Unfortunately, the first power in the ring was easily blocked by wards. The full ability of the ring required Harry to aim, something that was rather difficult for him to do while tied to whatever stone thing was behind him.

While Harry struggled unsuccessfully to free himself from the ropes, the potion in the cauldron had changed and was now emitting a bright crimson glow, and the man who Harry guessed was Crouch Jr. started to do things. He pointed his wand at Harry, who flinched, but instead of shooting a spell at him there was a stirring beneath Harry's feat. What looked like a human leg bone burst free from the ground and hovered over the cauldron. A few more flicks of Crouch's wand, and the bone turned into a powder that slowly rained down into the cauldron. "Bone of the father, unknowingly given. You shall provide the structure for the rebirth of your son."

Next Crouch pulled out a large knife. Harry had read of such knives in his history of magic books; it was a ritual knife known as an atheme. Junior held his left arm over the cauldron and yelled, as if psyching himself up, "Flesh of the servant, willingly sacrificed. I will provide the energy for my master's rebirth!" Then he swung the knife down and screamed as the knife cut through the flesh and bone as if it was nothing but butter. The severed hand fell into the cauldron, and the potion started to bubble and fizz.

Then Crouch practically ran towards Harry with the knife in his hands. Harry was convinced the next step was Crouch sacrificing Harry's life to restore Voldemort. He tried to pull free of his bonds, but he knew it was worthless. In that moment, Harry wished he had gotten to say goodbye to Hermione, but she had refused to let him. Harry hoped she and Charlus would look after each other from now on; they were going to need the support the other could give.

However, Harry was surprised when Junior simply poked the knife into Harry's arm, maybe half an inch deep, before pulling it out and holding a bottle over the wound to collect the blood. "Blood of the enemy, forcefully stolen, you will provide the magic for your foe’s new life." He quickly walked over to the cauldron and poured three drops of Harry's blood into the potion.

Immediately, the light the potion was giving off turned white and got bright, like “light of the sun” bright. It was too bright for Harry's eyes that had adjusted to the darkness, and he had to look away. The potion flash boiled and turned into a cloud of steam, and Harry could hear the sound of someone or something climbing out of the cauldron. He just knew Voldemort was back. "Wormtail, robe me." Harry opened his eyes again and saw that the bright light was gone, and a very naked Voldemort was standing there caressing his new fully formed adult body. Wormtail quickly did as he was bidden and dressed Voldemort in a set of black robes, and handed the still bald and noiseless Voldemort his wand.

"Master, please," Junior begged, holding out the stump of his arm to Voldemort. Voldemort took hold of Junior's arm, and Harry realised he must have been using magic because he gripped it tight enough that the bleeding stopped. With a quick wave of the psychopaths wand, the blood was all gone. However, Voldemort didn't do anything to help his subordinate, instead he pulled the wound up close to his face and examined the severed flesh. "I'm impressed, Barty. The cut is completely clean; you didn't hesitate or flinch at all. You have earned your reward."

Voldemort raised his wand again and whirled it through the air. A thin stream of what looked like molten silver trailed the tip of the wand, shining in the moonlight. The liquid silver came together in a blob that hung there floating in the air for a few moments, before it writhed and then formed itself into a gleaming replica of a human hand. It then floated down and bonded itself upon Junior's bloody stump.

---ϟϟϟ---

Charlus stormed into the Ministry, Hermione in tow behind him. Ron had tried to come as well, but as Charlus wasn't his guardian there was no way Professor McGonagall could have let him go with Charlus as they stormed out of the stadium. Charlus didn't bother with the welcome witch on duty and just walked right past the check-in point. It said a lot about the Ministry's security that, even though they were told of the attempt to restore Voldemort, there was still no additional security. He was going to unload on Director Bones or Minister Fudge for that later. It would depend on whose fault it was, Bones for not ordering it or Fudge for countermanding it.

The two of them stepped into a waiting lift and Charlus practically punched the button for the D.M.L.E. The lift was agonisingly slow and it unfortunately gave Hermione’s brain a chance to think about things she was specifically not thinking about until now. "Uncle Charlus, do you think Harry's okay?" They had heard from the D.M.L.E. that the squad of Aurors hadn't left to rescue Harry yet; they both wanted answers and it was faster to come right to the source than try to play tag with Floo calls and Patroni messages.

"I honestly think he is fine for now. Rituals take time, I doubt Harry is in any real danger just yet. But Voldemort won't let him live once Harry has fulfilled whatever purpose he has in mind. If we can get to him quickly enough, then we have every chance to save him," Charlus said.

They both knew Charlus was forcing himself to be optimistic, as Harry hadn't activated the beacon yet. That meant either someone had removed it or for whatever reason Harry couldn't activate it. Neither of those things were good for them being able to find Harry.

The lift doors opened into the wide open space of the D.M.L.E. and there was chaos going on around them.

"The beacon has been lit! We have a level one activation!"

"Finally! Can you track it?"

"Negative! Looks like it's behind a set of wards! The best I can give you is somewhere in Yorkshire!"

"Damn it you bloody Unspeakable, that's not good enough. Can you clear up the signal at all?"

"I'm trying. But don't hold your breath!"

Charlus and Hermione both felt some measure of panic evaporate. Harry was alive and he had just activated the ring he was given. That meant there was still hope. Charlus looked around and spotted a man who looked like he was in charge and walked up to him. "What's going on to find my grandson?" He demanded in a way that said he expected an answer that was already late in being provided because he needed to ask the question.

"Warlock Potter. Your heir has activated the first stage of the ring, but we believe he is behind wards so it's stopping us from getting an exit location. We are monitoring for the second level activation, but as you know that one, while more powerful and much easier to track, is also rather flashy. My thought is that young Mr. Potter is currently being watched and can't fully activate his ring without giving away what it is. We are also monitoring the trace reports of any mention of Mr. Potter," The Auror explained. "Once we have a lock on his location, I have a full squad of Aurors who will go get him and put an end to the Dark Lord before he returns to full power."

"As Warlock of the House of Potter, I am executing my right to go as well," Charlus stated. It was an old right that was almost never used anymore. The title of Warlock originally meant that they were the member of a House who had the power to declare wars and blood feuds. Later, when they formed the Ministry, the warlocks were given the power to vote on who the Minister of Magic was, in exchange that if there was a war that involved Magical Britain the Ministry could call on the warlocks to fight. In all the by laws around that, there was one that said a warlock had the right to go on any mission that involved the defence of the realm. Because Voldemort would restart a civil war, the mission to save Harry technically qualified.

The Auror immediately started to protest. "Sir, I highly recommend you stay behind. We can't guarantee your safety and our people are highly trained."

The Auror would have said more but a look from Charlus silenced him. "My grandson, the last blood family I have, is out there being held by the bastard who murdered my son. As for highly trained, I fought on the front lines in the Grindelwald conflict. I know your Auror playbook because it was rewritten after the Grindelwald war to account for our experiences. So if you think I'm going to sit here and sip tea while worrying myself sick, you have another thing coming. I am going with you to save my boy." Charlus made it very clear that that was the last he would say on the subject.

"I'm going too!" Hermione declared.

"NO!" Both men declared in unison. Hermione was about to protest, but Charlus spoke first. "Hermione, I know you understand the danger to you and that to rescue Harry you would gladly take that risk. That's why I strongly hope that you and Harry stay together. However, you being there will be a greater risk to Harry. Not because you can't handle yourself, you can, but because Harry will be more concerned about keeping you safe than getting out himself. Can you honestly tell me Harry wouldn't try to save you at his expense? With you here, Harry won't hesitate to leave when given the option. Also, I promised your parents I would do my best to protect you, and letting you go running into a fight with a Dark Lord seems to run against that promise, don't you think?" He then did something he had never done before and pulled Hermione into a hug. "I promise I will bring him home."

Hermione was a little surprised by the hug but quickly hugged Charlus back. It felt just like when her own grandfather used to hug her before he died, and she couldn't keep from letting out a few tears.

---ϟϟϟ---

Voldemort finished giving his big 'I'm back' speech to his Death Eaters before turning to Harry and saying, "And here we have the boy they all thought could defeat me. Nothing but a boy at my mercy."

"Oh that's bullsh*t and you know it," Harry snapped. This was a desperate plan, but it could be his only chance. At least if it fails it would probably be a quick Killing Curse rather than a drawn-out Cruciatus.

"What?" Voldemort snapped back at him. "You think you can fight me when you're tied up like that? Go ahead Potter, I'll give you the first shot.” All the Death Eaters around Harry were laughing now.

"But it was Junior over there who caught me, using information he got from Wormtail. Where were you in this equation? Soiling yourself and begging Wormtail to clean you because you couldn't even manage to do that yourself." Harry was laying it on thick; this was an all or nothing strategy. "You could kill me right now, true. There is nothing I can do to stop you. But you and I both know that's not defeating me. Worse yet, everyone here will know the big bad Dark Lord can't handle a teenager. Who knows, maybe one of them who has some real skill will decide someone who can't handle a teenager in a fair fight needs to be replaced."

Harry waited and wondered just what Voldemort was going to do now. There was a fair chance he was about to be killed in a fit of pure pique. Harry could see the rage warring with the fear on Voldemort's face. A part of him wanted to strike Harry down right there and then, but he was afraid to. Harry must have hit a lucky nerve when he questioned how the Death Eaters would see him if he couldn't handle Harry himself.

Eventually the fear seemed to win out and Voldemort barked at Pettigrew, "Wormtail, return Potter's wand to him and untie him. If Potter thinks he can defeat me in single combat, then it would be quite rude of me to let him go join his parents still under such a delusion.” He then turned to the rest of the Death Eaters. “No one is to interfere, do you understand me? No one. This will be a duel between Lord Voldemort, descendant and heir of Salazar Slytherin himself, and a boy with delusions of adequacy.”

"That's Harry James Potter, Heir to the House of Potter, successors to the line of Peverell, who can trace my magical ancestry back beyond the age of Merlin," Harry snarled back. Normally he didn't like to use such a grandiose way of referring to himself, but considering the company around him it felt right.

Wormtail released Harry from the grave he was standing on and pressed his wand into his hand. Harry cast a quick healing spell on his still slowly bleeding arm. It wasn't enough to heal the wound, but it did scab over the cut and stop any more bleeding. If he survived this duel, then he was going to need to get a healer to look at it. "You know, we could make this more interesting," Harry said, hoping to buy himself a few moments to stretch out a little, as being tied to a grave unable to move left you a little on the stiff side.

"Oh, and how's that?" Voldemort asked, seeing Harry stretching out but deciding a few moments to do that wouldn't make any difference.

"How about a bet? I bet, say, ten thousand galleons against the knowledge of the spell you used to fix Junior's hand that I will win the duel. I'm good for the money." Harry really wanted that spell as it could save Victor’s career, and if he lost then he'd be dead anyways so he would have no need of the money.

"And how do you propose we do that?" Voldemort sounded interested. Harry guessed that ten thousand galleons would go a long way for someone who had nothing but what his followers gave him.

"Simple. I write out a signed bankers draft to one of your followers, of your choice of course. I keep that in my pocket, and if I die you can collect it off my corpse. You will also write down the instructions of the spell and everything needed, and I'll keep that in my pocket as well. Because if I win, I have no doubt your minions over there will immediately try to kill me, so collecting it from you will be next to impossible. But if I die, you can just get the instructions back anyway."

Voldemort stopped for a moment and really thought about it. Stakes on a duel were actually traditional outside of the professional circuit. And if Harry didn't miss his guess, then the spell he had asked for wasn't a massive strategic advantage that Voldemort would be worried about losing. Sure, he would reward his followers by fixing them up if he felt they deserved it, but Voldemort seemed like the type to consider the spell mostly useless.

"I accept. Nott, you always used to have parchment and a quill on you, do you still?" Voldemort asked one of the masked idiots. Harry was actually surprised this was working, he had considered it a long shot at best but when he saw the opportunity to help Victor he had taken it.

"Yes, my lord." The man pulled parchment, quill, and ink from inside his robes for both Harry and Voldemort. It was weird for Harry to stand in the middle of a bunch of terrorists who all wanted to murder him, writing out a bank transfer that would pay his murderer 10,000 galleons if he died. He asked Voldemort who he should make the draft out to, and had to keep from laughing as he was told Lucius Malfoy. Even if he lost, there was going to be irrefutable proof that Malfoy was a Death Eater when he withdrew the gold. Either Voldemort had missed that fact in the face of what was almost fifty thousand pounds, or he realised the position he was putting Malfoy in and he just didn't care.

It took Voldemort longer to write out the specifics of the spell, but when he was done he floated the parchment over to Harry, who put both documents in his robes pocket. "Right, now no more procrastination, it is time we proved for everyone here who is the better wizard."

Harry couldn't think of anything to say either way, so he just nodded. They moved a little off from where the cauldron was so it wouldn't get in the way, and the Death Eaters formed a ring around them, probably to stop Harry trying to run away.

Voldemort stood about forty maybe forty-five feet away from Harry, and they both had their wands in their hands and bowed to their opponent. Harry did this because the rules of dealing had been ingrained into him by Sirius, who had at one point thought that a duel was a high possibility for one of the tasks and he had not wanted Harry to embarrass himself by not knowing the forms.

"So you bow to your death, Potter?" Voldemort tried to mock Harry and put him off his game. This was something Sirius had also warned him about.

"I bow because I have honour. Not something a psychopath who tries to murder unarmed kids knows anything about." Harry answered deceptively calmly. Inside, his emotions were roaring. He was about to fight the man that had murdered his parents, specifically killing his unarmed mother in front of him while she did nothing but beg for mercy, not for herself but for her child. Harry was going to kill him. He wasn't drowning in his anger like Voldemort wanted though, lost in the red fog and unable to think clearly. No, Harry's rage was like a storming ocean whereas Harry stood in a steady little boat, safe in the eye where the waters were deceptively calm.

"Fulmenactus!" He opened with the same lightning spell he had used on the dragon. Grandfather Charlus had said it was a deadly spell and only to be used in the most dire of circ*mstances, and if this didn't qualify then Harry didn't know what did. Lightning burst forth from the tip of his wand and shot straight at Voldemort. For an instant, Harry felt he may actually have a chance of winning, but with an almost causal flick of his wand Voldemort called up a shield. Harry's spell splashed harmless against the magical barrier.

"Did you really think this would be that easy, Potter? The story of how you killed the dragon was in all the papers and on the wireless. Did you really think I wouldn't be prepared for something so obvious?" His tone was mocking as he taunted Harry.

Harry, though, saw this for the opportunity it was. His lightning spell had Voldemort holding up a shield charm to stop it. While Harry was forming lightning, there was nothing Voldemort could do but stand there. Of course the shield charm was much easier to cast than the lightning spell, and Harry would run out of magic long before Voldemort did if he kept this up. However, he only needed a few seconds. He raised his other fist into the air, the ring he had been given from the Unspeakables gleaming in the light of Harry's spell, and he pumped a large amount of magic into the ring. The ring started to glow, brighter and brighter, until it was just as bright as the lightning he was still channelling. The light then drew itself into a ball that shot up into the air like a shot from a flare gun. However, this ball didn't fall slowly back to the ground, but hung in the air maybe half a mile up, lighting up the graveyard they were in like it was late twilight.

"What was that?" Voldemort demanded.

Harry couldn't help but smirk. "You'll see." Then he ended his lightning spell and dove behind one of the grave stones.

---ϟϟϟ---

"The beacon is lit!" The shout ran through the D.M.L.E. "Triangulation now… it looks to be just outside a small village in Yorkshire called Little Hangleton, in or around the graveyard!"

Immediately a bunch of people sprang into action. Twenty-one Aurors immediately formed into three groups of seven, and Charlus joined the group nearest him. The three groups all grabbed hold of a loop of rope, and while still holding it in their left hand turned out away from it, wands in their hands ready to cast the moment they landed if they needed to. With three cries of "Portus!" turning the ropes into portkeys, they all vanished from the D.M.L.E.

Charlus landed with the seven other Aurors and opened the one eye he had closed before the jump. It was an old trick he had picked up when jumping into a fight blind, close one eye first. That way one eye is well adjusted to a bright room and one is adjusted to the dark, so that when you landed you weren't completely blinded for a few seconds while your eyes adjusted. The beacon was in the air about six hundred feet to his left. He couldn't see the other teams of aurors, but that was to be expected in a perfectly executed drop; they were all supposed to appear equally spaced around the target. It was rare that it went perfectly, but he suspected they were nearby and he just didn't have a good line of sight on them yet.

"Okay everyone, anti-Portkey and anti-Apparating jinxes in three, two, one," ordered the lead auror in charge of this group. Everyone began casting different versions of those jinxes they were best at. Their spells quickly blanked the area, blocking any kind of magical escape, and were joined by two other clusters of spells all headed for the same target. The other two teams looked just competent.

"Wands free everyone. I want prisoners, but if it’s them or you I don't want to have to go see your families. Understood?" The lead Auror gave his matching orders.

There was a chorus of "Sir!" as everyone, including Charlus, acknowledged his order. Technically Charlus wasn't bound to follow his orders, but he had enough experience in his youth to know that going rogue just led to the wrong people getting killed.

The Death Eaters couldn't fail to notice the avalanche of jinxes, and understanding just how screwed they were if they were caught they immediately turned to fight. Charlus ducked behind a nearby tree, pulling a younger Auror with him as green spells started coming their way. A few of the Aurors on reflex had Transfigured the ground in front of them into a wall blocking the incoming Unforgivable curses. Charlus didn't hesitate and shot a "Fulmenactus!" right back at the Death Eaters.

