For Love of Magic

For Love of Magic
by Noodlehammer
A different upbringing leaves Harry Potter with an early knowledge of

magic and a view towards the Wizarding World not as an escape from the
Dursleys, but as an opportunity to learn more about it. Unfortunately, he
quickly finds that there are many elements in this new world that are
unwilling to leave the Boy-Who-Lived alone.
Rated: Fiction M - English - Harry P. - Chapters: 39 - Words: 546,280 -

Reviews: 6,661 - Favs: 6,559 - Follows: 7,480 - Updated: 6/4 - Published:
12/15/2015 - id: 11669575
URL: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11669575
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
1. Chapter 1
2. Chapter 2
3. Chapter 3
4. Chapter 4
5. Chapter 5
6. Chapter 6
7. Chapter 7
8. Chapter 8
9. Chapter 9
10. Chapter 10
11. Chapter 11
12. Chapter 12
13. Chapter 13
14. Chapter 14
15. Chapter 15
16. Chapter 16
17. Chapter 17
18. Chapter 18
19. Chapter 19
20. Chapter 20
21. Chapter 21
22. Chapter 22
23. Chapter 23
24. Chapter 24
25. Chapter 25
26. Chapter 26
27. Chapter 27
28. Chapter 28
29. Chapter 29
30. Chapter 30
31. Chapter 31
32. Chapter 32
33. Chapter 33
34. Chapter 34
35. Chapter 35
36. Chapter 36
37. Chapter 37
38. Chapter 38
39. Chapter 39
Chapter 1
OBLIGATORY DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything except the fanfic itself. The
cake is a fake and the pie is a lie.
So this is my attempt at a new fanfic instead of yet another Naruto

crossover with the same characters I've been using for the past two
years. For those of you who actually wanted me to do that, sorry xD. I
might go back to that every once in a while, but for now I'm going to try
my hand at this and see what happens.
One of the first things you will note in this fic is the fact that I've
moved up the HP timeline by twenty years. This was mostly done because I
don't want to break my mind trying to remember what the world was like in
the 90s, just in case a need to actually do so comes up. I was just a wee
lad at the time, and not one that paid much attention to his
surroundings.
Another thing is that there are no pairings listed. This is done on

purpose, because even I don't know who Harry will end up with, if he will
even end up with anyone. I do have certain females in mind, but I tend to
make things up as I go rather than having it planned, so nothing is for
sure. Please don't ask me about pairings in reviews or in PM's, it will
just make me feel bad about ignoring you.
I will try to avoid fanfiction cliches, but considering how many of them
there are, it's probably inevitable that I'll use a few. I will try to
avoid bashing any characters for example, even though some of them make
it way too easy.
Extra special thanks go to Joe Lawyer, who agreed to act as a beta and
helped me improve this chapter to the point where it actually felt worth
uploading.
Minor thanks go to kishinokurobi, whose sarcastic feedback in poorly

typed out English that was worthy of an American stereotype served to
amuse me. It also gave me a second opinion that the first chapter wasn't
totally horrible, but the amusement was more important.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
On November 1st, 2001, wizards and witches all across Britain and even
Europe were celebrating the fall of the Dark Lord Voldemort the previous
night. Most of the credit for this was falling on the shoulders of Harry
Potter, toddler extraordinare. The logical incongruity of a year old baby
defeating a full fledged Dark Lord was ignored in the wave of relief at
the unexpected turn of good fortune.
Albus Dumbledore was one of the few who were not celebrating. He strongly
suspected that Voldemort was not truly dead and he knew the prophecy.
Harry Potter had to be kept safe from the retaliation of his former
student's supporters. He also knew that Killing Curses did not get
reflected on fits of whimsy. Indeed, they were not supposed to get
reflected at all.
The magical backlash of what happened had wiped away all traces of
evidence that could be used to determine the truth of events, but he
strongly suspected the machinations of Harry's parents to be the cause.
Or at the very least, the machinations of Lily Potter. Alas, he would
likely never know for certain what kind of protection had been invoked.
What he did know however, was that the protection still lingered in young
Harry Potter's blood. That could be used to keep the boy safe until it
was time for him to come to Hogwarts. He would still need to consider the
implications of the shard of Voldemort's soul that was lodged in the
lightning bolt scar, but he fortunately had time to do that instead of
needing to make rash decisions.
Though it pained him to do it, he drained Lily Potter's still cooling

body of blood and used it to establish a powerful blood ward around the
residence of Petunia Dursley, forging a bond between Lily's squib sister
and young Harry that would anchor the ward without need for a heart stone
or ley line.
He obliviated this knowledge from the minds of the Dursleys, rightfully

assuming that they would not be happy about his actions.
Then he left the newly orphaned baby on their doorstep with a note and
left, certain that Harry Potter would be well cared for and safe until it
was time for him to rejoin the Wizarding World.
It should be noted that Dumbledore had aquired several cognitive

deficiences over the course of his long life. The two that were relevant
in this situation was his certainty that he always knew best and his
unwillingness to understand that people could have any other feelings
aside from love for their family.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Vernon and Petunia Dursley were none too pleased at the disruptive
addition to their comfortable normalcy. They knew Harry was a wizard and
loathed what he represented, which easily transferred to the boy himself.
Dudley, being an impressionable child, picked up on this and emulated it.
To be fair, there had been a chance for things to go better. After all,
Harry was only a small child and any person who was not completely
soulless would have their heart softened in the presence of an innocent
baby. Perhaps he would not have been treated quite as well as Dudley and
would always know that he had been an unwelcome addition to the family,
but he would have been raised with more kindness than many received.
But Harry was a magical child and things happened when he got upset.
Small children got upset often and that was without the added trauma of
seeing their mother murdered right in front of them, even if he was too
young to understand what had happened or to truly remember it.
With every occurence of something levitating to his hands because he
wanted it or food being banished because he didn't want it, the fragile
tolerance of the Dursleys diminished. This led to harsher treatment that
in turn led to more distress for Harry and to ever more instances of
accidental magic in a vicious, self-perpetuating cycle.
It came to a head one day when Harry was six. Dudley was picking on him
as he often did and Harry was both frightened and angry. In a fit of
prepubescent rage, he wanted Dudley to be hurt just like he was being
hurt. The already obese boy was launched across the room, breaking one of
Petunia's favorite lamps and cutting Dudely up bad enough that he would
need stitches, as well as leaving him badly bruised.
That proved to be the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back. The
very next day, Vernon took a day off from work and drove Harry to an
orphanage in London. He didn't even bother speaking to the people in
charge, merely ordering him out of the car and telling him to knock on
the door, accompanied by harsh warnings to never reveal who he'd been
living with until then.
Harry had been honestly terrified at the purple faced rage on Vernon's
face, so he obeyed.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Harry had been tentatively hopeful about his new lot in life at first.
Yes, it was an orphanage and he'd been told some horror stories about it,
but at least the people here wouldn't hate him the way he could remember
the Dursleys doing for his whole life. They wouldn't hit him for any
infraction, perceived or imagined, or deny him food out of some vain hope
to get rid of his 'freakishness'. Hopefully.
That hope didn't last more than a couple of days.
Young children were incredibly selfish creatures, not possessing much

empathy and prone to thoughtless cruelty for the most inane of reasons. A
strangely shaped scar on one's forehead was more than enough reason to
turn just another orphan into a target.
Despite his previous experiences and his desire to not worsen the
situation for himself, the outbursts of accidental magic resumed.
Unfortunately, the age of six was not characterized by robust emotional
strength, so this was more or less inevitable. It didn't take long until
the matron of the orphanage learned of these supernatural events.
The woman was old and very strict. She had to be to manage several dozen
children at her age. More importantly, she was very religious and quickly
classified Harry's bursts of accidental magic as witchcraft. Correct
though she was, it did not make Harry's life any easier.
It did give Harry some idea of what these strange occurences were though.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
About a year after Harry's arrival in the orphanage, he ended up being
adopted.
A rich couple by the name of Robert and Katherine Shaw came by, looking
for a child to adopt. They were instantly taken by Harry's emerald green
eyes and raven black hair. The lightning bolt scar did bother them a bit,
but not enough to detract from his other features and even that seemed to
pass once they learned he'd gotten it in the car crash that killed his
parents.
Though excited by the possibility of having a real family, Harry retained

enough learned cynicism to be distrustful of his sudden good fortune.
It quickly became obvious to him that the Shaws wanted a status symbol
rather than a son, which was the entire reason they had been so careful
to pick a boy with striking features. Even the scar was something that
could be used as a conversational segue into a bit of subtle bragging
about how they had taken in an orphan that had lost his parents in such a
horrible way.
He ate what he was told to eat, partook in activities they told him to
partake in, studied hard in school and with the tutors they hired for him
and smiled at people that he was told to smile at, even though he would
like nothing better than to go somewhere that he could be alone.
There was little in the way of parental affection involved, but Harry had
already lowered his expectations in life considerably by that point. He
ate well, was not hit or berated for things he had no control over and
there were no other children around to pick on him. It was the best he'd
ever had it and didn't want to go back. The matron at the orphanage had
made no mention of his magic to the Shaws and Harry had no intention of
doing so either. Others knowing about it had always brought him trouble.
In his free time he researched mythology, read fantasy books, or played

role playing games on his computer.
And when he was alone, he practiced his magic.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
To: Harry Potter
Harry's bedroom
74 Cromwell Road
Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London.
Albus Dumbledore stared uncomprehendingly at the adress on Harry Potter's

Hogwarts acceptance letter. That was not anywhere close to Privet Drive
in Surrey. What in the world was the Boy-Who-Lived doing in one of the
most affluent areas of muggle Londom and how had he gotten there?
If he hadn't taken a peek at the automatically written letter out of
curiousity, he wouldn't have even known it. This was something that bore
investigation and then an extended period of pondering on the acquired
information. Clearly, simply sending the letter was not an option. A
teacher would have to go and make the visit personally, but who to send?
Though he had faith that Severus would not let his grudge towards James
Potter affect his conduct towards the man's son, the taciturn Potions
Master had long made it clear that he would not have any more interaction
with children than was absolutely necessary.
Filius would have no idea how to navigate muggle London and neither would
a large part of the remaining staff for that matter. Oh, they would find
the house just fine, but they would be too conspicuous.
Hagrid was out of the question for the same reason. Subtlety was not the
half giant's forte.
That essentially left himself and Minerva, and the Headmaster could not
show such blatant interest in a particular child.
Minerva was not going to be pleased with him and would no doubt once
again have some choice words to say about his decision to place Harry
with the Dursleys, but she would at least be happy to see the son of her
favorite students.
He could find out what sequence of events led to the current situation
from her, or failing that by paying a discreet visit to 74 Cromwell Road
himself.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"Is this some kind of joke?" Robert Shaw asked flatly, putting down the
Hogwarts letter.
Minerva McgGonnagal ruthlessly kept herself from shifting uncomfortably

in the obviously expensive sitting room she was in.
These two rich muggles had regarded her with thinly veiled disapproval
that was eerily similar to what a traditionalist pureblood family might
give a muggleborn ever since she had shown up on their doorstep. Well,
that was not entirely true. It was not as intense, nor as obviously
discourteus, but it was clear that they didn't like her.
She wasn't normally the type to be made uncomfortable by having snobbish

behavior aimed at her, or to tolerate it for that matter, but this was a
special case.
These were apparently Harry Potter's foster parents and it made her skin
crawl to think of the beautiful baby she remembered growing up to be a
self-entitled brat like she suspected the Malfoy scion was going to be.
Though the lad himself seemed more curious than judgemental. His hair was
cut fairly short, openly displaying his scar and a lot more tame than
that of his father. He didn't seem to have inherited James' poor eyesight
either, but his face was very similar. His eyes shone a bright green just
like his mother's.
"I assure you, it is no joke." She replied stiffly. "Mr. Potter has been
enrolled in Hogwarts by his parents before their deaths and has a place
waiting for him."
The Shaws still looked sceptical.
"Would a demonstration convince you?" She asked, getting tentative nods

in return.
Thinking it better to do something more minor than tranfiguring a piece

of furniture into an animal, she took out her wand and levitated an empty
tea cup.
The Shaw's stared in shock at the levitating bit of procelain.
"I see." Mr. Shaw said weakly. His wife merely looked stunned.
"Did my parents really die in a car crash?" Harry inquired politely.
"A car crash?!" Minerva spluttered. "Of all the...they most certainly did
not!"
"How did they die then?"
Minerva held back a grimace. She'd been so outraged at the notion of a

powerful pair of magicals like James and Lily dying in something as
mundane as a muggle car crash that she hadn't even considered that she
would now need to explain to him that they had been murdered by a Dark
Lord.
And so the whole sordid tale came out. Minerva could clearly see that the
Shaw's were discomfited by it, but Harry offered little reaction aside
from occasionally asking a question. In turn, Minerva learned how Harry
had come into the care of his foster parents. Hearing that she'd been
even more right about the Dursleys than she'd known when she'd warned
Dumbledore against placing him there nearly had her going into a proper
Scottish rage, but the fact that he was away from them now calmed her
down somewhat.
She would still be having some very strong words with Albus on the
subject however.
Despite learning about magic, the Shaws were far from sold on the idea of
letting Harry go to Hogwarts even though his tuition had already been
paid for. They seemed quite set on the idea of sending him off to a
muggle university instead of having him learn magic, despite Minerva's
best efforts to convince them otherwise.
It was only upon her reluctant admittance that they would have their
memories of this conversation removed if Harry did not go that they
subsided. That was not a part of Wizarding culture that Minerva was proud
of, but they couldn't just let any muggles who refused their child's
Hogwarts invitation know about magic.
She was even less proud of the fact that she knew that the Boy-Who-Lived
would never be allowed the choice to stay away from the magical world. He
was simply too high profile and there was no doubt in her mind that the
Minister of Magic would use some kind of legal loophole to have him
removed from the care of the Shaws if he did not come willingly. The
consequences of that decision did not bear thinking about.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"The Dursleys abandoned him in an orphanage?" Dumbledore asked in

disbelief.
"I told you they were the worst kind of muggles!" Minerva spat. "I told
you that it was a mistake to leave him there."
Dumbledore sighed regretfully. Truly, there had been little choice in the
matter. Harry had been safest there, and he had to be kept away from the
Wizarding World. Both of those were paramount. He could only hope that he
would not have another Tom Riddle on his hands.
"At least it all turned out well." He said. "What is he like?"
"Polite and well mannered." She answered, a small frown still on her
face. "He was interested in learning magic, though his foster parents
were clearly not so taken with it. I have already told him that I would
be returning in a few days to escort him on his first trip to Diagon
Alley."
"I could have Hagrid escort young Harry, I know that you are busy."
Dumbledore offered.
"Absolutely not!" McGonagall near snapped. "Good man though he is, Hagrid
is in no way a suitable choice for introducing someone to magic and Mr.
Potter is for all intents and purposes a muggleborn."
Dumbledore suppressed a frown. He had some tests planned for Harry and
there was certain information that the boy needed to come across in order
for that to work. But no matter, he could work around his deputy easily
enough. He would just need to carefully time when to send Hagrid to pick
up the Philosopher's Stone.
"Very well, if you feel you can fit another trip to Diagon Alley into
your schedule, then by all means."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"This is the entrance to Diagon Alley?"

Minerva smiled slightly at the confused tone in Harry's voice. She
supposed that the Leaky Cauldron really did look a bit dingy compared to
the surrounding buildings.
"Indeed Mr. Potter." She confirmed. "Remember that you are quite famous
in the Wizarding World. I would suggest that you put that cap of yours
on."
Harry grimaced a bit but put the generic cap on his head. It would do a
good enough job of hiding his scar to prevent a scene from happening. He
was a bit dubious about this supposed fame of his, but wasn't willing to
chance it in case the stern professor wasn't exaggerating.
They passed through the Leaky Cauldron without incident and were soon in
Diagon Alley proper.
If not for the robes everyone was wearing, Harry would have though they'd
stepped back in time. The Alley itself featured a cobblestone road that
was far too narrow to be modern and a variety of similarly smallish
buildings selling all manner of strange things.
"Come along Mr. Potter, our first stop is Gringotts, the wizard's bank."
McGonagall said quietly, not wanting to give away his identity.
"What are those?" He asked with surprise as he saw a pair of obviously

non-human guards.
"Goblins." She answered shortly. "A clever folk, and good with money.
They are not the most pleasant sort, nor fond of wizards, but treat them
respectfully and you should be fine."
Harry nearly stopped to stare at her incredulously. Goblin bankers? That

was quite the departure from the fantasy stereotype of stupid, smelly
creature that were typically used as cannon fodder. They were probably
even more vicious though. Even human bankers were generally more vicious
than a fantasy goblin; a fantasy goblin would just kill you, but a banker
would take everything you own and make you kill yourself. That was what
he'd gathered from the occasional grumbling of his foster father at any
rate.
"Professor McGonagall!" A booming, jovial voice called out. "Fancy

meetin' you here."
"Hagrid." Minerva greeted, giving the half-giant a small smile. "Are you
heading to Gringotts as well?"
"Aye, Dumbledore's got me pickin' up the You-Know-What in vault seven

hundred and thirteen." Hagrid said with a sense of pride before looking
at Harry. "Is this...?"
McGonagall wanted to palm her face at the casual way that the big man was
blurting out secrets in the middle of the street. Why the Headmaster
trusted him to do something as important as picking up the Philosopher's
Stone she had no idea. Hagrid would certainly do the job, but he was
liable to inform everyone he came across what he was doing without even
realizing it.
"Yes Hagrid, it is." McGonagall said sternly, willing him to pick up on

her desire to keep quiet.
Alas, the effort was wasted on the half-giant.
"I haven't seen yeh since you were a wee baby." Hagrid said emotionally.
"When I picked yeh up from-"
"Hagrid!" The transfiguration professor hissed, seeing that merely

hinting wasn't going to cut it if they wanted to avoid having him
inadvertently inform the whole street of Harry's identity.
"Wha-oh!" Hagrid's eyes widened, finally realizing the need for some
subtlety. "Err, right. Name's Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of the keys and
Grounds at Hogwarts. Look forward to seein' you there come September
first."
"Pleasure meeting you." Harry said politely, wondering how exactly this
huge man had known him as a baby.
The three of them went into the bank together, with Hagrid quickly
splitting off on his own to finish the errand he'd been sent to do.
"What's the You-Know-What?" Harry asked, not really expecting an answer.
"Never you mind." McGonagall said quickly.
Harry simply nodded. Obviously, they weren't going to tell an eleven year
old if they were being so cryptic in the first place. It almost felt like
the start of a side-quest, but that was ridiculous and probably a result
of one too many RPGs being played. Real life didn't have quest cues for
player characters.
Teacher and prospective student stepped up to one of the numerous goblin

tellers.
"Greetings, Mr. Potter here needs to make a withdrawal from his trust
vault." McGonagall said, already presenting a golden key.
"Excuse me, trust vault?" Harry interjected, latching on to the words.

"Does that mean that there is also a main vault."
"Of course, but you will not have access to it until you are of age." The
goblin teller replied, his tone implying that Harry was annoying him.
Harry was much too excited by the idea to care about that though, and
merely pressed on with his line of questioning. "Would it be possible to
discuss my account with whoever is managing it?"
"There really is no need for this, Mr. Potter." MyGonnagal tried to
dissuade him. "Your trust vault will be more than sufficient for your
school supplies, likely for all seven years of them."
He would not be put off though. This inheritance represented financial

independence and therefore freedom from Robert and Katherine Shaw. Life
with them was not terrible, but if given the choice to get away from them
and live on his own, he would barely even bother saying goodbye. He had a
closer relationship with the cleaning lady that came by once a week.
You would think that they would start to feel some affection for each
other over the past few years, but that was just not happening. The Shaws
were ambitious social climbers that were only married as a business
arrangement that benefited them both. Expecting them to suddenly develop
parental feelings was futile and kept their interactions decidedly cool.
Cordial, but cool. Even the LASIK eye surgery they had insisted he get
had been motivated more by their ambitions than any concern about his
vision, the fact that they had handwaved any possible risk had
demonstrated that quite clearly. What they had was a relationship of
mutual exploitation and nothing more. He played the part of the adopted
son with the tragic backstory that did the best he could. In exchange he
lived in comfort and was left alone to do his own thing when they didn't
need him for something.
So no, there was simply no way in Hell that he was missing out on an
opportunity to find out as much as possible about whatever inheritance
his real parents had left him.
"I'm the only Potter left, aren't I?" He challenged. "It's only right
that I take an interest in the family finances."
McGonagall pursed her lips, obviously disapproving. Either because she

thought it was unnecessary or because she thought that an eleven year old
had no business trying to manage a wealthy family estate, Harry couldn't
say.
There was a hint of approval in the goblin's reply though. "Wait here, I
will inquire if the account manager for the Potters has time to meet with
you."
"Thank you." Harry said sincerely, getting an inscrutably gruesome smile

in return.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
As luck would have it, the Potter account manager did have time. He was
an older goblin by the name of Gorefist, the implications of which had
Harry wondering if banking was their day job and slaughtering peasants
just a hobby. He really, really wanted to ask, but figured it would be a
bad idea to possibly offend the person in charge of his money.
"I must admit that I am surprised that you would want to speak to me
already, Mr. Potter." Gorefist began. "After all, you cannot touch any of
the Potter finances aside from those in your trust vault until you are of
age, something that I am certain you were informed of by the teller."
Harry heard the implicit 'Why are you wasting my time?'.
"I don't suppose there is any way to...accelerate...my coming of age?" He

inquired.
Gorefist looked at him as if he was an idiot.
"Mr. Potter, we are a bank, not a government office. You could of course
ask to go through the goblin trials of adulthood, if you wished to do so.
That we could offer you."
Something about Gorefist's words and expression made Harry doubt the
wisdom of this.
"I get the feeling that these trials were not designed with humans in
mind and would likely be hazardous to my health, so I'm afraid that I'll
have to decline."
Gorefist barked an amused laugh. "Hah, you are surprisingly sensible for
a wizard. Did you have any other clever ideas for prematurely getting
your hands on your inheritance, or are you quite finished wasting both
our time?"
"I would like an accounting of the Potter family assets." Harry insisted.
"Very well." Gorefist grumbled, taking some documents out of his desk.
"The Potter family liquid assets amount to 343,709 galleons and an exta
one thousand on your trust vault. The main vault also holds assorted
heirlooms and artefacts acquired over the years."
"Is there an inventory of these items?" Harry interjected eagerly, his

mind on all the cool enchanted gear that might be in there.
"No. Gringotts merely stores the items, we do not care what they are."
"I see." Harry said, disappointed.
Gorefist paid him no mind as he continued to speak. "Of the land

holdings, Potter Manor is all that remains. It has lain empty since the
deaths of your paternal grandparents."
Harry was happy to learn that he had a whole manor to himself. He knew
that he wouldn't be able to move into it alone, but it was good to have a
place. Something was bothering him about all this though. All that money
couldn't exist in a vacuum, there had to be some sort of business
involved.
"Does the Potter family own any kind of business venture?" He inquired.
"Not anymore." Gorefist said bluntly. "As the name implies, your family
used to produce various pottery, both artistic and practical. They also
owned a reasonably sized vineyard."
"What happened to to them? Did they go bankrupt?" Harry asked.
"Not as such." Gorefist grunted. "The Parkinson family made overtures to

buy both after the death of Charlus Potter, to which the managers at the
time agreed. With your father in hiding, he was unaware of this and could
not contest it."
"I see." Harry said again, frowning. He would have to find out about
these Parkinsons.
"I can do whatever I want with my trust vault, is that right?"
"It is."
"Is the gold in my trust vault a fixed amount or does it get periodically
replenished?"
"The latter. It is filled up to one thousand galleons on every birthday

until you become of age."
"Then I would like to move the contents of my trust vault to a new one,
and to have this repeated every year."
Gorefist raised an eyebrow. While it was not exactly the height of

cunning to figure out this type of scheme(pureblood heirs thought of it
all the time), it did show that the boy had some definite plans for that
money.
"There is a substantial fee attached to such services." He said with a

cutthroat smile.
"What kind of fee?" Harry asked suspiciously.
"20%."
Harry gaped at the goblin for a moment before he regained the power of
speech. "That's as good as robbery!"
"You could also wait until you are of age." Gorefist offered, smirking at
the glower that the boy wizard was aiming at him. He would have been
willing to go lower, but he was pretty sure that the young Potter heir
was desperate enough for the money to agree even to that exorbitant fee
and Gringott's didn't do charity. Especially not for wizards.
There was a long silence before Harry gave his answer.
"I hope you enjoy the gold you extorted from an eleven year old child."
He said, his words clipped and angry.
"That is the best kind of gold." Gorefist replied, feeling quite pleased
with himself. Fleecing the idiot wizards was a favorite pastime of the
goblins. Not as good as killing them, but it was a decent enough
substitute.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
McGonagall's mood was noticeably more sour when Harry came out of
Gringott's. He got the feeling that she was a woman that was used to
getting her way with children and didn't appreciate being kept waiting.
Harry decided that he didn't like her too much. His upbringing had left
him with a distaste for bossy, authoritative people that were used to
getting their way.
Not to mention that his own mood was not exactly sunshine and daisies
after the meeting with Gorefist.
The first stop after that was Madam Malkin's Robes for all Occasions.
Despite McGonagall's warning about the effects of people seeing his scar,
Madam Malkin stayed professional. It gave him hope that it wasn't as bad
as she'd claimed.
He came out of the robe shop feeling decidedly ridiculous, but he did
blend in better now.
The trunk shop and apothecary were next, both of which passed without
incident. It was in the book shop that he once again tried the patience
of the transfiguration mistress.
"Ancient Runes and Arithmancy are electives that you can choose to take
in third year, you will not need those books before then." She was
saying.
"I'm buying them now." Harry insisted.
Ancient Runes sounded fascinating and he wanted to know what it was

about. As for Arithmancy...he'd simply never thought that math could be
applied to magic.
He wasn't a mathematical genius by any stretch, having slogged through

the material his school and tutors assigned him with the grim
determination of someone who had no choice. He had gotten good grades,
but math was simply not something that had ever interested him.
Math as it applied to magic though? That was interesting and something

that he would cheerfully dive into.
McGonagall released an impatient sigh and muttered something indistinct

about raven claws. He had no idea what that was supposed to mean, but her
attitude baffled him. Weren't teachers supposed to be happy when students
wanted to read ahead?
The book shop was also the place where he had his first encounter with
his fame, though it was not because someone had recognized him.
There were books, a whole series of books, about his supposed adventures
after the defeat of Voldemort. Obviously, these adventures were entirely
made up. He couldn't possibly have been riding a dragon at the age of
five for example.
Harry could only stare in disbelief at the assortment of books. At the

age of eleven, his knowledge of the law was not exactly extensive, but he
was pretty sure that using him as a main character in a book series
without his permission was illegal.
The knowledge that the vast majority of his inheritance would remain out
of reach for quite a few more years still fresh in his mind, Harry got an
idea about squeezing some extra money out of this situation. He promptly
added a book on wizarding law to his purchase, as well as those books
about him. For all he knew, it wasn't illegal in the Wizarding World to
pull a stunt like this, but he would definitely find out.
Though annoyed by the liberties taken by the author, if her stupidity

gave him an easy path to independent wealth, he would thank her. In the
privacy of his own thoughts. After he sued her out of house and home.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Though he had long wanted a pet, Harry did not find any animals in
Magical Menagerie that appealed to him. Maybe some other day.
The last stop of the day was the wand shop, Ollivander's. He couldn't
quite point his finger at it, but there was a kind of unidentifiable
tingle in the air.
"Good afternoon." The soft greeting came from behind, causing Harry to
give a start.
"Hello." Harry returned the greeting with akward caution. There was
something about the man and his silvery eyes that was decidedly off-
putting.
"Ah, yes. I thought I'd be seeing you soon Harry Potter." The man
continued, heedless of the discomfort.
"Must you frighten every child I bring here for a wand, Garrick?"
McGonagall asked with exasperation.
"Minerva, Minerva McGonagall. Fir with dragon heartstring, nine and a

half exceptional wand for transfiguration." Ollivander rattled off.
"Yes Garrick, I know. You tell me that every time I come here."
Harry had to suppress a smile at the weary note in the transfiguration

teacher's voice. The old wandmaker apparently enjoyed reciting that
information often.
"Well then Mr. Potter, let us find your wand." Ollivander said, handing
him a wand. "Try this one. Beechwood and dragon heartstring. Nine inches.
Nice and flexible. Give it a wave."
Harry took the wand, feeling his skin tingle where it came into contact
with the wood. He gave it a wave as instructed, feeling a little foolish.
A weak stream of multi-colored sparks streamed from the end of the wand.
"A match on the first try?" McGonagall asked in surprise.
"No, I don't think so." Ollivander said as he snatched the wand away, his
eyes suddenly calculating. "Try this one Mr. Potter. Maple and phoenix
feather..."
Harry tried it, getting a similar result. Ollivander looked as if he was

suspicious of something and Harry had the bad feeling that it was about
his attempts to cast magic wandlessly. Fortunately, the old man didn't
comment.
More wands came and went, producing varying results. Eventually they came
to a holly wand with phoenix feather that had a much stronger reaction
than any of the others so far. He felt something powerful connect to his
magic and pull on it, the wand releasing a great stream of sparks with
every movement until it settled down.
"Curious, very curious." Ollivander muttered.
"What is?" Harry asked.
"I remember every wand I've ever sold, Mr . Potter." The wandmaker said
heavily. "Every single one, and I can tell you that the phoenix who
donated the feather for that wand gave only one other. That other feather
rests in the wand that gave you that scar on your head. It is very
curious that you should be chosen by the brother wand to that of He-Who-
Must-Not-Be-Named."
Harry tried really hard not to think it, but it was useless. That sounded
undeniably like an important part of the plot for a main questline. Good
thing that the Dark Lord was dead, or he would probably end up in some
kind of predestined mission to defeat him.
Or maybe he'd played too many RPGs.
"I think we must expect great things from you Mr. Potter." Ollivander was
still saying. "After all, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did great things,
terrible yes, but great."
Somewhat unnerved by the creepy old man, Harry was still getting that
'main questline' vibe.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Harry sighed in relief as he sank into the seats of the Hogwarts Express.
Getting away from the Shaws for ten months of the year for the next seven
years sounded almost perfect. Almost, because he'd gathered that magicals
were technologically retarded and Harry had grown rather fond of his
computer and all that it provided. Living in a modern day replica of the
seventeenth century was going to be a pain.
Parchment and quills indeed! He'd bought notebooks and ballpoint pens in
bulk as soon the shopping trip with McGonagall was over. There was
tradition and then there was being stupid.
Speaking of McGonagall, Harry wondered if she even realized that she'd

been wearing a man's business suit from the fifties and a travel bag
instead of a purse on her first visit. She had made quite the impression
on the status obsessed Shaws by showing up dressed like some kind of
hipster. A bad impression that was.
Probably not, if the robes were anything to go by. Harry would admit to
having the occasional daydream of being a fantasy wizard like in one of
his games or books, flinging about bolts of fire and lightning while they
billowed around him, but the reality of wearing a robe made him feel kind
of silly.
And speaking of silly...
Harry took out his wand. Holly with phoenix feather, eleven inches, nice
and supple. Whatever that meant.
He was frankly a bit puzzled by the concept of wands. Certainly, his

magic unquestionably came easier with the wand in hand, but if what he'd
seen so far was anything to go by, then the wizards seemed to think that
magic was as good as impossible without it.
That made no sense. The magic had to be in the witch or wizard, or else a
wand would enable even non-magicals to cast spells. With this in mind,
Harry concluded that wands were just magical foci, designed to make the
use of magic easier. That would make sense. The crippling reliance on
wands did not make sense.
Harry had already determined that he would master his magic without the
need of a wand. Much of this determination was based in his desire to not
wave a silly looking stick about while casting spells. That was not cool
at all.
Despite his accelerated emotional maturity due to the circumstances of

his life, he was still eleven.
A more practical reason for his determination came when McGonagall told
him not to cast any spells at home, as the Ministry of Magic forbade it
and could track it.
They had clearly not managed to track any of the numerous instances of
magic he'd performed wandlessly in the past few years, which meant that
they could track wand use rather than magic itself.
True, his accomplishments had been small. Pushing and pulling things and
similar stuff. He'd tried to throw a fireball once and gotten a little
lick of flame. Then he'd realized that setting the house on fire would
not be conducive to his continued magical studies, or his continued life
for that matter. Fireballs and lightning had been grudgingly put on hold
until a non-flammable environment could be found.
Anyway, the point was that McGonagall had told him that the Ministry
could detect any magic use, which they obviously couldn't.
Harry had read a lot of fantasy books and played a lot of games in his
search for inspiration on figuring out the workings of his magic. These
books and games often featured the theme of a corrupt government. It
didn't take him long to develop a dislike of the Ministry of Magic with
just that one piece of information. The numerous instances of restricted
magic that the law book he'd bought mentioned further solidified his
opinion.
First learning that he was a wizard, only to learn that the Ministry of
Magic restricted so many interesting fields had planted in him a mulish
determination to study exactly those. Besides, according to the Ministry
definition, he had broken the Statute of Secrecy years ago in the
orphanage and was constantly breaking the Decree about the Reasonable
Restriction on Underage Sorcery. It wasn't like breaking any more of
their silly laws was going to make a difference.
"Excuse me, do you mind? Everywhere else is full."
The question broke Harry out of his thoughts. The questioner was a gangly
redheaded boy looking nervously into the cabin.
Harry did not actually want company, but he also wasn't willing to make
an issue of it, so he simply nodded.
"You're Harry Potter!"
The awed exclamation instantly killed any desire to speak to the other
boy. He'd skimmed over those Harry Potter fiction books and rapidly grew
to hate them. Every single one of those books had him performing
ridiculous feats at impossibly young ages, usually ending with him riding
off into the sunset with the pretty pureblood princess in his arms. The
books were oddly well written considering what a load of garbage the
actual subject matter was, but that wasn't the point. The point was that
McGonagall had been understating his fame instead of exaggerating it like
he'd originally thought.
"Yes, so what?" Harry grumbled, already regretting that he hadn't told

the other boy to get lost instead of being polite.
"Wicked." The readhead continued, apparently oblivious to the hostility.

"So that's where You-Know-Who's curse hit."
"Yes, that's where he hit me after murdering my parents." Harry grumbled
even more irritably. He wasn't nearly as broken up about the deaths of
his parents as he'd implied with that snarky statement he'd never known
them after all but mentioning murdered parents was a surefire way of
stopping conversation. He'd used it a few times before, though at the
time he'd thought they had died in a car crash.
The redhead finally got the hint and started looking guilty, mumbling out
a barely audible 'sorry'.
"I'm Ron by the way, Ron Weasley." He tried.
"How nice for you." Harry refused to cooperate with the attempt to
establish a more positive atmosphere. Instead, he moved a seat over to
make things even more chilly as well as get some more leg room, took out
his half-read Lord of the Rings book and started reading. If the annoying
redhead got uncomfortable enough to leave, that would be great, but his
silence would do in a pinch.
There was blessed silence for a long time, interrupted only by the
occasional bored sigh from Ron. Harry made steady progress through the
book in peace. He knew that he wouldn't see many descriptions of useful
magic in this particular book, but he was determined to read it anyway.
He'd skimmed over his textbooks at home already and a train ride was no
place to be reading something that dry.
The trolley lady came and went, neither boy having bought anything from
her due to having lunches packed, though Ron sounded like he wanted to
buy something but couldn't get it for one reason or another. Harry simply
never had sweets and wasn't interested in them now. Katherine Shaw had
gotten a little obssessive about healthy eating a few years back and
imposed a low fat, low sugar diet on both her husband and adopted son. At
least she had done her research and put together an actual healthy diet
instead of some anorexic abomination.
"Has anyone seen a toad? A boy named Neville's lost his." A girl's voice
intruded on his reading.
"No toads here." Harry answered her without looking.
There was a small gasp and his jaw clenched in expectation of the
annoying words.
"You're Harry Potter! I've read all about you in Rise and Fall of the
Dark Arts, and Great Wizards and Witches of the 20th Century! " She
babbled.
"That's great, but weren't you looking for a toad?" Harry quickly
interjected before she could waste the breath she'd just taken.
"Yes, of course." She said, actually sounding a bit offended. That was
rich. "I'm Hermione Granger by the way. You boys should probably change
into your robes, we'll be at Hogwarts soon."
Harry muttered something uncomplimentary under his breath about bossy
females. He had enough of bossy people with the Shaws, he had no desire
to get to know a pint sized harpy in addition to the full grown one that
was his foster mother.
"Mental, that one." Ron commented wryly.
Harry didn't respond. He didn't want the ginger annoyance to think he

might actually have a chance of making friends with him.
The annoyingly bossy girl did have a point though, they would be at
Hogwarts relatively soon.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"I heard that Harry Potter was on this train. Is that you then?"
Harry barely kept an unimpressive preteen glower off his face as the flaw
in his plan to keep to himself and study magic was once again proven to
be flawed. How was he supposed to shun human contact if everyone and
their dog wanted to come talk to him?
"What of it?" He growled as deeply as possible. Which was to say not

very, given that he was eleven.
The rather poncy looking blond boy with the slicked back hair and dull
looking sidekicks was a bit taken aback by the instant hostility, but he
rallied quickly.
"I'm Malfoy, Draco Malfoy." He said, making it sound as if this was

important information.
Ron snorted, apparently finding the blond funny.
"Think my name's funny, do you?" Draco asked waspishly, sneering at the

redhead. "No need to ask yours. Red hair and a hand me down robe, you
must be a Weasley."
The arrogant blond boy turned back to Harry, extending his hand. "You'll
find that some families are better than others, Potter. I can help you
with that."
"You can help me by going away!" Harry snapped, his patience for human
contact exhausted by the string of irritating people. He couldn't tell
people to bugger off at home because his continued comfortable lifestyle
hinged on the tolerance of the Shaws, but by thunder he was not going to
play nice and socialize in the Wizarding World. "I don't want anything to
do with either of you or your families."
"You'll regret this, Potter!" Draco snarled and stomped off, looking
extremely petulant thanks to his age.
"That was wicked!" Ron said a few seconds later.

Harry started wondering if the redhead had a hearing defect or had
perhaps suffered a head injury sometime in the past. Nobody normal could
be this dense.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Harry somehow managed to make it all the way to the sorting without any
more 'You're Harry Potter!' moments, thankfully.
He followed the instructions massive groundskeeper and got into a boat

with two unknown girls and a boy. He didn't even bother to notice
anything other than one girl's red hair before he faced away from them
and determinedly stared at the dark waters of the lake.
The magnificent first sight of Hogwarts did manage to lift his sour mood
a bit and the scare with the ghosts had been an interesting experience.
And now he had a ratty old hat on his head that was apparently sentient
and would place him into one of the four houses.
Hmmm, interesting.The voice of the hat murmured through his mind,

startling him a bit. You have courage, but it's a more cautious sort. Not
particularly suited for Gryffindor.
Harry didn't really have an opinion on that, but if a magical talking hat
said Gryffindor wasn't for him then that was as good a reasoning for not
going there as any. Besides, given on what he'd observed of this sorting
so far, he had the horrible suspicion that Weasley would be going to
Gryffindor. Intelligence didn't seem to be a requirement for that house
and bravery could easily be substituted for by stupidity.
You have ambition, as well as cunning. You could do well in Slytherin.
Harry's face twisted in distaste. Malfoy had gone to Slytherin and he had
no desire to interact with the blond idiot.
He knew what the hat was talking about in terms of ambition, it was a
long standing one. He wanted to be powerful. He'd wanted it when he was
being shouted at and hit at the Dursleys. He'd wanted it when he'd been
bullied at the orphanage. Learning that he had magic had provided hope
and the adoption by the Shaws had provided opportunity. Hogwarts would
provide the means.
Power was freedom and one day he would be free. He would be free of the
need to pander to the wishes of Robert and Katherine Shaw. He would be
free of the stupid restrictions on learning magic that the Ministry
imposed. He would even be free of the need to use a wand.
And once he was free, he wanted to see the world and go on adventures
where he could use his magic openly. A silly, childish ambition perhaps,
but it was his. For a boy who had always needed to dance to someone
else's tune and hide his abilities for fear of the consequences, the
thought of being able to wander the world and do whatever he pleased had
always been a pleasant escape for reality. It was one of the reasons that
he liked RPGs so much.
In the meanwhile, there was no need to put up with entitled little shits
like Malfoy when there were other options.
Not Slytherin then.The hat concluded, feeling his displeasure at the

idea. You don't have any loyalty for anyone but yourself, but then you've
never had anyone to be loyal to. Not afraid of hard work either.
Hufflepuff would be good for you, you could make friends there.
Harry scowled at the idea. He wasn't interested in friends, at least not

enough to seek them out. He'd tried to be friends with Dudley and the
other children at the orphanage and had gotten only bruises for it, and
the less said about the 'friends' the Shaws had told him to make the
better. No, what he wanted now was for people to leave him alone. He
could always change his mind later, but right now he would much rather
see people keep their distance. Besides, it was looking as if the people
of the Wizarding World were more interested in befriending his scar than
him.
The hat seemed to sigh. I see that holds no appeal for you, very well
then. You've got a good mind and want to learn, so by process of
elimination it better be..."RAVENCLAW!"
He took the hat off his head and walked over to the table of blue and
bronze, trying to ignore the excessively loud cheering. Though he had to
admit that the overdone hysterics about about how they didn't get Potter
by a pair of redheaded twins at the Gryffindor table were amusing.
The others around him went to introduce themselves with far too much
interest to pass as casual, but were fortunately not nearly as annoying
as either Weasley or Malfoy had been.
The last few sortings passed without incident and Dumbledore stood up to
speak.
"Welcome!" he said. "Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin

our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit!
Blubber! Oddment! Tweak! Thank you!"
Weird. Harry thought to himself, examining the food that had suddenly
appeared.
A lot of it seemed to be several varieties of meat drowned in vast

amounts of grease, typically British in other words. He was quite sure
that he would get sick if he tried to eat any of it. He'd never eaten
anything that heavy before.
From what he could recall, Vernon Dursley had taken great pleasure in
loudly masticating this kind of food while only allowing him some bread,
fruit and vegetables. The orphanage could never have afforded this and
Katherine Shaw had gone on her health craze at about the time of his
adoption.
Harry stuck to the vegetables, potatoes and what little meat there was
that wasn't liable to make him puke. The ostentatious goblets were filled
with some kind of orange liquid. A tentative sip sent a shudder of
revulsion through his stomach.
What kind of crazy idiot thought that mixing pumpkin juice and what felt
like a truck load of sugar was a good idea? Pumpkins weren't a friggin
fruit! He made a note to bring his own water to these things, not seeing
any present on the table.
He spent the rest of the feast shutting down attempts to draw him into a
conversation and wondering if magic somehow prevented people from getting
fat. It was the only explanation he could think of for the lack of
obesity if wizards ate like this all the time.
The feast eventually ended and Dumbledore stood up to speak.
"Ahem, just a few more words now that we are all fed and watered. I have
a few start-of-term notices to give you.
"First years should note that the forest on the grounds is forbidden to
all pupils. And a few of our older students would do well to remember
that as well."
That sounded reasonable enough to Harry. Even regular forests aren't

exactly something you should be wandering in willy-nilly. If the
Forbidden Forest stayed true to form for the Wizarding World, it was
probably filled with mutant spiders or something.
"I have also been asked by Mr. Filch, the caretaker, to remind you all
that no magic should be used between classes in the corridors."
That was a rule that Harry already knew he would be breaking. He had fire
and lightning evocation to attempt and Hogwarts was non-flammable as well
as non-conductive.
"Quidditch trials will be held in the second week of the term. Anyone
interested in playing for their house teams should contact Madam Hooch."
Harry knew only the bare bones of the sport. He knew it was played on
flying brooms and that the team composition made no sense. The seeker
pretty much invalidated everyone else unless the game was very long and
one sided.
"And finally, I must tell you that this year, the third-floor corridor on
the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die
a very painful death."
And that sounded like yet another start of a quest for a Dungeons &
Dragons based game.
"But before we go to bed, let us sing the school song!"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Harry collapsed on his very comfortable bed, face down, and exhaled into
his pillow with deep exasperation. His ears still felt like they were
going to bleed from hearing the 'school song'. Good music was clearly
another thing that he would have to rely on the non-magical world for if
that kind of audio torture was considered acceptable here.
He was honestly having mixed feelings about the magical world so far.
On the side of the pros was getting him away from the obsessive
socializing of the Shaws, the magic, his own money and that sort of
thing.
On the other hand, the Wizarding world was practically in the stone age
as far as technology went and he was famous here, which was attracting
ass kissers. He'd been on both sides of the ass kissing equation a lot
thanks to the Shaws and could tell when someone wanted to talk to him for
something other than actually getting to know him. Thus far, McGonagall
had been the only one who knew his name that had actually talked to him
rather than at him and he didn't like her much.
Well, the mental debate was moot either way apparently. He had to be here
for at least a while or they might decide to wipe his memories of magic,
which was unacceptable.
At least Ravenclaws apparently got single rooms. Having to share a room

with someone would have sucked.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
The school year got going in much the same way as a non-magical one
would, though with stranger subjects.
Herbology wasn't something that Harry could claim any real interest in,
nor was Astronomy and its hilariously outdated telescopes. History of
Magic was quicky designated as either a free period or a time to do
something else. The ghostly teacher was literally quoting the book
verbatim, making the class entirely redundant. Not to mention that he
seemed obssesively focused on the goblin wars, to the exclusion of all
else.
Charms seemed interesting, but they hadn't done anything more than theory
so far.
Transfiguration was currently in progress and Harry was staring at the

silver needle on his desk contemplatively. The others were struggling to
get even a slight change in their matchstick, while he had managed to do
it on the first try.
He had attempted some wandless transfigurations after returning from the

shopping trip to Diagon Alley. It had been incredibly hard, but Harry had
nothing better to do and he was excited to try out a form of magic he
hadn't thought to try before. Wandlessly, he hadn't managed more than a
change of color and a slight one at that. With a wand, it had been almost
easy.
Was his previous wandless practice accelerating his ability with a wand?
"Well done Mr. Potter!" McGonagall praised, sounding very impressed. "I
haven't seen anyone manage their first transfiguration attempt that
quickly in a long time. Take ten points for Ravenclaw."
"Thank you professor." Harry replied. It technically wasn't his first

transfiguration attempt, or even his hundredth, but he wasn't going to
tell her that.
Some distance away, Hermione Granger stared in disbelief and in some

amount of anger that the rude boy had gotten it better than her.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"Ah, yes," Snape said softly when he reached his name during roll call.
"Harry Potter. Our new...celebrity."
Harry held back a sigh. Potions was apparently going to be one of those
subjects.
"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-
making," Snape continued in something close to a whisper. "As there is
little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is
magic. I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly
simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of
liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring
the senses... I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even
stopper death if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually
have to teach."
That sounded kind of rehearsed. He probably used it every year. He would

probably use it on the Slytherin-Gryffindor class too, if he hadn't
already. It was a pretty good speech though.
"Potter!" said Snape suddenly. "What would I get if I added powdered root
of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"
"I have no idea, sir." Harry answered. He didn't even have the first clue
about what those were, much less anything else to do with them.
"Tut, tut, clearly fame isn't everything. Let's try again Potter..."
The questions continued and Harry was unable to answer them. Admittedly,
he probably should have looked through his potions books, but the lure of
learning how to hurl spells of death and destruction from his hands had
been quite a bit stronger than learning about stirring a collection of
gross ingredients in a cauldron.
The perils of being eleven.

With a final disdainful sneer, Snape spat out the answers to the
questions and demanded to know why they weren't writing them down.
"Potter, what are you doing?" Snape demanded less than a minute later.
"Writing down the answers, sir."
"Where is your quill and parchment? And five points from Ravenclaw for
your cheek."
"I figured that using paper and a ballpoint pen would be much easier."
Harry replied evenly, feeling fairly certain that the hook-nosed
professor would not like that. Fortunately, he didn't care about points
or the house cup.
"Another five points from Ravenclaw, Potter! Put away that muggle garbage
and take out your proper supplies." Snape sneered severely.
"Does it really matter what I write my notes on?" Harry questioned. "I
assure you that my writing will be far more legible if I don't have to
struggle with an inkpot and quill."
Starting to develop an unattractively angry flush to his pale skin tone,

Snape waved his wand and vanished Harry's pen and paper.
"Twenty points from Ravenclaw for your backtalk and a detention if you
don't take out your parchment and quill immediately!"
Harry had neither of those, having seen no need to bring them when he had
plenty of pens and paper. Unfortunately, he suspected that Snape would
not care about that.
He was right.
He spent the rest of the potions class in a foul mood. Perhaps it was
time to research some alternatives to attending this class? Snape was
clearly determined to pick on him for some reason, so the educational
benefits of learning under him were dubious at best.
And the week had been going so well too.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Thar she blows, the first chapter of something (relatively)new.
In case anyone actually gives a crap, the address for the house of
Harry's foster parents was chosen after a 2 minute Google search and may
not even exist. For all I know, there's nothing on 74 Cromwell Road but
an antique outhouse. In the incredibly unlikely event that someone
actually lives there and happens to read this fic, then I apologize for
using it. I also apologize for insinuating that it might be an antique
outhouse.
As always, you can expect updates to come at irregular intervals ranging
from 4 days to a month, depending on how bored/inspired I'm feeling.
Chapter 2
Here is the second one. Many thanks go to my beta Joe Lawyer, for looking
the chapter over for me.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Hogwarts staff room, October 2nd.
It was the first of several routine meetings between the Hogwarts

professors and several things had already been discussed. The troubles of
the upper years, the poor quality of the school brooms, the Quidditch
cup, the latest shenanigans of the Weasley twins and so forth.
Things were drawing to a close now and all the other professors had
already left, leaving just Dumbledore and the four heads of house.
"And what of our first years?" The Headmaster opened, mostly wanting to
hear about Harry Potter .
"Among my lions, young Mr. Weasley is proving to be troublesome."

McGonagall said with a frown. "He is continually late in turning in his
assignments and they are invariably of poor quality. If this keeps up, I
am going to need to write home to his parents."
All of them winced, not wanting there to be another reason for Molly
Weasley's strident voice to thunder from the inevitable Howler that the
woman would send her youngest son upon hearing of his poor academic
performance.
"On the other hand, Ms. Granger is proving to be an exceptional student."

She went on.
Snape gave a small sneer at the mention of the girl. He found her
eagerness to please incredibly annoying, particularly her habit of
turning in essays that were nearly twice as long as required. Anyone
could regurgitate facts from a book and he didn't appreciate the extra
work she was giving him by doing it.
"My badgers have settled in without any issue." Sprout took over the
narrative. "But Minerva, I simply must comment on Mr. Longbottom. That
boy has an amazing green thumb for Herbology."
"He has an even more amazing explosive thumb for Potions." Snape added
condescendingly. "Not a single class goes by without something exploding
in his general vicinity."
"What of your snakes, Severus?" Dumbledore interjected before the
Herbology professor could launch into a rant against the Potions Master.
"Nothing out of the ordinary." Snape said shortly. Unlike the others, he
was not inclined to talk about his Slytherins.
"I see." Dumbledore said the same as he did every year when Severus gave
the same curt answer. "What of the Ravenclaws, Filius?"
"The only one that truly stands out is Mr. Potter." Flitwick admitted. He
knew perfectly well that he'd been kept for last exactly because he had
the Boy-Who-Lived in his house. "Though he does not have Ms. Granger's
precision for theory, his practical work is simply extraordinary, even
better than that of his mother. So far he has always been the first to
master a new spell."
"The same for Transfiguration." McGonagall added. "Not even his father
had this kind of talent for it."
"His talents are apparently restricted to wand waving, as his ability

with potions is mediocre at best." Snape sneered.
"Loathe as I am to agree with Severus, he is right." Sprout said, still a

bit steamed from the earlier comment against her favorite first year. "He
seems entirely disinterested in Herbology."
"There is one other thing." Flitwick said uncomfortably, knowing that

what he had to say next would not be well received.
"Yes, Filius?" Dumbledore prompted.
"Mr. Potter has asked me if it would be possible for him to stop

attending DADA, History of Magic and Potions and study the subject matter
on his own."
There was a moment of shock before Snape ended it.
"So the arrogant brat is already looking for special treatment?" He asked
bitingly.
"Severus." Dumbledore said warningly before turning back to the Charms

professor. "Did he say why?"
"He did." Flitwick confirmed. "He frankly admitted to me that Quirinus'

stutter makes the class too slow for him."
McGonagall and Sprout sighed, fully understanding the situation. Talking

to Quirrell was a chore when it took him forever to finish a sentence.
Trying to listen to him lecture would be even worse.
Miraculously, Snape kept his opinion to himself.

"History of Magic...well, you know Binns." Flitwick continued, shrugging
in an embarrassed manner. "As for Potions, he has come to me with a
complaint about Severus vanishing his supplies and constantly singling
him out during class."
"Perhaps I would not have vanished his supplies had he brought proper
ones." Snape retorted.
"Yes, Mr. Potter told me of his preference for muggle stationery and I
won't dispute your right to demand that all students use a quill and
parchment in your class, but did it truly warrant you destroying his
supplies? And I note that you didn't respond to the accusation of
singling him out." Flitwick said back with narrowed eyes.
"Someone has to curb his ego." Snape sneered.
"What ego, Severus?" Flitwick demanded. "The boy spends all his time
either in the library, in class or in his room. Occasionally he explores
the school, but that's all. He hasn't made any friends yet and seems to
have no intention of doing so."
Despite not showing it, Snape was a bit startled by that. Potter not
having any friends? He hadn't really looked into it, but now that
Flitwick mentioned it, he did recall that the boy didn't engage in much
conversation while eating in the Great Hall.
"And yet he thinks that he can drop three classes and do them on his
own." He shot back, mostly to cover up his surprise. He had a reputation
to uphold.
"It is a moot point either way I'm afraid." Dumbledore interjected.

"Though I admire young Harry's desire to learn, if we allowed him to skip
certain classes, then everyone would want the same privilege and most of
those would not have the same drive to learn that he does."
There was also the fact Dumbledore didn't want the boy to isolate himself
any further.
Though Flitwick could appreciate the headmaster's point, he had a feeling

that it would just cause Harry to ignore the lecturing of Quirrell and
Binns and do his own thing. Snape would not be so easily ignored and the
diminutive Charms professor could only hope that Severus would apply some
restraint. Harry's fame would make the entire situation unpleasant for
all involved if things continued to escalate.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
After that staff meeting was over, Snape paid closer attention to Potter.
He had been surprised to see the boy go to Ravenclaw instead of

Gryffindor, seeing as both his parents had gone to that house. He'd also
been expecting him to be running about the school with a gang of like-
minded hooligans by now, breaking rules and causing trouble everywhere.
But Flitwick was indeed correct. The boy was quiet, introverted and
studious. Nothing at all like his father and only slightly more like his
mother. In fact, Snape was reminded rather jarringly of himself as a
first year. A himself who didn't have Lily as a friend.
His face still looked too much like that of James Potter and Snape felt
the old anger come back every time he saw it, but he decided to lower the
verbal abuse to the level he aimed at everyone. He would reserve
judgement for the moment.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"Ha!" Harry yelled unnecessarily, thrusting out his hands and focusing
all his will into making a mighty fireball blast forth from them.
The most pathetic fireball that the world had ever seen was his result.
Harry slumped, feeling kind of ridiculous to have made such a dramatic

buildup, only to produce that little flicker. He wasn't going to be
casting any firestorms soon, that was for sure.
He'd long ago figured out that the magic was linked to his emotions. The
more powerful the emotion he was feeling, the more powerful the results
of his accidental magic had always been. Unfortunately, summoning up
emotions on demand was simply not that easy. He'd been practicing with
his magic for years and had managed to get some results even when he
wasn't feeling incredibly distressed, but it was slow going.
With his wand though...
He took out the holly wand and slashed it through the air, sending a band
of fire scything through the air. It wasn't much and would singe some
eyebrows at best, but he'd gathered that it was impressive for a firstie
that had only been at Hogwarts for a month and a bit.
He'd also noted that he didn't really need all the ridiculous swishing
and flicking that everyone else was using. Nor did he really need to say
the words of the spells. It seemed obvious to him that the power was
neither in the wand motions nor in the words, but in the intent of the
caster. He had no idea why they were being taught in this kind of
backwards manner.
Well, whatever. He wasn't going to argue about it and bring attention to

himself, so he just pretended to swish and flick like everyone else.
There was too much attention on him as it was, thanks to that stupid Boy-
Who-Lived crap.
It got a bit lonely sometimes, but not so much that he would be willing
to attempt getting closer to his yearmates.
The only one that he had any regular contact with was Su Li, and that was
only because she happened to be his potions partner. As luck would have
it, Su was herself a quiet girl focused on her studies and didn't really
try to engage him in conversation.
Padma Patil had tried to talk to him once, looking horribly embarrassed
about it. As it turned out, she'd been nagged into it by her Griffyndor
twin sister Parvati, who wanted to know about the Boy-Who-Lived. Harry
managed not to be too annoyed with Padma for that, though her sister was
another matter entirely.
The rest of his yearmates had gotten used to his prickly personality by
now and kept a polite distance.
Outside of Ravenclaw, the only people he truly registered among the

students were Draco Malfoy, Pansy Parkinson and Hermione Granger.
The puffed up blond idiot occasionally threw out a snide remark that he
probably though was clever, but did little else than that when Harry
failed to react to his taunts.
Pansy he'd only noticed because she apparently belonged to the family
that had taken over the Potter family business. He'd considered talking
to her about it, but the pug nosed girl was distinctly unpleasant to be
around and a hanger on for Draco. He might have to do it one day, but
he'd been putting it off so far. It wasn't as if he could actually do
anything about it yet.
As for Hermione...well, that girl seemed to be taking his seemingly easy

grasp of practical spellcraft as a personal challenge and sometimes even
gave him a smug look when she answered the theoretical questions
correctly, when they shared classes at any rate. She seemed to be under
the misconception that they were rivals or something. For such a smart
girl, she was a right idiot.
Harry was sitting in a quiet corner of the Hogwarts library, reading.

Away from his foster parents and their army of hair stylists, his hair
had reverted to its natural Potterness and become hopelessly messy. It
was probably taking revenge for the years of neatness imposed on it.
Harry was actually considering growing it long, mostly because a lot of

fantasy spellcasters seemed to have long hair and thought it would be
cool, but also because he knew it would piss off Robert and Katherine.
Probably not a good idea just yet, but he promised himself to look up
information on hair growing spells or potions.
He wasn't reading a book on spells at the moment however, but rather a

history book. Binns was indisputably an authority on the Goblin Wars an
exceptionally boring one but he had thus far been useless for anything
else.
He was doing this because he wanted to know about the history of wands.
Where had they come from? Why were they so widespread? What had been used
before them? Had any kind of foci been used before them?
He had managed to learn that it was the Romans who had first discovered
the secrets of wandlore and spread their use so far and wide, though it
had still been centuries before every single magical had a wand.
Originally, they had been reserved for the elite only. There were a great
many flowery descriptions about the Roman war wizards and how their wands
had allowed them to sweep away the primitive sorceries of the cultures
conquered by Rome. There were no mentions of what those primitive
sorceries actually were though.
No matter which history text he looked up, he could find nothing about
the magics used before the advent of wands. The best he got was some
mentions of the Viking runecrafters, some of whose arts were still in use
today and which he would be learning in the Ancient Runes class that
became available in third year. That was a rather fascinating subject and
something that he had already started reading up on.
Now, Harry was willing to believe that a lot of knowledge had been lost
since those times It was about two millenia ago after all but for
nothing to be known? That had the feel of deliberate historical editing.
Combined with his suspicion that wands were somehow used as a method of
control by the Ministry of Magic and the many restrictive laws on magic
use that he'd found, it felt like a cover-up. Whatever the Ministry was
hiding, Harry wanted it.
He took a longing glance towards the roped off Restricted Section. All of
the really good stuff was undoubtedly in there. He knew that Hogwarts
predated the Ministry of Magic by over five hundred years and therefore
had a considerable amount of autonomy. It was highly likely that there
were numerous texts in the Restricted Section that the Ministry would
prefer were destroyed or locked away somewhere. He especially wanted to
see if there were any books on ritual magic in there. The Ministry
categorized all ritual magic as Dark and banned it wholesale, which
really stuck in his craw. He'd been looking forward to performing some
self-improvement rituals, if there were any.
Unfortunately, Harry had not yet figured out a way to get in there
without attracting all the wrong kinds of attention.
But he would. He was going to get in there and learn whatever super
secret magic was being hidden. Then he would make himself a proper tower
and call it something properly dramatic like...the High Tower of Sorcery
or something. And he would cackle and throw lightning at the Ministry
fools who would attack it in an attempt to steal his power!
Harry coughed and aimed a rueful grin at the history book in front of
him, which just so happened to be opened on a page detailing the exploits
of Yngvar the Insane, a Swedish Dark Lord from the 7th century, so called
for his use of an unknown(or deliberately forgotten) spell that called a
storm of lightning from the heavens. He was considered insane because
lightning storms were a bit random and couldn't be aimed, which
eventually spelled the end of Yngvar when it fried him instead of his
enemies. What he'd actually been trying to achieve with this Thor
impersonation, the book didn't say.
In fact, Harry had noticed a recurring theme of unclear motivations for
quite a few past Dark Lords. Europe as a whole averaged at least one Dark
Lord or Lady per century, often a bit more. The 14th had been
particularly eventful, producing one every twenty-five years with
clockwork precision. The two most recent ones, Voldemort and Grindelwald,
had the most clearly defined motives and unquestioningly deserved to be
called Dark Lords.
About the others, Harry was less sure. The books all seemed to agree
about how evil and powerful they had been, but none of them said anything
about their goals aside from going against the established authority.
Before the Ministry of Magic, there had been a High Wizard's Council of
which the Wizengamot was a remnant and before that, there hadn't been
enough magicals to truly separate themselves from the non-magical
kingdoms of the time. The only thing common to every single Dark Lord or
Lady was the fact that they'd been giving the people in charge the middle
finger.
It was giving Harry the distinct impression that the bureaucratic

overlords simply did not like powerful wizards or witches. Which, in
retrospect, was so blindingly obvious that he really should have guessed
at it without need for three days of being buried in history books.
Mediocre wizards in positions of authority would naturally be wary of the
very powerful ones, either as rivals or simply as people who could ignore
the politicking and do as they pleased.
Probably a good thing that I'm planning to take a little trip once I
finish Hogwarts. He thought to himself, recalling his intentions to study
magic that the Ministry deemed illegal. That would get him branded a Dark
Wizard at best, possibly even a Dark Lord if he ended up being powerful
enough.
Dark magic? What a laugh that was. They'd just learned the levitation
charm a day ago and Harry could think of at least three ways to kill
someone with it off the top of his head. How was that any better than the
painless Killing Curse? Dead was dead and he wasn't going to let some
government lackey tell him otherwise.
Granted, Dumbledore was an example of an extremely powerful wizard and he

seemed to have avoided the Dark Lord appelation, but Harry wasn't sure he
counted since the man apparently held the top position in both the
British Wizengamot and the International Confederation of Wizards,
essentially making him the man that decided whether someone was a Dark
Lord or not. The fact that every mention of such powerful wizards that
weren't Dark Lords were invariably high up in the government only
confirmed his theory.
"Harry?"
The boy in question yelped and nearly sent the books crashing to the
floor, something that was sure to earn him the eternal enmity of the
supremely cranky librarian.
He turned to look at his ambusher and saw the fifth year prefect,
Penelope Clearwater. The girl had for some reason taken it upon
herself to talk to him every once in a while.
"What?" He asked, a touch more rudely than he intended.
"The Halloween feast is about to start, I figured you'd lose track of

time again and came to get you." Penelope said, her eyebrows drawn into a
tiny frown at his tone. Harry was frequently irritated when someone
intruded on his reading and had swiftly claimed the title of 'most anti-
social Ravenclaw'. It was a prefect's job to look after the younger years
and Penelope was determined to live up to that, but Harry Potter
sometimes made it difficult to talk to him without getting annoyed.
"I don't celebrate Halloween." He said tersely. He wasn't a particularly

celebratory person at the best of times, but Halloween was especially
disliked ever since he'd learned how and when his parents had died. He
didn't remember them and had come to terms with the fact that they were
gone a long time ago, but they had died to protect him and he wouldn't
celebrate their deaths. Not to mention that he'd come to loathe pumpkins
since coming to Hogwarts and the Great Hall was sure to be hopelessly
spammed with the hated plant right now.
"You must be hungry though." Penelope insisted softly, picking up on his

increased dislike and being considerate enough to guess at the cause.
"I'm not." Harry insisted back.
Which was of course the exact moment that his stomach betrayed him with a
loud rumble.
"Alright, so maybe I am hungry." He conceded. "But I'm not going to eat

in the Great Hall. I've got some snacks in my room."
Penelope sighed at his stubborness. "Come with me, I can at least show
you where to find the kitchens."
That caught his attention? Students could go eat in the kitchen? He could
avoid the Great Hall altogether!
Unaware that she had just unintentionally facilitated further anti-social

behavior from the boy that she was hoping would eventually open up a bit,
Penelope led him to the lair of the Hogwarts house elves.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
While Harry did find the excitable house elves to be a bit much, he was
also very interested in learning about a magical race. The Goblins were
the only other one he'd met so far and they hadn't looked like the type
to tolerate the questions of an eleven year old. He could respect that,
since he wouldn't be too keen on indulging someone's curiousity either.
The house elves were more than happy to tell him anything he wanted
though, and he even managed to talk to them about the kind of food and
drink he preferred, so it was all good. Their extreme friendliness was a
bit off putting to someone like him, but the excitable creatures
apparently had a supernaturally good sense for when someone didn't want
them around and toned it down as soon as Harry started feeling
discomfited by the attention.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Because he was not a Griffyndor, Harry was not around when Ron Weasley
tossed a careless and hurtful remark at Hermione Granger out of
frustration. He didn't not know that she'd run away in tears.
Because he wasn't at the feast, he didn't hear Quirrell announce that

there was a troll in the dungeons.
When Penelope burst into the kitchens with a crazy tale about a troll
being loose in the castle, Harry merely looked at her oddly, muttered
something about a random encounter and followed her to the Ravenclaw
common room.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Unlike Harry, Ron was acutely aware of the fact that his housemate was
missing. For a critical minute, he waffled over the decision of whether
he should tell a teacher or not, wanting to escape blame for the
situation. Quirrell had said that the troll was in the dungeons hadn't
he? Hermione wasn't down there, so she should be safe, right?
His sense of guilt and responsibility unused though it was eventually

won out over his desire to hide from the situation and he went to
McGonagall, confessing everything.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
McGonagall and Snape charged into the bathroom just in time to see the
troll raising its bloodied club from the misshapen ruin of Hermione
Granger's body.
A full grown mountain troll was a hideously strong creature with a highly
magic resistant hide, but that didn't protect it from the angry spellwork
of the enraged Transfiguration Mistress and the cooler but equally deadly
Potions Master.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
The Great Hall was both full and silent, something that was highly
unusual.
In front of the staff table stood Dumbledore, wearing dour black robes
and a remorseful expression.
"It is my sad duty today to inform you of the death of a Hogwarts

student. Last night, Hermione Granger was attacked and killed by the
troll that professor Quirrell warned us of. She was an exceptionally
bright witch, with a bright future ahead of her. There will be no classes
this week as the Ministry's Aurors investigate and take statements,
please allow them to do their jobs without interruption and cooperate
with their requests. Thank you."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
The Aurors came and went, taking statements and investigating the
situation. Less than two weeks after Hermione's death, things went back
to relatively normal.
Harry was baffled.
A student had died, so why was everyone acting as if it was no big deal?
He knew that Hogwarts was largely autonomous, but this was ridiculous.
Had a student died from something as easily preventable as a wild animal
roaming in through the front doors in a muggle school, the Headmaster and
staff would have been in serious hot water, private school or not.
A look at the Daily Prophet article provided some clarification.
Though the article had been scathing in tone towards Dumbledore in

particular and the Hogwarts professors in general, two things stood out.
The first was the fact that the article itself was on the third page
instead of on the first. You'd think that a student death at school would
be big news.
The second thing was the title of the article.
Muggleborn student dies in tragic incident!
Tragic incident? That was one way of calling it.
The fact that it mentioned Hermione's blood status at all brought another
thing into sharp focus. The Wizarding World lagged behind its mundane
counterpart in more than just technology. Long lives made for slow social
changes and discrimination based on self-entitlement was much more
prominent in magical society than it was in the muggle one.
Harry wasn't blind to the attitude that some purebloods had towards the
muggleborn. There wasn't much of that in Ravenclaw, but it was hard to
miss the way that certain purebloods refused to sit next to the
muggleborns. It was hard not to hear Draco Malfoy's bigoted commentary.
He hadn't been in any way close to Hermione, so he couldn't honestly say

that her death upset him, but it had gotten him to realize something. The
girl had been so competitive with him because she'd probably been looking
for someone to share her academic interests in. He'd thought her stupid
then, thinking that she just wanted to be the best, but now he was the
one that felt stupid. She'd probably been hoping to make a friend in the
only way she knew how.
He promised himself that he wouldn't be so quick to judge in the future.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
The Christmas holidays rolled around and Harry found himself in a much
emptier Hogwarts.
He could have gone back to the Shaws, but that would inevitably mean
attending some kind of high society event with them. An empty castle
would have been more fun than that even if it didn't have a huge library.
Besides, he had something that he wanted to talk to the Ancient Runes

professor about and the holidays were the best possible time for it.
Actually finding professor Babbling's room in the castle had turned out
to be surprisingly difficult and it wasn't until he'd thought to ask one
of the house elves that he succeeded.
"Mr. Potter?" The professor confusedly asked once she'd opened the door
to his knocking. "Is there something I can do for you?"
"I had some questions about runes that I was hoping I could ask you."
Harry answered.
"You were studying Ancient Runes on your own?" She asked happily, always
pleased to hear that a student was interested in her specialty.
"Yes." Harry nodded. "So, do you have time to talk?"
"Yes of course, please come in." Babbling invited and opened the door to
let him in.
Harry looked around the room curiously, having never seen a teacher's
quarters before. It was bigger than his own room in the Ravenclaw tower
by quite a bit, which was only to be expected, but other than that it was
fairly similar. It also had a small sitting area that his room didn't
have. The most notable feature of the room was the large desk covered in
parchment that he presumed contained various school work assignments on
runes and such.
"Have a seat." Bathsheda said, gesturing to the couch and taking a seat
next to him. "Now, what was it you wanted to know?"
"I looked over the theory, but I have some trouble understanding how
symbols could have any kind of magical power." Harry admitted. "It
doesn't make any sense to me that just inscribing a symbol and charging
it with magic would confer a certain property to the item being
inscribed."
"Ah, this is a question that I am asked frequently, though not usually by

first years." The professor said wrily. "Tell me Mr. Potter, have you
also wondered why wand motions are neccessary?"
"Err..." Harry stalled a bit, but figured that there was no point in
playing dumb. "I'd just assumed that they were used as a method of
tricking people into focusing properly on a spell, the same as
incantations."
Bathsheda's eyebrows climbed into her hairline in surprise, realizing

that the boy in front of her must already be capable of casting silently
and motionlessly to have come to that conclusion.
"You are only partially correct, Mr. Potter. The incantations are indeed
just a trick to focus the mind of beginners on the effects of a spell,
but the wand motions serve an actual purpose. You see, when you wave your
wand, it pulls on your magic in specific ways and shapes it into the
desired spell effect. The field of Arthmancy concerns itself with which
wand motions are best suited to a certain spell effect. It is possible to
cast without motions, but it requires a much greater focus on the part of
the caster." She explained.
"I see." Harry said pensively.
"I must admit to being impressed that you have the mental focus required
to cast both motionlessly and silently at your age. These are things you
would have usually learned in your sixth year, so it is very rare to find
a child your age capable of it." The professor praised.
Harry rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment at the praise. After
struggling for years to manage anything at all with wandless magic, it
was practically child's play to use a wand.
"So the runes...they don't have any actual meaning, but are just shaped
in a way that directs the magic to a certain effect?" He asked, getting
back to the point of his visit.
"Once again, you are only partially correct." Bathsheda told him. "Many
of the runes in use today were created with the help of Arithmancy, which
is a fairly modern field of study in comparison to things like Charms,
Potions and Transfiguration. These runes are indeed shaped with a
singular purpose in mind and it is perhaps a misnomer to call them
'ancient', as they are not that old in the grand scheme of things. There
are however, older runes also in use that truly are ancient. These runes
represent concepts and ideas and can have multiple meanings. They are
typically more powerful than arithmantically developed runes but also
less precise as their effects may vary based on the understanding and
intent of the one who charges them with magic."
"Wouldn't it be possible to use a completely made up rune in that case,

as long as you assigned it meaning?" Harry asked, confused.
"Theoretically yes, but you would be aware that the runes were made up
and therefore subconsciously make them meaningless." Babbling explained
with a small grin, enjoying the conversation. Mr. Potter had clearly done
quite a bit of research on the subject and she was looking forward to
having him in her class in a few years. "There is also an unproven theory
in the academic circles that the older runes have been in use for so long
that their meanings have become imprinted on the wild magic of the Earth,
which is why they are more powerful."
"That's an interesting theory." Harry commented a bit absently. "I had
just one more question."
"By all means."
"The books all seemed to agree that writing runes on yourself either
wouldn't work or was downright dangerous, but they didn't explain why."
"Ah, that." Bathsheda said with a bit of a grumble. "I have long thought
that every book on runes should contain more thorough warnings about such
practices and I make sure to mention it during my classes."
"So it can be done?" Harry pressed.
"Yes Mr. Potter, it can, though it is most unwise." She admitted. "Merely
using a quill to write runes on your skin and charging it with magic
would achieve nothing, as the magic would be superficial and resisted by
your body. Tattooing them into your skin would confer some effects, but
likely not ones that you would wish. There would be a conflict between
the intentions of the tattoo artist and yourself, leading to a wide
variety of unpredictable complications. Furthermore, the runes would be
attempting to make changes to your body and magic and would not have the
necessary power to do so, once again causing nothing but complications.
Even worse, wizards differ from muggles in that their magic eventually
wears away the ink in a tattoo, so even if you had managed to impart some
kind of positive effect to yourself through a rune tattoo, it would
eventually disperse and quite likely harm you in the process."
"I see." Harry said again, looking thoughtful. "Thank you, this was very
informative. Could I come talk to you again if I had any more questions?"
"Of course." Bathsheda agreed, wanting to encourage his obvious interest

in runes.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
On Christmas morning, Harry found himself puzzled upon seeing a present

with his name on it at the foot of his bed.
He knew it wasn't from the Shaws, as those two treated every holiday as
an opportunity to suck up to someone at one social event or another. The
only present he'd ever gotten from them was clothing that they expected
him to wear to one of said social events. It had rather ruined the point
of Christmas to him.
Upon opening it, he saw that it held a shimmering silvery cloak. He could
practically feel the tingle of magic under his fingers as he touched it.
A little experimentation led to the awed realization that it was an
actual invisibility cloak. Who in the world could have possibly given him
this?
A look at the attached card provided only some bafflement.

Your father left this in my possession before he died. It is time it was
returned to you. Use it well. A Very Merry Christmas to you.
There was no signature to the note written in loopy handwriting, but a

little guesswork allowed him to figure out who it was.
He didn't really know anyone in the Wizarding world aside from the people
in Hogwarts. It wasn't likely to be the students, as he wasn't exactly
that close to any of them and he strongly doubted that they would have
given him such an obviously valuable artefact.
Most of the teachers were also excluded, on grounds of him being familiar
with their handwriting already. The only one that it might have been was
professor Babbling, but he'd only talked to her once so she wasn't likely
to have given him such a thing.
Having excluded all of his aquaintances, he tentatively assumed that it

was sent by the headmaster. He seemed like the type to hoard magical
items. Reading over the note again, he came to another realization.
He gifted me with something that technically belongs to me in the first

place? Or failing that, re-gifted me with something that my father gave
him? And he admitted it as if it was no big deal? Wow, that's just...wow.
Harry had to be impressed by the sheer gall of the man, though he was too
happy with the invisibility cloak to take much umbrage.
After all, the headmaster had just given him exactly what he needed to
pay a clandestine visit to the Restricted Section. But first, there was a
present to send out. He'd gotten the idea for it months ago, but hadn't
been planning to actually go through with it, as it had the potential to
backfire on him quite spectacularly. The invisibility cloak had put him
in a gift-giving mood though.
"Could I talk to a house elf, please?" He said to the empty room, not
sure if it would work.
"You's needing Blinky?" Apparently, it did work.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Severus Snape started in surprise as a Christmas present appeared on his

desk. He had already received the usual bottle of firewhiskey from
Minerva that would last him a year, as well as the bag of muggle candies
from the headmaster that he had summarily disposed of as usual.
Nobody else ever gave him presents. Ever.
After casting every detection spell he knew on the small parcel, he was
forced to conclude that it was not a trap and that someone had indeed
done so.
Warily unwrapping it, he stared in slowly rising anger at the muggle
notebook and pen, exactly like the ones he'd forbidden Potter from using
in his classroom.
The cheeky brat was mocking him! Just like his useless, arrogant father!
James bloody Potter would...would...would not have done this. No, James
Potter would have played some juvenile prank in the halls or during
dinner, and he would have done it a lot sooner too.
This was the kind of passive aggressive response that Lily would have
given him after she came down from the initial hot tempered rage.
I thought you might appreaciate the convenience of being able to take

notes for your potions in one place without the hassle of inkpots or ink
splotches.
The equally passive aggressive note wasn't signed, further reinforcing

Snape's sense of nostalgia as he stared at the neat handwriting.
The boy had obviously never heard of self-inking and ever-neat quills
before, nor of the enchanted notebooks that never ran out of pages. Lily
had been dubious about wizarding stationery at first too.
Without the face of a miniature James Potter making him angry and no
people around for which to keep up appearances, Snape spent his Christmas
morning in nostalgic reminiscence of the only friend he'd ever had.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
December 26th
It was very late and the Hogwarts library was dark, silent and empty.
Empty, except for the invisible Harry Potter strolling through the
Restricted Section, hungrily looking at the books. There were so many
things he wanted to look up that it was hard to decide what to pick
first.
Obscure spells had a strong draw to the mindset of an eleven year old,
but Harry pulled his attention away from those, knowing that he didn't
have the power to cast them yet and having enough caution not to try it
anyway.
Eventually, he came across something that he had wanted to know ever

since he'd learned about the Wizarding World.
The Theory of Rituals: The Magick of Sacrifice.
Harry swallowed nervously, wondering if this was a book detailing the

proper way to sacrifice a virgin, which he had no intention of doing.
On the other hand, the book was using Ye Olde English in the title, which
was always a good sign.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Albus Dumbledore was feeling a mite frustrated.
He knew that Voldemort would return and he knew that Harry Potter was
prophesized to vanquish him.
The problem was that Harry Potter did not seem very heroically inclined.
He had been curious about the parcel that Hagrid had retrieved from
Gringott's, but not enough to look into it any further. He hadn't been
inquisitive enough to take a peek behind the forbidden door in the third
floor corridor. Albus wasn't even sure if he was aware of the break in at
Gringott's. Not that Dumbledore really wanted him to try getting passed
the defenses, but he had hoped that Harry would be curious. A powerful
sense of curiousity was essential for a hero and Harry Potter simply
didn't have it.
The boy was actually alarmingly disconnected from the Wizarding World.
Aside from his obvious desire to learn magic and the tenuous link to his
dead parents, Harry Potter had literally no ties to Wizarding Britain.
Not for the first time, Albus lamented the boy's placement in Ravenclaw.
Even Slytherin might have been better, though it would have undoubtedly
been difficult on him. At the very least, it would have forced him to
interact with his peers, whereas Ravenclaw had a well known reputation
for fostering introversion.
This wasn't usually something that Dumbledore would interfere with, but
Harry Potter had a destiny ahead of him and that destiny would not be
fulfilled by studying magic in seclusion.
He was well aware of the boy's recent excursions into the Restricted
Section, but did not bother to stop him. What difference did it make
anyway? The boy would have to die in order for Voldemort to be defeated
once and for all, so his dabbling in illegal magics was of no concern.
The knowledge might even come in handy at some point. The primer on
ritual magic that he'd read the other night was hardly alarming anyway.
Despite the ominous title and what the Ministry had to say about it, it
was little more than a theoretical discourse on the nature of magic, with
a focus on rituals. Dumbledore had removed the worst of the reading
material in there during Tom Riddle's seventh year. He still regretted
not doing it sooner.
He had no real fear of Harry joining up with Voldemort. The Dark Lord
would never suffer a rival to his power and being destroyed by a year old
baby would be an unforgivable insult to him. Harry Potter and Lord
Voldemort would be enemies no matter what, but Harry might just decide to
leave Britain instead of fighting if he had nothing tying him here.
If only he had been sorted into Gryffindor! Albus was sure that he would
have become fast friends with Hermione Granger. They had been similar
enough.
The girl's death had shaken the old headmaster far more than he let on.
Minerva had often told him that keeping the Philosopher's Stone in
Hogwarts was a terrible idea, but he had been sure that it was for the
best. He had been sure that he would be able to handle the shade of
Voldemort without there being any danger to the students. He wasn't sure
any longer.
For all the pretty words that he had spun for the Aurors about the troll
wandering in through a hitherto undiscovered secret passage, Dumbledore
knew that it was his fault.
Regardless of his shaken confidence, he desperately needed to get a

better handle on Harry Potter. Wizarding Britain and the Light would need
a champion in the dark times that were approaching and Dumbledore knew
that he was too old to fill that role himself. He had already been too
old in the last war. A successor had to be moulded, even if he would die
at the end of the conflict. Perhaps another miracle would allow Harry
Potter to survive, as it had when he was a baby. An old man could hope,
even if it was a fool's hope.
In the meanwhile, the Mirror of Erised would hopefully reveal if the boy
had any desires that could be useful. A discreet compulsion charm would
make sure that he found it.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Harry had no idea how exactly he'd ended up in this abandoned classroom
with the weird looking mirror. He'd just felt an insatiable desire to
wander about Hogwarts and basically stumbled upon it.
That was a bit odd for him, as he had no desire to interact with Filch,
the miserable bastard. The man apparently couldn't grasp the fact that
there was a slightly different set of rules in play during the holidays
and had tried to get him in trouble for imagined infractions several
times already.
Honestly, what did he even do at Hogwarts? His post as caretaker seemed

to be completely made up just so that the bitter man would have an excuse
to stay at the castle.
But for some reason, he felt the need to wander tonight and how here he
was, staring at a tall mirror with a gold frame and clawed feet.
It was an interesting looking mirror, but the image it showed was the
true puzzle. Instead of reflecting his proper image, it showed Harry the
way that he hoped he would look as an adult. Tall and broad shouldered,
long haired and roguishly handsome, with an aura of power draped over his
shoulders like an invisible mantle. He was also wearing a rather badass
looking set of robes that looked a great deal more practical than the
nightgown-esque apparel that wizards actually tended to wear, more like a
sort of half-robe or something.
Even more puzzling than the skewed reflection of himself, it also showed
someone standing next to him. This person was utterly indistinct. He
couldn't tell the color of the hair or eyes, couldn't put his finger on
height or body shape. He thought it might be a woman, but the more he
looked, the less certain he was of that. It was as if his mind was simply
unable to focus on the figure aside from determining that there was a
figure.
There was an inscription on the top, spelling out 'Erised stra ehru oyt
ube cafru oyt on wohsi', which told him nothing. He couldn't even begin
to guess what language that was in.
There was something compelling about the image, but Harry could not for
the life of him determine what it was. The vision of his adult self
seemed obvious enough, a representation of his hopes perhaps, but what
about the other figure?
Harry hated riddles. In fact, the bloody door knocker that asked you a
riddle every time you wanted to enter Ravenclaw tower was the thing that
he found the most irritating about his house. He'd had to wait for
someone else to answer the damn thing quite a few times already, though
he was getting the hang of answering correctly by sheer force of
repetition.
Usually when confronted with a particularly irritating riddle that he

couldn't solve, he would abandon it for a time and maybe come back later,
but not this time. There was something about this image that made him
want to understand it.
"Captivating, is it not?" An old voice asked from behind an indeterminate

amount of time later, startling him quite badly.
"Headmaster?" Harry asked, bewildered. "What are you doing here?"
Dumbledore chuckled in amusement. "I could ask you the same thing."
Harry flushed in embarrassment, realizing how his blurted out question

must have sounded. "Sorry, sir."
"It is quite alright, my boy." The old wizard said kindly. A little
rudeness was the least he could tolerate from Harry in exchange for the
compulsion he'd cast on him, even if the boy didn't know it.
"So, err, what does this mirror do?" Harry asked awkwardly.
"The clue is in the inscription, but you must remember that it is a

mirror." Dumbledore hinted.
Harry frowned in confusion and looked at the inscription again. With the
rather large hint he'd been given, it didn't take long to guess that he
had to read it backwards.
"I show not your face, but your heart's desire?" He wondered.
"Indeed, the Mirror of Erised does not reflect ourselves, but the
deepest, most desperate desires of our hearts." Dumbledore clarified.
"Men have wasted away before it, yearning for what it shows them, even if
they know it to be impossible. Perhaps especially if they know it to be
impossible."
"What do you see, sir?" Harry ventured carefully, knowing that it was a
personal question.
Dumbledore looked at the mirror, seeing his family once more unbroken and
whole around him and feeling the familiar ache in his heart that always
accompanied the image. His parents standing together happily, Ariana
alive and well, Aberforth reconciled with him. His old friend and lover
Gellert next to him, not a Dark Lord but a good man. It was an impossible
dream, and all the more painful for it.
"I see myself getting a pair of thick wooly socks for Christmas." He
finally answered. "People always get me books for Christmas, you see."
Harry didn't believe that for a moment. Socks were simply not something
that you could have a desperate desire for unless you were stuck barefoot
in the cold. He wasn't going to say anything though, as his question had
been quite personal.
"Orphans often see their parents returned to them, would I be correct in

guessing that this is what it shows you?" Dumbledore asked, fibbing at
little. The Mirror of Erised had not been exposed to orphans as far as he
could remember, but it seemed a reasonable guess.
"No sir, it doesn't." Harry answered with a small frown.
Perhaps if the Shaws had not adopted him, that is what it would have
showed him. He knew better now than to wish for his parents to be
returned to him. He had no doubt that they had loved him and it would be
good to see them, but things could not go back to what they could have
been. They would have tried to set limits on him that he had already
outgrown. They would do it out of love and concern, but it would have
infuriated him all the same. He didn't fit into the role of 'eleven year
old son' anymore.
"Truly?" Dumbledore queried with an eyebrow raised in surprise. "May I

ask what you see?"
Unlike the old wizard, Harry did not consider the image to be anything
massively private and he very much wanted to understand it.
Dumbledore listened attentively as Harry described what he saw, using a

light touch of Legilimency to see the image for himself.
"I may know what it represents, but let me ask you one more question to
make certain." He said when Harry was done talking, waiting for the boy
to nod his permission. "Are you happy with your foster parents?"
"Not really, no." Harry answered reluctantly. "It isn't a bad place to
live, but putting up with them is a bit of a chore sometimes."
Having used Legilimency just then to see if he was being told the truth,
Dumbledore knew that Harry considered any interaction with Robert and
Katherine Shaw to be a chore. He held back a sigh. No wonder that the
mirror did not show him his parents. Getting adopted only to have his
hopes of a loving family crushed by reality had no doubt been a heavy
blow to a young child.
"In that case, I believe that the mirror is showing you the image that
you associate with freedom and independence, yourself as a powerful
adult." He said, not letting his thoughts show.
"And the other figure?" Harry asked.
"I presume that it symbolizes your well hidden desire for companionship."
Dumbledore answered. "Believe me when I tell you this, young Harry; all
the power and riches in the world will not make you happy if you have no
one to share them with. This is a truth that the powerful often do not
realize until it is too late, if they do at all."
Headmaster and student both left the room after that, both of them
thoughtful.
Dumbledore pondered how this new information could be used to inspire a

sense of loyalty and responsibility towards Wizarding Britain in Harry
Potter.
As for Harry, he reassesed his life goals. He remembered that virtually

none of his books featured a solitary protagonist, something he had never
considered before but it seemed obvious now. The antagonist was always
alone, surrounded by minions at best, while the protagonist had friends.
He didn't have any worries about suddenly developing the urge to rule the
world, but he had to admit that he did feel a bit lonely. Perhaps making
a friend wouldn't be such a bad idea?
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Harry quickly discovered that making a friend was a great deal harder
than simply deciding that he would try it. He had not the foggiest idea
about how to make friends with someone after he'd spent months isolating
himself. None of his yearmates approached him anymore and he couldn't
quite bring himself to approach them either.
The status quo continued as the months slipped away and Harry eventually
gave it up as a bad job, deciding to try again next year.
Instead, he continued to spend his time studying and practicing magic,

sneaking into the Restricted Section as time allowed. He also made a few
more visits to Bathsheda Babbling to talk about runes and to Septima
Vector for Arithmancy. Both teachers were glad to discuss their subjects
with him, unaware of the idea that slowly took shape in his mind.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Albus Dumbledore noticed the continued isolation of Harry Potter and
sympathized with the boy, having plucked the reason for it out of his
mind. Trying again next year did indeed seem to be a reasonable course of
action.
He knew that Ginny Weasley would be coming to Hogwarts next year, so

perhaps he could arrange something there? The Weasleys were a staunchly
Light family and would no doubt quickly accept Harry into their midst.
She would be a Gryffindor of course, but that wouldn't be too difficult a
hurdle to get past.
He was still a bit disappointed by Harry's lack of interest in the

mystery of the third floor corridor, but he wasn't willing to manipulate
the boy into investigating it. Having already lost one student to the
club of a troll, he had no desire to lose another to the fangs of a
cerberus. Especially not when he was sure that Harry would play a crucial
role in the coming war.
There was a bit of a minor emergency in April, when Hagrid nearly burned
his hut down with a dragon of all things. Fortunately, Albus had become
aware of it just in time and contacted Charlie Weasley, who was able to
help sneak the little bundle of teeth and rage away from the school
before the half-giant found himself serving time in Azkaban for illegally
hatching a dragon.
Upon learning how exactly Hagrid had come by a dragon egg, Dumbledore
knew that Voldemort was on the move. With that, the incidents of killed
unicorns also suddenly made sense.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Quirrell and an increasingly impatient Voldemort found themselves stumped

by the final hurdle on their quest to get the Philosopher's Stone. All
the other defenses had been pathetic(except the cerberus, that one had
actually been dangerous), but this final one was proving incredibly
problematic.
And then Dumbledore showed up.
"Hello Tom."
"Shite."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"You wanted to see me, sir?" Harry asked as he stepped into the
headmaster's office.
"Indeed I did, my boy." Dumbledore replied jovially, gesturing to a

chair. "Please have a seat."
Harry did so, looking around the office curiously. There were all sorts
of odd devices scattered around, as well as a rather ostentatious gold
perch that was currently empty.
"Lemon drop?" Dumbledore offered, breaking Harry from his inspection of
the office.
"No thank you." Harry declined politely. "Professor Flitwick said that
you had something you needed to discuss with me?"
Dumbledore noticed with some dismay that Harry refused to make eye
contact with him now. The boy had apparently found a book on the Mind
Arts in the Restricted Section and was now practicing the most basic form
of defense against mental probing. Namely, not letting it take place to
begin with. Wise of him, but so very inconvenient for Dumbledore.
"Indeed I do Harry. It concerns your summer accomodations."
"What about them?" Harry asked, confused.
"You may not know this, but it was I who placed you with the Dursleys ten
years ago." Dumbledore admitted.
"Why?" Harry asked with an edge to his voice, his eyes narrowing a
fraction. He had no good memories of that place.
"Even though Voldemort was gone, many of his followers were still free
and would have killed you if given the chance. The nature of your
mother's death confered unto you a powerful protection, a protection I
was able to extend to encompass the entirety of your aunt's house for as
long you lived in the same home as her. I never expected that they would
treat you so poorly and for that you have my most sincere apologies."
"Alright, but how is that important now?" Harry asked a bit tersely,
wanting to move away from the subject of the Dursleys.
"Have you been at all curious as to why I declared the third floor
corridor off limits this year?"
"I was." Harry admitted. "But I decided not to check if you were joking
about the 'painful death' part after the incident with the troll."
Dumbledore's eyes dimmed as he remembered the girl who had died because
of his blunder. Now that he knew that Quirrell had been possessed, he
could also guess that the troll had been set loose deliberately. Contrary
to popular belief, the school wards did not give him omniscient knowledge
of all that went on in Hogwarts' walls.
"Behind that door was a series of traps that led to a great prize, a
prize designed to lure Voldemort into the open." He explained.
"Isn't he supposed to be dead?" Harry interrupted.
"He is supposed to be, but I have long suspected otherwise. Just the
other day, my suspicion was confirmed."
Harry sank deeper into his chair, recalling all the incidents that simply
screamed 'plot relevant event' that he'd dismissed so far.
"Please don't tell me that I'm destined to fight him or something." He

nearly begged. He was way too young to be fighting Dark Lords. Adventures
were supposed to start with killing giant rats in someone's cellar! This
was bullshit.
Dumbledore jerked violently in his chair and stared in pure shock, his
composure failing him as the boy rather correctly guessed at the truth.
"Oh my God, I am destined to fight him, aren't I?" Harry asked in

disbelief, staring at the old wizard's almost guilty expression.
Under his desk, Dumbledore fingered his wand. He'd just inadvertantly let
Harry know something that he hadn't been intending to reveal for quite a
few more years, but a simple Obliviate could fix the screw up.
...On the other hand, this could be used to gauge how the boy would react
to the prophecy. He could always obliviate him later.
"Well, you see Harry, there was a prophecy made before you were born..."
He said reluctantly, still not sure if this was wise.
Harry groaned. No matter where they popped up, be it books or games,

prophecies were always more trouble than they were worth.
"What does it say?"
"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... born to
those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies... and
the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark
Lord knows not... and either must die at the hand of the other for
neither can live while the other survives... the one with the power to
vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies..."
Dumbledore recited from memory, carefully watching Harry for a reaction.
Harry listened attentively and then sighed.
"At least this one is fairly straightforward and doesn't say anything
about my father being the Lord of Murder."
Dumbledore blinked. This one? Lord of Murder?
"I am going to have to ask you to explain that, my boy." He said

carefully, wondering if there was a second prophecy in play. That could
change everything.
"It's from an old computer game I played last year, nothing to be worried
about." Harry waved off.
Dumbledore wasn't entirely sure how games could be played on those muggle
contraptions or how there could be prophecies in a game, but he was
willing to take Harry's word for it since he felt that the boy was
telling the truth. He felt no small amount of relief about it too, as a
prophecy about a Lord of Murder sounded quite dire.
"So I'm assuming that this scar on my forehead is the mark that Voldemort
supposedly gave me?" Harry asked, tracing a finger over the mark in
question.
"It is." Dumbledore confirmed.
"What about this 'power he knows not'?" Harry pressed. "Any ideas on what
that's supposed to be?"
"I believe it to be love. You see, Voldemort has never known love and
does not understand it. It was your mother's love that allowed you to
survive his killing curse ten years ago."
Harry looked at the old headmaster oddly for several long moments,
wondering if he was serious. He certainly looked serious, but the words
he'd just uttered made no sense.
"You'll excuse me if I don't try to combat a ruthless Dark Lord that can
apparently cheat death with love. Hell, with the vague way it's worded,
the 'power he knows not' could be referring to my ability to lick my
elbows." He said slowly. "Speaking of which, are you sure that this
prophecy is genuine?"
Dumbledore decided not to comment on the first sentence. Even though he

was sure that he was correct about the secret power being love, he also
recognized the value of not putting all your eggs in one basket, which
was a bit ironic since that was exactly what he ended up needing to do
with Harry.
He was also quite impressed that Harry could apparently lick his elbows.
He hadn't thought that was possible.
"It is genuine, but I'm afraid that it would not matter even if it was
not. You see, Voldemort knows the first part of the prophecy as well and
he believes it, which makes it genuine."
"Right, self-fulfilling prophecy. The worst kind." Harry sighed.
"I must say that you are taking this remarkably well, my boy." Dumbledore
commented. Had he been making too big of a deal about telling Harry the
prophecy?
"Would freaking out make it not true?" Harry asked with rarely used
sarcasm.
"No." Dumbledore admitted. Though it would tell me that obliviation is

the way to go.
"So...now what?" Harry asked after a short silence had passed.

"I doubt you will need to worry about Voldemort for quite some time."
Dumbledore reassured. "He is less than a ghost at the moment and will
find it difficult to return to physical form. It is possible that he may
be prevented from doing so entirely, but he has always been crafty, so I
would not place my hopes on that possibility."
"That's something at least." Harry grumbled, only mildly reassured that

he wouldn't need to fight a full fledged Dark Lord in the immediate
future. "Why is he still floating around anyway?"
"I am not sure." Dumbledore fibbed. He had no intention of telling Harry

about the fact that he was a horcrux. "Now, I believe that we have
wandered greatly off topic. We were discussing your summer
accomodations."
"Yes, why were we doing that?"
"I will be blunt with you Harry, your home with the Shaws is not safe.
The Dursley household was protected by powerful blood wards, which was
why I placed you there to begin with. Anyone could attack you at your
current residence, so I am offering to let you stay at Hogwarts over the
summers." Dumbledore offered, fairly sure that the boy would accept
"That's very generous of you headmaster, but I'm afraid that I can't
accept. I have some things I want to do over the summer that I simply
can't do at Hogwarts." Harry declined politely. There were quite a few
things that he wanted to do over the summer holidays for which he did not
want any of the Hogwarts professors present. Things that now had a sense
of urgency after learning about that bloody prophecy.
"I must urge you to reconsider, Harry." Dumbledore insisted. "If any
wizards with ill intent were to find you there, you would be virtually
defenseless."
"Does anyone in the Wizarding World aside from you and professor
McGonagall even know where I live?" Harry asked with a frown.
"No..." Dumbledore admitted reluctantly.
"Then I will stay where I am for the moment. I will reconsider it if

things start getting more dangerous."
"Are you certain?" Dumbledore tried one last time. "You could do magic in
Hogwarts."
"I'm sure." Harry replied, knowing that he was going to be doing a lot of
magic over the summer, some of it probably illegal even outside of the
underage restriction.
"Very well." Dumbledore sighed. He could have tried forcing the issue but
that would likely cause Harry to resent him, which would be disastrous in
the future. "Please take this then. Keep it close and and say 'lemon
drop' if you find yourself in danger."
"How is a sock going to help me?" Harry asked, bewildered.
Dumbledore smiled and explained the concept of portkeys.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Alrighty, time for a few end-of-chapter notes.
Yes, Harry is a bit unlikable at the moment. That will shift over time.
I'm sure that some of you are upset that I killed Hermione. That's too
bad, but she should have remembered to put on her plot armor.
The quick progression is deliberate. Preteen protagonists are a pain in

the ass to write.
I know that the lack of character interaction is bad, but there will be
more from here on out.
In case any of you were worried, the scene with the Mirror of Erised is
not a foreshadowing for possible gayness on Harry's part. I'm too much of
a straight male to write a gay protagonist.
Chapter 3
First a response to a few people that continue to hold out hope that
Hermione will somehow continue play a part in this story...Nope, she's
deader than a door nail and staying that way. No ghosts either. Sorry xD.
Special thanks go once again to Joe Lawyer for beta-ing the chapter.
Now then, a merry Christmas or its equivalent to those of you who

celebrate it.
If you're like me and don't celebrate it then...uh, carry on as normal?
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Harry spent no more than three days at 74 Cromwell Road before he went
back to Diagon Alley to take care of some business. Robert and Katherine
had not been too happy about his newly developed sense of independence
and tried to protest, in response to which he may or may not have implied
that they would have their memories wiped if he didn't do this.
Losing access to him ten months out of a year was putting quite a crimp
in their plans to parade him around as their perfect son, which he knew
was likely to become a problem soon. They might be terrified of the idea
of some wizard messing about in their heads, but that wouldn't last
forever. Hopefully the situation wouldn't implode before he was ready to
be shot of them.
The reason for his visit to Diagon Alley was an appointment with the
solicitor to whom he'd sent a letter before the school year had ended.
He'd been a bit surprised at the speed with which the appointment had
been arranged. Either the Wizarding World had less legal business, or his
fame was being useful for a change and speeding things up.
That was still a while off however, as he'd come to Diagon Alley early
with the express intent of looking around without a Hogwarts professor
trying to direct his shopping.
All in all, he didn't find too much of interest that he hadn't seen on
his first trip through, but there was one thing he found that made the
entire trip worth it even if everything else turned out to be a bust.
"A Bag of Holding?" Harry asked admiringly, his eyes fixated greedily on
the unassuming little bag. "How much?"
"Lad, this here's a Mokeskin Pouch." The shopkeeper said chidingly. "And
I don't think a muggleborn could afford it, they're rare and expensive."
While Harry was glad to see that the simple disguise of normal clothes
and a cap worked to disguise his identity just as well as the first time,
he was more than a little annoyed by the condescending attitude. The
shopkeeper wasn't trying to be condescending and his tone was actually
rather friendly, but the casual assumption that muggleborns wouldn't have
enough money to buy the good stuff was still grating.
Granted, Harry was not exactly a muggleborn, but he was honestly

wondering about the lack of muggleborn Dark Lords if this was the kind of
shit they had to put up with all the time.
And the shopkeeper was also wrong. That thing was a Bag of Holding, end
of discussion. What the hell was a moke anyway?
"How much is it?" Harry repeated himself.
The shopkeeper sighed in exasperation at the persistent boy. "Two hundred

galleons."
"That is pretty expensive." Harry agreed.
"I told you-"
"I'll have to come back with the money later, could you reserve it for
me?" He kept on talking, not letting the shopkeeper finish the 'I told
you so'.
"You mean you can afford it?" The shopkeeper asked in surprise.
"Yes." Harry answered tersely.

Friggin' Diagon Alley shopkeepers should be replaced with NPC's. They'd
be less annoying that way.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"So Mr. Potter, what can we do for you today?" The solicitor said
eagerly. Representing the Boy-Who-Lived would be a huge coup for him.
"I would like to take legal action against Enid Pennifold, the author of
the Harry Potter book series, for using my name without permission."
Harry answered simply.
"I see." The solicitor said thoughtfully. "If she has truly been using
your name without permission then you certainly have legal grounds to do
so, but I must warn you that removing the books themselves from
circulation will likely prove impossible at this point."
"I thought as much." Harry admitted. "I'm actually more interested in

profiting from it."
"You don't care what she wrote about you?" The solicitor asked with
raised eyebrows.
"As you said yourself, removing the books from circulation will be
impossible, so the damage is already done. A percentage of past and
future profits made from these books will have to do. If at all possible
I would like this settled quietly and without media interference."
"That we can certainly do." The solicitor agreed. "I will send you an owl
once the preliminary negotiations are finished."
Harry thanked the man and shook his hand, surprised but pleased that
things had been so simple.
Now it was time to go to Gringotts and withdraw the money for the Bag of
Holding.
And for another talk with Gorefist after that. He had a feeling that he
would not be the goblins favorite person after this talk, so it was
better to withdraw the money first.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"Mr. Potter, to what do I owe the pleasure this year?" Gorefist asked,
his tone making it clear that it was not a pleasure of any kind.
"I just came to warn you that I will be receiving a substantial deposit
of money to my vault sometime in the near future." Harry said evenly.
"I am afraid there is a 200 galleon fee attached for every two thousand
galleons deposited." Gorefist grinned nastily.
"Not this time there isn't." Harry disagreed calmly, having expected
something of the sort. "In fact, you will also be lowering the fee on our
previous arrangement down to 5%."
"Why would I do that?" The goblin asked, his grin becoming decidedly
uglier.
"Because if you don't, I will simply stop using the services of your
bank."
Gorefist's grin faltered. If the Potter heir pulled all his gold out of
Gringotts, he would be left the manager of an empty vault. He would be a
laughing stock. Even if there was a high likelihood of the Potter fortune
getting stolen outside of Gringotts, that wouldn't help him.
"You cannot use any other bank!" He snarled. "Our treaty with the
Ministry of Magic forbids it."
Ah yes, the Goblin-Wizard Treaty of 1726, which explicitly states that no

ICW member nation would use any bank other than Gringotts. The goblins
had been able to force that concession from wizardkind after a two decade
long war.
Unfortunately for them, they had not looked at the small print, which
said that in return for this they agreed to be bound by the laws of the
ICW and the local Ministries of Magic forevermore, essentially turning
the goblins into a vassal nation. The full treaty was a great deal more
verbose of course, but that was the gist of it. This being a magical
contract, it was still in effect.
Except in America. The American wizards had helped their muggle

counterparts throw off the control of Britain during the American
Revolution, but instead of fighting British wizards, they'd elected to
slaughter the goblins.
North America was still technically part of the ICW, but their relations
with Europe were colder than one of Snape's smiles.
The goblins had rebelled several times against wizards after that. In
fact, every time that the Ministry breached the treaty in the slightest
way, the situation had erupted into violence. That was why the goblins
stuck so scrupulously to the letter of any agreements these days, it was
easier to find loopholes that way.
Humans and goblins had been enemies since time immemorial, always warring
against each other for one reason or another, but mostly for the simple
fact that both seemed to be intolerant dicks with a superiority complex.
When wizards had discovered the secrets of wandlore, the balance had
begun tipping in favor of humanity. Goblins had been trying to figure out
a way to make wands for themselves ever since, with no success. After the
1726 Treaty, they were banned from using them, alongside every other non-
human.
The goblins had never forgiven that bit of treachery, even though they
would have done the exact same thing if given half a chance.
Harry had a long time to consider how to prevent himself from getting
swindled in the future after his first meeting with Gorefist, so he'd
researched the history of the goblins and their conflict against wizards
in particular and humans in general with a dedication that would have
made Binns proud.
He'd discovered that greed was an integral part of the goblin psyche.
Greed drove the short but vicious creatures more than any other impulse.
"I never said anything about using another bank." Harry replied evenly.
"Where will you keep your gold then, wizard?" Gorefist demanded, twisting
the last word into an insult.
"That is no concern of yours, goblin." Harry emulated, though he

suspected that he hadn't managed to put as much venom into it as his
account manager.
Truthfully, he had nothing personal against the goblins, but he wasn't

going to let himself get robbed just because they were nursing an old
grudge against wizards.
Gorefist snarled again, slamming his hand angrily against his desk.
Harry had to fight hard not to jump. They might be midgets, but goblins
were still pretty scary.
"You cannot withdraw from the main Potter vault until you are of age."
Gorefist reminded him angrily.
"I know, I am intending to use that time to improve my ability to guard

my gold." Harry replied, still keeping his voice calm and even.
"A hundred galleons for every two thousand and 15% for the transfers out
of your trust vault." Gorefist growled out, seeing that the boy was dead
serious.
"seventy five galleons for every six thousand and 5% for the transfers."
"One hundred galleons for every three thousand and 13% for the
transfers."
"Seventy for every five thousand and 4% for the transfers."
"That is not how you negotiate, wizard!" Gorefist snapped in outrage.

"Eighty for every four thousand and 10% for the transfers."
"You didn't seem bothered about charging unfairly exorbitant fees to me

last year, I'm not going to be bothered about negotiation protocol now."
Harry replied with a mocking smirk. "Fifty for every five thousand and 3%
for the transfers."
Gorefist roared in outrage and gripped his desk hard enough that his
claws gouged the wood.
"Fine! We are agreed, NOW GET OUT!"
Harry simply nodded and left the office, leaving behind a fuming goblin
that spent the next twenty minutes inventively cursing his ancestry in
Gobbledegook.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Harry spent those same twenty minutes walking off his adrenaline rush.
He'd been preparing for that confrontation for months, but it had been a
lot more intense than he'd expected.
So very satisfying though.
Now he just needed to figure out where he was going to put all that gold
in the event that he actually needed to take it out of Gringotts. He
somehow doubted that the Bag of Holding that he was even now going to buy
would hold all of it.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
A few days later.
Harry blinked at the sight of the house elf in his room, baffled as to
why one of the excitable creatures would be here.
The house elf gave a bow so low that his long nose touched the floor.
"Hello?" Harry greeted, bemused.
"Harry Potter." The house elf exclaimed loudly enough to make Harry glad
that his room was fairly far out of the way. "So long has Dobby wanted to
meet you, sir. Such an honor it is."
Harry winced preemptively, knowing that his next words were likely to
elicit a dramatic reaction. Unfortunately, the alternative was to treat
the house elf like a lesser creature and he just couldn't do that.
Judging by the stained pillowcase that Dobby was wearing, he got enough
of that already.
"Would you like to sit down?"
"S-sit down?!" Dobby wailed predictably. "Never...never ever..." There

was a moment of incomprehensible blubbering before Dobby made sense
again. "Never has Dobby been asked to sit down by a wizard! Like an
equal."
"Not a Hogwarts elf then?" Harry asked, having enough experience with
house elves to know that trying to comfort one was liable to just set off
another round of hysteria. He felt bad for the little creatures,
especially this one since he seemed to be bonded to a less than pleasant
master, but attracting the attention of his foster parents wouldn't help
anyone.
"No, sir." Dobby answered, much more calmly now. "But Dobby has come to
warn Harry Potter! Harry Potter must not go back to Hogwarts!"
"Why not?"
"There is a plot, Harry Potter. A plot to make terrible things happen at

Hogwarts. Dobby tried to stop Harry Potter from getting mail from his
friends at Hogwarts to make him not want to go back, but Harry Potter was
not getting any mail from his friends!"
Harry's lips twitched in humor. He probably should be upset about a house

elf trying to screen his mail, but the thought of Dobby attempting it,
only to discover that he wasn't getting any letters was just too funny.
"I'm afraid I haven't made any friends the past year." Harry explained.
"No friends? The great Harry Potter has no friends?" Dobby asked,
blinking in apparent bafflement.
"Better no friends than bad friends." Harry shrugged, not really wanting
to explain his entire situation. The two people who had first attempted
to befriend him, Ron Weasley and Draco Malfoy, would definitely fit into
the 'bad friend' category at least.
"Harry Potter is wise." Dobby stated, nodding compulsively as if he'd

just heard something profound. "So Harry Potter will understand that he
must not return to Hogwarts."
"Can you tell me what this terrible plot is?" Harry asked.
"Dobby cannot, sir."
Of course, that would be a much more direct betrayal than merely coming
to warn him.
"It has something to do with Voldemort, doesn't it?" Harry sighed in

resignation. This was practically a textbook example of foreshadowing and
given the prophecy that Dumbledore had told him at the end of first
year...
"Say not the name!" Dobby screeched, clapping his hands over his floppy
ears.
"Right, so does it have anything to do with him?" Harry asked again, this
time with an eyeroll.
"No sir, not with He-Who-Must-Not-be-named." The house elf answered.
"It doesn't?" Harry said in surprise. "Who does it have to do with then?"
For a moment, Dobby looked as if he was going to answer, but then he
started smashing his head against the nearest hard surface.
"Alright, alright! I get it! You can't answer." Harry cried quickly, now
wanting the excitable but friendly house elf hurting himself.
"Dobby is sorry, Harry Potter sir!" Dobby wailed. "Dobby cannot betray
the masters."
"It's alright, I understand." Harry tried to reassure. "I'm guessing you

don't like serving your current masters?"
"Dobby does not." The house elf confirmed, wringing his ears wretchedly.
"Dobby wants to be free."
Harry grimaced. For a house elf to say that they wanted to be free,
whoever Dobby was bonded to had to be really bad.
"I might have an idea about how to get you free, would you like to hear
it?" He asked.
Dobby nodded frantically.
Harry leaned close to the house elf in a conspiratorial fashion.

"Alright, here's what you do..."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
That same day, Dobby returned to Malfoy Manor and did not immediately
begin punishing himself for going to warn Harry Potter of the impending
danger at Hogwarts. Soon, there would be no more need to punish himself,
so Dobby felt that he could get away with a little rebellion.
The next morning, before any of the Malfoys woke up, Dobby did not start
making breakfast as he usually did. Instead he went to the closest forest
and looked for the slimiest, most disgusting creature he could find. This
turned out to be a regular slug, but it was more than suitable for the
purpose.
He put this slug into one of Lucius' socks and prepared it for the man as
he always did in the mornings. This was the plan that the great Harry
Potter had suggested and Dobby was sure that it would work. It was a very
clever plan.
Unfortunately, things do not always go according to plan.
When Lucius slid his foot into the sock, he quickly discovered the slimy
surprise and pulled it off, staring at his soiled foot in disgust.
"Elf! What is the meaning of this? What have you done" The blond man
demanded harshly.
Dobby had been standing nearby, waiting with bated breath for the moment
when his master would throw the sock away in disgust and he could swoop
in to grab it out of the air, thereby freeing himself.
But Lucious had not thrown the sock away in disgust, holding it away from
him instead.
Compelled by the bond, Dobby confessed to attempting to engineer his own

freedom, though the question was vague enough that he was able to leave
out any mention of Harry Potter or his unauthorized trip.
Lucius, infuriated at the mere notion that his house elf thought it could
trick him like this and worse, nearly succeeding, pulled out his wand and
angrily fired off a killing curse. He momentarily regretted killing his
servant, but quickly rationalized that it was better than having a house
elf around that thought it was clever.
Harry hadn't been too concerned when Dobby hadn't come back the next day.
When the second day passed however, he did get concerned. By the time
that the third day rolled around, he had accepted the fact that his plan
had failed and hoped that the consequences for Dobby hadn't been too
dire. He feared that they had been, given what little he knew of the
house elf's masters.
It was also on this day that he received his solicitor's owl.
Mr Potter,
I have spoken to Ms. Pennifold and explained to her your displeasure at

how she used your name to sell her books.
She was quite mortified to hear of this. Apparently, she wrote the first
one in a fit of inspiration after the fall of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named
and never intended to publish it, but was persuaded into doing so by a
friend and things simply snowballed from there.
She agreed to pay you a sum of thirty thousand galleons as compensation,

40% of any future sales, as well as agreeing to add a disclaimer to the
effect of the books being entirely fictional. Overall it is considerably
more generous than what I had expected to get out of this for so little
effort. Ms. Pennifold has also asked if you would be willing to
participate in a book signing to endorse future sales some time in the
future.
Harry put down the letter and rubbed his face tiredly. Great. Now he was
not just worried about what had happened to Dobby, but he was also
feeling like a jerk for siccing a lawyer on a woman that had no malicious
intent with her books, even if they were bloody ridiculous. As for the
book signing idea...yeah, he had absolutely no desire to do that right
now, maybe not ever.
This day was already shaping up to be simply spectacular and it wasn't
even noon. Now all he needed was...
"Harry? Remember that we're having important visitors over in the

evening. Come down so that we can go over the itinerary again." Katherine
Shaw's voice came from the intercom that they had felt the need to
install in his room for some reason.
Harry groaned miserably. He'd forgotten all about that stupid dinner
party. The day officially sucked.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Harry approached the doors of Potter Manor with some trepidation. All of
these old manor houses were said to be heavily warded and he was taking a
bit of a gamble in assuming that the wards would recognize him as a
Potter himself. They should, but he wasn't 100% sure that they would.
It was a pretty impressive place and he was sure that the Shaws would
want to move in if they knew about it. At the very least, they would
probably want to take all the antique furniture that was undoubtedly in
there.
Deciding to just get on with it, he grabbed the doorknob and tried to
turn it. It didn't budge, but it did prick his palm to taste his blood.
With a brief shimmer, the doors swung open.
Smiling with mixed relief and eagerness, Harry wandered into the manor,
turning his head in every direction in an attempt to take in the foyer.
It was a bit on the ostentatious side for his taste, but it was his.
"Hello? Is anyone here?" He called. He knew there wouldn't be any people,

but there might be portraits or house elves.
A tiny blur barreling into his legs nearly caused him to lash out with an
instinctive burst of wandless magic, restrained at the last moment.
"Master Potter sir!" The house elf wailed in an unpleasantly high female
pitch. "You's finally came! Teeny was waiting for so long!"
Harry smiled awkwardly and patted her head as the little house elf
continued to blubber against his leg. What do you say to calm down a
hysterical house elf?"
"Umm, sorry?" He ventured.
Teeny's horrified gasp let him know that it may not have been the right
thing to say.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Fortunately, calming Teeny down didn't take too much effort once the
initial hysteria was out of the way. The small house elf had all but
demanded to be bonded to him immediately after that. Harry was still a
bit iffy on the subject of having a thinking creature bound to him in
lifelong servitude, but Teeny's wobbling lower lip and watering eyes
every time he stalled eventually wore down his resistance and he gave in.
She'd gone into a cooking frenzy after that, determined to feed him the
best meal he'd ever had and Harry didn't have the heart to tell her that
he'd already eaten.
While Teeny cooked, Harry decided to explore the manor, wondering if he

might find portraits of any relatives. He knew that they were just
imprints of people, but it would still be nice to talk to them.
As it turned out, he found them.
"Hello?" He called to the sleeping portraits of a man and woman in what

he guessed were their late middle ages, though it was hard to be sure
with wizards and witches.
They woke up, looking momentarily confused but quickly focused on him.
"Hello, are you our grandson?" The dignified looking woman asked
hopefully.
"I'm Harry." He replied simply.
"James and Lily's boy." The older man with typically messy Potter hair
and glasses said, delight in his tone. "You are our grandson. We're
Charlus and Dorea Potter, your father's parents."
"Can you tell me about them?" Harry asked. He hadn't been willing to ask
this of the Hogwarts professors, but faced with the portraits of his
grandparents, he could finally do so.
"Oh, I suppose that means that they weren't able to hide from Voldemort
then." Dorea said sorrowfully. "I knew that they shouldn't have trusted
Dumbledore."
"What do you mean?" Harry asked warily. He had thought that the old
headmaster was a bit strange but trustworthy enough.
"My wife has never had a very high opinion of Dumbledore." Charlus
answered.
"Don't sugarcoat it, Charlus." Dorea scoffed. "I wouldn't trust that old
manipulator as far as I could throw him."
"Yes well, though my own opinion of the man isn't as bad as my wife's, I
would urge you to keep in mind that Dumbledore didn't get to where he is
now without being more than a bit ruthless." Charlus added.
Harry nodded slowly. The headmaster had a disarming personality and

projected the image of a kindly, wise old wizard well, but Charlus had a
point. Dumbledore couldn't have become the most powerful wizard and most
prominent politician in all of Europe just by being nice. He would have
to keep that in mind in the future.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
A few hours later, the meal Teeny had prepared was eaten and the
conversation with the portraits of his grandparents had tapered off.
Harry hadn't seen much of the manor by that point and decided to explore
it further.
It was nothing spectacular for the most part, just a lot of bedrooms,
bathrooms and miscellaneous other things that held no interest for him,
but a few things did stand out.
The first was the library. It wasn't as massive as the one in Hogwarts
and he spotted a lot of the same texts, but there were a few that looked
to be unique to the Potter family.
The second was deep in the basement. It seemed like nothing more than a
bare stone room, if not for a few things. The location and thick walls
would be enough to mark it as a room used for rituals, but what truly
clinched it was the box containing an ornate knife in front of it.
It was a pretty thing with a slightly curved silver blade and a gold
enameled hilt. A good sized ruby was set at the end of the hilt, glinting
in the low light.
Harry was exceptionally pleased to have found such a knife. Rituals could
technically be done with any kind of blade, but specialized ritual blades
were known to have superior results.
He was eager to get started on this. He had been secretly planning out a
ritual ever since he'd started learning about them after all.
Ever since that first conversation with professor Babbling, Harry had
been thinking of ways to apply runes to himself as a means of bolstering
his physical and magical power.
After getting told that tattoos wouldn't work, he had begun considering
more...extreme...measures.
The discussions with professor Vector had helped him calculate what would
work and what wouldn't.
Wizard raised children came into Hogwarts with a lot of advantages, but
if there was one thing that a muggle upbringing had going for it, it was
the years spent in primary school.
Arithmancy wasn't the same as mathemathics, but it was close enough that
there was quite a bit of overlap.
A lot of the things he'd wanted to figure out were beyond Harry, even if
he'd been working on Arithmancy in his free time, but he had found a
workaround for that too.
The internet was full of mathemathicians that would solve any interesting
looking problem on a lark. All Harry had needed to do was post his
problem on a forum and wait for a reply. As long as he changed the names
of some of the variables and took out the bits that would make no sense
without magic being involved, he was almost guaranteed to receive an
answer that would work for him. It took some effort to dance around the
issue of magic, but it could be done.
This kind of cheating workaround had told him that merely using any old
knife to carve runes into his flesh wouldn't have enough power behind it.
He would either need a specially made ritual knife that was designed to
channel magic, or he would need to literally brand the runes into his
skin with a red hot branding iron. That was the only sacrifice he could
think of that was great enough to make the runes work in the way he
wanted them to without a proper knife.
Harry was naturally relieved to have found the ritual knife. He felt
enough trepidation at the thought of carving the runes into his skin with
a knife that he was not at all certain that he would be able to go
through with a branding.
He'd already told Teeny that she was not to come into the ritual chamber
for any reason no matter what she felt or heard until he called her.
Rituals were delicate things and having any extra thinking minds present
was always a bad idea.
Now all that was left to do was to actually step into the circle and
start the ritual, which was proving to be much harder than he expected.
It was all well and good to plan this thing out, but now that he'd come
to the point where he would have seven runes carved into his back by a
magically floating knife, he was discovering that much of his courage had
deserted him.
He'd expected that this might be the case, which was why the ritual was
set up in such a way that it could not be stopped once it was started.
Ironically, this made it even harder to make the first step.
It had to be this way though. He couldn't afford to chicken out midway.

The rune set was made to work together and carving only part of it would
likely be disastrous for him.
He just had to step into the circle and get started.
Any day now.
Yep.
Harry let out a gusty sigh, closed his eyes and stepped into it with a
sense of determined resignation. If he hadn't heard of that bloody
prophecy, he might have put this off until he was older. He might even
have decided that the price wasn't worth the payout.
But now he knew that he had a not-quite-dead Dark Lord after his hide and
he strongly doubted that the tosser would be considerate enough to wait
until Harry was ready for him. He wanted to live and he was sure that he
could endure a little pain now if it helped him survive later. Standing
naked in a cold stone room and staring aprehensively at the inert ritual
knife wouldn't do him any good.
Besides, this particular ritual would have more to work with if it was
done before puberty kicked in properly.
With another sigh to calm down his nerves, he knelt into the center of
the ritual circle, naked as the day he was born.
"Raido." He said, focusing on the rune even as he felt the petrification

effect worked into the ritual kick in.
Ritual. Journey. Freedom from imprisonment. Self-mastery.
The rune would mark the start of his ritual, as well as symbolize that
the runes would continue to influence him as he grew, making him more
than he would have been without them. It symbolized that he was willfully
changing his body in ways that people normally can't and release him from
the constraints of normal growth.
The knife started carving the blocky 'R' shaped rune into the base of his
neck and the only thing that stopped Harry from screaming was the
petrification. He did his absolute best to stay focused on the meaning of
the rune and hoped it would work as intended.
When it was over, Harry took a few minutes to get his breath back and
blink the tears out of his eyes. It had been worse than he'd expected and
he was doubly glad that he had a proper ritual knife. If getting cut was
this bad, then a branding would have been unbearable.
He could feel it working though. He could feel his magic flowing into the
rune, exploring the new channel and almost eagerly waiting for the next
one, as if it knew that it wasn't over yet.
When he felt ready, he spoke the next one.
"Gebo."
Trade. Sacrifice. Balance. Exchanged powers. Magical exchange.
A rune to symbolize the sacrifice he was making in exchange for the

benefits he wanted. Blood, pain and the permanent scarring of his flesh
in exchange for the power of the runes. It looked like an 'X' and it was
carved under Raido, along his spine.
"Inguz."
Internal growth. Personal development. Gestation process. Male sexuality.
This rune was basically focused on speeding his maturation. He wanted to

grow faster, both because adulthood meant freedom and because he did not
want to be a child when Voldemort eventually clawed his way back to life.
It was represented by a tilted square.
"Uruz."
Life force, Physical health. Healing. Vital formative force. Stamina.

Vitality. Virility. Vigor. Endurance. Raw primal power.
A rune meant to increase the potency of his body, granting greater

physical strength and endurance as well as speeding up natural healing.
It was a simple looking rune, merely two lines connected by a third at
the top, with the second one being shorter to make the whole rune a bit
slanted.
"Thurisaz."
Giant. Active defensive force. Regenerative catalyst. Reactive and

directed force.
Another rune to increase his endurance and durability, channel magic to

his muscles and bones, make him more resistant to injury, and to further
speed the healing properties of Uruz. It looked like an angular 'P', but
with the protruding part written in the middle instead of on top.
"Hagalaz."
Disruption. Change according to ideals. Power beyond human ability to

harness. Perfect pattern.
A rune that signified that what he wanted was a body stronger than should
be naturally his. A rune that was intended to direct the other runes into
the purpose of improving him. It looked very much like an 'H', except for
the middle line having a downward slant.
"Wunjo."
Harmony of like forces. Bonding. Shared aims. Optimism. Prosperity.
The final rune in the set, made to bind them all together into a unified
beneficial purpose instead of having each of them working independently.
It looked like an angular 'P'.
The ritual complete, Harry collapsed forward and gulped down deep breaths
of air as he waited for the burning pain across the length of his spine
to subside. He could feel his magic moving towards the newly carved
runes, leaving him even more drained than the pain had already done.
And then he suddenly became aware of just how incredibly hungry he was.
"Teeny." He croaked.
The house elf appeared and immediately cried in dismay at seeing his
bloodied back.
"Teeny, I need food. A lot of it." Harry went on, ignoring her panic. He
could barely think about anything save for the emptiness of his stomach
right now.
Glad to have a direction, Teeny apparated him into the kitchen, set a
bowl of fruit in front of him and started cooking up a storm.
Harry ate four apples, six bananas, two oranges and still felt hungry.
The runes on his back continued to siphon away his strength without
pause, slowly transforming from open wounds into scars.
Teeny noticed that he'd run out of food and put a bowl of salad in front
of him. It was meant to come after the soup, but she couldn't bear to
make him wait when he was obviously starving.
It was good to be needed again.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Harry's appetite eventually calmed down and he asked Teeny to apparate

him back to his foster parents. He'd been gone for the whole day this
time and he didn't want them to be anymore pissy than strictly necessary.
"Harry, is that you?" Katherine's voice came from a bathroom while he was
on the way to his room.
"Yes, it's me." He called back without stopping, wanting to do nothing

more than fall asleep.
"Robert and I got an invitation to the opera while you were gone, so
you'll have the house to yourself."
Harry thanked whichever deity had decided to be merciful today. The opera
was one of those things that they left him behind for, probably thinking
that it would make them look bad to drag a kid along for something like
that.
"Great, have fun." He said back, managing to actually sound sincere.

Whoever had invited them must be relatively important if she wasn't even
bothering to ask where he'd been all day.
Katherine chose that moment to step out of the bathroom.
"How do I look?" She asked, making little turns so that he could see more
of her.
She did this sometimes, fishing for compliments from a child like the
self-obsessed bint that she was. Harry had always given her the expected
empty compliment that he didn't really mean.
She did genuinely look good though. At thirty two years old, she was
still pretty young and her healthy diet and frequent exercise kept her
looking beautiful. Combined with the hours she'd no doubt spent in front
of a mirror and the tight black dress she was wearing, she was nothing
short of stunning.
As Harry noticed this, he felt the blood rush between his legs and a
strange squirming sensation started up in his lower abdomen. His body
heated up and he felt his eyes getting pulled to her legs and breasts.
The runes on his back prickled. His hands twitched with the sudden desire
to feel if her arse was as tight as it looked.
A wave of horror made his face go white as he realized what he was

thinking.
"You look great." He managed to force out. "Excuse me, I have something I
need to do."
He fled to his room before she could do more than look confused by his
strange behavior.
As soon as he was in his room and safely away from a woman three times
his age that he suddenly found inexplicably sexy, he buried his head into
a pillow and screamed in frustration at his own stupidity.
He was a moron. A bloody colossal moron the likes of which the world had
never seen.
The runes had more meanings than the ones he'd focused on during the
ritual. Professor Babbling had warned him that these types of runes could
have unexpected effects.
Uruz also meant uncontrolled rage, misdirected force and brutality.

Thurisaz also meant aggressive male sexuality and male sexual prowess.
And those were just two runes. He knew that the others meant a whole host
of other things that were no doubt contributing to his suddenly inflammed
hormones, though those two were definitely the worst. He'd wanted to
speed up his maturation and that's what he was getting, but he was also
having all the effects of puberty supercharged to completely stupid
levels.
This was not good. In fact, he would go so far as to call it bad.
There was no way he'd be able to function like a normal human being in
Hogwarts if this started happening every time he saw a pretty girl. And
what if something made him angry? Would he even be able to control
himself?
Maybe, just maybe, the Ministry restrictions weren't all because they
were a bunch of weak willed weenies too scared of magic to use it to the
fullest.
Another realization interrupted his cursing streak. He had to hide the
runes or he'd be in deep shit if someone saw them. He was nowhere near
ready to openly challenge the Ministry on this.
The only way that he knew how to hide them in any kind of practical
manner was with another ritual.
"Shite."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"We warned you that it wasn't a good idea." Charlus was saying, sounding
far too smug for a painting.
"It'll be fine as long as I can control it." Harry defended. Despite the
unexpected side effects, he still thought that the ritual was an overall
success.
"Can you control it?" Dorea asked pointedly.
"...maybe." Harry said after a long moment. "I've already prepared

another ritual that should work to improve my memory and willpower, as
well as hiding my mind and runes."
"Harry, your first rune set was focused strictly on your body. Do you
really think it's wise to use runes that affect your mind?" Charlus asked
with some exasperation.
Harry swallowed. No, he did not think it was wise, but he didn't have
much choice. He couldn't allow his mind to remain an open book for a
skilled enough legilimancer. He couldn't allow his runes to stay visible.
He couldn't allow the new impulses of his body to have this much power
over him.
The first rune set remained a constant drain on his magic and continued
to give him a voracious appetite, which he knew would be the case until
he stopped growing. Fortunately, the drain was not so severe that it
would kill him, but a portion of his magic would be constantly shunted
towards improving his growth and thus be unusable for spells.
"It'll be fine. I'm using less volatile runes this time and only three of
them instead of seven." He said with more confidence than he honestly
felt.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
After coming home for the summer, Harry had reserached how much
correlation there was between muggle and wizarding knowledge of Norse
runes.
To his surprise, it was identical.
This had emboldened him with the idea to use symbols that were completely
foreign to the knowledge of British wizards.
He had always intended to hide his mind with a rune, and his original
idea had been to use the Japanese kanji for Void to do it.
After what had happened with his first rune set, he'd decided that
something else would probably be better. He was just a bit nervous about
the possibility of turning himself into a mindless vegetable if he carved
Void into his forehead.
In the end he had decided to use a completely fictional set of runes.

Professor Babbling had warned him about making up random squiggles and
assigning them meaning himself, but he wasn't making these up himself.
Just because these runes happened to belong to the Avariel, a fictional

race of winged elves from the Forgotten Realms, it didn't make them
meaningless.
Theoretically.
"Da'Roir."
Remembrance. Memory. The Strength of Stones.
A rune that looked like a par of stylized mirrored J's with a another
stylized bar connecting them just beneath the top. It would improve his
memory and bolster his willpower to be as immovable as rock.
The ritual knife carved the rune into the back of his head, scraping
across his skull as it cut through hair and flesh.
When it was finished and his magic flowed into the new rune, he felt a
burst of memory.
A thin and pale abomination of a man with red eyes. His mother begging
for his life, offering hers in exchange. The specifics written in her own
blood and hidden under the carpet. Her life for his, willingly given. The
greatest sacrifice. The green flash of a killing curse. Voldemort
destroyed in the backlash as he tried to violate the blood contract that
he had unknowingly agreed to when he killed his mother.
Harry gasped for air as the short but intense memory played out. Tears
gathered in his eyes that had nothing to do with the pain throbbing in
the back of his head. He could remember his mother, he knew her voice and
face. Knew that she had given everything to protect him.
A few more hazy memories came from the fog of infancy.
His father, a messy haired man with glasses. More carefree than his
mother but with the same faintly grim air about him.
Another, more playful man with a barking laugh that sometimes transformed
into a big black dog the way that McGonagall could transform into a cat
and let him ride on his back. Sirius.
A very short man with grubby skin and watery eyes. Peter.
Sirius finding him in the wreckage, giving him to Hagrid. The half-giant
delivering him to Dumbledore and Dumbledore in turn dropping him off on
the Dursleys doorstep. Petunia's attempts to treat him like family but
her demeanor steadily souring as he continued to display accidental
magic.
It took him nearly an hour to calm his emotions enough to continue the
ritual.
"Arhain."
Stealth. Secrets. Shadows. The Dark of Night.
A stylized cross, with the horizontal line curling in opposing directions

at both ends. Carved just under his right collarbone.
A rune to hide his other runes, showing others only the unmarked flesh
they expected to see, lightning bolt scar not included. The same effect
as an exceptionally powerful Notice-Me-Not charm that could not be
dispelled or pierced without his permission.
"Aul'El."
That Which Cannot be Known or Comprehended.
It looked like a stylized letter 'A', but with the connecting line
looping back on the left side. The last rune in the set of three, carved
into the middle of his forehead.
It would not build barriers around his mind in the way of Occlumency.
Rather, it would make it utterly impossible for anyone but him to
understand his thoughts and memories. Any legilimancer that tried to
invade his mind would gain nothing but confusion.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Harry settled into his seat on the Hogwarts Express and pulled a book
from his Bag of Holding.
He expected that his second year at Hogwarts would be more eventful than
his first. There was the unknown plot that Dobby had warned him off, as
well as his continued study of magic.
Perhaps the most difficult thing would be his attempts to make a friend.
He honestly had no idea how to go about doing that. Initiating social
contact was most definitely not one of his strengths. Perhaps his
housemates will have forgotten some of his admittedly rude responses to
their initial attempts to talk to him and try again? One could only hope.
After a lot of thinking, he could admit to himself that he may

have...overreacted a bit to their fixation on his fame. Most of them had
no doubt been brought up hearing ridiculous stories about the Boy-Who-
Lived. It wasn't their fault that their parents had no sense of
objectivity and kept filling their heads with nonsense. He would have to
try not to be so snappish this year if it happened again.
He wondered how his runes would affect his temper. He hadn't had the
opportunity to find out just yet.
The powerful surges of desire every time he saw a pretty woman still
occurred, but he'd learned to control the effects to some extent, or at
least conceal them.
He never thought he'd be glad for the silly tailoring of the Hogwarts
robes, but he was. They did a far better job of hiding erections than
just pants. If not for the robes, he was quite sure that he would have
died of embarrassment in his Astronomy classes. Professor Sinistra would
have inevitably noticed his persistent little issue, as she often had to
get quite close to students to help adjust their telescopes and she was a
beautiful woman.
Still, for all the grief that his rune enhanced hormones promised to give
him, he was happy with the results. He'd already heard some comments
about how he was growing like a weed and it had been barely over a month
since the ritual. For a boy who had always been on the short side, that
was well worth the discomfort.
He'd wanted to do some more rituals, but he had to bow to the wisdom of
his grandparents(or that of their portraits at any rate) and the
mothering of Teeny. Overdoing it was probably not a good idea. For all
his initial apprehension about going through with it, he now found
himself almost eager to do another. Yes, it was painful. Very painful
even. But the pain soon faded into memory and the runes stayed forever.
Well, there would be plenty of downtime from rituals while he was at

Hogwarts. He somehow doubted that the staff would look the other way if
they learned that a student was practicing ritualistic self-
scarrification. Too many eyes at the school to risk it.
No matter though, there were plenty of other things to learn.
Unfortunately, he was almost sure that DADA would continue to be a

disappointment. He'd been initially excited to hear that a hero of sorts
had taken the post, but that excitement had guttered out when he'd
skimmed over the books that the man had assigned.
For one thing, every single one of them read like a novel rather than an
instructional text. Even worse, they were filled with nonsense and
completely pointless information. The man claimed to have briefly fought
a werewolf barehanded in one of those books for example.
Now, Harry didn't know too much about what a real werewolf was like, but
if they bore the slightest resemblance to the werewolves of muggle
fiction, then trying to fight them up close and unarmed for any length of
time was a great way to die messily. You'd need to be a real mountain of
a man in thick armor and a nice big sword to survive a melee fight with
the beasts. Judging by the picture he'd seen of Gilderoy Lockhart, he
was...not.
He could be wrong of course, because he as previously noted didn't know

much about what real werewolves were like. They could be pushovers for
all he knew.
He rather doubted it though.
The door to the cabin opened, revealing a blonde girl with big blue eyes.
"Hello." She said dreamily, stepped inside and took a seat.
"Hello." Harry replied, too bemused by the bold entrance to be annoyed.

Well, she hadn't stopped to gawk at his scar, so he would call it a win.
"I'm Luna Lovegood." She introduced herself in the same dreamy tone.
"Harry Potter." He returned, feeling absurdly pleased when she didn't

really react to the name.
"Are we going to be friends? Daddy told me I would make friends."
That was easy. Harry thought to himself in muted shock. He'd spent half
the summer debating with himself if trying to make friends with someone
was worth the initial awkwardness, only for this rather spacey looking
girl to just go ahead and ask him like it was nothing.
"Errr, sure?" He answered uncertainly. There was definitely something a

bit off about this girl.
"Are you okay?" Luna asked with a suddenly concerned tone. "You sound
like you have wrackspurts."
"What's a wrackspurt?" Harry asked in bewilderment.
"They're invisible creatures that float in through your ears and make
your brain go fuzzy." She informed him with authority.
"But if they're invisible, then how can you see them?" Harry asked
sceptically.
"You don't see them silly, that's what invisible means." Luna chided,
making Harry blink at her logic.
"Then how do you know that they're there?"
"You have to feel them." She explained.
"And what do they feel like?" He pressed, now determined to get to the
bottom of this.
"Like fuzzy brains and jumbled thoughts."

Harry opened his mouth to ask another question and then closed it as a
sudden realization hit him.
"These wrackspurts...they wouldn't happen to cause confusion would they?"
"They very well might." Luna agreed.
"So you were basically just asking me if I was confused earlier?"
"No, I was wondering if you had wrackspurts."
Harry gaped at her for a moment, wondering if he was being mocked. That
dreamy expression of hers made for a surprisingly good poker face.
"Oh, the wrackspurts are back!"
He couldn't help cracking a smile at that. Well, he'd avoided contact

with the normal people, so he supposed it was only natural that he'd end
up making friends with the oddball.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
The two continued to chat until the train started moving. Harry
discovered that Luna was surprisingly easy to talk despite the occasional
off color comment she made. He already liked her more than anyone he'd
met in the Wizarding World so far.
Their interesting and sometimes strange conversation was interrupted by

the cabin door opening again, this time revealing a redheaded girl with
freckles that had a distinctly Weasley look to her.
"H-hi." She said shyly, her pale face steadily moving to match her hair
in color. "Can I, um, sit here?"
"Hello Ginny." Luna said in the same vaguely dreamy tone that seemed to
be her normal speaking voice.
"You two know each other?" Harry asked with raised eyebrows.
"We used to be friends." Luna elaborated, causing Ginny to shuffle in

place guiltily.
"Come in then, I guess." Harry said, not sure if it was a good idea but
also not wanting to tell her to go away since Luna didn't seem to mind.
Ginny quickly did so, sitting in a corner and looking as if she was
trying to mimic the powers of a chameleon.
"I'm Harry Potter." Harry introduced himself.
"I know!" Ginny blurted out and immediately flushed scarlet. "I mean, I'm
Ginny. Ginny Weasley."
Harry tried not to get too annoyed by her behavior and returned to his
conversation with Luna. Ginny was mostly silent and just did a lot of
glancing and blushing.
She was also very jealous of her former friend for the easy conversation
she had with the Boy-Who-Lived.
Her mother had told her that Harry Potter hadn't made any friends at
Hogwarts the previous year and that it would be nice of her if she could
become one for the obviously lonely boy.
Her mother's words had been like a dream come true for Ginny, who had
grown up on stories of the Boy-Who-Lived. Becoming his friend would be
amazing.
And now here she was, in the same cabin with him as they rode to
Hogwarts, and she was barely able to get a few words out. She wanted to
talk to him too, but she'd already embarrassed herself so much and didn't
want to make it any worse.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"Hanging around with Weasleys again, Potter? The girl might at least be
useful as breeding stock, I suppose." Malfoy sneered as he opened the
door about an hour later.
Harry felt a surge of potent anger the like of which he hadn't felt in
years. The runes on his back prickled, Uruz in particular.
Without really thinking too much, he stood up and shoved the mouthy blond
with as much force as he could muster.
Malfoy went sprawling into a painful heap with his two juvenile guard
trolls, shouting something about his father hearing of this.
Harry wasn't listening though. It was with monumental effort that he

managed to resist the urge to launch a kick or two at the trio of downed
idiots. He slammed the cabin door shut instead, drew his wand and put a
locking charm on it.
"T-thanks." Ginny said quietly, a shy but dazzling smile on her face. The
Boy-Who-Lived had protected her honor, just like in the stories!
Harry simply nodded and sat down. He hadn't done it for her. He didn't
know her well enough to really be outraged on her behalf aside from the
reaction that any decent person would have to unwarranted insults.
Now that he'd cooled down a bit, he could think about what had happened
logically and knew that he'd overreacted. He somehow doubted that Malfoy
even properly understood what he'd said. In a society without internet
access, twelve year olds generally did not learn enough about the birds
and the bees to understand the concept of 'breeding stock'. It was
possible that the boy's parents had taught him about it, but more than
likely he was simply repeating what his father or mother had said and
assuming that it was an insult.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Harry stared in fascination at the skeletal winged horses harnessed to

the carriages that would take them to the castle. He didn't recall seeing
those the previous year, though he had admittedly not paid much attention
in this direction either.
"Do you know what those horses are?" He asked of a passing Su Li, hoping
that the girl knew something he didn't. He wished Luna was here. Strange
creatures seemed to be a specialty of hers.
"What horses?" She questioned back, puzzled.
"They're called thestrals, you can only see them if you've seen someone
die." A passing upper year Hufflepuff told them, giving Harry a look of
sympathy as he did so.
Harry might have been a bit irritated by that look if his memory didn't
flash back to the death of his mother at the words. Perhaps unlocking
that old memory was allowing him to see them now?
What a strangely specific form of invisibility.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"Weasley, Ginevra!"
Ginny hurried over to the stool with the Sorting Hat and put on the
ancient magical headwear, eager to get sorted. She could already see Luna
and Harry sitting together at the Ravenclaw table and desperately wanted
to join them.
Ravenclaw eh? You are much better suited to Gryffindor. The hat said.
But I want to be with Harry. Ginny thought back stubbornly. Her mother
had asked her to become his friend and that would be much easier if she
was in the same house. She may not have said much to him yet, but she
liked what she'd seen of him so far and he had defended her from that
prat Malfoy and his insults.
The hat tried to dissuade her a few more times, but Ginny was stubborn
and insisted on going to Ravenclaw.
A little known thing about the Sorting Hat was that it didn't so much
sort as it helped to guide the children to the house that fit them best.
Most children had little opinion on where they wanted to go, but some of
them did and went against the recommendations it gave.
Hermione Granger should have gone to Ravenclaw, but her idolization of

Dumbledore had her insisting on Gryffindor despite the advice of the
Sorting hat.
In an ironic twist, Ginny did the opposite.
"RAVENCLAW!"
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Over at the Gryffindor table, four Weasleys stared with slack jaws as
their little sister went to the table of blue and bronze. They knew that
their firecracker of a sister was not nearly bookish enough to go to
Ravenclaw. If there had ever been a Gryffindor Weasley, it was Ginny, so
it took no effort to assume that Harry Potter was somehow the cause of
the strange sorting given that she immediately sat down next to him.
It didn't mean much to Percy, who merely sniffed at the break in the
Weasley tradition of being sorted into Gryffindor.
Fred and George hadn't really paid much attention to Harry Potter so far,
but his association with their favorite little sister merited a stern
talk about his intentions with ickle Gin-Gin. And a great deal of
teasing. And possibly pranks, but that was par for the course.
Ron was the most confused of the lot, as this event did not at all
compute with his view of the world. Weasleys went to Gryffindor, that was
simply the way of things. How could Ginny be a Ravenclaw?
The time since Halloween and Hermione's death had been hard on Ron. He
knew that he shared at least partial responsibility for the death of his
housemate.
In truth, he had barely scraped through first year. His usual lack of
academic ability coupled with the guilt he'd been feeling causing his
normally poor grades to plummet to terrible. It took the help of all
three of his older brothers to get his grades to the point where he
didn't need to repeat his first year.
His mother had not been happy, but had also tried not to be too harsh
with him, knowing the cause of his poor performance. Some of it at least.
He'd mostly managed to put Hermione's death behind him, but he was much
more careful with his words now.
He would go talk to Ginny later.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Albus Dumbledore had merely blinked at the unexpected sorting. A Weasley

in Ravenclaw? How novel.
Then he saw Harry Potter sitting next to young Ginny and Luna Lovegood
and actually talking to someone his age!
He smiled. It may not be exactly what he'd planned when he'd spoken to
Molly earlier in the summer, but plans could sometimes go awry in good
ways too.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Harry did his best to ignore the discomfort caused by the odd looks he
was getting from the other Ravenclaws. No doubt they were wondering about
his abnormal friendliness with Luna.
Well, Ginny was here too he supposed.
He would honnestly have prefered if she had gone to Gryffindor like her
brothers. The constant blushing and shy glances she'd been giving him the
entire train ride had made for a rather awkward experience.
Only the memory of his resolution not to judge as quickly as he had with
Hermione stopped him from alienating her right off the bat. The obvious
crush she had on him was more than a little annoying and was not returned
in the slightest. He had enough problems keeping his eyes off the
prettier upper year girls without having to deal with this too.
Luna was a godsend in that regard, her quirky conversation style keeping
him well distracted from wondering about the kind of bodies those
unflattering robes were hiding. Mostly.
Well, he'd give Ginny a chance to grow out of this rather than pushing
her away immediately. Who knows, she might actually find that she didn't
like the real him too much.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Yes, I killed Dobby. MUAHAHAHAHAH.
I wonder if this is what George R. R. Martin feels like?
But on a more serious note, Dobby is dead because I didn't want to have a
12 year old outsmarting a professional slippery bastard like Lucius.
Events in canon notwithstanding (what the hell was Dobby doing in
Hogwarts at the time anyway?).
Chapter 4
I'm sure there are a bunch of reviews that I should have replied to in
the fast week or so, but the website was being a bit screwy. For some
reason it kept claiming that any reviews posted after December 30th
didn't exist and couldn't be replied to. Didn't even display them in the
review page. Weird stuff, but it seems to have passed now.
Many thanks to Joe Lawyer for his beta-ing xD.
Anyway, here goes chapter 4. Enjoy.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
The Weasley twins made a beeline for the Ravenclaw table, where they
could see Harry and Luna eating breakfast. Apparently, getting sorted
into the house of eagles had not made Ginny a morning person.
"Greetings."
"Salutations."
"Good morning."
"Hello."
"I don't believe we've been introduced."
"I'm Fred-"
"-handsome fellow isn't he? And I'm George."
"Together we are the amazing,"
"the stupendous,"
"the incadescent-"
"-since when do you know that word, my brother?"
"Since yesterday, and now you've ruined the flow."
"Oh no!"
"Anyway, we are...The Weasley Twins!"
Harry looked at them blandly over the mountain of food piled on his
plate, not entirely sure what to make of this introduction.
"Hi." He said and went back to stuffing his face. He always woke up with
a monster appetite these days.
"I say, I don't think even ickle Ronniekins can eat that much."
"And he can eat a lot indeed."
"Breakfast is the most important meal of the day." Harry justified,

despite having been one of those people who didn't eat much in the
mornings before the runes. "Is there something I can help you with?"
"Indeed you can."

"You see Harry, we are fairly certain that Ginny only went to Ravenclaw
because of you."
"In light of this, we would like to know-"
"-what your intentions are towards our little sister." They twins
finished in unison, grinning down at him evilly.
"Intentions?" Harry echoed. He understood their meaning perfectly well,

but he was friggin' twelve and Ginny was eleven. Sure, he had apparently
done a number on his puberty with that ritual, but they didn't know that.
Moreover, his hormones seemed to be targeting the more developed girls
exclusively, for which he was thankful. It meant that he would only have
trouble keeping his eyes from wandering during mealtimes, free periods
and such and not during classes, with the notable exception of professor
Sinistra.
Luna, who had thus far contented herself with silently making the perfect
jam spread on her bread, decided to enlighten her friend.
"They want to know if you're going to put your penis in Ginny's vagina."
She said serenely, bringing her bread to eye level to make sure that the
jam was perfect.
Harry spat out the half-masticated morsel of food currently in his mouth,
coughing violently as his body protested him nearly sending solids into
his lungs.
Though shocked as badly as Harry by Luna's words, the Weasley twins had
the advantage of not eating at the time and were able to recover faster.
"Aren't you a bit young to know about that?" Fred asked, somewhat
hypocritically it must be said. Although they hadn't truthfully expected
Harry to catch on to their insinuation and were just going to tease him.
"I watched daddy put his penis in mummy's vagina, and in her mouth, and
her bum. It looked fun and I asked if I could play too, but mummy
explained that it was a grown-up game and that I would know when I was
old enough to play. I wanted to be good at it, so I started reading
mummy's books and peeping on them when they played." Luna explained with
a dreamy smile, taking a rapturous bite of her perfectly prepared slice
of bread.
The three males present exchanged akward looks as the silence stretched
on, heavy and oppressive with only the sound of Luna's chewing to break
it. Well, that and the general noise of people having breakfast in the
Great Hall. The twins were in fourth year now and old enough to
understand how utterly strange Luna's statement was, while Harry's
internet exposure took care of any ignorance on his part. In fact, the
only one who seemed oblivious to the reality of the situation was Luna
herself.
"We've got a, uh..."

"...a prank!"
"Yes! A prank to plan."
"Talk to you later Harrykins."
"Yes, much later."
"It sure was nice of the twins to come and introduce themselves to you
like that." Luna commented.
"Uh...yeah." Harry replied weakly, having the dual problem of feeling

incredibly awkward and pointlessly aroused by the imagery that Luna's
words had brought to mind. He recalled thinking yesterday that Luna was a
great distraction from his out of control hormones, but now he was
wondering if she wasn't going to make it worse.
His meal was once again interrupted when he saw a smaller-than-average

first year Gryffindor coming at him with a big smile and a very antique
looking camera.
"Hi Harry! I'm-I'm Colin Creevey." The boy said breathlessly, edging
closer tentatively. "I'm in Gryffindor. Would you...would it be alright
if I...can I take a picture?" He finally managed, raising the camera
hopefully.
"No, It wouldn't be alright." Harry replied irritably, feeling his runes

prickling.
"Please." Colin begged. "It's to prove that I've met you. I know all
about you. Everyone's told me. About how you survived when You-Know-Who
tried to kill you and how he disappeared and everything and how you've
still got a lightning scar on your forehead" He stared unabashedly at
Harry's scar when he said this. "and a boy in my dormitory said if I
develop the film in the right potion, the pictures'll move!" Colin drew a
great shuddering breath of excitement and continued on. "It's amazing
here, isn't it? I never knew all the odd stuff I could do was magic till
I got the letter from Hogwarts. My dad's a milkman, he couldn't believe
it either. So I'm taking loads of pictures to send home to him. And it'd
be really good if I had one of you." He looked imploringly at Harry.
"Maybe your friend could take it and I could stand next to you? And then,
could you sign it?"
Harry's blood pressure had steadily been rising as the younger boy
continued his unsolicited word vomit. Intellectually, he knew that Colin
was just excited about magic and probably had a thing for photography. He
was in all likelihood just out to get a picture of the famous Harry
Potter that he'd read about so that he could brag to his parents.
Harry was far too busy trying to control the suddenl swell of
disproportionate rage that the pushy and inconsiderate brat had inspired
in him to think of that though. Where did the annoying little shit get
off asking for photos?! And to sign them too?! Even worse, Colin had
raised his voice in his desperate plea to get Harry to reconsider and
attracted a lot of attention, which he had never been comfortable with
and was now serving to make him even more angry.
When Colin was done talking he looked back at Harry's eyes and blanched
at the furious glare being directed at him. He was about to stutter out
an apology and vacate the area when a third party decided to make it
worse.
"Signed photos? You're giving out signed photos, Potter?" Malfoy asked
scathingly, being deliberately loud enough for the entire Great Hall to
hear. "Everyone line up! Harry Potter is giving out signed photos!"
Colin was by this point wishing that he'd never approached his hero, or
at least that he'd done it somewhere more private. He knew that this
situation was his fault, so he tried to help.
"You're just jealous."
Eleven year olds did not generally make good problem solvers, alas.
"Jealous?" Malfoy sneered. "Why would I be jealous of an ugly scar across

my-AAAH!"
Malfoy's scathing retort turned into a scream as Harry's self-control

snapped and he hurled a heavy golden goblet at the blond's face, nearly
breaking his nose.
The scream snapped Harry out of the angry fog, but he knew that it wasn't
gone yet. He pushed away from the table and shouldered past a stunned
Colin, barely noticing as he nearly knocked the smaller boy to the
ground.
"Harry!" an deeper, adult voice called loudly in what was probably

supposed to be a friendly tone, a hand clamping down on his shoulder.
The plates of food trembled, some of them having their contents

inexplicably explode.
"You can't just-AAAAH!"
Whatever advice Gilderoy Lockhart had been about to impart would forever
remain unheard as the action renewed Harry's fury and caused him to stab
a fork into the man's hand. He hadn't even registered that he was still
clutching a fork.
The entire Great Hall watched in stunned silence as the Boy-Who-Lived

stomped out, rage written in every movement.
"Oh dear, he blew up my jam." Luna pouted, wiping a bit of the raspberry
mess from her face and leaving the table. If there was no more jam to be
had, then she might as well go help her friend calm down.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Harry hadn't gone very far, only to the first empty hallway.
He was leaning on the wall and taking deep breaths, trying to ignore the
incessant prickling of his runes, when Luna found him.
The sight of her with raspberry jam splattered all over her face put a
crack in his anger and he couldn't help laughing at her pout.
"You blew it all over my face Harry." She chided. "It was supposed to go
in my mouth."
Harry continued to laugh breathlessly as his anger drained away,

wondering if Luna was deliberately using innuendo or if she was honestly
clueless.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Harry had no illusions that he would be getting away with what he'd done
scot free, so the summons by Dumbledore came as no surprise.
"I hope you realize that your actions in the Great Hall today were
unacceptable, Harry." The headmaster said gravely, staring into the boy's
green eyes.
He attempted a brief touch of legilimency, but received only a confusing

kaleidoscope of impressions that made no sense to him. It was remarkably
similar to what a person experienced if they ever found themselves in a
fidelius protected location without knowing the secret. What had happened
to the boy over the summer to change his mind in this way? How did he
even function?
Harry felt Aul'El prickle on his forehead and saw the flicker of
confusion on Dumbledore's face. He had to quickly clamp down on the surge
of anger it made him feel. He'd already suspected that the headmaster
made a habit of reading minds when he could get away with it. It made the
advice of his grandparents all the more relevant. Dumbledore was not to
be trusted.
"Yes sir." He answered.
He was finding it hard to regret what he'd done to Malfoy and Lockhart,
but he knew that he couldn't keep throwing goblets or stabbing with forks
every time he got angry. He had to find a way to control himself. Da'Roir
would obviously only do so much to help him in that regard. In fact, it
was doing less than he had hoped. His memory was much improved, but his
emotions were far from under control.
Occlumency was supposed to help with controlling one's emotions, so maybe

it was time to start learning that? He'd neglected to try it so far
because the book said that it took a long time and using a rune seemed so
much easier.
"Good," Dumbledore said with a nod, deciding not to mention the multitude
of points that Ravenclaw had lost over this incident since he knew that
the boy didn't care about the house cup. "then you will not object to
having detention with Filch for a week or to making a public apology to
Mr. Malfoy and professor Lockhart."
Harry's face twisted in anger. The detention he'd expected and wasn't
going to object to even if it would cut into his personal time, but
publically apologizing to those two blowhards?
"Are they going to apologize to me?" He asked back.
Dumbledore blinked at the cold tone, wondering where all this anger was
coming from. Harry hadn't been nearly this difficult the previous year.
"Whatever for, Harry? You were the one who assaulted them."
"I didn't do it for fun." Harry retorted sarcastically. "Malfoy was

deliberately provoking me and Lockhart grabbed me."
"Surely you realize that you cannot attack fellow students over
schoolyard teasing, or attack a professor simply for placing his hand on
your shoulder?" Dumbledore asked pointedly.
Harry did know that, but that didn't mean that he was going to apologize
for it. "I'm not going to apologize for attacking them if they don't
apologize for what they did."
"Harry, I thought you were more mature than this." Dumbledore rebuked,
his entire manner radiating disappointment.
"It's hard to be mature when you're dealing with idiots." Harry retorted,
not caring one whit about the old man's disappointment at this point.
"Either everyone apologizes, or nobody does."
Harry knew in a distant sort of way that he was being more than a bit
unreasonable here. Though Draco was undeniably a tragic waste of air, he
hadn't done anything worse than countless other children who thought that
getting someone else in trouble was fun. Certainly nothing to deserve
getting a metal goblet to the face. Lockhart was a similar case, except
that in his case it was a fork stabbing. He could only thank his lucky
stars that it hadn't been Snape or McGonagall. Lockhart was quickly
shaping out to be comic relief and was therefore inconsequential.
Unfortunately, he was having to deal with his rune enhanced temper and
digging his heels in seemed like a perfectly fine thing to do.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
While Harry did briefly attain legendary status among the Gryffindors for
managing to toss a goblet at Malfoy, stab a professor and get a lengthy
detention on his first day back in Hogwarts, that was no comfort to him
when he had to spend several hours every day doing manual labor with
Filch.
He could vaguely recall needing to do age inappropriate chores at the
Dursleys, but it had been a long time since he'd done any kind of mind
numbingly repetitive physical labor. The whole experience was made worse
because Filch kept pontificating on the kind of punishments he'd like to
use on students.
Seriously, how did a man that wanted to use a cat o' nine tails with
barbed metal tips on children work in a school?
The issue of the public apology had stalled since nobody actually wanted
to do it and Harry was quite sure that whatever forbearance Snape had
found for him last year had now evaporated. The Potions master had spent
a large portion of the previous year looking at him as if he was a
puzzle, but now he'd reverted to back to his full nastiness.
Harry suspected that he had given some pointers to Filch on how to make
detention more unpleasant. At least it was the last day. The only reason
his temper wasn't getting away from him again was because he'd expected
it to happen and resigned himself to it. He definitely needed to get a
handle on that problem though, and fast.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"Uh, Harry?" Ginny started uncertainly.
"Yes?" The boy in question asked, not looking up from his book.
"Weren't you supposed to be in detention?"
"Why would I be in detention?"
"Because you called professor Lockhart a..." Ginny paused for a moment,
blushing. "...a bucket of warm piss and stomped out of his classroom?"
"I did not." Harry protested, his own face going red. This new temper of
his was starting to become a serious problem. "I said that he's about as
qualified to teach as a bucket of warm piss."
"Okay, but shouldn't you be in detention for that?"
"According to Lockhart, yes, but I'm not going to waste my time helping
that idiot answer his fan mail."
"Do you, um, want to go for a w-walk around the lake then?" Ginny
stuttered out, her previous blush returning with a vengeance.
"I have homework to do." Harry replied, going back to his book.
"O-oh, maybe some other time then!" She said in a rush and ran off,
hiding her crestfallen expression.
Harry released an aggravated sigh. Why oh why couldn't she tell that he
was simply not interested?
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"Come ...come to me...Let me rip you...Let me tear you...Let me kill

you..."
Harry paused on his way back to the Ravenclaw tower from one of his late
night excursions to the Restricted Section, a chill going down his spine
at the malicious voice.
"Hello?" He asked softly.
There was no answer and it was a much disturbed Harry Potter that
returned to his room.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"Are you sure you weren't just hearing things?" Ginny asked sceptically
the next day, after being told about the voice.
Harry paused for a moment to consider that. It was not entirely

impossible that he might have been sleepy and imagined it, but he was
getting that feeling of foreshadowing for plot related information over
this. It was certainly ominous enough.
"No, I'm sure it was another voice and I definitely wasn't imagining it."
"Don't worry about it Harry, I hear voices all the time." Luna added
reassuringly. "If your voice comes back, we could introduce it to my
voices and they could be friends."
"It didn't sound like the type of voice that would have friends." Harry
replied, amused.
Luna looked genuinely upset by this. "Oh. Maybe it's just lonely?"
"Luna, this is serious!" Ginny said with a scowl. She hadn't been
sleeping well lately and wasn't in the mood for Luna's games.
"I know." Luna agreed wholeheartedly. "Loneliness is a terrible thing."
Ginny looked like she wanted to hit something.
"I'll be sure to try befriending the voice if I hear it again." Harry

interjected, still amused. "If it still wants to kill people after that,
I can point it at Malfoy and Lockhart."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Hogwarts staff room, September 30th.
A new year had arrived, meaning another start-of-year meeting between the
headmaster and the four heads of house.
Most of the relevant topics ranging from school brooms to the new first
years had already been discussed, leaving only things of special
importance.
"Albus, you really must do something about Lockhart. The man is a

menace." McGonagall said in exasperation.
"I would like nothing more, Minerva." Dumbledore replied with a sigh.
"Unfortunately, I am out of options. There is literally nobody to replace
him with."
"There is something of a minor revolt brewing among my house because of

him." Flitwick added, a touch amused. "Apparently, Mr. Potter's dramatic
exit and refusal to attend any more of the man's classes has planted the
idea in many of their heads that they would be better off not attending
the class at all. Ms. Lovegood and Weasley have already stopped and are
using Mr. Potter's notes from last year to learn the material."
Snape made a derisive snort. His opinion on Harry Potter had taken a
sharp dive since the start of the year when the boy had thrown his temper
tantrum. Oh, the boy was certainly nothing like his father, but he was
still a brat.
"Were you not going to convince him to attend the DADA lessons again?"
Dumbledore asked.
"I tried, but he told me that he may not be able to stop himself from
another stabbing if he had to answer one more question about Lockhart's
favorite color." Flitwick answered. "Sadly, I cannot blame him."
This time it was Sprout and McGonagall who snorted. They couldn't blame
him either. There was a reason why the boy had gotten off so lightly,
mostly because all the professors had been silently gleeful at seeing
Lockhart dance around with a fork sticking out of his hand. Even Poppy
had been rougher than strictly necessary when she removed it.
"Have any of you noticed that Harry seems to be rather...angry this

year?" Dumbledore asked, deciding not to pursue the issue of DADA
attendance. Lockhart would serve as a placeholder professor just as well
whether he had any students to teach or not, which was really the only
thing that had ever been expected of him.
"Yes, it's the strangest thing really." Sprout said. "I remember him as
being very even tempered last year, but I've seen him visibly clamp down
on his anger several times in the past month."
Flitwick and McGonagall offered their own observations, which were just
more of the same. Harry was occasionaly exhibiting anger management
issues.
Snape let the other three heads of house debate the matter for a few
minutes with the headmaster before he simply couldn't tolerate their
blindness anymore.
"Has it perhaps escaped your attention that there is more going on with
the boy than merely a few angry outbursts?" He asked cuttingly.
What do you mean, Severus?" Dumbledore asked.
"He has been ogling the older girls when he thinks that nobody is
looking."
"Surely not...he's only twelve!" McGonagall said.
"An early bloomer then?" Dumbledore opined with a smile. "He has been
having a bit of a growth spurt recently."
Severus' observation came as no small comfort for the old wizard. He had
feared that this was a result of learning the prophecy, so the
possibility of it being merely growing pains was a great relief. Powerful
wizards often made for volatile teenagers. Dumbledore could well remember
his own explosive temper when he had been growing up. He had not truly
calmed down until Ariana's death had shown him the danger of rash actions
done in anger.
"It seems a bit extreme to be merely puberty." Sprout said dubiously. Her
Hufflepuffs were a generally calm sort.
"You wouldn't be saying that if James Potter had been in your house."
McGonagall countered, vividly recalling the truly ridiculous amount of
trouble that James and Sirius had been once puberty hit them.
"Or Lily." Flitwick chuckled. While the redhead had not shown overt
interest in boys through her Hogwarts years, her temper had been a
fearsome thing.
Dumbledore twinkled.
Snape sneered at the mention of his childhood nemesis and brooded at the
mention of his lost love.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
It was Halloween and Harry was once again shunning the feast in the Great
Hall by eating in the kitchens, but this time he had company.
"I wonder if the heliopaths in the Ministry celebrate Halloween." Luna

mused, gorging herself on pudding.
"Maybe." Harry replied idly as he continued to eat. He was pretty sure

that heliopaths didn't exist, but why argue about it? Better to just
change the subject. "What was up with Ginny today? She seemed kind of
worn out."
"Oh, she was just upset that you wouldn't go to the feast with her." Luna
told him airily. The redhead kept on trying to get Harry romantically
interested in her no matter how many times Luna told her that Ginny's
larval bizzwhizzlers simply weren't catching the attention of Harry's
creeping lickbiggles.
Harry grumbled a bit at that. The redhead's ongoing crush had transformed
from silent blushing to the occasional stuttering invitation to do this
or that thing that he had no interest in. She was alright most of the
time, but he had to struggle not to snap at her whenever she got it into
her head to make another attempt at asking him out.
"...rip...tear...kill..."
Harry's head snapped as the familiar malicious hiss reached his ears.
"I can hear that voice again!" He said.
"Let's go find it and make it it our friend!" Luna proclaimed, grabbing

some more pudding for the road.
The two Ravenclaws tore out of the kitchen, following what vague
directions Harry could give.
"...so hungry...for so long..."
"It's moving up!" He said.
"What is it saying?" Luna asked.
"Something about being hungry."
"Do you think it likes pudding?"
Harry snorted. It didn't seem very likely, given how homicidal the voice
sounded.
He suddenly stopped at that thought, abruptly realizing that chasing

after a murderous disembodied voice may not be the wisest course of
action.
"Why are you stopping, Harry? Our new friend is getting away!" Luna
called, running ahead.
"...kill...time to kill..."
"Luna!" Harry yelled and started running again, though this time it was
with the intent of stopping her from potentially getting herself killed.
They sprinted right past the ground floor and further up, onto the second
floor.
"...blood...I SMELL BLOOD!"
"Oh, I guess Mrs. Norris found the voice before we did." Luna said
plainly, staring at the petrified form of the much disliked cat that was
currently hanging from a torch bracket by her tail.
On the wall, a message was daubed in foot high letters in something that
looked suspiciously like blood.
THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED, ENEMIES OF THE HEIR BEWARE.
"Luna, I think we might want to get out of here." Harry said nervously,
realizing how suspicious this would look to any passerby.
Naturally, The Halloween feast just happened to have ended a short while
earlier, flooding the corridor with students. Harry and Luna quickly
found themselves surrounded and subjected to a lot of pointing and
whispering.
"Enemies of the Heir beware! You'll be next mudbloods!" The distinct

voice of Draco Malfoy broke through, they blond Slytherin himself having
pushed his way to the front.
Filch was the next arrival, his mood quickly turning murderous upon
seeing his beloved cat petrified. He was just about to attempt strangling
Harry when Dumbledore showed up.
"Hello headmaster." Luna greeted cheerfully. "Did you hear the voices
too?"
"Voices?" Dumbledore questioned.
"Harry heard a voice and we chased it up here." Luna explained, not

seeing Harry's frantic signaling to stop.
"I think both of you had better come with me." The old wizard said after
a moment.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"Now Harry, would you care to tell me what your friend meant by
'voices'?" Dumbledore asked once they were all settled in his office.
Harry shifted uncomfortably, not wanting to talk about it. Unfortunately,

Luna had not really left him with the option of keeping things to
himself.
"I heard a voice moving through the school, talking about how hungry it
was and about killing something." He admitted.
Dumbledore raised an eyebrow. "Have you ever heard this voice before?"
"Once, late at night." Harry replied, not mentioning the location since
he'd been breaking curfew at the time.
"From your bed in the Ravenclaw tower?" Dumbledore asked, his eyes
twinkling.
Harry nodded jerkily, fairly sure that the old wizard didn't believe him
but unwilling to just outright admit it.
"Very well, could you describe this voice to me."
"It was..." Harry paused, not sure how to describe a voice. "cold, I
guess. And it had a hiss to it."
Dumbledore's brows furrowed in thought, a suspicion growing in his mind.
"Would you like to help me test something, Harry?" He asked.
"Sure, I guess." Harry agreed cautiously.
Dumbledore nodded and took out his wand, pointing it at his desk.
"Serpentsortia."
Harry jumped at bit as a snake materialized on the desk, staring wide

eyed at the reptile.
"Try talking to it." The headmaster prompted, noticing that young Ms.
Lovegood was starting to bounce in her seat excitedly. She clearly knew
what was being implied.
Harry gave him an odd look, but did so.
"Hello."
The snake perked up and looked directly at him. "Grettings Speaker."
"It talked back." Harry said in amazement.
"You're a Parselmouth!" Luna proclaimed, just as amazed.
"A what?"
"A wizard who can speak to serpents." Dumbledore explained, vanishing the
conjured snake. "It is a rare gift that tends to pass through
bloodlines."
"Did one of my parents have it too then?" Harry asked in interest.
"No Harry, they didn't, but Voldemort did. It is possible that some of
his power was transfered to you that night." Dumbledore said, avoiding
the issue of the Horcrux that was lodged in the boy's scar.
Normally, he would not be telling this to anyone besides Harry, but he

was hoping that the shared secret would make their friendship tighter.
Giving Harry extra reasons to feel obligated to fight Voldemort was
always good.
Harry frowned at that. It sounded a bit farfetched, but who could really
say what kind of price his mother's blood contract had exacted from the
Dark Lord when he attempted to violate it? It could very well have torn
away a piece of his magic when it failed to kill him completely.
Voldemort's not-quite-death still bugged him. The only thing he knew of

that would allow an unscrupulous magic user to survive the destruction of
their body was a phylactery, but Voldemort had still been a living wizard
and not an undead Lich. Then again, he had no idea how magic of that sort
worked in the real world, or if it was even possible to make a soul jar.
He hoped it was something else. If Voldemort had made a phylactery and
was at all smart, he'd hidden it in some remote corner of the world that
nobody would ever think to look. It would make killing him for good
hellishly problematic.
"Does that mean that I was hearing a snake of some kind?" He finally
asked, focusing back on the topic at hand.
"It is possible." Dumbledore admitted with some reluctance, not wanting

the two children getting mixed up in this any further. "You had best get
back to the Ravenclaw Tower and get some rest. Also, I would urge to keep
your Parseltongue ability a secret. Voldemort has given it a bad
reputation in Britain and the other students may not look kindly upon you
for having it."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
When the two children left his office, Dumbledore began pacing in worry.
When the Chamber had first been opened half a century ago, they had never
fully resolved the mystery. Hagrid had been blamed for it, but Dumbledore
knew that the groundskeeper had not been the culprit.
Tom Riddle had always been his primary suspect, but there had been no
proof.
He had done a great deal of research on the subject of permanent

petrification, trying to figure out how it had been done.
There were potions that could do it, but forcibly administering a potion
to unwilling students or a cat would be quite a feat. Especially in the
positions they had been found in.
Dark magic was also a possibility. There were spells that would petrify
people permanently. That had in fact been the assumption that Dumbledore
had been working from. Tom Riddle had been an exceptional student and
might have been capable of it, though he had desperately hoped it wasn't
him.
There were some creatures that could petrify people, but most of them
were automatically ruled out as being unable to survive since the time of
Salazar Slytherin or because they would have left obvious markings on the
bodies.
None were snakes.

He had not considered that the creature in question might have a Killing
Gaze. He had thought that Myrtle had been an aberration in the pattern,
not that the others had merely been hideously lucky.
A quick use of his pensieve confirmed what he had already feared would be
the case. All the other petrified students from fifty years ago could
have conceivably seen only a reflection. Mrs. Norris was a cat and would
have likely kept her eyes on the ground and Dumbledore recalled that the
hallways had been flooded slightly. The water would have reflected the
eyes.
There was only one serpent that could have lived for a thousand years
beneath the school. It was also the only serpent with a Killing Gaze.
A basilisk. The oldest one in known history. One so old that its gaze had
become powerful enough to affect people even through indirect eye
contact, something that had never been seen before. It must be gigantic
by now.
In retrospect it was terribly obvious that Salazar Slytherin might have

bred such a beast, an observation that made Dumbledore feel foolish for
overlooking it.
But who was commanding the beast? Despite being a parselmouth himself,
Harry had an alibi that the house elves could easily verify. Not to
mention that the boy had apparently been unaware of his gift until now
and Dumbledore didn't believe that he had any reason to be loosing the
basilisk on the school to begin with.
They were obviously clever enough to freeze the portraits and take
various other precautions that would make finding them difficult. They
had even killed Hagrid's roosters, another indication of what the beast
was. Roosters were not difficult to find, but the basilisk unfortunately
was.
He hoped that he could find the Heir before he or she struck again. He
hoped that nobody would die. He hoped that it was not Voldemort's doing.
He hoped that Harry would not be targeted if it was. The boy was not
ready to face his nemesis yet.
Dumbledore kept pacing in his office under the watchful gazes of past
headmasters, too many hopes and too many worries weighing on his
shoulders to let him sleep. It was only when Fawkes returned with his
soothing phoenix song from wherever he went on these trips of his that
the old wizard was able to relax enough to get some rest.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Harry and Luna found themselves on the receiving end of a lot of pointing
and whispering for the next few days after that incident. Thanks to
Luna's comment about hearing voices, there was a general concensus that
they were both a bit loony.
Well, more loony. Harry had never quite fit in in no small part due to
his own actions the previous year and because he was more interested in
magic than people and Luna was...Luna.
This kind of reputation might have attracted bullies in most situations,

but they managed to avoid that scenario.
Harry was well known to be exceptionally talented with practical magic,

making him an unappealing target for people his own age and the upper
years had better things to do than pick on a second year. Not to mention
that his spectacular blow up in the Great Hall at the start of term made
people just a bit wary of his temper.
Luna would have been an appealing target for bullies on her own, but
several factors prevented that from happening. Her friendship with Harry
was one of those, but only to a point since he had little to no
interaction with the current first years aside from Ginny and Luna.
It was actually Ginny that was the main reason for the lack of people
trying to pick on Luna. The spacey blonde was not a particularly forceful
person and wouldn't have retaliated against bullies, but Ginny had grown
up with six older brothers and had no problem asserting herself. Those
very same older brothers were another reason why they were generally left
alone. Nobody wanted the Weasley twins targeting them specifically.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
The school year plodded along. Classes were had, Quidditch was played,
magic was learned.
Harry focused most of his efforts on learning Occlumency, desperately

wanting to regain full control of himself. It was slow going without a
teacher, but there was nothing else for it. He'd nearly lost his temper
several times since the start of term and if the smirk that one sixth
year girl had given him, his newfound appreciation for the female form
had not gone unnoticed.
He'd also gotten some comments on his height, which was fast approaching
the territory of being abnormally tall for a twelve year old. On a
personal level, Harry was highly pleased by this. He knew that it was
going to get him some very pointed questions when he didn't stop growing,
but he would just have to deal with that as it came.
Lockhart occasionally made a nuisance of himself, but was otherwise a

non-factor. His class attendance continued to drop steadily, with a large
portion of those who stayed being starstruck girls.
The matter of the Chamber of Secrets remained a popular topic of gossip,

with increasingly outlandish theories being bandied about as a form of
entertainment. Nobody had liked Mrs. Norris, so nobody was overly
concerned about the whole thing despite Draco Malfoy's best efforts to
frighten the muggleborn students with his sneering.
Right up to the point when Colin Creevey was found petrified and things
suddenly became serious.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"Poor Colin, I knew him well." Luna said mournfully.
"Did you just quote Shakespeare?" Harry asked incredulously. Since when
did wizards know anything about muggle literature?
"No, I actually knew Colin well. He came to ask me if I could get you to
take a photo with him at least once a week." Luna answered in a confused
tone. "Who's Shakespeare?"
"Where did they find him?" Ginny interjected, her face pale and
frightened.
"Fourth floor, probably looking for the entrance to Ravenclaw Tower. The
creepy little stalker." Harry grumbled. Colin's persistent hero worship
had been so annoying that he couldn't even bring himself to feel ashamed
of his relief at the boy's petrification. Maybe it would be different if
he'd been killed, but as the annoying Gryffindor would only be playing
statue for a few months, Harry was able to take joy in another's
misfortune with zero guilt.
"Do you think it'll happen again?" Ginny asked meekly, desperately hoping
to hear a denial. She still vividly remembered the blackout she'd had
during Halloween and the blood she'd found on her fingers when she came
to. She would never hurt Colin or even Mrs. Norris, but that was a pretty
suspicious situation by any stretch.
"Probably. I doubt that this 'Heir of Slytherin' character would start

something like this only to stop before any real harm was done." Harry
answered. There was also Dobby's warning to consider, which he was now
certain had pertained to current events. If only he could figure out who
Dobby's master was, then he could make a reasonable guess at the
perpetrator. He'd already asked the Hogwarts house elves and they hadn't
been able to tell him anything.
He'd briefly entertained the idea that Draco Malfoy might be the culprit,
but dismissed it quickly. Not even Draco would be stupid enough to keep
running his mouth about the Heir 'purging' the school of mudbloods if he
was responsible for this. Not to mention that it apparently needed to be
a Parselmouth, which Draco wasn't as far as anyone knew.
And people would know. The blond Slytherin would have bragged about it
far and wide the moment he learned that he was one.
Ginny gnawed at her lip in intense worry.
"Don't worry Ginny, I'm sure that Harry will be able to make friends with
the basilisk as soon as we find it." Luna tried to comfort, only making
the redhead girl pale further at the mention of the Serpent King.
It hadn't taken an exhaustive amount of research to figure out that bit
of information after the talk with Dumbledore. There really weren't that
many snakes that fit the criteria.
"I really don't think that the basilisk is looking for friends, Luna."
Harry said in exasperation, knowing that his argument would likely fall
on deaf ears. Again.
While Luna went into a lecture on the horrors of loneliness as it

pertained to millenia old snakes that contained only trace amounts of
logic, Ginny continued to gnaw at her lip.
She wasn't a Parselmouth, so she shouldn't be capable of commanding the

basilisk that was presumably lurking in the Chamber of Secrets, but she
couldn't help worrying. She'd blacked out earlier today as well, the same
as she had on Halloween.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
The duelling club debacle passed with little incident save to further
demonstrate Lockhart's incompetence. Harry had been interested but done a
180 as soon as he saw who was hosting it, unknowingly circumventing a
large amount of pointless drama.
He had decided against staying at Hogwarts for Christmas this year. He

had some things he wanted to do and he couldn't do them at the castle.
Luna was also leaving, which subsequently meant that Ginny was as well
since she didn't want to stay in the castle all by herself.
The only oddity about Harry's decision to go back to his foster parents
for Christmas was the fact that he had no intention of actually seeing
his foster parents. Or even informing them that he wasn't at Hogwarts for
that matter.
Instead of getting into an expensive car and driving back to 74 Cromwell

Road from King's Cross, Harry wandered into London in search of a
library, internet caf or something else with public internet access.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Harry logged in to his account on the website where he posted his

arithmancy problems, eager to see what answers he'd gotten.
The answers were there as he had hoped, but he also had a surprising
private message from another user. Why would anyone want to talk to him
privately?
We need to talk. Contact me as soon as you receive this message.
The near demand sent a frisson of worry up Harry's spine. He was starting
to get the feeling that his idea about posting arithmancy problems on the
internet was not as clever as he'd thought it was.
I'm here. He sent simply, getting back a set of instructions not three
minutes later.
Swallowing nervously, Harry followed the instructions that led him to a

public chat room. One of those that were frequently used as examples of
where innocent young boys and girls might encounter pedophiles in fact.
Coincidentally, this did not make Harry feel any better about the
situation. Still, he was far too worried about what this might have to do
with his arithmancy to be turned away. Besides, he reasoned that as long
as he didn't give out his name or address, it would be fine.
He received a request for a private channel almost as soon as he entered

the chat room, from someone with the almost ridiculously stereotypical
username of 'xXPussyDestroyer33Xx'.
I bet you thought you were being clever by posting arithmancy problems on
the internet. The presumed man on the other end began without preamble.
You probably thought you were one-upping the wizard-raised by using
technology to solve problems beyond your own ability. Only a European
wizard could be so sheltered and judging by your vernacular I'd guess
British.
Why European? Harry wrote back, not wanting to admit that his caustic
interlocutor was right.
Well I suppose you could also have been American, but I doubt it. The
other avoided.
Why not Chinese? Harry asked, picking a country at random.
There are no more magical enclaves in China, Mao made sure of it. Came
the reply, the words somehow seeming heavier than mere text should allow.
Harry frowned. He'd never heard of anyone named Mao before. Who is Mao?
There was a long pause and Harry got the distinct feeling that he had
surprised his conversation partner.
You must be very young to not know about Mao Zedong. To summarize, he was
once a leader of China and is also responsible for the deaths of some 45-
78 million people during his reign, among them the majority of China's
magical population.
But why? Harry asked in shock.
Dictators do not like sharing power and the Chinese sorcerers were very
powerful. They had perhaps the oldest magical civilization on the planet
and were very proud of it. As they were Chinese, Mao considered them to
be beholden to him. They were outraged and mocked the man for his
stupidity, jeering as they turned him away, secure in their superiority
and their millenia of gathered magical expertise. They learned too late
that traitors, guns and strength of numbers was more than a match for
their magics.
Why would wizards turn on their own? Harry wrote back, not really knowing
what else to say. He remembered his housemate Su Li and wondered if her
parents or grandparents had been one of those who'd escaped. Or had they
been the traitors?
Why else? Because they had been scorned and derided by their own for
whatever reason. Mao's offers would have sounded very appealing to them.
It didn't take long before they were betrayed in turn.
My history books don't say anything about this.
Of course they don't. The European magicals like to ignore things they
find inconvenient. You won't hear about the same thing happening in
Russia with Stalin either. The Frost Sorcerer Cabal protected the country
for centuries, sending the Great Winter to break the back of any army
that threatened the motherland, but that was not good enough for Stalin.
He wanted to control everything and destroyed what he couldn't.
What about Japan? Harry asked next, hoping to hear that Cho Chang, the
pretty Ravenclaw one year above him, was at least a regular immigrant.
Bad luck and arrogance. Most of them were in Hiroshima and didn't believe
that the warnings the Americans gave applied to them. The nuclear fire
wasn't even slowed down by their wards.
So there aren't any wizards left in Asia at all?
There are. India was spared any similar madness, though the caste system
of magical India is far more oppressive than the mundane one and
therefore not somewhere you'd want to live unless you were born at the
top.
Harry decided to look into this 'caste' system that the other had
mentioned. He also wondered if Padma and Parvati's parents had been born
'at the bottom' and fled the country because of it.
There are a number of Japanese magical families in sworn service to their

Emperor. These generally live in the capital and avoided the bombs.
Russia and China both still have some magicals, but these are mostly
focused on keeping the mundane governments from finding the newbloods and
turning them into weapons.
I won't tell you any horror stories about the Middle East. I'm sure
you've heard about Europe's witch trials and Islam is no more tolerant of
magic than Christianity or Judaism. Even less these days.
Why don't they tell us this? Harry demanded, suddenly angry that Binns
just kept droning on about the Goblin Rebellions when this kind of crap
was happening elsewhere in the world.
Like I told you, European magicals like to ignore things they find
incconvenient. They don't like to think about how much the world has
changed since the Statute of Secrecy was put into place. They have no
idea that their precious secrecy has more holes in it than Swiss cheese.
What do you mean?
Memory wipes worked fine until the internet was invented. Your
Obliviators can wipe all the memories they want, but that video of an
idiot wizard wearing a dress and waving a wand around is going to stay on
Youtube. The poster's lack of memory is just going to make the whole
thing even more suspicious. If the mundane governments weren't running
their own damage control for their own reasons, the secret would have
been blown wide open years ago.
I see. Harry replied, feeling a bit shaky.
Anyway, you should stop posting questions that have obviously magical
origins to anyone in the know. Big Brother has eyes everywhere these
days. Get a good computer and learn how to do arithmantic calculations
with it yourself, but keep it off the net.
Alright, I will. Harry agreed. After what he'd just learned, he was not
at all eager to draw any kind of attention to himself.
A final bit of advice for you, my young friend. Don't trust politicians;
not magical ones and definitely not mundane ones. They will smile and
make promises when they need something from you, but their hearts will
turn to stone if you ever need their help.
Merry Christmas, bratan.
The connection was broken and Harry took a deep breath to take in what
he'd just learned. The world suddenly seemed like a much darker place. He
wondered who the man he'd just talked to really was and if he'd ever
speak to him again.
A quick search on what 'bratan' actually meant only told him that he was
probably Russian. Probably a wizard too, given how knowledgeable he was
on the subject of Asia's magicals. Harry regretted not asking him about
the situation in the rest of the world. If he had the correct feeling for
the man's paranoia, then he probably wouldn't be able to contact him
again in the same way. Maybe Charlus and Dorea would know something.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
As it turned out, Charlus and Dorea didn't know anything.
"I never imagined that the situation in Asia was so bad." Charlus was
saying. "I do remember that there was a sudden upswing in immigrants from
those parts after the second World War, but I just thought it was better
here than over there."
"What about America?" Harry asked, disappointed but not too surprised.
"America has always been something of a touchy subject for Britain."
Dorea said with a grimace. "Magical America was a colony of ours the same
as muggle America was for muggle Britain. Most of the nobility stayed
here, but there were a few families that went searching for their
fortunes over the Atlantic, the majority were half-bloods and muggleborns
however. All of those families were killed alongside the goblins when
America made its bid for independence. Losing control of all that
territory to half-bloods and muggleborns would have been offensive enough
for the British purebloods of the time, but it's the fact that the
Gryffindor line was also snuffed out there that people are really unable
to get over."
"I'll bet it is." Harry snorted. He'd already seen how fixated people
could be on their bloodlines. Having the Gryffindor family wiped out by
rebellious commoners would have the purebloods baying for blood now, much
less a couple of hundred years ago when their sense of entitlement was
probably even worse.
"Don't expect a warm welcome if you ever decide to visit there." Charlus
warned. "I expect that there is no shortage of American wizards that
would make themselves your enemies simply for being British, nevermind
the fact that you're the heir of a Noble House."
"I'll keep it in mind." Harry agreed, having actually been considering a

trip across the sea. "How about Australia then? Can I expect a warm
welcome there?"
Dorea's lip twitched at her grandson's dry sarcasm as her husband

answered.
"Hard to say. The magical community there is actually the youngest in the
world, having only formed properly just before the turn of the twentieth
century. The old families thought that the muggles had a grand idea about
using Australia as a penal colony, only in our case it was seen as a
dumping ground for squibs and the occasional problematic-but-not-criminal
wizard. All that dormant magical blood eventually began producing wizards
and witches that established their own community." Charlus explained.
"So they're probably resentful but not as hostile as America." Harry

concluded.
"I also suspect that the Wizengamot is very quietly terrified of them."
Dorea added.
"Why?" Harry asked, puzzled.
"A lot of families have died out since the practice of exiling squibs was
put into place, Harry." She explained. "There are likely quite a few
wizards and witches in Australia that are now able to claim Lordships of
those families. If they decided to do so, they could wield considerable
influence in the Wizengamot."
"And the Wizengamot couldn't stop them because the seats are hereditary."
He finished, unable to keep from snickering as he realized the full
extent of the quandary the purebloods had created for themselves.
Australia was filled with an unknown number of potential Wizengamot
Lords, none of which were purebloods by their definition or even British.
The Australians could, theoretically, claim all of those lordships and

paralyze the legislative body of Wizarding Britain out of sheer spite.
"This is going to be your problem too one day." Dorea told him pointedly.
"You do, after all, have a seat of your own on the Wizengamot."
"Fuck the Wizengamot." Harry replied succintly. He had no intention

whatsoever of playing the politician. There was so much to see in the
world that sitting in a stuffy room and arguing with the inbred social
elite of magical Britain held no appeal.
"Harry, language." Dorea scolded.
Harry snickered some more at the absurdity of being scolded by his

furniture. It had stung to realize that the portraits of his grandparents
were still just portraits at the end of the day, not real people. They
were an incredible bit of spellwork to be sure, but anyone that spent
enough time talking to a magical portrait eventually realized that they
had a limited range of personality and couldn't really adapt to change.
"Leave the lad be, Dorea." Charlus told his wife, grinning openly. "It's
not like I haven't thought the same thing every time I had to attend a
meeting."
"It's unseemly for the heir of a Noble House to be so crass." Dorea

sniffed.
Harry rolled his eyes. He suspected that he would end up doing a lot of
things that were unseemly for the heir of a Noble House. He had built up
quite a bit of disdain for 'proper' behavior after having to deal with
Robert and Katherine since he was seven.
"Anyway, I wanted to get your thoughts on my next ritual..."
He explained to them the runes he intended to use and the effect he was
going for. It was one that he was particularly excited to try, as it
would work to increase the size of his magical core and make him more
powerful over time in the same way that his first set made accelerated
his maturity.
Unfortunately, he quickly hit a snag.
"Harry, you can't do this ritual." Charlus said, exasperation coloring

his tone.
"Why not?" Harry near demanded. It was perfect! He knew it was.
"Because there is no such thing as a 'magical core'." Charlus explained.
"But my research..." Harry started.

"Yes, I know you've come across the term in your research." The portrait
cut him off. "The term 'magical core' is frequently used to describe a
wizard's unused, latent magic, but it is terribly misleading. It gives
the impression that wizards and witches are born with different sized
pools of magic inside their bodies, but that simply isn't the case.
Exceptional people make for exceptional magic users, but I guarantee you
that any shopkeeper in Diagon Alley has the same magical potential as
Dumbledore."
"How does that make any sense?" Harry asked, baffled.
"The exact mechanics of it aren't known to anyone except maybe the

Unspeakables, but the gist of it is that people with high willpower,
intelligence and a number of other personality traits will also have more
powerful magic, whereas simpletons and cowards will invariably be weak.
That's why people under great emotional duress can sometimes perform
feats of magic far above their usual ability and why there is no such
thing as a power enhancing ritual."
Harry rubbed the back of his head, feeling the outline of Da'Roir, the
rune that was meant to enhance his willpower. If what Charlus was saying
was correct, then it would certainly explain why his memory was
noticeably improved with the rune, but the willpower enhancement had
always been something he hadn't been sure if it had even worked.
"Why does everyone seem to think that power levels are inborn then?" He
asked.
"I suspect it makes them feel better to think that the powerful have an
inborn advantage." Charlus shrugged.
Harry snorted. That sounded about right.
With his plans to do a power enhancing ritual foiled, Harry tried to put
together a different one, having wanted to carve a new set of runes into
his flesh over the holidays.
Unfortunately, with the internet denied to him as a resource, he simply

wasn't good enough with arithmancy to put together a ritual. Not yet.
Charlus had taken the subject when he'd been going to Hogwarts, but it
had decades since the last time he'd made use of that knowledge and he
was more than a little rusty. Neither he nor Harry were willing to chance
something going wrong due to impatience.
Though disgruntled by the need to put off any further rituals, Harry
relented. He did however make a resolution to buy himself a high end
laptop for that kind of thing. It probably wouldn't work under the wards
of the manor, not to mention the lack of electricity or Wi-Fi, but he
could always camp out somewhere in London if he needed to.
He would have completely forgotten about Christmas if Teeny, Charlus and
Dorea hadn't reminded him.
Normally, this wouldn't be a problem, but he had actual friends now.

Friends for which he had no idea what kind of presents to buy.
After a good bit of headscratching, he decided to keep it simple. He had

no better ideas and he didn't want to encourage Ginny's crush.
Seeing as both of them were completely wizard-raised, he figured that

getting them something non-magical might count as a novelty.
Luna got a book, more specifically Alice in Wonderland. Talking to her

frequently made him question which rabbit hole he'd dropped into and he
was also curious what she'd make of the book.
Ginny was a lot more problematic to buy something for, to the extent that
he started wondering if sending her a small bag of galleons would be
considered rude.
Christmas was so much less complicated when you didn't have friends.
Eventually he gave up on finding something that seemed like a good idea

and got her a flower themed hairband that the sales lady had assured him
would go well with red hair. He really hoped that she wouldn't take it as
a declaration of romantic interest.
He also got both of them a large bag of potato chips, mostly as a silent
protest to the lack of salty junk food in the Wizarding World.
He spent most of Christmas day wondering what they would get him and felt
more stung than he'd expected to be when no owls showed up. Charlus,
Dorea and even Teeny did their best to keep his mind off the fact that
his supposed friends had apparently decided not to bother sending him any
presents for Christmas, but he still ended up being a bit more surly than
normal.
By the time the holidays were over, he'd mostly cooled off, but he was
still determined to give both Luna and Ginny a hard time over it.
Chapter 5
Here is the freshest chapter. Enjoy xD.
Special thanks to Joe Lawyer and his mad pre-reviewing skillz.
XXXXX
"Hello Harry." Luna greeted as she opened the compartment door.

"Hi." The boy said back, a bit more subdued as he once again recalled the
lack of presents on Christmas. It wasn't really so much about the
presents as it was about the gesture of it.
He didn't have long to mope about it though, as Luna got right in his
face and peered at him in a most unnerving fashion.
"What are you doing?" He asked, leaning back into the seat in an attempt
to avoid the scrutiny.
"I'm trying to see what you did to yourself to give my owl such a
terrible wrackspurt infestation." Luna replied absently.
"Your owl has...wrackspurts?" He asked, recalling that this was Luna-

speak for confusion.
"Oh yes, I've never seen anything like it and neither has daddy. I tried
to send you your Christmas present, but the poor thing just flew in
circles for a while and then came back." She explained.
"Really?" Harry asked in surprise. That would certainly explain why he

hadn't gotten any presents, but it opened up an entirely new set of
questions.
It could have been Dobby making a reappearance, but he didn't think so.
The house elf had said that he'd tried to intercept his letters, not
confuse the owls.
Another and in his mind far more likely reason for the strange
behavior of the owls was that something about him was baffling them,
something that prevented them from using whatever method they used to
find him.
Harry was sure that it was all in his head, but he keenly felt the
presence of Arhain on his chest. The rune of secrecy could have
conceivably done more than merely hide his scars. It wouldn't be the
first time that there had been unexpected side-effects from his runes,
but he had hoped that the Avariel runes would be less temperamental. He
dreaded to think what he might discover about the hidden side-effects of
Aul'El. He hadn't found any so far, but he was suddenly worried about it.
If he was right about this, then this was both good and bad. On one hand,
it would make him much harder to find, but on the other, it would make
owl correspondence quite problematic.
"Mhm." Luna hummed and continued her examination of him. "I had to send
it to Hogwarts so that I could give it to you when we got back.
"So, how did you like the book I gave you?" Harry asked, scooting away
from the blonde girl.
"I really liked it." Luna said happily, sitting down and momentarily
abandoning her investigation. "It was a fascinating treatise on many
strange magical creatures and events."
"A treatise...?" Harry started with incredulity and then trailed off.
"Luna, you do know that Alice in Wonderland is just a story, right?"
"Just because it's imaginary doesn't make it untrue." Luna agued.
"If you say so." Harry capitulated, bemused. Luna made no sense
sometimes, but it was impossible to be annoyed by her. She was just too
nice.
About ten minutes after that, Ginny showed up, nearly missing the train
as was apparently the Weasley family tradition.
She looked much better than the last time he'd seen her. After the
petrification of Mrs. Norris, Ginny had started becoming more and more
sickly looking and had developed bags under her eyes. It looked like some
time away from the castle and its basilisk controlling Heir of Slytherin
had done her a world of good.
"Hi." She greeted quietly, self- consciously reaching up to touch the

hairband that Harry had given her.
"Hello Ginny, did your owl have wrackspurts too?" Luna greeted and asked.
Ginny replied while giving the blonde a baffled expression. "What?"
"Apparently, owls can't find me for some reason." Harry translated.
"Really?" Ginny asked in surprise. "We just thought that Errol was so old
that he forgot how to fly to places he'd never been to before, so we sent
your presents to Hogwarts."
XXXXX
Once they got settled back into Ravenclaw tower, they discovered that one
other person aside from Luna and Ginny had apparently decided to send
Harry a Christmas present.
It was a small package, and mysteriously unsigned.
Harry had the irrational hope that the Headmaster or some other
benefactor had decided to give him another priceless magical artefact,
despite how unlikely that was.
"Open mine first!" Luna insisted, apparently excited to see his reaction
to her gift.
He did so, removing the bright wrapping paper.
"Is that...a necklace of butterbeer corks?" Ginny asked in bafflement,

staring at the item in question.
"Yes." Luna confirmed sagely. "It keeps away the nargles."
"Thanks." Harry said with what he hoped was a convincing smile rather
than a confused one. He did recall Luna saying something about nargles
being thieves, so he figured that her heart was in the right place.
Besides, it was the thought that counted when gift giving during
Christmas wasn't it? Which kind of made Luna's odd gift better than the
randomly chosen hairband he'd gotten for Ginny.
"Daddy was going to give you a free lifetime subscription to the Quibbler
as well, but that wouldn't make much sense if owls can't find you." Luna
added with a frown.
"That's alright Luna, I can just borrow your copy." Harry told her,
secretly relieved. From what he'd seen, the Quibbler was almost like a
magical parody of a tabloid. Occasionally funny, but not something he'd
want a lifetime subscription to.
"Mine now." Ginny piped up, pushing the gift into his hands.
Harry started unwrapping it, but the redhead was apparently too nervous
to stay quiet about it.
"I wasn't sure what to get you, especially after you got me this
beautiful hairband." She babbled, making Harry stop and stare at her.
"Ginny..."He started slowly, finally getting an inkling as to why she

kept fingering the item. "That hairband is nothing special, I got it for
you because I didn't know what to get you either. It's a bit nicer than
average, but muggles pretty much mass produce them."
It hadn't quite dawned on him at the time he was buying it that there was
no such thing as an assembly line in the Wizarding World. He wasn't sure
about the food, but all of their clothes and jewelry were handmade. To
someone who'd never had contact with the non-magical world, a machine
produced accessory would probably look a lot more expensive than it
actually was.
"Oh." Ginny blinked. "You mean there are more hairbands like this in the
Muggle World?"
"Thousands, probably more." He confirmed.
Ginny felt a strange mixture of disappointed and relieved by that. On one

hand, it meant that her gift wasn't going to look subpar in comparison.
But on the other, it also meant that the boy she had a crush on hadn't
been making a show of affection.
"The Charmingly Charmed Book of Charms Theory?" Harry read the title of
the book he'd just unwrapped, staring in bemusement at the animated stick
figures dancing energetically across the back cover. Sometimes, wizards
really didn't know when to stop spelling, enchanting, jinxing, hexing or
otherwise magically altering stuff.
"I know you like to read and you're really good at Charms, so I thought
you'd like it."
"Thanks."
"Err...my mother also got you a present." Ginny continued reluctantly,

handing him a lumpy package with even more reluctance.
Blinking, Harry took it and opened it, revealing a thick, emerald green
sweater with a big golden 'H' sown into the middle.
"She made me a sweater?" He asked, baffled. That was usually the domain
of grandmothers with the annoying habit of pinching cheeks from what he
knew, though he had fortunately avoided that particular childhood
experience.
He had to admit that it was a nice sweater though. It would no doubt be

very warm, if one could ignore the embarrassment of having a giant
initial plastered across the front of it.
"It's a Weasley sweater, she makes one for each of us every year. I guess
she decided to make one for you this year too." Ginny explained, flushing
with embarrassment at the antics of her mother.
What she didn't mention was that her mother had made Ginny one that was
very similar and was obviously meant to be part of a set. She might have
a crush on Harry, but her mother's unsubtle insinuation was far too
embarrassing to ever see the light of day. Her matching emerald green
sweater with a big gold 'G' on the front was going to stay at the bottom
of her trunk until the end of time.
"That's awfully nice of her. You're lucky to have a mother that loves you
so much, Ginny." Luna said with a dreamy smile.
An awkward silence followed, both Ginny and Harry being well aware that
Luna's mother had died in a botched magical experiment a couple of years
ago. The blonde girl was not particularly skittish about the subject, but
she always became even more spaced out than usual whenever she thought
back to it.
"Alright, lets see what this last one is then." Harry said with a bit of
forced cheer in his voice.
Both girls were equally curious about the mystery present and leaned in
closer as Harry opened it.
Ginny flushed bright red as the mystery was solved.
"Oh my, she has a very nice pair of boobies." Luna ascertained
scientifically, peering at the moving magical photo with rare intensity.
Harry nodded in agreement, staring at the image of a seventh year

Ravenclaw doing a little dance in a sexy nightie that was a least a size
too small. A distant part of his mind noted that she'd probably bought
the item in a muggle lingerie store. Either that, or the Wizarding World
took the 'secret' part of Victoria's Secret literally. Most of his
attention was captured by the flesh being displayed by the curvy
seventeen year old with brown hair and blue eyes however, rather than
where'd she'd gotten the see-through garment. His runes prickled even as
the blood rushed southwards.
"Who is she?" Ginny asked, her tone accusatory and jealous despite her
best efforts.
"I don't know her name." Harry answered truthfully. He did know however,
that she was one of the girls that had caught him staring and had raised
her eyebrows at him pointedly. He'd been glad to escape being glared at
at the time.
The thought that she would send him a sexy picture had never even crossed
his mind as a possibility. Sometimes, life was good.
"You need to get rid of it." Ginny stated.
"That would be very rude." Luna countered before Harry could object to
the redhead's declaration. "She obviously wanted Harry to have it. What
if he threw away your gift? How would that make you feel?"
"It's not the same thing!" The redhead insisted, her voice rising in
pitch in her desire to combat Luna's logic.
"Why not?" Luna asked cluelessly.
"Because...because it just isn't!"
"Well that's not much of an argument, is it?" Luna frowned.
"Hey look, there's a note!" Harry interjected, wanting to end the brewing
argument. He was inclined to agree with Luna though. A lot of that
agreement originated in the fact that her reasoning would end up with him
keeping an animated photo of a sexy girl, but still.
"'Have fun polishing your wand.'" Luna read out. "How did she know that
your wand needs polishing?"
Both Harry and Ginny flushed bright red, quickly understanding the
euphemism.
"Did she find you polishing it during one of your free periods, Harry?"
Luna continued.
"NO!" Harry exclaimed in a near panic with his face burning, forgetting
for a moment that Luna had meant that literally. "I mean, no. I'm sure
she just assumed that it...errr...needs polishing." He finished
awkwardly.
How in the six hundred and sixty-six pits of the Abyss was Luna not
making the connection between the sexy girl, wand polishing and
masturbation, he had no idea, but he'd be damned if he was going to
explain it to her.
"I could help you if you don't know the proper technique." The blonde
offered innocently.
Amazingly, Harry felt the erection he'd gotten from the moving photo
withering from the sheer volume of blood rushing to his face.
"That's alright, Luna. I'm sure I can do it myself." He answered

painfully. A quick look at Ginny let him know that the redhead had long
since lost the power of speech and would be of no help in ending this
conversation.
"Are you sure? Daddy showed me how he polishes his before I left for
Hogwarts you know."
Harry's face shifted from bright red to a sickly green. He knew, he knew
that Luna hadn't meant it that way, but there was no blocking out the
mental imagery.
"I think I'm going to go lie down for a bit." He said, forcibly derailing
the conversation.
"You are looking a bit peaky." Luna agreed.
XXXXX
The next morning found Harry in his room, reading the book that Ginny had
given him and munching on a pre-breakfast sandwich that Blinky had
brought him. The house elves were all well aware of his appetite by now
and seemed to be extra fond of him for the additional work it gave them.
The book itself was actually surprisingly good in a 'Charms theory for
dummies' kind of way. Granted, it was meant for children ranging from
eleven to fifteen in age, but Harry found it a bit simplistic after
slogging through the tomes in the Restricted Section. It did provide a
bit of insight into things that the more advanced tomes assumed the
reader already knew however, such as a few focusing exercises for casting
magic properly.
He shut the book with determination and held up a pen, focusing on his
desire for the pen to levitate.
After the amount of practice he put into it, the writing implement did so
easily. Then, as per the suggestion of the book, he sent it on a slow,
looping glide across the room. It wasn't something he'd thought of doing
before, but it was surprisingly difficult to keep it focused in a single
direction instead of having it flail every which way. It was a jerky and
uneven flight as he struggled to keep his focus on the multiple elements
required for a smooth one, but it got easier the more he practiced.
Technically, the book said to do this with a wand, but Harry was as
determined as ever to avoid looking ridiculous by waving that silly stick
about. It would undoubtedly have been worlds easier, but he was rather
leery of the idea of being deprived of magic by something as simple as
having his wand taken away.
Also, he still hadn't been able to stop thinking of his wand as some kind
of magical penis ever since last night. The act of doing magic with a
wand felt kind of like giving his magic a good wanking at the moment. A
minor issue really and one that would be easily ignored during classes,
but it did give him a little extra incentive to master wandless magic.
A knock on the door sent his pen clattering to the floor.
"Come in." He called as he picked it up.
Ginny stuck her head inside, giving him a smile that might be classified
as 'overly bright'.
"Morning." She greeted cheerily. "Want to get...breakfast? Harry, why do

you have a sandwich in your room?"
"I like to have a little snack before breakfast." He defended.
"A little?" Ginny asked disbelievingly, walking up to what looked to be

the remains of a considerably sized sandwich.
"I'm a growing boy." Harry simultaneously lied and told the truth.
"O...kay." Ginny conceded, having heard that one from more than one of
her brothers over the years. "So, want to get breakfast?"
"I'm waiting for Luna to get up. Speaking of which, why are you up
already? You usually sleep in."
"I just felt like getting up early today." The redhead said a bit
defensively.
"Alright." Harry shrugged and dropped the subject. It was none of his
business if she wanted to change her sleeping habits.
"So, um, what did you do with...you know...it?" Ginny asked awkwardly,
blushing madly.
Harry knew what she was talking about instantly. He was also reminded of
a very interesting 'wand polishing' session during which the sexily
animated girl in the magical picture had done a striptease for him.
Magic was so awesome. And perhaps his fame had some upsides to it too.
"That's none of your business." He said quckly with a heavy blush on his
face, wanting to cringe as soon as he'd said it. He might as well have
told her exactly what he'd been doing with that picture last night.
"Harry, you have to get rid of it." The redhead said, disapproval
permeating her tone.
"Why?" He asked back, his own tone stiffening. "Luna had a point last
night, the girl obviously wanted me to have it."
"It isn't right." She insisted. She'd woken up so early exactly because
she didn't want Luna around to argue with her about it.
"Why?" He challenged again. No way was he giving up that picture. There

was a criminal dearth of erotic material in the Wizarding World as it
was. Not that he'd really looked for any, but he hadn't caught so much as
a hint of it so far.
"It just isn't!" She yelled in frustration. "You shouldn't be looking at

pictures of some tramp that you don't even know!"
Harry just stared at her, trying to contain the urge to yell back at her.
Fortunately, he succeeded. He'd spent practically every night since the
beginning of term working on his Occlumency for at least a couple of
hours before he went to bed and his temper was finally becoming
manageable.
He was still pretty pissed off though. He'd thought that Ginny was
getting better about the stupid crush she had on him, but apparently not.
He most certainly did not owe her anything and wasn't going to pander to
her jealousy.
"I'll look at whatever the hell I want." He snapped.
"Fine then!" She snapped back tearfully. "Keep your thrashy picture if
it's so important to you!"
With that, she stomped out, slamming the door for good measure.
"It's not about the damn picture anymore." Harry muttered to himself with
a long sigh.
He hadn't been too enthused about Ginny at first, but she'd grown on him
after a while. He wasn't so fond of her that he would be willing to give
in to her jealous tantrums though.
XXXXX
Ginny grumbled in her sleep as a weight settled itself on her midsection.
Then she batted her hands at whatever was poking her in the cheek.
"Psst! Ginny. Wake up."
The combination of irritating pokes and the voice brought the redhead out
of slumber, causing her eyes to slowly open.
And see the form of Luna sitting on her stomach, smiling at her. The
gloom, combined with Ginny's sleep addled mind, made her look very
creepy.
Naturally, Ginny screamed.
"Hello." Luna chirped, apparently unperturbed.
"Luna?" Ginny hissed, voice heavy with incredulity. "What are you doing
here?!"
"I seem to be sitting on your stomach." The blonde answered in all

seriousness.
"Why?!"
"I needed to talk to you and you've been avoiding me and Harry all day."
"And why do you need to talk to me so badly." The redhead grumbled

sourly, reminded of the blow-up she'd had with Harry in the morning. His
obvious determination to keep hold of that slutty photo had put a serious
hole in her image of the Boy-Who-Lived.
"Because you've been avoiding me and Harry all day. I want to know why so
that I can fix it and we can all be friends again."
Ginny sighed in resignation and slumped back into the bed. "Could you get
off me now?"
"I could." Despite saying that, Luna made no move to actually do so.
"Luna, get off."
"Okay."
The blonde clambered off the redhead and settled herself on the mattress.
An awkward silence ensued for a while as Luna waited for Ginny to say
something, while Ginny didn't know what to say.
"It's about that naughty picture isn't it?" Luna asked shrewdly after a
few minutes of silence.
"Yes!" Ginny cried out. "I just don't understand why he wants to keep it
so badly."
"She has very nice boobies." Luna reasoned.
"But he's the Boy-Who-Lived!"
"Yes, and boys like boobies."
Ginny spluttered incomprehensibly for a moment, flustered by the utter

certainty of Luna's replies.
"But he's a hero! He should find his true love, not...not...stare at a
dirty picture that some tramp sent him!"
Luna peered at her closely for a few seconds before replying. "Didn't
your parents tell you that boys are more interested in boobies than true
love? Daddy told me that the day before I left for Hogwarts."
Ginny flushed in embarrassment. No, they hadn't told her that, but she
had heard more than one outraged rant from her mother when she'd found a
dirty magazine in Fred and George's room. They must have somehow gotten
it from the Muggle World if their mother's rants about the indecency of
muggle women was anything to go by.
"But he's not just any boy." She protested weakly.
"But he is a boy, so he must like boobies." Luna insisted. "We can ask
him tomorrow if you want to make sure."
"No!" Ginny blurted out, blushing again.
Another few minutes passed in silence, a more comfortable one this time.
"Do you think he'd like my boobies?" The redhead asked eventually, her
voice barely audible.
"You don't have any boobies." The blonde trespasser informed her bluntly.
Ginny slumped into herself.
"But don't worry, Harry doesn't seem to be picky about what kind of
boobies he likes. He spends a large part of his mealtimes looking at all
the ones he can see, so I'm sure that he'll like ours once they grow."
That wasn't really what Ginny wanted to hear. Being just another pair of
breasts for Harry Potter's viewing pleasure was a far cry from her dreams
of a happily ever after with the Boy-Who-Lived.
XXXXX
A few weeks passed mostly uneventfully. Ginny became progressively more

withdrawn, but Harry didn't press her on it, figuring that it was just a
consequence of their argument. Luna did try, but was fended off by
assurances that she was just tired.
Then the routine was interrupted by another attack, but there was no
petrification this time. This time, Terry Boot was found dead in the
hallways.
XXXXX
"The Ministry arrested Hagrid?" Harry asked incredulously.
They were in his room, as it had become a sort of unspoken private spot
for them. They couldn't use one of the girls' rooms because they had an
alarm attached to them if a boy tried to enter them. The reverse did not
apply for some reason.
"Yes, he was the one to get blamed when the Chamber of Secrets was opened
the last time, fifty years ago." Luna confirmed sadly. She liked Hagrid.
"That doesn't even make sense!" Harry said in exasperation. "If they're
running on the assumption that Slytherin's Heir hates muggleborns, Hagrid
is hardly likely to be the culprit."
"The Ministry doesn't often make sense."
"There's even talk about Dumbledore being relieved of his post as

Hogwarts Headmaster and closing down the school." Luna continued. "It's
almost exactly like it happened fifty years ago."
"It was me!" Ginny suddenly cried out, her face deathly pale.
"What was you?" Harry asked slowly, staring at the near frantic redhead.
She'd been trembling pretty much since Boot was found dead.
"I was the one who opened the Chamber!" She blurted out. "I mean...I
think it was me. I blacked out again and then Terry was dead and now
Hagrid got arrested..."
"Ginny, slow down!" Harry cut off her babbling, more than a little
alarmed. "I think you'd better start from the beginning."
So she did. She laid out pretty much everything from the mysteriously
appearing diary of one T. M. Riddle and how it would talk back to her and
even show her its memories, to her blackouts and how they always happened
during an attack.
"A Tom Riddle was credited as 'exposing' Hagrid the first time." Luna
said contemplatively. She had looked into it with her father during the
holidays.
"Ginny, could you show us this diary?" Harry requested, getting a

terrible suspicion about the item. Simple spellwork wouldn't be enough to
make a diary interactive to that degree.
Ginny agreed and shuffled off to her own room to get her bag, coming back
a minute later.
As soon as she handed it to him, he felt the insane urge to write

something into it despite what Ginny had just told him. He was more than
wary enough of it to immediately think of a compulsion charm though, so
he resisted. If the diary was a phylactery as he suspected, then writing
into it was the last thing he wanted to do.
Now the only thing left to do was decide what to do with it. Something
obviously had to be done, but none of them had any idea how it would
affect Ginny if it was either destroyed or left intact.
As much as he didn't trust the old man anymore, Harry reluctantly

concluded that he would have to talk to Dumbledore about this.
XXXXX
"Professor Flitwick has informed me that you had an urgent matter you
needed to discuss with me?" Dumbledore prompted.
Harry nodded, still unsure of the wisdom in going to Dumbledore with

this.
Looking around the room, it was obvious that the rumors of the old wizard
getting sacked were true. He had been in the middle of packing his
possessions and there was an air of sorrow about him. Even Fawkes was
looking a bit dispirited.
"I think I might know what's been going on with this whole Chamber of
Secrets thing." He admitted at last, seeing no alternative but to rely on
the Headmaster for help in dealing with the problem.
Dumbledore sat up, suddenly looking far more intense than before.
"Then by all means, tell me."
It was presented like a gentle prompt, but the sudden pressure of

Dumbledore's magic made it an order.
Harry swallowed, this was the first time that he'd felt another wizard's
magic pressing against his own. It gave the old man an aura of power and
authority that no amount of grandfatherly twinkling could hope to hide.
"I'd like to ask you something first." He ventured, continuing when the
Headmaster gave him a nod to go ahead. "Is it possible for a wizard to
make a phylactery?"
Dumbledore frowned, puzzled. The term was unfamiliar to him, but the
level of nervousness he could see the boy across him exuding at the
question gave it an ominous weight.
"What is a phylactery?"
"An item in which an evil magic user might hide their soul in to achieve
a form of immortality, a soul jar in other words."
Dumbledore could feel his insides going cold at the explanation. How was
it possible for the twelve year old boy to know of such dark magics? He
was certain that he had purged the Hogwarts Library of any mention of
Horcruxes.
"Where did you learn of such things?" He demanded, forgetting his
grandfatherly persona for a moment. Harry simply couldn't be allowed to
turn evil. The Wizarding World would never survive a struggle between
Voldemort and another rising Dark Lord, especially one as powerful as
Harry was looking to become.
Harry sank deeper into his chair as Dumbledore's presence swelled

further. He tried to apply his nascent knowledge of Occlumency to control
his fear, but it was hard. The old wizard was so much stronger than him.
"It's a common theme in muggle fantasy fiction." He explained with far

too much squeak in his voice for his taste. "An evil wizard sacrificing
his humanity in exchange for power and immortality."
Dumbledore blinked and slowly settled down, aided by a calming song from
Fawkes that was probably meant for both wizards.
Muggles had conceived the idea of Horcruxes, all the while believing that
magic didn't exist? Or had some whispers of the foul creations survived
among them from the times before the Statute of Secrecy? It didn't matter
he supposed, what mattered was that Harry had seen fit to come to him to
ask about it. While the fact that he even knew that it was possible to
make a Horcrux was not at all a good thing, it was heartening that the
boy had come to him with this. Dark wizards did not in general come to
him for advice on how to perform evil magic.
"Am I to take it then that you believe such a object to be behind this
year's troubles?" He asked, his mind already making connections. The last
Heir of Slytherin had been Voldemort and a Horcrux of the man would
certainly be capable of possessing a student and repeating what had
happened fifty years ago.
Harry nodded and drew a thin book out of the Mokeskin Pouch that
Dumbledore had noticed he always kept at his waist.
The book was placed on the desk, helpfully signed 'T. M. Riddle' as if to
confirm his suspicions.
Just to be sure, Dumbledore cast a few diagnostic charms over the diary
even though he already knew what they would tell him. Indeed, the thin
book was a cesspit of corrupt magic.
"You have done a great thing to bring this to me, Harry." He said
eventually.
He meant it too. Now he finally had confirmation that Voldemort had

indeed created Horcruxes. He had only been able to speculate before this.
Though the Dark Lord's soul was no doubt a shattered and mangled thing
from the abuse he'd put it through with his evil acts, a piece of it
would not simply fly off and attach itself to Harry's forehead unless
there was something more going on.
The diary must have been created while Tom Riddle was still in school and
knowing him as Dumbledore did, he doubted that Voldemort would have been
satisfied with just a single Horcrux despite the consequences of creating
them.
"How did you come to posses this?"
Harry did his best not to squirm. This was the part that he had really
been hoping to avoid, but knew he couldn't. He didn't want to land Ginny
in hot water, but he had little doubt that the Ministry wouldn't care
about her being possessed if they could imprison Hagrid on evidence so
flimsy that it was practically non-existent.
"A student had it." He evaded.
"Ms. Lovegood or Ms. Weasley? Ah, Ms. Weasley." Dumbledore said, taking
his cues from Harry's expression and body language.
"She didn't even know it was her." Harry hastened to explain. "She just
kept blacking out and guessed that it might be. There's also a compulsion
on the diary that was manipulating her to do it and keep quiet."
"I know, Harry." Dumbledore interjected, making a calming motion with his
hand. "This is a cursed object left behind by Voldemort and an eleven
year old can hardly be expected to perceive it for what it is. No blame
shall fall on young Ms. Weasley."
"You'll forgive me if I don't believe the Ministry will be that

reasonable." Harry replied cynically.
Dumbledore gave a short sigh at the unfortunate truth of that. Cornelius

had not listened to his protestations of Hagrid's innocence, wanting to
be seen 'doing something', so it was quite likely that he'd jump on poor
Ginny as if she were Voldemort himself. A helpless, eleven year old
Voldemort of course. Cornelius had regrettably never been brave enough to
actually do something as dangerous as act against a real threat.
"You needn't worry Harry, I will handle the Ministry."
They had no time to deal with that right now however, as the current
situation had to be resolved quickly before the Ministry did anything
else unutterably stupid, such as offering Lockhart the position of
Hogwarts Headmaster. Triumphing over Slytherin's basilisk and revealing
that it was a cursed object at work would be enough to restore his
reputation and reclaim his position.
Not that he had any intention of actually fighting the basilisk. The
ancient serpent's hide would be obscenely magic resistant by now, not to
mention its powerful Killing Gaze. A quick apparition to grab a rooster
would be the most he planned to exert himself.
That just left the problem of gaining access to the Chamber of Secrets.
He'd found it some time ago after learning that he was dealing with a
basilisk, but had been unable to open the path. The barrier in Myrtle's
bathroom was linked to the wards, but not even the Headmaster could open
them. No doubt it would take a Parselmouth.
"I realize that you have done much already Harry, but I find myself in a
position where I am forced to ask you to do a little more."
"For example?" Harry asked warily.
"I have discovered where the Chamber of Secrets is, but it takes a
Parselmouth to open it." Dumbledore explained and continued before Harry
could say anything. "Know that you will be in minimal danger and that I
have no intention of engaging the basilisk in battle."
"Couldn't we just leave it alone?" Harry questioned. "I mean, we have the
diary. If we destroy it, then there won't be anyone left to open it."
"I left the mystery alone fifty years ago and it has resulted in the
current situation." Dumbledore said sorrowfully. "I would rather not risk
history repeating itself a third time."
He would also probably not regain his position as Headmaster without some
significant achievement. The glory of Grindelwald's defeat that had
carried him through the last time was much more distant now, nor had he
been Headmaster the last time.
XXXXX
"You know, I'm not sure we could make a less epic start to the slaying of
a powerful monster if we tried." Harry grumbled as he walked into the
girl's bathroom behind Dumbledore, a live rooster in his hands.
"How so, Harry?" Dumbledore asked, amused in spite of the dire situation.
"You're wearing bright yellow robes, I'm carrying a chicken, and we're
going into a girl's bathroom." The boy replied dryly.
"Rooster." The much older wizard corrected.
"It sounds like the start of a dirty joke." Harry continued, ignoring the
correction. "'A boy walks into a girl's bathroom holding an old man's
cock.'"
Dumbledore stopped and looked at his student strangely before finally

speaking. "I presume that this is Ms. Lovegood's influence?"
"It would be something she'd say, isn't it?" Harry admitted with a slight
blush.
Luna would probably be entirely clueless about the sexual connotations

though. Or at least she'd be pretending to be clueless. Harry wasn't sure
yet whether his blonde friend was really as oblivious as she acted.
"Indeed. Her father was, and I presume still is, the same."
"Why are we in a girl's bathroom anyway?"

"I have been able to deduce that the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets
is in here, by the sinks."
"Salazar Slytherin put the entrance to his Chamber of Secrets in a girl's

bathroom?" Harry asked incredulously.
"It would appear so."
"He was either very cunning or a pedophile."
"The truth is a wonderful and terrible thing and probably best left
unknown in this case." Dumbledore said, gesturing towards the sink with
the snake carving. "Command it to open in Parseltongue if you would,
Harry."
Harry focused on the image of a snake in his mind just like he'd
practiced and spoke. "Open!"
The circular array of sinks separated and revealed a long tunnel into the
dark.
Harry peered into the depths, a question forming in his mind.
"If you knew the entrance was here, why didn't you simply blast it open?"
"Alas, magic is rarely so straightforward." Dumbledore explained. "Had I

done so, all I would have to show for it is a ruined bathroom and no
secret entrance."
The only reason he hadn't asked Harry for help sooner was a desire to not
involve the boy in such a dangerous matter. Unfortunately, his caution
had availed him nothing save to place the death of another student on his
conscience.
"I will ask you to go no further Harry, but there may be other
Parseltongue locked doors in the Chamber." He said, looking down at the
boy.
"Let's just get this over with." Harry sighed, staring down into the dark
hole.
Moaning Myrtle chose this moment to pop out of her preferred cubicle.
"If you die down there, you can share my toilet." She offered.
"Thank you Myrtle, that is most generous of you." Dumbledore said and
jumped into the hole.
Given the choice between a creepily giggling ghost and a dark hole
leading to one of the most dangerous monsters in the magical world, Harry
swiftly followed.
XXXXX
Harry slid out of the tunnel after a fairly exhilirating ride, shoes
crunching on the bones of countless small animals.
"Well this isn't creepy at all." He muttered sarcastically.
"Quite," Dumbledore agreed, quickly casting a few cleaning charms to

remove the filth they'd picked up during their slide. "Come Harry, but be
cautious. If you see or hear anything, shut your eyes."
"Don't have to tell me twice." Harry agreed and followed the old wizard
deeper into the chamber.
It didn't take them long to come across a massive discarded snake skin.
"It is even larger than I thought." Dumbledore said, shaking his head.
"Do all basilisks get this big?" Harry asked, staring at the skin with
wide eyes. He hugged the rooster a bit more tightly, knowing that it was
the key to this mad venture.
"There has never been a record of a basilisk living this long."

Dumbledore explained. "I suspect that they never stop growing."
They moved on and reached another Parseltongue sealed door, beyond which
lay the Chamber proper.
"This guy really had a thing for snakes." Harry observed, noting the many
serpent statues lining the walkway.
"Indeed." Dumbledore agreed and gestured for Harry to give him the
rooster. "The basilisk must be very close now, would you be so kind as to
give me back my cock now?"
Harry gave a nervous chuckle as he did so, recognizing the humour for
what it was, an attempt to relieve some tension.
They stalked forward slowly, Dumbledore keeping his wand trained on the
rooster held in his other hand, ready to compell it to crow at a moment's
notice.
"Professor, I just had a thought." Harry said quietly.
"Yes, Harry?"
"The crow of a rooster seems like an awfully specific vulnerability, not

really something likely to occur naturally."
"You would not be the first to wonder about that. Despite logic
indicating otherwise, that particular weakness is not bred into the
creatures deliberately. Rather, it is a result of the nature of its
hatching. Something about the process makes a rooster's crow resonate
fatally with the basilisk's own magic." Dumbledore lectured.
"So there's no chance of it being immune then?" Harry asked, much
relieved.
"No Harry, you can rest assured that my cock is stronger than Slytherin's
snake." The old wizard assured, beard twitching with his smile.
Harry snorted in amusement. He might be wary of Dumbledore and the

manipulative streak that his grandparents had warned him of, but at least
he had a sense of humour.
"Intruders in the nest? Not the master. Food? So hungry. Smells good."
The hiss resonated across the chamber, too low for human hearing but
perfectly audible to a Parselmouth.
And also to the rooster, which squawked in reply.
The hissing stopped for a moment before returning with a vengeance.
"BIRD BIRD BIRD! SERPENT KILLER. NO NO NO NO, WON'T DIE. CAN'T RUN.
NOWHERE TO RUN. MUST KILL!"
"Get ready!" Harry called urgently, alarmed by the half-mad rambling of

the basilisk. "It's coming right at us!"
Dumbledore nodded, hearing the rapid movement of the enourmous snake

through the tunnels built into the sides of the Chamber. He waited only a
moment longer before casting a compulsion on the rooster and forcing it
to crow.
The basilisk let out a hissing roar as the crowing echoed through the
Chamber before smashing heavily into the ground off to the side, also
making a large splash in the shallow water.
Harry and Dumbledore waited tensely for any sign that the basilisk was
still alive. A full minute passed before they relaxed and started moving
warily towards the place where they'd heard the crash.
"Do not look it in the eyes, they may still have some power even in
death." Dumbledore warned.
"Got it." Harry acknowledged.
They found the massive carcass quickly enough, looking more like a dark
grey rock formation than a snake.
"I guess that's it then." Harry said, still jittery with nerves from the
oddly anti-climatic finish.
"Almost, there is one more thing to do." Dumbledore said as he handed the
rooster back to Harry and drew out the diary.
"What are you going to do with that?" Harry asked.

"Aside from being incredibly potent, basilisk venom is also known to have
a corrosive effect on magic. If my guess is correct, it should have the
ability to destroy Voldemort's diary." Dumbledore explained.
It would also save him a great deal of questions from the Ministry about
unauthorized uses of Fiendfyre.
Harry said nothing and simply watched as the much older wizard approached
the basilisk's mouth, taking care not to look at the eyes. With a wave of
his wand, he forced open the massive jaw, revealing a mouth full of fangs
instead of the usual toothless mouth of a snake. With a quick Accio, one
of the fangs was pulled out and driven through the diary. The wail
released by the booklet was confirmation that the Horcrux was destroyed.
"What about the basilisk?" Harry asked once it was done, the whole thing
once again feeling very anti-climatic. He hadn't expected that prophecy
to be resolved quite so...neatly.
"What of it?" Dumbledore blinked, oblivious to the fact that Harry had
just assumed that Voldemort was finished once and for all.
"Could we sell it?"
Dumbledore hummed thoughtfully. He'd been so focused on killing the beast

and regaining his position as Headmaster that he hadn't thought of it,
but the boy definitely had a point. For a basilisk of this size and age,
half the Potion Masters and magical leatherworkers in Europe would beggar
themselves before it was completely harvested and sold, which was a
process likely to take several years. The eyes alone would net an
astronomical sum.
Hogwarts could certainly use the funding, not to mention the Order of the
Phoenix in the event that Voldemort's return proved impossible to
prevent. It would make it easier to regain his Headmaster position if he
came bearing gifts.
"An excellent point, Harry." He said.
"You said that the hide is magic resistant?" Harry asked speculatively,
eyeballing the craggy dark grey scales. He rather liked the color.
"Extremely so." Dumbledore confirmed.
"I've heard about dragonhide robes, would it be possible to make them out
of basilisk hide?"
"It would. They would not be as impact resistant as dragonhide, but they
would be much more magic resistant."
"I'll claim enough of its hide to make a few adult sized sets then and
samples of any useful ingredients harvested if I ever decide to make use
of them, such as the venom. The rest of it we can sell. I'm assuming that
my share can easily be delivered to my Gringotts vault?"
"Your share?" Dumbledore echoed, surprised by the mercenary statement.
"Of course, 50%. You found the Chamber, but I opened it and neither one
of us can really claim to have done the lion's share of the work since we
killed the bloody thing with a rooster. You get to take whatever you want
from the carcass before we sell it of course, what with both of us having
equal claim to the body." Harry continued happily.
"There is more to life than galleons, Harry." The old wizard sighed,
disappointed by the decidedly unheroic greed that the boy was displaying
right now.
"And all those other things in life will be much easier with galleons
than without them." Harry countered. After getting ripped off by the
goblins that first time, he was no longer willing to let easy profit slip
through his fingers. "You didn't think I was going to hold your cock for
free, did you?"
"I...very well." Dumbledore capitulated and shook his head with a weak
smile at the joke. He couldn't afford to alienate the boy over something
so trivial, especially when he was entitled by law to claim a share due
to his aid in slaying the beast.
XXXXX
"If I may have your attention, please." Dumbledore said just before the
evening meal that very same day.
The Great Hall quieted and turned its attention to him curiously.
"I know that the year has been difficult, filled with fear and sorrow,
but now it is over. Earlier in the day, Harry Potter and myself have at
last unraveled the mystery behind the Chamber of Secrets."
The student body burst into excited murmurs for a moment before settling
down again to listen to the old Headmaster.
"The mythical monster said to be hidden in the Chamber was a basilisk,

whose lair was most cleverly hidden. Mr. Potter and myself found it and
ventured into the Chamber this very morning, slaying the beast in its
lair."
"But who was the Heir?" Someone yelled out.
"Voldemort." He replied, resisting the urge to sigh as practically

everyone in the Great Hall flinched, yelped, screamed or otherwise
displayed an unseemly level of fear over a name. "A cursed object he had
left behind had possessed a student and forced them to open the Chamber.
The name of the student in question will remain secret unless they wish
to inform you themselves."
Another bout of murmuring spread through the students, this time

speculation on the identity of the possessed party.
"Additionally, for the next few days Hogwarts will be hosting several
wizards and witches specializing in the harvesting of large magical
animals. I request that you do not get in their way. That will be all
from me right now, thank you."
That should do the trick. The legend of the Boy-Who-Lived would grow, as
would the enmity between him and Voldemort. His own involvement and
connection to Harry would ensure that he would be able to retain his
position as Headmaster without any overt difficulty.
Lucius Malfoy would no doubt try to protest, but Dumbledore knew how to
handle Lucius.
It truly was unfortunate that the re-opening of the Chamber had resulted
in another death, but he had not dared to close the school. The then-
unknown Heir of Slytherin would have been set loose on the world in that
case. Terry Boot's death was unfortunate, but it was better than the many
other deaths that a resurrected sixteen year old Voldemort would have
caused.
XXXXX
Harry, Luna and Ginny had almost made it up the first flight of stairs
towards Ravenclaw tower before they were halted.
"Potter!"
Harry's face twitched with irritation at the sound of Draco Malfoy's

outraged yell. Of course the blond idiot would take offense to having the
attacks on muggleborns ended. Why had he even entertained the idea that
Malfoy might be clever enough to be less obvious about his prejudices?
Turning around, the three of them saw the huffing and puffing second year
stomping up the stairs, no doubt intending to get in Harry's face about
his part in putting an end to the whole debacle.
Harry had no desire to deal with the idiot, so he focused his will and
launched a weak, wandless banishing spell at Malfoy's leg.
The leg was thrown back, completely destroying the blond's footing and
sending him crashing face first into the stairs. He managed to catch
himself with his hands before he actually got hurt, unfortunately.
"Maybe you should learn to walk on even ground before trying to tackle
stairs, Malfoy." Harry mocked, taking an inordinate amount of glee in the
blond's humiliation. He'd been insufferable ever since Halloween. More
insufferable than normal at any rate.
"You tripped me!" Malfoy accused angrily.
"With what?" Harry asked sarcastically, raising his hands to show that
they were empty. "My mastery of wandless magic?"
There were some giggles from a few students who'd seen the whole thing,
causing Draco to flush in angry humiliation.
Shaking his head in exasperation, Harry restarted his speedy retreat to

his room. He had no doubt that everyone and their mother would want to
know the whole story and he wasn't sure that his reputation for being
unapproachable was going to be a sufficient shield.
XXXXX
Harry closed the door to his room with a feeling of relief.
What in the bloody fucking hell had Dumbledore been thinking, announcing
that to the entire school? He'd felt like a germ under a microscope with
the way that people had stared at him all the way through dinner. Luna
and Ginny's stares had been the worst, silently willing him to explain.
At least he hadn't said anything about sending Moldywarts off to his
final death with the destruction of the phylactery.
Was this supposed to be some kind of payback for the 50% share of the
profits on the sale of the carcass he'd claimed?
His stewing was interrupted by an insistent knocking on his door.
Harry sighed, knowing exactly who was on the other side.
Resigned he opened the door and was placed into bewilderment as a tiny
redhead grabbed him in a tight hug.
"Thank you." She mumbled.
"You're, uh, welcome." Harry replied with an akward pat on the back.
Ginny had been a bit twitchy ever since he'd taken the diary away from
her, so he could guess that its destruction had helped her somehow, but
he still had no idea how to deal with this.
"Did you really have to kill that poor, lonely basilisk, Harry?" Luna
asked sadly.
"It was going to eat us." He said dryly, recalling the creature's
mutterings before it had detected the rooster.
"Oh poo, and I so wanted a basilisk friend."
Ginny finally let go at that point, looking up at him curiously despite

her blush. "How did you even kill it?"
"Dumbledore got a rooster from somewhere. It wasn't as dangerous as he

made it sound."
"Could I have an interview, Harry?" Luna asked excitedly, her previous

dismay over the serpent's death forgotten. "Daddy is sure to want to
write an article about how you and Headmaster Dumbledore used your cock
to slay Slytherin's ancient snake."
Harry turned his eyes skyward with a sigh, somehow not even surprised
that Luna had once again managed to be so innocently crass. He'd been
expecting it really.
XXXXX
February 14th
Harry had barely left his room for the whole day, rightly fearing the
level of attention he would get on this day.
Ginny had been acting extra weird for the past few days. No doubt she'd
be upset about his refusal to even show his face on what was supposedly
the most romantic day of the year, but that was her own problem. Her
crush had somehow managed to become both better and worse after the diary
situation was resolved.
Better, because she was less obvious about it most of the time and worse
because it had apparently solidified into some kind of emotional
jawbreaker. He rather thought that the girl needed counseling to deal
with the fact that her body had been used to kill someone, but the
Wizarding World had apparently never heard of psychiatry. Instead, Ginny
seemed to have convinced herself that everything would be fine as long as
he was there. Seeing as his paricipation in destroying the phylactery had
been minimal, this belief seemed a tad unjustified to Harry.
Ginny was just going to have to learn how to deal with the
disappointment, because he simply had no romantic interest in her and
didn't see that changing. Her bouts of sullen jealousy were even starting
to put a strain on their friendship despite Luna's best efforts at
playing the intermediary.
The cause of much of this jealousy was his continued interest in the
older girls, especially the one who had sent him that picture.
He didn't even know her name, but he had trouble looking her in the eye.
Ever since Dumbledore's announcement, she'd been prone to winking at him
whenever she caught him looking at her. She clearly had no trouble with
her self-confidence, but Harry had no idea how to deal with it, so he
tended to just blush in embarrassment.
His rune enhanced libido made him want to talk to her and see what
happened, but he was still twelve. Talking to a seventeen year old girl
that had given him a naughty picture was way outside of his comfort zone.
Either way, he had dreaded Valentine's day and decided to avoid any
embarrassing situations by keeping himself locked up in his room.
He'd spent most of the day eating the steady stream of snacks provided by
the house elves and meditating.
According to the book he'd found there were two ways to learn Occlumency.
The quick way and the slow way.
The quick way involved getting a skilled Legilimancer to brutally and
repeatedly violate your mind until you developed an instinctive defensive
reaction and threw the invader out of your mind.
Aside from Aul'El preventing this approach, Harry had not been overly
keen on the idea even if he could have found someone to do this to him.
It sounded incredibly unpleasant and wouldn't even help to achieve his
goals. He didn't need to train his subconscious into a viciously
territorial attack dog, he needed to tame it.
The slow way involved a lot of sitting still and trying to clear your
thoughts.
Harry had been at it for months and would have long since given up if he
didn't know that there was a point to it.
The meditation had helped to control his angry outbursts to some degree,
but so far he hadn't managed to sink into the trance-like state that the
book had described.
Until now that was.
After hours of struggling with the concept of 'letting go', Harry had
just been so tired of it all.
His irritation with Ginny's crush, the embarrassment having gotten caught
staring at several of the older girls, the frustrated lust of a pubescent
boy that was exceedingly unlikely to get fulfilled anytime soon, the
restless desire to explore magic away from the restrictions of Hogwarts
and the Ministry, the impatience at his slow progress with wandless
magic, the yearning to perform another ritual and countless other things.
In his frustration with all the messy complications of life, his mind had
wandered. He'd started thinking about how ultimately pointless it all
was. Humanity was just one species, on one ball of rock, orbiting one
star, in one galaxy. They could all get wiped out tomorrow and the
Universe wouldn't even notice.
Somewhere during his ruminations, he'd left his worldly concerns behind
and begun drifting lazily through a comfortable emptiness. It was like a
mental safe place where nothing could reach him.
A good twenty minutes later, Harry came out of the trance and smiled even
as the ache in his lower back and the hunger in his stomach ruined the
sense of peace he'd felt.
He had managed the first and arguably the hardest part of Occlumency.
XXXXX
June 2nd
Potions class had become almost pleasant for a while after the basilisk
was killed, mostly because Snape was in an ebulient mood over getting to
experiment with fresh basilisk parts that Dumbledore had given him access
to. Even more so when the headmaster also gave him access to phoenix
tears to neutralize the venom's magic destroying properties and see what
could be done with it.
It hadn't lasted long of course, as this was Snape we were talking about.
The dour man's relatively good cheer dissipated in about a month,
returning him back to his default factory setting.
Still, Harry couldn't really complain too much about Potions. Yes, Snape
was kind of a bastard and unnecessarily harsh with students, but he was
still better than Binns or Lockhart. Even a bastard with no idea how to
teach properly could impart some of his knowledge, whereas Binns was
basically a sleeping spell given form and Lockhart would have been better
served giving fashion tips in a Witch Weekly column.
The usual tense atmosphere that Snape imparted to a classroom was

shattered by a disgustingly cheerful knocking.
Snape had only a moment to glare at the door and wonder which idiot
thought it a good idea to interrupt his lesson before the idiot in
question simply barged in.
"Good day, Professor Snape." Gilderoy Lockhart said jauntily, oblivious

to the mood. "Please excuse the interruption, but I'm sure you'll
understand once I've told you what this is about."
"I quiver with anticipation." Snape drawled coldly, displeasure dripping

from every syllable.
It flew straight over Lockhart's head. "I've arranged for myself and Mr.
Potter to have an interview with a reporter from The Daily Prophet
regarding the events of the year, so I'm sure you'll see fit to excuse
him from his lesson."
Snape turned his menacing black eyes on the boy in question, a string of
insults and mockery already on his tongue.
"You arranged for me to have an interview without even asking my

permission?" Harry demanded with his face flushed angrily, beating Snape
to the punch. "Were you born this stupid, or did it take specialized
training?"
Lockhart seemed taken aback by the hostility, clearly unable to

understand how anyone could be upset about being able to talk to
reporters.
Snape was mildly impressed by the venom and disdain that Potter had
managed to put into his retort, not that he was ever going to admit it.
"Go with him and handle this, Potter." He said instead. "I'll thank you
not to let your fame intrude on my lessons in the future."
Snape observed the boy's thunderous expression with interest. This level
of provocation would have resulted in an explosion earlier in the year.
Albus was clearly correct. Potter was practicing Occlumency.
XXXXX
"... Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, has been receiving private tutoring
from famed author and monster hunter, Gilderoy Lockhart..."
Harry fumed as he read the article that the baboon of a DADA teacher had
contrived to put into the Daily Prophet.
After getting sent out of class by Snape, he'd summarily ditched Lockhart
and gone to the library, leaving the fop to deal with the press himself.
Clearly, the man was so desperate to leech off his fame that he was
willing to risk outright lying. Well, two could play that game.
XXXXX
Ministry of Magic,
Depatment of Magical Law Enforcement
To whom it may concern,
I have recently become worried about certain goings on in Hogwarts School

of Witchcraft and Wizardry and felt that they should be brought to your
attention. I have reason to suspect that the current Defense Against the
Dark Arts Professor, one Gilderoy Lockhart, is abusing his position of
authority in order to extort sexual favors from the sixth and seventh
year female students.
He has proven himself an inept teacher over the course of the year and
many students across all seven years have stopped attending his classes.
Those who remain are mostly girls, which seems suspicious to me.
It may be that the troubles experienced by Hogwarts earlier in the year

are making me see foul deeds where there are none, but I implore you to
investigate nonetheless.
Signed,
A concerned student.
Harry finished writing the letter with a sense of vindictive

satisfaction. A similar letter going out to the Daily Prophet would make
sure that it would be investigated even if the DMLE was initially
inclined to dismiss the letter.
The reporters would tear strips out of the Ministry if such a claim
wasn't investigated and they would tear strips out of Lockhart regardless
simply because they were reporters.
The charges were entirely fabricated of course, but that made little
difference. The media shitstorm would almost certainly cost Lockhart his
job and reputation even if the man was squeaky clean(which Harry strongly
doubted was the case).
That would show that pompous windbag to try using him to boost his own
fame. He'd been trying to get Harry alone ever since the year started,
but had redoubled his efforts since the fiasco with the basilisk. The
surprise interview he'd attempted to spring had simply been the last
straw.
XXXXX
"Following a brief but thorough investigation by the DMLE, Gilderoy

Lockhart has been charged with numerous illegal uses of the memory charm,
as well as abuse of his position as a Hogwarts Professor." Dumbledore was
saying to the Great Hall.
The students launched into a flurry of murmuring, whispering and general

speculation, stopping only when the Headmaster cleared his throat to once
again get everyone's attention.
"As he will be spending the next sixty odd years in Azkaban, the post of
Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor is now vacant. Seeing as the
school year is nearly over, there is little point in replacing him, but I
am sure that you will be able to manage the remainder of your studies on
your own."
There were several loud snorts at this, not all of them from the
students. Anyone who had gotten anything DADA related done this year had
done it on their own.
"As a final note, the Ministry would like to thank the concerned student
who alerted them of this and are offering a reward if they come forth and
are able to prove their identity. That is all, tuck in."
While the rest of the Great Hall once again erupted into furious
conversation, Harry merely looked stunned.
The 'fabricated' charges he'd leveled at Lockhart had actually been true?
"Blimey."
XXXXX
Last night before the students leave.
The door to Harry Potter's room opened quietly and then closed with equal
silence.
The late night intruder who had done the opening and closing padded over
to the bed on silence charmed feet. There was a short rustle of cloth and
then the intruder grabbed the edge of the quilt and very slowly lifted it
away from the sleeping boy.
Harry had never had any reason to be a particularly light sleeper and so
remained firmly unconscious.
He continued sleeping even as the bed dipped under the extra weight of
another body and the quilt was pulled back over both of them.
It was only as a mildly cold hand was dragged over his ticklish abdomen
that he began waking.
His thoughts were decidedly foggy for a few seconds, having stayed up
fairly late because of his Occlumency practice and only slipping into a
deep sleep a short while ago as a consequence, but he did eventually
cotton on to the fact that his bed was rather more crowded than normal.
"Hello Harry." Said the witch who had shown such concern about the polish
of his wand with her Christmas present.
"Hi." Harry replied in the cracked voice of emerging manhood. He most

definitely did not squeak and anyone who said otherwise was spreading
slander.
"I've seen you looking at me, Harry." She whispered into his ear hotly,
rubbing one of her bare legs across his.
"Uhm, sorry?" Harry managed, any sense of eloquence lost. From what he
could feel, she was wearing the very same nightie that had been the fuel
of so many wand polishing sessions this year.
"Well aren't you precious?" She chuckled, running her hand over his
chest. "Were you this shy when you faced Slytherin's basilisk?"
"That was different." He rallied, not liking being called shy in typical
teenaged fashion even if he wasn't one quite yet according to his age. "I
had a cock with me."
The innuendo only dawned on him once it was too late.
Her hand slipped into the boxers that served as his sleepwear and wrapped
around the one part of him that was fully at attention. "Feels like you
have one with you right now."
Harry went as rigid as if he'd been hit with a pretrification spell.
"You might be wondering why I'm here." She went on with a smile that was
barely visible in the dark, gently fondling what she'd grabbed earlier.
That had been a distant question in his mind. As far as the rest of him
was concerned, the unannounced visit of a pretty girl in his bed was not
to be questioned, especially after she'd stuck her hand in his underwear.
He wasn't really up to speech anymore, but he did manage a nod.

She pressed herself closer up against him and her fondling became more
vigorous. "Well, I just thought that you deserved a proper reward. Do you
want it?"
Nod nod.
"I want to hear you say it." She insisted huskily. "Tell me that you want
it."
He swallowed thickly, embarrassment at an all time high. "I want it."
"Louder Harry, say it like you mean it."
"I want it!"
"Good, good. Now just relax and let me take care of you."
He did as he was told and very quickly made a mess in his boxers.
Harry drew in deep breaths as she continued to squeeze her fist every
other second, making his discharge run over her fingers.
"You wouldn't happen to have had anything to do with Lockhart getting

arrested, did you?" She asked after a few minutes.
"I was the one that sent the letter to the DMLE." He admitted instantly.
"How did you know that he was fooling around with the upper year girls?"
She asked curiously.
"I didn't, I just wanted to get him in trouble." He once again admitted
instantly.
She let out a giggle. "And here I thought you were protecting our
virtue."
Harry flushed at her teasing tone. "I would've sent the letter sooner if
I'd known."
"Don't worry about it, Harry. Those bimboes have no one but themselves to
blame for buying into his lies."
All this talk about a teacher sleeping with his students brought Harry's
mind around to the fact that he was twelve and that what had just
happened was almost certainly illegal.
"Er, you won't get in trouble for, um, this, will you?" He asked
nervously.
"Were you going to tell on me, Harry?" She teased.
"No." He was quick to assure.

"Such a gentleman." She teased some more, though Harry wasn't sure if he
could really be called a gentleman in this case. "But no, there won't be
any legal trouble even if someone does find out. The magical world has a
much looser interpretation of the age of consent than the muggle one and
it's also assumed that strapping young wizards like yourself wouldn't
refuse the attentions of an older witch in any case."
Well, that explained the lack of gender wards on the doors of the boys
rooms. Lockhart must have gotten in trouble for it because he was a
teacher then.
"That's good to hear." Harry said for lack of anything better. He was
keenly aware that she had not yet removed her hand from his member.
"I'd best get going." She said about half a minute later, removing her
hand from his underwear, reaching for her wand and using a quick
scourgify to remove the mess on it.
Harry stared openly as she bent over to pick up her robes, giving him a
very nice view of her rear end in the process.
Being famous definitely had its upsides.
"I don't even know your name." He said once she was dressed.
"Probably better that way." She replied instead of answering the implied
question. Then she leaned over him and gave him a gentle kiss on the
lips.
"I hope you enjoyed the wand polishing lesson, Harry." She teased,
smirking at his stunned look. "I hope the 'supplies' I gave you for
Christmas help you keep it in top shape."
She left after that, leaving the shocked Harry to stare after her for
quite some time before he snapped out of it.
Maybe it was because he'd just woken up, or the fact that he hadn't had
any control of the situation, but the kiss had somehow had more impact
than the handjob.
Based on the concealing robes, Harry had figured that the Wizarding World
was full of prudes. While he had never been more glad to be wrong, this
definitely bore further investigation.
XXXXX
"What are you smiling about?" Ginny asked on the train ride back to
King's Cross.
"Just a pleasant memory." Harry answered, his smile not fading.
"It must have been quite relaxing." Luna observed. "You're not usually
this mellow. "
"You could say that." He agreed after a moment, inordinately proud of
himself for not blushing.
"What was it?" Ginny asked curiously.
"Something magical." He joked.
"Fine then, keep your secrets." Ginny huffed.
That was exactly what Harry intended to do, even if telling the redhead
that he'd gotten a midnight handjob would probably put her off the silly
crush she was still nursing. It was equally likely that it would make her
all indignant and outraged, or worse, determined to invade his bed in the
middle of the night as well.
XXXXX
"There's my daddy." Luna said happily, pointing at a tall and thin man
with shoulder length hair that was completely white and who somehow
managed to dress even more eccentrically than Dumbledore.
"And there's my parents." Ginny chimed in, pointing at two redheads. Not
that it was necessary, seeing as another four Weasleys were making their
way over to them.
"Come on, Harry. I want to introduce you." Luna chirped, dragging her
friend over to her father.
"Okay." Harry agreed bemusedly. Luna wasn't usually so forceful, so he

figured that she must really want this.
"Daddy." She squealed once she was close enough to hug her father,
letting go of Harry's arm in the process.
"Hello again, turnip." The man replied, returning the hug gladly.
Harry watched the whole thing a bit awkwardly, but still smiled. The two
were obviously close, which was not something he could really relate to,
but he was happy for his friend.
"This is my friend, Harry Potter. And you already know Ginny." Luna said
after a few moments, gesturing to them.
"Wonderful! I'm Xenophilius Lovegood, call me Xeno. Would you like to go

snorkack hunting with us over the summer?"
"Errr..." Harry stammered, completely taken aback by the sudden

invitation. At least it wasn't the usual Boy-Who-lived reaction that he'd
grown to dislike so much. "Thank you for the offer, but I'm afraid I
can't. I've got a lot to do over the summer."
"Same here." Ginny quickly added.

"Some other time then." Xeno said cheerfully. "It was nice meeting you,
Harry."
"Likewise, Mr. Lovegood." Harry replied.
"Xeno." The man corrected.
"Xeno." Harry repeated agreeably, finding himself liking the strange

man's manner.
Luna and her father made their goodbyes after that and left.
"Right, let's go meet my parents then." Ginny said after a moment.
Harry simply nodded, not at all looking forward to that. Molly Weasley's
semi-frequent howlers hadn't given him a particularly grand impression of
the woman. It would be rude to avoid it though.
They didn't even make it to the gathering of redheads before the twins
started in on their routine.
"Well look who it is!"
"The Ravenclaw Weasley-"
"-Come to mingle with us simpleminded Gryffindors."
"We are honored by your intellectual presence, m'lady!"
"Shut up!" Ginny yelled at them, embarrassed by the teasing.
"Fred, George, lay off." The plump matron warned
"But of course, mother." They chorused and continued on regardless.
"We wouldn't dare embarass ickle Gin-Gin-"
"-in front of the Harry Potter."
Harry aimed an annoyed look at them. The twins might be good for a few
laughs, but sometimes they really didn't know when to stop.
"Then you are...?" The father of the bunch breathed, further annoying
Harry with his awed reaction.
"Yes, Harry Potter." Harry interjected. "It's been a pleasure meeting you
Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, but I'm going to have to run. My ride is probably
getting impatient."
Molly looked like she was about to say something more, but apparently
decided against it, allowing Harry to escape the family of redheads
without any further fuss. He could still hear Ginny voicing her
displeasure at the twins even as he stepped through the portal to the
muggle side of the station.
Ginny had already asked him if he wanted to spend part of the summer at
the Burrow, and he was more glad than ever to have refused. He was sure
that the Weasleys were good people, if a bit too pushy at times, but
living in the same house as them would have quickly driven him spare. If
the lack of privacy didn't get him, it would be the lack of quiet.
Besides, if he hung around with them, how was he supposed to get anything
technically illegal done?
XXXXX
Though his name for me invokes images of Jay and Silent Bob, Salma Hayek
doing a striptease, George Carlin playing a cardinal of all things, a
shit demon and a threat-of-apocalypse-by-technicality, I think we can all
agree that Alan Rickman made a great Severus Snape in the HP movies. RIP
and all that.
Until next time.
Chapter 6
I've made a minor but relatively important edit to the previous chapter.
Namely, I've changed it so that Harry is now convinced that Voldemort is
dead since his phylactery(the diary) is destroyed. It was pointed out to
me that he would have no reason to think that Voldemort would or even
could- have more than one. This may or may not have any effect on the
story as it goes forward, but it was a blunder on my part that needed to
be corrected.
This chapter was a pain in the ass to write, which is why it took so
long. Special thanks to Joe Lawyer, who was instrumental in refining it.
XXXXX
Harry walked through the door of his foster home with a faint sense of
resignation. He would have much rather skipped the hollow reunion routine
that Robert and Katherine were no doubt going to be intent on going
through even though there was nobody to see it.
"I'm home." He announced without enthusiasm.
He heard them coming a second later.
"Welcome...back?" Robert said, trailing off in confusion as he took in

the changes in his adopted son.
"What are they feeding you at that school of yours?" Katherine asked,
sounding genuinely amazed. "You're huge!"
Harry shifted awkwardly. The Weasleys hadn't commented on his size,
probably out of politeness and Xeno Lovegood may not even have registered
anything strange, but he knew that he was too big for his age. He might
be just shy of thirteen years old, but he looked closer to fifteen thanks
to the runes. He'd even caught the first hints of facial hair growing on
his chin a while ago. To the Shaws, who hadn't seen him for ten months,
the difference in his appearance must be massive.
"Just a growth spurt I guess."
Katherine came closer, reaching out to touch the mess that was his hair.
It too was growing faster than normal and now hung just above his
shoulders. It was currently at that annoying midway length where it was
long enough to be annoying, but not quite long enough to be put into a
ponytail.
"And your hair is a complete mess again." She fussed. "We'll have to get
it cut soon."
Harry leaned away from her, not even bothering to be annoyed anymore. Of
course she'd be worried about appearances right away. He'd stopped hoping
for a hug by the time he was nine. That, and her perfume was stirring up
his libido, which was still creepy.
"I was actually thinking of growing it long." He told her, taking an

inordinate amount of pleasure in the appalled expressions it got him.
"No son of ours will be going around looking like some long-haired
hooligan." Robert said firmly, his wife nodding in agreement.
Harry's expression brielfy twisted in irritation at their narrow-

mindedness. Fortunately, he'd prepared some countermeasures ahead of
time.
Not for the sake of his hair mind you, but it would be a good test.
Taking a deep breath, Harry used the months of Occlumency practice to

suffuse his mind with a feeling of calm. Then he focused it and sent a
pair of wandless calming spells at his foster parents.
"It's really not that big of a deal." He said in a conversational tone

that hid his anxiety to see if it had worked. "We're not in the 1950s
anymore, lots of men wear their hair long these days."
"I guess it won't be a problem if you style it properly." Katherine

agreed with some reluctance.
Robert was still frowning however, clearly more resistant to either the
idea or the effects of the spell. "I still think it would be better to
keep it short."
Harry sent another calming spell at him, feeling incredibly pleased with
the fact that it produced no flashy jets of light.
"Men frequently wear their hair long in the Wizarding World. It's
tradition."
A tradition for Heirs and Lords of Noble Houses that had pretty much died
out and which Harry didn't give two shits about, but he needed to test
how much he could bend the wills of his nominal guardians. If he could
use this to talk them into not objecting to him keeping his hair long,
then he might also be able to use it to dodge any kind of responsibility
for the whole summer.
Illegal? Mildly.
Immoral? Definitely.
"Alright." Robert capitulated, being a proponent of tradition. "But only

if you get it styled into something elegant instead of the rat's nest it
is now."
Convenient? Extremely.
XXXXX
Harry stared at the row of hair products in consternation, wondering if

long hair was really worth it if he had to bother with all that crap.
Maybe the Wizarding World had some kind of enchanted soap that simplified
hair care? It probably did, he'd noticed a trend in the differences
between the magical and non-magical. The magical world made small things
incredibly convenient, but lacked wide scale sophistication, whereas the
non-magical world excelled at large projects but contained numerous day
to day inconveniances that couldn't simply be magicked away.
His introduction to the inconveniances of the non-magical female had been

arranged by his foster mother. Calming spells might have worked to
convince her that there was nothing wrong with a boy having long hair,
but that was because she'd been upset about his refusal to comply and her
personal dislike of the practice.
Convincing Katherine that it didn't need to be fastidiously taken care of

would have taken an Imperius. She had seemingly decided that if he was
going to keep the long hair, then they were going to make a day of it.
Harry had not been that bored in a long time and spent most of the day
practicing his Occlumency. How women could find that enjoyable was beyond
him. He had to admit that he had enjoyed having a pretty hairdresser
massaging his scalp though, slightly embarrassing though the trip to the
obviously female targeted business had been.
At least he'd managed to buy that high-powered laptop he'd been meaning
to get in addition to learning entirely too much about hair care. Now if
only he could figure out how get a charger running in Potter Manor.
Enchanting an object into being some kind of self-propelling dynamo
wouldn't be a problem for him at this point, but putting together a gizmo
to take advantage of it would be.
XXXXX
Charlus and Dorea had been eager to hear how the Chamber of Secrets
business had been concluded and were amazed that Harry had participated
in the slaying of an ancient basilisk, even if it was with a rooster.
They were also quite proud of him for making a profit out of instead of
letting Dumbledore claim the entire carcass.
"Whoever slipped your friend that cursed diary must have been a Death
Eater." Dorea theorized.
"And Dobby was probably their house elf." Charlus added.
"Probably." Harry agreed.
"I can only be thankful that their foolishness resulted in Voldemort's

soul container being destroyed." Dorea said with a shudder. "It does not
bear thinking of that he might have returned if such things function as
you said, Harry."
"No mention of soul containers in the Black Library?" Charlus asked.
"There very well might be, my family would certainly not think twice
about keeping knowledge of such foul magic alive." Dorea replied with a
distasteful frown. "It was not something I had ever considered reading up
on, nor did my Head of House at the time allow me free access to the
library since I was not of the main line."
"I guess we should just be glad that Voldemort didn't get a chance to
regain his body." Charlus said with a sigh.
"Would I be able to access the Black Library?" Harry asked thoughtfully.

He knew that creating a phylactery himself more than likely carried a
steeper price than he was willing to pay, but he still wanted to learn
about it. Dumbledore was the only person who seemed to know anything
about the subject and asking him didn't strike Harry as a smart thing to
do.
Neither Charlus nor Dorea were too happy about the direction of Harry's
interests right now, but they weren't really people. They were portraits,
and family portraits are always made to help the still living members of
the family. Since Harry was the last Potter, they were compelled to obey
his orders and answer his questions regardless of their own opinions.
"No, you were never keyed into the wards. The war with Voldemort has not
been kind to the House of Black; most of its members are dead and the
rest in prison. I believe that Sirius is next in line to become Lord
Black, but he is currently rotting in Azkaban." Dorea finished bitterly.
Harry had done some investigating into his parents and their friends
after being told about them by his grandparents. That was why he knew
that Pettigrew was dead, that Remus Lupin had seemingly vanished off the
face of the Earth and that Sirius Black was in Azkaban for betraying his
parents to Voldemort, as well as the murder of twelve muggles and Peter
Pettigrew.
Sirius had been like a son to her and Charlus, they would have adopted
him if it wasn't for inter-House politics. The idea that he would have
betrayed James and Lily to Voldemort was ludicrous. The memories that
Harry had unlocked after performing his second ritual had only reinforced
that belief. After all, why would Sirius have just given Harry to Hagrid
if he had really been in Voldemort's service?
No, whatever had happened that night, they were certain that Sirius was
innocent of betraying the Potters. The charges of murdering Pettigrew and
twelve muggles were harder to dismiss however, especially if Pettigrew
was the real traitor. Sirius had always been a hothead and it was far
from impossible that he might have thrown out a careless blasting curse
in the throes of rage.
"You must have been quite the school hero for the rest of the year after
that." Charlus said with forced amusement, trying to move away from the
depressing topic.
"You could say that." Harry grumbled a bit, though a smile pulled at his
lips. Most of the school might have been annoyingly curious, but his
mysterious late night visitor had certainly made up for it with her
particular show of gratitude.
"Did any girls get crushes on you?" Dorea teased.
Harry shrugged, though he couldn't quite keep a tinge of pink off his
cheeks. Aside from Ginny, he wasn't aware of any crushes, but that wasn't
what he was thinking about.
"I know that look." Charlus said with a grin. "James and Sirius always
had the same shifty look on their faces when they'd just been having a
discussion about witches and didn't want us to know about it. What
happened, Harry? Did a pretty girl show you her gratitude with a kiss?"
"Yes." Harry admitted, electing not to mention what had happened before
the kiss.
"Who was she?" Dorea asked curiously.
"I, er, don't know."
"How can you not know?" Charlus asked, baffled. "Surely she didn't just
walk up to you, kiss you, and then leave without ever introducing
herself?"
No, she just snuck into my room in the middle of the night, gave me a
handjob, kissed me and left without introducing herself. Harry thought to
himself with a mental snicker despite his embarrassment.
He could only give another shrug to Charlus though, having no idea what
to tell the man without outright lying, which he was reluctant to do.
"Harry, how old was this girl?" Dorea questioned suspiciously.
"Errr, she was a seventh year." He admitted with a nervous fidget.
"Going after the older girls, eh Harry?" Charlus chuckled while Dorea
muttered disapprovingly.
"She went after me." Harry corrected, lips being pulled into a grin.
"Said that she wanted to show me how much she appreciated my efforts."
"Women do like poweful wizards." Charlus said, exchanging a sly look with
his grandson.
"Men." Dorea huffed, hiding her own amusement.
XXXXX
Harry spent the next couple of weeks in intense study, desperately trying
to bring his knowledge of mathemathics and arithmancy up to the point
where he would be able to perform another ritual. Learning how to use a
computer to help with that pursuit also took up some time, but all in all
he felt that he was making good progress.
It was fortunate that unlike spells, rituals were fairly structured

things and he could re-use a lot of the work from his previous two. The
task of precisely defining the movements of the knife was time consuming
and difficult with only a miniscule margin for error, but it did not
contain any of the bizzare variables that magic introduced into
spellcraft. It was essentially pure science, reliably predictable and
math heavy, whereas crafting a new spell was oftentimes more of an art.
Robert and Katherine occasionally tried to drag him off to some social
event or another and kept making plans for turning his birthday into one.
Judicious application of calming spells and what weak compulsions he

could cast kept things under control for the most part. Any sense of
guilt that Harry might have felt at magically messing with their heads
was overshadowed by his relief at having a means to get them to bugger
off.
He received no letters from either Luna or Ginny, which was to be

expected given his little owl problem. He still had no idea how he was
going to deal with that, if it even could be dealt with. The three of
them had agreed not to bother with letters over the summer due to a
combination of that issue and him not having an owl of his own, but there
was another letter he was expecting that would probably turn out to be
problematic when it couldn't be delivered.
Namely, his Hogwarts supply list for third year. In all likelihood, he
would need to explain himself to an irate Deputy Headmistress come August
when the school owls found themselves unable to deliver anything to him.
Filling his days with nothing but sleeping, eating and study quickly
began to make Harry a dull boy however. He still kept at it in spite of
that, which turned him from a dull boy into a frustrated one and then an
angry one, at which point he became about ready to set his notes on fire
if he had to look at one more symbol.
Seeing as this would be incredibly counter-productive, he decided to take

a day off instead.
XXXXX
Standing in a bus on the way to the cinema, Harry debated whether he

should praise or curse the capricious whims of the weather.
The July temperatures in London usually hung around 20C, but 2013 was
turning out to be an unusually hot year. Furthermore, July 22nd was
turning out to be an unusually hot day in an already unusually hot year,
with temperatures going over 30C.
Harry had not yet mastered wandless cooling charms and was reduced to
sweating it out like everyone else. At least the bus had air
conditioning.
On the up side, he was standing next to the seat of a pretty girl that
was perhaps sixteen or seventeen years old, who was wearing a pair of
very short jean shorts and a black tank top that gave him a perfect view
down her cleavage. The Wizarding World could boast about a lot of things,
but sexy female clothing was not one of them. He hadn't even realized
what he was missing until he saw the barely perceptible sheen of sweat on
a pair of firm teenaged breasts. The compulsive power of rune enhanced
puberty kept his eyes glued to the sight of them.
The girl looked up. She saw him staring.
"See something you like, Green-Eyes?" She asked, both as a warning and
challenge.
Shite. I really need to stop getting caught doing that. Time to dip into
the excuse box, Potter.
"I'm sorry," He began with an awkward smile. "I go to a boarding school

with a very strict dress code and I don't get to see pretty girls in
anything but stodgy uniforms for most of the year."
The girl snorted, either amused or unimpressed. Harry couldn't quite

tell.
Harry bit his lip, an idea popping into his mind. He'd gotten used to
having friendly company around, which was why he'd decided on going to
the cinema instead of staying in his room and fooling around on the
internet or gaming like he usually did, but it still wasn't the same as
having Luna around(or even Ginny).
This girl was a complete stranger and might very well be mildly pissed at
him for the staring, but they were already sort of talking and he could
use the company. As a bonus, she was quite pretty, had almost certainly
never heard of the Boy-Who-Lived(the chances of her being a witch or
having a magical relative had to be insanely remote) and would probably
assume that he was only slightly younger than her instead of the not-
quite-thirteen year old that he actually was.
"Listen, I'm sorry about the staring. How about you let me take you to
dinner and a movie as an apology?" He offered, employing his hard earned
skill at Occlumency to keep any hints of nervous stutter out of his voice
and the much resented etiquette lessons that Robert and Katherine had
forced on him to sound smoother than he felt.
She looked up at him again, this time speculatively. She had a small
metal stud in her nose and another one in her tongue if his eyes did not
deceive him. Her eyes were a very dark brown and her hair was obviously
dyed black. Aside from her jean shorts and tank top, all she had on her
were a pair of scuffed trainers and a deliberately beaten up looking tan
green bag that sported a plenthora of doodles depicting what he guessed
were band signs.
His foster parents would have been horrified if they knew that he was
associating with someone like her, which just made it better as far as he
was concerned.
"Are you asking me on a date?" She asked.
"I guess I am." He replied evenly, doing his level best to keep the blood
away from his face.
She stayed quiet for a while, deliberately prolonging his torment.
Most of her already mild irritation at his peeping had dissipated when
he'd apologized, so she was not entirely opposed to his suggestion and it
wasn't like she'd had any plans for the day in the first place. The black
haired boy was more polite than what she was used to and a bit on the
young side, but not at all bad looking, had the most gorgeous green eyes
she'd ever seen and probably had money to spare if his mention of going
to a boarding school was true. As far as random date requests went, this
one was actually quite appealing.
"Alright, Green-Eyes, I'll go on a date with you."
"Harry." He introduced himself with a smile, offering her his hand.
"Zoe." She smiled back, taking the hand.
XXXXX
Harry had already learned with Luna that being around people that didn't
expect anything from you could be fun. He learned with Zoe that just
goofing off for a while was very liberating. He couldn't even recall the
last time he'd felt so relaxed.
They went to an 'all you can eat' type restaurant first, where he decided
to show off a bit by eating enough for three grown men, much to his
date's disgusted awe and fascination.
After that they went to see a movie, where Harry learned that Zoe was one
of those people that liked to point out plot holes, logic failures and
inconsistencies rather than watch quietly. They didn't make any new
friends there.
Harry mentioned reading somewhere that the Headmaster of his school

enjoyed ten-pin bowling, which had Zoe suggesting that they go do that
since neither of them had ever tried it. As it turned out, they both
sucked at it.
Harry paid for everything without really giving it much thought. He'd
grown up rich, but rarely spent anything until recently. He remembered
what it was like to be poor all too well and had no desire to return to
that through careless spending, no matter how unlikely it was. He hadn't
expected to have this much fun on their date and the last thing he wanted
to do was spoil it by being cheap.
The day had to end eventually though and the two of them set off toward
home, though it was long after it had gotten dark.
"I can't believe that you're stuffing your face again." Zoe was saying in
exasperation, staring at the subway sandwich Harry had picked up a short
while ago.
"I'm a growing boy." He replied with the standard excuse.
"You'll be growing sideways if you don't watch it, you plonker." She
threw back with a wide grin.
"You're just jealous." He retorted smugly.
"Damn right I'm jealous!" The girl exclaimed loudly, scowling playfully.
"You've been shoving food down your gob the whole bloody day like it's
nothing. If it tried that, I'd be the size of a bus in a month."
"A double decker." Harry agreed with a laugh.
"Prat."
They lapsed into silence for a while, just waiting for their respective
buses to arrive to take them home while Harry finished off his latest
meal.
"Harry, listen..." Zoe started, suddenly nervous. "I had a really great
time today..."
"So did I." He replied, wondering what she was trying to say.
"...But I don't think we should be doing this again."

Harry blinked at the sudden serious turn the evening had taken.
"I didn't really expect us to." He admitted after a moment. "I don't get
much free time. Today was an exception because I was overworked, but I'm
going to be busy for the rest of the summer and then I'll be off in my
school for ten months. I like you, but I never expected this to be more
than a one time thing."
And that wasn't even mentionning that he had to keep magic a secret from
her. He had no idea what the protocol was for bringing someone new in on
it, but he suspected that it was pretty draconian. Not that he had an
abundance of respect for the Ministry's laws, but he did have respect for
the consequences of those laws.
"Yeah...I kind of have a boyfriend already anyway." She admitted,

scratching awkwardly at the back of her head.
Harry blinked again and stared at her for a long few seconds.
"Won't he be upset that you went on a date with me?"
"We're having a bit of a break right now, so it's cool."
"Huh...okay then."
They lapsed into silence again, a significantly more uncomfortable one

this time.
"So...this school of yours gives you homework to do over the summer?" Zoe
asked after a minute.
"Yep, quite a lot of it actually." None of which he'd even looked at yet.
The preparations for the next ritual had consumed all of his attention.
"Barbaric."
"Absolutely."
"We can still stay in touch though, right?" She asked brightly. "You can
never have too many friends."
Harry winced. Staying in touch while he was at Hogwarts would be quite

the feat. Owls and the Floo Network were the only ways for students to
communicate with the outside world and neither would work for talking to
someone that didn't know about magic.
"That might be a problem." He said after a few seconds. "The school I go

to is seriously isolated. I'd be shocked if there's so much as a phone
anywhere within fifty kilometers of it."
In fact, he knew that there wasn't one.
Zoe's face fell into a sad expression.

"You don't have to lie, Harry. If you're mad at me for not mentioning my
boyfriend, then just tell me."
"I'm not lying." Harry insisted. "There really isn't any phone or
internet access at my school."
"Where the hell do you go to school, the middle of the Atlantic?" She
asked sarcastically, not at all convinced.
"Some Scottish Highland in the ass end of nowhere actually." He admitted

ruefully.
"You're serious?!" She asked incredulously.
"Afraid so."
"What could they possibly be teaching you up there without any

technology, the best way to shag a sheep?"
Harry snickered, having a bizzare mental image of McGonagall

transfiguring a desk into the aforementioned animal and tutoring them in
the proper technique to shag it in true Scottish fashion. It certainly
gave him a new perspective on the possible alternative uses of
transfiguration.
"It's a very...traditional...sort of place." He evaded, rapidly

developing an appreciation for how much bullshit the non-magical family
members of wizards and witches had to shovel to keep magic a secret.
"Keep telling yourself that, sheep shagger."
"I'll have you know that everyone there is very right and proper, they
would've been scandalized by your pierced tongue and poor manners." Harry
retorted lightly, knowing that he was probably right. The wizard-raised
would be both baffled and horrified at the idea of having a metal stud in
one's tongue.
"So it's a bunch of snobbish sheep shaggers?" She asked.
Harry gave it a moment's thought before giving a slow nod. He could

easily imagine Draco Malfoy with his nose up in the air even while
shagging a sheep. He wished he hadn't imagined it, but it was too late
for that now.
"A lot of them are snobby."
"I'm actually kind of surprised that you aren't." She admitted.
"Why? Because my foster parents are snobby twats?" He asked with a raised
eyebrow.
"Foster parents? I thought they were your real parents."

"Nah, my real parents were murdered by a psychotic neo-nazi when I was a
year old." That was as good a description for Voldemort as any.
Zoe recoiled in shock despite his casual tone and stared at him in
horror.
"Don't worry about it, it was a long time ago. I've gotten over it."
Harry assured her.
Well, I've mostly gotten over it.
"I guess that explains why you're not a snobby rich kid, haha." She said,
giving a nervous (and quite fake) laugh.
"Sorry, probably shouldn't have just blurted it out like that."
"It was a bit of a surprise." She admitted and they went silent again.
"I think that's your bus." Harry said about a minute later, seeing the
vehicle in question approaching.
Zoe bit her lip at that, suddenly looking a bit indecisive for a moment
before her face firmed in resolve. The next thing Harry knew, she was
mashing her lips up against his.
Eyes going wide in shock, Harry responded on a clumsy autopilot, feeling

the now familiar shiver of magic pulse from his runes as his arousal
rose. He was barely aware of his hands going around her to grab her rear
end as he began to respond more enthusiastically.
"My mum isn't coming home until tomorrow." She whispered into his ear
when they separated, the invitation clear.
Later on, Harry would have liked to say that he had considered this offer
carefully and thought about various factors such as his brief
acquaintance with Zoe, her uncertain relationship status, his youth and
several other things.
In reality, most of his higher reasoning had migrated south along with
his blood. Indeed, his most complex thought was something along the lines
of 'I'm getting laid!'.
Inexperienced with this kind of situation and unsure of how to accept, he

merely gave her butt a squeeze and leaned in for another kiss.
XXXXX
They got on the bus together and spent an impatient ten minutes touching
in a way that didn't really help with the waiting.
Then they made a B line towards the apartment building where Zoe lived
with her mother, her father not being around for reasons that Harry had
felt it unwise to press her on. An interesting session of heavy elevator
snogging and a short walk down the hallway later, they were through the
door of the flat.
Harry had only a few seconds to take in the small-ish living space as Zoe
led him to her room. It was fairly tidy, but the pile of towels on the
couch, a few dirty dishes in the sink and traces of dust in places
betrayed the fact that the people living here were not as obsessive about
neatness as he was used to. Teeny would have a nervous breakdown at the
thought of a mess being left anywhere in a place that people lived and
Robert and Katherine would turn their noses up so high that they'd be
able to collect rainwater with their nostrils.
The thought of his foster parents penetrated the lust currently fogging
his brain and he recalled that he had to do something.
"Hang on a second." He said, pulling out his phone. "I need to call
Katherine and tell her that I'm not coming home today."
"They don't like you slipping the leash?" Zoe smirked, toying with the
waistband of her shorts.
"You could say that." Harry grumbled. "I wouldn't put it past her to call
the police and make a huge scene."
And not out of worry that he'd been kidnapped or something either, since
it would hardly be the first time that he'd slept over in Potter Manor.
No, she'd do it for the publicity. Then she would spend the next month or
so milking the 'I was so scared' card before it got old. She probably
wouldn't do it since it might also make her look neurotic, but it was
best to not give her an excuse.
Sometimes, Harry got the distinct feeling that Robert and Katherine were
actually hoping that someone would kidnap him, just so that they'd have a
legitimate reason to plaster themselves all over the news.
"Go ahead then." Zoe said, still smirking and starting to take off her
clothes.
Harry had some trouble finding the name of his foster mother with the
impromptu striptease going on in front of him. To be fair, the mismatched
pair of black bra and blue thong was a lot more interesting. He did
manage to call her eventually though.
"Hello?" Katherine answered with her usual overdone sense of poise.
"Katherine, hi. I'm not going to be coming home today." Harry said
without preamble, the majority of his attention fixed on Zoe.
"Sleeping over in the magical house your parents left you again?"
Katherine asked rhetorically, a fair bit of bite in her words. "Robert
and I would really like to see it one day, you know."
Harry did know, the two of them hadn't stopped wheedling about it since
they'd learned that he actually owned something. Call him paranoid, but
Harry wasn't keen to let them anywhere near Potter Manor. He feared for
the antique furniture at the very least, even if two non-magicals didn't
really have any right to them according to wizard law. Both Robert and
Katherine had a sense of entitlement to rival any wizard and were sure to
attempt getting their mitts on anything they could. He didn't even want
to think about their reaction to the vaults full of gold he had in
Gringotts.
"You know it's not that easy." He said back, a trace of irritation
seeping into his own tone.
Zoe looked at him curiously and suddenly developed a mischievous grin.
"Yes, so you said. These wards of yours that are supposed to repel non-
magical people." Katherine replied, dubiously. Not that she doubted their
existence, merely their ability to affect her. She was just about
arrogant enough to think herself too strong willed for that."But it's
your house. Couldn't you disable them or something?"
While Katherine had been talking, Zoe had taken the opportunity to yank
his shorts down to his ankles, leaving him suddenly and unceremoniously
exposed.
Harry gaped at Zoe in shock at the unexpected move. She winked back up at
him from her kneeling position and pushed him to sit on the bed.
"Harry, are you still there?"
"Wh- yeah, I'm still here." He said, sounding much more flustered than
before.
"What happened? You sound strange."
Inwardly cursing nosy foster mothers who couldn't just end the fucking
call already, Harry made up a quick excuse.
"Um, the carpet grabbed my leg."
Zoe slapped a hand over her mouth to keep from bursting into giggles at
what probably sounded like an outrageous lie to her.
"Animated carpets. Honestly, I will never understand why anyone would use
magic for something like that."
Neither would Harry to be perfectly honest, but he was for once glad that
wizards and witches were generally insane enough for pretty much anything
to sound plausible.
"Me neithER!"
"What was it this time?"
"Stubbed my toe." Harry answered with strain in his voice.

He hadn't of course, since he was quite stationery. The real reason was
that Zoe had apparently gotten impatient and decided to start him off
with a blowjob, though the amused gleam in her dark eyes suggested that
she was also doing it to add some extra difficulty to his phone call.
"Figures that you'd be clumsy with how fast you're growing. I read that
people that grow quickly tend to be less aware of their body." Katherine
commented, oblivious to the fact that her audience couldn't care less if
he tried.
"That's great." Harry replied, not sure if he was saying it to his foster
mother or the girl currently demonstrating the uses of a tongue stud
during oral sex.
"You must have hit your toe really hard, you sound like you're in a lot
of pain."
"Yes, pain." Harry agreed, clenching his teeth tightly as Zoe suddenly
hollowed out her cheeks and began sucking on him earnestly. "Listen
Katherine, I really need to do something about this."
What he really needed to do was warn Zoe that he was about to blow and he
could hardly do that with his foster mother still on the line. He'd
already tried to tug on her hair but she didn't seem to be getting the
message.
"Alright, but do look into lowering those wards later."
Unable to hold back any more, Harry resigned himself to getting yelled at
for unloading in a girl's mouth without warning her.
"Harry?" Katherine asked, no doubt hearing his heavy breathing through

the nose as Zoe kept on sucking through his orgasm, apparently unbothered
by the lack of warning.
"Yeah, I got it. Talk to you later, Katherine." Harry said and ended the
call, trying not to sound too relieved when Zoe popped his oversensitive
cock out of her mouth.
While Harry took a moment to catch his breath, Zoe took a tissue and a
bottle of water from her bag, spat the semen she'd so industriously
extracted from him into it and then gulped down a few mouthfuls of water.
"Sorry." He apologized with a wince.
"Don't be, you taste a lot better than Jeff ever did. Man eats too much
cheese." Zoe replied with a shrug.
Not exactly the response he'd been expecting, but Harry made a note to
investigate the effects of food on the taste of his sperm.
"I meant for not warning you." He clarified.

"Oh Harry, you really think I couldn't tell?" Zoe chuckled, stepping
closer until panty clad crotch was practically rubbing against his nose.
There was a small spot of wetness on the blue fabric that made her own
arousal clear. "It was obvious, even if you did cum as quick as a
virgin."
"I am a virgin." Harry admitted, resisting the surprisingly strong

temptation to bury his nose in her crotch. The runes had settled down a
bit after his orgasm, but the faint smell of her arousal was quickly
bringing his own back and the magic with it.
"Really?" There was a hint of incredulity in Zoe's voice that baffled

Harry. He looked fifteen at most and she couldn't possibly be more than
seventeen, though she was probably sixteen. What was so strange about
being a virgin at that age?
"Really." He confirmed, looking at her a bit oddly.
"We'll have to do something about that." She said with a smirk, pulling
his shirt off, unclipping her bra and sliding her thong down her legs to
expose her recently shaved crotch. "But first, how about getting me
ready?"
It was quite obvious what she wanted and Harry wasn't opposed to it in
the slightest. The smell was certainly enticing.
He leaned in closer and hesitantly dragged his tongue across her slit,
unsure what to expect. To his mild surprise, there wasn't much of a taste
to her sex aside from the salty tang of her sweat from the hot day and a
very faint musk that corresponded to the smell of her.
Zoe's hands went into his hair as he continued his slow exploration of
her lower lips, getting bolder every time she made a sound of pleasure.
He kept it up for a minute or two before becoming dissatisfied with the
position. With him sitting down and her standing in front of him, he had
fairly limited access and he wanted to change it.
Zoe made a small sound of disappointment when he nudged her to get on the
bed, but she did it anyway, settling herself on it and spreading her legs
for him. She looked like she was about to say something, but stopped
herself when he once again went for her crotch with his face.
"You're doing pretty well for a virgin." She said with a pleased sigh,
running her fingers through his hair. "Most boys don't like licking a
girl, they just stick it in and start hammering away."
Buried as he was in muff, Harry couldn't respond, but he couldn't for the
life of him understand why anyone would dislike this. Sure, he was almost
painfully hard, but there was nowhere he'd rather be right now. Besides,
she'd sucked him off and it seemed only right to return the favor.
"Higher." She directed, tugging on his hair.

Harry obliged and moved upward, leaving her vaginal opening alone for
now.
"Just a little bit higher."
Puzzled as to why, he nonetheless did as he was told and moved his tongue
a little bit higher. He figured that his tongue had nearly completely
left her nether lips when she suddenly bucked with a quickly indrawn
breath.
Intrigued by the powerful reaction, he dragged his tongue over the same
area again.
"Yes! Right there." Zoe gasped, her hand clenching in his hair almost
painfully.
That was exactly what he'd been about to do either way, so Harry was more
than happy to follow her directions again. Several more long licks over
the area revealed a little nub of some sort that appeared to elicit an
especially intense reaction, so he began to focus on it exclusively.
This quickly had Zoe panting her way to an orgasm, squeezing her legs
around Harry's head to stop him from abusing her overstimulated clitoris
any further.
"Wow...not bad." She breathed. "You were a bit clueless at the start and
a bit too rough at the end, but not bad at all. I give you a six out of
ten in licking pussy."
Wiping the spit and other fluids off his jaw, Harry shot her an amused
look. "You have a scale?"
"Oh yes." She confirmed with a giggle. "'one' is 'painful and not at all
pleasant' and 'ten' is 'explosive squirting'."
Harry didn't really know how to respond to that, so he just ran his hand
across her still spread legs and shuffled closer, lining himself up with
her opening.
"Wait." Zoe stopped him, reaching over to a small nightstand and pulling
out a condom. "Put that on. I'm on the pill, but we wouldn't want to have
any accidents, would we?"
This ended up being Harry's introduction to the frustration of dealing

with condom packaging.
"Give it here." Zoe said in exasperation after seeing him fumble with the
prophylactic for a full fifteen seconds without success. With easy
motions that betrayed a lot of practice, she quickly ripped the packaging
and wrapped the latex tube around his shaft.
"Come on in." She beckonked once that was done, spreading her legs lewdly
in invitation.
Feeling a mix of eagerness and nervous anticipaton, Harry moved forward
and placed his hands on the enticing pair of breasts that had started
this whole sequence of events, sinking into her wet warmth at the same
time.
Once he was completely inside her, she suddenly pulled him down on top of
her, wrapping her legs around his waist and grabbing the back of his head
to whisper in his ear.
"Your virginity is mine now, Harry, and you're never getting it back."
He looked at her incredulously and she burst out laughing, apparently

unable to keep a straight face.
"Sorry, I've always wanted to say that." She explained with a giggle.
"Now get to the shagging, and try not to blow your load in thirty seconds
again."
XXXXX
Ever since he'd completed his first ritual and discovered the unexpected
side-effects, Harry had occasionally pondered what a rune like Uruz would
mean for his sexual stamina. He hadn't noticed any particular difference
during his many wand polishing sessions, nor had he lasted long during
the surprise handjob at the end of his second year, but he hadn't wanted
to dismiss the possibility.
He finally had a definite answer.
"Why are you hard again? How are you hard again." Zoe asked plaintively,
exhaustion evident in her tone.
"Must be magic." Harry quipped, snickering at his private joke.
He may not have lasted very long the first couple of times, but his
recovery period was turning out to be inhumanly fast. He'd also built
enough stamina that he was lasting a much more respectable length of time
by round six, which was now.
"Well you and your magical cock are going to have to calm down because
I'm running out of condoms. I can't use them all on you, in one night no
less."
"I'll buy you as many as you want tomorrow." He offered, flicking his
tongue over one of her nipples.
"You're damn right you will, but I'm tired." Zoe continued in the same
plaintive voice as before. "And sore. And sweaty. I just want to take a
shower and go to sleep."
"Want me to wash your back?" Truth be told, he was pretty tired himself
and wouldn't mind a shower and sleep either, but teasing the girl he'd
exhausted was making his ego skyrocket.
She snorted. "Nice try, but our shower isn't even close to big enough for
that."
"Aww."
"Tell you what, Harry. I'll give you another blowjob in the bathroom if
you stop poking me in the arse with that thing." Zoe offered tiredly.
"Okay." Harry quickly agreed.
He might be tired, but a blowjob was a blowjob.
XXXXX
The next morning, Harry left Zoe's apartment block with a skip in his
step after leaving behind a twenty pound note to pay for the amount of
condoms he'd used, feeling subtly different than when he'd gone in. For
all the effort he'd put into learning Occlumency, his hormones had still
been all over the place ever since his first rune set. They were still
all over the place and would continue to be until his accelerated puberty
was over, but the sex seemed to have made it a bit better. The magic in
the in his runes felt a bit less chaotic.
Or it could just be that he was in a good mood and was imagining things.
XXXXX
Harry got back to work on his ritual after that, finding it much easier
now that he was no longer wound tighter than a steel cable.
He resisted the urge to do more with Zoe than send an occasional text,
regardless of the understandable urge to focus on the pretty girl instead
of the preparations to carve a set of symbols into his skin with a knife.
All the reasons for why getting too close to her was a bad idea were very
valid and he'd checked the Ministry guidelines for introducing an
uninformed and unrelated muggle to magic. It was exactly as draconian as
he'd suspected it would be.
Basically, if they weren't immediate family such as a sibling, spouse,

parent or child, then it was illegal to tell them. Meaning that unless he
married her(which he obviously wasn't intending to do, considering his
actual age and their brief acquintance), he'd have to keep Zoe in the
dark or else be charged with violating the Statute of Secrecy if he got
discovered. Naturally, they'd wipe her memories as well, including her
memories of him. Harry wasn't so confident in his ability to fool the
Ministry that he'd be willing to risk it and that wasn't even taking into
account how Zoe herself might react to the notion of magic.
On the home front, his foster parents continued their attempts to use his
birthday as an excuse to organize something, only to run afoul a constant
stream of calming charms and mild compulsion spells from him until it was
too late. Harry could only breathe a sigh of relief at getting through
his birthday without any fuss for a change.
As expected, he received no owls, not from Luna or Ginny for his birthday
and not from McGonagall for his school supplies.
He wasn't surprised when she showed up personally the next day.
XXXXX
"Would you care to explain why the Hogwarts owls seem unable to locate
you, Mr. Potter?" McGonagall asked once they were settled in the sitting
room.
"I couldn't say, Professor." Harry said evenly, being well prepared for
this conversation. "All I know is that it's been going on since
Christmas. Luna and Ginny weren't able to send me their presents either."
"And you did not think to inform anyone of this?" The old witch asked in
a displeased tone.
"I didn't think it was that big of a deal." Harry shrugged.
"Having an Owl Ward set up around you without your knowledge or your
magical guardian's permission is indeed a 'big deal'." McGonagall huffed
and pulled out her wand.
Harry sat still while she waved it over him and muttered to herself. This
was the most nerve wracking part of the experience, where he could do
nothing but trust that Arhain would be able to frustrate her efforts at
determining the truth. He would have very much liked to tell her that he
didn't want anyone casting diagnostic spells on him, but he knew that it
would only serve to make them suspicious. Dumbledore, being his magical
guardian in loco parentis, would probably force the issue and Harry would
be legally forced to comply.
Even the more progressive laws of the mundane world didn't really
consider thirteen year olds as people in the legal sense. Rather, it
considered them as something very close to the property of their
guardians, similar to pets really. Sure, it was to protect them from
making any hugely stupid decisions due to their youth, but it still
rankled.
"That's strange." McGonagall said, looking perplexed. "I can't find any
trace of an Owl Ward."
Harry resisted the urge to say something dismissive. Being cheeky about
it was not the way to deflect suspicion.
"What is it then?" He asked instead, politely.
"I don't know." She answered with a frown, making another few swishes
over him with her wand. "I'm not detecting anything out of the ordinary."
Harry held back a relieved sigh. Arhain was working.

"We will need to have the Headmaster and perhaps Poppy examine you
further when you return to Hogwarts."
And there was the downside. Unexplained mysteries made people curious and
nosy.
XXXXX
A few days after McGonagall's visit, Harry happened to be passing through

the living room where his foster parents were watching TV when he caught
sight of a very interesting article on the news.
"Mass murderer Sirius Black has escaped from prison and is considered
armed and extremely dangerous. If you see him, contact the police
immediately. Do NOT approach him."
The article was accompanied by a picture of the man looking quite

deranged, with an elbow length tangle of hair, pasty white skin, sunken
eyes and rotten teeth. He was much changed from the few memories of him
that Harry had, but it was undoubtedly his godfather.
There was no information on which prison he'd escaped from, which gave
Robert something to complain about, but Harry knew which one it was. He
would keep a wary eye out for any unusually large black dogs this year.
Even if he was almost positive that Sirius had nothing to do with the
deaths of his parents, there was still a good chance of him actually
being guilty for the other crimes he'd been imprisoned for and there was
no telling what state the dementors had left him in over the past twelve
years.
XXXXX
Mid August
Harry pushed away from his desk and thrust both his arms into the air
victoriously, a feeling of deep satisfaction filling him.
He lowered them after a few seconds and slumped into a lazy, relieved
slouch.
It was finally done. The symbols were chosen, the arithmancy checked out,
everything had been triple checked both by himself and the computer. The
ritual was ready.
Seven words, this time in kanji. He'd not quite realized how much trouble
that particular alphabet would give him when he'd chosen it, but he
hadn't wanted to back out of using it simply because it would be
difficult.
Unlike the Norse or Avariel runes, kanji characters were far more complex
in appearance and often had multiple characters per word, making them
take more cuts to carve as a result, but they were not as ambiguous in
meaning and thus far more predictable. He would be glad to have them
carved and get it over with.
Tomorrow. Right now it was time for a nap so that his brain stopped
hurting.
XXXXX
Sorcery
Poison
Cleanse
Lungs
Kidneys
Liver
Intestine
Harry kept these seven words firmly in mind as he stepped into the ritual
circle and felt the built in petrification spell take hold.
The purpose of this rune set was simple. To increase the speed at which
poisons and foreign magic was purged from him. The downside of it was as
obvious as it was simple. It would also work against beneficial magic and
medicines, as healing spells were still foreign to his body and medicines
were really nothing more than targeted poisons. He deemed it a fair
exchange.
"Majutsu."
The knife rose and began carving the two character word into his right
shoulder. It took longer than any of his previous runes because of the
complexity, but that was how it was. Harry ignored the pain as best he
could and sank into an Occlumency trance, focusing on the meaning and
purpose of his newest rune.
When it was done, he felt his magic move into the freshly carved wound
and settle into a tense wait. It wasn't a latent bit of magic anymore,
but something that had been given a purpose that needed to be fulfilled.
Harry smiled. The same had happened with Raido, so he knew that it was
working as it should.
"Doku."
A single character word this time, carved into his left shoulder. His
magic settled into it just as easily, but the sense of anticipation grew.
"Kiyomemasu."
A four character word, carved into his upper breastbone. This time, the
magic already held in the previous two runes joined the latent magic
flowing into the new one, taking further direction from it.
Now to tell it where to go.
"Haiz."
This one was a bit different than the three before it. He had two lungs,
so two sets of the two character rune were carved into his chest, where
the organs in question were.
As soon as it was done, he felt the previously prepared magic rushing

into his lungs.
Harry gasped in wonder, getting a true feel for his lungs for the first
time in his life. A shiver of sensation ran through his first set of
runes and he could feel their magic joining that of the ones he'd just
carved, instinctively knowing that their healing effects were being put
to work to undo what little damage his lungs had accrued over his short
life.
"Jinz."
The knife moved to his back and began carving another two set of two
character kanji over his kidneys. His magic filled them the same as it
had his lungs, repairing any damage to them and enhancing their natural
purpose of purifying the blood.
Another important bit of information came back to the forefront of

Harry's mind as this happened.
The lungs did not have pain receptors.
The kidneys did however, as Harry learned when he felt a dull burn flare
up in them as they were magically enhanced beyond normal capacity.
Knowing that there was no choice but to keep going and hope that it would
pass quickly, he hurried on with the last two parts of the ritual.
"Kimo."
The knife made quick work of the single character word and the burn
spread to his liver as well.
"Ch."
The last word was also just one character, which the knife carved into
the soft tissue of his petrified, unmuscled stomach. Predictably, his
entire intestinal tract began burning painfully.
The ritual dropped him unceremoniously into the small pool of blood that
had run down his legs, leaving him groaning pitifully as the burn
continued to slowly worsen.
He hadn't anticipated that little wrinkle, for which he knew that Charlus
and Dorea were going to give him knowingly pointed looks and Teeny would
confine him to bed for the next few days, all the while wringing her
hands nervously at her inability to make the pain stop and making him
feel guilty for worrying her.
Good thing he'd told Robert and Katherine that he'd be spending a few
days with a friend from school. The last thing he wanted was to deal with
them while feeling as if his organs were being microwaved.
XXXXX
Harry spent the next couple of days experiencing the joys of his body
suddenly having much more effective filtration system, complete with such
wonderful features as a burning pain when taking a piss. It fortunately
settled down after the initial change, for which Harry was grateful. He
had been briefly worried that he'd made a huge mistake and had a lifetime
of constant pain to look forward to, but it turned out that all was well
as soon his body was brought down to a lower toxin threshhold than it had
been at before.
He still felt that the end result was worth it, but he wouldn't soon
forget that applying magical changes directly to one's organs hurt.
Once that unpleasant experience was over with, Harry suddenly found
himself with some free time on his hands before the summer ended. Sure,
he still had to do the homework that Hogwarts had assigned him, but that
was a day's work at the most. Two if he was slow about it.
Zoe had sent him a few texts that were a clear invitation for another
date and later a repeat of their last encounter, but he had reluctantly
begged off due to his desire to finish the ritual. There wasn't anything
like that holding him back now though.
Mind made up, he took out his phone and started writing the text. Sure,
Zoe was technically in a relationship with someone already, but that was
honestly between her and this 'Jeff' character that he presumed was her
on-again off-again boyfriend. Zoe could tell him to back off at any time,
but until then he was going to treat her as if she was single.
XXXXX
Harry boarded the Hogwarts Express early, as had been his habit for the
past two years. He wanted to stake a claim on an empty compartment,
rather than end up in a situation where he had to sit with strangers.
He'd gotten to meet up with Zoe an additional two times, both of which
had ended with sex at her place. Apparently her mother often spent the
night with her own current boyfriend, which left Zoe plenty of alone time
for her own activities.
It had quickly become obvious to Harry that he was being used for his
money as much as for his company, as Zoe had picked out a list of
activities that were well out of the sensible budget of a normal teenager
on both days and never mentioned the fact that he always left behind more
money than a few condoms warranted.
He didn't really mind, truth be told. The expenditure for him was far
from huge and it ended in sex. Zoe didn't seem any more interested in
making something more of their arrangement than him, for which he was
thankful, as it would be simply impractical for him to get involved with
a muggle girl at this point. He hadn't expected his spur of the moment
date request back in July to formulate into having a summer fuck buddy,
but he was certainly not complaining.
At the very least, it had reduced the amount of incidents where he was
seized by the sudden urge to bend his foster mother over a table. That
had never stopped being weird, even if he'd gotten kind of used to it.
Luna walked in some time after him, followed by Ginny who barely boarded
before the train started moving. Luna had some amusing stories to tell
about her snorkack hunting adventure, but Harry was far more interested
in what Ginny had to say for a change.
"There are animated skeletons in the Egyptian tombs?" He asked with

surprised interest.
"Yeah, but some of them were really weird. My brothers said that one of
them had two heads because of some curse or other that was in there." The
redhead explained enthusiastically.
"You didn't see them yourself?" He wondered.
"No." She scowled. "Mum didn't let me see, said that it was 'no place for
a young lady'. Pah!"
Harry's lips twitched into a smile at her irritability. He'd have been
angry too in her position.
"So she didn't let you go into any of the tombs?"
"Only the ones that the curse breakers have already cleared, and even
then only if Bill went with us."
"Your oldest brother? The one that works for Gringotts?" Harry asked,
inwardly wondering why anyone would want to work for the little bastards.
"That's him." Ginny confirmed.
"What kind of claim do the goblins have on the tombs of humans?" He asked
further, perplexed.
"Errr..." Ginny stammered, stumped by the question.
"It's part of the treaty they have with the ICW." Luna offered dreamily.
"The ICW gave them free access to the resting places of long dead
Egyptian wizards?" Harry asked sceptically.
"The Egyptian tombs hadn't been discovered yet when the treaty was
signed. That specific clause of the treaty gives them ownership of any
place where the magical dead were interred as long as it is over two
thousand years old. Rather short-sighted of them in retrospect, but
that's what you get when you don't protect yourself from buzzing grox
pixies." The blonde girl explained.
"Why do you even know that?" Ginny wondered, ignoring the mention of yet
another potentially imaginary creture with the ease of practice.
"Oh, I've known about the dangers of grox pixies for years." Luna
explained.
"Not that! Why do you know so much about some treaty between the goblins
and the ICW from hundreds of years ago?"
"Daddy and I were doing research on Egypt to see if we might find any
crumple-horned snorkacks there, but it seems that our original thinking
was correct instead. They prefer colder climes, which must mean that they
have fur."
Harry was a bit confused as to how Luna and her father intended to find a
crumple-horned snorkack if they were still guessing about the creature's
appearance.
"Luna, how can you even be sure that snorkacks have crumpled horns?" He
asked just for the sake of his curiousity.
"Oh, we aren't, but it makes sense." Luna answered cheerfully. "After

all, if they didn't have crumpled horns, then they wouldn't be crumple-
horned snorkacks."
Harry exchanged a glance with Ginny, both of them silently agreeing that
the circular logic was as childish as it was unassailable and decided to
drop the subject.
"Sooo, what else did you see in Egypt?" He asked, shifting the
conversation back to his main interest.
Ginny was more than happy to talk about her holiday, her crush on the
black haired boy still not fully gone, especially since he seemed to be
going in the 'tall, dark and handsome' direction.
As he listened to the redhead describing the magical side of Egypt, Harry

became ever more determined to see it for himself one day.
Unlike the Weasleys however, he wasn't inclined to only see the goblin
approved areas. How hard could it be to slip past the ornery midgets?
XXXXX
The three of them continued to have a sporadic conversation for another

few hours, intersped with some reading when Ginny brought up something
she'd been skirting around ever since she got on the train.
"Did you hear about Sirius Black escaping Azkaban?"
"No, but I did read about it." Luna replied, looking up from her upside
down copy of the Quibbler.
"What about it?" Harry asked, deciding not to respond to Luna's little
witticism.
"Aren't you worried?" Ginny asked nervously. "I mean...he was You-Know-
Who's right hand man and responsible for...you know."
"The death of my parents?" Harry asked with a raised eyebrow, inwardly

scoffing at the notion.
"Yeah." Ginny said quietly.
"Not really." Harry shrugged. "If he's smart, then he's already left the
country."
He didn't really believe that though. The picture that Charlus and Dorea
had painted of Sirius Black was of a man that thought with his heart
rather than his head and that was assuming that he was still sane, which
was far from guaranteed. The only mystery were the man's goals.
The train slowed and jerked to a stop at that point, halting the
conversation in the process.
"Why are we stopping?" Ginny asked, knowing that they couldn't possibly
be at their destination yet. The Express arrived at Hogwarts in the
evening and it was still afternoon. A dark and stormy afternoon, but
afternoon nonetheless.
Harry knew this just as well as her and went to look out the window in an
attempt to divine the cause of their stop.
"It's getting cold." Luna said quietly, her breath misting.
Harry had noticed that too, but he was far more worried about something
else. His constant practice with wandless magic had given him a
sensitivity towards ambient magic that he was quite sure most people
didn't have. Whatever was causing the temperature to plummet was
definitely not natural, but it didn't feel like any magic he'd ever
sensed either.
He had scoffed at the notion of magic being divided between Dark and
Light ever since the first time he'd heard that there was a class called
Defense Against the Dark Arts. It seemed far too much like some idiot's
justification for villifying magic they didn't like rather than anything
that had a basis in reality. The only way he could describe how this
unnatural cold felt however, was capital-D Dark.
"There's something moving out there." He said, noticing the dark shapes
flitting through the sky, apparently unbothered by the rain and the wind.
"It's the dementors." Luna said faintly, now hugging her legs to her
chest.
"But the dementors aren't supposed to leave Azkaban." Ginny protested.
"Nobody is supposed to escape Azkaban either." Luna argued, a note of

distress in her tone that her voice didn't usually carry.
"They've boarded the train." Harry interjected grimly, reaching for his
wand. He wasn't sure what good it would do in this situation, but it was
better than cowering helplessly in a corner.
"How can you tell?" Ginny asked fearfully.
That was a good question that Harry didn't really have an answer for. He
hadn't seen them do it, but the sense of Dark felt much closer now and
had split off into several distinct blobs.
He was not liking this whatsoever. The cold was more than just a drop of
temperature, it felt as if the very warmth of the world was being leeched
away, bringing with it a powerful but unnatural fear and depression. His
grip tightened around his wand. He'd never much cared for it as anything
other than a crutch until he could easily use magic without it, but right
now the echo of a phoenix's magic within the feather it held was
comforting.
The closest dementor finally reached their compartment, bringing with it

the cold and the Dark. It was close enough now to begin affecting their
minds much more strongly.
Luna and Ginny both had the misfortune of having some pretty bad
memories, Ginny from last year and Luna from the day that she saw her
mother die. Both of them had already retreated as far into the
compartment as was physically possible and buried their heads into their
knees in a vain attempt to block out the memories that came flooding back
to the forefront of their minds, some of which they'd blocked out.
Harry had also backed up gainst the window, but was shakily aiming his
wand towards the door, somehow knowing that the thing outside it wasn't
intending to just pass by as it had all the other compartments.
He was proven right as it slowly pulled open the door and began to glide
in.
Harry wasn't spared the misery and memory inducing effects of the
dementor any more than the girls, but he did have the advantage of having
come to terms with them already. Yes, the memory of his mother's murder
was pretty terrible, but he'd seen it a year ago already and put it
behind him. He would have liked to have parents, but he'd stopped pining
for them a long time ago. Similarly, the memories of his life with the
Dursleys and in the orpahange were far from pleasant, but not
debilitatingly horrible even with the dementor augmenting them.
He was no keener to have the soul sucking creature coming any closer to
him than any other sane person though and sent a powerful gout of flame
at it.
The fire guttered out before it could hit the dementor, the draining
effect of its aura snuffing out the magic behind it harmlessly.
Starting to get a little desperate to stop the thing from advancing,

Harry sent a cutting curse at it. He saw it hit, but there was no effect.
It was like his spell had simply vanished, its cutting edge without
meaning.
The dementor was well into the compartment by now and Harry was starting
to panic. He didn't know any spells that were guaranteed to be useful and
he probably couldn't muster the focus necessary even if he did, so he
resorted to desperate measures. That being that when in doubt, explosions
were usually a solution.
He cast the most powerful blasting curse that he could manage, knowing it
was a terrible idea even as he did it. The few feet of distance between
him and the dementor was not even close to the recommended minimum for
casting any kind of explosive spell. If it worked, it was entirely likely
to kill everything in the compartment except the dementor itself.
The spell rocketed out of his wand, the magic frayed and barely formed
due to his lack of focus, but powerful all the same.
The dementor was struck center mass, but there was no explosion. The only
thing Harry felt was his magic vanishing into the depthless sense of Dark
exuded by the creature in the same way as his previous spells, as well as
the warmth of the world and the happiness in peoples minds.
Then it was on top of him, its cadaverous fingers griping his head and
turning it upwards into the shadows of the hood.
Harry once again heard the screaming of his mother, but it seemed to come
from a great distance. His magic felt as if it was freezing, however
little sense that made. The runes scattered across his body, where magic
was infused into flesh, became so cold that the skin turned blue in
seconds. The four organs that he'd runically enhanced over the summer
were similarly affected, though much more severely.
But none of that mattered when the Dark was so close.
XXXXX
Albus Dumbledore looked on as Poppy finished working on his most

important student, feeling deeply concerned.
It hadn't escaped his notice that Harry was incongruously large for his
age. A growth spurt was nothing odd, but the one that Harry was having
stretched credulity. Neither James nor Lily had been exceptonally tall
people after all, so their son's current size was quite unusual.
He'd been hoping for an excuse to give Harry a thorough medical
examination for a while, but this wasn't what he'd had in mind. The
strange situation with the owls would have sufficed. Harry nearly losing
his soul to a dementor was something he'd have preferred to avoid,
convenient though it was as far as excuses went. He had barely been able
to keep the information from reaching the ears of the Ministry. The last
thing anyone needed right now was for Cornelius to come blustering in and
making a bigger mess of things. It was a good thing that Remus had been
nearby to drive the dementor away.
"How is he doing, Poppy?" He asked when the Hogwarts matron approached

him.
"Still unconscious but stable." She said with a tired sigh. "It's almost
like the dementor was trying to freeze him solid. If his lungs, liver,
kidneys and intestines had gotten any colder, they would have formed ice
crystals and killed him. It was a near thing as it was, my spells didn't
work as well as they should, but his body fortunately seemed to recover
on its own. I've never seen the like of it, but I've never heard of
anyone coming so close to losing their soul and surviving either."
"Will there be any permanent consequences to young Harry?"
"I couldn't say." Poppy replied with a frown. "The organs I mentioned are
still saturated with his magic and operating at a much higher level than
normal. He also has a similar but less pronounced effect across the rest
of his body."
"Thank you, Poppy." The old wizard said with a smile. "When do you think
he will wake up? I need to speak to him."
"He needs rest, Headmaster." Poppy said with disapproval.
"It will not take long." Dumbledore assured her.
XXXXX
Harry was mildly surprised when he opened his eyes. Given what his last
few memories were, he should be dead. Oddly enough, there was absolutely
no emotion attached to his near death experience. He felt the same as if
he'd just realized that water was wet.
This must be the Hogwarts Infirmary. He'd never been here before, but
only a place of healing could be so obnoxiously white. He'd never
understood the reasoning behind that. I don't think I like it much.
"Good evening, Harry." Came the voice of Dumbledore from nearby.
"Is it?" Harry wondered.
"I suppose it could have been better." The old wizard conceded.
"Dementors do tend to ruin one's day."
"There was so much Dark." Harry murmured, mostly to himself.

"I am sorry that you had to go through that, Harry." Dumbledore sighed
regretfully.
Harry wasn't really upset about it. He wasn't sure if that was because of
the strangely trance-like state he was currently in, or because he'd
actually found the Dark strangely comforting in his last moments of
consciousness. When the biting cold and grotesque appearance of the
dementor had ceased to matter, it had been beautiful in its own way. He
had been ready to sink into it and let it have him forever.
"Minister Fudge insisted on a dementor presence despite my objections."

The old man went on, oblivious to Harry's thoughts.
"To search for Sirius Black." The much younger wizard said with
certainty.
"Yes."
"They won't find him." If he'd slipped past them in Azkaban, then he
would certainly have little trouble doing it in the open.
"I agree, but the Ministry unfortunately does not."
"Of course it doesn't, it wouldn't be the government if it wasn't both

stupid and incompetent." Harry said, finally starting to shake off the
strange lethargy.
"That is a very cynical viewpoint for someone so young." Dumbledore

commented.
"I've found that I prefer to be cynical and occasionally wrong than

idealistic and constantly disappointed." Harry retorted, sitting up on
the bed and grabbing his wand from the nearby table. "What happened after
I passed out?"
"Professor Lupin arrived just in time to drive off the dementor."
"Lupin?" Harry asked sharply, recognizing the name of one of his parents
supposed friends.
"Am I to take it that you know of him already?" Dumbledore asked

shrewdly.
"I've heard of him." Harry said with a shrug, inwardly cursing his own
reaction. There was no need to inform the old meddler what he knew and
what he didn't.
"The dementor affected you most severely, my boy. I don't suppose you
know why?" Dumbledore asked, changing the subject when he saw that Harry
had no intention of talking about it. He didn't want to come off as
overly pushy and alienate him.
Harry remembered the way that his runes had burned with cold fire in the
dementor's presence. As far as he understood it, a wizard's magic was not
physically part of their body, so it was no doubt having magic bound to
so closely his body that had caused the effect.
Not that he was going to volunteer that information.
"I don't know." He lied. "Frankly, I'm more interested in why it attacked
me specifically."
Dumbledore wasn't entirely convinced that he wasn't being lied to. The
strange way that the boy's magic was infused into his body and some of
his organs did not look like anything he'd ever seen before, nor did it
look natural. A wizard's magic simply did not work that way normally.
More to the point, Harry's body appeared to be...too old. It was

something of a sketchy assessment since there were no spells that
determined the age of a person, but Madam Pomfrey's examination as well
as the one he'd performed before the boy had woken up pointed to a level
of maturity of someone in their mid teens.
There was an off chance that it had somehow occured naturally, but it was
far more likely to be the result of something that Harry had done to
himself.
He was terribly curious about it, but once again decided not to push. He
needed Harry to trust him, and he'd learned a long time ago that asking
uncomfortable questions did not inspire trust.
"I see. Should you should ever discover the cause, I would appreciate it
if you would indulge an old man's curiosity. It is not often that I
encounter something new."
That would hopefully let Harry know that he did not intend to judge and
could possibly even help. If the boy was half as smart as he suspected,
then he would catch the implication. It was crucial that the boy see him
as a mentor, and for that to happen, Dumbledore had to act like one.
"Of course, sir." Harry lied with a smile, swinging his legs out of the
bed. It hadn't escaped his notice that Dumbledore had neglected to answer
his implied question about why the dementor had attacked him.
"Madam Pomfrey will be most upset if you leave the infirmary without her
permission." The old wizard said, seeing that the boy was intent on
leaving.
"That's too bad, but I feel fine and I'm not staying in bed just to make
her feel better."
"It is unfortunate that I still need to speak to Poppy about something."

