Enter the Dragon (Harry Potter/Shadowrun)

3.5 Train rides

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3.5.1 Mending fences

The remainder of August passed quickly, and with its passing came the day for students to board to Hogwarts Express once more. The bright noon-time sunlight cheerily shone down on the street just south of King’s Cross Station where a light blue Ford Anglia with a white roof had just pulled into an un-metered parking space and disgorged a family of seven redheads dragging five large trunks among them.

Oddly, not a single pedestrian on the busy street looked twice at the sight of five trunks — which when taken together would have occupied slightly more volume than the entire passenger compartment of the thirty-odd-year-old two-tone saloon — being casually removed one after another from the decidedly too-small boot of the vehicle. That inattention was a mute testament to the effectiveness of the enchantments on the family car. Now properly equipped, the odd procession trooped off in the direction of King’s Cross Station a couple blocks to the north.

“Do you think I’ll be able to meet Harry Potter on the train?” the baby of the Weasley family — a girl recently turned eleven — asked plaintively as they walked. “I really want to meet him!”

“He will most likely be on the train, Ginevra,” her older brother, Percy answered her automatically before frowning thoughtfully. “Though he does live close to the castle, so he might not be, come to think of it.”

“Really?” his sister gasped. “But I wanted to meet him!”

“You’ll be able to meet him when you get to the castle,” Ron assured her, as gently as Ron was ever able to manage. “Blimey, it’s just another couple hours; be patient, Ginny!”

Which was to say, ‘not very’.

“That’s easy for you to say!” Ginny snapped as they passed through the doors into the station. “You’ve been around him for a whole year already!” The girl pouted, “You must have had lots of adventures and stuff with him by now, and you won’t even tell me stories.”

At this her brother winced slightly, “Ah, umm… not quite…”

The youngest Weasley brother was saved from what promised to be an uncomfortable retelling of how much he had stuffed up his interactions with his little sister’s hero by his older brother, Percy.

“Hey, there he is now!” Percy said, motioning to a small boy some distance away wearing Hogwarts robes in Hufflepuff colors standing next to a brown-haired girl who looked to be about Ron’s age. “And he’s got Miss Granger with him, too.”

As his sister squeaked, Percy turned to his parents, “Mother, Father, might we go speak with them for a moment? I’m afraid I have some air to clear with Mr. Potter’s companion from last year.” At his mother’s gimlet stare, the sixth-year student hastened to explain, “It was an honest misunderstanding, Mother! I handled something without properly thinking through how she would interpret it, and it would also give Ginevra a chance to meet Mr. Potter.”

As Molly nodded to her son’s request and the family made their way across the crowded platform towards the two second-years, Fred spoke up for the first time, “George and I’ll go on ahead.” Without waiting for permission, both twins set off and disappeared into the crowd.

“Boys!” Their mother called after them to no avail. “Straight to the train! No side trips!” she tried anyway. “Those boys! What ever will we do with them?” she muttered to her husband.

“We’ll just have to keep loving them, keep trying, and hope for the best,” Arthur reassured her. “They’ll come around eventually.”

“And my hair will have gone white by the time they do,” Molly complained wryly before turning her attention to the pair of children they were here to meet standing close together on the grungy but brightly lit platform.

“Mr. Potter, Miss Granger,” Percy greeted the two, “it is a pleasure to see you both again. Particularly to see you back in good health, Mr. Potter.” At Harry’s slightly suspicious nod, Percy turned his attention fully to the girl at Harry’s side. “Miss Granger, I am afraid I did not have a chance to properly apologize last term for my poor handling of the situation between you and my youngest brother, and I wished to do so now.”

“It’s alright,” the bushy-haired girl said slowly, “Abigail explained what you were doing afterwards, and when Ron apologized, I figured it out.”

The older boy nodded, “I have Miss Abercrombie to thank for explaining your interpretation to me as well. Nonetheless, I must apologize. As a prefect, I should have realized how my approach could have been interpreted, and I did not, therefore I offer my sincerest apologies for any distress I inadvertently caused you.”

“Apology accepted,” Hermione said, at which point Harry’s suspicious expression died away to be replaced with his usual affable one.

With that, the tone of the encounter shifted as Percy breathed a sigh of relief. “In that case, might I introduce you to the rest of my family? You already know Ronald,” he gestured to his youngest brother who raised a sheepish hand, “and this is Ginevra, our little sister,” again he gestured to the appropriate sibling. The girl squeaked at the introduction and quickly hid behind her mother’s skirts, peering out shyly with a rosy blush on her face as she looked for the first time at her hero.

“Hi!” came the friendly greeting from Harry, followed quickly by a “Pleased to meet you!” from his female companion.

“And, of course, these are our parents,” the officious sixth-year continued.

“Good morning, dears!” Molly greeted as her husband’s greeting echoed her own. The young Potter looked terribly small to Molly’s experienced eye. She’d have to have a word with Minerva next time she had the chance — it wouldn’t do for one of the poor dears to go hungry. Harry and Hermione echoed their earlier greetings as Molly considered how to handle the situation.

For now, it was probably best to get them all to the train and the snack cart there. The motherly woman nodded firmly. “Well, it was a pleasure to meet you both, but the train won’t wait for us, we’re not the ones setting the schedule. We’d best get you all loaded up. Move along, children!”

As the gaggle of schoolchildren moved along towards the third column between platforms nine and ten, Molly could have sworn she saw the young Potter smile as if he had heard an inside joke. After growing up with her prankster brothers, Gideon and Fabian, and then raising her prankster twins, Molly was sensitive to such things.

Of course, the question remained — what had she said that the small boy found so amusing?

3.5.2 Grand theft auto

When the twins had pulled away from their parents and siblings on the platform area and lost themselves in the crowd, they most assuredly had not gone straight to the train with no side trips. Instead, they made a beeline for a news stand they had noted on their clandestine trip to the station nearly a week earlier. There had been some noteworthy publications to catch the adolescent eye — a certain stack of magazines had been slightly off kilter, and tantalizing portions of a cover that normally would have been blocked by a black plastic divider were visible to all and sundry.

At the time, Fred and George had been equipped with neither appropriate currency nor an appropriately aged identification card to secure their prize, but they had made sure to remedy that lack in the intervening week. Fred now carried approximately twenty quid and a blank piece of cardboard charmed similarly to the notice-me-not paper they had used so effectively on their previous trip. Where the previous paper had compelled onlookers to find something else to pay attention to, however, this one projected a feeling of ‘all’s well here, nothing out of order at all’ which the pair hoped would get them through any problems.

As it happened, their hopes were fulfilled by a lackadaisical clerk rather than their charms work. The preoccupied salesman didn’t even look at their faces when he rang them up, much less ask for identification. The man was much more interested in his own copy of the same magazine he kept under the counter.

Illicit booty stowed in their school trunks — furtively buried under piles of clothes — the twins walked towards the portal to the hidden platform, ducking aside just in time to avoid the gaze of their parents as the couple walked towards the station exit.

“That was a close one, brother,” George said to his twin in relief as their parents cleared the front doors.

“Indubitably, dear brother,” Fred agreed. “Mum probably would have smelled those magazines on us, hidden or not.”

With that, the pair made their way over to the portal, wheeling their trunks behind them, only for Fred to smack face first into an indisputably solid wall, falling back into his brother with a clatter. That finally managed to draw attention, with a good fraction of passersby looking over at the fallen boys, curious to see what all the commotion was.

That was a problem.

Pranks were one thing but drawing attention to the portal and potentially endangering the secrecy of the wizarding world in the process was an entirely different kettle of fish. Thinking fast, George said in a stage-whisper pitched to be heard by everyone nearby, “Fred, watch where you’re going! I know she was gorgeous, but that is no excuse to walk into a wall!”

Suspicions averted, the onlookers chuckled and turned away — or in the case of several youngish women smiled smugly as they very deliberately straightened their posture and adjusted their clothing — otherwise leaving the flustered boys to their own devices.

“What happened, Fred,” George said to his brother — in a real whisper this time. “We didn’t count off to the wrong wall, did we?”

“No, it’s definitely the right wall,” his brother began. Fred was leaning against the wall in question and covertly pushing at where the portal should have been. “Solid as a rock.”

From his slightly removed perspective, George noticed something his brother had missed. The outline of his brother’s hand against the brick was limned in a familiar electric purple light which brightened the harder it was pressed. “Oh, hell.”

“What is it, George?”

“I think it’s from the prank,” George theorized.

Fred looked closer and saw the purple light. “Oh.”

With that realization, the two boys walked away from the portal out of well-ingrained reflex to avoid getting caught at the scene of a prank gone wrong.

“What do we do now?” Fred asked sotto-voiced. “We can’t get to the bloody Express!”

“Maybe we can just wait, and someone will fix it?” George ventured uncertainly. “I mean, if it’s blocking everyone, then…”

“Mum and Dad already left! Alone!” Fred hissed. “They’d never have done that if Percy and the rest hadn’t gotten through to the platform.”

His point was emphasized as another student passed through the portal with no trouble.

“So it’s just us,” George said unnecessarily. “You think it’s because the potion was keyed to us?”

“Has to be,” Fred said. “What do we do? If we tell anybody, the prank will be over before it even starts!”

“We could floo to Hogsmeade,” George proposed. “I mean, go to the Leaky and floo from there.”

Fred frowned thoughtfully, “That’s a long way to go with the trunks when we can’t use magic to shrink them…”

“Well, we can’t do anything about it here!” came the exasperated reminder.

“Right.”

The two brothers set out in the same direction their parents had left in a few minutes earlier, wheeling their trunks behind them as they went. As they stumped their way along the same southerly route they had taken a week before — it had been a decidedly more pleasant walk without the heavy school trunks weighing them down — they came upon a curious sight.

The family car was still parked.

“Where do you think Mum and Dad went?” George asked. “They left a long time before we did.”

“I dunno,” Fred said absently, his mind on other possibilities. Then his eyes lit with mischief, “Brother — are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Fred looked from the car to his brother with a slowly growing smile.

George looked puzzled for a moment before his own smile began to grow. “I think I am, Fred — I think I am.”

3.5.3 Parental trials

Arthur had taken advantage of the opportunity to treat his wife to a lovely lunch at a café close to the station. With their youngest off to her first year at Hogwarts, the nest was empty for the first time in more than two decades. It was the first opportunity he had had to spend time alone with his wife without worrying about the children since the birth of their eldest son. Arthur was sure they would both start to miss the little ones soon, but for now — well he and Molly had plans for the next few days — very private plans.

“How long has it been, love?” he asked his wife taking a sip from his wine glass.

“Since what, Arthur?”

“Since we last had a night out without worrying about who was looking after the children,” he clarified.

Molly sighed, “The last time had to have been back before Bill was born — I think it would have been that Warbeck concert we attended the day before I went into labor — has it really been twenty years already?”

“Twenty-two, actually, my love,” Arthur clarified.

“Oh, my! That long?” At her husband’s nod, she said, “Well, I suppose time flies and all that. I surely don’t regret it one bit!”

“Neither do I, Molly,” Arthur assured his wife, “but I am certainly going to make the most of having my lovely wife all to myself again!”

Molly giggled, “Oh, really, Arthur?” Her voice turned coy, “And what are you planning, hmm?” She looked up only to find her husband looking distractedly down the street. “Arthur? What’s wrong?”

Her husband collapsed back into the café chair, “I could have sworn I just saw Fred and George driving the car down the street and turning in to the alley down the way,” he paused for a moment, noting the cloud of pigeons taking flight from the rooftops near the alley in question, almost as if they had been startled by the passage of something large.

Arthur sighed. “I did.”

“The boys stole the car?” Molly said with a dry chuckle and a rueful shake of her head. “So much for not having to worry about who is looking after the children.”

Both Weasley parents caught each other’s eye for a long moment before taking a final swig of wine; nothing more needed to be said. As Arthur arranged to pay for the meal, Molly was already planning their course. They’d head home as soon as he finished; the family clock — a neat bit of sympathetic magic which sported a hand attuned to the wellbeing of each of their family members — would be their best bet for looking after their prodigal sons from a distance without attempting to track an invisible flying car across the kingdom.

It would also place them close to the Burrow fireplace where they would be available by floo when the twin’s troublemaking finally came home to roost.

So much for a romantic night on the town.

3.5.4 A poor reception

Percy and the two youngest Weasleys had broken off to find their own compartment shortly after passing through the portal to the magical platform, and after the circus that was the previous year’s train ride, Suze had declined to ride the Express this year — opting instead to wait back at the Lair and relying on Hermione to keep their dragon out of trouble in her place. As a result, Harry and his human damsel managed to board the train without incident. Neither he nor Hermione had brought trunks this year, though Harry was carrying his current research notebook — at present full of scribbled runic schema and circuit diagrams — and Hermione was carrying no fewer than five shrunken books in her various pockets.

Some things never changed.

After a quick detour to the front of the train to say hello to Abigail, the pair settled into the fourth passenger coach without incident, choosing an otherwise empty compartment in hopes that their older friend might have time to join them later; though given her duties, that was unfortunately unlikely. The seventh-year had not been chosen as Head Girl, but Abigail had been chosen as the seventh-year girls’ prefect for her House.

After a few minutes spent in relative quiet, interrupted only by the regular clack of the bogeys on the rail joints and the shuffling of paper as Harry wrote and Hermione read, there came a knock on the door of their compartment.

A puzzled glance passed between the young dragon and his damsel before Hermione answered, “Come in.”

The door slid open to reveal a blonde girl wearing the unmarked robes of an incoming student. She was of a slight build, and her slightly protuberant silvery eyes gave her a perpetually-surprised look. After opening the door, the newcomer spent several long, silent moments staring unblinkingly at Harry with those bulging silvery eyes while Harry intently stared back at her in return.

The scene was quite strange from Hermione’s point of view.

“Who are you?” Hermione eventually felt uncomfortable enough to ask.

The girl turned from her impromptu staring contest to answer, “I am Luna Lovegood, and he is Harry Potter. Unfortunately, I am afraid I do not know your name.”

“Hermione Granger,” Hermione responded reflexively. “It’s a pleasure.”

“Likewise,” the strange girl responded before turning back to Harry, whose expression had hardened with suspicion at the name ‘Lovegood’. “Daddy suggested I be very polite when I met you, Harry Potter, and he said that I should make a request.”

“What request?” Harry asked gruffly.

“He said I should politely ask you not to devour me,” the odd blonde girl stated calmly as Hermione choked on air in the background. “So, please don’t devour me, Harry Potter.”

“Well, I don’t eat anything that asks me politely not to eat them, so I won’t eat you,” Harry replied automatically before his mind caught up with him and his eyes narrowed. “Are you related to Xenophilius Lovegood?”

“Yes, that’s Daddy’s name,” Luna confirmed. “He’s the chief editor for the Quibbler!” she said proudly.

“The Quibbler?” Hermione’s eyes lit up. “Isn’t that a magical newspaper? Do you think you could tell me more about magical publishing?”

The blonde girl nodded enthusiastically at meeting a kindred spirit and began, “I’d love…” before catching sight of the forbidding expression on Harry’s face. She paled a little and continued in a much quieter voice, “Um, on second thought, maybe I should go. It was nice meeting you both.” With one last doleful look towards a confused Hermione, the small blonde girl slid the door shut and left, dragging her trunk along with her.

For her part, Hermione looked at the now-closed door with a puzzled frown. What had scared the girl off? Then she turned and caught sight of Harry’s still-dark expression.

That would explain it.

“Harry James Potter!” the bushy-haired girl exclaimed. “What was that all about?”

“What do you mean?” the young dragon asked, puzzled.

“Why did you scare that poor girl off like that, you great lummox?” the girl demanded. “She was a little odd, but she seemed nice enough; there was certainly no reason to be so hostile to the poor thing!”

“I don’t trust her,” Harry said emphatically with a scowl.

“Why ever not?”

“’Cause her Dad’s a lying jerk!” Harry groused. At his damsel’s questioning look, he elaborated, “Back a couple years ago, me and Suze were hanging around on top of the cliff across from the Lair, and we saw someone up on one of the other cliffs, so I went to talk to him and it was Luna’s dad. He said he was a zoologist, and we talked, and he promised not to tell anyone my name, but it turned out he was actually a journalist and he wrote my name out into the article even though he promised not to! So, he’s a lying jerk!” the young dragon finished with an emphatic nod.

Hermione sat for a moment as she puzzled her way through her friend’s rant. “So, Mr. Lovegood lied to you about being a zoologist rather than a journalist, and then he published your name after he promised not to?” Harry nodded. “Well, I can see why you wouldn’t trust Mr. Lovegood, but how does distrusting Luna follow from that?”

“Well… she’s his daughter!” her friend said matter-of-factly.

“Harry! You can’t blame her for her father’s actions, that’s wrong!” Hermione protested, scandalized. “You don’t blame people for things other people did just because they’re related to them!”

“But I wasn’t blaming her for her Dad’s actions,” Harry countered reasonably, unmoved. “I was thinking she’d do the same sort of stuff. Wouldn’t her Dad have taught her stuff, so she’d behave the same way?”

“It’s a possibility, I suppose,” Hermione allowed, “but you can’t just assume that! You need to judge people on their own actions, not the actions of people around them. How would you like it if your Dad did something bad and then people blamed you for it?”

“But I never even knew my Dad! He died before I can even remember,” the boy-shaped dragon protested. “How would that make sense?”

“And I’d bet that Luna never knew about her father breaking his promise to you!” the bushy-haired girl countered. “So how does your behavior make sense?”

Harry’s face fell as he gave that a bit of thought. “Oh.”

His damsel’s argument made a fair bit of sense, and she was pretty smart too, so that meant he’d probably been wrong at least a little bit, which in turn meant he’d have to address his handling of the situation differently — after all, he didn’t want to come off as a willfully-ignorant blundering pillock as Mr. Snape had put it many months previous.

He fell silent for a moment before coming to a conclusion, “I stuffed that up, didn’t I? I’d better go apologize to her. Thanks, Hermione.”

With that the Harry abruptly stood up and walked out into the hallway, sniffing the air as he closed the door behind him. Hermione looked after him for a moment before she sighed and turned back to her book.

Harry was a pain to manage sometimes.

3.5.5 A Railman’s musings

Locomotive number 5972 Olton Hall, a GWR 4900-Class 4-6-0, was barely idling as she pounded down the hill from Glenfinnan towards Loch Eilt, less than half an hour from the hidden Hogsmeade junction.

Although painted a most unprototypical maroon, she was unmistakable for any fan of the GWR; there was a certain cast to any locomotive of the Great Western Railway, a cast matched by none, and if you know what to look for you can tell a Great Western Railway locomotive at a glance, no matter how horribly improper a paint job has been applied to her.

That is not to say the 5972 looked bad in maroon, she was a handsome locomotive and she’d have looked good in any color, but a Great Western locomotive should, by all rights, be Brunswick green — and if you thought the detractors had complained about a Black Five being painted red, they had nothing on the horrified howls from those fans of the Great Western Railway who had seen the 5972’s Hogs Haulage livery.

After all, to those few she wasn’t just a big old lump of metal; she was a carefully-preserved half-century-and-change-year-old piece of history — and to the people who knew to appreciate her for what she was, one might as well respray the Mona Lisa.

Slinging a load of mixed traffic on the back of her was exactly what she was meant for. From the day back in 1937 she’d first rolled out of the Swindon Works, she’d hauled a mix of freight and passengers, and today was no exception. Behind her tender, 5972 was pulling a string of seven passenger coaches filled with eager young students trailed by a further four freight wagons: the first the usual refrigerated van for the school, the second a tank wagon full of fuel oil, the third a cargo van full of heavy parcel freight, and the fourth a flatbed carrying a single massive crate covered with a tarp. The last three were done up in the now-familiar Gringotts green and gold livery and were marked for Harry Potter on the manifest.

Up in her cab, Jim Coates was once again at the regulator keeping a sharp eye on the track ahead and an ear on 5972, ensuring she was treated the way she deserved — as he always was for the school runs. The company wouldn’t put anyone but their best in charge of carrying the students, and Jim had been the senior locomotive engineer at Hog’s Haulage since old Olaf had retired back in seventy-one. His fireman, Mac, who didn’t have much to do for the next few minutes as they coasted down the long slope, was absently keeping Smaugey calm with a bit of attention paid to his scaly head.

It was a state of affairs which gave them both time for a little idle speculation.

“’ey, Jim,” Mac began, “wotcher think o’ wot’s been goin’ on at the office?”

“Been busy,” Jim acknowledged, all the while keeping a sharp eye on his work. “Yer think somthin’s comin’?”

“Yeah,” Mac said, “summit big. Tha wife’s been tellin’ me it’s goin’ through tha whole bloomin’ company. Big changes ahead, she says — all o’ tha wives agree. Nah wahn’s sure wot, though. I figger ‘s got summit ter do wif them goblins, though — ‘s bin green and gold aw over the past few months.”

Jim grunted noncommittally, not sure what exactly to make of it all, despite his senior position. “Not sure m’self, but I figger it ain’t goin’ ta be sorry. Feels ter me like we’re getting’ ready for summit more — nuffin’ ter worry ya, Mac.” The cab fell silent for a few moments before Jim spoke up again, “The slope’s goin’ ter bottom out soon, get back on yer shovelin’ — we’ll need a good ‘ead o’ steam ready fer the next ‘ill.”

Mac nodded as he straightened up and grabbed his shovel, “Back ter work ya get, Smaugey!” The drake-dog let out an enthusiastic gronk as he practically vibrated with excitement at the prospect.

That was right, Mac thought as he opened the firebox and gave it a practiced look before he shoveled in more coal, so long as there was freight to move, it didn’t really matter what the higher-ups did. There’s always be work for the likes of him whether they were hauling for Hogs Haulage or whatever grew to take its place. He paused long enough for Smaugey to let loose with a blue-white blast to get things properly equalized.

And if ol’ Jimmy’s idea was right, and they really were looking at expanding for the first time in decades…

Well, his dear old Mum, bless her soul, had always told him, “A good thing ain’t complete ‘til it’s shared,” and it’d been far too long since they’d been able to introduce anyone new to the trade. It’d be grand to see some new faces as they learned about the joy of tending a beauty like 5972 as she pounded down the iron road, doing God’s own work keeping good people fed, supplied, and taking them where they needed to go.

And maybe, just maybe, in a few years when his youngest said he wanted to grow up to be just like his Daddy, Mac wouldn’t have to find a way to let him down gently like he’d had to with the lad’s older brothers because there just wouldn’t be a job for him if he tried. Maybe he’d be able to tell the boy, “Son, ya just pay attention ter yer old man, an’ ‘e’ll teach ya everythin’ ya need ter know.” The fireman’s eye’s misted over in a way that had nothing at all to do with the heat of the blazing firebox he was tending.

That’d be a glorious day.

3.5.6 Apology

Harry sniffed the air periodically as he walked down the corridor, shifting his weight slightly to maintain his balance as the car went over a change in grade on the track and following the blonde girl’s scent. It had only been minutes since she had passed through the mostly empty hallway, so the dragon could follow the trail with little effort.

The uneventful walk had given him some time to think.

Looking back on his handling of the girl, Hermione’s argument had made a lot of sense. He had been wrong to just lump Luna in with her father. The blonde girl had done nothing but introduce herself and politely ask him not to eat her, neither of which was in any way objectively offensive. She, personally, had given him no evidence that she was just as untrustworthy as her father, and consequently, there was no justification for being hostile right from the get-go. He had been wrong, and that warranted an apology.

So, now that he had established that an apology was warranted, the question became — what exactly was he apologizing for?

He’d been mean to a young girl for no valid reason, so he ought to apologize for that, sure — but he had also assumed she was as untrustworthy as her father without evidence. Was that something to apologize for as well? The currently human-shaped dragon frowned as he passed through into another carriage.

That… didn’t seem quite so clear-cut.

Yeah assuming someone was guilty without evidence was bad, but was that really what he did? As Harry thought about it more, a realization dawned on him — in the same way that there was no reason for him to assume Luna would prove untrustworthy, there was also no reason for him to assume she would prove trustworthy either. Distrusting the girl was a perfectly reasonable thing to do — he didn’t know her yet, and, for that matter, he had some decent circumstantial evidence that she might not be worthy of his trust!

Kids usually learned how to act from their parents, after all.

As the young dragon passed to the next car, the scent trail was growing steadily stronger, so he figured he must be catching up. Closing the door behind him, he thought further. Really, the caution was warranted. What wasn’t warranted was the hostility. He’d treated her as if she was her father, rather than treating her as if she was her father’s daughter.

So that’s what he’d apologize for. Harry nodded with resolution.

As he walked down the corridor, Harry heard Luna’s voice in the third compartment. She seemed to be in the middle of a rather animated conversation with another girl. Harry wasn’t sure who the other occupant was — it was a voice he didn’t recognize — but the tone seemed friendly with perhaps a bit of commiseration. Harry winced at that, his recent ponderings having left him more attentive than usual to the effect his actions could have on other people.

Was his treatment of the small girl the reason she had sought such sympathy from a friend?

After a bare moment’s hesitation as he considered the question, Harry knocked anyway. There was really no help for it, he supposed, the apology needed to be made regardless.

“Come in,” called the voice he didn’t recognize, before that same voice dissolved into a much more familiar squeak as he complied.

“Oh, hi… Ginny, I think it was?” Harry amiably greeted the squeaky redhead he had met for the first time back on the platform. “Um, sorry to interrupt, but I needed to talk with Luna for a minute. I was rude earlier, and I wanted to apologize for it.”

“…” Ginny squeaked unintelligibly with a vaguely positive nod in his direction as she folded in on herself in embarrassed self-consciousness at Harry’s presence. Harry wasn’t sure if it was intended to be permission, but he took it as such anyway.

“Um, so Luna,” he turned to the blond girl who was looking at him intently — or perhaps staring at something behind his head, it was difficult to say. The girl’s protuberant eyes and odd manner made such determinations difficult. “Hermione pointed out that I’d been mean without having a good reason for it, and when I thought about it, she was right. That sort of thing is pretty rude, and I try not to be rude, so I’m sorry for that.” The human-shaped dragon finished his apology with an emphatic nod.

“Thank you,” the odd blonde accepted graciously before going on, “If it is not too much to ask, why were you angry?”

Harry thought that a reasonable request, so he explained, “You know I met your dad before, right?”

The blonde girl nodded, so Harry continued, “Well, we talked for a bit, and he asked some questions and I agreed to answer them as long as he didn’t say where I was or what my name was, right?”

“So you gave an interview on the condition of anonymity?” Luna asked intently.

“Yeah,” the dragon-in-human-form nodded affirmatively. “Anyway, after he did that, he wrote up the article, and Mr. Snape and Mr. Dumbledore found it, and he’d said what my name was even after I asked him not to!” at this, Harry scowled. “So, I was pretty angry at him for lying, and that kinda spilled over onto you when I found out who you were. I still don’t know if I should trust you or not, ‘cause, you know, your dad would have taught you how to behave and stuff, and if he’s willing to do that… well, anyway, I shouldn’t have been so rude to you just because I don’t like your dad, so sorry for being rude.”

“Well, if that’s true, I can understand why you were angry,” Luna allowed before continuing decisively, “but that doesn’t sound like Daddy! Daddy always told me how important it was to protect your sources as a reporter, and I don’t think he’d do that.”

“Well, he did,” Harry insisted.

The blonde shook her head emphatically, “No he didn’t! Not my Daddy.”

“But I’m telling you, he did,” Harry insisted, growing somewhat irritated at having his honesty impugned.

“Maybe you misunderstood?” Luna offered. “What did Daddy actually say?”

Harry calmed as he thought back to the conversation. “Well, he asked me to answer some questions, and I said I would so long as he promised not to tell anyone where I was or what my name was’, and he said he’d keep where I was secret and that he didn’t know my name so he couldn’t tell anyone anyway, and then I said my name was Harry Potter, and then we talked for a long time,” Harry explained.

“And that’s all?” Harry nodded, and the blonde girl thought about that for a few moments before she giggled, “Well, Daddy never said he wouldn’t print your name then!”

“What do you mean by that?” Harry demanded, his tone edging its way back towards cross.

“From what you said, Daddy promised not to tell anyone where you were, and then he said he couldn’t tell anyone your name because he didn’t know it, then you told him your name. He never said he wouldn’t tell anyone your name!” the girl finished triumphantly, faith in her father reaffirmed.

Harry parsed that argument for a moment before his face fell as he was forced to come to the same conclusion.

He’d been had!

“But he knew what I meant!” Harry protested weakly. Mr. Slackhammer’s lessons about contracts and loopholes that had been so amusing during his encounter with Dobby now echoed accusingly through his head. “That wasn’t very honest.”

“But Daddy didn’t break a promise,” Luna doggedly insisted. “You just assumed he made a promise when he didn’t.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Harry groused, grudgingly acknowledging the point. “Still doesn’t mean it wasn’t rude and sneaky.”

“Daddy is the best investigative reporter in wizarding Britain!” Luna said smugly, clearly enormously proud of her father. “Rude and sneaky comes with the territory.”

“Well, it doesn’t make me like him very much,” Harry concluded sourly, biting back some choice remarks about not liking her very much either as he turned back to the door to go on his way. “Anyway, that’s all I had to say — ‘bye, Ginny, Luna.”

There was a squeak and a “Goodbye” respectively from the two occupants of the compartment as he slid the door shut.

Leaving the compartment behind as he retraced his steps on the way to rejoin his damsel, Harry was not pleased with the results of his trip. He’d apologized for being rude — and he didn’t regret that — but he also didn’t think he’d ever get along well with the girl or her rude, sneaky father.

In the aftermath of his earlier run-in with Odd Lovegood, Mr. Snape had made an offhand comment during one of their planning sessions which had stuck in Harry’s mind.

“The press is a necessary evil,” the potions master had said, “sometimes causing significant inconvenience for decent people, yet critical to maintaining a properly informed populace and keeping the power of the government in check.”

They had gone on to have discussion Harry had found rather fascinating at the time on the role of a free press in maintaining a properly functioning society. Harry had learned a lot, but after his recent encounter with Luna, what really stuck in his mind was Snape’s next comment.

“However, there exist few groups more uniformly vexing than reporters and their ilk.”

3.5.7 Pulling into the station

The rest of the train ride passed uneventfully for Harry and his damsel until they eventually coasted to a stop at the station and disembarked. After a brief ‘hello’ to Hagrid where he was collecting first years — they had just seen him that morning, after all, so there was no need to interrupt — the pair made their way over to the carriages that were used to carry the older students to the castle, only for Harry to stop, stock-still, at the sight.

“What’s wrong, Harry?” Hermione asked, concerned. It wasn’t like her friend to be startled by… well, anything in her experience.

“The carriages are drawn by thestrals?” Harry moaned in exasperation. “I thought Cedric said last year when you asked about them that they were enchanted to not need anything to pull them!”

Hermione frowned and looked at the carriages again, “I don’t see anything, Harry. What are thestrals?”

“They’re these flying winged horse-things, except they don’t have fur, and they eat meat.” Harry explained, to Hermione’s mounting unease. Noticing his damsel’s distress, Harry assured her, “They’re supposed to be pretty friendly, and they’re scavengers, so you don’t have anything to worry about, Hermione.”

“Okay,” the bushy-haired girl said slowly, “but why can’t I see them?”

“Oh! I’ve always been able to see them, so I kinda forgot some people couldn’t,” Harry explained, “but they’re supposed to be invisible unless you’ve seen and understood death, according to Hagrid. Come to think of it, I could see them a lot better after that thing with the deer a few years back,” Harry continued thoughtfully, “so maybe there’s something to that? Huh.”

“If there’s nothing to worry about, then why did you stop?” Hermione asked reasonably.

“Huh?” Harry shook his head as he came back to the conversation, “Right, it’s not that the thestrals will do anything on their own, it’s just that they panic whenever I get close to them,” Harry said glumly. “Just about every animal does, even when I’m not planning on eating them. I don’t want anyone to get hurt because of me, so when I saw them, I made sure to stay away.”

“Oh,” Hermione said softly. “Um, so how do we get to the castle?”

“I guess I’m gonna go into the woods and circle around like I usually do when I come from the Lair,” Harry said. “That won’t take too long after I get out of sight.” The currently boy-shaped dragon looked at his human damsel’s disappointed expression, sighed, and reluctantly offered, “Um, I know you like doing things the traditional way, Hermione, so if you want, you can take the carriage over there and I’ll meet you at the feast.”

Hermione was seriously considering her options when they were interrupted by a familiar voice.

“Hey there you two! Why are you waiting so far back from the carriages?” Abigail jogged up after finishing her final check of the train for any stragglers. “I appreciate you two waiting for me to catch up, but you could have sat down.”

“We were just trying to figure out what to do, actually?” Hermione began. “You see, Harry…” she trailed off, uncertain how to explain.

“You remember how it was with the owls?” Harry asked as his damsel broke off. “Thestrals do the same thing, and I didn’t want to cause a panic and hurt somebody.”

“Oh,” Abigail said in understanding. So, that was what pulled the carriages. While she still couldn’t see the things, they had been covered in her fifth-year Care of Magical Creatures class. “So, what’s the plan?”

“Well, I’m gonna circle around and come in my usual way from the woods,” Harry said, “and Hermione was just trying to decide whether she wanted to go on the carriage or come with me.”

“Do you mind if I join you, Harry?” Abigail asked without any hesitation whatsoever. “I missed you on the train, and I don’t technically need to take the carriage.”

“Sure, Abigail!” Harry said happily, beaming at the older girl. “I missed you, too.”

On seeing her friend getting along so well with the attractive older girl, Hermione felt a slight frisson of an unfamiliar sort of feeling, prompting her to impulsively declare, “I’m coming too!”

Whatever it was, it was a new sort of feeling for the bookish girl who was now nearing her thirteenth birthday, a feeling she would have to examine in more detail later, but for now, she just knew she didn’t want to leave Harry alone with Abigail.

With that, the trio of friends walked deliberately off into the Black Woods, leaving the last cart and its hitched thestrals standing at attention with no one to carry. They would eventually amble off on their own back to the stable where they would await Hagrid’s attention to be released and put back to pasture.

 

3.6 Creative misbehavior

---

3.6.1 Popinjay

Moonlit clouds swept dramatically across the enchanted ceiling, echoing the darkened sky above as the returning students eagerly awaited the opening feast and the beginning of a new school year. Candles blazed, hovering overhead as Abigail picked her way through the increasingly crowded Great Hall on the way to her usual seat at the Slytherin table.

Back to the wall and two seats door-ward from the third hanging brazier, the seat was in front of a blank wall and close enough to the staff table to stay informed while remaining distant enough to avoid casual notice. All in all, it was a prime seat by Slytherin reckoning. As she settled in to await the Sorting, Abigail exchanged pleasant greetings with her various acquaintances with a giddy smile on her face, prompting more than a few curious looks from her House-mates.

A giddy smile was hardly normal for the House of the Serpents, at least not in public.

For her part, Abigail wasn’t even aware of the broad smile plastered onto her face; rather, she was still exhilarated from her trip through the forest, which had been an amazing, if brief, experience. It was the first time Harry had carried her while in his dragon form... well, it was the first time she had been awake for it. Madame Pomfrey had teased her about something similar that had happened in the immediate aftermath of the troll incident. In any event, she had been awake for it this time, and it had been everything she could have hoped it would be.

Once they had escaped far enough into the trees to be out of view, Harry had smoothly resumed his native form and gathered both her and Hermione up in a single, utterly massive clawed hand, before seamlessly shifting to walk on the knuckles of his wings as he cradled both girls gently.

Just like that hug back in Diagon Alley, Harry’s grip had been simultaneously brutally strong and infinitely tender. Add to that the feeling of being utterly enveloped in his presence as the forest whipped by — a breathtaking sight in the gathering twilight — and that impromptu trip cemented itself in Abigail’s mind as a treasured memory for years to come.

Perhaps the dragon thing wouldn’t be a major issue after all.

Unfortunately — at least by Abigail’s reckoning — Harry had made excellent time, reaching the clearing behind Hagrid’s hut, carefully depositing the two girls on their feet, and flowing back into human form just as the first of the thestral-drawn carriages carrying the other students had arrived at the main gate of the castle. All three friends had been seated at their respective House tables with time to spare before the Sorting.

And, speaking of the Sorting, the Deputy Headmistress had just announced the beginning of that event, prompting Donald, the disreputable looking Sorting Hat, to awaken.

The Hat seemed rather unusually startled, glaring out over the assembled students as if it had expected a different scene, though Abigail had no idea why that would be the case. Regardless, that lasted but a bare moment before the magical headwear visibly set aside its surprise in favor of resuming its usual routine, only a lingering air of minor annoyance to mark the event.

While the sight of a miffed hat was quite unusual, the Sorting itself was not. Only two incoming students stood out from the gaggle, and neither had been sorted into Slytherin. Ravenclaw had received Luna Lovegood, noteworthy as the sole daughter and heiress of the only completely independent publishing house remaining in wizarding Britain. Over the last two centuries, the Ministry-controlled Daily Prophet had either forcibly acquired or otherwise driven all others out of business.

The second noteworthy, Ginevra Weasley, caught Abigail’s interest solely because of the sheer number of Weasley siblings currently attending Hogwarts. Hogwarts had already hosted two of the redheaded siblings when Abigail herself was Sorted, and she had now seen five more Sorted during her tenure as a student.

Magical families rarely produced so many children so close together. By Abigail’s reckoning, at the time this youngest girl was born, there would have been five magical children under the age of five packed into one house — and a tiny one at that, if the Weasley reputation as an impoverished House was accurate. Conventional wisdom in the magical community called that sort of scenario a deathtrap due to the potential hazards of accidental magic. The scenario of one child’s accidental magic startling another into their own episode and touching off a cascade of panicked magical children was a very real and very frightening one. Formal magical schooling started so much later than its non-magical counterpart for precisely that reason.

Abigail frowned in thought. Had the Weasleys taken an unconscionable risk and simply gotten lucky, or had they discovered some way around the problem?

And, if they had, what implications would that discovery hold?

It was enough to make the seventh-year wonder if Harry might be facing some competition in his quest to take over the wizarding world. Her friend was planning to lead with economic conquest and introduce other methods as they became necessary, but it looked like the Weasleys might be trying to overwhelm the opposition by out-breeding them. Abigail chuckled at the notion for a moment before she trailed off with a frown.

On second thought, that might actually work. It’d be slow, to be sure, but eventually...

Maybe they were on to something?

That would probably be a good failsafe plan, she’d have to bring it up at her next meeting with… following that train of thought to its ultimate conclusion brought her giddy smile back full force as she sipped at her water in an attempt to calm herself back down. Perhaps not the next meeting, then, but when he got a little older they could…

She clamped down on that line of thought, and it seemed it was time to change the subject again. Casting about for something else to occupy her attention, she noticed the Headmaster standing to make an announcement.

“Good evening to you all!” the elderly wizard proclaimed, his voice carrying to every corner of the room with no evidence of strain. “It is my distinct pleasure to welcome you for another year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, I sincerely hope summer vacation proved relaxing, and that you are all ready to commit fully to your academic pursuits. On that note, you may have noticed a new face at the staff table. Please welcome your new Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor, Gilderoy Lockhart.”

As the room dissolved into applause, Abigail noted that the cheering had an unusually high pitch, as if a disproportionate number of girls were involved. Perhaps the man was famous for something? Though, she frowned thoughtfully, considering the audience… he was probably on one of those asinine Witch Weekly Most Charming Smile Awards or some such. Abigail scoffed, useless rag. The few girls in her House who read the thing usually stuck to the Most Eligible Bachelor lists; you had to choose your target carefully, wouldn’t want to sell yourself off to someone poor, heaven forfend!

Well, that and the makeup tips.

In any event, the name meant little to her, though it sounded vaguely familiar — something about her book list, if she remembered correctly. The new addition was a wizard in his late twenties with a medium build, flowing blond hair, and dressed in flamboyant silk robes. He was handsome if you were into that sort of thing, she supposed — Abigail preferred a more rugged and practical sort, strong rather than pretty — though, even she was into that sort, the blond hair would have ruined the effect for her... and probably for most of the current crop of Slytherin girls, too, come to think of it.

The distaste stemmed from a common cause, after all.

As the man stood up, a broad smile plastered itself on his face with a practiced air, as if he had spent hours rehearsing the expression in front of a mirror. The mannerisms were unique, but the overall effect reminded her of someone, a resemblance that she couldn’t quite place...

“Thank you, thank you,” the blond man said with the air of a man who firmly believed that he needed no introduction. “Now, now, calm down, I shall be here all year, there will be plenty of time for us to get to know one another.”

As she listened, the picture started to come together for Abigail. The carefully coiffed hair, the smug self-assurance, the absolute certainty that he was both the smartest and prettiest person in the room… that was it! He reminded her of a more attractive and genteel version of Draco Malfoy.

That realization left Abigail hoping her appetite would recover by the time the food was distributed. Many of the other girls in the audience, however, seemed to be lapping up the performance, even a few of the firsties wearing green and silver... only the firsties though, thankfully for Abigail’s continued faith in humanity. By contrast, perhaps two thirds of the males looked thoroughly unimpressed, among them Albus Dumbledore, who was still standing where he had been before the new professor had hijacked his introduction.

None of which seemed to do anything to discourage Gilderoy Lockhart.

“I have graciously accepted the position of Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts,” the puffed-up man continued in his overly polished voice, his satin robes gracefully trailing his extravagant hand movements. “It presented an excellent opportunity for me to pass at least some few of my many skills on to the younger generation, a long-standing goal of mine — which many of you may have read in my autobiography, Magical Me.”

Wait... that title was on the reading list for this year! That was where she had seen his name; he’d written half the book list!

...and one of those books was apparently the man’s autobiography.

New information in mind, Abigail’s eyes narrowed at the pompous and self-serving monologue. She had already tagged the man as a self-important fop, but he might still have had something to teach; talent came to all sorts after all. If he was merely treating this as an excuse to sell more of his books to a captive audience, however… well, she would have to wait and see what he was like in class, but this augured poorly for her NEWT in Defense.

While Abigail had been thinking, Lockhart had continued with his performance, managing to mention seven of his own books in the short interlude. Minutes passed as the dandy droned on with his book promotion masquerading as an introduction only to have his spotlight quietly and unintentionally stolen by a small figure entering through the main door and catching increasing amounts of attention from the student body as it purposefully made its way across the Hall.

The visitor, only slightly taller than the recently-Sorted first-years, was a sharply dressed goblin carrying a leather portfolio in one hand and a wizarding camera hanging about his neck. As he made his way towards the Hufflepuff table, more and more of the students turned their attention to him until Lockhart was nattering away almost unnoticed in the background as the goblin came to a stop next to Harry Potter.

Abigail’s currently human-shaped friend turned to the goblin and offered what appeared to be a warm greeting — the details of which were unfortunately inaudible from across the room, drowned out by Lockhart’s ongoing speech — before accepting the leather portfolio. She saw her friend’s wonderful green eyes widen as he examined the contents and a broad smile stretch across his face only for the goblin’s camera to flash as he took a picture of the boy’s reaction.

It figured it would be the flash of a camera that finally caught Lockhart’s attention.

“Mr. Potter!” the man protested, sounding horribly put out but somehow still managing to smile at the same time, “This is hardly the time for a photography session. It is very rude to interrupt.”

The Headmaster chuckled quietly at the irony implicit in that statement where he stood at the staff table.

“What photography session? Corporal Steelhammer was just delivering something for me,” Harry asked as he looked up in bewilderment, not having noticed the flash due to his intent focus on the contents of that portfolio. In short order, he caught sight of the camera Steelhammer still held, and his gaze narrowed slightly in suspicion, only to close entirely when he was hit with another flash. “Hey! What are you taking pictures for?”

“Orders, sir,” the goblin said simply. “The Vice-Chairman requested pictures of your reaction to the completion of your first major acquisition.”

“Really?” the young dragon asked.

“It is something of a milestone, sir,” the goblin explained. “I understand humans do similar things in certain circumstances: graduations, weddings, and the like.”

“Oh, okay,” Harry said, nodding agreeably before dismissing the issue. “So, everything is finalized?”

The sharply dressed goblin nodded, quiet voice carrying clearly in the suddenly silent Hall, “Yes, sir. As of ten o’clock this morning, the publicly held Hogs Haulage, PLC has been dissolved and reincorporated as Hogs Haulage, Ltd. under your sole ownership, sir.”

That revelation had every eye in the Great Hall focused on the tableau of boy and goblin.

“Good,” the boy-shaped dragon nodded firmly, “and the new personnel?”

“Are you certain you wish to allow such information into the public sphere, sir?” Steelhammer glanced significantly around the crowded room.

“It shouldn’t be a problem as long as you don’t mention names,” Harry waved off his concern. “It’s not like there’s a competing magical rail company at the moment to try to hire them out from under me.”

“Very well,” the goblin acknowledged. “In that case, I am happy to report the new personnel mostly confirmed, sir. Four are currently out of contact, but we anticipate confirmation within the next two days, possibly a week for the one currently employed in the PRC. After that, it will be a question of waiting out their current contract requirements — management should be ready within two weeks; the engineering personnel may take a month or two. When they arrive, we will alert you.”

“Great!” Harry replied enthusiastically. “Thanks! And please pass my thanks to Mr. Slackhammer, too.”

“Of course, sir,” the sharply dressed goblin acknowledged before turning smartly and making for the door without further ado.

The goblin managed to make it out of sight before the students exploded into conversation, Lockhart’s speech forgotten. After all, the children had just learned that one of their own was now the sole owner of the Hogwarts Express, a perennial icon of the Hogwarts experience; for the moment, that far outweighed what some new teacher had to say — no matter how pretty he was.

On the other side of the room from her friend, Abigail could do little more than watch from afar as her friend fielded questions from his friends in Hufflepuff, so instead she turned her attention to the rest of the room, reasoning the dispositions of some of the children might give her some clues to what challenges might come for her future employer — though, judging by Malfoy’s vacant scowl as he stared hungrily at his still-empty plate, she might have been giving her fellow students too much credit. Most seemed oblivious to the potential ramifications of their classmate’s purchase.

With no benefit to be had from observing the student body, Abigail turned her attention back to the staff table only to be forced to choke back her own laughter once more. The new professor, that Lockhart fellow, still stood exactly as he had been minutes previous, only now he looked forlornly out over the sea of children who had forgotten he existed.

A quiet giggle managed to squeeze itself out of her despite her attempts to choke it down. Harry couldn’t have arranged a better prank on the smugly self-important dandy if he had tried! It was much funnier than anything the Weasley twins had managed over the years, to Abigail’s way of thinking. In fact, their reactions to being upstaged would be sure to be memorable. Her gaze flitted over to the Gryffindor table searching out the redheaded menaces to get a look only to find… nothing.

The twin menaces were nowhere to be found!

Abigail frowned. Come to think of it, she hadn’t seen the Weasley twins at all during the train ride, nor during the Sorting. She did see their elder brother who seemed at ease, turned around from the Gryffindor table and talking quietly with Clearwater at the Ravenclaw table. He was one of the Gryffindor prefects, and it was part of his job to keep track of the pair. If their brother wasn’t worried about them, then at least they were probably safe, though it begged the question…

What horrors were those two brewing while out of sight?

Just as that realization began to set in, a shout from one of the younger students abruptly pulled Abigail away from her downward-spiraling train of thought.

“Look, up in the sky!”

Her eyes snapped to the ceiling of the Great Hall. The vaulted stone was enchanted to be transparent from the inside, showing a beautiful view of the night sky and the sparse moonlit clouds... and shooting across that beautiful scene, below those moonlit clouds, was a flying automobile.

Abigail sighed. At least that answered the question of what the Weasley twins had gotten up to. It was simply inconceivable that anyone else could be driving that car in this situation.

It was quite the spectacle, but as the seconds ticked by, Abigail had to wonder... what was the punchline?

Then her eyes snapped shut reflexively as the night sky lit up like high noon.

3.6.2 Ungraceful arrival

Clouds raced across the moonlit sky as the twin brothers drew close to the end of their harrowing voyage.

When the twins had decided to ‘borrow’ the family car, they hadn’t realized just how much of an ordeal they were signing up for. It had been a long, exhausting ride, packed full of uncertainty and a certain degree of low-key terror.

Despite the brothers’ experience with brooms, the enchanted saloon was an entirely different animal. Broom flight was intuitive, essentially involving hauling the end of the broom around where you wanted to go and letting the enchantments do the rest. Advanced broom handling involved ‘willing it’ to go where you wanted and as fast as you wanted it to go there. A good broom responded so quickly and so intuitively that it might as well be an extension of the rider’s body.

By contrast, the Ford Anglia handled like a pregnant whale swimming through a sea of treacle. Lateral steering used the steering wheel just like it did on the ground; speed was controlled by the accelerator, just like it was on the ground; but altitude was controlled by means of shifting gears into either ‘up’ or ‘down’ and using the accelerator. Of course, that meant that you couldn’t control your forward speed while changing altitude — a nuance which Fred learned by trial and rather distressing error while attempting to fly for the first time in that narrow alley. To make matters worse, pitch and yaw — not that the brothers knew enough about aviation to know the proper terms — were ‘controlled’ by not turning too fast and hoping for the best from the cobbled-together stabilization charms.

All told, the control schema led to more than a few hair-raising mishaps early in the flight.

Once they managed to get into the air, the main issue had become one of navigation. The Express was long gone by the time Fred and George had managed to bring their wild first flight under control and return to the station, so their original plan to stealthily tail the train had to be scrapped, leaving the twins scrambling for an alternative. They had eventually remembered that fold-out map they had acquired previously for the prank, and after managing to set down on a rooftop to retrieve it from Fred’s trunk — leaving skid marks which would greatly confuse maintenance personnel in the process — George tried his hand at navigation.

Armed with the knowledge that Hogwarts was somewhere in Scotland on the south shore of the Black Lake, the fourth-year applied his limited knowledge of geography — and a rudimentary translation charm the pair had learned expressly for a prank candy that hadn’t panned out — to settle upon Loch Morar as their likely destination. From there, using George’s wand and a point-me spell as a compass, the intrepid duo set out on a north-northwest heading at best speed — only to quickly realize that ‘best speed’ meant they were going to be driving for at least eight hours.

Of course, eight hours turned out to be an optimistic estimate. George’s navigational inexperience led them to slowing and descending often to read the road signs along the way and correct their course. About nine hours into the flight, the car’s magical reservoir ran dry, leaving the aggregator runes to power the vehicle directly. Even with two adolescent wizards in the cabin, the demands of flight left the engine sputtering and missing strokes and the boys firmly convinced they were seconds away from falling out of the sky.

Those runes — designed to collect ambient magic from the surrounding environment and slowly charge a magical reservoir from which other spells drew their energy — generally worked well for light duty in magical areas, often serving to power magical appliances and even light-duty wards. Vehicles, however, tended to draw too much power too quickly to be widely practical. Too many of them could easily drain the ambient magic in an area to the point where the slow trickle of collected magic effectively ground to a halt.

For grounded vehicles, this was only a minor inconvenience, but for flying vehicles… well, in the course of his job with the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Department, Arthur had confiscated the vehicle from its original owner for purposes of public safety, and he had driven the car to King’s Cross rather than flying it for much the same reason.

Needless to say, those enchantments were not sufficient for cross-country marathons through the low-magic majority of the United Kingdom.

That said, between what little could be siphoned up from the environment and the magical output of the two mildly terrified adolescent wizards in the cabin, the enchanted automobile managed to scrape by. All told, it took the boys nearly ten hours to reach the shores of Loch Morar and then another hour slowly puttering along the south shore to locate the castle.

“Oh, thank Merlin!” Fred exclaimed from his position behind the wheel on seeing the towers of Hogwarts gleaming in the moonlight. Eleven hours of driving an unfamiliar vehicle on an unfamiliar route to a place you weren’t sure was where you thought it was while terrified that you could drop out of the air like a stone at any moment made for a harrowing ordeal, indeed. “George, next time I come to you with an idea like this, punch me.”

“You got it,” the other twin replied, perfectly serious for once. “Same to you, brother. Where should we land this thing?”

Fred looked critically at the castle grounds, “How about by the lake shore? There’s enough open space there.”

“Sounds good,” George said weakly, looking out the passenger window at the castle arrayed on the left of the car. Seeing one roof in particular, spoke up speculatively. “Hey, Fred, I’ve got an idea, and it just might make the whole flying car thing worth it.”

“What is it?” his brother asked, tiredly.

“You remember the charms on the ceiling of the Great Hall?”

“The ones for transparency?” Fred confirmed, too exhausted to follow through on his brother’s reasoning from the hint alone. “What about ‘em?”

“Well, how about we buzz the roof first before we land?” George asked, mischief in his voice. “They’ve probably just started the feast by now, so everyone’ll be in there…”

That prompted a tired grin from the driver, “You’re right, that would make all this almost worth it. I’m in.” And with that, Fred swung the car around for one last maneuver, flipping the headlights on for effect.

As the brothers approached the castle, they grinned with renewed enthusiasm. It was going to be spectacular.

They were right.

3.6.3 Automatic misunderstanding

As the flying car approached the castle, long-dormant wards roused from their centuries-long slumber. Hogwarts might have been on peacetime footing for most of living memory, but some of its wartime defenses were sufficiently specialized that there was simply no need to turn them off — they cost little to operate on standby and were unlikely to interfere with normal school activities. This one — designed to protect against magical artillery — was one such always-on ward. It scanned the sky above the castle battlements for sufficiently dense masses of magical energy, compared them to the ward’s list of allowable magical signatures, and attempted to disrupt any such object not permitted access to the castle.

The enchantments on the Ford Anglia fit the bill admirably.

Admittedly, there were also two authorized signatures attached to the interloper, but — unfortunately for the twins — that also fit a previous threat profile. Back in 1143, the then-contemporary Dark Lord had attempted to fool the school’s defenses by tying a kidnapped student to his ward-breaker. The brutal gambit had worked, temporarily taking down the Hogwarts wards for the first and only time in the history of the institution. After the Dark Lord had been put down in a suitably bloody fashion, updates were made to counter the tactic. After all, the kidnapped student back in the twelfth century hadn’t survived the impact anyway, so what difference did it make whether the poor sap died from the counter battery fire rather than the final impact?

So it was that a magical device, roughly analogous to a modern anti-missile battery, prepared to fire on the unsuspecting family saloon.

However, that analogy was quite rough. Unlike their non-magical counterparts which tended to be comparatively simple in design due to various practical considerations, the complexity of magical artillery was limited only by the twisted imagination of the mind that created it. Predictably, among the first improvements made were countermeasures for various interception methods, making the choice of an appropriate counter-spell critically important.

During the times when such spells were in common use, the development of artillery countermeasures and counter-countermeasures was a constantly evolving dance, greatly limiting the utility of general countermeasures — the only kind which could reasonably be built into wards.

Of course, limited utility was quite distinct from no utility.

The seemingly decorative finials adorning the peak of every tower on the campus lit up with an eldritch glow.

In the absence of clever solutions, the Hogwarts warders had returned to the reliable simplicity of brute force. With access to an effectively unlimited well of power tapped from the local ley lines and stored in the collection of house-sized ward stones hosted in the deepest, long-since sealed, sub-levels of the castle, the ward designers had chosen the most general, most widely-applicable method of disruption possible.

Just throw magic at it.

Lots and lots of magic.

And the anti-artillery ward — abruptly awakened after long centuries of dormancy — threw magic.

Lots and lots of magic.

3.6.4 Look at the pretty lights

Scattered across the campus, forty-two towers lit up with brilliant magical discharges — looking for all the world like unnaturally long-lived lightning bolts — simultaneously arcing from the towers to strike a comparatively tiny flying car as it puttered over the roof of the Great Hall.

The enchanted vehicle shuddered under the onslaught before suddenly twisting away from its previous course and diving with uncharacteristic grace. The eldritch lightning cut off abruptly as the car passed below the altitude of the battlements, and the lightly charred saloon came to a stop a few feet above the ground. One door to flew open of its own accord as the vehicle spun on its longitudinal axis leaving the open door to hang down. A pair of frazzled and lightly smoking young wizards tumbled out to land in an awkward, undignified heap on the grass of the castle lawn.

As they struggled to regain their bearings, the door slammed shut on its own, and the car spun once again — this time emptying the boys’ trunks out of the boot in a similarly rough manner — before setting down gently on the lawn a few feet away from the them. The vehicle had hardly touched down before its horn blared defiantly as the engine revved and the rear wheels spun out, throwing sod and dirt on the two sputtering boys who has so misused the enchanted car before it accelerated off through the open castle gate and into the forest beyond with the loud crack of a backfiring engine.

The echoes were still fading when a strident, and ever so slightly Scottish, female voice rang through the yard.

“Whate’er is the meaning of this?” McGonagall demanded as she burst out into the courtyard at a dead run followed quickly by several of her colleagues. As she caught sight of the still smoking teenagers slowly coming back to their senses, she arrived at a rough idea of the answer to her own question. “Misters Weasley! Ne’er in all my years has one of my students gone so far as to trigger the siege wards! This was several dozen steps too far for a prank, what do you have to say for yourselves?”

She trailed off as she drew closer to the still smoking pile. “Misters Weasley?”

She was answered by a groggy and disoriented groan.

“I see,” the stern Scotswoman said, voice falling back into a more normal stern tone. “Well, I suppose your punishment will have to wait until we get you both into Madame Pomfrey’s care.”

She motioned to Flitwick to take one of the boys while she levitated the other. For his part, Snape called for a house elf to handle the trunks.

And with that, the odd procession made its way through the castle toward to the Healer’s domain. The twin siblings slowly recovered, the process somewhat retarded by their gentle, yet still disorienting, swaying under the invisible influence of the professors’ levitation spells. Still, the brothers managed to come to their senses by the time they reached the doors of the Great Hall.

They were just in time to hear a godawful clamor arise from within.

“What now?” McGonagall asked the world at large as she hurried to the doorway before freezing in place, giving the pair of troublemakers a fine, if sideways, view of their handiwork.

The Great Hall was a sea of ginger.

Every student — barring a single black-haired, green-eyed Hufflepuff who had finally looked up from the contents of a certain leather portfolio and was now sporting a puzzled frown as he looked around the room — had been transformed into a perfect copy of either Fred or George Weasley, though none but the originals themselves would have been able to say which.

One Fred — who was standing near the head of the Gryffindor table and looked to have been giving a speech — reached up to grab a lock of his now-red hair and pull it down before his eyes. Staring for a moment in astonishment, he then let out a piercingly girlish shriek.

“My hair!”

“Filius?” the transfiguration mistress managed to find her voice.

“Yes, Minerva?” the half-goblin prompted; his beady black eyes focused unerringly on the increasingly shrill Fred panicking about the state of his hair.

“Is that…?” she began before trailing off, unable to find the words.

“Gilderoy?” the diminutive Professor finished for her, sounding thoroughly amused. “Yes, I do believe it is.”

“I see,” the stern Scotswoman managed, her voice oddly clipped, as if sternly suppressing some sort of response.

“Off to the infirmary, then?” her much more obviously mirthful companion asked.

“Aye, that we should.”

Oblivious to their professors, the two still-levitated twins surveyed the results of their handiwork.

“Fred,” George whispered, awestruck.

“Yes, George?” Fred replied in kind.

“That was glorious,” the first twin breathed.

“It was, George,” Fred acknowledged. “Truly, it was.”

3.6.5 Trials of a magical education

“Well, I suppose that answers my question,” Abigail sighed, her voice sounding quite disconcertingly different than she was used to.

She pulled down a lock of her now-red hair to examine it in detail as a few of the remaining staff, led by Sprout and Pomfrey, worked to restore some semblance of order to the Great Hall. As far as pranks went, this one seemed relatively benign. It was irritating, certainly, but not terribly damaging. Temporary transfigurations were a known, and sadly all too common hazard when dealing with the Weasley twins... and magic in general, for that matter.

Looking out over the confused sea of ginger, though, the seventh-year girl had to admit, the scope of the prank was thoroughly impressive. The twin hellions had managed to get almost everyone, even some of the staff. Of course, they’d dropped the ball with Harry, but she was happy to give the twins a pass on that one. Anything that could unwillingly transfigure a dragon of her friend’s stature was terrifying to imagine, even as a hypothetical concept.

Imagining such a thing in the possession of the twin terrors was something she refused even to consider.

Shaking her head, Abigail returned her attention to her plate, now thankfully filled with the usual Hogwarts fare, and tucked in. No sense worrying too much about it, the prank would either wear off or the professors would figure out how to fix it. They always did, eventually. Abigail just had to hope they figured it out before it was time to hit the showers for the evening.

If they didn’t, personal hygiene would necessitate certain firsts she had been hoping to save for her wedding night.

3.6.6 Staff reflections

Nearly two and a half hours later, the four Heads and the Headmaster gathered in the latter’s office to briefly touch base before heading off to the usual start-of-term scheduling meeting with the remainder of the staff.

“What have you learned?” the Headmaster began without preamble; they were in a bit of a hurry after all.

The excitement of the evening had thrown a rather significant wrench in the works for the start of the term, and all but Pomona Sprout — who had stayed to watch over the students — had been forced to skip out on the feast to deal with the chaos. As a result, they were all more than a little hungry — and consequently more than a little cranky.

“The feast was rather subdued,” Pomona volunteered. “Many of the students were understandably quite concerned about their transformations. Thankfully, they reverted shortly after ten o’clock. Had the effects lasted much longer, I’m quite certain there would have been a great deal of panic. Do we have any idea of what happened?”

“I know the Weasley twins did something at King’s Cross,” Minerva explained. “Though, I must confess, I was unable to follow their explanation of how they managed to accomplish the results they did using a potion of all things.” The Scotswoman shook her head. “If only they applied themselves so well in class…”

“Oh, they will,” the sallow Head of Slytherin proclaimed darkly. He had been privately fuming since he had listened in on the explanation in the infirmary. “I will make certain of it.”

“Oh?” the transfiguration mistress asked her colleague in surprise. “It is unlike you to take such a personal interest, Severus. What has changed?”

“Those two irresponsible, cack-handed buffoons recklessly endangered the entire student body — even many of their parents!” the man bit off the words with his even-whiter-than-usual lips, clearly incensed. “They modified the portal using a customized polyjuice variant of their own concoction.”

“However did they manage the application?” Albus spoke up curiously as the potions master paused for breath. “As I recall, the maintenance access is heavily warded, and the security sweeps would have…”

“They used contagion,” Snape spat.

The headmaster’s normally calm eyes widened in shock for a moment before his expression darkened. “On the portal enchantment?” At Snape’s nod, he sighed. “Will a quarantine be necessary?”

“For the portal? Most certainly — I have already taken the liberty of alerting law enforcement. As for the victims, thankfully not,” the dark man said, “but only by the grace of whatever deity is puerile enough to waste its time watching over this pathetic society. Between their choice of a lunar trigger and several odd substitutions I can only assume were made due to budgetary constraints, the effects will fade before the next lunar cycle can reinforce them.”

The aged headmaster collapsed back into his chair with an explosive sigh of relief.

“What exactly do you mean by ‘contagion’, Severus?” Flitwick asked curiously. “The term is familiar, but I am afraid the context is not.”

“It is an obscure method used only very occasionally in potioneering,” the dark man explained. “The potion is deliberately left in an incomplete and volatile state and is then brought into contact with an active magical construct. The interaction between the two produces the final effect, essentially imbuing the targeted construct — and anything with which it comes in contact — with the magic of the potion.”

The half-goblin winced. “That sounds… unpleasant to deal with. Wouldn’t that burn right through most containment spells?”

“Almost all of them,” Snape agreed flatly. “And the effects themselves can be enormously intractable for similar reasons. For example, if we make the very strong assumption that every other part of the procedure would remain unchanged, we can conclude that had the twin menaces not used the lunar trigger — thus building an off-switch explicitly into the magic rather than relying on the body’s natural resistance to expel the effect over time as normal polyjuice does — the transformations would have been practically irreversible, with the contagion rewriting the body’s magic to retain its new form of its own accord.”

Heedless of his colleagues’ collective wince, the potions master went on, “Worse yet, had the potion been even slightly more potent — a circumstance which was likely avoided only due to the perpetrators’ dismal lack of funding — the effects would have lasted long enough to trigger again on the next lunar cycle, reinforcing the effect.”

“Self-reinforcing on a lunar trigger… so, we might have had…” Sprout trailed off, unwilling to voice the obvious conclusion.

“Yes,” Severus said flatly, “we narrowly avoided the creation of were-Weasleys — in all likelihood complete with an infectious bite, given the volatile nature of contagion. It is still an open debate in the potions community whether lycanthropy is a naturally-occurring disease or the result of an ancient incident very similar to this one.”

“It should come as little surprise that most potions masters go far out of their way to avoid ever even peripherally touching on the subject,” the sallow man continued. “The practice is spectacularly unlikely to work as intended simply because of the complexity of the interactions involved, and even when it does, the slightest oversight in planning can have devastating results. As it is, the Misters Weasley appear to have had several distinct aspects of their folly interfere constructively to our benefit.”

“Where on earth did they come across such a dangerous technique, anyway?” McGonagall asked. “Given your reaction, I hardly think they would have learned it in one of your fourth-year lectures.”

“Contagion is most often used in cursebreaking as a means of corrupting existing wards away from their original purposes, opening them up to manipulation by other, more reliable means,” Snape explained. “In that case, the targets are usually so optimized that nearly any shift away from their intended purpose will result in a simpler situation for the cursebreaker, and when the desired result is simply ‘anything different from what it is now’ even something as unreliable as contagion can be a useful tactic. However, ‘reliable enough for cursebreaking’ is a far cry from what most anyone else would consider sane. After all, most everything involved in cursebreaking…”

Flitwick, already nodding along, completed the statement, “…is exceedingly dangerous — particularly when performed by a pair of amateurs in a crowded train station involving a portal through which hundreds of children will pass during the course of the day.”

The room fell silent for a moment as the three Heads who had not known the stakes from the word ‘contagion’ came to fully appreciate just how lucky they had been.

“What are we going to do with those two?” McGonagall asked, her lips thinned and nearly white with disapproval. Her initial exasperation had only worsened during her colleague’s explanation of the risks inherent in the situation. “Detention seems wholly inadequate in this case, yet I am reluctant to expel the boys…” The Scotswoman turned to her sallow-faced colleague who was normally quick to jump on any mention of expulsion, particularly regarding pranksters and troublemakers.

The man in question’s visage twisted with a pained grimace. “As odd as the reversal of our usual roles is in this case, Minerva, I am afraid I cannot recommend expulsion. This last action, foolish and ill-advised as it was, has proven that the little monsters are sufficiently talented that cutting them off from further instruction would simply make them more dangerous, not less. They are accomplished enough to cause major damage, and with this they have proven they are thoughtless enough to barge into such course of action with nary a thought to the potential consequences. I refuse to allow any student of mine to pass from my hands in such a state.”

The bearded headmaster spoke up from his contemplative silence at hearing his subordinate’s tone. “What then do you suggest, Severus?”

“I shall supervise their detentions,” the dark man said, with the quietly dignified air of a soldier volunteering to face the oncoming barbarian hordes alone. “Indefinitely. They will have served their punishment when I am satisfied that they are sufficiently well-trained to know better than to attempt such a thing again. Until then, I will ensure that they have no idle time to involve themselves in such pursuits.”

The Hufflepuff Head let out a long whistle. “You’ll have your work cut out for you there, Severus. Teaching the Weasley twins restraint seems a tad…” she trailed off searching for the appropriate word.

“Sisyphean?” Flitwick volunteered from his chair.

“Exactly,” the other two Heads chorused in unison.

3.6.7 Advanced flight lessons

Though the clouds still raced across the sky driven by the tireless winds blowing in from the north Atlantic, they were no longer visible from the ground as the moon had long since set, and the vast majority of the student body had settled in to their various accommodations. After a little less than an hour and still well before the feast had ended, the transformations had ended without incident, and being students enrolled in a magical school, few bore anything more than lingering annoyance at their unexpected temporary ginger-ification.

All but one of the students went off in good spirits, bedding down quickly to sleep off the excitement — as well as the usual range of gastrointestinal consequences of their overindulgence at the feast — and prepare for the beginning of the school year.

That one student, however, remained hard at work under the cloudy and moonless sky, awkwardly puzzling over an assortment of crates strewn about a clearing in the depths of the Black Woods.

During the feast, the newly established Hogsmeade branch of Gringotts had discreetly delivered the sizeable contents of the last two cargo wagons on the Express to the clearing below Harry’s Lair. Of course, without ground access to the Lair, they could take the heavy cargo no further, and the young dragon found himself awkwardly trying to work out how to get the things up into his Lair.

“Huh,” Harry muttered into the darkness of the clearing. The currently moonless night ensuring that the Black Woods lived up to their name. “I hadn’t thought this stuff would be so big.”

Early in the summer, Harry had gone a bit wild with his newfound financial liquidity and a few industrial equipment catalogs, making several purchases that seemed useful for his continued experiments. The combination welder and diesel generator he’d been able to carry up easily enough — it had only been about the size of a compact car — but the combination CNC lathe and mill was proving to be more of a challenge.

In a fit of childish enthusiasm, the young dragon had picked the biggest and best model he could find — a selection criterion which made for a very large device indeed in the world of computer-controlled machining equipment. He hadn’t realized it would be slightly larger than he was when fully assembled, and even when shipped partially assembled… well, the largest of those crates was nearly the size of Harry’s torso.

Harry grabbed onto the top of that largest crate, one great clawed hand at either end of the massive wood and steel box and shifted the whole thing experimentally. He could certainly handle the weight easily enough — the box contained the main chassis, so it was mostly empty-space; it couldn’t possibly weigh more than seven or eight tons — but how on earth was he supposed to take off while carrying it? It was wide enough to risk interfering with his wings if he tried.

“Huh,” the dragon huffed again in consternation, sitting back on his haunches and scratching at his head for a moment before looking up at the Lair entrance over a hundred feet off the ground. “Maybe some kind of pulley so I could drag it up there? I’d bet Mr. Ronan would let me borrow some of their rope.” A glance at the broken rocks at the foot of the cliff and the soft, muddy streambed before it disabused him of that notion. Dragging precision equipment through that was just begging for problems.

“Huh,” Harry said for the third time.

Hermione might have had an idea, but she was already asleep in anticipation of the start of classes the next day. The only reason Harry hadn’t sought his own bed was because he’d insisted on getting his new toys — tools, he meant tools — delivered that night, and he couldn’t very well leave the things out in the open. What if it rained or something?

“Levitation, maybe?” he muttered.

Pulling out his wand — those auto-resizing wrist holsters really lived up to the advertising — Harry ran through the motions and levitated a small boulder from the scree at the base of the cliff. Despite the human-designed implement looking utterly absurd in his draconic hand, he managed to hold it steady for a few seconds before his control slipped, and the boulder shot off down the glen on a ballistic trajectory. Past experience told him it would probably be landing in the sound — one time he’d managed to skip one halfway to Skye.

“Not yet.”

It wouldn’t do to lose control when moving these things around. They were precision parts, and even the slightest bend on one of them might necessitate months’ worth of recalibration and repair, tens of thousands of galleons worth of replacement parts, or — in the more likely case — both.

Harry was rich, but he wouldn’t stay that way for long if he started throwing money away.

The young dragon flopped down on the ground and let out a whistling sigh of exasperation, his irritation lending a flicker of flame to the exhalation. What on earth was he going to do?