Charlus’s spell was on the lower end of the spell’s possible power because he didn't want to run out his power too quickly, as they wanted prisoners and it wasn't too difficult to block the spell for a competent wizard, so he didn't want to waste power for it to splash against a shield. The big advantage of this spell was that you could hold the spell for a long time, creating a continuous attack. That’s exactly what Charlus did, sweeping it over the group of Death Eaters so that all the one fighting his group had to deal with the spell.

Two Death Eaters didn't raise shields in time, but the rest did. The two went down in a twitching heap, but more importantly the rest stopped firing Killing Curses so they could shield. The Aurors in Charlus's group all took advantage of this and began jumping over the makeshift wall and sprinted towards the graveyard, diving into their own cover where they could fight from.

Charlus wasn't as fast as the Aurors any more and waited for an opportunity to move forward as well, leaning out and casting stunners, bone breakers, and bludgeoning hexes as much as he could. He didn't think he had hit anyone directly, but at least one Death Eater who had been blocking a spell from Charlus had been hit by an Auror's spell from a different angle.

As Charlus provided covering fire, he could see Harry and Voldemort fighting in the middle of the graveyard. Harry was dodging in and out of the graves while bolts of light flashed between the pair. Charlus was both proud and absolutely terrified. Harry was in a life or death duel with Voldemort, one of the most dangerous people alive, but was actually holding his own.

Charlus moved up the field using a combination of Disillusionment charms and taking cover that had previously been left by the advancing Aurors. The tree he had hidden behind earlier became a casualty to a Bombarda spell not long after he had left the safety of its cover. Then, Charlus saw it. To most, it would have been nothing but a small animal fleeing from the bright lights and loud explosions. To Charlus, however, the rat who was running not towards him but close enough to be seen was a lot more. As much as Charlus wanted to save his grandson, he had been hoping for this opportunity. He pointed his wand at Pettigrew, and with a muttered spell and flick of his wand, the traitorous little bastard who had cost him his wife, his son, and his daughter-in-law, and had framed Sirius for it all, was forced to eat a face full of dirt as a man replaced the rat still trying to run on all fours.

Charlus shot another quick spell and locked away the man's ability to transform, then at the top of his voice shouted, "Peter, it's time to pay for what you have done!" Charlus then started launching curses, jinxes, and hexes at the basterd. He had completely forgotten about the rest of the battle now, all that mattered was making Pettigrew pay for his family's suffering. Charlus could have been merciful and just used a cutting curse, he could have even used an Unforgivable as no one was paying attention to him and it would just be written off as friendly fire when Pettigrew's body was examined.

Charlus, though, wasn't so merciful. He instead layered spell on top of spell, breaking every bone in the pathetic traitor’s limbs one at a time with bone breakers, smashing his teeth with a bludgeoning hex, then a Jelly Legs jinx so that his broken legs would be constantly moving. And instead of pausing between each act while he thought of the next, he just peppered the man with stinging hexes while he waited for his next idea. He didn't want Pettigrew to die, he wanted him to suffer, to stand as a monument to all just what would happen to anyone who had the f*cking gall to target his family.

Wormtail was left a whimpering mess. It was only when there was an extra bright flash of light from the duel between Harry and Voldemort that Charlus remembered that he was here to save Harry, not to avenge his fallen family. Charlus knew he should stun Pettigrew and move on, but the vengeful person in him wouldn’t let him grant the traitor the mercy of unconsciousness. Instead, Charlus hit him with silencing, petrification, and Incarcerous spells, leaving an immoble, silent, and fully aware Pettigrew to feel everything that had been done to him while Chalus moved on.

He started making his way towards the graveyard, going from cover to cover firing spells at the now more spread out Death Eaters as he went. As he did, he passed the bodies of two Aurors. Whether they were unconscious or dead he didn't have time to see and they were too exposed for him to check, so he just focused on his goal: 'get to Harry.'

---ϟϟϟ---

Harry smiled as he saw the flash of all the Aurors’ spells setting up the anti-portkey and anti-Apparition jinxes. He wasn't alone anymore.

"What have you done?" demanded Voldemort as Harry dodged another spell and returned fire with a stunner.

"Told every Auror and law enforcement wizard in the country exactly where you are before you can consolidate your power enough to be a threat." Harry replied as he side-stepped another curse. "Now you and your vultures are surrounded, maybe you should just surrender?"

Voldemort screamed in rage and the two started flinging spells at each other as fast as they could, dodging the other easily enough because Harry was staying at distance and every time Voldemort closed in a spell or two would be shot his way from one of the aurors. "Diffindo, Stupify, Expelliarmus, Confringo, Flipendo, Incarcerous," Harry chained spell after spell. As the duel went on, it became obvious to Harry that this was Voldemort's first duel since he had fought Harry's father all those years ago. This was a very rusty Voldemort, but one whom Harry was still having trouble staying ahead of. Voldemort's spells were just as quick and varied, though they were mostly silently cast, so Harry had no clues to spells other than their colour.

The mob of Death Eaters surrounding them grew thinner and thinner, and more and more random spells were being shot at Voldemort as the Aurors had more and more opportunities to do so. The more this happened, the more enraged Voldemort became, and he started shouting his spells again as he switched to using the Killing Curse. The problem with that for Harry was that even if he dove behind a grave or anything else to block the spell, as soon as it was hit it would explode.

This meant that not only was Harry peppered with shrapnel, covering him in tiny little cuts, it also deprived him of any future cover from the object. Harry was now quickly running out of shields. He tried to put more distance between them to give himself more time to dodge spells, but Voldemort kept moving closer every time Harry tried.

Then Harry slipped. It was a loose bit of dirt, probably kicked up by the fight between the Aurors and the Death Eaters. One second Harry was dodging another spell, the next his foot slipped from under him and he fell hard. Harry immediately rolled, dodging the next spell Voldemort had shot at him, but he knew he was f*cked. Rolling around on the floor was not a particularly effective way to dodge spells, and Voldemort was never going to give him time to stand up.

This was it. Harry knew it. There was no way he could avoid the next attack, so he decided if it was going to be his time he was going to bring the psychotic bastard with him. Harry didn't try to dodge or evade, he just pointed his wand up at Voldemort and cast.

"Fulmenactus!"

"Avada Kedavra!"

The green streak of the killing curse and the crackling white energy of the lightning spell each shot forth from a wand and streamed towards each other. The spells passed each other within inches, and both men, too caught up in forming their own spell, took the shot directly to the chest. Voldemort ended up spasming as enough electricity to power a small town rushed through him, frying his nerves and exploding blood vessels until a few moments later he joined Harry lying dead on the floor.

Chapter 44

Chapter Text

Chapter 44

Harry woke up and immediately felt the need to shield his eyes. He didn't know where he was, but everything was white. The walls, the floor, and even the sky, everything seemed to glow, so there were no shadows. Harry gave his eyes a few moments to adjust, and then he looked around again. He was in what looked to be a waiting room. There were seats all around and a desk with a bored-looking woman sitting at it, obviously a receptionist.

Remembering that he had just been hit with a killing curse, Harry came to the obvious conclusion. He was dead, and this was some limbo-type place where he was about to be assessed to see what would happen with his soul. Harry looked around, expecting to see a bunch of other people waiting on their judgement as well; after all, there were so many people on Earth that someone probably died every second. However, except for him and the receptionist, the room was empty. Harry had hoped to see at least Voldemort there, to know he had saved everyone from him, but unfortunately it looked like he failed.

Harry felt a bit nervous. He considered himself a good person, but he had killed Quirrel and had tried to kill Voldemort right before he died. Harry wasn't sure what would count against him in his judgement, but he was pretty sure killing people was considered bad. Still, too late to worry about that now. All that was left was to face the music. He got to his feet and made his way over to the receptionist. He was just about to introduce himself when she started speaking in a bored tone. "Welcome to the unusual cases department Mr. Potter, a representative will be here to speak with you shortly and discuss your options going forward. Please be seated until then."

Harry was taken aback by the woman already knowing his name but it was nothing to how much anxiety he was feeling at hearing he was in a department for unusual cases. Did that mean magical? Was that why he was the only person here? But he had just been in the middle of a battle, he couldn't be the only casualty. Had he done something so terrible that his afterlife required more than the usual level of punishment?

"You're not in trouble Mr. Potter, that's a completely different department, unusual means just simply that, unusual. I'm not privy to the details, but the majority of people who come through this department leave happy once their issues are cleared up," the receptionist said, easing Harry's worry.

"How did you know what I was going to ask?" Harry asked. "Were you reading my mind?"

The woman snorted. "Mr. Potter, you're hardly the first to come through here, and you wouldn't be the last to have the exact same worries. It was nothing more than experience. Now please sit down."

Harry did as he was asked. He didn't know how long he waited. It could have been five seconds or five years, time didn't seem to have any meaning here when he wasn't doing anything. But eventually Harry's name was called, and he looked up and froze as his parents were standing in a doorway he hadn't noticed before.

"Mum? Dad?” Harry couldn't help himself, he sprinted across the room and pulled the two of them into a hug. It was emotional, with all three of them crying as they clung to each other, refusing to even consider letting go. His parents were constantly telling him how proud they were of him, how he had been doing an amazing job considering everything that life had thrown at him.

While he was hugging his parents, the three of them were led to another room by a tall man in a black suit that Harry hadn't seen before. The three of them sat on a sofa together, with Harry in the middle sandwiched by his two parents. Neither of which seemed to miss a second of hugging or even just having an arm around him or holding his hand, like they were trying to squeeze every hug, helping hand, and pat on the back they had missed since that Halloween into as small a time as possible.

The tall man settled into an office chair behind a desk that Harry was sure wasn't there when they entered the room. "Well Mr. Potter, I have been going over your file and I can see why you are a special case. You have some of the craziest luck I have ever seen. However, due to an extremely unusual set of circ*mstances and an incredibly small window of opportunity, you actually have the option to go back to the mortal world," The man said, shocking Harry.

"But how? I was hit by the Killing Curse!" Harry asked, genuinely perplexed.

"When Riddle took your blood for his ritual, he took a part of you into himself. Your magic, and thus part of your life force, live in his body, shielded from the effects of the curse he attacked you with. While a part of you lives, then you can't really come fully into this realm. This is not uncommon; since the people of your world started harvesting viable organs from dead people and putting them in others, this has happened quite a lot. It's not a bad thing as it helps a lot of people, but it's why we have this department. Normally this is just a period of waiting in an in-between place for the dying soul while they wait for the rest of them to die. They can't go back, because there is no viable body for them to go back to. You, however, were killed by the killing curse, which means your body is whole and intact, and ready for you to go back.

“Your other saving grace is that the killing curse is instantaneous, so you were dead the instant your body was hit by that curse. Your curse, however, was not so merciful. Tom Riddle is dying, but incredibly slowly by comparison over a few seconds. This means there is a window of time where you are both alive and dead at the same time. Add in that the higher ups are happy with you for delivering two fractured parts of Tom Riddle's overdue soul, and you get a choice: you can stay here and move on, or you can go back," The tall man explained.

Harry was overwhelmed by the information. He had an opportunity to go back, but he had to choose between his parents in the afterlife or Hermione, Ron, Grandfather Charlus, and Sirius in…what had the man called it? The mortal world? One bit of information stuck out to Harry though. "You said the window was only a few seconds. I have been here at least an hour."

"Time is a fundamental part of mortality, it's an illusion based on the limitations of perspective, one you are still mentally clinging to because of your familiarity with the concept. In truth, time has no meaning here. When you stay here, whether it's now or after you go back, you will eventually let go of your concept of time as well. But for now it is sufficient to say that the 'time' you spend here doesn't matter."

"You, young man, are going back." Harry was a little surprised to hear his mother saying that. When he turned to look at her, she must have seen the hurt in his eyes because she pulled him into a hug. "Harry, your father and I will be waiting here for you if you live another five minutes or five hundred years, but you only get one life, and there are things you can only experience while you live. Go and experience them. Live a life, get married, have children, grow old, go back and live, then come back here and tell your father and I all about it."

And Harry understood time no longer had any meaning to his parents, so in five minutes or five hundred years they would be right here and waiting for him when he got back, no different than if he had just popped away to use the facilities. "I'll go back," Harry said. While he was sad he would be leaving his parents, he knew he was always going to choose to go back. Hermione was waiting for him for a start, and that alone was enough of a reason to go back. "At least Voldemort has been dealt with."

"About that. I'm afraid that Voldemort is still very much alive," said the tall man. "Voldemort, or Tom Riddle, has used magic to corrupt the nature of his soul. He has broken it into eight parts, one main soul supported by seven fragments. You have already destroyed two, one was in the diary you encountered during your second year at Hogwarts."

"And the way you handled that snake was fantastic, kiddo," interrupted Harry's dad, only to be told off by his mother of interrupting.

"As I was saying, the first was in the diary you destroyed, and the second was in your scar. To kill him permanently, you must first destroy the other five anchors." The tall man looked apologetic.

"What are they and where are they?" Harry asked. He had every intention of telling his grandfather and godfather and hoping they could deal with it.

"Part of the magic involved includes hiding the container from death, so we have no clue where they are. We could track you because you were never meant to be a Horcrux, a soul fragment, but a shard of Voldemort's soul stuck to you when his body was destroyed that Halloween. In short, a lot of the preparatory spells and magic were never cast on you, but they were on the other Horcruxes, so we can only tell you what the vessels are because we know what we can no longer see. As to where they are, we don't know. Most are historical relics of the Founders of the magical school. There is a locket that was once the property of Salazar Slytherin, an ornate chalice that was made by Helga Hufflepuff, and a tiara that was enchanted by Rowena Ravenclaw. Then there is a ring that is legally yours and his familiar, a magical snake."

"Wait, what do you mean a ring that is mine?" Harry asked.

"I will leave that for you father to explain once we are done here. All five items will need to be destroyed before Tom can pass on to this world. For the three relics, I recommend you check the book your girlfriend is always trying to get you to read, there are illustrations of the items in there. There are also artistic depictions of each of the items around that school of yours. You will need to find where they are hidden, but once you do you need to destroy them. To do that, I recommend using the sword of Gryffindor. It absorbed a lot of basilisk venom when you killed the beast-"

"Still say that was bloody awesome," Harry's dad interrupted again, causing Harry to smile.

"The venom itself is excessively dangerous, and I'm not sure the goblins you hired would let you have any back without the correct licences. Fiendfyre will also work, but again it's incredibly dangerous, and then there is a potion that can destroy them as well but one of the ingredients is almost impossible to find."

"I doubt the new headmaster is going to let me borrow a dangerous sword that's a thousand year old antique," Harry complained.

"Figure it out, he owes you a debt. Collect it on your own if you have to. Anyway, that's all the information I have for you. Once you are finished talking with your parents, there is a hallway to the right of this office you should take. On the left hand side there is a door labelled ‘Returns’, go through there and you will wake up back in your body."

"What happens if my parents were to walk through that door?" Harry asked with a mix of curiosity and hope.

"They cease to exist. New souls can go back, either like you or as ghosts, but souls that experience too much of this place become too complex to go back and are destroyed if they try, leaving a blank soul to be born into a new life. There is no way for you to take your parents back with you." With that said, the tall man stood up, the desk and office chair vanished and he walked out of the room, leaving Harry and his parents alone.

There were a few moments of silence, nobody knowing what to say, but then James broke the silence. "The way you killed that snake was the most badass thing I have ever seen."

“Admit it James, you were panicking worse than when I went into labour. He almost died!" Lily sounded more exasperated than angry. "You were terrified as we watched, blubbering about what was going to happen to your little boy."

"Yeah but Lils, he didn't die. So retroactively it becomes an amazing feat worthy of any Gryffindor," James grinned at his wife.

"You were watching me?" Harry asked, not sure how to feel about that.

"Of course we were watching, pumpkin," Lily said. "We love you, and even if all we can do is cheer you on from this side, you have all the support we can give you. My parents and your grandma Dorea are watching too, all cheering for you."

"Yeah, Mum has a message she wants you to deliver to Dad for her. She would be here to meet you as well, but only two were allowed and neither I nor your mother were going to let it be anyone but us. Please tell him she loves him and really wants to see him again, but he needs to quit his self pity and moping. Live his life, enjoy it to the fullest, and she will be waiting for him when he gets here. And, if he gets here too early, he knows what he is in for. Can you remember that?" James asked Harry.

Harry nodded and said he could. "But what will Grandma do to Grandfather if he gets here early?" Harry asked.

"Kid, there are some questions you don't ask your parents. And that's one I never want to ask my mother or ever find the answer to. You’re welcome to ask her when you meet her or you can ask Dad, but if you do, the psychological trauma is your own fault," James said seriously.

"However, I think the main reason we are being given time is so I can tell you about our family legacy. I know Dad told you about the origin of your cloak and of the Deathly Hallows, and how two of them are lost to history after their creators died. Well, magically the ownership of those two items passed to the youngest brother, as the other two didn't have any children. The eldest was sterile due to a duelling injury, while the middle lost his wife and child in childbirth. But we know that the wand was stolen again and again throughout history, and now Dumbledore has it. He won it from Grindelwald at the end of World War II.

“The other, a stone, was found by Salazar Slytherin's grandfather, and he set the stone in a ring and used it as a Head of House ring. That was the source of the Slytherin cunning, they always seemed to know things that other people couldn't know. That was because he was calling the souls back from the dead to ask them questions. That ring got passed down the family line until eventually they forgot what it did, probably because a father died before telling his son or a cousin killed off the head of the family and had no idea about the ring's magic," James explained to his son.

"So if I can get the ring, I could talk to you again?" Asked Harry.

