Chapter 5
Confrontations Past and Present
The trio saw no students as they walked towards the Great Hall, allowing them to collect their thoughts and center themselves. There would be several people in the room that they had not seen since the second defeat of Voldemort, some whose deaths they had mourned, and even some who they would like nothing more than to slowly and messily dispose of. Not only would they have their own memories haunting them, but many would question how this most unlikely of relationships had developed without the nigh-omniscient Hogwarts rumor mill hearing about it; they would not, under any circumstances, deny they were happy together, especially not for this crowd of children.
"So, how are we going to do this?" Hermione asked when they were before the large doors. "Walk in and ignore any questions, make a scene, take out the junior Death Eaters?"
"Or we could tango our way inside," suggested Luna, "though I don't know that Harry's skilled enough with that routine to dance with both of us."
Harry fondly rolled his eyes at the many ways the two girls tried his patience. "To repeat Hermione, we're magically weaker than we were in our old timeline. Let's try to be discreet, please."
Luna huffed. "Fine, but if any of my Housemates decide to start shit with me, I'm going to finish it. I'm not that little girl who was afraid of escalation anymore." He and Hermione were surprised at her language, not her vehemence; Luna had not had a good experience at Hogwarts last time. When McGonagall told first years that their 'houses would be their families', she neglected to inform them that these 'families' acted more like packs of wild animals than humans, turning at a moment's notice on anyone who was different or 'weak'.
"Shall we?" he asked and confidently opened the door.
The Great Hall was extremely loud, echoing with the noise of the school's 300 or so students and worsened by the voices of the hundred additional students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang. The trio moved over to the end of the Gryffindor table closest to the door in order to stay out of the various conversations of their classmates; it had been ten years since this time for them, and there was no way for them to respond to the inevitable questions in-character enough to stay out of suspicion.
At least, I won't be able to be unsuspicious, Harry thought, though Hermione might be able to do it. Practically no one knows anything about Luna, so she won't have to worry about it at all. Oh well, it's not like they will do much of anything even when I do break character.
It was Seamus who first noticed the three of them sitting down, surprisingly. "Harry, I'm glad to see you away from Pomfrey. Do you think you could tell us what happened in the maze? No one seems to know."
"Seamus Finnigan, how dare you ask that!" Hermione scolded, "Harry spent the night in the Hospital Wing, and Cedric is dead; would waiting for a single day to go by before you ask such questions be too much for you?"
"Merlin, sorry Hermione, no need to yell at me. I figured Harry was made of strong enough stuff to be able to just tell us about it."
Harry laid his hand on hers to calm her down. "Seamus, it doesn't matter what I'm made of, you don't ask those kinds of questions. Besides, I expect the Headmaster will tell everyone about it eventually."
"We deserve to know what happened," Seamus said, looking at him angrily, "but if you're going to be a coward about it, fine. A true Gryffindor would tell his mates stuff."
A member of the House dedicated to courage trying to squeeze out information by calling another a coward, how obvious. Was I really this predictable when I was that age?
"Anyone can say they're brave; I prefer to let my actions prove my character for me. Besides, you don't 'deserve to know' anything, so why should I tell you a Merlin-damned thing?"
Even though he knew he was beaten, Seamus still wouldn't let the matter drop. "You think you're so special, don't you? The Boy-Who-Lived, the Triwizard Champion, you think you're better than all the rest of us! Well guess what, Potter, you're not. If it weren't for the teachers giving you whatever you want, everyone would know what a phony you are!"
Harry just looked at him. "And what makes you think the teachers do anything for me that they don't for everyone else? If you think about it, this year I actually got less assistance than any of the other competitors. As for being a 'phony' like you said, if it would bolster you ego, you can try to repeat something I did."
"Like what?"
"Hmm. Well, it'll have to be something easy, so no defeating a Dark Lord, and the Triwiz is over, so you can't do that. How about you kill a basilisk?" He grinned nastily as Seamus's face paled. "After all, I did that with only a bird and a sword at twelve. Surely a fourteen-year-old with a wand should find that rather simple. No? Then I suggest you look at yourself real closely before you decide to call me a coward." He turned away from Seamus back to his meal; he had made his point.
"Now Harry, what have we told you about getting into battles of wit with unarmed opponents?" Luna lightly chided, "He is just jealous that you're in the middle of everything that seems to happen around here; there is no need to rub his nose in his inadequacies. Now say you're sorry."
"I'm sorry that I brought up your inadequacies for everyone at the table to hear, Seamus," he complied, "I should have waited until it was just the two of us before I pointed out how much of a hypocritical sack of gob-shite you are."
Harry knew that Seamus did not deserve as much of their mocking as he was getting, but he had been one of the first members of the DA to give their allegiance to Voldemort; in fact, he had become one of the main trainers for Death Eater recruits. From that perspective, he was actually getting off rather lightly.
Seamus sputtered for a moment even as several of the nearby Gryffindors laughed. Normally he was the put-down king, so when did Harry get so sharp-tongued? "And what the hell is she doing here? She's a 'Claw, and she needs to get back to her table."
Hermione took the opportunity that he had just left; if they established Luna as someone welcome at the Gryffindor table now, it would be easier to make her a common fixture later. "You know I've read Hogwarts, A History numerous times, and it only says that a student cannot eat at a table other than their own House's during the Welcoming Feast. Other than that, we can sit wherever we want."
"Well there you go, Seamus; if Hermione says it's okay, then it's okay," Dean smoothly interjected before moving his attention to Luna. "Welcome to the Gryffindor table, I'm Dean Thomas."
"Luna Lovegood, Dean Thomas," Luna replied. "I must say, I admire what you've done with your color matching, that will certainly act as an effective Wrackspurt repellent." Harry could barely hold his snort in, and Hermione's shoulders were shaking enough that he knew she was having equal difficulty. It had been a while since Luna had used one of her creatures as a conversation starter, but the look on people's faces when she did so was priceless.
Ron finally diverted his attention from the food in front of his face enough to focus on his friends. "What's Loony doing over here?"
"Luna is here because we want her here," Harry said, pushing his rage deeper. It would do them no good to curse the little bastard here. He was losing the battle when Dumbledore – great, someone else to piss me off – stood up and began speaking.
"The end of another year. There is much that I would like to say to you all tonight…"
Harry tuned the old goat out. He had already heard Cedric's eulogy once, and the attention of the school on the Headmaster would give him time to get his head together, move away from the memories of the war that he would not let happen again.
"Welcome, everyone," Harry said to the Order, assembled once more at 12 Grimmauld Place, "I'm glad you could all make it tonight. In our last battle, we successfully routed the Death Eaters that attacked the Ministry, but we cannot allow ourselves to become complacent. We all recall the atrocities Voldemort committed the last time he gained power, and we will not allow them to occur again if we can—" He paused, the connection he had to the wards of his house informing him that several people had just entered the building. He flicked his eyes over the Order, performing an unnecessary headcount. Only Ron and his pregnant fiancee Lavender were absent, and there were far more individuals in the townhouse than there should be. They had kept the Fidelius Charm from the Second War up, first to hide him from his fans and then to facilitate the reformation of the Order. Perhaps Ron had scrounged up a large number of recruits? The way the number of Death Eaters was multiplying, he wasn't going to turn down any wizards or witches willing to help.
His train of thoughts was derailed as the door to the kitchen exploded, forcing him to overturn the heavy oak table, deflecting the sharp wooden shards. He looked over it, only to immediately withdraw to dodge a curse flying at him. On second thought, I willturn down any wizard or witch who is also wearing a Death Eater's mask!