Dumbledore said, also getting on his feet, completely unphased by the
boy's surly attitude. He didn't much like being a patient either. "I hope
that you will not use this opportunity to sneak to Ravenclaw tower while
her attention is elsewhere."
Harry raised an eyebrow as the elderly wizard walked off towards the
healer's office and then shrugged. If Dumbledore wanted to give him a
distraction while he escaped, then that was fine with him.
XXXXX
"Harry!"
The shout greeted him almost as soon as he entered the Ravenclaw common
room, attracting the attention of several of the upper years as well.
Ginny all but smashed into him in her eagerness to give him a hug, which
Harry returned awkwardly for a moment before gently pushing her away.
"Hello Harry." Luna greeted much more calmly, though it was obvious to
anyone who knew her that she was relieved to see him.
"Hi."
"What happened to you?" Ginny all but demanded. "The dementors were
pretty hard on me and Luna, but you looked like you'd frozen to death!
They had to portkey you to the infirmary."
Harry's eyebrows went up at that. He hadn't known that bit.
"Nearly having your soul sucked out is apparently bad for your health."
He joked.
"No doubt." Luna agreed. "Would you be willing to speak about your near-
soulless experience in an interview with the Quibbler?"
"That's not funny." Ginny scolded, glaring at them both.
"Err...sure, Luna. We can do it tomorrow." Harry offered, quirking a

smile at Ginny's even more pronounced scowl.
He couldn't help but find the whole thing a bit ridiculous. Both Luna and
Ginny were a bit on the petite side, which meant that he now towered over
them by a considerable margin. Even if he was only a year older than
them, it was sometimes hard not to feel like he was hanging around kids
that were three or four years younger than him, especially in light of
the things he'd been up to during the summer.
"Alright there, Harry?"
The question was accompanied by a hand on his shoulder and he turned to

look at the year's Head Girl, Penelope Clearwater. He noted with some
shock that the girl who had occasionally come to talk to him back in
first year was now actually a shade shorter than him. Granted, Penelope
was not prodigiously tall by any stretch, but it was still a bit of a
surprise to find himself looking down at someone that had been nearly two
feet taller than him only a couple of years ago.
"Yeah, I'm fine." He replied after a moment, giving the girl a smile. It
was much easier to be confident around people when you weren't looking up
at them.
"Good." Penelope said with a nod, returning his smile. "Try to stay away
from the dementors in the future, yeah?"
"I'll try, I'd certainly prefer to kiss girls than dementors." Harry
joked.
The Head Girl gave a short laugh, accompanied by a small blush at what
could be taken as flirting if you squinted.
"Even I'd rather get kissed by a girl than a dementor." She joked back,
inwardly very pleased at how different he was from the anti-social boy
that he'd been in his first year. She'd always felt that Harry was trying
too hard to isolate himself back then and it was gratifying to see that
he'd loosened up a bit. She had no idea what had caused him to be so
prickly with people when he'd started Hogwarts and she wasn't going to
ask, but she did like to think that she'd helped him move past it.
"I can kiss you if you want." Luna offered out of the blue.
The joking mood screeched to a halt at Luna's words, everyone trying to

figure out if she was serious or not.
"Is she joking or not? I can't tell." Penelope eventually asked, giving
up on figuring it out.
"No idea, I can never tell either." Harry shrugged, being less affected
due to experience.
"I'm as serious as a crumple-horned snorkack." Luna said firmly.
Which tells us nothing. Harry thought wryly, giving Penelope another

shrug when she looked to him for clarification.
"Right." The Head Girl said after a moment, deciding to just ignore the
small blonde's strangeness. "You three had better head off to bed, it's
past your usual curfew already."
XXXXX
Penny had felt the assessing gazes of several other girls on her ever
since Harry's appearance in the common room. It wasn't the first time
that this had happened. Curious students had seen her talking to him
before and had wanted to know what he was like since the boy tended to
avoid social contact.
It felt a bit different this time though.
"So, Penny.." Opened up Bryanna Torres, a dark haired, blue eyed seventh
year whose slightly olive skin tone betrayed a hint of medditeranean
ancestry a few generations back. ".We saw you talking to Potter."
"Yeah, so?" Penny returned cautiously.
She and Bryanna had never really gotten along too well, the other girl
possessing a cunning and ambition that should have by all rights landed
her in Slytherin, as well as a beauty that drew many a boy's attention,
whereas Penny was fairly plain and straightforward. Not that they were
enemies or anything like that, but they hadn't really interacted since
third year, when Bryanna had started moving in completely different
social circles.
"He's looking pretty good." The other girl noted, too casually to be
real.
And with that sentence Penny realized what Bryanna was aiming at.
It wouldn't be the first time that an ambitious girl from a Common House
like Bryanna had targeted the younger Heir of a Noble House in an attempt
to increase her own status.
It could theoretically happen the other way around as well, but it was
much less likely. Witches, even those not of main Noble lines, were
guarded far more carefully against that sort of thing. That had taken a
while for Penny to wrap her mind around, being a muggleborn as she was.
The Wizarding World's only definition for rape was a violent and/or
magically compelled man-on-woman assault, which seemed especially strange
to her with an equalizer like magic being present. Anyone proposing the
idea of statutory rape to magicals received only baffled looks, as if the
mere concept was lunacy. Even slipping someone love or lust potions was a
legal grey area.
It was frankly astonishing that it happened as little as it did, though

Penny knew that might simply be her ignorance on the subject.
The reason for Bryanna's sudden interest in Harry was unlikely to be his
looks, but rather his money and status. His youth would only make him a
more tempting target because it would leave him vulnerable. Heirs of
Noble Houses weren't normally subjected to this kind of thing because
they had parents who could easily ruin a girl's family and future in the
Wizarding World for attempting to install herself as the future Lady of a
Noble House in such a manner.
Harry had no parents to protect him however.
"He's only thirteen, Bryanna." She said disapprovingly in an attempt to

get the other girl to back off.
"Funny, he doesn't look thirteen." Bryanna countered with a smirk,

abandoning subtlety since it was obvious that her intentions had been
guessed.
Penny had noticed that, it was in all honesty hard not to, but it didn't
change the fact that Harry Potter was thirteen and thus entirely too
young to be dealing with the advances of a girl four years his senior.
The problem was that she couldn't even go to anyone about this.
Professor Flitwick was a great teacher, but he was part goblin and had
certain goblin sensibilities. A refusal to meddle in other people's
issues being one of them.
Headmaster Dumbledore would just wave it off like he waved off

everything. For all the respect that Penny had for the aged wizard, he
tended to be extremely hands off. Snape was a good example.
McGonagall would simply refer her to Dumbledore.
Even if she could have gone to anyone about it, it would make her a lot
of enemies in Ravenclaw that could make her life very difficult for the
rest of the year.
What a mess. She'd just have to warn Harry and hope for the best, which
Bryanna was probably expecting her to do anyway. Hopefully her ambitious
fellow Ravenclaw was overestimating her own appeal.
Bryanna spent another twenty minutes attempting to get information on

Harry out of her, but Penny was for once glad to be fairly clueless. The
green-eyed boy was not exactly liberal with information on himself, so
she had little to go on. It wouldn't stop them of course, but it wasn't
going to be as easy as they'd hoped.
Chapter 7
Nothing much to say up here this time, except to give credit to Joe
lawyer for his excellent beta-ing skillz.
XXXXX
Among the myriad of Dark Creatures in the world, none are as foul as the
dementor. Their origins are unknown, though it is speculated that they
form in places of great suffering, though it is equally likely that it is
the other way around and that it is their presence that makes a place
miserable. There are records of their presence in other locales around
Europe, but Azkaban is the only place that one may reliably find a
dementor in recent times.
Several Dark Lords have been able to rally them to their cause over the
centuries. Many a Dark Wizard has also lost their soul in the attempt,
making any attempted alliance with them a dangerous undertaking.
Classified as a Non-Being, the dementor is not truly alive and thus

cannot truly die. The Patronus Charm is the only spell known to have any
effect on them and it is also by means of this spell that the British
Ministry of Magic keeps control of the creatures. Though even the
strongest Patroni will not destroy a dementor, it appears to cause them
enough discomfort or even what passes for pain that they can be
threatened with it.
The exact level of intelligence possesed by dementors is unknown, but is

presumed to be fairly close to sapience, as they are able to understand
speech and recognize certain individuals.
Harry closed the book and stared at it thoughtfully. It had contained far
less information on dementors than he'd hoped, but the mention of the
Patronus Charm was certainly useful. He would make it his business to
learn that particular spell as soon as possible.
Being helpless as the soul sucking abomination advanced on him was not an
experience he cared to repeat.
Unfortunately, the book offered no hints as to why it had targeted him in

particular. There was a chance that he, Ginny and Luna simply had more
traumatic pasts that the other students, but there was no way to verify
that short of interrogating all of Hogwarts and there was no guarantee
that it was even the reason for the dementor's keen interest in him.
The entire incident had also raised several other questions in his mind
that he would now very much like to have answered.
What was a soul? How was it connected to his magic? Why had the
dementor's presence frozen his magic? What was the Dark?
Unsettling as the near death experience had been, it had also posed so
many fascinating questions about magic and revealed truths that he had
previously scoffed at. He now knew with absolute certainty that there was
indeed something Dark about magic, which likely meant that there was also
Light. He still strongly doubted the popular interpretation of it, but he
could no longer discount the entire concept.
His own experiences with the capricious nature of his runes made him
equally wary of both. For all that people liked to equate good with Light
and Dark with evil, Harry suspected that neither was particularly benign
when meddled with.
XXXXX
Harry observed Lupin carefully as the man lectured the class on the
subject of boggarts, wondering what to make of him.
According to Charlus and Dorea, Lupin had been a dear friend of his
parents, but a few things simply did not add up.
He had no memories of him ever being over for a visit before Voldemort
had attacked the Potter home, unlike Sirius and Pettigrew. Furthermore,
unlike those two, Lupin had been neither imprisoned nor dead, and yet he
had never come to check on the son of his dead friends.
Even assuming that he hadn't known where Harry was, it had been two years
now since his return to the Wizarding World. Surely the man could have
dropped by? Stranger still, he hadn't even attempted to approach Harry
since the school year had begun. The whole dementor thing would have been
a perfect excuse, but Lupin seemed content to pretend that Harry was just
another student to him.
All around strange behavior for someone that was supposed to have been a
very close friend of his parents.
"Who wants to go first?"
The question knocked Harry out of his thoughts as the class formed a line
in a sort of ordered chaos.
Most of his classmates had understandable fears, that being all sorts of
monsters. There was one Hufflepuff girl whose name Harry couldn't recall
that had a giant carnivorous tomato for some bizzare reason though.
Everyone was generally able to turn their fear into something funny and
laugh at the transformed boggart, which got Harry to thinking again.
He'd come across the boggart while researching dementors a few days ago
and had been puzzled. It was a Non-Being just like the soul sucking
monsters currently haunting every entrance into Hogwarts, but a decidedly
more benign one. Little more than a pest really, as the only conceivable
way for a boggart to actually hurt someone was through shock induced
heart attack or maybe scaring someone off a ledge.
Yet for all of that, Harry could still feel a little piece of Dark from
the shape shifter. It was tiny in comparison to the dementor on the
train, but it was definitely there. Fascinating.
He knew what he would see once his turn came up. Aside from a few
memorable occasions of nearly traumatising himself with a horror themed
video game back when he'd been nine, there was only one thing that came
to mind when he thought of his fears.
The boggart transformed into a perfect copy of the dementor from the
train, but it was not nearly as frightening. It could change its form all
it wanted, but it could not replicate the same sense of Dark. He wasn't
afraid of the dementor's outer sppearance so much as he was of what it
represented, which was not something that could be faked.
He was shocked however, when he began to feel a familiar misery seep into
his mind, ignoring Aul'El and his Occlumency like they were nothing just
like the dementor had done. Similarly, he felt a weak chill in his runes
and a more intangible chill in his magic. It wasn't even close to being
as powerful, but the mere fact that it could replicate even a tiny speck
of a true dementor's power implied all sorts of interesting things.
Lupin jumped in front of him then, perhaps mistaking his surprised

staring at the boggart for paralyzing fear.
The boggart instantly transformed into the silvery sphere of a full moon,
which Lupin quickly turned into a balloon and sent fluttering away.
What a strange thing to be afraid of.
XXXXX
Remus sighed heavily once the third year Ravenclaw-Hufflepuff class left
the room, taking with it the son of his friends.
He had no idea what to do about Harry.
He had never seen the boy as a baby, they had already started pushing him
away by then, suspecting him of being a spy for Voldemort.
He understood their reasoning. He was a werewolf and werewolves had been

Voldemort's allies during the war. The Ministry and its oppressive
werewolf legislation made sure of that, though Fenrir Greyback would have
undoubtedly allied with him either way. It didn't make the experience any
less bitter for Remus though, who would have died for his friends in a
heartbeat.
James, Sirius, Peter and later Lily had been the closest thing to pack
that non-werewolves could be, and they had cast him out. For all that
Remus tried his hardest to suppress and deny the beast within, he could
not do it completely. From that place inside his soul where the wolf
resided most of the time, it had howled its grief and fury at being so
betrayed.
When Harry was born, Remus had been in Germany, ostensibly speaking to
the werewolves there about a possible alliance with the Order of the
Phoenix or at least staying neutral. In retrospect it had been to get him
away from Britain and any possible information that he could have passed
on to Voldemort.
When James and Lily had been killed a year later, he'd still been in
Germany, though he had long since stopped talking to the werewolves
there. He'd grown rather bitter and resentful of the suspicion everyone
had of him and decided to simply not go back to Britain if that's how
they were going to be. Their deaths, Peter's death and Sirius' betrayal
had hit him hard despite the gulf that had grown between them and he'd
never mustered the will to go back.
Then came Dumbledore's letter, asking him to teach DADA in Hogwarts. It

was a job that he'd never dreamed he'd be able to have with his
condition, but he had still been hesitant to return to Britain. The
werewolf laws in Germany were better than in Britain. Not by much, but
enough that he had been able to keep a job. Not a great or enjoyable job,
but a job that allowed him to eat and have a roof over his head.
But he owed Dumbledore a lot and he had always wanted to teach, so he had
come back despite his misgivings and now he was faced with Lily's eyes
looking out from James' face, both of them too old to belong on a
thirteen year old.
Dumbledore had been stingy on the details of Harry's life when
questioned, which Remus figured was a ploy to make him actually talk to
the boy himself.
But it was so hard. What was he supposed to say to the son of the people
who had been like family to him? Family that had cast him out, but who he
had still loved.
XXXXX
Dinner time in the Great Hall.
"Hey, Potter! I heard you nearly wet yourself in front of a boggart

yesterday."
Harry sighed at the continued idiocy of one Draco Malfoy. The blond
Slytherin hadn't stopped trying to mock him over the dementor incident on
the train since the start of term and had apparently gotten a second wind
upon hearing that his boggart was also a dementor.
"I'd like to see what you'd be like in front of a dementor, Malfoy!"

Ginny retorted angrily, face beginning to flush with the well known
temper of redheads everywhere. "From what Fred and George told me, you
ran into their compartment and all but begged them to protect you from it
on the train."
"Shut your mouth, Weaslette!" Malfoy shouted at her, his own pale face
developing a few blotches of red.
"Excellent comeback, Malfoy. That sure proved her wrong." Harry said
dryly, finding the blond idiot's taunts tiresome at best. The whole
experience had gotten so repetitive that not even his runes could be
bothered to prickle. It was kind of like constantly being bothered by a
yippy little dog.
Malfoy's anger swelled further at the dismissive tone. He loathed being

brushed off and that was exactly what Potter had been doing ever since
first year, treating him like he didn't even matter. Aside from that one
incident at the start of second year when he'd thrown a goblet at his
face that was.
"It's too bad the dementor didn't Kiss all three of you and remove some
of the filth from the world." He snarled furiously.
There was a series of gasps from the Ravenclaws around them, shocked that
he would say something like that.
Harry was unphased though, having been exposed to the internet for years
and having many an angry twelve year old threaten to fuck his mother or
worse. The fact that he had been ten at the time only served to make him
feel more mature than his age warranted.
"I could say the same about you and your pet apes, but I won't. But I
could."
Draco managed to look even more constipated at Harry's lack of reaction

and opened his mouth to say something else when he was beaten to the
punch.
During this entire time, Luna had been focusing on her food to the
exclusion of all else, but now that her mashed potatoes were shaped like
a castle with a little gravy moat, the conversation going on around her
finally penetrated her focus.
"Draco? When did you get here?"
Her polite question had the Malfoy scion spluttering in pure rage,
believing that he was being mocked by the crazy second year, who was
clearly acting like he was so unimportant as to be beneath her notice.
An understandable assumption, but completely wrong. Luna had simply been

putting a lot of effort into her potato castle.
The perceived insult had him reaching for his wand, though he wasn't
entirely sure what he was going to do with it yet.
"Malfoy!" A different female voice cut into the action. "Ten points from
Slytherin and detention for drawing your wand on another student."
"How dare you?!" Draco yelled at her at the top of his lungs, outraged
well past the point of reason. The nerve of the mudblood to give him a
detention!
"I quite agree with Ms. Clearwater, Mr. Malfoy." Flitwick chimed in from
where he'd approached behind the Slytherin. "Drawing a wand on another
student outside of a classroom and without the supervision of a professor
is a serious offense."
"When my father hears about this.." Draco seethed, putting his wand away
and stomping off.
Harry shook his head in disbelief at the antics of the blond idiot. If
there was anything that proved that the Sorting Hat could be convinced to
sort according to a student's wishes, it was Malfoy's placement in
Slytherin. The boy was clearly a Gryffindor.
He raised his goblet of water towards Penny in a mocking sort of toast

for helping to get rid of the pest, exchanging amused smiles with her. No
doubt the muggleborn Head Girl had taken her own measure of enjoyment in
smacking down the uppity pureblood.
His eyes went further up the table towards the seventh year girl that she
had warned him about, seeing her already looking at him. Deciding to be a
bit adventurous, he winked at her.
Bryanna's eyebrows shot up in surprise before a smirk stretched across
her face. This might be easier than she'd thought.
"Did you just wink at that seventh year?" Ginny demanded in a harsh
whisper.
"So what if I did?" He asked back, not liking her tone. If Bryanna was
going to do what he suspected she was going to do, then he fully intended
to take advantage of the situation and shag her silly. If Ginny couldn't
deal with that, then they were going to have a problem.
Taken aback by the confrontational response, Ginny quickly backpedaled.

"Uh, nothingI just, uh, wanted to know why."
That had to be the worst lie that Harry had ever heard, but he didn't
call her out on it. He wasn't interested in dealing with Ginny's crush on
him and felt more certain that he would never feel the same with every
day. She just felt too much like a kid to him for that, even if he was
only a year older than her. His accelerated growth was making a mess of
his personal relationships, making him too old in physical maturity to
fit in with his peers but too young in years to fit in with those older
than him. He was doing his best to ignore that bit of discomfort since he
knew that there was nothing he could do about it, but he was poignantly
aware of it. The last time that he'd felt truly comfortable around
another person had been with Zoe, which said a lot about the situation
considering their arrangement.
"I just felt like it." He told her, his tone making it clear that the
subject was closed.
The redhead went into a sulky silence and started pushing around the food
on her plate, appetite gone at being shut down like that.
Luna stared at Harry and started blinking furously.
"Luna, what are you doing?" He asked, looking at her strangely.
"I'm winking at you because I feel like it." She replied, still blinking
furiously.
"That's blinking, not winking." He informed her.
"No Harry, it's definitely winking." She insisted.
"Winking is only done with one eye." He reasoned.
"This is double winking."
A laugh burbled up Harry's throat at the ridiculosuness of it all,

leaving him chuckling into his goblet for quite a while, made worse by
the fact that Luna was still double winking at him like she had something
to prove.
"Don't ever change, Luna. Don't ever change." He told her, still
chuckling. Whether she had done it on purpose or not, the slightly
irritable mood that Ginny had put him in was gone now.
XXXXX
There were two spells that Harry felt he needed to learn as soon as
possible.
The first was the standard contraceptive charm that prevented pregnancy,
because of the high chance of getting laid. It had once seen some fairly
widespread use, but had since been phased out in favor of a potion that
needed to be taken once a month.
Both had to be applied to the woman, which presented something of a

problem for Harry. He would have honestly preferred a spell or potion
that would simply make him infertile for a while, but it apparently
didn't exist. Not that he would trust a potion to work on him with his
most recent set of runes, but it was the principle of the thing.
He was incredibly grateful for the fact that Zoe had insisted on a condom
despite being on the pill. The possibility of getting a girl pregnant at
his age made him queasy just thinking about it. He was nowhere near ready
to be a father.
He was probably just overthinking it, as both the spell and potion were
highly reliable, but he still would have liked to have the extra
security.
The second was the Patronus, the reason for which was obvious. The
dementors floating around the castle made him nervous.
It was a rather interesting spell with the way it needed to be charged

with a happy emotion and there was an extra tidbit of knowledge on the
dementors in the description as well.
Apparently, the reason why the Patronus was effective against them was
because it was a purely positive force that couldn't feel despair. It was
anathema to them. The book didn't explain how a Patronus avoided falling
prey to the dementor's ability to nullify other spells, but Harry figured
that there was something about the emotion charged into it that blocked
that ability.
It was also a very difficult spell because it took some seriously

powerful happy thoughts to form it properly. This was a problem, because
Harry couldn't think of anything like that off the top of his head. His
life was comfortable and pleasant aside from a few irritants like Malfoy,
Snape and his foster parents, but it had no outstanding moments of
happiness either.
The happiest thing he could think of on short notice was the time he'd
spent with Zoe, but he somehow doubted that the memory of a fun day and
the physical pleasure that followed would cut it. Still worth a try, but
Harry wasn't holding his breath on it.
"That's some pretty advanced magic you're studying."
Harry jumped slightly at the unexpected voice, having been so deeply

absorbed in his thoughts that he hadn't noticed anyone coming up behind
him.
"Sorry if I scared you, I just couldn't help noticing that you were
studying the Patronus Charm." Bryanna said with a smile, taking a seat
next to him. "Dementors making you nervous?"
"You could say that." Harry replied, wondering what her angle was. Coming
up to him and starting up a conversation like this was more than a bit
odd considering their lack of previous interaction, but he was willing to
play along with it for now.
"Me too, I can't believe that Fudge thinks posting those monsters around
a school is a good idea." Bryanna commented.
"He must be pretty worried about Black." Harry responded noncommittally.

Everything he'd heard about the current Minister of Magic made him out to
be something of a buffoon, but he wasn't going to share that opinion just
yet.
"I'm surprised that you aren't."
"I've got a feeling that I'm in a lot more danger from the dementors than
from Black." He said wryly.
"You're probably right about that." Bryanna agreed. "Any luck learning
the Patronus?"
"I haven't gotten around to attempting it yet." Harry told her honestly.
"Want to give it a try together?" She asked with a smile. "Hogwarts

doesn't teach that spell and I'd like to know it just in case."
Harry looked at her speculatively for a few seconds, wondering if she was
seriously intending to act like this conversation had happened by mere
chance. Eventually he just shrugged and agreed to her suggestion. She
seemed smart and her desire to learn the Patronus was probably genuine
even if she was using it as a pretense to get close to him, so having her
along might help with learning the spell at least with the aid of a wand.
XXXXX
"Expecto Patronum!"
The problem, Harry decided, was definitely mustering together enough

happiness on demand to cast the spell.
"Expecto Patronum!"
Not to mention that the book had not been particularly heavy on the
details. Was the type of happiness important? Could a sadist conjure a
Patronus by thinking of all the people he'd tortured?
"EXPECTO PATRONUM!"
It seemed unlikely that such a twisted form of happiness would work. This
consequently meant that the source of that happiness had to be an
important component. Following that train of logic, there surely had to
be one or more specific types of happy memories that would work better
than others.
"You know, learning the spell might work better if you actually tried to
cast it." Bryanna said peevishly.
"I like to think about what I'm doing before waving my wand around."
Harry said back, not really sparing the older Ravenclaw too much
attention, making her huff.
A properly cast Patronus called a spectral guardian into existence, so it

was probable that thoughts of safety would work best.
"Expecto Patronum!"
But safety wasn't in and of itself a happy thought. Perhaps thoughts of

protection? A strong guardian standing between the caster and the world,
someone held close, loved and respected.
"Expecto Patronum!"
That could be a problem if it was the case. Harry couldn't think of a

single adult, or indeed anyone at all, that he would trust to protect
him.
"It's not working." Bryanna said in a not-quite whine, clearly

frustrated.
Well of course it wasn't. Judging by the frequency of her attempts, she

was probably cycling through her memories and hoping to pick the right
one by accident, or perhaps she was trying to somehow force the spell
into working through sheer repetition. That kind of approach was the
province of meatheaded warriors swinging around giant shafts of sharpened
steel, not mages. Her frustration at the lack of success had turned into
the reason for the lack of success.
Weren't Ravenclaws supposed to be thoughtful intellectuals that

considered things carefully before acting? I guess you can't rely on
stereotypes all the time.
Deciding to finally give the spell a try, Harry stopped pacing the room
and drew his wand.
With a deep breath he focused on the most memorable event in his life
where he'd felt like an adult could protect him. Ironically, it was a
memory that the dementors seemed to enjoy bringing to mind when in his
presence, that being the death of his mother at the hands of Voldemort.
Not a particularly cheerful thought, but learning of the lengths that his
mother had gone to in order to protect him did bring him a measure of
happiness. Deliberately setting yourself up as a sacrifice to protect
someone else was the most powerful demonstration of love there was.
A silvery mist left his wand, hovering in the air for a moment before
dissipating.
Bryanna stared at him in disbelief.
"How in Merlin's name did you do that? You've spent the past hour just
pacing around the room and then you manage to get some results on the
first try without even saying the incantation."
"Calm down, take your time and think of a memory where you feel safe and
protected, then concentrate on channeling that feeling into the spell."
Harry advised.
Bryanna looked dubious, but did as she was told nonetheless.
"Expecto Patronum!"
A familiar silvery mist left her wand.
"I did it!" She exclaimed happily, jumping to give him a hug.
Harry noticed that she had rather strategically shoved his face into her
breasts. They were very nice breasts, a little bigger than Zoe's if he
wasn't mistaken. He felt his body respond and his runes tingle, but
controlled it tightly.
"Congratulations." He told her once she let go, idly wondering how much
of her current behavior was an act designed to sucker a nave thirteen
year old into developing a crush on her. She was acting somewhat
differently than how Penny had described her.
"Thanks, now why don't you try it again, this time with the incantation."
"No."
"Why not?" She almost demanded. "If you were able to get a mist out
without one, then you're bound to have more success if you try casting it
properly."
"I'd rather put in a little extra effort to learn it silently than shout
gibberish into the air." He replied dryly.
"I don't understand you at all, it's like you enjoy making things harder
on yourself." She said in exasperation.
Harry wondered what she'd think of the fact that he wouldn't even be
bothering with a wand if she wasn't here. She might not understand why he
wanted to do things the hard way, but he didn't understand why everyone
else wanted to cripple themselves by relying on their wands so much.
"Maybe I just like the challenge?" He offered with a small grin.
Bryanna looked at him oddly for a moment and then let out an amused
chuckle.
"We've been here for a while, you want to get something to eat?" She
asked with a brilliant smile.
Harry's stomach gurgled in agreement with the idea. It had been nearly
two hours since the last time he'd eaten.
XXXXX
".and that's when I learned that combining Arithmancy and Divination

doesn't really let you accurately predict the future, especially if
Divination is taught by a drunken fraud like Trelawney." Bryanna
finished.
Harry hummed in agreement around a mouthful of particularly juicy carrot.
Ginny glared sullenly at the older girl, resenting her presence with the
fiery wrath of an insecure preteen who was sure that the pretty seventh
year was trying to catch Harry's interest and doing a far better job than
she ever had.
"Are you going to put your penis in her vagina, Harry?" Luna asked
dreamily.
Harry spat out the half-masticated carrot in surprise.
"What?" He croaked out.
"That's what Ginny's nargles are screaming at me."
"Well, Harry? Answer the girl, are you going to put your penis in my
va~gi~na?" Bryanna sing-songed with a salacious smirk, having recovered
from her surprise the fastest. The little blonde friend of Harry's was
quite the character.
Though caught off guard by the bold question, Harry gamely ignored the
heat creeping up his neck and looked her in the eye.
"Anything is possible."
"Truer words have never been spoken." Luna agreed, thinking of all the
snorkacks that were just waiting to be discovered.
Ginny rose to her feet in a single violent motion and stomped off.
"What's her problem?" Bryanna asked, knowing perfectly well what the
redhead's problem was.
"She might still be upset about not having any boobies for Harry to look
at." Luna hazarded a guess.
Harry let out a weak chuckle. He had a feeling that this was going to be
the event that ended the friendship between him and Ginny. He'd found the
redhead annoying at times, but she had become a friend. He wasn't going
to change his behavior to appease her though. It wasn't like he owed her
anything and this stupid crush of hers was really the thing that bothered
him the most about her. She could either get over it or sulk about it,
but it would be entirely on her.
XXXXX
Harry sighed despondently in his Ancient Runes class. It was just so

boring. He'd already learned all of this on his own back in first year.
An unfair thought perhaps, since the class was no doubt pretty

challenging to everyone who didn't have a two year head start, but that
didn't chage the fact that he was just wasting his time here. He'd had
the same problem in Artihmancy, except worse since he'd needed to study
that one even more in depth for his rituals.
"Mr. Potter, stay behind please." Professor Babbling said when the class
was over.
Malfoy threw him a mocking look on his way out, which Harry ignored. The
blond ponce currently had his arm bandaged as if he'd been grievously
injured by that hippogriff in his Care of Magical Creatures class, but
everyone knew that he was faking it. Well, Parkinson seemed to be buying
it and Malfoy's two pet goons probably didn't have enough brain cells
between them to see it, but everyone with any sense knew that he was
faking it.
According to Luna, who had heard it from Ginny, who had heard it from
Ron, he was playing up the injury to make the hippogriff in question,
Buckbeak, look more like a vicious monster than it actually was and get
it executed. The ponce had apparently ignored Hagrid's instructions and
provoked it and was now looking to get it killed in a spectacular example
of pettiness. Malfoy truly did live up to the spoiled rich brat
stereotype.
"I've noticed that you don't seem to be paying attention during class."
Babbling commented once they were alone.
"I'm sorry, Professor. It's just that.." Harry started, not sure how to
word it.
"You already know the subject matter." She finished for him.
"Yeah." He said with a nod.

"I thought this might happen." She said, rubbing her forehead in
consternation. "Professor Vector tells me that it's the same with her?"
Harry simply nodded in confirmation.
This presented a problem for both Bathsheda and Septima. Both of them
were rather fond of Harry, who they had gotten to know from his
occasional visits over the past two years. Both of them had also been
looking forward to having him in their class, but it served nobody if his
time was being wasted going over things that he already knew. It wasn't
often that a student came around who wanted to study ahead and they
didn't want him to start resenting the time he spent in their class
simply because he was too far ahead to benefit from it.
"If the opportunity were made available to you, would you want to stop
attending Ancient Runes and Arithmancy and replace it with private
tutoring from myself and Professor Vector?" She asked.
Harry's eyes widened at the offer. Private tutoring would allow him to
accomplish more in less time, work at his preferred pace instead of the
one set for a class of wildly different ability and actually make
progress instead of waiting for everyone else to catch up to him.
"That would be perfect."
It was kind of funny actually. He'd never been this studious before
coming to Hogwarts. But then again, he hadn't been learning magic back
then either.
"I will need to speak to the Headmaster about this arrangement, but I
don't foresee any problems." Bathsheda said, feeling that she'd made the
right decision by making him this offer.
It would give both her and Septima some extra work, but they felt that it
was worth it. Neither of their classes often got a student that seemed to
have a genuine passion for their respective subjects and they were
terribly reluctant to slow him down to the pace of the others.
XXXXX
"Harry, could I talk to you in private for a moment?" Ginny asked

awkwardly.
Harry was somewhat surprised that the redhead had actually approached
him. She'd been avoiding contact with him for a couple of weeks now, ever
since that one time that Bryanna had joined them for lunch.
He knew that Luna had tried to play mediator and get Ginny out of
whatever funk she'd worked herself into, but there hadn't been any
apparent success.
"Alright." He said with a shrug and followed her to an out of the way
room that looked like it hadn't been used in forever.
"I've been talking to some people." Ginny started, her voice full of
conviction. "Harry, that seventh year is just trying to get her hands on
your money or take advantage of your fame."
Harry stared at her incredulously for a few moments and then started
laughing.
"She is!" Ginny near yelled. "Just think about it. Why would a girl that
old suddenly start spending time with you?"
"Ginny, I know." He said, still chuckling.
"You know?!" She blurted out incredulously. "Then why are you still
hanging around her?"
"I'm waiting to see how far she's willing to go." He told her honestly.
She stared at him uncomprehendingly for a while before it dawned on her

what he meant.
"You're just going along with it because you want to see her naked?!"
"Oh, I'm hoping she goes a lot further than that." Harry replied, a smirk
pulling at his lips.
Ginny stared at him some more, then started to look almost heartbroken.
"What happened to you, Harry?" She asked sadly. "You didn't used to be
like this."
"I believe the technical term is 'puberty'." Harry grumbled

sarcastically. Why were people in the Wizarding World so surprised that
he wasn't some kind of saint? Oh right, because of those fucking Harry
Potter books. Even after knowing him for a year now, Ginny still
occasionally made assumptions about his personality based on those. The
fact that he was making money off them now was their only redeeming
quality.
"Look, I know that you have a crush on me." He started, ignoring the way
her face flushed at having it openly stated like that. He'd ignored it
the previous year in the hope that she'd get over it herself, but enough
was enough. "But nothing is ever going to come of it. I don't like you
that way and I never will."
"Why not?" Ginny demanded, looking simultaneously angry and upset. "Is it
because my boobs aren't big enough for the great Harry Potter?"
"Essentially, yes." He said bluntly, deciding to ignore her almost

Malfoy-esque insult. "You're just a kid."
"I'm only a year younger than you!" She screeched in outrage, reminding
Harry poignantly of the time that her mother had sent a howler to Fred
and George.
"I like older women." He retorted.
This gained him another outraged scream, though this time it was wordless
and accompanied by an angry exit, complete with door slam.
Harry sighed in the empty room, wondering how this was going to play out.
At least that silly crush was probably dead and buried now, Mystra be
praised.
XXXXX
"So, how goes Project Potter?"
Bryanna looked back at the Slytherin seventh year who had asked the
question, seeing the same curiousity in the eyes of the other two as
well.
Aside from her, the group consisted of Slytherin Tiana Day, Gryffindor
Jade Dawson and fellow Ravenclaw Isabel Morris.
Aside from the two Ravenclaws, they had only become friendly with each
other the previous year when they began contemplating the future and
finding it lacking. Inter-house rivalries had suddenly started looking
petty when faced with the fact that school was coming to a close and the
uncertain future that lay beyond it.
None of them had liked the conclusions they'd come to about their likely
futures, from which their current plan, jokingly called 'Project Potter',
had come together.
"Honestly, not as well as I'd hoped." Bryanna admitted with a sigh. "He's
not the bumbling boy I expected him to be, not even close. He's still
young, but he must have some prior experience with women. He's too self
assured around me not to."
The other girls looked both thoughtful and disgruntled by that, no doubt
thinking who that experience could have been with.
"So you're saying that someone already got to him last year?" Tiana asked
with a frown.
"I don't know, maybe. Either way, I don't think I'll be able to sucker
him into falling for me."
"We could slip him some Amortentia." Jade suggested.
"Don't be ridiculous." The Slytherin girl snapped, continuing with a

sneer that was aimed more at the situation than at the Gryffindor girl.
"If it gets out that a bunch of 'commoners' dosed the Heir of a Noble
House with a love potion they'll feed us to the dementors."
Left unsaid was the fact that if it happened the other way around, it
would have merited a slap on the wrist at best.
"It's too bad that Clearwater wouldn't help us with this, she's been
friendly with Potter since his first year." Isabel sighed.
"Clearwater's a muggleborn." Bryanna said dismissively.
"True."
They all had a muggleborn or second generation parent and had nothing
against muggleborns, nor did they buy into the 'purity of magical blood'
claptrap. The problem with muggleborns was that they didn't really grasp
the situation in Wizarding Britain until after they left Hogwarts, by
which time it was often too late. They had themselves heard it from their
parents, but it hadn't truly sunk in until last year.
The old Noble Houses controlled pretty much everything; the government,
the law, the money and the media. The Wizengamot was hereditary, which
meant that the judicial branch of the government was also hereditary. It
was in theory possible to climb the ranks in the Ministry regardless of
blood status, but in practice you didn't get very far if you weren't 'the
right sort' according to the purebloods that ran it or at least had a
powerful patron. Not all of those Noble Houses were bigots, but there
were enough of them to cause a lot of problems.
The real problem though, was money. The old Houses had it and everyone
else..didn't. Pureblood, halfblood or muggleborn, all of it was
subordinate to the almighty galleon.
The Common Houses consisted of families that had been around for a few
generations already, but couldn't really rise in status because the old
traditionalists were doing their absolute best to keep the Wizarding
World static, usually by maintaining a market monopoly and preventing any
uppity Common Houses from getting as rich as them. The only simple way to
actually manage a class jump was to marry into a Noble House and there
weren't many Heirs that would look twice at a non-pureblood. Lily Evans
had probably never quite understood what a lucky break in terms of
personal status she'd caught with James Potter, though she hadn't lived
long enough for it to really matter.
"Shag him." Tiana suddenly stated.
"What?" The rest of them blurted out in surprise. They were aware that it
would likely progress to that point eventually, but this was a bit
sudden.
"Shag him." The other girl repeated, keeping her eyes fixed on Bryanna.
"If you can't manipulate your way into becoming the next Lady Potter then
shagging him is the next best thing."
"I don't know, Tiana. That's a pretty extreme escalation and there's no
guarantee that anything would come of it." Isabel said uncertainly.
"It's our last year here and he's the only one we can mess with safely.
The only other Heirs we could try to cozy up to that wouldn't backfire on
us are Longbotton and Bones. One is a nervous wreck and none of us have a
cock to use on the other, not to mention that both Augusta Longbottom and
Amelia Bones would destroy us if we moved on them. I'd do it myself, but
I can't slip into his room at night since I'm not in Ravenclaw."
"Do you think it would work?" Bryanna asked thoughtfully.
"You can't seriously be thinking of doing this." Jade said incredulously.
"Tiana has a point, this is our last year and it is the best chance we'll
ever have." Bryanna replied pensively.
"I think it's worth a try." Tiana interjected before any more protests to
the idea could be offered. "If we wait for him to get out of Hogwarts,
he'll have women throwing themselves at him left and right just because
he's rich and famous, which means that we'd be just another couple of
sluts looking to shag the Boy-Who-Lived. If this is going to work, we
have to do it before that happens."
"That sounds a lot like whoring ourselves out." Isabel said

distastefully.
"You wouldn't be the one doing it!" Tiana snapped peevishly. "You've
already got a boyfriend and Jade still thinks she can get Wood to mount
her without transfiguring herself into a broom-"
"Hey!" Jade protested indignantly.
"-, however unlikely that is, so she's not going to do it either. That
leaves me and Bry and I'll tell you right now that I would much rather
shag that boy in every single broom cupboard in this damned castle than
end up like my mother, working as a low level clerk for a pureblood boss
that keeps taking credit for everything she does but can barely even wipe
her own arse without a house elf to help her."
Tiana took a deep breath to calm down after her rant and continued in a
much calmer tone. "The fact is that wastes of space like Flint and that
little shit Malfoy are going to have everything handed to them simply
because inbreeding is popular in this pisshole of a country. Screwing
Potter wouldn't be whoring so much as it would be.an investment into the
future. Either me or Bry, or hell, even both of us if we can find
somewhere out of Ravenclaw tower to do it, shag him nice and lazy, talk
him into investing into our little business venture while he's still
blissed out and promise him a small stake in our future profits.
Everybody wins and all it takes is getting a little sticky with what is
actually a pretty handsome thirteen year old. If we're lucky he might
even get us off."
While Isabel and Jade flushed in embarrassment like the virgins they
were, Bryanna stared back at her Slytherin friend, carefully considering
her arguments.
"I'll introduce you to him during the first Hogsmeade weekend."
"Both of us then?"
"Might as well. Better safe than sorry."
"And we can finish each other off if he turns out to be a

disappointment?"
"There is also that, yes."
"I'll wait for you in the Three Broomsticks."
"Good, now we just have to find a room with a bed."
"I'll ask the house elves if they know any."
XXXXX
Halloween.
"I can't believe he's going to Hogsmeade with that tramp." Ginny muttered
resentfully.
"She has-" Luna started, only to get cut off by the irate redhead.
"Nice boobies. Yes, I know."
She'd kept her distance from Harry ever since their argument. She simply
found it impossible to get around the fact that he was stringing the
seventh year girl along on the off chance that she'd jump into bed with
him.
Not that Bryanna was spared her anger, since the older Ravenclaw was
actually the instigator of the situation.
It just didn't make any sense to her. Harry was supposed to be a hero!
Alright, fine, Ginny was willing to admit that the mental picture of him
she'd had before meeting him wasn't entirely accurate, but he still
hadn't been like this last year!
He'd defended her on the train when Malfoy had insulted her. He had
tutored her and Luna when it became obvious that Lockhart didn't have the
first clue about Defense Against the Dark Arts. He had quickly figured
out the problem with the diary and helped Dumbledore deal with the
basilisk. He might not have been the same Harry Potter as in the books,
but there had been no doubt in Ginny's mind that he was a hero.
Now he was suddenly looking to get into a girl's knickers and getting mad
at her for bringing it up. She had grudgingly accepted the fact that Luna
might have a point about boys, but that had been just looking. The fact
that he was actively working towards the goal of having meaningless sex
with a girl he didn't even know was beyond her ability to accept.
The fact that he'd called her a kid and that he liked older women was
another point of contention, especially in light of the fact that she
could barely think about sex without blushing while he treated it so
cavalierly.
So she'd distanced herself from Harry and waited for him to come
apologize. Her brothers had always apologized to her when she got upset.
They might drag their feet sometimes, but they always did it in the end.
But Harry wasn't her brother. Furthermore, he seemed to have no intention

of trying to fix their friendship and now he was going to Hogsmeade on
what could technically be called a date with a seventh year with no sign
of being bothered by the situation.
Now she was starting to worry that there wouldn't be any apologies or
making up. Indeed, it was looking as if there wouldn't even be a
friendship anymore.
This wasn't how things were supposed to be and she had no idea what to do
about it. Confused and upset by the way things were going, she
reluctantly decided to write to her mother. She'd held off on it so far,
not wanting to go running back to her mother to solve her problems, but
she needed advice that wasn't a flat statement about boobies.
Luna was actually very smart beneath her absent demeanor, but she just
didn't get it.
XXXXX
Luna watched as Ginny pinned her letter to one of the school owls and
sighed.
She could understand the redhead's position, she really could, but it was
just silly of her to be upset at Harry for being himself. If he wanted to
play with Bryanna's boobies and she let him do it, then Luna could only
smile at them and hope they had fun. The fact that Ginny was upset by it
baffled her.
But Ginny was also being herself with her attempts to get Harry to stop
being himself, so she didn't say anything. Hopefully, her failure would
teach Ginny that you couldn't transfigure a person into a different
person and they could all be friends again.
No matter how detailed you made a potato castle, it was still just a
bunch of mashed potatoes . People could learn a lot from potatoes.
Ginny should have spent more time making and contemplating potato
castles.
XXXXX
Harry wasn't quite as enthused about Hogsmeade as the other third years,
owing both to his aversion for large crowds and the way that some people
stared at him. On the other hand, he had a pretty girl on his arm and was
able to feel shamelessly smug about the jealous looks he'd caught amidst
the staring. The Hogwarts rumor mill had of course been hard at work
spreading speculation about the status of their relationship based on
limited information, which was now 'confirmed' by the two of them going
to Hogsmeade together. This had seemingly elevated him into some kind of
pseudo-legendary figure among the boys in his year and possibly even
those in the year above him.
As for Hogsmeade itself, he thought that the little wizarding settlement

was veryquaint. It was the only purely magical settlement in all of
Great Britain according to Bryanna, which said quite a bit about how tiny
the magical population had to be.
She had taken him on a short tour of the village and then suggested they
go to the Three Broomsticks for a pint of butterbeer to warm up.
Morbidly curious if butterbeer was actually made of beer and melted

butter and having no better ideas, he'd agreed.
Now he found himself sandwiched between Bryanna and a friend of hers that
went by Tiana.
Bryanna and Tiana. If Tiana wasn't a pale, curly haired brunette with
hazel eyes, they could've been twins with names like that.
Her convenient presence in the Three Broomsticks was unlikely to be a

coincidence given that they were friends. The Slytherin crest and green
trim on her robes also hinted at the fact that she might be an ambitious
schemer.
"So Bry tells me that you've been helping her learn the Patronus." Tiana
commented, casually letting her hand fall to his thigh.
"We've been helping each other." Harry replied, trying not to fidget as
the familiar prickle of magic passed through the runes on his back,
followed by the equally familiar lust.
"Don't be shy now, Harry." Bryanna teased, her own hand dropping to his
other thigh. "I wouldn't be half as far in learning it if it wasn't for
your insight."
Harry took a deep breath in a vain attempt to calm the dull fire going
through his loins. It had been over two months now since his last
rendezvous with Zoe and he was discovering that solo sessions of wand
polishing were simply not having the same effect anymore. Bryanna's light
teasing and seemingly innocent touches since the start of term certainly
hadn't helped.
Now he had two very pretty girls giving him some very damned blatant
signals and it was a struggle not to grab them by the hair, kiss them and
then drag them to the first empty room he could find. He knew that this
had to be because of whatever ambition they were hoping to use him for,
but it didn't really make the situation easier.
The proprietor of the establishment decided to approach them at that

point, and just so happened to be a curvaceous MILF in the first set of
cleavage baring robes Harry had seen thus far. It was hard to say how old
she was with the way that magic slowed down aging, but she was definitely
rocking the mature older woman look.
"Well isn't this a familiar sight?" Madam Rosmerta drawled in an amused

fashion.
"Excuse me?" Harry questioned after quickly clearing his throat to

prevent any embarrassing breaks in his voice. He was just glad that
Bryanna and Tiana had surreptitiously removed their hands from his
thighs. That would've made it really hard to pay attention to any
conversation.
"I was just reminded of your father andhis friends."
Harry noted the slight pause and correctly guessed that she had been
about to mention Sirius.
"They liked to come in here too, often with girls on their arms.
Shameless flirts they were."
Definitely been about to mention Sirius. Lupin did not come across as a
very flirty individual and Pettigrew had been.unattractive, to put it
lightly.
"I can certainly see why they would flirt with you." Harry replied, the
words slipping from his tongue before he could even think to stop them.
Fortunately, Rosmerta only burst into laughter instead of taking offense.
"You really are your father's son, aren't you? Except that you're
starting even younger. I'm Rosmerta, but you can call me Rosie." She said
merrily. "You girls need to be careful around this one."
"I'm sure we can handle him." Tiana smirked, hand snaking out to give
Harry's thigh quick squeeze.
"I'm sure." Rosmerta said with an answering smirk and adopted a more
professional demeanor. "What can I get you?"
"Three butterbeers please." Bryanna ordered.
"Coming right up."
Harry took the opportunity to check out the proprietor's swaying rear end
and found it to be just as appealing as the rest of her. Truly, magic was
wonderful for preserving a woman's sex appeal well past the age when a
non-magical female would have probably lost it already.
A quick look around the tavern let him know that the other patrons were
mostly minding their own business, though Ginny's brother Ron seemed to
be staring at him with an angry sort of jealousy from where he was
sitting with his Gryffindor friends for some reason. That was pretty
random, but it wasn't as if Ron was actually important.
"You know what, Bry? I think we aren't trying hard enough if Mr. Smooth
here has time to flirt with Rosmerta." Tiana commented, sliding her hand
a bit further up his thigh.
"I have to agree." Bryanna said, mirroring the action.
Harry held back a groan. It was going to be a long day, but like hell was
he going to let himself be teased like this without retaliation.
"And what are you going to do about it?" He asked, boldly reaching out to
return the teasing with a thigh squeeze of his own. Only to Bryanna
though, as he hadn't known Tiana long enough to be quite that bold.
"Harry!" The way she breathed out his name, with a mix of surprise and
pleasure, had to be just about the sexiest thing he'd ever heard.
"Tsk tsk, Potter. It's bad form to pay attention to just one of us and
ignore the other." Tiana commented from his other side.
Knowing an invitation when he heard one, Harry reached out with his
unoccupied hand to give her leg a squeeze too.
"That's better." The Slytherin girl said huskily.
"You three might want to cool off a bit." Rosmerta said as she deposited
their butterbeers on the table, making the teens jump in surprise because
they hadn't noticed her approach. "You're making me all hot and bothered
just looking at you."
"Sorry." Harry said sheepishly, embarrassed by the gentle reprimand.

Things really had been going a bit out of hand for a public space.
"I know how it is." She replied wistfully. "I used to be a teenager too
once, a long time ago."
"Nonsense, you can't possibly be a day over thirty." Harry responded

instantly in a knee jerk reaction that had actually been trained into him
by Katherine for when she wanted some older woman to feel flattered by
her 'charming son'. Inanely enough, it had been among her more effective
schemes.
Apparently it worked on pub owning witches just as well as it did on

snobby muggle women, as it sent Rosmerta into a peal of delighted
laughter.
"You're quite the sweet talker, aren't you Harry?" She asked with a
teasing lilt to her tone.
"I try." He responded with a shrug, not wanting to admit that that last
one hadn't been entirely intentional. The flirtatious compliment had been
sincere for a change though. Rosmerta might not look as young as thirty
anymore, but she still looked damned good, which was more than could be
said for almost every other woman he'd said that to before.
"You're succeeding." Rosmerta returned with a flirtatious smile and
turned to leave. "Wave me over if you need a refill."
"Should we leave you alone so that you can focus you attention on
Rosmerta?" Bryanna asked, amused.
"I was just being friendly." Harry defended, semi-truthfully. He knew

that barmaids would often flirt as a matter of course because it kept
people coming back, but he did find her undeniably attractive. It didn't
help that the two girls on either side of him had gotten him seriously
randy and predisposed towards flirting.
"Suuure you were." Tiana drawled out, clearly not believing him.
XXXXX
Sirius had intended to make an attempt to infiltrate Hogwarts on

Halloween, but there was one thing that he wanted to do first just in
case he failed and ended up being dementor chow.
He had to see Harry, had to see if his godson was alright. He hadn't been
able to find him before, but he had to see him. The rage he felt for the
cowardly rat hadn't abated in the slightest, but his previous failure had
instilled enough caution in him to acknowledge the admittedly high chance
that he was going to die in the attempt to extract revenge for James and
Lily's murder.
In hindsight, rushing off half-cocked after Wormtail had betrayed them to

Voldemort had been a bad idea, but he hadn't been in a particularly
rational mood at the time. He still wasn't truth be told, though at this
point it was because of twelve years of dementor exposure rather than
homicidal rage.
But getting back to the point, he had to see Harry first. He knew that
there was always a Hogsmeade weekend before Halloween, which was by far
the safest avenue for him to get a glimpse of his godson.
He stayed in his Animagus form and stuck to the woods around the village,
keeping his doggy nose up in the air, hoping to get a whiff of his
godson's scent. It would undoubtedly be different after twelve years, but
he hoped that he could still recognize it.
Hours later, he had all but lost hope and started thinking that maybe
Harry hadn't been able to leave the castle for some reason. When the
barely familiar scent wafted into his nose, Padfoot accidentally planted
his face into the dirt in his eagerness to get a look.
Stalking stealthily through the outskirts of the forest, Sirius caught

sight of his quarry as they moved towards the Shrieking Shack and did an
almost cartoonish rendition of a canine jaw drop.
Harry was.tall. Too tall for his age. Tall enough that Sirius seriously
wondered for a moment whether he'd spent more than just twelve years in
Azkaban. He looked so much like James that it hurt to look at him, though
he kept his hair at a length more reminiscent of Sirius himself, nor did
he wear glasses. Sirius couldn't see color in his Animagus form, but he
was sure that the boy's eyes were still Lily's beautiful emerald green.
The fact that his godson had not one but two witches that looked to be
seventh years keeping him company nearly overrode his self control and
had him running towards the boy to lick his face in a display of pure
pride.
Once the initial reaction passed though, Sirius felt a stab of pain in
his chest, remembering better times with his best friend. For all that
James had been chasing Lily rather obsessively since third year, he
hadn't shied away from the occasional date with other witches. He and
Sirius would often bring whichever girl they were goofing around with at
the time to the Three Broomsticks for a pint of butterbeer and an amusing
bit of flirting with the ever delightful proprietor. Their dates would
invariably get jealous of the attention they were giving to the older
woman, giving the two of them an opportunity to make it up to them later,
sometimes in very pleasurable ways. Quite a few broom closets and
abandoned classrooms held fond memories for him.
Lost in his grief and memories, Padfoot unintentionally whined loudly.
XXXXX
It turned out that butterbeer was not as disgusting as its name implied.
It was in fact rather delicious and had some kind of magic in it that
spread warmth over the whole body when drunk.
To Harry's minor annoyance, his runes made quick work of that due to it
being a foreign magic. He hadn't considered that when carving them. It
wouldn't have stopped him as it really was a minor thing, but the
oversight displeased him. It was good to have confirmation that it worked
at least.
They had stayed in the Three Broomsticks for a while, having a

conversation intersped with flirting and teasing touches. Not as intense
as it had been at first since they hadn't wanted to get another warning
from Rosmerta, but still enough that Harry felt the magic in his runes
prickling in an almost annoyed fashion at the time it was taking to get
to the main event.
He had no idea what kind of plan Bryanna and Tiana had cooked up, but he
could hardly wait to get to the part where they tried to take advantage
of him.
After leaving the tavern, the girls had suggested taking a look at the
Shrieking Shack, which was supposed to be the most haunted place in
Britain, though nobody seemed able to say why exactly that was.
That was about the time when they all heard a loud, canine whine and
turned to look at the source.
A very big black dog was staring at them from between the trees, it's
eyes lightly shining.
The three students froze in surprise. The dog froze in surprise.
"Is that.a grim?" Tiana asked slowly, as if afraid that the sound would
provoke it to attack.
Harry knew exactly what that dog was and it wasn't a grim. It looked a
lot more ragged than he remembered, but it was undoubtedly Sirius'
Animagus form, Padfoot.
"I don't think so." Bryanna replied uncertainly, squeezing Harry's arm as
if to reassure herself that she wasn't alone. "Grims are supposed to be
spectral and this one looks solid."
Harry knew that he had to do something and fast. There was an opportunity
here, but he could already see Sirius getting ready to bolt. He still had
a few questions about the night that his parents had died and Sirius was
possibly the only person who could give him the answers he sought.
"It's Padfoot." He said, making things up as he went. "He's my dog, but I

have no idea what he's doing all the way up here."
"Your dog?" Bryanna and Tiana exclaimed in surprise, echoed by another

whine from an equally surprised Padfoot.
Sirius had no idea how to react. He'd known that it would have been too
much to hope for that Harry would remember him, but it seemed that his
godson did indeed remember. He couldn't have known the name of his
Animagus form otherwise.
"He wouldn't hurt anyone, would you, Padfoot?" Harry asked pointedly,
staring at the dog Animagus. If Sirius had a wand and the intent to use
it, then Harry didn't fool himself into thinking that he could take him
on in a straight fight, but he'd shown zero aggression so far.
He'd long since deduced that the dementors hovering around the school
were supposedly for his protection in case Black went after him, which
was in his opinion a completely asinine security measure. If the Ministry
was right, then this was the best chance that Black was ever going to get
to kill him.
Padfoot let his tongue hang out of his mouth and panted happily, trotting
over to the three of them and giving Harry's hand a lick.
"See? He's harmless." Harry said, wiping his drool stained hand on his
robes.
"I guess." Tiana said dubiously, still staring at the hulking canine
warily.
Now what? Asking them to give me a moment alone with a dog would be
suspicious and I can hardly talk to Sirius with them around.
It was a strange situation that compelled a teenager to ditch two pretty
girls that seemed intent on having their way with him, but that was what
Harry found himself doing. Lust simply had to take a backseat this time.
"Excuse me for a few minutes girls, I need to get Padfoot back home." He
said to Bryanna and Tiana, making up his mind on a course of action.
"Okay." They agreed, still a bit uncertain about the whole situation but
much more composed than they had been before.
"Teeny." Harry said softly.
The small house elf popped in, looking happy at being called.
"You's called for Teeny, master Harry Potter sir?" She asked earnestly,
already looking around for things to do.
"I did." He confirmed. "Could you please transport me and Padfoot here
back to the manor?"
"Teeny can be doing it!" She proclaimed, not even questioning why he
suddenly had a dog.
"I'll be back in a few minutes." Harry assured the girls and vanished
with the quiet pop of a house elf apparition.
Bryanna and Tiana exchanged glances
"Didn't he tell you that he lives with muggles?" Tiana asked.
"Wondering about the house elf?"
"Yup."
XXXXX
The three of them appeared in the sitting room of Potter Manor with the
same quiet pop that they had disappeared with.
"Is you and the doggy wanting something to eat, master Harry?" Teeny
asked a second later, knowing what Harry's appetite was like.
"Not right now, thank you." Harry refused politely, once more wishing
that he could have gotten the little house elf to stop calling him
'master'. Unfortunately, her lower lip started wobbling tremulously
whenever he tried to bring the subject up and he ended up backing down.
She was an expert in emotional blackmail.
Once Teeny had made herself scarce, Sirius transformed back into human
form, making Harry tense warily even though he'd been expecting it.
"Harry." The bedraggled man in Azkaban prison robes said, spreading his
arms and taking a step forward as if to give him a hug.
"Hold it right there." Harry said firmly, taking a step back and raising
his arms defensively. "I'm fairly sure that you didn't betray my parents
and that you don't mean me any harm, but that doesn't mean I trust you."
"It was Pettigrew!" Sirius said loudly, looking a little wild eyed now.
"He was the traitor!"
"What about the twelve muggles that you supposedly killed?" Harry
pressed.
"Also him. He shouted something about me betraying James and Lily when I
cornered him and then fired off a blasting curse."
"Alright, I believe you." Harry nodded after a moment's consideration,

having already known that the situation was fishy and seeing no
particular reason for Sirius to be lying to him. "But I'm still not
hugging you, you stink."
Sirius stared at him in shock for a second and then burst into near
hysterical laughter.
Harry frowned slightly in consternation. It hadn't been that funny.
"I bet you'd prefer a hug from those two girls of yours, eh Harry?"
Sirius ribbed once his chuckles had subsided.
"Obviously." Harry said drolly. "Speaking of which, we'll need to

postpone the rest of this meeting for another time. I need to get back
before anyone gets suspicious. Stay here and keep out of sight until we
figure out a way to get your name cleared, I'm sure that Teeny will be
glad to have someone to take care of."
"Wormtail!" Sirius suddenly shouted. "He's in the castle, I have to get

him!"
"Wormtail?" Harry questioned, the name(nickname?) being unfamiliar to

him.
"Pettigrew!" Sirius spat impatiently. "He's a rat Animagus, been hiding

out as the Weasley's pet rat ever since he framed me."
"Scabbers?" Harry wondered, having heard quite a few complaints about

Ron's pet rat from Ginny as well as occasionally seeing it at meals. That
ugly thing was an Animagus? He'd never seen Pettigrew transform in his
memories and hadn't honestly thought that such a weak looking wizard was
capable of it.
"Whatever he calls himself!" The escaped convict growled, throwing his

hands up into the air angrily. "I have to get back there and kill him for
what he did."
"I'll catch him." Harry stated. It shouldn't be too hard since the rat
wouldn't expect him. Getting him away from Weasley without anyone
noticing would be the bigger issue. Moreover, a living Peter Pettigrew
would be exactly the kind of evidence they'd need to prove that Sirius
was innocent.
"NO!" Sirius screamed, suddenly lunging to grab Harry by his robes. "He's
mine!"
Alarmed and angered by the sudden attack, Harry pried the man's hands off
and roughly shoved him to the floor. Not a feat of strength that a normal
thirteen year old would be capable off, but he was physically older than
his age, had a minor strength boost from his runes and Sirius was so far
from being in good shape that it wasn't even funny.
"Don't be an idiot!" Harry spat angrily. "Everyone is on the lookout for

you. You'll never succeed without alerting him and then he can just make
a run for it. We'd never find him again if he escapes."
"I'm sorry, James." Sirius said contritely from the floor, sounding close
to tears. "You're right, we'll do it your way."
Harry ignored the fact that he'd just been called by his father's name.
The dementors had obviously not done Sirius' state of mind any favors.
"Stay in the manor and keep out of sight, nobody is going to look for you
here. I'll get Pettigrew and then we can figure out how to solve this
mess." He instructed, taking a deep breath to dispel the last of his
short burst of anger. "I really have to get back, but Charlus and Dorea
have portraits up on the first floor if you want to talk to them."
Too bad that wards can't be used to keep someone inside them, he's far
too unstable for my liking. Harry thought, holding back a grimace.
That was a strange quirk of wards. They could do a lot of things,

including block apparition and portkeys, but keeping someone from just
walking past them was something that was impossible to do. It could be
set up to trigger effects for anyone doing so, even lethal ones, but that
only worked from the outside coming in. Azkaban would have been truly
inescapable if it were otherwise. Line style exclusion spells such as the
Age Line were the only exception, but they weren't really wards and
couldn't be anchored to anything, which meant that they needed to be
frequently reinforced.
And on that note, he was going to need to tell Teeny to keep the man from
leaving. He wasn't likely to get more than one opportunity to make a grab
for Pettigrew and Sirius did not strike him as the subtle type.
Sirius blanched at the thought even as he got to his feet. Talk to James'
parents? The people who had shown him nothing but kindness and whose son
and daughter-in-law he'd killed with his stupidity? A horde of dementors
sounded less scary, even if they were just portraits.
XXXXX
"Got your dog sorted?" Bryanna asked once Teeny had popped Harry back to
Hogsmeade.
"Yeah." Harry nodded. "Crazy mutt was all set to make another trip up
here and took some convincing to get him to stay put."
"I don't think we have time to visit the Shrieking Shack anymore." Tiana
said with a small frown. "It's nearly time to go back to Hogwarts."
"Alright, lets go then." He said, his mind already chewing over the
problem of Pettigrew.
"Oh Haaary~." Bryanna sing-songed. "Aren't you forgetting something?"
Harry turned to stare at her, seeing both girls holding their hands out
for him to take.
Oh, right. That was still happening. Maybe the Pettigrew problem could
wait for another day.
Chapter 8
Guest review responses! I haven't done one of these in a while.
Partha Lahiri: Could you please specify which part of the fic puts such a
fire in your crotch? I'd like to know so I can put more of it in. Clearly
I must be doing something right if I can evoke such a powerful emotional
reaction.
XXXXX
Living back in Potter Manor after Azkaban had been an emotional

experience for Sirius.
He'd nearly cried when Teeny had told him that she'd drawn him a bath and
laid out a clean set of robes for him. He had cried when he took his
first bite of food in twelve years that didn't taste like it had been
scraped off a troll's arse or fished out of the garbage. It had taken him
a good ten minutes to convince Teeny that there was nothing wrong with
her cooking after that. The Potter house elf had always been an insecure
little thing.
It was then that he had decided that there had been enough blubbering.
Sirius Black was not some emotionally fragile preteen girl that kept
bursting into tears at the slightest provocation. He was a manly man and
would act like it.
That resolve had lasted exactly one hour, which was the time it took him
to build up the nerve to go talk to Charlus and Dorea's portraits. He'd
started bawling again as soon as they told him that they didn't blame him
for James and Lily's deaths.
Sirius still felt responsible, but didn't argue. He'd never had it in him
to argue with Charlus and Dorea.
XXXXX
Remus spent the majority of the Halloween feast staring at the son of his
friends, still wallowing indecisively over how or even if to approach
him.
Dumbledore had told him that the boy seemed to somehow know about him
already. It would be so much simpler if Harry deigned to make the first
move, but he couldn't put that all on Harry without being a hypocrite.
James and Sirius had always been the ones who made things happen in the
Marauders. Charismatic James Potter and bold Sirius Black, getting in and
out of trouble as easy as breathing. Remus had participated in their
antics eagerly, happy to have friends at all with his condition, but he
hadn't been a driving force like James or Sirius. Peter had been even
more of a follower than him and couldn't even boast the same kind of
intelligence and skill that would have made him their equal the same as
it did for Remus.
Harry wasn't really much like James in temperament. Not nearly as social
or boisterous and too studious by half.
But sometimes he reminded him so much of James that it was hard to keep
from calling him the wrong name. Times like now, when Remus had heard
that he'd gone to Hogsmeade with one seventh year witch and left it with
two. Remus had once been terribly envious of his two friends' easy way
with the opposite gender, something that he'd always had to avoid due to
his lycanthropy even when the opportunity presented itself. Nowadays it
was just another regret among many.
And speaking of regrets...
One of the larger ones was sitting at the same table as him, occasionally
shooting a glower at Harry.
Snape had been a favored target for James and Sirius, no doubt a result
of James' near obssesive infatuation with Lily and Sirius being the
supportive best friend by backing him up. Severus' friendship with her
had riled them like nothing else. Remus and Peter hadn't participated in
picking on the dour Slytherin often, but they hadn't protested either.
It had felt too good to have someone that he, a werewolf, could feel pity
for to do that and Peter had likely had a similar reason, minus the
lycanthropy. A shameful realization about himself that had come far too
late to be helpful. It was one of the main reasons that he didn't try to
retaliate or defend himself from Snape's veiled barbs these days. He
deserved them.
Not that Severus had been a helpless victim. He'd given almost as good as
he'd gotten in many cases, which was particularly impressive since he had
always been outnumbered. In truth, Remus had always strongly suspected
that Severus was a more powerful wizard than any single one of the
Marauders.
However much he enjoyed teaching, he found himself wishing that he hadn't

accepted Dumbledore's offer. There were too many regrets and memories in
this place, staring out at him either from the black eyes of a man too
bitter, proud and resentful to accept his apologies or from the bright
green of a teenager who looked at him with indifferent curiousity at
best.
He couldn't wait for the feast to be over. The cheerful armosphere did
not suit his mood.
XXXXX
A little further down the table, Snape glowered so darkly that not even
Dumbledore attempted to bother him with his infuriatingly inane chatter.
Halloween always put him in a foul mood. Lily had died on this day and
the innumerable twits infesting the world celebrating it grated on him.
The fact that Potter had deigned to grace the Great Hall with his
presence on this day for the first time since coming to Hogwarts made it
worse.
Rumor had already reached him of the brat's neophyte forays into the
philandering ways of his father and it curdled his opinion of the boy
more than anything else could have, along with his mood.
He couldn't wait for the feast to be over. The last of the firewhiskey
that Minerva had gotten him the previous Christmas sounded particularly
appealing right now.
XXXXX
Oblivious to the regard of the two professors, Harry continued eating as

he absently reached into the pocket of his robes to give the note it held
a squeeze. The message it held made his blood boil even as it sent a
nervous flutter to his stomach.
Come to the seventh floor after the feast, the opposite side of the
corridor from the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy. We'll be waiting.
Bryanna had slipped him the note before she'd left, with Tiana following
shortly afterwards. He felt almost as nervous as the first time with Zoe.
How did threesomes even work?
But he also couldn't wait for the feast to be over. It would be fun
learning how they worked.
XXXXX
One the feast was over Harry slipped away from prying eyes and made his
way up to the seventh floor. It was less expansive than most of the
castle, being as high up as it was, so there shouldn't be any trouble
finding the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy.
Granted, he had no idea what it looked like, but he figured that someone
that wizards titled 'the Barmy' would be doing something pretty fucking
crazy.
Trying to teach trolls how to do ballet defnitely fit the bill. Why would
anyone want to do that anyway?
But the ambitions of insane wizards were really of no importance to Harry

right now. What was important was the door on the opposite side of the
corridor. Harry cautiously opened the door and froze as soon as he
stepped inside.
He hadn't been sure what to expect of this room, but what he got was not
it. It was rather large, with several dozen floating candles giving it a
warm orange glow. It was somewhat bare of furniture except for the
exccessively large bed. Harry absently noticed the deep crimson bedding,
but most of his attention was on the two women currently occupying the
bed.
Bryanna and Tiana were laying on their sides, facing each other with
their legs entangled, echanging languid kisses.
Harry had assumed that the Wizarding World would be as intolerant of

homosexuality as it was about a lot of other things, but he was very glad
to be wrong for a change. When thinking of it later on, he would
eventually conclude that the contempt that magicals had for monotheistic
religion was likely the main reason for this surprising tolerance, but he
was entirely too distracted to be thinking about that right now.
The girls noticed him at that point and separated from each other.
"Looks like it's time for the main event." Bryanna said huskily, giving
Harry a smouldering look.
"Finally." Tiana muttered under her breath.
The two of them had decided to get each other ready just in case Harry
was one of those guys that liked to just get to the main event and fall
asleep right after, like their first times had been. If he did end up
being like that, then they'd at least be plenty wet enough for it to only
be disappointing instead of unpleasant.
The only problem had been restraining themselves to just kissing and some
light petting and not getting started without him. That would have run
counter to the whole point. They weren't really lesbians or even
bisexual, but there was nothing wrong with getting a bit of relief with a
friend. Especially when the pickings among the male population were so
slim.
Harry watched in entranced fascination as they got off the bed and walked
towards him. Both of them were wearing sheer nighties that simply had to
be enchanted. They looked as though they might have originally come out
of a muggle lingerie store, but no regular fabric could shimmer so
enticingly as it moved. It looked as though they were made of impossibly
fine metal, with Bryanna's being bronze and Tiana's silver. They had
nothing but bright blue and green panties under those, an amusing nod to
the color of their Hogwarts houses.
He'd just taken in that interesting little detail when they reached him,
one after the other giving him a deep kiss without preamble.
"You're overdressed, Harry." Bryanna whispered into his ear as two sets
of hands started undoing his robes. "Lets fix that, shall we?"
Busy as he was kissing Tiana and running his hands over her thinly
covered body, Harry couldn't respond, but he definitely wasn't going to
object.
There was one thing that absolutely had to be done before things went any
further though.
"One moment." He said breathlessly after separating his lips from those
of the Slytherin girl.
Then he drew his wand and quickly cast two contraception charms.
"Protection, Harry?" Tiana smirked. "That's very responsible of you, but

we're already on the potion."
"Better safe than sorry." He shrugged and eagerly leaned back to kiss her
before she could respond.
They left a trail of discarded clothing on the floor as they stumbled

towards the bed, by which time Harry had nothing but his underwear left
on him.
Harry grabbed Tiana's legs when they reached the edge of the bed and
lifted her onto it, covering her body with his own immediately after.
Guess I get to be first. She thought humorlessly when she felt him
hooking his thumbs into her panties and pull them off.
Instead of having a male member of underwhelming size shoved into her, he

had her gasping in surprise as he dived for her crotch mouth first, with
every indication that he'd been dying to do just that.
Harry had in fact been dying to do just that, having developed something
of an oral fixation with Zoe. Maybe it had been his desire to reach the
coveted ten out of ten on the cunnilingus scale, or maybe it was the ego
boost that hearing a woman panting in pleasure while he ate her out gave
him. Either way, he wasn't going to miss out on a chance to do it.
Seeing her friend making sounds of pleasure that didn't sound faked,
Bryanna made a facial expression somewhere between a smirk and a pout.
Smirking, because it looked like Tiana's plan to fake their orgasms
wouldn't be needed and pouting because she wasn't getting any attention.
Then her expression changed all the way into a smirk as she got an idea.
First, she pulled off her own nightie and panties, then she tugged down
Harry's underwear to get him completely naked.
With a critical look that she would've kept off her face if he could see
it, Bryanna examined Harry's package and nodded to herself. It wasn't
really anything to write home about, but it was impressive for a thirteen
year old. At the very least it would do more than tickle when he put it
in.
Running her hands gently over the exposed genitals, she leaned over to
him and spoke in her most throaty voice.
"I'll be expecting the same treatment, so don't exhaust yourself too

quickly."
Harry groaned his agreement into Tiana's crotch, incidentally making the
Slytherin groan as well. His jaw was not going to thank him for it, but
he fully intended to do just that.
XXXXX
One hour later.
Bryanna grunted as Harry sheathed himself into her from behind, the
entrance being very easy due to her previous orgasm leaving her well
lubricated.
Tiana was sprawled on her back next to them, the trickle of semen leaking
from her attesting to Harry's own recent ograsm.
An orgasm that he seemed to have already recovered from.
Harry looked down at the witch he was thrusting into, feeling the
familiar thrill of power that this position gave him. It was even more
pronounced than it had been with Zoe. Unlike his muggle friend, Bryanna
had a tangible power within her that he could feel when he was this
close. A power that felt submissive to him when he took her like this.
Lost in the moment, he decided to see if he couldn't push things a bit

further.
Bryanna leaned her head back eagerly when she felt a hand grabbing her
hair. The combination of being taken from behind and having her hair
grabbed felt good.
She didn't think much of it when he pulled her head a bit to the side and
thrust into her hard enough to nudge her forward.
She did notice however when he started pushing her head towards Tiana's
soiled crotch.
"Lick her." Harry ordered with a grunt as he pushed himself all the way
into her and stopped moving. "We wouldn't want her falling asleep now,
would we?"
Bryanna wanted to protest, but something about the situation made her
inner walls clench with anticipation around his shaft. She wanted him to
start moving again and damn if his commanding behavior wasn't hot.
So she gave in and set to work on getting her friend off again, ignoring
both the taste of Harry's seed and the protesting mewl that Tiana made to
the stimulation.
Seeing a witch four years his senior give in to his desire sent Harry
hurtling over the edge of his second orgasm entirely too fast, but he
didn't fight it and released into her with a drawn out groan.
Drawing in big gulps of air, he watched her arse sticking into the air
and a drop of sperm trickle from her opening. He could already feel his
arousal returning at the sight. He was going to be hard again in a
minute.
He had something else that he wanted to do though.
Not bothering with a wand since neither of the two girls could see him,
Harry focused on what he wanted and sent a cleaning charm at Bryanna's
crotch.
The Ravenclaw girl jumped slightly as the spell removed not only his own
leavings, but also the wetness generated by her arousal.
"Harry!" She gasped, sounding a mixture of scandalized and aroused. "Did

you just cast a spell at my fanny?!"
"Get back to licking." He told her with a grin and planted his face in
the aforementioned fanny. After all, he'd made her dry again and that
just wouldn't do.
Bryanna groaned at having his tongue applied to her again. The spell had
been like a jolt of cold power right to her privates, so his hot tongue
was feeling particularly good right now. The position was also new and
exciting to her. She'd never gotten licked from behind before.
And speaking of licking, she went back to flicking her tongue over the
tired Slytherin's clitoris.
Harry had a point. Tiana had no business falling asleep already. Shagging
the overly virile third year had been her idea and by Merlin she was
going to help tire him out.
XXXXX
Two hours later.
Tiana opened her eyes blearily as she heard Harry groan and spurt out
what couldn't be more than a few drops of sperm into her abused snatch.
She was currently lying on her stomach and mostly just happy to let the
boy do whatever he wanted until he tired himself out.
Bryanna was already passed out next to her, having thrown her under the
metaphorical bus earlier and told Harry to leave her alone and use the
Slytherin to satisfy himself. The bitch.
Neither one of them had expected Harry to have that much damned stamina.
Oh sure, he technically cheated by giving himself breaks and resorting to
the use of his tongue , but at the end of the day, he was still the one
that had exhausted them instead of the other way around. The after sex
business proposition they'd planned was just going to have to wait until
morning.
She felt the bed dip as a new weight shimmied between her and Bryanna.
She hadn't even noticed him getting off the bed in the first place.
To her great relief, he merely pulled both of them close and settled down
to sleep. If he'd tried going anywhere near her groin again, she might
have just slapped him. If she could be bothered to lift her arms that
was.
Instead she just settled into his side and took a deep breath, taking in
the smell of food.
Wait...food?
He'd gotten himself a snack before getting back to bed?
The absurdity of his appetite made Tiana giggle sleepily as she fell back
into slumber.
Harry raised an eyebrow a the weird giggle/snore hybrid that the

Slytherin girl had just made, wondering what the hell she was dreaming
about.
Eh, no matter. He was way too exhausted to really care. He'd almost been
too exhausted to eat, but the gurgling emptiness of his stomach would
never have let him sleep.
XXXXX
The morning after was greeted with parched throats, full bladders,
terrible morning breath and sore nethers.
Fortunately, there was a bathroom attached to the room, the house elves
were always happy to provide assistance with anything food related and
minor healing spells could soothe the soreness.
Once all of that had been taken care of, they went back to snuggling on
the bed.
"Where did you girls find this amazing room?" Harry asked with a sigh,
sinking into the deliciously soft pillows.
"The elves call it the Come And Go room, or the Room of Requirement.
Apparently you just have to pace across the hallway three times and think
about what you want."
"And the castle just reads your mind and makes the room?" Harry asked
incredulously.
"Looks like it." Bryanna shrugged.
"Huh, that's interesting."
Very interesting. In fact, Harry was quite sure that he'd just found a
new favorite room in the castle.
"So...Harry, what did you think of what we were wearing?" Tiana asked
casually, dragging a finger along his chest.
"Those sexy nighties?" He asked with a grin. "I loved them. Where did you
find those anyway? It doesn't look like something that you could buy in
Diagon Alley and I could feel the magic in them."
"We made them." Bryanna said proudly. "Well, us and two other friends."
"That's quite a talent you've got there." He complimented.
"Thank you." Tiana accepted graciously. "We've been thinking of opening a

clothing store that caters to more...modern tastes than Madam Malkin's,
but it's hard to start up a business in the Wizarding World."
Harry smiled wryly, the realization dawning on him.
"So you hatched a plan to seduce an orphaned heir to a Noble House and
get him to foot the bill." He said dryly.
Bryanna and Tiana exchanged glances and shrugged, giving up the pretense
of casual conversation. This had been supposed to happen while he was
still mellow from the sex and sleepy. They hadn't counted on him being
able to wear them out, but they had to deal with the situation as it was.
"Yes." The Ravenclaw girl said with as much dignity as could be mustered
in the situation. "So, will you do it? You said that you liked our work
and we have plenty of other ideas for things, not just night clothes and
underwear."
"Explain the whole situation to me and I'll think about it." He said, not
keen to agree to anything just yet.
"It's fairly simple really." Bryanna began with a shrug. "All four of us
are of the opinion that the Wizarding World could do with a fashion
update and want to open a clothing store. The problem is that getting the
start up capital is damn near impossible and the pureblood pricks running
the Ministry start bleating protests every time someone tries to do
something different."
Tiana took up the narrative from there. "You might have noticed that it
looks like we just took some muggle clothing and enchanted it, which is
fairly close to the mark. We haven't figured much of the sewing spells
that are used in creating clothes because those tend to be professional
secrets, but buying stuff made by muggles, enchanting it and reselling is
simple enough if you've got the skill."
"The problem is that some pureblood could easily decide that he didn't
like what we were doing, throw some money around and get it classified
under 'Misuse of Muggle Artefacts' to make the whole thing illegal. So we
were hoping that you would give us the start up gold and let us use the
Potter name." Bryanna finished.
"How would using my name help?" Harry asked curiously.
"Lords of Noble Houses get all kinds of exemptions to the law, including
the one about misusing muggle artefacts. If they made it illegal for you,
then they'd be making it illegal for themselves too." She answered and
continued with a mutter. "As if a bra was an artefact."
The two girls went quiet and Harry mulled over their words. He'd never
much cared for the ungainly robes that wizards liked so much and was
definitely in favor of having alternatives, but he had noticed how
tradition obsessed the culture was. They weren't likely to turn a profit
for years. In fact, the entire venture could quite easily just end up
being a huge money sink.
That being said, it could also turn out to be spectacularly successful.

The muggleborns would almost definitely like it, just as certainly as the
purebloods would hate it. The halfbloods were a toss up. An important
toss up as they made up anywhere between 60 and 80% of the population.
"How much would you need?" He asked after a few minutes.
"A few thousand galleons at least." Bryanna said with wince, knowing that
it wasn't a small amount of money, but also knowing better than to
sugarcoat it. They'd need that money to buy the space, build up stock and
advertise, not to mention living expenses since they'd essentially be
unemployed during that time. If he refused them, then their only other
avenue would be to take a loan from Gringotts and only idiots borrowed
money from the goblins. Their interest rates were ruinous.
Harry wasn't too bothered by the number. The basilisk carcass had sold
for truly ridiculous sums, enough that he had no worries about running
out of funds by the time he reached adulthood even if he became quite an
extravagant spender. It wasn't as much as he had in his main vault, but
it would probably be comparable to the fortune of a very minor Noble
family.
"I'll give you ten thousand." He said, lips quirking at how their eyes
widened. "BUT, I want majority ownership. 60%."
"Then you'd be the one owning it, not us." Tiana grumbled. She wanted to
be her own boss, not an employee in someone else's business.
"I'm the one taking the risk here, not you." Harry pointed out. "If this
idea of yours sinks, I'll be the one taking the hits."
"I don't suppose we could convince you to lower that percentage down to
49?" Bryanna asked coyly, hand reaching to fondle him between the legs.
"I have a better idea." He said with a grin.
"Really?" Tiana asked, clearly sceptical.
"I give you the money and keep the 60%, you wait for me to claim lordship
before opening your store and focus on building up stock in the meantime,
I keep your business afloat for as long as it takes to start turning a
profit. Once it does start turning a profit you start paying back my
investment, for which I won't charge any interest by the way. When
however much debt you've accumulated to me is paid off, I turn over 20%
to each of you."
The girls exchanged contemplative looks. It was, all told, a fairly good
deal. They would have needed to wait for him to claim lordship in any
case to protect them from any possible legal fiction concocted by the
uptight purebloods. The part about not charging interest for the
investment and turning simply handing them 40% of the business once it
was repaid was particularly generous and not something they could expect
to get from anywhere else.
"There are four of us though." Bryanna reminded him, taking note of the
fact that she and Tiana would have majority ownership with this
arrangement. Not an entirely displeasing idea, truth be told.
"Well I'm not seeing the other two here, so I'm not inclined to give them
larger shares." He returned. "Speaking of which...how would you two feel
about keeping me company for the rest of the year?"
The girls exchanged another glance at that, knowing exactly what kind of
company he wanted. They hadn't really planned for any future trysts, but
they didn't want anything jeopardizing their future either and were far
too cynical to assume that Harry was a decent enough bloke to not take it
personally if they refused, Boy-Who-Lived or not.
"I'm sure that something could be arranged."
Besides, even if Harry wasn't the most amazing lover ever, he was
enthusiastic, had stamina and wasn't shy about putting his tongue to work
to get a girl off. That mostly made up for his somewhat limited
experience. Who knows, he might even learn a thing or two about properly
using that cock of his eventually.
XXXXX
Molly read over the letter that her daughter had sent her again and
frowned, still unsure how to reply to it.
Ginny had been so excited to have made friends with the Boy-Who-Lived
last year and now this had happened.
Molly was well aware of how the heirs of Noble Houses tended to act
during the later years of their Hogwarts education. She'd always been
fiercely disapproving, but had kept it mostly to herself since it didn't
concern her. Aside from that one fool incident with a love potion that
Arthur had later forgiven her for, she'd held herself to a higher
standard than both the witches throwing themselves at noble heirs and
those selfsame heirs taking advantage of their status to bed them.
Now Ginny was asking for advice on how to regain her friendship with one
of those types and if she was reading between the lines correctly, also
how to catch his interest.
Ron had been rather uncomplimentary of him at the start of his first
year, calling him rude and arrogant in his letters, but that had tapered
off after that poor muggleborn girl had been killed by the troll. Her
youngest son had never been quite the same after that, feeling partially
responsible for her death as he did.
Harry had seemed like a nice enough boy when they'd met him at the train
station at the end of the previous school year, if a bit terse and oddly
tall for his age, so she figured that they'd merely had a rocky first
meeting. She'd wanted to invite him to spend part of the summer at the
Burrow, but had held off when he seemed to be in such a hurry.
Molly could admit to herself that she was also slightly disappointed to
learn that Harry Potter would act like any other entitled lordling. She'd
expected better from the boy who had defeated Voldemort. Dumbledore had
told her before the start of Ginny's first year that Harry needed a
friend, so she'd thought that he'd be a bit on the shy side. Apparently,
that had not been exactly the case.
What was she supposed to tell Ginny? That Harry was likely to keep
bedding a stream of witches that were no doubt hoping to become the next
Lady Potter? That he was probably going to start receiving marriage
offers at the first sign of acceptance? That it was entirely possible
that quite a few of those witches would settle for being his mistresses?
That was another not spoken of practice among the Noble Houses that had
always grated on Molly's more conservative sensibilities. Marriages in
pureblood society were often based on social status or business deals
rather than any kind of affection, which naturally led to both the Lord
and Lady of a House having one or more lovers on the side. They'd produce
the agreed upon number of children, attend social functions together and
pretend to be a functional family, but ignore each other the rest of the
time in favor of their respective dalliances.
She didn't want that kind of future for her daughter. She would always be
grateful to Harry for recognizing the cursed diary for what it was, but
she didn't find her daughter's crush on the Boy-Who-Lived cute anymore.
She also handily ignored the fact that she had subtly encouraged said
crush.
A dark corner of her mind whispered about the Potter wealth and how nice
it would be to have access to it through Ginny, but she ignored that.
There were more important things in the world than money, her daughter's
happiness being one of those things.
XXXXX
Prongslet,
We didn't really get a chance to talk, so I decided to write you a

letter. Not really sure what to say to be perfectly honest, the last time
I saw you, you were turning James' hair green because he tried to make
you eat broccoli and now you're practically grown up.
I should have been there for you. I should have taken care of you instead
of going after Wormtail that night. Charlus and Dorea told me a bit about
your life and the people you live with now. You could come live with me
once this thing with Wormtail and my fugitive status is settled.
I say 'come live with me', but what I really mean is that I could take
guardianship of you. The Black family home isn't any more cheery than
Azkaban, so I wouldn't subject you to living there.
That was an interesting offer, but Harry wasn't sure if he would be

taking the man up on it. Yes, Robert and Katherine were annoying, but
they were familiar. He'd learned how to handle them a long time ago and
his recent dabbling into compulsion charms made it almost trivial to keep
them out of his hair. Not to mention that switching guardianship would
likely involve quite a bit of legal wrangling that he was keen to avoid.
On the other end of the spectrum was his godfather. A wizard would
certainly make for a more convenient guardian in many ways, but only as
long as he didn't actually try to act like a parent. Harry had no more
use for a parent, especially one that fancied himself as being
responsible. Responsible guardians would not let their charges perform
rituals of blood sacrifice or give them unlimited access to the more
questionable reading material of the Black Library.
Harry had no real interest in becoming a Dark Wizard in the traditional

sense, but he very much wanted to get at those books. The Potter family
library was nice, but suffered a crippling dearth of anything that
smacked of dark magic. The Black family was both several centuries older
and far less hampered by morals.
Charlus and Dorea had obviously not said a word about his rituals, which
was good. He hadn't had time to order them to keep quiet about those and
it was nice to know that they knew better than to blurt out that kind of
dangerous secret even if they thought it was for his own good.
On the whole, he was leaning towards rejecting Sirius' offer. He would

have to think about it some more, but so far it looked like a lot of
hassle for little gain. Sirius didn't have to be his legal guardian to
open the Black Library after all.
I know that we don't really know each other and a letter isn't a very
good way to change that, but needs must, so I'll just go and properly
introduce myself.
I am Sirius Orion Black, also known as the white sheep of the Inbred and
Most Pompous House of Black, and your dogfather...
After that mocking introduction, the letter delved into Sirius' first
meeting and instant friendship with James Potter on the Hogwarts Express,
as well as their meeting with Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew and some of
their adventures.
The words were full of nostalgia and more than a small amount of hatred
whenever Pettigew, and surprisingly Snape, came up. At least it explained
where Snape's animosity for him was coming from, petty though it was.
...I'd like to hear about your own Hogwarts adventure, the friends you've
made, the girls you've charmed.
Yours truly,
Padfoot.
P.S. Don't underestimate Pettigrew. He might not look like much, but he's
as slippery as his Animagus form and can be dangerous when cornered. I
know that your plan makes sense, but I'm still not comfortable with you
going after him alone. Remus would help you if you asked him. Hells, even
Dumbledore would probably help you.
Harry snorted. Like hell was he going to ask either a virtual stranger or
a manipulative old man for help. He didn't know Lupin well enough to
predict his reaction and giving Dumbledore any more information to work
with was the absolute last thing he was going to do.
Sirius had spoken about Lupin at length, even talking about his werewolf
status as though Harry already knew about it. That was somewhat careless
of the man, but Harry did have to admit that the clues had been there.
He was still not going to approach the man, despite Sirius' waxing
eloquent about what a loyal friend he was. Lupin meant nothing to him and
wasn't someone he trusted, so he would be doing this by himself.
The rat would have no blatantly obvious reason to suspect himself hunted
now that Sirius was safely in Potter Manor, which would make taking him
relatively easy.
He couldn't take him too soon though, as he would then run into the
problem of getting out of Hogwarts with the rat. House elves were exempt
from the Hogwarts wards and could apparate through them freely, but they
couldn't take passengers through them.
The Christmas holidays would provide the perfect exit, he just needed to
grab Pettigrew a short while before then.
Harry supposed that he could have told the teachers about this, but he
simply didn't trust them not to bungle it all up. He especially didn't
trust Dumbledore. The old wizard should have had more than just an
inkling of Sirius' innocence, so his inaction on the matter came either
from incompetence or some darker agenda.
No, better to handle it himself and keep it quiet until it was too late
for anyone to meddle. If word got out about this, he knew that the
Ministry would react in the usual fashion of politicians everywhere.
Namely, they would do everything in their power to save face and sweeping
the whole thing under the proverbial rug was the simplest way of doing
that. Innocent or guilty, Sirius Black represented a problem and an
embarrassment for the Ministry.
Before he made any plans for Pettigrew however, it would behoove him to
reply to the letter. If nothing else, he needed to get to know Sirius
before he could decide on the matter of guardianship.
XXXXX
Somewhat contrary to Harry's thoughts about him, Dumbledore did not have
any sinister agendas involving Sirius Black, nor was he even particularly
incompetent in this case.
He had not been told that the Potters had switched their Secret Keeper.
Hagrid, however big his heart was, did not have the brains to match. When
the half-giant had taken Harry from Sirius, he had assumed that the man
had given the baby up out of a desire to avoid fighting him right after
losing his dark master and had reported that to Dumbledore.
Dumbledore had believed him. It would be pretty hard to fight while

holding a baby after all. Furthermore, Black had not known the prophecy.
Had probably not known about the measures taken by Voldemort to avoid
death.
Dumbledore wanted to believe that Sirius was not so far gone as to murder
a baby even if he had fallen into the ways of his family and betrayed his
friends to the Dark Lord, so he did. It made him feel better to think
that there was still a spark of good even in otherwise evil people.
Assumptions made by people with below average intelligence were

dangerous. Assumptions made by optimists were equally dangerous. The
entire scenario would have made markedly less sense without one or both
of these things.
That was why he had not protested too much when Barty Crouch had told him
that Black had confessed and been thrown into Azkaban without a trial.
There had been so much work to do then that it was far from the only
procedural shortcut taken in the wake of Voldemort's death. If Sirius had
in the end seen the error of his ways and confessed to his crimes, then
there was no need to make a big procession of it.
Had Harry come to him for help with capturing Pettigrew, Dumbledore would
have been ecstatic. Not only would he get to help an innocent man, but he
would also get to show Harry that he could be relied on and trusted.
As it was, it never even crossed Harry's mind to tell Dumbledore anything

and the old wizard himself spent his nights pondering other problems.
Like how to get Fudge to call off those blasted Dementors and how much
truth there was to Harry's supposed 'relationship' with a seventh year
girl. Possibly two seventh year girls.
He actually had a fairly good idea of what the truth really was. The
broad strokes of it at least.
He could have tried to put an end to it, but frankly, it played into his
own plans quite well. Harry getting suckered into a marriage to an
ambitious young lady would perhaps be emotionally damaging to the young
man, but it would give him the strong tie to Britain that Dumbledore had
wanted to establish for some time now.
It might even allow the Potter family to produce a successor before

Harry's inevitable clash with destiny, remote though the possibility was.
It would be a shame for another old family to die out, so he was quietly
wishing the ambitious Ms. Torres and her friends the best of luck.
"Things are progressing rather well, wouldn't you say, Fawkes?" He asked
in a murmur.
The phoenix trilled sharply.
"I am trying, my friend. I am certain that I will be able to convince the

Minister to recall the dementors before long." The old wizard soothed. He
knew that the presence of the soul sucking horrors had not agreed with
his feathery friend. Phoenixes and dementors didn't get along. At all.
XXXXX
"Were you planning to be a ward specialist or enchanter, Harry?"

Professor Vector asked curiously as she examined his work.
Harry frowned thoughtfully. "Not really. Why do you ask?"

"Because you are quite advanced in the type of arithmancy required for
that kind of work, much further than in the fields that deal with spell
creation." She explained.
Ah, that would explain her assumption. Harry had needed to figure out the
more rigid equations used in rituals and those had quite a bit of overlap
with warding and enchanting, but had comparatively little interest in
deciphering wand movements.
"I hadn't really thought about it." He answered semi-truthfully. "That

type of arithmancy just comes easier to me."
"Hmm, we'll have to give spellcasting theory some more attention. It

tends to pop up in the OWL tests more frequently than static magic."
Harry's lips curled brielfy in distaste. He didn't particularly care

about a test score on a very stupidly named test. Knowing why this wand
movement worked better than that one was of little interest to him.
Wandless magic worked on a completely different principle that he was
only beginning to understand for all that he had managed to get a few
spells to work with it, but he knew enough to know that no arithmantic
knowledge of it existed.
"I'd prefer to keep working on general theory and static magic." He said
instead of voicing his distaste. "It's much more interesting and I'm sure
I'll be able to pass the OWLs either way."
Vector looked uncertain for a moment but then nodded her assent. She'd
offered him private tutoring exactly because Harry had been bored stiff
in her normal class. He might not get a perfect O in his OWLs by
neglecting spellcasting theory, but what he wanted to study featured more
prominently at the NEWT level. Nobody cared about your OWL scores if you
had a NEWT in the same subject, for better or for worse.
XXXXX
Ginny was dawdling and she knew it.
She'd gotten a response from her mother over a week ago, but had still
not done anything about the ever widening gulf between her and Harry.
She'd been hoping that her mother would be able to tell her how to get
Harry to go back to normal. A vain hope in retrospect, but one born of
seeing her father usually abiding by the wishes of his wife.
Instead, the letter had essentially advised her not to get mixed up in
whatever Harry was doing, with embarrassing extra emphasis on not trying
to prove to Harry how grown up she was by trying to sleep with him. It
didn't say that she shouldn't be friends with him, just that she should
let go of any feelings she might have developed for him.
Not exactly what Ginny had wanted to hear, nor particularly useful as far
as ways to get close to Harry again were concerned. She'd been angry
after their last talk, but she still wasn't entirely willing to give up
on him.
That was why she'd been procrastinating enough to put Ron to shame. She'd
been stubbornly hoping that the situation would somehow resolve itself.
Surprisingly even to her, it seemed to have done so.
Harry wasn't spending so much time around that seventh year tramp
anymore. They still seemed to be on friendly terms, but their interaction
was noticeably less frequent.
If Harry was distancing himself from the older girl, then maybe he was
seeing the error of his ways? Or maybe he'd simply gotten tired of
humoring the gold digging slut. Either way, Ginny felt that this was the
perfect time to go talk to him.
As she usually did when she wanted to talk to him privately, she woke up
early and made her way to his room, knowing that he too had a propensity
for waking up early. Their different schedules and his habit of
disappearing at random meant that it was by far the best time to catch
him alone.
Just as she was about to knock on the door, it opened.
And revealed the very gold digging slut that she'd thought that Harry had
stopped associating with, still in the process of fixing her mussed up
hair and crumpled robes.
The two stared at each other in surprise for several long moments before
Bryanna carefully shut the door behind her.
"What were you doing in Harry's room?" Ginny demanded, anger leaking into
her tone at the discovery that the truth was not as palatable as she'd
thought.
Bryanna looked at the redhead incredulously, knowing that it was

perfectly obvious what she'd been doing in his room.
Then she smirked, grabbed the younger girl's chin and leaned in close. "I
was tutoring him, tutoring him all night long."
Not really. She'd fallen asleep after he'd worn her out, only to wake up
with his face between her legs again. His strange fascination with
licking pussy was going a long way towards making their arrangement
pleasant rather than demeaning. Men who enjoyed doing that were just so
rare. And he was getting better at it too.
The redhead slapped her hand away, obviously fuming. That just made
Bryanna laugh as she walked away. The Weasley girl had been acting kind
of bratty since the start, so riling her up like this was terribly
amusing.
Face burning with anger and humiliation, Ginny fled back to her own room.
Before now, Harry's words had only been an abstract sort of thing. Seeing
a girl coming out of his room early in the morning and all but admitting
to having sex with him really made it hit home.
XXXXX
Pacing alone in the Room of Requirement, Harry pondered his Patronus.
He still hadn't managed to get more than mist out of it. Without a wand,
he hadn't managed anything at all.
Perhaps casting such a difficult spell wandlessly was being overly

ambitious at this stage. The only spells he had managed to get working
without a wand so far were very simple in purpose. Spells to give light,
levitation charms, minor compulsions, that kind of thing. Any spell that
had more than a solitary component was exponentially more difficult to
cast without a wand. He still hadn't managed more than the most minute
changes with wandless transfiguation.
There was a certain structure to spells that made it enormously difficult

to form them without the aid of a wand. The magic simply fell apart if he
tried to shape the spell with nothing but his will.
But it could be done. His limited success proved it. And if it could be
done, then he was damn well going to do it. He would unravel whatever
mystery there was behind magic, and then he could do away with the use of
a wand. The magical focus made him feel more like a cripple every day.
How everyone else could be so attached to their wands escaped his
understanding.
But getting back to the Patronus, he simply couldn't cast it. No memory
that he could dredge up was powerful enough to call forth the guardian.
Experimentation showed that he was correct in his original assessment;
thoughts of protection and safety worked best. After all, you couldn't be
happy if you weren't safe.
He strongly suspected that the popular formula of using the happiest

thought you could muster was a direct result of the misery inducing aura
of a dementor. A simplistic line of thinking that was in tune with the
usually simplistic view that wizards had of magic.
Sometimes, he despaired over how mundane they managed to make magic. The
only person in the Wizarding World who had so far kept magic actually
magical was Luna. That was probably why he liked her so much.
In any case, he clearly needed to rethink his approach to the Patronus.

The memory of his mother's sacrifice was tainted by grief and loss and
ultimately unsuited for the purpose. But nobody else came to mind when
thinking of protection, he'd always needed to look to himself if he
wanted protection without any strings attached.
Himself...there was an idea.

It can't be that simple...can it?
Having nothing to lose by trying it, Harry decided to focus inward

instead of outward when trying to call the guardian.
Sinking into the Occlumency trance that he had begun to use pretty much
every time that something needed deep contemplation, he focused on the
image of what he had seen in the Mirror of Erised during his first year.
He was sure that the mirror would show him something subtly different if
he were to look at it again. He hadn't been able to determine the
features of his companion then, but now he was certain that it would be a
woman.
Luna would be there too of course. He'd gotten so used to the eccentric
blonde and her spit-take inducing statements that it was hard to imagine
life without her.
Ginny...ehhh, he wasn't sure about her. He'd been willing to let bygones
be bygones if she could drop that stupid crush and start acting normally,
but she hadn't. She still tended to either avoid contact or look at him
as if he'd done something wrong, which he knew he hadn't. At this point,
he'd be perfectly happy if she decided that their friendship was over.
No, Ginny would probably not be making appearances in the Mirror of

Erised if he looked at it again.
Then there was himself. He'd be wearing something made of basilisk hide,
Harry knew. He'd been eagerly waiting for the day when he stopped growing
so that he could get some of that stored hide tailored into an article of
clothing.
His appearance was secondary however. What really mattered was that he
would have all the things that he wanted in life. The freedom to do as he
pleased, the company of people he could trust not to attempt using him in
their schemes and the power to protect it all, to keep it from being
taken from him.
Yes, he would be powerful enough to keep the world at bay, but that was
for the future. For now, he would be strong enough to hold off the Dark.
He wasn't going to be a snack for the dementors. He still had so much
that he wanted to do. They weren't going to take his future from him.
Harry focused on that determination, that desire to protect himself and

the things he held dear and pushed it into the spell.
A luminescent raven flew forth from his wand, making a circuit around the
room before alighting weightlessly on his shoulder.
He smiled widely at his success, all the while thinking of how very
appropriate the animal was. He had always been fond of ravens.
XXXXX
With the Christmas holidays approaching, Harry decided that it was time
to make a move on the rat.
He had pondered how to go about this for some time and eventually decided
that keeping things simple was for the best.
"You said you wanted to talk to me?" Ron Weasley asked cautiously as he
entered the empty room.
He'd received a surprising message from Potter with a request to speak to

him privately.
He was wary and suspicious of this, as the Ravenclaw third year had never
showed any inclination to speak to him since their first meeting on the
train years ago.
Ron didn't trust Potter. Ravenclaws were a weird lot and that seventh
year Slytherin girl he was sometimes seen with made him even less
trustworthy.
Ron was also terribly jealous of the taller boy, though he didn't admit
this even to himself. Potter had wealth, fame and most recently he also
had a lot of good looking female company.
He'd encouraged his sister to break off ties with him. Ginny should never
have been a Ravenclaw to begin with, she belonged with her family in
Gryffindor. There was nothing to be done about her wrong sorting, but
they could still get her some proper friends.
"I did." Harry confirmed, looking down at his redheaded yearmate. The
quicker this ended the better. Weasley was a loud and opinionated little
idiot at the best of times, so actually interacting with him more than
necessary was a chore. He was essentially Malfoy-lite; slightly dumber,
lazier and a less blatant waste of air, but just as prejudiced in many
ways. "I want to buy your rat."
"Scabbers?" Ron blurted out in shock. "You want to buy Scabbers?"
His incredulity was entirely justified. Why would anyone want to buy a
mangy old rat?
"I do. Ten galleons."
Ron gaped some more. That was a completely stupid amount of money for a
mere rat. You could buy a whole swarm of them for that much.
"Why?" He asked, getting some of his surprise under control.
"I've heard it's a very long lived rat. I'm curious." Harry evaded.
"I'm not going to sell Scabbers to you so that you can...dissect him or
something!" Ron retorted hotly.
Harry sighed in exasperation. "I'm not going to dissect him. The worst
I'll do is cast some diagnostic spells, but you can rest assured that I
won't harm him." The dementors can do that for me.
"He's been with our family for twelve years." Ron said uncertainly, his
greed warring with his loyalty to his pet.
"I know, that's why I'm interested. Look I'll give you fifteen galleons
for a rat that probably isn't going to live much longer. It's a bargain
any way you look at it."
Ron hesitated. "I don't know..." He was still reluctant to part with his
faithful rat, but that was a lot of money.
Harry struggled to keep the irritation off his face. Deciding to help the
redhead make a decision, he wiggled his fingers and tossed a few
compulsions his way.
It's just an old rat, he'll probably die soon anyway.
That's a lot of money.
I want that money. I NEED it.
Ron still looked to be harboring doubts, to Harry's considerable

surprise. The annoying little idiot must be more attached to the rat than
he thought if he was able to resist that kind of temptation.
"That's more than twice what a new wand costs." He commented idly. "I've
noticed that yours was looking a bit worn out. It seems pretty dangerous
to me to be using a damaged and poorly suited wand. Probably makes your
spells a lot weaker too."
Ron's resistance finally started crumbling at that. He'd always wanted to

stand out and the sudden power boost of a new wand would certainly help
him with that. He'd even have enough leftover money to buy a few other
things as well.
"I'll...I'll go get him for you."
"Thank you." Harry said, waiting for the boy to turn his back. When he
did, he pulled out his wand and sent a much more powerful compulsion at
the redhead.
I better not tell anyone about this. I'll just tell everyone that
Scabbers got lost somewhere.
XXXXX
Ten minutes later, Harry had stuffed Wormtail into a pre-prepared cage
that was enchanted to be unbreakable, ignoring Ron's protests about
Scabbers being house trained and not needing to be caged. If he tried to
transform, it would kill him, which would not be as good as having him
alive, but the corpse of Peter Pettigrew would still be useful as
evidence and Harry was not inclined to be so charitable to the betrayer
of his parents as to be overly concerned whether he was handed over to
the Ministry alive or dead.
XXXXX
Remus looked on as the students boarded the Hogwarts Express, going home
for the Christmas holidays.
Harry was leaving too. Remus had hoped that the boy would stay so that
they could finally talk, but it looked like it wasn't going to happen
that way.
Not that he was oblivious to the fact that he could have approached the
son of his friends at any time in the past few months, but had kept
putting it off instead. It was entirely possible that he would have done
the same even if Harry had stayed.
Remus was actually quite ashamed of himself. He was waiting for a boy of
thirteen to make the first move instead of plucking up the courage to do
it himself. It was getting harder too. The longer he waited, the more
awkward the whole thing became. By now he was actually starting to think
that it might be best to just leave well enough alone.
"I take it that you still have not spoken to young Harry?" Dumbledore
asked from beside him.
Remus heard the gentle admonishment in the Headmaster's words, but could
only shrug helplessly in response. He'd meant to so many times, but lost
the courage every time he saw Lily's eyes in James' face.
"I do not believe that he will reject you, Remus." The old wizard said
softly.
"I just doesn't seem like he needs me." The werewolf replied.
"Harry is remarkably mature young man." Dumbledore agreed.
That was what worried him so much actually. Despite having made friends
in recent years, Harry still gave off the feeling of being aloof and
separate from the people around him. It would not do for the Chosen One
to be indifferent to the fate of the people he was supposed to be saving.
He needed to be invested in the fate of Magical Britain by the time of
Voldemort's return.
Which was why Remus' procrastinating was starting to exhaust Dumbledore's

patience enough that he was seeing fit to prod the man along.
"But one can never have too many friends or family."
"After the holidays. I'll talk to him after the holidays." Remus
determined.
XXXXX
As he had done the previous year, Harry took the Hogwarts Express to
King's Cross, but called Teeny for transportation to Potter Manor as soon
as he was somewhere private.
"Sirius, you're looking better." Harry greeted when the man came into
view.
Sirius really did look better. Not as gaunt or as pale, his previously
matted hair cut to hang down to his shoulders and his beard styled into a
neat goatee. Even his teeth had been repaired from their previously
rotten state.
"Amazing what some good food and time away from the dementors will do for
a man." Sirius replied jokingly, taking the opportunity to get a better
look at his godson. "Have you gotten taller again?"
"I hear that happens a lot with teenagers." Harry replied with dry
sarcasm.
"But you're almost as tall as I am!" Sirius protested.
Not that Sirius was hugely tall. He'd been the shortest of the Marauders
after Wormtail, something that had always privately annoyed him. James
had been a couple of inches bigger than him and Remus had been a
veritable giant in comparison. They'd caught up eventually, but Remus had
remained the tallest at six feet and two inches.
"Yes, I know." Harry replied with a smirk, rather pleased by that. He had
no doubt that his growth would slow down soon, but for now he was going
to enjoy the height discrepancy.
Sirius looked briefly torn between irritation and amusement before his
expression turned grim.
"Do you have him?"
"He's in my trunk, safely locked in an unbreakable cage." Harry said with

a nod.
"I need to talk to him before we turn him over to the DMLE. I need to
hear what he has to say for himself." The escaped convict growled,
everything in his manner speaking of murderous rage.
Harry knew it was probably a bad idea, but he wanted to hear it too. He
might have gotten over the deaths of his parents, but he too harbored a
deep well of anger for the one who had betrayed them.
XXXXX
They had Teeny strip one of the unused rooms bare to remove any possible
hiding spaces. Then they sealed every exit to prevent any escape
attempts.
Only once that was done did Harry take the cage out of his trunk, curling
his nose in disgust the whole time.
He had not been overly diligent in either feeding the rat or cleaning up
after him for the week that he had had him, so Wormtail was in a sorry
state by now. He'd given him enough food and water to survive, but he'd
taken quite a bit of vindictive pleasure in leaving him to wallow in his
own filth.
Wormtail had been living in a state of terror ever since Ron had handed
him over to Harry in exchange for a fat sack of galleons. The whole thing
had come so out of the blue that there had been no time to think, no time
to make decision. He'd been stuffed into a cage before he'd even properly
registered the situation and hadn't been let out since.
Worse, he knew that Harry knew the truth. The boy hadn't really spoken to
him, but the anger burning in his green eyes was a clear enough
indication.
Now he was being unceremoniously dumped out of the cage, but there was no
relief to be found in finally being released from his filthy prison. Not
with his old friend Sirius in the room with him and looking fit to tear
him to ribbons with his bare hands.
"I need a wand to force him back into human form." Sirius said, staring
coldly at the cowering Animagus that apparently had no intention of
transforming himself.
Wordlessly, Harry handed over his own.
A minute of Wormtail doing his level best to dodge Sirius' spells and
Pettigrew was once again in human form for the first time in twelve
years.
He was a sorry sight, and not just because spending so much time in his
Animagus form had left him looking permanently ratlike. Short, fat,
balding, ugly, shifty eyed. It was like someone had designed a human
being for the express purpose of looking untrustworthy. His parents must
have been really good at not judging by appearances, because Harry
himself wouldn't have trusted someone like this to guard a chamber pot.
Someone else's chamber pot at that.
"Sirius, Harry." Pettigrew simpered, as if greeting long lost friends.
"Why, Peter?" Sirius demanded angrily. "Why did you betray James and
Lily?"
"I didn't mean to!" Pettigrew whined pitieously. "But the Dark Lord...
You have no idea of the powers he possesses. Just ask yourself what you
would have done in my place."
"I WOULD HAVE DIED FOR THEM! LIKE YOU SHOULD HAVE DIED FOR THEM!" Sirius
roared, completely enraged by the insinuation that Wormtail had just
made.
Pettigrew flinched back violently, knowing that he'd blundered by saying
that. He still had the Dark Lord's wand on him as well as his own, but he
dared not use either. Not with Sirius already pointing one at him. He'd
never get a single spell out. He tried a different tactic instead.
"Harry, please! Your father wouldn't have wanted me dead. James would
have shown mercy." He didn't really believe that, but he was desperate to
survive.
"HOW DARE YOU SPEAK TO HARRY!" Sirius yelled again, interrupting any
response from Harry himself.
"Don't let him kill me, please!" Wormtail begged, scrabbling towards
Harry nearly on all fours.
"Get away from me!" Harry snapped in disgust and backed away. Pettigrew
was by far the most revolting person he'd ever encountered, both
literally and figuratively. The way that the rat was begging for his life
was making him so angry that his Occlumency was threatening to be
overwhelmed for the first time in quite a while.
Unlike pretty much every other Occlumancer, Harry had almost completely
ignored the part designed for defending the mind from external intrusion.
Instead, he had focused on enhancing his ability to control his emotions
and to improve his memory.
This was generally a terrible idea, as it actually made it easier for a

Legilimancer to rifle through a mind that was well organized but
undefended.
Normally, an Occlumancer would first learn to clear their minds into

blankness on demand. Once sufficient skill in that was reached, it was
possible to create a wall of non-thought to keep Legilimancers out. Of
course, a Legilimancer could force their victim to make mental
associations by projecting their own thoughts and follow that thread of
thought into their memories, leaving it up to the individual skill of the
practicioner to decide the winner of the mental struggle. Those who were
particularly skilled could even section off their minds to present a
false front, duping the Legilimancer into thinking that what they saw was
the whole of someone's mind and not just another front. That particular
skill was pretty much a requirement for a wizard spy.
Only once that was mastered was it advisable for the Occlumancer to begin
putting the chaos of one's mind to order. This had great benefits for
emotional control and memory, but it wasn't a skill that could ever be
mastered. Much like the actual defensive parts of Occlumency, it was an
ability that had no real upper limit and needed to be practiced often
lest it degrade.
Harry practiced his Occlumency almost religiously, knowing that he was

much more at risk of losing control of his emotions than most people.
"Harry! Please!" Wormtail howled as Sirius cast what was essentially an
upgraded version of a stinging hex at him, the only difference being that
this one felt rather more like a hot stove than a hard slap.
The problem with trying to control your emotions was that the cause of
said emotions was often still present and making things harder. In this
case, that would be Pettigrew's incessant begging for mercy.
Sirius was quite clearly not getting any calmer either if his
progressively crueler spell selection was any indication.
"Shut up." Harry ground out, wanting both of them to just stop until he
could shift the fury he was currently feeling to the back of his mind
where it could be dealt with later.
But they didn't stop. Sirius had a mad glint in his eye that didn't
indicate self-control and was getting disturbingly close to the
Cruciatus, heedless of the fact that Harry's wand would carry that spell
history.
"I'm sorry!" Pettigrew sobbed.
"Shut up!" Harry repeated, louder and angrier this time. His runes felt
like a thousand angry ants crawling over his body.
He was ignored again. Sirius kept on screaming a stream of vitriol at the

cowering rat Animagus, intersped with moderate-to-severe torture curses.
And of course, Pettigrew was in no state to consider the fact that his
begging was only making things worse.
"Make him stop!" He wailed, somehow managing to sound even more pathetic
than before. "Lily wouldn't have wanted this! Please make him stop! Do it
for your mother, Harry."
Sirius looked about fit to explode with rage at that, pushed completely
beyond rational thought at having the traitor invoke the name of the
woman he'd betrayed to draw some mercy out of her son.
Harry wasn't much better off than his godfather. He'd been exerting
monumental effort to not give in to his rage and join in, but everyone
had limits and Pettigrew had just exceeded them.
"SHUT UP!" He roared, thrusting his hand out at the rat and willing him
to stop his infuriating begging with his whole being.
Harry had long since noted that powerful emotions made it easier to use
magic without a wand. He had also noted that they tended to twist the
spells into something different. The more powerful and chaotic the
emotion, the more the spell deviated from the purpose intended by its
caster.
Harry had only wanted Wormtail to stop talking, but that last sentence
had pushed him beyond the limits of his control. His spell came out
powered by the full force of his rage and rage was not a precise emotion
by any means. Whereas a normal silencing spell might be a scalpel, his
rage turned it into a broadsword. This was further compounded by the fact
that Harry didn't actually know how to cast a wandless silencing spell,
so he had just brutally pushed his magic outward, furiously demanding
that it do his will.
The problem was that Harry kind of wanted to hurt Wormtail too.
The spell roared out of his hand, tinted the fiery orange of a blasting
curse. It streaked towards the traitor's mouth just as Harry had
intended. It also silenced Wormtail just like Harry had intended.
Unlike what Harry had intended, it did so by blowing his head and a good
portion of his chest into gory pulp.
The two still living wizards stumbled back from the explosion of gore
that painted the whole room in bloodsplatter, expressions of shock on
both of their faces.
Sirius looked to his godson and worked his jaw in an attempt to say
something, but nothing came out. Wormtail's sudden death had snapped him
out of the mad haze he'd been in, but now he was simply so shocked that
words seemed wholly insufficient.
Harry was in an even worse state. The rage had gone out of him with the
spell and the shock of the fact that he'd just killed someone left him
reeling. The disgusting sight of a man's open chest cavity spilling
pulped internal organs across the room didn't help. He quickly added to
the mess by voiding his stomach on the floor.
I killed a man.
I murdered a man.
Harry felt something crack inside him at the realization and not in an
entirely figurative sense at that. He could feel the change in his magic.
There was no way to describe it with words, no analogy that would

suffice. The closest thing he could think of was a pane of glass or a
mirror that had been hit hard enough to crack but not enough to break. He
could practically feel the newly made cracks in his soul and magic
spreading through him as the psychological impact of what he'd just done
sank in.
He was distantly aware that Sirius was stammering something but it was
all just so much noise. Teeny had showed up at some point too and seemed
to be panicking about something. Probably the mess.
The absurd thought made him want to giggle. Judging by the worried looks
he got, he might have actually giggled.
Then things somehow managed to get worse.

As the cracks kept spreading, another sensation became known to him.
Arhain suddenly began to radiate cold. He barely noticed at first, but
then it began to spread. First to Aul'El and Da'Roir, which were part of
the same set, then to the other two sets with whom it shared weaker
connections, fingers of cold creeping through the anchors of his magic.
And with the cold came the Dark. It seeped through the newly made cracks
in his soul, grasping at him and his magic just like the dementor on the
train had done.
Harry gasped at the feel of it and damn near panicked when he saw his
breath misting as it exited his chilled lungs.
He ignored Sirius and stumbled out of the room at a sprint, wanting

nothing more than to get outside. He needed to think and a room that
reeked of blood, death, vomit and most recently, shit, wasn't helping
with that.
He made it out the front door in record time, falling to his hands and
knees as soon as he reached the outside. It was December and the Hogwarts
Express had taken a long time to get to London, so the sky was already
dark.
"Alright, don't panic. Think." He said to himself, staunchly ignoring the

slow creep of Dark through his damaged soul and the chill of his breath
that had nothing to do with the season.
It took a little while to force his mind away from the murder he'd just
committed and focus on his more pressing problem.
He didn't for a moment believe that this was a normal reaction to a kill,
not even to a murder. That meant that it had to be something to do with
him and the only thing it was likely to be was his runes.
My runes, what did I do with my runes that would cause this? Does it have
something to do with the dementor? No, it has to be earlier than that.
Nobody else can sense the Dark like I can. They feel the effects of the
dementors but not the Dark that makes them what they are.
There was only one rune he could think of that would be responsible for
this.
Arhain.
He'd only used it for its association with secrets and stealth. He'd
thought its association with darkness to be irrelevant. He'd thought of
it of course, it was impossible not to, but he'd considered it to be just
a pointless bit of fluff. It came out of a game after all. There was
nothing scary about the night.
Now Harry looked up into the night sky and wondered how many stupid
wizards had made the same mistake, accidentally dabbling with forces
beyond all mortal comprehension.
Because now that his soul had cracked open, the Dark had found a way
inside. It must have lingered around his magic ever since he'd carved
Arhain into himself while thinking of the infinite void of space, just
waiting for the day when something happened to put a crack into his soul.
It could very well be the reason why the dementors had been drawn to him.
He could feel the Dark clearer now than he ever had and the sheer
vastness of it threatened to undo him. It was everywhere, stretching
across the whole of the Universe, it's hungry cold presence held back
only by the raging fire of the stars. He realized with painful clarity
that this must be the reason why magicals constantly kept braying about
the dangers of Dark Magic. They had long since forgotten what the real
Dark was, but the warning itself had survived.
He knew what he had to do now. Another ritual, this one invoking the Sun
and stars, the Light. He'd already been preparing one, so much of the
groundwork was already done. It would have to be modified, but not by
much. He hadn't thought that the Sun had any noteworthy magic in it when
he'd chosen it, now he had to wonder if it hadn't been some magical
instinct that had made him decide to use the Avariel runes again, this
time invoking an entity in direct opposition to the Dark.
Harry let out a half hysterical laugh. Every book on rituals that he'd
ever read about had warned against invoking unknown or disparate forces,
now he was deliberately going to do the latter as a counter to his
accidental use of the former. It was an incredibly reckless course of
action that had a good chance of killing him in a truly spectacular
fashion.
But there was no choice. If he didn't do it, the Dark would consume him
from within and leave him hollow.
Chapter 9
To those of you who have asked if I got some of my ideas from reading
"With Strength of Steel Wings", yes I did. It was the fic that convinced
me to try my hand at a HP story and I recommend it highly.
And for those of you noting the influence from Dark Souls, yeah I've been
watching lore theory videos on youtube a lot lately.
Much credit goes to Joe Lawyer for his help in polishing up the rough
edges on the chapter.
XXXXX
Sirius stared at his fleeing godson's back, feeling as if the world had
just taken a sharp left turn without warning anyone.
Pettigrew was dead.
The thought was as satisfying as it was horrible.
He hadn't meant for things to go that far, but once Peter had started
talking and begging for his miserable life, still making excuses even
now, the familiar red haze from twelve years ago had come down. Sirius
was actually surprised that he'd limited himself to non-lethal spells,
but that was probably more to do with the fact that his mind had been on
causing pain and he hadn't been in any state to shift mental gears.
He'd picked up quite a few nasty spells from his family even if he hadn't
wanted to and Azkaban had given him a long time to fantasize about using
them.
The fact that it would now be much harder to prove his innocence was a
distant secondary concern to the fact that Harry had killed someone.
Thirteen was way too young to have that hanging over you.
Then was the fact that Harry had cast a lethal spell without his wand.
The most wandless magic that Sirius had ever seen had come from
Dumbledore, but even that had been just parlor tricks and not really
anything too impressive aside from the fact that it was wandless.
But his godson's astonishing achievement wasn't important right now. He

needed to go see if Harry was alright.
He found him outside, kneeling in the snow and staring at the night sky
with a look that was hard to decipher. It looked like something between
shock, awe and a sort of horrified realization.
Harry picked himself up before Sirius could make his way over, his face
now hardened into an expression of driven purpose that he'd last seen on
Lily's.
"Harry..." He started, not really sure what to say to make this situation
better.
"Not now, Sirius." Harry snapped, brushing past him roughly.
Sirius shrank back, incorrectly assuming that his godson was angry at him
for losing it with Wormtail.
Not wanting to let things stew, he ran to catch up to the stomping

thirteen year old and grabbed him by the shoulder.
"Harry, I'm so-"
He made it no further than that. Harry spun around and grabbed him by his
robes, actually lifting him off the ground, much to his incredulity.
"What part of 'not now' do you not understand?!" Harry hissed furiously,
tossing him aside and sending him stumbling into a couch. "Whatever you
have to say, say it later. I have somethig that I have to do. Until then,
don't bother me."
And Sirius obeyed, cowed into submission by a boy twenty years younger
than him. He obeyed because Harry seemed so much more than just a
thirteen-year old wizard in that moment. Too tall and too strong and too
powerful. Age didn't mean much when he could feel the unmistakable
pressure of a powerful wizard's magic pressing threateningly into his
own, daring him to rise up in challenge.
Worse than any of that though, was the sense of something inhuman staring
out from Harry's eyes.
XXXXX
Harry regretted blowing up at Sirius like that, but he was still grateful
that it kept the man off his back. He'd apologize later. He had no time
to talk about the giant fuck up they had to deal with now. He had no time
to deal with the fact that he'd killed a man. He had no time to explain
to his godfather about the wandless magic and the runes, which he knew
that he was now going to have to do.
The only thing he had time for was to finish preparing for the next
ritual and he didn't even have as much time for that as he'd have liked.
His soul had stopped cracking and the spread of Dark had slowed, but it
was still spreading nonetheless. He expected that it would always be
there even if his next ritual managed to balance it out enough to save
him.
What the Void took, the Void kept. Of this he was certain. He had made a
sacrifice to that entity, giving it a place in his magic in exchange for
power. He had done it ignorantly, unknowingly, but he had done it all the
same. It would not leave.
So many questions and theories crowded his thoughts, but he had to focus.
He had to hurry before the Dark did more than merely ooze through the
cracks in his soul, before it started taking things that could never be
regained. Because he was afraid that it would do worse than just kill
him. If it wanted that, it only needed to wait. Everyone and everything
went to the Void in the end. Harry wasn't sure how he knew that, but he
knew it.
What he was truly afraid of here wasn't dying, it was the grim certainty
that dementors weren't really Non-Beings at all, but the empty shells of
wizards who had dabbled with the Void without taking the necessary
precautions. Now nothing more than hollow carriers of Dark, their magic
turned into a conduit for the Void, existing to take things from a world
that was otherwise protected by the Sun.
XXXXX
A day later, the final preparations were complete and the ritual was set
to begin.
Harry could feel that the Dark inside him had grown stronger, but not yet
so strong that he was too late. It had been getting harder to focus,
harder to feel afraid of what was happening to him. The world now seemed
just a touch surreal, as if he was looking at it through a dirty pane of
glass. As the Dark grew in strength, his sense of self waned.
Harry wasn't oblivious to the rather disturbing similarities that his

situation had with the Dark Souls game franchise. He'd never really
played it, but he had had quite enjoyed its quite interesting lore, as
well as its surprisingly deep and subtle plot.
The fact that he was now intending to link himself to the Sun in order to
stave off the Dark amused him and terrified him in equal measure. He
remembered all too clearly what happened to the Chosen Undead if he
decided to link the fires in the Kiln of the First Flame.
He really hoped that he wasn't going to set himself on fire doing this.
It was going to be his last ritual one way or another, because if this
worked then he didn't want to risk upsetting the balance with any further
additions.
He had originally been intending to perform this ritual in the Potter

ritual chamber like all the others, but it just didn't feel right to do
this one beneath the ground.
That was why he was now making his way away from the manor in the pre-
dawn darkness, moving towards the east. The light covering of snow
crunched under his shoes as he walked and the night was cold and black,
seeming even colder and darker because the skies were clear. The moon and
stars did nothing to counter that feeling when he could feel the Void
pressing in around him.
He turned his mind away from that, knowing instinctively that focusing on
it would only make things worse. He focused on making a suitable platform
for the ritual instead, using the wand he'd retaken from Sirius on his
way out to transfigure a flat stone surface and then inscribing the
instructions on it that would allow the knife to act independently.
This time, there was no hesitation as he took off his shirt and began the
ritual.
"Ca'Daith."
Grace. Power. Music of the Stars.
A rune to to call on the Light magic that he was now certain was inherent
to the stars and also to make sure that he did not rely completely on the
Sun. It would be the height of irony to find out that this final rune set
only worked during the day. He decided to have it carved just under his
left collarbone. It seemed appropriate to have it mirror Arhain.
"Yen'Lui."
Balance. Harmony. Chaos.
This rune's sole purpose was to ensure that the clash of Light and Dark
inside him didn't have explosive results. He feared that the Sun would
burn him out if he did not use this rune. There was an uncomfortably high
chance of it happening anyway. This one was carved on the lower end of
his breastbone, equidistant from both Arhain and Ca'Daith.
"Sol."
The Sun. The Ever Seeing Eye. Consciousness.
This rune was doubled and carved into his temples. He'd been planning to
use it to enhance his eyes and give himself the ability to see magic as
well as expand his capacity to feel it. That had now become its secondary
purpose, but Harry was still pleased that he was able to sneak in one
final enhancement.
Once the carving was done, Harry took a deep breath and waited tensely,
knowing that the ritual was not over yet. Of the three runes, only
Yen'Lui felt active, which was as he had expected. The other two would
become active once they were hit by sunlight, which should be any second
now if the brightening sky was any indication.
He grunted in surprised pain as the first rays of sunlight broke over the
horizon and washed over him. He hadn't expected that magic born in the
violence of the Solar Core would be gentle, but its fierceness still
surprised him. How had wizards ever gotten the idea into their heads that
Light was gentle?
Ca'Daith and Sol burned. Yen'Lui prickled madly as it attempted to temper

the violent reaction between Light and Dark.
Harry shut his eyes tighly as Sol executed its purpose. They stung
terribly and he felt them bleed from the sudden change. He'd expected
that, so it didn't worry him.
At the same time, he felt his perception expand as the rune's power
touched his mind. The sensations were jumbled, unfamiliar as they were to
him, but what was happening inside him was clear.
Dark gave way before Light as was its nature, but with the understanding
that it would still be there, that it could never be pushed out. His
other runes broke open and bled as Light burned through them. Where Dark
was cold and slow, Light was fire and voraciously consumed all it
touched.
Once it had pushed the Dark out of all the runes except Arhain, where a
shard of Dark was connected to the infinite Void and could not be burned
away, it surged into the cracks in his soul. It didn't hurt in the
physical sense, but Harry knew instantly that he had preferred the gentle
creep of Dark. Given the slightest opportunity, Light would burn him to
nothing.
It was a decidedly uncomfortable experience to feel the Dark slowly

relinquishing its grip on the edges of his damaged soul as Light
advanced, but there was nothing to do except endure it as Yen'Lui worked
to keep things from spiralling out of control.
But there was one chunk of his soul that the Dark had grasped tightly and
seemed intent on taking. It had nearly pulled it away from the whole.
No, not my soul. Harry realized, now seeing that the piece did not match
the rest of him. It had a dormant quality to it, but it was
unquestionably foreign. That isn't mine, it doesn't belong there. How did
a piece of someone else's soul attach itself to me?
It must have been with him for a long time, to have gone undetected until
he'd cracked his soul enough to expose it. Unlike the rest, this one
piece felt as if it been rather haphazardly attached to him and had come
loose once his soul was no longer whole.
Voldemort, it has to be. Something of him must have been left inside me
when he tried to kill me.
Not really sure what he was doing, but knowing that he definitely did not
want that madman's soul latched on to his own, Harry pushed. He focused
on that foreign soul shard and began forcing it out. He had been afraid
of what would happen if the Dark took any of his soul, but it was more
than welcome to the piece of Voldemort.
Its already tenuos grip on him broke once he rejected it so completely

and the Dark took it instantly, as it did all unanchored souls.
With that done, the Dark put up no more struggle and allowed Light free
reign.
Squinting with painfully stinging eyes, Harry shuffled back towards the
manor.
XXXXX
Sirius hadn't been quite sure what to do with himself for the past day.
Neither Teeny nor Charlus and Dorea would tell him what Harry was up to,
but he was sure that it was something big.
His godson had locked himself in the study and hadn't left it since. His
wand was still in Sirius' possession, apparently being considered
unimportant, which was an attitude that Sirius had never expected to see
from any witch or wizard. Then again, he hadn't expected to see this
level of wandless magic either.
In the absence of anything else to do, he had put Wormtail's gruesome

remains into stasis and stuffed them into an unused trunk. He was quite
unrecognizable, but there were magical ways to determine a dead wizard's
identity by his blood as long as they had his magical signature on file,
which the Ministry should have. The corpse could still be useful.
Finally, after he had nearly paced a hole into the floor in fruitless
worry, Harry had come out of the study.
Unfortunately, all he had done was grab his wand from Sirius possession
with a terse warning to stay inside. He'd tried to get some answers out
of Charlus and Dorea again, but they merely looked uncomfortable and
still refused to speak. The only thing they would say was that it was
Harry's secret to tell and that he should leave him alone to do what he
was going to do.
Finally, Harry came back, but Sirius couldn't feel anything besides
stunned horror at the sight of him.
His godson was only wearing a pair of pants and streaked with blood from
head to toe. Even more disturbing were the twin trails of bloody tears
coming from his eyes, eyes that were so bloodshot that the sclera had
effectively turned completely red and whose green color now gleamed
visibly with magic.
"Harry?" Sirius asked cautiously.
"Not yet, Sirius." Harry replied with weary clam. "Let me get cleaned up
first, then we'll talk.
Sirius looked worried, but nodded all the same. His godson had been up to
something obviously dangerous and quite probably illegal, but it seemed
like the worst was over. He could wait a little longer to get answers.
XXXXX
XXXXX
"...and here we are." Harry finished, slouched in an armchair.
Sirius looked at his godson, looking less like some kind of eldritch
abomination and more like a human being now that the blood had been
cleaned off, his sclera had gone back to white and he was dressed in a
comfortable bathrobe. He could almost convince himself that nothing had
changed, if only it wasn't for the rune that he could plainly see carved
into his godson's forehead now that he'd been told it was there and the
shimmer of magic in his eyes that made them a touch brighter than they'd
been before.
It had been quite a tale and Sirius wasn't sure whether to be impressed
or horrified.
"Harry, don't take this the wrong way, but what the hell is wrong with
you?" He asked in a deadpan tone of voice. "What kind of eleven year old
is introduced to magic and thinks 'I think I'll ritualistically mutilate
myself'?"
"The kind that grew up thinking of all the cool enhancement rituals he
could do?" Harry asked rhetorically.
Sirius went on as if he hadn't said anything. "And then, when you figured
out that your first set was giving you the urge to shag your foster
mother, you didn't think that it might have been a good idea to rethink
things?"
Harry didn't know it yet, but this was mildly hypocritical of Sirius. It
wouldn't have stopped him either. Well, it would have if it had made him
lust after his own mother, who had been a hag in every sense of the word
except the literal one, but being attracted to a fine piece of ass like
Katherine Shaw would not have bothered him in the slightest, no matter
his relation to her.
"It seemed like a fair trade." Harry shrugged. "An overactive libido and
a bad temper in exchange for a stronger body and faster maturation? I
regret nothing."
"And your second set, the one that nearly turned you into a dementor just
now?" Sirius demanded. That had been an unwelcome revelation and he
wasn't sure if he believed his godson's claim of dementors being the
leftovers of wizards who'd carelessly dabbled with Dark. It was just too
creepy for words.
"That one I might have done differently if I knew what was going to
happen." Harry admitted.
"Might have?!"
"Despite the close shave, I'm actually pretty happy with the way things
turned out. You have no idea about all the things I see and know now." He
could see the magic in the manor and in Sirius and he could feel the Sun
in the sky. There were so many things that he had been blind to before.
"And Wormtail?" Sirius challenged, becoming frustrated with his godson's

recklesness. He'd thought that Harry was a lot like Remus; quiet,
studious, thoughtful and he was, but when it came to magic he was a
hundred times as reckless as all the Marauders put together.
Harry sobered instantly. He'd been trying not to think of that.
"We might still be able to use him to clear your name, we'll just have to
be creative about the cause of his death."
"That's not what I meant, Harry." Sirius said gently.
"I know."
"You don't have to feel guilty. I probably would have killed him myself
if you hadn't done it."
"Sirius, I killed a man because I lost my temper. Don't patronize me."

And he couldn't even feel too sorry about it for any reason but for the
fact that it would make proving Sirius' innocence harder. Yes, he wished
that he hadn't done it, but he was not as broken up about it as he felt
that he should be.
The worst part was that he didn't know if that was yet another side-
effect of his runes or if it was something about him. Were the runes or
his exposure to Light and Dark meddling with his sense of morality, or
was he simply somewhat lacking in that department to begin with? Either
way it was a disturbing thought.
He could feel the potential to cast the Killing Curse within him now. It
was such a terribly simple spell, as simple as Lumos. Nothing but raw
killing intent given power through magic. No shield could block it
because it was so pure in its intent that only something equally pure
could block it. Something like a mother's willing sacrifice for her
child. It wasn't an Unforgivable because the spell was Dark or evil, it
was an Unforgivable because you had to be a killer already to cast it.
XXXXX
That evening found Harry on the highest balcony of the manor, looking to
the west.
He and Sirius hadn't managed to work out a viable solution to his

fugitive status just yet. They had tentative plans, but nothing that they
were in a hurry to implement at this point for fear of it backfiring
spectacularly. Wormtail's death made things complicated. They'd have to
spin it in a way that didn't make it look like murder.
Now Harry was waiting for the sunset, running his hands over his
invisibility cloak and wondering at the piece of Dark he could see and
sense in it now. Such a strange thing that he'd carried it around for
years and never known it.
He'd read that invisibility cloaks tended to degrade into uselessness

after a few years, but this one had by all accounts been around for
decades at the least. Harry knew that this was due to it being infused
with Dark. It had to be one of a kind, as he doubted that the secrets to
this kind of craft had been shared beyond the original maker. Maybe
Sirius would know about any legendary invisibility cloaks or similar
artefacts.
When the Sun began to set, Harry observed it with a rapturous smile. He'd
never paid much attention to sunsets before, but now he found them
impossible to ignore.
How could he, when he could feel the Sun's blinding presence recede to
make way for the Dark and the stars? The Sun was too close and too
powerful. It blotted out so much. Now that it had set, he could see and
feel the distant Light of uncountable billions of stars against the
backdrop of Dark. He'd never thought that something so beautiful could
exist. Even more, it was echoed inside his own soul. The Light inside him
waned with the Sun, making way for Dark, speckled with the Light of the
distant stars.
If given the choice to redo things with the knowledge he now had, he
wouldn't change this. The risk of death and hollowing had been worth it
to be able to see magic as he saw it now. He would have done it in a more
controlled manner, but he would have done it anyway.
"For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes
turned skyward, for there you have been and there you will long to
return." He murmured to himself, recalling the old quote from Da Vinci
that he'd come across years ago. It fit the situation perfectly.
Now that he'd seen past the tiny perspective of wizards, he could never
again confine himself to that world. Wizards who learned spells but did
not know them, who used magic but did not know it, who's best explanation
boiled down to 'it just was'. It would drive him mad as surely as having
to pretend that he was a toddler again.
XXXXX
"Legendary invisibility cloaks?" Sirius said in surprise. "Why would you

want to know about that?"
"There's something special about this one." Harry answered, holding up

his father's cloak but not elaborating further.
"I don't really know the story behind it." Sirius said with a shrug. "I
know that it's a Potter family heirloom, but that's all."
"And that doesn't strike you as strange?" Harry asked pointedly.

"Invisibility cloaks aren't supposed to last that long."
"A lot of old magical artefacts are pretty extraordinary by today's

standards. To quote a muggle, 'they don't make 'em like they used to'."
"I'm surprised that you can actually quote a muggle." Harry snorted.
"I'll have you know that I'm actually very knowledgeable about muggles."
Sirius protested indignantly. "My family hated them, so I made sure to be
as muggle as possible. I even got myself a motorcycle, though I did
enchant it to fly. That's actually where I heard that particular saying."
"Riiiight." Harry drawled laconically, deciding not to ask whether Sirius

had a license. "But back to the point, legendary invisibility cloaks?"
"Nothing really comes to mind." Sirius admitted. "The only thing I can
think off is the tale of the Deathly Hallows, but that's just a
children's story."
"Tell it to me."
"Aren't you a bit old for bedtime stories?" The dog Animagus teased.
Harry just rolled his eyes and waved at him, silently telling him to get
on with it.
"I'll tell it to you if you tell me how your night with those two lovely
ladies of yours went." Sirius bargained. He and James had always swapped
details about these things, but Harry was proving to be a more secretive
fellow. James hadn't become like that until he'd gotten together with
Lily.
Harry rolled his eyes again. "What's there to tell? We met up somewhere
private, we got naked, we had sex, we fell asleep."
"You can't cheapen your first sexual experience like that, especially
since it was a threesome!" Sirius protested.
"I lost my virginity back in July." Harry replied blandly.
"Damn!" Sirius cursed.
"What?"
"That means you were twelve at the time."
"So?"
"That means you ditched your virginity two years sooner than me."
"So?"
"How am I supposed to be a rolemodel if you outperform me in everything?"
"You can stick around and provide a morale boost by showing me how great
I am in comparison."
"That's harsh, Harry."
"So is life, now get to the bedtime story."
Sirius grinned at the banter, fondly remembering similar verbal spars

with James. His best friend might be gone, but something of him had
survived in his son.
"Alright, fine. It goes like this..."
XXXXX
House elves were weird.
That was Harry's conclusion as he watched Teeny use some magic with his
new magesight, as he'd requested. The small house elf's magic looked like
nothing he'd ever seen. He had admittedly not seen much since he'd only
just acquired the ability to see magic, but it just looked...weird,
almost like human magic, but so warped.
He'd tried to enlist her help in figuring out wandless magic soon after
he'd first come to the manor, but that had been a dead end. House elves
had no idea how they used magic, they just did. That had been quite
frustrating to hear at the time. How can you use something if you didn't
know how you used it? His persistent questioning had nearly driven Teeny
to tears when she had been unable to answer him, so he'd let it go.
House elves also couldn't use spells in the same fashion as wizards. In
fact, they couldn't cast spells at all. The closest aproximation they
could make was a blast of force that could pass for a banishing or
bludgening spell. Pretty much everything else they could do revolved
around their duties as servants, which made sense in light of the fact
that house elves would literally die if they weren't bonded to a master
or a powerful magical location for an extended period.
Which of course made not a lick of sense if you took it out of the
Wizarding World sandbox and looked at it from a broader perspective.
There was simply no conceivable situation in which an entire sapient
species would evolve to be slaves to another, no matter how special
witches and wizards thought they were.
Conclusion? House elves weren't natural.
Admittedly it was a conclusion based mostly on conjecture, but it made

more sense to him than the alternative, especially when the feel of their
magic was taken into account.
"Teeny, do house elves eat?" He asked.
"Sir?" She asked, confused.
"Do you need food the way that I do?"
"No sir, house elves only be needing a master's magic." She answered with
a shake of her head, sending her big ears flopping everywhere.
Definitely unnatural. Harry was betting on some kind of sophisticated

homunculi that had over time developed sapience. He certainly wouldn't
put it past some wizard to have gotten the idea to create a servant race
because he couldn't be bothered to fluff his own pillows.
Probably best to keep that bit of conjecture to himself. He couldn't

think of a single positive outcome if he started spread that around. At
least not right now.
XXXXX
"You know that this is illegal, right?" Sirius asked wryly.
"Sirius, you are a fugitive from the law and I am harboring you, not to
mention the mangled carcass we have stashed in a trunk. I hardly think
that the legalities of you teaching me to apparate four years ahead of
schedule are noteworthy."
"Alright, just checking." He'd tried. If Harry didn't want to be a

responsible citizen, then far be it from Sirius to try and make him one.
With a noisy crack, Sirius apparated about three feet to the left.
"Huh, that's interesting." Harry commented.
"What is?" The past few days with his godson had shown Sirius that Harry
sometimes noticed things about magic that most people missed. Lily had
that quality too, though not quite the same. Maybe it was due to them
having a muggle upbringing.
"I wonder how it works?" Harry mused, apparently to himself.
"The way it was explained to me is that you have to keep the three D's in
mind. Destination, Determination and Deliberation. You need to keep the
destination fixed firmly in your mind, you have to be utterly determined
to reach it, and you have to be very deliberate but unhurried about it.
Once you've got all that, you just kind of...will yourself to wherever
you want to go."
"Yes, that's how you do it, but how does it work?"
Sirius blinked. "What?"
Harry sighed. Honestly.
Sirius frowned. Lily had sighed exactly like that whenever someone said
something especially stupid to her. James had gotten sighed at like that
a lot.
"Do it again."
Sirius shrugged to himself and apparated again.
"Again."
Crack.
"Again."
Crack.
"Again."
"Harry, why am I apparating back and forth like this?"
"Because I'm trying to figure out how exactly you're using your magic to
create a pathway through space without killing yourself."
"Such a bloody Ravenclaw." Sirius complained. "Just try it already. I'm

pretty sure that I can fix you if you end up splinching yourself."
"I'd rather not test that belief, now do it again."
"Fine." Crack.
"Again."
Crack.
"Again."
Sigh. Crack.
"What does it feel like to apparate?"
"Kind of like being squeezed through a tube actually. Pretty unpleasant

until you get used to it."
"Hmm, do it again."
An even more dramatic sigh. Crack.
"What's with the crack?"
"No idea, but it happens every time someone apparates?"
"Probably just violently displaced air then, but better safe than sorry.
Do it again."
Sigh with eyeroll. Crack.
"Ah, I see."
"What are you seeing, oh wise one?" Sirius asked dryly.
"You're forming a narrow pathway through space and then forcing yourself
through it. The interesting part is that the 'exit' side of this little
magical wormhole has to be anchored in some way to the planet for it to
be safe. That must be why rushing it leads to splinching, you don't
anchor yourself properly and come out wrong. How you're managing to do it
subconsciously escapes me though, probably lucky chance.
Maybe...hmm...Apparating into the air doesn't work, does it? "
"No. In fact, apparating onto anything at all that isn't solid ground is
a good way to get splinched, sometimes even killed and there's even
stories of people vanishing altogether, never to be seen again." Sirius
said, a bit confused as to how Harry had guessed that. And what the hell
was a wormhole anyway?
"A quirk of thought then. You automatically associate solid ground with
the planet and that's apparently enough to keep you safe. Rather amusing
how close to messy death you are every time you apparate."
"There you go, scaring me with all these theories like a typical
Ravenclaw." Sirius said. "I really need to teach you a few Gryffindor
qualities."
"Blockheaded stupidity isn't a quality, Sirius."

"Your mother said that a lot, but I never gave in to her peer pressure."
"Obviously."
"Well then smarty pants, why don't you show me how it's done?"
Harry honestly thought apparition to be a rather insane mode of travel,

but instantaneus teleportation was entirely too useful a skill to not
learn simply because it was crazy. Occlumency helped him fix the image of
his destination in his mind and then he simply willed himself to pass
through the intervening space in a wormhole made of his own magic, making
sure that the exit was latched on to the planet to prevent any mishaps.
Earth wasn't a stationery object in space after all and he had a feeling
that those people who had disappeared had ended up drifting through
vacuum.
Crack.
Sirius hadn't been kidding, that really was unpleasant.
"Showoff."
Harry smirked at his godfather, openly gloating at one upping him.
"So, is there any other illegal bit of magic that you'd like to learn
today?" Sirius asked sarcastically.
Harry considered it for a moment and then nodded. He could practice

apparating later.
"The Animagus transformation."
Sirius was surprised for a moment and then chuckled gleefully.
"Ah, a new Marauder in the making!"
"Hate to break it to you, Sirius, but I'm not much of a prankster." Harry
pointed out.
"I'm sure we can turn you into one." Sirius said with authority and then
affected a pensive look. "But I think we might want to wait until the
summer to start teaching you that. It's not something that you can do in
a few days."
For one thing, the Animagus transformation could be dangerous and Harry
had demonstrated a disturbingly large amount of recklessness with
dangerous magic. For another, if he tried to finish it on his own and
screwed up, he'd have to go to McGonagall to fix it and that would expose
the secret. Being an Animagus was way more fun if nobody knew it.
XXXXX
In the end, Sirius and Harry decided to deal with the Pettigrew situation
over the summer. Neither one of them had any faith in the fairness of the
government, one from bitter experience and the other from a deliberately
cultivated sense of cynicism, so making hasty decision was a no-no. They
would communicate through letters for the rest of the school year and
hammer out a plan to be executed during the summer. Harry would have the
free time to deal with it then and this was something that his fame would
actually be useful for. Besides getting laid that was.
Harry sighed in his train compartment, alone for now. Hogwarts was
starting to become a nuisance. He still loved to learn about magic, but
other things were starting to pile up and he couldn't keep putting them
off until the summer all the time. Not to mention that he was outpacing
the curriculum and starting to become quite bored in a number of classes.
"Hello again, Harry." A dreamy voice greeted as the door slid open.
Of course, there were upsides to Hogwarts, Harry conceded with a smile.
"Hey Luna."
"How was your Christmas?" She asked as she sat down.
"It was interesting." He replied, barely managing to keep the sarcasm out
of his voice.
"I suppose it must have been." Luna agreed, peering at his eyes.
Harry knew that they were too bright. His green eyes had always been
vibrant, but now they verged on the point of glowing. No doubt a side
effect of the Sol runes constantly keeping a bit of Light in them.
Mercifully, Luna apparently decided not to ask questions. "I had a visit
from Ginny."
"Oh?" Harry questioned, more out of a desire to move past the topic of
his eyes than any real curiousity. Luna's 'go with the flow' attitude was
something that he'd always liked.
"Yes, she wanted to wish me a merry Christmas and speculate about how
many girls you're sleeping with."
"Really?" Ginny had drifted off into acquaintance status this year,
apparently unable to deal with the fact that he was nothing at all like
she'd imagined. She clearly wasn't above gossiping though.
"Ginny thinks there's only Bryanna, but I'm pretty sure that you've also
got one in Slytherin."
Harry was normally very reticent with information of any kind, he hadn't
even told Luna about his invisibility cloak, but right at that moment he
felt like being honest. Maybe keeping quiet about this just didn't seem
important anymore after what had happened recently, or maybe Sirius was a
bad influence on him.
"I actually have three. There's also this muggle girl that I meet up with
during the summer."
Luna clapped her hands excitedly at the news. "Oh, that's wonderful! It
makes my Christmas present even more appropriate!"
"How so?" Harry asked, bemused.
Instead of answering, Luna went for her trunk and dug out a book.
"'The Lovegood Guide on how to Love Very Good'?" Harry read the title,
even more bemused.
"My great-great-grandmother was making a study of sex magic and preparing

to publish that book before the European Ministries unanimously classed
sex magic as a Dark Art in 1870. She wasn't able to publish it after
that, but she still finished it." Luna explained without being prompted.
"How in the world could sex magic be classed as a Dark Art?" Harry
demanded irritably. Of all the stupid things to classify as a Dark Art...
"It was first used by the Succubi and the Ministry deemed that anything
used by them had to be a Dark Art."
"Succubi are real?" Harry asked incredulously.
"Not any more. The last of them was killed in 1637." Luna answered
mournfully.
"Let me guess, they weren't the soul sucking demons of myth but just a
misunderstood race of gorgerous women?" Harry ventured. He wouldn't put
it past wizards, or in this case more likely witches, to wipe out another
species out of some misplaced sense of righteousness.
"Its never been proven that they sucked out souls." Luna chirped, causing
Harry to blink at the implications of the statement. "There's a short
exposition on Succubi at the beginning of the book if you're interested."
Harry was indeed interested and would be reading the book cover to cover
as soon as he got the chance, but first he had his own gift to give.
"I've got something for you as well." He told Luna and went for his own
trunk.
"He's so cute!" Luna squeed, looking at the hamster that Harry had just
handed her.
"He's more than just cute," Harry said sternly, putting herculean effort
into keeping a grin off his face. "this is Boo and he's a miniature giant
space hamster."
"Really?" Luna asked in awe.

"Really." Harry confirmed. "He will smite evil and gouge out its eyeballs
whenever he sees it."
Perhaps playing on Luna's eccentricies was a bit mean, but he hadn't been
able to resist. The mental imagery had simply been too hilarious and the
girl certainly seemed to be happy with her new pet. Hamsters and rangers
everywhere were surely rejoicing.
XXXXX
The return to Hogwarts was a bit distracting to Harry. The thestrals were
touched by Dark. He hadn't expected that, though perhaps he should have.
The realization distracted him thorougly and made him poor company on the
ride back as he considered the implications.
Was that state natural or had some overly curious wizard wanted to see
what would happen if he infused a winged horse with Dark? He was going to
need to investigate that eventually.
So preoccupied was he that he barely noticed the speculative looks

several people gave his eyes, wondering if their memory was playing
tricks on them or if they had always been that bright.
His thoughts were still on the thestrals when he felt yet another
presence of Dark, this time as Dumbledore rose from the staff table to
make a speech.
"I have at long last been able to prevail upon Minister Fudge to recall
the dementors back to Azkaban, as it seems clear that Sirius Black has no
intention of coming to Hogwarts." The old wizard was saying.
Harry registered the words, but only barely. He'd noted the absence of
dementors on their approach to the school, so that answered that little
mystery, but most of his focus was on the wand he could sense in
Dumbledore's sleeve.
It radiated Dark, just like his invisibility cloak. It was the only wand
in the Great Hall that did so. The phoenix feather wands were like a tiny
spark of sunlight to his senses, well suited to explosive bursts of
magic. The unicorn hair wands felt like a gentle stream of moonlight and
were probably better off used for calmer magics. The dragon heartstring
ones strangely did not give off a feeling of fire as he had expected, but
of a more robust and enduring strength.
Dumbledore's wand though...it could only be the Elder Wand. Sirius had
been disparaging of the tale of the brothers Peverell, and Harry had to
agree that them meeting an anthropomorphic manifestation of Death and
getting it to give them super powerful magical doodads for no easily
explicable reason was unlikely, but he had been willing to give the story
the benefit of the doubt in some measure. He may not be prepared to
believe that Death was a person, but he was more than ready to believe
that the three brothers had dabbled with Dark and learned how to use it
to enchant certain items.
Now that he'd lain eyes on the wand, that belief was all but confirmed.
He had to wonder where the Resurrection Stone was.
XXXXX
As soon as he was alone in his room, Harry cracked open the book Luna had
given him and started reading.
Sex magic is something that has long been thought of as the domain of
certain non-human magical beings. Given the recent thrust by the Veela
Covenant to be recognized as equals under wizard law, I decided to
research it myself and publish my findings so that we may better
understand the Veela and their magics.
The decision of the European Ministries of Magic to classify all sex

magic as a Dark Art the previous year and prohibit its use has put an end
to this intention, but I will still finish this book if only for my own
purposes.
The first mention of sex magic dates back to Ancient Sumeria and the
sorceress that would later become most widely known as Lilith, the Queen
of the Succubi.
Little is known of Lilith's origins, but it is known that she was born
human. Her transformation into a Succubus has long been an unanswered
mystery and will likely remain so. The other thing that is known of
Lilith is her mastery of sex magic.
After her transformation, Lilith spent a millenium ensnaring the minds of

wizards and witches alike and consuming their magic to sustain her life
and power. For this reason, she eventually became revered as a fertility
goddess and feared as a voracious demon.
This was a time long before wands and magic schools, meaning that trained
magic users were few and far between and none of them very powerful.
Lilith's Succubus transformation had among other things granted her
immense control over fire and her ability to enthrall the minds of near
any magical being made her unassailable by magical means. She was
eventually slain by the hand of the muggle Hero-King Gilgamesh, who was
immune to Lilith's enthrallment ability due to his lack of magic.
But Lilith had spawned a legion of Succubi daughters during her long life
and they continued to prey on wizardkind, learning from the death of
their mother and adopting a more subtle approach by targeting mostly
those who were young, untrained, easily seduced or otherwise vulnerable.
Though popular muggle folklore portrays the Succubi as horned and bat
winged demons, they were in fact indistinguishable from human women, save
for their beauty, allure, intrinsic control of fire and the ability to
partially transform into a hybrid bird creature at need. This made it
easy for them to hide amongst human populations if they were careful and
fed on the unwary or ignorant.
Their fortunes turned with the establishment of Hogwarts and similar
magic schools later on. With fewer and fewer victims going untrained and
unguarded, they were forced to go after more risky prey. The increased
danger and lack of sustenance took a great toll on their numbers.
Unlike their mother, Lilith's daughters were unable to breed more Succubi
and the last was eventually killed in 1637.
One among their number, the Succubus Velana, did however learn to spawn
more children that were not Succubi. These came to be called Veela. They
are possessed of similar powers as the Succubi, but much weaker. However,
Veela also do not need to prey on magicals for survival and have been
able able to endure despite the stigma of their origins.
After centuries of being hunted, Veela have now successfully won their
acceptance in the majority of Europe, though their innate ability to use
sex magic has been classified as a Dark Art in a rather transparent
attempt to limit their influence.
Harry kept on reading long after he would have usually gone to bed,
completely absorbed in the book. Much of the writing done by Luna's
ancestor was theory and speculation, in no small part due to the fact
that sex magic could not be done with a wand.
Which was exactly why Harry found it so fascinating in the first place,
even beyond the subject matter.
It was well into the wee hours of the morning when something occured to
him.
"How the hells did Luna know that I wouldn't give a shit about the
Ministry prohibition, or that I would like the wandless aspect?" He
wondered, baffled. "Did she know, or was it just a coincidence?"
He pondered the vagaries of his friend for another half hour before
metaphorically tossing his hands into the air in frustration and going to
bed.
XXXXX
Harry sighed in his Charms class.
They were currently going over the Freezing spell, which Harry had known
for some time. Even if he hadn't known it, he could have gotten the hang
of it within minutes. Even watching the energy flow with his newly
acquired magesight had gotten old already.
Flitwick was a good teacher, but Harry was bored out of his skull in his
classes these days. Now that he could see magic as well as feel it, it
seemed like he had an easier time mastering wandlessly what his
classmates struggled to master with a wand.
XXXXX
Transfiguration was an interesting subject that was quickly becoming as
dull as Charms.
While doing it wandlessly had always been a problem, doing it with a wand
was simple enough, even if a dragon heartstring wand would have been
better suited for the task.
Now that he could observe the process happenning, he was starting to

figure out the nuances that would let him do it without a wand.
This had the unfortunate side-effect of making the class itself mostly
superfluous. He spent almost the entire time ignoring McGonagall and
doing his own thing.
XXXXX
"Potter, stop staring at your cauldron and start brewing!" Snape shouted.
Harry jerked in surprise, having gotten caught up in watching the magic

of the ingredients interacting in his cauldron.
"Sorry, sir." He apologized and went to complete the potion.
Half an hour later, he was once again staring at his unfinished potion in
fascination, wondering at the strange swirls and eddies that his stirring
was making in it. He had no idea what any of it meant, but it was
mesmerizing. All that 'stir clockwise six times and counter clockwise
four times' crap was finally making some sense.
"POTTER!"
XXXXX
"Harry, please stay after class."
Harry raised an eyebrow. Looks like Lupin was finally done waffling. His
indecisive shuffling had been getting beyond obvious in the lead up to
the Christmas holidays.
When they were alone, Harry decided to ask the obvious question.
"Was there something you wanted, Professor?"
"Harry, the Headmaster tells me that you are aware of my relationship

with your parents." Lupin stated after taking a bracingly deep breath.
"Yes."
Cue uncomfortable silence.
"I'm going to be late for Herbology." Not that he cared too much about
that particular class, but standing here and waiting for the werewolf to
get to the point was pretty tedious.
"I was wondering if you'd like to hear a few stories about them
sometime." Lupin offered hopefully.
"Not really, I think I've got a general idea of the kind of people they
were." It wasn't likely that he had anything new to add to what he'd
already learned from Sirius, Charlus and Dorea.
"Harry, I'm sorry." Lupin suddenly said.
"What for?" Harry asked, puzzled.
"For never checking up on you, for not getting in touch when you started
Hogwarts."
"Whatever your relationship with my parents, you don't and didn't owe me
anything." Harry pointed out.
Remus winced at the even response. Perhaps he hadn't owed James, Lily or
Harry anything, but it was a poor friend that didn't check up on the
orphaned son of his friends.
"I still should have checked up on you. I couldn't take you in because of
a medical condition I have, but I should have checked up on you."
"I did well enough without you." Harry replied, not deigning to inquire
about the oblique reference to lycanthropy.
Remus winced again. That was another way of saying that he'd do well
enough without him from here on out as well. Harry was being decidedly
lukewarm about getting to know him, and Remus couldn't blame him. He
wasn't upset about the absence, but he wasn't eager to get to know him
either. It would've been easier if Harry was angry at him. That at least
would have been clear.
"I'm going to need a note for Professor Sprout." Harry prompted.
Remus wrote him a note and spent the next twenty minutes brooding over
past regrets. He'd really dropped the quaffle with Harry and there wasn't
much he could do about it now.
XXXXX
Aside from Potions, the only class that had actually become more
interesting since his little Christmas adventure was Astronomy.
He still thought that the telescopes could do with replacing. The

enchantments on them made them substantially more powerful than they
should be, but that just meant that the newer models would be even
better.
That being said, it was hard not to develop an appreciation for the night
sky when he could practically feel the stars singing in his magic.
"Have you got it, Harry?" Professor Sinistra asked, nudging him over so
that she could take a look herself.
"Almost." He replied and let her do it, taking a private enjoyment at the
feel of her breasts brushing against his back when she leaned over him.
And that was the other reason why he liked Astronomy. He was terribly
tempted to flirt with the beautiful dark skinned Professor sometimes. He
didn't, because that could turn out very problematic, but he was
seriously tempted.
How ironic. Ginny had asked him earlier in the year whether he liked
older women and he'd said yes mostly to get her off his back, but now it
was turning out to be true. Women thirty-plus years in age did more for
him than girls in their teens.
Sinistra was thirty-three. Vector was forty. Both of them were hot. He
couldn't show even a hint of his attraction without making things very,
very awkward. He didn't even know if they were in a relationship.
Sometimes, life was just plain unfair.
Harry vowed to himself that he would try to sleep with at least one of
them before he left Hogwarts.
XXXXX
Back at Potter Manor.
Sirius put down the glass of firewhiskey that he'd been about to drink
and put a hand to his chest, wondering about the fierce burst of pride
he'd just felt for his godson.
XXXXX
Harry returned to his room in a state of mild sexual frustration, which

was pretty much normal for these late night Astronomy classes.
To the sight of Bryanna lounging on his bed, wearing what appeared to be

a set of chocolate underwear, obviously enchanted to behave as it if were
fabric.
"Hey lover."
Life might be unfair sometimes, but it could also be very good at other
times. He'd been wanting to give some of the stuff he'd read in Luna's
book a try for a while now, but he had needed a partner to do so. Luna's
great-great grandmother had postulated a lot of theories, but only
practice would determine whether they held any weight.
"I thought you could use a snack before bed."
Lots and lots of practice.

"I am feeling rather peckish." Harry admitted, quickly divesting himself
of his clothes and firing a contraceptive charm at his midnight visitor.
Bryanna rolled her eyes t his paranoia. He still didn't trust the potion
to do the job.
Harry paid her exasperation no mind as he climbed on the bed, zeroing in

on her chocolate covered nipples.
Harry had no real idea how to implement the techniques described in the
book, but he figured that he couldn't go far wrong if he started out by
licking the chocolate off her breasts. He had magesight now, so enough
experimentation was sure to yield results.
XXXXX
Bryanna let out a shuddering gasp as she rode Harry to her third orgasm,
coincidentally triggering his fourth. She had no idea what he was doing,
but his member felt even better in her than that vibration spell that
Tiana had taught her at the end of last year.
Harry smirked to himself as Bryanna collapsed on top of him and nuzzled

his neck, taking deep breaths all the while. Being able to see her magic
reacting to his efforts was proving inordinately useful in figuring out
how to please her. The book was written from the perspective of a woman,
but it hadn't been too hard to adapt the knowledge.
"Mmm, what have you been doing over the holidays?" Bryanna nearly purred
out, feeling deliciously satisfied. Harry had definitely been improving.
"Oh, this and that." He replied mysteriously, rubbing circles on her

lower back and seeing if he could magically stimulate the nerves that
were supposed to be there.
"Well keep at it." She instructed, mashing her chest into his and already
feeling a slow heat returning to her groin despite her recent orgasm. The
fact that she still had him sheathed inside her and was leaking a slow
trickle of sperm from her opening was only making it better.
"Yes ma'am." Harry chuckled, slowly refining his technique based on the
feedback feel he was getting from her own magic.
They stayed that way for a while, content to take a short break and let
the desire build before they jumped back into the sex.
"What do you think about having a meeting with all four of us girls
soon?" Bryanna asked out of the blue, raising her head to look him in the
eye.
Harry raised an eyebrow in surprise. "You mean..." He finished by

pressing her down more firmly on his once again erect member.
Bryanna laughed lightly, realizing what she'd just implied. "You wish,
Potter. No, that's not what I meant."
"Pity." He grinned. He could already imagine how jealous Sirius would be.
"Isabel drafted up a contract and we'd like you to take a look at it."
She elaborated
"Sure." He agreed, starting to press kisses to her neck. "But I'm not
interested in contracts right now."
"What are you interested then?" She asked huskily.
His hands went to cup her rear end and then he quickly spun them around
so that he was the one on top.
"Oh, I could think of a thing or two." He said and kissed her, thrusting
his hips forward in the same movement and delighting in her grunt of
pleasure.
XXXXX
Harry wasn't sure if he liked Isabel and Jade.
They weren't rude or anything of the sort, but he was getting the
distinct impression that they held a mild resentment for him because he
was sleeping with their friends.
Harry could appreciate what the situation looked like from an outside
perspective, but he was also quite sure that Bryanna and Tiana didn't
find keeping him company at night to be distasteful. Tiana's unsubtle
complaint earlier that he was neglecting her was a good indicator of
that, as was Bryanna's shameless abuse of their shared House status to
get more solo nights with him.
Either they were enjoying the situation as much as him or else they
should abandon the clothes store idea and go to Hollywood.
Isabel came off as being rather starchy in addition to the slight social
awkwardness that seemed normal for Ravenclaws. She'd presented him with
the contract with the kind of stiff backed poise he'd expect from
McGonagall. She obviously wanted to get this over with as soon as
possible.
The Gryffindor of the group was a somewhat different matter. She looked
like she was just waiting for an excuse to get mad at him.
Harry couldn't be 100% sure, but he thought that they were both magically
weaker than Bryanna and Tiana. He had no hard evidence to support this as
his magesight and magic sensing only told him whether something was
magical or not and didn't quantify it, but a gut feeling told him that
Isabel and Jade were simply weaker people.
This same gut feeling had been giving him impressions of the people
around him ever since his return to Hogwarts.
It told him that Luna was a generally flighty person who drifted through
life without much concern, but there was something broken in her that
paradoxically made her stronger than she seemed.
Ginny; an insecure little girl wrapped up in a mixture of sulky

resentment and longing. That's what she felt like around him at any rate.
He didn't know if there was more to her or not.
Malfoy; a front of arrogance shoring up a brittle core, not nearly as

strong as he liked to portray himself as. He felt as if he would shatter
if the illusion of superiority was taken from him.
Lupin; the inner wildness of his wolf wrapped in walls of fear and self-
loathing. There was steel in him, but it seemed to be turned inward, as
if he was most afraid of himself.
Snape; bitter and hateful with a core of guilt and self-loathing even
stronger than Lupin. There was a fatalistic sense of determination too,
as if he was dead set on finishing something and cared little for the
aftermath.
These were all just vague impressions that only got marginally clearer
the more time he spent around the people in question. It was also clearer
with some people than others. Harry suspected that it was clearer with
the more powerful wizards and witches.
Dumbledore was for example a pillar of calm over a deep well of grief and
regret. There was an unshakable determination in him to accomplish
something, at any cost. It made feel very dangerous.
By contrast, people like Isabel Morris and Jade Dawson were much less
noticeable. Their souls did not shine as bright and would have faded into
the background if there were more people present. As it was, Bryanna and
Tiana nearly eclipsed them. His pretty bedwarmers were far more self-
assured than their friends, more driven and just...more.
Harry couldn't quite help himself from labeling people like them as NPCs.
But he wasn't here to woolgather, he was here to inspect the contract.
"I'm sorry, but I can't sign this." He finally said, not needing to watch
to know that all four girls had tensed.
"You said you would!" Jade snapped peevishly.
Tiana kicked her in the shin, muttering something about Gryffindors all
the while.
"Is there something wrong with it?" She asked lightly.
"Yes." He responded bluntly. "Its way too simplistic."
"It covers the terms that we agreed on." Bryanna pointed out.
And hadn't that been a bitch to explain to Isabel and Jade. They hadn't
been too pleased at the fact that they would be minority owners in the
future no matter what, as the original plan had been for equal shares.
They were especially displeased that Harry had decided this based on the
fact that they hadn't participated in the seduction plan.
Bryanna and Tiana were secretly pleased about reaping greater rewards for
the gamble they took, not to mention that Harry had become very enjoyable
night time company lately.
"Which was talked over a period of about five to ten minutes." Harry
pointed out. "This contract works well enough if you aren't planning to
turn a profit. The use of the Potter family name will protect your
business from being shut down by a made up reason by some uppity
pureblood, but it does nothing to protect you from anyone that might want
to muscle in on it for themselves later on. At the very least I want a
clause included that forbids any of you from selling your share to anyone
except me."
"What business is it of yours who we would sell it to?" Jade demanded,

earning herself another kick from Tiana.
"I suspect that the Potter family lost its vineyards and pottery business
to the Parkinsons exactly because of something like this." Harry
retorted. "Trusted managers given emergency authorization because the
owner was unreachable or dead, then in comes Lord Parkinson making veiled
threats of what might happen to those same managers and their families if
they don't sell. I still need to investigate if that's what really
happened, but after what I've learned from Bryanna and Tiana and my own
research it seems like a likely scenario. The point being that if you
can't sell to anyone except me, then that means that you can't be
threatened, bribed or blackmailed into it either."
Jade and Isabel paled at that, obviously having never considered it. Even
Bryanna and Tiana were a bit perturbed.
"Wouldn't that make you a target then?" Isabel ventured.
"I'd be Lord Potter by then." Harry replied with a self-deprecating grin.

"I checked the laws. I can legally kill people for stuff like that, among
other things."
"And we can't." Tiana stated with a small sneer, getting another clue as
to how exactly it was possible for the purebloods to keep a deathgrip on
the economy. She'd missed that nugget of information in her earlier
research.
"Nope, only Lords can issue honor duels." Harry confirmed wryly. Not that
it was done much anymore as that was a rather extreme course of action,
but there were non-violent alternatives. That was no doubt the main
reason that the Noble Houses generally stayed out of each other's
business.
"Alright, we definitely need to add that." Bryanna stated firmly.

"We probably need to add a lot of other things." He said. "I'm not a
lawyer and there's probably a thousand other loopholes that I'm not
seeing. I'd suggest that we meet over the summer and get a professional
opinion on this, both muggle and magical."
"Why muggle?" Tiana asked curiously. "We're not really planning to have
too much contact with the Muggle World. As soon as we get good enough at
making our own clothes, we might cut contact with them entirely aside
from buying some materials."
"Because my dear, while the muggle side of business might not have any of
this Noble garbage involved or perhaps because of it , it is ten times
as cutthroat. "
XXXXX
Harry grinned as he tossed a compact fireball at the target that the Room
of Requirement provided for him.
Moving on to the next thing, he carefully began crafting a blasting curse

between his hands, infusing the raw magical energy with his intent, all
the while keeping it controlled. With a flick of his wrist, he hurled it
at another target, demolishing that one as well.
He moved on to other spells after that. Stunners, disarming hexes,

various transfigurations and more.
Now that he could clearly see and sense what was going on, wandless magic
was no longer such an impenetrable mystery. It was slow, far too slow for
combat purposes at this point, but also far more controlled than anything
he could do with a wand and no less powerful.
Wands allowed a wizard to skip the difficult process of learning to

manipulate magic with their minds alone. Some wands were better suited to
certain things than others, but they could all be used for more or less
everything. The interaction between core, wood and whatever else a
wandcrafter did made sure of this.
Truly, whoever had figured out modern wands had been a genius with few
equals, but in allowing magic users to skip the journey, so much had been
lost.
For example, Modern wizards and witches used the Tempus charm to find out
what time it was, but they never once considered what was involved with
such a spell.
If Harry wanted to cast that particular spell wandlessly, he had to take

into account the position of the Sun in the sky, the Earth's axial tilt,
the form that he wanted the information to take and several other things.
It took him half an hour to craft the spell and his results were very far
from accurate.
With a wand, you just had to give it a little wave and something in the
stick and the movements allowed you to bypass all the nuances and skip
right ahead to the results. It was rather disturbing how sophisticated
wands actually were, but he supposed that they would be after two
thousand years of refinement.
The problem was that they had made wizardkind lazy. Obscenely so. Wands
had sucked all the wonder and mystery out of magic by reducing it to a
bunch of swishing and flicking. It was no wonder that modern day wizards
were so unimpressive when they didn't really have to exert any kind of
real thought to cast spells. Oh sure, you needed a certain level of focus
to use magic with a wand(though even that was drastically reduced through
the use of wand motions), but it was not even close to the mental
dexterity required to weave a spell with only one's mind and will.
Harry moved on to the Patronus. It took him fifteen minutes to shape the
spell and work his desire to protect into it, but he could change the
size of his raven at will, increase its power to blinding luminance or
reduce it to formless mist.
So what if it took an age to cast right now? With enough practice, the
mental process would eventually become so familiar that he would be able
to do it in an instant.
A quick check of the time told him that he was going to be late for his
Charms class. Again.
With an aggravated sigh, Harry restarted the process of forming his

Patronus. Charms class was a waste of time anyway.
XXXXX
"Has anyone noticed anything...strange about Mr. Potter's behavior

lately?" Minerva asked.
"He's sometimes taken to staring at his cauldron like a confounded troll

ever since Christmas." Snape replied with dry derision.
"Severus!" She said sharply, but the Potions Master was undaunted by her
warning.
"While I wouldn't phrase it in the way that Severus did, he has been
acting a bit erratic." Flitwick added. "His practical work is as good as
ever, but his written work of late has been subpar to say the least. His
homework has the feel of being rushed to completion without care for the
quality."
"It is the same with me." The Transfiguration teacher said with her brow
furrowed in thought.
"Me too." Remus added quietly.

"He actually turns in passable essays to me." Snape admitted grudgingly.
The quality of Potter's potions had also been steadily increasing, but he
wasn't going to admit that unless he absolutely had to.
"He is diligent enough with me as well, though obviously not interested."

Sprout chimed in.
"Still, this is a worrying trend." Minerva continued. "And the sudden

drop in his work quality isn't even the worst of it, he actually skipped
one of my classes the other day and then refused to come to the detention
I assigned him!"
"Err, Minerva." Flitwick said with an embarrassed cough. "He's skipped

three of mine already."
"And you just let him do it?" She asked, mildly scandalized. No wonder
he'd refused to come to detention if his Head of House was letting him
get away with it.
"I talked to him about it and he admitted to being bored stiff in my

classroom." The half-goblin Professor admitted. "He was easily able to
demonstrate mastery of what we covered in those classes, to a degree that
made it obvious that he'd known the spells for some time already. The
curriculum is simply moving too slowly for him. I suspect that might also
be the reason for his poorly done homework, he probably doesn't want to
waste time on things that he already knows."
That had the deputy Headmistress looking thoughtful. She still didn't
appreciate the boy outright ignoring the punishment she'd set for him,
but this shed some light on his behavior.
"Surely you cannot be thinking of allowing the brat to skip a year or,
Merlin forbid, allowing him free reign to decide which classes to
attend?" Snape questioned, his opinion on the matter clear.
"Well there is hardly any point in forcing him to attend lessons that he
has no use for." She retorted huffily.
"What do you think, Albus? You've been awfully quiet." Flitwick asked.
Dumbledore had indeed been quiet, listening to the conversation and

turning things over in his mind.
"Professors Vector and Babbling tell me that they believe that Harry may
be able to take his OWLs for Arithmancy and Ancient Runes over the summer
if he continues to progress at the current pace." He said.
"That's quite impressive, I had no idea he was so far along." Flitwick

said, ignoring the soft snort from Snape.
"Indeed, Septima and Bathsheda have nothing but praise for the boy."
Dumbledore chuckled. "I think that they enjoy having a student take such
interest in their subjects, which are often considered to be quite
onerous."
"So what is to be done about Potter?" Minerva pressed.
"I will talk to him first and then determine what to do." Dumbledore
decided.
XXXXX
Ever since his last ritual, Harry found that he could no longer sleep
through sunrise or sunset. The change in his magic as the sun rose and
set would always wake him.
Because of this, he often made his way to the top of the Astronomy Tower
to watch as it happened. At the very least on the days when it wasn't
cloudy.
These trips had also been an opportunity to spend some time just
thinking, mostly about the fact that he had killed someone. He'd turned
the event over in his mind countless times, but he simply could not bring
himself to feel particularly bad about the killing itself. Wormtail had
been a loathsome human being, a coward, traitor, murderer and who knows
what else. His death would go unmourned by those who knew the truth and
only the fact that it made things more difficult for Sirius made it
regrettable.
Eventually he'd simply gotten fed up of attempting to dredge up some kind

guilt or horror at the act. He just didn't feel it and apparently
wouldn't no matter that society didn't approve of killers.
Remarkably, the cracks in his soul seemed to heal a bit once he stopped
wrestling with himself over it.
"Back again, Harry?" Dumbledore asked as he walked up to stand beside the

tall but young teenager.
He hadn't been able to divine the reason for Harry's quick growth, but he
was by now certain that it wasn't natural. It didn't seem to be affecting
him aside from that though, so he let it go despite his curiousity. The
answer may yet come to him later.
"It's a nice morning." Harry replied noncommittally, having sensed the

old wizard's approach. "It'll be a beautiful sunrise."
"You have been coming up here frequently of late." Dumbledore commented.

"May I ask what prompted this sudden fascination with the Sun?"
Harry's lips twitched into a small smile. Anyone would be fascinated by

the Sun if they knew what he knew and owed their continued existence to
the ball of fiery gas.
"There is something special about seeing the world bathed in Light." He

said instead, leaving out the fact that if forced to choose, he would
have to say that he preferred the Dark and the stars.
"There is indeed," Dumbledore agreed. "but I had not thought that a boy
your age would be able to appreciate it."
"You might be surprised by the things I can appreciate." Harry retorted,

mildly irritated by the mention of his age. He'd once felt thirteen
despite the size of his body, but he didn't anymore. Too much had
happened for him to stay a child.
"Such as the lovely female company you keep?" Dumbledore chuckled.
"Hm, I guess it was too much to hope for that the rumor mill wouldn't
catch wind of that." Harry grumbled.
"Alas, the Hogwarts rumor mill rarely fails to spread about uncomfortable
secrets."
They lapsed into silence as dawn approached, an unspoken agreement

passing between them to watch the sunrise in silence.
They had a surprise late arrival in the form of the Headmaster's phoenix,
who arrived on Dumbledore's shoulder in a burst of flame just a minute
before the event.
"Have you come to watch the sunrise as well, Fawkes?" Dumbledore asked
with a smile, reaching up to ruffle the firebird's chest feathers.
Fawkes trilled in agreement, shooting a look towards Harry that he would

swear was distrustful.
Harry felt a shiver of discomfort go through him, but ignored it. The
phoenix was a creature of Light, so it was only natural for its song to
be mildly unpleasant to him now that he was full of Dark.
The small discomfort passed as the Sun rose over the eastern mountains
and pushed back the Dark. Harry was always slightly sad to see it happen.
The Sun's overpowering presence was simply not as beautiful as the
multitude of distant stars.
Fawkes trilled curiously, hopping from Dumbledore's shoulder over to

Harry's and poking his beak in the younger wizard's temple. Right into
the hidden Sol rune in fact.
"Oi, cut that out." Harry protested, gently pushing the firebird's head
away.
"He seems to like you." Dumbledore chuckled. "Or perhaps is confused by

you."
Harry figured that the phoenix must have sensed it as the magic present
in his soul shifted from Dark to Light. Being strongly aligned with
Light, the phoenix was probably naturally sensitive to things like that
in ways that wizards generally weren't.
Fawkes continued to make a pest of himself for the next few minutes, much
to Dumbledore's amusement. He'd never seen his phoenix act like this
around anyone before, but he took heart in it. Phoenixes were generally
attracted to good people when they deigned to interact with them at all,
so this boded well for the future.
"What do you want?" Harry finally asked in exasperation.
Fawkes trilled a beautiful song that resonated in his magic wonderfully,

but was ultimately unhelpful in figuring out what the ostentatious
feather duster wanted.
"What, do you want to praise the Sun in jolly cooperation?" Harry asked
sarcastically, starting to get annoyed by Dumbledore's chortling.
Fawkes trilled happily.
"Was that a yes?" Harry asked with some incredulity.
Fawkes repeated the same trill.
"O...kay." Harry said dubiously, feeling entirely ridiculous but willing

to try it if it would get the feathered menace to stop poking its beak
into his head.
I can't believe that I'm doing this. He thought to himself. And with an
audience no less.
Staunchly ignoring the embarrassed blush creeping up his face at what he

was doing, Harry put his feet together, extended his arms as far as they
would go and raised them into the air, as if to embrace the sunlight.
This robbed Fawkes of his shoulder perch of course, but the phoenix
solved that problem by jumping on his head and raising his wings in a
mimicry of Harry's arms, releasing a song full of nostalgic joy as he did
so.
"Happy now?" Harry asked, unable to quite muster any irritation because
of the sheer feeling that the phoenix had packed into the song.
Fawkes trilled in the manner that Harry was starting to associate with
agreement and flamed away.
"What was that?" Dumbledore asked, intensely curious. "I have never seen
Fawkes act so strangely before."
"I think...I think that he might have missed the days when the Sun was
worshipped as a deity." Harry said slowly, mostly guessing but it felt
right. Obviously, the rituals from those days weren't likely to bear much
resemblance to something that he'd taken out of a video game, but the
core purpose was the same and that was all that Fawkes seemed to have
cared about.
"I suppose that is possible." Dumbledore mused. "The phoenix was revered
as a representative of the Sun in many ancient cultures."
"Anyway, did you have some reason for coming up here this early in the
morning on a weekend, sir?" Harry asked, wanting to move past this little
situation before the old wizard stopped asking 'what?' and started on
'why?'.
"Ah yes, I had nearly forgotten in all the excitement. I was supposed to
discuss your education."
"What about my education?" Harry asked warily.
"It has come to our, that being the Professors, attention that you are
not feeling sufficiently challenged in some of your classes."
"I was always good at Charms and Transfiguration." Harry said with a
nonchalant shrug.
"And the others?" Dumbledore prompted.
"We're mostly doing creatures in defense, so I do still learn new things

there, but I would probably be quite far ahead if we were doing spells.
I'm not really interested in Herbology, so I'm just slogging through
that."
Dumbledore blinked in slight surprise. "How refreshingly honest of you to

say so, Harry."
"I've recently discovered a newfound interest in Potions, but I'm no

further ahead than anyone else." Nor was it likely to happen any time
soon. The kind of experimenting he wanted to try with potions wasn't
really something that he could do right now, as it would be very time
consuming.
"It's much the same with Astronomy and you already know that I'm taking
private lessons in Arithmancy and Ancient Runes."
"Yes, I have heard from Professors Vector and Babbling that you are doing
quite well in your electives. So well in fact that they feel you would be
able to take your OWLs in those subjects during the summer if you
continue to apply yourself as you have."
"Couldn't I take Charms, Transfiguration and maybe Defense too while I'm
at it?" Harry asked. He'd already spoken to Vector and Babbling about the
possibility.
"I am afraid that the Ministry does not offer early OWLs for core
classes." Dumbledore answered.
"Why not?"
"As you may know, getting an OWL in one's core classes represents the
minimum required education as decreed by the Ministry of Magic. They
ceased offering early OWLs for those classes after an incident some three
hundred years ago when a magical prodigy managed to get all of the
required OWLs in the summer after her second year and decided to leave
Hogwarts to advance her studies further on her own."
"Why was that a problem?"
"Normally it wouldn't be, but you must recall that this was a thirteen-
year old girl. She was not the most cautious of people and caused a
severe breach in the Statute of Secrecy after an altercation with a
belligerent muggle teenager. Incidentally, that was also how the
Reasonable Restriction on Underage Sorcery came about."
"Lovely." Harry said dryly. "Was that all?"
"Ah, no. Forgive an old man's digressing, but I actually came to talk to
you in order to assess if it would prudent to offer you the opportunity
to audit higher year Charms and Transfiguration classes at your own
discretion."
Dumbledore would have once hesitated to offer the boy such a thing, but
it was obvious by now that Harry was not going to be making friends in
his own year. He was cordial with most of them, but not in any way close.
Better to use the opportunity to build goodwill with the boy than to hold
him back in the vain hope that he would somehow befriend people that he
had not for the past two and a half years.
"I'm assuming that this is being offered since you mentioned it?"
"Indeed. If you choose to accept, then Professors Flitwick and McGonagall

will periodically test you to make sure that you are keeping up with your
studies, but you will otherwise be left alone to study the material on
your own."
"I'd like that." Harry said.
"Very well then, I wish you the best of luck." Dumbledore nodded. "But
one final bit of advice if I may. Do not get so consumed in your studies
that you forget to have fun."
"Oh, I don't think you need to worry about that." Harry replied with a
small smirk.
"I am glad to hear it." Dumbledore said with an amused smile of his own
and left the Astronomy Tower.
Harry stared after the old wizard, wondering what exactly he was playing
at. Either there was no actual plot or it was a seriously subtle one.
XXXXX
Harry winked at Bryanna and Tiana, taking vast amounts of amusement at

their wide-eyed stares.
"Mr. Potter, I know that the Headmaster has given you leave to audit any
Transfiguration class you wish, but do you not think that a seventh year
class is a bit too advanced for you?" McGonagall asked disapprovingly. In
truth, she was thinking that he had picked this particular class for the
sole purpose of dropping in on his...girlfriends, or whatever they were.
"I'm just trying to get a feel for where exactly I am in terms of

ability, Professor." Harry answered calmly.
"Very well." McGonagall conceded grudgingly. "But I do not want you

attempting to cast the spells you will see here. Human transfiguration
can be dangerous if done improperly and is not something that should be
attempted lightly."
"Wouldn't dream of it, Professor." Harry semi-lied. He certainly wouldn't

attempt it lightly, but he would eventually attempt it if he felt that he
could do it.
McGonagall was somewhat reassured about his seriousness when he did not
attempt to communicate with Ms. Torres or Ms. Day in any fashion, but
instead kept his eyes fixed firmly on her and listened attentively. His
focus was almost unnerving in its intensity in fact, but better that than
to have him treating one of the most difficult branches of
Transfiguration carelessly.
Harry spent the entire lesson studying how the energy flowed as the other
students transfigured each other into various things. He could see why it
was considered difficult, as the caster also had to take the magic of his
target into account in addition to their own.
This would probably be useful when he and Sirius got started on the
Animagus transformation.
XXXXX
The rest of the school year proceeded without any overt excitement from
then on. Harry kept up a sporadic attendance of Charms and
Transfiguration classes, in an order that nobody could really make sense
of, but Flitwick and McGonagall couldn't deny that he was well ahead of
where he should be so they couldn't protest much.
Lupin kept up a strange balance between wanting to approach him again and
staying away, drowning in self-pity all the while. Harry was honestly not
seeing much of the clever werewolf that Sirius sometimes talked about in
his letters. Professor Lupin had more in common with an old man waiting
to die. It might have helped him to know that Sirius was not a traitor,
but blurting out that kind of dangerous secret to make someone feel
better was just stupid.
Snape continued to be as unpleasant as possible because of what he saw as

the Potter spawn getting special treatment, but his odium had become
something of an unremarkable backdrop to Potions by now and failed to
really get much of a reaction out of Harry. He took points constantly, he
made rants occasionally and he glared ceaselessly, but Harry simply
didn't care enough about Snape's personal opinion of him to take it to
heart. He had what he wanted and the Potion Master's hissy fits meant
exactly bugger-all.
Unbeknownst to Harry, this passive disregard and failure to rise up to

the provocation was wearing Snape out. He couldn't really escalate any
further in a school setting and there was only so long that you could
rail at someone who didn't care before you ran out of steam.
On the more friendly teacher front, Vector and Babbling had decided to
double the number of lessons per week they had with him, apparently
determined to have him pass the Arithmancy and Ancient Runes OWLs over
the summer with a solid O.
Harry could only be thankful that Bryanna and Tiana seemed more than
happy to help him out with the tension that the increased amount of time
spent with the beautiful Arithmancy teacher was causing him, even if it
did nothing for the numerous detention fantasies he was accumulating.
XXXXX
Last weekend before the end of the school year.
"You know, I think I'm actually going to miss these little get-togethers
of ours." Tiana said musingly, stretching out in the decadently luxurious
bathtub that the Room of Requirement had provided.
"Not as much as me." Harry said mournfully from beside her. "Who's going
to keep me company at night when you two graduate?"
"I'm sure you'll find some other girl to seduce." Bryanna snorted from
his other side. "Maybe you can even invite Rosmerta or Professor Vector
into your bed."
"I should never have told you that I have a thing for older women." Harry
sighed with a smile.
"I'm still offended by that by the way." Tiana chimed in teasingly. "You
have two sexy teens in bed with you and you fantasize about old women."
"They're not old, just older." Harry protested. "And do you want me to
kiss it and make it better again?"
"Merlin's balls, no." She groaned. "I think my clitoris might revolt if
you went anywhere near it again."
Harry said nothing in response, merely smirked with supreme smugness.

Nothing like bringing a girl to several screaming orgasms with magically
enhanced cunnilingus to boost one's ego. That book of Luna's might be
just about the most awesome gift he'd ever received.
"Would you look at that smug look on his face?" Bryanna commented. "He
learns how to properly lick pussy and suddenly he thinks he's the king of
the world."
Harry reached over and gave her nipple a pinch, enjoying her squeak.
"So, when are we going to meet up during the summer?" Tiana asked a few
minutes later.
"I'll contact you when I know." Harry replied. "I'm going to have a lot
to do during the summer and setting up meetings with a couple of lawyers
is the least of it."
"What else will you be doing?" Bryanna asked curiously.
"I've got to take my Arithmancy and Ancient Runes OWLs at the Ministry,
track down the old managers of my family's business and talk to them
about why exactly that business now belongs to the Parkinsons and a few
other things."
Things like getting Sirius to teach him how to become an Animagus and
getting him acquitted.
"What about yout muggle girlfriend?" Bryanna teased. He'd told them about
Zoe one day when they asked who'd popped his cherry, because it obviously
hadn't been them.
"She's not my girlfriend, she's a friend with benefits." Harry said with
dignity. "A lot like you two actually."
"You really should get a muggle girlfriend." Tiana suggested with a

smirk. "I can already see the outraged headlines in the Prophet, 'Boy-
Who-Lived dates a muggle! How far has our saviour fallen?'."
"Amusing as that would be, I'm not going to get a muggle girlfriend just
to spite Wizarding Britain's elite." Harry snorted. "Besides, I doubt
they'd be that obvious about their prejudice. The headline would probably
be something like 'Boy-Who-Lived dates a muggle! Are Britain's witches
not good enough for him?'."
"They just need to set you up with a nice middle aged witch and that'll
be that." Bryanna teased.
Harry groaned. He really shouldn't have told them about that.
"How about Molly Weasley?" The Ravenclaw girl continued.
"Don't even joke about that!" Harry retorted sharply, shuddering

theatrically. "There's a very big difference between a sexy mature woman
and an overbearing broodmother."
He knew that he was probably being overly harsh, especially as he'd

personally met the woman for a grand total of thirty seconds, but he'd
learned enough from second hand sources to steer well clear of her.
Ginny's commentary and the occasional howler she sent had painted a
picture of a woman who meant well, but who was also very opinionated and
had not the slightest clue when to ease up. That wasn't even mentionning
that she wasn't the slightest bit attractive as far as Harry was
concerned.
"Well enough about Harry's fetishes." Tiana declared, ignoring his

exasperated eyeroll. "Since this is our last night together, I've
prepared a little something."
The other two looked at her curiously as she grabbed her wand and gave it
a wave, causing three goblets and a bottle of wine to float towards them.
"Goblets for drinking wine? Really?" Harry questioned wryly as she poured
him some. "This makes me feel more like Conan the Barbarian than a
wizard."
"Who?" The girls asked blankly.
"Right, I forgot that you wizard-raised savages don't know anything about
the classics." Harry sighed.
"At least we aren't some muggle-raised bumpkin who thinks that goblets
aren't appropriate for drinking wine." Tiana retorted.
"What are we drinking to?" Bryanna asked before the conversation could
devolve into a string of playful insults on the differences between a
muggle or magical upbringing.
"To profitable partnerships." Tiana suggested, raising her goblet.
"To future successes." Bryanna added, bumping her own goblet against her
friend's.
"And fringe benefits." Harry finished with a grin, mirroring their move.
"Cheeky little cunt." Bryanna smirked.
"That is not language fit for a Lady." Harry told her snobbily.
"Ah, but as a mere commoner, I can be as vulgar as I please. If that

bothers my Lord, then he should have let himself be duped into a
marriage." She retorted coquettishly, batting her eyelashes in an
overdone manner.
"I can ruin my life with a serious relationship anytime, but I'm only
going to be young once." He countered, grinning. He had been somewhat
upset about their plan when he'd first heard of it, but they'd become
friends since then and he couldn't fault their ambition or even their
reasoning. Prospects for them really weren't great in Britain.
"I'll drink to that." The girls said in unison. They hadn't been enthused
about the idea of marriage before hitting twenty either, seeing it only
as a means to an end, so this turn of events was actually preferrable to
them.
The three of them brought the goblets to their lips and took a large gulp
of the wine.
"You know, judging by how fond people are of alcohol, I expected it to

taste better." Harry commented, smacking his lips with a distasteful
grimace.
"Maybe it's a bad vintage?" Tiana asked weakly, having not been too fond
of the flavor either. "I don't know a thing about wine, so I just picked
one at random."
"It's not that bad." Bryanna commented, taking another sip.
Harry exchanged a look with Tiana and shrugged. They didn't see what was
so 'not bad' about it, but to each their own.
XXXXX
Harry and Luna had a compartment to themselves on the train ride back to
King's Cross. Luna had tried to invite Ginny along, but the redhead
wasn't as insensitive to social awkwardness as the blonde, so she had
declined and gone to sit with her brothers.
Harry was thankful for that. He didn't hate Ginny, but he'd rather not be
in prolonged close contact with her anymore. That constant gloom she gave
off about the way he lived his life was more than a little off putting.
So the two of them had spent their time discussing what they would be
doing over the summer, though Harry had to lie about quite a bit of it.
Luna had been happy to tell him all about the trip to Germany's Black
Forest that she had planned with her father. Apparently there was a
magical section of it that still remained hidden from muggles to this
day. She'd even invited him to come along, but he had had to decline
despite his interest in seeing the place. He simply had too much going on
this summer to accept.
Of course, the experience wouldn't be quite complete without Draco Malfoy

stopping by to visit.
"I'm surprised you don't have those two halfblood whores in here with
you, Potter." The poncy Slytherin sneered.
Harry scowled at the interloper, irritated by the insult to Bryanna and

Tiana more than anything else. "Get lost, Malfoy."
"What's wrong Potter? Don't like hearing what they are?" Malfoy
continued, sneer firmly in place. His omnipresent goons chuckled
sycophantically.
It was at this point that Harry noticed that the little shit was using
the doorframe for support since the train was currently passing a fairly
bumpy area of the tracks.
Carefully hiding a smirk, Harry grabbed hold of the door with his magic
and slammed it closed over Malfoy's fingers.
The Slytherin howled in pain and collapsed to the ground, clutching at

his smashed-but-luckily-not-broken fingers.
"You alright there, Malfoy?" Harry asked, no longer bothering to hide his
amusement. "That looked like it hurt."
"When my father hears about this..." Draco tried to threaten, but it come
out as more of a pained sob.
"He'll do what? Have the door executed?" Harry asked sarcastically,

making a reference to the hippogriff that had been killed by the Ministry
at the end of the school year on Malfoy senior's initiative. Even Harry
had noticed how mopey Hagrid had been after that and he didn't even have
any real contact with the half-giant.
"I know you did this, Potter!" Draco screeched.
"Sure I did, Malfoy." Harry replied with a practiced deadpan. "Just like
I made you trip into that suit of armor a few weeks ago, right? And
without a wand in both cases too."
To be fair, that was exactly what he'd done.
Angry, frustrated and in a great deal of pain, Malfoy sulked off. He was
sure that Potter was somehow the cause of all these weird accidents that
kept happening to him, but the fact that the scarheaded Ravenclaw never
had his wand in hand when it happened left him stumped as to how.
The whole thing was made worse by the fact that nobody believed him when
he tried to explain that he sometimes felt a spell push him off balance.
They just assumed that he was clumsy and trying to cover it up.
He had the same reputation for clumsyness as Longbottom now. Longbottom!
"That wasn't very nice of you, Harry." Luna commented without

recrimination.
"It's not my fault that the door slid closed over his fingers." Harry
defended.
"Really?" Luna asked in honest puzzlement, lifting up her hamster pet to

her face. "But Boo seems so certain that it was."
"Does he now?" Harry murmured, looking at the hamster suspiciously and

wondering for just a moment if he hadn't somehow stumbled across
something other than a normal rodent. Or maybe extended magical exposure
had altered it. "What else does he say?"
"Not much actually, but he is excited to go hunting for snorkacks."
Ah, nevermind. All was well as long as Luna was going on about snorkacks.
XXXXX
Deep in the forests of Albania, the disembodied spirit of a much feared

and now thought dead Dark Lord was reduced to possessing animals, mostly
snakes out of personal preference.
Had Peter Pettigrew managed to escape from his former friend and the son
of those he'd betrayed, he would have eventually followed the clues he
was able to glean from the rats with whom he shared a form, seeking
protection from the enemies he'd made. Had this happened, Voldemort would
have had a servant to help him make a play for a return to physical form.
Alas for the broken Dark Lord, Pettigrew was dead and his other followers
had deserted him, even those few who had an inkling that he was not quite
dead, finding that they liked it better when they didn't have to grovel
before the massively powerful wizard. Political games and economic ploys
might be slower and less satisfying than an eradication of mudbloods by
force, but it was much safer.
Because of this notable lack of servant, the mildly brain damaged Bertha
Jorkins was able to make her way out of Albania without issue and
Voldemort never learned that one of his most faithful, Barty Crouch Jr.,
was kept imprisoned by his father's Imperious instead of in Azkaban.
Instead of that, he continued to stew in his hatred and plot ways that he
might use to return.
Chapter 10
Much thanks to Joe Lawyer for his awesome beta-ing skillz.
XXXXX
As he made his way up to the door of his foster parents' home, Harry
wondered what their reaction to his current appearance was going to be.
At an even six feet now, he was impossibly tall for a not-quite-fourteen-

year old. Well, impossible unless you were Dutch, which he wasn't. His
growth had slowed down recently, so he figured that he might manage a few
more inches at best before it stopped. He was still a bit on the gangly
side of teenagerhood, but was hopeful that he would start filling out
soon.
His black hair rested between his shoulder blades in a neat ponytail,
even the Potter wildness defeated by gravity. Only the ends still tried
to stick every which way, but for the most part ceded defeat with only
mild use of cosmetic spellwork to keep it straight
Harry took a deep breath as he pushed open the door. He didn't keep too
many things here anymore, having gradually moved them over to Potter
Manor, so it didn't take him long to 'unpack' so to speak. After that was
done, he made his way to the living room, where he figured that Robert
and Katherine were currently watching the evening news. He mostly
intended to just say hello and goodbye before he went back to the manor,
and even that only because they expected to see him once the school year
was over.
"Hey." He greeted as he entered the room.
"Welcome back." Robert said in a rather perfunctionary, even cold,

manner. Harry figured that his constant absences must have started to
become terribly inconvenient for them. The disapproval made his heart
bleed. Not.
Katherine didn't say anything, merely walking up to him and looking him
over intently. "If I didn't know better I'd say that you were at least
seventeen if not older." She sounded a bit surprised.
That was about the physical age that Harry figured himself to be as well.
"I must be an early bloomer." He said with a shrug.
"Is that actual stubble on your face? You're shaving already?" Katherine
continued, now sounding quite a bit more incredulous. Height was one
thing, but a beard was something else entirely.
Harry's lips twitched in amusement. He did indeed develop a patchy beard

if he didn't shave often. He'd deliberately let himself grow some stubble
to see how his foster parents would react.
"Yes, I am." He said simply. "Anyway, I just came to say 'hi' before
going back. I've got a lot to do over the summer, so I'm not going to be
around much, if at all."
"You'll need to be here on the seventh, we're meeting with the Burtons
then." Katherine said.
"I can't, I have too much to do." Harry repeated, keeping the grimace he
wanted to make off his face. The Burtons were as bad as his own foster
parents from what he remembered.
"You can take a day off." Robert declared, as if that was the last word
on the matter. "People have been asking questions about where you are and
you need to make a few appearances."
"Their daughter has turned out quite well. I'm sure you'll like her."
Katherine added, thinking to appeal to his hormones.
In this she failed spectacularly. Elizabeth Burton had indeed been a very
pretty girl even a few years back and would by now probably be a very
beautiful teen, but she was utterly vapid. Her personality would be more
interesting if she was unconscious and Harry's libido was not nearly
deprived enough of female companionship to willingly endure that kind of
torture.
"My magical studies are more important." He said, simultaneously weaving

a compulsion spell around Katherine. He firmly ignored the insidious
thought of what else he could compel her to do. It wasn't the first time
that he'd had thoughts of abusing his power like this.
"I suppose..." Katherine conceded reluctantly, the compulsion making her

accept his words as truth.
"Now wait just a minute!" Robert protested at seeing his wife give in.
"You have responsibilities to this family and you've been ignoring them
for long enough already."
"You can handle the Burtons just fine without me." Harry told him,
weaving another compulsion around the man. "The long term investment of
my magic is much more important than having me go with you."
Robert subsided at that, his mind full of the possibilities that magic
would open. Possibilities that Harry had neglected to inform him were
illegal and which he would not carry out even if they weren't.
It was easy to leave after that, but something niggled at his mind
despite the ease with which he had bent the wills of his foster parents
and escaped their blasted socializing. Something had been wrong in that
encounter and he wasn't talking about the questionable legality of it.
He couldn't pinpoint the feeling, but something had simply not felt
right.
XXXXX
The mystery feeling didn't remain a mystery for very long, as it cleared
up almost as soon as he made it back to the manor.
The situation had felt wrong because the gut feeling about people that
he'd gotten used to had been absent. With no magic in them, Robert and
Katherine were blank spots to this new sense he seemed to have developed.
It had been a background sensation for so long that he'd only properly
noticed it once it had vanished and returned.
It had been uncomfortable not to have that extra sense aorund people.
"Harry, are you listening to me?" Sirius asked in exasperation.
"I was thinking." Harry replied, mildly irritated at having his train of
thought interrupted.
"How about you rethink this plan of yours then?" The dog Animagus
prompted.
"It's a good plan." Harry insisted.

Perhaps more complicated than he would have liked but solid all the same.
The Ministry could not be trusted to do the right thing, so a situation
had to be created where too many people knew the truth for things to be
swept under the rug.
That meant the media and that meant reporters. Harry disliked reporters
on general principle and disliked magical reporters as a matter of
caution. The Wizarding World seemed to have much looser laws in regards
to slander than its muggle counterpart. The Daily Prophet had come across
as valuing sensationalism and shock value over facts more than once.
But in this case that could be used. Nothing pleased the vultures more
than a shocking and sensational truth.
"What if it fails?" Sirius asked.
That was a legitimate worry. It was possible that the reporter would
squeal to the Ministry instead of printing the story, but Harry
considered it a low probability. Reporters thrived on controversy like
fungus thrived on moisture. "In that case we'll have to improvise."
"I still think we should bring Dumbledore in on this. He's got contacts
everywhere. He could get this handled without the risk."
"No." Harry scowled. "I don't trust the old man. He was Chief Warlock
back when you were first imprisoned, but he didn't even bother to visit
you once, much less provide you with a trial. I'm not going to rely on
him unless I absolutely have to."
Nothing good ever came of owing favors to powerful people, wizards least
of all.
Sirius frowned but eventually gave a grudging nod. Yes, it was possible
that Dumbledore had been as duped by the deception as anyone, but it was
hard not to feel resentful for twelve years spent in Azkaban.
"I guess I was just hoping to keep you from doing all the work." He
finally admitted with a resigned sigh. "You're way too young to be
pulling my arse out of the fire like this."
"I'm not looking forward to it either, but we don't have a lot of options
with Pettigrew being dead." Harry replied.
They had gone over a lot of possible plans, but using the media to cause
a big scene and drag everything into the open was by far the most
reliable. They could have directly contacted Amelia Bones, the current
head of the DMLE, but Sirius had only her good reputation from over a
decade ago to go on rather than any personal or even recent
knowledge, so it was deemed too risky. They could have gone to
Dumbledore, but Harry refused to consider it as anything besides a last
resort. They could have even tried to contact one of the other European
Ministries of Magic and asked for asylum for Sirius, but they couldn't
predict how those Ministries would react or how corrupt they were.
Even Charlus and Dorea had admitted that using the papers as a platform
to spread the truth before the Ministry could act and causing a public
outcry had the most predictable consequences. Not necessarily the best,
but the most predictable.
The Ministry would panic and demand that Harry and Sirius present
themselves, but they would have to follow procedure unless they wanted a
riot on their hands.
"Well, at least it'll make a good prank." Sirius replied, now smirking.
"I guess you could say that." Harry smirked back. "But enough about that,
I think it's time we start getting serious about the Animagus
transformation."
"I'm always Sirius." Sirius stated with a stone face.
"Yeah, and no matter how much I shave, I'm always Harry." Harry riposted.
Sirius let out a barking laugh and grinned widely at his godson.
"Very well then, my brother in puns, let's make you an Animagus."
XXXXX
Andy Smudgley was a reporter for the Daily Prophet, one of the less
prominent ones. He didn't have Rita Skeeter's penchant for viciousness or
her uncanny ability to ferret out sensitive information, so he mostly had
to content himself with writing fairly mediocre articles.
Upon receiving a letter from the Boy-Who-Lived, offering him the chance
for an interview, he had jumped at the chance without hesitation.
So here he was, standing outside the Leaky Cauldron and waiting for Harry
Potter to arrive.
He wasn't particularly comfortable in the Muggle World, being a wizard-

raised halfblood. The odd looks and amused smirks he was getting from the
passing muggles were certainly something that he didn't appreciate.
"Mr. Smudgley?" A voice questioned, making the reporter look at who had
adressed him.
A tall teenager, with very distinctive green eyes and a lightning bolt
scar.
"Harry Potter?" Andy near-gasped, looking slightly up at the boy who had
vanquished Voldemort. The legend of the Boy-Who-Lived was such that he
didn't even question why a not-quite thirteen-year old boy was taller
than him. It seemed only right for heroes to be tall.
"I thought I asked you not to draw attention to yourself?" Harry sighed,
already embarrassed about having to stand near such an outlandishly
dressed individual.
The reporter was wearing white, knee high socks and lime green crocs, a
pair of tight beige shorts with suspenders and a blue V-neck T-shirt that
was almost definitely made with women in mind. Completing the mismatched
ensamble was one of the old-style cameras that wizards used and a rather
girly looking purse that presumably held his wand.
He looked like a vaguely crossdressing hipster that had just come from
Oktoberfest or something equally baffling, but at least he wasn't wearing
a skirt.
"Isn't this how muggles dress?" Andy asked nervously, afraid that his
lack of knowledge on muggle fashion would cost him the story.
"The weird ones perhaps," Harry answered with a smirk. "but nevermind
that now, we should go."
Andy nodded eagerly. He was determined to make the most of this

opportunity and not dissapoint the Boy-Who-Lived, who must have been
impressed by one or more of his articles to have chosen him over the
other reporters at the Daily Prophet.
Contrary to his thinking, he had not been chosen for any kind of ability.
Sirius had merely liked the fact that he'd made a pun with his name when
reporting on the Animagus' Azkaban breakout.
"Where are we going?" The reporter asked after a few minutes of walking
through the city.
"Somewhere a bit more private." Was the only answer that Harry would give
him in regards to that.
They spent the next ten minutes walking in silence, one of them wondering
where they were going and the other wondering how wizards could possibly
screw up getting dressed as an inconspicuous muggle when they had so many
examples. It was like they got all of their source material from crazy
events like the previously mentioned Oktoberfest, or maybe those fashion
shows with the really screwed up 'clothes'.
"Alright, here we are." Harry said once they arrived.
"But...there's nothing here." Smudgley pointed out uncertainly, looking

around the out of the way alley they had entered.
"Don't worry about that, this isn't our final destination, just a
stopgap. Now, I'm going to need you to stay calm and not panic."
"Alright." Smudgley agreed easily enough.
"Teeny, transport us pelase."
"Yes, Harry Potter sir!" The little house elf said enthusiastically as
she appeared and apparated them into a completely featureless room in
Potter Manor. It was best not to let people know that he was back in
residence.
Despite agreeing not to panic, Andy froze in panic at the sight of Sirius
Black lounging on a chair.
But then a hand was laid on his shoulder and a feeling of calm spread
through him.
"You've got nothing to be worried about, Sirius is only here to give you
an interview." Harry said soothingly.
Once Andy got past the fear of being murdered, he quickly realized the
journalistic value of this opportunity.
XXXXX
"Harry?"
"Yes, Luna?"
"You appear to have Sirius Black squatting in your home."
"Well spotted." Unlike the Daily Prophet reporter, Luna could be trusted
not to reveal that Potter Manor was back in use, or that it contained
Sirius Black.
"Hey, I am not squatting!"
"Squatting aside, Luna, would you like to interview Sirius for the
Quibbler?"
"Not. Squatting."
"It would delay our trip to Germany by a few days, but I think daddy will
understand. So Mr. Black, did you see any crumple-horned snorkacks during
your stay in Azkaban?"
"Crumple what now?"
"Answer the question Mr. Black, or I will hold you in contempt."
"I don't think that reporters can hold people in contempt, Luna."
"Don't be silly, Harry, anyone can hold anyone in contempt. People do it

to me all the time, and you do it to others all the time."
"I...can't refute that statement."
"Not to break up your moment of philosophy, but could we get to the part
where I tell my harrowing story of betrayal and false imprisonment?"
"False imprisonment? Are you saying that you weren't in Azkaban these
past twelve years, Mr. Black?"
"What? Of course I was in Azkaban!"
"Then how was your imprisonment false?"
Sirius worked his jaw as he tried to figure out the little blonde girl's
logic, noticing that his godson was looking terribly amused by the whole
thing.
"Stop smirking, Harry."
XXXXX
"That friend of yours is really something else." Sirius said after Luna
had left.
"That she is." Harry agreed.
"What the hell is a crumple-horned snorkack anyway?"
"No idea, but I admire Luna's determination to find one."
XXXXX
Albus Dumbledore didn't like summers all that much. Oh, the weather was
nice enough, but Hogwarts just felt so empty with the students and even
several of the teachers gone. He couldn't even say that he had less
paperwork to deal with since he had two other jobs, and DADA was an
eternal thorn in his side.
At least he'd learned to expect his DADA teachers to become somehow

unable to continue teaching for more than a year and had a replacement
all lined up. He wasn't angry at Severus for outing Remus as a werewolf.
He knew that there was bad blood between them, though he had hoped that
the Potions Master would learn to leave it in the past.
He could only hope that Alastor would restrain himself a bit in the
classroom and remember that the students were not Auror trainees. Still,
having him around for the Tri-Wizard Tournament would be invaluable from
a security standpoint.
The Tri-Wizard Tournament. How Ludo Bagman had come upon the idea of
reviving that old competition and then convincing the necessary people to
get it done, Dumbledore could not fathom. He had to admit that he liked
the thought of fostering international cooperation, particularly in light
of the fact that he knew that Voldemort would almost certainly rise again
someday, but he had been unwilling to agree to resurrect the tournament
in its original form. He would not condone entering children into a
deadly competition, no matter how skilled with magic they might be.
That at least had been agreed upon without issue by all involved. If only
the rest of it were so simple. It was still being argued as to which
school would have the honor of hosting the event. Karkaroff and Madam
Maxime naturally wanted it to be at their schools, just as Dumbledore
wanted it to be at Hogwarts. This was not merely a matter of prestige,
but also of practicality. It would be quite inconvenient to be away from
his school for that long after all.
Fortunately, tradition favored Hogwarts, as Durmstrang had hosted it the

last time and Beauxbatons the time before that. Wizards and witches do
like their traditions, and even the centuries that had passed since the
last tournament weren't likely to sway people away from that.
These were the thoughts of Albus Dumbledore as he reached for his morning
paper, idly wondering if Ms. Skeeter had printed any more of her vitriol
today. Such a shame that a witch of her potential would spend her time
spreading malicious rumors or gossip, but then, she had been like that
for a long time now. Slytherin had not been kind to her during her school
years, Dumbledore suspected.
It's a Sirius shock! Azkaban escapee Sirius Black tells his side of the
story!
Safely alone in his quarters, Albus Dumbledore gaped unbecomingly at the

headline on his copy of the Daily Prophet.
Yesterday, this reporter received an owl from Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-
Lived, with an offer for an interview. We met outside the Leaky Cauldron
and walked some distance away to a secluded alley, where Mr. Potter
called for a house elf to transport us to an undisclosed location.
Imagine my shock when I found myself face to face with Sirius Black
himself!
But the supposed mass murderer was not at all hostile. He was in fact
rather friendly, though the shadow of Azkaban was still visible on his
face.
Mr. Potter explained to me that the interview he had promised was not to
be with him, but with Black.
The article then went on to reveal the tale of the switch between Secret
Keepers, Pettigrew's betrayal, Sirius' wrongful imprisonment and
subsequent escape, Harry meeting his godfather and offering him shelter
from the Aurors and dementors and finally ending with the interview that
he was now reading.
Dumbledore noted that it said nothing about the means by which Sirius had
escaped, nor did it offer up any real details on the fate of Peter
Pettigrew.
Mr. Potter is well aware that the DMLE will wish to speak to him and
intends to present himself this very afternoon.
That particular line revealed the gist of Harry and Sirius' plan. The
Ministry could not, after all, be seen to act rashly now that the truth
was revealed to the masses, especially with Harry involved as he was. His
status as the Boy-Who-Lived and Heir to the Potter family would shield
him from the usual legal repercussions of harboring a wanted criminal.
Clever though this plan was, Dumbledore couldn't help but wish that they
had come to him for help. He could have made things so much smoother.
Things would now have to play out in the way that Harry and Sirius had
set, but he still intended to be there.
He had clearly failed Sirius grievously once already by not taking the
time to properly investigate the situation, so he would offer what help
he could now. Not only was it a matter of doing the right thing, but also
of keeping contact with Harry once Sirius took over his guardianship.
XXXXX
In the office of the Minister of Magic, there was much less certainty.
"This is a disaster!" Cornelius Fudge moaned. "What am I going to do,

Lucius?"
Lucius Malfoy considered the situation carefully. Fudge was a simple

creature to manipulate, but even a simpleton like him had limits to how
far he could be bent with either words or 'donations'. Not many limits,
but getting him to commit political suicide was one of them.
The exoneration of Sirius Black would reflect poorly on Fudge even if it

had been Barty Crouch and the previous Minister, Bagnold, who had
imprisoned him. The Minister was the face of the Ministry and it would be
the Ministry as a whole who would end up with eggs on their face over
this debacle. The statements he had made about hunting the fugitive down
would not help either.
But that did not mean that simply doing away with Sirius Black would be
possible, not after the truth was plastered all over the front page of
the Daily Prophet. Too many questions would be asked if he mysteriously
disappeared.
Lucius himself had long suspected that Black was innocent. As part of
Voldemort's inner circle, he was aware of the identities of most every
one of the Dark Lord's followers. That such a high profile member would
slip past his notice was unlikely. Possible, but unlikely.
He had congratulated himself heartily over the windfall that the Malfoy
family had gotten under his leadership. With Bellatrix imprisoned and
barren(courtesy of a special, untraceable poison Lucius himself had added
to her evening drink one day), Andromeda disowned, Regulus killed on some
unspecified task for the Dark Lord and Sirius rotting in Azkaban, his own
son was next in line to inherit the Black family and thus absorb it into
the Malfoy line since his wife, Narcissa, was a Black by birth.
But now that was all in danger of being undone. Sirius was Heir to the
House and had never been properly banished from the family despite his
rebellion against everything that House Black stood for. If he was
declared innocent, then Lucius could wave his dreams of absorbing House
Black into Malfoy goodbye.
Unless of course another bout of misfortune happened to befall Sirius

Black. But for that, information was required.
"Regardless of the...distressing nature of this article, Potter and Black

have offered little proof of their words." He finally said. "Potter says
that he will present himself to the DMLE this afternoon and I think that
it would proper for the Minister of Magic to be present at such an
important occasion, in order to judge for himself the veracity of these
claims."
"Yes, yes of course. Black could be manipulating the boy after all, maybe
even keeping him under the Imperious!" Fudge said, getting some of his
composure back. "You'll be there too, won't you, Lucious?"
"If you wish for my advice, then who am I to refuse?" Lucius said,
keeping the irony out of his voice with the ease of long experience.
Weaning Fudge away from his reliance on Dumbledore and making him rely on
Malfoy gold and advice instead had been almost too easy.
XXXXX
Harry made his way towards the visitors entrance of the Ministry of
Magic, once again contemplating the dilapidated nature of this part of
the city. He'd come here a few days ago to make sure that he could find
it and had now apparated himself to a nearby alley.
He could sense several powerful aversion wards affecting the area, no

doubt aimed at those without magic. It probably made this part of London
unpalatable for muggles, leaving it to slowly decay.
He had to wonder if there was some kind of symbolism in having the

magical government housed underground, covered by the filth of the
surrounding muggles. Or perhaps it was the other way around, the presence
of wizarding politics fouling the area.
A line of thought that was most unflattering to wizardkind either way.
Shaking the thought off, he stepped into the red phone booth that served
as the entrance to the Ministry, amused at how completely it failed to be
inconspicuous. If not for the aversion wards, this pristine looking but
long since obsolete phone booth would probably attract a great deal of
unwanted attention. In fact, that might be the reason for the wards in
the first place.
Quickly entering 62442 to spell out 'magic', he waited for the operator
that Charlus had told him would speak up.
"Welcome to the Ministry of Magic. Please state your name and business."
A female voice droned. It reminded Harry of Binns, though marginally less
monotone.
"Harry Potter, here to meet with Director Bones." He didn't know if he
would actually be meeting with Amelia Bones herself, but it seemed like a
fair assumption.
"Thank you. Visitor, please take the badge and attach it to the front of
your robes." The instruction was accompanied by a rattling as the
aformentioned badge was deposited into a receptacle.
It helpfully proclaimed 'Harry Potter, meeting with Director Bones'.
Harry did as the cool female voice had suggested and pinned the badge to
his robes, a rather more ostentatious affair than he would've liked. He
had been intending to show up dressed in quality, but eminently muggle
clothing. Charlus and Dorea had insisted that he take one of the more
formal robes that were hanging around in the manor however, arguing that
snubbing the traditional wizard's apparel would not work in his favor. He
understood their arguments and it had been part of the coaching they'd
given him on how to comport himself around influential people, however
much it grated on him due to the memory of similar lessons with Robert
and Katherine.
Thus, robes. At least he'd managed to find a set that was a subdued
black.
The floor of the fake phone booth began its slow descent after that and
Harry took the time to get into the proper frame of mind for the events
ahead. He knew that he would likely be stared at by a nerve wrackingly
large amount of people, so he would need to keep his wits about him and
project the image of imperturbable calm.
Fortunately, that was one of those things that Occlumency adepts

frequently learned to do and Harry was advanced enough in the discipline
to do it. No two Occlumancers went about it in precisely the same way as
it was a personalized thing. Harry himself liked to wrap his thoughts in
a peace so deep that it was like Dark. His thoughts were a river of Dark
that swallowed all that entered it but remaining undisturbed. They were
the vast silence between the stars that allowed no sound.
He had practiced such things often since Christmas, so it did not take
him long to get into the proper mindset. He was finished shortly before
he arrived in the Ministry atrium.
It was essentially a very long and wide hallway line with fireplaces that
constantly burned with the green flame of floo travel. To his mild
surprise, the whole thing was decorated rather tastefully, though his
assumption on wizardkind's lack of restraint was vindicated by the sight
of a garish golden statue of a goblin, centaur and house elf looking
adoringly up at a witch and wizard. He strongly doubted that anyone save
possibly the house elf harbored any kind of positive feelings towards
humans.
Sirius had never been here, but Charlus and Dorea had and had explained
to him what he could expect. The atrium was usually the most busy during
the morning and evening hours when people arrived for work or went home,
but saw a fair amount of activity through the day as well. It being three
in the afternoon, it should have been relatively empty, but of course the
statement he'd left in the Prophet and Quibbler that he'd be showing up
in the afternoon had attracted gawkers.
The atrium was therefore full of overly curious busybodies trying to

pretend that they weren't waiting for his arrival, as well as several
Aurors, Dumbledore and the Minister of Magic himself, who quite obviously
were waiting for him if the way they were watching the fireplaces was any
indication. Apparently they'd expected him to use one of those.
Dumbledore spotted him first and swiftly strode over, the Aurors
following a moment later and the Minister lagging behind like a nervous
but eager puppy.
"Harry." Dumbledore greeted genially.
"Professor." Harry returned calmly, dismissing the audience as

unimportant.
"You gave everyone quite the shock yesterday, my boy." The old wizard
commented, his eyes twinkling with amusement. It was not how he would've
dealt with the situation, but he had to admit that Harry and Sirius had
come up with an effective, if loud, scheme. Sirius was likely having a
good laugh at the prank they had pulled on the Wizarding World and he had
to admit that Harry was handling his part much better than he had
expected him to.
"That was the point." Harry stated noncommittally and Dumbledore nodded
in understanding.
"May I present Aurors Shacklebolt and Dawlish, they will escort you to
Amelia bones, which I see you have already surmised." Dumbledore
introduced, gesturing to the two Aurors.
Shacklebolt was a tall man with dark skin and a rather jovial face,
whereas Dawlish was pale and dour looking. Of the two, Shacklebolt felt
considerably stronger. Both men gave him a nod and a short greeting, to
which he replied in kind.
"And of course, last but not least, Conerlius Fudge, the Minister of
Magic." Dumbledore finished, gesturing to the shortest man there.
"A pleasure to finally meet you, Mr. Potter." The Minister positively
gushed and eagerly held out a hand for him to shake.
"Likewise, Minister." Harry replied, but didn't really mean it. Despite
Dumbledore's words, it was quite obvious that Cornelius Fudge was indeed
the least person here, both in magic and in stature. Charlus and Dorea
had met him once and been unimpressed. Harry wasn't impressed either. A
politician more than a wizard and corrupt besides, nothing to him but an
empty title.
But he could definitely be useful. His presence had been expected but not
guaranteed. His gradnparents had advised him to imply that he would
support Fudge in exchange for help with the current situation, but Harry
intended to go a step further than that.
As he shook the pudgy man's hand, he sent a mild compulsion through the
point of contact, urging him to help Harry as much as possible. It was
slightly harder than casting such spells on Robert and Katherine, but not
by much. The Minister of Magic was the weakest adult wizard he'd ever
encountered, weaker even than many Hogwarts students. Harry almost felt
as if the Dark inside him could swallow the man whole.
Fudge laughed nervously and fidgeted with his lime green bowler hat when
he took his hand back. He hadn't expected a boy barely into his teens to
be this imposing, but staring up (how was he so damned tall anyway?) at
those gleaming green eyes, he could easily believe that this was the one
who had vanquished Voldemort as a baby.
He was even more glad now that he had asked Lucius to join them on this
meeting. His good friend and advisor would surely help him make sure that
this was handled properly.
"Shall we then?" He asked after nervously clearing his throat.
"Lead on." Harry prompted, his amusement at how easily bidden the
Minister was a disconnected thing that didn't show on his face or in his
voice.
Fudge nodded in a slightly jittery fashion and started walking at Harry's

left side while Dumbledore took the right and the Aurors took up spots
behind them.
Harry and Dumbledore were comfortable with their thoughts, but Fudge was
apparently not.
"So...Harry, may I call you Harry?" He asked.
"If I may call you Cornelius." Harry replied unhurriedly. He felt nothing
but disdain for the pudgy little man that was many decades his senior but
undoubtedly a lesser wizard in spite of the age disparity. Nothing in his
manner betrayed his true opinion though. He wouldn't be the first person
to have been brought down by those who were less than him because he had
overreached himself. A day would come when gnats like Fudge that hid
their weakness behind politics would no longer concern him, but that day
was quite a ways off into the future. For now, the idiot had his uses.
"Of course, of course." Fudge hastened to affirm, eager to forge close

ties to someone as prominent as the Boy-Who-Lived.
On Harry's other side, Dumbledore withheld an amused smile. He wondered

if Cornelius realized that he had just allowed a barely teenage boy with
no tangible legal or political power to establish an equal relationship
to the Minister of Magic. He wondered if Harry had done it on purpose and
who had taught him if so. He wondered if Harry would even need his help
to resolve this issue satisfactorily, as the lad truly was handling
himself with remarkable poise. He wondered at how advanced Harry's
Occlumency was to be capable of controlling himself like this already.
Dumbledore noticed that he spent a lot of time wondering where Harry was
concerned.
"Anyway, I was wondering where Black was. The article in the Daily
Prophet didn't mention that." Fudge continued.
"I'm not going to tell you that while you have a kill on sight order on
him." Harry replied dryly.
"But I'm the Minister of Magic." Fudge protested, the first notes of an
injured ego coloring his tone. The petulant whine of someone who thought
he deserved respect.
"And as such you are required to uphold the law, are you not?" Harry
asked archly. "It would reflect poorly on you for an innocent man to be
killed due to a...bureaucratic mishap."
"Yes, yes of course!" Fudge was quick to affirm, nearly stumbling over
the words in his haste to be seen as respectable. He didn't want the Boy-
Who-Lived of all people to be his enemy! That would be a public relations
disaster perhaps even worse than this business with Black.
The urge to roll his eyes popped into being in the Dark of Harry's mind
and floated there aimlessly. How had someone this stupid and spineless
ever made Minister?
"I believe that there is more to the story than what we learned from the
Prophet." Dumbledore interjected mildly. "We should not make Harry repeat
himself needlessly."
"Quite right." Fudge agreed as if that had been his idea from the start.
The lull in conversation did not last long, as they came upon a man
waiting for them at the lifts.
Harry didn't even need Fudge's happy exclamation of 'Lucius!' to guess

that this was Draco Malfoy's father. He'd been reminded of his annoying
yearmate since he'd laid eyes on the blond man that was obviously trying
entirely too hard to appear as aristocratic as possible, from his fancy
robes and all the way down to that pretentious snake headed cane. In
addition to that, Sirius, Charlus and Dorea had all described the man to
him.
He and Sirius had gotten a good laugh at their description of the Malfoys
being 'froggy bastards', due to their French heritage.
"Harry, this is my good friend Lucius Malfoy. I believe you are in the
same Hogwarts year as his son, Draco." Fudge introduced enthusiastically,
dreaming of having the support of both Lucius Malfoy and Harry Potter.
"A pleasure." Malfoy said neutrally.
"Yes." Harry said blandly.
Neither offered their hand, well aware that they would be unfriendly
acquaintances at the most unrealistically optimistic best even if they
had never met before. Lucius might have tried to get close to the Potter
brat if he had not already heard from Draco about the antipathy between
them. Attempting to be friendly would only serve to look suspicious.
Harry was merely trusting his gut when it told him that Malfoy senior was
bad news.
"If I might ask, Cornelius, why have you invited Mr. Malfoy along for
this." Dumbledore inquired in the uncomfortable silence that ensued.
Lucius' eyes tightened slightly at the subtle snub. Most referred to him
as Lord Malfoy, but he was technically not a Lord. The Malfoy family had
no seat on the Wizengamot due to being relatively new to Britain and were
thus not a Noble House. They were very rich, and that money kept them
high up in politics, but they were not one of those families that had a
hereditary seat on the Wizengamot. That was another reason that he had
been so eager for the Black family to be absorbed into his.
Truly, wooing Narcissa Black had been one of his better ideas. His father
had been impressed with it too, for the little time that he'd lived after
Lucius had arranged for him to get infected with Dragon Pox.
"He's one of my chief advisors." Fudge argued, unknowingly enlightening

Harry as to the likely reason for his political success.
"Yes, but you will hardly need his advice in order to listen to Harry's
explanation of the Prophet's article." Dumbledore countered in his best
'I'm everyone's wise and friendly grandfather' voice.
"I must say that I agree with the Headmaster." Harry added. "Your
presence and that of the Aurors is expected of course and Professor
Dumbledore is here both as Chief Warlock and as my current magical
guardian, but as I understand it, Mr. Malfoy has no outstanding reason to
be present for this."
He may not trust Dumbledore, but he wouldn't hesitate to use him as a

shield if it was convenient.
"But-!" Fudge moved to protest.
Harry gave him no chance. Malfoy senior felt dangerous and he was not
going to let him be present for this. The compulsion alone obviously
wasn't enough for this.
"Minister." He said implacably, using his magic to press down on Fudge in

a way that the basic five human senses could not perceive."This is a
sensitive matter and it would not do for any more ears to hear than
strictly necessary."
Cornelius looked into those powerful green eyes and felt the heavy regard
of a much greater wizard, even if he didn't understand it.
"I'm sorry, Lucius, but he's right." He said meekly. He didn't want to
send his friend away, but he couldn't gainsay the Boy-Who-Lived in this,
especially with Dumbledore in on it too.
Dumbledore gave Harry a penetrating look. He had felt what the boy had
done. Few wizards had the strength or knowledge to use their magic in
such a fashion and they were generally of the old and powerful variety.
He could do it, but even then perhaps not as subtly as Harry had just
managed. How in the world had a boy of thirteen learned this skill? This
bore investigating.
Lucius's lips thinned in displeasure as the group entered the lift. This,
he reflected, was the problem with people like Fudge. Anyone with half a
brain could yank them around and he could hardly offer the idiot a bribe
in public.
Unnoticed by all, a beetle flew into the lift and hid in an unobtrusive
corner
XXXXX
Harry found the Ministry lifts to be rather puzzling. The atrium was
apparently on the 8th undreground floor, which meant that the visitor's
entrance had taken him quite deep. Now they were going up again.
Wouldn't it have made more sense to have the atrium on the 1st floor if
you were going to build underground? Wizards made no sense.
The short ride passed in silence, as Fudge seemed to be too off kilter
after being made to leave Malfoy behind to chatter.
The walk through the DMLE was similarly short and uneventful, though
Harry did find his attention captured once when they passed through Auror
Headquarters, by a young woman in Auor robes. She was dressed properly
for her job, but her spiky purple hair gave her the image of a punk
rocker trying to infiltrate law enforcement.
She noticed him staring, her hair turned pink and she gave him a rather
saucy wink, prompting Harry to return the gesture with a flirtatious
smirk.
"Who was that?" He asked, quite sure that Dumbledore would know who he
was referring to. The now pink haired Auror was very pretty and looked
like loads of fun.
"Who was who?" Fudge asked in confusion, having missed the short byplay
entirely.
"I believe that Harry was referring to Nymphadora Tonks." Dumbledore

said, sounding amused. "A very capable young lady and a fine Auror." And
Moody's last protg, whom the grizzled old Auror had already recommended
for recruitment into the Order of the Phoenix should it be reconvened.
There was an opportunity here.
"Why did her hair change like that?" Harry asked before Fudge could make
an even bigger ass of himself.
"She is a Metamorphmagus, a natural shapeshifter." The old wizard

explained.
"That sounds very useful." Harry mused. He knew that it was somewhat
typically male of him, but his mind instantly jumped to the bedroom
applications of such an ability.
"Indeed." Dumbledore agreed, sounding even more amused. He'd probably

guessed what Harry had just thought about. "Further deliberation on the
applications of shapeshifting will have to wait though, for we have
arrived at Madam Bones' office."
Yes, Dumbledore had definitely guessed it.
XXXXX
Harry quickly deduced that Amelia Bones was a formidable witch, and not
someone that could be pushed around like Fudge. Hers was the strongest
presence he'd felt so far, bar Dumbledore himself.
The two Aurors left and then it was just her, him, Dumbledore and Fudge
in the room. Something felt wrong about that number, but Harry couldn't
for the life of him place what it was.
"Mr. Potter." Bones said by way of greeting, her displeasure ringing as

clearly as a bell. "You've caused me and my department a great deal of
trouble and embarrassment with those articles in the Prophet and the
Quibbler."
Concern welled up in him at her tone, but was swallowed by the Dark in
his mind and did not affect his composure.
"I apologize," He said calmly. "but I saw no better way to ensure my

godfather's exoneration."
Amelia stared hard at the boy, noting with grudging respect that he
remained unmoved by it. In fact, the only one who looked uncomfortable
was Fudge. She wondered what had happened to Malfoy, whom she knew that
the bumbling idiot had been planning to include on this meeting. Good
riddance either way. She'd been tempted to cleave the bastard's head off
more than once in the past twelve years.
"I'm sure that we can get this handled quickly, Amelia." The Minister
fretted, worrying at his hat.
"We will handle it by the book, if that's alright with you Mr. Potter?"
She stated more than asked in a tone that brooked no disagreement, a
trace of sarcasm showing up at the end.
Harry felt a stirring of decidedly more personal interest in the woman.

She was quite severe looking, but not at all unattractive, though that
monocle was a bit odd. He wondered if she was this forceful all the time.
The thought was pushed aside. This was definitely not the time for that.
"Of course, Madam Bones."
"Good." She said with a firm nod. "Now, the first thing I want to know is
when and how you came into contact with Black in the first place."
"During my very first Hogsmeade weekend. I recognized his Animagus form

and got him away from there before he did something stupid." He felt a
spike of...something when he said that, but he once again failed to pin
it down.
"Animagus form?" Bones asked, talking right over Fudge's surprised

exclamation and noting Dumbledore's lack of surprise at the information.
"Yes, a big black dog. I remember him using it to play with me when I was
a baby." Sorry Sirius, I know you wanted to keep that a secret, but
Bryanna and Tiana were sure to have figured it out after this, if they
haven't already. I might like them, but I'm not sure they'd keep it a
secret and trying, and more importantly failing, to hide your Animagus
ability is the last thing you need.
"Your memory stretches that far back?" Dumbledore asked in some surprise.
"Yes." Harry answered simply.
"Do you remember what it was that caused Voldemort's downfall then?" The
old wizard pressed.
Fudge yelped at the use of the Dark Lord's name, looking like he'd nearly
lost control of his bladder.
Amelia merely twitched, the remnants of an old reflex.
"I do, but I'd rather not talk about it." Harry said. "It's not something
that can really be used in anything other than a very specific set of
circumstances."
Most people did not have months of forewarning that they were going to be
murdered after all, nevermind the skill required to turn their own murder
into a ritual sacrifice.
"Getting back to the matter at hand, what kind of stupid thing did you
expect Black to do?" Bones asked, determined to stay on point despite her
own interest.
"Sneak into the Gryffindor common room and murder Peter Pettigrew." Harry
replied with a bland smile. That odd feeling from before manifested
again, but remained elusive.
This time, even Dumbledore was surprised, though he quickly deduced the
truth. He had assumed that the Weasley family rat had actually been
several rats that Molly and Arthur had kept replacing in order to not
upset their children, but it had apparently been just one Animagus.
"Am I to understand that Peter Pettigrew is also an Animagus and was

hiding in Hogwarts all this time?" Bones asked, guessing at the truth.
"Close, he was a rat Animagus and had been hiding with the Weasley family
ever since his confrontation with Sirius."
"Was?" Bones asked sharply, picking up on the use of past tense.
Harry sighed heavily as he answered. "Yes, was. You see, I bought him
from Ron Weasley just before the Christmas break. Sirius and I were
intending to come forward with him and reveal the truth of what had
happened after Voldemort's defeat."
"So why didn't you?"
"Sirius wanted to talk to him, he wanted to ask why Pettigrew had

betrayed them and I admit that I wanted to hear it too. He was supposed
to be their friend, but he sold them out to save his own skin. Sirius was
always a brash sort and Azkaban hadn't improved his self-control any, so
things got a little out of hand."
"Out of hand how?" Amelia's voice was considerably harder now.
"There was a lot of shouting and we stupidly hadn't thought to disarm the
rat. Pettigrew reached for his wand and I panicked. I didn't even know
what spell I was going to cast, I just knew that I couldn't let him do it
first. Before I knew what had happened, I'd fired off a blasting curse."
Harry did his best to put a tremor in his voice, though he wasn't sure
how successful he was in that. He'd practiced doing it, but there really
was no substitute for the real thing and he couldn't muster much emotion
over this months old issue anymore.
Fudge went a little pale and Dumbledore put a hand on his shoulder
supportively, though he was sure that there was a very uncomfortable
conversation going to happen between them in the near future.
Amelia on the other hand, was clenching her jaw and looking deeply
irritated.
"You mean to tell me, that you have killed a man and presumably had his
body stashed somewhere since Christmas and have deigned to report it only
now?" She demanded slowly, her expression thunderous.
Harry winced, but went on with his explanation. "Sirius and I were at a
bit of a loss as to how we were going to explain this without him ending
up lunch for the dementors. We argued about it for months until we
finally decided that putting that article in the papers was probably the
surest way of doing it."
That those months were also spent planning out how to get away with it
went unsaid.
"Why didn't we receive any notifications about underage magic use?"

Amelia asked suspiciously, seeing a slight discrepancy in the story.
"We were in an area warded against detection at the time."
"Harry, why didn't you come to me with this?" Dumbledore asked sadly. "I
could have helped you."
"You were Chief Warlock when he was first thrown in prison, Professor."
Harry pointed out. "You didn't ensure that he got a trial back then and
we were only going to get one chance at this. There was no guarantee that
he'd get one now."
Dumbledore looked even more saddened by that.
"Wait a second, Black was never tried?" Amelia interjected, momentarily

surprised out of her anger at the way that Potter and Black had played
fast and loose with the law.
"No. From what he told me, he chased down Pettigrew only for the rat to
fire off the blasting curse that blew up the street and the muggles on
it. The explosion had rattled him pretty badly and by the time he'd
gotten his wits about him, he'd already been in Azkaban." Harry
explained.
"Crouch is going to have a lot of explaining to do." Amelia growled.
"Indeed he will!" Fudge hurried to add, eager to be seen as the man that
was correcting past injustices. He might actually benefit from this if he
dumped all the blame on Bagnold and Crouch!
"And speaking of that, here is Pettigrew's wand." Harry said, pulling it

out of on of his robe pockets. "It might still have the trace of that
blasting curse on it, since I doubt that it's been used since then."
Amelia took it and cast Priori Incantatem on it, seeing that it did
indeed register a blasting curse as the last spell to be cast.
"I also have one other wand for you." Harry went on once she did that,
more slowly now. He reached into another pocket and drew out a wand with
a ghastly white bone handle, which he was sure had been a later
affectation instead of something that Ollivander had made for an eleven
year old.
"I know that wand." Amelia said softly "How did you get it?"
"Pettigrew had it with him. I assume that he grabbed it from my room."

"I don't understand, whose wand is that?" Fudge demanded, obviously not
recognizing it.
"Voldemort's, Cornelius." Dumbledore told him calmly, ignoring the way

the Minister flinched.
"All this aside, that still leaves us with you Mr. Potter. You've
harbored a known criminal, even though it seems that he was innocent, and
you've hidden the fact that you've killed someone for months now, even if
it was in self-defense."
"Come now, Amelia, surely you can't blame the lad for wanting to do right
by his godfather? The man has clearly suffered enough already." Fudge
interjected.
"Thank you, Cornelius, I appreciate your support." Harry said, aiming a

smile at the Minister.
Amelia's face went stony for a moment as she saw the way that Potter had
Fudge wrapped around his little finger already, not that it was exactly a
difficult feat. That, combined with Dumbledore's obvious support would
mean that Potter would be getting away with this whole debacle with
barely a slap on the wrist, nevermind a full investigation. The most that
she'd be able to do was put a black mark on his record, anything else
would get waved off by Fudge in an effort to curry favor with the Boy-
Who-Lived.
She hated it when politics got mixed up with the law. She hadn't been
intending to throw Potter into Azkaban over this, he was only thirteen
after all, but the obvious abuse of his reputation, Dumbledore's
protection and Fudge's...Fudgeness, grated on her.
"I want Pettigrew's body, and I want to talk to Black. Immediately." She
bit out.
"Right away, Madam Bones." Harry quickly agreed, seeing that the
formidable witch was most definitely not happy with him.
"You're taking an Auror escort with you." She stated uncompromisingly.
"If I might suggest Nymphadora Tonks?" Dumbledore said, his eyes on

maximum twinkle. "She is a cousin of Sirius' and might serve to put him
more at ease than others."
Harry gave the Headmaster an incredulous look. Was the old man seriously
helping him get hooked up with the pretty shapeshifter?
"An excellent idea!" Fudge contributed, oblivious as ever.
Amelia gave Potter and Dumbledore a scrutinizing look, wondering what

they were up to that involved Auror Tonks.
"Why her in particular?" She demanded.

"She is a most impressive young lady." Dumbledore replied, sounding very
amused.
Amelia knew that this was true. Tonks might be a rookie and bit of a
klutz, but she was powerful and resourceful. She fully expected her to
become one of the best in a few years, after she got some experience
under her belt.
That didn't explain why Dumbledore had suggested her though. There didn't
seem to be anything nefarious about it and it was the kind of assignment
that a rookie would be given, but Black was pretty high profile and she
didn't feel charitable enough to go along with whatever this was.
"I'm assigning Shacklebolt to be your escort."
Was that a flash of disappointment that had just crossed Potter's face?
XXXXX
As Madam Bones' office emptied, Rita Skeeter buzzed stealthily out of the
Ministry of Magic in her beetle Animagus form, nearly vibrating with
excitement over all the material she'd just gathered. The Daily Prophet's
next headline would be sensational!
XXXXX
Harry felt that things had gone rather well, all things considered.
Fudge's presence had been unexpectedly useful, as the man was quite
obviously a politician for hire, supporting whoever would benefit him the
most. Of course, this might be a bit problematic in the future if he ever
expected Harry's support, but no promises had been made.
Amelia Bones had been quite a bit more intense than he'd been expecting,
but he supposed that not every pureblood could be a useless waste of air.
He hoped that he hadn't made an enemy out of her, as a woman like that
could cause him quite a bit of grief in the future if she put her mind to
it.
Dumbledore had acted more or less as expected, aside from that very odd
attempt to contrive an opportunity for Harry to talk to the interesting
Metamorphmagus Auror. He really had to wonder what the old man had hoped
to achieve with that.
The thing that really bothered him about that meeting was the strange
feelings he'd been getting the whole time. It had felt almost like there
was another person in the room, but the only thing he had to go on with
this theory was his gut feeling and the strange spikes of emotion when he
said something particularly surprising.
XXXXX
Sirius had been anxiously pacing through the foyer of Potter Manor ever
since Harry had left for the Ministry, waiting for his turn. His godson
had wanted to keep the use of the place secret, displaying Moody-like
levels of paranoia about information but had eventually conceded that the
DMLE at least would need to be informed now.
It was almost a relief when Harry returned with the tall Auror that he
introduced as Shacklebolt and he was side-along apparated directly to the
DMLE to avoid any lingering gawkers. Even if things went pear-shaped, at
least the tense waiting was over.
It had been replaced by an entirely new kind of tension.
"Sirius Black." Amelia Bones said in a stony tone that betrayed a certain
amount of irritation.
"In the flesh." Sirius replied with a winning smile. He noted with dismay
that Madam Bones seemed immune to his charm.
"First, let me just assure you that you aren't going back to Azkaban
anytime soon. Since Crouch didn't even bother to properly charge you with
a crime before throwing you in there, the Ministry actually owes you
quite the hefty apology, as well as compensation if we determine that you
are indeed innocent." She went on, almost kindly.
"I appreciate that." Sirius said, feeling a certain amount of tension

bleed out of him. It was good to know that Amelia was as fair as her
reputation claimed.
"That being said, I am extremely annoyed by the stunt that you and your
godson pulled." The kindness was now replaced with a growl as she glared
at him. "Now you are going to tell me everything that happened from the
moment that the Potters switched Secret Keepers to the moment that you
set foot in my office and if I find out that the two of you are trying to
pull another fast one on me, then I am going to bury you. I don't care if
your godson has Fudge and Dumbledore on his side, I am going to find a
way to do it. Understood?"
"Yes, ma'am." Sirius nodded, swallowing nervously. What a scary woman.
XXXXX
Harry had an uncomfortable conversation of his own to attend to and his

wasn't even with an attractive older lady.
Dumbledore had somehow arranged for a private room for them and spent the
next few minutes liberally applying privacy spells to make sure that it
was actually private.
Once he was done with that, he turned to Harry and stared at him
inscrutably, saying nothing.
Well, two could play that game. Harry stared back impassively, sinking
further into the deep sense of peaceful Dark that had allowed him to keep
himself composed during this entire nerve wracking experience.
"I see that your study of Occlumency is progressing well." Dumbledore
finally said.
"Yes." Hary replied unhelpfully. The old wizard would have to broach the
subject more directly than that.
"I could have helped you, my boy." Dumbledore said sadly, repeating
himself from earlier when he saw Harry's reticence. "If you had come to
me after meeting Sirius, I would have listened. We could have captured
Pettigrew easily and all of this would never have needed to happen."
Harry heard the implication as clearly as the words. You would never have
needed to be a killer. It would have been better if you trusted me to
handle things for you. He still didn't understand why Dumbledore wanted
his trust so badly.
"You have a history of poor decisions behind you. I couldn't risk having
you make another. Not with this." He said evenly.
Dumbledore sighed in a greatly put upon manner. "I am not perfect, Harry.
I can make mistakes the same as any man, especially when I don't have all
the facts as was the case with Sirius."
"Leaving me with the Dursleys? Leaving the school open with a basilisk on
the loose? You should have had enough information to prevent those."
"There were extenuating circumstances for those decisions." Dumbledore

argued, but declined to elaborate. He was not used to explaining himself
to people.
"Hmm." Harry replied, unconvinced. "It doesn't matter anymore and we've
gotten off topic. This matter is settled, Sirius will get the acquittal
he deserves and become my guardian as my parents wanted."
He was perfect for it too. Still as immature as a man less than half his
age and not at all inclined to be responsible, especially when he seemed
to be looking at Harry as a replacement for his murdered friend rather
than as a child to be protected. A poor parent and one more suited to
doing rather than thinking. Perfect for Harry's purposes, as he'd likely
leave him to do all the thinking.
"Yes, he no doubt will." Dumbledore agreed. He wasn't going to try

getting in the way of that, even though he had some misgivings about
Sirius' ability in that area. "I am merely saddened that the process was
so messy."
"Was that all?" Harry asked, getting tired of the conversation.
"Just one more thing." Dumbledore promised. "Minister Fudge and Lucius
Malfoy may not be sensitive enough to notice what you did, but I am."
"And what did I do?" Harry asked noncommittally, inwardly very worried.
He might have become a great deal stronger since the first time he'd felt
the power of Dumbledore's magic back in second year, but he was under no
illusions that he would be able to match him. Even if their magic were of
equal potency(which it wasn't), Dumbledore was simply too experienced
right now for him to fight in any way. If the old man decided to start
being difficult, then he could be very difficult indeed.
"You wielded your magic as a tool of intimidation, forcing the Minister

to comply with your wishes to send Malfoy away."
Ah, that. The ability to project your will on another by exerting a

spiritual pressure on them. He hadn't expected that any wand-reliant
wizard would be aware of themselves enough to realize that their magic
was more than just a power source for their spells, but he supposed that
had been foolish of him. It had been arrogant to assume that everyone but
him was completely blind.
"I do not know how you are capable of such a thing at your age, but I do
know that you have used some ritual to speed your growth."
Harry's face went completely blank at that, listening silently as

Dumbledore went on.
"I do not know which, as my own research has unearthed no ritual that
fits my observations, nor do I know what price you paid for it.
Furthermore, I suspect that you did not perform only one such ritual, as
your mind went from completely undefended to impenetrable too quickly to
be the result of Occlumency training."
"Is there a point to this, Professor?" Harry asked, deciding to ignore

Dumbledore's not-quite admission to casual use of Legilimency. He'd
already known that the old man did it after all.
"Yes, there is." Dumbledore said softly. "I would caution you to temper
your lust for power, Harry. I was much like you in my youth. I too
desired power over all other things and resented anything that held me
back from my ambitions. It was only when those same ambitions caused the
death of my sister that I saw the ruin I was causing around me. I would
not wish for you to go through the same thing."
"I'll keep it in mind." Harry said, but was mostly just annoyed by the
little speech.
"I know that I must sound terribly patronizing to you right now."
Dumbledore chuckled self-deprecatingly. "I imagine that my advice is
unwanted and the implication that you would repeat my mistakes resented."
Harry didn't reply, not wanting to make an obvious lie by denying it but
also unwilling to outright agree.
"Wizards and witches have a very strange relationship with power."

Dumbledore went on, seemingly off topic. "They hate it and adore it, fear
it and worship it. The powerful among us do not often get the luxury of
keeping to ourselves as we grow in strength. Whether by our own actions
or by that of others, we find ourselves thrust into the center of
events."
"Is that why you're the Chief Warlock and Supreme Mugwump, despite not
being from a Noble House?" Harry asked with a raised eyebrow, interested
in spite of himself. He knew that neither of those posts required that
the holder be from a Noble House, especially the Supreme Mugwump one as
it was an international position, but they did usually require a lot of
money to get elected, something that he was reasonably certain that
Dumbledore did not have an abundance of.
"Ah, you've noticed that, have you?" The old wizard asked rhetorically.
"Indeed, after my defeat of Grindelwald, there was no shortage of people
eager to foist all responsibility for everything on me."
"And you expect that I will find myself in the same situation?" Harry
guessed.
"You have had a reputation since the night Voldemort attacked you and
have shown great potential in your schooling since then. There are those
who will want to use you and what you represent to further their own
agendas, or seek to remove you if they feel you will oppose them. This is
especially true now that you have drawn attention to yourself."
Dumbledore explained.
"So...what, am I supposed to cower and pretend to be less than I am?"

Harry demanded. Pretend mediocrity to appease the masses unimaginative
sheep? Unacceptable. He wanted to unravel the deepest mysteries of magic,
not quibble over cauldron bottom thickness with a bunch of old greybeards
who had more in common with mundane politicians than actual wizards. Even
becoming a Dark Lord would be preferrable to that.
Dumbledore needed no Legilimency to guess at Harry's thoughts. He had

felt the same way once. He imagined that most of those who stood above
their peers felt that way at some point.
It was so easy to look down on those who were less powerful than
yourself. So easy to become frustrated with society's limitations on
magic use when you felt yourself capable of doing it, of mastering
anything. Dumbledore still remembered the hunger for more and the bitter
resentment at anything that stood in his way. He had been well on the
path of a Dark Lord when Ariana's death had shocked some sense into him.
Sometimes, as he paced in his office late at night, he still wondered if
he could have swayed Gellert away from that path if he had been wiser and
less bullheaded in his youth.
But all that hard earned wisdom would be meaningless to a lad of thirteen
that didn't want to hear it. It had been meaningless to Tom Riddle as
well.
"No, Harry, I do not expect you to do that. It is quite too late for that
even if you wanted to. Instead, I would offer my help in navigating the
treacherous waters you've just entered. I mean no disrespect to Sirius,
but he is not a politician. You are still a few years away from your
majority, regardless of the state of your body, but people like Minister
Fudge will not be stopped by that in their attempts to use you. We may
even be able to squeeze in a few lessons on magic."
Words may be meaningless, but an offer of help and a bribe of knowledge

might work. He could try to steer the boy away from his current path
during their meetings. Harry would eventually need to die in a
confrontation with Voldemort anyway, but it would be much better if he
did it as a champion of good rather than as a rival Dark Lord.
Harry was honestly tempted to accept just for the magic lessons. He might
not trust Dumbledore, but the old man was indisputably an accomplished
wizard. But the fact of the matter was that he didn't trust him and he
remembered a saying he'd heard from somewhere, something about help when
offered but not needed often being no help at all.
Besides, the only politics he intended to do was abusing the shit out of
his noble status. Other than that, he was planning to do his own thing.
"I'll think about it." He said without really meaning it. Better to try
navigating treacherous waters alone than with the help of a shark.
XXXXX
After that conversation, Harry made his way back to the DMLE. For one
thing, he needed to wait for Sirius to finish talking to Director Bones.
For another, he wanted to talk to that cute Auror. This would actually be
the first time that he was so blatantly making the first move with a girl
since Zoe, and even then he'd been given an opening when she'd caught him
staring at her boobs. Fortunately, Harry was finding the prospect of
approaching a girl considerably less daunting ever since he'd killed
Pettigrew. It was morbid as all hell, but killing a person had a way of
changing your outlook on life and that wasn't even mentioning the ritual
shenanigans that had happened immediately after.
It took a little effort to find her, as the area was divided into
cubicles, but he knew her name and it was easy to ask which one was hers.
He found her in short order after that. She was doing paperwork and her
previously vibrant hair had turned a dull brown. It wasn't even as spiky
as it had been earlier.
"Good afternoon." He greeted, giving the wall of her cubicle a light

knock.
She looked up and her mood visibly improved upon having something other
than paperwork to do. Literally, as her hair perked up and turned a light
purple.
"Wo- I mean, good afternoon Mr. Potter. What can I do for you?" Her hair
turned an almost red sort of pink as she stumbled over the words.
Harry was deeply amused at seeing that her hair seemed to act like some
kind of magical mood indicator. She'd obviously been going for a casual
greeting before recalling that on-duty Aurors were supposed to be
officious when talking to civilians, and was embarrassed by her near-
blunder.
"Just Harry please. I've been called Mr. Potter too much today already."
He said with his most charming smile.
"Well then, Harry, I suppose you can call me Tonks since you've saved me
from having to do paperwork for a while." She smirked back, hair going a
more playful pink.
"Not Nymphadora?" He inquired with an exagerrated wounded look.
"No." She growled, hair turning an indisputably angry red.
Okay, dangerous territory.
"Not fond of your name I take it?" He asked.
"You wouldn't be fond of your name either if my damn fool mother had been
the one to pick one for you." Tonks grumbled.
"At least your name sounds special." Harry commiserated. "What kind of
name is 'Harry' for a wizard anyway? I might as well go around calling
myself Tim the Enchanter."
"Was that a Monty Python reference?" Tonks asked with a surprised laugh.
"You understood a Monty Python reference?" Harry asked back with equal
surprise.
"My dad's a muggleborn and he loved those movies, insisted that we watch
them. Mum and I didn't think they were as funny as he claimed, but we
watched them anyway." Tonks explained.
"I'm just happy that I've finally met someone who understood one of my
references." Harry replied with overdone relief. "You have no idea how
much it sucks to make a Conan the Barbarian joke and only get blank looks
in return."
"Who?" Tonks asked blankly.
"Yeah, that's the one." Harry sighed despondently, slumping his

shoulders.
"Aw come one, you can't expect me to get every reference." She protested.
"I guess not, but you really got my hopes up with the Monty Python one."
Harry complained.
"Well, excuuuse me." Tonks apologized sarcastically, smirking widely.

Potter was turning out to be a lot more interesting than she'd expected
him to be. And a great alternative to paperwork.
"How about you make it up to me by letting me take you on a date?" Harry
proposed, once again smiling at her.
Tonks couldn't help it, she burst out into a loud peal of laughter that
probably garnered some very odd looks from the Aurors in the surrounding
cubicles.
"I'm going to take that as a yes." Harry said with dignity. He absolutely
loved that hair of hers. It was keeping mostly to playfully bright pink
colors that he was fairly sure indicated that she wasn't at all annoyed
by his advances. She could probably control it if she wanted to, but as
long as she wasn't bothering, he pretty much got free cues on how well he
was doing.
"Smooth, Potter. Real smooth." She replied, still chuckling.
"I thought we agreed on 'Harry', and I'm still not hearing a 'no'."
"You're funny, but I usually prefer my men a bit...older."
"What a coincidence! I usually prefer my women a bit older, so we've

already got something in common."
"What women?" Tonks snorted. "You might be able to pull off the late
teens look, but everyone knows that you're only fourteen."
Harry decided to make no comment about not being fourteen yet.
"You'd be surprised." He said mysteriously. "If you want, I can tell you
all about it on our date."
"You're serious? You really want want to take me on a date?" She asked
with a raised eyebrow. She hadn't thought that he was actually serious
about taking her on a date, but he apparently really was ballsy enough to
ask out an Auror at his age and expect her to agree to it.
"No, Sirius is my godfather and he's currently getting grilled by your

boss." Harry smirked.
"Merlin's hairy bollocks, that was horrible." Tonks groaned. "I remember
Sirius making that stupid pun when I was a kid, but it didn't sound so
bad back then and I didn't expect it from anyone else."
"You think that's bad? Just wait until I make one with my own name."
Harry said back with a grin.
Tonks looked confused for a moment before it dawned on her what he was
talking about.
"Don't you dare." She warned.
"I mean, I shaved before coming here, but I just can't stop being Harry!"
"You evil git, you're supposed to be a paragon of good, not some pun
spewing monster."
"Don't believe everything you read, I'll keep throwing my darkest,

dankest puns at you until you agree to go on a date with me and Sirius is
probably going to be in there for hours, so I've got plenty of time."
"Fine, I'll go on a date with you! Just...stop."
XXXXX
When Sirius finally got to leave Director Bones' office, he was mentally
exhausted. The woman was like a dog with a bone, and Sirius felt uniquely
qualified to make that comparison.
It had taken forever before she was satisfied with his rendition of
events and even then she'd still piled up a small mountain of conditions
before allowing him to leave.
His Animagus form would be registered now, which just plain sucked. He'd
have to keep an amulet with a tracking charm on his person at all times
that would vibrate if they wanted to speak to him again. He was to stay
inside Potter Manor until a press release could be given that confirmed
his innocence so as not to cause a panic. He was to stay available for
further interviews at all times, until the DMLE was fully satisfied with
their investigation. He was mildly surprised that she hadn't insisted on
collaring Padfoot as well.
Sirius had the distinct feeling that he and Harry had deeply irritated
Amelia Bones.
Now he just had to find his godson and go back home. He knew that Harry
had received a similar set of orders, though slightly more lenient since
he was a minor.
"All done?" Auror Shacklebolt asked as he closed the door behind him.
Sirius liked the dark skinned Auror. The man was polite and respectful
and showed none of the hostility that he'd seen on the faces of some of
the others. He'd been professional and even sympathetic for the entirety
of their admittedly short acquiaintance.
"Yeah." He breathed. "That boss of yours is one tough cookie."
"You should've seen her this morning when the Prophet came in."
Shacklebolt chuckled. "She looked about ready to breathe fire."
"I can believe that, it did feel remarkably like being locked in a room
with an angry dragon." Sirius said with a theatrical shudder. "Now where
is that godson of mine?"
Shacklebolt suddenly looked uncomfortable. "He's been talking to Auror

Tonks while you've been in with the boss."
"Auror Tonks?" Sirius blinked. "Not Nymphadora Tonks? Andromeda's little
girl?"
"That's her."
"And she's an Auror now?"
"That's right, Mad-Eye Moody's last trainee before he retired."
"That's great, I haven't seen her since she was six. Where is she?" He
and Andromeda had never been hugely close, but she was his favorite
cousin by far(admittedly not saying much when the other choices were a
crazy sadist like Bellatrix and a spoiled snob like Narcissa, but
Andromeda was a genuinely decent woman), so seeing her now grown up
daughter again would be nice.
"Right this way." Shacklebolt sighed and led him through the maze of
cubicles.
Sirius had to blink in surprise again when he laid eyes on his godson.
Harry was apparently having a very good time flirting with Andromeda's
daughter.
"So that's how it is?" Sirius demanded when he saw this, bidding
Shacklebolt goodbye as the big Auror went back to work. "I'm getting
interrogated and you're over here, flirting with my cousin the whole
time?"
"Cut the crap, Sirius, you'd do the exact same thing." Harry retorted
dryly without missing the beat.
"You're damn right I would. You make me so proud." Sirius grinned. He

decided not to comment on the fact that Tonks and Harry were related.
Dorea and Andromeda weren't that close on the family tree anyway, not
nearly as close as the first cousin relationship of his own parents at
any rate.
"Wotcher, Sirius. Long time no see." Tonks greeted with a wave.
"I'll say. The last time I saw you, you were just a little girl with
rainbow colored hair that hated her first name." He agreed.
"She still does." Harry said with grin.
"Are you serious?" Sirius grinned back.
Tonks groaned, anticipating some bad puns.
"No, you're Sirius. I'm Harry."
"But I saw you shave today!"
"I know right? It's uncanny."

"Will you two idiots please stop with the puns? I already agreed to go on
a date with Harry." Tonks groaned again.
"Harry, did you get yourself a date by using puns?" Sirius asked, very
much impressed.
"Yep, you could say that I Blackmailed her into it."
"Hehehehe."
"You're monsters, both of you. You should be in Azkaban for having such a
horrible sense of humor."
"That would be quite the punishment."
"This is why people hate their relatives."
XXXXX
Waiting on the muggle side of London, Tonks really had to wonder how
she'd gotten roped into a date with a kid that didn't look quite as young
as he should, nor act like it.
Ah yes, of course. He'd been funny, charming, very persistent and

depressingly enough, more interesting than her usual brand of suitors. If
she had to put up with one more idiot who thought he was being clever by
asking what her 'true form' was, she might have seriously started
considering the use of the Cruciatus as a corrective measure. The fact
that she'd also found him rather attractive was best not considered. That
way lay confusion.
Having a muggleborn father and a pureblood mother had been the cause of
more than one culture clash during her upbringing, such as each parent
having very different ideas on the age of consent. Her mother would not
be at all bothered by this date, but it would be for the best if her
father never heard of it.
It had been good to see Sirius again. She remembered liking him the few
times that he had visited and being very upset when he suddenly stopped.
She hadn't learned about his supposed murder spree until years later. It
was gratifying to know that he was innocent, bad puns and all.
Speaking of Sirius, the man had wished them well on their date(complete
with lewd remark of course) and gone back to Potter Manor. He was
apparently planning to write to a friend of his and spend the evening
catching up since he was effectively grounded until Madam Bones issued a
press release declaring him innocent of all charges. Harry had gone with
him to change out of his robes since they'd agreed that the date was
going to take place on the muggle side.
Tonks was pretty sure that her boss had chewed out both Sirius and Harry
for the way they'd sprung this whole thing on her. The entire department
had tiptoed around her since morning, wary of attracting her obvious
wrath. Even Scrimgeour, the humorless bastard, had looked a bit
aprehensive.
She spotted her date approaching then, cutting through her train of
thought. She had to admit that he cleaned up rather well in his black
shirt and slacks, if a bit monochromatic.
"M'lady." He greeted with good natured mockery, looking over at her

ripped blue jeans, black combat boots, pink tube tob, open black jacket,
decorative black choker and of course, her usual spiky purple hair. "You
look ravishing."
"And you look like like you wouldn't know casual if it bit you on the
arse." She snarked back. They were going to look ridiculously mismatched.
"Ah, but not all of us can look as good as you in casual clothes and I
felt that you deserved my best." He rejoinedered.
"Laying it on a bit thick, aren't you?" She asked dryly.
"Not at all." He grinned. "The punk rocker look definitely suits you."
"Not going to be embarrassed to be seen with me then?" She asked with

exaggerated disappointment, falling into step with him as they started
walking.
"Embarrassed to be seen with a such a beautiful woman? Impossible.

Meeting with that Daily Prophet reporter, now that was embarrassing."
Tonks rolled her eyes at the continued flattery, but was inwardly pleased
nonetheless. It was always nice to be complimented. "What was he wearing?
Some of the more muggle savvy of us in the DMLE have a competition going
on who can find the most ridiculously dressed witch or wizard."
"That sounds like an interesting competition." Harry commented before

describing the Oktoberfest-esque outfit that Smugley had worn for their
meeting.
Tonks shook her head in disbelief once he was done. "I swear, some of
these people have to be doing it on purpose. Either that, or they're
getting their source material from the most out of the ordinary places
possible. A few months back, there was a witch brought to St. Mungo's
that thought all muggles dressed like death metal bands. She'd put a
layer of white paint on her face that was at least an inch thick and used
magic to solidify it."
"You can't be serious." Harry asked incredulously.
"No, that's your godfather." Tonks snarked vengefully.
"I probably deserved that." He admitted.
"Yes, yes you did."

"So what happened with the death metal witch?"
"Nearly suffocated under the paint, probably would have if her sister
hadn't been there to apparate them both to St. Mungo's. I heard that the
healers had to use a paint stripping spell to get her face cleared, took
her eyebrows and eyelashes with it."
Harry winced. "That must've hurt."
"Probably." Tonks agreed. "Where are we going anyway? You never did tell
me what you had planned for this date."
They'd agreed to stick to muggle entertainment for several reasons. For

one, the Wizarding World tended to close its doors earlier. For another,
it simply didn't have quite as much to offer in the way of entertainment
either since it was so much smaller.
That was actually the primary reason that Tonks was so well acquainted
with the Muggle World in the first place. The fun on this side was much
more to her tastes.
"It's pretty late already, so our options are a bit limited. I was
thinking dinner and a movie?"
"Works for me." She'd had the afternoon shift today and hadn't eaten
anything substantial since leaving home.
"I hope you don't mind buffets. Regular restaurants always give out too
small portions for me."
XXXXX
"How are you not the size of Hagrid?" Tonks demanded, seeing Harry finish
off his third plate of food.
"Magic." He answered mysteriously, trying to keep down a grin and not

being entirely successful.
"Seriously, you must eat as much as him." Tonks insisted.
"Nah, not that much." Harry refuted, but wasn't entirely certain. The
Hogwarts gamekeeper tended to eat more in one sitting than him, but Harry
knew that he ate more often.
And that wasn't even mentioning the various supplements he took, such as
vitamins, calcium, iron and magnesium. He'd gotten a bit worried about
nutrition after finding his appetite increased to its current ridiculous
level, and had researched what he might be lacking in his diet. He didn't
want to assume that magic would handle everything and later discover that
his bones had become brittle from growing too fast with too little
calcium or something. It was odd to feel grateful for Katherine's
obsessive nutrition phase that he was even aware of that potential
problem.
Potter Manor now had a room dedicated to the storage of a rather large
amount of dietary supplements that Teeny faithfully brought him every
day. He really wanted to do something nice for the little elf, because
her help had been truly indispensable, but she threatened to cry every
time he tried and there was nothing quite so guilt inducing as a
blubbering house elf.
"Besides, can't you regulate your own figure with your special ability?"
He asked. They were in a fairly out of the way corner, so it was safe to
talk about magic if they were discrete about it.
"Some." She admitted. "But I'd still get fat if I ate like you."
"What are the limits of your shapeshifting anyway?" He pressed, seizing

the opportunity. He'd been burning with curiousity about the ability ever
since he'd heard of it. That had only increased when he'd gotten a good
feel for Tonks' magic. It was far more...fluid or maybe mutable would be
a better term, than what he felt in other magicals.
"I can't add or remove too much mass, but other than that I can do more
or less anything."
"Even gender switching?" He asked further, eyebrows climbing upwards in

surprise.
"Why, you'd prefer to date a man?" She asked back with a smirk.
"I walked right into that one." He said ruefully.
"Yup." She agreed smugly. "But yes, I can switch gender if I want to."
"That's incredible." He muttered. "But how? Wouldn't that require you to

focus on all the internal changes?"
"Not really." She shrugged. "I just focus on what I want and it sort of
happens by itself. I guess my magic must know what to do even if I
don't."
"Fascinating. I wonder if it actually accesses your DNA to get the

relevant information, or does it just forcibly change it?" He mused to
himself, garnering an odd look from his date. "I don't suppose you would
be willing to submit to experimentation?"
Tonks rolled her eyes at both the question and his cheesy grin when he
asked it. "The Department of Mysteries already asked that and I'm sure
you can guess what my answer was."
"No?" He ventured.
"I wasn't quite that polite, but you're essentially correct."
"Ah, too bad." He sighed dramatically. "I was hoping to duplicate the
ability."
He was still going to try.
"Of course you did, bloody Ravenclaw." Tonks snorted. "This is why
Hufflepuff is the best, you nerds don't know when to stop studying and
the less said about Gryffindor and Slytherin the better."
"Can I have just one more question on this topic?" Harry requested.
This time it was Tonks who sighed dramatically, reaching for her glass of
water. "Fine."
"Are you using it to keep your boobs so perky, or is that natural?"
The Auror spluttered with surprised laughter at the impertinent question,

spitting a bit of water over her empty plate.
"See? I can have fun." Harry said smugly while Tonks worked on clearing
her esophagus.
"Touch, Potter, touch." Tonks conceded. "I'm afraid that your question
is stupid though, oh great intellectual comedian. For me, it's more
natural to use my metamorph abilities than not."
"Ah." Harry nodded sagely. "So your boobs are both naturally perky and
saggy. It's a breast paradox."
"How dare you call my girls saggy!" Tonks said, perhaps a bit too loudly
if the odd look from a passing employee was any indication. "I'll have
you know that I barely even need a bra. They're that perky."
"That's definitely something worth bragging about in public." Harry

commented dryly, making Tonks flush in embarrassment as she realized that
their conversation had gotten just a wee bit too loud to still be called
discrete.
She cleared her throat and decided to move away from this topic. "So,
what movie are we going to watch?"
"Let's check." Harry said and pulled out his mostly neglected smartphone.
"Ooh, is that one of those smartphone thingies?" Tonks asked eagerly and
siddled over to sit next to him so that she could look over his shoulder.
"Yes." He confirmed, trying very hard to ignore what her tube top covered
breasts were doing to him as they pressed into his back. They really were
very perky. "I don't get much use out of it with how much time I spend at
Hogwarts, but it's useful during the summer at least."
"I thought about buying one just for the novelty, but the paperwork is
really a pain in the arse when you technically don't exist in the Muggle
World. Not to mention the hassle of keeping it away from magic." Tonks
commented, smirking as she noticed that Harry was sitting a bit too
stiffly to be natural. Poke fun at her breasts would he? See how he liked
it when her breasts poked at him.
"I guess that would be a problem." He agreed, almost managing to sound
like he wasn't distracted. Almost. "Let's see...We've got the usual
choices between sappy romance and car chases and explosions, as well
as...a...few...Tonks?"
"Yeees?"
"Don't take this the wrong way, but do you have two wands in your jacket
or are those your nipples poking me?"
"They might be, you said yourself that my breasts are perky."
"Well, it's just that...they feel awfully long to be nipples."
"They're very perky."
"You are an evil woman, Tonks." And Harry meant that with feeling. He'd
known that the shapeshifting Auror would be loads of fun, but right now
he was getting a serious urge to shag her on the spot. He had no idea how
he was going to survive a whole movie feeling like this.
"I know." She breathed huskily into his ear and deliberately rubbed her
now two inch nipples over his back, having entirely too much fun teasing
him.
"So...um...which movie would you like to see?" He asked distractedly.
"You asked me out, so you should decide." She answered in the same husky
tone. "Hurry, Harry! Before we puncture the Statute of Secrecy."
Harry groaned. "I thought you hated puns?"
"That's what I wanted you to think."
XXXXX
They left the restaurant shortly after that, with Tonks needing to take a
quick side trip to the bathroom to magically repair her stretched out
top, as it had not been made with two inch nipples in mind.
The movie was much less eventful than the dinner, with both of them
taking a metaphorical step back.
Tonks had been a bit embarrassed at her own forwardness, having not
intended to go anywhere near that far. Harry had been much better company
than she'd expected him to be and she'd gotten a bit carried away because
of it.
Harry had taken the reprieve from her teasing to get his libido under
control with some emergency Occlumency. It was harder than he'd expected
it to be, as both his body and magic seemed to have gotten used to
regular intercourse as a means of dealing with that issue. He suspected
that he was going to have a truly epic case of morning wood the next day.
Unless of course he managed to seduce Tonks all the way, but he was
honestly not expecting that to happen. She wasn't the type to jump in the
sack with him for his money or reputation and he didn't think that she
was as easy as Zoe had been either.
Now the movie was over and it was approaching time to go their separate
ways.
"I had a good time tonight, even if you did blackmail me into it." Tonks
said, opening up the goodbye portion of the date.
"You know you liked my puns better than the paperwork." Harry retorted
with a grin.
"That's not saying much, anything is better than paperwork." She shot
back.
"Does that mean that you wouldn't be averse to doing this again?" He
asked slyly, stepping a bit closer. "You know, just to get your mind off
the paperwork."
"I might be open to it, if you agree to lay off the puns." She replied,
not moving away despite his obvious intention to kiss her. He'd been a
better than average date and certainly deserved it.
"I could do that." Harry agreed and closed in on her lips.
Tonks had assumed that it would be a simple peck on the lips, but Harry
was apparently a rather greedy individual as he immediately went for a
deep liplock. She might have protested his forwardness if it wasn't for
the surge of warmth that suddenly exploded through her body and seemed to
crawl slowly down to her groin. It got worse when his hands reached out
to squeeze her butt.
Harry was doing more than just kissing her. He was pressing his magic
against hers in a manner similar to what he'd done with Fudge, but for an
entirely different purpose. Instead of making himself seem more imposing,
he was mingling his own desire with that of the woman he was kissing. It
was a technique that he'd actually learned from that sex magic guide that
Luna had given him, a means of enhancing pleasure by forming a feedback
loop between two people. He'd practiced it with Bryanna and Tiana
frequently, though in that case it had been used during sex.
The kiss lasted a good deal longer than either intended as they lost
themselves in the sensation, but lack of oxygen eventually prevailed and
they broke apart.
"Wow." Tonks exhaled, breathing hard and staring at him with heavy lidded
dark eyes. That hadn't been an inexperienced kiss. Not at all.
Harry smirked at her reaction, more accustomed to it. "Let's do this

again. Soon."
"Yeah." Tonks nodded a bit shakily, trying to ignore the throb of arousal
in her loins.
Harry waited for a few moments longer, still holding on to the slim hope
that she would suggest that they continue this somewhere more
comfortable.
Alas, no such luck. "Well...I'll see you later."
Tonks apparated away with that, her mind on finishing this date with an
application of Mr. Purple, her favorite, heavily enchanted dildo. She'd
put her Hogwarts education to good use after leaving its hallowed halls.
Harry stood there for a while, biting his lip and reflecting on the
double edged nature of establishing an emotional feedback loop. His arm
was going to be so sore.
Chapter 11
For those of you who are interested, FF author Umodin has posted a story
called "Mixedblood", which he says was inspired by my own writing. It has
an OC main character and he's only just started writing it, but give it a
peek if you're curious.
Chapter betaed as always by Joe Lawyer.
XXXXX
"I should go." Remus Lupin said awkwardly.
He'd been about to leave the country when he'd seen the Prophet article
that claimed his old friend's innocence. Filled with guilt once again for
his lack of faith, he'd decided to stay for a little bit longer to see
how things would play out.
Then had come Sirius' letter, asking him to come to Potter Manor and keep
an old dog company while he was grounded.
He hadn't been able to refuse.
That had been last night, much of which Sirius and he had spent
reminiscing and repairing their friendship. He'd spent the night at his
friend's insistence despite feeling like an intruder in Harry's home.
Now it was the morning after and the actual owner of the house was
present, but saying nothing and resolutely ignoring the both of them as
he ate his breakfast.
"You don't have to." Sirius protested, in a nearly canine sort of whine.
"Harry's just being cranky over his failure to seduce my cousin."
Harry shot his godfather a look of contempt, a true teenager look that
spoke volumes about how lame what he'd just said was. "Shut up, old man.
You haven't been with a woman in over twelve years and you're a product
of incest on top of it."
"I'm not old!" Sirius insisted, looking incredibly affronted. "And I'll
break my dry spell as soon as I can go out, the birds will love the bad
boy ex-con image I'll have going for me and I can't help it if my parents
were stupid. You can't go using that argument every time you want to shut
me down."
The good natured bickering reminded Remus of James and Sirius during
their school days so much that it hurt.
"Hmpf." Was Harry's only reply.
"Is it the creepy pedo mustache that Remus has now that's making you so
hostile?" Sirius asked in exasperation. "I'll admit that it bothered me
too at first, but you get used to it."
"What?" Remus exclaimed, startled. Then he ran his fingers over his
facial hair as if to reassure himself (or perhaps it) that it wasn't a
pedo mustache.
"No, it has nothing to do with his pedo mustache." Harry said succintly.
"I just don't see any reason why I should like him simply on account of
his friendship with my parents." He'd given Sirius a chance and the man
had jumped at it. Remus had had all the chances he could've asked for and
had spent them feeling sorry for himself. "The only reason he's even here
is because you wanted to rehash the good old days with someone."
Remus would have dearly liked to remove himself from this situation,
clearly seeing that he was a point of contention between Sirius and
Harry, even if it seemed like a mild one. Harry's obvious disapproval of
his presence made him want to flee.
He wasn't sure if the fact that Harry didn't care about his werewolf
status made that sting more or less.
He was just about to make his excuses and leave when the Potter house elf
popped in and handed Harry the day's issue of the Daily Prophet.
"You's newspaper, master Harry sir!" Teeny announced.
"Thank you, Teeny." Harry acknowledged, getting a beaming smile from the
small house elf before she popped away.
"What does it say?" Sirius asked curiously, seeing the odd expression on
Harry's face.
Harry said nothing, merely continued to read for the next couple of
minutes before wordlessly handing the newspaper to Sirius.
The Boy-Who-Killed? Harry Potter avenges the betrayal of his parents by

killing their betrayer, Peter Pettigrew.
By Rita Skeeter, journalist.
The large headline was accompanied by an animated picture of Harry

walking through the Ministry atrium in the company of Fudge, Dumbledore
and the two Aurors. Accompanied by the headline, it could be misconstrued
as him being arrested.
After yesterday's surprise article portraying a different version of the

events that occurred in the final days of the war against You-Know-Who
than what has been commonly accepted as truth until now, Harry Potter,
aged 13, arrived in the Ministry of Magic to explain himself to the DMLE.
He spoke to Amelia Bones, the head of the DMLE, in the company of

Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge and Albus Dumbledore, giving more
detail to the events first hinted at in yesterday's article.
From then on the article went on to describe a mostly truthful series of

facts regarding the altercation between Sirius and Pettigrew after
Voldemort's downfall, as well as lambasting Barty Crouch for his
overzealous imprisonment of Sirius as well as Pettigrew's twelve years
spent as the Weasley's pet rat.
Then things veered somewhat away from the facts and went into
sensationalist prose.
The Boy-Who-Lived seemed as if he was carved from stone as he

emotionlessly recounted taking Pettigrew's life with a blasting curse,
only his eyes burning with remembered fury. His choice of spell was
perhaps a deliberate bit of irony, as it was with the use of such a spell
that Pettigrew faked his death and framed Sirius Black for his crimes.
Madam Bones was obviously displeased by the way that the law had been
taken into the hands of a private citizen, but Potter immediately
followed up his confession with the wands of Peter Pettigrew and that of
You-Know-Who himself. After presenting these tokens, his claims of self-
defense were accepted and Potter was allowed to go without further issue.
"What the fuck?" Sirius exclaimed. "This can't be a DMLE sanctioned press
release! It makes you out to be some kind of vigilante that only walked
free because you gave them the Dark Tosser's wand as a bribe."
Remus briefly considered remonstrating Sirius for his use of foul

language.
"I don't think it is." Harry agreed. "I've read some of Skeeter's
articles before. The bitch is about as toxic as your average League of
Legends player and seems to get off on putting the worst possible spin on
everything she writes."
Remus realized that it would probably be a bad idea to complain about
foul language.
"League of Legends?" Sirius echoed in confusion.
"Nevermind." Harry waved off, having an idle thought of getting his

technologically impaired godfather to try video gaming. That would
probably be funny to watch.
"You're strangely calm about this." Remus dared to venture.
Harry glanced at him with a frown but decided to answer anyway. "The
people whose opinions I care about aren't going to change because of
this." That wasn't to say that he was happy about it, but what anger he
did feel was contained easily enough by his Occlumency.
"That's a very mature outlook." The werewolf complimented.
Harry's frown deepened, unaccountably irritated at being complimented by

someone he disliked.
"But we can't just let this go!" Sirius protested. "We need to prank the
hell out of her!"
Harry gave his godfather a flat look. "Pranking? Really? What are you,
twelve?" He ignored the minor hypocrisy of his rebuke.
"What else if not pranking?" Sirius near demanded. He knew just as well
as Harry that Skeeter wouldn't be facing any legal repercussions because
of this. The laws about journalistic integrity in Wizarding Britain had
more holes in them than Swiss cheese. The only reliable way of making
reporters back off was to do it outside the law.
Harry looked at over at the other Marauder sitting at the table again and
this time Remus understood that he had definitely overstayed his welcome.
Harry clearly didn't want to talk about this any further in his presence.
"I've got to go." The werewolf said, getting up from the table.
"Remus?" Sirius asked, blinking in surprise at the sudden declaration.
"I'll see you around, Sirius." Remus said, not giving his friend a chance
to protest as he left.
"Did you notice anything odd about this article?" Harry asked once the
werewolf was gone.
Sirius frowned slightly at his godson, wishing that he wasn't so cold to

Remus, but went ahead with the subject change anyway.
"You mean aside from how it insinuates that you're a stone cold killer?"
"Yes, aside from that."

Sirius thought about it and reread it, then it finally dawned on him.
"How could she have known what you were talking about in Bones' office?
Fudge doesn't strike me as the type to keep a secret, but this reads as
if she was in the room with you."
"I felt strange for that whole meeting." Harry admitted. "I kept getting
the nagging feeling that there was another person in the room, but I
couldn't pin it down and I had to focus on Bones anyway."
"Invisibility cloak?" Sirius hazarded.
Harry considered it for a moment before shaking his head. "I don't think
so. She would've had a hard time not bumping into anyone and I'm pretty
sure that my magesight could see a regular invisibility cloak just as
well as it can my special one."
Sirius was briefly stumped by that before another idea came to mind, this
one even closer to home than the invisibility cloak. "An Animagus form!
You could've easily missed it if it was small enough."
They'd already determined that Harry's newly gained sensing ability had
more trouble picking out details for Sirius in his dog form and the
'size' of his magic also 'shrunk' to match his body. If Skeeter was small
enough in her Animagus form, then detecting her could be problematic even
for Harry, especially with Amelia Bones commanding his full attention.
"It's a definite possibility."
"She must not be registered. If she was then she'd never have been able
to sneak into the DMLE like that." Sirius said, a slow grin growing on
his face.
"And failing to register as an Animagus gets you time in Azkaban." Which

Harry's cynical mind identified as more proof of the Ministry's obsession
with control. Animagi were notoriously difficult to keep track of in
their animal forms. "But we can't be sure if she's really an Animagus."
"What else could it be?" Sirius asked with some exasperation.
"I don't know, but I'd rather not make assumptions only to end up being
wrong later." Harry retorted snippily.
XXXXX
Over in the DMLE, Aurors scrambled for cover as their boss stormed
through, her nostrils flaring like that of an angry bull.
The second day in a row that the Daily Prophet had posted an inflammatory
article. First Potter and Black and then that bitch, Skeeter. Both times
kicking dirt on her department as a side-effect.
Amelia Bones wasn't the type to curse out loud, but she was sorely
tempted just then. Time and again she had proposed adjustments to the law
that would hold reporters to a higher standard, but the decrepit old
farts on the Wizengamot shot it down every time.
Well of course they did. It would be hard to use the Daily Prophet as a
propaganda tool if they were actually required by law to print only the
truth.
Unlike Sirius and Harry, Amelia had been dealing with Skeeter's bullshit
for a very long time now and didn't even question how the spiteful
reporter had gotten her information. It wouldn't be the first time that
she'd conjured up some mixture of fact and fiction that had a vague
resemblance to the truth and Fudge couldn't keep a secret to save his
life anyway. Half the Ministry had been yammering on about rat Animagi
and Voldemort's wand within an hour of him leaving the DMLE.
She had intended to release the full details of what she'd learned in a
press release the next day, but now she needed to scramble to do damage
control. She might not be overly fond of Potter right now, but she wasn't
going to let him be painted as a vengeful killer by that sorry excuse for
a reporter.
XXXXX
Several hours later, Skeeter's article changed to include important

details that she'd previously left out, such as the fact that Pettigrew
had tried to draw his wand first and that Harry didn't simply kill him as
revenge for his parents, but the damage had already been done and the
general public opinion of Harry Potter was no longer of some kind of
messianic figure that could do no wrong.
Harry saw the change in the paper and knew that it wasn't going to fix
the damage that the original article had done, but was not overly
concerned with the consequences. Yes, he'd learned to make use of his
reputation instead of being irritated by it and would have preferred for
the knowledge of his killing Pettigrew to be kept as quiet as possible,
but he hadn't honestly expected to stay on that same saintly pedestal
after this anyway. The reputation of the Boy-Who-Lived had become so
inflated that it would never have survived a meeting with reality, it was
always going to be something of a one-shot. Granted, Skeeter's poisonous
slant probably did more damage than would have happened otherwise, but
probably not as much as she'd hoped for.
The DMLE dropped by twice more in the following days to talk to both him
and Sirius again, then his godfather was declared a free man. It all
seemed rather rushed, for which Harry figured he had Fudge to thank.
They'd even dug Sirius' wand out of Azkaban's storage and returned it to
him.
That took care of the biggest thing he had to do for the summer, which
still left him with the two OWLs he had to pass, figuring out the legal
details of the business he was helping Bryanna and Tiana start up,
talking to the former managers of the Potter business interests that had
since been taken over by the Parkinsons and most recently, another date
with Tonks.
He was looking forward to the latter most of all. He hadn't expected to

find himself liking the Metamorphmagus Auror to this degree considering
his general dislike of the Ministry, but he did. Her naturally cheerful
disposition was a stark contrast to his more stoic leanings and he
couldn't help but find himself interested. He'd had a similar experience
with Zoe, but his muggle friend with benefits had made it clear that she
wasn't looking for anything serious and her lack of magic honestly made
anything more than their casual arrangement more problematic than he was
willing to deal with.
Come to think of it, that might be why he'd gotten along with Sirius so
easily too. His godfather somehow managed to be in a good mood most of
the time despite his life being best described as 'a field of crap with a
few flowers breaking through the shit'. He had to respect the man's
determination to enjoy life in spite of everything and the fact that he
treated Harry like an adult didn't hurt either.
Harry knew himself to be somewhat frustrating as a friend. He could talk

to people yes, but he also liked his alone time and he loathed it when
someone tried to tell him how he should live. His early childhood was
characterized by the Dursleys hatred, bullying by other children and
later having his social interactions scripted out by Robert and
Katherine, leaving him with little patience for pushy people.
His short lived friendship with Ginny had fallen apart as much because of
her silly crush as it had because she couldn't understand that. Unfair
perhaps to expect that kind of thing from a preteen girl, especially when
she didn't know the circumstances, but life wasn't fair.
Luna understood though, or maybe that was just how she was. Luna never
complained about his penchant for keeping things to himself or his
disappearances when he wanted to practice his magic in secrecy, never
tried to make him talk about it, never tried to tell him that he should
be anything other than himself. Harry considered himself fortunate to
have a friend like her, as he strongly suspected that he'd have spent his
entire time at Hogwarts alone without her and first year had taught him
that he wasn't so anti-social that he could be happy living in constant
solitude. Enough to push people away though.
The other students were nice enough, but he simply had trouble relating
to them. Even Bryanna and Tiana had only stuck around primarily for the
gold and later for the sex, once he'd gotten good enough at it. For all
that they were on good terms, he had no doubt that they would have
drifted away if their plans for the future didn't hinge on a continued
association with him. Harry had gotten very good at keeping people at
arm's length without even meaning to.
He found himself hoping that Tonks would be another person that he could
manage to really connect with. He wouldn't be surprised if not, but he
would be disappointed. She was the first witch aside from Luna that he
was looking forward to actually getting to know and not just sleeping
with.
XXXXX
"One of the hardest parts of becoming an Animagus is finding your animal

form." Sirius was saying. "It will almost certainly be an animal that you
share characteristics with, but finding out which ones is the problem.
You don't have much of a choice in the matter either and some people
don't like what it says about them."
"I imagine that Pettigrew wasn't too pleased with his form." Harry
guessed.
"You'd be right about that." Sirius laughed harshly, his resentment of

his former friend still clear. "It took him the longest out of all of us
to first transform. Since you mentioned Wormtail, there's another thing
you should know about becoming an Animagus. It will change you, not in a
way that would be instantly obvious, but it will change you. A lot of
people that could have become Animagi choose not to because of this,
aside from the other dangers that is."
"How did it change you and the others?" Harry asked, very interested in
that bit and less so in the dangers. He was sure that Sirius would get
around to mentioning those soon enough.
"It's hard to say for sure, but some of the animal instinct carries over.
For one thing, I think that both James and I became a bit more vigorous
in our pursuit of the ladies after our first transformation."
Harry snorted at the diplomatic phrasing.
Sirius pretended he hadn't heard it. "James also became a good bit more
territorial about your mother and went after Snape any time he approached
her."
Harry frowned at that, vaguely recalling some information from his non-
magical schooling about male deer forming harems instead of mating for
life.
"How long did you and my dad go around seducing girls anyway?" He asked.
Sirius looked at him oddly but answered anyway. "James stopped towards
the end of sixth year when he started getting a bit desperate to win your
mother over. I never stopped."
Ah, so he'd subconsciously been trying to form a harem, but had shaken it
off in order to get the one he really wanted. And dogs were of course
polygamous, so Sirius' aversion to a dedicated relationship would have
only been increased. That fit with a few other distinctly canine
characteristics that Harry had noticed about his godfather.
"Alright, how do I find my inner animal?" Harry asked with a smile.

"It should be familiar to you from your Occlumency training and is really
the only part of learning how to be an Animagus that is completely safe."
Sirius explained. His own Occlumency was crap, only good enough to detect
intrusions, but he could see the parallels. "Not the same though. You're
not looking to clear your mind and stop thinking this time. You need to
sort of sink into your magic and let it show you what your inner animal
is. It'll be something that you're familiar with, but don't make any
assumptions or you'll throw the whole thing off. Once you manage it, you
might get a mental impression or even a vision of being that animal.
You'll have to keep doing this until you're absolutely certain which one
it is."
A few minutes of instruction later, Sirius left Harry alone to try it.
His Occlumency both helped and hindered him in this, but mostly helped.
He was already familiar with meditation and more than aware enough of his
own magic to do it, but he had some trouble not blanking out his mind on
instinct.
A few hours later, he came back to himself with a gasp, a dazed smile on
his face but his mind still on the waking vision he'd just had. Of
looking down at the world from the sky and gliding through the air on
black feathered wings.
Corvus corax. The common raven. He supposed that his Patronus should have
been a hint since he had called the guardian from within himself. He'd
already read up on them a bit thanks to that, but he was going to study
the species in a lot more detail now.
XXXXX
"Blimey, you know your form already?" Sirius asked with considerable
shock when he was told. "Are you sure that you know it? Absolutely sure?"
"Yes." Harry replied, a bit exasperated.
"Don't take that tone with me, young man." Sirius said sternly, but
couldn't quite keep a proud grin off his face. "If you rush into this
thinking that your animal form is something else than what it really is,
you could drive yourself mad or even die. Wouldn't be the first wizard it
happened to because they were impatient."
"Like the Marauders?"
"Exactly like us. In retrospect, it's a minor miracle that none of us

died or lost our minds."
"I'm still on the fence about your sanity, but I get your point and I'll
be careful. I really am sure of my form though."
"That must be some kind of record." Sirius commented, letting the jibe
about his sanity go. It wasn't the first time that someone had cast
aspersions on it. "It took us months just to get our first success and
months more before we could be sure of our forms."
"None of you were Occlumancers." Harry pointed out, not mentioning how
his rituals and wandless practice had left uniquely him aware of his own
magic. "And you were younger than me when you started, not to mention
less amazing. Did you know that ravens are among the most intelligent
animals alive?"
"Ha bloody ha." Sirius deadpanned.
"So, what now?"
"You'll need to, for lack of a better term, turn yourself inside out."
"You mean like...become an animal with an inner wizard instead of a

wizard with an inner animal?"
"That's it exactly. Your human mind is obviously a lot stronger than an

animal's instinct, so you'll retain most of your rationality."
"Most?"
"You might get some odd urges on occassion."
"Sirius, does the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black have canine heirs
wandering the world?"
"Piss off, Harry."
"I'm sorry." The younger wizard apologized, not sounding very sorry at
all. "What else do I have to do?"
"In the old days, wizards would spend years or even decades observing the
animal they were trying to turn into, to become as familiar with them as
possible. You'll still need to do that, but thanks to the wonders of the
modern age, you can get most of the needed information from a book."
"Who needs books when you have Wikipedia?"
"What's a Wikipedia?"
"I'll show you later." Harry was also wondering if watching YouTube
videos of ravens counted as observation. He couldn't see any reasons why
it wouldn't, but it might be best to find some wild ravens just to be on
the safe side.
"Right." Sirius said with a nod, having no clue whatsoever what his
godson was talking about. Probably some muggle thing. He'd considered
himself quite knowledgeable on the Muggle World at one point, but he was
waking up to the fact that it had become nigh on unrecognizable since the
last time he'd ventured into it. The basics were still the same of
course, but a lot of the things that Harry sometimes mentioned as if they
were common knowledge flew right over his head.
XXXXX
With Sirius now being a free man, an opportunity presented itself to do
something that Harry had wanted to do for some time.
"Do we really have to do this?" Sirius whined.
"Yes." Harry stated firmly.
"Couldn't we just burn it instead?" Sirius asked hopefully.
"No."
"But-!"
"Sirius, we are going into that house. If you hate it that much, we can
sell it after we pilfer everything of worth from it."
"Not burn it?"
"If you want to set it on fire that much, then sell it to Malfoy first.
Or Parkinson. Actually no, that's probably a bad idea even if we torch
the place right after."
Sirius sighed the sigh of the resigned. "Alright, let's get this over
with."
With heavy steps, the dog Animagus walked towards the front door of Nr.
12 Grimmauld Place.
Harry looked around curiously as they entered. The large townhouse was
smaller than Potter Manor and the hallways more narrow. In fact, the
whole place gave off an oppresive feeling of gloom. According to Dorea,
the Blacks had once had a manor house in the country as well, but for
reasons unknown, one of the past Lords Black had torn it down and
appropriated this place from its previous non-magical residents. And by
appropriated, Dorea had meant stolen.
They didn't get far before they were accosted by a portrait of woman that
looked as if she had spent her entire life sucking on lemons.
"Ah, so the prodigal son returns." She said, trying to look superior but
only managing constipation in Harry's humble opinion. "And who is this
you've brought with you? What family is he from?"
"What's with the friendly attitude, mum?" Sirius asked bluntly, packing a
lot of scorn into the last word. "Last time I saw you, you were shrieking
at my grandfather to cast me out of the family."
"I heard that you've learned the error of your ways since then, turning
your back on that blood traitor Potter and his filthy mudblood wife and
leading the Dark Lord to them." Sirius' mother answered, her demeanor
darkening slightly at the disrespect.
"I hate to disappoint you," Sirius began sarcastically. "but I was
framed. I've just been cleared of all charges and am once again known as
a muggle loving blood traitor to the world at large."
Could paintings have aneurysms? Harry felt sure that Sirius mother had
just had one.
"YOU FILTH! HOW DARE YOU RETURN TO SULLY THIS HOUSE! KREACHER! KREACHER!"
Ye gods, he'd thought that Sirius had been exaggerating when he'd
described his mother. No such luck though. If anything, the man had
somehow managed to understate it despite making her out to be the most
horrid woman in the world.
"No wonder you wanted to burn the place down." Harry commented as the
portrait of Walburga Black went on a shireking diatribe
about...something. It wasn't very coherent, but it did involve a lot of
screaming about blood traitors and mudbloods.
Sirius' potential reply was cut off when a decrepit looking house elf
popped in, glaring at them with a viciousness that Harry had honestly not
thought the little creatures capable of.
"Filthy blood traitor master has come back." Kreacher said scornfully,
barely heard over the portrait's continued yelling. "Kreacher will throw
you out."
"No, you won't" Sirius said flatly. "I own this house now."
"FILTH! SHAME TO THE FAMILY!"
Kreacher's face twisted with fury as the truth of the words sank in. The
wards had already transferred to Sirius, so he would now have to obey the
master that he hated.
"First, I want you to take that thing's portrait down and burn it."
Sirius went on contemptously, much to the increased rage of his mother.
"Kreacher cannot." The house elf said gleefully. "Mistress is permanently

stuck to wall."
"Then take down the wall." Sirius growled.
"GET OUT, GET OUT, GET OUT!"
"If Kreacher did that, the house would collapse. Stupid master." Kreacher
sneered.
Harry rolled his eyes in exasperation at the situation, starting to

develop a headache from the portrait's screaming.
"Can you brick her up then?" He asked. He wasn't at all convinced that
the Sticking Charm couldn't be dismantled, but it would be quite a feat
to concentrate on doing that with the painted harpy's constant yelling
Kreacher's mouth snapped shut and he glared at Harry mutinously, refusing
to answer.
"Answer him!" Sirius snapped.
"Yeeeees." Kreacher growled unwillingly through clenched teeth.
"Then do it." Sirius ordered, now grinning at having a solution to the

problem.
"Kreacher has no bricks." The house elf said sullenly.
"Oh, don't worry. I'll get you all the bricks you'll need."
"DISHONOR! DISHONOR ON THE FAMILY!"
XXXXX
"Lovely woman, your mother." Harry commented as they walked towards the
library.
"Isn't she just?" Sirius asked sarcastically. "I'd almost forgotten the
pounding headache that her diatribes gave me."
"What's with the house elf though?"
"Kreacher? He's always been a spiteful little bastard, but I suppose I

shouldn't be surprised. He's never been allowed to leave Grimmauld Place
and had nothing to listen to except my family's rants on blood purity."
"A bigoted house elf, now I've seen everything." Harry said with
amusement as they entered the library.
"Speaking of seeing everything, are you sure you should be looking at

some of these books?" Sirius asked nervously. He was not at all sanguine
about his godson reading up on some of the stuff he knew was in there.
"You worry too much, Sirius." Harry waved off. "I've got no interest in
sacrificing virgins or performing divination from someone's spilled
intestines. I'm much more interested in the theory than the practical
applications."
"You know, by all rights I should be forbidding you from coming anywhere
near these books until I've had a chance to throw out the worst of them."
Sirius commented wryly.
"But you won't because you're the best godfather ever."
"And you'd be pissy about it if I did."
"Knowledge is neither good nor evil, so yes, I would indeed be pissy if

you discarded it."
"Fine." Sirius said, tossing his hands skyward. "I'll go find Kreacher
some bricks, thanks for that idea by the way, and you can browse the
books. Just avoid the cursed ones."
"Who curses their own books anyway?" Harry suddenly asked. "That sounds
like a spectacularly bad idea."
"I told you that my family was nuts." Sirius shrugged.
Harry was left alone after that, Sirius trusting that Harry's magesight
and caution would keep him from running afoul the cursed books. He simply
browsed the titles for a while, waiting for something to catch his eye.
Not all of the tomes were filled with morally(and no doubt legally)
dubious magic, quite a few of them he'd actually already encountered in
either Hogwarts or Potter Manor. He wasn't interested in those though. He
would never have a proper understanding of magic if he confined himself
only to comfortable topics.
Ten minutes of browsing later, he'd found a tome that detailed the
process of using the ritualistic sacrifice of other wizards, witches or
powerful magical creatures to power large scale spells, wards or other
magics. It was grim and sometimes downright ghastly reading, but it was
also very interesting.
XXXXX
"This is the best side of my mother that I've ever seen." Sirius said
proudly, looking at the brand new brick wall sitting incongruously in the
hallway. From behind it, only blessed silence could be heard, which was
only natural since it was enchanted to block sound from going in either
direction.
"You're a real son of a bitch, Sirius." Harry noted, book on morally

reprehensible magic in hand.
"I know, I've even got the right initals. Sirius Orion Black, also known
as Son Of a Bitch."
"Bad master insulting mistress." Kreacher complained, much subdued due to

the moral quandary of being forced to brick up his beloved mistress.
"You think that's bad, just wait until we start looting the place." Harry
replied blandly. He generally did his best to be polite to house elves,
but Kreacher was quite simply a pain in the ass.
"NO! Kreacher will not let you!" The house elf shrieked, getting ready to
fight in defense of House Black.
"Yes you will." Sirius countermanded, more than happy to allow his godson
to ransack the family home if he wanted to. He was already intending to
designate him the Heir to House Black, so it would all be his eventually
anyway. "Now go away."
Kreacher stalked off as ordered, bemoaning the ill fortune that had
befallen House Black now that it had a blood traitor as its Lord.
XXXXX
"Hello, what's this?" Harry said softly, staring at a heavy looking

golden locket inlaid with emeralds in a serpentine pattern.
The locket felt very similar to how he remembered the soul shard in his
head feeling, and there was a seductive whisper of a powerful and subtle
compulsion reaching out from it as well.
This was, to put it bluntly, Bad. Capitalized. Not so much the item
itself as the implications of it.
"Strange, I don't remember seeing that one before." Sirius said, also
staring at the locket. The compulsion was trying to grab hold of him just
as much as it tried for Harry, but Sirius knew perfectly well how
dangerous it was to touch unknown objects in Grimmauld Place.
"I think it belonged to Voldemort." Harry said, grabbing his wand and
transfiguring a nearby item into a long metal pole with a hook on one
end.
Sirius started in surprise, staring at his godson. "You're sure?"
"Pretty sure. It has the same feel to it as the thing I pushed out during
my last ritual." Harry confirmed and gave the pole to Sirius.
"What are you thinking, Harry?" Sirius asked warily.
"I'm thinking that if Voldie is going to be handing out pieces of his

soul like candy, then who am I to refuse such a gift?" Harry said wryly.
"This isn't something you should be playing with." Sirius said sharply.
"Don't get your panties in a wad, I know that it's dangerous." Harry
retorted. "But you're missing the point. That thing is some kind of
phylactery, which means that the Dark Moron is still not fully dead. I
thought that the thing inside me was some kind of fluke, but this is the
third one I've come across and I'm starting to suspect that it isn't
going to be the last."
"So how do we destroy it?" Sirius asked, eager to get rid of it.
"Basilisk venom did the trick last time and I do have some in stock, but
we're not going to destroy it."
"What do you mean 'we're not going to destroy it'?" Sirius demanded.
"What possible use could you have for a piece of Voldemort's soul?"
"At the moment? None. But I find it hard to believe that I won't be able
to do anything at all with it, there is just no way that having a piece
of your soul in enemy hands could be a good idea. Now use that pole I
gave you and let's drop that thing into my Bag of Holding."
"I still don't understand why you insist on calling your Mokeskin Pouch
by that silly name."
"And I still haven't learned what the bloody hell a moke is. At least
'Bag of Holding' is a descriptive name."
"Don't try to distract me with your logic, it doesn't work on wizards. I

still say we should destroy it right away."
"Damnit, Sirius, I have no desire whatsoever to end up being a

prophesized Chosen One destined to beat Voldemort because some cracked
Seer made a prophecy fourteen years ago. I might be able to use this
thing to track down any others before the Dark Moron manages to crawl his
way back to life and starts causing problems again. He's going to be in
one hell of a snit over having his world domination scheme threatened and
then fouled up by a baby and I'd really rather not deal with that."
"Well, when you put it that way..."
By the time that Kreacher returned to Grimmauld Place, the locket that
Regulus had entrusted him with was long since gone. There was much house
elven wailing and gnashing of teeth as a result.
XXXXX
Staring at the locket that had so abruptly made his life an order of
magnitude more complicated, Harry scowled.
He'd thought that Voldemort was dead and gone in second year when his
diary was destroyed, because he'd asumed that it had been like a D&D
phylactery and held the entire soul. Then he'd learned that a soul could
break and found another piece of Voldemort inside of him, but he'd still
thought that it must have been some kind of freak occurence as a result
of his mother's sacrifice.
Now he had a third and was no longer willing to assume it was the last.
That fucking prophecy was really trying to turn his life into some kind
of big dramatic struggle against the forces of evil. He just wanted to
learn magic and see what things were like outside of Europe, maybe with
some particular female company along for the ride. Was that too much to
ask?
Apparently so, because Dumbledore's interest in him and his subtly

manipulative actions were finally making some sense in light of the fact
that Voldemort was still out there somewhere. The old man was trying to
play the Secretive-As-Fuck-But-Trust-Me-Because-I'm-The-Wise-Mentor angle
to his Chosen Champion. He'd probably get himself dramatically killed
halfway through it too, leaving the half-prepared protagonist, in this
case Harry himself, to clean up his mess. That seemed to be the norm in
these situations anyway.
Dumbledore was seriously trying to pull an Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Well bugger that. No way was Harry letting some old fart that thought he
knew best dictate his life.
This locket might be the key to finding what other soul anchors Voldemort
had and destroying them before he could come back. He certainly didn't
want to deal with a fully restored and probably very pissed off Dark
Lord.
Of course, the problem here was that Harry's knowledge about souls was
very limited. Judging by his own experiences, souls became damaged by
sufficiently traumatic events and healed over time. His rage driven
murder of Pettigrew had damaged him and that damage had repaired itself
to a degree as time passed, but never back to the unblemished state it
had been in before.
How that translated to creating a phylactery, he had no idea. Harry

suspected that he would need that knowledge before he achieved anything.
He would still see what he could find out without it, but like the diary,
the locket seemed to have some kind of sentience, which made it dangerous
to be around. He was not interested in being possessed.
He wouldn't be getting anything more done today in any case. His much
anticipated second date with Tonks was approaching and he wasn't going to
reschedule it simply because he'd just found out that Voldemort was still
not-dead. The locket could wait a little longer.
XXXXX
This time it was Harry who found himself arriving to the designated
meeting spot early. He'd gotten impatient and apparated out of the manor
almost half an hour too soon, much to Sirius' poorly concealed amusement.
There was no helping it though, he'd simply been too eager and too
nervous. The first date that he'd badgered the shapeshifting Auror into
had no real expectations attached to it, but he'd developed a genuine
liking for Tonks that had nothing to do with her good looks and the
potential sex games that her special talent would allow.
All of his forays into intimacy with females so far had involved very
little in the way of an actual emotional connection(aside from lust),
which made this nerve wracking in a whole new way. He was acutely aware
of the age discrepancy between him and Tonks and didn't want her to back
off because of it, which meant that he couldn't give her any reason to
think that she should. The Wizarding World might have a strange 'if-I-
don't-think-about-it-then-it's-not-a-problem' mentality in regards to
quite a few things, including age, but that would only go so far. This
was even more of an issue with Tonks because she was not only part of the
DMLE's elite law enforcement corps and had a reputation to maintain, but
also because her father was a muggleborn and likely had some pretty
strong opinions about certain wizarding practices. He knew that she'd
enjoyed their first date, but she would probably break it off if it gave
her issues at work or in her family.
Harry was not really the sort to develop silly crushes for no reason and
his early forays into sexuality had only made it more unlikely, but he
was just as vulnerable to falling prey to his own interests as anyone
else. Thus, he had plotted out a plan of attack for getting Tonks to
return that interest as quickly and as surely as possible, all the while
avoiding any pitfalls that might cause her to decide that he was more
trouble than he was worth. This had all happened without him really
intending to be so calculating about it...it had just sort of happened
while he was laying in bed.
A smile came to his face when Tonks eventually arrived. She was dressed
similarly to the last time, the only notable differences being that this
time she had a purple tank top and pink hair. And a bra. She hadn't worn
one the last time. That probably meant that she wasn't going to poke him
with her extendable nipples again. Too bad.
"Wotcher." She greeted with her usual good cheer. "Been waiting long?"
"Not at all, I just got here." Harry lied courteously. There was
literally no benefit to telling her that he'd been standing here for half
an hour already. "So, where are we going? You were pretty vague about
that." It had been decided that she would pick the venue this time.
"You'll see." She said vaguely. "Just take my hand, grasshopper, and I'll
show you."
"That was a horrible misquote." Harry complained, but took her hand
anyway.
"Ah shut up, you haven't seen the movie it came from any more than I
have." Tonks retorted.
"That's not the point. The point is that you mangled a perfectly good
quote." Harry insisted.
Neither one was aware that the original quote was not actually from a
movie.
Tonks didn't deign to respond and simply apparated them to the

destination.
Harry stared in bemusement at what he presumed was their destination, the

apparition having deposited them in a secluded spot some ways of. "An
amusement park? We're going to an amusement park?"
"Yes." Tonks said firmly. "And if you don't like amusement parks, then
tough, because we're still going."
"I have no strong feelings one way or the other in regards to amusement
parks." Harry droned blandly. "I've never been to one."
"What do you mean you've never been to one?" She demanded, scandalized.
"Didn't you say that your foster parents are muggle and rich? What kind
of people are they that they wouldn't take you to an amusement park at
least once?"
"I can already imagine their response to the idea." Harry replied wryly
and then adopted a snobbish air. "Why would you want to go to one of
these...things? Amusement parks are the pastime of the unwashed masses."
Tonks laughed at the impression, but inwardly felt a bit sorry for him.
That sounded kind of similar to the stories that her mother had told her
about growing up in the Black family, minus the rants on mudbloods and
blood purity.
"Well then I guess it's up to me to show you the ropes." She said
decisively, grabbing his hand and dragging him towards the noisy and
brightly lit area.
"I place myself in your capable hands." It wasn't something that he would
have chosen to do by himself, nor did he think that he'd like the crowds
and the noise, but the overall experience should be fun as long as she
was there.
XXXXX
While Tonks was showing Harry the proper way to experience an amusement
park, Sirius and Remus were having a more somber get-together in the
Hog's Head. Sirius had wanted to go to the Three Broomsticks and maybe
flirt with Rosmerta for old time's sake, but Remus had been reluctant to
go there so quickly after having his werewolf status made known to the
general public. Sirius had agreed after seeing the looks aimed not only
at his friend but also at him. Apparently getting cleared by the DMLE
wasn't enough to fully erase twelve years of everyone thinking that he
was a notorious mass murderer.
"Don't worry about it, Remus, I'm sure Harry will warm up to you soon
enough." The dog Animagus was saying.
Remus sighed at his friend's unwarranted optimism. "No, Sirius, I don't

think he will. I don't blame him for it either. I certainly wouldn't be
too fond of me if I was in his shoes."
"You're being too hard on yourself." Sirius chided. Remus had always been
prone to brooding.
Remus withheld a grimace. If only that were true, but he knew that Harry
was fully justified to dislike him. He'd acted like nothing more than a
distant acquaintance of James and Lily and now he was being treated like
one. No more than he deserved really, but Sirius was clearly having
trouble understanding it, mired as he was in nostalgia.
"So what is Harry up to now?" He asked. He had no more hope of

establishing a close relationship with the son of his dead friends, but
he could still ask about him.
"He's on a date with Andromeda's girl." Sirius chuckled. "Precocious
little scamp is better than James or I ever were at getting a girl to
agree to a date. We were on Madam Bones' shit list but he goes right up
to one of her Aurors and asks her out."
Remus didn't really know Andromeda Tonks, having only mer her once and
rather briefly at that. She had been sympathetic to the Order during the
war with Voldemort, but not a member. He did remember a cute
Metamorphmagus daughter that had scowled when she'd been introduced by
her given name though.
"Isn't she in her twenties?" He inquired carefully. That meeting had been
quite some time before Harry's birth.
"So?" Sirius shrugged.
Remus let it go. He didn't think it was very appropriate for a full grown
woman to be going on dates with a boy Harry's age, but he knew that his
opinion wouldn't be welcome. James and Sirius had gleefully taken
advantage of the Wizarding World's laxity about age appropriate
relationships.
"I was more interested in how his studies are going." He said instead.
"Good, great even. He's a smart kid and loves learning magic." Sirius
made no mention of Harry's extra-curricular study. He felt that Remus
could be trusted with the information, but Harry didn't and there was no
denying that it would be bad if it got out that the Boy-Who-Lived was
looking into dark magic. Sirius trusted Harry not to go off the deep end,
but the rest of the sheep or the Ministry wouldn't be so reasonable.
His godson's cynicism was rubbing off on him.
They went into safer areas of conversation after that. Their friendship
was still in some need of repair before it would be back to the state it
had been in during their Hogwarts days.
XXXXX
"Heh, I never would have figured you for an adrenaline junkie." Tonks
said with a wry grin.
Sitting next to her on a bench with one arm around her shoulders, Harry
smirked back. "I may not like Quidditch, but I have always liked flying."
He wondered if that had anything to do with his Animagus form. "Were you
hoping that some of those rides would scare me?"
"Yes." Tonks pouted. "I wanted to hear high pitched screams of terror,
but all I got was laughter."
"So sorry to have disappointed you, Dora." He replied with amusement.
"Dora?" She questioned with a raised eyebrow.

"It seemed weird to be calling you by your last name all the time." Harry
shrugged.
Tonks gave it some thought before nodding. She could deal with being
called Dora. The first part of her name was much more objectionable.
"Alright, you can call me Dora."
"You're so kind." He said faux demurely.
They lapsed into a short silence, which Harry spent slowly mingling his
magic with hers. She was a powerful witch and an interesting person. He
felt as if he could spend days just doing this without a word being
spoken and still know her better at the end of it than any amount of
conversation would allow.
She shifted a bit and pressed closer to him with a content exhale of air.
Harry's lips twitched into a smile.
He'd only tried this with Bryanna and Tiana post coitus before, and with
Luna in their quieter moments when they just sat together. It was a shame
that magicals had either forgotten or never learned how to properly do
this. As far as being comfortable with other people went, he doubted that
there was anything that could beat it.
Of course, he doubted that it would work with anyone that you didn't
already like, but there wasn't any reason to be doing this with someone
you didn't like anyway.
The very comfortable atmosphere was broken by the text message alert on
his phone, causing Harry to huff with some irritation at the
interruption. Dora's presence had tensed slightly at the noise, but not
enough to expel him.
"What was that?" She asked curiously.
"Probably either Robert or Katherine being annoying." He grumbled and

awkwardly pulled the phone out of his pocket, unwilling to let go of his
date's shoulder.
As it turned out, the message was not from either of his foster parents,
but from Zoe.
"Want 2 cum over?" Tonks read, amusement coloring her tone, but her magic
snapping out of its relaxed state into something much sharper. The gentle
empathic connection he'd created broke and even her hair darkened
slightly towards red.
Harry winced. He hadn't contacted Zoe at all this summer, either because
he'd been too busy or because he was more interested in his current date.
Apparently she was feeling randy and had decided to take the initiative.
Usually something he wouldn't have hesitated to take advantage of, but it
was damned inconvenient right now.
"Zoe is a muggle girl I met last summer." He started explaining. "We have
a 'friends with benefits' sort of arrangement."
"I see." She said neutrally. "You going to take her up on it?"
"Of course not." Harry denied instantly. Zoe might be pretty, fun and a
simple way of relieving tension over the summer, but that was all she
was. She might have been more if the circumstances were different, but
they weren't. "That's only if both of us are single."
He conveniently ignored that Zoe had technically not been single last
year and probably wasn't this one either. That was her problem.
Tonks gave him a scrutinizing look for a few moments, thinking about it.
She couldn't honestly be upset about something that had happened before
they'd even met. Realistically speaking, she probably had little enough
business getting upset even if he did decide to boff this 'friend with
benefits' of his, seeing as this was barely their second date.
She was still feeling a bit territorial though. Yes, getting romantically
involved with the Boy-Who-Lived would no doubt bring up quite a few
problems from both her job and her parents(or her father at any rate),
but damnit, she liked him. She hadn't had a decent boyfriend since that
little adventure with Charlie Weasley in seventh year and that was just
sad considering the fact that he would have probably liked her better if
she had scales and breathed fire, literally.
Harry was young, very young. Far younger than she would have been willing
to look for potential boyfriends under most circumstances. If he hadn't
gone after her first, she would never have even considered it. Men tended
to be immature enough even when they were older than her.
But he didn't look or act his age and the pickings were slim enough that
she was willing to go along with it despite her misgivings. She'd been
planning to just let things progress as they would and see what happened,
but it looked like she was going to need to stake a claim. A twenty-one
year old woman of her good looks, personality and talents should not be
having such an abyssmal social life and she wasn't letting perfectly good
boyfriend material get away simply because he was a bit on the young
side. She might have been more hesitant if he'd been completely green,
but that message and his explanation made it clear that he'd been
sexually active for at least a year already. Though now that she thought
about it, she probably should have guessed as much on their first date to
begin with.
"Oh? Does that mean that you consider yourself spoken for?" She
challenged, pretending that she hadn't just spent the past few seconds
making him sweat with her stare.
"I did place myself into your hands." Harry reminded her, nervousness
dissipating as he felt her magic settle down a bit.
"That's true." The Metamorphmagus conceded. "I wonder what I should do

now that I have you in my hands?"
"Please be gentle." He quipped.
She surprised him by pulling herself over until she was straddling his
lap and leaning in to whisper into his ear. "But what if I don't want to
be gentle?"
Harry shivered slightly, both at the feel of her breath tickling his ear
and in arousal at having her so close. His hands reached out to grab her
hips almost by themselves, just as his magic reached towards hers
reflexively.
"I might have to lodge a complaint about Auror brutality." He countered,

squeezing her hips and leaning forward to kiss her.
Tonks didn't bother to reply, instead just kissing him and groaning in
pleasure as she felt the same heat spreading through her as she'd felt at
their first kiss. She felt the bulge of his erection pressing up against
her in short order and decided to grind her butt against it more firmly.
This time it was Harry who groaned. Maybe it hadn't been such a great
idea to torture himself with a magical feedback loop again?
Ah screw it.
With that resolution, he pressed his hand to the small of her back and
pressed down, bringing her even closer and sending a stream of
stimulating magic into her nerves. He felt her shudder at the invading
magic, but instead of rejecting it, the intensity of her kiss only
increased.
"You go, girl!" A drunken sound of female enthusiasm came, causing Tonks
to jerk out of the kiss.
Both of them breathing heavily, they looked around for the source of the
yell and quickly noticed a group of tipsy looking teenagers giving them a
thumbs up.
Bemused and not sure what else to do, Harry returned the thumbs up
despite being a bit annoyed by the interruption.
"Still want to lodge a complaint about Auror brutality?" Tonks asked when
the giggly group of teens moved on.
"You can brutalize me anytime." Harry smirked, still gently rubbing his
fingers into the small of her back.
"Now there's a tempting offer, but the paperwork would be horrible." She
sighed and slid back into place next to him, much to Harry's
disappointment.
"That bad?" He asked, going along with the subject change into cooler
waters even though he wanted nothing more than to get her in bed right
now.
"You have no idea." She groaned dramatically. "I thought being an Auror
was going to be all about action and catching the bad guys, but I spend
most of my days filing reports for inappropriate prank spells or illegal
Portkeys or something."
"That's what you get for selling your soul to the Black Order of
Bureaucracy." Harry said unsympathetically.
Tonks burst out laughing at his name for the Ministry, which she had to
admit was appropriate at times. "Not going to get a Ministry job when you
graduate then?"
"Not a chance." Harry snorted.
"What are you going to do then?" She asked curiously.
"I was thinking of travelling a bit and seeing the world." He admitted.
"That sounds nice."
There was a moment of silence and Harry was seized by the sudden urge to
ask her to quit her job and come with him. He wasn't that impulsive
though and abandoned the idea as being premature. He could always ask
later, once they knew each other better, which was something that he had
high hopes for.
"Aren't Aurors the DMLE's elite though?" He asked instead, backtracking a

bit. "Shouldn't the Magical Law Enforcement Patrol be dealing with all
that small stuff?"
"They do." Tonks grumbled. "Thing is, Bones doesn't get along too well
with Fudge or his backers and our esteemed Minister is worried that she
wants to replace him, so any time that the Ministry needs to make a
budget cut, we're the ones who take the hit."
"And now the DMLE is so understaffed and underfunded that even Aurors
have to deal with the small stuff." Harry finished.
"That's about the size of it." Tonks confirmed. "And speaking of work, I
should probably go home. I've got the morning shift tomorrow."
"And I've got my Ancient Runes OWL." Harry added, easily hiding his
diappointment that the date was over. On the upside, he had the sense
that his relationship with the pretty Metamorphmagus had now gone beyond
that 'maybe/maybe not' stage where nobody could say whether they were
together or not. "Want me to come visit while I'm there?"
"Might be better if you didn't." Tonks admitted. "Bones and Scrimgeour

aren't too fond of personal visits during work hours."
"Alright." Harry consented easily. "But only if you agree to go on

another date with me."
"So that's how it is? I go out with you or you'll get me in trouble with
the boss?" Tonks asked teasingly, inwardly very relieved that he was
being mature about the no visits thing while she was working. A couple of
her past attempts at a relationship had gotten a bit shirty about that,
though in that case it had still been training rather than working. Moody
had been even less tolerant of 'emotional hogwash' getting in the way of
CONSTANT VIGILANCE.
"Damn straight." Harry confirmed. "If you don't agree, you might find me
paying the DMLE another visit and lurking over your shoulder while you
try to do paperwork."
"I guess I've got no choice then." Tonks sighed theatrically. "With you
twisting my arm like that, i'll just have to put up with you for a bit
longer."
"You'll get used to me." Harry chuckled and leaned over to steal another
kiss.
Though a bit surprised, she quickly started to respond and almost gave in
to the urge to climb back into his lap by the time they broke apart.
"I should go." She said softly, biting her lower lip as she stared into
his bright green eyes.
Harry nodded and escorted her to a secluded spot that she could apparate
away from.
"I'll be in touch." He said once they arrived and gave in to the urge to
give her lips another quick peck. "Goodnight, Dora."
"Goodnight, Harry."
Harry stared wistfully at the empty spot where she'd been standing just a
moment ago.
"Nice going Potter, first you decide to avoid serious relationships and
then barely a week later you get infatuated with an Auror that will
probably be obligated to arrest you if she finds out about some of the
things you're doing." He muttered to himself. "That's pure genius right
there."
Sighing, he pulled out his phone again and stared at the message from
Zoe. As had happened on the last date with the Metamorphmagus, he was
horny as hell. Unlike the last time, he had a girl that would be more
than willing to help him with that.
Instead of accepting, he sent her a reply to let her know that he wasn't
going to be available for any more fun in the foreseeable future. Getting
into a relationship with Tonks was dangerous beyond doubt, but then
again, he had developed a bad habit of doing dangerous things ever since
he'd entered the Wizarding World.
XXXXX
Appearing inside her flat, Tonks let out a deep breath and began pulling
off her clothes in preparation for a shower.
She'd very nearly invited Harry to come with her back there, seven years
younger than her or not. It was sometimes hard to remember his age when
he didn't look or react like a boy in his early teens. It didn't help
that she felt so comfortable with him or that his kisses made her want to
stick her hands down his pants.
She had seen the same desire in his face plain as day and if he kept
being so damned attractive, she might just have to do exactly that. She'd
never been particularly uncomfortable with her sexuality anyway, even if
she didn't drop her knickers on the first date.
But for now, Mr. Purple would be pressed back into service.
XXXXX
A bit of a transitional chapter here, but there was no avoiding it. A lot
of plot points converged on this point in time, so it'll take another
chapter or two before I'm done writing about this summer.
Chapter 12
I was in a typing mood these past few days, so this chapter came out
sooner than usual. Enjoy.
Full beta credits to Joe Lawyer for his help in polishing up these
chapters.
XXXXX
"How did your exam go?" Sirius asked once Harry got back from the
Ministry.
"Easier than I expected. Professor Babbling must have really wanted me to

get an Outstanding, because I was overprepared." Harry replied. Of
course, thanks to Da'Roir and his constant Occlumency practice, his
memory was damn near eidetic these days, so that had probably played a
part too.
"Your parents would have been so proud." Sirius stated with a big grin.
"Not only are you a suave ladies man, but you're also a bookworm."
"Somehow I get the feeling that my mother wouldn't have been too happy
about a lot of the things that dad would have been."
Sirius snorted. "You got that right, but teenagers are supposed to be
rebellious anyway."
Harry nodded and changed the subject. "I'm going back to Grimmauld Place
tomorrow."
"Did you already finish that book you took?"
"Of course not, that thing is huge." Harry refuted. "I just figure that I
might as well start relocating the library and any other interesting bits
so that I won't have to keep going over there all the time."
Despite Sirius' hatred of Grimmauld Place and the jokes he'd made made on
their first visit, he had no intention of either selling it or destroying
it. He wouldn't live there and planned to empty it of everything that had
some worth, but he would keep it around. If nothing else, it would make
for a good hidey hole and fallback location if it was ever needed as such
and Teeny would be happy with the extra work of of maintaining it. He
still had trouble wrapping his mind around the idea that more work made
house elves happy, but he supposed that he didn't have to understand it
as long as it made the helpful little creature happy.
"Want me to come with you?" Sirius asked, as if they weren't dicussing

what was essentially the robbery of the ancestral home of his family.
"If you want." Harry shrugged. "You might be able to identify some of the
cursed objects, but it's not neccessary."
"Why do you want those anyway?"
"Practice."
"Practice?"
"Unraveling the spells on cursed or enchanted items is a great way of

learning how to apply them."
"Errr, Harry, you do know that it's usually the job of Curse-Breakers
with years of training to do that kind of stuff?"
"What's your point?"
"You're not a trained Curse-Breaker."
"So?"
"I really wish you'd get some safer hobbies, Harry."
"It's not like I'm going to blunder about blindly, I'm not a Gryffindor."
"That was low."
XXXXX
Sirius decided to come along for the looting expedition, having nothing
better to do anyway.
With them was also Teeny, levitating three chests behind her; one for
books, one for cursed objects and one for regular stuff.
They'd barely started cleaning out the library when Kreacher showed up,
worked up into a proper house elven hissy fit.
"Where is it?!" The demented little elf screeched.
Sirius looked bewildered, but Harry instantly guessed what Kreacher

meant.
"You wouldn't happen to be talking about a heavy golden locket with a

piece of Voldemort's soul stuck in it, would you?" He asked.
Teeny gasped at the utterance of the Dark Lord's name. Kreacher snapped
his mouth shut and glared.
"Kreacher, what do you know about that locket? How did it end up in this
house?" Harry pressed.
The house elf stayed mulishly silent.
"Answer him!" Sirius snapped angrily.
And so Kreacher started talking, resentfully and unwillingly at first,

but soon becoming overwhelmed with emotion as he began to describe the
sacrifice that Regulus had made.
When the tale was done, Sirius had gone very pale. "I had no idea. I
thought that Reggie tried to back out and got killed by the other Death
Eaters."
"Master Regulus was brave and kind!" Kreacher asserted fiercely.