As if in response to the thought, another flame flared up in the clearing and chirped at him questioningly.

“Oh, hey, Fawkes! How are you?” Harry asked, already somewhat cheered by the arrival of the phoenix.

The living flame chirped back happily.

“Glad to hear it,” Harry said warmly. “What brings you to visit?”

The avian flame pecked insistently at the still-smoldering grass which had been caught in Harry’s earlier exasperated sigh before looking at the dragon leadingly.

“Oh! Sure, we can do that,” the dragon said in sudden realization before he let loose with a stream of flame in earnest, the glaring blue-white inferno washing over the fire-bird, flashing off the damp grass below and behind the bird in a puff of steam and hammering the newly-bare dirt. Fawkes trilled in pleasure.

Some five seconds later, the flame cut out, leaving the merrily burning phoenix as the only source of light in the suddenly much darker-seeming clearing. Fawkes shook himself for a moment before sounding an appreciative chirp.

“You’re welcome!” Harry replied enthusiastically. “I’m always happy to help out a friend, especially when it’s so simple.”

Fawkes replied with an inquiring whistle.

“What am I doing?” Harry confirmed the question. “Well, I’m trying to get these crates up into the Lair,” he gestured with one of his forepaws to the large pile of goods. “Thing is, some of them are too bulky for me to hold safely and take off with, and I’m not sure how to go about doing it.”

The living flame let loose an incredulous cackling sort of sound before voicing an intricate series of clicks and whistles.

“Hovering?” the dragon said with a puzzled frown. “How would that be any easier than taking off…” He was interrupted by another rapid-fire series of clicks. “What do you mean, ‘you can do that without using your wings’?”

Fawkes half-hopped and half-glided over to one of the smaller crates before gripping one of the anchor points used load it with a crane firmly in his talons. The fire-bird then firmly folded its flaming wings on its back before both it and the crate began rising smoothly into the air. Fawkes got about ten feet into the air before settling gently back down with the crate clunking on the soft earth. He hopped off and gave a one-winged gesture that could mean nothing other than “Now you give it a try.”

The dragon, for his part, was looking at the phoenix with open wonder. “Wow! How did you do that?”

Fawkes chirped again impatiently.

“‘I already do it’?” Harry repeated dubiously. “I’m pretty sure I’ve never done something like that before?”

Another chirp.

“I already do it to supplement my wings when I fly?” the dragon asked. “But how do I do it without my wings?”

The phoenix hopped up again and glided to a stop on Harry’s back, right over his spine. The bird pecked at the dragon’s spinal ridge, once on one side, and once on the other, before sending a pointed stare at the green eye turned back to watch what it was doing.

Harry thought for a moment. “Oh! You mean those not-rocket thingies Madame Pomfrey told me about!” The fire-bird gave a moderately exasperated-sounding twitter. “What? I didn’t know I was using those already!” the young dragon defended himself. “And if I was using ‘em accidentally, I have no idea how to just push with ‘em! I mean, how do I just use those thingies?”

Fawkes nodded his relatively small head at that as he hunched his neck in consideration for a few minutes while pacing back and forth along the dragon’s spine. Harry spent the time slowly flapping his wings and attempting to isolate what he was doing with his other flight organs at the same time.

It proved to be a fruitless endeavor for the young dragon.

Eventually however, the friendly fire-bird let out a triumphant squawk, recapturing the attention of his draconic friend.

The immortal flame had an idea.

Three minutes of explanation and another two of shuffling had the darkened clearing playing host to an exceedingly odd tableau. The phoenix had resumed his perch on Harry’s spine between his wings, but now the dragon was splayed out across the of the clearing, all six limbs, neck, and tail lying limply on the grass. He looked for all the world like the most terrifying rug in all of God’s creation.

“You sure this’ll work?” Harry mumbled to his avian friend. “I feel kinda silly.”

Fawkes gave an ambivalent tweet in response and rocked back and forth on his talons.

“Well, I guess there’s only one way to find out,” the currently pinned dragon opined. “Go ahead.”

And with that, the phoenix pushed once more — this time in reverse — driving the silvery dragon even deeper into the loam. For his part, Harry struggled to push back without using any of his limbs, not that he could get purchase with them in any case. With his limbs splayed out as they were, he couldn’t get nearly enough leverage to push back against the unnaturally strong magical fire-bird pinning him down.

As Harry fought back against the already crushing — and ever-increasing — weight of his fiery friend, he reflexively scrabbled for purchase against the soft dirt of the clearing but found none. Eventually, though, he flailed about enough to find what he was after; a slight lessening of the pressure against his breastbone let Harry know he had hit upon the right thing to do. He closed his eyes to concentrate, and he repeated it, varying his efforts slightly as he homed in on the proper effort to exert until he finally started to consistently push back against Fawkes’ artificially enhanced weight.

Then, just as he managed to counter the crushing force exerted by the phoenix, Harry had the bright idea to throw as much effort as he could into this new endeavor.

As the young dragon dumped far more energy into his flight organs than he ever had before, the edges of his spinal scales reflected a greenish-white light from the glowing skin beneath as magic coursed along either side of the ridge of his spine, and Fawkes let out a startled squawk as the phoenix was suddenly flattened against the dragon’s back by the unexpected acceleration.

Wind whistled around the pair as they precipitously gained altitude for the better part of five seconds before Harry finally realized he was no longer lying on the clearing floor and opened his eyes — only to see the clouds spread out below him, faintly illuminated by the stars above.

“What?” the young dragon exclaimed looking at the scene for a moment in consternation before realizing he was the better part of half a mile in the air. Harry traced a still-rising ballistic trajectory for a few seconds as he lost concentration before his wings firmed up and snapped as they caught the wind, flight organs seamlessly picking up the slack that the wind couldn’t support just as they had before, with just one small change.

Now the young dragon could feel them.

It was an unqualified success!

“Thanks, Fawkes!” Harry called out to his fiery passenger, who gave a tired chirp of acknowledgement as he hunkered down on the dragon’s back to stay out of the wind and rest from his exertions even as the pair glided back towards the still-darkened clearing.

As he settled in for a landing smoother than he had ever managed before, the young dragon’s eyes narrowed in realization, “Hey! Is that how you always managed to win in our games of tag?”

Fawkes hopped off and shot his draconic friend an exasperated sort of glare accompanied by a honk that seemed to imply that that should have been obvious.

“Well, I didn’t know, okay,” Harry said defensively. “I’ll definitely win next time, though!”

The phoenix sounded off with a tired, but still patronizing, trill before abruptly flaming away.

The dragon stared after the bird for a few moments before letting out a snort — a non-flammable one this time — and turning back to the massive shipping crate with a grin.

The rest of the night passed with no further frustrations.

 

3.7 Crime and punishment

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3.7.1 An unpleasant morning

The first rays of morning light filtered through a window of leaded glass, casting a distorted network of shadows across the eclectic contents the Hogwarts Headmaster’s private suite. The dappled light roused said Headmaster gently to wakefulness, and Albus Dumbledore immediately set about preparing for the day. Such had been his custom for the better part of a century, nearly half of it while occupying the very same suite.

This morning was not the first time the old man had had cause to regret the habit, but it was a paragon of the breed. The previous night had been truly unpleasant.

His new Defense professor stealing the spotlight during the opening feast — and more importantly, delaying the food for the hungry children after their long day traveling — had been just the tip of an iceberg of irritation. The Weasley twins triggering the castle siege wards had easily topped that, and then before the staff could handle that bit of mischief, their transformation prank had come to light in spectacular fashion.

The means the boys employed had necessitated immediate contact with law enforcement — including the Department of Mysteries, of all the bloody irritations — to contain the problem before it could cause greater troubles for the wizarding public. At least Minerva had been able to handle contacting the boys’ parents in his stead — that had been a relief.

Then had come the blasted staff meeting.

With the investigation into Mr. Potter’s transformation mostly suspended until the winter break, the core classes had reverted to the traditionally divided scheduling, and with that shift had come increased scheduling pressure. In a sharp contrast to the previous year, fights among the staff over class scheduling had been vicious, yet Gilderoy Lockhart had somehow managed to eke out an open schedule on Monday and Friday and restrict all his classes to either late morning or early afternoon on the other three days.

How the man managed to finagle a four-day weekend and a half-day schedule for the rest was beyond the aging headmaster’s understanding. Even he hadn’t managed that back when he was in the scrum, particularly not as a new hire!

In any event, the scheduling meeting had been long and hard-fought, and Albus had only managed to put his elderly bones down to rest two short hours before the sun had prodded him back into wakefulness. He therefore found it thoroughly unpleasant to be greeted by an unexpected and irritable voice as soon as he entered his office proper.

“Headmaster, we need to have a bit of a conversation about keeping promises,” the Sorting Hat’s gravelly voice ground out.

Oh, botheration!

3.7.2 Parent-teacher conference – redux

Barely seven months had passed, yet once more a familiar scene played out bright and early in the morning. Once again, Arthur Weasley found himself walking along the path to the main gates of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It seemed the boys hadn’t even had the decency to give him a full year before raising enough of a ruckus to drag him in to the school for another parent-teacher conference.

Not that he had expected anything else after the twins had stolen the family car.

In all honesty, the late-night floo call had come as a relief to both Arthur and his wife, informing them as it did that their troublesome boys had made it to school at least mostly safe, despite their current knotty predicament. Between the late-night timing and Minerva’s tone during the floo call, Arthur held little hope that the reasons would be even half as benign as those which had brought him to the school on Ronald’s behalf the previous school year.

The Weasley patriarch was met at the castle door by an unusually stern-looking Minerva McGonagall. There was nothing of the subtle amusement and pride that had been lurking around the edges of her expression when he had last seen her. No, this time, Arthur saw traces of barely-suppressed irritation and even hints of outright anger, which was a first for his interactions with the Scotswoman. Even though she hid it well in the interest of maintaining discipline among the students, Minerva was usually at least a little amused at the boys’ antics.

Arthur sighed, anticipating that this would be an unpleasant ordeal.

When the transfiguration mistress led him to a conference room where both the Headmaster and a seething Severus Snape awaited, that anticipation worsened.

By the time the potions master explained just what sort of trouble the boys had managed to get themselves into, that anticipation crystallized into certainty.

This was not going to be an enjoyable conversation for anyone involved.

3.7.3 Buyer’s remorse

Two identical pairs of brown eyes locked on the retreating back of Arthur Weasley as he left the Hogwarts infirmary. Those twin sets of eyes remained locked on the door long after it had closed behind the man, their owners frozen in mortification. That had been an outcome they had never anticipated — though to be fair, the twin brothers hadn’t realized just how risky their actions during the prank had been. Over the years, the twin pranksters had seen enough examples to fancy themselves connoisseurs of angry parental expressions, and they had developed a finely-tuned ability to judge just how far they could push things while still remaining in general good graces.

This time, however, they might just have pushed too far.

It was one thing to face a disappointed and angry father who was manfully suppressing his amusement at his sons’ antics. It was quite another to face a disappointed and angry father who was manfully suppressing his worry that his sons might well have gotten into trouble too deep for him to pull them out.

That was an expression that neither of the twins ever wanted to see on their father’s face again.

“George,” Fred eventually began, “you know when you said you weren’t sure about going out behind our parents’ backs to do the prank?”

“Yeah, Fred,” George replied. “I remember.”

“Next time I try to brush off that objection, hit me,” Fred requested. “Really hard.”

“You got it, brother,” his twin agreed. “Might kick you too, just to be sure.”

“Good idea, George,” Fred acknowledged. “I never want to see Dad looking like that again — though, on the bright side, I do believe we have regained our title as the chief troublemakers in the family.”

“No contest there,” George acknowledged with a wince. “Might have graduated to ‘black sheep’, though. Bit of a step too far, I’d say.”

“No question of that,” Fred acknowledged, thinking back on his father’s words and, more importantly, his expression. “Definitely a step too far. Though, when Snape was talking about teaching us until he was sure we knew enough not to cause that much trouble again… didn’t that sound kind of like an apprenticeship to you?” As his twin nodded, Fred continued, “Seems like it wasn’t all bad.”

“It does seem that that is the case, brother,” George acknowledged slowly. “Though I’d point out, if anyone would know how to turn an apparent reward into a punishment straight out of the depths of Hell, it’d probably be Snape.”

Both brothers shuddered at the idea — it seemed all too likely.

3.7.4 Unwelcome changes

It had been a decidedly odd morning for Hermione.

She had awoken in her bedroom bright-eyed and eager for the start of classes, gotten ready, and then gone to check on Harry only to find the big lug passed out in dragon form surrounded by packing crates, weird mechanical bits, and a massive stack of three-ring binders, one of which was draped over his muzzle.

After scolding her friend for pulling an all-nighter right before the first day of classes, Hermione had rushed him through getting ready and they had set off for the school with Suze in tow. They had made their way along the same familiar paths to which she had become accustomed the previous year, and they arrived at the Great Hall for breakfast only a tad later than normal.

Then the schedules had arrived.

Upon receiving her class schedule for the year, Hermione had immediately rushed over to her friend at the Hufflepuff table to compare, only to learn a shocking truth.

“What do you mean we don’t share any classes?” she yelped.

“Sorry,” her friend said, visibly uncomfortable at her distress. “That’s what the schedule says.”

“Usually, the Gryffies get paired with the Snakes, and we get put with the Ravens,” Cedric chimed in helpfully from across the table. “Not sure what was different last year, but the whole ‘put everyone together in one big class’ was really weird. Guess whatever it was is done with now, and they set the schedules back to normal.”

“But… but,” the bushy-haired girl sputtered, mentally scrabbling for a way to put the reasons for her distress into words, “who am I going to sit with in class if Harry isn’t there?”

“I’m sure you’ll figure something out,” Susan chimed in warmly, trying to reassure her troubled friend. “You can think of it as an opportunity to make new friends!”

“Yeah! You can never have enough friends,” Susan’s constant companion, Hannah, chimed in as well. “Plus, you can always study with us outside of class, we still cover the same material, I think.”

“Well, I guess,” Hermione said dubiously. “I still don’t like this, though.”

“What’s not to like?” a familiar voice interjected.

“Good morning, Abigail!” Hermione greeted her friend, momentarily cheered. “Um, I was just looking at Harry’s schedule, and…”

“And you found out they moved back to the standard scheduling, right?” the older girl asked.

At Hermione’s confirming nod, she continued, “Well, like Abbot there said, we’ll just have to get together outside class.” The seventh-year shrugged, “Not like you’re supposed to be socializing in class anyway.”

“I suppose,” the bushy-haired girl grumbled, scowling as she reached for Harry’s schedule again. “I still don’t like it, though.”

3.7.5 Rumors

While Hermione Granger was quietly panicking about not sharing any classes with her friends, the rest of the student body went about their own business, some of which was rather unusual.

“Professor McGonagall?”

“Yes, Mr. Weasley?” the transfiguration mistress acknowledged.

“Would you like me to deliver my brothers’ schedules to them in the infirmary?” the sixth-year prefect asked. Doing so was, while not exactly his personal duty, something that he thought it appropriate to offer. They were his brothers, after all, and he was a prefect.

It certainly was not an attempt to inquire after the truth of all those rumors about his little brothers being expelled.

Not in the slightest.

“That will not be necessary, Mr. Weasley,” the Scotswoman declined.

Percy gulped in subdued apprehension. Had there had been more substance to those rumors than he had thought?

“Professor Snape will be delivering their schedules personally,” McGonagall continued prompting Percy to sigh in relief. “He has graciously volunteered to oversee your brothers’ punishment for their recent misbehavior personally, and their schedules have been adjusted to properly allow for that.”

“I see,” Percy said with a nod as he turned to head for the exit. “Thank you for your time, Professor.”

The twins surely deserved whatever punishment they were going to get, he thought with a nod. Percy would have tried to do something if they were getting expelled; he wasn’t sure exactly what, but he’d have thought of something. They weren’t, though, so it was a moot point, and there was no reason for him to get involved any further in their mess.

Particularly not now. It was time for class, after all.

3.7.6 Punishment?

“I suppose I should welcome you back for another year of instruction in the great and dangerous art of potions,” Professor Snape drawled as he came to a stop from his usual dramatic pacing before the class in the dungeons. “Ideally, we would pick up where we left at the end of the previous term, but long and bitter experience has taught me well that the indolence and irresponsibility of your summer repose will have pushed all thought of basic safety precautions and potions skill clear out of your vacant skulls. Thus, we will begin the term with a remedial lecture.”

All told, it was a fairly normal beginning to any class with Professor Snape, Hermione thought even as she paid close attention to the review lecture. The gruff manner and liberal sprinkling of insults were almost reassuringly familiar, but there was one thing, a singular change that Hermione was just dying to ask about at the first opportunity.

“In conclusion, for no reason whatsoever will I tolerate tomfoolery of any sort in this laboratory!” the potions master concluded. “Have I made myself exquisitely clear?”

The bushy-haired second year raised her hand.

“Yes, Miss Granger?” the sallow-faced man acknowledged with a raised eyebrow, clearly not expecting a question so early from one of his most attentive students.

“Professor,” she greeted. “Why are the Weasley twins standing up there with you?”

The man’s eyes widened in realization. “Yes, I suppose that would prompt a few questions, particularly with the accompanying injunction against tomfoolery on my part,” he nodded in acknowledgement. “Your elder colleagues, the Misters Weasley, engaged in some spectacularly asinine behavior recently, the results of which you all experienced yesterday evening.”

This prompted a susurration of low conversation throughout the room before Snape’s voice easily powered through the low murmur. “Careful consideration was given to their punishment for the various irresponsible stunts they pulled, and I am afraid that the administration of the sentence has fallen to me. Among other things, the two will be serving as my teaching assistants for the next several years, and their schedules have been rearranged to allow for such.” The man looked intently at the bushy-haired girl. “Does that satisfy your curiosity, Miss Granger?”

“Yes, Professor Snape,” she replied dubiously, clearly still questioning the situation but unwilling to voice anything further.

“Very well,” the potions master nodded in acknowledgement. “Now, direct your attention to the board at my left. Today we will be brewing the calming draught. Timing and stirring patterns are of particular importance in this brew as, aside from the usual collection of caustic and explosive failure modes, this particular potion can be completed to multiple end products depending entirely on preparation timing and stirring.”

As his students diligently took notes, the sallow-faced man continued, “Completed as described in the instructions on the board, the potion will turn robin’s egg blue under torchlight — changing to orange-standard 14 under sunlight — and will produce a temporary state of calm in the recipient, the duration of which is determined by the size of the dose. Completed in a slightly different manner — namely, if you stir for slightly too long immediately after adding the chamomile extract — it will be the same color under torchlight but will turn orange-standard 11 under sunlight.”

His face took on a pinched expression of distaste as he continued, “This product will induce a state of hyper-aggression in the recipient, rather than calm. The duration of the effect has never been measured, as it has so far proven impossible to safely restrain the subject long enough for them to recover. Such attempts generally end with the subject lethally injuring themselves while attempting to kill everyone in the vicinity. The sunlight color test is the only known way to tell the potions apart prior to taking them. I have chosen this particular potion as an excellent example of the subtle complexities of the art as we continue into the higher echelons.”

“You will note,” Snape shot the entire class a steady glower, “further research into the aggression draught has been forbidden for nearly a century, and intentionally brewing it without first obtaining special permission and oversight from the potions guild carries a hefty legal penalty, as does improper disposal of a batch brewed in error.”

Maintaining the glower for a few more moments, Snape then went on. “Now, we begin with a myrtlesap base. Can anyone tell me why we have chosen myrtlesap rather than water?”

From there the lesson continued, keeping Hermione far too busy to wonder further about the red-haired teaching assistants and their so-called punishment.

3.7.7 A practical lesson?

Currently in human-shape, Harry bounced through the door of the Defense classroom — literally, his control exercises continued apace, and Mrs. McGonagall had forbidden him from doing the arms-on-fire thing in class shortly after he had figured out how to do it — eager to see what the new professor had to offer.

The young dragon hadn’t been terribly impressed by the man during their encounter in the Alley, and his books seemed an odd choice for scholarly reading material. They actually worked fairly well as adventure novellas, solidly written and fairly engaging, but not particularly easy to teach from or go back and reference in Harry’s estimation; however, the young dragon was willing to give the man the benefit of the doubt.

Perhaps he was going to use some unusual teaching method? Maybe something based more on stories than lectures? Harry nodded to himself at that idea. It could work. He liked stories, so that might be fun. Magorian managed well using that medium, too, so it was certainly possible.

In any case, Harry eagerly looked forward to learning from yet another new person even as he bounced to a stop at his seat.

Shortly thereafter, Lockhart emerged from his private office at the top of a set of stairs to one side of the room and paused dramatically at the landing. “Allow me introduce you to your new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher,” he intoned dramatically after a momentary pause to allow everyone time to notice him. “Me. Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, third class, honorary member of the Dark Force Defense League, and five-times winner of Witch Weekly’s Most-Charming-Smile Award.”

As said award-winning smile flashed, Harry sniffed in confusion as the scents of several of his female classmates changed subtly. A quick glance around the room showed many of them to have slightly flushed skin with a number sighing about something or other.

What was that all about?

Waiting just long enough for the fluttering sighs to begin to wind down, Lockhart continued. “But I don’t talk about that — I didn’t get rid of the Bandon banshee by smiling at her, after all!” There was an answering titter of high, girlish laughter when the handsome professor chuckled at his own joke.

“Now then, we will begin. I do hope you have read the required reading list, because we will be leading off with a quiz!” The blond man began handing out parchments.

Harry nodded amiably. That seemed like a reasonable way to start out the year, and he had certainly done the reading. On reading the questions, though, Harry’s eager enthusiasm began to wane.

With questions ranging from Gilderoy Lockhart’s favorite color to what he wanted for his birthday, the quiz seemed to be something of a joke. Sure, Harry could see how they worked as reading-comprehension questions, a sort of spot-check on whether you’d read the books or not — Harry had, which was why he could answer the silly things — but it didn’t ask about relevant stuff, like what sorts of creatures he faced or where he encountered them. It seemed like a poor choice to him.

Maybe the professor was just bad at writing quizzes?

Harry hoped that was the case, or this was going to be a long year.

After collecting the completed quizzes, the man spent some time going over the answers for those who had missed questions. Along the way, he made a point to peddle several of his hygiene products along the way, from hair care to tooth whitening, which Harry considered to be a plus. After his lessons with Mr. Slackhammer, that sort of economic opportunism was an attitude Harry could respect. It continued until he finally made an announcement that caught Harry’s attention.

“Now be warned,” Lockhart intoned in a stentorian voice, “it is my job to arm you against the foulest of creatures known to wizardkind.”

He turned to walk to a side table and retrieve a wooden crate with a solid-looking hinged door on the front and studded with iron reinforcements. If not for the wood, Harry would have thought it looked rather scrumptious. Maybe the contents would be tasty? Harry settled in to stare at the door with a hungry sort of light in his eyes.

It had been almost three hours since breakfast.

“You may find yourself facing your worst fears in this room,” Lockhart continued dramatically as he placed the box down on his desk at the front of the room. “Know only that no harm can befall you while I am here. I must ask you not to scream,” his voice dropped to a stage whisper. “It might provoke them.”

Then he threw open the door on the crate, and a small humanoid figure stepped out to stand on the table.

The tiny, blue, winged creature paused for a moment to look around the room.

“Cornish pixies?” one of the Ravenclaws demanded incredulously. “After all that build-up?”

“Laugh if you will,” Lockhart scoffed, “but pixies can be devilishly tricky little…”

The blond man trailed off as the pixie in question flinched. Its scanning gaze had finally encountered an answering one from Harry Potter, and showing uncommonly good sense for a pixie, the tiny blue man cautiously backed up a few steps before pulling a full about-face and half-sprinting, half-flying for the open door of the crate. Upon reaching it, he shoved several of its compatriots back into the box before grabbing the crate door from the inside and slamming it quite emphatically shut.

“What in Merlin’s name was that about?” Lockhart wondered aloud.

Harry could only look after the small creature with a forlorn expression on his currently human face.

It really had looked delicious.

3.7.8 Library meeting

“Lockhart is so bloody useless!” Abigail vented as loudly as she dared while a guest in Madame Pince’s domain.

Friday had rolled around, bringing the first week of classes to a close, and the rainy afternoon found Abigail meeting with Harry and his damsels for a study session. In truth, it was more of an excuse for socialization, but to be fair, they did get a fair bit of work done in the process.

“That hardly seems fair,” Hermione protested her senior’s assessment. “Sure, the books are kind of poorly chosen, and the quiz at the beginning was more about reading comprehension than defense,” she allowed. “But he led off the year with a practical demonstration with real, live creatures! For the first day of class, that’s pretty impressive.”

“Were they pixies?” Abigail asked flatly.

The bushy-haired second-year nodded in confirmation. “Yes! They got into everything, and I ended up having to hit the whole lot with a wide-area immobilization charm. How did you guess?”

“Because he used exactly the same demonstration for us,” Abigail said flatly.

“Really?” Hermione frowned. “But you’re in seventh year.”

“Yes... yes, I am,” the older girl ground out. “Every other class has been hammering through a review of all our old material so that we can get down to business and prepare for the NEWTs. Every. Single. One. Except for Defense, where the professor has us on the very same lesson plan as the second years!”

“First years too,” Harry piped in. “Susan and Hannah were telling me about how they had to comfort some of the younger kids who were crying because they got tossed around in class.” His expression turned thoughtful. “Not sure why. The pixies went back into the box on their own in our class — heck, they refused to come out in the first place.” The currently human-shaped dragon shook his head dismissively, “Weird.”

“Right! So, he’s got us on a first-year curriculum, and that’s supposed to prepare us for our NEWTs!” Abigail allowed Harry’s lack of self-awareness to pass without comment; she had more pressing concerns. “The man’s a menace to proper education; we’ll never pass the Defense NEWT at this rate.” She sighed, “Why did I get stuck with the useless fop on my NEWT year? It’s just not fair!”

Hermione nodded sympathetically, “I know. Just look at what they did for the Weasley twins!”

“What about the Weasley twins?” Abigail asked curiously. “I hadn’t heard anything on that front.”

“They pulled off all those pranks and caused all that trouble at the opening feast, and then they got to be Professor Snape’s teaching assistants! Some of the older students even said he’s treating them a lot like apprentices,” Hermione huffed. “I mean, when you do bad things, you’re supposed to get punished, so why are they getting rewarded for it?”

“That does sound kind of odd,” Abigail agreed, “and it sounds really out of character for my Head of House. He’s not normally one to tolerate any foolishness, much less reward it.”

The table fell silent for a time as they considered that for a time before the centaur in the room spoke up.

“Mayhap it is a punishment disguised as a reward?” Suze ventured.

“What do you mean?” Hermione asked, puzzled. “How would that work?”

“Well, when Cousin Julius was young, he snuck out of camp to follow Father on a border patrol, and in his clumsiness, he managed to alert some of the spider plague to their presence. Several of our best warriors were gravely injured, and Father said that it was a close-fought battle to safely retreat. Grandfather was livid, but with so few able-bodied warriors, the Clan could not spare Julius, despite his recklessness, so Father took him on as a student with the intent of turning him into a competent warrior.”

The centaur maiden shuddered. “Father is the premier warrior of the Clan, and his tutelage is much sought after by the young colts, but I am certain Cousin Julius did not see it as a privilege. Father was very strict, much more so than normal. Perhaps Mr. Snape is handling the situation similarly.”

Hermione frowned. “It still seems unfair.”

“Maybe you should ask Professor Snape,” the dragon in the room suggested reasonably. “I mean, that’s the only way you’re going to figure it out for sure.”

“I already asked though, and he didn’t answer,” the bushy-haired girl most assuredly didn’t whine.

“Um, did you actually ask him, or did you just hint at it?” Harry asked. “Mr. Snape doesn’t like to pussyfoot around things, so you need to just ask outright if you want to know.”

Abigail nodded her agreement with that assessment as the currently human-shaped dragon continued.

“He’ll keep things to himself on principle otherwise. I mean, he might not answer you anyway if he doesn’t think he should, but hinting will just guarantee he never tells you anything.”

With that nugget of Snapely wisdom dispensed, Harry turned back to his current work, some arcane task which appeared to involve a fair bit of geometry and an absurdly complicated runic array, alongside which sat a huge list of apparently-randomly chosen letters and numbers arranged in regular groups. His compatriots followed suit shortly after, and for a long while, the only sounds to disturb the silence of the library were the pattering of rain on the outside of the stonework and the quiet scratching of quill on parchment until eventually, an outside interruption intruded itself.

“Mr. Potter?” Madame Pince had approached in her usual near silence.

“Uh-huh?” the dragon in question acknowledged absently. He looked up from his work after he finished the current line. “What do you need?”

Quirking an eyebrow at the informal address, the Hogwarts librarian decided not to make an issue of it. “The Headmaster has requested that you meet with him.”

“Huh,” Harry scratched his head. “Do you know what he wants?”

“I’m afraid not, Mr. Potter,” Madame Pince averred. “You will simply have to find out for yourself.”

“Okay,” the young dragon-in-human-form acknowledged with aplomb, gathering his effects as he made to stand up, an action immediately echoed by Suze. “Um, Hermione, did you want to stay here, or…”

“I’ll stay and try to finish my work for transfiguration,” came the bushy-haired girl’s reply.

“Okay,” Harry said brightly. “I’ll see you after I talk with Mr. Dumbledore, then. Bye, Hermione! Abigail!”

And with that, he and his centaur damsel were off to see the wizard.

3.7.9 Scheduling

“Ah, Mr. Potter, Miss Suze, welcome,” the Headmaster greeted warmly. “Do come in!”

“Hi, Mr. Dumbledore!” Harry answered brightly, while his damsel gave a warm smile and nod but remained otherwise silent. “What did you need to see me for?”

“I find myself in the position of delivering a request for your time on the behalf of a mutual acquaintance, Mr. Potter,” the elderly wizard began. “I’m afraid that the request has been much delayed due to my own negligence, but I was recently reminded rather forcefully.”

“Oh?” Harry asked, puzzled. “Who is it?

The Headmaster explained, and all was made clear.

“Monday, then?”

At Harry’s affirmative nod, the matter was settled.

 

3.8 Mentoring and advice

---

3.8.1 Picnic games

Saturday afternoon was clear, full of sun and blue skies with a stiff breeze in off the sound ruffling the heather of the moors as it blew inland. The conditions were brisk enough to warrant a coat though certainly not so cold as to be unpleasant.

All told, it was a perfect day for a picnic in the Scottish Highlands.

It was therefore unsurprising to find Hermione and Suze seated together on a blanket laid out on a grassy patch on the moor north of the Black Woods. A pair of picnic baskets held the remains of their lunch, and a large insulated carafe full of hot chocolate sat next to another full of tea in the middle of the blanket.

“This is nice,” Hermione commented to her fellow damsel as she took another sip of tea, her eyes focused on the bluish bulk of the Cuillins across the sound to the northwest. “It’s a beautiful day — too bad Abigail’s prefect duties kept her from coming.”

Her centaur counterpart took a sip of her own hot chocolate as she nodded in agreement. The drink was one for which she had acquired a taste during one of the Great Wyrm’s meetings with the goblins.

Harry found it a decent second choice as well, though he preferred a more traditional version — unsweetened with a healthy dash of cayenne pepper — being rather more partial to the subtle bitterness of the cocoa than the sugary sweetness of the more modern variants. That preference had led to the third, already emptied, carafe stowed away in the picnic basket.

Of course, the dragon still preferred goblin tea as his hot drink of choice; however, it had the unfortunate tendency to eat through the plastic bits of most insulated containers, making it less than ideal for picnic fare.

“The Great Wyrm has been entirely too busy of late,” Suze noted. “Between his studies at the wand-waver’s school, his own projects, and assembling that mechanical monstrosity he has been working on, it seems as if he hardly sleeps! It is good for him to take time to relax and play; he is still quite young.”

A faint but familiar voice rang out overhead, rapidly increasing in volume as its source drew closer, “I’m gonna…”

Hermione sighed as she nodded in agreement, sipping her tea as she relaxed in the sun.

Perhaps forty feet overhead, a fiery avian shape streaked by, flames snapping in the wind of its passing.

Hermione and Suze calmly and simultaneously reached out to steady their respective carafes of tea and hot chocolate just in time to be hit by a violent wall of wind as a massive draconic form the size of a small commercial aircraft whipped by in hot pursuit — also barely forty feet overhead.

“…catch you this time, Fawkes!” Harry’s determined voice suddenly reached a peak as he shot by, then the pitch dramatically lowered as he sped away.

As the wind died down, Hermione picked absently at the leaves in her hair. Suze was much too inured to her dragon’s antics to bother at this point; she would hardly be able to keep them out for any length of time while the Great Wyrm and the phoenix were still playing, in any case.

“Why does he always have to fly so close?” her human counterpart complained.

“I believe the fire bird finds your reactions amusing,” Suze opined. “The Great Wyrm simply follows along as their game dictates.”

Suze fell silent for a moment, watching the relatively small but brilliantly glowing bird pull of a series of implausibly tight turns as he led her dragon on a thoroughly impressive chase. She shook her head in disbelief as Harry’s much larger form pulled a hairpin turn in pursuit, reversing course entirely within his own length at full sprint.

She couldn’t even do that on the ground!

“Harry’s gotten a lot better at flying lately,” Hermione offered conversationally as Fawkes took off on a new tack.

Suze nodded, her eyes glued to the spectacle as she polished off her current cup.

The phoenix had now managed to line himself up on the picnickers, approaching from the front this time at a slightly higher altitude.

“What is he up to now?” Hermione frowned at the bird, absently refilling her cup of tea. “He usually doesn’t repeat tactics so quickly.”

The answer came when Fawkes turned sharply just as he passed overhead, heading off at right angles to his original flight path, and more importantly, prompting Harry to bank sharply even as he turned directly over his damsels’ heads, scales along his spine limned in luminous magical discharge as his flight organs took up the strain of accelerating his tremendous mass at rates that would make a modern fighter pilot drool with envy. The maneuver brought his extended wingtip within just a few meters of the ground, and, more importantly, enveloped the picnic site in the vortex of wind generated by the passage of such.

“Harry James Potter!” Hermione yelled angrily even as she levered herself off the ground and clawed the upturned blanket off her face. “You come down here right this minute!”

The bushy-haired girl scrambled to her feet to run across the moor after the flying pair, waving her arms at them angrily. Her now-empty teacup flashed in the sun, its former contents matting down her hair and contributing rather prominently to her current ire.

All the while, the honking laughter of the mischievous phoenix rang brilliantly across the moor.

3.8.2 Interview with a Hat

Monday afternoon found Harry, accompanied by his centaur damsel, walking down a seldom used hallway high in the east wing of the castle on his way to a recently reopened classroom. He had never had the opportunity to visit the area, which led to the young dragon using the occasion to gawk at all of the unfamiliar paintings and other scenery like the most blatantly obvious tourist imaginable. Had it not been for Suze’s grounding presence and occasional insistent prodding, he might well never have made it to his destination.

Hermione and Abigail’s schedules were still quite thoroughly occupied for the next hour and a half, but Harry’s classes had ended for the day, prompting the young dragon to book the time for a long-overdue conversation. As he reached his destination, Harry opened the door for Suze and felt the newly installed wards take his measure, only to be greeted by a gruff voice from inside the room.

“It took you long enough, Mr. Potter,” the Sorting Hat complained peevishly. “When I told you to take your time to get settled, I meant a few weeks, not over a year!”

“Sorry, Donald,” the contrite dragon apologized as Suze settled in to one corner of the small classroom with a book. Harry had warned that this would likely be a boring conversation for her, contained as it would be within the minds of the participants. “I meant to, but then that thing with the troll happened, and then I was busy making friends with Hermione and Abigail, and then there was that whole thing with the philosopher’s stone, and, well, I kinda forgot in all the hullabaloo until Mr. Dumbledore reminded me last week.”

“Well, don’t dawdle any further, put me on so I can catch up!” the animated headwear demanded. “If you’ve been so busy, then you should know better than to delay.”

Harry quickly complied, shifting the conversation from an audible to a mental forum in the process.

“Hmm, you have been busy, haven’t you, Mr. Potter?” Donald mused. “Very busy indeed. Though you seem to have adapted well to your life as a student. So many independent projects! All four of the founders would have been delighted to host such a diligent student.”

“Thanks!” Harry replied with a pleased smile.

“How have you progressed on your political aspirations, then?” the Hat asked.

“Couldn’t you just read that from my mind?” the dragon queried with a thoughtful frown. “I thought that’s what you were doing.”

“I could, indeed, Mr. Potter,” Donald confirmed. “And were the purpose of this exercise simply to keep me informed, that would be sufficient; however I am to offer counsel, and that requires an active conversation for it to be of any use to you.”

“Oh! Okay, that makes sense,” Harry replied. “And on that stuff, well, Mr. Snape, Suze, and I have talked a lot, and I just recently bought out Hog’s Haulage. I figure we can use that to out-compete some of the nastier folks what supported that Voldemort-guy, and Mr. Slackhammer talked about setting up something using that to help get some of the people who got enslaved out of the country.” Harry frowned thoughtfully, “I think they’ve got something arranged with the Confederacy for housing and rehabilitation, but they haven’t shared the details. Mr. Snape figures the first thing to do is economic warfare, then we’ll go to political, and then we’ll finish up with violence when we push as far as we can without.”

“I see,” the Hat mused. “Rough, but perhaps serviceable.”

“We’re still working on it,” Harry protested.

“I understand, Mr. Potter. I certainly wouldn’t expect you to have a perfect plan so quickly — not for such an ambitious goal,” Donald assured him. “Though, on that note, perhaps we should touch on an aspect of the problem that your co-conspirator has missed.”

“What do you mean?” the young dragon asked curiously before his tone shifted to one of dawning horror as a possibility occurred to him. “Is the wizarding world actually worse than Mr. Snape described?”

“Not exactly, his descriptions fit my understanding of the situation for the most part,” the sentient headwear temporized, giving the oddest mental impression of a hand waving dismissively — quite the trick from something which lacked anything resembling a hand. “When Severus laid out the reasons for the moral decay of the wizarding world — the rampant slavery and exploitation and everything else — what did he claim was the root cause?”

“Um…” under the Hat’s brim, Harry’s currently human face screwed up in thought. “Mostly it was the mind spells and stuff, right? He said they let people do really bad stuff and get away with it, so over time everyone just got worse and worse.”

“He did,” the Hat affirmed, having seen the conversation itself in perusing Harry’s memories. “And that is correct, as far as it goes. Allowing crime and immorality to go unpunished does have a corrupting effect on society, but it is not the spells that are to blame. They do not cast themselves, after all.”

As his draconic conversation partner perked up with interest under his brim, Donald continued, “I have had the unique opportunity to encounter countless young minds over the course of my millennium-long existence. Some have gone on to do great good, and some have gone on to do great evil. Do you know the difference between the two groups when they passed under my brim?”

“No, what was it?” Harry asked eagerly.

“Nothing.”

“Huh?” A puzzled frown crossed the young dragon’s currently human face.

“There was no perceptible difference between those who went on to do great good and those who went on to do great evil when they were Sorted — no common thread that would allow you to choose between the two,” Donald explained. “From that point, they were raised the same way, taught the same things — including many of those spells that young Severus is so quick to blame — and released into the same larger world. Then from those common beginnings, some went on to become saints, and others twisted themselves into demons.”

“Then what changed?” Harry asked, still frowning. “Why did some go one way and not the other?”

“I cannot truly speak with authority on the subject as I am incapable of speaking from personal experience,” the Hat demurred, “but I would hazard the guess that it is ‘choice’. People, souls, Namers — whatever you call them — are capable of recognizing good and evil and freely choosing to pursue one or the other. It is your greatest power, and it is your greatest responsibility.”

The conversation fell silent for a moment as that sank in.

“But what about those mind spells? Don’t they force people to act a certain way?” the young dragon asked after a thoughtful interlude. “I mean, wouldn’t that mean people can’t choose good or evil?”

“Those spells… they can force the behavior of other people, but they do nothing to force the actions of the ones using them,” Donald clarified. “The choice to do evil by using those spells is one freely made. It does no one any good to absolve those who do evil of responsibility in favor of blaming some collection of tools, no matter how ill-conceived. If you wish to fix the world, Mr. Potter, you will have to get people to choose of their own accord to do good rather than evil.”

The young dragon pondered that for a few moments. “So how do you get people to pick good over bad?”

“Well, your plan addresses half of it,” the Hat answered. “Not completely, of course, but as you said, it’s a work in progress. Your plans currently focus on punishing people for doing bad things, and that is necessary. However, if you only do that, then eventually someone will learn to hide well enough to avoid you, and things will slowly creep back to where they are now. You need something more.”

“Like what?” the young proto-revolutionary asked eagerly.

“The bit you are missing, Mr. Potter, is the encouragement to do good.”

“You mean like bribing them?” Harry cocked his head and considered the idea with a thoughtful frown. “I guess if we got enough money…”

“No, no,” the Hat laughed. “For some small things that might suffice, but not for the long term. To be sure, it is a good secondary incentive, but if you tie the motivation to do good solely to a desire for wealth, then eventually someone is going to find a way to accrue a greater benefit by doing bad than you’re offering them to do good. It is unreliable. You need to find a way to convince people to behave properly for no other reason than that it is the right way to behave — a code of conduct for society as a whole.”

“In short, you need to find a way to instill a moral compass into the wizarding population,” Donald concluded. “Give them something to aspire to, rather than simply a set of things to avoid, else you will be fighting a losing battle.”

“How am I supposed to do that?” Harry whined. “I mean, I’m still learning how I’m supposed to behave!”

“How am I supposed to know? I’m just a hat, thinking or otherwise,” the Hat laughed. “There is a reason I told you your dream was the most ambitious I’d ever heard of back when I Sorted you!”

“Then why did you bring it up?” Harry frowned, somewhat distressed.

“To get you thinking about it,” Donald replied matter-of-factly. “I may not know how to solve the problem, but I can at least tell you it exists!”

“Well, thanks, I guess,” Harry said uncertainly before trailing off into silence.

The mental silence stretched on for a time as Harry processed what had been said. The young dragon shook his head, Donald flopping about gently with the motion but not protesting. That would require a lot more thinking than he had time for now.

Though, come to think of it, the Hat had said something which Harry thought needed a bit more explanation. He was about to bring it up, when another voice interrupted him, this one audible.

“Harry, it’s time for us to meet Hermione and Abigail at the library,” Suze broke the silence, looking at the angle of the sun coming through the classroom window. “You wanted me to remind you.”

“Thanks, Suze,” Harry acknowledged quietly. It seemed his other question would have to wait for another time. “And thanks, Donald. Do you think I can come back and talk some more after I think about things?”

“Any time, Mr. Potter, it’s my raison d’être, after all,” the Sorting Hat replied audibly once more as his two visitors prepared to leave the classroom. “My schedule is free until next September!”

3.8.3 Projects

Harry’s conversation with Donald had given the young dragon a great deal to think on, and as was his usual habit, much of that thinking took place while he occupied himself with other things.

Over the course of the past weeks, Harry had come to treat Defense much the same way he had always treated History with Professor Binns — as a free study hour. Unlike Binns, Lockhart actually called on him sometimes, so he had to keep an ear out, but the man never actually asked anything substantive, so it was a fairly safe strategy.

Between Defense and History, Harry had plenty of time to finish his homework during the class day, which left him with little to occupy his off-hours. Still, between his general reading and other pursuits, Harry managed to find ways to fill the void. For instance, two months’ hard work had developed Harry’s control with the first alchemy exercise quite well, but he still fell short of the standards Dumbledore had set for the second, so that remained an ongoing pursuit.

Harry’s work with electricity likewise continued apace. His most recent attempt was a runic array with one-hundred-seventeen-fold symmetry designed to, hopefully, convert raw magic into electric current efficiently. While even his first attempts had proven effective at the task, tolerable efficiency remained as distant as ever, and etching the runic arrays…

Ugh.

At first the task had been a pleasant one, a good choice to occupy the hands and leave the mind free, but as the arrays became more complicated, the task stretched out to absurdity. Absurdity exemplified by the latest monstrosity which, if etched by hand, he estimated would take nearly a year and a half to complete, assuming no screw-ups.

It was that circumstance which had led to his current favorite project, a project which, judging by the last test he had just run, was now ready for operation.

3.8.4 Showing off?

The year had passed well into autumn, and autumn had painted the Black Woods with great swathes of fiery color interspersed with the dark green of the pines. The vibrant panoply of the trees passed by far beneath Abigail’s feet as she flew overhead on a borrowed school broom on her way to her friend’s home.

Harry had apparently finished something he wanted to show her, and he had asked her to visit which had resulted in her current descent towards the excitedly bouncing dragon waiting at the entrance to his Lair. As he was currently in his native form, that made for a whole lot of ‘bounce’.

“Hey, Abigail!” he greeted her enthusiastically as touched down on the lip of the Lair. “You gotta come check it out!”

“Let me at least set down the broom first, Harry!” Abigail protested good-naturedly. “There’s plenty of time yet before I have to be back for my patrol.”

Harry bounced along impatiently as she put her words into action. As she did so, Hermione and Suze waved at her from the sitting area, making no move to get up. Their innocent smiles clearly showed their delight at having Abigail there to absorb some of the dragon’s burgeoning enthusiasm — and consequently avoiding it themselves.

Lousy gits, Abigail groused to herself good-humoredly, shooting Harry’s damsels a gimlet glare which was received with aplomb. See if she helped them with anything any time soon.

“Now, what is this about?” she asked the dragon in the room.

“Ooh, ooh, come on, I’ll show you!” her draconic friend gushed, heading off into the deeper parts of the Lair. “It took me a whole month to put it together right, but I finally got it.”

“And what is it?” she asked again as they approached what looked to be a recently excavated room.

Harry looked back under his shoulder and met her eyes with his own even as he smoothly shifted into his human form — the transition made for an odd sight, particularly since he started out looking back under his wing and ended up looking back over his human shoulder.

“You remember when we talked over summer?” he asked.

“Yes,” Abigail said leadingly, “but we talked about a lot of things. What is it in particular?”

She hoped desperately that it wasn’t one of the awkward bits. She had no desire to revisit those.

“Well, you remember I told you how I’d ordered a CNC machine to help with engraving those runes?”

“Yes,” the older girl nodded.

Thank goodness, she was clear!

“Well, it came in with us on the Express,” Harry said, “and I’ve been working on getting it working ever since. Now I’ve got all the parts working, and I got ‘em put together right, and now it’s time to start the whole thing properly! Come on!”

And with that, the currently boy-shaped dragon disappeared around the rough-hewn corner of the opening into a larger room beyond. Abigail followed only to stop in shock when the contents of the room came into view.

“What on earth?” she exclaimed.

Roughly twice the size of the Great Hall back at the castle, the space was hewn out of solid stone, claw and bite marks still clearly visible on the walls and ceiling, though the floor was much smoother. It was lit by some sort of brightly glowing tubes — much brighter than the little glowing jars lighting up the rest of the Lair — contained in pairs in small metal boxes which were tacked up to the ceiling in a fairly regular grid pattern and connected by some sort of gray cable strung up along the ceiling. That same cable also ran along the ceiling to the end of the room where it came down and ran into… something.

Whatever it was, it seemed to consist of a number of large cabinets, each composed of a gleaming combination of aluminum, glass, steel, and some sort of dull whitish material with which Abigail was unfamiliar. The strange construction she could have dealt with, but the scale threw her for a loop. The collection was easily larger than the Slytherin common room.

“You need all of that to engrave some silver balls?”

It was the first question that came to mind when she finally recovered her voice.

“Um, well,” her friend began awkwardly, “I might have gotten a tad more than I really needed.” He looked down at the floor while scuffing at the rough stone with his foot. “I kinda just got the highest-end model they had in the catalogue. It’s got enough precision though! Accurate down to a ten-thousandth of an inch over the full working range, if you run it with the right settings. That’s about a tenth of the thickness of a human hair!” Harry boasted. “That means it’ll be able to handle my runes easy.”

Abigail wandered over to the device, running her hand over the smooth surface. “How much did you pay for this anyway?”

Her friend looked away again, mumbling something unintelligible.

She deliberately met his eye. “Harry,” she said expectantly.

“About two hundred thousand galleons,” he said sheepishly.

“Two hundred thousand... Harry, that’s almost a fifth of what you spent on Hog’s Haulage!” Abigail exclaimed. “Can you afford to spend that much on a hobby?”

“Well... I probably should have bought something smaller,” her friend admitted, “but I’ve got the money, and the engraving stuff will pay off eventually if I can get it to work right.” He brightened, “Plus, even though I hadn’t thought of it when I ordered it, this’ll be really useful for the trains too! I mean, it can handle stuff up to eight feet wide and up to ten feet long, well thirty feet really, as long as you turn between centers and it’s shaped right to use intermediate supports... oh, and you’ve got enough ballast to keep the machine stable, this one’s bolted to the bedrock though, so it should be good. Anyway, that means it’s big enough to handle just about any part of the trains except the actual boiler!”

“Fine,” she said, exasperated but dropping the question of fiscal responsibility for the moment. “So how does this work?”

With that, the currently boy-shaped dragon jumped into action beginning by walking her through loading a blank into the machine, a fist-sized silver casting which looked utterly ridiculous mounted within the room-sized apparatus. The he explained the functions of the various pieces, before turning on some weird device that displayed pictures on a glass screen that she couldn’t really make sense of. Supposedly that was the thinking part of the contraption which controlled the rest of it.

“And then, you throw this switch to power up the control and power circuitry that runs the servo motors that actually do the work,” Harry explained as he put his words into action.

After one final check, he flicked one heavy-duty toggle switch on a board sporting several dozen similar ones.

There was a brief groaning hum before first the glass screen from earlier went dark, followed shortly thereafter by the lights on the ceiling, plunging the pair — and for that matter, the entire Lair — into inky darkness.

“Hey!” an unseen Harry objected. “That’s not supposed to happen!”

There was a click from the same direction as her young friend’s voice, and the lights slowly flickered back on, revealing a vision of Harry frantically checking and rechecking the various connections he had earlier explained in far too much detail for Abigail’s comfort.

“What went wrong?” Harry’s voice echoed plaintively from where he had his head stuck in an electrical cabinet. “I checked out everything like five times, and then it goes and stops working right when I try to show it to my friend?”

“This is so embarrassing.”

It was a side of her friend that Abigail didn’t often see. Normally the young dragon was self-assured to a fault. Seeing him so flustered was… well, it was honestly kind of funny, and it had the older girl right on the verge of laughter, only barely managing to restrain herself to salve her friend’s feelings.

“It’s not my fault!” the young dragon’s voice rang out.

Abigail choked back another laugh.

“Huh, wait a minute…” Harry said, still partially muffled by the cabinet he was searching through. “If there’s six of those, then the computer for control, then the main drive, the spindle, plus the other servos, then it’d need… oh...” he trailed off, falling into silence for a moment.

“Huh, I guess it kinda was my fault after all.”

Abigail lost her valiant struggle and burst into giggles.

3.8.5 Mentor of Heroes

A sixth-year girl blushed rosily as she handed in her homework assignment, and the young, handsome Defense professor absently flashed her a winsome smile. She hurriedly retreated to her desk, throwing furtive glances back at her professor all the while — passing a darkly scowling male classmate on the way — and almost reluctantly prepared to leave along with the rest of the class.

She would have been disappointed to learn that the man had barely registered her presence, his thoughts turned inward.

Gilderoy Lockhart was already more than a month into his tenure as the Hogwarts Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, and things had not gone to plan. Oh, he was getting by well enough with his teaching by his reckoning; half his students seemed to hang on his every word, so obviously he must be passing on something worthwhile. Nevertheless, that was not enough.

Despite his words at the opening feast, the famous author had not taken the job because he wanted to teach.

Appearance trumped substance. That was a lesson that Gilderoy had learned early in life, and it had only been reinforced since. His job as a Ministry Obliviator when he first graduated from Hogwarts had been entirely predicated on that maxim. Obliviators were responsible for ensuring appearances were maintained, and it was a task at which Lockhart was supremely talented.

Later, when he had tired of the capped Ministry salary, he had parlayed that talent for spinning tales into his current career as a swashbuckling adventurer — on paper.

The stories he had written were true, just… a tad exaggerated. A few details here and there changed to make for a better story — things like dramatic timing, appropriate weather, a few names here and there. Nothing too important, in Lockhart’s estimation. After all, someone vanquished the Bandon Banshee, why would the name matter? The events were the same regardless, but the books sold better when the characters were consistent across the entire series.

The fans never would have gotten so invested if he’d kept changing the hero’s name between every volume!

Even so, Gilderoy had treated his contributors well, paying them handsomely for their stories — not that they knew those ‘gifts’ were royalty payments, of course, but you had to take the bad with the good if you were going to get anywhere in life. They might not clearly remember their roles in the adventures, but then they clearly hadn’t been turning them into profit, either.

The Gentleman Adventurer, on the other hand, had.

It was Gilderoy’s talent for spinning a yarn that had made him such a successful obliviator, and it was the same talent that let him turn stories that otherwise would have been worth at most a few free drinks at a local bar into a gold mine of book sales and royalty payments. The original deeds might not have been his, but the polish and showmanship certainly were. In his estimation, the value added was more than enough to justify a few measly obliviations here and there.

Gilderoy knew his business model was a risky one. Book-worthy adventures were by their nature few and far between, and he’d already picked most of the low-hanging fruit. Acquiring further stories would necessarily incur greater risks — either by attempting to lift stories from more talented combatants rather than the unusually lucky but otherwise normal people he’d hit up before, thereby running the very real risk of violent retaliation; or by hitting up more widely-known events, risking the exposure of the masquerade. No, at this point, any future adventures of the Gentleman Adventurer would need to be advanced by keeping his ear to the ground and waiting patiently for new business opportunities.

Unfortunately, that course ran straight into troubled waters.

The sort of reputation Gilderoy had built required a regular stream of fresh material — otherwise the Gentleman Adventurer would quickly become the Washed-Up Has-Been. He had succeeded so far by stringing together a long series of those ‘fifteen minutes of fame’ people were so fond of talking about; it was a myth built on glitz and action but lacking real substance, and that sort of thing had no real staying power.

Gilderoy hadn’t taken on this job to get a new story, nor was it simply an opportunity to promote his already stellar book sales — no, he was here to tell a story. The Gentleman Adventurer was getting to the point in his heroic journey that he needed something more — a certain maturity to solidify his reputation in the long term — and when the opening at Hogwarts had come up, Gilderoy had seen a plum of an opportunity just sitting there, ripe for the taking.

Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, would be one of his students.

By virtue of the events back in 1981, the last Potter already had a formidable reputation as wizarding Britain’s boy hero, and from what Lockhart had managed to find out over the months leading up to his acceptance of the post, the young wizard had managed to overcome at least one fairly significant challenge in his first year at school. The boy had all the raw talent needed to succeed as a real adventurer, not just a paper tiger, and Gilderoy was certain he would go on to do great things.

Ability aside, though, the boy was young and naïve to the ways of the world. Gilderoy felt that, as the older and more experienced hero, he could step in as a mentor — teach young Harry how to handle the business, manage his reputation, that sort of thing. It would be a good and decent thing to do; there were hidden perils to the sort of fame the young Potter enjoyed, and Lockhart could show him how to navigate them.

And if by doing so, Gilderoy Lockhart could establish himself as the Boy-Who-Lived’s mentor in the public eye, then the Gentleman Adventurer, would cement his reputation for the long haul.

Turning the Gentleman Adventurer into the Mentor of Heroes, now that would be lasting fame, and then Gilderoy could delay as much as needed between books without losing momentum. He might even be able to pull down speaking engagements! Having a figure like the Boy-Who-Lived linked to his own reputation would mean the boy’s successes would prop up his own, and the boy’s fame would only enhance his teacher’s. In his business, that was practically a license to mint money! It was a grand plan…

…it was just a bloody shame it wasn’t working!

Nothing he had tried had caught Potter’s notice. The free books had been accepted with no further comment. The opening quiz hadn’t sparked a single smidgen of interest. The pixies he had chosen as a practical lesson — creatures which had sparked so much chaos and confusion in the other classes — had refused to even leave their bloody cage when Potter was in the room. Heck, they took one look at him and slammed the door shut themselves!

Every attempt he had made to engage the boy in class had been met with indifference; that was not to say Potter had been reluctant to participate, but there had been no enthusiasm, no spark. It was almost as if the boy saw him as just another part of the scenery.

It was a knotty sort of problem, one Gilderoy had no idea how to address. Luckily, he had the rest of the year to go. He was sure to think of something eventually.

Until then, he supposed he’d have to play it by ear.

3.8.6 Jury-rigging

Currently in human-looking form, Harry knelt near the entrance to the Lair, tightening down the last of the screws on an electrical junction box he had installed next to the car-sized bulk of his diesel-powered welder. Heavy electrical wire stretched off from the junction box to the ceiling of the Lair, and from there off into the depths of the tunnel network he had been steadily expanding whenever the mood struck. At the far end, it ran into the electrical cabinet on the overlarge CNC the young dragon had so embarrassingly failed to demonstrate for his friend the previous week.

Harry had been quick to realize his folly once he had calmed down from embarrassing himself in front of Abigail. The entire Lair ran off one tiny improvised hydroelectric turbine. It worked fine for lighting — though even that would have overtaxed things eventually as the facility continued to expand — but the machining equipment was much more demanding than mere lighting.

When the young dragon had tested things beforehand, he had tested each subsystem independently, and the electrical grid had handled the strain. Attempting to run it all together, though, had overloaded the system, and everything had shut down.

It had taken Harry a while to figure out a workable solution, but he’d gotten a good piece of advice from one of his new engineers at Hog’s Haulage — and wasn’t it cool that he had engineers now? Meeting the new-hires over the course of the previous week had been loads of fun, and Harry had decided then and there that they were having a company Christmas party, barbecue and all, so he could meet the rest of his employees! It was going to be awesome! But anyway, his new engineer had suggested getting a generator, and then Harry had remembered his other major purchase from the beginning of the year.

Harry patted the chassis of the welder fondly as he plugged a specially designed cable into the welder’s auxiliary power output, the other end of which he had just finished wiring into his recently installed junction box. The welder he had purchased ran on diesel, chosen because Harry already had a ready supply of that for his own consumption. Rated for continuous duty and with a fuel tank sufficient to run for eight hours before refueling, the diesel-powered welder/generator combination would be an excellent intermediate solution until he figured out something more permanent.

“Right,” he took a deep breath and started up the generator.

As the diesel engine roared to life, Harry winced and rubbed at his ears before heading off into the depths of the Lair. He had a job to set up on the CNC, and then he had classes to attend.

And maybe, depending on how the job he was setting up turned out, he might soon have a quieter alternative to the current generator available.

3.8.7 Soiled

Gilderoy Lockhart gazed out over his classroom, a sea of eager young faces looking back at him, awaiting his every word. Well, all except one, anyway.

Unfortunately, it was that one whose attention Gilderoy was after.

Perhaps his new gambit would work better than the previous ones.

“Today, we try something new,” the dandy professor began, causing most of the room to perk up. “We will reenact the events of one of my books, Wanderings with Werewolves, so that you all might get firsthand experience — or at least as close as you can get without risking life and limb!”

He chuckled at his own witticism, prompting a tinkling twitter of laughter from the class in response.

“We will begin with the scene in the tavern. Miss Abbot, Miss Bones, how would you like to play the waitresses?”

The beginnings of the class went swimmingly. The various students participating with unusual enthusiasm, rather intrigued by the change of pace. Gilderoy skillfully managed the ensuing chaos as he led up to the point he had been aiming for from the beginning.

“Now, for the werewolf!” The blond dandy looked around, pretending to deliberate over his choice for the one role which interacted most closely with his own. “Mr. Potter! You haven’t played a role yet! How about this one?”

Harry Potter looked up in surprise before smiling and nodding agreeably as he rose from his chair.

Lockhart could hardly believe his luck! He finally had an in! Who knew the Boy-Who-Lived would appreciate acting?

Acting was even something Gilderoy was genuinely talented at. It would be a prime candidate for mentoring!

He had set the hook — now he just had to land it.

“Now, Mr. Potter, you are playing a ferocious werewolf,” Lockhart explained. “How do you think you should sell the character, so your classmates can really get a feel for it?”

“Um,” the small boy frowned in thought. “Maybe I should growl? Werewolves growl, don’t they?”

“Of course, they do!” Gilderoy didn’t really know whether they did or not, nor did he care so long as the Potter boy stayed enthusiastic and interested for once. “Now, the scene calls for you to approach me from around the corner — we’re treating the desk there as the corner of the building — and growl menacingly. Go for it!”

The energetic boy bounced around the desk before he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, seeming to concentrate on something. His green eyes snapped open, and he boldly stalked around the desk with an unnaturally smooth gait — almost seeming to glide over the ground, his shoes making no sound at all on the stone floor.

The blond dandy already felt his guts clenching nervously. The undersized boy who looked like he was at least a few years too young to even be attending Hogwarts moved oddly, like he was the most dangerous thing for a thousand miles in any given direction, and he knew it.

And then he growled.

The growl started out low, pitched below human hearing but intense enough for Gilderoy to feel each successive pressure front at it impacted his gut, each one a jarring reminder that there was something dangerous afoot, something predatory, something that a deep, atavistic part of him recognized and regarded with unabashed and unadulterated terror.

The successive impacts came faster and faster until they finally transitioned into the audible range as a basso-profundo rumble. The volume then kept rising, louder and louder until the desks rattled against the floor, not that Gilderoy knew that. His world was filled entirely with the sound of the growl and a vision of cold green eyes.

It was, far and away, the most intimidating sound the blond author had ever heard! For that matter, it was the most intimidating sound he had ever heard of, and he had talked with a lot of people who had faced a lot of very intimidating things.

Then the sound abruptly cut off.

“How was that?” asked a bright, childish voice, even as those same terrifying green eyes looked innocently into his blue ones.

Gilderoy’s mouth moved soundlessly for a few moments as he attempted to regain a sense of equilibrium. “That was… excellent work?” he managed to squeak out.

The blond man looked around at the class, noting all the stunned expressions on the faces of children frozen in place by stark terror. As he turned to get a view of those behind him, he felt more than heard a faint squelch. The dandy frowned at the feeling before he realized it was accompanied by an unpleasantly moist warmth and it became clear what had happened.

Well, shit.

“Yes, Mr. Potter, that was truly excellent work!” He said hurriedly, fear of mortifying humiliation temporarily giving him the impetus to overcome his recent bout with literally bowel-voiding terror. “Unfortunately, I’m afraid we will need to cut the rest of the class short for now; I’ve just remembered a pressing appointment. Class dismissed!”

And with that, Gilderoy beat a hasty retreat to his office and a set of clean clothes.

He hoped he managed to get there before the silk soaked through enough to be visible.

3.8.8 Growling lessons

As the office door closed behind the blond fop of a Defense professor, the classroom remained silent for a moment before a voice rang out.

“Bloody hell, Potter, how did you do that?” one of the Ravenclaw boys demanded. “That was awesome!”

“Awesome?” another of the boys asked. “That’s an understatement if I ever heard one; that was bloody terrifying; I almost shat myself!”

For his part, Harry preened under the attention. “Um, well, a few years ago, I really wanted to learn how to growl real good, right?” At the other student’s nods, he continued, “Well, I knew Mr. Snape already, and he’s a really good growler, so I asked him if he could teach me how….”

“Wow, Snape can do that too?” one of the Ravenclaw girls interrupted incredulously. “I know you said he really wasn’t out to get us last year, but I had no idea he was holding back that much!”

“Um, well, I don’t actually know if Mr. Snape can do that,” the dragon in the room qualified. “See, Mr. Snape didn’t want to bother teaching me to growl, but he set me up with one of his friends who he said could growl even better than him, Mrs. Chelmsford! Eventually, I got to meet her, and she taught me how to growl proper.” He finished with a firm nod.

“You mean a girl can do that?” Susan spoke up for the first time. When her housemate nodded, she breathed, “I could be even scarier than Aunt Amelia!”

With that, the class descended into excited chattering about growling lessons and the potential utility thereof, while one petite, dark-haired Ravenclaw sat quietly in the corner and watched the one at the root of the whole business speculatively.

The chaos lasted until someone finally thought to check the time, and then everyone rushed to get to their next class.

3.8.9 Dead end

Warm, artificial lighting glinted off the precisely machined edges of a silver hemisphere as Harry held it up for inspection. Both the internal and external surfaces of the piece were etched in a minutely detailed tracery of almost impossibly complicated runework.

The dragon sighed in relief that it had worked. It would have taken forever to do that by hand. Using the computer-controlled mill, it had still taken five days — the tool path was almost fifty miles long — but that was for two copies, plus a custom-machined Delrin ring to separate them which actually let the pieces snap together without screws or anything!

It was so neat!

However, Harry hadn’t made the thing just to look pretty, and now it was time to test it. He snapped the two hemispheres and their insulating ring together before attaching the leads to his test apparatus. It still included an incandescent bulb for nostalgia’s sake, but after his third attempt had made the original explode, he had added a supplementary bank of heavy-duty resistors to safely dissipate any excess energy. He had also invested in a multimeter which was currently hooked up across the test load to give a more precise picture of how things were working.

“Well, I guess this is the moment of truth,” Harry murmured to himself. “Here goes nothing.”

And with that, he inserted the tip of his wand into the newly machined device and pushed in a measured amount of magic. The bulb lit, much brighter than it had a year before, but the young dragon still frowned. Taking note of the measured voltage from the multimeter, he quickly switched out the newest sphere for one of his previous ones and repeated the procedure, working his way methodically through each of his previous attempts.

Harry had gotten far enough along in his alchemy studies to have a solid idea of just how much real energy he was putting into his casting now, at least he did if it was a big enough chunk of his total capacity for him to feel it properly. Armed with that knowledge and the multimeter readings, a bit of math led him to a plot of conversion efficiency versus runic complexity across his various attempts.

“Well, darn,” the young dragon slumped in disappointment.

The plot was flattening out much too fast for Harry’s peace of mind. Grabbing a ruler, he extrapolated out to an acceptable sort of conversion efficiency, given the current rate of improvement, only to realize the truth as his extrapolated curve reached the edge of the graph paper.

“Oh, man,” the currently human-shaped dragon slouched back in his chair. “At this rate, even if we got it down to writing out the runes using individual silver atoms, it’d still barely hit twenty-five percent conversion efficiency.”

“I wonder what’s causing that? The lightning-rod runes are way more efficient... way simpler, too,” he scratched at his head. “Maybe some kind of asymmetry, so it’s easy to go one way, but not the other?”

“Huh.”

The dragon shook his currently human-shaped head. “Something to look into, for sure, but no matter how you slice it, this kills my direct runic-conversion idea for good. With those losses, it won’t work for much of anything, not unless energy gets so cheap it’s free.”

He buried his face in his hand as he sighed in frustration.

Harry sat, staring at the results from between his spread fingers for a few long moments before getting up and smoothly transitioning to his native form as he walked away.

“I’m gonna go for a fly,” he announced to the Lair at large. “Suze, Hermione, either of you want to join me for a flight? I need some fresh air.”

A few minutes later, the damning graph fluttered gently in the backwash from its author’s wings.

3.8.10 Irritation

Another October day and Hermione Granger again found herself in the potions lab. Her partner, Neville Longbottom, was currently focused on finely mincing the spriggan leaves required for their current potion — a task which she had finally managed to train him to reliably accomplish after nearly a year’s worth of effort — leaving Hermione with time for her mind to wander off to other, unrelated subjects.

The bushy-haired girl’s interest was currently caught by two of the boys in the class, not because she was developing an interest in them as might be expected for a girl her age, but rather because she was quite infuriated at their very presence.

Which, come to think of it, was probably the second most probable reason for a girl her age to be focused on a boy.

The boys in question were a few years older than her cohort, and they were helping her professor administer the class, purportedly as a punishment.

Some punishment.

It just wasn’t fair! Hermione bemoaned the situation, gripping the edge of the lab table until her knuckles turned white. The twins had caused all that trouble back at the beginning of the year, and then they got to be teaching assistants. Why couldn’t she be a teaching assistant? She worked hard and studied ahead; they just pulled a stupid prank and then got rewarded for it!

Some of the older students even said Professor Snape might be taking them on as apprentices!

So unfair! What were the professors thinking?

Almost subconsciously, her hand released its white-knuckled grip on the lab bench and snapped over to keep Neville from adding the entire stack of minced leaves at once, a mistake which would have led to the potion bubbling over and being lost beyond recovery. It was a skill she had learned the hard way over the course the last year. She sighed in exasperation before catching Neville’s attention and explained — again — what he had almost done.

At least he was a good distraction.

3.8.11 Requests

“Are you feeling alright, Harry?” Abigail asked her young friend.

They were once again at their usual library table, and Abigail sat at her usual spot across from the boy. Suze sat at the end, but Hermione was elsewhere, something to do with potions, if Abigail recalled correctly.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” the currently boy-shaped dragon replied in an unusually subdued voice as he stared listlessly at a blank notebook before him, quill in hand.

“You don’t sound okay,” she countered.

“Just had that project I’d been working on take a bad turn,” Harry explained, setting down the quill in favor of the conversation. “The rune systems I made just aren’t gonna cut it for what I wanted to do, so I gotta think of something else to try. I’m sure I’ll figure it out eventually, but it’s a bit of a let-down, ya know?”

“Ah,” the seventh-year said knowingly. “I know how that goes. I mean, Defense has just been one long let-down this year; Professor Lockhart doesn’t teach us anything.”

“I know,” Harry commiserated. “I’ve just been treating his class as a study period — like History.”

“Same here,” Abigail agreed. “The problem is I’ve got the NEWTs coming up, and I have no idea if my independent study is going to be enough.” She sighed, “Why couldn’t we have gotten a competent teacher this year?”

“Would you like me to help?” Harry offered after a moment’s thought. “Not so sure I can do much for you with the practical stuff, but I can at least look over the theory and quiz you on it and stuff.”

Abigail’s eyes lit up. “Would you? It’d be great to get a fresh perspective on things.”

“Sure!” Harry smiled. “Always happy to help a friend! Plus, it’ll give me something to work on while I try to figure out a different approach to that project, too. Everybody wins!”

“Thanks, Harry!”

The table fell silent for a time before Harry spoke up again.

“Hey, Abigail?” he asked.

“Yes?”

“I was just thinking; who runs the NEWT thingy?”

Abigail frowned thoughtfully, “I think it’s the Examinations Authority, but I don’t know who’s in charge there. Why do you ask?”

“Just had an idea that might help,” Harry replied evasively. “I’ll try to remember to give it a shot next week, figure they might be away for Halloween.”

“Oh!” Abigail exclaimed. “That’s this weekend, isn’t it?” At Harry’s incredulous look, she said defensively, “I’ve been worried about the Defense thing, so I haven’t been looking at the calendar.”

 

3.9 Troubling developments

---

3.9.1 Remembered promises

Severus Snape sat quietly in his personal laboratory, the room for once devoid of active brewing stations, and stared deeply into the flickering liquid flames of the still-unopened bottle of Ogden’s firewhiskey on the lab bench in front of him. It was a hypnotically beautiful sight, so much so that the man was almost reluctant to crack open the bottle and disturb it.

Tearing his eyes away from the flames, the sallow-faced man’s listless gaze wandered to the empty glass in his hand as he sank back into gloomy introspection.