"Attack!" he shouted out to the members before he entered the fray. "Reducto!" A bright red bolt flew out of his wand, turning the head of one Death Eater to mush. They had broken into and invaded his home; there was no way that he would treat them with kid gloves. Other Light fighters also began throwing out spells. He could see Hermione taking careful aim and firing what he supposed were obscure, nearly forgotten hexes, while Luna was on the other side of the table, sending spells that ranged from Color-Changing Charms to Bone-Shattering Curses, mixed together in random order. He knew from first-hand experience how devastating her method was, and how difficult to defend against.
The kitchen was simultaneously an excellent and terrible position to defend from. There was only one entrance, acting as a bottleneck for attackers, but the room was rapidly filling up with debris and bodies. It also meant that there could be no retreat, even for the growing numbers of injured Order members in need of medical assistance. Knowing that the situation was desperate, he shouted out to his fighters. "Push them back! If we can force them farther into the hallway, it will be easier to defeat them!"
Luna was the first to react, jumping over the table directly into the path of an Organ-Rotting Curse.
"Luna!" he screamed as the sickly yellow light connected with her body, throwing her back into the table. A red haze covered his field of vision even as the Elder Wand vibrated in his hand. His rage overtaking his reason, he fell back on the most damaging curse he knew. "Crucio! Crucio! Crucio!" The enemies started dropping like flies as he advanced from his position. "Crucio! Mione, crucio, help Luna! Crucio!"
Hermione ran over to their lover, Healer training taking over as she began making passes with her wand over the blonde's unmoving form. He knew he would only be a hinderance here, so he instead devoted his attention to the now-satisfying task of eliminating any opponents stupid enough to come where he could see them. After another ten or fifteen enemies were incapacitated so the other Order members could contain them, he found the leader of this force; even with the mask, he could see the bright red hair of the worm who had given the Secret to Voldemort's forces.
"Ron, you bloody traitor!" They began trading spells at a furious pace, speaking only when they weren't dodging. "Why? Why would you do this, we're your friends, and you sided with bloody Voldemort!"
"Friends," he scoffed, "you're no friend of mine! I followed you all through Hogwarts, fighting the Dark, and what does it get me, huh? You take the woman I wanted, you don't give me any gold, and still you hog all the fame! You get everything you want handed to you on a silver platter, but you won't share any of it with your best mate!"
"Hermione was never yours! She made her own decision, and the fact that you used love potions on us is what ruined any chance of her ever loving you!"
"She was mine, ever since our fourth year! If you hadn't gotten your crazy blonde bitch to flush out the potions, you'd be content with Ginny and I'd have Herms! But no, you can't let anyone have anything they want, it's always about you, you, you!"
Harry just barely managed to evade Ron's next curse, and the red-head pressed his advantage. "But the Dark Lord recognizes what I can do! Once I kill you and hand your head over, I'll have money, I'll have power, I'll have all the women I want! Maybe I'll even take the Mudblood right here so she can see your body as I put her in her rightful place!"
"Over my dead body!" came Hermione's shout, and she flung a blue curse towards their former friend. Time seemed to slow for Harry as he watched Ron respond with a spell of Chudley Cannon orange. The spells collided before returning towards their casters, no longer blue or orange, but a fluorescent pink, completely at odds with the danger he somehow knew it possessed. Ron dodged the spell, but Hermione, apparently confused over how that transformation had occurred, was a split-second too slow. It hit her in the forehead, and she dropped like a stone. Just as with Luna before her, she did not rise.
"Well," Ron said, looking at her with dismissive eyes, "I guess I can't break her like I wanted to."
Hate. That was all Harry could feel at the moment. Hermione and Luna were the two most important people in his life, each holding a different but equal half of his heart. Now they were hurt, possibly dead, and Ron cared for nothing but slaking his violent lust? Eyes that burned with green fire focused on the traitor. Only one spell would display his utter contempt, loathing, disgust with the filth in front of him.
"You bastard! Avada Kedavra!" It was the first time he had ever used the Killing Curse on a living thing. Later that night, he vowed it would also be his last.
Ron's eyes widened at the green jet of light flying towards him, and just managed to activate a Portkey before it connected.
Healers arrived ten minutes later to aid those who still had a chance of living. He should have felt guilty about his inattention to his allies, but right then, he couldn't care less about anyone in the house other than the two women he had promised to spend the rest of his life with. An hour and a half after they began treating her, one informed him that Luna, the most carefree and somehow the purest of the three of them, would never be able to show her wonderful inner light to her children. She would never bear one. As for Hermione, the only advice he received was to make his peace with her; unless a miracle happened, she would never wake again.
Harry and Luna neither slept nor ate for three days, too preoccupied with their tears to bother.
"Harry?" He jerked his attention back to the outside world, back to Hermione. "Everyone else went outside to watch the foreign students leave. Are you okay?"
He grabbed her hand, then did the same to Luna. "We're alive, we're healthy, we're whole. As long as we don't repeat the same mistakes we made before, we'll hopefully stay that way. Right now, my loves," he smiled at the girls, who quickly smiled back at him in reassurance, "I can't be anything but perfect."
I've always wondered why Luna was so accepting of her Housemates' bullying, and the top three reasons that make sense to me are that 1) she was so lonely that she would take any response to her just to have some attention, 2) she was far more mature than her age suggests and realized that their attitudes were ultimately of no importance to her, or 3) she was one girl ostracized by the rest of her House and was afraid of the real risk of a confrontation developing into physical violence. In this story, I'm going with number 3. I'm curious about your views on the subject.
All right, I'm going to be honest with all of you for bit. Even though what is depicted in these scenes from the end of fourth year is important, I'm very, very tired of writing about it. The action doesn't really even start until the summer; moving Cedric's memorial speech up to lunch and the foreign students' departure to that afternoon allows me to cut out a day that would have had basically nothing happening.
Honest Lunar Raven: Lilith is a strange character, not even I know what she's all about. Yes, Luna is now the proud owner of a holly-phoenix-feather wand, but she already has one and Harry still needs it. In DH, we see that someone can use any wand, they just won't necessarily get a good reaction. If you stay in my head much longer, I'm gonna start charging you rent. Yeah, there's a reason that when my muse says "Do this!", I just say "yes, ma'am". Besides, she's pretty cute.
Paladeus: I'm wondering if your review only stopped because you maxed out your number of characters : ) All fae can enter or exit her realm as they want, so she gets a lot of visitors. There were several timelines where Voldie worried about the fae, but after two versions started fortifying themselves against them, the fae… took care of the rest of the problem. By "surround himself in iron", I mostly meant his base, but he could have short bits of iron wire woven in his robes, as well. You sure you don't want him wearing a tinfoil hat?
I'm very much going with the idea of the fae as tricksters, and as for Lilith and all fae owing them? They can construe the fact that they brought the trio into a new timeline as equivalent to saving their race because, like you realized, those were the conditions of their deal.
Lilith acted as she did at the end because, like all fae, it's not wise to insult her. Luna, by trying to take over the North Pole, indirectly insulted Santa, but he's an easy-going sort and only left rotten eggs for her. Lilith, not so much. Speaking of Luna, she's just being paranoid, for the most part, however understandable it is. Lilith wants Voldie out of the picture to protect her people, and if she never sees the three again, so much the better. The "should thank you", for the fae, is close enough to thanking them, because it still implies that there is an imbalance. Lilith does still have some cards; she doesn't want to, but she could move many of her children from this reality to another, something she couldn't in the old reality due to lack of power. The whole "who has the power" issue isn't a plot point at the moment, but we'll see what the muse thinks as the story progresses.
