Summary:
Faery Heroes By: Silently Watches
Response to Paladeus's challenge "Champions of Lilith". Harry, Hermione, and Luna get a chance to travel back in time and prevent the hell that England became under Voldemort's rule, and maybe line their pockets while they're at it. Lunar Harmony; plenty of innuendo, dark humor, some bashing included; manipulative!Dumbles; jerk!Snape; bad!Molly, Ron, GinnyRated: Fiction M - English - Adventure/Humor - [Harry P., Hermione G., Luna L.] - Chapters: 50 - Words: 245,545 - Reviews: 7,251 - Favs: 16,766 - Follows: 10,584 - Updated: Jul 24, 2014 - Published: Jun 19, 2012 - Status: Complete - id: 8233288
Chapter 1
Fae-Crossed Lovers
"No means no."
"Come on, Harry. Pleeease?" begged a blonde woman, her silver eyes glistening with tears as she gazed into Harry's emerald ones. "We haven't had pancakes in so loooong."
Harry stared at his lover in astonishment. "We had them yesterday!"
"But that was for breakfast, and it's dinner now. You never make us pancakes for dinner." Her point made, Luna pouted at him, cutely of course. She couldn't afford to lessen her chances to make him cave.
Harry, however, was unmoved. "I have enough trouble with you wanting them every day for breakfast, you're not having them for dinner. If you want pancakes that much, you or Hermione can make them."
Her glare was enough of an answer, but she followed it up in case he was being spectacularly stupid. "Harry, sweetie, Hermione may be an expert in potions brewing, but not even starving babies would eat her cooking. Don't you remember what her last attempt was like?"
"Nope." He grinned at her surprise and tapped his temple, "I dislike Lockhart for many reasons, but I do agree with him about Obliviate. It's a handy spell to have."
"What's a handy spell?" his other lover asked as she entered the den. "And what's for dinner?"
"Harry's making us pancakes!" Luna cheered. He could resist Hermione, he could even occasionally resist her, but he would never be able to resist them both.
"What! No I'm not!"
"Really, Harry, pancakes? You have to learn to say no to her eventually. But since you have decided to make them, I won't stop you this time."
He sighed, hung his head, and began shuffling to the kitchen, missing his girls' twin expressions of glee.
"And use some of those blueberries! There aren't many places we can get them, after all."
Whoever said having multiple girlfriends at the same time was a good thing had obviously never experienced it.
Even though they're pains in my arse, I wouldn't give them up for anything, Harry thought as he mixed berries into the batter for the trio's dinner. His time with them had been the happiest of his life, and it would be perfect if not for the conditions outside their manor. War had a way of putting a damper on one's enthusiasm.
Voldemort had not been quite as dead as everyone had hoped. The day before the battle, he had apparently been so terrified by the loss of his Horcruces that he created another, this one a simple stone that he left at the bottom of the Black Lake. Thanks to Lucius Malfoy's assistance, he had returned to physical form in just four years and immediately proceeded to take over the Ministry of Magic – again – and declare war on 'the enemies of all wizards', the Muggles. His first strike was an assassination attempt against the Queen and Prime Minister.
It failed miserably.
No one in the Ministry knew anything about how Muggles waged war. In retrospect, that should have been obvious; after all, their 'expert' was unable to recognize children's bath toys or even pronounce Muggle words correctly. When grenades and bullets rained down on Diagon Alley, there had been no warning and no quarter. Two years later, the magical population of Britain had fallen from its previous 14,000 to only 4,500, and those survivors all nearly worshiped Voldemort as the one man to recognize the threat Muggles presented. Strange how quickly they forgot who it had been who first stirred up that hornet's nest.
The trio of lovers had been more than willing to remain out of this new war and integrate into whatever society was left, and they would have been safe all this time if not for that red-haired, arse-kissing, back-stabbing coward…
Harry took a deep breath as he relaxed his grip on the mixing bowl. The bloody Weasleys were a swift death to the iron control he had to maintain on his anger. After the Horcrux in his scar was destroyed, it became clear that the all-consuming rage he had felt during his fifth year and what should have been his seventh was less the influence of his and Voldemort's mental connection and more his natural temper. According to the portraits of his grandparents he had found while he was restoring Potter Manor following the end of the Second Voldemort War, he may look like his father, but no one could deny he was his mother's son.
The batter was ready and the griddle finally hot, so Harry was about to pour the damn pancakes when he heard Hermione scream. He was out of the kitchen before the bowl had enough time to hit the floor.
The entrance hall looked like a bomb had gone off inside, and for a moment, he feared the worst. A second glance showed him that the room was not damaged in any way, simply covered in soot and ash. He found Hermione and Luna standing against the front door with their wands pointed at the fireplace, so he too aimed in that direction and at the oddest-looking man Harry had ever seen.
Considering that he had met Luna's father, that was saying something.
The intruder was short; four-and-a-half feet would be a generous estimate. He wore red fur pants and jacket, both of which were strangely clean despite the filth covering everything else in sight. His clothing's white trim matched his hair and beard, which fell almost to his knees. Black boots covered his feet, and Harry knew that he would not be inconspicuous even in the occasionally colorblind Wizarding World.
Only after he reached behind him and picked up a bulging sack did they realize exactly who this man was meant to resemble. With a battle cry of "Gimme!", Luna was the first to react, pouncing upon him and wrapping her limbs around his bag with as much force as her svelte body could produce. She bit his hand until he released it, and then scurried over to Harry with her prize.
Her lovers were used to her occasional childishness, and were about to apologize to the man when he let loose several belly-shaking laughs. "You never change, do you, my dear?"
"You two know each other?" Hermione asked, alternating between watching the stranger and glaring at Luna.
The blonde looked up from her spoils at them. "Of course we do. This is Santa." Her contribution over, she crawled halfway into the sack, flinging numerous presents out of it as she progressed.
"And this is the little girl who attempted to take over the North Pole, and very nearly succeeded, too." Santa growled. "Thankfully, that only happened once."
Hermione sighed. "Luna, what did you do?" Harry knew that tone; it meant that she really could not care less what the younger woman did as long as she was not swept up in the shenanigans. Luna impressively contorted her body so that her head was poking out of her new toy and looked at them from between her feet.
"I hid in the sleigh until he returned to his workshop, then bribed the elves with caffeine and snowball fights," she chirped. "But Santa was mean to me after that, so I didn't want to play with him."
Four eyes rolled to the saint, who just shrugged. "I gave her rotten eggs in her stocking. She should know better than to irritate a faery."
Feeling that it was best to move on before his lovers got in yet another row, Harry asked the question that had been in his mind since he first arrived in the room. "Er, not to be rude, but why exactly are you in our hallway?"
"It's the only room with a large enough fireplace for me to use," Santa answered, "though if you mean why am I bothering you in the first place, that is a much more serious matter."
He sat down in one of the chairs in the hall while Hermione conjured a loveseat. Harry sat beside her, and Luna, leaving her prize where it was, ran over and flopped down on their laps like a cuddly blanket.
