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Chapter Text

Dumbledore did his best to keep his grandfatherly persona on display, despite how much he has been having to listen to Fudge and Umbridge prattle on about this ritual.

The three were setting things up in the ritual room at Hogwarts, the room itself was located within the dungeons and hasn’t seen use for well before even his own time. And now, after Sirius Black had recently made his escape, Fudge is trying to use some personnel summoning ritual to recapture the man. The headmaster had managed to convince the two to wait till after the children had left the school for the summer, seeing as they needed to use the latent magic within Hogwarts to power it.

Albus had a hard time believing this ritual to be legit, and could only assume it was bought from a second hand con artist. Theoretically, it should work given the foci for the ritual were rather powerful, some even from his own phoenix. The hair from the room Sirius was held in gave him pause, it just looked too short to be the criminal’s, giving him the suspicion that it was Harry’s.

Albus had barely caved when he saw the hair sample. Either the hair was just some of Sirius’ and the man was kissed, costing him a rather skilled pawn but allowing him to manipulate Harry further into his plans, or they summoned Harry and he covered for the boy breaking his godfather out, leaving the boy further in his debt. Or it failed and nothing changed.

The ritual used phrases and terms that were rather old, but he was Albus Dumbledore, it was easy for him to read enough to get the gist of what the words were and how to pronounce them.

As Albus started to chant, he would never realize the mistake he was about to make for his ‘greater good’. The ritual was real, a torn page of a Peverell Grimoire that Fate decided to allow to find them, as Magic decided to allow them to read it. Because both despised it when fools such as Albus chose to interpret their words for their own benefit, such things being a form of mocking in their opinion.

So, with it being a couple days into the summer hols, Albus wouldn’t know that Harry would be hiding under death’s cloak as he attempted a summoning ritual with Death’s wand. The magic from Hogwarts powering the spell Albus cast, amplified by the Elder Wand, allowed the summoning to pull someone, but not who, or what, the three were expecting.

The three Hallows were meant to remain within the Peverell line, but in case one was lost or stolen, The other two could be used in tandem to replicate the third. Such as using the stone to clamp the cloak around your arm to amplify the magic you cast with your regular wand, or using the wand to amplify the stone’s connection to death’s realm to hide your physical form within the astral plane.

In this case, the True Invisibility Cloak acted as a Veil of Death, allowing Albus to pull a ghost from the beyond that was connected to the potter hairs that were used. Fate and Magic just had to manipulate the connection to pull who they wanted, such as a ghost they retrieved through help from Lord Time and Lord Death.

They are all beings that exist for all eternity, there is no use for favors, but with Fate allowing them to view such a boring timeline the original was, decided to help the ladies spice up the current one. Neither lord had any horse in this race, other than Death being annoyed his champion didn’t last as long as he should have, due to Albus’ manipulations.

So, with that bit of manipulation, Albus, Fudge, and Dolores, were all staring wide-eyed as they summoned a ghost with traits known to belong to the Potter family, though he obviously had seen better days. The poor man looked less than half Albus’ age, yet somehow his appearance and stance implied twice it. The look in his eyes showed pain and suffering beyond anything that Albus had seen, let alone experienced.

After the three remained silent for several minutes, the old ghost groaned. “Did you idiots summon me simply to stare? You do realize how painful this actually is right? None of you are a Peverell, and you only have one Hallow, so I don’t even know how you managed to summon me, but this bastardized version of spectral summoning is worse than if you even had the stone.”

Albus blinked as he decided to speak up. “My apologies, it appears that our ritual didn’t do as we had hoped and without more information on the ritual we used, we might have some trouble sending you back.”

Fudge and Dolores decided to remain silent, thanking every higher being for that small mercy, allowing Albus to speak for them. The ghost sneered at the three. “Are you telling me, you used an unknown ritual without all the information pertaining to said ritual?”