Harry has a lot of hate built up (many from his background would), and you've seen Luna's real view of her Housemates, not just what she said in canon. They don't know why Hermione can't cast the AK; it just doesn't work for her, and you can bet that that irritates her to no end.
Chapter 6
The Plot Sickens
Hermione and Luna eventually managed to convince Harry to see the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang students off, and they walked through the main doors in time to spot the dark ship in the Black Lake slip beneath the surface. They hustled over to the crowd, hoping to at least wave goodbye to Fleur. She may have only interacted with them a few times now, but they had become close to her after she and Bill splintered off from the Weasley family following the Great Potion Disaster. As both of his lovers were somewhat affected by her Allure, he had spent the most time with her when the two 'couples' had visited. Their friendly conversations started to include him looking to her for advice, and soon she became the older sister that he had always wanted growing up; if he could have turned to her when he was still a student, he wouldn't have ever wasted his time with Ginny.
The powder-blue carriages appeared ready to depart, winged horses in their harnesses and luggage stored inside, but there were still students flitting across the grounds, spending a few moments talking to one group of students before hurrying to another. He didn't remember any of this happening last time, and a look to the girls confirmed his fears. Something was very wrong.
"'Arry Potter!" shouted a high-pitched voice. He turned around in time to see a small, silvery-blonde ball of energy before it flew into his chest, knocking him to the ground.
What is it today with being pounced on?, he thought as he looked up at the eight-year-old Veela. Gabrielle Delacour, Fleur's little sister, darling of her family, and from the panicked voices of the other French students, pint-sized trouble-maker. She showed no hurry to get off of him, instead babbling away in French and making wide sweeping gestures, occasionally taking a short break to poke him. "Er, Mione, can you tell me what she's saying?"
When there was no response, he glanced her way and scowled. She was right there, trying – and utterly failing – to hide her laughter behind her hand. She caught ahold of herself and said, "Well, Harry, she seems to think that only an absolutely horribleperson wouldn't be here to tell her goodbye, so she had to run around and look for you because only something dreadful could have kept her hero from—" She snorted again, then made a quick comment to Gabrielle before she continued, "—from coming over so you could meet your future in-laws."
"My future what?!"
Luna by now had cracked up as well and stood bent over at the waist, her head somewhere below her knees and her rear bobbing around as she nearly convulsed in giggles.
"Your future in-laws, Harry, weren't you listening? You saved her from the lake, and since she is her daddy's little princess and you're her knight in shining armor, you have to—" Another snort or two came from Hermione, even as she hid her face in her hair to withstand the temptation of further laughter, "—have to follow the fairy tales and take her home to your French castle and live happily ever after!" The battle lost, she fell to the ground, face flushed and gasping for air.
Harry stared at his loves in shock, dismay, and not a little betrayal. They were supposed to stand by him through thick and thin, and the first disaster they encounter in this timeline, the two of them were laughing at his misfortune. Laughing! He looked at Gabrielle from the corner of his eye and frowned even more; she had joined the two fair-weather friends in their mirth, not knowing enough English to realize she was the source of it.
"Oh, she is just too adorable," squealed Luna. "Can we keep her?"
"She's not a pet, little moon. We need to get her back to her family," he said.
"Then can I have a Snorkack?"
Harry did, in fact, withhold his sigh, though it was a close thing. "Yes, Luna, if you and Xeno find a Snorkack, you can keep it."
"And can I have a pony?" Hermione asked with wide eyes. She only held the expression for a moment before she collapsed back into laughter, which caused Luna to lose her tenuous grip on seriousness.
He nudged Gabrielle from his chest and stood, then he reached out and grasped her hand. "Come on, we'll leave the giggle monsters on their own. We need to get you back to Fleur."
The little girl showed no comprehension until her sister's name was mentioned. Tightening her grip on him, she yanked him through the crowd to the other side of the carriage where Fleur was standing alongside her mother. Even able to withstand the draw of their sensuous aura, Harry felt the powerful subconscious compulsion sliding along the barriers of his hard-earned Occlumency.
He cleared his throat to gain the two women's attention. "Fleur, Madame Delacour, I believe I have something that belongs to you."
"Gabrielle!" her mother called, before she pulled the child from his grip and began scolding her.
"Eet seems I now owe you twice, Monsieur Potter," Fleur said, "for zis ees ze second time you 'ave found my seester and brought 'er back to me."
He blushed. "It wasn't a big deal. She wanted to say goodbye, that's all."
"Non, eet ees not all. We were searching for 'er seence zis morning, and 'ad not found 'er. Eef you 'ad not brought 'er 'ere, I don't know what we would 'ave done."
"I'm sure you would have found her," he replied, desperately thinking for another subject. Profuse thanks always made him feel awkward. "What do you plan to do now that you've graduated?"
"I 'ave been offered a poseetion wiz ze goblins of Gringotts. 'Opefully, eet will geeve me time to eemprove my Engleesh."
"Your accent's better now than it was at the beginning of the year," he said, "so I'm sure it won't take much for you to speak like a native.
"You said you're going to work for Gringotts, is that as a ward-master or a curse-breaker?" For all the expense of Gringotts' warding services, few wizards realized that goblins were incapable of creating them. Their magic made them natural weapon and armor smiths, and they had adapted numerous dwarven techniques for enchanting, but wards were a human invention. Every time Gringotts wards were commissioned, the individuals doing the actual casting were humans employed by the bank. The same tactic was used with their curse-breakers, who were trained to tear down wards and curses from ruins and tombs to get to the treasure hidden within.
"I will be training as a ward-master, zough I would like to become a curse-breaker. I theenk I do not 'ave ze skill to do so. I was een last place een ze Tournament."
Harry shook his head. "Fleur, the Tournament was rigged from the beginning. In a straight duel, Krum could wipe all of us out with raw power, and you and Cedric had the most talent."
"And still, you won."
"I had a lot of people making it easy for me," he countered with a grimace, "so many that a first year could probably have been the Champion if they wanted it. I'm nowhere near as good as the three of you are, not yet."
Fleur smiled at him, "Not yet, but soon. I was not as powerful or as skilled as you when I was fourteen. I believe ze ozzers were not eizzer. Non, a year or two from now, and no one will 'ave any doubts zat you deserved to win." A series of chimes kept her from saying more. "Eet ees time for me to leave you, but I will soon be een England again. Until zen, 'Arry Potter, au revoir." She took his head in her hands and kissed first one cheek, then the other before she swiftly walked into the carriage.
Harry struggled to dispel his blush when the two glares slamming into his back instantly removed it. So this is what people mean by 'the kiss of death'.
It took some fast talking – and a promise of ice cream for Luna – for Harry to be removed from his girlfriends' shit lists. He trudged his way back to the Hospital Wing after they were satisfied, intent on speaking to Pomfrey. He had promised to return if he was in pain or fatigued, and being up these past few hours had worn his energy back down to nothing. More than that, though, was a line of questioning Hermione had pushed him onto with a simple comment.
"Surely Madam Pomfrey could find some Pepper-Up to help you stay awake. Actually, while you're there, ask for some nutritional potions; I'm worried that the Dursleys will try to starve you again this summer."