"Kreacher wants the locket back! Kreacher promised to destroy it!"
"Kreacher, the locket isn't the only one of those items." Harry said
carefully.
The house elf was visibly shocked by this. "Bu-but master Regulus said
that if Kreacher destroyed it, the Dark Lord would be defeated."
"He made more than one. I've already destroyed two and we have no way of
knowing how many were made." Harry told him.
"You know how to destroy them?" Kreacher asked with desperate hope,
latching on to the part that was most important to him. "Kreacher tried
and tried, but nothing he did would damage it. Kreacher couldn't fulfill
master Regulus' last order."
Harry knew that the house elf desperately wanted to fulfill that order,
but the locket was simply too valuable to destroy right now. "I can, but
first I need to see if I can use it to locate any others. It won't do us
any good to destroy one only for there to be more."
Fortunately, house elves were perfectly capable of seeing reason.

"Kreacher understands." He said despondently.
Harry then kneeled on the floor so that he was more level with the small
being and spoke in a softer tone. "Kreacher, did Regulus leave behind
anything that might help us destroy all these things? Voldemort is still
out there and it's only a matter of time before he comes back unless we
find them all."
"Filthy halfblood won't steal it?" Kreacher asked dubiously, having no

idea what to think of this wizard that had lowered himself to a house
elf's level.
"Kreacher." Sirius interjected with a sigh at the house elf's seemingly

reflexive bigotry. "Harry is going to inherit the Black family, so
everything will belong to him anyway. I've certainly got no intention of
fathering any heirs of my own."
Kreacher's ears drooped a bit, obviously upset by that. He'd served the
Black family for decades and didn't want to see it go extinct, but he
considered Regulus' last wishes to be more important.
"Kreacher will bring it."
The house elf popped away and returned a minute later, holding a book
with a black and purple cover.
'Secrets of the Darkest Art' the title read, and Harry knew instantly
that he would find what he was looking for in it.
"Master Regulus read this book and told Kreacher to hide it before going
to the cave, so Kreacher hid it." The house elf explained.
"I've never seen that book before." Sirius commented, looking at it

warily.
"Master Regulus stole it from the Lord's private study." Kreacher

explained with a mutter.
Sirius blinked. "Huh, that was ballsy of Reg. Gramps wouldn't have been
happy about that."
"Master Arcturus was not." Kreacher said flatly.
"Thank you, Kreacher, this is exactly what I needed." Harry interjected,

having leafed through the book a bit and seen that it was full of some of
the most despicable magics he'd ever laid eyes on.
"Filthy halfblood will destroy it?"

"As soon as I can determine how many of these things there are." Harry
confirmed and then paused in thought for a moment. He had initially been
dismissive of the belligerent house elf, but after what he'd just heard,
he could see that there was more to him than the outward bitterness. Even
his bigotry seemed more like something that he just did without really
believing it. And there was that idea that he'd been
considering..."Kreacher, would you like to come work for me?"
Both Kreacher and Sirius were visibly shocked by his question and Sirius
wasted no time in giving voice to his shock.
"Harry, do you really want him working for you?" He asked incredulously.
"Why not?" Harry asked in turn. "He's been nothing but loyal to your
brother and deserves better than to be left abandoned in an empty house."
Kreacher visibly swelled with pride at the words.
Sirius threw his hands up into the air in exasperation. "Fine then, you
can have him if you want to deal with his muttering."
Harry simply nodded and turned back to the house elf. "What do you say,
Kreacher? Would you like to come work for me?"
Kreacher was surprised at actually being asked what he wanted, but nodded
all the same. "Kreacher will serve the filthy halfblood."
At that point Harry realized that he already had one house elf, who had
been as silent as a mouse the entire time. "Errr, I hope you don't mind,
Teeny?"
Despite being more used to kindness than the Black family elf, Teeny was
also caught a bit off guard at being asked such a thing. "No, Teeny
doesn't mind, as long as Kreacher stops calling master a filthy
halfblood. Master Harry is best master!" The last was said quite
fiercely.
"Actually, I kind of like it." Harry admitted.
"You like being called a filthy halfblood?" Sirius asked in disbelief.
"Not by everyone obviously, but coming from Kreacher it just sounds

right, like Kreacher wouldn't be Kreacher if he wasn't calling me a
filthy halfblood." The younger wizard explained.
"Kreacher will continue calling the filthy halfblood master a filthy

halfblood." Kreacher nodded decisively.
"You're weird, Harry. Really weird."
XXXXX
The creation of a Horcrux is among the highest forms of sorcery, the

manipulation of the soul.
First, the caster must cause a break in their soul. This can be achieved
through various means, but they all circle back to the destruction of
innocence. The simplest way of achieving this is through cold blooded
murder of one who has done the caster no harm, the more harmless the
better. Alternatively, killing a close friend would have even superior
results.
Once the soul has become fragmented, a piece can be brought out and bound
to an item. This is no simple matter, as only those with great souls are
capable of listening to the echoes of magic within themselves and
splitting apart a fragment.
The item used is also important. It can be no mundane thing, but

something of great personal significance, else the soul fragment will not
bond with it. Choose the item with care.
Once the Horcrux is created, the item used will become nearly impervious
to damage as it takes on some of the indestructible properties of the
soul. Be wary however, of methods that destroy magic, as they will sever
the tie between the soul and the item.
Take heed that this sacrificial mutilation of one's soul may affect the
flesh as it does the spirit and can never be undone.
The separated soul piece within the Horcrux will remain unchanged while
the creator does not. Should you wish to return the fragment to the
whole, you must do so quickly or it will become alien to you and resist.
The Horcrux should never be allowed in the presence of other witches or

wizards, as it will attempt to regain a body through possession. Those
with strong souls of their own may resist, but the weak will succumb and
become vessels. Should this occur, the Horcrux will be far more
vulnerable to destruction and may even become your enemy.
Harry shut the book with a frown and thought about what he'd just read.
There was nothing written there that was immediately helpful and the book
obliquely implied that making more than one Horcrux was a bad idea.
Voldemort had clearly disagreed.
Still, surely the separated soul fragment retained some link to the other
parts of itself? That would be the sensible assumption, but there had
been times in the past when magic and sense remained unrelated.
Either way, coming across this bit of knowledge had been less useful than
he had hoped, and he didn't even have any guarantee that the author was
entirely correct. He would still need to experiment on his own. For all
that having a piece of someone else's soul to play with was a great
opportunity, he couldn't help but feel anxious. He was not under any
illusion of being ready for a wizard the likes of Voldemort and would
have dearly liked to just drip a few drops of basilisk venom on the damn
locket and be done with it, opportunity be damned.
XXXXX
"Any luck?" Sirius asked the next day.
"No." Harry grimaced. "Nothing I've tried so far has achieved a damn
thing aside from giving me a headache from spending all that time
resisting the compulsion to put it on."
"Maybe we should just destroy it?" Sirius suggested. "It's too damn
dangerous to keep around if you're not getting anywhere."
"And then what? Hope that any other Horcruxes are just going to drop into
our lap like this one did?" Harry grumbled.
"Harry, I know that you don't trust him, but Dumbledore knows Voldemort
better than anyone, he might have some idea of where to find the others.
If there even are any others."
"I'm not talking to him except as an absolute last resort. The old man is
playing his own games, the full extent of which I can't see. He'd just
pump us for information but give nothing in return."
Sirius would have liked to argue that point, but he couldn't. Dumbledore
had indeed kept things very close to the chest for as long as anyone had
known him.
"Besides, I didn't expect it to be easy." Harry went on. "Maybe I just

need more knowledge on magic and souls before I try again."
Sirius rubbed a hand over his face tiredly, wondering at what strange
twists life could take that would lead to his godson messing around with
Voldemort's soul.
"At least take a break." He finally said. "You haven't done anything to
relax since the summer started."
"Studying magic is relaxing." Harry replied mildly. "And I've gone on a

date with Dora."
"Go on another one."
"I will, but not yet. I have business to tend to first."
"I still can't believe that you're working out business deals at your
age."
"You should be doing it too." Harry pointed out. "The Black family is in
an even worse situation than Potter."
"Meh." Sirius shrugged, obviously uncaring. "I'll just leave it all to

you. That way, House Potter gets elevated to Noble and Most Ancient
status and Black goes extinct. Everybody wins."
Harry shook his head with an exasperated smile. Sirius' resentment for
his family was boundless. He was going to deliberately wipe out his
family name just to spite the dead. Well far be it from him to protest
the free windfall.
"In that case, you can try your hand at explaining to Kreacher how
mounting his head on a wall isn't an honor while I'm off listening to
lawyers." The old Black family elf was incredibly stubborn and set in his
ways.
"He's your elf now." Sirius pointed out cheekily. "He won't listen to me
anymore."
XXXXX
Arranging a consultation with a wizarding lawyer wasn't too difficult

thanks both to prior experience and Harry's personal status, but the
muggle side was considerably more problematic, even without the need to
skirt around the subject of magic. Nonetheless he had eventually managed
it and taken his four prospective business partners to see both so that
they could discuss the terms of their contract.
Those two meetings had taken up the the whole morning, leaving all five
of them tired and hungry, so Harry had offered to treat them all to
lunch.
Which was where they were now, the food had been eaten and the dishes
taken away, leaving only the notes they'd taken from the two meetings on
the table.
Quite a few of the things that had been discussed was stuff that they
could easily agree on. Things like all five of them getting regular
finance reports and being able to request a full accounting at any time
and for any reason.
Of course, not everything was agreeable to all of them.
"I don't like this." Jade was saying with a scowl. "We've already talked
about the Right of First Refusal so that we can't sell to anyone without
your permission and I get why that would be a good idea, but there's a
bunch of other things here that give you way too much power."
"Such as?" Harry asked mildly, seeing that the others agreed with her.
"I think that the one that bothers us the most is you having
supermajority." Tiana said delicately. " It essentially gives you the
last word on everything."
"Not everything." Harry said defensively.
"Riiight." Bryanna drawled. "We just can't sell or dissolve the business
without your say so."
"That's pretty much just an extension to the Right of First Refusal."
Harry countered.
"And this non-compete clause that makes it illegal for us to start up a

similar business if we decide to leave?" Isabel asked.
"That's for your benefit as much as mine." Harry pointed out.
"What about this Capital Expenditure Approval thing then?" Tiana added.
"We'd have to ask you for permission every time we want to spend some
gold."
"Only for the larger scale expenses. That's my gold that you'd be working
with and I don't want to hear that you spent a large chunk of it or even
went into debt without my knowledge." He argued back.
"You'd lose that privilege once you lost majority ownership then?" Isabel
asked stiffly.
"Not completely." He admitted. "I'd be willing to change the terms so

that Bryanna and Tiana together could overrule me, but I'd still have to
be consulted before it was done and I'd retain the right to buy back
those shares at need."
"That would let you keep control even as a minority holder." She said
with a scowl. "You could take back majority ownership at any time if you
didn't like their decisions. The way it's worded, you could even force us
to sell everything to you whether we wanted to or not."
"I wouldn't do that unless some circumstance forced me to." Harry

insisted. "I'm not looking to swindle you out of anything here. Like it
or not, but the more say I have in things, the less chance there is of
some third party sticking their fingers into it. As long as it looks like
you have no control, you'll be safe from any outside interference."
"And what assurance do we have that you won't just take everything for
yourself once we start turning a profit?" Jade demanded.
"None." Harry retorted flatly, starting to get irritated. "What you do

have is a near certainty that some snobby pureblood is going to think
that a bunch of uppity mudbloods and halfbloods have no business being
successful and working to shut you down. I want the final say on any
major decisions for the same reason. Not to put too fine a point on it,
but I'll be taken a lot more seriously than you."
Seeing Jade bristle in a way that signaled an impending loss of temper,

Bryanna quickly intervened. She grabbed hold of Harry's hand to draw his
attention and spoke in a much softer tone of voice.
"Harry, if we agreed to a contract like this, we'd be placing all of our

ambitions in your hands. Can we trust you that much?" She asked.
Harry took a deep breath to calm down, reminding himself that Isabel and
Jade didn't know him. It grated to have his motives questioned like this,
but it wasn't surprising. He wouldn't be enthused about entrusting his
future to a virtual stranger on nothing but faith either.
"Yes, you can trust me." He assured her. "I want to be kept involved and
informed, but for the most part I'll be a silent partner in all but name
unless something requires my input."
"I don't suppose you'd be willing to swear an Unbreakable Vow to that

effect?" Jade interjected waspishly, still a bit steamed from the earlier
near-argument.
Harry looked at her as if she was an idiot. "I wouldn't swear an

Unbreakable Vow to not burn down an orphanage with the children still
inside it. I'll never agree to turn my own magic into a chain around my
neck, no matter how good or benign the reason seems, especially not for
something this trivial."
People who swore careless oaths always seemed to end up tripping over
them eventually.
Jade backed off, taken by surprise at his vehemence.
"His word is good enough for me." Tiana jumped in. "We can trust him."
Bryanna quickly backed her up and the other two backed down. They weren't
happy about it, but they would go along with it.
"Alright, good. We'll put together a proper contract later and look it
over again, and after that we'll go to Gringotts to open up a company
vault."
"A company vault?" Bryanna repeated.
"Yes, a company vault." Harry confirmed. "One that all of us have equal
access to and which will be used exclusively for business related
expenses and the payout of salaries. Much easier to keep everyone honest
that way."
This time they all agreed without issue, fortunately. Isabel and Jade
left together after that, leaving only three people at the table.
"So, Harry...What do you say we go seal the deal somewhere more private?"
Bryanna asked coyly, placing a hand on his thigh. Tiana did the same on
his other side.
Harry was getting some very pleasant flashbacks to his first Hogsmeade
visit and what had happened afterwards, but it was with a sigh and a
heavy heart that he grabbed hold of their hands and removed them.
"I'm sorry, girls, but I'm in a relationship now."
Both were visibly shocked and a bit disappointed, but soon sprouted
conniving grins.
"And who is the lucky lady that caught your interest?" Bryanna asked.
"I don't really think you need to know that." Harry evaded.
"I bet she's older than us." Tiana declared. "Is she older than thirty?"
"I'm not telling you." He insisted.
"Not older than thirty then." The former Slytherin nodded, making Harry
wonder how she had come to that conclusion. Granted, it was the right
conclusion, but he had no idea what made her so certain. "She has to be
somewhere between twenty and thirty then."
"Why does she have to be between twenty and thirty?" Harry asked,
bewildered.
"So she is between twenty and thirty!" Bryanna exclaimed,
"What?"
"Did she go to Hogwarts with us?" Tiana continued to press.
Harry paused in thought for a fatal moment. Tonks had just graduated by
the time he'd arrived, so she would have been three years above Bryanna
and Tiana. It was highly likely that they had known of her since Tonks
was not exactly inconspicuous.
"Aha! She did go to Hogwarts with us!" Bryanna crowed, seeing his small
pause as a confirmation. "That puts her between the ages of...twenty-four
and twenty."
"Probably closer to the lower end of that." Tiana advised. "No matter how
smooth Harry is, I doubt a woman ten years his senior would be willing to
get into a serious relationship with him right now, even six would be
pushing it. Of course, she could just be after his money, but we already
know that Harry wouldn't be duped into something like that, don't we?"
"Good point." Bryanna conceded before turning to the baffled Harry, who
could hardly believe the weird chain of logic that was leading them to
quickly eliminate potential girlfriends with almost frightening accuracy.
"Did you sleep with her yet?"
"That's none of your business." He said irritably, immediately regretting

his impulsive answer.
"Ah, not one of the school sluts then, since you couldn't have been with
her for long." Tiana nodded sagely.
"I think we can safely eliminate some of the more mousy ones too."
Bryanna added.
"That's true. So, a woman in her early twenties that is neither a slut
nor a mouse. Someone that wouldn't be interested only in his money and
confident enough to attract attention." Tiana summarized and postulated.
"Is she a blonde?" Bryanna asked.
Harry answered with stony silence, refusing to give any more hints by
speaking.
"Brunette?"
More silence.
"Redhead?"
Even more silence.
"Maybe it's that Metamorphmagus?" Tiana said with a snicker, quite

obviously joking.
Harry twitched. The girls noticed.
"No way..." Bryanna said slowly. "You're dating Nymphadora 'don't call me
that' Tonks?"
Harry pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed in resignation. "Yes, I'm
dating Nymphadora Tonks."
"In retrospect, that should have been our first guess." Tiana said after
a moment. "Just think about it. She's a twenty-one year old that can make
herself look forty at will. He can have his cake and eat it too."
"That's not why I'm dating her." Harry grumbled.
"We know, Harry." Both girls said soothingly. "But you have thought about
it."
"Of course I have." He said with an eyeroll. As if it was possible to

avoid thinking about it. He wasn't a eunuch.
"Well we hope things work out for the two of you."
"Thanks, and I'd appreciate if you don't spread it around. The last thing
I need is to have that bitch Skeeter making more disingenuous
assertations in the Prophet."
"Don't worry, Harry, we won't say a word."
XXXXX
A few days later, Harry once again found himself in the Ministry for his
Arithmancy OWL.
This one was almost entirely theory and was somewhat more difficult than
the one for Ancient Runes, but he was confident in the results all the
same.
The Governor of the Wizarding Examinations Authority, an ancient witch by
the name of Griselda Marchbanks, approached him once he came out of the
test chamber.
"Mr. Potter." She said neutrally, much to Harry's private relief. One or
two of the examiners had been rather less than professional around him.
"First I would like to laud your academic achievement. It has been many
years since the last time that a student sat their OWLs early."
"Thank you." Harry replied with a nod.
"You will receive your results by owl at the end of July the same as
everyone else." She went on.
"Ah, it may be better if I stopped by to pick them up myself." Harry

interjected.
"Why is that?" She asked, puzzled.
"Owls have had trouble finding me for over a year now." He explained.
"What happened?" She pressed, even more puzzled.
"I don't honestly know." He lied. "The only thing of any real
significance was a close encounter with a dementor, but I'm fairly
certain that happened afterwards. Nothing really stands out other than
that."
Marchbanks gave him a shrewd look, but he gave away nothing.
"Very well then, I will have your results in my office. You may come pick
them up at any time after July 27th." She said, apparently deciding not
to make an issue out of it.
Harry thanked the old woman again and left, inwardly grumbling about the
amount of minor inconveniences his owl problem was causing him. It hadn't
been an issue when his only bit of post had been from Luna or Ginny
before they'd drifted apart, but given everything that he was getting
involved with these days, it was becoming damned annoying.
He didn't appreciate having his time wasted on the minor minutia of the
day. Maybe it was time to consider employing a steward or majordomo of
sorts? A personal assistant of some sort at any rate. They wouldn't have
a much to do just yet, but it looked like his business ventures were all
set to start producing quite a bit of paperwork in the near future. Then
there was his public image, regarding which he had recently woken up to
the fact that it would probably need maintenance. The overblown legend of
the Boy-Who-Lived was annoying and the hyphenated title stupid, but it
could make for an excellent springboard to replace it with
something...realistic and less didn't really have anyone in mind for the
job, but it was something to think about.
XXXXX
"Paintball? We're doing paintball?" Tonks asked, sounding surprised and
more than a little excited.
"Yep." Harry nodded. "I was thinking of all the places I could take you,
like fancy dinners or dancing or whatnot, but then I thought to myself
'would Dora really enjoy that, or would she prefer to shoot high speed
balls of paint at my arse?'. The answer seemed obvious, so I went and
booked the arena just for us."
Tonks let him know what she thought about that by grabbing his head and
pulling him down into a kiss.
"I've wanted to go paintballing for ages, but never had anyone to go

with." She explained once she pulled away.
"We'll see if you'll still be excited once I plaster you with paint." He
said with a challenging smirk.
"You will, will you?" She retorted with narrowed eyes. "You're clearly
forgetting which one of us is the Auror and which is still a student."
"That'll just make my victory sweeter."
"Oh you've done it now. I am going to own you so hard, Potter."
XXXXX
Harry crept around the arena, keeping out of sight in order to properly
flank his unaware opponent.
She was dangerous and had a good eye for positioning, but he had
something of an unfair advantage. With the two of them being the only
people anywhere in the vicinity, he could sense her location clear as
day. Thus, he always managed to avoid her line of fire.
And he also had the Cloak of True Invisibility in his Bag of Holding and
the ability to use wandless silencing spells. Really, he was cheating his
arse off. He justified it to himself with the fact that his girlfriend
had combat training and he didn't and wasn't cheating a crucial part of
any kind of combat anyway?
Once he was in position a ways behind the tensely crouched figure, he

pulled off the Cloak and stuffed it back into the Bag of Holding. Then he
raised the paintball gun, took careful aim and fired.
The little ball of paint splattered over the small of Dora's back,
joining several of its brothers.
"Gah!" Tonks yelped loudly, turning around and loosing fussilade of

paintballs in his general direction. Alas, she hit only the cover that
he'd hidden behind.
"That is it!" She shouted. "You're going down!"

Harry's eyes widened in alarm as she stormed towards him, apparently
disdaining caution in favor of getting a hit on him. Knowing that he
didn't have much time, he made a run for it, firing at her blindly in the
hope that she would duck for cover. Judging by the stinging impacts along
his back, it hadn't worked.
He kept on running, ducking behind cover as much as possible. He needed

to get out of sight so that he could vanish again.
Then he heard a familiar sound. The crack of Apparition. Tonks appeared

to his left, shot him a few times with a gleeful cackle and apparated
away again.
"What the hell, Dora? That's cheating!" He yelled out hypocritically,

rubbing at the places where he'd been shot.
"You're cheating too!" She accused from her new position. "There's no way
that you just happened to get behind me every sodding time!"
"Prove it!" He yelled back.
Her answer was a crescent slash of pink paint that he just barely dodged
and which had quite obviously not come from a paintball gun.
"How's that for proof, you tosser?"
"Alright, if that's how it's going to be..." Harry mutterered and pulled
out his Invisibility Cloak again.
Once more invisible and inaudible, he stalked over to where he was

sensing his girlfriend. She looked mildly ridiculous in her paint covered
camo overalls and mask, paintball gun in one hand and wand in the other.
Then he laid prone on the ground, poked the barrel of his paintball gun
out from the edge of the cloak and shot her square in the arse.
Tonks jumped into the air with a yelp and spun around with every
intention of getting her revenge, only to blink in confusion at the empty
space.
Suspiciously, she waved her wand and muttered something that he didn't
catch. A wave of something passed over him and he abruptly felt exposed
despite being invisible. Then she looked right at him and he knew what
spell she'd cast. The Human Presence Revealing Spell. He hadn't been sure
if that would work even on the Cloak of True Invisibility, but apparently
it did.
"Accio Invisibility Cloak." She hissed.
Harry felt the spell come within the range of his magical aura and
resisted it. There was a reason why wizards in duels didn't just summon
their opponent's wands and be done with it. Some spells didn't work too
well once they entered the immediate presence of other magic users, the
basic summoning charm being one of them. It only worked when the caster
was significantly more powerful than the target. While Harry wouldn't bet
on himself in a duel against his girlfriend right now, he thought that as
far as raw power went, he might well be stronger than her. Maybe. It
wasn't an exact science.
Tonks was visibly surprised at having her spell resisted though and Harry
took the opportunity to fire a few more paintballs at her. In a display
of impressive reaction speed, she apparated away before they could reach
her.
Figuring that keeping the Cloak around now that she knew he had it was
pointless, Harry stuffed it back into his Bag of Holding. No sense in
letting it get splattered with paint.
"Alright, Dora, I've put away the Invisibility Cloak. Are you going to
stop apparating?" He called out.
"No chance!"
Harry had just enough time to smile wryly when he sensed her apparating
again and threw himself to the ground to avoid another crescent of pink
paint. He quickly rolled onto his back and opened fire, fully expecting
her to apparate away again. She surprised him by taking those hits in
exchange for letting fly another slash of paint. There was no avoiding it
this time, and he ended up having a line of pink bisect his torso. Then
she apparated away.
"How'd you like that?" She gloated from her new position.
Harry decided that revealing one minor legal infraction to an Auror was
well worth the price of one-upping her and apparated directly behind her.
This time, Tonks was far too surprised to react as he pulled her into an
amateurish submission hold with his arms under hers and his hands
interlaced on the back of her neck. She instinctively tried to break out
of it, and he grunted in surprise at her strength. She was stronger than
he would've given her credit for, but despite the age difference between
them, he still had a good four inches of height on her, was male and had
a minor magical strength enhancement going for him, so he was able to
hold her.
She still had her wand though, which she awkwardly aimed at him and fired
a silent Knockback Jinx.
One little known fact about magic was that casting spells in close
proximity to other magic users could have some odd effects. The thoughts
of the other magic user would intrude on the casting and warp the spell.
The stronger the other, the more pronounced the effect.
So while Tonks had been intending for her spell to only knock back Harry,
his desire to keep holding her meant that both of them were hit by the
spell.
Harry oofed explosively as he was sandwiched between the unyielding
ground and his girlfriend, leaving him short of breath and wheezing.
Tonks had no such impediment and immediately took advantage of his

loosened hold to spin around and pull the transparent mask off his face
before removing her own.
She was panting as she glared at him, face covered in a light sheen of
sweat, but her hair was a happy pink and her dark eyes were anything but
angry. Then her hair quickly started turning a flaming red.
Harry expected to be questioned on the matter of his skill with

Apparition, for which he had long since prepared an explanation for, but
she surprised him by mashing her lips against his demandingly.
Kissing was certainly better than explaining why he knew how to apparate,
so Harry returned her affections enthusiastically. The impromptu make-out
session soon included groping and began edging towards R-rated.
Deciding not to overthink it, He apparated them both to the master

bedroom in Potter Manor.
Some time later, the owner of the paintball arena showed up, saw the
inexplicable splashes of pink paint, the discarded masks and paintball
guns, missing protective overalls and grumbled something uncomplimentary
about long haired punks.
XXXXX
The two of them popped into existence on the carpeted floor and
immediately resumed kissing.
Seeing that no slaps were incoming for his presumption, Harry immediately
went to work on pulling the unflattering paint splattered overalls off
his girlfriend. He growled in irritation as he discovered that overalls
were not meant to be removed while horizontal.
The two of them somehow managed to clamber onto their feet while still
kissing and groping each other, Dora's wand went flying carelessly into a
corner of the room at this point as well. She tugged impatiently at the
collar of his overalls and he pulled his arms out just as impatiently.
Then they discovered that shoes generally need to be removed first and
Tonks kneeled down to get rid of the offending footwear without
hesitation.
Seeing her fire red hair bobbing at crotch level while she busied herself
with that task had Harry gnawing on his lower lip in an effort to keep
control of his lust. To his mixed relief and disappointment, she was done
quickly and got back on her feet, though not without giving the bulge of
his erection a cheeky kiss as she pulled off the overalls.
That made Harry groan in desire as he kissed her again and then pushed
her towards the bed.
Her knees hit the edge and she fell on it with a small gasp. He ignored
the urge to climb on top of her again for now and busied himself with
pulling her own shoes off, followed by the stained overalls. Only once
they were off did he go back to claiming her mouth and laying wet kisses
over her sweat salted neck.
They were still wearing far too many clothes though and Harry was out of
patience with the practice of removing it normally, so he simply grabbed
the collar of her plain T-shirt and ripped it off.
"You animal, I liked that shirt." She gasped and complained in a tone so
lusty that nobody could think she was actually displeased.
"I'll buy you all the shirts you want." He growled back and dove into the
valley between her bra-clad breasts with his tongue.
He started moving his way further downward, paying special attention to

the occasional bruise from their recent paintball match. Wizards and
witches were fortunately quite a bit more sturdy than the norm, so the
'wounds' were likely to be more or less gone by tomorrow even without
magical healing.
Tonks took his downward movement as an opportunity to divest him of his

own shirt, leaving him topless.
Once he got to her shorts, he unbuttoned them impatiently, wishing that

he could just rip them off like he'd done the shirt. He didn't bother
going one at a time and removed her panties too while he was at it.
The scent of her womanhood drifted to his nose and it was all he could do
to keep from instantly indulging his penchant for performing oral sex.
The flaming red bush of pubic hair really deserved a comment though.
"So they do match." He quipped instead, smirking up at her.
Tonks stuck her tongue out at him and gained a brief look of
concentraction. Her pubic hair receded into her skin, leaving behind a
completely bald crotch.
"That's useful." He murmured and leaned in close to take a deep whiff of

her scent. Her legs quivered with anticipation.
Then she growled in frustration when he only gave her thighs a kiss and
retreated, but he was determined to give her the best night he possibly
could and that meant no rushing things.
He stood up with the intent of rolling her over to remove the offending
bra she was still wearing, but she sat up at the same moment and started
working on removing his own shorts, so he did it while she was busy with
that.
His member sprang free of its cloth prison and greeted her
enthusiastically. He'd grown considerably in size over the past year and
now hung at a respectable six and a half inches. Not any kind of monster
cock by any stretch, but he still had a bit of growing to do and he
wasn't so inept at pleasing a woman that he felt the need to have some
forearm sized monster attached to his crotch anyway.
He closed his eyes and sighed in pleasure as he felt Dora run her hands
over him and lean in with obvious intent. Then she gave the tip a kiss
and leaned back with a laugh, hair going a bit pinker.
Harry blew air through his nose in an attempt to look angry, but ruined
it with the grin he couldn't quite suppress. He moved towards her and she
scooted back on the huge bed until they were both somewhere in the
middle, where he claimed her lips for another kiss.
The sensations were so much better now that they were both completely
naked. She spread her legs and wiggled her hips in an obvious effort to
entice him to just enter her, but he resisted. He still wanted to taste
her first.
He made another trip down her body, this time stopping to give her
uncovered nipples some attention. Once he was back in position between
her legs, he gave her slit a slow lick, making a sound of pleasure at the
taste of her juices on hs tongue and the sound of her pleasured gasp in
his ears.
He kept that up for a minute or so, avoiding her the nub of her clitoris
for the moment. He had something special in mind for that.
Dora got impatient with the slow pace though and started trying to pull
his head up to the approriate height. He decided to oblige and gave the
little nub a flick with his tongue. Her loud gasp told him that he was
definitely not the only one enjoying this.
Then he was struck by inspiration.
"Dora?"
"What?" She moaned impatiently, wanting him to put that tongue back to a
better use than asking stupid questions.
"Can you make it bigger like you did your nipples?" he asked, starting up
at her with shining green eyes.
Tonks was intrigued by the idea and focused for a moment.
Harry watched eagerly as the tiny nub of her clitoris gained enough
length to poke out from under its protective hood.
"Perfect." He purred and placed his lips over the newly enlarged organ.
Tonks gave a shuddering gasp and fell back on the bed with her mouth open
wide in surprise, vaguely thinking that this idea had either been great
or terrible. Maybe both.
Harry took his time in fully establishing the empathy bond that he'd used
to such effect on all of their dates so far and only then began to gently
manipulate the dense bundle of nerves with lips, tongue and magic.
Tonks spent the next five minutes gasping for air and letting him do
whatever the hell he wanted as long as it kept her feeling this good.
Haryy knew that he could have brought her to orgasm already, but he was
deliberately prolonging her pleasure. It was only when he heard the first
needy whimpers that he stopped teasing her.
"Don't you dare stop!" She threatened breathily when he removed his
mouth, though she didn't sound very threatening.
Harry didn't answer her verbally, instead electing to kiss her again and
settle himself between her legs. He sank into her slowly, with his magic
as much as his member, far too slowly for her tastes if the way she
wiggled under him the whole time was any indication.
He started thrusting then, just as slowly as before, being careful not to

push her over the edge of climax. Whenever he sensed that she was
approaching that crest, he slowed down further or even stopped, just long
enough for the tension in her body to recede a little bit.
She groped at his back and pulled on his butt in an attempt to get him to
speed up, but he deliberately kept up the torturously slow pace. He felt
her vaginal tunnel become tighter and more narrow as her Metamorph
ability tried to help her squeeze that extra bit of pleasure from his
slow motions, but that just made him go even slower. He wanted them to
climax together and she was just going to have to bear with it until that
happened. Of course, the sounds of need and pleasure she was making did
play a part in that too.
She ran her hands over his runes repeatedly and he knew that she could
feel them. Bryanna, Tiana and Zoe had been able to feel them too.
Fortunately, the obscuring properties of Arhain left them unable to
really focus on that and the knowledge that he had scars all over his
body slipped from their minds like a dream.
Harry kept her lingering on the frustrating edge of orgasm for nearly ten
minutes before his own pleasure caught up with her. The sudden increase
of in tempo caught her by surprise and disrupted the rhytm, but she was
quickly pushed over the edge by the sudden increase in stimulation.
When her long denied orgasm was finally reached, she could do nothing but
cling to him with her breath stolen from her by the strength of the
release she felt. His grunting in her ear as she was flooded with his hot
seed only made her own pleasure even greater.
When the pleasure subsided, all the strength seemed to leave her limbs
and she collapsed into the bed with a content sigh.
"That was...wow." She sighed out, hair turning a lazy dark blue. "You've
obviously had a lot of practice."
"As much as I could manage." He agreed, a hint of smugness in his tone.
He was cheating by employing magic to enhance the pleasure, and he was
damn proud of it too. All is fair in love and war and all that.
They lapsed into a comfortable silence, during which Tonks kept running
her hands over his back. An action that quickly led to a reaction.
"No way." She protested weakly, feeling him previously softened member
going back to full size again. "You can't still be ready for more."
"Don't worry, Dora. We can go to sleep if you're too tired for another
round." He said soothingly.
Dark eyes narrowed in response.
"You better wipe that smirk off your face and get back to the shagging."
Like hell was she going to be that girl, the one that fell asleep while
her man still wasn't satisfied.
"If you insist." He sighed theatrically.
XXXXX
Harry woke up at sunrise the next day, as he always did when the Sun
roused his magic unless he'd already been awake.
The first thing he noticed was that he was spooning a soft body of the
female persuasion and that his left arm was numb from being used as a
pillow. The downsides of spooning.
Despite that bit of discomfort, he smiled at the memory of what had led
to it. He and Dora had had a good time on their date, then they'd had a
very good time after it and then they'd fallen asleep together in a state
of utter relaxation and contentment with their magics mingling together.
She was still quite deeply asleep. He could feel it in her magic. The way
that the air whistled cutely through her nose was also something of a
clue.
Fanciful notions of staying in this emotionally soothing situation aside,

Harry really needed to get up. His arm was sore, he was already getting
hungry, he needed to make a trip to the loo and his morning wood was
terribly distracting.
The last problem had the most pleasant solution, so he leaned forward and
started nibbling on Dora's neck, watching in fascination as her natural
brown hair developed streaks of color in response.
The Metamorphmagus was apparently either a very deep sleeper or still

exhausted from last night's activities, as she failed to be roused by his
ministrations.
It took a bit of maneouvering to shift her over to her stomach, applying
liberal amounts of spit as lubricant and gently slide back inside.
That did get the sleeping woman to make a noise of mixed confusion and
pleasure, but he continued to slowly thrust into her without pausing.
"Harry, the hell are you doing?" She asked blearily, mind not quite
catching up to what her body was telling her.
He answered with a slightly harder thrust that made his intentions

unequivocally clear. "I was taking advantage of you."
She gave a little gasp at the intrusion and then turned her head to look
back at him when he stopped moving. "Well? Who told you to stop?"
XXXXX
When Sirius made his way to breakfast that morning, he was treated to the
sight of his godson and his second cousin sitting together in silk
morning robes.
"I see that someone's had a good time." He said with a broad grin. "High
five, Harry."
Harry raised his arm and gave his passing godfather a high five.
"Did you two seriously just high five each other over me?" Tonks demanded
tersely.
"Sorry, Dora." Harry apologized. "It's easier to just give the sad old
man what he wants than to see him pout."
"Hey!" Sirius pouted indignantly while the Metamorphmagus snorted.
"He's had no luck with women since being freed you see, so he's resorted
to living vicariously through me." Harry continued, making Tonks snicker
in amusement.
"You're a horrible godson." Sirius huffed.
"That reminds me, I need to pick up a few batches of contraceptive

potion." Tonks said with a frown.
"Ran out of stock?" Harry asked lightly, but felt a frisson of worry.
"Nah, I stopped taking it over a year ago." She replied with a wave of
her hand. "It tastes gross and I wasn't getting laid anyway."
Harry felt cold sweat bead on his face at the admission. The one time
that he neglected to use the contraceptive spell and it just happened to
be with a woman who didn't use any protection. "Errr, Dora..."
"Don't worry, Harry, as long as I use it sometime in the next three days
I won't be getting preggers wth your babies." She said with a snicker.
Harry breathed a sigh of relief. He was way, way too young to have kids,
accelerated development be damned.
"That was mean." Sirius observed. "I like it."
"You would." Harry shot at him.
The conversation lapsed into silence for a while as they focused on

eating, during which time Harry started becoming bothered by something.
Namely, why was his girlfriend not commenting on his illegal use of
Apparition yesterday? Eventually, he decided to just ask.
"Hey, Dora?"
"Yeah?"
"How come you aren't saying anything about the fact that I apparated us
yesterday?"
"Oh Harry, you really think that you're the first minor to do that?" She
sighed. "I could report you for it, but that would mean more paperwork
for me and a pointless reprimand from the DMLE for you. The age
restriction on the use of Apparition was put into place because only
about 30% of Britain's adult magical population is capable of it and
stupid kids were splinching themselves all over the place trying to get
it right on their own. Just don't do it where people can see and try to
pretend that you're having some trouble learning it in a few years."
"Huh." Harry said in response, pleasantly surprised by the pragmatism.

Then he leaned in to give his girlfriend a peck on the lips. "You're one
cool Auror, you know that?"
"I am pretty damned cool, aren't I?" She preened.
Sirius made exaggerated gagging noises.
"Is the stupid blood traitor choking on something?" Kreacher asked as he

wandered into the room, carrying a stack of clothes.
"No, Kreacher, Sirius is just being childish." Harry explained.
Kreacher nodded in understanding and turned towards Harry, depositing his

burden on the edge of the table. "Kreacher has cleaned and repaired
filthy halfblood master's filthy halfblood whore's clothes."
"Oi!" Harry said sternly, genuinely angry this time. "You can call me and
Sirius whatever you like, but you will be respectful to everyone else,
especially to Dora."
"Kreacher apologizes." The house elf replied, not sounding especially

sincere.
"What was up with that?" Tonks asked in bewilderment after he left.
"Sorry about that, Kreacher used to be the Black family elf, so he's got
something of an attitude problem." Harry explained, rubbing his forehead.
He really should have expected the crotchety old elf to be rude to guests
as well as him.
"I can see that." Tonks said, somewhat amused now despite getting called
a filthy halfblood whore. "Why do you let him get away with it though?"
"Because he finds it funny to get insulted by his house elf for some
reason." Sirius snorted.
"You have to admit that being called a filthy halfblood all the time is
more interesting than the near worship you get from most house elves."
Harry argued.
"You're weird, Harry." Tonks said, reaching for the stack of clothes that
Kreacher had deposited.
"That's what I said!" Sirius chimed in.
"Hmpf." Harry retorted disdainfully.
"He calls this repaired?" Tonks asked wryly, looking at her haphazardly
stiched together T-shirt.
Harry sighed and made a mental note to talk to Kreacher about his passive
aggressive tendencies towards guests. In fact, he probably needed to talk
to him about appropriate conduct in front of and to guests in a very
general sense as well."Don't worry about it, I'll replace that for you."
"Oh, that's right!" Tonks exclaimed, eyes shining with delight. "You
promised to take me shopping."
Sirius looked at his godson in disbelief. What kind of stupid man says
that to a woman?
"Errr, yes?" Harry said uncertainly, a bit unnerved by the look in his
girlfriend's eye.
"It's a good thing that it's my day off today." She said, already
plotting out a list of shops to visit. One of the often overlooked side
benefits of being a Metamorphmagus was the vastly increased ease of
clothes shopping.
"Why would you need a whole day for shopping?" Harry asked, bewildered.
Sirius shook his head sadly. Some lessons needed to be learned the hard
way. He couldn't help his godson here.
XXXXX
While Harry occupied his time with his own affairs, the plotters and
schemers of the Wizarding World brooded on things that were decidedly not
their business.
XXXXX
In Hogwarts castle, its aged Headmaster paced in his office and

considered the pieces on the chess board.
Voldemort was worryingly silent. There had been no real news of him for
some time now. It was always a bad sign when you didn't know what your
foe was up to.
The Dark Lord must assuredly be plotting a way to retun to life, but his
movements remained elusive. His Horcruxes likewise remained elusive.
On the other side of the board, the Harry Potter situation was looking
much better. He had managed to draw out from Remus Lupin a confirmation
of a relationship with Nymphadora Tonks. This was good. Excellent even.
The young Auror would give Harry a firm tie to Wizarding Britain and a
reason to defend it from the Dark Lord. Even better, she could be
recruited into the Order of the Phoenix and bring Harry closer to
Dumbledore's sphere of influence. Because of that relationship alone, he
was considering reactivating the Order earlier than intended. He could
even offer Harry membership despite his young age. Not yet though, the
relationship had to mature a bit first and a solid reason for the move
given. Harry was far too cagey to miss that kind of blatant manipulation
and may be able to sway young Nymphadora to adopt the same distrust
towards him as Harry had.
The boy worried him as much as he impressed him. His knowledge and
understanding of magic was already frightfully deep for his youth and
could only grow deeper with age, though he was blessedly lacking in the
cruelty that Tom Riddle had displayed or even the same kind of hunger for
power as Dumbledore himself had once had.
The problem was that whatever was driving the boy remained a mystery.
Dumbledore did not feel comfortable with the lynchpin of this entire
conflict being a mystery. He wanted to trust Harry, he truly did, but
what was he supposed to think of a boy just shy of fourteen that felt the
need to magically age himself and had already taken a life with no great
remorse?
Harry had discarded his childhood and would soon have to deal with the
realities of being a powerful wizard. Sirius was ill-equiped to shield
him from it and Dumbledore was no longer able.
More than anything, it was the uncertainty of it all that he feared. He

feared it, because he could see the makings of either a great hero or a
terrible villain in Harry. He feared it, because he had no idea what he
would do should things turn ill. He feared it, because he knew that a
wizard who truly wanted to become powerful would become powerful no
matter what he or the Ministry or anyone else tried to do to prevent it.
Delay, yes. Prevent, no. Getting in his way would just make him even more
secretive, sneaky and worst of all, resentful.
So he plotted to throw as many good influences and reasons to fight evil

into Harry's path as possible and hoped that it would be enough. He hoped
that Harry would stand against Voldemort. He hoped that he would die
standing against him, because Dumbledore didn't think that he had the
strength to kill the boy himself should it come to that.
XXXXX
In the office of the Minister of Magic, a far less intelligent and

venerable man was also pacing. Though in his case it was less thoughtful
and more fretful.
"I just don't know what to do, Dolores!" Fudge fretted to his Senior
Undersecretary. "Surely there should have been some word from Black and
Potter by now? Potter was in the Ministry twice since Black's name was
cleared but he hasn't come speak to me. What does it mean?"
He had successfully blamed the entire debacle with Sirius Black's unjust
imprisonment on former Minister Bagnold and Barty Crouch Sr. Bagnold was
obviously not in a position to care, being dead as she was, but Crouch
had found his popularity falling even lower than it had in the aftermath
of his son being found a Death Eater and had since been shuffled off into
some dead end Ministry department that most people didn't even know
existed. He had expected that he would be able to meet privately with the
Boy-Who-Lived and the new Lord Black, but no such meeting was
forthcoming.
"Wasn't Sirius Black always a disgrace to his family?" Dolores Umbridge

answered in her simpering voice. "If he were not the last of his family,
he would never have been its Lord. Perhaps he doesn't know the basic
courtesies expected of him. As for Potter...well, he is only a boy and he
grew up with muggles."
Fudge looked askance at the pink clad woman. Potter was young yes, but a
boy? The tall wizard with the too-bright eyes and a sense of power around
him was no boy. He had been reminded far too much of Dumbledore when
speaking to that 'boy', constantly feeling flustered and out of control.
It was not something that Fudge would admit to anyone, not even to
himself, but he hated dealing with powerful wizards and witches. Hated
dealing with Dumbledore, who could twist a conversation into twenty
different directions and convince you that he always knew best and that
you were being childish if you didn't listen. Hated dealing with Bones,
whose hard edged personality, rigid inflexibility where the law was
concerned and popularity in the Ministry made her a terror to deal with.
Now he also hated dealing with Potter, whose legend, wealth, nobility and
sheer presence made him a power to be courted, but one who did not seem
keen to acknowledge when favors were owed.
Still...Dolores might have a point. Potter was young, and had grown up
with muggles. He may well simply not know how the game was played. He
would have to be taught then, but how to go about it?
He wished that Lucius was here. Dolores had her uses, but she was not as
clever as she thought she was. Certainly not as clever as Lucius Malfoy.
Speaking of Lucius, he still had to extend him an invitation for the

Quidditch World Cup that was happening in a month. The Malfoy patriarch
had helped him greatly over the years and it wouldn't do to let that
friendship go fallow.
Inspiration struck him then. It would insult Lucius, but it would give
him an opportunity to feel out Black and Potter. Surely his old friend
would understand and accept his apologies if he invited Black and Potter
to the Top Box instead?
Of course, there were other problems with the Quidditch World Cup. Namely
the fact that Barty Crouch had been one of the lead organizers and was
now suddenly no longer involved, nor was the man willing to help since
he'd been transferred. Terribly petty of him actually.
"Dolores, do we have anyone to replace Crouch as Head of the Department

of International Magical Cooperation yet?"
"No, I haven't yet managed find anyone qualified that could be spared
from another department." Umbridge answered with a sickly sweet smile.
Of course, when Umbridge said 'qualified', she meant 'of proper

breeding'. There actually were a few people who could have taken over for
Crouch, but they were halfbloods and had not even merited a glance from
her. Bad enough that the Goblin Liason Office had recently been taken
over by a mudblood, even if dealing with those disgusting little
creatures was about what they deserved, but she would never tolerate
having anyone but a pureblood in a post as prestigious as International
Magical Cooperation.
Fudge took the words at face value, as he usually did. There was a reason
why he hadn't been a Slytherin. This put him in something of a pickle. He
needed that post filled soon. It had already been empty for a couple of
weeks and the problems were starting to pile up. Because of this, he did
something that he didn't really want to do.
"Dolores, would you mind terribly if I assigned you to temporarily take

the job? Just until we can find someone else?" Fudge had his faults, his
many, many faults, but he was aware of the fact that Dolores Umbridge was
not a very likeable woman and would not do the British Ministry's
reputation in the wider world any favors in that position. Unfortunately,
he needed that post filled and how much harm could she do in the short
time that she would hold it anyway?
"Of course, Cornelius, you can count on me." She replied in her typical
saccharine tone. She preferred to be the Minister's Senior
Undersecretary, but she would serve the Ministry to the best of her
ability in whichever position she needed to. Besides, it would give her
the chance to put that department to order. Crouch had been distressingly
lax with who he had allowed to climb the ranks there.
XXXXX
Over in Malfoy Manor, Lucius Malfoy did not pace. Pacing was for
unrefined commoners.
Instead, he brooded in a high backed chair with a bottle of expensive

wine in hand.
Sirius Black was a problem. He hadn't been able to contrive a way to get
rid of said problem quickly enough, which meant that by now Harry Potter
had also likely become a problem already. The inheritance of a family was
an entirely internal affair, meaning that Black was not obligated to
inform anyone of his decisions regarding who his Heir was, but unless
Black was a complete dimwit, he had already designated his godson as
Heir.
The only silver lining was that he had not banished either Narcissa or
Draco from the family, yet. That at least he would have to send word
about. That would have been a disaster. It was still a potential disaster
though, and it would remain as such for as long as Black and now Potter
lived.
Oh, how he longed for the days when he could have donned the mask and
robes of a Death Eater and solved such problems with a quick Killing
Curse. It was truly unfortunate that those particular circumstances also
brought along the inevitable need to bow and scrape before the Dark Lord.
He was much happier with the current state of affairs, despite not being
able to personally kill his enemies.
Lucius had been young and more hotheaded when he had joined the Death
Eaters. He had wanted to bring back a world where blood meant something.
He had learned too late that it would have been wiser to support the Dark
Lord from the sidelines and leave the direct involvement to others.
He had heard enough whispers to guess that the Dark Lord was still alive
in some fashion, but he would not seek him out. The Dark Lord was
powerful, but he was a bungler. Despite his protestations about blood
purity and the old ways, the Dark Lord had wiped out numerous
distinguished families, both among his enemies and his allies.
Even the damned Potters had been respectable not that long ago. It was
only with James Potter and his fixation on that mudblood of his that
they'd fallen from grace.
The man's son was a curious thing. A disgusting halfblood, true, but one
that promised to be dangerous in the future. Lucius was not so foolish as
to dismiss those of lower breeding as being powerless or even useless.
Dumbledore was a halfblood and nobody dismissed him. Even mudbloods could
be dangerous, though Lucius could only point at James Potter's wife as an
example. Subhuman and disgusting, but not powerless. A troll was
disgusting too, but it could be dangerous in the right circumstances.
The Potter scion had not yet truly given any real indication of his
views. Draco had described him as a reclusive sort, with his only friend
being that bizarre Lovegood chit. Had things been different, he might
have courted an alliance with him.
Unfortunately, Draco had bungled up his first meeting with him and made
the Malfoys his enemies. It would have been so much easier to dispose of
Potter had they been allies.
Now Lucius found himself in the unenviable position of having to kill off
both Black and Potter without any real means of getting close to them.
On top of that was his concern that one of his more idiotic fellow Death
Eaters would eventually catch on about the Dark Lord's continued
existence and work to bring him back. Considering that he had gotten the
diary destroyed in a failed plot to discredit Arthur Weasley, that could
not possibly end well for Lucius. Worse still, he had a dire suspicion
that the diary had been more important to the Dark Lord than he had
originally thought it to be.
Of course, he couldn't just come out and tell that to the others. None of
them could just come out and openly state that they didn't want to
support Voldemort anymore. That would be stupidly Gryffindorish, though
that was a bit of a tautology in and of itself.
What Lucius needed to do was hedge his bets on the off chance that some
dimwit helped facilitate Voldemort's return. He needed to be seen as
still championing the cause without actually doing anything himself. That
was fortunately something that he was very good at.
The Quidditch World Cup was coming up in about a month. He was actually
expecting Fudge to come by any day now with an invitation to join him in
the Top Box for the event. He was sure that a few of his more gullible
former compatriots could be persuaded into donning their old robes and
causing a ruckus. He'd get credit of organizing it and none of the blame
since he'd have a nice alibi.
As it happened, his recently purchased house elf brought a letter from

the Minister just a few minutes later.
Lucius' eyebrows climbed elegantly up his forehead as he read the letter.

Fudge was apologizing profusely for passing him over for the invitation,
but he desperately needed to curry some favor with Black and Potter as
recompense for the unjust imprisonment, so he was going to invite them
instead.
This was...actually very convenient. Oh, he'd make Fudge sweat over the
insult later, but this would place Black and Potter in a predictable
place and in close proximity to his more gullible Death Eater comrades.
Getting them to attack those two would be the height of simplicity. Of
course, he'd have to account for the possibility that one or more of them
would get captured and questioned, which meant that he would have to
arrange things in such a way that none of them could solidly point a
finger at him, but that could be done easily enough.
XXXXX
"Hey, Harry?" Sirius inquired with an odd look on his face.
"What?" Harry asked, not looking up from the little magical trinket he'd
been staring at in an effort to see what made the magic work and if he
could tease it apart.
"Were we expecting post from the Minister of Magic?" Sirius continued,

still with an odd look on his face.
"Fudge?" Harry asked, finally looking at his godfather. "Why would that
blithering idiot send us post?"
"Apparently we're being invited to attend the Quidditch World Cup as

honored guests of the Minister of Magic." Sirius explained.
Harry groaned in irritation. He didn't give a shit about quidditch and

didn't want to deal with the Minister of Magic if it could be helped, but
he had a feeling that this wasn't the kind of thing that he could just
refuse. Not without some damned annoying consequences at any rate.
"I guess that means we're going?" Sirius asked in resignation. Though not
the kind of quidditch enthusiast that James had been, Sirius could enjoy
watching a match, but this stank of politics all the way through.
"Yes, we're going." Harry sighed.
"Couldn't we just tell Fudge to bugger off?" Sirius was an optimist.
"We could, but I've got a feeling that it would cause us even more
problems in the future." Harry was a cynic.
"I hate it when you're right." Sirius grumbled.
"Sometimes, so do I." Harry sighed again.
Chapter 13
A couple of people have complained about the amount of sex in this fic
and I feel the need to respond to this.
The story is marked M for a reason. Grow up.

Rowling wrote her books as if nobody had a single thought about sex and
as if hormones didn't exist either because she didn't feel comfortable
writing about it, felt that it wasn't relevant or because she wanted to
keep things PG. Nothing wrong with that, but I prefer to keep my
characters as human as possible and that means sex.
A co-ed boarding school with a huge number of empty rooms and poor
supervision? There would be more fucking than learning.
An insular society that developed without the presence of a sexually

repressive religion? There would be so much fucking.
An easy magical fix for any potential problems? You cannot even imagine
how much fucking there would be, both consensual and not.
I'm actually being very conservative, but I can't devote 30% of every
chapter to fucking.
With that out of the way, onwards to the chapter proper. Much thanks go
to Joe Lawyer for pointing out several problems and helping to polish up
the chapter.
XXXXX
Harry smiled to himself as he walked out of the Department of Magical

Education. He'd gotten Outstandings on both of his OWLs. Professors
Vector and Babbling would be pleased. He wondered what they would work on
now that these silly exams were over with.
His wonderings were brought to an abrupt end when someone carelessly

stomped around a corner and bumped into him quite forcefully.
Harry grunted in irritation as both of them lost their footing and fell
to the floor. Honestly, was it so damn hard to pay attention to where you
were going?
"Sorry." The woman who had so unceremoniously crashed into him muttered
with a rather angry sounding sniffle.
"Penny?" Harry asked, blinking in surprise as he recognised the former

Hogwarts Head Girl.
"Harry?" The now identified Penelope Clearwater said back in the same
tone.
"Are you okay?" He asked with a frown, noticing that she looked
simultaneously angry and about to cry.
"I'm fine." She asserted, not very convincingly it had to be said.
Harry frowned some more. She was quite obviously not fine. He could
pretend that he believed her. It was probably none of his business
anyway...
...But Penny had done her best to look after him back when he had been a
prickly eleven year old with an all around unpleasant attitude. She had
warned him about Bryanna's little seduction plot, which he could admit to
himself might have turned out a lot more messy if he hadn't known to be
wary of it. He'd feel like an arse if he just left.
"Do you want to get something to eat?" He offered.
XXXXX
Penny had resisted at first, but he'd insisted and she'd relented. Now
she was using a fork to push the remains of her meal around morosely,
anger seemingly giving way to depression.
"Do you want to talk about whatever is bothering you?" He asked.
"Not really." She mumbled.
Harry frowned. This was not at all like Penny.
"Maybe I can help?" He ventured.
"Can you make the world fair?" She asked bitterly.
"Penny, what happened?" He pressed.
"Reality happened." She went on in the same bitter tone. "You know I'm a
muggleborn, right?"
Harry nodded silently, already having a good idea where this was going
just from that one question.
"Well I never really fit in with that world. Always had my nose stuck in
fantasy books or daydreaming. Getting that Hogwarts letter and learning
that magic was real was like a dream come true. So I did my best to learn
as much as I could, because I wanted to be part of it. All the teachers
kept telling me what a bright future I had ahead of me, the bloody liars.
Not one of them thought to mention that my muggleborn status was going to
have more weight than anything I did."
"I see." Harry sighed.
"Oh it gets worse!" Penny went on, getting angry again. "You remember how
I put Malfoy in detention at the start of the school year?"
Harry furrowed his brow in thought and nodded. He did remember that the
blond moron had been trying to start something or other again and gotten
slapped down for it by Penny.
"Well apparently he found it so offensive to be punished by a 'mudblood'

that he went crying to daddy about it and Malfoy senior made sure that I
won't be able to get a respectable job anywhere in Wizarding Britain."
Harry sighed again. He wasn't even surprised that they'd be that petty.
The fact that Malfoy senior's arm was long enough to manage that was a
bit of a surprise...but not that much of one. He'd already known that a
lot of the jobs open to muggleborns weren't respectable even without his
interference after all.
"Then the little shitestain had the stones to write me a letter to brag
about it!" Penny continued, seething. "He even suggested that I try the
whorehouses in Knockturn Alley if I'm looking for something 'appropriate
for my station'!"
"Do you want me to throw him off the Astronomy Tower when September rolls
around?" Harry offered, only semi-joking. He'd already taken one piece of
trash out of the world with Pettigrew and the younger Malfoy was not
looking much better. Had he not been so angry on Penny's behalf, he might
have wondered at how seriously he was contemplating homicide.
Penny was a nice girl and might have disapproved of that suggestion under
normal circumstances, but these were not normal circumstances.
"Can you make it look accidental?" She asked instead, fondly imagining
the blond shite's bones shattering on impact.
"Probably not." Harry conceded.
"Better not do it then. It wouldn't fix my situation anyway, even if it

would be satisfying."
Harry nodded again, giving the situation some more thought. Even if he
didn't kill Malfoy, he was still going to make his life miserable. He was
sure that the Weasley twins would be agreeable to helping out. He'd pay
them for it even. He and Penny might never have been super close, but he
wasn't going to just let this go and he was sure that Fred and George
wouldn't take too kindly to their brother's girlfriend getting shafted
like this to satisfy that little idiot's ego either. Actually, speaking
of Percy...
"Where is Percy in all this? Weren't the two of you together?" He asked.
"Not anymore we aren't." Penny spat, anger coming back to the fore. "The
jerk had the gall to suggest that I could've avoided this if I'd been
more careful with who I assigned detentions to. That's what I was so
upset about in the Ministry just now."
"Why am I not surprised?" Harry muttered to himself. Percy had always

seemed like the stereotypical brown nosing 'yes man' to him, few though
their interactions had been. He'd never understood what Penny had seen in
him, but hadn't cared to stick his nose in their personal business.
"I guess I'll have to move to a different country. Either that or go back
to the normal world, catch up on my normal education and get a normal
job." Penny said despondently a few moments later. She was obviously not
excited by either idea.
Harry leaned back in his seat as he considered an idea he'd just had.
He'd thought about hiring a personal assistant of sorts a while ago, but
hadn't really put any effort into finding someone appropriate. He'd
imagined someone older and more experienced, but Penny had been made Head
Girl for a reason and that had to count for something and the job
shouldn't be beyond her abilities at this stage anyway. She would
probably also be more loyal since he'd be getting her out of a sticky
situation, which had been a concern of his.
"What if...I could offer you a job?" He said slowly, uncertainly. He

wasn't comfortable making decisions so quickly, but he wanted to help her
and the solution just seemed so convenient for both of them.
"What kind of job?" She asked skeptically.
"I'm not sure what your actual title would be, but you'd essentially be
my personal assistant. You'd handle my mail, organize my schedule, run
errands for me, keep an eye and ear out for things I should know, keep
any secrets you learn secret, do research and similar stuff." He
explained.
"Is this some elaborate ploy to get me to sleep with you?" She continued
to ask skeptically, though there was a tinge of humor in it too this
time. "I've been hearing things about you this past year."
Harry huffed a bit, but was glad to see that her mood seemed to have
picked up a bit. "No, I'm being serious." And it was a good thing that
Sirius wasn't present, or else he'd have made a pun right about now.
Penny was apparently convinced of his sincerity, but now looked uncertain
about something else. "I don't know, Harry...I don't think I'm really
qualified for something like that."
She looked disappointed and reluctant when admitting this, giving Harry
the impression that she wanted to accept but was compelled by honesty to
say it anyway. That was probably a good sign.
"You wouldn't have much to do just yet ." He admitted. "Things aren't
actually at the point where I need a personal assistant, but I'm
expecting it to happen soon enough. Plus, it'll give you time to get into
the swing of things and it makes my life a bit easier in the process."
"I wouldn't be able to support myself just doing odds and ends for you."
She said with a sigh.
Harry frowned. He could offer to employ her full time despite the fact
that she would have very little to do until things picked up, but his
frugal sensibilities wouldn't let him be so wasteful even if it wouldn't
make a noticeable dent in his finances and he had a feeling that Penny
wouldn't be comfortable with that anyway.
"Alright, how about this then." He began, getting a new idea. "I pay you
a small fee and let you move into Potter Manor if you want, where you
will get free room and board. You handle whatever needs to be handled for
now and when the work picks up, I'll start paying you properly. It'll be
like an internship."
"Are you sure this isn't some trick to get me to sleep with you?" Penny
asked again after a moment of thought.
Harry rolled his eyes expansively. "Yes, I'm sure. My girlfriend would
undoubtedly kick my arse if it was."
"You have a girlfriend?" Penny blurted out incredulously.
"Yes, I do." He replied, deciding not to comment on her disbelieving

tone. "You'll meet her soon enough if you accept."
Penny bit her lip uncertainly. She really wasn't sure about this and it
definitely wasn't what she'd imagined herself doing, but it seemed like a
good offer and she knew that Harry was a good bloke.
And she didn't want to just bow her head and leave. It would feel too
much like letting the damn bigots win.
"Alright, I accept."
XXXXX
Soon after her acceptance, Harry apparated both himself and Penny to
Potter Manor.
"You can apparate already?!" She blurted out as soon as the

disorientation passed.
"Yes." He replied with a nod. "I'll be expecting you to keep that a

secret by the way."
"But the Ministry..." She protested weakly.
"Will do nothing." He interrupted. "Even if they learn about it, they'll

only cause a fuss for the sake of appearances. Trust me on this, I have
the word of an Auror on it."
"Okay, I guess." Penny mumbled, not sure what to think of that.

Eventually she just shrugged and decided to go along with it. After
discovering the way that justice worked in the Wizarding World, she
wasn't feeling too fond of the Ministry anyway.
"Teeny, is Sirius home?" Harry asked seemingly to the air.
The little house elf popped in immediately and began nodding. "Yes,
master Harry. He is being home."
"Good, can you bring him and Kreacher here?"
Teeny nodded compulsively and popped off to fetch the two of them. A few
minutes later, they were back.
"Alright, introductions." Harry said with a clap of his hands. "Penny,
you've already met the Potter family elf, Teeny."
"Hello." Penny greeted.
"Hello, Ms. Penny!" Teeny said back energetically.
"Next we have the Black family elf, Kreacher." Harry went on, gesturing
to the sour faced house elf.
"Hello."
Kreacher merely nodded silently.
"Don't be surprised if he starts calling you a filthy mudblood after a

while." Harry advised. "Don't take it personally either, it's just how he
talks. He calls me a filthy halfblood and Sirius a filthy blood traitor."
"O...kay?" Penny replied confusedly.
"And lastly we have the filthy blood traitor himself, Sirius Black.
Ostensibly, he's living here because he's my magical guardian, but in
reality he's more of a freeloader and comic relief."
"Why do you have to keep insulting me in front of all the pretty girls,
Harry?" Sirius demanded. "Are you afraid they'll like me better than
you?"
"Not much chance of that." Harry retorted. "Why would they like an old
man like you when I'm here?"
"Don't listen to him...Penny was it?" Sirius said suavely, turning to the
girl that his godson had brought for as of yet unknown reasons and
kissing her hand. "He's just jealous of my good looks and distinguished
maturity." Harry snorted derisively at the notion that his godfather
possessed any kind of maturity, let alone a distinguished one. "To what
do we owe the pleasure of your company?"
"Um, Harry offered me a job." Penny managed to say with a flustered

blush. She hadn't expected to be flirted with so blatantly.
"That thing we talked about a couple of weeks ago?" Sirius asked, turning
back to his godson.
"Yes, that one." Harry nodded. "Anyway, this is Penelope Clearwater.

She'll be living with us now and acting as a personal assistant."
"I would be delighted to give her a tour of the manor and help her pick
out a room." Sirius offered with his most roguish smile, not batting an
eyelash at hearing that they'd have another person living with them.
"I'm sure you would, you reprobate." Harry fired. "But we need to
establish ground rules first."
"Ground rules?" Penny echoed curiously.
"Yes, ground rules. Firstly and most importantly, the basement is

absolutely off limits. I keep the door locked at all times anyway, but
it's still worth mentioning. There's a bunch of dangerous magical
artefacts down there and I don't want you getting hurt." And that wasn't
even mentioning the Horcrux or his personal workshop for the times when
he was fiddling with things both illegal and dangerous.
"Secondly, you'll notice that there is a specially marked off section of

the library. This is because the books there have been ...ah...liberated
from the Black family library and are of a darker nature. You can read
them if you want, but don't be surprised if you come across a book
detailing the magical properties of human body parts as potion
ingredients or something similar." Harry wasn't inclined to hoard
knowledge, having long despised the Ministry's censorship. If she wanted
to take a look at those books, then she was welcome to.
Penny looked deeply discomfitted by this but nodded all the same,
privately deciding to stay well away from there.
"And finally, whatever you see or hear in this house you keep to
yourself. Is that okay with you?"
Penny agreed easily, there being nothing about that that she was bothered
about.
"Good. Since Sirius already offered, he can show you around. Feel free to
hex him if he makes a pass at you."
"Why I never!" The man in question huffed indignantly. "I am the very
soul of chivalry."
"Chivalry is just a fancy word for trying to get into a woman's knickers
through politeness." Harry sneered in retaliation.
"You really need to get that cynicism of yours checked out, Harry."
Sirius said with dramatic sadness, shaking his head at his godson. "It
can't be good for you to have such a bleak worldview."
"I'm fine with bleak." Harry shrugged.
Penny watched the good natured bickering with a bemused smile. Harry was
being a lot more open than she remembered him being, certainly more open
than he was with anyone his own age. Was this why he had so much trouble
making friends at Hogwarts? Because he was more able to relate to adults
than children?
She supposed it didn't matter now. Harry wasn't the sullen, friendless,
anti-social first year anymore and seemed happier, which was what she'd
been trying to achieve by looking out for him in Hogwarts in the first
place.
XXXXX
After the tour was over and Penny had chosen a room to move into, she'd
asked what she was actually expected to do now that she was here. A
moment later, Teeny dropped off a medium sized pile of letters on the
desk of the room she'd chosen for herself.
"At the moment, you'll mostly just be answering spam mail." Harry
admitted, gesturing to the pile. "Apparently, Dumbledore spent the past
few years refusing interview and meeting requests from various reporters,
Ministry bootlickers and assorted busybodies. Now that Sirius is my
magical guardian, all of that mail is going to him and my dear godfather
is sadly not as diligent or diplomatic as the Headmaster."
"Guilty as charged." Sirius confessed. He just didn't have the patience

to read the letters of the many vultures clamoring for a piece of his
godson, much less politely decline. He was actually more inclined to send
back parchment with prank spells on it.
"So you want me to politely tell everyone to shove off?" Penny asked for
clarification.
"Pretty much." Harry nodded. "You'll still have to read through all of it
because there might actually be something important in the middle of all
that tripe, in which case you should bring it to me."
"Alright, that doesn't sound so bad." She said mostly to herself and
reached for one of the letters at random. Might as well get a feel for
what she'd be doing.
Her cheeks pinked as she skimmed over the letter.
"Err, this seems to be an invitation to, uh, spend the night." Penny
stammered out with a blush. "She also included a picture."
Sirius quickly snatched the letter and removed the attached animated
picture of a very nice looking witch in her late twenties.
"I think it's best if you brought these types of letters directly to me."
He declared authoritatively.
This got him deadpan looks from his godson and even Penny.
"What?" He demanded.
"Sirius, were you planning on taking that woman up on her offer on my

behalf?" Harry asked mildly.
"Of course." Sirius nodded firmly. "I'm your godfather, it's my duty to
protect your innocence from all these scarlet women, with my body if I
have to!"
"How did you ever convince my mother that you would make a good
godfather?" Harry asked, amused.
"James spent a month convincing her and she only agreed to it after Alice
Longbottom agreed to be the godmother." Sirius admitted.
XXXXX
Nymphadora Tonks had the look of a woman on a mission as she barged

through the front door of Potter Manor as if she owned it. In her hands
was a plastic black bag that betrayed no sign of what it contained aside
from its boxy shape.
"Oi, Sirius!" She hollered. "Where are you?"
A short time later, the incumbent Lord Black arrived, followed by a curly
haired blonde that looked vaguely familiar.
"Going after the young ones are we?" Tonks snarked. The girl looked fresh
out of Hogwarts.
"You're one to talk." Sirius snarked right back.
"That doesn't count, Harry's a guy." She countered.
Sirius opened his mouth to retort, only to close it and shrug. It might
be hypocritical, but the unwritten rules of the Bro Code stated that the
only acceptable response to a guy scoring with a hot older woman was
'nice!'. There were no provisions for age, which meant that Tonks was
correct in saying that it didn't count.
"Well, Sirius? Are you going to introduce me to your young lady?" Tonks
asked with a smirk.
"She's not my young lady." Sirius stated. "This is Penelope Clearwater.

Harry hired her as a personal assistant because we're both too lazy to
deal with the mail his fame generates. She just moved in a couple of days
ago."
"Hi." Penny greeted, the remnants of an embarrassed blush on her face

from the insinuation that she was Sirius' girlfriend. She was honestly
surprised to learn that Harry was in a relationship with someone like
Nymphadora Tonks. The two of them just seemed so different.
Tonks' eyebrows climbed up her forehead in surprise at that little

revelation. Had she been a more insecure person, she would have been very
displeased and jealous at the thought of having another woman living with
her boyfriend. As it was, she simply decided to take it at face value. If
Harry was having some hanky panky on the side, she'd find out and react
accordingly, but until then she'd be cool about it.
"Wotcher."
"Harry's in the basement." Sirius informed.

"I know, he told me he'd be working on something today." Tonks said with
a nod. "What I need is for you to not tell him that I'm here and keep him
away from his room if he leaves his cave ahead of schedule."
"Why?" Sirius asked, a bit baffled.
"Because it's the prat's birthday and like hell am I going to let him get
away with not celebrating it."
"You'll have a fight on your hands getting him to celebrate." Sirius

advised. "I wanted to throw a party for him, but he threatened to send me
to a dog shelter if I tried it. Not the most festive sort, that godson of
mine."
"That wasn't the kind of celebration I had in mind." Tonks smirked.
"Oh, I see." Sirius smirked back. "We'll do you one better then and leave
so that you have the house to yourselves."
"I suppose I could go visit my parents." Penny agreed, reflecting on the

strangeness of still being an eighteen-year old virgin while her
fourteen-year old employer seemed to have a very active sex life. Percy
had made some unsubtle hints about taking their relationship to the next
level, but she hadn't been comfortable going that far. She'd been
embarrassed by her own prudishness in the face of both sides of the
British society being very sexually open these days, but now she was glad
that she hadn't slept with the ginger jerk.
A short while later a still smirking Metamorphmagus stood alone in the

master bedroom. She pulled a distinctly muggle style laminated cardboard
box out of the black bag she'd brought with her and her smirk widened in
anticipation of putting the goodies in there to use. Some assembly was
required, but it shouldn't be too hard.
Especially since the hard part, the one that would have potentially
required professional help or power tools, could be solved with a little
bit of transfiguration.
XXXXX
Harry furrowed his brow in thought as he examined the bracelet in his

hands. It was a pretty thing made of silver, but that wasn't what had him
so interested in it. The magic in it was the real beauty.
Sirius had told him that it was of goblin make, which he could readily
believe as the enchantments on it were like nothing he'd ever seen.
Human made magical items had magic layered over the item, sometimes to
wondrous complexity if it had been done by a particularly skilled caster.
This goblin made bracelet however, had magic woven into it. The goblins
had obviously done the enchanting during the actual forging process.
Harry imagined that this was far more difficult than merely enchanting a
completed item, but it was also far more impressive and effective. With
time, effort, skill and knowledge , human made enchantments could be
undone. Not so with goblin made magical items. He couldn't even tell
where the magic ended and the item began.
He wanted this knowledge intensely, but he knew that the goblins would be
as jealously protective about that secret as wizards were about wandlore.
It was such a shame that both sides were blind idiots, clinging to old
hatreds instead of working together, but he wasn't surprised. If the
goblins were as obsessed with the past as the purebloods, then it was no
wonder that all they could do was carp on about the old days and the old
ways instead of looking to the future.
Well no matter. The goblins had needed to figure it out for themselves at
some point too, so there was nothing preventing him from doing the same.
Whether he could manage the same feat or even get around to it with all
the other stuff he had going on was another matter entirely, but it
wasn't impossible.
Harry arched his back in a stretch and groaned at the satisfying popping
noises his spine made. He'd been hunching over the desk in his private
basement workshop too long. Again. A quick check of the time confirmed
that he'd spent most of the day down here. Again. Sirius was probably
going to worry about him for no reason. Again.
Might as well go upstairs and relax a bit, maybe read a book or meditate
on his Animagus form a bit. That was always a good way to unwind a bit
and he wasn't in the mood to try disenchanting another item.
Giving his armpits a sniff, he decided that a bath was in order before
that. If there was one thing about his younger body that he missed, it
was the lack of offensive odours.
As he made his way out of the basement, Harry paid little mind to how
silent the house was. That was how it usually was since there were only
three people living in it aside from the ninja silent house elves and the
only one of them that was a noisy sort frequently left in order to find
himself a willing bed partner.
He was just approaching the door to his room when said door suddenly
opened to reveal his girlfriend.
"Dora?" He asked in bemusement, wondering when she'd showed up.
"Harry, hi!" She chirped too cheerfully to be for real.
"What were you doing in my room?"
"Nothing."
"Really?"
Tonks huffed at the rank disbelief in his tone, admitting to herself that
it did indeed look suspicious. "Okay fine, so it was something."
"What was it?" Harry asked again, now amused.
The Metamorphmagus sauntered over to him sexily, her approach somewhat

ruined when she nearly tripped over her own feet, but she pretended that
it didn't happen. Then she went around him and placed her hands over his
eyes and whispered into his ear.
"It's a surprise. Want to see it?"
"I would love nothing more." He replied, going along with her games.
She proceeded to lead him to his own room while keeping her hands over
his eyes. The whole thing felt a bit ridiculous since they were right
there, but Harry figured that there was nothing to be gained by pointing
that out.
"Alright, you ready?" She asked once they were inside.
"As ready as I'll ever be." He replied, not bothering to hide his
amusement.
"Happy birthday!" She cried and removed her hands.
Harry stared at the new addition to his room. The ceiling had been
transfigured so that the wood paneling had holes through which metal
clamps had been attached to. And hanging from the clamps was...
"A sex swing? You bought me a sex swing?" Harry asked with some
incredulity, having not expected this in the least. He generally didn't
care one whit about his birthdays, but this kind of present he could get
used to.
"No." Tonks denied with a straight face.
"Are you sure? Because that looks like a sex swing."
"I bought us a sex swing, so you'd better not use it without me."
"Aaah." He said back in realization, figuring that she must have met
Penny and this was some kind of subtle female territory marking ritual or
something. "You'd better show me the ropes then."
"What an appropriate thing to say." She smirked and began removing her
clothes.
XXXXX
It was a sunny summer day free of England's notoriously wet weather and
many people were taking the opportunity to enjoy it.
Among these many people were a trio of college girls who had elected to
save money instead of going on vacation to a beach somewhere. The sunny
weather was too perfect to waste and they had decided to have an
impromptu picnic in Hyde Park.
Their day took a bit of an odd turn when a pure black raven landed in
their midst and looked at them with beady black eyes surrounded by
strangely bright green sclera.
"Is that a raven?" The blonde of the trio asked, sounding a bit awed at
having the large black bird just drop in on them like this.
"It is." The brunnete confirmed.
"I wonder where it came from?" The redhead wondered. She was no bird
expert, but she did know that most birds would not simply land this close
to humans.
"Hello." The raven croaked.
"It spoke!" Blonde exclaimed in shock.
"Ravens can mimic sounds like parrots." Brunette explained.
"Wouldn't that mean that it was someone's pet though?" Redhead asked,
looking around as if she expected someone to come collect the bird at any
moment.
"Hello." The raven repeated.
"This is so cool." Blonde said with a grin. "What's that line about a
raven in a poem again?"
"From Edgar Allan Poe?" Brunette asked.
"Yeah, him." Blonde agreed.
"Something about a raven quoting 'nevermore'" Redhead said.
"Nevermore." The raven croaked.
All three girls stared at it in surprise and then giggled.
"I guess we're not the first ones to think of that." Blonde said, still
grinning.
The other two did not respond, because at that moment the feathery
visitor waddled over to Blonde and stared intently at her sizable chest.
Or more accurately, at the topmost button of her white blouse.
"Shiny." The raven proclaimed.
"I guess it wants your buttons." Brunette said, very amused as she
watched the black bird try to pry off the button.
"Or maybe it's a pervert." Redhead added, equally amused.

The raven ignored them with lordly disdain as it continued trying to
claim the button.
"I'd give you the button, but I kind of need it." Blonde said, also
amused. The blouse showed enough cleavage as it was.
The raven continued to struggle against the button for a minute longer
before apparently deciding that it wasn't worth the trouble. Defeated but
undaunted, it moved over to Brunette and started tugging on the shiny
metallic zipper of her jeans.
"That settles it, that bird is definitely a pervert." Redhead stated,

vastly amused as she watched the raven attempting to de-pants her
embarrassed friend.
"Hey, stop that." Brunette scolded, not wanting to actually attempt

physically remove the raven for fear of hurting it.
Much to her surprise, the raven did actually stop and made a croaking
noise that sounded suspiciously like laughter.
"You're a cheeky little bugger, aren't you?" She asked.
"Nevermore." The raven croaked and began pushing its head at her palm.
"I think he wants be petted" Blonde suggested.
Bemused, Brunette did exactly that. Much to her surprise, the raven
visibly preened at the attention. In a matter of moments all three young
women were gently petting it.
"Hey, look out. There's a dog coming over here." Redhead warned a minute
later, warily watching the approach of an intimidatingly large black dog.
"I think you'd better go." Brunette told the raven as if it could
actually understand them, not wanting it to get hurt.
Quoth the raven. "Nevermore."
All three women gave it queer looks and stood up, not wanting to be so
close to the ground with that dog approaching.
The raven stayed fearlessly on the ground.
Apparently with good reason, as the dog simply stopped once it reached
them and gave a gentle woof.
The raven made a short flight and planted itself on the dog's back so
that it was looking forward.
"Away." The raven commanded and the dog obeyed. Both avian rider and
canine mount quickly vanished in the nearby woods.
"Did that seriously just happen?" Blonde asked, sounding more than a bit
stunned.
The other two merely nodded mutely, still staring at the spot where the
two had vanished.
XXXXX
Sirius and Harry transformed back into human form as soon as they were
deep enough in the woods and immediately dissolved into hilarity.
"Did you see the look on their faces?" Sirius managed to say through his
laughter, barely coherent due to his mirth. It was so bad that he wasn't
even making any sound, just convulsing wildly with his mouth wide open as
if he was howling hysterically.
Harry merely nodded, similarly incapacitated with tears streaming from

his eyes due to the force of his amusement.
The two Animagi spent a good five minutes regaining control of

themselves, as they would burst into another bout of laughter every time
they caught sight of each other.
"We still need to give you a proper Marauder name now that you're an
Animagus." Sirius was finally able to say, still red faced and bright
eyed.
"Sure, whatever." Harry shrugged. He didn't particularly care about the

whole Marauder thing, as he was pretty sure that they'd been bullies as
much as pranksters, but it made Sirius happy so he'd let the man name his
raven form.
He'd been so excited ever since he'd mastered the transformation after
all.
Flashback
"Alright, I guess you might as well attempt the transformation." Sirius

said in both pride and resignation. "It's insanely early, but you know
your form, you know as much about ravens as you're likely to without
being one and you've got better awareness over your own magic than James
and I ever did. If anyone is going to get this right, it'll be you."
"Any last minute bits of advice?" Harry asked not really expecting
anything.
"Don't hesitate." Sirius said simply. "This isn't something that you can
do slowly. It'll feel strange the first time, but your magic will know
what to do so don't struggle against it. If you get scared by the
transformation and fight it your body will seize up and you'll die. If
you don't accept the animal within, your magic will turn on itself and
you'll go insane."
"Right, let's do this." Harry acknowledged with a nod.

He settled himself into the now familiar meditation, seeking the animal
inside. The presence of the raven in his mind had become increasingly
stronger the closer he came to mastering the transformation, until he
felt the pressing need to spread his wings and fly.
He almost didn't notice when the transformation started, only alerted by

the shifting of bones and organs. It was surprisingly painless, but
definitely strange, as Sirius had warned him it would be. It was deeply
uncomfortable feeling his bones become hollow and frail, his limbs
spindly and weak, his teeth recede and his overall size diminish, but he
pushed ahead despite the instincts of his body telling him that this
wasn't right.
Even stranger was the mental aspect. Previously, the raven had been a
notable presence in the back of his mind somewhere, but now it grew
larger and stronger with alarming speed, overtaking his human
consciousness. Sirius' warning fresh in his mind, he didn't try to fight
or subjugate it and instead simply allowed it to happen. The raven was
part of him now after all and fighting against yourself never turned out
well.
Fortunately, the sudden flood of avian instinct subsided quickly and gave
way once again to human thought, though definitely tinted towards
birdlike and his emotions seemed oddly muted.
"Harry? You okay?" Sirius asked, looming over him like a giant.
Harry croaked back an affirmation, somehow not feeling overly strange or

awkward in his new form. Even the new field of vision didn't feel too
strange. Realizing that Sirius could not possibly understand him, he
nodded his head.
"Amazing." Sirius said, much impressed. "A month and you've completely
mastered the Animagus transformation from start to finish. I've never
heard of anyone doing it anywhere close to this fast."
Harry croaked again and puffed up his chest proudly.
"You think you can manage to get on my arm?" Sirius asked, offering the
appendage in question as a perch.
Harry didn't think about it too much and simply lifted off the ground
with a flap of his wings. His landing was a bit shaky but successful. He
found that as long as he didn't think about what he was doing when
moving, it was pretty instinctual, just like being human really.
"Well aren't you a handsome bird?" Sirius asked, giving his transformed
godson a little scratch on the head.
Harry puffed up again.
"Full of yourself too." Sirius teased.

Harry decided to try out another thing that ravens were capable of. It
took a bit of doing to figure out the avian vocal cords, but it wasn't as
hard as he thought it might have been.
"Cunt." The raven Harry croaked.
Sirius gave him a look that was partly offended, but mostly just jealous.
"You lucky bastard." He grumbled. "Do you have any idea how many pranks
you could do with a talking Animagus form? In fact, we've got to use this
right away!"
End Flashback
"Alright, I've got it!" Sirius announced, breaking Harry out of his
thoughts. "I dub thee Messr Blackbeak, son of Prongs."
"Really? Blackbeak?" Harry asked in a deadpan tone, staring at his

godfather with an equally deadpan look. "How...original."
"It's perfect." Sirius insisted. "Besides, it's not like the other
Marauder names were terribly original either. James was Prongs because he
had antlers, I was Padfoot because my feet have pads, Wormtail had a
wormlike tail, Remus is Moony because he's a werewolf and you have a
black beak."
"Right, because I'm the only bird with a black beak." Harry said
sarcastically.
"I'm not the only dog with pads on his feet either, so what's your
point?"
Harry rolled his eyes. "Fine, we'll call my raven form Blackbeak if it's
so important to you."
"Good." Sirius nodded firmly, looking terribly pleased with himself. "Go
forth and prank the world Messr Blackbeak."
"We've literally just done a prank." Harry pointed out, not being as
prank inclined as his godfather.
"You can never have too many pranks." Sirius argued but quickly sobered
up a bit. "How are you feeling though? Noticed any strange urges yet?"
Harry frowned and thought over the day. It didn't take him long to
identify several things that he was fairly certain wouldn't have popped
up if he hadn't transformed. "I seem to have gained a strange fascination
with shiny objects and a dislike of closed spaces."
"Not unexpected." Sirius said with a nod. "The dislike of closed spaces
at any rate, no bird would like those. You might notice others over time,
but like I said, it'll be subtle."
XXXXX
Gorefist glared at the five humans currently cluttering his office. That
was five more than he would have preferred.
"What do you want this time, Potter?" He demanded rudely. The

professional relationship between the Potter account manager and the
Potter Heir had long since gone past the point of politeness.
"I need to open another vault." Harry replied, unperturbed by the

goblin's tone. Not only did goblins dislike humans as a matter of course,
they also had little use for politeness in the first place. "The deposit
has to be ten thousand galleons and all five of us need to have full
access to it, but transactions or withdrawals larger than two hundred
galleons in one sitting or one thousand per month have to be approved by
me."
"Names?" Gorefist grunted.
Harry rattled off the names of the four girls. "I'll want the keys locked
to their use of course."
"That will cost you ten galeons. Each."
"I think you mean five galleons each." Harry smirked.
Gorefist glowered back. "Nine."
"Six."
"Eight."
"Five and I won't pay attention if an extra ten goes missing from my
vault."
Gorefist considered the blatant bribe for a moment and gave a grudging
nod. "Agreed."
"I'll also want monthly bank statements to be sent to Penelope

Clearwater."
The four girls twitched in surprise at hearing the name of their former
yearmate, but stayed silent.
"Fine." Gorefist grunted again and sneered toothily. "I will send a
goblin to the lobby to escort you to key manufacture, now get out of my
office and die in a fire."
"I hope your mother gets eaten by a dragon." Harry shot back and motioned
for the wide eyed girls to follow him out of the office.
"Fucking goblins." He grumbled once they'd left Gorefist's office.
"Is that..normal?" Bryanna asked hesitantly, more than a bit perturbed

at the hostility between Harry and his account manager. She'd never had
any dealings with goblins aside from the tellers, which were terse but
not so blatantly hostile.
"Pretty much." Harry sighed. "Goblins have never gotten along with humans
and now that we're in an enforced peace all we can do is hurl insults and
empty threats at each other. It wouldn't be so bad if the little bastards
didn't insist on being as antagonistic as possible. I'd bet my last knut
that if the treaty between us is somehow voided, the first thing that the
goblins will do is start sharpening their axes."
"But.why?" Jade asked, clearly baffled about the whole thing. "Surely
we'd have learned to live together by now?"
Harry snorted at the optimism. "We can't even live with each other, what
makes you think we can live with a whole other species?"
"Since when does Clearwater work for you?" Tiana interjected

speculatively, having little interest in wizard-goblin relations.
"Since the end of July. I ran into her in the Ministry when I was picking
up my OWL results and offered her a job as my personal assistant." Harry
answered with a shrug, not elaborating on the issue.
The girls shared knowing looks, easily able to guess that the muggleborn
former Ravenclaw had run headfirst into the discrimination that had led
them to concocting the 'Potter Project' in the first place, though she'd
apparently lucked out by befriending Harry. Good on her.
"I'll expect you to send her monthly finance reports so that she can
compare it to the Gringotts bank statements."
"Alright." Bryana nodded, ignoring the way that Jade and Isabel stiffened
in offense at the insinuation that they would cheat him. Honestly, Harry
had just handed them a ten thousand galleon loan with no interest
attached to it. They could do with being a bit less prickly over the fact
that he wanted to keep an eye on his investment.
"And get in touch with her when you find a venue that you like. I'll
negotiate for it on your behalf."
"Will do." Tiana agreed easily, knowing that the Boy-Who-Lived would
definitely get a better deal than an unknown group of barely-above-
muggleborn and fresh out of Hogwarts witches. The unfairness grated as
much as it always had, but they'd learned to be pragmatic.
"Alright, that's that then." Harry breathed out, feeling uncommonly tired
from all this business dealing. He'd have much rather spent the day
reading a book or tinkering with some magical item, or maybe flying in
his raven form. Or making use of Dora's birthday present.
At least he had Penny to take care of most of the tedium now. Negotiating
was bad enough, but keeping track of expenses was something that he knew
he didn't have the patience for, especially with the retarded currency
that magicals used. Honestly, 17 sickles to a galleon and 29 knuts to a
sickle? If that wasn't proof that goblins hated wizards, then he didn't
know what was.
He knew that Penny had never been fond of computers, but maybe he should
send her to a class on using Microsoft Excel and get her one of those
solar powered laptops? Maybe even check around for a dedicated
bookkeeping program? It would be beyond cruel to expect her to keep track
of his finances by hand. She was getting a calculator at the very least,
if she didn't have one already that was.
XXXXX
Tonks having breakfast at Potter Manor had become a familiar scene over
the summer. Not only did she not feel like apparating to her own flat
after Harry wore her out with his rune bolstered virility, but the king
sized bed was also far more comfortable than her own much smaller one and
a house elf prepared breakfast was superior to cereal in every way.
She, Harry and Sirius generally spent this time sniping at each other
good naturedly or jeering at the tripe writen in the Daily Prophet. Penny
had felt a bit awkward about the whole thing at first but had eventually
become part of the strange dynamic, though a more quiet part.
"Oh Haaaary~." Tonks sing-songed, looking at her boyfriend over the

latest issue of Witch Weekly with laughing dark eyes.
"What?" Harry asked with a raised eyebrow from his place at the head of
the table, wondering what she'd seen in that rag that merited this kind
of amusement.
"It says here that you were seen in Gringotts with a gaggle of four
witches. Inquiring minds want to know whether you need four mistresses to
satisfy your dark lusts." Tonks informed him, obviously holding back
laughter.
Penny nearly choked on her orange juice. So that's what that interview
request that she'd refused a couple of days ago had been about.
"You keep falling asleep on me." Harry shrugged with a smile. "A man has
needs."
"Preach it, brother." Sirius contributed, nodding sagely.
"Prats" Tonks huffed. It was true that Harry was getting progressively
better at turning her into a pile of mush as he learned which buttons to
push, and he'd been no slouch the first time. "So were you actually there
or are the reporters making stuff up again?"
"Yes, I was actually there, but not to pay off a gaggle of mistresses."
Harry paused in thought at this and amended his statement. "Well, two of
them could be counted as former mistresses I suppose, if you stretch the
definition, but we were there on business."
"The ones that you've been 'honing your technique' on the past year?" She
asked with a raised eyebrow. He'd told her about them when she asked
where he'd gotten so experienced at his age.
"That'd be them." He confirmed and then took on a teasing tone. "You

jealous?"
"Maybe I want my own mistresses." Tonks leered playfully.
"We can share mine if you want." Harry offered just as playfully. "I'm
sure they wouldn't mind another participant of variable gender. Just keep
any cocks you might decide to grow away from my orifices and we're
golden."
"Aw, but that's the fun part." Tonks complained.
"Sorry, Dora, but we'll need another girl if you want to satisfy your
futa fetishes." Harry told her seriously.
Sirius lost the battle against his amusement at this point and burst into
hysterical giggles.
Penny could only shake her head at the conversation. She'd never have
believed that the sullen and anti-social first year Harry had once been
would grow up like this.
"I do not have any futa fetishes!" Tonks protested. That thing with the
Asian witch in her sixth year didn't count! That girl had been weird,
always looking flushed and out of breath whenever she asked about the
limits of her Metamorph abilities.
"And yet you know what a futa fetish is." Harry countered.
"So do you!"
"Ah, but I'm not the Metamorphmagus, or should we call you a

Metamorphallus?"
Sirius started giggling again.
"I'll Metamorphallus you right up the arse." Tonks muttered.
"What did I just say about keeping away from my orifices?" Harry tried to
say sternly, but couldn't keep his lips from twitching into a grin.
"Fine." She sniffed disdainfully. "It's your loss anyway. You'll never
know the glories of penetration."
"I think I can manage to stay content with doing the penetrating." Harry
said back wryly.
There was a short silence before Tonks spoke up again. "So just to be
clear, you're not still sleeping with them, right?"
"No, I'm not still sleeping with them." He assured her and paused in
thought for a moment. "Do you want to meet them? I'm sure I could
convince them to come over and get you measured for some custom
clothing."
Tonks thought the offer over. She was sure that he was telling her the
truth, but she appreciated the gesture he was making. Being a
Metamorphmagus was awesome, but it did come with the unfortunate caveat
that almost all of her past boyfriends that she'd slept with had
inevitably asked her to transform into someone else. A little roleplay
was okay, but it was a fine line between that and being used as a means
to live out someone's fantasies. Harry hadn't asked her to use her
abilities for anything of the sort so far aside from some minor ideas
like making her clitoris bigger, which indicated either a lack of desire
to do so or uncommon intelligence by leaving it up to her. She was
betting on the latter.
And now he was offering her the chance to speak to the women he'd spent a
large portion of the past year sleeping with. That could beinformative.
The chance for custom made clothing shouldn't be squandered either.
XXXXX
Tonks was feeling tentatively positive about Bryanna and Tiana. They
seemed like a very practical and down to earth sort, though their
enthusiasm for a shapeshifting human mannequin was a bit disturbing. She
didn't think that her Metamorph ability had ever gotten such a workout as
they asked her to change body proportions and colorations to test what
would work and what wouldn't.
The talk about Harry had also been surprisingly frank and absent of
awkwardness. The two younger witches did not seem to have any feelings
attached to him other than friendliness. It had been exactly as Harry had
described it, a business arrangement that had turned into casual sex.
"We wouldn't have minded keeping it up." Bryanna was saying. "He was a
good way to scratch an itch and wasn't a jerk about it when he easily
could have been. Since he never showed any interest in getting into an
actual relationship, we figured that he'd stay available, so we were
pretty surprised when he turned us down last month."
"So much for not getting into a relationship." Tiana snickered and then
sighed. "I guess it's back to toys and that buzzer spell."
Tonks knew about the buzzer spell. It was one of the things she'd put on
Mr. Purple. She had to agree that it wasn't as good as having Harry go
down on her though.
"So he turned down a three-way for me?" She had to admit that that was
more than she would have expected a month ago. "I'll have to reward him
for that, especially since he didn't brag about it."
"If you want to reward him, all you need to do is make yourself look
fifteen or twenty years older." Bryanna advised.
"Why?" Tonks asked, puzzled.
"Harry's got a thing for older women. I'm pretty sure that he was
plotting out ways to seduce Professor Vector before he met you." Tiana
answered with a smirk.
Tonks had to snicker at that. She could easly imagine Harry pacing his
room with that broody look on his face as he planned ways to turn his
Arithmancy lesson into a different sort of lesson entirely.
Maybe she could reward him for his faithfulness with a detention..
XXXXX
"Are you ready for your detention, Mr. Potter?"
The question snapped Harry out of his focus on the book in front of him
and he looked towards his girlfriend in bafflement.
Then he continued to stare. It was definitely Tonks, but the slight

wrinkles at the corners of her mouth and eyes made her look a good deal
older. Harry would be hard pressed to explain why he found those hints of
age attractive, but he did. The new look was further complemented by a
rather severe but tight robe and a less playful hairstyle than she
normally preferred.
"Dora?" He asked in surprise.
She tsked and started walking over to him. "That's Ms. Tonks to you, Mr.
Potter. Now prepare yourself for detention."
Harry was catching on and had to fight to keep a grin off his face. He
still had no idea how he was supposed to prepare himself for detention
though.
The question was answered when she waved her wand and caused his clothes
to fly off of him until he was naked in the chair. Then she proceeded to
straddle him and reveal that there was nothing under that robe.
A little wriggling later and she had impaled herself on him, after which
she leaned in close to whisper into his ear. "Detention is now in
session."
Bryanna and Tiana put her up to this. Harry realized. He was going to
have to do something nice for them.
XXXXX
Harry appeared in an out of the way alley and promptly chucked the empty
bottle of Guiness that had been turned into a portkey into a nearby
garbage bin. Someone in the Department of Magical Transportation clearly
thought they were being clever by using a bottle of Irish beer as a
portkey to Ireland. Harry was impressed just by the fact that whoever had
made that portkey actually knew about a muggle beer brand.
He and Penny had tracked down the former manager for the Potter vineyards
to this Irish village, now he just had to find the right place. It was
one of those places that was big enough that not everyone knew each
other, but still small enough to be called 'sleepy'. In other words, the
type of place where a few magicals could vanish into the crowd with
relative ease as long as they weren't incredibly stupid.
He didn't want to be here at all, but it had to be done and he'd put it
off long enough already. He had to find out what exactly Parkinson had
done to usurp Potter business interests and this was his best bet. The
pottery business had been quite small and more of a nod to the family
name than anything else. The manager for that one had left Wizarding
Britain a long time ago and would have been difficult to find, which was
probably intentional.
A fifteen minute walk later and he was approaching an unassuming looking

house that had spells layered over it to make it even more unassuming.
There were even aversion spells targeting magicals present, but Harry
ignored them and knocked on the door.
A short while later, a confused looking man that looked to be somewhere

in his fifties opened the door, which meant that he was probably a couple
of decades older since he was a wizard, though he was dressed in regular
clothing. The confusion probably stemmed from the fact that he'd knocked
on his door despite the spells that were meant to discourage exactly
that.
"Ossian O'Sullivan?" Harry inquired.
The man looked a bit startled at hearing his name, but then took a closer
look at his visitor. "Harry Potter. I thought I might be seeing you on my
doorstep one day, though I hadn't been expecting you for a few more years
at least. Well come on in, we can't very well have this conversation on
the porch."
Harry did so, inwardly feeling rather amused by the old man's brusque
manner. Charlus had warned him about that, but it was something else to
experience it himself. He was led into a comfortable living room and told
to have a seat while his host went to grab a few drinks.
He took a look around while O'Sullivan was absent, noting the mix of
still pictures and magical animated ones. Aside from Ossian himself,
there were also pictures of two boys at various ages that must be his
sons and a woman that was presumably his wife. Judging by her absence in
the house, Harry guessed that she was dead and determined to avoid any
talk about family.
The old man came back a minute later and Harry ironically found himself
once again holding a bottle of Guiness. He clearly didn't care about any
underage drinking laws.
"Muggle beer." O'Sullivan explained unnecessarily. "Always found
Firewhiskey too strong for casual drinking and Butterbeer too sweet.
You'd think that wizards would die if they adopted some moderation with
the way they avoid it."
"You don't have to tell me twice, I was raised by muggles. Nearly did a
spit take the first time I tried pumpkin juice." Harry said with a shrug,
deciding not to mention that he wasn't too fond of beer either. No need
to come off as whiny.
"You'll be wanting to know why the Potters lost their business."

O'Sullivan stated, changing the subject abruptly.
"I'm fairly sure that there was some foul play involved, but I would like
the details." Harry said evenly, feeling oddly pleased by the straight to
the point approach.
"Hah!" The much older wizard chortled, apparently amused. "If you've
guessed that much without even talking to me then you're already twice
the man your father was, at least as far as brains are concerned."
"What do you mean?" Harry questioned, puzzled.
"James Potter wasn't stupid, but he was a brat." O'Sullivan stated

bluntly. "Never cared to learn about any of his responsibilities and only
wanted to run around with those friends of his and chase girls. He didn't
really start growing up until he was out of Hogwarts. Can't really blame
him I suppose. Charlus and Dorea were already getting old by the time
they had him and pampered the boy too much."
Harry had known that his father had been something of an entitled brat.
He'd also known that Charlus and Dorea had been approaching grandparent
age by the time they'd had him. He hadn't known that they'd spoiled him
however, but he supposed that he shouldn't be surprised that they'd
omitted that little detail.
"So he wasn't prepared to take the Lordship when Charlus and Dorea died?"
He asked.
"Didn't want to either." O'Sullivan grunted. "Too busy listening to

Dumbledore's shite and risking his neck fighting Voldemort."
Harry had to raise an eyebrow at finally hearing someone say the dreaded
V-word. He'd just about despaired of finding any traces of spine among
the magical population.
"Don't get me wrong. It was brave of him to fight that lunatic head on,
but stupid. He could've done more by convincing those feckin' gobshites
in the Wizengamot to stop sitting on their arses and seein' that
Voldemort isn't going to make things better." The old man ranted, his
Irish accent getting thicker in his agitation.
"Not that this isn't interesting, but how does it relate to the Potter
business?" Harry steered the conversation back on track, finding it
personally unlikely that his father could have managed that one even if
he had been politically inclined.
"Right, got a bit off topic there." O'Sullivan nodded. "Charlus was dead
and James didn't want to deal with anything until the war was over, so he
delegated authority to everyone he could instead."
"Ah." Harry said, pinching the bridge of his nose and wondering if his
father had really been that oblivious. The Potters wouldn't be the first
House to take a beating because a new Lord made stupid decisions. House
Black was a prime example of mismanagement; A magnificent manor torn down
and traded for a much smaller townhouse in London on the whims of one
Lord Black, a huge chunk of gold given to the Ministry by Sirius' own
grandfather for the dubius benefits of an Order of Merlin First Class,
the whole family nearly wiped out in their fervor to support Voldemort
and lastly, Sirius' decision to deliberately let the family name go
extinct out of spite for those long dead.
"Yes. Ah." The older man repeated flatly. "I tried telling him it was a
bad idea but he wouldn't listen, just signed over authority for me to 'do
whatever I needed to do' and apparated away before I could get a word in
edgewise. Then he went into hiding with his wife and word got out that I
was making decisions that only Lord Potter should have been making. Then
one day that streak of piss Parkinson showed up and made it clear that I
should sell the business to him for less than a quarter of what it was
worth and get out of the country. He wasn't very specific, but I know a
threat when I hear one. With your father in hiding and the Ministry
looking ready to surrender I was short on choices, so I sold and made
plans to move my family to the continent."
"You did the right thing." Harry sighed. His father and Sirius really had
been two peas in a pod, shortsighted, irresponsible and reckless. Sirius
was still dodging responsibility to this day and James Potter had as good
as painted a target on the man's back.
"Damn right I did. Charlus was my friend, but I wasn't going to risk my
family to protect Potter business interests." O'Sullivan grunted but
seemed pleased to hear it anyway. "Course', then Voldemort got himself
blown up going after you and the Potters were suddenly martyrs. Nobody
would have touched their stuff after that, but Parkinson had already
gotten what he wanted by then and it was all nice and legal too."
"For a given value of legal." Harry muttered, making the older man snort
in agreement. He finished what was left of the beer and stood up. "Thanks
for telling me about this."
"Sure." The other man said. "Throw a couple bone breakers in self-defense
at Parkinson's legs for me when you get around to it."
Harry's lips twitched in morbid amusement. The Irish wizard must have
seen Skeeter's article on the Pettigrew debacle and drawn his own
conclusions. He seemed to be under the impression that Harry was on a
revenge trip of some sort. "I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking
about."
"Right." O'Sullivan managed not to sound too sarcastic.
XXXXX
"I don't wanna go." Sirius pouted.
"Stop being such a big baby, Sirius." Harry sighed, wondering yet again
at his godfather's capacity for being childish.
"But it's going to be so boring." Sirius whined.
"Yes, I know." Harry said back irritably. "I'll agree to try casting a
few wandless prank spells if you agree to stop your bellyaching." Why did
he sometimes feel like a single parent when dealing with his godfather?
"Deal!" Sirius agreed, instantly cheered up. He'd turn his godson into a
prankster yet!
"But only if I think I can get away without anyone figuring out that it
was me." Harry provisioned.
"Fine." Sirius conceded. It was always better when the prankster remained
undetected anyway.
XXXXX
Yes, I know that not much happened in this one either. The next one
should be more eventful though.
Chapter 14
And the 14th chapter is finally arrived. I got a bit distracted by

various stuff, which is the cause of the delay.
Extra special thanks as always to Joe Lawyer for giving helpful advice
and making sure the chapter was polished up a bit before being posted.
XXXXX
Harry and Sirius were deposited by portkey on a stretch of misty moor

near to where the Quidditch World Cup was taking place, both of them
sporting identical looks of sullen resignation.
In front of them were two grumpy and tired looking wizards, dressed in
what Harry assumed they thought was normal non-magical wear but was in
reality fit to be the end result of a weekend drinking binge that nobody
could quite remember.
"Potter and Black?" One of them asked, holding out his hand for the
portkey.
"Yes." Sirius confirmed, handing over a badly mangled slinky.
"About a quarter of a mile walk that way, first field you come to." The
other said, pointing in the correct direction. "Site manager's called Mr.
Roberts. He's a muggle so watch what you say, Obliviators are being run
ragged keeping him in the dark."
The last was said with some humor, causing Harry to frown with
disapproval. He knew that obliviations could cause brain damage if done
shoddily and he didn't think that having it done over and over again was
too healthy either. It would have been a lot smarter to just let the man
in on the secret and then remove the salient details from his mind at the
end of it instead of applying repeated memory wipes. Come to think of it,
it would have also been a lot smarter to find a spot where the muggle
landowner could be paid to go on an extended vacation for however long
the World Cup lasted.
Admittedly, his frown had more to do with the newest bit of evidence on
the Ministry's ham handed approach than it did with concern for someone
he didn't know. He'd never had much of a reason to develop an especially
strong sense of empathy for strangers.
"Look at the bright side, at least you don't have to wear robes." Sirius
tried to point out the silver lining as they set off, knowing his
godson's preference for less bulky muggle wear.
"The bright side would be someone casting Fiendfyre on the damn stadium."
Harry refused to be cheered up. The Quidditch World Cup combined sports,
crowds and politics. Three things that he disliked in ascending
increments of disdain.
"That would be pretty bright." Sirius quipped.
"This might actually be one of the few occasions where puns would improve
a situation."
They came upon Mr. Roberts a short while later were directed to their
camping site without issue. They also paid without issue and looked
perfectly normal, which was apparently abnormal enough for the man to
comment.
"Gotta say that you're the most normal ones I've seen all morning."
Roberts said. "I had an old man come through here in a woman's night gown
just a short while ago that tried to pay me with these great gold coins."
Harry and Sirius exchanged looks that communicated volumes of

exasperation with their fellow wizards, who were clearly too lazy to put
in the two minutes of effort required to research appropriate muggle
attire.
"He probably had Alzheimer's." Harry said blandly, knowing that it was
probably a wasted effort to explain the many oddities the man had no
doubt seen.
"Might have." Roberts agreed and waved them on.
Harry shook his head, suspecting that the man was going to be obliviated
again soon.
"What's Alzheimer's?" Sirius asked.
"Nothing you need to worry about."
Sirius let it go and they soon made it towards the designated camp site.
Sirius' mood picked up a bit at the festive mood and good cheer hanging
about the place, his extroverted nature coming to the fore despite his
reluctance to actually come to the World Cup due to the politics
involved. Harry on the other hand, became even more sour. The brightly
colored tents, loud conversations and squealing children were more or
less the exact opposite of his conception of a good time.
He'd sink into an Occlumency trance later and drown his irritation in
Dark, but for now he indulged himself by scowling minutely at everything
around him.
Some of the tents were so egregiously magical that it was no wonder the
Obliviators had their hands full, despite Ministry instructions to appear
as muggle as possible. Similarly, the people were dressed in a hodgepodge
of clothes ranging from sensibly mundane to sad attempts at such and all
the way to those who outright disregarded those instructions and showed
up in robes. He was somehow not surprised to see that the obvious
foreigners were the ones that would most easily blend in. He'd always
gotten the feeling that Britain was among the more backward magical
nations, if not the most backward.
He noted that there were quite a few foreigners present. The borders of
magical nations were quite a bit more flexible than that of their muggle
counterparts and did not always coincide with them, but it was for the
most part close enough. He saw flags from all over Europe, some from
America despite the reputed bad blood between them and Britain, several
that he didn't recognize but guessed must be from Africa or India given
the skin tones of the people under them.
His eyes roved over a pair of wizards engaged in casual conversation and
then froze there in confusion.
One of the wizards was not a wizard.
He was wearing robes and stood in front of a tent with a chimney of all
things, but Harry's magesight saw only the lack of presence distinctive
of the non-magical.
"Harry, what's wrong?" Sirius asked, confused by his godson's sudden
stop.
Harry snapped out of his confusion and turned towards him, lying on sheer
reflex. "Nothing, thought I saw something."
"You sure? You looked pretty stunned." Sirius was clearly skeptical.
"Yes, I'm sure. Let's go set up that damned tent." He didn't know what a
muggle masquerading as a wizard was doing here and intended to keep quiet
about it until he could get more information.
They arrived at the spot reserved for them soon after and set up the tent
with a few waves of a wand, neither one having much desire to bother
doing it the normal way.
"I'm going to take a walk around the area." Harry announced once they
were done.
Now it was Sirius that looked stunned. "Really? I thought you were going
to stay in the tent and sulk until the game started."
"I changed my mind." Harry shrugged.
"Now I know that something's wrong." Sirius said with a frown. "You
didn't even bother denying that you would be sulking."
"Don't worry about it Sirius, I just want to take a look around."
"We can go together then, I was planning to do the same thing anyway."
"I'm not helping you pick up women."
XXXXX
Harry did eventually manage to ditch Sirius and set off on his own, once
his godfather was convinced that it was nothing to worry about.
The surroundings were still as loud and as annoying as ever, but Harry's
thoughts weren't on that any longer. He was hunting for undercover
muggles, wanting to know if the one he'd seen so far was an exception or
if there were more.
He slipped out of his and Sirius' assigned campsite with as much stealth
as he could muster. Several Hogwarts students recognized him and pointed
him out to their families, much to his irritation, but that was
thankfully as far as it went. At least he managed to avoid being seen by
the Weasleys and his estranged friend Ginny, that was one awkward
situation that he was happy to have avoided. They seemed to be trying to
set up their tent without magic and were failing spectacularly. He
remembered Ginny telling him about her father's fascination with muggles.
For a man that was supposed to be the Ministry's expert on all things
non-magical, he was impressively clueless. If the world was fair, a
muggleborn would have had his job.
Having no particular destination, he simply set out towards a random

grouping of people, keeping a sharp eye out for any people with no
magical aura around them.
Several hours later, he'd found quite a few. Both men and women, always
dressed to blend right in with the crowd, always looking as if they
belonged there.
Just one muggle sneaking in to a magical event could be the result of a

particularly clever and curius person convincing a wizard friend or
relative to get them in. As many as he'd seen could not be a coincidence.
Observers? Spies? Infiltrators? Why spy on a sporting event though?
All of them had some trinket on their person that was enchanted to negate
the effect of the Muggle-Reppeling Wards. That automatically meant that
they'd had magical help doing this, but how would they get that kind of
help?
The answer came to mind instantly. Had he not spoken to Penny about her
being forced to return to the mundane world less than a month ago? He
still remembered his internet conversation with the possibly Russian
wizard who had reamed him for posting Arithmancy problems online, warning
him that the mundane governments were not as blind as wizards would like
to think. Even the basest idiot could look at a muggleborn's school
records and see that they seemed to drop off the face of the Earth from
the ages of ten to eighteen. For someone in the know, it may as well be a
flashing neon sign. It would be beyond simple for some government spook
to approach a bitter muggleborn and offer them a job where they could
make use of their gifts and would be paid handsomely for it after they'd
been forced out of the Wizarding World by the bigotry inherent in it.
And they would accept. Not all of them. Some would stubbornly stick
around despite the discrimination, others would leave the country and try
their luck in a different magical nation and some would be too wary to
work for the government, but some would accept out of sheer spite for the
world that had made so many grand promises and then rejected them. The
Prime Minister and the reigning monarch were ostensibly supposed to be
the only muggles aware of the UK's magical population, but it was very
likely that large portions of the government knew of it. It figured
really...what government would be content to have another operating
within its borders with barely any oversight? They probably had plans to
make a hostile takeover at need and were using these spies to keep an eye
on things. And the greatest irony was that Hogwarts was training the very
people they needed to succeed for them.
But was this limited to Britain or was it happening everywhere? Were

France or Germany or Italy or Sweden as bad as Britain? He didn't know
how muggleborns were treated there. He was pretty sure that at least some
of these muggles were American, if for no other reason than because it
seemed that the United States were always involved when there was spying
to be done. It was a stereotype yes, but it was a stereotype for a
reason.
Harry took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. He was getting ahead of
himself, making assumptions and conjecture on very limited information.
He didn't even know if these muggles were in the employ of any
government. The only thing he really knew was that there were muggles
present and that they had magical items on their person to counter the
repelling wards. A reasonably skilled fifth year should be capable of
making an enchantment like that. For all he knew, they could just be
family members of magicals sneaking in on an event they wouldn't have
been able to see otherwise.
He nearly snorted to himself. Optimism was not something that worked for
him. But even if they were spies, there wasn't anything he could do about
it. He couldn't even blame the muggle government for spying on them. He
wouldn't trust wizards in their place either.
He didn't like it though, didn't like it at all. He abruptly felt exposed

and vulnerable and agitated. It took him an effort of will to keep
walking normally instead of marching back to his and Sirius' tent as fast
as possible. He was now acutely aware of any action on his part that
might draw attention.
Which was why he nearly reacted with violence when someone ran up behind
him and grabbed his arm.
Harry tore his arm out of the small hand and spun around, half expecting
to see a gun pointed at him despite the absurdity of such a notion.
Instead of that he saw the luminous blue eyes and blonde hair of a good
friend.
"Luna?" He asked, utterly baffled. "What are you doing here?"
"Hello, Harry." Luna said, smiling up at him with that slightly vacant
look of hers. "Daddy and I have been here for a week. We're intending to
expose the World Cup for what it is."
"And what is it?" Harry asked, feeling morbidly amused by Luna's habitual
conspiracy theories in light of his recent discovery.
Luna pulled him down so that she could whisper into his ear
conspiratorially. "It's a plot by the Ministry to swindle hard working
people out of their gold."
Harry, having never seen the appeal of paying exorbitant prices to watch
a boring sports event, was inclined to agree with her on this one.
"It does sound like something the Ministry would do." He conceded with a
smile.
"Yes, Fudge has no doubt already stationed his invisible army of

heliopaths around the area to keep the foreign Ministries from taking any
of the gold for themselves." Luna added.
"I'll keep an eye out for them." Harry promised, though he was a great
deal more dubious about this one. Even if heliopaths did exist, which was
in no way certain, Fudge wasn't qualified to command an army of baked
potatoes, much less one of invisible fire spirits.
"Is that why you're here?" Luna asked with a note of excitement in her
tone.
"No, I'm not here to look for heliopaths." He said with a sigh. "I'm here
because Fudge invited me and Sirius to sit with him in the top box and we
couldn't find a way to refuse."
Bumbling idiot Fudge may be, but he had done them a favor by pushing the
DMLE investigation of Pettigrew's death and Sirius' guilt along. Charlus
and Dorea had warned them that they couldn't just snub the man afterwards
without the risk of making him an enemy. The fact that Dumbledore had
also warned him that there would be no simple way to extricate himself
from the politics now that he'd dived in annoyed him quite a bit. He
never liked it when the old man was right.
"That sounds dreadfully dull." Luna observed.
"I will be shocked if it isn't." Harry said wryly. At least Sirius liked
quidditch, he didn't even have that luxury. "Speaking of which, I should
probably find Sirius and get to our seats. Will you still be here after
the game?"
"Yes, my tent is right over there." Luna said and pointed off to the
side. "Unless the game lasts more than a couple of hours. If that happens
then daddy and I will leave."
"So will I." Harry said, having no desire to watch a quidditch match that
went on forever because the seekers couldn't catch the snitch.
XXXXX
Locating Sirius might have been difficult if not for the handy
communication mirrors that the man had made for them. Actually getting
him to stop talking to the American witch he'd been chatting up and going
to meet Fudge had been far more difficult.
"Couldn't you have showed up just a little bit later?" Sirius sulked.
"Mindy and I were having a fascinating discussion on the differences
between our respective cultures."
"I'm sure you'll be able to 'share your culture' with Mindy after the
game." Harry said blandly, knowing exactly what his godfather had been
angling for.
"I guess." Sirius conceded grudgingly. "And what did you get up to?"
"I ran into Luna." Harry told him, leaving out his discovery of the
hidden muggles. Despite his dire suspicions, he still had very little
proof of anything. No point spreading around ineffective paranoia.
"Learn anything interesting?" Sirius asked with a snicker. He'd heard a

thing or two about the girl's outlandish stories.
"I learned that the Quidditch World Cup is a scam to separate people from
their gold and that Fudge has his heliopaths stationed as guards." Harry
answered, just as amused. He'd never mock Luna for her strange beliefs
and indeed found them to be part of her charm, but he had to admit that
they sounded highly unlikely to be true.
"Maybe we should ask Fudge about that?" Sirius mused, imagining the
baffled look on the Minister's face.
"No, let's just smile politely and hope that this is the last time we
have to deal with politics." Harry grumbled, mood souring as they
approached the top box.
"Will you at least turn someone's hair green?" Sirius asked hopefully.
"We'll see." Harry answered, already sinking into the light Occlumency
trance that he suspected he would need in order to get through this
without gnashing his teeth in irritation.
They made it to the top box in short order and found a slight surprise
waiting for them there.
It was full of redheads. Weasleys to be specific. How they had gotten

seats in the top box he had no idea.
"Ah, Harry, Sirius, you're finally here." Fudge said enthusiastically

when he caught sight of them. He was rather notably wearing robes instead
of the Ministry decreed muggle wear.
"Cornelius." Harry greeted calmly and Sirius simply nodded.
"I'm sure you already know most of the Weasleys." Fudge said next,
apparently taking it upon himself to do the introductions.
A bevy of greetings came from the family of redheads, ending with an

awkward 'hello, Harry' from Ginny that filled the air with the remnants
of their collapsed friendship. Amusingly enough, Percy was looking
insanely jealous of the attention that Fudge was paying him. He'd have to
tell Penny about that one later.
"Next we have Ludo Bagman, the head of the Department for Magical Games
and Sports." Fudge went on obliviously, introducing a man in wasp themed
robes. "Used to be a star beater for the Wimbourne Wasps you know. He'll
be the commentator for the match."
Harry and Sirius exchanged handshakes with the excitable looking man,
with Harry for once being thankful that Fudge was too dense to notice the
awkwardness between him and Ginny.
"Dolores Umbridge, my Senior Undersecretary but currently the acting head

for the Department of International Magical Cooperation until we can
appoint someone more permanent to the position." Harry had noticed the
toadlike woman in the pink cardigan as soon as they'd entered the top box
and had been wondering who she was.
"How do you do?" She said in the most sickeningly sweet tone that Harry
had ever heard, extending her hand for him to take.
The painfully fake girlish tone inspired in him the urge to knock her
teeth out. Not with magic either, but with his fist. It was a singularly
irrational response to a four word sentence, especially in light of the
fact that even Draco Malfoy's characteristic whine when something didn't
go his way didn't get this much of a rise from him. He had no idea what
it was about her, but this near hatred that he felt for someone he'd just
met was deeply troubling.
This initial impression was only further reinforced when he shook her
hand. It felt as if he'd someone had taken a piss on his own hand and he
wiped it on his pants without even thinking about what it would look
like.
Harry realized how much he'd just insulted her when he saw her expression
tighten and swamped his thoughts with Dark even further to prevent
another loss of control like that. There was something very, very wrong
with this pink-clad abomination. Her magical presence felt like an open
septic tank.
Fudge the Oblivious came to the rescue once again by introducing the
Bulgarian Minister of Magic and then announcing that it was time to start
the game.
It was to begin with a show put on by each of the teams. Harry didn't
expect to be the slightest bit impressed or interested by whatever they
had in mind.
That opinion evaporated when the Bulgarians sent out the Veela.
Every single one of them was golden haired and incredibly beautiful, but
it was their magic that truly captured his attention. It glowed with
Light in a way that no wizard's or witch's magic he'd ever seen did and
when they began to dance he could see it billow outwards to inflame the
magic of everyone around them.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ron Weasley trying to climb down
there with a look of mad adoration on his face, held back only by his
father. The twins and Percy were more restrained, but still looked rather
out of it. Sirius was on the edge of his seat and fidgeting as if he
wanted to try climbing down too. Fudge was very flushed and fiddling
compulsively with his ugly lime green bowler hat.
Umbridge had the exact opposite reaction. He couldn't see her face too
well, but he thought that she was wearing a hateful sneer and the ugly
feeling to her magic deepened yet further.
As for Harry himself, he was still fully in control of his faculties, but
he felt his runes prickle powerfully, especially Sol.
XXXXX
Had the issue of Sirius' innocence never come to light, it would have
been Barty Crouch that would have had a place reserved in the top box,
where he would have smuggled his son in a bout of pity after hearing his
house elf plead to take him there and which would have had a great many
ramifications for the future.
As it was, Barty Crouch was at home, keeping his Death Eater son firmly
under the Imperius and scowling angrily at his misfortune. First he lost
his position as Head of the DMLE thanks to his son being a Death Eater
and now he lost his position as Head of International Magical Cooperation
because Sirius Black wasn't a Death Eater. It was enough to drive a man
to rage.
The fury of Barty Crouch Sr. wasn't really important though, as the man
was far too straight laced and by the book to do anything aside from
scowl. It did mean however, that Barty Crouch Jr. would not be going
anywhere without outside help. That help would have been received had
news of the younger Crouch's situation reached the ears of Lord
Voldemort, but it hadn't, so it wasn't.
XXXXX
Harry was dreadfully bored.
The quidditch game had gone on for quite a while now but failed to
entertain him and he possessed the typical introvert's disdain for hyped
up atmosphere, leaving him not only bored but also exasperated. Sirius
was focused so intently on the movements of the players as to make him
think that he was using it as an excuse to avoid talking to anyone,
leaving Harry to deflect Fudge's bumbling attempts to form some kind of
political alliance with them. The bastard.
The Veela were still on the field beneath the game, but he could only
stare at them thoughtfully for so long, not to mention that the prickling
of his runes was damned distracting. He was almost tempted to pull a
prank despite having only told Sirius he'd do that to get the man to stop
pouting.
Speaking of the Veela, Umbridge continued sneering at them and had more
than once made some very racist comments in that infuriating saccharine
tone about 'mongrel creatures' being allowed this close to people without
restraints, giving him a good idea of her general personality. No doubt
it was people like her who were the driving force behind the bigotry of
the Wizarding World.
Well, the British Wizarding World at any rate, as Harry had noted the
Bulgarian Minister becoming increasingly agitated around the loathsome
toad.
The only part of this game that had been interesting to him so far had
been when the Veela had apparently gotten a bit too passionate about
their mascot duties and nearly attacked Ireland's leprechauns by
transforming into a bird hybrid of sorts. Luna's book had mentioned that
ability but seeing it in person was something else.
In his desire to retreat from all this, he'd sunk very deep into his
Occlumency trance and was now constantly channeling his emotions into the
river of Dark in his mind. It made him feel rather disconnected from the
physical world, but it was better than feeling his temper constantly
surging to the surface by the combination of Bagman's loud commentary,
the crowd's yelling, Fudge's stupidity and Umbridge's...everything.
He didn't notice when the runes on his body began to chill or when his
breath started misting. He didn't notice when the people around him began
to shiver and seemed to lose their fervor for cheering. He didn't notice
when Bagman's excited commentary started sounding forced. He didn't
notice when the air around him started feeling hopeless and joyless.
He did notice when Sirius took a firm grip of his arm and leaned over to
whisper harshly into his ear. "Stop it, Harry."
Harry blinked slowly and came back to himself. What had he been doing?
"You felt like a mini dementor." Sirius explained in a low tone, seeing
his confusion. "I don't think anyone else noticed, but you have to stop
it."
Harry blinked again. That was new. Then again, he'd never focused on the
Dark so heavily before either. That was...interesting. Something to watch
out for, but definitely interesting. The fact that that it was after
sunset might also have something to do with it. His particular form of
Occlumency always seemed easier after dark.
With him no longer unintentionally killing the mood people returned to

their cheering, but slowly and more than a bit bewildered by the sudden
burst of gloom. Harry was deep in thought and Fudge seemed to have lost
interest in talking to him.
XXXXX
The game came to an end shortly afterwards with an Irish victory but
Viktor Krum catching the snitch, much to the roaring approval of the
crowd. Harry still didn't see the appeal.
"I hope you've enjoyed the game." Fudge was saying, enthusiastically
shaking Harry and Sirius' hands.
"It was an experience." Harry allowed. A bad experience that I hope never
to repeat.
"I can get you tickets to more professional games if you're interested,
just come talk to me." Fudge went on in what he probably thought was a
subtle hint that further association with him would have benefits.
"I'm still a Hogwarts student, so I don't see how I would have time for
that." Harry evaded.
"Oh." Fudge said, looking rather nonplussed. Apparently he'd forgotten

that little detail. "Yes, of course. What about you, Sirius?"
"Wouldn't be any fun without my godson there." Sirius also evaded,

shamelessly using Harry as an excuse.
"Well no matter, I'm sure we'll be seeing more of each other in the
future." Fudge said brightly and left soon after, taking his ugly pink
shadow with him.
"At fucking last." Harry said with feeling once they were far enough
away.
"You can say that again." Sirius concurred.
"I'm going to find Luna." Harry announced after a short silence.
"Before you do that, mind telling me what your little dementor

impersonation was about earlier?" Sirius asked pointedly.
"Everything around me was pissing me off, so I opened a mental channel to

the Dark and started feeding everything into it." Harry explained with a
shrug. "I didn't expect it to have any tangible effect on reality, but
it's very interesting that it did."
"Don't play around with this, Harry." Sirius warned. "We don't want a
repeat of what happened during Christmas."
"Don't worry, Sirius, I'll be careful." Harry assured him, which was
really not very reassuring.
"Harry..." Sirius said disapprovingly.
"It'll be fine." Harry waved him off. "It's not like I'm going to do
anything especially risky and I actually know what I'm doing now."
Sirius sighed, knowing that his godson wouldn't stop unless he wanted to.
He was far too curious and too willful for that.
"Just...be careful." He finished lamely.
"I already said I would be, didn't I?" Harry said back with a raised
eyebrow. "Now go find Mindy and show her some more of our culture."
Sirius' mood brightened considerably at the thought of the leggy American
witch. That did sound like a good idea.
The two wizards parted ways, each one looking to spend some quality time
in female company, albeit very different types of female company.
Neither one noticed that they were being followed.
XXXXX
There were eight of them, all Death Eaters who had avoided Azkaban either
through anonymity or by claiming that they were under Imperius. None of
them were Lords, but some had friends who were. Most thought that Lucius
Malfoy was their friend as he had protected them or otherwise helped them
in the past. All of them were convinced that Lucius wanted to return to
the days when the Dark Lord was at the height of his power and would
gladly don the masks and robes of Death Eaters once again to prove to the
mudbloods and muggle lovers that they hadn't won.
Lucius liked them because they were petty minded sadists and laughably
easy to manipulate. A few offhand comments and they were all set to cause
a scene that he could take credit for if it proved useful or deny all
responsibility of if it became a liability. It had been equally simple to
point them in the direction of Potter and Black while making them think
it was their idea in the first place.
They had been keeping a discreet eye on their targets for a while now and
were just about ready to make their move.
Well, it wasn't really a discreet eye since they weren't exactly

experienced at stalking people unobtrusively. Any sufficiently observant
person would have been able to spot them, but neither Harry nor Sirius
had been on the lookout. Even Harry's bout of watchfulness had been
focused on the muggles he'd found rather than on any wizards looking to
do him harm and he'd gotten a bit desensitized to magicals staring at him
by now.
XXXXX
Sirius had discovered several important facts about Mindy since meeting
her a few hours before the game.
One, she was here alone because she'd caught her boyfriend cheating on
her just a few days before they were set to leave the United States for
the World Cup.
Two, she was having trouble enjoying herself because of fact one.
Three, she was a sucker for a British accent, especially if it was

attached to a devilishly handsome individual such as himself.
Four, she was using him as the rebound guy to have a quick fling with as
a means of getting over her now ex-boyfriend.
Sirius, being the gallant man that he was, had no problem making such a
sacrifice to help a woman in need. That was why they had retired to her
internally expanded magical tent not long after the quidditch game ended.
As the tent had noise cancelling spells placed on it, the sudden
appearance of fire came as a nasty shock.
Almost as soon as he saw it, Sirius pushed Mindy aside from where he'd
been mounting her doggystyle(his favorite position, for obvious reasons)
and scrambled for his wand.
"Hey, What the...hell?" Mindy started angrily at the sudden rough

treatment only to trail off faintly as she saw her tent burning.
"Get your wand, we're under attack." Sirius ordered, hastily pulling on
his pants while somehow managing to cover the entrance to the tend with
his wand at the same time. Wizard tents did not simply catch fire.
"Under attack? By who?!" Mindy demanded but did as she was told anyway,
dressing as hastily as him.
"I don't know, but we're going to have to go out there." Sirius replied
grimly.
Staying in a magically expanded space as it was destroyed was a horrible

idea all around. Sudden spatial contraction was not healthy, especially
if the space wasn't empty. They couldn't apparate either, as wards had
been set up against it to prevent people from just setting up tents for
free.
"Alright, here's what we're going to do. I'll run out first and get their
attention, you follow a few seconds later and run to safety. Ready? GO!"
Had he been fresh out of Hogwarts, Sirius would have told her to help him
fight, but he'd matured a bit since then. Very few wizards and witches
used any kind of battle magic after learning about the basics in school.
Most could barely even remember how to cast anything combat related a few
years after graduation. Asking a person like that to make a stand against
hardened killers wouldn't end well.
"Wait!" Mindy cried, but Sirius had already dashed through the tent flap,
leaving her no choice but to do as he'd said.
XXXXX
The four Death Eaters outside were already drunk on their own power and
the fear of the fleeing American magicals. This was truly what it meant
to be a pureblood wizard! The only thing better than seeing the scum
running away was taking your time killing them, but they had an objective
aside from telling the world that Voldemort wasn't forgotten and they
wouldn't have had time to indulge themselves anyway.
They had lost sight of Black in this area, meaning that he must have gone
into one of the tents. Having neither the time noror the inclination to
find out which one, they'd simply started setting fire to all of them.
They knew that their quarry would have to show himself soon, and then he
would die.
Or so they thought.
For all his horsing around, Sirius wasn't an idiot. He'd been an active
combatant in the last war and knew a thing or two about what to do and
what not to do in this situation. He knew that peeking cautiously out of
the tent was a stupid idea. For one, it was impossible to say how long he
and Mindy had before the space expansion charms collapsed and for
another, it would make him a sitting duck.
With this in mind, he bolted through the exit at a sprint and went for
the nearest bit of cover that he could see, which was another tent some
distance away.
"There he is! Get him!" One of the expected attackers shouted.
Sirius saw Death Eater masks and quickly hurled a few Stunning Spells in
their general direction, unsurprised when they were blocked. He saw Mindy
come out of the tent and make a run for it while their backs were turned.
He'd probably never see her again, which was a damn shame.
Sirius was more powerful than most, but four-on-one odds weren't to his
liking. He could only block or dodge so many spells after all. With that
in mind, he made a run for it, turning into a dog mid stride. A few
spells flew around him, but the Death Eathers seemed to have some trouble
aiming low enough to his a dog, especially a black dog at night.
XXXXX
"Well, well, well, what do we have here?" A man in a skull mask sneered
mockingly. "Out for a stroll with your girlfriend, Potter?"
Harry looked around himself warily, finding to his dismay that he and
Luna were surrounded by four of what could only be Death Eaters.
Luna had suggested that they go for a walk around the grounds while they
caught up on their respective summers. They hadn't gone far before a
panic of some kind had started over in what Harry had worriedly realized
was the American section. The chaos had quickly spread and soon the whole
place was in a panic with very few knowing why. Harry had refused to join
the mindless stampede and had stayed put until he found out what was
going on. Then these four had used the distraction to come up on them
without notice and the worry had shifted to more immediate things.
"What's wrong, Potter?" One of the others chimed in with a mocking sneer
of his own. "Is the Vanquisher of the Dark Lord too scared to say
anything?"
If he was being honest, Harry would admit that this was a fairly accurate
assessment of the situation. While he was quite sure that he was more
powerful than any of these masked thugs, he had zero combat experience.
He was a thinker, not a fighter. He studied magic and practiced
spellcasting, but he did it because he was truly fascinated by magic and
wanted to learn more. Even the looming threat of a not-fully-deceased
Dark Lord hadn't really spurred him to seriously train for magical combat
since he was planning to finish the twat off before he could properly
resurrect himself. He'd always just sort of assumed that knowing spells
would be enough. Now that he was actually faced with the prospect of
battle, the stupidity of that assumption was glaringly obvious.
But even if he had been a fighter, this was a deeply unfavorable

situation. His wandless magic was still too slow to really be combat
viable and any quick movements would undoubtedly be responded to with
lethal force. The Death Eaters presences were full of deadly intent.
It was that last point in particular that let him know that he had to do
something. The Death Eaters would only be amused by their own taunts for
a short while before they acted on that intent.
So Harry closed his eyes and swathed his thoughts in Dark, needing the
focus of a clear mind unburdened by fear or adrenaline.
"Look at that, lads! He's giving up!" The apparent leader jeered.
Harry ignored him and began constructing a spell inside of himself. He'd
once used his hands as a replacement focus, but had long since realized
that it was just another illusion.
"So much for the mighty Boy-Who-Lived." One of the others added.
Harry continued carefully forming the spell. He would only get one chance
at this, so it had to be done right.
"Hey, do we have time to have some fun with the girl? She's not bad
looking." The only one to have been silent so far asked hopefully.
Harry felt a swell of rage at the question, but it floundered in the

tranquil Dark until he grabbed hold of it and pushed it into the spell.
Luna trembled and pressed herself closer to him. That worked just fine
for him as he included an exemption for her in his spell.
"Afraid not." The leader said with some regret. "Best get on with it and
leave before the Aurors show up."
Knowing that he was out of time, Harry released the spell. An

omnidirectional wave of force rushed out from his body, throwing all four
Death Eaters into the air with all the strength of will and rage he'd
poured into it.
"Come on!" He shouted, grabbing the surprised Luna's hand and making a
run for it. "Into the forest."
It was fortunate that the entire camping ground hugged the edges of the
forest, so they were able to reach the trees before the Death Eaters got
their wits about them.
Harry pulled Luna into hug against a tree some distance into the forest
and took his Invisibility Cloak out of the Bag of Holding that never left
his side.
"Don't make a sound." He said softly as he drew it over them, his voice
calm and steady despite the rapid beat of his heart. The Dark kept him
calm. On instinct, he reached out to envelop Luna's aura in his own,
soothing fear and urging obedience.
Luna looked up at him trustingly and nodded in understanding.
"Where did the little shites go?!" Came an angry demand less than a
minute later.
"I saw them running here and they couldn't have gone far, spread out and
find them." The leader ordered.
That was the end of that conversation as the Death Eaters focused on
finding them. Safely hidden under the Invisibility Cloak, Harry and Luna
watched them blunder about with increasing urgency. They tried casting a
few spells as well, but none of them seemed to know the Human-Presence
Revealing Spell, for which he was grateful. He still didn't know why that
spell worked against his special Invisiblity Cloak or how to block it.
The Death Eaters had been slowly moving away from their position when a
rustle of another group grabbed all of their attention.
They nearly attacked each other before they realized that all of them
were Death Eaters.
"Merlin's saggy bollocks, I thought you were the Ministry." The leader of
the first party exhaled in relief.
"Did you get Potter?" The leader of the second group demanded without
preamble.
"No, we chased him here along with that Lovegood bint, but they just
vanished on us." The scowl in the voice was clearly audible.
"Black got away from us too." The other one admitted grudgingly. "Turned
into a dog and ran in here somewhere. We've had no luck finding him."
Harry was relieved to hear that. He'd been worried for his godfather. The
rest of it was somewhat more disturbing though. This was sounding less
like a group of idiots lashing out at him for Voldemort's demise and more
like a planned assassination attempt.
"Shite!" The first swore. "We can't stay here much longer."
Harry allowed himself a small relieved smile. He and Luna were under an
invisibility cloak and Padfoot was also as good as invisible in the dark
forest with his black fur. Everything was going to be fine and these
would-be assassins would be leaving with their objective unfulfilled.
Then a beam of light from a wand became visible from the direction that
Harry, Luna and their pursuers had come from.
"Luna!" Came the distant but familiar voice of Xenophilius Lovegood.

"Turnip, where are you?"
"Bring that freak over here." The leader of the first group ordered.
Harry felt Luna tense against him and he wanted to curse at concerned
parents everywhere. The Death Eaters had been on the verge of giving up
and now they had a hostage.
Xeno was even less of a fighter than Harry and was easily captured as a
result.
"Potter!" The leader called out once the man was relieved of his wand and
dragged to their location. "Show yourself or your little slut's father
dies!"
Luna squeezed his arm with all the strength of her fingers and he didn't
need to look at her to know that she was looking at him with terrified
eyes.
He had no idea what to do. Had it been almost anyone else, he would have
felt sorry for the unlucky bastard as he was killed for being in the
wrong place at the wrong time, but he would not have even considered
showing himself. He was not so noble as to sacrifice himself for the
chance of saving a stranger. But it wasn't a stranger, it was Luna's
father.
Harry didn't know Xenophilius Lovegood too well. He'd only spoken to the
man briefly today and gotten the impression of a loving if slightly
strange father. A good man for all his oddities. He still would have
let him die if Luna wasn't his friend.
But she was his friend, so he edged them around the base of the wide tree
they'd been hiding against so that they weren't in the Death Eaters
direct line of sight.
"Running out of time, Potter!" The Death Eater warned.
"No matter what happens, stay hidden." Harry murmured to his friend
softly so that the sound wouldn't carry.
Luna looked torn between wanting to save his father and not wanting her
friend to walk into almost certain death. Harry didn't want to go either.
He wasn't in any hurry to die and he didn't really believe that the Death
Eaters would just let Xeno go if he gave himself up, but he had to try.
Luna had already seen one parent die in front of her and he wanted to
spare her a repeat of that experience. Sirius was still out there
somewhere, so there was still a chance that this could end without anyone
dying.
Anyone important at any rate.

"I'm here." Harry said as he stepped out from behind the tree.
"So nice of you to join us." The lead Death Eater said sarcastically and
waved his wand. "Accio Potter's wand!"
Harry could have easily resisted the spell, but chose not to. The wand
wouldn't have done him any good anyway and it might lull them into a
false sense of security since they were probably assuming that his
earlier trick had been done with a wand even if they hadn't seen it.
Instead, he began to construct another spell. No simple wave of force
this time, but something more lethal. There was no room for kiddie gloves
when the other side was planning to kill you. The Dark in his mind seemed
to approve, insofar as a non-living, non-sentient, primal magical entity
could approve of anything.
"I could hardly refuse the invitation you gave me." He said blandly, most
of his focus on the spell he was crafting. The base of his intent first,
something explosive and flashy. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a
black shadow with gleaming eyes and the muted magical presence of his
godfather sneaking through the woods.
"Where's your friend?" One of the others asked hungrily, the same one
that had been so open with his intentions towards Luna earlier in fact.
"Safe." Harry answered in the same bland tone. Xeno gave him a look of
mixed gratitude and apology, but he ignored it. He also decided that that
Death Eater would make a fine target. The group of masked wizards had
drifted closer together since he'd showed himself and that one was just
slightly off center.
"Maybe I'll pay her a visit after we kill you." The same Death Eater
leered. "I'm sure she'll be lonely with her boyfriend and father both
dead."
"She probably would be." Harry agreed, still in that bland tone. The
would-be rapist was helping him more than he knew. All the emotional
energy that his words were generating was going into the spell. It was
becoming an angry, violent thing. He doubted that he would have been able
to aim it at any of the others even if he wanted to.
"I'll be sure to take my time then."
The spell glowed in his mind now like a beacon, still incomplete. The
Void knew that he was intending to send at least one more soul its way
and Dark seeped into it, turning the Fireball Spell that he was making
into something hungry. The Void was always eager to take anything it
could; objects, spells, souls, magic, anything that hastened the heat
death of the Universe for even the tiniest fraction of a moment. There
was a reason why the Vanishing Spell was so easy to cast. A physicist
would have been horrified to learn that wizards could casually destroy
matter and baffled as to where all its energy was going without a
cataclysmic explosion.
But Harry knew. It had even featured as the riddle to enter Ravenclaw
Tower a time or two. The textbook explanation was that Vanished objects
go into 'non-being, which is to say, everything'. They went to the Void.
Not that magicals ever seemed to grasp the importance of this bit of
information.
"Enough!" One of the others barked. "Lets just kill them and get it over
with. We're cutting it close as it is."
"Would you mind telling me who put you up to this first?" Harry asked.
The spell wasn't ready yet, it was still too unstable and prone to
backfiring. He needed more time.
The leader scoffed at his question. "As if someone needs to put us up to

killing the Boy-Who-Lived."
Lucius had been very subtle.
Harry's attention slipped from his spell for a moment in his surprise.
He'd been sure that there was someone pulling strings in the background.
He had no time to think about it though, as the maintenance of the
unstable Fireball Spell took almost the entirety of his attention.
"Now die!" The leader suddenly spat, raising his wand in the air. "Avada-
"
Harry's eyes widened in surprise and panic at the sudden lethal turn of
events. He hadn't expected to have so little warning. Desperate, he flung
out his right arm and hurled the Fireball at its intended target. Sirius
jumped out of his hiding spot and let loose with his own spells.
His spell hadn't been ready and his momentary loss of focus had
destabilized it further. Harry roared in pain as his arm caught fire from
the backlash, the dark crimson orb of flame coming out wild and
misshapen. But it still struck the Death Eater and exploded into a
hungry, grasping flame that clung to the wizards and seared flesh far
more effectively than any normal fire.
The situation devolved into screaming and spellfire, but Harry registered
none of it. He'd been thrown to the ground by the explosion and his full
attention was on frantically trying to put out the flames still
flickering over his arm. The anger infused into them gave way easily
since it was his own and targeted at the Death Eater, but the Dark was
less cooperative. It wanted to keep consuming something, anything, even
if it was the wizard who had brought it into being. It took long, painful
seconds before it finally yielded to his will.
"Harry!" Sirius yelled. "Are you okay?"
Harry nodded with a tightly clenched jaw and sweat streaked face. His arm
was a beacon of agony up to his elbow and gave off a nauseating smell of
charred meat, but he hadn't been hit with any other spells. He took a
quick look around and saw that they were alone. The Death Eaters must
have decided that it was time to go despite having superior numbers.
There were five bodies on the ground, three of which still had the dark
crimson fire sticking to them like napalm, along with some of the
surrounding forest. Another had no obvious cause of death in the
darkness, but was assuredly dead. And the last...
"Daddy!" Luna wailed and ran towards the only body that wasn't dressed in
black robes.
"What happened?" Harry asked his godfather, heart dropping with the
weight of his failure as he listened to his friend sobbing over the body
of her father.
"He tackled one of them and got cursed for his trouble." Sirius said
somberly.
XXXXX
The Aurors arrived almost immediately afterwards, too late as usual

according to Sirius' muttering. His Invisibility Cloak and wand were
collected and returned to him as they were transported to the Ministry
along with the bodies of the dead, a newly orphaned Luna going eerily
quiet as she held on to his undamaged hand and stared vacantly at
something that only she could see.
Once at the Ministry, a healer had given her a Dreamless Sleep potion and
she'd drank it without a word, falling asleep on the provided bed soon
after.
That same healer was now slathering his arm with burn salve while he
spoke to an exasperated looking Amelia Bones.
"Mr. Potter, you seem to have a knack for getting in trouble." The
formidable DMLE director was saying, looking more than a bit displeased.
"They tried to kill me first." Harry said pre-emptively, shrugging as he

did so. He was finding it entirely impossible to feel anything but
satisfaction at the deaths he'd caused this day. Because of those Death
Eaters, his friend was now an orphan.
"You seem strangely unbothered by your rising body count." Bones

commented, wanting to know if she was going to have another murderer on
her hands in the future.
"I was never one for emotional blubbering and I'm not going to waste my
sympathy on people that don't deserve it." He explained. That he also
suspected that there was something about the Dark that literally made him
unable to feel regretful about sending more lives to the Void he left
unsaid. He'd wondered about that ever since the Pettigrew incident and
his subsequent lack of regret. He was now even more certain that his
rituals had knocked loose whichever psychological screw made the majority
of people abhor killing. To him it was just speeding up the inevitable
and defending his own life in the process. A somewhat worrying revelation
perhaps, but he wasn't killing randomly so it was fine.
Amelia pursed her lips, more in thought than in disapproval. That he had
acted in self-defense tonight was beyond doubt. The Death Eater masks and
robes certainly proved that and there was a glut of witnesses. Her only
problem was the amount of bodies turning up around the young Potter and
the magic used to make them.
The healer was by this point done with the burn salve and had taken to
waving his wand over Harry's right arm.
"I am sorry, Mr. Potter, but I'm afraid that I can't keep your arm from
scarring." The old man said regretfully. "It was a cursed fire and wounds
like that never heal properly. I am surprised that I was able to heal it
as much as I did given how much it is resisting my spells and the salve."
"It's fine." Harry said indifferently. The skin on his right arm was full
of scar tissue up to the elbow now, but it was alright. He hadn't lost
any feeling or dexterity in the limb and it didn't even look as bad as he
had expected it to given how painful it had been at the time. He was
honestly more worried about Luna than he was about a few scars.
The healer was wrong though. It had been his runes that were resisting
the healing spells rather than the wounds themselves. They'd also been
working to heal him ever since he'd been injured, though he didn't think
the scars would be disappearing anytime soon.
"Are you ready to give me your statement now?" Amelia asked once the
healer had left the room.
"Sure." Harry shrugged, knowing that there was no avoiding it. He and
Sirius had been separated as soon as they were brought to the Ministry
and had no chance to come up with a story that let him keep all his
secrets. He would have to be truthful. Getting caught lying was worse
than telling the truth.
The story was short and took no more than a few minutes to tell, even
with Madam Bones asking for clarification every so often. Things only hit
a snag once he was approaching the end of his tale.
"...I knew that they wouldn't let Luna's father go even if I gave myself
up, but I had to try. My arm didn't actually get burned by one of the
Death Eaters spells, but from my own. I was preparing to cast it from the
moment I stepped out from under my Invisibility Cloak and released it
when their leader started casting the Killing Curse. My spell wasn't
ready yet and it backfired."
Bones looked at him shrewdly for a moment before speaking. "Your wand was
found on one of the Death Eater's bodies and I've never heard of a spell
backfiring like this."
"I didn't use my wand." Harry was hoping that telling her that one
important secret would keep her from digging too deeply.
"You expect me to believe that you cast a spell that killed three people
without a wand?" She asked skeptically.
Harry simply pointed a finger at a quill that the healer had left behind
and sent it looping through the air.
"I've known about my magic since I was six." He explained to the stunned
DMLE director. "I had no idea about wands at that point, but I
desperately wanted to do magic, so I practiced. I devoted every spare
moment to figuring out how to do it on purpose rather than by accident.
It took me years before I succeeded, but it's still slower than using a
wand."
"The healer said that your arm was burned by cursed fire." Bones said
after taking a minute to absorb this revelation. Wandless magic was
considered all but impossible in this age. It had been rare in any age.
"He's wrong." Harry stated simply. "A wand acts as both a shortcut and a
safety for magic. Casting without one is far more difficult because you
need to figure out all the in-between steps that a wand lets you skip.
Perhaps even more importantly, casting without a wand means that there is
no buffer between the caster and the spell. The Death Eater that I threw
my fireball at had made it clear that he was intending to rape and
probably murder Luna after her father and I were dead. There was a lot of
anger in my spell as a result and that's why it resisted healing." No way
was he telling her about the Void and the Dark. Or about his runes for
that matter. The Ministry deemed any magic that involved bloodletting
illegal.
"I see." Bones said neutrally, looking thoughtful. That was both
fascinating and very, very impressive, but she had to put that aside and
look at it from a legal point of view. She'd received preliminary reports
that the fire had been very difficult to put out and had nearly gone out
of control. It had been almost like Fiendfyre. "Why did you choose such a
destructive spell?"
"There were too many Death Eaters to fight, so I needed to scare them
into running away. A ball of fire slamming into one of their own seemed
like my best bet."
"You're probably right." Bones admitted. The Death Eaters had always been
quick to turn tail and run if things didn't go their way. "Very ruthless
though."
"I'm an Occlumancer." Harry said with a shrug. "I'd pushed away my

emotions and made a decision based on pure logic."
Amelia nodded in understanding, not even surprised that he knew

Occlumency already. She was no stranger to using the discipline to push
aside emotion at need.
"I would appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone that I can do magic
without a wand." Harry requested.
"Why?" She asked, honestly curious.
"Because I don't need any more attention being focused on me." True
enough, but it was mostly because he wanted to keep the element of
surprise that secrecy afforded him for as long as possible. It had
undoubtedly saved his life tonight.
That there were four Death Eaters out there that knew about it now was
not a comfortable thought. If he was lucky, they would be unable to
fathom the idea of him using such powerful magic without a wand and
assume that he'd had another one hidden in his sleeve, but he couldn't
count on it.
"I suppose it wouldn't matter if I left that out." Amelia conceded. She
wouldn't outright lie about it, but she wouldn't explicitly mention that
wandless magic had been used. It should be enough. It wouldn't make any
difference and it would spare the young man some unwanted attention,
which she was willing to give him since the victims of his spell were all
Death Eaters.
It was something of an open secret that Amelia Bones hated the fact that
so many Death Eaters had dodged prison after Voldemort's fall. Seeing
four of the skull masked bastards that had nearly wiped out her family
killed wasn't something that she was willing to be especially difficult
about, so granting Harry's minor request was no hardship to her. Her
irritation with the Pettigrew situation had stemmed almost entirely from
the fact that Potter and Black had hid it for months on end.
"Thank you." Harry said sincerely, turning to check on Luna, who was
peacefully sleeping in the bed next to him.
"Does she have any family to take care of her?" Amelia asked softly,
looking at the sleeping girl. Another thing that had made a good
impression on her was Harry's refusal to leave his friend alone.
"No." Harry answered. Luna had told him that she'd never known either of
her grandparents. Xeno's parents had died early in his life and Pandora
Lovegood hadn't even been from Britain. "I'll take her in."
"Mr Potter, you're a minor yourself. You can't take anyone in." Amelia
told him with a sort of dry incredulity.
"Sirius will take her in." Harry amended with the air of someone
repeating their previous statement.
"And you've already discussed this with Lord Black?" She asked with an
archly raised eyebrow, wondering just what kind of relationship Sirius
Black and Harry Potter had. She hadn't failed to notice that the
fourteen-year-old had apparently been off on his own with no supervision
when the Death Eater attack happened. That coincided with a few other odd
moments where Black seemed to just let him do as he pleased.
"No, but he'll agree." Considering that it was his manor that Sirius was
living in, he hardly had a choice. Not that Sirius was likely to object
in the first place.
"I'll bet he will." Amelia muttered and left the room. She still had to
get Black's side of the story, though she didn't expect it to differ
much.
XXXXX
In the office of the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge slumped into his
padded chair with a heavy sigh.
What a mess. Death Eater activity after nearly thirteen years of silence,
targeted at the Boy-Who-Lived no less. The owner of the Quibbler
murdered, his child orphaned, property destroyed, otherwise upstanding
members of society killed while wearing dark wizard regalia and attacking
a national hero. People were going to want answers.
He'd just spent the past several hours putting out the political fires
this resurgence in Death Eater activity had caused. There had been
enraged and aggrieved family members screaming demands at him to have
Potter arrested for murder once the names of the dead were known.
As if he could do that! Wizards in Death Eater robes had assaulted the

Boy-Who-Lived and he was supposed to arrest him? Preposterous. The public
would eat him alive, no matter how much they insisted that it had been
just a prank and that Harry had overreacted. He would have needed to
start a defamation campaign before he could arrest Harry Potter and that
was simply more trouble than it was worth, not to mention politically
dangerous. The dead hadn't even been part of any of the Noble Houses.
Purebloods yes, but not nobles.
No, best to just let this whole thing blow over as quietly as possible.
He'd lean on the Daily Prophet too and make sure they marginalized the
incident as much as possible. That should be the last important thing he
had to do tonight, then it was off to bed and a well deserved rest.
So focused was Fudge on making sure that he didn't look bad in the eyes
of the public over this debacle, that he forgot that the Quidditch World
Cup had been an international event. Not unexpected really, as Barty
Crouch had always handled that angle before and done it well despite his
humorless, uncharismatic personality.
XXXXX
"Known followers of a British Dark Lord attack an American campsite,

destroying property and causing at least two deaths when the space
expansion charms collapsed and you call it a misunderstanding?" The
American Ambassador asked, his low tone perfectly conveying his anger at
the notion.
"Well of course, Mr. Boyer." Dolores Umbridge said with her usual teeth-
grindingly fake sweetness. "What else could it be? Surely you aren't
insinuating that upstanding British wizards would deliberately attack
your...people."
John Boyer, current American Ambassador to the wizards and witches of

Britain, Scotland and Ireland, clenched his jaw in fury at the sheer
nerve of this pink toad. Not only was she blatantly ignoring the evidence
in order to whitewash what had happened, she was also obviously the worst
sort of blood purist of the type that Britain seemed to produce so
easily. The bigotry practically oozed out of her. People like her had
been the reason that the original British magical colonists had joined
with their non-magical counterparts and booted Britain and the Goblin
Nation off the continent.
A number of Britain's less powerful Noble Houses had made the move to
America in the hope that their wealth and power would be able to grow
away from the influence of the ancient families in Britain. The goblins
had of course come along because of the treaty that gave them control
over the magical banking system.
Neither had considered the fact that the many wizards and witches that
had chosen an uncertain future on a new continent rather than put up any
further with either of them wouldn't be happy to have them along. The
Great Pureblood and Goblin Slaughter of 1773 was still celebrated as a
holiday on the 16th of May, despite the complaints coming from Britain
and the Goblins about celebrating what they considered the mass murder of
their people.
"I'm not insinuating anything." Boyer snapped. "I'm telling you that your
upstanding British wizards were nothing more than terrorists and I expect
the rest of them to be found and thrown in prison."
"Who are you to make demands of the Ministry of Magic?" Umbridge snapped
back, bristling with indignation at the nerve of the jumped up mudblood
foreigner that thought he could simply order British wizards of fine
breeding to be imprisoned for having a little fun.
The argument quickly devolved after that until the American Ambassador
stomped away in a rage. As a consequence of this cock up, relations
between the Magical Realms of Britain and North America quickly
deteriorated to a state not seen in over a hundred years.
It was almost impressive how Umbridge had managed to undo the work of
Barty Crouch and three of his predecessors over the course of a single
conversation.
XXXXX
A day later.
"You seem a little distracted."
The voice of his girlfriend brought Harry out of his thoughts. He looked
towards where she was lying on his chest with a slight frown.
"What makes you say that?"
"Well..." Tonks began. "One, you weren't performing up to your usual

standard earlier. Two, you've been staring at nothing for the past five
minutes. Three, you've been absently fondling my bum for those same five
minutes but you're as soft as sponge despite having gone only one round."
"Okay, so I am a little distracted." Harry admitted. Even his formidable,

rune enhanced libido could apparently be overcome by heavy thoughts.
"Worried about your friend?" The Metamorphmagus guessed.
"Yeah, I'm worried about Luna." He sighed.
They had been able to leave the Ministry soon after Sirius was done
talking to Amelia Bones. The Ministry's version of social services hadn't
put up much of a fuss over assigning Sirius custody of Luna. Harry had in
fact gotten the feeling that they were simply glad to have the problem
solved expediently.
In the morning, the Dreamless Sleep potion had worn off and Luna had
woken up. Harry had tried to talk to her, but the blonde girl had not
been very responsive. In fact, she hadn't said a word the whole day,
merely looked spaced out and not quite there the whole time. His strange
magical sixth sense was telling him that Luna was not in a good place
right now, not that one needed a magical sixth sense to figure that out.
Harry did not have the first clue about what to do with a traumatized
thirteen-year-old girl. There were no magical psychiatric services, at
least not in Britain. Trying to take her to a non-magical therapist was
likely to result in either the therapist thinking that she was completely
off her rocker or a round of obliviations if the Ministry caught wind of
it. No matter though. He was somewhat dubious about the usefulness of
psychiatrists in most cases anyway, nevermind with Luna, who's mind
didn't work quite the same as most peoples did.
He was seriously considering having Sirius withdraw both of them from

Hogwarts, but wasn't sure just yet if that was a good idea since there
was no telling whether that would help or hurt the situation.
"Got a few other things on my mind too." He added.
Such as those muggles he'd seen. He didn't imagine that Death Eaters
showing up again and causing trouble had made a good impression if they
were there to keep an eye on the magical side of things as he'd surmised.
Maybe it was time to start thinking of a contingency plan in case he ever
had to leave the country in a hurry? It might just be paranoia on his
part, but he wasn't feeling altogether secure with Death Eaters suddenly
causing trouble, Voldemort lurking out there somewhere, the government
essentially being controlled by an oligarchy of rich nobles, a good chunk
of which had quite a bit in common with Hitler, Dumbledore playing his
own games, his wealth being controlled by a race that hated humans and
now learning that the mundane government was up to something too. In
fact, putting all of that together made him think that he was actually a
little slow on the uptake and should have made contingency plans before
now.
He had not enjoyed feeling helpless, or the harsh truth that he'd only
survived through a combination of factors that largely boiled down to
luck. Now he would have a permanent reminder of his failure on his arm.
He had failed to save Luna's father and had nearly died himself to a
clumsy assassination attempt made by a group of idiots. Dangerous idiots,
but still idiots. Whether someone else had been pulling their strings or
not didn't really matter in the immediate sense, what mattered was that
he'd very nearly died because he hadn't been prepared to fight. Could he
have saved Xeno if he'd been more of a fighter? He'd never know, but he
was intending to be a much harder target the next time someone thought
they could take a shot at killing him.
"What other things?" Tonks asked.
And then there was Dora, his shapeshifting girlfriend of a month and a
half. His first impression of her had been quite correct. She was loads
of fun. This summer had so much happening in it that it seemed to last
four times longer than normal, but her presence had made it a lot more
enjoyable despite the many annoying parts. Now it was coming to a close
and Harry found himself once more thinking of Hogwarts as a nuisance. At
this point he was only going back for the expansive library and the
personal tutoring in Ancient Runes and Arithmancy, but being separated
from her for months on end would still suck.
He knew that she'd been reticent about a relationship due to his age,
which was hardly something he could begrudge her. He was glad that he'd
succeeded in breaking through that problem. Harry wouldn't say that he
was in love with her, but he did like her a great deal and had no desire
to have their relationship end.
"You." He said with a smile.
"Me? What about me?" She asked curiously.
"Just wondering how I'm going to survive in Hogwarts without you now that
my previous batch of mistresses have graduated." He said mournfully.
"You poor baby." She mocked.
"I guess I'll have to sneak out and pay you a visit whenever I can." He
mused. How hard could it be? Just find a nice secluded spot, turn into a
raven and fly out of the range of the wards.
"And how do you plan to accomplish that?" She asked skeptically, knowing
that Hogwarts was locked down during the night.
"It's a secret." Harry teased. "And speaking of secrets, I've got one
that I'd like to share with you...if you can keep it to yourself."
"I'm an Auror, of course I can keep a secret." Tonks asserted.

"Watch this then." He said and raised one of his hands in a cupping
motion, his newly scarred right hand as it happened since Tonks was
laying on the other one.
"Okaaay, what am I watching?" She asked, bemused by his look of

concentration.
"Wait for it." He advised.
"Wait for- whoa!" She exclaimed as a small ball of flame burst into life
above his palm. "How are you doing that?"
"Magic." Harry replied, much amused. It seemed silly to keep this from
her when he'd told Amelia Bones about it.
"But you're doing it without a wand!" Tonks protested, still staring at

the mini fireball.
"Well it wouldn't have been a secret if I did it with my wand, now would
it?" Harry reasoned and dismissed the bit of fire he'd conjured.
Tonks opened and closed her mouth a few times, unable to find anything to
say. Then she just huffed, gave his chest a slap and called him a prat.
"This is actually why I've got this manly scar all the way up to my elbow
now." He said with s sigh, turning his hand over. "I didn't have time to
stabilize the spell and some of its power backfired on me."
Tonks reached up to lace her fingers with the scarred limb. The burns
weren't horribly disfiguring, but definitely noticeable.
"Is wandless magic that dangerous?" She asked, concerned.
"Depends on what you're doing with it." He answered. "Casting a volatile

explosive spell in a desperate situation is definitely more dangerous
than it would have been with a wand."
Tonks was a bit worried for his safety, but decided not to pester him
about it. He seemed to know what he was doing with this and it had
probably saved his life anyway. A bit of scarring was a small price to
pay in light of that.
"Can you teach me how to do it?" She asked instead.
"I don't know, maybe?" He replied uncertainly. "I've never tried teaching
it to anyone. Sirius lost interest after I told him that it took me years
to get even the smallest result."
"Good thing that I'm made of sterner stuff than my lazy cousin then."
Tonks declared and hoisted herself into a straddling position. "Now, I
recall hearing you say that you had more secrets to share."
"I'm not telling you all of my secrets at once." Harry huffed, amused.
"Pretty pleaseeeee!" She wheedled. If his first one was a proficiency for
wandless magic, then the others must be really something else.
"No." He refused point blank. His unregistered Animagus transformation,

the runes and his connection to the Void and the Sun were all quite a bit
illegal and she was an Auror. He might like her, but he wasn't crazy
enough to tell her stuff that could see him getting in trouble with the
law until he was sure that she wouldn't blab. Dramatic dilemmas between
duty and feelings should stay locked in the chest of clich plot devices
where they belonged.
"Tell me or I'll torture it out of you." Tonks threatened.
Harry gave her his most sarcastic look, silently declaring his skepticism
over her statement.
"Don't believe me, huh?" She asked rhetorically before thrusting out her
chest. "Fine then, prepare to get smothered in boobs!"
"Wha?" Was Harry's most intelligent reply as he watched his girlfriend's

normally B-cup chest balloon into E-cup range with no signs of stopping.
Then he could say nothing at all as the mass of titflesh covered his
face.
"You secrets or your life!" Tonks declared with an evil cackle, hugging
his head to prevent him from escaping the mammary prison.
Harry was of course unable to reply. In fact, he hadn't even heard what
she'd said. It didn't matter though. Even this inventive new form of
torture wasn't enough to pry out his secrets. The activity did wake up
his libido though.
XXXXX
The next night.
Harry awoke when he felt someone crawl into bed with him. Tonks wasn't
spending the night today and this person was too small in any case.
Not to mention that only one magical presence had this distinct flavor to
it.
"Luna?"
"Yes, Harry?" The blonde girl asked dreamily.
"Why are you in my bed?"
"I felt lonely and you said that you would do anything you could for me."
Luna answered.
He had indeed said that, though he hadn't been expecting her to come
cuddle him. Maybe he should have. Well whatever, at least she wasn't
staring at the walls as if she could see through them.
"Um, why are you naked though?"
"The same reason as you."
That was a fair point, Harry conceded. Sleeping was indeed best done
naked. Or it would have been a fair point if she was in her own bed. Luna
probably didn't have the best of grasps on the implications of being
naked in bed with another person though, so he couldn't be too surprised.
He felt his manhood stirring at the proximity of a naked female, the

disobedient organ blatantly ignoring the fact that he had no intention of
sticking it in this particular naked female.
Harry grimaced. Lose-lose situation. He could either be uncomfortably

aroused or he could ask Luna to leave.
He sighed. Uncomfortably aroused it was.
"Teeny?" He called.
"Yes, Harry Potter sir?" The house elf whispered loudly as soon as she
popped in.
"Could you get me some pajama bottoms?"
Teeny nodded convulsively and popped away, reappearing a moment later

with a pair of dark blue silk pants.
"Thank you, Teeny, you're the best." Harry sighed as he pulled on the
sleepwear. He'd not used it much since he'd discovered the joys of
sleeping in the nude.
The house elf squeaked in pleasure at the compliment and popped away
again, leaving Harry shaking his head at the strangeness of the little
creatures.
"You don't have to wear pajamas on my account, I don't mind if your penis
pokes me in the bum." Luna said once he'd settled back down.
"Somehow, I'm not surprised." Harry said wryly and pulled his friend into
a spooning position. He didn't even bother asking if she would like some
PJ's herself. He knew her well enough to know that she'd turn him down,
utterly oblivious to the fact that it would be for his benefit more than
hers.
Luna wiggled around until she found a comfortable position. Harry bit his
lip as her tiny butt and still somewhat bony hips rubbed against his
erection. Maybe silk pajamas hadn't been such a grand idea. If it was
anyone but her, he'd think she was doing this on purpose.
At long last, she settled down. With his silk wrapped tool nestled
between the crack of her arse and his scarred arm clutched in between her
budding breasts.
Harry took a deep breath to calm down and remind himself that he had a
girlfriend already, that Luna wasn't messing with him
deliberately(probably), was grieving for her father(definitely) and was
only thirteen despite having started puberty already(somewhat
hypocritically since he himself was only fourteen, magical super puberty
aside).
They spent the next few minutes in silence, with Luna slowly running her
fingers over the arm that he was holding her with and Harry trying to
force his libido into submission with meditation. It was an uphill
battle.
"I miss daddy." Luna said out of the blue, her previously vacant, spaced
out tone replaced with deep sadness. She didn't burst into tears as he'd
half expected, but the sense of emotional pain wasn't any weaker for it.
Having no idea what else to do, Harry hugged her tighter. "You'll always
have me."
"You promise?" She asked hopefully.
Harry rather cynically thought that he couldn't promise not to be

murdered, since it wasn't really up to him. He could have quite easily
joined Luna's father if the Death Eaters weren't cowardly enough to
scatter at the first sign of resistance. He could also have been mourning
Sirius if the masked twats weren't so incompetent. Hell, the lot of them
could be dead.
But he couldn't say that to Luna right now. "I promise." It cost him
nothing to make the promise. It wasn't as if anyone would be able to do
anything about it if he couldn't keep it after all. Damn I'm gloomy.
She didn't say anything back, but Harry got the sense that she felt a
little better. That was something at least.
XXXXX
Two days later.
Luna crept towards Harry's room, completely naked yet again. She figured
that he and Tonks had stopped having sex and gone to sleep by now. Her
father's death still felt like an aching hole in her chest and she hadn't
been able to sleep. Cuddling up to Harry the other night had helped, but
it would have been rude to show up before they were done.
Silently, she opened the door and peeked inside. No movement or moaning.
The only sound was a quiet snore. Good.
With the same silence, she crept towards the bed and checked for a spot
to cuddle. Harry was on his back, with Tonks pressed into his left side.
That was perfect, she could take the right without getting in the way.
As carefully as possible, she slipped beneath the light slik sheets and
cuddled into Harry's left side. She froze when he grumbled something in
his sleep, but smiled when his arm went around her waist. As a final
touch, she mimicked Tonks' leg positioning and swung her own leg over
Harry's, accidentally sliding it over the Auror's in the process. Tonks
had much smoother legs than Harry.
XXXXX
Harry awoke at sunrise feeling a bit...off. And what was all this blonde
hair in his face? Dora wasn't blonde often, especially not in the
morning.
A closer examination revealed that the strangeness was due to there being
two bodies on him today instead of just one. Which would of course mean
that the blonde hair probably didn't belong to his girlfriend.
Harry sighed quietly. He wasn't even surprised that Luna wouldn't be

deterred by something as trivial as another woman already being in bed
with him. This could be awkward.
Ah well, might as well get it over with. His bladder wouldn't let him
delay for long anyway.
He gave his girlfriend a shake, getting only some disgruntled noises in

return. He continued shaking her until she woke up.
"Ngghhh." Tonks said eloquently, leaving a line of slobber on his chest.
"Dora, wake up." Harry told her quietly.
"G'back t' sleephhh." She slurred.
"Dora." Harry said more insistently.
"N'sex. Wank it." She insisted sleepily.
Harry rolled his eyes in amused exasperation. Tonks was definitely not a
morning person.
"Doooraaaaa~." He sing-songed, persistently running his fingers over her

back.
Tonks let out an aggravated groan and raised her head with what appeared
to be a titanic effort, squinting at him with bleary eyes. Then she
caught sight of the other female and started blinking in utter
bafflement.
"Whazzat?" She asked, apparently unable to process this early in the

morning.
"That would be Luna Lovegood. You met her yesterday." Harry explained,
vastly amused by her confusion.
Tonks continued to stare and blink at the other female for a good ten
seconds, something critical not computing.
"Why'sere?" She finally asked.
"Let's ask her, shall we?" Harry said and started shaking Luna awake.
It didn't take nearly the amount of effort to wake her as it took with
Tonks. Luna looked up, clearly also a bit bleary but not nearly as addled
as Tonks.
"Good morning, Harry, Nymphadora." She greeted.
"Morning." Harry returned with a resigned fondness. Luna would be Luna.
Tonks was still too sleep addled to even take umbrage at the use of her
first name, but she did start getting her wits together.
Harry and Luna waited patiently while the Metamorphmagus rubbed the heel
of her palm into her eyes to clear out the gunk. Once she was done, and
her vision consisted of something more than blurry shapes, she looked
between the two teenagers and asked the all important question.
"What's going on?"
"I couldn't sleep." Luna explained.
"So you decided to come sleep with us?" Tonks asked for the sake of
clarification.
Luna nodded.
"Naked?"
"Mhm."
"Right." Tonks concluded. "You got anything to add here, Harry?"
"I really need to use the loo." Harry admitted.
Both females wordlessly slid off him so that he could amble towards the
adjoined bathroom, not even bothering to cover up. It all seemed quite
redundant at this point.
A silence descended that was awkward for Tonks alone. As for Luna...
"Are you going to have morning sex?" She asked, taking an interested
glance at the sex swing hanging nearby.
"Not now we aren't." The Auror said a bit sourly. Despite her zombie-like
wake ups, she actually enjoyed morning sex. It was a great way of
starting the day and she could always go back to sleep right after if she
felt like it, which she often did since Harry usually kept her up pretty
late with his crazy stamina.
"Oh." Luna said, sounding very disappointed. "I was hoping I could
watch." Her parents had let her watch back when they had both still been
alive.
Tonks gaped at the little blonde voyeur, completely stunned by the

admission. How was she even supposed to respond to that?
Eventually she managed to close her mouth and decided to tackle a

different issue. "Luna, you can't just crawl into bed with people."
"Why?" Luna asked, cocking her head and giving the Auror an unblinking
stare. She didn't understand what the problem was. Harry was a friend,
she hadn't interrupted their sex and didn't get in the way.
"You just...can't." Tonks sputtered, unsure of how to really argue her

point. "It just isn't done."
"But why not?"
Tonks once more scrambled for a response and decided to go on the

offensive instead. A good offense is the best defense and all that.
"Do you always crawl into someone else's bed when you can't sleep?"
"I did when mum died, but I don't have daddy anymore either." Luna said
sadly.
Nothing to start the day like a nice big pile of guilt and shame. Tonks
thought to herself with a wince.
"Could you at least put on some clothes if you're going to do it?" She
asked in a resigned tone, knowing full well that she'd just tacitly ceded
victory to the strange little blonde.
"Why would I wear clothes for sleeping?" Luna asked, looking genuinely
confused at the notion of sleeping with clothes on.
"Because it's not right to sleep naked next to someone you aren't in a
relationship with?" Tonks suggested uncertainly, now wary of the young
girl's strange logic twists.
"What's wrong about it?"
Tonks opened her mouth to reply, but came up empty. She couldn't for the
life of her name a single reason why sleeping naked next to someone was
wrong, aside from the sexual connotations that were notably absent here.
It was even worse because Luna just looked honestly curious. Based on
this and what she'd learned from Harry, she was getting the distinct
feeling that the Lovegoods hadn't had much in the way of taboos and had
certainly not taught any to their daughter. Trying to instill them into
Luna now would be an exercise in futility and not really something that
Tonks was willing to attempt.
"It would just be more comfortable for Harry and me if you wore
something." She finally said instead of answering the question.
"But Harry didn't seem to mind a couple of days ago." Luna reasoned.
Tonks' hair turned a slightly darker shade of red. Harry hadn't mentioned
that Luna had done this before.
"Just wear some clothes." She sighed.
"Okay." Luna nodded in agreement. She figured that sleeping in a pair of

panties wouldn't be too bad for the times when Tonks was staying over.
"What about watching you have sex?"
Tonks groaned, a flush working itself up her neck at the uncomfortable

directness of blonde's questions. "No, Luna, you can't watch us have
sex."
"Why not?"
"Why would you even want to watch us have sex?" The Auror asked, rubbing
her forehead and wondering if her current headache was a result of too
little sleep, dehydration or the conversation.
"I've always wanted to watch Harry have sex." Luna admitted, not just
shamelessly, but also completely oblivious to the fact that there was
anything to be ashamed of.
"Why?" Tonks pressed on fatalistically, figuring that she might as well

go all the way down the rabbit hole.
"I only got to watch my parents do it before." Luna explained. "I'd like
to see how different it is with other people."
Interesting parenting strategy. Tonks thought to herself sarcastically.

"The answer is still no."
"Okay." Luna conceded dejectedly. She'd really been looking forward to it

too.
Tonks found herself feeling absurdly guilty for not letting the younger
girl indulge her voyeuristic pursuits. The whole conversation was too
weird for this hour in the morning.
Fortunately, she was saved from any further awkwardness when Harry came
out of the bathroom, wrapped in a bathrobe and his hair still wet from a
shower. He took one look at the dejected looking Luna and the conflicted
looking Tonks and frowned in consternation. Had they been arguing? He'd
deliberately removed himself from the situation because he figured it
would be easier for the two of them to talk without him there. And also
because he had no idea how to tell his girlfriend that he didn't have the
heart to tell Luna to stay away at night.
"What did I miss?"

XXXXX
The last few days of the summer holidays passed without incident and the
time to return to Hogwarts came about all too soon. Luna still had times
when she blanked out, but she seemed to be eager about going back. Harry
wasn't. Going back to the castle just didn't hold the appeal it used to.
It was too restrictive.
But he was going anyway. For Luna's sake and for what little use he still
had for the Hogwarts curriculum. He was still intending to find a way to
ditch the school early though.
There was just one thing that needed to be done before going back.
"You want me to do what?" Penny asked, bemused.
"I want you to research how muggleborns are seen in the other magical
communities." Harry repeated patiently.
"Why the sudden interest?" The former Ravenclaw asked curiously.
"Just something I was thinking about a while ago." Mostly a worry about
the number of bitter wizards and witches the mundane governments could
potentially recruit. It might be just paranoia, but he didn't think that
could end well if he was right.
"Alright, I can do that." Penny said thoughtfully. "Where am I supposed

to start though?"
"Not a clue." Harry shrugged. "Maybe there are magical Ambassadors from
other countries somewhere in Britain? It's not especially time sensitive,
so feel free to take your time. I'd also like you to thoroughly research
the procedure for transferring money from Gringotts to another bank."
"I get the feeling that this is a bit more important than you're making
it out to be." She said with a frown.
"It might be." Harry admitted. "Or it might be nothing. Right now it's
just a hunch and a bad feeling, that's why I need you to do this for me."
Penny agreed to do it and didn't press any further, for which Harry was
thankful. He didn't want to share his suspicions until he had something
more solid. Even Penny's research wouldn't really confirm anything. To do
that he'd need to actively spy on the mundane government, which wasn't
something that he was really intending to do. Frankly, he wasn't so
attached Wizarding Britain in its current form that he would bother
taking risks to protect it.
He would however like to have a heads up if things were going to go

sideways.
XXXXX
The next chapter will hopefully be out faster than this one was, but I
make no promises.
Chapter 15
Chapter 15 is finally arrived. It would've been here sooner but I got a

bit distracted playing Overwatch.
Anyway, credit for his help as a beta go to Joe Lawyer as always.
XXXXX
Sitting crosslegged on his bed Ravenclaw Tower after the welcome feast
was finished, Harry pondered.
The Tri-Wizard Tournament was going to be held at Hogwarts this year.

He'd come across some peripheral mention of it in a book somewhere
before, but hadn't investigated beyond the basics. Why read about a
practice that had been abandoned for centuries?
The prize money or the 'Eternal Glory' didn't interest him much, but he
was still curious about the tournament itself now that it was actually
going to be happening. Perhaps some investigation was required after all.
Fortunately, he had someone else to do it for him now. He'd have felt
guilty about dumping all his errands and curiosities on Penny if he
wasn't paying her for it.
Rummaging around in his Bag of Holding, he took out the mirror that
connected to Penny's. He had another two, one for Sirius and one for
Dora.
He wished that he could just use one mirror for all of them, but the
magic involved made that extremely difficult. It was a variant of the
Protean Charm that allowed them to function as a communication device and
also what made multiple links so hard. Creating a 'master' object and
many 'slaves' was relatively simple, but that would only allow the master
to send out a signal. The mirrors were two master objects linked
together. Harder, but doable. Creating a network of master objects
started becoming exponentially more difficult with every new one added.
Worse still, once the enchantments were in place, trying to add another
mirror into it destabilized the whole thing.
Harry knew that if he could figure out how to do it, he would very
quickly become the wealthiest wizard in the world by a ludicrous margin.
The advent of mobile phones had certainly proved how much money there was
in that field. Magical video calls would be infinitely superior to
sticking one's head in a fireplace, not to mention more convenient.
Alas, a project for the future. For the moment, he still had to carry
around three mirrors.
"Harry?" Penny questioned, obviously confused that he would contact her

so quickly after coming to Hogwarts.
"Hi, Penny. I've got another job for you." He said with a wry grin.
"Alright, lay it on me." She said easily. There was still little enough
work for her to do that she had no problem with taking on something else.
"I need you to research the Twi-Wizard Tournament for me."
"The Tri-Wizard Tournament?" Penny repeated in confusion, having never

heard of such a thing.
"Apparently it's some kind of dangerous competition between Hogwarts,

Durmstrang and Beauxbatons that was abandoned centuries ago because the
body count got uncomfortably high. Someone decided that it would be a
good idea to bring it back. They've been keeping it secret up to now, but
it'll probably be in the papers tomorow." Harry explained.
Penny nodded thoughtfully and seemed to write something down before

turning back to look at him. "How quickly do you need this done?"
"Not too quickly." Harry said. "The champions won't be chosen until the
other two schools arrive, which is at Halloween, so you've got plenty of
time."
"Shouldn't take me anywhere near that long." Penny said. "I'll get back
to you when I have something."
"Thanks, Penny."
His mirror returned to showing his face and Harry put it away, still
thinking. He knew that he wasn't old enough to enter the tournament since
the rules were changed to prevent minors from entering, but he was still
kind of tempted, if only to do something dangerous and do it well.
His recent encounter with the Death Eaters bothered him. He'd not
acquitted himself well in that confrontation. Sirius had pegged them as
the dregs of the Dark Lord's forces, bottom feeders blaming muggles and
muggleborns for their own who had either lost their wealth or never had
it to begin with, hoping to have some scraps thrown their way once
Voldemort won. Parasites.
That was what had nearly killed him. The equivalent of street thugs that
would have spent most of their days sitting on a couch in a grease
stained shirt, living off social support, guzzling beer and yelling at
politicians on a telly if they'd been born as muggles instead of
purebloods.
The humiliation still burned long after the flames that had scarred his
arm had gone out. He should have been able to crush all eight of them as
if they were nothing, or at the very least make them rethink the idea of
attacking him. But he hadn't been able to, because he hadn't bothered
learning how to fight. Sure, he knew some pretty good spells and he had
significantly cut down on the time it took to cast them without a wand
since he'd started learning magic, but he didn't know how to actually
fight.
He needed to learn before something like that happened again, before

someone that wasn't dumb enough to gloat for an hour tried killing him.
Alastor 'Mad-Eye' Moody was the DADA teacher this year, Dora's mentor
when she was still in training. She'd only had good things to say about
him. Well, mostly good things. Harry would have liked to ask him for
training on how to fight, but Sirius had told him that Moody was an old
friend of Dumbledore's. How many pies did that old man have his fingers
in anyway? Too many for sure. He'd just have to muddle through it for now
and ask Dora if she was willing to share some Auror training over the
holidays and the summer.
He was brought out of his thoughts when the door opened and Luna strolled
in.
"Hello?" Harry said, bemused by her sudden entrance.
"Hello, Harry." Luna returned, walking up to his bed and starting to

strip.
"Spending the night?" Harry asked.
"Yes." Luna nodded, putting her panties on top of the small pile of
clothes that now took up a nearby chair and slipping between the covers,
completely naked.
Harry rubbed a hand over his chin, unable to quite stop the smile that
pulled at his lips. There was something about Luna's utter obliviousness
to societal taboos that he just couldn't help but admire.
"Do you think that Durmstrang or Beauxbatons will bring any crumple-
horned snorkacks with them?" Luna asked once he had settled into the now
familiar spooning position.
"I don't know, maybe." Harry said lightly, sensing that Luna's mood was
turning sad despite her idly vacant tone.
"Daddy really wanted to find one." She went on.
Harry held back a sigh. Luna had been making less mentions of her
probably-nonexistent creatures since her father's death, leading him to
think that maybe that had been Xeno's way of coping with the death of his
wife and Luna had simply adopted it.
"I was thinking about asking Dora if she wanted to go on a trip with me
next summer. You could come along if you want, maybe we'll find a
snorkack." The original idea had been for just him and Dora to go
somewhere, but taking Luna along too wouldn't be all that disruptive. She
wasn't a needy child that had to be constantly supervised.
He might be, technically speaking, encouraging her delusions with this,

but Luna was a big girl and he wasn't going to patronise her. If she
wanted to look for snorkacks, nargles and blibbering humdingers, then he
wasn't going to tell her that she shouldn't.
"Where would we go?" Luna asked, perking up with interest.
"I don't know yet." Harry shrugged. "Somewhere out of Britain."
"I'd like that."
XXXXX
Breakfast the next morning was a time of furtive glances and poorly
veiled interest. People hadn't noticed his newly scarred arm during the
welcoming feast, busy as they were with stuffing their faces and the
Prophet hadn't mentioned it(indeed, the Prophet had mentioned the
altercation at the World Cup as little as possible), so it was now
garnering a lot of attention.
Harry knew that it was only a matter of time before someone couldn't keep
their curiousity in check any more and would blurt out a tactless 'what
happened to your hand?!'. Alternatively, the whispers would circulate
through the Great Hall until they reached the Slytherin table, where a
particular member of that house would think that he could somehow use
this.
And here we go. Harry thought to himself sarcastically, seeing that

Malfoy had gotten up along with his two bookends and the surprise
addition of Pansy Parkinson. Draco Malfoy was one of those rare people
that prefered their humiliations to happen in public.
"Don't you have any decency, Potter?" The Slytherin demanded.
Harry raised an eyebrow in silent query, wondering where the blond was
going with this.
"People are eating and here you are, showing off your disgusting mangled
arm." He went on with a sneer.
Harry lifted up his sleeve to and turned his scarred limb over a few
times, looking it over carefully. Yes, the scars were quite noticeable,
but he would hardly call it mangled. The Ravenclaws around him honestly
looked more intrigued than disgusted.
He finally looked back to the smug looking Draco and replied. "If they
can eat with your face present, then my arm isn't likely to faze them."
Draco flushed angrily as the listening crowd burst into laughter at his
expense. He'd been expecting Potter to try hiding his deformity, but
instead he was treating it with complete indifference, as if there was
nothing ugly about the scars.
"You can't talk to Draco like that!" Pansy snapped, glaring at Harry.
"And what are you going to do about it?" Harry asked coldly, quite
deliberately projecting menace towards her.
Pansy went pale with sudden dread and stammered something, none too
subtly moving to stand slightly behind Draco. For all her petty
viciouness and sense of pureblood superiority, Pansy was still a child
and a rather unremarkable one at that. Harry was both much stronger and
had sent four souls screaming into the Void. She may not understand why
the thought of butting heads with him filled her with a nameless fear,
but that mystical sense that all magical beings possessed recognized
danger even if she didn't.
"How'd you get the scars, Harry?" One brave Ravenclaw second year took
the opportunity to ask.
"I was playing with fire." Harry answered unhelpfully.
"Did it hurt?" The same Ravenclaw asked.
"What do you think?" Harry asked back caustically, making the twelve-
year-old boy shrink back into his seat as his face turned with shame.
Luna took a moment away from her food to pat Harry on the leg. This was
why Harry didn't have many friends. True, it had been a stupid question,
but there was no need to be mean about it.
"At least it matches your forehead, I suppose." Draco butted in, once
again sneering.
"Why are you still here, Draco?" Harry asked with a put upon sigh.
"You're not going to win anything here, so why don't you just take what
little dignity you have left and limp back to the Slytherin table?"
The peanut gallery laughed again, clearly amused by how one-sided the
exchange was. This had been a form of amusement for Hogwarts ever since
Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy had been first years. Harry would be
minding his own business, Draco would come looking to make an issue of
something every so often and a verbal spar would ensue. It had been more
even at first, but Harry had quickly outgrown the Malfoy scion in wit and
now tended to shred him in moments.
Draco was well aware of the fact that he was coming off worse in these
exchanges, but his pride wouldn't let him leave well enough alone. He was
a Malfoy, and no halfblood with delusions of grandeur had any right to be
better than him. The fact that Harry was consistently getting the best of
him flew in the face of everything he believed in.
That was why he couldn't do as Harry had however insultingly
suggested and back down. No, he had to retaliate somehow, even if it was
just to get the last word in.
"Watch yourself, Potter or you might end up like Loony's father." He

threatened.
XXXXX
"POTTER! WHAT IN MERLIN'S NAME DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?!" Came the
enraged yell from the staff table.
Harry didn't really have anything in mind when he'd stood up. He'd felt
the spike of pain and grief from Luna at Malfoy's threat, seen her jerk
as if she'd been electrocuted and simply acted. Now there was a slight
sting of pain in his hand, Malfoy was moaning on the floor with a broken
jaw, Crabbe and Goyle had been sent flying and Pansy seemed to have lost
control of her bladder.
His temper had gotten away from him again. He'd really thought that he'd
handled that problem already. Though he was admittedly a bit
overprotective of Luna right now, so that might be the real issue. Or it
could be because he already had a bone to pick with Malfoy over what he'd
done to Penny. Or maybe it was because the Sun was up. He was always more
temperamental during the day, when the Light's fire was strong. Probably
all of the above.
He didn't answer Snape's bellowed question. It was rhetorical anyway. He

looked down at the Malfoy scion instead. It was kind of funny how the
blond idiot managed to do this to himself at the start of every year. It
was almost like all sense of caution was wiped from his mind over the
summer.
"A hundred points from Ravenclaw and detention with me for two months!"
Snape raged, looking over his Slytherins.
"No." Harry said blandly. He had better things to do than serve

detention, especially over a worthless sack of shite like Malfoy.
"No?" Snape repeated dangerously.
"No." Harry confirmed, undaunted. Snape had been intimidating a few years
ago, with his hateful glares, the authority of his position as a teacher
and most of all the hateful feel of his magic, but things were different
now.
Now Harry was just as tall as him, had little use or respect for him as a
teacher and had recently survived a brush with death. Snape was simply
not that scary anymore.
"You don't seem to understand how things work around here, Potter." Snape
said in a deadly whisper that belied his rage. "You don't make the rules,
no matter how famous you are. If I say that you'll be serving detention
for the rest of the year, then you will be serving detention for the rest
of the year."
"You can serve it yourself, I have better things to do." Harry said
bluntly, not even bothering to acknowledge the change in length. It made
no difference since he wasn't planning to attend anyway. It was really
too bad, he could have almost liked Snape at one point, but the man had
serious anger management problems and clung to his grudges with near
fanaticism.
"I'll see you expelled." Snape growled, his sallow face turning a blotchy
red as all his buttons were pushed.
"That'll be the day." Harry snorted, knowing full well that it wasn't
going to happen with Dumbledore around. Even if it did, he wouldn't be
entirely displeased. Sure, he'd have to pull Luna out too because he
didn't want her to be here without him, but there were alternatives.
Sure, they'd snap his wand and tell him that he was not to use magic
anymore, but he would simply move out of the country and do it anyway.
The chances of him getting expelled were pretty much nil though, even
with Malfoy senior on the Hogwarts board of governors. Dumbledore
wouldn't want him removed from his influence.
Snape's face went an even more unhealthy color as he most likely realized
that last truth.
"I never want to see you in my classroom again, Potter." The Potions
Master growled and started levitating his unconscious student to the
infirmary.
"Agreed." Harry called after him, genuinely pleased by this. He'd been
thinking of blowing off Potions and several other classes anyway, which
was why he was so well informed about the likelihood of expulsion to
begin with. Potions was a useful skill, but Snape didn't know how to
teach for shit. He'd learn on his own. The only benefit to going to his
classes was having someone around to keep cauldrons from exploding, which
Snape often deliberately failed to do anyway when he wanted to humiliate
some non-Slytherin.
XXXXX
Albus Dumbledore had not been present at breakfast that morning, but word
of the altercation reached him quickly. He needed to talk to Harry about
it, but first he had to find him. Albus had a hunch on his whereabouts.
As suspected, Harry was standing on top of the Astronomy Tower. Again.

The young man's fascination with that spot was really quite perplexing,
especially as he knew that Fawkes occasionnaly went to join him.
"Headmaster." Harry greeted once Dumbledore came close enough, keeping

his eyes fixed on the horizon.
"Harry." Albus returned, moving to stand next to the student and noting
with some surprise that he was actually a little shorter than the younger
wizard. Harry had certainly grown quickly through whatever magical means
he had employed. Perhaps an inch over six feet and with a lean build and
a face that held a greater hint of Lily's sharper features than it once
did now that the softness of youth was receding. A handsome young man
that his parents would undoubtedly have been proud of.
"Here to get the other side of the story from this morning?" Harry asked.
"I believe I can guess at the truth." Albus said musingly. "Mr. Malfoy
likely said something provocative, causing you to lash out violently.
Professor Snape then assigned you a detention which you refused to
attend."
"Why are you here then if you already know what happened?" Harry asked.
"Mostly to tell you that you cannot simply refuse to attend a detention
when you have clearly earned it." Albus chuckled.
"Snape and I have reached an agreement about that." Harry said calmly. "I
won't attend his detentions and in return he will not teach me Potions
anymore."
"Harry, you shouldn't allow this enmity between you and Professor Snape
to damage your education." Dumbledore chided gently.
"I'll learn Potions on my own. Snape isn't much of a teacher anyway."
"My boy, you were allowed to stop attending Charms and Transfiguration
because the normal pacing of the curriculum was clearly too slow for you,
but if you refuse to attend classes simply because you dislike the
teacher, then perhaps I gave your maturity too much credit." Dumbledore
sighed.
He didn't like stooping to what was essentially blackmail, but Harry

needed to learn that he couldn't simply do as he pleased.
"Then you will probably be displeased to learn that in addition to my

electives, Charms, Transfiguration and Potions, I won't be attending
Herbology, History of Magic or Astronomy anymore either."
Dumbledore blinked in surprise. That hadn't been the reaction he'd been
expecting. "Harry, that would mean that the only class you will be
attending is Defense Against the Dark Arts."
"I'm aware of that." Harry nodded. "I'm simply not interested in

Herbology or Astronomy and I doubt that I ever will be and Binns is even
worse than Snape as a teacher."
"Strange that you would claim to have no interest in Astronomy yet spend
so much time atop this tower." Dumbledore commented, trying to see if
there was anything important about that.
"I like the view." Harry smirked.

"Am I to take it that you will refuse to attend any detentions given as
well?" Dumbledore asked, getting back on track.
"I'll do my best to avoid any detention-worthy behavior." Harry replied

in lieu of a confirmation.
"Except for skipping classes?"
"I can get a note from Sirius stating that he supports my decision if it
makes you feel better." Harry offered.
Had he been a younger man, Dumbledore would have rolled his eyes in
exasperation. Of course Sirius would support Harry's decision, he was
exactly the sort to find his godson's rebelliousness amusing.
"Dare I ask how you intend to pass your OWLs if you will not attend
classes?" He asked instead.
"I'll manage, and if not then I'm sure that I can bribe the examiners
into giving me a passing grade."
"Harry." Dumbledore said with deep disapproval.
"What?" The younger wizard asked, looking unmoved. "That's how things
work in Britain, isn't it?"
"The fact that some people take advantage of their wealth to get around
the law is not a good reason for you stoop to their level." The old
wizard sighed again. Harry was far too cynical. He wasn't wrong, but he
was too cynical.
"I will gladly stoop to that level if it keeps me from wasting time on
things I don't care about." Harry argued back stubbornly.
"Do you care nothing about the example you are setting?" Dumbledore
asked. The boy was being most unreasonable.
"That's really not my problem." Harry reasoned. "I don't owe it to anyone
to be an example."
Dumbledore frowned minutely. The lad didn't seem to realize, or perhaps

didn't want to realize, that he was always going to be an example.
"You have chosen the path of the powerful wizard." He countered. "As
such, there will always be people looking up to you."
"Their choice, not mine." Harry said with a note of finality. "Was there
any other school related matter you wanted to discuss?"
Dumbledore paused, easily seeing the implication that Harry was done
talking about anything that didn't fall under his purview as Hogwarts
Headmaster. Few people were willing to shut him down so blatantly.
Something in Harry had hardened since the last time they'd spoken, but he
supposed that it only made sense. Killing never made people softer.
Never. He had the sense that all hope of having Harry see him as a mentor
was lost. That was unfortunate, as he would now have to work towards the
greater good the hard way.
"No, that was all." Dumbledore said genially. "Have a good day, Harry."
XXXXX
Once the old wizard was gone, Harry smirked to himself. He'd been right.
Not a single word said about expulsion, no great argument about his
cavalier atitude towards class, not even any real mention of how
irregular or against the rules it was. Dumbledore didn't actually care
what he did in Hogwarts as long as he was in Hogwarts.
Dumbledore was starting to get a little bit predictable. Only a little

bit though, there was still no telling what he'd try in the future. He
would need to be watchful. Perhaps he would have been better served to
lie low, but he just couldn't do that anymore. Life was too short to
waste time on things he didn't care about. He was most certainly not
going to let the manipulative old bastard guilt trip him into anything.
The nerve of him to imply that it was up to Harry himself to deal with
Snape's attitude problem instead of Dumbledore's.
Shaking those thoughts off, Harry closed his eyes and took a deep breath,
focusing intently on the sunlight shining down on him. Ever since his
accidental discovery of the dementor effect he'd produced by focusing too
deeply on the Dark during the World Cup, he'd been carefully exploring
both that and the other end of the spectrum.
Inhale. Slowly pull Light into himself.
Exhale. Release, let it settle.
Inhale. Draw it deeper, washing over his soul. His runes tingled warmly.
Exhale. Release. The Light began to drain out of him through Arhain, the
small but bottomless spot of Dark, seeking balance as dictated by
Yen'Lui.
Inhale. Pull on more Light. Enough to make his runes heat up painfully in
warning, enough to become restlessly energetic, enough to know that his
eyes were glowing like emerald torches in his skull, enough to feel as if
he could eat fire and shit lightning.
Exhale. Release.
A small burst of flame and a familiar phoenix appeared on his shoulder.
"Well if it isn't my favorite sunbro." Harry said dryly as Fawkes started

rubbing his head into his neck, jaw and any other place he could reach,
almost like a cat actually. "Today, we are both so grossly incadescent."
Fawkes burst into joyous phoenix song as a response.

A wild exhultation rose up in him and Harry stumbled to his knees as
rationality fought against the mad desire to take a running leap off the
Astronomy Tower, for no other reason than to feel the wind rushing past
him.
"Don't do that." He snapped at the phoenix as he got back on his feet,

receiving an ambiguous chirp from the bird in response.
This was the problem with Light. Whereas Dark muted emotions and made him
feel detached from the world, Light drove them wild. Had he been in this
state when Draco had made his blustering threat, he'd have fried him
without even thinking about it. If Dora was here and did so much as smile
at him, he would have torn her clothes off and taken her on the spot.
Might have done it with any woman actually. Might not even have cared if
they were willing. He wasn't intending to find out.
On the upside...
He tensed and a ring of fire billowed outwards from his body. He barely
even had to focus to do it. It was in some ways even easier than with a
wand, though his compromised state of mind didn't allow for a
particularly varied spell selection. It was all brute force and no
finesse. Fire was especially easy. That probably had something to do with
why phoenix feather wands were so well suited to sharp bursts of power,
the firebirds being so closely linked to the Sun.
It was at once both wonderful and terrible. Such a feeling of power and
drive, of life unrestrained. It was as if there was nothing that he
couldn't do, nothing that he couldn't survive. At the low, low cost of
any semblance of impulse control. And the sense of invincibility was
deceptive on top of it.
Harry slumped as the last of the excess Light was sucked out through
Arhain like water down a drain, leaving him feeling a bit tired and
lethargic but blessedly calm. Both Light and Dark carried the risk of
overindulgence. The aftermath of indulgence in Dark made the world seem
so very loud and needlessly difficult and Light made him feel lethargic
and empty, as if he'd just come down from an adrenaline rush.
Fawkes trilled sadly as his second favorite human stopped blazing with
Light.
"Don't give me that, you mcnugget." Harry chided and ruffled the
firebird's chest feathers. "I'm all ears if you know how to control this,
but I've got no interest in becoming some kind of magical berserker that
will kill anything, fuck everything and can't think more than three
seconds in advance."
Fawkes sang something that sounded remarkably like a shrug. He had no

idea how the bird had managed to do that.
"Yeah, that's what I thought." Harry muttered.
XXXXX
Fred and George hadn't known quite what to think when Harry Potter had
asked to talk to them in private. The last time he'd asked to talk to a
Weasley in private, it had been to buy a pet rat that was actually an
Animagus.
"I want to hire you." He said simply, causing the twins to look at each
other with raised eyebrows.
"Hire us?" Fred repeated.
"To do what?" George finished.
"To prank the ever loving shite out of Draco Malfoy." Harry answered.
"You may have come to the right place." The twins chorused with wide
grins.
"Excellent." Harry drawled with a smirk. "Just so we understand each

other, I don't want this to be something that he can laugh off. I want
him to be afraid of leaving his common room at the start of every day."
The grins faded a bit as they realized that there was some real malice
behind this.
"You don't think that breaking his jaw was enough for what he said the
other day?" Fred asked.
"Oh, this has nothing to do with that." Harry explained. "You remember
Penelope Clearwater?"
"Of course, Percy's ex-girlfriend." George nodded.
"Perfect Percy really dropped the quaffle with her." Fred added.
"Well it would seem that Malfoy junior couldn't stand the indignity of
being put in detention by a 'mudblood' and got his father to ruin her
chances of ever getting a decent job in magical Britain. That's why I
want him to suffer some real indignities."
"When you put it that way it does sound like he needs a good pranking,"
Fred admitted.
"I'm glad you agree." Harry said. "So will you do it?"
"I'd like to know why you care so much about Penny first." George said
with a smirk.
"Could it be that not-so-ickle Harriekins has a crush on our uptight

brother's ex-girlfriend?" Fred continued with the same smirk.
"Yes, Harry. Are you in loooooove with Penny?" George finished, wagging
his eyebrows.
Harry raised an eyebrow at the rather sad attempt at flustering him,
though he had to admit that it would likely have worked if he hadn't
artificially sped up his maturation.
"She's a friend and she works for me." He replied simply.
"Works for you?" The twins asked in surprise.
"Yes. I needed a personal assistant to handle my mail and finances and

Penny has been doing a great job of it so far. In that respect, the
Malfoys actually did me a favor, but I still want Draco to suffer for it,
which is why I'm now asking you if you're up for it.
The twins were silent for a long moment as they digested this, but then
George spoke up with an interesting gleam in his eye. "You said that you
wanted to hire us, I assume that means payment?"
"I wouldn't expect you to spend your time pranking someone for free."
Harry said with a completely straight face.
"Brother mine, I do believe that not-so-ickle Harriekins is sassing us."

Fred said.
"I was indeed getting that impression myself." George concurred.
"I was going to pay you, but I won't say no if you're willing to do it
for free." Harry said idly.
"We will be glad to accept this commission, Mr Potter. Now let's talk
numbers." George said with a faux pompous accent.
"I'll pay for the supplies you need plus a galleon for every prank you
pull on Malfoy."
The twins' eyes widened slightly in surprise but they got themselves
under control with admirable speed.
"That's very generous of you, but seeing as we are the only dedicated
pranksters in the castle, perhaps we should be getting five galleons for
every prank." Fred said.
"Supply and demand." George added sagely.
Harry looked at them flatly at the ridiculous number. "What are you,
goblins? One galleon per prank and five for the ones that are especially
humiliating." Still pocket change for him, but it would provide
incentive.
They looked pensive for a moment and then nodded, apparently deciding
that it was the best they were going to get. "Alright, we can go with
that, but what would you say to ten galleons for the ones that are
especially creative?"
"I don't care how creative you are." Harry said bluntly. "For me, this is
about making Malfoy suffer. As far as I'm concerned, you can walk up
behind him, smash him over the head with a beater's bat and call it a
prank."
The twins exchanged another look, perturbed by the open malice that Harry
was showing. They didn't like the idea of picking on someone like this
even if Malfoy had clearly earned himself a little payback. This went
beyond pranking and became bullying.
But they really needed the money if they were ever going to open their
joke shop. The materials weren't cheap and Bagman had cheated them out of
their savings at the World Cup. With Harry's offer, they could experiment
with someone else's money and get paid for it. Short of someone just up
and giving them a huge chunk of gold, it was exactly what they needed.
The only problem was that it required them to single someone out and make
their lives miserable with a constant stream of pranks. It wasn't really
like them to focus on someone like that.
But in the grand scheme of things, their dreams of owning a joke shop
weighed much more heavily than an easily disliked blood purist like Draco
Malfoy, so they accepted the deal.
XXXXX
Harry was surprised to discover that he actually enjoyed Moody's class.

Sure, the man was a paranoid nutcase exactly as bad as Dora had said, but
he definitely knew his stuff. He tended to focus rather heavily on the
combat side of DADA, which made sense given that he looked as if he'd
been in quite a lot of it. Not that Harry was complaining about that.
It also helped that the man did know how to teach, no doubt due to having
trained Aurors in the past. Lupin hadn't been a bad teacher by any
stretch, but he had been a bit on the timid side, not to mention his
constant akwardness around Harry. It would appear that DADA would finally
be enjoyable. That was good, as this was the sort of subject where
practical experience was much more valuable than textbooks.
He wished that he could have asked the man for private lessons on how to
fight. But Moody had been more a friend to Dumbledore and a member of his
Order of the Phoenix than an Auror even twenty years ago. He'd probably
be too busy anyway.
But there were alternatives. Perhaps it wouldn't be as good as being

trained by a legendary Auror, but it would work well enough for a start.
"What is this place?" Luna asked curiously, looking around the room that
Harry had led her into.
"It's called the Room of Requirement and it apparently shapes itself to

the desires of whoever uses it. The house elves told me about it." Harry
explained.
"Neat." Luna said with a dreamy smile, still looking around at the mostly
empty space that the room was currently configured into.
"Now I want you to take out your wand and cast stinging hexes at me." The
dark haired wizard said.
Luna took out her wand and cast a stinging hex at him without batting an
eyelash.
"Ow!" Harry yelped, more in surprise than any real pain. "I didn't mean
right away."
"But you said now." Luna pointed out reasonably.
Harry rubbed a hand over his jaw and sighed, ruefully admitting to
himself that he had indeed said that. "Let me just explain the how's and
why's and then you can start, okay?"
"Okay."
"Right. I've decided that I need to learn how to fight and this seems
like a good way of doing it." He noticed that her eyes became a bit more
vacant as he said this, no doubt reminded of her father's death, so he
hurriedly went on. "You'll cast spells at me and I'll try to dodge and
maybe throw a wandless spell back at you if I can manage it. Ready? Go!"
Luna might not be an Auror or even a combatant, but this should work just
fine for now. Moreover, Harry knew that he could trust her implicitly and
this would allow them to do something together. Luna for the most part
didn't grieve in the same way as other people, but she was hurting all
the same. Spending time with her and giving her something to do was the
only thing that Harry could think of to help her.
XXXXX
"Stop!" Harry gasped, greedily gulping down air.
Luna obliged and tucked her wand behind her ear.
The past couple of hours had been most enlightening in several ways and
Harry had discovered quite a few things.
For example, he had learned that dodging a barrage of spells wasn't as

simple as it seemed on paper. He'd taken more than one spill across the
ground because he'd lost his balance. It didn't help that his prolonged
growth spurt had left him a touch clumsy. It wasn't a problem on a day to
day basis since the growth had still been gradual even if it was
unnaturally quick, but it had certainly come into play when trying to do
something more balance intensive than walking.
He could finally sympathise with his girlfriend, though her clumsiness

had more to do with her unintentionally adding or taking away an inch or
two of height with her Metamorphmagus ability and discovering it the hard
way.
Another thing was that he lacked stamina. Oh sure, his runes, magic and
the low fat foods he'd asked the elves to bring him had prevented him
from getting pudgy despite his intake, but he'd barely done any exercise
in his life. He hadn't lasted fifteen minutes before needing a short
break to catch his breath. He knew that Aurors were expected to keep in
shape barring any crippling injuries and now he knew why. Jumping
around in the middle of a fight was fucking tiring. Dora has asked him if
he wanted to join her when she went jogging, but he'd turned her down.
She was going to be insufferably smug about that when he broached the
topic again.
Next was the fact that he couldn't cast wandlessly and dodge at the same
time. Not yet at any rate. The focus required to properly cast a spell
was simply too much to be able to do it while dodging. Practice would no
doubt make it possible, but it would probably restrict him to quick and
simple spells that he could weave together without needing to devote his
full focus to the task. Shortcuts like wands and emotion powered magic
were also viable options, but they had their own drawbacks. The former
being stiff and inflexible and the latter volatile.
At least he'd gotten to test how well his runes worked. The magic
resistance they gave him meant that Luna's spells had barely stung and
been quickly flushed out. It was honestly about time that he got some
tangible benefit out of those aside from his enhanced growth.
"Should I start again?" Luna asked after a few minutes.
Harry considered it. He knew that they'd have to do this for quite a
while before he'd get any good at it...but he was pretty tired and it was
almost time for dinner.
"I think we'll call it a day." He finally said.
"Oh, okay." Luna said, honestly feeling a bit disappointed. It had been
fun.
"We'll do it again tomorrow if you're up for it." Harry said, wanting to

cheer her up. Since he was taking only one class, he had plenty of time.
"I'd like that." She smiled.
"And now I'm going to take a bath. I stink." He declared with a theatric
sniff of his armpit.
"I'd like to take a bath too." Luna said dreamily. Usually it was only
the prefects and head students that had access to genuine baths instead
of showers.
Harry simply nodded and willed the Room of Requirement to create two
bathrooms for them. It really was an amazing piece of magic.
Much to his consternation, Luna went into the same bathroom as him insead
of the extra one.
"Errr, Luna?" Harry began awkwardly.
"Yes, Harry." Luna asked, pausing in the act of undressing.
"You know that there's another free bathroom right next to this one,
right?"
"Yes." Of course she knew, but that one didn't have Harry in it.
"Just checking." Harry sighed and resigned himself to the inevitable.

Luna had spent every night so far in his bed instead of her own and now
she was apparently going to do the same with the bath. He could tell her
to no, but that would involve actually looking her in the eye and saying
no. Besides, he knew that there was nothing sexual about this for his
blonde friend.
"Will you wash my hair?" Luna asked with an eager smile. Her mother used
to wash her hair.
"Sure." Harry agreed. He might as well if they were going to be sharing a

bath.
XXXXX
"Luna, why did you come out of the boy's side of the tower this morning?"
Ginny asked as they made their way to Charms class.
"I spent the night with Harry." Luna answered. The two of them were still
friends even if Ginny and Harry weren't anymore. That was a bit sad, but
some people just don't fit well together.
"You spent the night...with Harry?" Ginny repeated numbly, her opinion of
her former friend plummeting even further than it had when she'd learned
that he was fooling around with those upper year girls.
Oblivious to the conclusions that the redhead was jumping to, Luna
nodded. "Yes, it's very nice."
Ginny had no idea what to say to that, so she simply scowled.
This conversation was meant to be private, but this was Hogwarts so they
were naturally overheard. Before the day was out, it was known that Harry
and Luna were an item and already having sex. The fact that they often
disappeared together was taken as confirmation.
XXXXX
The following days passed more or less uneventfully. Word inevitably got
around that Harry wasn't participating in the majority of his classes,
which caused some envious muttering from people who didn't want to attend
either, but little else. A few confronted Harry about it, but only got a
dismissive 'I have no parents to make me go' as a response, which quickly
shut people up. The dead parents conversation killer continued to be
useful.
Oddly enough, both Harry and Luna remained mostly insulated from the
rumors going around about them. Neither was exactly socially connected
and everyone just sort of assumed that they knew everything already and
didn't bother asking them about it. Harry spent most of his time away
from the general student population anyway and Luna mostly tuned out the
whispering. Ginny had been the one to tell them about pertinent rumors
the previous years, but she was the unknowing instigator in this case.
Currently, the two were giving more fire to those rumors with what had
become their almost daily sessions in the Room of Requirement.
Harry had built up some endurance and gotten enough of a handle on his
footwork that he wasn't crashing to the floor all the time, but he still
got hit with plenty of spells. The fact that Luna's accuracy and speed
were improving alongside his dodging skills also had something to do with
that.
He still had trouble getting off a spell while staying in motion though.
The mental flexibility required to think of offense while evading attack
simply eluded him.
Harry clenched his jaw as another stinging hex hit his thigh, frustrated
more than in pain. He barely felt the sting through his magic resistance,
but felt it he did. This would be so much easier with a wand. Just wave
it through the air and think about what you wanted and it would happen,
barely any thinking required. No wonder wizards had become so dependent
on them.
The next three spells he dodged, but found himself too unbalanced and out
of position to manage with the fourth. He instinctively used his arm as a
shield. The stinging hex bounced off his arm as it hit and went sailing
back towards Luna, forcing his friend to jump out of the way of her own
spell.
Harry grinned at the event as Luna righted herself. That kind of thing
had been happening with increasing regularity. He may not have managed to
cast anything offensive while dodging, but it had done wonders for his
ability to conjure up shields. At this rate he'd be soon able to
wandlessly create shields with ease. It was limited to his arms for now
since that was the first bodypart that came to mind as a means of
shielding, but he was sure that he would eventually be able to manage it
elsewhere. It wouldn't make him invulnerable to spells since some were
too powerful to block like that, but being able to deflect low tier
offensive spells like this would still be useful.
"More?" Luna asked with a smile as she righted herself.
Harry brushed a few rebellious strands of hair out of his face and
nodded, preparing himself for another round of dodging.
Then both of their heads snapped towards the side when one of the
communication mirrors began vibrating.
"Timeout I guess." He said and went to answer. "Hey, Penny."
"Was I interrupting something?" The former Ravenclaw asked with a raised

eyebrow, seeing that Harry was a bit flushed and had a light sheen of
sweat on his face.
"Good evening, Penelope." Luna said as she sat down next to Harry so that
she could see into the mirror.
Penny blinked, seeing that her fellow blonde had a similar look of slight
dishevelment to her. What in the world had they been up to? Probably best
not to ask.
"Hello, Luna." She said and got right to the point. "I have the
information you asked for on the Tri-Wizard Tournament."
"Nice, let's hear it.
"It was first conceived just over seven hundred years ago as a peaceful
means of determining which of the three magical schools of the time was
the best." Penny began, her tone turning wry at the end. "Apparently,
relations between Hogwarts, Durmstrang and Beauxbatons was quite a bit
more hostile in those days and it wasn't unheard of for arguments to be
settled with violence. The winner of the tournament would essentially get
bragging rights and the prestige of being known as the next up and coming
witch or wizard."
"But then it got cancelled because of the death toll." Harry said with a
nod, having heard that much already.
"Yes, once the Ministries of Magic started showing up, regulating magic
use and making the separation between the magical and muggle worls more
stringent, the number of random magical duels started declining rapidly.
When all three champions got killed in 1792, it was determined that it
was too brutal a competition for the times."
"So why would they bring it back?" Harry asked.
"No idea." Penny shrugged. "I asked a few people in the Ministry and they
essentially told me that Ludo Bagman had gotten it into his head to
resurrect it and managed to convince the right people."
"Did you learn anything about the selection process?" Harry asked, an
idea forming. Dumbledore had only said that the choosing would be
impartial.
"I did actually. They use a magical artefact called the Goblet of Fire to
determine who's worthy to be chosen as a champion."
"Goblet of Fire?"
"A joint project between the Headmasters of the three schools for the
fifth tournament to ensure that only the most capable would be able to
compete. They used a lottery system of sorts before that, but decided
that a better arbiter was needed since it got weak wizards picked more
than once. Entering your name constitutes a binding magical contract with
the Goblet to compete on pain of losing your magic, or death in other
words. It's also been considered as a rite of adulthood in the old days
because you're essentially taking your life into your own hands by
entering your name." Penny explained.
"So if I were to enter my name, I'd be considered a legal adult?" Harry

asked contemplatively. His status as a minor hadn't been a huge problem
lately since he now had Sirius to act in his name if he needed it, but he
was getting antsy to take a look at the Potter family vault in Gringotts.
"Only if your name gets picked, and you'd still exist in a sort of legal
limbo until the tournament is finished. Apparently it doesn't come into
effect until the end to avoid unnecessary paperwork just in case you die
before that." Penny explained and then frowned at him. "You aren't
actually thinking of entering are you?"
"I am." Harry admitted.
"But isn't entry restricted to people who've already had their

seventeenth birthday?"
"So?"
"Harry, don't do anything stupid." Penny sighed, looking worried. "This

tournament is dangerous."
That just made it more attractive for him. Doing something dangerous in a
semi-controlled environment sounded exactly like what he needed if he
wanted to be more prepared for the next group of belligerent wizards with
a grudge. He might not be getting XP points from it, but experience with
dangerous situations was certain to be even more valuable.
"I'll be careful." He assured her.
"But you're still going to enter." She said flatly.
"Yes."
"Fine." Penny sighed. She'd gotten quite fond of Harry lately and didn't
want to see him getting hurt, but she knew that he was a lot more
stubborn than you'd give him credit for at first. "I also have the
details for transfering money out of Gringotts."
Harry's eyebrows climbed up his forehead at Penny's terse tone as she

said that. She must have found something unpleasant, which wouldn't be a
surprise with goblins involved.
"So, how is it done?"

"It isn't." She said flatly. "Gringotts money isn't a valid currency
anywhere except for places with another Gringotts bank, which means
anywhere outside of Europe , India or Egypt. Places like the United
States, Australia, South America and basically any magical country that
isn't a member of the ICW have their own currency. It's even considered
an international felony for anyone but a goblin to melt down the coins."
"You have got to be shitting me." Harry stated, stunned. He'd expected
that the diminutive little bastards would have some kind of crap going
on, but this? "But wait, couldn't I just turn all the gold into muggle
money and transfer it that way?"
"You could, but you'd have to do it a rate of a hundred galleons per day
unless you want to be charged a 80% fee for the service."
"80%!?" Harry exclaimed in shock. "What kind of insane rate is that?!"
"From what I can tell it's a transparent ploy by the goblins rob anyone
that tries to stop using their services." Penny said with a slight scowl
of her own. "You can withdraw all of your gold if you want, but large
scale transactions always go through Gringotts and have unreal fees
attached to them if only one side has their gold inside the bank, plus
you don't get the benefit of having it protected. And of course, it's
illegal to conduct any transaction larger than a hundred galleons without
Gringotts as a middle man. The people in the Goblin Liasons Department
won't openly admit it, but the goblins have had a deathgrip on the
European magical world's economy ever since the last war. The entire
system is designed to maintain the goblin monopoly on gold."
"Awesome." Harry sighed sarcastically. That explained a lot. The little

fuckers were a hundred times worse than the dwarves in Lord of the Rings.
They'd have kept digging even if they knew there was a Balrog waiting for
them. He hadn't realized the true depth of their greed until now. No
wonder that Gorefist had been so angry when he'd threatened to empty his
vault back at the end of first year. Even if the gold had nowhere else to
go than Gringotts, it wouldn't be in Gorefist's keeping anymore. Damn
goblins would probably sooner sacrifice their firstborn than a pile of
gold. The Americans had definitely been on to something when they'd wiped
them out on their shores.
XXXXX
The second Saturday after the start of term.
Harry had a problem. He was debilitatingly aroused.
He knew it sounded funny, but it was true. It hadn't been a problem at

first, but the longer he went without sex, the more distracted he was
getting. He couldn't sit still long enough to read a book. He couldn't
focus enough to brew a potion. His runes itched all the time, his magic
was restless and he was sporting a semi-permanent erection. Luna wasn't
helping the situation at all by crawling into his bed every night.
This wasn't exactly a new problem. He'd had the same issue in the period
between the end of third year and the first time he'd slept with Dora, it
just hadn't been this bad. The difference was that he was rather more
attached to his girlfriend than he had been to Bryanna and Tiana. His
occasional attempt to harvest the power of the Sun without losing himself
was also supercharging his runes. And of course, he now also had a girl
who was not quite woman but not quite a child either snuggling him every
night. Naked.
Talking to Dora over the mirror didn't really help. In fact, it was
making things even worse since she'd caught on to his problem and started
teasing him over it a few days ago.
It was for these reasons that a raven flew out of the Hogwarts wards on
this particular evening. He knew where a certain Metamorphmagus lived and
wasn't afraid of dropping by unannounced.
XXXXX
Nymphadora Tonks was not having a great day. It had been exhausting from
start to finish.
She'd had the morning shift and as a result been up far earlier than she
would have liked. Then she'd spent a sleep inducing hour finishing a
report that she should have done yesterday. Then Robards had sent her to
break up a domestic disturbance between a pissed off witch, her husband
and their attractive and lonely muggle neighbour. Telling a pissed off
witch that she couldn't turn people, especially unaware muggles, into
slugs was always so much fun. That stupid tradition of giving the rookie
all the shit jobs was also grand. It had taken hours to do the paperwork
from that debacle, what with the violations to the Statute of Sececy, the
illegal use of magic and the need for Obliviators.
When she'd finally gotten home, she had just enough energy to grab a
plate of yesterday's leftovers that she'd put under a stasis spell, plop
herself in front of the telly and let it lull her into a state of torpor
as she ate.
A few hours later, she woke up with a crick in her neck and a head
feeling like it was wrapped in cotton. She got up with a groan, knowing
that she was going to have a devil of a time falling asleep later when
she actually needed to.
I wonder what Harry's doing? She thought and briefly considered using the
mirror he'd given her to call him before dismissing it. She'd just talked
to him yesterday and had no desire to be one of those clingy girls who
used every spare moment to badger their boyfriends, doubly so since she
was so much older than him. And it wasn't his job to keep her entertained
anyway.
But she missed the cheeky brat. She didn't really have an abundance of
friends thanks to her choice of career and she'd gotten used to having
him around. None of her coworkers were also friends outside of the job
and her Hogwarts friends had long since drifted away to do their own
thing while she was training with Moody. Harry was young enough to not be
a stick in the mud and mature enough to not be childish. And it helped
that he was great in the sack. Very important that.
Despite laughing it off a couple of weeks ago, she was a bit worried that
he would find someone else to keep him company at night. There'd be no
shortage of willing witches throwing themselves at him if he let it be
known that he was looking, that was for sure. The fact that he'd turned
down two such offers before did a lot to assuage that concern, but it
didn't get rid of it. Harry certainly wouldn't be the first or last
person whose libido got the better of them during a long separation.
I need to stop moping. Tonks decided only to continue the thought

sarcastically. But the day is just so perfect for it!
And it was. Aside from a more tedious than normal day at work, the
weather had stayed at a dispirited drizzle the entire time. It was the
kind of weather that could make you fall asleep out of sheer lethargy.
Maybe I really should get a computer, if only to see what the hype is all
about.
Harry had mentioned that he was considering having Potter Manor renovated
and electrical wiring installed. The problem with that idea was that it
was warded to keep the non-magical away and he wasn't sure if there was
enough magic around the old manor house to make electronics go screwy
like they did in Hogwarts over time. It hadn't happened to his laptop so
far, but there was no guarantee that it wouldn't happen to the wiring.
Tonks didn't have that problem since she lived in a perfectly mundane
apartment complex in London. It wasn't the best of living spaces and
paying the rent and picking up her owl post in Diagon Alley was a bit of
a chore, but it got her out from under her parents roof and she liked the
various perks of the Muggle World too much to live in a purely magical
household. You couldn't get Chinese takeout delivered for one thing.
A knock had her head snapping towards the door.
"Coming!" She called out cheerily, moving towards it. It was too early
for the landlord to be collecting rent, which meant that it was probably
one of her parents. Or both of them. They could be annoying sometimes in
the that typical way that only parents dropping in unannounced on their
adult children could manage, but right now she was just glad for the
distraction.
She was almost at the door when she started feeling strangely...horny.
Hardly the typical reaction to having your parents come over and Tonks
shifted akwardly in an attempt to tamp down on the heat blooming between
her legs before she opened the door.
"Harry?" She blurted out in surprise, seeing her boyfriend standing there
when he should have been way up in northern Scotland. He was slightly
damp, clearly having been exposed to the rain for a short while.
He didn't say anything, electing to simply grab her and pull her into a
kiss.
Tonks made a noise of surprise into his mouth that quickly turned into a
moan. The earlier arousal that had come seemingly out of nowhere flared
in strength, leaving her feeling as if a thick blanket of desire was
pulled over her.
It didn't matter anymore how he was here, all that mattered was that he
was and that he wanted her. She barely registered anything as he kicked
the door closed and they stumbled their way towards her bedroom. She'd
been handling their separation just fine despite missing him, but now
that he was here she was desperate to feel him inside her again.
By the time that they reached her small, one person bed they were
completely naked and fell into it eagerly, more than ready to skip right
to the main event.
Which was why Tonks was extremely irritated to feel something digging
into her back and forcing her attention away from the impending sex.
"Just a sec." She grunted and reached under herself to remove the
offending object. "Aha!"
Her triumphant expression swiftly turned embarrassed as she realized that

she was holding up Mr. Purple as if it was some kind of prize. To
compound the situation, the enchanted dildo started wiggling around and
vibrating.
"Impressive." Harry deadpanned. It was a rather large dildo.
She just knew that her hair and face had to be tomato red about now, so
she grabbed the back of his head and pulled him into another kiss. Sex
was a surefire way to get past an akward situation.
XXXXX
Later.
The sweaty lovers lay on the small-ish bed, Tonks on her stomach and
Harry on Tonks, taking deep, calming breaths as their lust abated for the
moment.
"Bloody hell, I needed that." The Metamorphmagus sighed, cheek pressed

into the matress and just enjoying the feeling of having her young lover
on her and in her.
"You aren't the only one." Harry murmured, nibbling on her ear and
delighting in the shiver it elicited from her. "I was getting so horny I
could barely think."
"I noticed." She chuckled. Her earlier concerns about him cheating on her
seemed so silly now. "You skipped right over the foreplay."
"That's what you get for jilling yourself over the mirror."
"You could've looked away."
"As if!" Harry scoffed.
"Then don't complain." Tonks laughed.
"I'll show you a complaint." Harry growled playfully and began focusing.
"What are you on about?" She asked warily, feeling...something.
"You'll see." He said mysteriously. It was almost sundown, but he could

still draw in a bit of Light.
Tonks felt herself flush with sudden arousal, far too sudden and powerful
to be natural.
"What is this?" She gasped, subconsciously bucking her hips towards him
in the hope that he would put his revitalized erection to good use.
"Just a little trick." He murmured into her ear, continuing to mingle his
Light infused magic with hers, knowing exactly what effect it would have.
He'd seen it happen with the veela at the World Cup, though that had been
subtler and much longer ranged.
Tonks began wiggling insistently, barely holding back a needy whimper as

her loins burned with desire. She had no idea what he was doing, but if
he didn't start moving soon she mFor Love of Magic
by Noodlehammer
A different upbringing leaves Harry Potter with an early knowledge of

magic and a view towards the Wizarding World not as an escape from the
Dursleys, but as an opportunity to learn more about it. Unfortunately, he
quickly finds that there are many elements in this new world that are
unwilling to leave the Boy-Who-Lived alone.
Rated: Fiction M - English - Harry P. - Chapters: 39 - Words: 546,280 -

Reviews: 6,661 - Favs: 6,559 - Follows: 7,480 - Updated: 6/4 - Published:
12/15/2015 - id: 11669575
URL: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11669575
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
1. Chapter 1
2. Chapter 2
3. Chapter 3
4. Chapter 4
5. Chapter 5
6. Chapter 6
7. Chapter 7
8. Chapter 8
9. Chapter 9
10. Chapter 10
11. Chapter 11
12. Chapter 12
13. Chapter 13
14. Chapter 14
15. Chapter 15
16. Chapter 16
17. Chapter 17
18. Chapter 18
19. Chapter 19
20. Chapter 20
21. Chapter 21
22. Chapter 22
23. Chapter 23
24. Chapter 24
25. Chapter 25
26. Chapter 26
27. Chapter 27
28. Chapter 28
29. Chapter 29
30. Chapter 30
31. Chapter 31
32. Chapter 32
33. Chapter 33
34. Chapter 34
35. Chapter 35
36. Chapter 36
37. Chapter 37
38. Chapter 38
39. Chapter 39
Chapter 1
OBLIGATORY DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything except the fanfic itself. The
cake is a fake and the pie is a lie.
So this is my attempt at a new fanfic instead of yet another Naruto

crossover with the same characters I've been using for the past two
years. For those of you who actually wanted me to do that, sorry xD. I
might go back to that every once in a while, but for now I'm going to try
my hand at this and see what happens.
One of the first things you will note in this fic is the fact that I've
moved up the HP timeline by twenty years. This was mostly done because I
don't want to break my mind trying to remember what the world was like in
the 90s, just in case a need to actually do so comes up. I was just a wee
lad at the time, and not one that paid much attention to his
surroundings.
Another thing is that there are no pairings listed. This is done on

purpose, because even I don't know who Harry will end up with, if he will
even end up with anyone. I do have certain females in mind, but I tend to
make things up as I go rather than having it planned, so nothing is for
sure. Please don't ask me about pairings in reviews or in PM's, it will
just make me feel bad about ignoring you.
I will try to avoid fanfiction cliches, but considering how many of them
there are, it's probably inevitable that I'll use a few. I will try to
avoid bashing any characters for example, even though some of them make
it way too easy.
Extra special thanks go to Joe Lawyer, who agreed to act as a beta and
helped me improve this chapter to the point where it actually felt worth
uploading.
Minor thanks go to kishinokurobi, whose sarcastic feedback in poorly

typed out English that was worthy of an American stereotype served to
amuse me. It also gave me a second opinion that the first chapter wasn't
totally horrible, but the amusement was more important.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
On November 1st, 2001, wizards and witches all across Britain and even
Europe were celebrating the fall of the Dark Lord Voldemort the previous
night. Most of the credit for this was falling on the shoulders of Harry
Potter, toddler extraordinare. The logical incongruity of a year old baby
defeating a full fledged Dark Lord was ignored in the wave of relief at
the unexpected turn of good fortune.
Albus Dumbledore was one of the few who were not celebrating. He strongly
suspected that Voldemort was not truly dead and he knew the prophecy.
Harry Potter had to be kept safe from the retaliation of his former
student's supporters. He also knew that Killing Curses did not get
reflected on fits of whimsy. Indeed, they were not supposed to get
reflected at all.
The magical backlash of what happened had wiped away all traces of
evidence that could be used to determine the truth of events, but he
strongly suspected the machinations of Harry's parents to be the cause.
Or at the very least, the machinations of Lily Potter. Alas, he would
likely never know for certain what kind of protection had been invoked.
What he did know however, was that the protection still lingered in young
Harry Potter's blood. That could be used to keep the boy safe until it
was time for him to come to Hogwarts. He would still need to consider the
implications of the shard of Voldemort's soul that was lodged in the
lightning bolt scar, but he fortunately had time to do that instead of
needing to make rash decisions.
Though it pained him to do it, he drained Lily Potter's still cooling

body of blood and used it to establish a powerful blood ward around the
residence of Petunia Dursley, forging a bond between Lily's squib sister
and young Harry that would anchor the ward without need for a heart stone
or ley line.
He obliviated this knowledge from the minds of the Dursleys, rightfully

assuming that they would not be happy about his actions.
Then he left the newly orphaned baby on their doorstep with a note and
left, certain that Harry Potter would be well cared for and safe until it
was time for him to rejoin the Wizarding World.
It should be noted that Dumbledore had aquired several cognitive

deficiences over the course of his long life. The two that were relevant
in this situation was his certainty that he always knew best and his
unwillingness to understand that people could have any other feelings
aside from love for their family.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Vernon and Petunia Dursley were none too pleased at the disruptive
addition to their comfortable normalcy. They knew Harry was a wizard and
loathed what he represented, which easily transferred to the boy himself.
Dudley, being an impressionable child, picked up on this and emulated it.
To be fair, there had been a chance for things to go better. After all,
Harry was only a small child and any person who was not completely
soulless would have their heart softened in the presence of an innocent
baby. Perhaps he would not have been treated quite as well as Dudley and
would always know that he had been an unwelcome addition to the family,
but he would have been raised with more kindness than many received.
But Harry was a magical child and things happened when he got upset.
Small children got upset often and that was without the added trauma of
seeing their mother murdered right in front of them, even if he was too
young to understand what had happened or to truly remember it.
With every occurence of something levitating to his hands because he

wanted it or food being banished because he didn't want it, the fragile
tolerance of the Dursleys diminished. This led to harsher treatment that
in turn led to more distress for Harry and to ever more instances of
accidental magic in a vicious, self-perpetuating cycle.
It came to a head one day when Harry was six. Dudley was picking on him
as he often did and Harry was both frightened and angry. In a fit of
prepubescent rage, he wanted Dudley to be hurt just like he was being
hurt. The already obese boy was launched across the room, breaking one of
Petunia's favorite lamps and cutting Dudely up bad enough that he would
need stitches, as well as leaving him badly bruised.
That proved to be the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back. The
very next day, Vernon took a day off from work and drove Harry to an
orphanage in London. He didn't even bother speaking to the people in
charge, merely ordering him out of the car and telling him to knock on
the door, accompanied by harsh warnings to never reveal who he'd been
living with until then.
Harry had been honestly terrified at the purple faced rage on Vernon's
face, so he obeyed.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Harry had been tentatively hopeful about his new lot in life at first.
Yes, it was an orphanage and he'd been told some horror stories about it,
but at least the people here wouldn't hate him the way he could remember
the Dursleys doing for his whole life. They wouldn't hit him for any
infraction, perceived or imagined, or deny him food out of some vain hope
to get rid of his 'freakishness'. Hopefully.
That hope didn't last more than a couple of days.
Young children were incredibly selfish creatures, not possessing much

empathy and prone to thoughtless cruelty for the most inane of reasons. A
strangely shaped scar on one's forehead was more than enough reason to
turn just another orphan into a target.
Despite his previous experiences and his desire to not worsen the
situation for himself, the outbursts of accidental magic resumed.
Unfortunately, the age of six was not characterized by robust emotional
strength, so this was more or less inevitable. It didn't take long until
the matron of the orphanage learned of these supernatural events.
The woman was old and very strict. She had to be to manage several dozen
children at her age. More importantly, she was very religious and quickly
classified Harry's bursts of accidental magic as witchcraft. Correct
though she was, it did not make Harry's life any easier.
It did give Harry some idea of what these strange occurences were though.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
About a year after Harry's arrival in the orphanage, he ended up being

adopted.
A rich couple by the name of Robert and Katherine Shaw came by, looking
for a child to adopt. They were instantly taken by Harry's emerald green
eyes and raven black hair. The lightning bolt scar did bother them a bit,
but not enough to detract from his other features and even that seemed to
pass once they learned he'd gotten it in the car crash that killed his
parents.
Though excited by the possibility of having a real family, Harry retained

enough learned cynicism to be distrustful of his sudden good fortune.
It quickly became obvious to him that the Shaws wanted a status symbol
rather than a son, which was the entire reason they had been so careful
to pick a boy with striking features. Even the scar was something that
could be used as a conversational segue into a bit of subtle bragging
about how they had taken in an orphan that had lost his parents in such a
horrible way.
He ate what he was told to eat, partook in activities they told him to
partake in, studied hard in school and with the tutors they hired for him
and smiled at people that he was told to smile at, even though he would
like nothing better than to go somewhere that he could be alone.
There was little in the way of parental affection involved, but Harry had
already lowered his expectations in life considerably by that point. He
ate well, was not hit or berated for things he had no control over and
there were no other children around to pick on him. It was the best he'd
ever had it and didn't want to go back. The matron at the orphanage had
made no mention of his magic to the Shaws and Harry had no intention of
doing so either. Others knowing about it had always brought him trouble.
In his free time he researched mythology, read fantasy books, or played

role playing games on his computer.
And when he was alone, he practiced his magic.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
To: Harry Potter
Harry's bedroom
74 Cromwell Road
Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London.
Albus Dumbledore stared uncomprehendingly at the adress on Harry Potter's

Hogwarts acceptance letter. That was not anywhere close to Privet Drive
in Surrey. What in the world was the Boy-Who-Lived doing in one of the
most affluent areas of muggle Londom and how had he gotten there?
If he hadn't taken a peek at the automatically written letter out of

curiousity, he wouldn't have even known it. This was something that bore
investigation and then an extended period of pondering on the acquired
information. Clearly, simply sending the letter was not an option. A
teacher would have to go and make the visit personally, but who to send?
Though he had faith that Severus would not let his grudge towards James
Potter affect his conduct towards the man's son, the taciturn Potions
Master had long made it clear that he would not have any more interaction
with children than was absolutely necessary.
Filius would have no idea how to navigate muggle London and neither would
a large part of the remaining staff for that matter. Oh, they would find
the house just fine, but they would be too conspicuous.
Hagrid was out of the question for the same reason. Subtlety was not the
half giant's forte.
That essentially left himself and Minerva, and the Headmaster could not
show such blatant interest in a particular child.
Minerva was not going to be pleased with him and would no doubt once
again have some choice words to say about his decision to place Harry
with the Dursleys, but she would at least be happy to see the son of her
favorite students.
He could find out what sequence of events led to the current situation
from her, or failing that by paying a discreet visit to 74 Cromwell Road
himself.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"Is this some kind of joke?" Robert Shaw asked flatly, putting down the
Hogwarts letter.
Minerva McgGonnagal ruthlessly kept herself from shifting uncomfortably

in the obviously expensive sitting room she was in.
These two rich muggles had regarded her with thinly veiled disapproval
that was eerily similar to what a traditionalist pureblood family might
give a muggleborn ever since she had shown up on their doorstep. Well,
that was not entirely true. It was not as intense, nor as obviously
discourteus, but it was clear that they didn't like her.
She wasn't normally the type to be made uncomfortable by having snobbish

behavior aimed at her, or to tolerate it for that matter, but this was a
special case.
These were apparently Harry Potter's foster parents and it made her skin
crawl to think of the beautiful baby she remembered growing up to be a
self-entitled brat like she suspected the Malfoy scion was going to be.
Though the lad himself seemed more curious than judgemental. His hair was
cut fairly short, openly displaying his scar and a lot more tame than
that of his father. He didn't seem to have inherited James' poor eyesight
either, but his face was very similar. His eyes shone a bright green just
like his mother's.
"I assure you, it is no joke." She replied stiffly. "Mr. Potter has been
enrolled in Hogwarts by his parents before their deaths and has a place
waiting for him."
The Shaws still looked sceptical.
"Would a demonstration convince you?" She asked, getting tentative nods

in return.
Thinking it better to do something more minor than tranfiguring a piece

of furniture into an animal, she took out her wand and levitated an empty
tea cup.
The Shaw's stared in shock at the levitating bit of procelain.
"I see." Mr. Shaw said weakly. His wife merely looked stunned.
"Did my parents really die in a car crash?" Harry inquired politely.
"A car crash?!" Minerva spluttered. "Of all the...they most certainly did
not!"
"How did they die then?"
Minerva held back a grimace. She'd been so outraged at the notion of a

powerful pair of magicals like James and Lily dying in something as
mundane as a muggle car crash that she hadn't even considered that she
would now need to explain to him that they had been murdered by a Dark
Lord.
And so the whole sordid tale came out. Minerva could clearly see that the
Shaw's were discomfited by it, but Harry offered little reaction aside
from occasionally asking a question. In turn, Minerva learned how Harry
had come into the care of his foster parents. Hearing that she'd been
even more right about the Dursleys than she'd known when she'd warned
Dumbledore against placing him there nearly had her going into a proper
Scottish rage, but the fact that he was away from them now calmed her
down somewhat.
She would still be having some very strong words with Albus on the
subject however.
Despite learning about magic, the Shaws were far from sold on the idea of
letting Harry go to Hogwarts even though his tuition had already been
paid for. They seemed quite set on the idea of sending him off to a
muggle university instead of having him learn magic, despite Minerva's
best efforts to convince them otherwise.
It was only upon her reluctant admittance that they would have their
memories of this conversation removed if Harry did not go that they
subsided. That was not a part of Wizarding culture that Minerva was proud
of, but they couldn't just let any muggles who refused their child's
Hogwarts invitation know about magic.
She was even less proud of the fact that she knew that the Boy-Who-Lived
would never be allowed the choice to stay away from the magical world. He
was simply too high profile and there was no doubt in her mind that the
Minister of Magic would use some kind of legal loophole to have him
removed from the care of the Shaws if he did not come willingly. The
consequences of that decision did not bear thinking about.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"The Dursleys abandoned him in an orphanage?" Dumbledore asked in

disbelief.
"I told you they were the worst kind of muggles!" Minerva spat. "I told
you that it was a mistake to leave him there."
Dumbledore sighed regretfully. Truly, there had been little choice in the
matter. Harry had been safest there, and he had to be kept away from the
Wizarding World. Both of those were paramount. He could only hope that he
would not have another Tom Riddle on his hands.
"At least it all turned out well." He said. "What is he like?"

"Polite and well mannered." She answered, a small frown still on her
face. "He was interested in learning magic, though his foster parents
were clearly not so taken with it. I have already told him that I would
be returning in a few days to escort him on his first trip to Diagon
Alley."
"I could have Hagrid escort young Harry, I know that you are busy."
Dumbledore offered.
"Absolutely not!" McGonagall near snapped. "Good man though he is, Hagrid
is in no way a suitable choice for introducing someone to magic and Mr.
Potter is for all intents and purposes a muggleborn."
Dumbledore suppressed a frown. He had some tests planned for Harry and
there was certain information that the boy needed to come across in order
for that to work. But no matter, he could work around his deputy easily
enough. He would just need to carefully time when to send Hagrid to pick
up the Philosopher's Stone.
"Very well, if you feel you can fit another trip to Diagon Alley into
your schedule, then by all means."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"This is the entrance to Diagon Alley?"
Minerva smiled slightly at the confused tone in Harry's voice. She

supposed that the Leaky Cauldron really did look a bit dingy compared to
the surrounding buildings.
"Indeed Mr. Potter." She confirmed. "Remember that you are quite famous
in the Wizarding World. I would suggest that you put that cap of yours
on."
Harry grimaced a bit but put the generic cap on his head. It would do a
good enough job of hiding his scar to prevent a scene from happening. He
was a bit dubious about this supposed fame of his, but wasn't willing to
chance it in case the stern professor wasn't exaggerating.
They passed through the Leaky Cauldron without incident and were soon in
Diagon Alley proper.
If not for the robes everyone was wearing, Harry would have though they'd
stepped back in time. The Alley itself featured a cobblestone road that
was far too narrow to be modern and a variety of similarly smallish
buildings selling all manner of strange things.
"Come along Mr. Potter, our first stop is Gringotts, the wizard's bank."
McGonagall said quietly, not wanting to give away his identity.
"What are those?" He asked with surprise as he saw a pair of obviously

non-human guards.
"Goblins." She answered shortly. "A clever folk, and good with money.
They are not the most pleasant sort, nor fond of wizards, but treat them
respectfully and you should be fine."
Harry nearly stopped to stare at her incredulously. Goblin bankers? That

was quite the departure from the fantasy stereotype of stupid, smelly
creature that were typically used as cannon fodder. They were probably
even more vicious though. Even human bankers were generally more vicious
than a fantasy goblin; a fantasy goblin would just kill you, but a banker
would take everything you own and make you kill yourself. That was what
he'd gathered from the occasional grumbling of his foster father at any
rate.
"Professor McGonagall!" A booming, jovial voice called out. "Fancy

meetin' you here."
"Hagrid." Minerva greeted, giving the half-giant a small smile. "Are you
heading to Gringotts as well?"
"Aye, Dumbledore's got me pickin' up the You-Know-What in vault seven

hundred and thirteen." Hagrid said with a sense of pride before looking
at Harry. "Is this...?"
McGonagall wanted to palm her face at the casual way that the big man was
blurting out secrets in the middle of the street. Why the Headmaster
trusted him to do something as important as picking up the Philosopher's
Stone she had no idea. Hagrid would certainly do the job, but he was
liable to inform everyone he came across what he was doing without even
realizing it.
"Yes Hagrid, it is." McGonagall said sternly, willing him to pick up on

her desire to keep quiet.
Alas, the effort was wasted on the half-giant.
"I haven't seen yeh since you were a wee baby." Hagrid said emotionally.
"When I picked yeh up from-"
"Hagrid!" The transfiguration professor hissed, seeing that merely

hinting wasn't going to cut it if they wanted to avoid having him
inadvertently inform the whole street of Harry's identity.
"Wha-oh!" Hagrid's eyes widened, finally realizing the need for some
subtlety. "Err, right. Name's Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of the keys and
Grounds at Hogwarts. Look forward to seein' you there come September
first."
"Pleasure meeting you." Harry said politely, wondering how exactly this
huge man had known him as a baby.
The three of them went into the bank together, with Hagrid quickly
splitting off on his own to finish the errand he'd been sent to do.
"What's the You-Know-What?" Harry asked, not really expecting an answer.

"Never you mind." McGonagall said quickly.
Harry simply nodded. Obviously, they weren't going to tell an eleven year
old if they were being so cryptic in the first place. It almost felt like
the start of a side-quest, but that was ridiculous and probably a result
of one too many RPGs being played. Real life didn't have quest cues for
player characters.
Teacher and prospective student stepped up to one of the numerous goblin

tellers.
"Greetings, Mr. Potter here needs to make a withdrawal from his trust
vault." McGonagall said, already presenting a golden key.
"Excuse me, trust vault?" Harry interjected, latching on to the words.

"Does that mean that there is also a main vault."
"Of course, but you will not have access to it until you are of age." The
goblin teller replied, his tone implying that Harry was annoying him.
Harry was much too excited by the idea to care about that though, and
merely pressed on with his line of questioning. "Would it be possible to
discuss my account with whoever is managing it?"
"There really is no need for this, Mr. Potter." MyGonnagal tried to

dissuade him. "Your trust vault will be more than sufficient for your
school supplies, likely for all seven years of them."
He would not be put off though. This inheritance represented financial

independence and therefore freedom from Robert and Katherine Shaw. Life
with them was not terrible, but if given the choice to get away from them
and live on his own, he would barely even bother saying goodbye. He had a
closer relationship with the cleaning lady that came by once a week.
You would think that they would start to feel some affection for each
other over the past few years, but that was just not happening. The Shaws
were ambitious social climbers that were only married as a business
arrangement that benefited them both. Expecting them to suddenly develop
parental feelings was futile and kept their interactions decidedly cool.
Cordial, but cool. Even the LASIK eye surgery they had insisted he get
had been motivated more by their ambitions than any concern about his
vision, the fact that they had handwaved any possible risk had
demonstrated that quite clearly. What they had was a relationship of
mutual exploitation and nothing more. He played the part of the adopted
son with the tragic backstory that did the best he could. In exchange he
lived in comfort and was left alone to do his own thing when they didn't
need him for something.
So no, there was simply no way in Hell that he was missing out on an
opportunity to find out as much as possible about whatever inheritance
his real parents had left him.
"I'm the only Potter left, aren't I?" He challenged. "It's only right
that I take an interest in the family finances."
McGonagall pursed her lips, obviously disapproving. Either because she

thought it was unnecessary or because she thought that an eleven year old
had no business trying to manage a wealthy family estate, Harry couldn't
say.
There was a hint of approval in the goblin's reply though. "Wait here, I
will inquire if the account manager for the Potters has time to meet with
you."
"Thank you." Harry said sincerely, getting an inscrutably gruesome smile

in return.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
As luck would have it, the Potter account manager did have time. He was
an older goblin by the name of Gorefist, the implications of which had
Harry wondering if banking was their day job and slaughtering peasants
just a hobby. He really, really wanted to ask, but figured it would be a
bad idea to possibly offend the person in charge of his money.
"I must admit that I am surprised that you would want to speak to me
already, Mr. Potter." Gorefist began. "After all, you cannot touch any of
the Potter finances aside from those in your trust vault until you are of
age, something that I am certain you were informed of by the teller."
Harry heard the implicit 'Why are you wasting my time?'.
"I don't suppose there is any way to...accelerate...my coming of age?" He

inquired.
Gorefist looked at him as if he was an idiot.
"Mr. Potter, we are a bank, not a government office. You could of course
ask to go through the goblin trials of adulthood, if you wished to do so.
That we could offer you."
Something about Gorefist's words and expression made Harry doubt the
wisdom of this.
"I get the feeling that these trials were not designed with humans in
mind and would likely be hazardous to my health, so I'm afraid that I'll
have to decline."
Gorefist barked an amused laugh. "Hah, you are surprisingly sensible for
a wizard. Did you have any other clever ideas for prematurely getting
your hands on your inheritance, or are you quite finished wasting both
our time?"
"I would like an accounting of the Potter family assets." Harry insisted.
"Very well." Gorefist grumbled, taking some documents out of his desk.
"The Potter family liquid assets amount to 343,709 galleons and an exta
one thousand on your trust vault. The main vault also holds assorted
heirlooms and artefacts acquired over the years."
"Is there an inventory of these items?" Harry interjected eagerly, his

mind on all the cool enchanted gear that might be in there.
"No. Gringotts merely stores the items, we do not care what they are."
"I see." Harry said, disappointed.
Gorefist paid him no mind as he continued to speak. "Of the land

holdings, Potter Manor is all that remains. It has lain empty since the
deaths of your paternal grandparents."
Harry was happy to learn that he had a whole manor to himself. He knew
that he wouldn't be able to move into it alone, but it was good to have a
place. Something was bothering him about all this though. All that money
couldn't exist in a vacuum, there had to be some sort of business
involved.
"Does the Potter family own any kind of business venture?" He inquired.
"Not anymore." Gorefist said bluntly. "As the name implies, your family
used to produce various pottery, both artistic and practical. They also
owned a reasonably sized vineyard."
"What happened to to them? Did they go bankrupt?" Harry asked.
"Not as such." Gorefist grunted. "The Parkinson family made overtures to

buy both after the death of Charlus Potter, to which the managers at the
time agreed. With your father in hiding, he was unaware of this and could
not contest it."
"I see." Harry said again, frowning. He would have to find out about
these Parkinsons.
"I can do whatever I want with my trust vault, is that right?"
"It is."
"Is the gold in my trust vault a fixed amount or does it get periodically
replenished?"
"The latter. It is filled up to one thousand galleons on every birthday

until you become of age."
"Then I would like to move the contents of my trust vault to a new one,
and to have this repeated every year."
Gorefist raised an eyebrow. While it was not exactly the height of

cunning to figure out this type of scheme(pureblood heirs thought of it
all the time), it did show that the boy had some definite plans for that
money.
"There is a substantial fee attached to such services." He said with a

cutthroat smile.
"What kind of fee?" Harry asked suspiciously.
"20%."
Harry gaped at the goblin for a moment before he regained the power of
speech. "That's as good as robbery!"
"You could also wait until you are of age." Gorefist offered, smirking at
the glower that the boy wizard was aiming at him. He would have been
willing to go lower, but he was pretty sure that the young Potter heir
was desperate enough for the money to agree even to that exorbitant fee
and Gringott's didn't do charity. Especially not for wizards.
There was a long silence before Harry gave his answer.
"I hope you enjoy the gold you extorted from an eleven year old child."
He said, his words clipped and angry.
"That is the best kind of gold." Gorefist replied, feeling quite pleased
with himself. Fleecing the idiot wizards was a favorite pastime of the
goblins. Not as good as killing them, but it was a decent enough
substitute.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
McGonagall's mood was noticeably more sour when Harry came out of
Gringott's. He got the feeling that she was a woman that was used to
getting her way with children and didn't appreciate being kept waiting.
Harry decided that he didn't like her too much. His upbringing had left
him with a distaste for bossy, authoritative people that were used to
getting their way.
Not to mention that his own mood was not exactly sunshine and daisies
after the meeting with Gorefist.
The first stop after that was Madam Malkin's Robes for all Occasions.
Despite McGonagall's warning about the effects of people seeing his scar,
Madam Malkin stayed professional. It gave him hope that it wasn't as bad
as she'd claimed.
He came out of the robe shop feeling decidedly ridiculous, but he did
blend in better now.
The trunk shop and apothecary were next, both of which passed without
incident. It was in the book shop that he once again tried the patience
of the transfiguration mistress.
"Ancient Runes and Arithmancy are electives that you can choose to take
in third year, you will not need those books before then." She was
saying.
"I'm buying them now." Harry insisted.
Ancient Runes sounded fascinating and he wanted to know what it was

about. As for Arithmancy...he'd simply never thought that math could be
applied to magic.
He wasn't a mathematical genius by any stretch, having slogged through

the material his school and tutors assigned him with the grim
determination of someone who had no choice. He had gotten good grades,
but math was simply not something that had ever interested him.
Math as it applied to magic though? That was interesting and something

that he would cheerfully dive into.
McGonagall released an impatient sigh and muttered something indistinct

about raven claws. He had no idea what that was supposed to mean, but her
attitude baffled him. Weren't teachers supposed to be happy when students
wanted to read ahead?
The book shop was also the place where he had his first encounter with
his fame, though it was not because someone had recognized him.
There were books, a whole series of books, about his supposed adventures
after the defeat of Voldemort. Obviously, these adventures were entirely
made up. He couldn't possibly have been riding a dragon at the age of
five for example.
Harry could only stare in disbelief at the assortment of books. At the

age of eleven, his knowledge of the law was not exactly extensive, but he
was pretty sure that using him as a main character in a book series
without his permission was illegal.
The knowledge that the vast majority of his inheritance would remain out
of reach for quite a few more years still fresh in his mind, Harry got an
idea about squeezing some extra money out of this situation. He promptly
added a book on wizarding law to his purchase, as well as those books
about him. For all he knew, it wasn't illegal in the Wizarding World to
pull a stunt like this, but he would definitely find out.
Though annoyed by the liberties taken by the author, if her stupidity

gave him an easy path to independent wealth, he would thank her. In the
privacy of his own thoughts. After he sued her out of house and home.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Though he had long wanted a pet, Harry did not find any animals in
Magical Menagerie that appealed to him. Maybe some other day.
The last stop of the day was the wand shop, Ollivander's. He couldn't
quite point his finger at it, but there was a kind of unidentifiable
tingle in the air.
"Good afternoon." The soft greeting came from behind, causing Harry to
give a start.
"Hello." Harry returned the greeting with akward caution. There was
something about the man and his silvery eyes that was decidedly off-
putting.
"Ah, yes. I thought I'd be seeing you soon Harry Potter." The man
continued, heedless of the discomfort.
"Must you frighten every child I bring here for a wand, Garrick?"
McGonagall asked with exasperation.
"Minerva, Minerva McGonagall. Fir with dragon heartstring, nine and a

half exceptional wand for transfiguration." Ollivander rattled off.
"Yes Garrick, I know. You tell me that every time I come here."
Harry had to suppress a smile at the weary note in the transfiguration

teacher's voice. The old wandmaker apparently enjoyed reciting that
information often.
"Well then Mr. Potter, let us find your wand." Ollivander said, handing
him a wand. "Try this one. Beechwood and dragon heartstring. Nine inches.
Nice and flexible. Give it a wave."
Harry took the wand, feeling his skin tingle where it came into contact
with the wood. He gave it a wave as instructed, feeling a little foolish.
A weak stream of multi-colored sparks streamed from the end of the wand.
"A match on the first try?" McGonagall asked in surprise.
"No, I don't think so." Ollivander said as he snatched the wand away, his
eyes suddenly calculating. "Try this one Mr. Potter. Maple and phoenix
feather..."
Harry tried it, getting a similar result. Ollivander looked as if he was

suspicious of something and Harry had the bad feeling that it was about
his attempts to cast magic wandlessly. Fortunately, the old man didn't
comment.
More wands came and went, producing varying results. Eventually they came
to a holly wand with phoenix feather that had a much stronger reaction
than any of the others so far. He felt something powerful connect to his
magic and pull on it, the wand releasing a great stream of sparks with
every movement until it settled down.
"Curious, very curious." Ollivander muttered.

"What is?" Harry asked.
"I remember every wand I've ever sold, Mr . Potter." The wandmaker said
heavily. "Every single one, and I can tell you that the phoenix who
donated the feather for that wand gave only one other. That other feather
rests in the wand that gave you that scar on your head. It is very
curious that you should be chosen by the brother wand to that of He-Who-
Must-Not-Be-Named."
Harry tried really hard not to think it, but it was useless. That sounded
undeniably like an important part of the plot for a main questline. Good
thing that the Dark Lord was dead, or he would probably end up in some
kind of predestined mission to defeat him.
Or maybe he'd played too many RPGs.
"I think we must expect great things from you Mr. Potter." Ollivander was
still saying. "After all, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did great things,
terrible yes, but great."
Somewhat unnerved by the creepy old man, Harry was still getting that
'main questline' vibe.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Harry sighed in relief as he sank into the seats of the Hogwarts Express.
Getting away from the Shaws for ten months of the year for the next seven
years sounded almost perfect. Almost, because he'd gathered that magicals
were technologically retarded and Harry had grown rather fond of his
computer and all that it provided. Living in a modern day replica of the
seventeenth century was going to be a pain.
Parchment and quills indeed! He'd bought notebooks and ballpoint pens in
bulk as soon the shopping trip with McGonagall was over. There was
tradition and then there was being stupid.
Speaking of McGonagall, Harry wondered if she even realized that she'd

been wearing a man's business suit from the fifties and a travel bag
instead of a purse on her first visit. She had made quite the impression
on the status obsessed Shaws by showing up dressed like some kind of
hipster. A bad impression that was.
Probably not, if the robes were anything to go by. Harry would admit to
having the occasional daydream of being a fantasy wizard like in one of
his games or books, flinging about bolts of fire and lightning while they
billowed around him, but the reality of wearing a robe made him feel kind
of silly.
And speaking of silly...
Harry took out his wand. Holly with phoenix feather, eleven inches, nice
and supple. Whatever that meant.
He was frankly a bit puzzled by the concept of wands. Certainly, his
magic unquestionably came easier with the wand in hand, but if what he'd
seen so far was anything to go by, then the wizards seemed to think that
magic was as good as impossible without it.
That made no sense. The magic had to be in the witch or wizard, or else a
wand would enable even non-magicals to cast spells. With this in mind,
Harry concluded that wands were just magical foci, designed to make the
use of magic easier. That would make sense. The crippling reliance on
wands did not make sense.
Harry had already determined that he would master his magic without the
need of a wand. Much of this determination was based in his desire to not
wave a silly looking stick about while casting spells. That was not cool
at all.
Despite his accelerated emotional maturity due to the circumstances of

his life, he was still eleven.
A more practical reason for his determination came when McGonagall told
him not to cast any spells at home, as the Ministry of Magic forbade it
and could track it.
They had clearly not managed to track any of the numerous instances of
magic he'd performed wandlessly in the past few years, which meant that
they could track wand use rather than magic itself.
True, his accomplishments had been small. Pushing and pulling things and
similar stuff. He'd tried to throw a fireball once and gotten a little
lick of flame. Then he'd realized that setting the house on fire would
not be conducive to his continued magical studies, or his continued life
for that matter. Fireballs and lightning had been grudgingly put on hold
until a non-flammable environment could be found.
Anyway, the point was that McGonagall had told him that the Ministry
could detect any magic use, which they obviously couldn't.
Harry had read a lot of fantasy books and played a lot of games in his
search for inspiration on figuring out the workings of his magic. These
books and games often featured the theme of a corrupt government. It
didn't take him long to develop a dislike of the Ministry of Magic with
just that one piece of information. The numerous instances of restricted
magic that the law book he'd bought mentioned further solidified his
opinion.
First learning that he was a wizard, only to learn that the Ministry of
Magic restricted so many interesting fields had planted in him a mulish
determination to study exactly those. Besides, according to the Ministry
definition, he had broken the Statute of Secrecy years ago in the
orphanage and was constantly breaking the Decree about the Reasonable
Restriction on Underage Sorcery. It wasn't like breaking any more of
their silly laws was going to make a difference.
"Excuse me, do you mind? Everywhere else is full."

The question broke Harry out of his thoughts. The questioner was a gangly
redheaded boy looking nervously into the cabin.
Harry did not actually want company, but he also wasn't willing to make
an issue of it, so he simply nodded.
"You're Harry Potter!"
The awed exclamation instantly killed any desire to speak to the other
boy. He'd skimmed over those Harry Potter fiction books and rapidly grew
to hate them. Every single one of those books had him performing
ridiculous feats at impossibly young ages, usually ending with him riding
off into the sunset with the pretty pureblood princess in his arms. The
books were oddly well written considering what a load of garbage the
actual subject matter was, but that wasn't the point. The point was that
McGonagall had been understating his fame instead of exaggerating it like
he'd originally thought.
"Yes, so what?" Harry grumbled, already regretting that he hadn't told

the other boy to get lost instead of being polite.
"Wicked." The readhead continued, apparently oblivious to the hostility.

"So that's where You-Know-Who's curse hit."
"Yes, that's where he hit me after murdering my parents." Harry grumbled

even more irritably. He wasn't nearly as broken up about the deaths of
his parents as he'd implied with that snarky statement he'd never known
them after all but mentioning murdered parents was a surefire way of
stopping conversation. He'd used it a few times before, though at the
time he'd thought they had died in a car crash.
The redhead finally got the hint and started looking guilty, mumbling out
a barely audible 'sorry'.
"I'm Ron by the way, Ron Weasley." He tried.
"How nice for you." Harry refused to cooperate with the attempt to
establish a more positive atmosphere. Instead, he moved a seat over to
make things even more chilly as well as get some more leg room, took out
his half-read Lord of the Rings book and started reading. If the annoying
redhead got uncomfortable enough to leave, that would be great, but his
silence would do in a pinch.
There was blessed silence for a long time, interrupted only by the
occasional bored sigh from Ron. Harry made steady progress through the
book in peace. He knew that he wouldn't see many descriptions of useful
magic in this particular book, but he was determined to read it anyway.
He'd skimmed over his textbooks at home already and a train ride was no
place to be reading something that dry.
The trolley lady came and went, neither boy having bought anything from
her due to having lunches packed, though Ron sounded like he wanted to
buy something but couldn't get it for one reason or another. Harry simply
never had sweets and wasn't interested in them now. Katherine Shaw had
gotten a little obssessive about healthy eating a few years back and
imposed a low fat, low sugar diet on both her husband and adopted son. At
least she had done her research and put together an actual healthy diet
instead of some anorexic abomination.
"Has anyone seen a toad? A boy named Neville's lost his." A girl's voice
intruded on his reading.
"No toads here." Harry answered her without looking.
There was a small gasp and his jaw clenched in expectation of the
annoying words.
"You're Harry Potter! I've read all about you in Rise and Fall of the
Dark Arts, and Great Wizards and Witches of the 20th Century! " She
babbled.
"That's great, but weren't you looking for a toad?" Harry quickly
interjected before she could waste the breath she'd just taken.
"Yes, of course." She said, actually sounding a bit offended. That was
rich. "I'm Hermione Granger by the way. You boys should probably change
into your robes, we'll be at Hogwarts soon."
Harry muttered something uncomplimentary under his breath about bossy

females. He had enough of bossy people with the Shaws, he had no desire
to get to know a pint sized harpy in addition to the full grown one that
was his foster mother.
"Mental, that one." Ron commented wryly.
Harry didn't respond. He didn't want the ginger annoyance to think he

might actually have a chance of making friends with him.
The annoyingly bossy girl did have a point though, they would be at
Hogwarts relatively soon.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"I heard that Harry Potter was on this train. Is that you then?"
Harry barely kept an unimpressive preteen glower off his face as the flaw
in his plan to keep to himself and study magic was once again proven to
be flawed. How was he supposed to shun human contact if everyone and
their dog wanted to come talk to him?
"What of it?" He growled as deeply as possible. Which was to say not

very, given that he was eleven.
The rather poncy looking blond boy with the slicked back hair and dull
looking sidekicks was a bit taken aback by the instant hostility, but he
rallied quickly.
"I'm Malfoy, Draco Malfoy." He said, making it sound as if this was
important information.
Ron snorted, apparently finding the blond funny.
"Think my name's funny, do you?" Draco asked waspishly, sneering at the

redhead. "No need to ask yours. Red hair and a hand me down robe, you
must be a Weasley."
The arrogant blond boy turned back to Harry, extending his hand. "You'll
find that some families are better than others, Potter. I can help you
with that."
"You can help me by going away!" Harry snapped, his patience for human
contact exhausted by the string of irritating people. He couldn't tell
people to bugger off at home because his continued comfortable lifestyle
hinged on the tolerance of the Shaws, but by thunder he was not going to
play nice and socialize in the Wizarding World. "I don't want anything to
do with either of you or your families."
"You'll regret this, Potter!" Draco snarled and stomped off, looking
extremely petulant thanks to his age.
"That was wicked!" Ron said a few seconds later.
Harry started wondering if the redhead had a hearing defect or had

perhaps suffered a head injury sometime in the past. Nobody normal could
be this dense.
Harry somehow managed to make it all the way to the sorting without any
more 'You're Harry Potter!' moments, thankfully.
He followed the instructions massive groundskeeper and got into a boat

with two unknown girls and a boy. He didn't even bother to notice
anything other than one girl's red hair before he faced away from them
and determinedly stared at the dark waters of the lake.
The magnificent first sight of Hogwarts did manage to lift his sour mood
a bit and the scare with the ghosts had been an interesting experience.
And now he had a ratty old hat on his head that was apparently sentient
and would place him into one of the four houses.
Hmmm, interesting.The voice of the hat murmured through his mind,

startling him a bit. You have courage, but it's a more cautious sort. Not
particularly suited for Gryffindor.
Harry didn't really have an opinion on that, but if a magical talking hat
said Gryffindor wasn't for him then that was as good a reasoning for not
going there as any. Besides, given on what he'd observed of this sorting
so far, he had the horrible suspicion that Weasley would be going to
Gryffindor. Intelligence didn't seem to be a requirement for that house
and bravery could easily be substituted for by stupidity.
You have ambition, as well as cunning. You could do well in Slytherin.
Harry's face twisted in distaste. Malfoy had gone to Slytherin and he had
no desire to interact with the blond idiot.
He knew what the hat was talking about in terms of ambition, it was a
long standing one. He wanted to be powerful. He'd wanted it when he was
being shouted at and hit at the Dursleys. He'd wanted it when he'd been
bullied at the orphanage. Learning that he had magic had provided hope
and the adoption by the Shaws had provided opportunity. Hogwarts would
provide the means.
Power was freedom and one day he would be free. He would be free of the
need to pander to the wishes of Robert and Katherine Shaw. He would be
free of the stupid restrictions on learning magic that the Ministry
imposed. He would even be free of the need to use a wand.
And once he was free, he wanted to see the world and go on adventures
where he could use his magic openly. A silly, childish ambition perhaps,
but it was his. For a boy who had always needed to dance to someone
else's tune and hide his abilities for fear of the consequences, the
thought of being able to wander the world and do whatever he pleased had
always been a pleasant escape for reality. It was one of the reasons that
he liked RPGs so much.
In the meanwhile, there was no need to put up with entitled little shits
like Malfoy when there were other options.
Not Slytherin then.The hat concluded, feeling his displeasure at the

idea. You don't have any loyalty for anyone but yourself, but then you've
never had anyone to be loyal to. Not afraid of hard work either.
Hufflepuff would be good for you, you could make friends there.
Harry scowled at the idea. He wasn't interested in friends, at least not

enough to seek them out. He'd tried to be friends with Dudley and the
other children at the orphanage and had gotten only bruises for it, and
the less said about the 'friends' the Shaws had told him to make the
better. No, what he wanted now was for people to leave him alone. He
could always change his mind later, but right now he would much rather
see people keep their distance. Besides, it was looking as if the people
of the Wizarding World were more interested in befriending his scar than
him.
The hat seemed to sigh. I see that holds no appeal for you, very well
then. You've got a good mind and want to learn, so by process of
elimination it better be..."RAVENCLAW!"
He took the hat off his head and walked over to the table of blue and
bronze, trying to ignore the excessively loud cheering. Though he had to
admit that the overdone hysterics about about how they didn't get Potter
by a pair of redheaded twins at the Gryffindor table were amusing.
The others around him went to introduce themselves with far too much
interest to pass as casual, but were fortunately not nearly as annoying
as either Weasley or Malfoy had been.
The last few sortings passed without incident and Dumbledore stood up to
speak.
"Welcome!" he said. "Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin

our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit!
Blubber! Oddment! Tweak! Thank you!"
Weird. Harry thought to himself, examining the food that had suddenly
appeared.
A lot of it seemed to be several varieties of meat drowned in vast

amounts of grease, typically British in other words. He was quite sure
that he would get sick if he tried to eat any of it. He'd never eaten
anything that heavy before.
From what he could recall, Vernon Dursley had taken great pleasure in
loudly masticating this kind of food while only allowing him some bread,
fruit and vegetables. The orphanage could never have afforded this and
Katherine Shaw had gone on her health craze at about the time of his
adoption.
Harry stuck to the vegetables, potatoes and what little meat there was
that wasn't liable to make him puke. The ostentatious goblets were filled
with some kind of orange liquid. A tentative sip sent a shudder of
revulsion through his stomach.
What kind of crazy idiot thought that mixing pumpkin juice and what felt
like a truck load of sugar was a good idea? Pumpkins weren't a friggin
fruit! He made a note to bring his own water to these things, not seeing
any present on the table.
He spent the rest of the feast shutting down attempts to draw him into a
conversation and wondering if magic somehow prevented people from getting
fat. It was the only explanation he could think of for the lack of
obesity if wizards ate like this all the time.
The feast eventually ended and Dumbledore stood up to speak.
"Ahem, just a few more words now that we are all fed and watered. I have
a few start-of-term notices to give you.
"First years should note that the forest on the grounds is forbidden to
all pupils. And a few of our older students would do well to remember
that as well."
That sounded reasonable enough to Harry. Even regular forests aren't

exactly something you should be wandering in willy-nilly. If the
Forbidden Forest stayed true to form for the Wizarding World, it was
probably filled with mutant spiders or something.
"I have also been asked by Mr. Filch, the caretaker, to remind you all
that no magic should be used between classes in the corridors."
That was a rule that Harry already knew he would be breaking. He had fire
and lightning evocation to attempt and Hogwarts was non-flammable as well
as non-conductive.
"Quidditch trials will be held in the second week of the term. Anyone
interested in playing for their house teams should contact Madam Hooch."
Harry knew only the bare bones of the sport. He knew it was played on
flying brooms and that the team composition made no sense. The seeker
pretty much invalidated everyone else unless the game was very long and
one sided.
"And finally, I must tell you that this year, the third-floor corridor on
the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die
a very painful death."
And that sounded like yet another start of a quest for a Dungeons &
Dragons based game.
"But before we go to bed, let us sing the school song!"
Harry collapsed on his very comfortable bed, face down, and exhaled into
his pillow with deep exasperation. His ears still felt like they were
going to bleed from hearing the 'school song'. Good music was clearly
another thing that he would have to rely on the non-magical world for if
that kind of audio torture was considered acceptable here.
He was honestly having mixed feelings about the magical world so far.
On the side of the pros was getting him away from the obsessive
socializing of the Shaws, the magic, his own money and that sort of
thing.
On the other hand, the Wizarding world was practically in the stone age
as far as technology went and he was famous here, which was attracting
ass kissers. He'd been on both sides of the ass kissing equation a lot
thanks to the Shaws and could tell when someone wanted to talk to him for
something other than actually getting to know him. Thus far, McGonagall
had been the only one who knew his name that had actually talked to him
rather than at him and he didn't like her much.
Well, the mental debate was moot either way apparently. He had to be here
for at least a while or they might decide to wipe his memories of magic,
which was unacceptable.
At least Ravenclaws apparently got single rooms. Having to share a room

with someone would have sucked.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
The school year got going in much the same way as a non-magical one
would, though with stranger subjects.
Herbology wasn't something that Harry could claim any real interest in,
nor was Astronomy and its hilariously outdated telescopes. History of
Magic was quicky designated as either a free period or a time to do
something else. The ghostly teacher was literally quoting the book
verbatim, making the class entirely redundant. Not to mention that he
seemed obssesively focused on the goblin wars, to the exclusion of all
else.
Charms seemed interesting, but they hadn't done anything more than theory
so far.
Transfiguration was currently in progress and Harry was staring at the

silver needle on his desk contemplatively. The others were struggling to
get even a slight change in their matchstick, while he had managed to do
it on the first try.
He had attempted some wandless transfigurations after returning from the

shopping trip to Diagon Alley. It had been incredibly hard, but Harry had
nothing better to do and he was excited to try out a form of magic he
hadn't thought to try before. Wandlessly, he hadn't managed more than a
change of color and a slight one at that. With a wand, it had been almost
easy.
Was his previous wandless practice accelerating his ability with a wand?
"Well done Mr. Potter!" McGonagall praised, sounding very impressed. "I
haven't seen anyone manage their first transfiguration attempt that
quickly in a long time. Take ten points for Ravenclaw."
"Thank you professor." Harry replied. It technically wasn't his first

transfiguration attempt, or even his hundredth, but he wasn't going to
tell her that.
Some distance away, Hermione Granger stared in disbelief and in some

amount of anger that the rude boy had gotten it better than her.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"Ah, yes," Snape said softly when he reached his name during roll call.
"Harry Potter. Our new...celebrity."
Harry held back a sigh. Potions was apparently going to be one of those
subjects.
"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-
making," Snape continued in something close to a whisper. "As there is
little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is
magic. I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly
simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of
liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring
the senses... I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even
stopper death if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually
have to teach."
That sounded kind of rehearsed. He probably used it every year. He would

probably use it on the Slytherin-Gryffindor class too, if he hadn't
already. It was a pretty good speech though.
"Potter!" said Snape suddenly. "What would I get if I added powdered root
of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"
"I have no idea, sir." Harry answered. He didn't even have the first clue
about what those were, much less anything else to do with them.
"Tut, tut, clearly fame isn't everything. Let's try again Potter..."
The questions continued and Harry was unable to answer them. Admittedly,
he probably should have looked through his potions books, but the lure of
learning how to hurl spells of death and destruction from his hands had
been quite a bit stronger than learning about stirring a collection of
gross ingredients in a cauldron.
The perils of being eleven.
With a final disdainful sneer, Snape spat out the answers to the
questions and demanded to know why they weren't writing them down.
"Potter, what are you doing?" Snape demanded less than a minute later.
"Writing down the answers, sir."
"Where is your quill and parchment? And five points from Ravenclaw for
your cheek."
"I figured that using paper and a ballpoint pen would be much easier."
Harry replied evenly, feeling fairly certain that the hook-nosed
professor would not like that. Fortunately, he didn't care about points
or the house cup.
"Another five points from Ravenclaw, Potter! Put away that muggle garbage
and take out your proper supplies." Snape sneered severely.
"Does it really matter what I write my notes on?" Harry questioned. "I
assure you that my writing will be far more legible if I don't have to
struggle with an inkpot and quill."
Starting to develop an unattractively angry flush to his pale skin tone,

Snape waved his wand and vanished Harry's pen and paper.
"Twenty points from Ravenclaw for your backtalk and a detention if you
don't take out your parchment and quill immediately!"
Harry had neither of those, having seen no need to bring them when he had
plenty of pens and paper. Unfortunately, he suspected that Snape would
not care about that.
He was right.
He spent the rest of the potions class in a foul mood. Perhaps it was
time to research some alternatives to attending this class? Snape was
clearly determined to pick on him for some reason, so the educational
benefits of learning under him were dubious at best.
And the week had been going so well too.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Thar she blows, the first chapter of something (relatively)new.
In case anyone actually gives a crap, the address for the house of
Harry's foster parents was chosen after a 2 minute Google search and may
not even exist. For all I know, there's nothing on 74 Cromwell Road but
an antique outhouse. In the incredibly unlikely event that someone
actually lives there and happens to read this fic, then I apologize for
using it. I also apologize for insinuating that it might be an antique
outhouse.
As always, you can expect updates to come at irregular intervals ranging

from 4 days to a month, depending on how bored/inspired I'm feeling.
Chapter 2
Here is the second one. Many thanks go to my beta Joe Lawyer, for looking
the chapter over for me.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Hogwarts staff room, October 2nd.
It was the first of several routine meetings between the Hogwarts

professors and several things had already been discussed. The troubles of
the upper years, the poor quality of the school brooms, the Quidditch
cup, the latest shenanigans of the Weasley twins and so forth.
Things were drawing to a close now and all the other professors had
already left, leaving just Dumbledore and the four heads of house.
"And what of our first years?" The Headmaster opened, mostly wanting to
hear about Harry Potter .
"Among my lions, young Mr. Weasley is proving to be troublesome."
McGonagall said with a frown. "He is continually late in turning in his
assignments and they are invariably of poor quality. If this keeps up, I
am going to need to write home to his parents."
All of them winced, not wanting there to be another reason for Molly
Weasley's strident voice to thunder from the inevitable Howler that the
woman would send her youngest son upon hearing of his poor academic
performance.
"On the other hand, Ms. Granger is proving to be an exceptional student."

She went on.
Snape gave a small sneer at the mention of the girl. He found her
eagerness to please incredibly annoying, particularly her habit of
turning in essays that were nearly twice as long as required. Anyone
could regurgitate facts from a book and he didn't appreciate the extra
work she was giving him by doing it.
"My badgers have settled in without any issue." Sprout took over the
narrative. "But Minerva, I simply must comment on Mr. Longbottom. That
boy has an amazing green thumb for Herbology."
"He has an even more amazing explosive thumb for Potions." Snape added
condescendingly. "Not a single class goes by without something exploding
in his general vicinity."
"What of your snakes, Severus?" Dumbledore interjected before the

Herbology professor could launch into a rant against the Potions Master.
"Nothing out of the ordinary." Snape said shortly. Unlike the others, he
was not inclined to talk about his Slytherins.
"I see." Dumbledore said the same as he did every year when Severus gave
the same curt answer. "What of the Ravenclaws, Filius?"
"The only one that truly stands out is Mr. Potter." Flitwick admitted. He
knew perfectly well that he'd been kept for last exactly because he had
the Boy-Who-Lived in his house. "Though he does not have Ms. Granger's
precision for theory, his practical work is simply extraordinary, even
better than that of his mother. So far he has always been the first to
master a new spell."
"The same for Transfiguration." McGonagall added. "Not even his father
had this kind of talent for it."
"His talents are apparently restricted to wand waving, as his ability

with potions is mediocre at best." Snape sneered.
"Loathe as I am to agree with Severus, he is right." Sprout said, still a

bit steamed from the earlier comment against her favorite first year. "He
seems entirely disinterested in Herbology."
"There is one other thing." Flitwick said uncomfortably, knowing that
what he had to say next would not be well received.
"Yes, Filius?" Dumbledore prompted.
"Mr. Potter has asked me if it would be possible for him to stop

attending DADA, History of Magic and Potions and study the subject matter
on his own."
There was a moment of shock before Snape ended it.
"So the arrogant brat is already looking for special treatment?" He asked
bitingly.
"Severus." Dumbledore said warningly before turning back to the Charms

professor. "Did he say why?"
"He did." Flitwick confirmed. "He frankly admitted to me that Quirinus'

stutter makes the class too slow for him."
McGonagall and Sprout sighed, fully understanding the situation. Talking

to Quirrell was a chore when it took him forever to finish a sentence.
Trying to listen to him lecture would be even worse.
Miraculously, Snape kept his opinion to himself.
"History of Magic...well, you know Binns." Flitwick continued, shrugging

in an embarrassed manner. "As for Potions, he has come to me with a
complaint about Severus vanishing his supplies and constantly singling
him out during class."
"Perhaps I would not have vanished his supplies had he brought proper
ones." Snape retorted.
"Yes, Mr. Potter told me of his preference for muggle stationery and I
won't dispute your right to demand that all students use a quill and
parchment in your class, but did it truly warrant you destroying his
supplies? And I note that you didn't respond to the accusation of
singling him out." Flitwick said back with narrowed eyes.
"Someone has to curb his ego." Snape sneered.
"What ego, Severus?" Flitwick demanded. "The boy spends all his time
either in the library, in class or in his room. Occasionally he explores
the school, but that's all. He hasn't made any friends yet and seems to
have no intention of doing so."
Despite not showing it, Snape was a bit startled by that. Potter not
having any friends? He hadn't really looked into it, but now that
Flitwick mentioned it, he did recall that the boy didn't engage in much
conversation while eating in the Great Hall.
"And yet he thinks that he can drop three classes and do them on his
own." He shot back, mostly to cover up his surprise. He had a reputation
to uphold.
"It is a moot point either way I'm afraid." Dumbledore interjected.

"Though I admire young Harry's desire to learn, if we allowed him to skip
certain classes, then everyone would want the same privilege and most of
those would not have the same drive to learn that he does."
There was also the fact Dumbledore didn't want the boy to isolate himself
any further.
Though Flitwick could appreciate the headmaster's point, he had a feeling

that it would just cause Harry to ignore the lecturing of Quirrell and
Binns and do his own thing. Snape would not be so easily ignored and the
diminutive Charms professor could only hope that Severus would apply some
restraint. Harry's fame would make the entire situation unpleasant for
all involved if things continued to escalate.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
After that staff meeting was over, Snape paid closer attention to Potter.
He had been surprised to see the boy go to Ravenclaw instead of

Gryffindor, seeing as both his parents had gone to that house. He'd also
been expecting him to be running about the school with a gang of like-
minded hooligans by now, breaking rules and causing trouble everywhere.
But Flitwick was indeed correct. The boy was quiet, introverted and
studious. Nothing at all like his father and only slightly more like his
mother. In fact, Snape was reminded rather jarringly of himself as a
first year. A himself who didn't have Lily as a friend.
His face still looked too much like that of James Potter and Snape felt
the old anger come back every time he saw it, but he decided to lower the
verbal abuse to the level he aimed at everyone. He would reserve
judgement for the moment.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"Ha!" Harry yelled unnecessarily, thrusting out his hands and focusing
all his will into making a mighty fireball blast forth from them.
The most pathetic fireball that the world had ever seen was his result.
Harry slumped, feeling kind of ridiculous to have made such a dramatic

buildup, only to produce that little flicker. He wasn't going to be
casting any firestorms soon, that was for sure.
He'd long ago figured out that the magic was linked to his emotions. The
more powerful the emotion he was feeling, the more powerful the results
of his accidental magic had always been. Unfortunately, summoning up
emotions on demand was simply not that easy. He'd been practicing with
his magic for years and had managed to get some results even when he
wasn't feeling incredibly distressed, but it was slow going.
With his wand though...
He took out the holly wand and slashed it through the air, sending a band
of fire scything through the air. It wasn't much and would singe some
eyebrows at best, but he'd gathered that it was impressive for a firstie
that had only been at Hogwarts for a month and a bit.
He'd also noted that he didn't really need all the ridiculous swishing
and flicking that everyone else was using. Nor did he really need to say
the words of the spells. It seemed obvious to him that the power was
neither in the wand motions nor in the words, but in the intent of the
caster. He had no idea why they were being taught in this kind of
backwards manner.
Well, whatever. He wasn't going to argue about it and bring attention to

himself, so he just pretended to swish and flick like everyone else.
There was too much attention on him as it was, thanks to that stupid Boy-
Who-Lived crap.
It got a bit lonely sometimes, but not so much that he would be willing
to attempt getting closer to his yearmates.
The only one that he had any regular contact with was Su Li, and that was
only because she happened to be his potions partner. As luck would have
it, Su was herself a quiet girl focused on her studies and didn't really
try to engage him in conversation.
Padma Patil had tried to talk to him once, looking horribly embarrassed
about it. As it turned out, she'd been nagged into it by her Griffyndor
twin sister Parvati, who wanted to know about the Boy-Who-Lived. Harry
managed not to be too annoyed with Padma for that, though her sister was
another matter entirely.
The rest of his yearmates had gotten used to his prickly personality by
now and kept a polite distance.
Outside of Ravenclaw, the only people he truly registered among the

students were Draco Malfoy, Pansy Parkinson and Hermione Granger.
The puffed up blond idiot occasionally threw out a snide remark that he
probably though was clever, but did little else than that when Harry
failed to react to his taunts.
Pansy he'd only noticed because she apparently belonged to the family
that had taken over the Potter family business. He'd considered talking
to her about it, but the pug nosed girl was distinctly unpleasant to be
around and a hanger on for Draco. He might have to do it one day, but
he'd been putting it off so far. It wasn't as if he could actually do
anything about it yet.
As for Hermione...well, that girl seemed to be taking his seemingly easy
grasp of practical spellcraft as a personal challenge and sometimes even
gave him a smug look when she answered the theoretical questions
correctly, when they shared classes at any rate. She seemed to be under
the misconception that they were rivals or something. For such a smart
girl, she was a right idiot.
Harry was sitting in a quiet corner of the Hogwarts library, reading.

Away from his foster parents and their army of hair stylists, his hair
had reverted to its natural Potterness and become hopelessly messy. It
was probably taking revenge for the years of neatness imposed on it.
Harry was actually considering growing it long, mostly because a lot of

fantasy spellcasters seemed to have long hair and thought it would be
cool, but also because he knew it would piss off Robert and Katherine.
Probably not a good idea just yet, but he promised himself to look up
information on hair growing spells or potions.
He wasn't reading a book on spells at the moment however, but rather a

history book. Binns was indisputably an authority on the Goblin Wars an
exceptionally boring one but he had thus far been useless for anything
else.
He was doing this because he wanted to know about the history of wands.
Where had they come from? Why were they so widespread? What had been used
before them? Had any kind of foci been used before them?
He had managed to learn that it was the Romans who had first discovered
the secrets of wandlore and spread their use so far and wide, though it
had still been centuries before every single magical had a wand.
Originally, they had been reserved for the elite only. There were a great
many flowery descriptions about the Roman war wizards and how their wands
had allowed them to sweep away the primitive sorceries of the cultures
conquered by Rome. There were no mentions of what those primitive
sorceries actually were though.
No matter which history text he looked up, he could find nothing about
the magics used before the advent of wands. The best he got was some
mentions of the Viking runecrafters, some of whose arts were still in use
today and which he would be learning in the Ancient Runes class that
became available in third year. That was a rather fascinating subject and
something that he had already started reading up on.
Now, Harry was willing to believe that a lot of knowledge had been lost
since those times It was about two millenia ago after all but for
nothing to be known? That had the feel of deliberate historical editing.
Combined with his suspicion that wands were somehow used as a method of
control by the Ministry of Magic and the many restrictive laws on magic
use that he'd found, it felt like a cover-up. Whatever the Ministry was
hiding, Harry wanted it.
He took a longing glance towards the roped off Restricted Section. All of
the really good stuff was undoubtedly in there. He knew that Hogwarts
predated the Ministry of Magic by over five hundred years and therefore
had a considerable amount of autonomy. It was highly likely that there
were numerous texts in the Restricted Section that the Ministry would
prefer were destroyed or locked away somewhere. He especially wanted to
see if there were any books on ritual magic in there. The Ministry
categorized all ritual magic as Dark and banned it wholesale, which
really stuck in his craw. He'd been looking forward to performing some
self-improvement rituals, if there were any.
Unfortunately, Harry had not yet figured out a way to get in there
without attracting all the wrong kinds of attention.
But he would. He was going to get in there and learn whatever super
secret magic was being hidden. Then he would make himself a proper tower
and call it something properly dramatic like...the High Tower of Sorcery
or something. And he would cackle and throw lightning at the Ministry
fools who would attack it in an attempt to steal his power!
Harry coughed and aimed a rueful grin at the history book in front of
him, which just so happened to be opened on a page detailing the exploits
of Yngvar the Insane, a Swedish Dark Lord from the 7th century, so called
for his use of an unknown(or deliberately forgotten) spell that called a
storm of lightning from the heavens. He was considered insane because
lightning storms were a bit random and couldn't be aimed, which
eventually spelled the end of Yngvar when it fried him instead of his
enemies. What he'd actually been trying to achieve with this Thor
impersonation, the book didn't say.
In fact, Harry had noticed a recurring theme of unclear motivations for

quite a few past Dark Lords. Europe as a whole averaged at least one Dark
Lord or Lady per century, often a bit more. The 14th had been
particularly eventful, producing one every twenty-five years with
clockwork precision. The two most recent ones, Voldemort and Grindelwald,
had the most clearly defined motives and unquestioningly deserved to be
called Dark Lords.
About the others, Harry was less sure. The books all seemed to agree
about how evil and powerful they had been, but none of them said anything
about their goals aside from going against the established authority.
Before the Ministry of Magic, there had been a High Wizard's Council of
which the Wizengamot was a remnant and before that, there hadn't been
enough magicals to truly separate themselves from the non-magical
kingdoms of the time. The only thing common to every single Dark Lord or
Lady was the fact that they'd been giving the people in charge the middle
finger.
It was giving Harry the distinct impression that the bureaucratic

overlords simply did not like powerful wizards or witches. Which, in
retrospect, was so blindingly obvious that he really should have guessed
at it without need for three days of being buried in history books.
Mediocre wizards in positions of authority would naturally be wary of the
very powerful ones, either as rivals or simply as people who could ignore
the politicking and do as they pleased.
Probably a good thing that I'm planning to take a little trip once I
finish Hogwarts. He thought to himself, recalling his intentions to study
magic that the Ministry deemed illegal. That would get him branded a Dark
Wizard at best, possibly even a Dark Lord if he ended up being powerful
enough.
Dark magic? What a laugh that was. They'd just learned the levitation
charm a day ago and Harry could think of at least three ways to kill
someone with it off the top of his head. How was that any better than the
painless Killing Curse? Dead was dead and he wasn't going to let some
government lackey tell him otherwise.
Granted, Dumbledore was an example of an extremely powerful wizard and he

seemed to have avoided the Dark Lord appelation, but Harry wasn't sure he
counted since the man apparently held the top position in both the
British Wizengamot and the International Confederation of Wizards,
essentially making him the man that decided whether someone was a Dark
Lord or not. The fact that every mention of such powerful wizards that
weren't Dark Lords were invariably high up in the government only
confirmed his theory.
"Harry?"
The boy in question yelped and nearly sent the books crashing to the
floor, something that was sure to earn him the eternal enmity of the
supremely cranky librarian.
He turned to look at his ambusher and saw the fifth year prefect,
Penelope Clearwater. The girl had for some reason taken it upon
herself to talk to him every once in a while.
"What?" He asked, a touch more rudely than he intended.
"The Halloween feast is about to start, I figured you'd lose track of

time again and came to get you." Penelope said, her eyebrows drawn into a
tiny frown at his tone. Harry was frequently irritated when someone
intruded on his reading and had swiftly claimed the title of 'most anti-
social Ravenclaw'. It was a prefect's job to look after the younger years
and Penelope was determined to live up to that, but Harry Potter
sometimes made it difficult to talk to him without getting annoyed.
"I don't celebrate Halloween." He said tersely. He wasn't a particularly

celebratory person at the best of times, but Halloween was especially
disliked ever since he'd learned how and when his parents had died. He
didn't remember them and had come to terms with the fact that they were
gone a long time ago, but they had died to protect him and he wouldn't
celebrate their deaths. Not to mention that he'd come to loathe pumpkins
since coming to Hogwarts and the Great Hall was sure to be hopelessly
spammed with the hated plant right now.
"You must be hungry though." Penelope insisted softly, picking up on his
increased dislike and being considerate enough to guess at the cause.
"I'm not." Harry insisted back.
Which was of course the exact moment that his stomach betrayed him with a
loud rumble.
"Alright, so maybe I am hungry." He conceded. "But I'm not going to eat

in the Great Hall. I've got some snacks in my room."
Penelope sighed at his stubborness. "Come with me, I can at least show
you where to find the kitchens."
That caught his attention? Students could go eat in the kitchen? He could
avoid the Great Hall altogether!
Unaware that she had just unintentionally facilitated further anti-social

behavior from the boy that she was hoping would eventually open up a bit,
Penelope led him to the lair of the Hogwarts house elves.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
While Harry did find the excitable house elves to be a bit much, he was
also very interested in learning about a magical race. The Goblins were
the only other one he'd met so far and they hadn't looked like the type
to tolerate the questions of an eleven year old. He could respect that,
since he wouldn't be too keen on indulging someone's curiousity either.
The house elves were more than happy to tell him anything he wanted
though, and he even managed to talk to them about the kind of food and
drink he preferred, so it was all good. Their extreme friendliness was a
bit off putting to someone like him, but the excitable creatures
apparently had a supernaturally good sense for when someone didn't want
them around and toned it down as soon as Harry started feeling
discomfited by the attention.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Because he was not a Griffyndor, Harry was not around when Ron Weasley
tossed a careless and hurtful remark at Hermione Granger out of
frustration. He didn't not know that she'd run away in tears.
Because he wasn't at the feast, he didn't hear Quirrell announce that

there was a troll in the dungeons.
When Penelope burst into the kitchens with a crazy tale about a troll
being loose in the castle, Harry merely looked at her oddly, muttered
something about a random encounter and followed her to the Ravenclaw
common room.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Unlike Harry, Ron was acutely aware of the fact that his housemate was
missing. For a critical minute, he waffled over the decision of whether
he should tell a teacher or not, wanting to escape blame for the
situation. Quirrell had said that the troll was in the dungeons hadn't
he? Hermione wasn't down there, so she should be safe, right?
His sense of guilt and responsibility unused though it was eventually

won out over his desire to hide from the situation and he went to
McGonagall, confessing everything.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
McGonagall and Snape charged into the bathroom just in time to see the
troll raising its bloodied club from the misshapen ruin of Hermione
Granger's body.
A full grown mountain troll was a hideously strong creature with a highly
magic resistant hide, but that didn't protect it from the angry spellwork
of the enraged Transfiguration Mistress and the cooler but equally deadly
Potions Master.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
The Great Hall was both full and silent, something that was highly
unusual.
In front of the staff table stood Dumbledore, wearing dour black robes
and a remorseful expression.
"It is my sad duty today to inform you of the death of a Hogwarts

student. Last night, Hermione Granger was attacked and killed by the
troll that professor Quirrell warned us of. She was an exceptionally
bright witch, with a bright future ahead of her. There will be no classes
this week as the Ministry's Aurors investigate and take statements,
please allow them to do their jobs without interruption and cooperate
with their requests. Thank you."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
The Aurors came and went, taking statements and investigating the
situation. Less than two weeks after Hermione's death, things went back
to relatively normal.
Harry was baffled.
A student had died, so why was everyone acting as if it was no big deal?
He knew that Hogwarts was largely autonomous, but this was ridiculous.
Had a student died from something as easily preventable as a wild animal
roaming in through the front doors in a muggle school, the Headmaster and
staff would have been in serious hot water, private school or not.
A look at the Daily Prophet article provided some clarification.

Though the article had been scathing in tone towards Dumbledore in
particular and the Hogwarts professors in general, two things stood out.
The first was the fact that the article itself was on the third page
instead of on the first. You'd think that a student death at school would
be big news.
The second thing was the title of the article.
Muggleborn student dies in tragic incident!
Tragic incident? That was one way of calling it.
The fact that it mentioned Hermione's blood status at all brought another
thing into sharp focus. The Wizarding World lagged behind its mundane
counterpart in more than just technology. Long lives made for slow social
changes and discrimination based on self-entitlement was much more
prominent in magical society than it was in the muggle one.
Harry wasn't blind to the attitude that some purebloods had towards the
muggleborn. There wasn't much of that in Ravenclaw, but it was hard to
miss the way that certain purebloods refused to sit next to the
muggleborns. It was hard not to hear Draco Malfoy's bigoted commentary.
He hadn't been in any way close to Hermione, so he couldn't honestly say

that her death upset him, but it had gotten him to realize something. The
girl had been so competitive with him because she'd probably been looking
for someone to share her academic interests in. He'd thought her stupid
then, thinking that she just wanted to be the best, but now he was the
one that felt stupid. She'd probably been hoping to make a friend in the
only way she knew how.
He promised himself that he wouldn't be so quick to judge in the future.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
The Christmas holidays rolled around and Harry found himself in a much
emptier Hogwarts.
He could have gone back to the Shaws, but that would inevitably mean
attending some kind of high society event with them. An empty castle
would have been more fun than that even if it didn't have a huge library.
Besides, he had something that he wanted to talk to the Ancient Runes

professor about and the holidays were the best possible time for it.
Actually finding professor Babbling's room in the castle had turned out
to be surprisingly difficult and it wasn't until he'd thought to ask one
of the house elves that he succeeded.
"Mr. Potter?" The professor confusedly asked once she'd opened the door
to his knocking. "Is there something I can do for you?"
"I had some questions about runes that I was hoping I could ask you."
Harry answered.
"You were studying Ancient Runes on your own?" She asked happily, always
pleased to hear that a student was interested in her specialty.
"Yes." Harry nodded. "So, do you have time to talk?"
"Yes of course, please come in." Babbling invited and opened the door to
let him in.
Harry looked around the room curiously, having never seen a teacher's
quarters before. It was bigger than his own room in the Ravenclaw tower
by quite a bit, which was only to be expected, but other than that it was
fairly similar. It also had a small sitting area that his room didn't
have. The most notable feature of the room was the large desk covered in
parchment that he presumed contained various school work assignments on
runes and such.
"Have a seat." Bathsheda said, gesturing to the couch and taking a seat
next to him. "Now, what was it you wanted to know?"
"I looked over the theory, but I have some trouble understanding how
symbols could have any kind of magical power." Harry admitted. "It
doesn't make any sense to me that just inscribing a symbol and charging
it with magic would confer a certain property to the item being
inscribed."
"Ah, this is a question that I am asked frequently, though not usually by

first years." The professor said wrily. "Tell me Mr. Potter, have you
also wondered why wand motions are neccessary?"
"Err..." Harry stalled a bit, but figured that there was no point in
playing dumb. "I'd just assumed that they were used as a method of
tricking people into focusing properly on a spell, the same as
incantations."
Bathsheda's eyebrows climbed into her hairline in surprise, realizing

that the boy in front of her must already be capable of casting silently
and motionlessly to have come to that conclusion.
"You are only partially correct, Mr. Potter. The incantations are indeed
just a trick to focus the mind of beginners on the effects of a spell,
but the wand motions serve an actual purpose. You see, when you wave your
wand, it pulls on your magic in specific ways and shapes it into the
desired spell effect. The field of Arthmancy concerns itself with which
wand motions are best suited to a certain spell effect. It is possible to
cast without motions, but it requires a much greater focus on the part of
the caster." She explained.
"I see." Harry said pensively.
"I must admit to being impressed that you have the mental focus required
to cast both motionlessly and silently at your age. These are things you
would have usually learned in your sixth year, so it is very rare to find
a child your age capable of it." The professor praised.
Harry rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment at the praise. After
struggling for years to manage anything at all with wandless magic, it
was practically child's play to use a wand.
"So the runes...they don't have any actual meaning, but are just shaped
in a way that directs the magic to a certain effect?" He asked, getting
back to the point of his visit.
"Once again, you are only partially correct." Bathsheda told him. "Many
of the runes in use today were created with the help of Arithmancy, which
is a fairly modern field of study in comparison to things like Charms,
Potions and Transfiguration. These runes are indeed shaped with a
singular purpose in mind and it is perhaps a misnomer to call them
'ancient', as they are not that old in the grand scheme of things. There
are however, older runes also in use that truly are ancient. These runes
represent concepts and ideas and can have multiple meanings. They are
typically more powerful than arithmantically developed runes but also
less precise as their effects may vary based on the understanding and
intent of the one who charges them with magic."
"Wouldn't it be possible to use a completely made up rune in that case,

as long as you assigned it meaning?" Harry asked, confused.
"Theoretically yes, but you would be aware that the runes were made up
and therefore subconsciously make them meaningless." Babbling explained
with a small grin, enjoying the conversation. Mr. Potter had clearly done
quite a bit of research on the subject and she was looking forward to
having him in her class in a few years. "There is also an unproven theory
in the academic circles that the older runes have been in use for so long
that their meanings have become imprinted on the wild magic of the Earth,
which is why they are more powerful."
"That's an interesting theory." Harry commented a bit absently. "I had

just one more question."
"By all means."
"The books all seemed to agree that writing runes on yourself either
wouldn't work or was downright dangerous, but they didn't explain why."
"Ah, that." Bathsheda said with a bit of a grumble. "I have long thought
that every book on runes should contain more thorough warnings about such
practices and I make sure to mention it during my classes."
"So it can be done?" Harry pressed.
"Yes Mr. Potter, it can, though it is most unwise." She admitted. "Merely
using a quill to write runes on your skin and charging it with magic
would achieve nothing, as the magic would be superficial and resisted by
your body. Tattooing them into your skin would confer some effects, but
likely not ones that you would wish. There would be a conflict between
the intentions of the tattoo artist and yourself, leading to a wide
variety of unpredictable complications. Furthermore, the runes would be
attempting to make changes to your body and magic and would not have the
necessary power to do so, once again causing nothing but complications.
Even worse, wizards differ from muggles in that their magic eventually
wears away the ink in a tattoo, so even if you had managed to impart some
kind of positive effect to yourself through a rune tattoo, it would
eventually disperse and quite likely harm you in the process."
"I see." Harry said again, looking thoughtful. "Thank you, this was very
informative. Could I come talk to you again if I had any more questions?"
"Of course." Bathsheda agreed, wanting to encourage his obvious interest

in runes.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
On Christmas morning, Harry found himself puzzled upon seeing a present

with his name on it at the foot of his bed.
He knew it wasn't from the Shaws, as those two treated every holiday as
an opportunity to suck up to someone at one social event or another. The
only present he'd ever gotten from them was clothing that they expected
him to wear to one of said social events. It had rather ruined the point
of Christmas to him.
Upon opening it, he saw that it held a shimmering silvery cloak. He could
practically feel the tingle of magic under his fingers as he touched it.
A little experimentation led to the awed realization that it was an
actual invisibility cloak. Who in the world could have possibly given him
this?
A look at the attached card provided only some bafflement.
Your father left this in my possession before he died. It is time it was

returned to you. Use it well. A Very Merry Christmas to you.
There was no signature to the note written in loopy handwriting, but a

little guesswork allowed him to figure out who it was.
He didn't really know anyone in the Wizarding world aside from the people
in Hogwarts. It wasn't likely to be the students, as he wasn't exactly
that close to any of them and he strongly doubted that they would have
given him such an obviously valuable artefact.
Most of the teachers were also excluded, on grounds of him being familiar
with their handwriting already. The only one that it might have been was
professor Babbling, but he'd only talked to her once so she wasn't likely
to have given him such a thing.
Having excluded all of his aquaintances, he tentatively assumed that it

was sent by the headmaster. He seemed like the type to hoard magical
items. Reading over the note again, he came to another realization.
He gifted me with something that technically belongs to me in the first
place? Or failing that, re-gifted me with something that my father gave
him? And he admitted it as if it was no big deal? Wow, that's just...wow.
Harry had to be impressed by the sheer gall of the man, though he was too
happy with the invisibility cloak to take much umbrage.
After all, the headmaster had just given him exactly what he needed to
pay a clandestine visit to the Restricted Section. But first, there was a
present to send out. He'd gotten the idea for it months ago, but hadn't
been planning to actually go through with it, as it had the potential to
backfire on him quite spectacularly. The invisibility cloak had put him
in a gift-giving mood though.
"Could I talk to a house elf, please?" He said to the empty room, not
sure if it would work.
"You's needing Blinky?" Apparently, it did work.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Severus Snape started in surprise as a Christmas present appeared on his

desk. He had already received the usual bottle of firewhiskey from
Minerva that would last him a year, as well as the bag of muggle candies
from the headmaster that he had summarily disposed of as usual.
Nobody else ever gave him presents. Ever.
After casting every detection spell he knew on the small parcel, he was
forced to conclude that it was not a trap and that someone had indeed
done so.
Warily unwrapping it, he stared in slowly rising anger at the muggle

notebook and pen, exactly like the ones he'd forbidden Potter from using
in his classroom.
The cheeky brat was mocking him! Just like his useless, arrogant father!
James bloody Potter would...would...would not have done this. No, James
Potter would have played some juvenile prank in the halls or during
dinner, and he would have done it a lot sooner too.
This was the kind of passive aggressive response that Lily would have
given him after she came down from the initial hot tempered rage.
I thought you might appreaciate the convenience of being able to take

notes for your potions in one place without the hassle of inkpots or ink
splotches.
The equally passive aggressive note wasn't signed, further reinforcing

Snape's sense of nostalgia as he stared at the neat handwriting.
The boy had obviously never heard of self-inking and ever-neat quills
before, nor of the enchanted notebooks that never ran out of pages. Lily
had been dubious about wizarding stationery at first too.
Without the face of a miniature James Potter making him angry and no
people around for which to keep up appearances, Snape spent his Christmas
morning in nostalgic reminiscence of the only friend he'd ever had.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
December 26th
It was very late and the Hogwarts library was dark, silent and empty.
Empty, except for the invisible Harry Potter strolling through the
Restricted Section, hungrily looking at the books. There were so many
things he wanted to look up that it was hard to decide what to pick
first.
Obscure spells had a strong draw to the mindset of an eleven year old,
but Harry pulled his attention away from those, knowing that he didn't
have the power to cast them yet and having enough caution not to try it
anyway.
Eventually, he came across something that he had wanted to know ever

since he'd learned about the Wizarding World.
The Theory of Rituals: The Magick of Sacrifice.
Harry swallowed nervously, wondering if this was a book detailing the

proper way to sacrifice a virgin, which he had no intention of doing.
On the other hand, the book was using Ye Olde English in the title, which
was always a good sign.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Albus Dumbledore was feeling a mite frustrated.
He knew that Voldemort would return and he knew that Harry Potter was
prophesized to vanquish him.
The problem was that Harry Potter did not seem very heroically inclined.
He had been curious about the parcel that Hagrid had retrieved from
Gringott's, but not enough to look into it any further. He hadn't been
inquisitive enough to take a peek behind the forbidden door in the third
floor corridor. Albus wasn't even sure if he was aware of the break in at
Gringott's. Not that Dumbledore really wanted him to try getting passed
the defenses, but he had hoped that Harry would be curious. A powerful
sense of curiousity was essential for a hero and Harry Potter simply
didn't have it.
The boy was actually alarmingly disconnected from the Wizarding World.
Aside from his obvious desire to learn magic and the tenuous link to his
dead parents, Harry Potter had literally no ties to Wizarding Britain.
Not for the first time, Albus lamented the boy's placement in Ravenclaw.
Even Slytherin might have been better, though it would have undoubtedly
been difficult on him. At the very least, it would have forced him to
interact with his peers, whereas Ravenclaw had a well known reputation
for fostering introversion.
This wasn't usually something that Dumbledore would interfere with, but
Harry Potter had a destiny ahead of him and that destiny would not be
fulfilled by studying magic in seclusion.
He was well aware of the boy's recent excursions into the Restricted
Section, but did not bother to stop him. What difference did it make
anyway? The boy would have to die in order for Voldemort to be defeated
once and for all, so his dabbling in illegal magics was of no concern.
The knowledge might even come in handy at some point. The primer on
ritual magic that he'd read the other night was hardly alarming anyway.
Despite the ominous title and what the Ministry had to say about it, it
was little more than a theoretical discourse on the nature of magic, with
a focus on rituals. Dumbledore had removed the worst of the reading
material in there during Tom Riddle's seventh year. He still regretted
not doing it sooner.
He had no real fear of Harry joining up with Voldemort. The Dark Lord
would never suffer a rival to his power and being destroyed by a year old
baby would be an unforgivable insult to him. Harry Potter and Lord
Voldemort would be enemies no matter what, but Harry might just decide to
leave Britain instead of fighting if he had nothing tying him here.
If only he had been sorted into Gryffindor! Albus was sure that he would
have become fast friends with Hermione Granger. They had been similar
enough.
The girl's death had shaken the old headmaster far more than he let on.
Minerva had often told him that keeping the Philosopher's Stone in
Hogwarts was a terrible idea, but he had been sure that it was for the
best. He had been sure that he would be able to handle the shade of
Voldemort without there being any danger to the students. He wasn't sure
any longer.
For all the pretty words that he had spun for the Aurors about the troll
wandering in through a hitherto undiscovered secret passage, Dumbledore
knew that it was his fault.
Regardless of his shaken confidence, he desperately needed to get a

better handle on Harry Potter. Wizarding Britain and the Light would need
a champion in the dark times that were approaching and Dumbledore knew
that he was too old to fill that role himself. He had already been too
old in the last war. A successor had to be moulded, even if he would die
at the end of the conflict. Perhaps another miracle would allow Harry
Potter to survive, as it had when he was a baby. An old man could hope,
even if it was a fool's hope.
In the meanwhile, the Mirror of Erised would hopefully reveal if the boy
had any desires that could be useful. A discreet compulsion charm would
make sure that he found it.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Harry had no idea how exactly he'd ended up in this abandoned classroom
with the weird looking mirror. He'd just felt an insatiable desire to
wander about Hogwarts and basically stumbled upon it.
That was a bit odd for him, as he had no desire to interact with Filch,
the miserable bastard. The man apparently couldn't grasp the fact that
there was a slightly different set of rules in play during the holidays
and had tried to get him in trouble for imagined infractions several
times already.
Honestly, what did he even do at Hogwarts? His post as caretaker seemed

to be completely made up just so that the bitter man would have an excuse
to stay at the castle.
But for some reason, he felt the need to wander tonight and how here he
was, staring at a tall mirror with a gold frame and clawed feet.
It was an interesting looking mirror, but the image it showed was the
true puzzle. Instead of reflecting his proper image, it showed Harry the
way that he hoped he would look as an adult. Tall and broad shouldered,
long haired and roguishly handsome, with an aura of power draped over his
shoulders like an invisible mantle. He was also wearing a rather badass
looking set of robes that looked a great deal more practical than the
nightgown-esque apparel that wizards actually tended to wear, more like a
sort of half-robe or something.
Even more puzzling than the skewed reflection of himself, it also showed
someone standing next to him. This person was utterly indistinct. He
couldn't tell the color of the hair or eyes, couldn't put his finger on
height or body shape. He thought it might be a woman, but the more he
looked, the less certain he was of that. It was as if his mind was simply
unable to focus on the figure aside from determining that there was a
figure.
There was an inscription on the top, spelling out 'Erised stra ehru oyt
ube cafru oyt on wohsi', which told him nothing. He couldn't even begin
to guess what language that was in.
There was something compelling about the image, but Harry could not for
the life of him determine what it was. The vision of his adult self
seemed obvious enough, a representation of his hopes perhaps, but what
about the other figure?
Harry hated riddles. In fact, the bloody door knocker that asked you a
riddle every time you wanted to enter Ravenclaw tower was the thing that
he found the most irritating about his house. He'd had to wait for
someone else to answer the damn thing quite a few times already, though
he was getting the hang of answering correctly by sheer force of
repetition.
Usually when confronted with a particularly irritating riddle that he

couldn't solve, he would abandon it for a time and maybe come back later,
but not this time. There was something about this image that made him
want to understand it.
"Captivating, is it not?" An old voice asked from behind an indeterminate

amount of time later, startling him quite badly.
"Headmaster?" Harry asked, bewildered. "What are you doing here?"
Dumbledore chuckled in amusement. "I could ask you the same thing."
Harry flushed in embarrassment, realizing how his blurted out question

must have sounded. "Sorry, sir."
"It is quite alright, my boy." The old wizard said kindly. A little
rudeness was the least he could tolerate from Harry in exchange for the
compulsion he'd cast on him, even if the boy didn't know it.
"So, err, what does this mirror do?" Harry asked awkwardly.
"The clue is in the inscription, but you must remember that it is a

mirror." Dumbledore hinted.
Harry frowned in confusion and looked at the inscription again. With the
rather large hint he'd been given, it didn't take long to guess that he
had to read it backwards.
"I show not your face, but your heart's desire?" He wondered.
"Indeed, the Mirror of Erised does not reflect ourselves, but the
deepest, most desperate desires of our hearts." Dumbledore clarified.
"Men have wasted away before it, yearning for what it shows them, even if
they know it to be impossible. Perhaps especially if they know it to be
impossible."
"What do you see, sir?" Harry ventured carefully, knowing that it was a
personal question.
Dumbledore looked at the mirror, seeing his family once more unbroken and
whole around him and feeling the familiar ache in his heart that always
accompanied the image. His parents standing together happily, Ariana
alive and well, Aberforth reconciled with him. His old friend and lover
Gellert next to him, not a Dark Lord but a good man. It was an impossible
dream, and all the more painful for it.
"I see myself getting a pair of thick wooly socks for Christmas." He
finally answered. "People always get me books for Christmas, you see."
Harry didn't believe that for a moment. Socks were simply not something
that you could have a desperate desire for unless you were stuck barefoot
in the cold. He wasn't going to say anything though, as his question had
been quite personal.
"Orphans often see their parents returned to them, would I be correct in

guessing that this is what it shows you?" Dumbledore asked, fibbing at
little. The Mirror of Erised had not been exposed to orphans as far as he
could remember, but it seemed a reasonable guess.
"No sir, it doesn't." Harry answered with a small frown.
Perhaps if the Shaws had not adopted him, that is what it would have
showed him. He knew better now than to wish for his parents to be
returned to him. He had no doubt that they had loved him and it would be
good to see them, but things could not go back to what they could have
been. They would have tried to set limits on him that he had already
outgrown. They would do it out of love and concern, but it would have
infuriated him all the same. He didn't fit into the role of 'eleven year
old son' anymore.
"Truly?" Dumbledore queried with an eyebrow raised in surprise. "May I

ask what you see?"
Unlike the old wizard, Harry did not consider the image to be anything
massively private and he very much wanted to understand it.
Dumbledore listened attentively as Harry described what he saw, using a

light touch of Legilimency to see the image for himself.
"I may know what it represents, but let me ask you one more question to
make certain." He said when Harry was done talking, waiting for the boy
to nod his permission. "Are you happy with your foster parents?"
"Not really, no." Harry answered reluctantly. "It isn't a bad place to
live, but putting up with them is a bit of a chore sometimes."
Having used Legilimency just then to see if he was being told the truth,
Dumbledore knew that Harry considered any interaction with Robert and
Katherine Shaw to be a chore. He held back a sigh. No wonder that the
mirror did not show him his parents. Getting adopted only to have his
hopes of a loving family crushed by reality had no doubt been a heavy
blow to a young child.
"In that case, I believe that the mirror is showing you the image that
you associate with freedom and independence, yourself as a powerful
adult." He said, not letting his thoughts show.
"And the other figure?" Harry asked.
"I presume that it symbolizes your well hidden desire for companionship."
Dumbledore answered. "Believe me when I tell you this, young Harry; all
the power and riches in the world will not make you happy if you have no
one to share them with. This is a truth that the powerful often do not
realize until it is too late, if they do at all."
Headmaster and student both left the room after that, both of them
thoughtful.
Dumbledore pondered how this new information could be used to inspire a

sense of loyalty and responsibility towards Wizarding Britain in Harry
Potter.
As for Harry, he reassesed his life goals. He remembered that virtually

none of his books featured a solitary protagonist, something he had never
considered before but it seemed obvious now. The antagonist was always
alone, surrounded by minions at best, while the protagonist had friends.
He didn't have any worries about suddenly developing the urge to rule the
world, but he had to admit that he did feel a bit lonely. Perhaps making
a friend wouldn't be such a bad idea?
Harry quickly discovered that making a friend was a great deal harder
than simply deciding that he would try it. He had not the foggiest idea
about how to make friends with someone after he'd spent months isolating
himself. None of his yearmates approached him anymore and he couldn't
quite bring himself to approach them either.
The status quo continued as the months slipped away and Harry eventually
gave it up as a bad job, deciding to try again next year.
Instead, he continued to spend his time studying and practicing magic,

sneaking into the Restricted Section as time allowed. He also made a few
more visits to Bathsheda Babbling to talk about runes and to Septima
Vector for Arithmancy. Both teachers were glad to discuss their subjects
with him, unaware of the idea that slowly took shape in his mind.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Albus Dumbledore noticed the continued isolation of Harry Potter and

sympathized with the boy, having plucked the reason for it out of his
mind. Trying again next year did indeed seem to be a reasonable course of
action.
He knew that Ginny Weasley would be coming to Hogwarts next year, so

perhaps he could arrange something there? The Weasleys were a staunchly
Light family and would no doubt quickly accept Harry into their midst.
She would be a Gryffindor of course, but that wouldn't be too difficult a
hurdle to get past.
He was still a bit disappointed by Harry's lack of interest in the

mystery of the third floor corridor, but he wasn't willing to manipulate
the boy into investigating it. Having already lost one student to the
club of a troll, he had no desire to lose another to the fangs of a
cerberus. Especially not when he was sure that Harry would play a crucial
role in the coming war.
There was a bit of a minor emergency in April, when Hagrid nearly burned
his hut down with a dragon of all things. Fortunately, Albus had become
aware of it just in time and contacted Charlie Weasley, who was able to
help sneak the little bundle of teeth and rage away from the school
before the half-giant found himself serving time in Azkaban for illegally
hatching a dragon.
Upon learning how exactly Hagrid had come by a dragon egg, Dumbledore
knew that Voldemort was on the move. With that, the incidents of killed
unicorns also suddenly made sense.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Quirrell and an increasingly impatient Voldemort found themselves stumped

by the final hurdle on their quest to get the Philosopher's Stone. All
the other defenses had been pathetic(except the cerberus, that one had
actually been dangerous), but this final one was proving incredibly
problematic.
And then Dumbledore showed up.
"Hello Tom."
"Shite."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"You wanted to see me, sir?" Harry asked as he stepped into the
headmaster's office.
"Indeed I did, my boy." Dumbledore replied jovially, gesturing to a

chair. "Please have a seat."
Harry did so, looking around the office curiously. There were all sorts
of odd devices scattered around, as well as a rather ostentatious gold
perch that was currently empty.
"Lemon drop?" Dumbledore offered, breaking Harry from his inspection of

the office.
"No thank you." Harry declined politely. "Professor Flitwick said that
you had something you needed to discuss with me?"
Dumbledore noticed with some dismay that Harry refused to make eye
contact with him now. The boy had apparently found a book on the Mind
Arts in the Restricted Section and was now practicing the most basic form
of defense against mental probing. Namely, not letting it take place to
begin with. Wise of him, but so very inconvenient for Dumbledore.
"Indeed I do Harry. It concerns your summer accomodations."
"What about them?" Harry asked, confused.
"You may not know this, but it was I who placed you with the Dursleys ten
years ago." Dumbledore admitted.
"Why?" Harry asked with an edge to his voice, his eyes narrowing a
fraction. He had no good memories of that place.
"Even though Voldemort was gone, many of his followers were still free
and would have killed you if given the chance. The nature of your
mother's death confered unto you a powerful protection, a protection I
was able to extend to encompass the entirety of your aunt's house for as
long you lived in the same home as her. I never expected that they would
treat you so poorly and for that you have my most sincere apologies."
"Alright, but how is that important now?" Harry asked a bit tersely,
wanting to move away from the subject of the Dursleys.
"Have you been at all curious as to why I declared the third floor
corridor off limits this year?"
"I was." Harry admitted. "But I decided not to check if you were joking
about the 'painful death' part after the incident with the troll."
Dumbledore's eyes dimmed as he remembered the girl who had died because
of his blunder. Now that he knew that Quirrell had been possessed, he
could also guess that the troll had been set loose deliberately. Contrary
to popular belief, the school wards did not give him omniscient knowledge
of all that went on in Hogwarts' walls.
"Behind that door was a series of traps that led to a great prize, a
prize designed to lure Voldemort into the open." He explained.
"Isn't he supposed to be dead?" Harry interrupted.
"He is supposed to be, but I have long suspected otherwise. Just the
other day, my suspicion was confirmed."
Harry sank deeper into his chair, recalling all the incidents that simply
screamed 'plot relevant event' that he'd dismissed so far.
"Please don't tell me that I'm destined to fight him or something." He

nearly begged. He was way too young to be fighting Dark Lords. Adventures
were supposed to start with killing giant rats in someone's cellar! This
was bullshit.
Dumbledore jerked violently in his chair and stared in pure shock, his
composure failing him as the boy rather correctly guessed at the truth.
"Oh my God, I am destined to fight him, aren't I?" Harry asked in

disbelief, staring at the old wizard's almost guilty expression.
Under his desk, Dumbledore fingered his wand. He'd just inadvertantly let
Harry know something that he hadn't been intending to reveal for quite a
few more years, but a simple Obliviate could fix the screw up.
...On the other hand, this could be used to gauge how the boy would react
to the prophecy. He could always obliviate him later.
"Well, you see Harry, there was a prophecy made before you were born..."
He said reluctantly, still not sure if this was wise.
Harry groaned. No matter where they popped up, be it books or games,

prophecies were always more trouble than they were worth.
"What does it say?"
"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... born to
those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies... and
the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark
Lord knows not... and either must die at the hand of the other for
neither can live while the other survives... the one with the power to
vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies..."
Dumbledore recited from memory, carefully watching Harry for a reaction.
Harry listened attentively and then sighed.
"At least this one is fairly straightforward and doesn't say anything
about my father being the Lord of Murder."
Dumbledore blinked. This one? Lord of Murder?
"I am going to have to ask you to explain that, my boy." He said

carefully, wondering if there was a second prophecy in play. That could
change everything.
"It's from an old computer game I played last year, nothing to be worried
about." Harry waved off.
Dumbledore wasn't entirely sure how games could be played on those muggle
contraptions or how there could be prophecies in a game, but he was
willing to take Harry's word for it since he felt that the boy was
telling the truth. He felt no small amount of relief about it too, as a
prophecy about a Lord of Murder sounded quite dire.
"So I'm assuming that this scar on my forehead is the mark that Voldemort
supposedly gave me?" Harry asked, tracing a finger over the mark in
question.
"It is." Dumbledore confirmed.
"What about this 'power he knows not'?" Harry pressed. "Any ideas on what
that's supposed to be?"
"I believe it to be love. You see, Voldemort has never known love and
does not understand it. It was your mother's love that allowed you to
survive his killing curse ten years ago."
Harry looked at the old headmaster oddly for several long moments,
wondering if he was serious. He certainly looked serious, but the words
he'd just uttered made no sense.
"You'll excuse me if I don't try to combat a ruthless Dark Lord that can
apparently cheat death with love. Hell, with the vague way it's worded,
the 'power he knows not' could be referring to my ability to lick my
elbows." He said slowly. "Speaking of which, are you sure that this
prophecy is genuine?"
Dumbledore decided not to comment on the first sentence. Even though he

was sure that he was correct about the secret power being love, he also
recognized the value of not putting all your eggs in one basket, which
was a bit ironic since that was exactly what he ended up needing to do
with Harry.
He was also quite impressed that Harry could apparently lick his elbows.
He hadn't thought that was possible.
"It is genuine, but I'm afraid that it would not matter even if it was
not. You see, Voldemort knows the first part of the prophecy as well and
he believes it, which makes it genuine."
"Right, self-fulfilling prophecy. The worst kind." Harry sighed.
"I must say that you are taking this remarkably well, my boy." Dumbledore
commented. Had he been making too big of a deal about telling Harry the
prophecy?
"Would freaking out make it not true?" Harry asked with rarely used
sarcasm.
"No." Dumbledore admitted. Though it would tell me that obliviation is

the way to go.
"So...now what?" Harry asked after a short silence had passed.
"I doubt you will need to worry about Voldemort for quite some time."
Dumbledore reassured. "He is less than a ghost at the moment and will
find it difficult to return to physical form. It is possible that he may
be prevented from doing so entirely, but he has always been crafty, so I
would not place my hopes on that possibility."
"That's something at least." Harry grumbled, only mildly reassured that

he wouldn't need to fight a full fledged Dark Lord in the immediate
future. "Why is he still floating around anyway?"
"I am not sure." Dumbledore fibbed. He had no intention of telling Harry

about the fact that he was a horcrux. "Now, I believe that we have
wandered greatly off topic. We were discussing your summer
accomodations."
"Yes, why were we doing that?"
"I will be blunt with you Harry, your home with the Shaws is not safe.
The Dursley household was protected by powerful blood wards, which was
why I placed you there to begin with. Anyone could attack you at your
current residence, so I am offering to let you stay at Hogwarts over the
summers." Dumbledore offered, fairly sure that the boy would accept
"That's very generous of you headmaster, but I'm afraid that I can't
accept. I have some things I want to do over the summer that I simply
can't do at Hogwarts." Harry declined politely. There were quite a few
things that he wanted to do over the summer holidays for which he did not
want any of the Hogwarts professors present. Things that now had a sense
of urgency after learning about that bloody prophecy.
"I must urge you to reconsider, Harry." Dumbledore insisted. "If any
wizards with ill intent were to find you there, you would be virtually
defenseless."
"Does anyone in the Wizarding World aside from you and professor
McGonagall even know where I live?" Harry asked with a frown.
"No..." Dumbledore admitted reluctantly.
"Then I will stay where I am for the moment. I will reconsider it if

things start getting more dangerous."
"Are you certain?" Dumbledore tried one last time. "You could do magic in
Hogwarts."
"I'm sure." Harry replied, knowing that he was going to be doing a lot of
magic over the summer, some of it probably illegal even outside of the
underage restriction.
"Very well." Dumbledore sighed. He could have tried forcing the issue but
that would likely cause Harry to resent him, which would be disastrous in
the future. "Please take this then. Keep it close and and say 'lemon
drop' if you find yourself in danger."
"How is a sock going to help me?" Harry asked, bewildered.
Dumbledore smiled and explained the concept of portkeys.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Alrighty, time for a few end-of-chapter notes.
Yes, Harry is a bit unlikable at the moment. That will shift over time.
I'm sure that some of you are upset that I killed Hermione. That's too
bad, but she should have remembered to put on her plot armor.
The quick progression is deliberate. Preteen protagonists are a pain in

the ass to write.
I know that the lack of character interaction is bad, but there will be
more from here on out.
In case any of you were worried, the scene with the Mirror of Erised is
not a foreshadowing for possible gayness on Harry's part. I'm too much of
a straight male to write a gay protagonist.
Chapter 3
First a response to a few people that continue to hold out hope that
Hermione will somehow continue play a part in this story...Nope, she's
deader than a door nail and staying that way. No ghosts either. Sorry xD.
Special thanks go once again to Joe Lawyer for beta-ing the chapter.
Now then, a merry Christmas or its equivalent to those of you who

celebrate it.
If you're like me and don't celebrate it then...uh, carry on as normal?
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Harry spent no more than three days at 74 Cromwell Road before he went
back to Diagon Alley to take care of some business. Robert and Katherine
had not been too happy about his newly developed sense of independence
and tried to protest, in response to which he may or may not have implied
that they would have their memories wiped if he didn't do this.
Losing access to him ten months out of a year was putting quite a crimp
in their plans to parade him around as their perfect son, which he knew
was likely to become a problem soon. They might be terrified of the idea
of some wizard messing about in their heads, but that wouldn't last
forever. Hopefully the situation wouldn't implode before he was ready to
be shot of them.
The reason for his visit to Diagon Alley was an appointment with the
solicitor to whom he'd sent a letter before the school year had ended.
He'd been a bit surprised at the speed with which the appointment had
been arranged. Either the Wizarding World had less legal business, or his
fame was being useful for a change and speeding things up.
That was still a while off however, as he'd come to Diagon Alley early
with the express intent of looking around without a Hogwarts professor
trying to direct his shopping.
All in all, he didn't find too much of interest that he hadn't seen on
his first trip through, but there was one thing he found that made the
entire trip worth it even if everything else turned out to be a bust.
"A Bag of Holding?" Harry asked admiringly, his eyes fixated greedily on
the unassuming little bag. "How much?"
"Lad, this here's a Mokeskin Pouch." The shopkeeper said chidingly. "And
I don't think a muggleborn could afford it, they're rare and expensive."
While Harry was glad to see that the simple disguise of normal clothes
and a cap worked to disguise his identity just as well as the first time,
he was more than a little annoyed by the condescending attitude. The
shopkeeper wasn't trying to be condescending and his tone was actually
rather friendly, but the casual assumption that muggleborns wouldn't have
enough money to buy the good stuff was still grating.
Granted, Harry was not exactly a muggleborn, but he was honestly

wondering about the lack of muggleborn Dark Lords if this was the kind of
shit they had to put up with all the time.
And the shopkeeper was also wrong. That thing was a Bag of Holding, end
of discussion. What the hell was a moke anyway?
"How much is it?" Harry repeated himself.
The shopkeeper sighed in exasperation at the persistent boy. "Two hundred

galleons."
"That is pretty expensive." Harry agreed.
"I told you-"
"I'll have to come back with the money later, could you reserve it for
me?" He kept on talking, not letting the shopkeeper finish the 'I told
you so'.
"You mean you can afford it?" The shopkeeper asked in surprise.
"Yes." Harry answered tersely.
Friggin' Diagon Alley shopkeepers should be replaced with NPC's. They'd

be less annoying that way.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"So Mr. Potter, what can we do for you today?" The solicitor said
eagerly. Representing the Boy-Who-Lived would be a huge coup for him.
"I would like to take legal action against Enid Pennifold, the author of
the Harry Potter book series, for using my name without permission."
Harry answered simply.
"I see." The solicitor said thoughtfully. "If she has truly been using
your name without permission then you certainly have legal grounds to do
so, but I must warn you that removing the books themselves from
circulation will likely prove impossible at this point."
"I thought as much." Harry admitted. "I'm actually more interested in

profiting from it."
"You don't care what she wrote about you?" The solicitor asked with
raised eyebrows.
"As you said yourself, removing the books from circulation will be
impossible, so the damage is already done. A percentage of past and
future profits made from these books will have to do. If at all possible
I would like this settled quietly and without media interference."
"That we can certainly do." The solicitor agreed. "I will send you an owl
once the preliminary negotiations are finished."
Harry thanked the man and shook his hand, surprised but pleased that
things had been so simple.
Now it was time to go to Gringotts and withdraw the money for the Bag of
Holding.
And for another talk with Gorefist after that. He had a feeling that he
would not be the goblins favorite person after this talk, so it was
better to withdraw the money first.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"Mr. Potter, to what do I owe the pleasure this year?" Gorefist asked,
his tone making it clear that it was not a pleasure of any kind.
"I just came to warn you that I will be receiving a substantial deposit
of money to my vault sometime in the near future." Harry said evenly.
"I am afraid there is a 200 galleon fee attached for every two thousand
galleons deposited." Gorefist grinned nastily.
"Not this time there isn't." Harry disagreed calmly, having expected
something of the sort. "In fact, you will also be lowering the fee on our
previous arrangement down to 5%."
"Why would I do that?" The goblin asked, his grin becoming decidedly
uglier.
"Because if you don't, I will simply stop using the services of your
bank."
Gorefist's grin faltered. If the Potter heir pulled all his gold out of
Gringotts, he would be left the manager of an empty vault. He would be a
laughing stock. Even if there was a high likelihood of the Potter fortune
getting stolen outside of Gringotts, that wouldn't help him.
"You cannot use any other bank!" He snarled. "Our treaty with the
Ministry of Magic forbids it."
Ah yes, the Goblin-Wizard Treaty of 1726, which explicitly states that no

ICW member nation would use any bank other than Gringotts. The goblins
had been able to force that concession from wizardkind after a two decade
long war.
Unfortunately for them, they had not looked at the small print, which
said that in return for this they agreed to be bound by the laws of the
ICW and the local Ministries of Magic forevermore, essentially turning
the goblins into a vassal nation. The full treaty was a great deal more
verbose of course, but that was the gist of it. This being a magical
contract, it was still in effect.
Except in America. The American wizards had helped their muggle

counterparts throw off the control of Britain during the American
Revolution, but instead of fighting British wizards, they'd elected to
slaughter the goblins.
North America was still technically part of the ICW, but their relations
with Europe were colder than one of Snape's smiles.
The goblins had rebelled several times against wizards after that. In
fact, every time that the Ministry breached the treaty in the slightest
way, the situation had erupted into violence. That was why the goblins
stuck so scrupulously to the letter of any agreements these days, it was
easier to find loopholes that way.
Humans and goblins had been enemies since time immemorial, always warring
against each other for one reason or another, but mostly for the simple
fact that both seemed to be intolerant dicks with a superiority complex.
When wizards had discovered the secrets of wandlore, the balance had
begun tipping in favor of humanity. Goblins had been trying to figure out
a way to make wands for themselves ever since, with no success. After the
1726 Treaty, they were banned from using them, alongside every other non-
human.
The goblins had never forgiven that bit of treachery, even though they
would have done the exact same thing if given half a chance.
Harry had a long time to consider how to prevent himself from getting
swindled in the future after his first meeting with Gorefist, so he'd
researched the history of the goblins and their conflict against wizards
in particular and humans in general with a dedication that would have
made Binns proud.
He'd discovered that greed was an integral part of the goblin psyche.
Greed drove the short but vicious creatures more than any other impulse.
"I never said anything about using another bank." Harry replied evenly.
"Where will you keep your gold then, wizard?" Gorefist demanded, twisting
the last word into an insult.
"That is no concern of yours, goblin." Harry emulated, though he

suspected that he hadn't managed to put as much venom into it as his
account manager.
Truthfully, he had nothing personal against the goblins, but he wasn't
going to let himself get robbed just because they were nursing an old
grudge against wizards.
Gorefist snarled again, slamming his hand angrily against his desk.
Harry had to fight hard not to jump. They might be midgets, but goblins
were still pretty scary.
"You cannot withdraw from the main Potter vault until you are of age."
Gorefist reminded him angrily.
"I know, I am intending to use that time to improve my ability to guard

my gold." Harry replied, still keeping his voice calm and even.
"A hundred galleons for every two thousand and 15% for the transfers out
of your trust vault." Gorefist growled out, seeing that the boy was dead
serious.
"seventy five galleons for every six thousand and 5% for the transfers."
"One hundred galleons for every three thousand and 13% for the
transfers."
"Seventy for every five thousand and 4% for the transfers."
"That is not how you negotiate, wizard!" Gorefist snapped in outrage.