The ghost was still snarling as Fudge and Dolores turned red in embarrassment, though they were both still offended and angered, as Dolores spoke up. “Now see here, this is the Minister of Magic, and I am his undersecretary, and I will not have you speaking such ways about either of us.”

The ghost rolled his eyes before he started to rise to the ceiling. “Since you idiots think so highly of yourselves, I guess I will just ignore you and go back to the land of the dead, not like any of you are strong enough to bind me here. After all, I am the Master of Death.”

Albus barely got over his shock as the ghost just left his wards, but was ignored as he shouted for the ghost’s return. Answers he hadn’t thought were within his reach, leaving him just as he learned of them being there. Albus’ anger began to grow as he was denied information he desired, no longer able to put on a face as he was forced to deal with the two idiots that dangled such a prize in front of him.

=-=-=-=-=-=Elsewhere=-=-=-=-=

The ghost that had just left the room he was summoned to, smirked as he floated his way towards his first destination. The Headmaster’s office, where he reached out and poked a certain non-magical painting that hid a very special safe.

The plans he concocted after the Ladies of Fate and Magic decided to bestow upon him with the gift of returning to the land of the living. Both had been rather upset their prophecy was messed with, and even though it all worked out in the end, they were petty enough to manipulate the timeline with the aid of the Lords of Death and Time. He would never call them petty to their faces, but if the shoe fits…

His stipulation for helping them with their revenge, (despite them calling it Albus’ punishment, it was still revenge) he could cast two spells empowered by themselves. The first was used to turn Albus’ anti-magic safe into a microwave to burn all his little coordinate notes to bypass any Fidelius used by his so-called allies.

And now, his second spell. But first, he had to find the recipient of that one.

=-=-=-=-=#4 Privet Drive=-=-=-=-=

Harry was sitting at Dudley’s old desk that was stored in ‘his’ room, hidden under his invisibility cloak. As always, a bit angry that he had to hide in the middle of the night to do homework, lest his relatives spot him doing ‘freakish’ things when they spontaneously check up on him.

Calling homework ‘freakish’, no matter the reason, would probably get Hermione to go on a rant. She would first look shocked, which would then melt into horror, before bubbling into this pouty, angry face she made whenever she learned of something that went against her common sense.

Harry leaned back in his chair, his thoughts turning to his memories of riding on Buckbeak, his best friend cowering in his arms as she clung to the hippogryph in fear but enough bravery to charge forth to accomplish the mission. Maybe this is what a crush felt like?

Ron might have been his first friend, but there are always random moments that he doesn’t feel like a friend. Hermione on the other hand always did her best to help them with their studies, despite how often Ron makes rude comments towards her blood status. He has never used the term mudblood, but he has often enough made comments about her not knowing certain things because she was raised muggle.

Harry has tried to get him to stop when he catches them, trying to point out how he sounded on several occasions, only to find out that Ron completely ignored him in their next interactions with Hermione.

As Harry thought about his friends, he shivered from a chill that swept down his spine. A voice from behind caused him to jump, though practice and experience let him avoid moving enough to knock the chair over. “Hey, I know you're here. I have something I need to speak with you about, so if you would kindly drop the cloak and face me properly. I do wish you will be quick, because I am in excruciating pain right now.”

Harry decided to do so, somehow shifting the chair to stand, yet with the skill and finesse to keep from making a sound. Considering failure has led to being hurt for interrupting little Duddikins’ beauty sleep. “What?”

There was a ghost behind him, he had expected plenty of different things, but a ghost wasn’t one of them. He even expected Petigrew or Snape to sneak in and try to kill him, maybe Malfoy. Even Dobby had a higher chance of popping in to say hello, or to try to ‘save’ him from another bad year at Hogwarts.

“Keep in mind that the method used to summon me was done poorly, so I am in excruciating pain. I am here to offer you some knowledge to help you take control of your life.”

Harry blinked.