Yes, he was sure that the nurse could get him some potions to help him put on weight, but why had she never given him one before? He hadn't been there all that often, but she performed numerous scans on him every time he had to stay overnight; there was no way that she had missed the obvious signs of malnutrition. Yet somehow, in the six years he had been in her care, she had never once mentioned anything she could do to help him. All told, this gave him serious doubts on her trustworthiness.
Stopping outside the Hospital Wing, he tried to prepare himself mentally for the meeting ahead. In the previous timeline, almost everyone involved in the disaster that was his 'childhood' had already died by the time he figured everything out, Pomfrey included. Now that he was about to confront one of them, he realized how much easier he had it before.
He straightened his shoulders and walked through the doorway. "Madam Pomfrey, are you in here?"
"In here, Mr. Potter," came the mediwitch's voice. He followed it into her office and took a moment to examine the decor.
Least surprisingly were the books, filling a bookshelf on the left side of the room. The right side had a shelf covered with vials, and Harry could see that each one was labeled in a small, careful script. She had no true desk, just a short table that was flush with the far wall of the small room. In front of the table was a wheeled stool, and perched on top was Pomfrey, diligently writing on several pages of parchment. Paperwork, the unstoppable nightmare.
"I must say, I wasn't expecting you to come back so soon. I thought you would push yourself until you collapsed and would have to be carried here."
He flushed, that was exactly what he would have done, and did do, in the old timeline more times than he could count. "When Hermione saw how tired I was, she insisted that I come to you. I was wondering if I could get a dose of Pepper-Up to last me until tonight."
"I can't do that, Mr. Potter," she said. She swiveled her stool around to fully face him. "If you were only fatigued, I would not have a problem giving you something to keep you awake, but your magic is already fully occupied countering the Cruciatus. The best thing you could do for yourself if you're feeling tired is to take a short rest."
"You really care for your patients, don't you?" He struck when she smiled in response, "But I must say, if you care so much, how is it that you haven't done anything to fix what my so-called 'family' has done to me over the years?"
Pomfrey bent her head down, looking at the hands she was twisting in her lap. "I wish I could have helped you somehow. Every time you came in here, I couldn't help thinking that it was partly my fault you were there. Maybe if I had treated you, you wouldn't have nearly died so many times…"
"If you wanted to help me so much, why didn't you?"
"Because Dumbledore," she spat, "used the Hippocratic Oaths and the vows I made to become Hogwarts's Healer against me. He arranged it so that I could never help you as much as I wanted."
Harry blinked in confusion. "What do you mean, Hippocratic Oaths? And what other vows?" He had heard of the Hippocratic Oath from the Muggle world, but he didn't know that Wizarding Britain had a similar practice. Hermione had never told him about them, either, but she had only completed three of the five years of training needed to become a Healer.
"The Hippocratic Oaths are five magical oaths that Healers swear to follow before they graduate from their training and take on their own patients. Breaking a single one would have taken my magic from me, and I fear what would happen to you, to all of the students, if I was forced to leave."
"But how could Dumbledore trap you in your Oaths?" he asked.
"The Hippocratic Oaths are highly specific. This is meant to prevent Healers from being trapped in a situation where any option will force them to violate one, but Dumbledore twisted them so that my job did that itself.
"The first Oath is 'I will perform all treatments within my power as needed, and will never cause my patients harm, through action or inaction, unnecessarily or disproportionate to the benefits they will receive from my treatments. On my magic, I so swear.' Its purpose is obvious, preventing any Healer from causing harm to a patient due to personal feelings.
"The second is 'I will inform my patients of their infirmities and the proper treatment for them before administering any remedy. If my patients are minors, I will inform their guardians, unless the guardian in question is the cause of the patient's condition. On my magic, I so swear.' Many people are more comfortable if they know what their Healer is going to do and why. Since we must look at patients as people, not just problems to be solved, causing emotional distress can be considered harming them, violating the first Oath.
"The third is 'I will not treat any condition for which I have not been trained, except as a last resort for a patient lying at the foot of the Veil. I will seek out fellow Healers who are knowledgable and experienced in the specific condition my patient suffers from. On my magic, I so swear.' Long ago, when Healing was taught through apprenticeships, most deaths were due to young Healers who had no idea how to treat an infirmity they had never encountered. There are a number of diseases or injuries that require attention from specialists.
"The fourth is 'I will respect my patients' privacy and will not release information on them without just cause. On my magic, I so swear.'We learn things about patients through the exams we perform that they would never tell another person. Our duty is to bring our patients back to full health, not spread rumors about them. On the other hand, in some cases, such as abuse, we need to be able to involve the DMLE, hence the phrase 'just cause'.
"Finally, the fifth is 'I will not make any vows that violate these Oaths I swear as a Healer. On my magic, I so swear.' This Oath has a simple purpose; it keeps Healers from being caught between conflicting vows."
"Okay," Harry said after thinking over each Oath, "all of them make sense on the surface, but you haven't treated me for the starvation I suffered, nor did you call in anyone to take me from my relatives, so how did you avoid violating the Oaths?"
Pomfrey sighed. "I didn't violate them because I had to swear two other vows before I could work here. First, I swore on my magic to inform the Headmaster, as the guardian in loco parentis for all the children attending Hogwarts, whenever a student's course of treatment required long-term action, or when it would interfere with their ability to participate in class. Furthermore, unless the student is at least seventeen years of age, I have to wait for his permission to proceed with the recommended treatment or to release the student's medical information to any individual other than the Headmaster and the student's guardians.
"I tell Dumbledore every year that you need more help than I can give overnight, but while he says he will have words with your guardians, he never authorizes treatment, nor does he allow me to consult with experts from St. Mungo's."
"So you couldn't treat me yourself, but nothing was stopping you from telling me—"
"There was. The Headmaster also made me swear not to approach any underage student, you in this case, about your conditions or treatment options before I had consulted your guardians and gained consent for the treatment. The second Hippocratic Oath kept me from treating you without telling you what I was doing, and my oath to the Headmaster prevented me from telling you, so I couldn't treat you."
Harry could understand the distress and anger the older woman was feeling. He had been manipulated since his parents' deaths to be Dumbledore's tool, but he had been blind to what was happening behind the scenes until everything was already over. How much worse was it for Poppy Pomfrey, who saw the snare only after she had already been caught?
"But you're talking to me about it now, so how are you avoiding breaking your vows?"
Pomfrey's eyes were an unsettling imitation of Dumbledore's, and her malicious grin would have made Voldemort proud. "I couldn't tell you before, but you approached me this time; it's a loophole in Dumbledore's restrictions. Since you already know, there are now many more options available to us…"
Why did I let Fleur talk? I thought I learned my lesson the firsttime!
It's funny that fanon has so many mentions of goblin wards, but we never see a single one in the bank in DH. And you would think that if goblins could put up and break down wards, they would never hire humans like Bill to do it for them.
The scene with Poppy arose from a reread of southern-reader's review from chapter 2. Thank you, friend! By the way, the "Hippocratic Oaths" above are not the Hippocratic Oath that medical professionals swear to uphold, though I did base the first, third, and fourth Oaths on portions of it.
I don't think I need to explain why Dumbles wants Harry weak and uninformed; most of you already know where I'm going with that. If you don't like this interpretation of Dumbledore… why did you start reading this in the first place? I put it in the summary, after all.
Chapter 7
Last Minute Errands
Teenage boys are notoriously bad at keeping up with their possessions; it is simply a fact of life. Put five of them together in a dorm for a term or two, and it is a catastrophe waiting to happen. Put five of them together in a dorm for a term or two with no adult supervision, and the room does not have to wait to become a disaster; it has already been demolished.