"Eighty for every four thousand and 10% for the transfers."
"You didn't seem bothered about charging unfairly exorbitant fees to me

last year, I'm not going to be bothered about negotiation protocol now."
Harry replied with a mocking smirk. "Fifty for every five thousand and 3%
for the transfers."
Gorefist roared in outrage and gripped his desk hard enough that his
claws gouged the wood.
"Fine! We are agreed, NOW GET OUT!"
Harry simply nodded and left the office, leaving behind a fuming goblin
that spent the next twenty minutes inventively cursing his ancestry in
Gobbledegook.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Harry spent those same twenty minutes walking off his adrenaline rush.
He'd been preparing for that confrontation for months, but it had been a
lot more intense than he'd expected.
So very satisfying though.
Now he just needed to figure out where he was going to put all that gold
in the event that he actually needed to take it out of Gringotts. He
somehow doubted that the Bag of Holding that he was even now going to buy
would hold all of it.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
A few days later.
Harry blinked at the sight of the house elf in his room, baffled as to
why one of the excitable creatures would be here.
The house elf gave a bow so low that his long nose touched the floor.
"Hello?" Harry greeted, bemused.
"Harry Potter." The house elf exclaimed loudly enough to make Harry glad
that his room was fairly far out of the way. "So long has Dobby wanted to
meet you, sir. Such an honor it is."
Harry winced preemptively, knowing that his next words were likely to
elicit a dramatic reaction. Unfortunately, the alternative was to treat
the house elf like a lesser creature and he just couldn't do that.
Judging by the stained pillowcase that Dobby was wearing, he got enough
of that already.
"Would you like to sit down?"
"S-sit down?!" Dobby wailed predictably. "Never...never ever..." There

was a moment of incomprehensible blubbering before Dobby made sense
again. "Never has Dobby been asked to sit down by a wizard! Like an
equal."
"Not a Hogwarts elf then?" Harry asked, having enough experience with
house elves to know that trying to comfort one was liable to just set off
another round of hysteria. He felt bad for the little creatures,
especially this one since he seemed to be bonded to a less than pleasant
master, but attracting the attention of his foster parents wouldn't help
anyone.
"No, sir." Dobby answered, much more calmly now. "But Dobby has come to
warn Harry Potter! Harry Potter must not go back to Hogwarts!"
"Why not?"
"There is a plot, Harry Potter. A plot to make terrible things happen at

Hogwarts. Dobby tried to stop Harry Potter from getting mail from his
friends at Hogwarts to make him not want to go back, but Harry Potter was
not getting any mail from his friends!"
Harry's lips twitched in humor. He probably should be upset about a house

elf trying to screen his mail, but the thought of Dobby attempting it,
only to discover that he wasn't getting any letters was just too funny.
"I'm afraid I haven't made any friends the past year." Harry explained.
"No friends? The great Harry Potter has no friends?" Dobby asked,
blinking in apparent bafflement.
"Better no friends than bad friends." Harry shrugged, not really wanting
to explain his entire situation. The two people who had first attempted
to befriend him, Ron Weasley and Draco Malfoy, would definitely fit into
the 'bad friend' category at least.
"Harry Potter is wise." Dobby stated, nodding compulsively as if he'd

just heard something profound. "So Harry Potter will understand that he
must not return to Hogwarts."
"Can you tell me what this terrible plot is?" Harry asked.
"Dobby cannot, sir."
Of course, that would be a much more direct betrayal than merely coming
to warn him.
"It has something to do with Voldemort, doesn't it?" Harry sighed in

resignation. This was practically a textbook example of foreshadowing and
given the prophecy that Dumbledore had told him at the end of first
year...
"Say not the name!" Dobby screeched, clapping his hands over his floppy
ears.
"Right, so does it have anything to do with him?" Harry asked again, this
time with an eyeroll.
"No sir, not with He-Who-Must-Not-be-named." The house elf answered.
"It doesn't?" Harry said in surprise. "Who does it have to do with then?"
For a moment, Dobby looked as if he was going to answer, but then he

started smashing his head against the nearest hard surface.
"Alright, alright! I get it! You can't answer." Harry cried quickly, now
wanting the excitable but friendly house elf hurting himself.
"Dobby is sorry, Harry Potter sir!" Dobby wailed. "Dobby cannot betray
the masters."
"It's alright, I understand." Harry tried to reassure. "I'm guessing you

don't like serving your current masters?"
"Dobby does not." The house elf confirmed, wringing his ears wretchedly.
"Dobby wants to be free."
Harry grimaced. For a house elf to say that they wanted to be free,
whoever Dobby was bonded to had to be really bad.
"I might have an idea about how to get you free, would you like to hear
it?" He asked.
Dobby nodded frantically.
Harry leaned close to the house elf in a conspiratorial fashion.

"Alright, here's what you do..."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
That same day, Dobby returned to Malfoy Manor and did not immediately
begin punishing himself for going to warn Harry Potter of the impending
danger at Hogwarts. Soon, there would be no more need to punish himself,
so Dobby felt that he could get away with a little rebellion.
The next morning, before any of the Malfoys woke up, Dobby did not start
making breakfast as he usually did. Instead he went to the closest forest
and looked for the slimiest, most disgusting creature he could find. This
turned out to be a regular slug, but it was more than suitable for the
purpose.
He put this slug into one of Lucius' socks and prepared it for the man as
he always did in the mornings. This was the plan that the great Harry
Potter had suggested and Dobby was sure that it would work. It was a very
clever plan.
Unfortunately, things do not always go according to plan.
When Lucius slid his foot into the sock, he quickly discovered the slimy
surprise and pulled it off, staring at his soiled foot in disgust.
"Elf! What is the meaning of this? What have you done" The blond man
demanded harshly.
Dobby had been standing nearby, waiting with bated breath for the moment
when his master would throw the sock away in disgust and he could swoop
in to grab it out of the air, thereby freeing himself.
But Lucious had not thrown the sock away in disgust, holding it away from
him instead.
Compelled by the bond, Dobby confessed to attempting to engineer his own

freedom, though the question was vague enough that he was able to leave
out any mention of Harry Potter or his unauthorized trip.
Lucius, infuriated at the mere notion that his house elf thought it could
trick him like this and worse, nearly succeeding, pulled out his wand and
angrily fired off a killing curse. He momentarily regretted killing his
servant, but quickly rationalized that it was better than having a house
elf around that thought it was clever.
Harry hadn't been too concerned when Dobby hadn't come back the next day.
When the second day passed however, he did get concerned. By the time
that the third day rolled around, he had accepted the fact that his plan
had failed and hoped that the consequences for Dobby hadn't been too
dire. He feared that they had been, given what little he knew of the
house elf's masters.
It was also on this day that he received his solicitor's owl.
Mr Potter,
I have spoken to Ms. Pennifold and explained to her your displeasure at

how she used your name to sell her books.
She was quite mortified to hear of this. Apparently, she wrote the first
one in a fit of inspiration after the fall of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named
and never intended to publish it, but was persuaded into doing so by a
friend and things simply snowballed from there.
She agreed to pay you a sum of thirty thousand galleons as compensation,

40% of any future sales, as well as agreeing to add a disclaimer to the
effect of the books being entirely fictional. Overall it is considerably
more generous than what I had expected to get out of this for so little
effort. Ms. Pennifold has also asked if you would be willing to
participate in a book signing to endorse future sales some time in the
future.
Harry put down the letter and rubbed his face tiredly. Great. Now he was
not just worried about what had happened to Dobby, but he was also
feeling like a jerk for siccing a lawyer on a woman that had no malicious
intent with her books, even if they were bloody ridiculous. As for the
book signing idea...yeah, he had absolutely no desire to do that right
now, maybe not ever.
This day was already shaping up to be simply spectacular and it wasn't

even noon. Now all he needed was...
"Harry? Remember that we're having important visitors over in the

evening. Come down so that we can go over the itinerary again." Katherine
Shaw's voice came from the intercom that they had felt the need to
install in his room for some reason.
Harry groaned miserably. He'd forgotten all about that stupid dinner
party. The day officially sucked.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Harry approached the doors of Potter Manor with some trepidation. All of
these old manor houses were said to be heavily warded and he was taking a
bit of a gamble in assuming that the wards would recognize him as a
Potter himself. They should, but he wasn't 100% sure that they would.
It was a pretty impressive place and he was sure that the Shaws would
want to move in if they knew about it. At the very least, they would
probably want to take all the antique furniture that was undoubtedly in
there.
Deciding to just get on with it, he grabbed the doorknob and tried to
turn it. It didn't budge, but it did prick his palm to taste his blood.
With a brief shimmer, the doors swung open.
Smiling with mixed relief and eagerness, Harry wandered into the manor,
turning his head in every direction in an attempt to take in the foyer.
It was a bit on the ostentatious side for his taste, but it was his.
"Hello? Is anyone here?" He called. He knew there wouldn't be any people,

but there might be portraits or house elves.
A tiny blur barreling into his legs nearly caused him to lash out with an
instinctive burst of wandless magic, restrained at the last moment.
"Master Potter sir!" The house elf wailed in an unpleasantly high female
pitch. "You's finally came! Teeny was waiting for so long!"
Harry smiled awkwardly and patted her head as the little house elf
continued to blubber against his leg. What do you say to calm down a
hysterical house elf?"
"Umm, sorry?" He ventured.
Teeny's horrified gasp let him know that it may not have been the right
thing to say.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Fortunately, calming Teeny down didn't take too much effort once the
initial hysteria was out of the way. The small house elf had all but
demanded to be bonded to him immediately after that. Harry was still a
bit iffy on the subject of having a thinking creature bound to him in
lifelong servitude, but Teeny's wobbling lower lip and watering eyes
every time he stalled eventually wore down his resistance and he gave in.
She'd gone into a cooking frenzy after that, determined to feed him the
best meal he'd ever had and Harry didn't have the heart to tell her that
he'd already eaten.
While Teeny cooked, Harry decided to explore the manor, wondering if he

might find portraits of any relatives. He knew that they were just
imprints of people, but it would still be nice to talk to them.
As it turned out, he found them.
"Hello?" He called to the sleeping portraits of a man and woman in what

he guessed were their late middle ages, though it was hard to be sure
with wizards and witches.
They woke up, looking momentarily confused but quickly focused on him.
"Hello, are you our grandson?" The dignified looking woman asked
hopefully.
"I'm Harry." He replied simply.
"James and Lily's boy." The older man with typically messy Potter hair
and glasses said, delight in his tone. "You are our grandson. We're
Charlus and Dorea Potter, your father's parents."
"Can you tell me about them?" Harry asked. He hadn't been willing to ask
this of the Hogwarts professors, but faced with the portraits of his
grandparents, he could finally do so.
"Oh, I suppose that means that they weren't able to hide from Voldemort
then." Dorea said sorrowfully. "I knew that they shouldn't have trusted
Dumbledore."
"What do you mean?" Harry asked warily. He had thought that the old
headmaster was a bit strange but trustworthy enough.
"My wife has never had a very high opinion of Dumbledore." Charlus
answered.
"Don't sugarcoat it, Charlus." Dorea scoffed. "I wouldn't trust that old
manipulator as far as I could throw him."
"Yes well, though my own opinion of the man isn't as bad as my wife's, I
would urge you to keep in mind that Dumbledore didn't get to where he is
now without being more than a bit ruthless." Charlus added.
Harry nodded slowly. The headmaster had a disarming personality and

projected the image of a kindly, wise old wizard well, but Charlus had a
point. Dumbledore couldn't have become the most powerful wizard and most
prominent politician in all of Europe just by being nice. He would have
to keep that in mind in the future.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
A few hours later, the meal Teeny had prepared was eaten and the
conversation with the portraits of his grandparents had tapered off.
Harry hadn't seen much of the manor by that point and decided to explore
it further.
It was nothing spectacular for the most part, just a lot of bedrooms,
bathrooms and miscellaneous other things that held no interest for him,
but a few things did stand out.
The first was the library. It wasn't as massive as the one in Hogwarts
and he spotted a lot of the same texts, but there were a few that looked
to be unique to the Potter family.
The second was deep in the basement. It seemed like nothing more than a
bare stone room, if not for a few things. The location and thick walls
would be enough to mark it as a room used for rituals, but what truly
clinched it was the box containing an ornate knife in front of it.
It was a pretty thing with a slightly curved silver blade and a gold
enameled hilt. A good sized ruby was set at the end of the hilt, glinting
in the low light.
Harry was exceptionally pleased to have found such a knife. Rituals could
technically be done with any kind of blade, but specialized ritual blades
were known to have superior results.
He was eager to get started on this. He had been secretly planning out a
ritual ever since he'd started learning about them after all.
Ever since that first conversation with professor Babbling, Harry had
been thinking of ways to apply runes to himself as a means of bolstering
his physical and magical power.
After getting told that tattoos wouldn't work, he had begun considering
more...extreme...measures.
The discussions with professor Vector had helped him calculate what would
work and what wouldn't.
Wizard raised children came into Hogwarts with a lot of advantages, but
if there was one thing that a muggle upbringing had going for it, it was
the years spent in primary school.
Arithmancy wasn't the same as mathemathics, but it was close enough that
there was quite a bit of overlap.
A lot of the things he'd wanted to figure out were beyond Harry, even if
he'd been working on Arithmancy in his free time, but he had found a
workaround for that too.
The internet was full of mathemathicians that would solve any interesting
looking problem on a lark. All Harry had needed to do was post his
problem on a forum and wait for a reply. As long as he changed the names
of some of the variables and took out the bits that would make no sense
without magic being involved, he was almost guaranteed to receive an
answer that would work for him. It took some effort to dance around the
issue of magic, but it could be done.
This kind of cheating workaround had told him that merely using any old
knife to carve runes into his flesh wouldn't have enough power behind it.
He would either need a specially made ritual knife that was designed to
channel magic, or he would need to literally brand the runes into his
skin with a red hot branding iron. That was the only sacrifice he could
think of that was great enough to make the runes work in the way he
wanted them to without a proper knife.
Harry was naturally relieved to have found the ritual knife. He felt
enough trepidation at the thought of carving the runes into his skin with
a knife that he was not at all certain that he would be able to go
through with a branding.
He'd already told Teeny that she was not to come into the ritual chamber
for any reason no matter what she felt or heard until he called her.
Rituals were delicate things and having any extra thinking minds present
was always a bad idea.
Now all that was left to do was to actually step into the circle and
start the ritual, which was proving to be much harder than he expected.
It was all well and good to plan this thing out, but now that he'd come
to the point where he would have seven runes carved into his back by a
magically floating knife, he was discovering that much of his courage had
deserted him.
He'd expected that this might be the case, which was why the ritual was
set up in such a way that it could not be stopped once it was started.
Ironically, this made it even harder to make the first step.
It had to be this way though. He couldn't afford to chicken out midway.

The rune set was made to work together and carving only part of it would
likely be disastrous for him.
He just had to step into the circle and get started.
Any day now.
Yep.
Harry let out a gusty sigh, closed his eyes and stepped into it with a
sense of determined resignation. If he hadn't heard of that bloody
prophecy, he might have put this off until he was older. He might even
have decided that the price wasn't worth the payout.
But now he knew that he had a not-quite-dead Dark Lord after his hide and
he strongly doubted that the tosser would be considerate enough to wait
until Harry was ready for him. He wanted to live and he was sure that he
could endure a little pain now if it helped him survive later. Standing
naked in a cold stone room and staring aprehensively at the inert ritual
knife wouldn't do him any good.
Besides, this particular ritual would have more to work with if it was
done before puberty kicked in properly.
With another sigh to calm down his nerves, he knelt into the center of
the ritual circle, naked as the day he was born.
"Raido." He said, focusing on the rune even as he felt the petrification

effect worked into the ritual kick in.
Ritual. Journey. Freedom from imprisonment. Self-mastery.
The rune would mark the start of his ritual, as well as symbolize that
the runes would continue to influence him as he grew, making him more
than he would have been without them. It symbolized that he was willfully
changing his body in ways that people normally can't and release him from
the constraints of normal growth.
The knife started carving the blocky 'R' shaped rune into the base of his
neck and the only thing that stopped Harry from screaming was the
petrification. He did his absolute best to stay focused on the meaning of
the rune and hoped it would work as intended.
When it was over, Harry took a few minutes to get his breath back and
blink the tears out of his eyes. It had been worse than he'd expected and
he was doubly glad that he had a proper ritual knife. If getting cut was
this bad, then a branding would have been unbearable.
He could feel it working though. He could feel his magic flowing into the
rune, exploring the new channel and almost eagerly waiting for the next
one, as if it knew that it wasn't over yet.
When he felt ready, he spoke the next one.
"Gebo."
Trade. Sacrifice. Balance. Exchanged powers. Magical exchange.
A rune to symbolize the sacrifice he was making in exchange for the

benefits he wanted. Blood, pain and the permanent scarring of his flesh
in exchange for the power of the runes. It looked like an 'X' and it was
carved under Raido, along his spine.
"Inguz."
Internal growth. Personal development. Gestation process. Male sexuality.
This rune was basically focused on speeding his maturation. He wanted to

grow faster, both because adulthood meant freedom and because he did not
want to be a child when Voldemort eventually clawed his way back to life.
It was represented by a tilted square.
"Uruz."
Life force, Physical health. Healing. Vital formative force. Stamina.

Vitality. Virility. Vigor. Endurance. Raw primal power.
A rune meant to increase the potency of his body, granting greater

physical strength and endurance as well as speeding up natural healing.
It was a simple looking rune, merely two lines connected by a third at
the top, with the second one being shorter to make the whole rune a bit
slanted.
"Thurisaz."
Giant. Active defensive force. Regenerative catalyst. Reactive and

directed force.
Another rune to increase his endurance and durability, channel magic to
his muscles and bones, make him more resistant to injury, and to further
speed the healing properties of Uruz. It looked like an angular 'P', but
with the protruding part written in the middle instead of on top.
"Hagalaz."
Disruption. Change according to ideals. Power beyond human ability to

harness. Perfect pattern.
A rune that signified that what he wanted was a body stronger than should
be naturally his. A rune that was intended to direct the other runes into
the purpose of improving him. It looked very much like an 'H', except for
the middle line having a downward slant.
"Wunjo."
Harmony of like forces. Bonding. Shared aims. Optimism. Prosperity.
The final rune in the set, made to bind them all together into a unified
beneficial purpose instead of having each of them working independently.
It looked like an angular 'P'.
The ritual complete, Harry collapsed forward and gulped down deep breaths
of air as he waited for the burning pain across the length of his spine
to subside. He could feel his magic moving towards the newly carved
runes, leaving him even more drained than the pain had already done.
And then he suddenly became aware of just how incredibly hungry he was.
"Teeny." He croaked.
The house elf appeared and immediately cried in dismay at seeing his
bloodied back.
"Teeny, I need food. A lot of it." Harry went on, ignoring her panic. He
could barely think about anything save for the emptiness of his stomach
right now.
Glad to have a direction, Teeny apparated him into the kitchen, set a
bowl of fruit in front of him and started cooking up a storm.
Harry ate four apples, six bananas, two oranges and still felt hungry.
The runes on his back continued to siphon away his strength without
pause, slowly transforming from open wounds into scars.
Teeny noticed that he'd run out of food and put a bowl of salad in front
of him. It was meant to come after the soup, but she couldn't bear to
make him wait when he was obviously starving.
It was good to be needed again.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Harry's appetite eventually calmed down and he asked Teeny to apparate
him back to his foster parents. He'd been gone for the whole day this
time and he didn't want them to be anymore pissy than strictly necessary.
"Harry, is that you?" Katherine's voice came from a bathroom while he was
on the way to his room.
"Yes, it's me." He called back without stopping, wanting to do nothing

more than fall asleep.
"Robert and I got an invitation to the opera while you were gone, so
you'll have the house to yourself."
Harry thanked whichever deity had decided to be merciful today. The opera
was one of those things that they left him behind for, probably thinking
that it would make them look bad to drag a kid along for something like
that.
"Great, have fun." He said back, managing to actually sound sincere.

Whoever had invited them must be relatively important if she wasn't even
bothering to ask where he'd been all day.
Katherine chose that moment to step out of the bathroom.
"How do I look?" She asked, making little turns so that he could see more
of her.
She did this sometimes, fishing for compliments from a child like the
self-obsessed bint that she was. Harry had always given her the expected
empty compliment that he didn't really mean.
She did genuinely look good though. At thirty two years old, she was
still pretty young and her healthy diet and frequent exercise kept her
looking beautiful. Combined with the hours she'd no doubt spent in front
of a mirror and the tight black dress she was wearing, she was nothing
short of stunning.
As Harry noticed this, he felt the blood rush between his legs and a
strange squirming sensation started up in his lower abdomen. His body
heated up and he felt his eyes getting pulled to her legs and breasts.
The runes on his back prickled. His hands twitched with the sudden desire
to feel if her arse was as tight as it looked.
A wave of horror made his face go white as he realized what he was

thinking.
"You look great." He managed to force out. "Excuse me, I have something I
need to do."
He fled to his room before she could do more than look confused by his
strange behavior.
As soon as he was in his room and safely away from a woman three times
his age that he suddenly found inexplicably sexy, he buried his head into
a pillow and screamed in frustration at his own stupidity.
He was a moron. A bloody colossal moron the likes of which the world had
never seen.
The runes had more meanings than the ones he'd focused on during the
ritual. Professor Babbling had warned him that these types of runes could
have unexpected effects.
Uruz also meant uncontrolled rage, misdirected force and brutality.

Thurisaz also meant aggressive male sexuality and male sexual prowess.
And those were just two runes. He knew that the others meant a whole host
of other things that were no doubt contributing to his suddenly inflammed
hormones, though those two were definitely the worst. He'd wanted to
speed up his maturation and that's what he was getting, but he was also
having all the effects of puberty supercharged to completely stupid
levels.
This was not good. In fact, he would go so far as to call it bad.
There was no way he'd be able to function like a normal human being in
Hogwarts if this started happening every time he saw a pretty girl. And
what if something made him angry? Would he even be able to control
himself?
Maybe, just maybe, the Ministry restrictions weren't all because they
were a bunch of weak willed weenies too scared of magic to use it to the
fullest.
Another realization interrupted his cursing streak. He had to hide the

runes or he'd be in deep shit if someone saw them. He was nowhere near
ready to openly challenge the Ministry on this.
The only way that he knew how to hide them in any kind of practical
manner was with another ritual.
"Shite."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"We warned you that it wasn't a good idea." Charlus was saying, sounding
far too smug for a painting.
"It'll be fine as long as I can control it." Harry defended. Despite the
unexpected side effects, he still thought that the ritual was an overall
success.
"Can you control it?" Dorea asked pointedly.

"...maybe." Harry said after a long moment. "I've already prepared
another ritual that should work to improve my memory and willpower, as
well as hiding my mind and runes."
"Harry, your first rune set was focused strictly on your body. Do you
really think it's wise to use runes that affect your mind?" Charlus asked
with some exasperation.
Harry swallowed. No, he did not think it was wise, but he didn't have
much choice. He couldn't allow his mind to remain an open book for a
skilled enough legilimancer. He couldn't allow his runes to stay visible.
He couldn't allow the new impulses of his body to have this much power
over him.
The first rune set remained a constant drain on his magic and continued
to give him a voracious appetite, which he knew would be the case until
he stopped growing. Fortunately, the drain was not so severe that it
would kill him, but a portion of his magic would be constantly shunted
towards improving his growth and thus be unusable for spells.
"It'll be fine. I'm using less volatile runes this time and only three of
them instead of seven." He said with more confidence than he honestly
felt.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
After coming home for the summer, Harry had reserached how much
correlation there was between muggle and wizarding knowledge of Norse
runes.
To his surprise, it was identical.
This had emboldened him with the idea to use symbols that were completely
foreign to the knowledge of British wizards.
He had always intended to hide his mind with a rune, and his original
idea had been to use the Japanese kanji for Void to do it.
After what had happened with his first rune set, he'd decided that
something else would probably be better. He was just a bit nervous about
the possibility of turning himself into a mindless vegetable if he carved
Void into his forehead.
In the end he had decided to use a completely fictional set of runes.

Professor Babbling had warned him about making up random squiggles and
assigning them meaning himself, but he wasn't making these up himself.
Just because these runes happened to belong to the Avariel, a fictional

race of winged elves from the Forgotten Realms, it didn't make them
meaningless.
Theoretically.
"Da'Roir."
Remembrance. Memory. The Strength of Stones.
A rune that looked like a par of stylized mirrored J's with a another
stylized bar connecting them just beneath the top. It would improve his
memory and bolster his willpower to be as immovable as rock.
The ritual knife carved the rune into the back of his head, scraping
across his skull as it cut through hair and flesh.
When it was finished and his magic flowed into the new rune, he felt a
burst of memory.
A thin and pale abomination of a man with red eyes. His mother begging
for his life, offering hers in exchange. The specifics written in her own
blood and hidden under the carpet. Her life for his, willingly given. The
greatest sacrifice. The green flash of a killing curse. Voldemort
destroyed in the backlash as he tried to violate the blood contract that
he had unknowingly agreed to when he killed his mother.
Harry gasped for air as the short but intense memory played out. Tears
gathered in his eyes that had nothing to do with the pain throbbing in
the back of his head. He could remember his mother, he knew her voice and
face. Knew that she had given everything to protect him.
A few more hazy memories came from the fog of infancy.
His father, a messy haired man with glasses. More carefree than his
mother but with the same faintly grim air about him.
Another, more playful man with a barking laugh that sometimes transformed
into a big black dog the way that McGonagall could transform into a cat
and let him ride on his back. Sirius.
A very short man with grubby skin and watery eyes. Peter.
Sirius finding him in the wreckage, giving him to Hagrid. The half-giant
delivering him to Dumbledore and Dumbledore in turn dropping him off on
the Dursleys doorstep. Petunia's attempts to treat him like family but
her demeanor steadily souring as he continued to display accidental
magic.
It took him nearly an hour to calm his emotions enough to continue the
ritual.
"Arhain."
A stylized cross, with the horizontal line curling in opposing directions

at both ends. Carved just under his right collarbone.
A rune to hide his other runes, showing others only the unmarked flesh
they expected to see, lightning bolt scar not included. The same effect
as an exceptionally powerful Notice-Me-Not charm that could not be
dispelled or pierced without his permission.
"Aul'El."
That Which Cannot be Known or Comprehended.
It looked like a stylized letter 'A', but with the connecting line
looping back on the left side. The last rune in the set of three, carved
into the middle of his forehead.
It would not build barriers around his mind in the way of Occlumency.
Rather, it would make it utterly impossible for anyone but him to
understand his thoughts and memories. Any legilimancer that tried to
invade his mind would gain nothing but confusion.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Harry settled into his seat on the Hogwarts Express and pulled a book
from his Bag of Holding.
He expected that his second year at Hogwarts would be more eventful than
his first. There was the unknown plot that Dobby had warned him off, as
well as his continued study of magic.
Perhaps the most difficult thing would be his attempts to make a friend.
He honestly had no idea how to go about doing that. Initiating social
contact was most definitely not one of his strengths. Perhaps his
housemates will have forgotten some of his admittedly rude responses to
their initial attempts to talk to him and try again? One could only hope.
After a lot of thinking, he could admit to himself that he may

have...overreacted a bit to their fixation on his fame. Most of them had
no doubt been brought up hearing ridiculous stories about the Boy-Who-
Lived. It wasn't their fault that their parents had no sense of
objectivity and kept filling their heads with nonsense. He would have to
try not to be so snappish this year if it happened again.
He wondered how his runes would affect his temper. He hadn't had the
opportunity to find out just yet.
The powerful surges of desire every time he saw a pretty woman still
occurred, but he'd learned to control the effects to some extent, or at
least conceal them.
He never thought he'd be glad for the silly tailoring of the Hogwarts
robes, but he was. They did a far better job of hiding erections than
just pants. If not for the robes, he was quite sure that he would have
died of embarrassment in his Astronomy classes. Professor Sinistra would
have inevitably noticed his persistent little issue, as she often had to
get quite close to students to help adjust their telescopes and she was a
beautiful woman.
Still, for all the grief that his rune enhanced hormones promised to give
him, he was happy with the results. He'd already heard some comments
about how he was growing like a weed and it had been barely over a month
since the ritual. For a boy who had always been on the short side, that
was well worth the discomfort.
He'd wanted to do some more rituals, but he had to bow to the wisdom of
his grandparents(or that of their portraits at any rate) and the
mothering of Teeny. Overdoing it was probably not a good idea. For all
his initial apprehension about going through with it, he now found
himself almost eager to do another. Yes, it was painful. Very painful
even. But the pain soon faded into memory and the runes stayed forever.
Well, there would be plenty of downtime from rituals while he was at

Hogwarts. He somehow doubted that the staff would look the other way if
they learned that a student was practicing ritualistic self-
scarrification. Too many eyes at the school to risk it.
No matter though, there were plenty of other things to learn.
Unfortunately, he was almost sure that DADA would continue to be a

disappointment. He'd been initially excited to hear that a hero of sorts
had taken the post, but that excitement had guttered out when he'd
skimmed over the books that the man had assigned.
For one thing, every single one of them read like a novel rather than an
instructional text. Even worse, they were filled with nonsense and
completely pointless information. The man claimed to have briefly fought
a werewolf barehanded in one of those books for example.
Now, Harry didn't know too much about what a real werewolf was like, but
if they bore the slightest resemblance to the werewolves of muggle
fiction, then trying to fight them up close and unarmed for any length of
time was a great way to die messily. You'd need to be a real mountain of
a man in thick armor and a nice big sword to survive a melee fight with
the beasts. Judging by the picture he'd seen of Gilderoy Lockhart, he
was...not.
He could be wrong of course, because he as previously noted didn't know

much about what real werewolves were like. They could be pushovers for
all he knew.
He rather doubted it though.
The door to the cabin opened, revealing a blonde girl with big blue eyes.
"Hello." She said dreamily, stepped inside and took a seat.
"Hello." Harry replied, too bemused by the bold entrance to be annoyed.

Well, she hadn't stopped to gawk at his scar, so he would call it a win.
"I'm Luna Lovegood." She introduced herself in the same dreamy tone.
"Harry Potter." He returned, feeling absurdly pleased when she didn't
really react to the name.
"Are we going to be friends? Daddy told me I would make friends."
That was easy. Harry thought to himself in muted shock. He'd spent half
the summer debating with himself if trying to make friends with someone
was worth the initial awkwardness, only for this rather spacey looking
girl to just go ahead and ask him like it was nothing.
"Errr, sure?" He answered uncertainly. There was definitely something a

bit off about this girl.
"Are you okay?" Luna asked with a suddenly concerned tone. "You sound
like you have wrackspurts."
"What's a wrackspurt?" Harry asked in bewilderment.
"They're invisible creatures that float in through your ears and make
your brain go fuzzy." She informed him with authority.
"But if they're invisible, then how can you see them?" Harry asked
sceptically.
"You don't see them silly, that's what invisible means." Luna chided,
making Harry blink at her logic.
"Then how do you know that they're there?"
"You have to feel them." She explained.
"And what do they feel like?" He pressed, now determined to get to the
bottom of this.
"Like fuzzy brains and jumbled thoughts."
Harry opened his mouth to ask another question and then closed it as a
sudden realization hit him.
"These wrackspurts...they wouldn't happen to cause confusion would they?"
"They very well might." Luna agreed.
"So you were basically just asking me if I was confused earlier?"
"No, I was wondering if you had wrackspurts."
Harry gaped at her for a moment, wondering if he was being mocked. That
dreamy expression of hers made for a surprisingly good poker face.
"Oh, the wrackspurts are back!"

He couldn't help cracking a smile at that. Well, he'd avoided contact
with the normal people, so he supposed it was only natural that he'd end
up making friends with the oddball.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
The two continued to chat until the train started moving. Harry
discovered that Luna was surprisingly easy to talk despite the occasional
off color comment she made. He already liked her more than anyone he'd
met in the Wizarding World so far.
Their interesting and sometimes strange conversation was interrupted by

the cabin door opening again, this time revealing a redheaded girl with
freckles that had a distinctly Weasley look to her.
"H-hi." She said shyly, her pale face steadily moving to match her hair
in color. "Can I, um, sit here?"
"Hello Ginny." Luna said in the same vaguely dreamy tone that seemed to
be her normal speaking voice.
"You two know each other?" Harry asked with raised eyebrows.
"We used to be friends." Luna elaborated, causing Ginny to shuffle in

place guiltily.
"Come in then, I guess." Harry said, not sure if it was a good idea but
also not wanting to tell her to go away since Luna didn't seem to mind.
Ginny quickly did so, sitting in a corner and looking as if she was
trying to mimic the powers of a chameleon.
"I'm Harry Potter." Harry introduced himself.
"I know!" Ginny blurted out and immediately flushed scarlet. "I mean, I'm
Ginny. Ginny Weasley."
Harry tried not to get too annoyed by her behavior and returned to his
conversation with Luna. Ginny was mostly silent and just did a lot of
glancing and blushing.
She was also very jealous of her former friend for the easy conversation
she had with the Boy-Who-Lived.
Her mother had told her that Harry Potter hadn't made any friends at
Hogwarts the previous year and that it would be nice of her if she could
become one for the obviously lonely boy.
Her mother's words had been like a dream come true for Ginny, who had
grown up on stories of the Boy-Who-Lived. Becoming his friend would be
amazing.
And now here she was, in the same cabin with him as they rode to
Hogwarts, and she was barely able to get a few words out. She wanted to
talk to him too, but she'd already embarrassed herself so much and didn't
want to make it any worse.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"Hanging around with Weasleys again, Potter? The girl might at least be
useful as breeding stock, I suppose." Malfoy sneered as he opened the
door about an hour later.
Harry felt a surge of potent anger the like of which he hadn't felt in
years. The runes on his back prickled, Uruz in particular.
Without really thinking too much, he stood up and shoved the mouthy blond
with as much force as he could muster.
Malfoy went sprawling into a painful heap with his two juvenile guard
trolls, shouting something about his father hearing of this.
Harry wasn't listening though. It was with monumental effort that he

managed to resist the urge to launch a kick or two at the trio of downed
idiots. He slammed the cabin door shut instead, drew his wand and put a
locking charm on it.
"T-thanks." Ginny said quietly, a shy but dazzling smile on her face. The
Boy-Who-Lived had protected her honor, just like in the stories!
Harry simply nodded and sat down. He hadn't done it for her. He didn't
know her well enough to really be outraged on her behalf aside from the
reaction that any decent person would have to unwarranted insults.
Now that he'd cooled down a bit, he could think about what had happened
logically and knew that he'd overreacted. He somehow doubted that Malfoy
even properly understood what he'd said. In a society without internet
access, twelve year olds generally did not learn enough about the birds
and the bees to understand the concept of 'breeding stock'. It was
possible that the boy's parents had taught him about it, but more than
likely he was simply repeating what his father or mother had said and
assuming that it was an insult.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Harry stared in fascination at the skeletal winged horses harnessed to

the carriages that would take them to the castle. He didn't recall seeing
those the previous year, though he had admittedly not paid much attention
in this direction either.
"Do you know what those horses are?" He asked of a passing Su Li, hoping
that the girl knew something he didn't. He wished Luna was here. Strange
creatures seemed to be a specialty of hers.
"What horses?" She questioned back, puzzled.

"They're called thestrals, you can only see them if you've seen someone
die." A passing upper year Hufflepuff told them, giving Harry a look of
sympathy as he did so.
Harry might have been a bit irritated by that look if his memory didn't
flash back to the death of his mother at the words. Perhaps unlocking
that old memory was allowing him to see them now?
What a strangely specific form of invisibility.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"Weasley, Ginevra!"
Ginny hurried over to the stool with the Sorting Hat and put on the
ancient magical headwear, eager to get sorted. She could already see Luna
and Harry sitting together at the Ravenclaw table and desperately wanted
to join them.
Ravenclaw eh? You are much better suited to Gryffindor. The hat said.
But I want to be with Harry. Ginny thought back stubbornly. Her mother
had asked her to become his friend and that would be much easier if she
was in the same house. She may not have said much to him yet, but she
liked what she'd seen of him so far and he had defended her from that
prat Malfoy and his insults.
The hat tried to dissuade her a few more times, but Ginny was stubborn
and insisted on going to Ravenclaw.
A little known thing about the Sorting Hat was that it didn't so much
sort as it helped to guide the children to the house that fit them best.
Most children had little opinion on where they wanted to go, but some of
them did and went against the recommendations it gave.
Hermione Granger should have gone to Ravenclaw, but her idolization of

Dumbledore had her insisting on Gryffindor despite the advice of the
Sorting hat.
In an ironic twist, Ginny did the opposite.
"RAVENCLAW!"
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Over at the Gryffindor table, four Weasleys stared with slack jaws as
their little sister went to the table of blue and bronze. They knew that
their firecracker of a sister was not nearly bookish enough to go to
Ravenclaw. If there had ever been a Gryffindor Weasley, it was Ginny, so
it took no effort to assume that Harry Potter was somehow the cause of
the strange sorting given that she immediately sat down next to him.
It didn't mean much to Percy, who merely sniffed at the break in the
Weasley tradition of being sorted into Gryffindor.
Fred and George hadn't really paid much attention to Harry Potter so far,
but his association with their favorite little sister merited a stern
talk about his intentions with ickle Gin-Gin. And a great deal of
teasing. And possibly pranks, but that was par for the course.
Ron was the most confused of the lot, as this event did not at all
compute with his view of the world. Weasleys went to Gryffindor, that was
simply the way of things. How could Ginny be a Ravenclaw?
The time since Halloween and Hermione's death had been hard on Ron. He
knew that he shared at least partial responsibility for the death of his
housemate.
In truth, he had barely scraped through first year. His usual lack of
academic ability coupled with the guilt he'd been feeling causing his
normally poor grades to plummet to terrible. It took the help of all
three of his older brothers to get his grades to the point where he
didn't need to repeat his first year.
His mother had not been happy, but had also tried not to be too harsh
with him, knowing the cause of his poor performance. Some of it at least.
He'd mostly managed to put Hermione's death behind him, but he was much
more careful with his words now.
He would go talk to Ginny later.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Albus Dumbledore had merely blinked at the unexpected sorting. A Weasley

in Ravenclaw? How novel.
Then he saw Harry Potter sitting next to young Ginny and Luna Lovegood
and actually talking to someone his age!
He smiled. It may not be exactly what he'd planned when he'd spoken to
Molly earlier in the summer, but plans could sometimes go awry in good
ways too.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Harry did his best to ignore the discomfort caused by the odd looks he
was getting from the other Ravenclaws. No doubt they were wondering about
his abnormal friendliness with Luna.
Well, Ginny was here too he supposed.
He would honnestly have prefered if she had gone to Gryffindor like her
brothers. The constant blushing and shy glances she'd been giving him the
entire train ride had made for a rather awkward experience.
Only the memory of his resolution not to judge as quickly as he had with
Hermione stopped him from alienating her right off the bat. The obvious
crush she had on him was more than a little annoying and was not returned
in the slightest. He had enough problems keeping his eyes off the
prettier upper year girls without having to deal with this too.
Luna was a godsend in that regard, her quirky conversation style keeping
him well distracted from wondering about the kind of bodies those
unflattering robes were hiding. Mostly.
Well, he'd give Ginny a chance to grow out of this rather than pushing
her away immediately. Who knows, she might actually find that she didn't
like the real him too much.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Yes, I killed Dobby. MUAHAHAHAHAH.
I wonder if this is what George R. R. Martin feels like?
But on a more serious note, Dobby is dead because I didn't want to have a
12 year old outsmarting a professional slippery bastard like Lucius.
Events in canon notwithstanding (what the hell was Dobby doing in
Hogwarts at the time anyway?).
Chapter 4
I'm sure there are a bunch of reviews that I should have replied to in
the fast week or so, but the website was being a bit screwy. For some
reason it kept claiming that any reviews posted after December 30th
didn't exist and couldn't be replied to. Didn't even display them in the
review page. Weird stuff, but it seems to have passed now.
Many thanks to Joe Lawyer for his beta-ing xD.
Anyway, here goes chapter 4. Enjoy.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
The Weasley twins made a beeline for the Ravenclaw table, where they
could see Harry and Luna eating breakfast. Apparently, getting sorted
into the house of eagles had not made Ginny a morning person.
"Greetings."
"Salutations."
"Good morning."
"Hello."
"I don't believe we've been introduced."
"I'm Fred-"
"-handsome fellow isn't he? And I'm George."
"Together we are the amazing,"
"the stupendous,"
"the incadescent-"
"-since when do you know that word, my brother?"
"Since yesterday, and now you've ruined the flow."
"Oh no!"
"Anyway, we are...The Weasley Twins!"
Harry looked at them blandly over the mountain of food piled on his
plate, not entirely sure what to make of this introduction.
"Hi." He said and went back to stuffing his face. He always woke up with
a monster appetite these days.
"I say, I don't think even ickle Ronniekins can eat that much."
"And he can eat a lot indeed."
"Breakfast is the most important meal of the day." Harry justified,

despite having been one of those people who didn't eat much in the
mornings before the runes. "Is there something I can help you with?"
"Indeed you can."
"You see Harry, we are fairly certain that Ginny only went to Ravenclaw
because of you."
"In light of this, we would like to know-"
"-what your intentions are towards our little sister." They twins
finished in unison, grinning down at him evilly.
"Intentions?" Harry echoed. He understood their meaning perfectly well,

but he was friggin' twelve and Ginny was eleven. Sure, he had apparently
done a number on his puberty with that ritual, but they didn't know that.
Moreover, his hormones seemed to be targeting the more developed girls
exclusively, for which he was thankful. It meant that he would only have
trouble keeping his eyes from wandering during mealtimes, free periods
and such and not during classes, with the notable exception of professor
Sinistra.
Luna, who had thus far contented herself with silently making the perfect
jam spread on her bread, decided to enlighten her friend.
"They want to know if you're going to put your penis in Ginny's vagina."
She said serenely, bringing her bread to eye level to make sure that the
jam was perfect.
Harry spat out the half-masticated morsel of food currently in his mouth,
coughing violently as his body protested him nearly sending solids into
his lungs.
Though shocked as badly as Harry by Luna's words, the Weasley twins had
the advantage of not eating at the time and were able to recover faster.
"Aren't you a bit young to know about that?" Fred asked, somewhat
hypocritically it must be said. Although they hadn't truthfully expected
Harry to catch on to their insinuation and were just going to tease him.
"I watched daddy put his penis in mummy's vagina, and in her mouth, and
her bum. It looked fun and I asked if I could play too, but mummy
explained that it was a grown-up game and that I would know when I was
old enough to play. I wanted to be good at it, so I started reading
mummy's books and peeping on them when they played." Luna explained with
a dreamy smile, taking a rapturous bite of her perfectly prepared slice
of bread.
The three males present exchanged akward looks as the silence stretched
on, heavy and oppressive with only the sound of Luna's chewing to break
it. Well, that and the general noise of people having breakfast in the
Great Hall. The twins were in fourth year now and old enough to
understand how utterly strange Luna's statement was, while Harry's
internet exposure took care of any ignorance on his part. In fact, the
only one who seemed oblivious to the reality of the situation was Luna
herself.
"We've got a, uh..."
"...a prank!"
"Yes! A prank to plan."
"Talk to you later Harrykins."
"Yes, much later."
"It sure was nice of the twins to come and introduce themselves to you
like that." Luna commented.
"Uh...yeah." Harry replied weakly, having the dual problem of feeling

incredibly awkward and pointlessly aroused by the imagery that Luna's
words had brought to mind. He recalled thinking yesterday that Luna was a
great distraction from his out of control hormones, but now he was
wondering if she wasn't going to make it worse.
His meal was once again interrupted when he saw a smaller-than-average
first year Gryffindor coming at him with a big smile and a very antique
looking camera.
"Hi Harry! I'm-I'm Colin Creevey." The boy said breathlessly, edging
closer tentatively. "I'm in Gryffindor. Would you...would it be alright
if I...can I take a picture?" He finally managed, raising the camera
hopefully.
"No, It wouldn't be alright." Harry replied irritably, feeling his runes

prickling.
"Please." Colin begged. "It's to prove that I've met you. I know all
about you. Everyone's told me. About how you survived when You-Know-Who
tried to kill you and how he disappeared and everything and how you've
still got a lightning scar on your forehead" He stared unabashedly at
Harry's scar when he said this. "and a boy in my dormitory said if I
develop the film in the right potion, the pictures'll move!" Colin drew a
great shuddering breath of excitement and continued on. "It's amazing
here, isn't it? I never knew all the odd stuff I could do was magic till
I got the letter from Hogwarts. My dad's a milkman, he couldn't believe
it either. So I'm taking loads of pictures to send home to him. And it'd
be really good if I had one of you." He looked imploringly at Harry.
"Maybe your friend could take it and I could stand next to you? And then,
could you sign it?"
Harry's blood pressure had steadily been rising as the younger boy
continued his unsolicited word vomit. Intellectually, he knew that Colin
was just excited about magic and probably had a thing for photography. He
was in all likelihood just out to get a picture of the famous Harry
Potter that he'd read about so that he could brag to his parents.
Harry was far too busy trying to control the suddenl swell of
disproportionate rage that the pushy and inconsiderate brat had inspired
in him to think of that though. Where did the annoying little shit get
off asking for photos?! And to sign them too?! Even worse, Colin had
raised his voice in his desperate plea to get Harry to reconsider and
attracted a lot of attention, which he had never been comfortable with
and was now serving to make him even more angry.
When Colin was done talking he looked back at Harry's eyes and blanched
at the furious glare being directed at him. He was about to stutter out
an apology and vacate the area when a third party decided to make it
worse.
"Signed photos? You're giving out signed photos, Potter?" Malfoy asked
scathingly, being deliberately loud enough for the entire Great Hall to
hear. "Everyone line up! Harry Potter is giving out signed photos!"
Colin was by this point wishing that he'd never approached his hero, or
at least that he'd done it somewhere more private. He knew that this
situation was his fault, so he tried to help.
"You're just jealous."

Eleven year olds did not generally make good problem solvers, alas.
"Jealous?" Malfoy sneered. "Why would I be jealous of an ugly scar across

my-AAAH!"
Malfoy's scathing retort turned into a scream as Harry's self-control

snapped and he hurled a heavy golden goblet at the blond's face, nearly
breaking his nose.
The scream snapped Harry out of the angry fog, but he knew that it wasn't
gone yet. He pushed away from the table and shouldered past a stunned
Colin, barely noticing as he nearly knocked the smaller boy to the
ground.
"Harry!" an deeper, adult voice called loudly in what was probably

supposed to be a friendly tone, a hand clamping down on his shoulder.
The plates of food trembled, some of them having their contents

inexplicably explode.
"You can't just-AAAAH!"
Whatever advice Gilderoy Lockhart had been about to impart would forever
remain unheard as the action renewed Harry's fury and caused him to stab
a fork into the man's hand. He hadn't even registered that he was still
clutching a fork.
The entire Great Hall watched in stunned silence as the Boy-Who-Lived

stomped out, rage written in every movement.
"Oh dear, he blew up my jam." Luna pouted, wiping a bit of the raspberry
mess from her face and leaving the table. If there was no more jam to be
had, then she might as well go help her friend calm down.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Harry hadn't gone very far, only to the first empty hallway.
He was leaning on the wall and taking deep breaths, trying to ignore the
incessant prickling of his runes, when Luna found him.
The sight of her with raspberry jam splattered all over her face put a
crack in his anger and he couldn't help laughing at her pout.
"You blew it all over my face Harry." She chided. "It was supposed to go
in my mouth."
Harry continued to laugh breathlessly as his anger drained away,

wondering if Luna was deliberately using innuendo or if she was honestly
clueless.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Harry had no illusions that he would be getting away with what he'd done
scot free, so the summons by Dumbledore came as no surprise.
"I hope you realize that your actions in the Great Hall today were
unacceptable, Harry." The headmaster said gravely, staring into the boy's
green eyes.
He attempted a brief touch of legilimency, but received only a confusing

kaleidoscope of impressions that made no sense to him. It was remarkably
similar to what a person experienced if they ever found themselves in a
fidelius protected location without knowing the secret. What had happened
to the boy over the summer to change his mind in this way? How did he
even function?
Harry felt Aul'El prickle on his forehead and saw the flicker of
confusion on Dumbledore's face. He had to quickly clamp down on the surge
of anger it made him feel. He'd already suspected that the headmaster
made a habit of reading minds when he could get away with it. It made the
advice of his grandparents all the more relevant. Dumbledore was not to
be trusted.
"Yes sir." He answered.
He was finding it hard to regret what he'd done to Malfoy and Lockhart,
but he knew that he couldn't keep throwing goblets or stabbing with forks
every time he got angry. He had to find a way to control himself. Da'Roir
would obviously only do so much to help him in that regard. In fact, it
was doing less than he had hoped. His memory was much improved, but his
emotions were far from under control.
Occlumency was supposed to help with controlling one's emotions, so maybe

it was time to start learning that? He'd neglected to try it so far
because the book said that it took a long time and using a rune seemed so
much easier.
"Good," Dumbledore said with a nod, deciding not to mention the multitude
of points that Ravenclaw had lost over this incident since he knew that
the boy didn't care about the house cup. "then you will not object to
having detention with Filch for a week or to making a public apology to
Mr. Malfoy and professor Lockhart."
Harry's face twisted in anger. The detention he'd expected and wasn't
going to object to even if it would cut into his personal time, but
publically apologizing to those two blowhards?
"Are they going to apologize to me?" He asked back.
Dumbledore blinked at the cold tone, wondering where all this anger was
coming from. Harry hadn't been nearly this difficult the previous year.
"Whatever for, Harry? You were the one who assaulted them."
"I didn't do it for fun." Harry retorted sarcastically. "Malfoy was

deliberately provoking me and Lockhart grabbed me."
"Surely you realize that you cannot attack fellow students over
schoolyard teasing, or attack a professor simply for placing his hand on
your shoulder?" Dumbledore asked pointedly.
Harry did know that, but that didn't mean that he was going to apologize
for it. "I'm not going to apologize for attacking them if they don't
apologize for what they did."
"Harry, I thought you were more mature than this." Dumbledore rebuked,
his entire manner radiating disappointment.
"It's hard to be mature when you're dealing with idiots." Harry retorted,
not caring one whit about the old man's disappointment at this point.
"Either everyone apologizes, or nobody does."
Harry knew in a distant sort of way that he was being more than a bit
unreasonable here. Though Draco was undeniably a tragic waste of air, he
hadn't done anything worse than countless other children who thought that
getting someone else in trouble was fun. Certainly nothing to deserve
getting a metal goblet to the face. Lockhart was a similar case, except
that in his case it was a fork stabbing. He could only thank his lucky
stars that it hadn't been Snape or McGonagall. Lockhart was quickly
shaping out to be comic relief and was therefore inconsequential.
Unfortunately, he was having to deal with his rune enhanced temper and
digging his heels in seemed like a perfectly fine thing to do.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
While Harry did briefly attain legendary status among the Gryffindors for
managing to toss a goblet at Malfoy, stab a professor and get a lengthy
detention on his first day back in Hogwarts, that was no comfort to him
when he had to spend several hours every day doing manual labor with
Filch.
He could vaguely recall needing to do age inappropriate chores at the

Dursleys, but it had been a long time since he'd done any kind of mind
numbingly repetitive physical labor. The whole experience was made worse
because Filch kept pontificating on the kind of punishments he'd like to
use on students.
Seriously, how did a man that wanted to use a cat o' nine tails with
barbed metal tips on children work in a school?
The issue of the public apology had stalled since nobody actually wanted
to do it and Harry was quite sure that whatever forbearance Snape had
found for him last year had now evaporated. The Potions master had spent
a large portion of the previous year looking at him as if he was a
puzzle, but now he'd reverted to back to his full nastiness.
Harry suspected that he had given some pointers to Filch on how to make
detention more unpleasant. At least it was the last day. The only reason
his temper wasn't getting away from him again was because he'd expected
it to happen and resigned himself to it. He definitely needed to get a
handle on that problem though, and fast.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"Uh, Harry?" Ginny started uncertainly.
"Yes?" The boy in question asked, not looking up from his book.
"Weren't you supposed to be in detention?"
"Why would I be in detention?"
"Because you called professor Lockhart a..." Ginny paused for a moment,
blushing. "...a bucket of warm piss and stomped out of his classroom?"
"I did not." Harry protested, his own face going red. This new temper of
his was starting to become a serious problem. "I said that he's about as
qualified to teach as a bucket of warm piss."
"Okay, but shouldn't you be in detention for that?"
"According to Lockhart, yes, but I'm not going to waste my time helping
that idiot answer his fan mail."
"Do you, um, want to go for a w-walk around the lake then?" Ginny
stuttered out, her previous blush returning with a vengeance.
"I have homework to do." Harry replied, going back to his book.
"O-oh, maybe some other time then!" She said in a rush and ran off,
hiding her crestfallen expression.
Harry released an aggravated sigh. Why oh why couldn't she tell that he
was simply not interested?
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"Come ...come to me...Let me rip you...Let me tear you...Let me kill

you..."
Harry paused on his way back to the Ravenclaw tower from one of his late
night excursions to the Restricted Section, a chill going down his spine
at the malicious voice.
"Hello?" He asked softly.
There was no answer and it was a much disturbed Harry Potter that
returned to his room.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"Are you sure you weren't just hearing things?" Ginny asked sceptically
the next day, after being told about the voice.
Harry paused for a moment to consider that. It was not entirely
impossible that he might have been sleepy and imagined it, but he was
getting that feeling of foreshadowing for plot related information over
this. It was certainly ominous enough.
"No, I'm sure it was another voice and I definitely wasn't imagining it."
"Don't worry about it Harry, I hear voices all the time." Luna added
reassuringly. "If your voice comes back, we could introduce it to my
voices and they could be friends."
"It didn't sound like the type of voice that would have friends." Harry
replied, amused.
Luna looked genuinely upset by this. "Oh. Maybe it's just lonely?"
"Luna, this is serious!" Ginny said with a scowl. She hadn't been
sleeping well lately and wasn't in the mood for Luna's games.
"I know." Luna agreed wholeheartedly. "Loneliness is a terrible thing."
Ginny looked like she wanted to hit something.
"I'll be sure to try befriending the voice if I hear it again." Harry

interjected, still amused. "If it still wants to kill people after that,
I can point it at Malfoy and Lockhart."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Hogwarts staff room, September 30th.
A new year had arrived, meaning another start-of-year meeting between the
headmaster and the four heads of house.
Most of the relevant topics ranging from school brooms to the new first
years had already been discussed, leaving only things of special
importance.
"Albus, you really must do something about Lockhart. The man is a

menace." McGonagall said in exasperation.
"I would like nothing more, Minerva." Dumbledore replied with a sigh.
"Unfortunately, I am out of options. There is literally nobody to replace
him with."
"There is something of a minor revolt brewing among my house because of

him." Flitwick added, a touch amused. "Apparently, Mr. Potter's dramatic
exit and refusal to attend any more of the man's classes has planted the
idea in many of their heads that they would be better off not attending
the class at all. Ms. Lovegood and Weasley have already stopped and are
using Mr. Potter's notes from last year to learn the material."
Snape made a derisive snort. His opinion on Harry Potter had taken a
sharp dive since the start of the year when the boy had thrown his temper
tantrum. Oh, the boy was certainly nothing like his father, but he was
still a brat.
"Were you not going to convince him to attend the DADA lessons again?"
Dumbledore asked.
"I tried, but he told me that he may not be able to stop himself from
another stabbing if he had to answer one more question about Lockhart's
favorite color." Flitwick answered. "Sadly, I cannot blame him."
This time it was Sprout and McGonagall who snorted. They couldn't blame
him either. There was a reason why the boy had gotten off so lightly,
mostly because all the professors had been silently gleeful at seeing
Lockhart dance around with a fork sticking out of his hand. Even Poppy
had been rougher than strictly necessary when she removed it.
"Have any of you noticed that Harry seems to be rather...angry this

year?" Dumbledore asked, deciding not to pursue the issue of DADA
attendance. Lockhart would serve as a placeholder professor just as well
whether he had any students to teach or not, which was really the only
thing that had ever been expected of him.
"Yes, it's the strangest thing really." Sprout said. "I remember him as
being very even tempered last year, but I've seen him visibly clamp down
on his anger several times in the past month."
Flitwick and McGonagall offered their own observations, which were just
more of the same. Harry was occasionaly exhibiting anger management
issues.
Snape let the other three heads of house debate the matter for a few
minutes with the headmaster before he simply couldn't tolerate their
blindness anymore.
"Has it perhaps escaped your attention that there is more going on with
the boy than merely a few angry outbursts?" He asked cuttingly.
What do you mean, Severus?" Dumbledore asked.
"He has been ogling the older girls when he thinks that nobody is
looking."
"Surely not...he's only twelve!" McGonagall said.
"An early bloomer then?" Dumbledore opined with a smile. "He has been
having a bit of a growth spurt recently."
Severus' observation came as no small comfort for the old wizard. He had
feared that this was a result of learning the prophecy, so the
possibility of it being merely growing pains was a great relief. Powerful
wizards often made for volatile teenagers. Dumbledore could well remember
his own explosive temper when he had been growing up. He had not truly
calmed down until Ariana's death had shown him the danger of rash actions
done in anger.
"It seems a bit extreme to be merely puberty." Sprout said dubiously. Her
Hufflepuffs were a generally calm sort.
"You wouldn't be saying that if James Potter had been in your house."
McGonagall countered, vividly recalling the truly ridiculous amount of
trouble that James and Sirius had been once puberty hit them.
"Or Lily." Flitwick chuckled. While the redhead had not shown overt
interest in boys through her Hogwarts years, her temper had been a
fearsome thing.
Dumbledore twinkled.
Snape sneered at the mention of his childhood nemesis and brooded at the
mention of his lost love.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
It was Halloween and Harry was once again shunning the feast in the Great
Hall by eating in the kitchens, but this time he had company.
"I wonder if the heliopaths in the Ministry celebrate Halloween." Luna

mused, gorging herself on pudding.
"Maybe." Harry replied idly as he continued to eat. He was pretty sure

that heliopaths didn't exist, but why argue about it? Better to just
change the subject. "What was up with Ginny today? She seemed kind of
worn out."
"Oh, she was just upset that you wouldn't go to the feast with her." Luna
told him airily. The redhead kept on trying to get Harry romantically
interested in her no matter how many times Luna told her that Ginny's
larval bizzwhizzlers simply weren't catching the attention of Harry's
creeping lickbiggles.
Harry grumbled a bit at that. The redhead's ongoing crush had transformed
from silent blushing to the occasional stuttering invitation to do this
or that thing that he had no interest in. She was alright most of the
time, but he had to struggle not to snap at her whenever she got it into
her head to make another attempt at asking him out.
"...rip...tear...kill..."
Harry's head snapped as the familiar malicious hiss reached his ears.
"I can hear that voice again!" He said.
"Let's go find it and make it it our friend!" Luna proclaimed, grabbing

some more pudding for the road.
The two Ravenclaws tore out of the kitchen, following what vague
directions Harry could give.
"...so hungry...for so long..."
"It's moving up!" He said.
"What is it saying?" Luna asked.
"Something about being hungry."
"Do you think it likes pudding?"
Harry snorted. It didn't seem very likely, given how homicidal the voice
sounded.
He suddenly stopped at that thought, abruptly realizing that chasing

after a murderous disembodied voice may not be the wisest course of
action.
"Why are you stopping, Harry? Our new friend is getting away!" Luna
called, running ahead.
"...kill...time to kill..."
"Luna!" Harry yelled and started running again, though this time it was
with the intent of stopping her from potentially getting herself killed.
They sprinted right past the ground floor and further up, onto the second
floor.
"...blood...I SMELL BLOOD!"
"Oh, I guess Mrs. Norris found the voice before we did." Luna said
plainly, staring at the petrified form of the much disliked cat that was
currently hanging from a torch bracket by her tail.
On the wall, a message was daubed in foot high letters in something that
looked suspiciously like blood.
THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED, ENEMIES OF THE HEIR BEWARE.
"Luna, I think we might want to get out of here." Harry said nervously,
realizing how suspicious this would look to any passerby.
Naturally, The Halloween feast just happened to have ended a short while
earlier, flooding the corridor with students. Harry and Luna quickly
found themselves surrounded and subjected to a lot of pointing and
whispering.
"Enemies of the Heir beware! You'll be next mudbloods!" The distinct

voice of Draco Malfoy broke through, they blond Slytherin himself having
pushed his way to the front.
Filch was the next arrival, his mood quickly turning murderous upon
seeing his beloved cat petrified. He was just about to attempt strangling
Harry when Dumbledore showed up.
"Hello headmaster." Luna greeted cheerfully. "Did you hear the voices
too?"
"Voices?" Dumbledore questioned.
"Harry heard a voice and we chased it up here." Luna explained, not

seeing Harry's frantic signaling to stop.
"I think both of you had better come with me." The old wizard said after
a moment.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"Now Harry, would you care to tell me what your friend meant by
'voices'?" Dumbledore asked once they were all settled in his office.
Harry shifted uncomfortably, not wanting to talk about it. Unfortunately,

Luna had not really left him with the option of keeping things to
himself.
"I heard a voice moving through the school, talking about how hungry it
was and about killing something." He admitted.
Dumbledore raised an eyebrow. "Have you ever heard this voice before?"
"Once, late at night." Harry replied, not mentioning the location since
he'd been breaking curfew at the time.
"From your bed in the Ravenclaw tower?" Dumbledore asked, his eyes
twinkling.
Harry nodded jerkily, fairly sure that the old wizard didn't believe him
but unwilling to just outright admit it.
"Very well, could you describe this voice to me."
"It was..." Harry paused, not sure how to describe a voice. "cold, I
guess. And it had a hiss to it."
Dumbledore's brows furrowed in thought, a suspicion growing in his mind.
"Would you like to help me test something, Harry?" He asked.
"Sure, I guess." Harry agreed cautiously.
Dumbledore nodded and took out his wand, pointing it at his desk.
"Serpentsortia."
Harry jumped at bit as a snake materialized on the desk, staring wide
eyed at the reptile.
"Try talking to it." The headmaster prompted, noticing that young Ms.
Lovegood was starting to bounce in her seat excitedly. She clearly knew
what was being implied.
Harry gave him an odd look, but did so.
"Hello."
The snake perked up and looked directly at him. "Grettings Speaker."
"It talked back." Harry said in amazement.
"You're a Parselmouth!" Luna proclaimed, just as amazed.
"A what?"
"A wizard who can speak to serpents." Dumbledore explained, vanishing the
conjured snake. "It is a rare gift that tends to pass through
bloodlines."
"Did one of my parents have it too then?" Harry asked in interest.
"No Harry, they didn't, but Voldemort did. It is possible that some of
his power was transfered to you that night." Dumbledore said, avoiding
the issue of the Horcrux that was lodged in the boy's scar.
Normally, he would not be telling this to anyone besides Harry, but he

was hoping that the shared secret would make their friendship tighter.
Giving Harry extra reasons to feel obligated to fight Voldemort was
always good.
Harry frowned at that. It sounded a bit farfetched, but who could really
say what kind of price his mother's blood contract had exacted from the
Dark Lord when he attempted to violate it? It could very well have torn
away a piece of his magic when it failed to kill him completely.
Voldemort's not-quite-death still bugged him. The only thing he knew of

that would allow an unscrupulous magic user to survive the destruction of
their body was a phylactery, but Voldemort had still been a living wizard
and not an undead Lich. Then again, he had no idea how magic of that sort
worked in the real world, or if it was even possible to make a soul jar.
He hoped it was something else. If Voldemort had made a phylactery and
was at all smart, he'd hidden it in some remote corner of the world that
nobody would ever think to look. It would make killing him for good
hellishly problematic.
"Does that mean that I was hearing a snake of some kind?" He finally
asked, focusing back on the topic at hand.
"It is possible." Dumbledore admitted with some reluctance, not wanting

the two children getting mixed up in this any further. "You had best get
back to the Ravenclaw Tower and get some rest. Also, I would urge to keep
your Parseltongue ability a secret. Voldemort has given it a bad
reputation in Britain and the other students may not look kindly upon you
for having it."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
When the two children left his office, Dumbledore began pacing in worry.
When the Chamber had first been opened half a century ago, they had never
fully resolved the mystery. Hagrid had been blamed for it, but Dumbledore
knew that the groundskeeper had not been the culprit.
Tom Riddle had always been his primary suspect, but there had been no
proof.
He had done a great deal of research on the subject of permanent

petrification, trying to figure out how it had been done.
There were potions that could do it, but forcibly administering a potion
to unwilling students or a cat would be quite a feat. Especially in the
positions they had been found in.
Dark magic was also a possibility. There were spells that would petrify
people permanently. That had in fact been the assumption that Dumbledore
had been working from. Tom Riddle had been an exceptional student and
might have been capable of it, though he had desperately hoped it wasn't
him.
There were some creatures that could petrify people, but most of them
were automatically ruled out as being unable to survive since the time of
Salazar Slytherin or because they would have left obvious markings on the
bodies.
None were snakes.
He had not considered that the creature in question might have a Killing
Gaze. He had thought that Myrtle had been an aberration in the pattern,
not that the others had merely been hideously lucky.
A quick use of his pensieve confirmed what he had already feared would be
the case. All the other petrified students from fifty years ago could
have conceivably seen only a reflection. Mrs. Norris was a cat and would
have likely kept her eyes on the ground and Dumbledore recalled that the
hallways had been flooded slightly. The water would have reflected the
eyes.
There was only one serpent that could have lived for a thousand years
beneath the school. It was also the only serpent with a Killing Gaze.
A basilisk. The oldest one in known history. One so old that its gaze had
become powerful enough to affect people even through indirect eye
contact, something that had never been seen before. It must be gigantic
by now.
In retrospect it was terribly obvious that Salazar Slytherin might have
bred such a beast, an observation that made Dumbledore feel foolish for
overlooking it.
But who was commanding the beast? Despite being a parselmouth himself,
Harry had an alibi that the house elves could easily verify. Not to
mention that the boy had apparently been unaware of his gift until now
and Dumbledore didn't believe that he had any reason to be loosing the
basilisk on the school to begin with.
They were obviously clever enough to freeze the portraits and take
various other precautions that would make finding them difficult. They
had even killed Hagrid's roosters, another indication of what the beast
was. Roosters were not difficult to find, but the basilisk unfortunately
was.
He hoped that he could find the Heir before he or she struck again. He
hoped that nobody would die. He hoped that it was not Voldemort's doing.
He hoped that Harry would not be targeted if it was. The boy was not
ready to face his nemesis yet.
Dumbledore kept pacing in his office under the watchful gazes of past
headmasters, too many hopes and too many worries weighing on his
shoulders to let him sleep. It was only when Fawkes returned with his
soothing phoenix song from wherever he went on these trips of his that
the old wizard was able to relax enough to get some rest.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Harry and Luna found themselves on the receiving end of a lot of pointing
and whispering for the next few days after that incident. Thanks to
Luna's comment about hearing voices, there was a general concensus that
they were both a bit loony.
Well, more loony. Harry had never quite fit in in no small part due to
his own actions the previous year and because he was more interested in
magic than people and Luna was...Luna.
This kind of reputation might have attracted bullies in most situations,

but they managed to avoid that scenario.
Harry was well known to be exceptionally talented with practical magic,

making him an unappealing target for people his own age and the upper
years had better things to do than pick on a second year. Not to mention
that his spectacular blow up in the Great Hall at the start of term made
people just a bit wary of his temper.
Luna would have been an appealing target for bullies on her own, but
several factors prevented that from happening. Her friendship with Harry
was one of those, but only to a point since he had little to no
interaction with the current first years aside from Ginny and Luna.
It was actually Ginny that was the main reason for the lack of people
trying to pick on Luna. The spacey blonde was not a particularly forceful
person and wouldn't have retaliated against bullies, but Ginny had grown
up with six older brothers and had no problem asserting herself. Those
very same older brothers were another reason why they were generally left
alone. Nobody wanted the Weasley twins targeting them specifically.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
The school year plodded along. Classes were had, Quidditch was played,
magic was learned.
Harry focused most of his efforts on learning Occlumency, desperately

wanting to regain full control of himself. It was slow going without a
teacher, but there was nothing else for it. He'd nearly lost his temper
several times since the start of term and if the smirk that one sixth
year girl had given him, his newfound appreciation for the female form
had not gone unnoticed.
He'd also gotten some comments on his height, which was fast approaching
the territory of being abnormally tall for a twelve year old. On a
personal level, Harry was highly pleased by this. He knew that it was
going to get him some very pointed questions when he didn't stop growing,
but he would just have to deal with that as it came.
Lockhart occasionally made a nuisance of himself, but was otherwise a

non-factor. His class attendance continued to drop steadily, with a large
portion of those who stayed being starstruck girls.
The matter of the Chamber of Secrets remained a popular topic of gossip,

with increasingly outlandish theories being bandied about as a form of
entertainment. Nobody had liked Mrs. Norris, so nobody was overly
concerned about the whole thing despite Draco Malfoy's best efforts to
frighten the muggleborn students with his sneering.
Right up to the point when Colin Creevey was found petrified and things
suddenly became serious.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"Poor Colin, I knew him well." Luna said mournfully.
"Did you just quote Shakespeare?" Harry asked incredulously. Since when
did wizards know anything about muggle literature?
"No, I actually knew Colin well. He came to ask me if I could get you to
take a photo with him at least once a week." Luna answered in a confused
tone. "Who's Shakespeare?"
"Where did they find him?" Ginny interjected, her face pale and
frightened.
"Fourth floor, probably looking for the entrance to Ravenclaw Tower. The
creepy little stalker." Harry grumbled. Colin's persistent hero worship
had been so annoying that he couldn't even bring himself to feel ashamed
of his relief at the boy's petrification. Maybe it would be different if
he'd been killed, but as the annoying Gryffindor would only be playing
statue for a few months, Harry was able to take joy in another's
misfortune with zero guilt.
"Do you think it'll happen again?" Ginny asked meekly, desperately hoping
to hear a denial. She still vividly remembered the blackout she'd had
during Halloween and the blood she'd found on her fingers when she came
to. She would never hurt Colin or even Mrs. Norris, but that was a pretty
suspicious situation by any stretch.
"Probably. I doubt that this 'Heir of Slytherin' character would start

something like this only to stop before any real harm was done." Harry
answered. There was also Dobby's warning to consider, which he was now
certain had pertained to current events. If only he could figure out who
Dobby's master was, then he could make a reasonable guess at the
perpetrator. He'd already asked the Hogwarts house elves and they hadn't
been able to tell him anything.
He'd briefly entertained the idea that Draco Malfoy might be the culprit,
but dismissed it quickly. Not even Draco would be stupid enough to keep
running his mouth about the Heir 'purging' the school of mudbloods if he
was responsible for this. Not to mention that it apparently needed to be
a Parselmouth, which Draco wasn't as far as anyone knew.
And people would know. The blond Slytherin would have bragged about it
far and wide the moment he learned that he was one.
Ginny gnawed at her lip in intense worry.
"Don't worry Ginny, I'm sure that Harry will be able to make friends with
the basilisk as soon as we find it." Luna tried to comfort, only making
the redhead girl pale further at the mention of the Serpent King.
It hadn't taken an exhaustive amount of research to figure out that bit

of information after the talk with Dumbledore. There really weren't that
many snakes that fit the criteria.
"I really don't think that the basilisk is looking for friends, Luna."
Harry said in exasperation, knowing that his argument would likely fall
on deaf ears. Again.
While Luna went into a lecture on the horrors of loneliness as it

pertained to millenia old snakes that contained only trace amounts of
logic, Ginny continued to gnaw at her lip.
She wasn't a Parselmouth, so she shouldn't be capable of commanding the

basilisk that was presumably lurking in the Chamber of Secrets, but she
couldn't help worrying. She'd blacked out earlier today as well, the same
as she had on Halloween.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
The duelling club debacle passed with little incident save to further
demonstrate Lockhart's incompetence. Harry had been interested but done a
180 as soon as he saw who was hosting it, unknowingly circumventing a
large amount of pointless drama.
He had decided against staying at Hogwarts for Christmas this year. He

had some things he wanted to do and he couldn't do them at the castle.
Luna was also leaving, which subsequently meant that Ginny was as well
since she didn't want to stay in the castle all by herself.
The only oddity about Harry's decision to go back to his foster parents
for Christmas was the fact that he had no intention of actually seeing
his foster parents. Or even informing them that he wasn't at Hogwarts for
that matter.
Instead of getting into an expensive car and driving back to 74 Cromwell

Road from King's Cross, Harry wandered into London in search of a
library, internet caf or something else with public internet access.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Harry logged in to his account on the website where he posted his

arithmancy problems, eager to see what answers he'd gotten.
The answers were there as he had hoped, but he also had a surprising
private message from another user. Why would anyone want to talk to him
privately?
We need to talk. Contact me as soon as you receive this message.
The near demand sent a frisson of worry up Harry's spine. He was starting
to get the feeling that his idea about posting arithmancy problems on the
internet was not as clever as he'd thought it was.
I'm here. He sent simply, getting back a set of instructions not three
minutes later.
Swallowing nervously, Harry followed the instructions that led him to a

public chat room. One of those that were frequently used as examples of
where innocent young boys and girls might encounter pedophiles in fact.
Coincidentally, this did not make Harry feel any better about the
situation. Still, he was far too worried about what this might have to do
with his arithmancy to be turned away. Besides, he reasoned that as long
as he didn't give out his name or address, it would be fine.
He received a request for a private channel almost as soon as he entered

the chat room, from someone with the almost ridiculously stereotypical
username of 'xXPussyDestroyer33Xx'.
I bet you thought you were being clever by posting arithmancy problems on
the internet. The presumed man on the other end began without preamble.
You probably thought you were one-upping the wizard-raised by using
technology to solve problems beyond your own ability. Only a European
wizard could be so sheltered and judging by your vernacular I'd guess
British.
Why European? Harry wrote back, not wanting to admit that his caustic
interlocutor was right.
Well I suppose you could also have been American, but I doubt it. The
other avoided.
Why not Chinese? Harry asked, picking a country at random.
There are no more magical enclaves in China, Mao made sure of it. Came
the reply, the words somehow seeming heavier than mere text should allow.
Harry frowned. He'd never heard of anyone named Mao before. Who is Mao?
There was a long pause and Harry got the distinct feeling that he had
surprised his conversation partner.
You must be very young to not know about Mao Zedong. To summarize, he was
once a leader of China and is also responsible for the deaths of some 45-
78 million people during his reign, among them the majority of China's
magical population.
But why? Harry asked in shock.
Dictators do not like sharing power and the Chinese sorcerers were very
powerful. They had perhaps the oldest magical civilization on the planet
and were very proud of it. As they were Chinese, Mao considered them to
be beholden to him. They were outraged and mocked the man for his
stupidity, jeering as they turned him away, secure in their superiority
and their millenia of gathered magical expertise. They learned too late
that traitors, guns and strength of numbers was more than a match for
their magics.
Why would wizards turn on their own? Harry wrote back, not really knowing
what else to say. He remembered his housemate Su Li and wondered if her
parents or grandparents had been one of those who'd escaped. Or had they
been the traitors?
Why else? Because they had been scorned and derided by their own for
whatever reason. Mao's offers would have sounded very appealing to them.
It didn't take long before they were betrayed in turn.
My history books don't say anything about this.
Of course they don't. The European magicals like to ignore things they
find inconvenient. You won't hear about the same thing happening in
Russia with Stalin either. The Frost Sorcerer Cabal protected the country
for centuries, sending the Great Winter to break the back of any army
that threatened the motherland, but that was not good enough for Stalin.
He wanted to control everything and destroyed what he couldn't.
What about Japan? Harry asked next, hoping to hear that Cho Chang, the
pretty Ravenclaw one year above him, was at least a regular immigrant.
Bad luck and arrogance. Most of them were in Hiroshima and didn't believe
that the warnings the Americans gave applied to them. The nuclear fire
wasn't even slowed down by their wards.
So there aren't any wizards left in Asia at all?
There are. India was spared any similar madness, though the caste system
of magical India is far more oppressive than the mundane one and
therefore not somewhere you'd want to live unless you were born at the
top.
Harry decided to look into this 'caste' system that the other had
mentioned. He also wondered if Padma and Parvati's parents had been born
'at the bottom' and fled the country because of it.
There are a number of Japanese magical families in sworn service to their

Emperor. These generally live in the capital and avoided the bombs.
Russia and China both still have some magicals, but these are mostly
focused on keeping the mundane governments from finding the newbloods and
turning them into weapons.
I won't tell you any horror stories about the Middle East. I'm sure
you've heard about Europe's witch trials and Islam is no more tolerant of
magic than Christianity or Judaism. Even less these days.
Why don't they tell us this? Harry demanded, suddenly angry that Binns
just kept droning on about the Goblin Rebellions when this kind of crap
was happening elsewhere in the world.
Like I told you, European magicals like to ignore things they find
incconvenient. They don't like to think about how much the world has
changed since the Statute of Secrecy was put into place. They have no
idea that their precious secrecy has more holes in it than Swiss cheese.
What do you mean?
Memory wipes worked fine until the internet was invented. Your
Obliviators can wipe all the memories they want, but that video of an
idiot wizard wearing a dress and waving a wand around is going to stay on
Youtube. The poster's lack of memory is just going to make the whole
thing even more suspicious. If the mundane governments weren't running
their own damage control for their own reasons, the secret would have
been blown wide open years ago.
I see. Harry replied, feeling a bit shaky.
Anyway, you should stop posting questions that have obviously magical
origins to anyone in the know. Big Brother has eyes everywhere these
days. Get a good computer and learn how to do arithmantic calculations
with it yourself, but keep it off the net.
Alright, I will. Harry agreed. After what he'd just learned, he was not
at all eager to draw any kind of attention to himself.
A final bit of advice for you, my young friend. Don't trust politicians;
not magical ones and definitely not mundane ones. They will smile and
make promises when they need something from you, but their hearts will
turn to stone if you ever need their help.
Merry Christmas, bratan.
The connection was broken and Harry took a deep breath to take in what
he'd just learned. The world suddenly seemed like a much darker place. He
wondered who the man he'd just talked to really was and if he'd ever
speak to him again.
A quick search on what 'bratan' actually meant only told him that he was
probably Russian. Probably a wizard too, given how knowledgeable he was
on the subject of Asia's magicals. Harry regretted not asking him about
the situation in the rest of the world. If he had the correct feeling for
the man's paranoia, then he probably wouldn't be able to contact him
again in the same way. Maybe Charlus and Dorea would know something.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
As it turned out, Charlus and Dorea didn't know anything.
"I never imagined that the situation in Asia was so bad." Charlus was
saying. "I do remember that there was a sudden upswing in immigrants from
those parts after the second World War, but I just thought it was better
here than over there."
"What about America?" Harry asked, disappointed but not too surprised.
"America has always been something of a touchy subject for Britain."

Dorea said with a grimace. "Magical America was a colony of ours the same
as muggle America was for muggle Britain. Most of the nobility stayed
here, but there were a few families that went searching for their
fortunes over the Atlantic, the majority were half-bloods and muggleborns
however. All of those families were killed alongside the goblins when
America made its bid for independence. Losing control of all that
territory to half-bloods and muggleborns would have been offensive enough
for the British purebloods of the time, but it's the fact that the
Gryffindor line was also snuffed out there that people are really unable
to get over."
"I'll bet it is." Harry snorted. He'd already seen how fixated people
could be on their bloodlines. Having the Gryffindor family wiped out by
rebellious commoners would have the purebloods baying for blood now, much
less a couple of hundred years ago when their sense of entitlement was
probably even worse.
"Don't expect a warm welcome if you ever decide to visit there." Charlus
warned. "I expect that there is no shortage of American wizards that
would make themselves your enemies simply for being British, nevermind
the fact that you're the heir of a Noble House."
"I'll keep it in mind." Harry agreed, having actually been considering a

trip across the sea. "How about Australia then? Can I expect a warm
welcome there?"
Dorea's lip twitched at her grandson's dry sarcasm as her husband

answered.
"Hard to say. The magical community there is actually the youngest in the
world, having only formed properly just before the turn of the twentieth
century. The old families thought that the muggles had a grand idea about
using Australia as a penal colony, only in our case it was seen as a
dumping ground for squibs and the occasional problematic-but-not-criminal
wizard. All that dormant magical blood eventually began producing wizards
and witches that established their own community." Charlus explained.
"So they're probably resentful but not as hostile as America." Harry

concluded.
"I also suspect that the Wizengamot is very quietly terrified of them."
Dorea added.
"Why?" Harry asked, puzzled.
"A lot of families have died out since the practice of exiling squibs was
put into place, Harry." She explained. "There are likely quite a few
wizards and witches in Australia that are now able to claim Lordships of
those families. If they decided to do so, they could wield considerable
influence in the Wizengamot."
"And the Wizengamot couldn't stop them because the seats are hereditary."
He finished, unable to keep from snickering as he realized the full
extent of the quandary the purebloods had created for themselves.
Australia was filled with an unknown number of potential Wizengamot
Lords, none of which were purebloods by their definition or even British.
The Australians could, theoretically, claim all of those lordships and

paralyze the legislative body of Wizarding Britain out of sheer spite.
"This is going to be your problem too one day." Dorea told him pointedly.
"You do, after all, have a seat of your own on the Wizengamot."
"Fuck the Wizengamot." Harry replied succintly. He had no intention

whatsoever of playing the politician. There was so much to see in the
world that sitting in a stuffy room and arguing with the inbred social
elite of magical Britain held no appeal.
"Harry, language." Dorea scolded.
Harry snickered some more at the absurdity of being scolded by his

furniture. It had stung to realize that the portraits of his grandparents
were still just portraits at the end of the day, not real people. They
were an incredible bit of spellwork to be sure, but anyone that spent
enough time talking to a magical portrait eventually realized that they
had a limited range of personality and couldn't really adapt to change.
"Leave the lad be, Dorea." Charlus told his wife, grinning openly. "It's
not like I haven't thought the same thing every time I had to attend a
meeting."
"It's unseemly for the heir of a Noble House to be so crass." Dorea

sniffed.
Harry rolled his eyes. He suspected that he would end up doing a lot of
things that were unseemly for the heir of a Noble House. He had built up
quite a bit of disdain for 'proper' behavior after having to deal with
Robert and Katherine since he was seven.
"Anyway, I wanted to get your thoughts on my next ritual..."
He explained to them the runes he intended to use and the effect he was
going for. It was one that he was particularly excited to try, as it
would work to increase the size of his magical core and make him more
powerful over time in the same way that his first set made accelerated
his maturity.
Unfortunately, he quickly hit a snag.
"Harry, you can't do this ritual." Charlus said, exasperation coloring

his tone.
"Why not?" Harry near demanded. It was perfect! He knew it was.
"Because there is no such thing as a 'magical core'." Charlus explained.
"But my research..." Harry started.
"Yes, I know you've come across the term in your research." The portrait
cut him off. "The term 'magical core' is frequently used to describe a
wizard's unused, latent magic, but it is terribly misleading. It gives
the impression that wizards and witches are born with different sized
pools of magic inside their bodies, but that simply isn't the case.
Exceptional people make for exceptional magic users, but I guarantee you
that any shopkeeper in Diagon Alley has the same magical potential as
Dumbledore."
"How does that make any sense?" Harry asked, baffled.
"The exact mechanics of it aren't known to anyone except maybe the

Unspeakables, but the gist of it is that people with high willpower,
intelligence and a number of other personality traits will also have more
powerful magic, whereas simpletons and cowards will invariably be weak.
That's why people under great emotional duress can sometimes perform
feats of magic far above their usual ability and why there is no such
thing as a power enhancing ritual."
Harry rubbed the back of his head, feeling the outline of Da'Roir, the
rune that was meant to enhance his willpower. If what Charlus was saying
was correct, then it would certainly explain why his memory was
noticeably improved with the rune, but the willpower enhancement had
always been something he hadn't been sure if it had even worked.
"Why does everyone seem to think that power levels are inborn then?" He
asked.
"I suspect it makes them feel better to think that the powerful have an
inborn advantage." Charlus shrugged.
With his plans to do a power enhancing ritual foiled, Harry tried to put
together a different one, having wanted to carve a new set of runes into
his flesh over the holidays.
Unfortunately, with the internet denied to him as a resource, he simply

wasn't good enough with arithmancy to put together a ritual. Not yet.
Charlus had taken the subject when he'd been going to Hogwarts, but it
had decades since the last time he'd made use of that knowledge and he
was more than a little rusty. Neither he nor Harry were willing to chance
something going wrong due to impatience.
Though disgruntled by the need to put off any further rituals, Harry
relented. He did however make a resolution to buy himself a high end
laptop for that kind of thing. It probably wouldn't work under the wards
of the manor, not to mention the lack of electricity or Wi-Fi, but he
could always camp out somewhere in London if he needed to.
He would have completely forgotten about Christmas if Teeny, Charlus and

Dorea hadn't reminded him.
Normally, this wouldn't be a problem, but he had actual friends now.

Friends for which he had no idea what kind of presents to buy.
After a good bit of headscratching, he decided to keep it simple. He had

no better ideas and he didn't want to encourage Ginny's crush.
Seeing as both of them were completely wizard-raised, he figured that

getting them something non-magical might count as a novelty.
Luna got a book, more specifically Alice in Wonderland. Talking to her

frequently made him question which rabbit hole he'd dropped into and he
was also curious what she'd make of the book.
Ginny was a lot more problematic to buy something for, to the extent that
he started wondering if sending her a small bag of galleons would be
considered rude.
Christmas was so much less complicated when you didn't have friends.
Eventually he gave up on finding something that seemed like a good idea
and got her a flower themed hairband that the sales lady had assured him
would go well with red hair. He really hoped that she wouldn't take it as
a declaration of romantic interest.
He also got both of them a large bag of potato chips, mostly as a silent
protest to the lack of salty junk food in the Wizarding World.
He spent most of Christmas day wondering what they would get him and felt
more stung than he'd expected to be when no owls showed up. Charlus,
Dorea and even Teeny did their best to keep his mind off the fact that
his supposed friends had apparently decided not to bother sending him any
presents for Christmas, but he still ended up being a bit more surly than
normal.
By the time the holidays were over, he'd mostly cooled off, but he was
still determined to give both Luna and Ginny a hard time over it.
Chapter 5
Here is the freshest chapter. Enjoy xD.
Special thanks to Joe Lawyer and his mad pre-reviewing skillz.
XXXXX
"Hello Harry." Luna greeted as she opened the compartment door.
"Hi." The boy said back, a bit more subdued as he once again recalled the
lack of presents on Christmas. It wasn't really so much about the
presents as it was about the gesture of it.
He didn't have long to mope about it though, as Luna got right in his
face and peered at him in a most unnerving fashion.
"What are you doing?" He asked, leaning back into the seat in an attempt
to avoid the scrutiny.
"I'm trying to see what you did to yourself to give my owl such a
terrible wrackspurt infestation." Luna replied absently.
"Your owl has...wrackspurts?" He asked, recalling that this was Luna-

speak for confusion.
"Oh yes, I've never seen anything like it and neither has daddy. I tried
to send you your Christmas present, but the poor thing just flew in
circles for a while and then came back." She explained.
"Really?" Harry asked in surprise. That would certainly explain why he
hadn't gotten any presents, but it opened up an entirely new set of
questions.
It could have been Dobby making a reappearance, but he didn't think so.
The house elf had said that he'd tried to intercept his letters, not
confuse the owls.
Another and in his mind far more likely reason for the strange
behavior of the owls was that something about him was baffling them,
something that prevented them from using whatever method they used to
find him.
Harry was sure that it was all in his head, but he keenly felt the
presence of Arhain on his chest. The rune of secrecy could have
conceivably done more than merely hide his scars. It wouldn't be the
first time that there had been unexpected side-effects from his runes,
but he had hoped that the Avariel runes would be less temperamental. He
dreaded to think what he might discover about the hidden side-effects of
Aul'El. He hadn't found any so far, but he was suddenly worried about it.
If he was right about this, then this was both good and bad. On one hand,
it would make him much harder to find, but on the other, it would make
owl correspondence quite problematic.
"Mhm." Luna hummed and continued her examination of him. "I had to send
it to Hogwarts so that I could give it to you when we got back.
"So, how did you like the book I gave you?" Harry asked, scooting away
from the blonde girl.
"I really liked it." Luna said happily, sitting down and momentarily
abandoning her investigation. "It was a fascinating treatise on many
strange magical creatures and events."
"A treatise...?" Harry started with incredulity and then trailed off.
"Luna, you do know that Alice in Wonderland is just a story, right?"
"Just because it's imaginary doesn't make it untrue." Luna agued.
"If you say so." Harry capitulated, bemused. Luna made no sense
sometimes, but it was impossible to be annoyed by her. She was just too
nice.
About ten minutes after that, Ginny showed up, nearly missing the train
as was apparently the Weasley family tradition.
She looked much better than the last time he'd seen her. After the
petrification of Mrs. Norris, Ginny had started becoming more and more
sickly looking and had developed bags under her eyes. It looked like some
time away from the castle and its basilisk controlling Heir of Slytherin
had done her a world of good.
"Hi." She greeted quietly, self- consciously reaching up to touch the
hairband that Harry had given her.
"Hello Ginny, did your owl have wrackspurts too?" Luna greeted and asked.
Ginny replied while giving the blonde a baffled expression. "What?"
"Apparently, owls can't find me for some reason." Harry translated.
"Really?" Ginny asked in surprise. "We just thought that Errol was so old
that he forgot how to fly to places he'd never been to before, so we sent
your presents to Hogwarts."
XXXXX
Once they got settled back into Ravenclaw tower, they discovered that one
other person aside from Luna and Ginny had apparently decided to send
Harry a Christmas present.
It was a small package, and mysteriously unsigned.
Harry had the irrational hope that the Headmaster or some other
benefactor had decided to give him another priceless magical artefact,
despite how unlikely that was.
"Open mine first!" Luna insisted, apparently excited to see his reaction
to her gift.
He did so, removing the bright wrapping paper.
"Is that...a necklace of butterbeer corks?" Ginny asked in bafflement,

staring at the item in question.
"Yes." Luna confirmed sagely. "It keeps away the nargles."
"Thanks." Harry said with what he hoped was a convincing smile rather
than a confused one. He did recall Luna saying something about nargles
being thieves, so he figured that her heart was in the right place.
Besides, it was the thought that counted when gift giving during
Christmas wasn't it? Which kind of made Luna's odd gift better than the
randomly chosen hairband he'd gotten for Ginny.
"Daddy was going to give you a free lifetime subscription to the Quibbler
as well, but that wouldn't make much sense if owls can't find you." Luna
added with a frown.
"That's alright Luna, I can just borrow your copy." Harry told her,
secretly relieved. From what he'd seen, the Quibbler was almost like a
magical parody of a tabloid. Occasionally funny, but not something he'd
want a lifetime subscription to.
"Mine now." Ginny piped up, pushing the gift into his hands.
Harry started unwrapping it, but the redhead was apparently too nervous
to stay quiet about it.
"I wasn't sure what to get you, especially after you got me this
beautiful hairband." She babbled, making Harry stop and stare at her.
"Ginny..."He started slowly, finally getting an inkling as to why she

kept fingering the item. "That hairband is nothing special, I got it for
you because I didn't know what to get you either. It's a bit nicer than
average, but muggles pretty much mass produce them."
It hadn't quite dawned on him at the time he was buying it that there was
no such thing as an assembly line in the Wizarding World. He wasn't sure
about the food, but all of their clothes and jewelry were handmade. To
someone who'd never had contact with the non-magical world, a machine
produced accessory would probably look a lot more expensive than it
actually was.
"Oh." Ginny blinked. "You mean there are more hairbands like this in the
Muggle World?"
"Thousands, probably more." He confirmed.
Ginny felt a strange mixture of disappointed and relieved by that. On one

hand, it meant that her gift wasn't going to look subpar in comparison.
But on the other, it also meant that the boy she had a crush on hadn't
been making a show of affection.
"The Charmingly Charmed Book of Charms Theory?" Harry read the title of
the book he'd just unwrapped, staring in bemusement at the animated stick
figures dancing energetically across the back cover. Sometimes, wizards
really didn't know when to stop spelling, enchanting, jinxing, hexing or
otherwise magically altering stuff.
"I know you like to read and you're really good at Charms, so I thought
you'd like it."
"Thanks."
"Err...my mother also got you a present." Ginny continued reluctantly,

handing him a lumpy package with even more reluctance.
Blinking, Harry took it and opened it, revealing a thick, emerald green
sweater with a big golden 'H' sown into the middle.
"She made me a sweater?" He asked, baffled. That was usually the domain
of grandmothers with the annoying habit of pinching cheeks from what he
knew, though he had fortunately avoided that particular childhood
experience.
He had to admit that it was a nice sweater though. It would no doubt be

very warm, if one could ignore the embarrassment of having a giant
initial plastered across the front of it.
"It's a Weasley sweater, she makes one for each of us every year. I guess
she decided to make one for you this year too." Ginny explained, flushing
with embarrassment at the antics of her mother.
What she didn't mention was that her mother had made Ginny one that was
very similar and was obviously meant to be part of a set. She might have
a crush on Harry, but her mother's unsubtle insinuation was far too
embarrassing to ever see the light of day. Her matching emerald green
sweater with a big gold 'G' on the front was going to stay at the bottom
of her trunk until the end of time.
"That's awfully nice of her. You're lucky to have a mother that loves you
so much, Ginny." Luna said with a dreamy smile.
An awkward silence followed, both Ginny and Harry being well aware that
Luna's mother had died in a botched magical experiment a couple of years
ago. The blonde girl was not particularly skittish about the subject, but
she always became even more spaced out than usual whenever she thought
back to it.
"Alright, lets see what this last one is then." Harry said with a bit of
forced cheer in his voice.
Both girls were equally curious about the mystery present and leaned in
closer as Harry opened it.
Ginny flushed bright red as the mystery was solved.
"Oh my, she has a very nice pair of boobies." Luna ascertained
scientifically, peering at the moving magical photo with rare intensity.
Harry nodded in agreement, staring at the image of a seventh year

Ravenclaw doing a little dance in a sexy nightie that was a least a size
too small. A distant part of his mind noted that she'd probably bought
the item in a muggle lingerie store. Either that, or the Wizarding World
took the 'secret' part of Victoria's Secret literally. Most of his
attention was captured by the flesh being displayed by the curvy
seventeen year old with brown hair and blue eyes however, rather than
where'd she'd gotten the see-through garment. His runes prickled even as
the blood rushed southwards.
"Who is she?" Ginny asked, her tone accusatory and jealous despite her
best efforts.
"I don't know her name." Harry answered truthfully. He did know however,
that she was one of the girls that had caught him staring and had raised
her eyebrows at him pointedly. He'd been glad to escape being glared at
at the time.
The thought that she would send him a sexy picture had never even crossed
his mind as a possibility. Sometimes, life was good.
"You need to get rid of it." Ginny stated.

"That would be very rude." Luna countered before Harry could object to
the redhead's declaration. "She obviously wanted Harry to have it. What
if he threw away your gift? How would that make you feel?"
"It's not the same thing!" The redhead insisted, her voice rising in
pitch in her desire to combat Luna's logic.
"Why not?" Luna asked cluelessly.
"Because...because it just isn't!"
"Well that's not much of an argument, is it?" Luna frowned.
"Hey look, there's a note!" Harry interjected, wanting to end the brewing
argument. He was inclined to agree with Luna though. A lot of that
agreement originated in the fact that her reasoning would end up with him
keeping an animated photo of a sexy girl, but still.
"'Have fun polishing your wand.'" Luna read out. "How did she know that
your wand needs polishing?"
Both Harry and Ginny flushed bright red, quickly understanding the
euphemism.
"Did she find you polishing it during one of your free periods, Harry?"
Luna continued.
"NO!" Harry exclaimed in a near panic with his face burning, forgetting
for a moment that Luna had meant that literally. "I mean, no. I'm sure
she just assumed that it...errr...needs polishing." He finished
awkwardly.
How in the six hundred and sixty-six pits of the Abyss was Luna not
making the connection between the sexy girl, wand polishing and
masturbation, he had no idea, but he'd be damned if he was going to
explain it to her.
"I could help you if you don't know the proper technique." The blonde
offered innocently.
Amazingly, Harry felt the erection he'd gotten from the moving photo
withering from the sheer volume of blood rushing to his face.
"That's alright, Luna. I'm sure I can do it myself." He answered

painfully. A quick look at Ginny let him know that the redhead had long
since lost the power of speech and would be of no help in ending this
conversation.
"Are you sure? Daddy showed me how he polishes his before I left for
Hogwarts you know."
Harry's face shifted from bright red to a sickly green. He knew, he knew
that Luna hadn't meant it that way, but there was no blocking out the
mental imagery.
"I think I'm going to go lie down for a bit." He said, forcibly derailing
the conversation.
"You are looking a bit peaky." Luna agreed.
XXXXX
The next morning found Harry in his room, reading the book that Ginny had
given him and munching on a pre-breakfast sandwich that Blinky had
brought him. The house elves were all well aware of his appetite by now
and seemed to be extra fond of him for the additional work it gave them.
The book itself was actually surprisingly good in a 'Charms theory for
dummies' kind of way. Granted, it was meant for children ranging from
eleven to fifteen in age, but Harry found it a bit simplistic after
slogging through the tomes in the Restricted Section. It did provide a
bit of insight into things that the more advanced tomes assumed the
reader already knew however, such as a few focusing exercises for casting
magic properly.
He shut the book with determination and held up a pen, focusing on his
desire for the pen to levitate.
After the amount of practice he put into it, the writing implement did so
easily. Then, as per the suggestion of the book, he sent it on a slow,
looping glide across the room. It wasn't something he'd thought of doing
before, but it was surprisingly difficult to keep it focused in a single
direction instead of having it flail every which way. It was a jerky and
uneven flight as he struggled to keep his focus on the multiple elements
required for a smooth one, but it got easier the more he practiced.
Technically, the book said to do this with a wand, but Harry was as
determined as ever to avoid looking ridiculous by waving that silly stick
about. It would undoubtedly have been worlds easier, but he was rather
leery of the idea of being deprived of magic by something as simple as
having his wand taken away.
Also, he still hadn't been able to stop thinking of his wand as some kind
of magical penis ever since last night. The act of doing magic with a
wand felt kind of like giving his magic a good wanking at the moment. A
minor issue really and one that would be easily ignored during classes,
but it did give him a little extra incentive to master wandless magic.
A knock on the door sent his pen clattering to the floor.
"Come in." He called as he picked it up.
Ginny stuck her head inside, giving him a smile that might be classified
as 'overly bright'.
"Morning." She greeted cheerily. "Want to get...breakfast? Harry, why do

you have a sandwich in your room?"
"I like to have a little snack before breakfast." He defended.
"A little?" Ginny asked disbelievingly, walking up to what looked to be

the remains of a considerably sized sandwich.
"I'm a growing boy." Harry simultaneously lied and told the truth.
"O...kay." Ginny conceded, having heard that one from more than one of
her brothers over the years. "So, want to get breakfast?"
"I'm waiting for Luna to get up. Speaking of which, why are you up
already? You usually sleep in."
"I just felt like getting up early today." The redhead said a bit
defensively.
"Alright." Harry shrugged and dropped the subject. It was none of his
business if she wanted to change her sleeping habits.
"So, um, what did you do with...you know...it?" Ginny asked awkwardly,
blushing madly.
Harry knew what she was talking about instantly. He was also reminded of
a very interesting 'wand polishing' session during which the sexily
animated girl in the magical picture had done a striptease for him.
Magic was so awesome. And perhaps his fame had some upsides to it too.
"That's none of your business." He said quckly with a heavy blush on his
face, wanting to cringe as soon as he'd said it. He might as well have
told her exactly what he'd been doing with that picture last night.
"Harry, you have to get rid of it." The redhead said, disapproval
permeating her tone.
"Why?" He asked back, his own tone stiffening. "Luna had a point last
night, the girl obviously wanted me to have it."
"It isn't right." She insisted. She'd woken up so early exactly because
she didn't want Luna around to argue with her about it.
"Why?" He challenged again. No way was he giving up that picture. There

was a criminal dearth of erotic material in the Wizarding World as it
was. Not that he'd really looked for any, but he hadn't caught so much as
a hint of it so far.
"It just isn't!" She yelled in frustration. "You shouldn't be looking at

pictures of some tramp that you don't even know!"
Harry just stared at her, trying to contain the urge to yell back at her.
Fortunately, he succeeded. He'd spent practically every night since the
beginning of term working on his Occlumency for at least a couple of
hours before he went to bed and his temper was finally becoming
manageable.
He was still pretty pissed off though. He'd thought that Ginny was
getting better about the stupid crush she had on him, but apparently not.
He most certainly did not owe her anything and wasn't going to pander to
her jealousy.
"I'll look at whatever the hell I want." He snapped.
"Fine then!" She snapped back tearfully. "Keep your thrashy picture if
it's so important to you!"
With that, she stomped out, slamming the door for good measure.
"It's not about the damn picture anymore." Harry muttered to himself with
a long sigh.
He hadn't been too enthused about Ginny at first, but she'd grown on him
after a while. He wasn't so fond of her that he would be willing to give
in to her jealous tantrums though.
XXXXX
Ginny grumbled in her sleep as a weight settled itself on her midsection.
Then she batted her hands at whatever was poking her in the cheek.
"Psst! Ginny. Wake up."
The combination of irritating pokes and the voice brought the redhead out
of slumber, causing her eyes to slowly open.
And see the form of Luna sitting on her stomach, smiling at her. The
gloom, combined with Ginny's sleep addled mind, made her look very
creepy.
Naturally, Ginny screamed.
"Hello." Luna chirped, apparently unperturbed.
"Luna?" Ginny hissed, voice heavy with incredulity. "What are you doing
here?!"
"I seem to be sitting on your stomach." The blonde answered in all

seriousness.
"Why?!"
"I needed to talk to you and you've been avoiding me and Harry all day."
"And why do you need to talk to me so badly." The redhead grumbled

sourly, reminded of the blow-up she'd had with Harry in the morning. His
obvious determination to keep hold of that slutty photo had put a serious
hole in her image of the Boy-Who-Lived.
"Because you've been avoiding me and Harry all day. I want to know why so
that I can fix it and we can all be friends again."
Ginny sighed in resignation and slumped back into the bed. "Could you get
off me now?"
"I could." Despite saying that, Luna made no move to actually do so.
"Luna, get off."
"Okay."
The blonde clambered off the redhead and settled herself on the mattress.
An awkward silence ensued for a while as Luna waited for Ginny to say
something, while Ginny didn't know what to say.
"It's about that naughty picture isn't it?" Luna asked shrewdly after a
few minutes of silence.
"Yes!" Ginny cried out. "I just don't understand why he wants to keep it
so badly."
"She has very nice boobies." Luna reasoned.
"But he's the Boy-Who-Lived!"
"Yes, and boys like boobies."
Ginny spluttered incomprehensibly for a moment, flustered by the utter

certainty of Luna's replies.
"But he's a hero! He should find his true love, not...not...stare at a

dirty picture that some tramp sent him!"
Luna peered at her closely for a few seconds before replying. "Didn't
your parents tell you that boys are more interested in boobies than true
love? Daddy told me that the day before I left for Hogwarts."
Ginny flushed in embarrassment. No, they hadn't told her that, but she
had heard more than one outraged rant from her mother when she'd found a
dirty magazine in Fred and George's room. They must have somehow gotten
it from the Muggle World if their mother's rants about the indecency of
muggle women was anything to go by.
"But he's not just any boy." She protested weakly.
"But he is a boy, so he must like boobies." Luna insisted. "We can ask
him tomorrow if you want to make sure."
"No!" Ginny blurted out, blushing again.
Another few minutes passed in silence, a more comfortable one this time.
"Do you think he'd like my boobies?" The redhead asked eventually, her
voice barely audible.
"You don't have any boobies." The blonde trespasser informed her bluntly.
Ginny slumped into herself.
"But don't worry, Harry doesn't seem to be picky about what kind of
boobies he likes. He spends a large part of his mealtimes looking at all
the ones he can see, so I'm sure that he'll like ours once they grow."
That wasn't really what Ginny wanted to hear. Being just another pair of
breasts for Harry Potter's viewing pleasure was a far cry from her dreams
of a happily ever after with the Boy-Who-Lived.
XXXXX
A few weeks passed mostly uneventfully. Ginny became progressively more

withdrawn, but Harry didn't press her on it, figuring that it was just a
consequence of their argument. Luna did try, but was fended off by
assurances that she was just tired.
Then the routine was interrupted by another attack, but there was no
petrification this time. This time, Terry Boot was found dead in the
hallways.
XXXXX
"The Ministry arrested Hagrid?" Harry asked incredulously.
They were in his room, as it had become a sort of unspoken private spot
for them. They couldn't use one of the girls' rooms because they had an
alarm attached to them if a boy tried to enter them. The reverse did not
apply for some reason.
"Yes, he was the one to get blamed when the Chamber of Secrets was opened
the last time, fifty years ago." Luna confirmed sadly. She liked Hagrid.
"That doesn't even make sense!" Harry said in exasperation. "If they're
running on the assumption that Slytherin's Heir hates muggleborns, Hagrid
is hardly likely to be the culprit."
"The Ministry doesn't often make sense."
"There's even talk about Dumbledore being relieved of his post as

Hogwarts Headmaster and closing down the school." Luna continued. "It's
almost exactly like it happened fifty years ago."
"It was me!" Ginny suddenly cried out, her face deathly pale.
"What was you?" Harry asked slowly, staring at the near frantic redhead.
She'd been trembling pretty much since Boot was found dead.
"I was the one who opened the Chamber!" She blurted out. "I mean...I
think it was me. I blacked out again and then Terry was dead and now
Hagrid got arrested..."
"Ginny, slow down!" Harry cut off her babbling, more than a little
alarmed. "I think you'd better start from the beginning."
So she did. She laid out pretty much everything from the mysteriously
appearing diary of one T. M. Riddle and how it would talk back to her and
even show her its memories, to her blackouts and how they always happened
during an attack.
"A Tom Riddle was credited as 'exposing' Hagrid the first time." Luna
said contemplatively. She had looked into it with her father during the
holidays.
"Ginny, could you show us this diary?" Harry requested, getting a

terrible suspicion about the item. Simple spellwork wouldn't be enough to
make a diary interactive to that degree.
Ginny agreed and shuffled off to her own room to get her bag, coming back
a minute later.
As soon as she handed it to him, he felt the insane urge to write

something into it despite what Ginny had just told him. He was more than
wary enough of it to immediately think of a compulsion charm though, so
he resisted. If the diary was a phylactery as he suspected, then writing
into it was the last thing he wanted to do.
Now the only thing left to do was decide what to do with it. Something
obviously had to be done, but none of them had any idea how it would
affect Ginny if it was either destroyed or left intact.
As much as he didn't trust the old man anymore, Harry reluctantly

concluded that he would have to talk to Dumbledore about this.
XXXXX
"Professor Flitwick has informed me that you had an urgent matter you
needed to discuss with me?" Dumbledore prompted.
Harry nodded, still unsure of the wisdom in going to Dumbledore with

this.
Looking around the room, it was obvious that the rumors of the old wizard
getting sacked were true. He had been in the middle of packing his
possessions and there was an air of sorrow about him. Even Fawkes was
looking a bit dispirited.
"I think I might know what's been going on with this whole Chamber of
Secrets thing." He admitted at last, seeing no alternative but to rely on
the Headmaster for help in dealing with the problem.
Dumbledore sat up, suddenly looking far more intense than before.
"Then by all means, tell me."
It was presented like a gentle prompt, but the sudden pressure of

Dumbledore's magic made it an order.
Harry swallowed, this was the first time that he'd felt another wizard's
magic pressing against his own. It gave the old man an aura of power and
authority that no amount of grandfatherly twinkling could hope to hide.
"I'd like to ask you something first." He ventured, continuing when the
Headmaster gave him a nod to go ahead. "Is it possible for a wizard to
make a phylactery?"
Dumbledore frowned, puzzled. The term was unfamiliar to him, but the
level of nervousness he could see the boy across him exuding at the
question gave it an ominous weight.
"What is a phylactery?"
"An item in which an evil magic user might hide their soul in to achieve
a form of immortality, a soul jar in other words."
Dumbledore could feel his insides going cold at the explanation. How was
it possible for the twelve year old boy to know of such dark magics? He
was certain that he had purged the Hogwarts Library of any mention of
Horcruxes.
"Where did you learn of such things?" He demanded, forgetting his

grandfatherly persona for a moment. Harry simply couldn't be allowed to
turn evil. The Wizarding World would never survive a struggle between
Voldemort and another rising Dark Lord, especially one as powerful as
Harry was looking to become.
Harry sank deeper into his chair as Dumbledore's presence swelled

further. He tried to apply his nascent knowledge of Occlumency to control
his fear, but it was hard. The old wizard was so much stronger than him.
"It's a common theme in muggle fantasy fiction." He explained with far

too much squeak in his voice for his taste. "An evil wizard sacrificing
his humanity in exchange for power and immortality."
Dumbledore blinked and slowly settled down, aided by a calming song from
Fawkes that was probably meant for both wizards.
Muggles had conceived the idea of Horcruxes, all the while believing that
magic didn't exist? Or had some whispers of the foul creations survived
among them from the times before the Statute of Secrecy? It didn't matter
he supposed, what mattered was that Harry had seen fit to come to him to
ask about it. While the fact that he even knew that it was possible to
make a Horcrux was not at all a good thing, it was heartening that the
boy had come to him with this. Dark wizards did not in general come to
him for advice on how to perform evil magic.
"Am I to take it then that you believe such a object to be behind this
year's troubles?" He asked, his mind already making connections. The last
Heir of Slytherin had been Voldemort and a Horcrux of the man would
certainly be capable of possessing a student and repeating what had
happened fifty years ago.
Harry nodded and drew a thin book out of the Mokeskin Pouch that
Dumbledore had noticed he always kept at his waist.
The book was placed on the desk, helpfully signed 'T. M. Riddle' as if to
confirm his suspicions.
Just to be sure, Dumbledore cast a few diagnostic charms over the diary
even though he already knew what they would tell him. Indeed, the thin
book was a cesspit of corrupt magic.
"You have done a great thing to bring this to me, Harry." He said
eventually.
He meant it too. Now he finally had confirmation that Voldemort had

indeed created Horcruxes. He had only been able to speculate before this.
Though the Dark Lord's soul was no doubt a shattered and mangled thing
from the abuse he'd put it through with his evil acts, a piece of it
would not simply fly off and attach itself to Harry's forehead unless
there was something more going on.
The diary must have been created while Tom Riddle was still in school and
knowing him as Dumbledore did, he doubted that Voldemort would have been
satisfied with just a single Horcrux despite the consequences of creating
them.
"How did you come to posses this?"
Harry did his best not to squirm. This was the part that he had really
been hoping to avoid, but knew he couldn't. He didn't want to land Ginny
in hot water, but he had little doubt that the Ministry wouldn't care
about her being possessed if they could imprison Hagrid on evidence so
flimsy that it was practically non-existent.
"A student had it." He evaded.
"Ms. Lovegood or Ms. Weasley? Ah, Ms. Weasley." Dumbledore said, taking
his cues from Harry's expression and body language.
"She didn't even know it was her." Harry hastened to explain. "She just
kept blacking out and guessed that it might be. There's also a compulsion
on the diary that was manipulating her to do it and keep quiet."
"I know, Harry." Dumbledore interjected, making a calming motion with his
hand. "This is a cursed object left behind by Voldemort and an eleven
year old can hardly be expected to perceive it for what it is. No blame
shall fall on young Ms. Weasley."
"You'll forgive me if I don't believe the Ministry will be that
reasonable." Harry replied cynically.
Dumbledore gave a short sigh at the unfortunate truth of that. Cornelius

had not listened to his protestations of Hagrid's innocence, wanting to
be seen 'doing something', so it was quite likely that he'd jump on poor
Ginny as if she were Voldemort himself. A helpless, eleven year old
Voldemort of course. Cornelius had regrettably never been brave enough to
actually do something as dangerous as act against a real threat.
"You needn't worry Harry, I will handle the Ministry."
They had no time to deal with that right now however, as the current
situation had to be resolved quickly before the Ministry did anything
else unutterably stupid, such as offering Lockhart the position of
Hogwarts Headmaster. Triumphing over Slytherin's basilisk and revealing
that it was a cursed object at work would be enough to restore his
reputation and reclaim his position.
Not that he had any intention of actually fighting the basilisk. The
ancient serpent's hide would be obscenely magic resistant by now, not to
mention its powerful Killing Gaze. A quick apparition to grab a rooster
would be the most he planned to exert himself.
That just left the problem of gaining access to the Chamber of Secrets.
He'd found it some time ago after learning that he was dealing with a
basilisk, but had been unable to open the path. The barrier in Myrtle's
bathroom was linked to the wards, but not even the Headmaster could open
them. No doubt it would take a Parselmouth.
"I realize that you have done much already Harry, but I find myself in a
position where I am forced to ask you to do a little more."
"For example?" Harry asked warily.
"I have discovered where the Chamber of Secrets is, but it takes a
Parselmouth to open it." Dumbledore explained and continued before Harry
could say anything. "Know that you will be in minimal danger and that I
have no intention of engaging the basilisk in battle."
"Couldn't we just leave it alone?" Harry questioned. "I mean, we have the
diary. If we destroy it, then there won't be anyone left to open it."
"I left the mystery alone fifty years ago and it has resulted in the
current situation." Dumbledore said sorrowfully. "I would rather not risk
history repeating itself a third time."
He would also probably not regain his position as Headmaster without some
significant achievement. The glory of Grindelwald's defeat that had
carried him through the last time was much more distant now, nor had he
been Headmaster the last time.
XXXXX
"You know, I'm not sure we could make a less epic start to the slaying of
a powerful monster if we tried." Harry grumbled as he walked into the
girl's bathroom behind Dumbledore, a live rooster in his hands.
"How so, Harry?" Dumbledore asked, amused in spite of the dire situation.
"You're wearing bright yellow robes, I'm carrying a chicken, and we're
going into a girl's bathroom." The boy replied dryly.
"Rooster." The much older wizard corrected.
"It sounds like the start of a dirty joke." Harry continued, ignoring the
correction. "'A boy walks into a girl's bathroom holding an old man's
cock.'"
Dumbledore stopped and looked at his student strangely before finally

speaking. "I presume that this is Ms. Lovegood's influence?"
"It would be something she'd say, isn't it?" Harry admitted with a slight
blush.
Luna would probably be entirely clueless about the sexual connotations

though. Or at least she'd be pretending to be clueless. Harry wasn't sure
yet whether his blonde friend was really as oblivious as she acted.
"Indeed. Her father was, and I presume still is, the same."
"Why are we in a girl's bathroom anyway?"
"I have been able to deduce that the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets
is in here, by the sinks."
"Salazar Slytherin put the entrance to his Chamber of Secrets in a girl's

bathroom?" Harry asked incredulously.
"It would appear so."
"He was either very cunning or a pedophile."
"The truth is a wonderful and terrible thing and probably best left
unknown in this case." Dumbledore said, gesturing towards the sink with
the snake carving. "Command it to open in Parseltongue if you would,
Harry."
Harry focused on the image of a snake in his mind just like he'd
practiced and spoke. "Open!"
The circular array of sinks separated and revealed a long tunnel into the
dark.
Harry peered into the depths, a question forming in his mind.
"If you knew the entrance was here, why didn't you simply blast it open?"
"Alas, magic is rarely so straightforward." Dumbledore explained. "Had I
done so, all I would have to show for it is a ruined bathroom and no
secret entrance."
The only reason he hadn't asked Harry for help sooner was a desire to not
involve the boy in such a dangerous matter. Unfortunately, his caution
had availed him nothing save to place the death of another student on his
conscience.
"I will ask you to go no further Harry, but there may be other
Parseltongue locked doors in the Chamber." He said, looking down at the
boy.
"Let's just get this over with." Harry sighed, staring down into the dark
hole.
Moaning Myrtle chose this moment to pop out of her preferred cubicle.
"If you die down there, you can share my toilet." She offered.
"Thank you Myrtle, that is most generous of you." Dumbledore said and
jumped into the hole.
Given the choice between a creepily giggling ghost and a dark hole
leading to one of the most dangerous monsters in the magical world, Harry
swiftly followed.
XXXXX
Harry slid out of the tunnel after a fairly exhilirating ride, shoes
crunching on the bones of countless small animals.
"Well this isn't creepy at all." He muttered sarcastically.
"Quite," Dumbledore agreed, quickly casting a few cleaning charms to

remove the filth they'd picked up during their slide. "Come Harry, but be
cautious. If you see or hear anything, shut your eyes."
"Don't have to tell me twice." Harry agreed and followed the old wizard
deeper into the chamber.
It didn't take them long to come across a massive discarded snake skin.
"It is even larger than I thought." Dumbledore said, shaking his head.
"Do all basilisks get this big?" Harry asked, staring at the skin with
wide eyes. He hugged the rooster a bit more tightly, knowing that it was
the key to this mad venture.
"There has never been a record of a basilisk living this long."

Dumbledore explained. "I suspect that they never stop growing."
They moved on and reached another Parseltongue sealed door, beyond which
lay the Chamber proper.
"This guy really had a thing for snakes." Harry observed, noting the many
serpent statues lining the walkway.
"Indeed." Dumbledore agreed and gestured for Harry to give him the
rooster. "The basilisk must be very close now, would you be so kind as to
give me back my cock now?"
Harry gave a nervous chuckle as he did so, recognizing the humour for
what it was, an attempt to relieve some tension.
They stalked forward slowly, Dumbledore keeping his wand trained on the
rooster held in his other hand, ready to compell it to crow at a moment's
notice.
"Professor, I just had a thought." Harry said quietly.
"Yes, Harry?"
"The crow of a rooster seems like an awfully specific vulnerability, not

really something likely to occur naturally."
"You would not be the first to wonder about that. Despite logic
indicating otherwise, that particular weakness is not bred into the
creatures deliberately. Rather, it is a result of the nature of its
hatching. Something about the process makes a rooster's crow resonate
fatally with the basilisk's own magic." Dumbledore lectured.
"So there's no chance of it being immune then?" Harry asked, much

relieved.
"No Harry, you can rest assured that my cock is stronger than Slytherin's
snake." The old wizard assured, beard twitching with his smile.
Harry snorted in amusement. He might be wary of Dumbledore and the

manipulative streak that his grandparents had warned him of, but at least
he had a sense of humour.
"Intruders in the nest? Not the master. Food? So hungry. Smells good."
The hiss resonated across the chamber, too low for human hearing but
perfectly audible to a Parselmouth.
And also to the rooster, which squawked in reply.
The hissing stopped for a moment before returning with a vengeance.
"BIRD BIRD BIRD! SERPENT KILLER. NO NO NO NO, WON'T DIE. CAN'T RUN.
NOWHERE TO RUN. MUST KILL!"
"Get ready!" Harry called urgently, alarmed by the half-mad rambling of

the basilisk. "It's coming right at us!"
Dumbledore nodded, hearing the rapid movement of the enourmous snake
through the tunnels built into the sides of the Chamber. He waited only a
moment longer before casting a compulsion on the rooster and forcing it
to crow.
The basilisk let out a hissing roar as the crowing echoed through the
Chamber before smashing heavily into the ground off to the side, also
making a large splash in the shallow water.
Harry and Dumbledore waited tensely for any sign that the basilisk was
still alive. A full minute passed before they relaxed and started moving
warily towards the place where they'd heard the crash.
"Do not look it in the eyes, they may still have some power even in
death." Dumbledore warned.
"Got it." Harry acknowledged.
They found the massive carcass quickly enough, looking more like a dark
grey rock formation than a snake.
"I guess that's it then." Harry said, still jittery with nerves from the
oddly anti-climatic finish.
"Almost, there is one more thing to do." Dumbledore said as he handed the
rooster back to Harry and drew out the diary.
"What are you going to do with that?" Harry asked.
"Aside from being incredibly potent, basilisk venom is also known to have
a corrosive effect on magic. If my guess is correct, it should have the
ability to destroy Voldemort's diary." Dumbledore explained.
It would also save him a great deal of questions from the Ministry about
unauthorized uses of Fiendfyre.
Harry said nothing and simply watched as the much older wizard approached
the basilisk's mouth, taking care not to look at the eyes. With a wave of
his wand, he forced open the massive jaw, revealing a mouth full of fangs
instead of the usual toothless mouth of a snake. With a quick Accio, one
of the fangs was pulled out and driven through the diary. The wail
released by the booklet was confirmation that the Horcrux was destroyed.
"What about the basilisk?" Harry asked once it was done, the whole thing
once again feeling very anti-climatic. He hadn't expected that prophecy
to be resolved quite so...neatly.
"What of it?" Dumbledore blinked, oblivious to the fact that Harry had
just assumed that Voldemort was finished once and for all.
"Could we sell it?"
Dumbledore hummed thoughtfully. He'd been so focused on killing the beast

and regaining his position as Headmaster that he hadn't thought of it,
but the boy definitely had a point. For a basilisk of this size and age,
half the Potion Masters and magical leatherworkers in Europe would beggar
themselves before it was completely harvested and sold, which was a
process likely to take several years. The eyes alone would net an
astronomical sum.
Hogwarts could certainly use the funding, not to mention the Order of the
Phoenix in the event that Voldemort's return proved impossible to
prevent. It would make it easier to regain his Headmaster position if he
came bearing gifts.
"An excellent point, Harry." He said.
"You said that the hide is magic resistant?" Harry asked speculatively,
eyeballing the craggy dark grey scales. He rather liked the color.
"Extremely so." Dumbledore confirmed.
"I've heard about dragonhide robes, would it be possible to make them out
of basilisk hide?"
"It would. They would not be as impact resistant as dragonhide, but they
would be much more magic resistant."
"I'll claim enough of its hide to make a few adult sized sets then and
samples of any useful ingredients harvested if I ever decide to make use
of them, such as the venom. The rest of it we can sell. I'm assuming that
my share can easily be delivered to my Gringotts vault?"
"Your share?" Dumbledore echoed, surprised by the mercenary statement.
"Of course, 50%. You found the Chamber, but I opened it and neither one
of us can really claim to have done the lion's share of the work since we
killed the bloody thing with a rooster. You get to take whatever you want
from the carcass before we sell it of course, what with both of us having
equal claim to the body." Harry continued happily.
"There is more to life than galleons, Harry." The old wizard sighed,
disappointed by the decidedly unheroic greed that the boy was displaying
right now.
"And all those other things in life will be much easier with galleons
than without them." Harry countered. After getting ripped off by the
goblins that first time, he was no longer willing to let easy profit slip
through his fingers. "You didn't think I was going to hold your cock for
free, did you?"
"I...very well." Dumbledore capitulated and shook his head with a weak
smile at the joke. He couldn't afford to alienate the boy over something
so trivial, especially when he was entitled by law to claim a share due
to his aid in slaying the beast.
XXXXX
"If I may have your attention, please." Dumbledore said just before the
evening meal that very same day.
The Great Hall quieted and turned its attention to him curiously.
"I know that the year has been difficult, filled with fear and sorrow,
but now it is over. Earlier in the day, Harry Potter and myself have at
last unraveled the mystery behind the Chamber of Secrets."
The student body burst into excited murmurs for a moment before settling
down again to listen to the old Headmaster.
"The mythical monster said to be hidden in the Chamber was a basilisk,

whose lair was most cleverly hidden. Mr. Potter and myself found it and
ventured into the Chamber this very morning, slaying the beast in its
lair."
"But who was the Heir?" Someone yelled out.
"Voldemort." He replied, resisting the urge to sigh as practically

everyone in the Great Hall flinched, yelped, screamed or otherwise
displayed an unseemly level of fear over a name. "A cursed object he had
left behind had possessed a student and forced them to open the Chamber.
The name of the student in question will remain secret unless they wish
to inform you themselves."
Another bout of murmuring spread through the students, this time

speculation on the identity of the possessed party.
"Additionally, for the next few days Hogwarts will be hosting several
wizards and witches specializing in the harvesting of large magical
animals. I request that you do not get in their way. That will be all
from me right now, thank you."
That should do the trick. The legend of the Boy-Who-Lived would grow, as
would the enmity between him and Voldemort. His own involvement and
connection to Harry would ensure that he would be able to retain his
position as Headmaster without any overt difficulty.
Lucius Malfoy would no doubt try to protest, but Dumbledore knew how to
handle Lucius.
It truly was unfortunate that the re-opening of the Chamber had resulted
in another death, but he had not dared to close the school. The then-
unknown Heir of Slytherin would have been set loose on the world in that
case. Terry Boot's death was unfortunate, but it was better than the many
other deaths that a resurrected sixteen year old Voldemort would have
caused.
XXXXX
Harry, Luna and Ginny had almost made it up the first flight of stairs
towards Ravenclaw tower before they were halted.
"Potter!"
Harry's face twitched with irritation at the sound of Draco Malfoy's

outraged yell. Of course the blond idiot would take offense to having the
attacks on muggleborns ended. Why had he even entertained the idea that
Malfoy might be clever enough to be less obvious about his prejudices?
Turning around, the three of them saw the huffing and puffing second year
stomping up the stairs, no doubt intending to get in Harry's face about
his part in putting an end to the whole debacle.
Harry had no desire to deal with the idiot, so he focused his will and
launched a weak, wandless banishing spell at Malfoy's leg.
The leg was thrown back, completely destroying the blond's footing and
sending him crashing face first into the stairs. He managed to catch
himself with his hands before he actually got hurt, unfortunately.
"Maybe you should learn to walk on even ground before trying to tackle
stairs, Malfoy." Harry mocked, taking an inordinate amount of glee in the
blond's humiliation. He'd been insufferable ever since Halloween. More
insufferable than normal at any rate.
"You tripped me!" Malfoy accused angrily.
"With what?" Harry asked sarcastically, raising his hands to show that
they were empty. "My mastery of wandless magic?"
There were some giggles from a few students who'd seen the whole thing,
causing Draco to flush in angry humiliation.
Shaking his head in exasperation, Harry restarted his speedy retreat to

his room. He had no doubt that everyone and their mother would want to
know the whole story and he wasn't sure that his reputation for being
unapproachable was going to be a sufficient shield.
XXXXX
Harry closed the door to his room with a feeling of relief.
What in the bloody fucking hell had Dumbledore been thinking, announcing
that to the entire school? He'd felt like a germ under a microscope with
the way that people had stared at him all the way through dinner. Luna
and Ginny's stares had been the worst, silently willing him to explain.
At least he hadn't said anything about sending Moldywarts off to his
final death with the destruction of the phylactery.
Was this supposed to be some kind of payback for the 50% share of the
profits on the sale of the carcass he'd claimed?
His stewing was interrupted by an insistent knocking on his door.
Harry sighed, knowing exactly who was on the other side.

Resigned he opened the door and was placed into bewilderment as a tiny
redhead grabbed him in a tight hug.
"Thank you." She mumbled.
"You're, uh, welcome." Harry replied with an akward pat on the back.
Ginny had been a bit twitchy ever since he'd taken the diary away from
her, so he could guess that its destruction had helped her somehow, but
he still had no idea how to deal with this.
"Did you really have to kill that poor, lonely basilisk, Harry?" Luna
asked sadly.
"It was going to eat us." He said dryly, recalling the creature's
mutterings before it had detected the rooster.
"Oh poo, and I so wanted a basilisk friend."
Ginny finally let go at that point, looking up at him curiously despite

her blush. "How did you even kill it?"
"Dumbledore got a rooster from somewhere. It wasn't as dangerous as he

made it sound."
"Could I have an interview, Harry?" Luna asked excitedly, her previous

dismay over the serpent's death forgotten. "Daddy is sure to want to
write an article about how you and Headmaster Dumbledore used your cock
to slay Slytherin's ancient snake."
Harry turned his eyes skyward with a sigh, somehow not even surprised
that Luna had once again managed to be so innocently crass. He'd been
expecting it really.
XXXXX
February 14th
Harry had barely left his room for the whole day, rightly fearing the
level of attention he would get on this day.
Ginny had been acting extra weird for the past few days. No doubt she'd
be upset about his refusal to even show his face on what was supposedly
the most romantic day of the year, but that was her own problem. Her
crush had somehow managed to become both better and worse after the diary
situation was resolved.
Better, because she was less obvious about it most of the time and worse
because it had apparently solidified into some kind of emotional
jawbreaker. He rather thought that the girl needed counseling to deal
with the fact that her body had been used to kill someone, but the
Wizarding World had apparently never heard of psychiatry. Instead, Ginny
seemed to have convinced herself that everything would be fine as long as
he was there. Seeing as his paricipation in destroying the phylactery had
been minimal, this belief seemed a tad unjustified to Harry.
Ginny was just going to have to learn how to deal with the
disappointment, because he simply had no romantic interest in her and
didn't see that changing. Her bouts of sullen jealousy were even starting
to put a strain on their friendship despite Luna's best efforts at
playing the intermediary.
The cause of much of this jealousy was his continued interest in the
older girls, especially the one who had sent him that picture.
He didn't even know her name, but he had trouble looking her in the eye.
Ever since Dumbledore's announcement, she'd been prone to winking at him
whenever she caught him looking at her. She clearly had no trouble with
her self-confidence, but Harry had no idea how to deal with it, so he
tended to just blush in embarrassment.
His rune enhanced libido made him want to talk to her and see what
happened, but he was still twelve. Talking to a seventeen year old girl
that had given him a naughty picture was way outside of his comfort zone.
Either way, he had dreaded Valentine's day and decided to avoid any
embarrassing situations by keeping himself locked up in his room.
He'd spent most of the day eating the steady stream of snacks provided by
the house elves and meditating.
According to the book he'd found there were two ways to learn Occlumency.
The quick way and the slow way.
The quick way involved getting a skilled Legilimancer to brutally and

repeatedly violate your mind until you developed an instinctive defensive
reaction and threw the invader out of your mind.
Aside from Aul'El preventing this approach, Harry had not been overly
keen on the idea even if he could have found someone to do this to him.
It sounded incredibly unpleasant and wouldn't even help to achieve his
goals. He didn't need to train his subconscious into a viciously
territorial attack dog, he needed to tame it.
The slow way involved a lot of sitting still and trying to clear your
thoughts.
Harry had been at it for months and would have long since given up if he
didn't know that there was a point to it.
The meditation had helped to control his angry outbursts to some degree,
but so far he hadn't managed to sink into the trance-like state that the
book had described.
Until now that was.
After hours of struggling with the concept of 'letting go', Harry had
just been so tired of it all.
His irritation with Ginny's crush, the embarrassment having gotten caught
staring at several of the older girls, the frustrated lust of a pubescent
boy that was exceedingly unlikely to get fulfilled anytime soon, the
restless desire to explore magic away from the restrictions of Hogwarts
and the Ministry, the impatience at his slow progress with wandless
magic, the yearning to perform another ritual and countless other things.
In his frustration with all the messy complications of life, his mind had
wandered. He'd started thinking about how ultimately pointless it all
was. Humanity was just one species, on one ball of rock, orbiting one
star, in one galaxy. They could all get wiped out tomorrow and the
Universe wouldn't even notice.
Somewhere during his ruminations, he'd left his worldly concerns behind
and begun drifting lazily through a comfortable emptiness. It was like a
mental safe place where nothing could reach him.
A good twenty minutes later, Harry came out of the trance and smiled even
as the ache in his lower back and the hunger in his stomach ruined the
sense of peace he'd felt.
He had managed the first and arguably the hardest part of Occlumency.
XXXXX
June 2nd
Potions class had become almost pleasant for a while after the basilisk
was killed, mostly because Snape was in an ebulient mood over getting to
experiment with fresh basilisk parts that Dumbledore had given him access
to. Even more so when the headmaster also gave him access to phoenix
tears to neutralize the venom's magic destroying properties and see what
could be done with it.
It hadn't lasted long of course, as this was Snape we were talking about.
The dour man's relatively good cheer dissipated in about a month,
returning him back to his default factory setting.
Still, Harry couldn't really complain too much about Potions. Yes, Snape
was kind of a bastard and unnecessarily harsh with students, but he was
still better than Binns or Lockhart. Even a bastard with no idea how to
teach properly could impart some of his knowledge, whereas Binns was
basically a sleeping spell given form and Lockhart would have been better
served giving fashion tips in a Witch Weekly column.
The usual tense atmosphere that Snape imparted to a classroom was

shattered by a disgustingly cheerful knocking.
Snape had only a moment to glare at the door and wonder which idiot
thought it a good idea to interrupt his lesson before the idiot in
question simply barged in.
"Good day, Professor Snape." Gilderoy Lockhart said jauntily, oblivious
to the mood. "Please excuse the interruption, but I'm sure you'll
understand once I've told you what this is about."
"I quiver with anticipation." Snape drawled coldly, displeasure dripping

from every syllable.
It flew straight over Lockhart's head. "I've arranged for myself and Mr.
Potter to have an interview with a reporter from The Daily Prophet
regarding the events of the year, so I'm sure you'll see fit to excuse
him from his lesson."
Snape turned his menacing black eyes on the boy in question, a string of
insults and mockery already on his tongue.
"You arranged for me to have an interview without even asking my

permission?" Harry demanded with his face flushed angrily, beating Snape
to the punch. "Were you born this stupid, or did it take specialized
training?"
Lockhart seemed taken aback by the hostility, clearly unable to

understand how anyone could be upset about being able to talk to
reporters.
Snape was mildly impressed by the venom and disdain that Potter had
managed to put into his retort, not that he was ever going to admit it.
"Go with him and handle this, Potter." He said instead. "I'll thank you
not to let your fame intrude on my lessons in the future."
Snape observed the boy's thunderous expression with interest. This level
of provocation would have resulted in an explosion earlier in the year.
Albus was clearly correct. Potter was practicing Occlumency.
XXXXX
"... Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, has been receiving private tutoring
from famed author and monster hunter, Gilderoy Lockhart..."
Harry fumed as he read the article that the baboon of a DADA teacher had
contrived to put into the Daily Prophet.
After getting sent out of class by Snape, he'd summarily ditched Lockhart
and gone to the library, leaving the fop to deal with the press himself.
Clearly, the man was so desperate to leech off his fame that he was
willing to risk outright lying. Well, two could play that game.
XXXXX
Ministry of Magic,
Depatment of Magical Law Enforcement

To whom it may concern,
I have recently become worried about certain goings on in Hogwarts School

of Witchcraft and Wizardry and felt that they should be brought to your
attention. I have reason to suspect that the current Defense Against the
Dark Arts Professor, one Gilderoy Lockhart, is abusing his position of
authority in order to extort sexual favors from the sixth and seventh
year female students.
He has proven himself an inept teacher over the course of the year and
many students across all seven years have stopped attending his classes.
Those who remain are mostly girls, which seems suspicious to me.
It may be that the troubles experienced by Hogwarts earlier in the year

are making me see foul deeds where there are none, but I implore you to
investigate nonetheless.
Signed,
A concerned student.
Harry finished writing the letter with a sense of vindictive

satisfaction. A similar letter going out to the Daily Prophet would make
sure that it would be investigated even if the DMLE was initially
inclined to dismiss the letter.
The reporters would tear strips out of the Ministry if such a claim
wasn't investigated and they would tear strips out of Lockhart regardless
simply because they were reporters.
The charges were entirely fabricated of course, but that made little
difference. The media shitstorm would almost certainly cost Lockhart his
job and reputation even if the man was squeaky clean(which Harry strongly
doubted was the case).
That would show that pompous windbag to try using him to boost his own
fame. He'd been trying to get Harry alone ever since the year started,
but had redoubled his efforts since the fiasco with the basilisk. The
surprise interview he'd attempted to spring had simply been the last
straw.
XXXXX
"Following a brief but thorough investigation by the DMLE, Gilderoy

Lockhart has been charged with numerous illegal uses of the memory charm,
as well as abuse of his position as a Hogwarts Professor." Dumbledore was
saying to the Great Hall.
The students launched into a flurry of murmuring, whispering and general

speculation, stopping only when the Headmaster cleared his throat to once
again get everyone's attention.
"As he will be spending the next sixty odd years in Azkaban, the post of
Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor is now vacant. Seeing as the
school year is nearly over, there is little point in replacing him, but I
am sure that you will be able to manage the remainder of your studies on
your own."
There were several loud snorts at this, not all of them from the
students. Anyone who had gotten anything DADA related done this year had
done it on their own.
"As a final note, the Ministry would like to thank the concerned student
who alerted them of this and are offering a reward if they come forth and
are able to prove their identity. That is all, tuck in."
While the rest of the Great Hall once again erupted into furious
conversation, Harry merely looked stunned.
The 'fabricated' charges he'd leveled at Lockhart had actually been true?
"Blimey."
XXXXX
Last night before the students leave.
The door to Harry Potter's room opened quietly and then closed with equal
silence.
The late night intruder who had done the opening and closing padded over
to the bed on silence charmed feet. There was a short rustle of cloth and
then the intruder grabbed the edge of the quilt and very slowly lifted it
away from the sleeping boy.
Harry had never had any reason to be a particularly light sleeper and so
remained firmly unconscious.
He continued sleeping even as the bed dipped under the extra weight of
another body and the quilt was pulled back over both of them.
It was only as a mildly cold hand was dragged over his ticklish abdomen
that he began waking.
His thoughts were decidedly foggy for a few seconds, having stayed up
fairly late because of his Occlumency practice and only slipping into a
deep sleep a short while ago as a consequence, but he did eventually
cotton on to the fact that his bed was rather more crowded than normal.
"Hello Harry." Said the witch who had shown such concern about the polish
of his wand with her Christmas present.
"Hi." Harry replied in the cracked voice of emerging manhood. He most

definitely did not squeak and anyone who said otherwise was spreading
slander.
"I've seen you looking at me, Harry." She whispered into his ear hotly,
rubbing one of her bare legs across his.
"Uhm, sorry?" Harry managed, any sense of eloquence lost. From what he
could feel, she was wearing the very same nightie that had been the fuel
of so many wand polishing sessions this year.
"Well aren't you precious?" She chuckled, running her hand over his
chest. "Were you this shy when you faced Slytherin's basilisk?"
"That was different." He rallied, not liking being called shy in typical
teenaged fashion even if he wasn't one quite yet according to his age. "I
had a cock with me."
The innuendo only dawned on him once it was too late.
Her hand slipped into the boxers that served as his sleepwear and wrapped
around the one part of him that was fully at attention. "Feels like you
have one with you right now."
Harry went as rigid as if he'd been hit with a pretrification spell.
"You might be wondering why I'm here." She went on with a smile that was
barely visible in the dark, gently fondling what she'd grabbed earlier.
That had been a distant question in his mind. As far as the rest of him
was concerned, the unannounced visit of a pretty girl in his bed was not
to be questioned, especially after she'd stuck her hand in his underwear.
He wasn't really up to speech anymore, but he did manage a nod.
She pressed herself closer up against him and her fondling became more
vigorous. "Well, I just thought that you deserved a proper reward. Do you
want it?"
Nod nod.
"I want to hear you say it." She insisted huskily. "Tell me that you want
it."
He swallowed thickly, embarrassment at an all time high. "I want it."
"Louder Harry, say it like you mean it."
"I want it!"
"Good, good. Now just relax and let me take care of you."
He did as he was told and very quickly made a mess in his boxers.
Harry drew in deep breaths as she continued to squeeze her fist every
other second, making his discharge run over her fingers.
"You wouldn't happen to have had anything to do with Lockhart getting

arrested, did you?" She asked after a few minutes.
"I was the one that sent the letter to the DMLE." He admitted instantly.
"How did you know that he was fooling around with the upper year girls?"
She asked curiously.
"I didn't, I just wanted to get him in trouble." He once again admitted
instantly.
She let out a giggle. "And here I thought you were protecting our
virtue."
Harry flushed at her teasing tone. "I would've sent the letter sooner if
I'd known."
"Don't worry about it, Harry. Those bimboes have no one but themselves to
blame for buying into his lies."
All this talk about a teacher sleeping with his students brought Harry's
mind around to the fact that he was twelve and that what had just
happened was almost certainly illegal.
"Er, you won't get in trouble for, um, this, will you?" He asked
nervously.
"Were you going to tell on me, Harry?" She teased.
"No." He was quick to assure.
"Such a gentleman." She teased some more, though Harry wasn't sure if he
could really be called a gentleman in this case. "But no, there won't be
any legal trouble even if someone does find out. The magical world has a
much looser interpretation of the age of consent than the muggle one and
it's also assumed that strapping young wizards like yourself wouldn't
refuse the attentions of an older witch in any case."
Well, that explained the lack of gender wards on the doors of the boys
rooms. Lockhart must have gotten in trouble for it because he was a
teacher then.
"That's good to hear." Harry said for lack of anything better. He was
keenly aware that she had not yet removed her hand from his member.
"I'd best get going." She said about half a minute later, removing her
hand from his underwear, reaching for her wand and using a quick
scourgify to remove the mess on it.
Harry stared openly as she bent over to pick up her robes, giving him a
very nice view of her rear end in the process.
Being famous definitely had its upsides.
"I don't even know your name." He said once she was dressed.
"Probably better that way." She replied instead of answering the implied
question. Then she leaned over him and gave him a gentle kiss on the
lips.
"I hope you enjoyed the wand polishing lesson, Harry." She teased,
smirking at his stunned look. "I hope the 'supplies' I gave you for
Christmas help you keep it in top shape."
She left after that, leaving the shocked Harry to stare after her for
quite some time before he snapped out of it.
Maybe it was because he'd just woken up, or the fact that he hadn't had
any control of the situation, but the kiss had somehow had more impact
than the handjob.
Based on the concealing robes, Harry had figured that the Wizarding World
was full of prudes. While he had never been more glad to be wrong, this
definitely bore further investigation.
XXXXX
"What are you smiling about?" Ginny asked on the train ride back to
King's Cross.
"Just a pleasant memory." Harry answered, his smile not fading.
"It must have been quite relaxing." Luna observed. "You're not usually
this mellow. "
"You could say that." He agreed after a moment, inordinately proud of

himself for not blushing.
"What was it?" Ginny asked curiously.
"Something magical." He joked.
"Fine then, keep your secrets." Ginny huffed.
That was exactly what Harry intended to do, even if telling the redhead
that he'd gotten a midnight handjob would probably put her off the silly
crush she was still nursing. It was equally likely that it would make her
all indignant and outraged, or worse, determined to invade his bed in the
middle of the night as well.
XXXXX
"There's my daddy." Luna said happily, pointing at a tall and thin man
with shoulder length hair that was completely white and who somehow
managed to dress even more eccentrically than Dumbledore.
"And there's my parents." Ginny chimed in, pointing at two redheads. Not
that it was necessary, seeing as another four Weasleys were making their
way over to them.
"Come on, Harry. I want to introduce you." Luna chirped, dragging her
friend over to her father.
"Okay." Harry agreed bemusedly. Luna wasn't usually so forceful, so he

figured that she must really want this.
"Daddy." She squealed once she was close enough to hug her father,
letting go of Harry's arm in the process.
"Hello again, turnip." The man replied, returning the hug gladly.
Harry watched the whole thing a bit awkwardly, but still smiled. The two
were obviously close, which was not something he could really relate to,
but he was happy for his friend.
"This is my friend, Harry Potter. And you already know Ginny." Luna said
after a few moments, gesturing to them.
"Wonderful! I'm Xenophilius Lovegood, call me Xeno. Would you like to go

snorkack hunting with us over the summer?"
"Errr..." Harry stammered, completely taken aback by the sudden

invitation. At least it wasn't the usual Boy-Who-lived reaction that he'd
grown to dislike so much. "Thank you for the offer, but I'm afraid I
can't. I've got a lot to do over the summer."
"Same here." Ginny quickly added.
"Some other time then." Xeno said cheerfully. "It was nice meeting you,
Harry."
"Likewise, Mr. Lovegood." Harry replied.
"Xeno." The man corrected.
"Xeno." Harry repeated agreeably, finding himself liking the strange

man's manner.
Luna and her father made their goodbyes after that and left.
"Right, let's go meet my parents then." Ginny said after a moment.
Harry simply nodded, not at all looking forward to that. Molly Weasley's
semi-frequent howlers hadn't given him a particularly grand impression of
the woman. It would be rude to avoid it though.
They didn't even make it to the gathering of redheads before the twins
started in on their routine.
"Well look who it is!"
"The Ravenclaw Weasley-"
"-Come to mingle with us simpleminded Gryffindors."

"We are honored by your intellectual presence, m'lady!"
"Shut up!" Ginny yelled at them, embarrassed by the teasing.
"Fred, George, lay off." The plump matron warned
"But of course, mother." They chorused and continued on regardless.
"We wouldn't dare embarass ickle Gin-Gin-"
"-in front of the Harry Potter."
Harry aimed an annoyed look at them. The twins might be good for a few
laughs, but sometimes they really didn't know when to stop.
"Then you are...?" The father of the bunch breathed, further annoying
Harry with his awed reaction.
"Yes, Harry Potter." Harry interjected. "It's been a pleasure meeting you
Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, but I'm going to have to run. My ride is probably
getting impatient."
Molly looked like she was about to say something more, but apparently
decided against it, allowing Harry to escape the family of redheads
without any further fuss. He could still hear Ginny voicing her
displeasure at the twins even as he stepped through the portal to the
muggle side of the station.
Ginny had already asked him if he wanted to spend part of the summer at
the Burrow, and he was more glad than ever to have refused. He was sure
that the Weasleys were good people, if a bit too pushy at times, but
living in the same house as them would have quickly driven him spare. If
the lack of privacy didn't get him, it would be the lack of quiet.
Besides, if he hung around with them, how was he supposed to get anything
technically illegal done?
XXXXX
Though his name for me invokes images of Jay and Silent Bob, Salma Hayek
doing a striptease, George Carlin playing a cardinal of all things, a
shit demon and a threat-of-apocalypse-by-technicality, I think we can all
agree that Alan Rickman made a great Severus Snape in the HP movies. RIP
and all that.
Until next time.
Chapter 6
I've made a minor but relatively important edit to the previous chapter.
Namely, I've changed it so that Harry is now convinced that Voldemort is
dead since his phylactery(the diary) is destroyed. It was pointed out to
me that he would have no reason to think that Voldemort would or even
could- have more than one. This may or may not have any effect on the
story as it goes forward, but it was a blunder on my part that needed to
be corrected.
This chapter was a pain in the ass to write, which is why it took so
long. Special thanks to Joe Lawyer, who was instrumental in refining it.
XXXXX
Harry walked through the door of his foster home with a faint sense of
resignation. He would have much rather skipped the hollow reunion routine
that Robert and Katherine were no doubt going to be intent on going
through even though there was nobody to see it.
"I'm home." He announced without enthusiasm.
He heard them coming a second later.
"Welcome...back?" Robert said, trailing off in confusion as he took in

the changes in his adopted son.
"What are they feeding you at that school of yours?" Katherine asked,
sounding genuinely amazed. "You're huge!"
Harry shifted awkwardly. The Weasleys hadn't commented on his size,

probably out of politeness and Xeno Lovegood may not even have registered
anything strange, but he knew that he was too big for his age. He might
be just shy of thirteen years old, but he looked closer to fifteen thanks
to the runes. He'd even caught the first hints of facial hair growing on
his chin a while ago. To the Shaws, who hadn't seen him for ten months,
the difference in his appearance must be massive.
"Just a growth spurt I guess."
Katherine came closer, reaching out to touch the mess that was his hair.
It too was growing faster than normal and now hung just above his
shoulders. It was currently at that annoying midway length where it was
long enough to be annoying, but not quite long enough to be put into a
ponytail.
"And your hair is a complete mess again." She fussed. "We'll have to get
it cut soon."
Harry leaned away from her, not even bothering to be annoyed anymore. Of
course she'd be worried about appearances right away. He'd stopped hoping
for a hug by the time he was nine. That, and her perfume was stirring up
his libido, which was still creepy.
"I was actually thinking of growing it long." He told her, taking an
inordinate amount of pleasure in the appalled expressions it got him.
"No son of ours will be going around looking like some long-haired
hooligan." Robert said firmly, his wife nodding in agreement.
Harry's expression brielfy twisted in irritation at their narrow-

mindedness. Fortunately, he'd prepared some countermeasures ahead of
time.
Not for the sake of his hair mind you, but it would be a good test.
Taking a deep breath, Harry used the months of Occlumency practice to

suffuse his mind with a feeling of calm. Then he focused it and sent a
pair of wandless calming spells at his foster parents.
"It's really not that big of a deal." He said in a conversational tone

that hid his anxiety to see if it had worked. "We're not in the 1950s
anymore, lots of men wear their hair long these days."
"I guess it won't be a problem if you style it properly." Katherine

agreed with some reluctance.
Robert was still frowning however, clearly more resistant to either the
idea or the effects of the spell. "I still think it would be better to
keep it short."
Harry sent another calming spell at him, feeling incredibly pleased with
the fact that it produced no flashy jets of light.
"Men frequently wear their hair long in the Wizarding World. It's
tradition."
A tradition for Heirs and Lords of Noble Houses that had pretty much died
out and which Harry didn't give two shits about, but he needed to test
how much he could bend the wills of his nominal guardians. If he could
use this to talk them into not objecting to him keeping his hair long,
then he might also be able to use it to dodge any kind of responsibility
for the whole summer.
Illegal? Mildly.
Immoral? Definitely.
"Alright." Robert capitulated, being a proponent of tradition. "But only

if you get it styled into something elegant instead of the rat's nest it
is now."
Convenient? Extremely.
XXXXX
Harry stared at the row of hair products in consternation, wondering if

long hair was really worth it if he had to bother with all that crap.
Maybe the Wizarding World had some kind of enchanted soap that simplified
hair care? It probably did, he'd noticed a trend in the differences
between the magical and non-magical. The magical world made small things
incredibly convenient, but lacked wide scale sophistication, whereas the
non-magical world excelled at large projects but contained numerous day
to day inconveniances that couldn't simply be magicked away.
His introduction to the inconveniances of the non-magical female had been

arranged by his foster mother. Calming spells might have worked to
convince her that there was nothing wrong with a boy having long hair,
but that was because she'd been upset about his refusal to comply and her
personal dislike of the practice.
Convincing Katherine that it didn't need to be fastidiously taken care of

would have taken an Imperius. She had seemingly decided that if he was
going to keep the long hair, then they were going to make a day of it.
Harry had not been that bored in a long time and spent most of the day
practicing his Occlumency. How women could find that enjoyable was beyond
him. He had to admit that he had enjoyed having a pretty hairdresser
massaging his scalp though, slightly embarrassing though the trip to the
obviously female targeted business had been.
At least he'd managed to buy that high-powered laptop he'd been meaning
to get in addition to learning entirely too much about hair care. Now if
only he could figure out how get a charger running in Potter Manor.
Enchanting an object into being some kind of self-propelling dynamo
wouldn't be a problem for him at this point, but putting together a gizmo
to take advantage of it would be.
XXXXX
Charlus and Dorea had been eager to hear how the Chamber of Secrets
business had been concluded and were amazed that Harry had participated
in the slaying of an ancient basilisk, even if it was with a rooster.
They were also quite proud of him for making a profit out of instead of
letting Dumbledore claim the entire carcass.
"Whoever slipped your friend that cursed diary must have been a Death
Eater." Dorea theorized.
"And Dobby was probably their house elf." Charlus added.
"Probably." Harry agreed.
"I can only be thankful that their foolishness resulted in Voldemort's

soul container being destroyed." Dorea said with a shudder. "It does not
bear thinking of that he might have returned if such things function as
you said, Harry."
"No mention of soul containers in the Black Library?" Charlus asked.
"There very well might be, my family would certainly not think twice
about keeping knowledge of such foul magic alive." Dorea replied with a
distasteful frown. "It was not something I had ever considered reading up
on, nor did my Head of House at the time allow me free access to the
library since I was not of the main line."
"I guess we should just be glad that Voldemort didn't get a chance to
regain his body." Charlus said with a sigh.
"Would I be able to access the Black Library?" Harry asked thoughtfully.

He knew that creating a phylactery himself more than likely carried a
steeper price than he was willing to pay, but he still wanted to learn
about it. Dumbledore was the only person who seemed to know anything
about the subject and asking him didn't strike Harry as a smart thing to
do.
Neither Charlus nor Dorea were too happy about the direction of Harry's
interests right now, but they weren't really people. They were portraits,
and family portraits are always made to help the still living members of
the family. Since Harry was the last Potter, they were compelled to obey
his orders and answer his questions regardless of their own opinions.
"No, you were never keyed into the wards. The war with Voldemort has not
been kind to the House of Black; most of its members are dead and the
rest in prison. I believe that Sirius is next in line to become Lord
Black, but he is currently rotting in Azkaban." Dorea finished bitterly.
Harry had done some investigating into his parents and their friends
after being told about them by his grandparents. That was why he knew
that Pettigrew was dead, that Remus Lupin had seemingly vanished off the
face of the Earth and that Sirius Black was in Azkaban for betraying his
parents to Voldemort, as well as the murder of twelve muggles and Peter
Pettigrew.
Sirius had been like a son to her and Charlus, they would have adopted
him if it wasn't for inter-House politics. The idea that he would have
betrayed James and Lily to Voldemort was ludicrous. The memories that
Harry had unlocked after performing his second ritual had only reinforced
that belief. After all, why would Sirius have just given Harry to Hagrid
if he had really been in Voldemort's service?
No, whatever had happened that night, they were certain that Sirius was
innocent of betraying the Potters. The charges of murdering Pettigrew and
twelve muggles were harder to dismiss however, especially if Pettigrew
was the real traitor. Sirius had always been a hothead and it was far
from impossible that he might have thrown out a careless blasting curse
in the throes of rage.
"You must have been quite the school hero for the rest of the year after
that." Charlus said with forced amusement, trying to move away from the
depressing topic.
"You could say that." Harry grumbled a bit, though a smile pulled at his
lips. Most of the school might have been annoyingly curious, but his
mysterious late night visitor had certainly made up for it with her
particular show of gratitude.
"Did any girls get crushes on you?" Dorea teased.
Harry shrugged, though he couldn't quite keep a tinge of pink off his
cheeks. Aside from Ginny, he wasn't aware of any crushes, but that wasn't
what he was thinking about.
"I know that look." Charlus said with a grin. "James and Sirius always
had the same shifty look on their faces when they'd just been having a
discussion about witches and didn't want us to know about it. What
happened, Harry? Did a pretty girl show you her gratitude with a kiss?"
"Yes." Harry admitted, electing not to mention what had happened before
the kiss.
"Who was she?" Dorea asked curiously.
"I, er, don't know."
"How can you not know?" Charlus asked, baffled. "Surely she didn't just
walk up to you, kiss you, and then leave without ever introducing
herself?"
No, she just snuck into my room in the middle of the night, gave me a
handjob, kissed me and left without introducing herself. Harry thought to
himself with a mental snicker despite his embarrassment.
He could only give another shrug to Charlus though, having no idea what
to tell the man without outright lying, which he was reluctant to do.
"Harry, how old was this girl?" Dorea questioned suspiciously.
"Errr, she was a seventh year." He admitted with a nervous fidget.
"Going after the older girls, eh Harry?" Charlus chuckled while Dorea
muttered disapprovingly.
"She went after me." Harry corrected, lips being pulled into a grin.
"Said that she wanted to show me how much she appreciated my efforts."
"Women do like poweful wizards." Charlus said, exchanging a sly look with
his grandson.
"Men." Dorea huffed, hiding her own amusement.
XXXXX
Harry spent the next couple of weeks in intense study, desperately trying
to bring his knowledge of mathemathics and arithmancy up to the point
where he would be able to perform another ritual. Learning how to use a
computer to help with that pursuit also took up some time, but all in all
he felt that he was making good progress.
It was fortunate that unlike spells, rituals were fairly structured
things and he could re-use a lot of the work from his previous two. The
task of precisely defining the movements of the knife was time consuming
and difficult with only a miniscule margin for error, but it did not
contain any of the bizzare variables that magic introduced into
spellcraft. It was essentially pure science, reliably predictable and
math heavy, whereas crafting a new spell was oftentimes more of an art.
Robert and Katherine occasionally tried to drag him off to some social
event or another and kept making plans for turning his birthday into one.
Judicious application of calming spells and what weak compulsions he

could cast kept things under control for the most part. Any sense of
guilt that Harry might have felt at magically messing with their heads
was overshadowed by his relief at having a means to get them to bugger
off.
He received no letters from either Luna or Ginny, which was to be

expected given his little owl problem. He still had no idea how he was
going to deal with that, if it even could be dealt with. The three of
them had agreed not to bother with letters over the summer due to a
combination of that issue and him not having an owl of his own, but there
was another letter he was expecting that would probably turn out to be
problematic when it couldn't be delivered.
Namely, his Hogwarts supply list for third year. In all likelihood, he
would need to explain himself to an irate Deputy Headmistress come August
when the school owls found themselves unable to deliver anything to him.
Filling his days with nothing but sleeping, eating and study quickly
began to make Harry a dull boy however. He still kept at it in spite of
that, which turned him from a dull boy into a frustrated one and then an
angry one, at which point he became about ready to set his notes on fire
if he had to look at one more symbol.
Seeing as this would be incredibly counter-productive, he decided to take

a day off instead.
XXXXX
Standing in a bus on the way to the cinema, Harry debated whether he

should praise or curse the capricious whims of the weather.
The July temperatures in London usually hung around 20C, but 2013 was
turning out to be an unusually hot year. Furthermore, July 22nd was
turning out to be an unusually hot day in an already unusually hot year,
with temperatures going over 30C.
Harry had not yet mastered wandless cooling charms and was reduced to
sweating it out like everyone else. At least the bus had air
conditioning.
On the up side, he was standing next to the seat of a pretty girl that
was perhaps sixteen or seventeen years old, who was wearing a pair of
very short jean shorts and a black tank top that gave him a perfect view
down her cleavage. The Wizarding World could boast about a lot of things,
but sexy female clothing was not one of them. He hadn't even realized
what he was missing until he saw the barely perceptible sheen of sweat on
a pair of firm teenaged breasts. The compulsive power of rune enhanced
puberty kept his eyes glued to the sight of them.
The girl looked up. She saw him staring.
"See something you like, Green-Eyes?" She asked, both as a warning and
challenge.
Shite. I really need to stop getting caught doing that. Time to dip into
the excuse box, Potter.
"I'm sorry," He began with an awkward smile. "I go to a boarding school

with a very strict dress code and I don't get to see pretty girls in
anything but stodgy uniforms for most of the year."
The girl snorted, either amused or unimpressed. Harry couldn't quite

tell.
Harry bit his lip, an idea popping into his mind. He'd gotten used to
having friendly company around, which was why he'd decided on going to
the cinema instead of staying in his room and fooling around on the
internet or gaming like he usually did, but it still wasn't the same as
having Luna around(or even Ginny).
This girl was a complete stranger and might very well be mildly pissed at
him for the staring, but they were already sort of talking and he could
use the company. As a bonus, she was quite pretty, had almost certainly
never heard of the Boy-Who-Lived(the chances of her being a witch or
having a magical relative had to be insanely remote) and would probably
assume that he was only slightly younger than her instead of the not-
quite-thirteen year old that he actually was.
"Listen, I'm sorry about the staring. How about you let me take you to
dinner and a movie as an apology?" He offered, employing his hard earned
skill at Occlumency to keep any hints of nervous stutter out of his voice
and the much resented etiquette lessons that Robert and Katherine had
forced on him to sound smoother than he felt.
She looked up at him again, this time speculatively. She had a small
metal stud in her nose and another one in her tongue if his eyes did not
deceive him. Her eyes were a very dark brown and her hair was obviously
dyed black. Aside from her jean shorts and tank top, all she had on her
were a pair of scuffed trainers and a deliberately beaten up looking tan
green bag that sported a plenthora of doodles depicting what he guessed
were band signs.
His foster parents would have been horrified if they knew that he was
associating with someone like her, which just made it better as far as he
was concerned.
"Are you asking me on a date?" She asked.
"I guess I am." He replied evenly, doing his level best to keep the blood
away from his face.
She stayed quiet for a while, deliberately prolonging his torment.
Most of her already mild irritation at his peeping had dissipated when
he'd apologized, so she was not entirely opposed to his suggestion and it
wasn't like she'd had any plans for the day in the first place. The black
haired boy was more polite than what she was used to and a bit on the
young side, but not at all bad looking, had the most gorgeous green eyes
she'd ever seen and probably had money to spare if his mention of going
to a boarding school was true. As far as random date requests went, this
one was actually quite appealing.
"Alright, Green-Eyes, I'll go on a date with you."
"Harry." He introduced himself with a smile, offering her his hand.
"Zoe." She smiled back, taking the hand.
XXXXX
Harry had already learned with Luna that being around people that didn't
expect anything from you could be fun. He learned with Zoe that just
goofing off for a while was very liberating. He couldn't even recall the
last time he'd felt so relaxed.
They went to an 'all you can eat' type restaurant first, where he decided
to show off a bit by eating enough for three grown men, much to his
date's disgusted awe and fascination.
After that they went to see a movie, where Harry learned that Zoe was one
of those people that liked to point out plot holes, logic failures and
inconsistencies rather than watch quietly. They didn't make any new
friends there.
Harry mentioned reading somewhere that the Headmaster of his school

enjoyed ten-pin bowling, which had Zoe suggesting that they go do that
since neither of them had ever tried it. As it turned out, they both
sucked at it.
Harry paid for everything without really giving it much thought. He'd
grown up rich, but rarely spent anything until recently. He remembered
what it was like to be poor all too well and had no desire to return to
that through careless spending, no matter how unlikely it was. He hadn't
expected to have this much fun on their date and the last thing he wanted
to do was spoil it by being cheap.
The day had to end eventually though and the two of them set off toward
home, though it was long after it had gotten dark.
"I can't believe that you're stuffing your face again." Zoe was saying in
exasperation, staring at the subway sandwich Harry had picked up a short
while ago.
"I'm a growing boy." He replied with the standard excuse.
"You'll be growing sideways if you don't watch it, you plonker." She
threw back with a wide grin.
"You're just jealous." He retorted smugly.
"Damn right I'm jealous!" The girl exclaimed loudly, scowling playfully.
"You've been shoving food down your gob the whole bloody day like it's
nothing. If it tried that, I'd be the size of a bus in a month."
"A double decker." Harry agreed with a laugh.
"Prat."
They lapsed into silence for a while, just waiting for their respective
buses to arrive to take them home while Harry finished off his latest
meal.
"Harry, listen..." Zoe started, suddenly nervous. "I had a really great
time today..."
"So did I." He replied, wondering what she was trying to say.
"...But I don't think we should be doing this again."
Harry blinked at the sudden serious turn the evening had taken.
"I didn't really expect us to." He admitted after a moment. "I don't get
much free time. Today was an exception because I was overworked, but I'm
going to be busy for the rest of the summer and then I'll be off in my
school for ten months. I like you, but I never expected this to be more
than a one time thing."
And that wasn't even mentionning that he had to keep magic a secret from
her. He had no idea what the protocol was for bringing someone new in on
it, but he suspected that it was pretty draconian. Not that he had an
abundance of respect for the Ministry's laws, but he did have respect for
the consequences of those laws.
"Yeah...I kind of have a boyfriend already anyway." She admitted,

scratching awkwardly at the back of her head.
Harry blinked again and stared at her for a long few seconds.
"Won't he be upset that you went on a date with me?"
"We're having a bit of a break right now, so it's cool."
"Huh...okay then."
They lapsed into silence again, a significantly more uncomfortable one
this time.
"So...this school of yours gives you homework to do over the summer?" Zoe
asked after a minute.
"Yep, quite a lot of it actually." None of which he'd even looked at yet.
The preparations for the next ritual had consumed all of his attention.
"Barbaric."
"Absolutely."
"We can still stay in touch though, right?" She asked brightly. "You can
never have too many friends."
Harry winced. Staying in touch while he was at Hogwarts would be quite

the feat. Owls and the Floo Network were the only ways for students to
communicate with the outside world and neither would work for talking to
someone that didn't know about magic.
"That might be a problem." He said after a few seconds. "The school I go

to is seriously isolated. I'd be shocked if there's so much as a phone
anywhere within fifty kilometers of it."
In fact, he knew that there wasn't one.
Zoe's face fell into a sad expression.
"You don't have to lie, Harry. If you're mad at me for not mentioning my
boyfriend, then just tell me."
"I'm not lying." Harry insisted. "There really isn't any phone or
internet access at my school."
"Where the hell do you go to school, the middle of the Atlantic?" She
asked sarcastically, not at all convinced.
"Some Scottish Highland in the ass end of nowhere actually." He admitted

ruefully.
"You're serious?!" She asked incredulously.
"Afraid so."
"What could they possibly be teaching you up there without any

technology, the best way to shag a sheep?"
Harry snickered, having a bizzare mental image of McGonagall

transfiguring a desk into the aforementioned animal and tutoring them in
the proper technique to shag it in true Scottish fashion. It certainly
gave him a new perspective on the possible alternative uses of
transfiguration.
"It's a very...traditional...sort of place." He evaded, rapidly
developing an appreciation for how much bullshit the non-magical family
members of wizards and witches had to shovel to keep magic a secret.
"Keep telling yourself that, sheep shagger."
"I'll have you know that everyone there is very right and proper, they
would've been scandalized by your pierced tongue and poor manners." Harry
retorted lightly, knowing that he was probably right. The wizard-raised
would be both baffled and horrified at the idea of having a metal stud in
one's tongue.
"So it's a bunch of snobbish sheep shaggers?" She asked.
Harry gave it a moment's thought before giving a slow nod. He could

easily imagine Draco Malfoy with his nose up in the air even while
shagging a sheep. He wished he hadn't imagined it, but it was too late
for that now.
"A lot of them are snobby."
"I'm actually kind of surprised that you aren't." She admitted.
"Why? Because my foster parents are snobby twats?" He asked with a raised
eyebrow.
"Foster parents? I thought they were your real parents."
"Nah, my real parents were murdered by a psychotic neo-nazi when I was a

year old." That was as good a description for Voldemort as any.
Zoe recoiled in shock despite his casual tone and stared at him in
horror.
"Don't worry about it, it was a long time ago. I've gotten over it."
Harry assured her.
Well, I've mostly gotten over it.
"I guess that explains why you're not a snobby rich kid, haha." She said,
giving a nervous (and quite fake) laugh.
"Sorry, probably shouldn't have just blurted it out like that."
"It was a bit of a surprise." She admitted and they went silent again.
"I think that's your bus." Harry said about a minute later, seeing the
vehicle in question approaching.
Zoe bit her lip at that, suddenly looking a bit indecisive for a moment
before her face firmed in resolve. The next thing Harry knew, she was
mashing her lips up against his.
Eyes going wide in shock, Harry responded on a clumsy autopilot, feeling
the now familiar shiver of magic pulse from his runes as his arousal
rose. He was barely aware of his hands going around her to grab her rear
end as he began to respond more enthusiastically.
"My mum isn't coming home until tomorrow." She whispered into his ear
when they separated, the invitation clear.
Later on, Harry would have liked to say that he had considered this offer
carefully and thought about various factors such as his brief
acquaintance with Zoe, her uncertain relationship status, his youth and
several other things.
In reality, most of his higher reasoning had migrated south along with
his blood. Indeed, his most complex thought was something along the lines
of 'I'm getting laid!'.
Inexperienced with this kind of situation and unsure of how to accept, he

merely gave her butt a squeeze and leaned in for another kiss.
XXXXX
They got on the bus together and spent an impatient ten minutes touching
in a way that didn't really help with the waiting.
Then they made a B line towards the apartment building where Zoe lived
with her mother, her father not being around for reasons that Harry had
felt it unwise to press her on. An interesting session of heavy elevator
snogging and a short walk down the hallway later, they were through the
door of the flat.
Harry had only a few seconds to take in the small-ish living space as Zoe
led him to her room. It was fairly tidy, but the pile of towels on the
couch, a few dirty dishes in the sink and traces of dust in places
betrayed the fact that the people living here were not as obsessive about
neatness as he was used to. Teeny would have a nervous breakdown at the
thought of a mess being left anywhere in a place that people lived and
Robert and Katherine would turn their noses up so high that they'd be
able to collect rainwater with their nostrils.
The thought of his foster parents penetrated the lust currently fogging
his brain and he recalled that he had to do something.
"Hang on a second." He said, pulling out his phone. "I need to call
Katherine and tell her that I'm not coming home today."
"They don't like you slipping the leash?" Zoe smirked, toying with the
waistband of her shorts.
"You could say that." Harry grumbled. "I wouldn't put it past her to call
the police and make a huge scene."
And not out of worry that he'd been kidnapped or something either, since
it would hardly be the first time that he'd slept over in Potter Manor.
No, she'd do it for the publicity. Then she would spend the next month or
so milking the 'I was so scared' card before it got old. She probably
wouldn't do it since it might also make her look neurotic, but it was
best to not give her an excuse.
Sometimes, Harry got the distinct feeling that Robert and Katherine were
actually hoping that someone would kidnap him, just so that they'd have a
legitimate reason to plaster themselves all over the news.
"Go ahead then." Zoe said, still smirking and starting to take off her
clothes.
Harry had some trouble finding the name of his foster mother with the
impromptu striptease going on in front of him. To be fair, the mismatched
pair of black bra and blue thong was a lot more interesting. He did
manage to call her eventually though.
"Hello?" Katherine answered with her usual overdone sense of poise.
"Katherine, hi. I'm not going to be coming home today." Harry said
without preamble, the majority of his attention fixed on Zoe.
"Sleeping over in the magical house your parents left you again?"
Katherine asked rhetorically, a fair bit of bite in her words. "Robert
and I would really like to see it one day, you know."
Harry did know, the two of them hadn't stopped wheedling about it since
they'd learned that he actually owned something. Call him paranoid, but
Harry wasn't keen to let them anywhere near Potter Manor. He feared for
the antique furniture at the very least, even if two non-magicals didn't
really have any right to them according to wizard law. Both Robert and
Katherine had a sense of entitlement to rival any wizard and were sure to
attempt getting their mitts on anything they could. He didn't even want
to think about their reaction to the vaults full of gold he had in
Gringotts.
"You know it's not that easy." He said back, a trace of irritation
seeping into his own tone.
Zoe looked at him curiously and suddenly developed a mischievous grin.
"Yes, so you said. These wards of yours that are supposed to repel non-
magical people." Katherine replied, dubiously. Not that she doubted their
existence, merely their ability to affect her. She was just about
arrogant enough to think herself too strong willed for that."But it's
your house. Couldn't you disable them or something?"
While Katherine had been talking, Zoe had taken the opportunity to yank
his shorts down to his ankles, leaving him suddenly and unceremoniously
exposed.
Harry gaped at Zoe in shock at the unexpected move. She winked back up at
him from her kneeling position and pushed him to sit on the bed.
"Harry, are you still there?"
"Wh- yeah, I'm still here." He said, sounding much more flustered than
before.
"What happened? You sound strange."
Inwardly cursing nosy foster mothers who couldn't just end the fucking
call already, Harry made up a quick excuse.
"Um, the carpet grabbed my leg."
Zoe slapped a hand over her mouth to keep from bursting into giggles at
what probably sounded like an outrageous lie to her.
"Animated carpets. Honestly, I will never understand why anyone would use
magic for something like that."
Neither would Harry to be perfectly honest, but he was for once glad that
wizards and witches were generally insane enough for pretty much anything
to sound plausible.
"Me neithER!"
"What was it this time?"
"Stubbed my toe." Harry answered with strain in his voice.
He hadn't of course, since he was quite stationery. The real reason was
that Zoe had apparently gotten impatient and decided to start him off
with a blowjob, though the amused gleam in her dark eyes suggested that
she was also doing it to add some extra difficulty to his phone call.
"Figures that you'd be clumsy with how fast you're growing. I read that
people that grow quickly tend to be less aware of their body." Katherine
commented, oblivious to the fact that her audience couldn't care less if
he tried.
"That's great." Harry replied, not sure if he was saying it to his foster
mother or the girl currently demonstrating the uses of a tongue stud
during oral sex.
"You must have hit your toe really hard, you sound like you're in a lot
of pain."
"Yes, pain." Harry agreed, clenching his teeth tightly as Zoe suddenly
hollowed out her cheeks and began sucking on him earnestly. "Listen
Katherine, I really need to do something about this."
What he really needed to do was warn Zoe that he was about to blow and he
could hardly do that with his foster mother still on the line. He'd
already tried to tug on her hair but she didn't seem to be getting the
message.
"Alright, but do look into lowering those wards later."
Unable to hold back any more, Harry resigned himself to getting yelled at
for unloading in a girl's mouth without warning her.
"Harry?" Katherine asked, no doubt hearing his heavy breathing through

the nose as Zoe kept on sucking through his orgasm, apparently unbothered
by the lack of warning.
"Yeah, I got it. Talk to you later, Katherine." Harry said and ended the
call, trying not to sound too relieved when Zoe popped his oversensitive
cock out of her mouth.
While Harry took a moment to catch his breath, Zoe took a tissue and a
bottle of water from her bag, spat the semen she'd so industriously
extracted from him into it and then gulped down a few mouthfuls of water.
"Sorry." He apologized with a wince.
"Don't be, you taste a lot better than Jeff ever did. Man eats too much
cheese." Zoe replied with a shrug.
Not exactly the response he'd been expecting, but Harry made a note to
investigate the effects of food on the taste of his sperm.
"I meant for not warning you." He clarified.
"Oh Harry, you really think I couldn't tell?" Zoe chuckled, stepping
closer until panty clad crotch was practically rubbing against his nose.
There was a small spot of wetness on the blue fabric that made her own
arousal clear. "It was obvious, even if you did cum as quick as a
virgin."
"I am a virgin." Harry admitted, resisting the surprisingly strong

temptation to bury his nose in her crotch. The runes had settled down a
bit after his orgasm, but the faint smell of her arousal was quickly
bringing his own back and the magic with it.
"Really?" There was a hint of incredulity in Zoe's voice that baffled

Harry. He looked fifteen at most and she couldn't possibly be more than
seventeen, though she was probably sixteen. What was so strange about
being a virgin at that age?
"Really." He confirmed, looking at her a bit oddly.
"We'll have to do something about that." She said with a smirk, pulling
his shirt off, unclipping her bra and sliding her thong down her legs to
expose her recently shaved crotch. "But first, how about getting me
ready?"
It was quite obvious what she wanted and Harry wasn't opposed to it in
the slightest. The smell was certainly enticing.
He leaned in closer and hesitantly dragged his tongue across her slit,
unsure what to expect. To his mild surprise, there wasn't much of a taste
to her sex aside from the salty tang of her sweat from the hot day and a
very faint musk that corresponded to the smell of her.
Zoe's hands went into his hair as he continued his slow exploration of
her lower lips, getting bolder every time she made a sound of pleasure.
He kept it up for a minute or two before becoming dissatisfied with the
position. With him sitting down and her standing in front of him, he had
fairly limited access and he wanted to change it.
Zoe made a small sound of disappointment when he nudged her to get on the
bed, but she did it anyway, settling herself on it and spreading her legs
for him. She looked like she was about to say something, but stopped
herself when he once again went for her crotch with his face.
"You're doing pretty well for a virgin." She said with a pleased sigh,
running her fingers through his hair. "Most boys don't like licking a
girl, they just stick it in and start hammering away."
Buried as he was in muff, Harry couldn't respond, but he couldn't for the
life of him understand why anyone would dislike this. Sure, he was almost
painfully hard, but there was nowhere he'd rather be right now. Besides,
she'd sucked him off and it seemed only right to return the favor.
"Higher." She directed, tugging on his hair.
Harry obliged and moved upward, leaving her vaginal opening alone for
now.
"Just a little bit higher."
Puzzled as to why, he nonetheless did as he was told and moved his tongue
a little bit higher. He figured that his tongue had nearly completely
left her nether lips when she suddenly bucked with a quickly indrawn
breath.
Intrigued by the powerful reaction, he dragged his tongue over the same
area again.
"Yes! Right there." Zoe gasped, her hand clenching in his hair almost
painfully.
That was exactly what he'd been about to do either way, so Harry was more
than happy to follow her directions again. Several more long licks over
the area revealed a little nub of some sort that appeared to elicit an
especially intense reaction, so he began to focus on it exclusively.
This quickly had Zoe panting her way to an orgasm, squeezing her legs
around Harry's head to stop him from abusing her overstimulated clitoris
any further.
"Wow...not bad." She breathed. "You were a bit clueless at the start and
a bit too rough at the end, but not bad at all. I give you a six out of
ten in licking pussy."
Wiping the spit and other fluids off his jaw, Harry shot her an amused
look. "You have a scale?"
"Oh yes." She confirmed with a giggle. "'one' is 'painful and not at all
pleasant' and 'ten' is 'explosive squirting'."
Harry didn't really know how to respond to that, so he just ran his hand
across her still spread legs and shuffled closer, lining himself up with
her opening.
"Wait." Zoe stopped him, reaching over to a small nightstand and pulling
out a condom. "Put that on. I'm on the pill, but we wouldn't want to have
any accidents, would we?"
This ended up being Harry's introduction to the frustration of dealing

with condom packaging.
"Give it here." Zoe said in exasperation after seeing him fumble with the
prophylactic for a full fifteen seconds without success. With easy
motions that betrayed a lot of practice, she quickly ripped the packaging
and wrapped the latex tube around his shaft.
"Come on in." She beckonked once that was done, spreading her legs lewdly
in invitation.
Feeling a mix of eagerness and nervous anticipaton, Harry moved forward

and placed his hands on the enticing pair of breasts that had started
this whole sequence of events, sinking into her wet warmth at the same
time.
Once he was completely inside her, she suddenly pulled him down on top of
her, wrapping her legs around his waist and grabbing the back of his head
to whisper in his ear.
"Your virginity is mine now, Harry, and you're never getting it back."
He looked at her incredulously and she burst out laughing, apparently

unable to keep a straight face.
"Sorry, I've always wanted to say that." She explained with a giggle.
"Now get to the shagging, and try not to blow your load in thirty seconds
again."
XXXXX
Ever since he'd completed his first ritual and discovered the unexpected
side-effects, Harry had occasionally pondered what a rune like Uruz would
mean for his sexual stamina. He hadn't noticed any particular difference
during his many wand polishing sessions, nor had he lasted long during
the surprise handjob at the end of his second year, but he hadn't wanted
to dismiss the possibility.
He finally had a definite answer.
"Why are you hard again? How are you hard again." Zoe asked plaintively,
exhaustion evident in her tone.
"Must be magic." Harry quipped, snickering at his private joke.
He may not have lasted very long the first couple of times, but his
recovery period was turning out to be inhumanly fast. He'd also built
enough stamina that he was lasting a much more respectable length of time
by round six, which was now.
"Well you and your magical cock are going to have to calm down because
I'm running out of condoms. I can't use them all on you, in one night no
less."
"I'll buy you as many as you want tomorrow." He offered, flicking his
tongue over one of her nipples.
"You're damn right you will, but I'm tired." Zoe continued in the same
plaintive voice as before. "And sore. And sweaty. I just want to take a
shower and go to sleep."
"Want me to wash your back?" Truth be told, he was pretty tired himself
and wouldn't mind a shower and sleep either, but teasing the girl he'd
exhausted was making his ego skyrocket.
She snorted. "Nice try, but our shower isn't even close to big enough for
that."
"Aww."
"Tell you what, Harry. I'll give you another blowjob in the bathroom if
you stop poking me in the arse with that thing." Zoe offered tiredly.
"Okay." Harry quickly agreed.
He might be tired, but a blowjob was a blowjob.
XXXXX
The next morning, Harry left Zoe's apartment block with a skip in his
step after leaving behind a twenty pound note to pay for the amount of
condoms he'd used, feeling subtly different than when he'd gone in. For
all the effort he'd put into learning Occlumency, his hormones had still
been all over the place ever since his first rune set. They were still
all over the place and would continue to be until his accelerated puberty
was over, but the sex seemed to have made it a bit better. The magic in
the in his runes felt a bit less chaotic.
Or it could just be that he was in a good mood and was imagining things.
XXXXX
Harry got back to work on his ritual after that, finding it much easier
now that he was no longer wound tighter than a steel cable.
He resisted the urge to do more with Zoe than send an occasional text,
regardless of the understandable urge to focus on the pretty girl instead
of the preparations to carve a set of symbols into his skin with a knife.
All the reasons for why getting too close to her was a bad idea were very
valid and he'd checked the Ministry guidelines for introducing an
uninformed and unrelated muggle to magic. It was exactly as draconian as
he'd suspected it would be.
Basically, if they weren't immediate family such as a sibling, spouse,

parent or child, then it was illegal to tell them. Meaning that unless he
married her(which he obviously wasn't intending to do, considering his
actual age and their brief acquintance), he'd have to keep Zoe in the
dark or else be charged with violating the Statute of Secrecy if he got
discovered. Naturally, they'd wipe her memories as well, including her
memories of him. Harry wasn't so confident in his ability to fool the
Ministry that he'd be willing to risk it and that wasn't even taking into
account how Zoe herself might react to the notion of magic.
On the home front, his foster parents continued their attempts to use his
birthday as an excuse to organize something, only to run afoul a constant
stream of calming charms and mild compulsion spells from him until it was
too late. Harry could only breathe a sigh of relief at getting through
his birthday without any fuss for a change.
As expected, he received no owls, not from Luna or Ginny for his birthday
and not from McGonagall for his school supplies.
He wasn't surprised when she showed up personally the next day.
XXXXX
"Would you care to explain why the Hogwarts owls seem unable to locate
you, Mr. Potter?" McGonagall asked once they were settled in the sitting
room.
"I couldn't say, Professor." Harry said evenly, being well prepared for
this conversation. "All I know is that it's been going on since
Christmas. Luna and Ginny weren't able to send me their presents either."
"And you did not think to inform anyone of this?" The old witch asked in
a displeased tone.
"I didn't think it was that big of a deal." Harry shrugged.
"Having an Owl Ward set up around you without your knowledge or your
magical guardian's permission is indeed a 'big deal'." McGonagall huffed
and pulled out her wand.
Harry sat still while she waved it over him and muttered to herself. This
was the most nerve wracking part of the experience, where he could do
nothing but trust that Arhain would be able to frustrate her efforts at
determining the truth. He would have very much liked to tell her that he
didn't want anyone casting diagnostic spells on him, but he knew that it
would only serve to make them suspicious. Dumbledore, being his magical
guardian in loco parentis, would probably force the issue and Harry would
be legally forced to comply.
Even the more progressive laws of the mundane world didn't really
consider thirteen year olds as people in the legal sense. Rather, it
considered them as something very close to the property of their
guardians, similar to pets really. Sure, it was to protect them from
making any hugely stupid decisions due to their youth, but it still
rankled.
"That's strange." McGonagall said, looking perplexed. "I can't find any
trace of an Owl Ward."
Harry resisted the urge to say something dismissive. Being cheeky about
it was not the way to deflect suspicion.
"What is it then?" He asked instead, politely.
"I don't know." She answered with a frown, making another few swishes
over him with her wand. "I'm not detecting anything out of the ordinary."
Harry held back a relieved sigh. Arhain was working.
"We will need to have the Headmaster and perhaps Poppy examine you
further when you return to Hogwarts."
And there was the downside. Unexplained mysteries made people curious and
nosy.
XXXXX
A few days after McGonagall's visit, Harry happened to be passing through

the living room where his foster parents were watching TV when he caught
sight of a very interesting article on the news.
"Mass murderer Sirius Black has escaped from prison and is considered
armed and extremely dangerous. If you see him, contact the police
immediately. Do NOT approach him."
The article was accompanied by a picture of the man looking quite

deranged, with an elbow length tangle of hair, pasty white skin, sunken
eyes and rotten teeth. He was much changed from the few memories of him
that Harry had, but it was undoubtedly his godfather.
There was no information on which prison he'd escaped from, which gave
Robert something to complain about, but Harry knew which one it was. He
would keep a wary eye out for any unusually large black dogs this year.
Even if he was almost positive that Sirius had nothing to do with the
deaths of his parents, there was still a good chance of him actually
being guilty for the other crimes he'd been imprisoned for and there was
no telling what state the dementors had left him in over the past twelve
years.
XXXXX
Mid August
Harry pushed away from his desk and thrust both his arms into the air
victoriously, a feeling of deep satisfaction filling him.
He lowered them after a few seconds and slumped into a lazy, relieved
slouch.
It was finally done. The symbols were chosen, the arithmancy checked out,
everything had been triple checked both by himself and the computer. The
ritual was ready.
Seven words, this time in kanji. He'd not quite realized how much trouble
that particular alphabet would give him when he'd chosen it, but he
hadn't wanted to back out of using it simply because it would be
difficult.
Unlike the Norse or Avariel runes, kanji characters were far more complex
in appearance and often had multiple characters per word, making them
take more cuts to carve as a result, but they were not as ambiguous in
meaning and thus far more predictable. He would be glad to have them
carved and get it over with.
Tomorrow. Right now it was time for a nap so that his brain stopped
hurting.
XXXXX
Sorcery
Poison
Cleanse
Lungs
Kidneys
Liver
Intestine
Harry kept these seven words firmly in mind as he stepped into the ritual
circle and felt the built in petrification spell take hold.
The purpose of this rune set was simple. To increase the speed at which
poisons and foreign magic was purged from him. The downside of it was as
obvious as it was simple. It would also work against beneficial magic and
medicines, as healing spells were still foreign to his body and medicines
were really nothing more than targeted poisons. He deemed it a fair
exchange.
"Majutsu."
The knife rose and began carving the two character word into his right
shoulder. It took longer than any of his previous runes because of the
complexity, but that was how it was. Harry ignored the pain as best he
could and sank into an Occlumency trance, focusing on the meaning and
purpose of his newest rune.
When it was done, he felt his magic move into the freshly carved wound
and settle into a tense wait. It wasn't a latent bit of magic anymore,
but something that had been given a purpose that needed to be fulfilled.
Harry smiled. The same had happened with Raido, so he knew that it was
working as it should.
"Doku."
A single character word this time, carved into his left shoulder. His
magic settled into it just as easily, but the sense of anticipation grew.
"Kiyomemasu."
A four character word, carved into his upper breastbone. This time, the
magic already held in the previous two runes joined the latent magic
flowing into the new one, taking further direction from it.
Now to tell it where to go.
"Haiz."
This one was a bit different than the three before it. He had two lungs,
so two sets of the two character rune were carved into his chest, where
the organs in question were.
As soon as it was done, he felt the previously prepared magic rushing

into his lungs.
Harry gasped in wonder, getting a true feel for his lungs for the first
time in his life. A shiver of sensation ran through his first set of
runes and he could feel their magic joining that of the ones he'd just
carved, instinctively knowing that their healing effects were being put
to work to undo what little damage his lungs had accrued over his short
life.
"Jinz."
The knife moved to his back and began carving another two set of two
character kanji over his kidneys. His magic filled them the same as it
had his lungs, repairing any damage to them and enhancing their natural
purpose of purifying the blood.
Another important bit of information came back to the forefront of
Harry's mind as this happened.
The lungs did not have pain receptors.
The kidneys did however, as Harry learned when he felt a dull burn flare
up in them as they were magically enhanced beyond normal capacity.
Knowing that there was no choice but to keep going and hope that it would
pass quickly, he hurried on with the last two parts of the ritual.
"Kimo."
The knife made quick work of the single character word and the burn
spread to his liver as well.
"Ch."
The last word was also just one character, which the knife carved into
the soft tissue of his petrified, unmuscled stomach. Predictably, his
entire intestinal tract began burning painfully.
The ritual dropped him unceremoniously into the small pool of blood that
had run down his legs, leaving him groaning pitifully as the burn
continued to slowly worsen.
He hadn't anticipated that little wrinkle, for which he knew that Charlus
and Dorea were going to give him knowingly pointed looks and Teeny would
confine him to bed for the next few days, all the while wringing her
hands nervously at her inability to make the pain stop and making him
feel guilty for worrying her.
Good thing he'd told Robert and Katherine that he'd be spending a few
days with a friend from school. The last thing he wanted was to deal with
them while feeling as if his organs were being microwaved.
XXXXX
Harry spent the next couple of days experiencing the joys of his body
suddenly having much more effective filtration system, complete with such
wonderful features as a burning pain when taking a piss. It fortunately
settled down after the initial change, for which Harry was grateful. He
had been briefly worried that he'd made a huge mistake and had a lifetime
of constant pain to look forward to, but it turned out that all was well
as soon his body was brought down to a lower toxin threshhold than it had
been at before.
He still felt that the end result was worth it, but he wouldn't soon
forget that applying magical changes directly to one's organs hurt.
Once that unpleasant experience was over with, Harry suddenly found
himself with some free time on his hands before the summer ended. Sure,
he still had to do the homework that Hogwarts had assigned him, but that
was a day's work at the most. Two if he was slow about it.
Zoe had sent him a few texts that were a clear invitation for another
date and later a repeat of their last encounter, but he had reluctantly
begged off due to his desire to finish the ritual. There wasn't anything
like that holding him back now though.
Mind made up, he took out his phone and started writing the text. Sure,
Zoe was technically in a relationship with someone already, but that was
honestly between her and this 'Jeff' character that he presumed was her
on-again off-again boyfriend. Zoe could tell him to back off at any time,
but until then he was going to treat her as if she was single.
XXXXX
Harry boarded the Hogwarts Express early, as had been his habit for the
past two years. He wanted to stake a claim on an empty compartment,
rather than end up in a situation where he had to sit with strangers.
He'd gotten to meet up with Zoe an additional two times, both of which
had ended with sex at her place. Apparently her mother often spent the
night with her own current boyfriend, which left Zoe plenty of alone time
for her own activities.
It had quickly become obvious to Harry that he was being used for his
money as much as for his company, as Zoe had picked out a list of
activities that were well out of the sensible budget of a normal teenager
on both days and never mentioned the fact that he always left behind more
money than a few condoms warranted.
He didn't really mind, truth be told. The expenditure for him was far
from huge and it ended in sex. Zoe didn't seem any more interested in
making something more of their arrangement than him, for which he was
thankful, as it would be simply impractical for him to get involved with
a muggle girl at this point. He hadn't expected his spur of the moment
date request back in July to formulate into having a summer fuck buddy,
but he was certainly not complaining.
At the very least, it had reduced the amount of incidents where he was
seized by the sudden urge to bend his foster mother over a table. That
had never stopped being weird, even if he'd gotten kind of used to it.
Luna walked in some time after him, followed by Ginny who barely boarded
before the train started moving. Luna had some amusing stories to tell
about her snorkack hunting adventure, but Harry was far more interested
in what Ginny had to say for a change.
"There are animated skeletons in the Egyptian tombs?" He asked with

surprised interest.
"Yeah, but some of them were really weird. My brothers said that one of
them had two heads because of some curse or other that was in there." The
redhead explained enthusiastically.
"You didn't see them yourself?" He wondered.
"No." She scowled. "Mum didn't let me see, said that it was 'no place for
a young lady'. Pah!"
Harry's lips twitched into a smile at her irritability. He'd have been
angry too in her position.
"So she didn't let you go into any of the tombs?"
"Only the ones that the curse breakers have already cleared, and even
then only if Bill went with us."
"Your oldest brother? The one that works for Gringotts?" Harry asked,
inwardly wondering why anyone would want to work for the little bastards.
"That's him." Ginny confirmed.
"What kind of claim do the goblins have on the tombs of humans?" He asked
further, perplexed.
"Errr..." Ginny stammered, stumped by the question.
"It's part of the treaty they have with the ICW." Luna offered dreamily.
"The ICW gave them free access to the resting places of long dead
Egyptian wizards?" Harry asked sceptically.
"The Egyptian tombs hadn't been discovered yet when the treaty was
signed. That specific clause of the treaty gives them ownership of any
place where the magical dead were interred as long as it is over two
thousand years old. Rather short-sighted of them in retrospect, but
that's what you get when you don't protect yourself from buzzing grox
pixies." The blonde girl explained.
"Why do you even know that?" Ginny wondered, ignoring the mention of yet
another potentially imaginary creture with the ease of practice.
"Oh, I've known about the dangers of grox pixies for years." Luna
explained.
"Not that! Why do you know so much about some treaty between the goblins
and the ICW from hundreds of years ago?"
"Daddy and I were doing research on Egypt to see if we might find any
crumple-horned snorkacks there, but it seems that our original thinking
was correct instead. They prefer colder climes, which must mean that they
have fur."
Harry was a bit confused as to how Luna and her father intended to find a
crumple-horned snorkack if they were still guessing about the creature's
appearance.
"Luna, how can you even be sure that snorkacks have crumpled horns?" He
asked just for the sake of his curiousity.
"Oh, we aren't, but it makes sense." Luna answered cheerfully. "After

all, if they didn't have crumpled horns, then they wouldn't be crumple-
horned snorkacks."
Harry exchanged a glance with Ginny, both of them silently agreeing that
the circular logic was as childish as it was unassailable and decided to
drop the subject.
"Sooo, what else did you see in Egypt?" He asked, shifting the
conversation back to his main interest.
Ginny was more than happy to talk about her holiday, her crush on the
black haired boy still not fully gone, especially since he seemed to be
going in the 'tall, dark and handsome' direction.
As he listened to the redhead describing the magical side of Egypt, Harry

became ever more determined to see it for himself one day.
Unlike the Weasleys however, he wasn't inclined to only see the goblin
approved areas. How hard could it be to slip past the ornery midgets?
XXXXX
The three of them continued to have a sporadic conversation for another

few hours, intersped with some reading when Ginny brought up something
she'd been skirting around ever since she got on the train.
"Did you hear about Sirius Black escaping Azkaban?"
"No, but I did read about it." Luna replied, looking up from her upside
down copy of the Quibbler.
"What about it?" Harry asked, deciding not to respond to Luna's little
witticism.
"Aren't you worried?" Ginny asked nervously. "I mean...he was You-Know-
Who's right hand man and responsible for...you know."
"The death of my parents?" Harry asked with a raised eyebrow, inwardly

scoffing at the notion.
"Yeah." Ginny said quietly.
"Not really." Harry shrugged. "If he's smart, then he's already left the
country."
He didn't really believe that though. The picture that Charlus and Dorea
had painted of Sirius Black was of a man that thought with his heart
rather than his head and that was assuming that he was still sane, which
was far from guaranteed. The only mystery were the man's goals.
The train slowed and jerked to a stop at that point, halting the
conversation in the process.
"Why are we stopping?" Ginny asked, knowing that they couldn't possibly
be at their destination yet. The Express arrived at Hogwarts in the
evening and it was still afternoon. A dark and stormy afternoon, but
afternoon nonetheless.
Harry knew this just as well as her and went to look out the window in an
attempt to divine the cause of their stop.
"It's getting cold." Luna said quietly, her breath misting.
Harry had noticed that too, but he was far more worried about something
else. His constant practice with wandless magic had given him a
sensitivity towards ambient magic that he was quite sure most people
didn't have. Whatever was causing the temperature to plummet was
definitely not natural, but it didn't feel like any magic he'd ever
sensed either.
He had scoffed at the notion of magic being divided between Dark and
Light ever since the first time he'd heard that there was a class called
Defense Against the Dark Arts. It seemed far too much like some idiot's
justification for villifying magic they didn't like rather than anything
that had a basis in reality. The only way he could describe how this
unnatural cold felt however, was capital-D Dark.
"There's something moving out there." He said, noticing the dark shapes
flitting through the sky, apparently unbothered by the rain and the wind.
"It's the dementors." Luna said faintly, now hugging her legs to her
chest.
"But the dementors aren't supposed to leave Azkaban." Ginny protested.
"Nobody is supposed to escape Azkaban either." Luna argued, a note of

distress in her tone that her voice didn't usually carry.
"They've boarded the train." Harry interjected grimly, reaching for his
wand. He wasn't sure what good it would do in this situation, but it was
better than cowering helplessly in a corner.
"How can you tell?" Ginny asked fearfully.
That was a good question that Harry didn't really have an answer for. He
hadn't seen them do it, but the sense of Dark felt much closer now and
had split off into several distinct blobs.
He was not liking this whatsoever. The cold was more than just a drop of
temperature, it felt as if the very warmth of the world was being leeched
away, bringing with it a powerful but unnatural fear and depression. His
grip tightened around his wand. He'd never much cared for it as anything
other than a crutch until he could easily use magic without it, but right
now the echo of a phoenix's magic within the feather it held was
comforting.
The closest dementor finally reached their compartment, bringing with it

the cold and the Dark. It was close enough now to begin affecting their
minds much more strongly.
Luna and Ginny both had the misfortune of having some pretty bad
memories, Ginny from last year and Luna from the day that she saw her
mother die. Both of them had already retreated as far into the
compartment as was physically possible and buried their heads into their
knees in a vain attempt to block out the memories that came flooding back
to the forefront of their minds, some of which they'd blocked out.
Harry had also backed up gainst the window, but was shakily aiming his
wand towards the door, somehow knowing that the thing outside it wasn't
intending to just pass by as it had all the other compartments.
He was proven right as it slowly pulled open the door and began to glide
in.
Harry wasn't spared the misery and memory inducing effects of the
dementor any more than the girls, but he did have the advantage of having
come to terms with them already. Yes, the memory of his mother's murder
was pretty terrible, but he'd seen it a year ago already and put it
behind him. He would have liked to have parents, but he'd stopped pining
for them a long time ago. Similarly, the memories of his life with the
Dursleys and in the orpahange were far from pleasant, but not
debilitatingly horrible even with the dementor augmenting them.
He was no keener to have the soul sucking creature coming any closer to
him than any other sane person though and sent a powerful gout of flame
at it.
The fire guttered out before it could hit the dementor, the draining
effect of its aura snuffing out the magic behind it harmlessly.
Starting to get a little desperate to stop the thing from advancing,

Harry sent a cutting curse at it. He saw it hit, but there was no effect.
It was like his spell had simply vanished, its cutting edge without
meaning.
The dementor was well into the compartment by now and Harry was starting
to panic. He didn't know any spells that were guaranteed to be useful and
he probably couldn't muster the focus necessary even if he did, so he
resorted to desperate measures. That being that when in doubt, explosions
were usually a solution.
He cast the most powerful blasting curse that he could manage, knowing it
was a terrible idea even as he did it. The few feet of distance between
him and the dementor was not even close to the recommended minimum for
casting any kind of explosive spell. If it worked, it was entirely likely
to kill everything in the compartment except the dementor itself.
The spell rocketed out of his wand, the magic frayed and barely formed
due to his lack of focus, but powerful all the same.
The dementor was struck center mass, but there was no explosion. The only
thing Harry felt was his magic vanishing into the depthless sense of Dark
exuded by the creature in the same way as his previous spells, as well as
the warmth of the world and the happiness in peoples minds.
Then it was on top of him, its cadaverous fingers griping his head and
turning it upwards into the shadows of the hood.
Harry once again heard the screaming of his mother, but it seemed to come
from a great distance. His magic felt as if it was freezing, however
little sense that made. The runes scattered across his body, where magic
was infused into flesh, became so cold that the skin turned blue in
seconds. The four organs that he'd runically enhanced over the summer
were similarly affected, though much more severely.
But none of that mattered when the Dark was so close.
XXXXX
Albus Dumbledore looked on as Poppy finished working on his most

important student, feeling deeply concerned.
It hadn't escaped his notice that Harry was incongruously large for his
age. A growth spurt was nothing odd, but the one that Harry was having
stretched credulity. Neither James nor Lily had been exceptonally tall
people after all, so their son's current size was quite unusual.
He'd been hoping for an excuse to give Harry a thorough medical

examination for a while, but this wasn't what he'd had in mind. The
strange situation with the owls would have sufficed. Harry nearly losing
his soul to a dementor was something he'd have preferred to avoid,
convenient though it was as far as excuses went. He had barely been able
to keep the information from reaching the ears of the Ministry. The last
thing anyone needed right now was for Cornelius to come blustering in and
making a bigger mess of things. It was a good thing that Remus had been
nearby to drive the dementor away.
"How is he doing, Poppy?" He asked when the Hogwarts matron approached

him.
"Still unconscious but stable." She said with a tired sigh. "It's almost
like the dementor was trying to freeze him solid. If his lungs, liver,
kidneys and intestines had gotten any colder, they would have formed ice
crystals and killed him. It was a near thing as it was, my spells didn't
work as well as they should, but his body fortunately seemed to recover
on its own. I've never seen the like of it, but I've never heard of
anyone coming so close to losing their soul and surviving either."
"Will there be any permanent consequences to young Harry?"

"I couldn't say." Poppy replied with a frown. "The organs I mentioned are
still saturated with his magic and operating at a much higher level than
normal. He also has a similar but less pronounced effect across the rest
of his body."
"Thank you, Poppy." The old wizard said with a smile. "When do you think
he will wake up? I need to speak to him."
"He needs rest, Headmaster." Poppy said with disapproval.
"It will not take long." Dumbledore assured her.
XXXXX
Harry was mildly surprised when he opened his eyes. Given what his last
few memories were, he should be dead. Oddly enough, there was absolutely
no emotion attached to his near death experience. He felt the same as if
he'd just realized that water was wet.
This must be the Hogwarts Infirmary. He'd never been here before, but
only a place of healing could be so obnoxiously white. He'd never
understood the reasoning behind that. I don't think I like it much.
"Good evening, Harry." Came the voice of Dumbledore from nearby.
"Is it?" Harry wondered.
"I suppose it could have been better." The old wizard conceded.
"Dementors do tend to ruin one's day."
"There was so much Dark." Harry murmured, mostly to himself.
"I am sorry that you had to go through that, Harry." Dumbledore sighed
regretfully.
Harry wasn't really upset about it. He wasn't sure if that was because of
the strangely trance-like state he was currently in, or because he'd
actually found the Dark strangely comforting in his last moments of
consciousness. When the biting cold and grotesque appearance of the
dementor had ceased to matter, it had been beautiful in its own way. He
had been ready to sink into it and let it have him forever.
"Minister Fudge insisted on a dementor presence despite my objections."

The old man went on, oblivious to Harry's thoughts.
"To search for Sirius Black." The much younger wizard said with
certainty.
"Yes."
"They won't find him." If he'd slipped past them in Azkaban, then he
would certainly have little trouble doing it in the open.
"I agree, but the Ministry unfortunately does not."

"Of course it doesn't, it wouldn't be the government if it wasn't both
stupid and incompetent." Harry said, finally starting to shake off the
strange lethargy.
"That is a very cynical viewpoint for someone so young." Dumbledore

commented.
"I've found that I prefer to be cynical and occasionally wrong than

idealistic and constantly disappointed." Harry retorted, sitting up on
the bed and grabbing his wand from the nearby table. "What happened after
I passed out?"
"Professor Lupin arrived just in time to drive off the dementor."
"Lupin?" Harry asked sharply, recognizing the name of one of his parents
supposed friends.
"Am I to take it that you know of him already?" Dumbledore asked

shrewdly.
"I've heard of him." Harry said with a shrug, inwardly cursing his own
reaction. There was no need to inform the old meddler what he knew and
what he didn't.
"The dementor affected you most severely, my boy. I don't suppose you
know why?" Dumbledore asked, changing the subject when he saw that Harry
had no intention of talking about it. He didn't want to come off as
overly pushy and alienate him.
Harry remembered the way that his runes had burned with cold fire in the
dementor's presence. As far as he understood it, a wizard's magic was not
physically part of their body, so it was no doubt having magic bound to
so closely his body that had caused the effect.
Not that he was going to volunteer that information.
"I don't know." He lied. "Frankly, I'm more interested in why it attacked
me specifically."
Dumbledore wasn't entirely convinced that he wasn't being lied to. The
strange way that the boy's magic was infused into his body and some of
his organs did not look like anything he'd ever seen before, nor did it
look natural. A wizard's magic simply did not work that way normally.
More to the point, Harry's body appeared to be...too old. It was

something of a sketchy assessment since there were no spells that
determined the age of a person, but Madam Pomfrey's examination as well
as the one he'd performed before the boy had woken up pointed to a level
of maturity of someone in their mid teens.
There was an off chance that it had somehow occured naturally, but it was
far more likely to be the result of something that Harry had done to
himself.
He was terribly curious about it, but once again decided not to push. He
needed Harry to trust him, and he'd learned a long time ago that asking
uncomfortable questions did not inspire trust.
"I see. Should you should ever discover the cause, I would appreciate it
if you would indulge an old man's curiosity. It is not often that I
encounter something new."
That would hopefully let Harry know that he did not intend to judge and
could possibly even help. If the boy was half as smart as he suspected,
then he would catch the implication. It was crucial that the boy see him
as a mentor, and for that to happen, Dumbledore had to act like one.
"Of course, sir." Harry lied with a smile, swinging his legs out of the
bed. It hadn't escaped his notice that Dumbledore had neglected to answer
his implied question about why the dementor had attacked him.
"Madam Pomfrey will be most upset if you leave the infirmary without her
permission." The old wizard said, seeing that the boy was intent on
leaving.
"That's too bad, but I feel fine and I'm not staying in bed just to make
her feel better."
"It is unfortunate that I still need to speak to Poppy about something."

Dumbledore said, also getting on his feet, completely unphased by the
boy's surly attitude. He didn't much like being a patient either. "I hope
that you will not use this opportunity to sneak to Ravenclaw tower while
her attention is elsewhere."
Harry raised an eyebrow as the elderly wizard walked off towards the
healer's office and then shrugged. If Dumbledore wanted to give him a
distraction while he escaped, then that was fine with him.
XXXXX
"Harry!"
The shout greeted him almost as soon as he entered the Ravenclaw common
room, attracting the attention of several of the upper years as well.
Ginny all but smashed into him in her eagerness to give him a hug, which
Harry returned awkwardly for a moment before gently pushing her away.
"Hello Harry." Luna greeted much more calmly, though it was obvious to
anyone who knew her that she was relieved to see him.
"Hi."
"What happened to you?" Ginny all but demanded. "The dementors were
pretty hard on me and Luna, but you looked like you'd frozen to death!
They had to portkey you to the infirmary."
Harry's eyebrows went up at that. He hadn't known that bit.
"Nearly having your soul sucked out is apparently bad for your health."
He joked.
"No doubt." Luna agreed. "Would you be willing to speak about your near-
soulless experience in an interview with the Quibbler?"
"That's not funny." Ginny scolded, glaring at them both.
"Err...sure, Luna. We can do it tomorrow." Harry offered, quirking a

smile at Ginny's even more pronounced scowl.
He couldn't help but find the whole thing a bit ridiculous. Both Luna and
Ginny were a bit on the petite side, which meant that he now towered over
them by a considerable margin. Even if he was only a year older than
them, it was sometimes hard not to feel like he was hanging around kids
that were three or four years younger than him, especially in light of
the things he'd been up to during the summer.
"Alright there, Harry?"
The question was accompanied by a hand on his shoulder and he turned to

look at the year's Head Girl, Penelope Clearwater. He noted with some
shock that the girl who had occasionally come to talk to him back in
first year was now actually a shade shorter than him. Granted, Penelope
was not prodigiously tall by any stretch, but it was still a bit of a
surprise to find himself looking down at someone that had been nearly two
feet taller than him only a couple of years ago.
"Yeah, I'm fine." He replied after a moment, giving the girl a smile. It
was much easier to be confident around people when you weren't looking up
at them.
"Good." Penelope said with a nod, returning his smile. "Try to stay away
from the dementors in the future, yeah?"
"I'll try, I'd certainly prefer to kiss girls than dementors." Harry
joked.
The Head Girl gave a short laugh, accompanied by a small blush at what
could be taken as flirting if you squinted.
"Even I'd rather get kissed by a girl than a dementor." She joked back,
inwardly very pleased at how different he was from the anti-social boy
that he'd been in his first year. She'd always felt that Harry was trying
too hard to isolate himself back then and it was gratifying to see that
he'd loosened up a bit. She had no idea what had caused him to be so
prickly with people when he'd started Hogwarts and she wasn't going to
ask, but she did like to think that she'd helped him move past it.
"I can kiss you if you want." Luna offered out of the blue.
The joking mood screeched to a halt at Luna's words, everyone trying to
figure out if she was serious or not.
"Is she joking or not? I can't tell." Penelope eventually asked, giving
up on figuring it out.
"No idea, I can never tell either." Harry shrugged, being less affected
due to experience.
"I'm as serious as a crumple-horned snorkack." Luna said firmly.
Which tells us nothing. Harry thought wryly, giving Penelope another

shrug when she looked to him for clarification.
"Right." The Head Girl said after a moment, deciding to just ignore the
small blonde's strangeness. "You three had better head off to bed, it's
past your usual curfew already."
XXXXX
Penny had felt the assessing gazes of several other girls on her ever
since Harry's appearance in the common room. It wasn't the first time
that this had happened. Curious students had seen her talking to him
before and had wanted to know what he was like since the boy tended to
avoid social contact.
It felt a bit different this time though.
"So, Penny.." Opened up Bryanna Torres, a dark haired, blue eyed seventh
year whose slightly olive skin tone betrayed a hint of medditeranean
ancestry a few generations back. ".We saw you talking to Potter."
"Yeah, so?" Penny returned cautiously.
She and Bryanna had never really gotten along too well, the other girl
possessing a cunning and ambition that should have by all rights landed
her in Slytherin, as well as a beauty that drew many a boy's attention,
whereas Penny was fairly plain and straightforward. Not that they were
enemies or anything like that, but they hadn't really interacted since
third year, when Bryanna had started moving in completely different
social circles.
"He's looking pretty good." The other girl noted, too casually to be
real.
And with that sentence Penny realized what Bryanna was aiming at.
It wouldn't be the first time that an ambitious girl from a Common House
like Bryanna had targeted the younger Heir of a Noble House in an attempt
to increase her own status.
It could theoretically happen the other way around as well, but it was
much less likely. Witches, even those not of main Noble lines, were
guarded far more carefully against that sort of thing. That had taken a
while for Penny to wrap her mind around, being a muggleborn as she was.
The Wizarding World's only definition for rape was a violent and/or
magically compelled man-on-woman assault, which seemed especially strange
to her with an equalizer like magic being present. Anyone proposing the
idea of statutory rape to magicals received only baffled looks, as if the
mere concept was lunacy. Even slipping someone love or lust potions was a
legal grey area.
It was frankly astonishing that it happened as little as it did, though

Penny knew that might simply be her ignorance on the subject.
The reason for Bryanna's sudden interest in Harry was unlikely to be his
looks, but rather his money and status. His youth would only make him a
more tempting target because it would leave him vulnerable. Heirs of
Noble Houses weren't normally subjected to this kind of thing because
they had parents who could easily ruin a girl's family and future in the
Wizarding World for attempting to install herself as the future Lady of a
Noble House in such a manner.
Harry had no parents to protect him however.
"He's only thirteen, Bryanna." She said disapprovingly in an attempt to

get the other girl to back off.
"Funny, he doesn't look thirteen." Bryanna countered with a smirk,

abandoning subtlety since it was obvious that her intentions had been
guessed.
Penny had noticed that, it was in all honesty hard not to, but it didn't
change the fact that Harry Potter was thirteen and thus entirely too
young to be dealing with the advances of a girl four years his senior.
The problem was that she couldn't even go to anyone about this.
Professor Flitwick was a great teacher, but he was part goblin and had
certain goblin sensibilities. A refusal to meddle in other people's
issues being one of them.
Headmaster Dumbledore would just wave it off like he waved off

everything. For all the respect that Penny had for the aged wizard, he
tended to be extremely hands off. Snape was a good example.
McGonagall would simply refer her to Dumbledore.
Even if she could have gone to anyone about it, it would make her a lot
of enemies in Ravenclaw that could make her life very difficult for the
rest of the year.
What a mess. She'd just have to warn Harry and hope for the best, which
Bryanna was probably expecting her to do anyway. Hopefully her ambitious
fellow Ravenclaw was overestimating her own appeal.
Bryanna spent another twenty minutes attempting to get information on

Harry out of her, but Penny was for once glad to be fairly clueless. The
green-eyed boy was not exactly liberal with information on himself, so
she had little to go on. It wouldn't stop them of course, but it wasn't
going to be as easy as they'd hoped.
Chapter 7
Nothing much to say up here this time, except to give credit to Joe
lawyer for his excellent beta-ing skillz.
XXXXX
Among the myriad of Dark Creatures in the world, none are as foul as the
dementor. Their origins are unknown, though it is speculated that they
form in places of great suffering, though it is equally likely that it is
the other way around and that it is their presence that makes a place
miserable. There are records of their presence in other locales around
Europe, but Azkaban is the only place that one may reliably find a
dementor in recent times.
Several Dark Lords have been able to rally them to their cause over the
centuries. Many a Dark Wizard has also lost their soul in the attempt,
making any attempted alliance with them a dangerous undertaking.
Classified as a Non-Being, the dementor is not truly alive and thus

cannot truly die. The Patronus Charm is the only spell known to have any
effect on them and it is also by means of this spell that the British
Ministry of Magic keeps control of the creatures. Though even the
strongest Patroni will not destroy a dementor, it appears to cause them
enough discomfort or even what passes for pain that they can be
threatened with it.
The exact level of intelligence possesed by dementors is unknown, but is

presumed to be fairly close to sapience, as they are able to understand
speech and recognize certain individuals.
Harry closed the book and stared at it thoughtfully. It had contained far
less information on dementors than he'd hoped, but the mention of the
Patronus Charm was certainly useful. He would make it his business to
learn that particular spell as soon as possible.
Being helpless as the soul sucking abomination advanced on him was not an
experience he cared to repeat.
Unfortunately, the book offered no hints as to why it had targeted him in

particular. There was a chance that he, Ginny and Luna simply had more
traumatic pasts that the other students, but there was no way to verify
that short of interrogating all of Hogwarts and there was no guarantee
that it was even the reason for the dementor's keen interest in him.
The entire incident had also raised several other questions in his mind
that he would now very much like to have answered.
What was a soul? How was it connected to his magic? Why had the
dementor's presence frozen his magic? What was the Dark?
Unsettling as the near death experience had been, it had also posed so
many fascinating questions about magic and revealed truths that he had
previously scoffed at. He now knew with absolute certainty that there was
indeed something Dark about magic, which likely meant that there was also
Light. He still strongly doubted the popular interpretation of it, but he
could no longer discount the entire concept.
His own experiences with the capricious nature of his runes made him
equally wary of both. For all that people liked to equate good with Light
and Dark with evil, Harry suspected that neither was particularly benign
when meddled with.
XXXXX
Harry observed Lupin carefully as the man lectured the class on the
subject of boggarts, wondering what to make of him.
According to Charlus and Dorea, Lupin had been a dear friend of his
parents, but a few things simply did not add up.
He had no memories of him ever being over for a visit before Voldemort
had attacked the Potter home, unlike Sirius and Pettigrew. Furthermore,
unlike those two, Lupin had been neither imprisoned nor dead, and yet he
had never come to check on the son of his dead friends.
Even assuming that he hadn't known where Harry was, it had been two years
now since his return to the Wizarding World. Surely the man could have
dropped by? Stranger still, he hadn't even attempted to approach Harry
since the school year had begun. The whole dementor thing would have been
a perfect excuse, but Lupin seemed content to pretend that Harry was just
another student to him.
All around strange behavior for someone that was supposed to have been a
very close friend of his parents.
"Who wants to go first?"
The question knocked Harry out of his thoughts as the class formed a line
in a sort of ordered chaos.
Most of his classmates had understandable fears, that being all sorts of
monsters. There was one Hufflepuff girl whose name Harry couldn't recall
that had a giant carnivorous tomato for some bizzare reason though.
Everyone was generally able to turn their fear into something funny and
laugh at the transformed boggart, which got Harry to thinking again.
He'd come across the boggart while researching dementors a few days ago
and had been puzzled. It was a Non-Being just like the soul sucking
monsters currently haunting every entrance into Hogwarts, but a decidedly
more benign one. Little more than a pest really, as the only conceivable
way for a boggart to actually hurt someone was through shock induced
heart attack or maybe scaring someone off a ledge.
Yet for all of that, Harry could still feel a little piece of Dark from
the shape shifter. It was tiny in comparison to the dementor on the
train, but it was definitely there. Fascinating.
He knew what he would see once his turn came up. Aside from a few
memorable occasions of nearly traumatising himself with a horror themed
video game back when he'd been nine, there was only one thing that came
to mind when he thought of his fears.
The boggart transformed into a perfect copy of the dementor from the
train, but it was not nearly as frightening. It could change its form all
it wanted, but it could not replicate the same sense of Dark. He wasn't
afraid of the dementor's outer sppearance so much as he was of what it
represented, which was not something that could be faked.
He was shocked however, when he began to feel a familiar misery seep into
his mind, ignoring Aul'El and his Occlumency like they were nothing just
like the dementor had done. Similarly, he felt a weak chill in his runes
and a more intangible chill in his magic. It wasn't even close to being
as powerful, but the mere fact that it could replicate even a tiny speck
of a true dementor's power implied all sorts of interesting things.
Lupin jumped in front of him then, perhaps mistaking his surprised

staring at the boggart for paralyzing fear.
The boggart instantly transformed into the silvery sphere of a full moon,
which Lupin quickly turned into a balloon and sent fluttering away.
What a strange thing to be afraid of.
XXXXX
Remus sighed heavily once the third year Ravenclaw-Hufflepuff class left
the room, taking with it the son of his friends.
He had no idea what to do about Harry.
He had never seen the boy as a baby, they had already started pushing him
away by then, suspecting him of being a spy for Voldemort.
He understood their reasoning. He was a werewolf and werewolves had been

Voldemort's allies during the war. The Ministry and its oppressive
werewolf legislation made sure of that, though Fenrir Greyback would have
undoubtedly allied with him either way. It didn't make the experience any
less bitter for Remus though, who would have died for his friends in a
heartbeat.
James, Sirius, Peter and later Lily had been the closest thing to pack
that non-werewolves could be, and they had cast him out. For all that
Remus tried his hardest to suppress and deny the beast within, he could
not do it completely. From that place inside his soul where the wolf
resided most of the time, it had howled its grief and fury at being so
betrayed.
When Harry was born, Remus had been in Germany, ostensibly speaking to
the werewolves there about a possible alliance with the Order of the
Phoenix or at least staying neutral. In retrospect it had been to get him
away from Britain and any possible information that he could have passed
on to Voldemort.
When James and Lily had been killed a year later, he'd still been in
Germany, though he had long since stopped talking to the werewolves
there. He'd grown rather bitter and resentful of the suspicion everyone
had of him and decided to simply not go back to Britain if that's how
they were going to be. Their deaths, Peter's death and Sirius' betrayal
had hit him hard despite the gulf that had grown between them and he'd
never mustered the will to go back.
Then came Dumbledore's letter, asking him to teach DADA in Hogwarts. It

was a job that he'd never dreamed he'd be able to have with his
condition, but he had still been hesitant to return to Britain. The
werewolf laws in Germany were better than in Britain. Not by much, but
enough that he had been able to keep a job. Not a great or enjoyable job,
but a job that allowed him to eat and have a roof over his head.
But he owed Dumbledore a lot and he had always wanted to teach, so he had
come back despite his misgivings and now he was faced with Lily's eyes
looking out from James' face, both of them too old to belong on a
thirteen year old.
Dumbledore had been stingy on the details of Harry's life when

questioned, which Remus figured was a ploy to make him actually talk to
the boy himself.
But it was so hard. What was he supposed to say to the son of the people
who had been like family to him? Family that had cast him out, but who he
had still loved.
XXXXX
Dinner time in the Great Hall.
"Hey, Potter! I heard you nearly wet yourself in front of a boggart

yesterday."
Harry sighed at the continued idiocy of one Draco Malfoy. The blond
Slytherin hadn't stopped trying to mock him over the dementor incident on
the train since the start of term and had apparently gotten a second wind
upon hearing that his boggart was also a dementor.
"I'd like to see what you'd be like in front of a dementor, Malfoy!"
Ginny retorted angrily, face beginning to flush with the well known
temper of redheads everywhere. "From what Fred and George told me, you
ran into their compartment and all but begged them to protect you from it
on the train."
"Shut your mouth, Weaslette!" Malfoy shouted at her, his own pale face
developing a few blotches of red.
"Excellent comeback, Malfoy. That sure proved her wrong." Harry said
dryly, finding the blond idiot's taunts tiresome at best. The whole
experience had gotten so repetitive that not even his runes could be
bothered to prickle. It was kind of like constantly being bothered by a
yippy little dog.
Malfoy's anger swelled further at the dismissive tone. He loathed being

brushed off and that was exactly what Potter had been doing ever since
first year, treating him like he didn't even matter. Aside from that one
incident at the start of second year when he'd thrown a goblet at his
face that was.
"It's too bad the dementor didn't Kiss all three of you and remove some
of the filth from the world." He snarled furiously.
There was a series of gasps from the Ravenclaws around them, shocked that
he would say something like that.
Harry was unphased though, having been exposed to the internet for years
and having many an angry twelve year old threaten to fuck his mother or
worse. The fact that he had been ten at the time only served to make him
feel more mature than his age warranted.
"I could say the same about you and your pet apes, but I won't. But I
could."
Draco managed to look even more constipated at Harry's lack of reaction

and opened his mouth to say something else when he was beaten to the
punch.
During this entire time, Luna had been focusing on her food to the
exclusion of all else, but now that her mashed potatoes were shaped like
a castle with a little gravy moat, the conversation going on around her
finally penetrated her focus.
"Draco? When did you get here?"
Her polite question had the Malfoy scion spluttering in pure rage,
believing that he was being mocked by the crazy second year, who was
clearly acting like he was so unimportant as to be beneath her notice.
An understandable assumption, but completely wrong. Luna had simply been

putting a lot of effort into her potato castle.
The perceived insult had him reaching for his wand, though he wasn't
entirely sure what he was going to do with it yet.
"Malfoy!" A different female voice cut into the action. "Ten points from
Slytherin and detention for drawing your wand on another student."
"How dare you?!" Draco yelled at her at the top of his lungs, outraged
well past the point of reason. The nerve of the mudblood to give him a
detention!
"I quite agree with Ms. Clearwater, Mr. Malfoy." Flitwick chimed in from
where he'd approached behind the Slytherin. "Drawing a wand on another
student outside of a classroom and without the supervision of a professor
is a serious offense."
"When my father hears about this.." Draco seethed, putting his wand away
and stomping off.
Harry shook his head in disbelief at the antics of the blond idiot. If
there was anything that proved that the Sorting Hat could be convinced to
sort according to a student's wishes, it was Malfoy's placement in
Slytherin. The boy was clearly a Gryffindor.
He raised his goblet of water towards Penny in a mocking sort of toast

for helping to get rid of the pest, exchanging amused smiles with her. No
doubt the muggleborn Head Girl had taken her own measure of enjoyment in
smacking down the uppity pureblood.
His eyes went further up the table towards the seventh year girl that she
had warned him about, seeing her already looking at him. Deciding to be a
bit adventurous, he winked at her.
Bryanna's eyebrows shot up in surprise before a smirk stretched across

her face. This might be easier than she'd thought.
"Did you just wink at that seventh year?" Ginny demanded in a harsh
whisper.
"So what if I did?" He asked back, not liking her tone. If Bryanna was
going to do what he suspected she was going to do, then he fully intended
to take advantage of the situation and shag her silly. If Ginny couldn't
deal with that, then they were going to have a problem.
Taken aback by the confrontational response, Ginny quickly backpedaled.

"Uh, nothingI just, uh, wanted to know why."
That had to be the worst lie that Harry had ever heard, but he didn't
call her out on it. He wasn't interested in dealing with Ginny's crush on
him and felt more certain that he would never feel the same with every
day. She just felt too much like a kid to him for that, even if he was
only a year older than her. His accelerated growth was making a mess of
his personal relationships, making him too old in physical maturity to
fit in with his peers but too young in years to fit in with those older
than him. He was doing his best to ignore that bit of discomfort since he
knew that there was nothing he could do about it, but he was poignantly
aware of it. The last time that he'd felt truly comfortable around
another person had been with Zoe, which said a lot about the situation
considering their arrangement.
"I just felt like it." He told her, his tone making it clear that the
subject was closed.
The redhead went into a sulky silence and started pushing around the food
on her plate, appetite gone at being shut down like that.
Luna stared at Harry and started blinking furously.
"Luna, what are you doing?" He asked, looking at her strangely.
"I'm winking at you because I feel like it." She replied, still blinking
furiously.
"That's blinking, not winking." He informed her.
"No Harry, it's definitely winking." She insisted.
"Winking is only done with one eye." He reasoned.
"This is double winking."
A laugh burbled up Harry's throat at the ridiculosuness of it all,

leaving him chuckling into his goblet for quite a while, made worse by
the fact that Luna was still double winking at him like she had something
to prove.
"Don't ever change, Luna. Don't ever change." He told her, still
chuckling. Whether she had done it on purpose or not, the slightly
irritable mood that Ginny had put him in was gone now.
XXXXX
There were two spells that Harry felt he needed to learn as soon as
possible.
The first was the standard contraceptive charm that prevented pregnancy,
because of the high chance of getting laid. It had once seen some fairly
widespread use, but had since been phased out in favor of a potion that
needed to be taken once a month.
Both had to be applied to the woman, which presented something of a

problem for Harry. He would have honestly preferred a spell or potion
that would simply make him infertile for a while, but it apparently
didn't exist. Not that he would trust a potion to work on him with his
most recent set of runes, but it was the principle of the thing.
He was incredibly grateful for the fact that Zoe had insisted on a condom
despite being on the pill. The possibility of getting a girl pregnant at
his age made him queasy just thinking about it. He was nowhere near ready
to be a father.
He was probably just overthinking it, as both the spell and potion were
highly reliable, but he still would have liked to have the extra
security.
The second was the Patronus, the reason for which was obvious. The
dementors floating around the castle made him nervous.
It was a rather interesting spell with the way it needed to be charged

with a happy emotion and there was an extra tidbit of knowledge on the
dementors in the description as well.
Apparently, the reason why the Patronus was effective against them was
because it was a purely positive force that couldn't feel despair. It was
anathema to them. The book didn't explain how a Patronus avoided falling
prey to the dementor's ability to nullify other spells, but Harry figured
that there was something about the emotion charged into it that blocked
that ability.
It was also a very difficult spell because it took some seriously

powerful happy thoughts to form it properly. This was a problem, because
Harry couldn't think of anything like that off the top of his head. His
life was comfortable and pleasant aside from a few irritants like Malfoy,
Snape and his foster parents, but it had no outstanding moments of
happiness either.
The happiest thing he could think of on short notice was the time he'd
spent with Zoe, but he somehow doubted that the memory of a fun day and
the physical pleasure that followed would cut it. Still worth a try, but
Harry wasn't holding his breath on it.
"That's some pretty advanced magic you're studying."
Harry jumped slightly at the unexpected voice, having been so deeply

absorbed in his thoughts that he hadn't noticed anyone coming up behind
him.
"Sorry if I scared you, I just couldn't help noticing that you were
studying the Patronus Charm." Bryanna said with a smile, taking a seat
next to him. "Dementors making you nervous?"
"You could say that." Harry replied, wondering what her angle was. Coming
up to him and starting up a conversation like this was more than a bit
odd considering their lack of previous interaction, but he was willing to
play along with it for now.
"Me too, I can't believe that Fudge thinks posting those monsters around
a school is a good idea." Bryanna commented.
"He must be pretty worried about Black." Harry responded noncommittally.

Everything he'd heard about the current Minister of Magic made him out to
be something of a buffoon, but he wasn't going to share that opinion just
yet.
"I'm surprised that you aren't."
"I've got a feeling that I'm in a lot more danger from the dementors than
from Black." He said wryly.
"You're probably right about that." Bryanna agreed. "Any luck learning
the Patronus?"
"I haven't gotten around to attempting it yet." Harry told her honestly.
"Want to give it a try together?" She asked with a smile. "Hogwarts

doesn't teach that spell and I'd like to know it just in case."
Harry looked at her speculatively for a few seconds, wondering if she was
seriously intending to act like this conversation had happened by mere
chance. Eventually he just shrugged and agreed to her suggestion. She
seemed smart and her desire to learn the Patronus was probably genuine
even if she was using it as a pretense to get close to him, so having her
along might help with learning the spell at least with the aid of a wand.
XXXXX
"Expecto Patronum!"
The problem, Harry decided, was definitely mustering together enough

happiness on demand to cast the spell.
"Expecto Patronum!"
Not to mention that the book had not been particularly heavy on the
details. Was the type of happiness important? Could a sadist conjure a
Patronus by thinking of all the people he'd tortured?
"EXPECTO PATRONUM!"
It seemed unlikely that such a twisted form of happiness would work. This
consequently meant that the source of that happiness had to be an
important component. Following that train of logic, there surely had to
be one or more specific types of happy memories that would work better
than others.
"You know, learning the spell might work better if you actually tried to
cast it." Bryanna said peevishly.
"I like to think about what I'm doing before waving my wand around."
Harry said back, not really sparing the older Ravenclaw too much
attention, making her huff.
A properly cast Patronus called a spectral guardian into existence, so it

was probable that thoughts of safety would work best.
"Expecto Patronum!"
But safety wasn't in and of itself a happy thought. Perhaps thoughts of

protection? A strong guardian standing between the caster and the world,
someone held close, loved and respected.
"Expecto Patronum!"
That could be a problem if it was the case. Harry couldn't think of a

single adult, or indeed anyone at all, that he would trust to protect
him.
"It's not working." Bryanna said in a not-quite whine, clearly

frustrated.
Well of course it wasn't. Judging by the frequency of her attempts, she

was probably cycling through her memories and hoping to pick the right
one by accident, or perhaps she was trying to somehow force the spell
into working through sheer repetition. That kind of approach was the
province of meatheaded warriors swinging around giant shafts of sharpened
steel, not mages. Her frustration at the lack of success had turned into
the reason for the lack of success.
Weren't Ravenclaws supposed to be thoughtful intellectuals that

considered things carefully before acting? I guess you can't rely on
stereotypes all the time.
Deciding to finally give the spell a try, Harry stopped pacing the room
and drew his wand.
With a deep breath he focused on the most memorable event in his life
where he'd felt like an adult could protect him. Ironically, it was a
memory that the dementors seemed to enjoy bringing to mind when in his
presence, that being the death of his mother at the hands of Voldemort.
Not a particularly cheerful thought, but learning of the lengths that his
mother had gone to in order to protect him did bring him a measure of
happiness. Deliberately setting yourself up as a sacrifice to protect
someone else was the most powerful demonstration of love there was.
A silvery mist left his wand, hovering in the air for a moment before
dissipating.
Bryanna stared at him in disbelief.
"How in Merlin's name did you do that? You've spent the past hour just
pacing around the room and then you manage to get some results on the
first try without even saying the incantation."
"Calm down, take your time and think of a memory where you feel safe and
protected, then concentrate on channeling that feeling into the spell."
Harry advised.
Bryanna looked dubious, but did as she was told nonetheless.

"Expecto Patronum!"
A familiar silvery mist left her wand.
"I did it!" She exclaimed happily, jumping to give him a hug.
Harry noticed that she had rather strategically shoved his face into her
breasts. They were very nice breasts, a little bigger than Zoe's if he
wasn't mistaken. He felt his body respond and his runes tingle, but
controlled it tightly.
"Congratulations." He told her once she let go, idly wondering how much
of her current behavior was an act designed to sucker a nave thirteen
year old into developing a crush on her. She was acting somewhat
differently than how Penny had described her.
"Thanks, now why don't you try it again, this time with the incantation."
"No."
"Why not?" She almost demanded. "If you were able to get a mist out
without one, then you're bound to have more success if you try casting it
properly."
"I'd rather put in a little extra effort to learn it silently than shout
gibberish into the air." He replied dryly.
"I don't understand you at all, it's like you enjoy making things harder
on yourself." She said in exasperation.
Harry wondered what she'd think of the fact that he wouldn't even be
bothering with a wand if she wasn't here. She might not understand why he
wanted to do things the hard way, but he didn't understand why everyone
else wanted to cripple themselves by relying on their wands so much.
"Maybe I just like the challenge?" He offered with a small grin.
Bryanna looked at him oddly for a moment and then let out an amused
chuckle.
"We've been here for a while, you want to get something to eat?" She
asked with a brilliant smile.
Harry's stomach gurgled in agreement with the idea. It had been nearly
two hours since the last time he'd eaten.
XXXXX
".and that's when I learned that combining Arithmancy and Divination

doesn't really let you accurately predict the future, especially if
Divination is taught by a drunken fraud like Trelawney." Bryanna
finished.
Harry hummed in agreement around a mouthful of particularly juicy carrot.
Ginny glared sullenly at the older girl, resenting her presence with the
fiery wrath of an insecure preteen who was sure that the pretty seventh
year was trying to catch Harry's interest and doing a far better job than
she ever had.
"Are you going to put your penis in her vagina, Harry?" Luna asked
dreamily.
Harry spat out the half-masticated carrot in surprise.
"What?" He croaked out.
"That's what Ginny's nargles are screaming at me."
"Well, Harry? Answer the girl, are you going to put your penis in my
va~gi~na?" Bryanna sing-songed with a salacious smirk, having recovered
from her surprise the fastest. The little blonde friend of Harry's was
quite the character.
Though caught off guard by the bold question, Harry gamely ignored the
heat creeping up his neck and looked her in the eye.
"Anything is possible."
"Truer words have never been spoken." Luna agreed, thinking of all the
snorkacks that were just waiting to be discovered.
Ginny rose to her feet in a single violent motion and stomped off.
"What's her problem?" Bryanna asked, knowing perfectly well what the
redhead's problem was.
"She might still be upset about not having any boobies for Harry to look
at." Luna hazarded a guess.
Harry let out a weak chuckle. He had a feeling that this was going to be
the event that ended the friendship between him and Ginny. He'd found the
redhead annoying at times, but she had become a friend. He wasn't going
to change his behavior to appease her though. It wasn't like he owed her
anything and this stupid crush of hers was really the thing that bothered
him the most about her. She could either get over it or sulk about it,
but it would be entirely on her.
XXXXX
Harry sighed despondently in his Ancient Runes class. It was just so

boring. He'd already learned all of this on his own back in first year.
An unfair thought perhaps, since the class was no doubt pretty

challenging to everyone who didn't have a two year head start, but that
didn't chage the fact that he was just wasting his time here. He'd had
the same problem in Artihmancy, except worse since he'd needed to study
that one even more in depth for his rituals.
"Mr. Potter, stay behind please." Professor Babbling said when the class
was over.
Malfoy threw him a mocking look on his way out, which Harry ignored. The
blond ponce currently had his arm bandaged as if he'd been grievously
injured by that hippogriff in his Care of Magical Creatures class, but
everyone knew that he was faking it. Well, Parkinson seemed to be buying
it and Malfoy's two pet goons probably didn't have enough brain cells
between them to see it, but everyone with any sense knew that he was
faking it.
According to Luna, who had heard it from Ginny, who had heard it from
Ron, he was playing up the injury to make the hippogriff in question,
Buckbeak, look more like a vicious monster than it actually was and get
it executed. The ponce had apparently ignored Hagrid's instructions and
provoked it and was now looking to get it killed in a spectacular example
of pettiness. Malfoy truly did live up to the spoiled rich brat
stereotype.
"I've noticed that you don't seem to be paying attention during class."
Babbling commented once they were alone.
"I'm sorry, Professor. It's just that.." Harry started, not sure how to
word it.
"You already know the subject matter." She finished for him.
"Yeah." He said with a nod.
"I thought this might happen." She said, rubbing her forehead in
consternation. "Professor Vector tells me that it's the same with her?"
Harry simply nodded in confirmation.
This presented a problem for both Bathsheda and Septima. Both of them
were rather fond of Harry, who they had gotten to know from his
occasional visits over the past two years. Both of them had also been
looking forward to having him in their class, but it served nobody if his
time was being wasted going over things that he already knew. It wasn't
often that a student came around who wanted to study ahead and they
didn't want him to start resenting the time he spent in their class
simply because he was too far ahead to benefit from it.
"If the opportunity were made available to you, would you want to stop
attending Ancient Runes and Arithmancy and replace it with private
tutoring from myself and Professor Vector?" She asked.
Harry's eyes widened at the offer. Private tutoring would allow him to
accomplish more in less time, work at his preferred pace instead of the
one set for a class of wildly different ability and actually make
progress instead of waiting for everyone else to catch up to him.
"That would be perfect."
It was kind of funny actually. He'd never been this studious before
coming to Hogwarts. But then again, he hadn't been learning magic back
then either.
"I will need to speak to the Headmaster about this arrangement, but I
don't foresee any problems." Bathsheda said, feeling that she'd made the
right decision by making him this offer.
It would give both her and Septima some extra work, but they felt that it
was worth it. Neither of their classes often got a student that seemed to
have a genuine passion for their respective subjects and they were
terribly reluctant to slow him down to the pace of the others.
XXXXX
"Harry, could I talk to you in private for a moment?" Ginny asked

awkwardly.
Harry was somewhat surprised that the redhead had actually approached
him. She'd been avoiding contact with him for a couple of weeks now, ever
since that one time that Bryanna had joined them for lunch.
He knew that Luna had tried to play mediator and get Ginny out of
whatever funk she'd worked herself into, but there hadn't been any
apparent success.
"Alright." He said with a shrug and followed her to an out of the way
room that looked like it hadn't been used in forever.
"I've been talking to some people." Ginny started, her voice full of
conviction. "Harry, that seventh year is just trying to get her hands on
your money or take advantage of your fame."
Harry stared at her incredulously for a few moments and then started
laughing.
"She is!" Ginny near yelled. "Just think about it. Why would a girl that
old suddenly start spending time with you?"
"Ginny, I know." He said, still chuckling.
"You know?!" She blurted out incredulously. "Then why are you still
hanging around her?"
"I'm waiting to see how far she's willing to go." He told her honestly.
She stared at him uncomprehendingly for a while before it dawned on her

what he meant.
"You're just going along with it because you want to see her naked?!"
"Oh, I'm hoping she goes a lot further than that." Harry replied, a smirk
pulling at his lips.
Ginny stared at him some more, then started to look almost heartbroken.
"What happened to you, Harry?" She asked sadly. "You didn't used to be
like this."
"I believe the technical term is 'puberty'." Harry grumbled

sarcastically. Why were people in the Wizarding World so surprised that
he wasn't some kind of saint? Oh right, because of those fucking Harry
Potter books. Even after knowing him for a year now, Ginny still
occasionally made assumptions about his personality based on those. The
fact that he was making money off them now was their only redeeming
quality.
"Look, I know that you have a crush on me." He started, ignoring the way
her face flushed at having it openly stated like that. He'd ignored it
the previous year in the hope that she'd get over it herself, but enough
was enough. "But nothing is ever going to come of it. I don't like you
that way and I never will."
"Why not?" Ginny demanded, looking simultaneously angry and upset. "Is it
because my boobs aren't big enough for the great Harry Potter?"
"Essentially, yes." He said bluntly, deciding to ignore her almost

Malfoy-esque insult. "You're just a kid."
"I'm only a year younger than you!" She screeched in outrage, reminding
Harry poignantly of the time that her mother had sent a howler to Fred
and George.
"I like older women." He retorted.
This gained him another outraged scream, though this time it was wordless
and accompanied by an angry exit, complete with door slam.
Harry sighed in the empty room, wondering how this was going to play out.
At least that silly crush was probably dead and buried now, Mystra be
praised.
XXXXX
"So, how goes Project Potter?"
Bryanna looked back at the Slytherin seventh year who had asked the
question, seeing the same curiousity in the eyes of the other two as
well.
Aside from her, the group consisted of Slytherin Tiana Day, Gryffindor
Jade Dawson and fellow Ravenclaw Isabel Morris.
Aside from the two Ravenclaws, they had only become friendly with each
other the previous year when they began contemplating the future and
finding it lacking. Inter-house rivalries had suddenly started looking
petty when faced with the fact that school was coming to a close and the
uncertain future that lay beyond it.
None of them had liked the conclusions they'd come to about their likely
futures, from which their current plan, jokingly called 'Project Potter',
had come together.
"Honestly, not as well as I'd hoped." Bryanna admitted with a sigh. "He's
not the bumbling boy I expected him to be, not even close. He's still
young, but he must have some prior experience with women. He's too self
assured around me not to."
The other girls looked both thoughtful and disgruntled by that, no doubt
thinking who that experience could have been with.
"So you're saying that someone already got to him last year?" Tiana asked
with a frown.
"I don't know, maybe. Either way, I don't think I'll be able to sucker
him into falling for me."
"We could slip him some Amortentia." Jade suggested.
"Don't be ridiculous." The Slytherin girl snapped, continuing with a

sneer that was aimed more at the situation than at the Gryffindor girl.
"If it gets out that a bunch of 'commoners' dosed the Heir of a Noble
House with a love potion they'll feed us to the dementors."
Left unsaid was the fact that if it happened the other way around, it
would have merited a slap on the wrist at best.
"It's too bad that Clearwater wouldn't help us with this, she's been
friendly with Potter since his first year." Isabel sighed.
"Clearwater's a muggleborn." Bryanna said dismissively.
"True."
They all had a muggleborn or second generation parent and had nothing
against muggleborns, nor did they buy into the 'purity of magical blood'
claptrap. The problem with muggleborns was that they didn't really grasp
the situation in Wizarding Britain until after they left Hogwarts, by
which time it was often too late. They had themselves heard it from their
parents, but it hadn't truly sunk in until last year.
The old Noble Houses controlled pretty much everything; the government,
the law, the money and the media. The Wizengamot was hereditary, which
meant that the judicial branch of the government was also hereditary. It
was in theory possible to climb the ranks in the Ministry regardless of
blood status, but in practice you didn't get very far if you weren't 'the
right sort' according to the purebloods that ran it or at least had a
powerful patron. Not all of those Noble Houses were bigots, but there
were enough of them to cause a lot of problems.
The real problem though, was money. The old Houses had it and everyone
else..didn't. Pureblood, halfblood or muggleborn, all of it was
subordinate to the almighty galleon.
The Common Houses consisted of families that had been around for a few
generations already, but couldn't really rise in status because the old
traditionalists were doing their absolute best to keep the Wizarding
World static, usually by maintaining a market monopoly and preventing any
uppity Common Houses from getting as rich as them. The only simple way to
actually manage a class jump was to marry into a Noble House and there
weren't many Heirs that would look twice at a non-pureblood. Lily Evans
had probably never quite understood what a lucky break in terms of
personal status she'd caught with James Potter, though she hadn't lived
long enough for it to really matter.
"Shag him." Tiana suddenly stated.
"What?" The rest of them blurted out in surprise. They were aware that it
would likely progress to that point eventually, but this was a bit
sudden.
"Shag him." The other girl repeated, keeping her eyes fixed on Bryanna.
"If you can't manipulate your way into becoming the next Lady Potter then
shagging him is the next best thing."
"I don't know, Tiana. That's a pretty extreme escalation and there's no
guarantee that anything would come of it." Isabel said uncertainly.
"It's our last year here and he's the only one we can mess with safely.
The only other Heirs we could try to cozy up to that wouldn't backfire on
us are Longbotton and Bones. One is a nervous wreck and none of us have a
cock to use on the other, not to mention that both Augusta Longbottom and
Amelia Bones would destroy us if we moved on them. I'd do it myself, but
I can't slip into his room at night since I'm not in Ravenclaw."
"Do you think it would work?" Bryanna asked thoughtfully.
"You can't seriously be thinking of doing this." Jade said incredulously.
"Tiana has a point, this is our last year and it is the best chance we'll
ever have." Bryanna replied pensively.
"I think it's worth a try." Tiana interjected before any more protests to
the idea could be offered. "If we wait for him to get out of Hogwarts,
he'll have women throwing themselves at him left and right just because
he's rich and famous, which means that we'd be just another couple of
sluts looking to shag the Boy-Who-Lived. If this is going to work, we
have to do it before that happens."
"That sounds a lot like whoring ourselves out." Isabel said

distastefully.
"You wouldn't be the one doing it!" Tiana snapped peevishly. "You've
already got a boyfriend and Jade still thinks she can get Wood to mount
her without transfiguring herself into a broom-"
"Hey!" Jade protested indignantly.
"-, however unlikely that is, so she's not going to do it either. That
leaves me and Bry and I'll tell you right now that I would much rather
shag that boy in every single broom cupboard in this damned castle than
end up like my mother, working as a low level clerk for a pureblood boss
that keeps taking credit for everything she does but can barely even wipe
her own arse without a house elf to help her."
Tiana took a deep breath to calm down after her rant and continued in a
much calmer tone. "The fact is that wastes of space like Flint and that
little shit Malfoy are going to have everything handed to them simply
because inbreeding is popular in this pisshole of a country. Screwing
Potter wouldn't be whoring so much as it would be.an investment into the
future. Either me or Bry, or hell, even both of us if we can find
somewhere out of Ravenclaw tower to do it, shag him nice and lazy, talk
him into investing into our little business venture while he's still
blissed out and promise him a small stake in our future profits.
Everybody wins and all it takes is getting a little sticky with what is
actually a pretty handsome thirteen year old. If we're lucky he might
even get us off."
While Isabel and Jade flushed in embarrassment like the virgins they
were, Bryanna stared back at her Slytherin friend, carefully considering
her arguments.
"I'll introduce you to him during the first Hogsmeade weekend."
"Both of us then?"
"Might as well. Better safe than sorry."
"And we can finish each other off if he turns out to be a

disappointment?"
"There is also that, yes."
"I'll wait for you in the Three Broomsticks."
"Good, now we just have to find a room with a bed."
"I'll ask the house elves if they know any."
XXXXX
Halloween.
"I can't believe he's going to Hogsmeade with that tramp." Ginny muttered
resentfully.
"She has-" Luna started, only to get cut off by the irate redhead.
"Nice boobies. Yes, I know."
She'd kept her distance from Harry ever since their argument. She simply
found it impossible to get around the fact that he was stringing the
seventh year girl along on the off chance that she'd jump into bed with
him.
Not that Bryanna was spared her anger, since the older Ravenclaw was
actually the instigator of the situation.
It just didn't make any sense to her. Harry was supposed to be a hero!
Alright, fine, Ginny was willing to admit that the mental picture of him
she'd had before meeting him wasn't entirely accurate, but he still
hadn't been like this last year!
He'd defended her on the train when Malfoy had insulted her. He had
tutored her and Luna when it became obvious that Lockhart didn't have the
first clue about Defense Against the Dark Arts. He had quickly figured
out the problem with the diary and helped Dumbledore deal with the
basilisk. He might not have been the same Harry Potter as in the books,
but there had been no doubt in Ginny's mind that he was a hero.
Now he was suddenly looking to get into a girl's knickers and getting mad
at her for bringing it up. She had grudgingly accepted the fact that Luna
might have a point about boys, but that had been just looking. The fact
that he was actively working towards the goal of having meaningless sex
with a girl he didn't even know was beyond her ability to accept.
The fact that he'd called her a kid and that he liked older women was
another point of contention, especially in light of the fact that she
could barely think about sex without blushing while he treated it so
cavalierly.
So she'd distanced herself from Harry and waited for him to come
apologize. Her brothers had always apologized to her when she got upset.
They might drag their feet sometimes, but they always did it in the end.
But Harry wasn't her brother. Furthermore, he seemed to have no intention

of trying to fix their friendship and now he was going to Hogsmeade on
what could technically be called a date with a seventh year with no sign
of being bothered by the situation.
Now she was starting to worry that there wouldn't be any apologies or
making up. Indeed, it was looking as if there wouldn't even be a
friendship anymore.
This wasn't how things were supposed to be and she had no idea what to do
about it. Confused and upset by the way things were going, she
reluctantly decided to write to her mother. She'd held off on it so far,
not wanting to go running back to her mother to solve her problems, but
she needed advice that wasn't a flat statement about boobies.
Luna was actually very smart beneath her absent demeanor, but she just
didn't get it.
XXXXX
Luna watched as Ginny pinned her letter to one of the school owls and
sighed.
She could understand the redhead's position, she really could, but it was
just silly of her to be upset at Harry for being himself. If he wanted to
play with Bryanna's boobies and she let him do it, then Luna could only
smile at them and hope they had fun. The fact that Ginny was upset by it
baffled her.
But Ginny was also being herself with her attempts to get Harry to stop
being himself, so she didn't say anything. Hopefully, her failure would
teach Ginny that you couldn't transfigure a person into a different
person and they could all be friends again.
No matter how detailed you made a potato castle, it was still just a
bunch of mashed potatoes . People could learn a lot from potatoes.
Ginny should have spent more time making and contemplating potato
castles.
XXXXX
Harry wasn't quite as enthused about Hogsmeade as the other third years,
owing both to his aversion for large crowds and the way that some people
stared at him. On the other hand, he had a pretty girl on his arm and was
able to feel shamelessly smug about the jealous looks he'd caught amidst
the staring. The Hogwarts rumor mill had of course been hard at work
spreading speculation about the status of their relationship based on
limited information, which was now 'confirmed' by the two of them going
to Hogsmeade together. This had seemingly elevated him into some kind of
pseudo-legendary figure among the boys in his year and possibly even
those in the year above him.
As for Hogsmeade itself, he thought that the little wizarding settlement

was veryquaint. It was the only purely magical settlement in all of
Great Britain according to Bryanna, which said quite a bit about how tiny
the magical population had to be.
She had taken him on a short tour of the village and then suggested they
go to the Three Broomsticks for a pint of butterbeer to warm up.
Morbidly curious if butterbeer was actually made of beer and melted

butter and having no better ideas, he'd agreed.
Now he found himself sandwiched between Bryanna and a friend of hers that
went by Tiana.
Bryanna and Tiana. If Tiana wasn't a pale, curly haired brunette with
hazel eyes, they could've been twins with names like that.
Her convenient presence in the Three Broomsticks was unlikely to be a
coincidence given that they were friends. The Slytherin crest and green
trim on her robes also hinted at the fact that she might be an ambitious
schemer.
"So Bry tells me that you've been helping her learn the Patronus." Tiana
commented, casually letting her hand fall to his thigh.
"We've been helping each other." Harry replied, trying not to fidget as
the familiar prickle of magic passed through the runes on his back,
followed by the equally familiar lust.
"Don't be shy now, Harry." Bryanna teased, her own hand dropping to his
other thigh. "I wouldn't be half as far in learning it if it wasn't for
your insight."
Harry took a deep breath in a vain attempt to calm the dull fire going
through his loins. It had been over two months now since his last
rendezvous with Zoe and he was discovering that solo sessions of wand
polishing were simply not having the same effect anymore. Bryanna's light
teasing and seemingly innocent touches since the start of term certainly
hadn't helped.
Now he had two very pretty girls giving him some very damned blatant
signals and it was a struggle not to grab them by the hair, kiss them and
then drag them to the first empty room he could find. He knew that this
had to be because of whatever ambition they were hoping to use him for,
but it didn't really make the situation easier.
The proprietor of the establishment decided to approach them at that

point, and just so happened to be a curvaceous MILF in the first set of
cleavage baring robes Harry had seen thus far. It was hard to say how old
she was with the way that magic slowed down aging, but she was definitely
rocking the mature older woman look.
"Well isn't this a familiar sight?" Madam Rosmerta drawled in an amused

fashion.
"Excuse me?" Harry questioned after quickly clearing his throat to

prevent any embarrassing breaks in his voice. He was just glad that
Bryanna and Tiana had surreptitiously removed their hands from his
thighs. That would've made it really hard to pay attention to any
conversation.
"I was just reminded of your father andhis friends."
Harry noted the slight pause and correctly guessed that she had been
about to mention Sirius.
"They liked to come in here too, often with girls on their arms.
Shameless flirts they were."
Definitely been about to mention Sirius. Lupin did not come across as a
very flirty individual and Pettigrew had been.unattractive, to put it
lightly.
"I can certainly see why they would flirt with you." Harry replied, the
words slipping from his tongue before he could even think to stop them.
Fortunately, Rosmerta only burst into laughter instead of taking offense.
"You really are your father's son, aren't you? Except that you're
starting even younger. I'm Rosmerta, but you can call me Rosie." She said
merrily. "You girls need to be careful around this one."
"I'm sure we can handle him." Tiana smirked, hand snaking out to give
Harry's thigh quick squeeze.
"I'm sure." Rosmerta said with an answering smirk and adopted a more
professional demeanor. "What can I get you?"
"Three butterbeers please." Bryanna ordered.
"Coming right up."
Harry took the opportunity to check out the proprietor's swaying rear end
and found it to be just as appealing as the rest of her. Truly, magic was
wonderful for preserving a woman's sex appeal well past the age when a
non-magical female would have probably lost it already.
A quick look around the tavern let him know that the other patrons were
mostly minding their own business, though Ginny's brother Ron seemed to
be staring at him with an angry sort of jealousy from where he was
sitting with his Gryffindor friends for some reason. That was pretty
random, but it wasn't as if Ron was actually important.
"You know what, Bry? I think we aren't trying hard enough if Mr. Smooth
here has time to flirt with Rosmerta." Tiana commented, sliding her hand
a bit further up his thigh.
"I have to agree." Bryanna said, mirroring the action.
Harry held back a groan. It was going to be a long day, but like hell was
he going to let himself be teased like this without retaliation.
"And what are you going to do about it?" He asked, boldly reaching out to
return the teasing with a thigh squeeze of his own. Only to Bryanna
though, as he hadn't known Tiana long enough to be quite that bold.
"Harry!" The way she breathed out his name, with a mix of surprise and
pleasure, had to be just about the sexiest thing he'd ever heard.
"Tsk tsk, Potter. It's bad form to pay attention to just one of us and
ignore the other." Tiana commented from his other side.
Knowing an invitation when he heard one, Harry reached out with his
unoccupied hand to give her leg a squeeze too.
"That's better." The Slytherin girl said huskily.
"You three might want to cool off a bit." Rosmerta said as she deposited
their butterbeers on the table, making the teens jump in surprise because
they hadn't noticed her approach. "You're making me all hot and bothered
just looking at you."
"Sorry." Harry said sheepishly, embarrassed by the gentle reprimand.

Things really had been going a bit out of hand for a public space.
"I know how it is." She replied wistfully. "I used to be a teenager too
once, a long time ago."
"Nonsense, you can't possibly be a day over thirty." Harry responded

instantly in a knee jerk reaction that had actually been trained into him
by Katherine for when she wanted some older woman to feel flattered by
her 'charming son'. Inanely enough, it had been among her more effective
schemes.
Apparently it worked on pub owning witches just as well as it did on

snobby muggle women, as it sent Rosmerta into a peal of delighted
laughter.
"You're quite the sweet talker, aren't you Harry?" She asked with a
teasing lilt to her tone.
"I try." He responded with a shrug, not wanting to admit that that last
one hadn't been entirely intentional. The flirtatious compliment had been
sincere for a change though. Rosmerta might not look as young as thirty
anymore, but she still looked damned good, which was more than could be
said for almost every other woman he'd said that to before.
"You're succeeding." Rosmerta returned with a flirtatious smile and

turned to leave. "Wave me over if you need a refill."
"Should we leave you alone so that you can focus you attention on
Rosmerta?" Bryanna asked, amused.
"I was just being friendly." Harry defended, semi-truthfully. He knew

that barmaids would often flirt as a matter of course because it kept
people coming back, but he did find her undeniably attractive. It didn't
help that the two girls on either side of him had gotten him seriously
randy and predisposed towards flirting.
"Suuure you were." Tiana drawled out, clearly not believing him.
XXXXX
Sirius had intended to make an attempt to infiltrate Hogwarts on

Halloween, but there was one thing that he wanted to do first just in
case he failed and ended up being dementor chow.
He had to see Harry, had to see if his godson was alright. He hadn't been
able to find him before, but he had to see him. The rage he felt for the
cowardly rat hadn't abated in the slightest, but his previous failure had
instilled enough caution in him to acknowledge the admittedly high chance
that he was going to die in the attempt to extract revenge for James and
Lily's murder.
In hindsight, rushing off half-cocked after Wormtail had betrayed them to

Voldemort had been a bad idea, but he hadn't been in a particularly
rational mood at the time. He still wasn't truth be told, though at this
point it was because of twelve years of dementor exposure rather than
homicidal rage.
But getting back to the point, he had to see Harry first. He knew that
there was always a Hogsmeade weekend before Halloween, which was by far
the safest avenue for him to get a glimpse of his godson.
He stayed in his Animagus form and stuck to the woods around the village,
keeping his doggy nose up in the air, hoping to get a whiff of his
godson's scent. It would undoubtedly be different after twelve years, but
he hoped that he could still recognize it.
Hours later, he had all but lost hope and started thinking that maybe
Harry hadn't been able to leave the castle for some reason. When the
barely familiar scent wafted into his nose, Padfoot accidentally planted
his face into the dirt in his eagerness to get a look.
Stalking stealthily through the outskirts of the forest, Sirius caught

sight of his quarry as they moved towards the Shrieking Shack and did an
almost cartoonish rendition of a canine jaw drop.
Harry was.tall. Too tall for his age. Tall enough that Sirius seriously
wondered for a moment whether he'd spent more than just twelve years in
Azkaban. He looked so much like James that it hurt to look at him, though
he kept his hair at a length more reminiscent of Sirius himself, nor did
he wear glasses. Sirius couldn't see color in his Animagus form, but he
was sure that the boy's eyes were still Lily's beautiful emerald green.
The fact that his godson had not one but two witches that looked to be
seventh years keeping him company nearly overrode his self control and
had him running towards the boy to lick his face in a display of pure
pride.
Once the initial reaction passed though, Sirius felt a stab of pain in
his chest, remembering better times with his best friend. For all that
James had been chasing Lily rather obsessively since third year, he
hadn't shied away from the occasional date with other witches. He and
Sirius would often bring whichever girl they were goofing around with at
the time to the Three Broomsticks for a pint of butterbeer and an amusing
bit of flirting with the ever delightful proprietor. Their dates would
invariably get jealous of the attention they were giving to the older
woman, giving the two of them an opportunity to make it up to them later,
sometimes in very pleasurable ways. Quite a few broom closets and
abandoned classrooms held fond memories for him.
Lost in his grief and memories, Padfoot unintentionally whined loudly.
XXXXX
It turned out that butterbeer was not as disgusting as its name implied.
It was in fact rather delicious and had some kind of magic in it that
spread warmth over the whole body when drunk.
To Harry's minor annoyance, his runes made quick work of that due to it
being a foreign magic. He hadn't considered that when carving them. It
wouldn't have stopped him as it really was a minor thing, but the
oversight displeased him. It was good to have confirmation that it worked
at least.
They had stayed in the Three Broomsticks for a while, having a

conversation intersped with flirting and teasing touches. Not as intense
as it had been at first since they hadn't wanted to get another warning
from Rosmerta, but still enough that Harry felt the magic in his runes
prickling in an almost annoyed fashion at the time it was taking to get
to the main event.
He had no idea what kind of plan Bryanna and Tiana had cooked up, but he
could hardly wait to get to the part where they tried to take advantage
of him.
After leaving the tavern, the girls had suggested taking a look at the
Shrieking Shack, which was supposed to be the most haunted place in
Britain, though nobody seemed able to say why exactly that was.
That was about the time when they all heard a loud, canine whine and
turned to look at the source.
A very big black dog was staring at them from between the trees, it's
eyes lightly shining.
The three students froze in surprise. The dog froze in surprise.
"Is that.a grim?" Tiana asked slowly, as if afraid that the sound would
provoke it to attack.
Harry knew exactly what that dog was and it wasn't a grim. It looked a
lot more ragged than he remembered, but it was undoubtedly Sirius'
Animagus form, Padfoot.
"I don't think so." Bryanna replied uncertainly, squeezing Harry's arm as
if to reassure herself that she wasn't alone. "Grims are supposed to be
spectral and this one looks solid."
Harry knew that he had to do something and fast. There was an opportunity
here, but he could already see Sirius getting ready to bolt. He still had
a few questions about the night that his parents had died and Sirius was
possibly the only person who could give him the answers he sought.
"It's Padfoot." He said, making things up as he went. "He's my dog, but I

have no idea what he's doing all the way up here."
"Your dog?" Bryanna and Tiana exclaimed in surprise, echoed by another

whine from an equally surprised Padfoot.
Sirius had no idea how to react. He'd known that it would have been too
much to hope for that Harry would remember him, but it seemed that his
godson did indeed remember. He couldn't have known the name of his
Animagus form otherwise.
"He wouldn't hurt anyone, would you, Padfoot?" Harry asked pointedly,
staring at the dog Animagus. If Sirius had a wand and the intent to use
it, then Harry didn't fool himself into thinking that he could take him
on in a straight fight, but he'd shown zero aggression so far.
He'd long since deduced that the dementors hovering around the school
were supposedly for his protection in case Black went after him, which
was in his opinion a completely asinine security measure. If the Ministry
was right, then this was the best chance that Black was ever going to get
to kill him.
Padfoot let his tongue hang out of his mouth and panted happily, trotting
over to the three of them and giving Harry's hand a lick.
"See? He's harmless." Harry said, wiping his drool stained hand on his
robes.
"I guess." Tiana said dubiously, still staring at the hulking canine
warily.
Now what? Asking them to give me a moment alone with a dog would be
suspicious and I can hardly talk to Sirius with them around.
It was a strange situation that compelled a teenager to ditch two pretty

girls that seemed intent on having their way with him, but that was what
Harry found himself doing. Lust simply had to take a backseat this time.
"Excuse me for a few minutes girls, I need to get Padfoot back home." He
said to Bryanna and Tiana, making up his mind on a course of action.
"Okay." They agreed, still a bit uncertain about the whole situation but
much more composed than they had been before.
"Teeny." Harry said softly.
The small house elf popped in, looking happy at being called.
"You's called for Teeny, master Harry Potter sir?" She asked earnestly,
already looking around for things to do.
"I did." He confirmed. "Could you please transport me and Padfoot here
back to the manor?"
"Teeny can be doing it!" She proclaimed, not even questioning why he
suddenly had a dog.
"I'll be back in a few minutes." Harry assured the girls and vanished
with the quiet pop of a house elf apparition.
Bryanna and Tiana exchanged glances
"Didn't he tell you that he lives with muggles?" Tiana asked.
"Wondering about the house elf?"
"Yup."
XXXXX
The three of them appeared in the sitting room of Potter Manor with the
same quiet pop that they had disappeared with.
"Is you and the doggy wanting something to eat, master Harry?" Teeny
asked a second later, knowing what Harry's appetite was like.
"Not right now, thank you." Harry refused politely, once more wishing
that he could have gotten the little house elf to stop calling him
'master'. Unfortunately, her lower lip started wobbling tremulously
whenever he tried to bring the subject up and he ended up backing down.
She was an expert in emotional blackmail.
Once Teeny had made herself scarce, Sirius transformed back into human
form, making Harry tense warily even though he'd been expecting it.
"Harry." The bedraggled man in Azkaban prison robes said, spreading his
arms and taking a step forward as if to give him a hug.
"Hold it right there." Harry said firmly, taking a step back and raising
his arms defensively. "I'm fairly sure that you didn't betray my parents
and that you don't mean me any harm, but that doesn't mean I trust you."
"It was Pettigrew!" Sirius said loudly, looking a little wild eyed now.
"He was the traitor!"
"What about the twelve muggles that you supposedly killed?" Harry
pressed.
"Also him. He shouted something about me betraying James and Lily when I
cornered him and then fired off a blasting curse."
"Alright, I believe you." Harry nodded after a moment's consideration,

having already known that the situation was fishy and seeing no
particular reason for Sirius to be lying to him. "But I'm still not
hugging you, you stink."
Sirius stared at him in shock for a second and then burst into near
hysterical laughter.
Harry frowned slightly in consternation. It hadn't been that funny.
"I bet you'd prefer a hug from those two girls of yours, eh Harry?"
Sirius ribbed once his chuckles had subsided.
"Obviously." Harry said drolly. "Speaking of which, we'll need to

postpone the rest of this meeting for another time. I need to get back
before anyone gets suspicious. Stay here and keep out of sight until we
figure out a way to get your name cleared, I'm sure that Teeny will be
glad to have someone to take care of."
"Wormtail!" Sirius suddenly shouted. "He's in the castle, I have to get

him!"
"Wormtail?" Harry questioned, the name(nickname?) being unfamiliar to

him.
"Pettigrew!" Sirius spat impatiently. "He's a rat Animagus, been hiding

out as the Weasley's pet rat ever since he framed me."
"Scabbers?" Harry wondered, having heard quite a few complaints about

Ron's pet rat from Ginny as well as occasionally seeing it at meals. That
ugly thing was an Animagus? He'd never seen Pettigrew transform in his
memories and hadn't honestly thought that such a weak looking wizard was
capable of it.
"Whatever he calls himself!" The escaped convict growled, throwing his

hands up into the air angrily. "I have to get back there and kill him for
what he did."
"I'll catch him." Harry stated. It shouldn't be too hard since the rat
wouldn't expect him. Getting him away from Weasley without anyone
noticing would be the bigger issue. Moreover, a living Peter Pettigrew
would be exactly the kind of evidence they'd need to prove that Sirius
was innocent.
"NO!" Sirius screamed, suddenly lunging to grab Harry by his robes. "He's
mine!"
Alarmed and angered by the sudden attack, Harry pried the man's hands off
and roughly shoved him to the floor. Not a feat of strength that a normal
thirteen year old would be capable off, but he was physically older than
his age, had a minor strength boost from his runes and Sirius was so far
from being in good shape that it wasn't even funny.
"Don't be an idiot!" Harry spat angrily. "Everyone is on the lookout for

you. You'll never succeed without alerting him and then he can just make
a run for it. We'd never find him again if he escapes."
"I'm sorry, James." Sirius said contritely from the floor, sounding close
to tears. "You're right, we'll do it your way."
Harry ignored the fact that he'd just been called by his father's name.
The dementors had obviously not done Sirius' state of mind any favors.
"Stay in the manor and keep out of sight, nobody is going to look for you
here. I'll get Pettigrew and then we can figure out how to solve this
mess." He instructed, taking a deep breath to dispel the last of his
short burst of anger. "I really have to get back, but Charlus and Dorea
have portraits up on the first floor if you want to talk to them."
Too bad that wards can't be used to keep someone inside them, he's far
too unstable for my liking. Harry thought, holding back a grimace.
That was a strange quirk of wards. They could do a lot of things,

including block apparition and portkeys, but keeping someone from just
walking past them was something that was impossible to do. It could be
set up to trigger effects for anyone doing so, even lethal ones, but that
only worked from the outside coming in. Azkaban would have been truly
inescapable if it were otherwise. Line style exclusion spells such as the
Age Line were the only exception, but they weren't really wards and
couldn't be anchored to anything, which meant that they needed to be
frequently reinforced.
And on that note, he was going to need to tell Teeny to keep the man from
leaving. He wasn't likely to get more than one opportunity to make a grab
for Pettigrew and Sirius did not strike him as the subtle type.
Sirius blanched at the thought even as he got to his feet. Talk to James'
parents? The people who had shown him nothing but kindness and whose son
and daughter-in-law he'd killed with his stupidity? A horde of dementors
sounded less scary, even if they were just portraits.
XXXXX
"Got your dog sorted?" Bryanna asked once Teeny had popped Harry back to
Hogsmeade.
"Yeah." Harry nodded. "Crazy mutt was all set to make another trip up
here and took some convincing to get him to stay put."
"I don't think we have time to visit the Shrieking Shack anymore." Tiana
said with a small frown. "It's nearly time to go back to Hogwarts."
"Alright, lets go then." He said, his mind already chewing over the
problem of Pettigrew.
"Oh Haaary~." Bryanna sing-songed. "Aren't you forgetting something?"
Harry turned to stare at her, seeing both girls holding their hands out
for him to take.
Oh, right. That was still happening. Maybe the Pettigrew problem could
wait for another day.
Chapter 8
Guest review responses! I haven't done one of these in a while.
Partha Lahiri: Could you please specify which part of the fic puts such a
fire in your crotch? I'd like to know so I can put more of it in. Clearly
I must be doing something right if I can evoke such a powerful emotional
reaction.
XXXXX
Living back in Potter Manor after Azkaban had been an emotional

experience for Sirius.
He'd nearly cried when Teeny had told him that she'd drawn him a bath and
laid out a clean set of robes for him. He had cried when he took his
first bite of food in twelve years that didn't taste like it had been
scraped off a troll's arse or fished out of the garbage. It had taken him
a good ten minutes to convince Teeny that there was nothing wrong with
her cooking after that. The Potter house elf had always been an insecure
little thing.
It was then that he had decided that there had been enough blubbering.
Sirius Black was not some emotionally fragile preteen girl that kept
bursting into tears at the slightest provocation. He was a manly man and
would act like it.
That resolve had lasted exactly one hour, which was the time it took him
to build up the nerve to go talk to Charlus and Dorea's portraits. He'd
started bawling again as soon as they told him that they didn't blame him
for James and Lily's deaths.
Sirius still felt responsible, but didn't argue. He'd never had it in him
to argue with Charlus and Dorea.
XXXXX
Remus spent the majority of the Halloween feast staring at the son of his
friends, still wallowing indecisively over how or even if to approach
him.
Dumbledore had told him that the boy seemed to somehow know about him
already. It would be so much simpler if Harry deigned to make the first
move, but he couldn't put that all on Harry without being a hypocrite.
James and Sirius had always been the ones who made things happen in the
Marauders. Charismatic James Potter and bold Sirius Black, getting in and
out of trouble as easy as breathing. Remus had participated in their
antics eagerly, happy to have friends at all with his condition, but he
hadn't been a driving force like James or Sirius. Peter had been even
more of a follower than him and couldn't even boast the same kind of
intelligence and skill that would have made him their equal the same as
it did for Remus.
Harry wasn't really much like James in temperament. Not nearly as social
or boisterous and too studious by half.
But sometimes he reminded him so much of James that it was hard to keep
from calling him the wrong name. Times like now, when Remus had heard
that he'd gone to Hogsmeade with one seventh year witch and left it with
two. Remus had once been terribly envious of his two friends' easy way
with the opposite gender, something that he'd always had to avoid due to
his lycanthropy even when the opportunity presented itself. Nowadays it
was just another regret among many.
And speaking of regrets...
One of the larger ones was sitting at the same table as him, occasionally
shooting a glower at Harry.
Snape had been a favored target for James and Sirius, no doubt a result
of James' near obssesive infatuation with Lily and Sirius being the
supportive best friend by backing him up. Severus' friendship with her
had riled them like nothing else. Remus and Peter hadn't participated in
picking on the dour Slytherin often, but they hadn't protested either.
It had felt too good to have someone that he, a werewolf, could feel pity
for to do that and Peter had likely had a similar reason, minus the
lycanthropy. A shameful realization about himself that had come far too
late to be helpful. It was one of the main reasons that he didn't try to
retaliate or defend himself from Snape's veiled barbs these days. He
deserved them.
Not that Severus had been a helpless victim. He'd given almost as good as
he'd gotten in many cases, which was particularly impressive since he had
always been outnumbered. In truth, Remus had always strongly suspected
that Severus was a more powerful wizard than any single one of the
Marauders.
However much he enjoyed teaching, he found himself wishing that he hadn't

accepted Dumbledore's offer. There were too many regrets and memories in
this place, staring out at him either from the black eyes of a man too
bitter, proud and resentful to accept his apologies or from the bright
green of a teenager who looked at him with indifferent curiousity at
best.
He couldn't wait for the feast to be over. The cheerful armosphere did
not suit his mood.
XXXXX
A little further down the table, Snape glowered so darkly that not even
Dumbledore attempted to bother him with his infuriatingly inane chatter.
Halloween always put him in a foul mood. Lily had died on this day and
the innumerable twits infesting the world celebrating it grated on him.
The fact that Potter had deigned to grace the Great Hall with his
presence on this day for the first time since coming to Hogwarts made it
worse.
Rumor had already reached him of the brat's neophyte forays into the
philandering ways of his father and it curdled his opinion of the boy
more than anything else could have, along with his mood.
He couldn't wait for the feast to be over. The last of the firewhiskey
that Minerva had gotten him the previous Christmas sounded particularly
appealing right now.
XXXXX
Oblivious to the regard of the two professors, Harry continued eating as

he absently reached into the pocket of his robes to give the note it held
a squeeze. The message it held made his blood boil even as it sent a
nervous flutter to his stomach.
Come to the seventh floor after the feast, the opposite side of the
corridor from the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy. We'll be waiting.
Bryanna had slipped him the note before she'd left, with Tiana following
shortly afterwards. He felt almost as nervous as the first time with Zoe.
How did threesomes even work?
But he also couldn't wait for the feast to be over. It would be fun
learning how they worked.
XXXXX
One the feast was over Harry slipped away from prying eyes and made his
way up to the seventh floor. It was less expansive than most of the
castle, being as high up as it was, so there shouldn't be any trouble
finding the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy.
Granted, he had no idea what it looked like, but he figured that someone
that wizards titled 'the Barmy' would be doing something pretty fucking
crazy.
Trying to teach trolls how to do ballet defnitely fit the bill. Why would
anyone want to do that anyway?
But the ambitions of insane wizards were really of no importance to Harry

right now. What was important was the door on the opposite side of the
corridor. Harry cautiously opened the door and froze as soon as he
stepped inside.
He hadn't been sure what to expect of this room, but what he got was not
it. It was rather large, with several dozen floating candles giving it a
warm orange glow. It was somewhat bare of furniture except for the
exccessively large bed. Harry absently noticed the deep crimson bedding,
but most of his attention was on the two women currently occupying the
bed.
Bryanna and Tiana were laying on their sides, facing each other with
their legs entangled, echanging languid kisses.
Harry had assumed that the Wizarding World would be as intolerant of

homosexuality as it was about a lot of other things, but he was very glad
to be wrong for a change. When thinking of it later on, he would
eventually conclude that the contempt that magicals had for monotheistic
religion was likely the main reason for this surprising tolerance, but he
was entirely too distracted to be thinking about that right now.
The girls noticed him at that point and separated from each other.
"Looks like it's time for the main event." Bryanna said huskily, giving
Harry a smouldering look.
"Finally." Tiana muttered under her breath.
The two of them had decided to get each other ready just in case Harry
was one of those guys that liked to just get to the main event and fall
asleep right after, like their first times had been. If he did end up
being like that, then they'd at least be plenty wet enough for it to only
be disappointing instead of unpleasant.
The only problem had been restraining themselves to just kissing and some
light petting and not getting started without him. That would have run
counter to the whole point. They weren't really lesbians or even
bisexual, but there was nothing wrong with getting a bit of relief with a
friend. Especially when the pickings among the male population were so
slim.
Harry watched in entranced fascination as they got off the bed and walked
towards him. Both of them were wearing sheer nighties that simply had to
be enchanted. They looked as though they might have originally come out
of a muggle lingerie store, but no regular fabric could shimmer so
enticingly as it moved. It looked as though they were made of impossibly
fine metal, with Bryanna's being bronze and Tiana's silver. They had
nothing but bright blue and green panties under those, an amusing nod to
the color of their Hogwarts houses.
He'd just taken in that interesting little detail when they reached him,
one after the other giving him a deep kiss without preamble.
"You're overdressed, Harry." Bryanna whispered into his ear as two sets
of hands started undoing his robes. "Lets fix that, shall we?"
Busy as he was kissing Tiana and running his hands over her thinly
covered body, Harry couldn't respond, but he definitely wasn't going to
object.
There was one thing that absolutely had to be done before things went any
further though.
"One moment." He said breathlessly after separating his lips from those
of the Slytherin girl.
Then he drew his wand and quickly cast two contraception charms.
"Protection, Harry?" Tiana smirked. "That's very responsible of you, but

we're already on the potion."
"Better safe than sorry." He shrugged and eagerly leaned back to kiss her
before she could respond.
They left a trail of discarded clothing on the floor as they stumbled

towards the bed, by which time Harry had nothing but his underwear left
on him.
Harry grabbed Tiana's legs when they reached the edge of the bed and
lifted her onto it, covering her body with his own immediately after.
Guess I get to be first. She thought humorlessly when she felt him
hooking his thumbs into her panties and pull them off.
Instead of having a male member of underwhelming size shoved into her, he

had her gasping in surprise as he dived for her crotch mouth first, with
every indication that he'd been dying to do just that.
Harry had in fact been dying to do just that, having developed something
of an oral fixation with Zoe. Maybe it had been his desire to reach the
coveted ten out of ten on the cunnilingus scale, or maybe it was the ego
boost that hearing a woman panting in pleasure while he ate her out gave
him. Either way, he wasn't going to miss out on a chance to do it.
Seeing her friend making sounds of pleasure that didn't sound faked,
Bryanna made a facial expression somewhere between a smirk and a pout.
Smirking, because it looked like Tiana's plan to fake their orgasms
wouldn't be needed and pouting because she wasn't getting any attention.
Then her expression changed all the way into a smirk as she got an idea.
First, she pulled off her own nightie and panties, then she tugged down
Harry's underwear to get him completely naked.
With a critical look that she would've kept off her face if he could see
it, Bryanna examined Harry's package and nodded to herself. It wasn't
really anything to write home about, but it was impressive for a thirteen
year old. At the very least it would do more than tickle when he put it
in.
Running her hands gently over the exposed genitals, she leaned over to
him and spoke in her most throaty voice.
"I'll be expecting the same treatment, so don't exhaust yourself too

quickly."
Harry groaned his agreement into Tiana's crotch, incidentally making the
Slytherin groan as well. His jaw was not going to thank him for it, but
he fully intended to do just that.
XXXXX
One hour later.
Bryanna grunted as Harry sheathed himself into her from behind, the
entrance being very easy due to her previous orgasm leaving her well
lubricated.
Tiana was sprawled on her back next to them, the trickle of semen leaking
from her attesting to Harry's own recent ograsm.
An orgasm that he seemed to have already recovered from.
Harry looked down at the witch he was thrusting into, feeling the
familiar thrill of power that this position gave him. It was even more
pronounced than it had been with Zoe. Unlike his muggle friend, Bryanna
had a tangible power within her that he could feel when he was this
close. A power that felt submissive to him when he took her like this.
Lost in the moment, he decided to see if he couldn't push things a bit

further.
Bryanna leaned her head back eagerly when she felt a hand grabbing her
hair. The combination of being taken from behind and having her hair
grabbed felt good.
She didn't think much of it when he pulled her head a bit to the side and
thrust into her hard enough to nudge her forward.
She did notice however when he started pushing her head towards Tiana's
soiled crotch.
"Lick her." Harry ordered with a grunt as he pushed himself all the way
into her and stopped moving. "We wouldn't want her falling asleep now,
would we?"
Bryanna wanted to protest, but something about the situation made her
inner walls clench with anticipation around his shaft. She wanted him to
start moving again and damn if his commanding behavior wasn't hot.
So she gave in and set to work on getting her friend off again, ignoring
both the taste of Harry's seed and the protesting mewl that Tiana made to
the stimulation.
Seeing a witch four years his senior give in to his desire sent Harry
hurtling over the edge of his second orgasm entirely too fast, but he
didn't fight it and released into her with a drawn out groan.
Drawing in big gulps of air, he watched her arse sticking into the air
and a drop of sperm trickle from her opening. He could already feel his
arousal returning at the sight. He was going to be hard again in a
minute.
He had something else that he wanted to do though.
Not bothering with a wand since neither of the two girls could see him,
Harry focused on what he wanted and sent a cleaning charm at Bryanna's
crotch.
The Ravenclaw girl jumped slightly as the spell removed not only his own
leavings, but also the wetness generated by her arousal.
"Harry!" She gasped, sounding a mixture of scandalized and aroused. "Did

you just cast a spell at my fanny?!"
"Get back to licking." He told her with a grin and planted his face in
the aforementioned fanny. After all, he'd made her dry again and that
just wouldn't do.
Bryanna groaned at having his tongue applied to her again. The spell had
been like a jolt of cold power right to her privates, so his hot tongue
was feeling particularly good right now. The position was also new and
exciting to her. She'd never gotten licked from behind before.
And speaking of licking, she went back to flicking her tongue over the
tired Slytherin's clitoris.
Harry had a point. Tiana had no business falling asleep already. Shagging
the overly virile third year had been her idea and by Merlin she was
going to help tire him out.
XXXXX
Two hours later.
Tiana opened her eyes blearily as she heard Harry groan and spurt out
what couldn't be more than a few drops of sperm into her abused snatch.
She was currently lying on her stomach and mostly just happy to let the
boy do whatever he wanted until he tired himself out.
Bryanna was already passed out next to her, having thrown her under the
metaphorical bus earlier and told Harry to leave her alone and use the
Slytherin to satisfy himself. The bitch.
Neither one of them had expected Harry to have that much damned stamina.
Oh sure, he technically cheated by giving himself breaks and resorting to
the use of his tongue , but at the end of the day, he was still the one
that had exhausted them instead of the other way around. The after sex
business proposition they'd planned was just going to have to wait until
morning.
She felt the bed dip as a new weight shimmied between her and Bryanna.
She hadn't even noticed him getting off the bed in the first place.
To her great relief, he merely pulled both of them close and settled down
to sleep. If he'd tried going anywhere near her groin again, she might
have just slapped him. If she could be bothered to lift her arms that
was.
Instead she just settled into his side and took a deep breath, taking in
the smell of food.
Wait...food?
He'd gotten himself a snack before getting back to bed?
The absurdity of his appetite made Tiana giggle sleepily as she fell back
into slumber.
Harry raised an eyebrow a the weird giggle/snore hybrid that the

Slytherin girl had just made, wondering what the hell she was dreaming
about.
Eh, no matter. He was way too exhausted to really care. He'd almost been
too exhausted to eat, but the gurgling emptiness of his stomach would
never have let him sleep.
XXXXX
The morning after was greeted with parched throats, full bladders,
terrible morning breath and sore nethers.
Fortunately, there was a bathroom attached to the room, the house elves
were always happy to provide assistance with anything food related and
minor healing spells could soothe the soreness.
Once all of that had been taken care of, they went back to snuggling on
the bed.
"Where did you girls find this amazing room?" Harry asked with a sigh,
sinking into the deliciously soft pillows.
"The elves call it the Come And Go room, or the Room of Requirement.
Apparently you just have to pace across the hallway three times and think
about what you want."
"And the castle just reads your mind and makes the room?" Harry asked
incredulously.
"Looks like it." Bryanna shrugged.

"Huh, that's interesting."
Very interesting. In fact, Harry was quite sure that he'd just found a
new favorite room in the castle.
"So...Harry, what did you think of what we were wearing?" Tiana asked
casually, dragging a finger along his chest.
"Those sexy nighties?" He asked with a grin. "I loved them. Where did you
find those anyway? It doesn't look like something that you could buy in
Diagon Alley and I could feel the magic in them."
"We made them." Bryanna said proudly. "Well, us and two other friends."
"That's quite a talent you've got there." He complimented.
"Thank you." Tiana accepted graciously. "We've been thinking of opening a

clothing store that caters to more...modern tastes than Madam Malkin's,
but it's hard to start up a business in the Wizarding World."
Harry smiled wryly, the realization dawning on him.
"So you hatched a plan to seduce an orphaned heir to a Noble House and
get him to foot the bill." He said dryly.
Bryanna and Tiana exchanged glances and shrugged, giving up the pretense
of casual conversation. This had been supposed to happen while he was
still mellow from the sex and sleepy. They hadn't counted on him being
able to wear them out, but they had to deal with the situation as it was.
"Yes." The Ravenclaw girl said with as much dignity as could be mustered
in the situation. "So, will you do it? You said that you liked our work
and we have plenty of other ideas for things, not just night clothes and
underwear."
"Explain the whole situation to me and I'll think about it." He said, not
keen to agree to anything just yet.
"It's fairly simple really." Bryanna began with a shrug. "All four of us
are of the opinion that the Wizarding World could do with a fashion
update and want to open a clothing store. The problem is that getting the
start up capital is damn near impossible and the pureblood pricks running
the Ministry start bleating protests every time someone tries to do
something different."
Tiana took up the narrative from there. "You might have noticed that it
looks like we just took some muggle clothing and enchanted it, which is
fairly close to the mark. We haven't figured much of the sewing spells
that are used in creating clothes because those tend to be professional
secrets, but buying stuff made by muggles, enchanting it and reselling is
simple enough if you've got the skill."
"The problem is that some pureblood could easily decide that he didn't
like what we were doing, throw some money around and get it classified
under 'Misuse of Muggle Artefacts' to make the whole thing illegal. So we
were hoping that you would give us the start up gold and let us use the
Potter name." Bryanna finished.
"How would using my name help?" Harry asked curiously.
"Lords of Noble Houses get all kinds of exemptions to the law, including
the one about misusing muggle artefacts. If they made it illegal for you,
then they'd be making it illegal for themselves too." She answered and
continued with a mutter. "As if a bra was an artefact."
The two girls went quiet and Harry mulled over their words. He'd never
much cared for the ungainly robes that wizards liked so much and was
definitely in favor of having alternatives, but he had noticed how
tradition obsessed the culture was. They weren't likely to turn a profit
for years. In fact, the entire venture could quite easily just end up
being a huge money sink.
That being said, it could also turn out to be spectacularly successful.

The muggleborns would almost definitely like it, just as certainly as the
purebloods would hate it. The halfbloods were a toss up. An important
toss up as they made up anywhere between 60 and 80% of the population.
"How much would you need?" He asked after a few minutes.
"A few thousand galleons at least." Bryanna said with wince, knowing that
it wasn't a small amount of money, but also knowing better than to
sugarcoat it. They'd need that money to buy the space, build up stock and
advertise, not to mention living expenses since they'd essentially be
unemployed during that time. If he refused them, then their only other
avenue would be to take a loan from Gringotts and only idiots borrowed
money from the goblins. Their interest rates were ruinous.
Harry wasn't too bothered by the number. The basilisk carcass had sold
for truly ridiculous sums, enough that he had no worries about running
out of funds by the time he reached adulthood even if he became quite an
extravagant spender. It wasn't as much as he had in his main vault, but
it would probably be comparable to the fortune of a very minor Noble
family.
"I'll give you ten thousand." He said, lips quirking at how their eyes
widened. "BUT, I want majority ownership. 60%."
"Then you'd be the one owning it, not us." Tiana grumbled. She wanted to
be her own boss, not an employee in someone else's business.
"I'm the one taking the risk here, not you." Harry pointed out. "If this
idea of yours sinks, I'll be the one taking the hits."
"I don't suppose we could convince you to lower that percentage down to
49?" Bryanna asked coyly, hand reaching to fondle him between the legs.
"I have a better idea." He said with a grin.

"Really?" Tiana asked, clearly sceptical.
"I give you the money and keep the 60%, you wait for me to claim lordship
before opening your store and focus on building up stock in the meantime,
I keep your business afloat for as long as it takes to start turning a
profit. Once it does start turning a profit you start paying back my
investment, for which I won't charge any interest by the way. When
however much debt you've accumulated to me is paid off, I turn over 20%
to each of you."
The girls exchanged contemplative looks. It was, all told, a fairly good
deal. They would have needed to wait for him to claim lordship in any
case to protect them from any possible legal fiction concocted by the
uptight purebloods. The part about not charging interest for the
investment and turning simply handing them 40% of the business once it
was repaid was particularly generous and not something they could expect
to get from anywhere else.
"There are four of us though." Bryanna reminded him, taking note of the
fact that she and Tiana would have majority ownership with this
arrangement. Not an entirely displeasing idea, truth be told.
"Well I'm not seeing the other two here, so I'm not inclined to give them
larger shares." He returned. "Speaking of which...how would you two feel
about keeping me company for the rest of the year?"
The girls exchanged another glance at that, knowing exactly what kind of
company he wanted. They hadn't really planned for any future trysts, but
they didn't want anything jeopardizing their future either and were far
too cynical to assume that Harry was a decent enough bloke to not take it
personally if they refused, Boy-Who-Lived or not.
"I'm sure that something could be arranged."
Besides, even if Harry wasn't the most amazing lover ever, he was
enthusiastic, had stamina and wasn't shy about putting his tongue to work
to get a girl off. That mostly made up for his somewhat limited
experience. Who knows, he might even learn a thing or two about properly
using that cock of his eventually.
XXXXX
Molly read over the letter that her daughter had sent her again and
frowned, still unsure how to reply to it.
Ginny had been so excited to have made friends with the Boy-Who-Lived
last year and now this had happened.
Molly was well aware of how the heirs of Noble Houses tended to act
during the later years of their Hogwarts education. She'd always been
fiercely disapproving, but had kept it mostly to herself since it didn't
concern her. Aside from that one fool incident with a love potion that
Arthur had later forgiven her for, she'd held herself to a higher
standard than both the witches throwing themselves at noble heirs and
those selfsame heirs taking advantage of their status to bed them.
Now Ginny was asking for advice on how to regain her friendship with one
of those types and if she was reading between the lines correctly, also
how to catch his interest.
Ron had been rather uncomplimentary of him at the start of his first
year, calling him rude and arrogant in his letters, but that had tapered
off after that poor muggleborn girl had been killed by the troll. Her
youngest son had never been quite the same after that, feeling partially
responsible for her death as he did.
Harry had seemed like a nice enough boy when they'd met him at the train
station at the end of the previous school year, if a bit terse and oddly
tall for his age, so she figured that they'd merely had a rocky first
meeting. She'd wanted to invite him to spend part of the summer at the
Burrow, but had held off when he seemed to be in such a hurry.
Molly could admit to herself that she was also slightly disappointed to
learn that Harry Potter would act like any other entitled lordling. She'd
expected better from the boy who had defeated Voldemort. Dumbledore had
told her before the start of Ginny's first year that Harry needed a
friend, so she'd thought that he'd be a bit on the shy side. Apparently,
that had not been exactly the case.
What was she supposed to tell Ginny? That Harry was likely to keep
bedding a stream of witches that were no doubt hoping to become the next
Lady Potter? That he was probably going to start receiving marriage
offers at the first sign of acceptance? That it was entirely possible
that quite a few of those witches would settle for being his mistresses?
That was another not spoken of practice among the Noble Houses that had
always grated on Molly's more conservative sensibilities. Marriages in
pureblood society were often based on social status or business deals
rather than any kind of affection, which naturally led to both the Lord
and Lady of a House having one or more lovers on the side. They'd produce
the agreed upon number of children, attend social functions together and
pretend to be a functional family, but ignore each other the rest of the
time in favor of their respective dalliances.
She didn't want that kind of future for her daughter. She would always be
grateful to Harry for recognizing the cursed diary for what it was, but
she didn't find her daughter's crush on the Boy-Who-Lived cute anymore.
She also handily ignored the fact that she had subtly encouraged said
crush.
A dark corner of her mind whispered about the Potter wealth and how nice
it would be to have access to it through Ginny, but she ignored that.
There were more important things in the world than money, her daughter's
happiness being one of those things.
XXXXX
Prongslet,
We didn't really get a chance to talk, so I decided to write you a

letter. Not really sure what to say to be perfectly honest, the last time
I saw you, you were turning James' hair green because he tried to make
you eat broccoli and now you're practically grown up.
I should have been there for you. I should have taken care of you instead
of going after Wormtail that night. Charlus and Dorea told me a bit about
your life and the people you live with now. You could come live with me
once this thing with Wormtail and my fugitive status is settled.
I say 'come live with me', but what I really mean is that I could take
guardianship of you. The Black family home isn't any more cheery than
Azkaban, so I wouldn't subject you to living there.
That was an interesting offer, but Harry wasn't sure if he would be

taking the man up on it. Yes, Robert and Katherine were annoying, but
they were familiar. He'd learned how to handle them a long time ago and
his recent dabbling into compulsion charms made it almost trivial to keep
them out of his hair. Not to mention that switching guardianship would
likely involve quite a bit of legal wrangling that he was keen to avoid.
On the other end of the spectrum was his godfather. A wizard would
certainly make for a more convenient guardian in many ways, but only as
long as he didn't actually try to act like a parent. Harry had no more
use for a parent, especially one that fancied himself as being
responsible. Responsible guardians would not let their charges perform
rituals of blood sacrifice or give them unlimited access to the more
questionable reading material of the Black Library.
Harry had no real interest in becoming a Dark Wizard in the traditional

sense, but he very much wanted to get at those books. The Potter family
library was nice, but suffered a crippling dearth of anything that
smacked of dark magic. The Black family was both several centuries older
and far less hampered by morals.
Charlus and Dorea had obviously not said a word about his rituals, which
was good. He hadn't had time to order them to keep quiet about those and
it was nice to know that they knew better than to blurt out that kind of
dangerous secret even if they thought it was for his own good.
On the whole, he was leaning towards rejecting Sirius' offer. He would

have to think about it some more, but so far it looked like a lot of
hassle for little gain. Sirius didn't have to be his legal guardian to
open the Black Library after all.
I know that we don't really know each other and a letter isn't a very
good way to change that, but needs must, so I'll just go and properly
introduce myself.
I am Sirius Orion Black, also known as the white sheep of the Inbred and
Most Pompous House of Black, and your dogfather...
After that mocking introduction, the letter delved into Sirius' first
meeting and instant friendship with James Potter on the Hogwarts Express,
as well as their meeting with Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew and some of
their adventures.
The words were full of nostalgia and more than a small amount of hatred
whenever Pettigew, and surprisingly Snape, came up. At least it explained
where Snape's animosity for him was coming from, petty though it was.
...I'd like to hear about your own Hogwarts adventure, the friends you've
made, the girls you've charmed.
Yours truly,
Padfoot.
P.S. Don't underestimate Pettigrew. He might not look like much, but he's
as slippery as his Animagus form and can be dangerous when cornered. I
know that your plan makes sense, but I'm still not comfortable with you
going after him alone. Remus would help you if you asked him. Hells, even
Dumbledore would probably help you.
Harry snorted. Like hell was he going to ask either a virtual stranger or
a manipulative old man for help. He didn't know Lupin well enough to
predict his reaction and giving Dumbledore any more information to work
with was the absolute last thing he was going to do.
Sirius had spoken about Lupin at length, even talking about his werewolf
status as though Harry already knew about it. That was somewhat careless
of the man, but Harry did have to admit that the clues had been there.
He was still not going to approach the man, despite Sirius' waxing
eloquent about what a loyal friend he was. Lupin meant nothing to him and
wasn't someone he trusted, so he would be doing this by himself.
The rat would have no blatantly obvious reason to suspect himself hunted
now that Sirius was safely in Potter Manor, which would make taking him
relatively easy.
He couldn't take him too soon though, as he would then run into the
problem of getting out of Hogwarts with the rat. House elves were exempt
from the Hogwarts wards and could apparate through them freely, but they
couldn't take passengers through them.
The Christmas holidays would provide the perfect exit, he just needed to
grab Pettigrew a short while before then.
Harry supposed that he could have told the teachers about this, but he
simply didn't trust them not to bungle it all up. He especially didn't
trust Dumbledore. The old wizard should have had more than just an
inkling of Sirius' innocence, so his inaction on the matter came either
from incompetence or some darker agenda.
No, better to handle it himself and keep it quiet until it was too late
for anyone to meddle. If word got out about this, he knew that the
Ministry would react in the usual fashion of politicians everywhere.
Namely, they would do everything in their power to save face and sweeping
the whole thing under the proverbial rug was the simplest way of doing
that. Innocent or guilty, Sirius Black represented a problem and an
embarrassment for the Ministry.
Before he made any plans for Pettigrew however, it would behoove him to
reply to the letter. If nothing else, he needed to get to know Sirius
before he could decide on the matter of guardianship.
XXXXX
Somewhat contrary to Harry's thoughts about him, Dumbledore did not have
any sinister agendas involving Sirius Black, nor was he even particularly
incompetent in this case.
He had not been told that the Potters had switched their Secret Keeper.
Hagrid, however big his heart was, did not have the brains to match. When
the half-giant had taken Harry from Sirius, he had assumed that the man
had given the baby up out of a desire to avoid fighting him right after
losing his dark master and had reported that to Dumbledore.
Dumbledore had believed him. It would be pretty hard to fight while

holding a baby after all. Furthermore, Black had not known the prophecy.
Had probably not known about the measures taken by Voldemort to avoid
death.
Dumbledore wanted to believe that Sirius was not so far gone as to murder
a baby even if he had fallen into the ways of his family and betrayed his
friends to the Dark Lord, so he did. It made him feel better to think
that there was still a spark of good even in otherwise evil people.
Assumptions made by people with below average intelligence were

dangerous. Assumptions made by optimists were equally dangerous. The
entire scenario would have made markedly less sense without one or both
of these things.
That was why he had not protested too much when Barty Crouch had told him
that Black had confessed and been thrown into Azkaban without a trial.
There had been so much work to do then that it was far from the only
procedural shortcut taken in the wake of Voldemort's death. If Sirius had
in the end seen the error of his ways and confessed to his crimes, then
there was no need to make a big procession of it.
Had Harry come to him for help with capturing Pettigrew, Dumbledore would
have been ecstatic. Not only would he get to help an innocent man, but he
would also get to show Harry that he could be relied on and trusted.
As it was, it never even crossed Harry's mind to tell Dumbledore anything

and the old wizard himself spent his nights pondering other problems.
Like how to get Fudge to call off those blasted Dementors and how much
truth there was to Harry's supposed 'relationship' with a seventh year
girl. Possibly two seventh year girls.
He actually had a fairly good idea of what the truth really was. The
broad strokes of it at least.
He could have tried to put an end to it, but frankly, it played into his
own plans quite well. Harry getting suckered into a marriage to an
ambitious young lady would perhaps be emotionally damaging to the young
man, but it would give him the strong tie to Britain that Dumbledore had
wanted to establish for some time now.
It might even allow the Potter family to produce a successor before

Harry's inevitable clash with destiny, remote though the possibility was.
It would be a shame for another old family to die out, so he was quietly
wishing the ambitious Ms. Torres and her friends the best of luck.
"Things are progressing rather well, wouldn't you say, Fawkes?" He asked
in a murmur.
The phoenix trilled sharply.
"I am trying, my friend. I am certain that I will be able to convince the

Minister to recall the dementors before long." The old wizard soothed. He
knew that the presence of the soul sucking horrors had not agreed with
his feathery friend. Phoenixes and dementors didn't get along. At all.
XXXXX
"Were you planning to be a ward specialist or enchanter, Harry?"