Did the ghost that looked related to himself really just say he was going to tell him how to take control of his life? Before Harry could form a sentence, the ghost continued. “I am a ghost from the future, with that little knowledge you can probably guess who I am. If you continue down the path you are on right now, you will be dragged through so much bullshit, and die in your forties after your vaults are drained by other people. I can use some magic to give everything I know to you, and you can use that knowledge to stop what I was too late to stop. I have learned, after the fact, that I was manipulated for my entire life, and because of those manipulations never being found out, my family history was basically destroyed.”

Harry took a couple deep breaths, trying to control his anger as he heard that. “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

The ghost shrugged. “Frengorp. That was the first made up word you used, and it was to name a small spider that we found in the cupboard under the stairs. Your first ‘adventure’ was teaching him how to battle those broken toy soldiers Dudley threw away. You never spoke any of this out loud, it has only ever been spoken of in your head because you always feared Vernon using his belt on you for making noises. Trust me now?”

Harry glared, but nodded. There would be absolutely no way for someone to know about that. Hadn’t even thought about that since Frengorp died when he was still three. He had actually gotten used to the spiders and insects in the cupboard after the first three punishments from Vernon for the noises he made. “Fine, just do it.”

The ghost nodded and motioned towards his things. “Take care of your stuff and lay down. You won’t be able to stay awake as you learn what I have to teach. While you sleep, I will explain everything.”

Harry nodded as he put everything away, locked them away in his closet, and readjusted the stuff on the bed so he could lay down and sleep. And as he was staring up at the ceiling, the ghost of his future self appeared and stared directly into his eyes, and he was out like a light.

Throughout the night, Harry spent his dreams speaking with and learning from his older self’s memories. Skipping over the filler memories cut out a lot of them. It was good to know he would beat Voldemort, better to know what and where his anchors that kept him alive were, as well as that he would eventually have a family of his own.

What wasn’t great, was when he realized that Ron would take Hermione from him when he had just come to terms with what he was feeling. And what was his future self thinking when he married Ginny?

Then the manipulations began to be revealed.

Molly Weasley, the woman that acted like she was his mother decided that Hermione and he weren’t meant for each other and potioned them both for her own brats, who saw nothing wrong with that. They stole everything from him as Molly went behind his back and formed a marriage contract that gave them access to his money.

Albus had always planned for him to die so that the old coot could sweep in and save the day and end his wizarding career as the second Merlin. Hiding his family history, desecrating his family heirlooms like his cloak, taking advantage of him as he used Harry’s money to fund his own goals.

And then there was Ginny, the girl he was forced to marry, the wife that cheated on him to advance her quidditch career. Their first child was her manager’s, their second was her team captain’s. Maybe the one she was pregnant with when he learned of her infidelity and left was his, but after sending the results of the heritance tests for his first two children to the Daily Prophet after he purged himself of the potions they were feeding him to keep him under control, he would never know.

But that doesn’t even cover everything that was wrong with his life. The betrayals just kept coming, seeing as he had to also deal with magical cancer that was slowly killing him from how he got rid of the horcrux in his head. Apparently, it was stupid to think there would be no backlash for being hit by the killing curse a second time while he was dealing with a cursed soul in his head.

The people he trusted most right now, the people he felt were family, were all doing their best to slowly bleed him dry and or kill him. So no one would blame him for waking up crying.

=-=-=-=-=-=Gringotts=-=-=-=-=-=

Harry was walking into the bank after one hectic morning. Having revealed that he knew that the Dursleys were being paid to raise him, as well as how much they were being paid didn’t go over well at first. Until he explained how little Petunia actually knew about wizarding law.

Harry had full rights to kill them in self defense, as long as the magic he used was inside, and wasn’t flashy enough to break the Statute of Secrecy. They were in the know, so he could use magic on them and get away with it, and all he would have to do is swear they were attacking him. Wizards had a method to prove they were telling the truth, and if they used that method and lied, they would lose their magic or life depending on what they swore on. Therefore, he could actually get away with doing anything to them, and with a little bit of wordplay, it would all be legal.