It was the day before Halloween, the day before the anniversary of his childhood friend’s death. Severus Snape still struggled mightily with that fact, even after more than a decade. It was all the worse because he rightly blamed himself for the circumstances leading to her murder. It hadn’t been his intention — absolutely not — nor did he cast the spell, but still…

If only he had thought through the implications more carefully.

If only he had found another way.

If only...

The fact remained that he hadn’t done any of those things, and the monster he had allowed to ensnare him in his youthful idiocy had murdered Lily all those years ago. That stark reality had chased him back time and again to the dubious comfort of the bottle.

In the first few years, time had slowly managed to dull the pain somewhat. Then Avebury had happened, and Lily’s boy had been thrust into his life — green eyes, curiosity, good cheer, and a thousand different things painfully jogging the potions master’s memory at every turn.

The wretched lizard just had to be too likeable for Snape to simply write him off as his father’s son — blasted beast!

It was the same every year, the memories of his friend were painful, full of bitter regret and self-loathing, but they were all he had left of her. He was loath to block them out with the oblivion of alcohol, even temporarily. Remembering was the only thing he could do for her now, but the comforting nepenthe offered by the bottle was always there in the background, promising a respite... if only for a time.

It remained to be seen whether he would manage to resist the temptation this year.

At least Halloween proper usually saw him too busy with school activities to dwell much on the past, small comfort though that was. Unfortunately, sometimes the distractions were worse than the memories; the man gave a humorless chuckle as he thought back on the previous year’s troll incursion.

Though, that did spark a half-forgotten memory…

Perhaps there was something he could do for Lily after all. Snape set his still empty glass down on the benchtop with a firm click and stood up to make for the door, his movements firm and purposeful.

He had a long-overdue reunion to arrange.

3.9.2 Visiting campus

It was an unusually sunny afternoon in late October, and the Hogwarts grounds were awash in sunlight. Tom walked through the brisk autumn air and pleasant scenery, eyes darting around to take in the sights as if for the first time in decades.

There! That was the bench he used to sit on and read back when he was a firstie — ooh, and that was the alcove where he practiced charms back in the day! Through the window there, you could see his favorite tree down by the lake from back when he was a student; it had grown so much!

For Tom, the walk through the school was a trip down memory lane. It was so nice to be able to walk about once more... and to do so through his old alma mater?

Priceless!

Though, nostalgia aside, he was running on borrowed time; he had to get a move on. He increased his pace, heading purposefully through one of the doors back into the castle and towards one of the many flights of stairs. First Tom needed to visit an old friend, and then he had a certain commitment back at the dorms that could only be put off so long.

As he turned to go up the next flight, he stumbled, catching a foot on the lip of one of the steps and falling heavily. As caught himself on his hands and got back up, he rubbed at the painful bruise forming on his delicate wrist as he tried again, more carefully this time.

“Bloody legs!” he cursed under his breath in a pretty soprano. “Why are they so damned short? How am I supposed to get around on these bloody things?”

Regardless, he only had so much time, so he made do, short legs or not. Now on the second floor, Tom cut through the crowded hallway, making for the girls’ bathroom and entering unremarked-upon. He made for the sink and exchanged a friendly greeting with one of the Gryffindor sixth-years as she finished up at the sink and left without incident.

Now he was alone, and it was time to get to work.

A wand flicked at the door, ensuring he wouldn’t be interrupted, and he turned towards the sink, quickly finding one tap ever so slightly different from the others.

There was a low hiss, and the stonework around the sink issued a grinding noise as it slowly opened, revealing a secret passage running down into the depths.

Tom calmly entered. It was time to meet with that old friend.

3.9.3 Solemn Visit

Mr. Snape had approached him the previous evening with an offer to take Harry to visit his parents’ graves, just like they had talked about almost exactly a year before. It was an offer that Harry had quickly accepted; well-adjusted or not, Harry was still an orphan and, perhaps unsurprisingly, still quite eager for any connection he could manage to forge to his missing parents once someone had reminded him of the possibility.

It was only after Snape had left that Harry realized he had no idea what one was supposed to do on such a visit. After all, it wasn’t like his parents would just say “Hello, son” when he walked up and then things could proceed like visiting any other person for a chat.

At least, he was pretty sure it wasn’t supposed to work like that.

So, with no idea what he was supposed to do, Harry had turned to his usual go-to for such situations…

He had asked his damsels.

In this instance, Suze had proven rather less than helpful as an advisor. Though intimately familiar with dealing with the grief of losing loved ones, centaurs in the Black Woods Clan burned their dead on the occasions that they were able to retrieve bodies at all — not often the case when the acromantula had been on the loose in the forest — rather than burying them, and thus there were no graves to visit.

Hermione, on the other hand, was a font of useful information, having gone with her parents on quite a few occasions to visit the graves of several family members, including one of her grandparents and several of her great uncles who had died young during the War.

And so, armed with a wreath Suze had woven out of fresh evergreens from the forest just below the Lair — one of Hermione’s suggestions — and sympathetic company in the form of his damsels, an unusually subdued Harry walked up the path to meet with a stoic Severus Snape and a quiet Abigail by the main gate of the school.

“Are you ready, Mr. Potter?” the potions master asked without preamble.

The young, currently human-shaped, dragon nodded affirmatively. “Yeah, and thanks for remembering about this, Mr. Snape.” At Snape’s nod, Harry turned to Abigail. “And thanks for coming, too, Abigail.” The older girl gave him a brief hug in lieu of a verbal response.

With that, the group walked to the portkey transit point — a little off the beaten path around the school, it was in fact the same grassy area Harry remembered arriving at nearly four years previously. It was actually the first time the young dragon had been back there since; most of his portkey travel went to and from his Lair…

Harry shook his head in an attempt to clear his thoughts. It was weird what went through his head when he was nervous about something — all sorts of unimportant trivia when he should be focusing on more important stuff…

Important stuff like the fact that it was the eleventh anniversary of his parents’ death, and it was about time he went for a visit.

Harry nodded to Mr. Snape, who said a word, and the quintet vanished from Scotland.

3.9.4 Petrified cat

Albus Dumbledore surveyed his domain from his thronelike perch at the staff table, and he deemed it good.

The Halloween feast had been in full swing for some time now, and the dull roar of students enjoying the celebration was music to the old teacher’s ears. Joyful noise, happy conversations, and full stomachs stuffed with sweets — the students were a delight to observe this year, and judging by the smiles, his staff were of a like mind.

No invading trolls, no injured students, no roar of gunfire, and no ankle-deep lakes of blood in the hallways this year!

Admittedly, there were a few faces missing from the tableau, Albus thought with an audible sigh; though he supposed even those were more encouraging than not. He was about to reach for another lemon drop when his deputy chimed in with a question.

“Trouble?” she asked quietly, a subtly-cast privacy charm reducing the noise of the room to the point that her low voice was easily audible.

“No, why do you ask, Minerva?” Albus responded in a similar tone.

“Such a sigh is not like you, not at this sort of celebration,” the stern Scotswoman explained.

“Ah,” he had forgotten how good her hearing was — one of the minor traits that carried over from her animagus form. “No, I was simply reflecting on Severus’ absence — it would have been agreeable to see him enjoying one of these feasts for once. The young Mr. Potter and his friends as well, for that matter.”

Minerva nodded in understanding; she had had to arrange for others of the staff to cover Severus’ duties after all.

“It certainly would have been — though I would not discount the importance of his current errand either,” she offered. “It may be a more somber occasion than the feast, but do recall that Severus hasn’t been able to bring himself to visit Lily’s grave even once before tonight. I take it as a good sign that he is finally grieving properly. Not to mention Mr. Potter finally gets to visit his parents’ gravesite.”

Her face took on a distressed expression and her native brogue snuck into her diction, “Ah cannae believe ah forgot tae tell th' puir laddie where they were buried.”

“Do not treat yourself too poorly, Minerva; you were certainly not the only friend of the Potters to forget that he would not know,” Albus commiserated. “I bear just as much fault. Though I must admit it is heartening that Severus of all people was the one to remember and remedy the situation! Perhaps you are correct in your assessment of his state of mind.”

Minerva nodded and would have continued were it not for the castle Caretaker bursting into the Great Hall shouting for the Headmaster to come quickly.

“Argus, what seems to be the matter?” Albus asked as he drew close to the man.

“It’s Mrs. Norris,” Argus explained in the angry-sounding voice that only those who knew him exceptionally well would realize meant he was close to tears. “On the second floor near bathroom seven… someone… she’s…” the curmudgeonly man’s explanation trailed off before he finished with genuine anger, “One of the little monsters has gone too far this time!”

Knowing that he would not be getting a coherent explanation out of the man any time soon, Albus set off for the location he had described, several of the staff and more of the curious students trailing along behind. When he arrived, it was to a discouraging scene.

A shallow puddle of water flooded the hallway, flowing out of the bathroom just down the hall — thankfully from a sink, judging by the lack of odor — and Argus’ pet cat Mrs. Norris hung by her tail from one of the candle sconces that lit the hallway. That was not to say she had been tied there by her tail, rather she had been frozen stiff, and the natural curve of her tail had been hooked over the ironwork.

The animal had been petrified, and that was a troubling circumstance. Particularly when the elderly wizard’s wand flashed into a standard dispel which failed to restore her to mobility. That meant it was beyond the similar charms taught to students.

Of course, perhaps even more troubling was the message on the wall next to her, written in blood — a message that hearkened back a long time indeed.

“The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the heir, beware,” Minerva read, her low voice clearly audible in the quiet hallway. “Albus, if this was a prank it was in exceedingly poor taste.”

“Indeed, Minerva,” Albus agreed thoughtfully.

“She’s dead!” Argus interjected angrily. “One of the little blighters killed my cat! I’ll have blood for this!”

“She’s not dead, Argus, simply petrified,” Albus explained gently as the distraught Caretaker’s eyes lit with hope. “The restorative draught is simple enough to brew, though it requires fresh mandrake root.”

“My second-year classes are growing a crop right now,” Pomona Sprout volunteered from the back of the group. “They’ll not be ready to harvest for another few months, however.”

“Don’t you have any in storage?” the Caretaker asked, sounding a little desperate. “I… I‘ve got some money saved, if it’ll help.”

“I’m terribly sorry, Argus,” the herbology professor apologized sadly. “Mandrake doesn’t keep more than a few days after the harvest, and the adult plants are far too dangerous to keep around in their live state. I’m afraid we’ll just have to wait.”

“What about buying some from elsewhere?” the Caretaker turned to the Headmaster, grasping at any possibility. “Couldn’t we get one from the apothecary or something? Maybe even an already prepared potion?”

“Ever since the counter-charms for petrification were developed, the demand for readily-available mandrake fell through the floor,” Albus explained with an apologetic shrug. “It is only grown as needed now, mostly for producing seed stock or as training specimens for learning to deal with hazardous plants. It is — much as I hate to use the term in the present circumstances — a fortunate chance that we have some growing already, shaving nearly two months off our expected wait.”

Dumbledore sent a sympathetic look at his subordinate. “We can, of course, ask around to see if anyone has a batch further along than our own, but the likelihood is extremely small. I would be remiss to mislead you with false hope.”

Filch slumped in disappointment. His obvious dismay prompted Sprout to speak up again, her voice artificially bright in an attempt to raise her colleague’s spirits, “At least since she’s been petrified, your cat will be perfectly safe, Argus. She’s in stasis now, so you needn’t worry about her in the meantime.”

At that point, the flamboyant Defense professor surged to the forefront, seemingly unable to resist interjecting himself into the situation, his sky-blue silks fluttering and his obnoxious cologne wafting through the hallway. As soon as he was certain he had the attention of everyone in the hallway, he spoke. “I’m terribly sorry I wasn’t there, my good man; I know just the counter curse that could have spared her.”

“Be that as it may, Gilderoy,” the Headmaster interrupted, “you were not there, and we have other things to discuss. Minerva, see to it that the children are dismissed to their dormitories for the evening. Argus, if I could prevail upon you to intercept Severus at the gate when he returns from his current outing, please inform him that we will be holding the weekly staff meeting in the west conference room tonight to discuss recent events.”

As the Caretaker nodded, Dumbledore turned to his other staff. “Complete your duties for the evening and make time to attend the staff meeting, please. We have much to discuss.”

With that, he swept out of the hallway, colorful robes swirling in his wake and mind dredging up memories of half a century previous. After all, this was not the first time such a message had been sent, and the last time had culminated in the false accusation of a good man and the addition of a new ghost to the castle.

It would not be repeated, not on Dumbledore’s watch.

3.9.5 Catharsis

Grave markers carved of the native gray stone crowded the lush green grass of the Godric’s Hollow churchyard. The tiny parish was an ancient one which had already been nearly two hundred years old when the village saw the birth of the one who would eventually lend it his name, Godric Gryffindor, one of the founders of Hogwarts. While the church looked to have been well-maintained through the dozen or so centuries of its existence, many of the grave markers plainly showed their age.

One of the less-weathered markers played host to a young boy who, after an initial awkward attempt at solemnity, now chatted animatedly to the silent stone before him. He was under the close watch of two slightly older girls and a centaur in her late teens. Farther back, a dark man stood his own vigil.

Severus Snape watched, silent under a gray and cloudy sky, as Lily’s boy reunited with his mother... at least as much as would ever be possible in this world. The scene was bittersweet, a sad-eyed but cheerful-sounding boy making the best he could of a visit to his mother’s grave, but nothing would change the fact that the woman in question was dead.

Bittersweet or not, the dour potions master felt better than he had in more than a decade.

Finally, he had managed to do at least some small thing to atone for his horrendous judgement, something to at least partially apologize to Lily, a pittance to start paying down the tremendous debt he had incurred at her expense. Severus still dared not approach Lily’s grave himself — he had done too much, too many terrible things — to be worthy of that honor, but seeing the boy do so…

The sight eased a weight on his soul the man had never thought would lift, even if only slightly.

And so, as the gray afternoon dimmed towards twilight and the cold bite of the evening wind began to nip at him despite his robes, Severus Snape remained silent, giving Lily’s boy as much time as he needed before heading back to Scotland.

Even if only for the briefest of moments, his troubled soul was content.

3.9.6 Cologne

Of course, that content could not last. It would have been too much to ask for.

“Severus!” the much put-upon voice of Argus Filch rang out across the darkened courtyard near the school’s main gate.

It was enough not only to catch the attention of the returning potions master, but also to catch the interest of the returning dragon, who paused in trek off campus to listen in.

“What is it, Argus?” Snape asked his colleague.

The gray-haired squib took a deep breath. “The Headmaster wanted me to tell you that he’s moved the staff meeting to the west conference room after what happened tonight.”

“’After what happened’? What exactly has occurred, Argus?” the potions master asked.

“Someone got my cat!” the unkempt man wailed. “Petrified ‘er, they did.”

“I presume with something more severe than the usual petrification jinx,” Severus surmised, “else it would have been the work of but a moment to remedy the situation. Do we have a suspect?”

“Dumbledore said it’d take a restorative draught,” Filch relayed. “And no one’s got any idea what horrible monster attacked my poor cat! If I knew, I’d get ‘em myself!”

“I see,” the sallow-faced man acknowledged. “Thank you for the information, Argus.”

And with that, Severus Snape swept off in a billowing cloud of dark robes.

“Um, Mr. Filch,” a childish voice piped up.

The Caretaker whirled to the voice only to find the resident dragon, currently in human form, looking up at him in concern.

“What do you want, Mr. Potter?” Filch asked gruffly, holding back on his choicer vocabulary. This Potter, after all, rarely made extra work for him, unlike his father.

“Um, I heard you talking about Mrs. Norris,” Harry began, “and I thought I’d offer to sniff around where it happened... you know, to see if I can figure out anything for you.”

“That’s…” Argus teared up a little, that simple offer was the nicest thing any student had done for him in years. “If you’d be so kind, Mr. Potter.”

Harry’s answering smile was like the sun coming up, and the pair made their way to the hallway in question, Harry’s damsels trailing along in his wake.

“Achoo!” Harry’s flaming sneeze dried off a small patch of the still-damp stone of the second-floor hallway in a puff of steam.

“What? What is it?” the Caretaker asked frantically. “Did you find something?”

“Sorry,” Harry apologized, rubbing at his nose and breathing shallowly, before asking, “Um, was Professor Lockhart up here after Mrs. Norris got petrified?”

“Aye, he was,” Filch replied. “Walked all over looking at everything. ‘E said he knew the right counter curse, but I’m not so sure.”

“I thought so,” the young dragon said apologetically, “I’m sorry, but I can’t smell anything here other than that nasty-smelling perfume stuff he wears all the time. It’s why I sneezed.”

“Nothing?” the Caretaker confirmed disappointedly.

“Nothing I can smell, anyway,” Harry said sadly. “Sorry, Mr. Filch.”

“Don’t worry ‘bout it,” the bitter man allowed. “At least you tried, better than rest of the little monsters at this school. Most of ‘em would’a cheered.”

And with that, Harry bid the man good night.

3.9.7 Plans of action?

Severus Snape arrived at the west conference room just as most of his colleagues were leaving.

“I see that I have missed our planning session, then?” the sallow-faced man ventured.

“Indeed,” the Headmaster confirmed. “Though there was precious little to share in any case. What do you know of the situation?”

“Only that Argus’ cat was petrified at some point using a method potent enough to necessitate the use of a restorative draught,” Severus informed him. “Argus was not forthcoming with more detail.”

“Ah, yes, he rarely is,” the elderly wizard allowed, “and even less so when distraught. Argus discovered the scene of the incident and informed me during the feast. Mrs. Norris was discovered, petrified and hung by her tail from a wall sconce on the second floor, at the corridor junction just outside the girls’ bathroom. The corridor was flooded by overflowing one of the sinks, and a message was written on the wall in blood…”

“What kind of blood?” the potions master cut in.

Albus sighed, “We are uncertain at this point. Madame Pomfrey was able to confirm that it was not human, but spellwork was done to paint the message, and any magical traces are rather muddled.” At the potions master’s raised eyebrow, the elderly wizard nodded. “I will, of course, have a sample delivered to you for an assay.”

“Was there anything of note written in the message?” Snape asked.

“It hearkens back to a similar set of messages written some fifty years ago during my predecessor’s stint as Headmaster, referencing the Chamber of Secrets and an heir,” the Headmaster sighed. “It seems I will have to badger Nicholas into returning my pensieve that you might review the scene. I am afraid Gilderoy managed to spoil most of the potential evidence in his attempts at grandstanding, behavior for which I have since reprimanded him. The student body traipsed through the rest.”

“I see,” Snape said tightly, lips thinned in irritation. “So, there is little hope of proactively hunting down the culprit?”

“Almost none, sadly,” Albus tiredly agreed. “The order of the day is vigilance. The petrification was an advanced variant, so we are likely looking for student in their final year, or more likely an adult infiltrator.”

The potions master nodded his agreement to the orders. “What about creatures or artifacts?”

“Creatures are a possibility,” Albus allowed, “and a terrifying one at that, as nearly every creature known to be capable of petrification is absurdly deadly. Thankfully, they also tend to be rather difficult to move in secret, thus I am hopeful that we are not dealing with a cockatrice or — Merlin forbid — a basilisk.”

“And an artifact?” Snape prompted.

“If it is an artifact, then we have little to fear,” Albus stated matter-of-factly. “Anything small enough to move would have been single-use only if loaded with such a powerful curse, and I have since brought the detection wards up to wartime footing. The perpetrator will not smuggle in a replacement while they are in engaged.”

“And how long until they will no longer be engaged?” the potions master asked pointedly.

The elderly wizard sighed tiredly, chin falling to his chest. “I should be able to handle the strain through the end of the winter break, though I will have to drop them before the students return. The mental strain of processing so many new arrivals in such quick succession might well render me catatonic. We can only hope that the perpetrator will reveal his or her hand before then.”

Snape nodded. He had thought that would be the case. Most scanning wards co-opted the mind of their supervisor to perform such tasks which took its own toll, and a rather hefty one at that. They were wartime wards for a reason, extraordinary times called for extraordinary measures. Though, come to think of extraordinary times, there was another possibility to bring up.

“Concealment magics?” he asked, thinking of a similarly extraordinary time involving trolls during the previous year.

“Such do not work well with projective magics like petrification curses,” the Headmaster reassured him. “The spell topologies interfere with each other, again necessitating a much larger container so that they might be kept separate. For concealment effective enough to evade the wartime detection wards and contain a petrification enchantment, we would be looking for an artifact about the size of one of the student beds — canopy included. I have already tasked the elves to be on the lookout for such things.”

“Very well, Headmaster,” Snape replied. “If that is all, I will seek my own rest.”

“Severus?” When the man paused, Albus asked, “How was your visit to Godric’s Hollow?”

The dark man fell silent for a moment. “It was… a relief.”

“Ah,” Albus smiled genuinely for the first time since Argus had burst into the hall that evening. “Sleep well then, my friend.”

3.9.8 Refrigerator raider

Harry had been disappointed with his inability to help Mr. Filch, but the disappointment hadn’t lasted for long. Soon it had been replaced by another, more immediate, concern.

On the morning after Halloween, Harry awakened bright and early to make his rounds of his various haunts in the forest as he was periodically wont to do, when upon entering a particular portion of the forest, he came across a decidedly horrifying sight!

“What happened to my spiders?” Harry demanded plaintively of the world at large.

His acromantula ranch was running perilously low on stock — fewer than half a dozen of the remaining giant spiders were big enough to be worth eating, and there had been nearly three times that number just the previous week! Worse yet, dozens of the little ones were scattered about, stone-dead and left to rot where they fell. It’d take months to replace them all, and who knew whether whatever killed them would happen again?

The spiders were sure to be less than forthcoming if he asked. Even though some of the largest ones could speak, they tended to be thoroughly reluctant to speak with him. The young dragon supposed it was understandable, given their respective roles in the situation — dinner and diner having some irreconcilable differences, and all — but that made the situation no less irritating.

However, the question remained: what else could he do?

Who else might know what had happened, if not the spiders themselves? Harry pondered the question for a few minutes while looking out over the clearing dotted with dozens of dog-sized dead spiders.

Maybe he could ask the centaurs?

3.9.9 Professional assessment

To Bane’s experienced eye, it was obvious that something momentous had occurred.

As the Great Wyrm had reported, a number of adult spiders were missing and many of their young were scattered about the area, stone dead, a sight which inspired within the veteran centaur warrior no small amount of vindictive glee, but that was hardly the only evidence apparent to his experienced eye. Seemingly random trees were rubbed clean of bark on one side or another, strange arcing trenches were dug into the ground — always in conjunction with an adjacent ridge on the convex side of the curve — and much of the undergrowth was crushed and shredded.

The stripped trees and the disturbed earth almost reminded Bane of the traces of a snake, but the sheer scale of them caused the experienced hunter to immediately shy away from the conclusion and dismiss the similarity as coincidental. A snake large enough to leave those traces would be larger than the Great Wyrm!

Ludicrous!

While the cause remained a mystery, there was one particular feature of the scene that nagged at the centaur. Despite the damage to the clearing, there were no obvious signs of struggle from the spiders. There was no webbing strewn about, no stripped leaves in the higher branches from attempts to flee, not even any scrabbling in the dirt. The tracks around the smaller spiders indicated normal movement for the eight-legged monsters, right up to a certain point, then there was simply an unbroken line from the imprint of their last step dragged through the dirt to where the legs lay in death — obviously traced by the limb as the spider’s muscles contracted post-mortem.

The chitinous horrors seemed to have dropped dead in their tracks — literally in their tracks — no struggle, no panicked attempt to flee, nothing, simply instant death between one step and the next.

This left Bane rather understandably concerned.

“I see,” the centaur mumbled.

“Do you know what happened?” the Great Wyrm asked, his still young voice eager.

“I cannot fathom the cause, Great One,” Bane explained, “the traces are unlike any I have encountered previously; however, the methods used to kill the spiders give me pause.”

“What about them?”

“The placement of the corpses indicates neither struggle nor flight, Great One,” the centaur explained, pointing to the remaining spiders. “Every trace implies that nearly fifty acromantula dropped dead instantly, too fast for them to even register the threat. Worse yet, the remaining dead show no injury. The only method I know to kill in this manner is the wanded Killing Curse, but for so many to be cast nearly instantaneously, with such unerring accuracy... the idea strains credulity.”

The Great Wyrm considered that for a moment before slowly nodding in acceptance. “I suppose we’ll have to keep an eye on things to see what’s going on, then. Do you think you can help?”

“Great One, we will of course assist in this endeavor should you ask it of us — we owe you much, after all — but I ask you to mind the difference in our durability,” Bane said carefully, wincing internally at the idea of ordering any of his scouts to track a foe capable of accomplishing what he had seen with the acromantula. “We cannot prepare for that which we do not understand, and whatever killed so many of the spider plague is just such a thing. My scouts are unlikely to survive such an encounter to report what they learn.”

“Oh, I hadn’t thought of that!” Harry exclaimed, sounding horrified at his oversight. “Sorry. Um… I guess I’ll have to check it out myself, then. I guess I can just go wait out there myself, but I only have time on the weekends ‘cause of classes…”

He squinted speculatively up at the thick forest canopy, rustling in the ever-present wind. “I’ll probably have to stay on the ground to make sure I can see whatever it is.” The young dragon looked around the area. “Maybe that one spot up on the east ridge? That’s got a good view.”

“If I might make a suggestion, Great One?” Bane offered carefully, barely suppressing a cringe at the naivete on display. Though, to be fair, the centaur supposed, the Great Wyrm normally hunted from the air; perhaps different considerations came into play. “While the east ridge provides excellent visibility, it also leaves you very visible as well. You may wish to conceal your presence in order to avoid scaring off the culprit.”

“That makes sense,” the dragon said brightly, though his face fell as he looked for another spot with good visibility that could provide him proper cover and found none. “Maybe I could wait around as a pigeon or something?”

“Perhaps that might not be the best idea,” he said, carefully considering the situation. “You are concerned about the survival of your livestock, correct?” At the young dragon’s nod, the centaur warrior continued, “The young spiders are quite stupid, and I fear they would attack you continually were you to wear such an unobtrusive form. You would either need to kill them — defeating your own purpose — or you would need to fend them off constantly, drawing attention to your position.”

The dragon nodded in understanding. “And any other form I might take would either be too intimidating, just like my real one, or would have the same problem with the spiders…” Harry’s face fell. “Darn. I don’t think I’d be able to manage a disillusion spell any time soon, though. I mean learning that messenger spell took weeks…”

Bane considered that for a moment. “Perhaps my clan can assist you after all,” the centaur warrior offered tentatively, “though it would require a great deal more rope than we currently have ready. Hmm…”

“What are you thinking of, Mr. Bane?” the Great Wyrm asked. “I mean, I can get a lot of rope if we need it, but it won’t be as strong as the acromantula silk stuff…”

“It needn’t be so strong for the purpose I have in mind, Great One,” Bane assured him.

“What are you thinking of then, Mr. Bane?” the Great Wyrm asked.

And the experienced hunter explained.

3.9.10 Ambush predator?

The ensuing explanation had made a great deal of sense to the young dragon. Harry was very large and intimidating-looking, as was right and proper for a dragon, but having something like that hang out in an area was a good way to discourage any intruder from showing itself. Thus Harry’s search would be fruitless if he advertised his presence to the world at large, and magic was off the table simply because Harry would not be able to practice enough with the spells to perform them in a reasonable period of time. Instead, Bane had suggested that Harry hide himself through a more mundane method.

Camouflage.

It was a something the Black Woods Clan had used from time to time to great effect, particularly during the heights of the spider plague when the woods were at their most deadly and the prey were accordingly cautious. Tying a screen of fresh branches to the hunter provided a mobile screen against prying eyes — a screen that, unlike dyed fabrics, worked even in the face of creatures like the acromantula that viewed the world differently than most. There was no way for the spiders to tell the difference between the screen and normal foliage simply because it was normal foliage.

Perhaps more importantly for the current situation, it was also a scalable solution. Bane saw no reason that such a method wouldn’t work just as well for Harry as it did for a centaur — provided, of course, that they could get enough rope, which was a significant proviso to be sure.

But once again, as it had so many times during the young dragon’s childhood, the industrial revolution came to the rescue.

Unlike his CNC machine, the rope order had arrived quickly, purchased by a Gringotts-employed agent that very evening and added to the daily train shipment the next morning. What would have represented, quite easily, years of continuous work for the centaur clan was available as ready stock from a supplier in London.

So it was that, as the sun rose above the horizon on the next Saturday morning, the young dragon made his way down to the centaur encampment with Suze in tow and stood impatiently as his allies decked him out with a shaggy covering of various cuttings from the local underbrush. Once Bane pronounced him properly attired, Harry made his way to a carefully-chosen vantage point overlooking the spider preserve — moving carefully to avoid snagging his new suit on the surrounding foliage.

Once the ambulatory hedgerow settled into place, the hunt was on; though it soon proved to be a hunt to which the young dragon’s temperament was singularly ill-suited. While the notion of quietly lying in wait to ambush his prey felt indescribably right to Harry in a deeply atavistic manner, possibly due to his new species’ long-ago origins as a sapient offshoot of their crocodilian ancestors, he had never been prone to sitting patiently for long periods of time with nothing to do.

It promised to be a long, long weekend.

 

3.10 Asking advice and mounting tensions

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3.10.1 Aftermath

The excitement of Halloween soon faded from the minds of the students. Whoever had been responsible had not seen fit to offer a reprise, and rightly or wrongly, a significant percentage of the student body were torn on how to view the attack. On the one hand, the perpetrator had left a thoroughly distasteful message written in blood on the wall of one of the hallways, but on the other… well, the only victim was Mr. Filch’s cat, bane of pranksters, troublemakers, and hormonal teenagers alike in her role as the single most effective hall monitor in the school.

Many saw the incapacitation of Mrs. Norris as a public service.

There was even some talk among the more mischievously-inclined students — at least those of their number not currently under the supervision of Severus Snape and were thus too busy to do much talking about anything at all — of sending the perpetrator a gift basket in thanks for his or her services.

For most, the first weeks of November passed as a quiet blur of classes attended and homework completed, punctuated by uneventful weekends that nevertheless inevitably formed the high point of any given week.

Of course, ‘uneventful’ meant different things for different people.

3.10.2 Correspondence

A thick gray layer of clouds scudded by overhead, driven by the perennial stiff breeze blowing in off the sound. Far below, the breeze ruffled the trees of the Black Woods, shaking the needles on the evergreens and slowly stripping the autumn finery from their more colorful neighbors. Under that restless canopy, the resident dragon of the Black Woods settled into the same hollow he had used the past weekend. The day promised to be a miserable one — dull and cold, damp and cloudy, accompanied by the occasional spattering of icy rain just to ensure that you didn’t manage find some way to get comfortable.

Once again covered by freshly cut branches tied artfully to hide his massive form from easy view, Harry prepared for another interminable session of standing watch over his spider ranch, vigilant for any sign of the poacher who had killed so many. It was bad enough he had already been forced to rework the menu for his planned Hogs Haulage Christmas Party because of the recent losses, and he didn’t want to lose the stock entirely. That would be a tragedy!

Where else was he going to find shellfish big enough to grace his table?

Despite its importance, the mission had nonetheless proven to be exceedingly boring, and this time, Harry had prepared accordingly. In a waterproof case he had brought along several books, a pad of paper, a clipboard, and a self-inking dictation quill complete with penknife — all looking exceptionally tiny as he laid them out on the forest floor under the protection of his slightly-extended wing. The young dragon had craned his neck around to keep an eye on his progress as he put all those magical control exercises to a practical use unpacking for the day; he couldn’t do it the normal way, switching to human form would make all the ropes come undone.

Harry just hoped the quill would work okay with the paper — rolled parchment was way too difficult to work with on a standard clipboard, and he had yet to find anyone who made a pad of the stuff. Paper was supposed to wear down the point on the quill quickly, but he was nonetheless hopeful. If it wore down too quickly, he was really going to be stuck testing the limits of his fine control one way or another. Turning pages with his magic was easy enough, but actually writing directly was a whole other ball of wax. Nonetheless, he had also included a few cheap ballpoint pens in his supplies for just that eventuality.

Massive green eyes narrowed speculatively; maybe it would be worthwhile to enchant a fountain pen instead?

After a moment’s speculation, Harry shook his head and dismissed the idea. That was a question for the future; there were a lot of those stacking up. For the present, Harry needed to keep an eye out for anything suspicious on the ranch and catch up on some correspondence he had been meaning to handle.

First up was the next round in his ongoing exchange with his uncle and his cousin. Dudley’s last letter had informed him that his cousin had made the junior wrestling team at Smeltings School, and Harry wanted to congratulate him on that.

Uncle Vernon’s had relayed that the man was still working on getting Aunt Petunia to agree to visit. He was not hopeful for this year but fully intended to keep on trying. Harry wanted to thank his uncle for that, but he also wanted to share how his first experiments in automated machining had gone. The Grunnings carbide tooling Vernon had sold him had performed perfectly, and Harry wanted to let his uncle know that. Plus, it was a good opportunity to keep in touch.

The letters had taught Harry that it was kind of nice to just talk to family, even if it was at a distance.

For a time, the forest was filled with the pattering of rain and the rustle of wind-blown leaves — the low mumble of the young dragon’s voice only sporadically audible as he dictated to the quill. Eventually, with his personal letters finished, Harry paused to sharpen the quill — a fine trick when levitating both the quill and the penknife — and turned his thoughts to a new topic, this one somewhat less straightforward.

The last time he had spoken with Abigail, an idea had occurred to him which could help her out with a particular spot of trouble. Harry thought it would work, but he figured he ought to run it by Mr. Slackhammer first. The dapper goblin was much better versed in the labyrinthine twists of wizarding politics than he, and Harry didn’t want to accidentally step in another metaphorical manure pile like he had with that nasty Umbridge woman a few years back. It was hard to tell ahead of time with the Ministry.

Not to mention, he needed a name for the person to approach to get what he wanted — it was a bit hard to talk someone into doing something when you didn’t know who to talk to in the first place.

3.10.3 Brooding

Hermione stood alone on the lip of the Lair with her attention turned inward as she stared out over the wind-tossed forest, bundled up in several layers topped with her pointed school hat to fend off the wind and damp. There had been an embarrassment of time to think recently, and this afternoon was no different.

Hermione had finished organizing Harry’s library during the previous month — including assembling the rare books section to her own satisfaction. The only thing left to add was a pensieve, and Harry was still trying to track one down for purchase, so that would have to wait. With that diversion put to bed, Hermione had turned her full attention to her schoolwork, schoolwork which had so far proven categorically incapable of occupying her days.

Normally, Harry filled the gap for her. Despite his generally boyish manner, her friend was amazingly well-read for his age, and there was rarely a time when he was not working on something interesting. The Lair had never lacked for conversation topics or interesting research problems to catch her interest and occupy a few dozen hours with subsequent wide-ranging journeys through Harry’s impressive library — not until recently.

Not until the past few weeks.

Hermione sighed as the rain picked up again, as it had been doing on and off all day. She pulled the brim of her hat down to ward off the spitting, icy-cold rain before settling back into her thoughts.

Her often dragon-shaped friend had been thoroughly preoccupied of late, spending every weekend on some project of his involving the giant spiders. Just this morning had seen him fly off to the centaur’s current autumn camp in pursuit of it.

Come to think of it, that meant he was bearing the full brunt of the current weather. The bushy-haired girl shivered in sympathy — she hoped he was staying warm.

She vaguely remembered Harry saying something about ‘protection’ and ‘ambush’, but to be honest, as soon as she had heard the word ‘acromantula’ Hermione had immediately tuned out the rest. She wanted nothing to do with the cottage-sized highly aggressive spiders. They were dangerous, and they creeped her out, no matter how delicious they could be when properly cooked.

Unfortunately, that snap decision had left the bushy-haired girl out of the loop, and being out of the loop had left her with an embarrassment of free time, and an embarrassment of free time had left her bored, and boredom was a serious problem for someone like Hermione Granger. Other people might treat quiet times as a time to shut the mind off and enjoy life — perhaps sitting down with a cup of tea in hand to watch the world go by. Not so for Hermione, her mind refused to shut off. She had to think about something, and without new questions to pursue she usually reverted to old, unanswered ones.

Old, unanswered, generally frustrating questions that she gnawed at like a particularly stubborn dog worried a bone.

Such generally led to no good; a case-in-point being her current conundrum, which had led the bushy-haired girl to stand on a ledge halfway up a cliff, outside, during a Highland rainstorm in November in the vague hope that the change in venue would lead to some new insight into a months-old question that really wasn’t very important in the first place but nonetheless refused to release its grip on her mind.

As she had for the past two months, Hermione had been turning the question of the twins’ supposed punishment over and over in her head. Why had they been rewarded for making trouble? How was that fair? And perhaps more importantly, why did they get to do that when she didn’t? She couldn’t see the logic in the teachers’ actions in this case — it seemed unjust, a transgression which was rewarded rather than punished — and the perceived injustice was bothering her to no end.

The trouble was, she couldn’t see a way to get her answers, either. She’d already asked Professor Snape months ago during the first class of the term, and he hadn’t explained anything about the why of the situation. He’d just said it was a punishment duty and left it at that!

Some punishment!

Advanced tutoring, helping to teach, even what was effectively an apprenticeship started years early, if that was the punishment for rule-breaking she was tempted to sign up! But she couldn’t help but think that there was something she was missing, some peculiarity of the situation that led to the twins’ ‘punishment’ that wouldn’t happen for her if she were to try to imitate them.

She wouldn’t want to act out and ruin her reputation only to fail to achieve the result she wanted.

If only there was someone to ask so she could make sure. Someone who might explain the situation better…

…well, she supposed there was someone; she would just have to make sure she asked outright this time, rather than implying things.

3.10.4 Baby steps

All done up in darkly varnished wood, leather cushions, brass fittings, and green glass, Crackjaw Slackhammer’s office was the picture of a plush, if somewhat old-fashioned, executive’s suite — a fitting choice for the plush, somewhat old fashioned, executive who occupied it. The goblin in question currently sat at his desk reading a letter sent to him by his youngest business partner. On reading the last of the missive, he set the paper gently down on the green leather blotter covering his desk and looked up, beady black eyes gleaming with interest.

“Already looking into political solutions, is he?” the Vice Director chuckled. “At least he had the good sense to seek advice before leaping in with all four paws!”

There had been a time when the young Great Wyrm had done just that to a real pond. Slackhammer smiled as he recalled the tale, relayed by a member of Color Sergeant Griphook’s security detail. After jumping in with a yell, his youthful business partner had apparently been quite surprised when the pond turned out to be much shallower than he had anticipated, leaving him ankle deep in mud with most of the water ejected out onto the surrounding moor by the rapid introduction of his not-inconsiderable bulk to the small body of water. A small, but still significant, portion of that water had ended up drenching the young Miss Suze who had gently but very firmly berated him.

The infantry gob’s description of the poor dragon’s bewildered expression had been hilarious, drawing many a good-natured laugh from his drinking partners in the months since. He hadn’t needed to pay his bar tab for weeks.

The Vice Director chuckled, “Good times, good times.”

Then the dapper goblin’s eyes narrowed, and his smile faded as his sharp mind turned back to business. “So, how best to approach this?” he mused. “The Examination Authority is headed by… hmm, she might actually be the best target, I seem to remember…”

“Mr. Steelhammer?” the slightly rotund goblin’s voice rang out. As his aid entered with alacrity, the Vice Director scrawled out a note. “Please pull our dossier on this witch, I need to refresh my memory of certain details.” Steelhammer took the slip of paper with a businesslike nod and left.

Slackhammer smiled to himself as he waited for his aide to return. It was a fine thing indeed to watch over his young friend’s growth... almost as fine a thing as it had been to watch over his own sons’. Mr. Potter might not be of the Vice-Chairman’s own line, nor even of his own species, but some things seemed to be universal, growing up among them. Even if the specifics varied, the gestalt remained quite familiar.

Of course, there was also no doubting the young dragon’s critical, and above all thoroughly practical, importance to the future of the goblin nation. The young dragon was already directly responsible for the biggest increase in Gringotts profits since the introduction of the steam engine, and Slackhammer could see nothing on the horizon that might slow that trend in the foreseeable future. That fact would have seen Slackhammer looking out for his young partner in any event; that the boy was so likeable was simply a generous gratuity on the exchange.

And this particular request appealed on a number of levels.

The young lad sought to ensure his friend learned to protect herself properly. To be sure, the young dragon wasn’t doing the sensible thing and gifting his young lady a proper gun, but Slackhammer supposed different standards applied. The young Miss Abercrombie was after all a witch, not a goblin. In any case, it seemed a romantic sort of gift, much better than those flowers or sweets humans usually seemed to prefer for such things.

The dapper goblin sighed. Most importantly, it was a gift that he’d be all too happy to help his young friend procure, and not solely for sentimental reasons.

Mr. Steelhammer returned with the requested dossier, and the Vice Director thanked him before cracking open the folder.

While the Vice Director would hardly deny his matchmaking tendencies — nor would any of his children, who had suffered through them for years — they were hardly his only motivation, nor even his primary one. Slackhammer also saw in this an opportunity to help his business partner get his feet wet in wizarding politics without making too much of a splash — a bit of a political primer, as it were. Best to get any adolescent floundering out of the way while the stakes were low, and failure would pose little risk to the Nation.

Neither Slackhammer himself nor the goblin nation as a whole had any desire to see the aftermath of the Great Wyrm of Hogwarts jumping into the political pond with all four paws and end up standing ankle deep in the bloody mud of a mostly-emptied wizarding world — no matter how satisfying it would be to see the wizards receive their comeuppance. The muck would splash all over everyone, including the Brethren, and they would all be worse off for it.

It was hard to make a living as the premier merchant bank serving a graveyard, after all.

3.10.5 An ill-considered question

As she made her way through the dim, torchlit passageways of the castle dungeon outside Professor Snape’s office on her way to ask a question, Hermione Granger wondered not for the first time why she cared so much about this.

Here she was, taking up some of the limited time in her schedule she normally spent with her friends to go ask her teacher about the punishment he was doling out to two people she barely even knew, and not even because she thought it was too harsh! She could have understood her own motivations if she was trying to spare someone unjust punishment, even if it was a stranger, but no, she was after this because she thought they weren’t being punished enough!

Seriously, who did this kind of thing? It just seemed kind of… well… vindictive, even to her, and she was the one doing it! Did she really want to be that kind of person? Going out of her way just to make sure someone got punished enough to satisfy her sense of fair play — well, she could kind of understand that, she supposed, but it was Professor Snape doing the punishing!

If you couldn’t trust Professor Snape to punish someone properly, then who could you trust?

The bushy-haired second-year shook her head, trying to dismiss her misgivings. The question had been bugging her for months now, and she just knew it wouldn’t leave her alone until she finally got her answers — plus, she was here already, so she might as well not waste the trip.

She knocked and then opened the door when she heard an acknowledgement from within.

“Miss Granger,” Professor Snape spoke without looking up from the parchment on his desk. “What brings you to my office this evening?”

“Um… I had a question, Professor,” she said before she fell silent as she tried to formulate the question properly.

A long moment passed before her professor grew tired of waiting for her to continue.

“And?” he prompted impatiently. “What is your question, Miss Granger? I cannot enlighten you if you do not do me the basic courtesy of telling me what you wish to know.”

The bushy-haired girl swallowed nervously and then began, “Well, you remember back on the first day of class, when I asked you why the Weasley twins were standing in front of the class with you?” At her professor’s nod, she continued, voice gaining strength as she went. “Well, you said they were being punished for the thing at the beginning of the year, but you just had them working as your teaching assistants, and some of the older students said you were treating them pretty much like your apprentices.”

“Yes, that is an accurate summary,” Snape confirmed impatiently. “Where, exactly, are you going with this, Miss Granger?”

“Well, how exactly is that a punishment?” she burst out. “I mean they made all that trouble at the beginning of the year and they get apprenticeships out of it? That doesn’t seem fair at all!” she huffed.

She was met with an expectantly raised eyebrow.

Hermione colored. “I mean, ‘that doesn’t seem fair at all, Professor Snape’?”

“A fair question, Miss Granger,” Snape allowed with a nod, “one which I shall endeavor to explain. Your senior colleagues engaged in two distinct escapades at the beginning of the year; one involving flying an enchanted car over the castle in a stunt which managed to trigger one of the castle siege wards, nearly killing the two miscreants through thaumotoxic shock in the process…”

Hermione gasped at that revelation.

“…and one which resulted in nearly the entire student body, as well as one member of the staff, being temporarily transformed into copies of the two troublemakers.” Snape continued, “The first was unquestionable idiocy, but it was idiocy which only truly risked the wellbeing of the Misters Weasley. Had that been the extent of their activities, no doubt they would have received detention as normal. The far more serious issue was the transformation.”

“Why is that, Professor?” the bushy-haired girl asked when the man paused to take a sip from the glass on his desk. “When I asked, some of the older students said they’d pulled transformation pranks lots of times before.”

“The issue lies in the method employed, Miss Granger,” the professor explained. “I will not name the method to you, but it is exceedingly dangerous. The Misters Weasley risked not only their own wellbeing by using it, but also that of every person who interacted with the portal to the train platform between the time they placed the trap over a week beforehand and the time law enforcement placed it under quarantine at my request during the opening feast.”

Seeing his student’s wide eyes, Snape continued, “I have no idea what deity smiled down on us that day that we managed to avoid the worst, but by all rights, that particular bit of stupidity should have cost at least several hundred people — possibly the better part of a thousand — their lives.”

“Oh my God!” Hermione gasped, horrified.

“A distinct possibility, Miss Granger,” her teacher acknowledged. “In any case, had the Misters Weasley been a few years older, they would have been referred to Magical Law Enforcement and charged appropriately for recklessly endangering a significant portion of wizarding Britain. As they are still underaged, however, the worst we could do in the absence of actual deaths resulting from their actions would have been expulsion.”

His bushy-haired student gasped in horror at the idea.

“While such a punishment would have been quite well-deserved, it would not have addressed the true dilemma,” Snape explained. “With this incident, the Misters Weasley have proven themselves to be both talented enough to cause a great deal of damage and simultaneously foolish enough to go ahead with such actions despite the dangers.”

He paused for another sip as Hermione listened in rapt attention. “I could not in good conscience inflict such a combination on the world, so I have taken it upon myself to… render them safe, as it were.”

The bushy-haired girl thought for a time as her professor returned to whatever task had absorbed his attention before she interrupted, leaving her to her thoughts. Eventually she frowned.

“That makes sense, I suppose, Professor,” Hermione allowed. “But it still seems odd to essentially give them apprenticeships for doing what they did — like you’re rewarding bad behavior instead of punishing it.”

Her teacher smiled thinly; it was not a pleasant sight. “I assure you, Miss Granger, I know my business. Why don’t you ask the perpetrators themselves whether they feel properly ‘rewarded’?”

He gestured to the other side of the room where, when Hermione turned around, she saw for the first time a table set up in a corner behind the door — thus not visible when she walked in to the room — with both the Weasleys in question hunched over separate stacks of parchment and books. They looked up at the professor’s words.

“It’s hell,” one twin said simply, haunted eyes locked on hers as he nodded at the younger girl. “George and I haven’t done anything but eat, sleep, go to class, and work for Professor Snape since we got out of the Infirmary.”

“Not a single bloody thing,” the other twin, presumably George, echoed then his voice fell to a horrified whisper. “We even had to drop quidditch!”

“Idle hands are the devil’s playground, Mr. Weasley,” the professor cut in. “You may have at least a modicum of your leisure time returned when I can trust that you and your brother will behave responsibly on your own. At present, I cannot.”

“He does spot checks on obscure potions stuff all the time, too!” Fred volunteered.

“And when we get something wrong,” George broke in again, “he makes us run laps around the castle. Laps! Who does that in a wizarding school, anyway?”

“Exercise is important for your health, Mr. Weasley,” Snape spoke up in a reasonable tone that nonetheless somehow carried an edge of sadism. “Now that I am occupying so much of your time, you do not have the luxury of regular exercise during your free time. It thus falls to me to look after you as my students.”

His tone shifted to a pedantic one, “As to running laps in particular, Mr. Weasley, it is simply because you continue to insist on forgetting the proper order of addition for the neurogenesis potion, and that particular error would lead to the potion burning through the bench and melting off your legs at the knee. I had hoped that the burning in your legs resulting from exercise would serve as a reminder of what you would have lost and encourage you should study harder.”

He smiled darkly, “See to it that you do not neglect to recall an interaction which would release toxic gas, Mr. Weasley — you will not enjoy the reminder I have in mind for that eventuality.”

The twins both shuddered in horror, turning back to their work with a renewed fervor.

“Their tutelage shall continue until I am satisfied that the Misters Weasley are ready to use their potions knowledge responsibly, Miss Granger,” the potions master turned his attention back to his bushy-haired student. “If they work hard, they may manage to graduate with their original cohort. If they do not… if they do not, I am prepared to continue their training until they do... or until it kills them. In this, for once, I find that I am not selective.”

“Does that satisfy your curiosity, Miss Granger?” the potions master asked in a tone implied that any answer other than ‘Yes, Professor Snape’ would be foolish in the extreme.

“Yes, Professor Snape.”

Sharon Granger hadn’t raised any fools.

“Excellent,” he said, pausing for a moment before continuing in a serious sort of voice. “Miss Granger, I have indulged your curiosity in this instance as it served a greater purpose,” he paused to shoot a significant glance at the two Weasley brothers, “but note in the future, that, fair question or not, as a student of this institution the punishments of your peers are not subject to your approval, nor are they within appropriate bounds of inquiry.”

She swallowed nervously.

“Do not interject yourself into such things again unless asked to do so by a member of the staff,” he instructed firmly.

“Yes, Professor Snape,” she repeated, mortified at the rebuke.

“You are dismissed, Miss Granger,” the dark man nodded, turning back to his work with the matter settled.

After she had closed the door behind her, Hermione wandered down the hall, wide-eyed.

She’d just been reprimanded, reprimanded for reasons she even agreed with!

She’d known she was out of line from the beginning of this whole thing; she was just a normal student, punishments were only her business if she was the one being punished. So what had possessed her to do that, anyway? Was she really just that much of a nosy busybody?

Hermione shook her head, disgusted with herself. She knew better than that! She should have just trusted that Professor Snape would handle things, rather than butting into it. He hadn’t even told her anything new; the explanation was basically a repetition of Suze’s take on the situation.

Asking had been a stupid idea, and she’d known it was a stupid idea, but then she’d gone and done it anyway. She walked faster as if she were hoping to outrun her embarrassment.

What had she been thinking?

3.10.6 Overindulgence

“I can’t believe it took you so long to recover,” Tom hissed loudly — raising his voice to make himself heard over the grating rasp of his companion’s sedate locomotion through the otherwise empty stone hallway. “Why did you eat so much, anyway?”

His companion hissed plaintively in response.

“I know you were hungry, Charlotte. That’s why I let you out to hunt,” he allowed. “I just want to know why you thought it appropriate to gorge yourself. You ate so much you slept for two and a half weeks!” Tom shook his head, long hair swishing about his dainty shoulders. “You knew perfectly well I had plans for you last week!”

Another hiss.

“You weren’t sure when you’d have another chance?” Tom asked, incredulity obvious in his hissing voice. “Did you actually think I’d just leave you down there without a chance to eat?”

Yet another hiss.

“I’m sorry about that, Charlotte, but I couldn’t figure out a way to manage it,” Tom explained, scrubbing at his face with one hand in embarrassment. “And even then, I made sure to put you back in stasis! Seriously, what kind of friend do you take me for?”

There was yet another hiss, this one somehow apologetic sounding.

“It’s alright, Charlotte, just... try not to do it again,” he sighed, reaching up to pat his companion comfortingly on the side. “We’ll figure things out, just you wait and see. I only ask that you make sure to let me know about these sorts of things ahead of time, so I can plan around them.”

At the sound of another hiss, this one somewhat more involved, Tom perked up. “Not for another couple weeks, you say? That is rather helpful, Charlotte, thank you. Just don’t push yourself too long; I don’t want you to eat so much at once again. Things will be easier if you are indisposed more frequently for short periods rather than infrequently for long ones.”

He was answered by an affirmative-sounding hiss as the pair ambled on down the empty hallway. Silence descended for a time, broken only by the dull rasp of the movement of Tom’s companion, until he spoke up once more as they came to a junction with another hallway.

“Charlotte, make your way to the Badgers’ territory. Your target will be returning there within the hour after he completes his detention — remember, inner eyelids shut!” He drew to a stop at his companion’s interrogative hiss, hand moving to pat his companion’s side. “I need this one alive for now. There’s a rhythm to this sort of thing; we need to keep the fear building so people don’t forget, but if we push too fast, we’ll get more of a response than I can manage at this point. Slow and steady is the way to go — it will put the prey in the right mindset while my subordinate puts the rest of the plan in motion. I will let you know when the time comes to strike in earnest.”

Another affirmative hiss came from Charlotte.

“I had planned to start with that annoying brat with the camera,” Tom narrowed his eyes in distaste. “A small target, but annoying enough that most people would be torn between fear that he was attacked and relief that they didn’t have to deal with him... and they’d be feeling a subtle undercurrent of guilt for thinking the latter. It’s always easier to put something over on someone if you manage to convince them they deserve it. It would have been ideal for promoting delay and indecision. Since you were asleep for so long, though,” he shot a pointed look at Charlotte, “he’s no longer going out to take pictures of the campus at night, got caught by one of the prefects. He’d have been ideal, but we can make do.” He nodded to himself, long hair bouncing with the motion. “We can make do.”

Tom turned to his companion briskly. “After you finish, await me in your lair,” he commanded. “Take care, my friend, and let no one aside from your target see you.”

With one final hiss of acknowledgement, the pair parted company — Tom heading off towards the nearest stairway up, and his companion pausing before a seemingly blank section of wall before a hissed command had the stone grating aside to reveal a secret passage.

As the doorway to the hidden passage closed after her, the grinding of stone on sliding on stone faded, leaving the hallway silent as a tomb.

3.10.7 Building concerns

The morning had begun much like any other. Harry had awoken after a good sleep, gotten ready for the day, and made his way to the school, carrying his damsels along for the ride. All seemed well with the world until the trio arrived at the doors to the Great Hall where the tension seemed thick enough to cut with a knife.

Heck, it was thick enough that Harry noticed it right away!

As the two children and a slightly older centaur made their way to their customary place at the Hufflepuff table for breakfast, Harry took in the worried looks on the faces of his housemates. The young dragon reviewed his memories of the previous few days to try to think of anything that might have upset so many people. He couldn’t think of anything to fit the bill.

“What happened to make everyone so upset?” Harry asked of the table at large.

Cedric, who had been staring blankly at his currently untouched plate, jerked at hearing his younger housemate’s voice. “Huh? Oh, Harry, good morning. Um, what did you ask?”

“I was just wondering what’s got everybody so nervous,” the currently human-shaped dragon reiterated. “I mean, I don’t remember anything…”

“Oh!” the fifth year exclaimed in understanding. “I forgot you didn’t come to campus over the weekend. Right.” He paused long enough to take a fortifying breath. “There was another attack over the weekend.”

“An attack?” Hermione asked, concerned. “Did someone get hurt?”

“Oh, hello, Hermione,” the handsome older boy smiled wanly in greeting. “And, yeah, they got Justin.”

Harry’s eyes widened at that. Justin Finch-Fletchley wasn’t a close friend, but he was a fellow Hufflepuff, and to lose him over the weekend… no wonder everyone was so down.

“I am sorry for your loss,” Suze spoke up sympathetically.

“What do you…? Oh,” Cedric shook his head, “sorry, I misspoke. He’s not dead, just petrified — like Mrs. Norris back on Halloween. If he’d died the place would be swarming with aurors now. As it is though, since it’s just a petrification, it falls under school jurisdiction. The way the law’s written it doesn’t matter that it’s a fancy kind that doesn’t respond to the standard dispel; Susan asked her aunt already. At least he’ll be okay once they get the restorative draught brewed, but it won’t be ready until the mandrakes the second-years are growing mature — close to the end of the year.”

“How did you know we’re growing mandrakes?” Hermione asked. “Did you do that too back in your second year?”

“No, it changes every year; we grew fanged geraniums,” Cedric replied absently before continuing. “It’s just that the whole situation is the talk of the school, so the mandrake thing came up more than a few times. Most people are trying to figure out who’s going to be next, though. A whole lot of people are really worried.”

“Is it really that bad?” Harry asked.

“Yes,” Susan spoke up for the first time from her spot at the table, absently holding Hannah’s hand in reassurance. “It was bad enough with Mr. Filch’s cat because of the severity of the curse and the fact that no one knew who did it. Now that whoever it is has attacked a student… well, people are talking about having to close the school if they can’t find the culprit.”

“Close the school!” Hermione hissed in outrage. “They can’t do that!”

Harry frowned thoughtfully. “Huh. I tried to sniff out who petrified Mrs. Norris, but I couldn’t smell anything over that perfume stuff Professor Lockhart wears. You guys have any idea where to look to find out who did it?”

“No,” Cedric answered, not thinking too hard about the younger boy’s implicit declaration that he could hunt by scent. It was Harry after all, and those sorts of revelations had long since become normal. Cedric doubted anyone in Hufflepuff would bat an eyelash if they found out he could see magic after the past year-and-a-bit. “The professors couldn’t find anything either.”

The young dragon closed his eyes in thought for a few long moments before opening them again and looking at the older boy rather intensely.

“Well, I’m not sure how to find the one doing this stuff, and I got a couple other things I’m working on so I’m kinda busy,” Harry admitted, “but as soon as you figure anything out about who’s doing this, you let me know. I’ll fix his shit.”

And with a firm nod, Harry sat down to eat, his piece said.

3.10.8 Unusual resolve

Pastel silk robes fluttered behind him as Gilderoy Lockhart made his way through the passageways of Hogwarts. He walked with a firm step and an uncommonly stern expression on his overly pretty face. It was an unusual occurrence for the man who normally sported a winning smile specifically tailored — he practiced in front of a mirror — to win over the affections of the fairer sex.

All in all, it was an unusual look for the man. Then again, he was on an unusual errand, so perhaps an unusual look was to be expected. It wouldn’t do to be improperly attired.

These latest developments were an unexpected, and thoroughly unwelcome, wrinkle on Gilderoy’s tenure as a professor. He had expected a simple and uneventful year during which he could teach the young Potter to navigate the pitfalls of fame; after which he would leave, secure in his reputation as the young hero’s mentor and able to milk that reputation for everything it was worth. He did not expect to have to deal with a crisis such as the one this situation was rapidly becoming.

It was the sort of thing he thought he’d left behind at the Department when he resigned.

However, expected or not, he was now a professor, and it was now his job to look after the wellbeing of the students and school. Ulterior motives aside, he had taken the job in good faith, and he fully intended to perform the duties expected of him to the best of his not-inconsiderable abilities. Gilderoy was hardly going to renege on that agreement in the face of a crisis; teaching might be touch-and-go, but crisis management was his bread and butter.

The methods he used in that pursuit were simply not the ones advertised in his books.

Before he had insinuated himself into the role of gentleman hero, Gilderoy Lockhart had been a Ministry obliviator. A typical workday at the Department involved dropping into an unknown, probably hostile, crisis situation and taking charge of it through a combination of quick thinking, psychology, charisma, and sheer bloody-minded audacity — aided, of course, by a judicious helping of magic — before adjusting or rewriting the perceptions of everyone involved to fit the story Gilderoy wanted to tell. Dealing with crisis situations and delicate public perceptions was simply what a Ministry obliviator did.

And Gilderoy Lockhart was a very skilled obliviator.

Admittedly, it had taken a while for Gilderoy-the-author to collect his wits and recall his old habits, but recall them he had, and he was now applying all those crisis management skills to his current employment. The restrictions posed by the situation, specifically the injunctions against mind-altering magics used against the students, made for an unusual challenge, but it was nothing Gilderoy-the-obliviator couldn’t handle, given a bit of time to think.

And after taking that bit of time to think, Gilderoy had concocted a plan on how to proceed, a plan which would keep his students calm and focused in the face of danger, a plan which would channel their nervous energy into something other than panic... a plan that he now had to sell to the Headmaster.

As the blond dandy opened the door to said Headmaster’s office, he smiled and prepared to do exactly that.

 

3.11 Fighting words

---

3.11.1 A dueling club?

“A dueling club, you say?” the Headmaster raised a curious eyebrow.

“Yes,” Gilderoy Lockhart nodded calmly from his seat in one of the visitor’s chairs set before the Headmaster’s desk. “In light of the events of Halloween, I feel that such a club could only benefit the students. If they know how to handle themselves, then they will be less likely to panic in the event of another attack.”

“You do realize, do you not, Gilderoy, that dueling skills are rarely directly transferrable to real conflicts, tailored as they are to the regimented environment of the dueling platform,” the elderly wizard prodded. “And even for those skills which are transferrable, it is exceedingly unlikely that you will be able to train any students to the point that they will see significant benefits in any useful timeframe?”

“Of course, I know that,” the blond man scoffed, dismissing the question with a flutter of pastel silk. “The students are in no position to solve the problem, nor do I have any intention of attempting to force them to do so. I am simply attempting to prevent them from becoming part of the problem and making our job infinitely more difficult.”

“How so?”

“Panicked and fearful people do stupid things, and doing stupid things with an unknown danger lurking about is a recipe for disaster,” Lockhart explained with the air of someone who had seen entirely too much of such behavior. “But by the same token, fearful people will often latch on to the first person who gives them direction, and then they will follow blindly until the panic fades... which is admittedly its own variety of stupid, I suppose.”

He paused, shaking his head slightly before continuing, “Stupid or not, however, it is what people do. I aim to take advantage of that tendency and turn it to a useful purpose. I propose that, rather than leaving the children to their own devices to follow whatever hare-brained idea wins out in their heads, we give them a clear course to follow to ensure that they latch on to us and our instruction. Then we can control the situation however you see fit without needing to worry overmuch about the students following along!”

“That seems a terribly cynical way to view the world, Gilderoy,” the elderly wizard chided. “How do you intend to inspire the youth with such a depressing approach?”

“Perhaps you have a point there, Headmaster,” the blond acknowledged with a nod. “I would hardly presume to tell you your job as an educator, as you are very much my senior in that department, but in much the same way you know teaching, I know panic, and I know how to manage it.”

The elderly wizard’s eyes widened in realization. “Ah, yes, I had nearly forgotten your history with the obliviators — your subsequent career in writing has quite overshadowed it — but I suppose this is well within your field of expertise. However, are you certain that this is the best approach for us to take? Perhaps another, more immediately useful subject?”

Silky blond hair swayed as Gilderoy shook his head and leaned forward, “This is a situation where appearance is more important than substance, Headmaster, and I can think of no other relevant field with more immediate recognition by a wider audience than dueling.”

“Come to the dueling club and learn to defend yourself!” he gestured grandly, silken sleeves flowing. “It will give them something to do rather than stew in their own fears. For the purposes of managing panic, it doesn’t even truly matter if it even teaches anything relevant. Even busywork would do, as long as we can convince them it will help, but the dueling practice is an easy sell.”

“I’m open to suggestion, of course,” he shrugged. “Between you and your staff, you have a great deal more experience to draw on than even I do. If you can come up with another, more practical, topic to teach that has the same sort of universal cachet, I would certainly have no objections, but in the absence of such, we’re left with dueling as the best choice.”

Albus stroked his long, white beard contemplatively as he considered the idea. The concept was sound — as was his professor’s assessment of the reputation of dueling among those unfamiliar with the demands of real combat. As for the rest, dealing with whoever was behind this Chamber of Secrets debacle promised to be challenging enough on its own given the dearth of evidence — attempting to do so within a school full of panicking children didn’t bear thinking about.

The elder wizard slowly nodded; this course of action had merit.

“I have already approached Filius to secure his services as a referee and secondary instructor — contingent of course on your approval — so most of the organization is already lined up,” Gilderoy sweetened the pot, sensing the old man starting to come around and seeking to close the deal. “Though, I had also intended to secure at least one more professor’s time to serve as a secondary instructor and supervisor.”

“Yes,” Dumbledore nodded, beginning to seriously consider the practicalities of the idea, “adequate supervision would be of crucial importance with so many students involved. Did you have anyone in mind?”

Lockhart affected a thoughtful demeanor as he pretended to consider the options while patiently waiting for the Headmaster to think his way through the problem.

It did not take the aged wizard long to reach his own conclusion. “Perhaps Severus? He has expressed an interest in teaching defense in the past,” the elderly man mused, “perhaps this would give him the opportunity to try it out for a time without losing his services as a potions instructor.”

“Capital idea, Headmaster!” Gilderoy immediately enthused.

Albus was warming to the notion now. “I suppose the Great Hall would be the best venue, if we are to include the entire student body. The elves can handle remodeling easily enough, but we will need dueling wards…” The elderly wizard winced. “Ah, if Mr. Potter is to participate, those will be… hmm, perhaps a delimeter-wardstone combination for quick setup and takedown?” The Headmaster closed his eyes as he ran through the requirements and capabilities of such an arrangement.

On the other side of the desk, his Defense professor waited patiently as the Headmaster slowly worked himself into taking ownership of the whole idea. Sometimes the best cons depended more on what you didn’t say, rather than what you did — a concept the blond man knew quite well.

“Yes… yes,” Dumbledore concluded. “That would be our best bet. It will be a great deal of work to set up, but we will be able to reuse it — a portable dueling platform would be a fine addition to the school. Gilderoy, please ask Filius to join me; this will require his assistance.”

“Of course, Headmaster,” Lockhart agreed, standing up immediately. “I would be delighted to help!” And with a flurry of blond hair and powder-blue silk, the dandy swept out of the room, his mission accomplished.

3.11.2 Belated realizations

It was about twenty minutes after Filius had come and gone — a time during which Albus busied himself with planning ward schemes and runic matrices to bring his vision into reality — that a thought occurred, prompting the elderly wizard to pause in his labors, brow wrinkling.

Hadn’t this been Lockhart’s idea in the first place?

The elderly wizard thought back on his recent conversation with his subordinate and nodded to himself.

Yes, yes it had been.

The elderly wizard frowned. So… why was he doing so much of the work to bring it into fruition?

Here he was poring over runic complexes, and all Lockhart had done was talk to two people and agree to pass on a message, after which he seemed to have disappeared into the ether. Somewhere along the way, Gilderoy had managed to get him invested enough to treat the idea as his own, and in so doing, the man had weaseled his way out of doing any of the real work…

Sneaky little whippersnapper.

As the absurdity of the situation hit him, the Headmaster chuckled ruefully.

“Well, I suppose that explains how he managed to finagle himself a four-day weekend.”

3.11.3 To each his own

As was his habit, Snape sat quietly in his personal lab, numerous brewing stations bubbling and simmering, holding diverse potions in various stages of completion. In a sharp contrast to his usual habits, however, he was not working busily at one or another of them; instead, he stared contemplatively at the door through which the Headmaster had recently departed and reflected on his recent conversation with the man.

Albus had approached him with a request, a request that the dark man had every reason to deny, yet he had not.

Why on earth had he agreed to help proctor a dueling club? The potions master sighed as he finally deferred to his professional instincts and turned to one of the brewing stations to give the bubbling potion a very precise stir. He had wanted no part of helping his students learn something as useless as formal dueling.

Admittedly, the very best of the dueling circuit — among them his colleague, Filius Flitwick — were terrifyingly formidable outside it, but that only held true for the very best, the crème de la crème. Until a duelist developed the sort of repertoire, control, and reflexes that pushed him to the top of the dueling circuit, the restrictive rules of formal dueling made for a rigid and generally ineffective combatant outside it.

It was a truth he had seen proven many, many times during the war — as attested to by the number of skilled duelists, on both sides of the aisle, he had put down with his own self-taught mish-mash of practical skills and dirty tricks.

Were he to teach defense, it would be practical defense, defense that worked. He would teach dirty tricks, unfair tactics, and a properly lethal mentality when dealing with aggressors — not useless claptrap like good sportsmanship and fair play. The dark man sneered at the very thought. Such things had no place in personal defense and certainly should not be taught as such, particularly not to falsely prop up the students’ pathetic egos with unwarranted confidence.

If the delicate porcelain dolls of the student body could not deal with the shadow of danger in their lives, that was hardly his problem, now was it? They would have to learn some time, and they might as well screw up their courage to the sticking point and start wrestling with their fears now. Teaching them the basics of dueling while lying to them about its usefulness would hardly aid with that process. It would take years to develop dueling skills to the point that they might conceivably provide a practical advantage in real combat.

Furthermore, Snape had no desire to spend any more time than necessary in the presence of that blond twit of a defense professor. He sneered even as he walked over to add the next ingredient to yet another potion. It took most of his iron self-control to refrain from throttling the self-aggrandizing fop during meals — the potions master knew himself well enough to know that spending several hours with the dandy was tempting fate.

Though in the end, he supposed with a self-deprecating sigh, it was that very temptation that led him to agree to help.

During his negotiations with the Headmaster, Snape had managed to slip in the provision that he would participate in a demonstration duel against the irritating blond, and he was looking forward to it.

Oh, was he looking forward to it!

Nor was he the only one, judging by Albus’ subtle smile when he had agreed.

The temporarily conjured note the elderly wizard had left — which dispersed itself shortly after Snape had read it — requesting a pensieve recording of the bout had been significantly less subtle. Though, the potions master had to wonder what the blond had done to make Dumbledore of all people refer to him as a ‘sneaky little weasel’.

The Headmaster usually made a point of remaining above such pettiness.

The sallow-faced man shook his head dismissing the question — he didn’t particularly care if Dumbledore wanted to be petty. Snape was the last person to object to petty acts of revenge — the hypocrisy would be too rank, even for him — so there was no point in considering the topic further. The potions master had more important things to do.

Important things like preparing to enact petty vengeance of his own.

To that end, the potions master turned to verify the progress of his various potions one last time before hurrying out the door and back to his private quarters. It was a minor risk, but he should have just enough time to retrieve his box of old school notebooks before the potions needed more attention.

If he recalled, there was a way to twist the disarming charm just right to disarm the target of all weapons — including their natural complement — if you pushed enough power into it. Snape remembered it being finicky, but with enough practice, he might just be able to retrain himself to dredge it up in time for the demonstration.

Snape smiled a nasty sort of smile. Petty it might be, but the mental image of his blond colleague scrambling to gather his teeth and fingernails off the floor warmed the dark recesses of his heart.

3.11.4 Furtive goings-on

A boy of perhaps sixteen years stood quietly in an otherwise abandoned classroom, the sharp black and deep blue of his Ravenclaw student uniform standing in bold contrast to his dull and dusty surroundings. As he waited impatiently, he whiled away the time idly drawing designs in the thick accumulation of dust coating one of the student desks until the door creaked open on poorly lubricated hinges.

“It took you long enough,” the Ravenclaw complained as a second boy, this one wearing robes trimmed in red, entered the room. “You took practically the entire term to come around to our way of thinking. For a while there, I was afraid you weren’t going to finalize the deal before the end of term. Seriously, we’re tight on galleons; I was beginning to worry I wouldn’t be able to close the deal over the break.”

“Did you really think I wouldn’t come through?” the newcomer protested. “I gave you my word!”

At the first boy’s skeptical look, the second’s face fell.