Professor Vector asked curiously as she examined his work.
Harry frowned thoughtfully. "Not really. Why do you ask?"
"Because you are quite advanced in the type of arithmancy required for
that kind of work, much further than in the fields that deal with spell
creation." She explained.
Ah, that would explain her assumption. Harry had needed to figure out the
more rigid equations used in rituals and those had quite a bit of overlap
with warding and enchanting, but had comparatively little interest in
deciphering wand movements.
"I hadn't really thought about it." He answered semi-truthfully. "That

type of arithmancy just comes easier to me."
"Hmm, we'll have to give spellcasting theory some more attention. It

tends to pop up in the OWL tests more frequently than static magic."
Harry's lips curled brielfy in distaste. He didn't particularly care

about a test score on a very stupidly named test. Knowing why this wand
movement worked better than that one was of little interest to him.
Wandless magic worked on a completely different principle that he was
only beginning to understand for all that he had managed to get a few
spells to work with it, but he knew enough to know that no arithmantic
knowledge of it existed.
"I'd prefer to keep working on general theory and static magic." He said
instead of voicing his distaste. "It's much more interesting and I'm sure
I'll be able to pass the OWLs either way."
Vector looked uncertain for a moment but then nodded her assent. She'd
offered him private tutoring exactly because Harry had been bored stiff
in her normal class. He might not get a perfect O in his OWLs by
neglecting spellcasting theory, but what he wanted to study featured more
prominently at the NEWT level. Nobody cared about your OWL scores if you
had a NEWT in the same subject, for better or for worse.
XXXXX
Ginny was dawdling and she knew it.
She'd gotten a response from her mother over a week ago, but had still
not done anything about the ever widening gulf between her and Harry.
She'd been hoping that her mother would be able to tell her how to get
Harry to go back to normal. A vain hope in retrospect, but one born of
seeing her father usually abiding by the wishes of his wife.
Instead, the letter had essentially advised her not to get mixed up in
whatever Harry was doing, with embarrassing extra emphasis on not trying
to prove to Harry how grown up she was by trying to sleep with him. It
didn't say that she shouldn't be friends with him, just that she should
let go of any feelings she might have developed for him.
Not exactly what Ginny had wanted to hear, nor particularly useful as far
as ways to get close to Harry again were concerned. She'd been angry
after their last talk, but she still wasn't entirely willing to give up
on him.
That was why she'd been procrastinating enough to put Ron to shame. She'd
been stubbornly hoping that the situation would somehow resolve itself.
Surprisingly even to her, it seemed to have done so.
Harry wasn't spending so much time around that seventh year tramp
anymore. They still seemed to be on friendly terms, but their interaction
was noticeably less frequent.
If Harry was distancing himself from the older girl, then maybe he was
seeing the error of his ways? Or maybe he'd simply gotten tired of
humoring the gold digging slut. Either way, Ginny felt that this was the
perfect time to go talk to him.
As she usually did when she wanted to talk to him privately, she woke up
early and made her way to his room, knowing that he too had a propensity
for waking up early. Their different schedules and his habit of
disappearing at random meant that it was by far the best time to catch
him alone.
Just as she was about to knock on the door, it opened.
And revealed the very gold digging slut that she'd thought that Harry had
stopped associating with, still in the process of fixing her mussed up
hair and crumpled robes.
The two stared at each other in surprise for several long moments before
Bryanna carefully shut the door behind her.
"What were you doing in Harry's room?" Ginny demanded, anger leaking into
her tone at the discovery that the truth was not as palatable as she'd
thought.
Bryanna looked at the redhead incredulously, knowing that it was

perfectly obvious what she'd been doing in his room.
Then she smirked, grabbed the younger girl's chin and leaned in close. "I
was tutoring him, tutoring him all night long."
Not really. She'd fallen asleep after he'd worn her out, only to wake up
with his face between her legs again. His strange fascination with
licking pussy was going a long way towards making their arrangement
pleasant rather than demeaning. Men who enjoyed doing that were just so
rare. And he was getting better at it too.
The redhead slapped her hand away, obviously fuming. That just made
Bryanna laugh as she walked away. The Weasley girl had been acting kind
of bratty since the start, so riling her up like this was terribly
amusing.
Face burning with anger and humiliation, Ginny fled back to her own room.
Before now, Harry's words had only been an abstract sort of thing. Seeing
a girl coming out of his room early in the morning and all but admitting
to having sex with him really made it hit home.
XXXXX
Pacing alone in the Room of Requirement, Harry pondered his Patronus.
He still hadn't managed to get more than mist out of it. Without a wand,
he hadn't managed anything at all.
Perhaps casting such a difficult spell wandlessly was being overly

ambitious at this stage. The only spells he had managed to get working
without a wand so far were very simple in purpose. Spells to give light,
levitation charms, minor compulsions, that kind of thing. Any spell that
had more than a solitary component was exponentially more difficult to
cast without a wand. He still hadn't managed more than the most minute
changes with wandless transfiguation.
There was a certain structure to spells that made it enormously difficult
to form them without the aid of a wand. The magic simply fell apart if he
tried to shape the spell with nothing but his will.
But it could be done. His limited success proved it. And if it could be
done, then he was damn well going to do it. He would unravel whatever
mystery there was behind magic, and then he could do away with the use of
a wand. The magical focus made him feel more like a cripple every day.
How everyone else could be so attached to their wands escaped his
understanding.
But getting back to the Patronus, he simply couldn't cast it. No memory
that he could dredge up was powerful enough to call forth the guardian.
Experimentation showed that he was correct in his original assessment;
thoughts of protection and safety worked best. After all, you couldn't be
happy if you weren't safe.
He strongly suspected that the popular formula of using the happiest

thought you could muster was a direct result of the misery inducing aura
of a dementor. A simplistic line of thinking that was in tune with the
usually simplistic view that wizards had of magic.
Sometimes, he despaired over how mundane they managed to make magic. The
only person in the Wizarding World who had so far kept magic actually
magical was Luna. That was probably why he liked her so much.
In any case, he clearly needed to rethink his approach to the Patronus.

The memory of his mother's sacrifice was tainted by grief and loss and
ultimately unsuited for the purpose. But nobody else came to mind when
thinking of protection, he'd always needed to look to himself if he
wanted protection without any strings attached.
Himself...there was an idea.
It can't be that simple...can it?
Having nothing to lose by trying it, Harry decided to focus inward

instead of outward when trying to call the guardian.
Sinking into the Occlumency trance that he had begun to use pretty much
every time that something needed deep contemplation, he focused on the
image of what he had seen in the Mirror of Erised during his first year.
He was sure that the mirror would show him something subtly different if
he were to look at it again. He hadn't been able to determine the
features of his companion then, but now he was certain that it would be a
woman.
Luna would be there too of course. He'd gotten so used to the eccentric
blonde and her spit-take inducing statements that it was hard to imagine
life without her.
Ginny...ehhh, he wasn't sure about her. He'd been willing to let bygones
be bygones if she could drop that stupid crush and start acting normally,
but she hadn't. She still tended to either avoid contact or look at him
as if he'd done something wrong, which he knew he hadn't. At this point,
he'd be perfectly happy if she decided that their friendship was over.
No, Ginny would probably not be making appearances in the Mirror of

Erised if he looked at it again.
Then there was himself. He'd be wearing something made of basilisk hide,
Harry knew. He'd been eagerly waiting for the day when he stopped growing
so that he could get some of that stored hide tailored into an article of
clothing.
His appearance was secondary however. What really mattered was that he
would have all the things that he wanted in life. The freedom to do as he
pleased, the company of people he could trust not to attempt using him in
their schemes and the power to protect it all, to keep it from being
taken from him.
Yes, he would be powerful enough to keep the world at bay, but that was
for the future. For now, he would be strong enough to hold off the Dark.
He wasn't going to be a snack for the dementors. He still had so much
that he wanted to do. They weren't going to take his future from him.
Harry focused on that determination, that desire to protect himself and

the things he held dear and pushed it into the spell.
A luminescent raven flew forth from his wand, making a circuit around the
room before alighting weightlessly on his shoulder.
He smiled widely at his success, all the while thinking of how very
appropriate the animal was. He had always been fond of ravens.
XXXXX
With the Christmas holidays approaching, Harry decided that it was time
to make a move on the rat.
He had pondered how to go about this for some time and eventually decided
that keeping things simple was for the best.
"You said you wanted to talk to me?" Ron Weasley asked cautiously as he
entered the empty room.
He'd received a surprising message from Potter with a request to speak to

him privately.
He was wary and suspicious of this, as the Ravenclaw third year had never
showed any inclination to speak to him since their first meeting on the
train years ago.
Ron didn't trust Potter. Ravenclaws were a weird lot and that seventh
year Slytherin girl he was sometimes seen with made him even less
trustworthy.
Ron was also terribly jealous of the taller boy, though he didn't admit
this even to himself. Potter had wealth, fame and most recently he also
had a lot of good looking female company.
He'd encouraged his sister to break off ties with him. Ginny should never
have been a Ravenclaw to begin with, she belonged with her family in
Gryffindor. There was nothing to be done about her wrong sorting, but
they could still get her some proper friends.
"I did." Harry confirmed, looking down at his redheaded yearmate. The
quicker this ended the better. Weasley was a loud and opinionated little
idiot at the best of times, so actually interacting with him more than
necessary was a chore. He was essentially Malfoy-lite; slightly dumber,
lazier and a less blatant waste of air, but just as prejudiced in many
ways. "I want to buy your rat."
"Scabbers?" Ron blurted out in shock. "You want to buy Scabbers?"
His incredulity was entirely justified. Why would anyone want to buy a
mangy old rat?
"I do. Ten galleons."
Ron gaped some more. That was a completely stupid amount of money for a
mere rat. You could buy a whole swarm of them for that much.
"Why?" He asked, getting some of his surprise under control.
"I've heard it's a very long lived rat. I'm curious." Harry evaded.
"I'm not going to sell Scabbers to you so that you can...dissect him or
something!" Ron retorted hotly.
Harry sighed in exasperation. "I'm not going to dissect him. The worst
I'll do is cast some diagnostic spells, but you can rest assured that I
won't harm him." The dementors can do that for me.
"He's been with our family for twelve years." Ron said uncertainly, his
greed warring with his loyalty to his pet.
"I know, that's why I'm interested. Look I'll give you fifteen galleons
for a rat that probably isn't going to live much longer. It's a bargain
any way you look at it."
Ron hesitated. "I don't know..." He was still reluctant to part with his
faithful rat, but that was a lot of money.
Harry struggled to keep the irritation off his face. Deciding to help the
redhead make a decision, he wiggled his fingers and tossed a few
compulsions his way.
It's just an old rat, he'll probably die soon anyway.
That's a lot of money.

I want that money. I NEED it.
Ron still looked to be harboring doubts, to Harry's considerable

surprise. The annoying little idiot must be more attached to the rat than
he thought if he was able to resist that kind of temptation.
"That's more than twice what a new wand costs." He commented idly. "I've
noticed that yours was looking a bit worn out. It seems pretty dangerous
to me to be using a damaged and poorly suited wand. Probably makes your
spells a lot weaker too."
Ron's resistance finally started crumbling at that. He'd always wanted to

stand out and the sudden power boost of a new wand would certainly help
him with that. He'd even have enough leftover money to buy a few other
things as well.
"I'll...I'll go get him for you."
"Thank you." Harry said, waiting for the boy to turn his back. When he
did, he pulled out his wand and sent a much more powerful compulsion at
the redhead.
I better not tell anyone about this. I'll just tell everyone that
Scabbers got lost somewhere.
XXXXX
Ten minutes later, Harry had stuffed Wormtail into a pre-prepared cage
that was enchanted to be unbreakable, ignoring Ron's protests about
Scabbers being house trained and not needing to be caged. If he tried to
transform, it would kill him, which would not be as good as having him
alive, but the corpse of Peter Pettigrew would still be useful as
evidence and Harry was not inclined to be so charitable to the betrayer
of his parents as to be overly concerned whether he was handed over to
the Ministry alive or dead.
XXXXX
Remus looked on as the students boarded the Hogwarts Express, going home
for the Christmas holidays.
Harry was leaving too. Remus had hoped that the boy would stay so that
they could finally talk, but it looked like it wasn't going to happen
that way.
Not that he was oblivious to the fact that he could have approached the
son of his friends at any time in the past few months, but had kept
putting it off instead. It was entirely possible that he would have done
the same even if Harry had stayed.
Remus was actually quite ashamed of himself. He was waiting for a boy of
thirteen to make the first move instead of plucking up the courage to do
it himself. It was getting harder too. The longer he waited, the more
awkward the whole thing became. By now he was actually starting to think
that it might be best to just leave well enough alone.
"I take it that you still have not spoken to young Harry?" Dumbledore
asked from beside him.
Remus heard the gentle admonishment in the Headmaster's words, but could
only shrug helplessly in response. He'd meant to so many times, but lost
the courage every time he saw Lily's eyes in James' face.
"I do not believe that he will reject you, Remus." The old wizard said
softly.
"I just doesn't seem like he needs me." The werewolf replied.
"Harry is remarkably mature young man." Dumbledore agreed.
That was what worried him so much actually. Despite having made friends
in recent years, Harry still gave off the feeling of being aloof and
separate from the people around him. It would not do for the Chosen One
to be indifferent to the fate of the people he was supposed to be saving.
He needed to be invested in the fate of Magical Britain by the time of
Voldemort's return.
Which was why Remus' procrastinating was starting to exhaust Dumbledore's

patience enough that he was seeing fit to prod the man along.
"But one can never have too many friends or family."
"After the holidays. I'll talk to him after the holidays." Remus
determined.
XXXXX
As he had done the previous year, Harry took the Hogwarts Express to
King's Cross, but called Teeny for transportation to Potter Manor as soon
as he was somewhere private.
"Sirius, you're looking better." Harry greeted when the man came into
view.
Sirius really did look better. Not as gaunt or as pale, his previously
matted hair cut to hang down to his shoulders and his beard styled into a
neat goatee. Even his teeth had been repaired from their previously
rotten state.
"Amazing what some good food and time away from the dementors will do for
a man." Sirius replied jokingly, taking the opportunity to get a better
look at his godson. "Have you gotten taller again?"
"I hear that happens a lot with teenagers." Harry replied with dry
sarcasm.
"But you're almost as tall as I am!" Sirius protested.

Not that Sirius was hugely tall. He'd been the shortest of the Marauders
after Wormtail, something that had always privately annoyed him. James
had been a couple of inches bigger than him and Remus had been a
veritable giant in comparison. They'd caught up eventually, but Remus had
remained the tallest at six feet and two inches.
"Yes, I know." Harry replied with a smirk, rather pleased by that. He had
no doubt that his growth would slow down soon, but for now he was going
to enjoy the height discrepancy.
Sirius looked briefly torn between irritation and amusement before his
expression turned grim.
"Do you have him?"
"He's in my trunk, safely locked in an unbreakable cage." Harry said with

a nod.
"I need to talk to him before we turn him over to the DMLE. I need to
hear what he has to say for himself." The escaped convict growled,
everything in his manner speaking of murderous rage.
Harry knew it was probably a bad idea, but he wanted to hear it too. He
might have gotten over the deaths of his parents, but he too harbored a
deep well of anger for the one who had betrayed them.
XXXXX
They had Teeny strip one of the unused rooms bare to remove any possible
hiding spaces. Then they sealed every exit to prevent any escape
attempts.
Only once that was done did Harry take the cage out of his trunk, curling
his nose in disgust the whole time.
He had not been overly diligent in either feeding the rat or cleaning up
after him for the week that he had had him, so Wormtail was in a sorry
state by now. He'd given him enough food and water to survive, but he'd
taken quite a bit of vindictive pleasure in leaving him to wallow in his
own filth.
Wormtail had been living in a state of terror ever since Ron had handed
him over to Harry in exchange for a fat sack of galleons. The whole thing
had come so out of the blue that there had been no time to think, no time
to make decision. He'd been stuffed into a cage before he'd even properly
registered the situation and hadn't been let out since.
Worse, he knew that Harry knew the truth. The boy hadn't really spoken to
him, but the anger burning in his green eyes was a clear enough
indication.
Now he was being unceremoniously dumped out of the cage, but there was no
relief to be found in finally being released from his filthy prison. Not
with his old friend Sirius in the room with him and looking fit to tear
him to ribbons with his bare hands.
"I need a wand to force him back into human form." Sirius said, staring
coldly at the cowering Animagus that apparently had no intention of
transforming himself.
Wordlessly, Harry handed over his own.
A minute of Wormtail doing his level best to dodge Sirius' spells and
Pettigrew was once again in human form for the first time in twelve
years.
He was a sorry sight, and not just because spending so much time in his
Animagus form had left him looking permanently ratlike. Short, fat,
balding, ugly, shifty eyed. It was like someone had designed a human
being for the express purpose of looking untrustworthy. His parents must
have been really good at not judging by appearances, because Harry
himself wouldn't have trusted someone like this to guard a chamber pot.
Someone else's chamber pot at that.
"Sirius, Harry." Pettigrew simpered, as if greeting long lost friends.
"Why, Peter?" Sirius demanded angrily. "Why did you betray James and
Lily?"
"I didn't mean to!" Pettigrew whined pitieously. "But the Dark Lord...
You have no idea of the powers he possesses. Just ask yourself what you
would have done in my place."
"I WOULD HAVE DIED FOR THEM! LIKE YOU SHOULD HAVE DIED FOR THEM!" Sirius
roared, completely enraged by the insinuation that Wormtail had just
made.
Pettigrew flinched back violently, knowing that he'd blundered by saying

that. He still had the Dark Lord's wand on him as well as his own, but he
dared not use either. Not with Sirius already pointing one at him. He'd
never get a single spell out. He tried a different tactic instead.
"Harry, please! Your father wouldn't have wanted me dead. James would
have shown mercy." He didn't really believe that, but he was desperate to
survive.
"HOW DARE YOU SPEAK TO HARRY!" Sirius yelled again, interrupting any
response from Harry himself.
"Don't let him kill me, please!" Wormtail begged, scrabbling towards
Harry nearly on all fours.
"Get away from me!" Harry snapped in disgust and backed away. Pettigrew
was by far the most revolting person he'd ever encountered, both
literally and figuratively. The way that the rat was begging for his life
was making him so angry that his Occlumency was threatening to be
overwhelmed for the first time in quite a while.
Unlike pretty much every other Occlumancer, Harry had almost completely
ignored the part designed for defending the mind from external intrusion.
Instead, he had focused on enhancing his ability to control his emotions
and to improve his memory.
This was generally a terrible idea, as it actually made it easier for a

Legilimancer to rifle through a mind that was well organized but
undefended.
Normally, an Occlumancer would first learn to clear their minds into

blankness on demand. Once sufficient skill in that was reached, it was
possible to create a wall of non-thought to keep Legilimancers out. Of
course, a Legilimancer could force their victim to make mental
associations by projecting their own thoughts and follow that thread of
thought into their memories, leaving it up to the individual skill of the
practicioner to decide the winner of the mental struggle. Those who were
particularly skilled could even section off their minds to present a
false front, duping the Legilimancer into thinking that what they saw was
the whole of someone's mind and not just another front. That particular
skill was pretty much a requirement for a wizard spy.
Only once that was mastered was it advisable for the Occlumancer to begin
putting the chaos of one's mind to order. This had great benefits for
emotional control and memory, but it wasn't a skill that could ever be
mastered. Much like the actual defensive parts of Occlumency, it was an
ability that had no real upper limit and needed to be practiced often
lest it degrade.
Harry practiced his Occlumency almost religiously, knowing that he was

much more at risk of losing control of his emotions than most people.
"Harry! Please!" Wormtail howled as Sirius cast what was essentially an

upgraded version of a stinging hex at him, the only difference being that
this one felt rather more like a hot stove than a hard slap.
The problem with trying to control your emotions was that the cause of
said emotions was often still present and making things harder. In this
case, that would be Pettigrew's incessant begging for mercy.
Sirius was quite clearly not getting any calmer either if his
progressively crueler spell selection was any indication.
"Shut up." Harry ground out, wanting both of them to just stop until he
could shift the fury he was currently feeling to the back of his mind
where it could be dealt with later.
But they didn't stop. Sirius had a mad glint in his eye that didn't
indicate self-control and was getting disturbingly close to the
Cruciatus, heedless of the fact that Harry's wand would carry that spell
history.
"I'm sorry!" Pettigrew sobbed.

"Shut up!" Harry repeated, louder and angrier this time. His runes felt
like a thousand angry ants crawling over his body.
He was ignored again. Sirius kept on screaming a stream of vitriol at the

cowering rat Animagus, intersped with moderate-to-severe torture curses.
And of course, Pettigrew was in no state to consider the fact that his
begging was only making things worse.
"Make him stop!" He wailed, somehow managing to sound even more pathetic
than before. "Lily wouldn't have wanted this! Please make him stop! Do it
for your mother, Harry."
Sirius looked about fit to explode with rage at that, pushed completely
beyond rational thought at having the traitor invoke the name of the
woman he'd betrayed to draw some mercy out of her son.
Harry wasn't much better off than his godfather. He'd been exerting
monumental effort to not give in to his rage and join in, but everyone
had limits and Pettigrew had just exceeded them.
"SHUT UP!" He roared, thrusting his hand out at the rat and willing him
to stop his infuriating begging with his whole being.
Harry had long since noted that powerful emotions made it easier to use
magic without a wand. He had also noted that they tended to twist the
spells into something different. The more powerful and chaotic the
emotion, the more the spell deviated from the purpose intended by its
caster.
Harry had only wanted Wormtail to stop talking, but that last sentence
had pushed him beyond the limits of his control. His spell came out
powered by the full force of his rage and rage was not a precise emotion
by any means. Whereas a normal silencing spell might be a scalpel, his
rage turned it into a broadsword. This was further compounded by the fact
that Harry didn't actually know how to cast a wandless silencing spell,
so he had just brutally pushed his magic outward, furiously demanding
that it do his will.
The problem was that Harry kind of wanted to hurt Wormtail too.
The spell roared out of his hand, tinted the fiery orange of a blasting
curse. It streaked towards the traitor's mouth just as Harry had
intended. It also silenced Wormtail just like Harry had intended.
Unlike what Harry had intended, it did so by blowing his head and a good
portion of his chest into gory pulp.
The two still living wizards stumbled back from the explosion of gore
that painted the whole room in bloodsplatter, expressions of shock on
both of their faces.
Sirius looked to his godson and worked his jaw in an attempt to say
something, but nothing came out. Wormtail's sudden death had snapped him
out of the mad haze he'd been in, but now he was simply so shocked that
words seemed wholly insufficient.
Harry was in an even worse state. The rage had gone out of him with the
spell and the shock of the fact that he'd just killed someone left him
reeling. The disgusting sight of a man's open chest cavity spilling
pulped internal organs across the room didn't help. He quickly added to
the mess by voiding his stomach on the floor.
I killed a man.
I murdered a man.
Harry felt something crack inside him at the realization and not in an
entirely figurative sense at that. He could feel the change in his magic.
There was no way to describe it with words, no analogy that would

suffice. The closest thing he could think of was a pane of glass or a
mirror that had been hit hard enough to crack but not enough to break. He
could practically feel the newly made cracks in his soul and magic
spreading through him as the psychological impact of what he'd just done
sank in.
He was distantly aware that Sirius was stammering something but it was
all just so much noise. Teeny had showed up at some point too and seemed
to be panicking about something. Probably the mess.
The absurd thought made him want to giggle. Judging by the worried looks
he got, he might have actually giggled.
Then things somehow managed to get worse.
As the cracks kept spreading, another sensation became known to him.

Arhain suddenly began to radiate cold. He barely noticed at first, but
then it began to spread. First to Aul'El and Da'Roir, which were part of
the same set, then to the other two sets with whom it shared weaker
connections, fingers of cold creeping through the anchors of his magic.
And with the cold came the Dark. It seeped through the newly made cracks
in his soul, grasping at him and his magic just like the dementor on the
train had done.
Harry gasped at the feel of it and damn near panicked when he saw his
breath misting as it exited his chilled lungs.
He ignored Sirius and stumbled out of the room at a sprint, wanting

nothing more than to get outside. He needed to think and a room that
reeked of blood, death, vomit and most recently, shit, wasn't helping
with that.
He made it out the front door in record time, falling to his hands and
knees as soon as he reached the outside. It was December and the Hogwarts
Express had taken a long time to get to London, so the sky was already
dark.
"Alright, don't panic. Think." He said to himself, staunchly ignoring the
slow creep of Dark through his damaged soul and the chill of his breath
that had nothing to do with the season.
It took a little while to force his mind away from the murder he'd just
committed and focus on his more pressing problem.
He didn't for a moment believe that this was a normal reaction to a kill,
not even to a murder. That meant that it had to be something to do with
him and the only thing it was likely to be was his runes.
My runes, what did I do with my runes that would cause this? Does it have
something to do with the dementor? No, it has to be earlier than that.
Nobody else can sense the Dark like I can. They feel the effects of the
dementors but not the Dark that makes them what they are.
There was only one rune he could think of that would be responsible for
this.
Arhain.
He'd only used it for its association with secrets and stealth. He'd
thought its association with darkness to be irrelevant. He'd thought of
it of course, it was impossible not to, but he'd considered it to be just
a pointless bit of fluff. It came out of a game after all. There was
nothing scary about the night.
Now Harry looked up into the night sky and wondered how many stupid
wizards had made the same mistake, accidentally dabbling with forces
beyond all mortal comprehension.
Because now that his soul had cracked open, the Dark had found a way
inside. It must have lingered around his magic ever since he'd carved
Arhain into himself while thinking of the infinite void of space, just
waiting for the day when something happened to put a crack into his soul.
It could very well be the reason why the dementors had been drawn to him.
He could feel the Dark clearer now than he ever had and the sheer
vastness of it threatened to undo him. It was everywhere, stretching
across the whole of the Universe, it's hungry cold presence held back
only by the raging fire of the stars. He realized with painful clarity
that this must be the reason why magicals constantly kept braying about
the dangers of Dark Magic. They had long since forgotten what the real
Dark was, but the warning itself had survived.
He knew what he had to do now. Another ritual, this one invoking the Sun
and stars, the Light. He'd already been preparing one, so much of the
groundwork was already done. It would have to be modified, but not by
much. He hadn't thought that the Sun had any noteworthy magic in it when
he'd chosen it, now he had to wonder if it hadn't been some magical
instinct that had made him decide to use the Avariel runes again, this
time invoking an entity in direct opposition to the Dark.
Harry let out a half hysterical laugh. Every book on rituals that he'd
ever read about had warned against invoking unknown or disparate forces,
now he was deliberately going to do the latter as a counter to his
accidental use of the former. It was an incredibly reckless course of
action that had a good chance of killing him in a truly spectacular
fashion.
But there was no choice. If he didn't do it, the Dark would consume him
from within and leave him hollow.
Chapter 9
To those of you who have asked if I got some of my ideas from reading
"With Strength of Steel Wings", yes I did. It was the fic that convinced
me to try my hand at a HP story and I recommend it highly.
And for those of you noting the influence from Dark Souls, yeah I've been
watching lore theory videos on youtube a lot lately.
Much credit goes to Joe Lawyer for his help in polishing up the rough
edges on the chapter.
XXXXX
Sirius stared at his fleeing godson's back, feeling as if the world had
just taken a sharp left turn without warning anyone.
Pettigrew was dead.
The thought was as satisfying as it was horrible.
He hadn't meant for things to go that far, but once Peter had started
talking and begging for his miserable life, still making excuses even
now, the familiar red haze from twelve years ago had come down. Sirius
was actually surprised that he'd limited himself to non-lethal spells,
but that was probably more to do with the fact that his mind had been on
causing pain and he hadn't been in any state to shift mental gears.
He'd picked up quite a few nasty spells from his family even if he hadn't
wanted to and Azkaban had given him a long time to fantasize about using
them.
The fact that it would now be much harder to prove his innocence was a
distant secondary concern to the fact that Harry had killed someone.
Thirteen was way too young to have that hanging over you.
Then was the fact that Harry had cast a lethal spell without his wand.
The most wandless magic that Sirius had ever seen had come from
Dumbledore, but even that had been just parlor tricks and not really
anything too impressive aside from the fact that it was wandless.
But his godson's astonishing achievement wasn't important right now. He

needed to go see if Harry was alright.
He found him outside, kneeling in the snow and staring at the night sky
with a look that was hard to decipher. It looked like something between
shock, awe and a sort of horrified realization.
Harry picked himself up before Sirius could make his way over, his face
now hardened into an expression of driven purpose that he'd last seen on
Lily's.
"Harry..." He started, not really sure what to say to make this situation
better.
"Not now, Sirius." Harry snapped, brushing past him roughly.
Sirius shrank back, incorrectly assuming that his godson was angry at him
for losing it with Wormtail.
Not wanting to let things stew, he ran to catch up to the stomping

thirteen year old and grabbed him by the shoulder.
"Harry, I'm so-"
He made it no further than that. Harry spun around and grabbed him by his
robes, actually lifting him off the ground, much to his incredulity.
"What part of 'not now' do you not understand?!" Harry hissed furiously,
tossing him aside and sending him stumbling into a couch. "Whatever you
have to say, say it later. I have somethig that I have to do. Until then,
don't bother me."
And Sirius obeyed, cowed into submission by a boy twenty years younger
than him. He obeyed because Harry seemed so much more than just a
thirteen-year old wizard in that moment. Too tall and too strong and too
powerful. Age didn't mean much when he could feel the unmistakable
pressure of a powerful wizard's magic pressing threateningly into his
own, daring him to rise up in challenge.
Worse than any of that though, was the sense of something inhuman staring
out from Harry's eyes.
XXXXX
Harry regretted blowing up at Sirius like that, but he was still grateful
that it kept the man off his back. He'd apologize later. He had no time
to talk about the giant fuck up they had to deal with now. He had no time
to deal with the fact that he'd killed a man. He had no time to explain
to his godfather about the wandless magic and the runes, which he knew
that he was now going to have to do.
The only thing he had time for was to finish preparing for the next
ritual and he didn't even have as much time for that as he'd have liked.
His soul had stopped cracking and the spread of Dark had slowed, but it
was still spreading nonetheless. He expected that it would always be
there even if his next ritual managed to balance it out enough to save
him.
What the Void took, the Void kept. Of this he was certain. He had made a
sacrifice to that entity, giving it a place in his magic in exchange for
power. He had done it ignorantly, unknowingly, but he had done it all the
same. It would not leave.
So many questions and theories crowded his thoughts, but he had to focus.
He had to hurry before the Dark did more than merely ooze through the
cracks in his soul, before it started taking things that could never be
regained. Because he was afraid that it would do worse than just kill
him. If it wanted that, it only needed to wait. Everyone and everything
went to the Void in the end. Harry wasn't sure how he knew that, but he
knew it.
What he was truly afraid of here wasn't dying, it was the grim certainty
that dementors weren't really Non-Beings at all, but the empty shells of
wizards who had dabbled with the Void without taking the necessary
precautions. Now nothing more than hollow carriers of Dark, their magic
turned into a conduit for the Void, existing to take things from a world
that was otherwise protected by the Sun.
XXXXX
A day later, the final preparations were complete and the ritual was set
to begin.
Harry could feel that the Dark inside him had grown stronger, but not yet
so strong that he was too late. It had been getting harder to focus,
harder to feel afraid of what was happening to him. The world now seemed
just a touch surreal, as if he was looking at it through a dirty pane of
glass. As the Dark grew in strength, his sense of self waned.
Harry wasn't oblivious to the rather disturbing similarities that his

situation had with the Dark Souls game franchise. He'd never really
played it, but he had had quite enjoyed its quite interesting lore, as
well as its surprisingly deep and subtle plot.
The fact that he was now intending to link himself to the Sun in order to
stave off the Dark amused him and terrified him in equal measure. He
remembered all too clearly what happened to the Chosen Undead if he
decided to link the fires in the Kiln of the First Flame.
He really hoped that he wasn't going to set himself on fire doing this.
It was going to be his last ritual one way or another, because if this
worked then he didn't want to risk upsetting the balance with any further
additions.
He had originally been intending to perform this ritual in the Potter

ritual chamber like all the others, but it just didn't feel right to do
this one beneath the ground.
That was why he was now making his way away from the manor in the pre-
dawn darkness, moving towards the east. The light covering of snow
crunched under his shoes as he walked and the night was cold and black,
seeming even colder and darker because the skies were clear. The moon and
stars did nothing to counter that feeling when he could feel the Void
pressing in around him.
He turned his mind away from that, knowing instinctively that focusing on
it would only make things worse. He focused on making a suitable platform
for the ritual instead, using the wand he'd retaken from Sirius on his
way out to transfigure a flat stone surface and then inscribing the
instructions on it that would allow the knife to act independently.
This time, there was no hesitation as he took off his shirt and began the
ritual.
"Ca'Daith."
Grace. Power. Music of the Stars.
A rune to to call on the Light magic that he was now certain was inherent
to the stars and also to make sure that he did not rely completely on the
Sun. It would be the height of irony to find out that this final rune set
only worked during the day. He decided to have it carved just under his
left collarbone. It seemed appropriate to have it mirror Arhain.
"Yen'Lui."
Balance. Harmony. Chaos.
This rune's sole purpose was to ensure that the clash of Light and Dark
inside him didn't have explosive results. He feared that the Sun would
burn him out if he did not use this rune. There was an uncomfortably high
chance of it happening anyway. This one was carved on the lower end of
his breastbone, equidistant from both Arhain and Ca'Daith.
"Sol."
The Sun. The Ever Seeing Eye. Consciousness.
This rune was doubled and carved into his temples. He'd been planning to
use it to enhance his eyes and give himself the ability to see magic as
well as expand his capacity to feel it. That had now become its secondary
purpose, but Harry was still pleased that he was able to sneak in one
final enhancement.
Once the carving was done, Harry took a deep breath and waited tensely,
knowing that the ritual was not over yet. Of the three runes, only
Yen'Lui felt active, which was as he had expected. The other two would
become active once they were hit by sunlight, which should be any second
now if the brightening sky was any indication.
He grunted in surprised pain as the first rays of sunlight broke over the
horizon and washed over him. He hadn't expected that magic born in the
violence of the Solar Core would be gentle, but its fierceness still
surprised him. How had wizards ever gotten the idea into their heads that
Light was gentle?
Ca'Daith and Sol burned. Yen'Lui prickled madly as it attempted to temper

the violent reaction between Light and Dark.
Harry shut his eyes tighly as Sol executed its purpose. They stung
terribly and he felt them bleed from the sudden change. He'd expected
that, so it didn't worry him.
At the same time, he felt his perception expand as the rune's power
touched his mind. The sensations were jumbled, unfamiliar as they were to
him, but what was happening inside him was clear.
Dark gave way before Light as was its nature, but with the understanding
that it would still be there, that it could never be pushed out. His
other runes broke open and bled as Light burned through them. Where Dark
was cold and slow, Light was fire and voraciously consumed all it
touched.
Once it had pushed the Dark out of all the runes except Arhain, where a
shard of Dark was connected to the infinite Void and could not be burned
away, it surged into the cracks in his soul. It didn't hurt in the
physical sense, but Harry knew instantly that he had preferred the gentle
creep of Dark. Given the slightest opportunity, Light would burn him to
nothing.
It was a decidedly uncomfortable experience to feel the Dark slowly

relinquishing its grip on the edges of his damaged soul as Light
advanced, but there was nothing to do except endure it as Yen'Lui worked
to keep things from spiralling out of control.
But there was one chunk of his soul that the Dark had grasped tightly and
seemed intent on taking. It had nearly pulled it away from the whole.
No, not my soul. Harry realized, now seeing that the piece did not match
the rest of him. It had a dormant quality to it, but it was
unquestionably foreign. That isn't mine, it doesn't belong there. How did
a piece of someone else's soul attach itself to me?
It must have been with him for a long time, to have gone undetected until
he'd cracked his soul enough to expose it. Unlike the rest, this one
piece felt as if it been rather haphazardly attached to him and had come
loose once his soul was no longer whole.
Voldemort, it has to be. Something of him must have been left inside me
when he tried to kill me.
Not really sure what he was doing, but knowing that he definitely did not
want that madman's soul latched on to his own, Harry pushed. He focused
on that foreign soul shard and began forcing it out. He had been afraid
of what would happen if the Dark took any of his soul, but it was more
than welcome to the piece of Voldemort.
Its already tenuos grip on him broke once he rejected it so completely

and the Dark took it instantly, as it did all unanchored souls.
With that done, the Dark put up no more struggle and allowed Light free
reign.
Squinting with painfully stinging eyes, Harry shuffled back towards the
manor.
XXXXX
Sirius hadn't been quite sure what to do with himself for the past day.
Neither Teeny nor Charlus and Dorea would tell him what Harry was up to,
but he was sure that it was something big.
His godson had locked himself in the study and hadn't left it since. His
wand was still in Sirius' possession, apparently being considered
unimportant, which was an attitude that Sirius had never expected to see
from any witch or wizard. Then again, he hadn't expected to see this
level of wandless magic either.
In the absence of anything else to do, he had put Wormtail's gruesome

remains into stasis and stuffed them into an unused trunk. He was quite
unrecognizable, but there were magical ways to determine a dead wizard's
identity by his blood as long as they had his magical signature on file,
which the Ministry should have. The corpse could still be useful.
Finally, after he had nearly paced a hole into the floor in fruitless
worry, Harry had come out of the study.
Unfortunately, all he had done was grab his wand from Sirius possession
with a terse warning to stay inside. He'd tried to get some answers out
of Charlus and Dorea again, but they merely looked uncomfortable and
still refused to speak. The only thing they would say was that it was
Harry's secret to tell and that he should leave him alone to do what he
was going to do.
Finally, Harry came back, but Sirius couldn't feel anything besides
stunned horror at the sight of him.
His godson was only wearing a pair of pants and streaked with blood from
head to toe. Even more disturbing were the twin trails of bloody tears
coming from his eyes, eyes that were so bloodshot that the sclera had
effectively turned completely red and whose green color now gleamed
visibly with magic.
"Harry?" Sirius asked cautiously.
"Not yet, Sirius." Harry replied with weary clam. "Let me get cleaned up
first, then we'll talk.
Sirius looked worried, but nodded all the same. His godson had been up to
something obviously dangerous and quite probably illegal, but it seemed
like the worst was over. He could wait a little longer to get answers.
XXXXX
XXXXX
"...and here we are." Harry finished, slouched in an armchair.
Sirius looked at his godson, looking less like some kind of eldritch
abomination and more like a human being now that the blood had been
cleaned off, his sclera had gone back to white and he was dressed in a
comfortable bathrobe. He could almost convince himself that nothing had
changed, if only it wasn't for the rune that he could plainly see carved
into his godson's forehead now that he'd been told it was there and the
shimmer of magic in his eyes that made them a touch brighter than they'd
been before.
It had been quite a tale and Sirius wasn't sure whether to be impressed
or horrified.
"Harry, don't take this the wrong way, but what the hell is wrong with
you?" He asked in a deadpan tone of voice. "What kind of eleven year old
is introduced to magic and thinks 'I think I'll ritualistically mutilate
myself'?"
"The kind that grew up thinking of all the cool enhancement rituals he
could do?" Harry asked rhetorically.
Sirius went on as if he hadn't said anything. "And then, when you figured
out that your first set was giving you the urge to shag your foster
mother, you didn't think that it might have been a good idea to rethink
things?"
Harry didn't know it yet, but this was mildly hypocritical of Sirius. It
wouldn't have stopped him either. Well, it would have if it had made him
lust after his own mother, who had been a hag in every sense of the word
except the literal one, but being attracted to a fine piece of ass like
Katherine Shaw would not have bothered him in the slightest, no matter
his relation to her.
"It seemed like a fair trade." Harry shrugged. "An overactive libido and
a bad temper in exchange for a stronger body and faster maturation? I
regret nothing."
"And your second set, the one that nearly turned you into a dementor just
now?" Sirius demanded. That had been an unwelcome revelation and he
wasn't sure if he believed his godson's claim of dementors being the
leftovers of wizards who'd carelessly dabbled with Dark. It was just too
creepy for words.
"That one I might have done differently if I knew what was going to
happen." Harry admitted.
"Might have?!"
"Despite the close shave, I'm actually pretty happy with the way things
turned out. You have no idea about all the things I see and know now." He
could see the magic in the manor and in Sirius and he could feel the Sun
in the sky. There were so many things that he had been blind to before.
"And Wormtail?" Sirius challenged, becoming frustrated with his godson's

recklesness. He'd thought that Harry was a lot like Remus; quiet,
studious, thoughtful and he was, but when it came to magic he was a
hundred times as reckless as all the Marauders put together.
Harry sobered instantly. He'd been trying not to think of that.
"We might still be able to use him to clear your name, we'll just have to
be creative about the cause of his death."
"That's not what I meant, Harry." Sirius said gently.
"I know."
"You don't have to feel guilty. I probably would have killed him myself
if you hadn't done it."
"Sirius, I killed a man because I lost my temper. Don't patronize me."

And he couldn't even feel too sorry about it for any reason but for the
fact that it would make proving Sirius' innocence harder. Yes, he wished
that he hadn't done it, but he was not as broken up about it as he felt
that he should be.
The worst part was that he didn't know if that was yet another side-
effect of his runes or if it was something about him. Were the runes or
his exposure to Light and Dark meddling with his sense of morality, or
was he simply somewhat lacking in that department to begin with? Either
way it was a disturbing thought.
He could feel the potential to cast the Killing Curse within him now. It
was such a terribly simple spell, as simple as Lumos. Nothing but raw
killing intent given power through magic. No shield could block it
because it was so pure in its intent that only something equally pure
could block it. Something like a mother's willing sacrifice for her
child. It wasn't an Unforgivable because the spell was Dark or evil, it
was an Unforgivable because you had to be a killer already to cast it.
XXXXX
That evening found Harry on the highest balcony of the manor, looking to
the west.
He and Sirius hadn't managed to work out a viable solution to his

fugitive status just yet. They had tentative plans, but nothing that they
were in a hurry to implement at this point for fear of it backfiring
spectacularly. Wormtail's death made things complicated. They'd have to
spin it in a way that didn't make it look like murder.
Now Harry was waiting for the sunset, running his hands over his
invisibility cloak and wondering at the piece of Dark he could see and
sense in it now. Such a strange thing that he'd carried it around for
years and never known it.
He'd read that invisibility cloaks tended to degrade into uselessness

after a few years, but this one had by all accounts been around for
decades at the least. Harry knew that this was due to it being infused
with Dark. It had to be one of a kind, as he doubted that the secrets to
this kind of craft had been shared beyond the original maker. Maybe
Sirius would know about any legendary invisibility cloaks or similar
artefacts.
When the Sun began to set, Harry observed it with a rapturous smile. He'd
never paid much attention to sunsets before, but now he found them
impossible to ignore.
How could he, when he could feel the Sun's blinding presence recede to
make way for the Dark and the stars? The Sun was too close and too
powerful. It blotted out so much. Now that it had set, he could see and
feel the distant Light of uncountable billions of stars against the
backdrop of Dark. He'd never thought that something so beautiful could
exist. Even more, it was echoed inside his own soul. The Light inside him
waned with the Sun, making way for Dark, speckled with the Light of the
distant stars.
If given the choice to redo things with the knowledge he now had, he
wouldn't change this. The risk of death and hollowing had been worth it
to be able to see magic as he saw it now. He would have done it in a more
controlled manner, but he would have done it anyway.
"For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes
turned skyward, for there you have been and there you will long to
return." He murmured to himself, recalling the old quote from Da Vinci
that he'd come across years ago. It fit the situation perfectly.
Now that he'd seen past the tiny perspective of wizards, he could never
again confine himself to that world. Wizards who learned spells but did
not know them, who used magic but did not know it, who's best explanation
boiled down to 'it just was'. It would drive him mad as surely as having
to pretend that he was a toddler again.
XXXXX
"Legendary invisibility cloaks?" Sirius said in surprise. "Why would you
want to know about that?"
"There's something special about this one." Harry answered, holding up

his father's cloak but not elaborating further.
"I don't really know the story behind it." Sirius said with a shrug. "I
know that it's a Potter family heirloom, but that's all."
"And that doesn't strike you as strange?" Harry asked pointedly.

"Invisibility cloaks aren't supposed to last that long."
"A lot of old magical artefacts are pretty extraordinary by today's

standards. To quote a muggle, 'they don't make 'em like they used to'."
"I'm surprised that you can actually quote a muggle." Harry snorted.
"I'll have you know that I'm actually very knowledgeable about muggles."
Sirius protested indignantly. "My family hated them, so I made sure to be
as muggle as possible. I even got myself a motorcycle, though I did
enchant it to fly. That's actually where I heard that particular saying."
"Riiiight." Harry drawled laconically, deciding not to ask whether Sirius

had a license. "But back to the point, legendary invisibility cloaks?"
"Nothing really comes to mind." Sirius admitted. "The only thing I can
think off is the tale of the Deathly Hallows, but that's just a
children's story."
"Tell it to me."
"Aren't you a bit old for bedtime stories?" The dog Animagus teased.
Harry just rolled his eyes and waved at him, silently telling him to get
on with it.
"I'll tell it to you if you tell me how your night with those two lovely
ladies of yours went." Sirius bargained. He and James had always swapped
details about these things, but Harry was proving to be a more secretive
fellow. James hadn't become like that until he'd gotten together with
Lily.
Harry rolled his eyes again. "What's there to tell? We met up somewhere
private, we got naked, we had sex, we fell asleep."
"You can't cheapen your first sexual experience like that, especially
since it was a threesome!" Sirius protested.
"I lost my virginity back in July." Harry replied blandly.
"Damn!" Sirius cursed.
"What?"
"That means you were twelve at the time."
"So?"
"That means you ditched your virginity two years sooner than me."
"So?"
"How am I supposed to be a rolemodel if you outperform me in everything?"
"You can stick around and provide a morale boost by showing me how great
I am in comparison."
"That's harsh, Harry."
"So is life, now get to the bedtime story."
Sirius grinned at the banter, fondly remembering similar verbal spars

with James. His best friend might be gone, but something of him had
survived in his son.
"Alright, fine. It goes like this..."
XXXXX
House elves were weird.
That was Harry's conclusion as he watched Teeny use some magic with his
new magesight, as he'd requested. The small house elf's magic looked like
nothing he'd ever seen. He had admittedly not seen much since he'd only
just acquired the ability to see magic, but it just looked...weird,
almost like human magic, but so warped.
He'd tried to enlist her help in figuring out wandless magic soon after
he'd first come to the manor, but that had been a dead end. House elves
had no idea how they used magic, they just did. That had been quite
frustrating to hear at the time. How can you use something if you didn't
know how you used it? His persistent questioning had nearly driven Teeny
to tears when she had been unable to answer him, so he'd let it go.
House elves also couldn't use spells in the same fashion as wizards. In
fact, they couldn't cast spells at all. The closest aproximation they
could make was a blast of force that could pass for a banishing or
bludgening spell. Pretty much everything else they could do revolved
around their duties as servants, which made sense in light of the fact
that house elves would literally die if they weren't bonded to a master
or a powerful magical location for an extended period.
Which of course made not a lick of sense if you took it out of the
Wizarding World sandbox and looked at it from a broader perspective.
There was simply no conceivable situation in which an entire sapient
species would evolve to be slaves to another, no matter how special
witches and wizards thought they were.
Conclusion? House elves weren't natural.
Admittedly it was a conclusion based mostly on conjecture, but it made

more sense to him than the alternative, especially when the feel of their
magic was taken into account.
"Teeny, do house elves eat?" He asked.
"Sir?" She asked, confused.
"Do you need food the way that I do?"
"No sir, house elves only be needing a master's magic." She answered with
a shake of her head, sending her big ears flopping everywhere.
Definitely unnatural. Harry was betting on some kind of sophisticated

homunculi that had over time developed sapience. He certainly wouldn't
put it past some wizard to have gotten the idea to create a servant race
because he couldn't be bothered to fluff his own pillows.
Probably best to keep that bit of conjecture to himself. He couldn't

think of a single positive outcome if he started spread that around. At
least not right now.
XXXXX
"You know that this is illegal, right?" Sirius asked wryly.
"Sirius, you are a fugitive from the law and I am harboring you, not to
mention the mangled carcass we have stashed in a trunk. I hardly think
that the legalities of you teaching me to apparate four years ahead of
schedule are noteworthy."
"Alright, just checking." He'd tried. If Harry didn't want to be a

responsible citizen, then far be it from Sirius to try and make him one.
With a noisy crack, Sirius apparated about three feet to the left.
"Huh, that's interesting." Harry commented.
"What is?" The past few days with his godson had shown Sirius that Harry
sometimes noticed things about magic that most people missed. Lily had
that quality too, though not quite the same. Maybe it was due to them
having a muggle upbringing.
"I wonder how it works?" Harry mused, apparently to himself.
"The way it was explained to me is that you have to keep the three D's in
mind. Destination, Determination and Deliberation. You need to keep the
destination fixed firmly in your mind, you have to be utterly determined
to reach it, and you have to be very deliberate but unhurried about it.
Once you've got all that, you just kind of...will yourself to wherever
you want to go."
"Yes, that's how you do it, but how does it work?"
Sirius blinked. "What?"
Harry sighed. Honestly.
Sirius frowned. Lily had sighed exactly like that whenever someone said
something especially stupid to her. James had gotten sighed at like that
a lot.
"Do it again."
Sirius shrugged to himself and apparated again.
"Again."
Crack.
"Again."
Crack.
"Again."
"Harry, why am I apparating back and forth like this?"
"Because I'm trying to figure out how exactly you're using your magic to
create a pathway through space without killing yourself."
"Such a bloody Ravenclaw." Sirius complained. "Just try it already. I'm

pretty sure that I can fix you if you end up splinching yourself."
"I'd rather not test that belief, now do it again."
"Fine." Crack.
"Again."
Crack.
"Again."
Sigh. Crack.
"What does it feel like to apparate?"
"Kind of like being squeezed through a tube actually. Pretty unpleasant

until you get used to it."
"Hmm, do it again."
An even more dramatic sigh. Crack.
"What's with the crack?"

"No idea, but it happens every time someone apparates?"
"Probably just violently displaced air then, but better safe than sorry.
Do it again."
Sigh with eyeroll. Crack.
"Ah, I see."
"What are you seeing, oh wise one?" Sirius asked dryly.
"You're forming a narrow pathway through space and then forcing yourself
through it. The interesting part is that the 'exit' side of this little
magical wormhole has to be anchored in some way to the planet for it to
be safe. That must be why rushing it leads to splinching, you don't
anchor yourself properly and come out wrong. How you're managing to do it
subconsciously escapes me though, probably lucky chance.
Maybe...hmm...Apparating into the air doesn't work, does it? "
"No. In fact, apparating onto anything at all that isn't solid ground is
a good way to get splinched, sometimes even killed and there's even
stories of people vanishing altogether, never to be seen again." Sirius
said, a bit confused as to how Harry had guessed that. And what the hell
was a wormhole anyway?
"A quirk of thought then. You automatically associate solid ground with
the planet and that's apparently enough to keep you safe. Rather amusing
how close to messy death you are every time you apparate."
"There you go, scaring me with all these theories like a typical
Ravenclaw." Sirius said. "I really need to teach you a few Gryffindor
qualities."
"Blockheaded stupidity isn't a quality, Sirius."
"Your mother said that a lot, but I never gave in to her peer pressure."
"Obviously."
"Well then smarty pants, why don't you show me how it's done?"
Harry honestly thought apparition to be a rather insane mode of travel,

but instantaneus teleportation was entirely too useful a skill to not
learn simply because it was crazy. Occlumency helped him fix the image of
his destination in his mind and then he simply willed himself to pass
through the intervening space in a wormhole made of his own magic, making
sure that the exit was latched on to the planet to prevent any mishaps.
Earth wasn't a stationery object in space after all and he had a feeling
that those people who had disappeared had ended up drifting through
vacuum.
Crack.
Sirius hadn't been kidding, that really was unpleasant.
"Showoff."
Harry smirked at his godfather, openly gloating at one upping him.
"So, is there any other illegal bit of magic that you'd like to learn
today?" Sirius asked sarcastically.
Harry considered it for a moment and then nodded. He could practice

apparating later.
"The Animagus transformation."
Sirius was surprised for a moment and then chuckled gleefully.
"Ah, a new Marauder in the making!"
"Hate to break it to you, Sirius, but I'm not much of a prankster." Harry
pointed out.
"I'm sure we can turn you into one." Sirius said with authority and then
affected a pensive look. "But I think we might want to wait until the
summer to start teaching you that. It's not something that you can do in
a few days."
For one thing, the Animagus transformation could be dangerous and Harry
had demonstrated a disturbingly large amount of recklessness with
dangerous magic. For another, if he tried to finish it on his own and
screwed up, he'd have to go to McGonagall to fix it and that would expose
the secret. Being an Animagus was way more fun if nobody knew it.
XXXXX
In the end, Sirius and Harry decided to deal with the Pettigrew situation
over the summer. Neither one of them had any faith in the fairness of the
government, one from bitter experience and the other from a deliberately
cultivated sense of cynicism, so making hasty decision was a no-no. They
would communicate through letters for the rest of the school year and
hammer out a plan to be executed during the summer. Harry would have the
free time to deal with it then and this was something that his fame would
actually be useful for. Besides getting laid that was.
Harry sighed in his train compartment, alone for now. Hogwarts was
starting to become a nuisance. He still loved to learn about magic, but
other things were starting to pile up and he couldn't keep putting them
off until the summer all the time. Not to mention that he was outpacing
the curriculum and starting to become quite bored in a number of classes.
"Hello again, Harry." A dreamy voice greeted as the door slid open.
Of course, there were upsides to Hogwarts, Harry conceded with a smile.
"Hey Luna."
"How was your Christmas?" She asked as she sat down.
"It was interesting." He replied, barely managing to keep the sarcasm out
of his voice.
"I suppose it must have been." Luna agreed, peering at his eyes.
Harry knew that they were too bright. His green eyes had always been
vibrant, but now they verged on the point of glowing. No doubt a side
effect of the Sol runes constantly keeping a bit of Light in them.
Mercifully, Luna apparently decided not to ask questions. "I had a visit
from Ginny."
"Oh?" Harry questioned, more out of a desire to move past the topic of
his eyes than any real curiousity. Luna's 'go with the flow' attitude was
something that he'd always liked.
"Yes, she wanted to wish me a merry Christmas and speculate about how
many girls you're sleeping with."
"Really?" Ginny had drifted off into acquaintance status this year,
apparently unable to deal with the fact that he was nothing at all like
she'd imagined. She clearly wasn't above gossiping though.
"Ginny thinks there's only Bryanna, but I'm pretty sure that you've also
got one in Slytherin."
Harry was normally very reticent with information of any kind, he hadn't
even told Luna about his invisibility cloak, but right at that moment he
felt like being honest. Maybe keeping quiet about this just didn't seem
important anymore after what had happened recently, or maybe Sirius was a
bad influence on him.
"I actually have three. There's also this muggle girl that I meet up with
during the summer."
Luna clapped her hands excitedly at the news. "Oh, that's wonderful! It
makes my Christmas present even more appropriate!"
"How so?" Harry asked, bemused.
Instead of answering, Luna went for her trunk and dug out a book.
"'The Lovegood Guide on how to Love Very Good'?" Harry read the title,
even more bemused.
"My great-great-grandmother was making a study of sex magic and preparing

to publish that book before the European Ministries unanimously classed
sex magic as a Dark Art in 1870. She wasn't able to publish it after
that, but she still finished it." Luna explained without being prompted.
"How in the world could sex magic be classed as a Dark Art?" Harry
demanded irritably. Of all the stupid things to classify as a Dark Art...
"It was first used by the Succubi and the Ministry deemed that anything
used by them had to be a Dark Art."
"Succubi are real?" Harry asked incredulously.
"Not any more. The last of them was killed in 1637." Luna answered
mournfully.
"Let me guess, they weren't the soul sucking demons of myth but just a
misunderstood race of gorgerous women?" Harry ventured. He wouldn't put
it past wizards, or in this case more likely witches, to wipe out another
species out of some misplaced sense of righteousness.
"Its never been proven that they sucked out souls." Luna chirped, causing
Harry to blink at the implications of the statement. "There's a short
exposition on Succubi at the beginning of the book if you're interested."
Harry was indeed interested and would be reading the book cover to cover
as soon as he got the chance, but first he had his own gift to give.
"I've got something for you as well." He told Luna and went for his own
trunk.
"He's so cute!" Luna squeed, looking at the hamster that Harry had just
handed her.
"He's more than just cute," Harry said sternly, putting herculean effort
into keeping a grin off his face. "this is Boo and he's a miniature giant
space hamster."
"Really?" Luna asked in awe.
"Really." Harry confirmed. "He will smite evil and gouge out its eyeballs
whenever he sees it."
Perhaps playing on Luna's eccentricies was a bit mean, but he hadn't been
able to resist. The mental imagery had simply been too hilarious and the
girl certainly seemed to be happy with her new pet. Hamsters and rangers
everywhere were surely rejoicing.
XXXXX
The return to Hogwarts was a bit distracting to Harry. The thestrals were
touched by Dark. He hadn't expected that, though perhaps he should have.
The realization distracted him thorougly and made him poor company on the
ride back as he considered the implications.
Was that state natural or had some overly curious wizard wanted to see
what would happen if he infused a winged horse with Dark? He was going to
need to investigate that eventually.
So preoccupied was he that he barely noticed the speculative looks
several people gave his eyes, wondering if their memory was playing
tricks on them or if they had always been that bright.
His thoughts were still on the thestrals when he felt yet another
presence of Dark, this time as Dumbledore rose from the staff table to
make a speech.
"I have at long last been able to prevail upon Minister Fudge to recall
the dementors back to Azkaban, as it seems clear that Sirius Black has no
intention of coming to Hogwarts." The old wizard was saying.
Harry registered the words, but only barely. He'd noted the absence of
dementors on their approach to the school, so that answered that little
mystery, but most of his focus was on the wand he could sense in
Dumbledore's sleeve.
It radiated Dark, just like his invisibility cloak. It was the only wand
in the Great Hall that did so. The phoenix feather wands were like a tiny
spark of sunlight to his senses, well suited to explosive bursts of
magic. The unicorn hair wands felt like a gentle stream of moonlight and
were probably better off used for calmer magics. The dragon heartstring
ones strangely did not give off a feeling of fire as he had expected, but
of a more robust and enduring strength.
Dumbledore's wand though...it could only be the Elder Wand. Sirius had
been disparaging of the tale of the brothers Peverell, and Harry had to
agree that them meeting an anthropomorphic manifestation of Death and
getting it to give them super powerful magical doodads for no easily
explicable reason was unlikely, but he had been willing to give the story
the benefit of the doubt in some measure. He may not be prepared to
believe that Death was a person, but he was more than ready to believe
that the three brothers had dabbled with Dark and learned how to use it
to enchant certain items.
Now that he'd lain eyes on the wand, that belief was all but confirmed.
He had to wonder where the Resurrection Stone was.
XXXXX
As soon as he was alone in his room, Harry cracked open the book Luna had
given him and started reading.
Sex magic is something that has long been thought of as the domain of
certain non-human magical beings. Given the recent thrust by the Veela
Covenant to be recognized as equals under wizard law, I decided to
research it myself and publish my findings so that we may better
understand the Veela and their magics.
The decision of the European Ministries of Magic to classify all sex

magic as a Dark Art the previous year and prohibit its use has put an end
to this intention, but I will still finish this book if only for my own
purposes.
The first mention of sex magic dates back to Ancient Sumeria and the
sorceress that would later become most widely known as Lilith, the Queen
of the Succubi.
Little is known of Lilith's origins, but it is known that she was born
human. Her transformation into a Succubus has long been an unanswered
mystery and will likely remain so. The other thing that is known of
Lilith is her mastery of sex magic.
After her transformation, Lilith spent a millenium ensnaring the minds of

wizards and witches alike and consuming their magic to sustain her life
and power. For this reason, she eventually became revered as a fertility
goddess and feared as a voracious demon.
This was a time long before wands and magic schools, meaning that trained
magic users were few and far between and none of them very powerful.
Lilith's Succubus transformation had among other things granted her
immense control over fire and her ability to enthrall the minds of near
any magical being made her unassailable by magical means. She was
eventually slain by the hand of the muggle Hero-King Gilgamesh, who was
immune to Lilith's enthrallment ability due to his lack of magic.
But Lilith had spawned a legion of Succubi daughters during her long life
and they continued to prey on wizardkind, learning from the death of
their mother and adopting a more subtle approach by targeting mostly
those who were young, untrained, easily seduced or otherwise vulnerable.
Though popular muggle folklore portrays the Succubi as horned and bat
winged demons, they were in fact indistinguishable from human women, save
for their beauty, allure, intrinsic control of fire and the ability to
partially transform into a hybrid bird creature at need. This made it
easy for them to hide amongst human populations if they were careful and
fed on the unwary or ignorant.
Their fortunes turned with the establishment of Hogwarts and similar

magic schools later on. With fewer and fewer victims going untrained and
unguarded, they were forced to go after more risky prey. The increased
danger and lack of sustenance took a great toll on their numbers.
Unlike their mother, Lilith's daughters were unable to breed more Succubi
and the last was eventually killed in 1637.
One among their number, the Succubus Velana, did however learn to spawn
more children that were not Succubi. These came to be called Veela. They
are possessed of similar powers as the Succubi, but much weaker. However,
Veela also do not need to prey on magicals for survival and have been
able able to endure despite the stigma of their origins.
After centuries of being hunted, Veela have now successfully won their
acceptance in the majority of Europe, though their innate ability to use
sex magic has been classified as a Dark Art in a rather transparent
attempt to limit their influence.
Harry kept on reading long after he would have usually gone to bed,
completely absorbed in the book. Much of the writing done by Luna's
ancestor was theory and speculation, in no small part due to the fact
that sex magic could not be done with a wand.
Which was exactly why Harry found it so fascinating in the first place,
even beyond the subject matter.
It was well into the wee hours of the morning when something occured to
him.
"How the hells did Luna know that I wouldn't give a shit about the
Ministry prohibition, or that I would like the wandless aspect?" He
wondered, baffled. "Did she know, or was it just a coincidence?"
He pondered the vagaries of his friend for another half hour before
metaphorically tossing his hands into the air in frustration and going to
bed.
XXXXX
Harry sighed in his Charms class.
They were currently going over the Freezing spell, which Harry had known
for some time. Even if he hadn't known it, he could have gotten the hang
of it within minutes. Even watching the energy flow with his newly
acquired magesight had gotten old already.
Flitwick was a good teacher, but Harry was bored out of his skull in his
classes these days. Now that he could see magic as well as feel it, it
seemed like he had an easier time mastering wandlessly what his
classmates struggled to master with a wand.
XXXXX
Transfiguration was an interesting subject that was quickly becoming as

dull as Charms.
While doing it wandlessly had always been a problem, doing it with a wand
was simple enough, even if a dragon heartstring wand would have been
better suited for the task.
Now that he could observe the process happenning, he was starting to

figure out the nuances that would let him do it without a wand.
This had the unfortunate side-effect of making the class itself mostly
superfluous. He spent almost the entire time ignoring McGonagall and
doing his own thing.
XXXXX
"Potter, stop staring at your cauldron and start brewing!" Snape shouted.
Harry jerked in surprise, having gotten caught up in watching the magic
of the ingredients interacting in his cauldron.
"Sorry, sir." He apologized and went to complete the potion.
Half an hour later, he was once again staring at his unfinished potion in
fascination, wondering at the strange swirls and eddies that his stirring
was making in it. He had no idea what any of it meant, but it was
mesmerizing. All that 'stir clockwise six times and counter clockwise
four times' crap was finally making some sense.
"POTTER!"
XXXXX
"Harry, please stay after class."
Harry raised an eyebrow. Looks like Lupin was finally done waffling. His
indecisive shuffling had been getting beyond obvious in the lead up to
the Christmas holidays.
When they were alone, Harry decided to ask the obvious question.
"Was there something you wanted, Professor?"
"Harry, the Headmaster tells me that you are aware of my relationship

with your parents." Lupin stated after taking a bracingly deep breath.
"Yes."
Cue uncomfortable silence.
"I'm going to be late for Herbology." Not that he cared too much about
that particular class, but standing here and waiting for the werewolf to
get to the point was pretty tedious.
"I was wondering if you'd like to hear a few stories about them
sometime." Lupin offered hopefully.
"Not really, I think I've got a general idea of the kind of people they
were." It wasn't likely that he had anything new to add to what he'd
already learned from Sirius, Charlus and Dorea.
"Harry, I'm sorry." Lupin suddenly said.
"What for?" Harry asked, puzzled.
"For never checking up on you, for not getting in touch when you started
Hogwarts."
"Whatever your relationship with my parents, you don't and didn't owe me
anything." Harry pointed out.
Remus winced at the even response. Perhaps he hadn't owed James, Lily or
Harry anything, but it was a poor friend that didn't check up on the
orphaned son of his friends.
"I still should have checked up on you. I couldn't take you in because of
a medical condition I have, but I should have checked up on you."
"I did well enough without you." Harry replied, not deigning to inquire
about the oblique reference to lycanthropy.
Remus winced again. That was another way of saying that he'd do well
enough without him from here on out as well. Harry was being decidedly
lukewarm about getting to know him, and Remus couldn't blame him. He
wasn't upset about the absence, but he wasn't eager to get to know him
either. It would've been easier if Harry was angry at him. That at least
would have been clear.
"I'm going to need a note for Professor Sprout." Harry prompted.
Remus wrote him a note and spent the next twenty minutes brooding over
past regrets. He'd really dropped the quaffle with Harry and there wasn't
much he could do about it now.
XXXXX
Aside from Potions, the only class that had actually become more
interesting since his little Christmas adventure was Astronomy.
He still thought that the telescopes could do with replacing. The

enchantments on them made them substantially more powerful than they
should be, but that just meant that the newer models would be even
better.
That being said, it was hard not to develop an appreciation for the night
sky when he could practically feel the stars singing in his magic.
"Have you got it, Harry?" Professor Sinistra asked, nudging him over so
that she could take a look herself.
"Almost." He replied and let her do it, taking a private enjoyment at the
feel of her breasts brushing against his back when she leaned over him.
And that was the other reason why he liked Astronomy. He was terribly
tempted to flirt with the beautiful dark skinned Professor sometimes. He
didn't, because that could turn out very problematic, but he was
seriously tempted.
How ironic. Ginny had asked him earlier in the year whether he liked
older women and he'd said yes mostly to get her off his back, but now it
was turning out to be true. Women thirty-plus years in age did more for
him than girls in their teens.
Sinistra was thirty-three. Vector was forty. Both of them were hot. He
couldn't show even a hint of his attraction without making things very,
very awkward. He didn't even know if they were in a relationship.
Sometimes, life was just plain unfair.
Harry vowed to himself that he would try to sleep with at least one of
them before he left Hogwarts.
XXXXX
Sirius put down the glass of firewhiskey that he'd been about to drink
and put a hand to his chest, wondering about the fierce burst of pride
he'd just felt for his godson.
XXXXX
Harry returned to his room in a state of mild sexual frustration, which

was pretty much normal for these late night Astronomy classes.
To the sight of Bryanna lounging on his bed, wearing what appeared to be

a set of chocolate underwear, obviously enchanted to behave as it if were
fabric.
"Hey lover."
Life might be unfair sometimes, but it could also be very good at other
times. He'd been wanting to give some of the stuff he'd read in Luna's
book a try for a while now, but he had needed a partner to do so. Luna's
great-great grandmother had postulated a lot of theories, but only
practice would determine whether they held any weight.
"I thought you could use a snack before bed."
Lots and lots of practice.
"I am feeling rather peckish." Harry admitted, quickly divesting himself

of his clothes and firing a contraceptive charm at his midnight visitor.
Bryanna rolled her eyes t his paranoia. He still didn't trust the potion
to do the job.
Harry paid her exasperation no mind as he climbed on the bed, zeroing in

on her chocolate covered nipples.
Harry had no real idea how to implement the techniques described in the
book, but he figured that he couldn't go far wrong if he started out by
licking the chocolate off her breasts. He had magesight now, so enough
experimentation was sure to yield results.
XXXXX
Bryanna let out a shuddering gasp as she rode Harry to her third orgasm,
coincidentally triggering his fourth. She had no idea what he was doing,
but his member felt even better in her than that vibration spell that
Tiana had taught her at the end of last year.
Harry smirked to himself as Bryanna collapsed on top of him and nuzzled

his neck, taking deep breaths all the while. Being able to see her magic
reacting to his efforts was proving inordinately useful in figuring out
how to please her. The book was written from the perspective of a woman,
but it hadn't been too hard to adapt the knowledge.
"Mmm, what have you been doing over the holidays?" Bryanna nearly purred
out, feeling deliciously satisfied. Harry had definitely been improving.
"Oh, this and that." He replied mysteriously, rubbing circles on her

lower back and seeing if he could magically stimulate the nerves that
were supposed to be there.
"Well keep at it." She instructed, mashing her chest into his and already
feeling a slow heat returning to her groin despite her recent orgasm. The
fact that she still had him sheathed inside her and was leaking a slow
trickle of sperm from her opening was only making it better.
"Yes ma'am." Harry chuckled, slowly refining his technique based on the
feedback feel he was getting from her own magic.
They stayed that way for a while, content to take a short break and let
the desire build before they jumped back into the sex.
"What do you think about having a meeting with all four of us girls
soon?" Bryanna asked out of the blue, raising her head to look him in the
eye.
Harry raised an eyebrow in surprise. "You mean..." He finished by

pressing her down more firmly on his once again erect member.
Bryanna laughed lightly, realizing what she'd just implied. "You wish,
Potter. No, that's not what I meant."
"Pity." He grinned. He could already imagine how jealous Sirius would be.
"Isabel drafted up a contract and we'd like you to take a look at it."
She elaborated
"Sure." He agreed, starting to press kisses to her neck. "But I'm not
interested in contracts right now."
"What are you interested then?" She asked huskily.
His hands went to cup her rear end and then he quickly spun them around
so that he was the one on top.
"Oh, I could think of a thing or two." He said and kissed her, thrusting
his hips forward in the same movement and delighting in her grunt of
pleasure.
XXXXX
Harry wasn't sure if he liked Isabel and Jade.
They weren't rude or anything of the sort, but he was getting the
distinct impression that they held a mild resentment for him because he
was sleeping with their friends.
Harry could appreciate what the situation looked like from an outside
perspective, but he was also quite sure that Bryanna and Tiana didn't
find keeping him company at night to be distasteful. Tiana's unsubtle
complaint earlier that he was neglecting her was a good indicator of
that, as was Bryanna's shameless abuse of their shared House status to
get more solo nights with him.
Either they were enjoying the situation as much as him or else they
should abandon the clothes store idea and go to Hollywood.
Isabel came off as being rather starchy in addition to the slight social
awkwardness that seemed normal for Ravenclaws. She'd presented him with
the contract with the kind of stiff backed poise he'd expect from
McGonagall. She obviously wanted to get this over with as soon as
possible.
The Gryffindor of the group was a somewhat different matter. She looked
like she was just waiting for an excuse to get mad at him.
Harry couldn't be 100% sure, but he thought that they were both magically
weaker than Bryanna and Tiana. He had no hard evidence to support this as
his magesight and magic sensing only told him whether something was
magical or not and didn't quantify it, but a gut feeling told him that
Isabel and Jade were simply weaker people.
This same gut feeling had been giving him impressions of the people
around him ever since his return to Hogwarts.
It told him that Luna was a generally flighty person who drifted through
life without much concern, but there was something broken in her that
paradoxically made her stronger than she seemed.
Ginny; an insecure little girl wrapped up in a mixture of sulky

resentment and longing. That's what she felt like around him at any rate.
He didn't know if there was more to her or not.
Malfoy; a front of arrogance shoring up a brittle core, not nearly as

strong as he liked to portray himself as. He felt as if he would shatter
if the illusion of superiority was taken from him.
Lupin; the inner wildness of his wolf wrapped in walls of fear and self-
loathing. There was steel in him, but it seemed to be turned inward, as
if he was most afraid of himself.
Snape; bitter and hateful with a core of guilt and self-loathing even
stronger than Lupin. There was a fatalistic sense of determination too,
as if he was dead set on finishing something and cared little for the
aftermath.
These were all just vague impressions that only got marginally clearer
the more time he spent around the people in question. It was also clearer
with some people than others. Harry suspected that it was clearer with
the more powerful wizards and witches.
Dumbledore was for example a pillar of calm over a deep well of grief and
regret. There was an unshakable determination in him to accomplish
something, at any cost. It made feel very dangerous.
By contrast, people like Isabel Morris and Jade Dawson were much less
noticeable. Their souls did not shine as bright and would have faded into
the background if there were more people present. As it was, Bryanna and
Tiana nearly eclipsed them. His pretty bedwarmers were far more self-
assured than their friends, more driven and just...more.
Harry couldn't quite help himself from labeling people like them as NPCs.
But he wasn't here to woolgather, he was here to inspect the contract.
"I'm sorry, but I can't sign this." He finally said, not needing to watch
to know that all four girls had tensed.
"You said you would!" Jade snapped peevishly.
Tiana kicked her in the shin, muttering something about Gryffindors all
the while.
"Is there something wrong with it?" She asked lightly.
"Yes." He responded bluntly. "Its way too simplistic."
"It covers the terms that we agreed on." Bryanna pointed out.
And hadn't that been a bitch to explain to Isabel and Jade. They hadn't
been too pleased at the fact that they would be minority owners in the
future no matter what, as the original plan had been for equal shares.
They were especially displeased that Harry had decided this based on the
fact that they hadn't participated in the seduction plan.
Bryanna and Tiana were secretly pleased about reaping greater rewards for
the gamble they took, not to mention that Harry had become very enjoyable
night time company lately.
"Which was talked over a period of about five to ten minutes." Harry
pointed out. "This contract works well enough if you aren't planning to
turn a profit. The use of the Potter family name will protect your
business from being shut down by a made up reason by some uppity
pureblood, but it does nothing to protect you from anyone that might want
to muscle in on it for themselves later on. At the very least I want a
clause included that forbids any of you from selling your share to anyone
except me."
"What business is it of yours who we would sell it to?" Jade demanded,
earning herself another kick from Tiana.
"I suspect that the Potter family lost its vineyards and pottery business
to the Parkinsons exactly because of something like this." Harry
retorted. "Trusted managers given emergency authorization because the
owner was unreachable or dead, then in comes Lord Parkinson making veiled
threats of what might happen to those same managers and their families if
they don't sell. I still need to investigate if that's what really
happened, but after what I've learned from Bryanna and Tiana and my own
research it seems like a likely scenario. The point being that if you
can't sell to anyone except me, then that means that you can't be
threatened, bribed or blackmailed into it either."
Jade and Isabel paled at that, obviously having never considered it. Even
Bryanna and Tiana were a bit perturbed.
"Wouldn't that make you a target then?" Isabel ventured.
"I'd be Lord Potter by then." Harry replied with a self-deprecating grin.

"I checked the laws. I can legally kill people for stuff like that, among
other things."
"And we can't." Tiana stated with a small sneer, getting another clue as
to how exactly it was possible for the purebloods to keep a deathgrip on
the economy. She'd missed that nugget of information in her earlier
research.
"Nope, only Lords can issue honor duels." Harry confirmed wryly. Not that
it was done much anymore as that was a rather extreme course of action,
but there were non-violent alternatives. That was no doubt the main
reason that the Noble Houses generally stayed out of each other's
business.
"Alright, we definitely need to add that." Bryanna stated firmly.
"We probably need to add a lot of other things." He said. "I'm not a
lawyer and there's probably a thousand other loopholes that I'm not
seeing. I'd suggest that we meet over the summer and get a professional
opinion on this, both muggle and magical."
"Why muggle?" Tiana asked curiously. "We're not really planning to have
too much contact with the Muggle World. As soon as we get good enough at
making our own clothes, we might cut contact with them entirely aside
from buying some materials."
"Because my dear, while the muggle side of business might not have any of
this Noble garbage involved or perhaps because of it , it is ten times
as cutthroat. "
XXXXX
Harry grinned as he tossed a compact fireball at the target that the Room
of Requirement provided for him.
Moving on to the next thing, he carefully began crafting a blasting curse

between his hands, infusing the raw magical energy with his intent, all
the while keeping it controlled. With a flick of his wrist, he hurled it
at another target, demolishing that one as well.
He moved on to other spells after that. Stunners, disarming hexes,

various transfigurations and more.
Now that he could clearly see and sense what was going on, wandless magic
was no longer such an impenetrable mystery. It was slow, far too slow for
combat purposes at this point, but also far more controlled than anything
he could do with a wand and no less powerful.
Wands allowed a wizard to skip the difficult process of learning to

manipulate magic with their minds alone. Some wands were better suited to
certain things than others, but they could all be used for more or less
everything. The interaction between core, wood and whatever else a
wandcrafter did made sure of this.
Truly, whoever had figured out modern wands had been a genius with few
equals, but in allowing magic users to skip the journey, so much had been
lost.
For example, Modern wizards and witches used the Tempus charm to find out
what time it was, but they never once considered what was involved with
such a spell.
If Harry wanted to cast that particular spell wandlessly, he had to take

into account the position of the Sun in the sky, the Earth's axial tilt,
the form that he wanted the information to take and several other things.
It took him half an hour to craft the spell and his results were very far
from accurate.
With a wand, you just had to give it a little wave and something in the
stick and the movements allowed you to bypass all the nuances and skip
right ahead to the results. It was rather disturbing how sophisticated
wands actually were, but he supposed that they would be after two
thousand years of refinement.
The problem was that they had made wizardkind lazy. Obscenely so. Wands
had sucked all the wonder and mystery out of magic by reducing it to a
bunch of swishing and flicking. It was no wonder that modern day wizards
were so unimpressive when they didn't really have to exert any kind of
real thought to cast spells. Oh sure, you needed a certain level of focus
to use magic with a wand(though even that was drastically reduced through
the use of wand motions), but it was not even close to the mental
dexterity required to weave a spell with only one's mind and will.
Harry moved on to the Patronus. It took him fifteen minutes to shape the
spell and work his desire to protect into it, but he could change the
size of his raven at will, increase its power to blinding luminance or
reduce it to formless mist.
So what if it took an age to cast right now? With enough practice, the
mental process would eventually become so familiar that he would be able
to do it in an instant.
A quick check of the time told him that he was going to be late for his
Charms class. Again.
With an aggravated sigh, Harry restarted the process of forming his

Patronus. Charms class was a waste of time anyway.
XXXXX
"Has anyone noticed anything...strange about Mr. Potter's behavior

lately?" Minerva asked.
"He's sometimes taken to staring at his cauldron like a confounded troll

ever since Christmas." Snape replied with dry derision.
"Severus!" She said sharply, but the Potions Master was undaunted by her
warning.
"While I wouldn't phrase it in the way that Severus did, he has been
acting a bit erratic." Flitwick added. "His practical work is as good as
ever, but his written work of late has been subpar to say the least. His
homework has the feel of being rushed to completion without care for the
quality."
"It is the same with me." The Transfiguration teacher said with her brow
furrowed in thought.
"Me too." Remus added quietly.
"He actually turns in passable essays to me." Snape admitted grudgingly.

The quality of Potter's potions had also been steadily increasing, but he
wasn't going to admit that unless he absolutely had to.
"He is diligent enough with me as well, though obviously not interested."

Sprout chimed in.
"Still, this is a worrying trend." Minerva continued. "And the sudden

drop in his work quality isn't even the worst of it, he actually skipped
one of my classes the other day and then refused to come to the detention
I assigned him!"
"Err, Minerva." Flitwick said with an embarrassed cough. "He's skipped

three of mine already."
"And you just let him do it?" She asked, mildly scandalized. No wonder
he'd refused to come to detention if his Head of House was letting him
get away with it.
"I talked to him about it and he admitted to being bored stiff in my
classroom." The half-goblin Professor admitted. "He was easily able to
demonstrate mastery of what we covered in those classes, to a degree that
made it obvious that he'd known the spells for some time already. The
curriculum is simply moving too slowly for him. I suspect that might also
be the reason for his poorly done homework, he probably doesn't want to
waste time on things that he already knows."
That had the deputy Headmistress looking thoughtful. She still didn't
appreciate the boy outright ignoring the punishment she'd set for him,
but this shed some light on his behavior.
"Surely you cannot be thinking of allowing the brat to skip a year or,
Merlin forbid, allowing him free reign to decide which classes to
attend?" Snape questioned, his opinion on the matter clear.
"Well there is hardly any point in forcing him to attend lessons that he
has no use for." She retorted huffily.
"What do you think, Albus? You've been awfully quiet." Flitwick asked.
Dumbledore had indeed been quiet, listening to the conversation and

turning things over in his mind.
"Professors Vector and Babbling tell me that they believe that Harry may
be able to take his OWLs for Arithmancy and Ancient Runes over the summer
if he continues to progress at the current pace." He said.
"That's quite impressive, I had no idea he was so far along." Flitwick

said, ignoring the soft snort from Snape.
"Indeed, Septima and Bathsheda have nothing but praise for the boy."
Dumbledore chuckled. "I think that they enjoy having a student take such
interest in their subjects, which are often considered to be quite
onerous."
"So what is to be done about Potter?" Minerva pressed.
"I will talk to him first and then determine what to do." Dumbledore
decided.
XXXXX
Ever since his last ritual, Harry found that he could no longer sleep
through sunrise or sunset. The change in his magic as the sun rose and
set would always wake him.
Because of this, he often made his way to the top of the Astronomy Tower
to watch as it happened. At the very least on the days when it wasn't
cloudy.
These trips had also been an opportunity to spend some time just
thinking, mostly about the fact that he had killed someone. He'd turned
the event over in his mind countless times, but he simply could not bring
himself to feel particularly bad about the killing itself. Wormtail had
been a loathsome human being, a coward, traitor, murderer and who knows
what else. His death would go unmourned by those who knew the truth and
only the fact that it made things more difficult for Sirius made it
regrettable.
Eventually he'd simply gotten fed up of attempting to dredge up some kind

guilt or horror at the act. He just didn't feel it and apparently
wouldn't no matter that society didn't approve of killers.
Remarkably, the cracks in his soul seemed to heal a bit once he stopped
wrestling with himself over it.
"Back again, Harry?" Dumbledore asked as he walked up to stand beside the

tall but young teenager.
He hadn't been able to divine the reason for Harry's quick growth, but he
was by now certain that it wasn't natural. It didn't seem to be affecting
him aside from that though, so he let it go despite his curiousity. The
answer may yet come to him later.
"It's a nice morning." Harry replied noncommittally, having sensed the

old wizard's approach. "It'll be a beautiful sunrise."
"You have been coming up here frequently of late." Dumbledore commented.

"May I ask what prompted this sudden fascination with the Sun?"
Harry's lips twitched into a small smile. Anyone would be fascinated by

the Sun if they knew what he knew and owed their continued existence to
the ball of fiery gas.
"There is something special about seeing the world bathed in Light." He

said instead, leaving out the fact that if forced to choose, he would
have to say that he preferred the Dark and the stars.
"There is indeed," Dumbledore agreed. "but I had not thought that a boy
your age would be able to appreciate it."
"You might be surprised by the things I can appreciate." Harry retorted,

mildly irritated by the mention of his age. He'd once felt thirteen
despite the size of his body, but he didn't anymore. Too much had
happened for him to stay a child.
"Such as the lovely female company you keep?" Dumbledore chuckled.
"Hm, I guess it was too much to hope for that the rumor mill wouldn't
catch wind of that." Harry grumbled.
"Alas, the Hogwarts rumor mill rarely fails to spread about uncomfortable
secrets."
They lapsed into silence as dawn approached, an unspoken agreement

passing between them to watch the sunrise in silence.
They had a surprise late arrival in the form of the Headmaster's phoenix,
who arrived on Dumbledore's shoulder in a burst of flame just a minute
before the event.
"Have you come to watch the sunrise as well, Fawkes?" Dumbledore asked
with a smile, reaching up to ruffle the firebird's chest feathers.
Fawkes trilled in agreement, shooting a look towards Harry that he would

swear was distrustful.
Harry felt a shiver of discomfort go through him, but ignored it. The
phoenix was a creature of Light, so it was only natural for its song to
be mildly unpleasant to him now that he was full of Dark.
The small discomfort passed as the Sun rose over the eastern mountains
and pushed back the Dark. Harry was always slightly sad to see it happen.
The Sun's overpowering presence was simply not as beautiful as the
multitude of distant stars.
Fawkes trilled curiously, hopping from Dumbledore's shoulder over to

Harry's and poking his beak in the younger wizard's temple. Right into
the hidden Sol rune in fact.
"Oi, cut that out." Harry protested, gently pushing the firebird's head
away.
"He seems to like you." Dumbledore chuckled. "Or perhaps is confused by

you."
Harry figured that the phoenix must have sensed it as the magic present
in his soul shifted from Dark to Light. Being strongly aligned with
Light, the phoenix was probably naturally sensitive to things like that
in ways that wizards generally weren't.
Fawkes continued to make a pest of himself for the next few minutes, much
to Dumbledore's amusement. He'd never seen his phoenix act like this
around anyone before, but he took heart in it. Phoenixes were generally
attracted to good people when they deigned to interact with them at all,
so this boded well for the future.
"What do you want?" Harry finally asked in exasperation.
Fawkes trilled a beautiful song that resonated in his magic wonderfully,

but was ultimately unhelpful in figuring out what the ostentatious
feather duster wanted.
"What, do you want to praise the Sun in jolly cooperation?" Harry asked
sarcastically, starting to get annoyed by Dumbledore's chortling.
Fawkes trilled happily.
"Was that a yes?" Harry asked with some incredulity.
Fawkes repeated the same trill.

"O...kay." Harry said dubiously, feeling entirely ridiculous but willing
to try it if it would get the feathered menace to stop poking its beak
into his head.
I can't believe that I'm doing this. He thought to himself. And with an
audience no less.
Staunchly ignoring the embarrassed blush creeping up his face at what he

was doing, Harry put his feet together, extended his arms as far as they
would go and raised them into the air, as if to embrace the sunlight.
This robbed Fawkes of his shoulder perch of course, but the phoenix
solved that problem by jumping on his head and raising his wings in a
mimicry of Harry's arms, releasing a song full of nostalgic joy as he did
so.
"Happy now?" Harry asked, unable to quite muster any irritation because
of the sheer feeling that the phoenix had packed into the song.
Fawkes trilled in the manner that Harry was starting to associate with
agreement and flamed away.
"What was that?" Dumbledore asked, intensely curious. "I have never seen
Fawkes act so strangely before."
"I think...I think that he might have missed the days when the Sun was
worshipped as a deity." Harry said slowly, mostly guessing but it felt
right. Obviously, the rituals from those days weren't likely to bear much
resemblance to something that he'd taken out of a video game, but the
core purpose was the same and that was all that Fawkes seemed to have
cared about.
"I suppose that is possible." Dumbledore mused. "The phoenix was revered
as a representative of the Sun in many ancient cultures."
"Anyway, did you have some reason for coming up here this early in the
morning on a weekend, sir?" Harry asked, wanting to move past this little
situation before the old wizard stopped asking 'what?' and started on
'why?'.
"Ah yes, I had nearly forgotten in all the excitement. I was supposed to
discuss your education."
"What about my education?" Harry asked warily.
"It has come to our, that being the Professors, attention that you are
not feeling sufficiently challenged in some of your classes."
"I was always good at Charms and Transfiguration." Harry said with a
nonchalant shrug.
"And the others?" Dumbledore prompted.

"We're mostly doing creatures in defense, so I do still learn new things
there, but I would probably be quite far ahead if we were doing spells.
I'm not really interested in Herbology, so I'm just slogging through
that."
Dumbledore blinked in slight surprise. "How refreshingly honest of you to

say so, Harry."
"I've recently discovered a newfound interest in Potions, but I'm no

further ahead than anyone else." Nor was it likely to happen any time
soon. The kind of experimenting he wanted to try with potions wasn't
really something that he could do right now, as it would be very time
consuming.
"It's much the same with Astronomy and you already know that I'm taking
private lessons in Arithmancy and Ancient Runes."
"Yes, I have heard from Professors Vector and Babbling that you are doing
quite well in your electives. So well in fact that they feel you would be
able to take your OWLs in those subjects during the summer if you
continue to apply yourself as you have."
"Couldn't I take Charms, Transfiguration and maybe Defense too while I'm
at it?" Harry asked. He'd already spoken to Vector and Babbling about the
possibility.
"I am afraid that the Ministry does not offer early OWLs for core
classes." Dumbledore answered.
"Why not?"
"As you may know, getting an OWL in one's core classes represents the
minimum required education as decreed by the Ministry of Magic. They
ceased offering early OWLs for those classes after an incident some three
hundred years ago when a magical prodigy managed to get all of the
required OWLs in the summer after her second year and decided to leave
Hogwarts to advance her studies further on her own."
"Why was that a problem?"
"Normally it wouldn't be, but you must recall that this was a thirteen-
year old girl. She was not the most cautious of people and caused a
severe breach in the Statute of Secrecy after an altercation with a
belligerent muggle teenager. Incidentally, that was also how the
Reasonable Restriction on Underage Sorcery came about."
"Lovely." Harry said dryly. "Was that all?"
"Ah, no. Forgive an old man's digressing, but I actually came to talk to
you in order to assess if it would prudent to offer you the opportunity
to audit higher year Charms and Transfiguration classes at your own
discretion."
Dumbledore would have once hesitated to offer the boy such a thing, but
it was obvious by now that Harry was not going to be making friends in
his own year. He was cordial with most of them, but not in any way close.
Better to use the opportunity to build goodwill with the boy than to hold
him back in the vain hope that he would somehow befriend people that he
had not for the past two and a half years.
"I'm assuming that this is being offered since you mentioned it?"
"Indeed. If you choose to accept, then Professors Flitwick and McGonagall

will periodically test you to make sure that you are keeping up with your
studies, but you will otherwise be left alone to study the material on
your own."
"I'd like that." Harry said.
"Very well then, I wish you the best of luck." Dumbledore nodded. "But
one final bit of advice if I may. Do not get so consumed in your studies
that you forget to have fun."
"Oh, I don't think you need to worry about that." Harry replied with a
small smirk.
"I am glad to hear it." Dumbledore said with an amused smile of his own
and left the Astronomy Tower.
Harry stared after the old wizard, wondering what exactly he was playing
at. Either there was no actual plot or it was a seriously subtle one.
XXXXX
Harry winked at Bryanna and Tiana, taking vast amounts of amusement at

their wide-eyed stares.
"Mr. Potter, I know that the Headmaster has given you leave to audit any
Transfiguration class you wish, but do you not think that a seventh year
class is a bit too advanced for you?" McGonagall asked disapprovingly. In
truth, she was thinking that he had picked this particular class for the
sole purpose of dropping in on his...girlfriends, or whatever they were.
"I'm just trying to get a feel for where exactly I am in terms of

ability, Professor." Harry answered calmly.
"Very well." McGonagall conceded grudgingly. "But I do not want you

attempting to cast the spells you will see here. Human transfiguration
can be dangerous if done improperly and is not something that should be
attempted lightly."
"Wouldn't dream of it, Professor." Harry semi-lied. He certainly wouldn't

attempt it lightly, but he would eventually attempt it if he felt that he
could do it.
McGonagall was somewhat reassured about his seriousness when he did not
attempt to communicate with Ms. Torres or Ms. Day in any fashion, but
instead kept his eyes fixed firmly on her and listened attentively. His
focus was almost unnerving in its intensity in fact, but better that than
to have him treating one of the most difficult branches of
Transfiguration carelessly.
Harry spent the entire lesson studying how the energy flowed as the other
students transfigured each other into various things. He could see why it
was considered difficult, as the caster also had to take the magic of his
target into account in addition to their own.
This would probably be useful when he and Sirius got started on the
Animagus transformation.
XXXXX
The rest of the school year proceeded without any overt excitement from
then on. Harry kept up a sporadic attendance of Charms and
Transfiguration classes, in an order that nobody could really make sense
of, but Flitwick and McGonagall couldn't deny that he was well ahead of
where he should be so they couldn't protest much.
Lupin kept up a strange balance between wanting to approach him again and
staying away, drowning in self-pity all the while. Harry was honestly not
seeing much of the clever werewolf that Sirius sometimes talked about in
his letters. Professor Lupin had more in common with an old man waiting
to die. It might have helped him to know that Sirius was not a traitor,
but blurting out that kind of dangerous secret to make someone feel
better was just stupid.
Snape continued to be as unpleasant as possible because of what he saw as

the Potter spawn getting special treatment, but his odium had become
something of an unremarkable backdrop to Potions by now and failed to
really get much of a reaction out of Harry. He took points constantly, he
made rants occasionally and he glared ceaselessly, but Harry simply
didn't care enough about Snape's personal opinion of him to take it to
heart. He had what he wanted and the Potion Master's hissy fits meant
exactly bugger-all.
Unbeknownst to Harry, this passive disregard and failure to rise up to

the provocation was wearing Snape out. He couldn't really escalate any
further in a school setting and there was only so long that you could
rail at someone who didn't care before you ran out of steam.
On the more friendly teacher front, Vector and Babbling had decided to
double the number of lessons per week they had with him, apparently
determined to have him pass the Arithmancy and Ancient Runes OWLs over
the summer with a solid O.
Harry could only be thankful that Bryanna and Tiana seemed more than
happy to help him out with the tension that the increased amount of time
spent with the beautiful Arithmancy teacher was causing him, even if it
did nothing for the numerous detention fantasies he was accumulating.
XXXXX
Last weekend before the end of the school year.
"You know, I think I'm actually going to miss these little get-togethers
of ours." Tiana said musingly, stretching out in the decadently luxurious
bathtub that the Room of Requirement had provided.
"Not as much as me." Harry said mournfully from beside her. "Who's going
to keep me company at night when you two graduate?"
"I'm sure you'll find some other girl to seduce." Bryanna snorted from
his other side. "Maybe you can even invite Rosmerta or Professor Vector
into your bed."
"I should never have told you that I have a thing for older women." Harry
sighed with a smile.
"I'm still offended by that by the way." Tiana chimed in teasingly. "You
have two sexy teens in bed with you and you fantasize about old women."
"They're not old, just older." Harry protested. "And do you want me to
kiss it and make it better again?"
"Merlin's balls, no." She groaned. "I think my clitoris might revolt if
you went anywhere near it again."
Harry said nothing in response, merely smirked with supreme smugness.

Nothing like bringing a girl to several screaming orgasms with magically
enhanced cunnilingus to boost one's ego. That book of Luna's might be
just about the most awesome gift he'd ever received.
"Would you look at that smug look on his face?" Bryanna commented. "He
learns how to properly lick pussy and suddenly he thinks he's the king of
the world."
Harry reached over and gave her nipple a pinch, enjoying her squeak.
"So, when are we going to meet up during the summer?" Tiana asked a few
minutes later.
"I'll contact you when I know." Harry replied. "I'm going to have a lot
to do during the summer and setting up meetings with a couple of lawyers
is the least of it."
"What else will you be doing?" Bryanna asked curiously.
"I've got to take my Arithmancy and Ancient Runes OWLs at the Ministry,
track down the old managers of my family's business and talk to them
about why exactly that business now belongs to the Parkinsons and a few
other things."
Things like getting Sirius to teach him how to become an Animagus and
getting him acquitted.
"What about yout muggle girlfriend?" Bryanna teased. He'd told them about
Zoe one day when they asked who'd popped his cherry, because it obviously
hadn't been them.
"She's not my girlfriend, she's a friend with benefits." Harry said with
dignity. "A lot like you two actually."
"You really should get a muggle girlfriend." Tiana suggested with a

smirk. "I can already see the outraged headlines in the Prophet, 'Boy-
Who-Lived dates a muggle! How far has our saviour fallen?'."
"Amusing as that would be, I'm not going to get a muggle girlfriend just
to spite Wizarding Britain's elite." Harry snorted. "Besides, I doubt
they'd be that obvious about their prejudice. The headline would probably
be something like 'Boy-Who-Lived dates a muggle! Are Britain's witches
not good enough for him?'."
"They just need to set you up with a nice middle aged witch and that'll
be that." Bryanna teased.
Harry groaned. He really shouldn't have told them about that.
"How about Molly Weasley?" The Ravenclaw girl continued.
"Don't even joke about that!" Harry retorted sharply, shuddering

theatrically. "There's a very big difference between a sexy mature woman
and an overbearing broodmother."
He knew that he was probably being overly harsh, especially as he'd

personally met the woman for a grand total of thirty seconds, but he'd
learned enough from second hand sources to steer well clear of her.
Ginny's commentary and the occasional howler she sent had painted a
picture of a woman who meant well, but who was also very opinionated and
had not the slightest clue when to ease up. That wasn't even mentionning
that she wasn't the slightest bit attractive as far as Harry was
concerned.
"Well enough about Harry's fetishes." Tiana declared, ignoring his

exasperated eyeroll. "Since this is our last night together, I've
prepared a little something."
The other two looked at her curiously as she grabbed her wand and gave it
a wave, causing three goblets and a bottle of wine to float towards them.
"Goblets for drinking wine? Really?" Harry questioned wryly as she poured
him some. "This makes me feel more like Conan the Barbarian than a
wizard."
"Who?" The girls asked blankly.
"Right, I forgot that you wizard-raised savages don't know anything about
the classics." Harry sighed.
"At least we aren't some muggle-raised bumpkin who thinks that goblets
aren't appropriate for drinking wine." Tiana retorted.
"What are we drinking to?" Bryanna asked before the conversation could
devolve into a string of playful insults on the differences between a
muggle or magical upbringing.
"To profitable partnerships." Tiana suggested, raising her goblet.
"To future successes." Bryanna added, bumping her own goblet against her
friend's.
"And fringe benefits." Harry finished with a grin, mirroring their move.
"Cheeky little cunt." Bryanna smirked.
"That is not language fit for a Lady." Harry told her snobbily.
"Ah, but as a mere commoner, I can be as vulgar as I please. If that

bothers my Lord, then he should have let himself be duped into a
marriage." She retorted coquettishly, batting her eyelashes in an
overdone manner.
"I can ruin my life with a serious relationship anytime, but I'm only
going to be young once." He countered, grinning. He had been somewhat
upset about their plan when he'd first heard of it, but they'd become
friends since then and he couldn't fault their ambition or even their
reasoning. Prospects for them really weren't great in Britain.
"I'll drink to that." The girls said in unison. They hadn't been enthused
about the idea of marriage before hitting twenty either, seeing it only
as a means to an end, so this turn of events was actually preferrable to
them.
The three of them brought the goblets to their lips and took a large gulp
of the wine.
"You know, judging by how fond people are of alcohol, I expected it to

taste better." Harry commented, smacking his lips with a distasteful
grimace.
"Maybe it's a bad vintage?" Tiana asked weakly, having not been too fond
of the flavor either. "I don't know a thing about wine, so I just picked
one at random."
"It's not that bad." Bryanna commented, taking another sip.
Harry exchanged a look with Tiana and shrugged. They didn't see what was
so 'not bad' about it, but to each their own.
XXXXX
Harry and Luna had a compartment to themselves on the train ride back to
King's Cross. Luna had tried to invite Ginny along, but the redhead
wasn't as insensitive to social awkwardness as the blonde, so she had
declined and gone to sit with her brothers.
Harry was thankful for that. He didn't hate Ginny, but he'd rather not be
in prolonged close contact with her anymore. That constant gloom she gave
off about the way he lived his life was more than a little off putting.
So the two of them had spent their time discussing what they would be
doing over the summer, though Harry had to lie about quite a bit of it.
Luna had been happy to tell him all about the trip to Germany's Black
Forest that she had planned with her father. Apparently there was a
magical section of it that still remained hidden from muggles to this
day. She'd even invited him to come along, but he had had to decline
despite his interest in seeing the place. He simply had too much going on
this summer to accept.
Of course, the experience wouldn't be quite complete without Draco Malfoy

stopping by to visit.
"I'm surprised you don't have those two halfblood whores in here with
you, Potter." The poncy Slytherin sneered.
Harry scowled at the interloper, irritated by the insult to Bryanna and

Tiana more than anything else. "Get lost, Malfoy."
"What's wrong Potter? Don't like hearing what they are?" Malfoy
continued, sneer firmly in place. His omnipresent goons chuckled
sycophantically.
It was at this point that Harry noticed that the little shit was using
the doorframe for support since the train was currently passing a fairly
bumpy area of the tracks.
Carefully hiding a smirk, Harry grabbed hold of the door with his magic
and slammed it closed over Malfoy's fingers.
The Slytherin howled in pain and collapsed to the ground, clutching at

his smashed-but-luckily-not-broken fingers.
"You alright there, Malfoy?" Harry asked, no longer bothering to hide his
amusement. "That looked like it hurt."
"When my father hears about this..." Draco tried to threaten, but it come
out as more of a pained sob.
"He'll do what? Have the door executed?" Harry asked sarcastically,

making a reference to the hippogriff that had been killed by the Ministry
at the end of the school year on Malfoy senior's initiative. Even Harry
had noticed how mopey Hagrid had been after that and he didn't even have
any real contact with the half-giant.
"I know you did this, Potter!" Draco screeched.

"Sure I did, Malfoy." Harry replied with a practiced deadpan. "Just like
I made you trip into that suit of armor a few weeks ago, right? And
without a wand in both cases too."
To be fair, that was exactly what he'd done.
Angry, frustrated and in a great deal of pain, Malfoy sulked off. He was
sure that Potter was somehow the cause of all these weird accidents that
kept happening to him, but the fact that the scarheaded Ravenclaw never
had his wand in hand when it happened left him stumped as to how.
The whole thing was made worse by the fact that nobody believed him when
he tried to explain that he sometimes felt a spell push him off balance.
They just assumed that he was clumsy and trying to cover it up.
He had the same reputation for clumsyness as Longbottom now. Longbottom!
"That wasn't very nice of you, Harry." Luna commented without

recrimination.
"It's not my fault that the door slid closed over his fingers." Harry
defended.
"Really?" Luna asked in honest puzzlement, lifting up her hamster pet to

her face. "But Boo seems so certain that it was."
"Does he now?" Harry murmured, looking at the hamster suspiciously and

wondering for just a moment if he hadn't somehow stumbled across
something other than a normal rodent. Or maybe extended magical exposure
had altered it. "What else does he say?"
"Not much actually, but he is excited to go hunting for snorkacks."
Ah, nevermind. All was well as long as Luna was going on about snorkacks.
XXXXX
Deep in the forests of Albania, the disembodied spirit of a much feared

and now thought dead Dark Lord was reduced to possessing animals, mostly
snakes out of personal preference.
Had Peter Pettigrew managed to escape from his former friend and the son
of those he'd betrayed, he would have eventually followed the clues he
was able to glean from the rats with whom he shared a form, seeking
protection from the enemies he'd made. Had this happened, Voldemort would
have had a servant to help him make a play for a return to physical form.
Alas for the broken Dark Lord, Pettigrew was dead and his other followers
had deserted him, even those few who had an inkling that he was not quite
dead, finding that they liked it better when they didn't have to grovel
before the massively powerful wizard. Political games and economic ploys
might be slower and less satisfying than an eradication of mudbloods by
force, but it was much safer.
Because of this notable lack of servant, the mildly brain damaged Bertha
Jorkins was able to make her way out of Albania without issue and
Voldemort never learned that one of his most faithful, Barty Crouch Jr.,
was kept imprisoned by his father's Imperious instead of in Azkaban.
Instead of that, he continued to stew in his hatred and plot ways that he
might use to return.
Chapter 10
Much thanks to Joe Lawyer for his awesome beta-ing skillz.
XXXXX
As he made his way up to the door of his foster parents' home, Harry
wondered what their reaction to his current appearance was going to be.
At an even six feet now, he was impossibly tall for a not-quite-fourteen-

year old. Well, impossible unless you were Dutch, which he wasn't. His
growth had slowed down recently, so he figured that he might manage a few
more inches at best before it stopped. He was still a bit on the gangly
side of teenagerhood, but was hopeful that he would start filling out
soon.
His black hair rested between his shoulder blades in a neat ponytail,
even the Potter wildness defeated by gravity. Only the ends still tried
to stick every which way, but for the most part ceded defeat with only
mild use of cosmetic spellwork to keep it straight
Harry took a deep breath as he pushed open the door. He didn't keep too
many things here anymore, having gradually moved them over to Potter
Manor, so it didn't take him long to 'unpack' so to speak. After that was
done, he made his way to the living room, where he figured that Robert
and Katherine were currently watching the evening news. He mostly
intended to just say hello and goodbye before he went back to the manor,
and even that only because they expected to see him once the school year
was over.
"Hey." He greeted as he entered the room.
"Welcome back." Robert said in a rather perfunctionary, even cold,

manner. Harry figured that his constant absences must have started to
become terribly inconvenient for them. The disapproval made his heart
bleed. Not.
Katherine didn't say anything, merely walking up to him and looking him
over intently. "If I didn't know better I'd say that you were at least
seventeen if not older." She sounded a bit surprised.
That was about the physical age that Harry figured himself to be as well.
"I must be an early bloomer." He said with a shrug.
"Is that actual stubble on your face? You're shaving already?" Katherine
continued, now sounding quite a bit more incredulous. Height was one
thing, but a beard was something else entirely.
Harry's lips twitched in amusement. He did indeed develop a patchy beard

if he didn't shave often. He'd deliberately let himself grow some stubble
to see how his foster parents would react.
"Yes, I am." He said simply. "Anyway, I just came to say 'hi' before
going back. I've got a lot to do over the summer, so I'm not going to be
around much, if at all."
"You'll need to be here on the seventh, we're meeting with the Burtons
then." Katherine said.
"I can't, I have too much to do." Harry repeated, keeping the grimace he
wanted to make off his face. The Burtons were as bad as his own foster
parents from what he remembered.
"You can take a day off." Robert declared, as if that was the last word
on the matter. "People have been asking questions about where you are and
you need to make a few appearances."
"Their daughter has turned out quite well. I'm sure you'll like her."
Katherine added, thinking to appeal to his hormones.
In this she failed spectacularly. Elizabeth Burton had indeed been a very
pretty girl even a few years back and would by now probably be a very
beautiful teen, but she was utterly vapid. Her personality would be more
interesting if she was unconscious and Harry's libido was not nearly
deprived enough of female companionship to willingly endure that kind of
torture.
"My magical studies are more important." He said, simultaneously weaving

a compulsion spell around Katherine. He firmly ignored the insidious
thought of what else he could compel her to do. It wasn't the first time
that he'd had thoughts of abusing his power like this.
"I suppose..." Katherine conceded reluctantly, the compulsion making her

accept his words as truth.
"Now wait just a minute!" Robert protested at seeing his wife give in.
"You have responsibilities to this family and you've been ignoring them
for long enough already."
"You can handle the Burtons just fine without me." Harry told him,
weaving another compulsion around the man. "The long term investment of
my magic is much more important than having me go with you."
Robert subsided at that, his mind full of the possibilities that magic
would open. Possibilities that Harry had neglected to inform him were
illegal and which he would not carry out even if they weren't.
It was easy to leave after that, but something niggled at his mind
despite the ease with which he had bent the wills of his foster parents
and escaped their blasted socializing. Something had been wrong in that
encounter and he wasn't talking about the questionable legality of it.
He couldn't pinpoint the feeling, but something had simply not felt
right.
XXXXX
The mystery feeling didn't remain a mystery for very long, as it cleared
up almost as soon as he made it back to the manor.
The situation had felt wrong because the gut feeling about people that
he'd gotten used to had been absent. With no magic in them, Robert and
Katherine were blank spots to this new sense he seemed to have developed.
It had been a background sensation for so long that he'd only properly
noticed it once it had vanished and returned.
It had been uncomfortable not to have that extra sense aorund people.
"Harry, are you listening to me?" Sirius asked in exasperation.
"I was thinking." Harry replied, mildly irritated at having his train of
thought interrupted.
"How about you rethink this plan of yours then?" The dog Animagus
prompted.
"It's a good plan." Harry insisted.
Perhaps more complicated than he would have liked but solid all the same.
The Ministry could not be trusted to do the right thing, so a situation
had to be created where too many people knew the truth for things to be
swept under the rug.
That meant the media and that meant reporters. Harry disliked reporters
on general principle and disliked magical reporters as a matter of
caution. The Wizarding World seemed to have much looser laws in regards
to slander than its muggle counterpart. The Daily Prophet had come across
as valuing sensationalism and shock value over facts more than once.
But in this case that could be used. Nothing pleased the vultures more
than a shocking and sensational truth.
"What if it fails?" Sirius asked.
That was a legitimate worry. It was possible that the reporter would
squeal to the Ministry instead of printing the story, but Harry
considered it a low probability. Reporters thrived on controversy like
fungus thrived on moisture. "In that case we'll have to improvise."
"I still think we should bring Dumbledore in on this. He's got contacts
everywhere. He could get this handled without the risk."
"No." Harry scowled. "I don't trust the old man. He was Chief Warlock
back when you were first imprisoned, but he didn't even bother to visit
you once, much less provide you with a trial. I'm not going to rely on
him unless I absolutely have to."
Nothing good ever came of owing favors to powerful people, wizards least
of all.
Sirius frowned but eventually gave a grudging nod. Yes, it was possible
that Dumbledore had been as duped by the deception as anyone, but it was
hard not to feel resentful for twelve years spent in Azkaban.
"I guess I was just hoping to keep you from doing all the work." He
finally admitted with a resigned sigh. "You're way too young to be
pulling my arse out of the fire like this."
"I'm not looking forward to it either, but we don't have a lot of options
with Pettigrew being dead." Harry replied.
They had gone over a lot of possible plans, but using the media to cause
a big scene and drag everything into the open was by far the most
reliable. They could have directly contacted Amelia Bones, the current
head of the DMLE, but Sirius had only her good reputation from over a
decade ago to go on rather than any personal or even recent
knowledge, so it was deemed too risky. They could have gone to
Dumbledore, but Harry refused to consider it as anything besides a last
resort. They could have even tried to contact one of the other European
Ministries of Magic and asked for asylum for Sirius, but they couldn't
predict how those Ministries would react or how corrupt they were.
Even Charlus and Dorea had admitted that using the papers as a platform
to spread the truth before the Ministry could act and causing a public
outcry had the most predictable consequences. Not necessarily the best,
but the most predictable.
The Ministry would panic and demand that Harry and Sirius present
themselves, but they would have to follow procedure unless they wanted a
riot on their hands.
"Well, at least it'll make a good prank." Sirius replied, now smirking.
"I guess you could say that." Harry smirked back. "But enough about that,
I think it's time we start getting serious about the Animagus
transformation."
"I'm always Sirius." Sirius stated with a stone face.
"Yeah, and no matter how much I shave, I'm always Harry." Harry riposted.
Sirius let out a barking laugh and grinned widely at his godson.
"Very well then, my brother in puns, let's make you an Animagus."
XXXXX
Andy Smudgley was a reporter for the Daily Prophet, one of the less
prominent ones. He didn't have Rita Skeeter's penchant for viciousness or
her uncanny ability to ferret out sensitive information, so he mostly had
to content himself with writing fairly mediocre articles.
Upon receiving a letter from the Boy-Who-Lived, offering him the chance
for an interview, he had jumped at the chance without hesitation.
So here he was, standing outside the Leaky Cauldron and waiting for Harry
Potter to arrive.
He wasn't particularly comfortable in the Muggle World, being a wizard-

raised halfblood. The odd looks and amused smirks he was getting from the
passing muggles were certainly something that he didn't appreciate.
"Mr. Smudgley?" A voice questioned, making the reporter look at who had
adressed him.
A tall teenager, with very distinctive green eyes and a lightning bolt
scar.
"Harry Potter?" Andy near-gasped, looking slightly up at the boy who had
vanquished Voldemort. The legend of the Boy-Who-Lived was such that he
didn't even question why a not-quite thirteen-year old boy was taller
than him. It seemed only right for heroes to be tall.
"I thought I asked you not to draw attention to yourself?" Harry sighed,
already embarrassed about having to stand near such an outlandishly
dressed individual.
The reporter was wearing white, knee high socks and lime green crocs, a
pair of tight beige shorts with suspenders and a blue V-neck T-shirt that
was almost definitely made with women in mind. Completing the mismatched
ensamble was one of the old-style cameras that wizards used and a rather
girly looking purse that presumably held his wand.
He looked like a vaguely crossdressing hipster that had just come from
Oktoberfest or something equally baffling, but at least he wasn't wearing
a skirt.
"Isn't this how muggles dress?" Andy asked nervously, afraid that his
lack of knowledge on muggle fashion would cost him the story.
"The weird ones perhaps," Harry answered with a smirk. "but nevermind
that now, we should go."
Andy nodded eagerly. He was determined to make the most of this
opportunity and not dissapoint the Boy-Who-Lived, who must have been
impressed by one or more of his articles to have chosen him over the
other reporters at the Daily Prophet.
Contrary to his thinking, he had not been chosen for any kind of ability.
Sirius had merely liked the fact that he'd made a pun with his name when
reporting on the Animagus' Azkaban breakout.
"Where are we going?" The reporter asked after a few minutes of walking
through the city.
"Somewhere a bit more private." Was the only answer that Harry would give
him in regards to that.
They spent the next ten minutes walking in silence, one of them wondering
where they were going and the other wondering how wizards could possibly
screw up getting dressed as an inconspicuous muggle when they had so many
examples. It was like they got all of their source material from crazy
events like the previously mentioned Oktoberfest, or maybe those fashion
shows with the really screwed up 'clothes'.
"Alright, here we are." Harry said once they arrived.
"But...there's nothing here." Smudgley pointed out uncertainly, looking

around the out of the way alley they had entered.
"Don't worry about that, this isn't our final destination, just a
stopgap. Now, I'm going to need you to stay calm and not panic."
"Alright." Smudgley agreed easily enough.
"Teeny, transport us pelase."
"Yes, Harry Potter sir!" The little house elf said enthusiastically as
she appeared and apparated them into a completely featureless room in
Potter Manor. It was best not to let people know that he was back in
residence.
Despite agreeing not to panic, Andy froze in panic at the sight of Sirius
Black lounging on a chair.
But then a hand was laid on his shoulder and a feeling of calm spread
through him.
"You've got nothing to be worried about, Sirius is only here to give you
an interview." Harry said soothingly.
Once Andy got past the fear of being murdered, he quickly realized the
journalistic value of this opportunity.
XXXXX
"Harry?"
"Yes, Luna?"
"You appear to have Sirius Black squatting in your home."
"Well spotted." Unlike the Daily Prophet reporter, Luna could be trusted
not to reveal that Potter Manor was back in use, or that it contained
Sirius Black.
"Hey, I am not squatting!"
"Squatting aside, Luna, would you like to interview Sirius for the
Quibbler?"
"Not. Squatting."
"It would delay our trip to Germany by a few days, but I think daddy will
understand. So Mr. Black, did you see any crumple-horned snorkacks during
your stay in Azkaban?"
"Crumple what now?"
"Answer the question Mr. Black, or I will hold you in contempt."
"I don't think that reporters can hold people in contempt, Luna."
"Don't be silly, Harry, anyone can hold anyone in contempt. People do it

to me all the time, and you do it to others all the time."
"I...can't refute that statement."
"Not to break up your moment of philosophy, but could we get to the part
where I tell my harrowing story of betrayal and false imprisonment?"
"False imprisonment? Are you saying that you weren't in Azkaban these
past twelve years, Mr. Black?"
"What? Of course I was in Azkaban!"
"Then how was your imprisonment false?"
Sirius worked his jaw as he tried to figure out the little blonde girl's
logic, noticing that his godson was looking terribly amused by the whole
thing.
"Stop smirking, Harry."
XXXXX
"That friend of yours is really something else." Sirius said after Luna
had left.
"That she is." Harry agreed.

"What the hell is a crumple-horned snorkack anyway?"
"No idea, but I admire Luna's determination to find one."
XXXXX
Albus Dumbledore didn't like summers all that much. Oh, the weather was
nice enough, but Hogwarts just felt so empty with the students and even
several of the teachers gone. He couldn't even say that he had less
paperwork to deal with since he had two other jobs, and DADA was an
eternal thorn in his side.
At least he'd learned to expect his DADA teachers to become somehow

unable to continue teaching for more than a year and had a replacement
all lined up. He wasn't angry at Severus for outing Remus as a werewolf.
He knew that there was bad blood between them, though he had hoped that
the Potions Master would learn to leave it in the past.
He could only hope that Alastor would restrain himself a bit in the
classroom and remember that the students were not Auror trainees. Still,
having him around for the Tri-Wizard Tournament would be invaluable from
a security standpoint.
The Tri-Wizard Tournament. How Ludo Bagman had come upon the idea of
reviving that old competition and then convincing the necessary people to
get it done, Dumbledore could not fathom. He had to admit that he liked
the thought of fostering international cooperation, particularly in light
of the fact that he knew that Voldemort would almost certainly rise again
someday, but he had been unwilling to agree to resurrect the tournament
in its original form. He would not condone entering children into a
deadly competition, no matter how skilled with magic they might be.
That at least had been agreed upon without issue by all involved. If only
the rest of it were so simple. It was still being argued as to which
school would have the honor of hosting the event. Karkaroff and Madam
Maxime naturally wanted it to be at their schools, just as Dumbledore
wanted it to be at Hogwarts. This was not merely a matter of prestige,
but also of practicality. It would be quite inconvenient to be away from
his school for that long after all.
Fortunately, tradition favored Hogwarts, as Durmstrang had hosted it the

last time and Beauxbatons the time before that. Wizards and witches do
like their traditions, and even the centuries that had passed since the
last tournament weren't likely to sway people away from that.
These were the thoughts of Albus Dumbledore as he reached for his morning
paper, idly wondering if Ms. Skeeter had printed any more of her vitriol
today. Such a shame that a witch of her potential would spend her time
spreading malicious rumors or gossip, but then, she had been like that
for a long time now. Slytherin had not been kind to her during her school
years, Dumbledore suspected.
It's a Sirius shock! Azkaban escapee Sirius Black tells his side of the
story!
Safely alone in his quarters, Albus Dumbledore gaped unbecomingly at the
headline on his copy of the Daily Prophet.
Yesterday, this reporter received an owl from Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-
Lived, with an offer for an interview. We met outside the Leaky Cauldron
and walked some distance away to a secluded alley, where Mr. Potter
called for a house elf to transport us to an undisclosed location.
Imagine my shock when I found myself face to face with Sirius Black
himself!
But the supposed mass murderer was not at all hostile. He was in fact
rather friendly, though the shadow of Azkaban was still visible on his
face.
Mr. Potter explained to me that the interview he had promised was not to
be with him, but with Black.
The article then went on to reveal the tale of the switch between Secret
Keepers, Pettigrew's betrayal, Sirius' wrongful imprisonment and
subsequent escape, Harry meeting his godfather and offering him shelter
from the Aurors and dementors and finally ending with the interview that
he was now reading.
Dumbledore noted that it said nothing about the means by which Sirius had
escaped, nor did it offer up any real details on the fate of Peter
Pettigrew.
Mr. Potter is well aware that the DMLE will wish to speak to him and
intends to present himself this very afternoon.
That particular line revealed the gist of Harry and Sirius' plan. The
Ministry could not, after all, be seen to act rashly now that the truth
was revealed to the masses, especially with Harry involved as he was. His
status as the Boy-Who-Lived and Heir to the Potter family would shield
him from the usual legal repercussions of harboring a wanted criminal.
Clever though this plan was, Dumbledore couldn't help but wish that they
had come to him for help. He could have made things so much smoother.
Things would now have to play out in the way that Harry and Sirius had
set, but he still intended to be there.
He had clearly failed Sirius grievously once already by not taking the
time to properly investigate the situation, so he would offer what help
he could now. Not only was it a matter of doing the right thing, but also
of keeping contact with Harry once Sirius took over his guardianship.
XXXXX
In the office of the Minister of Magic, there was much less certainty.
"This is a disaster!" Cornelius Fudge moaned. "What am I going to do,

Lucius?"
Lucius Malfoy considered the situation carefully. Fudge was a simple
creature to manipulate, but even a simpleton like him had limits to how
far he could be bent with either words or 'donations'. Not many limits,
but getting him to commit political suicide was one of them.
The exoneration of Sirius Black would reflect poorly on Fudge even if it

had been Barty Crouch and the previous Minister, Bagnold, who had
imprisoned him. The Minister was the face of the Ministry and it would be
the Ministry as a whole who would end up with eggs on their face over
this debacle. The statements he had made about hunting the fugitive down
would not help either.
But that did not mean that simply doing away with Sirius Black would be
possible, not after the truth was plastered all over the front page of
the Daily Prophet. Too many questions would be asked if he mysteriously
disappeared.
Lucius himself had long suspected that Black was innocent. As part of
Voldemort's inner circle, he was aware of the identities of most every
one of the Dark Lord's followers. That such a high profile member would
slip past his notice was unlikely. Possible, but unlikely.
He had congratulated himself heartily over the windfall that the Malfoy
family had gotten under his leadership. With Bellatrix imprisoned and
barren(courtesy of a special, untraceable poison Lucius himself had added
to her evening drink one day), Andromeda disowned, Regulus killed on some
unspecified task for the Dark Lord and Sirius rotting in Azkaban, his own
son was next in line to inherit the Black family and thus absorb it into
the Malfoy line since his wife, Narcissa, was a Black by birth.
But now that was all in danger of being undone. Sirius was Heir to the
House and had never been properly banished from the family despite his
rebellion against everything that House Black stood for. If he was
declared innocent, then Lucius could wave his dreams of absorbing House
Black into Malfoy goodbye.
Unless of course another bout of misfortune happened to befall Sirius

Black. But for that, information was required.
"Regardless of the...distressing nature of this article, Potter and Black

have offered little proof of their words." He finally said. "Potter says
that he will present himself to the DMLE this afternoon and I think that
it would proper for the Minister of Magic to be present at such an
important occasion, in order to judge for himself the veracity of these
claims."
"Yes, yes of course. Black could be manipulating the boy after all, maybe
even keeping him under the Imperious!" Fudge said, getting some of his
composure back. "You'll be there too, won't you, Lucious?"
"If you wish for my advice, then who am I to refuse?" Lucius said,
keeping the irony out of his voice with the ease of long experience.
Weaning Fudge away from his reliance on Dumbledore and making him rely on
Malfoy gold and advice instead had been almost too easy.
XXXXX
Harry made his way towards the visitors entrance of the Ministry of
Magic, once again contemplating the dilapidated nature of this part of
the city. He'd come here a few days ago to make sure that he could find
it and had now apparated himself to a nearby alley.
He could sense several powerful aversion wards affecting the area, no

doubt aimed at those without magic. It probably made this part of London
unpalatable for muggles, leaving it to slowly decay.
He had to wonder if there was some kind of symbolism in having the

magical government housed underground, covered by the filth of the
surrounding muggles. Or perhaps it was the other way around, the presence
of wizarding politics fouling the area.
A line of thought that was most unflattering to wizardkind either way.
Shaking the thought off, he stepped into the red phone booth that served
as the entrance to the Ministry, amused at how completely it failed to be
inconspicuous. If not for the aversion wards, this pristine looking but
long since obsolete phone booth would probably attract a great deal of
unwanted attention. In fact, that might be the reason for the wards in
the first place.
Quickly entering 62442 to spell out 'magic', he waited for the operator
that Charlus had told him would speak up.
"Welcome to the Ministry of Magic. Please state your name and business."
A female voice droned. It reminded Harry of Binns, though marginally less
monotone.
"Harry Potter, here to meet with Director Bones." He didn't know if he

would actually be meeting with Amelia Bones herself, but it seemed like a
fair assumption.
"Thank you. Visitor, please take the badge and attach it to the front of
your robes." The instruction was accompanied by a rattling as the
aformentioned badge was deposited into a receptacle.
It helpfully proclaimed 'Harry Potter, meeting with Director Bones'.
Harry did as the cool female voice had suggested and pinned the badge to
his robes, a rather more ostentatious affair than he would've liked. He
had been intending to show up dressed in quality, but eminently muggle
clothing. Charlus and Dorea had insisted that he take one of the more
formal robes that were hanging around in the manor however, arguing that
snubbing the traditional wizard's apparel would not work in his favor. He
understood their arguments and it had been part of the coaching they'd
given him on how to comport himself around influential people, however
much it grated on him due to the memory of similar lessons with Robert
and Katherine.
Thus, robes. At least he'd managed to find a set that was a subdued
black.
The floor of the fake phone booth began its slow descent after that and
Harry took the time to get into the proper frame of mind for the events
ahead. He knew that he would likely be stared at by a nerve wrackingly
large amount of people, so he would need to keep his wits about him and
project the image of imperturbable calm.
Fortunately, that was one of those things that Occlumency adepts

frequently learned to do and Harry was advanced enough in the discipline
to do it. No two Occlumancers went about it in precisely the same way as
it was a personalized thing. Harry himself liked to wrap his thoughts in
a peace so deep that it was like Dark. His thoughts were a river of Dark
that swallowed all that entered it but remaining undisturbed. They were
the vast silence between the stars that allowed no sound.
He had practiced such things often since Christmas, so it did not take
him long to get into the proper mindset. He was finished shortly before
he arrived in the Ministry atrium.
It was essentially a very long and wide hallway line with fireplaces that
constantly burned with the green flame of floo travel. To his mild
surprise, the whole thing was decorated rather tastefully, though his
assumption on wizardkind's lack of restraint was vindicated by the sight
of a garish golden statue of a goblin, centaur and house elf looking
adoringly up at a witch and wizard. He strongly doubted that anyone save
possibly the house elf harbored any kind of positive feelings towards
humans.
Sirius had never been here, but Charlus and Dorea had and had explained
to him what he could expect. The atrium was usually the most busy during
the morning and evening hours when people arrived for work or went home,
but saw a fair amount of activity through the day as well. It being three
in the afternoon, it should have been relatively empty, but of course the
statement he'd left in the Prophet and Quibbler that he'd be showing up
in the afternoon had attracted gawkers.
The atrium was therefore full of overly curious busybodies trying to

pretend that they weren't waiting for his arrival, as well as several
Aurors, Dumbledore and the Minister of Magic himself, who quite obviously
were waiting for him if the way they were watching the fireplaces was any
indication. Apparently they'd expected him to use one of those.
Dumbledore spotted him first and swiftly strode over, the Aurors
following a moment later and the Minister lagging behind like a nervous
but eager puppy.
"Harry." Dumbledore greeted genially.

"Professor." Harry returned calmly, dismissing the audience as
unimportant.
"You gave everyone quite the shock yesterday, my boy." The old wizard
commented, his eyes twinkling with amusement. It was not how he would've
dealt with the situation, but he had to admit that Harry and Sirius had
come up with an effective, if loud, scheme. Sirius was likely having a
good laugh at the prank they had pulled on the Wizarding World and he had
to admit that Harry was handling his part much better than he had
expected him to.
"That was the point." Harry stated noncommittally and Dumbledore nodded
in understanding.
"May I present Aurors Shacklebolt and Dawlish, they will escort you to
Amelia bones, which I see you have already surmised." Dumbledore
introduced, gesturing to the two Aurors.
Shacklebolt was a tall man with dark skin and a rather jovial face,
whereas Dawlish was pale and dour looking. Of the two, Shacklebolt felt
considerably stronger. Both men gave him a nod and a short greeting, to
which he replied in kind.
"And of course, last but not least, Conerlius Fudge, the Minister of
Magic." Dumbledore finished, gesturing to the shortest man there.
"A pleasure to finally meet you, Mr. Potter." The Minister positively
gushed and eagerly held out a hand for him to shake.
"Likewise, Minister." Harry replied, but didn't really mean it. Despite
Dumbledore's words, it was quite obvious that Cornelius Fudge was indeed
the least person here, both in magic and in stature. Charlus and Dorea
had met him once and been unimpressed. Harry wasn't impressed either. A
politician more than a wizard and corrupt besides, nothing to him but an
empty title.
But he could definitely be useful. His presence had been expected but not
guaranteed. His gradnparents had advised him to imply that he would
support Fudge in exchange for help with the current situation, but Harry
intended to go a step further than that.
As he shook the pudgy man's hand, he sent a mild compulsion through the
point of contact, urging him to help Harry as much as possible. It was
slightly harder than casting such spells on Robert and Katherine, but not
by much. The Minister of Magic was the weakest adult wizard he'd ever
encountered, weaker even than many Hogwarts students. Harry almost felt
as if the Dark inside him could swallow the man whole.
Fudge laughed nervously and fidgeted with his lime green bowler hat when
he took his hand back. He hadn't expected a boy barely into his teens to
be this imposing, but staring up (how was he so damned tall anyway?) at
those gleaming green eyes, he could easily believe that this was the one
who had vanquished Voldemort as a baby.
He was even more glad now that he had asked Lucius to join them on this
meeting. His good friend and advisor would surely help him make sure that
this was handled properly.
"Shall we then?" He asked after nervously clearing his throat.
"Lead on." Harry prompted, his amusement at how easily bidden the
Minister was a disconnected thing that didn't show on his face or in his
voice.
Fudge nodded in a slightly jittery fashion and started walking at Harry's

left side while Dumbledore took the right and the Aurors took up spots
behind them.
Harry and Dumbledore were comfortable with their thoughts, but Fudge was
apparently not.
"So...Harry, may I call you Harry?" He asked.
"If I may call you Cornelius." Harry replied unhurriedly. He felt nothing
but disdain for the pudgy little man that was many decades his senior but
undoubtedly a lesser wizard in spite of the age disparity. Nothing in his
manner betrayed his true opinion though. He wouldn't be the first person
to have been brought down by those who were less than him because he had
overreached himself. A day would come when gnats like Fudge that hid
their weakness behind politics would no longer concern him, but that day
was quite a ways off into the future. For now, the idiot had his uses.
"Of course, of course." Fudge hastened to affirm, eager to forge close

ties to someone as prominent as the Boy-Who-Lived.
On Harry's other side, Dumbledore withheld an amused smile. He wondered

if Cornelius realized that he had just allowed a barely teenage boy with
no tangible legal or political power to establish an equal relationship
to the Minister of Magic. He wondered if Harry had done it on purpose and
who had taught him if so. He wondered if Harry would even need his help
to resolve this issue satisfactorily, as the lad truly was handling
himself with remarkable poise. He wondered at how advanced Harry's
Occlumency was to be capable of controlling himself like this already.
Dumbledore noticed that he spent a lot of time wondering where Harry was
concerned.
"Anyway, I was wondering where Black was. The article in the Daily
Prophet didn't mention that." Fudge continued.
"I'm not going to tell you that while you have a kill on sight order on
him." Harry replied dryly.
"But I'm the Minister of Magic." Fudge protested, the first notes of an
injured ego coloring his tone. The petulant whine of someone who thought
he deserved respect.
"And as such you are required to uphold the law, are you not?" Harry
asked archly. "It would reflect poorly on you for an innocent man to be
killed due to a...bureaucratic mishap."
"Yes, yes of course!" Fudge was quick to affirm, nearly stumbling over
the words in his haste to be seen as respectable. He didn't want the Boy-
Who-Lived of all people to be his enemy! That would be a public relations
disaster perhaps even worse than this business with Black.
The urge to roll his eyes popped into being in the Dark of Harry's mind
and floated there aimlessly. How had someone this stupid and spineless
ever made Minister?
"I believe that there is more to the story than what we learned from the
Prophet." Dumbledore interjected mildly. "We should not make Harry repeat
himself needlessly."
"Quite right." Fudge agreed as if that had been his idea from the start.
The lull in conversation did not last long, as they came upon a man
waiting for them at the lifts.
Harry didn't even need Fudge's happy exclamation of 'Lucius!' to guess

that this was Draco Malfoy's father. He'd been reminded of his annoying
yearmate since he'd laid eyes on the blond man that was obviously trying
entirely too hard to appear as aristocratic as possible, from his fancy
robes and all the way down to that pretentious snake headed cane. In
addition to that, Sirius, Charlus and Dorea had all described the man to
him.
He and Sirius had gotten a good laugh at their description of the Malfoys
being 'froggy bastards', due to their French heritage.
"Harry, this is my good friend Lucius Malfoy. I believe you are in the
same Hogwarts year as his son, Draco." Fudge introduced enthusiastically,
dreaming of having the support of both Lucius Malfoy and Harry Potter.
"A pleasure." Malfoy said neutrally.
"Yes." Harry said blandly.
Neither offered their hand, well aware that they would be unfriendly
acquaintances at the most unrealistically optimistic best even if they
had never met before. Lucius might have tried to get close to the Potter
brat if he had not already heard from Draco about the antipathy between
them. Attempting to be friendly would only serve to look suspicious.
Harry was merely trusting his gut when it told him that Malfoy senior was
bad news.
"If I might ask, Cornelius, why have you invited Mr. Malfoy along for
this." Dumbledore inquired in the uncomfortable silence that ensued.
Lucius' eyes tightened slightly at the subtle snub. Most referred to him
as Lord Malfoy, but he was technically not a Lord. The Malfoy family had
no seat on the Wizengamot due to being relatively new to Britain and were
thus not a Noble House. They were very rich, and that money kept them
high up in politics, but they were not one of those families that had a
hereditary seat on the Wizengamot. That was another reason that he had
been so eager for the Black family to be absorbed into his.
Truly, wooing Narcissa Black had been one of his better ideas. His father
had been impressed with it too, for the little time that he'd lived after
Lucius had arranged for him to get infected with Dragon Pox.
"He's one of my chief advisors." Fudge argued, unknowingly enlightening

Harry as to the likely reason for his political success.
"Yes, but you will hardly need his advice in order to listen to Harry's
explanation of the Prophet's article." Dumbledore countered in his best
'I'm everyone's wise and friendly grandfather' voice.
"I must say that I agree with the Headmaster." Harry added. "Your
presence and that of the Aurors is expected of course and Professor
Dumbledore is here both as Chief Warlock and as my current magical
guardian, but as I understand it, Mr. Malfoy has no outstanding reason to
be present for this."
He may not trust Dumbledore, but he wouldn't hesitate to use him as a

shield if it was convenient.
"But-!" Fudge moved to protest.
Harry gave him no chance. Malfoy senior felt dangerous and he was not
going to let him be present for this. The compulsion alone obviously
wasn't enough for this.
"Minister." He said implacably, using his magic to press down on Fudge in

a way that the basic five human senses could not perceive."This is a
sensitive matter and it would not do for any more ears to hear than
strictly necessary."
Cornelius looked into those powerful green eyes and felt the heavy regard
of a much greater wizard, even if he didn't understand it.
"I'm sorry, Lucius, but he's right." He said meekly. He didn't want to
send his friend away, but he couldn't gainsay the Boy-Who-Lived in this,
especially with Dumbledore in on it too.
Dumbledore gave Harry a penetrating look. He had felt what the boy had
done. Few wizards had the strength or knowledge to use their magic in
such a fashion and they were generally of the old and powerful variety.
He could do it, but even then perhaps not as subtly as Harry had just
managed. How in the world had a boy of thirteen learned this skill? This
bore investigating.
Lucius's lips thinned in displeasure as the group entered the lift. This,
he reflected, was the problem with people like Fudge. Anyone with half a
brain could yank them around and he could hardly offer the idiot a bribe
in public.
Unnoticed by all, a beetle flew into the lift and hid in an unobtrusive
corner
XXXXX
Harry found the Ministry lifts to be rather puzzling. The atrium was
apparently on the 8th undreground floor, which meant that the visitor's
entrance had taken him quite deep. Now they were going up again.
Wouldn't it have made more sense to have the atrium on the 1st floor if
you were going to build underground? Wizards made no sense.
The short ride passed in silence, as Fudge seemed to be too off kilter
after being made to leave Malfoy behind to chatter.
The walk through the DMLE was similarly short and uneventful, though
Harry did find his attention captured once when they passed through Auror
Headquarters, by a young woman in Auor robes. She was dressed properly
for her job, but her spiky purple hair gave her the image of a punk
rocker trying to infiltrate law enforcement.
She noticed him staring, her hair turned pink and she gave him a rather
saucy wink, prompting Harry to return the gesture with a flirtatious
smirk.
"Who was that?" He asked, quite sure that Dumbledore would know who he
was referring to. The now pink haired Auror was very pretty and looked
like loads of fun.
"Who was who?" Fudge asked in confusion, having missed the short byplay
entirely.
"I believe that Harry was referring to Nymphadora Tonks." Dumbledore

said, sounding amused. "A very capable young lady and a fine Auror." And
Moody's last protg, whom the grizzled old Auror had already recommended
for recruitment into the Order of the Phoenix should it be reconvened.
There was an opportunity here.
"Why did her hair change like that?" Harry asked before Fudge could make
an even bigger ass of himself.
"She is a Metamorphmagus, a natural shapeshifter." The old wizard

explained.
"That sounds very useful." Harry mused. He knew that it was somewhat
typically male of him, but his mind instantly jumped to the bedroom
applications of such an ability.
"Indeed." Dumbledore agreed, sounding even more amused. He'd probably
guessed what Harry had just thought about. "Further deliberation on the
applications of shapeshifting will have to wait though, for we have
arrived at Madam Bones' office."
Yes, Dumbledore had definitely guessed it.
XXXXX
Harry quickly deduced that Amelia Bones was a formidable witch, and not
someone that could be pushed around like Fudge. Hers was the strongest
presence he'd felt so far, bar Dumbledore himself.
The two Aurors left and then it was just her, him, Dumbledore and Fudge
in the room. Something felt wrong about that number, but Harry couldn't
for the life of him place what it was.
"Mr. Potter." Bones said by way of greeting, her displeasure ringing as

clearly as a bell. "You've caused me and my department a great deal of
trouble and embarrassment with those articles in the Prophet and the
Quibbler."
Concern welled up in him at her tone, but was swallowed by the Dark in
his mind and did not affect his composure.
"I apologize," He said calmly. "but I saw no better way to ensure my

godfather's exoneration."
Amelia stared hard at the boy, noting with grudging respect that he
remained unmoved by it. In fact, the only one who looked uncomfortable
was Fudge. She wondered what had happened to Malfoy, whom she knew that
the bumbling idiot had been planning to include on this meeting. Good
riddance either way. She'd been tempted to cleave the bastard's head off
more than once in the past twelve years.
"I'm sure that we can get this handled quickly, Amelia." The Minister
fretted, worrying at his hat.
"We will handle it by the book, if that's alright with you Mr. Potter?"
She stated more than asked in a tone that brooked no disagreement, a
trace of sarcasm showing up at the end.
Harry felt a stirring of decidedly more personal interest in the woman.

She was quite severe looking, but not at all unattractive, though that
monocle was a bit odd. He wondered if she was this forceful all the time.
The thought was pushed aside. This was definitely not the time for that.
"Of course, Madam Bones."
"Good." She said with a firm nod. "Now, the first thing I want to know is
when and how you came into contact with Black in the first place."
"During my very first Hogsmeade weekend. I recognized his Animagus form
and got him away from there before he did something stupid." He felt a
spike of...something when he said that, but he once again failed to pin
it down.
"Animagus form?" Bones asked, talking right over Fudge's surprised

exclamation and noting Dumbledore's lack of surprise at the information.
"Yes, a big black dog. I remember him using it to play with me when I was
a baby." Sorry Sirius, I know you wanted to keep that a secret, but
Bryanna and Tiana were sure to have figured it out after this, if they
haven't already. I might like them, but I'm not sure they'd keep it a
secret and trying, and more importantly failing, to hide your Animagus
ability is the last thing you need.
"Your memory stretches that far back?" Dumbledore asked in some surprise.
"Yes." Harry answered simply.
"Do you remember what it was that caused Voldemort's downfall then?" The
old wizard pressed.
Fudge yelped at the use of the Dark Lord's name, looking like he'd nearly
lost control of his bladder.
Amelia merely twitched, the remnants of an old reflex.
"I do, but I'd rather not talk about it." Harry said. "It's not something
that can really be used in anything other than a very specific set of
circumstances."
Most people did not have months of forewarning that they were going to be
murdered after all, nevermind the skill required to turn their own murder
into a ritual sacrifice.
"Getting back to the matter at hand, what kind of stupid thing did you
expect Black to do?" Bones asked, determined to stay on point despite her
own interest.
"Sneak into the Gryffindor common room and murder Peter Pettigrew." Harry
replied with a bland smile. That odd feeling from before manifested
again, but remained elusive.
This time, even Dumbledore was surprised, though he quickly deduced the
truth. He had assumed that the Weasley family rat had actually been
several rats that Molly and Arthur had kept replacing in order to not
upset their children, but it had apparently been just one Animagus.
"Am I to understand that Peter Pettigrew is also an Animagus and was

hiding in Hogwarts all this time?" Bones asked, guessing at the truth.
"Close, he was a rat Animagus and had been hiding with the Weasley family
ever since his confrontation with Sirius."
"Was?" Bones asked sharply, picking up on the use of past tense.
Harry sighed heavily as he answered. "Yes, was. You see, I bought him
from Ron Weasley just before the Christmas break. Sirius and I were
intending to come forward with him and reveal the truth of what had
happened after Voldemort's defeat."
"So why didn't you?"
"Sirius wanted to talk to him, he wanted to ask why Pettigrew had

betrayed them and I admit that I wanted to hear it too. He was supposed
to be their friend, but he sold them out to save his own skin. Sirius was
always a brash sort and Azkaban hadn't improved his self-control any, so
things got a little out of hand."
"Out of hand how?" Amelia's voice was considerably harder now.
"There was a lot of shouting and we stupidly hadn't thought to disarm the
rat. Pettigrew reached for his wand and I panicked. I didn't even know
what spell I was going to cast, I just knew that I couldn't let him do it
first. Before I knew what had happened, I'd fired off a blasting curse."
Harry did his best to put a tremor in his voice, though he wasn't sure
how successful he was in that. He'd practiced doing it, but there really
was no substitute for the real thing and he couldn't muster much emotion
over this months old issue anymore.
Fudge went a little pale and Dumbledore put a hand on his shoulder
supportively, though he was sure that there was a very uncomfortable
conversation going to happen between them in the near future.
Amelia on the other hand, was clenching her jaw and looking deeply
irritated.
"You mean to tell me, that you have killed a man and presumably had his
body stashed somewhere since Christmas and have deigned to report it only
now?" She demanded slowly, her expression thunderous.
Harry winced, but went on with his explanation. "Sirius and I were at a
bit of a loss as to how we were going to explain this without him ending
up lunch for the dementors. We argued about it for months until we
finally decided that putting that article in the papers was probably the
surest way of doing it."
That those months were also spent planning out how to get away with it
went unsaid.
"Why didn't we receive any notifications about underage magic use?"

Amelia asked suspiciously, seeing a slight discrepancy in the story.
"We were in an area warded against detection at the time."
"Harry, why didn't you come to me with this?" Dumbledore asked sadly. "I
could have helped you."
"You were Chief Warlock when he was first thrown in prison, Professor."
Harry pointed out. "You didn't ensure that he got a trial back then and
we were only going to get one chance at this. There was no guarantee that
he'd get one now."
Dumbledore looked even more saddened by that.
"Wait a second, Black was never tried?" Amelia interjected, momentarily

surprised out of her anger at the way that Potter and Black had played
fast and loose with the law.
"No. From what he told me, he chased down Pettigrew only for the rat to
fire off the blasting curse that blew up the street and the muggles on
it. The explosion had rattled him pretty badly and by the time he'd
gotten his wits about him, he'd already been in Azkaban." Harry
explained.
"Crouch is going to have a lot of explaining to do." Amelia growled.
"Indeed he will!" Fudge hurried to add, eager to be seen as the man that
was correcting past injustices. He might actually benefit from this if he
dumped all the blame on Bagnold and Crouch!
"And speaking of that, here is Pettigrew's wand." Harry said, pulling it

out of on of his robe pockets. "It might still have the trace of that
blasting curse on it, since I doubt that it's been used since then."
Amelia took it and cast Priori Incantatem on it, seeing that it did
indeed register a blasting curse as the last spell to be cast.
"I also have one other wand for you." Harry went on once she did that,
more slowly now. He reached into another pocket and drew out a wand with
a ghastly white bone handle, which he was sure had been a later
affectation instead of something that Ollivander had made for an eleven
year old.
"I know that wand." Amelia said softly "How did you get it?"
"Pettigrew had it with him. I assume that he grabbed it from my room."
"I don't understand, whose wand is that?" Fudge demanded, obviously not
recognizing it.
"Voldemort's, Cornelius." Dumbledore told him calmly, ignoring the way

the Minister flinched.
"All this aside, that still leaves us with you Mr. Potter. You've
harbored a known criminal, even though it seems that he was innocent, and
you've hidden the fact that you've killed someone for months now, even if
it was in self-defense."
"Come now, Amelia, surely you can't blame the lad for wanting to do right
by his godfather? The man has clearly suffered enough already." Fudge
interjected.
"Thank you, Cornelius, I appreciate your support." Harry said, aiming a
smile at the Minister.
Amelia's face went stony for a moment as she saw the way that Potter had
Fudge wrapped around his little finger already, not that it was exactly a
difficult feat. That, combined with Dumbledore's obvious support would
mean that Potter would be getting away with this whole debacle with
barely a slap on the wrist, nevermind a full investigation. The most that
she'd be able to do was put a black mark on his record, anything else
would get waved off by Fudge in an effort to curry favor with the Boy-
Who-Lived.
She hated it when politics got mixed up with the law. She hadn't been
intending to throw Potter into Azkaban over this, he was only thirteen
after all, but the obvious abuse of his reputation, Dumbledore's
protection and Fudge's...Fudgeness, grated on her.
"I want Pettigrew's body, and I want to talk to Black. Immediately." She
bit out.
"Right away, Madam Bones." Harry quickly agreed, seeing that the
formidable witch was most definitely not happy with him.
"You're taking an Auror escort with you." She stated uncompromisingly.
"If I might suggest Nymphadora Tonks?" Dumbledore said, his eyes on

maximum twinkle. "She is a cousin of Sirius' and might serve to put him
more at ease than others."
Harry gave the Headmaster an incredulous look. Was the old man seriously
helping him get hooked up with the pretty shapeshifter?
"An excellent idea!" Fudge contributed, oblivious as ever.
Amelia gave Potter and Dumbledore a scrutinizing look, wondering what

they were up to that involved Auror Tonks.
"Why her in particular?" She demanded.
"She is a most impressive young lady." Dumbledore replied, sounding very

amused.
Amelia knew that this was true. Tonks might be a rookie and bit of a
klutz, but she was powerful and resourceful. She fully expected her to
become one of the best in a few years, after she got some experience
under her belt.
That didn't explain why Dumbledore had suggested her though. There didn't
seem to be anything nefarious about it and it was the kind of assignment
that a rookie would be given, but Black was pretty high profile and she
didn't feel charitable enough to go along with whatever this was.
"I'm assigning Shacklebolt to be your escort."

Was that a flash of disappointment that had just crossed Potter's face?
XXXXX
As Madam Bones' office emptied, Rita Skeeter buzzed stealthily out of the
Ministry of Magic in her beetle Animagus form, nearly vibrating with
excitement over all the material she'd just gathered. The Daily Prophet's
next headline would be sensational!
XXXXX
Harry felt that things had gone rather well, all things considered.
Fudge's presence had been unexpectedly useful, as the man was quite
obviously a politician for hire, supporting whoever would benefit him the
most. Of course, this might be a bit problematic in the future if he ever
expected Harry's support, but no promises had been made.
Amelia Bones had been quite a bit more intense than he'd been expecting,
but he supposed that not every pureblood could be a useless waste of air.
He hoped that he hadn't made an enemy out of her, as a woman like that
could cause him quite a bit of grief in the future if she put her mind to
it.
Dumbledore had acted more or less as expected, aside from that very odd
attempt to contrive an opportunity for Harry to talk to the interesting
Metamorphmagus Auror. He really had to wonder what the old man had hoped
to achieve with that.
The thing that really bothered him about that meeting was the strange
feelings he'd been getting the whole time. It had felt almost like there
was another person in the room, but the only thing he had to go on with
this theory was his gut feeling and the strange spikes of emotion when he
said something particularly surprising.
XXXXX
Sirius had been anxiously pacing through the foyer of Potter Manor ever
since Harry had left for the Ministry, waiting for his turn. His godson
had wanted to keep the use of the place secret, displaying Moody-like
levels of paranoia about information but had eventually conceded that the
DMLE at least would need to be informed now.
It was almost a relief when Harry returned with the tall Auror that he
introduced as Shacklebolt and he was side-along apparated directly to the
DMLE to avoid any lingering gawkers. Even if things went pear-shaped, at
least the tense waiting was over.
It had been replaced by an entirely new kind of tension.
"Sirius Black." Amelia Bones said in a stony tone that betrayed a certain
amount of irritation.
"In the flesh." Sirius replied with a winning smile. He noted with dismay
that Madam Bones seemed immune to his charm.
"First, let me just assure you that you aren't going back to Azkaban
anytime soon. Since Crouch didn't even bother to properly charge you with
a crime before throwing you in there, the Ministry actually owes you
quite the hefty apology, as well as compensation if we determine that you
are indeed innocent." She went on, almost kindly.
"I appreciate that." Sirius said, feeling a certain amount of tension

bleed out of him. It was good to know that Amelia was as fair as her
reputation claimed.
"That being said, I am extremely annoyed by the stunt that you and your
godson pulled." The kindness was now replaced with a growl as she glared
at him. "Now you are going to tell me everything that happened from the
moment that the Potters switched Secret Keepers to the moment that you
set foot in my office and if I find out that the two of you are trying to
pull another fast one on me, then I am going to bury you. I don't care if
your godson has Fudge and Dumbledore on his side, I am going to find a
way to do it. Understood?"
"Yes, ma'am." Sirius nodded, swallowing nervously. What a scary woman.
XXXXX
Harry had an uncomfortable conversation of his own to attend to and his

wasn't even with an attractive older lady.
Dumbledore had somehow arranged for a private room for them and spent the
next few minutes liberally applying privacy spells to make sure that it
was actually private.
Once he was done with that, he turned to Harry and stared at him
inscrutably, saying nothing.
Well, two could play that game. Harry stared back impassively, sinking
further into the deep sense of peaceful Dark that had allowed him to keep
himself composed during this entire nerve wracking experience.
"I see that your study of Occlumency is progressing well." Dumbledore

finally said.
"Yes." Hary replied unhelpfully. The old wizard would have to broach the
subject more directly than that.
"I could have helped you, my boy." Dumbledore said sadly, repeating
himself from earlier when he saw Harry's reticence. "If you had come to
me after meeting Sirius, I would have listened. We could have captured
Pettigrew easily and all of this would never have needed to happen."
Harry heard the implication as clearly as the words. You would never have
needed to be a killer. It would have been better if you trusted me to
handle things for you. He still didn't understand why Dumbledore wanted
his trust so badly.
"You have a history of poor decisions behind you. I couldn't risk having
you make another. Not with this." He said evenly.
Dumbledore sighed in a greatly put upon manner. "I am not perfect, Harry.
I can make mistakes the same as any man, especially when I don't have all
the facts as was the case with Sirius."
"Leaving me with the Dursleys? Leaving the school open with a basilisk on
the loose? You should have had enough information to prevent those."
"There were extenuating circumstances for those decisions." Dumbledore

argued, but declined to elaborate. He was not used to explaining himself
to people.
"Hmm." Harry replied, unconvinced. "It doesn't matter anymore and we've
gotten off topic. This matter is settled, Sirius will get the acquittal
he deserves and become my guardian as my parents wanted."
He was perfect for it too. Still as immature as a man less than half his
age and not at all inclined to be responsible, especially when he seemed
to be looking at Harry as a replacement for his murdered friend rather
than as a child to be protected. A poor parent and one more suited to
doing rather than thinking. Perfect for Harry's purposes, as he'd likely
leave him to do all the thinking.
"Yes, he no doubt will." Dumbledore agreed. He wasn't going to try

getting in the way of that, even though he had some misgivings about
Sirius' ability in that area. "I am merely saddened that the process was
so messy."
"Was that all?" Harry asked, getting tired of the conversation.
"Just one more thing." Dumbledore promised. "Minister Fudge and Lucius
Malfoy may not be sensitive enough to notice what you did, but I am."
"And what did I do?" Harry asked noncommittally, inwardly very worried.
He might have become a great deal stronger since the first time he'd felt
the power of Dumbledore's magic back in second year, but he was under no
illusions that he would be able to match him. Even if their magic were of
equal potency(which it wasn't), Dumbledore was simply too experienced
right now for him to fight in any way. If the old man decided to start
being difficult, then he could be very difficult indeed.
"You wielded your magic as a tool of intimidation, forcing the Minister

to comply with your wishes to send Malfoy away."
Ah, that. The ability to project your will on another by exerting a

spiritual pressure on them. He hadn't expected that any wand-reliant
wizard would be aware of themselves enough to realize that their magic
was more than just a power source for their spells, but he supposed that
had been foolish of him. It had been arrogant to assume that everyone but
him was completely blind.
"I do not know how you are capable of such a thing at your age, but I do
know that you have used some ritual to speed your growth."
Harry's face went completely blank at that, listening silently as

Dumbledore went on.
"I do not know which, as my own research has unearthed no ritual that
fits my observations, nor do I know what price you paid for it.
Furthermore, I suspect that you did not perform only one such ritual, as
your mind went from completely undefended to impenetrable too quickly to
be the result of Occlumency training."
"Is there a point to this, Professor?" Harry asked, deciding to ignore

Dumbledore's not-quite admission to casual use of Legilimency. He'd
already known that the old man did it after all.
"Yes, there is." Dumbledore said softly. "I would caution you to temper
your lust for power, Harry. I was much like you in my youth. I too
desired power over all other things and resented anything that held me
back from my ambitions. It was only when those same ambitions caused the
death of my sister that I saw the ruin I was causing around me. I would
not wish for you to go through the same thing."
"I'll keep it in mind." Harry said, but was mostly just annoyed by the
little speech.
"I know that I must sound terribly patronizing to you right now."
Dumbledore chuckled self-deprecatingly. "I imagine that my advice is
unwanted and the implication that you would repeat my mistakes resented."
Harry didn't reply, not wanting to make an obvious lie by denying it but
also unwilling to outright agree.
"Wizards and witches have a very strange relationship with power."

Dumbledore went on, seemingly off topic. "They hate it and adore it, fear
it and worship it. The powerful among us do not often get the luxury of
keeping to ourselves as we grow in strength. Whether by our own actions
or by that of others, we find ourselves thrust into the center of
events."
"Is that why you're the Chief Warlock and Supreme Mugwump, despite not
being from a Noble House?" Harry asked with a raised eyebrow, interested
in spite of himself. He knew that neither of those posts required that
the holder be from a Noble House, especially the Supreme Mugwump one as
it was an international position, but they did usually require a lot of
money to get elected, something that he was reasonably certain that
Dumbledore did not have an abundance of.
"Ah, you've noticed that, have you?" The old wizard asked rhetorically.
"Indeed, after my defeat of Grindelwald, there was no shortage of people
eager to foist all responsibility for everything on me."
"And you expect that I will find myself in the same situation?" Harry
guessed.
"You have had a reputation since the night Voldemort attacked you and
have shown great potential in your schooling since then. There are those
who will want to use you and what you represent to further their own
agendas, or seek to remove you if they feel you will oppose them. This is
especially true now that you have drawn attention to yourself."
Dumbledore explained.
"So...what, am I supposed to cower and pretend to be less than I am?"

Harry demanded. Pretend mediocrity to appease the masses unimaginative
sheep? Unacceptable. He wanted to unravel the deepest mysteries of magic,
not quibble over cauldron bottom thickness with a bunch of old greybeards
who had more in common with mundane politicians than actual wizards. Even
becoming a Dark Lord would be preferrable to that.
Dumbledore needed no Legilimency to guess at Harry's thoughts. He had

felt the same way once. He imagined that most of those who stood above
their peers felt that way at some point.
It was so easy to look down on those who were less powerful than
yourself. So easy to become frustrated with society's limitations on
magic use when you felt yourself capable of doing it, of mastering
anything. Dumbledore still remembered the hunger for more and the bitter
resentment at anything that stood in his way. He had been well on the
path of a Dark Lord when Ariana's death had shocked some sense into him.
Sometimes, as he paced in his office late at night, he still wondered if
he could have swayed Gellert away from that path if he had been wiser and
less bullheaded in his youth.
But all that hard earned wisdom would be meaningless to a lad of thirteen
that didn't want to hear it. It had been meaningless to Tom Riddle as
well.
"No, Harry, I do not expect you to do that. It is quite too late for that
even if you wanted to. Instead, I would offer my help in navigating the
treacherous waters you've just entered. I mean no disrespect to Sirius,
but he is not a politician. You are still a few years away from your
majority, regardless of the state of your body, but people like Minister
Fudge will not be stopped by that in their attempts to use you. We may
even be able to squeeze in a few lessons on magic."
Words may be meaningless, but an offer of help and a bribe of knowledge

might work. He could try to steer the boy away from his current path
during their meetings. Harry would eventually need to die in a
confrontation with Voldemort anyway, but it would be much better if he
did it as a champion of good rather than as a rival Dark Lord.
Harry was honestly tempted to accept just for the magic lessons. He might
not trust Dumbledore, but the old man was indisputably an accomplished
wizard. But the fact of the matter was that he didn't trust him and he
remembered a saying he'd heard from somewhere, something about help when
offered but not needed often being no help at all.
Besides, the only politics he intended to do was abusing the shit out of
his noble status. Other than that, he was planning to do his own thing.
"I'll think about it." He said without really meaning it. Better to try
navigating treacherous waters alone than with the help of a shark.
XXXXX
After that conversation, Harry made his way back to the DMLE. For one
thing, he needed to wait for Sirius to finish talking to Director Bones.
For another, he wanted to talk to that cute Auror. This would actually be
the first time that he was so blatantly making the first move with a girl
since Zoe, and even then he'd been given an opening when she'd caught him
staring at her boobs. Fortunately, Harry was finding the prospect of
approaching a girl considerably less daunting ever since he'd killed
Pettigrew. It was morbid as all hell, but killing a person had a way of
changing your outlook on life and that wasn't even mentioning the ritual
shenanigans that had happened immediately after.
It took a little effort to find her, as the area was divided into
cubicles, but he knew her name and it was easy to ask which one was hers.
He found her in short order after that. She was doing paperwork and her
previously vibrant hair had turned a dull brown. It wasn't even as spiky
as it had been earlier.
"Good afternoon." He greeted, giving the wall of her cubicle a light

knock.
She looked up and her mood visibly improved upon having something other
than paperwork to do. Literally, as her hair perked up and turned a light
purple.
"Wo- I mean, good afternoon Mr. Potter. What can I do for you?" Her hair
turned an almost red sort of pink as she stumbled over the words.
Harry was deeply amused at seeing that her hair seemed to act like some
kind of magical mood indicator. She'd obviously been going for a casual
greeting before recalling that on-duty Aurors were supposed to be
officious when talking to civilians, and was embarrassed by her near-
blunder.
"Just Harry please. I've been called Mr. Potter too much today already."
He said with his most charming smile.
"Well then, Harry, I suppose you can call me Tonks since you've saved me
from having to do paperwork for a while." She smirked back, hair going a
more playful pink.
"Not Nymphadora?" He inquired with an exagerrated wounded look.

"No." She growled, hair turning an indisputably angry red.
Okay, dangerous territory.
"Not fond of your name I take it?" He asked.
"You wouldn't be fond of your name either if my damn fool mother had been
the one to pick one for you." Tonks grumbled.
"At least your name sounds special." Harry commiserated. "What kind of
name is 'Harry' for a wizard anyway? I might as well go around calling
myself Tim the Enchanter."
"Was that a Monty Python reference?" Tonks asked with a surprised laugh.
"You understood a Monty Python reference?" Harry asked back with equal
surprise.
"My dad's a muggleborn and he loved those movies, insisted that we watch
them. Mum and I didn't think they were as funny as he claimed, but we
watched them anyway." Tonks explained.
"I'm just happy that I've finally met someone who understood one of my
references." Harry replied with overdone relief. "You have no idea how
much it sucks to make a Conan the Barbarian joke and only get blank looks
in return."
"Who?" Tonks asked blankly.
"Yeah, that's the one." Harry sighed despondently, slumping his

shoulders.
"Aw come one, you can't expect me to get every reference." She protested.
"I guess not, but you really got my hopes up with the Monty Python one."
Harry complained.
"Well, excuuuse me." Tonks apologized sarcastically, smirking widely.

Potter was turning out to be a lot more interesting than she'd expected
him to be. And a great alternative to paperwork.
"How about you make it up to me by letting me take you on a date?" Harry

proposed, once again smiling at her.
Tonks couldn't help it, she burst out into a loud peal of laughter that
probably garnered some very odd looks from the Aurors in the surrounding
cubicles.
"I'm going to take that as a yes." Harry said with dignity. He absolutely
loved that hair of hers. It was keeping mostly to playfully bright pink
colors that he was fairly sure indicated that she wasn't at all annoyed
by his advances. She could probably control it if she wanted to, but as
long as she wasn't bothering, he pretty much got free cues on how well he
was doing.
"Smooth, Potter. Real smooth." She replied, still chuckling.
"I thought we agreed on 'Harry', and I'm still not hearing a 'no'."
"You're funny, but I usually prefer my men a bit...older."
"What a coincidence! I usually prefer my women a bit older, so we've

already got something in common."
"What women?" Tonks snorted. "You might be able to pull off the late
teens look, but everyone knows that you're only fourteen."
Harry decided to make no comment about not being fourteen yet.
"You'd be surprised." He said mysteriously. "If you want, I can tell you
all about it on our date."
"You're serious? You really want want to take me on a date?" She asked
with a raised eyebrow. She hadn't thought that he was actually serious
about taking her on a date, but he apparently really was ballsy enough to
ask out an Auror at his age and expect her to agree to it.
"No, Sirius is my godfather and he's currently getting grilled by your

boss." Harry smirked.
"Merlin's hairy bollocks, that was horrible." Tonks groaned. "I remember
Sirius making that stupid pun when I was a kid, but it didn't sound so
bad back then and I didn't expect it from anyone else."
"You think that's bad? Just wait until I make one with my own name."
Harry said back with a grin.
Tonks looked confused for a moment before it dawned on her what he was
talking about.
"Don't you dare." She warned.
"I mean, I shaved before coming here, but I just can't stop being Harry!"
"You evil git, you're supposed to be a paragon of good, not some pun
spewing monster."
"Don't believe everything you read, I'll keep throwing my darkest,

dankest puns at you until you agree to go on a date with me and Sirius is
probably going to be in there for hours, so I've got plenty of time."
"Fine, I'll go on a date with you! Just...stop."
XXXXX
When Sirius finally got to leave Director Bones' office, he was mentally
exhausted. The woman was like a dog with a bone, and Sirius felt uniquely
qualified to make that comparison.
It had taken forever before she was satisfied with his rendition of
events and even then she'd still piled up a small mountain of conditions
before allowing him to leave.
His Animagus form would be registered now, which just plain sucked. He'd
have to keep an amulet with a tracking charm on his person at all times
that would vibrate if they wanted to speak to him again. He was to stay
inside Potter Manor until a press release could be given that confirmed
his innocence so as not to cause a panic. He was to stay available for
further interviews at all times, until the DMLE was fully satisfied with
their investigation. He was mildly surprised that she hadn't insisted on
collaring Padfoot as well.
Sirius had the distinct feeling that he and Harry had deeply irritated
Amelia Bones.
Now he just had to find his godson and go back home. He knew that Harry
had received a similar set of orders, though slightly more lenient since
he was a minor.
"All done?" Auror Shacklebolt asked as he closed the door behind him.
Sirius liked the dark skinned Auror. The man was polite and respectful
and showed none of the hostility that he'd seen on the faces of some of
the others. He'd been professional and even sympathetic for the entirety
of their admittedly short acquiaintance.
"Yeah." He breathed. "That boss of yours is one tough cookie."
"You should've seen her this morning when the Prophet came in."
Shacklebolt chuckled. "She looked about ready to breathe fire."
"I can believe that, it did feel remarkably like being locked in a room
with an angry dragon." Sirius said with a theatrical shudder. "Now where
is that godson of mine?"
Shacklebolt suddenly looked uncomfortable. "He's been talking to Auror

Tonks while you've been in with the boss."
"Auror Tonks?" Sirius blinked. "Not Nymphadora Tonks? Andromeda's little

girl?"
"That's her."
"And she's an Auror now?"
"That's right, Mad-Eye Moody's last trainee before he retired."
"That's great, I haven't seen her since she was six. Where is she?" He
and Andromeda had never been hugely close, but she was his favorite
cousin by far(admittedly not saying much when the other choices were a
crazy sadist like Bellatrix and a spoiled snob like Narcissa, but
Andromeda was a genuinely decent woman), so seeing her now grown up
daughter again would be nice.
"Right this way." Shacklebolt sighed and led him through the maze of
cubicles.
Sirius had to blink in surprise again when he laid eyes on his godson.
Harry was apparently having a very good time flirting with Andromeda's
daughter.
"So that's how it is?" Sirius demanded when he saw this, bidding
Shacklebolt goodbye as the big Auror went back to work. "I'm getting
interrogated and you're over here, flirting with my cousin the whole
time?"
"Cut the crap, Sirius, you'd do the exact same thing." Harry retorted
dryly without missing the beat.
"You're damn right I would. You make me so proud." Sirius grinned. He

decided not to comment on the fact that Tonks and Harry were related.
Dorea and Andromeda weren't that close on the family tree anyway, not
nearly as close as the first cousin relationship of his own parents at
any rate.
"Wotcher, Sirius. Long time no see." Tonks greeted with a wave.
"I'll say. The last time I saw you, you were just a little girl with
rainbow colored hair that hated her first name." He agreed.
"She still does." Harry said with grin.
"Are you serious?" Sirius grinned back.
Tonks groaned, anticipating some bad puns.
"No, you're Sirius. I'm Harry."
"But I saw you shave today!"
"I know right? It's uncanny."
"Will you two idiots please stop with the puns? I already agreed to go on
a date with Harry." Tonks groaned again.
"Harry, did you get yourself a date by using puns?" Sirius asked, very
much impressed.
"Yep, you could say that I Blackmailed her into it."
"Hehehehe."
"You're monsters, both of you. You should be in Azkaban for having such a
horrible sense of humor."
"That would be quite the punishment."
"This is why people hate their relatives."
XXXXX
Waiting on the muggle side of London, Tonks really had to wonder how
she'd gotten roped into a date with a kid that didn't look quite as young
as he should, nor act like it.
Ah yes, of course. He'd been funny, charming, very persistent and

depressingly enough, more interesting than her usual brand of suitors. If
she had to put up with one more idiot who thought he was being clever by
asking what her 'true form' was, she might have seriously started
considering the use of the Cruciatus as a corrective measure. The fact
that she'd also found him rather attractive was best not considered. That
way lay confusion.
Having a muggleborn father and a pureblood mother had been the cause of
more than one culture clash during her upbringing, such as each parent
having very different ideas on the age of consent. Her mother would not
be at all bothered by this date, but it would be for the best if her
father never heard of it.
It had been good to see Sirius again. She remembered liking him the few
times that he had visited and being very upset when he suddenly stopped.
She hadn't learned about his supposed murder spree until years later. It
was gratifying to know that he was innocent, bad puns and all.
Speaking of Sirius, the man had wished them well on their date(complete
with lewd remark of course) and gone back to Potter Manor. He was
apparently planning to write to a friend of his and spend the evening
catching up since he was effectively grounded until Madam Bones issued a
press release declaring him innocent of all charges. Harry had gone with
him to change out of his robes since they'd agreed that the date was
going to take place on the muggle side.
Tonks was pretty sure that her boss had chewed out both Sirius and Harry
for the way they'd sprung this whole thing on her. The entire department
had tiptoed around her since morning, wary of attracting her obvious
wrath. Even Scrimgeour, the humorless bastard, had looked a bit
aprehensive.
She spotted her date approaching then, cutting through her train of
thought. She had to admit that he cleaned up rather well in his black
shirt and slacks, if a bit monochromatic.
"M'lady." He greeted with good natured mockery, looking over at her

ripped blue jeans, black combat boots, pink tube tob, open black jacket,
decorative black choker and of course, her usual spiky purple hair. "You
look ravishing."
"And you look like like you wouldn't know casual if it bit you on the
arse." She snarked back. They were going to look ridiculously mismatched.
"Ah, but not all of us can look as good as you in casual clothes and I
felt that you deserved my best." He rejoinedered.
"Laying it on a bit thick, aren't you?" She asked dryly.
"Not at all." He grinned. "The punk rocker look definitely suits you."
"Not going to be embarrassed to be seen with me then?" She asked with

exaggerated disappointment, falling into step with him as they started
walking.
"Embarrassed to be seen with a such a beautiful woman? Impossible.

Meeting with that Daily Prophet reporter, now that was embarrassing."
Tonks rolled her eyes at the continued flattery, but was inwardly pleased
nonetheless. It was always nice to be complimented. "What was he wearing?
Some of the more muggle savvy of us in the DMLE have a competition going
on who can find the most ridiculously dressed witch or wizard."
"That sounds like an interesting competition." Harry commented before

describing the Oktoberfest-esque outfit that Smugley had worn for their
meeting.
Tonks shook her head in disbelief once he was done. "I swear, some of
these people have to be doing it on purpose. Either that, or they're
getting their source material from the most out of the ordinary places
possible. A few months back, there was a witch brought to St. Mungo's
that thought all muggles dressed like death metal bands. She'd put a
layer of white paint on her face that was at least an inch thick and used
magic to solidify it."
"You can't be serious." Harry asked incredulously.
"No, that's your godfather." Tonks snarked vengefully.
"I probably deserved that." He admitted.
"Yes, yes you did."
"So what happened with the death metal witch?"
"Nearly suffocated under the paint, probably would have if her sister
hadn't been there to apparate them both to St. Mungo's. I heard that the
healers had to use a paint stripping spell to get her face cleared, took
her eyebrows and eyelashes with it."
Harry winced. "That must've hurt."
"Probably." Tonks agreed. "Where are we going anyway? You never did tell
me what you had planned for this date."
They'd agreed to stick to muggle entertainment for several reasons. For
one, the Wizarding World tended to close its doors earlier. For another,
it simply didn't have quite as much to offer in the way of entertainment
either since it was so much smaller.
That was actually the primary reason that Tonks was so well acquainted
with the Muggle World in the first place. The fun on this side was much
more to her tastes.
"It's pretty late already, so our options are a bit limited. I was
thinking dinner and a movie?"
"Works for me." She'd had the afternoon shift today and hadn't eaten
anything substantial since leaving home.
"I hope you don't mind buffets. Regular restaurants always give out too
small portions for me."
XXXXX
"How are you not the size of Hagrid?" Tonks demanded, seeing Harry finish
off his third plate of food.
"Magic." He answered mysteriously, trying to keep down a grin and not

being entirely successful.
"Seriously, you must eat as much as him." Tonks insisted.
"Nah, not that much." Harry refuted, but wasn't entirely certain. The
Hogwarts gamekeeper tended to eat more in one sitting than him, but Harry
knew that he ate more often.
And that wasn't even mentioning the various supplements he took, such as
vitamins, calcium, iron and magnesium. He'd gotten a bit worried about
nutrition after finding his appetite increased to its current ridiculous
level, and had researched what he might be lacking in his diet. He didn't
want to assume that magic would handle everything and later discover that
his bones had become brittle from growing too fast with too little
calcium or something. It was odd to feel grateful for Katherine's
obsessive nutrition phase that he was even aware of that potential
problem.
Potter Manor now had a room dedicated to the storage of a rather large
amount of dietary supplements that Teeny faithfully brought him every
day. He really wanted to do something nice for the little elf, because
her help had been truly indispensable, but she threatened to cry every
time he tried and there was nothing quite so guilt inducing as a
blubbering house elf.
"Besides, can't you regulate your own figure with your special ability?"
He asked. They were in a fairly out of the way corner, so it was safe to
talk about magic if they were discrete about it.
"Some." She admitted. "But I'd still get fat if I ate like you."
"What are the limits of your shapeshifting anyway?" He pressed, seizing

the opportunity. He'd been burning with curiousity about the ability ever
since he'd heard of it. That had only increased when he'd gotten a good
feel for Tonks' magic. It was far more...fluid or maybe mutable would be
a better term, than what he felt in other magicals.
"I can't add or remove too much mass, but other than that I can do more
or less anything."
"Even gender switching?" He asked further, eyebrows climbing upwards in

surprise.
"Why, you'd prefer to date a man?" She asked back with a smirk.
"I walked right into that one." He said ruefully.
"Yup." She agreed smugly. "But yes, I can switch gender if I want to."
"That's incredible." He muttered. "But how? Wouldn't that require you to

focus on all the internal changes?"
"Not really." She shrugged. "I just focus on what I want and it sort of
happens by itself. I guess my magic must know what to do even if I
don't."
"Fascinating. I wonder if it actually accesses your DNA to get the

relevant information, or does it just forcibly change it?" He mused to
himself, garnering an odd look from his date. "I don't suppose you would
be willing to submit to experimentation?"
Tonks rolled her eyes at both the question and his cheesy grin when he
asked it. "The Department of Mysteries already asked that and I'm sure
you can guess what my answer was."
"No?" He ventured.
"I wasn't quite that polite, but you're essentially correct."
"Ah, too bad." He sighed dramatically. "I was hoping to duplicate the
ability."
He was still going to try.
"Of course you did, bloody Ravenclaw." Tonks snorted. "This is why
Hufflepuff is the best, you nerds don't know when to stop studying and
the less said about Gryffindor and Slytherin the better."
"Can I have just one more question on this topic?" Harry requested.
This time it was Tonks who sighed dramatically, reaching for her glass of
water. "Fine."
"Are you using it to keep your boobs so perky, or is that natural?"
The Auror spluttered with surprised laughter at the impertinent question,

spitting a bit of water over her empty plate.
"See? I can have fun." Harry said smugly while Tonks worked on clearing
her esophagus.
"Touch, Potter, touch." Tonks conceded. "I'm afraid that your question
is stupid though, oh great intellectual comedian. For me, it's more
natural to use my metamorph abilities than not."
"Ah." Harry nodded sagely. "So your boobs are both naturally perky and
saggy. It's a breast paradox."
"How dare you call my girls saggy!" Tonks said, perhaps a bit too loudly
if the odd look from a passing employee was any indication. "I'll have
you know that I barely even need a bra. They're that perky."
"That's definitely something worth bragging about in public." Harry

commented dryly, making Tonks flush in embarrassment as she realized that
their conversation had gotten just a wee bit too loud to still be called
discrete.
She cleared her throat and decided to move away from this topic. "So,
what movie are we going to watch?"
"Let's check." Harry said and pulled out his mostly neglected smartphone.
"Ooh, is that one of those smartphone thingies?" Tonks asked eagerly and
siddled over to sit next to him so that she could look over his shoulder.
"Yes." He confirmed, trying very hard to ignore what her tube top covered
breasts were doing to him as they pressed into his back. They really were
very perky. "I don't get much use out of it with how much time I spend at
Hogwarts, but it's useful during the summer at least."
"I thought about buying one just for the novelty, but the paperwork is
really a pain in the arse when you technically don't exist in the Muggle
World. Not to mention the hassle of keeping it away from magic." Tonks
commented, smirking as she noticed that Harry was sitting a bit too
stiffly to be natural. Poke fun at her breasts would he? See how he liked
it when her breasts poked at him.
"I guess that would be a problem." He agreed, almost managing to sound

like he wasn't distracted. Almost. "Let's see...We've got the usual
choices between sappy romance and car chases and explosions, as well
as...a...few...Tonks?"
"Yeees?"
"Don't take this the wrong way, but do you have two wands in your jacket
or are those your nipples poking me?"
"They might be, you said yourself that my breasts are perky."
"Well, it's just that...they feel awfully long to be nipples."
"They're very perky."
"You are an evil woman, Tonks." And Harry meant that with feeling. He'd
known that the shapeshifting Auror would be loads of fun, but right now
he was getting a serious urge to shag her on the spot. He had no idea how
he was going to survive a whole movie feeling like this.
"I know." She breathed huskily into his ear and deliberately rubbed her
now two inch nipples over his back, having entirely too much fun teasing
him.
"So...um...which movie would you like to see?" He asked distractedly.
"You asked me out, so you should decide." She answered in the same husky
tone. "Hurry, Harry! Before we puncture the Statute of Secrecy."
Harry groaned. "I thought you hated puns?"
"That's what I wanted you to think."
XXXXX
They left the restaurant shortly after that, with Tonks needing to take a
quick side trip to the bathroom to magically repair her stretched out
top, as it had not been made with two inch nipples in mind.
The movie was much less eventful than the dinner, with both of them
taking a metaphorical step back.
Tonks had been a bit embarrassed at her own forwardness, having not
intended to go anywhere near that far. Harry had been much better company
than she'd expected him to be and she'd gotten a bit carried away because
of it.
Harry had taken the reprieve from her teasing to get his libido under
control with some emergency Occlumency. It was harder than he'd expected
it to be, as both his body and magic seemed to have gotten used to
regular intercourse as a means of dealing with that issue. He suspected
that he was going to have a truly epic case of morning wood the next day.
Unless of course he managed to seduce Tonks all the way, but he was
honestly not expecting that to happen. She wasn't the type to jump in the
sack with him for his money or reputation and he didn't think that she
was as easy as Zoe had been either.
Now the movie was over and it was approaching time to go their separate
ways.
"I had a good time tonight, even if you did blackmail me into it." Tonks
said, opening up the goodbye portion of the date.
"You know you liked my puns better than the paperwork." Harry retorted
with a grin.
"That's not saying much, anything is better than paperwork." She shot
back.
"Does that mean that you wouldn't be averse to doing this again?" He
asked slyly, stepping a bit closer. "You know, just to get your mind off
the paperwork."
"I might be open to it, if you agree to lay off the puns." She replied,
not moving away despite his obvious intention to kiss her. He'd been a
better than average date and certainly deserved it.
"I could do that." Harry agreed and closed in on her lips.
Tonks had assumed that it would be a simple peck on the lips, but Harry
was apparently a rather greedy individual as he immediately went for a
deep liplock. She might have protested his forwardness if it wasn't for
the surge of warmth that suddenly exploded through her body and seemed to
crawl slowly down to her groin. It got worse when his hands reached out
to squeeze her butt.
Harry was doing more than just kissing her. He was pressing his magic
against hers in a manner similar to what he'd done with Fudge, but for an
entirely different purpose. Instead of making himself seem more imposing,
he was mingling his own desire with that of the woman he was kissing. It
was a technique that he'd actually learned from that sex magic guide that
Luna had given him, a means of enhancing pleasure by forming a feedback
loop between two people. He'd practiced it with Bryanna and Tiana
frequently, though in that case it had been used during sex.
The kiss lasted a good deal longer than either intended as they lost
themselves in the sensation, but lack of oxygen eventually prevailed and
they broke apart.
"Wow." Tonks exhaled, breathing hard and staring at him with heavy lidded
dark eyes. That hadn't been an inexperienced kiss. Not at all.
Harry smirked at her reaction, more accustomed to it. "Let's do this

again. Soon."
"Yeah." Tonks nodded a bit shakily, trying to ignore the throb of arousal
in her loins.
Harry waited for a few moments longer, still holding on to the slim hope
that she would suggest that they continue this somewhere more
comfortable.
Alas, no such luck. "Well...I'll see you later."

Tonks apparated away with that, her mind on finishing this date with an
application of Mr. Purple, her favorite, heavily enchanted dildo. She'd
put her Hogwarts education to good use after leaving its hallowed halls.
Harry stood there for a while, biting his lip and reflecting on the
double edged nature of establishing an emotional feedback loop. His arm
was going to be so sore.
Chapter 11
For those of you who are interested, FF author Umodin has posted a story
called "Mixedblood", which he says was inspired by my own writing. It has
an OC main character and he's only just started writing it, but give it a
peek if you're curious.
Chapter betaed as always by Joe Lawyer.
XXXXX
"I should go." Remus Lupin said awkwardly.
He'd been about to leave the country when he'd seen the Prophet article
that claimed his old friend's innocence. Filled with guilt once again for
his lack of faith, he'd decided to stay for a little bit longer to see
how things would play out.
Then had come Sirius' letter, asking him to come to Potter Manor and keep
an old dog company while he was grounded.
He hadn't been able to refuse.
That had been last night, much of which Sirius and he had spent
reminiscing and repairing their friendship. He'd spent the night at his
friend's insistence despite feeling like an intruder in Harry's home.
Now it was the morning after and the actual owner of the house was
present, but saying nothing and resolutely ignoring the both of them as
he ate his breakfast.
"You don't have to." Sirius protested, in a nearly canine sort of whine.
"Harry's just being cranky over his failure to seduce my cousin."
Harry shot his godfather a look of contempt, a true teenager look that
spoke volumes about how lame what he'd just said was. "Shut up, old man.
You haven't been with a woman in over twelve years and you're a product
of incest on top of it."
"I'm not old!" Sirius insisted, looking incredibly affronted. "And I'll
break my dry spell as soon as I can go out, the birds will love the bad
boy ex-con image I'll have going for me and I can't help it if my parents
were stupid. You can't go using that argument every time you want to shut
me down."
The good natured bickering reminded Remus of James and Sirius during
their school days so much that it hurt.
"Hmpf." Was Harry's only reply.
"Is it the creepy pedo mustache that Remus has now that's making you so
hostile?" Sirius asked in exasperation. "I'll admit that it bothered me
too at first, but you get used to it."
"What?" Remus exclaimed, startled. Then he ran his fingers over his
facial hair as if to reassure himself (or perhaps it) that it wasn't a
pedo mustache.
"No, it has nothing to do with his pedo mustache." Harry said succintly.
"I just don't see any reason why I should like him simply on account of
his friendship with my parents." He'd given Sirius a chance and the man
had jumped at it. Remus had had all the chances he could've asked for and
had spent them feeling sorry for himself. "The only reason he's even here
is because you wanted to rehash the good old days with someone."
Remus would have dearly liked to remove himself from this situation,
clearly seeing that he was a point of contention between Sirius and
Harry, even if it seemed like a mild one. Harry's obvious disapproval of
his presence made him want to flee.
He wasn't sure if the fact that Harry didn't care about his werewolf
status made that sting more or less.
He was just about to make his excuses and leave when the Potter house elf
popped in and handed Harry the day's issue of the Daily Prophet.
"You's newspaper, master Harry sir!" Teeny announced.
"Thank you, Teeny." Harry acknowledged, getting a beaming smile from the
small house elf before she popped away.
"What does it say?" Sirius asked curiously, seeing the odd expression on
Harry's face.
Harry said nothing, merely continued to read for the next couple of
minutes before wordlessly handing the newspaper to Sirius.
The Boy-Who-Killed? Harry Potter avenges the betrayal of his parents by

killing their betrayer, Peter Pettigrew.
By Rita Skeeter, journalist.
The large headline was accompanied by an animated picture of Harry

walking through the Ministry atrium in the company of Fudge, Dumbledore
and the two Aurors. Accompanied by the headline, it could be misconstrued
as him being arrested.
After yesterday's surprise article portraying a different version of the

events that occurred in the final days of the war against You-Know-Who
than what has been commonly accepted as truth until now, Harry Potter,
aged 13, arrived in the Ministry of Magic to explain himself to the DMLE.
He spoke to Amelia Bones, the head of the DMLE, in the company of

Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge and Albus Dumbledore, giving more
detail to the events first hinted at in yesterday's article.
From then on the article went on to describe a mostly truthful series of

facts regarding the altercation between Sirius and Pettigrew after
Voldemort's downfall, as well as lambasting Barty Crouch for his
overzealous imprisonment of Sirius as well as Pettigrew's twelve years
spent as the Weasley's pet rat.
Then things veered somewhat away from the facts and went into
sensationalist prose.
The Boy-Who-Lived seemed as if he was carved from stone as he

emotionlessly recounted taking Pettigrew's life with a blasting curse,
only his eyes burning with remembered fury. His choice of spell was
perhaps a deliberate bit of irony, as it was with the use of such a spell
that Pettigrew faked his death and framed Sirius Black for his crimes.
Madam Bones was obviously displeased by the way that the law had been
taken into the hands of a private citizen, but Potter immediately
followed up his confession with the wands of Peter Pettigrew and that of
You-Know-Who himself. After presenting these tokens, his claims of self-
defense were accepted and Potter was allowed to go without further issue.
"What the fuck?" Sirius exclaimed. "This can't be a DMLE sanctioned press
release! It makes you out to be some kind of vigilante that only walked
free because you gave them the Dark Tosser's wand as a bribe."
Remus briefly considered remonstrating Sirius for his use of foul

language.
"I don't think it is." Harry agreed. "I've read some of Skeeter's
articles before. The bitch is about as toxic as your average League of
Legends player and seems to get off on putting the worst possible spin on
everything she writes."
Remus realized that it would probably be a bad idea to complain about

foul language.
"League of Legends?" Sirius echoed in confusion.
"Nevermind." Harry waved off, having an idle thought of getting his

technologically impaired godfather to try video gaming. That would
probably be funny to watch.
"You're strangely calm about this." Remus dared to venture.
Harry glanced at him with a frown but decided to answer anyway. "The
people whose opinions I care about aren't going to change because of
this." That wasn't to say that he was happy about it, but what anger he
did feel was contained easily enough by his Occlumency.
"That's a very mature outlook." The werewolf complimented.
Harry's frown deepened, unaccountably irritated at being complimented by

someone he disliked.
"But we can't just let this go!" Sirius protested. "We need to prank the
hell out of her!"
Harry gave his godfather a flat look. "Pranking? Really? What are you,
twelve?" He ignored the minor hypocrisy of his rebuke.
"What else if not pranking?" Sirius near demanded. He knew just as well
as Harry that Skeeter wouldn't be facing any legal repercussions because
of this. The laws about journalistic integrity in Wizarding Britain had
more holes in them than Swiss cheese. The only reliable way of making
reporters back off was to do it outside the law.
Harry looked at over at the other Marauder sitting at the table again and
this time Remus understood that he had definitely overstayed his welcome.
Harry clearly didn't want to talk about this any further in his presence.
"I've got to go." The werewolf said, getting up from the table.
"Remus?" Sirius asked, blinking in surprise at the sudden declaration.
"I'll see you around, Sirius." Remus said, not giving his friend a chance
to protest as he left.
"Did you notice anything odd about this article?" Harry asked once the
werewolf was gone.
Sirius frowned slightly at his godson, wishing that he wasn't so cold to

Remus, but went ahead with the subject change anyway.
"You mean aside from how it insinuates that you're a stone cold killer?"
"Yes, aside from that."
Sirius thought about it and reread it, then it finally dawned on him.
"How could she have known what you were talking about in Bones' office?
Fudge doesn't strike me as the type to keep a secret, but this reads as
if she was in the room with you."
"I felt strange for that whole meeting." Harry admitted. "I kept getting
the nagging feeling that there was another person in the room, but I
couldn't pin it down and I had to focus on Bones anyway."
"Invisibility cloak?" Sirius hazarded.
Harry considered it for a moment before shaking his head. "I don't think
so. She would've had a hard time not bumping into anyone and I'm pretty
sure that my magesight could see a regular invisibility cloak just as
well as it can my special one."
Sirius was briefly stumped by that before another idea came to mind, this
one even closer to home than the invisibility cloak. "An Animagus form!
You could've easily missed it if it was small enough."
They'd already determined that Harry's newly gained sensing ability had
more trouble picking out details for Sirius in his dog form and the
'size' of his magic also 'shrunk' to match his body. If Skeeter was small
enough in her Animagus form, then detecting her could be problematic even
for Harry, especially with Amelia Bones commanding his full attention.
"It's a definite possibility."
"She must not be registered. If she was then she'd never have been able
to sneak into the DMLE like that." Sirius said, a slow grin growing on
his face.
"And failing to register as an Animagus gets you time in Azkaban." Which

Harry's cynical mind identified as more proof of the Ministry's obsession
with control. Animagi were notoriously difficult to keep track of in
their animal forms. "But we can't be sure if she's really an Animagus."
"What else could it be?" Sirius asked with some exasperation.
"I don't know, but I'd rather not make assumptions only to end up being
wrong later." Harry retorted snippily.
XXXXX
Over in the DMLE, Aurors scrambled for cover as their boss stormed
through, her nostrils flaring like that of an angry bull.
The second day in a row that the Daily Prophet had posted an inflammatory
article. First Potter and Black and then that bitch, Skeeter. Both times
kicking dirt on her department as a side-effect.
Amelia Bones wasn't the type to curse out loud, but she was sorely
tempted just then. Time and again she had proposed adjustments to the law
that would hold reporters to a higher standard, but the decrepit old
farts on the Wizengamot shot it down every time.
Well of course they did. It would be hard to use the Daily Prophet as a
propaganda tool if they were actually required by law to print only the
truth.
Unlike Sirius and Harry, Amelia had been dealing with Skeeter's bullshit
for a very long time now and didn't even question how the spiteful
reporter had gotten her information. It wouldn't be the first time that
she'd conjured up some mixture of fact and fiction that had a vague
resemblance to the truth and Fudge couldn't keep a secret to save his
life anyway. Half the Ministry had been yammering on about rat Animagi
and Voldemort's wand within an hour of him leaving the DMLE.
She had intended to release the full details of what she'd learned in a
press release the next day, but now she needed to scramble to do damage
control. She might not be overly fond of Potter right now, but she wasn't
going to let him be painted as a vengeful killer by that sorry excuse for
a reporter.
XXXXX
Several hours later, Skeeter's article changed to include important

details that she'd previously left out, such as the fact that Pettigrew
had tried to draw his wand first and that Harry didn't simply kill him as
revenge for his parents, but the damage had already been done and the
general public opinion of Harry Potter was no longer of some kind of
messianic figure that could do no wrong.
Harry saw the change in the paper and knew that it wasn't going to fix
the damage that the original article had done, but was not overly
concerned with the consequences. Yes, he'd learned to make use of his
reputation instead of being irritated by it and would have preferred for
the knowledge of his killing Pettigrew to be kept as quiet as possible,
but he hadn't honestly expected to stay on that same saintly pedestal
after this anyway. The reputation of the Boy-Who-Lived had become so
inflated that it would never have survived a meeting with reality, it was
always going to be something of a one-shot. Granted, Skeeter's poisonous
slant probably did more damage than would have happened otherwise, but
probably not as much as she'd hoped for.
The DMLE dropped by twice more in the following days to talk to both him
and Sirius again, then his godfather was declared a free man. It all
seemed rather rushed, for which Harry figured he had Fudge to thank.
They'd even dug Sirius' wand out of Azkaban's storage and returned it to
him.
That took care of the biggest thing he had to do for the summer, which
still left him with the two OWLs he had to pass, figuring out the legal
details of the business he was helping Bryanna and Tiana start up,
talking to the former managers of the Potter business interests that had
since been taken over by the Parkinsons and most recently, another date
with Tonks.
He was looking forward to the latter most of all. He hadn't expected to

find himself liking the Metamorphmagus Auror to this degree considering
his general dislike of the Ministry, but he did. Her naturally cheerful
disposition was a stark contrast to his more stoic leanings and he
couldn't help but find himself interested. He'd had a similar experience
with Zoe, but his muggle friend with benefits had made it clear that she
wasn't looking for anything serious and her lack of magic honestly made
anything more than their casual arrangement more problematic than he was
willing to deal with.
Come to think of it, that might be why he'd gotten along with Sirius so
easily too. His godfather somehow managed to be in a good mood most of
the time despite his life being best described as 'a field of crap with a
few flowers breaking through the shit'. He had to respect the man's
determination to enjoy life in spite of everything and the fact that he
treated Harry like an adult didn't hurt either.
Harry knew himself to be somewhat frustrating as a friend. He could talk

to people yes, but he also liked his alone time and he loathed it when
someone tried to tell him how he should live. His early childhood was
characterized by the Dursleys hatred, bullying by other children and
later having his social interactions scripted out by Robert and
Katherine, leaving him with little patience for pushy people.
His short lived friendship with Ginny had fallen apart as much because of
her silly crush as it had because she couldn't understand that. Unfair
perhaps to expect that kind of thing from a preteen girl, especially when
she didn't know the circumstances, but life wasn't fair.
Luna understood though, or maybe that was just how she was. Luna never
complained about his penchant for keeping things to himself or his
disappearances when he wanted to practice his magic in secrecy, never
tried to make him talk about it, never tried to tell him that he should
be anything other than himself. Harry considered himself fortunate to
have a friend like her, as he strongly suspected that he'd have spent his
entire time at Hogwarts alone without her and first year had taught him
that he wasn't so anti-social that he could be happy living in constant
solitude. Enough to push people away though.
The other students were nice enough, but he simply had trouble relating
to them. Even Bryanna and Tiana had only stuck around primarily for the
gold and later for the sex, once he'd gotten good enough at it. For all
that they were on good terms, he had no doubt that they would have
drifted away if their plans for the future didn't hinge on a continued
association with him. Harry had gotten very good at keeping people at
arm's length without even meaning to.
He found himself hoping that Tonks would be another person that he could
manage to really connect with. He wouldn't be surprised if not, but he
would be disappointed. She was the first witch aside from Luna that he
was looking forward to actually getting to know and not just sleeping
with.
XXXXX
"One of the hardest parts of becoming an Animagus is finding your animal

form." Sirius was saying. "It will almost certainly be an animal that you
share characteristics with, but finding out which ones is the problem.
You don't have much of a choice in the matter either and some people
don't like what it says about them."
"I imagine that Pettigrew wasn't too pleased with his form." Harry
guessed.
"You'd be right about that." Sirius laughed harshly, his resentment of

his former friend still clear. "It took him the longest out of all of us
to first transform. Since you mentioned Wormtail, there's another thing
you should know about becoming an Animagus. It will change you, not in a
way that would be instantly obvious, but it will change you. A lot of
people that could have become Animagi choose not to because of this,
aside from the other dangers that is."
"How did it change you and the others?" Harry asked, very interested in
that bit and less so in the dangers. He was sure that Sirius would get
around to mentioning those soon enough.
"It's hard to say for sure, but some of the animal instinct carries over.
For one thing, I think that both James and I became a bit more vigorous
in our pursuit of the ladies after our first transformation."
Harry snorted at the diplomatic phrasing.
Sirius pretended he hadn't heard it. "James also became a good bit more
territorial about your mother and went after Snape any time he approached
her."
Harry frowned at that, vaguely recalling some information from his non-
magical schooling about male deer forming harems instead of mating for
life.
"How long did you and my dad go around seducing girls anyway?" He asked.
Sirius looked at him oddly but answered anyway. "James stopped towards
the end of sixth year when he started getting a bit desperate to win your
mother over. I never stopped."
Ah, so he'd subconsciously been trying to form a harem, but had shaken it
off in order to get the one he really wanted. And dogs were of course
polygamous, so Sirius' aversion to a dedicated relationship would have
only been increased. That fit with a few other distinctly canine
characteristics that Harry had noticed about his godfather.
"Alright, how do I find my inner animal?" Harry asked with a smile.
"It should be familiar to you from your Occlumency training and is really
the only part of learning how to be an Animagus that is completely safe."
Sirius explained. His own Occlumency was crap, only good enough to detect
intrusions, but he could see the parallels. "Not the same though. You're
not looking to clear your mind and stop thinking this time. You need to
sort of sink into your magic and let it show you what your inner animal
is. It'll be something that you're familiar with, but don't make any
assumptions or you'll throw the whole thing off. Once you manage it, you
might get a mental impression or even a vision of being that animal.
You'll have to keep doing this until you're absolutely certain which one
it is."
A few minutes of instruction later, Sirius left Harry alone to try it.
His Occlumency both helped and hindered him in this, but mostly helped.
He was already familiar with meditation and more than aware enough of his
own magic to do it, but he had some trouble not blanking out his mind on
instinct.
A few hours later, he came back to himself with a gasp, a dazed smile on
his face but his mind still on the waking vision he'd just had. Of
looking down at the world from the sky and gliding through the air on
black feathered wings.
Corvus corax. The common raven. He supposed that his Patronus should have
been a hint since he had called the guardian from within himself. He'd
already read up on them a bit thanks to that, but he was going to study
the species in a lot more detail now.
XXXXX
"Blimey, you know your form already?" Sirius asked with considerable
shock when he was told. "Are you sure that you know it? Absolutely sure?"
"Yes." Harry replied, a bit exasperated.
"Don't take that tone with me, young man." Sirius said sternly, but
couldn't quite keep a proud grin off his face. "If you rush into this
thinking that your animal form is something else than what it really is,
you could drive yourself mad or even die. Wouldn't be the first wizard it
happened to because they were impatient."
"Like the Marauders?"
"Exactly like us. In retrospect, it's a minor miracle that none of us

died or lost our minds."
"I'm still on the fence about your sanity, but I get your point and I'll
be careful. I really am sure of my form though."
"That must be some kind of record." Sirius commented, letting the jibe
about his sanity go. It wasn't the first time that someone had cast
aspersions on it. "It took us months just to get our first success and
months more before we could be sure of our forms."
"None of you were Occlumancers." Harry pointed out, not mentioning how
his rituals and wandless practice had left uniquely him aware of his own
magic. "And you were younger than me when you started, not to mention
less amazing. Did you know that ravens are among the most intelligent
animals alive?"
"Ha bloody ha." Sirius deadpanned.
"So, what now?"

"You'll need to, for lack of a better term, turn yourself inside out."
"You mean like...become an animal with an inner wizard instead of a

wizard with an inner animal?"
"That's it exactly. Your human mind is obviously a lot stronger than an

animal's instinct, so you'll retain most of your rationality."
"Most?"
"You might get some odd urges on occassion."
"Sirius, does the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black have canine heirs
wandering the world?"
"Piss off, Harry."
"I'm sorry." The younger wizard apologized, not sounding very sorry at
all. "What else do I have to do?"
"In the old days, wizards would spend years or even decades observing the
animal they were trying to turn into, to become as familiar with them as
possible. You'll still need to do that, but thanks to the wonders of the
modern age, you can get most of the needed information from a book."
"Who needs books when you have Wikipedia?"
"What's a Wikipedia?"
"I'll show you later." Harry was also wondering if watching YouTube
videos of ravens counted as observation. He couldn't see any reasons why
it wouldn't, but it might be best to find some wild ravens just to be on
the safe side.
"Right." Sirius said with a nod, having no clue whatsoever what his
godson was talking about. Probably some muggle thing. He'd considered
himself quite knowledgeable on the Muggle World at one point, but he was
waking up to the fact that it had become nigh on unrecognizable since the
last time he'd ventured into it. The basics were still the same of
course, but a lot of the things that Harry sometimes mentioned as if they
were common knowledge flew right over his head.
XXXXX
With Sirius now being a free man, an opportunity presented itself to do

something that Harry had wanted to do for some time.
"Do we really have to do this?" Sirius whined.
"Yes." Harry stated firmly.
"Couldn't we just burn it instead?" Sirius asked hopefully.
"No."
"But-!"
"Sirius, we are going into that house. If you hate it that much, we can
sell it after we pilfer everything of worth from it."
"Not burn it?"
"If you want to set it on fire that much, then sell it to Malfoy first.
Or Parkinson. Actually no, that's probably a bad idea even if we torch
the place right after."
Sirius sighed the sigh of the resigned. "Alright, let's get this over
with."
With heavy steps, the dog Animagus walked towards the front door of Nr.
12 Grimmauld Place.
Harry looked around curiously as they entered. The large townhouse was
smaller than Potter Manor and the hallways more narrow. In fact, the
whole place gave off an oppresive feeling of gloom. According to Dorea,
the Blacks had once had a manor house in the country as well, but for
reasons unknown, one of the past Lords Black had torn it down and
appropriated this place from its previous non-magical residents. And by
appropriated, Dorea had meant stolen.
They didn't get far before they were accosted by a portrait of woman that
looked as if she had spent her entire life sucking on lemons.
"Ah, so the prodigal son returns." She said, trying to look superior but
only managing constipation in Harry's humble opinion. "And who is this
you've brought with you? What family is he from?"
"What's with the friendly attitude, mum?" Sirius asked bluntly, packing a
lot of scorn into the last word. "Last time I saw you, you were shrieking
at my grandfather to cast me out of the family."
"I heard that you've learned the error of your ways since then, turning
your back on that blood traitor Potter and his filthy mudblood wife and
leading the Dark Lord to them." Sirius' mother answered, her demeanor
darkening slightly at the disrespect.
"I hate to disappoint you," Sirius began sarcastically. "but I was

framed. I've just been cleared of all charges and am once again known as
a muggle loving blood traitor to the world at large."
Could paintings have aneurysms? Harry felt sure that Sirius mother had
just had one.
"YOU FILTH! HOW DARE YOU RETURN TO SULLY THIS HOUSE! KREACHER! KREACHER!"
Ye gods, he'd thought that Sirius had been exaggerating when he'd
described his mother. No such luck though. If anything, the man had
somehow managed to understate it despite making her out to be the most
horrid woman in the world.
"No wonder you wanted to burn the place down." Harry commented as the
portrait of Walburga Black went on a shireking diatribe
about...something. It wasn't very coherent, but it did involve a lot of
screaming about blood traitors and mudbloods.
Sirius' potential reply was cut off when a decrepit looking house elf
popped in, glaring at them with a viciousness that Harry had honestly not
thought the little creatures capable of.
"Filthy blood traitor master has come back." Kreacher said scornfully,
barely heard over the portrait's continued yelling. "Kreacher will throw
you out."
"No, you won't" Sirius said flatly. "I own this house now."
"FILTH! SHAME TO THE FAMILY!"
Kreacher's face twisted with fury as the truth of the words sank in. The
wards had already transferred to Sirius, so he would now have to obey the
master that he hated.
"First, I want you to take that thing's portrait down and burn it."
Sirius went on contemptously, much to the increased rage of his mother.
"Kreacher cannot." The house elf said gleefully. "Mistress is permanently

stuck to wall."
"Then take down the wall." Sirius growled.
"GET OUT, GET OUT, GET OUT!"
"If Kreacher did that, the house would collapse. Stupid master." Kreacher
sneered.
Harry rolled his eyes in exasperation at the situation, starting to

develop a headache from the portrait's screaming.
"Can you brick her up then?" He asked. He wasn't at all convinced that
the Sticking Charm couldn't be dismantled, but it would be quite a feat
to concentrate on doing that with the painted harpy's constant yelling
Kreacher's mouth snapped shut and he glared at Harry mutinously, refusing

to answer.
"Answer him!" Sirius snapped.
"Yeeeees." Kreacher growled unwillingly through clenched teeth.
"Then do it." Sirius ordered, now grinning at having a solution to the

problem.
"Kreacher has no bricks." The house elf said sullenly.
"Oh, don't worry. I'll get you all the bricks you'll need."
"DISHONOR! DISHONOR ON THE FAMILY!"
XXXXX
"Lovely woman, your mother." Harry commented as they walked towards the
library.
"Isn't she just?" Sirius asked sarcastically. "I'd almost forgotten the
pounding headache that her diatribes gave me."
"What's with the house elf though?"
"Kreacher? He's always been a spiteful little bastard, but I suppose I

shouldn't be surprised. He's never been allowed to leave Grimmauld Place
and had nothing to listen to except my family's rants on blood purity."
"A bigoted house elf, now I've seen everything." Harry said with
amusement as they entered the library.
"Speaking of seeing everything, are you sure you should be looking at

some of these books?" Sirius asked nervously. He was not at all sanguine
about his godson reading up on some of the stuff he knew was in there.
"You worry too much, Sirius." Harry waved off. "I've got no interest in
sacrificing virgins or performing divination from someone's spilled
intestines. I'm much more interested in the theory than the practical
applications."
"You know, by all rights I should be forbidding you from coming anywhere
near these books until I've had a chance to throw out the worst of them."
Sirius commented wryly.
"But you won't because you're the best godfather ever."
"And you'd be pissy about it if I did."
"Knowledge is neither good nor evil, so yes, I would indeed be pissy if

you discarded it."
"Fine." Sirius said, tossing his hands skyward. "I'll go find Kreacher
some bricks, thanks for that idea by the way, and you can browse the
books. Just avoid the cursed ones."
"Who curses their own books anyway?" Harry suddenly asked. "That sounds
like a spectacularly bad idea."
"I told you that my family was nuts." Sirius shrugged.

Harry was left alone after that, Sirius trusting that Harry's magesight
and caution would keep him from running afoul the cursed books. He simply
browsed the titles for a while, waiting for something to catch his eye.
Not all of the tomes were filled with morally(and no doubt legally)
dubious magic, quite a few of them he'd actually already encountered in
either Hogwarts or Potter Manor. He wasn't interested in those though. He
would never have a proper understanding of magic if he confined himself
only to comfortable topics.
Ten minutes of browsing later, he'd found a tome that detailed the
process of using the ritualistic sacrifice of other wizards, witches or
powerful magical creatures to power large scale spells, wards or other
magics. It was grim and sometimes downright ghastly reading, but it was
also very interesting.
XXXXX
"This is the best side of my mother that I've ever seen." Sirius said
proudly, looking at the brand new brick wall sitting incongruously in the
hallway. From behind it, only blessed silence could be heard, which was
only natural since it was enchanted to block sound from going in either
direction.
"You're a real son of a bitch, Sirius." Harry noted, book on morally

reprehensible magic in hand.
"I know, I've even got the right initals. Sirius Orion Black, also known
as Son Of a Bitch."
"Bad master insulting mistress." Kreacher complained, much subdued due to

the moral quandary of being forced to brick up his beloved mistress.
"You think that's bad, just wait until we start looting the place." Harry
replied blandly. He generally did his best to be polite to house elves,
but Kreacher was quite simply a pain in the ass.
"NO! Kreacher will not let you!" The house elf shrieked, getting ready to
fight in defense of House Black.
"Yes you will." Sirius countermanded, more than happy to allow his godson
to ransack the family home if he wanted to. He was already intending to
designate him the Heir to House Black, so it would all be his eventually
anyway. "Now go away."
Kreacher stalked off as ordered, bemoaning the ill fortune that had
befallen House Black now that it had a blood traitor as its Lord.
XXXXX
"Hello, what's this?" Harry said softly, staring at a heavy looking

golden locket inlaid with emeralds in a serpentine pattern.
The locket felt very similar to how he remembered the soul shard in his
head feeling, and there was a seductive whisper of a powerful and subtle
compulsion reaching out from it as well.
This was, to put it bluntly, Bad. Capitalized. Not so much the item
itself as the implications of it.
"Strange, I don't remember seeing that one before." Sirius said, also
staring at the locket. The compulsion was trying to grab hold of him just
as much as it tried for Harry, but Sirius knew perfectly well how
dangerous it was to touch unknown objects in Grimmauld Place.
"I think it belonged to Voldemort." Harry said, grabbing his wand and
transfiguring a nearby item into a long metal pole with a hook on one
end.
Sirius started in surprise, staring at his godson. "You're sure?"
"Pretty sure. It has the same feel to it as the thing I pushed out during
my last ritual." Harry confirmed and gave the pole to Sirius.
"What are you thinking, Harry?" Sirius asked warily.
"I'm thinking that if Voldie is going to be handing out pieces of his

soul like candy, then who am I to refuse such a gift?" Harry said wryly.
"This isn't something you should be playing with." Sirius said sharply.
"Don't get your panties in a wad, I know that it's dangerous." Harry
retorted. "But you're missing the point. That thing is some kind of
phylactery, which means that the Dark Moron is still not fully dead. I
thought that the thing inside me was some kind of fluke, but this is the
third one I've come across and I'm starting to suspect that it isn't
going to be the last."
"So how do we destroy it?" Sirius asked, eager to get rid of it.
"Basilisk venom did the trick last time and I do have some in stock, but
we're not going to destroy it."
"What do you mean 'we're not going to destroy it'?" Sirius demanded.
"What possible use could you have for a piece of Voldemort's soul?"
"At the moment? None. But I find it hard to believe that I won't be able
to do anything at all with it, there is just no way that having a piece
of your soul in enemy hands could be a good idea. Now use that pole I
gave you and let's drop that thing into my Bag of Holding."
"I still don't understand why you insist on calling your Mokeskin Pouch
by that silly name."
"And I still haven't learned what the bloody hell a moke is. At least
'Bag of Holding' is a descriptive name."
"Don't try to distract me with your logic, it doesn't work on wizards. I
still say we should destroy it right away."
"Damnit, Sirius, I have no desire whatsoever to end up being a

prophesized Chosen One destined to beat Voldemort because some cracked
Seer made a prophecy fourteen years ago. I might be able to use this
thing to track down any others before the Dark Moron manages to crawl his
way back to life and starts causing problems again. He's going to be in
one hell of a snit over having his world domination scheme threatened and
then fouled up by a baby and I'd really rather not deal with that."
"Well, when you put it that way..."
By the time that Kreacher returned to Grimmauld Place, the locket that
Regulus had entrusted him with was long since gone. There was much house
elven wailing and gnashing of teeth as a result.
XXXXX
Staring at the locket that had so abruptly made his life an order of
magnitude more complicated, Harry scowled.
He'd thought that Voldemort was dead and gone in second year when his
diary was destroyed, because he'd asumed that it had been like a D&D
phylactery and held the entire soul. Then he'd learned that a soul could
break and found another piece of Voldemort inside of him, but he'd still
thought that it must have been some kind of freak occurence as a result
of his mother's sacrifice.
Now he had a third and was no longer willing to assume it was the last.
That fucking prophecy was really trying to turn his life into some kind
of big dramatic struggle against the forces of evil. He just wanted to
learn magic and see what things were like outside of Europe, maybe with
some particular female company along for the ride. Was that too much to
ask?
Apparently so, because Dumbledore's interest in him and his subtly

manipulative actions were finally making some sense in light of the fact
that Voldemort was still out there somewhere. The old man was trying to
play the Secretive-As-Fuck-But-Trust-Me-Because-I'm-The-Wise-Mentor angle
to his Chosen Champion. He'd probably get himself dramatically killed
halfway through it too, leaving the half-prepared protagonist, in this
case Harry himself, to clean up his mess. That seemed to be the norm in
these situations anyway.
Dumbledore was seriously trying to pull an Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Well bugger that. No way was Harry letting some old fart that thought he
knew best dictate his life.
This locket might be the key to finding what other soul anchors Voldemort
had and destroying them before he could come back. He certainly didn't
want to deal with a fully restored and probably very pissed off Dark
Lord.
Of course, the problem here was that Harry's knowledge about souls was
very limited. Judging by his own experiences, souls became damaged by
sufficiently traumatic events and healed over time. His rage driven
murder of Pettigrew had damaged him and that damage had repaired itself
to a degree as time passed, but never back to the unblemished state it
had been in before.
How that translated to creating a phylactery, he had no idea. Harry

suspected that he would need that knowledge before he achieved anything.
He would still see what he could find out without it, but like the diary,
the locket seemed to have some kind of sentience, which made it dangerous
to be around. He was not interested in being possessed.
He wouldn't be getting anything more done today in any case. His much
anticipated second date with Tonks was approaching and he wasn't going to
reschedule it simply because he'd just found out that Voldemort was still
not-dead. The locket could wait a little longer.
XXXXX
This time it was Harry who found himself arriving to the designated
meeting spot early. He'd gotten impatient and apparated out of the manor
almost half an hour too soon, much to Sirius' poorly concealed amusement.
There was no helping it though, he'd simply been too eager and too
nervous. The first date that he'd badgered the shapeshifting Auror into
had no real expectations attached to it, but he'd developed a genuine
liking for Tonks that had nothing to do with her good looks and the
potential sex games that her special talent would allow.
All of his forays into intimacy with females so far had involved very
little in the way of an actual emotional connection(aside from lust),
which made this nerve wracking in a whole new way. He was acutely aware
of the age discrepancy between him and Tonks and didn't want her to back
off because of it, which meant that he couldn't give her any reason to
think that she should. The Wizarding World might have a strange 'if-I-
don't-think-about-it-then-it's-not-a-problem' mentality in regards to
quite a few things, including age, but that would only go so far. This
was even more of an issue with Tonks because she was not only part of the
DMLE's elite law enforcement corps and had a reputation to maintain, but
also because her father was a muggleborn and likely had some pretty
strong opinions about certain wizarding practices. He knew that she'd
enjoyed their first date, but she would probably break it off if it gave
her issues at work or in her family.
Harry was not really the sort to develop silly crushes for no reason and
his early forays into sexuality had only made it more unlikely, but he
was just as vulnerable to falling prey to his own interests as anyone
else. Thus, he had plotted out a plan of attack for getting Tonks to
return that interest as quickly and as surely as possible, all the while
avoiding any pitfalls that might cause her to decide that he was more
trouble than he was worth. This had all happened without him really
intending to be so calculating about it...it had just sort of happened
while he was laying in bed.
A smile came to his face when Tonks eventually arrived. She was dressed
similarly to the last time, the only notable differences being that this
time she had a purple tank top and pink hair. And a bra. She hadn't worn
one the last time. That probably meant that she wasn't going to poke him
with her extendable nipples again. Too bad.
"Wotcher." She greeted with her usual good cheer. "Been waiting long?"
"Not at all, I just got here." Harry lied courteously. There was
literally no benefit to telling her that he'd been standing here for half
an hour already. "So, where are we going? You were pretty vague about
that." It had been decided that she would pick the venue this time.
"You'll see." She said vaguely. "Just take my hand, grasshopper, and I'll
show you."
"That was a horrible misquote." Harry complained, but took her hand
anyway.
"Ah shut up, you haven't seen the movie it came from any more than I
have." Tonks retorted.
"That's not the point. The point is that you mangled a perfectly good
quote." Harry insisted.
Neither one was aware that the original quote was not actually from a
movie.
Tonks didn't deign to respond and simply apparated them to the

destination.
Harry stared in bemusement at what he presumed was their destination, the

apparition having deposited them in a secluded spot some ways of. "An
amusement park? We're going to an amusement park?"
"Yes." Tonks said firmly. "And if you don't like amusement parks, then
tough, because we're still going."
"I have no strong feelings one way or the other in regards to amusement
parks." Harry droned blandly. "I've never been to one."
"What do you mean you've never been to one?" She demanded, scandalized.
"Didn't you say that your foster parents are muggle and rich? What kind
of people are they that they wouldn't take you to an amusement park at
least once?"
"I can already imagine their response to the idea." Harry replied wryly
and then adopted a snobbish air. "Why would you want to go to one of
these...things? Amusement parks are the pastime of the unwashed masses."
Tonks laughed at the impression, but inwardly felt a bit sorry for him.
That sounded kind of similar to the stories that her mother had told her
about growing up in the Black family, minus the rants on mudbloods and
blood purity.
"Well then I guess it's up to me to show you the ropes." She said
decisively, grabbing his hand and dragging him towards the noisy and
brightly lit area.
"I place myself in your capable hands." It wasn't something that he would
have chosen to do by himself, nor did he think that he'd like the crowds
and the noise, but the overall experience should be fun as long as she
was there.
XXXXX
While Tonks was showing Harry the proper way to experience an amusement
park, Sirius and Remus were having a more somber get-together in the
Hog's Head. Sirius had wanted to go to the Three Broomsticks and maybe
flirt with Rosmerta for old time's sake, but Remus had been reluctant to
go there so quickly after having his werewolf status made known to the
general public. Sirius had agreed after seeing the looks aimed not only
at his friend but also at him. Apparently getting cleared by the DMLE
wasn't enough to fully erase twelve years of everyone thinking that he
was a notorious mass murderer.
"Don't worry about it, Remus, I'm sure Harry will warm up to you soon
enough." The dog Animagus was saying.
Remus sighed at his friend's unwarranted optimism. "No, Sirius, I don't

think he will. I don't blame him for it either. I certainly wouldn't be
too fond of me if I was in his shoes."
"You're being too hard on yourself." Sirius chided. Remus had always been
prone to brooding.
Remus withheld a grimace. If only that were true, but he knew that Harry
was fully justified to dislike him. He'd acted like nothing more than a
distant acquaintance of James and Lily and now he was being treated like
one. No more than he deserved really, but Sirius was clearly having
trouble understanding it, mired as he was in nostalgia.
"So what is Harry up to now?" He asked. He had no more hope of

establishing a close relationship with the son of his dead friends, but
he could still ask about him.
"He's on a date with Andromeda's girl." Sirius chuckled. "Precocious

little scamp is better than James or I ever were at getting a girl to
agree to a date. We were on Madam Bones' shit list but he goes right up
to one of her Aurors and asks her out."
Remus didn't really know Andromeda Tonks, having only mer her once and
rather briefly at that. She had been sympathetic to the Order during the
war with Voldemort, but not a member. He did remember a cute
Metamorphmagus daughter that had scowled when she'd been introduced by
her given name though.
"Isn't she in her twenties?" He inquired carefully. That meeting had been
quite some time before Harry's birth.
"So?" Sirius shrugged.
Remus let it go. He didn't think it was very appropriate for a full grown
woman to be going on dates with a boy Harry's age, but he knew that his
opinion wouldn't be welcome. James and Sirius had gleefully taken
advantage of the Wizarding World's laxity about age appropriate
relationships.
"I was more interested in how his studies are going." He said instead.
"Good, great even. He's a smart kid and loves learning magic." Sirius
made no mention of Harry's extra-curricular study. He felt that Remus
could be trusted with the information, but Harry didn't and there was no
denying that it would be bad if it got out that the Boy-Who-Lived was
looking into dark magic. Sirius trusted Harry not to go off the deep end,
but the rest of the sheep or the Ministry wouldn't be so reasonable.
His godson's cynicism was rubbing off on him.
They went into safer areas of conversation after that. Their friendship
was still in some need of repair before it would be back to the state it
had been in during their Hogwarts days.
XXXXX
"Heh, I never would have figured you for an adrenaline junkie." Tonks
said with a wry grin.
Sitting next to her on a bench with one arm around her shoulders, Harry
smirked back. "I may not like Quidditch, but I have always liked flying."
He wondered if that had anything to do with his Animagus form. "Were you
hoping that some of those rides would scare me?"
"Yes." Tonks pouted. "I wanted to hear high pitched screams of terror,
but all I got was laughter."
"So sorry to have disappointed you, Dora." He replied with amusement.
"Dora?" She questioned with a raised eyebrow.
"It seemed weird to be calling you by your last name all the time." Harry
shrugged.
Tonks gave it some thought before nodding. She could deal with being
called Dora. The first part of her name was much more objectionable.
"Alright, you can call me Dora."
"You're so kind." He said faux demurely.

They lapsed into a short silence, which Harry spent slowly mingling his
magic with hers. She was a powerful witch and an interesting person. He
felt as if he could spend days just doing this without a word being
spoken and still know her better at the end of it than any amount of
conversation would allow.
She shifted a bit and pressed closer to him with a content exhale of air.
Harry's lips twitched into a smile.
He'd only tried this with Bryanna and Tiana post coitus before, and with
Luna in their quieter moments when they just sat together. It was a shame
that magicals had either forgotten or never learned how to properly do
this. As far as being comfortable with other people went, he doubted that
there was anything that could beat it.
Of course, he doubted that it would work with anyone that you didn't
already like, but there wasn't any reason to be doing this with someone
you didn't like anyway.
The very comfortable atmosphere was broken by the text message alert on
his phone, causing Harry to huff with some irritation at the
interruption. Dora's presence had tensed slightly at the noise, but not
enough to expel him.
"What was that?" She asked curiously.
"Probably either Robert or Katherine being annoying." He grumbled and

awkwardly pulled the phone out of his pocket, unwilling to let go of his
date's shoulder.
As it turned out, the message was not from either of his foster parents,
but from Zoe.
"Want 2 cum over?" Tonks read, amusement coloring her tone, but her magic
snapping out of its relaxed state into something much sharper. The gentle
empathic connection he'd created broke and even her hair darkened
slightly towards red.
Harry winced. He hadn't contacted Zoe at all this summer, either because
he'd been too busy or because he was more interested in his current date.
Apparently she was feeling randy and had decided to take the initiative.
Usually something he wouldn't have hesitated to take advantage of, but it
was damned inconvenient right now.
"Zoe is a muggle girl I met last summer." He started explaining. "We have
a 'friends with benefits' sort of arrangement."
"I see." She said neutrally. "You going to take her up on it?"
"Of course not." Harry denied instantly. Zoe might be pretty, fun and a
simple way of relieving tension over the summer, but that was all she
was. She might have been more if the circumstances were different, but
they weren't. "That's only if both of us are single."
He conveniently ignored that Zoe had technically not been single last
year and probably wasn't this one either. That was her problem.
Tonks gave him a scrutinizing look for a few moments, thinking about it.
She couldn't honestly be upset about something that had happened before
they'd even met. Realistically speaking, she probably had little enough
business getting upset even if he did decide to boff this 'friend with
benefits' of his, seeing as this was barely their second date.
She was still feeling a bit territorial though. Yes, getting romantically
involved with the Boy-Who-Lived would no doubt bring up quite a few
problems from both her job and her parents(or her father at any rate),
but damnit, she liked him. She hadn't had a decent boyfriend since that
little adventure with Charlie Weasley in seventh year and that was just
sad considering the fact that he would have probably liked her better if
she had scales and breathed fire, literally.
Harry was young, very young. Far younger than she would have been willing
to look for potential boyfriends under most circumstances. If he hadn't
gone after her first, she would never have even considered it. Men tended
to be immature enough even when they were older than her.
But he didn't look or act his age and the pickings were slim enough that
she was willing to go along with it despite her misgivings. She'd been
planning to just let things progress as they would and see what happened,
but it looked like she was going to need to stake a claim. A twenty-one
year old woman of her good looks, personality and talents should not be
having such an abyssmal social life and she wasn't letting perfectly good
boyfriend material get away simply because he was a bit on the young
side. She might have been more hesitant if he'd been completely green,
but that message and his explanation made it clear that he'd been
sexually active for at least a year already. Though now that she thought
about it, she probably should have guessed as much on their first date to
begin with.
"Oh? Does that mean that you consider yourself spoken for?" She
challenged, pretending that she hadn't just spent the past few seconds
making him sweat with her stare.
"I did place myself into your hands." Harry reminded her, nervousness
dissipating as he felt her magic settle down a bit.
"That's true." The Metamorphmagus conceded. "I wonder what I should do

now that I have you in my hands?"
"Please be gentle." He quipped.
She surprised him by pulling herself over until she was straddling his
lap and leaning in to whisper into his ear. "But what if I don't want to
be gentle?"
Harry shivered slightly, both at the feel of her breath tickling his ear
and in arousal at having her so close. His hands reached out to grab her
hips almost by themselves, just as his magic reached towards hers
reflexively.
"I might have to lodge a complaint about Auror brutality." He countered,

squeezing her hips and leaning forward to kiss her.
Tonks didn't bother to reply, instead just kissing him and groaning in
pleasure as she felt the same heat spreading through her as she'd felt at
their first kiss. She felt the bulge of his erection pressing up against
her in short order and decided to grind her butt against it more firmly.
This time it was Harry who groaned. Maybe it hadn't been such a great
idea to torture himself with a magical feedback loop again?
Ah screw it.
With that resolution, he pressed his hand to the small of her back and
pressed down, bringing her even closer and sending a stream of
stimulating magic into her nerves. He felt her shudder at the invading
magic, but instead of rejecting it, the intensity of her kiss only
increased.
"You go, girl!" A drunken sound of female enthusiasm came, causing Tonks
to jerk out of the kiss.
Both of them breathing heavily, they looked around for the source of the
yell and quickly noticed a group of tipsy looking teenagers giving them a
thumbs up.
Bemused and not sure what else to do, Harry returned the thumbs up
despite being a bit annoyed by the interruption.
"Still want to lodge a complaint about Auror brutality?" Tonks asked when
the giggly group of teens moved on.
"You can brutalize me anytime." Harry smirked, still gently rubbing his
fingers into the small of her back.
"Now there's a tempting offer, but the paperwork would be horrible." She
sighed and slid back into place next to him, much to Harry's
disappointment.
"That bad?" He asked, going along with the subject change into cooler
waters even though he wanted nothing more than to get her in bed right
now.
"You have no idea." She groaned dramatically. "I thought being an Auror
was going to be all about action and catching the bad guys, but I spend
most of my days filing reports for inappropriate prank spells or illegal
Portkeys or something."
"That's what you get for selling your soul to the Black Order of
Bureaucracy." Harry said unsympathetically.
Tonks burst out laughing at his name for the Ministry, which she had to
admit was appropriate at times. "Not going to get a Ministry job when you
graduate then?"
"Not a chance." Harry snorted.
"What are you going to do then?" She asked curiously.
"I was thinking of travelling a bit and seeing the world." He admitted.
"That sounds nice."
There was a moment of silence and Harry was seized by the sudden urge to
ask her to quit her job and come with him. He wasn't that impulsive
though and abandoned the idea as being premature. He could always ask
later, once they knew each other better, which was something that he had
high hopes for.
"Aren't Aurors the DMLE's elite though?" He asked instead, backtracking a

bit. "Shouldn't the Magical Law Enforcement Patrol be dealing with all
that small stuff?"
"They do." Tonks grumbled. "Thing is, Bones doesn't get along too well
with Fudge or his backers and our esteemed Minister is worried that she
wants to replace him, so any time that the Ministry needs to make a
budget cut, we're the ones who take the hit."
"And now the DMLE is so understaffed and underfunded that even Aurors
have to deal with the small stuff." Harry finished.
"That's about the size of it." Tonks confirmed. "And speaking of work, I
should probably go home. I've got the morning shift tomorrow."
"And I've got my Ancient Runes OWL." Harry added, easily hiding his
diappointment that the date was over. On the upside, he had the sense
that his relationship with the pretty Metamorphmagus had now gone beyond
that 'maybe/maybe not' stage where nobody could say whether they were
together or not. "Want me to come visit while I'm there?"
"Might be better if you didn't." Tonks admitted. "Bones and Scrimgeour

aren't too fond of personal visits during work hours."
"Alright." Harry consented easily. "But only if you agree to go on

another date with me."
"So that's how it is? I go out with you or you'll get me in trouble with
the boss?" Tonks asked teasingly, inwardly very relieved that he was
being mature about the no visits thing while she was working. A couple of
her past attempts at a relationship had gotten a bit shirty about that,
though in that case it had still been training rather than working. Moody
had been even less tolerant of 'emotional hogwash' getting in the way of
CONSTANT VIGILANCE.
"Damn straight." Harry confirmed. "If you don't agree, you might find me
paying the DMLE another visit and lurking over your shoulder while you
try to do paperwork."
"I guess I've got no choice then." Tonks sighed theatrically. "With you
twisting my arm like that, i'll just have to put up with you for a bit
longer."
"You'll get used to me." Harry chuckled and leaned over to steal another
kiss.
Though a bit surprised, she quickly started to respond and almost gave in
to the urge to climb back into his lap by the time they broke apart.
"I should go." She said softly, biting her lower lip as she stared into
his bright green eyes.
Harry nodded and escorted her to a secluded spot that she could apparate
away from.
"I'll be in touch." He said once they arrived and gave in to the urge to
give her lips another quick peck. "Goodnight, Dora."
"Goodnight, Harry."
Harry stared wistfully at the empty spot where she'd been standing just a
moment ago.
"Nice going Potter, first you decide to avoid serious relationships and
then barely a week later you get infatuated with an Auror that will
probably be obligated to arrest you if she finds out about some of the
things you're doing." He muttered to himself. "That's pure genius right
there."
Sighing, he pulled out his phone again and stared at the message from
Zoe. As had happened on the last date with the Metamorphmagus, he was
horny as hell. Unlike the last time, he had a girl that would be more
than willing to help him with that.
Instead of accepting, he sent her a reply to let her know that he wasn't
going to be available for any more fun in the foreseeable future. Getting
into a relationship with Tonks was dangerous beyond doubt, but then
again, he had developed a bad habit of doing dangerous things ever since
he'd entered the Wizarding World.
XXXXX
Appearing inside her flat, Tonks let out a deep breath and began pulling
off her clothes in preparation for a shower.
She'd very nearly invited Harry to come with her back there, seven years
younger than her or not. It was sometimes hard to remember his age when
he didn't look or react like a boy in his early teens. It didn't help
that she felt so comfortable with him or that his kisses made her want to
stick her hands down his pants.
She had seen the same desire in his face plain as day and if he kept
being so damned attractive, she might just have to do exactly that. She'd
never been particularly uncomfortable with her sexuality anyway, even if
she didn't drop her knickers on the first date.
But for now, Mr. Purple would be pressed back into service.
XXXXX
A bit of a transitional chapter here, but there was no avoiding it. A lot
of plot points converged on this point in time, so it'll take another
chapter or two before I'm done writing about this summer.
Chapter 12
I was in a typing mood these past few days, so this chapter came out
sooner than usual. Enjoy.
Full beta credits to Joe Lawyer for his help in polishing up these
chapters.
XXXXX
"How did your exam go?" Sirius asked once Harry got back from the
Ministry.
"Easier than I expected. Professor Babbling must have really wanted me to

get an Outstanding, because I was overprepared." Harry replied. Of
course, thanks to Da'Roir and his constant Occlumency practice, his
memory was damn near eidetic these days, so that had probably played a
part too.
"Your parents would have been so proud." Sirius stated with a big grin.
"Not only are you a suave ladies man, but you're also a bookworm."
"Somehow I get the feeling that my mother wouldn't have been too happy
about a lot of the things that dad would have been."
Sirius snorted. "You got that right, but teenagers are supposed to be
rebellious anyway."
Harry nodded and changed the subject. "I'm going back to Grimmauld Place
tomorrow."
"Did you already finish that book you took?"

"Of course not, that thing is huge." Harry refuted. "I just figure that I
might as well start relocating the library and any other interesting bits
so that I won't have to keep going over there all the time."
Despite Sirius' hatred of Grimmauld Place and the jokes he'd made made on
their first visit, he had no intention of either selling it or destroying
it. He wouldn't live there and planned to empty it of everything that had
some worth, but he would keep it around. If nothing else, it would make
for a good hidey hole and fallback location if it was ever needed as such
and Teeny would be happy with the extra work of of maintaining it. He
still had trouble wrapping his mind around the idea that more work made
house elves happy, but he supposed that he didn't have to understand it
as long as it made the helpful little creature happy.
"Want me to come with you?" Sirius asked, as if they weren't dicussing

what was essentially the robbery of the ancestral home of his family.
"If you want." Harry shrugged. "You might be able to identify some of the
cursed objects, but it's not neccessary."
"Why do you want those anyway?"
"Practice."
"Practice?"
"Unraveling the spells on cursed or enchanted items is a great way of

learning how to apply them."
"Errr, Harry, you do know that it's usually the job of Curse-Breakers
with years of training to do that kind of stuff?"
"What's your point?"
"You're not a trained Curse-Breaker."
"So?"
"I really wish you'd get some safer hobbies, Harry."
"It's not like I'm going to blunder about blindly, I'm not a Gryffindor."
"That was low."
XXXXX
Sirius decided to come along for the looting expedition, having nothing
better to do anyway.
With them was also Teeny, levitating three chests behind her; one for
books, one for cursed objects and one for regular stuff.
They'd barely started cleaning out the library when Kreacher showed up,
worked up into a proper house elven hissy fit.
"Where is it?!" The demented little elf screeched.
Sirius looked bewildered, but Harry instantly guessed what Kreacher

meant.
"You wouldn't happen to be talking about a heavy golden locket with a

piece of Voldemort's soul stuck in it, would you?" He asked.
Teeny gasped at the utterance of the Dark Lord's name. Kreacher snapped
his mouth shut and glared.
"Kreacher, what do you know about that locket? How did it end up in this
house?" Harry pressed.
The house elf stayed mulishly silent.
"Answer him!" Sirius snapped angrily.
And so Kreacher started talking, resentfully and unwillingly at first,

but soon becoming overwhelmed with emotion as he began to describe the
sacrifice that Regulus had made.
When the tale was done, Sirius had gone very pale. "I had no idea. I
thought that Reggie tried to back out and got killed by the other Death
Eaters."
"Master Regulus was brave and kind!" Kreacher asserted fiercely.

"Kreacher wants the locket back! Kreacher promised to destroy it!"
"Kreacher, the locket isn't the only one of those items." Harry said
carefully.
The house elf was visibly shocked by this. "Bu-but master Regulus said
that if Kreacher destroyed it, the Dark Lord would be defeated."
"He made more than one. I've already destroyed two and we have no way of
knowing how many were made." Harry told him.
"You know how to destroy them?" Kreacher asked with desperate hope,
latching on to the part that was most important to him. "Kreacher tried
and tried, but nothing he did would damage it. Kreacher couldn't fulfill
master Regulus' last order."
Harry knew that the house elf desperately wanted to fulfill that order,
but the locket was simply too valuable to destroy right now. "I can, but
first I need to see if I can use it to locate any others. It won't do us
any good to destroy one only for there to be more."
Fortunately, house elves were perfectly capable of seeing reason.

"Kreacher understands." He said despondently.
Harry then kneeled on the floor so that he was more level with the small
being and spoke in a softer tone. "Kreacher, did Regulus leave behind
anything that might help us destroy all these things? Voldemort is still
out there and it's only a matter of time before he comes back unless we
find them all."
"Filthy halfblood won't steal it?" Kreacher asked dubiously, having no

idea what to think of this wizard that had lowered himself to a house
elf's level.
"Kreacher." Sirius interjected with a sigh at the house elf's seemingly

reflexive bigotry. "Harry is going to inherit the Black family, so
everything will belong to him anyway. I've certainly got no intention of
fathering any heirs of my own."
Kreacher's ears drooped a bit, obviously upset by that. He'd served the
Black family for decades and didn't want to see it go extinct, but he
considered Regulus' last wishes to be more important.
"Kreacher will bring it."
The house elf popped away and returned a minute later, holding a book
with a black and purple cover.
'Secrets of the Darkest Art' the title read, and Harry knew instantly
that he would find what he was looking for in it.
"Master Regulus read this book and told Kreacher to hide it before going
to the cave, so Kreacher hid it." The house elf explained.
"I've never seen that book before." Sirius commented, looking at it

warily.
"Master Regulus stole it from the Lord's private study." Kreacher

explained with a mutter.
Sirius blinked. "Huh, that was ballsy of Reg. Gramps wouldn't have been
happy about that."
"Master Arcturus was not." Kreacher said flatly.
"Thank you, Kreacher, this is exactly what I needed." Harry interjected,

having leafed through the book a bit and seen that it was full of some of
the most despicable magics he'd ever laid eyes on.
"Filthy halfblood will destroy it?"
"As soon as I can determine how many of these things there are." Harry
confirmed and then paused in thought for a moment. He had initially been
dismissive of the belligerent house elf, but after what he'd just heard,
he could see that there was more to him than the outward bitterness. Even
his bigotry seemed more like something that he just did without really
believing it. And there was that idea that he'd been
considering..."Kreacher, would you like to come work for me?"
Both Kreacher and Sirius were visibly shocked by his question and Sirius
wasted no time in giving voice to his shock.
"Harry, do you really want him working for you?" He asked incredulously.
"Why not?" Harry asked in turn. "He's been nothing but loyal to your
brother and deserves better than to be left abandoned in an empty house."
Kreacher visibly swelled with pride at the words.
Sirius threw his hands up into the air in exasperation. "Fine then, you
can have him if you want to deal with his muttering."
Harry simply nodded and turned back to the house elf. "What do you say,
Kreacher? Would you like to come work for me?"
Kreacher was surprised at actually being asked what he wanted, but nodded
all the same. "Kreacher will serve the filthy halfblood."
At that point Harry realized that he already had one house elf, who had
been as silent as a mouse the entire time. "Errr, I hope you don't mind,
Teeny?"
Despite being more used to kindness than the Black family elf, Teeny was
also caught a bit off guard at being asked such a thing. "No, Teeny
doesn't mind, as long as Kreacher stops calling master a filthy
halfblood. Master Harry is best master!" The last was said quite
fiercely.
"Actually, I kind of like it." Harry admitted.
"You like being called a filthy halfblood?" Sirius asked in disbelief.
"Not by everyone obviously, but coming from Kreacher it just sounds

right, like Kreacher wouldn't be Kreacher if he wasn't calling me a
filthy halfblood." The younger wizard explained.
"Kreacher will continue calling the filthy halfblood master a filthy

halfblood." Kreacher nodded decisively.
"You're weird, Harry. Really weird."
XXXXX
The creation of a Horcrux is among the highest forms of sorcery, the

manipulation of the soul.
First, the caster must cause a break in their soul. This can be achieved
through various means, but they all circle back to the destruction of
innocence. The simplest way of achieving this is through cold blooded
murder of one who has done the caster no harm, the more harmless the
better. Alternatively, killing a close friend would have even superior
results.
Once the soul has become fragmented, a piece can be brought out and bound
to an item. This is no simple matter, as only those with great souls are
capable of listening to the echoes of magic within themselves and
splitting apart a fragment.
The item used is also important. It can be no mundane thing, but

something of great personal significance, else the soul fragment will not
bond with it. Choose the item with care.
Once the Horcrux is created, the item used will become nearly impervious
to damage as it takes on some of the indestructible properties of the
soul. Be wary however, of methods that destroy magic, as they will sever
the tie between the soul and the item.
Take heed that this sacrificial mutilation of one's soul may affect the
flesh as it does the spirit and can never be undone.
The separated soul piece within the Horcrux will remain unchanged while
the creator does not. Should you wish to return the fragment to the
whole, you must do so quickly or it will become alien to you and resist.
The Horcrux should never be allowed in the presence of other witches or

wizards, as it will attempt to regain a body through possession. Those
with strong souls of their own may resist, but the weak will succumb and
become vessels. Should this occur, the Horcrux will be far more
vulnerable to destruction and may even become your enemy.
Harry shut the book with a frown and thought about what he'd just read.
There was nothing written there that was immediately helpful and the book
obliquely implied that making more than one Horcrux was a bad idea.
Voldemort had clearly disagreed.
Still, surely the separated soul fragment retained some link to the other
parts of itself? That would be the sensible assumption, but there had
been times in the past when magic and sense remained unrelated.
Either way, coming across this bit of knowledge had been less useful than
he had hoped, and he didn't even have any guarantee that the author was
entirely correct. He would still need to experiment on his own. For all
that having a piece of someone else's soul to play with was a great
opportunity, he couldn't help but feel anxious. He was not under any
illusion of being ready for a wizard the likes of Voldemort and would
have dearly liked to just drip a few drops of basilisk venom on the damn
locket and be done with it, opportunity be damned.
XXXXX
"Any luck?" Sirius asked the next day.
"No." Harry grimaced. "Nothing I've tried so far has achieved a damn
thing aside from giving me a headache from spending all that time
resisting the compulsion to put it on."
"Maybe we should just destroy it?" Sirius suggested. "It's too damn
dangerous to keep around if you're not getting anywhere."
"And then what? Hope that any other Horcruxes are just going to drop into
our lap like this one did?" Harry grumbled.
"Harry, I know that you don't trust him, but Dumbledore knows Voldemort
better than anyone, he might have some idea of where to find the others.
If there even are any others."
"I'm not talking to him except as an absolute last resort. The old man is
playing his own games, the full extent of which I can't see. He'd just
pump us for information but give nothing in return."
Sirius would have liked to argue that point, but he couldn't. Dumbledore
had indeed kept things very close to the chest for as long as anyone had
known him.
"Besides, I didn't expect it to be easy." Harry went on. "Maybe I just

need more knowledge on magic and souls before I try again."
Sirius rubbed a hand over his face tiredly, wondering at what strange
twists life could take that would lead to his godson messing around with
Voldemort's soul.
"At least take a break." He finally said. "You haven't done anything to
relax since the summer started."
"Studying magic is relaxing." Harry replied mildly. "And I've gone on a

date with Dora."
"Go on another one."
"I will, but not yet. I have business to tend to first."
"I still can't believe that you're working out business deals at your
age."
"You should be doing it too." Harry pointed out. "The Black family is in
an even worse situation than Potter."
"Meh." Sirius shrugged, obviously uncaring. "I'll just leave it all to

you. That way, House Potter gets elevated to Noble and Most Ancient
status and Black goes extinct. Everybody wins."
Harry shook his head with an exasperated smile. Sirius' resentment for
his family was boundless. He was going to deliberately wipe out his
family name just to spite the dead. Well far be it from him to protest
the free windfall.
"In that case, you can try your hand at explaining to Kreacher how
mounting his head on a wall isn't an honor while I'm off listening to
lawyers." The old Black family elf was incredibly stubborn and set in his
ways.
"He's your elf now." Sirius pointed out cheekily. "He won't listen to me
anymore."
XXXXX
Arranging a consultation with a wizarding lawyer wasn't too difficult

thanks both to prior experience and Harry's personal status, but the
muggle side was considerably more problematic, even without the need to
skirt around the subject of magic. Nonetheless he had eventually managed
it and taken his four prospective business partners to see both so that
they could discuss the terms of their contract.
Those two meetings had taken up the the whole morning, leaving all five
of them tired and hungry, so Harry had offered to treat them all to
lunch.
Which was where they were now, the food had been eaten and the dishes
taken away, leaving only the notes they'd taken from the two meetings on
the table.
Quite a few of the things that had been discussed was stuff that they
could easily agree on. Things like all five of them getting regular
finance reports and being able to request a full accounting at any time
and for any reason.
Of course, not everything was agreeable to all of them.
"I don't like this." Jade was saying with a scowl. "We've already talked
about the Right of First Refusal so that we can't sell to anyone without
your permission and I get why that would be a good idea, but there's a
bunch of other things here that give you way too much power."
"Such as?" Harry asked mildly, seeing that the others agreed with her.
"I think that the one that bothers us the most is you having
supermajority." Tiana said delicately. " It essentially gives you the
last word on everything."
"Not everything." Harry said defensively.
"Riiight." Bryanna drawled. "We just can't sell or dissolve the business
without your say so."
"That's pretty much just an extension to the Right of First Refusal."

Harry countered.
"And this non-compete clause that makes it illegal for us to start up a

similar business if we decide to leave?" Isabel asked.
"That's for your benefit as much as mine." Harry pointed out.

"What about this Capital Expenditure Approval thing then?" Tiana added.
"We'd have to ask you for permission every time we want to spend some
gold."
"Only for the larger scale expenses. That's my gold that you'd be working
with and I don't want to hear that you spent a large chunk of it or even
went into debt without my knowledge." He argued back.
"You'd lose that privilege once you lost majority ownership then?" Isabel
asked stiffly.
"Not completely." He admitted. "I'd be willing to change the terms so

that Bryanna and Tiana together could overrule me, but I'd still have to
be consulted before it was done and I'd retain the right to buy back
those shares at need."
"That would let you keep control even as a minority holder." She said
with a scowl. "You could take back majority ownership at any time if you
didn't like their decisions. The way it's worded, you could even force us
to sell everything to you whether we wanted to or not."
"I wouldn't do that unless some circumstance forced me to." Harry

insisted. "I'm not looking to swindle you out of anything here. Like it
or not, but the more say I have in things, the less chance there is of
some third party sticking their fingers into it. As long as it looks like
you have no control, you'll be safe from any outside interference."
"And what assurance do we have that you won't just take everything for
yourself once we start turning a profit?" Jade demanded.
"None." Harry retorted flatly, starting to get irritated. "What you do

have is a near certainty that some snobby pureblood is going to think
that a bunch of uppity mudbloods and halfbloods have no business being
successful and working to shut you down. I want the final say on any
major decisions for the same reason. Not to put too fine a point on it,
but I'll be taken a lot more seriously than you."
Seeing Jade bristle in a way that signaled an impending loss of temper,

Bryanna quickly intervened. She grabbed hold of Harry's hand to draw his
attention and spoke in a much softer tone of voice.
"Harry, if we agreed to a contract like this, we'd be placing all of our

ambitions in your hands. Can we trust you that much?" She asked.
Harry took a deep breath to calm down, reminding himself that Isabel and
Jade didn't know him. It grated to have his motives questioned like this,
but it wasn't surprising. He wouldn't be enthused about entrusting his
future to a virtual stranger on nothing but faith either.
"Yes, you can trust me." He assured her. "I want to be kept involved and
informed, but for the most part I'll be a silent partner in all but name
unless something requires my input."
"I don't suppose you'd be willing to swear an Unbreakable Vow to that
effect?" Jade interjected waspishly, still a bit steamed from the earlier
near-argument.
Harry looked at her as if she was an idiot. "I wouldn't swear an

Unbreakable Vow to not burn down an orphanage with the children still
inside it. I'll never agree to turn my own magic into a chain around my
neck, no matter how good or benign the reason seems, especially not for
something this trivial."
People who swore careless oaths always seemed to end up tripping over
them eventually.
Jade backed off, taken by surprise at his vehemence.
"His word is good enough for me." Tiana jumped in. "We can trust him."
Bryanna quickly backed her up and the other two backed down. They weren't
happy about it, but they would go along with it.
"Alright, good. We'll put together a proper contract later and look it
over again, and after that we'll go to Gringotts to open up a company
vault."
"A company vault?" Bryanna repeated.
"Yes, a company vault." Harry confirmed. "One that all of us have equal
access to and which will be used exclusively for business related
expenses and the payout of salaries. Much easier to keep everyone honest
that way."
This time they all agreed without issue, fortunately. Isabel and Jade
left together after that, leaving only three people at the table.
"So, Harry...What do you say we go seal the deal somewhere more private?"
Bryanna asked coyly, placing a hand on his thigh. Tiana did the same on
his other side.
Harry was getting some very pleasant flashbacks to his first Hogsmeade
visit and what had happened afterwards, but it was with a sigh and a
heavy heart that he grabbed hold of their hands and removed them.
"I'm sorry, girls, but I'm in a relationship now."
Both were visibly shocked and a bit disappointed, but soon sprouted
conniving grins.
"And who is the lucky lady that caught your interest?" Bryanna asked.
"I don't really think you need to know that." Harry evaded.
"I bet she's older than us." Tiana declared. "Is she older than thirty?"
"I'm not telling you." He insisted.

"Not older than thirty then." The former Slytherin nodded, making Harry
wonder how she had come to that conclusion. Granted, it was the right
conclusion, but he had no idea what made her so certain. "She has to be
somewhere between twenty and thirty then."
"Why does she have to be between twenty and thirty?" Harry asked,
bewildered.
"So she is between twenty and thirty!" Bryanna exclaimed,
"What?"
"Did she go to Hogwarts with us?" Tiana continued to press.
Harry paused in thought for a fatal moment. Tonks had just graduated by
the time he'd arrived, so she would have been three years above Bryanna
and Tiana. It was highly likely that they had known of her since Tonks
was not exactly inconspicuous.
"Aha! She did go to Hogwarts with us!" Bryanna crowed, seeing his small
pause as a confirmation. "That puts her between the ages of...twenty-four
and twenty."
"Probably closer to the lower end of that." Tiana advised. "No matter how
smooth Harry is, I doubt a woman ten years his senior would be willing to
get into a serious relationship with him right now, even six would be
pushing it. Of course, she could just be after his money, but we already
know that Harry wouldn't be duped into something like that, don't we?"
"Good point." Bryanna conceded before turning to the baffled Harry, who
could hardly believe the weird chain of logic that was leading them to
quickly eliminate potential girlfriends with almost frightening accuracy.
"Did you sleep with her yet?"
"That's none of your business." He said irritably, immediately regretting

his impulsive answer.
"Ah, not one of the school sluts then, since you couldn't have been with
her for long." Tiana nodded sagely.
"I think we can safely eliminate some of the more mousy ones too."
Bryanna added.
"That's true. So, a woman in her early twenties that is neither a slut
nor a mouse. Someone that wouldn't be interested only in his money and
confident enough to attract attention." Tiana summarized and postulated.
"Is she a blonde?" Bryanna asked.
Harry answered with stony silence, refusing to give any more hints by
speaking.
"Brunette?"
More silence.
"Redhead?"
Even more silence.
"Maybe it's that Metamorphmagus?" Tiana said with a snicker, quite

obviously joking.
Harry twitched. The girls noticed.
"No way..." Bryanna said slowly. "You're dating Nymphadora 'don't call me
that' Tonks?"
Harry pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed in resignation. "Yes, I'm
dating Nymphadora Tonks."
"In retrospect, that should have been our first guess." Tiana said after
a moment. "Just think about it. She's a twenty-one year old that can make
herself look forty at will. He can have his cake and eat it too."
"That's not why I'm dating her." Harry grumbled.
"We know, Harry." Both girls said soothingly. "But you have thought about
it."
"Of course I have." He said with an eyeroll. As if it was possible to

avoid thinking about it. He wasn't a eunuch.
"Well we hope things work out for the two of you."
"Thanks, and I'd appreciate if you don't spread it around. The last thing
I need is to have that bitch Skeeter making more disingenuous
assertations in the Prophet."
"Don't worry, Harry, we won't say a word."
XXXXX
A few days later, Harry once again found himself in the Ministry for his
Arithmancy OWL.
This one was almost entirely theory and was somewhat more difficult than
the one for Ancient Runes, but he was confident in the results all the
same.
The Governor of the Wizarding Examinations Authority, an ancient witch by

the name of Griselda Marchbanks, approached him once he came out of the
test chamber.
"Mr. Potter." She said neutrally, much to Harry's private relief. One or
two of the examiners had been rather less than professional around him.
"First I would like to laud your academic achievement. It has been many
years since the last time that a student sat their OWLs early."
"Thank you." Harry replied with a nod.
"You will receive your results by owl at the end of July the same as
everyone else." She went on.
"Ah, it may be better if I stopped by to pick them up myself." Harry

interjected.
"Why is that?" She asked, puzzled.
"Owls have had trouble finding me for over a year now." He explained.
"What happened?" She pressed, even more puzzled.
"I don't honestly know." He lied. "The only thing of any real
significance was a close encounter with a dementor, but I'm fairly
certain that happened afterwards. Nothing really stands out other than
that."
Marchbanks gave him a shrewd look, but he gave away nothing.
"Very well then, I will have your results in my office. You may come pick
them up at any time after July 27th." She said, apparently deciding not
to make an issue out of it.
Harry thanked the old woman again and left, inwardly grumbling about the
amount of minor inconveniences his owl problem was causing him. It hadn't
been an issue when his only bit of post had been from Luna or Ginny
before they'd drifted apart, but given everything that he was getting
involved with these days, it was becoming damned annoying.
He didn't appreciate having his time wasted on the minor minutia of the
day. Maybe it was time to consider employing a steward or majordomo of
sorts? A personal assistant of some sort at any rate. They wouldn't have
a much to do just yet, but it looked like his business ventures were all
set to start producing quite a bit of paperwork in the near future. Then
there was his public image, regarding which he had recently woken up to
the fact that it would probably need maintenance. The overblown legend of
the Boy-Who-Lived was annoying and the hyphenated title stupid, but it
could make for an excellent springboard to replace it with
something...realistic and less didn't really have anyone in mind for the
job, but it was something to think about.
XXXXX
"Paintball? We're doing paintball?" Tonks asked, sounding surprised and

more than a little excited.
"Yep." Harry nodded. "I was thinking of all the places I could take you,
like fancy dinners or dancing or whatnot, but then I thought to myself
'would Dora really enjoy that, or would she prefer to shoot high speed
balls of paint at my arse?'. The answer seemed obvious, so I went and
booked the arena just for us."
Tonks let him know what she thought about that by grabbing his head and
pulling him down into a kiss.
"I've wanted to go paintballing for ages, but never had anyone to go

with." She explained once she pulled away.
"We'll see if you'll still be excited once I plaster you with paint." He
said with a challenging smirk.
"You will, will you?" She retorted with narrowed eyes. "You're clearly
forgetting which one of us is the Auror and which is still a student."
"That'll just make my victory sweeter."
"Oh you've done it now. I am going to own you so hard, Potter."
XXXXX
Harry crept around the arena, keeping out of sight in order to properly
flank his unaware opponent.
She was dangerous and had a good eye for positioning, but he had
something of an unfair advantage. With the two of them being the only
people anywhere in the vicinity, he could sense her location clear as
day. Thus, he always managed to avoid her line of fire.
And he also had the Cloak of True Invisibility in his Bag of Holding and
the ability to use wandless silencing spells. Really, he was cheating his
arse off. He justified it to himself with the fact that his girlfriend
had combat training and he didn't and wasn't cheating a crucial part of
any kind of combat anyway?
Once he was in position a ways behind the tensely crouched figure, he

pulled off the Cloak and stuffed it back into the Bag of Holding. Then he
raised the paintball gun, took careful aim and fired.
The little ball of paint splattered over the small of Dora's back,
joining several of its brothers.
"Gah!" Tonks yelped loudly, turning around and loosing fussilade of

paintballs in his general direction. Alas, she hit only the cover that
he'd hidden behind.
"That is it!" She shouted. "You're going down!"
Harry's eyes widened in alarm as she stormed towards him, apparently

disdaining caution in favor of getting a hit on him. Knowing that he
didn't have much time, he made a run for it, firing at her blindly in the
hope that she would duck for cover. Judging by the stinging impacts along
his back, it hadn't worked.
He kept on running, ducking behind cover as much as possible. He needed
to get out of sight so that he could vanish again.
Then he heard a familiar sound. The crack of Apparition. Tonks appeared

to his left, shot him a few times with a gleeful cackle and apparated
away again.
"What the hell, Dora? That's cheating!" He yelled out hypocritically,

rubbing at the places where he'd been shot.
"You're cheating too!" She accused from her new position. "There's no way
that you just happened to get behind me every sodding time!"
"Prove it!" He yelled back.
Her answer was a crescent slash of pink paint that he just barely dodged
and which had quite obviously not come from a paintball gun.
"How's that for proof, you tosser?"
"Alright, if that's how it's going to be..." Harry mutterered and pulled
out his Invisibility Cloak again.
Once more invisible and inaudible, he stalked over to where he was

sensing his girlfriend. She looked mildly ridiculous in her paint covered
camo overalls and mask, paintball gun in one hand and wand in the other.
Then he laid prone on the ground, poked the barrel of his paintball gun
out from the edge of the cloak and shot her square in the arse.
Tonks jumped into the air with a yelp and spun around with every
intention of getting her revenge, only to blink in confusion at the empty
space.
Suspiciously, she waved her wand and muttered something that he didn't
catch. A wave of something passed over him and he abruptly felt exposed
despite being invisible. Then she looked right at him and he knew what
spell she'd cast. The Human Presence Revealing Spell. He hadn't been sure
if that would work even on the Cloak of True Invisibility, but apparently
it did.
"Accio Invisibility Cloak." She hissed.
Harry felt the spell come within the range of his magical aura and
resisted it. There was a reason why wizards in duels didn't just summon
their opponent's wands and be done with it. Some spells didn't work too
well once they entered the immediate presence of other magic users, the
basic summoning charm being one of them. It only worked when the caster
was significantly more powerful than the target. While Harry wouldn't bet
on himself in a duel against his girlfriend right now, he thought that as
far as raw power went, he might well be stronger than her. Maybe. It
wasn't an exact science.
Tonks was visibly surprised at having her spell resisted though and Harry
took the opportunity to fire a few more paintballs at her. In a display
of impressive reaction speed, she apparated away before they could reach
her.
Figuring that keeping the Cloak around now that she knew he had it was
pointless, Harry stuffed it back into his Bag of Holding. No sense in
letting it get splattered with paint.
"Alright, Dora, I've put away the Invisibility Cloak. Are you going to
stop apparating?" He called out.
"No chance!"
Harry had just enough time to smile wryly when he sensed her apparating
again and threw himself to the ground to avoid another crescent of pink
paint. He quickly rolled onto his back and opened fire, fully expecting
her to apparate away again. She surprised him by taking those hits in
exchange for letting fly another slash of paint. There was no avoiding it
this time, and he ended up having a line of pink bisect his torso. Then
she apparated away.
"How'd you like that?" She gloated from her new position.
Harry decided that revealing one minor legal infraction to an Auror was
well worth the price of one-upping her and apparated directly behind her.
This time, Tonks was far too surprised to react as he pulled her into an
amateurish submission hold with his arms under hers and his hands
interlaced on the back of her neck. She instinctively tried to break out
of it, and he grunted in surprise at her strength. She was stronger than
he would've given her credit for, but despite the age difference between
them, he still had a good four inches of height on her, was male and had
a minor magical strength enhancement going for him, so he was able to
hold her.
She still had her wand though, which she awkwardly aimed at him and fired
a silent Knockback Jinx.
One little known fact about magic was that casting spells in close
proximity to other magic users could have some odd effects. The thoughts
of the other magic user would intrude on the casting and warp the spell.
The stronger the other, the more pronounced the effect.
So while Tonks had been intending for her spell to only knock back Harry,
his desire to keep holding her meant that both of them were hit by the
spell.
Harry oofed explosively as he was sandwiched between the unyielding

ground and his girlfriend, leaving him short of breath and wheezing.
Tonks had no such impediment and immediately took advantage of his

loosened hold to spin around and pull the transparent mask off his face
before removing her own.
She was panting as she glared at him, face covered in a light sheen of
sweat, but her hair was a happy pink and her dark eyes were anything but
angry. Then her hair quickly started turning a flaming red.
Harry expected to be questioned on the matter of his skill with

Apparition, for which he had long since prepared an explanation for, but
she surprised him by mashing her lips against his demandingly.
Kissing was certainly better than explaining why he knew how to apparate,
so Harry returned her affections enthusiastically. The impromptu make-out
session soon included groping and began edging towards R-rated.
Deciding not to overthink it, He apparated them both to the master

bedroom in Potter Manor.
Some time later, the owner of the paintball arena showed up, saw the
inexplicable splashes of pink paint, the discarded masks and paintball
guns, missing protective overalls and grumbled something uncomplimentary
about long haired punks.
XXXXX
The two of them popped into existence on the carpeted floor and
immediately resumed kissing.
Seeing that no slaps were incoming for his presumption, Harry immediately
went to work on pulling the unflattering paint splattered overalls off
his girlfriend. He growled in irritation as he discovered that overalls
were not meant to be removed while horizontal.
The two of them somehow managed to clamber onto their feet while still
kissing and groping each other, Dora's wand went flying carelessly into a
corner of the room at this point as well. She tugged impatiently at the
collar of his overalls and he pulled his arms out just as impatiently.
Then they discovered that shoes generally need to be removed first and
Tonks kneeled down to get rid of the offending footwear without
hesitation.
Seeing her fire red hair bobbing at crotch level while she busied herself
with that task had Harry gnawing on his lower lip in an effort to keep
control of his lust. To his mixed relief and disappointment, she was done
quickly and got back on her feet, though not without giving the bulge of
his erection a cheeky kiss as she pulled off the overalls.
That made Harry groan in desire as he kissed her again and then pushed
her towards the bed.
Her knees hit the edge and she fell on it with a small gasp. He ignored
the urge to climb on top of her again for now and busied himself with
pulling her own shoes off, followed by the stained overalls. Only once
they were off did he go back to claiming her mouth and laying wet kisses
over her sweat salted neck.
They were still wearing far too many clothes though and Harry was out of
patience with the practice of removing it normally, so he simply grabbed
the collar of her plain T-shirt and ripped it off.
"You animal, I liked that shirt." She gasped and complained in a tone so
lusty that nobody could think she was actually displeased.
"I'll buy you all the shirts you want." He growled back and dove into the
valley between her bra-clad breasts with his tongue.
He started moving his way further downward, paying special attention to

the occasional bruise from their recent paintball match. Wizards and
witches were fortunately quite a bit more sturdy than the norm, so the
'wounds' were likely to be more or less gone by tomorrow even without
magical healing.
Tonks took his downward movement as an opportunity to divest him of his

own shirt, leaving him topless.
Once he got to her shorts, he unbuttoned them impatiently, wishing that

he could just rip them off like he'd done the shirt. He didn't bother
going one at a time and removed her panties too while he was at it.
The scent of her womanhood drifted to his nose and it was all he could do
to keep from instantly indulging his penchant for performing oral sex.
The flaming red bush of pubic hair really deserved a comment though.
"So they do match." He quipped instead, smirking up at her.
Tonks stuck her tongue out at him and gained a brief look of
concentraction. Her pubic hair receded into her skin, leaving behind a
completely bald crotch.
"That's useful." He murmured and leaned in close to take a deep whiff of

her scent. Her legs quivered with anticipation.
Then she growled in frustration when he only gave her thighs a kiss and
retreated, but he was determined to give her the best night he possibly
could and that meant no rushing things.
He stood up with the intent of rolling her over to remove the offending
bra she was still wearing, but she sat up at the same moment and started
working on removing his own shorts, so he did it while she was busy with
that.
His member sprang free of its cloth prison and greeted her
enthusiastically. He'd grown considerably in size over the past year and
now hung at a respectable six and a half inches. Not any kind of monster
cock by any stretch, but he still had a bit of growing to do and he
wasn't so inept at pleasing a woman that he felt the need to have some
forearm sized monster attached to his crotch anyway.
He closed his eyes and sighed in pleasure as he felt Dora run her hands
over him and lean in with obvious intent. Then she gave the tip a kiss
and leaned back with a laugh, hair going a bit pinker.
Harry blew air through his nose in an attempt to look angry, but ruined
it with the grin he couldn't quite suppress. He moved towards her and she
scooted back on the huge bed until they were both somewhere in the
middle, where he claimed her lips for another kiss.
The sensations were so much better now that they were both completely
naked. She spread her legs and wiggled her hips in an obvious effort to
entice him to just enter her, but he resisted. He still wanted to taste
her first.
He made another trip down her body, this time stopping to give her
uncovered nipples some attention. Once he was back in position between
her legs, he gave her slit a slow lick, making a sound of pleasure at the
taste of her juices on hs tongue and the sound of her pleasured gasp in
his ears.
He kept that up for a minute or so, avoiding her the nub of her clitoris
for the moment. He had something special in mind for that.
Dora got impatient with the slow pace though and started trying to pull
his head up to the approriate height. He decided to oblige and gave the
little nub a flick with his tongue. Her loud gasp told him that he was
definitely not the only one enjoying this.
Then he was struck by inspiration.
"Dora?"
"What?" She moaned impatiently, wanting him to put that tongue back to a
better use than asking stupid questions.
"Can you make it bigger like you did your nipples?" he asked, starting up
at her with shining green eyes.
Tonks was intrigued by the idea and focused for a moment.
Harry watched eagerly as the tiny nub of her clitoris gained enough
length to poke out from under its protective hood.
"Perfect." He purred and placed his lips over the newly enlarged organ.
Tonks gave a shuddering gasp and fell back on the bed with her mouth open
wide in surprise, vaguely thinking that this idea had either been great
or terrible. Maybe both.
Harry took his time in fully establishing the empathy bond that he'd used
to such effect on all of their dates so far and only then began to gently
manipulate the dense bundle of nerves with lips, tongue and magic.
Tonks spent the next five minutes gasping for air and letting him do
whatever the hell he wanted as long as it kept her feeling this good.
Haryy knew that he could have brought her to orgasm already, but he was
deliberately prolonging her pleasure. It was only when he heard the first
needy whimpers that he stopped teasing her.
"Don't you dare stop!" She threatened breathily when he removed his
mouth, though she didn't sound very threatening.
Harry didn't answer her verbally, instead electing to kiss her again and
settle himself between her legs. He sank into her slowly, with his magic
as much as his member, far too slowly for her tastes if the way she
wiggled under him the whole time was any indication.
He started thrusting then, just as slowly as before, being careful not to

push her over the edge of climax. Whenever he sensed that she was
approaching that crest, he slowed down further or even stopped, just long
enough for the tension in her body to recede a little bit.
She groped at his back and pulled on his butt in an attempt to get him to
speed up, but he deliberately kept up the torturously slow pace. He felt
her vaginal tunnel become tighter and more narrow as her Metamorph
ability tried to help her squeeze that extra bit of pleasure from his
slow motions, but that just made him go even slower. He wanted them to
climax together and she was just going to have to bear with it until that
happened. Of course, the sounds of need and pleasure she was making did
play a part in that too.
She ran her hands over his runes repeatedly and he knew that she could
feel them. Bryanna, Tiana and Zoe had been able to feel them too.
Fortunately, the obscuring properties of Arhain left them unable to
really focus on that and the knowledge that he had scars all over his
body slipped from their minds like a dream.
Harry kept her lingering on the frustrating edge of orgasm for nearly ten
minutes before his own pleasure caught up with her. The sudden increase
of in tempo caught her by surprise and disrupted the rhytm, but she was
quickly pushed over the edge by the sudden increase in stimulation.
When her long denied orgasm was finally reached, she could do nothing but
cling to him with her breath stolen from her by the strength of the
release she felt. His grunting in her ear as she was flooded with his hot
seed only made her own pleasure even greater.
When the pleasure subsided, all the strength seemed to leave her limbs
and she collapsed into the bed with a content sigh.
"That was...wow." She sighed out, hair turning a lazy dark blue. "You've
obviously had a lot of practice."
"As much as I could manage." He agreed, a hint of smugness in his tone.

He was cheating by employing magic to enhance the pleasure, and he was
damn proud of it too. All is fair in love and war and all that.
They lapsed into a comfortable silence, during which Tonks kept running
her hands over his back. An action that quickly led to a reaction.
"No way." She protested weakly, feeling him previously softened member
going back to full size again. "You can't still be ready for more."
"Don't worry, Dora. We can go to sleep if you're too tired for another
round." He said soothingly.
Dark eyes narrowed in response.
"You better wipe that smirk off your face and get back to the shagging."
Like hell was she going to be that girl, the one that fell asleep while
her man still wasn't satisfied.
"If you insist." He sighed theatrically.
XXXXX
Harry woke up at sunrise the next day, as he always did when the Sun
roused his magic unless he'd already been awake.
The first thing he noticed was that he was spooning a soft body of the
female persuasion and that his left arm was numb from being used as a
pillow. The downsides of spooning.
Despite that bit of discomfort, he smiled at the memory of what had led
to it. He and Dora had had a good time on their date, then they'd had a
very good time after it and then they'd fallen asleep together in a state
of utter relaxation and contentment with their magics mingling together.
She was still quite deeply asleep. He could feel it in her magic. The way
that the air whistled cutely through her nose was also something of a
clue.
Fanciful notions of staying in this emotionally soothing situation aside,

Harry really needed to get up. His arm was sore, he was already getting
hungry, he needed to make a trip to the loo and his morning wood was
terribly distracting.
The last problem had the most pleasant solution, so he leaned forward and
started nibbling on Dora's neck, watching in fascination as her natural
brown hair developed streaks of color in response.
The Metamorphmagus was apparently either a very deep sleeper or still

exhausted from last night's activities, as she failed to be roused by his
ministrations.
It took a bit of maneouvering to shift her over to her stomach, applying

liberal amounts of spit as lubricant and gently slide back inside.
That did get the sleeping woman to make a noise of mixed confusion and
pleasure, but he continued to slowly thrust into her without pausing.
"Harry, the hell are you doing?" She asked blearily, mind not quite
catching up to what her body was telling her.
He answered with a slightly harder thrust that made his intentions

unequivocally clear. "I was taking advantage of you."
She gave a little gasp at the intrusion and then turned her head to look
back at him when he stopped moving. "Well? Who told you to stop?"
XXXXX
When Sirius made his way to breakfast that morning, he was treated to the
sight of his godson and his second cousin sitting together in silk
morning robes.
"I see that someone's had a good time." He said with a broad grin. "High
five, Harry."
Harry raised his arm and gave his passing godfather a high five.
"Did you two seriously just high five each other over me?" Tonks demanded
tersely.
"Sorry, Dora." Harry apologized. "It's easier to just give the sad old
man what he wants than to see him pout."
"Hey!" Sirius pouted indignantly while the Metamorphmagus snorted.
"He's had no luck with women since being freed you see, so he's resorted
to living vicariously through me." Harry continued, making Tonks snicker
in amusement.
"You're a horrible godson." Sirius huffed.
"That reminds me, I need to pick up a few batches of contraceptive

potion." Tonks said with a frown.
"Ran out of stock?" Harry asked lightly, but felt a frisson of worry.
"Nah, I stopped taking it over a year ago." She replied with a wave of
her hand. "It tastes gross and I wasn't getting laid anyway."
Harry felt cold sweat bead on his face at the admission. The one time
that he neglected to use the contraceptive spell and it just happened to
be with a woman who didn't use any protection. "Errr, Dora..."
"Don't worry, Harry, as long as I use it sometime in the next three days
I won't be getting preggers wth your babies." She said with a snicker.
Harry breathed a sigh of relief. He was way, way too young to have kids,
accelerated development be damned.
"That was mean." Sirius observed. "I like it."

"You would." Harry shot at him.
The conversation lapsed into silence for a while as they focused on

eating, during which time Harry started becoming bothered by something.
Namely, why was his girlfriend not commenting on his illegal use of
Apparition yesterday? Eventually, he decided to just ask.
"Hey, Dora?"
"Yeah?"
"How come you aren't saying anything about the fact that I apparated us
yesterday?"
"Oh Harry, you really think that you're the first minor to do that?" She
sighed. "I could report you for it, but that would mean more paperwork
for me and a pointless reprimand from the DMLE for you. The age
restriction on the use of Apparition was put into place because only
about 30% of Britain's adult magical population is capable of it and
stupid kids were splinching themselves all over the place trying to get
it right on their own. Just don't do it where people can see and try to
pretend that you're having some trouble learning it in a few years."
"Huh." Harry said in response, pleasantly surprised by the pragmatism.

Then he leaned in to give his girlfriend a peck on the lips. "You're one
cool Auror, you know that?"
"I am pretty damned cool, aren't I?" She preened.
Sirius made exaggerated gagging noises.
"Is the stupid blood traitor choking on something?" Kreacher asked as he

wandered into the room, carrying a stack of clothes.
"No, Kreacher, Sirius is just being childish." Harry explained.
Kreacher nodded in understanding and turned towards Harry, depositing his

burden on the edge of the table. "Kreacher has cleaned and repaired
filthy halfblood master's filthy halfblood whore's clothes."
"Oi!" Harry said sternly, genuinely angry this time. "You can call me and
Sirius whatever you like, but you will be respectful to everyone else,
especially to Dora."
"Kreacher apologizes." The house elf replied, not sounding especially

sincere.
"What was up with that?" Tonks asked in bewilderment after he left.
"Sorry about that, Kreacher used to be the Black family elf, so he's got
something of an attitude problem." Harry explained, rubbing his forehead.
He really should have expected the crotchety old elf to be rude to guests
as well as him.
"I can see that." Tonks said, somewhat amused now despite getting called
a filthy halfblood whore. "Why do you let him get away with it though?"
"Because he finds it funny to get insulted by his house elf for some
reason." Sirius snorted.
"You have to admit that being called a filthy halfblood all the time is
more interesting than the near worship you get from most house elves."
Harry argued.
"You're weird, Harry." Tonks said, reaching for the stack of clothes that
Kreacher had deposited.
"That's what I said!" Sirius chimed in.
"Hmpf." Harry retorted disdainfully.
"He calls this repaired?" Tonks asked wryly, looking at her haphazardly
stiched together T-shirt.
Harry sighed and made a mental note to talk to Kreacher about his passive
aggressive tendencies towards guests. In fact, he probably needed to talk
to him about appropriate conduct in front of and to guests in a very
general sense as well."Don't worry about it, I'll replace that for you."
"Oh, that's right!" Tonks exclaimed, eyes shining with delight. "You
promised to take me shopping."
Sirius looked at his godson in disbelief. What kind of stupid man says
that to a woman?
"Errr, yes?" Harry said uncertainly, a bit unnerved by the look in his
girlfriend's eye.
"It's a good thing that it's my day off today." She said, already
plotting out a list of shops to visit. One of the often overlooked side
benefits of being a Metamorphmagus was the vastly increased ease of
clothes shopping.
"Why would you need a whole day for shopping?" Harry asked, bewildered.
Sirius shook his head sadly. Some lessons needed to be learned the hard
way. He couldn't help his godson here.
XXXXX
While Harry occupied his time with his own affairs, the plotters and
schemers of the Wizarding World brooded on things that were decidedly not
their business.
XXXXX
In Hogwarts castle, its aged Headmaster paced in his office and
considered the pieces on the chess board.
Voldemort was worryingly silent. There had been no real news of him for
some time now. It was always a bad sign when you didn't know what your
foe was up to.
The Dark Lord must assuredly be plotting a way to retun to life, but his
movements remained elusive. His Horcruxes likewise remained elusive.
On the other side of the board, the Harry Potter situation was looking
much better. He had managed to draw out from Remus Lupin a confirmation
of a relationship with Nymphadora Tonks. This was good. Excellent even.
The young Auror would give Harry a firm tie to Wizarding Britain and a
reason to defend it from the Dark Lord. Even better, she could be
recruited into the Order of the Phoenix and bring Harry closer to
Dumbledore's sphere of influence. Because of that relationship alone, he
was considering reactivating the Order earlier than intended. He could
even offer Harry membership despite his young age. Not yet though, the
relationship had to mature a bit first and a solid reason for the move
given. Harry was far too cagey to miss that kind of blatant manipulation
and may be able to sway young Nymphadora to adopt the same distrust
towards him as Harry had.
The boy worried him as much as he impressed him. His knowledge and
understanding of magic was already frightfully deep for his youth and
could only grow deeper with age, though he was blessedly lacking in the
cruelty that Tom Riddle had displayed or even the same kind of hunger for
power as Dumbledore himself had once had.
The problem was that whatever was driving the boy remained a mystery.
Dumbledore did not feel comfortable with the lynchpin of this entire
conflict being a mystery. He wanted to trust Harry, he truly did, but
what was he supposed to think of a boy just shy of fourteen that felt the
need to magically age himself and had already taken a life with no great
remorse?
Harry had discarded his childhood and would soon have to deal with the
realities of being a powerful wizard. Sirius was ill-equiped to shield
him from it and Dumbledore was no longer able.
More than anything, it was the uncertainty of it all that he feared. He

feared it, because he could see the makings of either a great hero or a
terrible villain in Harry. He feared it, because he had no idea what he
would do should things turn ill. He feared it, because he knew that a
wizard who truly wanted to become powerful would become powerful no
matter what he or the Ministry or anyone else tried to do to prevent it.
Delay, yes. Prevent, no. Getting in his way would just make him even more
secretive, sneaky and worst of all, resentful.
So he plotted to throw as many good influences and reasons to fight evil

into Harry's path as possible and hoped that it would be enough. He hoped
that Harry would stand against Voldemort. He hoped that he would die
standing against him, because Dumbledore didn't think that he had the
strength to kill the boy himself should it come to that.
XXXXX
In the office of the Minister of Magic, a far less intelligent and

venerable man was also pacing. Though in his case it was less thoughtful
and more fretful.
"I just don't know what to do, Dolores!" Fudge fretted to his Senior
Undersecretary. "Surely there should have been some word from Black and
Potter by now? Potter was in the Ministry twice since Black's name was
cleared but he hasn't come speak to me. What does it mean?"
He had successfully blamed the entire debacle with Sirius Black's unjust
imprisonment on former Minister Bagnold and Barty Crouch Sr. Bagnold was
obviously not in a position to care, being dead as she was, but Crouch
had found his popularity falling even lower than it had in the aftermath
of his son being found a Death Eater and had since been shuffled off into
some dead end Ministry department that most people didn't even know
existed. He had expected that he would be able to meet privately with the
Boy-Who-Lived and the new Lord Black, but no such meeting was
forthcoming.
"Wasn't Sirius Black always a disgrace to his family?" Dolores Umbridge

answered in her simpering voice. "If he were not the last of his family,
he would never have been its Lord. Perhaps he doesn't know the basic
courtesies expected of him. As for Potter...well, he is only a boy and he
grew up with muggles."
Fudge looked askance at the pink clad woman. Potter was young yes, but a
boy? The tall wizard with the too-bright eyes and a sense of power around
him was no boy. He had been reminded far too much of Dumbledore when
speaking to that 'boy', constantly feeling flustered and out of control.
It was not something that Fudge would admit to anyone, not even to
himself, but he hated dealing with powerful wizards and witches. Hated
dealing with Dumbledore, who could twist a conversation into twenty
different directions and convince you that he always knew best and that
you were being childish if you didn't listen. Hated dealing with Bones,
whose hard edged personality, rigid inflexibility where the law was
concerned and popularity in the Ministry made her a terror to deal with.
Now he also hated dealing with Potter, whose legend, wealth, nobility and
sheer presence made him a power to be courted, but one who did not seem
keen to acknowledge when favors were owed.
Still...Dolores might have a point. Potter was young, and had grown up
with muggles. He may well simply not know how the game was played. He
would have to be taught then, but how to go about it?
He wished that Lucius was here. Dolores had her uses, but she was not as
clever as she thought she was. Certainly not as clever as Lucius Malfoy.
Speaking of Lucius, he still had to extend him an invitation for the
Quidditch World Cup that was happening in a month. The Malfoy patriarch
had helped him greatly over the years and it wouldn't do to let that
friendship go fallow.
Inspiration struck him then. It would insult Lucius, but it would give
him an opportunity to feel out Black and Potter. Surely his old friend
would understand and accept his apologies if he invited Black and Potter
to the Top Box instead?
Of course, there were other problems with the Quidditch World Cup. Namely
the fact that Barty Crouch had been one of the lead organizers and was
now suddenly no longer involved, nor was the man willing to help since
he'd been transferred. Terribly petty of him actually.
"Dolores, do we have anyone to replace Crouch as Head of the Department

of International Magical Cooperation yet?"
"No, I haven't yet managed find anyone qualified that could be spared
from another department." Umbridge answered with a sickly sweet smile.
Of course, when Umbridge said 'qualified', she meant 'of proper

breeding'. There actually were a few people who could have taken over for
Crouch, but they were halfbloods and had not even merited a glance from
her. Bad enough that the Goblin Liason Office had recently been taken
over by a mudblood, even if dealing with those disgusting little
creatures was about what they deserved, but she would never tolerate
having anyone but a pureblood in a post as prestigious as International
Magical Cooperation.
Fudge took the words at face value, as he usually did. There was a reason
why he hadn't been a Slytherin. This put him in something of a pickle. He
needed that post filled soon. It had already been empty for a couple of
weeks and the problems were starting to pile up. Because of this, he did
something that he didn't really want to do.
"Dolores, would you mind terribly if I assigned you to temporarily take

the job? Just until we can find someone else?" Fudge had his faults, his
many, many faults, but he was aware of the fact that Dolores Umbridge was
not a very likeable woman and would not do the British Ministry's
reputation in the wider world any favors in that position. Unfortunately,
he needed that post filled and how much harm could she do in the short
time that she would hold it anyway?
"Of course, Cornelius, you can count on me." She replied in her typical
saccharine tone. She preferred to be the Minister's Senior
Undersecretary, but she would serve the Ministry to the best of her
ability in whichever position she needed to. Besides, it would give her
the chance to put that department to order. Crouch had been distressingly
lax with who he had allowed to climb the ranks there.
XXXXX
Over in Malfoy Manor, Lucius Malfoy did not pace. Pacing was for
unrefined commoners.
Instead, he brooded in a high backed chair with a bottle of expensive

wine in hand.
Sirius Black was a problem. He hadn't been able to contrive a way to get
rid of said problem quickly enough, which meant that by now Harry Potter
had also likely become a problem already. The inheritance of a family was
an entirely internal affair, meaning that Black was not obligated to
inform anyone of his decisions regarding who his Heir was, but unless
Black was a complete dimwit, he had already designated his godson as
Heir.
The only silver lining was that he had not banished either Narcissa or
Draco from the family, yet. That at least he would have to send word
about. That would have been a disaster. It was still a potential disaster
though, and it would remain as such for as long as Black and now Potter
lived.
Oh, how he longed for the days when he could have donned the mask and
robes of a Death Eater and solved such problems with a quick Killing
Curse. It was truly unfortunate that those particular circumstances also
brought along the inevitable need to bow and scrape before the Dark Lord.
He was much happier with the current state of affairs, despite not being
able to personally kill his enemies.
Lucius had been young and more hotheaded when he had joined the Death
Eaters. He had wanted to bring back a world where blood meant something.
He had learned too late that it would have been wiser to support the Dark
Lord from the sidelines and leave the direct involvement to others.
He had heard enough whispers to guess that the Dark Lord was still alive
in some fashion, but he would not seek him out. The Dark Lord was
powerful, but he was a bungler. Despite his protestations about blood
purity and the old ways, the Dark Lord had wiped out numerous
distinguished families, both among his enemies and his allies.
Even the damned Potters had been respectable not that long ago. It was
only with James Potter and his fixation on that mudblood of his that
they'd fallen from grace.
The man's son was a curious thing. A disgusting halfblood, true, but one
that promised to be dangerous in the future. Lucius was not so foolish as
to dismiss those of lower breeding as being powerless or even useless.
Dumbledore was a halfblood and nobody dismissed him. Even mudbloods could
be dangerous, though Lucius could only point at James Potter's wife as an
example. Subhuman and disgusting, but not powerless. A troll was
disgusting too, but it could be dangerous in the right circumstances.
The Potter scion had not yet truly given any real indication of his
views. Draco had described him as a reclusive sort, with his only friend
being that bizarre Lovegood chit. Had things been different, he might
have courted an alliance with him.
Unfortunately, Draco had bungled up his first meeting with him and made
the Malfoys his enemies. It would have been so much easier to dispose of
Potter had they been allies.
Now Lucius found himself in the unenviable position of having to kill off
both Black and Potter without any real means of getting close to them.
On top of that was his concern that one of his more idiotic fellow Death
Eaters would eventually catch on about the Dark Lord's continued
existence and work to bring him back. Considering that he had gotten the
diary destroyed in a failed plot to discredit Arthur Weasley, that could
not possibly end well for Lucius. Worse still, he had a dire suspicion
that the diary had been more important to the Dark Lord than he had
originally thought it to be.
Of course, he couldn't just come out and tell that to the others. None of
them could just come out and openly state that they didn't want to
support Voldemort anymore. That would be stupidly Gryffindorish, though
that was a bit of a tautology in and of itself.
What Lucius needed to do was hedge his bets on the off chance that some
dimwit helped facilitate Voldemort's return. He needed to be seen as
still championing the cause without actually doing anything himself. That
was fortunately something that he was very good at.
The Quidditch World Cup was coming up in about a month. He was actually
expecting Fudge to come by any day now with an invitation to join him in
the Top Box for the event. He was sure that a few of his more gullible
former compatriots could be persuaded into donning their old robes and
causing a ruckus. He'd get credit of organizing it and none of the blame
since he'd have a nice alibi.
As it happened, his recently purchased house elf brought a letter from

the Minister just a few minutes later.
Lucius' eyebrows climbed elegantly up his forehead as he read the letter.

Fudge was apologizing profusely for passing him over for the invitation,
but he desperately needed to curry some favor with Black and Potter as
recompense for the unjust imprisonment, so he was going to invite them
instead.
This was...actually very convenient. Oh, he'd make Fudge sweat over the
insult later, but this would place Black and Potter in a predictable
place and in close proximity to his more gullible Death Eater comrades.
Getting them to attack those two would be the height of simplicity. Of
course, he'd have to account for the possibility that one or more of them
would get captured and questioned, which meant that he would have to
arrange things in such a way that none of them could solidly point a
finger at him, but that could be done easily enough.
XXXXX
"Hey, Harry?" Sirius inquired with an odd look on his face.

"What?" Harry asked, not looking up from the little magical trinket he'd
been staring at in an effort to see what made the magic work and if he
could tease it apart.
"Were we expecting post from the Minister of Magic?" Sirius continued,

still with an odd look on his face.
"Fudge?" Harry asked, finally looking at his godfather. "Why would that
blithering idiot send us post?"
"Apparently we're being invited to attend the Quidditch World Cup as

honored guests of the Minister of Magic." Sirius explained.
Harry groaned in irritation. He didn't give a shit about quidditch and

didn't want to deal with the Minister of Magic if it could be helped, but
he had a feeling that this wasn't the kind of thing that he could just
refuse. Not without some damned annoying consequences at any rate.
"I guess that means we're going?" Sirius asked in resignation. Though not
the kind of quidditch enthusiast that James had been, Sirius could enjoy
watching a match, but this stank of politics all the way through.
"Yes, we're going." Harry sighed.
"Couldn't we just tell Fudge to bugger off?" Sirius was an optimist.
"We could, but I've got a feeling that it would cause us even more
problems in the future." Harry was a cynic.
"I hate it when you're right." Sirius grumbled.
"Sometimes, so do I." Harry sighed again.
Chapter 13
A couple of people have complained about the amount of sex in this fic
and I feel the need to respond to this.
The story is marked M for a reason. Grow up.
Rowling wrote her books as if nobody had a single thought about sex and
as if hormones didn't exist either because she didn't feel comfortable
writing about it, felt that it wasn't relevant or because she wanted to
keep things PG. Nothing wrong with that, but I prefer to keep my
characters as human as possible and that means sex.
A co-ed boarding school with a huge number of empty rooms and poor
supervision? There would be more fucking than learning.
An insular society that developed without the presence of a sexually
repressive religion? There would be so much fucking.
An easy magical fix for any potential problems? You cannot even imagine
how much fucking there would be, both consensual and not.
I'm actually being very conservative, but I can't devote 30% of every
chapter to fucking.
With that out of the way, onwards to the chapter proper. Much thanks go
to Joe Lawyer for pointing out several problems and helping to polish up
the chapter.
XXXXX
Harry smiled to himself as he walked out of the Department of Magical

Education. He'd gotten Outstandings on both of his OWLs. Professors
Vector and Babbling would be pleased. He wondered what they would work on
now that these silly exams were over with.
His wonderings were brought to an abrupt end when someone carelessly

stomped around a corner and bumped into him quite forcefully.
Harry grunted in irritation as both of them lost their footing and fell
to the floor. Honestly, was it so damn hard to pay attention to where you
were going?
"Sorry." The woman who had so unceremoniously crashed into him muttered
with a rather angry sounding sniffle.
"Penny?" Harry asked, blinking in surprise as he recognised the former

Hogwarts Head Girl.
"Harry?" The now identified Penelope Clearwater said back in the same
tone.
"Are you okay?" He asked with a frown, noticing that she looked
simultaneously angry and about to cry.
"I'm fine." She asserted, not very convincingly it had to be said.
Harry frowned some more. She was quite obviously not fine. He could
pretend that he believed her. It was probably none of his business
anyway...
...But Penny had done her best to look after him back when he had been a
prickly eleven year old with an all around unpleasant attitude. She had
warned him about Bryanna's little seduction plot, which he could admit to
himself might have turned out a lot more messy if he hadn't known to be
wary of it. He'd feel like an arse if he just left.
"Do you want to get something to eat?" He offered.

XXXXX
Penny had resisted at first, but he'd insisted and she'd relented. Now
she was using a fork to push the remains of her meal around morosely,
anger seemingly giving way to depression.
"Do you want to talk about whatever is bothering you?" He asked.
"Not really." She mumbled.
Harry frowned. This was not at all like Penny.
"Maybe I can help?" He ventured.
"Can you make the world fair?" She asked bitterly.
"Penny, what happened?" He pressed.
"Reality happened." She went on in the same bitter tone. "You know I'm a
muggleborn, right?"
Harry nodded silently, already having a good idea where this was going
just from that one question.
"Well I never really fit in with that world. Always had my nose stuck in
fantasy books or daydreaming. Getting that Hogwarts letter and learning
that magic was real was like a dream come true. So I did my best to learn
as much as I could, because I wanted to be part of it. All the teachers
kept telling me what a bright future I had ahead of me, the bloody liars.
Not one of them thought to mention that my muggleborn status was going to
have more weight than anything I did."
"I see." Harry sighed.
"Oh it gets worse!" Penny went on, getting angry again. "You remember how
I put Malfoy in detention at the start of the school year?"
Harry furrowed his brow in thought and nodded. He did remember that the
blond moron had been trying to start something or other again and gotten
slapped down for it by Penny.
"Well apparently he found it so offensive to be punished by a 'mudblood'

that he went crying to daddy about it and Malfoy senior made sure that I
won't be able to get a respectable job anywhere in Wizarding Britain."
Harry sighed again. He wasn't even surprised that they'd be that petty.
The fact that Malfoy senior's arm was long enough to manage that was a
bit of a surprise...but not that much of one. He'd already known that a
lot of the jobs open to muggleborns weren't respectable even without his
interference after all.
"Then the little shitestain had the stones to write me a letter to brag
about it!" Penny continued, seething. "He even suggested that I try the
whorehouses in Knockturn Alley if I'm looking for something 'appropriate
for my station'!"
"Do you want me to throw him off the Astronomy Tower when September rolls
around?" Harry offered, only semi-joking. He'd already taken one piece of
trash out of the world with Pettigrew and the younger Malfoy was not
looking much better. Had he not been so angry on Penny's behalf, he might
have wondered at how seriously he was contemplating homicide.
Penny was a nice girl and might have disapproved of that suggestion under
normal circumstances, but these were not normal circumstances.
"Can you make it look accidental?" She asked instead, fondly imagining
the blond shite's bones shattering on impact.
"Probably not." Harry conceded.
"Better not do it then. It wouldn't fix my situation anyway, even if it

would be satisfying."
Harry nodded again, giving the situation some more thought. Even if he
didn't kill Malfoy, he was still going to make his life miserable. He was
sure that the Weasley twins would be agreeable to helping out. He'd pay
them for it even. He and Penny might never have been super close, but he
wasn't going to just let this go and he was sure that Fred and George
wouldn't take too kindly to their brother's girlfriend getting shafted
like this to satisfy that little idiot's ego either. Actually, speaking
of Percy...
"Where is Percy in all this? Weren't the two of you together?" He asked.
"Not anymore we aren't." Penny spat, anger coming back to the fore. "The
jerk had the gall to suggest that I could've avoided this if I'd been
more careful with who I assigned detentions to. That's what I was so
upset about in the Ministry just now."
"Why am I not surprised?" Harry muttered to himself. Percy had always

seemed like the stereotypical brown nosing 'yes man' to him, few though
their interactions had been. He'd never understood what Penny had seen in
him, but hadn't cared to stick his nose in their personal business.
"I guess I'll have to move to a different country. Either that or go back
to the normal world, catch up on my normal education and get a normal
job." Penny said despondently a few moments later. She was obviously not
excited by either idea.
Harry leaned back in his seat as he considered an idea he'd just had.
He'd thought about hiring a personal assistant of sorts a while ago, but
hadn't really put any effort into finding someone appropriate. He'd
imagined someone older and more experienced, but Penny had been made Head
Girl for a reason and that had to count for something and the job
shouldn't be beyond her abilities at this stage anyway. She would
probably also be more loyal since he'd be getting her out of a sticky
situation, which had been a concern of his.
"What if...I could offer you a job?" He said slowly, uncertainly. He
wasn't comfortable making decisions so quickly, but he wanted to help her
and the solution just seemed so convenient for both of them.
"What kind of job?" She asked skeptically.
"I'm not sure what your actual title would be, but you'd essentially be
my personal assistant. You'd handle my mail, organize my schedule, run
errands for me, keep an eye and ear out for things I should know, keep
any secrets you learn secret, do research and similar stuff." He
explained.
"Is this some elaborate ploy to get me to sleep with you?" She continued
to ask skeptically, though there was a tinge of humor in it too this
time. "I've been hearing things about you this past year."
Harry huffed a bit, but was glad to see that her mood seemed to have
picked up a bit. "No, I'm being serious." And it was a good thing that
Sirius wasn't present, or else he'd have made a pun right about now.
Penny was apparently convinced of his sincerity, but now looked uncertain
about something else. "I don't know, Harry...I don't think I'm really
qualified for something like that."
She looked disappointed and reluctant when admitting this, giving Harry
the impression that she wanted to accept but was compelled by honesty to
say it anyway. That was probably a good sign.
"You wouldn't have much to do just yet ." He admitted. "Things aren't
actually at the point where I need a personal assistant, but I'm
expecting it to happen soon enough. Plus, it'll give you time to get into
the swing of things and it makes my life a bit easier in the process."
"I wouldn't be able to support myself just doing odds and ends for you."
She said with a sigh.
Harry frowned. He could offer to employ her full time despite the fact
that she would have very little to do until things picked up, but his
frugal sensibilities wouldn't let him be so wasteful even if it wouldn't
make a noticeable dent in his finances and he had a feeling that Penny
wouldn't be comfortable with that anyway.
"Alright, how about this then." He began, getting a new idea. "I pay you
a small fee and let you move into Potter Manor if you want, where you
will get free room and board. You handle whatever needs to be handled for
now and when the work picks up, I'll start paying you properly. It'll be
like an internship."
"Are you sure this isn't some trick to get me to sleep with you?" Penny
asked again after a moment of thought.
Harry rolled his eyes expansively. "Yes, I'm sure. My girlfriend would
undoubtedly kick my arse if it was."
"You have a girlfriend?" Penny blurted out incredulously.
"Yes, I do." He replied, deciding not to comment on her disbelieving

tone. "You'll meet her soon enough if you accept."
Penny bit her lip uncertainly. She really wasn't sure about this and it
definitely wasn't what she'd imagined herself doing, but it seemed like a
good offer and she knew that Harry was a good bloke.
And she didn't want to just bow her head and leave. It would feel too
much like letting the damn bigots win.
"Alright, I accept."
XXXXX
Soon after her acceptance, Harry apparated both himself and Penny to
Potter Manor.
"You can apparate already?!" She blurted out as soon as the

disorientation passed.
"Yes." He replied with a nod. "I'll be expecting you to keep that a

secret by the way."
"But the Ministry..." She protested weakly.
"Will do nothing." He interrupted. "Even if they learn about it, they'll

only cause a fuss for the sake of appearances. Trust me on this, I have
the word of an Auror on it."
"Okay, I guess." Penny mumbled, not sure what to think of that.

Eventually she just shrugged and decided to go along with it. After
discovering the way that justice worked in the Wizarding World, she
wasn't feeling too fond of the Ministry anyway.
"Teeny, is Sirius home?" Harry asked seemingly to the air.
The little house elf popped in immediately and began nodding. "Yes,
master Harry. He is being home."
"Good, can you bring him and Kreacher here?"
Teeny nodded compulsively and popped off to fetch the two of them. A few
minutes later, they were back.
"Alright, introductions." Harry said with a clap of his hands. "Penny,

you've already met the Potter family elf, Teeny."
"Hello." Penny greeted.
"Hello, Ms. Penny!" Teeny said back energetically.

"Next we have the Black family elf, Kreacher." Harry went on, gesturing
to the sour faced house elf.
"Hello."
Kreacher merely nodded silently.
"Don't be surprised if he starts calling you a filthy mudblood after a

while." Harry advised. "Don't take it personally either, it's just how he
talks. He calls me a filthy halfblood and Sirius a filthy blood traitor."
"O...kay?" Penny replied confusedly.
"And lastly we have the filthy blood traitor himself, Sirius Black.
Ostensibly, he's living here because he's my magical guardian, but in
reality he's more of a freeloader and comic relief."
"Why do you have to keep insulting me in front of all the pretty girls,
Harry?" Sirius demanded. "Are you afraid they'll like me better than
you?"
"Not much chance of that." Harry retorted. "Why would they like an old
man like you when I'm here?"
"Don't listen to him...Penny was it?" Sirius said suavely, turning to the
girl that his godson had brought for as of yet unknown reasons and
kissing her hand. "He's just jealous of my good looks and distinguished
maturity." Harry snorted derisively at the notion that his godfather
possessed any kind of maturity, let alone a distinguished one. "To what
do we owe the pleasure of your company?"
"Um, Harry offered me a job." Penny managed to say with a flustered

blush. She hadn't expected to be flirted with so blatantly.
"That thing we talked about a couple of weeks ago?" Sirius asked, turning
back to his godson.
"Yes, that one." Harry nodded. "Anyway, this is Penelope Clearwater.

She'll be living with us now and acting as a personal assistant."
"I would be delighted to give her a tour of the manor and help her pick
out a room." Sirius offered with his most roguish smile, not batting an
eyelash at hearing that they'd have another person living with them.
"I'm sure you would, you reprobate." Harry fired. "But we need to
establish ground rules first."
"Ground rules?" Penny echoed curiously.
"Yes, ground rules. Firstly and most importantly, the basement is

absolutely off limits. I keep the door locked at all times anyway, but
it's still worth mentioning. There's a bunch of dangerous magical
artefacts down there and I don't want you getting hurt." And that wasn't
even mentioning the Horcrux or his personal workshop for the times when
he was fiddling with things both illegal and dangerous.
"Secondly, you'll notice that there is a specially marked off section of

the library. This is because the books there have been ...ah...liberated
from the Black family library and are of a darker nature. You can read
them if you want, but don't be surprised if you come across a book
detailing the magical properties of human body parts as potion
ingredients or something similar." Harry wasn't inclined to hoard
knowledge, having long despised the Ministry's censorship. If she wanted
to take a look at those books, then she was welcome to.
Penny looked deeply discomfitted by this but nodded all the same,
privately deciding to stay well away from there.
"And finally, whatever you see or hear in this house you keep to
yourself. Is that okay with you?"
Penny agreed easily, there being nothing about that that she was bothered
about.
"Good. Since Sirius already offered, he can show you around. Feel free to
hex him if he makes a pass at you."
"Why I never!" The man in question huffed indignantly. "I am the very
soul of chivalry."
"Chivalry is just a fancy word for trying to get into a woman's knickers
through politeness." Harry sneered in retaliation.
"You really need to get that cynicism of yours checked out, Harry."
Sirius said with dramatic sadness, shaking his head at his godson. "It
can't be good for you to have such a bleak worldview."
"I'm fine with bleak." Harry shrugged.
Penny watched the good natured bickering with a bemused smile. Harry was
being a lot more open than she remembered him being, certainly more open
than he was with anyone his own age. Was this why he had so much trouble
making friends at Hogwarts? Because he was more able to relate to adults
than children?
She supposed it didn't matter now. Harry wasn't the sullen, friendless,
anti-social first year anymore and seemed happier, which was what she'd
been trying to achieve by looking out for him in Hogwarts in the first
place.
XXXXX
After the tour was over and Penny had chosen a room to move into, she'd
asked what she was actually expected to do now that she was here. A
moment later, Teeny dropped off a medium sized pile of letters on the
desk of the room she'd chosen for herself.
"At the moment, you'll mostly just be answering spam mail." Harry
admitted, gesturing to the pile. "Apparently, Dumbledore spent the past
few years refusing interview and meeting requests from various reporters,
Ministry bootlickers and assorted busybodies. Now that Sirius is my
magical guardian, all of that mail is going to him and my dear godfather
is sadly not as diligent or diplomatic as the Headmaster."
"Guilty as charged." Sirius confessed. He just didn't have the patience

to read the letters of the many vultures clamoring for a piece of his
godson, much less politely decline. He was actually more inclined to send
back parchment with prank spells on it.
"So you want me to politely tell everyone to shove off?" Penny asked for
clarification.
"Pretty much." Harry nodded. "You'll still have to read through all of it
because there might actually be something important in the middle of all
that tripe, in which case you should bring it to me."
"Alright, that doesn't sound so bad." She said mostly to herself and
reached for one of the letters at random. Might as well get a feel for
what she'd be doing.
Her cheeks pinked as she skimmed over the letter.
"Err, this seems to be an invitation to, uh, spend the night." Penny
stammered out with a blush. "She also included a picture."
Sirius quickly snatched the letter and removed the attached animated
picture of a very nice looking witch in her late twenties.
"I think it's best if you brought these types of letters directly to me."
He declared authoritatively.
This got him deadpan looks from his godson and even Penny.
"What?" He demanded.
"Sirius, were you planning on taking that woman up on her offer on my

behalf?" Harry asked mildly.
"Of course." Sirius nodded firmly. "I'm your godfather, it's my duty to
protect your innocence from all these scarlet women, with my body if I
have to!"
"How did you ever convince my mother that you would make a good
godfather?" Harry asked, amused.
"James spent a month convincing her and she only agreed to it after Alice
Longbottom agreed to be the godmother." Sirius admitted.
XXXXX
Nymphadora Tonks had the look of a woman on a mission as she barged
through the front door of Potter Manor as if she owned it. In her hands
was a plastic black bag that betrayed no sign of what it contained aside
from its boxy shape.
"Oi, Sirius!" She hollered. "Where are you?"
A short time later, the incumbent Lord Black arrived, followed by a curly
haired blonde that looked vaguely familiar.
"Going after the young ones are we?" Tonks snarked. The girl looked fresh
out of Hogwarts.
"You're one to talk." Sirius snarked right back.
"That doesn't count, Harry's a guy." She countered.
Sirius opened his mouth to retort, only to close it and shrug. It might
be hypocritical, but the unwritten rules of the Bro Code stated that the
only acceptable response to a guy scoring with a hot older woman was
'nice!'. There were no provisions for age, which meant that Tonks was
correct in saying that it didn't count.
"Well, Sirius? Are you going to introduce me to your young lady?" Tonks
asked with a smirk.
"She's not my young lady." Sirius stated. "This is Penelope Clearwater.

Harry hired her as a personal assistant because we're both too lazy to
deal with the mail his fame generates. She just moved in a couple of days
ago."
"Hi." Penny greeted, the remnants of an embarrassed blush on her face

from the insinuation that she was Sirius' girlfriend. She was honestly
surprised to learn that Harry was in a relationship with someone like
Nymphadora Tonks. The two of them just seemed so different.
Tonks' eyebrows climbed up her forehead in surprise at that little

revelation. Had she been a more insecure person, she would have been very
displeased and jealous at the thought of having another woman living with
her boyfriend. As it was, she simply decided to take it at face value. If
Harry was having some hanky panky on the side, she'd find out and react
accordingly, but until then she'd be cool about it.
"Wotcher."
"Harry's in the basement." Sirius informed.
"I know, he told me he'd be working on something today." Tonks said with
a nod. "What I need is for you to not tell him that I'm here and keep him
away from his room if he leaves his cave ahead of schedule."
"Why?" Sirius asked, a bit baffled.

"Because it's the prat's birthday and like hell am I going to let him get
away with not celebrating it."
"You'll have a fight on your hands getting him to celebrate." Sirius

advised. "I wanted to throw a party for him, but he threatened to send me
to a dog shelter if I tried it. Not the most festive sort, that godson of
mine."
"That wasn't the kind of celebration I had in mind." Tonks smirked.
"Oh, I see." Sirius smirked back. "We'll do you one better then and leave
so that you have the house to yourselves."
"I suppose I could go visit my parents." Penny agreed, reflecting on the

strangeness of still being an eighteen-year old virgin while her
fourteen-year old employer seemed to have a very active sex life. Percy
had made some unsubtle hints about taking their relationship to the next
level, but she hadn't been comfortable going that far. She'd been
embarrassed by her own prudishness in the face of both sides of the
British society being very sexually open these days, but now she was glad
that she hadn't slept with the ginger jerk.
A short while later a still smirking Metamorphmagus stood alone in the

master bedroom. She pulled a distinctly muggle style laminated cardboard
box out of the black bag she'd brought with her and her smirk widened in
anticipation of putting the goodies in there to use. Some assembly was
required, but it shouldn't be too hard.
Especially since the hard part, the one that would have potentially
required professional help or power tools, could be solved with a little
bit of transfiguration.
XXXXX
Harry furrowed his brow in thought as he examined the bracelet in his

hands. It was a pretty thing made of silver, but that wasn't what had him
so interested in it. The magic in it was the real beauty.
Sirius had told him that it was of goblin make, which he could readily
believe as the enchantments on it were like nothing he'd ever seen.
Human made magical items had magic layered over the item, sometimes to
wondrous complexity if it had been done by a particularly skilled caster.
This goblin made bracelet however, had magic woven into it. The goblins
had obviously done the enchanting during the actual forging process.
Harry imagined that this was far more difficult than merely enchanting a
completed item, but it was also far more impressive and effective. With
time, effort, skill and knowledge , human made enchantments could be
undone. Not so with goblin made magical items. He couldn't even tell
where the magic ended and the item began.
He wanted this knowledge intensely, but he knew that the goblins would be
as jealously protective about that secret as wizards were about wandlore.
It was such a shame that both sides were blind idiots, clinging to old
hatreds instead of working together, but he wasn't surprised. If the
goblins were as obsessed with the past as the purebloods, then it was no
wonder that all they could do was carp on about the old days and the old
ways instead of looking to the future.
Well no matter. The goblins had needed to figure it out for themselves at
some point too, so there was nothing preventing him from doing the same.
Whether he could manage the same feat or even get around to it with all
the other stuff he had going on was another matter entirely, but it
wasn't impossible.
Harry arched his back in a stretch and groaned at the satisfying popping
noises his spine made. He'd been hunching over the desk in his private
basement workshop too long. Again. A quick check of the time confirmed
that he'd spent most of the day down here. Again. Sirius was probably
going to worry about him for no reason. Again.
Might as well go upstairs and relax a bit, maybe read a book or meditate
on his Animagus form a bit. That was always a good way to unwind a bit
and he wasn't in the mood to try disenchanting another item.
Giving his armpits a sniff, he decided that a bath was in order before
that. If there was one thing about his younger body that he missed, it
was the lack of offensive odours.
As he made his way out of the basement, Harry paid little mind to how
silent the house was. That was how it usually was since there were only
three people living in it aside from the ninja silent house elves and the
only one of them that was a noisy sort frequently left in order to find
himself a willing bed partner.
He was just approaching the door to his room when said door suddenly
opened to reveal his girlfriend.
"Dora?" He asked in bemusement, wondering when she'd showed up.
"Harry, hi!" She chirped too cheerfully to be for real.
"What were you doing in my room?"
"Nothing."
"Really?"
Tonks huffed at the rank disbelief in his tone, admitting to herself that
it did indeed look suspicious. "Okay fine, so it was something."
"What was it?" Harry asked again, now amused.
The Metamorphmagus sauntered over to him sexily, her approach somewhat

ruined when she nearly tripped over her own feet, but she pretended that
it didn't happen. Then she went around him and placed her hands over his
eyes and whispered into his ear.
"It's a surprise. Want to see it?"
"I would love nothing more." He replied, going along with her games.
She proceeded to lead him to his own room while keeping her hands over
his eyes. The whole thing felt a bit ridiculous since they were right
there, but Harry figured that there was nothing to be gained by pointing
that out.
"Alright, you ready?" She asked once they were inside.
"As ready as I'll ever be." He replied, not bothering to hide his
amusement.
"Happy birthday!" She cried and removed her hands.
Harry stared at the new addition to his room. The ceiling had been
transfigured so that the wood paneling had holes through which metal
clamps had been attached to. And hanging from the clamps was...
"A sex swing? You bought me a sex swing?" Harry asked with some
incredulity, having not expected this in the least. He generally didn't
care one whit about his birthdays, but this kind of present he could get
used to.
"No." Tonks denied with a straight face.
"Are you sure? Because that looks like a sex swing."
"I bought us a sex swing, so you'd better not use it without me."
"Aaah." He said back in realization, figuring that she must have met
Penny and this was some kind of subtle female territory marking ritual or
something. "You'd better show me the ropes then."
"What an appropriate thing to say." She smirked and began removing her
clothes.
XXXXX
It was a sunny summer day free of England's notoriously wet weather and
many people were taking the opportunity to enjoy it.
Among these many people were a trio of college girls who had elected to
save money instead of going on vacation to a beach somewhere. The sunny
weather was too perfect to waste and they had decided to have an
impromptu picnic in Hyde Park.
Their day took a bit of an odd turn when a pure black raven landed in
their midst and looked at them with beady black eyes surrounded by
strangely bright green sclera.
"Is that a raven?" The blonde of the trio asked, sounding a bit awed at
having the large black bird just drop in on them like this.
"It is." The brunnete confirmed.
"I wonder where it came from?" The redhead wondered. She was no bird
expert, but she did know that most birds would not simply land this close
to humans.
"Hello." The raven croaked.
"It spoke!" Blonde exclaimed in shock.
"Ravens can mimic sounds like parrots." Brunette explained.
"Wouldn't that mean that it was someone's pet though?" Redhead asked,
looking around as if she expected someone to come collect the bird at any
moment.
"Hello." The raven repeated.
"This is so cool." Blonde said with a grin. "What's that line about a
raven in a poem again?"
"From Edgar Allan Poe?" Brunette asked.
"Yeah, him." Blonde agreed.
"Something about a raven quoting 'nevermore'" Redhead said.
"Nevermore." The raven croaked.
All three girls stared at it in surprise and then giggled.
"I guess we're not the first ones to think of that." Blonde said, still
grinning.
The other two did not respond, because at that moment the feathery
visitor waddled over to Blonde and stared intently at her sizable chest.
Or more accurately, at the topmost button of her white blouse.
"Shiny." The raven proclaimed.
"I guess it wants your buttons." Brunette said, very amused as she
watched the black bird try to pry off the button.
"Or maybe it's a pervert." Redhead added, equally amused.
The raven ignored them with lordly disdain as it continued trying to

claim the button.
"I'd give you the button, but I kind of need it." Blonde said, also
amused. The blouse showed enough cleavage as it was.
The raven continued to struggle against the button for a minute longer
before apparently deciding that it wasn't worth the trouble. Defeated but
undaunted, it moved over to Brunette and started tugging on the shiny
metallic zipper of her jeans.
"That settles it, that bird is definitely a pervert." Redhead stated,

vastly amused as she watched the raven attempting to de-pants her
embarrassed friend.
"Hey, stop that." Brunette scolded, not wanting to actually attempt

physically remove the raven for fear of hurting it.
Much to her surprise, the raven did actually stop and made a croaking
noise that sounded suspiciously like laughter.
"You're a cheeky little bugger, aren't you?" She asked.
"Nevermore." The raven croaked and began pushing its head at her palm.
"I think he wants be petted" Blonde suggested.
Bemused, Brunette did exactly that. Much to her surprise, the raven
visibly preened at the attention. In a matter of moments all three young
women were gently petting it.
"Hey, look out. There's a dog coming over here." Redhead warned a minute
later, warily watching the approach of an intimidatingly large black dog.
"I think you'd better go." Brunette told the raven as if it could
actually understand them, not wanting it to get hurt.
Quoth the raven. "Nevermore."
All three women gave it queer looks and stood up, not wanting to be so
close to the ground with that dog approaching.
The raven stayed fearlessly on the ground.
Apparently with good reason, as the dog simply stopped once it reached
them and gave a gentle woof.
The raven made a short flight and planted itself on the dog's back so
that it was looking forward.
"Away." The raven commanded and the dog obeyed. Both avian rider and
canine mount quickly vanished in the nearby woods.
"Did that seriously just happen?" Blonde asked, sounding more than a bit
stunned.
The other two merely nodded mutely, still staring at the spot where the
two had vanished.
XXXXX
Sirius and Harry transformed back into human form as soon as they were
deep enough in the woods and immediately dissolved into hilarity.
"Did you see the look on their faces?" Sirius managed to say through his
laughter, barely coherent due to his mirth. It was so bad that he wasn't
even making any sound, just convulsing wildly with his mouth wide open as
if he was howling hysterically.
Harry merely nodded, similarly incapacitated with tears streaming from

his eyes due to the force of his amusement.
The two Animagi spent a good five minutes regaining control of

themselves, as they would burst into another bout of laughter every time
they caught sight of each other.
"We still need to give you a proper Marauder name now that you're an
Animagus." Sirius was finally able to say, still red faced and bright
eyed.
"Sure, whatever." Harry shrugged. He didn't particularly care about the

whole Marauder thing, as he was pretty sure that they'd been bullies as
much as pranksters, but it made Sirius happy so he'd let the man name his
raven form.
He'd been so excited ever since he'd mastered the transformation after
all.
Flashback
"Alright, I guess you might as well attempt the transformation." Sirius

said in both pride and resignation. "It's insanely early, but you know
your form, you know as much about ravens as you're likely to without
being one and you've got better awareness over your own magic than James
and I ever did. If anyone is going to get this right, it'll be you."
"Any last minute bits of advice?" Harry asked not really expecting
anything.
"Don't hesitate." Sirius said simply. "This isn't something that you can
do slowly. It'll feel strange the first time, but your magic will know
what to do so don't struggle against it. If you get scared by the
transformation and fight it your body will seize up and you'll die. If
you don't accept the animal within, your magic will turn on itself and
you'll go insane."
"Right, let's do this." Harry acknowledged with a nod.
He settled himself into the now familiar meditation, seeking the animal
inside. The presence of the raven in his mind had become increasingly
stronger the closer he came to mastering the transformation, until he
felt the pressing need to spread his wings and fly.
He almost didn't notice when the transformation started, only alerted by
the shifting of bones and organs. It was surprisingly painless, but
definitely strange, as Sirius had warned him it would be. It was deeply
uncomfortable feeling his bones become hollow and frail, his limbs
spindly and weak, his teeth recede and his overall size diminish, but he
pushed ahead despite the instincts of his body telling him that this
wasn't right.
Even stranger was the mental aspect. Previously, the raven had been a
notable presence in the back of his mind somewhere, but now it grew
larger and stronger with alarming speed, overtaking his human
consciousness. Sirius' warning fresh in his mind, he didn't try to fight
or subjugate it and instead simply allowed it to happen. The raven was
part of him now after all and fighting against yourself never turned out
well.
Fortunately, the sudden flood of avian instinct subsided quickly and gave
way once again to human thought, though definitely tinted towards
birdlike and his emotions seemed oddly muted.
"Harry? You okay?" Sirius asked, looming over him like a giant.
Harry croaked back an affirmation, somehow not feeling overly strange or

awkward in his new form. Even the new field of vision didn't feel too
strange. Realizing that Sirius could not possibly understand him, he
nodded his head.
"Amazing." Sirius said, much impressed. "A month and you've completely
mastered the Animagus transformation from start to finish. I've never
heard of anyone doing it anywhere close to this fast."
Harry croaked again and puffed up his chest proudly.
"You think you can manage to get on my arm?" Sirius asked, offering the
appendage in question as a perch.
Harry didn't think about it too much and simply lifted off the ground
with a flap of his wings. His landing was a bit shaky but successful. He
found that as long as he didn't think about what he was doing when
moving, it was pretty instinctual, just like being human really.
"Well aren't you a handsome bird?" Sirius asked, giving his transformed
godson a little scratch on the head.
Harry puffed up again.
"Full of yourself too." Sirius teased.
Harry decided to try out another thing that ravens were capable of. It
took a bit of doing to figure out the avian vocal cords, but it wasn't as
hard as he thought it might have been.
"Cunt." The raven Harry croaked.