Harry's mother took his hand and spoke to him seriously. "Yes, but there is a massive but. Having our soul drawn back will start to fray the growth we made here. Having our perception forced back into something like that of the living hurts. And the longer we are there, the more it hurts, the more we are… diminished. If you really need to call us to answer a question, don't hesitate, we will recover once we return and your father and I would gladly suffer that to help you. But the world of the living and the world of the dead cannot mix for long. While you're alive, focus on the now, focus on the future. Leave the past for when you rejoin us."

"Your mother is right. If you have an important question you need answered then definitely call, just try to keep it quick. Now, there is a story that says if you unite all three of the Hallows then you become the Master of Death. It's a pile of dragon sh*t. The three items are three powerful tools, use them if you can as they will help you win, but keep perspective that you are still a man. Powerful tools don't change that."

The three of them sat there for what to Harry felt like a few hours. Harry's father finished telling him about the Hallows quite quickly and after that it was on to other topics. Harry talked about flying and Quidditch with his dad, he talked about relationships and Hermione with his mom. His dad taught Harry a few fun prank spells and encouraged him to try them on his godfather. His mother taught him a few recipes that were passed down her family. His father gave Harry advice about girls, his mother told him to ignore all of it if he wanted things to last with Hermione.

By the time they had finished, Harry knew his parents better than he ever thought possible. It was an emotional parting for the three of them, but Harry had to get back to life now or he was going to sit with his parents for years until he couldn't go back any more. He followed the tall man’s directions and found the door marked 'Returns'. It was just a plain office door, for something so important it just looked dull. Harry opened the door and found a pitch black void inside. He looked closely, trying to see if there was anything, but it was like an empty universe. "Well, Gryffindors charge forward," he said to himself, then stepped through the doorway.

---ϟϟϟ---

Charlus was fighting his way towards Harry. He was determined to get to his boy and get him out of here. He stunned one Death Eater and had to dodge the spells of another, but despite his old legs he was making progress. He was just thinking that they could do this when he saw Harry fall.

His heart left into his throat as he watched, unable to stop Voldemort as he walked towards the fallen Harry and raised his wand. Two spells were fired and both met their mark. He watched Voldemort fall, twitching as the electricity of Harry's spell sent him crashing to the floor while his own spell ripped the life from Harry's body.

"HARRY!!!"

The scream ripped from Charlus’s mouth, the raw pain and anguish impossible to miss. 'It can't be true' the thought echoed in Charlus’s head. He completely forgot the limitations age had placed on his legs and started to power walk the remaining distance to Harry. A few Death Eaters tried to stop him, but Charlus’s own spells were now lethal. One unlucky Death Eater took a Bombarda to the chest and quite literally exploded, while another got to experience looking up at his own body as another of Charlus’s spells separated his head from his neck.

Charlus crossed what was left of the battlefield in seconds and collapsed to his knees next to Harry. He pulled Harry to him, rocking his head against his chest just repeatedly saying "no. No. No, not little Harry too. Please not Harry." Tears quickly obscured his vision.

A part of him knew that kneeling and sobbing in the middle of a battlefield wasn't a good idea but he couldn't care.

"Ow..." said a voice from his arms.

"Harry?" Charlus demanded, wiping at his eyes with one hand trying to clear his vision, the other clutching harry closer to him. "Harry is that you?"

"Ow," repeated the voice.

That was definitely Harry's voice. Charlus felt relief flood through him. "Harry, are you okay?" Charlus was desperate as he demanded an answer.

"Ow!" repeated Harry for the third time. "Arm, hurting!"

It was only then that Charlus realised he was gripping Harry's arm tightly. He loosened his grip and looked; his hand was red, covered in blood. Harry's blood. Harry also had blood seeping into his robes from his chest.

Charlus cast a quick Feather-Light Charm on Harry, then he picked up his grandson in a bridal carry and started running. Luckily for Charlus, the few remaining Death Eaters were either completely outnumbered or were too busy running away themselves to worry about them. As he ran, Charlus kept repeating the activation phase for the portkey the D.M.L.E had given him, and the second the two of them crossed out of the anti-portkey wards they vanished.

---ϟϟϟ---

For Hermione, the waiting was unbearable. It hadn't even been twenty minutes since they all left and she was already going crazy, pacing back and forth in the D.M.L.E. bullpen. A clerk had tried to offer Hermione a chair, but she had snapped at the young witch. A part of her knew she owed the woman an apology, she was just trying to help and didn't deserve Hermione’s less than civil response. Unfortunately, at the moment, when two people she cared for had their lives on the line, she just couldn't bring herself to care.

Then there was a sudden rush of wind, and Uncle Charlus appeared from nowhere, carrying Harry. For a split second Hermione feared the worst, but almost immediately Harry put an arm over his stomach and muttered, "God I hate portkeys. At least Junior had the decency to stun me first."

Hermione rushed over, but she wasn't the only one. The D.M.L.E. kept a trained healer on standby when they were conducting large operations. So after seeing what looked to be an injured teenager, he rushed forward to help. Then there was the head of the aurors, Auror Scrimgeour; he saw Charlus as a source of intelligence on what was happening on the other side of the country.

"Lay the boy down," ordered the healer.

"Tell me what's happening out there," demanded Scrimgeour at the same time.

Charlus set Harry down but started speaking. "We were too late to stop the restoration. When we arrived, he already had a full body again and had called a number of Death Eaters. We set up…" Hermione tuned out the men as they walked away a little. She knelt next to Harry, taking a hold of his hand. "My arm and my chest are the worst," Harry told the healer, who just nodded and used a Switching spell to remove Harry's outer robes and his undershirt. Hermione was happy to see that, like most muggleborn guys, Harry was wearing something under his robes. Normally he wore trousers, but in a concession to the summer heat he had switched to a pair of shorts.

What Hermione was a lot less happy to see was the lightning bolt laceration on Harry's chest over his heart, exactly the same as the scar on his forehead. Hermione’s mind raced, trying to think of other possibilities, but the only conclusion she could come up with was that the lightning mark was the sign of surviving the Killing Curse. And Harry now had a second one, one she knew hadn't been there a few days ago when she had pulled Harry into a broom cupboard and the two of them had ended up topless. That meant Harry had been hit with the Killing Curse again, that her Harry had almost died again. Worse, it had happened while she stood around doing nothing.

While Hermione was thinking that, the healer got to work healing Harry as best he could. He started to sing a wordless melody as he waved his wand slowly over the wound on Harry's chest. The cut slowly started to stitch closed, except unlike most magical healing it left Harry with a scar on his chest, a telltale sign of dark magic.

"Hermione, I got him. I got Voldemort. My robes, important… in my robes." Harry said as he gripped her hand tighter before he collapsed, unconscious from the extreme exertion he had put himself under.

The healer did a little more work on Harry, making sure he was stable, then turned to Hermione. "I think he will be fine, but I will be much happier if he gets a full checkup in St. Mungo's, they can perform much deeper checks there than I can here with just a wand."

"Prep the parchment work and portkey. I will inform Warlock Potter and I will take Harry myself. I assume after such a large operation your skills will be needed here," Hermione said, her logical side pushing aside the screaming little girl for now. There would be time to cry everything out later.

The healer began waving his wand over a piece of parchment and words quickly started to appear on it, presumably important information for the healers at St. Mungo's. Hermione got up and strode over to where Uncle Charlus was talking with the head Auror.

"...a small number of Auror bodies on the ground. I don't know how many were alive and unconscious, but they weren't throwing stunners at us," Charlus was saying.

Hermione interrupted. "Uncle Charlus, the healer thinks Harry will be okay but is sending him to St. Mungo's to get a full check over. I am going with him, I will see you there when you're done here. And someone has to tell Sirius, Ron, and the school that Harry is okay."

Charlus looked tired and conflicted. It was obvious that his responsibility to Harry was warring with his responsibility to clean up the mess this had all become. He almost looked like he was giving up as he said, "I'll deal with all that Hermione, you take care of Harry for me, will you? Scrimgeour, can you spare Harry a guard?"

The Auror nodded and called over one of the junior law enforcement wizards and told the man, who didn't even look like he was twenty yet, that he was on protective custody duty until he was relieved. Hermione gathered up Harry’s robes because there was something important about them to Harry, and she and the law enforcement wizard joined the healer waiting for them with a portkey.

---ϟϟϟ---

It was hours later that Charlus, Sirius, and Ron all walked into Harry's room at St. Mungo's. Hermione was still sitting with him and he was still unconscious. Sirius asked Hermione what the healers had said. "They won't tell me much, I'm not Harry's guardian, but from what I read on his chart Harry is mostly just exhausted. It looks like he used up all his magic in some type of all-or-nothing strike and just needs to rest. He has a new scar on his chest that's tainted with enough dark magic that it's permanent, but there doesn't seem to be any concern about it. What happened out there?" Hermione asked Charlus, finally able to get some answers herself.

Charlus told them all everything he had seen, including how he saw Harry had been hit with the Killing Curse, only to find Harry alive and Voldemort dead from getting hit with Harry's full force lightning curse directly to the chest. There were four Aurors dead and six more needed at least a week of medical care, but eight Death Eaters were dead and seven more had been captured, including Pettigrew and Malfoy.

It was Ron who summed it up. "So despite everything it's a win, right? Harry's alive and fine, You-Know-Who is either dead or without a body again, and a lot of his escaped Death Eaters are either dead or are about to be locked up in Azkaban. It's unfortunate that some of the Aurors died, but it's still a win, right?"

"Yeah. Just don't ask me to throw a party until Harry is back on his feet," Hermione said.

Chapter 45

Chapter Text

Chapter 45

It was the next day around midday that Harry woke up in a room at St Mungo's. He had Hermione on one side of him, Grandfather Charlus on the other., and Sirius in a chair in the corner of the room. As soon as she saw that Harry was awake, Hermione jumped up from her seat and practically lay on top of him in the closest she could get to a Hermione hug.

"Harry! Thank god you're awake, I was so worried about you, you were gone and we couldn't find you and then they did and Uncle Charlus wouldn't let me go and he came back and you had another lightning bolt scar on your chest this time I was so scared I had lost you!" Hermione finally stopped to breathe from her run on sentence.

Harry just wrapped his arms around her and held her against him as the memories of the night before played in his mind. They stayed like that for a few minutes. Grandfather Charlus put his hand on Harry's shoulder and stayed quiet as the two teens silently cried away their frustrations and fears. The silence was only broken when a mediwitch came to check on Harry to see how he was doing. Being awake meant that he now had to undergo a number of tests, everything from having a light shone in his eyes to having about fifty detection spells cast on him. And no one could be touching him during this in case they corrupted the results of the scans.

Apparently Harry was, for the most part, fine. He was exhausted from pushing himself again, and he had a new dark magic-infected scar on his chest to match the one on his head. Apart from that, everything had healed while he was asleep. It had all been scrapes, bumps, and bruises, so for the most part Harry's injuries could have been treated by a first year healer apprentice. It was ridiculous. Harry had gone up against the most feared man in Britain as a teenager, and if you discount the killing curse that hit him, then Voldemort hadn't done much damage at all.

"Hermione, did you find the papers in my robes?" asked Harry when he remembered the bet he had done with Voldemort.

"Yes I have them, but I haven't looked at them. What are they?" Hermione asked. She had been afraid they were goodbye letters from Harry, so she had absolutely refused to open them or let anyone else do so.

"I made a bet with Voldemort on the duel." There were a few shocked gasps at that. "Honestly I was mostly doing it to play for time. I thought that the longer Voldemort and I were talking about the bet, the better chances there were of being found. Voldemort had a spell to replace an arm, and I immediately thought of Krum. So I pushed Voldemort into betting the instructions to the spell on the outcome of the duel."

"What did you bet against it?" Grandfather Charlus asked, a note of concern in his voice.

"10000 galleons,” Harry admitted. “I thought if I… well I wouldn't need it any more, and one of Voldemort's Death Eaters would need to reveal their identity to collect the gold. If I won, then I could give Krum back his Quidditch career, bring some joy to the world, fix Bagman’s mistake, and maybe earn a little good will from all the Quidditch fans," Harry explained.

"We will have to go over the wording of your agreement before looking into it. We don't want Voldemort to be able to claim the ten thousand," said Charlus.

Harry smirked at that. "Not likely. I have the bankers’ draft as well. Voldemort's win condition was taking the draft from my corpse, mine was getting out of there alive. I'm alive and still have both, so by the rules I won. I killed Voldemort after all." There was silence and everyone looked like there was something they weren't saying. "What?" Harry demanded.

"Well you definitely hit Voldemort with a killing blow, an overcharged Fulmenactus right to the chest, and he died. Unfortunately, he didn't stay dead. While the Aurors were mopping up the Death Eaters, the body started moving again. It killed two Aurors with magic, took a goblet of potion from that massive cauldron, and escaped with the Death Eaters that were still fighting." Charlus told him. "I was told only a few hours ago."

"So it was for nothing then. Voldemort is back, his Death Eaters escaped, and Aurors are dead." Harry sounded defeated.

"Well that's a load of hippogriff dung," said Sirius. "Voldemort is hurting, I doubt the potion he swiped will be enough to restore him completely. Aurors saw him alive, so the D. M.L.E. is already looking for him, and half of his free Death Eaters were either killed or captured last night. Plus, you got that spell. We will have to look it over first to make sure it is what it’s supposed to be, but if so then you can help not only Krum but maybe others as well. I can think of three Aurors off the top of my head who lost limbs on the job, I'm sure they would jump at the chance at a new arm or leg. You did a lot of good last night Harry, and you don't get to beat yourself up over not doing more. You aren't even fifteen yet and you were fighting someone who is well practised in fighting war."

Charlus took over. "It's admirable that you wished you had done more, but you have done your part. Your job now is to rest, recover, and let Hermione fuss over you for a few days. Then you can look into catching up on all the school work you half-assed because of the tournament."

Harry knew they were being supportive, that they were trying to tell him that his responsibilities were no more than any other teenagers, yet Harry now remembered what had happened after he died. He remembered everything that the tall man had told him. Voldemort couldn't die until all of his soul shards were destroyed, and it was his responsibility. He was going to tell them right there and then, but then the door opened and Ron walked in, being escorted by Headmaster Greengrass, and Harry realised that this wasn't the place to talk about such things.

"Hey Harry, how are you feeling?" He grinned at Harry and Hermione, who was now laying on the bed next to him.

"Hey Ron, not too bad. Headmaster," Harry answered Ron first then greeted the Headmaster.

"Mr Potter, I'm glad to see you are looking well. I'm here to see how you're doing, find out how long it is until you can return to the school, and see how long we are going to be without our potions master. As I was coming, Mr. Weasley here insisted on accompanying me," Headmaster Greengrass said.

Some might have found the new headmaster a little cold and detached compared to Dumbledore but Harry appreciated it. Headmaster Greengrass wanted to check on the status of a student and see how it was going to impact the school. He wasn't pressuring Grandfather Charlus to go back, but he did what to know if he needed to make arrangements for a substitute.

"Honestly sir I mostly feel fine. If it was up to me I'd go back to school today," Harry (mostly) honestly answered. He felt tired, but he could rest just as easily in Hogwarts as anywhere.

The headmaster smiled at that. "As good as that is to hear, I think we will let the healers make that decision. They can get upset when the patients don't listen to them." Considering what he knew about the Greengrass family, Harry was sure the man had plenty of experience with healers.

As it turned out, the healers agreed that Harry could leave that day. Unfortunately, they did not agree that it was the end of his sentence. Harry was transferred to the Hogwarts hospital wing under the care of Madam Pomfrey, as bed rest could easily be handed by the Hogwarts mediwitch. It also freed up a bed in the real hospital in case it was needed. This was in a lot of ways better than being in St Mungo's, as at least in Hogwarts all of his friends could visit him, but he was sure Madam Pomfrey was going to keep him longer than necessary.

Harry was back in the castle and tucked up in the hospital wing within four hours of waking up. Sirius came with them, having gotten permission from headmaster Greengrass to stay with Harry for one more night. The old dog was feeling protective and didn't want to leave Harry alone. The rest of the day was filled with staggered visitors, as most of Harry's Gryffindor year mates came to check on him, as did the Quidditch team. Even Fleur, Krum, and Diggory all came to see how he was doing.

From them, Harry learned that the Triwizard Tournament was still all up in the air. After the big explosion and Harry being kidnapped, nobody could find the cup. Ludo Bagman had been by the school that morning, as he had been in touch with the D.M.L.E. and they had found the Triwizard Cup in the graveyard. But as Harry hadn't actually got to the centre of the maze and retrieved the cup, then he hadn't won. That meant the third task had been voided. The Triwizard judges were going to have to decide how to resolve that, as until they did the tournament wasn't over. So that was all still to be decided.

The next day the story was in all the papers, how He-Who-The-Papers-Wouldn't-Name had kidnapped Harry Potter and used him to restore himself. It also went on to say that Harry had seriously wounded The-One-Whose-Name-Should-Not-Be-Written, and how responding Aurors had captured or killed nine Death Eaters before they and their master had escaped. There was also a full page memorial for the four Aurors who had lost their lives in the fight. Harry stared at their pictures for an hour, burning their names and faces into his mind. Aurors Belmont, Moonshine, Becket, and Morgan. Two of them were close to retirement, yet they had died saving him. It didn't seem to help when he told himself that they had died doing their job, or they died not for him but to stop Voldemort from restarting his campaign of terror and murder.