“Yeah, sorry, but… well, it took a while to work up my nerve for this,” the Gryffindor deflected, reaching into his robes to withdraw a small pouch which jingled when he shook it in emphasis. “This is a lot of money, you know? I wasn’t sure I wanted to spend it on something like this — especially not to an uncertain result.”

“I understand,” the Ravenclaw nodded sympathetically, even as he eagerly snatched the pouch from his compatriot’s extended hand. “Just remember, it’s a down-payment on your future happiness! And well, as for a discount or a guarantee, I’m hiring from Knockturn for this, and I really don’t feel comfortable trying to haggle. My contact might take offence.” He shuddered at the idea of what that offence might entail. “I figure it’s best to take the offer given and leave well enough alone. Knockturn’s a scary sort of place, and I’d like to make it out alive.”

“I know, I know,” it was the Gryffindor’s turn to nod. “I’m not trying to complain; I mean, you’re setting it all up, so you’re taking the real risks. It’s just… well, I wish the Slytherins had pitched in, too. If we could have split the expense another five or six ways, the decision would have been a whole lot easier!”

“Slimy cheapskates, they are,” the Ravenclaw agreed. “But I guess it paid off for them. They’re going to benefit from our hard-earned cash, this time, anyway. I’m certainly not going to cut them any slack the next time something like this crops up.” He shook his head disbelievingly. “I don’t buy their excuses about not needing it, but there’s no help for it, I suppose.”

“I don’t know about that, there’s not a whole lot of green trim in those crowds,” the boy in red grudgingly admitted with a shrug. “The Slytherins might be onto something... with that, at least.”

The admission garnered a skeptical eyebrow from his compatriot. “Look at you — a Gryffindor defending the Slytherins for their stinginess!” his blue-trimmed compatriot snickered. “What’s the world coming to?”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Gryffindor said with his own chuckle. “I’m just saying, observation kind of bears their claim out. Just ‘cause they’re slimy snakes doesn’t mean they lie all the time... just most of it.”

“Sure, they don’t,” the first boy scoffed. “I don’t buy it. Even if they’re telling the truth about not needing the service, I still say they’re lying about why!”

“You might be on to something there,” his Gryffindor counterpart admitted as they made their way to the door.

“What could blond hair have to do with anything, anyway?”

3.11.5 R.S.V.P.

Fresh from her last class of the day, Abigail set off for the library with a spring to her step. It was time for her usual meeting with Harry, and that made it the highlight of the girl’s day. She waved a friendly but silent greeting to Madame Pince as she entered the woman’s domain and turned the corner on her way to the usual table, only to be greeted by a rather unusual sight.

Harry was already hard at work — not an unusual sight in and of itself; the young dragon was almost always absorbed in some project or another — but the work before him was not his normal fare. This time, he was not busily scrawling arcane formulae in one of his notebooks or intently reading some obscure tome written in a language no one had used in millennia. No, this time Harry was writing letters. Judging by the hefty stack, he had already written thirty or so, and by the number of still-empty envelopes before him, he was likely about a third of the way through his task.

“Hello, Harry,” Abigail greeted her younger friend as she arrived, asking curiously, “What are you up to there?”

“Hi, Abigail!” the currently human-shaped dragon answered cheerily, looking up from his latest missive. “I’m writing invitations,” he explained. “I’m going to have a Christmas party for all my new employees at Hogs Haulage! It’s gonna be great!”

“He has greatly enjoyed meeting his new management staff and engineers over the past few weeks and has been looking for an opportunity to do the same with the rest of his employees ever since,” Suze volunteered, looking up from where she had busied herself with proofreading her dragon’s letters and addressing envelopes.

Harry nodded enthusiastically. “Yep! And I remembered how well the barbecue went last summer, so I thought I’d try that again. We’re gonna use the main lawn at the Hogsmeade office, so there should be plenty of space, and Mr. Wardale said he’d get the machine shop to work up a proper grill, so we don’t get big scorched spots like I had from the bonfires. He said they’d probably get a kick out of setting it up.”

“The only problem is I won’t have any acromantula ready in time,” the dragon’s cheerful expression fell. “Too many died, so I need to leave ‘em alone for a while before I can take any more. I had to order a bunch of extra beef and pork and stuff instead.” He sighed, “I hope no one’s too disappointed.”

“I’m sure it’ll turn out okay,” Abigail assured her friend. “It may not be as... exotic, but I’m sure no one will hold it against you.”

She certainly wouldn’t... roasted spiders, indeed. She suppressed a shudder.

“I suppose,” he said uncertainly, “but I was hoping to make up for you missing out during summer, and… oh yeah! I almost forgot!” Harry rummaged through the pile of already-completed invitations before he held one up triumphantly to offer to his friend. “Here! I know you’re not technically an employee yet, but you will be as soon as you graduate in June, and I wanted to get you an early start on meeting everyone.”

Abigail took the envelope, addressed to her in Suze’s meticulous hand. “Thank you, Harry! I’ll be sure to come,” the older girl beamed then turned thoughtful. “Though, speaking of things I’m going to have to explain to my parents, when are you planning on dealing with that stone circle thing you mentioned back during summer?”

Harry nodded agreeably. “Yeah, we’re planning on that the day after the barbecue. We wanted to get it done early during break in case there are complications and it knocks me out for a while or something. Mr. Snape figured it would be better than missing school.”

“That should work out nicely,” Abigail said with a smile. “What do you think about…”

At that point Abigail was interrupted by the arrival of the fourth member of their group.

“Hello, everyone!” Hermione greeted breathlessly. “Sorry it took so long to get here, class ran a bit long.”

A round of greetings echoed hers as the bushy-haired girl settled into her usual seat at the table. “So, what were you talking about?”

“I was about to ask what everyone thought about the new dueling club Lockhart’s been hawking to everyone,” Abigail spoke up. “I was thinking about going to see what it was all about.”

“Really?” Harry spoke up, looking up from his letter writing in surprise. “I thought you thought Lockhart was useless. Why do you want to spend more time with him?”

“I do think he’s useless as a teacher,” Abigail assured him, “but he might be a better duelist, so that might be worth looking into. It’s always a good idea to learn as much as you can.”

“I suppose...” the young dragon allowed.

“Plus,” Abigail continued, “Snape and Flitwick are both going to help with it, and they’re bound to contribute something worthwhile. Flitwick is a world-champion duelist, and Snape is… well, Snape.”

Harry nodded agreeably. Mr. Flitwick was really skilled, and Snape was indeed Snape.

“Maybe I should check it out too?” he mused.

“Hermione, is something bothering you?” Suze spoke for the first time in a few minutes, looking at her junior damsel in concern.

“No, nothing is wrong — why do you ask?” The bushy haired girl noticeably straightened from her previously hunched posture and tried — poorly — to pretend that it had never happened.

The centaur looked down her nose skeptically at the younger girl, an exceedingly simple task for a centaur.

“Hermione,” she said patiently, “you flinched at the mention of Mr. Snape’s name... there, you did it again! That is not normal behavior for you.”

“No... no it ain’t,” Harry interjected, looking closely at his bushy-haired damsel. Her hunched posture made her discomfort obvious, even to him now that Suze had pointed it out. “What’s wrong, Hermione? Has someone been botherin’ you again, ‘cause I said I’d protect you and I will… even if it was Mr. Snape.”

“No, no, it’s nothing like that,” Hermione assured him hurriedly. “I just… well, the thing with the Weasley twins’ punishment back at the beginning of the year was still bothering me, so last week I went and asked Professor Snape about it directly.” Hermione drew a deep breath, “And he told me about it, and the reasons make sense, but then he pointed out that other students’ discipline really wasn’t any of my business and told me not to poke into that sort of thing again.”

The only male at the table looked at his bushy-haired damsel expectantly for a moment. “And?” he prompted when it became clear that she was not going to continue. “What happened then?”

“What do you mean, ‘and what happened then’?” Hermione exclaimed, only her deeply ingrained respect for libraries preventing her from shouting. “I got a reprimand, and I even deserved it. It was mortifying!” The bushy-haired girl buried her face in her hands, “I can barely stand going to potions anymore.”

Abigail made to speak up, but Harry beat her to the punch.

“Was Mr. Snape really that angry?” he asked doubtfully. “I mean, he’s told me off plenty of times before, and he never really holds much of a grudge — aside from needling you about it sometimes — as long as you listen and don’t do it again. How much did he insult you when he did it?”

“Insult me?” Hermione asked, perking up at the unexpected question. “Why would he insult me?”

“Well, that’s just how Mr. Snape is,” the young dragon explained. “He insults just about everybody, except the goblins because that’s bad for your financial status. You mean he didn’t say something about ‘stop snooping in other people’s business, you meddlesome wretch’ or anything?”

“Of course not!” the bushy-haired girl snapped.

“Wow, Mr. Snape must really like you if he was that polite!” Harry marveled, wide-eyed. “He insults me all the time — I mean, often enough that we even make games of it — and we’re business partners. Huh, I never would have guessed…”

The currently human-shaped dragon trailed off, stunned silent at the idea of Mr. Snape not insulting one of his students, and Abigail picked up the conversational gauntlet.

“You know, Hermione, Harry is right about that,” the older girl assured her junior. “Snape usually makes his punishments very, very obvious to the one being punished. If he just told you not to do it again and left it at that, it means he trusts you to follow his instructions without any further reinforcement.”

“So, he’s not mad at me?” Hermione asked in a small voice.

“Not in the slightest,” the seventh-year assured her, then quickly clarified, “Not for the question, anyway. If you’ve been slacking off in class because you were embarrassed, all bets are off.”

“Oh, okay,” the bushy-haired girl acknowledged in a small, relieved voice. With that, Hermione finally calmed down enough to take in the scene at the table for the first time since her arrival, and on doing so, Harry’s unusual work materials jumped out at her just as they had at Abigail.

“Harry,” she asked, unknowingly echoing Abigail’s earlier question, “what are you up to there?”

3.11.6 Club meeting

“Gather round! Gather round,” Gilderoy Lockhart called from his place in the middle of the Great Hall, drawing the attention of the students as they filed in and gathered around the edges of the room.

The massive room had been radically transformed over the course of the hour since the end of the midday meal. Gone were the House tables, and in their place stood a great platform, raised to waist height above the stone floor and occupying the center third of the Hall for perhaps half its length. A dark blue cloth covered it, draping all the way to the floor on all four sides. Complicated designs picked out in bronze thread adorned the blue fabric — abstract patterns which many of the students recognized as carefully engineered runic arrays, though few were learned enough to divine their purpose.

Massive granite cubes, easily two meters on a side, stood silent and imposing guard at each corner of the platform, their polished surfaces sporting carven runic arrays which despite being quite visibly distinct still somehow gave the impression of complementing those on the cloth covering the dueling platform. To the green eyes of the one student in the room able to see such things, they, along with the blue cloth, served to anchor a nearly transparent, glowing box encasing the volume directly above the platform to about three times the height of a tall man.

“Can everyone see me?” the blond professor asked. “Can everyone hear me?”

As the students responded with a sea of affirmative nods, the dandy smiled broadly before continuing. “Excellent! In light of the dark events of recent weeks,” he paused briefly to allow a nervous rustle to spread through the room, “Headmaster Dumbledore has granted me permission to start this Dueling Club to train you all up in case you need to defend yourselves, as I have done on countless occasions.”

“For full details, see my published works,” the man shot off another smile, prompting a fit of giggling from many of the female students.

“Now, while I would have been happy to teach you all myself,” another smile, “in light of the overwhelming interest,” he gestured to the crowded Hall, “I have chosen to enlist the help of several of my esteemed colleagues.”

“Professor Flitwick has graciously volunteered his services as an instructor,” Lockhart gestured grandly to the diminutive figure of the half-goblin professor who gave a nod of acknowledgement. “He has also contributed in creating this handsome covering for the dueling platform, as you might have guessed from the Ravenclaw color scheme,” Gilderoy gestured to the platform at his feet. “He assures me that, in addition to forming a smart backdrop for the club, it also serves as an anchor for the dueling wards, which will catch any stray spells before they can harm the audience.”

“The other half of those wards were provided by our esteemed Headmaster himself in the form of the large stone cubes,” the man gestured briefly to direct his audience’s attention to the imposing devices. “Rest assured that we have taken every reasonable precaution to make this club both informative and safe.”

An appreciative murmur swept through the students, even as Gilderoy turned to the last of the staff present. “And finally, we have Potions Master Snape, who has graciously agreed to help proctor the club and has even offered to participate in a dueling exhibition with me.”

Many of the boys in the audience perked up at hearing that.

The defense professor smiled again, though a particularly attentive observer would note that this smile seemed a tad forced in comparison to his usual fare. Lockhart gave a forced chuckle. “Rest assured that you will have your potions master back in one piece afterwards, never fear!”

“Now, before we begin, I will tell you all that this first lesson will focus on two charms, the disarming charm and the basic shield charm — a combination which, Professor Flitwick assures me, is an excellent introduction to dueling. For this reason, our demonstration will be limited to those two charms in order to provide a proper example of what you all will be doing when we get down to individual practice.”

“In all honesty, I do not expect this to go particularly well for me,” Lockhart admitted as he set aside his powder blue silk outer robe and retreated to one end of the platform. Even as his students gasped at the admission, he continued with unusual humility, “I do not often run into situations where such charms are useful, I’m afraid. My usual opponents tend to rely more on their natural abilities, which are rather more difficult to remove. While her voice cut like one, I can assure you that the Bandon banshee did not come after me with a knife!”

The young professor chuckled self-deprecatingly. “As a result, I am afraid I am rather woefully out of practice. I am certain, however, that I will be able to provide an excellent example of their use, even if only as a demonstration target.”

As the blond defense professor had been speaking, his opponent had finished making his way up to the other end of the platform. For his part, Snape had raised a derisive eyebrow at the obvious excuse before reluctantly nodding in acknowledgement of the good play. Through his preemptive admission, the dandy had taken what promised to be an embarrassing defeat and turned it into a badge of honor, highlighting his willingness to sacrifice his own dignity for the opportunity to teach his students something. Whatever his faults, Lockhart was definitely a quick thinker — though that didn’t prevent Snape from smiling a nasty sort of smile.

The potions master would enjoy himself, regardless; even if slightly less than he would have had the blond man received his full measure of humiliation.

The blond man took a deep breath, then called out to his half-goblin colleague, who had moved to stand just off the platform at its midpoint. “If you would be so kind as to officiate, Mr. Flitwick?”

“Of course!” the diminutive man agreed, his small form almost lost among the crowd of students. “To reiterate, per the agreed-upon rules, this bout will be fought with disarming and shield charms only. Begin on my mark; stop on my command. If you do not stop on my command, I will intervene to stop you. The same will happen if you should use any magics forbidden by the rules of the bout. Are you ready, Mr. Lockhart?” The blond man nodded. “Are you ready, Mr. Snape?” The dark man nodded.

The half-goblin nodded in acknowledgement. “Begin!”

Both wizards burst into motion, moving to cast a disarming charm. Unfortunately for Lockhart, Snape proved to be significantly faster, completing his charm and twisting his wand smoothly to cast a shield before Lockhart’s return fire reached him. The blond’s disarming charm deflected from his shield, going on to dissipate with nary a trace on hitting the dueling wards surrounding the platform.

On the other end of the platform, things were decidedly less sedate.

Snape’s disarming charm had caught Lockhart just below the sternum just as the blond man released his own spell. It had thrown the man’s wand clear of his hand — directed vaguely towards Snape himself, as the charm was intended to do — but that was not its only effect. It also managed to throw Lockhart for a loop, flipping him end over end and depositing him in an undignified heap of baby blue silk and blond hair a few yards back from his starting position.

The room fell silent for a moment before Flitwick’s voice rang out, “Victory to Mr. Snape.”

And then, for the first time in his entire history with the institution of Hogwarts, every male student in the Great Hall cheered loud and long for Severus Snape.

Truly, it was a red-letter day.

Of course, all good things come to an end, and as the applause died down, Lockhart made known the fact that he had managed to untangle himself from his robes.

“Excellent work, my friend!” the blond dandy said with admirable aplomb for someone who had just been sent arse-over-teakettle in front of an entire room full of his students. “I must admit, I had never realized the disarming charm could do more than simply disarm someone.”

Snape simply smirked until Flitwick jumped in to volunteer an explanation.

“As with many charms, the specific effects of the disarming charm can be modified, either through the will of the caster, or through slight variations in the casting process,” the half-goblin explained. “Normally, sending the target flying is an indication that too much power was pushed into the casting, but such castings normally result in broken bones, or severe bruising at the least. Given Mr. Lockhart’s apparent lack of injury, I would assume that Mr. Snape used a deliberate alteration.”

The dark man nodded. “One that I developed during my sixth year at this institution,” he volunteered. “I had intended to use the variant which completely disarms the target — down to his teeth and fingernails — however, I was unfortunately unable to reproduce it in the time for this exhibition.”

Lockhart winced at that idea, alongside the entire student body.

“I do not believe I’ve ever heard of that variation, Severus,” the diminutive duelist said avidly, showing no sign of discomfort with the idea of brutally mutilating a fellow wizard. “Wherever did you come across it?”

“Another invention of mine,” the potions master said amiably, “also developed during my sixth year; though I must admit that one was developed accidentally. I still have my notes, however reproducing it after so many years has proven to be difficult.”

“Remarkable!” Flitwick enthused. “Is that how you put Mr. Black in the infirmary for a week during that year?”

The dark man continued to smirk.

“I see. I see. Tell me, Severus,” Flitwick asked conversationally. “Would you be open to sitting down with me and attempting to reproduce it — perhaps over winter break? It sounds like a fascinating piece of spell-work. I would assume there is a significant component of intent behind the casting — perhaps a specific focus on the target’s natural weapons… hmm. It might even prove useful for dealing with your usual fare, Gilderoy,” the half-goblin addressed his other colleague. “After all, a charm that removed teeth and claws would have been quite useful during your werewolf encounter, I suspect.”

“Yes, of course,” Gilderoy sounded sick at the idea, but put on an admirable front. “It certainly would have.”

“I would be delighted,” Snape agreed with his senior colleague even while shooting a nasty smirk at his junior. “Provided we have the time over break, of course. Perhaps we might complete it in time for the next session of our dueling club?” His smirk grew even nastier as Lockhart paled.

“Perhaps...” Lockhart’s voice broke as he spoke. He cleared his throat. “Perhaps it would be best if we continued with the current session before we run out of time.”

Not waiting for a response from his colleagues, he turned back to the student body at large. “Everyone, give your potions master a round of applause for that excellent demonstration of the versatility of the basic disarming charm!”

The room dissolved into applause once again, this time including the girls among the audience as well.

“Now,” the foppish man said as the applause died down once more, “I know many of the older students are already well-versed in the disarming and shield charms, and I would like you to break off into small groups and introduce your junior colleagues to the basics of their casting. In the meantime, we will devote the central platform to volunteer duels among those who have managed to cast the charms. Do we have a volunteer to start us off? You may pick whomever you wish to challenge; though remember, they are free to decline should they so choose.”

And so, the first meeting of the dueling club picked up steam, and the Great Hall descended into a messy sort of order, dozens of groups split off and reviewed the basics of casting a pair of moderately advanced charms. In the background, a series of practice duels, fought with varying levels of expertise, took place on the dueling platform under the watchful eye of Professor Flitwick, until eventually something happened to catch the attention of everyone in the Hall.

A second-year student had reached the front of the line of dueling volunteers, and, upon ascending the platform, he brushed back his already perfectly-coiffed blond hair, raised his wand in the standard gesture of challenge, and called out, loud enough for the rest of the room to hear over the general din.

“I, Draco Malfoy, challenge Harry Potter.”

3.11.7 Student dueling

Draco watched in expectantly as his opponent slowly made his way up to the dueling platform through the packed room. The last year had been difficult for the young Malfoy, and he planned to use this opportunity to turn that around.

Ever since that debacle back in January, the blond had been scrambling to reaffirm his place in life. Before, he had been secure in the knowledge that he was the Heir to the great and powerful Malfoy House, but the bloody ginger peasant’s boot had shattered that security, along with one of his testicles... an inch to the left and all would have been lost! Sure, it hadn’t actually happened that way, but it had been a wakeup call.

Draco needed something else to fall back on, just in case something else happened to finish the job. If he couldn’t rely on his inheritance, he reasoned, then he would have to build his own place. Of course, in his inexperience, Draco had no real idea of how to accomplish that, so he did what most children do when faced with a new and unfamiliar situation.

He tried to emulate his parents.

His attempts to convince his peers of the wisdom of following his lead had fallen on deaf ears, as had the later attempts to browbeat them into submission. Falling back on the old mainstays of blackmail and intimidation had met with some success until his new subjects had sought alliances with each other and countered his efforts. By the end of the previous school year, the youngest Malfoy had been at his wit’s end, with his housemates countering his every gambit almost before he could begin.

It almost seemed like everyone had conspired together against him, but that couldn’t possibly be right. That never happened to his father when he did the same sorts of things.

When Draco had approached his father to ask for help, the man had explained to his son that the trick to using such techniques was negotiating from a position of perceived strength, and Draco simply didn’t have the reputation to pull it off.

Thus, he reasoned, he obviously needed to boost his reputation in the school. Draco had thought long and hard about how to do that over the summer break, and nothing had occurred to him. The one possibility he had come up with, beating someone up to showcase his prowess, had been immediately forbidden by his father as soon as he had proposed the idea, citing something about Draco needing to keep his head down after the incident the previous year.

Draco hadn’t really been able to follow the logic, but he trusted that his father knew what he was talking about.

So, the young blond had persisted in an awkward sort of holding pattern for most of the first term of his second year, waiting for an opportunity. That wait had ended when he had learned of the dueling club. There he could flex his magical might without making disciplinary trouble for himself! Better yet, he had learned that the Potter Heir would be in attendance, and that fact had cemented his plan.

Somehow or other, Potter had built a name for himself during the previous year. Rumors abounded about the scrawny little wizard managing to somehow punch out a troll on the previous Halloween, and that action had laid in a formidable reputation. Personally, Draco doubted the veracity of the rumors, but most of the student body had bought into it, rightly or wrongly.

In that reputation, Draco saw an opportunity. If he could defeat Potter in a duel, then that reputation would serve to enhance his own. Potter was known to be strong, and by beating him Draco would immediately be seen as even stronger!

Heck, even if the rumors were somehow correct and Potter was physically strong enough to punch out a troll, it still wouldn’t be a problem in a magical duel. Physical contact was strictly forbidden in those circumstances, and Potter was notorious for his poor performance in spellcasting practicals. The professors always had him doing some sort of remedial exercise while everyone else practiced actual casting. Between that and Draco’s years of private tutoring before Hogwarts, his success was assured.

It was foolproof!

With that in mind, Draco drew his wand and settled into a slightly awkward version of the standard dueling stance as his unsuspecting opponent finally arrived. Potter took his place at the far end of the dueling platform, smiling like an idiot and bouncing in place briefly before drawing his own wand. The room stilled in anticipation until the charms professor signaled the beginning of the duel.

“Begin!”

Draco snapped his wand down in as quick a disarming charm as he could manage, the incantation leaving his lips as a shout. As the spell left his wand, the blond second-year noted that his opponent had managed to mis-cast his own charm, leaving his wand lightly smoking as the other boy stared at it in frustration.

What luck!

Draco had expected the bout to be easy, but not this easy! His disarming charm was right on target, and his opponent wasn’t even looking in his direction. There were just a few more feet to go before it connected, and then — success!

Draco smiled broadly as his disarming charm connected. That smile quickly melted into an expression of slack-jawed astonishment when the charm proceeded to have no discernable effect whatsoever; the Potter Heir didn’t even seem to notice the impact as he continued fiddling with his wand in an attempt to get his own casting right.

Several seconds passed before the Malfoy Heir collected himself enough to try again. Again, a perfectly-cast disarming charm flew down the dueling platform; again, it connected with his opponent; and again, it failed to have any effect whatsoever. This time, he clenched his teeth and immediately tried again, pushing as much power into the casting as he could manage.

This pattern repeated five times before Potter smiled broadly as he finally managed to cast a successful charm, releasing a brilliant slug of scarlet light larger than Draco’s entire torso. Thankfully for the blond, it hadn’t been properly aimed, shooting off to the side where it almost instantaneously slammed into the dueling containment wards protecting the audience... wards which momentarily turned visible as they struggled to dissipate energy dumped into them.

What?

The world seemed to slow as he processed what had just happened and adrenaline began to flow in earnest. Potter had just cast… what was that? How did he go from not being able to cast to turning a disarming charm into that? The dopey smile on the magical incompetent’s face suddenly took on a decidedly sinister cast to Draco’s newly opened eyes.

He could not take one of those!

Panic and a magically enhanced endocrine system kicked Draco’s efforts up to a new level as he threw more disarming charms downrange as fast as he could manage. In the process, his accuracy took a hit, not that it mattered; improved accuracy wouldn’t have helped in the slightest when none of the hits even seemed to register on his opponent.

After a couple more false-starts, Potter’s counterattack began in earnest, the still-smiling twelve-year-old sending bolt after bolt of burning red magic in Draco’s general direction. His accuracy was abominable, bad enough that he might have been better off aiming away from his opponent, but with those freakishly powerful spells he would only need to hit once.

Draco scrambled for an idea, any idea, on how to get out of his predicament, until his adrenaline-soaked mind finally hit on a spell he had learned from one of his private tutors over the summer. It wasn’t much, but it was different, and that difference might be enough to buy him just a few seconds to come up with something else.

As another wildly inaccurate disarming charm shot past him a couple yards to the left, Draco cast, “Serpensortia!” His wand flashed white as a trio of large black snakes shot out of the light and landed heavily two thirds of the way across the dueling platform, drawing his opponent’s attention immediately.

Unfortunately for Draco, the distraction came too late as one of Potter’s spells finally managed to find its target, slamming into his chest with a dull thud and the wet crack of breaking ribs and knocking him backwards off his feet. Before he hit the ground, the magic took effect, ripping the blond boy’s wand out of his hand with brutal force, dislocating three of his fingers and breaking his wrist on the way.

Between the pain of his injuries and his rising exhaustion in the wake of the adrenaline rush, the Malfoy Heir lost consciousness even before he skidded to a stop.

3.11.8 At least it’s not French

As that annoying blond kid’s unconscious form came to a halt on the fabric-covered dueling platform, Harry had already dismissed him in favor of the snakes he had conjured, catching their beady black eyes with his own brilliant emerald ones. The conjured reptiles took one look at the currently human-shaped dragon and sensibly decided they desperately needed to be somewhere else, fleeing at the best speed they could manage.

That was kind of unexpected. Harry cocked an eyebrow curiously as he watched the snakes slither off; normally, conjurations didn’t have such good sense. Had that annoying blond kid managed to summon real snakes from somewhere, instead?

As he relaxed and stowed his wand, Harry reflected on his performance... a rather embarrassing performance, if he were to be honest. Harry rubbed at the back of his head sheepishly. He’d flubbed casting the disarming spell so many times during the last thirty-seconds, in front of so many of his fellow students, that he really couldn’t think of it any other way. Even when he had finally managed to connect, it had barely worked like it was supposed to; the disarming charm was supposed to disarm the target, not hammer them into the ground.

Worse yet, his accuracy was terrible; Sergeant Major Hooktalon would have been ashamed of that performance. Harry frowned; he’d have to start putting in a lot more practice if he didn’t want to embarrass himself like that again. Aiming a wand was completely different from aiming a rifle.

A scream from the crowd to his left interrupted his reverie, and a quick glance revealed that one of the fleeing snakes had encountered two of Harry’s friends in Hufflepuff, Susan and Hannah. The two clutched each other in fright as they attempted to cower away from the snake which was hissing demands that they get out of the way.

“Hey, you!” Harry hissed at the snake in the same way, storming over and hopping down off the platform. “You stop that!”

The snake turned on Harry, rearing back to strike before Harry’s hand shot out faster than it could react and grabbed it behind the head, incidentally snapping its spine and dissipating the reptile’s conjured form.

Harry cocked his head curiously as he looked down at his empty hand. So, the snakes were conjured after all. But they spoke parseltongue! How had...?

Weird. After a short moment’s consideration, Harry shook his head in dismissal. He’d have to give it a bit of a think later.

With the immediate threat removed, the hullaballoo died down, and an accusatory voice called out from the crowd.

“You’re a parselmouth!”

3.11.9 An unlikely defender

The room descended into shocked silence as the accusation sank into people’s minds.

“I’m a what?” Harry spoke up.

“You’re a parselmouth,” the voice — belonging to a Ravenclaw Harry wasn’t familiar with — repeated.

“And that is...?”

“It means you can speak parseltongue,” The Ravenclaw explained.

The currently human-shaped dragon gave him another blank look.

“That means you can speak to snakes!” He sounded a bit exasperated now.

“Yeah, so what?” Harry asked, completely failing to read the mood.

“Only dark wizards can speak parseltongue,” another anonymous voice asserted.

“Why?” Harry was confused. “It’s just another language. You know, just like English or French or Spanish or Gaelic or German or Norwegian or Or’zet or Greek or…”

Before he could continue his listing of languages — a process his audience likely would have found much more impressive had they known he was fluent in every single one of them — the same Ravenclaw interrupted, insisting, “But parseltongue is special!”

“But why?” Harry demanded, a little exasperated himself now. “I mean, snakes aren’t even interesting to talk to; they’re way too dumb to have a proper conversation!”

It really did seem like a rather silly thing to make a big situation out of.

“For cryin’ out loud, the one just now didn’t even respond right to a threat when I told it to back off. I was like a thousand times its size, so you’d think it’d know better, but they’re just too dumb. Even porpoises are better conversationalists, and half of what they say is swearing!” The dragon shook his currently human-shaped head.

“But You-Know-Who was a parselmouth!” the Ravenclaw insisted. “And we had that ‘Heir of Slytherin’ thing back on Halloween. Slytherin was a parselmouth, too!”

“So? That’s a silly argument.” A few of the Hufflepuffs had finally wrapped their heads around the changed situation, and one of them loyally stepped up to the defense of their own, even in the face of creepy-sounding magical languages. “You-Know-Who also spoke English, and no one’s insisting English is an evil language because of it.”

“Yeah! And Harry wasn’t even on campus on Halloween,” one of the Hufflepuff prefects chimed in. “He was off-campus with Professor Snape for something. I remember checking since I was responsible for roll-call that night.” At the odd looks from his counterparts in the other houses, he clarified, “We started checking during the feasts after that debacle at Halloween last year.” The puzzled looks dissolved into thoughtful nodding at that.

As the stubborn Raven gathered himself for another round of belligerent insistence that Harry Potter must in fact be evil because he could speak to snakes, a second Ravenclaw entered the conversation, this one a petite girl with Asiatic features.

“It’s Harry Potter,” the girl scoffed at her housemate, “he’s about as likely to be secretly evil as you are to spontaneously grow wings and fly away... and with your transfiguration grades, that’s hardly likely. Some of us actually pay attention to the rest of the school.”

The girl, Su Li as Harry recalled — she had been memorable as the only student smaller than he was back when he had been Sorted — then turned to him. “I’m more interested in the fact that you can apparently talk to porpoises. That’s a magical language I’ve never heard of before.”

“Um… I’m not sure its magical, really.” Harry thought about it for a moment. “It didn’t seem any different than when I learned French and Norwegian last summer or when Mr. Slackhammer’s nephew taught me Or’zet. I learned it when I was nine from the pod that lives in the sound just off the coast.”

“So, you can pick up languages just by hearing them?” She seemed extremely interested at that. “I’m assuming there isn’t a pod of porpoises that speaks English and used it to teach you their own language.”

“Yeah, that’s right,” Harry admitted. “The ‘picking up languages by hearing them spoken’ bit, I mean. They don’t speak English as far as I know.”

Su Li nodded at the clarification, turning back to the room at large with an oddly shark-like smile on her face. “There you go, Harry’s just a polyglot who happens to have learned to talk to snakes,” the diminutive girl concluded. “No dark magic involved.”

3.11.10 Crouching tiger, hidden dragon

As the confrontation died down and the students began to filter out of the hall, Snape stifled a relieved chuckle.

When his dunderheaded godson had gone and picked a fight with the resident dragon, the potions master had feared the worst. Draco was hardly the most skilled duelist at the best of times, and the youngest Potter was absurdly deadly, even in human form. Even with a Healer onsite, had one of those monstrous disarming charms hit his godson’s empty head, the boy would have been hard-pressed to survive the impact. As it was, the hit to the chest had broken two ribs and the rapid departure of his wand had dislocated three fingers and broken the boy’s wrist.

When the fool boy was released from Poppy’s care, he would have to do something unpleasant to Lucius’ idiotic spawn. Apparently, the previous year’s bludgers had not been enough to drive home the notion that Snape’s instructions were not to be ignored. Though, to be fair, the potions master mused, judging by the boy’s continued, if ineffectual, attempts at harassing Miss Granger partial castration hadn’t been sufficient to keep Draco on the straight and narrow, either.

If that didn’t get through to the boy… well, Snape was fairly certain he had no means available to escalate further. At least, he had no means that would not risk his own arrest, and that was off the table. Godson or not, seeing to Draco’s education rated far lower on Snape’s personal hierarchy of priorities than avoiding seeing the inside of Azkaban.

Of greater concern to the potions master were the potential pitfalls for the dragon involved, and those were varied and quite troubling. Apart from the emotional fallout over the accidental killing of a classmate, no matter how unlikable, there was the potential damage to the Potter Heir’s political position, and through that, damage to Snape’s long-term strategic goals.

Harry’s immense personal strength was not his sole asset. His position as the Head of the Ancient and Noble House of Potter and — much as Snape loathed the folly that had led to that detestable moniker — his position as the Boy-Who-Lived were very nearly as important for their long-term goals. If his reputation were to be seriously damaged before the boy was mature and in position to defend himself, the boy’s political clout could be severely eroded by the time it became crucial for the revolution.

Caution was advisable.

Among things to be cautious about, dead children rated near the top of the list. Admittedly, teaching magic was a risky business even if they had gotten very good at managing those risks over the centuries, and Harry would have faced no legal consequences given the ages and situation involved. Regardless of legal culpability however, accidental manslaughter during a schoolyard practice duel would have significantly damaged the young dragon’s reputation, and that could have been nearly as damaging in the long run.

The same could be said for the revelation of the boy’s talent with parseltongue. Rightly or wrongly, the serpent language carried a stigma in Wizarding Britain, and Snape’s long-term plans could ill-afford such a blot on the boy’s good name.

Miss Li’s fortuitous interference had been a godsend in that regard.

As the last of the disorganized mob of students filed out of the room, the potions master considered how he might thank the girl. Such service deserved appropriate recognition, to encourage the girl to continue, if nothing else. Perhaps he could offer her access to one of his rarer tomes? That was usually a safe sort of reward for a Ravenclaw…

...though, perhaps he could do one better.

The former spy paused for a moment as he recalled that final smile from the girl before he smiled a devious sort of smile of his own. Yes, he could definitely do something better, not to mention potentially more amusing. That smile was not simply an expression of satisfaction at winning an argument and besting a rival; over the years, the potions master had seen enough of those to differentiate.

No, that was the smile of a predator... a tiger crouching as it prepared to pounce on an unsuspecting stag.

Thinking back on what he knew of Miss Li, it took Snape little effort to piece together her motives. The girl hailed from Hong Kong, and while the city was currently under British rule on the non-magical side of things, it was firmly part of the Han Empire on the magical side.

It begged the question: why had they sent one of their daughters halfway around the world to a British school rather than keeping her close to home?

Given the diplomatic relationship — or more accurately, the lack thereof — between the British Ministry and the Han Empire, it could be safely assumed that Miss Li had come to Hogwarts neither out of any sense of respect for the British wizarding world, nor in an attempt to forge a better life for herself. No, he’d be willing to bet a month’s salary the girl had been sent to acquire new blood for the family.

Just like perhaps two-thirds of the girls in his own House, she was at Hogwarts to get her MRS, as the saying went.

In light of that, the reasons for her predatory smile became painfully obvious. A magical talent for understanding any spoken language would be an invaluable addition to the family bloodline, and when combined with his utterly absurd magical strength…

The sallow-faced man smirked. Given the information Miss Li had to work with, it was no wonder the girl was on the hunt!

Now the only soul remaining in the cavernous dueling hall, the potions master no longer felt the need to stifle his chuckling. Miss Abercrombie in his House and now Miss Li in Ravenclaw, in addition to Miss Granger and Miss Suze who were practically joined to the boy at the hip — both sets of hips in the centaur’s case — the wretched lizard certainly seemed to have a way with the ladies. Had Snape thought it in any way intentional, he might have taken the boy aside for a chat about appropriate behavior; as it was however, Severus felt nothing but amusement at the situation.

What would Miss Li do when she found herself playing crouching tiger, not to the stag she expected, but rather to a hidden dragon? Snape was uncertain, but he was certain that whatever it was would be thoroughly amusing.

Perhaps he ought to shuffle the lab partners in his classes again? Learning to work with a variety of people was a valuable life skill, after all... and if Ms. Li were to find herself fortuitously partnered with the young man who had caught her interest...

Hmm… he nodded firmly.

Yes, that would do nicely as a thank-you gift for the girl. That would do nicely, indeed.

3.11.11 Rumors

Despite Su Li’s eminently reasonable explanation, Harry’s supposedly-depraved activities as a parselmouth quickly made the rounds of the Hogwarts rumor mill, and as they did, various elements of the student body each painted their own picture of the young dragon’s supposed private life.

Vivid imaginations were aided and abetted by Harry’s recent habit of spending his weekends away from the school. After all, if Harry had nothing to hide, why wasn’t he showing up to meals on the weekends?

The pastime was not limited to those with an unhealthy obsession with ophidian linguistics. Even those who disagreed with the idea of Harry as the ‘Heir of Slytherin’ came up with their own stories, for reasons as varied as the individuals telling them.

An older Slytherin spread the idea that the Potter Heir was faking the talent to try to erode lingering support for the Dark Lord, who had played on his own parseltongue talent as proof of his pedigree.

A young Gryffindor played up the dark wizard angle in a vague hope that it would keep Harry from dating anyone else until she was old enough to snap him up.

A certain blonde Ravenclaw claimed that Harry was, in fact, speaking dragon — not parseltongue at all — and that the two languages were simply mutually intelligible. She went on to explain that this was eminently sensible because Harry was obviously a dragon, so he would know.

In the considered opinions of her housemates, she was obviously deranged.

One of the Hufflepuffs even posited the idea that Harry was a honey-badger animagus who had cultivated the talent expressly for the purpose of taunting snakes before killing and eating them. While his housemates dismissed his explanation for the most part, they also did little to counter its spread. Most rather liked the idea; after all, what could be more Hufflepuff than that?

Other people just made up stories because they liked telling stories, and they saw no reason to let a little thing like truth get in the way of their hobbies.

Regardless of reason, Harry’s defenders had their hands full trying to keep up with the proliferation.

 

3.12 Clash of titans

---

3.12.1 Invitation

Mac McDonald and Jim Coates walked in companionable silence through the misty pre-dawn streets of their home neighborhood on the outskirts of Hogsmeade. It was a calm sort of place with friendly neighbors and lots of children, all told, a great place to raise a family. That and its location, situated within easy walking distance of the Hogs Haulage offices and yards, made the neighborhood a favorite for company men and their families.

Such was that popularity that the disreputable appearance of the pair, trudging by in the pre-dawn twilight in their work clothes and filthy with coal dust, drew little comment even from those few awake enough to notice. Two company men trudging home after a long shift, covered in the evidence of their labors was nothing to get excited over.

“Good work today, Mac,” Jim told his fireman as they came to the turn where he would break off for his house. Clapping a congratulatory hand on the man’s pitch-black shoulder, the senior engineer continued, “’Specially pitchin’ in t’ help unload the coal wagons. Tough enough handlin’ the night run, but goin’ straight to extra shovelin’ afterward’s a real kick in tha teeth.”

“’s nah problem, Jim,” Mac waved off his coworker. “Weren’t ‘awkins’ whiskey ‘is father died, and ya daan’t make someone come back from buryin’ ‘is da’ ter a big pile o’ work.” He shook his head at the idea, then gestured to Jim’s equally coal-encrusted countenance, “An’ ’s not like you didn’t hedge in too, Jimmy.” Mac chuckled, “Can’t ‘ave ya makin’ me look sorry!”

“Right-o! Right-o,” Jim laughed at that, shaking his head even as he turned to go. “Clock ya’ tomorra, Mac!”

For his part, Mac walked on toward his own home. Already visible down the lane, it was a small but well-kept residence whose most important feature, in Mac’s considered opinion, currently had her arms crossed over her heavily pregnant belly as she tapped her foot impatiently on the front step.

“Well, ain’t you a sight fer sore eyes, luv,” Mac called to his wife, Irene, hurrying as much as he was able after a very long night’s work. “Wot’s got you out in tha’ mornin’ chill?”

“Ah! No hugs ‘til you shower, Mac,” she fended off her husband as he made to embrace her in enthusiastic greeting. At his comically exaggerated pout, she assured him, “I’ll hug the stuffin’ out of you once you wash off that coal dust, Mac, don’t you worry. I’d have asked what took ya’ so long, but you’re even dirtier than usual. Had to fill in moving coal, then?”

Mac nodded as the couple made their way inside. “’awkins lost ‘is da’ an’ ‘ad ter go ter the funeral. Didn’t want ‘im ter come back to a load o’ extra work, so me an’ Jimmy filled in fer ‘im.”

“You’re a good man, Mac,” Irene smiled proudly, eliciting a somewhat bashful smile in return from her husband. “I’ve got a hot meal for you on the stove, and once you’re cleaned up, there’s a letter you should take a look at.”

Mac paused on his way to the shower. “Problem?”

“Only that if you don’t get a look at it soon, your daughter may squirrel it away in her room, never to be seen again,” Irene laughed. “It’s not every day you get a letter from the Boy-Who-Lived, after all!”

Mac chuckled at that. He could certainly see their little Colleen hoarding such a letter to herself; the excited squeal when the six-year-old had learned her hero had purchased the train company had been deafening. He’d have to hurry and get cleaned up.

Fifteen minutes later, and what seemed like five pounds of coal dust lighter, Mac made his way to the kitchen to join his three children. From her perch on her older brother’s lap, his youngest, Colleen, stared intently at the letter in question when it was laid out on the table, busily sounding out the words. His eldest son Mike, the owner of said lap, had dressed for his new job at one of the Hogsmeade warehouses but nonetheless sat patiently helping his little sister with her reading. To complete the scene, Mac’s second son, Evan, sat off to the side eating his breakfast and periodically fidgeting as he glanced back and forth between the letter and the door.

Seeing that, Mac figured it’d probably be best if he went ahead and dealt with the situation right away. Evan was obviously curious, but he’d be late for school if he stayed much longer, and that was something to be avoided. The group tutoring arrangements that took the place of Hogwarts for most of wizarding Britain tended to be fairly informal affairs, but there were limits... in this case, limits in the form of Mac’s irate sister coming over to rag on him for letting her nephew show up late to her lessons.

“Wot ya got there, kiddo?” he asked as he made his way to the table.

“Daddy!” the excited six-year-old looked up at the sound of her father’s voice, immediately climbed out of her brother’s lap, and ran over to give Mac a hug. “Did you see? We got a letter from Harry Potter!”

“’s ‘at so?” Mac asked. “An’ what did Mister Potter ‘ave t’ say t’ us?”

“He’s inviting us to his Christmas party!” the small girl gushed, hugging her father again out of sheer exuberance.

Mac returned the hug even as he looked over her head to his eldest for an explanation.

“Looks like he’s havin’ a company Christmas party, Da’,” Mike relayed to his father. “Barbecue and such o’er at the company offices according to ‘is letter.” The young man in his early twenties gestured to the paper on the table. “’Says he’s lookin’ ter meet all o’ ‘is new workers, now that ‘e bought tha company an’ all.”

“Can we go, Daddy?” Colleen asked from her position hugging her father, looking up to deliver a dangerously cute look. “Please?”

“I’ll ‘ave ter take a look at the invitation, sweetie,” Mac temporized, gesturing to his son to hand over the letter for his perusal. “Daan’t kna if tha invitation extends ter family.”

“It does, Da’,” Mike volunteered even as he passed over the letter. “Says so specifically, just asks us ter tell ‘im how many yer bringin’. I’d like ta go, if yer gonna’.”

Mac looked from the cautiously hopeful look on his eldest’s face over to the quietly hopeful face of his second son, who was trying not to look eager with all the subtlety a teenager could muster. His daughter’s ever tightening hug was a constant reminder of her opinion, so there was only one left to check, and Irene’s approving nod decided the issue.

“Well, I guess we’re goin’, then,” Mac said, unfolding the letter to look for himself. “When is this fin’ ‘appenin’, anyway?”

3.12.2 Christmas plans

“What do you have there, Sharon?” Tony Granger asked.

His wife had just come in the front door of their modest home in Crawley carrying a handful of envelopes from the daily post, staring intently at one item in particular.

“I’m not entirely certain,” she replied, looking up from her examination with a puzzled frown. “It’s addressed to us from Hogsmeade, but it came through the normal post rather than by owl like Hermione’s letters always do.”

“Who do you think it might be from?” he asked as he walked over to join her. “The school always uses the owls.”

“Well, Tony, I suppose the only way to tell for certain is to open it and give the letter a read, now isn’t it?” she said, setting down the rest of the post and opening the letter in question. As she freed the missive from its containing envelope, the Sharon’s eyes narrowed as she took in the unfamiliar handwriting.

“So, who’s it from?” her husband prodded.

“It’s a letter from Harry,” she said absently as she continued to read. “It seems he has invited us to several of his Christmas events this year.”

“Judging by last summer, I doubt we’d be able to pry Hermione away to come home, so there’s that to consider,” Tony mused, thinking back on the festivities almost a year past. “That, and I suppose last year wasn’t too bad. Decorating the tree was kind of fun; you never appreciate how awkward ladders are until you don’t need to use one, that kid could reach everything.”

“That happens when you can palm the entire tree, I suppose... and yes, he’s invited us to celebrate Christmas at the Lair,” Sharon relayed, “but apparently we’re also invited to a Christmas party he’s throwing for his new company, Hogs Haulage...” the woman trailed off before turning to her husband. “Did you know that our daughter’s friend had purchased a railway company?”

“I can’t say that I was aware of that, no,” her husband replied. “I’d picked up on the materials business before, but that one is news to me. We might be able to find out more by attending the party, I suppose. When is it scheduled?”

“This Friday, it seems,” Sharon relayed, sounding amused. “Do you think Harry realizes just how far we have to travel in order to visit?”

“I rather doubt it,” Tony chuckled himself.

Magic seemed to twist perspectives about some things, travel times among them — he’d noticed the same tendency in his daughter as well, what little he’d seen of her over the past year, anyway.

“In any case, we’ve got the Johnson appointment scheduled for that day for late morning,” he shook his head sadly. “There’s no way we can reschedule, not after how long we’ve been trying to set it up.”

“You have an excellent point there,” his wife agreed reluctantly. “I suppose we’ll have to ask about it at Christmas proper.”

She paused to shake her head in disbelief. A boy her daughter’s age not only owned his own company, but he apparently actively participated in running it. The magical world was a very strange place, indeed. She turned back to the letter and read further.

“Hmm, he asks that we not show up before Monday,” she relayed. “It seems he’s planning to be out doing something away from home during the weekend. I wonder what he’s up to?”

“I suppose we’ll have to find out when we get there,” Tony shrugged.

It couldn’t be that important could it?

3.12.3 Pantry raid

From Harry Potter’s perspective, the latter part of the fall term had been characterized by a series of quite amazingly dull weekends. This one, the last of the fall term, had been no different thus far.

The day had begun in the manner of every weekend for the past several weeks, with the young dragon stooping low to allow his centaur allies to tie green branches onto him as a disguise. Then he had lain in wait within sight of his acromantula preserve, standing vigil in search of the nefarious snacker who had raided his pantry to such devastating effect. Acromantula were in short supply these days, and he didn’t want to lose the last of his spider-snacks!

Saturday had passed uneventfully, and with sundown approaching, Sunday threatened to end similarly, when suddenly there was movement in the brush! Harry stilled completely and watched.

The leaves parted to reveal a reptilian snout — even larger than his own! — covered in scales of a green so dark as to appear almost black in the fading sunlight. Above and behind the snout, a pair of forward-facing eyes shined a sickly yellow as they emerged from the brush. At their appearance, Harry noted an odd sort of sensation wash over him, akin to the feeling when the professors tried to cast on him before he was ready but amplified several hundredfold.

It kind of tickled... just a little.

Harry shivered slightly, brushing off the feeling with about the same level of effort a human might use to brush off a cobweb, as the massive snout and strange eyes were followed by the rest of an utterly enormous snake. By the young dragon’s estimation, the thing had to be at least half-again as long as he was... and that was just the part he could see so far!

The revelation was a bit of a shock; it was the first time since Avebury that Harry had seen any living creature larger than he was! His leafy camouflage rustled slightly as he shook off the momentary surprise. Big or small, magical or mundane, it was still just a snake, Harry reasoned with an inward shrug, and he was a dragon, so there was really no contest.

The important bit was saving his livestock! To that end, Harry stood up, still covered in branches, and barreled into the clearing like a battering ram.

“Hey you!” Harry hissed loudly in parseltongue. “What do you think you’re doing stealing my spiders? Don’t you know you’re supposed to ask first? You’re being rude!”

The gargantuan snake reared back, head towering at half-again Harry’s height as the young, camouflaged dragon came to a stop in front of it, the branches of his disguise rustling about him as they shook from the rough handling.

“What is this?” the snake hissed, taken aback. “A Speaker? But you are a bush! Can bushes Speak?”

“Hey! I’m a dragon, not a bush!” Harry protested, sounding thoroughly miffed at the misidentification.

“You do not look like a dragon, Speaker,” the snake said, cocking its massive head to one side and looking quite decidedly puzzled. “You look like a bush, or perhaps a short tree?”

Realizing the problem, Harry turned his head and let out a stream of fire, torching his leafy disguise.

As the burning foliage fell off revealing Harry’s dark silver scales, the snake exclaimed, “You are a dragon, Speaker! And you can turn into a bush? How remarkable!”

“But I didn’t turn into… oh never mind,” Harry sighed as he gave up on trying to explain to the rather dull beast. It seemed pretty smart for a snake, but the fact remained: it was a snake, and that was a very low bar to clear. “Anyway, I wanted to tell you to stop eating my spiders! If you keep eating them and killing off all the little ones there won’t be any left to make more to eat later.”

“Speaker, I am the Greatest of Serpents,” the snake hissed, rearing back threateningly. “I answer only to those of the Master’s blood, and you are not of his kin. You may not command me! I hunt where I wish.”

“You’d better listen, or I’ll have to do something unpleasant to you,” Harry warned, not intimidated in the slightest.

“You threaten me?” the snake reared up even higher, its back end coiling in preparation to strike. “You have already forsaken your advantage by revealing yourself, Speaker. How do you intend to hunt me? Turning into a bush once more will not help you!”

“But I didn’t turn into a…” Harry’s protest was interrupted by the snake’s powerful strike.

Caught by surprise, Harry failed to react in time to prevent the snake’s jaws from closing on his neck. Envenomed fangs smashed against Harry’s silvery scales, grinding with a terribly jarring clangor. The serpent bore down with the full strength of its jaw, releasing a rush of caustic venom which bubbled and hissed against the metallic scales. Its great teeth ground harder against the dragon’s unyielding metal hide, straining harder and harder until eventually something had to give...

...and give, something did.

With a cascade of sharp cracks, the snake’s fangs broke, splintering the young dragon’s neck.

“Hey, that was rude!” Harry complained as the snake muttered sibilant curses around a mouthful of broken teeth and undamaged dragon neck. “We were in the middle of a conversation — you don’t just go biting people in the middle of talking to them!”

He then brought one paw up to push the snake’s head off of him, finding purchase on the massive lower jaw and giving a heave. Hooked around Harry’s neck and unable to move freely, the snake’s jaw first dislocated and then snapped under the pressure.

That proved to be too much for the basilisk.

Somewhat used to broken fangs — an injury which occurred with reasonable frequency during normal hunting — the additional pain of a broken jaw was something it had never encountered before. The giant snake recoiled, writhing across the forest floor, smashing trees to splinters, and crushing the undergrowth into the dirt.

Watching as the gigantic reptile writhed in shrieking, inarticulate agony, Harry considered what to do. He was rather curious as to where the large serpent had come from as it seemed like the sort of thing that Bane would have known about if it were a normal denizen of the forest, but Harry kind of doubted it’d be particularly eager to answer questions. The young dragon shook his great head, dismissing the idea. It probably wasn’t worth the effort; he’d never found snakes to be good conversationalists, anyway, even when their jaws were intact. And speaking of broken jaws, he thought, it was probably best to put the poor screaming creature out of its misery.

Harry’s great green eyes hardened with resolve, and wind whistled as his powerful wing sliced through the air. The wing knuckle, claws fisted, slammed into the massive snake a meter or so back from the head, and the reptile’s half-yard-thick spine snapped with a tremendous, wet crack. The shockwave from the impact rippled along the body in both directions, separating scales from skin close to the point of collision in a shimmering greenish shower with the hydrostatic shock rupturing organs even farther away. The snake fell silent, a splash of blood and venom cutting off its final scream abruptly as its eyeballs first bulged, then popped from the overpressure.

Harry reflexively went for the bite to make sure of it only to rear back just as reflexively as he caught a whiff of the venom smoking on the ground as it dissolved the dirt.

“Huh,” the dragon mused, looking down at the spilled venom curiously.

It seemed those biting instincts weren’t insurmountable after all — or at least there was a counter-instinct tied to his sense of smell. Either way, it was probably a good thing in this case. That stuff smelled nasty, even to him, and after his last bout of severe indigestion, he was not eager to risk a repetition.

Harry looked over massive carcass stretching off into the splintered wreckage of the surrounding trees. That smell was not a good indicator for the general palatability of the creature, but that was a lot of meat, and it seemed a shame to let it go to waste. Maybe there was a way to process the carcass so he could eat it safely?

Harry frowned. Returning to the Lair to try to look it up would take too long. The spiders would eat the carcass before he could even find the right book; it didn’t matter if it was poisonous, the young ones would eat anything. That left asking somebody, but who? Harry’s green eyes narrowed speculatively — who did he know that would know how to process highly magical creatures into usable... Green eyes lit with realization.

“I know!”

3.12.4 What the dragon dragged in

Decorated with all the flamboyance typical of most magical celebrations, the Great Hall made for a spectacular sight during the final meal of the term. Evergreens lined the walls at regular intervals, splitting the distance between the hanging braziers providing the bulk of the illumination in the room. Garlands adorned the stone walls with massive wreaths above the twin fireplaces. Behind the staff table stood the focal point of the festive decorations, a monstrously large tree reaching nearly twice the height of its smaller brethren and stopping just short of disappearing into the illusion used to make the roof seem transparent.

In an unusually well-coordinated effort which had been organized by Gilderoy Lockhart of all people, every inch of the room had been decorated in a unified theme. The effect was both quite lovely and a sharp contrast to the normal cacophony of conflicting styles that typically resulted from skilled spellcasters working ‘together’ on a project.

The trees sported illusory icicles and silvery ornaments to go with the dancing fairy lights in all the shades of a moonlit snowy evening. The wintry theme carried through the rest of the room, from the garlands and wreaths to the stonework itself. Even the flames roaring in the braziers and fireplaces had been charmed to provide an enchanting white light more reminiscent of starlight than their usual fiery hues. In the considered opinions of the students, however, the unquestionable crowning feature of the display was the illusory snow falling gently from the ceiling only to dissipate just as it reached the heads of the students.

The evening meal was winding to a close, and conversation in the Great Hall had died down to a dull roar as the students began to consider wrapping things up and going to bed. They might not have class in the morning, but it would be a long day of travel on the Express for winter break. The children knew they would be well served by a good night’s sleep; however, they also knew this was their last chance of the term to catch up with their friends... and their last chance to catch up on the latest Hogwarts gossip.

And there was a lot of that to catch up on. The autumn term had been a productive season for the Hogwarts rumor mill, a circumstance aided in no small part by the mystery of the petrifications and the revelation of Harry Potter’s linguistic talents. Aided by his conspicuous absence the past few weekends, the rumors about the resident dragon continued to flourish despite the best efforts of the Hufflepuff students to quash them, and with his absence on this last day of the term, Harry’s friends among the student body feared that they would just have time to fester over break.

The call of “Professor Snape?” that rang out from the doorway to the Great Hall thus came as something of a welcome relief to the young Potter’s defenders.

The loud scraping sound interrupting the ensuing deafening silence was less of one.

“Professor Snape?” the small boy called again, dragging the scaly head of a mammoth creature behind him by means of an oddly-textured milky-white rope of a size that would not have looked out of place attached to an anchor on a large sailing ship. “Look what I found!”

All the while, Harry had been walking steadily forward towards the staff table, dragging more and more of what was slowly resolving itself to be an utterly enormous snake behind him, step by unlabored step. The thing was as wide as one of the House tables, including the benches, and it was very nearly as tall as it was wide. As more of the critter passed through the doors, it became obvious the snake had died from a tremendous blow just behind the head, one that had shattered the thing’s spine, judging by the sharp kink when that part had rounded the door frame. With that bit of evidence, the more perceptive students reassessed the broken and missing scales, the burst eyeballs, and the blood on the thing’s chin in a new light, revising the strength of that killing blow upwards by a wide margin.

“Mr. Potter,” the potions master said in a long-suffering tone, “why did you deem it appropriate to drag that thing in here?”

”Um, I found it raiding my pantry, and I was wondering whether it was safe to eat. The meat smells pretty tasty, but something... I think it’s the venom, anyway something smells kinda off, and I figured I should ask,” the young dragon explained. “And, well, I guess I was just kinda excited, y’know? I’ve been trying to catch this thing for like five straight weeks now! Plus, I didn’t want to leave it near the spiders, or they’d have eaten it before I got back, so I ran over and asked Mr. Bane for some rope so I could get a good grip. When I tried to pull it on my own, it just broke,” he finished, sadly gesturing to the upper lip of the snake’s mouth which had a large chunk torn out of the edge.

“I see,” Snape sighed as he rose to his feet. “Very well, Mr. Potter. It so happens that I do know how to process this beast, which is a basilisk, for reference; however, the Great Hall is not an appropriate venue for such activities. Drag it back to the clearing behind Hagrid’s hut, and we will see about cleansing it of any harmful substances so that you may consume it without danger.”

“Right!”

Harry started to drag it around to go back out the door only to encounter the Gryffindor table, filled with students staring at him and the wall of scales stretching out the door with looks of awestricken horror.

“Um, Mr. Snape?”

“Yes, Mr. Potter?”

“I don’t think I can get it turned around.”

“Then drag it by the tail,” Snape snapped as his rather limited supply of patience ran out abruptly.

“Right!”

And with that, the small boy quickly hauled himself up onto the carcass, loosening and then removing the smooth white rope, and leaving the massive basilisk’s head to loll to the side as every student in the hall stared at it in trepidation. Quickly gathering up the now-detached rope, Harry scampered back to the door, hopped lightly up on the carcass in order to squeeze through the door frame and disappeared from view. The hall remained utterly silent for nearly a minute before the scraping began again as the snake slowly inched its way back out the door, its dreadful head flopping limply with each tug.

As the terrifying visage of the basilisk rounded the doorframe, leaving only a three-meter-wide blood smear as evidence that it had ever been there, Snape shook his head in exasperation, turning back to his plate he quickly finished the last few bites of his meal before sweeping out of the still shocked-silent Great Hall in a billowing cloud of dark robes.

“Argus,” the Headmaster spoke from his chair at the center of the staff table, breaking the silence and drawing the attention of the castle Caretaker, who had been staring at the blood trail with shock slowly giving way to ire. “I strongly suspect that that beast was responsible for your pet’s unfortunate predicament. Basilisks normally kill with their gaze, but if eye contact is interrupted — such as through a reflection in a mirror, or more cogently, through a reflection in a puddle of water such as the one filling the hallway on that night — petrification can result.”

“Really?” the perpetually bitter man perked up, irritation at the bloody mess clearing. “I suppose the thing got what was coming to it, then.”

“Indeed,” the elderly wizard nodded gravely.

The Hall quietened for quite some time as everyone struggled to process the incredible sequence of events, until the silence was eventually broken by a certain Hufflepuff rumor-monger, the very same one that had put forth the idea that Harry was a honey-badger animagus.

“See? I totally called it!”

Then, one of his housemates threw a roll at him, and the spell was broken.

3.12.5 Raising a glass

“Thank you all for taking time away from your winter activities to attend this meeting,” Albus began. “As you all know, there is much to discuss.”

The Hogwarts Express had left earlier that morning carrying most of the student body off to their homes for the holidays, and the Hogwarts staff had taken advantage of the lull in activity to gather once more in their customary conference room. The meeting was just as well attended as usual, though the reason for that attendance was no longer primarily the top-shelf open bar.

As the Headmaster had said, there was much to discuss... though none of the attendees were about to pass up the booze.

Filius stepped smoothly back into his unofficial role as bartender, making his rounds. As Albus accepted his own portion, a lowball glass of an icy blue liqueur going by the name Winter Campfire, he proposed a toast.

“In light of recent, rather disturbing events, I would like to raise a glass to Mr. Potter’s prodigious appetite,” the elderly wizard began, “without which we would have faced the truly unenviable task of rousting an absurdly large basilisk from the school.”

The old man joined his staff in drinking to that in a wordless affirmative. The affirmative noises turned appreciative as they took in the taste of Pomona’s latest brewing efforts. The icy blue liquid felt frigid going down, only to be slowly overtaken by a swelling fiery sensation and a subtle smoky aftertaste as the ice faded. It was an interesting combination to say the least.

“I suspect the task would have proven quite startlingly difficult,” the elderly wizard quipped, prompting a titter of nervous laughter from the younger members of his staff. His beard shifted as the old man smiled, after the spectacle at the feast the previous night, a little levity was overdue. Even dead and being dragged as a trophy, that basilisk had cut a thoroughly intimidating figure.

“You’ve not lost your knack for understatement Albus,” Minerva quipped wryly as she sipped again from her own glass. “That beastie was far larger than anything I would care to tangle with.”

“Come now, Minerva, where is your sense of adventure?” Filius chimed in. “Basilisks aren’t so bad. Bring a few roosters along to the fight, and they die easily enough.”

“Oh, aye, they do at that, Filius,” Minerva allowed. “And I am sure we would have been able to handle the beastie easily… had we known what the monster was beforehand, a luxury we did not have, if you will recall.” The Scotswoman paused to shake her head and take another sip of her drink. “Finding out would have been a world of trouble if not for young Mr. Potter’s efforts.”

“Indeed,” Pomona spoke up, her own glass in hand. “And trying to do so in a school full of children would have been asking for tragedy, no matter how many roosters you enchanted.”

There was a general murmur of horrified agreement as that concept percolated through the room, which made the sense of relief all the more palpable. While the ludicrously dangerous beastie did have a rather well-known and easily procured weakness, it was still a massive magical super-predator. It could kill at a glance, had venom deadly to almost every known creature, and was of a size such that even its death throes would likely have killed several people by accident, even if the staff had managed to kill it.

Harry Potter’s appetite had done the school a great service, indeed.

“Speaking of the basilisk,” Sprout asked as she finished her glass, “how did your efforts at butchering the carcass go, Severus? I am rather surprised to see you up and about so soon after processing something like that basilisk. Merlin knows how tired I get when harvesting some of the more difficult plants; that sort of magic resistance is a real pain to work around.”

“Mr. Potter is a surprisingly quick study when spells are able to properly take advantage of his tremendous reserves,” the potions master offered in an unusually free bout of praise. “Despite his typically abominable control, the harvesting charms are forgiving to being overpowered, particularly when used on a subject as recalcitrant as that basilisk. In the end, I did little more than demonstrate the spells and guide the dratted lizard’s efforts. It was actually quite a relaxing evening.”

“At least we don’t have to worry about facing that monster anymore,” Septima Vector offered from her usual chair, the relief in her comparatively young voice almost palpable. “Maybe we can go back to a more normal school term after the Christmas break.”

“I would not be so quick to relax,” Snape warned his younger colleague. “There remains one final issue.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, sounding puzzled. “The snake is dead, right?”

“While the basilisk itself is quite thoroughly deceased, we are still short the perpetrator of this debacle,” the potions master pointed out. “Even should we assume the basilisk managed to wake up on its own and begin terrorizing the school, we still must account for whoever wrote that threatening message on Halloween. While the abilities of a basilisk are formidable, they do not include writing, lacking as they do opposable thumbs... or for that matter, hands.”

“Yes, you have a point, Severus,” the headmaster reentered the conversation. “And it is a point I had intended to raise myself. Despite Mr. Potter’s decisive termination of the villain’s main weapon, we are still left with the unenviable situation of facing an unknown perpetrator, presumably still in the school. I implore you to remain vigilant.”

“Of course, Headmaster,” Vector offered automatically before looking around as if noticing something for the first time. “Um… not to change the subject, but given all the talk about remaining vigilant in the face of continuing threats, shouldn’t our defense professor be in on this meeting?”

The question prompted several of her less-observant colleagues to notice that absence themselves. It seemed a fair question given the current holder of the title’s rather lofty reputation.

“I already took the liberty of informing young Gilderoy earlier today,” Dumbledore offered, sipping at his drink.

“And why did the popinjay choose not to attend this meeting with the rest of us?” the potions professor’s acidic voice chimed in with the obvious question. “After our experiences with Quirrel, I should think that should require investigation, at least.”

“Unlike our unfortunate colleague’s absences last year, this one is neither unexpected nor unwarranted,” the elderly wizard explained. “Gilderoy had a prior commitment away from campus, a book signing in Glasgow, if I recall, which had already been arranged long in advance of accepting his teaching contract. He departed shortly after the Express.”

“An acceptable excuse, I suppose,” the dour man grudgingly allowed. “In that case I would propose that we move on to more immediate concerns. The time for our grand experiment at Stonehenge approaches. How fare our preparations?”

“Mr. Potter is the picture of good health,” Poppy spoke up for the first time in the meeting. “As his primary Healer, I have no objections to his participation. In fact, I suspect his ability to absorb magic has only increased after his ordeal at the beginning of the summer; the increased magical capacity seems to have remained stable.”

Filius spoke up in turn, the half-goblin practically dancing in eager anticipation. “Between Nicholas and myself, I believe we have worked out a sufficiently comprehensive and durable sensor system to monitor the discharge process. When are we due to start?”

“I believe Mr. Potter has scheduled the event for next weekend,” Albus offered.

“I suppose that’s it until the end of the week then,” Septima spoke up in the ensuing silence, raising her mostly empty glass to Sprout in salute. “At least we have some excellent drinks to take the edge off the waiting.”

That was a sentiment everyone could agree with.

3.12.6 Ophidian charcuterie

“That’s a lot of meat,” Harry marveled, standing next to Suze and taking stock of his newly excavated cold-room.

Under the direction of Mr. Snape and aided by both Hagrid and one of the centaur patrols who had passed by in the normal course of their rounds, Harry had dressed the basilisk. First, he had gutted the snake to remove the viscera, separating almost the entirety of the bloody mess into specimen jars helpfully provided by Mr. Snape. Oddly enough that had included the remnants of the snake’s eyes; Mr. Snape showed him a neat trick to pull them out without damaging them further. Then Harry had skinned the carcass and set aside the massive hide, which Hagrid had volunteered to tan for him.

Harry thought that was very nice of him, and the young dragon had made sure to tell him so.

Finally, he had to chop up the remainder of the snake into reasonably sized pieces, carefully removing all the bones — so many ribs, it took forever — and setting them aside as he went. Harry had some vague hopes of setting them up in a display like the one he dimly remembered from a long-ago field trip to the Natural History Museum back before Avebury. He’d have to go visit again some time.

At that point, he was left with the meat.

The basilisk had been a big one, and a big snake could be upwards of ninety percent lean muscle. Now all of that lean muscle now hung from the rough stone ceiling of his new larder using yet more of the rope Harry had ordered just a few weeks prior. Mr. Snape had demonstrated a clever series of charms to drain the foul-smelling blood out of the cut pieces which Harry had eagerly used. Unlike the venom, the blood was technically edible — for Harry at least — though it was certainly not tasty. The potions master had then assured Harry that hanging really was the only way to regulate the humidity and temperature of such large cuts of meat even after they had been drained, and thus there were now about five hundred slabs of basilisk meat hanging in his Lair. At a quarter-ton apiece, they made for an impressive sight; though to be honest, a quarter of a million pounds of meat would make for an impressive sight no matter how it was sliced.

The problem remained, of course: what to do with it?

Harry knew he averaged several tons of food intake a day, but most of that was in mineral form, primarily scrap metal and coal. He rarely ate more than the equivalent of two or three deer per day in actual normal-people-food. Two to three whole deer were about as much meat as three-quarters of one of those magnificent steaks, and including food for his damsels into the mix hardly changed things. Their dietary needs were barely a rounding error on his own. That meant the basilisk represented almost two years’ worth of meat, even if he ate no other meat at all!

“That might actually be too much food,” in an awed whisper, the young dragon voiced words no one would have ever expected to hear. “I don’t think I can actually eat all of that before it goes bad.”

Well, not unless he had another growth spurt in the next few months, then all bets were off.

“That might actually be a problem,” his centaur damsel agreed with a slow nod. “Even salted or smoked, I am unsure if it will keep long enough. Perhaps the wizards have a method?”

“Well, I suppose I can ask,” Harry said with a shrug, then called in a loud voice. “Frizzy! Can you come here a minute, I’ve got a question for you.”

There was a soft pop of displaced air as the Hogwarts elf who usually handled food deliveries to the Lair arrived. She was also the only Hogwarts elf who made it a point to listen for him while he was in the Lair; the others were still terrified of catching his attention.

“What does the young scary master need?” Frizzy asked in her squeaky voice.

“Um, well, I got all this meat, you see,” he indicated the cold-room with one talon, “and I was wondering how long it would keep, ‘cause I figure it’s about two years’ worth of meat for me if I don’t eat any other kind.”

The elf turned her bulging eyes to take in the sight. “Young master’s eyes is bigger than his stomach!” she chided with a sigh. “You should not order so much meat at once; is wasteful!”

“Um, I didn’t buy it,” the young dragon clarified. “I got into a bit of a fight with a snake, and I won, but I didn’t want to waste the meat, so Mr. Snape helped me butcher it. Now I’ve got a whole bunch of meat, and I wanted to see if you knew any other ways of preserving some of it so it would last long enough to eat before it went bad.”

The diminutive elf simply nodded at that and considered the problem. “You is right. Even the young scary master would be eating this for two years... five if you pay attention to a proper diet. Eating different foods is important!” she wagged a finger at the dragon before settling in for a bit of a think.

“Cold will work for a while,” Frizzy nodded to herself. “Maybe one or two out of every five, so you can eat them before they’s not tasting so good. Frizzy can use salt and smoke for some — maybe another one in five — and about that many more making sausages and jerkies.” The house elf frowned thoughtfully, “After that… no, everything will be tasting bad and starting to grow fuzzy stuffs then.”

“I guess four out of five isn’t bad,” Harry said thoughtfully. “Maybe I should invite more people over to eat?”

“You might give some away as gifts,” Suze suggested. “I know you always have trouble coming up with ideas for the winter holiday.”