"The fae are, like phoenixes and unicorns, made up of magic as much as we are flesh and blood. Your Dark Lord has been capturing and experimenting on us, attempting to alter his own body to be like ours. Normally, he wouldn't have even accomplished this much against our combined power, but the conflict that started here has spiraled out of control and drastically weakened us."
"That doesn't make sense," murmured Hermione. "Unless all the world's fae are located in Britain, your people should be safe."
"You obviously haven't been paying much attention to what is happening outside your borders. Once this country's nonmagicals discovered that wizards existed and had attacked them, they sent the information to all their allies. Britain was merely the first country to enter a civil war with it's magicals; now, every country has."
Santa ignored their shock as he continued. "We fae gain our sustenance from joy and humans' belief in us. It is the reason I am so well-known; every child believes in me, and so that belief, combined with the immense burst of happiness from Christmas, strengthens our Queen, whose power, in turn, flows to all of her subjects.
"For centuries, we have lived in contentment with our way of life, but the assassination attempt ignited a powder keg that is harmful to all of us, Muggle, wizard, and fae. The wars are taking an enormous toll on people's lives and therefore happiness, causing us to starve. That would be bad enough, but the Queen has been so weakened by the prevalence of despair that she is unable to create new faeries to keep up with our own mortality rate. Combined with Voldemort's experiments, we are facing our extinction."
"How many of you have… passed away due to Voldemort's actions?" Hermione asked gently.
Santa sighed, then looked her fully in the eye. "Our population is less than fifteen percent of what it was before his second resurrection." The trio gaped at him. "In fact, as it stands now, the war does not matter to us; we will perish no matter how or when it ends. And that is why we need you three."
"We will help however we can," Harry told him.
The small man smiled. "I was hoping you would say that, Harry Potter. You were given a destiny to rid the world of Voldemort for good, and if it weren't for his Horcruces, you would have accomplished that twice by now. This time, the world is too far gone for you to do so again, and that is how we will get around the issue."
"Of course!" Luna shouted, earning her confused looks from the two sitting under her. "Daddy read me stories when I was a little girl, and one of them said that the fae could travel through time however they wanted: backwards, forwards, and even sideways."
"Sideways?"
"That's impossible, you can't travel sideways in time."
"Humans can't," said Santa, "but we can, and you will too."
Hermione glared at the faery. "Until someone tells me what moving sideways is, I'm not going anywhere."
"Anywhen," Luna offered; getting her lovers to speak like sane people was a challenge, but the reward was worth it. Hermione's countenance showed she disagreed.
"Moving sideways means you will leave this time stream and enter one that is running in the same direction. If we do this, you will, in essence, be going backwards in time, but without the risk of running into other versions of you that would be present if you simply went backwards."
"Wait, if you can do that, why didn't you save yourselves that way?" This was sounding like a good opportunity to Harry, and little good had happened to him that wasn't followed by something very bad. Not even his involvement with Hermione and Luna had been without cost.
Santa sighed again. "By the time we considered it, there were too few of us to make it possible. The only way that we can even offer you this is by sacrificing the lives of every fae in this time."
"No!" Hermione shouted. "We can't ask you to kill yourselves like that! There has to be another way…"
Luna rose from her position to sit in Hermione's lap, wrapping her in a hug. "I know it sounds bad, but it's not as if they will be dead in the time we arrive in. The Fae Queen has the greatest power over time, so much that it's said she exists simultaneously in all time streams."
"Whoever said that was quite correct," Santa said. "And I feel I must correct one of your concerns: you three are not asking us to die for you. We are offering our assistance so you can prevent this series of events from happening again."
Santa had given them an hour to talk the Fae's proposition over and then left them to their own devices. They did not need the full time; it only took Harry and Luna a couple of minutes to convince Hermione that this was the best plan to stop Voldemort once and for all. The rest of their reprieve was spent looking over the 'Treasure Chest', as they had taken to calling it, for necessities.
When the magical Potter family was young, they had built their home in what had been part of Sherwood Forest and took up the trade of their ancestor, Robin of Locksley. They were the nightmares of the old, rich families, robbing their precious manors with a devilish combination of personal charm, polished skill, and pure nerve. Many of the most expensive, useful, or unique items they had taken were still stored in a massive vault underneath the dining room, a collection that had continued to grow until they were granted status as a Noble House and saw little reason to continue with a profession that had long-ceased to be exciting. By the time of Harry's grandfather Charles, the fear their unstoppable alter egos commanded had long been forgotten. Instead, the family became known for the awe-inspiring power they brought to their fights against the Dark.
"Harry! Do you think we should bring the book on making ward picks, or would we be better off with the one on increasing a person's magical capacity?"
And that was the reason for their change in reputation. With a number of ways to become stronger magically, it was really no wonder they would be able to outlast any enemy they crossed wands with.
"Why can't we just take both?" he called back.
Luna's voice interrupted Hermione's response. "Because she already has all seventy editions of Hogwarts, A History packed, and there isn't enough room in the trunk left for anything else!"
"Luna!"
"Hermione!"
"Santa!" yelled out… Santa.
Harry fought to regain his balance after jumping several feet away from the short man who had suddenly appeared at his elbow. His glare was apparently less impressive than he had hoped.
"I'm afraid you can't take any of that with you."
"What," Hermione said in a threatening whisper, "do you mean, we can't take any of this?"
Santa grinned. "Why, exactly that. Since you three aren't fae, it takes more effort to move you through time. All the fae are going to pass on their remaining energies to the Queen, who will then pass them and her own to me. I will only be able to focus that amount of power for a small period before it destroys me, so the easier the transfer is, the more likely we will succeed. So, nothing but your minds are taking the trip." He paused a moment to allow everything to sink in, then ordered, "Join hands with me and each other."
After they had done so, he started glowing, first a dull red, then a blinding white. With a violent shove backwards and an ear-shattering scream, Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Luna Lovegood existed in the world of their birth no more.
Whenever I think of a war between Muggles and magicals, I think of the American occupation in the Middle East. On one side is a large and powerful military machine, on the other is a small, highly mobile group of fanatics, and in the middle is everyone who would get out of the way if they could. Once enough casualties rack up in the third group, they're going to choose a side; here, it's with their fellow magicals.
I have seen several stories where Muggles get a new name, like "normals", "mundanes", or "nonmagicals". Honestly, I'm starting to think that it's so the authors don't have to type out "Muggle" every time. My shift key hates me now.
I need to make a small distinction that will be present throughout this story. A "faery" is any individual of the fae people. A "fairy" is a member of a particularly vain race of fae that has little power and often adorns Christmas trees in magical households.
One more point, while some events happened the same way here as they did in Deathly Hallows, others did not. The muse isn't giving any hints, so I don't know if the specific differences will be mentioned.
Silently Watches out.
Chapter 2
To-Do List
When Harry finally regained consciousness, he was terrified that something had gone dreadfully wrong. The air smelled sterile, like nothing could live where he now was. His entire body ached as if his bones were burning underneath his skin, and once he opened his eyes, he was blinded by the bright light pounding on his face.