The other page that interested Harry was the page that listed the people who were caught or found dead at the scene wearing Death Eater robes. Names he recognized among the dead were a Crabbe, a Parkinson, and a Nott, while a Goyle, a Carrow, and Pettigrew were captured alive. On one hand this was great news. A large number of Death Eaters were caught red handed responding to Voldemort's call before there was any opportunity for him to put them under the Imperius curse or threaten their families. There was no excuse that was going to save them from Azkaban. And Wormtail had finally been caught, the man who was responsible for the death of his grandmother, his mother, his father, responsible for framing his godfather and making it possible for Dumbledore to leave Harry in the hell that was the Dursleys for over a decade.

The problem was the names he recognised. They all, bar Nott who had left last year, had their own children or some relative’s children currently at Hogwarts. This meant that for the next three years Harry was going to be sharing a school with a number of students who were going to hold him responsible for the death or imprisonment of their family members. Harry was definitely going to have to always keep one eye open.

---ϟϟϟ---

Once Harry was released from the hospital wing, he had his entire family, including Hermione and Ron, meet up in Grandfather Charlus’s office. It was the only place in the entire school they could guarantee any privacy. While Charlus, Harry, and Hermione were finishing out the year in the rooms they had been given for protection, the Aurors still had access as Amelia Bones had decided that she didn't want to cut off the protection immediately. With Voldemort on the loose, she wanted at least a few Aurors in the school at all times. From what Sirius had learnt, she was just using the agreement already in place for the rest of the year and was going to try and make a deal with Headmaster Greengrass for next year.

This meant that for the sake of privacy, Harry, Hermione, Ron, Charlus, and Sirius were all crowded into the small teacher’s office that was built for marking and maybe consulting with up to two students at a time. To save a little space, Hermione was sitting on Harry's lap and Sirius was half-standing half-sitting on the windowsill.

"Okay Harry, what's this all about?" Ron got to the question first.

"Well, as you all know, when I was fighting Voldemort I was hit with a killing curse." Everyone winced at that and Harry couldn't help but fiddle with the new lightning bolt scar he had on his chest. "What I need to tell you about was what happened after." Harry went on to tell them everything that he had experienced. He told them about the waiting room, the tall man, meeting his parents, the tiny nugget of information he was given about what life after death was like. He told them about the Hallows and the Horcruxes. He told them everything except for the message his dad had passed from his grandmother for his grandfather, that seemed to Harry like something that should be given in private.

To say that everyone was shocked was an understatement. Hermione was holding on to Harry with all of her strength, and had been ever since Harry admitted that he had actually died. Ron was stuck on the idea that the Deathly Hallows were actually real and he had used one on multiple occasions. Sirius was pissed off and angry about the Horcruxes, and Charlus was fixated on the fact that he would get to be with his full family again.

Harry had to deal with them all before they could continue. Hermione was first, a few kisses and assurance that he was alive and had no intention of going anywhere anytime soon had her calming. He knew this wasn't going to be the last he heard of this but it was enough to continue with the topic for now. Ron was the easiest, Harry just offered to let him examine the cloak later that evening after they had finished here. That had gotten the redhead to focus. Considering Sirius's anger over the Horcruxes, Harry decided that he was going to have a much easier time helping his grandfather, so he had everyone but the two of them step out of the office for a few minutes.

"Dad gave me a message to pass to you from Grandma Dorea." At Harry's words Grandfather Charlus’s head snapped up to him in attention. “She loves you and really wants to see you again, but you need to quit your self-pity and moping, live your life, enjoy it to the fullest, and she will be waiting for you when you get there. But if you get there too early, you know what you are in for. Dad refused to answer me when I asked for clarification of that last part, and said there are things I didn't want to know," Harry finished.

It took five minutes for Charlus to pull himself back together after that. He thanked Harry for delivering the message and agreed that his wife was right, he had been moping around too much. There was an eternity to spend with the dead, but you only get one life. He needed to focus on this world, and the next comes when it comes. Harry called everyone back in and Hermione immediately took her spot in his lap back. Once everyone was settled Harry asked Sirius what he knew about Horcruxes.

"The Black family has sworn to destroy all Horcruxes we find. Think about that. The Black family, a family steeped in the dark arts, a family who embraces dark magic like it’s our birthright, has decided that these things are too dark to exist. It started maybe 800 years ago when the then-head of the Black family encountered a wizard who shared his proclivity for dark magic. The two became friends and travelled together for a few years.

“The other wizard claimed to be immortal and apparently proved it many times. Eventually, Warlock Black asked to learn the secret of immortality. At first the wizard refused, but over time as their friendship grew the wizard saw his friend the warlock getting old and didn't want to lose him, so he taught him the secrets to making a Horcrux. Warlock Black went through with the ritual, but didn't understand the cost. By breaking off a part of your soul and keeping it separate, you lose an aspect of yourself. Empathy, your ability to love, you always lose something. Something critical to being human."

"Warlock Black lost his love. Without it, all he had was hate. He came to hate his wife who loved him, he came to hate his children who adored him, he came to hate his brother who supported him. He ended up murdering his wife and kids. His brother came to plead with him to stop the madness, and the warlock tried to kill him too. The brother escaped and came back in force to kill the mad warlock, but nothing they tried would work. Every time they killed him, he got right back up.

“The warlock, furious at his family, turned to his friend and demanded his help. But the friend couldn’t see the man he liked any longer and refused to help him, so in a rage the warlock tried to kill him too. It is said the duel between the two of them took days, with each of them dying hundreds of times. Eventually exhausted, the two men left. The warlock's brother approached the friend for the secret of how his brother was immortal, and in exchange for a vow to only use the information to destroy the warlock's Horcrux and to never make one, the mistrusted friend taught the brother everything he needed to know.

“The brother knew the warlock well and knew exactly where the warlock would hide a part of his soul. He found it and destroyed it, sacrificing his own life to do it. His son then took up the job of killing the mad warlock and was eventually successful. He read his father's and uncle's books on Horcruxes and understood what had happened. He took the manual of Warlock Black and made a vow that no Black would ever knowingly allow a Horcrux to exist without doing all they could to destroy it. That duty and the knowledge of how to do it was passed down the Black line from father to son for generations," Sirius finished.

Sirius’s tale had almost as much an effect on the room as Harry's explanation had. The idea that Sirius not only knew about these abominations but actually knew how to destroy them (instead of just a theoretical explanation from the afterlife) filled Harry with a hope he hadn't had since the fight with Voldemort. "What ways do you know to destroy them?" he asked excitedly.

"The way I was taught is one of the ones you said James mentioned, a spell called Fiendfyre. It's an incredibly dangerous spell, and all the more dangerous because it's incredibly easy to cast. I would say your average second year student could cast the spell, maybe even a gifted first year. The problem isn't casting the spell, it's controlling it. The nature of Fiendfyre is to spread and burn everything it can, and that includes the caster. It takes a lot of magic and skill to hold the spell in check enough to target only what you want destroyed.

"My father taught me the spell by taking me to a collection of barren rocks a few miles out past the Hebrides. I would cast the spell and try to control it. The instant my control slipped, he would Side-Along Apparate me to another rock where the fire would burn out long before it got to us. Repeat again and again until you learn the spell. He tried to teach it to my brother as well, but Regulus didn't have the control. They stopped trying when Regulus almost died for the third time." Sirius sounded really sad there. Considering he had never mentioned having a brother before, and also had previously said he was the last of the Black family, it wasn't hard to work out that Regulus hadn't made it through the war.

"Well, Fiendfyre is a strong back up, but I really hope we can borrow the sword from the headmaster's office," said Hermione, as Harry had told them already about the basilisk venom-imbued blade. "For one, from Sirius's description of the spell the item is totally destroyed. With the sword, we can hopefully preserve these valuable historical items as much as possible."

"We need to find them first," said Ron. "It's all well and good to have a plan on how to deal with them, but until we find them that plan is about as useful as a wand in a room full of muggles."

"Ron has a point," Harry agreed. “We need to find them before we can do anything else. Sirius, I don't suppose one of your ancestors developed a way to find horcruxes did they?"

Sirius shook his head. "Not that I know of. And I seriously doubt it, part of the magic on them to protect them makes them impossible to scry, and you said not even Death could see where they are. I will check my family library, just don't hold your breath." Sirius didn't sound happy about checking his library, and it took Harry a moment to realise the library had to be in the home he grew up in, the same home he had run away from and never gone back to. Harry tried to think how he would feel going back to the Dursleys house after all of them had died, and while he thought he could do it he didn't think it would be an easy experience. And from what Sirius had said, while he had an easier time than Harry before Hogwarts, after he was sorted into Gryffindor his home life was bad enough that it made the Dursleys look like saints.

"Anyone have any other ideas where Voldemort would have hidden the others?" Harry asked. They talked about that for a while. As Malfoy had been looking after one, it was thought that maybe others Death Eaters were entrusted with them, but a number of those Death Eaters had just been killed. If one of them possessed a Horcrux for Voldemort, then finding where they were hidden was going to be next to impossible. Maybe if they had the ring, calling them back to integrate them would be possible, but it was also possible that the one who knew where the ring was had already died.

There was some talk about investigating Tom Riddle, Voldemort's past before he took on the badly pronounced French name. That wasn't going to be easy though, as investigating a random teenager from fifty years ago wasn't something you could just look up in the school library. At least not a lot; there were some basic school records, but it wasn't like his Transfiguration O.W.L. results were going to tell you where he hid a part of his soul.

One suggestion was to capture Lucius Malfoy and interrogate him for what he knew about the Horcruxes. If he was trusted enough to hold such an item, it was likely he knew the others who had that level of trust. However, kidnapping and interrogation were the type of things that got you long stays in Azkaban. None of the teens noticed that Charlus avoided looking any of them in the eye as they discussed the moral quandary of kidnapping a known murderer and interrogating him. And even if they had, it was definitely an uncomfortable topic, they were not likely going to jump to the conclusion that Charlus had done exactly that before with Harry's aunt and uncle.

---ϟϟϟ---

A few days later, Harry was called to a meeting with the other champions, the three school heads, Ludo Bagman, and Minister Fudge, who had taken over for Crouch after he was arrested. The meeting was to inform the champions of how they were going to resolve the Triwizard Tournament. Bagman, as he always did, pushed himself to the front to do the talking. "We thought about this for some time. We considered a set of duels, but that didn't take into account the points you had already accumulated in the first two tasks. We considered a Snidget hunt, using a snitch of course, but that wouldn't have been fair on Miss Delacour who would be facing three Seekers, and after Mr. Krum’s injury it wouldn't have been fair to him either. So, after a lot of thought, we have decided on a scavenger hunt. The task will start at the main gates of the school on Saturday. You will each start using the same intervals we had for the third task. You will choose an envelope with a clue inside, that clue will lead you to a location with a token and another clue. The last clue will lead you to the finish line. The first to cross that line with all their tokens will win the tournament."

That sounded deceptively simple to Harry. Depending on the clues, he and Cedric may have an advantage from knowing the school better, but the visitors had been here for a year now and would be familiar with the layout of the school as well. It would all come down to how cryptic the clues were. This could actually be fun.

Chapter 46

Chapter Text

Chapter 46

“So, how does it look?” Harry asked his grandfather Charlus.

“Legal and totally above board. You got away with the instructions, and so they are yours,” Charlus said as he read from the letter he had just gotten from Gringotts.

Charlus had sent Harry's memories to the bank to establish if Harry could claim the spoils of his bet on the outcome of the duel without having to pay the ten thousand galleons Harry had staked. And it had come back clear, Voldemort duelling to kill and Harry to escape. Despite the fact that Harry had died for a moment, he didn't stay dead. That was important because there was legal precedent all over the place that if someone didn't stay dead it didn't count. For example, if you tried to kill someone, and their heart stopped but they were brought back by chest compressions, the charge is attempted murder. If someone dies for a short time while undergoing a medical procedure and the healers bring you back, you still own all your belongings and they don't execute your will. Legally dead only counts as dead if it's permanent.

“The next step is to get the spell verified. I wouldn't put it past Voldemort to have given you fake instructions that are actually a head exploding curse or something equally as sinister. I'll send the instructions to a qualified spell crafter. They can break it down and see what the spell really does before anyone tries it.” Charlus said. Harry completely agreed with that plan, he could imagine the international backlash he would get if he accidentally blew up Victor Krum's head. There would be nowhere he could hide. “What’s your plan for the fourth task?” Charlus continued.

“Well, it's a scavenger hunt. At first I thought I may summon my broom and fly everywhere faster than I could run, but we were told after by the organisers that brooms had been banned. Then I thought about using the Marauders’ Map, but I decided against it. I'm in first place, and I know this castle better than most of the seventh year students. If I can't win this one on merit, I don't deserve to win.” Harry had actually done a bit of soul searching on this. Up until now it was important for him to be impressive, to be seen as dangerous in the hope that Voldemort would make a mistake out of fear he had made the wrong choice. Now was different, this task was just what the Triwizard Tournament was supposed to be, a friendly competition between schools. Charlus gust gave Harry a smile that said he agreed with Harry.

Harry was just about to leave Charlus’s office and go find Ron and Hermione when there was a knock at the door. When Grandfather Charlus called “come in,” the door opened revealing Headmaster Greengrass. “Professor Potter, and Mr. Potter.” He added nodding to Harry when he saw him. “I was just hoping to have a word with you Charlus?”

“Sure, what do you need?” asked Charlus.

Headmaster Greengrass smiled. “Directly to the point then. I want you to stay on as Potions professor permanently. And if I can't convince you to stay where you get regular contact with your grandson, I was hoping you do me a favour and stay at least one more year. I already have to get a new Defence professor for next year. Finding two professors is going to be tough.”

Harry stood up. “Well it looks like you have a few things you’re going to discuss, and I need to go find Ron and Hermione. Headmaster, grandfather.” And he made his escape, but he knew he would love it if his grandfather continued to teach potions. For one, even if he wasn't Harry's grandfather, he was a brilliant teacher. Ever since he had taken over, the grades of three of the Houses had gone up. Slytherin's had actually fallen a little, but considering that, from what Harry had seen anyway, people like Crabbe and Goyle were actually producing better potions, so the disparity was only down to Snape's biassed marking.

Harry checked the Marauders’ Map and found that Hermione was in the library and Ron was in the common room. Given that Hermione was sitting with a bunch of girls from her Arithmancy class, he guessed that she didn't actually want him dropping by right now, so he turned towards the common room. He was just about to close the map when some movement down the corridor caught his eye. He quickly checked to see who it was and found Crabbe, Goyle, Malfoy, Parkinson, and Nott were all clearly trying to set up an ambush in the corridor ahead.

Harry started to mentally berate himself for being stupid. He had told himself before that he would need to be careful, that certain students would potentially want to get revenge for what had happened. And now here he was walking the corridors of the castle alone. Harry wasn't exactly afraid of the group of baby Death Eaters, he knew he could take them all quickly if he needed to. The problem was more one of not hurting them too much. If he went all out, then there was a high chance he would kill them. But if he didn't, then the fight would drag out, and in that situation numbers would be a big advantage.

Harry decided that now was the time for the better part of valour and turned right back around the way he had come. There was more than one set of stairs to get up to the Gryffindor common room, and there was no need for him to get in trouble for teaching baby Death Eaters that fighting him was a bad idea. Harry swung around to a different set of stairs and went to get Ron, and the two of them together had to go get Hermione from the library. There was no way he was going to risk letting her walk back to the common room alone if this stuff had already started.

---ϟϟϟ---

Charlus got word back from the spell expert; Voldemort had indeed trapped the spell by modifying it a little. If Harry had tried to use it to fix Krum’s arm using the instructions Voldemort supplied like he intended, then Harry would have ended up casting the spell on his own arm. This would have painfully destroyed Harry's healthy arm and replaced it with a silver one. However, that wasn’t the worst part. The spell made anyone with a silver limb bound to Voldemort's service, or at least the limb itself was bound to Voldemort's will. If Voldemort wanted the hand to work for you it did, if Voldemort wanted the hand to do nothing it would become limp and unresponsive, or if Voldemort wanted the hand to try and kill you it would do that as well.

It wasn't all bad news, however. The spellcrafter was able to fix the targeted sabotage and could rework the spell so that Harry was the one who was owed allegiance. Strangely enough, it could only be Harry. To fix the spell to a controller needed a symbol that signified them, a symbol recognised by a significant number of magical people. For Voldemort this was the Dark Mark, a symbol he created to mean him, his people, and his cause. For Harry, it was his lightning bolt scar, thanks to the Harry Potter Adventures books that Harry had so much trouble with until Charlus had set the firm of Gripsack - Anne Twist on the publishers. So Harry was the only other person in magical Britain with a ready-to-go symbol that could be linked into the rune work inside the new limb that the spell created.

It wasn't going to be an easy spell to learn, Harry guessed that it would be about as hard to learn as the Patronus charm. He also wasn't happy about the idea that anyone who he used this spell on would owe Harry some form of allegiance for life. Luckily, Hermione had pointed out that anyone who helped her have a new limb if she needed one would probably get enough gratitude from her that she would be willing to help them a lot anyway. Plus Harry wasn't forcing it on them, they had a choice. That made Harry feel a lot less uncomfortable by the idea. Ron had more practical advice of signing a magical contract that the ‘allegiance,’ like the lords of old, was just a tax, one Harry set to one Galleon a year, and a pledge to never join Voldemort.

That made Harry far more happy about everything, and with a clear limit on what was expected of everyone he was ready to begin learning the spell. There was only one important question left now, did he approach Krum right away or wait until after the last task? If Harry approached him before the task it could raise the boy's spirits sooner, or it could make Krum believe that Harry's help was conditional on Krum throwing the last task. If Harry approached him after the task it would prevent any misunderstanding but it would mean that Krum had to live with the idea his Quidditch career was over for longer.