Such was the case with the fourth year Gryffindor boy's room. The floor was covered with clothes they had neglected to put in the hamper for the house-elves to clean; candy wrappers and game pieces, mostly Gobstones and chessmen, were strewn randomly throughout; and each boy would need to ask the others for help finding any articles of clothing they were missing. Even the bed and dresser belonging to Harry, who was obsessively neat compared to his roommates, were total wrecks.
Harry, having walked inside just after nine in the morning, stared in mute horror. After he had to live on his own, he had regained some of the cleaning habits he developed at the Dursleys', though not to the extreme Petunia had taken them. What was normal and acceptable for him at fourteen was far worse than he was willing to deal with at twenty-four, even if only in his head. All I wanted to do was get all my stuff together and have it ready for the elves to take to the train when we leave in a couple of hours, not deal with this! I don't recall everything that belonged to me at this time, and I have other things I would rather use my time for than looking through this entire dorm for my clothing. He moved to his trunk and checked inside for his invisibility cloak – he stuffed that into a space-extended pocket – photo album, and Firebolt. At least my most valuable belongings are where I left them. Now what am I going to do for the rest of my things?
"Master Harry Potter sir needs Dobby's help?"
He spun about, wand sliding into his hand from his sleeve with a wandless summoning charm, and he shoved the tip in between tennis ball-sized eyes, which crossed to keep the business end of the focus in sight. "Dobby, don't scare me like that," he said, quickly withdrawing his wand. "Now, what did you just say?"
The elf shuffled on his feet, still a little upset about making his master unhappy. "Dobby wanted to know if Master Harry Potter sir would like Dobby to help get all of master's things."
"Yes, that would be wonderful. Thanks, Dobby." Dobby regained his normal spirits with Harry's words and clapped his hands. From under beds, behind a dresser, and even inside Ron's trunk, items flew over to them. Another clap had them neatly arranged and in his luggage, which was now standing on its side and waiting to be whisked down to Hogsmeade station.
"Dobby is being done, Master Harry Potter sir. Dobby be leaving now."
"Hold on," Harry said. He had discussed the house elf situation with Hermione and Luna when they had visited the night before, after he and Pomfrey had finished their own plans, and they had asked him nicely (that is, told him to do it or else) to speak with Dobby; he now had a short list of rules that the two beings would have to follow. Speaking of… "How is Winky doing? Is she getting better?"
Dobby's frantic nodding made him wonder if he needed to carry around large rolls of tape for when the elf inevitably threw his own head off his shoulders. "Winky is being better, Master Harry Potter sir. Now that she has a family, she not be drinking and be working again. Should Dobby tell Winky Master Harry Potter sir be asking?"
"You can if you want. I have some things we need to talk about, but you can hear them now and tell her later, I suppose. Take a seat."
With great difficulty, Harry pretended that he couldn't hear the elf's mutters of how he was such a 'great and good master'. Once the elf was seated upon the corner of his trunk, he took a knee on the floor, allowing them to be at eye level. "I talked with Hermione and Luna about having you and Winky as my elves like I said, and they don't see a problem with either of you working for me as long as we set down some ground rules. You have to follow them if you want to stay our elves, do you understand?" A wary nod was his only answer.
"You and Winky may be bonded to me, but Hermione and I were raised in the Muggle world, which has laws against enslaving people. So, we are going to treat you two as employed domestic servants, which means uniforms and a salary. You and Winky can choose what outfits you want; the only requirement is that they have to complement each other and you need the Potter coat-of-arms on it. We will pay," Harry did a quick calculation, "35 galleons a month and give you every Saturday off—"
"No!" Dobby wailed. "Dobby being happy to be Harry Potter sir's elf, Dobby not be needing so much!"
"Well I have to pay you something, or Hermione is going to have my hide. What would you be willing to take?"
Dobby thought for a moment. "If Dobby must take money, Dobby wants one knut a year and no days off."
He failed to contain his sigh; why couldn't Hermione do this herself? Oh, right, because Dobby is bonded to me, personally. Even if he changed his allegiance to the Potter family, I'm still the only one in it. 'If Luna and I can't both marry you, we won't get married at all', she said. 'It just wouldn't be fair', she said. Sometimes, my life utterly sucks.
"Twenty galleons a month with a day off every two weeks."
"One sickle a month and no days off."
"You're going to be stubborn about that, aren't you? Fine, one day a week that you may use however you wish, even if that's working, but in return you have to accept fifteen galleons a month."
"Dobby cans accept that, but Winky being not." A smug grin grew on the elf's face, "Dobby not taking more than Winky."
"Ugh," Harry moaned. I should tell them they answer to Hermione but can only accept clothes from me, just to make this her problem. "All Right, Dobby, since you're wanting to play dirty. You still get that free day each week, but I will set aside up to twenty galleons every month, ten for each of you, that you and she may spend if you want on whatever catches your fancy. I don't care if you spend all of your allowance or none of it, the next month you will have a full twenty galleons available. This is my final offer; you can take it or I will order you two to receive 35 a month and every Saturday off."
Seeing his point, Dobby finally relented. "Dobby and Winky be taking one free day a week and twenty galleons a month. Does Master Harry Potter sir have more rules?"
"Yes, Dobby, just a couple more. Anything the three of us – Luna, Hermione, and I – say in private cannot be told to anyone without our express permission, even if they say that they need to know to help us. Not McGonagall, not Dumbledore, not even the Fae Queen if she comes to call, understand?"
"Dobby being a good elf," Dobby said indignantly, "Dobby not be telling Master Harry Potter sir's or his missies' secrets."
Harry held up his hands in surrender. "Okay, okay, I didn't mean to insult you. It's just that, before we came back, we heard stories of elves who thought they were helping their masters and instead were tricked into betraying them. I wanted to make sure you never found yourself in that situation," he quickly lied. Kreacher had not been tricked into anything, but that was a story Dobby didn't need to hear at the moment.
"Dobby understands, Dobby and Winky not be telling secrets ever unless Master or his missies say to."
"Good. This next one is especially for you, Dobby. If you two hear about a threat to any of us, you will tell us, immediately and clearly.No hinting around the subject or trying to save my life like you did… two years ago." He barely kept himself from saying 'twelve years', which would have been a very bad slip up. I should make sure that I don't use the future as my reference point, or I'm going to make things a whole lot more difficult on us. "We will decide what, if anything, needs to be done to stay out of danger."
Dobby nodded again, so Harry was free to give the rule that he really wanted to deliver. "Last rule, I do not want you to call me 'Master Harry Potter sir' all the time. Please, just call me Harry."
"Dobby cans not be doing that, but Dobby can be calling Master Harry Master Harry."
"If that's the best you can do, I'll take it." A thought popped into his head, a wicked and devious thought. "Actually, Hermione will probably be giving you a lot of orders, and so she really deserves being called 'Missy Hermy Grangy ma'am'. Only I can tell you to call her something else, got it?"
Dobby returned to his bobble-head impression, "Dobby cans do, Dobby helps Master Harry with his joke. Does Dobby need to call Missy Lunie special, too?"
"No," he said, "just address her how you have been. I'll call on you soon, likely tonight. Don't forget to tell Winky what I told you." A squeal of happiness and a soft pop was his reply. He stood up to leave the room when the flutter of wings reached his ears; turning, he saw a white-feathered Fury glaring at him with yellow eyes from the open window.
"Hey, girl," he said in a fearful voice. "You know I would never forget about you, right?"