A blink and a second glance revealed to him that he was in Hogwarts' Hospital Wing, the absolute last place he wanted to start his new life in. The question that now plagued him was both simple and extremely important: When in Merlin's name am I?
He ran through his memories. Can't be first year, I'm much too big for me to be then, and the only time I was in here, there was a giant pile of sweets next to me. I don't hear anyone else, he looked around to find himself alone, so it isn't when Lockhart vanished my bones, and I wasn't here at the end of that year, so not second. No broom fragments or Hermione and Weasley, so not third. The end of fourth is a possibility. I wasn't here overnight fifth or sixth year, and wasn't at Hogwarts at all for seventh.
So, looking at things logically like Hermione always wants us to, it's the end of fourth, after the Third Task. I was only here for one night, so Madam Pomfrey should be coming over –
"And how are we today, Mr. Potter?"
– right about now.
"Honestly, I would sell you my firstborn for a pain-relief potion," he said.
He knew the admission was out of character for him at this period in time, but he was too afraid of what could happen to him if he were dishonest. When he and the girls first fell into a relationship, their number one, absolutely least favorite of his traits was his habit of saying 'I'm fine' whenever someone asked about his health. They had spent several months attempting everything they could think of to break it, but it wasn't until he had to spend three weeks sleeping on the couch while they were clearly and loudly having sex that he finally got the message. If Hermione found out that he had reverted back to his old ways, she would demand a refresher course, and he was not going back to that.
Pomfrey, contrary to his expectations, did not seem disconcerted by his openness. Instead, she came over to the side of his bed and lightly patted one hand. "I'm sorry, Mr. Potter, but you were exposed to the Cruciatus. There is no potion or spell that can alleviate the pain; that is why the curse is an Unforgivable. If a treatment existed, you wouldn't have to offer me anything for it. The only thing that will make you feel better is time and rest."
She drew her wand and performed a scan over his body. "Thankfully, the aftereffects are disappearing at a far faster rate than normal, so you should be completely pain-free by tomorrow."
"Does that mean I have to stay in here today?" he asked. "Or can I leave and come back tonight?"
Frowning, she considered the question, which was far more cooperative than he had ever seen her. "If you promise to keep from any strenuous activity, and if you have someone to help you when you need it, and if you return if the pain gets worse, then yes, you can spend the day with the other students and return tonight. Tipsy!"
Harry fought hard to contain his laughter as the elf popped into the wing. Elves could do many things, but hold their liquor was not one of them. He still remembered how Winky had been after Crouch had dismissed her—
Winky and Dobby! We traveled in time, so they're still alive! Both elves had died in the Battle of Hogwarts in the old timeline, but that was not going to happen now. They would live for much longer and be much happier, he would make sure of it. In fact, unless I totally misinterpreted Dobby's words, he had wanted to bind himself to me since I freed him from Malfoy.
Harry was so deep in his thoughts that he was unaware of Tipsy's activities until the elf placed fresh clothing on the foot of his bed. His attention back on the outside world, he thanked the elf and put on his clothes, before grabbing the thousand galleon prize and departing from Madam Pomfrey's domain.
Girls, twins, or elves?, Harry wondered. Each choice had its own benefits.
When Voldemort rose for the third time, the trio had been at the front of the new Order of the Phoenix. In their second battle, which was also the resistance's last, both Hermione and Luna had been seriously injured; Hermione had been hit with an unknown spell and was in a coma for five weeks, while Luna had so much damage to her abdomen that she was no longer capable of bearing children. He had been reluctant to have them out of his sight for a long time following that, and they had then spent almost two years constantly in each other's presence. He wanted them next to him, but he also knew that the other two endeavors he had planned would be more successful if he were alone.
He had been unaware of how much money his stake in Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes had made for him until after the Second Voldemort War was over. The twins had only granted him a ten percent share, but in the year since they opened the store, they had made several hundred galleons for him. If he played it smart, he could get a much larger proportion of the profit, as well as some voice in what products were sold there. If he had his way, they would never produce love potions again!
Dobby and Winky would be invaluable to the trio if they desired to restore Potter Manor once more, which he suspected both of his lovers did. They would also be able to find the Weasley twins and his girls and take him to their locations. Of course, Hermione still hated the idea of house-elf slavery, and even though SPEW was no more, she would have kittens when she found out. Hopefully, his and Luna's usual strategy to counter her high-handedness would likely make her stop and think about what she was saying.
His mind made up, he softly spoke, "Dobby?"
There was a pop followed by a cheerful projectile slamming into his knees. Harry laughed and pulled the elf off of him before kneeling to be on the same level.
"Harry Potter sir calls Dobby?" the elf asked, bouncing slightly on his heels.
"Yes, Dobby, I did. I had a question and was wondering if you could help me."
Dobby smiled even wider, if that was possible. "Dobby be answering any questions Harry Potter sir has."
"Thanks, Dobby." Harry ignored his companion's praises and continued, "You see, I recently found out that I have a number of family properties that haven't had anyone to take care of them, so I was wondering if you knew of any elves that were free and wanted a family or any that were in bad situations, like the one you were in with the Malfoys, and wouldn't mind being bought and working for me."
"Dobby knows elves like that," he sadly whispered. "Does Harry Potter sir know of one that he wants special?"
"No, I don't have any I want in particular. Perhaps Winky would be willing to be my elf." Harry paused to plan out his next his words. "If you weren't so happy working here, I'd steal you away in an instant."
"Harry Potter sir wants Dobby to be his elf?" This thought had Dobby's ears perk up. "Dobby is being very happy to be Master Harry Potter sir's elf!"
His little friend's enthusiasm brought a smile to his face. "I'm happy you're happy. There's just one problem, I don't know how to take on a house-elf. Is there some ritual or oath we need to go through?"
"No, Master Harry Potter sir. Master Harry Potter sir said he wanted to have Dobby as his elf, and Dobby wanted to be his elf. Now Dobby is Master Harry Potter sir's elf!"
Harry needed a moment to wade his way through the quagmire that was Dobby's speech, but was ultimately unsurprised by what the elf was saying. Over the years, he had learned that magic was more about intent than anything else, and since he and Dobby intended the same thing, it made a sort of twisted sense that that was all binding an elf to the family took. He shook himself out of his musings and continued with his plan. That's one brought in, now for the other.
"Well, that was certainly easier than I expected, Dobby, but I have a lot of properties that need to be restored. I don't want to rely only on you and have you hurt yourself or become exhausted. Would you be willing to work with another elf…" he backtracked when he saw Dobby's downcast expression, "Maybe one whose responsibilities was caring for the house while yours was caring for the family?"
"Dobby not bes mind having Winky works with him. Missy Hermy and missy Lunie be needing an elf, too, and Dobby knows not if he can take care of alls three."
Harry nodded. "Yes, Hermione and Luna could also need help. Wait…" He stared at Dobby. "How did you know that I'm with them?"