---ϟϟϟ---

It was time for the actual final task, and Harry lined up with the other champions at the foot of the stairs that lead up to the main doors of the castle. He had decided to wait until after the last task to talk to Krum. If Harry could have done the spell before the task it would have been different, but it was probably going to take him months to master the spell.

Bagman was with all the other judges, Fudge filling in for Crouch, and Karkaroff was sharing his expression with a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. Bagman was once more explaining the rules, this time more for the students who had come to watch. “The champions will have the same time leads as they had for the previous task. This is to preserve the value of the points the champions earned in the first two tasks. There are seven flags each champion has to retrieve, all hidden around the school in different locations. When a champion begins the task, they will choose one of the envelopes on this table here and receive their first clue. No one is to interfere with a champion as they complete the task, and to ensure that no-one helps or hinders them, each champion will be followed by a member of the ministry.” Harry actually recognised the Ministry members who would be following them. Each one was actually an Auror who had done at least one shift as one of his bodyguards. They didn't want to draw attention to it, but the Ministry was definitely keeping an eye on this task now. There had just been too many screwups.

They were all lined up as Bagman tried to hype up the students who had come to watch. He wasn't particularly successful, partly because the crowd weren’t into it. They remembered too well what happened at the last tasks. First dragons, then a Ministry official trying to murder champions, then how Voldemort was now some type of self-aware autonomous Inferius who could use magic. If the trend continued, there wasn't going to be anything to be happy about for a long time. The other reason Bagman wasn't successful was because his heart wasn't in it. The entire Ministry was on edge with Voldemort's return and the capture of so many Death Eaters, and too many of them were reminded of the war and were afraid of what was coming.

Luckily the first whistle gave Harry the excuse to get away. He jogged up to the table and took the envelope on the middle right and opened it and read it.

Where the silence is broken, by a barking mutt

You'll find your next clue at ._._._._._._.'_ - _._._

It took Harry a few seconds to put it together. Mutt was another word for a dog and there weren't exactly a lot of dogs at Hogwarts, that meant the next clue was at Hagrid’s Hut. Harry took off at a jog, making his way down the familiar path with the Auror Hestia Jones watching him, easily keeping pace with his speed.

Unfortunately for Harry, the flag and the next clue wasn't simply nailed to the front door of Hagrid's, he had to search for it. He knew it wasn't inside Hagrid's; they had been told that they wouldn't be inside private or restricted places. They didn't want the champions ripping apart a professor's office looking for a clue. Classrooms were fair game, but if you needed to knock, speak a password, or be a certain gender, then the flags and clues weren't hidden there.

Harry found the flag and the envelope with the next clue after a bit of looking around. Unfortunately, it was on top of Hagrid's hut and he had to figure out either how to get up there or how to get it down. He tried to summon them and levitate them, but they didn't budge. Harry would just have to climb up there somehow. He ran around the outside of the hut and found a ladder. Hagrid was tall, but as the groundskeeper even he sometimes had to get to things he couldn't reach. Being a ladder made for Hagrid, it was too heavy for Harry to lift by hand, but a combined Feather-Light Charm and Wingardum Leviosa had the ladder up in seconds. He climbed up to the flag and envelope and quickly discovered why he hadn't been able to move them; they were stuck to the roofing with a Sticking Charm. If he had cast a simple Finite at them, then they would have easily been summonable. Harry just hoped the other champions made similar mistakes. He tucked the flag into his pocket and read the next clue.

If you wish to be first to feel a natural shower

Look to stand atop the _._._._._._._ - _._._._._

“Natural shower, that's rain. Feel it first would be… high places. Tallest tower!” He climbed back down to where Auror Jones was waiting and watching. “The next point is at the top of the tallest tower. I hope you can keep up!” He joked with the auror, knowing they had some of the highest fitness standards in Magical Britain. Harry shot off towards the castle at the fastest run he thought he could maintain, and he took advantage of every single shortcut he knew to get there as fast as he could..

The inside of the tower being a classroom meant there were plenty of places to hide the flag and the next clue. It took Harry almost ten minutes to find it inside a cupboard that held some of the specialised telescopes the school had. This time it wasn't a simple Finite charm to release the flag and the clue. Harry had to answer three questions on magical theory. It was here that Harry was really at a disadvantage compared to the other champions, they had all already sat their O.W.L.s or equivalent and had started their N.E.W.T.s. It took Harry a long time to work out two of them and the third he had to resort to guesswork. But finally Harry got the flag and read the next clue.

Out with the old and in with the new

Where would you go when looking to brew?

That was easy for Harry. It was Grandfather Charlus’s classroom.

---ϟϟϟ---

Harry was sprinting down the stairs taking them three or four at a time. The last clue had been ‘We close where this all began.’ That was most likely the Great Hall, where the Goblet of Fire had chosen the champions. As he was running down the grand stairway, he saw Fleur come out of a corridor and start running down a different set of stairs, obviously heading in the same direction he was. There were many flags in her hand that at a glance looked like it could be seven.

Harry pushed himself harder and started practically jumping down the stairs, one hand on the rail to keep himself somewhat steady as he took each staircase in two jumps. If he missed his footing even once he would have ended up in the hospital wing, but the adrenaline was pumping and he wasn't concerned about that. Fleur wasn't giving up though, she had seen Harry and was putting everything into what had become a race. The two stairways came together, merging for the last flight down to the entrance hall, and they were neck and neck. Fleur had longer legs, making her a little faster but Harry had a better understanding of the stairs. He instinctively jumped over the trick step, and while Fleur wasn't caught in it, skipping it wasn't second nature to the witch.

When they got to the bottom of the stairs, Cedric came running up the steps that came from the main doors. It was now a three-way race as they all ran towards the Great Hall. It looked like it was going to be a photo finish, as there was barely an inch between them as the trio turned through the large open doors of the Great Hall. However, they skidded to a halt when they saw Krum holding the Triwizard Cup in the air, a beaming smile on his face. For a few minutes, the only thing the other three competitors cared about was getting their breath back and holding each other up.

It was over, the Triwizard Tournament was done. Harry couldn't help but feel a little disappointed in not winning, but for the most part he was just happy it was over. Hermione came running over from the small crowd of spectators and hugged him, offering both her emotional and physical support. Given how his legs were starting to feel like jelly, the physical support was both welcome and necessary. Ron came over a few moments later and offered Harry his commiserations over not winning. His friends both dragged Harry over to the Gryffindor table and sat him down before sitting on either side of him. Harry had really put his all into that final sprint, and it was going to take a few minutes before he felt like his legs could support him again.

Headmaster Greengrass started giving a speech congratulating Krum and going on for a few minutes about how the tournament, despite how badly everything had gone, had been a wonderful success of international friendship among the students, and how the ministry and many adults would do well to stop and take a look at the students and learn from them. Harry was only half listening. This wasn't the big closing speech that would come when the prize was handed out and Durmstrang was officially presented with the Triwizard Cup, so Harry felt no guilt over the fact that he was more concerned with cuddling with his girlfriend.

---ϟϟϟ---

It was two days later that Harry was finally able to get a message to Krum. Harry had to ask his teammate Alicia, who was still spending time with the Bulgarian, to pass a message asking him if he would meet with Harry and Charlus. Krum had agreed, but had quite understandably insisted that his headmaster also be allowed to attend. So the four of them had ended up sitting in Charlus’s classroom, a serving tray filled with tea and cakes between them.

“So you wanted this meeting, what is it about?” Krum asked in a curious tone.

Charlus nodded to Harry go ahead. Harry took in and let out a deep breath to give himself a few seconds before he said, “Firstly, I want to convey my congratulations on your victory. I will admit to being a little disappointed, but you deserved the win.”

“Thank you, but I feel I not deserve it. Like in Quidditch, sometimes the worse team gets lucky. You were the one who slew dragon and saved hostages. You were the closest to winning in maze. I got lucky that physical conditioning was a big factor for the hunt. But I thinks this is not the responsibility for our talking, yes?”

“Yes. Now take this with a grain of salt…uh, don't get too excited about what I'm about to say until you hear it all.” Harry added at the blank look on the Bulgarian’s face at Harry's use of an expression. “With the understanding that there are some downsides that need to be handled, I believe I have a way to give you a new fully functional hand,” he explained.

Silence hung in the air for almost a minute before Karkaroff broke it. “And you had this the whole time and let my star student suffer this long? What, to better your chances at the tournament?” He was definitely angry.

Charlus almost stepped in, but Harry held up his hand. “No, we didn't know this the whole time. I got a bad copy of the spell after the third task. We didn't have a full set of instructions until two days before the final task. As to why I didn't tell you then, the spell is going to take me about two months to learn, and yes it has to be me. I didn't want to be accused of pressing you to take a fall, or distracting you.” Harry explained, and Krum nodded so he continued.

“The downsides of this spell are numerous, but we think we have come up with a way to minimise them. Let's start with the worst, the person receiving the spell is bound to offer me fealty…” Harry went on to explain everything, both the problems and their proposed solutions. Karkaroff tried to push Krum into accepting, he wanted the prestige that came from having an international Quidditch star and a Triwizard champion at the same time. However, Harry told Krum he wouldn't accept any deal until Krum had plenty of time to think about it. After all, he couldn't cast the spell yet so he needed the time to practise anyway. Grandfather Charlus had been more practical and had pretty much told Krum he needed to have his own law wizard look everything over, especially the contracts as they would be magically binding.

Krum left with a small pile of parchment that was filled with detailed proposed solutions and said he would give it some serious thought. Harry was sure the Bulgarian was going to accept, though. Krum was made to fly, he wasn't helpless and in time he could adapt, yet for now at least Krum's spirit was like that of a bird with a broken wing.

Chapter 47

Chapter Text

Chapter 47

As the train pulled out of the station, Harry watched through the open window for his last glance at Hogwarts for the year, enjoying the warmer weather. “Do you ever think we will have a normal year at Hogwarts?” Ron asked.

“Is there such a thing as a normal year at Hogwarts?” Hermione asked as flicked through a book, trying to find the part she left off at.

“Okay, a year where we get to watch some other group of misfits deal with everything,” Ron amended.

“Hey I'm no misfit,” Harry protested, getting Hermione and Ron to look at him like he was going mad.

“Harry, if anyone qualifies as a misfit, it's you,” Hermione said.

“Nope, you are the miss fit. I'm the mister fit.” Harry joked while flexing his skinny arms, causing the other two to groan at his lame pun disguised as a joke.

“But seriously, will we ever get a quiet year, do you think?” Ron asked again.

“We better, because the way it's going, if we don't get a year off soon we are going to need to stop an Armageddon our seventh year. I don't know about you, but I may just say f*ck it and let the world burn at this rate,” Harry said.

“I'll bring the marshmallows,” Hermione said, both keeping the mood light and offering him her support at the same time.

After that there was some quiet for a while, both she and (for a change) Ron were reading, though the quality of what they were reading was vastly different. Hermione was reading a novel set in a fantasy world where people fought wars on the backs of dragons, while Ron was reading a Quidditch magazine that detailed the last two weeks of Quidditch games and was using the information to see how he was doing in his fantasy Quidditch league. Considering half of Ron's players were from his favourite team, which was always last place, Harry didn't know why he bothered with all the maths because the result was going to be the same anyway.

About the time they were crossing the Scottish/English border, the door to their compartment slid open and Malfoy was standing there looking smug. “Well Potter, I warned you about being on the wrong side back in our first year, didn't I? Now look where you are, the Dark Lord is back and your days are numbered.”

“Malfoy, is it the inbreeding that's made you so stupid or is it the fact that your father alway bought your grades so you never had to use your brain?” Hermione asked.

“Watch your mouth you filthy mudblood, the Dark Lord will probably be coming for you first,” Malfoy snapped.

Hermione just ignored him and carried on. “Voldemort is off licking his wounds because once again Harry kicked his ass. A lot of his free Death Eaters have just been captured or killed, and the entire Auror force is looking for him. Yet you think just because Voldemort has a body again you have the power to go around threatening people? Worse yet, people who are part of a House with higher standing than the House of Malfoy? Go away before you get hurt.”

Malfoy and his two bookends flinched every time Hermione used the name Voldemort. The blond was too stupid not to go for his wand and Hermione was too smart to not have prepared for it. She hit him with an Expelliarmus before the wand was even half out of his pocket. The wand came flying into the compartment and completely by coincidence flew out the open window.

“I'll have you thrown in Azkaban for that! Destroying a wizard's wand is a crime!”

Hermione rolled her eyes. “Internationally destroying a wizard's wand is a crime. First off, all I did was disarm you when you tried to pull your wand on me, which is perfectly legal. Second, your wand isn't destroyed, it’s on the side of the tracks about maybe half a mile away at this point. If I were you, I'd go run to a prefect or someone and have them Accio your wand quickly, before we are out of range. You probably have less than three minutes,” Hermione said smugly.

Malfoy's eyes went wide and he ran off, Crabbe and Goyle running after him. Hermione pointed and summoned the wand herself. When it came flying back through the window, Hermione smiled and cast a Sticking Charm on it before she stuck it to the wall of the compartment. “Now it won't get lost again this way. Of course, it can't be summoned either, so poor Draco is going to have to spend the whole trip home worried about what he is going to tell his parents.” Hermione couldn't keep a straight face as she spoke. And neither could the two boys, who must have been disturbing the compartments either side of them with how much they were laughing.

Not long after lunch, the door slid open again and this time it was Susan Bones and Hannah Abbott. Harry was a little surprised, as the Gryffindor trio weren’t particularly close to the Hufflepuff duo, but when the red-haired Hufflepuff focused most of her conversation on Ron, Harry understood.

“Hey Harry I'm thirsty, come with me to find the trolley lady? What about you Hannah, want to come as well?” Hermione asked the two of them. It wasn't subtle to anyone in the compartment, except perhaps Ron, what Hermione was doing. Harry and Hannah both agreed, and Susan flashed them a smile as they left.

“So how long has that been a thing?” asked Harry once there was half a carriage length between them and the compartment.

“Susan has had a small crush on Ron since my birthday party,” said Hermione. “She had planned on getting him to ask her out earlier this year but then he started dating Lavender.”

“That didn't last long though, why did Susan wait this long?” Harry asked?

“Because it's not that easy. Ron was busy with Quidditch, chess, and helping you. She has been working on Ron for a while but she hasn't had a lot of opportunities,” Hannah said.

“How did I not notice that?” Harry asked, surprised. He hadn't seen much of Susan outside of class this year.

“Probably because you spent almost every free minute you had training for the tournament. It kinda took over your life since November,” Hermione said. They had reached the cart at this point, so Harry got two large bottles of chilled pumpkin juice and had the trolley witch conjure a few glasses to drink from. Being conjured, the glasses would disappear in a few hours, so it didn't leave any rubbish that needed cleaning on the train. They decided to wait a few minutes though before going back to the compartment.

“So Hannah, you got your eye on anyone?” Harry asked, attempting to make small talk, but the Hufflepuff girl just blushed and refused to comment while Hermione elbowed him and told him to drop it.

---ϟϟϟ---

It was about five o'clock when the Express pulled into King's Cross and the trio started casting Feather-Light Charms on their luggage and pulling them off the overhead racks. “So Hermione, what are your plans for the summer?” Ron asked.

“I don't know yet. However, considering that Uncle Charlus tells my parents everything, I will probably need to spend most of the summer convincing them not to send me to Beauxbatons or somewhere there is no Voldemort. Apart from that, it will depend entirely on what my parents have planned. Should be able to spend some time together though.”

“Don't worry too much about being sent to Beauxbatons. If you go there I'll convince Grandfather to send me there as well, I doubt I'll need to try hard. But I wouldn't worry, with Grandfather as Potions professor and Dumbledore no longer able to use the school as a trap, Hogwarts is probably the safest option. The hard part will be keeping our Hogsmeade privileges,” Harry said as he stacked their four trunks, his two on top of his friends’ one each.

“Well I hope you stay. I seriously doubt my parents could afford to send me to a foreign school,” Ron sounded a little put out by that.

“Ron, you and Hermione should be getting your shares of the basilisk money soon. You can afford to go to any school you like,” Harry reminded him.

“You underestimate my mother. You trust me, as soon as that money comes in my mother will take the key because I'm ‘too young to be bothered with such things,’ and ‘you're best off saving that money for your future,’ I swear she thinks I'm still five years old,” Ron said, doing a passable imitation of his mother.

The three teens made their way off the train together. Grandfather Charlus, Mrs. Weasley, and Dan and Emma Granger were all standing together waiting for them. Ron and Hermione soon found themselves engulfed in hugs. Harry was able to avoid this by the simple fact that he had seen his grandfather only a few hours ago, before he got on the train, whereas it had been much longer since Hermione or Ron had seen their parents. Ron was only let go when Ginny came wandering over and was pulled into her own hug. The twins also arrived and were getting their hugs from their mother when Hermione finally let her parents out of the hug she was giving them.

The teens said their goodbyes, and Harry and Hermione gave each other a kiss as well. Promising to write, each of the trio went home. Charlus Side-Alonged Harry right from the platform to the gates of Potter Manor. It was weird to Harry to actually feel like he was coming home. Charlus had Harry take his trunk up to his room and unpack, and he was glad his trunk still had the Feather-Light Charm on it as he carried up multiple flights of stairs to the family floor.

Before Harry could get to his room, he was pounced on by a large black mutt, who proceeded to excitedly lick Harry's face. “Sirius! Get off me. Off. Get off before I stun you then go look up a charm to have you fixed.”

Sirius transformed back into his human form and grinned smugly at Harry. “There is no charm to fix an animagus. I checked after your mother threatened me the same way.”

“Then I'll just have to do it the old fashioned way, with a leather bootlace and a tightening charm,” Harry snapped back.