The young dragon’s big green eyes lit up at the suggestion. “That’s a great idea, Suze!” He began counting off on his talons, “Some for Mr. Dumbledore, some for Mr. Slackhammer, some for the Sergeant Major, some for Mr. Snape... maybe a bit of venom and other stuff for him too…” He frowned thoughtfully, “Hey, Suze, I know your family doesn’t celebrate Christmas, but do you think they’d like some?”

The centaur maiden smiled, “I am certain the Clan would accept your gift in the spirit with which it was intended.”

“Right!” Harry decided. “We’ll do that, then. Frizzy, can you help with preserving the meat like you described... or maybe at least show me what to do if you don’t have time?”

“Frizzy will do,” the house elf nodded. “Other elves may help, is good work.”

The dragon nodded his great head in gratitude.

“Thanks!”

 

3.13 Trial run

---

3.13.1 Shifting priorities

Unlike the Flourishes and Blotts of London, the Mackenzies of Glasgow had not been in the bookselling trade long enough to have derived their name from it. Nevertheless, Mackenzie’s Bookshop had been a fixture in the magical quarter of Glasgow for the better part of a millennium, and despite periodic remodeling, that age shone through in the general feel of the place. Closely packed shelves stretched from floor to ceiling framing too-narrow aisles; the air was permeated by the musty smells of ink and old parchment; and the overall ambiance teetered on the edge of claustrophobic. In its current circumstances, packed full of a tittering throng of enthusiastic witches eager to meet the hero they had read so much about, it shot clear over that edge into downright panic-inducing for anyone with that condition.

Gilderoy Lockhart was not one of those people.

Such places were, in fact, among Gilderoy Lockhart’s preferred environments, and he took to the interminably repetitive, artificially cheerful meet-and-greet of a book signing like a fish to water. He truly enjoyed such events and was perfectly willing to spend hours at the grind and relish the experience, but they were also the sort of activity he could handle on automatic while considering other matters... exactly as he was doing now.

Even as he signed another book while wearing his well-practiced sparkling smile, the blond dandy’s thoughts were miles away — about a hundred miles away, to be exact — back at Hogwarts. The closing feast had given him much to think about.

So far, Lockhart’s stint as a defense professor had been one long series of setbacks and frustrations. Between the continual missed cues in his attempts to insinuate himself into Mr. Potter’s social circle and the jarring mid-term shift in tone precipitated by what he now knew had been basilisk attacks, nothing had gone according to plan.

He sighed, smoothly hiding the action as part of an exaggerated stretch to loosen his cramped fingers drawing yet another wave of giggling from the women in line.

Potter simply didn’t react at all as Gilderoy expected him to. There had been no excitement at the prospect of meeting a celebrity, nor had there been nervousness at the same. Young Harry seemed perfectly calm when put on the spot in front of others... which Gilderoy would have been able to deal with, except for the fact that the boy showed none of the arrogant bravado he would have expected to see instead.

Gilderoy simply had no idea what to make of the boy. None of it made any sense!

He had even gotten to the point of considering the use of some brewed persuasion to get his foot in the door. Nothing too serious and certainly nothing of any significant duration, just a little something to get the boy interested in actually talking for once rather than mostly ignoring him. Gilderoy was still confident that, given a decent opening to start a conversation, he’d be able to win the boy over.

The end of term feast had changed all that.

Seeing the tiny waif of a boy dragging a snake the size of a large whale into the Great Hall like a cat carrying a freshly-killed bird had scuttled that plan, thankfully before it could be put into motion. There was something going on with the young Potter that was well beyond Gilderoy’s understanding, and the blond author now realized he had better avoid any actions the pint-sized juggernaut could conceivably interpret as aggressive...

...no matter how frustrating the slow progress had become.

The famous author graciously accepted another book, smoothly asking to whom he was to make the signature out, even as his internal monologue continued.

As for the rest… well, that he was more optimistic about, despite the rude awakening represented by that giant basilisk. While the ever-frustrating Mr. Potter had rather decisively stricken the terrifyingly lethal ophidian monstrosity from the board, an unknown danger lingered about the school threatening the students he was charged with protecting, but fortunately for Gilderoy, all available evidence pointed to the otherwise shadowy danger being human. Humans he could deal with.

Despite their common appearance in his novels, Gilderoy tended to avoid even moderately dangerous non-humans in real life. All too often such creatures possessed some degree of magic resistance, and mental magics tended to be quite delicate when applied across species. Between the two effects, the interspecies barrier rendered most of his spell repertoire useless, and without those spells, the former obliviator knew he was mostly helpless in any real conflict.

Humans, on the other hand, were a mostly known quantity, and mental magics, Gilderoy’s stock-in-trade, were designed to work on them. Admittedly, some individual humans would give him pause, legendary monsters every bit as dangerous as that behemoth Mr. Potter had unceremoniously dragged through the school, but in this case he felt confident. With Voldemort dead and Dumbledore paying his salary at the moment, Gilderoy was unlikely to encounter any such monsters in the course of his investigations. Even Mr. Potter, who had recently been showing all the earmarks of joining that rarefied company of wizards so strong as to be nearly untouchable, was unlikely to be on the opposing side of things… for obvious reasons.

Gilderoy smiled winsomely as he handed another freshly signed copy of Magical Me to a blushing middle-aged woman.

In the end, Lockhart supposed there was only one course to take when he returned to his post as the Hogwarts defense professor. His plans for becoming Harry Potter’s mentor might well end up slipping beyond his grasp in the end, though that was by no means certain. Regardless, he would have to stay the course and accept whatever came on that front, no tricks... not without a better understanding of the lad’s capabilities, anyway.

For the rest, he would have to remain vigilant. He’d been in enough similar situations as an obliviator, after all. While many calls to the obliviation squads were simply to cover up after accidents, not all of them were. Reading the situation to know when to call for backup was another essential skill.

Who knew? He thought, a genuinely hopeful smile sneaking its way onto his face. Perhaps if he played his hand well, he’d have a thrilling detective novel published in a year or so, one based on the true story of this year’s events at Hogwarts.

This time, the hero might even have the right name!

3.13.2 “Romantic” aspirations

Just a few days after the fall term had ended, the halls of Britain’s premiere magical school lay quiet and empty.

In the normal course of events, perhaps one student in ten would have stayed on campus for the winter break. The vast majority tended to be quite eager to get off campus, but there were always those few who were reluctant for various reasons. After the attacks, first on Mrs. Norris and then on Justin Finch-Fletchley, that number was closer to one in fifteen. While the basilisk might have been dealt with, plans had already been made long before the end-of-term feast.

Of course, that one-in-fifteen fraction was subject to the usual vagaries of random sampling, and of the fifty or so students currently counted among the ranks of House Ravenclaw, only two had decided to stay. One of those had only stayed on account of his girlfriend in Hufflepuff also staying, and with a mostly empty castle available to explore with said girlfriend, he was rarely to be found at the Ravenclaw dorms.

Thus, Su Li found herself with the essentially uncontested run of the tower, a situation she was currently exploiting for all it was worth. She had spread out messily to occupy the entirety of the large table to one side of the house common room. Normally, the table served as a common study area and was almost always occupied by at least half a dozen of her housemates, but for the next few weeks, it was all hers.

Sweet, sweet elbow room.

The petite girl sat back from her work, arched her back, and spread her arms wide in a languorous stretch. She had never realized just how much of a luxury space could be until she had managed to acquire so much of it. Quarters back home had been tight, shared as they were with a gaggle of cousins, and the situation at Hogwarts, while improved, was similar. Having the entire House to herself, though?

“I could get used to this,” she moaned as her shoulders popped with her movement.

Indulging in one final stretch, the petite girl shrugged her shoulders and bent back to the task at hand. She had work to do, and this assessment was the first part of it — a critically important precursor to the rest. It was also a part she had only recently acquired enough information to complete to a borderline-acceptable standard.

The folder in front of her, one of several dozen spread across the table, was the only one of its fellows which had yet to be tied shut with string and sealed with wax. It lay open, its first page a neatly formatted grid featuring a full-color wizarding photograph of one Harry Potter. The accompanying text presented, if one were literate in traditional Chinese, a fairly detailed biography of the boy so pictured.

“Almost done,” she muttered quietly as she began flipping through the pages of the dossier, thinking back on the work that had led up to this point. “Just need to finish up the personal assessment.”

Potter had proven himself the most challenging of the lot by far. Between the boy’s tendency to disappear off campus and his irregular habits even when he was available, pinning down the Potter heir was a difficult task... so difficult, in fact, that she had been seriously contemplating leaving him out of her target evaluations. He was just one boy among many, after all.

Oh, she had known he was powerful; the signs were almost impossible to miss, and there had been those stories about punching out a troll in his first year. The physical strength had been interesting, but it could easily have been a secondary effect of the boy’s tremendous magical reserves. That sort of magical power very rarely bred true, not in full, which made it less than ideal for her purposes. As a result, she had been leaning toward Longbottom as her favorite candidate; of the available pool of males, his unnaturally deep understanding of plants had seemed the most likely talent to prove to be heritable.

Until the dueling club, that is.

Su Li chuckled at the memory. She had never expected to receive such an intelligence windfall at that dueling club — for that matter, she hadn’t really expected to learn anything there at all, attending mostly to pass the time. To think, if not for the Malfoy heir’s idiocy, she might have passed over a diamond in the rough.

“Perhaps I ought to arrange something as thanks?” she mused, considering the situation and the resources she had available for a moment before dismissing the idea with a shake of her head. “No, not worth the effort, really.”

Steering her thoughts back to topics that were worth the effort, Su Li considered what she knew of Harry Potter. When he had simply been a frustratingly mysterious loose end, it had been easy enough to consider writing him off entirely, but the boy’s talent for languages had changed that calculus entirely. Such a talent was far too valuable to ignore out of petty frustration.

Unfortunately, Potter had not become any easier to reconnoiter, despite her renewed zeal, and even now the green-eyed boy’s profile remained woefully incomplete. Some parts had proven simple enough. As the last Potter, the boy’s family history was a matter of public record, and as the Boy-Who-Lived, so was his very early life. Pictures had been easy enough to acquire from an enthusiastic Gryffindor first year. An aspiring photographer, the excitable boy had been willing to provide her with copies any of his photographs in exchange for the cost of film.

From there, things got fuzzier. From the incident in Godric’s Hollow to the start of the 1991 school year, Potter’s life was a black hole. She had managed to dig up some rumors of involvement with Gringotts in the last few years, rumors which had been lent some weight by the events of the opening feast, but nothing concrete. The goblins ran a tight ship.

Of course, for purposes of her evaluation, the boy’s personal history was hardly of primary importance. As far as she was concerned, a history shrouded in uncertainty was irritating at worst. The lack of a tissue sample, on the other hand, might be a deal-breaker.

Personality and character were secondary; Su Li needed to know about genetics. If that linguistic talent wasn’t heritable, then Potter was useless. Hints of that could be gleaned from family history, but direct samples were much more reliable.

Had she been running this mission even fifty years ago, Su Li would have been stuck acquiring blood samples... a very risky proposition. Blood could be put to a wide variety of nefarious uses, and if she were caught, she would be suspected of all of them. Fortunately, she didn’t have to run that risk. The clan had developed analysis methods which could use a wide variety of different samples, of which hair was the easiest to obtain. Hair was far less damning than blood, polyjuice and its variants being the most common use for such things. Being caught collecting hair left Su Li at risk of being labeled a sexual deviant, and she only cared about that insofar as it would affect her primary task.

Su Li shook her head, dimissing the idea. In any case, it had been simple enough to devise a method for unobtrusively acquiring hair samples; people rarely made the effort to secure their shed hair. She had settled on a highly-refined summoning charm as her method of choice; it was a difficult charm to master, but easy enough with practice. Using it, she had managed to complete the rest of her dossiers within a month of her Sorting.

Harry Potter, however, continued to remain elusive, even after a year and a half.

No matter how she tried, the charm returned nary a single hair. It was almost as if the boy didn’t have any hair to lose... a ridiculous proposition, considering the unruly black mop clearly visible on top of the boy’s head! Regardless, whatever the reason, none of that shaggy mop ever seemed to come loose for her summoning charm to pick up.

It had been incredibly frustrating.

So vexed had she been that after Halloween of her first year, she had even visited the site of the boy’s purported battle with a troll in hopes of finding some of his spilled blood, despite the risk of discovery. Yet, even then her efforts had come to naught.

It had been that failure which had left her inclined to abandon her efforts entirely. Even if Potter could kill a mountain troll at eleven, doing so unscathed seemed too far-fetched to believe, which had led her to doubt the veracity of the tale entirely.

Though the events of the end of term feast had led her to reconsider the situation once again; a troll was less than nothing compared to the likes of that basilisk, and she had seen that evidence with her own eyes. Heritable super-strength was back on the table; though again, she still couldn’t verify that. Su Li grimaced.

In any event, she still had not managed to acquire a sample from Potter, which left far more uncertainty in her report than she was comfortable with. On the one hand, he represented the potential to gain a universal linguistic talent and tremendous physical strength for the bloodline. On the other, one or both of those could turn out to be non-heritable, leaving her with efforts wasted.

It was a high-stakes gamble, high risk, high reward, and it was really too much to ask of a twelve-year-old girl. Su Li had no idea whether the potential benefits were enough of a prize to gamble her entire future; she simply couldn’t decide.

Luckily, she wouldn’t have to.

Su Li let out a heavy sigh as she finished writing out her explanation of the situation. Giving the picture of the green-eyed boy one last lingering glance, she closed the folder, tied it shut, and reached for her sealing wax. Once sealed, the dossier joined the rest of the messy pile, landing right atop the one labeled “Neville Longbottom.”

She closed her eyes in satisfaction. Her initial task was essentially complete, all that remained was to package the lot for delivery and ship the whole batch home to Hong Kong. After that, she could relax for a few months while she awaited orders.

When they arrived, she would have her target, and then she would be able to get on with her real business at Hogwarts.

3.13.3 Gumshoe

In a grungy office above a seedy dive on Knockturn Alley, a hard-bitten man going by the name Frank sat at a ramshackle desk smoking a cheap cigarette. His lips twisted into an irritable frown around a smouldering stub of a cigarette as he glared at the door through a haze of tobacco smoke, automatically tuning out the usual assortment of questionable noises wafting up from the bar downstairs.

It was a nice door. Solidly built of finely joined wood, darkly stained and varnished, and sporting a glass window with the words “Private Investigator” etched into the glass, mirrored to be readable from the outside of course. It stood head and shoulders above the quality of the rest of the office, the contents of which all but shouted that the owner was hard-up for cash.

Of course, the relative extravagance of a quality door was understandable, since it served as the anchor for the expansion enchantments which enabled the entire office — along with the modest personal residence accessible through the office’s other, decidedly less impressive door on the wall behind his desk — to fit into the depth of the door frame. Compared to the cost of the enchantments, the cost of the carpentry was barely an afterthought, and even at that price, the enchantments were a frugal investment. Rent in the Alleys was murder —in Knockturn, sometimes literally — and such expanded apartments reduced the cost of living astronomically.

However, Frank was not the sort of man to spend any appreciable amount of time simply staring at a door, no matter how fancy. Rather, he was impatiently awaiting a knock on that door.

His prospective client was running late.

A few months previous, Frank had been contacted with a proposal for a job, an investigation into the past of some dirtbag or other... the client hadn’t mentioned a name. The request was vague, but Frank wasn’t particularly bothered by it; he got a lot of those. People rarely hired private investigators when they already knew the answers.

What did bother him was the delay. He hadn’t often encountered clients that insisted on waiting for two months after first contact to even describe the job, and the few times he’d encountered something similar, they’d had ulterior motives. When someone approached him for legitimate business, they were usually in a hurry... a real hurry, not just impatient and annoyed like Frank was now. Private investigation work was generally a response to something unexpected, not a routine chore. Frank chuckled ruefully at the thought; not that he’d object to a little more routine, the steady income would be nice. The fact remained though, his clients were normally desperate, scrabbling for answers.

Just like Frank had been when he’d gotten into the business.

He sighed, blowing out a plume of fragrant smoke as the memories once more rose unbidden. Back then he’d been bright-eyed and optimistic. Betty, his sweetheart from Hogwarts, had just given him the most important ‘yes’ of his life, and Frank had been over the moon. Then not even two weeks later, she’d disappeared overnight without a word, leaving behind nothing but an engagement ring and unanswered questions — questions Frank had been desperate to answer.

Back then, there’d been no one to help him, so he’d rolled up his shirtsleeves and gotten to work, teaching himself magical investigation and tracking in the process. When the money started to run out, he’d started hiring himself out to use those skills to keep himself afloat. One thing led to another, and eventually he came to where he was. As the only game in town, it hadn’t taken long to build a reputation as the man to hire if you needed to find something or someone.

Frank knew desperation; he knew it all too well. He’d been in ugly situations before — still was, in truth; he thought, fingers straying to where a delicate golden chain dipped into his shirt collar — and he knew from hard-won experience the sorts of actions and attitudes desperation engendered.

‘Lackadaisical’ and ‘sedate’ did not fit the pattern.

Something was dodgy about this deal, and ‘dodgy’ was a dangerous prospect... especially in Knockturn Alley, where ‘dodgy’ and ‘deadly’ coincided often enough to be mostly interchangeable.

Of course, Frank thought as his fingers almost absently fished that delicate golden chain out of his shirt, the other side of desperation was being willing to take stupid risks. Frank sighed, fingering the simple but elegantly feminine gold ring threaded onto the chain next to a similarly styled golden locket. While the particulars of his desperate situation had changed, the urgency had not.

Unlike all those years ago, Frank now knew what he was about. He had the skill; he had the knowledge; and he had the plan. It was a desperate, ugly, and, above all, expensive plan, but Frank was confident he could make it work — provided he could get together the funds.

In short, Frank thought as he tucked the ring safely away, he needed cash, in quantity, and he was desperate to get it. The price this new client had offered was simply too high to dismiss out of hand, no matter how dodgy the situation.

A knock on the door roused Frank from his ruminations. It seemed that the source of that plentiful, potentially dangerous, cash had finally seen fit to show himself.

“Come in,” Frank called in a rough voice as he ground the pitiful remains of his cigarette into the ashtray.

The door opened revealing a boy in his mid-teens, dressed in a Hogwarts uniform of all things.

What was this?

“Mr. Nadgett?” the boy asked tentatively.

“I answer to it,” Frank acknowledged with a nod. Nadgett was not his real name, of course — he’d wanted to avoid having his work follow him home, so to speak, so he’d picked the name out of a book. The oft grim and depressing Dickens had seemed an appropriate source; it fit right in to the grim and depressing underbelly of the wizarding world. “I take it you’re my mystery client, kid?”

“Yes, sir,” the boy confirmed, fingering the blue trim of his robe nervously.

“The two-month delay would have been waiting for the end of the school term, then,” Frank nodded to himself. So far it seemed he’d been working himself up over nothing, which, while a relief to his worries, did nothing to alleviate his irritation.

The boy nodded.

“I suppose that answers one question,” Frank allowed before allowing a little of his annoyance to seep into his voice. “Though the question of why you are nearly an hour late for this meeting still springs to mind.”

“Ah… yeah, sorry about that,” he looked down sheepishly rubbing at his neck. “Um… well, when I was coming through the bar downstairs, one of the women was… well… insistent…”

Taking in the teenaged boy’s embarrassed blush, Frank sighed and wiped at his face in exasperation before taking a closer look. “Well, judging by your clothes, you managed to resist getting dragged off to a room.”

The boy nodded with a glum expression. “Yeah. I mean, it felt bad to turn her down, but I kinda want to save that for something special, right?”

“Save your regrets, kid,” Frank said with a harsh laugh. “I’m sure she got exactly what she wanted.”

“What do you mean?”

“She wasn’t interested in sex, kid. She was looking to rob you blind. Check your coin purse on the way out, she probably emptied it while you were flustered,” Frank suggested with a dry chuckle before his expression twisted into a scowl. “In fact, check it now. If you lost my fee, we might as well save ourselves the trouble.”

The boy’s eyes widened in horrified understanding as he shoved a hand into his hip pocket. “Oh, damn!”

“She got you, did she?” Frank scoffed, leaning back in his chair. “See yourself out, kid, and be careful on the way. You’ve already lost your money, don’t let your life be next.” He turned away, already reaching for another cigarette, and mumbled, “Bloody waste of time…”

“Wait!” the kid protested. “I can still pay!”

“Are you telling me that you’ve got enough to cover my fee twice over?” Frank shot him a skeptical look. “Pull the other one, kid. You’re a Hogwarts brat, so I might believe you could scrape that together once, but not twice.”

“No, not that,” the student explained, reaching for his boot. “I just made sure not to carry that much in one place.” He drew a sizeable pouch from a small expanded pocket on the inside of his boot. “She just got the money I brought for lunch.”

“Not bad, kid, not bad,” Frank congratulates his visitor with a laugh. “Well, since you’ve got the cash, I suppose you have my attention. What’s this mysterious job of yours?”

The younger man took a deep breath to compose himself before he began. “Well, Mr. Nadgett, we’ve got this one really annoying teacher at school, Gilderoy Lockhart…”

As the private eye listened to his prospective client’s description of the situation, his opinion of both the job and the boy currently in his office fell precipitously. Nonetheless, he listened carefully.

After a few minutes, his visitor finally concluded his explanation and fell silent — his Ravenclaw-blue trim seemed to have been well-earned. In Frank’s experience, long-windedness was a house trait.

“So, let me see if I understand the job correctly,” Frank clarified. “You have a teacher you don’t like, and rather than learn to deal with disappointment like a normal, decent person — or, for that matter, rather than approaching the headmaster of your school to complain like a whiny little twit — you decided to try to hire me to sift through the man’s past for something embarrassing enough to get him fired. Is that what you’re asking?”

His visitor nodded.

“No deal,” Frank flatly denied. “Kid, real investigations start with a question, not an answer. I’m not going to take a job expressly intended to smear an innocent man; my professional ethics won’t allow it. The office might be in Knockturn, but I’m here for the rent, not because I like the neighbors.”

“There’s no way that smarmy git is innocent!” his teenage client objected, sounding a little desperate. “He’s just so… so slimy, and he leads all the girls around by the nose! I mean, he’s gotta be thirty or so, and the girls are my age. That’s about as sleazy as it gets! He’s gotta be guilty of something!”

“So, this is all about the girls in your school paying attention to the handsome young teacher and ignoring you?” At the boy’s sheepish nod, the hard-bitten private eye sighed in disgust. This case just got better and better. “God save us all from the teenage libido,” he muttered. In a clearer voice he continued, “Look, without a reasonable suspicion that your professor committed some sort of crime, I’m not going to take on this job. I’ll leave the unfounded smear campaigns to the Prophet, thank you very much.”

“What if I doubled the fee?” his young client offered.

Frank froze for just a moment. That was a lot of money, and he needed it for... no, there was no way...

“Don’t make an offer we both know you can’t back up, kid,” Frank bit out in a harsh growl. He trailed off when the boy reached back into his boot and drew out another pouch. “Damn, kid, where’d you get that kind of cash?”

The kid looked well-off, but not that well-off.

The boy coughed, looking off to the side awkwardly. “I passed the hat at school and I might have overstated your original estimate a little.”

“I see,” Frank eyed the teenaged would-be con-artist with a raised brow. “And I suppose you were intending to take a commission on hiring me? One that you conveniently neglected to mention to your friends?”

The boy nodded; his eyes downcast.

The private eye shook his head in disgust as his opinion of his prospective client fell even further. This kid was a slimy little brat...

...though, he was a slimy brat who was offering a great deal of money.

Frank drummed his fingers on the desk, torn, as he considered the possibilities. He didn’t have much, but he still had his principles… mostly, and he was reluctant to give them up. He’d already done enough questionable things along the way; adding what was essentially character assassination to the list was not something he was eager to do.

On the other hand...

Frank’s fingers ceased their drumming and slipped involuntarily to the golden chain around his neck. The amount on offer was enough to move the timetable on his personal mission up by nearly a year...

No.

He groaned, slowly pulling his hand away and shaking his head, reluctance in his every movement. “Still not happening, kid. Not unless you can give me something he’s done that’s worth investigating — and no, having a gaggle of teenage girls chasing after him because he smiled at them and they’re too stupid to realize it was just a smile doesn’t count.”

There, he’d said it. Frank cringed at leaving that much cash on the table, but he’d stuck to his principles — cold comfort to be sure when Betty was still… He shook his head to break off from that train of thought, trying to ignore the feeling of her engagement ring burning accusingly against his breastbone.

If only he’d had some excuse…

“Well, when we were looking for something ourselves, we noticed that a couple of his books seem to take place at the same time, but they’re on opposite ends of the continent,” the teenager offered. “Is that suspicious enough?”

It was a bit weak, but…

“That’ll do, kid,” Frank nodded. “Payment up front, and no guarantees that I’ll find anything. The premise is pretty weak, but there might be fraud involved.”

And there might be... if he squinted hard enough. He could squint pretty hard for that kind of payday.

“So, you’ll take the job?” his client asked.

“Just as soon as you pass me those coins,” Frank confirmed with a nod to the pouches in his client’s hand. The caveat ‘and I’ve counted them’ was left unstated but clearly implied.

The transaction was completed quickly, both parties eager to get it finished, if for different reasons. Frank was interested in getting the ball rolling so he could do his job and move on to the next, his client, on the other hand, was simply eager to get out of Knockturn Alley.

As the boy hustled out of his office, Frank rose from his desk.

It was time to get to work.

3.13.4 Networking

It was a fine afternoon in December. The sky was blue, the sun was shining, and while the air was brisk, no one needed more than a light coat to ward themselves against the chilly breeze. AII told, things were shaping up well for a superb picnic on the front lawn of the Hogs Haulage Hogsmeade offices.

As Mike McDonald trailed along after his parents, holding his much younger sister’s hand to keep track of her in the crowd, he couldn’t help smiling at the scene; perhaps all the finagling he’d had to do to arrange to take off work for the afternoon would prove worth the effort after all.

Colleen certainly seemed to think so — the excitable bouncing and wide-eyed looking-about his much younger sister was doing from her place at his side made it seem a good guess. Mike made sure to keep a firm grip on her hand. It wouldn’t do for the girl to run off after something that caught her fancy before the family got itself situated... particularly not when he was responsible for looking after her. Mike loved her dearly, but like most small children, his little sister could be a pain to keep track of.

Whether they’d come for the promise of free food, the chance to meet the Boy-Who-Lived, or simply for the excuse to have a party — he was fairly certain his own family was here for a combination of all three reasons — the turnout was impressive. It seemed nearly the entire company had shown up for the barbecue. Between the employees and their families, there were over a hundred and fifty people on the lawn already, and it was still early in the afternoon.

From the fragments of conversation Mike was able to pick up on as they picked their way through the throng, he gathered that most of the attendees expected quite a few more guests to show up as the afternoon wore on towards meal time. He wouldn’t be surprised if practically the entire population of Hogsmeade managed to find some way to put in an appearance eventually.

He was about to ask his father why they were walking through and bypassing so many of his coworkers when the reason became abundantly clear.

“’ey, Jimmy!” his father’s voice rang out above the general din. “O’er ‘ere!”

As the man so addressed waved to his father and began making his way as to meet them, Mike chuckled. Of course, he should have expected his father to seek out Mr. Coates before anything else. The pair had worked together for longer than Mike had been alive, and he was fairly certain that neither man would want to participate in any company function without the other present. He was hardly an unwelcome addition for the rest of them, too. Uncle Jim always had a kind word and a friendly gesture for all the McDonald siblings, a habit which had made the man a favorite of the children as they grew up. That status was proven once again as Colleen tore her eyes away from the sights around her to focus on the man in question.

“Uncle Jim!” she cried joyfully as she slipped away from her brother in favor of hurrying over to give the man an enthusiastic hug about the knees. “You’re here too?”

“O’ course, ah am, little lady,” the man answered, giving the six-year-old a pat on the shoulder in return for the hug even as he gave Evan and Mike himself an agreeable nod. “’s a company picnic, innit? Ya couldna thought I woz gunna leave your da’ ta face it all alone?” Jim’s voice fell to a stage whisper, “’e’s ‘opeless for this kind of thing, ‘e is.”

Colleen giggled at the joke, and then her attention quickly returned to the surrounding celebration as the conversation turned to other, less interesting, topics — at least, less interesting from the perspective of a little girl. For his part, Mike kept a gentle hold on his little sister’s shoulder and nodded absently as she excitedly pointed out various sights and sounds while keeping the bulk of his attention on the conversation among the adults. It hit on the usual range of topics for his father and Uncle Jim, ranging from lighthearted topics, like the upcoming match between the Magpies and the Bangers — Hogsmeade residents tended to follow the local Scottish teams rather than the English ones the southerners favored — to more serious ones like how Mister Hawkins, known to Mike as their long-time neighbor from the next street over, was handling his father’s recent death. Eventually, however — perhaps inevitably — the conversation turned to the picnic itself and the rather famous personage hosting the event.

“’ey Jim, whatcha think o’ the young Potter?” Mikey’s father asked his friend, predictably drawing Colleen’s attention at the mention of her favorite boy-hero’s name.

For his part, Mike was actually kind of surprised it took this long for someone to ask. The Boy-Who-Lived’s purchase of Hog’s Haulage had been the talk of the town for weeks after the news broke in September, and it had quickly regained center stage as soon as word of the boy’s company picnic had hit Hogsmeade’s gossip mill.

“Probably best if you see for yourself, Mac,” Jim told Mike’s father. “Not too sure what to make of ‘im, myself. ‘e’s… well, ‘e’s a bit of an odd fellow from what I can tell. ‘e’s over by the grill it you want to meet ‘im.”

“Ooh, ooh! Can we go?” Colleen had been practically vibrating with excitement ever since the young Potter’s name was mentioned and the knowledge of where the boy could be found had finally pushed her to the end of her rope. She hugged her father’s knees and directing a devastatingly cute pleading look up at him through her eyelashes. “Please!”

Out of all the McDonald family, it was a weapon only their mother could stand against with any regularity.

Mike’s father folded like a wet napkin.

And so, the family set off again, this time towards the grill to meet the famous new owner of the world’s largest — and, in fact, only — magical rail company. It didn’t take them long to reach their destination.

Oddly enough, Mike’s first impression of the scene didn’t touch on the Boy-Who-Lived, despite him being the goal of their expedition. Neither did it include the admittedly rather more imposing sight of the eight-foot-tall centaur maiden hovering attentively beside said small boy... and in light of that oversight, it was unsurprising that the nearly-teenaged girl with bushy brown hair on his other side didn’t register at all.

No, Mike’s attention was immediately commandeered by the trestle table set up next to the grill. It was a perfectly normal sort of table, sturdy but easily put up and taken down for temporary events like the picnic, hardly an unexpected sight. What was unexpected were the three colossal slabs of meat, each several times the size of a full-grown man, which the table strained to hold up. What little of the table which remained uncovered by those gargantuan cuts of meat was in turn laden with a variety of more conventional fare, but that hardly rated a mention by comparison.

What manner of beast had yielded those?

The only thing Mike could think of was a dragon, and no one ate those... at least not away from the dragon reserves where they had to do something with all the excess meat. From what he had heard on the subject, dragon meat was all but inedible without a tremendous amount of preparation, and even then, it was an… acquired taste, certainly not the sort of thing one would expect at a barbecue hundreds of miles from the closest dragon reserve.

Nor did he seem to be alone in that assessment. From what Mike could surmise, several of his father’s coworkers — men who had presumably volunteered to man the grill for the occasion — were engaged in a heated discussion over how to prepare the monstrously large steaks even as the last of their number pointedly ignored the ridiculous sight in favor of preparing the mound of more normal cuts occupying the remainder of the table.

After gaping at the unusual sight for several long moments, Mike finally dragged his attention away from the sight just in time to catch the tail end of the discussion they had walked in on.

“… a minute; if the precision machining is so effective, why didn’t everyone just do that from the start?”

The question came from a small boy who looked to be just a few years older than Colleen. He was engaged in an intent conversation with a pair of much older gentlemen who had that unmistakable sort of technical look about them, a look Mike recognized well from a childhood spent around the railyards. People with that sort of look tended to do some of the most interesting stuff in the yard, forever taking giant locomotives apart and putting them back together using cranes and grease and fire and all sorts of stuff of that nature... practically irresistible for a young boy such as he had been at the time.

Honestly, he’d be hard-pressed to stay away from it even now.

One of the men — a Scotsman by his accent, who looked to be of an age with Mike’s father — replied with the air of one who felt he had been asked a question with an obvious answer. “Because precision machining is expensive, laddie, and the economics of early steam made the costs prohibitive. We talked about this just last week!”

The other man, a significantly older fellow who spoke with a foreign accent with which Mike was unfamiliar, chimed in, “Coal was simply much cheaper than the time of a skilled machinist. Fortunately, the economics have changed, a situation which we can now turn to our advantage.”

The boy, presumably Harry Potter given that Uncle Jim had stopped nearby, frowned thoughtfully.

“I got that, I think, but if precision stuff is so expensive, how come we’ve got stuff like this?” He gestured with a white plastic fork. “I mean that’s just as precise as you’re talking about for the pistons and wheels and stuff, right? Why is the fork so cheap? I know it’s not the materials. After we talked last time, I looked it up and steel is actually cheaper than the raw plastic resin per unit mass.”

“Ah! So that’s where you got turned around,” the first engineer exclaimed, sounding rather pleased that his young friend had, in fact, been paying close attention during their previous discussions. “That fork was molded, not machined… well, the mold was machined, but that’s just the once, and then it produces millions of those forks.”

“Why don’t we do that then?” the boy asked. “I mean, if we’re running a whole train company, we’ll need lots and lots of parts, right?” At the man’s nod, the boy continued, “So why not make them like they make those forks if it’s so much cheaper?”

“It’s because you can’t make molds like that for steel,” the man explained patiently. “To cast something to final dimension, like that fork,” he nodded to the utensil in question, “you need to have a mold formed in just the right way. For plastic, that works fine, because there are plenty of things that will make a durable mold that won’t stick to plastic and stay solid when the plastic is liquid. For steel, you’ve pretty much got sand casting and investment casting. Sand just won’t hold enough detail for what you’re talking about, not reliably, and investment casting isn’t easily repeatable, so it’s not really any cheaper than machining.”

The young boy’s expression turned thoughtful as he considered that, but before he could formulate a reply, Mr. Coates took the lull in the conversation as an opportunity to break in to introduce them.

“Beggin’ yer pardon, Mr. Potter, Mr. Wardale, Mr. Porta,” Jim nodded to the young boy, the Scottish gentleman, and the older man whose accent Mike hadn’t been able to place, respectively, “but if you’d be so kind, I’d like to introduce my fireman, Mike McDonald.” He gestured to Mike’s father who nodded in wordless greeting as the two older men so addressed gave friendly greetings.

“Hi!” The young Potter was somewhat more enthusiastic.

“And this is his wife, Irene, their sons Evan and Mike,” Mike nodded agreeably alongside his younger brother, “and their little daughter, Colleen.”

Colleen waved shyly from her position half-hidden behind Mike’s leg where she had retreated when her bold cheer had deserted her upon actually seeing her hero right there in front of her. She hid her face completely when said hero offered her a brilliant smile and wave just as he had the rest of the family.

For his part, Jim grinned on seeing the little girl’s reaction and elaborated, “Little Colleen was the one who really wanted to meet ya, ya’ see.” He teased the girl who responded by pushing herself even closer to her older brother’s leg. “She’s been lookin’ forward to it ever since she found out ya were takin’ over tha company.”

“Well, I’m happy to meet you, too!” Mike wouldn’t have thought it possible, but the Potter boy’s smile grew even wider. “It’s always nice to meet someone who’s happy to see you. Was there something in particular you wanted to talk about?”

Mike felt his sister’s hand tighten on the back of his trouser leg and looked down to see her folding in on herself nervously. Taking pity on the terminally embarrassed girl, Mike spoke up with the first question that came to mind, hoping to deflect the conversation away from her until she could recover her equilibrium. “So where did you get those giant cuts of meat over by the grill, anyway? And what exactly are they? Don’t think I’ve ever seen an animal big enough for that before.”

“Oh, those?” the boy gestured to the table. “Those are from the basilisk I killed last weekend.” Those calm words were enough to draw the undivided attention of everyone within earshot. “The thing was raiding my pantry, so I had to hunt it down. I didn’t really know what to do with all the meat, so I brought some to share here.”

“That’s only some of it?” Mike choked out around his astonishment.

“Well, yeah,” the small boy said absently. “When Mr. Snape helped me butcher it, we ended up with about five hundred of those; it took forever to remove all the bones. Do you know how many ribs a snake has? Way too many, I’ll tell you. Even with how much I usually eat, I didn’t think I could go through all that before it went bad.”

“Five-hundred?” he breathed, thinking of just how large such a creature must have been to provide such a bounty of meat. “How the heck did you kill something that big?”

“Forget the size,” Jim broke in, the first of the magical adults to pull himself together enough to say something. “How the heck did you kill yourself a basilisk, lad?” He shook his head in wonder. “An’ for that matter, where’d you find one?”

“Huh?” the young boy asked. “Oh, I just punched it after it tried to bite me. Ended up rupturing a bunch of its organs and breaking its… neck? I dunno, it’s kinda hard to say what’s neck and what’s not-neck on a snake. Anyway, I found it near where I live in the Black Woods — um, I think most of you probably know it better as the Forbidden Forest — but Mr. Snape seemed to think it probably lived somewhere in Hogwarts, a secret chamber or something.”

“I see,” Mike said dully.

“Wow!” Evan, the middle McDonald, spoke up for the first time. “So, all those Harry Potter adventure books are actually true?”

“Those things,” Harry Potter grimaced distastefully. “No, none of those actually happened, and me and the goblins are still trying to pin down the authors about not marking them properly as fiction.”

“So, you didn’t grow up in a magical castle and go off on adventures all the time?” Colleen spoke up for the first time since encountering her hero in person. She sounded very disappointed.

“No… well, sorta?” the boy frowned thoughtfully. “I mean I lived with my aunt and uncle up until I was eight, then I had a magical accident which meant I had to move, and I moved to Hogwarts, and Hogwarts is a magical castle, and I’ve had a few adventures since I got here, so I guess the description fits since I’m still growing up now. The actual adventures were really different, though.”

Harry shook his head frowning mightily. “I don’t see why they had to write me as such a git, anyway,” he muttered. “Going about and slaying all those poor dragons just minding their own business... ’s just not right.”

The conversation among the McDonald siblings fell silent for a moment, long enough for their father to break in himself. “A basilisk at ‘ogwarts, y’say? That’d explain why Brown was fit ta be tied on our last run, eh Jimmy? Sumthin’ like tha’ in tha school ‘is little girl’s at? I know I’d be jus’ as angry if it were my little Colleen.”

“Brown?” Harry interjected quizzically.

“Kelly Brown,” Jim volunteered. “’e’s your shunting foreman at King’s Cross, an’ ‘is youngest daughter is in your year at ‘ogwarts.”

“Brown…” the boy frowned thoughtfully. “So, he’s Lavender Brown’s dad?” At Jim’s nod, Harry beamed. “I didn’t know her dad worked for me! I’ll have to make sure to introduce myself proper.”

From there, the conversation turned more towards personnel and other corporate matters which the young Potter waded into with all evidence of enjoyment. The boy seemed positively gleeful at learning about each and every one of his new employees, treating every new name as if he were meeting a brand-new friend.

While his younger siblings had lost interest about the time the basilisk dropped out of the conversation, finding the subject matter thoroughly dull, it was an eye-opening experience for Mike. He’d only been working at his new job for a few short months, but the attitude around the place was already crystal clear. At the warehouse, the management looked down on their employees with guarded suspicion, as if everyone there fully expected him to abscond with some of the merchandise as soon as no one was looking.

That same attitude seemed to filter down all the way through the corporate hierarchy to his coworkers on the ground level, as illustrated by his difficulties in arranging time off to attend the barbecue. It took forever to convince one of his coworkers to cover his hours for the afternoon, and even then the man had seemed convinced that it was all part of some scheme to make him look bad in front of the boss.

It was a far cry from the warm camaraderie he saw between his father and Mr. Coates, and the difference in management styles could not have been more apparent. If only the jobs had opened up a few months earlier, Mike would have jumped at the opportunity to work for the company he saw on display here. In fact…

“Mr. Potter?” Mike spoke up.

“Hmm?” the boy acknowledged.

“Umm, I’ve got to finish out the rest of my contract at the warehouse, ‘cause I gave my word, and I’m not gonna go back on it, but after that, do you think you’ll still be hiring?” the eldest son of the McDonald household asked tentatively.

“How long is your contract?” Harry asked, seeming to become more focused under the direct question.

“A year and a half,” Mike answered, “er… well, about thirteen months now, I suppose. It’s been a while since I started.”

“I expect I probably will,” the boy confirmed. “I’ve got big plans for Hogs Haulage, and I’m gonna need a lot of people to see them through.”

Harry looked at him closely, and Mike was struck with the oddest feeling, as if he were being laid bare before something far larger and far stronger than he was. It was an… unsettling experience, and it seemed an odd fit with the pint-sized boy in front of him... until he recalled the discussion about the basilisk.

At that point it made a great deal of sense.

“Are you interested in working for me?” the suddenly rather intimidating boy asked.

“I am, sir,” Mike snapped straight upright at the question.

Harry nodded. “I’ll look forward to interviewing you then when you’re free. Mike, was it?”

“That’s right, Mr. Potter,” Mike confirmed. “Mike McDonald.”

“I’ll keep an eye out for you,” the young Potter promised, reaching up to pat Mike on the shoulder before turning back to his earlier conversation.

Mike let out an explosive sigh of relief at the end of that unexpectedly intense exchange. Nonetheless he smiled brightly, unknowingly echoing his father’s proud smile at the exchange. Working here would be infinitely better than the warehouse, and he just had to make it through to the end of his contract. He could do that.

After all, he was just moving stuff around a warehouse; what could go wrong in a year?

3.13.5 A working vacation

As Harry gazed out over the still-lush grass of the Salisbury plain, his two damsels and his friend, Abigail, standing quietly at his sides, he couldn’t help but marvel at how quickly events could move. With the conclusion of his company Christmas party just the previous evening, Harry had given the final go-ahead on the project to drain the Stonehenge nexus and here he was the next morning, standing beside the ancient stone circle as his friends put the finishing touches on their preparations.

His friends could work fast when they wanted to.

Still, they weren’t quite finished yet. Mr. Snape and Mrs. McGonagall were hard at work reinforcing the already-formidable notice-me-not wards that had been raised to cover their morning activities, and Mr. Flitwick was still fiddling with the sensors he’d developed in conjunction with Mr. FlameI over the course of the last six months. They were apparently supposed to measure the magical field strength all over the site during the drain, and after he finished with those, there were apparently a few dozen more that were supposed to attach to various portions of Harry for much the same reason. Madame Pomfrey had insisted those go on at the last moment, though, so for now he remained unencumbered.

As the young dragon waited patiently for his friends to finish their various preparations, he couldn’t help but be a bit nervous. His friends had done everything they could to ensure he’d survive this, and he knew that, but they had done nothing to hide the potential risks. In fact, they had taken great pains to point them out to him and ensure he knew what he was getting himself in to.

Yes, as far as Madame Pomfrey and Mr. Snape could determine, he ought to be able to handle the amount of magical flux they expected from the circle when it discharged, particularly since his recovery from the incident with the philosopher’s stone, as his changed composition was even more amenable to storing massive quantities of magic. But at the end of the day, that ‘ought to’ was based on educated guesses about both his still poorly-understood biology and the even-less-understood stone rings.

There were no certainties in this situation, only guesses and assumptions, and if those guesses turned out to be wrong… well, there’d be little left of Wiltshire, much less Harry and his friends.

It was a sobering sort of realization, even for the usually ebullient dragon.

That said, no matter how nervous he was, Harry remained resolute on continuing; it wasn’t like he had a choice, not really. Oh, his professor friends wouldn’t have forced him, he knew that well enough — they really couldn’t in any event — but everyone agreed the stakes were clear. Either they found a way to discharge the nexuses safely, or the ancient devices would do so of their own accord, unpredictably and in a decidedly less-than-safe manner. It was a choice between a potentially lethal gamble to fix the problem and invariably lethal cowardice.

That hardly counted as a choice at all in Harry’s books.

But resolute or not, necessary or not, the young dragon really didn’t want to dwell on the absurdly dangerous risk he was about to take... best to find something else to think about.

“Hey, Abigail?” Harry began without turning his head. “You remember that conversation we had before break, you know, about studying for your defense NEWT?”

“Yes,” Abigail acknowledged readily. “What about it?”

“Well, I heard back from Mr. Slackhammer, and he had some more ideas on what I could do,” the young dragon told his friend. “I’m going to be meeting with him later during the break. Just thought I’d let you know I’m still working on it.”

His friend smiled. “Thanks, Harry.” There was a pause. “Are you nervous about this nexus thing?” she asked, rightly interpreting his abrupt change in subject from the task at hand.

Harry nodded wordlessly, eliciting a pair of attempted comforting hugs from his two damsels which unfortunately passed unnoticed by the young dragon due to his natural armor.

“Well, from what you’ve told me, this is really important, right?” his older friend confirmed.

He nodded again.

“’Then I suppose there’s nothing to be done but get on with it and hope for the best.” Abigail sighed, “I know I’m not saying anything you didn’t already know, but it’s all I’ve got.”

“No, I know what you mean,” Harry hurried to reassure his friend. “But... it’s nice to hear it from someone else. Makes you feel better about your reasoning, you know?”

Abigail nodded in her turn.

“Um, you know, I had an idea the other night when I was talking to a couple of my new engineers,” Harry began. “And since you’re going to be working at Hogs Haulage soon, I thought I might run it by you while we’re waiting.”

“Oh,” the older girl cocked a curious eyebrow. “When was this? I don’t think I remember that conversation.”

“It was pretty early in the afternoon,” the young dragon clarified. “I think it was when Mr. Rowland took you over to introduce you to the management team.”

Abigail nodded; that scheduling seemed plausible. “So, what is this new idea?”

“Well, it’s like this…” Harry began only to be interrupted by Madame Pomfrey and Mr. Flitwick. It seemed the time had come to rig him with the final sensors, and then it would be showtime.

Business ideas would have to wait for the future.

3.13.6 Winter lights

A cold wind gusted across the Salisbury plain in southern England, shaggy green grass flattening before it until it splashed to either side of a large metallic dragon and rushed on, swirling around and through an incomplete circle of ancient standing stones.

The color of burnished steel and large enough to stretch nearly halfway across the stone circle itself at full extent, the dragon made for a curious sight — large metallic dragons being rather uncommon in these bucolic locales — as he very deliberately picked his way between the ancient stones. A handful of humans and a single centaur watched carefully from a prudent distance as he approached one unassuming stone in particular. Once there, just as the sun reached its zenith on the cold December day, the dragon took an action which made the already curious scene even curiouser.

Shifting to support himself on his wing-knuckles, he freed his forepaws, and then raised one of them. Bending down to carefully examine the massive appendage, the dragon then raised his other paw holding a knife — a fairly stout and sizeable one by human standards but looking more of a comically tiny lancet on the grand scale of its current holder — which he carefully inserted between two of the massive scales on his paw and then shoved home with a wince. He quickly withdrew the knife, its blade already glowing orange-white and half-melted by the time it cleared his skin, and with it came a glowing rivulet of white-hot blood, a few stray droplets of which were already setting the damp grass to smoking.

He took a deep breath and firmly placed his still-bleeding paw down on the stone in front of him, simultaneously pushing magic into the point of contact. And with that, a set of events was put into motion, the twin of one which had happened two-dozen miles to the north and nearly half a decade earlier at the much larger stone circle in Avebury — a chain of events which had led to the transformation of a small human boy into a massive dragon.

The very same dragon touching off the events on this day.

Once again, magically charged blood came in contact with the stone responsible for discharging the ancient device, forging a connection. Once again the signal was received, this time in the form of a deliberate pulse rather than precise, if coincidental, timing. And once again, the device did as it was designed to do, discharging the accumulated energy of millennia through the freshly forged connection, lighting up the space between the dragon’s palm and the bloody stone with a light brighter than the noon-time sun.

That was where the similarities ended.

Avebury had discharged into a scrawny, malnourished, completely untrained pre-teen wizard. This time the recipient was a strapping, young, partially-trained dragon — a dragon whose kind were not only able to tolerate high levels of environmental magic, but which in fact thrived on it. Where the boy’s magic had scrabbled desperately for a miracle simply to survive the onslaught at Avebury, the dragon’s physiology simply kicked into high gear to process the unexpected nutritional windfall, a task made even simpler by the relative weakness of the nexus. With a capacity estimated to be several orders of magnitude lower than that of the Avebury nexus, Stonehenge had been chosen as an initial test case for precisely that reason.

Rather than a brilliant light show reaching to the heavens and arcane disturbances reverberating around the globe, the draining of Stonehenge had more of the feel of a lightbulb burning out: a bright flash of oddly-colored light, a sharp buzz followed by a dull thump, and then the dim gloom of unmet expectations.

It was honestly a rather welcome relief for everyone involved.

 

3.14 Denouement

---

3.14.1 Realizations

It was late afternoon, and the Lair was quiet, empty but for a single head of bushy brown hair peeking up over the leather-covered back of one of the mismatched chairs in Harry’s library. Hermione sat alone on the mezzanine overlooking the echoingly empty main room of the Lair. It was an ideal spot to reflect on the day’s events.

And those events warranted reflection, for they had been quite important. Harry had participated in the first intentional draining of one of the nexuses that he and most of the Hogwarts staff had spent the last several years fretting about. It had been the culmination of a great deal of work and worry for a great many people, and having it go so smoothly was both a relief and something of a letdown.

Of course, for Hermione, whose primary stake in the endeavor was the safety of her best friend, relief was by far the more prevalent emotion — so much so that she was currently on the brink of exhaustion despite having done nothing but stand around all day before hitching a ride back to the Lair with Harry.

Though, come to think of it, that ride with Harry might have been another contributing factor to her current exhausted state.

She gave a tired giggle at the thought.

Ever since draining Stonehenge, her currently dragon-shaped friend had been more energetic than she had ever seen him before, quite an accomplishment, given Harry’s usual bright-eyed, bouncy demeanor. He was like a small child on a sugar-high from hell. Even seeing it was exhausting, almost debilitatingly so after the worries of the day.

Of course just like a sugar-rush — as Madame Pomfrey had assured her when she had asked — Harry would eventually hit the end of his unnaturally-high energy levels and crash into exhaustion himself. In the meantime, however, everyone dealt with the situation in their own ways.

Harry had spent the afternoon playing an interminable game of tag with the resident phoenix, who looked to be enjoying the proceedings immensely. Abigail had returned home immediately, citing family commitments aloud while shooting Hermione and Suze a sly look and silently mouthing, “Enjoy yourselves!”

Obviously, Abigail had a long memory.

After Abigail had left, Suze had gone to visit her family, feeling no need to make excuses. If not for the intervention of the phoenix Hermione would have been stuck dealing with a hyperactive dragon-shaped Harry Potter all afternoon. It was enough to make her reconsider her nascent plots to retaliate against the fiery bird for the picnic incident; getting splashed with tea was a small price to pay, in hindsight. A quiet evening in the library wasn’t too bad.

Though, if she were to be completely honest with herself, Hermione would have preferred to take the same route her centaur counterpart had. It had been quite some time since the bushy-haired girl had been able to spend any quality time with her parents.

There had been a great many reminders about what she was missing with the absence of her parents of late — too many for the bushy-haired girl to put it out of her mind. She had missed their sage advice after her recent gaffe with Professor Snape, and after seeing the McDonalds and all the other happy families at the barbecue Hermione had found herself missing her parents dearly. She had been without her family for much too long.

She frowned.

Just how long had it been, anyway?

The last time she’d even seen them was at the beginning of the summer, and that hardly counted. At the time, Hermione had been so sick with worry over her best friend’s condition that her parents had barely registered. Before that had been Christmas of the previous year, which again had been taken up either with adjusting to Harry’s Lair or the usual whirlwind schedule of visiting various relatives. As Hermione thought back over her interactions with her parents, she quickly realized that the last time she’d had a really good opportunity to spend time with her parents was before she’d started at Hogwarts.

That had been nearly eighteen months ago!

A year-and-a-half without her parents was not acceptable. Hermione’s tired countenance firmed at the thought. Hogwarts was supposed to have been a boarding school, not an adoption agency; something would have to be done!

It was too late to alter her plans for Christmas break — for that matter, her mum and dad were already coming to visit for the holiday — but come the end of the school year, she would simply have to insist on going home for the summer. Hermione nodded decisively. She was sure Harry would understand.

And in the meantime, she would make the most of her parents’ Christmas visit.

She sighed, rising from her favorite chair to make her way to her bedroom. For now, though, she’d take a nap; it had been a very tiring day, after all.

3.14.2 Failed expectations

When working on a long-term project, particularly one as fraught with uncertainty and danger as the plan to learn about and drain the Stongehenge nexus, certain expectations tend to build. Each level of contingency planning, each backup, and each failsafe ratchets those expectations higher and higher, and the nervous tension of those involved ratchets up right alongside them. When all that build-up comes to a head, and then the project proceeds to go off without the slightest hitch, the sudden release tends to leave a curious sort of mood in its wake. It is an odd mix of relief, disbelief, and lethargy, and it often comes mixed with an undercurrent of irrational resentment at all the effort wasted preparing for contingencies that never happened.

Such was the mood in the Hogwarts staff room following the draining of Stonehenge.

For once, Filius managed to pass out drinks before anyone mustered the gumption to break the heavy silence in the conference room. The various staff members sat listlessly, faces slack and dull eyes staring — into their drinks, into space, even into a blank wall in one case — and marveling at all the effort and worry which in the end had proven entirely unnecessary.

The drink of the day was Pomona’s take on the non-magical classic, champagne, chosen beforehand in anticipation of a celebratory mood in the aftermath of draining the Stonehenge nexus. Amber in color and laced with silvery bubbles rising in a shimmering cascade, it could almost have been mistaken for a non-magical drink and would have suited the unexpectedly somber tone of the debriefing quite well had it not been for one, unfortunate feature. When those silvery bubbles burst at the surface of the liquor, they occasionally launched miniature fireworks which detonated in a profusely colorful panoply about a foot above the surface of the drink.

When a cheery pink starburst illuminated the glowering face of the resident potions master, Sprout found the dissonance between the somber mood and the lively display too much to tolerate. Thinking quickly, she raised her glass, wincing at her own cheerful yellow explosion in the process, and offered a perfunctory toast.

“To the success of our endeavors!”

And with that, she drained her entire glass in one go. Her colleagues caught on quickly, aping the action, and soon the overly festive drinks fell silent and dark, much to the relief of those in the room. A quick gesture from Sprout prompted Flitwick to quietly exchange the half-empty bottle of her celebratory brew for a much tamer bottle of Ogden’s.

“Thank you for your quick thinking, Pomona,” Dumbledore tiredly congratulated his subordinate on her handling of the jarringly cheerful drink. “I confess I was having some difficulty thinking coherently enough to see to it myself.”

The amateur brewer shrugged. You couldn’t win them all.

“Perhaps we might revisit your creation on another occasion,” the elderly wizard offered kindly, even as he took a bracing sip of the old wizarding favorite. “In any case, I understand our trial run went more smoothly than we had dared to hope?”

“Indeed, Albus,” Flitwick confirmed. “Mr. Potter managed to drain the Stonehenge nexus with nary a hiccup. There were a few odd lights and a bit of sound but nothing approaching what we viewed in that memory of Mr. Potter’s transformation at Avebury.”

The dour potions master spoke up, “Our protections against prying eyes proved to be more than adequate.” He snorted, “Between our spell choice and the not inconsiderable effort Minerva and I put into their emplacement those wards would have hidden a full-scale war. That it was only called upon to hide that pathetic display seems vaguely insulting.”

“Now, Severus,” his Scottish colleague chided, “you should not be complaining about things going unexpectedly well — particularly not when the alternatives could have been so dire.”

“Blast it, Minerva! I know that,” the dark man snapped, “but knowing that makes precious little difference in the face of all that wasted effort. I defy you to tell me truthfully that you are fully satisfied with the way things came out. With how smoothly that went, we could have hared off on an afternoon lark and done just as well, rather than building up to it for half a year!”

“I am happy that we made it through without complications,” the transfiguration mistress qualified, before admitting with a reluctant grimace, “but yes, I must admit it was rather disheartening.”

“Was the Stonehenge nexus simply that much weaker, or is something else at work?” Albus asked.

“I believe the relative strength of the nexuses played a significant role,” the half-goblin volunteered, pausing to sip at his drink, “but I sincerely doubt it was the only factor.” A small gout of flame escaped his lips as if to punctuate the statement. “Hopefully, we will be able to glean more insight by analyzing our sensor records of the procedure.”

The school Healer finished off her whiskey with a gulp before speaking up for the first time. “I believe I can offer some preliminary insight into that,” Poppy volunteered. “Things were not nearly so sedate on Mr. Potter’s end of the transaction.”

“Mr. Potter was injured?” the young dragon’s Head of House spoke up immediately, embarrassment over the poor reception of her latest brew evaporating in the face of her concern for her student. “He seemed so energetic.”

“No, Mr. Potter was not injured,” the Healer was quick to assure her concerned colleague. “He is quite sound, but even so, this revealed some rather interesting information. First, Filius, I do not know how the rest of your sensors fared, but you need not consider those you placed on Mr. Potter’s person. Not one survived intact — the ones farthest away from the transfer point appear to have simply overloaded, but damages became increasingly severe the closer they were to the transfer location. I was unable to recover the remains of any sensors closer than Mr. Potter’s shoulder; I believe they were either blown clear or vaporized entirely.”

“They were not blown clear,” Severus volunteered. “Such a thing would have at least strained our concealment wards. They registered no such disturbance.”

The half-goblin charms master frowned in thought. “That sort of energy is more in keeping with what we expected,” he allowed, “but the absorption coefficients…” His eyes closed as he tilted his head back in thought. “Mr. Potter couldn’t have absorbed so much magic so quickly, not with so little spillage...” the diminutive man trailed off.

“You’re correct, Filius,” Septima Vector agreed. “At that intensity, there should have been more overflow than we observed. So where did the rest go?”

“Perhaps some other failsafe in the runic structure?” Bathsheda ventured, retreating to her own specialty for an explanation.

The school Healer cleared her throat. “Before speculation travels too far afield, I should reel you in. Based on Mr. Potter’s follow-up physical, I believe you should shift your estimation of his capacity to store magic up by several orders of magnitude.”

“How so?” the half-goblin asked, intrigued.

“I’ve not yet worked out how to examine the changes in detail, given Mr. Potter’s intransigent physiology,” the Healer averred, “but I have noticed significant physical changes on an organ our explorations had not yet identified.”

“Which one?” Snape asked, interest piqued. He had been Poppy’s closest collaborator in exploring the young dragon’s physiology.

“We had designated it LP-31 in our notes.”

“One of the paired ones, then,” the sallow man frowned. “Was that…”

“The one we had thought might be a redundant liver?” Madame Pomfrey finished for him. “Yes, that’s the one.”

“So, it is involved in absorbing magic, then,” the potions master mused. “I suppose that would explain the structural similarities to the liver. Particularly if it simply filters out excess magic from the blood.”

“Storage as well, I believe,” Poppy added. “It seems to have changed shape, and the diagnostic returns indicate a change in composition as well.” She frowned. “I don’t quite know what to think of that. If the boy’s basic structure continues to change at the drop of a hat, I have no idea how I will ever establish a proper baseline.”

“I believe I am familiar with the class of diagnostic you are using, Poppy,” Albus chimed in. “I’d not be overly concerned about the composition returns in this case. The diagnostic uses internal magic densities to infer composition; therefore…”

“…the change in stored magic would alter the returned composition as well,” Poppy concluded. “That makes me feel quite a bit better about my prospects as Mr. Potter’s Healer, then. Thank you, Albus.”

“Think nothing of it, Poppy,” the elderly wizard countered. “By all means verify that conclusion, as well. Given Mr. Potter’s recent medical history, spontaneous changes in composition are hardly out of the question.”

“Of course, I’ll certainly do that,” came the reply. “What would you suggest as an alternative?”

With that, the conversation spun off for a time into a wide-ranging discussion of the merits of various classes of diagnostic charms which dragged in most of the senior staff. It lasted until one of the younger professors brought the meeting back on task.

“While this discussion is fascinating,” Septima broke in, “and I am sure you will be eager to finish it later, for now, perhaps we should discuss where we need to go from here? There are a great many more of these things out there, as I recall.”

“Ah, an excellent point,” AIbus allowed with a sheepish expression. “Where do we need to go from here?”

The room was silent.

“We now have a second example of a discharging nexus to examine,” Albus volunteered when it became clear no one else would. “Perhaps we could use it to better prepare for discharging the next one?”

“We need a better handle on the magic we are working with,” Filius agreed. “I’m afraid we got lucky on this attempt, and we will eventually have to go after the higher-capacity nexuses as well.” The half-goblin narrowed his eyes speculatively, “Hopefully the surviving sensors will yield some information on that front.”

He nodded to the healer in the room. “Madame, if I could request that you share any more information you discover on Mr. Potter’s interaction with the magic fields in play, it would be extremely valuable.”

The Healer nodded.

“While we have free rein to visit any of the sites within the ICW,” Snape began, “it occurs to me that many of these nexuses are not within the borders of ICW countries. Perhaps we should begin examining options to obtain access to them?”

“I take it you have some ideas in that regard?” the elderly headmaster asked. At his potions master’s affirmative nod, he continued, “feel free to pursue them, then. Such things will always take far longer than expected, so we might as well begin early.”

“Um, Headmaster,” Bathsheda called. “While we’re on that topic, Sybil asked me to pass something on for her.”

“Oh?” the bearded man asked.

“She said she’s not sure why, but she is certain the next nexus we look at should be the one in the Canadian Rocky Mountains — near the Seven Sisters, if that means anything to anyone,” the arithmancy professor looked puzzled. “I’m not sure what to make of it myself, but that was what Sybil asked me to pass on.”

With that, the conference room fell silent.

“I see, well, I suppose that answers the question of where to direct your initial efforts, Severus. If anyone else has further ideas in the future, please feel free to bring them up when inspiration strikes,” the Headmaster said. “In the meantime, please take advantage of the remainder of your winter break in order to rest and celebrate a job well done.”

The meeting ended much more cheerily than it began.

3.14.3 Too tired to sleep

Despite his initial rush of energy, it hadn’t taken long for exhaustion to come crashing in on Harry in the wake of the events at Stonehenge. Unfortunately for his peace of mind, an understanding of the full magnitude of what he had just done had crashed in right alongside the exhaustion, leaving him paradoxically both utterly drained and simultaneously too wired to sleep. As a result, the young dragon found himself sprawled bonelessly on the lip of the Lair in the wee hours of the brisk winter morning watching dark wisps of cloud sweep across the starlit sky even as his mind churned restlessly over recent events.

While Hermione had long since turned in for the evening by the time Harry returned to the Lair, Suze had predictably joined her dragon upon her return from visiting the Clan, stoically wrapping herself in several layers of deerhide blankets to ward off the nighttime chill and hunkering down next to him with the air of someone determined to stay as long as they were needed. She had fallen asleep some hours previous, but the soft movements of her breathing remained a comforting sight for the young dragon... a sight that he rather gratefully returned to many times over the course of the night.

Despite Suze’s comforting presence, however, his thoughts wouldn’t leave him alone.

What might have happened if he hadn’t absorbed the magic fast enough? What if there had been more than they’d expected? Would he have survived it? Would his friends have? There were so many things that could have gone wrong, some of which would have had truly spectacular consequences.

It had turned out smoothly in the end, almost suspiciously so, but draining the nexus at Stonehenge had been the first time Harry had deliberately and knowingly risked his life. Of course, in hindsight, he’d probably been at an objectively greater risk in the aftermath of the philosopher’s stone incident during the previous spring, but that had happened while he’d been unconscious.

This one he’d walked into with his eyes wide open.

The young dragon sighed a very deliberate sigh as he attempted to force himself to relax, prompting a sleepy murmur from Suze as she shifted in her sleep. His was a puzzling sort of reaction to Harry’s way of thinking. He’d have expected to be nervous in the lead-up to the event and then relieved afterward; instead, he’d proven to be mostly collected before the big day, rock-solid during the execution, and then a nervous mess afterward, unable to stop thinking about all the things that could have gone wrong. Harry frowned as he considered that.

What a weird way for him to go about things.

The dragon shook his head — gently to avoid waking his centaur damsel — in yet another an attempt to rid himself of the endless circle of worries that had kept him awake for the last several hours. It was just as successful as the last dozen attempts had been. He needed to get to sleep, Harry thought with a frown. He had guests due to arrive tomorrow... well, later today by now, and he didn’t want to be falling asleep as he welcomed them to the Lair.

That just wouldn’t be on!

Perhaps a different tactic? Great green eyes narrowed speculatively. If just trying to not think about it didn’t work, maybe deliberately thinking about something else might be more effective. It was probably worth a try in any case; if it didn’t work, at least he might get something accomplished.

Harry nodded emphatically, prompting another, louder, sleepy murmur from Suze which caused him to still immediately, a sheepish expression on his reptilian face. There was no need to keep his damsel awake just because he was being silly. When he had assured himself that the centaur maiden was once again sound asleep, the young dragon deliberately turned his thoughts to some of the other irons he had in the fire.

He’d invited Hermione’s parents to spend Christmas with him and his damsels, and they were supposed to be arriving in the late afternoon. There wasn’t a lot left to do to prepare for that, though. There was plenty of space since he’d dug out a guest room during some of his spare time over the summer, and he’d already let Mr. Bane know to be on the lookout for them.

Though, come to think of it, Harry thought with a quirked brow, there was something he’d been meaning to discuss with Hermione for a few weeks now which he probably ought to handle in the morning before her parents arrived. She probably wouldn’t be too keen on going along with it afterwards, not after she’d spent so much time away from them. Or at least, that’s what he’d guess; Harry only had his imagination to go on as far as parenting went, though he’d been thinking a lot more about that sort of thinking since visiting his parents’ graves.

After that, he had that meeting with Mr. Slackhammer scheduled for two days after Christmas. His business partner had seemed cheerful about his prospects, so that’d probably go pretty well. Harry frowned thoughtfully; speaking of the goblins, he’d also had that other idea when he was talking with Mr. Wardale at the picnic. It might make sense to arrange a meeting with one of the Gringotts engineers, too... maybe Specialist Flame-Eye, he’d probably know the right sort of stuff. Harry had had some more ideas since…

Large green eyes narrowed thoughtfully. That stuff could get pretty involved; he probably ought to write some of this down. The dragon raised his massive head to look back over his shoulder into the Lair and reached out with his magic, levitating his dictation quill and a notepad from where he’d tossed them on returning from his encounter with the basilisk.

Only a few minutes of low whispering passed before Harry finally dozed off, his great scaly chin coming to rest next to his notepad as exhaustion finally took its due.

3.14.4 Insistence

The next day had dawned bright and early... too bright and too early in the eyes of the heavy-eyed inhabitants of Harry’s cliffside Lair, which left tempers running a little high.

“Look, Hermione, I don’t get why you’re being so stubborn about this,” Harry, currently in the shape of a small boy, complained with an exasperated huff as his centaur damsel stood at his side looking on neutrally. “Suze and I do this every day — sometimes twice a day. Even Abigail joins in sometimes when she’s got time. It’s really important.”

The girl so addressed was standing with her arms across her chest and an obstinate look on her face, as she stubbornly refused to budge.

“I don’t want to,” bushy hair rustled as Hermione shook her head in defiance.

“I know you don’t want to, you’ve made that clear enough,” Harry acknowledged, “and I guess I can kinda see where you’re coming from… maybe?” the currently human-shaped dragon allowed dubiously. “But I’m really going to have to insist.”

“No, I’m not going to do it. I refuse.”

Harry’s expression hardened, “Well too bad, you’re going to do it anyway.”

Hermione’s knuckles whitened as she glared at her friend, her teeth clenched in irritation.

He sighed, “Look, it’s not hard. You just turn around, put your feet shoulder-width apart, flex your knees a little, take a deep breath, and we can get started. It’ll be over before you know it. You might even enjoy it!”

“I can’t believe you’re making me do this; it’s against the law!” the bushy-haired girl sounded rather distressed.

“Not in the magical world, it’s not,” Harry countered implacably, hefting his rifle in emphasis. “When I carried you off, I took on certain responsibilities for you, but you have some too, and I’ve let you avoid attending to your side of things for too long. Now turn around and get to it, we don’t have all day. We’ll be doing this at least every morning.”

Hermione scowled angrily but nonetheless complied. It wasn’t as it she was in a position to refuse. “You were never like this before, what changed?”

“I had a bit of a revelation at the dueling club last term,” Harry explained as his human damsel turned to face the cavernous expanse of the Lair’s firing range. “It’s a lot harder to hit a target than you might think, and if I need the practice even after years of learning, then you certainly do too.”

“I don’t see why I have to learn to shoot,” the twelve-year-old witch complained. “I’ve got you to protect me, don’t I?”

“You do, and I’m happy to do so,” Hermione’s currently human-shaped friend assured her before continuing. “But you need to be able to defend yourself, too. Mr. Slackhammer told me that even if there are people willing to help, everyone is responsible for protecting himself... or herself in your case, I guess. I mean, what if you’re on the other side of the school or something? I might not be close enough to help in time, and then you’d have to be at least good enough to stay alive for a little while.” Harry nodded, “Best to make sure you know what you’re doing, just in case.”

“Fine,” the bushy-haired girl acquiesced wih a huff. “Am I using your rifle, or what?”

“You want to learn to shoot a rifle, too?” the young dragon asked, pleasantly surprised. “I thought you said you didn’t want to do that since you don’t have a license.”

“Well what else am I going to use for marksmanship practice?” Hermione all-but shouted in exasperation.

“I was just going to have you join me for the spellcasting target practice,” Harry explained, gesturing to a freshly-excavated section of the room with a set of much closer targets and backed by a blank wall rather than the metal surfaces of a snail-trap.

“Why didn’t you just say that from the beginning?” Hermione demanded, burying her face in her hands in frustration. “I’d have been fine doing that to begin with!”

“I thought you said before you didn’t want to do target practice?” the young dragon asked, puzzled.

His bushy-haired damsel glared at him in outrage through her frizzy bangs before brandishing her wand with a huff and stalking off to the indicated portion of the range.

At least she wouldn’t struggle to find the motivation to practice; she’d just have to imagine the targets with green eyes and black hair.

3.14.5 Strange detective

Shrouded in the darkness of night and washed by a steady, soaking winter rain, a familiar stone circle stood proud and not quite abandoned on a grassy plain in Wiltshire, showing no evidence of the momentous magical event which had taken place there just a few days before... not visibly, anyway. Stonehenge looked as it generally did, but for one curious detail.

The fact that it was ‘quite nearly’ abandoned.

Having any visitors at all was a decidedly unusual condition for the landmark in rainy, nighttime conditions. Very few were so desperate to see the ancient stones that they would brave such weather at night. It wasn’t like the things were going anywhere, after all.