And so, after getting away from those stupid people, that wouldn’t be a problem for much longer, he came straight to the bank to wait in line for a specific teller, or to avoid one to be more precise.

Cleaning himself up and wearing a hat was all it took to make himself look like a completely new person it seemed, because the goblin that would normally make sure he was available for him was occupied by another and wasn’t in any hurry to insure he could take him. He did after all, just look like another muggleborn coming in to exchange some muggle money, blowing some bubblegum.

Harry would learn in about ten years that the goblins hate dealing with the children that chewed and blew bubblegum, because the noise bothered them and the popping caused spit to mess with some of the magic at their stall.

So, he chewed gum, making sure to put it away when he walked up to the next open teller, after his plan to cause Griphook to dawdle to the best of his ability to avoid dealing with the obnoxious brat chewing the gum.

As Harry spat the gum into a portable banishing bag, though since he was the creator of the bag, it did look like he just spat the gum into a bag to do something with it later. It was rather complicated to create the charm and rune work to make sure the bag only banished what went into it, rather than things around it, or the bag itself.

It will be a hit with all the muggle kids and parents in fifteen years, if he doesn’t decide to reveal its existence earlier. Though he would have to consider who to let sell it, since Weasley Wizarding Wheezes wasn’t open yet.

At least the betrayals were limited to the three Weasleys, Percy could loosen up a bit but he was still a decent guy. “Greetings teller Gravedigger, may your battles yield nothing but victory.”

The goblin blinked in shock, before nodding. “And may your coffers never run dry. How may Gringotts help you today wizard?”

Gravedigger was officially weary of this young wizard. The boy understood their greetings, showing proper respect by goblin culture, and even got rid of the obnoxious gum stuff that ruined paperwork, and made it hard to understand the idiots.

Harry leaned forward slightly, shifting to check his left and right indiscreetly, before speaking lowly. “I am on an errand for Lord Black and need to speak with Bloodbreaker. I understand if I must wait, seeing as it was rather sudden that I myself was requested to speak with him. But I am forced to ask for discreetness, due to enemies that are seeking to stop me so they may fill their pockets with gold not their own.”

Gravedigger snarled as he nodded. The Black accountant could decide whether the boy was speaking the truth, but to hear that a thief was snooping around would anger any goblin on principle alone.

Harry had to wait just a couple minutes, before the goblin invited him to follow him to Bloodbreaker. Mostly to allow said goblin to decide if he would hear him out.

Harry nodded to Gravedigger. “I wish you a good day teller Gravedigger, and may your gold flow never end.”

“A good day to you as well wizard, and may your enemies blood flow without end.”

Harry stepped up to Bloodbreaker’s desk, giving a stiff bow. “Greetings Accountant Bloodbreaker, may the blood of your enemies paint the battlefield red.”

Bloodbreaker nodded as he watched the boy warily. If nothing else, he would hear the boy out for showing proper respect. “And may your coffers ever overflow. What business do you have with me, you claim to know the Lord Black, but I must ask how you would.”

Harry smiled, making sure to show no teeth, before he sat down. “Lord Black is still Sirius Orion Black III, his mother might have thrown a tantrum when he left, but Arcturus never disowned him. Arcturus never sided with Voldemort, even if he thought the blood traitors and mudbloods needed to be dealt with, he wasn’t an extremist.”

Bloodbreaker nodded. “I am well aware of this, though I hardly see why this is important. Sirius has no heirs, and when the wizards have hunted him down, the title of Lord Black shall be passed to the next of kin. Draco Malfoy.”

Harry smirked as he noticed the look of disgust on the goblin’s face. “Actually, Sirius does have an heir, one he blood adopted through a blood oath when he partook in the godfather ritual.”

Bloodbreaker narrowed his eyes. “And why haven’t I heard about this?”

Harry couldn’t help but show some teeth in his smile this time. “Because when he took the oath, the witnesses were the Potters, and their accountant. If Sirius dies without you hearing about this, the Potter accountant will have legal rights to steal the Black accounts from you and hold you responsible for any and all charges made by Lucius and Draco, despite the connection Narcissa has to the Black. Because you giving them access could be seen as you helping them steal from me as the rightful Black heir.”