Sirius gave him a look that was partly offended, but mostly just jealous.
"You lucky bastard." He grumbled. "Do you have any idea how many pranks
you could do with a talking Animagus form? In fact, we've got to use this
right away!"
End Flashback
"Alright, I've got it!" Sirius announced, breaking Harry out of his
thoughts. "I dub thee Messr Blackbeak, son of Prongs."
"Really? Blackbeak?" Harry asked in a deadpan tone, staring at his

godfather with an equally deadpan look. "How...original."
"It's perfect." Sirius insisted. "Besides, it's not like the other
Marauder names were terribly original either. James was Prongs because he
had antlers, I was Padfoot because my feet have pads, Wormtail had a
wormlike tail, Remus is Moony because he's a werewolf and you have a
black beak."
"Right, because I'm the only bird with a black beak." Harry said
sarcastically.
"I'm not the only dog with pads on his feet either, so what's your
point?"
Harry rolled his eyes. "Fine, we'll call my raven form Blackbeak if it's
so important to you."
"Good." Sirius nodded firmly, looking terribly pleased with himself. "Go
forth and prank the world Messr Blackbeak."
"We've literally just done a prank." Harry pointed out, not being as
prank inclined as his godfather.
"You can never have too many pranks." Sirius argued but quickly sobered
up a bit. "How are you feeling though? Noticed any strange urges yet?"
Harry frowned and thought over the day. It didn't take him long to
identify several things that he was fairly certain wouldn't have popped
up if he hadn't transformed. "I seem to have gained a strange fascination
with shiny objects and a dislike of closed spaces."
"Not unexpected." Sirius said with a nod. "The dislike of closed spaces
at any rate, no bird would like those. You might notice others over time,
but like I said, it'll be subtle."
XXXXX
Gorefist glared at the five humans currently cluttering his office. That
was five more than he would have preferred.
"What do you want this time, Potter?" He demanded rudely. The
professional relationship between the Potter account manager and the
Potter Heir had long since gone past the point of politeness.
"I need to open another vault." Harry replied, unperturbed by the

goblin's tone. Not only did goblins dislike humans as a matter of course,
they also had little use for politeness in the first place. "The deposit
has to be ten thousand galleons and all five of us need to have full
access to it, but transactions or withdrawals larger than two hundred
galleons in one sitting or one thousand per month have to be approved by
me."
"Names?" Gorefist grunted.
Harry rattled off the names of the four girls. "I'll want the keys locked
to their use of course."
"That will cost you ten galeons. Each."
"I think you mean five galleons each." Harry smirked.
Gorefist glowered back. "Nine."
"Six."
"Eight."
"Five and I won't pay attention if an extra ten goes missing from my
vault."
Gorefist considered the blatant bribe for a moment and gave a grudging
nod. "Agreed."
"I'll also want monthly bank statements to be sent to Penelope

Clearwater."
The four girls twitched in surprise at hearing the name of their former
yearmate, but stayed silent.
"Fine." Gorefist grunted again and sneered toothily. "I will send a
goblin to the lobby to escort you to key manufacture, now get out of my
office and die in a fire."
"I hope your mother gets eaten by a dragon." Harry shot back and motioned
for the wide eyed girls to follow him out of the office.
"Fucking goblins." He grumbled once they'd left Gorefist's office.
"Is that..normal?" Bryanna asked hesitantly, more than a bit perturbed

at the hostility between Harry and his account manager. She'd never had
any dealings with goblins aside from the tellers, which were terse but
not so blatantly hostile.
"Pretty much." Harry sighed. "Goblins have never gotten along with humans
and now that we're in an enforced peace all we can do is hurl insults and
empty threats at each other. It wouldn't be so bad if the little bastards
didn't insist on being as antagonistic as possible. I'd bet my last knut
that if the treaty between us is somehow voided, the first thing that the
goblins will do is start sharpening their axes."
"But.why?" Jade asked, clearly baffled about the whole thing. "Surely
we'd have learned to live together by now?"
Harry snorted at the optimism. "We can't even live with each other, what
makes you think we can live with a whole other species?"
"Since when does Clearwater work for you?" Tiana interjected

speculatively, having little interest in wizard-goblin relations.
"Since the end of July. I ran into her in the Ministry when I was picking
up my OWL results and offered her a job as my personal assistant." Harry
answered with a shrug, not elaborating on the issue.
The girls shared knowing looks, easily able to guess that the muggleborn
former Ravenclaw had run headfirst into the discrimination that had led
them to concocting the 'Potter Project' in the first place, though she'd
apparently lucked out by befriending Harry. Good on her.
"I'll expect you to send her monthly finance reports so that she can
compare it to the Gringotts bank statements."
"Alright." Bryana nodded, ignoring the way that Jade and Isabel stiffened
in offense at the insinuation that they would cheat him. Honestly, Harry
had just handed them a ten thousand galleon loan with no interest
attached to it. They could do with being a bit less prickly over the fact
that he wanted to keep an eye on his investment.
"And get in touch with her when you find a venue that you like. I'll
negotiate for it on your behalf."
"Will do." Tiana agreed easily, knowing that the Boy-Who-Lived would
definitely get a better deal than an unknown group of barely-above-
muggleborn and fresh out of Hogwarts witches. The unfairness grated as
much as it always had, but they'd learned to be pragmatic.
"Alright, that's that then." Harry breathed out, feeling uncommonly tired
from all this business dealing. He'd have much rather spent the day
reading a book or tinkering with some magical item, or maybe flying in
his raven form. Or making use of Dora's birthday present.
At least he had Penny to take care of most of the tedium now. Negotiating
was bad enough, but keeping track of expenses was something that he knew
he didn't have the patience for, especially with the retarded currency
that magicals used. Honestly, 17 sickles to a galleon and 29 knuts to a
sickle? If that wasn't proof that goblins hated wizards, then he didn't
know what was.
He knew that Penny had never been fond of computers, but maybe he should
send her to a class on using Microsoft Excel and get her one of those
solar powered laptops? Maybe even check around for a dedicated
bookkeeping program? It would be beyond cruel to expect her to keep track
of his finances by hand. She was getting a calculator at the very least,
if she didn't have one already that was.
XXXXX
Tonks having breakfast at Potter Manor had become a familiar scene over
the summer. Not only did she not feel like apparating to her own flat
after Harry wore her out with his rune bolstered virility, but the king
sized bed was also far more comfortable than her own much smaller one and
a house elf prepared breakfast was superior to cereal in every way.
She, Harry and Sirius generally spent this time sniping at each other
good naturedly or jeering at the tripe writen in the Daily Prophet. Penny
had felt a bit awkward about the whole thing at first but had eventually
become part of the strange dynamic, though a more quiet part.
"Oh Haaaary~." Tonks sing-songed, looking at her boyfriend over the

latest issue of Witch Weekly with laughing dark eyes.
"What?" Harry asked with a raised eyebrow from his place at the head of
the table, wondering what she'd seen in that rag that merited this kind
of amusement.
"It says here that you were seen in Gringotts with a gaggle of four
witches. Inquiring minds want to know whether you need four mistresses to
satisfy your dark lusts." Tonks informed him, obviously holding back
laughter.
Penny nearly choked on her orange juice. So that's what that interview
request that she'd refused a couple of days ago had been about.
"You keep falling asleep on me." Harry shrugged with a smile. "A man has
needs."
"Preach it, brother." Sirius contributed, nodding sagely.
"Prats" Tonks huffed. It was true that Harry was getting progressively
better at turning her into a pile of mush as he learned which buttons to
push, and he'd been no slouch the first time. "So were you actually there
or are the reporters making stuff up again?"
"Yes, I was actually there, but not to pay off a gaggle of mistresses."
Harry paused in thought at this and amended his statement. "Well, two of
them could be counted as former mistresses I suppose, if you stretch the
definition, but we were there on business."
"The ones that you've been 'honing your technique' on the past year?" She
asked with a raised eyebrow. He'd told her about them when she asked
where he'd gotten so experienced at his age.
"That'd be them." He confirmed and then took on a teasing tone. "You
jealous?"
"Maybe I want my own mistresses." Tonks leered playfully.
"We can share mine if you want." Harry offered just as playfully. "I'm
sure they wouldn't mind another participant of variable gender. Just keep
any cocks you might decide to grow away from my orifices and we're
golden."
"Aw, but that's the fun part." Tonks complained.
"Sorry, Dora, but we'll need another girl if you want to satisfy your
futa fetishes." Harry told her seriously.
Sirius lost the battle against his amusement at this point and burst into
hysterical giggles.
Penny could only shake her head at the conversation. She'd never have
believed that the sullen and anti-social first year Harry had once been
would grow up like this.
"I do not have any futa fetishes!" Tonks protested. That thing with the
Asian witch in her sixth year didn't count! That girl had been weird,
always looking flushed and out of breath whenever she asked about the
limits of her Metamorph abilities.
"And yet you know what a futa fetish is." Harry countered.
"So do you!"
"Ah, but I'm not the Metamorphmagus, or should we call you a

Metamorphallus?"
Sirius started giggling again.
"I'll Metamorphallus you right up the arse." Tonks muttered.
"What did I just say about keeping away from my orifices?" Harry tried to
say sternly, but couldn't keep his lips from twitching into a grin.
"Fine." She sniffed disdainfully. "It's your loss anyway. You'll never
know the glories of penetration."
"I think I can manage to stay content with doing the penetrating." Harry
said back wryly.
There was a short silence before Tonks spoke up again. "So just to be
clear, you're not still sleeping with them, right?"
"No, I'm not still sleeping with them." He assured her and paused in
thought for a moment. "Do you want to meet them? I'm sure I could
convince them to come over and get you measured for some custom
clothing."
Tonks thought the offer over. She was sure that he was telling her the
truth, but she appreciated the gesture he was making. Being a
Metamorphmagus was awesome, but it did come with the unfortunate caveat
that almost all of her past boyfriends that she'd slept with had
inevitably asked her to transform into someone else. A little roleplay
was okay, but it was a fine line between that and being used as a means
to live out someone's fantasies. Harry hadn't asked her to use her
abilities for anything of the sort so far aside from some minor ideas
like making her clitoris bigger, which indicated either a lack of desire
to do so or uncommon intelligence by leaving it up to her. She was
betting on the latter.
And now he was offering her the chance to speak to the women he'd spent a
large portion of the past year sleeping with. That could beinformative.
The chance for custom made clothing shouldn't be squandered either.
XXXXX
Tonks was feeling tentatively positive about Bryanna and Tiana. They
seemed like a very practical and down to earth sort, though their
enthusiasm for a shapeshifting human mannequin was a bit disturbing. She
didn't think that her Metamorph ability had ever gotten such a workout as
they asked her to change body proportions and colorations to test what
would work and what wouldn't.
The talk about Harry had also been surprisingly frank and absent of
awkwardness. The two younger witches did not seem to have any feelings
attached to him other than friendliness. It had been exactly as Harry had
described it, a business arrangement that had turned into casual sex.
"We wouldn't have minded keeping it up." Bryanna was saying. "He was a
good way to scratch an itch and wasn't a jerk about it when he easily
could have been. Since he never showed any interest in getting into an
actual relationship, we figured that he'd stay available, so we were
pretty surprised when he turned us down last month."
"So much for not getting into a relationship." Tiana snickered and then
sighed. "I guess it's back to toys and that buzzer spell."
Tonks knew about the buzzer spell. It was one of the things she'd put on
Mr. Purple. She had to agree that it wasn't as good as having Harry go
down on her though.
"So he turned down a three-way for me?" She had to admit that that was
more than she would have expected a month ago. "I'll have to reward him
for that, especially since he didn't brag about it."
"If you want to reward him, all you need to do is make yourself look
fifteen or twenty years older." Bryanna advised.
"Why?" Tonks asked, puzzled.

"Harry's got a thing for older women. I'm pretty sure that he was
plotting out ways to seduce Professor Vector before he met you." Tiana
answered with a smirk.
Tonks had to snicker at that. She could easly imagine Harry pacing his
room with that broody look on his face as he planned ways to turn his
Arithmancy lesson into a different sort of lesson entirely.
Maybe she could reward him for his faithfulness with a detention..
XXXXX
"Are you ready for your detention, Mr. Potter?"
The question snapped Harry out of his focus on the book in front of him
and he looked towards his girlfriend in bafflement.
Then he continued to stare. It was definitely Tonks, but the slight

wrinkles at the corners of her mouth and eyes made her look a good deal
older. Harry would be hard pressed to explain why he found those hints of
age attractive, but he did. The new look was further complemented by a
rather severe but tight robe and a less playful hairstyle than she
normally preferred.
"Dora?" He asked in surprise.
She tsked and started walking over to him. "That's Ms. Tonks to you, Mr.
Potter. Now prepare yourself for detention."
Harry was catching on and had to fight to keep a grin off his face. He
still had no idea how he was supposed to prepare himself for detention
though.
The question was answered when she waved her wand and caused his clothes
to fly off of him until he was naked in the chair. Then she proceeded to
straddle him and reveal that there was nothing under that robe.
A little wriggling later and she had impaled herself on him, after which
she leaned in close to whisper into his ear. "Detention is now in
session."
Bryanna and Tiana put her up to this. Harry realized. He was going to
have to do something nice for them.
XXXXX
Harry appeared in an out of the way alley and promptly chucked the empty
bottle of Guiness that had been turned into a portkey into a nearby
garbage bin. Someone in the Department of Magical Transportation clearly
thought they were being clever by using a bottle of Irish beer as a
portkey to Ireland. Harry was impressed just by the fact that whoever had
made that portkey actually knew about a muggle beer brand.
He and Penny had tracked down the former manager for the Potter vineyards
to this Irish village, now he just had to find the right place. It was
one of those places that was big enough that not everyone knew each
other, but still small enough to be called 'sleepy'. In other words, the
type of place where a few magicals could vanish into the crowd with
relative ease as long as they weren't incredibly stupid.
He didn't want to be here at all, but it had to be done and he'd put it
off long enough already. He had to find out what exactly Parkinson had
done to usurp Potter business interests and this was his best bet. The
pottery business had been quite small and more of a nod to the family
name than anything else. The manager for that one had left Wizarding
Britain a long time ago and would have been difficult to find, which was
probably intentional.
A fifteen minute walk later and he was approaching an unassuming looking

house that had spells layered over it to make it even more unassuming.
There were even aversion spells targeting magicals present, but Harry
ignored them and knocked on the door.
A short while later, a confused looking man that looked to be somewhere

in his fifties opened the door, which meant that he was probably a couple
of decades older since he was a wizard, though he was dressed in regular
clothing. The confusion probably stemmed from the fact that he'd knocked
on his door despite the spells that were meant to discourage exactly
that.
"Ossian O'Sullivan?" Harry inquired.
The man looked a bit startled at hearing his name, but then took a closer
look at his visitor. "Harry Potter. I thought I might be seeing you on my
doorstep one day, though I hadn't been expecting you for a few more years
at least. Well come on in, we can't very well have this conversation on
the porch."
Harry did so, inwardly feeling rather amused by the old man's brusque
manner. Charlus had warned him about that, but it was something else to
experience it himself. He was led into a comfortable living room and told
to have a seat while his host went to grab a few drinks.
He took a look around while O'Sullivan was absent, noting the mix of
still pictures and magical animated ones. Aside from Ossian himself,
there were also pictures of two boys at various ages that must be his
sons and a woman that was presumably his wife. Judging by her absence in
the house, Harry guessed that she was dead and determined to avoid any
talk about family.
The old man came back a minute later and Harry ironically found himself
once again holding a bottle of Guiness. He clearly didn't care about any
underage drinking laws.
"Muggle beer." O'Sullivan explained unnecessarily. "Always found

Firewhiskey too strong for casual drinking and Butterbeer too sweet.
You'd think that wizards would die if they adopted some moderation with
the way they avoid it."
"You don't have to tell me twice, I was raised by muggles. Nearly did a
spit take the first time I tried pumpkin juice." Harry said with a shrug,
deciding not to mention that he wasn't too fond of beer either. No need
to come off as whiny.
"You'll be wanting to know why the Potters lost their business."

O'Sullivan stated, changing the subject abruptly.
"I'm fairly sure that there was some foul play involved, but I would like
the details." Harry said evenly, feeling oddly pleased by the straight to
the point approach.
"Hah!" The much older wizard chortled, apparently amused. "If you've
guessed that much without even talking to me then you're already twice
the man your father was, at least as far as brains are concerned."
"What do you mean?" Harry questioned, puzzled.
"James Potter wasn't stupid, but he was a brat." O'Sullivan stated

bluntly. "Never cared to learn about any of his responsibilities and only
wanted to run around with those friends of his and chase girls. He didn't
really start growing up until he was out of Hogwarts. Can't really blame
him I suppose. Charlus and Dorea were already getting old by the time
they had him and pampered the boy too much."
Harry had known that his father had been something of an entitled brat.
He'd also known that Charlus and Dorea had been approaching grandparent
age by the time they'd had him. He hadn't known that they'd spoiled him
however, but he supposed that he shouldn't be surprised that they'd
omitted that little detail.
"So he wasn't prepared to take the Lordship when Charlus and Dorea died?"
He asked.
"Didn't want to either." O'Sullivan grunted. "Too busy listening to

Dumbledore's shite and risking his neck fighting Voldemort."
Harry had to raise an eyebrow at finally hearing someone say the dreaded
V-word. He'd just about despaired of finding any traces of spine among
the magical population.
"Don't get me wrong. It was brave of him to fight that lunatic head on,
but stupid. He could've done more by convincing those feckin' gobshites
in the Wizengamot to stop sitting on their arses and seein' that
Voldemort isn't going to make things better." The old man ranted, his
Irish accent getting thicker in his agitation.
"Not that this isn't interesting, but how does it relate to the Potter
business?" Harry steered the conversation back on track, finding it
personally unlikely that his father could have managed that one even if
he had been politically inclined.
"Right, got a bit off topic there." O'Sullivan nodded. "Charlus was dead
and James didn't want to deal with anything until the war was over, so he
delegated authority to everyone he could instead."
"Ah." Harry said, pinching the bridge of his nose and wondering if his
father had really been that oblivious. The Potters wouldn't be the first
House to take a beating because a new Lord made stupid decisions. House
Black was a prime example of mismanagement; A magnificent manor torn down
and traded for a much smaller townhouse in London on the whims of one
Lord Black, a huge chunk of gold given to the Ministry by Sirius' own
grandfather for the dubius benefits of an Order of Merlin First Class,
the whole family nearly wiped out in their fervor to support Voldemort
and lastly, Sirius' decision to deliberately let the family name go
extinct out of spite for those long dead.
"Yes. Ah." The older man repeated flatly. "I tried telling him it was a
bad idea but he wouldn't listen, just signed over authority for me to 'do
whatever I needed to do' and apparated away before I could get a word in
edgewise. Then he went into hiding with his wife and word got out that I
was making decisions that only Lord Potter should have been making. Then
one day that streak of piss Parkinson showed up and made it clear that I
should sell the business to him for less than a quarter of what it was
worth and get out of the country. He wasn't very specific, but I know a
threat when I hear one. With your father in hiding and the Ministry
looking ready to surrender I was short on choices, so I sold and made
plans to move my family to the continent."
"You did the right thing." Harry sighed. His father and Sirius really had
been two peas in a pod, shortsighted, irresponsible and reckless. Sirius
was still dodging responsibility to this day and James Potter had as good
as painted a target on the man's back.
"Damn right I did. Charlus was my friend, but I wasn't going to risk my
family to protect Potter business interests." O'Sullivan grunted but
seemed pleased to hear it anyway. "Course', then Voldemort got himself
blown up going after you and the Potters were suddenly martyrs. Nobody
would have touched their stuff after that, but Parkinson had already
gotten what he wanted by then and it was all nice and legal too."
"For a given value of legal." Harry muttered, making the older man snort
in agreement. He finished what was left of the beer and stood up. "Thanks
for telling me about this."
"Sure." The other man said. "Throw a couple bone breakers in self-defense
at Parkinson's legs for me when you get around to it."
Harry's lips twitched in morbid amusement. The Irish wizard must have
seen Skeeter's article on the Pettigrew debacle and drawn his own
conclusions. He seemed to be under the impression that Harry was on a
revenge trip of some sort. "I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking
about."
"Right." O'Sullivan managed not to sound too sarcastic.

XXXXX
"I don't wanna go." Sirius pouted.
"Stop being such a big baby, Sirius." Harry sighed, wondering yet again
at his godfather's capacity for being childish.
"But it's going to be so boring." Sirius whined.
"Yes, I know." Harry said back irritably. "I'll agree to try casting a
few wandless prank spells if you agree to stop your bellyaching." Why did
he sometimes feel like a single parent when dealing with his godfather?
"Deal!" Sirius agreed, instantly cheered up. He'd turn his godson into a
prankster yet!
"But only if I think I can get away without anyone figuring out that it
was me." Harry provisioned.
"Fine." Sirius conceded. It was always better when the prankster remained
undetected anyway.
XXXXX
Yes, I know that not much happened in this one either. The next one
should be more eventful though.
Chapter 14
And the 14th chapter is finally arrived. I got a bit distracted by

various stuff, which is the cause of the delay.
Extra special thanks as always to Joe Lawyer for giving helpful advice
and making sure the chapter was polished up a bit before being posted.
XXXXX
Harry and Sirius were deposited by portkey on a stretch of misty moor

near to where the Quidditch World Cup was taking place, both of them
sporting identical looks of sullen resignation.
In front of them were two grumpy and tired looking wizards, dressed in
what Harry assumed they thought was normal non-magical wear but was in
reality fit to be the end result of a weekend drinking binge that nobody
could quite remember.
"Potter and Black?" One of them asked, holding out his hand for the
portkey.
"Yes." Sirius confirmed, handing over a badly mangled slinky.
"About a quarter of a mile walk that way, first field you come to." The
other said, pointing in the correct direction. "Site manager's called Mr.
Roberts. He's a muggle so watch what you say, Obliviators are being run
ragged keeping him in the dark."
The last was said with some humor, causing Harry to frown with
disapproval. He knew that obliviations could cause brain damage if done
shoddily and he didn't think that having it done over and over again was
too healthy either. It would have been a lot smarter to just let the man
in on the secret and then remove the salient details from his mind at the
end of it instead of applying repeated memory wipes. Come to think of it,
it would have also been a lot smarter to find a spot where the muggle
landowner could be paid to go on an extended vacation for however long
the World Cup lasted.
Admittedly, his frown had more to do with the newest bit of evidence on
the Ministry's ham handed approach than it did with concern for someone
he didn't know. He'd never had much of a reason to develop an especially
strong sense of empathy for strangers.
"Look at the bright side, at least you don't have to wear robes." Sirius
tried to point out the silver lining as they set off, knowing his
godson's preference for less bulky muggle wear.
"The bright side would be someone casting Fiendfyre on the damn stadium."
Harry refused to be cheered up. The Quidditch World Cup combined sports,
crowds and politics. Three things that he disliked in ascending
increments of disdain.
"That would be pretty bright." Sirius quipped.
"This might actually be one of the few occasions where puns would improve
a situation."
They came upon Mr. Roberts a short while later were directed to their
camping site without issue. They also paid without issue and looked
perfectly normal, which was apparently abnormal enough for the man to
comment.
"Gotta say that you're the most normal ones I've seen all morning."
Roberts said. "I had an old man come through here in a woman's night gown
just a short while ago that tried to pay me with these great gold coins."
Harry and Sirius exchanged looks that communicated volumes of

exasperation with their fellow wizards, who were clearly too lazy to put
in the two minutes of effort required to research appropriate muggle
attire.
"He probably had Alzheimer's." Harry said blandly, knowing that it was
probably a wasted effort to explain the many oddities the man had no
doubt seen.
"Might have." Roberts agreed and waved them on.
Harry shook his head, suspecting that the man was going to be obliviated
again soon.
"What's Alzheimer's?" Sirius asked.
"Nothing you need to worry about."
Sirius let it go and they soon made it towards the designated camp site.
Sirius' mood picked up a bit at the festive mood and good cheer hanging
about the place, his extroverted nature coming to the fore despite his
reluctance to actually come to the World Cup due to the politics
involved. Harry on the other hand, became even more sour. The brightly
colored tents, loud conversations and squealing children were more or
less the exact opposite of his conception of a good time.
He'd sink into an Occlumency trance later and drown his irritation in
Dark, but for now he indulged himself by scowling minutely at everything
around him.
Some of the tents were so egregiously magical that it was no wonder the
Obliviators had their hands full, despite Ministry instructions to appear
as muggle as possible. Similarly, the people were dressed in a hodgepodge
of clothes ranging from sensibly mundane to sad attempts at such and all
the way to those who outright disregarded those instructions and showed
up in robes. He was somehow not surprised to see that the obvious
foreigners were the ones that would most easily blend in. He'd always
gotten the feeling that Britain was among the more backward magical
nations, if not the most backward.
He noted that there were quite a few foreigners present. The borders of
magical nations were quite a bit more flexible than that of their muggle
counterparts and did not always coincide with them, but it was for the
most part close enough. He saw flags from all over Europe, some from
America despite the reputed bad blood between them and Britain, several
that he didn't recognize but guessed must be from Africa or India given
the skin tones of the people under them.
His eyes roved over a pair of wizards engaged in casual conversation and
then froze there in confusion.
One of the wizards was not a wizard.
He was wearing robes and stood in front of a tent with a chimney of all
things, but Harry's magesight saw only the lack of presence distinctive
of the non-magical.
"Harry, what's wrong?" Sirius asked, confused by his godson's sudden

stop.
Harry snapped out of his confusion and turned towards him, lying on sheer
reflex. "Nothing, thought I saw something."
"You sure? You looked pretty stunned." Sirius was clearly skeptical.
"Yes, I'm sure. Let's go set up that damned tent." He didn't know what a
muggle masquerading as a wizard was doing here and intended to keep quiet
about it until he could get more information.
They arrived at the spot reserved for them soon after and set up the tent
with a few waves of a wand, neither one having much desire to bother
doing it the normal way.
"I'm going to take a walk around the area." Harry announced once they
were done.
Now it was Sirius that looked stunned. "Really? I thought you were going
to stay in the tent and sulk until the game started."
"I changed my mind." Harry shrugged.
"Now I know that something's wrong." Sirius said with a frown. "You
didn't even bother denying that you would be sulking."
"Don't worry about it Sirius, I just want to take a look around."
"We can go together then, I was planning to do the same thing anyway."
"I'm not helping you pick up women."
XXXXX
Harry did eventually manage to ditch Sirius and set off on his own, once
his godfather was convinced that it was nothing to worry about.
The surroundings were still as loud and as annoying as ever, but Harry's
thoughts weren't on that any longer. He was hunting for undercover
muggles, wanting to know if the one he'd seen so far was an exception or
if there were more.
He slipped out of his and Sirius' assigned campsite with as much stealth
as he could muster. Several Hogwarts students recognized him and pointed
him out to their families, much to his irritation, but that was
thankfully as far as it went. At least he managed to avoid being seen by
the Weasleys and his estranged friend Ginny, that was one awkward
situation that he was happy to have avoided. They seemed to be trying to
set up their tent without magic and were failing spectacularly. He
remembered Ginny telling him about her father's fascination with muggles.
For a man that was supposed to be the Ministry's expert on all things
non-magical, he was impressively clueless. If the world was fair, a
muggleborn would have had his job.
Having no particular destination, he simply set out towards a random

grouping of people, keeping a sharp eye out for any people with no
magical aura around them.
Several hours later, he'd found quite a few. Both men and women, always
dressed to blend right in with the crowd, always looking as if they
belonged there.
Just one muggle sneaking in to a magical event could be the result of a

particularly clever and curius person convincing a wizard friend or
relative to get them in. As many as he'd seen could not be a coincidence.
Observers? Spies? Infiltrators? Why spy on a sporting event though?
All of them had some trinket on their person that was enchanted to negate
the effect of the Muggle-Reppeling Wards. That automatically meant that
they'd had magical help doing this, but how would they get that kind of
help?
The answer came to mind instantly. Had he not spoken to Penny about her
being forced to return to the mundane world less than a month ago? He
still remembered his internet conversation with the possibly Russian
wizard who had reamed him for posting Arithmancy problems online, warning
him that the mundane governments were not as blind as wizards would like
to think. Even the basest idiot could look at a muggleborn's school
records and see that they seemed to drop off the face of the Earth from
the ages of ten to eighteen. For someone in the know, it may as well be a
flashing neon sign. It would be beyond simple for some government spook
to approach a bitter muggleborn and offer them a job where they could
make use of their gifts and would be paid handsomely for it after they'd
been forced out of the Wizarding World by the bigotry inherent in it.
And they would accept. Not all of them. Some would stubbornly stick
around despite the discrimination, others would leave the country and try
their luck in a different magical nation and some would be too wary to
work for the government, but some would accept out of sheer spite for the
world that had made so many grand promises and then rejected them. The
Prime Minister and the reigning monarch were ostensibly supposed to be
the only muggles aware of the UK's magical population, but it was very
likely that large portions of the government knew of it. It figured
really...what government would be content to have another operating
within its borders with barely any oversight? They probably had plans to
make a hostile takeover at need and were using these spies to keep an eye
on things. And the greatest irony was that Hogwarts was training the very
people they needed to succeed for them.
But was this limited to Britain or was it happening everywhere? Were

France or Germany or Italy or Sweden as bad as Britain? He didn't know
how muggleborns were treated there. He was pretty sure that at least some
of these muggles were American, if for no other reason than because it
seemed that the United States were always involved when there was spying
to be done. It was a stereotype yes, but it was a stereotype for a
reason.
Harry took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. He was getting ahead of
himself, making assumptions and conjecture on very limited information.
He didn't even know if these muggles were in the employ of any
government. The only thing he really knew was that there were muggles
present and that they had magical items on their person to counter the
repelling wards. A reasonably skilled fifth year should be capable of
making an enchantment like that. For all he knew, they could just be
family members of magicals sneaking in on an event they wouldn't have
been able to see otherwise.
He nearly snorted to himself. Optimism was not something that worked for
him. But even if they were spies, there wasn't anything he could do about
it. He couldn't even blame the muggle government for spying on them. He
wouldn't trust wizards in their place either.
He didn't like it though, didn't like it at all. He abruptly felt exposed

and vulnerable and agitated. It took him an effort of will to keep
walking normally instead of marching back to his and Sirius' tent as fast
as possible. He was now acutely aware of any action on his part that
might draw attention.
Which was why he nearly reacted with violence when someone ran up behind
him and grabbed his arm.
Harry tore his arm out of the small hand and spun around, half expecting
to see a gun pointed at him despite the absurdity of such a notion.
Instead of that he saw the luminous blue eyes and blonde hair of a good
friend.
"Luna?" He asked, utterly baffled. "What are you doing here?"
"Hello, Harry." Luna said, smiling up at him with that slightly vacant
look of hers. "Daddy and I have been here for a week. We're intending to
expose the World Cup for what it is."
"And what is it?" Harry asked, feeling morbidly amused by Luna's habitual
conspiracy theories in light of his recent discovery.
Luna pulled him down so that she could whisper into his ear
conspiratorially. "It's a plot by the Ministry to swindle hard working
people out of their gold."
Harry, having never seen the appeal of paying exorbitant prices to watch
a boring sports event, was inclined to agree with her on this one.
"It does sound like something the Ministry would do." He conceded with a
smile.
"Yes, Fudge has no doubt already stationed his invisible army of

heliopaths around the area to keep the foreign Ministries from taking any
of the gold for themselves." Luna added.
"I'll keep an eye out for them." Harry promised, though he was a great
deal more dubious about this one. Even if heliopaths did exist, which was
in no way certain, Fudge wasn't qualified to command an army of baked
potatoes, much less one of invisible fire spirits.
"Is that why you're here?" Luna asked with a note of excitement in her
tone.
"No, I'm not here to look for heliopaths." He said with a sigh. "I'm here
because Fudge invited me and Sirius to sit with him in the top box and we
couldn't find a way to refuse."
Bumbling idiot Fudge may be, but he had done them a favor by pushing the
DMLE investigation of Pettigrew's death and Sirius' guilt along. Charlus
and Dorea had warned them that they couldn't just snub the man afterwards
without the risk of making him an enemy. The fact that Dumbledore had
also warned him that there would be no simple way to extricate himself
from the politics now that he'd dived in annoyed him quite a bit. He
never liked it when the old man was right.
"That sounds dreadfully dull." Luna observed.
"I will be shocked if it isn't." Harry said wryly. At least Sirius liked
quidditch, he didn't even have that luxury. "Speaking of which, I should
probably find Sirius and get to our seats. Will you still be here after
the game?"
"Yes, my tent is right over there." Luna said and pointed off to the
side. "Unless the game lasts more than a couple of hours. If that happens
then daddy and I will leave."
"So will I." Harry said, having no desire to watch a quidditch match that
went on forever because the seekers couldn't catch the snitch.
XXXXX
Locating Sirius might have been difficult if not for the handy
communication mirrors that the man had made for them. Actually getting
him to stop talking to the American witch he'd been chatting up and going
to meet Fudge had been far more difficult.
"Couldn't you have showed up just a little bit later?" Sirius sulked.
"Mindy and I were having a fascinating discussion on the differences
between our respective cultures."
"I'm sure you'll be able to 'share your culture' with Mindy after the
game." Harry said blandly, knowing exactly what his godfather had been
angling for.
"I guess." Sirius conceded grudgingly. "And what did you get up to?"
"I ran into Luna." Harry told him, leaving out his discovery of the
hidden muggles. Despite his dire suspicions, he still had very little
proof of anything. No point spreading around ineffective paranoia.
"Learn anything interesting?" Sirius asked with a snicker. He'd heard a

thing or two about the girl's outlandish stories.
"I learned that the Quidditch World Cup is a scam to separate people from
their gold and that Fudge has his heliopaths stationed as guards." Harry
answered, just as amused. He'd never mock Luna for her strange beliefs
and indeed found them to be part of her charm, but he had to admit that
they sounded highly unlikely to be true.
"Maybe we should ask Fudge about that?" Sirius mused, imagining the
baffled look on the Minister's face.
"No, let's just smile politely and hope that this is the last time we
have to deal with politics." Harry grumbled, mood souring as they
approached the top box.
"Will you at least turn someone's hair green?" Sirius asked hopefully.
"We'll see." Harry answered, already sinking into the light Occlumency
trance that he suspected he would need in order to get through this
without gnashing his teeth in irritation.
They made it to the top box in short order and found a slight surprise
waiting for them there.
It was full of redheads. Weasleys to be specific. How they had gotten

seats in the top box he had no idea.
"Ah, Harry, Sirius, you're finally here." Fudge said enthusiastically

when he caught sight of them. He was rather notably wearing robes instead
of the Ministry decreed muggle wear.
"Cornelius." Harry greeted calmly and Sirius simply nodded.
"I'm sure you already know most of the Weasleys." Fudge said next,
apparently taking it upon himself to do the introductions.
A bevy of greetings came from the family of redheads, ending with an

awkward 'hello, Harry' from Ginny that filled the air with the remnants
of their collapsed friendship. Amusingly enough, Percy was looking
insanely jealous of the attention that Fudge was paying him. He'd have to
tell Penny about that one later.
"Next we have Ludo Bagman, the head of the Department for Magical Games
and Sports." Fudge went on obliviously, introducing a man in wasp themed
robes. "Used to be a star beater for the Wimbourne Wasps you know. He'll
be the commentator for the match."
Harry and Sirius exchanged handshakes with the excitable looking man,
with Harry for once being thankful that Fudge was too dense to notice the
awkwardness between him and Ginny.
"Dolores Umbridge, my Senior Undersecretary but currently the acting head

for the Department of International Magical Cooperation until we can
appoint someone more permanent to the position." Harry had noticed the
toadlike woman in the pink cardigan as soon as they'd entered the top box
and had been wondering who she was.
"How do you do?" She said in the most sickeningly sweet tone that Harry
had ever heard, extending her hand for him to take.
The painfully fake girlish tone inspired in him the urge to knock her
teeth out. Not with magic either, but with his fist. It was a singularly
irrational response to a four word sentence, especially in light of the
fact that even Draco Malfoy's characteristic whine when something didn't
go his way didn't get this much of a rise from him. He had no idea what
it was about her, but this near hatred that he felt for someone he'd just
met was deeply troubling.
This initial impression was only further reinforced when he shook her
hand. It felt as if he'd someone had taken a piss on his own hand and he
wiped it on his pants without even thinking about what it would look
like.
Harry realized how much he'd just insulted her when he saw her expression
tighten and swamped his thoughts with Dark even further to prevent
another loss of control like that. There was something very, very wrong
with this pink-clad abomination. Her magical presence felt like an open
septic tank.
Fudge the Oblivious came to the rescue once again by introducing the
Bulgarian Minister of Magic and then announcing that it was time to start
the game.
It was to begin with a show put on by each of the teams. Harry didn't
expect to be the slightest bit impressed or interested by whatever they
had in mind.
That opinion evaporated when the Bulgarians sent out the Veela.
Every single one of them was golden haired and incredibly beautiful, but
it was their magic that truly captured his attention. It glowed with
Light in a way that no wizard's or witch's magic he'd ever seen did and
when they began to dance he could see it billow outwards to inflame the
magic of everyone around them.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ron Weasley trying to climb down
there with a look of mad adoration on his face, held back only by his
father. The twins and Percy were more restrained, but still looked rather
out of it. Sirius was on the edge of his seat and fidgeting as if he
wanted to try climbing down too. Fudge was very flushed and fiddling
compulsively with his ugly lime green bowler hat.
Umbridge had the exact opposite reaction. He couldn't see her face too
well, but he thought that she was wearing a hateful sneer and the ugly
feeling to her magic deepened yet further.
As for Harry himself, he was still fully in control of his faculties, but
he felt his runes prickle powerfully, especially Sol.
XXXXX
Had the issue of Sirius' innocence never come to light, it would have
been Barty Crouch that would have had a place reserved in the top box,
where he would have smuggled his son in a bout of pity after hearing his
house elf plead to take him there and which would have had a great many
ramifications for the future.
As it was, Barty Crouch was at home, keeping his Death Eater son firmly
under the Imperius and scowling angrily at his misfortune. First he lost
his position as Head of the DMLE thanks to his son being a Death Eater
and now he lost his position as Head of International Magical Cooperation
because Sirius Black wasn't a Death Eater. It was enough to drive a man
to rage.
The fury of Barty Crouch Sr. wasn't really important though, as the man
was far too straight laced and by the book to do anything aside from
scowl. It did mean however, that Barty Crouch Jr. would not be going
anywhere without outside help. That help would have been received had
news of the younger Crouch's situation reached the ears of Lord
Voldemort, but it hadn't, so it wasn't.
XXXXX
Harry was dreadfully bored.
The quidditch game had gone on for quite a while now but failed to
entertain him and he possessed the typical introvert's disdain for hyped
up atmosphere, leaving him not only bored but also exasperated. Sirius
was focused so intently on the movements of the players as to make him
think that he was using it as an excuse to avoid talking to anyone,
leaving Harry to deflect Fudge's bumbling attempts to form some kind of
political alliance with them. The bastard.
The Veela were still on the field beneath the game, but he could only
stare at them thoughtfully for so long, not to mention that the prickling
of his runes was damned distracting. He was almost tempted to pull a
prank despite having only told Sirius he'd do that to get the man to stop
pouting.
Speaking of the Veela, Umbridge continued sneering at them and had more
than once made some very racist comments in that infuriating saccharine
tone about 'mongrel creatures' being allowed this close to people without
restraints, giving him a good idea of her general personality. No doubt
it was people like her who were the driving force behind the bigotry of
the Wizarding World.
Well, the British Wizarding World at any rate, as Harry had noted the
Bulgarian Minister becoming increasingly agitated around the loathsome
toad.
The only part of this game that had been interesting to him so far had
been when the Veela had apparently gotten a bit too passionate about
their mascot duties and nearly attacked Ireland's leprechauns by
transforming into a bird hybrid of sorts. Luna's book had mentioned that
ability but seeing it in person was something else.
In his desire to retreat from all this, he'd sunk very deep into his
Occlumency trance and was now constantly channeling his emotions into the
river of Dark in his mind. It made him feel rather disconnected from the
physical world, but it was better than feeling his temper constantly
surging to the surface by the combination of Bagman's loud commentary,
the crowd's yelling, Fudge's stupidity and Umbridge's...everything.
He didn't notice when the runes on his body began to chill or when his
breath started misting. He didn't notice when the people around him began
to shiver and seemed to lose their fervor for cheering. He didn't notice
when Bagman's excited commentary started sounding forced. He didn't
notice when the air around him started feeling hopeless and joyless.
He did notice when Sirius took a firm grip of his arm and leaned over to
whisper harshly into his ear. "Stop it, Harry."
Harry blinked slowly and came back to himself. What had he been doing?
"You felt like a mini dementor." Sirius explained in a low tone, seeing
his confusion. "I don't think anyone else noticed, but you have to stop
it."
Harry blinked again. That was new. Then again, he'd never focused on the
Dark so heavily before either. That was...interesting. Something to watch
out for, but definitely interesting. The fact that that it was after
sunset might also have something to do with it. His particular form of
Occlumency always seemed easier after dark.
With him no longer unintentionally killing the mood people returned to

their cheering, but slowly and more than a bit bewildered by the sudden
burst of gloom. Harry was deep in thought and Fudge seemed to have lost
interest in talking to him.
XXXXX
The game came to an end shortly afterwards with an Irish victory but
Viktor Krum catching the snitch, much to the roaring approval of the
crowd. Harry still didn't see the appeal.
"I hope you've enjoyed the game." Fudge was saying, enthusiastically
shaking Harry and Sirius' hands.
"It was an experience." Harry allowed. A bad experience that I hope never
to repeat.
"I can get you tickets to more professional games if you're interested,
just come talk to me." Fudge went on in what he probably thought was a
subtle hint that further association with him would have benefits.
"I'm still a Hogwarts student, so I don't see how I would have time for
that." Harry evaded.
"Oh." Fudge said, looking rather nonplussed. Apparently he'd forgotten

that little detail. "Yes, of course. What about you, Sirius?"
"Wouldn't be any fun without my godson there." Sirius also evaded,
shamelessly using Harry as an excuse.
"Well no matter, I'm sure we'll be seeing more of each other in the
future." Fudge said brightly and left soon after, taking his ugly pink
shadow with him.
"At fucking last." Harry said with feeling once they were far enough
away.
"You can say that again." Sirius concurred.
"I'm going to find Luna." Harry announced after a short silence.
"Before you do that, mind telling me what your little dementor

impersonation was about earlier?" Sirius asked pointedly.
"Everything around me was pissing me off, so I opened a mental channel to

the Dark and started feeding everything into it." Harry explained with a
shrug. "I didn't expect it to have any tangible effect on reality, but
it's very interesting that it did."
"Don't play around with this, Harry." Sirius warned. "We don't want a
repeat of what happened during Christmas."
"Don't worry, Sirius, I'll be careful." Harry assured him, which was
really not very reassuring.
"Harry..." Sirius said disapprovingly.
"It'll be fine." Harry waved him off. "It's not like I'm going to do
anything especially risky and I actually know what I'm doing now."
Sirius sighed, knowing that his godson wouldn't stop unless he wanted to.
He was far too curious and too willful for that.
"Just...be careful." He finished lamely.
"I already said I would be, didn't I?" Harry said back with a raised
eyebrow. "Now go find Mindy and show her some more of our culture."
Sirius' mood brightened considerably at the thought of the leggy American

witch. That did sound like a good idea.
The two wizards parted ways, each one looking to spend some quality time
in female company, albeit very different types of female company.
Neither one noticed that they were being followed.
XXXXX
There were eight of them, all Death Eaters who had avoided Azkaban either
through anonymity or by claiming that they were under Imperius. None of
them were Lords, but some had friends who were. Most thought that Lucius
Malfoy was their friend as he had protected them or otherwise helped them
in the past. All of them were convinced that Lucius wanted to return to
the days when the Dark Lord was at the height of his power and would
gladly don the masks and robes of Death Eaters once again to prove to the
mudbloods and muggle lovers that they hadn't won.
Lucius liked them because they were petty minded sadists and laughably
easy to manipulate. A few offhand comments and they were all set to cause
a scene that he could take credit for if it proved useful or deny all
responsibility of if it became a liability. It had been equally simple to
point them in the direction of Potter and Black while making them think
it was their idea in the first place.
They had been keeping a discreet eye on their targets for a while now and
were just about ready to make their move.
Well, it wasn't really a discreet eye since they weren't exactly

experienced at stalking people unobtrusively. Any sufficiently observant
person would have been able to spot them, but neither Harry nor Sirius
had been on the lookout. Even Harry's bout of watchfulness had been
focused on the muggles he'd found rather than on any wizards looking to
do him harm and he'd gotten a bit desensitized to magicals staring at him
by now.
XXXXX
Sirius had discovered several important facts about Mindy since meeting
her a few hours before the game.
One, she was here alone because she'd caught her boyfriend cheating on
her just a few days before they were set to leave the United States for
the World Cup.
Two, she was having trouble enjoying herself because of fact one.
Three, she was a sucker for a British accent, especially if it was

attached to a devilishly handsome individual such as himself.
Four, she was using him as the rebound guy to have a quick fling with as
a means of getting over her now ex-boyfriend.
Sirius, being the gallant man that he was, had no problem making such a
sacrifice to help a woman in need. That was why they had retired to her
internally expanded magical tent not long after the quidditch game ended.
As the tent had noise cancelling spells placed on it, the sudden
appearance of fire came as a nasty shock.
Almost as soon as he saw it, Sirius pushed Mindy aside from where he'd
been mounting her doggystyle(his favorite position, for obvious reasons)
and scrambled for his wand.
"Hey, What the...hell?" Mindy started angrily at the sudden rough
treatment only to trail off faintly as she saw her tent burning.
"Get your wand, we're under attack." Sirius ordered, hastily pulling on
his pants while somehow managing to cover the entrance to the tend with
his wand at the same time. Wizard tents did not simply catch fire.
"Under attack? By who?!" Mindy demanded but did as she was told anyway,
dressing as hastily as him.
"I don't know, but we're going to have to go out there." Sirius replied
grimly.
Staying in a magically expanded space as it was destroyed was a horrible

idea all around. Sudden spatial contraction was not healthy, especially
if the space wasn't empty. They couldn't apparate either, as wards had
been set up against it to prevent people from just setting up tents for
free.
"Alright, here's what we're going to do. I'll run out first and get their
attention, you follow a few seconds later and run to safety. Ready? GO!"
Had he been fresh out of Hogwarts, Sirius would have told her to help him
fight, but he'd matured a bit since then. Very few wizards and witches
used any kind of battle magic after learning about the basics in school.
Most could barely even remember how to cast anything combat related a few
years after graduation. Asking a person like that to make a stand against
hardened killers wouldn't end well.
"Wait!" Mindy cried, but Sirius had already dashed through the tent flap,
leaving her no choice but to do as he'd said.
XXXXX
The four Death Eaters outside were already drunk on their own power and
the fear of the fleeing American magicals. This was truly what it meant
to be a pureblood wizard! The only thing better than seeing the scum
running away was taking your time killing them, but they had an objective
aside from telling the world that Voldemort wasn't forgotten and they
wouldn't have had time to indulge themselves anyway.
They had lost sight of Black in this area, meaning that he must have gone
into one of the tents. Having neither the time noror the inclination to
find out which one, they'd simply started setting fire to all of them.
They knew that their quarry would have to show himself soon, and then he
would die.
Or so they thought.
For all his horsing around, Sirius wasn't an idiot. He'd been an active
combatant in the last war and knew a thing or two about what to do and
what not to do in this situation. He knew that peeking cautiously out of
the tent was a stupid idea. For one, it was impossible to say how long he
and Mindy had before the space expansion charms collapsed and for
another, it would make him a sitting duck.
With this in mind, he bolted through the exit at a sprint and went for
the nearest bit of cover that he could see, which was another tent some
distance away.
"There he is! Get him!" One of the expected attackers shouted.
Sirius saw Death Eater masks and quickly hurled a few Stunning Spells in
their general direction, unsurprised when they were blocked. He saw Mindy
come out of the tent and make a run for it while their backs were turned.
He'd probably never see her again, which was a damn shame.
Sirius was more powerful than most, but four-on-one odds weren't to his
liking. He could only block or dodge so many spells after all. With that
in mind, he made a run for it, turning into a dog mid stride. A few
spells flew around him, but the Death Eathers seemed to have some trouble
aiming low enough to his a dog, especially a black dog at night.
XXXXX
"Well, well, well, what do we have here?" A man in a skull mask sneered
mockingly. "Out for a stroll with your girlfriend, Potter?"
Harry looked around himself warily, finding to his dismay that he and
Luna were surrounded by four of what could only be Death Eaters.
Luna had suggested that they go for a walk around the grounds while they
caught up on their respective summers. They hadn't gone far before a
panic of some kind had started over in what Harry had worriedly realized
was the American section. The chaos had quickly spread and soon the whole
place was in a panic with very few knowing why. Harry had refused to join
the mindless stampede and had stayed put until he found out what was
going on. Then these four had used the distraction to come up on them
without notice and the worry had shifted to more immediate things.
"What's wrong, Potter?" One of the others chimed in with a mocking sneer
of his own. "Is the Vanquisher of the Dark Lord too scared to say
anything?"
If he was being honest, Harry would admit that this was a fairly accurate
assessment of the situation. While he was quite sure that he was more
powerful than any of these masked thugs, he had zero combat experience.
He was a thinker, not a fighter. He studied magic and practiced
spellcasting, but he did it because he was truly fascinated by magic and
wanted to learn more. Even the looming threat of a not-fully-deceased
Dark Lord hadn't really spurred him to seriously train for magical combat
since he was planning to finish the twat off before he could properly
resurrect himself. He'd always just sort of assumed that knowing spells
would be enough. Now that he was actually faced with the prospect of
battle, the stupidity of that assumption was glaringly obvious.
But even if he had been a fighter, this was a deeply unfavorable

situation. His wandless magic was still too slow to really be combat
viable and any quick movements would undoubtedly be responded to with
lethal force. The Death Eaters presences were full of deadly intent.
It was that last point in particular that let him know that he had to do
something. The Death Eaters would only be amused by their own taunts for
a short while before they acted on that intent.
So Harry closed his eyes and swathed his thoughts in Dark, needing the
focus of a clear mind unburdened by fear or adrenaline.
"Look at that, lads! He's giving up!" The apparent leader jeered.
Harry ignored him and began constructing a spell inside of himself. He'd
once used his hands as a replacement focus, but had long since realized
that it was just another illusion.
"So much for the mighty Boy-Who-Lived." One of the others added.
Harry continued carefully forming the spell. He would only get one chance
at this, so it had to be done right.
"Hey, do we have time to have some fun with the girl? She's not bad
looking." The only one to have been silent so far asked hopefully.
Harry felt a swell of rage at the question, but it floundered in the

tranquil Dark until he grabbed hold of it and pushed it into the spell.
Luna trembled and pressed herself closer to him. That worked just fine
for him as he included an exemption for her in his spell.
"Afraid not." The leader said with some regret. "Best get on with it and
leave before the Aurors show up."
Knowing that he was out of time, Harry released the spell. An

omnidirectional wave of force rushed out from his body, throwing all four
Death Eaters into the air with all the strength of will and rage he'd
poured into it.
"Come on!" He shouted, grabbing the surprised Luna's hand and making a
run for it. "Into the forest."
It was fortunate that the entire camping ground hugged the edges of the
forest, so they were able to reach the trees before the Death Eaters got
their wits about them.
Harry pulled Luna into hug against a tree some distance into the forest
and took his Invisibility Cloak out of the Bag of Holding that never left
his side.
"Don't make a sound." He said softly as he drew it over them, his voice
calm and steady despite the rapid beat of his heart. The Dark kept him
calm. On instinct, he reached out to envelop Luna's aura in his own,
soothing fear and urging obedience.
Luna looked up at him trustingly and nodded in understanding.

"Where did the little shites go?!" Came an angry demand less than a
minute later.
"I saw them running here and they couldn't have gone far, spread out and
find them." The leader ordered.
That was the end of that conversation as the Death Eaters focused on
finding them. Safely hidden under the Invisibility Cloak, Harry and Luna
watched them blunder about with increasing urgency. They tried casting a
few spells as well, but none of them seemed to know the Human-Presence
Revealing Spell, for which he was grateful. He still didn't know why that
spell worked against his special Invisiblity Cloak or how to block it.
The Death Eaters had been slowly moving away from their position when a
rustle of another group grabbed all of their attention.
They nearly attacked each other before they realized that all of them
were Death Eaters.
"Merlin's saggy bollocks, I thought you were the Ministry." The leader of
the first party exhaled in relief.
"Did you get Potter?" The leader of the second group demanded without
preamble.
"No, we chased him here along with that Lovegood bint, but they just
vanished on us." The scowl in the voice was clearly audible.
"Black got away from us too." The other one admitted grudgingly. "Turned
into a dog and ran in here somewhere. We've had no luck finding him."
Harry was relieved to hear that. He'd been worried for his godfather. The
rest of it was somewhat more disturbing though. This was sounding less
like a group of idiots lashing out at him for Voldemort's demise and more
like a planned assassination attempt.
"Shite!" The first swore. "We can't stay here much longer."
Harry allowed himself a small relieved smile. He and Luna were under an
invisibility cloak and Padfoot was also as good as invisible in the dark
forest with his black fur. Everything was going to be fine and these
would-be assassins would be leaving with their objective unfulfilled.
Then a beam of light from a wand became visible from the direction that
Harry, Luna and their pursuers had come from.
"Luna!" Came the distant but familiar voice of Xenophilius Lovegood.

"Turnip, where are you?"
"Bring that freak over here." The leader of the first group ordered.
Harry felt Luna tense against him and he wanted to curse at concerned
parents everywhere. The Death Eaters had been on the verge of giving up
and now they had a hostage.
Xeno was even less of a fighter than Harry and was easily captured as a
result.
"Potter!" The leader called out once the man was relieved of his wand and
dragged to their location. "Show yourself or your little slut's father
dies!"
Luna squeezed his arm with all the strength of her fingers and he didn't
need to look at her to know that she was looking at him with terrified
eyes.
He had no idea what to do. Had it been almost anyone else, he would have
felt sorry for the unlucky bastard as he was killed for being in the
wrong place at the wrong time, but he would not have even considered
showing himself. He was not so noble as to sacrifice himself for the
chance of saving a stranger. But it wasn't a stranger, it was Luna's
father.
Harry didn't know Xenophilius Lovegood too well. He'd only spoken to the
man briefly today and gotten the impression of a loving if slightly
strange father. A good man for all his oddities. He still would have
let him die if Luna wasn't his friend.
But she was his friend, so he edged them around the base of the wide tree
they'd been hiding against so that they weren't in the Death Eaters
direct line of sight.
"Running out of time, Potter!" The Death Eater warned.
"No matter what happens, stay hidden." Harry murmured to his friend
softly so that the sound wouldn't carry.
Luna looked torn between wanting to save his father and not wanting her
friend to walk into almost certain death. Harry didn't want to go either.
He wasn't in any hurry to die and he didn't really believe that the Death
Eaters would just let Xeno go if he gave himself up, but he had to try.
Luna had already seen one parent die in front of her and he wanted to
spare her a repeat of that experience. Sirius was still out there
somewhere, so there was still a chance that this could end without anyone
dying.
Anyone important at any rate.
"I'm here." Harry said as he stepped out from behind the tree.
"So nice of you to join us." The lead Death Eater said sarcastically and
waved his wand. "Accio Potter's wand!"
Harry could have easily resisted the spell, but chose not to. The wand
wouldn't have done him any good anyway and it might lull them into a
false sense of security since they were probably assuming that his
earlier trick had been done with a wand even if they hadn't seen it.
Instead, he began to construct another spell. No simple wave of force
this time, but something more lethal. There was no room for kiddie gloves
when the other side was planning to kill you. The Dark in his mind seemed
to approve, insofar as a non-living, non-sentient, primal magical entity
could approve of anything.
"I could hardly refuse the invitation you gave me." He said blandly, most
of his focus on the spell he was crafting. The base of his intent first,
something explosive and flashy. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a
black shadow with gleaming eyes and the muted magical presence of his
godfather sneaking through the woods.
"Where's your friend?" One of the others asked hungrily, the same one
that had been so open with his intentions towards Luna earlier in fact.
"Safe." Harry answered in the same bland tone. Xeno gave him a look of
mixed gratitude and apology, but he ignored it. He also decided that that
Death Eater would make a fine target. The group of masked wizards had
drifted closer together since he'd showed himself and that one was just
slightly off center.
"Maybe I'll pay her a visit after we kill you." The same Death Eater
leered. "I'm sure she'll be lonely with her boyfriend and father both
dead."
"She probably would be." Harry agreed, still in that bland tone. The
would-be rapist was helping him more than he knew. All the emotional
energy that his words were generating was going into the spell. It was
becoming an angry, violent thing. He doubted that he would have been able
to aim it at any of the others even if he wanted to.
"I'll be sure to take my time then."
The spell glowed in his mind now like a beacon, still incomplete. The
Void knew that he was intending to send at least one more soul its way
and Dark seeped into it, turning the Fireball Spell that he was making
into something hungry. The Void was always eager to take anything it
could; objects, spells, souls, magic, anything that hastened the heat
death of the Universe for even the tiniest fraction of a moment. There
was a reason why the Vanishing Spell was so easy to cast. A physicist
would have been horrified to learn that wizards could casually destroy
matter and baffled as to where all its energy was going without a
cataclysmic explosion.
But Harry knew. It had even featured as the riddle to enter Ravenclaw
Tower a time or two. The textbook explanation was that Vanished objects
go into 'non-being, which is to say, everything'. They went to the Void.
Not that magicals ever seemed to grasp the importance of this bit of
information.
"Enough!" One of the others barked. "Lets just kill them and get it over
with. We're cutting it close as it is."
"Would you mind telling me who put you up to this first?" Harry asked.
The spell wasn't ready yet, it was still too unstable and prone to
backfiring. He needed more time.
The leader scoffed at his question. "As if someone needs to put us up to

killing the Boy-Who-Lived."
Lucius had been very subtle.
Harry's attention slipped from his spell for a moment in his surprise.
He'd been sure that there was someone pulling strings in the background.
He had no time to think about it though, as the maintenance of the
unstable Fireball Spell took almost the entirety of his attention.
"Now die!" The leader suddenly spat, raising his wand in the air. "Avada-
"
Harry's eyes widened in surprise and panic at the sudden lethal turn of
events. He hadn't expected to have so little warning. Desperate, he flung
out his right arm and hurled the Fireball at its intended target. Sirius
jumped out of his hiding spot and let loose with his own spells.
His spell hadn't been ready and his momentary loss of focus had
destabilized it further. Harry roared in pain as his arm caught fire from
the backlash, the dark crimson orb of flame coming out wild and
misshapen. But it still struck the Death Eater and exploded into a
hungry, grasping flame that clung to the wizards and seared flesh far
more effectively than any normal fire.
The situation devolved into screaming and spellfire, but Harry registered
none of it. He'd been thrown to the ground by the explosion and his full
attention was on frantically trying to put out the flames still
flickering over his arm. The anger infused into them gave way easily
since it was his own and targeted at the Death Eater, but the Dark was
less cooperative. It wanted to keep consuming something, anything, even
if it was the wizard who had brought it into being. It took long, painful
seconds before it finally yielded to his will.
"Harry!" Sirius yelled. "Are you okay?"
Harry nodded with a tightly clenched jaw and sweat streaked face. His arm
was a beacon of agony up to his elbow and gave off a nauseating smell of
charred meat, but he hadn't been hit with any other spells. He took a
quick look around and saw that they were alone. The Death Eaters must
have decided that it was time to go despite having superior numbers.
There were five bodies on the ground, three of which still had the dark
crimson fire sticking to them like napalm, along with some of the
surrounding forest. Another had no obvious cause of death in the
darkness, but was assuredly dead. And the last...
"Daddy!" Luna wailed and ran towards the only body that wasn't dressed in
black robes.
"What happened?" Harry asked his godfather, heart dropping with the
weight of his failure as he listened to his friend sobbing over the body
of her father.
"He tackled one of them and got cursed for his trouble." Sirius said
somberly.
XXXXX
The Aurors arrived almost immediately afterwards, too late as usual

according to Sirius' muttering. His Invisibility Cloak and wand were
collected and returned to him as they were transported to the Ministry
along with the bodies of the dead, a newly orphaned Luna going eerily
quiet as she held on to his undamaged hand and stared vacantly at
something that only she could see.
Once at the Ministry, a healer had given her a Dreamless Sleep potion and
she'd drank it without a word, falling asleep on the provided bed soon
after.
That same healer was now slathering his arm with burn salve while he
spoke to an exasperated looking Amelia Bones.
"Mr. Potter, you seem to have a knack for getting in trouble." The
formidable DMLE director was saying, looking more than a bit displeased.
"They tried to kill me first." Harry said pre-emptively, shrugging as he

did so. He was finding it entirely impossible to feel anything but
satisfaction at the deaths he'd caused this day. Because of those Death
Eaters, his friend was now an orphan.
"You seem strangely unbothered by your rising body count." Bones

commented, wanting to know if she was going to have another murderer on
her hands in the future.
"I was never one for emotional blubbering and I'm not going to waste my
sympathy on people that don't deserve it." He explained. That he also
suspected that there was something about the Dark that literally made him
unable to feel regretful about sending more lives to the Void he left
unsaid. He'd wondered about that ever since the Pettigrew incident and
his subsequent lack of regret. He was now even more certain that his
rituals had knocked loose whichever psychological screw made the majority
of people abhor killing. To him it was just speeding up the inevitable
and defending his own life in the process. A somewhat worrying revelation
perhaps, but he wasn't killing randomly so it was fine.
Amelia pursed her lips, more in thought than in disapproval. That he had
acted in self-defense tonight was beyond doubt. The Death Eater masks and
robes certainly proved that and there was a glut of witnesses. Her only
problem was the amount of bodies turning up around the young Potter and
the magic used to make them.
The healer was by this point done with the burn salve and had taken to
waving his wand over Harry's right arm.
"I am sorry, Mr. Potter, but I'm afraid that I can't keep your arm from
scarring." The old man said regretfully. "It was a cursed fire and wounds
like that never heal properly. I am surprised that I was able to heal it
as much as I did given how much it is resisting my spells and the salve."
"It's fine." Harry said indifferently. The skin on his right arm was full
of scar tissue up to the elbow now, but it was alright. He hadn't lost
any feeling or dexterity in the limb and it didn't even look as bad as he
had expected it to given how painful it had been at the time. He was
honestly more worried about Luna than he was about a few scars.
The healer was wrong though. It had been his runes that were resisting
the healing spells rather than the wounds themselves. They'd also been
working to heal him ever since he'd been injured, though he didn't think
the scars would be disappearing anytime soon.
"Are you ready to give me your statement now?" Amelia asked once the
healer had left the room.
"Sure." Harry shrugged, knowing that there was no avoiding it. He and
Sirius had been separated as soon as they were brought to the Ministry
and had no chance to come up with a story that let him keep all his
secrets. He would have to be truthful. Getting caught lying was worse
than telling the truth.
The story was short and took no more than a few minutes to tell, even
with Madam Bones asking for clarification every so often. Things only hit
a snag once he was approaching the end of his tale.
"...I knew that they wouldn't let Luna's father go even if I gave myself
up, but I had to try. My arm didn't actually get burned by one of the
Death Eaters spells, but from my own. I was preparing to cast it from the
moment I stepped out from under my Invisibility Cloak and released it
when their leader started casting the Killing Curse. My spell wasn't
ready yet and it backfired."
Bones looked at him shrewdly for a moment before speaking. "Your wand was
found on one of the Death Eater's bodies and I've never heard of a spell
backfiring like this."
"I didn't use my wand." Harry was hoping that telling her that one
important secret would keep her from digging too deeply.
"You expect me to believe that you cast a spell that killed three people
without a wand?" She asked skeptically.
Harry simply pointed a finger at a quill that the healer had left behind
and sent it looping through the air.
"I've known about my magic since I was six." He explained to the stunned
DMLE director. "I had no idea about wands at that point, but I
desperately wanted to do magic, so I practiced. I devoted every spare
moment to figuring out how to do it on purpose rather than by accident.
It took me years before I succeeded, but it's still slower than using a
wand."
"The healer said that your arm was burned by cursed fire." Bones said
after taking a minute to absorb this revelation. Wandless magic was
considered all but impossible in this age. It had been rare in any age.
"He's wrong." Harry stated simply. "A wand acts as both a shortcut and a
safety for magic. Casting without one is far more difficult because you
need to figure out all the in-between steps that a wand lets you skip.
Perhaps even more importantly, casting without a wand means that there is
no buffer between the caster and the spell. The Death Eater that I threw
my fireball at had made it clear that he was intending to rape and
probably murder Luna after her father and I were dead. There was a lot of
anger in my spell as a result and that's why it resisted healing." No way
was he telling her about the Void and the Dark. Or about his runes for
that matter. The Ministry deemed any magic that involved bloodletting
illegal.
"I see." Bones said neutrally, looking thoughtful. That was both
fascinating and very, very impressive, but she had to put that aside and
look at it from a legal point of view. She'd received preliminary reports
that the fire had been very difficult to put out and had nearly gone out
of control. It had been almost like Fiendfyre. "Why did you choose such a
destructive spell?"
"There were too many Death Eaters to fight, so I needed to scare them
into running away. A ball of fire slamming into one of their own seemed
like my best bet."
"You're probably right." Bones admitted. The Death Eaters had always been
quick to turn tail and run if things didn't go their way. "Very ruthless
though."
"I'm an Occlumancer." Harry said with a shrug. "I'd pushed away my

emotions and made a decision based on pure logic."
Amelia nodded in understanding, not even surprised that he knew

Occlumency already. She was no stranger to using the discipline to push
aside emotion at need.
"I would appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone that I can do magic
without a wand." Harry requested.
"Why?" She asked, honestly curious.
"Because I don't need any more attention being focused on me." True
enough, but it was mostly because he wanted to keep the element of
surprise that secrecy afforded him for as long as possible. It had
undoubtedly saved his life tonight.
That there were four Death Eaters out there that knew about it now was
not a comfortable thought. If he was lucky, they would be unable to
fathom the idea of him using such powerful magic without a wand and
assume that he'd had another one hidden in his sleeve, but he couldn't
count on it.
"I suppose it wouldn't matter if I left that out." Amelia conceded. She
wouldn't outright lie about it, but she wouldn't explicitly mention that
wandless magic had been used. It should be enough. It wouldn't make any
difference and it would spare the young man some unwanted attention,
which she was willing to give him since the victims of his spell were all
Death Eaters.
It was something of an open secret that Amelia Bones hated the fact that
so many Death Eaters had dodged prison after Voldemort's fall. Seeing
four of the skull masked bastards that had nearly wiped out her family
killed wasn't something that she was willing to be especially difficult
about, so granting Harry's minor request was no hardship to her. Her
irritation with the Pettigrew situation had stemmed almost entirely from
the fact that Potter and Black had hid it for months on end.
"Thank you." Harry said sincerely, turning to check on Luna, who was
peacefully sleeping in the bed next to him.
"Does she have any family to take care of her?" Amelia asked softly,
looking at the sleeping girl. Another thing that had made a good
impression on her was Harry's refusal to leave his friend alone.
"No." Harry answered. Luna had told him that she'd never known either of
her grandparents. Xeno's parents had died early in his life and Pandora
Lovegood hadn't even been from Britain. "I'll take her in."
"Mr Potter, you're a minor yourself. You can't take anyone in." Amelia
told him with a sort of dry incredulity.
"Sirius will take her in." Harry amended with the air of someone
repeating their previous statement.
"And you've already discussed this with Lord Black?" She asked with an
archly raised eyebrow, wondering just what kind of relationship Sirius
Black and Harry Potter had. She hadn't failed to notice that the
fourteen-year-old had apparently been off on his own with no supervision
when the Death Eater attack happened. That coincided with a few other odd
moments where Black seemed to just let him do as he pleased.
"No, but he'll agree." Considering that it was his manor that Sirius was
living in, he hardly had a choice. Not that Sirius was likely to object
in the first place.
"I'll bet he will." Amelia muttered and left the room. She still had to
get Black's side of the story, though she didn't expect it to differ
much.
XXXXX
In the office of the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge slumped into his
padded chair with a heavy sigh.
What a mess. Death Eater activity after nearly thirteen years of silence,
targeted at the Boy-Who-Lived no less. The owner of the Quibbler
murdered, his child orphaned, property destroyed, otherwise upstanding
members of society killed while wearing dark wizard regalia and attacking
a national hero. People were going to want answers.
He'd just spent the past several hours putting out the political fires
this resurgence in Death Eater activity had caused. There had been
enraged and aggrieved family members screaming demands at him to have
Potter arrested for murder once the names of the dead were known.
As if he could do that! Wizards in Death Eater robes had assaulted the

Boy-Who-Lived and he was supposed to arrest him? Preposterous. The public
would eat him alive, no matter how much they insisted that it had been
just a prank and that Harry had overreacted. He would have needed to
start a defamation campaign before he could arrest Harry Potter and that
was simply more trouble than it was worth, not to mention politically
dangerous. The dead hadn't even been part of any of the Noble Houses.
Purebloods yes, but not nobles.
No, best to just let this whole thing blow over as quietly as possible.
He'd lean on the Daily Prophet too and make sure they marginalized the
incident as much as possible. That should be the last important thing he
had to do tonight, then it was off to bed and a well deserved rest.
So focused was Fudge on making sure that he didn't look bad in the eyes
of the public over this debacle, that he forgot that the Quidditch World
Cup had been an international event. Not unexpected really, as Barty
Crouch had always handled that angle before and done it well despite his
humorless, uncharismatic personality.
XXXXX
"Known followers of a British Dark Lord attack an American campsite,

destroying property and causing at least two deaths when the space
expansion charms collapsed and you call it a misunderstanding?" The
American Ambassador asked, his low tone perfectly conveying his anger at
the notion.
"Well of course, Mr. Boyer." Dolores Umbridge said with her usual teeth-
grindingly fake sweetness. "What else could it be? Surely you aren't
insinuating that upstanding British wizards would deliberately attack
your...people."
John Boyer, current American Ambassador to the wizards and witches of

Britain, Scotland and Ireland, clenched his jaw in fury at the sheer
nerve of this pink toad. Not only was she blatantly ignoring the evidence
in order to whitewash what had happened, she was also obviously the worst
sort of blood purist of the type that Britain seemed to produce so
easily. The bigotry practically oozed out of her. People like her had
been the reason that the original British magical colonists had joined
with their non-magical counterparts and booted Britain and the Goblin
Nation off the continent.
A number of Britain's less powerful Noble Houses had made the move to
America in the hope that their wealth and power would be able to grow
away from the influence of the ancient families in Britain. The goblins
had of course come along because of the treaty that gave them control
over the magical banking system.
Neither had considered the fact that the many wizards and witches that
had chosen an uncertain future on a new continent rather than put up any
further with either of them wouldn't be happy to have them along. The
Great Pureblood and Goblin Slaughter of 1773 was still celebrated as a
holiday on the 16th of May, despite the complaints coming from Britain
and the Goblins about celebrating what they considered the mass murder of
their people.
"I'm not insinuating anything." Boyer snapped. "I'm telling you that your
upstanding British wizards were nothing more than terrorists and I expect
the rest of them to be found and thrown in prison."
"Who are you to make demands of the Ministry of Magic?" Umbridge snapped
back, bristling with indignation at the nerve of the jumped up mudblood
foreigner that thought he could simply order British wizards of fine
breeding to be imprisoned for having a little fun.
The argument quickly devolved after that until the American Ambassador
stomped away in a rage. As a consequence of this cock up, relations
between the Magical Realms of Britain and North America quickly
deteriorated to a state not seen in over a hundred years.
It was almost impressive how Umbridge had managed to undo the work of
Barty Crouch and three of his predecessors over the course of a single
conversation.
XXXXX
A day later.
"You seem a little distracted."
The voice of his girlfriend brought Harry out of his thoughts. He looked
towards where she was lying on his chest with a slight frown.
"What makes you say that?"
"Well..." Tonks began. "One, you weren't performing up to your usual

standard earlier. Two, you've been staring at nothing for the past five
minutes. Three, you've been absently fondling my bum for those same five
minutes but you're as soft as sponge despite having gone only one round."
"Okay, so I am a little distracted." Harry admitted. Even his formidable,
rune enhanced libido could apparently be overcome by heavy thoughts.
"Worried about your friend?" The Metamorphmagus guessed.
"Yeah, I'm worried about Luna." He sighed.
They had been able to leave the Ministry soon after Sirius was done
talking to Amelia Bones. The Ministry's version of social services hadn't
put up much of a fuss over assigning Sirius custody of Luna. Harry had in
fact gotten the feeling that they were simply glad to have the problem
solved expediently.
In the morning, the Dreamless Sleep potion had worn off and Luna had
woken up. Harry had tried to talk to her, but the blonde girl had not
been very responsive. In fact, she hadn't said a word the whole day,
merely looked spaced out and not quite there the whole time. His strange
magical sixth sense was telling him that Luna was not in a good place
right now, not that one needed a magical sixth sense to figure that out.
Harry did not have the first clue about what to do with a traumatized
thirteen-year-old girl. There were no magical psychiatric services, at
least not in Britain. Trying to take her to a non-magical therapist was
likely to result in either the therapist thinking that she was completely
off her rocker or a round of obliviations if the Ministry caught wind of
it. No matter though. He was somewhat dubious about the usefulness of
psychiatrists in most cases anyway, nevermind with Luna, who's mind
didn't work quite the same as most peoples did.
He was seriously considering having Sirius withdraw both of them from

Hogwarts, but wasn't sure just yet if that was a good idea since there
was no telling whether that would help or hurt the situation.
"Got a few other things on my mind too." He added.
Such as those muggles he'd seen. He didn't imagine that Death Eaters
showing up again and causing trouble had made a good impression if they
were there to keep an eye on the magical side of things as he'd surmised.
Maybe it was time to start thinking of a contingency plan in case he ever
had to leave the country in a hurry? It might just be paranoia on his
part, but he wasn't feeling altogether secure with Death Eaters suddenly
causing trouble, Voldemort lurking out there somewhere, the government
essentially being controlled by an oligarchy of rich nobles, a good chunk
of which had quite a bit in common with Hitler, Dumbledore playing his
own games, his wealth being controlled by a race that hated humans and
now learning that the mundane government was up to something too. In
fact, putting all of that together made him think that he was actually a
little slow on the uptake and should have made contingency plans before
now.
He had not enjoyed feeling helpless, or the harsh truth that he'd only
survived through a combination of factors that largely boiled down to
luck. Now he would have a permanent reminder of his failure on his arm.
He had failed to save Luna's father and had nearly died himself to a
clumsy assassination attempt made by a group of idiots. Dangerous idiots,
but still idiots. Whether someone else had been pulling their strings or
not didn't really matter in the immediate sense, what mattered was that
he'd very nearly died because he hadn't been prepared to fight. Could he
have saved Xeno if he'd been more of a fighter? He'd never know, but he
was intending to be a much harder target the next time someone thought
they could take a shot at killing him.
"What other things?" Tonks asked.
And then there was Dora, his shapeshifting girlfriend of a month and a
half. His first impression of her had been quite correct. She was loads
of fun. This summer had so much happening in it that it seemed to last
four times longer than normal, but her presence had made it a lot more
enjoyable despite the many annoying parts. Now it was coming to a close
and Harry found himself once more thinking of Hogwarts as a nuisance. At
this point he was only going back for the expansive library and the
personal tutoring in Ancient Runes and Arithmancy, but being separated
from her for months on end would still suck.
He knew that she'd been reticent about a relationship due to his age,
which was hardly something he could begrudge her. He was glad that he'd
succeeded in breaking through that problem. Harry wouldn't say that he
was in love with her, but he did like her a great deal and had no desire
to have their relationship end.
"You." He said with a smile.
"Me? What about me?" She asked curiously.
"Just wondering how I'm going to survive in Hogwarts without you now that
my previous batch of mistresses have graduated." He said mournfully.
"You poor baby." She mocked.
"I guess I'll have to sneak out and pay you a visit whenever I can." He
mused. How hard could it be? Just find a nice secluded spot, turn into a
raven and fly out of the range of the wards.
"And how do you plan to accomplish that?" She asked skeptically, knowing
that Hogwarts was locked down during the night.
"It's a secret." Harry teased. "And speaking of secrets, I've got one
that I'd like to share with you...if you can keep it to yourself."
"I'm an Auror, of course I can keep a secret." Tonks asserted.
"Watch this then." He said and raised one of his hands in a cupping
motion, his newly scarred right hand as it happened since Tonks was
laying on the other one.
"Okaaay, what am I watching?" She asked, bemused by his look of

concentration.
"Wait for it." He advised.
"Wait for- whoa!" She exclaimed as a small ball of flame burst into life
above his palm. "How are you doing that?"
"Magic." Harry replied, much amused. It seemed silly to keep this from
her when he'd told Amelia Bones about it.
"But you're doing it without a wand!" Tonks protested, still staring at

the mini fireball.
"Well it wouldn't have been a secret if I did it with my wand, now would
it?" Harry reasoned and dismissed the bit of fire he'd conjured.
Tonks opened and closed her mouth a few times, unable to find anything to
say. Then she just huffed, gave his chest a slap and called him a prat.
"This is actually why I've got this manly scar all the way up to my elbow
now." He said with s sigh, turning his hand over. "I didn't have time to
stabilize the spell and some of its power backfired on me."
Tonks reached up to lace her fingers with the scarred limb. The burns
weren't horribly disfiguring, but definitely noticeable.
"Is wandless magic that dangerous?" She asked, concerned.
"Depends on what you're doing with it." He answered. "Casting a volatile

explosive spell in a desperate situation is definitely more dangerous
than it would have been with a wand."
Tonks was a bit worried for his safety, but decided not to pester him
about it. He seemed to know what he was doing with this and it had
probably saved his life anyway. A bit of scarring was a small price to
pay in light of that.
"Can you teach me how to do it?" She asked instead.
"I don't know, maybe?" He replied uncertainly. "I've never tried teaching
it to anyone. Sirius lost interest after I told him that it took me years
to get even the smallest result."
"Good thing that I'm made of sterner stuff than my lazy cousin then."
Tonks declared and hoisted herself into a straddling position. "Now, I
recall hearing you say that you had more secrets to share."
"I'm not telling you all of my secrets at once." Harry huffed, amused.
"Pretty pleaseeeee!" She wheedled. If his first one was a proficiency for
wandless magic, then the others must be really something else.
"No." He refused point blank. His unregistered Animagus transformation,

the runes and his connection to the Void and the Sun were all quite a bit
illegal and she was an Auror. He might like her, but he wasn't crazy
enough to tell her stuff that could see him getting in trouble with the
law until he was sure that she wouldn't blab. Dramatic dilemmas between
duty and feelings should stay locked in the chest of clich plot devices
where they belonged.
"Tell me or I'll torture it out of you." Tonks threatened.
Harry gave her his most sarcastic look, silently declaring his skepticism
over her statement.
"Don't believe me, huh?" She asked rhetorically before thrusting out her
chest. "Fine then, prepare to get smothered in boobs!"
"Wha?" Was Harry's most intelligent reply as he watched his girlfriend's

normally B-cup chest balloon into E-cup range with no signs of stopping.
Then he could say nothing at all as the mass of titflesh covered his
face.
"You secrets or your life!" Tonks declared with an evil cackle, hugging
his head to prevent him from escaping the mammary prison.
Harry was of course unable to reply. In fact, he hadn't even heard what
she'd said. It didn't matter though. Even this inventive new form of
torture wasn't enough to pry out his secrets. The activity did wake up
his libido though.
XXXXX
The next night.
Harry awoke when he felt someone crawl into bed with him. Tonks wasn't
spending the night today and this person was too small in any case.
Not to mention that only one magical presence had this distinct flavor to
it.
"Luna?"
"Yes, Harry?" The blonde girl asked dreamily.
"Why are you in my bed?"
"I felt lonely and you said that you would do anything you could for me."
Luna answered.
He had indeed said that, though he hadn't been expecting her to come
cuddle him. Maybe he should have. Well whatever, at least she wasn't
staring at the walls as if she could see through them.
"Um, why are you naked though?"
"The same reason as you."
That was a fair point, Harry conceded. Sleeping was indeed best done
naked. Or it would have been a fair point if she was in her own bed. Luna
probably didn't have the best of grasps on the implications of being
naked in bed with another person though, so he couldn't be too surprised.
He felt his manhood stirring at the proximity of a naked female, the

disobedient organ blatantly ignoring the fact that he had no intention of
sticking it in this particular naked female.
Harry grimaced. Lose-lose situation. He could either be uncomfortably

aroused or he could ask Luna to leave.
He sighed. Uncomfortably aroused it was.
"Teeny?" He called.
"Yes, Harry Potter sir?" The house elf whispered loudly as soon as she
popped in.
"Could you get me some pajama bottoms?"
Teeny nodded convulsively and popped away, reappearing a moment later

with a pair of dark blue silk pants.
"Thank you, Teeny, you're the best." Harry sighed as he pulled on the
sleepwear. He'd not used it much since he'd discovered the joys of
sleeping in the nude.
The house elf squeaked in pleasure at the compliment and popped away
again, leaving Harry shaking his head at the strangeness of the little
creatures.
"You don't have to wear pajamas on my account, I don't mind if your penis
pokes me in the bum." Luna said once he'd settled back down.
"Somehow, I'm not surprised." Harry said wryly and pulled his friend into
a spooning position. He didn't even bother asking if she would like some
PJ's herself. He knew her well enough to know that she'd turn him down,
utterly oblivious to the fact that it would be for his benefit more than
hers.
Luna wiggled around until she found a comfortable position. Harry bit his
lip as her tiny butt and still somewhat bony hips rubbed against his
erection. Maybe silk pajamas hadn't been such a grand idea. If it was
anyone but her, he'd think she was doing this on purpose.
At long last, she settled down. With his silk wrapped tool nestled
between the crack of her arse and his scarred arm clutched in between her
budding breasts.
Harry took a deep breath to calm down and remind himself that he had a
girlfriend already, that Luna wasn't messing with him
deliberately(probably), was grieving for her father(definitely) and was
only thirteen despite having started puberty already(somewhat
hypocritically since he himself was only fourteen, magical super puberty
aside).
They spent the next few minutes in silence, with Luna slowly running her
fingers over the arm that he was holding her with and Harry trying to
force his libido into submission with meditation. It was an uphill
battle.
"I miss daddy." Luna said out of the blue, her previously vacant, spaced
out tone replaced with deep sadness. She didn't burst into tears as he'd
half expected, but the sense of emotional pain wasn't any weaker for it.
Having no idea what else to do, Harry hugged her tighter. "You'll always
have me."
"You promise?" She asked hopefully.
Harry rather cynically thought that he couldn't promise not to be

murdered, since it wasn't really up to him. He could have quite easily
joined Luna's father if the Death Eaters weren't cowardly enough to
scatter at the first sign of resistance. He could also have been mourning
Sirius if the masked twats weren't so incompetent. Hell, the lot of them
could be dead.
But he couldn't say that to Luna right now. "I promise." It cost him
nothing to make the promise. It wasn't as if anyone would be able to do
anything about it if he couldn't keep it after all. Damn I'm gloomy.
She didn't say anything back, but Harry got the sense that she felt a
little better. That was something at least.
XXXXX
Two days later.
Luna crept towards Harry's room, completely naked yet again. She figured
that he and Tonks had stopped having sex and gone to sleep by now. Her
father's death still felt like an aching hole in her chest and she hadn't
been able to sleep. Cuddling up to Harry the other night had helped, but
it would have been rude to show up before they were done.
Silently, she opened the door and peeked inside. No movement or moaning.
The only sound was a quiet snore. Good.
With the same silence, she crept towards the bed and checked for a spot
to cuddle. Harry was on his back, with Tonks pressed into his left side.
That was perfect, she could take the right without getting in the way.
As carefully as possible, she slipped beneath the light slik sheets and
cuddled into Harry's left side. She froze when he grumbled something in
his sleep, but smiled when his arm went around her waist. As a final
touch, she mimicked Tonks' leg positioning and swung her own leg over
Harry's, accidentally sliding it over the Auror's in the process. Tonks
had much smoother legs than Harry.
XXXXX
Harry awoke at sunrise feeling a bit...off. And what was all this blonde
hair in his face? Dora wasn't blonde often, especially not in the
morning.
A closer examination revealed that the strangeness was due to there being
two bodies on him today instead of just one. Which would of course mean
that the blonde hair probably didn't belong to his girlfriend.
Harry sighed quietly. He wasn't even surprised that Luna wouldn't be

deterred by something as trivial as another woman already being in bed
with him. This could be awkward.
Ah well, might as well get it over with. His bladder wouldn't let him
delay for long anyway.
He gave his girlfriend a shake, getting only some disgruntled noises in

return. He continued shaking her until she woke up.
"Ngghhh." Tonks said eloquently, leaving a line of slobber on his chest.
"Dora, wake up." Harry told her quietly.
"G'back t' sleephhh." She slurred.
"Dora." Harry said more insistently.
"N'sex. Wank it." She insisted sleepily.
Harry rolled his eyes in amused exasperation. Tonks was definitely not a
morning person.
"Doooraaaaa~." He sing-songed, persistently running his fingers over her

back.
Tonks let out an aggravated groan and raised her head with what appeared
to be a titanic effort, squinting at him with bleary eyes. Then she
caught sight of the other female and started blinking in utter
bafflement.
"Whazzat?" She asked, apparently unable to process this early in the

morning.
"That would be Luna Lovegood. You met her yesterday." Harry explained,
vastly amused by her confusion.
Tonks continued to stare and blink at the other female for a good ten
seconds, something critical not computing.
"Why'sere?" She finally asked.
"Let's ask her, shall we?" Harry said and started shaking Luna awake.
It didn't take nearly the amount of effort to wake her as it took with
Tonks. Luna looked up, clearly also a bit bleary but not nearly as addled
as Tonks.
"Good morning, Harry, Nymphadora." She greeted.
"Morning." Harry returned with a resigned fondness. Luna would be Luna.
Tonks was still too sleep addled to even take umbrage at the use of her
first name, but she did start getting her wits together.
Harry and Luna waited patiently while the Metamorphmagus rubbed the heel
of her palm into her eyes to clear out the gunk. Once she was done, and
her vision consisted of something more than blurry shapes, she looked
between the two teenagers and asked the all important question.
"What's going on?"
"I couldn't sleep." Luna explained.
"So you decided to come sleep with us?" Tonks asked for the sake of
clarification.
Luna nodded.
"Naked?"
"Mhm."
"Right." Tonks concluded. "You got anything to add here, Harry?"
"I really need to use the loo." Harry admitted.
Both females wordlessly slid off him so that he could amble towards the
adjoined bathroom, not even bothering to cover up. It all seemed quite
redundant at this point.
A silence descended that was awkward for Tonks alone. As for Luna...
"Are you going to have morning sex?" She asked, taking an interested
glance at the sex swing hanging nearby.
"Not now we aren't." The Auror said a bit sourly. Despite her zombie-like
wake ups, she actually enjoyed morning sex. It was a great way of
starting the day and she could always go back to sleep right after if she
felt like it, which she often did since Harry usually kept her up pretty
late with his crazy stamina.
"Oh." Luna said, sounding very disappointed. "I was hoping I could
watch." Her parents had let her watch back when they had both still been
alive.
Tonks gaped at the little blonde voyeur, completely stunned by the

admission. How was she even supposed to respond to that?
Eventually she managed to close her mouth and decided to tackle a
different issue. "Luna, you can't just crawl into bed with people."
"Why?" Luna asked, cocking her head and giving the Auror an unblinking
stare. She didn't understand what the problem was. Harry was a friend,
she hadn't interrupted their sex and didn't get in the way.
"You just...can't." Tonks sputtered, unsure of how to really argue her

point. "It just isn't done."
"But why not?"
Tonks once more scrambled for a response and decided to go on the

offensive instead. A good offense is the best defense and all that.
"Do you always crawl into someone else's bed when you can't sleep?"
"I did when mum died, but I don't have daddy anymore either." Luna said
sadly.
Nothing to start the day like a nice big pile of guilt and shame. Tonks
thought to herself with a wince.
"Could you at least put on some clothes if you're going to do it?" She
asked in a resigned tone, knowing full well that she'd just tacitly ceded
victory to the strange little blonde.
"Why would I wear clothes for sleeping?" Luna asked, looking genuinely
confused at the notion of sleeping with clothes on.
"Because it's not right to sleep naked next to someone you aren't in a
relationship with?" Tonks suggested uncertainly, now wary of the young
girl's strange logic twists.
"What's wrong about it?"
Tonks opened her mouth to reply, but came up empty. She couldn't for the
life of her name a single reason why sleeping naked next to someone was
wrong, aside from the sexual connotations that were notably absent here.
It was even worse because Luna just looked honestly curious. Based on
this and what she'd learned from Harry, she was getting the distinct
feeling that the Lovegoods hadn't had much in the way of taboos and had
certainly not taught any to their daughter. Trying to instill them into
Luna now would be an exercise in futility and not really something that
Tonks was willing to attempt.
"It would just be more comfortable for Harry and me if you wore
something." She finally said instead of answering the question.
"But Harry didn't seem to mind a couple of days ago." Luna reasoned.
Tonks' hair turned a slightly darker shade of red. Harry hadn't mentioned
that Luna had done this before.
"Just wear some clothes." She sighed.
"Okay." Luna nodded in agreement. She figured that sleeping in a pair of

panties wouldn't be too bad for the times when Tonks was staying over.
"What about watching you have sex?"
Tonks groaned, a flush working itself up her neck at the uncomfortable

directness of blonde's questions. "No, Luna, you can't watch us have
sex."
"Why not?"
"Why would you even want to watch us have sex?" The Auror asked, rubbing
her forehead and wondering if her current headache was a result of too
little sleep, dehydration or the conversation.
"I've always wanted to watch Harry have sex." Luna admitted, not just
shamelessly, but also completely oblivious to the fact that there was
anything to be ashamed of.
"Why?" Tonks pressed on fatalistically, figuring that she might as well

go all the way down the rabbit hole.
"I only got to watch my parents do it before." Luna explained. "I'd like
to see how different it is with other people."
Interesting parenting strategy. Tonks thought to herself sarcastically.

"The answer is still no."
"Okay." Luna conceded dejectedly. She'd really been looking forward to it

too.
Tonks found herself feeling absurdly guilty for not letting the younger
girl indulge her voyeuristic pursuits. The whole conversation was too
weird for this hour in the morning.
Fortunately, she was saved from any further awkwardness when Harry came
out of the bathroom, wrapped in a bathrobe and his hair still wet from a
shower. He took one look at the dejected looking Luna and the conflicted
looking Tonks and frowned in consternation. Had they been arguing? He'd
deliberately removed himself from the situation because he figured it
would be easier for the two of them to talk without him there. And also
because he had no idea how to tell his girlfriend that he didn't have the
heart to tell Luna to stay away at night.
"What did I miss?"
XXXXX
The last few days of the summer holidays passed without incident and the
time to return to Hogwarts came about all too soon. Luna still had times
when she blanked out, but she seemed to be eager about going back. Harry
wasn't. Going back to the castle just didn't hold the appeal it used to.
It was too restrictive.
But he was going anyway. For Luna's sake and for what little use he still
had for the Hogwarts curriculum. He was still intending to find a way to
ditch the school early though.
There was just one thing that needed to be done before going back.
"You want me to do what?" Penny asked, bemused.
"I want you to research how muggleborns are seen in the other magical
communities." Harry repeated patiently.
"Why the sudden interest?" The former Ravenclaw asked curiously.
"Just something I was thinking about a while ago." Mostly a worry about
the number of bitter wizards and witches the mundane governments could
potentially recruit. It might be just paranoia, but he didn't think that
could end well if he was right.
"Alright, I can do that." Penny said thoughtfully. "Where am I supposed

to start though?"
"Not a clue." Harry shrugged. "Maybe there are magical Ambassadors from
other countries somewhere in Britain? It's not especially time sensitive,
so feel free to take your time. I'd also like you to thoroughly research
the procedure for transferring money from Gringotts to another bank."
"I get the feeling that this is a bit more important than you're making
it out to be." She said with a frown.
"It might be." Harry admitted. "Or it might be nothing. Right now it's
just a hunch and a bad feeling, that's why I need you to do this for me."
Penny agreed to do it and didn't press any further, for which Harry was
thankful. He didn't want to share his suspicions until he had something
more solid. Even Penny's research wouldn't really confirm anything. To do
that he'd need to actively spy on the mundane government, which wasn't
something that he was really intending to do. Frankly, he wasn't so
attached Wizarding Britain in its current form that he would bother
taking risks to protect it.
He would however like to have a heads up if things were going to go

sideways.
XXXXX
The next chapter will hopefully be out faster than this one was, but I
make no promises.
Chapter 15
Chapter 15 is finally arrived. It would've been here sooner but I got a

bit distracted playing Overwatch.
Anyway, credit for his help as a beta go to Joe Lawyer as always.
XXXXX
Sitting crosslegged on his bed Ravenclaw Tower after the welcome feast
was finished, Harry pondered.
The Tri-Wizard Tournament was going to be held at Hogwarts this year.

He'd come across some peripheral mention of it in a book somewhere
before, but hadn't investigated beyond the basics. Why read about a
practice that had been abandoned for centuries?
The prize money or the 'Eternal Glory' didn't interest him much, but he
was still curious about the tournament itself now that it was actually
going to be happening. Perhaps some investigation was required after all.
Fortunately, he had someone else to do it for him now. He'd have felt
guilty about dumping all his errands and curiosities on Penny if he
wasn't paying her for it.
Rummaging around in his Bag of Holding, he took out the mirror that
connected to Penny's. He had another two, one for Sirius and one for
Dora.
He wished that he could just use one mirror for all of them, but the
magic involved made that extremely difficult. It was a variant of the
Protean Charm that allowed them to function as a communication device and
also what made multiple links so hard. Creating a 'master' object and
many 'slaves' was relatively simple, but that would only allow the master
to send out a signal. The mirrors were two master objects linked
together. Harder, but doable. Creating a network of master objects
started becoming exponentially more difficult with every new one added.
Worse still, once the enchantments were in place, trying to add another
mirror into it destabilized the whole thing.
Harry knew that if he could figure out how to do it, he would very
quickly become the wealthiest wizard in the world by a ludicrous margin.
The advent of mobile phones had certainly proved how much money there was
in that field. Magical video calls would be infinitely superior to
sticking one's head in a fireplace, not to mention more convenient.
Alas, a project for the future. For the moment, he still had to carry
around three mirrors.
"Harry?" Penny questioned, obviously confused that he would contact her

so quickly after coming to Hogwarts.
"Hi, Penny. I've got another job for you." He said with a wry grin.
"Alright, lay it on me." She said easily. There was still little enough
work for her to do that she had no problem with taking on something else.
"I need you to research the Twi-Wizard Tournament for me."
"The Tri-Wizard Tournament?" Penny repeated in confusion, having never

heard of such a thing.
"Apparently it's some kind of dangerous competition between Hogwarts,

Durmstrang and Beauxbatons that was abandoned centuries ago because the
body count got uncomfortably high. Someone decided that it would be a
good idea to bring it back. They've been keeping it secret up to now, but
it'll probably be in the papers tomorow." Harry explained.
Penny nodded thoughtfully and seemed to write something down before

turning back to look at him. "How quickly do you need this done?"
"Not too quickly." Harry said. "The champions won't be chosen until the
other two schools arrive, which is at Halloween, so you've got plenty of
time."
"Shouldn't take me anywhere near that long." Penny said. "I'll get back
to you when I have something."
"Thanks, Penny."
His mirror returned to showing his face and Harry put it away, still
thinking. He knew that he wasn't old enough to enter the tournament since
the rules were changed to prevent minors from entering, but he was still
kind of tempted, if only to do something dangerous and do it well.
His recent encounter with the Death Eaters bothered him. He'd not
acquitted himself well in that confrontation. Sirius had pegged them as
the dregs of the Dark Lord's forces, bottom feeders blaming muggles and
muggleborns for their own who had either lost their wealth or never had
it to begin with, hoping to have some scraps thrown their way once
Voldemort won. Parasites.
That was what had nearly killed him. The equivalent of street thugs that
would have spent most of their days sitting on a couch in a grease
stained shirt, living off social support, guzzling beer and yelling at
politicians on a telly if they'd been born as muggles instead of
purebloods.
The humiliation still burned long after the flames that had scarred his
arm had gone out. He should have been able to crush all eight of them as
if they were nothing, or at the very least make them rethink the idea of
attacking him. But he hadn't been able to, because he hadn't bothered
learning how to fight. Sure, he knew some pretty good spells and he had
significantly cut down on the time it took to cast them without a wand
since he'd started learning magic, but he didn't know how to actually
fight.
He needed to learn before something like that happened again, before
someone that wasn't dumb enough to gloat for an hour tried killing him.
Alastor 'Mad-Eye' Moody was the DADA teacher this year, Dora's mentor
when she was still in training. She'd only had good things to say about
him. Well, mostly good things. Harry would have liked to ask him for
training on how to fight, but Sirius had told him that Moody was an old
friend of Dumbledore's. How many pies did that old man have his fingers
in anyway? Too many for sure. He'd just have to muddle through it for now
and ask Dora if she was willing to share some Auror training over the
holidays and the summer.
He was brought out of his thoughts when the door opened and Luna strolled
in.
"Hello?" Harry said, bemused by her sudden entrance.
"Hello, Harry." Luna returned, walking up to his bed and starting to

strip.
"Spending the night?" Harry asked.
"Yes." Luna nodded, putting her panties on top of the small pile of
clothes that now took up a nearby chair and slipping between the covers,
completely naked.
Harry rubbed a hand over his chin, unable to quite stop the smile that
pulled at his lips. There was something about Luna's utter obliviousness
to societal taboos that he just couldn't help but admire.
"Do you think that Durmstrang or Beauxbatons will bring any crumple-
horned snorkacks with them?" Luna asked once he had settled into the now
familiar spooning position.
"I don't know, maybe." Harry said lightly, sensing that Luna's mood was
turning sad despite her idly vacant tone.
"Daddy really wanted to find one." She went on.
Harry held back a sigh. Luna had been making less mentions of her
probably-nonexistent creatures since her father's death, leading him to
think that maybe that had been Xeno's way of coping with the death of his
wife and Luna had simply adopted it.
"I was thinking about asking Dora if she wanted to go on a trip with me
next summer. You could come along if you want, maybe we'll find a
snorkack." The original idea had been for just him and Dora to go
somewhere, but taking Luna along too wouldn't be all that disruptive. She
wasn't a needy child that had to be constantly supervised.
He might be, technically speaking, encouraging her delusions with this,

but Luna was a big girl and he wasn't going to patronise her. If she
wanted to look for snorkacks, nargles and blibbering humdingers, then he
wasn't going to tell her that she shouldn't.
"Where would we go?" Luna asked, perking up with interest.
"I don't know yet." Harry shrugged. "Somewhere out of Britain."
"I'd like that."
XXXXX
Breakfast the next morning was a time of furtive glances and poorly
veiled interest. People hadn't noticed his newly scarred arm during the
welcoming feast, busy as they were with stuffing their faces and the
Prophet hadn't mentioned it(indeed, the Prophet had mentioned the
altercation at the World Cup as little as possible), so it was now
garnering a lot of attention.
Harry knew that it was only a matter of time before someone couldn't keep
their curiousity in check any more and would blurt out a tactless 'what
happened to your hand?!'. Alternatively, the whispers would circulate
through the Great Hall until they reached the Slytherin table, where a
particular member of that house would think that he could somehow use
this.
And here we go. Harry thought to himself sarcastically, seeing that

Malfoy had gotten up along with his two bookends and the surprise
addition of Pansy Parkinson. Draco Malfoy was one of those rare people
that prefered their humiliations to happen in public.
"Don't you have any decency, Potter?" The Slytherin demanded.
Harry raised an eyebrow in silent query, wondering where the blond was
going with this.
"People are eating and here you are, showing off your disgusting mangled
arm." He went on with a sneer.
Harry lifted up his sleeve to and turned his scarred limb over a few
times, looking it over carefully. Yes, the scars were quite noticeable,
but he would hardly call it mangled. The Ravenclaws around him honestly
looked more intrigued than disgusted.
He finally looked back to the smug looking Draco and replied. "If they
can eat with your face present, then my arm isn't likely to faze them."
Draco flushed angrily as the listening crowd burst into laughter at his
expense. He'd been expecting Potter to try hiding his deformity, but
instead he was treating it with complete indifference, as if there was
nothing ugly about the scars.
"You can't talk to Draco like that!" Pansy snapped, glaring at Harry.
"And what are you going to do about it?" Harry asked coldly, quite
deliberately projecting menace towards her.
Pansy went pale with sudden dread and stammered something, none too
subtly moving to stand slightly behind Draco. For all her petty
viciouness and sense of pureblood superiority, Pansy was still a child
and a rather unremarkable one at that. Harry was both much stronger and
had sent four souls screaming into the Void. She may not understand why
the thought of butting heads with him filled her with a nameless fear,
but that mystical sense that all magical beings possessed recognized
danger even if she didn't.
"How'd you get the scars, Harry?" One brave Ravenclaw second year took
the opportunity to ask.
"I was playing with fire." Harry answered unhelpfully.
"Did it hurt?" The same Ravenclaw asked.
"What do you think?" Harry asked back caustically, making the twelve-
year-old boy shrink back into his seat as his face turned with shame.
Luna took a moment away from her food to pat Harry on the leg. This was
why Harry didn't have many friends. True, it had been a stupid question,
but there was no need to be mean about it.
"At least it matches your forehead, I suppose." Draco butted in, once
again sneering.
"Why are you still here, Draco?" Harry asked with a put upon sigh.
"You're not going to win anything here, so why don't you just take what
little dignity you have left and limp back to the Slytherin table?"
The peanut gallery laughed again, clearly amused by how one-sided the
exchange was. This had been a form of amusement for Hogwarts ever since
Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy had been first years. Harry would be
minding his own business, Draco would come looking to make an issue of
something every so often and a verbal spar would ensue. It had been more
even at first, but Harry had quickly outgrown the Malfoy scion in wit and
now tended to shred him in moments.
Draco was well aware of the fact that he was coming off worse in these
exchanges, but his pride wouldn't let him leave well enough alone. He was
a Malfoy, and no halfblood with delusions of grandeur had any right to be
better than him. The fact that Harry was consistently getting the best of
him flew in the face of everything he believed in.
That was why he couldn't do as Harry had however insultingly

suggested and back down. No, he had to retaliate somehow, even if it was
just to get the last word in.
"Watch yourself, Potter or you might end up like Loony's father." He

threatened.
XXXXX
"POTTER! WHAT IN MERLIN'S NAME DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?!" Came the
enraged yell from the staff table.
Harry didn't really have anything in mind when he'd stood up. He'd felt
the spike of pain and grief from Luna at Malfoy's threat, seen her jerk
as if she'd been electrocuted and simply acted. Now there was a slight
sting of pain in his hand, Malfoy was moaning on the floor with a broken
jaw, Crabbe and Goyle had been sent flying and Pansy seemed to have lost
control of her bladder.
His temper had gotten away from him again. He'd really thought that he'd
handled that problem already. Though he was admittedly a bit
overprotective of Luna right now, so that might be the real issue. Or it
could be because he already had a bone to pick with Malfoy over what he'd
done to Penny. Or maybe it was because the Sun was up. He was always more
temperamental during the day, when the Light's fire was strong. Probably
all of the above.
He didn't answer Snape's bellowed question. It was rhetorical anyway. He

looked down at the Malfoy scion instead. It was kind of funny how the
blond idiot managed to do this to himself at the start of every year. It
was almost like all sense of caution was wiped from his mind over the
summer.
"A hundred points from Ravenclaw and detention with me for two months!"
Snape raged, looking over his Slytherins.
"No." Harry said blandly. He had better things to do than serve

detention, especially over a worthless sack of shite like Malfoy.
"No?" Snape repeated dangerously.
"No." Harry confirmed, undaunted. Snape had been intimidating a few years
ago, with his hateful glares, the authority of his position as a teacher
and most of all the hateful feel of his magic, but things were different
now.
Now Harry was just as tall as him, had little use or respect for him as a
teacher and had recently survived a brush with death. Snape was simply
not that scary anymore.
"You don't seem to understand how things work around here, Potter." Snape
said in a deadly whisper that belied his rage. "You don't make the rules,
no matter how famous you are. If I say that you'll be serving detention
for the rest of the year, then you will be serving detention for the rest
of the year."
"You can serve it yourself, I have better things to do." Harry said
bluntly, not even bothering to acknowledge the change in length. It made
no difference since he wasn't planning to attend anyway. It was really
too bad, he could have almost liked Snape at one point, but the man had
serious anger management problems and clung to his grudges with near
fanaticism.
"I'll see you expelled." Snape growled, his sallow face turning a blotchy
red as all his buttons were pushed.
"That'll be the day." Harry snorted, knowing full well that it wasn't
going to happen with Dumbledore around. Even if it did, he wouldn't be
entirely displeased. Sure, he'd have to pull Luna out too because he
didn't want her to be here without him, but there were alternatives.
Sure, they'd snap his wand and tell him that he was not to use magic
anymore, but he would simply move out of the country and do it anyway.
The chances of him getting expelled were pretty much nil though, even
with Malfoy senior on the Hogwarts board of governors. Dumbledore
wouldn't want him removed from his influence.
Snape's face went an even more unhealthy color as he most likely realized
that last truth.
"I never want to see you in my classroom again, Potter." The Potions
Master growled and started levitating his unconscious student to the
infirmary.
"Agreed." Harry called after him, genuinely pleased by this. He'd been
thinking of blowing off Potions and several other classes anyway, which
was why he was so well informed about the likelihood of expulsion to
begin with. Potions was a useful skill, but Snape didn't know how to
teach for shit. He'd learn on his own. The only benefit to going to his
classes was having someone around to keep cauldrons from exploding, which
Snape often deliberately failed to do anyway when he wanted to humiliate
some non-Slytherin.
XXXXX
Albus Dumbledore had not been present at breakfast that morning, but word
of the altercation reached him quickly. He needed to talk to Harry about
it, but first he had to find him. Albus had a hunch on his whereabouts.
As suspected, Harry was standing on top of the Astronomy Tower. Again.

The young man's fascination with that spot was really quite perplexing,
especially as he knew that Fawkes occasionnaly went to join him.
"Headmaster." Harry greeted once Dumbledore came close enough, keeping

his eyes fixed on the horizon.
"Harry." Albus returned, moving to stand next to the student and noting
with some surprise that he was actually a little shorter than the younger
wizard. Harry had certainly grown quickly through whatever magical means
he had employed. Perhaps an inch over six feet and with a lean build and
a face that held a greater hint of Lily's sharper features than it once
did now that the softness of youth was receding. A handsome young man
that his parents would undoubtedly have been proud of.
"Here to get the other side of the story from this morning?" Harry asked.
"I believe I can guess at the truth." Albus said musingly. "Mr. Malfoy
likely said something provocative, causing you to lash out violently.
Professor Snape then assigned you a detention which you refused to
attend."
"Why are you here then if you already know what happened?" Harry asked.
"Mostly to tell you that you cannot simply refuse to attend a detention
when you have clearly earned it." Albus chuckled.
"Snape and I have reached an agreement about that." Harry said calmly. "I
won't attend his detentions and in return he will not teach me Potions
anymore."
"Harry, you shouldn't allow this enmity between you and Professor Snape
to damage your education." Dumbledore chided gently.
"I'll learn Potions on my own. Snape isn't much of a teacher anyway."
"My boy, you were allowed to stop attending Charms and Transfiguration
because the normal pacing of the curriculum was clearly too slow for you,
but if you refuse to attend classes simply because you dislike the
teacher, then perhaps I gave your maturity too much credit." Dumbledore
sighed.
He didn't like stooping to what was essentially blackmail, but Harry

needed to learn that he couldn't simply do as he pleased.
"Then you will probably be displeased to learn that in addition to my

electives, Charms, Transfiguration and Potions, I won't be attending
Herbology, History of Magic or Astronomy anymore either."
Dumbledore blinked in surprise. That hadn't been the reaction he'd been
expecting. "Harry, that would mean that the only class you will be
attending is Defense Against the Dark Arts."
"I'm aware of that." Harry nodded. "I'm simply not interested in

Herbology or Astronomy and I doubt that I ever will be and Binns is even
worse than Snape as a teacher."
"Strange that you would claim to have no interest in Astronomy yet spend
so much time atop this tower." Dumbledore commented, trying to see if
there was anything important about that.
"I like the view." Harry smirked.
"Am I to take it that you will refuse to attend any detentions given as
well?" Dumbledore asked, getting back on track.
"I'll do my best to avoid any detention-worthy behavior." Harry replied

in lieu of a confirmation.
"Except for skipping classes?"
"I can get a note from Sirius stating that he supports my decision if it
makes you feel better." Harry offered.
Had he been a younger man, Dumbledore would have rolled his eyes in
exasperation. Of course Sirius would support Harry's decision, he was
exactly the sort to find his godson's rebelliousness amusing.
"Dare I ask how you intend to pass your OWLs if you will not attend
classes?" He asked instead.
"I'll manage, and if not then I'm sure that I can bribe the examiners
into giving me a passing grade."
"Harry." Dumbledore said with deep disapproval.
"What?" The younger wizard asked, looking unmoved. "That's how things
work in Britain, isn't it?"
"The fact that some people take advantage of their wealth to get around
the law is not a good reason for you stoop to their level." The old
wizard sighed again. Harry was far too cynical. He wasn't wrong, but he
was too cynical.
"I will gladly stoop to that level if it keeps me from wasting time on
things I don't care about." Harry argued back stubbornly.
"Do you care nothing about the example you are setting?" Dumbledore
asked. The boy was being most unreasonable.
"That's really not my problem." Harry reasoned. "I don't owe it to anyone
to be an example."
Dumbledore frowned minutely. The lad didn't seem to realize, or perhaps

didn't want to realize, that he was always going to be an example.
"You have chosen the path of the powerful wizard." He countered. "As
such, there will always be people looking up to you."
"Their choice, not mine." Harry said with a note of finality. "Was there
any other school related matter you wanted to discuss?"
Dumbledore paused, easily seeing the implication that Harry was done
talking about anything that didn't fall under his purview as Hogwarts
Headmaster. Few people were willing to shut him down so blatantly.
Something in Harry had hardened since the last time they'd spoken, but he
supposed that it only made sense. Killing never made people softer.
Never. He had the sense that all hope of having Harry see him as a mentor
was lost. That was unfortunate, as he would now have to work towards the
greater good the hard way.
"No, that was all." Dumbledore said genially. "Have a good day, Harry."
XXXXX
Once the old wizard was gone, Harry smirked to himself. He'd been right.
Not a single word said about expulsion, no great argument about his
cavalier atitude towards class, not even any real mention of how
irregular or against the rules it was. Dumbledore didn't actually care
what he did in Hogwarts as long as he was in Hogwarts.
Dumbledore was starting to get a little bit predictable. Only a little

bit though, there was still no telling what he'd try in the future. He
would need to be watchful. Perhaps he would have been better served to
lie low, but he just couldn't do that anymore. Life was too short to
waste time on things he didn't care about. He was most certainly not
going to let the manipulative old bastard guilt trip him into anything.
The nerve of him to imply that it was up to Harry himself to deal with
Snape's attitude problem instead of Dumbledore's.
Shaking those thoughts off, Harry closed his eyes and took a deep breath,
focusing intently on the sunlight shining down on him. Ever since his
accidental discovery of the dementor effect he'd produced by focusing too
deeply on the Dark during the World Cup, he'd been carefully exploring
both that and the other end of the spectrum.
Inhale. Slowly pull Light into himself.
Exhale. Release, let it settle.
Inhale. Draw it deeper, washing over his soul. His runes tingled warmly.
Exhale. Release. The Light began to drain out of him through Arhain, the
small but bottomless spot of Dark, seeking balance as dictated by
Yen'Lui.
Inhale. Pull on more Light. Enough to make his runes heat up painfully in
warning, enough to become restlessly energetic, enough to know that his
eyes were glowing like emerald torches in his skull, enough to feel as if
he could eat fire and shit lightning.
Exhale. Release.
A small burst of flame and a familiar phoenix appeared on his shoulder.
"Well if it isn't my favorite sunbro." Harry said dryly as Fawkes started

rubbing his head into his neck, jaw and any other place he could reach,
almost like a cat actually. "Today, we are both so grossly incadescent."
Fawkes burst into joyous phoenix song as a response.
A wild exhultation rose up in him and Harry stumbled to his knees as

rationality fought against the mad desire to take a running leap off the
Astronomy Tower, for no other reason than to feel the wind rushing past
him.
"Don't do that." He snapped at the phoenix as he got back on his feet,

receiving an ambiguous chirp from the bird in response.
This was the problem with Light. Whereas Dark muted emotions and made him
feel detached from the world, Light drove them wild. Had he been in this
state when Draco had made his blustering threat, he'd have fried him
without even thinking about it. If Dora was here and did so much as smile
at him, he would have torn her clothes off and taken her on the spot.
Might have done it with any woman actually. Might not even have cared if
they were willing. He wasn't intending to find out.
On the upside...
He tensed and a ring of fire billowed outwards from his body. He barely
even had to focus to do it. It was in some ways even easier than with a
wand, though his compromised state of mind didn't allow for a
particularly varied spell selection. It was all brute force and no
finesse. Fire was especially easy. That probably had something to do with
why phoenix feather wands were so well suited to sharp bursts of power,
the firebirds being so closely linked to the Sun.
It was at once both wonderful and terrible. Such a feeling of power and
drive, of life unrestrained. It was as if there was nothing that he
couldn't do, nothing that he couldn't survive. At the low, low cost of
any semblance of impulse control. And the sense of invincibility was
deceptive on top of it.
Harry slumped as the last of the excess Light was sucked out through
Arhain like water down a drain, leaving him feeling a bit tired and
lethargic but blessedly calm. Both Light and Dark carried the risk of
overindulgence. The aftermath of indulgence in Dark made the world seem
so very loud and needlessly difficult and Light made him feel lethargic
and empty, as if he'd just come down from an adrenaline rush.
Fawkes trilled sadly as his second favorite human stopped blazing with
Light.
"Don't give me that, you mcnugget." Harry chided and ruffled the
firebird's chest feathers. "I'm all ears if you know how to control this,
but I've got no interest in becoming some kind of magical berserker that
will kill anything, fuck everything and can't think more than three
seconds in advance."
Fawkes sang something that sounded remarkably like a shrug. He had no

idea how the bird had managed to do that.
"Yeah, that's what I thought." Harry muttered.
XXXXX
Fred and George hadn't known quite what to think when Harry Potter had
asked to talk to them in private. The last time he'd asked to talk to a
Weasley in private, it had been to buy a pet rat that was actually an
Animagus.
"I want to hire you." He said simply, causing the twins to look at each
other with raised eyebrows.
"Hire us?" Fred repeated.

"To do what?" George finished.
"To prank the ever loving shite out of Draco Malfoy." Harry answered.
"You may have come to the right place." The twins chorused with wide
grins.
"Excellent." Harry drawled with a smirk. "Just so we understand each

other, I don't want this to be something that he can laugh off. I want
him to be afraid of leaving his common room at the start of every day."
The grins faded a bit as they realized that there was some real malice
behind this.
"You don't think that breaking his jaw was enough for what he said the
other day?" Fred asked.
"Oh, this has nothing to do with that." Harry explained. "You remember
Penelope Clearwater?"
"Of course, Percy's ex-girlfriend." George nodded.
"Perfect Percy really dropped the quaffle with her." Fred added.
"Well it would seem that Malfoy junior couldn't stand the indignity of
being put in detention by a 'mudblood' and got his father to ruin her
chances of ever getting a decent job in magical Britain. That's why I
want him to suffer some real indignities."
"When you put it that way it does sound like he needs a good pranking,"
Fred admitted.
"I'm glad you agree." Harry said. "So will you do it?"
"I'd like to know why you care so much about Penny first." George said
with a smirk.
"Could it be that not-so-ickle Harriekins has a crush on our uptight

brother's ex-girlfriend?" Fred continued with the same smirk.
"Yes, Harry. Are you in loooooove with Penny?" George finished, wagging
his eyebrows.
Harry raised an eyebrow at the rather sad attempt at flustering him,

though he had to admit that it would likely have worked if he hadn't
artificially sped up his maturation.
"She's a friend and she works for me." He replied simply.
"Works for you?" The twins asked in surprise.
"Yes. I needed a personal assistant to handle my mail and finances and

Penny has been doing a great job of it so far. In that respect, the
Malfoys actually did me a favor, but I still want Draco to suffer for it,
which is why I'm now asking you if you're up for it.
The twins were silent for a long moment as they digested this, but then
George spoke up with an interesting gleam in his eye. "You said that you
wanted to hire us, I assume that means payment?"
"I wouldn't expect you to spend your time pranking someone for free."
Harry said with a completely straight face.
"Brother mine, I do believe that not-so-ickle Harriekins is sassing us."

Fred said.
"I was indeed getting that impression myself." George concurred.
"I was going to pay you, but I won't say no if you're willing to do it
for free." Harry said idly.
"We will be glad to accept this commission, Mr Potter. Now let's talk
numbers." George said with a faux pompous accent.
"I'll pay for the supplies you need plus a galleon for every prank you
pull on Malfoy."
The twins' eyes widened slightly in surprise but they got themselves
under control with admirable speed.
"That's very generous of you, but seeing as we are the only dedicated
pranksters in the castle, perhaps we should be getting five galleons for
every prank." Fred said.
"Supply and demand." George added sagely.
Harry looked at them flatly at the ridiculous number. "What are you,
goblins? One galleon per prank and five for the ones that are especially
humiliating." Still pocket change for him, but it would provide
incentive.
They looked pensive for a moment and then nodded, apparently deciding
that it was the best they were going to get. "Alright, we can go with
that, but what would you say to ten galleons for the ones that are
especially creative?"
"I don't care how creative you are." Harry said bluntly. "For me, this is
about making Malfoy suffer. As far as I'm concerned, you can walk up
behind him, smash him over the head with a beater's bat and call it a
prank."
The twins exchanged another look, perturbed by the open malice that Harry
was showing. They didn't like the idea of picking on someone like this
even if Malfoy had clearly earned himself a little payback. This went
beyond pranking and became bullying.
But they really needed the money if they were ever going to open their
joke shop. The materials weren't cheap and Bagman had cheated them out of
their savings at the World Cup. With Harry's offer, they could experiment
with someone else's money and get paid for it. Short of someone just up
and giving them a huge chunk of gold, it was exactly what they needed.
The only problem was that it required them to single someone out and make
their lives miserable with a constant stream of pranks. It wasn't really
like them to focus on someone like that.
But in the grand scheme of things, their dreams of owning a joke shop
weighed much more heavily than an easily disliked blood purist like Draco
Malfoy, so they accepted the deal.
XXXXX
Harry was surprised to discover that he actually enjoyed Moody's class.

Sure, the man was a paranoid nutcase exactly as bad as Dora had said, but
he definitely knew his stuff. He tended to focus rather heavily on the
combat side of DADA, which made sense given that he looked as if he'd
been in quite a lot of it. Not that Harry was complaining about that.
It also helped that the man did know how to teach, no doubt due to having
trained Aurors in the past. Lupin hadn't been a bad teacher by any
stretch, but he had been a bit on the timid side, not to mention his
constant akwardness around Harry. It would appear that DADA would finally
be enjoyable. That was good, as this was the sort of subject where
practical experience was much more valuable than textbooks.
He wished that he could have asked the man for private lessons on how to
fight. But Moody had been more a friend to Dumbledore and a member of his
Order of the Phoenix than an Auror even twenty years ago. He'd probably
be too busy anyway.
But there were alternatives. Perhaps it wouldn't be as good as being

trained by a legendary Auror, but it would work well enough for a start.
"What is this place?" Luna asked curiously, looking around the room that
Harry had led her into.
"It's called the Room of Requirement and it apparently shapes itself to

the desires of whoever uses it. The house elves told me about it." Harry
explained.
"Neat." Luna said with a dreamy smile, still looking around at the mostly
empty space that the room was currently configured into.
"Now I want you to take out your wand and cast stinging hexes at me." The
dark haired wizard said.
Luna took out her wand and cast a stinging hex at him without batting an
eyelash.
"Ow!" Harry yelped, more in surprise than any real pain. "I didn't mean
right away."
"But you said now." Luna pointed out reasonably.
Harry rubbed a hand over his jaw and sighed, ruefully admitting to
himself that he had indeed said that. "Let me just explain the how's and
why's and then you can start, okay?"
"Okay."
"Right. I've decided that I need to learn how to fight and this seems
like a good way of doing it." He noticed that her eyes became a bit more
vacant as he said this, no doubt reminded of her father's death, so he
hurriedly went on. "You'll cast spells at me and I'll try to dodge and
maybe throw a wandless spell back at you if I can manage it. Ready? Go!"
Luna might not be an Auror or even a combatant, but this should work just
fine for now. Moreover, Harry knew that he could trust her implicitly and
this would allow them to do something together. Luna for the most part
didn't grieve in the same way as other people, but she was hurting all
the same. Spending time with her and giving her something to do was the
only thing that Harry could think of to help her.
XXXXX
"Stop!" Harry gasped, greedily gulping down air.
Luna obliged and tucked her wand behind her ear.
The past couple of hours had been most enlightening in several ways and
Harry had discovered quite a few things.
For example, he had learned that dodging a barrage of spells wasn't as

simple as it seemed on paper. He'd taken more than one spill across the
ground because he'd lost his balance. It didn't help that his prolonged
growth spurt had left him a touch clumsy. It wasn't a problem on a day to
day basis since the growth had still been gradual even if it was
unnaturally quick, but it had certainly come into play when trying to do
something more balance intensive than walking.
He could finally sympathise with his girlfriend, though her clumsiness

had more to do with her unintentionally adding or taking away an inch or
two of height with her Metamorphmagus ability and discovering it the hard
way.
Another thing was that he lacked stamina. Oh sure, his runes, magic and
the low fat foods he'd asked the elves to bring him had prevented him
from getting pudgy despite his intake, but he'd barely done any exercise
in his life. He hadn't lasted fifteen minutes before needing a short
break to catch his breath. He knew that Aurors were expected to keep in
shape barring any crippling injuries and now he knew why. Jumping
around in the middle of a fight was fucking tiring. Dora has asked him if
he wanted to join her when she went jogging, but he'd turned her down.
She was going to be insufferably smug about that when he broached the
topic again.
Next was the fact that he couldn't cast wandlessly and dodge at the same
time. Not yet at any rate. The focus required to properly cast a spell
was simply too much to be able to do it while dodging. Practice would no
doubt make it possible, but it would probably restrict him to quick and
simple spells that he could weave together without needing to devote his
full focus to the task. Shortcuts like wands and emotion powered magic
were also viable options, but they had their own drawbacks. The former
being stiff and inflexible and the latter volatile.
At least he'd gotten to test how well his runes worked. The magic
resistance they gave him meant that Luna's spells had barely stung and
been quickly flushed out. It was honestly about time that he got some
tangible benefit out of those aside from his enhanced growth.
"Should I start again?" Luna asked after a few minutes.
Harry considered it. He knew that they'd have to do this for quite a
while before he'd get any good at it...but he was pretty tired and it was
almost time for dinner.
"I think we'll call it a day." He finally said.
"Oh, okay." Luna said, honestly feeling a bit disappointed. It had been
fun.
"We'll do it again tomorrow if you're up for it." Harry said, wanting to

cheer her up. Since he was taking only one class, he had plenty of time.
"I'd like that." She smiled.
"And now I'm going to take a bath. I stink." He declared with a theatric
sniff of his armpit.
"I'd like to take a bath too." Luna said dreamily. Usually it was only
the prefects and head students that had access to genuine baths instead
of showers.
Harry simply nodded and willed the Room of Requirement to create two
bathrooms for them. It really was an amazing piece of magic.
Much to his consternation, Luna went into the same bathroom as him insead
of the extra one.
"Errr, Luna?" Harry began awkwardly.
"Yes, Harry." Luna asked, pausing in the act of undressing.
"You know that there's another free bathroom right next to this one,
right?"
"Yes." Of course she knew, but that one didn't have Harry in it.
"Just checking." Harry sighed and resigned himself to the inevitable.
Luna had spent every night so far in his bed instead of her own and now
she was apparently going to do the same with the bath. He could tell her
to no, but that would involve actually looking her in the eye and saying
no. Besides, he knew that there was nothing sexual about this for his
blonde friend.
"Will you wash my hair?" Luna asked with an eager smile. Her mother used
to wash her hair.
"Sure." Harry agreed. He might as well if they were going to be sharing a

bath.
XXXXX
"Luna, why did you come out of the boy's side of the tower this morning?"
Ginny asked as they made their way to Charms class.
"I spent the night with Harry." Luna answered. The two of them were still
friends even if Ginny and Harry weren't anymore. That was a bit sad, but
some people just don't fit well together.
"You spent the night...with Harry?" Ginny repeated numbly, her opinion of
her former friend plummeting even further than it had when she'd learned
that he was fooling around with those upper year girls.
Oblivious to the conclusions that the redhead was jumping to, Luna
nodded. "Yes, it's very nice."
Ginny had no idea what to say to that, so she simply scowled.
This conversation was meant to be private, but this was Hogwarts so they
were naturally overheard. Before the day was out, it was known that Harry
and Luna were an item and already having sex. The fact that they often
disappeared together was taken as confirmation.
XXXXX
The following days passed more or less uneventfully. Word inevitably got
around that Harry wasn't participating in the majority of his classes,
which caused some envious muttering from people who didn't want to attend
either, but little else. A few confronted Harry about it, but only got a
dismissive 'I have no parents to make me go' as a response, which quickly
shut people up. The dead parents conversation killer continued to be
useful.
Oddly enough, both Harry and Luna remained mostly insulated from the
rumors going around about them. Neither was exactly socially connected
and everyone just sort of assumed that they knew everything already and
didn't bother asking them about it. Harry spent most of his time away
from the general student population anyway and Luna mostly tuned out the
whispering. Ginny had been the one to tell them about pertinent rumors
the previous years, but she was the unknowing instigator in this case.
Currently, the two were giving more fire to those rumors with what had
become their almost daily sessions in the Room of Requirement.
Harry had built up some endurance and gotten enough of a handle on his
footwork that he wasn't crashing to the floor all the time, but he still
got hit with plenty of spells. The fact that Luna's accuracy and speed
were improving alongside his dodging skills also had something to do with
that.
He still had trouble getting off a spell while staying in motion though.
The mental flexibility required to think of offense while evading attack
simply eluded him.
Harry clenched his jaw as another stinging hex hit his thigh, frustrated
more than in pain. He barely felt the sting through his magic resistance,
but felt it he did. This would be so much easier with a wand. Just wave
it through the air and think about what you wanted and it would happen,
barely any thinking required. No wonder wizards had become so dependent
on them.
The next three spells he dodged, but found himself too unbalanced and out
of position to manage with the fourth. He instinctively used his arm as a
shield. The stinging hex bounced off his arm as it hit and went sailing
back towards Luna, forcing his friend to jump out of the way of her own
spell.
Harry grinned at the event as Luna righted herself. That kind of thing
had been happening with increasing regularity. He may not have managed to
cast anything offensive while dodging, but it had done wonders for his
ability to conjure up shields. At this rate he'd be soon able to
wandlessly create shields with ease. It was limited to his arms for now
since that was the first bodypart that came to mind as a means of
shielding, but he was sure that he would eventually be able to manage it
elsewhere. It wouldn't make him invulnerable to spells since some were
too powerful to block like that, but being able to deflect low tier
offensive spells like this would still be useful.
"More?" Luna asked with a smile as she righted herself.
Harry brushed a few rebellious strands of hair out of his face and
nodded, preparing himself for another round of dodging.
Then both of their heads snapped towards the side when one of the
communication mirrors began vibrating.
"Timeout I guess." He said and went to answer. "Hey, Penny."
"Was I interrupting something?" The former Ravenclaw asked with a raised

eyebrow, seeing that Harry was a bit flushed and had a light sheen of
sweat on his face.
"Good evening, Penelope." Luna said as she sat down next to Harry so that
she could see into the mirror.
Penny blinked, seeing that her fellow blonde had a similar look of slight
dishevelment to her. What in the world had they been up to? Probably best
not to ask.
"Hello, Luna." She said and got right to the point. "I have the
information you asked for on the Tri-Wizard Tournament."
"Nice, let's hear it.
"It was first conceived just over seven hundred years ago as a peaceful
means of determining which of the three magical schools of the time was
the best." Penny began, her tone turning wry at the end. "Apparently,
relations between Hogwarts, Durmstrang and Beauxbatons was quite a bit
more hostile in those days and it wasn't unheard of for arguments to be
settled with violence. The winner of the tournament would essentially get
bragging rights and the prestige of being known as the next up and coming
witch or wizard."
"But then it got cancelled because of the death toll." Harry said with a
nod, having heard that much already.
"Yes, once the Ministries of Magic started showing up, regulating magic
use and making the separation between the magical and muggle worls more
stringent, the number of random magical duels started declining rapidly.
When all three champions got killed in 1792, it was determined that it
was too brutal a competition for the times."
"So why would they bring it back?" Harry asked.
"No idea." Penny shrugged. "I asked a few people in the Ministry and they
essentially told me that Ludo Bagman had gotten it into his head to
resurrect it and managed to convince the right people."
"Did you learn anything about the selection process?" Harry asked, an
idea forming. Dumbledore had only said that the choosing would be
impartial.
"I did actually. They use a magical artefact called the Goblet of Fire to
determine who's worthy to be chosen as a champion."
"Goblet of Fire?"
"A joint project between the Headmasters of the three schools for the
fifth tournament to ensure that only the most capable would be able to
compete. They used a lottery system of sorts before that, but decided
that a better arbiter was needed since it got weak wizards picked more
than once. Entering your name constitutes a binding magical contract with
the Goblet to compete on pain of losing your magic, or death in other
words. It's also been considered as a rite of adulthood in the old days
because you're essentially taking your life into your own hands by
entering your name." Penny explained.
"So if I were to enter my name, I'd be considered a legal adult?" Harry
asked contemplatively. His status as a minor hadn't been a huge problem
lately since he now had Sirius to act in his name if he needed it, but he
was getting antsy to take a look at the Potter family vault in Gringotts.
"Only if your name gets picked, and you'd still exist in a sort of legal
limbo until the tournament is finished. Apparently it doesn't come into
effect until the end to avoid unnecessary paperwork just in case you die
before that." Penny explained and then frowned at him. "You aren't
actually thinking of entering are you?"
"I am." Harry admitted.
"But isn't entry restricted to people who've already had their

seventeenth birthday?"
"So?"
"Harry, don't do anything stupid." Penny sighed, looking worried. "This

tournament is dangerous."
That just made it more attractive for him. Doing something dangerous in a
semi-controlled environment sounded exactly like what he needed if he
wanted to be more prepared for the next group of belligerent wizards with
a grudge. He might not be getting XP points from it, but experience with
dangerous situations was certain to be even more valuable.
"I'll be careful." He assured her.
"But you're still going to enter." She said flatly.
"Yes."
"Fine." Penny sighed. She'd gotten quite fond of Harry lately and didn't
want to see him getting hurt, but she knew that he was a lot more
stubborn than you'd give him credit for at first. "I also have the
details for transfering money out of Gringotts."
Harry's eyebrows climbed up his forehead at Penny's terse tone as she

said that. She must have found something unpleasant, which wouldn't be a
surprise with goblins involved.
"So, how is it done?"
"It isn't." She said flatly. "Gringotts money isn't a valid currency
anywhere except for places with another Gringotts bank, which means
anywhere outside of Europe , India or Egypt. Places like the United
States, Australia, South America and basically any magical country that
isn't a member of the ICW have their own currency. It's even considered
an international felony for anyone but a goblin to melt down the coins."
"You have got to be shitting me." Harry stated, stunned. He'd expected
that the diminutive little bastards would have some kind of crap going
on, but this? "But wait, couldn't I just turn all the gold into muggle
money and transfer it that way?"
"You could, but you'd have to do it a rate of a hundred galleons per day
unless you want to be charged a 80% fee for the service."
"80%!?" Harry exclaimed in shock. "What kind of insane rate is that?!"
"From what I can tell it's a transparent ploy by the goblins rob anyone
that tries to stop using their services." Penny said with a slight scowl
of her own. "You can withdraw all of your gold if you want, but large
scale transactions always go through Gringotts and have unreal fees
attached to them if only one side has their gold inside the bank, plus
you don't get the benefit of having it protected. And of course, it's
illegal to conduct any transaction larger than a hundred galleons without
Gringotts as a middle man. The people in the Goblin Liasons Department
won't openly admit it, but the goblins have had a deathgrip on the
European magical world's economy ever since the last war. The entire
system is designed to maintain the goblin monopoly on gold."
"Awesome." Harry sighed sarcastically. That explained a lot. The little

fuckers were a hundred times worse than the dwarves in Lord of the Rings.
They'd have kept digging even if they knew there was a Balrog waiting for
them. He hadn't realized the true depth of their greed until now. No
wonder that Gorefist had been so angry when he'd threatened to empty his
vault back at the end of first year. Even if the gold had nowhere else to
go than Gringotts, it wouldn't be in Gorefist's keeping anymore. Damn
goblins would probably sooner sacrifice their firstborn than a pile of
gold. The Americans had definitely been on to something when they'd wiped
them out on their shores.
XXXXX
The second Saturday after the start of term.
Harry had a problem. He was debilitatingly aroused.
He knew it sounded funny, but it was true. It hadn't been a problem at

first, but the longer he went without sex, the more distracted he was
getting. He couldn't sit still long enough to read a book. He couldn't
focus enough to brew a potion. His runes itched all the time, his magic
was restless and he was sporting a semi-permanent erection. Luna wasn't
helping the situation at all by crawling into his bed every night.
This wasn't exactly a new problem. He'd had the same issue in the period
between the end of third year and the first time he'd slept with Dora, it
just hadn't been this bad. The difference was that he was rather more
attached to his girlfriend than he had been to Bryanna and Tiana. His
occasional attempt to harvest the power of the Sun without losing himself
was also supercharging his runes. And of course, he now also had a girl
who was not quite woman but not quite a child either snuggling him every
night. Naked.
Talking to Dora over the mirror didn't really help. In fact, it was
making things even worse since she'd caught on to his problem and started
teasing him over it a few days ago.
It was for these reasons that a raven flew out of the Hogwarts wards on
this particular evening. He knew where a certain Metamorphmagus lived and
wasn't afraid of dropping by unannounced.
XXXXX
Nymphadora Tonks was not having a great day. It had been exhausting from
start to finish.
She'd had the morning shift and as a result been up far earlier than she
would have liked. Then she'd spent a sleep inducing hour finishing a
report that she should have done yesterday. Then Robards had sent her to
break up a domestic disturbance between a pissed off witch, her husband
and their attractive and lonely muggle neighbour. Telling a pissed off
witch that she couldn't turn people, especially unaware muggles, into
slugs was always so much fun. That stupid tradition of giving the rookie
all the shit jobs was also grand. It had taken hours to do the paperwork
from that debacle, what with the violations to the Statute of Sececy, the
illegal use of magic and the need for Obliviators.
When she'd finally gotten home, she had just enough energy to grab a
plate of yesterday's leftovers that she'd put under a stasis spell, plop
herself in front of the telly and let it lull her into a state of torpor
as she ate.
A few hours later, she woke up with a crick in her neck and a head
feeling like it was wrapped in cotton. She got up with a groan, knowing
that she was going to have a devil of a time falling asleep later when
she actually needed to.
I wonder what Harry's doing? She thought and briefly considered using the
mirror he'd given her to call him before dismissing it. She'd just talked
to him yesterday and had no desire to be one of those clingy girls who
used every spare moment to badger their boyfriends, doubly so since she
was so much older than him. And it wasn't his job to keep her entertained
anyway.
But she missed the cheeky brat. She didn't really have an abundance of
friends thanks to her choice of career and she'd gotten used to having
him around. None of her coworkers were also friends outside of the job
and her Hogwarts friends had long since drifted away to do their own
thing while she was training with Moody. Harry was young enough to not be
a stick in the mud and mature enough to not be childish. And it helped
that he was great in the sack. Very important that.
Despite laughing it off a couple of weeks ago, she was a bit worried that
he would find someone else to keep him company at night. There'd be no
shortage of willing witches throwing themselves at him if he let it be
known that he was looking, that was for sure. The fact that he'd turned
down two such offers before did a lot to assuage that concern, but it
didn't get rid of it. Harry certainly wouldn't be the first or last
person whose libido got the better of them during a long separation.
I need to stop moping. Tonks decided only to continue the thought

sarcastically. But the day is just so perfect for it!
And it was. Aside from a more tedious than normal day at work, the
weather had stayed at a dispirited drizzle the entire time. It was the
kind of weather that could make you fall asleep out of sheer lethargy.
Maybe I really should get a computer, if only to see what the hype is all
about.
Harry had mentioned that he was considering having Potter Manor renovated
and electrical wiring installed. The problem with that idea was that it
was warded to keep the non-magical away and he wasn't sure if there was
enough magic around the old manor house to make electronics go screwy
like they did in Hogwarts over time. It hadn't happened to his laptop so
far, but there was no guarantee that it wouldn't happen to the wiring.
Tonks didn't have that problem since she lived in a perfectly mundane
apartment complex in London. It wasn't the best of living spaces and
paying the rent and picking up her owl post in Diagon Alley was a bit of
a chore, but it got her out from under her parents roof and she liked the
various perks of the Muggle World too much to live in a purely magical
household. You couldn't get Chinese takeout delivered for one thing.
A knock had her head snapping towards the door.
"Coming!" She called out cheerily, moving towards it. It was too early
for the landlord to be collecting rent, which meant that it was probably
one of her parents. Or both of them. They could be annoying sometimes in
the that typical way that only parents dropping in unannounced on their
adult children could manage, but right now she was just glad for the
distraction.
She was almost at the door when she started feeling strangely...horny.
Hardly the typical reaction to having your parents come over and Tonks
shifted akwardly in an attempt to tamp down on the heat blooming between
her legs before she opened the door.
"Harry?" She blurted out in surprise, seeing her boyfriend standing there
when he should have been way up in northern Scotland. He was slightly
damp, clearly having been exposed to the rain for a short while.
He didn't say anything, electing to simply grab her and pull her into a
kiss.
Tonks made a noise of surprise into his mouth that quickly turned into a
moan. The earlier arousal that had come seemingly out of nowhere flared
in strength, leaving her feeling as if a thick blanket of desire was
pulled over her.
It didn't matter anymore how he was here, all that mattered was that he
was and that he wanted her. She barely registered anything as he kicked
the door closed and they stumbled their way towards her bedroom. She'd
been handling their separation just fine despite missing him, but now
that he was here she was desperate to feel him inside her again.
By the time that they reached her small, one person bed they were
completely naked and fell into it eagerly, more than ready to skip right
to the main event.
Which was why Tonks was extremely irritated to feel something digging
into her back and forcing her attention away from the impending sex.
"Just a sec." She grunted and reached under herself to remove the
offending object. "Aha!"
Her triumphant expression swiftly turned embarrassed as she realized that

she was holding up Mr. Purple as if it was some kind of prize. To
compound the situation, the enchanted dildo started wiggling around and
vibrating.
"Impressive." Harry deadpanned. It was a rather large dildo.
She just knew that her hair and face had to be tomato red about now, so
she grabbed the back of his head and pulled him into another kiss. Sex
was a surefire way to get past an akward situation.
XXXXX
Later.
The sweaty lovers lay on the small-ish bed, Tonks on her stomach and
Harry on Tonks, taking deep, calming breaths as their lust abated for the
moment.
"Bloody hell, I needed that." The Metamorphmagus sighed, cheek pressed

into the matress and just enjoying the feeling of having her young lover
on her and in her.
"You aren't the only one." Harry murmured, nibbling on her ear and
delighting in the shiver it elicited from her. "I was getting so horny I
could barely think."
"I noticed." She chuckled. Her earlier concerns about him cheating on her
seemed so silly now. "You skipped right over the foreplay."
"That's what you get for jilling yourself over the mirror."
"You could've looked away."
"As if!" Harry scoffed.
"Then don't complain." Tonks laughed.

"I'll show you a complaint." Harry growled playfully and began focusing.
"What are you on about?" She asked warily, feeling...something.
"You'll see." He said mysteriously. It was almost sundown, but he could

still draw in a bit of Light.
Tonks felt herself flush with sudden arousal, far too sudden and powerful
to be natural.
"What is this?" She gasped, subconsciously bucking her hips towards him
in the hope that he would put his revitalized erection to good use.
"Just a little trick." He murmured into her ear, continuing to mingle his
Light infused magic with hers, knowing exactly what effect it would have.
He'd seen it happen with the veela at the World Cup, though that had been
subtler and much longer ranged.
Tonks began wiggling insistently, barely holding back a needy whimper as

her loins burned with desire. She had no idea what he was doing, but if
he didn't start moving soon she might just have to get violent.
"Get on with it already!" She panted out with a growl half a minute
later, bucking her hips back at him with all the force she could muster.
The pleasure of the act made her gasp in surprise despite expecting it.
That was the end of Harry's self-control, which had been hanging by a
thread at that point anyway.
XXXXX
Later.
"Dora?"
"Hmm?"
"You've heard about the Triwizard Tournament, right?"
"Mmm."
"I'm thinking of entering."
That got the Auror to snap out of her indolent daze and give him a queer
look.
"Why would you do that? You hardly need the fame or the money."
"For the challenge. I don't want to be unprepared the next time I'm
attacked." He admitted.
"Next time?" Tonks repeated with a frown. "You're expecting to get

attacked again?"
Of course he was. The prophecy that he'd inadvertently tricked Dumbledore
into revealing at the end of his first year now loomed over him
constantly. Back then it had been a distant thing, like a thunderstorm on
the horizon, not really something worth getting excited about. The recent
attack had been like a smack across the face. The problem was a lot
closer than he'd thought and the other side way playing for keeps.
Harry considered telling her about the prophecy and Voldemort's

Horcruxes, wanted to even, had considered it before...but caution stopped
him. He liked her, but he had no idea what would happen if he told her
that. Would she want to help? Would she tell Amelia Bones like she was no
doubt obligated to do? Secrets had a way of spreading once you started
telling them to people and he definitely didn't want the Ministry
catching wind of it. Best case scenario would be a constant Auror guard
following him around. Worst case scenario would be Fudge panicking and
doing something idiotic, like taking him into 'protective custody'
somewhere and training him up as a weapon to get rid of Voldemort if he
resurfaced. He might even get charged with some sort of crime for keeping
that locket around instead of turning it in. And that wasn't even
mentioning the numerous Death Eaters that still had high positions in the
Ministry, or what Dumbledore would do. Too many variables.
"Yes, I am." He said instead. "I hear plenty of Death Eaters walked free.
There's no telling when one of them will decide to take a shot at 'the
Boy-Who-Lived'."
"You sound like Moody." Tonks huffed, both amused and exasperated.
"Speaking of which, why don't you just ask him for help? He's your DADA
professor this year and he'll like your sense of constant vigilance."
Harry made a face. He had a feeling that this next part of the
conversation wouldn't go over well.
"I thought about it, but I don't trust him."
"Don't trust him?!" Tonks burst out, incredulous and indignant on behalf
of her mentor. "Why the hell not? You think he's after you too?"
"No him specifically." Harry clarified. "It's Dumbledore I don't trust,

and Moody is an old friend of his."
"Dumbledore?" She repeated, looking at him strangely. "Why wouldn't you

trust Dumbledore? He's the greatest wizard in the world."
Harry sighed, slightly disappointed that Dora had bought into that
bullcrap too but not really surprised. The old man knew a thing or two
about public relations, that was for sure.
"I've got reason to suspect that he doesn't have my best interests in

mind. He was Chief Warlock when Sirius was tossed into Azkaban but didn't
bother arranging a trial for him and that's just one example of him doing
things that make me wonder about his motives."
Tonks opened her mouth to question him further, but he preemted her.
"I'll tell you about the others later if you want. I don't want to waste
our time together talking about Dumbledore."
That conversation would require some preparation if he wanted to properly

put a crack in the myth of 'Dumbledore the Infallible'.
"Oh? And how do you want to spend our time together?" She asked with a
smile.
"I'm sure I could think of a few ways..."
XXXXX
Sunday morning.
"Good morning, Harry." Luna greeted. "You look much more relaxed today."
"I am more relaxed today." Harry agreed. Weekly booty calls at least
to his girlfriend were a necessity. He'd go crazy otherwise.
"I'm glad Nymphadora was able to help, I was starting to get worried
about you."
"How did you know where I went?" He asked curiously. He'd told her that
he was leaving the castle for a night, but not where he was going.
"You were obviously desperate to put your penis in her vagina." Luna
stated in that almost eerie calm tone that was uniquely hers.
Harry paused for a moment and then nodded with a sigh. There was no point
in being shocked at Luna's bluntness anymore and she was right anyway.
"I wish I could have seen it." She continued with a pout.
Harry sighed again. It was too early in the morning to deal with Luna's
voyeuristic streak and he was too hungry.
"Let's go get breakfast."
"Okay."
Chapter 16
A quick chapter this time. I'm finding myself pretty eager to move the
story along.
Many thanks go to Joe Lawyer for helping me polish up the chapter.

XXXXX
Early October.
When Harry had first given her the task of finding out how muggleborns
were viewed outside of Britain, Penny had guessed that it might take a
while to find that out. What she hadn't expected was the sheer amount of
obstructionism she'd encountered simply on account of her blood status.
More than one Ministry bureoucrat had outright refused to meet with her
or simply continued to push back the date of their meeting until she gave
up. The worst by far had been that Umbridge woman that was temporarily in
charge of the Department of International Magical Cooperation, who had
actually deigned to meet with her but spent the entire time making
unsubtle insinuations that mudbloods had no business even living, much
less asking questions in the Ministry. She'd thought that Harry had been
exaggerating when he'd described how he'd been tempted to murder her
within five seconds of their meeting at the World Cup, but now she fully
understood the impulse.
To make matters even worse, Percy had been there too, having apparently
been appointed the pink toad's personal secretary, no doubt on account of
his pureblood status and ability to shove his nose so far up someone's
arse that he could smell their breakfast. He'd stood behind Umbridge in
silent support, chest puffed up self-importantly.
Penny really had to wonder how she had misjudged Percy's true nature so
badly at Hogwarts. He'd seemed so reliable at the time, but now it was
clear that he simply worshipped authority. She knew that he didn't even
buy into the pureblood propaganda, but was quite clearly willing to go
along with it if that was the way things were, the useless jerk.
Either way, the Ministry of Magic had essentially been a dead end as far
as information went. It had taken her weeks just to learn how to get in
contact with the ambassadors from the other magical nations, and even
that had been learned from some random DIMC employee that she'd accosted
in the hallway. Even then she had still needed to drop Harry's name
before they would give her the time of day, something that she had
avoided doing previously, purely out of a desire to be talked to as a
human being in her own right. Penny had seen enough to know she'd be
lucky to find one pureblood in twenty that wasn't a prejudiced arsehole,
but she was a stubborn woman and quietly simmering in outrage at being
looked down upon by small minded bigots that were determined to stay
ignorant at all costs just so that they could feel important.
In any case, she was finally going to be talking to the North American
ambassador. She was a bit nervous about that, having never really
imagined herself talking to people like this, but how bad could it be?
Just ask a few polite questions and see how things went. If he turned out
to be as bad as the people in the British Ministry upon learning that she
was a muggleborn then it was probably safe to conclude that the US
wizards and witches were as bigoted as the ones here and if he wasn't
then she would learn even more.
It didn't really stop the nervous flutter in her stomach when she was
called into the man's office, but she pasted a smile on her face and went
in regardless.
"Ms. Clearwater." John Boyer said in greeting, shaking her hand and
gesturing towards a chair in front of his desk. "I understand you had
some questions for me?"
"Yes, Mr. Boyer, I do." Penny said, arranging her robes so that she could
sit comfortably. She'd barely worn them since Harry had given her a job
but felt that this conversation warranted it. Now she was just feeling
silly since the ambassador himself notably wasn't wearing robes, but a
somewhat old fashioned looking suit. If she didn't know he was a wizard,
she would have pegged him as forty-or-so-year old man with dark brown
hair, pale skin and a fondness for formal wear, though he was probably
closer to sixty.
She took that as a good sign, knowing how obsessed the blood purists were
about their traditions. They wouldn't have been caught dead dressed like
that.
"Ask away." Boyer said with a diplomatic smile.
"Well...I suppose there's no way to ease into this, but I'd like to know
how muggleborns are treated in magical North America." Penny said
akwardly.
Boyer's face went momentarily blank and he leaned back into his chair.
"That's an interesting question, Ms. Clearwater. Why would you want to
know something like that?"
Penny fidgeted slightly at his neutral tone, wondering if she'd just

given some kind of offense or something. She was definitely way out of
her comfort zone here. "I'm not sure if you're aware, but British
muggleborns like me face a lot of discrimination on account of not having
magical parents. My employer asked me to investigate if that's the norm
everywhere or if magical Britain was an outlier."
"And who is it that you work for?" Boyer asked, now becoming very
interested. In fact, this was quite possibly the most interesting thing
to have happened since he'd been given this ambassadorial job into the
cess pit that was magical Britain.
"Harry Potter."
Yes, very interesting indeed. If magical Britain's national hero was

asking questions like this, then it meant that he was probably not too
fond of his homeland's attitude, in which case it would behoove him to
make immigration across the Atlantic sound like a good idea. Nothing
would light a fire under the asses of the British like having their famed
Boy-Who-Lived abandon them.
Not that Boyer expected it to be easy. He knew how things worked on this
side of the sea. If Potter decided to move to North America, then he'd be
coming with only the clothes on his back because all his gold belonged to
Gringotts. There weren't many people who'd be willing to abandon their
wealth and noble status in favor of starting with nothing in a new place.
He said nothing of his thoughts though and simply nodded thoughtfully.

"And why does Mr. Potter want to know this?" It was always good to
confirm your theories if possible.
"He didn't share his reasons with me." Penny said a tad stiffly.
Boyer nodded again. The girl was clearly new to this kind of thing and
nervous, but was doing fairly well despite that. A more cagey diplomat
wouldn't have given away information so easily, but she'd clammed up much
faster than he'd expected she would.
"To answer your question, yes we are aware of the discrimination against
first-generation mages and Britain is indeed an extreme example."
"I'm sorry, but 'first-generation mages'?" Penny asked, curious about the
term. She supposed that mages was an alternative term for magicals,
probably an American thing, but she didn't understand why the use of
'first-generation' instead of 'muggleborn'.
"That is the commonly accepted term for mages born to mundane parents,
though 'newbloods' is also widely used." Boyer explained. "You see, the
term 'muggle' as a descriptor for people without magic was coined
sometime in the Middle Ages. Wizards and witches were generally much
better educated in those days and tended to look down on the mundanes as
uneducated cretins, or 'muggles'."
"I see." Penny said, frowning. She thought back to when she'd first
learned that she had magic and Professor McGonnagal had explained that
she was a muggleborn and her parents muggles. She hadn't thought much of
it at the time, it being just another funny word to an eleven-year-old
girl, but her parents hadn't liked it. Now that she had heard the origins
of the word and thought it over again, she had to admit that it did have
an insulting feel to it. "So I'm being insulted even when people are
trying to be polite?"
"Technically." Boyer shrugged. The more dirt he could throw at theBrits

the better, especially when it was all true. "I doubt that the average
person is aware of this, but the social elite almost definitely is."
"How are things for the first-generation in America then?"
"Pretty good actually." Boyer admitted proudly. "They do have a bit of

catching up to do in comparison to those children that were born to
magical parents, but they don't face any discrimination based on that.
Our ancestors founded magical North America on a principal of equality no
matter how many generations back your magical heritage goes." It was also
founded on the blood and bones of the European magical nobility that had
tried to entrench itself there, but that wasn't something that was talked
about openly for the most part.
"You'e telling me that there's no discrimination at all?" Penny asked in
disbelief, finding that very hard to believe.
Boyer hesitated and then answered with obvious reluctance. "Not against
first-generation mages, no."
"Against who then?"
The American ambassador rubbed a hand against his mouth and sighed. He
really didn't want to talk about this, but it was too late to back out of
the conversation now. He would still try to sugar coat it as much as
possible though.
"You know of course that the International Statute of Secrecy has been in
place since 1692?"
"Yes." Penny nodded cautiously, wondering what he was getting at.
"What you may not know is that the Statute only made it official and put
it into law. Wizards and witches actually started withdrawing from the
public eye about a hundred or so years before the division of the Roman
Empire. Realistically speaking, it would have been impossible to hide all
traces of magic in a mere three centuries."
"That's very interesting," And it was, because Binns had never said
anything about this as far as she knew. "but what does it have to do with
discrimination?"
"I'm getting to that." Boyer said patiently. He knew full well that he
was being long winded. "There were very few trained wizards and even
fewer witches in those days, so it wasn't hard for them to vanish. The
number of mages actually decreased considerably over the next few
centuries due to the collapse of Rome and the subsequent rise of
Christianity with their 'suffer not the witch to live' attitude. Then
your Four Founders showed up and built Hogwarts."
"I don't get it." Penny admitted.
"You have to understand that something like Hogwarts had never existed
before." Boyer explained. "Magic was previously taught within the family,
master to apprentice or the occasional exceptional person that learned on
their own. A school for magic that would track down and teach every
single magic capable child within its range of detection was a massively
ambitious project that nobody had even dreamed of before. The number of
mages quickly increased, true communities began appearing and eventually
a rudimentary government was formed. Seeing this success, Durmstrang was
built in northern Scandinavia a couple of centuries later, Beauxbatons in
France shortly after that and smaller schools across Europe quickly
followed."
"I still don't see what this has to do with my question." Penny pressed,
starting to get the feeling that the ambassador was either desperately
trying to avoid answering the question or beating around the bush with a
trully massive stick.
"Almost there." Boyer promised. "This was where the bias against first-
generation mages first appeared. Before Hogwarts, nobody gave much
thought to how far back your ancestors were magical because wizards and
witches were by and large a people with no roots. Magic was magic and
that was all that anyone cared about."
"Is that why the prejudice is so bad in Britain?" Penny asked.
"That and the fact that Britain was largely spared the purges, lynching
and incidental deaths during both World Wars that swept the mainland.
Grindelwald was especially hard on Europe's magical nobility, he was a
Dark Lord that thought mages should rule the world, but cared nothing
about blood status. He wiped out a good 70% of the old families simply to
cripple their governments and steal whatever knowledge or artefacts they
might have been hoarding, but he didn't operate in Britain out of fear of
provoking your Albus Dumbledore to action."
Penny could certainly understand why a Dark Lord would want to rob the
old families. A lot of the magic that Harry had in his own library was
very powerful, as well as quite horrifying and illegal these days. Magic
that a newcomer to magic had no hope of seeing anywhere except perhaps in
the Hogwarts Restricted Section, but passes for getting in there weren't
handed out lightly.
"What I'm getting at here is that aside from non-humans mages have only
ever discriminated against those without magic." Boyer sighed.
"So...?" Penny prompted, still having no clue as to what he was getting

at.
"So when our ancestors killed off the snobby purebloods two hundred and
fifty years ago, our population was made up almost entirely of people who
had less than four generations of magical ancestry, and that was
considered extreme. We were once again a people with no roots aside from
the few non-magical ones that children make before being introduced to
magic."
"Oh." Penny breathed in realization. The magical world had lived

insulated from the non-magical for centuries, but a new community
established entirely by people who had cut themselves off from that would
naturally draw from what they had.
"I see you're starting to understand." Boyer nodded somberly. "We don't
have the same kind of trouble as you, but we have our own. Discrimination
based on skin color was never a problem across magical Europe because
they were so busy discriminating against 'blood purity', but magical
North America was founded by people who had been taught that non-white
people were subhuman and that carried over. Things have improved a lot in
since then, especially since only about half of our population is white
these days, but there is still some lingering resentment on both sides."
The youth of today was especially helpful with doing away the old
prejudices, but the old greybeards in power were stubborn and set in
their ways.
"It still sounds like you're doing better than we are though." Penny
offered. It was terribly disappointing to hear that racism based on skin
color had leaked into the magical world too since the apparent lack of it
was something that she'd been impressed by, but at least it seemed that
the Americans were trying to fix it, which was more than Britain could
honestly claim for their blood purity problem.
"We do take pride in doing better than you Brits." Boyer said jokingly,
making her laugh. "But I suppose the comparison isn't really fair. The
British magical community is the oldest in the world and has been around
in one form or another for close to nine hundred years. Anything that old
is bound to have a lot of mold growing on it."
"That's one way of looking at it." Penny agreed with a wry smile and
stood up. "Thank you for your time, Mr. Boyer, it was enlightening."
"It was my pleasure, Ms. Clearwater. Feel free to come back if you have
any more questions." He meant it too. Aside from being a more pleasant
conversationalist than many Brits that he had to put up with as part of
his job, he was still holding out some hope of getting Harry Potter to
move to the US. Listening to British ministry officials cry was one of
the few joys of this job.
XXXXX
Mid October.
"So that's the situation in North America." Harry said thoughtfully After
Penny relayed what she'd learned. "Interesting, I hadn't considered that
mundane prejudices might be a factor."
The end result was the same though. There would still be bitter people
that the mundane government could prey on for recruitment, especially if
things stayed true to form and the magical side remained behind the
times. Troublesome. In particular because Canada was not a separate part
of magical North America. Everything north of Mexico was magical North
America and everything south of it was magical South America. That was
one of the bigger differences between the mundane and magical parts of
world, it was much less divided. Magical Canada had been the one region
to come closest to splitting off, but it stayed part of North America in
the end. Of course, the territory was massive and the magical population
just a tiny fraction of its mundane counterpart, so the wizards and
witches of the time had perhaps felt no need to squabble amongst
themselves, which was more or less the same reason that Ireland and
Scotland were under the purview of the British Ministry of Magic rather
than being independent.
"What about Mexico?" That particular area was something that had baffled
him ever since the first time he'd seen a political map of the magical
world in its entirety and saw that it was considered under joint
ownership by North and South America.
In the mirror, Penny frowned. "It's strange."

"Strange how?"
"According to my research, there are a lot of first-generation magicals

born there, and by 'a lot' I mean a lot, but no magical families seem to
actually live there. North and South America just divide the children
born there between themselves for training." That bit of information had
taken her the better part of a month to piece together and she still had
no idea what it meant.
"That is strange." Harry agreed. "And there's no information on why

wizards and witches don't want to live there?"
"Not really." Penny shrugged. "The only hint I got was in a curse-
breaker's publication of all things, speculating that all of Mexico was
somehow cursed, but nobody's ever been able to find any curses except for
the fact that the place makes people feel uncomfortable. It's considered
one of the great magical mysteries of the world."
Harry's mind flashed to something he'd read years ago, before he'd ever
known about Hogwarts, a time when he'd spent his days googling the
various old civilizations for references to magic. The Aztec Empire had
once sat over large portion of modern day Mexico and they had been very
fond of massed human sacrifice, particularly to their sun god but also to
others. And the bloody practice had roots going even further back.
If it was merely a case of a mundane priest ritually killing another

mundane person it would be a simple garden variety killing to no effect,
but Harry had surmised from his own study of magical history(and not the
crap that Binns droned on about) that priests had often been untrained
wizards, even if they couldn't muster more than the simplest of magic.
The tiny displays of power had usually been seen as divine favor in the
old religions and those who could perform them often found themselves
being turned into religious figures.
If the Aztec priests had in fact been wizards as he suspected was the
case, the situation suddenly became quite a bit more complicated.
A wizard or witch sacrificing a mundane person could have some small

effect, but nothing really worth bothering with.
A mundane person sacrificing a wizard or witch would be a violent killing

that could easily produce a ghost under the right conditions.
A wizard or witch sacrificing another wizard or witch was where things

got sticky. Rituals were finicky things that were heavily influenced by
the thoughts of the people participating in it and could easily go awry,
as Harry could attest from personal experience. The book he'd taken from
the Black Library warned about the dangers of using human sacrifice, as
the thoughts of the sacrifice itself also influenced the end result.
A fanatical but untrained magical priest sacrificing another untrained

magical, especially if it was an unwilling one that was captured in some
raid or other, in some half assed and poorly structured ritual while tens
of thousands of similarly fanatical people bayed for blood in the
immediate area, once again probably counting more untrained magicals
among their number? That was just asking for trouble.
Repeat several thousand times or however many random magicals they

managed to pick for the sacrifice and voil, you've managed to cast a
lingering miasma of death and pain over a whole geographical region. The
non-magical population would be deaf and blind to it, but anyone or
anything with magic could feel it.
The Spanish had probably done the world a favor by wiping the Aztecs out.
If he was right about this, it could take literally centuries for the
magical residue to disperse. That it hadn't already in the past five
didn't make it look like it was going to happen anytime soon.
"Harry!" Penny said loudly, snapping him out of his thoughts.
"Huh, what?" Harry asked, blinking.
"You spaced out for a minute there." Penny explained.
"Sorry." Harry apologized. He knew that he sometimes ignored people when

he got absorbed in thought.
"What were you thinking about?" She asked curiously.
"I was thinking that I need to see the place for myself. Eventually." He
wanted to feel it for himself and check if he was right. He suspected
that the Americans knew exactly why nobody wanted to live there, but were
simply unwilling to tell people the truth for whatever reason.
"Harry, wouldn't you rather go to a nice beach on vacation?" Penny

suggested. "Sirius was bragging about this island in the Caribbean that
he owns just the other day."
"We'll go there too." Harry grinned. A private island with a sandy beach
and Dora in a bikini(or out of one)? He could put magical research on
hold for a while with that kind of incentive. "But we've veered off
topic. Let's move on to South America."
"Magical South America is a bit younger than it's northern neighbour and
didn't really have a proper community until the early 19th century.
Before that it was considered a place for adventurers rather than
settlers." Penny began.
"Any particular reason for that?" Harry asked.
"Lack of people mostly." She replied with a shrug. "The Americas are huge
and there's only so many wizards and witches in the world. With the
attitude of the time being to kill off the locals rather than live
together peacefully, it was a while before enough people settled down
there permanently. It also helped that the magicals living on the Iberian
Peninsula had only relatively recently formed their own government."
"And there's no goblins there either?"
"No, North America was quite determined to keep them from getting a foot
in the door anywhere on the continent and kept a close eye on things to
make sure they didn't."
"Smart of them." Harry commented wryly. "What about discrimination?"
"Not much of it if you believe the woman I talked to." Penny said with a
frown. "I'm not sure I do, she came off a bit smarmy."
"I suppose that's the best we'll get without actually seeing for
ourselves." Harry mused. "Alright, that takes care of one continent,
let's move on to Europe."
"You already know that Britain is the worst on that score, Italy is
number two on the list."
"Italy?" Harry asked with raised eyebrows. Why Italy of all places?
"They were allied with Germany during World War 2, which they claim to
this day they were coerced into though not everyone believes it." Penny
explained. "Either way, Grindelwald left them alone for the most part, so
the majority of Italy's old magical nobility survived and with it the
bigotry against first-generation magicals." Penny had adopted the
terminology she'd learned from the American ambassador since speaking to
him, finding herself reluctant to refer to herself as the offspring of
uneducated cretins, even if most people had forgotten the origins of the
word.
Harry had to snort to himself in amusement. The Dark Lord Grindelwald,

inadvertent champion of equality, who did more to shatter the delusion of
blood purity in a few years than Dumbledore had done in his entire life.
The irony was incredible.
Penny ignored the snort and continued with her report. "Third on the list
is, strangely enough, Scandinavia. I have to admit that surprised me
since the non-magical sides of Norway, Sweden and Finland are considered
to be among the most tolerant and well ordered countries in the world.
The reason for this seems to be the Durmstrang Institute, which actually
has in its charter a prohibition from attending to anyone that doesn't
have a minimum of three generations of magical ancestry on both sides of
the family."
"How is that even possible?" Harry asked in honest confusion. "Hogwarts

sits in the most bigoted magical nation of the world but admits everyone,
yet Durmstrang discriminates openly?"
"It has to do with the time it was founded." Penny explained. "The
Hogwarts charter specifically states that every magical child has a place
in its walls and the Founders were too respected for that to be
challenged, especially once it became tradition. Durmstrang was founded
about two hundred years after Hogwarts and the pureblood mentality was
well underway by then. It doesn't help that the current headmaster is a
known Death Eater by the name of Igor Karkaroff."
"They put a terrorist in charge of a school?" Harry could not believe

what he was hearing. Nobody could possibly be that stupid.
Penny could only shrug in response. "He was apparently pardoned for
snitching on his friends, but yeah, I have no idea who thought that was a
good idea. There was probably bribery at work or maybe they figured it
would be alright since there were only purebloods there anyway. Everyone
who isn't 'pure' enough goes to smaller schools that are dotted across
the area from which Durmstrang draws its students."
There were so many logic failures in the idea of installing a Death Eater
as the headmaster of one of the three largest magical schools in Europe
that Harry could do nothing but work his jaw in an attempt to say
something. In the end he simply shook his head with a sense of profound
disappointment, his respect for whoever was in charge of Durmstrang
sinking like a brick. "Please tell me that Beauxbatons doesn't have
something similarly stupid going for it?"
"It did for quite a while." Penny admitted. "France was as bad as Britain
at one point, but that changed during the French Revolution. Not even the
magical side of the country was left unscathed by that mess and more than
one of France's old magical families met their end under the blade of a
guillotine, though I have no idea how that could've happened."
Harry could think of a few ways. A resentful and angry class of oppressed
magicals that was fed up with being treated like dirt by the pureblood
social elite would have gleefully taken advantage of the chaos to get
some payback. All they would've had to do was undo the aversion wards
that kept non-magical eyes from noticing them, they usually weren't hard
to dispel after all. After that it would be simplicity itself to direct
the wrath of a bloodthirsty mob with a few strategically placed
compulsion charms. Hell, it probably wouldn't even have taken a
compulsion, just a pointed finger. Mobs were suggestible like that. The
purebloods would have probably panicked and lacked the focus to apparate
away even if they knew how, and very few of them would have had the power
to hold off a mob, magic or no.
"And I assume that Grindelwald mopped up the rest?" He guessed.
"He pretty much flattened the French magical community, they had to
rebuild it from the ground up once the war was over. On the plus side,
it's now counted as the most tolerant and enlightened magical country in
Europe. Beauxbatons even has a half-giant headmistress."
"And they say that violence doesn't solve anything." Harry quipped, still
amused by the thought of Grindelwald as the champion of the oppressed
despite the man's goals of ruling the world with an iron fist.
"Yes and it only took upwards of sixty million deaths to get things
done." Penny replied sarcastically, feeling the need to point out that
little detail.
"But it worked." He countered, at this point being deliberately contrary.
Penny rolled her eyes and huffed. "Anyway, the rest of Europe is
somewhere between Britain and France. There tends to be some bias, but
not nearly as pervasive as what we have and you couldn't get away with
open discrimination. As a rule of thumb, western Europe leans towards the
more tolerant and eastern towards less. That's probably the respective
influences of Beauxbatons and Durmstrang at work."
Harry nodded thoughtfully. That meant that the situation in Europe ranged
from potentially catastrophic(Britain), to probably fine(France) and
everything in between. How marvelously confusing.
"What about the rest of the world?"
"I couldn't get anything on most of Asia and Africa. The ambassador from
India was evasive when I asked and hustled me out of his office when I
kept pressing. I did manage to learn that they had an established magical
community of their own before British wizards started expanding their
influence there, but I couldn't get any details about what happened to
it."
"Another place to visit then." Harry mused. "I wanted to buy a flying
carpet anyway."
"You do know that possession of one is illegal in most of Europe?" Penny

asked pointedly.
"Only because the broom manufacturers are afraid for their profit
margins. That just makes me want a flying carpet even more." He had a
brief fantasy of flying into the sunset on a Persian rug with Dora in a
belly dancer's outfit. Yes, getting a flying carpet was definitely a
must.
"Egypt was under British control for a long while too and has become an
independent magical nation only in the past century. I'm not sure about
any discrimination but there is a heavy goblin presence there due to the
treaty that gives them unlimited access to ancient magical burial sites."
"I'd wager that the Egyptian wizards are more than a bit miffed that they
have to watch helplessly as their heritage is plundered by the greedy
little fuckers." Harry surmised. "Even more so since they employ human
curse-breakers." He did recall Ginny mentioning that her oldest brother
worked for Gringotts as a curse-breaker in Egypt. Why a human would
willingly work for goblins escaped him, but there it was.
"Probably." Penny agreed. "That just leaves us with Australia."
"Yes, what's going on in the down under?"
"Hard to say, they tend to keep to themselves. It was used as a dumping

ground for squibs and other undesirables for hundreds of years. It's
unique in the fact that their community was actually founded by a group
of squibs and their magical offspring. They had a rough time of it too,
with no books,no wands and no easy way of getting them."
"In that case, I think we can assume with some measure of certainty that
they don't care much about blood purity." Harry concluded. "No telling
what other quirks they might have though."
"Well, that's everything I had." Penny declared with a sigh, glad that it
was over. Hunting down all that information had been tiring and
frequently involved dealing with unpleasant people.
"It was exactly what I needed, thank you." Harry complimented, mentally
noting to himself to start giving her a regular salary. She'd done a
great job with this and had certainly earned it.
"Are you finally going to tell me why you wanted all this information?"
Penny asked.
"Let's just say that I'm a bit nervous about Britain's future and want to
have an emergency exit."
XXXXX
The conversation with Penny consumed Harry's thoughts well into the next
day and distracted him thoroughly. No matter how he looked at it, there
was serious trouble brewing in the future. If he failed to find and
destroy all of Voldemort's soul anchors before the defeated Dark Lord
managed to claw his way back to life, things were poised to quickly get
out of hand. The Dark Lord had had a habit of occasionally attacking non-
magical targets during his bid for power and that wasn't likely to change
if he came back. Harry doubted that the mundane government would fail to
respond if history began repeating itself. That wasn't likely to end
well, the two worlds were separated with good reason.
But Harry didn't have the faintest idea of where to begin searching for
the other Horcruxes. His idea of using the locket to track the others had
amounted to nothing so far. That could mean any number of things, his
potential lack of skill to manage it being the least troubling.
It could be the last one, in which case he would be well advised to

destroy it while Voldemort was still disembodied. They could be out of
range, provided that range was even a factor. They could be protected
against scrying. It could be impossible to track them down this way, the
book did warn that one's soul was in a constant state of change...perhaps
Voldemort's soul shards were too different from each other for one to be
used to track another. It could be something he hadn't even thought
about.
The other matter on his mind was his continued Hogwarts attendance. He
had been thinking of dropping out all summer but had in the end decided
to hold off on that. Unfortunately, he had underestimated just how much
it would grate on him to be confined to the castle even if he was mostly
doing his own thing and slipping out frequently. Still, there were
benefits, the Tri-Wizard Tournament being one of them. If he could get
past the age restriction, then Harry was fairly sure that he could also
win it. There might be some seventh year students that knew more spells
than him, but he was sure that he was the most powerful wizard in
Hogwarts, barring some of the staff. The competition from Beauxbatons and
Durmstrang wasn't likely to be better than him. As the Tri-Wizard
champion, he'd be legally be an adult and have all the credibility he'd
ever need and could easily wave off the OWL and NEWT exams.
A nudge at his hand brought him out of his thoughts and he reached into
the pouch at his side, bringing out a handful of meat chunks and offering
them to the thestral.
"You look distracted." Luna commented, smiling as another of the

carnivorous flying horses ate the meat from her hand.
Harry wondered about his friend sometimes. Weren't girls supposed to like
ponies and unicorns? What did it say about Luna that she liked these
cadaverous creatures? Harry knew why he was interested in them; they had
a faint sense of Dark about them, so some wizard must have done something
to cause this, but how and why were questions that might never be
answered. What Luna saw in them was anyone's guess.
To most people, they probably looked like a pair of crazies petting and
feeding the air.
"I don't want to come back to Hogwarts after this year." He admitted
point blank. Talking to Luna was best done in concise, blunt statements.
"There's not much of interest left for me here."
"I'll be sad without you." Luna replied with the same directness, but
without censure or accusation.
"I could withdraw you and arrange for you to take your OWLs and NEWTS at
the Ministry in a couple of years." Harry offered. "We could travel the
world together and I could teach you myself or hire tutors."
The thought of ignoring Voldemort and going gallivanting around the world
was discomforting, but he was also loath to put his life on hold because
of that lunatic. Besides, if the man was even slightly intelligent(and
everyone assured him that he was), he'd hidden at least one or two of his
soul containers in some forsaken corner of the world that nobody would
even think to look in. Furthermore, if Dumbledore with all the resources
available to him couldn't track down the other Horcruxes, then he wasn't
likely to succeed outside of his attempts to use the locket either.
"That would be nice."
"You wouldn't miss Hogwarts?"
"I would miss Ginny and the thestrals, but I would miss you more."
"That settles it then, this will be our last year in Hogwarts."
"Will Nymphadora be coming with us?"

"I hope so."
"Will you have lots of sex?"
"Yes."
"Can I watch?"
"No."
"Please?"
"I don't think Dora would be comfortable with that." Neither would he for
that matter, but that wasn't important right now.
"Okay." Luna conceded. She would need to find a way to convince

Nymphadora to let her watch.
They spent the next few minutes in silence, feeding the last of their
meat chunks to the thestrals.
"Will you come to Hogsmeade with me tomorrow?" Luna asked.
"Sure." Harry agreed. He hadn't gone back to the quaint little village
since that first time. The place really wasn't that interesting aside
from the MILF bartender, but he'd go if Luna wanted to go.
XXXXX
"It's a good thing that Hogsmeade sells proper food for miniature giant
space hamsters like Boo." Luna commeted as they exited the shop.
"Yes, lucky that." Harry replied, not even trying to hide his amusement.
The store clerk's baffled look had been priceless.
"What should we do next?" Luna asked. They had already visited the
bookstore, apothecary and Honeydukes sweet shop.
"We could go..." Harry trailed off in the middle of his suggestion that
they get something to eat, having spied a particular pair of redheads
coming out of Zonko's joke shop. "Actually, let's go talk to the Weasley
twins. There's something I need to ask them."
Luna nodded her assent and they approached the terrible twosome.
"Well if it isn't Harold the Tall..." Began George as soon as they were
in range.
"...and his girlfriend, Luna the Lovegood..." Continued Fred.
"Out for a romantic stroll around Hogsmeade." They finished together.

That little performance brought up so many questions that Harry wasn't
even sure where to begin, so he decided that he might as well tackle them
one at a time.
"Harold the Tall? Where did you get that one?"
"Well, calling you not-so-ickle-Harrykins was a bit of a mouthful..."
"...and 'Harry the Tall' sounded a bit weak..."
"...it's the 'y', names ending with a 'y' always sound weak if you add a
title..."
"...so we settled on 'Harold'."
"I see." Harry said ambivalently, but was inwardly a bit pleased by the
mention of his magically boosted height. He had no intention of voicing
this opinion out loud, but he couldn't help feeling that most wizards and
witches didn't really deserve their gifts since they barely bothered to
learn anything about them. He enjoyed the fact that he could look down on
most of them literally as well as figuratively, petty though he knew it
to be. "You could have just ditched the title and used my actual name."
"But where's the fun in that?"
"Right. Moving on, what's this about Luna being my girlfriend?"
Now the twins looked suddenly uncertain.
"Errr...Luna is your girlfriend, isn't she?" George ventured cautiously.
"Where did you get that idea?" Harry asked back, quite bewildered.
"It's all over the school, Harry." Fred answered, dropping all pretense
of joking.
"Oh, that would explain the dirty looks some of the older girls were
giving me." Luna exclaimed. "I'd been wondering what I did to offend
them, thank you for clearing that up."
"And it would also explain the string of propositions I received last

month." Harry sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. There had been a
sudden burst of female interest that had dropped off just as suddenly
when he refused them all. He'd been baffled by it at the time, but now it
made some sort of sense. They'd been fishing to see if he would dump Luna
in favor of them.
"So that rumor about you two sleeping together..." George trailed off,
not really sure what to say since the Marauder's Map had quite clearly
shown that Harry and Luna were definitely spending their nights together.
"Oh no, that's true." Luna replied before Harry could say anything.
"But you aren't dating?" Fred questioned further, obviously having
trouble wrapping his mind around the concept.
"Luna means literally sleeping, as in being unconscious." Harry

interjected before things could go off course any further.
"Yes, Nymphadora would probably object to that. She doesn't even let me
watch them have sex, so I expect that she would approve of me doing it
with Harry even less." Luna stated with the impersonal detachment of
someone reciting a grocery list. "I could be wrong though. Harry, do you
think Nymphadora would object if you put your penis in my vagina?"
"I dare say that she would." Harry said with another sigh. And he'd so
been hoping to avoid a 'penis-in-vagina' sentence this time.
"We concur. Women tend to be sensitive about that sort of thing." The
twins added, taking their cues from Harry and acting as if nothing
strange had just been said.
"Anyway." Harry said loudly, deciding to change the subject forcibly. "I
wanted to know how the Malfoy situation is progressing. I haven't seen
him get pranked in a while and was wondering if you'd stopped or if it
was just happening out of my sight."
"We stopped." George admitted. "We're starting to feel sorry for the daft
bugger."
"We really went too far that time with the explosive diarrhea." Fred
added, looking embarrassed.
"That one was my favorite." Harry admitted. Seeing the horror on Malfoy's
face as his bowels suddenly failed him had been beautiful.
"You know that he blames you for it, right?" George asked.
"Even better."
"Don't you think he's suffered enough? People probably won't be able to
look at him without laughing for the rest of the year at least."
No, Harry actually didn't think it had been enough. But then Harry was
like Snape in the ability to hold grudges for a very long time, though
not nearly to the same level of intensity.
"I guess I'll have to find other ways of making him miserable if you're
not willing to keep at it." He said with a frown. I don't really want to
waste time punishing Malfoy for being a turd, but I don't want him
getting away with it either.
"We may not be willing to keep tormenting him, but we wouldn't be averse
to providing you with the materials to do it yourself." George suggested.
After all, it wasn't good business practice to ask what the customer was
going to do with the goods he was sold.
"Believe it or not, I'm capable of going to Zonko's myself." Harry said
sarcastically.
"Ah, but who said anything about Zonko's?" Fred said mysteriously. "For
you see, Mr. Potter, if you accept our offer, you would have the honor of
being the very first customer of Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes."
"You two starting up a competing joke business or something?" Harry asked

with a raised eyebrow.
"Indeed we are." The twins confirmed. "Zonko's hasn't done anything new
in years and we feel it's time for a wheeze of fresh air."
"Nice pun, Sirius would have loved it." Harry deadpanned.
Fread and George gave a theatrical bow of acknowledgement. "So, would you
like us to supply you with prank products?"
Harry was smelling an opportunity here. It was no secret that the

Weasleys were poor, so there was no way that the twins would have the
liquid capital required to get a business started properly. If they
hadn't been purebloods, they couldn't have even muscled in on Zonko's
monopoly without running into some kind of restrictive legislation.
"I might be interested, but first I'd like to know if you two are in need
of some financial aid to get this joke shop of yours started." You could
never have too much gold, even if the goblins were essentially holding it
hostage. He hadn't quite given up on finding a way to get his money away
from the greedy little monsters.
The twins exchanged surprised looks, having not expected this in the
least.
"You would just give us the money to start up our shop?" George asked
cautiously, distrustful of the sudden turn of good fortune.
"Of course not, what kind of idiot just gives money away for nothing?"
Harry scoffed. "No, what I'm proposing is that I provide you with the
start up capital and hold majority ownership until you pay back my
investment, upon which time I retain a third as a silent partner. You get
your joke shop and I get a steady source of profit, everybody wins."
"And what if our idea fails?" The twins were confident in their idea, but
they had to be realistic. Failure was a definite possibility.
"Then I lose my investment and know better than to loan money to you in
the future." Harry had to be realistic as well. Zonko's was stagnating,
Sirius had complained about there being nothing new since his own
Hogwarts days. That didn't mean that the twins would succeed though,
however clever their pranks were. There was also the fact that the
Weasleys had won seven hundred galleons in some kind of Ministry raffle
last year and had rather foolishly blown it all at once, demonstrating
that their poverty might be the result of fiscal irresponsibility as much
as anything else.
Fred and George exchanged looks again, communicating a great deal without
needing to say anything. It wasn't an unfair offer, certainly better than
most would have given them, but they weren't going to just jump in and
agree when it was their dreams on the line.
"We'll need to think about this before we decide on anything."
"Of course, I would have been disappointed if you did agree right away."
Harry said with a nod. "Come talk to me if there's anything else you'd
like to know."
XXXXX
Fred and George were deep in thought as the two Ravenclaws left,
pondering the conversation they had just had.
"Say, Gred?"
"What is it, Forge?"
"Didn't Charlie use to date a girl by the name of Nymphadora in his

seventh year?"
"Indeed he did, indeed he did. Warned us to never call her that too if I
recall correctly."
"What do you think the chances are that this is a different Nymphadora?"
"I would wager that they are remote at best."
"We are agreed then that Harry Potter is in a relationship with

Nymphadora Tonks?"
"Most likely."
"What are we to do with this information?"
"Smile secretively when Harry's personal life is discussed within range

of our hearing?"
"That seems reasonable."
XXXXX
Sirius Black was brooding.
That was unnatural. Sirius Black did not brood. At least, he hadn't
brooded before his stint in Azkaban. It was hard to avoid the occasional
bout of brooding after spending twelve years in there and having your
friends killed.
It didn't happen so much when Harry was around, but his precocious godson
was currently in Hogwarts, no doubt driving the teachers up the wall with
his flippant disregard for the rules. That was something to be proud of
even if he wasn't much of a prankster, but it didn't change the fact that
Sirius missed him and had descended into brooding for lack of anything
better to do.
He didn't even have Remus around anymore to talk to, the werewolf having
gone back to the continent. The silly bugger refused to accept any kind
of charity and couldn't find any work in Britain, so he really had no
choice in the matter. His old friend had become a somber and quietly
depressed individual that had gotten old before his time, but trying to
get him to lighten up a bit had at least been a distraction.
His brooding was eventually interrupted by Penny, who had essentially

gotten fed up with his moping and shooed him out of the manor with
instructions to find something to distract himself with. The former
Hogwarts Head Girl had settled into her role as Harry's personal
assistant and become rather bossy at times.
That was how Sirius found himself wandering Diagon Alley, looking for
something or preferably someone to do. Women were always a great
distraction and if he found the right sort he could invite her over to
the manor and annoy Penny by having loud sex next to her room. That would
teach her to shoo him out of the house like a misbehaving dog.
To his disappointment, he spied no likely candidates. The magical

population being as small as it was, finding an unattached woman could be
difficult at times. Hell, even finding a woman you didn't know already
could be difficult at times.
He was just contemplating the idea of going into the mugg- excuse him,
non-magical world(Penny had also taken it upon herself lately to get on
his case about using insulting terminology) and finding a willing
bedpartner when a vision of loveliness passed before his eyes.
She was a tall, dark skinned witch with shoulder length black hair, full
breasts and the tightest looking arse that Sirius could ever recall
seeing, gloriously displayed in a set of figure hugging blue-black robes
that he was quite sure had to be some foreign fashion that he heartily
approved off.
He saw her go into Madam Malkin's and wasted no time thinking whether he
should go talk to her or not. Sirius Black did not concern himself with
what he should or should not do, that was for those burdened with a sense
of responsibility and a lack of self-confidence.
The store wasn't really that big and he was able to locate her swiftly.
She was looking at the displayed robes contemplatively and Sirius knew he
had to put an end to this. Nothing on sale her would look even half as
good as what she was wearing at the moment.
"I don't think yellow is your color." He said as he siddled up to her.
The woman turned to face him with one perfect eyebrow raised in silent
question and Sirius became even more determined to seduce this beautiful
witch. Her face was exquisite, with full lips, an elegant jawline and
slightly slanted dark eyes that made her look all the more exotic.
"You know something about fashion then?" She asked with a slight accent
that Sirius couldn't place, but he knew that he liked it.
"I know that you are far too beautiful for a robe like that." Sirius
replied smoothly.
"I was merely browsing to pass the time." The exotic witch said idly. "If
I wanted anything from this quaint little store I would have arranged to
be fitted."
"I would be more than happy to help you pass the time." Sirius offered,
all but leaping at the opportunity.
"Would you now?" The witch asked with the most alluring smile he had ever
seen.
"It would be my greatest pleasure."
"Hmmm, perhaps, but first I would need your name."
"Of course, how rude of me." Sirius said self-deprecatingly. "Sirius

Black at your service."
"Adrastia Zabini." She said, offering her hand for him to kiss.
Adrastia smiled again as the man took her hand and placed a kiss on her
knuckles, her magic wrapping around him like a cloying scent, gentle
caress and erotic promise all in one. The man's body language and smile
became more like that of a schoolboy with a crush than a suave grown man
looking for a quick fuck.
She had come to Britain to watch the Tri-Wizard Tournament, but this one
could serve as a worthwhile distraction in between events. It would
certainly be better than spending time with her useless son. Besides, she
could always use a little more gold and the Blacks were supposed to have
plenty of it. Adding to the tragedy of Sirius Black also appealed to her
sense of drama. He who had wrongly suffered in prison for twelve years,
then found love only to die in a tragic accident in the end. It would be
a perfect climax.
XXXXX
Harry leaned to the side to avoid the stunner that Luna sent at him and
sent back a compact bolt of force. He'd been getting so much practice
with the basics recently that it was no longer a poorly structured push
but a proper spell in its own right. Simple but fast, effective and
requiring no wand.
Luna broke off her attack to shield against it, being unable to dodge.
That was one of the most critical advantages of wandless casting, it
never missed. A wand was like a gun in that it required aim, but wandless
magic was driven purely by the caster's will and always went exactly
where he or she wanted it to go.
Now that he had her on the defensive, Harry kept up a constant barrage of
force bolts, forcing Luna to keep up a shield. She had no trouble
blocking his admittedly weak assault, but it kept her from attacking him
in turn. He could have overpowered her easily if he used his wand, but
they weren't doing this to stroke his ego.
He wasn't the only one who had been improving though and Luna managed to
stabilize the shield so that it would persist on its own for a while
without needing to be constantly maintained. It was a moderately advanced
technique that was pretty much essential in the dueling circuits,
otherwise one caster could be kept permanently on the defensive. It
wouldn't hold up to more than a single strong spell or several weak ones,
but it was enough to allow retaliation and Luna used the opportunity to
the fullest.
Harry was once more on the run, needing his full focus to avoid getting
hit by the quick stream of spells flying at him. Not the simple to avoid
stinging hexes or stunners though, but the wide slashes of cutting
spells.
Well, they weren't real cutting spells. That would be stupid and
dangerous. It was actually just splashes of color cast in the same arc as
a powerful cutting spell, but for the purposes of the training session,
Harry had to treat them as legitimate cutting spells.
He couldn't easily dodge them, so he was forced to put up a shield. Not

having any real power behind them, that was easy enough, but he was the
one stuck on the defensive now.
Deciding on a gamble, Harry jumped over the next low cast one and hurled
a strong bolt of force at Luna mid jump.
She was surprised and got sent flying into the magically cushioned wall.
Harry looked down at his legs and grimaced. There was a line of red going
across his shins, a few inches above his ankles. He'd misjudged the
timing.
"You've lost your legs, Harry." Luna informed him once she'd gotten up.
"It wouldn't have cut my legs off." Harry argued, sounding a bit petulant
even to his own ears. No, a real cutting hex cast by Luna probably
wouldn't have done more than give him a cut, maybe a small nick to the
bone at the worst, painful but not crippling. An above average adult
wizard looking to kill him however, would have likely cut deep enough to
cripple him at least temporarily. Someone like Voldemort would have taken
his legs clean off.
"Are we going to take a bath now? I'm tired." She asked.

Harry looked at her sweaty face and nodded. He'd built up endurance
quickly and was now usually outlasting her despite being the one who did
most of the moving around.
Several minutes later, he was sitting in the large bath provided by the
Room of Requirement, doing his best to ignore his erection as Luna sat
behind him and washed his hair, humming all the while. It would be his
turn to wash her hair once she was done.
This had become a frequent occurrence and Harry remained conflicted about
it. He was pretty sure that there was nothing sexual about it on Luna's
part, but it was highly unorthodox. Then again, Luna was a very
unorthodox girl.
Dora would almost definitely not approve, but he couldn't bring himself
to put an end to it. The sense of contetment and happiness he sensed in
Luna during these bathing sessions prevented it. She had few enough
reasons to be happy as it was.
She hadn't tried to wash his crotch or ask that he wash hers, so things
were at least staying as platonic as possible for two people bathing
together.
He decided to stop thinking about it and looked down at his midsection.

He was starting to show signs of actual abdominal muscle. His legs and
arse were already noticeably more muscular, enough that Dora had
commented the last time he'd gone to pay her a visit. No doubt it was a
result of all the jumping around he'd been doing since the school year
had started, but he was pretty sure that a month and a half was a bit
fast for muscle definition to be showing when he wasn't even seriously
training.
Had to be the runes speeding things up again, which would make sense once
he'd started thinking about it. His first set was meant to speed growth
and enhance the general strength and durability of his body, but it could
only work with what it had.
Harry decided that he would start doing a few dozen push ups every
morning. He didn't have the patience for long workouts, but he could do
that much. The runes should make the small effort more effective than it
had any right to be and you never knew when a bit of physical strength
could come in handy, especially when he was going to be entering himself
into the tournament tomorrow. Plus, he didn't want to be fit below the
navel and scrawny above it. That would be just weird.
XXXXX
Sitting at the Ravenclaw table, Harry ate and contemplated the new
arrivals.
Over at the Slytherin table sat the Durmstrang delegation, a grim looking
group of wizards and witches whose physical apperances were frankly more
imposing than their magic. Oh, they felt stronger than the average
Hogwarts student of equal age to be sure, but nothing that he would say
lived up to the reputation of a school that supposedly taught the Dark
Arts.
The strongest among them was Viktor Krum, who he fully expected to be
their champion in this tournament. Amusingly enough, the sour Bulgarian
already had people fangirling over his quidditch prowess, Ron Weasley the
most obnoxiously.
The submersible ship they had arrived in was an interesting bit of magic,
something that allowed teleportation between large bodies of water no
doubt. He would have taken the time to deconstruct it if given a chance,
but they would probably object to that.
The Durmstrang headmaster, Karkaroff, had greeted Dumbledore as if they

were old friends and indeed it had looked like it, but Harry wasn't
fooled. Their magics had been tense and wary.
The half-giant headmistress of Beauxbatons had been far more genuine in

her greeting, though her mangled pronunciation of Dumbledore's name was
quite amusing.
The giant winged horses that had carried them to Hogwarts was another
thing that Harry suspected was the result of some wizard deciding that he
absolutely had to have giant flying horses. The fact that he'd overheard
Madam Maxime saying that they only drank single malt whiskey was a
testament to that. Only a wizard would be stupid enough to breed horses
that drank expensive alcohol instead of water.
The actual students of Beauxbatons sat at the Ravenclaw table and were a
rather snobby bunch that had been turning their noses up at everything
and sniffing disdainfully since they'd arrived, though Harry supposed
they had good reason to feel superior if the state of British magical
society was known to them. Britain was probably the only country that
still thought it was doing well.
Most of the Beauxbatons students weren't anything special, but one stood
out like a beacon.
The only veela in the group.
This was the first time that he'd ever been this close to one. The Light
of her magic glowed like a miniature sun and he knew instinctively that
she would be a woman of great passions and strong emotions. It wasn't the
same as when he drew on the Sun, being somehow intrinsic to her nature
but also less wild. The contradiction was intriguing and he briefly
lamented his relationship status. He would have very much liked to
explore her thoroughly. That her Light made his runes prickle constantly
also played a factor, but he would just have to deal with it since he had
no intention of two-timing his girlfriend. Dora was going to have to get
used to even more frequent booty calls though.
He couldn't accurately judge how powerful she was in comparison to the

others because her magic was so different from a normal witch, but he
found himself hoping that she was chosen as the Beauxbatons champion. It
was probably masochistic of him to wish for that, but he couldn't help
it. He wasn't sure if it was his hormones or something to do with his
magic, but a desire to compete against her was undeniably there.
Of course, he'd have to get himself chosen as a champion first, but he

was confident he could do it, especially after hearing Dumbledore explain
how he intended to guard against illegal entry. An Age Line? Pfft. Did
the old man really think that would stop anyone?
XXXXX
Some time later, Harry was standing before the Goblet of Fire and
watching as people entered their names.
The Hufflepuffs seemed to have unanimously decided on Cedric Diggory as

their representative and he had to admit that the seventh year wasn't
bad. He'd audited a few Transfiguration classes with him in it and knew
that the boy was above average.
The Slytherins seemed to have several candidates, the loudest of them

being their quidditch captain, Marcus Flint. Harry couldn't resist a
snort as he heard the idiot boasting. Flint was repeating seventh year
for a reason and it wasn't because he enjoyed his time at Hogwarts so
much.
Ravenclaw had only a bare few hopefuls and none of them were anything
special, discounting himself.
The Gryffindors had no shortage of applicants, but most of them were just
background noise. Sixth Year Angelina Johnson felt like the most
promising, but he sensed that she was still weaker than Diggory.
"Would you look at that intense face, Gred!"
"I see it, Forge. It looks like Harry is going to glare the Age Line into
submission."
And of course, there were the Weasley twins, who might actually be
stronger than Diggory, but were still half a year from being old enough
to enter.
"I'm just waiting for the right moment to enter my name." Harry replied
complacently.
"Well, while you're doing that, we'll just go ahead and enter if you
don't mind."
"You may proceed." He said magnanimously, waving them forward.
"Thank you, Your Grace." The twins chorused and gave a dramatic bow.
"Aging potion?" Harry guessed, seeing them unstopper two vials .
"Indeed, just enough to make us seventeen."

"It won't work." Harry informed them, knowing that an Age Line didn't
work based on the physical age of the body.
"We'll see about that, Harrykins."
They did indeed see, as they were thrown away from the Goblet, sporting
long white beards and being the targets of much laughter.
"I told you so." Harry said with well earned smugness.
"Very well then, we know when we're beaten."They declared with dignity."
Reveal to us the secret of getting past the Age Line, oh great Potter.
"The secret..." Harry paused dramatically, knowing that there were quite
a few people listening to his words. "is that you don't need to get past
the Age Line."
"Errr, so you're not planning to enter then?" That had come from one of
the random Ravenclaws in the crowd. Somehow, despite not announcing it,
the entire school had become convinced that he was intending to enter. It
was probably one of the few times in history that the Hogwarts rumor mill
actually got something 100% correct.
"I am, I'm just not going to bother with the Age line." Harry countered,
taking a fist full of parchment scraps with his name on them from his
pocket. "Observe."
With that, he threw them all towards the Goblet of Fire. Most of them
missed, but several landed inside the ancient artefact and caused it to
flare with blue fire as his entry was accepted. He felt a corresponding
'ping' in his own magic from the Goblet as it happened. That was good,
because he hadn't actually been 100% sure that throwing parchment into
the Goblet from a distance would work. The artefact couldn't read after
all, but names were powerful seals. By signing his name on a piece of
parchment, he had imbued it with a piece of his identity. The other
option had been that the Goblet reacted to the magic of the person
submitting the parchment, which would have required him to dismantle the
Age Line. Fortunately it had been the former, otherwise he would have
looked quite foolish.
"You see, an Age Line is an exclusion style area denial spell that reacts
in contact with a witch or wizards' mind. If you know yourself to be
older than the specified age, then it will let you pass, otherwise it
will expel you. A flying piece of parchment has no mind so the Age line
doesn't react." He explained to the stunned looking crowd.
"Such simplicity..." George said.
"Such elegance..." Fred added.
"We are in awe." The twins finished together. "Now if you will excuse us,
we're off to do this ourselves before Dumbledore decides to ward against
it."
They weren't the only ones that scrambled for the nearest piece of
parchment to repeat Harry's method.
Dumbledore had in fact been on his way to check on the Goblet and had
seen his security circumvented, but it was too late to do anything about
it. He knew that Harry would be chosen as the Hogwarts champion now, he
was far too strong for it to be otherwise. There was no more point in
preventing entry.
He wasn't sure if this was a good or bad thing. If Harry won the
tournament, his reputation would soar even higher. That would be
excellent if he followed the proper path, but disastrous if he decided
not to. The lad's independent streak was really quite problematic with
the way it was making everything murky. Dumbledore knew that he had made
some mistakes in regards to Harry in the past, but he didn't understand
why the boy was so staunchly refusing his advice when he was just trying
to help him fulfill his destiny.
Well, no use crying over spilled milk. He would have to adjust his plans
to account for Harry's entry into the tournament.
XXXXX
For those of you who have played Dawn of War 2, I was actually not
referencing Inquisitor Adrastia, I just happened to be looking at a list
of female Latin names and saw it. I simply liked it too much to pass it
up after that xD.
If all goes well, I should have the next chapter out relatively quickly.
Chapter 17
I have a feeling I wanted to write something up here but it escapes me at

this moment. Ah well, all the thanks go to Joe Lawyer.
XXXXX
The feeling of tense anticipation was palpable in the Great Hall,

everyone seemed to be wishing that the food would just disappear already
so that they go move on to the champion selection.
Harry kept eating. He'd noticed that his appetite was slowing down
recently, but he still ate quite a lot. He was significantly more relaxed
than most of the people in the Great Hall. Knowing ahead of time who the
champions would be had taken most of the excitement out of it for him.
The only one that remained unknown to him was Beauxbatons, and even then
he had the veela pegged as the likely candidate based on how ordinary all
the other students felt. He'd never say it out loud because he knew it
was rude and insulting, but they felt like NPCs, background population
with nothing really noteworthy about them.
The staff table was more crowded than normal, what with two foreign
school heads and two Ministry officials added to it. That one of those
officials was that bumbling oaf Bagman was bad enough, much worse was the
presence of a familiar pink toad that was apparently still acting as
temporary head of the DIMC. He still had no idea why he hated that woman
so much. He'd met evil people before, Lucius Malfoy being a good example,
but they hadn't evoked this kind of instant hatred from him.
The food finally vanished and the air became even more charged.
Dumbledore blew out all the candles so that the only real light came from
the blue flames of the Goblet of Fire, then he launched into a short
speech that managed to get everyone even more excited even though it was
just a glorified set of instructions. Harry wondered if a penchant for
the dramatic was a failing of all powerful wizards. Sirius had told him
that Voldemort was even worse about it and Grindelwald had been fond of
grand gestures and symbolism as well from what he'd read.
Harry winced to himself as he recalled how dramatically he had entered

himself into this tournament the other day. He could have just as easily
done that at night when there was nobody watching, but he had wanted to
prove that he could outsmart Dumbledore.
The old wizard finished with his speech just as the Goblet started
burning red and ejected a piece of parchment.
"The Durmstrang champion will be..." He paused, once more being dramatic.
"...Viktor Krum!"
The Hall exploded into cheers.
"No surprises there!" Roared Ron Weasley from the Gryffindor table. Harry
could only shake his head at the boy's fangirling. The way he went on
about the Bulgarian was embarrasing just to watch, even from a distance.
A closer Weasley hooted energetically, apparently also thrilled. Harry

looked at Ginny strangely, surprised by how excited she was at Krum being
chosen. Eh, maybe it was a quidditch thing? She had tried to start a few
conversations about the silly sport back when they had still been
friends, but had gotten only polite disinterest. Harry doubted he would
ever understand what all the fuss was about.
"Bravo, Viktor!" Karkaroff boomed so loudly that he was probably using

spells to enhance his voice. "I knew you had it in you!"
I'll bet you did. Karkaroff's fawning over his student had been even more
nauseating than Weasley's. The loudmouth Gryffindor at least had the
excuse of being a teenager.
Much to Harry's amusement, the newly chosen champion seemed to dislike

all the attention. Not the typical celebrity attention whore then.
The Goblet flared again and Dumbledore snatched another piece of
parchment from the air.
"The Beauxbatons champion will be..." There was that dramatic pause
again. "...Fleur Delacour!"
Much to Harry's glee this turned out to be the veela. Excellent. Surely
this tournament would give him enough opportunities to be around her that
he could take a closer look at her magic. He wouldn't get to test out the
reputed instinctual sex magics of the veela thanks to his relationship
status, but you can't have everything.
The applause for her was almost as loud as it had been for Krum, though
Harry had to give an incredulous look towards two other Beauxbatons girls
that had burst into tears at the announcement. Really? I mean, REALLY?
Contrary to Krum, Delacour seemed to soak up the attention like a sponge

as she walked off. Huh, go figure, a pretty girl that liked to be the
center of attention. That was so clich that it was almost an anti-
clich. Maybe it was a veela thing? Their succubi ancestors would have
had a hard time being sexual predators if they didn't enjoy attention
after all.
The Goblet flared again.
"And the Hogwarts champion will be..." Harry resisted the urge to stand
before Dumbledore finished his announcement. "...Harry Potter!"
There was a moment of stunned silence before the Hall exploded into
cheers again, though there were also a fair few groans from each of the
four tables.
"Congratulations, Harry." Luna said serenely, barely heard over the noise
even sitting next to him as she was.
"Thanks, Luna." Harry said, smiling at his friend. Her quiet words meant
more to him than all the noise from the others.
He walked past the staff table and into the antechamber where the other
champions had gone, making note of the teacher's faces as he went by.
Snape looked livid, McGonnagal pinched, Dumbledore and Moody inscrutable,

Vector and Babbling surprised but proud, Flitwick excited, Maxime
bewildered but clapping politely, Karkaroff unsettled, Bagman about to
wet his pants and Umbridge as if someone had injected lemon juice
straight into her face.
Heh, quite the spectrum of emotion for a single event.
Behind him, the Goblet of Fire guttered out, its purpose fulfilled.
XXXXX
Draco had, just like most of the school, briefly entertained the notion
of entering the Tri-Wizard Tournament himself. The tournament was an
ancient tradition with a lot of prestige attached to it, especially now
that it was being held again for the first time in centuries. He had
decided not to in the end, both because of the danger and because his
pride wouldn't let him tolerate the idea that someone was more worthy
than him if he didn't get chosen.
Viktor Krum being champion wasn't a surprise. He was a proper pureblood

and famous in his own right. If anyone was worthy of representing
Durmstrang it was him.
That Beauxbatons would be represented by a non-human creature just showed

how far the French had fallen.
But it was the Hogwarts champion that really had Draco fuming.
Dumbledore had snatched the parchment after the Goblet of Fire had spat
it out, unraveled it and without a hint of surprise proclaimed Harry
Potter as the Hogwarts champion.
There had been curses and groans from some people who were hoping to be
chosen, but most of the school cheered.
Draco barely refrained from gnashing his teeth in rage.
It was always Potter this and Potter that. What was so special about that
filthy halfblood anyway? Even Dumbledore let him walk all over Hogwarts
as if the rules didn't apply to Saint Potter. He could get away with
physically assaulting the heir to the Malfoy family like some kind of
disgusting muggle, ignore detentions, only go to classes when he felt
like it, but nobody dared think of expelling him like he deserved.
Now he'd illegally entered himself into the Tri-Wizard Tournament,

violating the Ministry's age restriction and he got applause!
Draco's dislike for Harry Potter had curdled into genuine hatred over the
past two months of humiliating pranks. He knew that Potter was behind it
even if he never saw him doing anything, the smirks that the freakishly
tall bastard sent him were proof enough of that. His fellow Slytherins
thought him a joke now rather than someone to be respected. Even his
father had told him that he was a disappointment for being unable to
handle himself when he'd written home to inform him of Potter's insults
to House Malfoy.
He burned with the desire to get back at the halfblood, but he couldn't
see any way to do it. Much as he hated to admit it, Potter was too strong
for a direct confrontation. There were safeguards preventing him from
potioning his food in the Great Hall and sending him anonymous mail would
be too suspicious. He couldn't even target that crazy friend of his
because she was always either in classes or with Potter.
But he wasn't giving up. Nobody treated a Malfoy like this and got away
with it. Draco swore to himself that he would see Potter brought low one
day.
XXXXX
Fleur looked up as the door to the antechamber opened, admitting the last
of the three Tri-Wizard champions.
He was a tall and lean young man with long black hair and the most
incredible green eyes. She remembered him from the welcoming feast the
other day, sitting next to a young blonde girl. He had looked at her with
sharp-eyed curiousity rather than the glassy stares she received so
often, clearly unaffected by her passive Allure.
She had thought him a possible candidate as the Hogwarts champion even
then, but had been confused as to why he would sit with the younger
years. Learning that this was the fourteen year old Harry Potter had been
quite a shock.
The story of the Boy-Who-Lived was known in France, though the prevailing
opinion in her homeland was that the boy's mother had done something to
protect him rather than it being some innate power of his. The English
were obviously too bigoted to admit that someone with no magical ancestry
could best their Dark Lord and had heaped all the credit on an infant
regardless of how little sense that made.
Truth be told, Fleur hated Britain. She hated the food, she hated the
weather and most of all she hated the people who classified her under the
same category as they would a dragon or a unicorn. A beast.
She had very nearly decided not to participate in this tournament simply
because of the country where it would take place, but her desire to enter
and not let Madam Maxime down eventually won over. She was the best that
Beauxbatons had to offer and showing these English pigs that a veela was
better than them would be worth the irritation.
But she couldn't do that by being churlish, so she stepped up to the

Hogwarts champion and introduced herself.
"Bonjour, Fleur Delacour." She said with a subtle challenge in her tone,
holding her hand downwards and indicating that he was to kiss it.
To her surprise, he did so without the slightest sign of disgust at

showing respect to a veela, even seeming amused by her attitude. "Harry
Potter."
That alone did a great deal to take the wind out of her sails and she
reconsidered her opinions as the two male champions introduced each
other. Perhaps it had been unfair of her to paint him with the same brush
as the rest of Britain before even meeting him? At the very least, she
now had a cautiously positive opinion of both her fellow champions.
Both were international celebrities, but did not act with the arrogance
one might expect of such people. Krum came off as a bit surly but had
been polite enough and Potter had been perfectly respecful so far.
What worried her was that she was no longer quite as assured of victory
as she had been when she had decided to enter.
Veela had an innate sense for powerful magic, especially the magic of
living things. A legacy of their succubi heritage. That sense was telling
her that she would not be having an easy time of it if she wanted to win
this tournament. She could not take her opponents lightly.
There was more to Krum than just being a star seeker. He felt quite
strong and the reputation of Durmstrang meant that he was probably also
quite dangerous with a wand.
But it was Potter that was the real surprise. How could a fourteen-year-
old be this powerful? It was ridiculous. He felt stronger than most of
her teachers. The burn scars on his right hand also told that he had
already been involved in something dangerous. Given the effectiveness of
magical healing, scars were usually the result of especially nasty magic.
He had also proved himself clever with the way he had bypassed
Dumbledore's Age Line, it may have been a simple way of doing it but it
had still required a considerable amount of knowledge. She had no doubt
that he would prove to be stiff opposition.
Moreover, there was something...off about the feel of him. It made her
vaguely uncomfortable to be in his presence, almost threatened. This was
completely at odds with what she had felt a few hours previously, when
she had been almost drawn to him, though there had been enough people
around at the time that she could not be certain of anything.
The fact that he didn't look fourteen also bothered her. Even now she
could see the shadow of a beard on his face and fourteen-year-olds simply
did not grow beards. It could happen for a fourteen-year-old to be that
tall, it was rare but not impossible. The adult look and facial hair
however, could not simply be attributed to early growth. A few stray chin
hairs maybe, but not full beards. If she didn't know about the British
prejudice against non-humans and had he been broader in body she would
have assumed he had giant blood somewhere in his ancestry. But if it
wasn't giant's blood, then what was it?
Just as she was thinking this, she felt an odd...tug on her magic. She'd
never felt anything like it and was deeply unnerved. A furtive glance
around the room told her that Krum was still staring broodily into the
fireplace, so he was unlikely to be the cause.
Potter had his eyes closed in an expression of concentration, as if

thinking hard about something. Was it him?
She felt another tug, then a more recognizable sensation of foreign magic
intruding in her aura space, easily identifiable as belonging to the
green-eyed wizard this time. He still had his eyes closed, apparently
expecting her to be oblivious to whatever he was doing.
She felt a swell of irritation at that. Though it was impressive that he
was able to control his magic in this manner, he was not only
underestimating her but also being quite rude. Touching another's magic
like that was a personal thing for veela and about equivalent to copping
a feel. Driven by that irritation, she flared her Allure powerfully,
expecting him to turn into a stammering wreck. Resisting a veela's
passive Allure was one thing, but a deliberate flexing was quite another.
Much to her surprise and further irritation, he merely opened his eyes
and smirked at her. Of all the insufferable...
Fleur hated being mocked, but the sound of approaching footsteps halted
any thoughts of escalating the situation.
XXXXX
Harry scowled briefly as he realized that his little confrontation with

Delacour was being cut short. He'd been having fun playing what was
essentially magical footsie with her. Not really what he'd set out to do,
but he'd been learning such interesting things about her magic.
For one, he knew that she was much more aware of herself than most
wizards and witches, whether it was due to her veela nature or because
she was simply better than them he couldn't say.
Two, despite feeling like a miniature sun, he couldn't draw on her Light.
That made sense, as the actual Sun wasn't a living being and had no sense
of self, whereas she did.
Three, he felt fairly certain that Delacour was especially proficient

with offensive magic and certain Charms, but would lag behind with
Transfiguration. That she would be good with fire was barely worth
mentioning, veela had a thing for fire.
Any more he'd have to learn at a later date, as the three school heads
and two British Ministry officials entered the room.
Ludo Bagman came in first, practically bouncing with excitement.

"Greetings, gentlemen and lady. I trust you've had enough time to
introduce each other?"
The three of them gave muttered confirmations of this.
Bagman seemed a bit put off by the lack of energy in their reply, but
rallied quickly. "Well, congratulations on being chosen as champions for
your respective schools, I am certain just by looking at you that the
Goblet of Fire chose well!"
"Hem, hem."
Harry wasn't sure whether that was supposed to be a throat clearing sound
or a polite cough, but he knew that he hated it immensely. He hadn't
heard anything this fake since Lockhart's bragging. Of course, it was no
surprise that he hated it since it was coming from Umbridge. He suspected
that he'd be tempted to punch her even if she told him that he'd just won
the lottery.
"It was my understanding that only those who were at least seventeen
years of age would be allowed to enter. Is Mr. Potter not merely a child
of fourteen?" Umbridge said, making his jaw clench at her condescending
tone. Harry got the distinct impression that she was still holding a
grudge over the fact that he'd wiped his hand after shaking hers at the
World Cup.
"Come now, Dolores!" Bagman jumped in. "The Goblet chose him out of all
the Hogwarts students that entered their names, so there is hardly any
excuse for backing out now."
"Ludo is correct. It is too late for Mr. Potter to withdraw even if he

wished to. Once the Goblet chooses a champion, they must see the
tournament through to the end or else forfeit their magic to it."
Dumbledore added quickly, obviously playing peacekeeper.
Harry ignored Dumbledore's attempts to defuse the situation and started

preparing a spell. Umbridge was certainly not the only one that could be
resentful and calling him a child merited some payback.
"Then that should be his punishment for breaking the law set down by the
Ministry." Umbridge insisted, her saccharine tone not quite managing to
hide her glee at the idea. "After all, we wouldn't want this prestigious
wizarding event to become any more of a farce than it is already, would
we?"
"And what exactly is zat supposed to mean?" The hitherto silent half-
giant headmistress of Beauxbatons demanded, obviously catching on to the
thinly veiled racism.
"No matter, no matter!" Bagman jumped in, sounding quite desperate to

keep Umbridge from opening her mouth again. "We were only supposed to
congratulate the champions for being chosen and inform them that the
first task would take place on November 24th. As we have now done so, I
propose that we retire."
"Excellent idea, Ludo" Dumbledore concurred, throwing his own weight

behind the effort.
"So we are to just let this boy get away with breaking the law?" Umbridge
demanded, getting a bit shrill in her frustration.
It was at this point that Harry was finished with his spell and placed it
on Umbridge, who was going to be finding her next six or so hours very
uncomfortable as the Itching Curse made her feel as if she had several
dozen ants nibbling at her skin. He knew that it was quite effective from
using it on Draco Malfoy last week.
Umbridge twitched and squirmed uncomfortably as the curse took hold,

vainly trying to find some relief without outright scratching herself.
Not that scratching would really help. Wandless magic was glorious in the
way that some of it could be cast right under people's noses if you were
careful with the crafting of the spells.
Well, under most people's noses.
He saw Dumbledore glance towards him, so the old man had probably felt
him cast that. Unfortunate, but Harry didn't expect to keep his
proficiency with wandless magic secret for much longer anyway.
"The rules of the Tri-Wizard Tournament are older than the laws of the
Ministry and supercede them." Dumbledore declared with finality,
essentially closing the topic.
Umbridge scowled and huffed, but also looked a bit too strained to argue
further.
"And vhat will the first task be?" Krum asked.
"It will be a test of daring, so you won't be told what it is." Bagman
answered eagerly, happy to move as far away from the awkwardness as
possible. "You will be armed only with your wands and will not be
permitted to ask for or accept help from your teachers. That is all for
now."
"There is one other matter." Harry spoke up, significantly calmer now
that he could see Umbridge's face developing a sheen of sweat. Revenge
was sweet.
"Yes, Harry?" Dumbledore prompted.
"I read that in past tournaments, champions were entitled to their own
quarters in the hosting school. I think I'll take advantage of that. Oh,
and I also want unrestricted access to the Restricted Section of the
library." It would be nice to be able to read the books in there during
the day instead of sneaking into it at night.
"Barely a champion for ten minutes and already making demands?" Karkaroff
sneered.
Harry gave the Durmstrang headmaster a stony stare and held it until the
man swallowed nervously and looked away. Unlike Dumbledore and Maxime,
Karkaroff was a weakling with no conviction. He was dressed in fine robes
and had made an effort to look intimidating, but his magic betrayed him
for what he truly was.
"I will arrange it." Dumbledore said as though Karkaroff had never
spoken. Harry was surprised by how easy that had been. And suspicious
too. "Do our other champions have similar wishes?"
"Not ze quarters, but perhaps ze library." Delacour said almost

reluctantly, as if unwilling to admit that there was anything in Hogwarts
worth bothering with.
Krum looked thoughtful and Harry thought for a moment that the Bulgarian
would ask for the quarters, but in the end settled for the same deal as
the French veela.
"I will inform Madam Pince that you have free access." Dumbledore said
calmly, as if he hadn't just given three teenagers unrestricted access to
some rather dangerous literature.
And with that, they all filtered out of the room and went their own ways.
Harry smirked as he watched Umbridge speedwalk away on her stubby legs.
He had no doubt that she would spend the next few hours scratching
herself like a crazed orangutan, only to discover that it gave no relief.
There was a chance that she would manage to dispel the curse he put on
her, but he doubted it. She didn't give the impression of a skilled witch
and a simple Finite Incantatem wouldn't cut it. Especially as he'd
modified it to be particularly tenacious.
XXXXX
"It has been some time since these rooms were used, not since my early
years as Hogwarts headmaster in fact." Dumbledore said as he opened the
door to the rooms in question.
"That's a shame, they're nice rooms." Harry meant it too. While his room
in Ravenclaw Tower was nothing to sneer it, it was a bit small. The room
he was now in had to be at least four times its size with a rather
excessively huge double bed, desk, carpets, couch, armchairs, windows,
fireplace and adjoining bathroom. That last part was the best part of
this deal, as Ravenclaws still had to share bathrooms like everyone else.
"So they are, but most professors do not care to have their quarters
somewhere as out of the way as the sixth floor." Dumbledore said mildly.
That was probably because they didn't know that the Room of Requirement
was only one floor up, Harry thought.
"Not even Snape?" He asked pointedly. He knew that the greasy Potions
Master was even more reclusive than him.
Dumbledore coughed slightly. "Professor Snape prefers the dungeons."
"Of course he does."
Dumbledore decided to ignore the ambiguous statement. "You have obviously

read up on the privileges afforded to Tri-Wizard champions, so you will
undoubtedly be aware that you can have visitors or even more permanent
company in these rooms."
Harry was indeed aware of that, though Dumbledore's words were carefully
chosen to be vague. Permanent company could either be a wife or
girlfriend as several past champions had been married already by the time
of their choosing. More sinisterly, he was technically allowed to bring
over non-magical slaves, though he doubted the Ministry would go for that
no matter how obsessed with tradition they were. The magical world had
lagged far, far behind its mundane counterpart on the issue of slavery,
only being formally abolished some years after the Statute of Secrecy
went up. It had been falling out of use for a long time already due to
the house elves though, which was probably the reason that the tournament
rules still allowed it.
"I'll ask the house elves to move Luna's things in here, save her the
trouble of sneaking in." He said, not letting his thoughts show.
"Very well." Dumbledore said, wondering at the relationship between the

two. He was reasonably sure that Hary was still in a relationship with
Nymphadora Tonks and wasn't entirely sure what to make of the rumors
about him and the Lovegood girl. He had tried to take a look at her mind
with Legilimency, but had gotten nothing out of it. The girl's thoughts
were a baffling combination of scattered and focused, leaving him unable
to glean anything useful with a passive scan and he would not stoop to
using a full mental attack. He had never done it before and he wouldn't
start now. He may not have gotten any useful information from the
attempt, but he had at least gotten a chuckle out of the girl's serious
contemplation on the nature of radishes.
The old wizard left shortly after that and Harry immediately started
sweeping the room for any spying spells. Dumbledore's easy acquiesence
made him suspicious. A clever wizard could use quite a few spells to spy
on people from a distance.
The desk was clear of any suspicious spells that would copy whatever he
wrote down to some other location. There was nothing in the room that
would take whatever was said and relay it to a distant Dicta Quill. There
were no portraits in the room. The closet only had the standard space
expansion charms. The mirror had that annoying enchantment that gave it a
faux-sentience and made it give unsolicited commentary on one's
appearance which delayed him for about fifteen minutes as he unraveled
it , but was otherwise clear.
An hour later, Harry had to admit that he probably wasn't being spied
upon. How unexpected, he'd been certain that Dumbledore would try it.
Well, whatever. Might as well call Dora and Sirius to tell them that I've
been chosen.
XXXXX
The next few days were strange and irritating, but mostly strange.
Harry had acquired fangirls. Fangirls.
He had not anticipated this when he had decided to enter the tournament.
They tried to hang around him whenever he showed up in the open. They
giggled at everything he said and batted their eyelashes at him. Some
made subtle offers to help him relax, others ran their feet over his junk
during meal times or deep throated a banana.
Suffice to say, he started eating in the kitchens again or had the house
elves bring him food up to the Room of Requirement.
Not that he was turned off by their offers, not at all. If things were
different, he'd be happy to shag every single one of them. They were
pretty, willing and he was a horny teenager. Some of them thought they
could snag a position as his girlfriend, but that was their problem. He
might be willing to screw a girl throwing herself at him because of his
money or fame, but he'd never date one. If they felt cheap or used by
that then they had only themselves to blame.
Of course, this was all a moot point because he had a girlfriend already.
Harry suspected that his Animagus form was making it easier to refuse
their offers than it would be otherwise. Ravens were monogamous. It
wasn't doing anything for his libido however and he was now finding
himself making booty calls to the girlfriend in question almost every
other day. Though if he was being perfectly honest, he could have
probably held out longer, he just liked having sex.
His avoidance of the fangirl phenomenon had made him an even rarer sight
around the school than he'd been in past years. The only times that the
general school population saw him was when he was moving from one place
to another through the halls. The rest of the time he was either in the
Room of Requirement, the library, or his new quarters.
At the moment, he was in the library, helping Luna with her Arithmancy.
"Like this, see?" Harry said, pointing out a particular equation. "You
have to close the loop, or the enchantment will weaken over time as the
magic leaks out of the item."
"That's more of a line." Luna reasoned.
"That's only because the enchantment is so simple." Harry explained. He

knew that Luna had chosen Arithmancy because of her mother, who had been
highly skilled in the discipline. His friend could not boast the same
prodigious skill with it though. She wasn't horrible at it, and they were
in fact doing something ahead of the third year curriculum, but her
interests lay more in magical creatures, which was her other elective.
"Can you show me a more complicated one then?" Luna asked.
"Alright." Harry agreed and started writing down the formula for a
marginally more complex enchantment that would animate an object to move
in a set pattern.
He hadn't gotten more than halfway through it when they were interrupted
by something even worse than a fangirl. A fanboy.
"Harry?" Colin Creevy said nervously.
"What?" Harry asked flatly. The overly energetic photographer wannabe had
been a strain on his patience practically since the day he'd set foot in
Hogwarts. Fortunately he'd made enough of a first impression with his
foul tempered explosion at the start of second year that the hyperactive
Grynffindor left him alone most of the time. Colin still had an annoying
tendency to stare at him from a safe distance with starry eyes though.
"Err, they sent me to fetch you." Colin explained nervously. "Mr. Bagman
wants you, I think they want to take photographs..."
Harry grimaced in disgust at the poor choice of wording. Obviously this

was something to do with the tournament, but he could have done without
the mental image of himself having sex with Bagman while someone took
pictures. It was right up there with Two Girls One Cup.
"Right." He said, deciding to pretend that Colin hadn't just said

something horrible. "I guess we're going to have to finish this later,
Luna."
"Alright, Harry." She agreed.
"Lead the way then." Harry said as he stood to follow the small
Gryffindor out of the library.
The two of them walked through the school in silence. Colin looked like
he was desperate to say something, but Harry was quite deliberately
exuding the most forbidding aura he could muster in an attempt to keep
the excitable pest from talking.
"Good luck!" Colin squeaked out and fled as soon as they reached the
disused classroom where he'd been told to bring Harry.
Harry snorted to himself as he opened the door. Good luck for what?
Taking a picture?
He stepped in to see that all the desks and chairs had been pushed to the
walls to make room. Bagman was present as Colin had said, talking to a
witch in magenta robes that he realized had to be Rita Skeeter. Surely
there couldn't be more than one blonde woman using those atrocious
glasses that Dora had described to him?
The other two champions were already present, Krum his usual broody self
and Delacour her usual haughty self. Fun. This was the first time he'd
seen either of them since the champion selection a few days ago because
they'd stayed in the Durmstrang ship or Beauxbatons carriages
respectively. The only other person there was a pauchy man with a magical
camera that was trying and failing to subtly ogle the French veela.
"Ah, here he is! Our last champion!" Bagman exclaimed when he caught
sight of Harry, getting up and bounding towards him. "In you come, Harry,
in you come...nothing to worry about, it's just the wand weighing
ceremony, the rest of the judges will be here in a moment "
"Wand weighing?" Harry cut across the man's babble. Why the hell would
anyone weigh a wand?
"We have to check that your wands are fully functional, no problems, you
know, as they're your most important tools in the tasks ahead." Bagman
explained, apparently unruffled by the interruption. Maybe he was used to
it. "The expert's upstairs now with Dumbledore. And then there's going to
be a little photo shoot. This is Rita Skeeter," he added, gesturing
toward the witch in question. "She's doing a small piece on the
tournament for the Daily Prophet..."
"Maybe not that small, Ludo." Skeeter cut in, her eyes glinting as she
looked at Harry.
"I wonder if I could have a little word with Harry before we start?" she
said to Bagman, but still gazing fixedly at Harry. "The youngest
champion, you know ...to add a bit of color?"
"Certainly!" cried Bagman enthusiastically, only to blanch when he looked

at Harry.
The green-eyed wizard was staring down at him with a look of such cold
anger that it made him want to flee the room.
"Err, that is, if Harry has no objection?" He finished meekly.
"Don't ever speak for me again, Bagman." Harry said slowly, as if talking
to an especially dim child.
"Sorry!" Bagman squeaked, nervous sweat beading on his forehead. He let

out an audible exhale of relief when Harry looked away.
Fleur and Viktor both looked at their fellow champion speculatively,

reassessing his potential threat level based on his behavior.
"Well, how about that word now?" Skeeter said into the awkward silence
that had ensued, getting up and moving towards Harry.
"Why me?" Harry asked.
"Pardon?" Skeeter said, faux-pleasant smile still in place.
"There are three champions, why do you want to talk to me in particular?"

Harry elaborated. Of course, he knew already why she wanted to talk to
him. She was hoping to write another toxic article, anyone that had ever
read one of her 'contributions' to journalism could guess that much.
"Well...because you're the youngest. I wanted to get your unique

perspective." Rita said, inwardly quite put off at being questioned like
this. Her initial intention had been to manhandle Potter into a more
private setting, but after seeing the size of him and how he had handled
Ludo decided against it.
"I'm sure we all have unique perspectives." Harry said blandly. This
woman was practically boiling with petty viciousness.
"Yes, but surely as the youngest..." Rita insisted. She really wanted to
get Harry alone.
"Yes, a whole three years of difference." Harry interrupted

sarcastically. "Enough, either you talk to all of us or none of us."
Skeeter's mouth snapped shut audibly and her pleasant facade cracked for
a moment into a hateful glare, but she brought herself under control
quickly. "If you insist, let's get started then."
With that she reached into her crocodile skin handbag and pulled out an
acid green quill.
"I vill not speak to a reporter who uses a Quick-Quotes Quill." Viktor
declared flatly, scowling at Skeeter. He'd been warned about reporters
like her.
"Neither will I." Fleur added. While she didn't really know what a Quick-
Quotes Quill was or why the Bulgarian felt so strongly about this, she
knew that this Skeeter woman was unpleasant and that he must have
experience with reporters, so she took her cues from him.
Harry merely smirked slightly and started preparing another Itching

Curse. Skeeter had already taken one shot at him but he had been willing
to let that one go since it wasn't really worth the time it would take to
get some revenge on her, but the stupid bitch just didn't know when to
quit. A Quick-Quotes Quill was the ultimate tool of a papparazi, taking
simple statements and turning them into sensationalist garbage. Actually
a fairly impressive bit of enchantment if you ignored its purpose.
"Fine." Skeeter ground out, visibly irritated now as she put away the
acid colored quill in favor of a normal one. "So, Harry, why did you
decide to enter the tournament?"
"Because of reasons." Was the unhelpful, internet inspired response. The

Itching Curse wasn't done yet and he couldn't spare the focus to talk
about something else.
"What reasons?" Skeeter pushed.
"Private ones."
"What do you think your parents would think of you entering? Would they
be proud? Was that why you entered?" Skeeter fired off rapidly, getting
increasingly determined to provoke a response.
She got one too, as Harry finished weaving the curse and placed it on
her.
"My parents are dead." He stated flatly. "They aren't capable of feeling
anything anymore."
"What about your godfather, Sirius Black?" Skeeter asked next. She would
have dearly loved to keep digging into the death of Potter's parents, but
even she knew that she had to be careful with so many people present. It
wouldn't do to be accused of being heartless. Besides, she'd just
developed this extremely irritating itch over her legs and it was getting
hard to think.
"What about him?" Harry asked, being deliberately obtuse. He was getting
a kick out of seeing the toxic reporter squirming.
"Would he be proud of you?" Skeeter clarified, hunching forward a bit as

the itch appeared between her shoulder blades as well, maddeningly just
on the edge of being painful.
"You'd have to ask him." Harry shrugged. Of course Sirius was proud of
him. The man seemed to think that getting around Dumbledore's Age Line
was a great prank. "Anyway, I think you've asked me enough questions
already."
"Fine!" The reporter snapped, her composure badly frayed as the

unbearable crawling sensation moved towards her crotch. "Ms. Delacour, do
you as a veela feel disadvantaged competing against proper wizards?"
Fleur had been feeling a rising sense of disbelief and disgust at this
reporter and her questions. Not only was she pushy and rude, but asking
about someone's deceased parents was in incredibly poor taste. Potter's
obstructive answers had been amusing and she had to give him some credit
for keeping his cool despite her irritation at him for the liberties he'd
taken at the champion selection.
Then this obnoxious woman had turned to her and asked that blatantly
racist question. Veela tended to be quick to anger as a general rule and
Fleur was no different in this regard. The implication that she was
somehow less because she was veela left only one possible response.
"Va te faire foutre, ptasse." She spat.
Harry didn't speak French, but he could recognize tonal inflection and
was thus reasonably certain that his fellow champion had just said
something exceedingly rude. His opinion of her went up several notches.
Any further escalation to this drama was cut off as Dumbledore, Maxime,
Karkaroff and Ollivander entered the room.
"Well, it seems you've all been getting along." Dumbledore said with
twinkling eyes, acting as if he couldn't sense how hostile the air was.
XXXXX
The next several minutes were spent having their wands examined by
Ollivander. Nothing too interesting about that, though Harry did finally
learn why Fleur's wand felt so strange. She had her grandmother's hair as
a core. Interesting that, he had noticed that Fleur's hair seemed to have
magical properties in the way that a fully human witch or wizard's wasn't
but hadn't thought it could be used as a wand core.
The creepy old wandmaker still gave Harry the same speculative eye that
he'd given him years ago when he'd first purchased his wand, but he knew
why that was now. His ability to make any wand react back then, however
weakly, had betrayed his prior dabbling with magic. And since he'd
obviously never held a wand before, that meant that he'd been doing it
wandlessly. It was just pure luck on Harry's part that Ollivander didn't
make a habit of revealing these things to other people...presumably.
The other bit of entertainment had been watching Skeeter flush, sweat,
squirm, fidget, scratch and be generally uncomfortable as the Itching
Curse took its course. No wonder people went evil if it felt this good to
see your enemies suffer.
Once the wand weighing was done, Dumbledore stood up from where he'd been
sitting at the judges' table. "Thank you all. You may go back to your
lessons now, or perhaps it would be quicker just to go down to dinner, as
they are about to end "
The silent photographer stood up at that and cleared his throat

meaningfully.
"Photos, Dumbledore, photos!" Bagman quickly backed him up. "All the
judges and champions, what do you think, Rita? My word, Rita, are you
alright?" The last was said in alarm as Bagman finally noticed how
frazzled the reporter was looking.
"Yes, fine." Skeeter said tersely, desperately trying to ignore the

sensation of tiny insect pincers biting into her heels.
The photography session that followed was singularly annoying. First they
had wasted a good ten minutes trying to get Madam Maxime to fit into the
picture before conceding defeat and having her sit down and now they were
dealing with smaller issues. Krum kept trying to skulk to the back and
hide while Karkaroff kept pushing him forward, Bagman kept changing his
mind, Skeeter was getting progressively more snappish due to the curse
and the photographer was persistently trying to get Fleur into the front
of the shot and using the excuse to touch her.
Harry could practically hear her teeth grinding. He could commiserate, as

he was getting pretty pissed himself.
He cast another couple of Itching Curses, this time on Bagman and the
photographer. Dumbledore glanced at him disapprovingly, but Harry was
past caring.
Fleur's eyebrows rose ever so slightly as the annoying Ministry official

and the pig of a photographer showed how uncivilized they truly were by
scratching at themselves as if their lives depended on it. She'd noticed
that Skeeter had been looking mighty uncomfortable for quite a while and
wondered if it was related, perhaps even contagious. She wouldn't put
anything past the British.
She glanced at the green-eyed wizard currently standing next to her. He
looked impassive, but Fleur could detect a hint of satisfaction from his
surprisingly closed off presence.
"What did you do to zem?" She asked quietly.
He looked briefly urprised, but schooled his features quickly and

murmured a response. "What did you say to Skeeter?"
While Fleur was irritated at having a question answered with a question,

she understood that he was suggesting an exchange of information.
Besides, it wasn't as if what she had said was any kind of secret.
"I told 'er to go fuck 'erself." She translated, chin lifted in an

unconscious gesture of defiance to the expected disapproval.
Harry bit his lip to keep from laughing. The idea of the ultra beautiful
veela with her refined image being so vulgar really tickled his funny
bone.
"Appropriate." He said after a few moments, still sounding amused.
She raised an eyebrow back at him, obviously expecting an answer to her

own question.
"Itching Curse." He admitted.
Fleur's lips curled into a slight smirk.
"Appropriate, but 'ow did you cast eet?"
Harry merely smiled mysteriously.
XXXXX
Lucious Malfoy was a man accustomed to getting what he wanted and was
willing to go to great lengths to get it.
That he hadn't gotten Sirius Black and Harry Potter into the obituary
displeased him greatly, but he supposed that he should have known better.
There was a reason that the peons he'd manipulated into attacking the two
at the World Cup always had an Inner Circle Death Eater leading them
during the war. They would probably find a way to screw up brewing a cup
of tea without someone looking over their shoulder and barking
instructions.
He had been brooding over a way to kill Potter and Black ever since that
failure, but had come up with few viable plans. Potter was at Hogwarts
and essentially untouchable under Dumbledore's protection and Black under
the wards of Potter Manor. Black was the more vulnerable of the two, but
one did not simply assault the manor of an old family. They'd never get
the job done in time. Black did leave the manor frequently enough, but
that wasn't too helpful as Lucius didn't know that enough in advance to
arrange another assassination. The man didn't even attend Wizengamot
sessions.
And then out of nowhere came a stroke of such good fortune that Lucius
could scarcely believe it.
His wife had heard through a string of gossip that Black had been seen in
Diagon Alley, keeping company with the infamous Adrastia 'Black Widow'
Zabini. A pureblood from a minor Italian Noble House, Zabini was
notorious for the string of dead husbands she'd left all over Europe.
Husbands who always died in tragic accidents or suicides shortly after
they either ran out of gold to pay for her expensive lifestyle or after
they signed it over to her. Anyone with a lick of sense in their heads
stayed well away from her.
At first, Lucius couldn't fathom what Black was thinking. The man had a
reputation as a womanizer and had never been especially bright, but
surely even he would know better? Zabini had come to Britain some years
back to put her son in Hogwarts and had left it with another dead husband
and impoverished family to her name.
Poor, skeptical Archibald. He never believed anything that he didn't

verify himself. Well, he'd verified it alright. As usual there was not a
shred of evidence of foul play, but everyone knew that his wife of two
days had killed him.
Of course, the explanation was obvious. Black had been in Azkaban since
the end of the war, he was out of the loop and wouldn't have heard of
Zabini.
While Lucius would be a bit miffed at losing the Black family gold, he
was willing to let it go in exchange for having one of his problems
solved by a third party without any need to involve himself. Adrastia
Zabini cared nothing for politics and wouldn't try to take control of the
family even if she married Black and killed him. The Malfoys had enough
gold on their own that the much diminished Black vaults weren't of
critical importance.
The stroke of good fortune didn't end there though.
Potter had entered himself into the Tri-Wizard Tournament, the contest
that been cancelled exactly because people had died in it so often. How
wonderful it was when your enemies put themselves in mortal peril of
their own volition.
He'd started digging around to discover what the tasks would be as soon
as he'd heard that bit of news. Why leave Potter's death to chance when
he could stack the deck?
The first task was going to be taking a golden egg from nesting dragons.
Plenty dangerous enough all by itself, but Lucius was still going to do
everything in his power to make it even more so.
"A great spectacle." Lucius was saying to Cornelius Fudge, stroking the
man's ego. "Few enough wizards and witches see live dragons, so an event
such as this gives the Ministry a lot of good publicity."
"Yes, I thought so too." Fudge blustered. "There were some safety

concerns at first, but the best students of the three best wizarding
schools in the world are surely up to the challenge."
"No doubt." Lucius agreed. "Though it seems to me that there is room for
accusations of favoritism."
"Favoritism?" Fudge echoed blankly.
"The three dragons chosen for the task are not of the same breed, some
are more dangerous than others." Lucius explained patiently, well used to
dealing with the dimwitted man.
"Oh...oh!" Fudge exclaimed, catching on. "So we should have them all face
the same breed of dragon?"
"Yes, and I also believe that none of the breeds chosen are truly
appropriate. All of them are fairly tame and may not put up much of a
fight." Tame by dragon standards that was, which was not really tame at
all.
"Which one do you think we should use then?" Fudge asked.
"The Hungarian Horntail seems like the best balance between speed,
strength and firebreath." That it was also the most ill-tempered and
violent breed went unsaid.
"The Hungarian Horntail?" Fudge said nervously. "Isn't that a rather

dangerous breed?"
Of course it is you idiot, that's the point. Lucius' thoughts didn't show
on his face as he gave a smooth reply. "As you said yourself, the
champions represent the best that the Wizarding World has to offer. We
should not insult them with subpar challenges."
Fudge nodded slowly, in a manner that suggested he was actually capable

of thought. "Quite right, Lucius, quite right. It would be a shame to get
people excited only to have the champions breezing through the tournament
because it was too easy."
"Well said, Cornelius. You always did have a keen sense for what the
public wants."
It was too bad about Krum, as the Bulgarian seeker was a proper wizard,
but he might also get that halfbreed creature with this scheme. Lucius
did so love a bargain.
XXXXX
Adrastia smiled a predator's smile as Sirius groaned under her and
discharged his seed. In this unguarded moment when all his defenses were
lowered and he gave of himself to her, she wrapped the tendrils of her
magic around him and drew him in even further. She had done it before and
she would do it again, until his entire world revolved around her.
He opened his eyes and stared up at her adoringly. In this moment, he

loved her, but his magic was already disentangling itself from hers and
the sensation was fading. That was alright, she was in no hurry. She had
a whole year to play with him and it would give her time to decide on an
appropriate death. He was young, handsome, strong, rich and not at all
bad in bed. A better plaything than most and one that it would be a shame
to discard prematurely.
XXXXX
Harry let out a long, content sigh as he released into his girlfriend
again.
Lying on her stomach under him, Tonks just groaned softly as her insides
tingled with pleasure.
Relaxing into post-coital bliss, Harry spread his magic over hers like a
spiritual hug and settled down to enjoy the moment. Feeling her relax and
open up to him completely in these moments was every bit as good as the
actual sex.
A few minutes later, he felt her breathing even out and her presence
become muted as she drifted off to sleep.
Harry sighed in slight disappointment, but smiled all the same, planting
a kiss on her neck, getting off her and covering her with sheets they'd
kicked off a while ago. He could easily go for another round or two, but
Dora had a long day behind her already and he wasn't going to keep her
awake. He'd been tiring her out with his frequent visits too.
Besides, he would be back for more soon enough.
XXXXX
Harry loved to fly and would transform into his Animagus form every few
days and simply glide over the Forbidden Forest for a few hours. The
local ravens and crows would often join him.
Tonight though, they were strangely reluctant to approach the forest and
wanted to fly around it in a wide circle.
Animagi usually developed the ability to communicate with animals that

were similar to their form after they spent enough time around them.
Pettigrew had been able to communicate with other rats easily. Sirius
could manage basic communication with other dogs and wolves. Harry was
still fairly new at it, but he could manage and it helped that his
particular bird species was especailly intelligent.
Predator. Flying. Large. Lizard. Fire.That was the gist of what he could
decipher from their cawing and croaking, but it was enough. There was a
friggin' dragon in the Forbidden Forest, which made no sense at all. How
was the whole forest not on fire yet?
Far too curious to just leave it alone, he flew over the forest in a
searching pattern and managed to find the spot easily enough.
Only, there wasn't just one dragon, but three of them. Vicious looking
beasts with black scales, bronze horns and equally bronze tail spikes.
They mystery of the forest not being in flames was explained by the large
team of wizards around them, dragon handlers no doubt.
Harry watched for a few minutes as the dragon handlers struggled to calm
the flying lizards down before giving up and launching enough Stunning
Spells at each of them to kill a human from the shock. The dragons looked
like they would stay awake for a moment before succumbing.
Looks like they intend to have me fight a dragon for the first task. That
was rather more extreme than he'd expected, but there was nothing else
for it now. He'd have to figure out a strategy.
XXXXX
Fleur was forced to admit with a great deal of reluctance that the
library in Hogwarts was very impressive. More impressive than the one in
Beauxbatons for certain, though she assuaged her pride by reminding
herself that Hogwarts had not been sacked by Grindelwald. Even sixty
years later, they were still retrieving things that the Dark Lord and his
followers had stolen from the ancient school.
She'd come here several times since being chosen as a champion,

curiousity compelling her to take a look at the Restricted Section since
she had full access. This time she was here with a specific purpose
however, she needed to research dragons.
Dragons! Were these English completely insane? Making them take a golden
egg from a nesting mother, a Hungarian Horntail of all breeds, was nearly
as good as sending them to certain death. Fleur knew that she could use
her own unique gifts to lull magical beasts to sleep...in theory. She had
never heard of it being done on a dragon and certainly not on the most
ornery breed. She needed a backup plan in case it failed, the tournament
not allowing forfeits, and backup plans required information.
A few minutes later she had a book on dragons in hand and was looking for
a suitable place to read it when she caught sight of Harry Potter doing
that very thing. He was alone, so she figured that his little blonde
friend must be in class.
The Hogwarts champion was turning out to be quite the mystery and Fleur
had always liked a good mystery. Pride had prevented her from seeking him
out earlier despite her curiousity, but this was an opportunity or in
other words an excuse to talk to him without making it look like she
was interested in him. The fact that she was actually interested in him
was ignored. She couldn't help being interested in powerful wizards,
another legacy of the veela's succubi heritage, though one that was
thankfully easy enough to ignore.
There were things about Harry Potter that Fleur wanted to know, things
that didn't necessarily fall under the topic of keepings tabs on the
competition. How was he so powerful? How had he cast those Itching Curses
without anyone noticing? What was he like as a person?
Fleur had been at Hogwarts long enough now that a few rumors about Potter
had reached her ears via her fellow Beauxbatons students. Powerful,
intelligent, private and reclusive to the point of anti-social was the
general opinion on Harry Potter. He attended classes according to his own
whims and treated the rules as if they only applied to other people.
There were also some rumors of him being a womanizer, sleeping around
with older girls as well as that young friend of his, but Fleur wasn't
sure if she believed those. She'd been the subject of enough rumors
herself to know how quickly they diverged from the truth. She'd only
slept with a couple of the better looking boys at Beauxbatons, but the
jealous bitches of the school would have people believe that she would
sleep with anything that walked upright. She wouldn't even have put it
past them to claim that she had seduced the Goblet of Fire into choosing
her, no matter how little sense that made.
She dithered for just a moment longer before making up her mind and
striding determinedly towards his table.
"May I zit wiz you?" She asked politely, showing nothing of the
discomfort she felt. It was a new experience to worry about being
refused. None of the boys at Beauxbatons would have been able to do so,
but this Harry Potter was a much greater wizard than them.
Potter looked up from his book a book on dragon lore she noticed with
a hint of surprise in his impossibly green eyes. It should be illegal to
have eyes like that. Fortunately for her pride, he gestured to one of the
free seats and went back to his book.
Fleur fought down a bristling sense of irritation. Veela did not like
being ignored. She supposed it was better than glassy-eyed drooling, but
it still stung to be so easily dismissed.
"Your 'eadmaster 'as told you about ze dragons as well then?" She asked
with a gesture at his book, looking to start a conversation.
To her surprise he snorted, sounding halfway between amused and derisive.

"Dumbledore didn't tell me anything."
Fleur hadn't been expecting that. Madam Maxime had taken her aside the
other day and explained what the task would be and she had no doubt that
Karkaroff had done the same for Krum. That Dumbledore would actually
respect the rules had never even crossed her mind.
"'Ow did you find out about ze dragons then?" She asked curiously.
The green-eyed wizard gave her a teasing smile to go along with his
equally teasing answer. "It's a secret."
Fleur huffed, amused in spite of herself. She had gotten something of a

mixed opinion about Potter so far, but he seemed nice enough.
The amusement quickly vanished when she felt another probing touch
slither across her magic.
"Stop zat!" She snapped, glaring at the impertinent wizard. She had just
about managed to leave the previous instance of this happening in the
past and now he went and did it again.
Potter blinked, brows furrowed slightly in apparent confusion. "Sorry? I

was just trying to get a handle on your magic, I've never seen anything
like it before."
"Eet eez rude to do zo without conzent." Fleur told him, calming down a
bit.
"Ah, I didn't know that." He admitted. "Sorry again."
"Apology accepted." He seemed sincere, so she could let it go. Veela were
taught these things by their mothers, but he would not have had anyone to
do so for him. That did bring up other questions though. "'Ow did you
learn to touch anuzzer's magic like zat?"
He was silent for a moment and Fleur could almost hear him deliberating
whether he should tell her or not.
Finally he shrugged and gave her an answer. "I got a book on sex magic as
a Christmas gift last year, there was a section on it there."
That would explain it, though Fleur suspected that there was more to it
than that. His magic had a baffling flip-flopping feel to it, ominous at
some points and soothing at others. It was the latter right now, which
had been part of the reason she had decided to talk to him instead of
walking away.
"Eez that not illegal in Britain?" Most European Ministries had relaxed
their stance on sex magic somewhat in the past few decades, but Britain
was definitely not one of them.
"A lot of things are illegal in Britain." He said with a smirk that
implied he had done quite a few of those things.
Fleur had come to this country prepared to hate everyone and everything
in it, but she was starting to like this boy that was not a boy. He was
interesting and spoke to her with the respect one would give to an equal
instead of acting superior like she had expected him to. That he didn't
seem to have any respect for his own government was also a point in his
favor. Perhaps competing against him in this tournament would actually be
enjoyable, provided they didn't all get roasted by the dragons. Speaking
of which...
"Zo...'ave you zought of a way to get past ze dragon yet?" She asked
casually, throwing her silvery blonde hair in a gesture that never failed
to distract men. She had her own ideas, but she was not above fishing for
information with her life on the line.
"Get past them?" He repeated with a blink, not reacting to her flirty
gesture. "I thought we were supposed to kill them?"
Fleur gaped at him. He had seriously been expecting to fight a fully

grown dragon all by himself? That was even more insane than taking a fake
egg from its nest. A nesting mother would at least not pursue you and
abandon its other eggs if you managed to get away, no matter how much
they liked shiny objects.
"Non, eet was my understanding zat we are supposed to steal a golden egg
from eets nest."
"Huh." He seemed rather nonplussed by that, but also thoughtful. "That

changes things... Thank you Ms. Delacour, you've just made things
substantially easier for me."
Giving critical information to the competition had certainly not been her
intention, but she wasn't sure if letting him go into the first task
prepared to kill a dragon would have been any better. "You are welcome
Mr. Potter, and please call me Fleur."
"You should call me Harry then." He returned with a smile.
Yes, Fleur could definitely see herself liking at least one thing about
Britain. She was not yet ready to contemplate a relationship with the
powerful young wizard, but would not turn him down if he continued to be
like this. Given the subtle disdain he'd showed for his homeland, she
might even be able to convince him to move to France if things went that
way.
XXXXX
That night, Harry was in his new quarters, deep in thought.
That had been an interesting conversation he'd just had with Fleur. If he
was interpreting the signals correctly(and he was fairly sure that he
was), then the French veela had been giving him the green light to make a
move on her.
If he wasn't already spoken for, he would be all over that. Alas, he

would not as the Americans say be tapping that ass. That was a pity,
as he was sure that veela must be demons in bed. Succubus pun!
On a more serious note, learning that the first task would not be a
battle to the death with a dragon was very important. Perhaps he should
not have blown Hagrid off when the half-giant had tried to take him into
the forest, no doubt to show him the dragons? He didn't have much of a
relationship with their new Care of Magical Creatures professor, the
half-giant obviously having drunk far too much of Dumbledore's kool-aid
for Harry to want to be around him. Actually now that he thought about
it, the whole trip to the Forbidden Forest had probably been one of the
old man's schemes. Maxime and Karkaroff might have just straight up told
their champions what the task was, but Dumbledore was subtler than that,
it made it harder to point any fingers at him if any word of cheating got
out.
This new information opened up options, one of which he needed some

outside help for.
So he called up Penny.
"Evening." She greeted, eyebrows already raised expectantly. "What do you

need, Harry?"
"Nothing too difficult this time." He assured her. "I need you to see if
you can buy me a couple of cow carcasses."
Penny blinked. "Could you repeat that? I could swear I heard you say that
you need me to buy a couple of cow carcasses."
"That's exactly what I said." Harry nodded.
Penny opened her mouth but seemed to think better of it and just shook
her head. "I'm not even going to ask."
Bless that girl, she was a gem. Giving her a job had definitely been one
of his better decisions.
"I also need a few plastic bags that can be vacuum sealed."
"That's easier than the cow carcasses at least." Penny muttered.
"Thanks, Penny." Said Harry and cut the connection.
He turned towards his roommate, who was sitting crosslegged on the bed
and staring at him with expectant blue eyes, waiting for them to start on
the nightly Occlumency sessions that he'd taken to teaching her this
year. She knew too many of his secrets to have her mind open.
Fortunately, she seemed to have an exceptional knack for the discipline.
"Hey, Luna?"
"Yes, Harry?"
"How would you like to help me brew a Draught of Living Death?"
"I would love to."
XXXXX
Breakfast at Potter Manor.

"What's with that stupid grin?" Tonks asked, staring at Sirius
suspiciously and wondering if he'd pulled a prank.
"Probably the same reason you look so tired." Sirius chuckled, chewing on
some bacon with relish.
"I've seen you the day after you got laid before and you weren't this
cheerful." Tonks argued, not bothering to deny that she was tired because
of Harry. He'd kept her up until four in the morning when she'd told him
that she had the next day off.
"He's been like that for a couple of weeks now." Penny chimed in. "I
think he's got himself a proper girlfriend but he's being all mysterious
about it."
"Sirius Black in a relationship?" Tonks said in mock horror. "Say it

isn't so!"
"Laugh all you want, but this one is special." Sirius huffed.
Two pairs of eyebrows went up as the women exchanged surprised glances.

That was definitely weird for Sirius 'bachelor for life' Black.
"So, who is the unfortunate woman that has to put up with your lame
puns?" Tonks asked.
"You'll get to meet her at the first task, I'm not telling you before
then."
"Fine, keep your secrets." She pouted.
"Speaking of the first task, I could use your help with something." Penny
jumped in.
"What?" Sirius and Tonks said together.
"Harry asked me to buy him a couple of cow carcasses and I would

appreciate your help with the transport." Arranging that had gotten her
so many strange looks, not to mention the problems involved in arranging
it all so that it was all above board and that there were no violations
to the Statute of Secrecy. Harry had better appreciate this.
"Why would he need a..." Tonks trailed off with a groan as it dawned on
her why Harry could possibly need something like that. Really, what other
use do whole cow carcasses have other than feeding something big and
carnivorous?
"You don't think they're having him fight some big magical beast do you?"
Sirius asked nervously, having come to the same conclusion.
"I don't see what else it could be." Tonks replied unhappily. Harry just
had to enter himself into this damn tournament didn't he?
"He didn't sound too worried about it when I talked to him." Penny
offered, trying to make them feel better. "He seems to have a plan at
least."
"I'm still going to smack him one for not telling me about it." Tonks
grumbled.
"It sounded like he was busy with more important matters." Sirius said
cheekily.
"Shut up, Sirius."
XXXXX
For those of you expecting Harry's name to come out of the goblet twice,
recall that Voldie is still cooling his heels in Albania because Wormtail
got blown up. Yes, it would have been funny, but you work with what you
got xD.
On the up side, we've started moving into the more interesting parts of
the story(for me at least), so I might be able to keep up a faster update
schedule. Don't expect it to always be weekly though.
EDIT: I've had to replace Fleur's cursing because I've been advised that
"eat shit and die" doesn't translate into French too well. Go figure.
Shoutout to Talen45100 for the heads up on that one.
Chapter 18
All the beta credit goes to Joe Lawyer.
XXXXX
"So where is this girlfriend of yours?" Tonks asked of her cousin, eager
to meet the woman who had managed to put a leash on him.
"She told me she'd be in that section over there..." Sirius replied in a

distracted manner, looking over the stadium to spot his paramour. "...Ah!
There she is."
"Which one?" Penny asked, just as curius as Tonks.
"The dark skinned one over there, wearing black and white." Sirius
specified, pointing his finger in the general direction and hurrying
towards her.
The two women had no trouble locating her after that. Indeed, she did
rather stand out dressed as she was in close fitting black velvet robes
trimmed with white fur.
Tonks and Penny exchanged a look, both wondering if Sirius had run afoul
a gold digger of some sort or if the woman was rich in her own right, as
the outfit had to be obscenely expensive. That impression was only
reinforced as they got closer and noticed that she also had an exquisite
dark blue tearstone sapphire necklace around her neck and another couple
of similar gems dangling from her ears.
"Sirius, I was beginning to think you had stood me up." The woman said as
they approached, a slight smile on her face. She was incredibly
beautiful.
Tonks felt her stomach drop slightly as she heard the Italian accented
English. She'd heard rumors from the more senior aurors about a certain
Italian witch, but surely Sirius' luck wasn't that bad?
"You wound me, I would never stand up such lady." Sirius replied,
grinning happily as he took her outstreched hand and pressed a kiss to
it. "Now, may I present my cousin, Auror Nymphadora Tonks, and Penelope
Clearwater, Potter family steward."
"Just Tonks." Tonks said automatically, her mind still on the potential
identity of this woman.
"Call me Penny."
"A pleasure." The woman said with a nod, smile widening sligtly.
"Girls, meet my mysterious lady friend, Adrastia Zabini."
Fuck. Tonks thought eloquently, stomach dropping all the way. Of course
Sirius would manage get infatuated with a woman who had 'Black Widow' as
an all but formal title, why had she ever expected him to have a normal
girl? The pun inherent in the title and Sirius' last name might have been
funny in different circumstances.
"Nice to finally meet you." Penny said sincerely and decided to go for a
joke to break the ice. "I hope you can keep Sirius in line, he's a bit of
a dog."
"Oh, I know and I will." Adrastia purred, smile taking a challenging

quality for just a moment as she glanced at the young auror. It was
always amusing to see law enforcement trying to find proof of her hobby
only to fail and stare helplessly as she got away with murder after
murder.
Tonks saw the smile and returned it with a hollow one of her own. She had
a horrible feeling that saving her cousin from the trouble he'd dipped
his cock into this time would not be as simple as telling him that Zabini
was out to kill him. She couldn't cause a scene right here either way.
"Looks like it's starting." Sirius said, pointing down into the arena.
"They're bringing out the first dragon."
The sight of the vicious and pissed off looking Hungarian Horntail
brought her mind to a different worry. Harry had told her what he planned
to do and she had to agree that it was a good plan, but there was no such
thing as 'perfectly safe' when you were dealing with dragons.
She hoped he would be alright, she'd gotten quite fond of him in the time
that they'd been together and she might need his help to save her fool
cousin.
XXXXX
Fleur swallowed nervously as she looked into the dragon's belligerent

yellow eyes, staring at her balefully as it crouched over its eggs. It
was more intimidating than she had expected it to be.
This was not going to be easy. Her approach would bypass its magic
resistant scales, but she could do nothing but hope that it be enough to
overcome its foul disposition.
Unfortunately, the crowd would work against her in this and having Bagman
screaming out an excited commentary certainly wouldn't help. She hoped
that he would at least keep his mouth shut when it counted.
With a final fortifying breath, Fleur started singing a French lullaby

that her mother had sung to her when she had been a child.
Veela shared many similarities with each other. The one that was relevant
at this point was that they all had a love of song and could easily carry
a tune without any need for lessons or practice. It was unheard of for a
veela to be a bad singer. Their voices held magic when they were lifted
in song.
XXXXX
In the champion's tent.
Harry's head tilted sideways when Fleur's song reached his ears. He
didn't understand the words, but he knew the magic.
That's another piece of that puzzle falling into place.
XXXXX
It was working, Fleur saw with relief. The Horntail was looking less
agitated and it was blinking slowly. Sometimes it would shake its head as
if trying to stay alert.
She continued singing, keeping her voice soft and soothing and repeating
the lullaby several times as she ran out of lines. Little by little, the
Horntail's eyes drifted shut and it laid its head on the ground,
beginning to snore.
Fleur continued singing just in case and slowly approached, struggling to

keep her legs from shaking. The dragon was no longer her greatest enemy
now. If the crowd started cheering or Bagman started braying, it would
wake up, likely even angrier than it had been before.
To her immeasurable relief, everyone stayed quiet as she gently lifted

the golden egg from the nest and walked away as fast as she dared, still
singing.
The crowd screamed in approval. The dragon snorted and woke up. It saw
her with the egg and roared a jet of flame towards her.
Fleur abandoned all pretense of bravery and ran for it. Fortunately she
had been far enough away that she wasn't roasted, but if the heat she
felt was any indication it had been a near thing.
Task finished, she threw her hair and looked expectantly at the judges.
They had better give her a perfect score for this.
Madam Maxime did so, as did Dumbledore. That was where all sense of
fairness ended however.
Bagman gave an eight, looking terrible reluctant to do it. Fleur was

outraged, but quickly forgot about the unctuous man when the last two
judges held up their own scores.
Karkaroff gave her a five and Umbridge a two.
The only thing that stopped her from transforming into avian form and
incinerating the both of them was the fact that Madam Maxime and even the
crowd were just as outraged at the blatantly unfair scoring.
XXXXX
Viktor scowled at the dragon, mostly out of habit.
Why had he entered himself into this tournament again? Oh yes, because it
was expected of him. He had gotten used to doing what was expected of
him. Photo sessions and interviews and shaking hands with people, he did
it all but he hated it. He just wanted to play quidditch, but he was good
and success inevitably drew attention.
When news of this stupid tournament had come, everyone expected him to
represent Durmstrang. Even the Bulgarian quidditch team expected him to
enter and bring them more publicity. Nobody even bothered to wonder if he
wanted to enter.
He wasn't even the best choice for a champion. He was a stronger than
most of those around his age, but Durmstrang had stronger. Karkaroff had
left those behind to make sure that he was chosen. With the amount of
time he invested into quidditch training, he could hardly be expected to
keep up with his more studious peers in the study of magic.
Now here he was, staring a dragon in the snout and about to poke it in
the eye.
Viktor knew that it wasn't a good plan. Unfortunately, he had never been
much of a problem solver. He was fairly good at the direct approach, but
lacked the imagination for something more inventive. Karkaroff thought
that blinding the dragon was a good plan, but Karkaroff was an idiot. Too
bad it was the only plan he had.
There was nothing to do except get to it really. He wasn't in the habit

of quitting even if the contract had allowed it.
The Conjunctivitis Curse flew from his wand and struck true, causing the
Horntail to roar its fury as it was blinded. It stumbled and smashed two
of its real eggs, making Viktor grimace, but he pushed on. He had to get
that egg.
A gout of fire missed him by a mile, but the madly stomping legs were
more difficult to avoid. More than once he had to abort an attempt to
snatch the egg because the Horntail's thrashing was so unpredictable.
Worse still, it was starting to use its hearing to track him rather than
its eyes.
Deciding to make use of this, Viktor cast a low powered blasting curse as
far around the dragon as he could see, hoping to turn its focus away from
him.
The speed with which it turned startled him and Viktor's eyes barely had
time to widen as the viciously spiked tail came sweeping towards him. Too
big to jump over. Too low to slide under. Too long to dodge back.
XXXXX
Harry knew that something had gone wrong when the gasps and cheers of the
crowd became a chorus of horrified screaming. It didn't take a genius to
guess that Krum had gotten severely injured at the very least.
This was confirmed a few minutes later when Bagman came into the tent,
wringing his hands nervously and stuttering out that he would have to
wait a bit for his turn while they removed Krum's body from the arena.
"Abso-fucking-lutely beautiful." Harry muttered to himself once Bagman

stumbled his way out of the tent. The tournament sure was off to a lovely
start.
XXXXX
Sirius' face had an ashen pallor as the dragon handlers carefully lifted
Krum's body from the Horntail's tail spikes, where it hung impaled like
some kind of macabre trophy.
"That was what I suggested that Harry should do." He whispered, guts
twisting with horror. He'd figured that a blinded dragon wouldn't be all
that dangerous. It couldn't hurt you if it couldn't see, right?
Apparently it could.
"It's a good thing he has his own ideas then." Tonks said tightly, hair
slowly regaining color from the bleached white it had been the past
several minutes.
"Your cousin is quite right, Sirius. Didn't you always tell me how clever
your godson is?" Adrastia said with a pat on Sirius' arm, not even
slightly bothered by the sight of death by dragon. One of her ex-husbands
had gone a similar way when trying to demonstrate how brave he was. At
her prodding.
"Yeah, Harry's smarter than this." Sirius said with a relieved exhale.
Tonks and Adrastia were right, Harry would be fine.
XXXXX
It took the better part of an hour before Harry was called out into the
arena to face his own dragon. It was a magnificent beast and egregiously
magical. He could see the shimmer of it in the black scales.
It was depressing to think of the fact that wizards had reduced this
powerful predator to cattle. There were no free dragons left in the
world, all of them lived either in preserves or on dragon farms where
they were bred only to eventually be slaughtered for the sake of armor,
potions ingredients, wand cores and straight out meat. And dung, can't
forget that dragon dung was a great fertilizer.
Harry understood the reason for it. Dragons didn't give a shit about the
Statute of Secrecy and they were a living violation of it. They certainly
wouldn't be able to fly or breathe fire if they obeyed the laws of
physics.
It was still depressing even though it made sense. It took away the sense
of wonder and nobility about dragons to treat them like that. A stray bit
of video game wisdom came to mind at that thought.
There is nothing noble about a dragon. It's ten tons of flaming muscle
powered by a brain the size of a gooseberry.
While he wasn't sure about the weight, the rest seemed spot on. It really
was just an animal, an impressive animal, but an animal all the same.
Considering that he had recently bought the carcasses of two butchered
cows, complaining that dragons weren't treated fairly on the basis that
they were cooler than cows was just a wee bit hypocritical.
It took little effort to summon the trunk in which said cow carcasses
were being held, having placed it nearby in preparation for the task.
A murmur of surprise went through the crowd as the first cow carcass
floated out of it under his levitation charm. It was a pretty blatant
sign that he'd known about the dragons in advance.
The Horntail stopped glaring at him and began to track the snack through
the air with interest. Harry was glad to see that. It would have been the
height of irony if it wasn't hungry. He moved the carcass towards it and
the dragon only gave it a couple of suspicious sniffs before snatching it
in its jaws and gobbling it down.
Harry repeated the exercise with the other carcass and settled down to
wait. The dragon looked at him expectantly, obviously hoping for a third,
but he had nothing more to give it. Eventually, it snorted a bit of flame
towards him and went back to glaring.
He wondered how long it would take for the Draught of Living Death he'd
placed into the chest cavities of those carcasses in vacuum sealed
plastic bags to take effect.
Not long as it turned out. The Horntail started looking woozy after a few
minutes and quickly fell asleep.
After that it was a simple matter of walking up to the nest and grabbing
the egg. The crowd seemed more than a bit confused and disappointed at
the lack of spectacle, but he'd completed the task with minimal fuss and
hadn't been in danger of sharing the fate of Viktor Krum, so Harry was
not going to concern himself with their opinion.
Dumbledore and Bagman gave him tens and Madam Maxime a nine. Karkaroff,
looking both queasy and furious gave him a four and Umbridge a three with
a sickly sweet smile.
The blatant bias wasn't surprising, so Harry did no more than give a
mocking little bow in their direction and walked out of the enclosure,
smiling at the outraged screams of the audience.
To Harry's surprise he was accosted by another dragon as soon as he was

out.
"Dragons!" Madam Pomfrey spat without preamble and tried to drag him into
the first aid tent.
Harry irritably pulled his arm free. "I'm fine."
"I'll be the judge of that, Potter." The nurse snapped back irritably.
She'd gone through decades of students telling her they were fine when
they weren't, this particular boy's father being one of the worst
offenders. With this stupid tournament already having claimed one life,
she wasn't going to take any chances.
"I'm fine." Harry repeated in a tone that clearly told her to back off.
Insistent people made him angry and he'd never liked doctors. the Sun
being up wasn't helping either.
Poppy swelled with indignation but settled for casting a few diagnostic
charms, which gave her Potter's usual odd readings paired with perfect
health. She deflated slightly upon seeing that he was indeed fine and
stomped back into the medical tent.
"Hag." Harry grumbled. He was probably being unfair, but it was hard to
give a toss when Pomfrey was so good at getting on his nerves. Would it
kill the woman to try being less bossy?
He was distracted from his thoughts when Fleur walked out of the medical
tent, looking as irritated as he'd felt.
"She get on your nerves too?" He asked, amused at having it happen to

someone else.
"Oui."
An awkward silence followed as they both realized that Krum should have
been scowling right alongside them. Neither of them had been close to the
taciturn Bulgarian, hadn't even had a conversation with him in fact, but
it felt strange to have shared the champion's tent with him just a short
while ago and now realizing that they would be finishing this tournament
without him.
They didn't really have time to dwell on it though, as friends and family
descended on them soon after.
Harry saw Fleur getting almost tackled into a hug by a miniature clone of
her that couldn't be described as anything short of adorable. A younger
sister no doubt.
A dark haired man and an older blonde woman followed at a more sedate
pace. Well, older in the sense of her being older than Fleur, as she was
still utterly gorgeous and could have easily passed for a big sister.
They started chattering to each other in rapid French and Harry turned
away, not wanting to be caught ogling Fleur's mother.
His own entourage wasn't far behind, though the running hug he received
from Sirius was considerably more embarrassing than the one Fleur got
from her sister.
"Sirius, get off." Harry grumbled at his overly affectionate godfather.
Sirius let him go, but continued grinning unrepentantly.
"Nice going there, Harry. You handled that dragon like a pro."
"I know, feeding it drugged food is a professional dragon handler's

tactic." Harry replied drolly. Though the sleeping potion he'd given it
was a far bit more powerful than what normally got used. They might have
some trouble waking that Horntail up, but better safe than sorry.
Sirius barked out a laugh while Tonks and Penny came up to him and
offered their own congratulations.
There was some awkwardness to that meeting and it occured to Harry that
he and Dora had never actually been seen together in the magical world.
They hadn't deliberately been keeping their relationship secret, but
secret it was. Even the rumors spawned from their first meeting in the
DMLE hadn't really amounted to anything, the aurors aware of it having
simply assumed that it was just him making an unsuccessful pass at her.
This unexpected conundrum left Harry unsure of how he should act. Should
he kiss her? Hug her? Pretend they weren't together?
Many things could be said about Sirius' intelligence, quite a few of them
uncomplimentary, but he had a keen sense for a bro in need of a
distraction and he was happy to provide one.
"Harry, meet my lovely paramour, Adrastia Zabini. Adrastia, my godson,

Harry Potter." He introduced.
Harry was glad of the distraction and exchanged plesantries with the
woman. He had to admit that Sirius had really hit the jackpot with this
one, as she was incredibly beautiful. Not in the same way that a veela
was beautiful, but certainly no less though Harry might be a bit biased
given that she was just about the perfect age to trigger his 'hot older
woman' fetish.
The name surprised him a bit though, as he was aware of a Slytherin

fourth year by the name of Blaise Zabini, a guy who he didn't think had
spoken a single word in his presence. They had to be related given their
similar coloring. His gut told him that she was dangerous and her
presence had the ruthless edge of a killer. This was a woman to be wary
of. He was going to have to talk to Sirius about his choice of
companionship.
That belief was only excerbated when he shook her hand. He felt her magic
creep over his own in a way that was disturbingly familiar, a gentle
caress meant to calm and entice. Contrary to its purpose, he was put even
further on edge and his grip tightened instinctively, sending his own
magic to press against hers in warning. Zabini's eyes widened minutely in
surprised alarm before settling into a dangerouly calculating smile. Yes,
he would definitely need to talk to Sirius about this woman. And he would
probably need to talk to her as well, privately.
"Excuse me for a bit, I see Luna over there." He said and walked off.
"I'll go with you, I want to ask her something too." Tonks chimed in,
seeing an opportunity to give Harry a heads up on the Sirius situation.
She leaned over to him as soon as they were out of hearing range of the
others. "We need to talk. That woman with Sirius..."
"Is dangerous, I know." He finished softly.
Tonks was happy to hear that he'd picked up on that even if she didn't
know how. "Over the mirrors tonight?"
"Yeah." He nodded.
"Congratulations, Harry." Luna congratulated once they reached her. "I'm

glad that the potion worked."
"Me too." Harry quipped. He had contingency plans, but they were
considerably more risky.
"Oh, here come the nargles." The blonde girl said absently, staring over
Harry's shoulder.
"What?" Tonks asked in confusion.
Harry merely turned around and sighed in irritation. "What do you want,
Skeeter?"
The reporter was even more of a visual offense than usual today, wearing
acid green robes that almost managed to camoflage the Quick-Quotes Quill
she was holding.
"Just a small statement about your thoughts on the first task." The
reporter said with a ghastly smile. Harry could already imagine her
thinking of all the ways she could twist his words around to make him
seem like some kind of monster that was delighted by Krum's death.
"No comment." He said firmly.
"The public wants to know, Harry." Skeeter uttered the hated warcry of
reporters.
Harry was tempted to tell her that the public could lick his ass while he
was busy taking a dump, but knowing Skeeter she would probably be
delighted if he did so.
"No. Comment." He said instead. It wasn't as satisfying as insulting her,

but stonewalling the woman had its own charm.
"Perhaps one of your friends has something to say then?" The reported
attempted, turning to the Metamorphmagus. "I wasn't aware that you had
more than a passing aquaintance with Harry, Auror Tonks."
"His godfather is my favorite cousin, of course we know each other."

Tonks shot back snidely, knowing exactly what Skeeter was like. She
hadn't forgotten the article that the woman had written that insinuated
she's only managed to become an auror at her age by abusing her
Metamorphmagus ability.
"Hmph." Skeeter huffed and finally turned to Luna as a last resort. "How
about a word from the daughter of the late owner of the Quibbler then?"
Harry and Tonks' faces tightened with fury, but Luna only blinked at the
woman slowly with her big blue eyes.
"I'm sorry, but I can't hear you over the buzzing of your nargles. You
should get that looked at."
Skeeter's lips tightened with irritation and she huffed again, walking
away with a angry, jerky gait.
"Bitch." Tonks muttered.
Harry noticed that Skeeter was heading for the Delacour family, no doubt
intending to ruin the day for them as much as possible. It was convenient
that he already had a curse ready her. It was simpler than the Itching
Curse, but a great deal more painful and obvious to the people around
her. Skeeter deserved it for what she'd said to Luna.
"Watch this." He said and cast the spell.
Skeeter suddenly shrieked with agony, dropped her quill and parchment and
desperately grabbed at her breasts.
Then she turned around and pointed a finger right at Harry. "Potter! You
cursed me!"
"What are you on about, you hag?" Tonks demanded. "Nobody saw any spells
coming at you and Harry doesn't even have his wand out! Stop causing a
scene."
"She'll do anything for a story." One random old man there said, shaking
his head in disgust. "Back in my day, the Daily Prophet used to have some
integrity."
The furius and humiliated reporter stomped away.
"What did you do?" Tonks asked, barely holding back her wide smile.
"Texas Titty Twister; Magic Edition."
Tonks snickered. "Why Texas though?"
"Hell if I know." Harry shrugged. "Probably because it starts with a 'T'

or something."
He looked towards the Delacours again and saw Fleur looking towards him
speculatively. Catching his eye, she jerked her head in the direction of
Skeeter's exit in an obvious 'did you do that?' gesture.
Harry gave her a surreptitious wink.
XXXXX
That night.
"So Sirius is dating a woman that is probably intending to kill him."

Harry said with a sigh. "I should be surprised, but I'm really not."
"I don't think he knows about her reputation, what with the time he'd
spent in Azkaban and all. It's not exactly something that you'd find on
the front page of the Prophet or anything, but word gets around in
certain circles, like the DMLE for example." Tonks replied with a frown.
"I'll have Sirius bring her over to the manor in a few days." Harry said
with a frown of his own.
"Why?" Tonks asked with a raised eyebrow.
Harry hesitated, not sure what to say. If his suspicions were correct
then this was definitely not something he wanted Dora to know. Certainly
not before he could put some serious thought into it.
"You know something." Tonks stated, noticing his hesitation.
"Just a hunch." He evaded.
"It's something to do with one of your secrets, doesn't it?" She asked,
voice carefully light.
Harry averted his eyes. Dora hadn't pushed him too much about his secrets
even though she clearly wanted to know them. There were no snide remarks
or unsubtle hints, but he could tell that she was a bit stung that he
didn't trust her to keep it to herself.
He wished he could tell her everything, but the fact remained that a lot
of those secrets were illegal and she was law enforcement. If he told her
then he would never be able to take it back and he was not sure what she
would do with some of that information. The consequences of hasty or
poorly thought out decisions had already slapped him in the face too many
times to do it again.
"Yeah." He finally said lamely.
"Harry, this is Sirius' life we're talking about." Tonks said neutrally.
"I know." Harry sighed, running a hand through his hair in minor
frustration. "I'll have him bring her over to Potter Manor for dinner or
something and see what I can do."
"I want to be there." Tonks asserted quickly.
"There's no need, I doubt she'd do anything overt, not with all the
suspicion hanging around her already."
"Harry, I am not letting you be alone in a room with a suspected

murderer." She said flatly.
"Dora, you're an auror. She'll clam up if you're there." Harry reasoned.

It was probably true even, but he also didn't want her there because he
had no idea what would be said and he'd prefer not to have that
conversation in the presence of his girlfriend.
To his surprise, she didn't try to argue the point further but merely
sighed. "I'm not an idiot, Harry, I can see that you don't want me there
for your own reasons. I haven't pushed you to tell me everything, but I'm
getting pretty damn worried about what you're hiding if you're trying to
keep it secret even now."
Harry had no response. What was there to say?
This, he reflected, was the downside of having a relationship. His

previous experiences with Zoe, Bryanna and Tiana had misled him into
believing that having a steady girlfriend was a simple affair. He hadn't
been under the unseen obligation to trust and confide in any of those
three the way he now was with Dora.
The Metamorphmagus was fun and Harry liked her a great deal, but he knew
that their relationship hadn't progressed much mostly because of him. He
didn't let her see his workshop, didn't tell her how he was getting out
of Hogwarts to visit her, didn't trust her to keep his more dangerous
secrets to herself. How could they possibly get closer when he was so
obviously keeping a distance? It was a small miracle that she was as cool
about it as she was.
XXXXX
That conversation ended without any proper resolution and Harry spent the
next day plagued by a nebulous feeling of low-key guilt. He knew that
Dora was just worried about him and Sirius and trying to help, but the
situation conspired to put him in the position of having to exclude her
because he was certain that his own forays into illegal magic would come
up.
Harry's personality leaned towards pragmatism, but he wasn't nearly cold

enough to be capable of brushing aside his girlfriend's hurt feelings
which he knew was his own doing. So, guilt.
Still, he trudged through the day with little sign of his internal
conflict. He visited a seventh year Transfiguration class, a sixth year
DADA class, had an Ancient Runes tutoring session with Professor Babbling
and talked to Sirius to arrange for Adrastia Zabini to have dinner over
at Potter Manor.
Nobody noticed his minor preoccupation until it was time for the evening
training session with Luna.
"What's wrong, Harry?" She asked twenty minutes in, not really sounding
interested though he knew she was.
Harry sighed, wondering how he should put this. He had no compunction

about telling Luna about it because he knew that she wouldn't judge him
for it. In fact, he suspected that he could ask her to help him plan how
to murder Malfoy and receive only serene agreement.
"I'm in a bit of a...situation with Dora." He finally said. "I'm having

to push her away to deal with a problem and I can see that it's hurting
her, but I don't really have a choice."
"That does sound unfortunate." Luna agreed. She knew that Nymphadora
would hate being sidelined, being the sort to like being involved. She
had no advice to offer though, especially with how vague Harry was being.
"Yeah." Harry replied with a humorless chuckle.
"Would you like to work on the egg riddle instead of training then?" Luna
offered. There was little point in training if Harry wasn't focused.
Harry scowled at the mention of the egg. "I tried listening to it once
already, damn near made my ears bleed."
"I'd like to hear it too."
Shrugging, Harry agreed. If nothing else, Luna's reaction to the horrible

screeching should be interesting.
A few minutes later they were back in his private quarters and opening
the egg.
As Harry had guessed, Luna's reaction was interesting.
"That's Mermish." She stated with authority.
"What?" Harry said blankly.
"The language of the Merpeople." Luna elaborated.
"No, I got that." Harry quickly waved off. "It's just...what? That's a
language?"
"Well it isn't supposed to be spoken above water."
"How could you possibly know that?!" Harry demanded incredulously.
"They came by a few times while I was visiting Mr. Tentacles."
"...Who?"
"The giant squid, Harry. I talk to him sometimes."
Harry palmed his face for a moment, not sure if he should be amused or
what. "Alright, so the Merpeople in the lake came to talk to you?"
"Yes. Speaking of which, I'm going to need you to teach me the Bubblehead
Charm. It really is quite difficult to hold a conversation with someone
if you have to keep coming up for air."
Harry really should not have been surprised by that, but he was.
Admittedly it was more at the fact that he hadn't known about Luna's
little hobby than at the strangeness of it, but the fact remained that he
was surprised.
"Wait a minute, when do you have time to do this? You're either in

classes or with me."
"I have trouble sleeping sometimes while you're off visiting Nymphadora,
so I borrow your Invisibility Cloak and go talk to Mr. Tentacles. He's a
very good listener."
Why am I feeling guilty about this too? Harry wondered. Being a

responsible adult was such a chore, especially when you were only
fourteen.
"You shouldn't feel bad, Harry." Luna soothed, apparently seeing right
through him. "I know that Nymphadora likes your penis too much for me to
keep you all to myself. If I hadn't promised daddy to not let any boys
put their penis in me until I was sixteen, I would want to play with it
too."
Harry had been about to ask how she managed to get past the locked front
gate, but that last sentence derailed him quite nicely. "What?"
"You have a very nice penis, Harry." Luna explained matter-of-factly.
"Thanks?" He replied numbly for the sheer lack of any other response.
"But I thought..."
"That I wasn't interested in sex?" She asked breezily. "I wouldn't have
wanted to watch you having sex with Nymphadora so much if I wasn't.
You're being quite silly, girls don't go through puberty any later than
boys, a bit sooner actually."
Harry finally shut his mouth and privately admitted to himself that his
own accelerated development may have caused him to look at Luna as if she
was much younger than him even though the actual age difference was only
about four and a half months . She was plenty old enough to have started
developing an interest in sex and her particular lack of shyness or
societal taboos meant that she had no trouble admitting it to herself. Or
anyone else apparently.
"So you...err?" He said awkwardly and vaguely, not really sure what he
was trying to say. He'd been thrown so far off balance that he was
practically horizontal.
"Yes, I'm planning to ease Nymphadora into the idea of a threeway

relationship with you." Luna nodded as if he'd actually asked a sensible
question. "I expect it will take me a while since she's less adventurous
than I thought a Metamorphmagus would be, but at least I don't have to
break her of any pesky homophobia."
Harry had some trouble with the sudden mental shift as his best friend
went from 'sexually oblivious' to 'planning out a harem'. It was quite a
leap.
So he performed a tactical retreat and changed the subject. "You said

this screeching is Mermish?"
"Yes, no doubt we'll be able to understand it under water." Luna said

with a smile, looking forward to bathing with Harry again. Daddy really
had been quite the meanie when he made her promise to not let anyone put
their penis inside her until she was sixteen, but a promise was a
promise. Oh well, at least she had plenty of time to set things up the
way she wanted them.
XXXXX
The dinner appointment with Sirius' homicidal girlfriend came a bare few
days later. Teeny and Kreacher had both been varying levels of excited to
cook for a guest so the meal was excellent, even if only three people
would eat it since Penny had excused herself in favor of going on a date
on the mundane side of things.
Harry honestly felt a bit underdressed in comparison to Adrastia, who was

wearing a decidedly untraditional(for Britain at least, he didn't know
about other places) shimmering amethyst dress with a plunging neckline
and strategically placed slits that showed off her long, smooth legs.
There had to be some magic involved as he was pretty sure that her
breasts were defying the laws of physics.
Fortunately, it was his house and he wasn't trying to impress anyone.
He went along with the charade and made polite conversation that had
nothing to do with her likely plans to murder his godfather.
This lasted about up to the time that Sirius got started on one of his
many stories about what awesome prank they had pulled in Hogwarts.
"...so James is just standing there, holding a jar of catnip and a dozen
pair of panties stitched together into a makeshift bed with McGonnagal
glaring while he tries to explain that it was meant for Filch's cat and
not her. Then Lily comes down and-"
"Stupefy!" Harry didn't usually bother with incantations anymore, but

that felt distinctly satisfying.
"Interesting method of shutting him up." Adrastia commented placidly,

looking at the unconscious Lord Black. "I usually just sleep with him
when he gets nostalgic."
"And I'm sure he prefers that to a Stunning Spell, but I needed to talk
to you alone and he would have gone on for hours." Harry answered.
Adrastia leaned back into her armchair and switched over how her legs
were crossed. "And what will you do now that you have me all to
yourself?"
You poor bastard, you never stood a chance. Harry thought as he saw the
display. This woman had seduction down to an art form. Even knowing what
he knew, Harry still wanted to plow her until she was bowlegged just from
that little bit and the sensual insinuation in her tone.
"Kreacher!" He called firmly.

"What does Master want?" The crabby house elf asked, being polite in the
presence of a guest as he'd been ordered.
"Take Sirius up to his room, then grab some permanent marker and doodle
something rude on his face."
"Kreacher will be happy to." The house elf said gleefully.
He popped away with the unconscious man and left the two of them alone.
"I suppose there's no point in beating around the bush." Harry said with
a frown. "What did you do to Sirius?"
"What makes you think I did anything to him?" Adrastia asked back.
Harry got the sense that she wasn't trying to deny anything, but was
simply drawing things out. Fine then. if that was how she wanted to play
it, then he would go along with it for now.
"Sirius has a crippling fear of commitment." He said bluntly. "He'd never

act this besotted with anyone, no matter how beautiful."
"True." Adrastia agreed with a small dip of her head. "It took me longer
than expected to overcome that issue."
"And how did you overcome it?" He asked with narrowed eyes.
"Come now, Harry." She said with a laugh, gracefully rising from her
seat. "You already know what I did."
"I have my suspicions." He replied, rising as well since he didn't feel

comfortable sitting while this dangerous woman was on her feet.
"So modest." She mocked and stepped closer.
Harry tensed but didn't stop her. He didn't feel any immediate threat and
she didn't even have her wand on her. Nothing he'd seen so far of
Adrastia Zabini indicated that she was a direct combatant, but he was
still ready to react with violence at a moment's notice.
She stopped directly in front of him and ran her hands over his chest in
a strangely lewd but also gentle manner. Her magic slid along his own but
found no purchase.
"So tense and closed off you are." Adrastia murmured, staring up into his
green eyes with the deep dark pools of her own. "Wizards and witches
differ fundamentally from muggles in many ways, few of them obvious.
During intimacy, in the moment of climax, our souls become open to our
partner. A practicioner of Sex Magic may use their own soul to...draw on
their partner and bring to the fore that which they desire."
"And that's what you did to Sirius?" Harry asked tensely, gently removing
her hands from his chest.
"Deep inside him lay a core of emptiness that he seeks to fill with women
and humor. It was easy to exploit once I reached past his armor." She
shrugged and started pacing the room.
"And what were you going to do to him after you got what you wanted?" He
pressed insistently.
"A question I had devoted considerable time to." She replied, actually
seeming amused. "I was at a loss until I saw you. The pictures in the
paper truly do not do you justice, Harry. You are a magnificent wizard."
Harry simply continued to stare at her until it became clear that he was
not going to respond to that.
"I thought to myself, 'would it not be perfect if Sirius Black went mad
with jealousy and attacked his famous godson only to die in the
attempt?', so I planned to seduce you both and pit you against each
other. Once you had killed your godfather, I would have married you and
driven you to commit suicide out of guilt before frittering away your
family's fortune and moving on to someone else."
Shaking his head in disbelief, Harry had only one thing to say to that.
"You're a real piece of work."
"Thank you." She smiled as if paid a great compliment.
"But you are refreshingly honest." He allowed. It was certainly more

straightforward than dealing with Dumbledore or any number of Ministry
stooges.
"There is little point in subterfuge now." Adrastia shrugged. "I hadn't

expected you to be self-aware enough to detect what I was doing. Even
wizards of above average strength are usually blind. My plans were
abandoned in that very moment."
"Really?" Harry asked skeptically.
"I make it a point to avoid wizards such as yourself." She elaborated.

"You are simply too powerful and promise to become stronger still. You
would have thwarted me at every turn and would have taken vengeance
against me even if I had succeeded in killing Sirius."
"So you're backing off because it's too risky?" Harry asked further, more
than a little suprised by that. It was strangely...reasonable, especially
coming from what was obviously an unrepentant serial killer.
"Of course." She said, looking at him as if he was the one that had just
said something strange. "Surely you must have noticed by now that the
more powerful a wizard is, the fewer laws apply to them? Given how
powerful you are at your young age, you will likely have people taking
your words as if they were orders in a decade or two. I do not want to be
your enemy."
"And you'll just leave like nothing happened? After planning to kill my
godfather and me?" Harry was understandably somewhat incredulous. The
balls on this woman...
"Why not? It's not as if I've done you any real harm." Adrastia said
indifferently. "Sirius will likely mope for a while since I've had enough
time to make him deeply infatuated with me, but he should otherwise be
fine."
"Yes, about that..." Harry said slowly.
"Ah, you want to know more for the sake of that cute auror girlfriend of
yours?" Adrastia guessed, smiling wryly. "Perhaps we are not so different
after all?"
"That's not why I'm asking!" He ground out, angered by the implication.
"But you are asking." She pointed out, still smiling.
"I've been using Sex Magic to enhance pleasure." He explained tersely.

"Could I have unintentionally been influencing her the way you did
Sirius?"
"Undoubtedly." Was the immediate reply, making his heart sink. "People
are complex creatures with many impulses. By touching her so deeply when
she was completely open to you, your hopes and desires would have seeped
into her. I could not say how much effect you have had as you were
clearly not doing it on purpose, but she would at the very least have
been less likely to go against your wishes."
"Wonderful." Harry said flatly and sat back down. That was exactly what
he'd been afraid of. His entire relationship with Dora was potentially
built on his unintentional manipulation. Fucking hell, even Bryana and
Tiana could have been so agreeable because of this, since he'd been doing
it to them for at least half a year.
"It is largely the reason that Sex Magic was declared a Dark Art."
Adrastia sat down as well, rather amused by the the young wizards obvious
consternation, though she personally didn't see what he was upset about.
"It is an application of Soul Magic, perhaps one of the first true
magics, and can like all magic be put to both great and terrible purpose.
Veela and their succubi foremothers have often used the technique in the
past to turn wizards, and some witches, into lovesick followers. These
days they use it merely to ensure that their chosen mates never want to
leave them. The fact that veela do not hold a monopoly on Sex Magic has
been conveniently forgotten by most."
Harry had read about that, but the book had, as his interlocutor had
said, claimed that only veela could do it because of their Allure. Then
again, that book had been written by an obviously prejudiced author so he
shouldn't be surprised that the information wasn't 100% correct. He was
starting to really hate hindsight.
"What about that thing you tried with me at the first task? Non-sexual,
errr, mingling."
"The proper term for it is 'The Joining' and it is the same thing as if
you did it during sex, merely less effective." Adrastia chuckled. "Under
most circumstances, the effect would be negligible even if done by a
master of the art because a guarded soul cannot be influenced. It is
however possible to slightly strengthen impulses that are already
present. Men's lust for me has always been a convenient opening for
example."
Harry thought back to the many moments when he had shared his lust with
Dora when he kissed her or wrapped his magic around Luna in a fascimile
of a hug when she slept with him. Exactly how much had he influenced them
over time? "Fuck."
"Sirius did tell me that you had a bad habit of playing with things you
didn't fully understand." Adrastia commented lightly, looking at him out
of the corner of her eye.
Harry froze and pinned her with a hostile stare. "What exactly did Sirius
tell you?"
"A little of this, a little of that. I was quite curious as to how a

fourteen year old could have perceived my actions." She said, smirking
openly now and staring pointedly into the center of his forehead, where
Aul'El was carved. "Carving runes into your flesh? Tsk, tsk, Harry, such
a ghastly practice."
Harry ground his teeth together and thought furiously. This very
dangerous woman now knew some very dangerous things. Things that he
couldn't afford to have becoming known publically. This was no longer a
simple matter of bailing Sirius out of hot water, he couldn't let her
walk out of here with that knowledge.
He had to get rid of her quickly, but without leaving enough traces for
any investigation into her disappearance to point at foul play. That
meant no magic in the killing itself and then a Vanishing Spell on the
corpse once she was dead. There was nothing suspicious about Vanishing
Spells and everyone knew that they didn't work on living people, too much
mental interference to send someone to the Void like that. Nobody would
be able to prove anything with that.
He couldn't leave any blood either. I could strangle her. He thought,

eyeballing her slender neck and thin arms. She wouldn't be able to fight
me off and her wand is stashed in her purse. No suspicious magical traces
meant that the DMLE would be useless even if they had cause to suspect
him. There was no way to detect a mundane killing with magic in the same
way that a pathologist would be baffled if presented with the body of
someone hit by a Killing Curse.
"You need to work on your expression, Harry." Adrastia commented idly. "I
can see the murder in your eyes."
Harry took a deep breath to calm down, sending a silent curse towards the
Void. It was always goading him to feed it. Not so much during the day(he
had a different set of problems then), but the Sun had gone down quite a
while ago.
He was still left with the problem of what to do with this woman though.
But...she was strangely calm for someone that knew she was in danger of
being killed for the secrets she held.
"Why did you tell me that?" He asked, frowning. "You could have walked
out of here with me being none the wiser."
"To even the playing field, so to speak." Adrastia explained. "You know
that I kill my husbands and how and now you know that I know that you've
dabbled in illegal magic and are keeping your Animagus form secret."
Harry clenched his jaw again. Of course she'd know that too. For all he
knew, she might know about the Horcrux locket as well.
"However, neither one of us can easily prove any of this to the

authorities." She went on, ignoring his look. "I could accuse you and you
could accuse me and we would both deny it to the ends of the Earth with
no amount of investigation being able to prove anything and both of us
have enough gold to make the necessary bribes even if they did. Unless of
course you were to kill me, in which case I have already arranged for the
information to be sent to the Prophet and the DMLE, with a note attached
saying that I have cause to suspect that you will kill me for knowing
this."
"How clever of you." Harry snarked, reluctantly impressed.
"Thank you." She accepted gracefully. "Out of curiousity, how were you
intending to kill me?"
Well, since they were being honest... "Strangulation."
"Ooh, kinky." She teased, apparently not at all bothered by the topic of
her near murder.
"Was there a point to all this, or do you just like playing dangerous
games?"
"Yes and yes. The point is that we now both know some very ticklish
things about each other, so it would behoove us to play nice. I may one
day need the help of a wizard such as you and you may need the help of a
witch such as me. Nothing too...strenuous of course, at least not until
we get more comfortable with each other, but one never knows when they
might need some specialized help."
Harry shook his head in disbelief at her audacity. "A giant would go
green with envy at the size of the balls on you. You start off planning
to kill me and Sirius and now you want an alliance?"
"You were planning to kill me not five minutes ago, so I'd say we're even
on that score." She sniffed.
Harry snorted, amused in spite of himself. Her logic was horribly flawed,
but it was still funny.
"What did you have in mind?" He asked grudgingly after a moment. There
was no harm in hearing her out at least. He could always refuse.
"For starters, Sirius mentioned that you are a man of many interests and
many skills." She would certainly not call him a boy despite his age. No
killer was ever a boy and he was definitely a killer. "You dabble with
spell creation, curse breaking, enchanting and whatever else catches your
fancy. I have in my possession several cursed items that could be sold
for a great deal of money once those curses were removed and you could
remove them without the costs associated with hiring a professional
curse-breaker. This is just one example of what you could do for me."
"And what's in it for me?" Harry asked. He would not be opposed to doing
something like that. He'd learned a great deal from deconstructing the
varius enchanted and cursed objects in Grimmauld Place.
"Sirius also mentioned that you intend to travel the world once this
tournament is over. I have residences scattered all over Europe, fully
furnished and empty. You could use them at your leisure." Adrastia
offered.
"Leftovers from your past conquests?" Harry asked dryly.
"What else?" She shrugged shamelessly. "I certainly don't need that many
homes."
"Charming."
The Black Widow ignored his sarcasm and went on with a smouldering
invitation in her eyes. "Alternatively, I wouldn't be opposed to giving
you a more in depth lesson on the uses of Sex Magic, as you are clearly
still a novice. That would be a treat for me as well admittedly. I've
never had the opportunity to sleep with someone that could reciprocate
and I am curious to see what it would be like. Being self-aware as you
are, The Joining would not affect you as it does the sheep of the world
and there is no telling what new things we may discover."
"I've got a girlfriend." He reminded her. That offer was so very tempting
on multiple levels, but he didn't trust her the slightest bit.
"You could bring her too." She said with a wicked grin. "I've never had a
Metamorphmagus either, they're terribly rare. That would be one pet I
might actually keep."
"She is not a pet." Harry growled through clenched teeth.
"As you say." Adrastia returned with a smirk.

Harry knew that she was lancing at his worries on purpose. For someone
that was cautious enough to abandon a plan as quickly as she had, she had
a surprisingly dangerous sense of humor.
"How did you even get this way?" He asked suddenly. "What drives a woman
to go around finding husbands to murder?"
The smirk dropped off her face and she leaned back into the armchair,
looking at him thoughtfully for a few seconds and grabbed her empty
glass. "I am going to need more wine if you want me to share my life
story."
Harry shrugged and used wandless magic to levitate the bottle towards
her, figuring that she knew about that too.
Going by her lack of surprise, she did.
Only after the bottle was done pouring and she took a sip did she speak
again, though not about what he'd asked. "I didn't get to say this before
with Sirius reminiscing, but this is very good wine."
"Laid down seventy years ago by my grandfather apparently." Harry went

along with the small talk.
"And you opened it just for me? I'm flattered."
"Don't be, I have no appreciation for wine and no idea what's so special
about it."
"How uncultured of you, perhaps I could teach you that as well. A man of
your station is not well served being ignorant in these matters."
Harry shrugged again.
Adrastia kept on drinking silently for a few minutes and only spoke again
once half the wine in her glass was gone.
"I was beautiful even as a child and people noticed. One of my father's
prospective business partners to be precise. He was forty years older
than me and a pig besides, but my father was an ambitious man and sold me
to him in marriage. I was sixteen."
"I'm sorry to hear that." Harry meant it too. Whatever else, she hadn't
deserved that.
Adrastia waved the sentiment off and continued. "He wasn't abusive, not
physically at least, but he was a pig as I said. I was a different woman
then, a timid little weakling that sought any escape. There was none to
be found though, so I escaped into myself and eventually became aware
enough of my magic to influence him. Over the next two years, I preyed on
his appreciation of my beauty and reduced him from an arrogant and self-
important lordling into a snivelling wreck desperate for my approval. He
would buy me expensive gifts and I would turn my nose up at them solely
for the pleasure of seeing his face fall as he realized that his best
wasn't good enough. The sight of him groveling for scraps of attention
was ambrosia, but eventually I tired of yanking his leash and incited him
to attack my father. They killed each other like the tools they were and
I have been repeating the experience ever since."
"Huh, that's actually a bit more straightforward than I was expecting."

Harry commented, scratching at his chin thoughtfully. The guy got what he
deserved in his opinion, but it showcased a truly incredible level of
viciousness in the woman before him. "What about your son though?
Blaise?"
"The unfortunate spawn of my first husband before I learned to control

him." Adrastia said dismissively.
"Not the motherly sort I take it?" Harry asked wryly.
"I didn't dispose of him as I did with the other ugly reminders of the
past. That is all the parental affection I have to spare."
"Heh, now I almost feel sorry for the bastard." Harry chuckled.
Adrastia raised an eyebrow, prompting him to elaborate.
"My real parents are dead, the relatives that Dumbledore stuck me with
were abusive, the orphanage they stuck me in was run by an overly
religious old cunt with certain views on magic and the couple that took
me in are about as good at parental affection as you. I have more in
common with your son than I thought." He explained, pouring himself some
of the wine too.
"Thinking about befriending him?" She asked. Perhaps she might have to
arrange an accident for Blaise after all. Harry was far too interesting
for his attention to be wasted on that bit of runaway sperm.
"Hell no. I'm not the type to go out of my way to make friends." Harry
snorted and raised his wine glass towards her in a sarcastic toast. "To
shitty parents and/or legal guardians."
Adrastia smiled widely in amusement and echoed the toast despite taking
some splash damage from it. She had needled him about his girlfriend
earlier so it was only fair.
XXXXX
The next morning, some time before dawn, Harry was still at Potter Manor,
having breakfast in the dark and waiting for people to wake up.
Penny had gotten used to being the first one up and was badly startled
when she walked into the dining room to see a pair of green eyes gleaming
at her from the darkness.
"Harry! You startled me." She said, holding a hand to her chest and
calming down her breathing.
"Sorry about that." He said, placidly chewing on a bit of toast with jam.
"Shouldn't you be at Hogwarts?" She asked.
"I should, but I had to save Sirius from becoming the latest victim of
the Black Widow."
"You mean that was actually true?" Penny asked in surprise. Tonks had
told her the rumors about Adrastia Zabini, but she had been skeptical. It
seemed a bit strange for someone to get away with doing that and Adrastia
had seemed pleasant enough.
"Oh yes, but I'll tell you the rest when Sirius and Dora get here. Why
don't you bring me up to speed on things in the meantime?"
"Alright, what would you like to know?" Penny agreed with a shrug and sat
down at the table herself.
"Any interesting mail?"
"Not really, but you did get some pretty funny hate mail for the way you
handled the dragon."
"Hate mail?" Harry's eyebrows shot up.
"Yep." Penny was amused. "They seemed to think you insulted them
personally by not making a spectacle of the event and I quote 'giving
them their money's worth'."
Harry's eye twitched. Seriously? "Are you sure the laws don't let me send
a return letter with a nasty curse attached?"
"Quite. You could probably get away with it given the way the law works
in magical Britain, but it would damage your reputation." Penny advised.
"Right, and we can't have that." He muttered. "Anything else?"
"You got a business proposition wrapped in a betrothal offer from Spain."

Penny said with a frown. " A ' Leandro Montesano of the Montesano line of
horse breeders' as he introduced himself wants to enter into a
partnership with you in order to set up a pegasus ranch in Britain and is
offering his oldest daughter to you in marriage as a show of his
sincerity."
"I get the feeling you didn't much like him." Harry commented.
"I didn't." Penny confirmed with a small scowl. "The man talks about his
daughter the same way he talks about his horses and he comes off as
generally slimy as a Malfoy."
"No doubt some ambitious twat hoping to weasel their way into the
nobility." Harry rolled his eyes.
"That was my guess too given the way he was extolling the virtues of his
daughter as if she was a prize mare." She agreed.
"Were there pictures attached?" Harry asked.
Penny gave him a deadpan look of disapproval.
"What?" He asked innocently.
"Yes, there was a picture, but Sirius already stole it." She finally
said.
"Bastard."
Penny decided to simply change the subject. "We've got a final tally on
the sale of the basilisk, your share came in at just over a hundred
thousand galleons."
Harry whistled. That was actually quite a bit higher than the initial
estimates he'd been given. "I thought it was only supposed to be eighty
thousand?"
"It was, but a group of collectors apparently really wanted its skeleton.
They got into a runaway bidding war and the winner ended up paying forty
thousand for the whole thing." Penny explained.
"Well if they prefer bones over gold..." Harry grinned. "What about the
girls and their store? How are they getting along?"
"Good, they've been building up stock and experimenting with new things.
I try stuff out for them sometimes and I have to say that I'm impressed.
Just last week, they finished working on a series of designer bras that
look as good as anything you can get at Victoria's Secret but have a load
of Cushioning Charms and other spells worked into them to make sure they
offer perfect support without pinching or digging into the skin. I never
want to live without one of them again." Penny said happily.
"That good?"
"Let's just say that taking my bra off isn't the best part of the day
anymore."
"...I obviously can't relate, but it sounds significant."
"You have no idea."
"Things are looking good for them then?"
"Very good. The only real issue they've hit is that the goblins have a
limited supply of British pounds to exchange for galleons, so buying in
the non-magical world got a bit problematic for a while."
"Right, of course." Harry sighed. It made sense, the goblins only cared
about precious metals, gems and shiny things. They only traded for paper
money out of necessity and had no connection to the mundane banks. The
intransigent little bastards were just one complication after another.
"We'll have to find a way around that problem."
"I already have." Penny said smugly.
"Do tell." Harry prompted with interest.
"Just because the goblins in Britain ran out of normal money doesn't mean
they're all out. I had them bring over euros from the continent and
exchanged that into pounds."
"I bet they hated that." Harry laughed.
"Of course they did." Penny shrugged. "They seem to hate everything."
"Any luck getting some of my money away from them?"
"Not yet." Penny frowned. "The owner of the last pawn shop I visited
tried to convince me that the Black family silverware wasn't worth more
than twenty pounds."
Harry snorted. How very stereotypical.
The ongoing effort to liberate his money from the greedy fingers of the
goblins had hit a few snags, which was the reason that they were
resorting to pawning various non-magical trinkets owned by the Blacks.
Sirius also thought it was hilarious to sell his family's baubles to the
very people they had hated so much and encouraged it enthusiastically.
The first snag was the goblin's outrageous fees if you tried to exchange
more than a hundred galleons and now apparently also their smallish
supply of regular money.
As a way around it, Harry thought of buying various goods that were
common to both worlds with gold and selling it for pounds. It would be
sold at a loss no doubt, but it would be worth it to have some money that
wasn't in goblin control. That idea ran into the problem created by the
secrecy of the magical world. With there being no paper or electronic
trail for those goods, they couldn't do anything big or else draw the
wrong kind of attention. Sooner rather than later, someone was going to
notice that those goods were appearing out of thin air and if there was
one thing that the government was diligent about, it was collecting
taxes. This forced them to look at more 'under the table' types of deals
which inevitably also carried the risk of getting ripped off.
Harry was still disgruntled over the fact that he had sold the whole
basilisk in Europe. That had been the 'expert' advice of the wizard
lawyer he'd gone to, the man's rationale being that dealing with multiple
currencies would delay the sale even more and probably get him less value
out of it. He hadn't known the full extent of the goblin monopoly then
and didn't realize that the extra hassle would have been worth it.
"You should try eBay." He suggested. "There's bound to be some rich nut
out there that wants tacky silver and emerald candlebras and snake themed
forks bad enough that he'd be willing to pay through the nose for them."
"I guess..." Penny agreed reluctantly.
Harry just grinned. Penny's aversion to computers never failed to amuse

him. It would have been normal to see it on a pureblood, but as she was
the first person with a drop of magical blood in her family, it was
simply hilarious.
"You don't have to sound so excited about it." He chuckled.
Penny huffed.
"So, how did your date go?" Harry asked to change the subject.
"Meh." She replied with a wishy-washy gesture.
"That bad?"
"He wasn't a bad guy or anything even if my parents did take it upon
themselves to set me up with him, but I had to keep tip-toeing around the
topic of magic all the time. It was exhausting."
"Don't I know it." Harry muttered, thinking of his own difficulties with
explaining certain details to Zoe and the somewhat different situation
with Dora. Secrets made a mess of any relationship. They also had a bad
habit of breeding more secrets.
The two of them chatted about inconsequential things for the next hour,
such as Malfoy and his continued string of humiliation. Penny tried to
frown disapprovingly at that, but her smile kept getting in the way.
That was how Tonks found them when she walked in.
"Morning." She greeted and went to kiss Harry in greeting.
Harry returned the kiss, but couldn't help remembering the things he'd
learned the other night. Fun times were ahead, he could already tell.
"So, what happened?" Tonks asked once she sat down.
"Hang on a second, let's bring Sirius down for this too. Kreacher!"
"Filthy halfblood master called?" Without guests, there was no need for
politeness.
"Yes, could you wake Sirius up and tell him to get down there?"
"Kreacher can do that."
A few minutes later, Sirius was staggering into the dining room. His
entire face was painted black with permanent marker.
Something tells me that Kreacher doesn't have a very good grasp of what
'doodle something rude on his face' means. Harry thought over the sound
of the two girls laughter.
"You stunned me and painted my face black!" Sirius accused, pointing a

finger at Harry.
"No, I stunned you and had Kreacher paint your face black." Harry
corrected.
"Why?" Sirius demanded.
"Because I needed to talk to Adrastia alone and you were in the middle of
one of your long winded prank stories."
"You're on first name basis with her already?" Tonks asked archly.
"Considering what we talked about, formalities seemed a bit redundant."

Harry explained.
"What did you talk about?" She pressed.
They were interrupted by a brief yelp as Sirius used a spell to remove

the blackness from his face, coincidentally also removing the top layer
of skin. He was just lucky that Kreacher had spared his facial hair.
"Well first of all..." Harry began, looking at his godfather. "Sirius,

you've been dumped."
"Adrastia wouldn't dump me just like that!" Sirius protested.
"I thought you might say that, so I had her put it in writing. Here you
go."
Sirius opened up the letter and read it out loud with a frown of
consternation. "'Sirius, we're done. Be a dear and give my regards to
Harry, will you? Goodbye.'"
"Damn, that is cold." Tonks commented with a snicker at the crestfallen

look on her cousin's face. It was funnier now that he was no longer in
danger.
"I can't believe she'd do this." Sirius said sulkilly, still staring at
the letter in his hands.
"Stop moping, old man. She was going to kill you." Harry sighed.
"Those were just rumors, Adrastia isn't a killer." Sirius protested.
Harry snorted derisively. "She most definitely is a killer. Her plan was
to seduce you first, then move on to me, make you jealous enough to start
a fight in which I killed you and finally drive me to commit suicide out
of guilt followed by a massive spending spree with our family money."
"How in the world did you find that out?" Tonks asked, amazed.
"She admitted it to me." He shrugged.
That got him goggle-eyed looks from all three of them.
"Just like that?" Tonks asked in disbelief. Over a decade of murders and
then she just up and admits it?
"I was able to sense what she was doing and she's canny enough to know
when to abandon a plan." Harry explained.
"This is great!" Tonks exclaimed. "We might finally be able to arrest

her."
"No you can't." Harry sighed.
"Why not?" His girlfriend demanded.
"Because I had to make a deal with her."
"You made a deal with a serial killer?" Tonks asked incredulously.
"She's actually not a bad person if you ignore that mile wide streak of
emotional sadism she has going. Apparently she gets her jollies from
turning people into stammering shadows of their former selves and
humiliating them before finishing it all off with murder when she gets
bored." Harry explained sarcastically.
"How is this not a good reason to arrest her?"
"Because you can't prove anything."
"We could if you helped!"
"In which case she'd make sure I went down with her since someone" Harry
glared at his godfather. "blabbed a lot of incriminating information to
her."
"I was sure I could trust her." Sirius defended weakly. "Sorry, Harry."
"It's fine, you never really had a chance." Harry sighed.
"So we're supposed to just let a killer walk free?" Tonks demanded,
carefully noting Harry's implicit hint that he was hiding certain
illegalities as well and correctly guessing that this was the reason why
he refused to tell her.
"It's not like it'll be a new thing." Harry retorted. "How many more
Death Eaters besides Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, Nott, Parkinson and Snape are
currently free?"
Tonks grunted irritably but conceded the point. She didn't like the way
he'd said it, but he wasn't wrong. Wizarding Britain was full of killers
that had walked free. Zabini just happened to be international and still
active.
"Fine, if we can't put her away, will you at least tell us how she got
her hooks into Sirius?" She asked.
"I can't. Part of the deal was that we keep it all to ourselves." It
wasn't, but the last thing he needed right now was to open the topic of
Sex Magic and its potential for subtle subversion. Dora was anything but
stupid and would probably make all sorts of inconvenient connections.
When did life get so complicated anyway? Harry wondered. This is all
Sirius' fault somehow, I just know it. Things were simple before he
showed up. Well not really. Sirius was a catalyst at best, but it was
easy to blame him for it right now.
XXXXX
The fangirls were acting even stranger than usual today, Harry noticed as
he made notes for potentially useful underwater spells. Given the message
in the golden egg, the next task was almost guaranteed to take place in
the Black Lake and have something to do with reclaiming a thing he would
sorely miss from the Merpeople. Harry wasn't particularly sentimental and
could think of very few things he would miss at all, much less 'sorely'.
Of course, there was the distinct possibility of it being someone rather

than something that was to be taken from him, in which case he would be
sorely tempted to commit multiple homicide on the organizers. Either way,
he wasn't letting Luna out of his sight in the days leading up to the
second task.
But back to the fangirls. As previously noted, they were acting weird.
The practice of hiding(badly) behind the bookshelves and giggling was
something he'd gotten used to, but they seemed to be in a furious debate
of some sort today. Maybe they were going to make another clumsy
seduction attempt and were deciding which one of them would do it? Harry
wished he could just fuck them and get it over with. A few of them would
probably get a life of their own afterwards and the others would at least
stop being stalkers. Probably. Maybe. It could happen. They'd have their
mouths busy some of the time at least.
Then the whispered debate/argument suddenly cut off and Harry raised his
head to investigate the reason for this unlikely event. Ah, that would do
it.
"'Arry." Fleur said as she sat down at his table without an invitation.
"Fleur." Harry greeted back.
A few moments of pregnant silence passed.
"Can I help you with something?"