Nonetheless, a lone figure surefootedly picked its way among the standing stones. Tall and rail-thin, it wore a double-breasted coat made of dark-colored leather, it’s full length shedding the rain quite admirably. Boots and a wide-brimmed hat completed the ensemble, warding off the weather and plunging the figure’s face into impenetrable shadow.

The shadowy figure paused as it drew near one of the stones, reaching out to touch a particularly rough spot on its surface curiously. Heat-spalled stone flaked off with the gentle touch and stuck to the figure’s pale rain-wet hand.

A sharp shake dislodged the stone flakes before the hand withdrew, only to turn palm up and have a light flash into existence above it.

The sudden light illuminated a face painted a stark chalky white. The now-revealed man’s harshly angular face was not softened by the pair of long crimson diamonds painted over its eyes, and his vividly green eyes focused intently on the standing stone before him.

“Hmm…” the man hummed quietly, barely audible over the dull hiss of the rain.

Turning to examine the rest of the newly illuminated area, alert green eyes quickly latched onto a few seemingly innocuous depressions in the thick grass, carefully noting their placement and spacing. The man tilted his head forward, revealing a crimson-dyed ponytail peeking out from under his hat. As he scanned the grass carefully, his eyes suddenly widened.

He took two long steps then kneeled to examine a tiny burn mark on a patch of grass. Unmindful of the wet, he brought his conjured light low and searched carefully through the wet grass until he found a tiny, unassuming pebble in the mud at the base of a charred grass stem. Picking it up gingerly, the oddly made-up man straightened to his full height and examined the miniscule thing closely before rubbing it between his thumb and forefinger. It left a streak of reddish brown.

Rust.

Green eyes closed in thoughtful consideration as he allowed the conjured light to gutter out. Eventually, the man sighed, pocketing the tiny bit of heavily rusted iron as he walked calmly back towards the nearby road.

“Well, it seems someone is up early.”

3.14.6 Welcome visitors

A silvery dragon the size of a small airliner settled in for a gentle landing, his nearly five hundred tons of bulk touching down on stone with barely a thump to mark the occasion. Harry smoothly leaned forward, brought his wings down to support himself and crouched to bring his torso even closer to the ground to ease his passengers’ disembarkation. Said passengers wasted no time in taking advantage of the courtesy, quickly unclipping themselves from his carry harness.

“That hasn’t gotten any easier,” Tony Granger remarked as he staggered over to brace himself against the nearest stone wall.

Flying on a massive dragon was not exactly the dentist’s cup of tea. Airplanes were bad enough, but at least they had the benefit of being enclosed. Flying exposed to the open air, the ground racing by hundreds of feet below with nothing but empty air between him and it, was a hair-raising experience to Tony’s mind. It had been bad enough the previous year when he had been cradled in the dragon’s great forepaw; dangling from a leather five-point harness strapped to the dragon’s side was far worse. Every lurch made him wonder when the leather was going to snap and send him plummeting to his death.

It made him wonder why he kept coming back for more.

“Really?” the dragon in question asked, craning his neck about to shoot his erstwhile passengers a concerned look. “I thought I’d gotten a lot smoother with all the flying practice with Fawkes. Was I too rough?”

“Ah, not really, it’s just…” the dentist struggled to explain without sounding like an ingrate. His daughter’s friend had been good enough to carry him after all, and it seemed in poor taste to complain about the method. He was rather quickly saved from the task by his wife.

“You did much better than last year, Harry,” Sharon assured their gargantuan host. “My husband just has trouble with heights, particularly when he’s out in the open — he can’t stand rollercoasters either. He even has trouble with small aircraft.”

“Oh,” Harry frowned. “Um, I suppose I could ask Suze to lend him her portkey, but most of my professor friends say those are a lot less comfortable than flying for short distances. They spin you around kinda fast while dragging you along. It doesn’t really bother me, but then neither does flying.”

“Don’t bother, my husband needs to learn to face his fears anyway,” Sharon chuckled at Tony’s mildly offended look. She didn’t have to phrase it like that! “Just two years ago, we were vacationing across the pond, and our flight was redirected due to weather. When he found out we were being re-routed on a smaller aircraft, Tony insisted on renting a car and driving instead! Ten hours in the car rather than…”

Whatever else Sharon had intended to say went unsaid as she was interrupted by a bushy-haired missile in the form of her daughter. As the two Granger females engaged in a heartfelt embrace, Tony looked on warmly.

That was the reason. As reminders went, it was a pretty solid one.

The proud father watched the heartwarming scene for a few moments longer before turning away as his wife and daughter moved on to a quiet discussion. Tony was sure his little princess would get around to greeting him when she was ready, but privacy seemed to be the order of the day for now. A quick glance at his host showed the young dragon to have come to a similar conclusion.

Tony made his way over to his host who, having moved his guests’ luggage deeper into the cave complex, was now in the process of removing his portion of the carry harness the Granger patriarch had been so distressed to be hanging from on the way up.

Giving a nod to the centaur currently assisting her dragon with the procedure, Hermione’s father struck up a conversation. “So, Harry, what have you been up to recently?”

“Huh?” the young dragon looked up in surprise at being so addressed. “Mr. Granger? I thought you’d still be over with Hermione.”

“Sharon seems to have that well in hand for the moment,” Tony shrugged. “I thought I’d come over and keep you company in the meantime. Have you been up to anything interesting lately?”

“Well, I guess there was that really big snake I found about a week ago,” Harry offered, pausing to contort himself with a slight grunt in order to allow his centaur damsel to release the last in a series of buckles on his harness. With the straps released, he shifted smoothly into human form right before Tony’s eyes. “That was kind of interesting, I suppose.”

“A big snake?” the dentist prompted, wondering exactly how big a snake would have to be to prompt that sort of qualifier from a dragon of all beings.

“Yeah,” the currently boy-shaped dragon nodded as he leaned back against the wall. “It was raiding my pantry, so I found it and killed it, then Mr. Snape helped me cut it up for meat. It’s pretty tasty! Do you wanna try some?”

“I see,” Tony said uncertainly. “Probably not right now, I’m not really hungry at the moment.”

“Maybe later then,” Harry shrugged amiably. “Other than that, I put together a barbecue for my new company last Friday. It was really fun!”

“So I saw in your letter,” Tony agreed. “Sharon and I had wanted to ask about that, but it should probably wait until she’s here to participate.”

The young dragon nodded. “That makes sense. Um, speaking of asking about stuff, I’d wanted to ask about something too.”

“Oh?” Tony prompted.

“Well, last year, Mrs. Granger gave me a little model thingy she called a nativity scene, and she said there was a really important story behind it, but she never got around to explaining it. I kinda wanted to ask what it was about.”

Tony arched a brow in surprise at that. “You’ve never heard of a nativity scene before?”

Harry shook his head in the negative.

“Well, it’s a depiction of the birth of Jesus Christ,” the dentist began, a bit nonplussed that a boy Harry’s age raised in an ostensibly Christian nation didn’t know this already. “I mean, it’s the main reason for the holiday — it’s why it’s called Christ-mas, you know.”

“I guess that makes sense,” the young, currently human-shaped, dragon allowed. “Why didn’t any of the professors tell me about it, though? We’ve celebrated Christmas four times now, and no one said anything.”

“Maybe they assumed you knew already?” Tony offered. “Didn’t your aunt and uncle tell you about it?”

Harry shook his head in the negative.

“Odd,” the dentist shook his head at the idea. “Well, I know Sharon will be happy to tell the story whenever she finishes up with Hermione, and she’ll do a better job of it than me.” He paused as a thought occurred to him. “Say, Harry, what do you know about the other Christmas-time traditions?”

“Well, I know you give people gifts, and I know you decorate trees,” the young dragon stated.

After it became apparent that he wasn’t going to elaborate further, Tony confirmed, “That’s all? Nothing about Santa Claus or anything?”

Harry shook his head.

“Well, I can’t let that stand, now can I?” the dentist nodded emphatically, immediately walking over to his luggage and rummaging around looking for a certain something he had remembered to bring this year. “You see…”

It was as far as he got before he was interrupted in turn by his bushy-haired daughter. It seemed Hermione had finished with her mother for the time being and was now intent on catching up on her delinquent quota of fatherly attention. As he settled down to the welcome task, Tony vaguely registered his wife stepping in to take up the conversation with Harry. That was good, Sharon would be able handle things.

For now, his daughter needed him.

3.14.7 Up on the rooftop

It was a snowy Christmas Eve in the Scottish Highlands, the light of the moon completely hidden by the thick storm clouds, and it was precisely the sort of evening that made one long for solid roof over one’s head, a warm blanket for one’s lap, and a roaring fire at one’s feet. So, with nothing more pressing to do for once, Albus Dumbledore had arranged for just that.

The elderly wizard had chosen to while away the chill of the evening in the sitting area of the Headmaster’s suite, seated in his favorite high-backed chair wearing his pajamas — a rather subdued number by the standards of his wardrobe, midnight blue with animated shooting stars periodically streaking across the fabric — with a roaring fire at his stockinged feet. The hour was late, and even the other staff had long since retired for the evening in anticipation of the next day’s festivities. The Headmaster was therefore quite startled when he heard a loud rap on the pitch-black eighth-story window behind him.

A quick flex of will brought his wand to hand before he even had time to blink, and the elderly wizard conjured a light as he rose and walked cautiously towards the window, only to bite back a decidedly ungentlemanly curse as the light revealed a green eye larger than his head peering through the glass. It-was so unexpected that it actually took the man a moment to recognize the rather familiar organ. As he drew closer to the window, other features became more readily apparent to his startled eye — perhaps the most notable being a fuzzy red triangle hanging down beside that great green eye, its bottom extremity capped in an even fuzzier white ball slightly larger than Albus’ favorite armchair.

“Mr. Potter?” he asked curiously as he opened his window letting in a swirl of snow. “Whyever are you out there?”

“Hi, Mr. Dumbledore! Merry Christmas!” the young dragon greeted him with a sunny cheer that was quite jarring for the late hour. “I’m here to bring you your Christmas gift,” he explained, raising one massive forepaw to brandish a package wrapped in brown paper and tied with unbleached twine. It would have looked quite traditional, were it not more than thrice Albus’ size. “I already took some to Suze’s family, and I’ve got a bunch more for the rest of the professors, too.”

At that claim, Albus looked down to see a collection of similarly wrapped — and proportioned — packages securely attached to a harness on the dragon’s body. He also noted the grasp of Harry’s claws on the stonework of the tower and resolved to order a maintenance check done in the near future.

“I see,” Albus said neutrally. “I thank you for the gift, but I feel the need to ask why you didn’t send the packages with the house elves.”

“Well, the packages are kinda heavy, so I felt a bit bad about making Frizzy carry them all. Since it was dark enough that I didn’t think I had to worry about anyone seeing me, I decided to deliver them myself,” Harry explained. “Plus, Mr. Granger told me about the Santa Claus thing a couple days ago, and I was kinda looking for something to do, and this seemed like a fun idea!”

Albus nodded agreeably, “Fair enough.” A quick exchange followed, with the headmaster graciously accepting the gift using a levitation charm. “And a Merry Christmas to you as well, Mr. Potter; though I am afraid you will have to wait until tomorrow to receive your gift from me, located as it is under the tree in the Great Hall.”

The dragon waved off the apology. “It’s not a problem, I just knew these would be kind of inconvenient. Um, by the way, you shouldn’t let it sit for too long — the cooling runes on the paper only hold about a day’s charge.”

“I will be certain to keep that in mind,” the elderly wizard assured his student.

“Um,” Harry began, “if it’s not too much trouble, I’m pretty sure I know where all the professors’ quarters are from the outside, but do you know a way to get Mr. Snape’s present to him? I don’t think he has a window.”

“I would be pleased to deliver it for you, Mr. Potter,” Albus offered quickly, half afraid that the resident dragon’s alternative solution might include excavating a new window for his potions professor.

“Thanks!” the dragon beamed.

“And, before you go,” Albus interjected before his visitor could leave, “I must compliment you on your rather fetching hat.”

Harry smiled even more broadly, tossing his head gently and setting the floppy red-and-white furred stocking cap to bouncing. “Isn’t it great? Mr. Granger had one that he let me look at, and I transfigured one in my size! It was a whole lot easier than those fiddly little bits Mrs. McGonagall always has us working with in class, and Suze said she’d make a properly real one for me sometime before next year! Um, anyway, I’ve got more presents to deliver, so I’d better get going.” And without waiting for a response from his somewhat overwhelmed Headmaster, the great dragon was gone, a final call of “Merry Christmas!” sounding through the snowy night.

Albus shook his head, closing the window against the cold and snow then marveling at the two colossal packages taking up a good chunk of his sitting room.

Life had surely become more interesting in the years since Mr. Potter’s arrival.

 

4 Wretched hive of...

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4.1 Ways and means

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4.1.1 Quiet conversations

While Harry had very much enjoyed it while it lasted, Christmas had now come and gone. Hermione and her parents had left earlier in the day, off for their annual whirlwind tour of the extended family, and their departure had left Harry and Suze to their own devices. Currently, those devices had the centaur maiden once more catching up on her spinning as her dragon lounged indolently next to a large pile of very serious-looking books in the middle of the Lair.

“You know, Suze,” Harry mused, his voice breaking the stillness of the Lair. “It sure seems quiet since Hermione and her parents left.”

“I suppose it does,” she agreed absently, her busy hands never pausing in their work with the nettle fiber.

The stillness returned, broken only by the gentle whirr of the centaur’s spinning..

“I’m bored,” the young dragon declared after a few minutes.

“I see,” Suze acknowledged with the calm air of someone rehashing an oft-repeated conversation. “And what do you intend to do about that?”

“I dunno,” Harry answered. “Do you have any suggestions, Suze?”

“You seemed to be quite involved in your reading earlier,” the centauress nodded to the large stack of books next to him. “Why not go back to that?”

Harry sighed, the resultant breeze ruffling Suze’s hair. “I just wasn’t getting anywhere with it! Every book I found touches on casting and injection molding; it’ll describe the general process; it’ll say people use it all the time; and then it just cuts off and goes to something else without giving any real detail!” He huffed, “It’s like they don’t want to actually say anything useful!”

His centaur damsel frowned, finally pausing in her spinning to give his words some thought. “Perhaps it is the sort of skill best learned by doing?”

Harry cocked his great head curiously, “What do you mean?”

“Well,” Suze paused for a moment to compose her thoughts, “when Uncle Ronan was first teaching me to carve a bow, he simply gave me a piece of wood and a knife and told me to make an attempt before giving me much of any instruction at all. Then he pointed out the problems with it and had me carve another. When I asked him about it, uncle said everyone carved differently, and there was no point in trying to teach me how he did it when I would just have to work it out on my own anyway. Perhaps foundry work is the same?”

“I don’t think that sounds quite right,” the dragon said with a thoughtful frown. “I mean, I can kinda get carving wood into bows, ‘cause you’re carving by hand, and wood’s really got a lot of variety to it. The whole point of casting is to be repeatable, though, so that doesn’t really fit.”

The pair fell silent for a for moments before Suze put forth another idea, “Mayhap the authors truly did not want to say anything useful?”

“Why would they write a book, then?”

“Well, if it does take some specialized knowledge to accomplish,” the centaur maiden proposed, “perhaps they wish to keep it to themselves so that their customers do not take up the practice and cut them out of the loop. I believe Vice Director Slackhammer referred to the idea as a trade secret.”

“Oh,” Harry said in a small voice.

That sounded all too plausible.

Hopefully the goblins would be more forthcoming.

For now, though, the young dragon needed something to occupy his time, and to that end he ambled off into his library... maybe that one on electrodynamics? It’d been a while since he’d worked on that project.

4.1.2 Investigations

In a cluttered room, the man currently known as Frank Nadgett sat at a cheap folding table and stared at a notebook thick with writing inked in his own cramped hand. Hundreds of boxes, crates, shelves, and other assorted storage containers, filled the room, from the edge of the table to the walls with barely enough room to get in or out. Every single one was full of parchment, so much so that even the heavy scent of tobacco smoke from Frank’s ever-present cigarette could not fully overpower the musty smell of old parchment permeating the entire building.

The room was one of many belonging to a rather eccentric old wizard of Frank’s acquaintance, a contact whose existence had played a significant role in Frank’s success in his career. That first chance meeting really had been a godsend for the budding private eye.

The elderly man obsessed over truth with an intensity few could hope to match, and the omnipresent lies of the wizarding world deeply offended his sensibilities. In response, he had devoted his life to collecting and preserving copies of every scrap of written material he could get his wrinkly hands on in the faint hope that someone, somewhere would eventually be able to analyze and cross-reference the morass of lies in such a way as to suss out the truth they hid and piece together an accurate accounting of history.

Frank had no idea what had sparked the man’s obsession — whether a simple whim or some tragedy of his youth — nor did he hold out much hope that such a monumentally ambitious quest would end in success, but he wished him all the luck in the world, nonetheless. Whatever the motivations, the collection was a priceless research tool for Frank’s investigations, and it was available for the low, low price of helping to put the disorganized mess in order as he searched through it. It might be a bit of a slog… okay, scratch that, it was a massive pain in the arse, but Frank counted himself lucky to have struck the deal.

In a world of libraries that were repeatedly and routinely sanitized by the highest bidder and rags like the Prophet that tweaked their own back issues to suit the propagandists’ flavor of the week, this sort of unabridged private archive was really the only way to get any reliable research done. At least it let you work with the first set of unpolished lies, which made it much easier to pick out the inconsistencies. All in all, it was an invaluable tool for a private eye.

And, judging by the pattern Frank was beginning to piece together, it might have just paid off once more.

Gilderoy Lockhart’s fame made him common fodder for what passed for journalists all across wizarding Europe, and there was a plethora of interviews available... both with the man himself and with other witnesses and bystanders. It was in those interviews that Frank struck paydirt. The pattern was subtle, extremely so, tiny inconsistencies and contradictions between different accounts that would be easy to dismiss as simply poor memory or innocent hyperbole, if not for one niggling detail.

They were internally consistent.

For each of Gilderoy’s exploits, the associated interviews varied, as witness accounts often do. They conflicted with Lockhart’s official line as published in his books in varying details, one might be off in the sequence of events, another might have had him wearing a different outfit, and so on — nothing too odd there — but none of those inconsistencies conflicted. If two witnesses reported him wearing a different outfit than the one in the official account, it was always the same outfit. If two witnesses gave alternate timelines that conflicted with the official account, they were always consistent with each other.

The errors in the accounts were not random.

Frank had to admit, it wasn’t much to show for the his time, and there were plenty of potential innocent explanations, but it was enough to warrant a bit of travel. Best to talk with those witnesses in person and see what he could find out, and, more importantly, what spell traces he could pick up.

He might not think much of the job or the client, but he was an honest professional, damn it! He would bloody well put in his due diligence before reporting his conclusions. The hard-bitten man sighed and ground out his cigarette before standing up.

It seemed he had some travel preparations to make.

“You find what you were looking for?” came a crotchety old voice from the doorway.

The owner of the room had come by to check up on him.

“I just might have,” Frank acknowledged, nodding to the old man. “I’ve got to go check, and that means some international travel on the continent, but it’s the best lead I’ve got.”

“Going traveling, huh?” He was met with a shrewd stare from eyes clouded with age. “You’ll be off for another round of insurance, then?”

Frank nodded reluctantly, regretting all over again the one time he had gotten drunk enough to share some of his closely-guarded personal life with his elderly… well, the old man was probably the closest thing Frank had to a friend after his old life had torn itself apart.

“Yeah,” he sighed gustily. “I can’t afford to lose track of her... not again.”

The old man’s face screwed up in thought as he obviously restrained himself from saying something before letting out a gruff sigh instead. “Well, be off with you then, lad.”

“Later, old man,” Frank said his farewell. “I’ll see you when I see you.”

With that, the private eye made his way to the fireplace and vanished in a flash of green fire.

The old man remained staring at the fire for a few moments after it returned to normal before turning away.

“Good luck to you, lad,” he muttered under his breath as he shuffled back to his precious boxes. “God knows you need it.”

4.1.3 Distasteful means

Appearing in a flash of green fire before the public floo in the dive bar below his office, Frank regained his bearings with the ease of long practice and immediately made his way out into the near-perpetual gloom of Knockturn Alley. He had important business to attend to before he could continue with the Lockhart case.

Spending time away from his main base of operations had always been a risky endeavor for Frank. He didn’t have a staff, never could afford one, and his work often required frequent, personal attention ranging from tracking down a timely lead or tending to surveillance wards.

As he walked down the hazy alley, he casually slipped a potion phial out of an inner pocket and knocked it back.

Despite the massive price tag on the Lockhart project, it wasn’t his only ongoing case, far from it.

In the final analysis, it wasn’t even his most important one.

That dubious honor belonged to a stalled case he’d been working on for what seemed like an eternity now, a tracking and rescue job... not his usual fare to be sure, particularly the latter half, but it’d been a special case. He’d managed the tracking bit, but the rescue had proven to be beyond his capabilities at the time.

His target… well, the poor bird had been forced into prostitution by the time he’d tracked her down, and there was too much magic involved for him to extract her successfully. Between contract bindings, layered compulsions, routine obliviations, outright mental programming… it was a bloody mess! The physical security was a tough nut to crack, too. True, it was hardly insurmountable, but that hardly mattered. Pulling her out physically without dealing with the magical component would have seen them both dead anyway through any one of a dozen different magical means.

Nonetheless, Frank had refused to give up, determined to see this particular job through to the end and free that much-abused girl from her own personal hell. His eyes hardened as a multi-story building, looking more like a run-down apartment building than a place of business, emerged out of the gloom ahead It’s brightly-painted red door stood out from the rest of the dingy gray alley and served as advertisement enough for the wares sold within.

Without a means of extraction, Frank had been reduced to keeping tabs on his target until he could put together a plan to get her out. However, keeping track of her had proven to be a challenge in and of itself. The magics layered onto the luckless girl included several which strongly repelled any attempt to mark the merchandise, as it were. They were not specifically intended to prevent tracking charms — rather, they were placed as insurance against rowdy johns accidentally damaging the goods — but they worked admirably for that purpose, too.

Despite the difficulty, he’d managed for some time using the straightforward, if laborious, means of keeping a constant watch on the surrounding area, an area which he could bespell as he pleased. Keeping so many detection charms going simultaneously for so long had been a nerve-wracking, if surprisingly educational experience, but he’d managed well enough... until one day when he’d left the immediate area on another job.

During the time he had been away, her captors had moved his target without warning... sold her to a new establishment, as it had turned out. Despite the distance, his monitoring charms had alerted him, but his target had been long-gone by the time he’d been able to follow up on the alert. It had taken months of frantic effort and a series of lucky breaks that bordered on divine intervention for the private investigator to track her down again.

Afterwards, Frank had been unwilling to trust that he’d be so lucky a second time, and he had taken steps to ensure he wouldn’t lose her again. He had needed a marker, something to track her no matter where she went, and it needed to be something that would stick to her despite the spells preventing such things. It had taken time, effort, and all the ingenuity he could muster, but eventually, he’d managed to develop a means...

...a very distasteful means.

Frank shook his head in a futile attempt to shake off the feeling of self-loathing as he approached the brightly enameled door of the brothel currently serving as his target’s latest prison. In the final analysis, though, as distasteful as he found his solution to be, but it was nonetheless the least unpleasant of a slew of horrible alternatives.

The potion he’d downed earlier had been the first component. Originally a commercially available product which caused certain bodily fluids to develop the taste and consistency — though thankfully not the appearance — of chocolate syrup, Frank had called in a favor from a potioneer of his acquaintance to have it modified. The end result caused those same fluids to harden over time, setting into a tough, sticky mass — the sort of thing you’d have to really scrub at for a while to remove from whatever it stuck to. Combined with a tracking charm cast on himself just before delivery, it made for a durable, nearly undetectable tag that would last for weeks before the tag broke down and the magic faded.

As for the delivery mechanism… well, that was straightforward enough; his target had been forced into prostitution, after all.

God, he hated himself, sometimes.

Frank paused a few yards away from the door, once again fishing a fine golden chain out of his collar and this time opening the delicate golden locket hanging there to reveal a wizarding photograph depicting a happy couple, his younger self happily embracing a radiantly smiling blonde woman. The hard-bitten man seemed to draw strength from the picture, his face hardening with iron resolve, then he snapped the locket shut and tucked the chain back into his shirt.

Frank could only hope that after he managed to get her back, she would forgive him.

Pasting a more neutral expression on his face — a smile was beyond his means at the moment — his wand flickered, casting the long-term tracker with a well-practiced movement, before vanishing back into his hidden wrist holster as he stepped up the last few feet to the door. The establishment’s alert-ward ensured it was opened before he had the chance to knock.

“Ah, welcome once again, customer,” the brothel madame, a worn-looking older woman with a deeply cynical air about her, greeted him familiarly as he entered, her businesslike manner not quite managing to mask an undercurrent of contempt from his practiced ear. “I assume you will be wanting your usual?”

Frank nodded tightly, unwilling to speak.

“Are you certain you do not wish to sample any of our other merchandise?” the madame asked as she turned to lead him deeper into the establishment. “We have some fresh stock, very beautiful, well-trained, young, and quite eager to please.”

He shook his head in a firm negative, scoffing internally at the idea of any woman here being eager to please. This was a fantasy brothel, after all; the women enslaved here were programmed to act out whatever scenario they were told to act out. The magic in place effectively turned them into puppets made out of living meat — they would act as eager or recalcitrant as they were instructed to act, but there was no eagerness or enthusiasm in them even if they could emulate it well.

Their minds were too thoroughly suppressed to feel such things.

“Ah, perhaps another time, then,” the old woman said, sounding unsurprised. The usual fee exchanged hands, and she stepped over to the desk and tapped something Frank couldn’t see.

“Lizzie will be along in a moment, customer,” the madame told him.

Within half a minute, his target arrived.

The woman was well-groomed and made-up, looking healthy, standing straight, and to all appearances eager to show him a good time, an illusion which held firm until you met her eyes. She was beautiful, to be sure — magic ensured that — but it was the beauty of a still painting, not that of a living, breathing woman. Face painted with an artificial smile, she looked at Frank without emotion, her eyes glassy and dead. There was nary a hint of recognition nor even the slightest familiarity.

“Lizzie, show your customer to room fourteen, and make yourself available for his needs,” the madame told Frank’s target, who nodded mechanically in acknowledgement of the order. “He has paid for three hours.”

Frank followed his target deeper into the building, keeping his eyes on her swaying blonde hair, until they reached the room and entered it, and his target turned to face him.

“I am at your disposal, sir,” she said in a neutral voice. “What is your wish?”

As he gazed deep into the glassy eyes of the blonde woman before him, a poor, unfortunate victim who had been horribly ill-treated over the course of years, Frank tried to convince himself that he was just doing what he had to do. It was the only way forward, a necessary part of the business of rescuing the girl. Without that tag he might lose her completely, and then even if he did find the means to free her, she’d still be stuck in this living hell until it managed to snuff the guttering light of her soul completely.

He knew it wasn’t real; she was programmed to carry out his requests. Anything that passed between him and his target, here and now, was fake, baseless… not to mention, utterly wrong and reprehensible.

“I’d like…” Frank’s voice broke, and he swallowed before trying again in a gruff tone. “I’d like a newlywed scenario. We’ve just been married and are now on our honeymoon.”

So, why couldn’t he help himself?

With the command given, the ill-fated woman’s mental programming took over. Simulated emotion filled the previously lifeless doll with life. Dead eyes turned animated, and that unnatural, wooden smile melted off his target’s face…

…only to be replaced by the very same radiantly smiling face in the locket at his neck.

As she leapt to embrace him, he could only hope that, once he had finally managed to rescue her from this hellhole, Betty would forgive him.

Helpless to resist that radiant smile, an equally brilliant one of his own welled up in response alongside bitter tears of self-loathing, and Frank stepped forward into the welcoming arms of his beloved fiancée.

Heaven knew, he’d never be able to forgive himself.

4.1.4 Etiquette and protocol

“Hi, Mr. Slackhammer!” the Great Wyrm of Hogwarts greeted his friend and business associate as he arrived at the dapper goblin’s office door.

“Ah, Mr. Potter! It is good to see you this fine morning,” Slackhammer greeted his visitor. “Come in, do!”

As the young dragon in human form made his way past the increasingly well-stocked gun rack and ammunition locker over to his usual chair, the goblin continued with the usual ritual of hospitality. “Would you care for something to drink?” Which his guest answered as he was wont to do.

“Now on to the meat of today’s business,” Slackhammer began as his aide left to retrieve his guest’s requested goblin tea. “Your letter requested advice on obtaining a syllabus for the Defense Against the Dark Arts NEWT so as to better prepare your friend Abigail for her attempt later this spring. Is that correct?”

“That’s right,” Harry nodded.

The dapper goblin continued, “Further, you proposed the means of meeting with the current head of the Wizarding Examination Authority to make the request personally, reasoning that they might be more willing to help if you met with them personally rather than using an intermediary.”

The young dragon nodded again, “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking; I just didn’t know who I needed to talk to so I figured I should ask.”

“Quite right,” Slackhammer nodded, “and I agree that you have hit upon an excellent way forward. You’re proposed method should work quite admirably, and I will be happy to assist in the planning.”

The goblin paused for a moment before continuing, “For the sake of full disclosure, however, I do feel obligated to point out that this course of action, while admirable, is technically unnecessary. Such syllabi are available from the Examination Authority upon written request.”

“Oh!” Harry exclaimed, before continuing rather sheepishly. “I didn’t know that. I’m sorry for wasting your time, then, Mr. Slackhammer. Um, who do I need to contact to request one?”

The goblin waved off his young partner’s apology. “Think nothing of it, Mr. Potter; I would not have expected you to know. As with most genuinely useful things available from the wizards’ Ministry, that fact is not widely publicized — it might, in fact, be more accurate to say it is quite well-hidden. Before you rush off to send that request, however, I ask that you hear me out. I was not simply humoring you when I judged your initial idea a good one, and I suggest that you consider going through with it regardless of its lack of necessity.”

“Oh?” the young dragon locked his currently human-shaped head curiously. “Why?”

“It occurs to me, Mr. Potter,” the goblin executive explained, “that our future plans will, most assuredly, involve some not-inconsiderable amount of political and social maneuvering. I am, of course, pleased to offer my expertise to the cause; however, there will come a time when my expertise will not suffice.”

The goblin gentleman sighed, “If nothing else, there are sure to be some among those we treat with who will be unwilling to deal with me on account of my race. In those future situations, either you or Master Snape will be required to step into the breach, and given our mutual business partner’s… antisocial tendencies, I believe it would be best for us all if you are well-prepared to step in. I foresee only benefit from taking the opportunity this affords us to allow you to learn how such things are done.”

“That makes sense,” Harry acknowledged thoughtfully. “Shouldn’t I practice with someone first, though? In case I screw up, I mean.”

“I do not believe that to be necessary in this particular case,” Slackhammer averred.

Harry narrowed his eyes curiously.

“The current head of the Examination Authority, one Griselda Marchbanks, is an old hand at wizarding politics and high society. She has held the position for an exceedingly long time and is widely known to have a soft spot for the young and curious,” the dapper goblin elaborated. “She would almost have to have one in order to spend the better part of two and a half centuries overseeing the education of wizarding children. As such, I believe she is more likely to meet any errors on your part with understanding and gentle instruction rather than offense — so long as you maintain your usual earnest disposition, of course. The combination of an innocuous request and a friendly audience seems to me to be an ideal opportunity for low-risk practice.”

The young dragon, who had been nodding along with the dapper goblin’s reasoning, frowned uncertainly for a moment before coming to a decision. “That makes sense. So, how do we go about setting this up?” Then his tone turned less decisive, “Um, and can you give me some advice on what to do?”

Slackhammer chuckled. “I have already taken the liberty of having Mr. Steelhammer write out an example script for you with the appropriate elements to remember clearly marked; though I do ask that you remember to use your own judgment in the real event. You are supposed to be taking your first steps along the road to becoming a statesman, after all, not an actor. You cannot rely on a script. As for instruction, well that is why I requested that you come here to meet with me personally, rather than explaining via the post.”

“Oh! Thank you, Mr. Slackhammer,” the young dragon said with a relieved sigh.

“You are most welcome, Mr. Potter,” the dapper goblin acknowledged gracefully. “Was there anything else you wished to discuss before we begin your instruction?”

“Um…” the young Potter’s face screwed up in concentration for a moment as he considered the question. “Oh, yeah! There’s a couple things. One was that I wanted to thank you for doing such a good job on hiring for Hog’s Haulage. I think they’re all going to work out right nice! I hear from Mr. Wardale that they’re expecting to be able to bang out a prototype for a new locomotive in the next couple of months. He was saying most of the magical stuff seems to be on the steam and mechanical side of things, while Mr. Porta’s stuff was mostly about the firebox and efficient combustion, so they don’t really interfere with each other very much. It sounds like it’s gonna be pretty awesome!”

“You are once again most welcome, Mr. Potter,” Slackhammer repeated. “And the other thing?”

“It’s kinda related, actually,” the young dragon began. “I was talking with a couple of my new engineers, and I had an idea, but the details were outside their field of expertise. I was wondering if I could meet with somebody from the engineering corps to talk it over with them and see if it was worth pursuing, preferably someone who works in the foundry.”

“I believe that could be arranged without much difficulty, Mr. Potter,” the Vice-Chairman allowed. “We are always eager to explore new opportunities. Mr. Steelhammer!” Slackhammer’s aide stepped into the office promptly. “Please contact the foundry to see which of their engineers might be available for a consultation with Mr. Potter in a few hours.” The smartly dressed goblin saluted and left immediately to carry out the task.

The dapper goblin turned back to his guest. “Very well, Mr. Potter, if there is nothing else, we should get on with the instruction. Now, in terms of preparation, I would wish to point out that appearances and formalities often account for a great deal more among wizards than they rightly should — certainly more than they do among more sensible persons like ourselves — and, as you will be dealing with someone long steeped in wizarding traditions, you will be well-served to dress appropriately for the occasion and pay attention to the proper forms. In fact, that is a good rule of thumb to follow in general; be sure to keep it in mind.”

Pausing to take in his young business partner’s attentive demeanor, the goblin continued, “For this meeting, I would suggest something similar to my current garb,” he gestured to his neatly-pressed collared shirt, waistcoat, and, after standing to ensure they were visible, his woolen trousers. “For a wizard, I would suggest eschewing the tail-coat and stovepipe hat.”

“Really?” Harry gasped, crestfallen. “But those are the best parts!”

Slackhammer smiled, “I tend to agree, Mr. Potter, but I am afraid the wizarding world is rather woefully behind the times. Instead I would suggest a single-breasted coat in either three-quarter length or full. If you acquire one without the usual wizarding frills and frippery it will serve equally well for most non-magical meetings. Be sure to match the material of your trousers, and the effect will be close enough to pass for a very conservative wizarding robe. The waistcoat can be somewhat more personalized. Oh, yes, and be sure to stick to dark, neutral colors if you wish to be able to reuse the same clothing in a non-magical setting.”

“Okay,” the young dragon nodded, his expression making it obvious he was carefully committing the advice to memory. “What else?”

“Aside from remembering to be polite, the major item to remember in this sort of situation is the regard gift,” the dapper goblin said. “It is considered polite to bring something for your host when visiting to commemorate your meeting. The custom is an old one, dating back at least as far as the hospitality rules in ancient Greece.”

“A gift, huh?” Harry said speculatively. “Hey, I’ve got more…”

“I do not believe another slab of basilisk meat would make for an appropriate regard gift, Mr. Potter,” Slackhammer interrupted. “While I very much appreciate your recent gift, and I am certain Sergeant Major Hooktalon does as well, a food item, even an exotic one, is not the sort of gift you should be looking for, not at this stratum of society in any case. For an upper-class visit, the regard gift should be something unusual or unique rather than useful, and it should not be consumable.”

“Well, what would you suggest, then?” Harry asked, puzzled.

“Hmm, perhaps a further explanation is in order,” the goblin mused. “The custom among the ancients was for the traveler to provide a carving or sculpture which would then be broken upon leaving, one piece left with the host and one taken with the traveler. Thus, when the two met again, the pieces could be fitted back together to provide proof of the earlier visit. As travels could often take years in the ancient world, it served as a useful memory aid. The details have changed over the millennia, yet the intent remains. The gift should be sufficiently unique to bring the visit back to the forefront of the memory... a keepsake, as it were.”

The young dragon frowned thoughtfully as the considered that. “I guess I could give her some of my gold coins. They’re doubloons, so you don’t see many of those nowadays.”

“I would also advise avoiding anything of obvious monetary value Mr. Potter,” Slackhammer interjected. “In this case particularly, when you are visiting to make a request, such might be interpreted as an attempt at bribery.”

“Well, what should I give her, then?” Harry asked exasperatedly.

“I would suggest bending your not-inconsiderable intellect to the problem,” the Vice Director suggested. “It will be a good exercise.”

The young Potter nodded reluctantly. “What else do I need to know then?”

“Perhaps we should begin with the usual greetings,” Slackhammer began, leaning forward with steepled fingers. “The relative social status between yourself and Madame Marchbanks indicates…”

The young dragon’s prodigious memory would be put to the test over the next several hours.

Manners were hard.

4.1.5 Hindsight is…

As it turned out, the same foundry-goblin who had helped tend to Harry during his indisposition back in spring happened to be among those available by the time the young dragon finished his long meeting with Vice Director Slackhammer. So, after several hours discussing the finer points of upper-class wizarding etiquette, Harry found himself meeting with Foundry-Specialist Flame-Eye once again, this time under much better circumstances.

“Glad to see you up and about, Mr. Potter,” the foundry-goblin greeted his visitor in a hastily arranged conference room deep in the bowels of Gringotts. “What brings you to see us today?”

“Hi there!” the currently human-shaped dragon greeted his goblin acquaintance brightly. “Um, well, I was talking to Mr. Wardale — he’s one of my steam engineers — a few days ago about making parts for the new locomotive they’re working on, right? Anyway, he got to telling me how early steam engines were really loose-fitting and wasted lots of steam at leaking seals and such, but he and Mr. Porta started precisely machining their parts so they fit together well, and that helped make everything more efficient.”

At Flame-Eye’s understanding nod, Harry continued, “So, that made lots of sense to me, and I asked why they didn’t just do that from the start, and he said it was ‘cause machining like that is expensive and hard-to-do, so they didn’t think it was worth it, but then I thought about stuff like them plastic forks we were using at the picnic. Those are really precise, right, easily good enough for pistons and stuff, and they’re dirt cheap, even though the plastic resin they’re made of is more expensive to get than steel.” Flame-Eye nodded intently as his visitor paused to take a breath. “So, I was wondering why we didn’t just make the parts like the forks are made so everything got cheaper?”

“I see,” the foundry-goblin said. “Well, you see, Mr. Potter, the molds used for those forks are made out of steel, and being made out of the same material, they cannot remain solid at the temperatures required to cast steel.”

“Right, that’s about what Mr. Wardale said,” Harry nodded. “But I was thinking, what if we used something else other than steel for the molds?”

“We do cast steel routinely using that approach,” the goblin offered. “However, the selection of materials that can withstand the required temperatures is severely limited. We normally use a few different mixtures of sand which can take the heat long enough to be useful, but no sand-casting method will give a surface finish good enough for a precision piston fit right out of the mold — not reliably, anyway.”

“That’s what Mr. Wardale was telling me,” the dragon nodded, “but I was thinking, we’ve got that stuff from my guts Mr. Snape figured out how to make. Wouldn’t that work for making proper molds?”

The foundry specialist’s beady black eyes opened wide in startlement. “That might just work. It can certainly take the heat, and from what I’ve seen with our crucibles and tuyeres, molten steel just beads up and rolls off it,” he said thoughtfully. “I… how did we not think of that? We cast steel all the time, and it’s so obvious in hindsight.” He fell silent for a moment as he considered the question. “I suppose we’ve just been automatically dismissing the idea as soon as it came up for so long that it never occurred to us the situation had changed.”

“So, you think it’s a good idea?” Harry confirmed.

“A very good one,” Flame-Eye confirmed, “and potentially a very profitable one as well. Foundry work like that, particularly the precise stuff like injection molding, is finicky work, though. With thermal expansion, degassing, crystal growth, and all the other things to consider, it takes a lot of trial and error to work out the details.”

The foundry-gob sighed and ran a taloned hand over his scalp as he considered the situation. “We’ll need to shuffle some work around to free up the machining resources to start experimenting; injection molds are notoriously difficult to machine properly, and Logistics has been overbooked for a couple years now trying to keep up with our arms upgrades.”

“Um, I’ve got something that might help,” Harry offered. “Maybe we can use it, instead?”

“Oh?” the goblin asked, curious. “What do you have?”

And so, the young dragon told his collaborator about just what sort of machining capability he had acquired.

4.1.6 Reflections

As the portkey completed its transit and Harry smoothly landed on the lip of the Lair, he reached up with a still-human finger to dig at his ear even as he walked toward the Lair-proper. With any luck, the ringing might stop soon.

Flame-Eye had been quite impressed with the machining capability Harry had managed to acquire for himself; in fact, one might even say the foundry-gob was a mite jealous. He had immediately suggested a number of additional acquisitions for the dragon’s budding machine shop as well, ranging in complexity from a high-quality surface plate and set of Jo blocks all the way up to a selection of manual machines, including both a mill and a lathe.

Harry had already made all the relevant purchases through Gringotts’ own purchasing agent by the time he finished his talk with Flame-Eye. The new acquisitions totaled less than he’d spent on tooling alone for the behemoth already installed in the Lair, so the young dragon hadn’t been terribly fussed about the cost.

According to the foundry-gob, manual machines were often — counterintuitive as it might seem — more convenient for certain tasks that their computerized counterparts. The reasoning had been easy enough to understand when Flame-Eye had explained; if you needed to mill something square or turn a simple cylinder, well, it was much easier to do it in a manual lathe or mill than it was to model it in software, set up the automated machine, and then proceed do all the work to position and prepare the work piece that you would have had to do for the manual machine anyway. It was best to use the right tool for the right job.

Speaking of which…

When the conversation had turned to Harry’s reasons for purchasing his impressive CNC machine in the first place, his answer had offended Flame-Eye’s tender sensibilities...

“Engraving! You don’t use a beautiful machine like that to do a bloody, fucking engraving, boy! That’s like using gold leaf to wipe your ass!”

...which had prompted a rather impressive dressing down from the irate goblin for relegating a “heartstoppingly beautiful piece of precision engineering” to the role of “the most horribly over-specced pen-plotter of all time”.

After a Snape-worthy tirade on the critical importance of proper respect for equipment and proper allocation of resources which had left the dragon’s ears ringing, the foundry-gob had concluded with a promise to send another goblin of his acquaintance to drum a “proper understanding of and appreciation for machining and fabrication” into Harry so that his “beautiful piece of poetry-in-motion of a machine” could be put to proper use. Harry had gathered he was supposed to expect a visiting tutor in about a week and that Flame-Eye would be bring a few of his compatriots to help with prototype design, but he hadn’t really caught much detail before he left in a bit of a hurry.

Sergeant-Major Hooktalon now had some company on the young dragon’s mental list of people not to annoy.

 

4.2 Introductions

---

4.2.1 Returns

The Granger family had spent the few days between Boxing Day and the end of Christmas vacation much as they had the previous year, flitting around the isle in a whirlwind attempt to visit the entire extended family before Hermione had to return to school. The attempt had met with a surprising amount of success, given that prior to the previous year, it had occupied the entirety of the Christmas break.

For some, like Sharon’s side of the family which had mostly settled in and around Sheffield, visiting everyone was a simple prospect, but Tony’s side had proven a tad more adventurous in their habits, spreading out to the four winds and making for a great deal more travel time.

They had known beforehand that the one uncle who had recently been stationed in Aberdeen for his new job would really push the schedule to the breaking point, which had led Hermione decide to return to the Lair directly rather than returning home with her parents. The bushy-haired girl had been eager to spend time with her long-absent parents, but there was a distinct difference between spending time with them and staring at the back of their heads for ten hours, and the choice had saved her a day-long car ride back to Crawley immediately followed by a day-long train ride right back after only a few hours’ sleep.

To that end, Hermione had arranged for Harry to meet her outside a public library in Aberdeen, one of nearly three dozen such locations across the breadth of Scotland he had rattled off a list when she had asked about meeting up. He would bring along his usual self-charging return portkey and take her back to the Lair. She had been hesitant to ask why he was familiar with the location, given the unasked-for commentary on how generous the locals tended to be when feeding pigeons.

Some things even witches were not meant to know.

Now, a day before the Hogwarts Express was due to return the majority of her fellow students to the shores of the Black Lake, Hermione found herself already ensconced in her favorite chair — one of the leather-upholstered ones on the library mezzanine — with her potions book in her lap and a notebook at her side. She had finished reading ahead for potions some fifteen minutes previous, and she now simply sat and allowed herself a moment to rest before she reviewed it again. After her misstep with Professor Snape during the previous term, the bushy-haired bookworm would leave nothing to chance.

In the meantime, however, she was free to simply sit and take in the sights.

Sights such as her often dragon-shaped friend’s most recent project, which seemed to involve sculpting a steel copy of a stripped branch cut from one of the local bushes. He seemed to be making a good go of it, though his methods were… unorthodox, to say the least. Hermione watched as Harry heated a portion of his partially finished sculpture with an acetylene torch only shudder as he grabbed the now-glowing metal with his bare hands and sculpted it like modeling clay.

Magic was weird.

When the small boy pinched off a bit of excess material only to absently pop the still-red-hot metal into his mouth and eat it with every sign of enjoyment, she had to turn away. Why couldn’t he act like a normal boy and just gross her out by eating library paste or something? At least that would make some kind of sense!

She shook her head in an attempt to dismiss the thought, setting her bushy mane swaying. Best to get back to her studies, she supposed. Even after a year and a half in the magical world, she could only take so much absurdity before needing to take a break.

Much as she loved her friend, Harry Potter made her brain hurt far too often.

4.2.2 Odd requests

The Head of the Wizarding Examination Authority, Madame Griselda Marchbanks, cocked a snowy eyebrow curiously. Before her on the blotter on her writing desk lay a handwritten letter she had just finished reading. While neatly written, the handwriting was obviously that of a schoolboy, a judgement reinforced by the word choice in the text itself, yet the missive was a formal request for audience.

That seemed a rather odd juxtaposition to the elderly witch.

It was often the case among witches, particularly witches who had given birth, that their magic found itself well-used to being directed inward, disproportionately reinforcing their bodies and allowing them to live several decades longer than a similarly powerful wizard. Griselda Marchbanks was both a strong witch and a mother of six, which made her spry condition at the respectable age of two hundred and sixty-eight years only moderately remarkable; though she was likely approaching the end. In the recent decades, she had begun to feel the creeping onset of her mortality as her magic grew more and more strained by keeping her functional.

Of that long life, she had happily spent nearly two and a half centuries in education in one capacity or another. Despite that wealth of experience, the elderly witch could not recall a single time she had received such a letter. Not once!

She had certainly received letters from children before; her numerous grandchildren, admittedly with varying numbers of ‘greats’ prepended, had ensured that. She had received formal requests for audience before; her station in society made that a normal fact of life. Never had she seen the two combined, receiving a formal request for audience from a child.

It made the letter sitting before her an interesting one, for the novelty if nothing else. That the unusual letter had come from the Boy-Who-Lived was simply another piece of the puzzle. The elderly witch frowned thoughtfully at the parchment before her for a few more moments before shrugging as she came to a decision.

It was a slow time of year, she thought as she reached for a quill and blank parchment. There would be no harm in humoring the boy.

For that matter, even if it turned out to be a pointless meeting, it might be a worthwhile simply for the opportunity to take the measure of the Boy-Who-Lived. He would likely be a prominent figure in the upcoming years, and it would be useful knowledge to have, one way or another.

4.2.3 Livid

“Inconceivable!”

With the winter break over, Tom had returned to Hogwarts, and with his return to campus, he had finally been able to arrange to slip away on his own without arousing suspicion. In an out-of-the-way corner of the labyrinthine castle, he was at last hidden enough to safely vent his spleen over the maddening events of the end of term feast. After the better part of a month during which he was forced by various circumstances to stew in silence, that spleen was in dire need of ventilation.

“That unutterable bastard murdered Charlotte!” Tom hissed, his dainty hands clenched in impotent white-knuckled rage. “How?”

It was a good question, to be honest. Basilisks had their vulnerabilities; Tom knew that as well as anyone. Charlotte was well over a thousand years old, and there was precious little she could not best physically or magically, but her primary weakness — a cock’s crow — was both easily obtained and well-known. It was the reason Tom had insisted his old friend operate in secret at first until he had managed to ensure there were none of the pesky birds on the castle grounds.

Potter, though, had not even bothered to use that weakness — hell, he hadn’t even known Charlotte was a basilisk! Potter had killed her by main strength, judging from the brutal injury done to the hapless girl. The miniature fiend had… had… Tom’s thoughts trailed off into an incoherent sea of rage as he spat out a string of blistering curses sufficient to turn even the saltiest of old sailors green with envy.

Though, admittedly, his sweet soprano robbed the delivery of a certain gravitas.

“That monster!” he spat as his tirade of profanity ran its course. How could anyone kill poor sweet little Charlotte? She hadn’t even done anything yet!

Tom hardly thought two measly petrifications counted in the grand scheme of things, and he didn’t believe that cockamamie story about her raiding Potter’s pantry for a moment. What kind of pantry did the boy have that Charlotte would even fit in it? Even if she had, stealing a little food hardly rated execution! Then that miniature green-eyed murderer just waltzed into the great hall dragging Charlotte’s broken corpse behind him like… like some kind of bloody trophy!

Petite knuckles creaked as Tom teared up at the memory.

How dare he!

Worse yet, he was planning to eat the poor girl! He probably already had by now. As soon as he had dared after the end of term feast, Tom had gone to examine the clearing behind the Gamekeeper’s hut where the butchery had taken place, and it had been a scene of horror. Blood everywhere, bones separated and stacked in neat piles, Charlotte’s skin stretched out to dry over a makeshift frame of freshly cut branches, a neatly arranged pile of processed potions ingredients off to one side, and not an ounce of flesh in evidence.

Seeing what little remained of his oldest friend was heartbreaking.

But that heartbreak did not last, rapidly subliming into anger. Tom was good at anger. The boy who murdered Charlotte might have evaded him to this point, but now he was back at Hogwarts, and he had all the opportunity in the world. It was just a matter of time.

Potter would pay.

Tom chuckled adorably.

Potter would pay dearly.

4.2.4 Arts and crafts

In the glowing heart of the Rayburn, the fire crackled and popped as Harry added more wood, warming the Lair as the winter wind howled outside. His human damsel had retreated into the stacks of the library, pursuing at length some minor point she had come across in her classwork. He wasn’t sure what it was, since she hadn’t asked him about it, but he certainly didn’t remember anything particularly remarkable from his classes.

For her part, Suze busied herself with patiently and methodically carving a bow from a carefully-chosen well-seasoned branch; it was her frequent pauses to warm her fingers that had prompted Harry get up from his work to stoke the fire. Aside from the cold, her latest attempt seemed to be going well to Harry’s unpracticed eye, but by the displeased frown on her face, Suze seemed to have found something objectionable about it.

Harry shrugged; Suze knew more than about bows than he probably ever would, so he was sure she knew what she was doing. Best to leave her to it.

Currently in his diminutive human form to take advantage of its highly dexterous hands, the dragon of Hogwarts made his way back to his usual workbench. He had been doing some very finicky work as part of the regard gift he was making for his upcoming meeting with Griselda Marchbanks... well, as part of the latest iteration of the design, anyway. Making the thing had turned into a bit of an adventure.

Without any outside direction on what to give the woman, Harry had been forced to come up with a plan himself, and that plan had seen several revisions. His initial idea had proven impractical, but he’d taken parts of it to try something else… which also hadn’t worked, but which had in turn inspired another iteration, which showed some promise. However, promising or not, it required some very simple but extremely repetitive rune work, which had led him to his current task.

Returning to his seat and picking up his chosen tool, a fine needle-file, the currently human-shaped dragon set to work once again, filing a minutely detailed negative of a runic scheme into the narrow end of a piece of steel drill rod. After he was done, a bit of time with the torch and a quench in his fuel oil drum would give him a hard punch suitable for transferring the runic scheme to the surface of the work proper.

The hardening quench also gave his fuel oil a delightful smoky aftertaste, which was a bonus in the young dragon’s book.

In any event, Harry hoped this iteration would turn out well; the meeting was just a few days away.

4.2.5 Suspicious characters

“Thank you for your attention today,” Gilderoy Lockhart told his class with a broad smile. As half the class sighed dreamily, he continued, “Remember your reading for our next class! We will be covering my adventures in combating the undead, so you will need to be familiar with the first three chapters of Gadding with Ghouls.”

When the class gave a general murmur of acknowledgement, the blond dandy dismissed them, and his students began the noisy process of packing up to leave for their next class.

Hogwarts had been back in session for a week, and true to his resolution during the winter break, Gilderoy Lockhart had been on full alert. So far, nothing of interest had caught his attention, just the normal business of teaching and learning, but he kept a casual, if unusually attentive, eye on the children, regardless. Today, however, something had changed.

It seemed that his careful vigilance might already have paid off.

In the back of the class, one of his students, a sixth-year boy, had just passed a note to another of his fellows while trying to be sly about it. Being a teenager, he was naturally not very good at subtlety, and Lockhart’s practiced eye had focused on the attempt like a hawk sighting a rabbit.

Now, there was nothing inherently suspect about teenagers passing notes, but context was important. Class had already ended, and passing notes outside of class time was not forbidden. For that matter, it wasn’t even frowned-upon. It begged the question of why on earth would one of his students be trying to pass a clandestine note now? There was no need to hide it so assiduously.

When the recipient exaggeratedly glanced about to ensure no one was looking his way before surreptitiously opening the note below the level of his desk to read it, Gilderoy found his interest firmly piqued.

There was something suspicious going on, and given the circumstances, he wasn’t going to give it the benefit of the doubt. It might well turn out to be something innocuous, some teenage foible that would prove embarrassing at the worst, but with the person behind the basilisk attacks still on the loose… well, it would bear further investigation.

As the former obliviator kept an unobtrusive watch, much more skillfully than his students’ mediocre efforts — his suspicions were all-but confirmed when his student took the time to vanish the note entirely while on his way out.

How irritating.

With the classroom now empty, Lockhart felt it safe to indulge in a thoughtful frown. That vanishing charm had eliminated his most direct means of investigation. It was possible to counter a vanishing charm, but doing so required one of two things: utterly monstrous amounts of power skillfully applied immediately, before the magical traces had a chance to dissipate; or a combination of prior knowledge, preparation, and skillful timing.

Gilderoy entertained no delusions about his own skills, and it was already too late to ask the Headmaster to turn his talents to the issue. Though to be honest, the famous author would have been reluctant to do so in the first place; asking for help wouldn’t play nearly as well in his future detective story. He was, however, much more confident in his perfect timing, and he could certainly prepare to take advantage the next time his students tried a similar tack.

He nodded decisively before pasting on his usual winsome smile as he heard the first students of his next class approaching the door. That would be the path to pursue. Gilderoy didn’t know whether this particular conspiracy was related to the unknown behind the basilisk, but there was only one way to find out.

Now it was a waiting game.

4.2.6 An impromptu defense

Small.

The scheduled time for the formal audience had come; her guest had arrived in the manor’s main receiving hall; and as was her custom, Griselda Marchbanks had employed the viewing mirror hanging on the wall of her parlor to make her first evaluation of her new guest. ‘Small’ was the first adjective that had sprung to mind on seeing the boy. Despite being well into his second year at Hogwarts, the Boy-Who-Lived looked the part of a boy three years his junior.

Were it not for the faded traces of that notorious scar on his brow, Griselda would have suspected someone was trying to play a trick on her.

The last of the Potters stood in the manor’s entry hall fidgeting slightly as he waited as patiently as a young boy could be expected to wait for her elf to announce that she was ready to receive him. He wore formal robes of a somewhat unusual but still quite acceptable cut; though the elderly witch had to wonder at the reserved color palette and simple lines. The boy was far too young to be so stiff, in her considered opinion; youth was the time to live a little with some bright color and loud patterns.

She would probably suggest something in purple, perhaps with orange accents? It would set off his eyes nicely…

No, the matron of the Marchbanks family shook her head to clear such fanciful notions. While he certainly looked the part of the adorable little boy, her visitor was the Head of the Ancient and Noble House of Potter. He was not one of her grandchildren; though properly the comparison would have had a few ‘greats’ involved, considering his age. Receiving a guest of such station required a certain level of sobriety; now was not the time to be playing dress-up, no matter how much her grandmotherly fingers itched at the thought.

Aside from his conservative wardrobe, the diminutive Potter carried a small parcel which Griselda strongly suspected to contain his regard gift for her. It was an old custom which was all too often neglected in the rush of modern society, and it was nice to see one of the youngsters paying some regard to the old traditions, even if the choice to wrap the gift was a tad unusual.

The elderly witch nodded approvingly. So far, all signs pointed to her visitor being a fine, upstanding young gentleman. Initial appraisal made; a quick word sent her elf to show the young man to her parlor.

Now she would see if he gave the same impression in person.

When the boy walked through the door and came into view, the answer was immediately clear.

No, no he most certainly did not.

Griselda swallowed reflexively as she attempted to put her thoughts in order. Aside from the addition of a warm and enthusiastically cheerful smile, neither the boy’s appearance nor his demeanor had changed. The young Head of the Potter family still gave all indications of being a fine, upstanding young gentleman as he stepped into her parlor.

No… the change was in that general impression.

The elderly witch had been in the business of teaching wizards for significantly longer than most of the population of wizarding Britain had been alive, and she had been Head of the Examination Authority since the time of Queen Victoria. She knew how to evaluate wizards, and the skills she had developed for that purpose over the years had become near-instinctive after so long. She was well-accustomed to seeing past both modesty and braggadocio to get to the heart of things.

It appeared that she had not, however, been able to see past the layer of separation imposed by the viewing mirror. In person, the physically small boy now seemed to fill the room entirely, leaving her almost surprised that she was looking down to meet his eyes.

‘Small’ was not the word, not by any stretch of the imagination.

The young child had an overwhelming presence to him which the viewing mirror had simply been unable to convey. Griselda was no shrinking violet; she was a strong witch, but she paled in comparison to the likes of that. In all her years, she had felt that sort of presence only a handful of times, and never had it been associated with someone so young.

Albus Dumbledore had given such an impression, that feeling of standing far too close to a giant, but he had only done so during the height of his NEWT examinations when she had managed to persuade him to truly throw his all into things. When he had, he had done things with a wand that she had never seen before, things she had never even imagined were possible. Another lad by the name of Riddle had had a similar feel to him back in the forties, and his performance had been quite nearly as remarkable.

Albus had gone on to become the de facto ruler of wizarding Europe, even if he seemed rather reluctant to throw his weight around, and though Griselda hadn’t heard much of Mr. Riddle, she strongly suspected he had gone on to join the Unspeakables, given the unusual knack he had shown for resurrecting obscure magics thought long lost and the fact that he seemed to have dropped out of circulation after graduating.

The key point, though, was that both of those men had been NEWT students, wizards on the verge of adulthood and deliberately pushing themselves to the limits of their ability. They were not prepubescent children simply standing around running through the motions of a formal greeting — not like Mr. Potter was.

It begged the question of exactly what this wizard would go on to become.

Then Madame Marchbanks blinked as she realized her visitor had reached the end of his portion of the greeting and was now awkwardly scrubbing at the shaggy hair on the back of his head as he waited for her response.

It seemed she had lost herself in thought while in front of her guest, how embarrassing!

“Be welcome to my home, Harry of House Potter,” the elderly witch completed the ritual greeting. She gestured to the couch across from her own favorite chair, “And please, feel free to sit down.”

“Thanks!” the young boy favored her with a brilliant smile before bouncing over to plop down on the couch in the somewhat-rougher-than-strictly-necessary manner of young boys everywhere.

“I see that you are still holding your parcel, Mr. Potter,” Griselda said leadingly after a few moments of silence, prompting her visitor to continue with the forms when he seemed to have forgotten it was his turn in the proceedings.

“Oh, yeah!” the young Potter said, looking at the package in his hands as if he had forgotten it was there. His face screwed up in exaggerated concentration as he continued, “Um, Madame Marchbanks, in recognition of our meeting, I would like to offer you this token of my regard.” He then reached forward to set the wrapped offering down on the low table between them. “May our meeting be fruitful and our dealings just.”

“Um, did I get that right? I’ve been practicing.”

Griselda smiled kindly as she reached forward to take the offered gift from the table. “Quite acceptable, if a tad stilted, young man,” she assured him. “I take it you learned from the goblins?”

“Yeah, Mr. Slackhammer taught me,” Harry affirmed absently before his eyes opened wide in realization. He asked, in an astonished voice, “How did you know?”

“The ‘may our meeting be fruitful and our dealings just’ phrasing is one that tends to be used almost exclusively by goblins, in my experience,” the witch explained. “Wizards tend to use a great deal more variety in the benediction clause. It tends to be much less businesslike.”

“Oh. Um, it was ok for me to use, though, right?” her visitor asked, sounding concerned that he might have messed up.

The Marchbanks matriarch nodded graciously even as she worked at the knot of twine her guest had used to secure the wrapping of the gift. “It was certainly acceptable, Mr. Potter, simply unusual. You have done quite well so far; though, for future reference,” she stated as she reached for her wand to cut the wrapping open, “you needn’t wrap your regard gift. It tends to make things more awkward than they strictly need to be.”

“Oh, sorry! I guess I just assumed after all the gifts at Christmas time,” Harry apologized sheepishly before offering, “Would you like some help?”

“No, thank you,” she declined, “I’ve just about…” Then the wrapping fell away, and she was struck dumb as the room was bathed in an eerily beautiful light.

The gift her young visitor had seen fit to bestow on her appeared to be a sculpture of a small tree — similar to those highly cultivated dwarf trees from the Orient, bonsai, she believed they were called — wrought of burnished steel, inlaid with fine gold wires running the length of the trunk and branches, and set in an exquisitely carved and polished wooden base. In place of leaves, the piece sported tiny puffs of fog which glowed gently in an ever-shifting array of colors. The miniature clouds swayed gently in place, presumably with the air currents in the room, separating from their anchor points on the steel branches from time to time to waft away and dissipate in ethereal swirls of fading color.

“Magnificent,” Griselda breathed, finally managing to find her voice after nearly a solid minute of awestruck observation. Turning to her guest, who was looking mightily pleased with her reaction, she asked, “Wherever did you find this?”

“I made it,” the young Potter said proudly before hurrying to qualify, “Well, Suze made the wood base — she did a real nice job, didn’t she? — but I did the steel bits and all the rune-work.”

“Rune work?” How had she missed that? The wizarding educator turned back to the marvelous piece of art and gave it a closer examination, soon identifying numerous tiny yet intricately detailed runic inscriptions at the base of each of the colored clouds. She could just make out a hint of gold inlaid into the deepest parts of the markings.

“I see,” Griselda mused, examining the fascinating piece in detail. That level of detail and precision… it was the sort of work she saw in masters’ theses, and this was coming from a twelve-year-old? It practically begged for further investigation, and the long-term educator found it all too easy to fall back on her habits. “This is a remarkable piece, young man. Might I ask what went into making it?”

“Um, well, I guess it kinda started with Mr. Slackhammer,” the boy began. “He told me about the regard gift thing, so I thought about it, and the first thing I thought of was some of the meat from that big snake I killed back at the end of term. It’s pretty tasty, and everyone likes to eat, right? But then he said it shouldn’t be something you use and then it’s not around anymore, ‘cause it’s supposed to commemorate the visit, so it needs to stick around, and food doesn’t do that.”

“Solid advice,” the elderly witch nodded appreciatively.

The boy nodded in return before continuing, “Well, then I thought of some of my gold coins. They’re pretty old, so that’s kinda memorable, but Mr. Slackhammer said it probably shouldn’t be something like money, ‘cause even though I don’t mean it like that, people might think it was a bribe, and since I’m here to ask you for something, that’d look bad.”

“Also good advice,” Griselda approved. “It is always a good idea to mind appearances — saves time and effort in the long run.”

“So, then I was kinda stumped for a bit, until I was reading about something else, and I ran across a mention of holography,” Harry continued. “When I did, I got thinking, you’re supposed to be really big on school and stuff, so maybe you might like a hologram of all the students coming back to campus after break, so I started looking into making one of them, right?”

“Excuse me, Mr. Potter,” the elderly witch interjected politely, puzzled, “but I am afraid I am unfamiliar with the term ‘hologram’. To what does it refer?”

“Oh, um, well, a hologram is like a picture,” her visitor explained, smoothly switching mental gears to provide the requested explanation, “but instead of being flat, it shows a full three-dimensional image, so you can walk around and see it from different sides and stuff. Um, anyway, I thought I could use that process with the film you use for magical pictures to make a moving hologram, ‘cause that’d be really neat! Real memorable, like Mr. Slackhammer said the regard gift is supposed to be, since I don’t think anyone’s done that before.”

“No, I do not believe anyone has,” Griselda agreed, familiar with the concept of such a display, if not the methodology proposed. “Omnioculars provide a similar effect, as I recall; however, your description of a hologram seems quite a different undertaking. Though more to the point, it also seems a rather different undertaking than this remarkable tree, Mr. Potter.”

“Yeah, I know,” the boy nodded. “I was getting to that; you see, it turned out I ran into a bunch of problems with it. First thing was the lighting, and it turned out to be really hard to do.”

“The lighting?” she prompted, curious. “I’d think lighting would be fairly simple to accomplish, allowing for magic.”

Harry grimaced. “Well, the thing is, holograms work based off interference patterns in the reflected light — the film gets exposed to light reflected off the target, then you develop the film and you can shine the same kind of light through the film to make the image visible. The thing is, though, you’ve gotta use the exact same kind of light — exactly the same color, and it’s gotta be single-phase.”

“Phase?” Color was straightforward enough, but phase was a property of light she was unfamiliar with.

“Yeah, um…” Harry began, smoothly shifting conversational gears once again. “Well, light acts kinda like a wave a lot of the time — except for those times when it doesn’t — and the phase is associated with those times when it does. You see, when you’ve got a couple of different waves…”

Sensing that she had tripped on a conversational rabbit hole, Griselda quickly withdrew her question, “Never mind, Mr. Potter. I am certain I can look that up on my own time. Please return to your explanation. I believe you were talking about the need for special lighting.”

“Oh, yeah, sorry,” her young guest apologized, sheepishly scrubbing at the back of his head. “I’ve been trying not to, but sometimes I still blather on when I get excited about something.”

“It is no trouble, Mr. Potter,” Griselda assured him kindly. “As an educator, I am always happy to hear such enthusiasm from the youth; however, we only have so much time scheduled for this meeting. If you could return to your explanation?”

“Right! Um, I’ll try to remember to send you the title of a good book on modern optics after I get back home, if you want,” Harry offered before getting back to his explanation. “Anyway, for a hologram, you need a coherent light source, which means it’s all one color and all in the same phase. Usually, people get that by making a neat kind of lamp called a laser, which basically pumps a bunch of energy into some stuff to make it glow, except you pick it so it that it doesn’t glow right away. Then you can set up some mirrors so that when the first bit glows, it’ll bounce the light back and forth and trigger the rest to glow too, and all the triggered glow will be coherent.”

He took a deep breath before continuing, “Anyway, I decided to use runes to make one of them that ran off magic, but it turned out to be a lot harder than I thought it’d be. Turns out, it’s easy to push energy into stuff using magic, but it’s really hard to keep the stuff your pumping magic into in an excited state so it can do the self-stimulating thing. I think the magic makes the energy transitions easier or something so the usual metastable states aren’t metastable anymore even though that doesn’t quite fit what you see. Basically, it usually just ends up glowing. Which is really neat, don’t get me wrong; but it’s not a coherent light source, so it won’t work for a hologram.”

Griselda had encountered so many unfamiliar concepts in the past few minutes that this meeting was starting to feel more like sitting as a guest for a thesis defense rather than the simple audience she had expected. Though, to be honest, the long-time educator was finding the boy’s description of the process of its creation almost as fascinating as the sculpture itself by this point.

“Anyway, after I figured out that one, I also figured out the magic film stuff doesn’t hold anywhere close to the amount of detail you need for a hologram, either, and by then I realized I didn’t have near enough time to get the hologram idea working for our meeting,” the young Potter sighed disappointedly before continuing. “So, then I thought about what else I could try, and I had that neat glowy rune thing I’d just made when I was trying to make a laser, and I thought, ‘Christmas trees are really neat looking, and they need neat glowy things, maybe I could use the runes to make one of those!’, but then I remembered the gift was supposed to last a long time, so I couldn’t use a real tree, ‘cause it’d die eventually, and then I thought about making one, and I’ve got loads of steel around the Lair…”

The Lair, huh? Griselda, listening closely to her guest’s rambling explanation, chuckled inwardly at his term for what she supposed was his home. It was exactly the sort of name she would expect a pre-teen boy to come up with if given free rein to choose. In fact, thinking back on it, the elderly witch could have sworn one of her grandsons had named a treehouse precisely that.

“…and then I figured out that all those little needle-leaf thingies are really, really annoying to try to make outta steel, so I decided to make a simpler sort of tree, and I went out to find a neat-looking branch, and I squished some steel into about the same shape as it was. I was gonna make it bigger, but I realized I was kinda running out of time, so I figured it’d have to do, and then I put the runes on, and then Suze offered to carve a base for it, and there you go!” he gestured to the stunning, ethereal tree sculpture.

The Head of the Wizarding Examination authority knew it wasn’t the main focus of the meeting, but she couldn’t quite resist inquiring further. It was all too easy to fall into the role of a mastery committee member after so very many years in the business, and unlike the discussion of lasers and holograms, runes were something she knew well enough to comment on.

“How on earth did you carve so many runes so quickly? In iron no less!” Griselda asked. Having reviewed many runes projects before, she would have expected him to have spent months on just that portion of the sculpture based on the usual way of such things. This sounded like he’d managed to throw the entire thing together in the course of a week or two — including all the missteps. “And for that matter, how did you make iron work as a rune substrate at all? It generally resists magic flow, as I recall.”

“Um, well, I figured, since it was a really simple set, I’d just make a punch with the rune-set on it,” Harry explained. “You cut the inverted form of the runes into a piece of tool steel, harden it, and then you can apply the whole thing with a tap from a hammer!”

“I see,” she nodded. She had heard of many attempts to speed up the application of runes, and that seemed reasonable — in fact, she vaguely recalled several papers written by others who had tried a similar embossing approach — but this was the first time she had heard of one being successful. It certainly fit the novelty criterion for a mastery, not to mention managing to work with the material involved. Speaking of which, “And the iron?”

Harry smiled proudly as he explained, “You know, the only bits of the thing that strictly have to move magic are the runes, so I just put some gold leaf between the punch and the steel. It basically inlaid the runes with gold, and it’s dead easy to do!”

“That is quite impressive, Mr. Potter,” the long-time examiner said appreciatively, and it was impressive, to be sure. A cheap and simple way to apply runes without compromising their effectiveness? That was the sort of breakthrough that turned heads! It was also the sort of thing for which advanced degrees were awarded. “Did you run into any problems along the way?”