Down in the deep dungeons of this domain of discipline, a fairly full-figured, flaxen-haired, feminine felon flew fleet-footedly, following the foul fragrance of that fun-hating, fiendish fellow Filch. She subtly silenced the soft sound of her steps so she could seek out some suitably scintillating secret. There, the portal to possible prizes, promised per the prankster princes to provide pleasure and playful pastimes. Carefully, she cased the corridor; catching the crafty crook could compromise her companion's conspiracy to commit crazy and comic crimes.
After a glance down each end of the hall, then double-checking the ceiling, Luna walked over to the door to the caretaker's office. A quick unlocking charm later, and she was inside. The room was unimpressive, little more than a large closet that someone had stuffed a slightly battered desk and several filing cabinets into. It was to the latter that she made her way.
According to Harry, the twins had said that they found the Marauder's Map in their first year after being caught setting up a Dungbomb. That was by no means surprising to the Ottery St. Catchpole native, but exactly where they found it intrigued her. Based on her memory of the story, she sought and at last found the drawer they had spoken of.
"'Confiscated and Highly Dangerous', are we?" she giggled. "Well, my pretties, you will have a better home than this smelly old cupboard. We shall have so much fun together." She opened the drawer and peeked in, then slammed it closed as she stuffed her fist in her mouth; all her secrecy would be for nought if she revealed her presence with a burst of maniacal laughter. A second look only worsened her situation.
After she had regained her seriousness – or is it Siriusness, since he is, after all, still alive and supposedly safe in… in… well, in his home, anyway – she crept up the cabinet until she was sitting on top. Focusing on Filch's one lamp so as to not resume her cackling, she slid the drawer all the way out and untied the burlap sack wrapped around her waist. Someone who didn't know her well would wonder why she had one to begin with, but her lovers understood; though she had never seen any this far north, she knew one could never be too watchful for Blibbering Humdingers. It may not be Santa's bag, but the space-extension should allow me to hold everything.
She opened the sack and covered the top of the drawer with it. Now that she was safe from temptation, she drew her ebony wand and pointed it at her new toys. "Accio everything in the drawer that won't promote the Rotfang Conspiracy." Her wand hesitated a moment, then obediently pulled the summoned items into the container. After all her 'confiscated and highly dangerous' treasures were inside, she put her wand back in her pocket with a pat. "Thank you, Eric."
Her skipping gait took her out of Filch's office and into the hallway, then she stopped and walked backwards to the door again. "I knew I forgot something," she muttered, then pulled her wand back out. "Animadverto me non," she intoned, casting a notice-me-not spell on the entrance to the room. How could I be so silly? First rule of thievery: make sure that no one stumbles onto the scene of the crime.
The Hogwarts Express is a marvel, Harry thought as he gazed at the train, of the stupidity of the average wizard. A perfect example of wizards taking Muggle objects they have no comprehension of, putting spells on them that make whatever it is about five times more complicated than it needs to be, then choosing to paint it with a color so eye-watering that it leads me to wonder if attaining the title of Pureblood requires color-blindness. Scarlet generally wasn't a bad color, as long as it was on cloth, wood, or some other non-reflective surface. The metal siding of the Express, however, was not one of those, and the light bouncing off the non-painted sections onto the red was enough to make him want nothing more than the chance to dump the train in the middle of the ocean.
"Don't worry, mate," Ron said as he clapped his hand on Harry's shoulder. The raven-haired veteren-in-a-wet-behind-the-ears-boy's-body barely managed to check his initial impulse, which would have been to use the 'Voldemort Special' and Crucio the ginger into insensibility before feeding him to a conjured anaconda. "It's just a couple of months, and I'm sure that Mum will be demanding Dumbledore to let you come over."
Harry pasted on his face a smile so obviously forced that even Crabbe and Goyle would have known he was lying. "Sure, that would be great." Ron grinned back and jogged into one of the coaches.
Either I'm a better liar now than I was as a teen, or Ron Weasley is a lot more oblivious than I remember.
He, too, entered the train and searched for the compartment that Hermione said she would claim, working from the first carriage down to ensure that he found it. Most likely, she had also warded the thing to high heaven.
Of course she picked one at the very back, he thought irritably ten minutes later. It's not like there weren't more than enough in the first coach. Or the second. Or the third. He knew it wasn't fair to take his annoyance out on Hermione, they had always ridden as far back as they could, but right about now he really wanted to punt some fools off the train while it was rolling along in the middle of nowhere. Every compartment he passed, there were students gawking out the window at him, almost as if they were wondering what terrible thing would happen to him next. And soon, they'll all believe the Daily Prophet and think that I'm a mentally unstable, attention seeking, murderous psychopath. We're saving their arses for them, why again?
He looked through yet another window and smiled when he saw Hermione sitting there, reading a book. That's right, we're not saving them. We're saving us, our future; the sheep of the Wizarding world are just benefiting from it. And some of them are going to be paupers by the end, while we can be on a nice tropical island, living a life of luxury and laziness.
Oh yeah, and the weasel was inside, too.
Opening the door caught his brunette girlfriend's attention. "Hey, I was wondering when you'd get here. Did you see Luna while you were walking around?"
"No, she sent me a note this morning saying that she had something she wanted to do, and that she was going to be," he pulled the short letter in question out of his pocket, "'just the teensiest, tiniest bit late, so you two get together and start with the plotting for world domination. Don't do anything I wouldn't do in front of my grandpappy!' She signed it with three L's."
He suspected the last bit would go completely over Ron's head, and he wasn't disappointed. They each had a set of writing conventions they developed during the last war in case they had to leave public messages, and this memo had two. That particular signature was a sign that she was sure her job would be either an enormous waste of time or beneficial in the extreme. Mentions of her grandfather, who she had died before she was born, meant that she was going to be in some light risk. Thankfully, she hadn't used her father or mother; the former indicated the situation was high-risk with the possibility of combat, while the latter was a call for immediate backup and was only for situations where they honestly could not do without whatever she was after.
"I hope she doesn't get in trouble for it," Hermione fretted, and Harry couldn't resist sitting beside her and pulling her into his arms. "What if she gets caught by Filch, or Snape!"
"Bloody son of a bitch," Ron muttered.
The two lovebirds ignored the boy. "She's good enough to avoid that, Mione. I'm sure she'll come by in a few minutes, perfectly fine." The door opened, and Harry turned with a smile on his face, which died immediately when he saw it was not his favorite blonde. In fact, it was his least favorite.
"What do you want this time, Malfoy?"
Ah, the cliché of Harry's house-elf rules. If I calculated it right, 35 galleons should be equivalent to a salary for working six eight-hour days per week at minimum wage (at least, the minimum wage in America currently), if not a touch higher. To Dobby and Winky, this money would be in addition to free room and board, so more or less $21,000 a year in disposable income.
I know some alliteration pops up in my wonted works, but wow, was writing Luna's words weird. Oh, for crying out loud… Never try to type after watching V for Vendetta; it gives you odd ideas that are more trouble to put down than they're worth.
We can't have Luna as a main character and just ignore all her conspiracy theories. I wanted to get away from the Siriusness for a little bit, and this was certainly quirky enough.
Did any of you like the example of their little code system? Effective when you need to send information through an unsecured channel while at war or are making plans during class time.
Chapter 8
Comparing Notes
The two lovebirds ignored the boy. "She's good enough to avoid that, Mione. I'm sure she'll come by in a few minutes, perfectly fine." The door opened, and Harry turned with a smile on his face, which died immediately when he saw it was not his favorite blonde. In fact, it was his least favorite.