The elf looked at him like he had asked how to turn himself into an blue elephant. "Dobby knows about Master Harry Potter sir. Dobby has to, to be the best elf Master Harry Potter sir can have. But Dobby be keeping his Master's secrets and not be telling that Master Harry Potter sir and his missies cames from the future." Dobby bounced on his feet once more. "Dobby be making sure Winky be able to take care of Master Harry Potter sir. Calls if Dobby be needed." With a snap of his fingers, the exceptionally devoted elf was gone.
Harry stood where he was for several minutes before he made his way from the corridor. He needed to hear someone speak in an understandable manner to get Dobby's peculiar speech out of his head.
Time to hunt down the Weasley twins.
Fred and George were master pranksters, and as their position demanded, had a large workspace in addition to a number of small caches hidden around the school. Normally, finding their inner sanctum would be impossible. Normally, no one would be able to even get close.
Normally, the one pursuing them didn't have years of experience with the Marauder's Map.
As the twins had told Harry long ago, there were seven passageways marked out on the Map. Filch knew four of them, but three were safe. One was the route behind the statue of the one-eyed crone on the third floor that led to Honeydukes. Another was the tunnel running from the Whomping Willow to the Shrieking Shack. The third, behind a mirror on the second floor, had collapsed, and it was to this last that Harry walked. Upon coming to the mirror, he tapped it with his wand and whispered, "I am the fairest of them all."
He grinned as the mirror seemingly melted from the wall. There had to be some way to alter the passwords for these passages, as it was highly unlikely that what was the Founders originally chose; he wondered who had been inspired by a fairy tale.
Harry had to carefully pick out his path in the hall beyond the mirror. The room itself was in magnificent condition, but along both walls were long lines of tables covered with partially rendered ingredients, and on the floor were rows and rows of cauldrons, each busily simmering away. He took a brief look at some of them as he walked to the end of the passage, and recognized pain-relievers next to swelling solution, and he thought he noticed one cauldron full of a possible Polyjuice variant. The smell was so terrible and his eyes so busy finding safe places to set down his feet that he had to follow his ears to find the dastardly tricksters.
Thankfully they were present; he would have hated to have come all this way to discover they were not even in the room. They were busy weighing livers and measuring volumes of plant extract, so busy in fact that they had yet to notice the intruder in their laboratory cum playground. An evil smirk stretched across his face as he magically silenced his footsteps and snuck up behind them.
"What's that?" Even if they tried to prank him from now until the day he died, it would still not diminish the hilarity of the 'Marauders' Successors' almost literally jumping out of their skins.
"How did you get in here?!" demanded one brother.
"And why?!" shouted the other.
Harry's smile grew so large that it began to hurt his face. "The Map, and to talk to you."
"And what would…"
"…Harry Potter…"
"…Triwizard Champion…"
"…object of girls' adoration…"
"…and fear of evil Dark wizards everywhere…"
"…want with us?"
Tired of watching a verbal tennis match, Harry held up one hand. "I have a… business proposition, you could say. It stands to make a lot of money if done right, but I will only reveal it to you if you two will stop doing that!" His ire purged, he took a deep breath to calm himself.
"Okay, Harry, don't blow your top. How about you and I chat over there while this brother of mine continues what we were doing before your intriguing words?" the brother on the left said as he placed his arm around Harry's shoulders and guided him back towards the entrance. "Fred and I were in the middle of a somewhat delicate stage in our brewing."
At the beginning of the hallway, George turned to him. "Now, what is this about some business we can help you with?"
"I heard through the grapevine that Bagman's done a runner to get away from the goblins, so I figured that you two still hadn't gotten the money he owes you from the World Cup."
"That's right," George snarled. "Over thirty-seven galleons gone. It took us eight years to collect just that much. We wanted to open a joke shop, but without any funds, that's not going to happen."
George was exactly where Harry wanted him now. Over the past years, he had discovered just how much power lies, manipulation, and misdirection truly held. They were how Dumbledore moved him like a pawn on the chessboard, how Voldemort made the most arrogant wizards in Britain little more than his personal attack dogs, and how he and his loves had survived in the chaos of the Magical-Muggle civil war.
"Well, you know that the prize for the Triwizard Champion was a thousand galleons, quite a bit of money. Now, I don't need it myself, but I was thinking that my favorite pranksters might want it to open their joke shop…"
"That is a very generous offer. What do you want?"
"Oh, nothing much," Harry said with a faux innocent expression. "Just a small voice in the company and a bit of the incoming money. Net, of course, not gross."
George sighed. "How much?"
"Forty percent."
"What?! You want ownership of almost half of the business! Not going to happen, so not going to happen. We can give you… fifteen percent, but nothing more."
"Then I guess I'll take my thousand galleons elsewhere." At George's shock, Harry knew he had him. The key was to keep the red-head looking where he wanted, the size and cost of the investment, and not where he really really didn't, why Harry wanted the incoming money so badly when he had implied he had more than enough. Fixing Potter Manor wouldn't be cheap, and since he was no longer an adult, he had limited access to the main family vault. Besides, the twins had stood back and let Molly, Ron and Ginny go on with their plans; they deserved a bit of payback.
"George, George, George. Georgie – you don't mind if I call you Georgie, right? – you seem to have a bit of a misconception. This isn't a negotiation; you need my money more than I want a share in a company that has no guarantee of success. I'll be nice, though, and only take ten percent for the next two years, let you have time to graduate and set the shop up, before I start collecting my whole share. If you do well and show me a reason for expansion, either in product or location, I could be willing to float you the cash free of interest. That's a better deal than you'll get from Gringotts, I can tell you that.
"So, George Fabian Weasley, do we have a deal?"
Harry left their 'office' half an hour later, lighter by a thousand galleons but with a freshly written contract and a dark sense of satisfaction. His errands run, it was time to find his darling lovers.
Yes, this story is going to be light-hearted, I promise. We just have some setup to get through first. That should only take a few more chapters (I hope), then we get to see our delightful trio have a little dastardly fun, starting with Harry versus the Order of the Ugly Duckling.
Many stories talk about how Harry practically lives in the hospital wing, but I couldn't remember that many times he was in there when I typed this chapter. Maybe it's one of those commonly "known" but absolutely wrong facts that just built up in fanon? Poppy is never developed as a character, but I have a few ideas for her, so if she reappears as a bigger player, don't be surprised.
I love Dobby, but I hate how he talks. Not quite as bad as Fleur's accent, but close. And Fred and George? No way I'm going to write the two of them together again if I can help it.
I've always wondered where the twins did their brewing. I mean, it's not like there are that many out-of-order bathrooms laying around the castle.
A quick note on the exchange rate. Rowling said that a galleon was equivalent to five pounds; she also said she was bad at math. From the only item we get a price for that has a nonmagical equivalent (the Daily Prophet in book 1, which cost five knuts), I calculate that a knut is 10¢, a sickle about $3, and a galleon about $50. The twins' "life savings" of 37 galleons, 15 sickles, and 3 knuts would be just under $1900, while the Tournament prize is $50,000. Suddenly it makes a hell of a lot more sense why students would be willing to risk life and limb in the Triwizard Tournament to begin with.