Sirius just laughed and pulled Harry into a hug. “It's good to see ya kid.”

“Yea you too, you old mutt.” Harry finished hauling his trunks to his room and started to unpack. He hung up both his basilisk duelling robes and his dragon hide long coat separately, as it just didn't feel right to lump them in with the rest of his clothes.

When Harry had finished unpacking there was a chime from the house's wards that said someone was Flooing into the manor. As Harry was the closest to the stairs, he ran down to the receiving room to see who it was and was surprised to see Hermione’s head floating in the fire.

“Hermione, what's wrong? Did something happen?” Harry asked in concern. If Hermione had rushed to the Leaky Cauldron to Floo him this quickly, something must have happened.

“Oh Harry, it’s brilliant. Sirius made a deal with my parents and now he owns our house. Dad explained it as a bunch of legal trickery because I'm apparently renting the house from him, but the end result is that it's considered a magical home now. That means that my house can legally have wards to keep my parents safe and it means we can have a Floo connection now.” The words came tumbling out of Hermione's mouth faster than a machine gun spits bullets.

“Wait, Sirius owns your house now?” Harry asked, both confused and worried.

“Yep, mum and dad sold it to him for one Galleon, and I rent it back for one Galleon a month, something my father takes care of for me. Sirius has signed a magical contract preventing him from kicking us out, or from selling the house to anyone besides us, plus he can only charge us one Galleon for it and he will sell it back to me once I'm of age. But it means I will be able to Floo directly to your place whenever I want!” she said excitedly.

It was clear why the adults had done it. Voldemort and his people liked to go after the family and friends of people who pissed them off. Harry and Charlus had definitely upset Voldemort and his coterie of lickspittles enough that they would target Harry's friends. The Weasleys were mostly safe because there were enough of them that attacking required a significant investment of manpower. The Death Eaters were cowards who wouldn't attack without at least a three to one advantage, and with at least seven Weasleys living there (Harry wasn't sure about Percy), a large enough force was a significant risk.

Hermione, though, was one witch with two muggle parents. She would definitely be their preferred target. But with the Floo, the new wards, and the fact that Hermione knew just as many deadly spells as Harry did, any Death Eater attacking there was in for a massive surprise.

“That's brilliant. What's your Floo address?” Harry asked.

“Well they didn't want anything that said Granger or Black on the paperwork, so it's ‘Crooks’ cradle.’ You know, like cat’s cradle but Crookshanks.”

“I think Professor Moody would be very happy with that level of paranoia.” Harry grinned at her. “Want to come over for half an hour?”

“I would love to, but I still need to unpack and then I'm having dinner with my parents. Is it okay if I come over tomorrow afternoon when my parents go to work?”

“Definitely. Should I invite Ron so we can get started on our summer work, or do you want a day just me and you?” Harry asked.

Hermione chewed her lip for a second in indecision torn between wanting to get her homework done and wanting to just goof off with Harry for the day. “Call Ron,“ she decided after almost a minute. “But definitely take a rain check on a you-and-I day. And who knows maybe Ron won't be able to make it.”

They chatted for a minute more, but Hermione admitted that her knees were getting uncomfortably sore kneeling in front of the fire. As she was going to leave, Harry leaned into the fire and gave her a quick kiss before she disappeared. The green frames turned to a natural orange before going out, as being July there was no reason to keep the fire lit. Harry considered calling the Burrow right away but decided to wait a few hours. The Weasleys probably took longer to get home, as there was no way Mrs. Weasley could Side-Along apparate them all and there was no Floo fire closer than the Leaky Cauldron, and with how hectic their packing days were Harry was sure their unpacking was just as crazy.

---ϟϟϟ---

The first night back at Potter Manor, instead of the family dinner Harry was expecting and Charlus had planned, they ended up having to go out for dinner. With both Charlus and Harry away at Hogwarts, the only person regularly using the manor was Sirius. His grocery shopping habits were largely dictated by how he ate, and when he was only cooking for himself Sirius was rather lazy. Basically the man lived off sandwiches and pre-made soups, as he just wanted to wave his wand a couple of times and have his dinner ready. The restaurant was nice, but both Harry and Charlus resented the need to dress up for dinner after such a long day, what with Harry travelling and Charlus taking inventory of the school's potion supplies so he could submit orders for anything that needed restocking for the next term.

It was when they got back home that the surprise happened. They were sitting in the family room talking about what they were going to do now that Voldemort was back, and Harry was just thanking Sirius for what he did for Hermione when the centre of the room was filled with a ball of fire for about two seconds. When the fire died down, a scroll of parchment fell away from where the centre of the fireball had been and landed on a table between them.

Naturally the three of them all jumped to their feet and pulled out their wands. It took them a minute to calm down enough to realise they weren't under attack and there was a letter on the table. Harry went to reach for it for a split second, but remembered how the Triwizard Cup was a portkey and abandoned the attempt before he had moved more than two inches. Sirius waved his wand at the scroll and it glowed blue. “It's a portkey. Don't touch it,” he warned them. Charlus flicked his wand, and the scroll unravelled and floated there in front of him. He began reading it out to them.

With the recent situation regarding Voldemort's return, the Order of the Phoenix is once more active and searching for members. Charlus Potter and Sirius Black, you are invited to a meeting with myself and other invited individuals. During this meeting we will be discussing Voldemort's aims, and that includes how I believe Voldemort will target Harry. Because of this, I strongly believe it is in your best interest to attend. This letter will act as a portkey tomorrow night at eight o'clock.

Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore

Order of Merlin

Chief Warlock

Supreme Mugwump

Defeater of Grindelwald

All around good chap

“Okay, two questions,” Harry said as Charlus finished reading the letter. “First, how the hell did Dumbledore get that through the wards? Didn't he testify in the Wizengamot he couldn't get through them to check on you in ‘91?” Harry asked.

“Phoenix travel is notoriously difficult to block, but I wouldn't want to be Dumbledore if he actually flame-travelled here himself, though. The wards wouldn't have kept him out, but they definitely wouldn't let him stay and the results would have been messy,” Charlus reassured Harry.

“So Dumbledore can't come here, but there is nothing stopping him sending things here? Including portkeys. Tell me, what's to stop him sending a rug with a portkey set to trigger when someone stands on it?” Harry didn't sound happy at all.

“Well… uh… well sh*t,” said Sirius.

“I will get on to finding a solution. Now what was your second question, Harry?” Charlus asked, looking as disturbed as his grandson at the possibility.

“Did he really sign off a letter like that? It's completely ridiculous.” That question broke some of the tension.

“Yes he did. My guess is that he is both trying to remind us of how important he is and to make himself seem goofy. After all, goofy people aren't a threat you need to worry about,” Charlus speculated.

“What concerns me is that Dumbledore is saying Voldemort will come after Harry. What do you think Dumbledore thinks he knows?” asked Sirius, giving Harry's forehead scar a significant look.

“It's possible, Harry was in Madam Pomfrey’s care for most of the day after that Halloween. Dumbledore had plenty of opportunity to examine Harry, if he found the dark magic and was able to piece that together with the diary he could have put the two together,” Charlus mused out loud. “But it could be something else entirely.”

“So we are going then?” Asked Sirius.

“Probably. Unless I can think of another solution.” Charlus agreed.

“Harry, I want you to stay away from this letter. Uncle Charlus and I will deal with Dumbledore and his schemes,” Sirius said.

Harry nodded but said, “Just don't go. You know Dumbledore can't be trusted.”

Charlus started “It's not that simple, if Dumbledore has information we need-.”

But Harry cut him off. “If Dumbledore knows something we need, he will never tell you. He will give you scraps of information and his assurance that if you do what he says, he will tell you more. Only he won't, he will just give you more scraps. That's what he did to me for three years.”

“Hey kid, don't worry. Your godfather and I can handle Dumbledore, and neither of us are going to wind up dancing to his tune. But if he knows something we don't, something that's relevant to your protection, then we have to at least try to learn it. Trust us, we know what we are doing. Now, it's getting late, why don't you call it a night?” Grandfather Charlus said.

It was at that reminder that Harry remembered just how long his day had been. He felt a wave of fatigue crash into him and he couldn't hold back his yawn. He said his good-nights to Charlus and Sirius and made his way to his room.

---ϟϟϟ---

One second Harry was stood in the middle of the Hogwarts Quidditch pitch with the Snitch in one hand and his other arm was wrapped around Hermione, who was pressing herself against him wearing her Yule ball dress as she snogged him for beating Draco Malfoy to the Snitch and winning Britain the Quidditch World Cup. The next second Harry was in bed having suddenly been woken by the Floo alarm.

Harry looked around, it was too dark for him to see the time on his clock and his watch was on his dresser across the room, but given the lack of light it wasn't exactly the time for visitors. Then Harry thought about what the alarm meant; someone who wasn't part of the House of Potter had arrived through the Floo. But the only way that could happen was if a member of the House had brought them, the wards wouldn't allow anything else. More importantly, there were currently only four members of the House of Potter: Warlock Charlus, heir Harry, and two adopted members. Harry, Charlus, and Sirius, were all here so that only left Hermione.

As soon as that thought had crossed Harry's mind, he was out of bed and jogging down the hall pulling on his bath robe that he grabbed as he left his room. He was just about to start descending when a voice called out. “Harry! Uncle Charlus!” It was Hermione, and Harry spread up as much as he dared on the stairs. He could also hear some scrambling coming from behind him, so he guessed his grandfather and Sirius were on their way as well.

Once Harry reached the main staircase he called out. “Hermione! What's happened!?” There was no way Hermione would just Floo over, brining people with her, in the middle of the night, unless it was an emergency of some sort.

Hermione and her parents were standing in the main entrance hall, Crookshanks in her father's arms, and the three of them looked like they had just seen hell. Harry rushed up and pulled Hermione into a hug. He could practically feel the adrenaline dump out of her system as she collapsed against him.

“What happened?” Harry asked again.

It was Dan who answered. “Zombies. There were zombies attacking our street. How is that possible? Dead bodies don't have working muscles, their ligaments would be weak, the nerves couldn't carry a signal, the brain couldn't send a signal…”

“Magic makes all that unnecessary. A dead body can be animated the same way a puppet can. It's a particularly disgusting piece of magic that no right thinking person would ever use, but it's definitely possible.” Charlus said from behind Harry. “Dan, how many were there? Were they specifically targeting your house or was it the general area?”

“We don't know. All the streetlights were out and we couldn't turn on our lights. The only ones we could see were the twenty or so trying to get to our house when Hermione used magic to create light.” Dan answered, his mind latching onto the things he could answer. “Hermione bundled us all into the Floo pretty quickly after that.”

I tried a few cutting spells but they didn't work. I didn't want to try fire spells that close to the houses,” Hermione admitted.

Charlus nodded “Good, it sounds like the power is out so witnesses will be kept to a minimum, and hopefully there will be no muggle cameras either so the Statue of Secrecy will hold. Sirius, Floo to the D.M.L.E. and report an Inferi attack in muggle London, and provide them with a portkey inside the Grangers’ wards. If the wards are holding up then it will be a perfect place for the Aurors to start from. Harry, take the Grangers upstairs and make them all a cup of tea. Also, put a pot of coffee on. I doubt we will be getting any more sleep tonight.”

Both Harry and Sirius just nodded in agreement. Sirius waved his wand over his bath robe and sleepwear and turned it into a set of wizard robes before he disappeared into the Floo room, though if anyone paid attention they would have seen that Sirius was still wearing slippers instead of boots. Harry led Hermione and her parents upstairs while asking, “ What are you going to do, grandfather?”

“I'm going to write a letter to the Underage Magic Office. Hopefully that will clear Hermione of any charges of breaking the Restriction on Underage Sorcery before they are filed. I really don't want to have to deal with the bureaucracy of getting the charge removed.”

Chapter 48

Chapter Text

Chapter 48

Sirius stood in the centre of a group of Aurors about to do a Side-Along hot drop, which was a difficult piece of magic that he hadn’t done since the war. Not just because it took a lot of power, but because it took a lot of focus. When Side-Along Apparating, the person controlling the spell had to concentrate enough not to splinch whomever they brought with them, and the level of concentration went up the more people you were bringing. A Side-Along hot drop was when one person Side-Alonged an entire group into the middle of a combat zone.

The only reason the Aurors were accepting Sirius doing this was because he could Side-Along them inside the wards of the Granger's house, as he was the one in control of the wards. Anyone else would have had to Apparate them outside the wards, and in this case possibly right in the middle of a group of Inferi. Frankly, the Aurors would all rather risk splinching rather than getting injured by a rotting corpse animated by dark magic. The dark magic would resist any healing magic, and healing any infections would have to be done the muggle way.

Sirius concentrated with everything he had and Apparated, taking six Aurors with him. They landed in the back garden of a London house with only the light of the stars to see by.

“Okay everyone do a body check, is anyone missing anything important?” one voice asked. There was a chorus of all-clear notifications save for one witch who complained, “Black you owe me a new manicure, you left half my fingernail behind.”

“Stow it Mags, a finger nail is not a real problem. Butters, Rosewood, go through the house and check the front road for hostiles and report back, Otters, Rivers, the two of you go and have a look over that fence. Larch, Disillusion yourself and fly overhead and do some recon, we need to know how many there are and over what area. Black, you stay here inside the wards, you’re on medical evacuation duties if it's needed.” Auror proudfoot barked out his orders.

Immediately two witches ran to the back fence and climbed up to see over it, two wizards ran into the Grangers’ house to get to the front, and one wizard pulled a Nimbus 2000 out of an expanded pocket in his robes and Disillusioned himself with a tap of his wand before Sirius heard the rush of wind as he took to the skies. Sirius himself wasn't going to sit around and do nothing. He was under orders to stay on the property, but staying on the property and doing nothing weren't the same thing. He was a maverick after all, bending the rules was what they were best at.

Sirius turned on the spot, and with a crack he disappeared from the garden and reappeared on the Grangers’ roof. From his vantage point he had probably the best view of the situation except for perhaps Auror Larch. He could see a large group of undead corpses in the street; without trying to count them individually he established there to be forty of them, and judging by the screaming from the other houses maybe another ten in the surrounding houses.

“If this isn't cleared up soon there is going to be a major breach to the Statute of Secrecy,” Sirius said to no one in particular. With the screaming, there was a good chance that someone would try to contact the muggle authorities, and even If the muggle teli-what's-its wouldn't work right now, before top long someone would get the idea to go to the nearest station or working phone on foot, and then things would really get difficult.

Sirius pointed his wand at one of the Inferi that was with the majority trying to overwhelm the house's wards. An overpowered cutting curse that bisected the thing right down the middle, leaving its body in two flailing halves. This stopped its attack on the wards but didn't stop it from trying. The only things that would completely stop it would be fire or sunrise. Sunrise was hours away yet, and falling balls of fire running around setting everything on fire would just cause a bigger problem, especially as a large cloud of smoke would almost definitely alert the muggle firefighters to come and stop the city burning down, again.

Soon, Proudfoot and all the other Aurors came and joined Sirius on the roof and he had them all report. They agreed with Sirius's assessment of around fifty, though Larch said he suspected forty-nine as “it’s seven times seven, a powerful magical number, and I think I read somewhere before that Inferi could be raised in a maximum batch size of seven.”

“Okay, here's the plan. We are going to deal with them quietly and without fire for now. Once we cut them all down, we will get an expanded trunk from the office and levitate all the parts into it and burn them away from prying muggle eyes. Black, I want you to grab any muggles who see anything and put them in this house safely, we can have the Obliviation squad and the cleaners in and hopefully have everything back to normal before dawn,” Proudfoot told them. Sirius turned on the spot immediately, going first for the houses where the Inferi had already broken in. He hoped that he would get there before anyone died, but he knew that it was probably too late for that before he even left Potter Manor.

---ϟϟϟ---

Dan and Emma were walking down one of the hallways in the manor, looking for the room Charlus had directed them to so they could try and get some sleep. They were counting the doors as they went past, because the directions they had were the fourth door on the right, but when they passed an open door Dan froze at what he saw.

Emma, noticing that her husband wasn't walking any more, turned to see what he was looking at. As she looked through the door, she saw Hermione and Harry laying down together in a bed, both still wearing everything they had been in when they met just after arriving from the fire. Her daughter was clinging tightly to her boyfriend in her sleep, obviously not going to let him go any time soon.

“Leave it Dan,” Emma said, giving her husband a little tug on the arm.

“Emma, our fifteen year old girl is sharing a bed with a boy.” He sounded like he was considering marching over there and dragging her out of the bed.

“Our almost sixteen year old daughter is sleeping in the one place she feels safe after a traumatic night. If you do anything, all you will succeed in doing is keeping her awake for the next three days. Do you think that will be good for her?” Emma sounded stern.

“But what if she ends up pregnant?” He insisted.

“First, all they are doing is sleeping. Look at them, and I mean really look: fully clothed, on top of the covers, and the door left purposely open. They are only cuddling as they sleep and very deliberately showing us that. Secondly, if she were to get pregnant, which she can't by the way because she is on the magical equivalent of the pill, then we would handle it.” Emma told him sternly while pulling his arm more firmly. “Now let's go to bed, I don't think I could sleep alone eather.

Dan gave up and followed his wife. “Okay, but why is Hermione on the pill?” He asked.

Emma rolled her eyes. “Because she is a teenage girl who has been dating a boy for over a year, and I made sure to send a letter to her school nurse, just like I would have taken her to a doctor if she was in a non magical school. We discussed options and came up with one for Hermione, she takes a potion once a month while the healer watches.”

“I still say they are rushing things,” Dan refused to concede the point.