"What do you want this time, Malfoy?"
"I came to see how Dumbledore's favorite boy was handling what happened," Draco sneered. All those days spent in front of his bathroom mirror at home were certainly worth it. "Trying not to think about it, Scarhead? Pretending it hasn't happened?"
"Think about what, how small you look next to Crabbe and Goyle? That is certainly hard to ignore." The bodyguards looked stupidly at Potter when they heard their names, and he continued, "Poor children, still using all the muscles except the one that really matters. Then again, your boss doesn't use his, either, so I guess you can be excused."
The blond prince of Slytherin didn't understand the different track this confrontation was taking compared to normal. He was supposed to say something witty; Potty, the Weasel, and the Mudblood would shout and weakly try to threaten him; and he would leave as the winner. The stupid half-blood shouldn't be talking his way out; he was a Gryffindor, after all!
"You've picked the wrong side!" he yelled, trying to catch Harry's attention with volume since his words weren't having the right effect. "I warned you, you ought to choose your company more carefully, remember?" What kind of fool would want to be in the company of Muggle-lovers and Mudbloods, anyway? "When we met on the train, first day at Hogwarts? I told you not to hang around with riffraff like this!"
"You know, I don't think you said that," Potter said quietly, tapping his chin.
Ha, the dumb half-blood was a scaredy-cat in front of his pure greatness! Of course, I wouldn't be like him; I'd turn anyone who tried to threaten me into a toad. Or maybe they could be ferrets, and I'd sic snakes on them! He watched his glorious dream a moment longer, ignoring that he didn't know how to do either of those spells. Purebloods didn't have to learn magic, they ordered and magic obeyed.
"In fact," the Boy-Who-Couldn't-Even-Die continued; it was like he wasn't even paying attention to him! "I think what you actually told me was that you could help me find the 'right sort', or something to that effect. I didn't care then, and I don't now."
"Why not!" he whined. No, Purebloods didn't whine; he must have bellowed, like Father did when one of his little workers was stupid again. Yeah, he bellowed like a real man.
"Draco, Draco, Draco. Drake – you don't mind me calling you Drake, right? – I killed you once already, and you weren't even worth my time. It was an afterthought, really, while I was working your dad over. I mean, you tried to transfigure me into a ferret and hit Parkinson instead. So, no, I don't care, because you weren't a threat then, and you're definitely not one now."
Draco stared at Potter. Weasley stared at Potter. The Mudblood glared at Potter. The two lumps he had following him around stared hungrily at their own feet.
"You weren't supposed to hear that." Potter's wand came out of his sleeve and he pointed it at the three boys. Potter was mad, totally barking, and he was going to kill him! "Obliviate."
…Yeah, he bellowed like a real man.
"Anyway, Malfoy, I'm sure you have other things to do. Consider your normal end of year threat delivered, and we can go our separate ways." Potter didn't have the guts to even listen to his awesome threats. It almost made the late night he had a waste of time. Laughing at Potter shaking in his cheap shoes, Draco Malfoy left to his own compartment, inflated with his magnificent greatness.
"Harry, mate, what was that?"
"Obliviate." Ron went slack-jawed as Hermione lowered her wand. "Really, Harry?"
"Oops?" he said weakly. He hadn't meant for that to come out, but it had been Draco Malfoy. The boy, for not even as an adult had he ever been a man, would talk and talk and talk, but when the time came for him to act, he generally froze. The only reason he held so much influence at Hogwarts was his name and Snape holding his hand.
"Is that all you have to say? Oops? I swear, love, you can normally keep a secret, but that was a Hagrid-worthy slip up."
Ron jerked his head in Hermione's direction. "What are you calling him 'love' for?!"
Harry pointed his wand at the red-head. "Obliviate. I would say that you're being a little dramatic, but I agree that I shouldn't have said it. It's just, it's Malfoy, for Merlin's sake."
"You are almost twenty-five years old, you need to move past this schoolboy grudge you have against him. You're acting as bad as Sirius and Snape!"
"He's only fourteen, Herms!" Ron was hit again by her Memory Charm.
"That's crossing the line, Mione. I haven't tried to feed him to a werewolf or have him Kissed by a Dementor, I just don't like him. You dislike Edgecomb more than I do Malfoy, and yet I don't get on your case about it."
"She sold us out to Umbridge, got a job at the Ministry when Voldemort first took over, and then planned to seduce and murder you! I'm allowed to dislike her!"
"Yes, you are; I'm not denying that. What I am saying is that you two can't even be in the same room without wands being drawn, so it's a bit hypocritical for you to get onto me for disliking Malfoy."
Ron looked between the two of them. "What?"
"Obliviate."
"Harry," she tried again, "it's not that you have a distaste for him that I mind, it's that you told him that we're from the future! Wouldn't you agree that's a bad thing? Obliviate."
"I do agree, and that's why I memory charmed Malfoy and his goons in the first place. If he doesn't remember, he can't tell Lucius or Voldemort, so really the argument is moot."
"You… memo… huh?"
"Obliviate."
"But what are you going to do if you make that mistake in front of someone who isn't incompetent? I doubt you could force yourself to memory charm Sirius, and Moody, Kingsley, and Tonks will all be faster than you."
"You know, all you had to say was that I need to be more careful about what I say. The scolding was entirely unnecessary."
"Purple penguins prancing playfully…"
Hermione sighed as he again wiped the ginger's memory. "You're right. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have scolded you. It's just that I had this image of Voldemort finding out what happened and taking us far more seriously than he will otherwise. I don't want to lose you, Harry."
He pulled her into his lap and hugged her tight. "You're not going to lose me, Hermione; I love you too much to hurt you like that. I'll be more careful, I promise."
"Hem hem." Holly and vine were instantly aimed at the blonde sporting a Cheshire grin. "Sorry, I couldn't resist."
"Luna," he sighed, "don't do that. We put up with quite a bit, but I draw the line at you imitating Umbridge."
She nodded serenely and cast silencing and avoidance charms on the door before she focused on the compartment's other occupant. "If you were going to have fun with Weasley, you should have waited for me. I wanted to get a few licks in."
Ron was not, by anyone's definition, in a good state. His eyes were glazed over, and his hanging jaw allowed a trail of drool to flow down onto his robes. A quick poke, curtesy of Harry's foot, showed him to be completely dead to the world.
Hermione used the opportunity to stun him for good measure. At her lovers' looks, she exclaimed, "Hey, it's a valid medical practice for someone who has been subjected to multiple memory charms in a short time interval. When he wakes up, he'll be mostly back to normal."
"Mostly?" Harry asked.
"Well, he will have trouble concentrating for long periods of time, emotional volatility, reduced social skills, and an inability to prioritize. Nothing he didn't already have."
"Ah." A wave of Luna's wand had Ron transfigured into a pillow, which then served as an additional cushion for her to sit upon. "So, what have you two been up to this morning?"
Harry spoke first. "I had the discussion with Dobby like you asked, and I negotiated him up—"
"Don't you mean negotiated down?" Hermione asked.
"No, up. His first counteroffer was a knut a year and work every day."
"Well," the blonde interjected, "he is Dobby."
"I negotiated him up to access to ten galleons each per month and a day a week where they can do whatever they want."
The eldest of the three frowned. "That's rather loose. He and Winky could decide they want to spend their day off working and never use the money."