"Oui. I need a date."
Well that wasn't at all what he was expecting. "What for?"
Fleur blinked. "You do not know?"
"Know what?"
"About ze Yule Ball?"
"We're having a ball?"
"Oui, eet eez tradition for ze hosting school to organize one and ze
champions to open eet."
Harry hated parties on general principle and he hated mandatory parties

on a personal level. It was like someone coming up to him and telling him
that he was obliged to go somewhere and have fun in an event that was
patently not fun. He had yet to hear of anything with tradition involved
that was actually fun.
Unfortunately, it would probably be less bother to go along with it than

mounting a rebellion against social norms. That was the inconvenient
truth of these matters and probably the root cause for about 90% of the
world's problems.
"And I suppose we're expected to have a date for this farce?" He sighed.
He briefly wondered why Penny hadn't given him a heads up. Maybe she
hadn't run across it or maybe it was another one of those things that
nobody bothered to write down but everyone was expected to know. It would
fit with the tradition angle. It also occurred to him that this must be
the reason for the spirited debate among the fangirls earlier. He could
just imagine them now, hiding behind the bookshelves, gnashing their
teeth and glaring at Fleur.
"Oui." Fleur said and looked at him expectantly.
Harry realized that she was waiting for him to ask her to be his date.
Probably too proud to be the one asking but not proud enough to be above
giving him hints so obvious it may as well be a flashing neon sign.
Going on a date with the beautiful French veela was hardly an unpleasant
prospect, even if the substance of the date itself wasn't to his liking.
And he couldn't exactly ask Dora to be his date for this thing since it
was a school event.
Dora...he had no idea what he was going to do about her. She was
displeased by the way the Black Widow situation had been resolved, mostly
because she didn't really know how it had been resolved since Harry was
keeping all the details to himself. Still, she seemed to be willing to
let it go and move on. The problem was that Harry was no longer certain
of anything concerning their relationship. He had thought himself
lucky(and admittedly more than a little badass) for managing to get a
woman that much older than him and an auror to boot to stay interested in
him. Now he had to wonder how much of that was a result of him pulling on
her soul and unknowingly preying on her feelings of isolation and desire
for companionship. He was not going to be another Adrastia Zabini, going
around the world and reducing her targets into doormats to be walked over
and cast aside when they stopped being amusing. Her jibe about Dora
becoming a pet struck uncomfortably close to his worries.
"'Arry?"
Fleur's voice brought him out of the brood he'd dropped into. "Sorry, I
got lost in thought."
"About ze ball...?" She prompted.
Right, the damned Yule Ball. Another bit of shite to wade through on the
journey that was life.
"Why me?" He asked.
Fleur sighed in exasperation and muttered something French under her

breath. Harry had the sense that she was annoyed that he wasn't playing
along with the polite fiction that she had tried to establish about who
was asking who on a date.
"You are ze best wizard 'ere." She said simply.
'And I want the best.' was the unspoken sentiment.
"I'm flattered." Harry drolled. "There is something I have to do before I

can ask you to be my date though."
"And zat eez?"
"I have to ask Luna if she wants to go to this ball or not. If she does,
I'll be taking her. If not, I can take you."
Fleur looked like she had just been slapped. Despite being a lot more
humble than her outward veneer or the jealous rumors spread by other
women might indicate, she was also well aware of her beauty and used to
getting her way with men. Being relegated to the position of 'backup date
option' was not something that she appreciated.
Still, she swallowed down her indignation and managed to reply civilly.
She had known this was a possibility before she'd approached him. She
didn't think the little blonde was his girlfriend based on the wording of
his refusal, but it was best to be sure. "Are you wiz 'er zen?"
"No, she's just a friend." Harry replied, smiling awkwardly and trying
not to contemplate Luna's professed plans for the future. He really had
no idea how to deal with that.
"I zee." Fleur could respect that he was placing his friend above her.
The two of them seemed to keep mostly to themselves so it was not likely
that this Luna would be able to get a date if Harry did not take her and
he did not even know that those below fourth year could only attend if
they were someone's date. Paradoxically, being rejected out of loyalty to
a friend only made Harry even more desirable. "I will have to find
anuzzer to take me to the ball zen."
"I can still take you if Luna doesn't want to go, but I doubt that's
going to happen." Harry said, smiling apologetically.
"Merci, but I am no one's zecond choice." Fleur said, wrapping a cloak of

proud dignity around herself to mask the disappointment she was really
feeling. "But...I will zave a dance for you."
"I'll make sure to scrape the rust off my dancing skills then." He said
wryly. He had been half his current size the last time he'd danced.
"You 'ad better, I do not want my feet stepped on." She joked back.
XXXXX
That same night.
"What do you want this time, Harry?" Penny asked with exasperation. It
was late.
"A few pairs of swimming goggles and a dozen or so scarves." Harry

stated.
"It's better than dead cows at least." Penny muttered.
XXXXX
Elsewhere in the world...
Lucius Malfoy was annoyed. Why did Potter have to be so damned clever
instead of dying like he was supposed to?
Lucius was of course aware of the fact that wishing his enemies to be
incompetent wouldn't make them so, but the world would be so much better
if the unwashed masses would just know their place instead of being
uppity. Dealing with the likes of Fudge might be tiresome, but at least
that bumbling idiot knew when to shut up and listen.
Well, no matter. Potter's handling of the dragon might have been

embarrassingly simple and he had obviously known about the task in
advance, but the second task would give him a lot more room to arrange
something.
All he needed to do was find a competent assassin that wouldn't mind

taking a cold swim in February and offing Potter for a few galleons.
XXXXX
Dolores Umbridge was annoyed. She had wholeheartedly supported Cornelius'
idea of using a trio of Hungarian Horntails instead of the tamer breeds
of dragon, but it had not been for the sake of fairness like the
Minister. No, she had been hoping that the insolent Potter brat and the
veela abomination would be killed.
The fact that the only champion of good breeding had died during the
first task just went to show how little justice there was in the world.
Still, not everything was going wrong. She was almost finished with
kicking out all the filth that Crouch had allowed to work in the DIMC and
replacing them with proper purebloods. More importantly, the next task
was to take place in the Hogwarts Black Lake, where anything at all could
happen away from the eyes of the public.
All she needed to do was find the right sort of wizard that wouldn't mind
taking a cold swim in February and taking out the trash for a few
galleons.
XXXXX
Chapter 19
Be aware that I've (finally) noticed that the Fanfiction word editor
seems to have the very strange habit of occasionally erasing a few words
from a sentence. I thought for years that it was just me being careless
with my fingers but I've finally determined that it is indeed the website
trolling me. Please point any such things out if you notice them so that
I can add the missing words.
Beta cookies to Joe Lawyer.
XXXXX
It had been a day like any other for the most part, but Luna just didn't
feel right at the end of it.
It made no sense. She was in bed with Harry, he was holding her and his
penis was pressed up against her bum. That was always right. Yet it
wasn't. It made no sense.
It had been like this for a while now, but she had dismissed it at first
as being caused by a stray wrackspurt. Except it clearly wasn't.
Something had changed and not for the better. She wasn't doing anything
different, so it had to be Harry.
"Harry, why did you change the way you hug me?" She asked.
"What?" He sounded confused. She supposed that was fair, he'd probably
been thinking of something else.
"It used to be really nice and warm and safe and comfortable and now it
isn't. It was better before. Why did you change it?" Luna knew that she
sounded petulant, but she felt entitled to a bit of petulance right now.
Why would anyone trade in good cuddles for less good ones? Harry was
being stupid.
Harry sank into that broody silence that he had whenever he was in deep
thought. How exciting. That probably meant it was a secret and Harry had
the best secrets. Secrets like being an Animagus and that he had a
Deathly Hallow! She wondered what this new secret was.
He exhaled heavily before speaking. "I guess I might as well tell you, I
was thinking about it anyway. You're probably the only person in the
world that won't freak out over it at least."
Harry was rambling. That meant he was nervous. Luna squirmed in his
embrace and turned around so that she was facing him and stared at him
expectantly.
She'd been right, it was a great secret. About Sex Magic and soul
manipulation and all sorts of fascinating things.
"I'm really sorry." He apologized once he was done, sounding very

regretful. "The book you gave me didn't mention any of this."
What a silly thing to be sorry for. "Why did you stop?"
"Huh?"
"Why did you stop doing The Joining? It felt good and I liked it. I want
you to start doing it again."
"Luna, I don't want to brainwash you!" Harry protested and Luna had to
remind herself that for all of his intelligence, he was still fully
capable of being stupid.
"You're my best friend, Harry. I trust you. Now stop being silly and hold
me properly." And with that she wiggled back into a spooning position and
waited for The Joining, wondering if she could feel it now that she knew
it was coming.
To her disappointment she couldn't, but Harry's arms felt like home again
so it was alright.
XXXXX
Harry was sitting on his bed, pondering the nature of women.
What was it about the female species that caused them to take an eternity
to get ready for an event? Luna had been in the bathroom for nearly an
hour now. And that was after the bath they had taken together. Harry had
been ready to go for well over half of that time.
He had decided to be a bit cheeky with his choice of dress and disdained
robes of any kind. Instead, he was wearing a distinctly mundane set of
black pants, white shirt, black shoes and an open black jacket. He might
not be willing to put up with the bother of blowing off the ball
entirely, but he wasn't above poking the tradition minded organisers in
the eye at a time when they couldn't say anything about it. Not without
causing a scene at least, which would perhaps be even better.
Luna at last stepped out of the bathroom and Harry had to grin at the
sight. She had an interesting fashion sense, that was for sure.
Her dress was nothing outrageous, a pale blue that showed off her
developing figure without being crass and a pair of matching shoes.
That was where the adherence to normal procedure ended however.
She had on a pair of radish themed earrings whose color clashed horribly
with the dress. Around her neck was a butterbeer cork necklace very
similar to the one that she had once given him as a gift. And finally,
her hair was done up in a bun and pinned into place with her wand, a
sight that was sure to get people talking since most wizards and witches
treated their wands with borderline reverence and not as hair ornaments.
"Looking good, Luna." He complimented, still grinning. She really was

too, but her quirky accessories were hilarious.
"You too, Harry." She said back. "Those muggle clothes really bring out
your bum."
"I'm glad you think so." Harry replied drolly and stood up, offering her
his hand. "Shall we?"
She took his hand and they started making their way towards the Entrance
Hall. Thanks to the out of the way location of Harry's quarters, they
didn't run into anyone for the vast majority of the way there.
Their entrance attacted some attention, but actually not quite as much as
he'd though it would since most people seemed too preoccupied to stare at
them. Will wonders never cease and all that.
A gaggle of Slytherins came up from the dungeons, with Draco Malfoy and
Pansy Parkinson in the lead. Draco had a high collared dress robe that
made Harry think of some strange mix between a priest and a vampire.
Pansy was even worse in an excessively frilly pink dress. With her
somewhat upturned nose, he just couldn't help but think of a fat pig
ready to be slaughtered. It could just be the Void playing tricks on his
mind again though. Maybe.
A unique presence of sunlight and fire shone through the melange of

purely human auras as Fleur entered, looking fabulous in a dress of
silver-grey satin. She was being accompanied by Roger Davies, a seventh
year Ravenclaw that looked to be having a spot of trouble with her
Allure.
"'Arry." Fleur greeted, giving him an appreciative look. "You look very
'andsome."
"Fleur." He gave her a charming smile. "More beautiful than ever I see."
"Potter." Roger cut in, stepping closer to the veela as if afraid that
Harry would steal her from him.
"Davies." Harry said back, fighting down a smirk at the insecurity of the
older but shorter student.
"Luna!" Luna piped up cheerfully.
"Right, you two haven't been introduced yet." Harry realized. "Fleur,
Luna. Luna, Fleur."
"Eet eez nice to meet you." Fleur said, shaking hands with the strange
girl that had kept her from getting the date she wanted and trying not to
feel resentful about it.
Roger wasn't terrible, but he was a third choice at best. With Harry
having turned her down, she had needed to find a substitute. A distant
second choice had been a handsome boy by the name of Cedric Diggory, but
she had seen that he was already with a pretty Asian witch and Fleur
wasn't going to sink so low as to poach someone else's man.
It was a truly bizarre state of events when a woman of her beauty was
having difficulty getting a date, but they were in Britain. After having
an invitation shouted in her face by a rude redheaded boy whom she had
noted several times before as having no resistance to her Allure
whatsoever, she had resigned herself to the fact that she was going to
have to settle for someone...suboptimal.
And that was why she had accepted the invitation from Roger. Hopefully he
would have enough resistance to the Allure to keep from drooling on her
at least.
She was still intending to monopolize as much of Harry's time as possible

though, even if something about his magic made her heart flutter with
trepidation at the moment. She knew him well enough by now to ignore it
for the most part, though she was terribly curious why his magic had such
a strange feeling to it. But that wasn't something you just asked about.
"Champions, over here please!" Came the call from a recently arrived
Professor McGonnagal, who was looking very Scottish in red tartan dress
robes.
Harry fought down another smirk when she did a double take at him and
Luna, swallowed her obvious objection and started explaining what they
were to do.
XXXXX
The four of them walked from the entrance to the top table where the
judges were sitting, though Harry noted with mixed feelings that Umbridge
had been replaced by Percy Weasley of all people. On one hand this was
good, because the less he saw of the toad the better...but on the other
hand, it was Percy Weasley. Out of the five of them, Karkaroff stood out
the most due to the sheer negativity of his presence. He was probably
still sour about Krum becoming dragon kebab. Or maybe it was because he
was obligated to stay until the end of the tournament even if the
Durmstrang champion had been killed.
Percy looked him right in the eye as they approached and and held out a
chair, clearly wanting him to sit there.
Harry would have really liked to sit somewhere else, but there was
actually nowhere else to sit. Sitting next to Karkaroff would probably be
a tense affair that would end with one of them getting bullied away from
the table...and it wouldn't be him. Sitting next to Bagman would be more
annoying than listening to a five year old chatter. Fleur would assuredly
take the spot next to Madam Maxime and Dumbledore was just twinkling at
him.
Left with no choice, he sat next to his steward's ex-boyfriend with the
expectation that Percy wouldn't keep his mouth shut like a good little
peon.
He was proven right, as his arse had barely settled into the chair before
the redhead started talking.
"I've been promoted." He announced as if this was actually important,

looking and sounding so smug that he might as well have 'punch me in the
mouth' written on his forehead. "I'm now Madam Umbridge's personal
assistant, and I'm here representing her."
"Failing upwards I see." Harry replied snidely.
"I'd watch my tone if I was you, Potter." Percy's reply was something
between blustering self-importance and anger.
"Or else what?" Harry asked, actually quite amused. "Are you going to cry
to Umbitch that I was mean to you? And where is the toad anyway?"
Percy's face went red with indignation and he struggled to find a

comeback. Eventually he decided to answer the question because he
couldn't find one. His threat had been an idle one.
"She's at the Ministry doing important work." He said haughtily and

turned away.
That 'important work' actually happened to be the fallout of Krum's

death, as it was the British Ministry of Magic taking the heat for the
death of Bulgaria's rising quidditch star. Accusations were being thrown
around, some of them way off the mark and some of them uncomfortably
close to it. The one's about Britain wanting Krum dead because he was too
good at quidditch was way off the mark, the one about the switch to the
most dangerous dragon species being a deliberate murder attempt was close
to it, though for all the wrong reasons.
In short, Fudge was quickly finding himself overwhelmed and had recalled
Umbridge to help him in her capacity as Senior Undersecretary. The fact
that most of the DIMC was now staffed with incompetent sycophants was not
helping the matter at all. It was also largely the reason for Percy's
promotion. Bootlicking toady he might be, but he was at least somewhat
competent. In comparison.
It never occured to Fudge that Umbridge's particular brand of diplomacy

would not improve the situation.
But that was elsewhere.
"Catching flies with her tongue no doubt." Harry snarked for the sole
purpose of getting the last word in.
Percy pretended not to hear as he got into a debate with Bagman.
Harry smirked and told his plate what food he would like, figuring that
the Eavesdropping Charm on it was linked to the kitchen. It was also a
convenient way to listen in on any conversations going on, but he doubted
that was the purpose here and he hadn't said anything worth knowing
anyway.
"You shouldn't play with Percy like that." Luna commented now that the
verbal spar was over. She never got involved in them. "He has so many
wrackspurts that he isn't any match for you."
"Wrackspurts for days?" Harry snickered.
"For days and days." She confirmed.
Harry snickered some more and pondered Percy's reasoning for even
starting that. Well there wasn't much pondering to be done really. Given
that they'd never interacted before and had only one thing in common.
Penny. The redheaded ponce had wanted to brag about his 'success' in
order to soothe his own ego. The position of steward for a Noble House
was a prestigious one and usually handled either by the Lady of the House
or a trusted family member. To his knowledge it had never been held by a
muggleborn. That he'd given it to Penny would have rubbed a lot of people
wrong, but none of them quite so much as her pompous ex-boyfriend, who
she had dumped on the very day that she had gotten it.
That minor mystery solved, he looked around the table to see if there was
anything interesting going on.
Fleur was ranting to Davies about how much more amazing Beauxbatons was
than Hogwarts, an opinion that Harry suspected was at least partially
based on the longstanding rivarly between France and Britain. The rant
was clearly wasted on Davies, who looked as if he was about to start
drooling. That was pretty much it.
Once all the food was eaten, Dumbledore stood up and waved his wand to
clear the tables and make room for dancing. As a final touch he raised a
platform that was clearly meant for the band.
"Time to dance I guess." Harry muttered and took Luna's hand, leading her
to the floor. Fleur and Davies did the same.
The dance was a stiffly formal affair and not particularly enjoyable, but
not really onerous either. Even the stares tapered off towards the end as
other people started joining in.
"Oh dear, looks like Fleur isn't having a whole lot of fun." Luna
commented.
Harry turned them around to look and saw that Fleur was indeed not having
a whole lot of fun. Her date had a distinctly glazed look to him and was
having trouble focusing on anything aside from the veela, including his
feet. Only the fact that the dance was very slow was saving him from
making a disaster of it.
"Alas, poor Roger, for he is weak of mind." Harry sighed dramatically.
"I'm surprised that you can keep your attention away from her." Luna
noted. "You used to stare at girls all the time and Fleur has an arse you
could bounce a galleon off of."
Harry took a quick look to confirm this, or re-confirm as the case may
be. Yes, it was true, Fleur's French derriere was magnificent. And her
breasts were nothing to sneer at either. If the veela species as a whole
ever got bored with magic, they could mount an assault on the modeling
industry that would leave it populated exclusively with supernaturally
beautiful blondes. Only the lack of variety might spare the brown skinned
brunettes of the world.
"That was years ago and I've mastered my impulses since then." He said
loftily. The constant presence of Dark after sundown also helped to dull
that particular impulse.
Luna simply hummed in response and took another look at the increasingly
annoyed looking veela. "You promised her a dance didn't you?"
"Something like that." Harry shrugged. Fleur had a bad habit of beating
around the bush when she wanted something, so she had merely implied
heavily that she wanted to dance with him rather than asking for it.
"This is a good time to rescue her then, the song is about to end."
"I suppose we should." Harry mused. "It would be the polite thing to do.
I get the feeling that Davies may not be feeling cooperative though."
"I'll take care of Roger." Luna said serenely and steered them towards
the two.
Fleur saw them coming and Harry had to fight down a grin at the hope on
her face. Davies was really not making a good impression.
"Excuse me, Fleur. Do you mind if Roger dances with me?" Luna asked.
"Not at all." Fleur was quick to assure, almost to the point of rudeness
actually.
"Wonderful. Come along, Roger."
"But" The seventh year tried to protest.
"Have fun now." Harry talked over him and edged him away from the veela,
which was easy enough to do since she helped.
Davies gave him a dirty look as Luna led him away, probably thinking
something best left unsaid in polite company.
"Merci, I zink 'e waz about to start drooling." Fleur said with relief.
The ominous feel of his magic at this close proximity made an icy chill
go up her spine, but she resolutely ignored it. It was still better than
putting up with an Allure addled wizard.
"We saw. How did you end up with him anyway?" He asked, settling into the
new, faster paced dance.
Fleur was disappointed that he hadn't taken the opportunity to flirt, but
kept it off her face. There was still plenty of time in the ball for
that.
"'E was the least terrible option of zose zat were still available." She
shrugged, giving her breasts a deliberate jiggle, which she was glad to
see his eyes flick towards. That was good, because if he had turned out
to be gay, Fleur would have felt very stupid. And upset.
"A scathing assessment of the Hogwarts male population." Harry said,

vastly amused.
"You at least are adequate." Fleur replied haughtily, smiling slightly.
"I'm so glad that all that dance practice isn't going to waste." He
drolled.
"Eet eez not." She assured him. "You are not az good az a Frenchman, but
eet will do."
"I may not dance as well as the French, but at least I bathe regularly."
Harry ribbed back.
Fleur was once again disappointed that he hadn't taken the opportunity to
suggest that she give him private dancing lessons but smiled at the
nationalist crack anyway. If nothing else, he was more of a challenge
than someone who would be too affected by her Allure to even hold a
proper conversation.
They kept up the lighthearted banter as they moved through the dance.
Fleur gave him opportunities to flirt as often as she was able and was
frustrated when he took none of them. It made her wonder if he was doing
it on purpose or if he was merely oblivious.
"Looks like Davies has managed to escape from Luna." Harry observed as
the song neared conclusion, seeing the seventh year approach with a
determined look in his eye.
Fleur muttered something under her breath that sounded suspicioulsy like
'merde'.
"Potter, can I have my date back now?" Roger asked, though it sounded
more like a demand than a question.
"No can do, Davies. Fleur's already promised me the next dance." Harry
replied, amused at the seventh year's bristling.
"Eet eez true, Roger." Fleur was quick to back him up, causing the
Ravenclaw's face to fall. "I will zee you later."
"Can you get rid of 'im?" She asked as soon as they were out of hearing
range. "I do not wish to zpend ze 'ole evening avoiding 'im." The funny
part was that if it wasn't for Harry, she might have taken Roger back to
the Beauxbatons carriages and...made use of him. An Allure addled wizard
was still good for a bit of playtime. Kind of like a sex toy and about as
intelligent as one too. As it was, she was entirely focused on Harry and
Roger was getting in the way.
"I could, but I want something in return."
"And what would you like?" If this were any other wizard, she would
expect him to ask for sex. That was something that she would not be
opposed to in principle, though she would be opposed to being treated
like a prostitute. Veela were sensual by nature, but also tended to have
a prickly sense of pride. It made for some volatile combinations.
But she didn't expect that to come up here. Harry Potter was being quite
obtuse towards her hints, deliberately or otherwise.
"A private conversation about some potentially sensitive topics." Harry

answered vaguely. The issue of Sex Magic continued to plague him and
Fleur was the closest thing to an expert he had access to baring Adrastia
Zabini, who was not necessarily trustworthy. He would have to part with a
secret or two in exchange for that information, but he had a little
insurance. Adrastia had taught him the value of preparing leverage ahead
of time if nothing else.
Fleur's curiousity was well and truly piqued by that and she agreed
easily.
"Alright, now to get rid of Davies." Harry muttered. "Take the lead, I'll
need to focus. And get us close to him."
Fleur fluidly stepped up to take the lead, noting how distracted Harry
had become. It was like dancing with a well balanced and articulated
manequin. She steered them towards the table where Roger was sulking,
Luna smiling vapidly next to him.
Some thiry seconds later, Roger Davies experienced a terrible itching

sensation paired with a desire to go back to his room in order to take
care of it.
"What did you do?" Fleur asked in wonder.
"Itching Curse combined with a mid level compulsion." Harry explained

smugly. He was rather proud of that one.
"With no wand?" She breathed in shock. Aura manipulation was one thing,
but this...? She'd thought that his previous use of Itching Curses had
been done with some clever sleight of hand to conceal his wand, but with
one hand currently in hers and the other on her back, that simply wasn't
possible. And what was this about combining spells?
"Keep that to yourself for now, yeah? I'm not looking to announce that
skill publically just yet." Harry cautioned.
Fleur felt the creeping cold of his aura briefly swell in intensity and
knew that ignoring his request would be...unwise. She would keep it to
herself, but also found herself impatient for the meeting now. Aside from
rampant curiousity, her interest in Harry had just gone up a few notches
and a private setting after a sensitive conversation would be a perfect
opportunity to seduce him. She doubted that she would come across a man
even half as interesting anywhere in the near future and she was not
going to lose out on account of dithering uncertainly.
XXXXX
After Roger Davies came down with a powerful itch and left the ball,
Fleur went to sit down and chat with Luna and Harry found himself
assailed by females hoping for a dance with him. The first of them were
Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil, a couple of fangirls that were bolder
than the norm, possibly on account of being Gryffindors and being in the
same year as him, for what little that counted these days.
Harry didn't really have too much of a problem with his fangirls. Yes,
their giggling could get a bit irritating, but the overall attention was
actually kind of flattering. Seeing no need to be a heel and crush their
hopes, he agreed to dance with them.
He danced with Parvati first and Lavender second, each girl beaming
happily the whole time. Their hands also got a bit adventurous, but Harry
let them have their fun. He couldn't really muster any emotion about
being groped by a pretty girl save amusement and mild arousal.
The success experienced by Lavender and Parvati emboldened the others and
he quickly found himself dancing with girls ranging from seventh years
down to a nervous second year Hufflepuff that he had to wonder who had
invited to begin with.
This was interspersed by an occasional dance with Fleur or Luna, the

former clearly favoring him over other potential dance partners and the
latter just having fun. He had even decided to ask professors Babbling
and Vector to dance with him. Both because they were two of his favorites
and because he figured it was the closest he was going to get to
fulfilling his private fantasy of bedding the pretty Arithmancy teacher.
If nothing else, he had managed to slightly brighten the moods of the two
bored women.
All in all, Harry still thought that formal parties weren't much fun, but
grudgingly recognized that it wasn't their purpose either. Their purpose
was to provide an excuse to socialize with people you wouldn't normally
meet and lower the usual boundaries that applied in day to day life. He
imagined that a woman like Adrastia would be right at home in an event
like this, picking out her future victims with nobody able to tell her to
bugger off because it would be rude.
XXXXX
Two days after the Yule Ball, Fleur was in the seventh floor corridor
looking for a tapestry of a wizard teaching trolls how to dance ballet.
She was so keyed up for this meeting that she didn't even bother to feel
superior about how Beauxbatons would never allow anything so tasteless to
adorn its halls.
She had carefully noted Harry's preference for mundane clothing at the
ball and chosen her outfit accordingly, which was easily done since
magical France was much more relaxed about such things than Britain. The
Beauxbatons uniform was a robe only as a nod to tradition, but it was an
otherwise common sight for French wizards and witches to be more or less
indistinguishable from the mundane population unless they happened to
favor robes for one reason or another.
Thus Fleur was dressed in strategically tight fitting white pants and a
similarly body hugging pink turtleneck that left none of her form to the
imagination. Casual, but not too casual. Enticing but not thrashy. The
barely existent black thong and matching bra she wore underneath were far
clearer in their purpose.
Veela chose their mates rather differently than human women, by necessity
more than choice. It tended to resemble a predator pouncing on prey more
than a typical courtship, though the prey most often ran towards them
rather than away. Their naturally high sex drives and certain other
attributes didn't really permit a slow moving relationship. The problem
was that the most valued sort of mate which she was almost certain
Harry was also happened to be the most resistant to their charms. It
would make the end result all the sweeter, but it had a proportionally
higher chance of failure. Magical power was not everything of course, but
it was an unfailing indicator of an exceptional person.
Fleur knew that she was a bit young to be deciding on a mate, having not
even finished school and still some years away from full maturity. Even
more, her target was fourteen(ostensibly) and really should not have been
this much of a prize. But the situation was what it was and Fleur knew
better than to let the opportunity pass her by. Her mother and
grandmother would never ler her live it down if they learned that she had
allowed such a wizard to slip away and done nothing to even attempt
snaring him.
The silly tapestry came into view, as did the promised door on the other
side of the hallway and Fleur strode towards it with determination. All
the little details like Harry being fourteen and British didn't matter.
If all went according to plan, then today was the day that she was going
to ride him until he begged for mercy, and then she was going to keep
riding him until he begged for more.
The room she found herself in was more of a richly furnished sitting room
than something she would have expected to find in a school, but Hogwarts
was just about strange enough for this to be possible.
Harry was sitting on a comfortable looking couch and the way that his
eyes raked over her form set her pulse to racing. That was a good sign.
Unfortunately, the blonde girl sitting next to him was a bad sign.
"Hello." Luna said with a wave.
"Fleur, welcome." Harry greeted warmly. "Please have a seat."
Fleur was a bit put out at Luna's presence, but pushed through it. The
plan could still work. She very deliberately ignored all the other pieces
of furniture in the room and sat on the same couch as the two of them, on
Harry's other side and a bit closer than strictly necessary. She noticed
that Harry's aura was warm and inviting today rather than cold and
ominous.
"Bonjour, 'Arry, Luna." She said, settling down and subtly pushing out
her chest. "Not to be rude, but did you not zay you wanted a private
conversation?"
"Luna has a stake in this too, that's why she's here." Harry explained,
glancing towards the girl.
"Actually, I was hoping that I would get to watch if you two were going
to have sex." Luna corrected.
Fleur had spoken to the smaller blonde during the ball and had
begrudgingly liked her despite the fact that she would been able to go to
the Yule Ball with Harry if not for her, but that still caught her off
guard.
Harry on the other hand did not seem surprised, merely resigned. "Luna, I
already told you that there isn't going to be any sex."
We'll see about that. Fleur thought to herself.
"You shouldn't be so stubborn, Harry." Luna scolded. "Fleur would be an

excellent addition to my harem."
...What?
"Your harem?" Harry asked, sounding just as surprised as Fleur felt. "I
thought it was supposed to be my harem?"
"Harry." The way that the other blonde said his name made Fleur think of
a teacher trying to explain a very simple concept to an especially dense
student. "Just because you would be the only person with a penis in it
doesn't make it your harem."
"She eez right." Fleur agreed firmly, her opinion of Luna rising a few
notches. Veela and succubi were well known to cultivate harems in the old
days, though succubi had also had the unfortunate tendency of sucking the
life out of them.
And on that note, any harems that Fleur would be joining in would quickly
become her harem. The thought of having to share Harry with another woman
was significantly less objectionable than being in a subordinate position
in such an arrangement.
Harry did not seem to agree though and was determined to argue. "Alright,
let's say for a moment that it is your harem. Why then would I be the
only guy in it? Because you know, that seems to be playing to my sexual
preferences."
Fleur was curious about Luna's response to this one so she did nothing
but listen attentively.
"That's simple." Luna said with authority. "Useful things though penises
are, I wouldn't want to wake up with one in my face all the time. I've
already seen yours and judged it more than adequate and it would probably
be my favorite even if I had others to choose from. Besides, I've seen
what you do to poor Nymphadora when you have enough time and having a
couple of extra vaginas to direct you to when I get tired seems like a
good idea."
Harry worked his jaw for a while and then gave the most grudging
concession that Fleur had ever witnessed. "That makes a disturbing amount
of sense."
She was more interested in something else that Luna had said though.
"Excuse-moi, but 'oo eez Nymphadora?"
"My girlfriend, and largely the reason for this conversation actually, so
how about we get to that?" Harry said, clearly hoping to change the
subject.
Fleur had to fight down the unwarranted jealous rage upon learning that
the wizard she had set her sights on was taken, though she didn't manage
to keep her nostrils or aura from flaring. Harry Potter had to be the
most frustrating fourteen year old in existence. Any other would have
been reduced to playdough by her presence alone, but he just happened to
be immune and also taken. Of course, the fact that he was immune and all
that it implied was a large part of the reason that she wanted him, but
that didn't make it any less frustrating.
Judging by the glance that Harry gave her, he had felt the flare.
"But we haven't even heard Fleur's opinion about joining my harem." Luna
protested.
"Luna, you can't just assume that every girl is bisexual and into
polygamy." Harry explained patiently and with the air of someone who had
done it before.
"All veela are at least somewhat bisexual by necessity and I do not mind
polygamy eef I like everyone involved." Fleur interjected before Luna
could reply to that.
Harry blinked at her owlishly. "Bisexual by necessity?"
"Oui, a veela's sex drive quickly becomes...problematic after puberty eef

eet eez not satisfied frequently. Older veela are usually willing to 'elp
with zis until we are old enough to find our own bedmates. Eef zere are
no alternatives muzzers or older seesters do zis." Fleur explained,
watching Harry's face carefully.
As she had expected he gaped at her in utter shock. It was always amusing
to see people's reactions when they were confronted with the stark fact
that veela were not human and had different needs as a result. Well it
was amusing if they didn't descend into a screaming rant about the
unnaturalness of it, but those people generally weren't worth talking to
in the first place.
"Okay, can't say I saw that coming." Harry muttered to himself, still
looking poleaxed. "Does masturbation not work?"
"Non." Fleur said shortly, not wanting to get into that issue. The
speculative look on Harry's face made her nervous for some reason. It
wasn't the look of someone thinking about sex, but of someone pulling
apart a puzzle.
"Ooh, ooh!" Luna bounced excitedly. "Did your parents let you watch them
have sex?"
"Zey did." Fleur admitted. "Papa did not want to, but maman insisted that
I needed to zee zo zat I would underztand better and she got 'er way.
Papa eez already dreading ze day when my leetle seester Gabrielle eez old
enough to watch." She finished with a giggle, remembering her poor
father's mortified looks on the mornings after.
"My parents used to let me watch too, but Harry and Nymphadora never do."
Luna pouted.
"Zat eez very irresponsible, 'Arry. You would leave Luna unprepared for
'er first time rather than let 'er watch?" Fleur scolded, knowing
perfectly well that the same logic that worked for veela didn't apply for
humans but having far too much fun picking on Harry to care.
"Why am I being scolded for not being a deviant?" Harry demanded

incredulously.
Fleur could only give a disdainful sniff in response. "A deviant

according to 'oo?"
Harry opened his mouth to reply only to realize that he had no answer, or
at least no good one. Fleur was glad to have agreed to this conversation.
It was the most fun she'd had all year. And they hadn't even gotten to
the point!
"I think I'm going to perform a tactical retreat and say that we should
move on to the reason I asked you here." Harry said with a frown.
"What did you want to talk about zen?" Fleur asked, terribly amused.
"Is it possible to perform The Joining without subverting your partner?"
And just like that, Fleur was no longer amused. Sensitive indeed! A great
deal of blood had been shed over this topic and veela were forever
cautious to never mention it in front of non-veela. If she ever found out
whose lips had been so careless...
"Where did you 'ear about zat?" She demanded.
"From an...ally." Was his vague, even reluctant answer. Clearly someone
he had mixed feelings about.
Fleur thought quickly. Harry already knew too much, far too much. If
there was a veela out there blabbing secrets then she had to find out who
it was, but she doubted that Harry would part with that information
easily.
"Why do you want to know?" She asked, mostly to stall for time.
"Because I've been performing it frequently on my girlfriend and on Luna

and I want to know if it can be done without influencing them." Harry
explained.
"I told him not to worry about it, but he doesn't listen to me." Luna
added.
Meanwhile, Fleur was completely flabbergasted. "Impossible! Only veela

can perform Ze Joining."
"Ah, I guess that means that you don't know anything either." Harry said,
his disappointment clear.
"Non, eet eez you who knows nozzing." Fleur insisted. "Ze Joining can
only be done by veela. Zat you speak of performing eet on Luna when eet
eez clear zat you 'ave not slept with 'er proves eet."
"Joining your magic with your partner's in the moment of climax when
their guard is down and their souls are open? An application of Soul
Magic hidden within Sex Magic." Harry recited, causing the blood to leave
Fleur's face at the accurate description. "Luna is a special case I'll
admit. She likes to come sleep in my bed and her soul is open and
unguarded to me even without sex involved. She insists that I perform The
Joining every time."
"It feels really nice." Luna added, smiling in fond remembrance.
"But...'ow?" Now Fleur was just confused. She had never heard of anyone
but a veela performing The Joining and the idea of being able to do it
with someone without sex was equally baffling. The release of a powerful
orgasm was an important catalyst in achieving a sufficiently relaxed
state of mind for it to work. The instinctive walls that people had
around their souls could not be dropped simply by wishing it. The level
of trust required for The Joining to be possible without sex was absurd
and best left in the realms of bad fiction.
"Is it really so hard to believe that veela don't hold a monopoly on Sex
Magic?" Harry asked, sounding very amused.
Yes, it was hard to believe...it had simply always been that way. The sky
was blue, snow was cold, the Sun was warm, water was wet and only veela
could perform The Joining.
"Here, let me show you." Harry went on and took her hand.
Fleur bit her lip and rubbed her thighs together as she felt his
powerful, warm magic slither over and into her before running into a
block. Yes, that was definitely The Joining, but it was like nothing
she'd ever felt. It was far too controlled for one. Veela performed it by
instinct and only in the heat of passion. This was something new.
"I'm asking about this because I've been performing it on my girlfriend

and Luna for months now and I've been advised that this would change
them. Luna insists that I keep doing it and Dora has been subconsciously
missing it ever since I stopped. I need to know if it can be done without
brainwashing people."
Fleur got her arousal under control with the ease of long practice and
decided to answer truthfully. "'Arry...veela cannot control Ze Joining at
all. We perform it every time we 'ave zex."
It was the other half of the reason besides their sex drives for why
their relationships progressed so quickly. They had to be careful about
sleeping with the same person too many times. It wasn't a problem in the
old days when they had warred against wizardkind and could maintain
harems of lovesick followers, but in this modern day care had to be
taken. It was either one night stands or a committed relationship. No
middle ground was possible.
Oh, they did get the occasional instance of a veela who wanted to abuse
her gifts and form harems for herself, but they always got slapped down
quickly. Nobody wanted old hatreds to bubble up again, especially not now
that they were finally considered to be completely equal to human wizards
and witches in the eyes of the law, a process that had taken centuries
and had needed the devastation of the second World War as a catalyst.
Equal in most of Europe at least. Britain lagged behind as always.
The veela's need for sex had led to the common misconception that they
were sluts that would sleep with anyone, which had been countered by
restricting themselves mostly to other veela. Fleur had been in quite a
bind ever since coming to Britain. Her mother had been able to give her
some relief after the first task, but she was still aching for more. If
she could get Harry, that problem would be solved. She had a feeling that
she would be sleeping with him as often as possible and would not regret
mating with him for life.
Of course, if he could perform The Joining as well, the situation was

different. He would not look at her with a lovestruck gaze simply because
of the sex. Fleur found herself strangely eager for the challenge of
winning him over without that overwhelming advantage.
"I see, so there isn't a way." Harry sighed, clearly disappointed.
"I 'ave 'eard zat ze very powerful may resist, zough zat eez more rumor
zan fact." Fleur said sympathetically. "But non, zere is no way to
perform ze Joining without changing ze ozzer eef zey are not veela or
like you."
Fleur had heard a lot of things during this conversation that she didn't
like and many things she had never imagined, but there was a silver
lining as well.
Namely, Harry could control The Joining and was refusing to perform it on
his girlfriend because he did not want to change her.
There were veela who felt the same as him, who slept only with other
veela their entire lives, not wanting the kind of love given by The
Joining. Aside from those who prefered women, it was a large part of the
reason for their low numbers despite only birthing daughters. Veela
already had lower birth rates than witches as a given, but they could
also not get pregnant by a non-magical man nor even be happy with one. It
rather limited the potential fathers of their children.
Sebastien Delacour was very happily married to his wife Apolline. He had
no choice in the matter. Her Allure had long since turned him into a
perfectly devoted husband. Apolline loved him dearly and was happy with
him, but she could leave whereas he could not. He was essentially
addicted to his wife. The more romantically inclined would call it a soul
bond, but nobody paid much attention to those airheaded nitwits.
If Harry had been performing The Joining on his girlfriend for months
then she must assuredly have already developed the yearning for more. His
words confirmed it. Their relationship would not last unless he resumed
performing it. They would be happy together again as long as Harry could
accept that he had been pulling on his girlfriend's soul to ensure the
success of their relationship.
She had no intention of telling him this. It would give her an

opportunity to make a move on him once it fell apart. Luna was clearly
going to remain a fixture and would no doubt insist on turning it into a
threeway, but Fleur could live with that. Quite easily in fact. The other
blonde was fun, open minded and had the makings of a beautiful woman. All
good things. She would perhaps not even mind including this Nymphadora
later on if the woman proved likeable, but only after she had established
herself already. Humans tended to be jealous creatures and unwilling to
share. According to her mother, it was often a source of frustration for
married veela to put up with their spouse's insistence on monogamy, but
that was a sacrifice they had made to end the war between them.
Fleur strongly suspected that her mother's bi-monthly get togethers with
other married veela were thinly veiled excuses to have orgies and work
off some of the sexual frustration they accumulated with their too easily
exhausted husbands.
Yes, this meeting may not have gone the way she had planned it and she
would be leaving it with damp panties and unfulfilled desires, but she
could hold off on making a grab for this one slice of cake if she could
have all of it later.
XXXXX
A good ten minutes after Fleur had left, Harry was still sitting on the
couch with his head in his hands.
He'd been hoping that Fleur would have a solution that he hadn't seen,
but it turned out that she knew even less than Adrastia.
Veela apparently did it all by instinct, whereas the Black Widow had
learned to carefully twist a man's soul, one strand at a time. The
spider-esque moniker was more appropriate than people knew.
Harry could make a guess at the reasons for the veela's strange
combination of ability and ignorance. He even had a pretty solid theory
for their existence.
Lilith, a powerful ancient sorceress cut from a similar cloth as Adrastia

and desiring immortality, had somehow managed to capture a phoenix and
consume it, turning herself into a hybrid creature of some sort. Only
that instead of having burning days, she used the lives and magics of
those she slept with to fuel her life.
It would all fit. The alignment with Light, the magic in Fleur's song,
the bird transformation, the fire affinity, even their auras were vaguely
similar to that of Fawkes. The Allure was some form of magical calling
combined with the Light of their souls that Lilith must have ritually
bound to her bloodline. It was diluted by time until it had turned into
what veela had now, but that was the only thing it could be. No doubt it
was also the reason why masturbation didn't aleviate their urges much.
Harry had a similar problem, though from a difference source.
Other wizards had bound gifts to their bloodline in a similar fashion;

Parseltongue and Metamorph abilities were just two examples. Parseltongue
was little more than the remnant magic of some long ago snake Animagus
anyway. Maybe Salazar Slytherin, maybe someone even older. Probably more
than one person. Harry himself was planning to bind the ability to speak
to corvid bird species to his bloodline once he mastered it completely.
He also resolved to never ever mention this to anyone. Setting aside the
squeamish bureaucrats and their stupid laws, there were people out there
that would kill for this knowledge. A dark temptress that Sirius had
metaphorically put him into bed with came to mind. He could well imagine
Adrastia's reaction to learning of that particular theory. She would stop
at nothing to become another Lilith. A power mad Pyromancer consumed by
her own passions that could enthrall anything magical with just her
presence was not something the world needed. She was bad enough with just
her beauty and cunning to use as weapons.
He had been planning to dangle this knowledge as both a carrot and a

stick over Fleur's head as a last resort in case he had to, but she had
been more forthcoming than he had expected. He was glad that he could
keep it to himself.
Not that it helped me actually resolve anything. He thought sourly. He

was still stuck in the same shitty situation that he had jumped into in
regards to both Dora and Luna. The former had clearly noticed the
difference since he'd stopped performig The Joining on her and it was
affecting her behavior. The latter would not hear of him stopping it now
that she knew what he was doing. She would not sleep until he did it now
that she knew, would refuse to hear any of his arguments about being
changed by it.
Harry was humbled by the trust she showed him, but it still made him feel
as if he was taking advantage of her. He couldn't even know if the trust
was a by-product of The Joining or something that she would've given him
even without it.
He sensed a spell coming at him and ducked by sheer instinct.
"You're brooding again, Harry." Luna began with a happy smile. "Let's
train instead."
Harry could agree with that. He needed something simple right now.
XXXXX
Elsewhere in the world...
The land between Austria and Greece was widely known to the world at
large as 'the Balkans'. A mysterious area that seemed to change size
depending on the nationality of the person talking about it. If you asked
a Slovenian for example, they probably would tell you that it started at
their southern border and if you asked a Croatian, there was a good
chance they would tell you that it started at their southern border.
Greece, Romania and Bulgaria were included in the Balkans according to
some people and empathically not included according to others.
The geographical ambiguities of the mundane world did not much affect the
magical side of things however. Yes indeed, the magical world had much
less confusion on the subject of the Balkans. Namely, the magical realms
of Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Germany(plus Austria because
wizards never gave two shits about the Treaty of Versailles) all had
functioning governments and everything in between did not, so they were
named 'the Magical Balkans' and nobody could say otherwise.
The Magical Balkans were also collectively labeled under the term 'not my
fucking problem' by all of these magical nations, which naturally meant
that it was everyone's fucking problem.
It wasn't really that much of a problem to be honest. Wizards and witches

were in general a great deal less anal retentive about borders than their
mundane counterparts, probably because they didn't have enough people
between them worldwide to populate even a single smallish city. So it was
that the aforementioned magical nations kept an eye on the place to make
sure that none of the sparse population of magical creatures got noticed
by the mundane human population and split the magicals born there among
themselves for training. Other than that, the Magical Balkans were
considered something of a wilderness by most of the magical world. Kind
of like the Australian Outback but with less kangaroos.
Of course it wasn't actually a wilderness of any sort and what magicals

did live in the area considered the smugly self-important wizards and
witches from 'proper' countries to be a bunch of cock gobbling twats.
One of these locals was a Serbian wizard by the name of Goran Gojkov,
though you would be hard pressed to tell that he was actually a wizard.
His eyes were grey, his hair was shaved close to his skull, his face
sported a perpetual sprinkling of coarse stubble, his nose was a bit on
the large side and he typically went around dressed in the almost-
painfully-clich-for-Slavs Adidas brand striped black sweatpants and
trainers.
Goran liked living in the Magical Balkans. The lack of any proper magical
government in the area meant that he could get away with quite a lot of
things that would be impossible in a place that did have such a
government. As long as he kept a low profile and didn't do anything too
disruptive, a wizard could live a very comfortable life in the normal
world without actually needing to expend a whole lot of effort for it.
Money was always easy to come by with a with a few swishes of the wand
and non-magical girls were just as good a lay as witches and they came
with the added benefit of being easy to memory wipe when they got too
annoying.
Obviously, Goran was not a very nice man. In fact, he would be termed a
dark wizard in just about any place that had a functioning Ministry of
Magic. That was why Goran did not live in those places.
The only problem was that it was damned hard to get one's hands on
anything magical unless you happened to be capable of making it yourself.
To get that kind of thing you needed goblin gold, which meant goblins,
which was a problem because Goran had done a 'borrow and run' stunt on
them back when he'd been twenty-something and certain that he was
invincible. The goblins had not been impressed with his perceived
invincibility and he'd been avoiding them ever since.
Being an enterprising youth with little in the way of morals even then,
Goran had come upon the idea that he would moonlight as a professional
wizard hitman. That idea hadn't made him fabulously rich like he'd
thought at the time, but he did occasionally get a contract.
"Never killed a celebrity before." Goran muttered to himself, looking

over the contract to kill Harry Potter that some cock gobbling twat had
taken out. He had no idea who because said cock gobbling twat was keen on
staying anonymous. The target was a bit high profile, but the details of
when the hit was to take place were favorable enough. Plus, the fat sack
of galleons that was the up front part of the payment was bigger than
most full prices, so he really couldn't turn it down, even if it did mean
taking a really cold fucking swim.
XXXXX
The other person with designs on Harry Potter's life at the moment was
considerably less picky about her choice of assassin than Lucius Malfoy,
not to mention less cautious.
"Thank you, gentlemen." Umbridge simpered. "You are doing the Ministry of
Magic a great service."
"Always happy to help the Ministry, Madam Umbridge." A man replied,

pocketing a bag of galleons.
His three friends nodded enthusiastically.
Incidentally, these happened to be the remaining four out of eight Death

Eaters who had attempted to murder Harry and Sirius at the Quidditch
World Cup back in August, though Umbridge didn't actually know that.
They had been stewing hatefully over the death of their friends ever
since and were eager for another go at the Boy-That-Just-Wouldn't-Die.
That they would be getting paid for it was just extra incentive.
XXXXX
February 14th.
Tonks couldn't shake the nagging feeling that something was wrong. The
problem was that there shouldn't be anything wrong.
She'd had the morning shift today, which had sucked, but Harry had showed
up to take her on a date, which was good. They'd gone mini-golfing and it
had been lots of fun. Generally speaking, Harry shouldn't be vanishing
from Hogwarts for half a day, but he'd insisted and didn't care about the
rules anyway. It was Valentine's Day he'd said and handed her a heart
shaped box of chocolates. Which was odd because she knew that Harry
thought that Valentine's Day was just another event that people hyped up
out of proportion in an effort to sell more heart shaped candy.
He had been making an effort to be less cynical and more romantic like
that ever since the Black Widow fiasco, which Tonks figured was him
trying to make up for his secrecy. It was kind of cute watching him try.
They'd gone back to Potter Manor after the date and engaged in some
wonderfully protracted sex and put his birthday present to good use.
But...something just didn't feel right. The worst part was that she
simply couldn't point her finger at what it was.
It had been highly pleasurable as always and Harry's continued fondness

for cunnilingus had made him quite the expert on extracting multiple
orgasms from a woman. Additionally, he had also developed some delicious
pecs, biceps, triceps and various back muscles whereas he had previously
been a bit scrawny. Pushups he'd explained, so that the top matched the
bottom. She hadn't minded the scrawnyness he was fourteen after all
but this new muscliness was another big plus for him.
But something was still wrong. He just seemed more distant somehow
despite all the effort he was putting in. He brooded a bit more and
visited a bit less, but not hugely so. It wasn't really a problem, but
something had definitely changed, something other than that. There seemed
to be a hesitation and uncertainty to him that wasn't there before.
Maybe the problem was with her? She couldn't help noticing that she
didn't feel that powerful surge of lust that had become so familiar when
he touched her. She still wanted him, but something was just different.
Less intense somehow.
"Whatcha thinking?" She asked, running her fingers over the arm he had
wrapped around her. The scarred one.
He hesitated and she knew that he was going to lie to her. She saw a few
strands of her hair turning the hated mousy brown that she would've had
if she wasn't a Metamorphmagus. There were other changes too; she lost a
bit of height, her figure became slightly less of an hourglass shape and
her breasts became a bit smaller, saggier and generally less attractive.
Her powers always got sulky when she was sad, which she figured made
sense. She was feeling kinda sulky too.
"Nothing much." He murmured, hugging her closer and nuzzling her hair.
It felt nice, but he was still lying to her. Which meant that whatever he
was thinking about had something to do with the stuff he wanted to keep
secret from her. Stuff that Sirius knew but she didn't. Stuff that was
being kept from her because it was probably illegal.
Like how he was getting away from Hogwarts. And why he looked a good five
or six years older than he really was. And what the Zabini woman had been
doing to Sirius to mess him up. Stuff that Harry might know a thing or
two about if he was able to detect it. Stuff that Harry might be capable
of himself. She'd restrained herself from asking for a long while, but
enough was enough.
"Harry, the thing that Zabini did to Sirius...can you do it too?" She
asked and felt him go still. Yes, he definitely knew how to do it.
XXXXX
Shite.
Why did she have to be so smart? He wasn't going to be able to bullshit

his way out of this one.
He could feel her soul so clearly, a cheery spark that was currently
clouded with sadness and suspicion. He could perform The Joining, soothe
away all the rough edges and assure her that everything was alright. It
might be too late for that now, but he didn't think so. She wasn't on
guard yet. Ever since his talk with Adrastia, he'd been seeing in ever
increasing clarity what he had previously overlooked. How...vulnerable an
open soul was. How he could tease out certain parts of it and quiet
others. He might not be able to do it in one sitting, but repeated
several times...he could make sure that she wouldn't ask anymore.
It was so tempting to tweak things so that they would be more to his

liking, it was little wonder that Adrastia had taken such glee in
destroying the husband she hated, reveling in the power she had suddenly
gained. So easy to see why she had wanted to feel it again.
But he couldn't do that. Which meant that he was going to have to tell
her. Shit, fuck and a string of other four letter words.
He had told Luna and it had been alright, so it might be alright now too.
Then again, Luna was anything but normal...which was why he had felt
comfortable telling her in the first place.
Harry gave a defeated sigh. "Alright, I'll tell you." Maybe it would work
out. He didn't believe it, but maybe. He had procrastinated for far too
long anyway, it was time to face the music.
XXXXX
Over the course of the conversation, Tonks had started becoming

uncomfortable and squirmed out of the cuddle so that she could see him.
Harry didn't try to stop her, he'd expected it. Not everyone could be as
accepting as Luna. Most people couldn't in fact.
"And this 'Joining'...you've been doing it to me?" She asked tightly, not
really sure what to feel.
"Not since I've learned how it was affecting you. I only wanted to
enhance pleasure, not change you." Harry said. Again.
Tonks took a deep breath and let it out. Then she took another.
What the hell was she supposed to say to this? To know that the feeling
of closeness that she'd been missing all this time was because he'd
stopped poking around her soul...
The only reason she wasn't going for her wand and cursing the life out of
him was because he'd clearly had no clue of the full extent of what he
was doing.
But it frightened her, how much power he'd had over her. How was anyone
supposed to defend themselves from this kind of attack? The Imperious was
sometimes called the subtlest of the Unforgivables, but compared to this
it might as well be a blasting curse.
She had to know what it felt like, so that she could recognize it in the
future.
"Could you...do it on me right now? Just so that I can get a feel for
what it's like?" She asked nervously.
Harry barely resisted the urge to laugh bitterly. "I could, but you're so
tense that it wouldn't get through. You wouldn't feel anything."
That actually made Tonks feel better and she insisted that he do it. As
he'd said, she felt nothing. Then she asked him to do it again while she
cast diagnostic charms with her wand, all of which came up negative. That
did not make her feel better.
"Is there any way at all to detect this?" she demanded tersely. "How did
you do it?"
"You can't detect it because it isn't a spell. It takes a certain...self-

awareness to be capable of manipulating magic like this." Harry
explained, skirting along the edge of being truthful. "Most people can't
do it, but I think all the really powerful ones like Dumbledore and
Voldemort can."
"But neither you or Zabini are that powerful." Tonks said neutrally.
"No." Harry admitted. He was still quite a ways off from being at that
level and Adrastia was even less so. "It is possible to gain the ability
in other ways, but it involves a very personal experience that confronts
a person with who they truly are." Or in his case, a botched ritual that
left him with two conflicting forces in his soul and gave it enough
magical contrast to be made visible. Cheating in other words. Of course,
both Voldemort and Dumbledore had likely been confronted with their true
natures at some point in their lives, so it was likely that it was a
requirement for becoming a top tier wizard. Adrastia's presence was quite
powerful even if she was not a direct combatant for example.
"And you've had such an experience." Tonks stated slowly.
"I'd rather not talk about it." Harry said quickly. There was no way he
could bullshit his way through that.
"Right." Tonks said a bit shakily. "Right, is there any other disturbing
bit of information that you have to tell me?"
Harry could have told her about his theory that extremely powerful
wizards exuded an aura of influence around themselves that subtly turned
weaker people that were already predisposed towards looking up to them
into loyal and unquestioning followers, see Voldemort's more rabid
minions and the Dumbledorian buttlicker brigade headed by Minerva
McGonnagal(or possibly Hagrid depending on one's preferences)for proof.
However, he suspected that this information would not make the pile of
shit he was currently standing in any smaller or less stinky so he kept
his mouth firmly shut.
"No, that's it."
Tonks was silent for a good few minutes, chewing over this new and
disturbing information. It put a rather sinister slant on their entire
relationship even if Harry had stopped doing The Joining as soon as he
learned about the side-effects.
She realized that it was going to be impossible to trust him. How was she
ever supposed to relax around him with the knowledge that he could
rearrange her feelings as he pleased if she did so? It was too subtle to
be detected and too insidious to be fought against. With the only defense
being distrust, her guard would always be up now.
Tonks could practically see the burning wreck of their relationship

looming in the near future, but she really didn't want it to end that
way. Which was especially horrible because she didn't even know how much
of her feelings for him were manufactured. Was that the reason that she
had overlooked his age so easily? She did recall being a little bothered
by it at first, but then it kind of faded into unimportance. Was that
just natural progression or the result of his meddling?
"I think we should spend some time apart, do some thinking and get some
perspective."
Harry simply nodded, unsurprised. The chance that this would end well had
always been remote and he fully expected a break-up to be coming soon.
He'd been procrastinating for months in the hope that some magical Deus
Ex Machina would show up with a crane and lift him from the hole he'd
dug, but had realistically been aware that it was about as likely as
Snape washing his hair. On the bright side, he was extremely well
prepared for the heartbreak. Silver lining and all that.
XXXXX
The Hogwarts staff had gotten used to the fact that Harry Potter only
showed up to whichever classes he felt like showing up to, most of which
were sixth or seventh year.
That was why they were incredibly surprised when he started attending all
the third year classes. He didn't actually do anything during these
classes. He merely sat next to Luna Lovegood and stared at the professors
with a look that was just shy of being hostile. The only exception was
Potions, which he avoided as per his 'agreement' with Snape. He just
pulled Luna out of the class instead.
It didn't take the staff long to deduce that he must have correctly
figured out the clue for the second task and was pre-emptively making
sure that his friend would not be taken.
Normally, this would not pose a problem. They would simply take her from
her room. Unfortunately, she slept in Harry's room and in Harry's bed, so
that wasn't going to work.
They might have considered taking a different friend...but he didn't have

any. The only one that he was even seen talking to aside from Luna was
Fleur Delacour, who was a fellow champion and obviously unsuitable as a
hostage.
"It's no use, Albus." Minerva said huffily to the venerable Hogwats

headmaster. "He watches the girl like a hawk. There are even rumors going
around that he goes to the bathroom with her! I tried asking him to leave
the classroom so that I could talk to her alone and he told me that I
would speak to Ms. Lovegood with him present or not at all! The nerve of
the boy! And the look he gave me...I dare say even Severus would be hard
pressed to look so menacing. For a moment I thought he would draw his
wand on me."
Dumbledore's lips twitched slightly at his deputy's consternation. Seeing

her so worked up was amusing in spite of everything.
He supposed they could simply tell Harry that his friend would not be
harmed, but that would rather defeat the point of the task. Another
option was to attack the two of them while they slept and take Ms.
Lovegood by force, but that probably wasn't a good idea. Dumbledore knew
a thing or two about powerful wizards and they generally did not respond
well to force. The last thing Harry needed was more reasons to follow in
Tom's footsteps.
He'd noted the lad's frequent disappearances from Hogwarts and deduced
that he was going to visit young Nymphadora. Harry was clearly not the
emotionally dead wizard that a young Tom Riddle had been, but he did bear
quite a bit of resemblance to a much younger Albus Dumbledore, so the
Headmaster treated him as such.
The problem was that Dumbledore could recall quite well how wild he had
been at that age and had some trouble finding a way to curb the boy's
behavior. At least there was no Gellert Grindelwald analogue around this
time to whisper twisted plans into Harry's ears.
Things were simply too calm. There was no opportunity to do anything

meaningful with Harry as disconnected from the day to day life of the
school as he was. At this rate, he would need to simply wait for Harry to
become an adult and deal with him accordingly. That was strange, as
Dumbledore had been quite sure that Voldemort would have been making
waves by now. He had showed up in Harry's first year but been
conspicuously quiet ever since. The incident with the diary didn't really
count since it hadn't been Voldemort's doing even though it was his
Horcrux that was involved.
But that was not the issue right now. The current issue was finding a
hostage for the Hogwarts champion to save from the lake.
"If Harry guards Ms. Lovegood too closely, then we need simply look
farther afield for an appropriate hostage." Dumbledore said musingly. He
already had a perfect candidate in mind.
XXXXX
February 23rd.
Harry checked over the scarves and diving masks he had enchanted one last
time, making sure that everything was in order.
He had been annoyed when Penny had brought him diving masks instead of
swimming goggles like he'd requested. He had specifically asked for
swimming goggles because he didn't like the nose covering on the diving
masks. Then she had told him that trying to dive past a certain depth
without the rubber nose covering would see his eyes being ripped out of
their sockets due to the uneven pressure between his eyes and lungs.
It was a good thing that unlike him, Penny read the warning labels and he
vowed to do something nice for her. He rather liked his eyeballs where
they were.
"Come to bed already, Harry. You have a big day tomorrow." Luna pouted
from the bed.
"Coming, coming." Harry said, putting the items down.
He'd noted a few attempts to get Luna away from him, probably to take her
as a hostage, but nobody had tried to do anything overt since he was
keeping such a close eye on her.
That was good, because Harry was in a foul enough mood these days without
having his dearest friend stuffed on the bottom of a freezing cold lake.
He had no word from Dora since their conversation a week and a half ago.
The silence was telling and depressing. To make matters worse, his runes
were acting up again at the lack of sex and it was making him even more
ill-tempered. He'd barely restrained himself from sending Malfoy to the
hospital wing the other day for a snide comment that normally wouldn't
have even merited any attention.
Luna had remained a bright spot during all this. The absolute(and
probably undeserved if Harry was being honest with himself) trust she had
in him was a soothing contrast to the disaster that his romantic
entanglement had turned into.
He crawled into bed with her and got into the now familiar spooning
position. Luna giggled and squirmed as soon as he did so.
"Harry, you really need to shave." She informed him, still giggling.
Yes, he probably should. He had just over a week's worth of facial hair
sitting on his jaw, well on its way to becoming a thick black beard. He
hadn't been in much of a mood to shave recently despite the looks it was
getting him and how easy magic made it. He'd shave it off in the morning.
For now, he rubbed his bristly chin into the back of Luna's neck and held
her tightly while she squealed.
XXXXX
Man, I am on fire with the update speed recently. Don't be afraid to tell
me that I suck ass and should slow down to think a bit more xD.
Chapter 20
Beta cookies for Joe Lawyer.
XXXXX
Tonks had spent the past ten days thinking about her situation with
Harry. She had yet to reach any resolutions.
It had been the best relationship she'd ever had, but the simple fact was
that the mere thought of getting into bed with him got her hackles up
now. How was she supposed to be comfortable with the idea that only
decency was keeping Harry from fiddling about with her soul if she ever
relaxed too much around him? Hells, she wouldn't trust herself with that
kind of power. She'd certainly been frustrated enough with both past
boyfriends and even Harry a few times that it would be tempting, doubly
so since it was apparently undetectable.
She almost found herself wishing that Adrastia Zabini had never showed
up. She'd been happy then, if a bit frustrated by Harry's secrecy. But
that was no way for an auror to be thinking, Moody would have certainly
lectured her ear off if she did. Moody would also have tried to haul
Harry off to Azkaban if he ever learned about this, not that she had any
intention of telling him.
She had come to watch the second task of the tournament in the hopes that
some epiphany would illuminate the correct decision. Unlike the first
task however, she wasn't here with Penny and Sirius. She was in fact
hiding from them. Instead of her usual energetic hair color and style, it
fell down to her upper back in coal black waves. Combined with unassuming
robes, minor facial alterations and blue eyes, she knew that she was
unrecognizable.
Passing the lake on her way to the stands, she had to wonder which genius
thought that watching the surface of a lake for an hour would be fun.
Probably Bagman. The former quidditch star was well known in certain
circles of the Ministry to not think his ideas through very well.
As she was looking for an out of the way spot to sit, she noticed
something that put a look of distaste on her face. Or rather someone.
Adrastia Zabini was there, once again dressed far too expensively and
looking towards the pier where the two remaining champions were
preparing. There was quite a bit of space around her. Coincidence or had
she driven people off somehow?
Tonks knew that it was probably a bad idea and she didn't really have any
reason to do it, but she made her way towards the woman anyway.
"Looking for your next victim?" She asked coolly as she sat down next to
her.
Adrastia looked at the unfamiliar-but-familiar woman who had just sat

down next to her with a raised eyebrow, wondering who she was for a
moment before she placed the voice and presence.
"Auror Tonks, what a pleasant surprise." She said without a hint of

sarcasm.
"Zabini." Tonks returned tersely.
"Did you come to watch Harry compete?" Adrastia asked, pretending that
there was no tension in the air.
Tonks grunted an affirmative, inadvertently making a passable imitation

of her mentor.
"The venue for this event is terrible. Honestly, why would anyone be
interested in watching the surface of a lake for an hour?" Adrastia
complained, unknowingly echoing Tonks' earlier thoughts. "But at least I
get to see Harry topless, so I suppose there is that."
Tonks ground her teeth together and prevented her hair from shifting.
"Just looking at that chest hair makes me want to run my fingers through
it." Adrastia went on in a murmur, somehow contriving to sound like she
was licking her lips without actually doing it.
Tonks knew about that particular impulse. Harry did have some very nice
chest hair and it was currently visible since he was only wearing swim
trunks. Not too coarse or thick, but thick enough that it was more than
just a few sad hairs sticking out. It was one of the bigger hints towards
the fact that he wasn't just an early bloomer. It wasn't a topic that she
wanted to talk to this woman about though. In fact, she didn't want to
talk about Harry's chest with anyone right now.
"A bit young for you, isn't he?" She asked snidely and somewhat
hypocritically.
"Old enough to be fucking the law." Adrastia drawled with a wide smirk,
amused at her double entendre.
"Very funny." Tonks growled.
"Why so sour, Nymphadora?" Adrastia asked, still smirking and

deliberately aggravating the Metamorphmagus. "Frustrated?"
"Don't call me that." Tonks ground out, more incensed by the familiarity
than the use of her full name for a change.
Unexpectedly, Adrastia gave a resigned sigh. "He told you, didn't he? I
suppose I was being too optimistic in thinking that he would listen to me
and keep quiet. Why are you here?"
Tonks didn't really know why she had approached Zabini. Maybe out of some
vague hope that it would help her resolve the mess that now lay between
her and Harry. Maybe because she knew that the woman was a serial killer
and couldn't leave it alone. Maybe because she subconsciously blamed her
for the problems that she and Harry were having.
"What Harry sees in you I will never understand." Adrastia continued when
Tonks didn't say anything. "You are as dull as the rest of the sheep."
"I suppose you think he should be with you then?" The Metamorphmagus
retorted scathingly, struggling to control her temper. The murderous
bitch was talking to her like she was a small, stupid child. Wordplay had
never been her forte, something that was a problem when dealing with
razor tongued monsters like Zabini or Malfoy.
"Perhaps for a while." Adrastia replied placidly. "It would be an

interesting change of pace to spend time with an equal. There are so few
of them in the world and most are quite disagreeable."
"Until you got bored and killed him, right?" Tonks asked sarcastically.
She wasn't even going to dignify the woman's sense of superiority with a
response.
Adrastia chuckled again. "You do Harry a disservice."
"What?" Tonks asked, not sure what she meant.
"If he was such easy prey, we would not be having this conversation."
Adrasta elaborated and leaned closer, her demeanour suddenly taking a
dangerous edge. "If he was easy prey, you would be cursing him for
abandoning you while I played with him." As quickly as it came, the
Italian witch's true nature was once again concealed. "Or perhaps you
would never have given him the time of day to begin with."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Tonks demanded, not allowing herself to

be unnerved by this woman.
Adrastia gave her a condescending sideways glance. "You should be honest

with yourself, Nymphadora. Had he been an ordinary fourteen-year-old you
would not have been attracted to him in the least. It was a relief to let
him take the lead, wasn't it? It is after all the nature of sheep to
follow."
Tonks' jaw clenched tightly, streaks of blazing red appearing in her

black hair, even her eyes took on an orange tint. The other woman was
infuriating and it was exceedingly hard to keep her powers in check. The
fact that she was right made it ten times worse. The notion of getting
romantically involved with a fourteen-year-old was laughable, but not in
Harry's case because he was special. She had liked his take charge
attitude and the ability to take the back seat that came with it. A
couple of her past attempts at a relationship had been quite stressful
because she had needed to be more assertive than she would've liked to
keep from having her Metamorph ability taken advantage of. Then there was
that one boyfriend that had been so timid that he probably had less
personality than Mr. Purple. Harry's easy confidence had been just right,
not pushy but also not passive. It had been the first time she was really
able to play around with her abilities during sex without feeling like
someone else's toy. Harry had ideas and suggestions, but she had never
felt humiliated by them or had cause to think that he was annoyed if she
refused, nor had he ever asked her to transform into a different woman
under the guise of roleplay. And that was all aside from the fact that he
was a genuinely great guy.
But she didn't appreciate having that pointed out. Not by anyone and
especially not in this manner by this woman.
"It really is too bad that Harry didn't listen to me." Adrastia went on
with a sigh. "Telling you hasn't accomplished anything save to cause
trouble. No doubt you were happier in your ignorance."
That was also true and another thing that Tonks didn't like having
pointed out.
"Unlike you, Harry isn't a heartless monster." She ground out.

Adrastia smirked, recalling that Harry had been fully intending to
strangle her to death for the dangerous secrets that Sirius had spilled.
"Isn't he?"
"I'm not listening to this." Tonks said suddenly and stood up.
"Give Harry my love when you talk to him." Adrastia said in a cheerful,
friendly manner.
Tonks didn't reply and practically stomped off.
The Italian witch chuckled to herself, amused at how riled up the

Metamorphmagus had gotten. It was almost too easy really, what with the
girl's temper and jumbled feelings. She may have prefered it if Harry had
not told her about Sex Magic or The Joining, but it looked as if it would
not spread further and there might be some advantages to this too. The
obvious trouble between them could open up some possibilities to improve
her own standing with the powerful young wizard, though care would have
to be taken. However useful an association with Harry Potter would be in
the future, she had not merely been taunting the auror when she implied
that he was a monster. There were many kinds of monsters in the world,
all of them dangerous if you stepped on their toes.
She looked back over the lake, noting that the task had already begun.
With an eyeroll at the complete waste of time that the British Ministry
of Magic had organized, Adrastia left the premises. At least she'd gotten
to talk to Harry's soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend, so it wasn't a total loss.
XXXXX
Meanwhile...
Harry stared at the dark waters of the Black Lake, wondering who they had
put under there for him to rescue. Ginny? They weren't close anymore, but
she was the only one aside from Luna that came to mind even vaguely. He
was closer to Professor Vector, but he doubted they would use a teacher.
He really didn't have much in the way of friends in Hogwarts.
He glanced to the side. Fleur looked sexy as hell in her one piece silver
bathing suit, especially with the way her nipples were pebbled from the
cold. She also looked worried sick. It might be why she'd forgotten that
she was a witch and could cast a Warming Charm.
"Who did they take for you?" He asked.
"Gabrielle, I zink. I 'aven't been able to find 'er since yesterday."

Fleur replied worriedly.
The veela's answer revealed a flaw in Harry's thinking. He had assumed

they would only take people from Hogwarts.
His face twisted into a scowl. Who was under there? He'd seen Penny sit
down with Luna earlier, but he hadn't been able to catch sight of Sirius
or Dora. He didn't think anyone knew that they were(or had been more
likely) together, but he wouldn't put it past Dumbledore to have known.
"'Arry, I know we are opponents, but would you agree to cooperate for zis
task?" Fleur sounded as if making the request pained her.
It probably did. Pride was inconvenient like that.
But Harry understood why she felt that she needed to swallow that pride
with her sister in danger. Her fire and Light based strength would be
severely diminished in the cold, wet Dark. The bottom of a deep lake was
no place for a daughter of Sun and Sky.
"Of course." He said with a nod.
Fleur favored him with a grateful, relieved smile.
"Are our champions ready?" Bagman asked loudly, a Sonorous spell

amplifying his voice for all to hear.
"Just get on with it." Harry grumbled. He'd been in a bad mood for days
now, the last thing he wanted was to listen to more of Bagman's blather
or look at the gleeful malice on Umbridge's face. He could practically
hear her hoping for both him and Fleur to die in the lake. Even with all
other considerations aside, he would have survived just to spite her.
And on the topic of spite, he put another Itching Curse on her. If he had
to spend an hour diving in a freezing cold lake to save one of the few
people he cared about, then the fat toad could spend it squirming.
It got him another look from Dumbledore, who had no doubt felt it, but
Harry had no regrets. The old man must already have a pretty solid idea
about his wandless abilities and was too fond of secrets to tell anyone.
"Errr, yes, of course." Bagman stammered. "Well, the task will start on
my whistle and the champions have precisely one hour to retrieve what was
taken from them. On the count of three then. One...two...three!"
Bagman might have been going for a sense of urgency with his countdown,
but Harry unhurriedly summoned the items he'd left nearby and put his
wand back into its holster on his right arm.
He grabbed the altered diving mask first. The straps had been cut off so
as to not get in the way, replaced by a specialized sticking charm placed
on the rubber. The clear plastic lenses were also enchanted to keep any
gunk from sticking to it and blocking his vision.
The second item was a dark blue scarf, which he tied around his head so
that it covered his mouth. He could feel the enchantment on it providing
its own air supply and cutting off all external sources.
He looked towards Fleur again. The veela had a Bubblehead Charm active
around her head. That would work too, but she had clearly never heard of
the old RPG player's axiom; never do with a spell what you can do with
magic items.
They nodded at each other and jumped into the water.
XXXXX
Elsewhere on the lake shore.
Goran put down the binoculars that he'd been using to observe the
mark(and the sexy veela next to him). It was time to get this job done.
He'd already scouted the terrain and determined the best time to attack.
According to the information provided by his anonymous client. Potter

would need to save someone from the colony of merpeople on the bottom of
the lake. Attacking while he was there would be stupid since the
fishfaces would probably not react well to that. Best to do it while he
was going back up and burdened with an extra body.
He brought out a mouthful of gillyweed and stared at the transformative

plant distastefully. He wished he could just use a Bubblehead Charm, but
it would be stupid to skimp out on an advantage simply because it was
uncomfortable.
XXXXX
Death Eater stooges A, B, C and D prepared for their job somewhat

differently than Gojkov...
"Alright lads, let's show Potter and the half-breed whore their place."
Stooge A said motivationally when he saw through the omniculars that the
champions had begun their task.
The other three gave a cheer of agreement and put on their Death Eater
masks, tugging on their matching robes to make sure it all fit properly.
Then they cast Bubblehead Charms and jumped into the lake.
XXXXX
Harry looked to see if Fleur was alright after the grindylows were
repelled. She gave him an uncharacteristically meek nod and they
continued exploring the bottom of the lake.
He imagined that she felt very far out of her element right now. He could
feel the darkness and silence of their surroundings pressing in on her
the deeper they got. Not the Dark of the Void, but the darkness of a
place that never saw sunlight. The Light of his own magic was also
diminished, but unlike Fleur, this was no detriment for him. If anything
it was an advantage because he would be less prone to emotional
responses.
Harry estimated that they had spent just over thirty minutes in the water
when the merpeople village came into view. Fleur tried to rush towards
it, but Harry grabbed her hand before she could, ignoring her impatient
look.
He had also noticed a distinctly human presence lurking among the tall
weeds carpeting the muddy lake floor. He waved Fleur to stay back while
he took a look at it.
XXXXX
Goran knew something was wrong the moment that Potter stopped and looked
directly towards him. He shouldn't have been able to see anything among
the tall weeds, but he clearly had.
The boy, who he would have taken for a man if he didn't know better, had
his wand out and was obviously expecting trouble. So much for cursing him
in the back and being done with it.
He jabbed his wand towards the boy, focusing all of his will on the
desire to kill. The bright green beam of the Killing Curse flew from the
tip.
Much to his surprise, Potter dodged the slow moving spell as if he'd been
expecting it and returned fire with a much faster piercing hex, forcing
him to swim away with all the grace his aquatic form granted him. He saw
the spell shred the weeds and kick up the mud and knew that it would have
been lethal if it had hit him. The boy wasn't playing around.
Goran scowled. He hated it when the client left out important details,
such as the fact that the target was more than just some puffed up
celebrity brat and was genuinely dangerous.
Well fine. It wasn't the first time that he had to actually fight instead
of winning with a sneak attack. He couldn't cast another Killing Curse
due to the pure focus it required, not without getting perforated by
Potter's spells first at any rate, but he was no slouch as a dueler. He'd
manage.
XXXXX
Harry jabbed his wand forward several more times, sending more piercing
hexes and a few bone breakers at the assassin, only to be frustrated when
they were nimbly avoided. The man's presence was definitely that of a
wizard, but he looked half fish and swam like one too.
Goran meanwhile was unpleasantly surprised by the ability of his target.

Potter's spells were powerful, dangerous and most of all fast, faster
than they had any right to be under water. Everyone knew that things
moved slower through water than air, spells being no different.
Harry happened to disagree with this bit of 'knowledge'. He had

questioned why something that had no mass would be slowed by water and
eventually concluded that it was all in the caster's head. They expected
the spells to move slower in water, so they did. Conversely, Harry
expected them to move normally, so they did.
Fast or not though, gillyweed granted one an absurd amount of mobility in
water and Goran had little trouble swimming out of the way and it left
him with all the time in the world to send a return volley of deadly
spells.
Harry wanted to curse. The spells coming at him might be slower than
normal, but so was he. He put up a strong shield to block them, but that
just put him on the defensive while the assassin battered at it and
whenever he got enough breathing room to return fire, the slippery
bastard easily dodged. He needed to try something else.
What though, that was the question. A skilled wizard could reduce the
wand motions of most spells to barely anything and Harry was such a
wizard, but there were some limits to it. He couldn't cast any cutting
curses because trying to make a slashing motions underwater would either
take too long or be too small to bother with, not to mention that they
would probably get dodged anyway. Anything with a physical component
would be slowed by the water and rendered useless. Elemental or area of
effect spells would be either impossible, ineffectual or flat out
suicidal due to the water. Transfiguration was right out because
transfiguring liquids for combat purposes was iffy at the best of times
and fell into the category of Very Bad Ideas if you were actually in the
liquid when trying it.
That really only left him with some of the more esoteric wandless spells
of his own making, and there was exactly one spell in that category that
he could cast with enough speed to make it viable.
Goran's eyes widened in shock when he saw Potter thrust out a hand and a
trio of dart like spells rushed out from it. What the fuck had he been
sent to kill? Seriously, what kind of fourteen-year-old used wandless
magic? His shock was even more pronounced when the smallish cluster of
spells actually tracked him.
A shield was put up and the spells easly blocked, but the Serbian
assassin was now thoroughly unnerved.
Seeing the assassin preoccupied with his attack made Harry smile grimly
under the scarf he was wearing. Magic Missile for the win. Each of the
little force bolts would only do about as much damage as a solid punch
and were easy to block, but they were excellent for use as a distraction.
XXXXX
Forgotten by the two combatants, Fleur watched the underwater duel with a
sense of frustrated helplessness. Had they been on dry land, she would
not have hesitated to fight off this attacker beside Harry.
But they weren't on dry land. They were deep underwater where her magic
was pitifully weak and she dreaded the thought of joining the fight in
this state. She had nearly become a casualty of that first Killing Curse
that Harry had dodged and there had been a few other spells that had
whizzed by close enough to drive home the danger of the situation. She
knew that any shields she could conjure might well not be up to the task
of blocking a spell from the assassin if he turned his attention towards
her. She didn't know if she could even cast any kind of useful spell. In
a twist of cruel irony, this doubt would only serve to weaken her magic
further.
She felt like she was abandoning Harry, but there was no choice. Gabi was
still somewhere in the merpeople's village and time was running out. She
would just have to hope for the best and hope that Harry won. If he lost,
then all she could do was hope to be left alone with her sister and maybe
whoever Harry's hostage was, depressing as the thought was. An even
grimmer worst case scenario was that none of them would be leaving this
lake alive.
Her swim deeper into the village went unimpeded, though there was quite a
bit of traffic in the other direction. Fleur had noticed the merpeople
gathering to watch the duel happening on the edges of their settlement
and figured these were going to gawk as well. No use hoping that they
would actually help.
It didn't take her long to reach what she assumed was the underwater
version of a village square, where she saw the unmistakable sight of her
little sister's silvery blonde hair floating around her head. If she
wasn't underwater, the sight of her tied to a stake with her skin taking
an unhealthy pale green color in the gloomy lighting would have forced
Fleur into a veela transformation.
The man next to the eight year old veela had to be Harry's hostage. She
remembered seeing them together after the first task. He represented a
problem.
Fleur had been so focused on her sister that she had given little thought
to anything else. She hadn't even been able to properly appreciate
Harry's half naked state back on the pier. Now that Gabrielle was right
in front of her and Harry was busy with whoever that wizard was, she
realized that saving both hostages was well and truly up to her. That was
the problem. Namely, Fleur didn't think she could carry both her sister
and Harry's hostage back to the surface.
But she had to try. She felt ashamed enough of the fact that she hadn't
even tried to join the fight against the assassin, if she just grabbed
her sister and skulked away like some base coward while Harry fought for
his life, she'd never be able to live with herself. Aside from the fact
that such an action would undoubtedly put an end to any hope of making
Harry her mate, he was also a friend.
The two hostages were tied to their respective stakes with tough weeds
and it was dishearteningly difficult for Fleur get them free. It took her
four casts of a Severing Charm to slice through the weeds, whereas she
would normally need to be careful not to overpower it.
The Locomotion Charm she tried to use to get the two unconscious bodies
to follow her without needing to be carried fizzled out after mere
seconds just like she had feared it would. It had been cast correctly,
but she just couldn't muster the power to make it last. Left with no
choice, she grabbed her eight-year-old sister with one hand and the
thirty-plus looking man in the other and started the slow slog back
towards Harry. Being so reliant on someone else burned her pride
fiercely, but facts were facts. Swimming to the surface with just her
legs while weighed down this much was simply not going to happen.
Ironically, she wasn't stopped from taking Sirius as well by any

merpeople because all of them had gone to see the spectacle of two
wizards having at each other on the outskirts of their village.
XXXXX
Back with Harry and Goran, both were deeply frustrated. The fight had
reached a stalemate that didn't look like it was going to get resolved.
The watery battlefield severely restricted their spell selection and
reduced their duel to what was essentially a lethal version of laser tag.
The only new development had been that Harry had improvised a way to use
wandless magic to push himself through the water for short bursts of
movement, which just made it so that they were both missing pretty much
all of their spells.
Goran was in fact seriously considering just giving up and retreating. He

hadn't gotten to the ripe old age of forty-eight in his chosen lifestyle
by being stupid and greedy. He'd been promised a lot of gold for this
kill, but it was starting to feel like it wasn't worth the risk. There
was a swarm of merpeople nearby nervously gripping their tridents,
gillyweed didn't last forever, Potter's defense wasn't budging even under
some of the darker spells in his repertoire and his offense might become
too much to handle if he was reduced to the swimming speed of a regular
human. Backing down from a fourteen-year-old wizard grated, but not as
much as getting killed by one would.
XXXXX
The Death Eater contingent in the Black Lake had failed to consider a few
things when they made their 'plan'. Things such as the effect of water on
voluminous robes and how they would find their quarry in the first place.
Thus they spent an unnecessarily long time waddling about in the lake
like a bunch of particularly inept and confused hippos.
Had it not been for the fact that Harry and Goran's duel was taking place
close to the illuminated underwater village, they would have belatedly
realized their mistake only by the time that Harry and Fleur were already
out of the water.
When they did find their target, they were confused by the duel taking
place. Exchanging baffled glances, they made the universal group shrug of
thugs that couldn't be bothered to think too hard and went in for the
attack. Umbridge had paid them to kill everyone and they certainly had no
problem doing that.
XXXXX
Goran had nearly wrestled his pride and greed into submission and decided
to retreat when an opportunity showed up. He'd been keeping an eye on the
merpeople just in case they decided to attack and saw two blobs of the
silver blonde hair characteristic to veela and another unconscious man.
The other champion had showed up and she had the hostages. Potter was
supposed to be a hero type and hostages were always useful against those.
Dodging around another piercing hex that would have gouged a hole out of
his thigh and deflecting two more of those annoying little wandless
spells, Goran charged at his new target like a torbedo.
Harry's eyes scrunched in confusion for just a moment before widening in

alarm as he saw where the assassin was going. He shot after him
desperately, using wandless magic to propel himself as fast as possible.
The merpeople saw the two wizards that had been fighting on their very
doorstep charging at them and scattered. Fleur had only just put down her
burdens at what she judged was a safe distance from the ongoing duel when
she saw that the attacker was going straight at her. Her desperate but
weak spells were easly deflected and caused him only a minor delay.
It was enough however to let Harry catch up and crash into assassin
before he could grab her. They tumbled into the mud and were immediately
engaged in a clumsy and ineffectual grappling match.
Harry had a slight edge due to several factors. For one, he was taller
and his runes made him half again as strong as someone of his size and
build should be. For another, he had also dropped his wand prior to the
collision, knowing that it would be useless at this range.
Despite being a very different sort of wizard from what most British
would consider 'normal', Goran still considered his wand to be his most
priceless possession and clung to it fiercely, even if any spells he
tried to cast at this range would be near useless due to the interference
of Harry's own will.
A mere few feet away, Fleur's face developed an angry scowl. She was
really starting to hate being the damsel in distress. Before she could
join in on the tussle though, she saw yet another problem approaching.
Four wizards in black robes and white masks. Voldemort and his Death
Eaters had confined most of their activities to Britain, but they were
recognizable across all of Europe.
Trying to get either Harry or the assassin to break off their struggle
and notice the approaching killers was tough without being able to speak,
but they did eventually glance in the direction that she was pointing
towards and then did a quick double take to make sure that their eyes
weren't deceiving them.
Unfortunately for them, the Death Eaters had closed into spell range by
then and, seeing all of their targest more or less in the same place, let
loose with blasting curses.
Harry and Goran's eyes both bulged in an identical manner, united in
their incredulity. They both recognized that the spells coming towards
them were blasting curses, but neither could quite believe the thick
skulled stupidity they were seeing.
Harry had researched what spells were good for underwater use and how
some of his favorites would react, blasting curses being among them.
Goran didn't do that, but the Balkans had seen quite a bit of war during
his lifetime. He had a pretty good idea what underwater explosions were
like.
There was a damn good reason why neither one of them had used anything
like that despite how frustrating their fight had been. It was just not
worth the risk and neither one was willing to experiment with things that
might end up blowing up in their face.
All animosity between them was instantly forgotten as they scrambled to

save their lives. Goran cast the most powerful shield he could manage.
Harry only took a moment to mesh his own magic into the assassin's shield
spell, enlarging it to cover all five of them and and specifying what it
was to hold back as he did so.
The four slow blasting curses cast by the Death Eaters detonated soon
after with a muted boom.
Funny thing about explosions, if they happened in the air, much of their
energy was expended to compress it. Water was massively harder to
compress and moved with the pressure wave of the explosion rather than
absorbing it.
The shield they cast was up to the task of deflecting the pressure wave,
leaving the people behind it unscathed.
The Death Eaters were not so fortunate. All of them had been under the
mistaken but understandable belief that water would make the explosion
weaker, so they had cast with as much power as possible to offset this
and didn't for a moment believe themselves to be in any danger at the
distance they were at. The pressure wave reached them a few moments after
the explosion.
Another difference between air and water explosions was that the power of
the compressed air wave was mostly deflected from the human body due to
the very different densities. In an underwater explosion, the pressure
wave passed through the body and lost very little of its power. When it
hit the air-filled pockets inside the body, it instantly compressed the
gases in them, blocking blood vessels, rupturing the lungs and
intestines, tearing tissue and causing brain hemorrhaging.
The Death Eaters were wizards, so the damage wasn't as severe as physics
said it should be, the innate will to survive intrinsic to everything
that lived influencing their magic to protect them, but they were still
unconscious and in critical condition. The air in their Bubblehead Charms
should technically have gotten compressed too, but magic had an
unreliable relationship with physics at the best of times, so that didn't
happen, nor did their brains start bleeding.
Harry and Goran slowly dropped the shield, glanced at each other,
remembered that they were supposed to be killing each other and instantly
became as tense as statues.
A pregnant moment passed and then Goran very slowly and very deliberately
relaxed.
With equal care, Harry did the same.
Goran gave the man he'd been hired to kill a curt nod and started
swimming away, not turning his back until he was well out of range of
spellfire. To hell with the money, he was fucking done with this job. The
gillyweed would be wearing off soon and he was not going to tangle with
the stupidly powerful fourteen-year-old anymore, certainly not after
working together with him against the four masked idiots.
Fleur gave Harry a confused look, but he just shook his head, summoned
his wand into his hand, cast Locomotion Charms on Sirius and Gabrielle
and started swimming back to the surface. He cast another Locomotion
Charm on the Death Eater who he judged to be the least damaged, wanting
some answers for this clusterfuck.
For the other three, he dispelled their Bubblehead Charms and left them
to drown. These Death Eaters all had familiar auras, he'd last seen them
the night that Luna's father had been killed and he was not feeling
particularly merciful.
XXXXX
On the surface, things were much less exciting.
The public grumbled about how boring the second task was and many left in
a huff.
At the judges table, Ludo Bagman fretted nervously as he realized the

problem with an underwater event. Next to him, Dolores Umbridge was red
faced and sweating, the Itching Curse making her incredibly miserable and
short tempered. The only consolation she had was that Potter and the
veela abomination would not be coming back from the lake.
That consolation was dashed dramatically when they did come back, and
turned into outright horror when she saw the extra in Death Eater
paraphelia they brought back with them.
She was not the only one to be horrified, as the terrorist regalia caused
the audience to burst into shouting before Dumbledore's Sonorous enhanced
voice boomed from nearby and assumed control.
The DMLE was contacted and Dolores Umbridge belatedly realized that she
should have used some more discretion when hiring killers.
XXXXX
Surfacing with a knocked out Death Eater had somewhat predictable

results. Predictable insofar as chaos can be.
Harry had been given an express checkup by Madam Pomfrey and then hustled
along into the headmaster's office, barely even given time to dress.
Fleur had been taken aside by Madam Maxime and her family, but he
supposed that the aurors would talk to her separately.
So Harry now sat in the headmaster's office alongside his recently awoken
godfather, awaiting the arrival of Amelia Bones.
Harry figured that the DMLE director must be quite put out with him. This
should really be the job of the head of the Auror Office, Rufus
Scrimgeour, but the high profile nature of it meant that it got bumped up
to her. The same as the last two incidents that had involved him.
Politics.
And high profile this was. The audience had screamed downright
cartoonishly at the sight of an unconscious and nearly dead Death Eater.
No wonder Voldemort had almost won.
"Harry my boy, what in the world happened in the lake?" Of course it

wouldn't be the headmaster's office without the Headmaster, who was
obviously fishing for information. He was sitting behind his massive desk
in a blatant 'I'm in charge here' move. No doubt it was his numerous
titles as well as the fact that he was one of the tournament oraganizers
that had allowed him to wheedle his way into an investigation that he
technically had no business being part of.
"Let's wait for Madam Bones, I don't want to repeat myself." Harry
rebuffed and turned to his godfather. "So how did you end up in the lake,
Sirius?"
Dumbledore's face didn't change but Harry got the sense that he wasn't
pleased at being denied. That was just too damn bad.
"Dumbledore showed up and said they needed a hostage for you to rescue. I
figured it was better me than someone else and I wasn't sure if they'd
resort to force if we all refused to come quietly." Sirius explained with
a shrug.
Someone else meaning either Penny or Dora no doubt. "Thanks, Sirius. That
was surprisingly noble of you."
"What the hell do you mean 'surprisingly'?!" Sirius spluttered.
They continued to bicker good naturedly for the next ten minutes, both
taking an inordinate amount of pleasure in ignoring the old wizard
sharing the room with them.
At long last, the door opened and admitted the formidable DMLE director.
After the pleasantries were exchanged she moved one of Dumbledore's
chairs so that it forced him and Sirius to turn their backs on the
Headmaster if they wanted to see her. Harry figured that was probably a
deliberate move on her part, a sort of 'no, Dumbledore. You aren't in
charge, I am'. More politics.
"Alright, start at the beginning and tell me everything." She ordered.
Harry was about to give her a slightly edited version that left out the
technical triple homicide he'd committed after the fight was over, but
Dumbledore butted in before he could start.
"If Harry is willing, we could watch his memories in my pensieve."
Professor Babbling had mentioned pensieves during their lessons. A very

advanced bit of runework and enchanting to make one of those. They were
quite rare due to the effort involved in their making and the subsequent
high cost of buying one. Harry had been thinking of trying his hand at
making one eventually. It would make for an interesting project and you
could never have too many magic items.
The suggestion was annoyingly clever of the old man though. It was much
harder to give a false memory than lie and he couldn't refuse without
looking suspicious. Fortunately, Harry could simply cut off the memory
before he canceled the Bubblehead Charms on the other three Death Eaters.
Nothing particularly sensitive had happened before then.
"Sure."
Occlumency made it fairly easy to segment the piece of memory he wanted

to extract and soon all four of them were observing it.
"How did you know he was hiding there?" Bones asked when she saw him
dodge the opening Killing Curse.
"Something just felt off." Harry shrugged. He was just thankful that the
memory didn't show his Magesight, though that was interesting in and of
itself. He surmised that it was because Magesight was actually a bit of a
misnomer. He wasn't seeing the magic with his eyes, but with his mind. It
only appeared to him as a visual manifestation because it was the easiest
way for his mind to show him such an abstract concept.
"He's using gillyweed." Bones said in surprise.
"What's that?" Harry asked. It sounded like it had something to do with

Herbology, a subject that had never interested him overmuch.
"Gillyweed is a transformative plant that grows in certain parts of the

Medditeranean Sea. By ingesting it, one takes on aspects of an aquatic
creature, such as gills and fins, as well as gaining superior underwater
vision. It is believed to have been used in rituals dedicated to Poseidon
in Ancient Greece and there is speculation that it led to the creation of
the merpeople, as that is when mentions of them first appear." Dumbledore
explained, his inner educator shining through for a moment.
"That explains why the bastard was so fast." Harry muttered.
"Why didn't either of you use a more wide area spell?" Sirius asked in
confusion, seeing the stalemated duel.
"Wait for it." Was all Harry had to say in response.
"Impressive use of wandless magic, Harry." Dumbledore complimented when

that part came up. He didn't seem at all surprised. "Might I ask what
kind of spell that is? I've never seen the like of it."
"Magic Missile, an Evocation spell of the First Circle." Harry answered

drolly.
All three were curious and wanted to know more, but he wasn't going to
tell them that he was ripping of Dungeons & Dragons for inspiration.
"Bastard." Sirius said a few minutes later when the assassin saw Fleur
and rushed at her, but then grinned when Harry barreled into the man.
"Here it comes." Harry commented dryly.
"There were four of them?" Sirius said incredulously when the Death
Eaters arrived.
"Yep."
"Oh dear." Dumbledore sighed a moment later when all four Death Eaters
fired off their blasting curses. He obviously knew what was going to
happen.
"Well, that would explain the condition of the one you brought back with
you. The preliminary report I got from the healer was that he looked like
he'd been torn apart from the inside." Bones said dryly. To his surprise,
Harry felt a flash of grim satisfaction from her at seeing the fates of
the Death Eaters. Somebody was hiding some pretty strong hatred under
that paragon of law veneer.
"Huh, I didn't expect that one to just leave." Sirius said when the
memory moved into the last part, where Harry and the assassin had
silently decided to put an end to the hostilities.
"Shared danger can make for some unexpected allies." Dumbledore said
sagely.
"Or it could be that the gillyweed was about to wear off and he knew he'd
be at a disadvantage." Bones pointed out cynically.
"It could be." Dumbledore admitted as the memory ended, moving on to the
next question. "Why did you only bring back one?"
"The others were already dead." Harry shrugged uncaringly. All four of
them had been dead ever since they cost Luna her father. It had only been
a matter of when he next ran into them and informed them of that fact.
"How could you tell?" Bones asked skeptically.
"Trust me, I could tell." Harry replied unhelpfully.
The look this got him from the DMLE director made it clear that she
didn't believe a word of it, but had to accept it because proving it
would be impossible. Harry also suspected that she didn't care enough
about a few Death Eaters to really dig into it either.
"Well, this task has certainly been more exciting than it was supposed to
be." Dumbledore sighed again.
"You don't say?" Sirius asked sarcastically.
"Maybe I should register myself at the Ministry as a Resistomurdermagus

with all the failed assassination attempts lately." Harry mused, making
his godfather snicker.
"You're definitely being targeted." Bones admitted. "These were obviously

two separate attempts, almost certainly by two separate people or groups.
And the one you brought back has been identified as Royston Welch, a
known associate of the group that attacked you during the Quidditch World
Cup. I'd be willing to bet that the three you left in the lake will be
the same."
"Do you think you'll be able to get the name of the instigator out of
him?" Harry asked.
"Probably not." The DMLE director admitted in frustration. "We'll

investigate of course, but I doubt they'd be stupid enough to have talked
to them in person, and even if they did would have probably used a Memory
Charm to cover their tracks."
"Pity." Harry said. He would have liked to have taken care of whoever
wanted him dead personally. The archaic rules that governed the Tri-
Wizard Tournament allowed a champion some pretty broad self-defense
privileges. Killing someone for an infraction like this was well within
them and would have served as a poignant message to stop fucking with
him. "What about the other one?"
"I don't recognize him, but I'll make inquiries. I could arrange an auror
guard for you while we investigate this."
Not that long ago, Harry would have jumped at the chance to request a
certain Metamorphmagus to be given the task of protecting him. She'd have
to stay in his room of course, to make sure that nobody tried to kill him
in his sleep. In fact, it would be safest if she slept in his bed too.
But that was before. The thought of having his girlfriend(ex-girlfriend?)

around all the time with their current situation wasn't really appealing.
He could already imagine the awkward silences and stilted conversations.
The thought of having an actual auror guard wasn't even considered. It
would drive him up the wall to have one or two of those around all the
time.
"Thank you for the offer, Madam Bones, but I don't think that'll be
necessary. Hogwarts is the safest place in Britain after all." And if
there was a trace of sarcasm in his voice, then nobody called him out on
it.
XXXXX
The evening of the same day.
Harry was on the Astronomy Tower again, staring at the sky and thinking.
He wished it wasn't cloudy so that he could see the Void, the Darkness
Between the Stars.
Ever since he had killed those Death Eaters at the Quidditch World Cup,
he had suspected that it was influencing his mind. Now he was certain of
it.
All of the runes carved on his head were made to touch his mind in one
way or another, and so they did. The raging touch of the Sun was easy to
detect, there was no subtlety to it, it simply magnified all his
passions. The more he drew on the Sun, the worse it got.
The Void was different, insidious and sneaky. He still wasn't sure about
the full extent its influence on his mind and soul, but some things he
knew for sure. It muted his emotions and pushed him to kill, to send it
more souls. No wonder the dementors were the way they were, lost
completely to the Dark.
He had killed three people today and felt only satisfaction. Quite a bit
of that was because of Luna no doubt, but he had dispelled those
Bubblehead Charms with barely a thought. No remorse and no mercy.
Perhaps strangely, this didn't bother him. He had done all the soul
searching over it that he cared to already. The idea that there was some
primordial magical entity pushing him to be more ruthless was honestly
more disconcerting, though even that wasn't too scary now that he had
identified it. The Void was, in essence, nothing. Who feared nothing? He
still had full control of his faculties and could make his own choices.
If he was going to be more inclined to kill his enemies than spare them,
then so be it. It had yet to steer him wrong and the notion of killing
being wrong was just an abstract concept pushed by society anyway.
"'Arry?"
"Fleur." He said back without turning around. He had sensed the veela's
distinctive aura before she had spoken. "Did you come here for the view?"
"Non, I was looking for you." She replied and moved to stand beside him.
Then she shivered inside the heavy robe she was wearing as a particularly
cold gust of wind passed by. "Are you not cold?"
That was a fair enough question since Harry was only wearing a T-shirt
and it was winter in northern Scotland.
"A little." He admitted. "But I've always liked my weather to be on the

colder side." The fact that he could use his magic to regulate internal
body temperature played no small part in allowing him to enjoy the chilly
wind without being uncomfortable. It had certainly made swimming in the
lake less unpleasant.
"You are mad." Fleur declared with authority, making him chuckle.
"What did you need me for?"
"I wanted to zank you." She said quietly, suddenly much more subdued.
"For 'elping me in the lake. I could not 'ave done it wizzout you."
"There wouldn't have been assassins in the water without me either."

Harry pointed out.
"Zen ze grindylows would 'ave defeated me." Fleur retorted with a bitter
undertone. "I would still 'ave failed to zave Gabi."
"She wasn't in any real danger." Harry shrugged, finding this less
prideful version of Fleur kind of strange.
"We didn't know zat." She refuted and continued sternly. "Now stop
protesting and let me zank you."
"Alright, thank away." Harry said in amusement and turned to face her.
That was all the invitation Fleur needed. She stepped forward and hugged
him, making sure to press as much of herself against him as possible.
"Merci, 'Arry, for zaving Gabi and protecting me." She said, perhaps a
bit more breathily than strictly necessary, and pressed a kiss on the
corner of his mouth.
"You're welcome." Harry replied, not particularly surprised by the way

she had chosen to express her thanks. He'd long since caught on to what
she was offering, though he was surprised by her patience. He'd never
heard of a woman that would be willing to keep at it this long without
any success, but maybe it was different for veela.
Fleur lingered in the embrace for a few seconds more and only took a step
back when it was on the edge of becoming more than just a friendly hug.
His magic felt cold again, but it didn't seem as threatening as it did
months ago and the surprising warmth of his body made for a nice
contrast.
"You know, Gabi was disappointed zat she didn't get to talk you." She
said, moving on to the real purpose of this meeting.
"Why would she want to talk me?" Harry asked in confusion. He was no
stranger to people wanting to meet him by now, but he hadn't thought that
he was a particularly big deal outside of Magical Britain.
"I told 'er what 'appened in the lake and how you protected both 'er and
me. You are 'er new 'ero now." Fleur told him, amused. She didn't mention
that her parents also wanted to meet him. She had written to her mother
about her intentions towards Harry in the hope that she would have some
advice to improve her chances of snagging him for herself. Her mother had
been intrigued about the man that had caught Fleur's attention and her
father worried about his little princess already picking out a husband
for herself. Either way, they wanted to meet Harry and get the measure of
him.
Fleur herself was wary of letting that happen. Her constant hints and
subtle invitations were as much to let him know that she was available as
they were to gauge the status of his current relationship without being
crass and outright asking. His continued refusal to act on any of those
hints or invitations told her that it was probably still persisting,
though she had noticed that he seemed moodier lately. If Harry's
relationship with this Nymphadora woman was finally collapsing then the
last thing she wanted to do was scare him off by introducing him to her
parents.
"Ah, I see." Harry said with a wry nod, subconsciously puffing out his
chest a bit. People practically worshiping the ground he walked on
because of Voldemort's defeat had been bewildering, but getting praised
for something he'd actually done did send his ego on an upward climb.
"Oui, she was most insistent zat I was to invite you to our 'ome in
France for the summer." She said, noting his reaction with amusement.
Fleur wasn't even making it up, Gabrielle really had insisted that she
invite Harry to spend the summer with them, though it was entirely
possible that their mother may have planted the idea in her head.
"Your sister sounds like an officious little thing." Harry commented,

also amused.
Fleur gave an unrestrained laugh at that rather accurate description.

"You 'ave no idea, she 'as been ordering people around since she 'as been
able to talk. I used to get terribly annoyed by eet when I was younger."
Her laughter made Harry smile. It was a beautiful sound and it also had a
hint of magic in it, though he doubted she was aware of that. "I've never
liked bossy people, but I'm sure I could make an exception for your
sister."
"You don't 'ave to worry, our mozzer 'as managed to teach 'er enough
manners to make 'er zound cute instead of annoying." Fleur assured him.
"Well that's a load off my mind." Harry joked wryly.
There was a moment of silence before Fleur decided he needed a prompt.

"Zo...would you like to visit France over ze summer? You could bring Luna
and Nymphadora wizz you and I could show you what a proper magical
country eez like." She hoped that his girlfriend wouldn't be an issue
anymore by that point, but she couldn't exclude her from the invitation
without coming off as petty and manipulative.
Harry's smile faltered despite her amusing little poke at magical Britain
and he sighed, turning to stare back at the sky.
"'Arry? What eez wrong?" Fleur asked nervously, worried that she had
stepped too far.
Harry took a deep breath and let it out. "Nothing much really."
"Eet does not zound like nozzing." She ventured carefully.
Harry shrugged before deciding that he might as well tell her. He had
tried talking to Luna about the problems that he and Dora were having,
but for all of her qualities, his best friend was not the person you went
to if you wanted understanding in this sort of situation. Luna could have
the most remarkable insights into the truth of things, but grasping why
Dora might be upset with him right now escaped her.
"I told Dora about the Joining ten days ago. She said that she needed
time to think and hasn't spoken to me since."
Fleur winced. Veela were expressly warned to never, under any

circumstances, tell anyone about the Joining. They could tell their
chosen partner only once the process was finished. Veela did not truly
consider themselves married until the man(or occasional woman) they
picked for themselves was so hopelessly in love with them that there was
no risk of betrayal. Gabrielle too would be given this warning once
puberty hit and the cravings in her awoke. It had to be this way, or else
their existence would never be tolerated by the suspicious humans that
they needed to mate with. Nobody wanted to go back to the bad old days.
"She doesn't know that the Joining is in any way connected to veela in
case you were worried about that." Harry added dispassionately.
That did actually make Fleur feel a lot better, but she focused on the
part about his girlfriend troubles.
"I am zorry to hear zat." She said, doing her best to sound commiserating
instead of pleased.
Harry wasn't fooled but chose not to mention it. Fleur had made it clear
what she wanted and Harry figured that if he had a girl that he wanted
and she was taken, he would also be happy to hear that she was about to
become single. Getting upset with people for having their own desires
would be silly. "Can't be helped I suppose. How do veela deal with this
issue?"
"We find someone we like and decide zat we will stay wizz zem for ze rest
of our lives." Fleur answered quietly.
"So you don't deal with it, you just go ahead and do what I almost did to
Dora." Harry said cynically.
"We need wizards to continue our species." She defended.
Harry gave a tired sigh at that. "An acceptable evil then? I suppose
there are worse fates in the world than being magically addicted to a
supernaturally beautiful woman."
Fleur didn't really have anything to say to that.
"Sometimes I wonder if it wouldn't have been better if I had just stayed

quiet and continued performing the Joining." Harry continued musingly.
"Everything seemed to be going so well for us back then."
But Harry could never bring himself to do that. As soon as he'd learned
about the Joining from Adrastia, he had started identifying discrepancies
in Dora's behavior.
She used to get a bit jealous if she heard that some girl or other wanted
to get into his pants, but that had slowly petered out over time. She had
become more patient and less willful with him. Yes, things had been good,
but Dora had undeniably slowly been changing according to his
preferences, just like Adrastia said.
Harry's upbringing had left him much more cynical and willing to do
morally ambiguous things than most people and then there was his dabbling
with Light and Dark, Pettigrew's accidental murder, the killing of those
Death Eaters at the World Cup, the deal with Adrastia and now the latest
debacle from this morning...suffice to say that his moral fiber had
acquired quite a bit of necessary flexibility. Something like this
though...changing a woman to suit him better...that he simply wasn't
comfortable with.
"My fazzer is a 'appy man " Fleur said almost reluctantly.
"I'm sure he is." Harry chuckled, genuinely amused. The question wasn't
whether he was happy now, but if he would have chosen the life he now had
before Fleur's mother had worked him over.
"You do not want to spend ze summer in France zen?" She asked unhappily,
going back to the question that he had never answered. In her eagerness
to get Harry for herself, she had forgotten to consider that his opinion
on veela might sour or that he may not be interested even if he was
single.
Harry stayed quiet for a few long moments before he answered. "Ask me
again some other time. I'm not in the mood to be thinking of vacation
right now."
Fleur gave him a relieved smile and agreed. It wasn't what she had been
hoping for but it was better than what she had been afraid of.
XXXXX
Tonks detested guard duty. It was boring as hell and no amount of
shapeshifting helped to get rid of the ache in her legs from standing in
one spot for so long. Even healing spells didn't work. It made her wonder
whether the ache was all in her head.
She wasn't alone in suffering this onerous duty, but John Dawlish was an
arse and didn't count as good company.
The irony of being assigned to guard the Death Eater that had tried to
assassinate Harry earlier in the day wasn't lost on her. She had stomped
away from that event due to a mixture of frustration with Zabini and a
belief that it would be boring only to end up here.
According to Bones, it could take as long as a week before the bastard

was in any shape to be interrogated. His insides were apparently such a
mess that he'd been minutes away from dying when Harry had hauled him out
of the water.
That meant that she had more guard duty to look forward to. Joy.
It was giving her plenty of time to think about what she was going to do
about her relationship with Harry at least. She had always gotten
frustrated with it before and found something to distract herself with.
No such luxuries when on guard duty.
The hours of her shift ticked by with glacial slowness and Tonks finally
decided what she had to do. She would call Harry on the mirror he'd given
her tomorrow and ask him to come over.
XXXXX
The next day.
Harry pulled at his T-shirt and rolled his shoulders. Then he sighed and
looked at Luna.
"Well, I'm off to get dumped." Dora had finally called and said they
needed to talk. Those words carried plenty of dread in them as it was,
but her tone had also been grim enough to make it clear what was waiting
for him once he got there.
"I don't understand." Luna said. "You were happy together, why would
Nymphadora dump you?"
"People generally don't like having their souls manipulated." Harry

sighed again. He'd noticed that he was doing a lot of sighing lately.
Luna scrunched her eyebrows at him, obviously not understanding. She just
didn't see what the problem was. To her mind, if you trusted someone
enough to let them in, then the Joining of Souls wasn't manipulation but
an expression of love and trust. Maybe she was right, but Harry was of
the opinion that it only worked in that kind of fairy tale fashion of it
was performed by both parties. What he had been doing with Dora had been
horribly skewed in his favor.
XXXXX
Harry ran his fingers over Dora's naked back and frowned in thought.
Things had not gone as expected.
As soon as he had showed up at her apartment, she had pulled him into a
kiss and proceeded to drag him into the bedroom. Normally he'd take this
as a good thing, but she had been tense the whole time. Her soul had
remained guarded even during orgasm. If she hadn't seemed so determined
that this was going to happen, he would have stopped.
"This isn't going to work." Tonks sighed after a few minutes of silence.
"It was just a test then?" In that context, everything made sense.
"Yeah." She said lamely. "I had to see if I could relax. Sorry."
"It's okay."
They lapsed into silence for another few minutes before she got up and
started getting dressed. Harry followed suit in awkward silence. Once
they were done, they looked at each other and shifted. Awkwardly.
"So..."
"Yeah..."
More awkward silence ensued.
Harry gave an irritated sigh and rubbed at his forehead. This was pretty
much exactly what he had imagined things would be like now. Dora was
right. This wasn't going to work, not with that big 'sorry I accidentally
performed Soul Magic on you. Oh, and I could do it again and you'd never
know it' hanging between them. "I guess I can consider myself dumped?"
A flash of guilt passed over Tonks' face, but she nodded all the same.
"I'm sorry. I just...can't."
"It's okay." Harry repeated. "I figured it was going to end this way.
Heh, you were out of my league anyway."
She gave a weak smile at that and decided to go along with his attempt to
lighten the atmosphere. "Says the guy with a veela throwing herself at
him."
He had told her about Fleur and her hints, not to mention that Witch
Weekly and Teen Witch Weekly had been speculating about his love life for
months now. Even the Daily Prophet had gotten in on it in the aftermath
of the Yule Ball, despite supposedly being a respectable newspaper and
not a tabloid. Fleur and Luna were the most common choices, though there
were also a few runner ups among his fangirls for some reason.
"I'd rank a sexy auror Metamorphmagus above a veela." Harry countered,
almost able to feel as the awkwardness diminished.
"I guess I am pretty amazing." Tonks agreed, puffing out her chest and
giving herself an extra cup size for emphasis.
"Yeah, you are." He nodded. "And not just because you have adjustable
boobs."
Her smile was stronger and more genuine this time and she held out her
hand. "Friends?"
Harry ignored the hand and went in for a hug instead. She made a brief
sound of surprise but hugged him back anyway.
Harry kept holding on far past the point when most hugs would have ended,
knowing that once he let go it would be over between them.
"Take care of yourself, Nymphadora." He said eventually.
"On account of the circumstances, I'll forgive you for using my full name
just this once." She mumbled.
"You're so generous." He mumbled back.
"And don't you forget it."
"I'll see you around, Nymphadora."
"Thin ice, Harry."
He smiled and let go. All things considered, it could have been worse.
There had been no angry accusations or screaming and they were still on
good terms, but it still felt as if he had lost something beautiful and
it hurt.
XXXXX
Dolores Umbridge knew that she was in trouble. That captured Death Eater
would squeal as soon as Bones put the pressure on him, something which
was slated to happen any day now.
She hadn't known that the man had been one of Voldemort's followers, nor
did she care. What she cared about was that Bones would come down on her
like a ton of bricks as soon as she had an excuse. The muggle loving
bitch never did have any sense of priorities. Who cared if she had tried
to have Potter killed? He was just a disgusting halfblood.
Unfortunately for Umbridge, Bones would care and there was nothing she
could do about it. The Death Eater was being held in the DMLE's private
infirmary under twenty-four hour guard. As both the Senior Undersecretary
and acting head of the DIMC, Umbridge could go to a lot of places, but
that wasn't one of them. Even if she could, she wouldn't have the privacy
to silence him. She lamented her lack of talent with the Imperious right
now. What good was the Cruciatus in this situation? None, that's what.
Cornelius might have been able to protect her even from this, but not
when Wizarding World's darling was involved. Harry bloody Potter, the
Boy-Who-Just-Wouldn't-Die. She had relied on the Minister's protection
for years now while she cleaned up the Ministry, but she hadn't forgotten
the lessons learned on her way to the top. If you had nobody to protect
you, then suck up to someone until you did. If there was nobody powerful
enough to suck up to, then you kept your head down.
Perhaps it was time to take a vacation? Just until things settled down a
bit.
XXXXX
The chapter was delayed because of reasons. Mostly because the fight
scene in the lake was giving me some trouble.
The next one will probably be out sooner. Laters.
Chapter 21
Many thanks go to Joe Lawyer for his invaluable help in tweaking

important details.
XXXXX
"There has to be some mistake." Fudge fretted, worrying at his bowler

hat.
"There's no mistake." Amelia Bones said uncompromisingly. "Welch

identified Dolores Umbridge as the one who hired him and his friends to
kill Harry Potter, Fleur Delacour and both of their hostages during the
second task."
"It had to be someone using Polyjuice, it just had to!" Fudge insisted
stubbornly. If it got out that his Senior Undersecretary had plotted the
murder of the Boy-Who-Lived, he'd be finished.
"It could be." Amelia allowed, resisting the urge to roll her eyes at
Fudge's terror of bad publicity. "But then explain why Umbridge vanished
for parts unknown three days ago."
"She's just taking some time off." Fudge blustered. "She's working two
jobs you know!"
"Seems pretty strange for a woman with two jobs to take indefinite
leave." Amelia said, struggling mightily to keep the sarcasm from her
voice. "Especially with this tournament going on."
"Nonsense." Fudge blustered some more, sweat running down his neck as he
tried to make excuses for Umbridge. "I can handle myself without my
undersecretary for a while and young Percy shows a lot of promise."
"Percy Weasley is in charge of the DIMC?!" Amelia demanded, completely

unable to hide her incredulity. "You put a wet behind the ears Hogwarts
graduate in charge of one of our most important departments?!"
"No." Fudge denied indignantly. "Dolores did. He's her assistant and the
natural choice to take over while she gets some rest on her vacation.
It'll be a valuable learning experience for him."
Amelia had to resist the urge to throttle the fat lump of stupidity that
was Cornelius Oswald Fudge. Percy Weasley was an eighteen-year-old brat
with a far too generous opinion of himself and in no way qualified to be
the head of any department, much less the DIMC. She wouldn't be surprised
if he started a war with Bulgaria over cauldron bottom thickness or
something equally stupid.
"Minister, you have to see that this is untenable." She tried a different
tack. "Just recall Umbridge and we can get to the bottom of this."
"NO!" Fudge snapped. If he let Bones get to the bottom of anything that
his Senior Undersecretary was involved with, she was sure to find some
'evidence' of wrongdoing. He was well aware of the hostility between the
two women. "Dolores Umbridge is a valued member of the Ministry of Magic
and would not have a hand in trying to kill Harry Potter! I don't want
you digging into this any more, Amelia!"
The head of the DMLE left the Minister's office foul tempered and
furious. Fudge could say whatever he wanted, but she was going to have
aurors keeping an eye out for the pink clad bitch regardless. She'd been
hoping for years to get something to pin on Umbridge and wasn't letting
the chance pass her by so easily.
XXXXX
Somewhat to his own surprise, Harry did not feel terribly depressed after
his break up with Dora. He had expected it to happen and there was no
shock when it finally did. All told, his mood did not sink much lower
than it had been since he had told her about the Joining. At the very
least the situation was resolved and they were still friends, which was
honestly more than he had been hoping for.
The means by which Dora had tested if it could still work between them
had served to aleviate some of the tension he'd been feeling, but it
crept back by the following week.
For the first time since he had carved them, Harry resented his runes. He
was simply not in the mood to have sex and admittedly somewhat
petulantly wanted to sulk for a while. A particular saying came to mind
as a good description of the situation, namely 'the spirit is willing,
but the flesh is not'. Except that in his case, it was inverted and
became 'the spirit is unwilling, but the flesh didn't give a shit'.
Harry sometimes wondered if he hadn't inadvertently given himself a very

mild form of Persistent Sexual Arousal Syndrome. Most of the symptoms
fit, except for the part where masturbation offered only minimal relief,
which he put down to the fact that his problem was half physical and half
magical.
Either way, he was not in the mood to do anything about it just yet. He
decided to use the situation to perform a bit of an experiment instead.
He had noticed that his fangirls had become bolder with their offers in
the lead up to his and Dora's break up and had eased off a bit right
after. He hadn't paid too much attention to it at first, but it didn't
take long for his curiousity to become piqued. If nothing else, it made
for a good distraction.
He started randomly attending classes that he knew his fangirls to be in

and sitting next to them, wanting to see what they would do.
As he had half suspected would happen, they got continually bolder as the
days passed. At first, they would just smile widely, entirely too happy
over the simple fact that he was sitting next to them. But as time went
on and the slow boil of his own lust worsened, their behavior changed.
Inviting smiles and smouldering looks turned to more physical
expressions. They would lean in to him to ask a question or drop a hand
on his thigh. It wasn't long before the first blatant offer of a good
time in a broom cupboard came.
He didn't limit himself to just the Hogwarts girls either, but also
deliberately sat next to some of the Beauxbatons ones during meals to see
if they would be the same. They were, though it was rarer.
The changes were much less pronounced in the younger girls. Parvati and
Lavender were still at the stage of lip biting and breathy longing looks
by the time that most of the seventh years had progressed to the point of
being physical whenever possible.
Harry had no choice but to conclude that he was indeed broadcasting a

sort of magical 'need sex, looking for girl' signal. His own rising lust
problem must have leaked into his aura and was attracting females in the
same way that an animal might use pheromones.
Considering recent events, he might have been upset by this, but his
testing had managed to conclude that it was only affecting the ones that
were already interested and not planting any foreign desires into the
girls. That was very good, because Harry really did not want to deal with
the moral quandary that he'd be placed in if it was otherwise. That one
Ravenclaw sixth year guy that had also been hinting at sexual interest
had actually put him at ease. Harry was straight as a board and certainly
would not have been soliciting gay sex, either consciously or
subconsciously, which meant that he was only emboldening people that
already wanted to get into his pants rather than anything more sinister.
There were only two outliers in his tests that he couldn't quite pin
down: Luna and Fleur.
He knew that Luna was sexually interested, she had flat out told him so.
Curiously, her behavior didn't change just as it hadn't before. He didn't
know if this was a consequence of the Joining or if it was because of the
promise she had made to her father. He knew how much it meant to her, so
it could be either one. That wasn't mentioning that she was quirky enough
to throw off his tests even without that being factored in.
Fleur had already been pretty blatant in her interest, making it

impossible to say if her lack of reaction was due to her veela heritage
or if she simply couldn't get any more obvious without shoving her tongue
down his throat. Once again, it could be either one.
It was an interesting experiment that told him he certainly wouldn't be

lacking in girls willing to help him relieve stress when he inevitably
stopped being stubborn and gave in. By the point that he figured all this
out, he was refusing to take one of them or Fleur to bed more for the
sake of curiousity than sadness from the break up. He wondered if it was
similar to a veela's Allure and what it would push the girls to do over
time.
So focused was he on this new project that the situation he currently

found himself in had blindsided him completely.
He was in one of his bi-weekly Arithmancy lessons with Professor Vector,

nothing unusual there. What was unusual was that her chair was so close
to his that their legs were touching and she pressed her breasts into his
arm whenever she needed to point something out on the paper they had on
the desk between them.
He had vaguely noticed that the teacher he'd been having detention
fantasies about for over a year now had been slightly more frazzled
lately but hadn't paid it much mind. In this latest lesson though, she
had slowly gravitated ever closer until she was pressed into him and her
presence was now radiating a desire to jump his bones.
That was...unexpected. Vector hadn't been considered a test subject for

this little project. He'd never had even a hint of an idea that she had
any thoughts in that direction, she had always been the perfect picture
of professionalism. His best guess was that she had been hiding it and
his lust soaked aura had worn away her restraint over time.
"You're not paying attention, Harry." The professor in question chided

gently, leaning in close and pointing at the equation he had written
down. "This is all wrong, if you tried to set up a ward like this it
would collapse within hours."
Well of course he wasn't paying attention. Not only was the teacher he'd
wanted to boff for so long nearly draped over him, but he also hadn't had
any sex in three weeks and was long past the point of being only slightly
distracted.
Should he go for it though, that was the question. It was plainly obvious
to him that he was going to need to pick a girl or three for the purposes
of stress relief or else become unable to think of anything but sex, but
he also didn't want to jump into another relationship. Breaking up with
Dora may not have sent him spiralling into a depression worthy of a
thrashy romance novel, but he wasn't eager to jump back into a commitment
again either.
In that respect, Vector would be perfect. She was a sweet, quiet, demure
woman and utterly uninteresting as anything other a MILF. He didn't see
himself having a relationship with any woman so 'settled' in life even if
she had been closer to his age and without the whole teacher-student
thing getting in the way.
The reasons not to sleep with her essentially boiled down to potential
awkwardness between them.
"I'm sorry, Professor." Harry said, deciding on a course of action by

placing his hand on her thigh. He would only be in Hogwarts for a few
more months anyway, so even the worst case scenario wasn't that bad and
Septima Vector really was a very hot lady. "I've been a bit distracted
lately."
Septima froze and then flushed as she felt his hand creeping up her leg.
She was not proud of it, but she was terribly attracted to her young
student. He had been a cute, if somewhat awkward kid when they had
started with these private lessons, but had grown up far too quickly into
a very handsome man. Getting invited to dance with him during the Yule
Ball and seeing him in nothing but swim trunks for the second task hadn't
helped at all. She was embarrassed by her own behavior lately, but
touching him just felt so good. Besides, it wasn't like she was going to
do anything more than that, so it was alright. He was almost like her
apprentice anyway and it was a well known dirty little secret that
masters or mistresses of their craft often took advantage of their
apprentices. She was being quite decent really.
Then his hand gripped her thigh and Septima found herself feeling not
very decent at all.
"Harry..." She tried to say, not even sure whether she was going to
protest or encourage him. It was a moot point in any case because he cut
her off with a kiss.
She knew that she really should protest where this was going, but it felt
so good that she kept delaying for just a second longer and then for
another when that second passed. Before she knew it, Septima found
herself sitting in his lap.
Finally, he broke the kiss and moved on to paying attention to her neck.
It didn't help improve her resistance any, but it did free up her mouth
for talking.
"Harry...we should...stop." She breathed out with no conviction
whatsoever. "The rules..."
"I won't tell anyone if you won't." Harry said and went back to nibbling
on her neck. His hand slid upwards across her stomach to fondle a breast
through her robe.
"But..." She tried again, for no other purpose than to appease the fading
voice of reason. The libido was firmly in the lead and leaving reason in
the dust.
"Fuck the rules." Harry growled and stood up, taking the professor with
him. The chairs went clattering backwards and a negligent wave of his
hand had the clutter on the desk following suit.
As she was pushed to bend over the desk and had her robes hiked up,
Septima decided that rules were overrated. Here was a strong, handsome,
powerful young man that could have any number of women but wanted an old
woman like her and his assertive approach was much more appealing than
rules. The life of a Hogwarts teacher could get very lonely what with
living in the castle all the time and having only the holidays to
dedicate to one's personal life. Not to mention that she had always been
the quintessential Ravenclaw bookworm with poor social skills.
There had been other students that she had found attractive but had never
worked up the nerve to act on it even in their last days of schooling
when she could have gotten away with it. Having Harry take the decision
out of her hands suited her just fine.
Harry noticed her acceptance of the situation and smiled in anticipation

as he pulled down her panties. Her lower lips were already glistening
wetly and he didn't hesitate to lean in and run his tongue across them.
Her gasp encouraged him further and he was soon licking her vigourously.
With her bent over the desk and him squatting behind her, his tongue
couldn't quite reach her clitoris, so he applied his fingers to it. There
was a particular spell he had developed during his time with Dora that
had always proven to be a big hit with the sexy Metamorphmagus and he
intended to make full use of it here as well.
Septima was perfectly happy to let him do whatever he wanted while she
lay on the desk and enjoyed herself. A quiet whine of disappointment left
her throat when his tongue and fingers retreated from her tingling groin,
but the sound of a clinking belt buckle put an end to that. The
realization that her fourteen-year-old student's member was in all
likelihood being pointed at her dripping fanny at this very moment saw
reason make a last ditch attempt to get her to protest, but it was
quickly silenced when she felt the head of it being rubbed against her
labia. No, the time for protesting was long past.
She felt herself being penetrated a moment later and couldn't hold back a
gasp of pleasure as the large male member slowly slid into her, filling
and stretching something that hadn't seen use in far too many years to
think about. Her legs shook from the sensations wracking her body once he
was sheathed all the way inside her.
Harry waited like that for a few more seconds, hiking her robes up even
further over her rump so that he could grab hold of her thighs without it
trying to slide back down. The spell he had placed over her clitoris that
forged a sensation link between it and his member had turned out a bit
too effective. He could tell that she was very close to orgasming
already.
When she wiggled against him impatiently he knew that delaying any longer
was not an option though. Screw it, so they wouldn't reach climax at the
same time. He planned for both of them to have plenty anyway, so it was
all good.
A ragged cry of pleasure escaped her throat as he pulled out almost

completely and then hilted himself back into her. Her groin felt it was
on fire and it got more intense with every thrust. By the fifth one she
was crying out loudly as a powerful orgasm wracked her body, leaving her
helpless to do anything but hold on to the desk and ride it out.
Harry paid no heed to her climax and only sped up his thrusting, his own
lust getting the better of him. Not half a minute after her orgasm, he
was groaning as his seed spurted up her vaginal tunnel.
Sweaty and satisfied, Septime confirmed her earlier thought about rules
being overrated. Sure, she'd be in some trouble with the law if it got
out that she'd had sex with a student, but it was very had to care about
that when her legs felt like jelly and she had a handsome young wizard
panting behind her with his cock and sperm filling her.
She let out a small groan as he leaned over her to whisper into her ear.
"Ready for round two?"
Septima's eyes widened. Round two?! What the hell did he mean round two?
She could barely move after round one.
Then he pulled out and rammed himself back in and the Arithmancy
professor belatedly realized that he hadn't gone soft and was apparently
not finished with her.
XXXXX
Later.
Taking deep breaths, Harry pulled out of his favorite teacher with a
groan. The sight of her shuddering backside, pubic hair matted with sweat
and sperm with streams of both running down her legs to soil her shoes
and the panties still around her ankles had him seriously contemplating
having another go at her. The refusal of his equipment to get up again
put an end to that idea though.
Instead he cast a light healing spell on Septima's groin to soothe any
aches that might be present there, followed by the ever useful
contraceptive charm. He left the mess where it was though, rather liking
the sight of what he'd done to her.
She didn't move aside from taking deep, gasping breaths as he moved
around the desk to stand in front of her. Septima was not a particularly
powerful witch, either in magic or personality and with her soul laid
bare to him her submissive bent was plainly obvious. She had enjoyed evey
moment of his control over her. That in addition to the pretty picture of
her exhausted satisfaction gave him a naughty idea.
He threaded his fingers through her sweat soaked black hair as he spoke.
"You left quite a mess on me, Professor. You should clean it up."
To his delight, she didn't hesitate to shift forward a bit and take his
wrung out member into her mouth, tiredly cleaning off the mess on it. Oh
yes, they would definitely be having a lot of fun together for the next
few months.
"I'll see you at our next lesson, Professor." He whispered into her ear
once she was done, grinning at the shiver that passed through her body.
XXXXX
Luna was reading on the bed when Harry was finished bathing. She looked
up at him when he exited the bathroom, blinked, cocked her head and asked
a question.
"Who did you have sex with?"
"What makes you think I had sex with anyone?" Harry asked back, bemused.
"You haven't really relaxed since you broke up with Nymphadora, before
that even, but you're relaxed now." She informed him factually.
Too damn perceptive. Luna always managed to see right through him.
"It was Professor Vector." If there was anyone that could be trusted to
know that it was her.
Luna's smile widened. "I'm so happy for you. I know you've wanted to put
your penis in her vagina for a long time now."
"Yes, It was very nice." Harry agreed with a nod. Not so much because
Septima had been great in bed, as the Arithmancy professor had turned out
to be surprisingly submissive and passive, but there was something to be
said for fulfilling one's naughty teacher fantasies.
"Are you going to do it again?"
"Oh yes." The sense of power as he bent a woman nearly three decades his
senior a woman that supposedly had authority over him over her own
desk also had quite a bit of appeal, so there would definitely be repeat
performances.
"Good, Nymphadora wouldn't have wanted you moping over her."
With their amicable break up, Harry figured that was true. On the other
hand, if they had parted on bad terms, she would have wanted him to get
buggered by a troll. Dora had a well hidden mean streak that didn't come
out to play too often.
XXXXX
Septima Vector was a nervous wreck when the time came for her next
Arithmancy lesson with Harry. She half expected him to tear her robes off
and take her right there on the floor.
She was ashamed to admit to herself that she was disappointed when he
didn't and instead listened attentively as she went over the finer points
of setting up a ward properly. He was her student and only fourteen to
boot...but the way he had taken her a few days ago and made her 'clean'
him afterwards had given her a thrill like nothing she'd ever felt
before. She'd never been the type to go for something like that, which
was exactly what made it so exciting.
The hours passed with no hint of what had happened between them and a
strange feeling of loss grew inside her chest. Nothing so corny as
unrequited love, because however good Harry might look, he was far too
young for her. She was just...sad to go back to the dull routine of her
life.
Their time was nearly up when his hand gripped her leg again and startled
her.
"Why so jumpy, Professor?" He asked teasingly.
"Harry, I'm not sure we should be doing this." Septima nearly stammered.
His hand was slowly kneading her thigh and thoroughly wrecking her
composure.
"Doing what?"
"You know...sleeping together." The last was said in an embarrassed

whisper, as if afraid that someone would hear even through the sound
proof door.
"Why not?"
"Harry, I'm a teacher. I could be sacked if it got out that I'm sleeping
with a student. Besides, I'm sure there are plenty of younger girls out
there for you, you don't have to settle for an old woman." The protest
felt hollow to her ears, but she felt that she had to make it for the
sake of her job. The insecurity was real enough though.
"You're hardly old, I like to think of you as 'sexily mature'." Harry
scoffed, still sounding amused.
Septima ducked her head in embarrassment, not really believing him but
flattered nonetheless.
"As for you getting sacked...well, like I said the last time, I won't
tell anyone if you won't. I thought we could have a bit of fun since
we've got this time all to ourselves, but if you don't want to..." He
trailed off and made to leave.
Septima grabbed his hand to stop him without even thinking about it.
Damnit all, she had spent the past few days practicing how she would
firmly tell him that it could never happen again but that had all gone
out the window almost as soon as he walked through the door. It had been
so long since she'd had anything in her life except teaching bratty and
often ungrateful teenagers about Arithmancy and correcting the mistakes
in their homework, with any kind of excitement seeming to become more
distant with every year.
It was a terrible idea on paper but a naughty affair with her favorite
student would break up the monotony and it was simply too tempting to
pass up. And it wasn't as if she would be jeopardizing his education
since he clearly meant for this to happen after the lessons. It could
almost be considered a reward for his hard work really...and for hers.
"No..." She whispered, blood rushing to her face in embarrassment.

"Please...I want to."
"That's what I thought." He said with a small smirk and pulled her out of
the chair and into his arms. His hand went under her robes and gently
cupped her pubic mound, where he discovered something that made his
eyebrows shoot towards his hairline. "You shaved. Is that for me?"
Septima flushed even further. She had been embarrassed about how hairy
and untended her groin had been the last time and had maybe kind of, sort
of secretly been hoping that he wouldn't take no for an answer. She could
only keep her eyes fixed on her feet and nod, face ablaze.
"I know just the way to show you how much I appreciate it..."
XXXXX
With his sexual equilibrium and therefore his ability to think clearly
restored, Harry found that there were quite a few errands that needed
to be done which he had been neglecting.
"Alright, we're here." Sirius announced as he, Penny and Harry arrived in
front of the Black Vault in Gringotts. "Why are we here?"
"I need something from the vault obviously." Harry replied dryly, waiting
as the doors slid open.
"What?" The Marauder asked.

"I'll know it when I see it."
"But you've gotta have some idea of what you're looking for?" Sirius
pressed.
"I do." Harry replied.
Sirius waited for his godson to elaborate, but he didn't.
"Alright fine, be that way. Penny, why are you here?"
"Harry wants me along to check if there's anything worth selling down

here." Penny explained.
"Ah." Sirius nodded. Who knew that his family's tacky garbage would be
worth something to eccentric muggles? It took all kinds he supposed.
"How much have we made from that so far anyway?" Harry asked as they
moved into the vault.
"Just under two hundred thousand pounds, but we haven't sold everything
yet." She answered promptly.
"Very nice." Harry said admiringly. That was some serious money and it
was well out of the reach of the greedy fingers of the goblins. It was
currently sitting in a bank account that Penny had opened for exactly
that purpose. of course, this meant that the money was technically
completely under her control and he wouldn't be able to do a damn thing
about it if she decided to make off with it, but she had never given him
any cause to doubt her integrity. Not to mention that he didn't think
that Penny was anywhere near stupid enough to make an enemy out of him by
pulling a stunt like that. It would be safe in her keeping until he was a
legal adult in the mundane world. It was a better solution than getting
his foster parents involved at least.
"Turns out that antique furniture kept in mint condition by spells is in

high demand." Penny replied wryly. The people at Christie's had certainly
been impressed by it. The original idea of selling it over eBay had
turned out to be unworkable because of the figures involved, but
furniture and the like was fortunately not scrutinized too closely. Her
explanation of representing a noble family that had fallen on hard times
and needed to sell things off but also wanted to remain anonymous had
been easily accepted. "I'm actually kind of disturbed at how quickly that
torture paraphelia we found in the basement sold."
"I hope it ends up in some nutjob's BDSM playroom." Sirius muttered.
"I should not have introduced you to the internet." Harry sighed.
"You shut your whore mouth." Sirius said with a scowl. "The internet is a
magical place."
"Uh huh." Was the disinterested reply from his godson, who was already
poking through the piles of gold and centuries worth of junk.
Penny and Sirius were left with little to do since it definitely wasn't
safe to touch anything if you didn't know what it was and only Harry
could tell whether an item was cursed or just enchanted. They busied
themselves by casting various detection spells on random stuff, but
neither were curse-breakers, so it was more to pass the time on the off
chance that they encountered something interesting.
"Huh..." Harry said to himself holding up a thin rapier and squinting at

the blade.
"Good choice, it suits your girlish figure." Sirius complimented.
"I was more interested in the spellwork on this thing..." Harry said
absently, obviously not really paying attention. "Looks like some kind of
Bloodletting Curse that prevents blood from clotting."
"Thinking about bleeding people to death?" Sirius asked.
"Nope, it was just an interesting enchantment." Not only was the blade on
the damn thing too long, but it would also be a warm day in the eighth
plane of Baator before Harry would use a weapon as emasculating as a
rapier.
"So you're looking for a dagger?" Sirius asked, seeing that Harry was now
examining a collection of shiny implements of murder.
"Pretty much."
"Why didn't you just say so when I asked the first time?" Sirius demanded
indignantly.
"Because you'd just blab it to the first pair of tits that asks." Harry
shot back mercilessly.
"Are you never going to let that go?" Sirius asked in exasperation. You
get seduced by a serial killer once and they never let you forget it.
"No." Harry said petulantly.
"Fine!" Sirius pouted. "So why'd you need a knife?"
"Because my fight with that assassin during the second task would have
been a lot simpler if I could have simply stabbed him." Of course, he
could have also tried to conjure something to stab him with, but
conjuration was a difficult enough feat to pull off even when someone
isn't trying to kill you. And he'd also forgotten.
"See anything you like?"
"Hrrrm, maybe..." Harry answered distractedly as he peered at the

collection of knives.
A couple were ritual blades which was a big no-no. Those were designed to
channel the magic of the stabbed or cut individual and could
inadvertently have all sorts of unpredictable effects if used in combat.
Certainly not something that could be used for a casual stabbing.
A few others looked promising though.
The wavy kris with some kind of weird animation enchantment that looked
as if it was supposed to make the blade move like a serpent was a
definite possibility, though it didn't look terribly practical. He didn't
want the blade getting away from him.
The rest had more normal straight blades of varying lengths. One was
cursed rather heavily and would turn against its wielder, another had the
same Bloodletting Curse on it as the rapier, still another looked like it
had a Rotting Curse attached to it, very Morgul Blade that one.
"Man, Sirius. Your family was into some nasty shit." Harry said with a
shake of his head after he spied a dagger whose only purpose seemed to be
drinking in blood through the blade and squirting it out through the eye
sockets of the miniature human skull carved into the pommel. What the
fuck would you even need that for?
"I know, why'd you think me and Andi ran away? The whole damn family was
cracked."
"Andi and I." Harry corrected, knowing it would stick in his godfather's
craw.
"Grammar Nazi." Sirius grumbled, using a phrase he had learned from his
godson.
"Too bad there's no hammers in here." Harry smirked and turned back to
the daggers. "Well hello. And what are you doing under there?"
"What?" Sirius asked, looking to see what had caught his godson's eye.
Harry carefully removed what seemed to be an iron buckler that was cursed
to crush its user's forearm and grabbed the hilt of another exotic knife
that had been under it.
"Now this, I like." Harry said admiringly, turning over the medium sized
kukri.
"What's it do?" Sirius asked curiously.
"It's a knife Sirius, it makes people bleed when you stab or slice them
with it." Harry said snidely.
"I know that, smartass." Sirius rolled his eyes. "I mean, what is it
enchanted with?"
"Nothing." Harry chirped.

"Nothing?" Sirius repeated.
"Nothing." Harry confirmed.
"I thought you wanted a magical knife?"
"I did, but all the ones here are way over the top and could kill me,
take off a finger or even a limb if I nick myself by accident. I'll just
enchant this one by myself and be done with it. Nothing too fancy;
durability, built in summoning, nasty electric shock or burn to
unauthorised users. That kind of thing."
"That makes sense." Sirius had to admit that he hadn't thought of that.
He was just glad that his godson was being careful for once.
"Hey, Penny. You done?" Harry called over to the other side of the vault
where his steward had been doing her own thing.
"Almost." She yelled back.
"What in the name of Merlin's wrinkly nutsack is that?" Sirius asked,

staring at a twisted black octopus looking thing that the former Head
Girl had found somewhere.
"That is an antique chandelier."
"Are you sure anyone is going to want to buy that?" Harry asked, staring
dubiously at the cast iron monstrosity. It only had a powerful durability
enchantment on it, that would be simple enough to remove, but it also
looked as if it would need an exorcism to purge the spirit of Cthulhu
from it before they could sell it.
"I've noticed a trend that the freakier something looks, the faster it
gets sold." Penny explained.
Both Harry and Sirius were still doubtful, but were later forced to put
up with her smug looks as it was sold in less than a week.
XXXXX
The kukri thudded into the wood, quite a bit off target. A moment later
it was pulled out and returned to Harry's hand.
He threw it again. It hit slightly closer to the target this time. It

flew back to his hand and was thrown again, landing very close to the
bull's eye this time.
"That was a good one." Luna complimented.
"More luck than skill I'm afraid." Harry said ruefully. Knife throwing
wasn't something you picked up in a day. At least the enchantments on it
prevented it from hitting hilt first though. "How are you doing?"
He was trying to teach Luna the basics of wandless magic, with limited
results so far. He had some trouble figuring out where to start.
"Not good." She pouted. "I just can't get it to move."
"Show me." Harry ordered.
Luna nodded and sat down to stare at the quill she had on the table in
front of her. A look of concentration came over her as she tried to make
it budge, but it remained stubbornly still.
"See? It's not working."
"You're just trying to will it to move." Harry diagnosed.
Luna cocked her head at him quizzically, obviously asking what else she
was supposed to do.
Harry scratched at his chin as he tried to find a way to explain things

to his friend.
"Will is good, it's a start and might do something if you're desperate

enough, but it'll be uncontrolled and unreliable. You have to make a sort
of...mental construct of what you want to happen. I'm sorry, this isn't
really helping you, is it?" He sighed.
"Not really." Luna admitted bluntly.
Harry chuckled at her directness, but was inwardly stumped at how to

convey his meaning to her. Without an ability to feel magic, all his
explanations were just so much hot air.
"Show me one again and walk me through it." She said, looking at him
expectantly.
"Alright." He nodded.
Bringing his hands together and focusing on the spell to manifest between
them, he began talking her through the process. "First, you need to know
what you want to do. The spell I'm casting right now is called Darkness,
an Evocation of the Second Circle. It will create a sphere of
supernatural shadow that no light can pierce. In order to create it, I
have to specify its radius and point of origin or else it would just
fizzle out and do nothing. I also need to have a good understanding of
the concept of completely lightless dark before I can cast it. I spent
over three hours sitting in the Room of Requirement sealed off from every
source of light before I managed it. This mental construct of what you
want to happen is essentially what a spell is before you put any magic
into it. Of course, just willing the world to darken won't do anything.
That's where the magic comes in, you have to infuse it into the spell so
that you can then superimpose it over physical reality."
With his explanation finished, he cast the spell and the room went pitch
black. Harry felt Luna nervously groping for his hand and dismissed it.
"Just throwing magic behind your willpower is more like controlled
Accidental Magic." He went on with his explanation, neglecting to mention
that he had spent years doing just that or that he still did it when he
didn't have time to think. "Accidental Magic...well, it's like throwing a
tantrum and having the Universe give in because it doesn't want to listen
to your shit anymore. That's why it generally only happens to children or
people under extreme emotional duress. It tends to be wild and
unpredictable and controlling it is very hard. It will also give you a
splitting headache more commonly known as magical exhaustion because
you're essentially trying to bully the natural order of the world into
submission instead of creating a temporary localized state of altered
reality. To summon the quill, all you need to do is imagine a tether
connecting it to your hand and triggering it. Remember that the tether
itself is not like a rope, but more of a pathway of your own personal
reality where the laws of physics do not exist, the only law that exists
is that the quill must come to your hand."
Luna nodded thoughtfully and refocused on the quill. Five minutes later
it still hadn't budged.
"You're still trying to move it with your will instead of your magic."
Harry told her.
"But how am I supposed to use my magic without my wand? I can't feel it."
Luna said plaintively.
"A wand is just a focus, a tool that allows you to draw on your magic
without needing to really work for it. It is also a crutch that makes
your thinking rigid and inflexible if you allow yourself to believe that
it's necessary. With how refined they've become and all this wand motion
shite that is being peddled these days, people barely need to think in
order to cast spells. Overreliance on wands has made wizards dull, stupid
and lazy." He lectured sternly.
Luna's face took on the look of a kicked puppy at the frustration that
had leaked into his tone towards the end and he rushed to reassure her.
"Sorry, that wasn't aimed at you." He apologized, distantly aware that

she had him wrapped around her little finger. "Look, how about we try
something else. You form the spell and I'll try to pour magic into it."
"Okay." Luna chirped, happy again. She refocused on the quill and imaged
a zig-zaggy path that the quill was supposed to take as it flew towards
her hand while Harry settled himself behind her.
"Do you have it? Remember to keep in mind the rule, the quill must come
to your hand. There is no gravity to hold it down or air resistance to
hold it back, there is only your hand and the quill." Harry whispered
into her ear, his chest pressed into her back.
She nodded, never taking her eyes off the piece of stationery.
Harry slowly overlaid his magic on her's, being careful to not think of
summoning the quill. Nothing happened, so he continued to extend his
magic deeper into her, well past the point where any normal person would
have instinctively shut him out.
Luna relaxed against him.
"Keep your focus." He warned, making her jerk a bit as she realized that
her concentration had slipped at the sudden wash of comfort. She re-
established the zig-zaggy path that she wanted the quill to follow.
A few minutes later, the quill shivered and zipped into Luna's hand in a
zig-zag pattern.
"I felt that!" She exclaimed happily.
"That's great, well done." Harry complimented.
"Maybe I'll be able to do the spell myself now." She beamed happily.
"Maybe, I want you to practice tomorrow while I take care of a few

errands."
"What kind of errands?"
"Mostly just inviting extra people along for our summer holiday."
"Isn't it rude to invite people to Fleur's home without asking her

first?"
"I've decided not to take her up on that, not yet anyway. Besides, she's
in her final year in Beauxbatons and we're leaving Hogwarts once this
tournament is finished, so nothing is stopping us from going to France
after we get back from the Caribbean."
"Okay."
XXXXX
"Harry, I wasn't expecting you." Penny said in surprise when she saw him
walk into the living room at Potter Manor.
"Of course not, I didn't tell you I'd be coming." He quipped.
She rolled her eyes at the lame attempt at humor and decided to get to
the point. "So, what's up?"
"Three things. First, I need the address where Bryanna and Tiana are
currently living." He'd never bothered to ask about that before.
"Planning to pay them a visit?" Penny asked as she wrote it down for him.
"Sort of." He shrugged. "Next, do you still have that list of businesses
that are qualified to work with basilisk hide?"
"Of course, it's in my office." She answered, getting slightly confused
now.
"Good, I'll probably need that someday soon. Finally, would you like to
join Sirius, Luna and me on that private island that he keeps boasting
about?"
"I'd love to, Harry, but I already promised my parents that I'd go with
them." Penny said regretfully.
"You could invite them to the island instead." Harry shrugged. "I doubt
we'll be short on space and I was planning on inviting the girls too in
any case. Just don't tell them where the island is, I want to keep that a
secret."
Penny's eyes widened at the offer and she quickly accepted. She already
knew that her parents would jump on the offer. A free vacation on a
private island in the Caribbean would certainly appeal to them a lot more
than having to pay quite a lot to go somewhere in Britain, though the
secrecy Harry wanted would take some convincing.
XXXXX
I'd never have expected them to be living in a place like this. Harry
thought to himself as he walked at a leisurely pace through the town of
Arundel in the South Downs of West Sussex, a name that sounded naggingly
familiar for some reason. He let it go after ten minutes of fruitlessly
trying to recall where he had heard the name before.
Bryanna and Tiana had always struck him as being more of a city-girl
sort, so this quaint little place was a bit of a surprise. Still, it may
not have been their first choice to live here since Penny had told him
that any purchases of real estate had to be done through the Ministry of
Magic because they had a list of places where wizards and witches could
settle, the controlling bastards. Arundel was only forty-nine miles away
from London, so maybe they'd just picked the closest place.
It was a nice looking house they were in though. Located on the outskirts
and comfortably big without being overly lavish. The relative remoteness
of it probably spawned all sorts of rumors about what four young women
might be getting up to, having no apparent jobs and living all by
themselves. Come to think of it, seeing a single man going into the house
was probably not going to douse those rumors any.
To his mild shock, the house actually seemed to have electrical wiring if
the doorbell was any indication. Apparently there were a few people in
the Ministry that were actually capable of subtlety. Amazing, he'd been
ready to believe that it was staffed almost entirely by inbred morons
with drool dribbling from their chins.
"Coming!" Came the muffled yell from inside as he rang the bell.
"Harry?" Bryanna asked in near disbelief, clearly having not expected to
see him. Her hair was a bit longer than he remembered it being and she
was dressed in a perfectly ordinary hoodie and sweatpants combo. The
casual look rather suited her actually.
"Hi." Harry said with a smile. "Mind if I come in?"
"Please." She smiled back and waved him in, taking a surreptitious look
outside as she closed the door.
"Problem?" He asked, amused by her behavior.
"Not really." She replied, sounding a bit annoyed nonetheless. "Someone's

been spreading weird rumors about us."
"Depraved lesbian group sex?" Harry guessed, biting his lip.
"You only just got here! How can you know about that already?" Bryanna
demanded.
"I had a trio of grannies craning their necks after me so much I half
expected them to topple from the terrace they were on." Harry explained,
trying not to laugh. "I'm sorry, but I think you might become known as
some kind of exclusive sex club before five o' clock."
"That's not funny, you arse." She huffed and slapped his arm.
"I could put an Aversion Ward on the house. It would make people think
you were the most boring thing this town has seen since paint drying." He
offered. That was the easiest ward of all to cast, not even requiring an
anchor. It also wouldn't cause enough interference to mess up the
electrical wiring of the house.
"Tone it down to just 'not worth spreading rumors about' and it would be
perfect." She said with a relieved sigh. "We tried to do it ourselves but
we're crap at those and accidentally ended up making it so powerful that
people kept getting stuck in conversation loops about whether the house
was always there or not and forgetting that we lived in it. But do tell
what you're here for first, I get the feeling it isn't a social call."
"It's not." Harry confirmed. "I come bearing a request and an offer."
"Well color me interested." Bryana said flirtatiously. "Come on down to

the basement, that's where we've got our workshop."
The stairs down were hidden behind a heavy oak door that was spelled up
to the gills with Aversion Charms, both magical and muggle. The basement
itself was much larger than the house above it, having dimensions more
suitable for a warehouse. It was well lit however, with a set of
skylights that illuminated it with faux sunlight. He could tell that it
wasn't real sunlight, but it was a pretty good imitation. A specially
modified Lumos if he wasn't mistaken.
"Very nice." Harry complimented as she led him through the half-filled
space.
"Glad you like it. The skylights cost us almost as much as the space
expansion, but it's made it less gloomy down here."
"You're making some interesting stuff." He noted, looking at a rather

provocative corset.
"That one is a bit of a pet project of mine." She admitted sheepishly.

"I've always liked what corsets do to a girl's figure, but the damn
things tend to be either too loose or too tight. I'm trying to see if
magic can turn them into something that will stay put but isn't a torture
device at the same time."
Harry reached out to touch it and the laces in the back tightened so hard
that he could hear the plastic mannequin it was sitting on cracking.
"Self-lacing charm." Bryanna explained lamely. "It's a work in progress."
"Maybe you'll model it for me one day." Harry suggested with a small
grin.
"Maybe I will." She flirted.
"Bry, is that you?" Another familiar female voice yelled from in the
distance.
"Yeah, it's me." Bryanna hollered back. "And guess what? Harry came to
visit us."
Tiana walked into view, also looking far more casual than Harry had ever
seen her with her brown curls in a sloppy ponytail.
"Harry, do what do we owe the pleasure?" She purred in greeting.
"I have a request and an offer for you girls." He repeated and then
frowned. "But the other two should be here for this too. Where are they?"
"On dates actually. Isabel is still together with her Hogwarts sweetheart
and Jade got suckered into going out with one of the local boys." Tiana
explained.
"Probably hoping to get invited to the 'orgies'." Bryanna muttered

sarcastically.
"And they left you two all alone?" He asked mournfully, secretly probing
to see if his own meddling with their souls was to blame. "No dates for
the prettier half of the group?"
Bryanna and Tiana laughed, obviously delighted by the compliment. "We

work in shifts and they just happen to have this time off. And no, no
dates for us. There just hasn't been anyone interesting enough to catch
our attention, not that we've had time to look in the first place."
"And we have each other if we get frisky." Tiana added salaciously. "But
you know that you're welcome to join us anytime, don't you, Harry?"
"That might actually be relevant for my offer." He admitted.
Their eyebrows shot towards their hairlines and they leaned in with great
interest. "Do tell."
"The request first." Harry said. "Penny tells me that you've been
dabbling with an attempt to make a sort of robe that can pass as muggle
wear at need. I want you to design something like that for me made out of
basilisk hide."
Bryanna and Tiana leaned back with stunned expressions. "Harry, we

appreciate the vote of confidence but we're not qualified to work with
basilisk hide! We'd just ruin it."
"I know, that's why I only want you to design it. I've looked over at the
designs the various hide workers are offering and wasn't impressed.
Basilisk hide is so rare that nobody has had any to work with in
centuries and dragon hide behaves more like bloody iron plates than
leather. They just don't have what I'm looking for, which is why I want
you to sketch out a robe that could pass as a long coat but that can be
closed by something more than buttons when I need it to act as armor."
"Alright, that we can do." They nodded thoughtfully and quickly developed
identical devious grins. "You know what that means, Harry?"
"What?" He asked with mild apprehension.
"It means we need to get your measurements, so strip down to your undies
and stand on that pedestal over there."
Harry strongly suspected that they didn't need him to be near naked to
measure him for an outer garment like that. In fact, he strongly
suspected that they didn't need to measure him at all since they wouldn't
be the ones making the final product, but he went along with it anyway.
Getting goosed for a while by two beautiful women really wasn't such a
terrible thing.
"Oh my, Tonks sure is a lucky girl." Tiana muttered, taking in the
changes to Harry since the last time she'd seen him naked. He had grown
up quite a bit during their final year in Hogwarts, but the past few
months had seen him move out of the stage of gangly teenagerhood and into
the territory of yummy adult maleness. If he'd looked like this when the
plan to seduce him had been hatched, they would've been fighting to jump
into bed with him instead of using it as a last resort.
To their surprise, Harry sighed. "It didn't work out between me and Tonks
I'm afraid."
"We're sorry to hear that." Bryanna said sympathetically, inwardly

already plotting the best way to get him into bed. She and Tiana had a
good arrangement going between them and toys could make up for the lack
of male sex organs to a considerable extent with magic involved, but that
line of hair leading to a tented pair of boxers was looking simply
delicious.
"It happens." He shrugged philosophically. "Serves me right for declaring

that I want to stay single and then jumping into a serious relationship
right afterwards."
"What went wrong?" Tiana asked, writing down values as the enchanted tape
measure hovered in the air over his right leg.
"Nothing specific, we just drifted apart." Harry lied.
"Why don't you tell us about this offer you had for us?" Bryanna
suggested.
"Sirius' family apparently swiped a whole island for themselves a few

hundred years back and we're going to spend at least part of the summer
on it. Aside from me, Sirius and Luna, Penny and her folks are also going
to be there and I figured that the four of you might enjoy a vacation on
a tropical island." He explained, mood picking up quickly.
"A tropical island?" They nearly squeaked, the task of measuring him
forgotten for the moment. "Where is this island?"
"That's a secret." He teased.
"Harry!" They whined in protest.
"Seriously though, it really is a secret. I'd be willing to let Isabel

bring that boyfriend of hers, but Jade's muggle boytoy is out of the
question. We'd get there by portkey and you wouldn't be allowed to go too
far away from the island, but other than that it would be weeks or even a
whole month of sun, sand and sea with house elf service included."
Harry frowned at the end of his explanation and looked at the mess around
him thoughtfully. "Speaking of house elves, would you like to borrow
mine? I've wanted to do something nice for them for a while and the only
thing they ever seem to want is more work, so it would be perfect for
everybody."
Both girls had just been thinking that the secrecy was a small price to
pay in exchange for vacationing on a tropical island with Harry while
being pampered by his house elves, but then he just had to offer to
remove all need for cleaning and cooking from their home.
Tiana snapped the tape measure together with a note of finality. "I'm
sorry if you were hoping to be done with this quickly, Harry, but you're
not. Drop the underwear."
Harry looked at her with a raised eyebrow, seeing Bryanna nodding in

agreement out of the corner of his eye. There was really only one thing
to say to that.
"Well if you insist..."
XXXXX
Meanwhile in Hogwarts...
Fleur was a bit bemused as she was led by the hand towards Harry's
personal quarters by Luna.
Harry had pulled another one of his disappearing acts today. She'd been
keeping an eye out for him and hadn't seen hide nor hair of him. Even
Luna had been notably absent all the way until lunch.
She was well aware that the rumor mill was of the opinion that the two of
them were having sex and took these disappearances as 'proof', but Fleur
knew better. Those two wouldn't be getting sticky together until the
promise Luna made to her deceased father expired. She personally thought
that it was stupid of the man to impose his worries on the girl,
especially with the sort of liberal relationship he'd had with his wife,
but would never say it out loud. It was rude to speak ill of the dead.
Still, even if Harry wasn't having sex with the quirky blond, he was
cleary doing it with someone. The way that the tension was suddenly
absent from him was proof enough of that. The problem was that this
someone wasn't her and that seriously burned the veela's pride. She'd all
but thrown her panties at him and then he went to someone else. Most men
would kill to get this kind of attention from her, but no, not Harry
Potter. If she wasn't sure that he would eventually be worth all this
bother she would've written him off as either gay or stupid already.
She also had the feeling that he had been avoiding her lately and she
didn't know why, but she was determined to get to the bottom of it.
Of course, that would require actually finding him, which had proved
problematic. But Luna had showed up to eat lunch in the Great Hall and
Fleur hadn't wasted any time in asking the smaller blonde for a private
conversation, which was how she found herself being led by the hand.
When they finally reached the room on the sixth floor, it was not what
Fleur expected. People tended to imprint their personality into their
living space over time by means of various decorations or the clutter
they left lying around. There were a few hints of Luna lying around, but
it was otherwise completely bare. No artwork, no tapestries, no knick-
knacks...even the bookshelves and desk were empty. It looked like Harry
was living out of his luggage.
"What did you want to talk about?" Luna asked as she plopped herself on
the bed, which was one of the few splashes of color in the room.
"'Arry." Fleur said directly, also sitting down on the bed. "Why 'as 'e
been avoiding me?"
"Oh, I expect that he probably doesn't know what to do about you now that
he's single and having sex with women other than Nymphadora again."
That was easy.
"Zey 'ave broken up zen?" She asked just to be sure.
"Oh yes, it was terribly sad." Luna replied. "Nymphadora can't bring
herself to relax now that she knows about the Joining and Harry isn't
putting up a fight because he feels responsible. Both of them are being
dummies about it."
While Fleur was glad for Luna's refreshingly unconcerned attitude towards
the Joining, she knew that this Nymphadora's response was positively tame
compared to how most people would react in a similar situation.
"But why didn't 'e..." Fleur trailed off, realizing how pathetic it would
sound to finish that sentence.
"Why didn't he come to you?" Luna finished it for her anyway, getting a
stiff nod from the veela. "I don't know. You'd have to ask him that."
"I would if only 'e would stop avoiding me." Fleur groused.
"You can wait for him here." Luna offered. "He should've been back
already, but I guess he ended up having sex with Bryanna and Tiana."
"...'Oo?" Fleur asked blankly, wondering if there were yet more women to
compete against.
"Two business partners with nice boobies. Harry used to play with them at
least once a week last year."
Fleur really wasn't sure what to say to that, but at least it sounded as
if this was just casual sex and not a relationship. "I will wait for 'im
'ere zen. Merci."
"You're welcome."
There were a few moments of silence...well not really silence because

Luna was humming something, but there was no talking. Then it was broken.
"Oh, I just had an idea!" Luna exclaimed. "Do you want to paint each
other's toenails? I heard that girlfriends do that for each other and I'm
sure it applies to harem buddies too."
"But we are not in a 'arem togezzer." Fleur felt compelled to point out.
"But you want us to be and I want us to be, which only leaves Harry and
he's much too sensitive about his masculinity to get his toenails
painted." Luna counter argued.
The warped logic was strangely persuasive even if the moon brained girl
hadn't gotten it 100% correct. Fleur did not, strictly speaking, want
Luna in a harem with her, but she was quite sure that attempting to
separate her from Harry could only end in tears(and possibly blood
considering the events of the second task), probably her own, so she had
accepted that Luna was there to stay.
The fact that she genuinely liked her and hadn't had a proper girlfriend
for years also played some small part in shaping Fleur's answer.
"Let me just 'op over to the Beauxbatons carriages, you British don't
know 'ow to make proper nail polish."
XXXXX
After extricating himself from the clutches of two lusty females and
making use of their shower, Harry had decided to fly to London in his
raven form and spend some time in an internet caf catching up to stuff
that he had missed in the normal world over the past couple of months.
Magic was great and he wouldn't trade it for anything, but he did miss
technology sometimes. Not being especially politically inclined, he ended
up spending most of his time reading about the recently video games that
he was probably never going to get around to playing. It was hard to get
excited about the newest fantasy game when you could throw your own
fireballs. Or if the bloated cancerous mass known as Electronic Arts had
reached out from the Pit of Inescapable Mediocrity with its slimy
tentacles and used them to repeatedly violate any good idea that wandered
into reach until said good idea was left more abused and ruined than a
top of the line sex doll shared between fifteen people.
By the time that he got back to Hogwarts, the sun was already setting and
he was eager to see if Luna had been able to repeat the feat of wandless
summoning that they had done together yesterday.
The sight that greeted him upon opening the door to his room had him
staring in pure bemusement.
"Hello, Harry."
"Bonjour."
Luna and Fleur were sitting together on the bed, apparently having been
deep in conversation before his arrival.
"Did I miss something?" He asked, still quite baffled.
"Fleur and I are having a girls day." Luna volunteered happily. "We
painted each others nails. Look!"
She extended her legs to present her toenails to Harry, which were now a
pale pink that went well with her blonde hair and complexion.
"Nice?" Harry guessed, knowing nothing about nail painting.
"Show him yours, Fleur." Luna urged.

The veela looked reluctant to Harry's gaze, but she did it anyway. He had
to bite his lip when he saw what Luna had done to the poor veela's
toenails. They looked like something that you might see while on a
psychedelic acid trip.
"Fabulous." He said, still trying not to laugh.
Fleur ignored his obvious amusement by adopting a dignified air of low

level snobbery.
"That's what I told her, but Fleur keeps insisting that less is more,
which really makes no sense." Luna said with a nod.
"We can't all be as wise as you, Luna." Harry said agreeably. This day
was turning out to be friggin' amazing.
"Hmmm, you'll have to explain what wisdom has to do with toenails later,
Harry. I'll go play with myself in the Room of Requirement while you and
Fleur talk." And with that she put on her shoes and left.
Harry wasn't sure if Luna's words were meant to be as dirty as they

sounded and figured that he probably never would. She had such a mastery
of ambiguous statements that you couldn't even tell if she was doing it
on purpose or not.
He sat down on the bed next to the veela and prompted her when she didn't
speak up right away. "You wanted to talk?"
Fleur had been trying to get Harry into a situation with a bed involved
for months, had flirted constantly and waited patiently for him to become
available. Now that it had happened though, she wasn't sure how to
proceed. Indignantly demanding why he had spurned her attention didn't
seem like a good idea.
She settled on simplicity. "I did."
"About?" Harry prompted again.
"You 'ave been avoiding me." Fleur stated neutrally. "Why?"
Harry sighed and got off the bed again, beginning to pace. "What exactly
is it you want from me, Fleur?"
The veela was somewhat taken aback by the directness of the question and
answered with a question of her own. "Eez eet not obvious?"
"Heh, I suppose it is." Harry chuckled humorlessly. "Your signals have

been pretty clear and I doubt you would've kept at it this long if you
were looking to just fuck and forget, if you'll pardon my French."
She briefly glared at him for the dig at her country and language but
decided that there were more important things to talk about. "Am I not
good enough for you?"
"Please refrain from pulling that passive-aggressive bullshit on me."
Harry said mildly. His foster parents were masters of the art and he'd
had to put up with it for years. He was rather looking forward to telling
them that their association was finished for good once the summer began.
He certainly wasn't going to put up with it from his friends. "And no, it
has nothing to do with you not being good enough."
Fleur's lips had become a thin, irritated line at his rebuke but she
didn't say anything back. She hadn't meant for that to come out like it
did. Veela were somewhat naturally predisposed towards passive-aggression
as it almost always got males falling over themselves to please them.
There was nothing magical about it, just a pure feminine power trip.
It was unfortunate that the habits learned over years of being an object
of worship for most men worked against her here.
Not wanting to feel like a scolded child in front of an annoyed parent,

she got up from the bed as well and stepped in front of him. "Why did you
ignore me zen?"
"I just got out of a relationship, Fleur." Harry explained. "I'm not
looking to jump back into one."
That was a possibility she had taken into account, but she was sure she
could convince him to change his mind. Resistant to the Allure or not,
she had never heard of a man sharing a veela's bed and not wanting to
come back.
"I understand, 'Arry." Fleur said softly, stepping so far into his
personal space that she was practically breathing against his lips. "But
could you 'elp me take care of my needs at least?"
"I would love to..." Harry said back equally softly, their lips almost
touching. Then he took a step back. "Unfortunately, I've spent the whole
day goofing off and I need to get some training done."
"What?" Fleur asked, numb with disbelief.
"I have people out to kill me, I can't afford to skimp out on training."
He explained. It was one of the main reasons that he still hadn't fucked
any of the bolder fangirls, it would wreck his schedule. The other reason
was that teenaged girls were prone to thinking that sex equaled a
relationship. That was one bit of drama he simply did not need, not when
he had a young middle aged woman bored with her life to vent his lust on.
"But..." Fleur still could not believe that she had just been so casually
rejected. That simply did not happen.
Harry saw that her state of mind was poised to shift towards anger at any
moment and thought it best to cut her off before she could build any
steam. To that end he placed his hands on her shoulders and spoke
earnestly. "Look, Fleur. You are a beautiful, vibrant and interesting
woman. A mite quick to have your pride wounded and with far too high an
opinion of anything French, but I would have been all over you since day
one if the situation had been different. But things are not different.
It's barely been over a week since I stopped moping about the
relationship I stupidly ruined, a relationship with a woman that I liked
a lot. Normally that wouldn't stop me from shagging you into next week if
you made an offer like that, but I actually count you as a friend, one of
very few that I have. It's for that reason that I'm asking you to think
carefully before making the same offer again. Next time, I will accept
it, but it won't be the relationship you're obviously hoping for. And
don't think that your veela charms will work either, I'm pretty sure they
won't. Now, I'm going to get some training done with Luna. You are
welcome to join us if you want."
Fleur stood there like a stump as he collected a few items and left the
room, her mind chewing over what he'd just said and not at all sure how
to feel about it. She was still stung from the rejection, but also
touched to be openly called a friend, not having many herself. Annoyed at
his presumption that the offer would come again, but also challenged by
his claim that her veela charms wouldn't work. About the only thing she
wasn't conflicted about was the offer of joining in on his training, so
she quickly put her shoes on and followed him.
XXXXX
Harry was surprised at how little time it took before Penny told him that
Bryanna had contacted her to say that they were done with the request
he'd given them. He'd expected a couple of weeks at least, but they were
finished in days.
They were happy to explain why it was done so quickly though.
"Turning a robe into a muggle looking coat really isn't that hard. All
you have to do is open it at the front and make the sleeves smaller. The
problem is rooted almost entirely in two things, fashion and tradition.
The British fashion for robes are colorful fabrics and decorations, while
the muggle one is simple, usually dark colors. The tradition of wearing
only underwear beneath robes is the other issue. We'd be hard pressed to
convince tradition minded wizards and witches that they should start
treating their robes as the outermost layer of clothing rather than the
only layer."
Harry nodded thoughtfully. He could definitely see that. Dumbledore in a

baby blue 'coat' with yellow starts shooting across it and nothing under
it except for a piece of baggy underwear from two hundred years ago was
an image that didn't bear consideration.
"What you asked for is easy in comparison. The basilisk hide is a dark
enough color that it wouldn't noticeably stand out from a muggle long
coat and you're obviously comfortable wearing muggle clothes. The only
problem you might have is some over enthusiastic animal rights activist
thinking that it's made from snake or crocodile skin."
"But it will be made from snake skin." Harry pointed out humorously.
"I doubt even the most die hard activist would fight for the rights of
what is essentially a magical weapon of mass destruction." Bryanna said
dryly.
"I wouldn't be so sure." Harry muttered to himself cynically. "What about

closing it when I need it to act as armor?"
"Well like you said, buttons wouldn't work since a lucky spell could
blast them off even if it wouldn't do a thing to the hide itself and
Sticking Charms are out of the question because of the magic resistance.
That's when we got the idea to line the inside with acromantula silk."
Harry could see that they were excited about that, but he was just
confused. "I'm sorry, but I don't follow. How would that help?"
Tiana seemed to have been waiting for that, as she slapped a rectangular
piece of fabric that looked quite magical to his eyes on the table
immediately after he was done speaking. "Cut it."
Curious, he dragged a finger over the fabric, holding a small magical

edge at the point of the digit. The silk parted easily and he turned to
look at them, eyebrow raised questioningly.
The girls stared at him with jaws hanging in shock. Oh right, they hadn't
known he could do wandless magic.
"You can do wandless magic?" Bryanna stuttered on cue.
"Yes. Keep that to yourselves for now, will you? I'm planning to make a
big spectacle of that ability sometime in the near future." All the
better to frighten people into not getting any stupid ideas. "Now what's
so special about this silk?"
The familiar territory snapped them out of their shock and they got their
focus back. Tiana grabbed the two pieces and held them closely together.
"Observe."
Harry observed and his eyebrows climbed upwards when he saw the two
pieces of silk slowly merging back into one.
"Tailor it properly, and you can have an inner lining of acromantula silk
that will knit itself together and seamlessly close the coat on demand.
Getting it to open again would be a bit trickier, but we know that it can
be done. Acromantula silk is very expensive though, otherwise we would've
tried working with it ourselves."
"Good thing I'm rich." He said sardonically. "Can this stuff be enchanted
with space expansion charms?"
"Sure, what did you have in mind?"
"Well you can never go wrong with pockets, but I was thinking of having a
hood sewed in to protect my head too."
"No problem."
"Okay, great. That takes care of my upper body, but what about my legs? I
don't want to lose too much mobility."
"Two ways. Either you get a basilisk hide strap that can be tied at the
waist, which will make sure your legs are covered by the coat most of the
time, or you get a pair of pants made of basilisk hide too."
Harry looked between the smiling women suspiciously. Something about that
last part didn't sound right... "Are you two trying to get me to squeeze
my arse into a pair of tight leather pants?"
"Well it is a nice arse. You've been taking good care of it and you
shouldn't be afraid to show it off."
"Yeah, how about no. I'll stick to the first option."
"Aw."
"And since we're on the topic of arses, could you girls provide me with a
dozen or so thongs, with matching bras if possible?" Septima really
needed some new undergarments. Or to be more accurate, she would need
them after he Vanished all of her frumpy granny panties.
"Harry, we had no idea you were into that kind of thing." Tiana purred
sexily.
"What can I say? I like a breeze across my cheeks." He retorted

sarcastically.
"We could give you what you want of course, but I'm afraid you'll have to
pay for it." Bryanna chimed in officiously.
Harry got the distinct impression that they weren't asking for gold.
"This situation seems kind of familiar."
"Turnabout is fair play."
XXXXX
Fred and George Weasley had been dithering over a decision for several
months now. Namely the decision of whether or not they should take the
offer that Harry had presented them with.
The joke shop idea was their baby and they really didn't want to share
ownership, but the simple fact of the matter was that they needed a large
infusion of money if they were ever going to progress past owl order
sales.
Their winnings from the bet they made with Bagman at the World Cup would
have sufficed to make a start of it, but they had learned the hard way
why it was a bad idea to make bets with people you didn't know. Being
paid to pull pranks on Draco Malfoy had seen them recover their savings
and then some, but it wasn't nearly enough for what they wanted.
The Tri-Wizard Tournament had offered another possibility of getting

their hands on some quick money, but it had picked Harry.
Their younger brother frequently grumbled jealously whenever Harry Potter

was mentioned in his presence and cast aspersions on his character, but
anyone with a brain could see that the youngest male Weasley was simply
jealous of the fact that Harry was apparently able to do whatever he
wanted with impunity. Fred and George were a little jealous themselves to
tell the truth, but unlike Ron were able to see that Harry wasn't just a
gloryhound taking advantage of his fame.
Much of their time since then had been spent in debate on the topic of
allowing Harry one third ownership of their business in exchange for even
having a proper business. April 1st had come and gone already, marking
the day that the twins were considered adults in magical society and thus
able to legally make such agreements without parental input.
So it was that they opened their most prized possession, the Marauder's
Map, and sought out Harry Potter.
"They're at it again." Fred sighed.
"Think they'll be done soon?" George asked.
"Probably, it's Wednesday so they can't have a lot of time." Fred

replied.
The Marauder's Map may not be able to tell you what a person on the map
was doing, but it did show the position of a person's feet. Fred and
George didn't think that Harry Potter could be studying Arithmancy with
Septima Vector's feet on either side of him while up against a wall.
They didn't really mean to stick their noses into what Harry was doing
with the Arithmancy professor in her quarters, but well...they were
teenagers and nosy about sex by default, no matter how desperately their
mother tried to keep them from growing up. It was hardly the first time
the map had shown them someone having sex at any rate, although it was
admittedly the first time it was a student with a teacher, if Harry could
even be called a student anymore with his awe-inspiring and ongoing show
of disrespect towards authority this year.
"Looks like they're finishing up." George noted, seeing the two pairs of
footsteps separating.
"Let's go then, to battle!" Fred declared and the twins moved stealthily
into a position near the door to Harry's room on the sixth floor.
Harry reached their position a few minutes later, once again flaunting
the school dress code with his muggle clothes as had been the norm for
him for the past few months. Truly, Fred and George envied his immunity
to the rules. The things they could do if they were too famous to be
expelled. That was possibly the only thing that Ron had gotten right
about him.
"Harry, old boy."
"Old buddy."
"Old friend."
"Old chum."
"Fred. George." Harry greeted with an amused smile, correctly identifying

each twin. It had taken quite a while to pin down which was which, but
he'd never mistake them again now that he had. The auras did not lie.
"What can I do you for?"
That was perhaps an unfortunate choice of words given who the twins knew
he had been doing mere minutes ago, but they powered through it gamely.
"We need to have a private word with you about a certain thing we talked
about back in October."
Harry's eyes narrowed minutely. There was something a bit...off about the
twins' behavior, but he couldn't tell what. They had the air of being
slightly uncomfortable. Well no matter, the fact that they had finally
decided to get back to him about the offer he'd made them was more
important. "Good, I was starting to think you two had forgotten about
that. We can talk in my room." Luna was still in Transfiguration right
now, so they'd have it all to themselves.
He opened the door and let the twins in, plopping himself into an
armchair after waving them to take a seat.
"So, you've made a decision?"
"We have." They confirmed. "We'd like to take you up on it, but first we
want to know the specifics."
"It's all very simple really. I loan you a sum of money with no interest
attached to it, maintaining majority ownership until you pay me back.
Once that happens, my share of the business decreases to a third with a
proportional amount of your profit going to my vault. You should contact
Penny for further details."
"That sounds reasonable." Fred and George admitted. They were well aware
that Harry was being exceedingly generous by not charging any interest
for his loan. "How much gold would you be willing to give us?"
"How much do you need?" Harry countered. "And feel free to quote me a
number higher than what you actually think you'll need. It won't cost you
any more in the long run.
The twins exchanged glances. "A thousand galleons should do for a start.
There's only so much work that the two of us can do in a given timeframe
after all. We may need more by the end of next year though."
"Alright then, so we have a deal?" Harry asked, getting up and extending
his hand.
"We have a deal." The twin grinned widely, extending a hand each.
Seeing the dilemma, Harry used his left hand to shake with the other
twin.
XXXXX
After that series of events life settled into a routine where nothing of
real note happened for a little while. Harry continued to train with Luna
every day and was becoming steadily more confident in his combat ability,
as well as advancing his own magical abilities. Luna herself did not make
as much progress as Harry had hoped in the subject of wandless magic. She
simply hadn't managed that breakthrough that would allow her to get a
feel for her own magic, but he was hoping it would happen eventually.
Fleur joined them frequently and provided some welcome variety to their
skill sets. She hadn't made any more offers like the one he had rejected
that day and Harry suspected that she was giving whatever plans she'd
made a careful rethink before she made any decisions. That was good.
Fleur had her flaws, the foremost of which being that she was too used to
getting what she wanted, but Harry had come to like the prickly veela all
the same. She had a drive that was sorely lacking in most magicals which
was something that he would always respect. He was not however, going to
be a prized wizard she could claim and take home with her like some
conquest from the old days. He hoped she understood that if she decided
to invite him to her bed again, or else it was liable to spark the drama
that he'd been so meticulously(but not always successfully) avoiding ever
since his first year in Hogwarts.
About a month and a half passed since the second task when Harry heard
from Penny that the Prophet had finally published the sentencing of
Royston Welch to Azkaban, but there was no mention of who had hired him.
In fact, the entire article was the written version of indistinct
mumbling, as if the article had been written only because the whole thing
couldn't be ignored. The damned Ministry was dicking around again.
He had waited patiently for the DMLE to finish investigating,

understanding that these things take time, plus the fact that their
prisoner had been badly injured and he had no idea how long it would take
to fix him even with magic. The length of the investigation coupled with
the dearth of information in an article that was already buried somewhere
in the depths of the newspaper made the whole thing stink of a cover up.
That was why Harry grabbed Sirius and dragged him over to the Ministry,
intent on talking to Amelia Bones and getting the truth out of her. He
could've gone by himself, but he was still technically a minor and he
needed whatever credibility his godfather could provide, little as that
was for people who knew him.
Of course it wasn't quite as simple as striding into the woman's office
and demanding answers...
"I'm sorry, but Madam Bones is in a meeting right now and can't be
disturbed." Amelia's secretary informed him.
"How long until she's finished?" Harry asked, not wanting to look like an
idiot that came over for no reason.
"I don't know, but she really doesn't have any time to squeeze you into
her schedule." The secretary insisted.
"It won't take us more than a minute." Harry promised.
"I guess that would be alright..." The secretary said reluctantly and
Harry got the distinct impression that only the fact that he was Harry
Potter had gotten him that concession. He also got the impression that
Amelia Bones did not lightly tolerate lordlings coming to bother her with
their shit, but then he'd gotten that impression during their first
meeting as well.
"Now what?" Sirius asked.
Harry glanced in the direction of the Auror Office, wondering if Dora was
sitting at her desk right now.
"Go ahead, Harry." Sirius said, somewhere between a sigh and a laugh.
"I'll call you on the mirror when Bones is done with her meeting."
"Go where?" Harry asked innocently.
"Don't even try it, I was doing the innocent look before you were a gleam
in James' eye while he stared at Lily during Christmas dinner in our
sixth year." The older wizard chided.
"That was oddly specific." Harry commented dryly.
Sirius ignored him and ploughed on. "I know you want to go see if Tonks
is here. Normally I'd tell you to keep at least one continent between
yourself and an ex if at all possible, but this is a special situation."
Harry gave him another look and then strode off.
Sirius simply shook his head once his godson was gone. "This is why you
don't date your cousins. It makes family gatherings damned awkward." Oh
sure, Harry and Tonks were like five times removed on the family tree and
quite possibly not even truly related if one of those was through an in-
law, but they were still bound to run into each other if they ever had a
family gathering.
XXXXX
"Working hard I see." The amused voice took Tonks' attention away from
the report about some idiot enchanting a car tire to fly off after a
certain time period. Fucking Willy Widdershins. The bastard should have
been in Azkaban for reckless endangerment already, but he got off with a
warning because it happened on an empty stretch of road instead of the
freeway.
"Harry!" Tonks exclaimed in surprise, almost jumping off her chair. "What
are you doing here?"
"It's good to see you too, Dora." Harry replied, still amused.
Tonks' hair went a bright pink and her rebellious body tweaked itself in
several minor ways to be more attractive. Perkier breasts, firmer butt,
tighter waistline...it was pretty much unnoticeable under her robes, but
it had happened. Despite everything, she'd missed him. "Of course it's
good to see you, but still, what are you doing here?"
"I came to nag Madam Bones for information about that double
assassination attempt on me." Harry sighed. "It's become obvious that the
Ministry is hoping very hard that I'll just forget about it."
Tonks grimaced. She'd gotten that feeling too. She technically wasn't
supposed to talk about the case, but..."I wasn't part of that
investigation. Bonesy and Scrimgeour didn't assign anyone to it as far as
I can tell, but we were told to keep an eye out for Dolores Umbridge, who
went on a vacation to parts unknown shortly after you hauled that Death
Eater out of the lake."
Deep inside him, shackled by runes bound to the Sun and Stars, Harry felt
the distant stirring of a hunger that was old, vast and ravenous beyond
human understanding. Or maybe he had just been hoping for an excuse to
send that toad to the Void. "You think it's related?"
"I can't say, but I can say that if Umbridge was trapped in a burning
building and Bonesy was the only one who could save her that she would
have probably misplaced her wand." That was a common sentiment actually
and hardly unique to the head of the DMLE.
"I see." Harry said thoughtfully. If Amelia Bones hated Umbridge as much
as that implied, then she wouldn't have passed up an opportunity to bury
her. He still didn't know for sure that Umbridge was involved in one of
those assassination attempts, but it was looking likely and there was
only one person in the Ministry who could overrule the head of the DMLE.
The Minister for Hire, Fudge the Oblivious. Maybe he didn't need to speak
to Bones after all. He could just go up to Fudge's office and bully the
useless idiot into letting her do her job.
"So how've you been?" Tonks asked, switching the subject.
"Can't complain." Harry said with a shrug. "Things have been a bit
routine lately, but that's not necessarily a bad thing." It was amazing
how even boning your teacher could become a routine, though he made sure
to keep Septima on her toes.
"Speak for yourself." Tonks groused, waving her hand at a pile of
reports.
"That's what you get for working for the Evil Empire." He smirked.
"At least I get to torture smug little shits sometimes." She sniffed.
"Did you sleep with that veela yet? Fleur I think her name was?"
"She offered, but I told her to think about it some more." Harry shrugged
again.
"Really?" Tonks asked in disbelief. She knew what kind of sexual appetite
Harry had and had expected him to jump into bed with his fellow Triwizard
champion within a week of their break up. More to the point, who turns
down a veela? Barring a few experiments with kissing her dorm mates
during her Hogwarts days, Tonks was pretty straight, but she might have
said yes if it was a veela coming on to her.
"She wants a relationship and that's just not something I'm willing to
give her right now." He explained. He figured that Fleur would eventually
repeat her offer and he would accept it as he said that he would. He had
been sorely tempted the last time, but had not wanted the drama of a
veela who felt entitled to him. If she offered again, she would have to
do it with the understanding that she'd only be getting sex out of it.
Considering the nature of veela, he was actually kind of surprised that
it hadn't happened yet.
That made Tonks feel kind of sad. She had been the one who couldn't relax
despite Harry's assurances that he'd never perform the Joining on her
again, he shouldn't be clinging to the memory of what they had.
"So the insatiable Harry Potter is on a dry spell?" She tried to joke.
"I didn't say that..." He replied slyly.
"Ah, now the plot thickens. How many broom closets need a thorough
cleaning?"
"None. Well...none because of me."
"What, did you bring her or them to your room?" She pressed with a raised
eyebrow. She knew that Luna lived with him, so how would that work?
"Nope." He answered smugly.
Now Tonks was just plain baffled. If not in a broom closet and not in his
room, then where? He couldn't have gone into the girl's room because of
the charms that prevented men from going there and three of the four
houses used dorms anyway.
"Who is the lucky girl or girls anyway?" She asked with narrowed eyes,
almost stepping into his personal space as her hair turned a darker
shade. Auror Tonks was going to get to the bottom of this mystery.
"It's a secret." He teased.
Perhaps unfairly, Harry and secrets was linked with 'illegal' in Tonks'
mind. Unfair or not though, it led her to the right conclusion.
"You're sleeping with a teacher?!" She hissed in surprise.
The way that his face slackened in shock confirmed it for her.
"Please don't tell me it's Sprout or McGonagall? I don't think I could

live with the mental scarring." She begged.
"The fuck? NO! The hell is wrong with you, woman?" Harry demanded in a
hiss of his own, snapped out of his shock at her guess by the horrible
imagery she'd invoked. He might appreciate an older woman, but not that
old.
"Thank Merlin." Tonks breathed in relief. "Who is it then?"
Harry hesitated before his shoulders slumped in defeat. Too late to cover
his ass now. "It's Vector."
"Vector?" She repeated with a blink. "I guess I can see that..."
"She's a very bored woman in her early forties that hasn't done anything
exciting in her entire life. She was begging me with her eyes to help
her." Not entirely true. She had been begging him with her eyes to do it
again the second time, the first time she'd been prodded into revealing
her attraction by his 'fuck me' aura.
"And you, being the hero that you are, couldn't resist." Tonks was very
amused.
"It's the duty of a hero to help those in need." He agreed. The main
character always got all the pussy, it was an ironclad rule of RPGs.
"You're so noble, I think I'm going to swoon." She punctuated this airy
statement by resting the back of her hand on her forehead as if about to
faint.
Harry chuckled and trailed off with a sigh. He'd missed Dora's sense of
humor. "You'll keep this to yourself? I don't want to get her sacked."
"Of course I will, a little hanky-panky is hardly worth causing a fuss

over." Tonks scoffed.
"Thanks." He said with a smile. "So what about you? Anything interesting
happen?"
"Not really." Tonks shrugged. "We can't all be Harry Potter."
Harry bit his lip in thought. He was about to do something that he was
100% sure Sirius would call him an idiot for, but screw it. "Listen,
we're going to Black Island for a while over the summer. Do you want to
join us?"
"I don't know, I don't get a lot of time off..." Tonks said uncertainly.
"You can join us for as long as you can or want to. For all I know, I
might get bored there and cut it short after three days myself."
Tonks wavered. A vacation in the tropics really did sound lovely... "Who
all is going?"
"Luna, Sirius, Penny, Penny's parents, Bryanna, Tiana, Jade, Isabel,

anyone that Sirius might bring and an off chance that I'll invite someone
else." Harry listed.
A couple of friends, a couple of strangers and two women that Harry would
be fucking while there then. It was a good thing that Tonks wasn't so
immature as to resent him sleeping with other women after breaking things
off between them.
"Alright, I'll take some leave." She agreed. "When are we going?"
"Somewhere towards the end of July, but it's flexible."
"Cool, I'll see how much time off I can arrange."
Harry felt his mirror vibrate at that point signaling a call from his
godfather. "Excuse me for a second."
"Harry, it's no good." Sirius said in defeat as soon as his face

appeared. "Bones says she doesn't have time to meet us and to make an
appointment. Even the famous Padfoot charm wouldn't convince her."
"Turning into a dog and humping a woman's leg isn't charm, Sirius." Harry
informed him.
"Fuck you, Harry."
"Fuck you twice."
"You want to head home now?" Sirius asked once the obligatory insults
were done with.
"No, I'm going to go pay Fudge a visit and squeeze the spineless fat fuck
like a wet tissue."
"That's an idea." Sirius admitted. "Did you meet Nymphie?"
"You'll pay for that, Sirius." Tonks growled, snatching the mirror from
Harry.
"Sorry, can't hear you. Connection is breaking up. Khhhhh." The mirror
became just a mirror.
"Radio interference on a magical connection. Good one, Sirius." Harry
said, shaking his head.
"As a Ministry auror, I'm supposed to treat any threats to our esteemed
Minister with due seriousness, but I couldn't quite hear your
conversation over all that radio interference." Tonks said sternly.
"I'll be sure to report anyone that looks to be threatening the good

Minister."
"Good. Carry on, citizen."
XXXXX
Fudge perked up when the door opened to admit the pretty witch he'd
employed as his secretary. She mostly just read the various notes and
letters sent to him and relayed the important ones, but she'd mainly been
hired because she was nice to look at. Being Minister of Magic was a
stressful job and having a bit of eye candy made the burden easier to
bear. His wife certainly wasn't up to the task anymore.
"Sir, Harry Potter is here to see you." She said and instantly eliminated
any thoughts of pretty witches from Fudge's mind.
"Send him in, send him in." Fudge said quickly, trembling with
anticipation. He hoped this would be a good visit.
The young wizard stepped into the office, thanking the secretary as she
passed him by. That got a brighter smile out of her than he had ever
managed.
"Harry, so good to see you!" He exclaimed as he rushed to shake his

visitor's hand. He was dressed like a muggle for some reason, so Fudge
assumed he'd just been in that world. The short sleeved shirt he was
wearing displayed a physique rather more impressive than he recalled. His
burned arm was also exposed, as if he didn't care about the
disfigurement. Fudge tried not to stare at it or to let on how much it
had unnerved him to touch the scar tissue.
"Cornelius." Harry greeted back. The tone was pleasant enough, but there
was something offputting under it. There was a strange look in his eye...
"What can I do for you?" Fudge asked nervously. Had Harry always been
this tall? No, he was certain that he'd been shorter during the World
Cup. Kids sure do grow up fast these days. And why wasn't he blinking?
"I was wondering how much progress had been made on finding the
instigators of the assassination attempts on me." Harry said. His tone
was still pleasant, but Fudge felt cold sweat bead on his neck anyway.
He tried to play it off. "Come now, Harry, assassination attempts? Who

would conspire to kill the kill the Boy-Who-Lived?"
"I could think of quite a few people." Harry's tone was colder now.
Dangerous. The normally large office suddenly seemed small and stifling.
He still hadn't blinked. Was it getting a mite chilly in here?
Fudge tried to find his voice, but Harry continued speaking before he
could. "It could even be someone from the Ministry, you can never tell
with these things."
The cold sweat now broke out everywhere and in greater quantities. This
was a disaster! He couldn't allow the Ministry to be implicated in a plot
to kill the Boy-Who-Lived! It would be the end of him. Even an accusation
would see his public esteem drop like a stone.
"I know that my good friend Cornelius would never have anything to do
with it of course." Harry was still talking. "But you can't be expected
to keep an eye on everyone under you. Every government has individuals
with their own agendas, wouldn't you agree?"
Fudge didn't hesitate to grab the lifeline. "Of course, it's a constant
struggle to fight corruption in the government."
"It's a good thing that you have a woman as driven and competent as Madam
Bones on the job. She's sure to keep people in line."
Oh yes, Fudge knew that Bones would indeed keep people in line. The woman
was like a bulldog, but had no understanding of how politics worked.
She'd dismiss or imprison half the Ministry and the Wizengamot if she had
her way.
It was unfortunate that she would apparently be getting her way this
time. Fudge didn't really think that Dolores had anything to do with the
incident during the second task, but that wouldn't matter if Amelia got
the chance to go after her. He couldn't protect his Senior Undersecretary
this time. He hoped Dolores would understand that it was just politics.
"I'll talk to Amelia about putting some more effort into the
investigation."
"I'll look forward to thanking the Ministry for their efforts in

uncovering the mystery of this plot on my life then."
The powerful young wizard left after that and Fudge was able to sit down
and take a breather. That had been unpleasant. He didn't remember Harry
being that intimidating the last time they'd spoken. He might have just
served Dolores up to the sharks, but at least Harry had said that he
would endorse the Ministry. As far as consolation prizes went, that one
was pretty good.
XXXXX
In the lift back outside, Harry let out a deep breath and released the
Dark he'd been pulling into himself from Arhain. It was much harder
during the day, but it could be done. He immediately felt his insides
warm up and twisted his neck to the side, producing a series of loud
cracks. Made him feel as stiff as a corpse afterwards though.
But he'd gotten what he wanted. Fucking Fudge had wasted all this time
fidgeting in terror at the thought of bad publicity and gave Umbridge a
huge head start. No wonder Malfoy spent so much time at the Ministry,
someone had to hold the idiot's leash to keep him for cutting his own
damn neck off with a bloody papercut.
"You okay?" Sirius asked in concern.
"Peachy." Harry grunted and twisted his neck to the other side, producing
another cacophony of cracking vertebrae.
Chapter 22
A couple of reviewers have left complaints about the amount of smut in

this story, saying that it detracts from the plot and such and such. I
can't let it be said that I don't listen to my reviewers, so I have
adjusted things accordingly in this chapter.
As always, credit for beta-ing goes to Joe lawyer.
XXXXX
When Amelia Bones received intelligence from her informant in Fudge's

office(this informant happened to be the secretary that the fat idiot had
hired for the express purpose of ogling her) that Harry Potter had paid
him a visit, she had wondered if perhaps she should have talked to him
and Sirius Black instead of blowing them off. She genuinely hadn't had
time then and had been irritated by their presumption to just walk into
her office without an appointment.
Then Fudge showed up some twenty minutes later, flustered and nervous,
stumbling through a permission to finally put out an arrest warrant for
Dolores Umbridge.
As a general rule, Amelia hated it when high profile people visited the
Minister's office. It inevitably led to Fudge getting manipulated or
bribed into pushing someone else's agenda.
This was one agenda that she could live with however and within the hour,
Dolores Umbridge was a wanted woman for the first time in her life.
XXXXX
It may shock people to know that Dolores Umbridge didn't handle solitude
too well.
This was not because she was any kind of people person, but because she
had an inferiority complex the size of the Swiss Alps which drove her to
constantly put other people down to make herself feel better. It drove
her to cloak herself in pink, kittens and sweetness because it was the
exact opposite of what she was. She was not even a blood purist because
she actually believed in the pureblood dogma, but because she saw their
wealth and power and wanted to be one of them instead of the halfblood
she really was.
People had turned their noses up at her for one reason or another her
entire life and a political career in the Ministry of magic had provided
all the opportunities to vent her mental issues on others that she could
ever want.
Not that Umbridge was consciously aware of any of this. All she saw was
the perfect Ministry(and by extension herself as its representative) and
knew with ironclad certainty that anyone who didn't bow and scrape before
it had to be shown their place.
With this in mind, it wasn't surprising that Umbridge didn't do the

sensible thing and hide in some secluded corner of the world like Albania
or something to wait for the situation to blow over.
Instead, she went to 'visit' her father, Orford Umbridge, an unambitious

man whom she had long ago bundled away out of sight where he couldn't
embarrass her.
Orford's family had never been wealthy but they had been pureblood and he
had been raised to hate muggles, which made the story of how he had
gotten married and had two children with a muggle woman almost romantic
if not for how it ended. If forced to answer, he would grudgingly admit
that he'd been horribly lonely and had been so pleased at having someone
to talk to that he hadn't cared that the woman who had come to talk to
him was a muggle. The prejudice came back with a vengeance when she bore
him a squib son and she had eventually left him, taking her son with her.
A young Dolores had grown up seeing the increasingly hateful screaming
matches between her parents and had internalized a lot of that.
But that was a long time ago now and Orford was very lonely again. He
hadn't protested having his daughter living with him for an indefinite
amount of time even though he was aware what a monster she had grown up
to be. It took less than a day for the sugar wrapped verbal abuse to
start, but Orford was much too old and tired to really care.
For Dolores, this was far worse than anything else he could have done. If
her father wasn't affected by her words, then that meant she was
worthless and she couldn't tolerate being worthless.
The cottage that her father lived in was next to a small village in an
out of the way corner of Britain. It was a muggle village of course and
thus filled with potential targets. Dolores Umbridge became the most
hated woman there inside a week.
By the time that a month had gone by, people were seriously contemplating
murder. It wasn't like anyone would tell the police anything about who
had killed the woman, so they could probably get away with it.
When one of the village teenagers excitedly told his parents that he'd
seen an arrest warrant 'for that pink toad woman' on an internet news
site, on charges of conspiracy to commit murder no less, they barely even
bothered to verify their son's words before calling the police.
The muggle and magical worlds might be separate, but they did have a
certain level of contact in places such as law enforcement(skewed in
favor of the magical though it was), so word reached the Auror Office
within hours. The subsequent arrest of Dolores Umbridge was a rather
undramatic affair, as the aurors stunned her before she even properly
realized what was going on.
XXXXX
"What a circus." Harry muttered as he and Sirius made their way into the
Wizengamot judicial chamber.
It was filled with wizards and witches in plum colored robes, most of
them older than dirt and probably about as qualified to be presiding over
a trial as a three-year-old with Down Syndrome. Nevertheless they were
indeed here for a trial, the trial of Dolores Jane Umbridge to be
precise. Maybe they were hoping for a free lollipop at the end?
"Why do you think I never attend the meetings?" Sirius muttered back. He
too thought that circus was an apt word for the Wizengamot. One person on
trial and over fifty judges, the vast majority of whom made decisions
based on their own private agendas rather than even the vaguest notion of
justice, could hardly be called anything else.
"Order in the chamber." Dumbledore intoned formally, quieting the murmur

of conversation that had been going on.
"The ringmaster has spoken." Harry muttered mockingly to his godfather.
Sirius snickered.
"Bring in the accused."
Umbridge walked in accompanied by two aurors that Harry wasn't familiar

with, her nose in the air and a neck that looked stiff as a board. She
aimed a short glare at Fudge but otherwise didn't look at anyone. A man
that Harry figured was her legal counsel was also with them.
A short litany of information followed; who the interrogators were, the

name of Umbridge's advocate and such.
"Criminal trial of the seventeenth of April for conspiracy to commit

murder by Dolores Jane Umbridge on Harry James Potter." Dumbledore
finished reciting. "How does the accused plea?"
"Not guilty." Umbridge said sweetly.

"Very well." Dumbledore nodded. "Madam Bones, you may present your
evidence."
"We have a confession by Royston Welch, saying that he and his friends
spoke to Madam Umbridge on the third of January, whereupon she paid them
to kill Harry Potter, Fleur Delacour and whoever their hostages for the
second task of the Tri-Wizard tournament would be."
"That hardly proves anything." Umbridge's lawyer interjected. "Anyone

could have used Polyjuice to impersonate Madam Umbridge, perhaps hoping
to frame her."
Amelia had known this argument would come up. It was practically a staple
of any trial where eye witnesses were involved. It was a perfectly valid
argument even, as people had done exactly that in the past to set up
their enemies.
But she knew that Umbridge was as guilty as sin. The toad thought herself
clever, but she really wasn't. Petty and vicious, but not clever. It
would be just like her to conduct a deal like that in person without
considering that things might go pear shaped.
For that purpose, Amelia had prepared a little 'insurance' to make sure
that she didn't wiggle out of a sentence.
"Then explain this." She said, pulling out a piece of parchment. "A set
of instructions that was found in Welch's robes, signed by Madam Umbridge
herself. The analysts have already confirmed that it was indeed she who
had signed it."
No such thing had been found on Welch of course. It was a forgery with
Umbridge's signature lifted from some other piece of parchment so that
analysis would confirm it was really her signature. If questioned, Welch
would swear up and down that Umbridge had indeed given it to him. He got
a five year sentence reduction out of it after all.
Amelia didn't enjoy being a hypocrite, but she enjoyed criminals going
free even less and both the Ministry and Wizengamot were rife with them.
If she could put one piece of scum like Umbridge behind bars by
compromising her morals, then so be it.
She had still been relatively young when she had the leadership of the
DMLE dropped into her lap. With Crouch Sr. being dismissed from the post,
Moody refusing to be promoted and all the people dead fighting Voldemort,
she'd suddenly found herself being the most senior eligible auror in the
department. They'd stuck her behind a desk with a bare few months
experience at running a sub-department, nevermind the whole DMLE.
Many Death Eaters were now 'pillars of society' because she had been too
inexperienced at the politicking involved in the position to make
anything stick to the slippery bastards.
But that had been thirteen years ago, and she had learned that it was
sometimes better to put high minded principles aside in order to get
things done.
Sitting next to his godfather in the stands, Harry's eyebrows furrowed in

confusion as the room exploded into a furor.
"Is it normal to spring evidence like this in the middle of a trial?" He

asked quietly.
"I'm not really sure," Sirius admitted. "but nobody seems to be

protesting, so I guess it must be."
Harry could only shake his head at that. This really was a circus. He
would freely admit to not knowing all the nuances of the mundane legal
system, but he was pretty sure that you couldn't just pull new evidence
out of your arse while a trial was underway.
"Lies!" The distinctive screech of Umbridge sounded through the din.

"It's a forgery! I never wrote that!"
Dumbledore had apparently decided that the excitement had gone on long
enough and issued forth a bang from his wand, calling for order.
"Madam Umbridge, you dispute this document?" He asked once things had
settled down.
"I do! Bones planted that evidence to frame me!" The pink dressed woman
said firmly.
A few people scoffed. Everyone knew that Amelia Bones was a woman of
great integrity, even her enemies.
"So the sighting of you was due to Polyjuice and the incriminating
evidence is a forgery." Said woman spoke stonily. "Then perhaps you would
like to explain why you disappeared mere days after Royston Welch was
arrested?"
"Madam Umbridge was visiting her ailing father." The lawyer answered
smoothly. "Surely your aurors reported that was where she was when they
broke into the house and stunned her without so much as a word being
spoken?"
"We can resolve this very quickly if Madam Umbridge would consent to the
use of Veritaserum. We know that she has taken no antidote and has no
skill with Occlumency, so it would be effective."
Amelia knew that her own duplicity would be revealed if Umbridge actually
agreed, but there was no chance of that happening. The whole thing was a
ruse to cast more doubt on the toad's character when she refused.
How she wished that she could implement the use of the truth potion in
all criminal investigations, but she knew that it was never going to
happen. Aside from the antidote and Occlumency, those of sufficient
willpower could also resist it, not to mention that it only revealed the
truth as the drinker saw it. Those were all just excuses though. The real
reason that Veritaserum was banned from use in criminal investigations
was because people in power were deathly allergic to the truth and didn't
want to risk having it used against them if they legalized its use.
"Veritaserum that was no doubt tampered with to get the results you
want!" Umbridge snapped back.
As arguments were thrown back and forth, Fudge sat in the Wizengamot seat
reserved for the Minister of Magic in conspicuous silence.
He really didn't want to convict Dolores. Not so much because he was

overly fond of her, but because it would set a bad precedent of
backstabbing his allies. But when he looked around the room and caught
the intense green eyes of the young wizard who had pushed him to allow
this trial to happen, Fudge knew that he didn't have a choice.
Do it. The stare seemed to say. Do it or else.
Fudge didn't want to find out what Harry would do if Dolores was deemed
innocent. The Boy-Who-Lived may not have any official standing as of yet,
but he could do a lot of damage with just a few words.
So he cleared his throat loudly to get people's attention and spoke.

"With Madam Umbridge refusing Veritaserum, her guilt seems clear. I
propose that we vote on it now."
Fudge resolutely did not look at the furious betrayal on Dolores' face as
the noble lords and ladies Wizengamot voted guilty in an overwhelming
majority. Many found Umbridge useful as a patsy to influence the
Minister, but there wasn't a single soul in the room that didn't also
find her incredibly annoying. They could always find another patsy.
"You'll regret this!" Umbridge shrieked as she saw the amount of people
that were voting guilty. "You'll all regret this!"
Harry stared at the pudgy woman as she was led away, the hatred beneath
her skin now visible as she screamed threats and insults every step of
the way from the room.
He was oddly disappointed by the whole affair. He had been hoping to

somehow contrive to trap her into a public duel to the death, but he
could hardly justify that now.
"Here comes Fudge." Sirius muttered, bringing him out of his thoughts.
Harry looked over to see that the fat idiot was indeed coming over, his
face a strange mixture of nervousness and eagerness. Well he'd made use
of the Minister for Hire and now it was time to pay up. He could already
hear the vultures outside the courtroom clamoring for a statement.
Fucking reporters.
XXXXX
Less than two weeks later, Harry found himself returning to Potter Manor
due to a summons from Penny. Apparently there was something of a
situation afoot.
Walking into the room where the situation was taking place, he could only
sigh in exasperation. What the hell was up with all the drama this year?
Sure, he had kind of volunteered for some of it with the tournament and
all, but this was ridiculous.
"Someone want to fill me in?" He suggested.
Sirius looked disgruntled and Adrastia looked amused.
"Hello, Harry. I needed to talk to you." The femme fatale said in a

friendly manner.
"But she refuses to say what about." His godfather groused.
"I refuse to tell you what it is about, because it isn't any of your
business." Adrastia riposted.
"Harry's my godson!" Sirius argued.
"And everyone in this room knows that he is more mature than you, so your
argument doesn't hold any water. Be a good boy and go chase a squirrel in
the backyard while we talk."
"I'm not leaving you alone with him!" Sirius glared.
"Her tricks don't work on me, remember? I'll be fine." Harry interjected
irritably. Sirius had moped for a while after Adrastia had dumped him
because she'd worked him over enough to get him decently infatuated, but
now that had all turned into resentment on his part. "She's probably just
winding you up anyway."
"But..."
"No buts. I'll tell you about it later if it's nothing sensitive."
"Fine." Sirius stalked out with a scowl.
"Are you regretting that you didn't let me kill him?" Adrastia asked,
smiling.
"No." Harry said snippily. "Teeny, could you please bring us some
drinks?"
Two glasses filled with colorful fruit cocktails appeared on a nearby

table, complete with drinking straws.
"You see, this is one of the reasons why you are so much better than your
godfather. You have an understanding of basic courtesy." Adrastia said
and took one of the glasses, closing her eyes as she sucked on the straw
and let out an almost sexual moan of enjoyment. "This is very good, your
elf should be proud of herself."
Harry shook his head as he took the other drink and sat down, ignoring
the stirring of his loins at her behavior. "You probably just made her
day."
Adrastia smiled. She had always been a firm believer of treating one's
house elves well. Only fools made enemies of their servants after all,
even bonded ones. Besides, they were just so earnest that abusing them
was beyond petty. "I was merely being honest."
"I assume you're here for some other reason than baiting Sirius?"
"I came to ask you on a date." She said glibly.
Harry choked on his own fruity concoction in sheer surprise. "What?"
"You heard me. I've been invited to a small get-together in Vienna that
an old friend of mine is throwing and I need a date. I can't think of
anyone better than you to accompany me there."
"I didn't know you had friends." Harry sniped.
"You wound me, my dear." Adrastia pouted sexily. "Just because my type of
friends wouldn't fit in with Britain's magical elite doesn't mean I don't
have them."
"Riiiiight." He drawled and continued sarcastically. "Anyway, it may have

escaped your notice that I'm fourteen and still in school."
"You chose to discard your childhood when you took a ritual knife to your
own flesh, do not try to hide behind your years now. You look twenty and
act like it most of the time as well. Furthermore, Sirius told me that
you are intending to use this tournament to emancipate yourself and leave
Hogwarts."
Harry scowled. Of course Sirius did. It seemed like Voldemort's Horcrux

was the only thing he hadn't told her, and even that was probably down to
pure luck since it wasn't exactly a topic you can stumble on by accident.
"Well I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I simply have no interest in going
to a party in Vienna." There were a thousand other things he'd rather be
doing, up to and including masturbating to gay porn, though just barely.
"I thought you might say that, so I made sure I had some leverage before
I asked."
Harry closed his eyes and leaned back into the armchair in resignation.
Of course she had leverage.
"What kind of leverage?"

"Did you know that I came to watch you during the second task?" Adrastia
asked idly.
"No." Harry replied, not even bothering to ask how that was relevant.
"I suppose Nymphadora didn't pass on my greetings then. A pity."
"You spoke to her?" Harry demanded, tension crawling over his frame. He
hadn't even known that the Metamorphmagus had been at the second task.
"I did indeed, though our conversation was brief." Adrastia confirmed,
paying no mind to his suddenly dangerous air. It was only to be expected.
"She was quite angry at me, likely due to a combination of her job and my
part in the trouble that your relationship was going through, however
tangential it was."
"What did you say to her?" Harry asked, his tone still demanding.
"Nothing much. We traded a few insults and I pointed out that she never
would have given you the time of day if you weren't as impressive as you
are. She walked out on me before anything meanigful could be said
really."
Harry relaxed slightly. He couldn't sense any lie and what she had said
wouldn't have pushed Dora into leaving him, though he would also ask her
about it when there was an opportunity.
"What does this have to do with your leverage?" He asked, abandoning the
topic.
"This in particular has nothing to do with it, the fact that I was there
does. I had high hopes for seeing some kind of spectacle with you
involved, but your stupid Ministry apparently didn't think things through
very well and arranged for an event where the spectators could only watch
the surface of a lake for an hour. This was obviously boring, so I left
early. Imagine my surprise upon learning that I had actually missed some
excitement when you dragged a Death Eater from the lake. I waited with
baited breath for news on this development, only to receive...nothing."
"Yeah, Fudge was blocking the investigation." Harry grunted, still

irritated by the memory.
"Yes, I do not usually pay much attention to puppets, but I have since
heard about that dumpling and his obsession with public image." Adrastia
nodded. "But it was not the Death Eater that caught my interest, but the
other assassin."
"Let me guess, you know who he is?" Harry sighed. He wasn't even going to
bother asking how she had learned about that not-exactly-public-knowledge
bit of information. The Ministry leaked information like a sieve and a
woman like her could get it easily enough, either through bribery or
other means.
"Know him?" Adrastia laughed. "I've made use of him myself. The magical
world is rather small, is it not?"
"Of course you did." Harry sighed again. "So who is he?"
"Murder for hire, nobody you need concern yourself with. It was nothing
personal." Adrastia prevaricated.
"He tried to kill me." Harry retorted tersely.
"But he failed and will not try again. That is something you should be
proud of by the way, he is rather good at what he does after all." She
said glibly. "What you should concern yourself with is who hired him."
"I would love to concern myself with that, but the list of people that
might want me dead probably isn't short."
"True, your involvement in the Dark Lord's destruction would have made
you many enemies among his followers and those whose views aligned with
his own." She agreed. "But, I am in posession of information that narrows
that list down considerably."
Namely the fact that It would take someone quite well connected to the
wider European underground to get in contact with Goran. The isolationist
attitude of Britain's wizards and witches generally restricted the
possibilites to their wealthy social elite, with whom she was quite
familiar thanks to her hobby. Cross reference that with the list of those
who were of a more morally dubious persuasion and the list became very
short indeed. Cross reference again with the list of those who stood to
gain the most and keep in mind the incident at the World Cup, and one
name suddenly stood far above all others.
Truly, Lucius Malfoy was too used to how many liberties his gold bought
him. He was not nearly as subtle as he thought he was, nor was he the
only one with connections.
"But you won't tell me unless I agree to be your date to this party?"
Harry deduced sourly.
"Intelligence is a very attractive trait in a man." Adrastia purred in

lieu of a confirmation.
Harry rubbed a hand over his face. He really didn't want to go to this
party and he didn't want to get entangled any deeper with Adrastia, but
he couldn't very well ignore the fact that someone was trying to kill
him. They'd succeed eventually and she knew it, the sexy bitch.
"When is the party?" He asked in defeat.
"On Christmas." She answered, smiling brightly. "You don't need to worry
about anything, I'll provide both the clothes you'll be wearing and the
transport."
"Fine." He agreed grumpily, glaring at his empty glass as if it had just
cast aspersions on his parentage. He had to wonder what the catch was
about this party, because he didn't believe for a moment that it was as
simple as she made it sound.
"Come now, don't be like that." Adrastia said with a sexy pout. "You'll
enjoy it, I promise."
"Whatever." Harry grunted, not really believing her. "Just tell me who's
trying to kill me."
"Lucius Malfoy."
Harry's eyebrows shot towards his hairline in surprise. But on the other
hand... "I guess I can see that, I have kind of been bullying his son
this whole year." And the man had already demonstrated enough pettyness
to retaliate against Penny for giving the stupid brat a detention.
Adrastia rolled her eyes in exasperation. "Silly fool, he wouldn't be

trying to kill you over a schoolyard scuffle. If anything, he would be
disappointed in his son for being unable to handle it himself in one way
or another. No, he is trying to kill you because you are a danger to his
ambitions."
"What ambitions am I a danger to?" Harry asked in confusion. "I couldn't

get seriously involved in politics yet even if I wanted to."
Adrastia sighed in disappointment at how dense he was. Perhaps she should

have expected this given who his godfather was, but she had for some
reason assumed that Harry wouldn't be so ignorant on the topic.
"Not those ambitions. Sirius made you Heir to the Black family, yes?"
"Yes." Harry nodded cautiously.
"And Narcissa Malfoy is Sirius' cousin, yes?"
"Yes."
"That would have made Draco Malfoy the only viable Heir to the Black
family holdings until you showed up and usurped his position. Lucius was
not likely to be pleased about having that boon for his family snatched
away by the unexpected event of Sirius being declared innocent."
"Ah, this bullshit." Harry said irritably. His grandparents' portraits

had wanted to educate him on the matter of politics between Britain's
prominent families, but he had waved them off, being utterly
disinterested in that pureblood garbage aside from when it was
immediately relevant. They had been annoyed, as his father had apparently
blown them off too, but they were just portraits and couldn't put up much
of a fight. Maybe he shouldn't have done that, but it had just seemed
like such a huge waste of time when he could be doing something more
interesting.
At least this finally explained why Malfoy Sr. had tried to get himself
included that day when he had gone to talk to Amelia Bones, he had
intended to manipulate Fudge into blocking Sirius' name from being
cleared no doubt.
"Do you have proof?" He asked.
"Nothing that you could use." Adrastia answered. Malfoy had covered his
tracks well enough for that.
"Then you could be wrong." Harry pointed out.
"Perhaps." She allowed. "But I'm not. Lucius Malfoy is the only wizard in
the United Kingdom with both the means and sufficient motive to have
orchestrated that assassination attempt. And to be blunt, he is also the
only one in his social circle that is really active instead of merely
reactive."
"You're awfully sure of yourself for someone who isn't even British." He
said cynically.
"I did spend a few years living here you know." She countered glibly. "It
behooves a woman of my particular tastes and lifestyle to be aware of
which sheep aspire to be wolves."
Harry couldn't help himself from snorting.
"Even if you're right, conjecture isn't going to let me do anything to

him." And I can't just stroll into Malfoy Manor and murder him either.
"True." Adrastia agreed, smiling.
Harry sank into silence as he considered the problem. Malfoy would

obviously have to die, he was simply too much trouble for any other
solution to be acceptable, but how to do it? What he would have really
liked would be to face the blond peacock in a public duel to the death
like he had wanted to do with Umbridge. That would be the perfect time to
show off his skill with wandless magic and terrify any would be schemers
into backing off. But he needed a reason aside from 'I want to kill him'
to set something like that up.
"Would you like some help?" Adrastia offered, sounding very amused.
Harry glared at her sourly.
She took that as a yes. "What you need to do is hit him where it really
hurts. Lucius Malfoy is the sort to be obsessed with his family name.
Throw dirt on that and he will go to great lengths to defend it."
"And how am I supposed to do that?" He asked with a sarcastically raised

eyebrow. "Even publically calling him a Death Eater will just make me
look childish."
"You really should educate yourself on the politics between the Noble
Houses." Adrastia advised. "You are thinking of the situation from the
perspective of Harry Potter the individual instead of as the future Lord
Black. Once you are considered an adult in the eyes of the law and Sirius
abdicates his position, you will have some control over Malfoy's wife and
son, who are Blacks by birth. Providing that Arcturus Black adhered to
the old ways and he was known to be a staunch traditionalist you
should be able to contrive a reason to dissolve the marriage between
Lucius and Narcissa as well as cast both her and Draco out of the family
easily enough. That would leave his wife essentially nameless and hurt
his prestige greatly as he is not himself part of the nobility. He would
have little choice but to contest it."
"And I could offer to let it be settled by an honor duel." Harry

finished, seeing where she was going with this.
"Exactly."
"And I can't tell Sirius about this, because he'd probably try to do it
himself out of some misguided notion of protecting me." It also meant
waiting until the summer and possibly giving Malfoy another shot at him,
though he likely wouldn't have an opportunity to do it anywhere but at
the third task.
"Probably."
"Why is it that every time you show up, I end up in some stupid lose-lose
situation?"
"But look on the bright side, Harry. You get to take me to a party."
"I stand corrected, it's a lose-lose situation with some extra lose
attached to it."
"So negative! Is it any wonder that Nymphadora left you?"
Harry glowered at the smiling woman. He knew that it wasn't really her
fault that he was in this situation with Malfoy just like the mess with
Dora and the Joining wasn't her fault. She'd only been removing his
ignorance after all. But he didn't know what she was playing at and he
didn't trust her.
"Who exactly is this friend of yours that's throwing this party?" He

asked suspiciously.
"Now that would be telling." She teased.
"That's the idea, yes." Harry retorted sarcastically.
"Secrets are part of a lady's charm." She deflected loftily.
"You're about as charming as a human sized praying mantis in expensive

clothes." He grumbled.
Adrastia burst into surprised laughter at comparison, unable to help
herself.
Harry watched as the beautiful witch continued laughing gaily and found
his own traitorous lips curving into a smile against his will. What he'd
said wasn't true of course. Adrastia was charming, very much so even.
That was the whole fucking problem. She wouldn't be half as dangerous if
she was easy to dislike.
It took over a minute before her amusement died down and she regained her
composure, trailing off into a final chuckle. "Oh my, I haven't laughed
like that in years. If you keep on being so entertaining I might have to
come around more often."
"I'd prefer if you didn't."
"Come now, Harry, don't be such a sourpuss. We're friends aren't we?"
"No."
Adrastia pouted playfully at the flat denial, not at all discouraged.

They may have gotten off on the wrong foot, but she knew that Harry
clicked far better with her than he did with the general population. The
party that they would be attending together should serve to mellow him
out as well.
XXXXX
Fleur gripped her wand tightly as she stared into Harry's intent gaze
across the Room of Requirement. He had no wand in his hand, determined to
fight handicapped. She would have been insulted if she didn't know it had
nothing to do with her.
Harry had intensified his own training considerably of late, giving her
the feeling that he was preparing for more than just the third task. As
they had been told what the third task would be just yesterday, she
expected him to be even more intense from now on. There was only a month
left until the 24th of June after all.
"On the count of three." Luna said in her role as referee/spectator.

"One, two, three!"
Fleur immediately started firing stunners at Harry, but he dodged easily,

his reflexes honed through months of practice. And unlike when he had
started, he barely needed to think about it anymore, leaving him plenty
of opportunity to retaliate.
Fleur saw the small swarm of Magic Missiles as Harry called them moving
towards her and put up a shield, knowing that dodging was useless. Her
reaction time was impeccable, but unfortunately premature as Harry had
made them deliberately slow in order to waste her time.
Immediately after casting the Magic Missiles, Harry started on a new
spell, a Conjuration this time. A familiar one that he had used quite a
few times already, though usually not in combat.
Fleur had realized his deception quickly, but was struck by a brief
moment of indecision. Should she keep up the shield and wait for the slow
moving magical projectiles to reach her, or should she return to the
attack?
It was enough for Harry to finish his spell and release it. Grease, a
Conjuration of the First Circle. It wasn't quite the same as the usual
fantasy game equivalent, as Harry had replaced the actual grease with
sexual lubricant. Aside from being more familiar with it(He'd bought some
Durex play gel specifically for the purpose of learning how to magically
conjure the stuff), he also didn't want to cover Fleur in flammable
material.
Fleur found herself struggling to stay standing on the suddenly slick

floor, hindering her ability to focus on the duel. More to the point, she
recognized what exactly Harry had conjured and was quite incredulous that
he would use something like that in combat.
That gave Harry all the time he needed to cast a stunner at the veela.
With her footing and focus too badly disrupted to cast a shield in time,
she took a direct hit.
The next thing Fleur knew, she was lying on the ground, looking up at the
ceiling.
"'Arry?" She said calmly.
"Yes?" He asked, amused.
"Did you cover ze floor with lubricant?" She asked, still calmly.
"I did." He nodded.
Fleur took a deep breath and got up. She was not going to give him the
satisfaction of saying how stupid that was. It clearly worked, which
meant it wasn't stupid. At least the conjured gunk vanished without
leaving a trace on her clothes and hair.
They continued with the training for the next hour. They didn't use
anything more dangerous than stunners or mild bludgeoning spells, as they
didn't want to send each other to the infirmary, but it was still good
practice. Sometimes Fleur won due to the superior casting speed that her
wand allowed her and sometimes Harry would pull off a particularly clever
trick to score a victory. They were short duels, usually only lasting a
few spells each. Contrary to popular opinion, a magical duel was usually
decided within moments rather than being a drawn out affair, the
exceptions being battles between the extremely powerful and dumb
situations like the underwater battle during the second task.
Fleur had long since asked Harry to teach her wandless magic, but he had
refused. He was teaching Luna because she was his best friend and he knew
that he could trust her implicitly. Fleur was nice, but he was not going
to hand out his secrets to every pretty face that he got along with.
Fleur had been disappointed, but she had understood. She took it as less
of a 'never' and more as a 'not yet'.
After the indignation of having her advances rejected had faded, the
veela had decided to take his advice and do some thinking.
She had realized with a measure of guilt that she had been treating Harry
the same way that most men treated veela. A prize to be taken, a status
symbol.
Fleur had always found this mindset infuriating. It was easy to see where
it came from of course. All veela were physically very similar, they had
the same silver-blonde hair, the same sky-blue eyes, the same flawless
complexion even. Put two veela whose families had not been in contact
with each other for centuries close together and you could still easily
mistake them for sisters. Furthermore, they all had the same innate
abilities and magical proficiencies. It made it easy to think of all
veela as identical clones of each other rather than individuals.
Easy or not, it was still deeply irritating to be considered as just

another representative of her species rather than as herself. It was one
of the main reasons that had pushed her into being the best and entering
this tournament.
Harry wasn't in the same situation obviously. He was what she had always
strived to be. Unique, exceptional. The source of Fleur's shame was that
she had put little effort into getting to know him aside from her efforts
at seducing him. She had wanted him simply because he was special.
Perhaps even worse, she had been working under the assumption that she
just had to get him into her bed once and he'd be hers. Even learning
about his surprising ability to perform the Joining hadn't really changed
that.
She had essentially been planning to snatch him for herself before anyone
else could, like a jealous child hoarding the cookie jar. Yes, veela were
drawn to the powerful thanks to their heritage, but this was beneath her.
Armed with this realization, Fleur had set out to really befriend Harry
instead of just doing it as a means to an end and discovered that she had
missed quite a few things.
She hadn't put much thought into how she felt about his personality
before. Once a veela chose a mate and began sleeping with him or her
regularly, their personality tended to...adjust, to better fit the veela.
They remained the same person of course, they just...became a better fit
for the veela in question. Taking a man's thoughts into account was new
territory for her, but she dealt with it by pretending that he was a
fellow veela to make it easier.
Without the reality lense of 'I'm a veela, it'll sort itself out', Fleur
discovered that Harry had several personality traits that she didn't like
too much.
He inevitably got tired of people after a certain time and retreated into
solitude. He held grudges a lot longer than necessary. He was secretive
and getting him to open up was like pulling teeth. There was an
undercurrent of quiet contempt in his regard for most people. Nothing
easily defined, but Fleur had noticed several times how he seemed to be
restraining himself from impatiently tapping his foot when someone other
than Luna or herself would come talk to him, as if he resented having his
time wasted. Not even teachers seemed to be spared from this, with the
possible exception of Dumbledore and the dark haired Arithmancy
professor, Vector Fleur thought her name was, whom she had long since
deduced through the elimination of all other possibilities as the one
that he was sleeping with.
But for all that, Fleur also found plenty to like.
He took care of those who were close to him. There was a maturity to him
that most boys didn't develop until their late teens, if not even later.
He was thoughtful and considered his words carefully before he spoke, a
trait that was perpetually in short supply. Perhaps most relevantly to
her, he had always treated her as a person instead of as just a veela.
His good looks certainly didn't hurt either.
All in all, Fleur had determined that she liked what she saw. Most of the
flaws she had noted in him so far didn't really affect her, which made
them unimportant and his positive traits more than made up for them. He
was the kind of friend she would have liked to have in Beauxbatons
instead of the acquaintances that passed for friends currently. He would
probably give her a look of derision paired with an acerbic remark if she
asked him to go shopping with her, but that was a small price to pay for
having someone that would stick around and help her if she ever got into
trouble.
In the six weeks or so that had passed since Harry had rejected her
advances, she'd become good friends with both him and Luna. The sort of
friends that were hard to come by for veela outside of their own kind.
There was only one thing missing from the equation that would make it
better and if it eventually grew into something more...well, Fleur would
consider that a win. If it didn't, then she would still have a handsome
male friend to have sex with and that wasn't something to be turned down.
She was already long overdue to sate her needs and if she waited any
longer, she was going to have to pick some random boy to have her way
with or else she risked her Allure getting out of hand. That was
something that she really didn't want to do. It would be the equivalent
of settling for stale bread when there was a freshly baked loaf right in
front of her.
"'Arry, could we talk?" Fleur asked at the conclusion of their last duel,
glancing towards the cheerfully spectating Luna. "In private."
She didn't really have any particular objection to the younger blonde's
desire to watch them having sex, veela not being at all ashamed of their
sexuality. it would probably be beneficial to convince Harry to allow it
sometime in the future actually, since Fleur was certain that Luna would
become a staple of Harry's sex life as soon as she turned sixteen. That
was one girl that knew what she wanted and wasn't afraid to say so, which
was something that Fleur could respect.
But it wouldn't be today. Harry hadn't grown up with a veela's

sensibilities and wouldn't be comfortable with an audience. Fleur would
try to loosen him up in the future, especially if things progressed like
she hoped and a real relationship grew between them. Gabrielle would need
someone to teach her about being a veela in a few years and she knew that
her mother would suggest that she do it, as practice for her own
daughters.
Rather than being upset at the implied request that she leave the room,
Luna beamed happily at Fleur. "Have fun!"
Fleur couldn't help smiling. That girl really was a gem.
"Sure." Harry agreed. He had a feeling that this was coming and wasn't
surprised.
"I 'ave thought about what you said." Fleur said casually, stepping
closer to him.
"Reached any conclusions?" He asked, now looking down at her.
"Oui." She confirmed, sliding her hands up his chest and then his neck so
that she could pull him down for a kiss.
"Alright then." He wasn't going to question her any further if she was
certain. What would happen would happen.
Fleur let out a low sound of enjoyment from her throat when their lips
met. She had always known that Harry was powerful, but knowing it and
getting to taste it were two entirely different things. The hour was late
and his magic had long since turned cold, but her body burned with need.
Harry was a bit surprised at how aggressive Fleur became after their
first kiss. He was used to taking the lead during sex and it seemed that
so was Fleur. This should be fun.
The two of them quickly divested each other of their clothes and stumbled
towards the bed that the Room of Requirement had provided for them.
Harry was intending to lay Fleur on her back, but she had other plans and
shoved him onto the bed. Eyebrows raised in surprise, he took in sight of
the panting veela standing at the foot of the bed. She truly was
magnificent.
She also took the opportunity to get a good look at him and licked her
lips at the sight. Yes, this was definitely the right thing to do. Even
if everything went wrong later, it would be a crime not to have at least
one night with him.
She joined him on the bed, going for a quick kiss before impatiently
migrating further south.
Harry let out a surprised groan of pleasure when she took him in her
mouth, having not expected her to go there quite so quickly. She wasn't
quite as good at it as the now rather practiced Septima, but there was no
faulting her enthusiasm.
Fleur did not actually care right now how good she was at it. All she
cared about was bringing him to orgasm as fast as possible. The small
taste of his magic that she'd gotten from the kiss had left her aching
for something more substantial and she was determined to get it.
A not much talked about facet of magic was that all bodily fluids carried
some of it. It was the reason that blood was held in such reverence by
wizards and witches everywhere, in a manner completely separate from any
notions of blood purity, though it was no doubt a factor in how that
nonsense got started.
But blood was a vampire's fixation. For veela, a wizard's seed and its
instrinsic connection to sexuality was their main interest.
With the effort Fleur was putting into it, it didn't take long before
Harry was reaching orgasm.
She ignored his warnings and barely heard his pleasured groan as his seed
filled her mouth. She barely even registered that it actually tasted a
bit sweet rather than the expected salty flavour. All of that was
irrelevant compared to the sheer potency of the magic held in it. It was
like nothing she had ever tasted before and she greedily guzzled it all
down and then kept sucking on his member as if it was a straw, wanting
more.
Harry groaned in near pain when she didn't let up. He had felt her magic
swelling in strength when she had swallowed his sperm and realized that
perhaps the blood of Lilith wasn't quite as thin in the long dead Succubi
Queen's veela descendants as he'd thought. Fleur's magic now roared
against his own like a furnace, firing up his runes as if the damn Sun
was actually up.
He wasn't willing to just lay there and be a meal for her though. He'd
gotten rather fond of the dominant position and wasn't going to concede
it so easily. He reached down to grab Fleur's head and flipped them over
so that she was the one on her back. The move fortunately also took her
enough by surprise that he was able to liberate his member from the
vaccum grip her lips had had around it.
"My turn." He growled, grabbing both of her hands and pinning them to the
bed. Fleur momentarily glared bloody murder at him but rationality
quickly returned and she smiled invitingly.
"I am all yours, 'Arry." She purred, bucking her hips towards him.
He gave her a quick kiss just like she had done to him earlier and moved
down her body. Unlike her however, he did not immediately dive for the
prize between her legs even though he really wanted to. Instead, he
stopped at her nipples and began teasing them with his teeth and tongue,
making sure to keep her arms and legs pinned the whole time.
At first, Fleur was content to enjoy it. Then she started bucking
impatiently when he didn't move forward after the first thirty seconds.
By the time that a minute had passed, she was actively fighting to escape
his grip on her, complete with the occasional bit of French vulgarity.
Harry meanwhile was taking glee in tormenting her like this. Fleur was
clearly used to being in control during sex. That was perfectly
understandable, as the combination of Allure and her rampant sexuality
had no doubt railroaded everyone she'd ever slept with into submission.
That made taking control away from her all the sweeter and she couldn't
do anything about it because he was considerably bigger, heavier and
stronger than her.
By the five minute mark, her magic was making the air around them
noticeably hotter, her struggles were downright violent, her groin had
become slick with her juices and her words had turned into an almost
birdlike screech that rang with magic. The most amazing thing however,
had to be the appearance of something that Harry had originally taken to
be fur, but had soon identified to actually be a fuzz of downy feathers.
Perhaps unwisely, he decided to continue teasing her. Not only was this
transformation utterly fascinating, but her reactions were just too sexy
for him to want to stop just yet.
He kept at it for another minute, the feathery fuzz getting thicker with
every second and her arms grew actual feathers.
Then he felt a sharp, stabbing pain in his hands and instinctively jerked
them away, setting the lust maddened veela free.
She immediately used the opportunity to spin them around so that he was
once again on his back and straddled him. He barely had time to realize
what had happened before she impaled herself on his painfully hard member
with a triumphant screech.
He gasped in shock at the incredible, unnatural heat surrounding him. The

sensation was beyond incredible and he knew that he wasn't going to last
long. Eyes still wide with surprise at the turnaround, he took in the
inhuman creature that was now riding him with a violent intensity.
Her whole body now sported a light covering of silver fuzz, with larger
feathers growing from her upper arms. Her fingers were tipped with
curved, bloodstained talons. Her head remained mostly clear of the fuzz
except for a bit at her ears, but the face itself was somewhat different
than normal. It was sharper and somehow crueler, though that could be the
effect of her now black eyes.
"Join with me." She said in French with a strange, melodious echo to her
voice.
Harry somehow knew what she wanted even though he couldn't understand the
words and he could easily feel the powerful compulsion in them. It was
like phoenix song turned into speech and he doubted that there were many
people alive who would be able to resist it.
He was one of them, thought it was debatable whether that was down to how
he had altered his own soul or to pure willpower. It was a moot point in
any case as he had no intention of refusing.
He sent his magic out to embrace hers as their climax approached. He felt
her walls clamp around him like a vice as her magic flared more brightly
than ever and he released into her with a loud groan, her own cry of
pleasure belonging more to a bird than a woman.
For the first time, Harry experienced what it was like to perform the
Joining with someone who could do it themselves, however wild and
uncontrolled. For a few glorious moments, he had an instinctive
understanding of Fleur the likes of which even a lifetime of conversation
wouldn't impart. Her Light washed through him like a river of flame,
pushing back the Dark as if she was his very own Sun.
On Fleur's side, things were a little different. With the way that Harry
had been teasing her, rationality had nearly fled her completely. There
had been only desire and raw need, instinct having gone completely beyond
control and turning her into a slave to her own lust.
Finally having him inside her had helped, but she had still completely
forgotten that he couldn't understand French. She had barely managed not
to simply shriek at him like a bird as it was.
Having his powerfully magical seed shooting into her had been every bit
as intense and wonderful as she had hoped and had set off the most
powerful orgasm she'd ever had in her life.
Lost in her own pleasure, she didn't even realize that her eyes had
slipped shut and her focus turned to the soul of the man now Joined with
her.
His magic had always both intrigued and frightened her and now she saw
why. Patches of it were almost like a veela's, but so much more raw and
haphazard, looking almost crudely attached to his soul. And in the
darkest depths of it, she saw what looked like an endless black pit that
was constantly drawing in everything it could reach and only being held
back by a prison of burning starlight. Even as she stared into that black
abyss she felt it pulling on her now that she was Joined with Harry. It
was like standing on top of a great cliff and looking out into eternity
and seeing the death of all things. But she knew instinctively that it
had to be there, or else there would be nothing to keep the fires in
check. A precarious balance between Light and Dark that Harry could no
longer live without.
And then the moment passed and Fleur collapsed on Harry's chest, panting
for breath as the veela transformation receded. The knowledge of what
she'd seen during the Joining slipped away from her mind as if she was
trying to hold on to smoke, leaving behind nothing but a vague dread on
Harry's behalf.
For several long minutes neither did anything except lay quietly in the
afterglow.
Then Harry took a deep breath and released it. "Wow."
Fleur giggled, inordinately pleased with herself for getting that

reaction from him. "Are you regretting your decision to reject me ze
first time?"
Harry hummed and ran a hand over her bottom. "No, I think this is
better."
It was only then that he felt the stinging in his hands and brought them
closer for a look.
"I am sorry." Fleur said guiltily as she saw the cuts on them.
"Quite alright, I was kind of asking for it." Harry reassured her and
focused on a healing spell. His runes had already started the healing
process, but there was no reason not to speed things up. In a few
moments, the small wounds had closed, leaving behind only thin scars.
"Oui, you were asking for eet." Fleur agreed, remembering how maddening
it had been to have her breasts played with when all she wanted him to do
was plow her.
She had pushed herself up a bit on his chest to look at him when she said
that and could suddenly do nothing but stare. There in the middle of
Harry's forehead was a scar in what could only be a runic shape, though
one she was unfamiliar with and there were two more circular ones on his
temples. Looking down, she found his chest littered with rune scars of
various design, his chest hair not really doing that great of a job
hiding them.
"'Arry...what are zese?" She asked quietly, running a finger over his
chest and the scars on them.
Harry's hand stilled where it had been fondling her bum. In a distant
sort of way, he realized that he should be having a minor panic attack
right about now because of this new development, but for some reason he
wasn't. Some lingering effect of their Joining made him feel that this
wasn't too big of a deal despite the fact that he knew that it really,
really was.
"Ritual scars." He said with an unthinking casualness that even he was

inwardly incredulous about. "They're a secret."
Fleur knew that she should be shocked. Rituals of this nature were highly
illegal after all. Somehow though, it just didn't seem very shocking. She
wanted to ask more, but the same lingering understanding that kept
Harry's mind from instantly leaping towards damage control kept Fleur
from digging into it. Secrets were dangerous. He would tell her
eventually.
"They are sexy." She purred instead, lifting herself back up to a

straddling position.
Harry grinned back at her and placed his hands on her hips. "I'm glad you
think so." Then he flipped them over. "But I'm on top this time."
XXXXX
Later.
After several more rounds and an equal number of Joinings performed,

Harry and Fleur were lying exhausted in the bed provided by the Room of
Requirement, spooning contently. Neither one was intending to leave the
bed until morning.
"I could get used to zis." Fleur murmured, more satisfied than she had
ever felt in her life. Her magic was a glorious song echoing in her
bones. The cold of Harry's that had once intimidated her was now familiar
and soothing. "Will you come to France wiz me?"
"Maybe after the summer is over, I already have plans during it." Harry
murmured back.
Fleur was immensely disappointed to hear that. "What plans? And 'ow would
you come to France after ze summer when you 'ave school?"
"I'm not coming back to Hogwarts next year, so I'll be able to go

wherever I want." He answered the latter question first. "And there's a
bunch of us going to a private island that Sirius' family owns."
While Fleur was considerably cheered up to hear that he wouldn't be stuck

in this drafty castle for the next few years, she was still disappointed
to hear that she wouldn't have him around during the summer. Although...
"A private island..."
Harry grinned at her wistful sigh. She was doing that blatant hinting
thing again. "Would you like to come too?"
"Yes!"
He chuckled at her eager response, inwardly wondering if he was setting

himself up for an explosion. There were going to be a rather large amount
of women that he was/had been sleeping with on that island. Eh, screw it.
Whatever happens, happens.
The thought of things happening brought to mind something rather
important. "Crap, hold on a second. I need to cast a contraceptive charm
on you."
This time it was Fleur's turn to chuckle.
"What's so funny?" Harry asked.
That made her laugh into the pillow.
"What?" He pressed insistently.
"Oh 'Arry, zose charms do not work on veela." She answered, still
chuckling.
Harry froze. "Come again?"
"Veela need a special potion to prevent pregnancy." She explained. A

veela getting pregnant was an event that had less to do with a man's
sperm finding an egg than it did with a magical transfer. The sperm
itself was still required, but as a vessel for the magic rather than to
fertilize the eggs. It was the reason for their low fertility rates, all
female offspring and inability to become pregnant with non-magical men,
though Fleur wondered if Harry's potency and ability to perform the
Joining might not increase the chances of pregnancy considerably. It was
probably a good thing that he had reminded her actually. "Do not worry, I
'ave some in my room back at ze carriages."
Harry breathed a sigh of relief. "Don't scare me like that."
"I am sorry." Fleur said insincerely.
XXXXX
Four weeks later, on top of the Astronomy Tower at three in the morning.
It was a beautiful night, Harry thought. Cloudless and clear, with the
stars shining brightly.
He was going to miss this bloody tower. It was a great place to think. In
fact, he would probably miss this tower the most out of everything in
Hogwarts.
Well...maybe not quite as much as Septima, but you couldn't really

compare the two. He couldn't fuck the Astronomy Tower and he couldn't
think on top of the Arithmancy professor.
Today was also the last time he would have one of his private lessons
with Septima. He patted the object in his pocket and smiled. It would be
interesting to see how much she had learned.
Their arrangement hadn't ended simply because he was now also sleeping
with Fleur after all.
XXXXX
Later in the day.
Septima was currently teaching her last class of the term, the sixth
years. It contained all the more serious students who had passed their
OWLs and decided to try for a NEWT in Arithmancy. It was usually a very
routine class to teach, she had long ago worked out a curriculum for all
five years worth of students that she taught and deviations only happened
once in a blue moon.
Today was very different though. Today she had to teach the class while
experiencing a constant state of fear that had her insides squirming.
Fear that her moist folds would squelch obscenely for all to hear
whenever she took a step. Fear that one of the periodic drops of vaginal
fluid wouldn't trickle quietly down her legs but instead soak through her
underwear to land on the floor with an audible splat. Fear that someone
would be able to smell the musky scent of arousal wafting from between
her legs.
She had never felt so alive.
Harry had done some pretty bold things since they started their sordid
affair.
He had taken her on every piece of furniture she owned in the castle, as
well as in her bath. There wasn't a single spot left in her room that
didn't bring back memories of what they'd done there.
He had Vanished her underwear and presented her with an alternative that
he found more appealing. Septima had never spent any notable amount of
time among muggles and had certainly never seen undergarments so...small.
She had been reluctant and embarrassed to wear something like that, but
had to agree since the only other choice Harry had left her had been to
go naked. The first few days of wearing them had been like a naughty
adventure that made her feel as if she was playing a dirty joke on
everyone. Now she couldn't believe that she'd ever been comfortable
wearing the unflattering, baggy 'granny panties' as Harry had called
them.
He had made her masturbate while he watched.
He had decided that since she gave him lessons in Arithmancy he would
also give her lessons, and began teaching her how to relax her throat
when she serviced him with her mouth so that she could take all of his
length. Coincidentally, they had switched to four lessons per week
instead of two since then.
For every new thing he did, she raised a token objection before accepting
it, like they both knew she would. She was enjoying having her boundaries
pushed too much to do anything else.
But this latest stunt took the cake, she would remember it until the day
she died.
Flashback
Septima wasn't one of those people that were still half dead when they
woke up, but she did like to come to her senses gradually.
She wasn't granted that luxury today, as a hand was placed over her
mouth, making her scream into it and thrash instictively.
"Shhh. Calm down." A familiar voice said soothingly.
Incredulous blue eyes stared into amused emerald green. What the blazes
was Harry doing in her room? Before the crack of dawn no less if the lack
of light streaming in from her window was any indication.
"That night shirt looks good on you." He complimented, reaching out to

give her nipple a light pinch through it.
Septima flushed. He had been the one to give her the sheer, shimmering
garment and insisted that she wear it to bed. Not that she had a choice
after he had Vanished all of her old night gowns, contemptuously calling
them 'granny wear'. She didn't mind though, it was sexy.
"Get on your knees and lift your arse into the air." He ordered, finally
taking his hand away from her mouth.
"Harry, we can't!" She protested, sitting up on the bed. "Someone will

see you leaving my room." She wasn't the only teacher living in this part
of the castle and Harry being seen leaving her room at this hour was a
lot different than if it happened after a scheduled Arithmancy lesson.
"You let me worry about that, now do as I said."
She obeyed as they both knew she would. No matter how much anything new
he did scared her, the exhiliration always won out.
She crawled to the center of the bed on all fours and lifted up her rear
end while pressing her cheek into the bed. The nightie slid across her
body until it was around her armpits, leaving her almost completely
exposed. She felt him hook his fingers into the waistband of the g-string
that was her only lower body garment and pulled it down around her knees.
As a finishing touch, she felt a petrification spell take hold and lock
her into place. Her vaginal opening drooled obscenely.
"Excited, are we?" He asked teasingly.
Septima felt another rush of blood go up to her face. She couldn't help
getting wet when he was like this.
A finger gently probed her folds and made her shiver in anticipation.
Then it retreated and she heard the unmistakable sound of it being
licked. She shivered again.
"Mmm, still as tasty as ever."
If she could have, Septima would have jiggled her bum impatiently.
To her immense surprise, she felt a slick, spit covered digit being
pushed into the tight ring of her anus. Before she could even properly
register exactly what Harry had just done, she felt a spell go off and
spray her bowels with something gooey and viscous.
She tried to lift her head and demand an explanation, but the
petrification kept her still and silent.
"Don't worry, I'm just getting you ready." He said leisurely.
Septima's eyes widened as much as they could in her current state and she
panted for breath fearfully. Surely he wouldnt? That was too dirty! Her
insides clenched tightly with terrified arousal.
Something cold, metallic and much smaller than his member was slowly
pushed into her spell lubricated hole. It was even smaller than his
finger. A strange mix of relief and disappointment filled her as she felt
the metal 'hook' at the other end of the object settle comfortably into
the crack of her buttocks. Why had he even bothered to lubricate her for
something that tiny? She could barely feel it.
"I'm sure you're wondering what I just put inside you." Harry said
conversationally.
Of course she was, but the petrification didn't let her say so.
Harry was obviously aware of this and continued speaking. "It's called a
butt plug."
Well it was certainly in her butt, but she wasn't feeling particularly
plugged.
"I modified it quite a bit though. See, it's shrunk at the moment for
easier insertion, but if I do this..."
Septima's eyes widened as the object began expanding until she felt the
cool metal touch the walls of her rectum. It had previously been too
small for her to get a feel for its shape, but now she could tell that it
curved ever so slightly upwards and was bulbous towards the end instead
of a uniform size. The lubricant he had previously conjured in there
spurted out of her as the space in her rectum was taken up by the steel
intruder and she flushed further in embarrassment at the obscene sound.
It wasn't over yet though, as the now aptly named butt plug became just a
little bit larger and then shrunk a bit again.
A whimper escaped the Arithmancy professor's throat as it continued to

expand and contract in tiny increments, stretching her just a little
further each time.
"Don't worry, it won't keep getting bigger indefinitely." Harry assured
her. "Though it will keep expanding and contracting until I remove it.
And I do mean when I remove it. It's cursed you see and won't allow you
to do it yourself. I suppose you could get someone like Dumbledore or
maybe Snape to break the curse, but I somehow doubt you'd be willing to
do that."
Septima whimpered some more. She was going to have that thing stuck in
her bum until he decided to take it out.
"Don't worry about going to the bathroom either. There's a Vanishing

Charm on it specifically targeted at human waste. You do not want to know
what a bitch it was getting that right."
Oh gods, Septima wasn't sure if she could take much more of this. Harry
had done some pretty bold and embarrassing things to her before, but this
made it all seem as tame as knitting a sweater.
Harry leaned over to whisper into her ear then, his breath tickling her
skin. "Enjoy the butt plug, Professor, because it's final exam day and
you'll need the practice to get an Outstanding."
End flashback
He had left the room then, leaving her petrified on the bed in more ways
than one. She knew that the chances of someone barging into her room and
seeing her in that compromising and helpless position was nearly nil, but
that didn't help assuage her terror of it happening anyway. She knew that
he had done it on purpose, knowing full well what the fear of being
caught would do to her.
The petrification spell wore off after about fifteen minutes and she was
able to get her wand. An few awkward detection spells cast on her rear
end had confirmed his words. The butt plug was indeed cursed. Benignly
cursed but still cursed. There was also a low powered cushioning charm on
it that Harry hadn't mentioned, which she guessed was there to prevent
discomfort or injury. She could almost admire the skill with which the
multi-layered enchantment had been applied, but the fact that it was
lodged up her arse rather distracted her from that.
The day had been pure torture. Learning to walk normally without letting
on about Harry's 'gift' had been a chore. Trying to eat breakfast with
the steel intruder slowly massaging her anal cavity, stimulating
erogenous zones she'd never known existed and leaving her constantly
horny, had been nerve wracking. Teaching classes knowing that with every
passing minute it was getting closer to the time that Harry would come to
replace it with his member and plunder the last hole of hers that he
hadn't taken yet had made it difficult to focus on what she was teaching.
She couldn't help loving it, the obscenity of it all only making the
experience better. She'd never have been brave enough by herself to do
any of the things he'd done to her, but she had at least thought about
most of them. This though...she'd never even considered anything so dirty
and erotic. The entire day was spent in a state of fear and anticipation.
She had no idea how she was going to be able to teach him any Arithmancy
with that hanging over her. But she knew that she would have to, he
wouldn't let things progress until she did. That was sometimes as
frustrating as it was admirable.
The class finally ended and the brats were too blessedly excited about
the summer to ask any questions, leaving her able to gingerly sit down
for the first time since it had started. Sitting down only made things
worse though, as the intruder in her rectum was pushed a bit deeper and
forced Septima to stifle a cry of pleasure, but her legs ached too much
to stay standing.
Expand. Contract. Expand. Contract. It just never ended, a ceaseless

rhymth that kept her in a constant state of arousal but was too slow to
bring her to orgasm. She wanted to plunge her hand under her robes and
rub herself until the relief came, but she knew that Harry wouldn't take
it easy on her just because she had tired herself out beforehand. And
their lesson was in the evening, when there were no more classes. He
wouldn't have a limited amount of time, he would take her over and over
until he was tired.
Septima shuddered and inadvertently clenched, gripping the butt plug as

if it was Harry's member. She could hardly wait.
XXXXX
The last private lesson with of the year with Harry inevitable arrived
and Septima could barely pay attention to the Arithmancy she was trying
to teach. The minutes ticked by in a blur of frustrated arousal.
"Looks like we're out of time." Harry said musingly and got up.
Septima all but pounced on him, pulling him down and attacking his lips
with her own.
"Well someone's eager." Harry chuckled into her neck as he pulled her
robes over her head.
"You have no idea what you've been putting me through all day." The
Arithmancy professor panted back, now dressed only in the black bra and
thong that he'd brought her. "People kept asking me if I was alright and
suggesting I visit Poppy because I looked a little flushed!"
"You know you loved it." Harry smirked back, reaching out to give her
nipples a light pinch after removing her bra.
Septima cried out in pleasure and redoubled her efforts to get him naked.
His shirt flew off first, followed by his shoes and finally his pants.
This left her in a familiar kneeling position, staring at his erect
manhood.
"Time for your oral exam, Professor." Harry said, deliberately using her
title to highlight just how improper the situation was. "Let's see how
much you've learned."
Septima was almost vibrating with impatience by now, hours and hours of
having a steel butt plug stimulating her arse having left her desperate
for the main event, but she knew that he wouldn't allow her to skip the
foreplay.
She took him in her mouth without protest, gradually going deeper until
his head hit the back of her throat. With the benefit of repeated
practice, she was able to suppress her gag reflex and keep going until
her nose was buried in his pubic hair. The pleased groan he let out as he
threaded his fingers through her hair made her close her eyes in
enjoyment while she continued deep throating him, moving up and down his
member in a practiced rhytm that allowed her to breathe something close
to normally. Her groin may be gushing and aching with need, but the sense
of pride she felt at being able to please him would tide her over until
his was his turn to please her.
A few minutes later, she felt him tensing up and digging his fingers into
her scalp. She took him as deep as she could and sucked on it while
spurts of thick, hot spunk were fired down her esophagus. His loud groans
in combination with the butt plug nearly had her orgasming then and
there. When he was done, she moved back and licked off what remained of
his faintly sweet discharge.
It used to taste salty, but Harry had switched to a much more fruit heavy
diet when she had mentioned it. She would have swallowed it all even if
he hadn't done that since it hadn't tasted horrible even before, but she
was touched by his consideration anyway. She hadn't even known it was
possible to change the taste of a man's sperm that way. The things
muggles researched...
"Outstanding work, Professor." Harry breathed out. "You've clearly been

paying attention."
"I had a good teacher." She replied coyly, getting rising to her feet. It
was a good thing she had a thick carpet covering the floor, or else this
would have been murder on her knees.
"My turn to taste you now." He growled, herding her towards the bed.
"You don't have to..." Septima tried to protest. She was more than ready
for the main event.
"I insist." Like hell was he going to pass up an opportunity to lick her
soaking cunt. He'd been looking forward to it all day.
The Arithmancy professor didn't protest again as she was laid down on the
bed with her rump on the edge. Her shoes and socks were quickly pulled
off and thrown away, followed by her sopping wet underwear. Harry was now
kneeling by the foot of the bed with her legs spread to either side of
him.
"You really are eager." Harry commented with a grin, seeing how wet she
was. There were traces of wetness all over her groin and even her upper
thighs.
Septima didn't say anything, merely bit her lip and flushed, glad that he
couldn't see her face right now.
Harry wasn't content to leave it at that though. "Did you enjoy having
this thing in your arse all day?" He asked, using a single finger to push
the butt plug further into her.
Septima cried out in surprised pleasure and answered quickly before he

decided to torment her any further. "Yes, I liked it!"
"I thought you might." He chuckled and leaned forward to run his tongue
over the length of her groin before focusing on the more sensitive parts.
Septima could only shudder in pleasure at his ministrations and clench

the sheets in her fists. Combined with the occasional poke at the butt
plug, it took less than a minute before she was moaning out her release.
"Mmm, tasty." Harry commented while she was recovering. "Get on all
fours."
She obeyed unhesitatingly and crawled to the center of the bed even
though her legs were still shaking slightly from the long awaited orgasm.
She felt a tingle along the nerves of her vagina and clitoris. He must
have used the Share Sensation spell again and was stroking himself in
preparation. She squirmed impatiently as the bed dipped under his weight.
"Hmm, I think I'm going to need some extra lubricant before getting to
the main event." He said musingly, rubbing the tip of his member along
her soaking labia. "How fortunate that you have so much."
"No..." She protested weakly. She wasn't sure if she could survive being
taken from behind with the butt plug still in her rectum.
But he wasn't listening and slipped inside her with ease. Septima
released a surprised scream when she felt his member and the butt plug
rub against each other through her inner walls. She could only bunch up
the sheets in front of her and sink her teeth into them when he started
thrusting.
Looking down at the woman keening helplessly into the sheets she was
biting, Harry just couldn't help himself from escalating a bit further
and grabbed hold of the butt plug. As the curse on it was cast by him, it
didn't resist when he started gently moving it in and out.
Septima's world went a bit fuzzy from the overabundance of stimulation.

She felt so full and her coherence was lost in an endless sea of
sensation. The rising tension of a coming orgasm suddenly released and
darkness encroached on her vision. A series of grunts as Harry released
into her was the last thing she heard befor her eyes rolled into the back
of her head and she lost consciousness.
"Professor?" An amused voice was calling but it didn't matter because
everything just felt too good.
"Septima?" The voice tried again. She recognized Harry this time.
"Wha' 'appened?" She tried to ask, slurring terribly. Her jaw and gums
ached.
"You passed out." Harry told her, amused.
"I did?" Septima asked numbly, still getting her bearings. She wasn't on
her knees anymore, but flat on her belly.
"Yes, you did. Very rude of you too, we aren't done yet." He said
sternly.
Oh. She could still feel the butt plug in her arse.
"I don't think I can take any more." She said pleadingly.
"Of course you can, Septima. You're a big girl." He replied dismissively.
"And I know you want it. Just tell me what exactly you want and I'll take
care of the rest."
"Harry..."
"Just tell me what you want."
"...I want you to...put it in." She stammered out shamefully.
"That's not good enough. You need to be concise, Professor."
Septima stayed silent, too embarrassed to say it.
"If you want to stop..."
"No!" She quickly protested. "Please..."
"Please what?"
"...Please fuck my arse." She whispered and buried her face in the
sheets, mortally embarrassed.
"I couldn't heeeear youuuuu~." He sang teasingly.
"Please fuck my arse!" She snarled and once again buried her face in the
sheets, feeling as if there was no blood left below her neck.
"That's what I wanted to hear."
She felt him grip the butt plug and slowly pull it out. The bulbous tip
made her whimper as it stretched her slightly more in its passing, the
worst of it being when it passed through her anus. When it was finally
removed and her rectum was left clear for the first time all day, Septima
thought she'd feel relieved and she did, but the gaping emptiness of her
bowels was also strangely unpleasant now.
A finger was placed on the rim of her stretched hole and a new coating of
lubricant was conjured. Harry then climbed on top of her and placed the
head of his member against the hole that she had never considered as
anything other than an exit before today.
"Get ready." He whispered into her ear and began pushing in.
XXXXX
"Oh, Harry. What have you done to me?" Septima sighed lazily when they
were finished, draped over Harry's chest. "I used to be such a proper
woman and now I've got your cum dribbling out of my arse."
"You were bored to tears being a proper woman." Harry pointed out. "And I
can clean that up for you if you want." Casting this close to another
magic user wasn't a problem here since she wouldn't be trying to fight
him.
"Please."
A few moments of focus later, Septima felt something akin to a cold

breeze pass through her bowels and clean them out. "Thank you."
"You're welcome."
"But you're right, I was bored to tears being proper." She chuckled. "I'm
going to miss this during the summer."
"Septima, I'm not coming back to Hogwarts next year." He said softly.
Her head snapped up in shock to stare at his eyes. "What? Why?"
"There's nothing much left for me here." He explained. "I mean sure, you
and Professor Babbling can still teach me a few things, but other than
that I'm making better progress on my own than listening to any of the
classes. It's just not worth it for me to stay here any more."
Septima surpressed the almost instinctive 'what about me?' that sprung to
the forefront of her mind. That response would have nothing to do with
his education and everything to do with her desire to keep their affair
going. There was an unspoken 'no strings attached' agreement between them
and she wasn't going to complicate that. Thinking of it objectively, she
had to admit that Harry was right, Hogwarts really didn't have much left
to offer him.
Even she didn't have much left to teach him that he couldn't learn either
by self-study or through practice. He had revealed his wandless magic to
her some time ago and she had been astonished and excited to figure out
how Arithmancy applied to it. The disappointing answer was not much, as
wandless magic was apparently more art than science. This had allowed
Harry to skip a great deal of things that she would have insisted on
teaching most students and he had progressed well past NEWT level already
in the rest. That enchantment on the butt plug was actually a good
example of spellwork that no Hogwarts student should have been capable
of.
"What will you do then?" She asked instead.
Harry shrugged under her. "I was thinking of travelling a bit. There has
to be more to the world than just Britain."
"That sounds nice." She said, thinking of her own dull life. A dull life
that she might be going back to if Harry wouldn't be around anymore. It
was an utterly depressing thought.
"What about you?" He asked.
"What about me?" She asked back unhappily.
"I don't think you'd be happy going back to being just Septima Vector,
Hogwarts Arithmancy teacher." He elaborated.
He really believed that too. He'd noted a sharp rise in the potency of
Septima's magic over the past few months. She definitely enjoyed being
submissive during sex and got off on having someone stronger make demands
of her and push her boundaries, but it had somewhat paradoxically helped
boost her confidence as well. She wasn't quite the same woman that she
had been a few months ago and there had been no soul manipulation
involved either.
"I've never really been anything else." She said pensively. "I spent a
couple of years working for the Ministry after I finished Hogwarts but
then I heard that the Arithmancy post was free and came back. I've been
here ever since."
"I'm not saying you have to leave if you don't want to." He said,
grinning mischievously. "Maybe you can pick another student to play
with."
"Harry." Septima said, scandalized. But on the other hand...
"Or maybe two students." Harry went on, ignoring her protests as usual.
"I hear the Weasley twins do everything together. I'm sure you could
teach them a thing or two in their last year. Maybe you could even try
your hand in the dominant role for a change and show them the price for
breaking the rules. I could get you a leather corset, a whip and a set of
crotchless panties."
"You are horrible." She moaned, hiding her face in his chest. Now she
couldn't stop thinking of holding the two jokesters back after class and
giving them some...encouragement in their studies. They could sandwich
her between them, identical cocks taking one hole each... "Horrible!"
"I know." He grinned. "And I should probably be going. Keep the butt
plug, I've removed the curse on it so you can play with it any time you
want now."
Septima glanced at the item in question as Harry got dressed and already
knew that it would be seeing a lot of use. She might have spent the whole
day terrified that her dirty secret would somehow get out, but it
certainly hadn't been boring. The gleam of firelight reflecting off its
steel surface seemed to be beckoning her even now...
XXXXX
Meanwhile, in the Beauxbaton's carriages.
"You look different, happier." Apolline Delacour said as she took in her
daughter. "Did you finally get that man you wanted?"
Fleur smiled at the thought of Harry. "Not exactly, we have an

arrangement."
"An arrangement?" Apolline repeated skeptically. Veela did not have

'arrangements' with anyone except other veela.
"I know what you are thinking, but Harry is different." Fleur told her
mother. "He is immune to the effects of the Allure and the Joining." She
would not mention that he could perform the Joining himself. Some things
were simply not talked about, even to one's mother.
"I see." Apolline said, blinking in surprise. If that knowledge

circulated to the right people, there would be veela the length and
breadth of Europe seeking him out for joyrides. "But how can that be?"
"He is just...so strong." Fleur shivered as she said it, remembering the
power that filled her every time they slept together. And he had unreal
stamina thanks to those runes of his.
He had eventually explained those to both her and Luna and they had sworn
to keep it secret.
Apolline grinned at her daughter's reaction. That young man must really
be something special to have affected her so. She couldn't wait to meet
him.
"You are obviously infatuated with him." She said, still grinning. "Does
he not feel the same?"
"He doesn't want to be in a relationship right now." Fleur answered

evasively.
It was more complicated than that of course. Harry had apparently decided
that he liked being single more than being in a relationship. Or perhaps
he simply didn't want things getting too serious for fear of failure. Not
to mention the omnipresent specter of Luna's own claim on him. Then there
was his separate arrangement with his Arithmancy professor, which she
knew he was having sex with at this very moment.
Fleur would not deny that she would be pleased if Harry decided to make
theirs an official relationship, but she was also happy with what they
had now. She didn't care about his promiscuity, it being less of a
concern for veela than it would for a human woman. They were friends who
had sex together and that was fine for now and for the foreseeable
future. He would settle down eventually and she intended to be there when
that happened.
And even if it didn't, Fleur had already determined that she would stay
with him. She was happy and that was what counted. Eventually, she would
want children and hoped that he would agree to be the father even if he
didn't want to be involved in their upbringing. She sincerely doubted
that she would ever be satisfied with a lesser wizard now that she had
been with Harry, so it really was the only course of action available.
But that was years in the future and not worth worrying about right now.
"He will not come to visit us in France then?" Apolline asked with a
frown.
"Not over the summer, but he does want to travel and it shouldn't be hard
to convince him to make a stop in France and spend some time with us."
Fleur said and then hesitated. "Also, he invited me to join him on a
private island in the tropics that his godfather owns..."
Apolline grinned again. "And you want to go?"
"Maman, I am staying in Britain, with 'Arry." She hadn't outright asked

Harry if she could live with him yet, but she had been feeling out how he
felt about it during conversation and she was sure that he would agree to
let her move into his manor. She didn't want to be left behind when he
eventually decided to enact his travel plans.
Now Apolline had to struggle to keep her jaw from dropping. Her English
hating daughter wanted to stay here? Harry Potter must really be
something else. In fact, this was sounding worryingly like how a wizard
would act after a veela decided to take him as a mate.
"Fleur, you know what these British think of us." She said delicately.
"I know, but it will only be for a few months. I will go with him and
Luna when they start travelling. You know how I thought about becoming a
curse-breaker? Well this sounds much more exciting."
Apolline was still worried about her daughter but recognized that there
was nothing she could do about it at the moment. Fleur was an adult and
would know the symptoms just as well as her, so if she was determined to
go down this course then she could only support her. Though insidious and
skewed in the veela's favor, the Joining made for some very happy spouses
as long as they were taken care of. She would want to meet Harry Potter
for herself, but Fleur was a smart girl and wouldn't recklessly throw
herself under another's power.
If that was even what was going on and this wasn't just regular teenage
infatuation. Veela weren't completely exempt from that growing pain even
if they weren't human, it just functioned differently.
XXXXX
You may have noticed that there is about three times as much smut in this
chapter as there was in the last one.
Now I'm not being a liar here, I really did take to heart the words of
those reviewers complaining about the porn and adjusted things
accordingly. And by accordingly I obviously mean that I added more porn.
I did this because my heart bleeds for those among you that are unable to
handle the written descriptions of two(or more) people having sex (or
being unable to scroll down the page if your delicate sensibilities
suffer fatal damage), so I've given you more chances to build your
character.
Some may argue that I'm being an asshole by doing this or that all this
porn is completely unnecessary, and they may be right, but I'm sure these
same people will take great comfort in knowing that their opinions are
utterly irrelevant. I know I do.
On another note, not much Luna this chapter. I didn't have many places to
put her and the chapter was getting ridiculously long anyway.
Chapter 23
Much credit to Joe Lawyer for his services as a beta and sounding board
for ideas.
XXXXX
Fleur woke up at the crack of dawn as usual but didn't open her eyes yet,
choosing instead to smile into Harry's chest and enjoy the moment.
She felt his manhood stirring shortly afterwards and knew that he was
also awake. Her smile widened as he questing hand found it and started
fondling it to full readiness.
Harry stiffened under her and she knew why. They weren't alone in the
bed, Luna having joined them shortly after they were finished having sex.
He was uncomfortable with her doing this while Luna was in bed with them.
But she didn't stop, smiling cheekily at him as she shimmied under the
sheets. His attempts to stop her while also not waking up the other girl
were entirely ineffectual and she had him in her mouth in short order.
Fleur relished the sense of power as she worked towards getting her
morning treat. Harry liked to take control most of the time, so having
him helpless like this was something that she was determined to enjoy.
A few minutes later, his hips made an involuntary jerk as he discharged

into her mouth and Fleur held back a guttural moan as she swallowed his
sweet tasting and potent sperm. Her body flushed with energy and her
magic bloated in strength as if it had been given the mystical version of
an adrenaline shot.
"What the hell?" Harry demanded quietly when she crawled back up to
cuddle him.
"Ze third task eez today and I will need ze boost to compete against
you." Fleur justified with a smirk. Doing that always made her horny, but
she knew that he wouldn't want to do it with Luna in bed with them, so
she would wait.
"Won't that wear off before it starts?" Harry questioned wryly.
Fleur's smirk widened. "I will 'ave to do eet again later zen."
"I suppose I could allow it, in the interest of international magical

cooperation of course."
"That sounded like it was fun." Luna suddenly commented, her eyes still
closed.
"Good morning, Luna." Harry said with a sigh. He'd felt her wake up just
as Fleur was finishing.
"Good morning, Harry." Luna said, sitting up and yawning. She paid no
heed to the fact that she was nude and displaying her small breasts for
all to see.
"Bonjour." Fleur used the all purpose French greeting, also sitting up
and paying just as little heed to her nudity as Luna.
"What was it like having Harry's penis in your mouth?" Luna asked out of
the blue, making the wizard in question palm his face in exasperation.
"Tasty." Fleur knew that being a veela made the experience different for
her, but he really didn't taste at all bad even without factoring in the
magic surge.
"I'm going to take a bath." Harry said before the two of them could start
any weird conversations. They got along far too well.
"We will join you." Fleur said brightly.
"Give me ten minutes." He said as he got out of bed.
"Alright." The veela said, only slightly put out. She knew that Harry
needed his space or else he got grouchy and irritable.
"Are you going to play with your penis, Harry?" Luna asked, cocking her
head to the side like a curious puppy.
"No, I am not going to play with my penis." Harry sighed.
"Was it something I said?" Luna asked Fleur cluelessly as the bathroom

door closed.
"Non, I zink 'Arry was just uncomfortable. 'E does not know what to do
about your interest in sex." Fleur explained.
"Oh." Luna said, blinking dreamily as she considered that. "But he

doesn't have to do anything if he doesn't want to."
Fleur had to chuckle at the way the other girl's mind worked. Even if she
asked for things, she never got upset if someone didn't want to do them.
To her it was simply common sense that you couldn't make other people do
anything if they didn't want to, so it followed that it was ridiculous to
get upset over it. What a lovely place the world would be if everyone was
like her.
"Don't worry, Luna, everyzzing will turn out fine." She reassured.
"Okay." Luna chirped. "Can we practice kissing while we wait for Harry's
ten minutes to be over?"
"Oui." Fleur said with a smile and scooted closer to the younger girl
that she was sure she would one day be sharing Harry with. They had
become good friends over the past month so the prospect was far from
unpleasant.
XXXXX
In one of those feats of perfect timing that only happened in anime and
ill-considered fiction, Harry's basilisk hide coat was delivered shortly
before the third task was set to begin.
This feat of unbelievable timing was mostly due to Sirius convincing

Penny that it would be a nice surprise to spring on Harry. And also
because Sirius was a big man-child and wanted to keep the coat for
himself for a few days, despite the fact that it was too big for him.
Harry couldn't really blame him for that as it really did look cool.
Bryanna and Tiana had outdone themselves with the design and the hide
worker had been able to turn it into reality perfectly.
It was a very dark grey color and didn't reflect light quite as much as
normal snake skin, though the scales unmistakably came from a snake. The
nearly fist sized scales would probably baffle anyone who didn't know
about the size of the basilisk that had donated them however.
The coat itself hung down to his ankles and was quite a bit thicker and
heavier than Harry had expected it to be, but maybe he should have
expected it since it was primarily armor. It wasn't unbearable, but it
wasn't something that he'd want to wear just for the sake of wearing it
either. The acromantula silk lining the inside felt very pleasant on the
skin though, especially with the temperature regulating charms on it.
It had several pockets both on the inside and outside, all of them
enchanted to be much bigger than they should be. A similar pocket-like
slit on the inner side of his back hid a deep hood that was enchanted to
cast most of his face into shadow when worn.
A pair of comfortable basilisk hide boots completed the outfit.
"How do I look?" He asked.
"Intimidating." Luna said dreamily, staring up at his shadowed face.

Aside from his lower jaw, the only thing that was visible about him was
his eyes. "But you would have to grow a goatee if you ever plan on going
evil."
"I'll keep it in mind." Harry grinned wryly and took the hood off. "Now
let's see how this closing thing works..."
He took hold of the open front end of the coat and peered at the strip of
acromantula silk that was sown into it. It was a bit harder to decipher
the enchantment since the silk was already innately magical and muddled
up the signature a bit, but it didn't take too much effort to make it out
since the enchantment was rigidly structured and the innate magic was
more 'freeform'.
"A Severing Charm? Self-targeted too and...conditional? Ah, I see. It

activates when you pull on it hard enough. Clever." He muttered. It would
act a lot like a zipper or velcro strap.
"There's another bit of acromantula silk hidden here." Luna pointed out,
dragging her finger horizontally across the coat where a small, almost
unnoticeable flap was.
"Probably to attach it on the other side." Harry said with a nod. That
would not only keep one end of the coat from hanging limply and looking
silly, but also cover his chest with two layers of basilisk hide. That
was probably overkill, but he wasn't going to complain.
He went ahead and closed the coat and tied it off at the waist with the
strap of basilisk hide. Then he proceeded to stretch his arms, roll his
shoulders, pace up and down the room, squat and generally test what it
was like to move in his new armor.
"Not bad." He declared at length. It was a little bit restrictive, but

nothing he couldn't get used to easily enough. The high magic resistance
of the garment was well worth the minor discomfort.
XXXXX
Harry's arrival to the remodeled quidditch pitch started up a lot of
whispering, pointing and staring as people tried to figure out what was
with the new look. Nothing new there really. Harry had become such a rare
sight to the Hogwarts general population that his presence was almost
inevitably remarked upon.
He tracked Luna's progress across the stands and smiled in satisfaction

when she sat down next to Sirius and Penny.
His gaze swung over to the side where he caught sight of Adrastia sitting
by herself. She gave him a little wave that he didn't return. No need to
be giving the woman(or anyone else for that matter) any ideas.
Fleur wasn't there yet, but there was still time left before the third
task started.
Lacking anything better to do, Harry decided to take a look at the maze
that the Ministry had set up. He knew that there had been a lot of
moaning about the cancellation of quidditch this year, which had baffled
him considerably. It wasn't as if the pitch was occupied the whole year,
nor did the tournament really take up that much time. It was almost like
people couldn't focus on two things happening in the same year.
Well it wasn't like it affected him, but Harry did find himself curious
about something Herbology related for the first time in quite a while.
This giant hedge had been grown rather quickly. He wondered if that was
unique to this particular plant species, or if it could be done with
anything. Maybe it only worked on non-magical species? The hedge didn't
look especially magical to his eyes. Maybe dragon shit was really just
that good as fertilizer.
The only other interesting thing going on at the moment was the heavy
auror presence. Aurors patrolling on foot and aurors flying above the
maze on brooms. Bones was apparently not willing to chance any repeats of
the second task debacle. He could already hear the conversation that the
DMLE director must have had with Fudge; 'just think of the public
reaction to the Boy-Who-Lived being killed in the third task, Minister'.
Fudge would have folded like a deck of cards.
A smile grew on his face when he saw that one of the flying aurors had
pink hair and he waved at her. She noticed and flew towards him.
"Cool outfit." Tonks complimented as she stopped next to him.
"Thanks." Harry replied with a smile, patting his chest. "All basilisk
hide and acromantula silk."
The Metamorphmagus gave an impressed whistle. "Fancy. And probably worth

more than what I make in a year. Or maybe a decade."
"If you tried to buy the hide, then yeah, probably." Harry admitted.
"Fortunately I already had it, so all I had to pay for was the silk and
the work."
"You know, I've always wanted a pair of basilisk hide boots." Tonks
hinted blatantly, starting up an old running gag.
"They are pretty comfortable." Harry said obtusely, lifting one leg to
show off his own basilisk hide boots.
"Christmas will be coming up in a few months." Tonks continued hinting.
"I'm not sure if six counts as 'a few'." He dryly noted.
"It does." She said authoritatively.
"It does not." Harry argued. "Two is a couple, three or four is a few and
five is five. Six is half a dozen, which is half of a dozen, which is
already quite a lot."
"Don't fight me on this Harry, I'm the auror, that means that I get to
make the rules." Tonks retorted, feigning aggravation.
"No, it means you get to push the rules that some higher up imagined into
being on everyone else. Fortunately for me, I'm an individualist and thus
disdainful of authority."
Tonks narrowed her eyes. "Resisting the commands of an auror is illegal."
"Are you going to arrest me, Nymphadora?" He grinned cheekily.
"Just for that one, I actually might." She glowered.
"On what charge?" He asked curiously.
"Hoarding illegal goods." She stated with certainty. "You're obviously

guilty, just look at all that sexy hide that you're refusing to share."
"Ah, so now we come to the crux of the matter." Harry nodded sagely.
"Greed, envy and abuse of power, all the usual things for the Ministry of
Magic."
"I wouldn't have to abuse my auror authority if you would just agree to
give me a pair of snazzy basilisk hide boots." Tonks pouted, her eyes
shifting in size until they were big and shining.
"You look like something out of Sailor Moon." Harry said dryly. "All you
need is a foofy little skirt."
Tonks huffed and continued pouting, though with normal eyes. "Fine, be
that way."
"How've you been, Dora?" Harry asked after a few seconds, seeing that the
playful bickering had come to a stop.
"Not bad." She shrugged. "I didn't pull the crap assignment for once, so
I'll get to watch you compete from the air instead of walking circles
around the pitch."
"Bones expecting trouble?" He asked.
"I don't think so, but it's been bugging her that we weren't able to
identify that second assassin and she doesn't want any repeats." She said
with a shake of her head. "We'll be there at the award ceremony tomorrow
too."
Harry gave a non-committal humm. The auror presence for this event would
probably keep Malfoy's hands tied and by this time tomorrow, Harry
intended for the man to be dead. Having aurors see it happen hadn't been
part of the plan, but it didn't really change anything. The whole thing
would be nice and legal...technically.
"You nervous?" Tonks asked when he didn't say anything in response.
"Not really." Harry shrugged. "This tournament hasn't been all that
challenging so far, discounting the assassination attempts obviously."
"Just be careful, will you?" The Metamorphmagus cautioned. "Some of the

stuff I've seen them put in there is pretty dangerous."
"I'm sure you'll swoop in to save me if I get in over my head." He joked.
"And then I'll hold it over you until you give me a pair of basilisk hide
boots." She agreed and looked over his shoulder. "Here comes your
competition."
Harry turned around and saw the Fleur was indeed approaching. Ooh boy,
this may or may not be interesting.
"Bonjour, 'Arry." The veela greeted when she arrived. "'Oo eez your
friend?"
"Fleur, meet Nymphadora Tonks. Dora, Fleur Delacour." Harry introduced,

feeling that nebulous sense of doom that always gripped the hearts of men
when they ended up stuck between two strong-willed women.
"Enchant." Fleur said, smiling at the auror as she stepped up to Harry

in a subtly possessive manner. It wasn't a deliberate gesture really, but
she felt somewhat threatened by the older witch who was more powerful
than her and quite beautiful in her own right. She could see why Harry
had liked her.
That Harry liked her wasn't the problem. Fleur was sure that she would
like her too given what she had heard about her. The problem was that
Harry had been in a real relationship with the older witch while Fleur
herself was being kept at the friend stage. This Nymphadora still had
every chance of coming back and neatly ruining all of her plans.
The worst part was that she couldn't even do anything about it. The
multiple Joinings and conversations with Harry had imparted to Fleur a
certain understanding of him. He was more careful now and approached love
and relationships as if they were a venomous snake. His introverted
nature did not allow him to simply shrug off the failure of his first
relationship and he was unwilling to commit to anything new until it
ceased to weigh on his mind. Any woman would experience the same arm's
length treatment right now.
Except perhaps the auror in front of her, who had a backdoor past his
defences.
"A pleasure." Tonks replied, feeling her body rearrange itself in all
sorts of subtle ways to be more attractive in response to the veela's
presence. In spite of or perhaps because of her shapeshifting
ability, Tonks had always been a bit self-conscious about her appearance
and seeing the supernaturally beautiful French girl make her subtle claim
on Harry was not helping. It wasn't hard to guess that the two had
started sleeping together since the last time that she'd spoken to him.
"'Arry, what eez this coat and where did you get eet?" Fleur asked,
squeezing his biceps, both to subtly flirt and to get a feel for the
material.
"Basilisk hide, it just arrived today." He shrugged.
"A basilisk?" Fleur repeated in shock.
Tonks watched as Harry gave the impressed veela the cliff notes version
of his second year at Hogwarts, the unpleasant burn of jealousy forming
in her gut. It had been so much easier to accept that Harry would be with
other women when it was just words. Seeing it was harder than she thought
it would be.
"I should get back to my post." She said, keeping her tone neutral. She
had been the one to end it between her and Harry, so she had no business
being jealous. That didn't mean she wanted to watch this though.
"Oh." Harry said, disappointed. "It was nice talking to you again, Dora.
I guess I'll see you again after the task or tomorrow?"
"Sure." Tonks nodded and started rising into the air on her broom. "Good
luck!"
"Thanks." Harry called after her, his shoulders slumping a fraction after
she was gone. He had been able to sense the discomfort in his ex-
girlfriend and suspected that their vacation time would not be all smooth
sailing. Damn but he hated all this emotional crap, it was just so
exhausting.
"She seemed nice." Fleur offered. Her instincts urged her to try turning
Harry against a possible rival, but that could only backfire with him.
Harry was not some average wizard that could easily be manipulated and
compromises had to be made. Veela were used to making compromises where
love was concerned. Monogamy was not in their nature, more mates meaning
more magic, but they confined themselves for the sake of fitting in with
the humans. In recent times, now that mates were true partners instead of
concubines, many disliked the way their Allure affected them, but they
sucked it up because the alternative was to stay alone or content
themselves with fellow veela, neither of which was anywhere near as good
as a proper mate.
In comparison, being nice to Harry's ex-girlfriend and staying patient

was a small price to pay. His magic was powerful and his stamina great
enough to satisfy even a veela's appetites. Moreover, he was someone that
she genuinely liked as a man. To keep what she had now and perhaps build
on it in the future, she could be patient.
"She is nice." Harry agreed.
"Come, I zink ze task eez about to start." Fleur said, gently bumping his
shoulder with her own.
They made their way to the entrance of the maze where an excited Ludo
Bagman looked as if he was about to wet himself. That's the impression he
was giving with his hopping from one leg to another at any rate.
"Alright there, Harry?" The former professional quidditch player asked

brightly, ignoring Fleur entirely.
"Fine." Harry grunted shortly, his dislike of the man clear to anyone
with a brain. Ludo was unfortunately not one of these people.
"Great!" Bagman beamed. "We'll be starting in just a few minutes." And

with that he toddled off.
"Wanker." Harry muttered once he was gone.
"Branleur." Fleur agreed.
Harry snorted in amusement and decided to move on to something more

interesting than insulting an idiot in multiple languages. "Ready to
lose, Fleur?"
"Hmph, we will zee 'oo loses." The veela said haugtily with a toss of her
silver-blonde hair.
"Confident are we?" He teased. "Would you care to make a bet on the
outcome then?"
Fleur raised an elegant eyebrow, intrigued. "Ze stakes?"
"Hmmmm, if I win...you have to wear a sexy French maid outfit and stay in
character for three days. You will do everything I say and speak in a
perpetually breathy tone of voice." He had already agreed to have her
move in with him and received a few off color jokes from Sirius about it,
the maid thing being one of them.
Fleur stared at him in shock for a few seconds before smirking evilly.
"Zen if I win, you will 'ave to dress as an English butler and stay in
character for a week. You will also of course do everyzzing I say."
"That seems a bit unbalanced." Harry pointed out.
"You 'ave a 'eadstart." Fleur countered. She was slightly behind in

points and would start later because of it.
"True." He admitted. "I suppose it doesn't matter anyway. It's not like
you're going to win."
"Hmph, your British arrogance will be ze end of you."
"It's not arrogance if it's the truth."
Further bickering was interrupted as Bagman's voice echoed loudly across

the area. "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the third and final task of
the Tri-Wizard Tournament! Soon, the two remaining champions will compete
against each other for the honor of their respective schools!..."
Bagman's tedius speech only went on for another blessedly short minute
before he got to the point. "So...on my whistle, Harry!" He cried,
starting the obligatory countdown.
"May the best man win!" Harry said to Fleur just before the whistle
sounded.
He could almost feel the heat of her indignant glower against his back.
XXXXX
Harry walked into the maze and quickly hit a fork in the road.
"To go left or to go right? Truly, t'was a conundrum that hath plagued

Mankind for eons beyond reckoning." He intoned to himself with solemn
sarcasm.
The answer was of course neither, because allowing your perceptions to

become mired in the restrictions of the physical world was a trap of the
mind that limited a wizard's potential. So instead of going left or
right, Harry cast a powerful Cutting Curse into the hedge and then cast
another spell to wedge it open. Then he stepped through and let it close
behind him.
Seeing that the path forward was now open, he continued his walk.
XXXXX
Up in the sky.
Tonks was laughing herself silly as she saw Harry going literally through
the maze.
"That's just cheating." Shacklebolt grumbled from next to her. He had bet
on the veela to win.
XXXXX
Fleur jogged into the maze at a steady pace, knowing that she'd need to
hurry if she wanted to win. She turned right at the first fork without
really thinking about it. It probably didn't matter in the end anyway.
Less than half a minute into the maze and she ran into a group pixies.
The annoying little pests made a bee-line towards her only to get scared
off by a blast of flame.
Fleur huffed and continued onwards. She had to assume that there would be
more dangerous things waiting up ahead, or else this was going to be a
fairly ridiculous task.
XXXXX
Harry's feet stopped moving when he saw the dementor and his head cocked
to the side. No, not a dementor. It had only a tiny speck of Dark. A
boggart. How cute.
"The Dark holds no more terrors for me." He told the shapeshifting non-
being and walked past it.
Apparently miffed by the dismissal, the boggart grabbed his shoulder as

he passed it, forcing him to stop. Harry turned to look at it and stared
at its now unhooded face.
A few tufts of long black hair still clung to the skull and empty
eyesockets peered out of a hollowed, beef jerky version of his own face.
It probably wasn't an accurate depiction of a dementor since the soul
harvesters were only partially physical, but it was the image that
Harry's mind had conjured up.
"Alright, so maybe the Dark holds one more terror for me." Harry
conceded, his eyes starting to glow as he pulled on what Light he could
reach now that the Sun had set.
Fortunately, he didn't need much. Once he had it, he slammed his palm
against the boggart's chest and released it, banishing the speck of Dark
that lay at its core. The boggart dispersed out of existence without a
sound.
"You should have stuck to jump scares."
XXXXX
Up in the sky.
"Did he just kill a boggart with a punch?" Shacklebolt goggled.
"Looks like it." Tonks agreed, only slight less shocked.
That wasn't supposed to be possible.
XXXXX
Harry stared.
He'd cheesed his way through several more hedges and apparently avoided
most of the obstacles that the maze had to offer, only to run into a
sphinx of all things at what was probably the final stretch.
The female face on it was quite beautiful, with deeply tanned skin and
almond shaped eyes, though much larger than a normal woman's head would
be. It was mounted on a similarly oversized lion body. The fusion of
these features brought to mind uncomfortable questions.
"Hello." He ventured cautiously. She may be placid right now, but he

could sense a powerful magic emanating from the sphinx and would not take
her lightly.
"Greetings." The sphinx responded, her voice jarringly deep and hoarse
coming from such a feminine face. "Your progress has been swift and you
are very near now to your goal, the quickest way is past me."
"What's the catch?" Harry asked.
"You must unravel my riddle. Guess correctly and you may pass, answer
wrongly and I attack, decline to answer and you may go unscathed."
"Ah, that clich." Harry nodded. "For a second there I thought it would
actually be something more original."
The sphinx quirked an eyebrow at the strange reaction but remained

silent.
"Before we begin, do you mind if I ask you a few questions?" It wasn't

every day that you got to talk to a sphinx and he should still have
plenty of time to get the cup before Fleur stumbled her way through the
maze.
She cocked her head sideways at the odd request. "You may ask, but I may
not answer."
"Could you tell me how your kind came into being? I can't imagine that
yours is a natural evolution." He inquired, conjuring a stool for himself
to sit on.
XXXXX
Up in the sky.
"Is he chatting up the sphinx?" Shacklebolt asked, once again baffled.
"He's probably curious about something." Tonks replied despairingly. Damn

it Harry, I've got money on you. Go win the bloody tournament already!
XXXXX
The sphinx remained silent long enough for Harry to start wondering
whether it had been altogether wise to ask that question. The Ministry of
Magic almost definitely classified sphinxes as beasts, but her eyes held
a vast intelligence that made him even more wary of crossing her than her
size and obvious power.
"You ask questions that few have bothered to ask in recent times,
Spellweaver." She finally said.
"I'm a curious guy." Harry shrugged unapologetically. He wondered about

the strange form of address, but put it aside for now.
"So you are." She agreed. "Very well, I shall answer."
"As you have surmised, we were not born of natural means. Pharaoh Djoser
wished for powerful magical guardians and commanded his sorcerers to
provide them. We were made to fulfill this command, though Pharaoh Djoser
did not live to see it done."
"But how?" Harry asked, unsatisfied with the answer.
"You ask what you already know." The sphinx told him with a humorless
smile. "Lions were made to breed with slave women and powerful magic was
weaved into the resulting offspring."
"I see." Harry said, pursing his lips. It wasn't the first time that he'd
heard of magic allowing crossbreeding between species that had no
business crossbreeding. Just like she had said, he had known the origins
of the sphinxes the moment he had laid eyes on her. The slave women had
probably been untrained witches, as he didn't think it would have worked
otherwise. He'd been hoping that he was wrong, hoping that the truth
wouldn't be as cruel as usual. "I'm sorry."
"Do not mourn for us, young one. We were made to guard, not to feel. So
we guard, and do not feel."
"It's still a shitty thing to do." He muttered. Some sick fucker had
probably done something similar to make the centaurs for whatever reason.
No wonder they had such a poor opinion of wizards.
"Are you prepared to answer my riddle?" The sphinx asked, clearly closing
the topic.
"Sure, let's hear it." Harry nodded, shaking off the pity he felt for
her.
"It cannot be seen, cannot be felt,
Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt.
It lies behind stars and under hills,
And empty holes it fills.

It comes first and follows after,
Ends life, kills laughter." The sphinx recited.
Harry nearly toppled from his conjured stool in shock. The riddle was
familiar and the answer close to his heart, but that wasn't important.
The important part was that he strongly doubted that the sphinx had
picked a riddle like this by accident. It simply couldn't be a
coincidence.
"What do you know?" He demanded more harshly than he intended.
"Answer my riddle or I must attack." The sphinx warned.
Harry took a deep breath to calm down. Freaking out wouldn't do any good.
"Darkness."
The sphinx smiled and moved aside to let him pass, but Harry didn't move
from his stool.
"Why did you ask me that riddle?" He asked.
"I bar the way until my riddle is answered." She answered unhelpfully.
"But why that riddle?"
The sphinx smiled, but said nothing.
Harry sighed and stood up. Apparently she was going to leave him in the
dark, no pun intended. "It was nice talking to you."
"May the Sun light your way, Spellweaver." The sphinx replied as he moved
past her.
Harry instantly turned back to look at her. That couldn't have been a
coincidence either. She met his gaze with the calm of a Buddhist monk,
waiting. He wanted to ask what the hell she meant by that, but if past
experience was any judge then direct questions were useless.
"Why do you call me that?" He asked instead. He had sometimes thought of

casting spells as weaving them, largely due to the D&D concept of 'the
Weave', but she couldn't possibly know that. This was something else.
"I cannot say." The sphinx replied with an enigmatic smile. She
seemed...pleased? He couldn't tell.
"Why not?"
"My lips are sewn shut."
"By spells?" He guessed. She had mentioned something about magic being
weaved into the sphinxes when they were born...
She smiled again, but did not speak.

Harry had the sense that the sphinx was trying to tell him something
without actually telling him, a secret that she wanted to share but was
compelled to guard. She was using this conversation to hint at something,
might have only deigned to humor his curiousity for that exact purpose,
but to what end he couldn't perceive.
He opened his mouth to ask another question but she cut him off.
"We speak no more."
Harry's mouth snapped shut with an audible click and he nodded. He knew a
warning when he heard one and surmised that any further attempts to pry
would have unfavorable consequences. He would need to figure the rest out
on his own, if he could. Well, he'd been planning to go to Egypt
eventually anyway so this was just extra incentive.
"Thank you and goodbye." He said instead and made his way further into
the maze, his mind already chewing over the words of the sphinx in an
attempt to divine what she had been trying to tell him.
XXXXX
Up in the sky.
"Why is that acromantula running away?" Shacklebolt grumbled.
"Must be the basilisk hide." Tonks replied, grinning.
"What's that got to do with anything?"
"Spiders are terrified of basilisks." She explained, having learned this

when Harry had explained his second year to her.
"That kid has the most ridiculous luck." Shacklebolt grumbled some more.
"Cheer up, Shack." Tonks tried. "Harry wasted so much time with that
sphinx that Delacour actually still has a chance to...wait, nevermind.
The acromantula is heading right at her."
Shacklebolt sighed in resignation and consoled himself with the knowledge

that he didn't really need those galleons he'd bet on this. Would have
been nice though.
XXXXX
The Tri-Wizard Cup was a Portkey.
Harry figured that it would probably deposit him to the front of the maze
if he touched it, but he was far too distrustful to ever touch a portkey
that he didn't know the destination of with 100% certainty.
So he sighed and began unraveling the Portkey enchantment. He'd just have
to lug it back on foot, or maybe Apparate. It wasn't like people would be
able to tell the difference. Or maybe he could make his own Portkey, that
would probably be for the best.
"Step away from ze cup." Came a sexy growl from behind.
"Hello, Fleur." Harry greeted, turning around and taking in the

bedraggled veela. Her hair was a mess, her clothes were dirty and torn in
places and she looked thoroughly annoyed. "Did you have fun in the maze?"
Fleur glared at the amused wizard. Where did he get off looking fresh as
a daisy?
"Non, I did not 'ave fun in ze maze!" She growled.
"I'm sorry to hear that." Harry said sincerely.
Fleur was not listening though and wanted to vent. "Eet waz not zo
difficult at first, but zen some fils de salope zought that a giant
scorpion with magic deflecting armure and a rocket boost growing out of
eet's cul would make a good challenge."
Ah, Hagrid's blast-ended skrewts. I remember Luna telling me about those.

Yet another example of crossbreeding that should never have happened.
Honestly, who wakes up in the morning and goes 'hmm, I think I'll
crossbreed a manticore and a fire-crab, yup, yup.' Harry thought to
himself, but wisely didn't speak. Given how often Fleur was slipping into
French, she probably wasn't in the mood to listen to anyone.
"And zen, just as I zink that eet eez over, ze biggest, ugliest araigne
I 'ave ever zeen nearly eats me!"
That would probably be the scuttling noise I heard earlier. It must have
gotten spooked by the basilisk hide. Heh.
"And zen I find you 'ere, looking as eef you 'ave done nothing 'arder zan
taking a walk." The veela finished with a growl.
Which is pretty much exactly what I did.
"Do you want a hug?" He asked, lips twitching into a smile.
"What I want eez zat cup, and to 'ave you waiting on me 'and and foot for
ze next week." Fler growled once more.
"I'm sorry, but that's just not going to happen." Harry replied with
false regret. "I will make sure that your maid uniform is extra sexy
though."
Fleur didn't reply with any witty banter, but with a stunner.
Harry had honestly not been expecting such a dirty trick and could only
instinctively cross his arms over his face in a warding gesture, by now
automatically calling on his magic to block the spell. It may have been
enough to protect him, but it was a moot point anyway since the spell
splashed harmlessly against his basilisk hide covered chest.
He rocked back on his heels and patted the point of impact with his right
hand, blinking.
"Sweet." Harry said with a grin.
"Merde." Fleur whispered. She'd forgotten about the basilisk hide in her
frustration.
She reflexively cast a shield to block the expected retaliation, only to

cry out in dismay as her footing turned into thick mud. The conjured
ropes that followed afterwards she managed to cut before they could bind
her, but the Disarming Hex hit her dead on and tore the wand from her
hand.
"That was damned cheeky of you." Harry said, smiling slightly.
Fleur said nothing and kept her head high as she pulled herself out of
the transfigured quagmire that her feet were trapped in, ignoring the
undignified sucking noises the mud made with every step. She knew
perfectly well that what she'd done hadn't been especially honorable, but
she was already tired from the maze whereas Harry was still fresh and he
wasn't handicapping himself by refusing to use a wand this time. A cheap
shot had been her only real chance of getting that cup.
"Well played, 'Arry." She said calmly once she was out of the mud. She
may have lost, but she would be gracious about it. She may have to dress
and act like a maid in a bad porno for three days, but a bet was a bet
and she wouldn't chicken out of it. Nobody was going to say that Fleur
Delacour was a sore loser.
XXXXX
Hogwarts grounds, the next day. Champion award ceremony.
"Congratulations on your victory, Mr. Potter!"
"Thank you." Harry smiled fakely at the smarmy man whose name he'd
already forgotten.
People had been tripping over themselves to congratulate him ever since
yesterday, most of them so obviously sucking up that they may as well
have replaced their mouths with toilet plungers. Some had been genuine,
others had wanted something. All had been annoying.
But despite all that, Harry was still in a grimly good mood, because this
was the day that Lucius Malfoy died and that was worth shaking hands with
a few of these witless morons.
He cast his eyes around the impromptu outdoor ball, noting people of
interest.
Fudge was flittering all over the place, trying to talk to as many people
as possible. No doubt this whole shebang was his idea of raising his own
popularity, the twit.
Ludo Bagman was doing pretty much the same thing as Fudge, but with more
bouncing. Those two were like a pair of retarded dumplings.
Amelia Bones was standing off to the side, looking as if she was about to
crush her monocle with her eye socket given how pronounced her frown was.
She was probably about as amused by this as him. Standing next to her was
a man with a lion's mane of tawny hair and who appeared about as happy to
be here as Bones. That was Rufus Scrimgeour no doubt, the humorless
bastard as Dora called him.
The reason for their sour expressions were no doubt the multitude of free
roaming Death Eaters pretending to be civilized. Of those he could
recognize, Crabbe and Goyle senior were destroying the buffet, Malfoy and
Parkinson were talking some distance away while their wives gossiped or
whatever it was that stuck up bitches did when they got together. There
were probably more, but he couldn't identify them by sight. Their various
brats were also present and trying to look dignified. Except for Draco,
who was shooting glares in his direction every few minutes.
Wait just a little longer, you little shit. I'll give you something to
glare about. Harry thought darkly.
Sirius was chatting with what looked to be some old friends. Or perhaps
flirting with some new ones.
Percy was present as well, hovering at the side of a nervous looking man
that might be the most recent appointment to the post of DIMC Director.
He didn't look too happy, probably already missing the illusion of power
he'd had while temporarily running the department. The rest of the
Weasleys were spread out like a ginger net across the area.
Karkaroff was sulking in a corner.
Dora was making rounds with her fellow aurors. He hadn't been able to
exchange more than a few words with her because she didn't want to look
like she was slacking off in front of her boss.
Fleur was present too of course, looking beautiful as ever in a pale blue
dress as she talked to her family and Madam Maxime.
Luna was currently spending some time with Ginny, knowing that they
wouldn't be coming back to Hogwarts next year.
Dumbledore and the rest of Hogwarts staff was miling about. Well...most
of them. Harry could see Septima shifting in her seat as she talked to
what was probably the mother of one of her students. The light flush on
her face could be atributted to the summer heat(as hot as it ever got
this far north that was), but Harry was quite sure that it was due to
something else entirely. He was going to miss the subby Arithmancy
professor.
"I should hope you'll be more cheerful on our Christmas date." A familiar
voice sounded from a familiar presence.
Of course the party wouldn't be complete without Adrastia showing up.
"Cheerfulness wasn't part of our deal." Harry retorted, turning to look

at the woman.
Apparently she had felt like wearing red today, not that she didn't look
amazing in that tight dress and plunging neckline.
"Very well then. If you are so determined to sulk, then I shan't stop
you." Adrastia replied with a smile. "Is today going to be more exciting
than yesterday?"
Harry knew this wasn't just a dig at the Ministry's lack of foresight
with the organization of the last two tasks. "Yep, as soon as Fudge hands
over that trophy."
Adrastia hummed in acknowledgement and leaned closer so that her next

words wouldn't be overheard. "I would advise you not to cast Narcissa out
of the family just yet, only threaten to do it."
"Why?" Harry asked, equally quietly.
"There is no time to explain fully right now, but it may bring unexpected
benefits to you in the future." Was her unhelpful answer.
"And you couldn't have mentioned these 'unexpected benefits' the last
time we spoke?" Harry spoke through gritted teeth, deeply annoyed.
"But then what excuse would I have to visit your lovely manor again?"
Adrastia riposted with a big smile.
"I hate you so much, you manipulative bitch." He muttered.
"I am not usually impressed by flattery, but I will make an exception in

your case." She said magnanimously.
"You're so kind." Harry retorted sarcastically.
"I know, but I must leave you now." Adrastia nodded her head at Fleur and
her family, who had begun making their way towards them. "Your newest
plaything apparently wants to introduce you to her parents."
She turned and left before Harry could reply, leaving him muttering to
himself. "Bitch."
"'Arry." Fleur greeted once she came into speaking range, wondering who
the dark skinned witch he'd been talking to earlier was but deciding not
to mention it.
"Fleur." He nodded back.

"I would like you to meet my parents, Sebastien and Apolline Delacour and
of course my sister Gabrielle."
"Enchant, it is a pleasure to finally meet you." Apolline said as she

extended her hand for him to kiss, the purr of her French accented
English considerably smoother than Fleur's.
"Likewise." Harry said as he kissed her knuckles, inwardly amused by how

similar this was to his first meeting with Fleur.
It wasn't quite the same though. Apolline Delacour's aura was both more
and less controlled than her daughter's. Perhaps it would be more
accurate to say that it was more restrained, but less...satisfied. He
could easily guess at the reason thanks to regularly having sex with
Fleur. The elder veela's husband couldn't keep up with her sexual
appetite. No surprise there really, he would probably have problems
keeping up with Fleur without his runes too.
Apolline smiled at the man her daughter had chosen for herself, hiding
her surprise at just how powerful his magic was. No wonder her daughter
was so attracted to him, added to his good looks it would have been
strange if she wasn't. She was still worried about what exactly the
dynamic between them was, but had a good impression so far. She could
find out more later, when there were less people around.
Harry was unaware of Apolline's thoughts as he shook hands with

Sebastien, deeply amused when he felt the stronger-than-necessary
squeeze. Fleur's father was apparently trying to intimidate him, which
was doomed to failure from the start. Harry's height had topped off at
just under 6'3'' and he could tell that the 5'11'' or so Sebastien
Delacour was not even close to him as far as magical power went.
Intimidation only worked if you weren't patently weaker than the person
you were trying to intimidate and Harry wasn't impressed by his status as
Fleur's father either.
Amusingly enough, the beaming eight year old next to the man was far more
intimidating for Harry. He had no idea what to do with children this
young and felt terribly awkward having to interact with them.
"And you I've already met, haven't I?" He asked, hiding his uncertainty.
Harry had been getting a feel for French thanks to Fleur, but he had no
hope of understanding the babbled sentence the young veela spoke before
she launched herself at him and hugged his leg.
Harry blinked in surprise and helplessly turned to Fleur for help. "Err,
is this normal?"
"I apologise for my daughter, Mr. Potter. She has been excited to meet
you." Apolline said, dragging her pouting daughter away. While what she
said was true, she had neglected to mention that veela were a very touchy
people and the draw of Harry's magic had likely been too much for the
young Gabrielle to resist. She wasn't old enough yet to get the predatory
sexual urges associated with her nature, but that part was present from
birth.
"Quite alright, and please call me Harry." He said, giving a smile

towards the young veela that was happily returned. The little one's aura
was notably lacking in any kind of restraint, but it was also much closer
to human than her sister's or mother's. Did that change during puberty?
How interesting.
They spent the next several minutes talking of largely inconsequential

things that never got the chance to go anywhere because Fudge took that
time to climb up on the temporary stage and get to the point.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we've had quite the exciting year, haven't we?"
Fudge tried for a joke. It fell rather flat. "Yes, well anyway, despite
experiencing certain difficulties over the course of the Tri-Wizard
Tournament, we do at last have a champion! Harry Potter of Hogwarts
School of Witchcraft and Wizardry! Come up here, Harry!"
Harry quirked a sardonic eyebrow at Fudge's pussyfooting around the death

of Krum in the first task and the assassination attempt during the
second, but joined the fat idiot without comment.
"It is my pleasure to present to you the Tri-Wizard Cup, to be held by

Hogwarts until the next tournament!" Fudge said loudly, presenting him
with the admittedly beautiful trophy.
There was a loud applause from the spectators and Harry somewhat
awkwardly raised the damn thing in a victorious gesture, inwardly
scoffing at the notion that there would be another tournament. This one
was supposed to foster international magical cooperation, but had
probably ended up being a diplomatic disaster. Unless you counted him and
Fleur, that had certainly been some successful international relations
right there.
"And of course, the thousand galleon prize!" Fudge went on, now handing
over a money pouch with the aforementioned prize.
Harry idly wondered how much of an insult it would be if he started

counting it.
"Now let's have a word from our champion!"
We'll have a word alright, you greedy bastard. Harry thought maliciously,
annoyed by Fudge's none too subtle attempt to associate himself with some
good press.
"I'm afraid I'm a man of few words, so I'll keep this short." Harry
began. "It has been, as Minister has said, quite an exciting year. I've
made some good friends." He gave Fleur a nod at this, just to give the
papers something to talk about, though it probably wouldn't even be
remembered given what else he had planned. "And I've learned some
interesting things. One of these interesting things is the knowledge that
participation in the Tri-Wizard Tournament was once considered a rite of
adulthood and that has never been repealed, so I have effectively become
Lord Potter as of today."
A ripples of shock complete with gasps went through the crowd at this.
Most people were excited about this unexpected development like the
gossips they were, but some suddenly looked worried.
"Another thing I've learned is that there isn't much left for me in
Hogwarts, so I will not be returning next year."
The shock was more pronounced this time, as was the worry.
"But, Harry, what about your OWLS and your NEWTS?" Dumbledore asked,
looking uncommonly flustered.
"Hold your questions until the end please, Headmaster." Harry said
firmly. Not that anyone would think him leaving Hogwarts was important in
a few minutes.
More shocked staring ensued. None of those present could recall ever
seeing Albus Dumbledore receving a verbal slap like that, even if it had
been warranted.
"Luna Lovegood will also not be returning in September."
"But, Harry-!" Dumbledore tried again, looking even more off-kilter. This
was all wrong! Harry was supposed to stay in Hogwarts!
"Headmaster." Harry snapped, cutting the old man off. "I am not
finished."
Dumbledore could only stare in shock at the much younger wizard at being
so harshly shut down. Everything was all wrong. How could this possibly
be happening?
"Now for the next important bit of information, I must temporarily give
the word to my godfather, as this is his to say more than mine. Come up
here, Sirius."
The dog Animagus trotted up to the stage, grinning widely at all the
slack jaws he was seeing. His godson sure had pulled one hell of a prank
on people.
"Those of you familiar with me will know that I'm not the most serious
individual, even though I've been Sirius since I was born."
Groans sounded from several throats at the horrible pun, though it also
reinforced his point.
"Ask anyone you want and they'll tell you that I'm barely fit to take
care of myself, much less anyone else. Which is why I'm gleefully
abdicating my position and letting my godson deal with the baggage of
being Lord Black. Good riddance to it."
There were quite a few family heads present, and every last one of them
was outraged at the casual disregard Sirius was showing , even those who
had never liked the Blacks. The outrage was easier to digest than the
knowledge that Harry Potter was now the head of two families at least.
Harry took over once again, just as they had practiced. Though Sirius
didn't know that he was planning to do this last part. "Being more
serious than Sirius, I'll be taking my new position more seriously."
More groans, one of them sounding like it belonged to a certain

Metamorphmagus.
"Looking at recent history, I've noticed that there are

some...disreputable people connected to the Black family in one way or
another. That's something I mean to address here and now."
Lucius Malfoy wasn't the only one that got a bad feeling at those words,
but he was the most worried. If that half-blood mongrel was about to do
what it looked like he was about to do...
Still on the stage next to Harry, Fudge was having a panic attack. He'd
never been good at dealing with unexpected things happening and wanted
desperately for all these new events and problems to go away.
He was just about to start blustering when Sirius grabbed him by the
shoulders and led him away, just as Harry had said he'd need to. Sirius
didn't really know what Harry was up to since his godson had gone off
script, but he was enjoying the chaos nonetheless.
"First, Bellatrix Lestrange." Harry ignored the gasps and mutters the
name produced. "She's a disgrace and the family she married into is a
disgrace, so as per the contract signed between the Black and Lestrange
families I hereby dissolve the marriage between Bellatrix Black and
Rodolphus Lestrange and cast her out of the family."
The crowd was now dead silent and simply observed avidly. The wizard
raised in the crowd knew that this kind of thing was usually done
privately so as to preserve the family's dignity. This public airing of
dirty laundry was practically unheard of.
"And finally Narcissa." Harry said coldly, staring at the white faced
witch. "I don't know you and won't make any decisions just yet, but your
husband and son are another matter. Draco has been nothing but an
annoying, petulant child for the entire time I've known him and is
unworthy of being called my family. He is no longer a Black."
Narcissa brokenly whispered 'no' while her husband kept a white-knuckled

grip on his cane at seeing all his ambitions go down the drain. Draco
himself was flushed a lobster red in anger.
"As for your husband, he's just as much a disgrace as Bellatrix, if a

more slippery disgrace. As per the contract signed between the Black and
Malfoy families, I hereby dissolve the marriage between Lucius Malfoy and
Narcissa Black."
"On what grounds?" Lucius demanded, struggling hard to keep his rage in
check. The stupid boy was ruining decades of work! He could still have
another child with Narcissa and put things back on track, but not if
their marriage was dissolved.
"Being a Death Eater." Harry replied flatly.
"I was under the Imperious!" Lucius retorted angrily.
"I don't believe you, but we can settle it with an honor duel if you
want."
The more knowledgeable people in the crowd gasped. An honor duel over a
matter like this was to the death. It was an archaic means of solving
disputes that had fallen out of favor centuries ago, but it was still
legal since nobody had bothered to overhaul the laws.
Lucius knew it was a trap. It was blindingly obvious. However, he was far
too enraged and desperate to give the matter much thought. All his
ambitions now dangled by a thread and would be washed down the drain if
he refused to accept the duel. Killing Potter also appealed a great deal
and made his decision for him.
"I accept."
Dumbledore on the other hand was horrified at this turn of events. Harry
would either die duelling Malfoy or commit what was essentially
premeditated murder. He wasn't even sure which was worse.
"Harry, you can't-" He tried to say, but was once again cut off, this
time even more harshly.
"Shut the fuck up already, Dumbledore!" Harry yelled at the ancient

wizard, well and truly fed up by his attempts to take control of the
situation. "This has nothing to do with you, so kindly keep your crooked
beak out of it!" The old meddler would definitely showing up again soon
because of that one, but for now he should be too stunned to say anymore.
Dumbledore stared at Harry as if he'd never seen him before. He thought

that he'd understood the young wizard. He thought that Harry just didn't
respond well to authority figures. This sudden hostility had a personal
feel to it and left him floundering. How had he missed this?
Some distance away Fudge had gotten some of his wits back and gone
running to the first person he could think of to stop this disaster from
happening.
"Amelia, you have to stop this from happening!" He cried, desperately

wringing his hands.
"The DMLE doesn't have the authority to interfere in internal family

matters." Amelia said dispassionately. She would have liked for the DMLE
to have that authority, as it would have helped put quite a few people in
prison, but in this case she was content to sit back and watch. Death
Eaters had a wonderful habit of dying around Potter and having a front
row seat to Malfoy's execution would be like an early birthday present.
Sirius meanwhile had jogged back up to his godson and started hissing
into his ear. "Harry, what the hell are you doing?"
"Lucius was the one who sent the other assassin." Harry explained flatly.
"I'm going to kill him."
Sirius spluttered briefly at the short explanation. "How'd you know

that?!"
"I'll tell you later."
XXXXX
The shock of seeing Dumbledore get yelled at by the Boy-Who-Lived had not
come even close to dissipating in the minds of the spectators, so they
just shuffled sheep-like out of the way while a few aurors marked off a
large duelling arena and put up a ward to safeguard the audience.
Harry stood on one side, shaking out his limbs to prepare. Malfoy had
been one of Voldemort's top minions, so he was presumably better with a
wand than most. Care would have to be taken. He had a plan for how he
wanted this to play out, but was willing to abandon it if it was too
risky.
On the other side, Lucius was similarly preparing himself and assessing
his opponent. Potter looked far too old for his years, and the muggle
shirt and pants he was wearing exposed a strong physique, not that muscle
mattered in a wizard's duel. He was confident that he would win. Potter
was still just a boy and Lucius had been putting people in the ground
before he'd even been born
"I'm going to enjoy this, Potter." Lucius drawled, drawing his wand and
getting into a proper duelling stance.
"Oh, I doubt that." Harry smirked back, his own stance much looser.
"Duelists, ready!" Amelia Bones, who had somehow gotten roped into
officiating, began. "Begin!"
Harry immediately dodged to the side to avoid the Gouging Hex and
returned fire with an Expelliarmus.
Malfoy blocked it with a shield and then grunted when a Bone-Breaker

followed right after and nearly shattered it. He remembered the need to
dodge after that .
It quickly became obvious to the audience that Harry was simply the
better fighter. He was quicker on his feet, his shields easily blocked
what he couldn't dodge and his spells came faster and stronger.
Harry could have ended it already. He had long since come upon the idea
of depriving his enemy of solid footing as a means of crippling their
combat ability, just like he'd done to Fleur in the maze. He could have
done the same here, but didn't because he wanted to make a spectacle of
this.
Lucius had sweat beading on his forehead as he struggled to keep up with

the much younger wizard. Too late had he realized that he had been
overconfident. He hadn't used any kind of serious magic since Voldemort's
downfall, much less been in a fight. His body wasn't as fast as it used
to be and neither was his mind. Spells came slower and with less
certainty than they once had. Some spells eluded him altogether,
forgotten by disuse.
The crowd could see it too and had quickly started cheering for Harry,
getting swept up in the excitement of the whole thing and forgetting that
it was a fight to the death.
All except Narcissa and Draco, who watched with terrified eyes as their
husband/father steadily lost ground.
And then in a shocking reversal, Harry seemed to miss a step and walked
right into a Disarming Hex, causing his wand to go flying towards the
Malfoy patriarch.
"It seems you've bitten off more than you can chew, Potter." Lucius
sneered, covering up his own surprise. He'd almost thought that he was a
goner for a second there.
"Oh no, you have my wand. Whatever shall I do?" Harry said sarcastically,
surprising most of the watchers.
Then he thrust out his hand and sent out a powerful Disarming Hex of his
own.
Lucius was too shocked to even think of responding and had both his own
wand and Potter's go flying out of his hands.
"Did you really think you had a chance to win, Malfoy?" Harry sneered
back. "You, who can't even use magic without this stupid stick."
His last word was punctuated by the snapping of Malfoy's wand. That was a
horrible insult, tantamount to telling someone they weren't worthy of
their magic, but everyone was far too shocked by the feat of wandless
casting to really notice.
Lucius himself was so pale that he was nearly translucent and in no fit
state to reply. The only thing he could think of was the memory of an
angry Dark Lord disciplining Death Eaters who had failed him, sometimes
using wandless magic to send them flying into walls.
"How much did it cost you to send that assassin after me in the second
task, Malfoy? Was it worth your life?" Harry demanded, his eyes taking on
a very slight glow as he prepared for the finishing move.
"I-I didn't." Lucius stammered, trying to back away and falling flat on
his arse.
"Yes you did!" Harry snapped, taking a menacing step forward. Then he
reached out with his fingers in a claw shape, as if grabbing hold of
something and the Malfoy patriarch floated into the air as if clenched in
a giant fist.
Normally, this would be impossible to do as the innate magic of the

victim would fight off the grip, but these wand dependent wizards had a
critical psychological weakness. They truly believed that they couldn't
use magic without a wand and belief became reality. Take away their wand
and their confidence broke, their magic weakened and they left themselves
open for attacks that would have otherwise failed outright.
"You didn't leave enough evidence behind for any fingers to be pointed at
you of course, but you did do it. Had it all plotted out, didn't you?
Kill me and Sirius so that Draco inherits the Black family and the
Malfoys finally get that much vaunted noble title you're so desperate to
have?"
Done with his little rant, Harry dropped the defeated wizard to the
ground, already feeling the onset of a headache from forcing his will on
the world like that.
Lucius didn't even try to deny it this time, too frightened of the young
wizard who had turned out to be so much more powerful than expected. He
didn't even get back on his feet and just held out a hand as if to ward
off any further attack.
"I yield! Please, I yield." He tried, a note of desperation entering his

tone.
"It's a duel to the death, remember?" Harry said uncompromisingly with

eyes now glowing a bright green, hands held in front of him as if he was
holding a ball, a bright yellow glow already manifesting between them. It
quickly grew in size until it was as large as a basketball, a blazing
yellow basketball with an angry red core. "You should be happy, Lucius.
You get to help me try out my Forbidden Sun!"
Lucius had just enough time to scream before the spell hit him and
exploded violently.
When people were able to blink the spots out of their eyes and look back
at the impact site, all they could see was a badly burned corpse slowly
sinking into a pool of lava. More than one spectator went as pale as a
sheet at the raw power of the spell that had been cast wandlessly.
Harry took a deep breath as he felt the excess Light leave him, taking
his fury with it. The Dark Souls II inspired spell had perhaps been a bit
much, but he had wanted to make a flashy entrance into adulthood and
there was nothing quite as flashy as the Forbidden Sun. Too volatile and
complex to ever be combat worthy without someone protecting him while he
formed it, but flashy as fuck.
The moment of terrified silence was broken by the wordless rage of Draco
Malfoy as he rushed towards his father's killer, intent on revenge.
"Bombarda." He yelled furiously, nearly blinded by the tears streaming

from his eyes.
Harry smacked the spell away, his hand protected by a localized shielding
spell. That particular blasting curse was fortunately a fairly low power
variety and Draco's mental state was so messed up that it was barely
holding together, so the danger was minimal.
Harry was still pretty annoyed by the attempt though, so he mimed a pull
that sent Draco's wand flying into his hand. Draco's aura was so much
weaker than his own and his focus so disrupted that there was no
resistance to his basic summoning. Then he snapped it just like he'd done
to the elder Malfoy's.
As a finishing touch, he sent thrust out his arm and sent the Slytherin
flying through the air with a mid-level Banishing Charm.
With his arm still outstretched, her turned towards the paralyzed
audience, seeking a particular person. The witches and wizards flinched,
cowered and screamed as if it was a loaded shotgun.
Finally his pointing finger settled on the nearly catatonic and newly
widowed Narcissa. "Keep that little shit in line."
The woman automatically nodded, not even thinking about it.
Harry took another deep breath and started walking towards the edge of
the ward line, making a two-fingered beckoning gesture that had Luna
happily skipping over to him and tucking herself into his side so that he
could put his arm around her shoulders. The elves had already moved all
of their stuff back to the manor, so there was no need to stick around
Hogwarts anymore.
To the people watching, the gentleness of the image was incredibly

jarring in light of the earlier execution, but Harry and Luna paid no
attention to that, though Harry did wonder how many home visits aside
from Dumbledore he could expect from people in the next few days.
After a few stunned moments, Sirius got his wits about him and trotted
after his godson, his mind burning with questions. Penny followed only a
moment later.
That was the trigger that snapped Fleur out of her stupor and she
remembered that she was supposed to be going with Harry too, though there
was now a distinct note of caution in her movement.
Even more worried, Fleur's parents followed after their firstborn

daughter, Sebastien carrying a terrified Gabrielle.
XXXXX
The chapter wasn't actually supposed to end here, but the word count
ballooned on me again.
I know that some of you really want to know what's going on with
Voldemort, but all I can say is that he gets a mention in the next
chapter. Probably.
Chapter 24
Much kudos to my beta, Joe Lawyer.
XXXXX
The Portkey trip to Potter Manor was a tense, silent and uncomfortable
affair.
The Delacours had been invited to visit the place where their daughter
would be spending her summer, but would now have made polite excuses and
gone back to France if the circumstances were different. Only Fleur's
unspoken decision to go with the powerful young wizard in spite of what
he'd just done prevented them from leaving.
Fleur, though also stunned by the violent display, was less shocked. She
had already seen him leave those three Death Eaters to die in the lake
and had been aware that Harry had a vindictive streak. His killing of
Malfoy had scared her, but not enough to drive her away. She would talk
to him first and decide on the future afterwards.
But not today. Today, her sister needed her, so she retired to a room
with her family and did her best to calm them down.
Harry and Luna went for the master bedroom, Sirius and Penny following
behind them.
Not a word was said as Harry took off his new basilisk hide boots, sat
crosslegged on the bed and closed his eyes. Luna meanwhile hopped into
the sex swing that Tonks had bought for Harry's birthday almost a year
ago now and used is as a...well, as a swing.
"What the hell was that, Harry?" Sirius finally asked, inwardly impressed
by his own calmness.
"That was me killing an enemy." Harry replied, already in a meditative

state to regain his emotional equilibrium. It had taken a great deal of
restraint on his part to not kill Draco along with his father after being
attacked. No matter how much he practiced it, drawing on the Sun's power
always strained his self-control.
"You told me that you'd only make a few shocking statements, not that you
would kill someone!" Sirius retorted hotly.
"I didn't tell you because you would have gotten in the way." Harry
countered.
The brutally honest words sent Sirius into a hurt silence. Yes, he would
have objected to this plan and may have tried to do it in Harry's stead
if he learned of it, but being told so bluntly still hurt.
"You said that he was the one who sent the other assassin after you."
Penny interjected. "Was that true?"
"It was." Harry nodded. "I think he was also the one to manipulate those
idiots at the World Cup to attack us. In hindsight, that was too
specifically focused on us to be random Death Eater hostility."
"How do you know?" Sirius demanded, rejoining the conversation. "You said
you'd tell me later, well it's later."
"Adrastia told me."
"You did this based on her word?!"
"Yes."
"She could have been lying, trying to manipulate you!" Sirius was getting
aggravated by his godson's calmness.
"Oh, she's definitely trying to manipulate me, but not by lying. She
didn't have any solid proof, but the circumstantial evidence and
reasoning made perfect sense. I expect she'll be turning up sometime in
the next few days again."
"Harry, you killed a man based on the word of a woman who's idea of fun
it is to find a rich man, turn him into a doormat and then get rid of him
when she gets bored. Why are you not seeing the problem here?" Sirius
asked slowly.
"I don't care what she does with people I don't know, as long as she
keeps her games away from me and mine." Harry replied uncaringly. "The
only problem I saw was that Lucius Malfoy was trying to kill me and you,
and he'd already cost Luna her father. He needed to die."
Luna's swinging faltered a bit at the mention of her father, but she
determinedly resumed it. She had a new family now and her daddy was back
with mummy, she wasn't going to be sad.
"I'm worried about you, Harry. The other times you killed, it was self-
defense, this time you deliberately set out to kill a man." Sirius said
after a moment.
Penny nodded in agreement. Harry had scared her with what he'd done and
it was the first time that she began to wonder about who exactly she was
working for.
"And what else was I supposed to do? Let him keep trying?" Harry
demanded. "There was no proof and with Fudge in his pocket, Malfoy might
have wiggled out of it even if there was. I'm all ears if you have an
alternative."
Neither Sirius nor Penny had one.
"I killed someone that was, at minimum, a murderer to make sure he

wouldn't be trying to send any more assassins our way and I did it in
such a way that anyone else will think twice before trying it again. It's
not perfect and it will undoubtedly have at least some of the sheep
thinking that I'm a rising Dark Lord or something equally stupid, but it
was the best I could do in the situation. I'm sorry that I couldn't tell
either of you what I was going to do, but I'm not sorry that I did it."
The older wizard sighed in defeat, conceding that Harry was right. His
godson had probably chewed over the situation exhaustively before doing
it, as usual and then made the most practical decision, also as usual. It
made arguing with him annoyingly hard, just like it had been with Lily.
It wasn't even that he disagreed with Harry on the need to do something.
He was just...worried.
Penny too had some of her worries settled by his words. The sudden
brutality of it had still shocked her, but she had already experienced
first hand what Lucius Malfoy could be like.
"It's just...your parents wouldn't have wanted this for you, Harry."
Sirius muttered, slumping in defeat.
"I'm sure my parents wouldn't have wanted to die either, bu we know how
that ended." That was a low blow and Harry knew it, but he didn't want to
deal with Sirius worrying about morality. The mention of his friends
deaths and of their killer, Voldemort, whom Malfoy had followed, would
remind his godfather of who exactly he had killed this day.
XXXXX
Harry spent the next several hours in his room, not exactly hiding, but
definitely making sure that he didn't encounter any of his guests,
especially the Delacour parents.
He wasn't afraid of them or what they thought of him, but he didn't want
to deal with irrational, half-panicked parents either. He had seen
Gabrielle after his duel with Malfoy and surmised that they must not have
known what exactly an honor duel entailed, or else they would have taken
her away. France was a more modern sort of magical country than the UK
after all. Unless it was normal to allow veela children to watch battles
to the death, but he found that unlikely.
He'd have the inevitable talk with them tomorrow, after they had calmed
down and Fleur had a chance to talk to them. He knew that his veela
friend would be less shocked by the senior Malfoy's death and give them a
little perspective, even if she didn't know the whole story.
His alone time was interrupted by the pop of a house elf.
"Master Harry sir, missy Tonks is here." Teeny announced. "She bes
looking mad."
Huh, he hadn't seen that coming. "Thank you, Teeny."
The happy little house elf popped away again and left Harry to his
thoughts, for what little time he had until his ex-girlfriend barged in.
Dora still had a standing invitation to the manor, but he honestly hadn't
expected her to come haring after him for that duel as soon as her shift
was over.
It wasn't more than a few seconds before he heard her stomping up the
hallway and throwing open the door.
"What the hell, Harry?" She demanded. She was dressed in a black tank
top(with no bra), ripped jeans, a pair of calf high black boots with a
light enchantment on them and her vividly orange-purple hair was spiked
around her head like an 80s rock star.
Harry smiled at her. "Hello, Dora. You're looking extra beautiful today."
"Don't try to flatter your way out of this!" She said sternly, ignoring
that she was, in fact, flattered.
"Your boobs seem to like it, they perked right up." He pointed out.
Tonks grabbed at her boobs possesively and looked at them sternly. "Don't
listen to him, girls!"
"It's too late, Dora. If you didn't want your boobs to rebel against you
and start listening to me, then you should have paid more attention to
those puppies." Harry said faux sinisterly.
Tonks glared at him for a few moments, but the increasing pinkness of her
hair gave away her amusement
Finally she huffed and relaxed her posture. "Alright, enough about my
boobs. What the hell were you thinking?"
"I was thinking that I didn't want my life to be constantly under threat
by Malfoy." Harry frowned, getting serious.
"And your first thought was killing him in front of hundreds of

witnesses?" She asked incredulously.
"No, I just figured it would have the most impact." He admitted.