Emma rolled her eyes. “No they aren't, just think what you were doing at fifteen.”

“Em, that's exactly what I'm afraid of,” Dan said as his wife pulled him into the room they were going to be borrowing.

---ϟϟϟ---

Sirius watched, exhausted, as the clean up crew did its work. Some were fixing the damage that the Inferi had done, broken windows, dented cars, smashed doors, that sort of thing. Others were coming up with muggle worthy excuses for the things they couldn't fix. Things like the people who had died. Fortunately, in a macabre way, most of the dead were elderly - better than them being kids, at least. Speaking of kids, there was one girl, five maybe six, who sat weeping next to her parents. They had both died protecting her from the monsters before Sirius had arrived to evacuate them. It was heartbreaking to see the little girl so distraught, her story now so similar to Harry's.

Sirius tried not to remember the mouthed words of gratitude from the girl's dying mother as he appeared to save the little girl, yet every time he closed his eyes all he could see was the woman struggling to sit up and do something surrounded by a pool of her own blood. He really wanted to do more to help the girl, but there was nothing he could do for a Muggle child. Legally it would be considered kidnapping, and there really was no place for the girl in the magical world he lived in. He had cast a charm on her to check she wasn't a Muggleborn or an adopted-out squib that he could help, but she was as mundane as the next muggle. There was nothing he could do.

He watched as a few healers healed what they could. A lot of it was cuts and scrapes, but a lot of the injured, including Auror Rosewood, had bite marks. Those were definitely going to be infected, both with rotting corpse bacteria and with dark magic that would prevent any healing magic from helping. All the healers could do for that is swab the infected area liberally with iodine and mundane antibiotics.

Of course, getting those mundane antibiotics could be difficult as you couldn't just walk into a mundane shop and buy them. You needed paperwork signed off on by a mundane healer. Actually, that was something that Sirius would have to have a word with Dan and Emma about; they were mundane healers, maybe they could sign off on the antibiotics?

Finding a Muggle-worthy excuse took a lot of effort. They needed to account for the very human bite marks on the people who survived, so cover stories like a gas leak or an animal attack just wouldn't work. In the end, the only thing they could come up with was an escaped man from a mental hospital, combined with a bunch of people killed going out into the street when they heard a struggle. It wasn't a great story, but it's what they had to go with. The Obliviation squad ran with it, modifying everyone's memories, while yet more wizards set up the scene to look exactly like what would be expected so they could hand off the situation to the mundane authorities.

Dawn was just breaking when Sirius decided it was time to go home. Everyone was out of the Granger's house by then, so there was no need for him to stick around. He told Auror Proudfoot that he was going and was informed that he would need to go to the D.M.L.E. later in the day to give a full report of what he saw and did. Sirius Floo'ed back home directly from the upstairs fireplace in the locked third bedroom that had long ago been converted into a home office.

The manor was completely silent when Sirius arrived, likely he thought because everyone else was fast asleep. Yet when he arrived in the kitchen, thinking of making himself a sandwich before going to bed, Charlus was there waiting for him with two mugs of hot tea on the table. “So, tell me what happened,” Charlus not-quite-asked, and Sirius sighed before telling his uncle everything that happened from his point of view.

---ϟϟϟ---

Breakfast was pretty quiet the next day, as no one felt like they had enough sleep. That is, until two owls arrived, one addressed to Harry and one to Hermione. Hermione went from sleepy to bordering on an anxiety attack in minutes as she read her letter. It was an official notice from the Ministry regarding her use of underage magic. Apparently the Hopkirk woman who ran the office hadn't bothered to investigate at all and had sent out the notice as soon as she got in the office this morning.

Hermione was being called in for a disciplinary hearing, and the letter was very clear that Hermione being expelled from Hogwarts and having her wand snapped was on the table. This was why she was having a near panic attack. Charlus assured her that at nine o'clock he would be contacting his solicitor, and the three of them were going to go to the Ministry and get everything sorted out today, rather than next week on the date of her hearing.

The other letter was from Gringotts. It was informing Harry that they had finished with the sale of the basilisk, and the gold from it totaled 758,500. Harry had decided a while back that he was going to take 140,000 of that and share it with the people who were affected by the basilisk. That meant Colin, Justin, Penelope Clearwater, Hermione, Ginny, Ron, and Filch. Shared out equally, that would be 20,000 Galleons each. Though Harry was considering giving Filch less, as it was only his pet that was petrified; the other petrification victims actually had to catch up on the life they had missed. He had been considering giving the caretaker 8,000, leaving 22,000 each for everyone else.

But Harry had plenty of time to focus on all that later. For now, he had to focus on Hermione. He pulled Hermione into a hug, and as she cried about losing her magic and having wasted the last four years of her education he kept repeating reassuring things to her. “Don't forget Hermione, you are in the right. It doesn't matter how old you are, in an emergency you are always allowed to defend yourself and others. No Ministry jobsworth is going to do anything to you, and grandfather and I will make sure of that.”

“What can you do, Harry? You're not even fifteen yet,” Hermione said between sobs.

“I'll go to the Prophet and give an interview. How much sh*t do you think I can start by getting a story of a girl stripped of her wand rights for defending herself from a horde of Inferi that, let's be honest, were probably sent by Voldemort?”

“Harry, you can't do that,” Charlus responded. “It would cause way too much trouble. With everything that's happening the public needs to support the D.M.L.E right now-.”

He tried to say more when Harry cut him off. “No, what I can't do is let anything happen to Hermione. With a few individual exceptions, the rest of the world can go hang for all I care.” Harry was glaring at his grandfather the whole time.

Charlus sighed at his grandson. He agreed with Harry that Hermione needed protection from the bullsh*t this Hopkirk woman was throwing, yet Harry's plan was overkill. “Harry, I'm not saying we let anything happen, just let's not burn bridges we may need later. First we do this quietly, then if we have to we do it legally, and finally if all else fails we do it your way. If we jump straight into overkill, we may lose an asset we don’t want to.” With that, he went to make the Floo call to Gripsack - Anne Twist. Ten minutes later, he came back with both Miss Twist and a goblin that Harry assumed was Gripsack. There was a quick round of introductions for the people who hadn't met before, and Harry was indeed right, the goblin was the named partner in the law firm he hadn't met yet.

They had Hermione and her parents recount their recollection of the previous evening and looked over the letter Hermione received. Then they asked Sirius to recount what his experience was of the situation after they were told Sirius had provided transportation for the responding Aurors. All in all, the two lawyers agreed they had a solid case and didn't think it wasn't going to take more than an hour or two to sort everything out in the Ministry.

With a game plan in mind, Charlus, Sirius, and the two lawyers left the teens in the care of Dan and Emma and Floo'ed to the Ministry. Once the four of them had gone through the kerfuffle of getting through the welcome wizard, the man doing everything he could to try and deny entry to Gripsack because he was a goblin, they took the lift to the floor of the D.M.L.E. Charlus and Sirius had expected them to head straight to the Office of Underage Magic, but Gripsack and Miss Twist both insisted on going to a number of other offices first. The two split up to save time and left Sirius and Charlus standing around not knowing what to do.

While they were waiting, Arthur Weasley happened by. His office was also part of the D.M.L.E. and it was just around time for his morning tea, so he was heading to a small kitchenette on the floor to make himself a cup when he came across the two of them.

“Sirius, Charlus, I heard about what happened last night. The entire office is talking about it. Are Miss Granger and her parents okay?” He asked when he saw the two men milling in a hallway.

“Hello Arthur,” Charlus said, smiling at the man. “Hermione and her parents are fine. They are all at the manor right now.”

“Thank Merlin. I have only met them a few times but they all struck me as good people. How bad was it last night? I went to the site this morning to fix the jinx on the streetlights in the area, but it was all cleaned up and normal looking by the time I got there,” Arthur asked Sirius.

Sirius looked tired as he considered how he was going to answer. “It was… not as bad as it could have been. But it was still a horde of Inferi in a Muggle city. People died, more got hurt. And after what happened to Harry at the end of the tournament, it's only the tip of the spear. We all know You-Know-Who will do worse before this is over.”

“Speaking of what happened to Harry, did you get an invitation from Albus?” Arthur asked in a low voice so he wouldn't be overheard. That reminded Sirius and Charlus of the letter they had gotten the night before. The incident with the Inferi had pushed the matter to the side in their minds. But they had to make a decision shortly about how they were going to handle that, as by 8 o'clock tonight if they hadn't made a decision it was going to be made for them.

“I take it that the Burrow was also graced by a letter appearing in a ball of fire?” Sirius asked.

“Dumbledore always did like his theatrics. But what are you going to do? Personally I'm on the fence. On one hand Voldemort has to be stopped, on the other I have four under age kids and three who, while of age, are still practically kids. But You-Know-Who is likely to target some of my kids anyway. My family is known to hold, shall we say, an opposing view. Ginny was already targeted once and Harry saved her, and Ron is Harry's best friend. One side of me thinks we shouldn't expose ourselves to danger, the other is saying we are already in danger and the best defence is a strong offence.” It was obvious from the way the Weasley man rambled that he was going in circles in his own head.

“I'm not sure about all that, my question is can we trust Dumbledore?” Charlus said.

“Who else can we turn to? It's not like we have a lot of choices. And Albus is experienced,” asked Arthur,

“Experienced at losing. No, hear me out,” Sirius said at a harsh look from Arthur. “Look at what was happening with the war last time around. We were losing. We did things Dumbledore’s way and we stuck with stunning, incapacitating, and disarming spells while they were using spells to kill. Our forces were being systematically slaughtered while theirs got back up and continued fighting. Our biggest victories were when our people got so overwhelmed that they abandoned our rules of engagement. The country was months away from being lost before whatever happened in Godric's Hollow that night. Then after that, everything Dumbledore had done shows he is not a good person to lead a choir, let alone a war.”

“Do we have any other reasonable options? The only other option I can see is hiding behind our family wards and waiting for the Aurors to either sort it out or fail, and to hope we aren't targeted before it's all over,” Arthur said.

“We aren't sure yet. We will at least attend his meeting tonight and see what he is saying, but unless there are some major changes from last time I won't be joining again,” said Sirius.

“Any ideas what changes you want?” Arthur asked.

The three of them continued to talk about their ideas for a while, even migrating to the kitchenette as they spoke. Eventually Miss Twist came to collect them, saying that they had gotten all the paperwork they needed and it was time for them to go speak to Ms. Hopkirk. Arthur was surprised when he realised just how long they were talking, so he wished them luck and had to hurry back to his office.

Once Miss Twist led them back to where Gripsack was waiting, the two men were surprised to see an Auror waiting with him. Charlus didn't recognise him but Sirius did. “Proudfoot. After last night I would have thought you earned the day off.”

“Black, Potter.” He nodded both to Sirius and Charlus. “I'm on light desk work. Got to fill out the reports and file paperwork over what happened last night. The downside of being promoted, I'm afraid. Gripsack was telling me the girl who raised the alarm is being charged with underage magic?”

Sirius nodded. “Yeah she fired a cutting curse at one of the Inferi before she ran.”

“Aren’t the kiddos allowed to defend themselves?” Proudfoot asked. As an Auror he was technically still on the roster for the regular law enforcement, but he specialised in dealing with violent offenders, not regular crimes, and so was rusty on the details.

“Yes, that's what the law says,” agreed Charlus.

“That's why I wanted the copy of your report, providing evidence that it truly was a life-threatening circ*mstance,” said Gripsack.

“Well screw the report, I will tell her in person, in excruciating amounts of detail if I need to. Let's go deal with this bullsh*t.” With that the Auror turned and strode towards where Hopkirk's office was located, the four slightly surprised people following in his wake.

When he got there he simply knocked once and walked in. “Hopkirk, what's this I hear about you charging a kid with breaking the Reasonable Restriction on Underage Magic for defending herself from Inferi?” He demanded.

“Oh come on, that story is ridiculous, what the hell would a horde of Inferi be doing in muggle London? If the mudblood is going to fake a story, she should come up with a better one,” Hopkirk answered, not having seen Charlus, Sirius, or either of the lawyers yet.

The four people outside the office froze at what they had just heard. “Well I can confirm that there was indeed a horde there last night. My team and I were dispatched to deal with them,” Proudfoot said, not sounding put out by her words at all.

“Then she should have run, not used magic outside of school. The law is clear.”

At that perfect opening Miss Twist walked into the office. “Yes, the law is clear. Under the degree of the reasonable restriction of under age magic,” she stressed the word reasonable, “any underage magical, be they witch or wizard, pureblood or first generation, may use any magical means at their disposal to defend their life or the lives of others in an emergency. A single Inferius is classified as a three-X threat. An entire hoard can be classified as a four- or five-X threat depending on the numbers. They clearly fall in the included exceptions that are part of the law.”

“Who the hell are you?” Hopkirk demanded.

“Solicitor Anne Twist of Gripsack - Anne Twist, law witch for the Potter family and by extension Miss Hermione Granger.” She produced a business card from somewhere and held it out to the woman, who refused to take it so Miss Twist left it on the table.

Charlus took that as his opening as well and stepped into the office. “And I'm Warlock Charlus Potter, sitting member of the Wizengamot and Miss Granger's magical guardian. I don't have a business card, but I'm sure you won't have any trouble remembering me.” He smiled at the woman but it had no warmth to it at all. “And if I hear you calling my ward by that disgusting term again, I will have no choice but to file a suit against you for discrimination and abuse of authority. Not the Ministry, you.”

The woman paled at the threat, and outside the door Sirius shook his head. “You know this morning he was the one telling Harry to keep a cool head and to not make more enemies than necessary,” he muttered to Gripsack.

Gripsack just shrugged. “The two are cut from the same stone. They may have been facetted and polished differently, but a ruby will always be a ruby.”

“This is intimidation of a Ministry official. I can have you all arrested for that.” Hopkirk said, sounding nervous.

“Good luck with that,” laughed Proudfoot. “You know as well as I that that accusation will have to go in front of the Wizengamot. Not only will that mean a full investigation into the whole incident, but no way those high-horse self-serving assholes will ever set a precedent that they can't sic their lawyers on someone. Uh, present company excluded.” He said when he remembered Charlus was in the room.

Charlus laughed. “I'm well aware of how bad some of my colleagues are, and for what it's worth you’re right. Most of them forget that we are supposed to do things for the benefit of Wizarding Britain as a whole, rather than ourselves.”

“Hopkirk, why are you doing this? You know that if you push this you're going to have to justify the expense of the legal battle to Director Bones, and she is going to take one look at the reports on Inferi and is going to throw the case out.

“Why? You're asking why? That monster is back, I'm not going to be targeted because some lunatic thinks I didn't take the opportunity to get the Boy-Who-Lived's mudblood girlfriend kicked out of the magical world!” she screamed half-hysterically.

That's when it clicked into place for everyone there. Hopkirk was just caving under pressure. There was no way she was going to cut Hermione any slack, and any other muggleborn who needed to defend themselves would face the same issue. She was going to need to be removed from her position before she made things a lot worse.

Finally understanding, Proudfoot sighed and said, “Hopkirk I'm going to do you a favour here. I'm placing you under arrest for abusing Ministerial power. You do not need to say anything and you may not be compelled by magic to speak without your consent. It also may harm your defence if you do not mention during questioning something you later rely on before the Wizengamot. Anything you do say will be given in evidence.”

“You can't be serious, that charge will never stick,” Hopkirk sounded outraged.

“Probably not,” he shrugged, “but it will take the decision about Miss Granger out of your hands, and will create a public record of what you tried to do. By your logic, that should keep you safe. However, I hope you have another job lined up because you know, win or lose, Bones is going to kick you out.”

Chapter 49

Chapter Text

Chapter 49

“I want to go as well,” Harry whined. “Dumbledore said he has information about me, I deserve to know it.” Sirius and Charlus were getting ready to go to Dumbledore’s meeting that night. Actually, considering everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours, it felt like they had received the letter a lot longer ago than the night before.

“You're not going, Harry. Dumbledore clearly has way too much of an interest in you. Until we know enough to understand why he is interested and what he plans to do, I'm not comfortable with you being around the man. I promise you I will tell you everything that we learn about you. Besides, someone has to stay and play host to the Grangers. It would be the height of bad manners to leave them here alone.”

Harry sighed, he knew Grandfather Charlus had a point. Hermione was still on edge about possibly losing her wand rights. According to Sirius, the decision was now with the head of the D.M.L.E., and there was no chance Hermione was going to lose. However, she was the type to worry until she had the official letter in her hand. Unfortunately, the earliest they could expect that letter was tomorrow.

After firmly expressing his disappointment, as well as a quick stop in the kitchen to make up a tea tray, Harry went back to the library where Hermione was busy trying to distract herself with one of the extraordinarily thick and detailed tomes on Arithmancy. Her parents were in the same room, though they were listening to the Wizarding Wireless, less interested in the soothing chamber music than the news bulletins that came on every half hour as they listened for more information on the attack on their home.

Sirius and Charlus took a hold of the letter that they had received the day before, and at precisely 8 o'clock they felt a small hook behind their belly buttons as they were whisked away to wherever Dumbledore had planned his meeting. As it turned out, it was held in the back room of the Hog’s Head pub. It was almost like Dumbledore was trying to embrace the cliche of a small group of vigilantes meeting him back at a dingy pub. Sirius hoped that this was only a temporary meeting place while he sounded out potential members, rather than the actual headquarters. If this was the best Dumbledore could do, his barbecued chicken club wasn't going to be able to do anything worthwhile. Seriously, this was the first place the Death Eaters would look for them.