Chapter 3
Fights, Plots, and Suicide
Harry whistled as he walked into the library. He had an absolutely devoted elf, soon to be two, and a source of income. As soon as there were two beautiful young women hanging off his arms, he would be as happy as a pig in mud, and the Point Me spell showed a delightful pair of arm-warmers just up ahead.
He quickly found them, sitting and talking quietly. He stalked over to Hermione's chair and put his hands on her shoulders. "Hey there, pretty girl. You come here often?"
Her face was hidden, but the smile she wore came out in her voice. "So what if I do? If you're hitting on me, you might as well walk away now. My boyfriend is the jealous type."
"Ah, I can take him, show you how a real man fights."
"He doesn't fight fair, it'll be over before you even know he's here." She turned around and gave him a once-over. "Besides, I'm not interested. I like my guys taller."
"Ouch!" Placing a hand over his heart, he looked over at Luna, who was reading a book on Transfiguration history upside-down. "What about you, honey?"
She did not even spare him a glance. "My boyfriend is the same way. Same person, actually."
"Some guys get all the luck." All three of them laughed as he sat down. "So what have you been up to, my lovelies?"
Luna put her book down. "Nothing much, we were waiting to make sure you were up before we looked for you, though we didn't expect you would be out already."
"Neither did I," said Harry, "but Poppy was a whole lot nicer to me this morning than she's ever been before. Maybe she finally fell for my charm."
"Did you ask to leave or just demand to be let out?" Hermione questioned.
He smiled sheepishly. "Asked."
"That does make more sense than her falling for your 'charms'. I don't mind Hermione, but I won't share a bed with someone old enough to be my mother, no matter how perky her tits are." Harry and Hermione did not appreciate the mental image the blonde had invoked and made their displeasure clear by tossing her over their shoulders and departing from the library. Well, he had her on his shoulder; Hermione had just taken the two bags that were on the table.
"Naughty nurses aside, we should have a chat. Have any ideas, Mione?"
"Requirement?" Though it took Harry a moment to interpret, he supported the suggestion. The Room of Requirement would give them the privacy they needed for their planning.
"Well, since we're all agreed," Luna said before sharply slapping Harry's arse, "mush!"
The walk to the seventh floor was uneventful, though the trio did receive strange looks from the students they passed. They finally arrived at the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy and his dancing trolls. Hermione began pacing, muttering a list of demands, and opened the door that had appeared in the wall. "Okay you two, inside. Luna, take your hands out of his pants."
"Awww."
The Room had become a cozy sitting room, complete with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and large circular couch. Sitting down, the door melted into the wall and the lovers became more serious. "Harry, we're here, healthy, much weaker than we are used to, and severely lacking in funds. How quickly can you get the Treasure Chest open again?"
"Er…" Harry knew he would have to tell them about Dobby, but he was hoping for a better opening. "Soon, maybe early next month."
"That fast? How? Even if it's only 1994, there's still a lot of damage and neglect that has to be repaired to get to the vault." She paused as she looked at his expression. "What are you trying to hide?"
"Hide? I'm not hiding anything."
"Yes, you are. I can see it."
Looking at Hermione, then Luna, he knew the jig was up; he pulled Luna into his lap as an attractive human shield before he spoke. "Dobby was willing to help out. Quite happy to do so, too."
"You can't make him quit his job here, he couldn't get a place with any other family because he wanted to be paid. If he left, practically the only person who would take him in would be…" Her confusion rapidly morphed to anger. "You didn't. Harry, tell me you didn't do what I think you did!"
Knowing he was dead meat, he tightened his grip on the girl who didn't currently want to use his guts as garters. "So Luna, how about them Harpies?"
"You know I prefer the Arrows, though there are several nice-looking Harpies. Remind me to put money on the Tornadoes, actually, considering they win the English League next year."
"Anyone else you want to put money on?"
"I'm not sure, but right now, not you."
"Harry. James. POTTER!"
He reluctantly glanced at his steaming girlfriend. An out right about now would be a blessing from heaven. "Have I ever told you how hot you look when you're angry?"
"Did. You. Enslave. Dobby. Or. Not?" She ignored the compliment, though it was a nice try. She'd ask him if he meant it later.
He looked anywhere but her. "Is it truly enslavement if he wants it?"
"Haaaaaarrrrrrryyyy…"
"Yes, I did bond with Dobby. He wanted to, I like having him on-call, as it were, so he can help us out if we need him to, and this way he will be tap into my, the family's, magic in case he has to fight like he did in the Battle. I don't see why you're so mad; he's been planning to be my elf practically since I freed him from the Malfoys in '92, and you know that I'm not going to abuse him. Merlin's beard, he'll probably be the best treated elf in Britain."
"That's not the point, Harry, and you know it! He was free and happy, and now you're dragging him back to the chains he fought so hard to get out of—"
"Enough." Luna interrupted sternly. She rarely acted this way, but when she did, the other two knew to listen, as it was always important. "Hermione, you are out of line. Harry will treat Dobby as well as he always has, and Dobby was and is devoted to him. Those 'chains' you speak of were due to his forced servitude to the Malfoy family; here, he bonded with Harry because it was his choice. You cannot say you are fighting for his freedom and happiness and then turn right around to deny him the ability to act on that freedom, even if it's returning to the bond.
"And Harry, you know how Hermione feels about house-elves. I'm not saying you need our permission – you're a grown man, after all – but perhaps you could have informed her a little more tactfully, or at least sent us a warning beforehand so she could get everything out of her system? There is also the fact that you still have little experience with them. Dobby is not a pet that will instantly forgive you if you offend him, as much as he acts like it sometimes."
Harry nodded at her chastisement; he had not thought of it at the time, but a heads-up would not have been too difficult, not to mention let the brunette's temper wind down just a little. That last statement of hers, though, was a bit much. "Are you sure that youwant to bring up the proper care of pets? Do I need to remind you of poor Alex and Bobby?"
Her bright flush was confirmation enough that she would rather not have that discussed again. She had found Alex the snake and Bobby the rabbit in the Manor's yard and thought they would make wonderful pets. She put them in a cage, and when she came back an hour later, she found that Alex had strangled Bobby and then suffocated trying to eat him. Needless to say, that was not her brightest decision, and he and Hermione had ribbed on her mercilessly for it.
"Any other decisions you made this morning that we're not going to like?" snarled Hermione.
Great, Harry thought, now she's angry and hurt. Terrific. "I gave the Triwiz money to Fred and George, getting a bigger cut of the profit from their store this time."
This perked her up; having parents that owned their own clinic made her a little cautious in money matters. "How much?"
"Ten percent for two years, forty after that." He enjoyed the surprise on their faces. He would freely admit he was not nearly as intelligent as the girls, but he was by no means an idiot. "Now that we've covered our days, can we please figure out what we will do from here?"