"What would you have me do, then; order them to accept whatever I wanted to pay them and ignore how they felt about it?" She swiftly shook her head, remembering the tongue-lashing she had received the previous day from her girlfriend, one much less entertaining than that they usually shared. "I figure that getting him to agree to that was a victory in itself."
Neither girl had any response to that, so Hermione went next. "I broke into the Chamber of Secrets to take a few basilisk fangs, then I ran back up to the Room of Requirement. We are now the proud owners of a one of a pair of Vanishing Cabinets."
"Excellent!" Luna cheered, then pounced onto her for a deep kiss.
Harry, well used to this situation, simply enjoyed waiting for the girls' snog to end before he put forth his question. "How did you even get into the Chamber, Hermione? You can't speak Parseltongue, at least not unless you've been hiding a few skills from us."
Luna also turned to stare at the brunette. "You could have been using your tongue like Harry all these years, and you held out on me?"
"I haven't been hiding anything, Harry, and no, Luna, you haven't been denied having two Parselmouths eat you out. I didn't even worry about 'opening' the Chamber; I just…"
"Yes?" they both asked.
"I may have, hypothetically, sort of… used an explosive curse on the sinks above the entrance?"
They stared at her, and she blushed to the roots of her bushy mane. No matter how much Salazar Slytherin was denigrated, the fact remained that his secret lair was a thousand-year-old historical site, one that only six people in living memory had ever seen. Even the entrance in the girls' lavatory was extremely valuable. To simply demolish it was more than a little out of character for her.
"I used Reparo when I left. No one will even know anything happened."
"Would, Hermione," Luna said. "No one would even know, and you would have repaired it, if you had actually destroyed it. But this is all hypothetical, isn't it?"
Hermione perked up. "Yes, of course. All hypothetical. I would never deface a piece of history like that."
Harry snorted and looked to Luna. "And you?"
She shrugged. "I robbed Filch."
"You WHAT?"
Luna glanced between her lovers before she scooted closer to Harry. She whispered, "I think Mione's going deaf. She can't seem to hear me when I talk."
"I'm not deaf, though there are times when I wish I were. What did you say about robbing Filch?"
"Nothing…"
"Luna, now."
"No. I don't want to, and you can't make me!" She curled up into Harry's chest even more, and he winced, knowing where this was going.
"Luna Lachesis Lovegood, you tell me right now what you did, or so help me, you won't have any pudding for the rest of the summer!"
"No! You can't take away my pudding!" the blonde girl wailed.
"If you act like a child, then Harry and I will treat you like a child."
"Ooh, does this mean I get spankings?" she asked, her mood bouncing back faster that a Puffskien thrown at a rubber wall.
He sighed and interjected, "No, Luna, in fact we won't spank you. How about you just tell us why you robbed Filch so we can avoid all this unpleasantness."
Luna looked between the two and huffed. "Fine, take all the fun out of it. Harry, you told us that the twins took the Marauder's Map from Filch's office. I wondered what else he had confiscated over the years, so I broke in and emptied out everything in the cabinet he labeled highly dangerous." She perked up at Hermione's surprised expression. "Do you want to see?"
He and Hermione looked at each other, then he asked, "Anything we need to see right now?"
She thought for a moment. "I suppose not. Is there something we need to do while we have… privacy?"
"Actually, Luna, I have work for us to do, and you don't even have to take off any clothes for it." Hermione ignored the younger girl's grumbling as she pulled out a day planner. "My parents and I are going to be out of the country for the second half of the summer, starting in mid-July, so we need to hit a few targets while we have the time. Luna, are you going to be here, or does Xeno have another expedition planned?"
"We're going to Sweden to look for Crumple-Horned Snorkacks this year, remember? Though we've already looked there, so maybe we should go somewhere else; we have yet to search in Siberia, after all…"
"When are you leaving, Luna?" She asked in an exasperated tone.
"First of August."
Harry rubbed his hands together in an imitation of old-time cinema villains. "Excellent. That means we have three or four weeks to do recon and possibly strip a few manors. Who shall we start with?"
Hermione wrote a note in the planner. "Before we run our first heist, let's take the Slytherin ring. It and the locket are the only two Horcruces that will be relatively unprotected, and we'll have the locket practically handed to us when Harry returns to… to… I can't remember where it is!"
"I noticed that earlier," Luna said. "It looks like Dumbles cast the Fidelius Charm again, so we'll need to learn the Secret all over again."
"That isn't how the charm works, though! It hides an aspect of whatever object it's hiding, which is… that house, in this case, and can only be exposed by the Secret Keeper. We are Secret Keepers, though, and nothing in the literature mentions the possibility that time travel would negate knowing the Secret."
Harry cleared his throat to grab the girl's attention. "We didn't technically travel back in time, Mione, we traveled across timelines. We never learned the Secret here."
"I suppose you have a point. The effect time displacement has on ward access would be an interesting research topic, but it isn't important right now. We need to get the ring soon, maybe next week?" When neither of her lovers disagreed, she blocked off a section of their summer schedule. "Next we'll run actual jobs. Any suggestions for the first one?"
"Dolohov."
Hermione and Harry stared at Luna. Her voice was grim, and her eyes flinty as she stared at Hermione's chest, where the scar she had gained in the Ministry no longer resided. "He tried to kill you, and almost succeeded," she continued. "Let's rob his arse first."
"If we're going to be satisfying old grudges," Harry said, "I'm putting forth the Greengrass family and Umbitch." The eldest Greengrass daughter, Daphne, had been a member of the same conspiracy to seduce him that Edgecombe was a part of. Unlike the other girls, however, her father was wealthy. Lord Greengrass managed to bribe enough members of the Wizengamot for her charges to be dropped, only to turn right around and have the three of them convicted of 'defaming her character'. Harry hadn't been too affected, as the Potters still had a large amount of gold in Gringotts, and Hermione had little of value to the Purebloods, but Luna had lost the Rook and all her family's land when the Wizengamot characteristically folded to one of the old families.
Umbridge needed no explanation.
"They are certainly worthy of losing everything, but Umbridge is mine; let's leave her property until we've broken her at Hogwarts." Hermione said. "I think we should see how these three tasks work out and what we need to improve on before we plan any further. We don't need to have too much on our plates.
"Since we still have several hours left before we get to London, should we get our annoying summer work out of the way?"
Luna's wand was out in a flash. "Who are you, and what have you done to Hermione Granger? Everyone knows she would neverinsult the noble cause of homework!"
A glare was all that the blonde received, and Harry was quite proud that he hadn't laughed yet. "I may like learning, but we have already written all of this. It is not informative or purposeful; it is a tedious waste of time when we have a lot to do this summer. Now, hop to it." He and Luna shared an exasperated look and pulled out their own assignments. It was indeed tedious, part of the reason they would have been willing to put it off for a little while longer.
They finished their last essays only ten minutes before they finally arrived at King's Cross.
The first part of Malfoy's dialogue comes from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, first American edition.
One question for all and sundry: in Deathly Hallows, Ron somehow spoke the password to get into the Chamber, but when Harry was shown, all he heard were strangled hisses. Why? All throughout the series, Harry can't distinguish between Parseltongue and English until it's pointed out to him what he's speaking. I know I'm not the first to point it out, and I doubt I'll be the last, but it has always bothered me, even when I first read DH!
I hope I don't have to explain the sexual benefits of Parseltongue to anyone; you should already know where I'm going with this. Perverts.
Finally! We are officially in summer, and my muse is quite happy about that. As you can tell, she walked out partway through this chapter, so if the last bit isn't up to snuff, I apologize.