Tonks snorted. It had impact alright. "And it doesn't bother you at all
that you essentially planned out a murder?"
"It was Malfoy. The man was a Death Eater and I'm not going to agonize
over it." Harry shrugged.
Tonks nodded with a small sigh. She was familiar with Harry's pragmatic
outlook. He hadn't been overly affected by any of his other kills either.
At first she'd thought he was just bottling it up, but he was either
really good at bottling it up, or he actually didn't have the expected
moral dilemmas about killing in self-defense.
Though this Malfoy situation was only self-defense in the loosest

possible interpretation of the term.
"This is going to set off a huge shitstorm, you know that right?" She
asked.
"It's a good thing we'll be in the Caribbean then, isn't it?" Harry
smirked.
"About that.is Fleur coming too?" Tonks had seen the veela and her
family going after Harry so it seemed likely.
"She is."
"Finally got together with her, did you?" She asked sardonically,
ignoring the small flare of familiar jealousy. Being replaced sucked, but
she had no right to complain.
"Nah, we're just friends." Harry said with a small shrug.
"So you're not sleeping with her?" Tonks asked with some incredulity.
"Friends with benefits." He corrected.
"Is she not relationship material?" The Metamorphmagus asked, unable to

help her curiousity.
"It's not that, I just don't want to rush into anything." He shrugged,
getting uncomfortable with the way that the conversation was going. Any
more and they'd start talking about feelings.
"And yet you've already met her parents." She countered, amused. "You
haven't even met my parents."
"I'd have prefered not to meet her parents either, but I could hardly
tell them to bugger off." Harry grumbled. "I even have them staying over
right now because Fleur is spending the summer with me."
"Oh." Tonks blinked. She hadn't run into anyone on the way up to his
room. "So I could have barged in on you talking or shagging Fleur or
something?"
"Theoretically." He shrugged, smiling.
"That would've been awkward."
"Quite."
A few seconds of silence followed before Tonks spoke again.
"So, Fleur's joining us on Black Island."
"Yep."
"Are you sure you still want me there?" She asked, going for a joking
tone. "I imagine that an ex-girlfriend would make things complicated."
"I don't see why, it's not like I'm dating any of them." Harry shrugged.
Tonks wasn't sure if he was really that nave or just deliberately

ignoring the explosive potential. "If you say so."
"So, did you want to stay for dinner?" He asked after a few slightly
uncomfortable seconds. "It would be just the two of us since I'm kind of
avoiding everyone to give them time to cool off. Or we could go out if
you'd like."
"Probably not a good idea." Tonks said, though it was tempting. Harry
might have friends with benefits, but she was still single and bored and
horny. Going on a pseudo-date with him could end up leading to all sorts
of complications that neither of them needed in their lives right now.
Being friends with an ex was hard enough without sex involved. She knew
that from prior experience.
"I guess you're right." Harry conceded, but didn't really mean it. The
easy conversation reminded him so much of the time before things had
started going bad between them that he'd been feeling almost optimistic
again.
What was that quote again? 'Hope is the first step on the road to
disappointment.' Sounds about right.
The whole situation was stupid, really. They had broken up over four
months ago now, and he'd stopped moping about it a few weeks into that
time. He was usually better about letting the past go than this. Of
course, he was usually also not still feeling guilty for performing Soul
Magic on an unknowing person. On an unknowing person that he really liked
at any rate.
"Of course I'm right." Tonks puffed up her chest, wanting to put an end
to the slight gloom that had descended just now.
"Careful there, Dora. I hear large breasts can cause back problems."
Harry said dryly, gesturing at her now DD-cup chest.
"Shows what you know." She replied haugtily. "Metamorphmagi don't get
back problems."
"Well in that case inflate away, Bubbles."
"What did you just call me?!" Tonks demanded, doing her best to keep an
angry expression on her face.
"Bubbles the inflatable doll?" He said back innocently. "Or would you
prefer Dora the Sexplorer?
Coming from anyone else, she would have been extremely offended by that,
but she was familiar with Harry's acerbic sense of humor and knew that he
didn't mean anything by it. That he could crack jokes about her abilities
without walking on eggshells or being an arse had always been something
she'd liked. That didn't mean that he was going to get away with it
though.
"Why you little..!" She growled and pounced, her body growing taller and
bulkier as she did so.
"This is new." Harry grunted in effort as the Metamorphmagus continued

changing until she was 6'1'' and had noticeable biceps. He was having to
exert quite a bit of effort to keep her at bay.
"I've been practicing." Tonks grunted back, continuing to shunt non-

critical mass, such as body fat and reproductive organs, into muscle. Her
breasts flattened and became distinctly male looking pectorals, which was
as weird as ever, but not as weird as suddenly being genderless. It was
worth it though, because it allowed her to slap more muscle onto her
bones.
"This is so unfair." Harry complained with a strained voice half a minute

of roughhousing later. The Metamorphmagus now looked like a serious body
builder and had the strength to match. He was very strong for his size
and build, but his lightly muscled form couldn't stand up to that even
with the runic enhancement.
"Deal with it." She grinned fiercely. Her head might be starting to pound
from the effort of sustaining a transformation so far outside of her
usual body mass, but the sweet taste of victory made it all worth it.
And then, with all the dramatic effect of an avalanche, her jeans burst
open at the seams, exposing pretty much everything. They hadn't been
fully skintight jeans, but they had definitely been meant for female legs
and not the tree trunks she'd turned them into. It was pure luck that her
boots had been bought in Diagon Alley and had a resizing enchantment on
them, a must have for a Metamorphmagus really.
Tonks yelped loudly and jumped away, covering her exposed groin with her
hands. Her morphed muscles quickly deflated and left her standing there
in a badly stretched tank top and ruined pants.
Meanwhile, Harry had collapsed into helpless hysterics and was cackling
madly, tears streaming from his eyes from the force of his laughter.
"It's not funny!" Tonks wailed, her entire body turning as red as her
hair, which was now a color that would make a lobster look pink.
Harry did not reply verbally, unless crawling across the floor and nearly
blacking out from oxygen deprivation counted.
XXXXX
The next day.
Harry woke up with the rising of the Sun as usual, which was pretty early
these days since it was summer. Luna was still asleep, but was
fortunately not stuck to him like a limpet as she sometimes was, so it
wasn't hard to extricate himself.
He smiled as he went about the usual morning rituals, remembering

yesterday. Not so much killing Malfoy as the dramatic visit of his ex-
girlfriend. Dora had left shortly after her spectacular wardrobe
malfunction, but the fun atmosphere had lingered for hours. He'd missed
screwing around with her like that.
Not even knowing that he'd be facing questions from Fleur's parents soon
put a dent in his mood. It wasn't like they could do anything anyway.
They were probably awake already actually. Veela had the same kind of
internal alarm clock that he did.
With that in mind, he made his way down to the sitting room and settled
in to a squashy armchair to wait. They'd show up eventually.
It was no more than twenty minutes later when he felt the approach of a
familiar Light.
"'Arry? What are you doing in 'ere?" Fleur asked as she entered the room
and saw him sitting all by himself with his eyes closed.
"I was waiting for you." He answered honestly.
"Strange, I could swear you were avoiding me." She said pointedly.
"I was avoiding your parents, and that was just to give them a chance to
get over their initial freak out." Harry corrected.
Fleur had to admit that 'freak out' was a valid description for her
parents yesterday. Her father more so than her mother, but both had been
in quite a state. It had taken her hours to calm them down. It was
incredibly rude to have guests over at one's home and then ignore them,
but it was a fact that with Gabrielle so frightened and her parents on
edge that conversation would have been tense to say the least.
She took a seat on the arm of Harry's chosen seat as she asked her next
question. "Did you really 'ave to do that in front of Gabi?"
"I would have prefered not to." Harry admitted. "But I never would have
gotten a chance quite like that again."
"And 'e really was ze one 'oo sent ze assassin in ze lake?" Fleur didn't
think he'd been lying, but wanted to make sure anyway.
"Mhm."
"'Ow did you find out?"
"I have my ways." Harry answered with a shrug. He didn't want Fleur and
Adrastia meeting, it seemed like a bad idea for some reason. Keeping them
apart when the manipulative witch inevitably showed up would be a must.
Fleur pursed her lips. Harry was being secretive again.
She decided it was better not to ask, as usual. "You didn't give me a
tour of your manor yesterday."
"You know, I never understood the point of giving someone a tour around a
house." He commented. "It's just a house, not a freaking museum. It has
bedrooms, bathrooms and a few other types of rooms and that's it."
"Eet eez to make guest comfortable in your home and not leave zem
stumbling about." Fleur told him, a wry smile pulling at her lips. "Like
we would 'ave done if not for Penny and Sirius."
"I suppose there is that." Harry conceded.
The rest of the Delacour family showed up at that point, as signaled by

their footsteps and a frightened gasp from Gabrielle.
"Good morning." Harry greeted, ignoring the way that Fleur's little
sister was hiding behind her father's legs.
"Good morning." The two elder Delacours returned, visibly tense in his
presence.
"Fleur, I think your parents want to talk to me alone. Could you take
your sister out of here? Call for Teeny if you need anything." Harry
muttered so that only she could hear.
Fleur nodded and quickly led Gabrielle away.
"Well, this is awkward." Harry said blandly once they were alone. "Please
have a seat, I'm sure you have questions for me."
They moved to a couch and sat on the very edge of it, as if ready to bolt
at a moment's notice. But they were sitting down, so that was something.
"Alright, I guess I'll start." He muttered. "I'm sorry that you had to
see that yesterday, but I had to get rid of that man before he could try
to kill me again."
"Could you not have had him arrested?" Sebastien asked.
Harry snorted at the absurd notion. "I'm sure you have some idea of how
corrupt the British Ministry of Magic is. He would have weaseled out of
it even if I had any tangible proof, for no other reason than because he
was a rich pureblood."
"And killing him like that was the only alternative?" Apolline asked, not
quite censuringly.
"Maybe not." Harry admitted. "Maybe I could have found some rock solid
evidence and manipulated the current Minister to convict him, or maybe I
could have killed him in a more clandestine fashion, but he was too
dangerous to be kept alive for any longer than necessary. I wanted him
gone as soon as possible and doing it publically like that will warn off
anyone that might have had similar ideas."
"Gabrielle is only eight, she shouldn't have had to see that." Sebastien
said, his tone growing heated.
"There were plenty of kids there that shouldn't have seen it." Harry
responded blandly.
"Yes, and I'm sure you can imagine why we aren't comfortable with Fleur
staying with you anymore." Apolline took over.
"Nobody is forcing her to." Harry shrugged, choosing not to mention their
little bet.
"You have been sleeping with her." It wasn't a question.
"For about a month now, yes."
"How is it that you remain unaffected by her Allure?" Sebastien asked

suspiciously.
"Bothers you, does it?" Harry asked back with a humorless grin. "I'm sure
it must have made you feel happy to know that your daughter would be able
to control whichever man she chose the same way that your wife controls
you."
"I do not control my husband." Apolline said stiffly.
"Really?" Harry asked skeptically. "I know there's a lot of romantic

tripe going around about veela, but the truth is that you are essentially
watered down succubi. I'm sure that you're happy together, but it doesn't
change the fact that you are the one with more power in the relationship,
Apolline." Even a veela's enthusiasm for giving blowjobs would be enough
for some men, never mind all the magical bits.
He could see that neither of them were especially pleased by his words,
but he didn't much care. He'd spoken the truth and wasn't going to
sugarcoat things in an effort to get their approval.
"Excuse us for a minute, I need to have a word with my wife." Sebastien
said.
"By all means." Harry said and got up. "Come find me if you have anything
more to say."
XXXXX
"I don't like him." Sebastien said as soon as they were alone.
"I know, I wasn't too fond of his attitude either." Apolline agreed.
Harry had been right. It was a comfort to know that your daughter would
have control of the relationship. Sebastien could not fathom ever doing
anything to hurt his wife and they had both expected that Fleur would
eventually have a man just as devoted to her.
Except he apparently wasn't. Instead, he was disrespectful to them and

immune to both the long and short term effects of a veela's magic. It
took all their assurances of their daughter's safety in a relationship
and threw them out the window. And that was without even factoring in the
fact that he had planned out how to kill a man and then gone through with
it.
"Why does our daughter seem determined to make my hair turn white before
I turn fifty?" Sebastien asked plaintively. "First she says that she
wants to go into a dangerous profession like curse-breaking and now she
chases after a killer that she can't control."
He knew that his wife was the one who wore the pants in the family, but
Sebastien was alright with that. Apolline was a wonderful woman and he
loved her immensely. She had explained about the Joining and he knew that
he had technically been influenced into feeling that way, but it didn't
matter. They were happy together and that was that. It bothered him that
Fleur wouldn't have that assurance. It bothered him that he wouldn't have
that assurance for her.
Apolline pursed her lips and sighed. The worst part was that she could
understand at least some of Fleur's fascination with Harry Potter. His
magic was incredible, it would have drawn any veela to him. It wouldn't
necessarily have kept them around, but they certainly would have wanted
to bed him at least once. It was just poor luck that their eldest
daughter liked a bit of danger in her life.
"She told me that he doesn't want a relationship, so she may get tired of
him eventually." She said for her husband's benefit, but didn't believe
it. In the few conversations that they'd had on the topic so far, Fleur
had seemed pretty determined to stay with Harry.
She could even understand why. Apolline may not be happy about what her
daughter was getting herself mixed up in, but she understood why. The
powerful magic, the good looks and the great sex according to her
descriptions would appeal to a veela's base nature, while the dangerous
edge and whatever else she knew of him appealed to Fleur's sense of
adventure.
"I hope so." Sebastien said.
Apolline gave her husband a weak smile. She had a feeling those hopes
were in vain.
XXXXX
A few hours later the rest of the house had woken up and they were
sitting down to eat breakfast together.
Apolline and Sebastien had taken their still frightened younger daughter
back to France, though not without first extracting a promise from their
eldest that she come visit them soon.
Their conversation was interrupted when an owl flew in through the open
window and headed straight for Penny, clutching the latest edition of the
Daily Prophet.
Harry wasted no time in summoning the newspaper to himself, just barely

snatching it from the grasping hands of his godfather.
"Hey, don't hog the paper!" Sirius complained.
"You snooze, you lose." Harry retorted reasonably, taking a look at the
front page.
It featured a full page moving picture of himself casting the Forbidden

Sun, though it didn't show the effects on the now late Malfoy patriarch.
Probably too graphic. Above the picture was a massive headline boldly
proclaiming 'Explosive End to the Tri-Wizard Tournament!' .
"Someone thinks they're being funny." Harry snorted as everyone crowded

around him to see.
"The Prophet always thought it was clever with its puns, the plebs."
Sirius also snorted.
"It's true though, it really was an explosive end." Luna pointed out.
"Turn ze page already." Fleur said impatiently, backed up by Penny.
"Alright, alright, keep your panties on." Harry said and turned the page.
The first few paragraphs were just a short recap of the tournament and of
his victory and it was obvious even in text that the author of the
article was rushing through it in an effort to get to the good part.
In a stunning turn of events, Harry Potter announced his emancipation and

thus ascension to the title of Lord Potter, followed immediately by a
withdrawal from Hogwarts for both himself and his young friend Luna
Lovegood.
"But we're the same age now." Luna pouted.
"They never said we weren't, they just conveniently left my age out of
it." Harry said wryly.
An even bigger shock came when the current Lord Black, Sirius Orion
Black, who is also Harry Potter's godfather, announced his abdication and
left the Black family to his godson, who is eligible to inherit it from
his grandmother Dorea Potter ne Black.
Now the Lord of two powerful families, the Boy-Who-Lived immediately

began to use his new station to 'clean house' as it were. His first act
was to dissolve the marriage of Bellatrix Black to Rodolphus Lestrange
and banish her from the Black family, leaving the imprisoned Death Eater
nameless and disgraced.
His second act was to banish fellow Hogwarts student, Draco Malfoy, from
the Black family.
Lastly, he dissolved the marriage between Narcissa Black and Lucius

Malfoy on account of him being a Death Eater. Malfoy disputed this
accusation, reiterating that he had been forced to serve He-Who-Must-Not-
Be-Named through the use of the Imperius, but the new Lord Potter
dismissed his claims and offered to face him in an honor duel to decide
who had the right of it.
Honor duels have long since fallen out of favor, but they remain a valid
if archaic means of settling serious disputes between the Lords of
the Wizengamot. It should be noted that Lord Potter was under no
obligation to offer this option as the Malfoy family is not part of the
Wizengamot and could not have done anything about the decision.
"I get the feeling that the Daily Prophet is trying very hard to make it
clear that they're not accusing me of anything." Harry mused, stopping
for a moment.
"And all you had to do to get a little courtesy from them is publically
kill someone." Penny said sarcastically. Unlike Harry, who had flatly
ignored what the Prophet was doing throughout the year, she had read
every issue and been severely annoyed by all the speculation into his
love life.
As soon as the duel began, it was clear that Lord Potter had the
advantage and was easily the greater wizard.
Because of this, the surprise when Malfoy disarmed him was even greater.
It was shortlived however, as Lord Potter immediately demonstrated an
immense proficiency in wandless magic, the like of which our world surely
has not seen since the time of Merlin himself.
"Laying it on a bit thick, aren't they?" Sirius muttered.
"They're reporters, what do you expect?" Harry snorted.

Malfoy was caught off guard as completely as the spectators and was
swiftly defeated. Lord Potter then proceeded to accuse his opponent of
attempting to assassinate him so that his son could have inherited the
Black family.
When Malfoy did not deny the accusation, Lord Potter finished the duel
with an immensely powerful spell he called 'the Forbidden Sun', which is
likely of his own creation and was cast wandlessly. Experts theorise that
Lord Potter must have an astonishingly massive magical core to allow for
the use of such powerful spells with no wand.
Harry sneered at the newspaper. Trust the media to spread ignorance and
misinformation. Magical core indeed!
The article went on for only a little while longer, notably absent in any
kind of wild speculation about his life that had characterised previous
articles about him. It didn't even mention that Fleur had gone with him
at the end of that debacle.
All in all, the article had a definite feel of 'please don't come burn
our homes down, we're being good'. It was better than them proclaiming
him as the next Dark Lord to be sure.
"I wonder how people will react to this?" Harry mused.
XXXXX
Arundel.
"Damn, Harry went all out." Tiana whistled.
"How can you be okay with this?" Jade demanded heatedly. "We're partners
with a murderer!"
"It was Malfoy." Bryanna said dismissively. "The bastard would've had us
all killed or groveling before his precious pure blood if he could. Good
riddance to that."
"And I doubt those accusations about assassination were just hot air."
Tiana added.
Bryanna suddenly froze for a moment and then grinned widely. "I just
realized that this means we don't have to wait until Harry is seventeen
to open our store."
"Hey, you're right!"
Isabel and Jade looked at each other nervously, not understanding why
their friends were able to so easily brush off something like this.
XXXXX
The Burrow.
Breakfast was loud a affair at the best of times in the Weasley
household, but today was exceptional by any standard.
Ginny stayed quiet as the debate raged around her.
Percy was ranting about Harry being Dark, Ron was alternating between
agreeing with him and cheering for Malfoy's death, the twins were
whispering heatedly to themselves in a corner, their father was trying to
calm things down and their mother was ranting about Harry's upbringing
for some reason.
Ginny herself was just sort of glad that she wasn't Harry's friend
anymore. The boy she had met on the Hogwarts Express just shy of three
years ago couldn't have done this. This new Harry frightened her.
XXXXX
Spinner's End.
Severus had a sour look on his face as he read the newspaper.
The past school year had brought his hatred of Harry Potter soaring to
new heights. The brat had been an intolerably entitled bastard the whole
year and a bully to boot, even worse than his father really. And he
hadn't been able to do anything about it.
He'd only seen the truth with Lucius' death. Harry Potter wasn't much
like his father at all and what resemblence he'd once had to his mother
had vanished as well.
Harry Potter was far too vicious to be compared to either of his parents.
Well, Severus supposed it didn't matter anymore. The little psychopath

was leaving Hogwarts and taking his crazy friend with him. Maybe if he
was lucky, Severus would get to see Voldemort and Potter kill each other
somewhere down the line. That would be a treat, seeing the two people he
hated most in the world tearing each other apart. The only thing that
would make it better was if Black got mixed up in it too and ended up
being collateral damage.
XXXXX
Ministry of Magic, Minister's office.
Fudge frantically read over the article and hoped it would calm things
down a bit. He didn't need any more problems with Dolores imprisoned and
Lucius dead. Who would he ask for advice now? Amelia was after the
Minister's chair, he was sure of it! Why else would she keep pushing for
more funding, more authority, more everything?
Maybemaybe he could get Harry on board with him? They had worked
together before and it had gone well. Yes, that was a good idea. He'd
send an owl to the new Lord Potter. It was better than crawling back to
Dumbledore.
XXXXX
Malfoy Manor.
Narcissa put down the newspaper and looked at her shaking hands. She'd
thought they had stopped doing that yesterday.
Draco had stormed off in a rage after seeing the title and picture on the
front page. Her son had tipped between a tearful depression and a
frothing rage ever since Lucius had been killed. When they had arrived
back home yesterday, he had set out to vent his fury on their house elf.
Narcissa had let him, being in no state to do anything for him herself.
House elves existed to serve their masters anyway and if it could make
her son feel better by serving as a punching bag for him then it was
doing its duty.
That had been a mistake. Draco had beaten the creature to death in his
rage and they couldn't afford a new one. She was no longer a Malfoy and
couldn't access the vaults and Draco was underage. They had no ready
funds and no source of income until he turned seventeen, which was two
years away.
Lucius had never set up a trust vault for his son and even worse, had
never believed in paying for anything up front. The deadline for paying
next year's Hogwarts tuition was approaching and they had nothing to pay
it with. The only ready gold they had was what had been lying around the
manor, and that was not much at all. She wasn't even sure if she could
afford to buy her son a new wand to replace the one that Potter had
broken.
She could go to another family for help, but that was risky. Some
families hated the Malfoys and others would use the situation to take
advantage of them.
It was also moot. Nobody would help them after the statement Potter had
made when killing Lucius. Only one thing truly mattered in the world and
that was power. Gold, prestige, influence.. all these things were just
expressions of it, but what use were they against the raw magical might
that Potter had demonstrated yesterday? Her husband's, or ex-husband's
she supposed, burned body was the answer to that.
Potter had shown that the Malfoys were his enemies and nobody would be
want to be seen helping them now. Not anytime soon. Especially with how
foolishly Draco had attacked him at the conclusion of the duel. Potter
could easily make more demands for that assault, it being the actions of
a grieving son notwithstanding. Nobody would care about Draco's emotional
state in the face of Potter's power. Even the Ministry would sooner bend
its laws to accommodate Potter than openly challenge him now. They had
given way before Voldemort at first as well, before it became clear that
he wouldn't stop. They had done the same for Dumbledore once as well,
with only time having dulled the memory of the power he commanded.
She couldn't even sell anything to scare up some gold. She wasn't a
Malfoy anymore and had no right to it. And of course, Draco was too young
to do it. Even if she could have done that, it likely wouldn't be fast
enough to pay for Draco's Hogwarts tuition. That wasn't even considering
how much she would be ripped off because everyone would know that she was
desperate.
And then there was the threat of being cast out of the Black family still
hanging over her head. That would be a disaster. If that happened, she
wouldn't even be eligible anymore to be Draco's legal guardian. She would
be nameless, which was in some ways worse than being a mudblood.
Mudbloods could at least crawl back to where they came from, but she
would have nowhere to go. The fate that might befall a disgraced highborn
woman didn't bear thinking about.
She had never appreciated the kind of strength Andromeda must have had to
willingly walk away from her family. Well, she could appreciate it now.
Bellatrix had been cruel even as a child, Andromeda willful and

headstrong and then there was her, Narcissa, the baby of the family. The
one who had always been the ideal of a pureblood princess from the
ancient house of Black. The one who always had everything handed to her
because she was the favorite.
The one who had never known a day of hardship in her entire life. Not
until a wizard with glowing green eyes and unbelievable power had killed
Lucius in retaliation for the assassination attempts made on him.
She had known about Lucius' plans, not the details of course, but the
broad strokes. She had supported it even. The thought of her family
passing into the hands of a half-blood instead of her own perfect son had
been insulting. She had never fathomed that it would lead to her world
collapsing around her.
She had barely gotten any sleep last night, worry and grief keeping her
awake.
The harsh truth was that she needed help.
She had briefly considered going to Andromeda, but dismissed the thought
almost as soon as she had it. That bridge had been burned a long time
ago. Her older sister was more likely to slam the door in her face than
help her. And, if she was being honest with herself, Narcissa could admit
that she didn't want to live on the fringes of magical society like
Andromeda did with her mudblood husband.
What she really needed was to make sure that Potter wouldn't decide to
hammer the last nail into her coffin in a fit of pique. She knew from
Draco's letters that he wasn't the pure-hearted paragon of good that the
stories had made him out to be before his return to their world. He had a
mean streak, as if that wasn't obvious enough from the way he had killed
Lucius.
She would write a letter to that mudblood steward of his, asking for a
meeting.
Narcissa bit her lip as she was reminded of another potential problem.
That was the same mudblood that had been Head Girl last year and who had
given Draco a detention. The same mudblood that Lucius had mader sure
would never be able to get any respectable work in Magical Britain.
It had seemed like such a small thing back then, just showing an uppity
little mudblood how the world worked. It wasn't the first time that
Lucius had done it and she had agreed with it. Couldn't have the rabble
thinking that they could get away with things like that after all. It was
bad enough that Dumbledore humored them by allowing them to become Head
Boy or Head Girl.
But it hadn't been just any mudblood, had it? Potter had counted her as a
friend, given her a prestigious position in his own family and spent the
whole school year demonstrating his displeasure to Draco with a series of
humiliating pranks. She hadn't even connected the two events until now.
She'd need to be polite, and stop thinking of her as a mudblood. The ice
she was standing on was far too thin to allow for any slip ups during
conversation.
XXXXX
Hogwarts.
Albus Dumbledore put down the paper and stroked his long beard in
thought.
This entire situation had blindsided him utterly. Harry had always acted
so very much like a Ravenclaw if a bit more surly than most that this
sudden burst of Gryffindor boldness backed by Slytherin cunning and
ruthlessness had come seemingly out of nowhere.
Most people would be surprised to hear that Dumbledore didn't handle

sudden and unexpected events too well. Most people thought that he always
had an answer ready no matter what happened, but that was just not true.
He was, first and foremost, a scholar. Circumstances had forced him into
strife and leadership, but that was not his prefered state. It was why
the position as Hogwarts Headmaster was more valuable to him than his
other two titles.
It was why Voldemort had given him so much trouble. The Dark Lord didn't
play by the rules. When he got upset, he upended the board instead of
thinking carefully about his next move.
Harry had also just upended the board. Albus didn't know how the boy had
learned that Lucius was behind the assassination, but he had to agree
that it was likely. The problem was that Harry hadn't tried to find a way
to prove it. Oh no, Harry had instead contrived a situation where he
could outright kill him and sod the proof. Albus had been so stunned that
he hadn't been able to find a way to control the situation in time.
And the power that Harry had shown, he'd never imagined such a thing done
wandlessly. No matter how he looked at the Forbidden Sun as Harry had
called it, he couldn't think of a way to replicate it with a wand. The
spell simply had too many components to remain stable. If Harry was
capable of that, then there was really no telling what else he was
capable of.
Albus was deathly afraid that he had missed the making of another Dark
Lord. He had not seen the darkness in Gellert until it was too late. He
had clung to hope with Tom and shut his eyes until it was too late. Had
he been doing it again with Harry?
He had spent most of the night with his Pensieve, going over all of their
past interactions, looking for clues that he might have missed.
Harry had been a quiet and withdrawn boy in his first year. His second
had seen the advent of a bad temper, but still nothing to really be
concerned about. His third saw him becoming sexually active as well as
more secretive. And his fourth was when he began to completely reject
authority.
Albus couldn't be sure, but given the rate of his growth, he guessed that
Harry must have performed whatever ritual he had used to speed his
maturity during his first summer break. He recalled how the boy had
refused to stay at Hogwarts back then because he had 'things to do'.
All this retrospection still didn't give him any solid information
however. Was Harry Potter walking down an evil path? He feared it was so,
especially in light of the people Harry had killed so far, but he just
didn't know.
He would visit Potter Manor a bit later in the day and talk to the
recently emancipated lad. With Harry not coming back to Hogwarts in
September a lot of old plans were useless. He needed more information.
XXXXX
Harry had barely put the paper down when the distinct sound of the door
knocker was heard.
"I wonder who that could be?" Penny said with a small frown, moving to
answer.
"I could think of one or two people." Harry muttered. It could be either
Dumbledore or..
"Harry, it's-" Penny began once she came back, but was interrupted by a
sensual female purr.
"My, my, my, when I asked you if the award ceremony was going to be more
exciting than the third task, I certainly wasn't expecting the show you
put on."
"Hello, Adrastia." Harry greeted with resignation. She was earlier than
he'd expected.
"Harry." She replied, taking a grape from a nearby plate and sucking it
sensually into her mouth. "Care to introduce me to the ones I haven't met
yet?"
"I guess." He sighed at her theatrics. "Girls, this is Adrastia Zabini.

Adrastia, meet Luna Lovegood and Fleur Delacour."
"Hi." Luna beamed, giving the beautiful older woman a wave.
"Enchant." Fleur said with much less enthusiasm than Luna. Harry's
attitude towards this woman was putting her on edge.
"Are you ready to talk about that thing I mentioned yesterday, or should
I sit down and join you for breakfast?" Adrastia asked, smiling
beatifically.
"Now is fine, come on." Harry got up, leaving his unfinished breakfast
for later.
"'Oo eez zat woman?" Fleur asked once they were gone. She'd seen her
talking to Harry yesterday too.
"Trouble." Sirius grumbled.
XXXXX
"So?" Harry prompted.
"So." Adrastia drawled back with a smirk, sinking languidly into her
seat.
"I'm not in the mood for games right now, so get to the point if you
would."
"Very well." She pouted playfully. "You want to know why I advised you
not to cast Narcissa out of the family."
"I have some guesses." He admitted.
"Do share."
"Blackmail?" He couldn't really think of anything that he could actually

blackmail the woman for, but it was the most likely option to his
thinking.
"Certainly an option, but so very unimaginative."

"Enlighten me then."
"You made a good choice in employing Penny to be your steward, a smart

choice." Adrastia said, seemingly off topic.
"Are you implying I should do the same with Narcissa?" Harry asked
incredulously. "The woman whose husband I just killed? I'd have to watch
out for betrayal at every turn!"
"She would be useful to you." Adrastia said, apparently ignoring his

reasoning for why this was a bad idea. "Much as I enjoy these little
dtentes of ours, I cannot be here to give you advice all the time and
your grandparents' portraits are a poor substitute for a real person. The
Malfoys were the social elite before you destroyed them, making Narcissa
an ideal choice as a social planner for you."
"I'm not a very social person." He grumbled.
"All the more reason why you need a social planner." She countered. "Like
it or not, you've just become a big name in British magical politics.
Very soon now you can expect to receive proposals and invitations to
social events. Snub them at your own peril."
Even Harry could guess what would happen if he did that. People tended to
get nervous around very powerful anti-social loners that refused to
interact with the wider population. The Hogwarts student body had been
the same, bunch of twats that couldn't grasp the idea that some people
simply didn't enjoy being around most others.
"You still haven't addressed the the issue of me potentially getting

stabbed in the back if I did that." He said sourly, conceding the point.
"We have ways of controlling difficult people, you and I." Adrastia said,
her dark eyes gleaming with things that she usually kept carefully
concealed.
"You can't be serious." Harry said flatly, leaning back into his own
armchair.
"Deadly serious." She purred, getting up and gliding towards him.
"I am not going to use the Joining to turn her into a slave." He said
tersely, keeping his anger at the suggestion in check.
Adrastia had by this point walked around his seat and placed her hands on
his shoulder, leaning down to whisper into his ear. "You don't have to.
All you need to do is..encourage her to be grateful to you for being a
merciful lord."
"By fucking her brains out." Harry scowled, offended by the suggestion.
This was exactly what he didn't want to use the Joining for. When he did
it together with Fleur, it was beautiful. What Adrastia was suggesting
was anything but.
"I know you've thought about it." She said in a sultry tone, gently
squeezing his shoulders and sending her aura to mingle with his for as
far as he would allow. "Narcissa is a beautiful woman after all."
"Of course I've thought about it, it's what I do. I think." He grumbled,
keeping a careful watch on what she was doing magically but not expelling
her. She was letting him sense her intent and he could tell that she was
sincere in trying to help him, though there was still the shadow of an
ulterior motive behind it, but it didn't feel malicious. Not towards him
at any rate.
"And don't deny that it appeals to you." She went on, her voice now a
seductive whisper. "What you did to poor LuciusI know revenge when I see
it, and revenge I respect. You could have his woman as well, have Draco's
mother begging you for more. She would enjoy it even."
That was far too tempting for Harry's comfort and he shrugged her hands
off.
Adrastia backed away easily and walked back in front of him. "Well, it
was just a suggestion. You could also leave things as they are and see if
she can convince anyone to help her out financially since she and Draco
currently have no access to money of any kind."
Oh. Harry hadn't even thought of that.
"Or if you are feeling particularly cruel, you could cast her out of the
Black family and see what happens. She might be able to find a relatively
respectable job, but I hear that disgraced noblewomen make for quite the
attraction as whores. I must admit that I am curious to see if she has
the strength to endure that for the sake of her son or if she would take
her own life."
Well that was one option that he wasn't planning to use anymore. He may
not have any fondness for Narcissa, but he couldn't bring himself to
knowingly condemn her to that. Annoyingly enough, he felt a small bit of
gratitude towards Adrastia for suggesting that he not banish Narcissa
from the Black family. It would have made him feel terribly guilty if he
did that and learned about the consequences later.
XXXXX
As he walked through the doors of 74 Cromwell Road, Harry felt like an

intruder in a stranger's house. This place had never felt like home in
the sense of family, but now it even felt foreign as a residence. It only
confirmed his decision that it was time to cut ties with his foster
parents.
"Anybody home?" He called out, not feeling in the mood to search the
house.
He heard the sound of approaching footsteps in respouse to his shout and

smiled tightly.
"Who areHarry?" Roberts said, starting out hostile at the apparent
stranger and trailing off into bafflement at the sight of him. Harry had
been rather big and old looking for his age the last time they had seen
him, but this was getting ridiculous.
"Robert, Katherine." Harry nodded at them. "We have to talk."
"We were expecting you yesterday." Katherine said, a tremor of

nervousness in her tone. There was something deeply unnerving about the
hardened green eyes staring at her. She didn't understand the boy they
had taken into their home seven years ago anymore, hadn't understood him
for some time really.
"I know." Was Harry's only response. "I'll get right to the point. I've
just been emancipated in the magical world. I don't need you anymore."
Robert spluttered in outrage. "Don't need us anymore?! After everything-"
His budding tirade was silenced with a wave of Harry's hand. His mouth
still moved but no sound was produced. "Shut up and listen."
Robert was already forcibly shut up, but stopped trying to talk anyway
and his wife followed suit, frightened by the overt display of power.
"You've done a lot to help me even if your reasons were selfish. You got
me out of that orphanage, got me the finest education money can buy, got
my eyes fixed, made sure I ate well and left me enough time for my own
purposes. For all of that and more, I thank you." Harry said sincerely.
"You also taught me a lot of important life lessons. You taught me that
optimism is useless, that people aren't against you so much as they are
for themselves, that family is just a word and that if you want something
you have to get it yourself. For that too, I thank you. These lessons
have been invaluable so far and I'm sure they will continue to be in the
future."
Both non-magicals averted their eyes. The genuine sincerity struck far
deeper than angry shouting could ever hope to.
"I'm sure your plans have been inconvenienced by my absences these past
couple of years and I can't say that I really care about that. You bought
my cooperation in your silly social schemes by giving me a place to stay
and I don't need that anymore. I don't need you anymore. You can tell
your 'friends' whatever cock and bull story you want about me, I don't
care. I don't hate you, I don't even resent you, but I don't want
anything more to do with you either. You still have my phone number and I
won't go into a purple-faced rage if you contact me, but don't bother me
with social calls. In recognition of what you've done for me, I'll pop
over if you really need my help, but only for serious things. If you
decide to foster or adopt or even conceive another kid, I'd advise you to
try being a little more parental. Goodbye."
With a final wave of his hand to dispel the Silencing Charm on Robert,
Harry apparated away.
XXXXX
As he walked back through the front door of Potter Manor, Harry mused
that the final confrontation with his foster parents had gone rather
smoothly. It was amazing how easy these things were when only one side
had the priviliege of speaking.
Returning to the sight of Albus Dumbledore waiting in his sitting room

produced nothing but a frown from the recently emancipated wizard.
"You're here already?" Harry asked critically. "It's not even lunch time
yet."
"I take it you were expecting me then?" Albus asked, furrowing his bushy
eyebrows.
"After yesterday? Of course I was expecting you." Harry rolled his eyes.
Albus didn't let the surprise he was feeling show on his face. "You
killed a man yesterday, Harry."
"I've killed people before." Harry countered blithely.
"Killing in self-defense is different from deliberately setting out to

kill someone."
"And deliberately setting out to kill someone so that he stops sending

assassins after me is different from random murder. What's your point?"
"You could have searched for proof of his crimes." Albus said, sounding
disappointed.
"Because that's worked so well in the past." Harry jeered sarcastically.

"Come on, Albus, get to the point. You're here because you're afraid of
me going 'Dark' or something equally asinine."
The old wizard was startled by the shocking directness of the statement.
He was used to rather more circuitous conversations, but since Harry had
ended any chance of that happening he would simply have to go along with
it. "Can you blame me?"
"I guess not, old wizards are notorioulsy prone to paranoia after all."
Harry jibed. "You don't have to worry though. I have no interest in
taking over the world, or even part of it for that matter. It's too much
work and it would suck up all my free time."
"Harry, this is no laughing matter." Albus said with a deep frown.
"I'm not joking." Harry said flatly. "I know this might shock you, Albus,
but it is possible for a person to be something other than a rainbow
farting do-gooder or a puppy kicking arsehole. I don't care much for
people or politics and I certainly won't waste any more time on either
than I absolutely have to. I'm a Wizard and I concern myself with magic
above all else."
Albus knew of course that the world was not cleanly divided between good
people and bad people, only small children thought otherwise, but he
still worried. A powerful wizard who didn't restrain himself could easily
fall into evil with the right provocation. He felt that perhaps Harry's
claim about not caring for people was a tad exaggerated since he clearly
cared for those close to him, but perhaps he simply hadn't wanted to name
exceptions. What struck the old wizard the most however was the certainty
in Harry's words, the almost audible capitalization when he named himself
a wizard. He wasn't a boy adrift on the tides of life anymore, but a man
with a clear course.
The sense of great power coming from him didn't hurt in reinforcing his
words either. Albus was certain that Harry would soon surpass him. How he
managed it at such a young age, he couldn't fathom, but it was happening.
A wizard's true power lay not in the number of spells they knew or the
destruction they could cause, but in their understanding of the world and
their life experience. By some means, Harry had gained vast knowledge
that should have eluded him for decades yet and Albus genuinely feared
what he would become in those decades. The idea that he would be able to
match Voldemort on an even keel no longer seemed so out of reach.
"What will you do now?" Albus asked softly.
"Travel a bit, see the world. Learn how different people did magic."
Harry replied with a shrug.
That didn't really ease the old wizard's mind. Voldemort had also
travelled as a young man.
"What about Voldemort, Harry? What about the prophecy?"
"He's dead isn't he? We destroyed his phylactery in the Chamber of

Secrets." Harry asked, playing dumb. He wanted to see if Dumbledore was
willing to cooperate yet.
"Alas, I fear he had more."
Harry feigned surprise. "I didn't know that was possible."
"I suspect nobody did until Voldemort accomplished it." Albus said with a
nod.
"So, do you have any idea where he hid the others?" He wasn't going to
mention the locket.
Harry pretended not to notice the way that the old man's eyes flicked
towards his scar for a split second. It had faded only slightly after he
had expelled Voldemort's soul fragment from himself. So, Dumbledore knew
about that and hadn't said anything. How ominous.
"No, unfortunately."
"Well I'm not going to put my life on hold for that madman. I'll leave
finding them up to you since you knew the crazy bastard better anyway."
"You're going to just leave?! Even knowing that Voldemort is still

alive?" Albus spluttered, stunned by Harry's flippancy.
"What else do you expect me to do, sit here twiddling my thumbs until he
shows up?" The younger wizard asked sarcastically. "With the prophecy in
play, I'll end up fighting him no matter what. I might as well learn a
few things in the meantime."
"Harry, this is incredibly irresponsible of you." Albus went for the

disappointed grandfather act out of habit.
"Wanting to live my life is irresponsible?" Harry asked, heat creeping

into his tone. "Fuck you, Dumbledore."
"What?" Albus blinked, the sudden vulgarity derailing his thoughts quite
handily.
"Prophecy or not, Voldemort is more your Dark Lord than mine. I'll fight
him if I have to, but I'm not going to sit around shitting myself at the
thought of him. It's been almost fourteen years since he was defeated,
what have you done to make sure he can't come back since then?"
Albus wasn't sure how to answer that question and Harry didn't really
give him time to do so in any case.
"I know you came here quaking in your boots at the thought of me becoming
another Dark Lord. Well, you can rest assured that it won't happen. I
might not be the nicest of people, but I don't get my jollies from
torture and murder either. I'm not even interested in toppling the
government despite how corrupt it is, too much work as I said. Now I'd
appreciate it if you got out of my house, and try to remember next time
that it's rude to drop by unannounced."
"Harry, I only have the greater good of the Wizarding World in mind."
Albus said sadly. This wasn't how he hd envisioned this conversation
going.
"That's nice. Personally, I don't give a shit about it. I might not even
have bothered worrying about Voldemort if it wasn't for that bloody
prophecy." Harry scoffed.
"'The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do
nothing.'" Dumbledore quoted.
"Oh, are we trading trite sayings now? I have one of those too. 'The road
to Hell is paved with good intentions'. I hear that Hitler and
Grindelwald had some ideas about the Greater Good too, so I'll wager that
my indifference is far more benign than your 'good intentions'."
Albus visibly flinched at the unexpected lance into an old wound.
Harry stared after his uninvited visitor long after the man had left,
thinking. Albus Dumbledore wasn't an evil man, but he was infuriatingly
condescending and hypocritical, all the more so because he didn't even
seem aware of it.
Harry had asked Penny to look into the man's past actions as Chief
Warlock of the Wizengamot and Supreme Mugwump of the ICW. He had also
looked at whatever historical data was publically available on him and
learned that he was rumored to have some history with Grindelwald aside
from just their famous duel. What exactly that history was he had no
idea, but it was there.
Penny's research had uncovered some rather surprising information.
Despite being a known supporter of muggleborns and equality, Dumbledore

didn't actually do anything to support it. Unless you counted frequently
making muggleborns Head Boy or Head Girl in Hogwarts, which Harry didn't.
He had all the power in the world to push for change in magical Britain's
stagnant culture, but he did nothing. He proposed no new laws and
suggested no changes to existing ones. In fact, the only thing he seemed
to do was go with the flow and react to things as they came, and even
then he just maintained the status quo. That he was powerful was beyond
dispute, but he did nothing with that power.
Albus Dumbledore the Useless.
Even during the war against Voldemort, he wasn't seen doing much at all.
Everyone knew that the Dark Lord avoided direct confrontation with him,
but that was it. There had been no more than a mere handful of battles
between the two of them. And he never, ever made the first move. It was
always a reaction to something that Voldemort and the Death Eaters did.
Albus Dumbledore the Defensive.
Harry in fact suspected that he could have proclaimed himself a Dark Lord
right in Dumbledore's face, and the old man would be so stunned that he
wouldn't know what to do. Of course, anyone could talk shit about being a
Dark Lord, but it didn't mean anything if they weren't out there
spreading chaos and mayhem, so maybe that was a bad example. Still it
highlighted Dumbledore's problems quite nicely. He gave other people the
disappointed grandfather act if they didn't do what he expected, but he
couldn't be arsed to act on his own.
No wonder the scum weren't afraid to cross him anymore, plotting under
his very nose.
Albus Dumbledore the Toothless.
XXXXX
In the wake of his conversation with Dumbledore, Harry went into the
basement of Potter Manor and into the room he'd turned into a private
workshop.
There he took out the box containing the Horcrux locket that had been in
his keeping for a year now. He'd had it with him at Hogwarts and had
tried to glean something from it at least twice a month, to no avail.
At first, he'd simply been fumbling around and accomplishing nothing, but
that had changed over time. Amusingly enough, his increased knowledge of
souls came almost exclusively from sex. Adrastia's little revelation of
the Joining and then the constant use of it on Luna and Fleur had proven
unexpectedly helpful in figuring out the Horcrux.
He had approached it from the entirely wrong angle at first, treating it

as a simple enchanted item. It was much more than that. The Horcrux was
almost a living being, with a mind and soul of its own even if its body
was made of metal rather than flesh.
That was a problem. Harry couldn't do anything to a living being with an

independent mind. Voldemort's soul was closed tighter than Gringotts and
resisted all manipulation. More importantly, it was aware, Had he the
inclination, Voldemort could perform the Joining without much issue. It
might be possible to track any other Horcruxes the Dark Lord had made
with it, but this part of his soul would never help him with that. Only
Voldemort could track his own soul.
You would think that a simple soul fragment wouldn't be strong enough to
resist whatever he wanted to do, but again it wasn't that simple. A soul
wasn't a cake to be partitioned and distributed. It wasn't a mirror that
could be broken and its pieces scattered. The act of murder did not
'break' the soul. All of that was just a metaphor that helped the mind
picture it. The soul wasn't an object, but a complex spiritual concept
that encompassed everything a person was while still remaning a distinct
entity from the mind and body.
The true nature of the soul still eluded Harry, but he knew enough to
know that keeping the Horcrux around was pointless. The only way he would
ever be able to use it to find the others would be if it helped him do
it, which was unlikely to say the least.
"Kreacher." Harry said softly.
"Filthy half-blood called for Kreacher?" The cranky old elf asked and
then gasped as he saw the locket that his previous master had entrusted
to him. "Master Regulus' locket!"
"I know you wanted me to destroy it back when we found it and you've been
very patient while I researched it. I've learned all I can from it now."
Harry said, pulling out a small vial of basilisk venom and handing it to
the transfixed house elf. "Would you like to do the honors?"
Kreacher took the vial with a shaky hand and looked up at the current
Lord Black. The one he had continually insulted, but who had never taken
offense and always treated him kindly and who was now giving him the
means to fulfill Master Regulus' final request. Perhaps he wasn't such a
bad master after all, even if he was a half-blood.
Carefully, Kreacher poured the venom over the locket, watching wide eyed
as an unearthly shriek emanated from the hated object. The old elf felt
as if a massive weight had lifted off his shoulders and he stood taller.
He could be a proud elf of the Black family again.
"Thank you, Master." He said, manfully holding back his emotions. He

wouldn't blubber like that silly Potter elf did all the time.
"You're welcome, Kreacher." Harry replied with an amused smile. Not being
able to use one Horcrux to track the others was bad, but seeing Kreacher
proudly puffing his chest out was damn funny. "Will you finally agree to
wear something nicer than that pillow case now?"
"This is proper house elf clothing." Kreacher insisted stubbornly, as

usual.
"Well I won't force you, but I really think it would look better if we
got you a nice uniform." Harry said with a shrug. "I'm sure I could
convince Bryanna and Tiana to make something for you."
"Kreacher will think about it." The old elf grumbled. He knew those girls
were barely a step above mudbloods, but they had been nice to him and
were friends of the master. Maybe a uniform wouldn't be so terrible.
XXXXX
Meanwhile, back at Hogwarts.
Albus sat at his desk, listlessly popping lemon drops into his mouth.
Everything was all wrong. Harry Potter had no care for Britain, thought
nothing of the people that would suffer under Voldemort. He didn't even
seem interested in avenging his parents. If not for the prophecy, he
would spare no thought for Voldemort at all.
Harry Potter was selfish and self-interested. Albus had thought that
leaving him to grow up with muggles would keep him away from his fame and
allow him to grow up into the fine young man that James and Lily's son
would surely be. Certainly, it had prevented him from growing up
bigheaded and entitled, or Merlin forbid a blood supremacist, but he was
no hero.
With the lad so clearly belligerent towards authority figures and

unwilling to see him as a mentor, Albus had envisioned the two of them
working together to hunt down Voldemort's remaining Horcruxes, with Harry
eventually facing off against the restored Dark Lord. He would be
defeated of course, but that would just make Voldemort mortal again.
Albus didn't like this plan, but with the alternative being an immortal
Voldemort ruling the world, what he liked wasn't even a factor.
But Harry wasn't playing along. He had made it quite clear that he wasn't
interested in his destiny. It would catch up to him eventually of course,
destiny had a way of doing that, but what would happen to the world in
the meantime?
Bringing Harry fully into his confidence had never crossed his mind. Even
telling a selfless and self-sacrificing man that he needed to die for the
greater good of all was a risky gamble, telling someone like Harry would
be insane.
"What do I do now, Fawkes?" Albus asked softly, looking towards his

feathery friend but not really expecting an answer. "How am I supposed to
work towards Voldemort's final defeat if Harry will not even stay in
Britain?"
Fawkes gave a reassuring trill that made the old wizard think that
everything would be alright.
"Thank you, old friend." Albus said with a smile. He could always rely on
Fawkes to make him feel better, even if it didn't aleviate his worries.
XXXXX
Evening of the same day.
"You are of course, joking." Fleur said flatly.
"Nope, I'm dead serious." Harry said brightly.
"Zis is not a maid uniform, eet eez lingerie!" The veela protested,
holding the offending garment at arm's length.
It was black with a little white apron design to be sure, but that was
where the resemblence slowly came to an end. For one thing it was less of
a dress-like garment and more of a tube top with a tiny little skirt
attached. And that was all that there was to it really, except for the
fishnet stockings and headpiece accessory.
"I did say it would be extra sexy." Harry shrugged. "It has an
enchantment worked into the bust for support, so you won't be needing a
bra."
"Zis eez humiliating." Fleur grumbled.
"Lost bets usually are, but if you hate it that much then I suppose you
could welch out on it." He shrugged again.
Fleur's eyebrow twitched. Her pride would never allow that. "Fine, I will
wear eet!"
"Can I have one too?" Luna asked, bouncing lightly on her feet and
staring at the pretty outfit.
"Errrr." Harry responded eloquently. He hadn't planned for this.

"Yes, 'Arry, can Luna 'ave one too?" Fleur asked, gloating shamelessly at
his consternation.
Looking at Luna's pleading gaze left him with only one possible answer.
"Sure." He sighed.
"Yay!" Luna squealed and threw her hands around his neck.
There was a knock on the door at that point.
"Come in." Harry called.
Penny entered, took one look at Fleur holding a rather fetishistic French
maid outfit, shook her head and decided to pretend she hadn't seen
anything. "Mail."
"Important mail?" Harry asked in resignation. She wouldn't have brought

it to him if it wasn't, but one could hope.
"Yep."
"Alright, lay it on me."
"Aside from an abnormally large amount of fan and hate mail, you also got
an interview request from the Daily Prophet."
"Pass."
"A job offer from the Department of Mysteries."
Harry snorted. "Pass." No way was he shackling himself to the Ministry

like that. Damn Unspeakables probably just wanted to know his secrets.
"An invitation to join the Auror Corps, signed by Director Bones

herself."
Harry blinked. Was Bones taking the piss out of him? "Send back a
rejection, but be politer than normal. And include a bottle of
firewhiskey."
"Why would you send her firewhiskey alongside a rejection letter?" Penny
asked, looking at him funny.
"I have a feeling she'll get a kick out of it."
"If you say so." Penny said, still looking at him funny, but moving on to
the next set of letters anyway. "A bunch of thinly veiled solicitations
for donations from a variety of places."
"Pass. No donations until I start making money again." He was well aware
that rich people occasionally needed to toss some money around to look
like they cared, but he wasn't planning to do a Weasley and spend his
limited supply of money carelessly.
"A request from Minister Fudge to meet with you at your earliest
convenience."
Harry rubbed a hand over his face with a groan. Fucking Fudge. Telling
him that he was on vacation for the rest of the summer probably wasn't a
good idea, though it was certainly a tempting one. "Tell him I'll be
there intwo days." An adult for barely one day and he was already
getting pissed off by all the twats asking for things.
"Alright. An extremely polite request from Narcissa Black to meet with

Lord Black at a time and place of your choosing. This is actually some of
the most refined grovelling I've ever seen."
Harry worked his jaw as he considered this one. He'd been thinking of
what to do about Sirius' cousin since Adrastia's visit, but was still no
closer to having an answer than he had been this morning.
"Tell her.tell her to come to Grimmauld Place in four days, on the

30th." The old home of the Black family was much emptier than it used to
be but there was still some furniture there that hadn't been sold yet.
Using it for this also seemed like a better idea than having her come
over to Potter Manor or him going to Malfoy Manor.
XXXXX
Amelia's eyebrows furrowed in confusion as she unwrapped the bottle of

fine firewhiskey that had just been delivered. A few quick spells
determined that it wasn't tampered with.
Reaching for the accompanying letter, her eyebrows furrowed further as

she read Harry Potter's refusal to join the Auror Corps. She hadn't
really expected him to accept, but it had been worth a try. He would have
probably driven Scrimgeour crazy, but the prestige would have been more
than worth it, not to mention his obvious power.
But the firewhiskey.
Abruptly, a dry chuckle erupted from her throat as it dawned on her what
was being implied here.
"Cheeky bastard." She muttered to herself. Damned powerful wizards and

their secrets. Potter somehow knew that she wasn't exactly upset by
Malfoy's death, and he had the nerve to send her something to celebrate
with.
"Well, why not?" Amelia said and poured herself a glass. "Here's to you,
Edgar."
Her poor, careless brother, who had been murdered by Death Eaters towards
the end of the war while on a date with his wife. Amelia had been
babysitting Susan for them, which was the only reason that she had any
family left.
If it wasn't for her niece, she might have decided to get some revenge
and damn the consequences. It didn't even matter if she got the exact
ones that had killed her brother. One Death Eater was as good as another.
The animals were all the same anyway.
This thing with Malfoy had been murder. Legal murder, but still murder.
Potter was definitely someone to keep an eye on, as it said quite a lot
that he had been willing and able to go through with it. She didn't know
if the others he had killed was also deliberate on his part or if it
really was just trouble being attracted to him. Either way, she couldn't
say she was displeased with the results. If he went after anyone else she
would hunt him down like any other criminal, but as long as it was just
Death Eaters then she wasn't inclined to look at it too closely.
XXXXX
This chapter was supposed to end at the start of the island vacation. My
original idea was to just keep writing until I reached that point, but
the word count got quite a bit larger than I was expecting with all the
plot points that needed to be addressed.
Chapter 25
Thanks go to Joe Lawyer for his valuable work as a beta reader.
XXXXX
Day of the meeting with Fudge.
Harry woke up and let out a discontent sigh. He was wedged between Fleur
and Luna and would have liked to stay there, but his left arm was sore
and he needed to relieve his bladder.
It wasn't dawn yet, so both blondes were sleeping like the dead and he
was able to extricate himself without much difficulty. The girls only let
out a few sleepy grumbles before closing the distance between them in
search of body heat.
Smiling wryly, Harry pulled the covers over them and padded over to the
bathroom without bothering to put on any clothes. It was amazing how
quickly your sense of modesty could get eroded around a veela that
absolutely refused to sleep anything but naked and a pouting Luna who
didn't understand why she should wear pajamas if Fleur didn't. It hadn't
taken long before he ended up foregoing clothing as well.
Once he came back, he no longer felt like returning to bed, so he got
dressed in a pair of shorts and T-shirt.
"Teeny, could you please bring me my trainers?" He whispered, not wanting

to wake the two women.
The requested footwear appeared in front of him with a barely any sound.
"Thank you, you're the best." He whispered again, grinning at the flash
of happiness his words produced. Heh, house elves.
Now suitably attired, Harry walked to the balcony that the master bedroom
had attached to it, smiling at the still dark sky. Then he vaulted over
the railing with a grin. Jumping from the second floor was usually a good
way to break your legs, or at least hurt them a lot, but the Slowfall
spell made sure he impacted with only enough force to slightly bend his
knees.
A short stretching session later, he took off at a run. He wasn't the

most enthusiastic exerciser, but he liked the benefits and so did it
anyway. Running was admittedly new, but he figured that if he was going
to exercise then he might as well do this too. He had read many a warning
about skipping leg day and decided to heed them.
Fleur had her own exercise routine, somewhat to his surprise as he had
never seen her doing it while at Hogwarts. Apparently exercise was a
common veela activity, driven largely by inborn vanity. Even the laziest
veela would rather sweat for hours at a time than get even slightly
chubby. Fat shaming was a way of life for them if Fleur's overall
attitude when talking about it was any clue.
Harry had gotten a chuckle out of learning that. Veela fit so many
'appearance obsessed blonde' stereotypes that it was really quite
hilarious, except for the parts where they could set you on fire if they
got angry.
That she liked to do her own routine later in the day and didn't want to
join him was actually a relief to Harry. Fleur might be living with him
now, but he wouldn't have wanted to spend every waking moment with her.
Around half an hour later, he was back under his balcony, breathing hard
and sweating. Running sucked. Good thing he had runes that would
massively shorten the amount of time it would take for his body to get
used to the new form of exertion. He wasn't sure if he could have been
arsed to do this the slow way.
Looking upwards contemplatively, Harry shrugged, applied a Featherweight

spell to himself and jumped as hard as he could. His now very low weight
allowed him to propel himself quite a bit higher than necessary and it
took some flailing and some more magical assistance to deposit him safely
back on the balcony. Good concept, but needs work.
Luna and Fleur were awake by now, which he had expected since the sun was
up. The enthusiastic makeout session they were currently engaged in was
less expected, but not any kind of shock. He'd known that the two of them
got up to this sort of thing sometimes, though he'd never seen it
himself. It was hot, really hot and he couldn't object without being the
worst sort of hypocrite.
"Good morning." He said, causing the two girls to break their liplock and
return his greeting.
"Did you enjoy your run?" Luna asked, seeing his clothes.
"Not really." He answered wryly. "Did you enjoy your kissing?"
"Mhm." She nodded happily. "Fleur is a very good kisser."
"I know." Harry grinned back.
"Why don't you come over 'ere zen." The veela in question purred
invitingly.
"Gotta finish my workout first." He replied and took off everything

except his underwear. The sweaty clothes vanished instantly, confiscated
by the cleanliness obsessed Potter elf.
Fleur pouted at the rejection. Giving him a blowjob first thing in the
morning had become a habit that she didn't like having disrupted. His
magically potent seed was orders of magnitude superior to even the best
coffee or tea in the world as a way to start the day. For a veela at
least.
Harry paid no heed to her pout and quickly got into position to do some
push-ups. Then he frowned at the sudden weight on his back.
"Luna, why are you on my back?"
"I'm helping." She explained serenely. Then she licked him between the
shoulder blades and giggled. "Mmmm, salty."
Harry shook his head and determinedly ignored the feeling of her small
breasts pressing into him. He could have told her to get off, but even he
was not immune to the caveman urge to show off in front of his women.
Doing push-ups with someone on your back was predictably a lot harder
than it was without the extra weight, even if Luna wasn't exactly heavy.
The fact that her tongue would occasionally dart out of her mouth and
lick up some sweat with more giggles or that her hands were a bit
adventurous wasn't helping.
"Are you done now?" Fleur asked huskily once he stopped, licking her lips
suggestively. Watching his muscles flex hadn't done anything to cool her
off.
Harry suppressed a smirk. He had plans for the horny veela, plans that
involved frustrating her as much as possible. He had dodged having sex
with her since they got back from Hogwarts for that very reason. "No, I
still have to do some sit-ups."
Fleur pouted again, but remained undeterred. "I can 'old your feet and
count zen."
"Alright." Harry agreed, though privately detemining to stick his feet to

the floor with magic anyway since he doubted she could actually keep him
still.
Fleur, still naked, pressed her hands to his feet as he started on the
sit-ups, staring avariciously at the obviously erect member hidden by his
underwear.
"Ten." She purred at the appropriate time, holding her arms in such a way
that it emphasized her breasts.
"Twenty."
Luna was content to just watch from the side for a while, but she
eventually moved behind Fleur and examined the veela's naked bum. This
was the first time she got to see it displayed quite so blatantly. She
judged it to be a very nice bum, firm and round. Twisting around to look
at her own, Luna frowned. Her own didn't seem nearly as good. Just to
make sure, she gave it a good squeeze and then did the same to Fleur's in
order to make a comparison. Yes, there was no doubt about it. Fleur had
the better bum. Hers was much flabbier.
Fleur jumped slightly at the unexpected grope and twisted her head around
to look at Luna. "What was zat for?"
"You have a very nice bum." Luna stated matter-of-factly.
"Merci." Fleur said, bemused both by the sudden compliment and the
delivery of it.
"How do I get a bum like that?"
Fleur smiled at the younger girl. "I can show you later today." It would
be nice to share her aerobics routine with someone like she had done with
her mother at home.
"We may need to get you some exercise clothes if you're planning to join
Fleur." Harry interjected, having been greatly amused by Luna's clinical
arse assessment .
"Are we going to go see Bryanna and Tiana?" Luna asked with a smile. She
would get to see those two again as well as start getting a firm bum. It
was going to be a good day.
"That would be for the best." Harry replied with a nod, stopping his sit-
ups and getting up to stretch a bit. He wasn't sure if they made exercise
clothes, but it shouldn't be too hard for them.
"I would like to come as well." Fleur said quickly. She wanted to meet
these friends of Harry's. Not only would they be going to Black Island
together, but she also recognized the names as belonging to his previous
sexual partners.
"Alright." Harry shrugged and started walking towards the bathroom.
"Where are you going?" Fleur asked, quickly standing up. She was not
going to miss out on her morning treat.
"To take a shower, I stink." He replied blithely, not stopping or turning

around. There was an unseen grin on his face though, knowing that Fleur
had expected some fun to be had.
Fleur stared after him with her mouth open and then marched after him
with determination. The shower was big enough for two people.
Luna skipped after them. The shower was big enough for three people.
XXXXX
This shower is big enough for six people. Six fat people. Harry
estimated.
He had no idea why anyone would need a shower this big, but he chalked it
up to the typical mindset of rich people about how everything needed to
be unnecessarily big. Harry wasn't impressed enough with his own family
to forget that the Potters had probably been just as cunty as any other
purebloods at some point. His old man wouldn't have been a pureblood if
they hadn't cared about 'maintaining the purity of their bloodline'.
The cuntiness level of his family aside, he supposed he could understand

the size of the shower. It really was quite convenient to be have it so
big and space expansion charms were good at making things convenient.
Especially when you didn't have to worry about plumbing. Water
Conjuration enchantment on the the nozzles and water Vanishing on the
drain and voil, shower. In theory, even a below average wizard would
make a passable plumber. In theory.
"Is it normal for a penis to twitch like that?" Luna asked inquisitively,
staring at the only such organ currently present. She'd seen it before of
course, but Harry always tried to hide it from her so this was the first
time she had a chance to really examine it.
"Sometimes." Fleur answered, amused.
Harry manfully ignored them and wondered how it had come to this, sharing
a shower with two girls and letting them ogle his junk, especially since
one of these two girls was his fourteen-year-old best friend.
Ah yes, snowballing. He'd let Luna get away with a lot of things because
he wanted to be there for her after the loss of her father and she'd
gotten used to sleeping in his bed and bathing with him. He'd managed to
keep things platonic despite Luna's obvious curiousity, but then Fleur
had come into the picture. The hypersexual veela had encouraged Luna's
interest from day one and completely wrecked any chance of things staying
platonic. As it was, Harry had pretty much resigned himself to the idea
of things taking a sexual turn with Luna as soon as she hit sixteen and
the promise to her father expired. It wasn't that he was repulsed by the
thought of sleeping with her, far from it, but Luna was just special.
Fleur had already talked to him about it and encouraged him to accept her
advances.
He still found the harem idea strange, but he had to admit that he was
more comfortable with multiple casual sexual partners than a single
serious one. Raven Animagus leanings towards monogamy or not, he wasn't
particularly enthusiastic about committing to anyone. Though he also
wasn't ruling out the possibility that the Joining was playing a part in
making things comfortable.
"It's cute." Luna declared.
Harry could practically feel his masculinity dropping at Fleur's giggling

in response to that one.
"It is not cute." He asserted.
"But just look at it, it's like a puppy!" Luna insisted.
Fleur slapped a hand over her mouth to contain her laughter, though her
eyes still twinkled merrily.
Harry shot her a look. Not really an annoyed look, because it was
impossible to be truly annoyed at Luna's strangely innocent sexuality,
but a Look.
"I am sorry." Fleur apologised, though it came off as rather insincere

thanks to the sparkle in her eye and the smile on her face.
"I bet you are." Harry grumbled, not genuinely upset. He was well used to
Luna's comments after all.
"Let me make it up to you." Fleur said invitingly, stepping closer and

going in for a kiss.
Luna watched with a smile as it happened, holding back a giggle as

Harry's penis bounced against Fleur's hip.
"I want a kiss too!" She piped up as soon as they stopped.
Harry looked over at his first and best friend with some degree of
consternation, pursing his lips thoughtfully. He knew that Luna wouldn't
push if he said no nor would she be upset, but she clearly wanted this
and would just ask for it again later.
A quick glance towards the third shower occupant only got him a
mischievous smile and a 'get on with it' gesture. Figures.
With a mental shrug, Harry decided to just do it. Luna knew what she
wanted and he had no tangible objection to it really. Even the standard
'I don't want to ruin our friendship' argument wasn't any good here.
Luna's brain simply didn't work that way. To her, there was no difference
between 'best friend' and 'spouse', with sex just being a fun thing that
people did with each other. Wrapping his head around that one had taken
quite a while.
"Alright, come over here." He said, getting a beaming smile from her.
Harry was oddly nervous about kissing his best friend for the first time,
but she had no such restraint and practically jumped into his arms.
Fleur smiled gleefully from where she was watching. She hadn't expected
to loosen Harry up enough for this until they got to Black Island.
And speaking of loosening up, this would be the perfect time to extract
her morning treat.
Harry tensed momentarily when he felt a hot mouth envelop his manhood,
but relaxed quickly. He had been intending to dodge Fleur's advances for
another day, but he wasn't going to push her off now that she'd started.
Besides, Luna didn't seem willing to break the kiss any time soon.
XXXXX
"Here eez your juice, my lord." Fleur said as she set a glass of orange
juice in front of Harry, leaning down to say it into his ear seductively.
"Thank you, Fleur." Harry said, smiling at her. That maid outfit really
did look great on her.
"Eet eez my pleasure to serve you, my lord." Fleur said in the same
seductive, breathy tone and sat down next to him. This kind of servile
behavior was a bit humiliating, but a bet was a bet and there was only
one day left anyway. It helped that Luna was sitting on his other side
dressed in an identical if smaller maid uniform, happily munching on
a piece of toast.
Sirius watched all of this with vast amounts of pride, amusement and
envy. Not even he could claim to have had a veela dressed as a sexy
French maid obeying his every command. James would have had a tear in his
eye if he could see this...then they would all have lumps on their heads
when Lily saw it. But it would have been totally worth it.
Penny did her best to ignore it altogether. The whole thing was
embarrassing.
"So, meeting with Fudge today." Sirius said out of the blue. "Any idea
what he wants?"
Harry shrugged. "Probably panicking without his good friend Lucius to do

his thinking for him."
Sirius snickered, that sounded about right.
"I imagine that he wants to make me a visible ally to boost his

popularity or something like that."
"Are you planning to go along with it?"
Harry shrugged again, this time more pensively. "I'm not sure. I'd have
to see what he has to say first, though I'd prefer to just distance
myself from politics entirely."
"You could influence him to start pulling this country out of the Dark
Ages." Penny suggested. "Given what you've said about him before, he
doesn't seem hard to convince."
Harry nodded with a sigh. That was true, Fudge's only agenda seemed to be
staying Minister of Magic, which made him laughably easy to manipulate.
"I suppose I could do that, but I'm not sure I want to be connected to
that bumbling idiot. He seems like the type to jump from one mess to
another and then beg other people to help him fix it."
"It was just a thought." Penny shrugged. "You could do a lot of good with
the power you have."
Harry knew that he could. The problem was that he didn't want to. Trying
to fix the shithole that was the magical realm of the United Kingdom
would bog him down with politics and keep him from doing what he really
wanted to.
But he could see Penny's perspective. She might have gotten lucky with
this job he'd given her, but that was exactly the problem, it had all
been down to luck. He knew that it must grate on her that Britain was so
blatantly bigoted. She would likely be disgruntled if he did nothing to
at least try fixing it.
"So," Sirius said loudly into the slightly uncomfortable silence that had
descended. "any thoughts on how you're going to handle my dear cousin
Narcissa?"
"Nope." Harry said adroitly. He had no idea whatsoever.
Sirius was quiet for a moment and then..."You're thinking of boinking her
aren't you?"
Harry's next bite of food almost went down the wrong pipe, but he was
fortunately not the only one as Penny and Fleur seemed equally surprised.
"What?"
"She might be an annoying, snobby bitch, but there's no denying that

Cissy is a hot piece of arse. I wanted to bone her too before I learned
why incest is bad." Sirius explained.
That was better than having his godfather guess the contents of the
conversation between him and Adrastia, Harry thought.
Unsure of how to respond, he retreated into sarcasm. "Well I'm certainly

thinking about it now. And I doubt a little thing like familial relations
would have stopped you from humping a woman."
"Don't be so crass, Harry." Sirius said sternly. "I do not 'hump' women,
I escort them through the gates of paradise."
"Of course you do, that's why they're lining up at the front door for
you."
"I'd never be so rude as to make them wait by the door when there's
plenty of Sirius to go around."
"I see senility is already setting in. Penny, please look for a good
retirement home that I can dump him into when the rest of his mind goes."
"Sure thing."
"A kennel will also work in a pinch."
"Noted."
"Or I suppose we could just sell him to the Chinese, a big dog like that
would probably feed quite a lot of them."
"See if I offer to take either of you with me to the Holyhead Harpies

game after this." Sirius sulked.
"Not interested." Two voices said in unison.
"But it's the Harpies!" Sirius protested, looking more towards his godson
than Penny. "The all female quidditch team! And I've got VIP tickets that
will let us meet with them after the game."
"Are they going to invite us to an after game orgy?"
"Maybe?" Sirius said, his tone conveying zero confidence in that outcome.
"Well I wouldn't want to steal all the fun if they do." Harry drolled.
"Have to throw my dogfather the odd bone."
"You're all heart." Sirius retorted sarcastically.
"I know." Harry said smugly, turning his head to look at the amused veela
sitting at his side. "Fleur, could you please pass me that plate of
mangoes over there?"
Fleur managed to put a sultry expression on her face instead of rolling

her eyes in exasperation. Not only could he summon it wandlessly, but he
had also asked the house elves not to do it, just so that he could make
her do it. "Of course, my lord."
Harry stared shamelessly at the sexy rump in his face as Fleur bent over
while reaching for the requested plate and exchanged a grin with his
godfather.
XXXXX
Harry stepped out of the visitor's entrance to the Ministry of magic and
almost immediately had to supress the amusement he was feeling.
As soon as he'd been noticed, the atmosphere changed. People muttered,

some even gasped, but all scampered out of his way as if he would start
throwing fireballs at the slightest provocation.
This trend continued all the way to the Minister's office. The wizard
manning the wand registration desk stammered and waved him through
without doing his job, everyone suddenly needed to get off the lift when
he entered and on every floor the ones who had been intending to get on
took one look at him and quickly backpedalled.
Harry would have been annoyed if it wasn't so damn funny. Having the lift
to himself was also pretty sweet.
"Hello, I'm here to see the Minister." He said politely to Fudge's pretty
secretary, who was looking at him a tad wide eyed.
"Of course, go right ahead, Lord Potter." She replied, flashing him a
nervous but wide smile.
"Thank you."
Harry's lips twitched into a smile as he walked past her. That one had
some spine in her, more than the ninnies he'd encountered so far anyway.
The first thing he saw when he opened the door to Fudge's office was the
Minister of Magic himself, pacing nervously.
"Harry!" The man exclaimed and rushed to shake his hand. "So glad you
could make it."
"Cornelius." Harry said back, inwardly amused at how terrible the man was
at hiding his emotions. Worst. Politician. Ever.
"Please have a seat. Would you like something to drink?" Fudge went on,
just as nervously.
"No thanks, I'm good." Harry replied, sitting down in the offered chair.
"What did you want to talk to me about?"
"Oh, errm, yes." The Minister stammered, thrown off by the 'straight to
the point' approach. Lucius had never been so direct. Ah, of course!
Lucius! "I just wanted to see how you were doing after that bad business
with Lucius the other day. I'd never have thought him capable of
assassination."
Harry couldn't help raising a sardonic eyebrow, wondering if they were
even talking about the same Lucius. Malfoy had practically oozed shady
vibes. "People can surprise you like that."
Fudge seemed oblivious to the irony in his tone, as per usual. He sighed
in a faux weary manner, as if some great burden lay upon his shoulders.
"Very true, I hadn't expected it of Dolores either."
Harry had to resist a snort this time. Now there was a woman that was
nothing but ooze. "Don't be too hard on yourself, Cornelius, you can't be
expected to know everything." Although you definitely should have known
this.
The Minister was once again deaf to the irony. "You're right of course
and at least this mess is over with now."
I can't believe he's this pliable. Harry thought to himself in disbelief.

Fudge had always been a puny wizard, but his aura was shifting around
like a jellyfish in a shallow ocean. He would go along with literally
anything that benefited him as long as it was in his comfort zone. "Yes,
good thing that. I can get on with my life now."
Fudge fidgeted nervously before speaking and then threw out a very
unsubtle fishing line. "Is there any particular goal you've set for
yourself now that you're an adult?"
"Not really." Harry shrugged. "Sirius and I, as well as a few others, are
going on a vacation for the summer and after that I'm intending to do a
little travelling. See the world, you know?"
"A great thing, to broaden your horizons." Fudge said effusively and then
went back to nervousness. "But, err, you will still spend some time in
Britain, won't you?"
"Probably, why do you ask?"
"Well, there is an annual celebration of your victory over You-Know-Who

held on Halloween and I was hoping that you would attend this year."
Fudge looked so hopeful that Harry might have even felt bad about his
next words if he had actually liked the guy. "I'm not usually one for
parties and I can't say that one celebrating my parents' murder appeals
to me..."
The Minister seemed to be attempting both a mortified pallor and an

embarrassed flush at the same time. The end result was sort of blue.
"...but I'll think about it. You can rest assured that I'll give you my
decision with time to spare." Much as he would like to flatly refuse
attendance, he was too cautious to do it, particularly with Adrastia's
warning still fresh in his mind. Better to hedge his bets as much as
possible.
Fudge seemed to regain his ability to breathe upon seeing that he hadn't
inadvertently offended his guest.
"Thank you, Harry, I appreciate that." He said, taking out a handkerchief

and dabbing at the sweat on his forehead.
"Think nothing of it, Cornelius." Harry replied, his thoughts already

elsewhere.
Adrastia was right. Again. He really was going to need a fucking social
secretary.
XXXXX
Fleur walked through the door of Harry's bedroom with a feeling of

anticipation in her gut.
"You wanted to see me, my lord?" She asked breathily, clasping her arms
together so that her breasts were pushed even further up. She was
inwardly cringing at her own behavior, but at least it was the last day
of the bet.
"Indeed I did." He sounded amused, the smug bastard. "How have you
enjoyed working for me, Fleur?"
"Eet 'as been an honor, my lord." She answered vapidly, holding back the
umpteenth eyeroll of the past three days. The only thing that made it
bearable was the knowledge that she would have made him act just as
ridiculous if she had been the winner. At least he hadn't insisted that
she stay in character 24/7, something that she might have done.
"Having all your needs taken care of?"
No, she was not having all her needs taken care of! She'd been expecting
some roleplay and him to be bending her over every piece of furniture in
the manor during this bet, but he'd been avoiding everything except the
occasional blowjob, which really wasn't helping her libido at all. The
lack of sex was frustrating in the extreme.
Not that she was going to throw aside her pride and admit that.
"Oui, I am content."
"Good, good." He nodded, looking neither surprised nor put off at her
answer. "I have just one last thing I need you to do before your contract
expires."
"Anyzzing for you, my lord." Fleur breathed seductively.
He grinned slightly, obviously enjoying himself. "I need a second opinion

on the quality of my sheets, so if you could please take your clothes off
and lie down on the bed for me that would be grand."
"Right away, my lord." Fleur agreed as if there was nothing strange about
the request. This was an obvious and rather clumsy lead up to sex, but
she was so horny after three days of teasing that she didn't even care.
She undressed with unecessary sexuality that she was gratified to note
had his full attention and then spread herself across the bed sensually.
"Zey are wonderful sheets." She declared and continued in a faux worried
manner. "I 'ope my lord is not planning to take advantage of me."
Harry smirked at her and snapped his fingers. Immediately, thick bands of
leather wrapped around her wrists and pulled her arms tighly towards the
sides of the bed.
"I'm afraid that's exactly what I'm planning to do." He said over her
surprised gasp.
Fleur tugged at her bindings but found them to be far too strong to
break, probably enchanted then. Well, her preference as far as bondage
went was on the other end of the spectrum, but she couldn't protest since
the bet was still active. Besides, any sex was better than no sex and he
hadn't gotten her to admit that she wanted it, so it was still a win in
her book.
"Please be gentle with me." She said sultrily.
"Oh, I will." He replied. Fleur wasn't sure if she liked that gleam in
his eye.
True to his words, he was very gentle, taking hold of her left foot and
trailing a line of kisses up her leg. Fleur felt herself moistening in
anticipation as his lips passed her thigh and she closed her eyes,
expecting to feel them on her lips.
He was almost there when he backed off and took hold of her right foot,
repeating the process there. To her irritation, he once again backed off
just before he reached the out edges of her labia.
"Why so angry?" He asked innocently in response to her glare.
"Nozzing." She huffed, wishing that she could turn her back to him.
Staring at the ceiling would have to do.
Harry chuckled and started undressing, again drawing her eyes towards
him. The sight of his erect manhood had her clenching as if it was
already buried inside her.
Once he was fully naked, he crawled back on the bed and went immediately
for the aching spot between her legs, making Fleur arch towards him with
a happy sigh as he slowly ran his tongue over her sensitive bits. While
her favorite part of him was definitely dangling from between his legs,
she was also very impressed by what he could do with his tongue. Most men
didn't know how to do anything but talk with it.
He stopped far too soon for her tastes, but she felt the familiar tingle
of his magic settling over her clitoris. He was spoiling her with all
these pleasure enhancing spells he knew. He moved over her and she
expected to feel the tip of his member prodding at her entrance, only to
frown in confusion as she felt him reach between them and place it
lengthwise along it. What was he up to now?
Something in her eyes must have reflected her confusion because he looked
amused. Instead of answering the unspoken question, he laid a gentle kiss
on her lips. Fleur returned it eagerly, tasting herself on his tongue.
"Veela are an interesting species." Harry suddenly spoke. "So similar to

humans, and yet so different."
"'Arry?" She questioned, wondering what he was up to.
"I've been fascinated by your transformation ever since the first time I
saw it." He continued.
Fleur understood where he was going with this now and her eyes widened.
"'Arry, no. Don't do zis." She pleaded. She remembered their first time
and how torturous his teasing had been. The raw need that had almost
robbed her of thought. It wasn't the first time she had transformed into
the avian form, but it had been the most intense by far and the
transformation hadn't even been complete. She was honestly frightened of
what she would do in that lust maddened state if fully transformed.
"Sorry, Fleur, but I just gotta know." He replied with a grin and began
the teasing.
Fleur tried to resist, but it was useless. The kisses along her neck and
collarbone, the little nibbles and teases of her nipples, the feel of him
throbbing against her core, the tingle of his magic around her clitoris.
She couldn't deny her nature and her self-control started to fray.
It got worse when the fuzz started cropping up on her body, as it only
enhanced the sensation. Soon after that her vision sharpened and she knew
that her eyes must be black as coal. The fuzz thickened and covered her
whole body soon after that, followed by the first golden feathers. Her
voice had long since turned into a shrill cry by the time the talons
started growing on her fingers. She didn't even hesitate in trying to use
them to cut through her bindings, but they were toughened by spells and
resisted her efforts easily.
Her arms ached from her constant attempts to yank them free, but she
didn't feel it. Her legs were unbound and she kicked them furiously in an
attempt to get free and mate with the wizard on top of her. When that
failed, she blasted him with her Allure at a strength that she could
never muster in normal circumstances. And when that failed, she released
a piercing shriek of frustration that rattled the walls.
Fleur had lost herself to her instincts by the time that her face started
to elongate and transform into a beak. Her arms were completely obscured
by golden feathers.
Harry rose up to a kneeling position and grabbed at her flailing legs,

holding them still with little effort, though still more than he would
have expected given their respective positions and body types. Her magic
was going wild and his runes were stinging painfully, but he still held
back on penetrating her, wanting to see how far this would go.
He had to quickly throw his own will against hers when he felt flames
starting to form and decided that perhaps pushing her any further would
be unwise.
Still holding her taloned legs, he reared back and speared himself into
her soaked passage in a single motion, grunting in surprise at the
furnace he found in there. He knew she'd be hot, but this was crazy.
The transformed Fleur shrieked again at being suddenly filled, struggling

even harder now in an attempt to take control.
Harry didn't last long, her heat and tightness being completely
ridiculous right now. He emptied himself into her with a loud groan that
was completely overshadowed by Fleur's final triumphant shriek.
Harry had long since noted that Fleur seemed to be better lubricated than
most human women and small squirts of fluid were common during orgasm,
but this time she might as well be a fountain. The spray was so forceful
that it reached even over his head and forced him to shut his eyes as he
was drenched.
Fleur's transformation slowly receded, leaving behind a panting veela

that was shuddering in exhaustion.
Harry quickly released her bindings and laid himself over her, sending
out his magic to perform the Joining. Her had held back on it before, not
wanting it to interfere.
"Btard." Fleur gasped out, shakily wrapping her arms and legs around
him.
"Sorry, but I've been fantasizing about doing that ever since the first
time." Harry said with an unapologetic grin.
Fleur murmured something about revenge but nodded off before she could
finish the sentence. Having his weight on her, his potent seed in her and
the soothing darkness of his magic over hers was too much in addition to
her exhaustion. She was fast asleep in moments.
Harry looked at the sleeping veela in amusement and turned them around so
that she was laying on his chest. He wasn't really that tired yet, but he
supposed he owed her a cuddle after forcing her to transform like that.
XXXXX
Narcissa walked up to the door of Number 12 Grimmauld Place and took a
fortifying breath. Her childhood home had never looked so intimidating
before.
She was wearing her best robes and was as prepared as she could be. This
had to go right, it just had to.
She knocked on the door.
To her surprise a familiar face answered. A familiar face wearing

decidedly unfamiliar clothing.
"Kreacher?" She blurted out. What in the world was the Black elf doing
dressed in what looked like a miniature suit?
"Mistress Narcissa." The old house elf said in greeting. "The Master is
expecting you."
"Take me to him then." She ordered imperiously.
The house elf said nothing and simply started walking deeper into the old
house, miffing her slightly but she followed anyway. As they passed
through several rooms, Narcissa noticed that the house seemed...emptier.
Was Potter refurnishing?
Then they came upon an eyesore that she simply couldn't keep quiet about.
"What is that?"
"A brick wall." Kreacher answered blandly.
"Don't get clever with me, elf." Narcissa snapped. "What is a brick wall
doing there?"
"Master Harry ordered it built so that Mistress Walburga's portrait would

not be seen or heard anymore."
Yes, Narcissa could imagine that Aunt Walburga wouldn't be too happy
about a half blood and her blood traitor son using Grimmauld Place. With
how loud the woman could be, it was no wonder that Potter wouldn't want
to listen to her.
It wasn't much longer before they arrived in the room where her host was
waiting for her. He didn't rise from his seat to greet her, not that he
was obligated to, but it was slightly rude. It also told Narcissa that
she was entering negotiations with a disadvantage, but she'd already
known that.
"Your guest, Master Harry." Kreacher said formally.
"Was she polite?" Harry asked right away.
"No, Master."
"I see. Thank you, Kreacher."
The elf nodded and popped away.
Narcissa had frozen with fear during that short conversation. The house
elf had been a test. She hadn't exchanged a single word with her new
family head yet and she'd already failed a test.
"My lord." She greeted nervously, hoping that she still had a chance to
fix this.
Potter simply nodded and gestured for her to take a seat, which she did.
He said nothing and neither did she, afraid of making another misstep.
The silence seemed to drag on forever, with every second becoming more
tense than the last.
Narcissa had to force herself not to fidget. He had to be doing this on

purpose to make her uncomfortable and it was working. The too-green eyes
seemed like they were staring right through her.
"I suppose we might as well get to the point." He finally muttered.

"You're here because you're afraid I'll kick you out of the family."
Narcissa nodded, unsure if she could speak past the lump in her throat.
This wasn't going even close to how she had hoped.
"And if my guess is correct, you're also hoping to convince me to give

you a stipend to live on since you don't have access to the Malfoy vaults
anymore."
Narcissa nodded again. She had been hoping to work up to that after she
had softened his opinion of her a bit.
"Why should I?" Potter demanded, making her flinch at the abruptness.
"Your son is an annoying brat and your husband tried to have me killed."
"I had nothing to do with that." Narcissa defended.
"You only cheered from the sidelines, so it's fine?" The rhetorical
question was asked with biting sarcasm.
She lowered her gaze, not daring to deny it. She could feel desperate
tears prickling at her eyes. She was angry at the downturn her life had
taken, but it was overshadowed by fear. Showing anger at the cause of her
misfortune wouldn't help. She had met the Dark Lord once and knew this
oppressive atmosphere, the presence of someone too powerful to risk
angering
She started when Potter launched himself out of his chair with a grunt
and started pacing. He looked irritated.
"Please." She begged, feeling her pride shrivel in the face of

desperation. "We need help. I can't afford to pay for Draco's Hogwarts
tuition. I can't buy him a new wand. We won't even be able to buy food
soon." And wasn't that a sad irony, they lived in a huge mansion and had
a vault full of gold but were still in danger of starving.
She had hoped it would be easier, but she'd come begging and got the
beggar's treatment. It was much more unpleasant being on this side of
things that she'd thought it would be.
XXXXX
Harry took a deep breath and scowled. Then he continued pacing.
Narcissa was not a good woman. He'd never been this close to her before,
but now that he was he could get a good feel for her. That's what he'd
been doing while he'd been quiet.
Just like Sirius had said, she was a snobby bitch. The 'I smell something
foul' expression he'd seen on her face during the award ceremony was a
perfect reflection of her soul. Her attitude towards Kreacher certainly
backed up this assessment. If their positions were reversed, she would
have turned him away without a second thought. This was the type of
person that you laughed at and made karma jokes about when something bad
happened to them.
Of course, they usually weren't teary-eyed and begging for help while you
laughed at them. It rather killed the amusement.
But he was loath to be moved by her obvious distress. Helping your

enemies out of pity didn't seem like a good idea to name just one reason.
Her aura wasn't nearly as unpleasant as Umbridge's had been, but it still
grated against his own and made him want to lash out at her. A lot of
people had annoying auras, but these snobby purebloods ranked among the
worst with the sense of superiority they carried around with them. Harry
knew that his own contempt for people like her was partly to blame for
that because it made their auras clash, but that was besides the point.
Even now, when she was begging and desperate, Narcissa believed deep down
that she deserved better than this, something that he disagreed with
vehemently. This was exactly what she deserved.
"You haven't answered my question." Harry finally said. "Why should I

help you?"
Narcissa pulled herself together as much as she was able. This at least
she had come prepared for. Potter's muggle upbringing and young age
worked in her favor here.
"I could be of use to you. I'm sure that your steward is very capable,
but she won't have the connections that I do. Who owes favors to who, how
certain people think, which events are worth attending and which can be
ignored, which charities are worth donating to and how much... I can tell
you about all of this and more."
That was exactly what Adrastia had suggested he use the woman for and she
would indeed be useful. Figures that Narcissa would have the same
thought, though she was unlikely to be nearly as clever as the Black
Widow.
"And you expect me to trust you to do this?" He asked sardonically. "You,

whose husband I killed just a few days ago?"
Narcissa swallowed the grief and anger generated by that reminder. Her
marriage to Lucius had never been what could be called passionate,
neither one of them being so inclined, and what little of it there had
been had long since gone out over the years, but they had cared for each
other. Asking for help from his killer was not fun, but it was the most
palatable option she had left. For her son, it was worth it.
"I would be willing to swear an Unbreakable Vow if that would satisfy

you, my lord." She said stoically.
Harry shook his head at the suggestion. Unbreakable Vows were finicky
things and he didn't trust them. Sure, they would kill anyone that broke
one, but a clever enough person could reinterpret the wording without too
much difficulty. To get one that was foolproof you would need wording
worthy of a lawyer and a whole contract worth of conditions. That was a
problem, because the person making the vow had to be 100% clear on what
they were vowing or else it wouldn't take hold, which meant simple
statements and not three page contracts. And a person could only make one
Unbreakable Vow, so they couldn't just be piled on top of each other.
There was plenty of room for betrayal when you were prevented from doing
or compelled to do one specific thing, even if it was broad in scope. But
of course, the broader the Vow, the less specific. Swearing loyalty was
very open ended and open to interpretation, making it easily possible to
circumvent it. And a too specific vow could be worked around.
It wasn't really that hard to lie and tell the truth at the same time,
nor was it really betrayal if Narcissa would just happen to gossip
carelessly somewhere without checking for eavesdroppers.
No, he wouldn't accept an Unbreakable Vow. It was too easily sidestepped

and just gave a false sense of security. Not to mention that Harry was
sure that if it ever came down to choosing between keeping her vow to him
and Draco, Narcissa would choose her son. His own mother's sacrifice was
all the evidence he needed to prove that a mother's love wasn't something
to be dismissed lightly.
There were written magical contracts that he could make for Narcissa to
sign, but those had the opposite problem of an Unbreakable Vow. They
could be as long as you pleased, but they didn't have the force required
because it wouldn't be enforced by her own magic. Violating them caused
inconveniences at best and there was always the possibility of loopholes
being found.
The Goblet of Fire was an anomaly, but one that wasn't relevant since it
couldn't be used here.
Harry honestly felt that magically compelled loyalty would eventually end
up causing more problems than it solved.
"No, I don't want that." He said with a wave of his hand.
"What kind of assurance do you want then?" Narcissa asked stiffly.
Harry stared at her silently for a few seconds and then walked around the
chair she was sitting on and placed his hands on her shoulders.
Narcissa went as stiff as a statue, sweat beading on her forehead. The

palpable pressure of his magic that she had been feeling the whole time
increased.
Harry ignored her reaction and extended his magic into her guarded aura.
She was much too tense to be manipulated, but he could still get a clear
sense of her feelings and motivations.
"A better questions is why you would come to me for help. Surely you know
some people that would be willing to help you out?"
"Under different circumstances, there may have been, but after the show
of power you put on, they will fear to be associated with me or Draco."
That much was true. The Parkinsons were really the only family she could
have trusted to help her, but they had nervously shuffled her out the
door when she had gone to talk to them.
The only other families that would have both the funds and inclination to
help her were Avery and Nott, but those were not good people for a
vulnerable woman to go asking for help. Disgusting old lechers the both
of them, and their progeny was no better. They wouldn't need her help
navigating the social waters they were in. If she asked them for help,
she would end up being someone's mistress.
Harry hummed thoughtfully as he examined the impressions he got along

with her stoic answer. The hurt feelings of a betrayed friend, fear,
revulsion. The truth was clearly more complicated than her words
indicated, it was more than just fear of him that was preventing her from
asking someone else. He was just the least terrible option.
"Not even Crabbe and Goyle?" He asked curiously. The way that the two
apes followed Draco around made him think that both families were
beholden to the Malfoys somehow.
"They worked for Lucius and won't have the means to support us." Narcissa
pointedly didn't mention that some of the work that they did for Lucius
had been of the illegal variety. She didn't know what exactly and had
never tried to find out since her duty was to present an image of squeaky
clean respectability at all times, but she was almost sure that it wasn't
legal. Crabbe and Goyle would soon encounter financial problems of their
own without their patron.
Truth, but cast in shadow. Harry discerned. Narcissa was already lying
with the truth.
"Why not get a job? That's generally what people do when they need
money."
Narcissa briefly clenched her fists before carefully relaxing them. "I
don't have any skills that would allow me to find employment and fear of
you would again work against me. It could be months before I find someone
willing to employ me and we don't have that long, I need to pay for
Draco's Hogwarts tuition in just under two weeks and our food supply
would run out even sooner."
Harry smiled humorlessly. There was a ring of truth to her words, though
the indignation he was sensing also indicated that she thought working
for a living to be beneath her. The second part was entirely true at
least.
"Why should I care about Draco's education? Sometimes when I look at his
face all I can think of is how much I'd like to sharpen my knife on his
ribs." She stiffened beneath him, aura full of fear and protective anger
for her son. It was brought under control swiftly, but she had been ready
to fight for a moment there.
"Please, he's just a boy." Narcissa pleaded. "My only child."
Grief, old and bitter and full of longing hung on the edge of his
perception. A sense of loss for what could have been.
Harry frowned in thought. Narcissa would have had Draco when she was
twenty-five or so if his calculations were correct, rather late into her
marriage since she had been wed at eighteen. Miscarriage or stillbirth?
Or perhaps a baby that had been discarded for not being magical enough? A
prissy pureblood like her would likely consider that worse than a
stillbirth. It was the only reason he could think of for what he was
sensing. Didn't matter he supposed, but it would make Narcissa all the
more resolute in looking after her son. All the more dangerous.
"That he's your only child means nothing to me. I won't help educate a
future enemy, I prefer them stupid you see." He quipped, gripped by a
moment of dark humor.
"Please, I'll do anything." She begged.
Now there was the first bit of absolute truth he'd heard from her so far.
She may not want to do anything, but she would. That was dangerous.
"Can you teach him to be less of a cunt?"
A flash of anger shining through the desperation at the insult to her

son. Strong doubt rising to the surface. A sense of determination in the
face of the hopeless.
"I can." Narcissa said firmly.

A lie. She didn't believe it. She would try, but she didn't expect to
succeed, Draco being too old and too angry to let the death of his father
go. She just felt that she had to say it in order to get the help she
needed.
Harry took his hands off her shoulders and walked across the room to
stare through one of the rare windows of Grimmauld place.
"I won't cast you out of the family." He said after a couple of minutes
of silence.
Narcissa nearly slumped with relief. That was a worst case scenario
averted. "Thank you, my lord."
"But I'm not inclined to help you either. You came here asking for help,
but the first thing you do is disrespect Kreacher, then you ply me with
lies and half-truths. How am I supposed to trust you?"
Narcissa stiffened with fear. Had Potter somehow picked up on her

omissions? The hands on my shoulders, he must have done something. Some
form of Legilimency? I didn't feel anything.
She couldn't let this happen. Even without being cast out of the Black
family, her prospects were still grim and unlike Andromeda, she had no
one to help her through it. No one that wouldn't squeeze every bit of use
they could out of her at any rate, and they would still expect her to be
thankful for it and compensate them ten times over once Draco came of
age.
"I apologise unreservedly for my treatment of your servant, my lord." She

said formally, standing up.
"I wasn't the one you were rude to though." Harry pointed out, turning
around to face her. "Kreacher."
The old house elf appeared instantly. "Master?"
"Narcissa here has something to say to you."
Narcissa kept the disdain off her face as the Black elf looked at her,
clearly puzzled. How the mighty have fallen when a pureblood had to
apologise to a house elf of all things, but needs must.
"Kreacher, I was rude to you earlier and you did nothing to deserve it."
She said with as much sincerity as she could muster. "Could you find it
in your heart to forgive me?"
Kreacher blinked in shock at hearing those words and looked towards his
master for direction, but Harry was looking elsewhere. He would need to
figure this one out by himself.
"Kreacher will forgive Mistress Narcissa." He said slowly. She had never
been nice to him, but she had never been cruel either. Kreacher had
honestly only registered the rudeness because the master had specifically
directed him to report any, otherwise it would have gone unremarked. A
house elf getting any respect was still something of a foreign concept to
him despite both Regulus and Harry giving it to him.
"That will be all." Harry said with a nod and the elf popped away, then
he turned back to his guest. "Nice apology, if I hadn't known better I
would have thought it was actually sincere."
"I am...unused to apologising." Narcissa said.
"Especially to a house elf, huh?"
The memory of the broken thing left behind after Draco had vented his
anger on it flashed through her mind.
Dirty laundry was piling up in Malfoy Manor with no house elf to clean
it. Dust and dirt was starting to become visible and magical pests would
show up soon. Perhaps worst of all, there was nobody to cook the meals
and neither she nor Draco had any skill in the kitchen. The quality of
their diet had taken a sharp dive lately.
She had thought about requesting the funds to buy a new elf or asking if
Potter would loan them the services of his own, but that might be
problematic now.
"I don't think anyone is used to apologising to a house elf." She said,
forcibly keeping the sense of humiliation at being forced to do so out of
her tone.
"A warning sign if ever there was one." Harry muttered under his breath.
Narcissa couldn't hear what he said and worried that it was something
negative, so she closed the distance between them and lightly placed her
hands on his chest.
"Is there nothing I could do to persuade you to help me?" She asked,
biting her lip. She had hoped to avoid this, but it wasn't looking
likely.
I can do this. It's just like any other lover I took over the years. She
told herself. The sex between her and Lucius had always been a
bit...perfunctionary, and had dropped off greatly after Draco's birth.
They had both taken the occasional lover to satisfy their respective
itches, only really having sex with each other when they were both in the
mood at the same time, which was rare to say the least. It was a fairly
common practice among the pureblood elite as a way to keep marriages
happy, or at least content.
Potter was just the way she liked them, young and handsome. Certainly
vastly better than the leering old men whose bed she might end up warming
if he turned her away. The way his gaze darkened with interest boded
well. Something was finally going right. He might be powerful, but he was
still a young man with a young man's weaknesses.
"You're playing a dangerous game." Harry warned. "If we do this you'll
never be the same again."
There was no denying that Adrastia's suggestion to use the Joining and
literally fuck some loyalty into Narcissa held a certain visceral appeal,
but he had decided not to do it. Not because he was such an exemplar of
virtue that he would shy away from using such a technique on an enemy(and
Narcissa was definitely an enemy right now), but because he hadn't wanted
to order her to sleep with him. Now that she was offering though...
Narcissa smiled for the first time since she'd arrived, thinking his
words to be just the boasting of a boy still full of himself. He would
find her harder to impress than whatever lowborn sluts he'd been bedding
in Hogwarts.
"Well I could hardly walk away without seeing if that was true..."
XXXXX
As her back arched and she cried out her first orgasm, Narcissa briefly
considered that she had badly underestimated Potter.
He had led her to the master bedroom, told her to strip and lie down on
the bed. That had been the first clue that she wouldn't be taking control
like she'd expected.
After she had done so, he had surprised her by going for her groin with
his mouth. She'd never met a man that actually seemed to like doing that
before. Lucius certainly hadn't and the other men she'd taken to bed had
to be ordered to do it.
She wasn't sure if it was experience or eagerness, but it certainly felt

better than it had on those occasions.
There was barely any time to get her wits about her again when he pulled
himself above her and smashed his lips against hers, shoving his tongue
into her mouth and making her taste herself. Narcissa was a bit repulsed
by that, but in no position to fight it off as he grabbed her wrists with
one hand and pinned them above her head. His other went between them as
he lined his member up with her opening.
Narcissa wanted to protest this treatment, but all that escaped her mouth
was a ragged gasp as she felt him sliding into her. He was much bigger
than she expected, but that barely registered over the sheer volume of
sensation that roared through her body. If she hadn't just climaxed, she
was sure that would have done it. As it was, the overstimulation left her
barely able to think.
Now inside her, he grabbed one wrist in each hand and pinned them to the
sides of her head. Completely in control, he began a steady thrusting
rhytm that robbed Narcissa of her breath and left her whimpering with
every motion. When he pushed all the way in, it was too much and she was
too full, but when he pulled out, she was instantly empty and bereft and
wanted it back. She'd never imagined sex could be like this.
Harry himself was focused more on her soul than on her body. The licking
he'd given her was as much to loosen her up as it was to apply a couple
of spells. Share Sensation and Amplify Sensation. Silly woman thought she
was experienced when she barely knew the first thing about sex. He would
take a lot of satisfaction in shattering her delusions.
Narcissa screamed out another orgasm and Harry delved deep into her soul.
And what an unpleasant soul it was; petty, vindictive, bigoted, arrogant.
But there were bright spots; the love she had for her son and a core of
inner strength that stemmed from it.
That wasn't what interested him though, he couldn't use any of that.
A sense of pleasure, a desire for more. A base, primal affection for the
one who'd made her feel good, who had pushed away the grief of a slain
mate. Ah, there it was. Harry seized on those nebulous feelings and fed
them, diluting the resentment she also bore for him.
Narcissa caught her breath and looked at him with bleary eyes that got
clearer by the moment. Walls were rebuilt and Harry lost access to her
innermost self, but what was done was done.
He saw her open her mouth with intent to speak and thrust again, turning
it into another cry of pleasure. She writhed uselessly in his arms as he
restarted his motions, her legs feebly clutching at his waist.
Having not had an orgasm of his own yet, he climaxed quickly and
discharged into her. The spells he'd cast made sure that his pleasure
triggered hers again.
Seed rushing into womb, a burst of fulfillment, warmth spreading through

body and soul. Harry seized on this too and encouraged it, making her
want it again.
Narcissa panted for breath, her face plastered with sweat and eyes
staring blankly at the ceiling. She'd never been so thoroughly fucked in
her life. Her whole body was tingling and her mind was still fuzzy.
"Turn around." Harry ordered.
"What?" She asked, frowning in confusion. Why would she turn around?
He apparently wasn't willing to wait for her to figure it out and rolled
her over himself, then he pulled her hips up and positioned her on wobbly
knees. She felt a familiar thickness prodding at her entrance again.
"No." She moaned in protest. Her whole pelvis seemed to be on fire with
sensation and she was far too tired to take any more.
But he didn't listen and sheathed himself in her again.

Narcissa was too tired to cry out anymore. All she could do was let out
small moans with every thrust and let him do whatever he wanted. He
clearly knew what he was doing anyway.
With both of them having climaxed recently, the next one was a ways off,
but Harry was content to take his time. Narcissa was too tired to do
anything but take it and take it she would.
XXXXX
Once again dressed, Harry stared at the sweaty, panting woman on the bed
and considered what he'd just done.
He had just taken the first step towards making Narcissa a different
woman, by means of directly influencing her soul.
Joining with her had been...strange. Different from anyone else he'd ever
done it with.
A lifetime of being spoonfed pureblood dogma had made Narcissa's

character incompatible with his own. Everyone saw life through the lens
of their own subjective point of view and generally found those with
opposing views to be infuriating. Harry's cynical contempt for witches
and wizards who squandered their gifts was never going to mesh with
Narcissa's sense of entitlement based on heritage. It wasn't anything so
simple as a specific point of contention even, just a general
incompatibility.
No wonder Adrastia did this all the time. Fucking Narcissa into
submission had been a huge rush. The feeling of her surrendering to his
desires in both body and soul was indescribable.
"My lord?"
Harry snapped out of his thoughts and looked towards Narcissa, now
recovered somewhat though still looking tired and flushed. "Yes?"
"Was I persuasive enough?" She asked, biting her lip.
Oh right, the money issue. "I'll arange for Draco's tuition to be paid
and set up a stipend for you today." He fully expected Malfoy Junior to
be a problem in the future, but he would just have to deal with that when
it became an issue.
"Thank you, my lord." Narcissa smiled in relief and then became nervous
again. "What will my duties be?"
"While I do need a social secretary, you won't be doing anything for now.
I will expect you to show up if I call, but I'm not planning to do
anything that needs your input until after the summer."
Narcissa understood that if she was called before the end of the summer
it would be for sex and nothing more. Well, that was fine. He was an
exceptional lover, by far the best she'd ever had, so it wouldn't be an
onerous or repulsive task. She had been prepared to endure worse for her
son.
"I understand." She said with a nod.
"Good, now if that's all...?"
"There is one more thing." She said nervously.
"What kind of thing?" Harry said neutrally.
"Could I borrow enough gold to buy a house elf? We would of course repay
you as soon as we could."
Harry narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "I would think the Malfoys would
have a house elf of their own."
Narcissa clutched at the sheets. She wanted to lie but feared that he
would know. Better to just get it over with. "Draco killed it
after...after you killed Lucius. He was in a rage and took it out on our
elf."
"I see." Harry said with no expression on his face. "And you think I
should subject another house elf to that?"
"No, it's just that..." Narcissa trailed off, lowering her eyes to the
floor. "We need help. We don't know how to maintain a home or cook for
ourselves."
Harry snorted in amusement. Aristocrats were the same everywhere it

seemed, useless without their servants. Not that he had any room to talk,
the best he could do was spaghetti and tomato sauce. Premade tomato
sauce.
That gave him an idea actually. "Go clean yourself up, I need to go get
something."
Narcissa was confused but did as he said, taking a quick bath to wash off
the sweat and other bodily fluids.
By the time she was done, Harry had returned and was waiting for her with
an odd yellow-black book in his hands.
"Here." He said and gave it to her.
"Cooking Basics for Dummies." She read, an angry flush coming to her
face. She tried to keep her tone neutral, but some anger leaked into it
nonetheless. "Is this supposed to be a joke...my lord?"
"This is supposed to help you learn how to cook for yourself." Harry said
mildly, having expected this reaction from the spoiled woman. "The book
wasn't written with a magical home in mind, but I'm sure you'll be able
to adapt. You can use it or not, but either way I am not going to expose
another house elf to Draco's hissy fits."
Narcissa heard the warning in the words and knew that her new benefactor
was at the end of his patience. She didn't understand why he cared so
much about house elves, but she didn't need to in order to realise that
another peep of protest might see her tenuous good fortune evaporate.
XXXXX
"So how did it go?" Draco sneered resentfully when his mother made it
home.
"It went well." Narcissa answered primly. "You will be able to go back to
Hogwarts and we will have a stipend to pay for our expenses."
"And what did Potter want in exchange?" Draco sneered again. The mere
thought of going to his nemesis for help made his blood boil, but his
mother had been clear about how little choice there was. It still made
him want to explode in rage, but there wasn't much he could do about it.
"I will organise his social commitments for him after the summer."
"That's all?" Draco asked skeptically and the noticed the book in her
hands. "What's that?"
"It's a muggle cookbook." Narcissa said in resignation. "He was unwilling

to allow us to buy another house elf."
"He expects us to eat like muggles?!" Infuriated, he tore the book from
his mother's hands. The title did not improve his temper and he hurled it
across the room. "FOR DUMMIES?! I'LL KILL HIM!"
"Draco!" Narcissa snapped sharply, breaking her son out of his rage. "You
will do nothing! I was barely able to persuade him to help us at all. I
will not have you ruining it all now."
Draco stared at his mother for a long few seconds before his face paled.
"You're fucking him. You're fucking Potter."
Narcissa straightened her spine at her son's horrified whisper and

answered with the dignity that had been drilled into her throughout her
childhood. "I did what I had to."
"He killed Father!" Draco screeched, skin tone reverting back to crimson.
"He killed Father and you're fucking him!"
"I'm doing it for you!" She yelled back, her voice breaking. She took a
deep breath to calm down before continuing. "Draco, don't read too much
into this. There was never much hope that I would be able to avoid doing
something distasteful to get us out of this mess and this is quite tame
compared to my other options. Lucius...Lucius did not have the kind of
friends that you can rely on if you get in trouble. Lord Potter is at
least fair-minded enough that he didn't use me and then send me away with
nothing to show for it."
Draco stomped away with a strangled scream of frustrated rage, eyes
burning with tears at what his mother had been reduced to doing. He'd
never imagined that it was possible to hate someone as much as he hated
Potter right now, he was so angry he could barely breathe. He would get
his revenge one day. Potter would regret everything he'd ever done to
House Malfoy.
XXXXX
Ravens and crows had become a common sight around Potter Manor. They were
smart birds and had quickly cottoned on to the fact that one of their own
lived here in a vast nest that was full of food and offered plenty of
shelter.
Harry did nothing to discourage this, rather enjoying the hundreds of

cawing and croaking black birds that now sat on the manor and the trees
around it at all times. He knew that Penny, Sirius and Fleur thought it
was creepy, but he and Luna liked it.
At the moment, Harry was sitting alone on a thick three branch in the
woods around his home, surrounded by the corvids. He had with him a
magically expanded bag full of nuts that he was feeding to the birds as
he thought about the most recent dilemma he was in.
This thing with Narcissa was strange. She was a beautiful woman to be
sure, but he was conflicted about sleeping with her again.
She was an enemy, no debate at all on that. She wouldn't hesitate to

stick a knife in his ribs if she thought it would benefit her, but she
needed him. Fucking her appealed more for the base satisfaction of
dominating an enemy than for carnal pleasure.
He wasn't sure what to feel about that. Yes, he'd discovered within
himself an enjoyment of being dominant during sex, but this was something
else.
He scratched at both sides of his chest, where ArHain and Ca'Daith were
carved and grimaced. Light and Dark, Void and Stars. Two opposing forces,
both beyond human understanding and both linked to runes that affected
his mind. If he could, he would travel back in time and knock his younger
self's teeth out. He'd been such an idiot, fooling around with things he
barely understood. He still wouldn't undo it if given the choice, because
the benefits really were too good for that, but he could've wished for it
to be done better.
Dark muted emotions and Light magnified them. In theory, they should
cancel out. In practice, it meant that the more low key ones were muted
and the more impulsive ones magnified, the strength of each effect being
dependent on the day-night cycle. Just as the Joining influenced others,
the changes he had made to his own soul influenced him. There was no
escaping it.
Harry was consciously aware of the fact that he was slipping further and
further away from 'socially acceptable', but that didn't help him do
anything about it. He didn't actually feel that there was anything wrong
with that, which was of course the entire fucking problem. He couldn't
muster any concern over it.
He still wasn't in danger of becoming the Dark Lord that Dumbledore was
so worried about, but he was having trouble seeing the problem in killing
an enemy and fucking his wife. Lucius had tried to kill him and Narcissa
had been the one to initiate things, so where was the problem? Besides,
she would benefit from it too and she'd probably be a better person at
the end of it. At the moment, Narcissa was a bit of a cunt really.
Sirius wouldn't like it, but Sirius wasn't going to be told. He was more
careful about letting his godfather in on things these days, he'd already
proven himself a security leak after all.
Penny wouldn't like it either...probably. She was a nice girl, but

perhaps a bit sheltered. She wouldn't be told what he was doing either.
Luna wouldn't care, her own moral compass was in its own way just as
compromised as his own.
Fleur he wasn't sure about, he still didn't have a full grasp on the
veela's mindset. He suspected that she wouldn't bat an eyelash at
learning that he was using sex as a tool of dominance but he could be
wrong.
Dora...Dora would be furious. But Dora wasn't around anymore and he had
no reason to appease her.
The bottom line was that he had enjoyed it and he knew that Narcissa had
enjoyed it. He needed a social secretary and Narcissa needed work. He
needed her loyal and this was a good way making her loyal.
Sure, it was unethical, but what was ethics anyway? Little more than
popular opinion and he always disdained that.
"What do you guys think? Is it really so terrible that I'm using Soul
Magic on an altogether unpleasant woman to make something better and more
useful out of her?" He asked the birds.
They all looked at him with beady black eyes and cocked heads. They
understood that the man-raven was asking about a female and making her
better and they knew of magic, but they didn't understand the question.
At length they decided that making a female better was always good and
said so.
Harry rolled his eyes at their response. Make female better. Was hardly
the answer to his problem, but he supposed asking a bunch of birds for
advice was never going to amount to much.
The raven Animagus huffed irritably. He was tired of thinking about this.
To Hell with it, I've already fucked her once so I might as well do it
all the way to the end. She was the one who initiated it anyway.
XXXXX
The next few weeks passed with much less of note happening.
The general public still continued to shuffle out of the way fearfully
whenever Harry appeared, but nothing more than that.
The general public was also strangely let down by the lack of follow-up
to his killing of Lucius Malfoy. People had for some reason expected him
to go on some sort of crusade against purebloods or to attempt taking
over the Ministry or something similarly flashy and were hit with the
most bizarre sense of wasted build-up at the lack of action.
This was unknown to Harry, who busied himself with his own matters and
firmly ignored the world outside of his interests. He'd have to deal with
it when the summer was over, but for now he was going to do his own
thing.
He met with Narcissa four more times at Grimmauld Place, screwing her
silly at each occasion and feeding her desire and subservience.
He didn't say anything about this to the other occupants of Potter Manor,
only telling them that he was going somewhere on his own. Since this was
hardly out of the ordinary, they didn't question it. They knew that he
had given Narcissa a job and that she would take over all the social
aspects from Penny after the summer, but that was all they knew.
Fleur had settled into well and made fast friends with everyone. Luna and
even Penny joined in on her afternoon exercise sessions and she went out
with them sometimes. This was all to the good for Harry as it gave him
the solitude he needed.
The days passed quickly and soon it was time to leave for their vacation.
XXXXX
"Everyone ready to go?" Harry called out, looking at the congregation of

people gathered on his front lawn.
He got a murmur of affirmation back from them. They were all feeling a
bit spooked by the multitude of black birds peering at them from
everywhere. Heh, scaredy cats.
"Alright, grab hold of the rope and we'll be off." He said clearly,
looking them over while he waited for them to follow his instructions.
Fourteen people. That was actually a number that had startled Harry a bit
when they had all showed up at his manor today. He'd never really counted
how many people were coming.
The five actual residents of Potter Manor, the four girls from Arundel
plus one boyfriend, Penny's parents and one Metamorphmagus.
The last person was a youngish dark haired woman with rosy cheeks who was
here at the invitation of his godfather.
Sirius had gone to the Holyhead Harpies game, but there had been no
invitations to any orgies. He had however somehow managed to make a
girlfriend out of Hestia Jones, the cousin to the Harpies' captain,
Gwenog Jones. Harry had been leery of including Sirius newest temporary
bedwarmer in on their vacation, but that was just his paranoia at work.
After all, what were the odds that such a randomly acquired girlfriend
was a spy for someone?
XXXXX
Dumbledore let out a violent sneeze and used quick spell to get rid of
the snot spray on his beard.
He looked back towards the copy of Witch Weekly he had in front of him
and smiled slightly. The report about Sirius Black being seen in the
company of Hestia Jones was a surprising bit of good fortune for the old
wizard. He had long since marked Hestia as a candidate for the Order of
the Phoenix and had kept in touch with her through various means. He
would be able to glean a thing or two about Harry Potter through her.
His original plan of using Nymphadora Tonks for the purpose would have
given better information, but was also much more risky. He didn't even
think they were still together given Harry's interactions with Fleur
Delacour. For all he knew, Harry had turned her against him.
He believed Harry when he said that he had no intention of becoming a

Dark Lord, but one could never fully account for the twists of life. An
eye had to be kept on the boy.
The news he'd received about Draco Malfoy's Hogwarts tuition being paid
out of the Potter vault was very encouraging at least. Harry had all the
power in the world to ruin both Draco and Narcissa but he seemed to be
helping them. An evil man wouldn't do that. An evil man wouldn't take
responsibility for taking away his schoolyard rival's father and
provider.
Perhaps he was worrying needlessly. Harry clearly still had good in him
even though he hid it under a prickly attitude.
XXXXX
Narcissa brushed her hair in preparation for bed. Harry was leaving
Britain today, not to return until the end of summer.
She found herself feeling slightly upset about that. She had offered her
body to him as a last resort, but it was turning out to be unexpectedly
enjoyable. There was a little guilt involved since this was Lucius'
killer after all, but Lucius was gone and she had to look after the
living, meaning herself and Draco.
Draco...he was not handling this situation well. All of her attempts to
calm him down were for naught. She hoped he wouldn't do anything foolish.
She understood why he was so angry, any boy would be when seeing his
father killed and having his mother go to that same killer for help, but
he needed to realise that the world was what it was. Harry was being
incredibly generous to them.
He still refused to loan them the gold to buy a house elf until he was
utterly certain that it wouldn't be harmed, but he had agreed to allow
his house elves to come over and help her once Draco was at Hogwarts.
Narcissa intended to treat the elves respectfully, not because she
actually respected them, but because she knew that they would report
everything back to Harry. She was tired of leafing through that
insultingly titled muggle cookbook and trying to figure out how to make
things and doing laundry and cleaning the huge manor.
She put down the brush and crawled into her now empty marital bed. She no
longer had nightmares about blond hair being consumed by fire, but more
pleasant dreams of black hair over intense emerald eyes.
XXXXX
In a distant corner of Albania the shade of Lord Voldemort still hid.
He had little concept of time in his wraith form and his thoughts were
not fully coherent either, but some things he did know. He knew that he
desperately did not want to fade into nothing. And he knew that he could
not afford to be discovered.
When he could possess an animal, some lucidity returned, but he shied

away from approaching any witches or wizards. He had fallen into
Dumbledore's trap with the Philosopher's Stone and unwittingly exposed
himself to his old adversary. Now he 'lived' in a state of dire fear,
knowing that his worst enemy was aware of his continued existence.
His followers had abandoned him and he was all but helpless. Only
obscurity and his Horcruxes now protected him from destruction. If some
hapless fool wandered too close and could be convinced to help him, then
he could have made a play to return to physicallity, but he dared not
seek anyone out.
The Magical Balkans made for a good place to hide because there was no
magical government keeping too close an eye on things, but someone would
inevitably come snooping around if he made too much noise.
It was galling that he was forced to hide, but he consoled himself with
the thought that he was Lord Voldemort. He was immortal. One day he would
return and then the world would tremble before his might.
Even if it took years or decades.

Chapter 26
UPDATEISIMMINENT: dude...
Shoutouts to Joe Lawyer for expert beta-ing xD.
XXXXX
Black Island was of an approximately circular shape, perhaps about ten

square kilometers in size with thick vegetation and a rocky peak in the
middle. Fine golden sand covered much of its edges and created inviting
looking beaches that led into clear blue waters. The ocean floor around
the island was mostly featureless sand, but it did have some interesting
coral reef formations on one side. The very essence of a tropical
paradise.
The party arrived on in various states of discomfort. Some merely

stumbled, others faceplanted into the ground and Mrs. Clearwater had the
unfortunate distinction of being the only one to vomit due to her
predilection for motion sickness. Penny had anticipated her mother having
problems and was able to support her while she voided her stomach.
"Well that sucked." Harry grumbled. He'd never taken such a long distance
Portkey before and the sensation was a lot more unpleasant than he'd
expected it to be.
"Tell me about it." Sirius groaned as he picked himself up, helping his
current girlfriend do the same.
"Amateur." Tonks sniffed, having stayed on her feet. Yes, she was clumsy,
but only when she didn't pay attention to her shapeshifting, otherwise
she was quite steady.
"I thought it was fun." Luna said happily, being perhaps the only person
alive that was able to come out of a long distance Portkey transport with
a squeal and a spin.
"I'm glad someone thought so." Harry replied wryly. He wasn't even
surprised by Luna's reaction.
Sirius decided that there had been enough talk about the Portkey and
stepped in front of the crowd and gestured grandly. "Ladies and
gentlemen, allow me to present Black Island!"
Almost everyone made noises of appreciation at the postcard-like scenery.
Harry grimaced at the overly bright sunshine beating down on them. "Damn
it's hot."
Most of the females look at him as if he was insane.

"You have your very own tropical island and you're complaining about the
temperature?!" Bryanna demanded.
Harry grinned unrepentantly. "It's the ultimate rich people problem, I

know, but I can't help it if I like cold weather. And I'll miss my ravens
too."
"You are mad." Fleur declared. She was more than happy to be away from
Britain and its dreary weather. She wouldn't miss the creepy birds that
Harry was so fond of either, damned raven Animagus.
Sirius chuckled. "Come on, let's get settled in. I think Mrs. Clearwater
could use a small rest to recover from the Portkey."
"Still better than spending six hours on an airplane." The aforementioned

woman joked weakly despite her greenish complexion.
"Dibs on the master bedroom." Harry declared as they started walking

towards the mansion that the Blacks had built here centuries ago.
"Oh, come on!" Sirius protested with a canine sounding whine. "Why do you
always get the master bedroom?"
"Several reasons, but the most important one is that I'm just more
amazing than you." Harry explained patiently.
"That is just not true!" Sirius objected. "I was amazing before you were
even born."
"That's only because I wasn't around yet." Harry countered.
Everyone else just watched on with a smile as the argument on who was
more amazing continued.
XXXXX
The mansion was quite the fancy place, situated a small distance inland
on a low cliff that overlooked the the most expansive beach on the
island. Surprisingly, it was not gloomy at all. It seemed even the Black
family didn't want to ruin their private vacation resort with depressing
decor.
It took the better part of an hour to get everyone settled in their

chosen rooms. Teeny and Kreacher had popped along right after them and
been eagerly getting everything in order, though the latter showed
markedly less visible enthusiasm.
Harry demonstrated the typically male economy of time management by

simply dumping everything he didn't need into the master bedroom and
declaring himself settled. He quickly realized that the women would be a
while and decided to take a peek at the island's wards, not wanting to
have them fail at the worst possible moment.
The wardstone was easy to find and revealed that the wards were in good
shape, if somewhat basic. They were nothing more than a collection of
secrecy enchantments, with a powerful Uplottable Charm as the centerfold.
Good as long as you weren't attacked, but Harry supposed that the Blacks
had meant this place as a secret refuge more than as a fortress, so that
was understandable. They didn't even seem to have used it much if the
vines creeping up on the mansion was any clue. It would probably have
been badly overgrown if not for the domestic spells keeping it safe. It
was a good enough ward scheme for now, although he would improve it if he
ever ended up using this place more.
Once they were done settling in, those of them that wanted to go for a
swim right away put on swimming clothes and made for the beach. This
group consisted entirely of the younger crowd, though Penny had to be
shooed away by her parents and told to enjoy herself while they took a
rest to recover from the Portkey journey.
Once they arrived at the beach, they saw that the two elves had already
set up beach chairs and umbrellas. Harry turned towards his ex-girlfriend
with a smirk and took an item out of his omnipresent Bag of Holding.
"Here, I got you a special swimsuit." He said, offering her the item.
Puzzled since she was already wearing a bikini, Tonks took the item and
held it out in front of her. It was a white leotard with purple accents
at the sides, but it didn't feel like a normal swimsuit. "Is
this...spandex?"
"Sure is, She-Hulk." Harry snickered, joined by giggles from Penny, Fleur
and Luna who were also in on the joke.
The Metamorphmagus groaned loudly and threw it back at him with a huff,
trying not to let her amusement show.
"She-Hulk?" Tiana asked, frowning in confusion. The other three girls and
Isabel's boyfriend also looked interested.
"The She-Hulk is a well known comic book superhero that gets really big
and strong when she gets angry, so she needs to wear a stretchy spandex
uniform." Penny explained.
Harry took over the story at that point, grinning widely at the stone-
faced Metamorphmagus.
"You see, Dora here showed up at the manor about a month ago and we got
into a bit of a play fight. She decided to cheat with her Metamorph
powers and gave herself huge muscles. Her clothes weren't up to the task
of containing her new bulk and promptly ripped at the seams. Thus, She-
Hulk." Harry finished as if she hadn't spoken.
"Oh." They said in realization and started snickering.
"That sounds useful." Fleur mused. "It would keep 'Arry from taking
control every time if I could do zat."
"He does that to you too, does he?" Bryanna asked wryly, Tiana nodding
along. "And here I thought a veela might be able to keep him in line."
"Non, 'e always wants to be in charge." Fleur huffed playfully. It wasn't

that big of a deal really, but it went against her insticts and she
would've liked to be in control more often.
You try backing down with these runes carved in your back. Harry thought
but didn't say. The Norse runes that he'd carved first were not as
problematic as the ones dealing with Light and Dark, but they carried
their own problems. Thurisaz and Uruz especially, what with their
emphasis on strength, force, aggression and control, both sexual and
otherwise.
"You better get used to it," Tonks chimed in, gleefully taking the
opportunity to talk about Harry as if he wasn't there. "Harry is very
sensitive about his masculinity. You should have seen his face when I
suggested growing a cock."
"Not everyone can stretch their arsehole on command, Dora." Harry said
indignantly and somewhat hypocritically. Septima couldn't do that either
after all and he'd managed to anal her just fine.
"I would've stretched it for you." Tonks leered back at him.
"I'll keep it as it is, thank you very much." He retorted dryly. Pegging
was not his cup of tea.
"Wouldn't your poo just slide out of you if your bum was stretched?" Luna
asked pensively.
The question killed the mood so abruptly that it almost gave everyone
whiplash.
"Right...I'm going to go for a swim." Harry announced, being the most

experienced in pushing past the Luna Silences().
"Me too!" Luna said cheerfully, taking off the bikini she was wearing and
running at the water completely naked. "Wheeeee."
They all stared after her for a moment and then Harry started chuckling.
The chuckle turned into a laugh as he realised that he should have seen
this coming. He'd never explained to Luna that you were supposed to keep
your swimsuit on.
"She 'as a point." Fleur said with a nod and also took off her silver
bikini, following her fellow blonde into the water. She had worn a
swimsuit for the second task, but that was more at the instruction of
Madam Maxime than her own preference, though she had to admit that would
have been uncomfortable being stared at by all those stupid English.
There was no sense in staying modest here though.
Harry smiled bemusedly and followed after them.

"Hey, Bry?" Tiana asked.
"Yeah?"
"Are you feeling overdressed all of a sudden?"
"Kind of."
With a firm nod to each other, they also ditched their bathing suits and
ran to join the others in the water.
Tonks felt a bit silly staying dressed now, but she wasn't going to give
in to peer pressure that easily.
Penny merely sighed and went for one of the beach chairs. The weather was
really quite fantastic and she had a new book that she'd been meaning to
read.
Behind them Jade, Isabel and Isabel's boyfriend Paul had stayed quiet and
simply listened, thinking thoughts such as 'what the Hell is up with this
conversation?'. Once the swimsuits started coming off though, Paul found
his resistance to Fleur's Allure failing him and his eyes turned glassy.
A smack across the head brought him back to reality and face to face with
the glaring eyes of his girlfriend.
"Sorry." He muttered, realising that this vacation was going to be equal

parts wonderful and terrible.
XXXXX
"Why didn't you take your shorts off before coming into the water,
Harry?" Luna inquired innocently
"They're not shorts, they're swimming trunks." Harry explained dryly.

"And what you were wearing was a swimsuit bikini, which is generally
designed to be worn while swimming."
"Oh, I thought it was just customary to walk towards the beach in

colorful underwear." Luna said and then frowned in puzzlement. "Why would
you wear specially designed swimming clothes to the beach if you bathe
naked?"
"Modesty." Bryanna chimed in as the rest of the girls arrived.
"A silly 'uman concept." Fleur added.
"It is quite silly." Luna agreed, the notion that some body parts are
private lost on her.
"Well if you don't care about being stared at..." Harry shrugged.
"You mean Paul?" Tiana asked, looking very amused. "Isabel has that poor
bastard on a short leash, jealous sort that she is. They won't be
sticking around for long...ah, they're already moving further down the
beach."
"I was thinking of Sirius once he shows up actually." Harry said,

watching as Isabel all but dragged her boyfriend away. That really was
one poor bastard.
"Are you going to be jealous if he watches us, Harry?" Bryanna asked

coyly, leaning forward a bit to display her breasts.
"I'm not really the jealous type." The unstable circumstances of his
early years had quickly relieved him of any such problematic emotion.
"There's one surefire way to keep my cousin's eyes from wandering in this
direction." Tonks said with a smirk. "Harry just has to get naked too and
he'll be too scared of getting an eyefull of bollocks to look our way."
Seeing the expectant looks of the women who were expecting him to comply,
Harry decided to turn things around on his ex-girlfriend. It wasn't that
he had any great objection to being naked in the company of beautiful
women, all of whom he was or had been intimate with to some degree, but
he wasn't going to let Dora be the only one that was still dressed.
"I'll get naked if you do." He proposed. "Sirius probably wouldn't want
to ogle his cousin either after all." He didn't really believe that, but
it sounded reasonable.
Seeing the expectant looks turn towards her, Tonks huffed and reached
back to untie her top. Apparently she would be giving in to peer pressure
after all.
XXXXX
Fleur sighed contently where she was lying on a beach chair, nude except
for a pair of dark sunglasses to block the glare of sunlight. There was a
fruity cocktail and a plate of watermelon at her side just for her.
Harry's elves were the best.
She'd left the water after the others had gotten the idea to use
bubblehead charms and go diving. Swimming she was fine with, but no veela
ever felt comfortable in deep waters.
The sound of chewing brought her attention to the left, where Tonks was
demolishing a sandwich that she'd requested from Teeny. The
Metamorphmagus had apparently missed lunch before their trip.
"You are going to 'ave tan lines eef you do not take zat off." Fleur
commented, gesturing to the black bikini that the other woman was once
again wearing.
Tonka stopped mid bite and then smirked back at her. Her skin darkened
until she looked decidedly latina, albeit a pink-haired one.
"I wish I could do zat." Fleur groused enviously.
"I guess you'll just have to tan the hard way." Tonks snickered.
"Non, veela do not tan." Fleur replied, resisting the urge to pout. There
were plenty of advantages to being veela, but the permanent paleness was
not one of them in her opinion.
"Really?" Tonks asked, eyebrows climbing in surprise. "I didn't know

that."
"Eet eez not a very important detail." Fleur shrugged. Regular witches
and wizards also took much longer to tan than their non-magical
counterparts and didn't suffer from sunburns either. It was another one
of those minor differences between them.
"Wait, if you can't tan, then why are you going nude?"
This time it was Fleur who smirked. "Why not?"
Tonks' eyes involuntarily dipped to the veela's impressive bust. Her

breasts may not be anything extraordinary as far as size went, being an
upper range B-cup, but they were very firm.
"Fair enough." She said and went back to her sandwich, ignoring the way
her own breasts perked up slightly as if competing.
Fleur sipped at her cocktail and wondered what she could do about the
slight tension that seemed to be in the air between them. She didn't want
to be at odds with any of Harry's friends, ex-girlfriend or no.
"Did you really suggest growing a pnis to 'Arry?" She asked, hoping to
start a conversation.
"Yeah." Tonks snickered. "I didn't think he'd go for it mind you, but it
was funny seeing the look on his face."
"I can imagine." Fleur chuckled. "'Ave you ever done it before?"
"I tried it out of course, but only by myself." Tonks admitted.
"What was eet like?" The veela asked curiously. It wasn't every day that
you could ask a question like that after all.
"Honestly? Being a girl is better. With all the fuss that men make about
sex you'd think having a cock feels amazing, but it has nothing on girl
bits."
"Maybe eet eez better with anuzzer." Fleur theorised.
"Maybe." Tonks agreed, though her tone was doubtful.

They continued chatting for a while longer, building a tentative
friendship. The two women discovered an unexpected kinship with each
other due to their respective natures as a veela and Metamorph. The
benefits were different, but the downsides were surprisingly similar and
they enjoyed trading stories about the cringe-worthy come-ons they'd had
to put up with in the past.
XXXXX
As the day dragged on, the vacationers found themselves hit with a truly
monstrous case of jet lag, or Portkey lag as the case may be. Black
Island was six hours behind Britain and the sudden leap messed up their
biorhythm severely.
Except for Harry and Fleur, whose magic was linked to the Sun. They felt
slightly more tired by the unusually long day, but their bodies didn't
demand sleep like the others'.
Harry had been intending to do some magic practice with Luna and Fleur in
the evening, but had decided to postpone it seeing as he and Fleur were
the only two awake. Instead of that, the two of them sat on the balcony
attached to the master bedroom and watched the sunset. It was an
impressive view.
"Zis eez a wonderful place, I may not want to leave after spending a
month 'ere" Fleur said, feeling pleasantly lazy.
"Heh, I expect that I'll get bored before the week is out." Harry
chuckled. "Nothing to do but swim, sleep and eat."
"You forgot ze sex." She pointed out.
"Ah yes, of course, the sex. How careless of me." He replied wryly. "I'd
still get bored though, and if not bored then I'd get sick of this
climate."
"'Ow you can dislike zis climate I will never understand." Fleur huffed.
"The same way that you can dislike the one in Scotland." Harry chuckled.
Fleur huffed again, utterly failing to understand the appeal of bleak,

gloomy and altogether miserable weather. She could only be glad that
veela couldn't pale anymore than they could tan, or else she would've
been like a ghost after spending so long at Hogwarts.
"You seemed to be getting along with Dora today." Harry commented after a
minute of silence.
"She eez a lovely person, I can see why you liked 'er so much." She said
with a smile.
"That she is." He agreed. "What did you two talk about?"
"Girl zings." Fleur teased.

Harry snorted. "Things not meant for male ears I take it?"
"Oui, eet eez a sacred covenant between women." She said haughtily.
"And here I was worried that you'd hate each other." He said wryly.
"I was worried she would 'ate' me too." Fleur admitted. "Women usually
resent veela in such cases, even if ze relationship between zem was
already over, but Nymphadora 'as 'ad to put up with similar problems in
ze past."
Harry hadn't actually considered that, but it made sense now that he
thought about it. He could easily imagine some insecure women getting
angry at Fleur's literally magical beauty or Dora's shapeshifting ability
because it was 'unfair'. As if the world owed them something just for
existing.
They lapsed into a comfortable silence and watched as the red tinted Sun
vanished behind the curve of the world.
Harry let out a massive yawn, suddenly having huge trouble keeping his
eyes open. "I think it's time to get some sleep."
Fleur nodded, unable to reply over her own yawn.
XXXXX
Luna gradually came awake and noticed that it was still dark out. Well,
she supposed that made sense since she had fallen asleep before sunset.
Penny had explained the concept of jet lag yesterday.
It was still pretty silly to be waking up in the middle of the night

though.
Having nothing better to do, Luna went to the bathroom and then cuddled
right back into Harry. Cuddling was always nice and she would have to get
used to the new time zone anyway.
She wasn't feeling sleepy anymore though, so she sank into a meditative
Occlumency trance like Harry had taught her. The skill had come easily to
her and she had little trouble keeping people out, even the nosy
headmaster, though he probably hadn't been trying too hard.
As dawn approached, Luna found herself being a bit too excited to

continue practicing. She knew Fleur's prefered method of starting the day
and was eager to see it again. Heat pooled in her loins from the
anticipation and she blinked slowly in thought.
Maybe it was time to move things forward again? Harry had been
uncomfortable with her interest in sex and she had thought that she would
need to wait until she was older for him to relax, but Fleur had proposed
a different plan. She had said that Harry might be uncomfortable being
watched, but he would be less reticent if she participated. That hadn't
made a lot of sense to Luna, but she trusted the veela's expertise. Fleur
had also pointed out that the promise she'd made to her father prevented
her from interacting with Harry's penis, but not anything else.
Unlike Harry, Fleur had no issues with her age and had demonstrated quite
thoroughly that a penis wasn't necessary to have fun.
Course of action determined, Luna settled in to wait, the heat between

her legs staying at a low simmer.
The horizon began to brighten shortly afterwards and her bedmates began
to rouse with it like a couple of roosters.
She saw Fleur open her eyes and smiled at her across Harry's chest. The
veela returned the smile and slid down, grabbing the half-erect target of
her attention.
Harry breathed deeply as the silver-blonde head began bobbing over his
crotch.
Luna watched in fascination for a few moments as the male member

disappeared into Fleur's mouth, wondering what it would be like to do it
herself. Then she gave her head a slight shake. This was no time to be
getting hypnotized by the beautiful act of fellatio.
She sat up, meeting Harry's awkward look with another smile and swung one
leg over his head.
"Luna?" He questioned, grabbing hold of her hips to keep her from moving.
"What are you doing?"
That was a silly question. She was quite obviously intending to sit on
his face so that he could lick her vagina.
Still, it was possible, though unlikely, that he didn't know. "I want you
to lick my vagina."
"BuUUUt!" He started to say only to trail off into a surprised hiss/yelp.
Luna looked back down to his midsection. Fleur's bobbing head naturally
blocked most of her view, but she thought she could see the veela's hand
firmly gripping his scrotum. She couldn't help giggling. Fleur had him
literally by the balls.
Fleur lifted her eyes and smiled around the thing in her mouth. Luna was
glad to have a friend like her. The veela had always encouraged her
interest in sex instead of trying to tell her that she was too young.
With his protests firmly 'in hand', Luna was able to lower herself onto
Harry's face with little resistance. He did nothing at first, but she
soon felt the first tentative pass of his tongue. Just like Fleur had
said would happen, he seemed to shrug and began licking in earnest.
Luna braced herself against his chest and let out a quiet sigh of
pleasure as Harry plied his hard earned lingual abilities on her. The
angle was a bit awkward, so it wasn't quite as good as the times when
Fleur had done this to her, but it was still very nice and there was the
added bonus of watching Fleur fellate him.
A minute or so later, Harry tensed and Luna watched her friend pump his
penis while her mouth was clamped tightly around the crown, obviously
working to milk as much sperm out of it as possible. It must have been
quite a bit given how Fleur's throat was contracting.
The sight was a bit much for Luna in addition to the licking and she
quickly climaxed, curling her fingers into Harry's rune scarred chest and
gasping quietly for air.
Fleur rose into a sittting position, eyes closed and tongue moving across
her mouth with rapturous look on her face. Her hand was still fondling
Harry's member and her groin glistened with evidence of her arousal.
Luna was transfixed. The Allure was so much stronger now and she'd never
felt it so keenly before. It wasn't the first time that she had watched
Fleur give Harry a blowjob, but it was the first time that she had
participated in any way. How she wished that she hadn't made that promise
to her father. Waiting another year and a half before she could
experience it fully seemed like an eternity right now.
The slight daze didn't vanish as Fleur positioned herself over Harry's
member and sank down on it easily. Luna felt hands gently grip her face
and she was pulled in for a kiss. The taste of Harry's sperm still
lingered in Fleur's mouth and she found herself liking it. If only the
greedy veela hadn't swallowed all of it already.
Harry's tongue started moving again and the fun continued.
XXXXX
"So, that happened." Harry said blandly a while later.
Fleur was one side of him and Luna on the other, both looking terribly
pleased with themselves. He hadn't been intending to do anything sexual
with Luna until she was sixteen, which was as much delay as he had
expected her to tolerate, but the threat of having your nuts squeezed had
a way of shifting a man's priorities. He wasn't so principled that he
would risk calling Fleur's bluff on that.
"Eet did." The veela in question said with a decisive nod. "And eet will
'appen again."
"Is that so?" Harry challenged. He may have stayed still and let the two
of them run the show this time, but that was only because he honestly had
no idea how Luna would react if he pushed her off. And the grip on his
nuts of course, can't forget that.
"Oui." Fleur said firmly, staring him in the eye. "Eet would be cruel to
deny Luna now."
"Did my vagina taste bad, Harry?" Luna asked, big blue eyes wide and
innocently curious. "I can change my diet if that's why you don't want to
lick it."
Harry's face twisted into some indecipherable expression at the sheer

inanity of the question paired with the innocent look of a five-year-old.
He knew that he was a bare few months older than Luna, but he still
wasn't too enthused about this. This would be so much easier if she
didn't look so damn innocent all the time.
"No, your vagina doesn't taste bad at all." He finally sighed.
"Then you'll lick it again?" She chirped happily.
"Are you sure you want that?" He asked lamely, already knowing the
answer. "You're still so young..."
Fleur interrupted him with a snort. "As opposed to you, Elder Potter?"
"Don't poke holes into my hypocritical logic." Harry said sullenly, fully
aware that he was losing this argument. "I'm at least artificially
older."
"Honestly, 'Arry, eet eez just a little cunnilingus." Fleur said in

exasperation, not understanding what the big deal was. It barely even
counted as sex, being more in the realm of foreplay.
"I'll stay away from your penis until I'm sixteen." Luna promised. "But I
really would like you to lick my vagina until then."
Harry wanted to slap a palm over his face, but the girls were in the way.
He smacked his head against the headboard instead. Fleur was a terrible
influence on a pubescent girl.
Come to think of it, I'm probably a terrible influence on a pubescent

girl too.
"Fine." He grumbled, knowing with absolute certainty that the two of them
would continue to pester him until he gave in. Not to mention that he'd
already done it once, so it was a bit late to protest.
"Yay!" Luna cheered, planting a happy kiss on his lips and then another
one on Fleur. "Now we can all have fun together."
Harry sighed and tried not to smile at his friend's obvious happiness.
There was something seriously wrong with this situation, but there was no
arguing with Luna's beaming expression. She wasn't the most expressive of
people, usually just looking a bit dazed or quizzical, so this was
especially noteworthy.
XXXXX
Life on Black Island settled into a sort of routine.
True to what Harry said to Fleur, he got bored of the routine within a
week. The water was great and he decided that Potter Manor needed a pool,
but he was still bored. There were three women to have sex with plus
Luna, but he was still bored.
Harry had made a resolution to not focus on anything too serious during
this vacation, but he still found himself sitting in his room and
puzzling out a new spell. It wasn't an especially groundbreaking spell,
but it was an interesting application of a modified compulsion charm.
A knock on his door nearly interrupted his spellcasting and he irritably

called on the knocker to enter.
To his mild surprise, there wasn't just one knocker, but six of them;
Tonks, Luna, Fleur as well as Bryanna and Tiana and even Sirius.
"Harry, you've been sulking in here all day. It's time to have some fun."
Sirius declared.
"I am not sulking, I'm making a new spell." Harry said with dignity and
continued before his godfather could retort. "And it's almost finished.
Want to help me test it?"
"If it gets you out of this room." Sirius agreed.
"I need a female test subject though..." Harry said, peering at the
gathered females in search of the best one. They were all in bikinis
already so the view was exquisite. "She-Hulk, how about you?"
"Agree to have an unknown spell cast on me? No chance, I graduated from

the Moody school of paranoia." The Metamorphmagus refused. "Also, if
you're asking for a favor you may want to lay off the nicknames."
"Alright, fair enough." He nodded. "What about you, Bryanna?"
"Will it hurt?" The former Ravenclaw asked.
"You won't feel a thing." He promised.
"Okay, I guess." She agreed uncertainly.
"Please stand still." Harry requested and carefully crafted the spell.
"Alright, here goes..."
True to his word, Bryanna felt nothing. Looking down at herself, she
couldn't detect anything out of place or different.
"What was that supposed to do?" She asked, confused.
"Give it a little while to start working." Harry said uncertainly, unsure

if he'd flubbed it.
They all waited, staring at the now embarrassed girl to see if anything
would happen.
Fleur scrutinised the dark haired girl. She had always thought Bryanna
was beautiful with her slight olive complexion, which was nicely on
display today, especially over the expanse of her breasts.
Tiana checked out her best friend and occasional lover, but couldn't
detect anything in particular. Her chest looked quite fabulous in that
purple bikini though.
Sirius knew that he as a male had less staring privileges and tried to be
more discreet, though his eyes slipped towards that fantastic cleavage
quite often.
Tonks also stared and noticed that Bryanna was developing a very nice tan
already. Her breasts also seemed unusually firm today and she slowly
adjusted her own to match, though it still didn't feel quite right.
Luna stared unabashedly at the girl's breasts. "You have very nice
breasts, did you do something different with them today?"
"No?" Bryanna answered uncertainly.
"Aha, it works!" Harry crowed in triumph.
"What works?" Sirius asked, tearing his eyes away from the nubile young
boobflesh.
"My new spell, Captivating Cleavage." He explained.
"You made a spell specifically to draw attention to breasts?" Tonks

asked, very amused. "That seems kind of redundant."
"It was more of a mental exercise in casting targeted compulsions." Harry

explained, just a little bit defensively.
"Uh huh." She replied skeptically. "And you picked boobs at random?"
"Well no. See, it isn't like a regular compulsion charm, but more of a
manifestation of my own fondness for a nice pair of tits that affects the
minds of everyone that looks upon the bespelled boobies." He admitted,
deciding not to mention the alternate version of the spell called
Hypnotic Rump.
"Why did you not pick me to cast it on zen?" Fleur asked with a pout,
holding up her breasts. "Do you not like zem?"
"I like them a lot, but your Allure would mess with the results."
"But Bryanna already has lovely breasts." Luna pointed out. "I have the
smallest ones, so you would have gotten the best results if you cast it
on me."
"You're right." Harry realised. "Can I cast it on you now and then we can
document its effects on both those who already know you have the spell on
you and those who don't?"
"Do I need to keep my top on for the cleavage or can I let them go free?"
She asked.
Harry gave it some thought. "Lets try with the top on first. Maybe I can
make a nipple specific spell?"
"If you do that, make sure it makes them hard first. They'll draw more
attention that way." Luna suggested.
"Like a precisely targeted cold spell?" Harry mused. "Ray of Nipple

Hardening?"
"That would be a pretty good prank spell." Sirius interjected. "Imagine

casting it on Amelia Bones."
"Bonesy would murder you if you did that." Tonks said dryly.
Harry tried to keep the amusement off his face, but the thought of Amelia
Bones walking around with chilly, rock hard nipples was a bit much.
"Maybe we should go to ze beach before 'Arry can zink of any more silly
spells." Fleur spoke up, her own amusement clearly audible.
XXXXX
Later that same day.
Harry's brow furrowed as he looked at the girls walking back to the

mansion beside him, wondering if he should ask what he was about to ask.
It was kind of taboo.
Ah, screw it. "Girls, how would you like to help me with a little magical
experiment?"
"What kind of experiment are we talking about?" Tonks asked suspiciously,

garnering nods of agreement from the others.
"The kind that requires you to give me a lock of hair or a vial of blood,
preferably both."
"Sure thing, Harry." Luna said without concern.
"Luna!" Tonks exclaimed in alarm. "You can't hand out your blood or hair
to just anyone that asks!" There were any number of nefarious things that
a skilled wizard could do with those.
"But it isn't just anyone, it's Harry." Luna replied, confused.
That threw the Metamorphmagus off her stride. "Yeah, but..."

"I'm sure he wouldn't use it to cast any curses on me." Luna reasoned.
"Err, well, actually..." Harry interjected awkwardly.
"Whoa, hold up a second." Bryanna butted in. "I know we've been warned to
never leave our blood lying around, but nobody ever told us why."
"That's because they don't want to give people ideas." Tonks explained
with a slight scowl at Harry. "If someone with the necessary skill gets
hold of your blood, they can curse you from the other side of the world.
And there's no easy way to break that curse if you don't retrieve the
sample either."
Harry didn't bother to correct her and say that it worked with any part
of a person, though blood was among the best mediums, with only body
parts being better. The Black library had such interesting books.
"'Arry, why would you want to curse us?" Fleur asked in exasperation. His
openness on the matter probably meant it was nothing too terrible, but it
was still not something to just agree to blindly.
"I just want to see if I can." He admitted honestly. He had tried all
manner of such magic on the Horcrux, but that thing had its own identity
and didn't transmit the effect to the original Voldemort. "It would only
be a curse in the technical sense."
"What would it do then?" Bryanna asked with narrowed eyes.
"I can't tell you, it might throw off the results."
"I'll agree to it, but only if the samples are kept in my room and can be
destroyed at any time." Tiana said after a long few seconds of thought.
Bryanna agreed under the same conditions.
"I'm fine with that." Harry assented easily.
Fleur sighed in resignation and also agreed to it. Harry could be such a
mad scientist at times.
That left only Tonks, who stared at him while worrying at her lower lip.
She really wanted to trust him, but everything that she had ever learned
from Moody screamed at her that only idiots agreed to things like this.
"When you say it would only be a curse in the technical sense..." She
said slowly.
"A persistent magical effect that has specific conditions to undo, but it
would be harmless." Harry explained.
"Define 'harmless'." She pressed.
"Severely distracting."
"So it's another sex spell?" She asked dryly, oddly enough feeling
reassured by that.
"You'd all be getting a different one, so it's more like several sex
spells, some of them more distracting than others." He elaborated
grudgingly, not happy that she had guessed correctly.
"And it can be broken by destroying the focus?"
"Mhm."
"I guess I can agree to that..." Tonks said uncertainly.
"You don't have to force yourself if you're not comfortable with this,
Dora." Harry said, clearly seeing how troubled she was.
She was tempted to take the out he was providing, but she knew he was a
decent guy despite that mess with the Joining. She didn't want to end up
like Moody, glaring suspiciously at everything. "No, it's okay...I trust
you to keep your word and not to take advantage of this."
XXXXX
Harry looked over the four samples of hair and blood, all carefully
marked so that there would be no mix-ups. He could do so many things with
these, but it was mostly just proof of concept with a dash of fun added
in. The more malicious uses for another's blood or hair would be reserved
for enemies.
He was alone in his room for a change, having asked the girls to sleep
alone today so as to get the clearest results. They were also to endure
his spellwork for as long as they could.
"Alright, let's do Bryanna first." He muttered to himself, taking the

lock of dark hair and dipping it into the appropriate blood sample. It
should be more effective than just one or the other.
Harry had long been puzzled about the way that wizards and witches
classified spells. Curses as he understood them were, as he had explained
to Dora earlier, persistent magical effects, usually detrimental, that
could be cast over a great distance or on an object.
Why was the Killing Curse a curse? All it did was kill people. That was
more along the lines of battle magic or perhaps Necromancy. The other two
Unforgivables were similarly non-sensical, as was a slew of other spells.
That was sloppy classification it was.
Well no matter. What he was casting now was definitely a curse, even if
it wasn't directly malicious.
"Orgasmic Vibrations."
XXXXX
Bryanna lay on her bed, waiting tensely for whatever spell Harry was
casting to take effect. She would be lying if she said that she wasn't
nervous, but she trusted him.
She gasped as her lady parts started vibrating without warning.
A quiet pop made her turn her head to the side.
"Here is being your blood and hair, Missy Bryanna." Teeny said and popped
away.
Bryanna was understandably distracted by the buzzing in her clitoris, but

she saw the hair and blood vial on her night stand.
Reassured, she closed her eyes and settled in to enjoy herself.
XXXXX
"Now for Tiana..."
"Wet Dreams."
XXXXX
Tiana waited for something to happen just as tensely as her friend, but
nothing did. Teeny delivered her hair and blood and still nothing
happened.
Pouting in slight disappointment, she went to sleep. She was assaulted by

intensely erotic imagery almost immediately.
XXXXX
"I hope Dora won't kill me for this one..."
"Unseen Lover."
XXXXX
Tonks paced across her room nervously, too wound up to lie down and wait
for whatever it was that Harry was going to do. She trusted him not to do
anything nefarious, but it wasn't easy to shake off Moody's countless
bellows about CONSTANT VIGILANCE. Her old mentor would have screamed
himself hoarse if he knew what she had agreed to.
She reflexively drew her wand when Teeny popped in, making the house elf
squeak in terror.
"Sorry." Tonks apologised and put the wand back into its holster.
"Is okay." Teeny nervously. "I has your blood and hair."
Tonks nodded and gestured at the night stand, a bit of tension draining
from the set of her shoulders as the elf deposited them and popped away.
"I guess it didn't...work?" She trailed off, eyes narrowing as she

felt...something.
The ghost of a touch across her arm or leg, a teasing tingle on the back
of her neck, a pleasant feeling on her lips and tongue, phantasmal teeth
scraping over her nipples and making them harden.
The little sensations began to escalate and Tonks found herself disrobing
and lying down on the bed to properly experience it. It wasn't long
before her eyes flew open with a gasp of surprise as it felt as if she'd
just been penetrated.
Feeling around her groin with her fingers revealed nothing and there was
no sense of being stretched, but other than that it definitely felt as if
there was a man thrusting into her.
The feeling was decidedly average, almost bland even, but Tonks had been
on a dry spell for months. She closed her eyes and relaxed, hand drifting
southwards again to help it along.
XXXXX
Harry hummed as he looked at the last two locks of hair and vials of
blood. Maybe something a little different for Fleur and Luna?
Fleur was a veela and her hair retained a much stronger magical imprint
than a regular witch, which was no doubt the reason why it could be used
as a wand core. It shouldn't require dipping it into her blood to get the
desired effect. To be honest, he wasn't sure if soaking the hair in blood
was strictly necessary, but it undoubtedly made the curses easier to
apply.
He would have to be careful if he wanted this done right.
Carefully, he crafted the curse and applied it to the silver-blonde hair

gripped in his fingers, making sure that the magic would propagate back
to the source.
"Touch of Frustration."
Once he was sure that it had taken hold, he twined it with Luna's hair
and dipped it in her blood. This was the tricky part now, weaving the
next bit of magic into the twined hair so that it would affect both of
them but stay focused on Fleur as the primary.
"Body to Body."
XXXXX
Fleur squirmed on her bed in frustration and growled.

Teeny had come to deliver the hair and blood over half an hour ago. Half
an hour of utter torment as Harry's spellwork kept her on the edge of
orgasm and didn't allow her to go over the edge no matter how much she
fingered herself. This was a curse indeed.
She had said that she would endure it for as long as possible, for
research purposes, but enough was enough. She grabbed her wand and
incinerated the blood and hair.
The constant tingle in her crotch vanished and the feeling of a pending
orgasm began to subside, but she was not going to be having any of it.
Harry was going to take responsibility for what he'd done.
She stomped out the door and made for the master bedroom.
XXXXX
Luna had also been frustrated by a constant feeling of being one good
finger flick away from orgasm, but had been handling it much better than
Fleur.
Then it had suddenly stopped, leaving her blinking at the wall in a

confused manner. Had Harry's spell failed? She hadn't touched the blood
and Teeny hadn't delivered any hairs. The others would have been alarmed
by this, but not Luna. She trusted Harry absolutely.
Her confusion didn't last long as she suddenly felt a burst of pleasure
from her vagina, making her gasp and tilt face forward into the bed, arse
pointed skyward. The sensation continued, a quick thrusting rhythm that
she easily recognized as penetration despite having never felt it before.
This was nice.
XXXXX
The next morning, they all gathered in a room to discuss the results of
the experiment.
Everyone seemed fine, except for Tiana, who was glaring at him with dark
bags under her eyes. She looked exhausted and even her glare lacked
energy.
"Alright, let's do this in order." Harry said, ignoring the look.

"Bryanna, how was it?"
"Well it was definitely a curse." She said wryly "It was great at first,
but the problem was that it didn't stop at just one or two orgasms."
"That makes sense." Harry nodded, having expected the constant

stimulation to become unpleasant in short order. "What about you, Tiana?"
"What does it look like?" She asked crabbily. "I woke up soaked and I
feel like I haven't slept a wink."
"Huh, I was only expecting you to wake up horny as Hell." He said,
scratching at his chin. "A bit more effective than I thought it would
be."
"Dora?"
"It was alright." She said with a shrug that hid the minor embarrassment
she felt. "Kind of bland and it got annoying pretty quick. Reminded me of
you actually."
"Me?" Harry blinked, not sure if he should be offended by that. He was

not bland!
"Oh yes, you also had a habit of sticking your cock in without asking if
it was alright." She smirked.
"You never complained." He snarked back. "I'll just mark that one as
'inconclusive'."
"Fleur has already made it exhaustively clear what she thought of hers,
so let's move on to Luna."
"It was really frustrating at first because I couldn't orgasm no matter

how hard I tried, but the second part was great." She chirped. "Was that
your penis I was feeling?"
"Actually, you were feeling an echo of what Fleur was feeling." Harry
corrected.
"So I was feeling your penis?" Luna pressed.
Harry rolled his eyes. "Yes, you were feeling my penis. Indirectly."
"Neat."
Harry had a sudden thought that needed testing. He reached over and
pinched Fleur on the arm. Both Fleur and Luna yelped in pain.
"'Arry!" Fleur protested, glaring at him.
"Luna, you didn't destroy the blood, did you?" He asked in exasperation,
giving the veela a conciliatory rub on the arm.
"Why would I?" She asked, puzzled.
"Because you can't go around with a permanent sensation link to Fleur."

Harry explained.
"Okay."
XXXXX
Though the vacation was set to last until the end of August, not everyone
could afford to spend over a month in the tropics.
Penny's parents were the first to go as their vacation time at work ran
out and they needed to go. There was something that they needed to talk
to their daughter about first though.
"Honey, are you happy working for Harry?"
"Why wouldn't I be?" Penny asked back, bemused by the question.
Sarah and David Clearwater exchanged glances, now looking a lot more
brown than when they had arrived.
They weren't the sort to judge other people's lifestyle, but they weren't
blind and their host had made no effort to conceal his sleeping around.
They were worried about their daughter living in the same house and
working for a rich womaniser. When Penny had told them about his age and
circumstances, they'd pictured a young orphaned noble that needed a
trustworthy adult to help take care of his holdings until he grew up.
They'd been so proud of their daughter then. The man they met bore little
to no resemblence to the mental picture they had built of Harry Potter.
They hadn't interacted with him much, not because of any dislike on their
part, but because Harry always seemed to have something better to do than
talk to them. Penny had apologised for him, explaining that Harry wasn't
good with new people and prefered to keep to himself. They weren't really
offended since they hadn't expected a fifteen-year-old to find a middle
aged couple like them interesting in the first place, but it didn't
change the fact that they knew virtually nothing about the man their
daughter worked for.
"We just don't want you getting hurt." Sarah said delicately.
"Why would I get hurt working for Harry?" Penny asked, baffled. Seeing
her parents' awkward expressions made something click in her head though.
"Wait...you think I'm sleeping with him?!"
"No, no." David was quick to reassure. "It's just that, well, you're a
beautiful young woman and he doesn't seem to think much of bedding every
woman he comes across."
Penny flushed in embarrassment, wishing that they hadn't brought this up.
"It's not like that, I just work for him."
Sarah and David were still worried, but also unwilling to push any
further. Penny was an adult now and they had already incurred her
displeasure once when they tried to set her up with the son of some
friends of theirs. They would just have to trust that she knew what she
was doing.
XXXXX
"What?" Penny asked blankly.

"We wanted to know if every third day with Harry was okay with you and if
you have any objection to extra female company." Bryanna repeated
patiently.
"...What?" Penny was still not computing.
"Penny, you are sleeping with Harry...aren't you?" Tiana asked, starting
to get the feeling that they may have made a terrible mistake.
"No, I am not sleeping with Harry." Penny's calm reply was at odds with
her tense expression.
"Oh. We just kind of figured...with you living with him and all." Bryanna
said awkwardly, looking towards her equally awkward friend for help.
"Yeah, we thought that you were just holding back because your parents
were here." Tiana said. Awkwardly.
"I'm not sleeping with Harry." Penny repeated very calmly.
"Yeah, sorry about that. We'll just...be going now."
The two women fled and left Penny standing there alone, still trying to
process what had just happened.
It had barely been a day since her parents had gone home she'd already
been asked about reserving days for having sex with Harry, as if he was
some kind of popular ride in an amusement park. She'd known that he was
sleeping with Fleur, Bryanna and Tiana, as well as whatever was going on
with Luna, but this was ridiculous.
Has she become so desensitised to all the sex going on around her that
she had stopped registering it? No wonder her parents had been worried.
Penny could privately admit to herself that she was curious about sex.
She was nineteen years old and still a virgin, it would be hard to not be
curious. She could even admit to having a few dirty thoughts about her
employer.
That was kind of problematic because it would be terribly awkward to give

out any signals like that after working for him for a year now. It would
make their relationship really weird.
And then there was the fact that she wasn't looking for just a quick roll
in the hay, no matter how curious she was about it.
XXXXX
Tonks was oddly nervous as she followed Fleur to the secluded spot where
Harry taught magic. She had wanted to learn from him too once, but that
had fallen by the wayside with the end of their relationship. It had just
been too awkward to ask if he'd still be willing to teach her and she'd
stayed away.
She'd gone and mentioned that to her new friend and now she was being led
along. Hopefully, Fleur was right and Harry wouldn't mind having her
there. She knew how stingy he could get with information sometimes.
Harry and Luna were already there when they arrived.
"Oh, is Nymphadora joining us today?" Luna asked curiously.
Tonks muzzled her irritation at the use of her full name. Now was not the
time and Luna seemed impervious to her displeasure on the topic anyway.
"Fleur invited me." She said, perhaps unnecessarily.
"I'll have to start you from the beginning then." Harry said, his brows
furrowed thoughtfully but making no objection to her inclusion. "Fleur,
you and Luna will need to practice by yourselves."
"We will manage." Fleur smiled and went to sit with the girl in question.
"Come with me." Harry said, drawing Tonks' curious gaze away from where
the two blondes settled into a crosslegged position with Luna almost
sitting in Fleur's lap.
"Where are we going?" She asked.
"Somewhere a bit more private, I don't want my rambling to distract

them." He answered.
The more private place turned out to be a small cliff that overlooked the
ocean. It was a beautiful place, especially with the stars reflecting off
the water.
"So...now what?" Tonks asked, idly kicking her legs from where they were
hanging over the cliff.
"Well, first we're going to need to have a little philosophical debate."

Harry said. He sounded amused.
"How is that going to help me learn about wandless magic?" Tonks asked
skeptically.
Harry merely smiled and pointed towards the ocean. "Cast a spell for me,
a stunner for example."
With a shrug, she did so. "Stupefy."
"What color was the spell?"
"Red."
"Why was it red?"
That left Tonks stumped. Everyone knew that Stupefy was red, but she'd
never heard anyone ask why.
"It just is."
"That's not an answer." Harry still sounded amused. Tonks got the feeling
that he'd had this conversation before. "Can you make it green?"
"I don't know how." There was no reason why it should be impossible, but
why would anyone waste time figuring out how to do something so
pointless? A stunner was a stunner whether it was red, green purple or
pink.
"Try."
She still thought it was pointless, but did as he said anyway. The
stunner still came out red.
"What color did you expect it to be?" Harry asked.
"I tried to make it green like you said."
"But what color did you expect it to be?
"Red." Tonks mumbled, now seeing where he was going with this. She may
have tried to make it green, but she had still expected it to be red.
"Are you telling me that wandless magic is that simple? I expect to need
a wand, so it doesn't work?"
"Oh no, it's not nearly that cut and dry." He chuckled. "Let's move on to
something else, a hypothetical situation. You just had dinner and are
left with a bunch of dirty dishes. What do you do?"
That situation wasn't all that hypothetical. "I clean them."
"How?"
"With magic."
"Why?"
Tonks looked at him funny. What kind of question was that? "Why not?"
"You have the power to alter reality and you use it on something as
trivial as cleaning a plate. Why not wash it by hand?"
The way he asked made her sound terribly lazy, as if she was too good to
do any work. But she figured that there was a trick in here somewhere
like there had been with the stunner. "Because it's easier to do with
magic."
"So it is." He agreed. "Do you know Percy Weasley?"
Tonks blinked at the abrupt change in topic. "Yeah, I know him."

Irritating shit he was too. He'd been a snotty little brat back in her
Hogwarts days as Charlie's little brother and had grown up into an even
bigger pain as an adult.
"Can you imagine him without magic?"
She tried and found it to be surprisingly easy. Percy Weasley, just

another faceless bureaucrat working for the muggle government. Even Percy
himself probably wouldn't notice the difference. "Sure."
"Don't you find that odd? He's a wizard that might as well not be one."
"Not everyone can be like you or Dumbledore." Tonks shrugged.
"Since you mentioned me and Dumbledore, what do you think the main
difference is between us and someone like Percy?"
Tonks gave it careful thought. She could say it was power, but that was
too obvious. "You wash your plates by hand?"
Harry laughed. "No, but good one. I can already imagine Teeny's
scandalised look."
"What is the difference then?"
"Percy...he takes his magic for granted. There's no wonder in it for him,
no mystery. He has the power to alter reality, but pays it no mind,
focusing instead on cauldron bottoms or whatever. People like him will go
through their whole lives without once questioning where their abilities
came from."
"No one has ever been able to find out where magic comes from, not even
the Unspeakables. It just is." Tonks said.
"Or maybe nobody has shared that knowledge yet." Harry smiled.
"You talk like you've got it all figured out, oh mystical sage." She said
jokingly.
"I have theories."
"Alright, this I have to hear."
"Like I said, they're just theories. I don't want to say anything until
I'm sure."
"Oh come on, you can't tease me like that." She protested, pouting at
him.
"You'll be among the first I tell when I have it figured out." He

promised. "For now, answer me this, what would Penny's parents see if you
cast a stunner in front of them?"
"Muggles can't see spells." It made the job of obliviators a lot easier.
Strange things happening were easier to hide without streaks of multi-
colored light added to it.
"Why can't they see spells?"
This one was easy enough.
"Because they don't have magic." It was also the reason why they couldn't
see dementors, boggarts, lethifolds and any magical creature with even a
token skill at concealment. It was the reason why spells of hiding were
as effective as they were.
"And why don't they have magic?"
"I don't know, that's what you're supposed to be telling me." Tonks said
peevishly, displeased by his circular talk.
"Putting aside the issue of magic, how are magi different from the
mundane population?"
Now there was a loaded question. A question that had a war fought over it
not that long ago.
"They aren't."
"Are you sure?"
Tonks had been sure before, now she wasn't. The smile on his face seemed
to say that he knew some big secret.
"Can you tell me how Penny is different from her parents for example?"
Tonks considered it carefully, but could think of nothing aside from the
obvious.
"I don't know."
"Did you know that I can't perform the Joining on muggle women? That they
don't feel a veela's Allure?"
Tonks was startled by that. She'd figured that it would be more effective
if anything. Most spells were. "Why not?"
"Think about it."
She was tired of thinking about it and just said the first thing that
came to mind. "Because they need magic for it."
"Yes, that's correct."
"The next word out of your mouth had better not be 'why?'." Tonks warned.
Harry grinned, amused by her irritation. "Sorry, but you'll never learn
how to use magic properly if I don't get you thinking."
"And here I was convinced that you were having fun by jerking me around."
Tonks muttered.
"Well, I was also having fun by jerking you around." He admitted. "But I
still have to ask you why you think magic in both parties would be a
requirement for the Joining to take place. Think about what you know of
it."
Tonks huffed and did as he said. She had to hand it to him, he had the
cryptic wizard routine down pat.
"You told me that the Joining is a communion between two souls..."She

started, encouraged by his nod. "Is magic a medium of some kind?"
Harry pursed his lips. "That's a massive oversimplification but

essentially correct. You know about auras?"
"Of course, powerful enough wizards and witches sometimes manifest them
when they feel strong emotions."
"No, all magi have auras that are active at all times, you just can't see
or feel them most of the time. The aura is a tangible manifestation of
one's soul. Think of it as kind of like gravity, an invisible force
acting on everything around it. The more massive the object, the greater
the gravity. The greater the soul, the stronger the aura."
"That's ridiculous!" Tonks protested. "By that logic, muggles don't even
have souls."
"Oh they have souls alright, but they're isolated, cut off, closed, mute.
I think that's the reason why they can't do magic actually."
"So what makes our souls so different then?"
"Let me show you something." Harry said and closed his eyes.
She looked at him quizzically, wondering what he was talking about. Then
she felt a sudden heavy dread creeping into her mind, making her stiffen
with the bone deep certainty of a nearby threat. The hair on the back of
her neck stood on end as if there was some wild animal breathing down on
it. Her head snapped towards Harry and then it was gone as suddenly as it
had appeared.
"What the Hell was that?" She demanded.
"That was me projecting hostility in my aura. You felt it and reacted

whereas a muggle would feel nothing. That's what I have Fleur and Luna
working on now, learning how to become conscious of their auras and how
to manipulate them."
Tonks was starting to get a headache from this conversation. No wonder
Harry had never fit in with people his own age if this was the kind of
shite he thought about all the time.
"Alright, but how does any of this connect to doing magic without a
wand?"
"What is a wand? What does it do?"
Tonks glowered at her ex-boyfriend.
"It's important." He defended.
"A wand is a magical focus that allows us to channel our magic." She said
after taking a deep, calming breath.
"A wand is a shortcut." He said bluntly. "A shortcut that allows even
people as dull as Percy Weasley to cast spells. You're probably wondering
what the point was in me asking about dish washing earlier?"
Tonks nodded.
"It was to illustrate what wands have reduced magic to. A thing to make
chores easier. I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with using
magic to clean up after yourself, but you should always keep in mind what
exactly it is you are doing."
"So you're saying that I have to respect magic more if I want to use it
without a wand?" Tonks asked slowly, uncertainly.
"First you have to understand that magic done with a wand is barely
scratching the surface. Any idiot can say some gibberish and wave a stick
in certain pattern if he's told that it will clean up his plate. But the
food stains don't disappear because you waved a wand over them, they
disappeared because you wanted them to."
Her face scrunched in thought as she chewed over that sentence, trying to
figure out whatever deeper meaning Harry was getting at. She herself
didn't need incantations much anymore and could do plenty of spells
without the proper wand motions, she had a few favorite spells that she
was so good at that all she needed to do was point the wand and it would
be cast. But take away her wand and she knew that she couldn't do
anything.
"Children do magic without a wand all the time, why do you think that
is?"
"Because they don't have control?" Tonks said uncertainly.
"Control of what?"
"Their magic?"
"That's true, but you don't have control of your magic either, Dora. You
only have control of your wand. Children do magic without a wand because
they act with their hearts instead of their brains, something that
changes over time. Adults only act with that kind of pure purpose in
circumstances where all falsehoods have been stripped away, when
everything they hold dear is at stake, in the moment between life and
death."
That brought to mind a particular event. "Your mother..."
"My mother knew what was coming. She created a ritual pact that Voldemort
unknowingly agreed to when he killed her, her life for mine. She may not
have been able to outfight him, but in that one moment she was more
powerful than he could ever hope to be."
"A regular Obi-Wan Kenobi." Tonks regretted the thoughtless quip as soon
at it flew off her tongue. "Sorry."
Fortunately, Harry was one of those rare weirdoes with a very cavalier
view of death, even death that affected him personally. "Heh, I'd say she
was a bit more succesful since Darth Voldemort actually got fried, unlike
Vader."
"So, what do I have to do to learn wandless magic?" She asked after a few
moments of silence.
"First you need to learn truth of spirit, young padawan, or relearn it as

the case may be. For now, you should meditate on this conversation
carefully and consider what we talked about. We'll get you started on
some exercises next time. Be warned that it's going to involve a lot of
sitting around and talking though."
Tonks grimaced but agreed. She had no idea what 'truth of spirit' was
supposed to mean and wasn't generally one for this kind of philosophical
instrospection, but the lure of learning how to do magic without a wand
was too tempting. Hard work wasn't only physical and she hadn't been
sorted into Hufflepuff for nothing.
XXXXX
"This was a fantastic idea." Sirius declared.
"Despite my initial reservations, I have to agree." Harry replied.
"I wonder which part of it you two like." Hestia muttered, looking over
the sight before them.
"I like it too." Luna added her own two cents.
The sight in question was an impromptu volleyball tournament currently

underway. Fleur had mentioned that a particular stretch of beach would be
perfect for it, with Tonks agreeing immediately. Almost suspiciously so
in fact.
Several people had never played or even heard of the game before and
Harry had been reticent merely on the premise of it being a sport.
Counter-suggestions had been made about setting up a quidditch pitch, but
Harry liked that idea even less and the two of them had gotten their way
in the end.
Transfiguring a net had been easy, the ball not so much. Turns out that
modern balls were just a tad more complicated than they looked. Harry had
ended up needing to make a short jump back to London to buy a couple.
They had separated into teams of two, the current players being Tonks and
Fleur versus Bryanna and Tiana.
Bryanna and Tiana weren't bad for beginners, but Fleur and Tonks were
clearly doing better. The veela and the Metamorphmagus had become fast
friends over the course of the vacation and Harry suspected that they had
pushed for volleyball with the intention of destroying the opposition.
"Look, even the gods approve." Sirius said dramatically, pointing at the
sky.
They all peered at the passing clouds, trying to discern what exactly he
was getting at.
"That one does look like a head." Luna agreed with Sirius' interpretation
of events, pointing at a particular cloud.
Harry squinted at it and snorted. "Yeah, if the head had horns."
The cloud then tore in such a peculiar way that it looked as if its
'mouth' was bisected by a massive fanged grin.
"I think it's laughing at you." Luna observed.
"It could also be demonstrating approval of the way that Fleur just
slapped Tonks on the arse." Sirius offered, staring at the women in
question.
"I wonder if you're even registering that one of those girls you're
currently ogling is your cousin." Harry said idly.
"I'm only ogling the other three." Sirius defended, somewhat

unconvincingly to Harry's ears.
"Those are my women, Sirius. You've got yours right next to you."
"Don't be so damn stingy. I'll let you ogle mine if you let me ogle
yours."
"How about you two alpha males not talk about us as if we're a herd of
cattle?" Hestia interjected, starting to get genuinely offended.
Harry and Sirius exchanged glances, silently communicating a wealth of

male exasperation with the woman that couldn't recognise a joke.
"But they weren't talking about you as if you were cattle, they were
talking about you as if you were women." Luna said with a confused frown.
"It's just an expression, Luna." Harry explained without missing a beat,

well used to his friend's occasionally too-literal understanding of
things.
"Oh, is it because cows have udders?" Luna asked excitedly, face lighting
up in realization.
"You know, she might actually be on to something here." Sirius noted

conversationally.
"It's amazing how often that happens." Harry replied.
"It's not because cows have udders!" Hestia snapped, trying to inject
some sense into the conversation. "It's because men sometimes talk about
women like they're perusing meat at the market."
"What kind of meat?" Luna asked, head cocked quizzically.
"What does it matter what kind of meat?!" Hestia asked incredulously.
Harry and Sirius were making no effort at hiding their grins.
"Well I don't like pork much and I've always thought that chickens are
too cute to eat, so I would prefer to be talked about like a piece of
beef than either of those." Luna explained.
Hestia had to take a deep breath. "Fine, wouldn't you be bothered if

someone talked about you like a side of beef?"
Luna frowned in confusion. "What does this have to do with Harry and
Sirius enjoying the sight of some bouncing boobies? I know that Harry
said it was just an expression, but you're really not making any sense."
"Argh!" Hestia said, looking a bit wild eyed. "It's just disrespectful,
alright?!"
"Looking at something they enjoy is disrespectful?" Luna asked, her

confused frown deepening further.
"Yes! I mean, no! The problem is that they were staring and how rude they
were about it."
"But if it's rude to look at people you find attractive and make jokes,
then why were you with the rest of us a few days ago when we were spying
on Harry with omniculars? I thought your comments about his penis were
really funny too."
Hestia could only stare speechlessly at the petite blonde that had just
completely destroyed her. The worst part was that Luna only looked
genuinely curious and not the slightest bit smug.
"I'd be happy to give you a closer look at my penis if you want." Harry
offered, unable to help himself with such a beautiful opportunity
present. His private skinny dip apparently hadn't been as private as he'd
thought, but he really couldn't muster any irritation over it.
"Hey, who's poaching whose women now?" Sirius protested.
"It's not my fault if they want my meat sausage."
"Maybe I should go talk to your women then and find out if they want a
better seasoned meat sausage."
"Honestly, Sirius, if I wanted my own comeback I would have wiped it off

your girlfriend's chin."
Sirius grimaced. He'd have to remember that one for the future, as he
couldn't think of anything to retort with that wouldn't sound petulant.
Fortunately he didn't have to as Hestia had by now recovered from getting

owned by Luna and took renewed offense to their conversation.
"Are you going to let him talk about me like that?" She demanded, staring
at her boyfriend.
"Calm down, Hestia, it's just a joke." Sirius said. A really crass joke
admittedly, but still nothing to get so fired up about.
This was apparently the wrong thing to say as Hestia gave him a furious
glare and stomped off.
"I think you just became single again." Harry commented.
"I think you're right." Sirius agreed and then a thought occured to him.
"Crap, this means that we've just been disqualified from the volleyball
tournament. And we were going to win it too."
Harry was about to shatter his godfather's delusions of victory when an

enraged female yell resounded over the beach.
"HAVE FUN STARING AT HER THEN!"
Everyone stared after the retreating form of Isabel as she stomped away
from her grumpy looking boyfriend, surprised but not too surprised.
Paul's weakness to the veela Allure was well known to everyone by now.
"I guess you aren't the only one who just became single." Harry observed
calmly, vastly amused by all this jealous drama. Life was so much less
aggravating when you didn't sweat the small stuff.
"It's a good thing I brought booze for the victory party, seems like
we're going to need it." Sirius said.
XXXXX
Harry stepped quietly out of the master bedroom, making sure not to wake
the girls still sleeping in his bed. The mildly sloshed Bryanna and Tiana
had insisted on a consolation prize after losing the impomptu volleyball
tournament. Luna had skipped along with a similar excuse, though she was
obviously unconcerned about the loss.
His intention to go for a morning run and swim was forgotten as another
room door opened. Wasn't that Isabel's room? Her boyfriend had asked to
be sent home, along with Hestia just before the party that Sirius had
insisted on had started.
And wouldn't you know, it was in fact Sirius coming out of the room.
There was only one reason why a man would be sneaking out of a girl's
room at the crack of dawn.
"You didn't." Harry said flatly.
"I did." Sirius admitted.
"Really, Sirius? A nineteen-year-old girl that had been drinking and just
broke up with her boyfriend? Really?" Harry was not overly impressed with
his godfather right now.
"I was just trying to tell her that her boyfriend looking at a veela
wasn't an indication that he didn't love her." Sirius defended.
"And you somehow ended up sleeping with her?" Harry asked incredulously.
"I think Paul's fascination with Fleur's tush was the least of their
problems." Sirius shrugged. "She said she wanted a quick fling and far be
it from me to object."
"If you say so." Harry shrugged as well. Truthfully he didn't care too
much. He'd never gotten along well with Isabel anyway.
Whatever Sirius might have said in response went unsaid as another door
opened and another person snuck stealthily away.
"Fleur?" Harry asked incredulously.
"Oh, boy." Sirius muttered.
The veela had been backing into the hallway and hadn't expected anyone to
be there, so she jumped in fright.
"'Arry!" She exclaimed, quickly regaining her composure.
"Isn't that Dora's room?" Harry asked.
"Oui." Fleur said with her spine as straight as an arrow. She was clearly
not intending to apologise or make excuses.
"So, you and Dora...?" Harry probed. The two of them had been getting
very friendly ever since they'd come to this island but he'd never
thought they were sleeping together.
"We can talk about eet on ze beach." Fleur said and started walking.
Bemused, Harry followed.
"Can you get me a pensieve memory?" Sirius asked hopefully.
"As if I'd share a treasure like that." Harry snorted.
XXXXX
"So...you and Dora?" Harry prompted once they'd gotten settled into beach
chairs.
"We 'ad been drinking." Fleur shrugged. "She eez easy to like and I got
carried away."
"No plans to make her your mate then?" He would have to object to that.
Strangers were one thing, but he hadn't told Dora about the Joining only
for her to get wrapped around a veela's little finger, even this veela.
"I would not be opposed to it." Fleur admitted. "'Er ability makes makes
'er as good as a man in all ze ways zat matter and wiz all ze benefits of
being a woman. She would be an excellent mate."
"I'm sensing a 'but'."
"But I know you would not like eet." Harry was still the greater prize.
She would pursue Nymphadora as well if she thought he would allow it, but
as appealing as the prospect of having them both was, she was not that
greedy. Or, to be more precise, not so willing to take the risk.
"You're right about that." He confirmed.
"I should get back to 'er. Zis will be complicated enough wizzout 'er
waking up alone ze morning after."
"Alright." Harry nodded, knowing it was true. He had some concern about
letting Fleur get into the same bed as Dora again, but he had the sense
that she was sincere and wouldn't try to ply her charms on the
Metamorphmagus behind his back. "A word of advice. I know how you veela
are when it comes to the Joining, but I think you should tell her about
it."
Fleur gave him a considering look. "I will think about eet."
XXXXX
Despite her choice of career, Tonks was an exceptionally deep sleeper and
would happily snooze until noon if given the chance. On the first day of
this vacation, she had taken advantage of the time delay and slept for
twelve hours straight.
She was also very slow to wake if left undisturbed and would linger in
that peculiar state of half-sleep for as long as possible.
The feminine fingers that trailed gently over her bare back sent a
pleasant shiver up her spine, but did not wake her. Instead, it only
caused her hair to blaze pink and her lips to turn into a smile as she
dreamed of feathers caressing her.
Pleasant though it was, even Tonks couldn't stay in that state

indefinitely.
Her eyes opened with a content sigh that quickly froze as full coherence
returned.
She had been a quite tipsy last night, but not nearly enough to affect
her memory. Just enough to have her inhibitions loosened.
And loose they had been. She remembered gloating with Fleur over their
victory and being presented with a cup that had been transfigured from a
rock. The small party had eventually died down and people drifted off to
their various rooms. Bryanna and Tiana had dragged Harry off while she
and Fleur had gone to her room to continue their talk.
There hadn't been much talking though, as the beautiful veela had kissed
her almost as soon as the door was closed.
Tonks liked men better, but she wasn't averse to women. Having a
constantly shifting body did strange things to one's hormones and a
certain level of bi-curiousity was unavoidable.
And Fleur was so intoxicatingly beautiful. Tonks wasn't sure if that was
the Allure doing a number on her brain, the alcohol, her own lack of
bedroom action or some combination of the three. Either way, she hadn't
put up much of a fight as she was manouvered towards the bed.
"Nymphadora, are you awake?" Fleur asked teasingly, pressing herself

against the tense Metamorphmagus.
"Don't call me that." Tonks mumbled, mostly just to stall for time. Her
hair turned a darker shade.
"Why not? Eet eez a beautiful name." Fleur purred, nibbling on whatever
skin she could reach while her hands wandered.
Tonks let out a shuddering breath at the pleasant sensations and bit her
lip. She was clearly the only one that felt a bit uncomfortable now that
it was the morning after.
She turned around with a small grunt of effort until she was facing
Fleur. The veela greeted her with a bright smile.
"Well, this is awkward." Tonks said after a long minute of failing to
come up with anything to say.
"Eet doesn't 'ave to be." Fleur replied, still smiling.
"How can it be anything else?" The Metamorphmagus groaned. "I had sex
with my ex-boyfriends girlfriend."
"So?" Fleur shrugged, looking amused. "'Arry and I do not 'ave zat kind
of relationship."
"What kind of relationship do you have then?" Tonks asked. It was a

question that she had been wanting to ask for a long while now, but
politeness had stayed her tongue. Harry was clearly sleeping around all
over the place and Fleur didn't seem to mind, but...
"Mostly, we are friends who 'ave sex."
"That's all?" Tonks asked in surprise. "But you're living in his house!"
"I am living in his 'ouse because 'e invited me to go with 'im when 'e
travels and I accepted. 'Arry...I do not zink 'e eez ready for anuzzer
commitment."
And that was the truth. Two months of regular sex with the Joining being
performed pretty much every time had only served to tell her that Harry
was comfortable with things as they were right now. He did care for her,
that much was true, but as a good friend rather than as a lover. That was
alright though. She would have honestly been surprised if he'd been ready
for something more permanent at his age without magical coercion.
"Oh, you mean he's still...what, pining after me?" Tonks asked quietly,
feeling a mixture of flattered and guilty. It was nice to hear that he
still cared, but she didn't want to be a chain around his neck. Not when
she had been the one to end it between them.
"I would not say pining, 'e eez just...well you know 'ow he gets when
somezzing vexes 'im. 'E turns eet over in 'is mind until 'e resolves eet.
'E eez not ready to let go."
Yes, Tonks did know that. "Right, so he won't care about this?"
"Non." Fleur confirmed, and then smiled mischievously. "Besides, it would

be quite silly to be upset about it wiz Luna insisting that we will be a
mnage trois."
Tonks gaped at her in surprise for a moment and then snorted. "Figures."
"We could make eet a mnage quatre if you wanted to join us." Fleur
suggested with a lewd smile. "I was impressed wiz your performance."
Tonks flushed all the way to the tips of her hair. Yes, last night had
been...interesting. She could now conclusively say that while there was
definitely more potential pleasure on the girl side of things, she also
understood why men were so enamoured with their willies. spearing a girl
on one's cock and hearing her moan in response was an oddly satisfying
experience.
"I think I'll give that one a miss." She said, stoically forcing the
blood back below her neck and her hair to a less embarrassed shade of
pink.
"Eet eez for ze best I suppose." Fleur sighed, making a decision. "At
least until 'Arry teaches you enough to resist ze effects of ze Joining."
Tonks tensed. "He told you about that, did he?"
"'E did not 'ave to. All veela instinctively perform ze Joining during
climax."
Tonks' expression hardened and she sat up, feeling strangely betrayed.
"You...!"
"Zere eez no need to worry." Fleur cut her off, also sitting up. "Eet
would take much more to leave any lasting effect.
Tonks wasn't sure what to say to that.
Fleur gave her a hug, ignoring how stiff and tense the Metamorphmagus
was. "'Arry advised me to tell you about eet. I 'ope we can still be
friends."
Tonks still said nothing, only watching in confusion as the veela quickly
got dressed and left the room. Why did everything that happened around
Harry have to be so bloody complicated? Even an alcohol induced one night
stand.
XXXXX
"You want me to what?" Tonks asked, looking down at Harry skeptically.
"Come sit between my legs." Harry repeated patiently, patting the ground
in front of him to put some emphasis on it.
"And why do I need to do that?"
"To learn magic."
"Is that what we're calling it now?" Tonks snarked.
Harry cracked at grin at her attitude. "I know what it looks like, but it
really is about learning magic."
"Fine." Tonks sighed and settled herself between his legs. "Alright, now
what?"
"Now I'm going to be poking at you with my magic while you try to sense
it."
She craned her neck around to give him a dubius look. "And how am I
supposed to do that?"
"Try not to think and just feel. Your body's instincts are reflected in
the soul, it's only a matter of becoming conscious of them." He
explained.
"I guess..."
They stayed like that for over an hour, with Harry making metaphysical
pokes at her aura in the hopes that she would become aware of it. Tonks
meditated and tried to keep her mind as quiet as possible.
"This isn't working." She sighed.
"Don't be so quick to give up, Padawan She-Hulk." Harry quipped. "Rome

was not built in a day and other such trite sayings. Learning how to
control the impulses of your spirit is no simple thing."
"How did you learn it then?"
"I was six when I figured out that the weirdness happening around me was
magic, starting out is much easier at that age."
"Yeah well I was three, so how come I can't shoot fireballs from my
hands?"
"I was in an orphanage getting bullied by all the other kids and magic
was the road to salvation. You had your parents tell you not to worry
because it was just magic. Just. Magic. They probably gave it about as
much weight as they would to a bruise."
Tonks sulked, because that was pretty much exactly what happened. Sure,
they'd been proud that she was a Metamorphmagus, but they'd still treated
it with the same cavalier familiarity that one might indeed give to a
bruise.
"Back to practice then?" She asked.
"You seem unsettled." Harry noted. "Is there anything you want to talk
about?"
"Not really." Tonks grumbled.
"It's about Fleur isn't it?"
"What part of 'not really' do you not understand?"
"Sorry, but she's been moping for the past few days and I feel like I
need to say something despite my desire to keep out of it." Harry said.
"Fine, say what you want to say then." Tonks grumbled some more.
"She's not like me you know, or like you for that matter." He said
mildly. "Veela are creatures born of Sex Magic, they can't help being
what they are. I'll teach you how to perform the Joining yourself so that
you never have to fear it again, but please talk to Fleur before you
leave. I don't know how to deal with depressed women."
Tonks couldn't help snorting at the end. Typical man.
"Fine, I'll talk to her." Fleur had become a good friend, but learning
that she'd had another brush with that insidious bit of magic had shaken
her. She had to go back to work in a few days though and it would be dumb
to leave things unresolved.
XXXXX
There were only five people left on Black Island, the others having left
for one reason or another.
After Penny's parents had needed to go back to work, Hestia and Paul had
left due to the abrupt end of relationships.
Next had been Isabel and Jade. Upon waking up the morning after the
party, Isabel had decided that she regretted sleeping with Sirius and
blamed him for it. Jade, ever the short-tempered Gryffindor, supported
her friend. That had been the cause of some very stupid drama, which
Bryanna and Tiana had quickly put and end to by bustling their friends
home.
Tonks had been the last to leave, her vacation time used up. She did
patch things up with Fleur before she left though and the veela's mood
had improved with the knowledge that she hadn't lost her new friend.
Harry was just happy that she wasn't moping anymore. Give him a complex
magical problem over an upset female any day...
The rest of them would be leaving the next day, but for now they were
sitting around a fire and roasting marshmallows for some reason. That was
probably Luna's doing, or maybe Sirius.
Penny had just asked where Harry was thinking of going for his first trip
out of Britain.
"Well my first trip out of Britain is going to be to Austria, but I don't

really count that as part of my plans." Harry said, grumbling slightly.
"Why not?" Fleur asked curiously. She wouldn't mind seeing Austria,
thought it wasn't as far afield as she had expected.
"Because it literally isn't my plan to go there." He grumbled some more.

"It was Adrastia who told me that Malfoy was the one trying to kill me,
and she demanded that I be her date to some kind of private party in
Vienna on Christmas as payment."
Of course, Harry didn't for a moment believe that it was that simple.
Adrastia had a habit of introducing new variables into his life every
time she showed up and he didn't expect this to be any different. He
might have chanced going on his first trip before Christmas if his
promised date was with someone more benign.
"You didn't tell me about this." Sirius said, mildly accusing.
"Because you always make a fuss when Adrastia is mentioned." Harry

retorted.
"I do not." Sirius protested. "I just don't trust her."
"You think I do?" Harry asked incredulously.
"Where are we going after that then?" Luna asked.
"I was thinking America, either South or North." Harry mused. "I really
want to get a look at the remains of the Aztecs."
"I've always wanted to go to Vegas." Sirius chimed in.
"Of course you did." Harry didn't have much interest in gambling or
strippers or whatever else happened there, but he could easily imagine
Sirius going there.
"I would like to see eet too." Fleur said.
"See, we could go there to play a few games of Blackjack and you'll have
the best arm candy in the place."
"Hmph, I would not go zere only to be arm candy." Fleur said with her
nose in the air, though she didn't take much offense.
"I could be arm candy." Luna offered.
Everyone paused for a moment in consideration before Harry spoke. "You

know, I forgot that Luna's age might actually be a problem here. Penny,
do you know if Las Vegas has any magical oversight?"
"Not a clue."
"Something to look into then."
"Where else do you want to go?" Penny questioned. "I might as well take a
closer look at all of those places so that you don't end up getting
screwed over by some minor detail."
"Australia maybe, I'm not sure about that yet. Egypt definitely, though
I'd want to speak both ancient and modern Egyptian before going." Bloody
sphinx had set that destination in stone.
"I think the Department of International Magical Cooperation offers a

magical means of learning languages quickly, though the price for non-
employees is pretty steep." Sirius said and then scowled. "That bastard
Crouch supposedly speaks over a hundred and fity languages. He probably
got those lessons for free since he was the head of that department."
"That's good to know." Harry said, dismissing the price as irrelevant,

though he would still probably bully whoever was in charge of that into
lowering it for him. No sense in paying more than you had to.
"Where else do you want to go?" Fleur prodded, very interested in hearing
this. Egypt sounded like quite an adventure.
"India." Harry mused. "I know that our stupid ancestors did everything
they could to ruin the country's magical heritage, but there has to be
something left." That had been surprisingly difficult to learn.
India's magical side was modeled to closely resemble Britain these days,
due to the fact that it was British wand-wavers that had gone there first
and started enforcing the Statute of Secrecy on it. Based on his research
India's magicals had probably been much more heavily integrated in the
day to day life and religion of the society than the European ones. That
sounded like something that would have given the weenies in the ICW a
heart attack and caused them to start liberally applying memory charms
and forcing the local wandless magicals to conform to their ways. Still,
Harry was hoping that they had failed to destroy it completely and that
some remnant yet remained. It would be pretty sad if a culture that was
thousands of years old had been altered into some kind of pseudo-Britain.
"Can't you pick somewhere more fun to go to?" Sirius asked in

exasperation.
"Well I'm also planning to buy a flying carpet from there if I can't get
my hands on one before then. Is that fun enough for you?"
"Better, but only if there's belly dancers involved."
"You never know, there might be."
"I'm all for it then."
"Anything else?" Penny asked, fully recovered from the near centrifugal
forces generated by her eyerolls at this conversation.
"Greece? I've always wanted to go to the top of Mount Olympus and throw a
few lightning bolts around, confuse some people."
"Now we're talking." Sirius said enthusiastically, always up for a prank.

"Err, can you throw lightning bolts though?"
Harry brought his hands together, palms a few inches apart and put a look
of concentration on his face. Arcs of electricity began to spark between
them. Then it got out of control with a loud 'fzark' sound.
"Yow!" Harry yelped, shaking out his hands. "As you can see, it's a work
in progress. Fucking lightning is even more wild than fire. A lot more."
"Maybe you should stop playing with it then?" Penny suggested.
Harry merely stared at her blankly. Stop playing with lightning? Stop
playing with lightning?
"Nevermind." She sighed at the look on his face. "How silly of me to

suggest you stop playing with dangerous natural forces."
Damn right it was silly. The Sunlight Spear wasn't going to invent
itself.
XXXXX
After leaving Black Island and her dog of an ex-boyfriend, Hestia Jones
wasn't too surprised to receive a dinner invitation from Emmeline Vance.
She'd been friends with the older witch for many years now and they got
together fairly frequently.
She was surprised however, when Albus Dumbledore showed up as well. While
she had known that Emmeline was on good terms with her old headmaster,
she hadn't really expected to have him show up for something so casual.
Still, it was nice to be in the presence of the powerful old wizard and
listen to his rambling stories about what he'd been doing over the
summer. She found herself sharing her own summer before she knew it.
Albus gently skimmed Hestia's mind while she talked about her holiday on
Black Island, subtly directing her to talk about Harry as much as
possible. He did not get as much as he would've wished since Hestia and
Harry had not interacted much, but every bit helped.
Harry would always have to be watched for as long as the prophecy was in
play and Voldemort was still alive.
XXXXX
Special credit to Milennial for sending me two PDF files, those being
"Nymphology" and "The Book of Erotic Fantasy" from which I lifted those
sex spells.
Chapter 27
As always thanks go to Joe Lawyer for helping me polish things up.
XXXXX
Narcissa recognised the Potter owl as it flew towards her. Some difficult
to identify sensation made her insides quiver. Fear or anticipation?
Both?
It was still August so Harry wasn't supposed to be back yet. Still, the
familiar owl usually preceded another summons to Grimmauld Place, so it
was likely that he had returned early and was sending for her. That
squirming sensation got stronger.
As she had expected, it was indeed a summons and Narcissa went back
inside to get ready. The letter said to come immediately, which was rude,
but she wasn't in a position to complain and it wasn't like she had
anything better to do these days. She'd been trying to keep the gardens
around Malfoy Manor in some semblance of order, but they were large and
she was no gardener.
A quick bath made sure that she was clean and then she was underway. She
only stopped to tell Draco that she would be gone for a few hours.
The tightness of his expression revealed that he knew where she was
going, not that it was hard to guess. He had become less volatile over
the past month, but she still worried about him. The perpetually scowling
teenager bore little resemblance to the boisterous child he had once
been.
The door to Grimmauld Place was unlocked and she made her way inside
without issue, focusing most of her attention on calming her conflicting
feelings.
Harry was waiting for her in the foyer, tall and tanned and looking even
more handsome than she remembered. His shoulders seemed broader and his
pectorals more pronounced. The muggle shirt he was wearing showcased
these features well.
"Narcissa." He greeted, giving her a small smile.
"My lord." She said back. A slight flush worked itself up her neck and
she averted her gaze from those too-green eyes.
"We'll be going to Potter Manor today." He said and her eyes snapped back
up towards his. Did he want to do it there? With his assistant and Cousin
Sirius and whoever else lived there present?
"My lord?" Narcissa managed to keep the nervous tremor out of her voice.
"I'll need to introduce you to everyone if you're going to work for me."
He explained.
Oh. Then they weren't going to...? Had he lost interest in her while he
was on holiday?
"Something wrong?" Harry asked.
"No, of course not." Narcissa said promptly.

"Are you sure?" He sounded amused as he stepped closer, a hand reaching
to stroke her cheek.
Narcissa' breath caught as heat pooled in her loins in response to the

gesture. "Y-yes."
"You don't sound sure." Harry said musingly, stepping even closer, so
close that there was barely any room between them. "Were you hoping for
something else, Cissy?"
Narcissa closed her eyes. This was another one of his games, but she
couldn't lie. He would know. "Yes."
His hand crept behind her back to take a firm grip of her hair. "I
thought so." And then his lips were on hers, demanding and eager and
every bit as good as she remembered.
XXXXX
Later.
The introduction to the residents of Potter Manor went well enough.

They'd already known that Harry was paying her a stipend and that she
would be working for him, so none of them were too surprised by her
appearance. The most common emotion was ambivalence. Fleur and Luna
simply didn't know her, while Sirius and Penny had past grievances with
either Narcissa personally or the Malfoy family in general but weren't
cruel enough to advocate leaving her to the wolves.
After that mostly painless experience, Harry, Narcissa and Penny retired
to the room that the latter used as her office to discuss the former Mrs.
Malfoy's duties.
"You'll be taking over the social aspects of my correspondence; fanmail,

hatemail, invitations and anything else that Penny sees fit to pass on to
you." Harry was saying, making Narcissa frown.
Harry saw her expression and elaborated. "Yes, you'll be getting most of
your work from her. Your other set of duties will of course be to help me
navigate Britain's political and social cess pit."
He didn't tell her that Penny would still be doing all of that work
herself for a while longer. It would mean having the same work done
twice, but he wasn't willing to trust Narcissa quite yet.
Narcissa cleared her expression and nodded her understanding. She didn't
like this arrangement, essentially becoming an assistant to...someone so
young and ill-suited to being the steward of a noble family. But she
didn't like a lot of things in her life lately and would just have to
deal with it.
"Then we should discuss your political aims." She said.

"Easy, I don't have any." Harry replied flippantly.
"I see." Narcissa said, not entirely surprised. It was odd for a family
head to have no agenda, but not unheard of. Some were more interested in
simple profit rather than politics.
"Is that a problem?" He asked.
"Not as such, though you will find yourself courted for support by
everyone until your political leanings become known."
"She's right about that." Penny spoke up. "You've already received
several dinner invitations while we've been away. They were probably
pretty cranky about not getting an answer for so long too."
"They should have realised we weren't home when nobody replied." Harry
said with a shrug. He certainly wasn't going to make an announcement in
the Prophet every time he was unavailable.
"Those dinner invitations were more likely attempts to curry favor with
you, they may even have been hoping to entice you with any daughters they
might have." Narcissa added, clearly remembering such events being
organised for Bellatrix and Andromeda, though the latter had stormed out
and never looked back when their parents had tried to arrange a marriage
for her.
"It'll be your job to tell them that they can fuck off then." Harry said
dryly.
"Very well." She nodded, unsurprised by his stance on the matter even if
his delivery was a bit crude. Only the more traditionalist families still
adhered to such practices after all.
"Right, do we have any other business to talk about?" Harry asked,

clearly hoping that the answer was negative.
"Your appearance in the Wizengamot." Narcissa disappointed him.
"Do I have to appear in the Wizengamot? I know that Sirius never did."
"Sirius was never the most...responsible of people." She replied

carefully, not wanting to offend him.
She had nothing to worry about however, as Harry would certainly not take
offense at that sort of accurate observation. "So, more teenage rebellion
that he never grew out of?"
"That would be one way of looking at it." She admitted.
"You still haven't told me whether it's really necessarry for me to show
up there though."
"It isn't strictly necessary. There are a few cases where attendance is
considered mandatory, but they are very rare. If a law is voted on and a
member is not present, they are considered to have abstained. The same
applies if a trial is conducted."
"And the downsides of not attending?"
"You would have no say in what laws were passed."
Yes, well, that was obvious enough. Harry didn't actually care too much
about the law, nor did he care about the country in general. He wasn't
sure if he could afford to ignore it though, not with Voldemort's wraith
looming over the future like a bad smell. Even putting aside the Dark
Lord's hit list that undoubtedly had his name at the very top, leaving
Magical Britain lubed up and bent over for him seemed like a bad idea.
What to do about it though? Playing around at lawmaking was all well and
good, but Voldemort had even less regard for the law than he did and
would do whatever he wanted anyway. What he needed to do was chip away at
Voldemort's support base so that he wouldn't be able to just pick up
where he left off once he restored himself.
And Harry was pessimistic enough to know that Voldemort would restore
himself. He had no leads on the other Horcruxes, so unless Dumbledore
managed to actually be useful he'd definitely be coming back eventually.
The more he thought about it, the more he realised just how difficult a
task it would be to make the country hostile to Voldemort's ambitions.
The laws themselves weren't openly discriminatory for the most part aside
from the special privileges given to the nobility, it was the culture
itself that was the problem and that wasn't easy to change by any
stretch. It could be done, but there simply wasn't time. Voldemort would
undoubtedly be back long before anything of note could be accomplished
peacefully, even if Harry himself hadn't been planning to go gallivanting
around the world.
Dumbledore could have done it. In the wake of Voldemort's defeat fourteen
years ago, everything had been perfectly set. Dumbledore held all the
important offices and was held in great respect. People would have been
happy to lynch any corrupt politicians that got in the way of putting
down all of Voldemort's followers that were still at large. He'd had all
the time, power and opportunity in the world to make Magical Britain so
poisonous to Voldemort's philosophy that the Dark Tosser would have
thrown his hands up in frustration and left. Well, maybe not that, but he
certainly could have done more than twiddle his thumbs.
But Harry could already imagine what Dumbledore's excuse would be for not
making that final push. The country needed time to heal, Harry.
Sometimes he wondered if the old man even saw how diseased the country
was. It would have been better to let it bleed a little more so that all
the filth was drained out.
Now the opportunity was gone. People had gotten complacent again and the
Death Eaters had once more established themselves as pillars of society.
The only thing he could think of in the short term was to throw money at
the DMLE and hope that they would have enough aurors to hold him off at
least for a while.
"How would I go about getting the DMLE's funding increased?" He finally

asked.
"Why would you want to do that?" Narcissa asked in surprise.
"Because of reasons." Harry answered unhelpfully.
She frowned at his response but answered anyway. "That is mostly at the
discretion of the Minister of Magic, but Fudge has long been paranoid
about Amelia Bones wanting to steal his position and will not be inclined
to do so." That was something that Lucius had spent years cultivating.
"Hmm." Harry hummed, wondering if he could bully Fudge into it. The moron
had no spine to speak of, but he was so terrified of losing his position
that he might actually resist that. "What about just getting rid of Fudge
an installing Bones as Minister of Magic?"
"Impossible, she's too inflexible. The Wizengamot would never vote her
in, not unless the situation was truly dire." Narcissa shook her head.
"And by 'inflexible' I assume you mean 'unwilling to take bribes'?" Harry

asked dryly.
"Yes."
"Finding a way to increase the DMLE's funding it is."
"You may have more luck convincing wealthy witches and wizards to make
donations to the department." Narcissa suggested. "The Ministry sponsors
a ball to commemorate the anniversary of the Dark Lord's defeat every
year on Halloween, Lord Ogden will be hosting it this year."
"Ah yes, that." Harry said sourly. "Fudge has already implied none-too-
subtly that he'd like it if I showed up. I suppose you think I should
attend?"
"It would be an ideal venue to present yourself as a prominent member of

Wizarding Britain's elite, which would in turn make your goals easier to
achieve." She shrugged.
"Fine." He conceded grumpily. "What do I need to know about this stupid

ball?"
"It will be quite similar to the Yule Ball you had at Hogwarts last year.
Formal wear, dancing, a date. The only real difference will be the
presence of the press and that there will be more focus on politicking
than having fun."
"A date huh?" Harry said, scratching at his chin. "What would happen if I
bring two dates? Fleur and Luna."
"The Lovegood girl would reflect poorly on you because she is not
considered an adult yet." Narcissa paused for a moment, struggling to
find the right words to explain why the sub-human veela was also a poor
choice without offending him. "Ms. Delacour would work as a date, but
there are many that would wonder at the closeness between you, the Daily
Prophet and Witch Weekly included."
"Won't they wonder that no matter who I bring?" Harry asked with a raised
eyebrow.
"Yes, but...they would wonder more if it was her." She tried to say as
delicately as possible.
"Because she's a veela." It wasn't a question.
"...yes."
Harry was tempted to crack a joke about asking Adrastia to really give
people something to talk about, but caution stayed his tongue. That was
one association that might be better if it was kept as secret as
possible.
Who to take as his date though? He didn't care much about the prejudices
of the inbred mouth breathers, but this wasn't a fun occasion. Taking
Fleur would not only bring him into inevitable conflict with said mouth
breathers, but would also put her in a very uncomfortable situation as
they all looked down their noses at her while simultaneously leering at
her tits. He could handle a little scuffling and taking her would
certainly make a statement, but she would not have a good time there.
Who did that leave?
Dora? Awkward.
Penny? Awkward.
Bryanna or Tiana? Possibly, and it could double as an opportunity to

advertise for their store.
...
Harry shot Narcissa a speculative look. The blonde aristocrat still had a
certain prestige despite her recent poor fortunes in life. She would work
as an advertisement board far better than either Bryanna or Tiana, as
well as being far more useful as an information source. Then there was
the fact that he was currently supporting her, which would help build up
his image if he was going to play this silly social game.
How absurd that the lessons learned from Robert and Katherine which he'd
disdained for years were coming in handy just as he'd gotten clear of
them.
"You've been to this kind of thing before, right?" He asked.

"Of course, a few have even been hosted in Malfoy Manor." Lucius had been
meticulously careful to portray the image of a man glad to be out from
under the Dark Lord's 'Imperius'.
"You'll be my date then, Narcissa." Harry said.
"As you wish, my lord." She said with a small smile, very pleased by the
unexpected invitation, even if it was more of an order. The social
isolation that she'd been suffering since Lucius' death had been starting
to get to her and she would relish this chance to get out and about.
"You're not taking Fleur then?" Penny asked unhappily, disappointed that
he would cave in to the bigotry pervading Magical Britain.
"She'd be miserable if I took her there." Harry explained with a shake of

his head. "I'll take her on a nice date somewhere else. Shit, maybe I'll
take her on a date to Paris so that she can spend the whole time gloating
about how much better French cuisine is."
XXXXX
"My lord, why are we here?" Narcissa asked, glancing around at the muggle
streets and muggle houses and muggle cars. She was also dressed in muggle
trousers and a muggle shirt that made her look disgustingly muggle, but
when the man that held your future in his hands puts muggle clothes into
your hands and tells you to wear them, you didn't complain. At least they
weren't uncomfortable, though she would have still prefered robes.
"You'll see." Was all Harry would say as they walked down the streets of
Arundel.
They arrived in front of the correct house in short order and Harry rang
the doorbell.
Harry had a good idea what kind of schedule the girls had and had timed
it so that he would catch Bryanna and Tiana instead of the other two, so
he was somewhat surprised when Isabel opened the door.
"Harry?" She questioned with a puzzled frown, looking over at him and the
older blonde woman that looked vaguely familiar.
"Isabel." Harry said back, noting that she looked rather frumpy and
figuring that it was probably because of her recent breakup. Or perhaps
the thing with Sirius. "Are Bryanna and Tiana in?"
"Yeah, they're down in the basement." Isabel said and stood aside to let
him enter, making her way back upstairs without another word.
"What a rude girl." Narcissa muttered.
"Nevermind her." Harry said dismissively and led the way towards the
basement.
Narcissa looked around curiously as they entered the obviously magically
expanded space. It was clearly the work area of a magical seamstress,
though the clothing she saw looked more muggle than anything that a self-
respecting magical seamstress would make.
"Girls, this is Narcissa Black, formerly Malfoy. I want you to make her
something to wear for a formal Ministry sponsored ball." Harry said once
they found Bryanna and Tiana.
Narcissa blinked in surprise. She'd been expecting to wear one of her old
sets of formal robes, not getting something new made.
"We could do that, but won't you be expected to wear formal robes for an
occasion like that?" Tiana said, looking at the blonde woman over with an
assessing frown.
"Yes, but I don't like formal robes." He smirked.
"My lord?" Narcissa asked nervously. What exactly did he expect her to
wear? Some of the things she was seeing here were a bit...lacking.
"Don't worry, you'll be in good hands here." Harry said.
"Aw, that's so sweet of you, Harry." Both girls cooed.
"Yeah, that's me. Nothing but sweetness." Harry remarked dryly, making
them laugh.
"How much time do we have?" Bryanna asked professionally, getting

serious. They had never made any formal wear, but the former Mrs. Malfoy
would make for an excellent model. She was quite beautiful and had a good
shape. Plus, blue-eyed blondes were easy to pick colors for.
"Until Halloween."
"Plenty of time then." Tiana said confidently and then looked at Harry.
"What are you going to be wearing though? We need to know so that we
don't put her into something that will clash with you."
"I haven't given myself too much thought yet." Harry replied, scratching
at his chin. "I know that you girls are focusing on the female side of
things, but could you make me a modified set of formal robes? Something
similar to the basilisk hide coat maybe? Just stay away from anything
overly colorful."
"We could give it a try, men's clothes are generally easier to work with
anyway." Bryanna said thoughtfully.
"Good, and just think of all the free publicity this will get you for
when you finally open your store." Harry smirked.
Both girls froze, their thoughts having been on the clothes themselves
rather than on where they would be worn. They knew well enough to know
that women always gossiped about the clothes they were wearing, so if
they put Narcissa into something especially eyecatching, everyone would
know who had made it before the night was out. That combined with Harry
endorsing it would give them a massive leg-up on their business. It would
let them muscle in on the high society market that they had abandoned as
impenetrable years ago. They might even start a whole new fashion trend.
If they made it look good.
XXXXX
September 24th.
Harry stared at the large whiteboard in consternation. It had a diagram

on it, with eight points arranged into a rough circle. Each of the points
bore the name of a person that carried one of the ever so useful
communication mirrors.
Truly, those things were a marvel of magic, the brainchild of James

Potter and Sirius Black, with a large dash of Lily Potter's Charms
brilliance thrown in to make it work like a video phone. If only the damn
things could be made to work in more than pairs.
Harry figured that he could maybe make a three-way set, but not easily.
And it would be fairly moot anyway since there were now eight mirrors in
play. Aside from the five residents of Potter Manor, there was also one
for Dora, one for the girls in Arundel, most recently one for Narcissa to
make summoning her easier and Fleur had just come back from France after
visiting her family and requested another mirror for them.
In short, shit was getting complicated. Granted, the pair connecting

Fleur to her parents and sister didn't need to be connected to the
others, but that wasn't the point.
"I don't zink zis can be done, 'Arry." Fleur said, looking over a page of
notes. "Ze spellwork becomes exponentially more complex wiz every new
mirror."
She was pretty good at enchanting and Arithmancy, but knew when something
was beyond her. Harry's project to make these mirrors more convenient was
simply too ambitious.
Harry knew that she was right. With eight mirrors, every one of them
would need seven inbound and outbound connections. The modified master-
master Protean Charms would get all tangled up even if the mirrors
themselves could support that level of enchantment. The diagram was a
mess of vectors.
But he wasn't willing to give up on this just yet. Handheld instantaneus

communication was simply too useful to abandon the idea, not to mention
the potential profit.
It was as he was staring at the empty spot in the center of the diagram
that inspiration struck.
"What about...this." He said, quickly erasing all the connections and
making another big dot right in the middle. Then he drew two vectors
between the center point and every dot representing a person with a
mirror. The diagram was now a much more elegant thing
"Zat might actually work." Fleur said, quickly getting up and moving to
stand beside him. "Each mirror would only need to carry ze standard
enchantment zis way."
"And the central nexus could be made to block incoming connections if one
is already active." That had been the other issue that got in the way of
multi-mirror connections. If someone tried to establish a connection with
a mirror that was already in use, things could get pretty strange.
"But ze enchantment on zis nexus as you call eet would still be very
complex." Fleur warned, playing Devil's advocate.
"Especially if I want it to be capable of accepting new connections after

it was first made." Harry agreed.
"'Arry..." Fleur was exasperated. They had only just figured out a
possible solution to the multi-mirror problem and he was already piling
on something else.
"That was always what I was going for." He shrugged. "This way, there
won't be any need to link a new mirror with every individual one that was
already active. Instead, we can just link it into the nexus and it'll
become part of the communication network."
Harry was already dreaming of selling this kind of thing worldwide. Or

better yet, renting it out. Best of all, it was a guaranteed success
since the mundane world had already more than demonstrated the appeal of
a portable communication device.
He would be so rich that the goblins would have a collective heart

attack. He'd probably be able to start his own fucking bank if he was so
inclined. Well not really since the fucking goblins had made that
illegal, but theoretically. And it wouldn't just be galleons either. The
Americans and anyone else that wasn't economically shackled to the
goblins would want this just as much.
Potter Communications had a very pleasant ring to it.
XXXXX
Halloween.
"Harry Potter, Lord of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black and the
Noble House of Potter. His escort, Narcissa Black. "The herald announced,
starting up a loud murmur as everyone's attention was brought to the new
arrivals.
Quite a few people present were scandalised at what the former Mrs.
Malfoy was wearing. A halter-neck style dress of dark red velvet that
left her arms bare and clung to her tighly enough to leave little of her
form to the imagination. The skirt was floor length but had a knee high
slit on one side to allow a flash of leg to be seen as she walked. There
would be even more scandalised looks when they saw that her back was
almost entirely bare as well.
Harry's outfit was considerably less eyecatching, but still easily

identifiable as having muggle roots. Simple black trousers and a subdued
dark green shirt covered by something that could have passed as a
modified formal robe or a somewhat eccentric looking black coat that was
open in the front.
Narcissa kept her nervousness hidden behind an expressionless mask. She

was an old hand at keeping up appearances and pretending that her current
outfit didn't make her uncomfortable wasn't that hard.
It was a beautiful piece, she would admit. The material was comfortable,
the spellwork kept it smooth and free of unsightly wrinkles, a subtle
enchantment made the dark red velvet shimmer wonderfully whenever it
caught the light, which was certainly a much better effect than the over-
the-top magical additions that some people put on their clothes and
another enchantment provided superior support to her bust than anything
she'd ever worn. In pure workmanship, she would rate it was being very
high quality.
It was however, a severe departure from tradition and left her feeling
almost naked. She knew that a bold move like this would have been
damaging to her reputation if she had done it on her own. Doing it on
Harry Potter's arm would probably let her get away with it, but she was
still nervous.
"Alright, let's get this show on the road." Harry murmured so that only
she could hear. "You know what to do, so do it well and I'll help you get
out of that dress after it's over."
Narcissa shivered slightly at the implied promise. They had met up

several more times since he had come back from his vacation and he had
left her aching in all the right places every time.
She knew what her job was tonight. Feed him information on the people
present and speak only high praise for those girls he was sponsoring and
their work. She would help him as best she could, not only because her
own fortunes depended on it, but because she had grown to have genuine
respect for Harry. And also because she wanted help taking her dress off
later.
They made their way towards the host, the aging Lord Tiberius Ogden, to
greet him as protocol dictated.
"Lord Ogden set his family in opposition to the Dark Lord during the war,
but backed down when a cadet branch of his House was wiped out. He is a
principled man, but will put his family above others if it comes to it."
Narcissa informed him quietly.
Harry gave her hand a light squeeze to acknowledge her words as they
reached the man and exchanged tedius, but necessary, pleasantries.
"I must admit that I was starting to wonder if Fudge was having me on
when he said that Harry Potter himself would be attending this year."
Ogden said once that was done.
"I underestimated how much time it would take me to prepare, I'm afraid."
Harry lied. Narcissa had been the one to suggest that arriving so late
would have more impact. She was right of course, though it was also more
uncomfortable, but Harry was now a past master of submerging his mind in
the peace of Dark to counter such troublesome emotions
"Ah, I see." Ogden nodded in understanding. "Well you're here now, so

please enjoy yourselves. This celebration is after all held in honor of
your victory over He-Who-Must-Not-Be-named."
"It wasn't much of a victory for me, though I will try to enjoy it in the
hope that we don't see a resurgence of those times." Harry said.
Tiberius didn't have much to say in response, though his eyes did soften
at the reminder that Harry had lost his parents that day. For some
reason, he also felt a sudden swell of worry at the thought of those evil
days coming around again.
"That was well done." Narcissa complimented as they walked away.
"We'll see." Harry muttered back. He'd cast a something like a reverse
Calming Charm on the old wizard, a Dread Charm, in the hope that he'd be
more malleable later. "Fudge is coming over here."
"He's breaching protocol." Narcissa hissed quietly from between her

teeth, staring coldly at the approaching Minister. He was wearing snot
green robes and looked as if he was about to wet himself.
"Harry, so glad you could make it." Fudge said a few decibels too loudly
and sticking out his hand for a shake.
Narcissa's lips thinned at the further breach of protocol. Not only had
he approached them before the first dance, but he was speaking too loudly
and forcing Harry to let go of her so that he could return the handshake.
The entire ballroom was openly staring at them, but Fudge seemed to have
such severe tunnel vision that he didn't notice anything other than
Harry.
"Cornelius." Harry smiled tersely, something that was naturally lost on

Fudge. "You've already met Narcissa Black, I'm sure."
"I have, and might I say that you look stunning." Fudge blustered.
"Thank you." She said. Tersely.

"I must say that I'm surprised to see you two arriving together,
especially after the...err, you know." The Minister commented tactlessly,
flushing as he realised what he'd just mentioned.
"Lord Potter is now my Head of House and has graciously offered his
support after the disgrace my former husband brought on me and my son."
Narcissa replied so flintily that even Fudge grasped that he shouldn't
mention it again. "Now if you'll excuse us, I believe the first dance is
about to start."
She put her arm back into the crook of his elbow and they walked off,
leaving the embarrassed politican to retreat to safety.
"I still find it hard to believe that man remembers how to breathe
without someone advising him on it." Harry muttered irritably.
Narcissa cracked a brief smile.
XXXXX
Some time later.
Harry was sitting at his table and staring around the room with a
calculating gaze.
Narcissa had pointed out everyone of importance to him while they had
been dancing and he was considering the information.
There were a lot of problematic people here.
Nott, Avery, Parkinson, Flint, Bulstrode, Mulciber, Dolohov, Travers,

Yaxley, Selwyn, Carrow, Rookwood, Rosier. All noble families that
Narcissa had fingered as being openly supportive of Voldemort's ideals.
Many of them currently had some Death Eater family members in Azkaban or
in the grave, while others had managed to weasel out of it in one way or
another. Only the Lestranges were all either dead or locked up.
There were plenty of others who weren't noble, but still openly
supportive, such as Crabbe and Goyle, and that wasn't even counting the
non-British magicals that Voldemort had recruited.
After them came the ones who, while not willing to put on a Death Eater
mask, had not been particularly upset about what Voldie had been doing
and had been politically obstructive to the resistance against him.
And after them came the fence sitters that had stayed pointedly neutral
the last war, such as Greengrass and Davis.
Lastly were the ones who had openly opposed Voldemort to the end, such as
the Potter, Longbottom, Bones and...not much else actually. Most of the
anti-Voldemort resistance had come from non-nobles, with every other
Noble House aside from those three having either kept their heads down
from the start, capitulated after Voldemort turned his attention on them
or been wiped out. And those three weren't doing so great as far as the
number of living members were concerned.
No wonder the war against Voldemort had been going so poorly. The two
main players had definitely been Dumbledore and Voldemort, but Voldemort
had been far more proactive and able to rally support while Dumbledore
had done his mysterious twinkly grandfather act and convened his bird
club meetings instead of taking the fight to them.
In Narcissa's best educated guess, roughly half of the remaining

Wizengamot families were a problem to one degree or another.
And now he'd inherited this mess because the old goat botherer thought
that twiddling one's thumbs was an excellent way to prepare for the
second coming of a crazy, pseudo-immortal Dark Lord.
Joy.
Well the most direct plan to make things difficult for Voldemort would be
to murder all his followers before he could come back, something that
Harry resolved to do if an opportunity presented itself. He wasn't
interested in becoming a wanted man at this juncture, so he couldn't go
on any reckless killing sprees, but disposing of a free roaming Death
Eater if he had a chance wasn't something to be turned down given the
circumstances.
The less direct plan was to funnel some money towards the DMLE and hope
for the best.
And speaking of money, Harry spotted Lord Parkinson over yonder,

apparently in conversation with some Ministry flunky or other.
Narcissa was currently engaged with a group of ladies that included the
man's wife, who were no doubt interrogating his date on her dress and
making private speculations about what else she was doing for him. If he
wasn't mistaken, there was also a reporter from Witch Weekly in there
somewhere. Well that was part of the reason that he'd brought her, so she
was doing her job.
He'd already been approached by a few reporters and other nosy people
himself, but had generally been able to deflect them without any major
issue. A few presumably single women were making cow eyes at him,
obviously hoping to be invited to dance. Protocol said that the man had
to ask for a dance, so they couldn't approach him themselves. Protocol
finally being good for something, who would've thunk it?
This was a good a time as any to inform Parkinson that he didn't

appreciate being stolen from.
XXXXX
Edward Parkinson, the current Lord Parkinson, started a little when Harry
Potter sat down at his table, uninvited.
"Evening." The very young and very dangerous wizard greeted pleasantly.
"Good evening." Edward returned cautiously, not trusting the

pleasantness. He shot a look at the Ministry official he'd been talking
to.
The man was a lot more perceptive than Fudge and knew when it was time to
go. "Excuse me, Lord Parkinson, I think I hear my wife calling me. Lord
Potter."
There was no wife calling of course, but an excuse to leave need not be a
good one.
"What can I do for you, Lord Potter? Or do you prefer Lord Black?" Edward
asked.
"Potter will be fine. As for what you can do for me, well I've heard that
you provided the wine for this ball and I came to compliment you on its
quality."
Potter's tone was still pleasant, but Edward was now very nervous.
"Thank you, we strive to provide the best." He said.
"You know, I've always wanted to own a vineyard. Pity that the Potter
family doesn't seem to have a source of income which would justify the
expenditure of purchasing one." Even now, Potter's words were polite and
pleasant, but there was suddenly a terrible, frigid mien about him.
In fact, Edward could swear that he saw condensation gathering on the

wine glasses. He was reminded eerily of the presence of dementors from
back during the war.
"I am sure that a wizard of your skill and stature will be able to turn
around the fortunes of his House with little issue. I hear that you are
financing the opening of a new clothes store, do you think you will be
able to compete with such established businesses as Madam Malkin's and
Twilfit and Tattings?" Edward said, trying to deflect the conversation to
something less dangerous.
"I won't have to, it will be an altogether different type of clothing

store."
Looking over at the escort that Potter brought, Edward couldn't disagree.
That dress and what Potter was wearing was nothing like anything sold in
either of those two stores. Had Narcissa worn something so bold in a
different set of circumstances she would have been called a whore, but
nobody was going to risk Potter's anger by calling her that out loud,
even if Edward suspected it would have been an accurate appellation.
Narcissa had in fact come to him and his wife for help in the wake of
Lucius' death and been turned away exactly because they hadn't wanted to
bring Potter's attention to them. What a cruel irony that they had
Potter's attention anyway, now with the addition of Narcissa whispering
poison into his ear for turning her away. That was why his wife was now
with the blonde witch that had been her friend not so long ago, gushing
over the dress and being generally ingratiating.
"I wish you the best of luck in your venture." Edward said, though he
didn't really mean it. He hated the muggleness of the clothing that was
likely going to be sold there. Too bad that with Potter endorsing it, it
was likely to be a success no matter what.
"Thank you, but getting back to the vineyard, I must ask how you acquired
yours? Who knows, I might get one in a similar way."
Edward twitched at the powerful young wizard's persistence. That

unnerving frigidness was still there and there was something disquieting
in Potter's eye. He wanted to look away, but he couldn't. He wanted to
lie, say that it had been in his family for generations, but it was too
easy to verify and he suspected that Potter already knew anyway. The
questions were just a little too pointed.
"I bought it from another family during the war against You-Know-Who." He
said, avoiding any mention of it being the Potter family.
"With all the trouble Voldemort was causing back then, it must have been
quite the steal."
Edward flinched at the casual use of the Dark Lord's name, but he felt
his blood freeze at the feel of the air. Potter was somehow still
managing to project no threat in his voice or body language, but his
presence was murderous, like a great black wyrm looming over him with
jaws opened wide. It was like the old terror of kneeling before the Dark
Lord and knowing that you had displeased him.
Edward once again lamented his foolishness in taking the Dark Mark. He'd
been so young and full of outrage at the mudbloods polluting their world,
so impatient to strike back at them. His idealistic view of the Dark Lord
as a champion of the old ways had not survived long.
He also lamented this situation. It had seemed so perfect at the time.

The Dark Lord was after the Potters, so they were sure to be dead soon.
What was the harm in appropriating their business for himself, especially
since that fool James Potter pushed all responsibility on his manager?
Other Death Eaters had done much the same with other families. Lucius
Malfoy had been especially crafty about it and enriched himself greatly
on the misfortunes of his victims.
But Lucius was dead now, dead at the hand of the powerful young wizard
that now smiled at him with eyes colder than the deepest winter. The
wizard who had survived the Dark Lord instead of dying as he'd been
supposed to.
The wizard that he had stolen from. It might be legal, but it had been
theft. Lucius' death had also been legal, but everyone knew it had been
murder.
"I did get it for much less than it was worh." Edward admitted with as
much calm as he could muster.
"How fortunate for you."
Finally, there was a threat in Potter's voice. Something that implied

that something unfortunate might happen to him soon. Was his breath
misting as it exited his mouth?
Edward had a decision to make now. He could fight to keep what he'd
stolen for himself or he could return it. The law was on his side, but he
had no idea what Potter was capable of. This wasn't like dealing with
Dumbledore, who could always be relied on to back down instead of
starting a war. No, Potter was a different sort of beast.
Edward didn't want to risk it, didn't want to end up like Lucius. "Tell
you what, Lord Potter, allow me to present you with a gift to celebrate
you ascension to adulthood. I would give you my vineyard."
"Are you sure? That's quite the extravagant gift." Potter said. He
sounded like he was trying to fake surprise, but his words were too cold.
His eyes were too cold. His breath was too cold. Why was everything so
bloody cold?
"I'm sure, it's the least I can do for the one who saved us from the Dark
Lord."
"Well if you put it like that, then how could I refuse?"
The dementor-like chill slowly faded from the air and Edward relaxed a
little bit, only to tense again as Potter rolled his neck and produced an
almost cadaverous cracking sound, like old bones and stiff leather being
moved after ages of inactivity. It was beyond creepy and Edward didn't
relax until he was alone again.
He reached for the wine bottle with shaky hands, a bottle that had come
from the vineyard he'd just given away in fact. It was too cold.
Edward Parkinson shivered. There was something deeply wrong about Potter.
XXXXX
Harry stalked out of the ballroom and onto the adjoining balcony, taking
deep breaths as he fought to regain his balance.
Too much Dark and no Sun in the sky to counteract it. His lungs, kidneys,
liver and intestines felt frozen inside his body, affected by his runes
as they were. And the rest of him didn't feel especially warm either.
He needed to see the stars, needed to force back the chill grip of the
Void. Parkinson had no idea how close he'd just come to dying there.
Harry had gotten back what had been stolen from his family, but by the
end of that conversation, he'd barely cared about it at all. What he'd
really wanted to do was snuff out the spark of life and magic in front of
him and make it one with the Dark.
He looked at the stars and pulled on their distant Light, feeling the
chill recede. Not as strong as the Sun, but at least he felt alive again
instead of like the walking dead.
He sensed a familiar presence nearby, one that he had ignored in his

rush.
"I see I'm not the only one that needed a break from the festivities."
She said.
"Madam Bones." Harry greeted, turning towards her. "I would have thought
you'd be used to it after all these years of having to attend." As a high
ranking Ministry official, her attendance was mandatory.
"Used to it?" Amelia grimaced. "Maybe, but I've always hated it."
Harry suspected that she hated all the Death Eaters walking around rather
more than the actual party, though he would certainly understand if she
hated both.
"I've never been much for parties either. I wouldn't even be here if
Narcissa hadn't convinced me that I should attend." He admitted.
"I'm surprised that you would listen to her advice." Amelia could easily
imagine a woman like Narcissa taking up with her husband's killer, but
Potter actually accepting her seemed strange.
"She has her uses." Harry shrugged.
Amelia raised an eyebrow and looked back into the ballroom where the
blonde witch was currently the focus of a great deal of attention.
"Such as promoting your business interests?"
"Among other things."
Amelia wondered about these other things. Dirt on certain people of

interest? Death Eaters and their ilk were a clannish sort by necessity,
but Narcissa might well be willing to sell them out to save her own hide.
She'd seen Potter talking to Parkinson just now and noticed how tense the
man was. She'd also noticed how suspiciously empty the area around them
had been.
Or perhaps Potter meant more carnal uses. That seemed to be the

prevailing opinion that everyone had, but which nobody would openly admit
to. Kill a man and take his widow as a mistress...a lot of the people
attending this party seemed to be impressed by the ruthlessness implied
in that when they should be worried instead.
Odd that a barely fifteen-year-old wizard would have a reputation as

something of a womanizer, but every rumor seemed to agree on that. Susan
had written to her about it too, though Amelia knew how rumors could get
inflated.
"Harry?" Fudge blundered in then, interrupting any further conversation.
"Cornelius." Harry said, trying not to sigh as he felt the almost

palpable drop in IQ. Fudge had been going around all evening, seemingly
trying to talk to as many people as possible and making a general
nuisance of himself. Truly, the man was staying on as Minister of Magic
solely on the merit of being easy to bribe.
"I thought I saw you coming out here...oh, Amelia." Fudge finally noticed
the other person, looking as if he'd swallowed a lemon.
"I needed to get a breath of fresh air." Harry said. "Was there something
you wanted?"
"Uh, no, I just wanted to make sure you were alright." Fudge said.
"I'm perfectly fine." Harry replied dismissively. "Madam Bones and I were
just discussing her department."
Amelia raised an eyebrow at the blatant lie, but didn't contradict him.
"The DMLE is doing perfectly fine." Fudge blustered.
"All things considered it is indeed doing fine, but I'm worried about the
lack of recruits for the aurors coming in. The Hogwarts Potions professor
isn't the best of teachers and his strict demands for NEWT students are
limiting the amount of people eligible for that career. I was just about
to suggest to Madam Bones that she start offering remedial Potions
lessons for prospective aurors to offset that difficulty."
Amelia would have done that, but she barely had enough of a budget to pay
what aurors she did have. She'd already stripped as much funding as she
could from all the less important sub-departments to achieve even that
much.
"I'm afraid that the DMLE doesn't have the budget for something like
that." She said, flicking her eyes over to the cause of that lack.
"The DMLE gets enough funding!" Fudge snapped, his paranoia acting up.
"Did Malfoy tell you that?" Harry asked mildly. "A criminal and a Death
Eater not wanting law enforcement to be well funded, imagine that."
Fudge did an impression of a fish.
"If I were you, Cornelius, I would think carefully about any advice that
Lucius Malfoy gave you in the past. After all, it reflects poorly on you
as Minister of Magic to have the largest and most important department in
the Ministry so poorly taken care of."
"I'll...I'll think about it." Fudge said and all but ran away.
"I think you broke him." Amelia commented.
"He's just a little confused and looking for a new master to hold his
leash." Harry replied faux compassionately.
Amelia snorted in amusement, surprised that he'd say that so openly.
"Why are you trying to convince him to properly fund the DMLE?" She
asked.
"I want it more than just properly funded, I want it to be overfunded.

You'll find yourself getting something extra from me in the DMLE
Gringotts vault as well." Harry had little compunction about redirecting
some his wizarding money there. Not only would he now have a reliable
income, but it was also hard to value it when it was all legally owned by
the damn goblins. He wouldn't throw it away carelessly, but he wasn't
overly attached to it either. The costs of living as a wizard were
surprisingly low and he had plenty of regular money from selling off the
Blacks antique furniture.
"Why? What do you get out of this?" Amelia demanded. This type of
generosity was usually followed by a suggestion that would be both
illegal and beneficial to the donator, but it had been a long time indeed
since anyone had tried to bribe her.
"Because I have the feeling that there's trouble brewing and that I'll be
expected to take care of it by myself if the DMLE doesn't have the
manpower to do it." Harry said ominously.
"What kind of trouble?" Amelia asked suspiciously.
"An old evil stubbornly refusing to die. Train up as many aurors as you
can and I'll consider it money well spent."
Amelia stared after him as he went back inside, frowning. What had that
been about? She had a bad feeling about the future all of a sudden. Well
at least it looked like she was finally going to get some proper funding
and the Auror Office was never supposed to operate on the skeleton crew
that it currently had anyway.
XXXXX
It was well after midnight when the ball was finally over and Harry had
long since reached the end of his patience with people by then. He'd
retreated to a quiet spot and left Narcissa to it for the most part,
knowing that he couldn't just decide that they were leaving if he wanted
to achieve what he wanted.
He was rather baffled by her enjoyment of this sort of thing, but then
he'd always been baffled by it. She still had a bright smile on her face
by the time they left.
"I had a good time tonight." Narcissa said once they were back at Malfoy
Manor, Harry having escorted her back home.
"At least one of us did." He replied wryly.
"There's still time for you to have a good time." She said suggestively,
cupping his crotch. "And you did promise to help me out of my dress."
"That I did."
XXXXX
December 2nd.
A raven landed on the Hogwarts Astronomy Tower and transformed into a man
shortly afterwards.
Harry smiled as he looked around at what was arguably his favorite spot
in Hogwarts, but there was no time for nostalgia. He quickly pulled the
Cloak of Dark out of his Bag of Holding and wrapped it around himself,
proceeding to glide unseen through the hallways on silence charmed feet.
It was time for the evening meal, so the hallways were empty and he made
it to his destination undisturbed. The locking spell on the door
presented no issue either. Now it was just a matter of waiting for his
prey to arrive.
XXXXX
Septima made her way back to her quarters after the evening meal,
wondering if she had the energy to look over a few homework assignments
or if a bath and then bed beckoned. She probably should, or else they
would just pile up.
All her plans for the evening went out the window almost as soon as she
set foot into her room and she was grabbed from behind. Her terrified
scream was muffled by the hand clamped over he mouth and the struggle
that she could put up with her unimpressive physical stature were easily
subdued by the much stronger man.
"Hello, Septima." A familiar voice purred and Septima became aware that
the hand over her mouth didn't feel normal. It was covered in scar
tissue.
"Miss me?" Harry asked.
Septima couldn't reply verbally on account of the hand still clamped over
her mouth, but she did drive her elbow into his gut to demonstrate what
she felt about this stunt of his. It didn't hurt him at all since she had
neither the strength nor the leverage for it, but that wasn't the point.
Her heart still felt as if it was trying to smash through her ribcage.
"Ooh, so feisty. Do you want to play a game?" He whispered into her ear.
Septima inhaled sharply through her nose as her body clenched with sudden
arousal, the punding of her heart only excerbating the situation.
Harry was back and he wanted to play.
Septima found herself nodding before she could give it any more thought.
"Alright, let's play." He murmured and she felt him rummaging around in
his pockets.
He seemed to find whatever he was searching for and removed his right
hand from her mouth. Septima opened her mouth to ask how he'd managed to
sneak into Hogwarts, only to have a rubber ball shoved into her mouth
before she could say a word.
Shocked at the sudden gagging, she tried to bring her hands up to remove
the obstruction only to have them seized.
"None of that now, the ballgag stays." Harry said. "We wouldn't want the
whole school to hear you screaming after all."
Septima's breathing quickened as she realised that she couldn't force the
ball out of her mouth with just her tongue. Must be cursed. It quickened
further when Harry forced both her wrists to the small of her back and
placed what felt like leather restraints on them.
A short struggled confirmed that her hands were now bound and Septima
felt herself moistening with excitement.
The way he took a fistfull of her hair, marched her over to her desk and
forced her to bend over it only increased her excitement.
This is it, he's going to hike up my robes and fuck me over my own desk
while I'm tied up, gagged and helpless. The thought had her whimpering
into the gag. She had no idea why he'd come back, but she was glad.
To her shock, instead of hiking up her robes, he took two firm grips at
hip level and then ripped them open. The unexpected violence of the
action had her heart returning to its previous pounding rhythm.
"Oh my, no panties? You naughty girl." Harry said and Septima felt her
face burn. Yes, she had been foregoing panties lately to make her day
more exciting. The thought of getting caught...
"And I see you're making good use of my present." He said and pushed on
it.
Septima's eyes widened even as she moaned in pleasure. She'd forgotten

about the buttplug! She'd found that she enjoyed going around plugged so
much that it had barely left her arsehole save to re-apply lubricant. The
thought that someone might catch her wearing it might also have something
to do with it, but it had become such a normal part of her life by now
that she'd forgotten about it in the excitement.
"I wonder, did you ever find someone else to play with?"
The question had Septima flushing so much that she thought he must be
seeing the effects all the way down to her rear end. She was too
embarrassed to answer.
"I asked you a question." He punctuated the prompt with a smack across
her bottom that had her yelping into the gag.
"Nuh-uh!" She gurgled quickly to avoid another.
"Chickened out, did you?" He chuckled and she flushed again. Yes, she had
essentially chickened out. There were a few boys in sixth and seventh
year that would have made an adequate enough replacement for Harry, at
least in looks, but she hadn't been brave enough to make a move on them.
She'd dropped some hints that they could have her, but either they
weren't brave enough to act on them either or she'd been too subtle.
Either way, there had been no playtime for Septima Vector this school
term.
Another smack had her yelping again. "That was also a question."
"Uh-huh!"
"You're being a very bad girl, Septima." He scolded. "Do you even want to
play?"
Her eyes widened again and she hastened to reassure him that she really,
really did. "Uh-huh!"
"Alright, but I think you need to be punished first. Do you think you
need to be punished?"
Septima had no idea what kind of punishment he had in mind, but it had to
be better than a premature end to the playtime. Besides, this was new and
exciting and she wanted to see what he'd do. "Uh-huh."
"Get ready then." He said and she stiffened as she felt a broad, flat,
wooden surface being laid across her buttocks. Was he seriously going to
spank her? With a paddle?
The assumed paddle was removed and her breathing came in quick pants at
the expected blow. Any second now...
When it finally came, she screamed around the ball in her mouth as the
force of it shook her entire body. To her great surprise though, it
didn't hurt nearly as much as she had expected. It still stung, but a
blow that strong should have made her arse feel like it had been set on
fire.
She was more prepared for the second blow, though it still made her grunt
her discomfort into the ballgag. There had to be a cushioning charm or
something on the paddle to keep it from doing any real harm, but the
strength behind the blows still caused her whole body to shake.
By the third blow, she was becoming excruciatingly aware of how she
clenched around the buttblug every time she was struck.
The paddling continued and Septima's yelps turned into moans. Streams of
sexual juices ran down her legs from her neglected fanny, which was
clenching around empty air as if jealous of the buttplug stuffing her
bowels. The buttplug that was doing wonderful things to her with every
jarring smack.
Several long minutes later, Septima tensed for another blow that never
came. Her bottom stung painfully from the abuse, but her nether lips were
soaked with arousal. The sudden lack of activity had her wiggling on the
desk in an attempt to catch a glimpse of what he was going to do next,
but she didn't attempt to actually get off the desk.
Then came the clink of a belt being undone and she tensed expectantly,
spreading her legs a little bit to give him better access. She needn't
have bothered however, as he decided to press on the buttplug again.
Septima moaned in response. With the amount of anal orgasms she'd given
herself over the past few months, that was every bit as erogenous a zone
as her vagina. In some ways even more because of how excitingly perverse
it was. Then he pulled it out and she nearly orgasmed then and there from
sheer excitement combined with the arousal of the spanking.
"What a lovely stretched hole you have. It'd be a shame to leave it

unused." Harry said, applying a generous quantity of lubricant.
Septima started taking deep breaths as she felt him rub his crown into
her anal opening, knowing that penetration was only seconds away.
When it finally came, it still took her by surprise. She'd expected him
to gently slide in, but instead he rammed himself in so roughly that she
screamed around the ball in her mouth. She could accomodate him easily
with the amount of time she kept the buttplug in there, but her butt
cheeks were still stinging from the paddling and that had hurt.
...but it also felt so good.
Her feelings on the matter were irrelevant in any case apparently, as

Harry began a punishing tempo that had her crying out helplessly with
every thrust until she was rubbing her cheek into a puddle of drool that
had trickled out of her mouth due to the ballgag.
Not even a minute into this, he grabbed her hair and started pulling on
it.
It was too much. Harry sneaking into her quarters and scaring her half to
death, gagging and tying her, bending her over the desk and spanking her
with a paddle, starting to fuck her arse without giving her a chance to
say no and now pulling on her hair like this.
Septima came hard,wailing into the ballgag and reflexively squeezing his
member in the throes of orgasm.
But Harry had only gotten started and wasn't even close to finishing yet.
He also paid no attention to her climax and continued to pound into her.
Septima was too wrung out to have another orgasm, but she still enjoyed
the feeling of her rectum used so commandingly. When Harry eventually
discharged his hot load into her bowels, she clenched as tightly as
possible, wanting to help him squeeze out every last drop.
"You are as delightful as ever, Septima." He sighed in pleasure as he

pulled out, making her smile around the ball gag. Then he started undoing
the bindings on her hands. "Come on, let's get cleaned up and then we can
get to the other reason that I came to see you."
Septima was intrigued. The surprise visit was already the highlight of
her week, but this sounded promising. She smiled all the way to the
bathroom despite needing Harry's help to get there.
XXXXX
"Fleur and I have been working on this for a few months now and we can't
find any reason for it not to work, but it just doesn't." Harry was
saying, gesturing at a stone cube and four mirrors.
"This is some impressive Arithmancy work." Septima praised, looking over

the notes he'd brought with him.
"Do you think you can help us out?" Harry asked.
"I'll need some time to look it over...can you leave these with me and
come back next week?"
Harry smirked at her. "No problem. Do you want me to bring a riding crop
or a cat o' nine tails this time?"
Septima flushed, but she didn't look away. "Are those supposed to be a
reward for success or a punishment for failure?"
"That'll be up to you."
XXXXX
December 9th.
"The arithmancy checks out, based on that alone your project should work.
I think that your problem is in the material of the nexus."
Harry frowned thoughtfully. He and Fleur had been so focused on getting

the enchantment right that they hadn't considered that.
Stone was good for anchoring wards, but it was true that it was rigid.
Metal was completely self-contained. Cloth would never be able to hold
the power. Wood funneled magic but was crap at holding it, which was what
made it excellent for use as magic foci and utterly useless here.
"So you're saying that I need a material that can funnel magic like wood
and hold it like stone?" He asked.
"That would be my best guess." Septima nodded, privately impressed that

he had figured it out so quickly. "Unfortunately, I can't think of a
single enchanted item that has ever needed something like that, so you'll
have to experiment on your own. I'm not even sure if a material like that
exists."
"Even if it doesn't, you've been very helpful."
"Helpful enough for a special reward?"
"Oh yes."
XXXXX
December 10th.
"Penny, I've got a special project for you."
Penny looked at her employer and wondered what it was going to be this
time. A research project on the migratory patterns of magical species
perhaps? "What kind of project?"
"I need you to acquire samples of various materials. Start with anything
that has the characteristics of both wood and stone, but don't confine
yourself to just that. I want samples of as many artificial materials
that science has made possible as you can get as well as any exotic
naturally occuring ones."
Penny simply stared at him. "Harry, there have to be thousands of each."
"I know, it's going to be a bitch to find the right one."
XXXXX
Christmas, Vienna.
Harry sighed as he looked into the bathroom mirror and dried himself off.
Adrastia had come to collect him quite a bit earlier than he had expected
and told him to get ready while she fetched his clothes.
The large house in Vienna that she had brought him to was surprisingly
ordinary. If not for the subtle enchantments that encouraged people not
to pay attention ot it, he'd never have guessed that it belonged to a
witch. Yet another question mark added to the riddle that was Adrastia
Zabini.
Once he was completely dry and had forced his hair into submission
through the use of the usual spellwork, he stepped out of the bathroom
and into the room she had assigned him for the very short duration of his
stay.
He blinked in surprise as the sight of the clothes laid out for him on
the bed. Black pants, black suit jacket, white shirt, black tie. How
utterly...mundane. He'd been expecting to be eye candy and a status
symbol for Adrastia to brag with in front of her non-British aquintances
or something like that, but now he was no longer sure. He wasn't a
celebrity outside the magical world after all.
It had been a while since Harry had worn anything like this, but he
slipped into it easily enough, even remembering how to properly tie a
tie. The measurements were almost right and the minor mistakes easily
taken care of by a small bit of transfiguration so that the suit looked
tailor made.
Now to find Adrastia and maybe get some answers.
She was waiting for him in the foyer, dressed in a mid-thigh length
Chinese silk dress of all things. It looked good on her though, black
with red decorations. It was also somewhat modified, as it was missing a
substantial amount of chest fabric so as to expose a good bit of
cleavage. The ensemble was topped off with a pair of high heeled shoes
and diamond earrings.
"You look so good in that suit that I'm tempted to just keep you to
myself for the rest of the night." Adrasta said with a sultry smile when
she caught sight of him.
"You don't look bad yourself." Harry replied dryly.
"What a stingy compliment." She chided.
"I didn't think you needed the ego boost." He riposted.
"It still would have been nice of you."
"I've been reliably informed that I'm not nice."
"Fine then, be that way." Adrastia pouted playfully. "I have the Portkey
ready, so let's be off."
"You still haven't told me where we're going." Harry said as he stepped
next to her and took hold of the simple bit of rope that glowed to his
sight with the signature enchantment of a Portkey.
"You will see." She said with a mysterious smile.
XXXXX
The Portkey deposited them in yet another foyer, though this one was
bigger than the one they had just left behind.
"Ah, Adrastia, right on time." A pleasant looking woman that had
apparently been waiting for them greeted. She was brown-haired and brown-
eyed, with pale skin and fine but not stunningly beautiful features.
"Hello, Zuzanna, it's so good to see you again." Adrastia said back and
went to give their greeter a hug with every sign of genuine pleasure.
"And this must be the man you were bragging about so much." Zuzanna said,
looking Harry over. "I see you weren't exaggerating. He looks delicious."
Harry said nothing in reply, simply staring at the woman. Her name had a
Slavic ring to it, but he barely registered that. She was dressed in a
flattering black cocktail dress, but he didn't really notice that either.
No, all his attention was consumed by her aura. It was hungry Dark.
Adrastia quickly moved back to his side and took hold of his right hand.
"Calm down, Harry. There is no danger here."
Harry looked at her and realised that he had been prepared to lash out
with lethal spells.
"I will go tell our host that you've arrived." Zuzanna said, apparently
unperturbed.
"Where the fuck did you bring me?" Harry hissed at Adrastia once they
were alone.
"A friendly gathering, as I said." She replied.
Harry took a deep breath to calm down. He hated surprises. "What was that
woman?"
Adrastia saw that he wasn't in the mood for games and decided to be
straightforward. "A vampire."
Harry stared back for a long few moments, thinking. Every book he'd ever
read on vampires painted them as vicious, bloodthirsty monsters, but he'd
long since learned not to trust the opinions of British, or indeed any,
wizards. A sheep's opinion of a steak was often more accurate.
So if he disregarded everything he'd ever read on vampires, he was left

with his own brief observations. this Zuzanna had shown no aggression and
seemed to be on good terms with Adrastia, something that he realised was
not necessarily reassuring. Still, his own aura had Dark in it and he
managed not to be an indiscriminate killer despite feeling the urge
whenever he drew too deeply on it.
He would give vampires as a whole the benefit of the doubt. Still, he

regretted not making himself an emergency Portkey for this, a mistake he
wouldn't be repeating again.
"Any other surprises I should be aware of?" Harry asked sarcastically.

"The host is also a vampire and there may be a couple of werewolves here,
but other than that, no." Adrastia said cheerfully, glad of his
acceptance. "Now come on."
Harry tried not to scowl too much as he allowed himself to be led away.
At least there wasn't going to be any ridiculous heralds announcing their
entrance this time.
True to Adrastia's words, there was nothing too shocking waiting for him.
A few wizards and witches with racial backgrounds ranging from Asian to
African, though their actual nationality was impossible to determine. A
trio of werewolves whose inner wolves felt much stronger than Lupin's.
There was even a couple of non-magicals.
All of them were wearing suits and dresses instead of robes. It might
just be the fact that this wasn't Backwards Britain, but Harry somehow
doubted it. He saw no sign of their supposedly vampiric host.
Harry let himself be led around and introduced to some of the people, but
escaped into a corner at the first opportunity, covering himself in a
mild aversion spell. Despite Adrastia's reassurance that there was no
danger here, he felt on edge. He hated surprises.
He had the feeling that some of the people present weren't affected by
his attempt to magically redirect their attention, notably the werewolves
and vampiress, but they didn't approach him, for which he was duly
grateful.
What was the point of bringing him here? And what the fuck was even going
on? He knew that vampires and werewolves had it bad even in the more
progressive magical countries in Europe, the ancient prejudices still
holding on. Nobody wanted to be a werewolf and there were too few of them
to make a difference. As for the vampires...well, they were known to
exist but they didn't interact much with wizards and witches.
This one seemed to be downright genial though and the werewolves were odd
as well. Lupin had looked so broken down and tired but these three looked
anything but. Two men in suits and woman in a dress...Harry almost felt
as if he should be calling them males and a female, all three of them
nearly glowed with a sort of feral strength. He'd be tempted to try
bedding the woman if he didn't know that Lycanthropy could be sexually
transmitted. It was the only way to become a werewolf aside from being
bitten by a transformed one in fact. Werewolves would have gone extinct
centuries ago if they had to rely on their victims surviving an attack to
propagate.
The mysterious host finally showed up after fifteen or so minutes. He was

a big man, both taller and broader than Harry, though not by much. His
skin was pale, his eyes blue and his short hair and neat beard a dull
gold. His aura too was hungry Dark.
"My friends, I am glad that you could make it." The mysterious vampire
said. "I will be with you soon, but first I do believe we have a newcomer
among us."
Everyone looked right at Harry and he had to tamp down on the instinct to
bristle threateningly. Adrastia quickly made her way back to him and then
led him towards big vampire.
"Harry, this is Bjomolf." She introduced. "Bjomolf, this is Harry

Potter."
"Good evening." Bjomolf greeted with a smile that showed perfectly normal
human teeth. "I've heard many interesting things about you from Adrastia
here, though I must admit that my favorite was the way you killed that
Malfoy fellow. Forbidden Sun, heh."
Harry had the distinct feeling that this man...vampire knew exactly where
he'd gotten the name from.
"And I've heard nothing at all about you." He said instead of commenting
on that, throwing a glare at his date.
"This is a perfect opportunity for us to get to know each other then."

The vampire said easily. "I'm sure Adrastia won't mind if we retire to my
study for a while."
"Of course." She said and left Harry alone with what was presumably a
very dangerous individual.
"Right this way, Lord Potter." Bjomolf said, gesturing for Harry to
follow him.
At least he's not asking me to walk in front of him. Harry consoled

himself. He wasn't sure his nerves could have survived that experience.
They made it to the study without issue and Bjomolf gesture for him to
sit in one of the chairs.
"Drink?" He offered, opening what was presumably a liqueur cabinet.
"No thanks." Harry said.
Bjomolf shrugged and poured himself something amber colored, then he sat
in a chair opposite to Harry and smiled with inhumanly long, pointed
canines.
Harry tensed.
"Merry Christmas, Bratan."
XXXXX
I dedicate the buttfucking scene with Septima to jwagne51, who was

disappointed that I didn't describe it the last time. It would have been
there anyway, but I never expected that I'd have an opportunity to
dedicate an anal sex scene to someone xD. I hope you enjoyed it, man(or
woman).
Chapter 28
This chapter came a bit slower for several reasons, but mostly because I
had to keep adjusting things. The next one should come faster.
Joe Lawyer's beta services continue to be invaluable. Milennial,

Elmoryakhan and anand891996 also get honorable mentions for help with
some of the mythology I needed to consult for this one. I didn't end up
actually using a lot of the information they provided, but it was still
very useful.
XXXXX
"Merry Christmas, Bratan."
Harry was far too stunned to reply or even notice that the vampire was
grinning at him widely, obviously enjoying the effect of his words.
His mind was cast back to several years ago, when he had gotten bitched
out for posting pieces of Arithmancy problems online. That conversation
had nagged at him with many unanswered questions, but he'd never expected
to actually have them answered.
"You..." He finally managed, not really sure where to begin or what to

say.
"No, actually not me." Bjomolf admitted. "The one you spoke to was a
subordinate, but I was informed of your conversation."
"And you've been, what? Keeping an eye on me all this time?" Harry
demanded.
"Once again, no. I had no idea that it was you that my man spoke with and
had in fact waved the event off as a precocious newblood thinking they
were being clever. It wasn't until you reacted to the code phrase just
now that I was able to confirm it."
Harry took a deep breath and used his hard won skill with Occlumency to
master himself. He needed his wits about him here. "Code phrase?"
"Any time that one of us speaks to a person of interest a code phrase is

inserted into the conversation. Something difficult to forget but also
unobtrusive, which is why we are meeting on Christmas. The man you spoke
to isn't even Russian."
"I see." Harry said, his mind working at a furious pace. He'd apparently
stumbled into something big. Big and secret. Adrastia had no doubt been
sharing what she knew about him as well, making it easier for these
people to identify him. Her knowledge of his runes combined with the
fragments that could be gleaned from the arithmancy equations he'd posted
online would be enough. "You said 'us'?"
Bjomolf smiled at him. "As you may have surmised, we are a group of those
who do not particularly fit in with either the magical world or the
mundane one."
Hadn't Adrastia mentioned something like this once? "Like Adrastia?"
"Indeed."
"And she suggested that I would fit in with you?" There had certainly
been enough hints on the topic that only now made sense.
"That's why you're here."
"And if I don't want to?"
"We will not try to kill you if that is your concern. You are both too
high profile and too potentially useful for that."
Ah, so they weren't averse to killing people to maintain secrecy. Not

really much of a surprise, but it didn't make Harry feel very safe
either. He would like to say that he could fight his way out of this if
he had to, but he was in enemy territory and surrounded by people whose
abilities he didn't know, not a good situation for anyone.
"What does this group of yours even do?" He asked suspiciously.
Bjomolf gave a lopsided smirk. "Survive."
Harry blinked. "What?"
The vampire sighed and rose from his chair, walking over to the window
overlooking the city.
"The world is a different place than it was when I was still human, so
very different." He said wistfully.
"When was that anyway?" Harry interjected curiously.
Bjomolf turned around and grinned a bit, the almost sadly philosophical
air around him dissipating for a moment. "I was a Viking raider when Eric
Weatherhat was King at Uppsala."
Harry's eyebrows shot up in surprise. He'd figured something Norse due to

the name, but that was a bit further back than he'd expected. Eric
Weatherhat was known to be a wizard, though not in the modern sense of
the word. He'd come across a few mentions of him while researching
historical magic users that hadn't been trained in a school like
Hogwarts. "Late 9th century Sweden?"
"Those were the days." Bjomolf said nostalgically. "I was technically
royalty myself, you know? A grandson to King Bjrn Ironside through a
bastard daughter."
"Never heard of you." Harry said bluntly.
The vampire deflated a bit even as he chuckled. "You wouldn't have, not
after the ignoble end I had."
Harry raised an inquiring eyebrow.
Bjomolf seemed almost eager to share as he launched into the story. "It
was my first raid. I was to lead an attack on a small coastal town to
prove myself capable. My men and I decided to attack at night for maximum
surprise and easily overwhelmed the understrength guards, the town was
ours for the taking."
"What went wrong?" Harry asked when the vampire paused, seemingly lost in
thought.
Bjomolf smiled wryly. "A vampiress happened to be living there at the

time and didn't appreciate having her little feeding ground pillaged. My
raiding party was hunted down to the last man before the Sun came up and
I was taken captive. Let me tell you, there is nothing quite so humbling
as being used as a portable blood bag for a few years."
Harry snorted in amusement. Yes, that did sound humbling.
"I tried to escape of course, but Larentia was much older and more clever
than the hotheaded warrior I used to be. I eventually became so attached
to her that I didn't even want to leave anymore, Stockholm Syndrome they
would call it these days. Seven years into this, she offered to Turn me
and I accepted."
Harry thought about that for a moment and wondered what was involved in
the Turning of a wizard or witch into a vampire. He dismissed the notion
that a non-magical could be Turned out of hand. Lycanthropy needed magic
too and this aura couldn't come without innate magic.
He wanted to ask what the Turning entailed, but knew better than to think
he would get an answer. There were other questions that he might get an
answer too though.
"Can you still do magic?" The books said no, that vampires were magical
creatures with their own set of abilities, but books were written by
people and people were full of crap.
"I never even knew I had the potential for it when I was human." Bjomolf
admitted.
"That wasn't what I asked."
"I know."
That probably meant that the answer was more complicated than a simple
yes or no. Given what he knew about the Dark and the general working of
magic...
"You regain it temporarily after drinking magical blood, don't you?" The
Dark would drain the magic out of them over time, which also meant that
vampires needed magical blood to survive.
Bjomolf gave him an appraising look. "You are a clever one, aren't you?
But I suppose I shouldn't have expected anything else from a Brother in
Darkness."
That rattled Harry's composure. "Brother in Darkness?"
"There is no need to hide it." Bjomolf smiled and for the first time,
Harry glimpsed the dangerous thing hidden beneath the civilized and
charismatic veneer. "I see the runes carved into your flesh and sense the
Dark in your soul."
"Ah." Was all Harry could say. He'd never considered that Arhain might be
less than effective against a vampire.
"When I heard from Adrastia what you've done to yourself, I wasn't sure
whether to be impressed by your determination, astounded by your
recklessness or baffled by your survival. Everything I know tells me that
you should be dead or worse."
"Why?"
"People have made offerings to Light and Dark for thousands of years,
most often in the guise of religion. Always there were gods of light and
darkness, or spirits and demons at least, with which ancient magi made
pacts and drew power from. We know better now, we know that there are no
gods, but Light and Dark are very real. To my knowledge, no one has ever
made pacts with both and lived, especially not in the blind, blundering
way that you did it. Either there is something very special about you ,
or you have the most absurd luck in existence."
Harry immediately thought back to the soul fragment that had been stuck
in his head. He was reasonably sure that the dementors had attacked him
that day on the train because of it. With the benefit of greater
knowledge and retrospect, he knew that the killing of Pettigrew had
counted as a sacrifice to the Dark and opened the metaphorical gates.
What would have happened to him if he had been unable to dislodge that
soul fragment and let the Dark have it?
Then again, it could actually have been sheer dumb luck that he'd
survived. Harry supposed that he would never know for sure.
"I always wondered about those gods." He said instead of commenting on

his unlikely survival. "A shame they got displaced, even if they're not
real. At least they weren't completely useless like the Bible God."
"You think the rise of Christianity was happenstance?" Bjomolf laughed.
"Silly cults just like it cropped up like weeds back in those days,
practically every time that someone with magical potential figured out
how to do a few tricks to impress the gullible. Most of them vanished
without fanfare, so what made Christianity so special? Nothing at
all...expect for the vampire agents that helped spread it and whispered a
suggestion into Emperor Constantine's and later Emperor Theodosius' ears
that maybe they should make it the official religion of the Roman
Empire."
"But why?!" Harry burst out, genuinely angered by that juicy bit of
information. The gods of the ancient world might not have been real, but
the One God of the Abrahamic religions was utterly hollow and worthless.
Bjomolf didn't take offense at his tone and merely sat back down into the
chair he'd vacated earlier.
"Because, Harry, the worshippers of the solar deities were a problem for
us. Drunk on the power they drew from the Sun, they had no tolerance for
any darkness and were dangerous to us. From the wizard-priests of Apollo
and Ra to the warmages of Rome's Sol Invictus, the Order of the
Unconquered Sun, they were our greatest enemies across all of history. A
few tweaks to make Christianity villify magic and we had a good way to
get rid of them, though I doubt anyone expected it to get as out of hand
as it did."
Harry rubbed his forehead and let out an unhappy sigh. He understood the
logic, but to think that the diverse mythology of yore had been replaced
by cross-toting imbeciles because the vampires wanted to cripple their
enemies...
"What about Judaism and Islam?" He asked.
"I don't know." Bjomolf admitted. "Much was lost over the centuries, I
only know what I do because Larentia was a Roman involved in promoting
Christianity. Judaism went through enough changes and contains enough
suspect material that there might have been one or more of us
manipulating things, but it's impossible to say one way or another. Islam
was almost certainly free of direct vampiric manipulation though."
"Why's that?" Harry asked curiously.
"Because of its location. There hasn't been any vampire presence in the
space between Egypt and India since long before Islam showed up."
"Why?"
"You sure do ask 'why?' a lot." Bjomolf noted with amusement.
"I don't like unanswered questions." Harry replied simply.
"Well the answer to this question is a bit of a history lesson. Would you
like the short version or the long version?"
"Long version please."
"You're lucky that I enjoy telling stories." The vampire smirked. "You
have a veela friend, yes?"
"Yes..." Harry nodded cautiously, already having a suspicion on where

this was going.
"Do you know the origin of the species?"
"Lilith and her succubi daughters."
"Very good. Have you perhaps researched Lilith's mythological

importance?"
Harry had indeed done that. He'd managed to pinpoint several deities and
demons in the Mesopotamian area that might have been references to
Lilith, though the most prominent by far were the mentions of her in the
Old Testament. Disregarding all the religious tripe and mentions of God,
there were some very interesting mentions of her as a demonic seductress
that killed men with sex. Shockingly accurate for a religious text,
though he did wonder why they left out the 'killing women with sex' part.
Ancient homophobia? Or maybe they just assumed that it only worked if
there was penetration going on. Probably the latter. There was also
something in there about her killing infants with sex, but Harry was
dubious about that one. Stealing magical infants to kill them with sex
once they grew up he could believe, but he was pretty sure that a
succubus' 'life and magic drain through sex' thing wouldn't work on
babies.
"I have, but what does this have to do with Islam being free of vampiric
manipulation?"
"Lilith was not the only powerful magic user active in that time or
place."
Harry pinched the bridge of his nose as things started becoming clear to
him. "Let me guess, the first vampire?"
"Yes, his name was Cain, or that's what he came to be known as at any
rate."
Harry rolled his eyes with a snort. He wasn't even surprised that the
progenitor of the vampires would end up a religious figure.
Bjomolf ignored his exasperation and continued. "We don't know if they
were both still human at the same time period or what the nature of the
relationship between them was, that was lost over the years, but we do
know that Lilith was active in the Mesopotamian region for approximately
one thousand years before her death at the hands of Gilgamesh. Cain was
almost certainly born there somewhere in that time period as well."
"So Mesopotamia was now home to two different species of magical predator
that both preyed on magical humans." Harry stated with a sigh.
"I see you grasp the problem. Vampires and succubi were enemies almost
from the start, but too wary of each other to engage in more than the
occasional one on one battle when they chose the same victim, the supply
of which dwindled over time. Cain, Lilith and many of their children were
killed but it was magical starvation that truly forced them to leave the
area and spread out across the world. A lesson had been learned and both
species adopted more restrained methods of hunting for prey after that,
but the Middle East never truly recovered its magical population. The
Jews and then the Muslims showing up with their intolerant views on magic
made sure that it was nothing short of a miracle for the rare magic
capable child to reach adulthood, but not enough of one to bring magic
back to the area. And that is why Islam is almost certainly free of
direct vampiric manipulation we would have starved if we tried to
operate there. It is entirely possible likely even that they absorbed
a few of our additions from Christianity though."
"Well...that's just shit." Harry said after a long few moments. The
thought of all that land being a magical dead zone was depressing to him
in ways that few things could hope to be.
"It is." Bjomolf agreed. "Magic was said to have thrived in Sumer, Akkad,
Babylonia and Assyria. Who knows how diffeent the world might have been
if wizards and witches had not been hunted to extinction there? We've
veered very far off topic though."
Harry actually had to rewind the conversation in his head to recall what
exactly they had been talking about before they'd diverged into this
interesting little history lesson. There had been that thing with the
vampires using Christianity as a weapon, and the 'Brother in Darkness'
bit before that, and Bjomolf being a thousand year old Viking vampire
before that...ah, now he remembered.
"Right, you were going to tell me what you mean when you said that the
goal of this secret club of yours is to survive."
"As I said, the world is different from what it once was. With our puppet
religion in place and pushing out the Sun sorcerers that were causing us
so much trouble and discouraging magic in general, life was good for us
vampires in Christian held lands. Feeding on the untrained or the rarer
trained if one was feeling adveturous magicals was simple enough. But
then Hogwarts was built and other magic schools on its heels, leading to
a dearth of easy prey. With the rise of the Ministries of Magic, we
vampires suddenly found ourselves in a very difficult situation. The prey
was no longer untrained and scattered, but had a full fledged society. We
did not, do not and cannot have the numbers to win an open conflict
against an organised force, as the succubi learned to their detriment, so
we had to resort to cunning. Just as wizards and witches hid their
society from mundane eyes, so did we vampires hide our own from theirs,
ironically within the mundane world that they came to shun. We approached
wizards and witches in difficult situations and offered them deals, we
would help them and they would agree to be fed upon. The whole thing has
evolved a great deal since then of course, but the core idea is of
cooperation for the sake of survival."
"I don't need you to survive though." Harry pointed out after chewing on
that for a minute. He wondered how many muggleborns had been offered this
bargain.
"There are other deals we might make, other benefits you might have from
an association with us." Bjomolf said, undaunted.
"Such as?"
"The past century has been a great boon to us with its technological
advancement. Our web spans the world now and you could call on allies
almost anywhere if you needed them."
"And what would you want in return?"
"Nothing too onerous I assure you. Someone of your talents could help us
with many things, but merely sharing your powerful blood would most
likely be sufficient payment for just about anything. There are other
ways you might help us if that makes you squeamish."
Harry considered it very carefully. He wasn't squeamish, so letting a

vampire nibble on him in exchange for help seemed a small thing, as long
as none of his blood was left lying around somewhere. He also wasn't
blind to the fact that this was a rather similar arrangement to what he
already had with Adrastia, which he now realised was probably a
deliberate move on the manipulative woman's part to subtly influence him
to accept what was being offered here.
And on that note... "Was this whole chat of ours designed to put me at
ease so that I'd be more likely to accept?"
Bjomolf smiled at him widely. "Perhaps."
Harry had figured as much. For all that the vampire had told him many
interesting things, all of them were entirely inconsequential to the here
and now.
"Why are you trying so hard to get me on board? I don't imagine that you
put in this much effort with just anyone."
"But you are not just anyone, Harry Potter." Bjomolf said with a small
grin.
Harry supposed that was true.
"I understand your reluctance, this has come out of nowhere for you after
all." Bjomolf continued, getting up and walking over to the desk. He
opened a drawer and pulled out a small nondescript booklet. "Here, take
this."
Harry did so and opened it, frowning at the empty booklet. "There's
nothing in here."
"The Black Book contains contact information for all the master vampires
in the world."
As soon as the words were spoken, the previously blank pages filled up
with names, locations and contact instructions. Curiously, each was
written in a different hand, as if every entry had been made by the
vampire in question.
"Fidelius?" Harry asked.
"Yes."
"Tricky bit of magic." A secret hidden inside the soul. Those who hadn't
been told literally couldn't hold the information inside their minds.
Even once told, the secret remained in a nebulous state of being known
and unknown at the same time, preventing it from being shared any
further. Only the Secret Keeper knew it completely. He hadn't known that
a vampire could be a Secret Keeper.
"Very tricky." Bjomolf agreed.
"You'd just give me this, even without my agreement to join your secret
club?" Harry asked skeptically.
"I can see that you are wary and I don't want you to think that I am
trying to trap you into an unfavorable deal. As of yet, you don't know
anything truly harmful to us and Adrastia has assured me that you can
keep a secret. Take the Black Book and contact us if you ever find
yourself in need of help."
Harry wasn't sure what to think of that. That he wasn't being told
everything was a given, but Bjomolf seemed to be going out of his way to
make him feel comfortable. He could literally just pretend that this
never happened and have nothing more to do with the vampires and their
shadowy organisation.
"Alright, thank you." He finally said, standing up.
"It was a pleasure meeting you, Harry Potter." Bjomolf said with a fangy
grin.
XXXXX
"How did it go?" Zuzanna asked her sire as soon as they were alone.
"He is sensibly suspicious of everything, but seems willing to keep an

open mind." Bjomolf replied.
"I'm still not sure if it was wise to rush meeting him like this, despite
Adrastia's assurances. You know that the others will be upset with you
for going through with it over their objections. You were barely able to
convince them to even consider someone so high profile."
"No doubt." The older vampire agreed. "But the opportunity was too good
to pass up and we are running out of time to play it safe."
"But to give him a Black Book on the first meeting..." Zuzanna said
worriedly.
"It is unorthodox, I know, but I could not treat him like an ordinary
wizard and there is little risk of exposure given the amount of
overlapping Fidelius Charms on it anyway. He is wary enough already and I
do not want him deciding that we are more trouble than we are worth."
"But is he worth it?"
"For good or ill and often regardless of their wishes, wizards like Harry
Potter tend to impact the course of history. I would be deeply surprised
if he is not the subject of a prophecy, but that doesn't matter. We have
moved through the steps of this careful dance for a long time now, but
every dance must end and I already hear the music fading. I would rather
not have a sorcerer that powerful sowing chaos with every footstep if we
might co-opt him instead."
XXXXX
"I hope you had an interesting time." Adrastia said as they appeared back
in her home.
Harry made a non-committal grunt in response, his mind still fixed on the
things he'd learned tonight.
Not the ancient history things, those were interesting but irrelevant.
Rather, it was the possible motivations of the sneaky vampires that he
mulled on. He could believe that they wanted to survive, but there surely
had to be more to it.
Thanks to both Da'Roir and his ceaseless Occlumency practice, his memory
was exceptional and he could recall that long ago internet conversation
in detail. Correlating it with what he had just heard from Bjomolf, Harry
guessed that they must be worried about the threat of the garden variety
non-magical humans. That would make sense, they must be well practiced at
staying beneath the notice of the various Ministries of Magic, especially
since those tended to ignore the mundane world for the most part, but it
would be harder to stay completely unnoticed in the world that they
actually lived in. Especially with how bureaucratically regulated
everything was these days.
He could also guess that they were perhaps snatching away magical
children from places like China and Russia since there were no magical
communities there anymore. The guy he'd spoken to back then had said
something about taking newbloods away from those areas, though there had
been no mention of vampires of course.
"Come now, Harry, don't be like that." Adrastia chided, breaking him oout
of his thoughts. "It took a lot of convincing on my part to get you a
meeting with Bjomolf so quickly."
"And sharing things you agreed to keep secret?" Harry glowered.
"I told only Bjomolf and Zuzanna." She waved off.
"The agreement was that you wouldn't tell anyone."
"They would have sensed it either way." Adrastia gave him a mysterious
smile. "Would you have prefered that they decide you were a threat to be
removed?"
Harry blew air out of his nose with a grumble. She had an answer for
everything, didn't she?
He wanted to point out that she could have just let them stay unaware of
each other, but that would be silly. He would have encountered the
vampires eventually even without her help, that was a near certainty.
"What do you get out of this?" He asked suspiciously.
"Well that's not really any of your business, now is it? Suffice to say
that keeping an eye out for promising people is part of what I do."
"How did you get involved with them then?"
"I was approached soon after I gained my current reputation. It has been
a most beneficial partnership."
"Right." Harry grunted, seeing the hint for what it was.
"You are welcome to stay the night if you wish." Adrastia offered,
abruptly changing the subject. "I didn't think to tell my elves to
prepare the fireplaces in any of the other rooms, but I'm sure we can
both squeeze into my bed."
"I promised Fleur and Luna I'd come back as soon as I could." Harry
replied blandly. It was true, but he wouldn't have accepted even without
that. Adrastia was as beautiful as ever, but also seemed more dangerous
now that he knew who she hung out with. The transient pleasure of fucking
her wasn't worth the potential trouble it would get him into and he
wasn't even in the mood anyway.
"A pity." She sighed. "I will see you some other day then."
Yes, Harry had the feeling that they would be seeing more of each other
in the future. No doubt it would portend more trouble when it happened.
XXXXX
Harry had expected to find the manor dark and quiet when he came home
considering the late hour. To his bemusement however, he found the warm
orange glow of firelight spilling into the hallway from the sitting room.
The reason for this quickly became clear. Fleur and Luna were there, both
fast asleep on the largest couch. Fleur was in what had to be an
uncomfortably upright position with a book next to her and Luna's head in
her lap. Both of them were dressed in their rarely used silk pajamas and
had clearly been waiting for him to return.
Shaking his head in exasperation, he put the book on the closest table
and went to wake his veela lover up with a kiss, knowing that she liked
that.
Fleur sleepily returned the kiss at first, but then broke it off with a
wince and a groan of pain, rubbing her sore neck.
"I told you not to wait for me." Harry said, amused by the stream of
whispered French curses that issued from her lips. He had availed himself
of that language learning magic that the Ministry offered for several
languages already, French included. The new head of the Department of
International Magical Cooperation had been so pleased that the Harry
Potter had come talk to him about it that he'd gotten that service for a
pittance and there had been no need to hold back.
"Luna insisted and I did not want 'er to be alone." Fleur explained. Her
accent had thinned considerably over the past few months, softening
mostly into a background purr, though she did still have a little trouble
with words that started with an 'H'.
"Ah." Harry nodded in understanding. Fleur had gone to spend a few hours
with her parents in France and had taken Luna with her so that she
wouldn't be alone in the manor, but he knew that the younger blonde had
wanted to spend the day with him. Adrastia had showed up late in the
afternoon, after sundown already, but it had still been a disruption to a
day that he knew Luna considered to be for family. "Let's get up to bed
then."
"Oui."
Harry could have used magic to carry Luna to the master bedroom, but he
elected not to. It wasn't like she was heavy and the way that she curled
up into him was cute.
"'Ow was it?" Fleur asked once he had put Luna to bed and started
undressing.
Harry let out a long sigh. How to answer that? "Not what I expected."
"Oh?"
"I'll tell you about it in the morning, you look like you're going to
fall back asleep any second now." He chuckled. They'd be able to keep the
vampire thing a secret, so he wasn't worried about telling them. He'd
keep it from Penny and Sirius for now though.
Fleur was too tired to do anything but nod with a yawn and press her nude
body up against his. Even feeling his manhood stirring at the physical
contact wasn't sufficiently enticing to make her put sleep off any
further.
Trapped between a sexy naked veela and a somewhat less sexy pajama-clad
almost-fifteen-year-old, Harry sighed. Now he was horny and not really
all that tired yet. It was a good thing that he'd taken up meditation
years ago or this would have been a real problem.
XXXXX
January 6th.
To Harry's great surprise and pleasure, finding a suitable material for

his communication mirror project did not take long at all. Petrified wood
was apparently a thing and acquired easily enough in this day and age.
Wizards didn't know of it because few if any ever bothered with geology
and none had apparently bothered with the stuff even if they did know of
it. Penny had been able to order multiple different samples of it online
and it was delivered to her parents' doorstep without issue. His
assistant had certainly been happy that the task had turned out to be so
simple.
Of course, while Harry might have gotten his hands on the proper material
to start working on, there were still problems. For one, it took him a
couple of weeks to determine that the ones with high carbon
content(conveniently also among the most common) were the best at holding
an enchantment while still funneling the magic properly. He didn't quite
know how that worked since petrified wood had no organic matter
remaining, but he was eventually forced to guess that the wood-turned-
stone retained an imprint of what it used to be. Or something.
Once that was done came the problematic task of making an enchantment
stick to the stuff. It didn't take a good magic user to slap an
amateurish enchantment on stone or metal. It would fade away in time, but
it would stick long enough. Wood could be magically reshaped or have
runes etched into it to control how it flowed, but would shrug off even
the most skillfully applied enchantment within days. That was why brooms
had metal bits attached to them, to hold the magic.
Petrified wood was predictably somewhere in the middle. It would not

accept an amateurish enchantment and would eventually shrug off anything
but a perfectly applied one.
This was a problem, because what Harry had in mind was very complex.
"Any day now, Harry." Sirius said, his jaw clenched, eyes and wand
staying fixed on the slab of blackish fossil that had consumed his
godson's attention recently.
"Shut up and focus." Harry said back, his own face tense and focused.
"Just a little longer..."
With the benefit of his non-magical upbringing, he had noticed that

higher level enchanting bore some superficial similarities to computer
programming. That made a strange sort of sense to him since he was
essentially programming an object to act in a certain way.
Of course, the difference was that the rules weren't always the same, he
couldn't test to see if it worked and there was no way to edit once the
enchantment was cast. By far the worst thing was that the whole thing had
to be applied all at once though, Harry having determined over the course
of several failures that the magic tended to mutate if one tried to apply
it in chunks. Petrified wood was simply not as stable as stone or metal.
Fortunately, that was not a problem unique to this new material and a
workaround for it had been discovered long ago. More than one person
could do the enchanting by means of splitting complex enchantments into
stable chunks and allowing the assisting magic users to hold them while
the primary enchanter worked on the next part. That was why he currently
had Sirius, Fleur, Luna and Penny here.
"Alright, I'm ready." Harry said. "Easy now..."
All five of them carefully brought the enchantment together into a

cohesive whole and then warily stepped back. Their first attempt had been
mildly explosive.
"So far so good." Sirius said jauntily.
"We'll see." Harry grunted cynically. They'd gotten to this point before.
"Can you pass me the mirrors, Fleur."
The veela did so, handing him the four mirrors that had been chosen for
this experiment.
Linking them to the newly made Nexus went off without a hitch. "Alright,
let's try this out. Calling Luna."
His mirror showed the face of his friend.
"Hello, Harry." She said into it, smiling widely.
"Yes, hello." He replied dryly. "Alright, Fleur. Your turn."
"Calling Sirius." Fleur said and that was where things went wrong. The
second magical connection intruded into the first and made the whole
thing collapse.
"Damn." Harry muttered.
"At least the Nexus didn't explode this time." Penny offered. "Maybe you
just need to refine the enchantment a little bit more?"
"No, I don't think that's it." Harry disagreed unhappily. "It's the
enchantments on the mirrors, they're all the master side of the Proten
Charm and keep trying to take priority. They're ignoring the secondary
pathways worked into the Nexus enchantment."
"So it will not work?" Fleur asked, also unhappy.
"Not like this." Harry said with a shake of his head. "I do have an
alternative idea, but..."
"But?" Everyone else prompted.
"But nothing just yet, I'll need to do some tests." He said dismissively
and walked off.
Fleur, Luna, Penny and Sirius looked at each other and shrugged, also
walking off. Harry was in one of his thoughtful moods again and would be
unsociable for a while.
XXXXX
A week later.
After several attempts, dead ends and false starts, Harry had finally
figured out a possible workaround to the Nexus enchantment problem.
Wood might be more or less useless from an enchanting standpoint, but it

could be carved with runes to direct how the magic would be funneled
through it. From there it had been relatively simple to figure out how to
make use small wooden sticks as distinct channels so that multiple
mirror-mirror connections could be active simultaneously.
At this very moment, Harry was just finishing the rune carving of the
last such channeling stick.
It really sucked that this had to be done by hand when there were so many
options for precision carving available in the non-magical world. But
alas, as Harry had long noted, magic was good for skipping small
inconveniences but crap at large scale projects. Automation was simply
not a thing with magic. There was no such thing as enchanting an item to
make more enchanted items.
A magic user unconsciously imbued some of their power into most

everything they did, from potion brewing to something as simple as
writing a letter. If a person without magic tried to brew a potion, all
they'd get was toxic sludge. A wizard signing his name stamped a bit of
his identity onto the parchment or paper or whatever medium they used,
something that more people would be well advised to be wary of.
Similarly, runes were powerless decoration unless they were handmade by a

witch or wizard, which was the whole reason why he even needed employees
for his idea to work instead of simply paying an engraving business in
the mundane world to do it for him.
But that was a problem for the future, one of many. For now, he just had
to make this much smaller scale Nexus work so that he had a proof of
concept and so that he wouldn't have to carry half a dozen mirrors with
him all the time.
Harry slid the newly created channeling stick into the opening he'd
prepared in the block of petrified wood, nodding approvingly to himself
when he felt the connection snap into place.
The Nexus was now a thick slab with twenty holes in it, only three of
which were currently filled.
Next, he connected a set of mirrors marked from one to six to the Nexus,
once again nodding approvingly to himself when no problems appeared.
Now for the part where things always went awry in the past.
First, he grabbed the mirror marked 'one'. "Two."
The number two mirror vibrated, signaling an incoming call. So far so

good.
After answering it, he grabbed the mirror marked 'three'. "Four."
This was the part where things usually failed in past attempts, but the
number four mirror vibrated just like number two had.
Harry answered it and was able to see his grinning face reflected in all
four mirrors. Success!
Just to be sure, he did it again with the five and six mirrors, getting
the same result. Then he deactivated all six and tried various
combinations of it just to make sure that there weren't any hidden
problems, but everything seemed to be working perfectly. Perfect.
This was actually even better than if the Nexus alone could support the
whole enchantment. This way, every stick represented a mirror's incoming
connection. Not only would it prevent multiple people attempting to
connect to a single mirror, but he could also easily disconnect a mirror
from the network if the buyer didn't pay their monthly fee.
He wasn't sure if he was going to stay with the sticks or change it to

something easier to carve on(picking round, wand-like sticks had been a
bad idea in retrospect), such as small wood plank or something so that it
more resembled a blade server design that he'd seen while cruising the
internet for ideas, but the important part was that it worked. Figuring
out the specifics and streamlining it could wait until he was ready to
start hiring people, for now he was going enjoy the feeling of
accomplishment.
Harry was still sitting in the lord's study twenty minutes later, feeling
inordinately pleased with himself, when Fleur walked through the door.
"Why are you grinning like that?" The French veela asked.
"Because I've done it." Harry said simply, gesturing at the Nexus.
"Really? It works?" She asked eagerly, moving closer and plopping herself
in his lap. "Show me."
So he did, and an excited Fleur pronounced that it was 'magnifique' and
attempted to shove her tongue down his throat.
"You are intending to make a business out of this when we come back from
America, non?" She asked, ignoring the heat in her loins for now.
The question was rhetorical, but it got Harry thinking anyway. The idea
of Potter Communications had been mostly theoretical up to this point,
but now it was just a workforce away from realisation and there were
things to consider.
Namely, distribution of profits. He was naturally keeping the lion's

share for himself, but he hadn't been the only one working on this.
Everyone living in Potter Manor had chipped in to some degree, some minor
and some more major.
Luna's was as good as family anyway so anything he made would be

available to her as well, not that she needed much.
Sirius had abdicated the position of Lord Black to him, but retained
vault access and was not hurting for money, nor did he really use it
much. Unlike his family, the white sheep of the Black family had learned
the wisdom of careful spending in spite of his generally reckless nature.
Plus, Harry was utterly certain that his godfather would refuse to take a
share. Whatever his faults, Sirius could not be accused of being greedy
or not loving his godson. Harry would still offer him a share, but fully
expected to have it rejected.
Penny was already on his payroll and her involvement in this project had
been minor outside of providing the materials, which was already
something that he was paying her for. Still, he'd increase her salary a
bit anyway. Nothing wrong with showing appreciation to people that made
one's life easier.
Fleur was the real sticking point. She had helped him the most and was
also financially dependent on him at the moment, which was something that
he knew was starting to bother her. Many veela could somewhat
rightfully be considered gold diggers that used their charms to coast
through life on easy mode, but Fleur wasn't one of them. He suspected
that she had been so eager to help him make this project work at least
partly because she didn't want to feel like a freeloader.
He nodded with a humm. "How would you feel about having a share in said
business?"
Fleur sat upright and looked at him in surprise. "'Arry, you did most of
the work yourself!"
"But you helped quite a bit. It would've taken me longer without you." He
pointed out.
"I did not do it for money." She said quietly.

"I know, but you still deserve some of it, perhaps especially because you
didn't do it for the money."
Fleur worried at her lower lip for a long while before she resolved her
feelings on the issue and nodded. "Very well, but I will take no more
than 5%."
Harry had been thinking closer to 10%, but 5% of what he expected to make
with this was still quite a lot. "Alright, 5% it is, Partner." They'd
figure out the exact legalities later, but he wasn't worried. He knew
that Fleur was trustworthy.
"I like the sound of that, Partner." Fleur purred and moved around so
that she was straddling him, extremely glad that she had worn a skirt
today. Riding him on this very chair was sounding like a fantastic idea
just now.
Harry might have meant business partner, but she was more inclined to see
him as a romantic one. She hadn't told him that she'd fallen in love with
him yet, but knew that he must be able to feel it whenever they Joined.
He was slower to love, but this gesture of giving her a share in his
future business would bind them closer and that was more important than
the considerable amount of money it would no doubt earn her.
XXXXX
January 16th.
Narcissa let out a deep sigh as she rested her head on Harry's chest,
feeling intensely satisfied with the pleasant ache and seeping warmth
between her legs. Her lord and lover had delivered more than his usual
load today.
She had learned to cherish these quiet moments after one of their
meetings. She would never be more than a mistress to Harry, but she could
be happy with that. Happier than she had ever been during her marriage to
Lucius. It certainly wasn't how she had expected things to go, but she
had no complaints.
"You ready for tomorrow?" Harry asked.
"Of course." The clothing store that she had helped advertise was finally
being opened and Narcissa was very eager for it. She had been heavily
involved in that venture ever since escorting Harry to the ball on
Halloween. People had approached her with questions long after that day
and she had been the one to help the girls place adverts in Witch Weekly,
Teen Witch Weekly and other publications. She had been the one to keep
interest high even months after the ball.
Working with witches that were one step up from muggleborns had been hard
at first and she had struggled with her prejudices, but she'd known that
Harry would be deeply unhappy with her if she showed it, so she had
sucked it up and gotten on with it. Associating with those of lower birth
had ceased to be shameful somewhere along the way.
"Good, I'll be counting on you."
"I won't let you down." Narcissa replied with a content smile. Even as
just a mistress, this arrangement had more substance to it than her
marriage to Lucius ever did and Harry was a much better man than her
former husband had been in almost every way. She was a respected public
figure again and was trusted to act in her lord's name. That was much
better than the minor prestige of being associated with a powerful figure
that she had expected and vastly better than the shame of being reduced
to poverty.
She may have become Harry's mistress desperate and backed into a corner,
but now she felt more free than she ever had. Lucius' death had turned
out to be one of the best things to ever happen to her.
XXXXX
January 17th.
"I didn't expect this kind of turnout right from the start." Bryanna's
voice was quietly awed and more than a bit nervous as she observed the
sizable crowd gathered outside the doors of their soon-to-be-opened
store.
It was situatied in Diagon Alley, a bit further down the line from the
busiest part of it but still in a good location. Harry had bought out the
building and had it remodeled to suit its new purpose. It now looked
quite reminiscent to a mundane clothing store, albeit with space
expansion charms. Harry had also considered attempting a magical
escalator, but decided against it in the end. No need to prop up peoples'
laziness any more than magic already did.
"I'm a bit surprised by the turnout myself." Narcissa admitted, also

looking outside. "I know that our marketing campaign was well received,
but there must have been more demand for muggle style clothing than I
thought."
"Good clothes are always in demand." Fleur said with authority. She had
modeled for Bryanna and Tiana a few times and wanted to be present for
the grand opening. They'd no doubt have had group sex with Harry back on
Black Island if he hadn't nixed that idea because of the Allure.
"That bit about helping wizards and witches dress like proper muggles
when they need to might have helped with that too." Tiana added.
Everyone present nodded in agreement. That had been a particular weakness

of British magicals that all four girls had been looking to exploit since
the start, long before Bryanna had approached Harry the first time.
"Maybe they're just looking for snorkacks." Luna pondered, making her
first mystery creature reference in a long while.
"She's got a point, they could just be curious. I actually wonder how
many of these gawkers are here to bother me rather than shop?" Harry
wondered cynically, automatically translating Luna's statement in his
head, a skill one tended to acquire around her.
He had to be here since it was his name and money promoting the store,
but he would've rather been at home. He would also have to stick around
while Fleur and Luna got to leave at any time.
"The reporters for certain." Narcissa chuckled awkwardly, deciding to

ignore the strange Lovegood girl. She was wearing a fine white silk
blouse and black skirt instead of formal robes, all the better to promote
this business. It was no longer uncomfortable for her to wear things
other than robes.
"Well, it's time." Bryanna said nervously. "Let's open it."
XXXXX
Several hours later, Harry was escaping to the break room to get some
peace from the barrage of mostly idiotic questions. Just as Narcissa had
said, there were indeed reporters there and they were as annoying as
ever. Fleur and Luna had already left, irritated by the pushy crowds.
He'd have to tell Dora that she hadn't missed anything of importance.
As he made his way to the employee only area in the back, he became aware
of a tiny, muted presence hovering at the edge of his senses. It would
have been impossible to sense in the crowd he'd just left, but here it
buzzed in the back of his mind like an irritating fly.
He took a seat in the break room without letting on that he knew

something was up, merely closing his eyes and trying to pinpoint the
origin of the feeling. It was familiar, kind of like Sirius when he was
Padfoot, but even more muted.
His focus was disrupted when Bryanna's familiar presence entered the
range of his detection.
"I can't believe how successful we are!" She gushed happily as she
entered the room. "We'll have to hire more people if this keeps up."
"I doubt it will." Harry said dismissively. "People are curious now since
it's something new and has to do with me, but it should level out soon."
Bryanna bit her lip for a moment and then dropped herself into his lap,
hugging him tightly. "Thank you."
"What for?" Harry asked curiously.
"For helping us. We never would have gotten our idea off the ground
without you." She elaborated.
"Well it's not like I'm doing it for free." He pointed out, knowing that
he was taking in 60% of their profits until they paid off the loan he
gave them.
"I could give you a quick repayment right now." Bryanna whispered hotly
into his ear.
"i'd love to, but I'm not into exhibitionism."
"What?" Bryanna asked, baffled.
"There's an Animagus in the room with us." Harry explained, keeping his
eyes peeled for any movement when he felt the panicked flare of magic
from the skulking presence.
A blue beetle fluttered from behind a tea cup and Harry swiftly summoned
it into his hand before it could escape.
"Is that...?" Bryanna asked uncertainly, still seated in Harry's lap and
staring at the clearly terrified bug he was holding.
Harry didn't answer, taking the time to cast the Animagus-Reversal Spell
instead.
A familiar woman smacked into the floor arse first, blonde hair and tacky
glasses askew.
"Hello, Rita." Harry said mildly and without surprise. He'd guessed that
it might be her.
"Lord Potter, fancy meeting you here." Rita tittered nervously. "I was
just..."
"Snooping for a juicy story." Harry finished when she failed to come up
with a plausible excuse. "Would I have been reading about how I was using
my fame and position to take advantage of vulnerable young women in the
Prophet tomorrow if I hadn't noticed you? Figures that you'd be the first
to scrounge up the balls to start talking shite about me again."
"I would never say something like that about you!" Rita protested quickly
and unconvincingly.
"Oh, well that's alright then." Harry said cheerfully, gaining queer
looks from both the reporter and the furious Bryanna.
"I'll just be going then?" Rita nervously asked more than said, getting
on her feet and dusting herself off.
"Go right ahead." He nodded.
"Harry!" Bryanna hissed at him.

"It was, uh, nice talking to you again." Rita began to shuffle towards
the exit, starting to think that maybe, just maybe, everything was going
to be alright.
"Make sure to stay available though, Amelia Bones will definitely want to
have a nice long chat with you about being an unregistered Animagus and
trespassing and who knows what else."
Rita's shoulders slumped and she turned back to him with a resigned look
on her face. She knew that Bones hated her and wouldn't miss out on the
chance to charge her with everything she possibly could. "What do you
want?"
"I would've liked to live my life without bitter old hags causing me
trouble because they're bored, but I guess that was too much to ask."
Skeeter was only a few years older than Narcissa or Septima and might
pass for attractive if she ditched the hideous nails and glasses that she
was so fond of, but Harry wasn't going to let facts get in the way of a
solid hit to the reporter's self-esteem.
Rita didn't quite succeed at holding back a scowl at the insult. "What is
it going to take for you to keep quiet?"
Harry gave her an almost pitying look. "Rita, you obviously work for me
now. Permanently."
He'd been intending to leave the toxic reporter alone since she wasn't
really worth the bother, but that was clearly not an option. Fine then,
if Skeeter wanted to be a trouble stirrer then she could be, but he
wouldn't tolerate her doing it to him. Harry didn't really know what use
he could put her to just yet, but something would probably come up.
Rita did not like that at all. She'd spent all her life puncturing
people's bloated egos, so being a pet reporter for someone as high
profile as Potter was exactly what she didn't want to do. But with the
alternative being Azkaban...
"Fine!" She snapped with a glower.
"You can go now. I'll get in touch if I need you for anything."
Skeeter barely acknowledged the dismissal as she transformed back into

her beetle form and angrily buzzed off.
"Harry, I think seeing you handle that annoying cunt might be just about
the sexiest thing I've ever seen." Bryanna said throatily. "I need you to
take me right now."
"Only if you promise to keep this little altercation to yourself." Harry

said, giving her hip a squeeze. "And that you won't try to blackmail
Skeeter yourself."
"I promise." She said without hesitation. She wasn't much of a
blackmailer anyway and it wasn't worth upsetting Harry. "Now let's hurry
before someone else walks in here."
XXXXX
January 28th.
Business was going well. His reclaimed vineyard had suffered a bit from
the abrupt change in ownership but things were back on track now.
Harry knew that Parkinson had also taken the Potters' pottery business
from which their name had originated, but he also knew that it wasn't an
especially profitable business. The Potters had kept it going as a nod to
their heritage rather than the gold it was bringing it.
Harry simply wasn't sentimental enough to care about that and Parkinson
had already sold it to someone else years ago anyway. It wasn't worth the
effort of getting it back.
The girls' store was also doing impressively well for a newly established
business that dared defy tradition. They had all expected to suffer a net
loss in profit for some time before things picked up, but all the
advertisement seemed to have done the trick.
Perhaps this bout of smooth operation was why Harry was utterly
unsurprised when he received a mirror call from a visibly upset Bryanna,
telling him that he should come to Diagon Alley because someone had
vandalised their newly opened store. You'd think that people would be
smarter than that, but they really weren't.
Businesses in Diagon Alley didn't open until around 9 AM, so he'd been
awake for hours already, but Harry was still annoyed at the disruption to
his day. More so when he apparated there and found it to be full of
curious gawkers. At least they got out of his way in a hurry when they
saw him.
He found Bryanna and the other girls easily enough, currently being
questioned in an out of the way spot by a member of the Magical Law
Enforcement Patrol, newly restored to usefulness by a recent increase in
funding to the DMLE as a whole.
He made his way towards them while looking at what had been done to the
front of the store. Some uncreative soul had written 'mudblood whores',
'go back to your holes' and similar classy slogans everywhere in what
appeared to be magical paint, the type that resisted easy removal. There
was even a spelling mistake in one of them. At least the display windows
weren't broken, though that was probably because they were enchanted for
extra durability.
"Morning." Harry greeted dryly as he stepped up to the four girls.
"Lord Potter." The MLEP officer said after the subdued greetings had been
returned. "Do you have any inkling as to who might have done this?"
Harry did like this one. He got right to the point. "I can think of
several dozen blood purists off the top of my head that might have their
panties in wad over what's being sold in this store, but not anyone
specific."
"I was afraid you'd say that." The man sighed. "They didn't seem to have
used any spells, so there are no spell traces and there were no eye-
witnesses either."
"So, stupid enough to do this, but not completely retarded." Harry nodded
in understanding. Diagon Alley wasn't a residential area after all and
nobody lived here except for perhaps a couple of people renting rooms in
the Leaky Cauldron. It would have been abandoned in the dead of night
when this was presumably done.
The wizard ignored his summation. "We'll check to see if anyone has
bought any spell-paint recently, but I have to warn you that we don't
expect to find whoever did this."
"I understand."
The MLEP officer asked a few more general questions before moving off,
leaving Harry and the four girls alone.
"I can't believe someone would do this." Isabel scowled.
"I can." Harry said dryly.
"How can you be so calm?!" Jade demanded, as stereotypically

Gryffindorish in her temperament as ever.
"Easily, I'm phlegmatic like that." He replied drolly and waved his hand
towards the vandalised wall. The spell-paint might be resistant to
magical removal, but it could still be done and Harry was more than up to
the task. "There, problem solved."
"Thanks, Harry." Bryanna said, still a bit upset about the vandalism but
better now that it had been undone so quickly.
"They'll probably just do it again." Tiana said cynically.
"Probably." Harry agreed, looking over at the now dispersing crowd. Some
of them were wearing things bought in this very store and he could easily
imagine some puffed up pureblood getting all offended about the 'filthy
mudbloods corrupting their culture'.
But this had the feel of petulant thuggishness rather than the attack of
a business rival, though one might be a cover for the other. Still, if he
was right, the perpetrator or perpetrators likely would be stupid enough
to do it again as Tiana said.
"So, rotating night's watch?" Bryanna asked in resignation, already

mourning the lost sleep. There were alarm spells that would go off when
someone trespassed, but they weren't particularly reliable and wouldn't
be of any use if the caster was asleep anyway.
The notion of asking the DMLE to do this for them wasn't even considered.
They all knew that it wouldn't expend the manpower on what could very
well be a one-off event.
"No need, just let me handle this."
That got all four of them curious. "How?"
"I have my ways."
XXXXX
Things had progressed since the first time that corvid birds had started
appearing around Potter Manor. The most notable was that Harry had
decided to have a wall removed between two empty rooms on the top floor
and turn the resulting(also magically expanded) space into a ravenry.
There were more than just ravens nesting there now, but it was still
called that. Penny sometimes complained about the expense of feeding so
many birds, but Harry suspected that it had more to do with being creeped
out by all the beady eyes staring at her.
Those beady eyes all turned to him as Harry entered the ravenry, but he
wasn't perturbed by them, instead making his way leasurely towards two
particular ravens.
"Hello, Huginn. Hello, Muninn." He croaked in a way that was actually

anatomically impossible for a human to do, but magic allowed for many
things.
The two ravens croaked back a greeting of their own, their intelligent
eyes waiting for him to continue. These two were his favorites, named
after the mythical ravens that scoured the world for information and
brought it back to Odin, the Sky-Father of the Norse pantheon.
"I have a task for you." Harry said.
"What would you have of us?" Huginn asked.
Just like a wizard or witch imbued a bit of their power into their
written word, so too did they do it with the spoken one. It was so little
that it wasn't even noteworthy in most cases as anything but a
curiousity, and Harry remained firmly convinced that even spell
incantations were little more than a placebo effect, but magical
languages were a different kettle of fish. They were powerfully, though
subtly, magical and had a powerful, though subtle, effect.
Complex conversation required considerable intellect, well above what

most animals were capable of, and a witch or wizard speaking to them in a
magical language should really not be getting anything worthwhile out of
it. Snakes certainly weren't smart enough for Parseltongue to be
particularly useful, at least the mundane species.
But magic made things happen that shouldn't happen. A witch or wizard
speaking to an animal in a magical language as if they could actually
converse on a human level quickly enhanced an animal's intelligence to
make it possible.
And ravens were already in the upper tiers of animal intelligence.
"I need you to guard a place for me." Harry said, using his nascent
Legilimency to project an image of Diagon Alley into the minds of the two
ravens.
It had taken him a long time to get a start on the other half of the Mind
Arts, but that was mostly his own stubbornness at play. He had disdained
the use of the formalised Legilimency spell, which was really just a
crude battering ram into another's mind. He knew that Dumbledore was
capable of a more subtle form of it that required no spell and was
determined to learn that instead.
Oddly enough, his prior experience with the Joining had actually been a
hindrance towards learning Legilimency. He'd had trouble reaching for the
mind instead of the soul, though that might also be because he had wanted
to disprove the necessity of eye contact, which he had ultimately failed
at.
"It will be done." Munnin acknowledged.
Even without the intelligence boost that Harry speaking to them had
imparted, ravens frequently formed partnerships with animals such as
wolves, acting as scouts in exchange for scraps. A nest safe from all
predators and an unlimited supply of food was a much better deal and they
were happy to do their part.
XXXXX
Two days later, Diagon Alley.
Marcus Flint and Lucian Bole were two very dissatisfied young wizards.
Both recently graduated Slytherin purebloods, they had expected to play
professional quidditch after they got out of Hogwarts.
Those dreams had shattered like glass when they had been all but thrown
out of the tryouts, the tactics employed by the Slytherin house team
being utterly unacceptable on the professional level. The fact that their
Gryffindor rival Oliver Wood had made it onto a professional team only
made it sting worse.
Neither was really the type to accept blame for their own shortcomings,
so it was of course all the fault of those filthy mudbloods and
halfbloods.
From a certain point of view they were even technically correct.

Quidditch was simply not something where you could do well solely because
you were a pureblood or even cover up your incompetence. It had certainly
been tried, but even bigotry eventually bowed under the desire to win and
there were only so many pureblood quidditch players, especially good
ones, which neither Flint nor Bole were.
After their abject failure to take the pro quidditch scene by storm, the
two had stewed resentfully and done little besides develop the beginnings
of a lovely alcoholic habit while muttering imprecations against
mudbloods.
Then came news that one of their former housemates, Tiana Day, was
opening her own business under the aegis of the Potter family.
Day had been Flint's yearmate for seven of his eight years in Hogwarts.
She had been a pretty piece of arse even if she was as good as a mudblood
and Flint had been of the opinion that she should have been flattered by
his attention.
That was another of Flint's beliefs that proved to be false. The rumors
of her fucking Potter while he was still a third year, alongside her
Ravenclaw friend no less, did nothing to soften the brutal rejection he'd
received from her.
Both Flint and Bole had been present for Lucius Malfoy's fiery demise,
but they were young, cocksure and not all that bright. The terror of the
moment quickly faded from their minds.
Seeing an increasing number of people wearing muggle style clothes was

the last straw. Flint had already been nursing quite a grudge against
both Potter and Day, then had his dreams of being a pro quidditch player
stolen from him by mudbloods, now he had to watch as his world was taken
over by that filth. No, this was too much to tolerate.
Add in some Firewhiskey and it wasn't much of a surprise that trashing

the newly opened clothing store seemed like a good idea to him. Bole
didn't have the same personal resentment going for him, but he was still
more than game to spread his own misery to someone else.
The ease with which their first attempt was undone only made them more
angry and they came back better prepared. This time they had some Zonko's
Dungbombs that would make sure that nobody would come near the building
until it stopped stinking, at which point they'd do it again and again
until the mudbloods learned their place.
The two Slytherin graduates crept through the dark and empty magical
shopping district, intent on their self-assigned crusade.
"This'll show them." Bole said gleefully, taking a couple of Dungbombs

out of a bag with a gloved hand.
Flint merely grunted in agreement, taking a pair of stinky surprises for

himself.
And from the rooftops, Huginn and Munnin watched.
XXXXX
Early morning.
Harry withdrew from the minds of his ravens with a thoughtful expression.
Lucian Bole and Marcus Flint, huh? He honestly hadn't expected to

recognise whoever was vandalising the girls' store right away, but he was
familiar with these two particularly unimpressive specimens of the human
race, having dropped in on quite a few of their classes back in Hogwarts.
They weren't good for much besides wasting oxygen.
He'd have to think of an appropriate retaliation, but for now he needed

to go clean up the mess they made. Maybe get Tiana's opinion on Dumb and
Dumber while he was there too.
XXXXX
With how late Diagon Alley's business day started, Harry was able to
remove the Dungbomb stink before anyone besides a few early strollers
even noticed it.
Today, Tiana was working along with Isabel, and she was as grateful for
that as she was furious that it had been necessary.
"Do you know who did it?" She demanded.
Harry nodded as he replied. "Lucian Bole and Marcus Flint."
"What?" She seethed. "Those two useless twats?! I'll fucking kill them!"
"Easy there, Tiger. I'll take care of it."
But Tiana wasn't listening, instead continuing to rage like Gryffindor.

"Seven years I've had to put up with Flint's stupid ugly mug and now he
pulls this shite?! I bet it was because I hurt his precious pureblood
pride when I told him I'd rather fuck Hagrid's dog than touch him."
"He made a move on you?" Harry asked with a frown. He was terribly amused
by the harsh put-down, but now was not the time.
Tiana snorted derisively. "Calling it that is being a bit generous. He

swaggered up to me like he was king of the world and told me that I was
going to Hogsmeade with him, but it was obvious what he really wanted. If
he wasn't a total blockhead and Snape didn't keep such a close eye on the
Slytherin dorms, I would've been seriously worried about being raped. I
still made sure to never go anywhere alone though."
Harry frowned some more. He'd be the first to sneer at the 'Hogwarts is
the safest place in Britain' bullshit, but he hadn't ever gotten the
feeling that rape was one of the dangers there. Then again, he was a guy
and automatically in far less danger of having that happen to him even if
magic was the ultimate force equaliser.
"Did that kind of thing happen often?" He asked.
Tiana hesitated. "I'm not really sure. Like I said, Snape kept a close
eye on the dorms and with all the stupid House rivalry going on outside
it, we had to present a united front in public. With so many of the worst
purebloods going there though, Slytherin was always a breeding ground for
the worst kind of social climbing and I've heard some things about sexual
favors being used or sometimes extorted. I managed to keep well out of it
until Flint's idiotic proposition. Me shooting him down like that for
everyone in the common room to hear hurt him badly and I didn't like the
looks he gave me for the rest of the year. I don't know if he's ever
actually done anything, but there have been...rumors."
"Rumors?" Harry prompted.
"Not about Flint specifically, but he always struck me as the type." She
admitted. "It's a big castle. Lots of empty rooms and secret passages and
we have spells to make people forget inconvenient memories. I'm not sure
if there's any truth to it, but there was talk about people losing a few
hours from their memory sometimes. I'm not sure how it is in the other
Houses, but we Slytherins were a suspicious lot and there were...rumors."
Harry hadn't been sure how severe to make his retaliation, even with
Narcissa fingering the Flints as Voldemort supporters, but this cleared
up things nicely. True, he hadn't heard anything specifically damning,
but it was enough to tell him that he didn't need to waste his limited
supply of kindness on Flint. He didn't even really care if these rumors
were accurate or not to be perfectly honest.
Oddly enough, Tiana's words also raised his opinion of Snape a little
bit.
"What about Bole?"
"He was a year behind me, so I don't know him as well, but he's friends
with Flint so he's probably about the same."
Harry nodded thoughtfully.
"You said you'd take care of it. How?" Tiana asked when he didn't say
anything.
"I think it might be better if you don't know. Plausible deniability and
all that." He said, amused.
"At least tell me if it'll hurt?"
That made Harry scoff. "Of course it's going to hurt. If they were smart
enough to be taught by anything other than pain, they wouldn't have done
this in the first place."
"Good." Tiana smiled viciously.
XXXXX
Now if I was a petty idiot taking my inadequecies out on those better

than me, would I be stupid enough to come watch the results of my
handywork? Harry pondered as he watched the crowds of Diagon Alley pass
by, leaning on a wall and covered by a spell that made the eyes of anyone
looking at him slide past him without recognition. The spell was made
many-fold more effective because nobody expected him to be here and were
busy with their errands. Very soon, he spotted the angrily disappointed
faces of Lucian Bole and Marcus Flint glaring at the store front. Yes, I
would be that stupid.
Flint and Bole turned around and stomped off. Harry pushed off his wall
and followed after them.
To his surprise, they opened the 'secret' wall that led to the Leaky
Cauldron. They must be getting an early start on a drinking problem if
they needed a stiff drink at this hour.
Harry quickened his step so that he could pass through before the passage
closed. There was a small, secluded space between Diagon Alley and the
Leaky Cauldron and this was not an opportunity to be missed.
Bole and Flint heard his approach as the passage closed behind him and
turned their heads to look at him, eyes briefly furrowing in confusion
before they widened in shock as the direct attention caused his spell to
fail. They went for their wands.
A useless gesture. They couldn't hope to cast anything so close to him,

not when they were so weak.
A costly gesture too, because Harry was not so hindered and sent them
both crumpling to the ground with a wide area stunner. He followed it
immediately with a powerful locking spell on the door to the Leaky
Cauldron and another to make the bricked over passage to Diagon Alley
unresponsive.
Looking at the two unconscious morons, he was briefly seized by the

barbaric idea of drawing his kukri from where it was sheathed in his boot
and cutting an ear from each of them. He had nearly asked his ravens to
bring him their ears instead of just observing. Only a desire to keep his
rapport with the carrion birds hidden for as long as possible had stopped
him.
But no, strangely tempting as that was, he had prepared something else.
There were two syringes in his pocket, one labeled 'Bole' and the other
'Flint'. Cutting ears could always be Plan B.
Harry wasn't a nurse of any kind and didn't really know the best spots to
draw blood from, but he figured that you can't go wrong with the neck. He
was almost disappointed to discover that he was right.
As a finishing touch, he hacked off a few locks of hair from each.
XXXXX
Four days later, the Shrieking Shack.
"Why would he want to meet us here of all places?" Bole bit out angrily,
shifting awkwardly where he stood.
"How the fuck should I know?" Flint growled back, also shifting
awkwardly.
They had woken up alone right where they'd been stunned, seemingly no
worse for the wear. Both had been baffled as to why Potter would stun
them and do nothing else, since he must have known that it was them
vandalising his store.
Their bafflement hadn't lasted long. Mere hours later, painful boils had
started appearing all over their genitals. It was agonizing, but almost
worse was the embarrassment of needing to wear diapers soaked in Boil
Cure Potion when they discovered that the boils and sores would just
reappear as soon as the potion wore off.
Clearly, Potter had cursed them. They'd been thinking of ways to fix the
situation when the letter came. 'February 3rd, 10:00 at the Shrieking
Shack' was all it said.
They could have refused to show up, but they obviously liked having
uncursed cocks and balls too much for that.
So here they were, in the Shrieking Shack.
"Maybe this is where he fucked those sluts?" Bole suggested with a leer.
"Give me some more credit, will you?"
Flint and Bole jumped nearly a foot into the air, making a little 180
spin and staring with wide eyes and pointed wands at the back wall, on
which Harry was indolently leaning as if he'd been there for hours
already.
"Put those away before you hurt yourselves." He said snidely, gesturing
to their wands.
"When did you get here?" Flint demanded, but lowered his wand all the
same.
"I've been here longer than you." Harry snorted and then smirked at them.
"How have you been enjoying my curse? I hope it wasn't too
uncomfortable."
Both Flint and Bole very much wanted to know how Potter could have been
here longer than them since they hadn't seen anything when coming in, but
wrote it off as invisibility in the end. What really mattered was getting
the curses removed.
"Of course it's fucking uncomfortable!" Bole growled. "Take them off!"
"Why should I?" Harry demanded back. "You attacked my business and
insulted people under my protection. I should leave those curses active
for the rest of your lives and make you thank me for being lenient."
Flint really wanted to say that they were just mudbloods, but even he
could tell that would be a bad idea. "We didn't mean it..."
Flint hated begging, but there wasn't much else to do. Potter didn't seem
in a forgiving mood and they had nothing to threaten or bribe him him.
"Sure you didn't." Harry snorted again, shaking his head. "Look, here's
how it's going to be. You two are going to swear Unbreakable Vows to obey
my commands and I'll release the curses I placed on you. Deal?"
Flint and Bole went pale white and then red with anger. A Vow like
that...it was a death sentence. Just a few careless words that
contradicted each other would be enough to kill them. And even if it
didn't, Potter could order them to hand over everything they owned and
they could only choose between doing so or death. Not even the Dark Lord
had ever demanded such a thing.
"Do you have any idea what you're asking?!" Bole shouted.
"Yes." Harry replied simply. "Don't give me those looks, if all goes well
we won't ever see each other again. I would've left you alone if you had
left me and mine alone, but you didn't and here we are. I have to warn
you though, if you don't make the vow, I'm going to make you
both...disappear."
Flint and Bole brought their wands up at the threat, but Harry had been
prepared for it and a spell wrenched them away before they were halfway
up.
"None of that now." He said mildly, but his eyes were hard and the air
was getting cold. "You know a bit much to be allowed to leave here
unbound. For all I know you might decide that Amelia Bones would be able
to help you and that would really be quite troublesome."
The two former Slytherins were pale and terrified now, feeling trapped
between two impossible choices.
"So what's it going to be?" Harry asked when they didn't say anything for
a minute. "The Vow or freedom from all earthly concerns?"
The grim humor of the last sentence didn't make them feel any better.
They were being harshly reminded of the fact that this wizard who was
younger than them was already a killer.
The two former Slytherins deliberated for a while longer and then, with
great reluctance, swore the Unbreakable Vows that Harry had demanded.
XXXXX
Grimmauld Place.
Harry destroyed the hair and blood samples that he had bound the curses
on Flint and Bole to, as per their agreement. It didn't really matter. He
had more in case he needed them, carefully placed in a freezer by an
awestruck Kreacher.
This little episode had also brought about a bit of worry to his mind.
What if someone cursed him like this? Laying hands on his blood would be
difficult, but it might happen. His hair would be much easier. People
shed hair all the time. Not as good as blood for cursing, but still
potentially problematic.
Maybe it was time to start performing that little ritual every day? The
one that severed all previous magical connections to him? It would be
inconvenient, but not as inconvenient as getting cursed.
Probably just unfounded paranoia, but still...
At least this issue was over with, even if Unbreakable Vows really
weren't that good a method for controlling people. The one he had forced
Dumb and Dumber to swear was incredibly dangerous and posed a v

For Love of Magic

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For Love of Magic

A different upbringing leaves Harry Potter with an early knowledge of

Rated: Fiction M - English - Harry P. - Chapters: 39 - Words: 546,280 -

So this is my attempt at a new fanfic instead of yet another Naruto

Another thing is that there are no pairings listed. This is done on

Minor thanks go to kishinokurobi, whose sarcastic feedback in poorly

Though it pained him to do it, he drained Lily Potter's still cooling

He obliviated this knowledge from the minds of the Dursleys, rightfully

It should be noted that Dumbledore had aquired several cognitive

That hope didn't last more than a couple of days.

Young children were incredibly selfish creatures, not possessing much

Though excited by the possibility of having a real family, Harry retained

In his free time he researched mythology, read fantasy books, or played

And when he was alone, he practiced his magic.

To: Harry Potter

Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London.

Albus Dumbledore stared uncomprehendingly at the adress on Harry Potter's

Minerva McgGonnagal ruthlessly kept herself from shifting uncomfortably

She wasn't normally the type to be made uncomfortable by having snobbish

The Shaws still looked sceptical.

"Would a demonstration convince you?" She asked, getting tentative nods

Thinking it better to do something more minor than tranfiguring a piece

The Shaw's stared in shock at the levitating bit of procelain.

"Did my parents really die in a car crash?" Harry inquired politely.

"How did they die then?"

Minerva held back a grimace. She'd been so outraged at the notion of a

"The Dursleys abandoned him in an orphanage?" Dumbledore asked in

"At least it all turned out well." He said. "What is he like?"

"This is the entrance to Diagon Alley?"

"What are those?" He asked with surprise as he saw a pair of obviously

Harry nearly stopped to stare at her incredulously. Goblin bankers? That

"Professor McGonagall!" A booming, jovial voice called out. "Fancy

"Aye, Dumbledore's got me pickin' up the You-Know-What in vault seven

"Yes Hagrid, it is." McGonagall said sternly, willing him to pick up on

Alas, the effort was wasted on the half-giant.

"Hagrid!" The transfiguration professor hissed, seeing that merely

"What's the You-Know-What?" Harry asked, not really expecting an answer.

"Never you mind." McGonagall said quickly.

Teacher and prospective student stepped up to one of the numerous goblin

"Excuse me, trust vault?" Harry interjected, latching on to the words.

He would not be put off though. This inheritance represented financial

McGonagall pursed her lips, obviously disapproving. Either because she

"Thank you." Harry said sincerely, getting an inscrutably gruesome smile

Harry heard the implicit 'Why are you wasting my time?'.

"I don't suppose there is any way to...accelerate...my coming of age?" He

Gorefist looked at him as if he was an idiot.

"Is there an inventory of these items?" Harry interjected eagerly, his

"I see." Harry said, disappointed.

Gorefist paid him no mind as he continued to speak. "Of the land

"What happened to to them? Did they go bankrupt?" Harry asked.

"Not as such." Gorefist grunted. "The Parkinson family made overtures to

"I can do whatever I want with my trust vault, is that right?"

"The latter. It is filled up to one thousand galleons on every birthday

Gorefist raised an eyebrow. While it was not exactly the height of

"There is a substantial fee attached to such services." He said with a

"What kind of fee?" Harry asked suspiciously.

There was a long silence before Harry gave his answer.

"I'm buying them now." Harry insisted.

Ancient Runes sounded fascinating and he wanted to know what it was

He wasn't a mathematical genius by any stretch, having slogged through

Math as it applied to magic though? That was interesting and something

McGonagall released an impatient sigh and muttered something indistinct

Harry could only stare in disbelief at the assortment of books. At the

Though annoyed by the liberties taken by the author, if her stupidity