Hermione settled back onto the couch while Luna returned to her spot now that she was in no danger of becoming collateral damage. The blonde was the first to answer, "Well, the Fae Queen is counting on us to get rid of Voldie-monkey, so we certainly have that goal."
"True," Hermione said, "and even if she weren't, he would still come after you. Killing him would be in our own interests. Actually, killing all the Death Eaters would be, too; Voldemort is strong magically, but most of his power comes from their support and positions in the Ministry. Without them, he's just a wizard."
"Yep, just a wizard. A powerful, ruthless, amoral, devious, and currently immortal wizard. That won't be hard at all." He sighed; he may be twenty-four in his mind, but he had the magic and body of a malnourished not-quite-fifteen-year-old. If we couldn't take Voldie out of the picture before we left, how can we do it now? He asked that question out loud.
"Well, that's obvious, Harry!" Luna cheered. "We have to turn ourselves into nargles. He won't expect that!"
Hermione frowned. "Nargles? What do the… Not nargles, foxes. We become the Foxes!"
Harry was now doubly confused. He knew 'nargle' was the term Luna used for the girls in Ravenclaw who routinely and casually bullied her and stole her possessions, but he had no clue what they had to do with foxes. Hermione seemed to understand, though, so what could they mean? She wasn't taking about the Animagus process; no one could take on more than one form. Perhaps there was a similarity between them? Both were said to be mischievous, and they were willing to openly steal when an opportunity presented itself. The Quibbler labeled nargles as pests, and many people hated foxes, especially in Nottinghamshire, where Potter Manor was located since they were endemic there. The Potter family had never felt that way, though; in fact, they had a special regard for foxes due to—
Due to the Hooded Foxes, the name the Potters took when we were thieves! If we rob the Death Eater bastards blind, we can claim their wealth and family artifacts while creating a chance to kill them. It's perfect!
"You two are geniuses! We take their money, and not only do we have more resources, Voldie has less!"
"And if we make sure that they know that it's a group of thieves, we can know that they don't know that it's us, though we'll have to leave enough false trails so they can't know what we know they don't know, because if they know, then we will be in a lot of risk until we know that they know."
"Luna, I love you, and Harry loves you, but please shut up," Hermione said, holding her head. "You're giving me a headache. If you have something to say, keep your thoughts in a straight line, not a circle."
"But Hermione, my thoughts weren't in a circle. They were in a spiral. A circle has no end point, but I knew exactly where I was going. Perhaps you're having too much sex if you can't think clearly; I know I can't when Harry's inside me, doing that one thing with his—"
"Luna!"
"Moving. On." Harry, not for the first time, wondered how much easier life would be with only one of them in the picture. Easier, but certainly less fun. "If we're going to cause chaos as the Foxes and distract the Eaters from figuring out that it's us, we need to have a distinguishing mark, something for them to focus on. It also shouldn't have anything to do with the three of us, so no lightning bolts, or books, or creatures from the Quibbler."
This was right up Hermione's alley. "Well, we could create a variation on the Dark Mark, something mocking, like an obscene caricature. Or, perhaps, something with a fae theme."
"A purple unicorn!"
Harry and Hermione stared at their younger lover. What was she thinking now?
"And if we put it on a north-east facing wall, we could use it to attract Japanese tentacle monsters. They certainly wouldn't connect us with us then."
"Luna, babe, were you dropped on your head as a child?" Hermione asked.
She nodded. "Daddy went to a carnival when I was a few months old and thought I would be fun to juggle." She cocked her head, "I love him, and he has many talents, but juggling isn't one of them."
"Okay, while that explains quite a bit, it doesn't quite answer our question. What mark should we use?"
"I have an idea," Harry said, "but I'm not sure. The Potters were never connected with the Hooded Foxes; it should be safe. If we want the Purebloods to be distracted by an ancient group of thieves, we need to ensure they know who we are. So, a snickering fox?"
The girls each thought about it, before nodding. The Foxes were infamous, at least according to Luna, a nightmare to the rich and powerful. If the Death Eaters discovered the historic exploits of the group that was breaking their fancy wards and leaving them penniless, their terror would rapidly become the trio's best weapon. The shoe would, finally, be on the other foot.
"If we just attack Death Eaters, they will eventually figure out who is behind the thefts." Hermione thought aloud. "Thus the question becomes 'Should we also rob the rich neutral Purebloods?'"
Luna answered her. "It's simpler than that. The question is, 'In the years before and after Voldemort's third rise, did the neutral Purebloods do anything to absolve themselves of responsibility?' They did nothing, so they are just as culpable as the bigots who got the ugly tattoos. I say we turn all non-Light Purebloods into paupers."
"I second the motion," Harry joked.
"I suppose I vote in favor, too," said Hermione. "It's unanimous. Let's twist the wealth distribution of this world so far beyond normal that they never recover!"
The trio smiled; for the first time in two years, they had a plan beyond living to the next day. Like a veil had been lifted, they had a vision of a world they were not afraid or ashamed to be a part of.
"We can also get some practice in by taking out the Horcruces." Hermione stretched out on the couch. "Voldemort never checks in on them. He's new to his body, so if we destroy them quickly, he might think that the pain he's dealing with is the ritual, not his soul fragments dispersing to the Underworld, or wherever monsters like him go."
Harry agreed. "The locket is at Grimmauld, the ring at the Gaunt shack, the chalice is at Gringotts; I would prefer we get help from the goblins for that one again." There was no argument from the girls; if it weren't for Griphook, they would have had to attempt a break in, which would have almost guaranteed their deaths. "The diadem is here, so we should actually snag that one before we go home tomorrow. The diary is already gone. That just leaves Nagini, which will have to be killed last, and…"
He trailed off, his blood running cold. From Luna's and Hermione's faces, they had figured out the same problem he had. There were two Horcruces in Hogwarts right now: the diadem… and his scar.
"Maybe… maybe since it was destroyed last time, that change will carry over?" Hermione suggested weakly.
Luna had never had any use for self-deception, and she was not going to put up with it from her female lover. "The Horcrux was in his scar, Mione, not his mind. We have to deal with it now. It was never proven that Voldemort could use the connection to look into Harry's memories, but we can't rely on assumption."
"Well, we don't have any basilisk venom, and I'd rather not be immolated with Fiendfyre, so…" He didn't finish the sentence, didn't have to. There were four methods that could destroy a Horcrux, not the two Dumbledore thought. Those he had known about destroyed the vessel, leaving nothing for the soul piece to latch on to. The others separated the vessel and fragment directly: the Dementor's Kiss, which Harry would not agree to under any circumstances, or a spell that ripped the target's soul from his body.
"Luna, it looks like you will have to do it. Voldie used my blood already, so I have a pseudo-Horcrux. Make sure you aim at the scar, though, just in case."
She came up to kiss him passionately, followed by Hermione. Then she stood back, her face scrunched up as she gathered the necessary emotion. When her eyes opened, he flinched at the intensity of the hate she displayed in his direction, even as he knew none of it was for him. She raised her wand and took careful aim.
"Avada Kedavra."