“Well, there were a couple,” the last Potter admitted. “For one, the lights were really dim at first, but I figured it was ‘cause of the steel keeping them from absorbing much magic, so I tried adding the gold wire inlays as a sort of receiving antenna, right?” He gestured to the delicate lines of gold running along the length of the steel branches, which Griselda only then noticed intersected with each of the runic clusters she had examined earlier. “I figured they’d conduct more magic into the runes, and I think they did, since everything got a lot brighter, though it still flickers a lot — I think it’s the amount of magic in the room that causes that bit. Before I added the wires, though, you could only just barely see the lights in the dark.”

“After that,” he continued, “the only other problem is the runes are producing all different colors now. I designed the runic system to light up red, just straight red, and even with air, rather than the single gas I was planning to use, it ought to come out to one uniform color since air is really well-mixed. It shouldn’t be changing all the time.”

“Do you have any ideas on what might be causing it?” she asked. So far, her guest had shown remarkable academic versatility and admirable curiosity, but Griselda felt the need to see how he would respond to new challenges.

“I think it might be ‘cause of the differences in depth with the punch and the thickness of the gold leaf — maybe something to do with how the gold stuck to the iron, too. The runes are pretty sensitive to size. I’ve got some ideas, but it’d take a while to check.”

“Understandable,” she nodded at the response. It was a workable set of hypotheses. “And what do you make of the drifting mists?”

“Oh, that’s actually what the runes were designed to do!” the young Potter answered brightly. “They’re supposed to pump energy into a volume of ‘stuff’ in front of them, and here the ‘stuff’ is just air, and then that makes the air glow. Most of the time, it fades really fast — that’s the big problem for making it into a laser, right? — so the air doesn’t move much before it stops glowing, and the glowy cloud bit stays put, but every once in a while, you get states that take longer to decay. That’s what I’d been aiming for originally, since you need it for the laser thing, and it was all supposed to be that way, but it didn’t work that way all the time — when that happens, the air glows for a while even as it travels away from the runes, just a lot dimmer, since it’s the same amount of energy released over a longer period. The color variation’s a lot harder to explain.”

“A fascinating account, Mr. Potter,” the matriarch of the Marchbanks family complimented her guest, who practically preened under the praise, “and an eminently memorable regard gift, as well. Though, loath as I am to stifle your creativity in the future, I feel the need to point out that such gifts need not be quite so remarkably unique in the future. You needn’t develop entirely new magic simply to commemorate a visit.”

“So, I messed up?” the boy seemed to deflate.

“Not precisely,” Griselda hurried to reassure him. “You simply overdid things. During a particularly busy season, someone of your stature might engage in multiple visits such as this in a single day; there simply would not be enough time to do as much as you have done for this. In the future, a small piece of sculpture — even another iteration of this tree — an interesting painting, perhaps even a poem would be more than sufficient.”

“Oh, okay!” and just like that, the young Potter was back to his normal cheer.

“That said, I strongly encourage you to continue such pursuits as this in the future,” she said, gesturing to the tree. “The description you have given of your creative process, written up properly, would easily serve as the backbone of a mastery project in runes. I would be most remiss were I not to encourage such talent.”

“Really?” her guest asked.

“Such experimentation is the soul of academic inquiry,” Griselda assured him, “and I firmly encourage you to pursue it whenever possible.”

“Okay!” the young man said with a firm nod, a thoughtful look already on his face. “I’ll do that.”

“See that you do,” she nodded in return before looking up at the timepiece on the wall.

Oh, dear!

“Alas, it seems that my curiosity has eaten up most of our meeting time, Mr. Potter,” the elderly witch said apologetically, “so I fear we may have to rush through what was supposed to be the meat of our discussion here. Your letter mentioned a request?”

“Oh, yeah! Sorry, I almost forgot,” Harry apologized in turn. “Um, anyway, Mr. Slackhammer told me you’re the head of the Wizarding Examination Authority, so you oversee the NEWTs and stuff, right?”

“That is correct, Mr. Potter,” she confirmed.

“Well, my friend, Abigail, she’s in her seventh year, and she’s been really worried about not learning what she needs to in Defense, since Mr. Lockhart doesn’t seem to be teaching much.”

“How so?” Griselda asked intently, her attention immediately captured at the implication that one of those responsible for teaching the youth of wizarding Britain was not living up to his responsibilities.

“Well, as near as we can tell, he’s teaching the same stuff to all seven years’ classes, and since her other classes are really big on reviewing for the exams, she figures he’s probably not teaching everything he should,” the young Potter explained. “Anyway, I’ve been helping her study, but I figure it’d be real helpful to get a copy of what she’s supposed to know for the test — like different topics and stuff she’s supposed to be able to do for it. Umm, what’s the word?”

“A syllabus, you mean?” Griselda offered.

“Yeah, that’s it!”

“That is easily provided,” she offered. “I will have my staff send you one immediately after our meeting.”

“Thanks, Madame Marchbanks!”

“Mr. Potter,” she began, “might I ask your opinion of Mr. Lockhart’s instruction?”

The boy frowned thoughtfully as he considered the question. “Well, he’s got all those books and stuff about things he’s supposed to have done, so I guess he’s probably pretty good at Defense, but the classes never seem to teach much. I figure he’s probably just not very good at teaching. Mostly I study on my own, anyway, so I never really paid much attention after I figured that out.”

“I see,” she said. “Well, I thank you for your insight, Mr. Potter. And I thank you for your wonderful gift as well!” she gestured to the tree still softly glowing on her table. “I look forward to seeing how you grow in the future.”

“Thanks for meeting with me, Madame Marchbanks!” her guest replied before catching himself. “Ah, and ‘I wish you peace and prosperity until we meet again’.”

“Until then,” Griselda nodded in acknowledgement of the traditional goblin take on the wizarding farewell.

With that, her elf appeared to show Mr. Potter back to the travel room where the wards were configured to allow magical travel.

4.2.7 Good intentions

Griselda Marchbanks settled back in her chair as her boisterous young visitor disappeared through her parlor door, her eyes returning to the hypnotically beautiful spectacle of the steel tree she had been gifted. It truly was a remarkable piece of work.

Oh, the fit and finish left quite a bit to be desired. Now that she looked more closely, it was easy enough to see tool marks and fingerprints marring the surface finish. The gold inlays were sloppily done and uneven, and, now that she knew the runes had been made with a punch, it was easy to pick out stray indentations where he’d had the tool misaligned with the uneven surface of the branch. The piece, while beautiful when viewed from a distance, was certainly no masterwork of fabrication.

The design of the runic system, the ingenuity displayed, and the deep understanding of the concepts involved, however... those were what made it a masterwork of rune-craft.

From the moment she had felt the boy’s presence in person, the elderly witch had suspected that Harry Potter would go on to do great things, to become one of those great wizards in the same vein as Dumbledore.

After her conversation with him, she was certain.

Dumbledore had been a scholar, prone to pulling out the most arcane and involved bits of magical knowledge and executing them to perfection, and Riddle had been remarkable in his penchant for bringing half-forgotten magics back to life and reawakening dead legends, but it seemed the young Potter leaned towards making entirely new wonders out of whole cloth.

Quite frankly, of the three, she rather preferred the young Potter’s creative take on things. While curating knowledge and preserving the past were noble pursuits to be sure, Griselda had always leaned towards building towards a greater future rather than resting on the laurels of the past. It was why she had spent her entire adult life in education, tending to those who would build that future.

She smiled and indulged in a quiet chuckle. It seemed the world was in for interesting times during her twilight years, if Mr. Potter was any indication of things to come. Then her expression sobered.

As she rose to walk to her writing desk, Griselda considered what else she had learned in her recent conversation, beyond the impromptu pseudo-master’s defense. After jotting down a quick note instructing her secretary to send a copy of the NEWT syllabus to Harry Potter as he had requested, the Head of the Wizarding Examination Authority turned her thoughts to the troubling business with the Hogwarts Defense professor.

Gilderoy Lockhart had seemed a stunningly qualified instructor when he had applied for the job, but according to Mr. Potter’s testimony, and that of at least one seventh-year student as relayed by Mr. Potter, that assessment of the man’s qualifications may have been made in error. She sighed.

Unfortunately, such conflicts were not uncommon. The ability to learn and the ability to teach were not always coincident. All too often, a spectacularly talented individual proved to be an abysmal teacher for any number of reasons. If Mr. Potter’s account was accurate, it seemed that Mr. Lockhart might well be one of those unfortunates.

What was she to do about it?

Griselda frowned thoughtfully, closing her eyes as she considered the situation. It was much too far into the school year to consider terminating the famous author’s contract; there would be no time to arrange a effective replacement. Not to mention, until test results came back, there would be no quantifiable way justify his removal, and it would be imprudent to embarrass such an influential figure without ironclad proof. If the widely-popular hero decided to take offense, then he might well raise enough of a stink to fatally damage any recruitment efforts. Few would want to replace the man if it meant being hounded by his shrill fan base.

That said, it would not do to let the current state of things stand unchanged, either, she thought with a sigh. Not if the children’s education was suffering as much as her guest had implied.

Perhaps she could arrange something more discreet.

Griselda frowned in thought. She had been around for a very long time, and she had contacts in almost every wizarding walk of life, including a more than a few former aurors. In fact, come to think of it, several of those were former or current instructors as well.

Perhaps she could prevail upon one or two to step out of retirement for a time and provide some subtle assistance to the beleaguered Defense professor... just a bit of advice on topics to cover and teaching methods?

Griselda smiled, pleased at the thought. Yes, that seemed to be the way to go, she thought with a decisive nod.

Now, who to approach?

4.2.8 Inadequate facilities

“Hi there!”

It had been barely two weeks since his discussion with Foundry Specialist Flame-Eye, and an otherwise unremarkable weekend found Hogwarts’ resident dragon cheerfully greeting a serious-looking goblin who had shown up on the lip of his Lair.

“Hello, Mr. Potter, I am Machinist Stoutknife, from the Logistics Corps,” the goblin introduced himself. “Foundry Specialist Flame-Eye arranged for me to tutor you in my craft.”

“Oh, yeah, I’ve been expecting you! Thanks for coming so quickly,” Harry thanked the goblin. “Come on in, and I’ll show you to the workshop.” The dragon turned, gingerly avoiding his comparatively diminutive visitor in the process, and walked deeper into the Lair. “If you’ll come this way?”

As the mismatched pair made their way deeper into the steadily growing cave system that was Harry’s Lair, Stoutknife spoke, “Flame-Eye mentioned that you have certain machining facilities that you wished to devote to the project you had discussed. In addition to tutoring you, he has asked me to evaluate their suitability.”

Harry nodded his great scaly head. “That’s right. He had mentioned that your resources are pretty tight right now with all the upgrades, so I volunteered this one, since it’s my project as much as yours. It’s a big CNC lathe and mill combination I got to do some precision engraving on a rune project I was working on.” He paused apprehensively for a moment at the reminder, “Um, Flame-Eye’s not still angry at me for that, is he?”

“No, Mr. Potter, while I can understand the Foundry Specialist’s frustration, I believe he has recovered his equilibrium,” the machinist replied. “Nor do I believe he was truly as angry as you seem to believe. The machine is yours to use as you see fit, and while engraving is an underutilization of the machine you have described, it is still within its design parameters.”

“Then why did he seem so angry?” Harry asked as they approached the well-lit opening to his workshop.

Stoutknife was silent for a moment as he attempted to formulate his response. “Perhaps the best explanation I can give is that, as you mentioned, resources have long been quite scarce among the Brethren, thus proper allocation is critically important.”

“Okay…” the dragon prompted as they rounded the corner and came in sight of the machine in question.

Stoutknife was silent for a long moment as he rounded the corner and caught sight of the machine in question. “I can understand his frustration indeed,” the goblin breathed before continuing in a louder voice. “A machine such as this is capable of tasks much more demanding than engraving. For your purposes, you had nothing else for it to do, so it was not a waste from your perspective. From Flame-Eye’s perspective, or mine for that matter, we are used to always having more work than the machinery can handle, so the idea of tying up such a machine doing things that a much lesser machine could handle seems almost criminally wasteful.”

“Sorry about that, then,” the young dragon seemed to shrink in on himself. “I didn’t mean to mess up that badly.”

“Fear not, Mr. Potter,” the machinist assured him, “I will be pleased to instruct you on how best to utilize your equipment in the shop alongside the other techniques. Now,” he clapped his clawed hands together briskly, “Let us begin! Why don’t we fire up this beauty and get started?”

“Right!” Harry agreed enthusiastically. “Just got to go start up my welder!”

With that, the last Potter whirled his massive bulk with terrifying swiftness and set off back down the hall from whence they had come, leaving Stoutknife to look after him, puzzled.

Soon, the quiet of the Lair was broken by the loud chattering growl of a diesel engine, and his host reappeared.

“There, now we’ll have enough power to run the CNC!”

The goblin in the room frowned. “Am I to understand that you are running this setup off a diesel welder?”

Harry nodded. “It’s got a supplementary power takeoff so it can serve as a generator, too.”

“I see,” Stoutknife said, rubbing at his chin thoughtfully. “That was the one next to the entrance?”

Harry nodded.

“That will not provide anywhere near enough power to actually push this equipment through its paces,” the machinist judged. “Nor will it let you run any of your manual machinery while the CNC is working. There simply isn’t enough power.”

His host cocked a scaly eyebrow curiously, “Really? I got it working fine before.”

“For engraving, possibly,” Stoutknife allowed. “I assume the workpiece was light?”

The dragon nodded.

“Anything large enough to take full advantage of this machine will be a much greater draw on the power system,” he explained. “Deep cuts to make injection molds will be particularly draining. Not to mention a full machine shop will have many machines running at once, both automated and manual. This setup will not work as you wish it to.”

“Well, what should we do?” Harry asked, concerned.

“You will either need to arrange for more power at this facility, or we will need to move the equipment elsewhere, Mr. Potter,” the machinist explained.

“Well, I kinda don’t want to move this stuff too far from the Lair. How much power do we need?” the dragon asked, looking around speculatively. “If I can figure out how to tie it in properly, I could get another of the welder generators.”

Stoutknife shook his head. “You would need at least a dozen, or a substantial tie into the electrical grid.”

“Huh,” Harry grunted, a thoughtful frown on his massive face.

As his host gave the situation some thought, Stoutknife occupied himself with examining the facilities the Great Wyrm of Hogwarts had managed to assemble. It was a fair spread. There was, of course, the behemoth CNC that dominated the room, and there was the collection of ancillary equipment that was in many cases still halfway wrapped in its packing material; presumably the recent order Flame-Eye had mentioned. However, Stoutknife was pleasantly surprised to see a fair collection of well used hand tools as well.

The machinist picked up a small needle file, brushing off the steel filings as he did so before picking up another piece that had been next to it on the bench. It was a cylindrical tool steel blank, filed into shape and then hardened in the shop, judging by the discoloration near the filed end. The boy had made a custom marking die, decent work, too. He looked at a few of the work pieces nearby, including a number of scraps of artfully shaped steel, looking like bare branches or possibly antlers, some even inlaid with gold foil or wire.

Flame-Eye had given no indication the boy was interested in the more artistic side of the craft, but it would be some time before the shop would really be ready for proper use; perhaps this would be something to teach in the meantime. His musings were interrupted by the dragon in the room.

“Um, I think I’m going to need to check with Mr. Slackhammer on what my options are for the workshop,” Harry said. “Is there anything we can work on in the meantime? I mean, the equipment will sort of work, right?”

“It will work well enough to teach, yes,” Stoutknife agreed. “Though we will not be able to properly demonstrate. We could also unpack and set up one of the manual machines, though that would likely occupy this lesson in full. However, looking at some of your other work,” he gestured to the bench next to him. “Perhaps there is something more I could teach you in the meantime.”

The young dragon, who had begun to frown at the delay, perked up curiously at the suggestion. “What did you have in mind, Mr. Stoutknife?”

“I see you have been doing some rather intricate decorative metalwork here using hand tools,” the goblin began. “How would you like to further those skills?”

“You mean my rune carving?” Harry asked. “I guess that was pretty neat; what would we be making next?”

“Such skills have any number of applications, but I had thought to instruct you in one of my own hobbies, one which brings together a wide variety of skills.”

A scaly brow rose in question.

“How would you like to learn to make jewelry, Mr. Potter?”

4.2.9 Snowy landscapes

The forested slopes of the Italian Alps, drenched in bright late-morning sunlight glinting off the white blanket of winter snow, spread out before him as Frank sipped at his morning coffee. He had just finished canvassing the small magical village of Ghesio, near what the non-magical world recognized as the Swiss border, and the private eye was catching some breakfast before he moved on. To that end, he’d stopped by the only business even loosely resembling a restaurant in the entire town, the town bakery, which in addition to baking the bread that fed the entire population, sported two café tables by the front window.

He had to admit, the food was good, but it paled in comparison to the view.

A small hamlet of perhaps twenty buildings built of the native grey gneiss and perched on a steep hillside, Ghesio was considered an uninhabited and unremarkable ruin on the non-magical side of things. Even on the wizarding side of things it was about as remote and basic as towns got, one of those remote retreats where people moved to when they wanted to get away from it all.

Aside from the usual concealment wards, the buildings were almost entirely non-magical in construction; the population was small enough that the inhabitants hadn’t bothered with an expanded space to hide the town. It was easier to simply hide behind a basic illusion and aversion wards despite being only a few hundred yards of steep alpine ridge away from the closest part of the Italian road system. The remote location — on the magical side of things, anyway — was accessible only through a single common floo connection. Ghesio was about as close as the magical world got to the hinterlands, short of living as a completely isolated hermit, anyway.

In hindsight, Frank wished he’d moved here with Betty right after school. Between the single approach by magical transportation and the small population in which strangers stood out like a sore thumb, her kidnapping likely never would have taken place, and they’d probably have been happily working on their second child by now.

It would have been more than worth the hassle of growing his own food and dealing with the local wildlife... which brought him to the reason for his visit.

The tiny village boasted only two claims to fame: the wonderful alpine scenery and the fact that it served as the setting for Gilderoy Lockhart’s Holidays with Hags. The book recounted the tale of a hag which had taken up residence in the surrounding woods and lured off several of the village children, eating them before it had finally been dispatched, purportedly by Lockhart.

The existence of the man-eating spirit that normally masqueraded as an exceptionally ugly woman had been easy enough for Frank to verify; the monster had left more than enough evidence behind. Several of the locals had been willing to tell the story of the event, and one had even led him to view the burned-out ruins of the rude hut the hag had built out in the woods. The grand tour had concluded with a solemn visit to the empty graves of the lost children.

It was a tragic story which warranted retelling on its own merits, but the tour had also brought him in contact with every local witness to the story; close enough contact that he could get in a good feel for the situation, which was rather critical for Frank’s investigation.

Mental magics were a wooly sort of field, highly subjective and more of an artistic performance than well-documented procedure. Detection methods were no different, tending to rely heavily on the caster’s subjective interpretation, and according to the books Frank had learned from, every caster did things differently. As such, the entire field tended to sit rather poorly with the private investigator. That sort of irreducible subjectivity made pinning down a solid chain of evidence an absolute nightmare.

Still, as with most of the skills he had developed over the years, this one too had been necessary to learn for the job. Without the spells, he’d never have had an inkling of the extent of Betty’s mental shackles, and that failing would have seen both him and Betty dead years ago in an ill-advised rescue attempt. Now, those same skills had proven their worth once more.

If Frank were to describe the returns from his diagnostic spells, he would say it was like running a finger over a smooth surface and feeling for seams, places where something had been changed and then put back in not quite the right place. A normal mind which had not been subjected to any sort of mental manipulation was like a plate-glass window, smooth and unbroken.

These witnesses were more like a cracked tile, two different glass-smooth surfaces almost but not quite perfectly aligned, the minute difference in elevation invisible but clearly felt by the fingertips. The changes were small, localized, and almost perfectly blended into the surroundings.

They were a far cry from the utter mess that had been made of Betty’s mind, which felt more like chunks of broken concrete bound together with baling wire.

Frank was far from an expert. He had no way to determine the true story of what had transpired here from the traces he sensed, and his abilities with mental magics began and ended with detecting the evidence of their use. However, he could confirm that they had been used here, and he could confirm that magics leaving almost identical traces had been used on witnesses at every other location appearing in Lockhart’s novels.

Additionally, he could confidently hypothesize that whoever had been responsible for tampering with these witnesses had been orders of magnitude more skilled than the butchers who had worked over his fiancée... which fit rather well with the Lockhart hypothesis, given his public history with the obliviators.

That said, the evidence was circumstantial at best.

Frank had no way to know what those magics were or who had cast them. It might have been Lockhart using memory charms to conceal some wrongdoing of his, but it could just as well have been him casting cheering charms to help the community get back on its feet. For that matter, it might not have been Lockhart at all. Mental charms were hardly unusual in the magical world; though the consistency across all the locations was a strong argument against that hypothesis.

Of course, given what he’d started with, even circumstantial evidence was more than he’d really expected, and the situation revealed was one dubious enough that his employer ought to be pleased. Consistent signs of mental manipulation at the site of every one of his exploits seemed decidedly suspicious to Frank, but it was far from strong enough to hold up in court. At least, it was far from strong enough to hold up in a court that hadn’t decided the verdict beforehand. Those were still a distinct danger in wizarding Britain, if a much less common one than they were even ten years ago.

The results were less than satisfying to his professional pride, but Frank had to admit, it was probably the best he could hope to get.

Finishing off his coffee and taking one last lingering look at the glorious view, Frank stood, leaving a few coins to pay for his meal on the table, the owners were still busy with their morning baking. He then set out for the local floo connection, a covered firepit in the central piazza barely twenty yards from where he had been eating. On the way, he waved back absently to a few of the friendly locals he’d met over the past few days.

He had a report to write and an anonymous tip to forward to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Frank nodded to himself as he picked his way across the snow-covered stone of the town square. The evidence wasn’t enough on its own, but if there was something fishy going on, Frank figured it might be a useful lead for the official investigator-types. And…

Green fire flashed signaling the first leg of his trip back to London, and a few moments later Frank sighed as he came to a stop at the next town.

...and as much as he disliked the circumstances, a DMLE investigation into Lockhart would fit well with his client’s intentions.

At least he’d earned his dirty money this time... and it had brought him about ten steps closer to his endgame with Betty’s situation.

That made it an occasion well worth a celebratory coffee, in Frank’s estimation.

 

Spoiler: Author's Note

This is the second version of Section 3.17. It has changed substantially from the originally published one which is still available on the extras threadmark collection at the original post.

4.3 New situations

---

4.3.1 Postal Reprieve

The morning meal in the Great Hall was unremarkable that day, essentially indistinguishable from most of the other meals during the school year; that is any meal that was not specifically labeled a feast. Scheduling was loose; the house elves made breakfast available for nearly two hours, ending fifteen minutes before the first of the day’s classes, and students cycled through the Great Hall on their own schedule over the course of the allotted time.

It was also the time scheduled for the delivery of owl-post.

Nearly three centuries previous, a covered temporary roost had been built into one of the dormers on the roof of the Great Hall for that purpose. With two entrances allowing passage from the outside into the interior of the building, owls burdened with post could perch, sheltered from the weather, and wait for their targeted recipient to show up for the meal. It was a great improvement over the previous system, which allowed post owls to deliver post anytime and anywhere on campus. The reduction in mess and disruption was deemed well worth the not-inconsiderable cost of remodeling an enchanted ceiling. Even with the additional cost of remodeling, it was still much cheaper to enchant the Great Hall to prevent the owls from casting and defecating everywhere than it would have been to do the same for the entire school.

So it was that, as a certain Ravenclaw student loaded down his plate with a third plateful of bacon and eggs, a rather disreputable-looking owl delivered an extraordinarily thick envelope addressed in a cramped hand. It was a piece of correspondence the teenager had been simultaneously longing for and dreading in equal measure. A certain scheme of his had gotten the sixth-year boy into a bit of a pickle, and the contents of that envelope would see him either vindicated or condemned.

When he had come up with the idea to hire someone to investigate his Defense professor’s background, it had seemed like such a good plan. The price had been steep, sure, but the payoff had seemed huge, so he’d managed to scrounge up the required fee — if only just, as it had turned out — by passing the hat among his fellow schoolmates. It had taken only a bit of fast talking.

And, in that fast talking lay the trouble.

The sixth-year had been, perhaps, a tad… overenthusiastic in his rhetoric when describing the benefits his fellow conspirators could expect from their investment. In short, he had both undersold the risk of failure and the time to maturity, and his compatriots had grown impatient with waiting in short order.

A few weeks previous, his fellows had managed to coerce him into a clandestine meeting to report on the plan’s progress, and his fellows had been left... dissatisfied. He had managed to convince them to hold off until the investigator got back to them, but it had been a close-run thing. The weeks since had been long and uncomfortable weeks, what with all the dirty looks and low-key hostility. The report he now held was the key to ending that tense state of affairs.

Of course, depending on what the report had to say, the subsequent state of affairs might not be an improvement.

The sixth-year Ravenclaw opened the envelope, revealing a brief cover-letter and a second envelope inside, and began to read. After a few moments, he breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn’t the best of news; however, it should be enough to work with. He could work with this well enough to get his co-conspirators off his back, hopefully without getting it cursed in the process.

He’d have to put the word out to set another meeting.

4.3.2 Welcome correspondence

As the quiet drama played out at the Ravenclaw table, another owl had made a delivery to the Hufflepuff table, specifically to one Harry Potter. The delivery was a tad unusual, as owl-post went. Rather than the normal procedure of calmly alighting on the table and offering a leg, the owl in question had taken one short look at the intended recipient before dropping the letter from as near to the ceiling as it could manage and zipping back to the exit.

Despite the owl’s obvious concern, the young dragon accepted the unorthodox delivery with aplomb, simply reaching up to remove the envelope from its resting place in the shaggy mop he called hair before opening the envelope and eagerly scanning the title of the enclosed correspondence.

Harry smiled in satisfaction before carefully returning the packet to the envelope and turning back to his breakfast. While it was a welcome bit of correspondence, it would need to wait for later in the day to be put to its proper use.

He hadn’t gone to the trouble of getting it for his own benefit, after all.

4.3.3 Anonymous reporting

“Madam Bones?”

In the bustling offices of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, the Department Head, Amelia Bones, paused at the sound of her secretary’s voice. She was on her way to a meeting regarding recent developments in an old case and was tempted to dismiss the interruption, but the woman rarely interrupted her without good cause.

“What is it, Beverly?”

“You have received an interesting piece of mail, ma’am,” her secretary replied. “It seems to be a rather thorough report loosely implicating one Gilderoy Lockhart in what could be a rather extensive case of fraud.”

“Gilderoy Lockhart…” Amelia frowned, searching her memory, “the author?”

“Yes, ma’am. The report details findings of consistent traces of mental manipulation on an impressive number of witnesses across the locations of all his books,” the woman summarized. “It also includes a rather insightful cross-referenced analysis of nearly a decade worth of news reports and the inconsistencies included therein. Very solid work.”

“Really?” That did sound like impressive detective work, Amelia nodded thoughtfully. Best to find out who was responsible, it always good to keep an eye on upcoming talent. “Who was responsible for the report? I don’t recall assigning such an investigation.”

Normally celebrity investigations were the sort of thing she kept a close eye on, if for no other reason than to avoid being blindsided by the press.

“That’s the thing, Madam Bones,” Beverly replied, “it’s an anonymous tip. The cover letter said it was a report the author had put together at the behest of a client, and he thought the results were suspicious enough he ought to forward them to us. It said he didn’t know if it was something we were already investigating, but he figured it couldn’t hurt to let us know.”

“Damn,” she sighed, deflating slightly. Much as she appreciated the help, Amelia hated finding out about new cases. It always meant the world was just that little bit worse than she’d hoped it was. “Is the case strong enough to open an investigation of our own?”

“I doubt it, but I am not the one to determine that, ma’am,” her secretary averred.

“Of course, of course,” Amelia sighed at her oversight. “Send it off to Investigations with a note asking how they think we ought to handle it. In the meantime, I’ve a meeting to get to.”

“Of course, Madam Bones,” Beverly said, already reaching for a blank sheet of parchment to write the requested note.

With a final nod, the busy Department Head was on her way.

4.3.4 New information

“Hey, Abigail!” Harry greeted his friend brightly as he approached their usual table in the Hogwarts library. “I’ve got something for you!” He brandished a thick envelope emphatically.

“Hi, Harry!” the older girl returned the greeting warmly. “So, what is it that you have there?”

“Well, I met with Madame Marchbanks the day before yesterday,” the young dragon explained, “and I asked her for a syllabus for the NEWTs so we could study properly, and it just came in today, so I made sure to bring it by as soon as I could to show you!”

“So that’s what you’ve been working on!” Abigail smiled, stepping over to give him a tight hug. “That was very thoughtful of you, Harry. Thank you!”

Harry positively beamed as his friend released her hug and returned to her usual place at the table. He took his own seat and opened the envelope before placing its contents between them.

“Go ahead and give it a read,” he told his older friend.

Their private corner of the library fell silent as Abigail complied, carefully reading through the provided syllabus for the NEWT exams that had been weighing on her mind for the past few months. Her good friend looked on, still smiling broadly. So engrossed was she that she was quite startled by the arrival of someone else at their usual table.

“Hi, Hermione!” the bright voice of the currently human-shaped dragon piped up.

“Hello, Harry, Abigail,” the bushy-haired girl nodded to each of her friends in turn, sparing a curious look at the packet of parchment arrayed in front of Abigail as she set her own excessive stack of books down on the library table. After exchanging the usual pleasantries, the younger girl couldn’t help herself.

“What are you reading?” Hermione asked her older friend. “You looked like you were pretty deep into it, and it doesn’t look like a schoolbook.”

“Harry was thoughtful enough to get a syllabus for the NEWT exams for me,” the seventh-year girl said absently as she turned back to her reading. “It’s good to finally get a handle on what the tests will cover so I can review properly and just get on with it rather than worrying all the time.”

“Really?” Hermione breathed as her brown eyes widened in surprise. “I didn’t know you could get those!”

“I went and asked Madame Marchbanks,” the resident dragon chimed in. “She’s in charge of the Examination Authority, and she’s really nice! I just explained the situation, and she had somebody send me the syllabus.”

“Oh, she sounds nice,” the bushy-haired girl said distractedly, her eyes locked intently on the rough stack of parchment sitting before Abigail. “Um… Abigail?”

“Hmm?” the older girl prompted without looking up from her reading.

“Do you think I could read that too?” Hermione asked tentatively.

Without looking up from her reading, the Abigail wordlessly pushed the portion of the document she had already read across the table to the younger girl.

From his place at the table, Harry settled in for the long run as he quietly watched his two friends greedily devour the syllabus he had procured, a broad smile still pasted on his face.

The visit with Madame Marchbanks had definitely been worth the effort.

4.3.5 Heard it through the grapevine

“Once again, I thank you all for your attention,” Lockhart addressed his class as the session ended. “I feel I should remind you that your projects will be due at the end of next week!”

Lockhart had assigned the project in yet another effort to spark Mr. Potter’s interest. The assignment was to take one of the scenarios described in his books and come up with his own take on how to handle things. The blond dandy had thought it a prime opportunity to spark a conversation — what better source to consult for such a project than Lockhart himself?

Unfortunately, this gambit had proven no more successful than its predecessors. The pint-sized powerhouse had simply nodded agreeably and then gone on to complete the entire project in time to turn it in at the next class, two weeks before the due date. Now Gilderoy was stuck grading an entire school’s worth of essays with nothing to show for it.

A very disheartening outcome if he did say so himself.

Despite his disappointment at the lack of progress on his primary goal, his secondary goal remained, and the blond dandy maintained his vigilance for suspicious behavior. Today, as the students were shuffling about preparing to leave once more, that vigilance paid off.

The circumstances were the same. The same two boys passed another note, a nearly identical sequence of events, in fact. This time, however, Gilderoy Lockhart was ready when the second boy went for his wand to vanish the scrap of parchment.

A wizard of Dumbledore’s caliber might have used some arcane twist of magic to reverse the partially completed vanishing charm and reconstitute the paper in his hand.

Gilderoy was not such a wizard.

Instead, he used a rather more prosaic, but no less effective, approach. Given his prior knowledge, he had prepared a similarly-sized slip of blank parchment ahead of time, and as the vanishing spell was cast, the former obliviator countered with a humble switching spell, moving the note to his hand and leaving a blank slip of parchment to take its place, dissipating into its component molecules and spreading irretrievably over several square miles of the local landscape.

Neither of the students noticed.

As soon as the room emptied, Lockhart casually opened the note and gave it a read.

It seemed that the children would be holding a meeting.... how intriguing.

Gilderoy cocked a speculative golden eyebrow.

Perhaps he should drop in?

4.3.6 Practical considerations

It was early evening by the time Abigail and Hermione finished with their perusal of the NEWT syllabus, and they were just reassembling the packet with a rustle of parchment after one final read-through, when the resident dragon looked up from his own personal reading.

“So, what did you figure out?” Harry asked. Of the three, he was the only one who had yet to read the syllabus, so he was still in the dark.

“Well, it looks like we’ll need to shift our focus to practical casting,” Abigail began, reaching up to massage her temples as she leaned back in her chair. “The syllabus was pretty clear that the practicals were the most important thing by far.”

“So we wasted all that time with the book reviews?” the young dragon asked, crestfallen.

“Not wasted, exactly,” his older friend clarified. “The theoretical portion is required for a passing mark, and our reviews covered enough for that... more than enough, in fact.”

As it had turned out, not only had their earlier review sessions already covered all of the academic topics that might show up on the exam; it seemed she and Harry had cast a much wider net when choosing topics to cover than had the examination committee.

“It’s just that the difference between an Acceptable and an Outstanding on the overall exam is entirely based on our performance on the practical portions,” Abibgail continued. “In fact, truly outstanding scores on the practical can even be used to compensate for subpar performance on the written.”

“I’m really glad I found out about it early,” Hermione interjected in a cheerful tone. “Imagine how hard it would be to change gears if I’d only found out about that in seventh year!”

Abigail briefly shot her younger compatriot a dirty look at that gauche reminder of her own unenviable situation before shaking and returning to her explanation. “In any case, now that we know how heavily the practical skills are weighted, it only makes sense to focus heavily on practical spell casting for the time we have left.”

Harry nodded agreeably.

“Now, we figure there are a few different options to take to really impress the examiners,” Abigail continued, “but the best way I can think of, given the short time available and my own talents, is to practice the basics until I’m as good at them as I can get. I’m not likely to be able to learn some obscure or novel magic in time for the exams,” she shook her head dismissively. “It’s just not something I’m good at. Hard work and practice, though, those I can do.”

The young dragon frowned thoughtfully as he processed his older friend’s reasoning before slowly nodding. “That makes sense.”

“I decided I’d pitch in too and get an early start!” Hermione volunteered cheerfully. “It’s never too early!”

“So, what are we going to do, then?” Harry asked brightly as everyone stood up from the table and began gathering their effects. “And how can I help?”

4.3.7 Home, home on the range

It seemed that the Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests were aptly named, Harry thought as he watched Abigail run through her latest set of exercises. At least, they would be if the effort his older friend was putting into her preparations was any indication.

After leaving the Hogwarts library, Harry and his friends had relocated to the Lair, specifically to the shooting range, which was ideally suited to the girls’ choice of study methods.

Abigail currently occupied one of the lanes Harry had built for spell practice, where she was repeatedly and silently casting stunning spells at the targets downrange. As the regular flashes of red light illuminated the area, Harry thought back on his friend’s explanation of her plan.

“The more you work your magic, the stronger it gets,” Abigail had explained patiently as they had walked through the halls of Hogwarts on their way to the gate. “And it’s not just a matter of improving skill... I mean, that’s important too, and I’ll be doing more than enough of that over the next few months,” she had paused for a moment, grimacing at the thought, “but it’s also a real improvement in the body’s ability to generate and deliver magic. That means that the more I work my magic, the better my casting can be. I hadn’t really gotten into this sort of thing before, but in hindsight, I probably should have been at it for years.”

That had led directly to a discussion of the benefits and drawbacks of various magical exercises, including Abigail’s current choice: an endurance routine which called for casting a spell repeatedly until the caster was just shy of magical exhaustion, followed by a short recovery time, after which, it would start all over again.

In overall effect, it was rather like wind sprints, but for magical rather than physical prowess.

His friend had gone on to say that if a wizard or a witch was willing to put in the effort — as Abigail obviously was, the young dragon thought with a proud smile — he could improve himself greatly through such exercise. An average wizard might rise to be head and shoulders above his fellows through hard work; though there were practical limitations — for instance, such an average wizard would never challenge the likes of Dumbledore through exercise alone, not within a normal wizarding lifespan. It was a thoroughly practical and almost universally applicable approach to self-improvement, one well-suited to the current situation.

For this first practice session, Abigail had chosen a silently-cast stunner for two reasons. For one, the stunner was a common spell that she had thought would be an excellent specimen to polish up for the NEWTS, so the additional practice would be welcome. Second, it was a moderately draining spell, making it an excellent choice for the endurance exercises: strenuous enough to make for short sets, but not so arduous that she might risk true magical exhaustion, which could put her in a hospital bed for days.

And, speaking of short sets, it seemed the older girl had just reached the end of her endurance for this one, since she had holstered her wand and turned away from the range.

“Good work, Abigail!” the young dragon congratulated his friend brightly, prompting a tired but genuine smile from the winded girl as she walked over to the cheap folding chairs Harry had pulled together for them to use. He turned to his other companion, “Hermione, you’re up next, right?”

The bushy-haired girl so addressed nodded in acknowledgement before groaning at the effort of rising from her own chair and getting back to work.

The group had been running through the exercise in shifts, since its structure — short, intense activity followed by a slightly longer resting period — was well-suited to such a schedule. For the first few rounds, Suze had even joined in on the fun, using her rifle to get in her customary range time for the day while enjoying the company, though she had finished her routine and returned to her woodworking practice nearly half an hour previous.

As Harry settled in to watch his human damsel, he was distracted by the rustling of fabric at his side. Turning his head towards the noise, he caught sight of Abigail in the process of removing her outer robe. The currently human-shaped young dragon pauseed for a moment to take in the oddly fascinating sight of the older girl’s blouse riding up, exposing her midriff as it did so.

As she tugged her blouse back into place and set about folding her robe, Harry cocked his head curiously at his own reaction. He still wasn’t sure why that sort of thing seemed so weirdly cool, but he eventually filed it away under the same mental heading as he did his memories of Suze at full not-gallop. He was sure he’d figure it out eventually.

While he had been lost in thought, Abigail had finished folding her robe and was now in the process of removing her Slytherin tie and undoing the top few buttons of her blouse. This seemed a bit unusual to the young dragon, who frowned contemplatively as the thought sparked a memory. He was fairly certain Mrs. McGonagall had said something about situations like this when he had first carried Hermione off... something about him not being in the same room when such things were going on lest he invade a girl’s privacy, if he recalled.

“What are you doing?” Harry asked the older girl curiously.

It’d probably be best to make sure she remembered he was there, just in case.

“Trying to cool off,” she said absently as she conjured a hair-tie and pulled her thick, sweat-dampened brown hair up and off her neck into a high ponytail. “Magic is hard work, you know.”

Harry nodded at that, eyes glued to the movements induced by that change in posture, barely concealed by the thin, almost transparent material of her sweat-dampened white blouse before quickly shifting to the newly revealed curve of her neck as soon as those movements died down. He frowned thoughtfully.

That was another one for the weirdly cool file, he supposed.

“What are you doing?” came the voice of Hermione, sounding just short of shrill.

Harry dragged his eyes away from the pleasant scenery and turned to face his human damsel who was shooting a look at Abigail that might have been a glare were she not utterly exhausted from her exercises.

“Oh, hey Hermione! You’re done already?” He frowned in concern. “Are you okay?”

Narrowing her eyes at the older girl in the room one last time, Hermione turned to face the young dragon.

“Yes, I’m fine,” she snapped. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, you finished really early,” Harry said defensively. “Abigail went more than twice as long on her last set, and I wanted to make sure you were okay! You didn’t hurt yourself or anything, right?”

The bushy-haired girl sniffed at that and turned away.

“Don’t worry about it, Harry,” Abigail interjected. “Hermione’s younger than I am, so she doesn’t have the reserves to go for so long. She’ll get there eventually. Now, get on with your own set; you’re up next.”

“Right!” Harry nodded emphatically, shelving the issue and turning to the range for his own exercise, which, while functionally similar to the endurance exercises the girls were doing in that he was casting large numbers of stunning spells downrange, was actually intended to improve his aim rather than his magical endurance.

Harry’s endurance was already exceptional after all, but his control and accuracy remained perennial works-in-progress.

4.3.8 Low-key

“To answer your question,” Abigail addressed Hermione conversationally as their mutual friend launched a withering storm of brilliant rods of burning red light downrange, “I was trying to cool off. This is hot work, you know, especially under multiple layers of wool.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” the bushy-haired girl allowed, grimacing at the thought of her own rather swampy condition under her woolen robes. “It certainly is hard work.”

To be sure, Hermione knew magic was always hard work, in one way or another. That had been stressed enough in her classes, even in first year; though that hard work could be expended in any number of ways. For most routine wanded casting, the lion’s share of the work went in during the spell-creation and wand-making phases, with the final caster supplying simply a bit of direction and a relatively tiny portion of energy to fuel those two highly optimized machines.

Endurance casting, on the other hand, made that hard work more immediately apparent than most, intended as it was to serve as a form of magical exercise. It strained the caster by design, much as physical exercise did for more mundane pursuits, and as a close analog of physical exercise, she supposed it stood to reason that endurance casting would have similar physiological consequences.

The caster’s metabolism would struggle to kick out enough energy to support the heavy magical activity, and with that struggle would come the usual sorts of side-effects: elevated body temperature, both from the high metabolic activity and waste heat from imperfect casting; heavy breathing to supply enough oxygen to keep up; and eventually, exhaustion. In practical terms, it meant a lot of exertion, sweat, and heavy breathing, which the bushy-haired girl had to admit, were not the sort of things the normal Hogwarts winter uniform, a heavy woolen ensemble layered for warmth and modesty and topped with a full-length woolen cloak, was well-suited to accommodating.

Hermione sighed in exasperation, sneaking a sidelong glance at her friend while the older girl was fully absorbed by the admittedly formidable spectacle of Harry’s furious barrage of spell-fire.

She probably shouldn’t have been surprised that the thoroughly practical Abigail had dealt with the mismatch in a thoroughly practical manner, stripping off her outer robe, cardigan, and Slytherin tie in an attempt to stay cool, and unbuttoning the neck of her blouse to ease her breathing. It was a sensible choice, effective and comfortable, and Hermione could sympathize with her older friend. After all, she was no less uncomfortable; the only difference between her outfit and Abigail’s was the color of the trim. For that reason, if nothing else, Hermione would have liked to follow suit, and she would have if not for one, not-so-minor complaint.

Why did Abigail have to look so bloody good like that? The bushy-haired girl thought with a scowl.

The change in outfit was a sensible choice, to be sure, but it was also a choice which had transformed Abigail from a much beloved, friendly figure into a rather intimidating one in the eyes of the just barely teenaged — and rather homely, in her own considered opinion — Hermione.

The healthy seventeen-year-old’s exposed skin sported a healthy flush and glistened with a sheen of perspiration under the artificial lamps of the range. Her chest heaved and shifted as she breathed heavily while wearing only a soaked and nearly-transparent-in-places white blouse, a damp — and therefore more figure-hugging than usual — pleated gray Hogwarts uniform skirt, and a pair of black thigh-high stockings — woolen, in deference to the Scottish winter.

Hermione knew full well that she would never be able to make that ensemble look anywhere near as good as Abigail did. For that matter, she’d look utterly ridiculous if she tried, especially with Abigail right there to compare against.

So, as Harry finished up his own turn and Abigail once again stepped up to the line, the bushy-haired girl clutched her uncomfortably hot — yet comfortingly concealing — woolen robe closer to her chest and hunched in on herself defensively.

It was even worse when the older girl was moving around!

The older girl’s heavy breathing and energetic arm movements combined to set certain portions of her anatomy — portions that were much more generous in their development than Hermione’s own — moving in ways that she knew most boys would zero in on in a heartbeat.

Harry certainly noticed, and, just as certainly, Hermione noticed him noticing.

The bushy-haired girl scowled at the situation in general. It was thoroughly distressing, and the fact that Abigail was objectively better at the exercise simply added insult to injury!

Hermione’s distress grew quickly as Harry spent the next few minutes avidly watching their mutual friend as she went through her exercise routine, until the bushy-haired girl finally reached her breaking point and quietly made her excuses to leave.

She had no desire to be compared unfavorably to the Abigail — especially not by Harry, of all people — and she refused to put herself in a position where she would be.

Now, if only it didn’t feel like she was running away.

4.3.9 Taking care

Harry cocked his head in confusion as his human damsel walked out of the range and down the tunnel on her way to her private suite.

That had been awfully sudden.

The bushy-haired girl had claimed that she was too tired to keep up anymore, so she was going to bed. On the one hand, Harry supposed that had made sense; Hermione had been having more and more trouble keeping up with Abigail over the past few sets, after all. On the other hand, though she hadn’t really seemed to be on the verge of falling asleep or anything.

He frowned thoughtfully as he reviewed his memory of recent events. To be honest, Hermione had seemed kind of agitated at the end there rather than tired.

The young dragon gave it a few moments’ thought before shrugging it off and returning to the oddly riveting sight of Abigail bouncing through the remainder of her exercise routine.

Hermione was a smart girl, and if she said she was just tired, then he’d take her at her word. Though, speaking of being tired, it seemed Abigail had reached the end of her rope once again.

“Good work, Abigail!” the currently human-shaped young dragon congratulated his friend warmly, prompting a beautiful, if very tired, smile from the young woman in return... a smile which quickly shifted to a concerned frown.

“Where’d Hermione go?” the seventh-year girl asked her friend.

“She left a couple minutes ago,” Harry answered. “Said she was too tired to do another set.”

That prompted an exhausted nod of acknowledgement from the young woman who then slumped down in her chair as Harry stepped up gamely for yet another turn, sending a veritable hail of brilliantly glowing red bolts of magic racing downrange. Now that he had put some more work into his stunning charm, Harry no longer had to concentrate quite so hard on casting successfully as he had to during that embarrassing duel during the previous term, which allowed his mind to wander somewhat even as he practiced.

Closest to mind was a topic which had played a surprisingly prominent role in his recent meeting with Madame Marchbanks, his continuing haphazard inquiries into the nature and behavior of magic. While the meeting had focused heavily on his work with runes to create that neat-looking but otherwise useless tree thing, the elderly witch had not restricted her recommendation to that topic alone. Rather, she had promoted the spirit of inquiry in general, and Harry had collected a long and forever-growing list of things he was curious about.

Perhaps he ought to pursue some of them, as well?

There was that stamped-rune method he’d come up with that needed refining. That’d be a good place to start, but there was also the magic-pumped laser for which he had originally developed it... as well as the holographic projector he had originally set out to make, of course. The young dragon frowned thoughtfully as he considered that. Based on how much trouble he’d had so far, that promised to be a long slog of a project.

It might be better to save that one for later.

There was his magic-to-electricity idea that’d hit a snare a few months back. He was still trying to come up with a new lead on that. The young dragon unconsciously shrugged at the thought, accidentally throwing off his aim even more than usual on the next casting. He didn’t have anything right now, but it was something to keep in mind. There was also that question that’d come to mind at the conclusion of his talk with Donald all those months ago which was still hanging in the back of his head alongside half a dozen other odds and ends.

Things were really starting to pile up in there, to be honest.

Harry nodded to himself as he surveyed the devastating aftermath of his target practice. He probably ought to start up something to keep track of it all... maybe some notebooks? Those seemed to work pretty well for Hermione. The human-shaped dragon stepped back to take another break as the splintered remains of the enchanted targets slowly began to pull themselves back together, their wooden forms rather less resilient to the amount of magic he could throw downrange than an equivalently-sized magical person.

For now, though, Harry thought with a sigh, he really ought to seek out some advice on how to cast more accurately. Sure, he’d hit the targets eventually, but most of his magic had still expended itself on the increasingly pockmarked stone wall at the end of the range... another unacceptable performance.

Who was the best person to ask, though?

Harry frowned thoughtfully, the expression going unnoticed by Abigail, who had slumped over in her chair against the wall, eyes closed and still slowly catching her breath.

Much as he respected the man’s talents, Harry’s usual go-to, Mr. Snape, was probably not the best choice. In his stories, Mr. Snape seemed to rely on subterfuge to get close enough that he couldn’t really miss; spell accuracy wasn’t strictly speaking in the potions master’s purview.

On the other hand, Harry’s other go-to, the goblins, didn’t really fit either. They were really good at shooting stuff accurately, but as the young dragon had learned recently much to his own embarrassment, accuracy with firearms and accuracy with wands were two entirely different animals.

Harry supposed that left the other professors to consider.

Mr. Dumbledore would probably be able to help. The elderly wizard was pretty good at pretty much everything, but he was really busy most of the time, so that might be a problem. He could barely find time to oversee Harry’s alchemy lessons every month or so; trying to schedule something else would likely be a nightmare.

Harry tapped his currently human-shaped chin thoughtfully as he ran through the rest of his friends, assessing each in turn.

To be honest, Mr. Flitwick was probably the best choice, now that he thought about it. The young dragon nodded. The half-goblin was a really good duelist, so he’d know all about spell accuracy and speed, and he was a really good teacher, so he’d probably know how to teach it too, unlike Professor Lockhart.

Plus, there was another one of those magic-related questions — the kind Madame Marchbanks had been talking about — that he’d been meaning to look into ever since that duel with the annoying blond kid. Since it was a question about a charm, the resident Charms master would probably be the best choice to answer it, too.

Harry nodded decisively. That’d be the way to go then.

His train of thought completed; the young dragon turned his attention back to his surroundings only to realize that the room had been unusually quiet for the past several minutes. He turned to Abigail and found her asleep, draped over her chair in an undignified sprawl.

The young dragon-in-human-form cocked a brow in surprise. She must have been more tired than he’d thought.

“Abigail?” he called quietly, attempting to wake her gently, only to be answered by a loud, decidedly unladylike snore.

“Huh,” Harry frowned before gently nudging her shoulder. His only response was a slight shift and a sleepy grumble.

Well, she had been working hard, so he supposed she had earned a nap, the young dragon thought; though that chair looked really uncomfortable.

He considered the situation for a moment before nodding decisively.

Bending to pick up the sleeping girl as gently as he could manage, Harry carried her out of the practice range and down the hall, gently depositing her on one of the couches in the main room of the Lair and tucking her in with a blanket to stave off the winter chill. Straightening, the young dragon surveyed the situation and nodded in satisfaction; now, she’d be able to finish her nap comfortably.

“Well, that’s sorted,” he murmured even as he absently reached down to brush a stray lock of Abigail’s chestnut hair away from her sleeping face. It was pretty obvious his friend was going to be out of it for a while.

“Now, what should I do?”

Looking about at the chaotic mess that comprised the living quarters of the Lair for inspiration, it didn’t take long for him to catch sight of a pile of blank notepads still half-contained within their plastic packaging — extras left over from his attempt to get some work done during his multi-weekend stakeout at the end of the previous term — which reminded him of his earlier idea to make a research notebook.

That’d do nicely!

Picking up one of the notepads and a spare pen, he settled down in one of the nearby chairs after a quick stop to stoke the fire in the Rayburn; he’d noticed Abigail shivering in her sleep as the winter wind picked up and occasionally managed to find its way in through the Lair entrance to lick at her still sweat-damp skin. Then he got down to the business of recording some of his plans for future research projects while keeping watch over his sleeping friend.

The notepad would be more than half-full by the time he set it aside for the day.

Later in the evening when the young dragon looked back on the day, he concluded that it was time well-spent. Neither he nor Abigail had gotten as much done as they had hoped, but Harry did learn that looking after his exhausted friend for the afternoon had been surprisingly rewarding.

Abigail’s beaming smile when she had awakened and realized what he had done had been even more so.

4.3.10 On the nature of conjuration

Late afternoon saw Hogwarts’ resident dragon walked purposefully through the halls of a portion of the castle he didn’t often visit. The Ravenclaw dormitories were nearby, but Harry didn’t actually know any of the Ravens very well. Of the current crop, he was perhaps most familiar with Luna Lovegood, of whom he was rather unfond, and Su Li, who had proven to be a friendly and capable lab partner in potions since the beginning of the current term.

Neither had given him cause to visit the Ravenclaw tower so far, and that state of affairs had not changed. Instead, Harry’s current destination was Mr. Flitwick’s office. Harry had some questions, and he rather hoped the diminutive half-goblin professor would be able to answer them for him.

Arriving at the charms master’s office, the young dragon in human guise knocked gently, “Um… Professor, are you there?”

“Come in!” the diminutive teacher welcomed him gladly. “Come in, take a seat. What brings you here, Mr. Potter? You do not call on me very often, my young friend.”

“Well, it’s a couple things really,” Harry began. “Um, first, you remember how much trouble I had actually hitting anything back during that dueling club thingy?”

“Indeed, I do, Mr. Potter,” the half-goblin said with a nod.

“Well, I’ve been trying to practice and get better,” the young dragon told his professor, “but it’s real slow going, and I was hoping you had some tips on how to do better.”

“I see,” Flitwick said. “Firstly, I must congratulate you on your commitment to self-improvement, Mr. Potter. Such is always a worthy goal! Unfortunately, I can only advise that you keep practicing; it really is the only way to improve, I am afraid. Do not be discouraged, everyone is bad at aiming a wand when they first start.”

“Oh,” Harry said, sounding quite crestfallen. “There’s no tips or anything then?”

“I suppose you might try reducing your wand movements to a minimum,” the diminutive professor said after a moment’s consideration. “Keep the necessary gestures as small as you can make them. The lion’s share of inaccuracy with a wand comes from the wand movements themselves, after all. Oh, and start with piercing charms, they are an excellent way to practice your timing. That final horizontal sweep is tricky to aim properly, and if you can get that right, other charms will be much simpler by comparison.”

“Thanks, I’ll try that, then!” the young Potter sounded much reassured.

“I am glad to have helped, Mr. Potter,” Flitwick said with a smile. “And might I inquire as to your other question?”

“Oh, right!” the currently human-shaped dragon acknowledged. “I had some questions about a charm I saw at the dueling club. It called snakes…”

“Ah, serpensortia, I am familiar with the charm.” Flitwick said. “It summons one or more snakes which will then follow the caster’s commands. Not terribly useful in real combat because commanding the snakes requires concentration from the caster, but good showmanship for the stage.”

“Well, I was wondering; does it conjure a snake or pull it from somewhere else?” Harry asked.

“I… I must admit that I am not entirely certain,” the small man frowned. “As far as I know that family of spells was always assumed to be a branch of conjuration; though I don’t know if anyone has had cause to ask that particular question before,” Flitwick replied. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, the summoned snakes spoke parseltongue, and I’m pretty sure that annoying blond kid doesn’t know how to speak it,” Harry explained. “I thought conjurations could only do what the conjurer told them to do, and this one couldn’t tell it how to speak parseltongue. If it were pulled from somewhere else though, I’d have thought it would have left a body when I killed it, and it didn’t. So, I’m not sure which one it was.”

“That is an intriguing bit of evidence, Mr. Potter, evidence which calls into question the accepted assumptions about that family of charms, as you have so ably pointed out,” Flitwick said thoughtfully as he processed the new information. “I can see why the situation wasn’t encountered before. No competent caster world ever consider using that charm against a parselmouth if they didn’t also share the gift; it would be a terrible tactical decision. Yet that is the only situation that would call the accepted theories into question.”

“Hmm,” The diminutive charms professor trailed off for a moment as he paused in consideration before he continued, his voice swelling with excitement. “I do believe you have hit upon some new ground, Mr. Potter, new and unexplored territory! There’s only one thing to be done,” the half-goblin paused dramatically.

“What’s that?” Harry asked.

“We will have to find out!”

“How do we do that?”

“We must devise an experiment!” Flitwick explained enthusiastically. “That is, we will attempt to create a scenario from the outcome of which we can draw a certain conclusion regarding the nature of the charm. Our current observations are inconclusive because they could support either option; thus, our experiment should be designed such that the results will eliminate the confusion.”

“So, we want to design something so we can tell for sure whether the snake was conjured or summoned?” Harry confirmed.

“That is one way to go about it,” the half-goblin nodded enthusiastically.

“So how would we do that?”

“Why don’t you work out an experimental design and then bring it back to me?” the small teacher proposed. “Then we will go over it. I will help you refine it, and once we have a good one, you will carry it out. It will be a good exercise for you; the ability to learn through experimentation is an important skill in life.”

“Okay!”

4.3.11 A teacher’s musings

The charms master practically vibrated with glee as Harry Potter left his office. The diminutive man’s expression was filled with a burning zeal which would have sent his lazier students running for the hills had they beheld it. His young student was only halfway through his second year, yet he was already producing research ideas like this one! To be sure, it was an idea the young dragon had stumbled upon rather than sought out, but he had been observant enough to see something was off about the situation and, more importantly, was curious enough to ask about it!

Filius knew perfectly well that that spark of curiosity, more than anything else, was the mark of a great magical researcher. Far too many wizards, upon seeing something strange or unexpected were all too willing to simply dismiss it as ‘magic’ and inquire no further. He had even immediately grasped the concept of testing through experimentation — another concept that was depressingly rare in the magical world.

That essential curiosity, when taken in combination with the young dragon’s raw intelligence, literally inhuman magical endurance, and dogged determination, made the boy’s potential for greatness hard to miss. Only slightly less obvious was the potential for his own career as one of that boy’s mentors.

As for the specific question the dragon had posed, it was the sort of thing that was practically made for a mastery. It was a new approach to a topic the field was already reasonably familiar with, the topic met the novelty requirements while remaining prosaic enough not to be dismissed out of hand by the more… staid members of the profession. All told, it was an excellent choice for an upcoming young researcher’s debut.

Properly executed — and Filius would ensure it was properly executed, by hook or by crook — such an investigation could see the boy through to a charms mastery before he sat his OWLs! He could be the mentor of the youngest charms master in recorded history! Even aside from the potential for academic advancement, Flitwick was looking forward to seeing what the work would produce — success or failure, it was sure to be fascinating.

The half-goblin chuckled, thinking back on that conversation with Severus, several years previous. Filius had made a teasing comment regarding the man’s uncharacteristic enthusiasm regarding the young dragon’s bio-alchemy. At the time, his disagreeable colleague had issued a challenge to wait and see how enthusiastic he was when the boy revolutionized Flitwick’s own field.

Admittedly, the situation wasn’t yet to that point, but it was an exhilarating experience even now, in its admittedly humble beginnings. Though, Flitwick had to admit, at least some of that was simply his normal enthusiasm bleeding through. He was an educator at heart, and teaching was what got him up in the morning. Yet after seeing how Severus had fared over the intervening years… well, the master of charms suspected he was in for interesting times to come. The half-goblin bared his slightly sharpened teeth in a vicious-looking smile at the thought.

They promised to be interesting times, and he was looking forward to every minute.

4.3.12 Unfair comparisons

Late afternoon at the Lair found Hermione sitting in her favorite chair on the library mezzanine, taking a moment to sit back from her reading and stretch. It had been a productive afternoon so far, despite the muted sounds of spell-fire that still echoed down the tunnel from the shooting range.

Harry was yet again working on his practical casting skills alongside Abigail. Those sessions had been a frequent occurrence over the past week; though ever since that first evening, Hermione had begged off on joining in. That first taste had been all Hermione needed to decide that Abigail’s study plan wasn’t to her liking.

However, that wasn’t to say the studious girl had given up on her early preparations for the NEWTs. Hermione smiled as she looked down at the arcane tome on the table before her and at the half-full notebook of handwritten notes that lay open beside it. She had simply chosen to take a different tack, one more suited to her own talents.

After all, it was never too early to start preparing, not in Hermione’s books. And while it was true that she would also have to sit the OWLs long before the NEWTs came into the picture, if she prepared properly for the NEWTs, then the OWLs ought to be simple enough. Classes usually built up to harder things over time, so she figured that was a safe bet, so prepare she would... if in her own way.

Despite her choice to go her own way, Hermione fully supported the conclusion Abigail had drawn, namely that practical skills were the name of the game for the NEWTs. It was the reason she had initially joined in for that first practice session; Hermione sighed. It had made good sense at the time, and she had thought it would be nice to spend more time with her friends.

The bushy-haired girl scowled as she thought back on that first session. It had made sense, before the harsh reality of the situation had kicked in.

Abigail had chosen to work on perfecting her ability to use the standard spell curriculum, a choice which involved a great deal of thoroughly exhausting practice. Hermione had agreed with her choice; for that matter, she still did. It was the right choice for Abigail’s situation. The older girl was already halfway through her seventh year, and there was simply no time to take any other, more leisurely, approach, not with any expectation of success.

However, the right choice for Abigail had quickly proven itself entirely unsuitable for Hermione.

The bushy-haired girl scowled. As a normal witch in her second year of schooling, Hermione simply could not keep up with the harsh pace the older girl had set. Her body and magic were not developed enough to handle the strain, and she knew of no way to rush that sort of thing along, no matter how much she might wish otherwise. She’d quickly been left behind.

Of course, the bushy-haired girl couldn’t find it within herself to blame her friends for not slowing down to let her keep pace, not that she had given them a chance to offer. Abigail was on a tight schedule for the approaching exams, and quite frankly the bookish second-year student would never forgive herself if she was responsible for holding her friends back from being all they could be. She knew it wasn’t their fault she couldn’t keep up.

Hermione sighed ruefully. That knowledge did nothing to make her feel better about the situation.

Being outperformed by Harry was nothing new for the bushy-haired girl; by this point, she was already well-used to it. Harry was so absurdly overpowered that he spent most of his time as a massive super-dragon because he couldn’t manage to contain himself into a human shape. Hermione couldn’t find it within herself to feel bad about coming in second-best to that. It would be like feeling inadequate about being shorter than a mountain; it simply wasn’t a meaningful comparison.

Third-best was an altogether different matter.

Unlike the walking amalgamation of condensed absurdity that was Harry Potter, Abigail was an ostensibly normal witch, just like Hermione herself. The bushy-haired girl didn’t have a ready excuse for why she couldn’t keep pace... not one that she could convince herself with, anyway. It was true that her older friend had five full years of magical training and physical development on the just barely teenaged girl, and thus she couldn’t reasonably be expected to keep up with that kind of disadvantage. Hermione knew that, and it was almost convincing enough... almost, but not quite.

And in this case, that “not quite” meant that the bushy-haired girl also knew that excuse was just that: an excuse.

As far as Hermione was concerned, magic was an intellectual pursuit; it was something to be studied. To her mind, that meant she was supposed to be able to keep up with people years ahead of her, just like she always had before. Hermione knew she wasn’t the pretty girl, not with her hair and teeth; she knew she wasn’t the athletic girl, as she’d always preferred reading to sports; and she certainly knew she would never be the popular girl, because that just wasn’t going to happen; but she’d be damned before she gave up on being the smart girl!

That was her thing, and no one was going to take it away from her!

So, after that first discouraging practice, Hermione had retreated to her room to rethink her strategy and search out another path, one better suited to her own strengths. It was a search which had led to her current situation, holed up in the library, safe with her books.

It was a practical decision on her part, a strategic choice to aimed at getting maximal return on her investment.

It certainly had nothing whatsoever to do with a desire to escape the simmering feelings of inadequacy stemming from her significantly older friend’s impressive performance and well-developed… ah, talents.

It had not one thing to do with that.

Honest.

In any case, rather than following in Abigail’s footsteps and banking on her sheer competence with the standard spells to impress the examination committee, Hermione had decided to take a rather different tack.

Variety.

Oh, she had kept up some of her earlier routine. Her morning target practice with Harry had continued mostly unchanged, both because he had insisted and because she enjoyed spending time with her friend. The only difference was a recent switch from stunners to piercing spells for some reason he hadn’t bothered to share. It had been an odd change, but Hermione hadn’t been terribly bothered by it. Accuracy practice was accuracy practice, as far as she could tell, and since Abigail wasn’t there in the mornings for the younger girl to compare herself to, Hermione didn’t have any compelling reason to kick up a fuss.

For the rest, though, she would dedicate her time to learning as many spells as she could, so that when the time came for her NEWT practicals, she would overwhelm the examiners with her spectacular versatility.

It had seemed a decent choice. Hermione was not blessed with spectacular magical power as Harry was, nor was she particularly enamored of the idea of putting as much sweat into things as Abigail seemed to prefer. Rather, she was a smart girl with a prodigious memory who loved to read, and those were traits that fitted her chosen course perfectly.

And, if that course led to her spending a great deal of time researching obscure magics among her beloved, comforting, and ever reassuring books, rather than working hard, sweating, and putting herself in a position to stack up unfavorably against a girl five years her senior, then so much the better.

At the moment, Hermione was working her way through the first-year curriculum, spell by spell, looking up any and every equivalent she could find within the wealth of written references Harry had managed to accumulate. Along the way, she had learned twenty-seven distinct divination spells designed to help search through written material within a specified spatial volume, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. Using those, she had managed to locate four-hundred and fifty-seven distinct spells designed to perform roughly the same function as the basic light spell, the first one they had learned during the previous year.

Not bad for a week’s worth of work.

So far, Hermione had successfully learned to cast eighty-five of them, and she fully intended to master them all. They were low-impact, easy to cast spells, but, at the end of the day, the bushy-haired girl figured the sheer breadth of her repertoire would have to count for something. After this, she would move on to the basic levitation charm, then to other basic utility charms, and so on and so forth, so that, by the time NEWTs rolled around in five and a half more years, her range would be second to none.

Bending back to her work, the budding young witch smiled at the prospect. She was going to learn a tremendous amount of magic; she was certain she would enjoy the process thoroughly; and the end results would definitely be more impressive than Abigail’s excellent grasp of the basics.

In the face of that, what did it matter if her older friend was prettier than she was? the bushy-haired girl thought with a scowl. She was fine with that.

Honest.

4.3.13 Clandestine

“That’s everyone,” a sixth-year Gryffindor boy said, his firm voice ringing sharply in the dusty, normally abandoned classroom. He shot a hard look at a similarly aged boy in the blue and bronze trim of Ravenclaw. “Now I think it’s time you come clean about just what’s going on with our project.”

“Yeah! What did you do with our money?” another boy piped up angrily. “We gave you all that so we could get rid of Lockhart and the girls would go back to paying attention to us, but he’s still here, and the girls are still all a-flutter about the blond pillock!”

A cacophony of similar demands arose from the rest of the room. There were perhaps two dozen boys in attendance, hailing from every House but Slytherin. The age cohorts were not quite so evenly represented, as not a single boy there was younger than a fourteen.

“As you all know, I hired a private investigator from Knockturn over the winter break to investigate Professor Lockhart’s background,” the sixth year Ravenclaw addressed the inquisition.

“Yeah, yeah, we know! You told us that last time,” came an annoyed demand. “Why did you call this meeting, if that’s all you have to say?”

“I’m getting to it!” the Ravenclaw growled defensively. “Anyway, the investigator got back to me, and he found something! He suspects Lockhart used mind magic on people to cover something up!”

The room went silent for a beat.

“That’s it?” the first Gryffindor said incredulously. “You wasted all our money on that?”

“It was not wasted,” the Ravenclaw protested, sounding a little nervous in the face of an increasingly hostile crowd. “He thought it was important enough to forward a copy of this to Law Enforcement!”

He brandished a small stack of parchment as if it were a talisman to fend off the ire of his fellows.

“Let me see that,” an older Hufflepuff growled, stepping up to rip the parchment out of his hands. His fellows crowded around to see for themselves as he read it. The room fell silent again for a few minutes, broken only by the rustle of parchment.

“I guess that’s something, at least,” he acknowledged grudgingly, his compatriots nodded in reluctant agreement.

“Do you mind if I take a look at that?” came a question from someone sitting quietly at a desk near the door.

“Huh? Oh, sure,” the Hufflepuff said agreeably, absently handing the report off. “Now, what else do we need to do? I don’t want my investment to go to waste.”

“Yeah, that looked really suspicious,” a younger Ravenclaw piped up. “Maybe we should tell the Headmaster?”

“No!” the Ravenclaw who had hatched the scheme interrupted vociferously. “We just need to wait for the DMLE to do its thing. I don’t even want to think about how the staff would react to this. It’d be one thing if we had something solid, but just suspicions? Not happening!”

When one of his year-mates gave him a narrow-eyed look of suspicion, he hurriedly elaborated. “We hired a private eye to dig into the past of one of our teachers looking for something to get him fired. How do you think Snape would react to that?”

There was a round of reluctant nodding. Snape would make their lives unutterably miserable for that if he found out, if for no other reason than preemptive revenge for the possibility that they might do it to him in the future. To be honest, they couldn’t even really blame him.

Merlin knew they’d thought about doing it often enough.

“Just let it run its course, it’ll work out,” the Ravenclaw assured his fellows. “And don’t tell any of the staff, especially not Lockhart.”

“It had better work out,” the seventh year Hufflepuff warned him darkly, “or it’ll be on your head.”

The affirmative murmur throughout the room was not reassuring to the sixth year Ravenclaw who had arranged it all, and he sat quietly until the last of his co-conspirators filed out of the room, before letting out an explosive sigh.

“It had better turn out, or my seventh year is going to be mightily unpleasant.”

“Do you really think they’ll hold that much of a grudge?” the person sitting near the door asked curiously.

“At the price we paid?” the sixth year scoffed. “You bet your arse they will!”

“I see,” blond hair bobbed as the person nodded agreeably. “Well, I suppose you’ll just need to hope for the best then. Best of luck to you!”

“Thanks,” the sixth year said. “Um, can you pass me the…”

“Oh, certainly!” he handed the investigative report back to the teenager. “There you go. Have a nice day!”

The Ravenclaw nodded distractedly as he ambled out of the room.

“You too, Professor.”

4.3.14 Ruminations

It was a troubling development, Gilderoy Lockhart thought, still under his concealment charm.

An advanced variant of the common notice-me-not charm, his current choice induced a strong sense of ‘there’s nothing out of place here’ in anyone caught within the area it affected. It was a common tool in the obliviator’s toolbox, and it was a particular favorite of Lockhart’s. It did not prevent others from noticing the caster, a common property of other methods which made navigating crowds quite difficult. Rather, it made the caster seem completely unremarkable.

As he listened to the retreating steps of his student echoing in the deserted hallway, Gilderoy mused on the implications of what he had just learned. He hadn’t known what to expect going in, but he had never anticipated finding this.

To think, two dozen of his students had banded together in the interest of getting him fired, not because of his actions, not because they thought he was a poor teacher, but rather because the girls they were interested in apparently had crushes on him rather than the boys their age! Lockhart scoffed at the very idea. He certainly hadn’t done anything to encourage that sort of thing; they were children, for crying out loud, and his students besides!

The very idea...

Gilderoy shook his head in disgust. And the price they had paid! The blond dandy couldn’t help whistling at the memory of the price quoted on that cover letter. His students had pulled that much together? For this? He didn’t know whether to be impressed or appalled.

Had he been that much of a horn-dog at that age?

Blond locks swayed as the young professor dismissed that line of speculation. Whether he had been or not, he certainly had never hired a private investigator to dig up dirt on one of his professors. That was a new one in his experience. The real irony was that they could have just waited a few months and the problem would have fixed itself! Now there were going to be all sorts of problems to deal with.