They each bought a drink from Aberforth, the owner of the bar, though given the general lack of clean glasses, both opted to get a bottled beer and drink it straight from the bottle rather than risk sampling what was on tap. In the back room they found Dumbledore waiting with a bunch of other people and looked around seeing who they could recognise. There was Mad-Eye, who had been a member last time so no surprise there, and same with Diggle and Doge. The large black Auror Shacklebolt was a new face, but one Sirius recognised. Seeing Nymphadora Tonks there was also a surprise, but according to Sirius's cousin Andromeda she was Mad-Eye's protege so it made sense.

More important was the people who weren't there: none of the Hogwarts current professors. Current was important, only because Snape was there sitting in a corner. He was still wearing the traditional brown robes of an apprentice and looked tired already. Given the time, it was likely that Snape had only just finished his shift at St. Mungo's for the day. The brown robes didn't suit him at all, but St. Mungo's was very strict about what the people who worked there wore. They didn't want patients mistaking apprentice brewers for healers after all.

There were quite a few other people there that neither Charlus or Sirius recognised, and more kept walking in. When there were around twenty of them, with Molly and Arthur Weasley being the last, Dumbledore coughed loudly to get everyone's attention and began a little prepared speech. “Unfortunately, as all of you will have already heard, Lord Voldemort has returned and is as we speak trying to restart the Blood War. Just like last time, Voldemort's actions will have a devastating effect on the people of this country. That is why I'm asking for your help. We need to organise and work together if we are going to have any hope of saving as many lives as possible.” Dumbledore continued for almost ten minutes, talking but not really saying anything.

When Dumbledore was finished Charlus stood up. “That was a lot of pretty words, Dumbledore, but before anyone here makes any decisions I think we would all like to hear what lessons you learned from last time and what you intend to do differently?”

“Well, considering how the last war turned out as a victory for our side, I intend to follow a similar game plan,” Dumbledore said, trying to sound all too reasonable.

“So you intend to drag the war out for as long as possible until a miracle happens that was not in any way brought about by your order or the Ministry, only to let everyone go free at the end so we will have to do the exact same thing again in fifteen years? Forgive me if that sounds like a f*cking stupid plan to me. Last time we were on the brink of losing, and if it wasn't for some ridiculously unlikely circ*mstances we would have lost. And I will tell you all this now, if you are banking on my grandson to save you all, you can forget it. He isn't even fifteen yet. His worries include girls, school, and Quidditch, and that's how it's going to stay.” Charlus spoke like he was speaking to a particularly slow child.

“I'm afraid that I'm going to have to disagree there. Young Harry was able to hurt Voldemort, he will not allow Harry to live unchallenged. He sees Harry as someone with the power to vanquish him, a risk he can't allow to live. Harry is going to need to worry about that, as Voldemort will not leave him to have a quiet life. Harry will be dragged into this war whether you want to be or not,” Dumbledore said relatively quietly.

“Even if you are right, that doesn't absolve us of the responsibility to keep a teenager out of this,” Charlus was getting a little heated now.

“You would risk us all to keep one person safe?” Dumbledore tried to make Charlus sound unreasonable.

“You're goddamn right I would. No one is here to save the whole wizarding world - for the most part they’re assholes. Everyone is here because they want to protect one or a few people who are dear to them. For me, that's Harry. I remember the mortality rate this club had in the last war. You preached stunning and binding spells, and the Death Eaters stood out in the open firing off Unforgivables because even if they were hit, they got back up a few minutes later. Even in the last twenty four hours, there was an attack where innocent people died, people who may well have lived if you hadn't protected the people who supported their murderer.

“And after all of that, your big plan is to try the same sh*t again and to use Harry like a chess piece. Well, people like you think nothing about sacrificing a chess piece. That is why you were unsuitable for running a school and why Harry will never be around you again.

“I think Charlus has a point,” said Mad-Eye. “We were on the brink of losing. We got damn lucky when that boy survived. And Albus, you need to remember he is still a boy. But what we really need to do is actually fight, and not with school yard spells. Remember that we are in a war, and as noble as it is to dive for your beliefs, it's making the other guy die for his beliefs that wins wars.”

“Yet an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind. They kill someone you care about, so you kill them, so the people who cared about them take up arms. When does it stop? When do we all finally sit down and talk without trying to kill each other?” Dumbledore argued.

“What you are ignoring, Albus, is that the Death Eaters don't see a lot of our families as people. They see them like a disease, a cancer that needs to be cut out, and those of us who embrace them as family are the infected that need to be culled before it spreads to the rest of the population. There is no negotiating with people like that, especially not when they hold a position of power. A position that is reinforced by us not having power to fight back. Our power is limited only because people like you are irrationally attached to the soft option.

“There have been two major conflicts in the country over the last century, the war with Grindelwald and the war with Voldemort. In one we were decisive and in one we were wishy-washy. One was never a problem again, and we are here to handle the other for the second time. The lesson of history is clear,” Charlus finished. People were even nodding along to Charlus’s words in agreement, his experience in the political arena clear to everyone.

“I'm afraid it won't be that simple. Voldemort has done some dark magic to keep himself from dying. Simply using lethal spells against him won't be enough,” Dumbledore said, causing both Sirius and Charlus to wonder if Dumbledore knew about the Horcruxes.

It was Tonks who stood up next. “Voldemort may be protected like that, but his Death Eaters aren't. A few Death Eater corpses would do wonders to hamper their recruitment. It's kinda hard to be gung-ho about joining a band of murderers when the media is constantly showing pictures of them ending up dead.”

While Dumbledore was giving Tonks his ‘I'm disappointed in you’ look, Shacklebolt stood and said, “While I think we should prioritise capture, the lass has a point. The more we can show the public the consequences of joining the Death Eaters, the lower their join up rate will be. The lower the number of Death Eaters, the harder it will be for them to enact their plans and less people on either side will die.”

“Surely you are all missing the point,” Doge stood up and addressed them. “We aren't an army. It's the Aurors’ job to deal with dark wizards. What we should be focusing on is helping the muggleborn flee the country, and help hide them until we can get portkeys to a safe country.”

“Why should the muggleborn leave? That's just giving the Death Eaters what they want and depriving us of allies,” said another voice from the back of the room.

The debate then started in earnest, and it wouldn't cool off for the next few hours. The two sides were clear, one wanted to take the fight to the Death Eaters and stop them before they could get any real traction while the other wanted to avoid fighting as much as possible and do things like sneaking away muggleborn and gathering intelligence. Or, as one muggleborn in the group put it, “trying to do cold war after the war has already turned hot.”

In the end there was no agreement. Half of them stormed out, unavailable to work with the other side. Dumbledore of course blamed Charlus for putting the idea of actually fighting into people's heads. Charlus couldn't even disagree, it was his words that fostered the dissent. Though from Charlus’s point of view, this was a win. Dumbledore couldn't be trusted to run any kind of resistance, he was too focused on Harry and keeping his people as meek sheep. No, it was better to see who had the will to fight and to do something with them. Dumbledore could run his own little group who did nothing but play hide and seek with murderers if he wanted to.

When everyone except Dumbledore, Charlus, and Sirius had left, Sirius with his usual Gryffindor spirit charged forward and asked, “So what do you know about how he is keeping himself alive?”

Dumbledore’s eyes took on that annoying twinkle and he said, “Absolutely nothing. I suspect a few things of course, but it's magic best left unspoken.”

Charus sighed as Dumbledore made a rookie mistake again. “And what if Voldemort gets lucky and kills you, or memory wipes you, or you slip on a flight of stairs and smack your brain about a bit? How is Voldemort to be stopped if no-one else knows what you suspect, and suddenly you can't communicate or act on that information at all? Are you so self-absorbed that you would risk the entire magical world on you surviving until the end of this?”

To say that Dumbledore wasn't ready for that argument was an understatement. It was like Charlus’s words were physical blows to the man with how much he winced. “You may have a point, but if it's what I think it is, it's best that it is kept away from as many people as possible. There are far too many who would consider it an acceptable price to pay for immortality. To reveal what I know to anyone is a risk, one best not taken, and if it must be shared the decision cannot be made lightly. Good night gentlemen.” And with that sudden dismissal, Dumbledore turned and strode out of the room.

---ϟϟϟ---

When Charlus and Sirius got home, Harry and the Grangers were waiting for news. Sirius and Charlus explained exactly what had happened at the meeting, and how they couldn't even agree on something as simple as being prepared to kill Death Eaters. Charlus finished with, “We also think Dumbledore may know about the Horcruxes. A few of the things he said to us at the end, they fit with a Horcrux too well. We don't know how much he knows, but at least for now he isn't telling us anything.”

“I'd be dying of shock if Dumbledore was telling you anything,” Harry said. “I have been asking that man for answers since my first year and I have never gotten one.”

Hermione nodded. “Looking back on it, the former headmaster was an expert in giving non-answers and implying things instead of saying them.”

Dan sighed. Charlus had told him and his wife all about the Horcruxes once they learned about them from Harry. “The question is, does Dumbledore know what these soul jar things may be or where they may be hidden? It's one thing for us to know they exist and how to destroy them, but for all we know they could be anything. Even something as simple as a random rock left in a stream.”

“No.” Said Harry. “I can't put my finger on it, but from what I know of him that seems wrong.”

“What do you mean, Harry?” asked Sirius.

“I'm not sure. It's just that a rock in a stream seems too mundane for him. I think we can at least assume the items will be more significant than that and will at least have magical protections.”

“Well, you have had more contact with him than almost anyone else on our side,” said Charlus. “But even so, it's not a lot.”

“Why not talk to that Crouch fellow?” asked Emma. “Despite everything he did, he seems to consider Voldemort his enemy. Maybe you can get him to tell you everything he knows and build a psychological profile on the man.”

There was some confusion as to what a psychological profile was among the magicals but when it was explained they thought it might be a good idea worth pursuing. After that the talk turned to when the Grangers would be going home. They had closed their practice for one day already, and while the family was well off enough that they could absorb that loss of business, they weren't well off enough to keep doing so for too long without consequences. And that was just the effect on them, there was also the effect on the patients. Every day they were closed was one or two patients who are left in pain because they need emergency treatment. This was something that weighed on the Grangers and their sense of duty to their patients.

In the end, it was decided that Hermione and her parents would stay one more night, and then Dan and Emma would return home in the morning. They would take Sirius with them so that there was a magical in the Floo with them and so he could check the house while they went right to their dental surgery. Hermione would stay at the manor until her parents were due to get home. That way Charlus would be on hand to handle any issues that might arise from Hermione getting a letter from the D.M.L.E. Considering that even Gripsack and Miss Twist thought that the case was open and shut, the only person still worried was Hermione.

---ϟϟϟ---

The next morning, the Grangers and Sirius found out that their house was perfectly fine, Hermione got a letter clearing her of all charges, and Charlus got a letter of apology about Hopkirk's behaviour. An investigation into her past decisions showed that she didn't have a history of treating muggleborn any differently than she did anyone else, so she had been disciplined by Director Bones but not fired. Instead, the D.M.L.E. had reassigned her to a position where she was pushing parchmentwork, which meant that she was no longer in a position to make decisions at all, let alone ones regarding the future of muggleborn students. No one in Potter Manor was particularly happy with this, but they did agree that it was fair. There was a difference between someone being afraid and someone who has been malicious for a long period of time.

There was some debate how the teenagers were going to spend this summer this year. On one hand, they were teenagers and this was their summer, they should get to enjoy themselves. On the other hand, a war had just kicked off and one side wanted to murder Harry, Hermione, and Ron. Some training was probably in order just so they could defend themselves if they got pulled into anything. They thought they may take a similar approach to the previous summer and have lessons in the mornings. Hermione and Ron could then go back and spend time with their parents in the afternoons. This plan was going to be even easier now that Hermione had a Floo fire in her house and didn't need to match her coming and going to her parents work schedule.

The last matter they had to deal with was the basilisk gold. Harry had to write to the bank to set up an appointment with a bank manager, and Charlus thought it was a good lesson for Harry to have to write that letter himself. The bank sent back an appointment time that was three days after the Grangers had returned to their London home. If Harry was honest, the meeting at Gringotts turned out to be incredibly boring for how much he had built it up in his head. For all the differences between humans and goblins, the end result was a meeting with a bank manager was a meeting with a bank manager. There was some faff as they confirmed Harry was who he said he was, and then Harry told them what he wanted to do with his gold.

Harry ended up splitting the money equally, even with Mr. Filch. He gave twenty thousand each to Mr. Filch for his cat, Colin Creevey, Justin Finch-Fletchley, Penelope Clearwater, and Hermione, and the same to any family of Sir Nick and Myrtle, and of course Ginny and Ron. Ginny, Ron, Hermione, and Colin all didn't have their own vaults at the bank, so Harry used a little of the money he was giving them (before he gave it to them, so it was legally still his) to open each of them a vault.

He did this on the advice of the manager who pointed out that, in the case of the two Weasleys, legally if Harry put the gold in their parents’ vault then the money would belong to their parents. Harry didn't think that the Weasley parents were the type to do that, but as he was going to have to open vaults for the others anyways he decided it was best to include Ron and Ginny. As for the gold going to Myrtle and Nick's families, that was going to be held by the bank while they looked for an appropriate person or persons to receive it. If they hadn't found anyone in five years, the money would be returned to Harry.

The next morning, Harry had a bunch of visitors, as Ron and Ginny with Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, as well as Hermione and her parents, all took the time to come around and thank him. He actually ended up having to argue with Mrs. Weasley. Her pride wouldn't let her take charity, which is how she viewed the money. Harry, though, was adamant that it was compensation either for being a victim in Ginny’s case, or for a job well done on Ron's part, because without him Harry never would have been able to get to the basilisk. She only gave up when, after she threatened to just send the money back to Harry, he replied he would just send it all back again only with more money thrown in on top. Ron then got them laughing by pretending he had found the ultimate infinite money glitch.

The day after that was when the owls came from all the others, except Colin. However, as Colin didn't have his own post owl and was still under age (and as far as Harry knew didn't live in the middle of London), it would be a few days before he got an opportunity to send him an owl. Justin, Penelope, and Filch did have access to an owl, though, and took the time to write Harry a letter of thanks each.

---ϟϟϟ---

After the drama at the start, the summer holidays were pretty uneventful. There was Harry's birthday, but that was kept small over security concerns; basically, if they didn't already have permission to visit the manor they weren't invited. There was a little drama when Harry warned Ginny he had every intention of taking his spot on the Quidditch team back once they were back at Hogwarts. Ginny may have understood that Harry was only out for a year, but in that year she had played five games and had made the position her own, and she told him she had every intention of holding her position. There was going to be a serious competition for the spot when they got back to the school.

Two weeks before the start of the new school year, Harry, Hermione, and Ron were in the large open space that was the entrance hall to the manor, where Sirius was going over Apparition with the three of them. He had gotten special dispensation from the Ministry to teach Harry and his friends in case they ever needed to escape a hostile situation. Given that Harry had already been kidnapped once, it wasn't hard or overly expensive to convince the official to grant them an emergency use underage exception. Apart from training like they were doing now, they could only use the skill in an emergency, but Sirius wanted them to have as many options as possible to run away. He had even gone and gotten them emergency portkeys, though he was still trying to convince a healer he knew to implant them under their skin.

Their training was cut off when there was a bell that said someone was Floo calling the house. As Harry was the closest Potter, it was his duty to answer the call, so he excused himself to the Floo room. Once he walked in, Harry saw a familiar head sitting in the green flames. “Headmaster Greengrass. What can I do for you?”

“Ah Mr. Potter, can I come through? I need to speak with your grandfather.” the head master asked.

“That depends, sir, do you know this week's password?” Harry asked. It was a protocol his grandfather had set up with the professors at Hogwarts in case they needed to discuss the new school year. Which, to be fair, they had quite a bit.

“Ah of course. Crimson, mint, the hanged man, and fifty-seven,” the headmaster answered correctly. According to his grandfather, the random words were more secure because they were harder to guess. Harry reached into the Floo, took the headmaster's hand, and pulled him through.

The two of them made some small talk as Harry led the headmaster through the house to his grandfather's private potions lab. Harry knocked on the door and was invited in. After he told his grandfather the headmaster was here to speak with him, Charlus cast a few Stasis Charms on whatever brew he was working on and the three of them went to the kitchen, where Harry made tea for the adults.

“So to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit, Castor?” Charlus asked, curious at the unscheduled meeting.

“I finally found out why I'm having so much trouble finding a new Defence professor,” Greengrass answered as he took one of the chairs in the kitchen.

“Oh?” Charlus asked.

“It's Dumbledore. He is calling in favours left and right so that every competent Defence professor is turning down the position. From what I can tell, he either wants the position himself or for Severus Snape to get it.”

“Over my dead body. Neither of those two can be trusted around the students. Dumbledore would use the position to worm his way back into a position of influence and to scout out students to join his vigilante group. And Snape would use his position to denigrate and bully any student not wearing green robes.” Charlus was angry at even the thought that either of those two would ever be in a school again.

“There is always the offer from the Ministry? I don't like it, but it isn't Dumbledore or Snape,” Greengrass asked.

“That toad is just as bad. You know as well as I that she is a bigot, and if she gets any push back then she will go running to the Ministry and try to make it illegal to disagree with her. You know my feelings on the matter.”

“The governors would have my head.”

“You saw the exam results. It's your best option.”

“I know, but look what happened last time.”

“Last time would have been avoided if everything was out in the open. I will take responsibility for providing the potion and making sure he takes it.”

“Do you think you can convince him to go for it? He was adamant when he left from what I heard.”

Harry was just setting the tea on the table between the men when he added, “Please tell me you’re thinking about asking Professor Lupin to come back. He was the best Defence professor we ever had.”