Hermione carried on her crusade for at least three years in canon, I find it difficult to believe she would suddenly accept it and move right along. I do find her a bit of a hypocrite on the subject, though, for the reasons Luna stated.
The tale of Alex and Bobby is not going to be how Luna normally acts. She left them to get some food and bedding, was distracted, and forgot she put a snake and a rabbit in the same cage. Happens to the best of us, but generally not to such humorous effect.
I promised you innuendo, here's innuendo. Luna's description is about as graphic as I'm going to get, though; thanks to the admins' new stance, we have to watch our backs now with this kind of stuff.
I've read fanfictions where Voldemort can get inside Harry's head, but in canon, that is really just Dumbledore's supposition. As far as I can find evidence, the link was one-way, Voldie to Harry.
I have a little game for you, dear readers. There are three fanfiction references hidden in this chapter. The first to identify all of them will get a prize of some sort.
Chapter 4
Audience with the Queen
"Luna, it looks like you will have to do it. Voldie used my blood already, so I have a pseudo-Horcrux. Make sure you aim at the scar, though, just in case."
She came up to kiss him passionately, followed by Hermione. Then she stood back, her face scrunched up as she gathered the necessary emotion. When her eyes opened, he flinched at the intensity of the hate she displayed in his direction, even as he knew none of it was for him. She raised her wand and took careful aim.
"Avada Kedavra."
Harry had died twice, and each time was a different experience. The first time he died at the end of Voldemort's wand, and the lying old goat had met him in Limbo, which looked remarkably like King's Cross Station. The second time he had technically died was when they were transferred to this new time stream, and he hadn't waited anywhere, but simply woke up. Now, he was in a forest glade.
He looked around, seeing nothing past the trees that marked the boundaries of the circular clearing. Once again he was nude, so he imagined a soft robe and put on the one that appeared. After he had dressed, he noticed something very wrong with his location: there were no sounds. No birds, no insects, not even any wind rustling the leaves. His wand was gone, but that was expected, so he instead primed a wandless Protego shield in his left hand. Wandless magic was difficult, and he could only use a half-dozen or so spells in that manner, but the Shield Charm was thankfully one of them.
A snapping branch broke the silence directly ahead of him. Out stepped a woman, but one unlike any other he had ever seen. She possessed a slight figure, covered with a slip dress of innumerable shades of green. Her eyes and hair were as blue as the sky, set in a tanned face, and her ears—
Harry stared, for no human had ears that long, thin, or pointed.
"I certainly didn't expect you to visit me so soon, my champion," the woman said, and Harry was distracted by the undertone of her voice, like hundreds of silver bells, before he comprehended the words she spoke and identified her.
He clumsily bowed. "Y-your Majesty, I had no idea I would come to your realm. We were just destroying a Horcrux, the one in my scar, and the only safe way to do that was the Killing Curse, so I was actually expecting to go to Limbo or somewhere—"
Her laugh interrupted his babbling. "I did not mean to sound displeased, Harry James Potter, I was simply making an observation. Come, sit with me." A pair of mushrooms sprouted and grew to be large enough to sit upon comfortably, and Harry took the one closest to him. "Now that we are situated, please continue."
"Er, that was everything. I'm not sure how I got here, exactly."
"You came because I wanted to speak with you. I know what happened in your original timeline, and I apologize for the stress I have caused you moving you to the one you are in now."
"There wasn't much stress; we were more or less spinning our wheels where, when we were. We should actually be thanking you, your Majesty. Um," Harry paused, not at all sure how his question would be received, "what should I call you?"
"I have gone by many names: Astarte, Hecate, Morrighan, Titania." She laughed again. "At the moment, I prefer Lilith. Your thanks are accepted. Now, let us 'get down to business', I believe is the human expression.
"I have few expectations for you. Kill the man once known as Tom Marvolo Riddle; prevent the various magical species from being discovered, or at least killed, by nonmagical humans; keep the fae involvement in your actions a secret. Meet those three goals, and I will release you from your debt to me."
"Debt?" This threw Harry for a loop; they had been pulled from their time in payment for offing Voldemort, not as a favor. When had he become personally indebted to the Faery Queen?
"Yes, silly. Never ever thank a faery. It shows they have done more for you than you have for them; as such, you will still owe them something."
"I see," he said, "though I am a bit confused. You're the queen of the fae; why are you telling me how to stay out of a debt to your people?"
"You are no mere human, Harry James Potter, not to us. You are my champion, my sword in the fight against Tom Marvolo Riddle. Left unchecked, he could drive my children to extinction here like he did in your timeline."
He listened intently, trying to puzzle out what it was about her words that niggled something in his brain. "So you want us to stop him before he gets to that point here, I understand that, but why move us around the timesteams? Santa made it clear that we were moving sideways, but only our minds, so… what was the point? Why couldn't we stay in our world and move backwards?"
Lilith sighed and settled into a different position on her mushroom. "I hoped I could avoid this, but you should know. Each timestream is different. Generally these differences are minor and contribute little to the actions of individuals, but sometimes they are more significant. In both this timeline and your own, Tom Marvolo Riddle paid attention to 'fairy tales' once the world of magic had been revealed to him. Even now, the incarnation of this world has plans to eventually take fae magic. As Santa told you, that would normally be impossible, yet in your timeline, his war weakened us enough that he could integrate our power into his own. He was rapidly increasing in strength; we called on you because he had recently stolen the magic of the Winter Lady, one of my most trusted and powerful children. In a short time, it would be possible for him to kill me and take my own power."
"So you sacrificed your subjects, your children, just to protect yourself?!" Harry shouted.
"Do you think I enjoyed killing my own children?" Lilith asked, her voice simmering in anger, and Harry knew he had pushed too far. "It was an incredibly difficult choice, one I wish I had never had to make, but the fae in your time were going to die, and there was nothing I could do to prevent it. All I could do was protect those of my children that had a chance.
"Tell me, do you understand what it is like to slowly starve?" He nodded. "And when you were starving, would you have accepted a quick death to end the pain?" Ashamed, he nodded again. "Then you understand why I permitted them to die as they did. It was impossible for me to pull them away from that time, and my death would have caused their deaths if the lack of happiness had not done so already. They saved your life, your lovers' lives, and the lives of all their brothers and sisters. For that, they will be mourned and praised in equal measure.
"My children have incarnations of themselves in each timeline, but I exist in this, dimension you could call it, outside of time's flow, where I direct all the fae in all times. If Tom Marvolo Riddle conquered me in your timeline, he would have therefore conquered me in all timelines. Instead of all the fae in one world dying, we would be completely extinct. I could not allow that.
"Even now, your Tom Marvolo Riddle's war rages in your old world. I cannot allow the version in this world to do the same."
"But he hasn't weakened you here, so now that you know that he's a threat, you can stop him yourself. Couldn't you have just used some power from other worlds to do so and defend the fae in ours, as well?"
She shook her head. "The amount of power I can wield in each timeline is determined by the belief in us, the happiness, and the number of faeries present in them. In yours, I was so weak that I was in danger from Tom Marvolo Riddle. Santa's actions not only rescued you from a doomed situation, they also allowed me to save myself by removing my presence from that timeline, isolating your version of the enemy from all others.