Impatient brats.

Lockhart knew that the case against him, as presented in the report he had read, was far from airtight. There were too many gaps and alternate explanations for it to carry weight in court. Despite that, the former obliviator couldn’t help but admire the unnamed private eye’s work. The man had managed to make something out of one of Gilderoy’s own cover-ups, and he had some idea of just how difficult that sort of thing was.

The inconsistencies the man had latched onto were ones the former obliviator had left deliberately. To an experienced investigator, a perfectly uniform story screamed of manipulation: witness accounts were always a little bit spotty, and perfect agreement meant that they had rehearsed the story. Still, for the as-yet-unnamed private eye to have taken those deliberately spread crumbs and put together as much of the story as he had was a remarkable feat.

The man had accomplished something Lockhart would never have thought possible, and he didn’t know whether he wanted to shake the man’s hand in congratulations for his remarkable feat or punch him in the face for all the trouble that feat might cause him.

Speaking of trouble, the blond former obliviator now had to reconsider other potential outcomes that he had previously deemed impossible. The evidence presented wasn’t enough for a conviction, but it was probably enough to spark official interest. What if someone at the DMLE could dig up more evidence he hadn’t considered? Gilderoy was confident in his skills, but what if that confidence was misplaced?

That eventuality could get very messy, very quickly.

The blond man frowned. He had considered many times the possibility that his lies might be found out, that the elaborate house of cards might come tumbling down. In doing so, he had thought through the measures he would have to take should he be discovered. They were measures he did not like.

Not at all.

His dislike of those measures was, in fact, the main reason behind his attempt to become Harry Potter’s mentor rather than staying his previous course and running the risk of discovery by attempting to take credit for any other, more prominent, heroic incidents. The life of a fugitive was not a life that Gilderoy Lockhart wanted to live, but the life of a prisoner appealed to him even less. Now, both possibilities seemed all too real.

The footsteps of his students had long-since faded, and the former obliviator abruptly stood up, absently dispelling his concealment charm as he walked toward the door. He would have to make some preparations, he mused as he left the classroom. If the worst happened, having a few things in place beforehand would be invaluable; they might be the difference between freedom and captivity, or possibly between life and death.

Given the nature of Azkaban, the frigid, demon-infested hellhole that wizarding Britain used as a prison, Gilderoy wasn’t entirely sure which was the more terrifying prospect.

For now, Gilderoy would quietly prepare while laying low. It could just blow over with no further issue, after all. If so, the only cost would be a bit of time.

A bit of wasted time he could live with. Azkaban he could not.

What to do in that case?

If the DMLE did manage to find something substantial, they’d send aurors. His eyes narrowed as he ran the scenario in his head. Given the location, they’d likely try to disguise it as something else... something innocuous, both to avoid panic among the children and maintain control of the Ministry’s public image. Lockhart nodded as he rouded the corner and entered the main stairwell.

Yes, that was how he would have played it, were he in their position.

A Ministry official, probably from Education, would quietly request a meeting played off as some bureaucratic nothing in front of the children. When the time came, he would come accompanied by a few plainclothes aurors to make the arrest. Aurors rather than normal law enforcement would be overkill, to be sure, but they’d want to take him quietly, and that meant overwhelming force to make sure he couldn’t kick up a fuss. With him in custody and safely sequestered, the Ministry would have time to set the propaganda machine running to cover the its collective arse well before the trial. It would let them mitigate the impact of the scandal that would come from arresting a teacher they’d presumably vetted before hiring.

The blond dandy’s expression hardened as he considered his options. At least he didn’t have to worry about being disappeared rather than tried, cold comfort that it was. He was facing the Ministry, not the oligarchs; they’d come for him with officers rather than assassins. Dumbledore’s reforms had guaranteed that much, at least. Imprisonment would still mean Azkaban, though, and he shuddered at the thought of being locked in that place. In all honesty, the assassins might well be the kinder option. They were certainly the less frightening one.

At least assassins had the basic decency kill you, rather than give you to the dementors.

As he opened the door to his office and made his way to the attached apartment suite, Gilderoy shivered before deliberately shaking his head and pasting on his usual smile, attempting to dismiss the horrifying train of thought. If worse came to worst, he would just have to ensure he was ready to strike first, without hesitation. He’d only have one narrow window of opportunity.

He’d have to make it count.

 

4.4 Conclusion of the hunt

---

4.4.1 Living Vasili’s Dream

It was an uncharacteristically sunny morning on the streets of London, not that anyone could tell deep within the halls of Gringotts, the subterranean nature of which left conditions inside nearly constant no matter the outside weather. Severus Snape walked through the now-familiar halls on the way to his business partner’s office with purpose in his step. Along the way, he garnered subtle nods of acknowledgement from the guards, a common enough sight by now not to warrant further challenge beyond the one he had already gone through in the lobby.

“Aha! Master Snape come in! Come in, do,” Crackjaw Slackhammer greeted his grumpier than usual acquaintance in his customary manner as the man appeared at his office door in a billowing cloud of dark robes. The potions master grunted a wordless acknowledgement and took his usual seat.

“Your communication indicated a certain interest in establishing contact with the Confederacy quite uncommonly quickly,” the dapper goblin continued. “We at Gringotts do have some history of dealings with our neighbors across the Atlantic, so we may be able to be of assistance. Might I inquire as to your motives? Our approach will likely depend on your goals.”

The potions master nodded and answered with a question of his own. “Has my colleague kept you apprised of our efforts with the nexus project?”

“Master Flitwick has done so, indeed,” Slackhammer confirmed, taking his usual beverage from the tray his aide had brought unbidden. “Though I must admit I had been under the impression that there was much to be done in that vein on this side of the Atlantic before you would require travel abroad. This seems an oddly hasty scheduling choice.”

“If only we had been so lucky,” Snape sighed, pausing to take a sip of his tea. He had forgone his customary whiskey on account of the morning hour. “Unfortunately, our itinerary has been set by my colleague, Sybil Trelawney, who was quite insistent that the next site must be one located within the Confederacy’s territory. I had hoped for at least two or three years to prepare but needs must.”

International travel in the wizarding world was a hit-or-miss proposition. Unlike the non-magical world, in which diplomatic relations within the international community were generally sufficient to make such travel only moderately risky — downright safe, in many cases — diplomatic relations within the international magical community were… unreliable, to use an almost unreasonably charitable term.

‘Nonexistent’ would be a much more generally accurate assessment.

In the magical world, the traveler was directly and solely responsible for his own wellbeing while traveling, not only in obtaining the usual food and lodging, but also in navigating the various pitfalls of the foreign societies and governments he encountered along the way. As a rule there were no embassies or treaties to smooth over misunderstandings or serve as a safe haven, so international travel in the magical world was generally a major undertaking for the traveler, normally involving months or even years of preparation, much of which was spent cultivating local contacts via correspondence and third-party introduction to serve as a safety net and rudimentary intelligence network to help avoid any local unpleasantness.

A few months of preparation for a first visit to a new polity was a very tight schedule, indeed.

“I see,” the dapper goblin nodded, stroking his pointed chin thoughtfully as he considered the issue. He was familiar with the name Trelawney. When a seeress set a deadline, it was generally best not to quibble about inconvenience; the alternative was usually much worse. “I am given to understand that such activities are rather noticeable?”

“To say the least,” the potions master confirmed. “Our last attempt at Stonehenge was well contained, but the event at Avebury was apparent to anyone with functioning magical senses. Given Sybil’s insistence, I rather expect this one to have more in common with Avebury than with Stonehenge.”

Slackhammer nodded, acknowledging the point. “In that case, I would suggest approaching the Grand Council directly and presenting your case openly. If you are going to cause such a kerfuffle within their territory, it would be best to explain beforehand.”

“So, a formal approach is preferable to secrecy, then?” the dark man asked.

“For the Confederacy, certainly,” Slackhammer confirmed. “They tend to be reasonable when approached properly, yet quite deadly when riled. A stealthy approach would likely trigger a preemptively lethal response, given their ongoing conflict with their southern neighbors.”

“In that case, would Gringotts be willing to provide us with an introduction?” Severus requested. “You mentioned already-established ties.”

“We do have some such ties, mostly based in mutually profitable trade, though we have also recently opened up something of a joint humanitarian venture. Gringotts would certainly be willing to provide an introduction in aid of your eminently necessary cause,” the goblin affirmed. “Where is the artifact located? It would be best to curry support for your efforts among the tribes closest to the area in question beforehand. My own contacts are mostly centered around the Great Lakes, where we have been resettling the unfortunates Mr. Potter’s railroad has been helpfully shipping partway to Glasgow, but various of my colleagues do business all across the continent.”

“I believe it to be near the Pacific coast, in the muggle provice of British Columbia,” the sallow-faced man said, retrieving a map from his pocket with the appropriate location marked in red.

Slackhammer examined the chart and nodded agreeably. “The Salish, then... I know just the gob to approach.” He turned back to his guest with a serious look, “Master Snape, have you considered the logistics of this venture?”

“How so?” the potions master asked.

“I am given to understand that Mr. Potter’s presence is critical to dealing with these devices,” the dapper goblin stated. “Am I correct in that understanding?”

“You are,” Snape confirmed.

“Have you worked out a method to convey him to your final destination?” Slackhammer asked.

“My tentative plan was to book passage on a non-magical aircraft to cross the ocean and then secure local ground transportation to take us to our destination,” the dour man explained.

“And how did you plan to feed Mr. Potter along the way?” the goblin asked delicately.

“I had intended to work with you to arrange a location and supply dump near our final destination. He would then be able to eat upon our arrival.” Snape said, before revising his statement on seeing the dapper goblin wince. “I take it that is unfeasible?”

“I believe you are underestimating the distances involved, Master Snape,” Slackhammer explained. “A meeting with the Great Council will take place at the Great Longhouse, located on the southern shore of Lake Erie, thus, you will be flying into Erie, Pennsylvania. It will be easy enough to arrange to feed Mr. Potter during your time with the Great Council, but you will be traveling overland nearly three thousand miles. Using the methods available, essentially the non-magical highway system, that means nearly three days of continuous travel. Assuming you stop to sleep, that will stretch the time to the better part of a week.”

The potions master scowled at Slackhammer’s assessment. “I do not look forward to attempting to power them, but would it be possible to secure portkeys for the domestic portion of the travel?”

“Quite impossible, I am afraid,” the dapper goblin immediately denied. “All forms of magical travel are heavily restricted within the Confederacy due to their ongoing hostilities with the Aztec Empire to the south, portkeys included. In fact, their entire territory is warded against all forms of magical teleportation.”

“How did they manage that?” Snape raised a dark eyebrow in surprise. “An effective ward over such a massive territory would be a monumental undertaking.”

“Not quite so much as one might think, in fact,” the goblin explained. “The tribes were quite clever in their approach. Rather than using the traditional warding methods which block magical teleportation, they simply warded in such a way as to actively disrupt it. One is not prevented from apparating or portkeying within Confederacy territory, the wards simply disrupt the process sufficiently to ensure that any such attempts are messily fatal. The warders tell me that it is much more energy efficient.”

“That is rather irritatingly inconvenient,” the sallow-faced man scowled, trying to imagine a magical world where even the basic convenience of apparation was impossible. “What lunacy possessed them to do such a thing?”

“The lunacy of their neighbors to the south,” Slackhammer replied dryly. “The Aztecs have ever been wont to raid their neighbors for sacrifices, both to supply their twisted religion and as fodder for their magical endeavors. The only thing keeping them out of Confederate territory is the assiduous application of force of arms. I understand the tribes consider being limited to non-magical transportation methods a small price to pay for keeping the bloodthirsty cannibals the Aztecs call priests and their unnervingly effective blood mages at arm’s length.”

“Fair enough,” the dark man allowed before venturing, “Perhaps a second flight to cover the distance quickly?”

“Non-magical air travel is restricted just as heavily, for much the same reasons,” the goblin countered. “You will fly into Erie International not only due to its proximity to the Great Longhouse, but also because it is the only destination at which the detection of magical persons aboard a plane will not automatically prompt the locals to dispatch a kill squad to greet you on the tarmac. After the Pueblo incident, that rule is ironclad.”

Severus raised a questioning eyebrow.

“In 1986, Aztec intelligence managed to acquire scheduling information for one such exception early enough to take advantage,” Slackhammer shook his head sadly as he explained, “They arranged to charter a private flight to the same airport at the same time in order to slip a war party through the temporary gap in security. Once they stole past the security cordons, the Aztecs proceeded to slaughter over seven hundred men, women, and children before Confederate war mages were able to hunt them down and exterminate the lot.”

“I see. I had not realized tensions were so high,” the sallow-faced man frowned, showing no further reaction to the tale of wanton slaughter. “Perhaps if we were to rely on Mr. Potter himself for transportation? If we stuck to night flights at high altitude and avoided cities…”

“You would run afoul of the nonmagical military in that case,” Slackhammer interjected. “The nations involved pay very close attention to their air traffic, and Mr. Potter’s size and metallic composition mean that he will show on their detection grids like a beacon.”

Snape scowled. “Would concealment spells eliminate the problem?”

“Not the standard ones,” the dapper goblin shook his head, “though that might be a useful avenue for Mr. Potter to research in the future. I imagine it would simplify travel arrangements immensely.”

“I shall have to suggest it to him, then,” the potions master said, “though that does little to help our current conundrum.”

Snape fell silent for a time, the ticking on Slackhammer’s mechanical office clock loud in the comparative quiet, before admitting defeat. “I must admit that I am at a loss on how to proceed. What would you suggest?”

“I would suggest that you carry your supplies with you, Master Snape,” Slackhammer suggested.

“You are suggesting that we carry enough to feed that wretched lizard for the entire trip?” Severus confirmed, wide eyed. “I have seen the vehicles normally arranged to deliver his usual supplies; are you suggesting that we arrange to hire a convoy?”

“On the contrary,” the dapper goblin clarified, “I am suggesting a single vehicle fitted with expanded cargo compartments. The vehicle will already be manned by magical persons, so you are not quite so limited in that regard as bulk freight systems would be.”

“That is true, but the required expansion coefficient to fit that much material into an automobile would be enormous! And that is without even considering the required expansion for passenger space and normal luggage,” the dark man countered. “Even for a group containing wizards of my colleagues’ quality, supporting the strain would leave us lucky to cover fifty miles per day! Covering three thousand miles would take months.”

“That is true for a standard automobile,” Slackhammer acknowledged easily. “However, should you lease or purchase a significantly larger vehicle, the ratio would be more manageable.”

“What sort of vehicle would you suggest?” the potions master asked. “I suppose one of those articulated lorries might work, but if I recall, they require a particular sort of license to drive legally, presumably because they are quite difficult to drive.”

“That is an accurate assessment, to the best of my knowledge,” Slackhammer confirmed, “however, I had a different sort of vehicle in mind. I know of one clan among the Sioux nation which specializes in magically adapted recreational vehicles, and I am certain that one of their larger models could be loaded with enough supplies to keep Mr. Potter fed along the way while also serving as transportation and housing for your entire party.”

“A recreational vehicle?” Snape queried. “I do not believe I have encountered the term before.”

“Such vehicles are also known as motor-homes,” the goblin clarified. “One of the larger models is essentially a mid-sized flat on wheels.”

The potions master narrowed his eyes in consideration, running through the expansion coefficients and power estimations in his head, before nodding slowly as he found that they came to a workable conclusion.

“That sounds promising; how shall we proceed?”

4.4.2 Deliberations

As the potions master and his goblin business partner set about the serious task of planning the dour man’s first major road-trip, another meeting was taking place on the other side of the world in a fortified manor home overlooking the sprawling cityscape of Kowloon from its perch on the western slope of the eponymous Kowloon Peak.

Shafts of late afternoon sunlight streamed in through the square windows set in the gently curved outer wall of a sitting room as a pair of young girls dressed in simple light gray garb — a traditional ruqun, with a long-sleeved wrap-around blouse of a lightweight fabric tucked into a similarly structured skirt and tied with a contrasting black-dyed sash — cleared the intricately carved wooden table which had been set with a light evening meal. The girls, perhaps twelve years of age, were sufficiently similar in appearance to pass as identical twins even under close inspection.

If the inspector had recently visited Hogwarts and met the second year Ravenclaw students, he would have recognized the look immediately… and revised his estimate to say they were identical triplets.

Four much older women sat around the table on intricately carved dark wooden chairs as they waited for the remains of their meal to be cleared. Their gray hair was pinned up into ornate buns with colorful lacquered needles and wearing much more elaborate variants of the same traditional ruqun, each dominated by a different vibrant color in sharp contrast to the light gray of the servant girls. When the girls had finished and left the sitting room with only a deferent bow to their elders to mark their departure, the most richly dressed of the old women, her garments done up in a vivid marigold color and accented with turquoise trim and jewelry spoke.

“We have received our agent’s report from the school of the English barbarians. She awaits further orders,” she began, snapping her fingers imperiously.

The snap signaled another pair of young women to enter the room carrying trays holding a familiar set of dossiers which had graced the table in the Ravenclaw common room a number of weeks before. These girls were slightly older than the previous pair, perhaps in their late teenaged years, and were dressed in a rich vermilion rather than gray, yet they were still similar enough in physical appearance to pass for twins. They were also similar enough to the earlier girls to pass easily as sisters. As the red-clad girls carefully transferred the paperwork onto the recently cleared table, the old woman continued speaking.

“You have had the chance to review the relevant materials for each of your areas of responsibility, and I have been informed that the clan laboratory has returned its analysis of the accompanying genetic samples,” the marigold-clad chief matriarch began. “What have you concluded?”

“Nothing presents a clear advantage,” one of her colleagues, done up in the pale green of celadon, concluded. “My technicians have identified no new heritable magical talents among the samples. Even the one that had the talent for plants,” she gestured to a dossier topped with the picture of a somewhat doughy-looking boy with muddy blond hair, “proved to be a dead end. His botanical talents are a personal idiosyncracy, not a genetic one.”

“What of the missing sample?” the third old woman, dressed in a bold orange, asked, indicating another packet featuring a face topped with shaggy black hair and set with vividly green eyes that almost seemed to glow even through the photographic medium. “Our agent reported some rather impressive feats, feats that would seem to indicate good prospects.”

“It would be a risky gamble at best,” the celadon woman shook her head. “That sort of towering magical strength is almost always a freak occurrence; it never breeds true.”

“And the physical strength?” orange challenged.

“Almost certainly a result of the subject’s magic acting subconsciously,” celadon countered with a dismissive wave. “That sort of secondary effect is well documented.”

“And the linguistic talent?” the orange-clad woman countered.

“That is a possibility,” the woman in celadon allowed, “though our technicians suspect it to also be a secondary magical effect. There are no hints of such linguistic talents in the subject’s family history, so I would judge it a gamble on very long odds.”

“Are we then left with choosing one of the targets simply to provide additional genetic variation for the line?” the orange woman huffed irritably. “That seems a terrible waste of our investment!”

That prompted sounds of annoyed agreement from all around the table.

“If we simply seek to add genetic variation and robustness, then we hardly need to spend one of our agents on the task. Just look to the failures,” the woman continued, gesturing to the two teenaged girls in red who, after delivering the documents, had retreated to stand diffidently by the wall. “Nearly half have genetics good enough for our purposes if we seek simple genetic variation. Our agents were made for greater things!”

“I had intended to recommend withdrawing our agent from her current assignment and send her to new hunting grounds entirely,” the celadon elder interjected, interrupting her orange counterpart’s swelling tirade. “A stay among the Malagasy, perhaps? I have my suspicions about the high average magical strength among that population, given its pervasiveness.”

“It is almost certainly an environmental factor,” the chief matriarch interrupted with a sharp gesture of her marigold-clad arm. “Environmental factors drive much of the expression of magical strength, as you well know. That is why I ensure every main clan member is conceived and born in the birthing chambers under the mountain where we can artificially elevate magic levels.”

“I had considered that, but I felt the chance to be worth the…” the green-clad elder attempted to justify herself only to be interrupted again.

“Consider the consequences of failure in each case,” the marigold-clad woman commanded. “If you are wrong, as you most likely are, then we will be left with the same choice we have now, only it will be among the dark-skinned Malagasy barbarians rather than among the light-skinned European barbarians.”

“Yes, that is the case,” celadon allowed. “How is that worse than our current situation?”

“The clan histories tell us that it will take at least seven generations to breed the line back to acceptable standards of beauty subsequent to such a coupling,” the marigold-clad elder explained, gesturing to the nearly identical porcelain features of one of the red-clad teenaged girls standing impassively against the wall. “A European match would take barely three.”

“I see,” the green-clad woman nodded, “but could we not simply move on once more to a new location?”

“I remind you that our agent does not have an infinite shelf life,” the fourth old woman, dressed in a rich purple, spoke for the first time. “She will be reaching the end of her childbearing years within four decades. Even with her ideal genetics and the clan magics weighting the process in our favor, conception is still a roll of the dice. She will need to carry at least a dozen pregnancies to term to be comfortably assured of picking up whatever desirable genetics she finds, and that means she must start by age thirty at the latest, preferably by twenty to account for potential complications. Moving to a new location and reestablishing her cover even once would push that deadline.”

“So, we are stuck with the current hand?” the orange-clad, elder verified, gesturing to the dossiers still spread on the table between them.

“Yes,” the purple-clad woman confirmed.

“In that case, our chances of a favorable outcome are maximized by sending her after the missing sample, are they not?” the woman in orange suggested, gesturing again to the photograph of the green-eyed boy on the table. “At best, we acquire the magical and physical strength he has shown as well as the linguistic talent our agent described. At worst, we would accomplish the secondary goal of acquiring additional genetic diversity with no additional benefit. The other options can only accomplish the secondary goal.”

“No matter how long the odds,” she pointed towards the green-eyed picture one more, “that is the most profitable gamble available. It is obvious.”

“True,” the celadon-clad elder acknowledged. “Even long odds on something are better than sure odds on nothing.”

“There is another issue to consider,” the marigold-clad woman who had initiated the discussion broke in once more. “That is the one most likely to yield beneficial results, but how are we to get him to go along with things?”

“He is a man, or he will be with a few years to mature,” the purple-clad woman waved her hand dismissively. “Men are easy to control; our agent will be up to the task, and in the event that she proves insufficient, we have additional resources.”

She gestured with a purple-clad arm to the pair of vermillion-clad girls standing diffidently by against the wall.

“True, as far as it goes,” the marigold woman nodded, “and that would be our ideal course of action, were the target not also entangled in politics. He is the Head of a prominent clan, its last member, as well.”

“Careless of them,” celadon sniffed. “Very irresponsible to allow things to be pared down so far.”

“Quite,” the elder in marigold acknowledged, “yet the target is nonetheless quite prominent in that part of the world. Should he to disappear, or even should the line of succession be imperiled, there may well be trouble.”

“Bah, the English are no threat to us here!” orange scoffed. “They could not cooperate enough to launch a campaign across their English Channel, much less across the globe...”

“Be that as it may,” the matriarch interrupted her subordinate’s growing tirade, “he also seems to be quite valuable to the goblin nation.”

“Suddenly, I see the appeal of going with a lower value target,” the woman dressed in orange immediately changed her tune. “The goblins are an entirely different story. Still, it seems a shame to waste our agent on such a thing. Perhaps she could pursue a genuine marriage?”

“And how would we benefit from that?” the celadon-clad woman demanded. “We are not a matchmaking service! We need control of the children if we are to further the development of the line.”

“Perhaps a second or third child,” the orange-clad woman offered weakly.

“Unlikely,” the woman in celadon scoffed. “And there is also the risk posed by the target himself. The same strength that potentially makes him valuable to us also makes him dangerous to cross. Consider what he might be able to accomplish if driven by enough rage and desperation.”

All four elders fell silent at that mental image. If the boy was anything like the other examples of such wizards in recent history, then he could likely bring the Clan to its collective knees with the proper motivation.

“There are ways, other options we have used in the past,” the purple-clad woman offered carefully, “and we can explore them if need be. For now, we need simply decide which target to pursue. The specifics can come later.”

As her three compatriots began arguing the various merits of each position, the chief matriarch, in her marigold finery, rose from her chair and walked over to the outer window overlooking the city below to consider the issue.

The green-eyed boy clearly represented the best choice, but the risks were high, both of failure and of complications. The other choices represented a clear and certain loss of the effort put into producing their agent, but at least they didn’t come with much risk of complications. Which was the best choice for the Clan?

Nonmagical genetics were complicated enough without including magic in the mix, but magic added entirely new layers of complexity. Many magical traits were incompatible with each other, or even with certain seemingly innocuous combinations of non-magical traits. Arranging to reliably incorporate magical traits from a single donor was thus quite an undertaking, and the Clan had developed a specialized line whose genetics were tailored specifically for that purpose. That line had been groomed for centuries to produce girls optimized for the capture of new magical genetics which would then be incorporated into the Clan’s ruling family over generations.

A fully realized agent like Su Li who had precisely the right genetics to almost guarantee success was a rare specimen, the sort that came along once every few generations. The matriarch detested the idea of wasting such a valuable asset, yet the choices seemed poor either way.

The safe bet, which would be a near-complete waste of an agent, or the risky one that might succeed at long odds yet carried with it the very real danger of retaliation should their efforts be ill-received. It was a difficult decision to make.

If only there was something to tip the balance, some assured payoff that would make the risky course more palatable.

She sighed, tired, jaded eyes flickering as they scanned over the cityscape below illuminated brilliantly by the setting sun, until the sight of one neighborhood in particular sparked an insight, a reminder of one of the particulars of the Clan’s eugenics program that often went overlooked. Just a few miles away stood the densely packed warren of tenement houses and human filth known as Kowloon Walled City. Run by a Triad loosely allied with the Clan, it was also home to several of the Clan’s more successful... business ventures.

While the most obvious results of the Clan’s ongoing breeding program were the successful attempts such as their agents, they were not the only valuable product the Clan’s efforts produced. The breeding program which had produced Su Li and her ilk were highly selective. Combining the ideals of appearance, personality, intelligence, magical ability, and thaumogenic susceptibility into a single individual was no small task, and as with any highly selective process, successes were rare.

The corollary of that, of course, was that failures were common, and while the failures of this process were not useful for the originally intended purpose, they were not without value. It was that value which made those... establishments very profitable, indeed, and it was a good reminder that there were more angles to consider than simply magical traits alone.

Even as her compatriots continued to argue, the marigold-clad matriarch turned back to the table and her gaze locked onto one of the dossiers lying there for a moment before gesturing imperiously to one of the red-clad girls still standing quietly by the wall. As the young woman approached, the other old women fell silent, looking on curiously.

A quick flick of her marigold-clad wrist had the matriarch’s wand in hand, and another practiced twitch cast a glamour on the docile girl she had called over.

Reaching out with a suddenly empty hand, the elderly woman firmly grasped the younger woman’s chin and turned her head this way and that, examining the overall effect the girl’s now intensely green eyes had on her appearance before nodding slowly in approval.

Yes… yes, that would do nicely.

“Ah! I’d not considered that,” her celadon-clad peer chimed in, catching on to her line of thought. She quickly consulted the dossier. “The target’s mother had the same eyes, according to records, so that is almost certainly heritable.”

The matriarch smiled as she looked into the alluring, currently emerald eyes of the vermillion-clad girl before her.

It was decided.

4.4.3 Be very, very quiet

On the other side of the world, a very much larger green eye blinked as it peered over the shoulder of a perplexed centaur.

The previous day, one of the centaur patrols had come across a situation they had no precedent for dealing with, and so, they brought word of it back to their leader and dumped the situation in his hands, as they were trained to do. Unfortunately for Bane, the leader in question, he hadn’t known what to make of the situation either.

In the normal course of things for a centaur clan, that would have meant ignoring the situation until it either went away or made itself impossible to ignore and forced them into doing something, probably something poorly thought out and ineffective. Yet in a convenient turn of events, the course of things was not normal for the Black Woods Clan. The clan was in firmly allied with the Great Wyrm, and that opened up a second option for the befuddled clan heir.

And so, Bane had taken a leaf from his own days as a lowly scout and dumped the mess in the Great Wyrm’s metaphorical lap, which led to the current situation.

Bane had guided the Great Wyrm carefully to a vantage point where even the massive dragon could take a look at the anomaly from within the cover of the forest, and then the centaur had gingerly drawn aside the last layer of shrubbery to reveal the scene that had left him and his scouts so puzzled.

“Is that a car?” the dragon asked, barely managing to keep his voice down to some semblance of a whisper. “What’s it doing here?”

“It looks the part, indeed, Great One,” Bane nodded affirmatively, keeping a weather eye on the dirty, mangled-looking vehicle. It might have been blue at one point, but it was now covered with so much dirt that it was hard to tell. “Yet while it seems quite similar in form to the devices that have brought several of your esteemed visitors to these woods, it does not behave in the same fashion.”

“What do you mean?” Harry frowned as he took a closer look. “It doesn’t seem to be doing anything other than sit there right now.”

“Aye, it is quiet at present, but watch the change when it catches sight of us,” Bane instructed the Great Wyrm. Then, putting words to action, he stepped forward, deliberately rustling the leaf litter and snapping a half-buried branch.

The change was as immediate as it was startling. The clearly much-abused vehicle roared to life, its few still-intact lamps flaring brightly as it spun in place to face the sound, an occurrence that revealed another, more pressing maintenance issue for the poor vehicle. Its left front wheel splayed out at an odd angle, the axle obviously having broken at some point. The other front wheel had managed to hook itself over a tree stump, which allowed the rear drive wheels to pivot the car, yet it obviously wouldn’t be moving anywhere else any time soon.

“I don’t see a driver in there, and I don’t smell one either,” the young dragon observed after a quick sniff. “Do you?”

“Nay, Great One, and that is the oddest thing about this whole business! I was under the impression that such devices were not alive, yet that thing,” the centaur pointed to the broken-down vehicle pulling off a good impression of a wolf caught in a hunter’s trap, “behaves as if it were a wounded animal!”

Following his guide’s example, Harry stepped forward into view, and as his scaly bulk was revealed to the oddly animated car, the thing’s horn let out one, somehow startled-sounding beep and then went absolutely still. Where before it had seemed a wounded wolf caught in a trap, now it seemed a terrified rabbit on the verge of panicking itself to death.

“Huh, you’re right,” the young dragon marveled. “It really does act like an animal! They always do that when they see me.”

Bane merely nodded, and Harry turned back to looking at the obviously terrified vehicle in curiosity for a few moments as the silence stretched on awkwardly.

“Um, so now that we’ve established that,” Harry began uncertainly. “What did you want me to do about it? I mean it doesn’t seem to be bothering anyone over here, really.”

“If it acts as an animal, then I expect we should treat it as one,” Bane offered, more confident now that authority had agreed with him, and he had a proper frame of reference to judge his course of action. “And right now, it is a wounded animal in great pain and unable to move. I am given to understand that you consume its kind regularly?”

“Yeah,” the young dragon nodded his great head in acknowledgement. “I do, but I’ve never seen one that acted like this before.” He frowned in thought, “I wonder why it’s doing that?”

“When encountering a prey animal in such a situation, there is only one moral response,” the centaur opined.

“What’s that?” Harry asked.

“There is no reason to prolong its suffering,” the experienced hunter explained. “You should kill it quickly to put it out of its misery, then eat it so it does not die in vain, just as if it were a deer in a similar situation.”

“Really?” Harry raised a scaly eye ridge. “What if it belongs to somebody?”

“Then they should be grateful that you ended its torment kindly,” Bane nodded firmly. “Just be quick about it.”

“Well, okay,” Harry said dubiously, picking his way carefully over to the now-trembling vehicle.

“You know, I wonder if this is an animation charm or something? It’s so lifelike!” the young dragon mused as he peered in the windows in a final check to make certain no one was inside the odd car. “Hey! Maybe it’s something like Donald, only you know, an animal rather than a person? I wonder if he might know?”

“Just finish it off already, Great One,” the centaur said with some exasperation. “Can you not see how terrified the poor thing is?”

Harry could see that indeed, and so, feeling a tad sheepish, he did so, ending the unfortunate situation with a single, massive bite and a cacophonous crunching of steel and glass. Two additional bites and a bit of chewing removed the evidence of the whole sordid affair.

As he ambled back over towards his centaur damsel’s father, the young dragon frowned as a thought occurred to him.

“Hey, Mr. Bane?”

“What is it, Great One?”

“If that was so obviously the right thing to do, how come you waited to get me rather than taking care of it right away yourself?”

4.4.4 Good intentions

The brightly-lit Receiving Hall of the Ministry of Magic, an offshoot of the underground facility’s main lobby set up as the only room in the facility which allowed magical transportation in or out, flashed with green light as one of the massive fireplaces that lined the hall flared up briefly, heralding the arrival of Griselda Marchbanks. The elderly woman straightened up from her arrival with a satisfied smile, gave a polite nod to the bored-looking attendant, and set out for her office.

She was freshly arrived from her latest discreet attempt at tracking down a couple of willing assistants to help out at Hogwarts, an attempt which had just borne fruit. It had taken longer than she had hoped, with many false-starts along the way, but she had finally managed to round up a couple of old friends to help out at Hogwarts. Both had retired from the auror corps in recent years. One had previously worked as a trainer and had retired to open a woodworking shop of all things, while the other had been a rank-and-file member of the corps and now worked part time as a private self-defense teacher.

Both were skilled teachers, and both were currently reviewing copies of the required syllabus for the Defense program. By the end of the week Griselda figured that they ought to be well prepared for the task, which ought to be just in time for the actual meeting with Lockhart. Between the two of them, they ought to be able to straighten the man out well enough to salvage the children’s education.

“Madame,” her secretary greeted her as she entered the department offices of the Examination Authority. “Did everything go well?”

“Quite well,” the elderly witch confirmed with a satisfied nod. “Both of my acquaintances are available to join me for a visit to Hogwarts later this week. Have you learned when Mr. Lockhart will be free for a meeting?”

There was no need to interrupt classes and make a big, embarrassing mess of things. That sort of thing would serve no one.

“Yes,” her secretary confirmed, flipping back through a small notebook and examining her earlier notes, “he should be free… ah!” The woman looked up at her supervisor, “Which day did you say you planned to visit?”

“My contacts were available Friday afternoon,” Griselda informed her.

“Friday,” she confirmed, turning back to her notebook. “Per the schedule Minerva forwarded us at the beginning of the term, he is available… all day?” The secretary’s eyes widened, and her jaw went a little slack. “Wow! I wonder how he managed that?”

“Perhaps I can ask him for you during the meeting,” the elderly Head of the Wizarding Examination Authority said wryly. Her secretary snapped back to attention at the change. “In any event, since he ought to be free, I believe we will aim for four o’clock on Friday,” Griselda said with a nod. “That should give him plenty of time to wrap up his business for the day before we interrupt.”

“Shall I floo ahead to confirm a visit?” the secretary asked.

The elderly witch considered the idea for a moment before shaking her head in the negative. “No, Albus will likely be taking his lunch now, I will call personally closer to the time. Thank you for your assistance.”

“Of course, Madame,” the woman said with a nod before turning back to her papers.

Griselda walked on to enter her personal office and sighed with relief as she sat in the comfortable chair at her desk. It had been a long time coming, but she had arranged everything, now all that remained was the actual visit.

Hopefully, the famous author would be open to well-intentioned advice. If he proved to be the difficult sort, the visit might end up rather unpleasant.

She supposed she’d find out on Friday afternoon.

4.4.5 Until proven guilty

Several floors away in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Amelia Bones looked up from her seemingly bottomless inbox at the sound of a knock on her office door.

“Enter,” she commanded, setting her work aside for a moment.

“Madame Bones,” her secretary, Beverly, greeted her as the woman opened her door. “I have a report from Investigations regarding the anonymous Lockhart tip we received a while ago.”

“Hmm,” Amelia frowned for a moment as she tried to call to mind the tip in question. “Ah! Yes, I remember now. And what is their recommendation?”

“The Office recommends against pursuing the matter,” she summarized even as she handed the report to her boss. “They do not believe they can win such a case with the evidence available.”

“That is disappointing,” the Director said, cracking open the report folder to peruse the executive summary. “What was missing?”

“Clear proof of motive,” Beverly explained. “The evidence in the report looks damning at first glance, but it is all circumstantial. Our people can think of at least five different defenses, ranging from one that could argue the whole thing down to a very minor case of tax fraud all the way through ones that could explain the whole thing away and leave Lockhart looking like a folk hero, based on some of the things they found in a preliminary check into his financial records. With what we have now, at best we’d get him on a hundred galleon fine for misreported income; at worst, we’d look like the villains of the piece, and daft ones at that.” Beverly shook her head, “Prosecution’s a losing proposition at the moment. We need firmer evidence.”

“I see,” Amelia acknowledged, and indeed she did see as she read the summary of the findings for herself. The report cited records of repeated payments to persons at the sites of his exploits that could be spun as either charitable assistance for those he had already saved once, or possibly as royalty payments for the publishing rights to a story.

“Those payments would muddy the waters in any case we could bring,” Amelia sighed, exasperated. “Even if we could prove he obliviated the people involved, it would be hard to prove they hadn’t agreed to it beforehand, not when they’re getting paid handsomely under the table.”

She closed the folder and set it aside for later filing, instructing her secretary, “Let the relevant people know to be on the lookout for anything new in the case, but aside from that, we’ll let this one go for now. We’ve got more important things to deal with.”

As Beverly nodded and left, Amelia looked over at a book she kept in a prominent place on her side table. In it were listed four hundred and sixty-three of those more important things, names of people she suspected to have been captured and sold into slavery. And those were only the ones she had been able to link to names. There were thousands more for which she didn’t even have that much.

Any one of those took precedence over what appeared to be a case of fraud at worst, especially one they couldn’t prove.

4.4.6 On the nature of folk

Nearly a week had passed since Harry had encountered the odd automobile in the woods, and the young dragon had finally managed to arrange a meeting to discuss the questions the encounter had raised. Thus, just after lunch on Friday, Harry found himself walking once more down a seldom-used hallway that he had visited only once before, on his way to visit the only piece of haberdashery he counted as a friend.

“Welcome, Mr. Potter!” the Hat’s distinctive voice greeted him warmly as soon as the currently human-shaped dragon opened the door to the Hat’s warded parlor.

“Hi, Mr. Donald!” Harry returned the greeting in kind.

“It seems your sense of timing has improved; it has only been half a year since your last visit, rather than more than a full one,” Donald said with dry humor. “What brings you to see me today?”

“Well, Bane showed me this thing in the woods last weekend…” Harry began, only for the Hat to interrupt.

“Take a moment to put me on, Mr. Potter,” Donald said in a long-suffering tone. “It will save us both a great deal of hassle.”

“Right,” the young dragon said sheepishly, quickly following the Hat’s suggestion. “Sorry, I always forget we can do that.”

“Hmm, I see,” the Sorting Hat hummed to itself, now no longer audible outside Harry’s head. “I believe I am up to speed on things once again. Proceed.”

“Right. So anyway,” Harry began, “you know the thing with the car that was acting like it was alive?”

“Yes, what of it?”

“Well, I was wondering why it was acting like it was, since as far as I know automobiles aren’t supposed to do that,” he explained, “and then I remembered hats aren’t supposed to act like you do, either, and that seemed a little similar, so I thought you might be able to explain what was going on with that.”

“Am I truly so similar to a base animal in your eyes, Mr. Potter?” the Hat asked in a mock-offended tone. “I had no idea you thought so little of me.”

“No!” the young dragon hurried to explain, missing the teasing undertone. “I was just thinking that since you were a Hat that acted alive, and it was an automobile that…” he trailed off as the Hat’s warm laughter filled his head.

“Not to worry, Mr. Potter,” Donald reassured him, “I was simply having a spot of fun. As it happens, while I am uncertain of the precise origins of the vehicle you encountered, I can hazard a guess as to the broad strokes of how it came about.”

“How do you think it happened?” Harry asked eagerly, his momentary worry immediately forgotten with the Hat’s reassurance.

“It has to do with the nature of magic,” the sentient headgear began. “At its most basic form, magic adheres to purpose. That is to say, free magic — magic that is not already bound to a purpose — will tend to enhance whatever purpose it finds nearby. I believe you were instructed in this during your basic charms curriculum?”

“Yep,” Harry said with an affirmative nod, causing Donald to sway on his perch. “I remember that lesson.”

“One important consequence of that tendency arises in very long-running or very powerful spells,” the Hat continued after his conversation partner stilled. “Despite being constructed of magic, a spell itself has a purpose, and free magic will tend to try to enhance it just as it would any other. This has several consequences. For one, it means that enchantments will gain strength over time, for better or for worse…”

“You must be really strong after all this time then, right, Mr. Donald?” Harry interjected. “I mean, you’ve been around Hogwarts for like a thousand years now, right? And there’s lots of free magic around here.”

“After a fashion, I suppose,” the Hat allowed. “Though I should point out that the supposed ‘strength’ of my enchantments would only come into play should they be able to directly contest something, which they cannot by their nature. The magics of which I am composed simply record and process information before regurgitating an answer. The only thing they could contest would be a direct attack on the spells themselves, an attempt to disenchant me or corrupt my purpose as it were. Though, that leads into the second consequence of such enhancements.”

“What’s that?” Harry asked.

“Assuming it is durable enough to survive, the more magic a spell is exposed to, the more idiosyncrasies it will collect,” the Hat explained. “Essentially, it means that the older a spell is, and thus the more magic it is exposed to, the more lifelike it will act, regardless of its actual purpose. It is commonly referred to as the tendency of magic to beget life.”

“Why?”

“The technical term for it is — silly as it sounds — teleological fuzz,” Donald chuckled. “Can you guess what it means?”

“Well, ‘telos’ means ‘purpose’ in Greek, so it’s probably something about that,” the young dragon frowned thoughtfully. “I’m not sure what to make of the ‘fuzz’ bit; how would that fit together with ‘purpose’ anyway?”

“Think of ‘fuzz’ in this context as little extraneous bits that stick out from the main body,” the Hat prompted. “As if you had dropped a piece of candy on the ground and it picked up various debris.”

Harry’s currently human-shaped eyes widened, “You mean it’s little bits of ‘purpose’ that got stuck onto the main one? How would that even happen? I mean, it’s not like there are ‘purposes’ lying all over everywhere, are there?”

“Actually, there are, after a fashion,” Donald corrected. “The world is full of such, and life is the principal source of most of them. What is a living creature, after all, if not a collection of various bits and bobs bound together in a common purpose?”

The young dragon nodded slowly as he processed the idea. “I suppose that makes sense,” he allowed, “but why would any of those affect a spell, especially one that is durable enough to last for a long time? Wouldn’t that kind of thing have to be made to resist external influence?”

“They are, in fact,” the Hat gave the odd mental impression of nodding, even as it remained motionless on Harry’s head. “Yet no such measures are perfect, so while they might delay things, they will never completely stop the process.”

Harry hummed for a moment before nodding in acknowledgement of the point and asking, “So, how does this teleological fuzz thing work, then? I mean, I know you explained it as little bits of purpose sticking to a spell, but… well, it’s not like it’s real, material stuff. As far as I know, you can’t go out and grab a handful of ‘purpose’, so how does it stick to anything, even magic? I mean, if it were the same stuff as magic, I guess that’d work, but I can see magic, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen something like that.”

“A good question,” Donald approved, “and one that requires a spot of explanation. I said before that free magic enhances whatever purpose it happens to find nearby, but I specified that only free magic did so, magic already bound to another purpose does not. This applies even to magic that is physically separated from what it had been doing…” the Hat trailed off leadingly.

“So, it carries its purpose along with it?” Harry mused, connecting the dots his friend had laid out. “Then the teleological fuzz thing is just picking up bits of magic that have other purposes attached?”

“Partially, though the full explanation is a tad more involved,” Donald congratulated him. “In addition to bound magic being acquired from the environment, there are also the issues of misaligned magic being bound into the spell at casting and free magic entangled in the spell gaining purpose from the nearby environment.”

“I thought the magic in the spell wasn’t free magic?” Harry ventured.

“In a perfectly-cast spell, that would theoretically be the case,” the Hat allowed, “but I sincerely doubt that any spell has ever been perfectly cast in the history of existence. All real spell casting involves imperfections. If the caster’s focus wanders slightly off target, then some of the magic in the spell will be bound to some other, often near-random purpose. Additionally, if the structure of the spell leaves any gaps during its formation, then environmental magic will be entrained within the spell structure. That will enhance the function of the spell, true — spell crafters routinely leave such gaps specifically for that purpose — but it will also enhance those random bits that were bound in at the casting.”

“And all that is before the environmental debris is considered,” the Hat gave that odd mental impression of nodding once more. “The little bits of bound magic that bring their own purposes are one thing, but free environmental magic will enhance those, and that effect accumulates over time.”

The young dragon nodded thoughtfully at the additional information, setting his conversational partner flopping about in the process, which didn’t seem to bother the Hat in the slightest.

“Uh huh, so it’s sort of like a fuzzy shell of magic builds up around it over time, and that’s the bit that acts like it’s alive,” he ventured.

“Essentially, yes,” Donald confirmed, “with the caveats about imperfect casting I mentioned earlier. Those give the ‘shell’, as you have termed it, some degree of access to the internal workings of the magical structure as well.”

“Right,” the young dragon acknowledged the clarification. “Um, Donald?”

“Yes, Mr. Potter?”

“Where do those little bits of purposeful magic come from, anyway?”

The Hat gave the odd mental impression of a frown, “They come from purposes nearby, in large part, those associated with life; I explained that to you earlier.”

“Yeah, I got that,” Harry acknowledged, “but you also said that free magic enhances any purpose it encounters, and if you’re taking free magic to start with, and it interacts with something to pick up a purpose, wouldn’t it just stick there and enhance that? I mean, I guess if you had a magical creature providing the purpose, and it expelled the magic then that’d be one thing, but most life isn’t magical, and I gathered from what you were saying that it was more widespread than that.”

“Ah! I see the difficulty,” Donald did his mental nod again. “You see, the thing is, to one extent or another, all life is magical.”

“Really?” the young dragon frowned. “But I’ve seen lots of stuff that’s not glowy or anything. I mean the deer I eat seem pretty not-magical, same with the porpoises in the sound, and the heather on the moors, and most of the trees, and…”

“Yes... well, that was perhaps a poor choice of words,” the Hat interrupted. “Allow me to clarify.”

“All life is magical in that all life produces magic. They vary in how much they use and how they use it, but everything makes it. What you know as non-magical life uses very little of what it makes — nothing beyond the tiny amount required to trigger voluntary actions — but it has magic flowing through it in significantly larger quantity than is necessary for that task,” the magical haberdashery explained. “That excess is released to the environment, a small proportion colored with the purposes that make the lifeform that produced it work. On the other hand, most of what you know as magical life uses more magic than it produces internally, collecting from the environment to make up the deficit.”

“Well, I guess that makes sense,” Harry said slowly, obviously thinking hard about something. “Um, Mr. Donald?”

“Yes, Mr. Potter?”

“When you talked about voluntary actions, you reminded me of something I wanted to ask about last time I visited,” he began. “You know last time how you talked about choices and stuff? You know, how people have to choose between doing good and doing bad?”

“Yes, I do,” the Hat allowed. “What of it?”

“Back then, when you first started talking about people and choices, you said you couldn’t speak with authority on the subject since you lacked personal experience,” the young dragon said carefully. “What did you mean by that? Can’t you choose to do things?”

The Hat fell silent for a long moment.

“Donald?”

“That… that is a difficult topic to properly address, Mr. Potter,” the Sorting Hat began, “but the simplest answer is: no, I cannot.”

“Why not?” Harry asked, troubled. “I mean, you talk and stuff, so you’re a person, right? And you said people can choose what they do. I mean, you chose to tell me about all that stuff I asked about just a few minutes ago, right, and last time, too? So, what do you mean, you can’t choose to do things?”

“You have made an erroneous assumption, Mr. Potter,” Donald countered. “Do you know what it is?”

The young dragon frowned in concentration as he thought about it before shaking his head in the negative.

“I am not a person, Mr. Potter,” the Hat informed him gently. “I am a magical construct, in the same vein as the spells you are learning to cast in your classes.”

“But the spells we’re learning can’t hold a conversation,” Harry objected, sounding rather troubled, “and you can, so how can you say you’re just like them?”

“I’ll have you know, Mr. Potter, that I am a great deal more advanced than your current curriculum! ’Just like them’, indeed!” Donald harrumphed before settling back into his explanation. “That being said, as we have just discussed, particularly old constructs often begin to spontaneously exhibit lifelike features, including intelligence in a variety of cases. That tendency grows more pronounced as their complexity increases, due to the greater likelihood of random errors being introduced during their creation.”

“I am both about as old and about as complex as they come, so it should come as no surprise that I do a passing fair job of imitating life,” the Hat chuckled, “and that is setting aside the fact that I was actually designed to do so from the beginning! I am far from unique in that regard; the castle houses many such constructs. Much of the castle portraiture, for instance, is nearly as conversationally competent as I am, as are the castle ghosts. Advanced magical constructs can be fully capable of thought and reason; we simply cannot choose our actions. We lack agency.”

“But what do you mean by that?” Harry demanded, distressed by the Hat’s answer. “I mean, your whole job is choosing what House to sort kids into! Isn’t that choosing what to do?”

“No, Mr. Potter, that is Sorting, not choosing,” Donald replied, picking up on the main thrust of the young dragon’s misconception. “I am a magical construct designed to offer students of this school guidance, a tool whose function includes placing students in the appropriate House. While the Sorting may appear to be a free choice to the outside observer, it is, in truth, a deterministic process. I read information from the student’s mind and combine it with information about the state of the school as I know it. I then process that information through the lens of the collective wisdom imprinted on me during my manufacture, producing the appropriate result... with a bit of conversational window dressing nowadays, I must admit that I am much chattier now than I was back in the days of the Founders.”

The Hat chuckled, “Conversational aptitude aside though, I can no more choose where to Sort students than the strainer in your potions kit can choose whether to allow something to pass through it.”

Harry was silent for a moment as he processed that. “But what about our conversations? I mean, you couldn’t have been pre-made with all those responses, right? That’d be way too complicated!”

“That is true, but again, I was imprinted with the wisdom of my makers and given enough intelligence to use that properly. When I participate in a conversation, I respond as the imprint dictates I should; that is, I emulate the responses of a real person but am not, myself, a person. Magical portraiture does the same thing, as do ghosts.”

“That’s really confusing,” Harry remarked, sounding remarkably perturbed about the whole thing. “How do you tell the difference? I mean, I could see it with Professor Binns, but I never would have guessed you weren’t really a person.”

“It can be difficult, it is true. I know of no simple and widely applicable test which will reveal such a thing, but it is nonetheless critically important. Personhood... the soul is a strange and wonderful thing, Mr. Potter,” Donald explained, “and, unlike intelligence and reason, a soul is something I will never have. I am a tool, a valuable tool, a spectacularly well-crafted tool, but still a tool, nonetheless. You and those like you… even the least of you is something infinitely greater.”

“The soul is beyond magic,” the Hat declared softly. “Its influence is subtle and hard to measure, yet its importance cannot be overstated.”

The shared mental space fell into an uneasy sort of silence again as Harry wrestled with the Hat’s recent revelations, a silence that stretched for some time until the time came for the young dragon to leave.

Even then, his wrestling match was far from over.

4.4.7 Staging

“Hello and welcome to the Three Broomsticks,” came the call from the blonde woman tending bar in response to the green flash from the pub’s floo terminus. “I’ll be with you in just a moment, as soon as I finish this order.”

“Hello to you as well, Rosmerta,” the newly arrived Griselda Marchbanks greeted the blonde warmly. “Take your time.”

Rosmerta finished topping up the tankard she was filling, slid it down the polished wooden surface of the bar to the customer who had ordered it, and looked up, green eyes wide with pleased surprise.

“Gran? Fancy seeing you here!”

“Is it so surprising that I would take the time to visit my great-grandaughter, hmm?” the matriarch of the Marchbanks family asked the much younger woman teasingly. “You should know by now that I always have time for family.”

“Of course, of course,” Rosmerta smiled. “And you’re welcome to visit, any time. I was just a bit surprised at the timing. Aren’t you usually working at this hour?”

“I am at that,” Griselda answered her great-grandaughter. “Which works well, because I am actually here for a business meeting, touching base with a couple of my colleagues before we head up to the school for a bit of a sensitive conversation.”

“Ah, well, if it’s sensitive business then I’ll ask no more, though you were getting my hopes up that you’d visited just for little old me,” the younger woman laughed. “I suppose if you started visiting all of us grandchildren individually, you’d never have time to do anything else!”

She waved her great-grandmother towards a table hosting two men chatting over a late lunch in the far corner of the pub, right against the timber-and-plaster wall and not far from the large but unenchanted fireplace dominating the far end of the room. “I expect you’re the colleague those two were waiting for. If your business at the school is done before the dinner hour is over, come by and we’ll talk. It’s been too long since the last time you visited for a chat!”

“That sounds quite lovely, Rosie,” the elderly woman agreed. “I’ll be sure to stop by; I’ve set things up with Albus for half-past four, and I don’t anticipate it lasting more than an hour or two. Even if things run late, I’ll be sure to send a note to let you know.”

“I’ll be looking forward to it, then!” the pub’s proprietor acknowledged with a smile.

And with that, the Head of the Wizarding Examination Authority made her way over to the table housing her two colleagues in order to go over their plan of attack for the upcoming conversation with Gilderoy Lockhart — planning out what to say and how to say it. If the famous author turned out to be as touchy as she feared he might be, then it would be best to have all their ducks in a row beforehand.

4.4.8 Stalking

The cloudy Friday afternoon seemed much like any other to Tom as he once more doggedly stalked the castle halls in a so-far fruitless search of his prey. Nonetheless, he held out hope that this seemingly unremarkable day would prove to be different from the others, that today would be the day of retribution against Harry Potter.

Tom had been diligent in his pursuit of vengeance, taking frequent strolls through the castle whenever his schedule permitted, but the search had so far proven futile. Between the differences in class schedule and Potter’s infuriating tendency to spend most of his time off campus, the murderous fiend had remained elusive for weeks on end.

No, that wasn’t quite accurate, Tom grimaced at the thought. Rather than elusive, it would be more accurate to call Potter slippery. Finding the foul miscreant was easy enough. It was arranging an encounter without witnesses in the crowded school that had proven so difficult; thus, Tom had yet to find the proper opportunity to make his displeasure known.

Despite the challenge, he had remained steadfast in his pursuit, and the present moment found him prowling along the main hallway leading to the library. Well, Tom scowled yet again, to be perfectly accurate it was more of a scurry than a good, satisfying prowl — damned legs — but he contented himself with imagining that it was the thought that counted.

In any event, he was on the hunt... no matter how silly he was certain he looked.

And then the sight before him chased any consideration of appearances right out of his head.

The green-eyed villain appeared right in front of him, coming from a part of the castle Tom had never known him to visit before. It was an odd change of routine, as Tom didn’t know of anything down that hallway that was worth visiting, but he was hardly going to look a gift horse in the mouth. It was a fortuitous change in routine for Tom’s purposes, because if Potter was going to return to his usual schedule and visit the library — and from what Tom could see of his current path, he was — then the most direct route would be taking the miniature murderer through exactly the sort of secluded location in which Tom had been hoping to catch up with him.

Potter’s comeuppance was at hand!

The hallway was crowded at the moment, but most were wearing Slytherin or Gryffindor colors, so they’d be removing themselves from the scene soon, either to classes or to their common rooms. Tom dismissed the crowd as irrelevant and followed his quarry as casually as he could manage. As expected, the hallways cleared rapidly as Tom’s prey moved closer to the library, the other students off to their various undertakings in other portions of the castle. If he recalled the school layout correctly, then the hallway ahead would soon… yes!

The pursuit turned a corner into a portion of the hallway which jogged about twenty feet to one side for a few dozen yards, cutting off any sight lines from the other parts of the castle, and Tom knew the moment of truth had arrived.

A half-dozen hurried steps closed the distance, and a wand came out smoothly to point at the messy-haired butcher’s unsuspecting back. Tom paused for a moment of concentration, dredging up as much magic as he could to match the seething wrath that filled his heart, and then spoke the dread incantation in a high, clear soprano.

“Avada kedavra!”

A rush of green light issued forth and streaked towards his target’s back, leaving in its wake a wave of unbearable exhaustion.

Blast it! Tom thought desperately as he sagged to his knees, feeling the unmistakable onset of magical exhaustion.

He had forgotten his situation and underestimated his current form’s magical shortcomings just as he had its physical ones. There was no way he would avoid detection if he fell unconscious at the scene! He stumbled forward just a single step before his body gave out and his too-short legs collapsed under him, leaving his slender body to slump bonelessly to the floor.

Damn!

At least he’d gotten the bastard, Tom thought as he slipped into unconsciousness.

Charlotte was avenged!

4.4.9 Dark deliberations

Fresh from his heavy conversation with Donald, Harry found himself lost in thought as he walked towards the library, traversing a passage he didn’t often have the occasion to use. He had been left with much to think about.

The young dragon knew it was irrational, but finding out that his friend, Donald, wasn’t, rightly speaking, an actual person — not just not a people-shaped person, but actually not a person at all — had left him more than a little out of sorts.

He frowned unhappily as he turned slightly to follow the curve of the hallway as it jogged slightly to the side, following the outer wall of the castle.

When the talking hat had told him the truth of its nature, it had felt like a punch to the gut; one of his basic assumptions about the world had proven false. Worse yet, it was almost as if he’d lost a friend.

Shaggy black hair whipped about as Harry violently shook the thought from his head.

“That’s not really right either!” he muttered darkly as he walked. “It’s not like…”

Precisely what it wasn’t like would go unsaid for the moment as Harry was rudely interrupted by a girlish voice behind him saying decidedly unfriendly things.

“Avada kedavra!”

Shaken roughly from his musings, the currently human-shaped dragon was already turning to face the voice behind him when the lethal spell struck, having the same effect it usually did on him. He finished the turn, already shrugging off the increasingly routine stinging sensation of the killing curse, only to find a vaguely familiar redheaded girl already in the process of collapsing to the stone floor in a dead faint.

Harry frowned, puzzled.

Who was she again?

Then the insensate girl’s head lolled to the side affording Harry a good look at her face.

Oh.

“Huh,” Harry raised an eyebrow at the sight, puzzled. “I thought the whole Weasley thing was settled already.”

Maybe their little sister hadn’t gotten the memo?

He considered that for a few moments before shrugging it off as irrelevant for for the moment. Whatever her reasons, the youngest Weasley had just tried to kill him. She didn’t do a very good job of it, but it was still a murder attempt, and murder attempts were something he generally wanted to discourage, so he really ought to do something about that. Unfortunately, the current situation presented the young dragon with a bit of a conundrum.

Harry frowned as he considered what to do with the girl splayed out on the floor.

On the one hand, he’d already established a precedent for dealing with this sort of thing back by killing that guy who’d said he was that Voldemort-guy. Harry figured people who tried to kill him had set a pretty firm example of why people ought not do that sort of thing. Thus it followed that if he did the same to this one, he’d reinforce the message and show he meant business when he said he didn’t like that sort of thing.

Consistency was important, after all; though, admittedly eating the guy had backfired something fierce. He figured he probably shouldn’t do that again if he could help it. Who knew what sort of magical silliness this one might be carrying on her?

Harry really didn’t want to get sick again; getting knocked out for weeks on end hadn’t been any fun at all.

Of course, eating someone was hardly the only option he could take if he wanted to kill them. Humans were pretty fragile after all; that was why he had to be so careful around everybody. The problem was Mr. Dumbledore had asked him not to kill any of his fellow students if he could help it all the way back at the beginning of his first year.

The currently human-shaped dragon frowned thoughtfully as he looked down at his would-be murderer. The petite redhead passed out on the floor in front of him was, in fact, a student; she was wearing the uniform and everything! As far as arguments against killing her went, that was a pretty good one, since Mr. Dumbledore had asked nicely. The elderly wizard was generally a pretty good friend, and Harry didn’t want to disappoint him.

Plus, it wasn’t like he had to kill her; she was hardly a threat now that she was passed out on the floor.

All that aside, Harry most certainly did not want to set a precedent where people might think it was okay to try to kill him, either. That struck him as a spectacularly bad policy decision. Sure, no one had found a way of killing him that worked yet, but if he kept letting people try without consequence, eventually someone was bound to get lucky.

The young dragon frowned thoughfully, scratching at his currently human-shaped chin.

Killing everyone who tried to kill him set a clear policy to discourage such attempts in the future: “try to kill me, and I’ll kill you right back”. It was hard to misunderstand that! If he let this one go on account of Mr. Dumbledore’s request, that message would get all muddled. “Try to kill me, and I might or might not kill you, pending circumstances” wasn’t nearly as unambiguous, and this was a message he wanted to be very clear on.

So, what was he supposed to do?

“Right,” Harry nodded decisively as he reached a conclusion after a solid minute of consideration.

The currently human-shaped dragon bent down and reached out towards the fragile-looking redhead, his lethally strong hand slipping towards the join between her small shoulder and her delicate neck.

This would only take a moment.

4.4.10 Untimely arrivals

The quiet of the cloudy Friday afternoon was interrupted by a trio of rapid-fire cracks as three figures popped into existence on the grassy lawn of the Hogwarts portkey arrival point. Griselda Marchbanks and her two companions had finished their discussions at the Three Broomsticks shortly before she had arranged to meet with the Headmaster, and they had apparated to the receiving point.

They were waiting less than three minutes before the rather disreputable-looking castle caretaker, Argus Filch, stumped over to the arrival point to greet Hogwarts’ visitors.

“Madame Marchbanks?” the perpetually dour man asked as he drew close enough to see who had come to call. “The Headmaster told me to expect the three of you. Come this way, and I’ll contact him to come and get you through the wards.”

As the scruffy man turned and unceremoniously headed back to the door, Griselda and her companions followed quietly before stopping at the door.

“You three wait here while I head back to the office,” Argus instructed curtly before stumping off to disappear into the relatively dark hallway.

“He’s just as unpleasant as he was when I was in school,” the younger of Griselda’s compatriots commented, drawing little more than an amused snort from his colleages before the disgruntled man returned.

“I’ve sent an elf to inform the Headmaster,” the castle caretaker informed the visitors. “He ought to be down before too much longer.”

With that, the man settled in to wait, seemingly content to ignore his visitors entirely.

“I understand Mr. Lockhart has finished his classes for the day,” Griselda ventured after about half a minute of awkward silence.

“According to the schedule he has,” Argus confirmed. The bitter man turned an eye to the old woman. “You three are here to see him?”

Griselda nodded.

Filch looked speculatively at the two men flanking her, noting their demeanor and the competent air about them, despite having been retired from the corps for several years. “There some trouble afoot?”

He looked almost eager at the prospect.

“I’m afraid not,” Griselda denied, deftly ignoring the terribly disappointed expression that stole across the caretaker’s wizened face at the lost opportunity for schadenfreude. “We are simply here for a discussion with the man.”

“Too bad, that,” Filch muttered.

Madame Marchbanks settled in to wait in silence alongside her companions.

There wasn’t much to say to that.

4.4.11 Somebody else’s problem

“Is Mr. Dumbledore in there?” an impatiently bouncing Harry Potter asked the gargoyle that guarded the entrance to the Headmaster’s suite. “I’ve got something I need him to deal with, and I’m in a bit of a hurry.”

The youngest Weasley bounced along with him, her long red hair swaying with the motion. It had taken a bit of work to get the limp girl to stay in place over his shoulder — she was both relatively fragile and rather awkwardly floppy at the moment — but he had eventually managed it with a bit of careful juggling which had left the small girl unceremoniously slung over Harry’s shoulder like a bag of coal. After that, it had been easy to carry the girl’s barely noticeable weight to the Headmaster’s office.

If Mr. Dumbledore wanted to make everything so confusing with his ‘don’t kill any students’ condition, then Mr. Dumbledore could deal with the aftermath. Harry nodded; it was a good solution in his book, and as soon as the gargoyle got its stone head together and opened up, he’d act on it, dropping the inconvenient girl off and getting back to his friends.

He could always deal with the redhead later if it turned out he’d made a mistake by not killing her, but he figured it was pretty hard to un-kill somebody if it turned out to be a poor choice... best not to rush into that sort of thing unless he had to.

4.4.12 Recurrent problems

“Oh, bloody hell,” Albus Dumbledore cursed uncharacteristically as he looked down at the limp bag of trouble the resident dragon had dropped off in his office chair.

He had been putting some effort into preparing for a visit from Griselda Marchbanks, mostly attempting to guess why she had asked him to set up a discreet meeting with his Defense professor rather than simply contacting the man herself, when Mr. Potter had barged into his office a scant few minutes ago. The young dragon had carried the unconscious form of one Ginevra Weasley slung over a shoulder and had dumped the girl in the chair in front of his desk, making the rather outlandish claim that the youngest Weasley had cast a killing curse at him in the hallway before passing out. Unfortunately for the currently unconscious girl, it was a claim the elderly wizard had been able to corroborate with a quick check of the first-year girl’s wand.

Story relayed, the then-human-shaped dragon had promptly left, loudly stating his intention to spend the remainder of his afternoon with Miss Abercrombie and his damsels as he had originally planned, and washed his hands of the proceedings entirely.

Albus took a moment to envy the young dragon’s ability to just drop the problem in someone else’s lap and go do something else. It had been a depressingly long time since the elderly wizard was last able to do the same.

A wave of his wand dispatched a message to Poppy to come take a look at the small girl laid out in one of his chairs. No matter the reason for the girl’s actions, she would need a full checkup. Casting something as taxing as the killing curse was not a simple endeavor for a developing witch, and they would need to ensure the girl was not permanently damaged by the strain.

While he waited for Poppy to arrive, Albus busied himself with examining the young Weasley’s personal effects in hopes that he would find some indication of what had possessed her to do such a foolish thing.

When his exploration of the girl’s school bag turned up a diary bearing the name, Tom Marvolo Riddle, and practically dripping with magic, the elderly wizard had to wonder whether his turn of phrase had been rather more literal than he had originally intended.

“Albus, where is the patient?” Poppy asked breathlessly from the door to the stairwell.

“Poppy, your patient is unconscious in the chair in front of my desk, one Ginevra Weasley.” As the Healer made her way over to the indicated chair, he added, “Mr. Potter brought her here after she attempted to kill him in the hallway outside the Library using a killing curse.”

Poppy’s gaze hardened even as she got to work with admirable professionalism, “So, magical exhaustion, then?”

“At least,” Albus agreed absently, wand flickering all the while as he alternated between casting containment charms and increasingly obscure diagnostics on the suspicious diary. “Poppy?”

“Yes, Albus?”

“I recommend you check for signs of possession as well,” the elderly man suggested in a tone that said it was anything but a suggestion.

“Possession?” the Healer questioned in a sinking voice. “Again?”

“Indeed,” Albus confirmed, scowling at the name embossed on the leather cover of the diary. “Someone seems to be making an unfortunate habit of the practice.”

The sighed as he recalled what he had been doing before the resident dragon had decided to trample all over his afternoon plans. Everything his diagnostics had told him so far pointed to this situation quite rapidly becoming quite tedious; though depending on what he found, it also might afford him with a rather welcome intelligence windfall.

Taking advantage of that windfall would be even more tedious, requiring both competent assistance and a great deal of preparation, which — the old wizard paused to take in the crowded surroundings of his office suite — would both necessitate a change in venue.

Pausing for a moment from its near-constant flickering over the increasingly sinister-seeming diary, his wand stabbed out in another direction, conjuring a messenger patronus with what almost any other wizard would consider to be shocking ease. A quick word had the patronus winging its way to Hagrid with a request for the man to allow the visitors entrance; Griselda certainly knew the school well enough to get around on her own once she was marked as authorized.

Albus hated to renege on a promise, but he was sure Griselda would understand. It was for his students, after all.

4.4.13 A big birdie told me

At the entrance to the school, Griselda and her two compatriots waited with slowly fading aplomb as they waited for a response from the Headmaster. Nearby, their host’s aplomb faded much more quickly.

“Daft old man must have gotten caught up in his lemon drops again,” Argus Filch mumbled to himself. “I’ve half a mind to…”

Whatever Argus had half a mind to do remained unrevealed as all four individuals looked up in slight alarm on hearing, and to some extent feeling, heavy but still quite rapid footsteps coming from outside the castle. The source of the disturbance was revealed shortly when Rubeus Hagrid passed through the outer gate into the castle’s gatehouse bailey at a deceptively slow-looking lope which nonetheless ate up distance alarmingly quickly.

“Ah there yeh are!” the hairy mountain of a man greeted the three visitors as he drew near. “Sorry ‘bout the delay, ‘spect yeh’re getting’ a mite worried ‘bout ‘ow long ‘t were takin’. Mr. Dumbledore — good man, Dumbledore — ‘e sent me ter tell yeh somethin’ unexpected ’s come up, an’ ‘e’s got ter deal with tha’. ‘E wanted me ter give yeh summat ter get yeh through tha wards, so ‘ere yeh go.”

With that, the massive man fished a trio of small wooden coins out of one of his voluminous pockets, each of which which he tapped with a massive key drawn from under his jerkin, where it hung on an impressively sturdy chain. He then handed one coin to each of the visitors.

“Those are temporary ward tags, good ‘til mornin’. I ‘spect yeh’ll already know tha’, but yeh got ter make sure, yeh do,” Hagrid explained with an admonishing shake of a massive finger. “They’ll get yeh through tha wards an’ keep yeh safe, so don’ lose ‘em!”

All three of his visitors nodded immediately, familiar with the concept. They would certainly be careful; the Hogwarts wards were famed for a reason, and even on peacetime footing, running afoul of them was an unpleasant prospect.

“Righ’,” the massive man said with a nod, “then I’ll leave yeh to it. Yeh know where yeh’re goin’ right?” At the guests’ nods, he nodded in turn. “Good, now I got ter go. Sorry ‘bout tha rush!”

And with that, Hagrid left as swiftly as he had come, going on into the castle proper accompanied by a great clamor of thumping footsteps to mark his passage.

Somewhat bemused by the circumstances, the three visitors wordlessly set out for the wing they all remembered as housing the Defense classroom. It would have been nice to have the Headmaster along to lend the weight of his authority to the discussion, but it shouldn’t be necessary, not so long as Lockhart was reasonable.

4.4.14 Sinking feeling

Gilderoy had just finished with his work for the day. It was not classwork to be sure, but despite the nominal four-day weekend, he had learned that the job gave him plenty to fill his hours. In any event, he was preparing to retire to the attached apartment suite when he heard a knock on the door. He frowned, wondering who was coming to visit at this hour. It certainly wouldn’t be a student; his office hours had ended nearly half an hour ago.

After a momentary pause for speculation, he gave up the effort as pointless when he could just answer the door and find out. Pasting on his usual well-practiced smile, Gilderoy rose to answer the door.

The sight that greeted him when he opened it was chilling.

A severe-looking elderly woman that Gilderoy vaguely recognized from his own NEWTs stood outside his door with a stern expression on her face. She was flanked by two men in escort positions behind and to the side of her, quite obviously there as bodyguards.

It was a group consisting of an Education Department official and two plainclothes aurors, and it was precisely the opposite of what Lockhart had been hoping to see. The Ministry had sent a snatch team.

Well, shit.