"I understand your confusion about our lack of action. I have already said that Tom Marvolo Riddle learned from the tales he heard, and he surrounds himself constantly with iron. That metal is lethal to us; in large quantities, its very presence is toxic. I need a human to kill him, someone who does not share our weakness. I need you, Harry James Potter."
"I understand, and I accept your charge. I am also sorry for insulting you with my words."
Lilith looked him over a moment, seemingly judging his sincerity. "I will accept your apologies in this instance, as you were speaking out of ignorance and in defense of my children. I will not allow a second occurrence to stand without consequence." She looked into the sky and frowned, displeased with whatever she saw. "It appears our time is up. We have more to discuss, but it will have to wait until the next time we may speak. I will have one of my children contact you on the Autumnal Equinox; in the meantime, continue with any plans you have as long as you do not forget the reason you are here in this time to begin with."
A fierce wind began to blow, and it swept him away from the glade before he could say another word.
"I think he's coming back."
Hermione's voice, he thought. She sounded like she had been crying recently, but considering what they had to do, no one would fault her for it.
"He's not coming back, Mione, he's already here. Who did you meet in Limbo this time, sweetie?"
Harry opened his eyes to find Hermione's cinnamon and Luna's silver above him, both glistening with tears. "I didn't get to Limbo. Instead, I had a very interesting conversation with Lilith, the queen of the Fae."
The girls reached out and pulled him to his feet, then brushed down his back as if they were trying to remove any dirt. Harry knew the truth; they were touching him to make sure that he really was back amongst the living. "We talked a bit about what she expects from us and why she brought us here in the first place." He rapidly summarized their discussion and watched his lovers frown as he finished.
Hermione was the first to speak. "I knew it was too good to be true. There was no way they would help us for nothing."
"She is demanding no more than we had already planned to do, or not do as the case may be," Luna said, "but I'm more concerned with whether or not she's going to place additional conditions on us."
"Either way, there's nothing we can do about it now. We have, what, three months until we get a chance to question her again? Let's just worry about what we can do right now."
"Like handle this?" Hermione asked, holding aloft Ravenclaw's diadem. "It turns out we didn't have to leave here to access the Room of Hidden Things, we just concentrated on needing it."
"Good, that'll be two out of the way. Have you already destroyed it?"
Luna whimpered and wrapped herself around him. "You know Hermione can't summon the necessary hate for the Killing Curse, and I was a bit preoccupied." She burrowed her head into his chest, then shot back. "Also, you need a shower; dying makes you smell like wet Snorkack, and that is just not appealing."
"Fine," he sighed, "Hermione, you created the room, so you get to make the shower. Plain shampoo, please; I think we proved that the mango-pomegranate-cucumber-berry-whatever the hell it was you bought was a worse stink than wet Snorkack."
"It smelled just fine," she muttered, before having the Room produce a shower stall. He walked in, leaving the girls alone again.
Hermione waited until the shower had been running for a few seconds, then cast a charm toward the stall. Harry's manly cry of "Ayyyyyiiiiieeee!" let her know she had succeeded in hitting the shower head with a freezing charm.
"That's what you get for insulting the pomegranate!"
After Harry's, by necessity, cold shower, he exited with dried clothes and a glare and rejoined the girls at the couch. "I will get you back for that, Mione, you know I will. Now, where is the Horcrux?"
Luna set it in the middle of the couch's center clearing, then scooted out of the line of fire on one side while Hermione did the same on the other. He focused on his hatred of Voldemort for destroying his life – twice, in fact – of Bellatrix for killing Sirius, of Vernon and Petunia for stuffing him in a cupboard and treating him like rubbish for ten long and horrible years, of Dumbledore for leaving him at the Dursleys', of Ron for betraying them, not once, but several times, each worse than the one before. Feeling he did not yet have enough intent, he augmented the spell with his anger at Molly for potioning them, at the DA for rolling over when Voldemort returned, at Dudley for starting several of his 'witchhunts', at Ginny for being such a delusional, jealous, self-serving little bint… He wished the soul fragment a horrible, painful death and said the words. "Avada Kedavra."
A tight beam of pale green lanced into the diadem, leaving no visible damage but causing it to give out a high-pitched scream. He waited a few moments before reaching out and picking it up. "Looks good to me. Did one of you dispel the Madness Curse on it?"
Hermione raised her hand. He nodded and put the crown back on the couch before glaring at his wand. "That was more difficult than I expected; it was as bad as after I became the master of the Elder Wand."
After defeating Voldemort, he had found that his first wand was difficult to control, much like some of the wands they had picked off of Snatchers that had attacked them when they were looking for the Horcruces. Originally, he had assumed it was because the Elder Wand was just that much more powerful than ordinary wands, but now it was looking like there was something else at fault. "What do you think happened?" he asked.
They both pondered this for a moment, and finally Hermione thought out loud, "Well, we know a wand 'chooses' a witch or wizard and works best for that individual. If anyone else uses it without having 'won' its loyalty, or the first wielder 'loses' it, they can get a weak response. So, did you do something to lose you its loyalty, Harry?"
"Harry hasn't used it for anything since we came back, and I doubt using the Killing Curse did it; he cast it several times on the Hunt and never had any issues," Luna said. "No, what I think happened is that that wand never chose Harry at all. Its brother chose Voldemort, so I think when you were in Ollivander's, it actually chose the Horcrux as its wielder!"
"And since the Horcrux is gone, my wand doesn't recognize me as the same person. I guess I'll have to get to Ollivander for a new one as soon as I can escape 'Durzkaban'…" He trailed off before apprehension moved onto his face, "The Trace! We need to find some way to get rid of it before we leave, or else our summer plans are already dead in the water!"
Before he could work himself up too much, a small scrap of parchment appeared in front of them. Hermione picked it up and read it, then pointed her wand at Luna's and softly spoke an incantation in a language that clearly wasn't Latin. "That should do it for you, Luna. Harry, give me yours, then I'll perform the spell on mine." She repeated the process on the holly wand, then used that to break the spell on her own vine one. "All Right, that's all of them clean. Who knew that Hogwarts had the way to get rid of the Trace?"
"None know all the secrets of Hogwarts," Luna said mysteriously while climbing to her feet. "It's almost lunch time, and since someone didn't make me pancakes last night, I'm hungry." With that, the trio left the Room of Requirement.
The rule about not thanking the fae comes from Patricia Briggs's Mercy Thompson series. I heartily recommend it.
A chat between myself and Paladeus a while back fleshed out quite a bit of Lilith's and Harry's conversation. I hope it made the faery's motivations clearer. And before anyone asks, none of the fae care about Hermione or Luna, just the man destined to kill Voldie. The only reason the girls were brought along for the ride is that Lilith wasn't sure that Harry would agree to her offer if he had to go alone.
Like many guys, Harry doesn't get the big deal about pomegranate. Neither do I, actually…