Bloodbreaker snarled, but before he could speak up and demand answers, Harry continued. “Which is why I am bringing the information that the Potter account manager is helping Dumbledore steal from me to you.”

Bloodbreaker blinked as he calmed down slightly. “What evidence do you have of this?”

Harry pulled out his invisibility cloak. “This is a Potter heirloom, there is a silver string in the hood that’s charmed by Albus Dumbledore. It’s supposed to be in the Potter heirloom vault, but he was the one that gave it to me. There are payments going from my accounts to several different vaults that I never was told about. I would have never been told about these transactions if it hadn’t been for a ghost telling me, the only other physical evidence I have right now are the blocks on my core and abilities.”

Bloodbreaker nodded as he waved his hand towards Harry, before a smile spread across his own face. “And that is enough for me to take this before Ragnarok. I will be back momentarily, and if things go the way I believe, I will be claiming the Potter accounts. I need a couple drops of blood.”

Harry nodded as he simply held his hand out. “Take as much as you need.”

The goblin cut into his hand with a knife, filled a vial, and waved the cut close. Harry smiled as he leaned back in the chair, waiting patiently.

It was around forty-five minutes later before he was greeted by Bloodbreaker stepping back into the office with another goblin. This one was actually tall, about twice as tall as Bloodbreaker. “Greetings heir Potter, I am Ragnarok, the bank manager. I have my people doing a check up on the Potter accounts, but there appeared to be an issue with your account manager. He tried to sneak off and send a missive, so we were forced to axe him a couple questions. I hope there will be no reason for such serious questioning here.”

Harry nodded as he responded. “Dumbledore tried to use some summoning, got a ghost from the future, and that ghost just so happened to be me. I came to me, told me a bit about what has happened so far, told me how the rest of my schooling will go, and informed me of a couple things Albus has done to screw me over despite the bastard dying in three years. I figured that I should help another one of his victims, Bloodbreaker, because the only evidence that I am the Black heir is in my parents’ wills. Those filthy thieves have been stealing from me ever since Albus kidnapped me, and they were plotting to frame Bloodbreaker. Albus is also plotting my death. I am willing to give an oath if you wish, to prove I am not lying.”

Ragnarok blinked before he just burst out laughing. “With all that has been on the tests we took with your blood, along with Gripshaker’s actions when confronted, I will not require an oath.”

Harry nodded in thanks. “If it helps any, I also have a request for aid in hunting down some soul anchors. Tom Riddle made five purposefully, accidentally turned me into one, and plans to turn his snake familiar into a seventh sometime between now and the end of my next year at Hogwarts. I have a plan to deal with both Albus and Tom before the summer of next year. Albus will be dealt with before this year is out.”

Ragnarok and Bloodbreaker both blinked in shock, matching bloodthirsty grins spreading across their faces, before Ragnarok waved the boy on. “Go on.”

“I don’t know the exact order he made them, but I know the first was his diary, that I stabbed with a basilisk fang at the end of my second year. The Gaunt head of house ring is hidden behind some parseltongue wards at the Gaunt Shack, it has a withering curse on it with some compulsions. Rowena’s diadem is in the room of requirements, Salazar’s locket is at twelve Grimmauld place, and Helga’s goblet is here in Bellatrix Lestrange’s vault.”

As the goblins snarled in anger, they turned to talk with one another a bit in Gobbledygook. Ragnarok was the one that spoke to him. “We will deal with the one in our bank, send a team of curse breakers to deal with the one in the Gaunt Shack. As heir Black, we hope you are willing to hand over the locket, and as a student, we hope you can find the time when you return to school to retrieve the diadem.”

Harry’s smile was starting to look just as bloodthirsty as the goblins’. “No need to fret over my half of these. I already plan to get a box to hold the diadem for when I get there, and when Dumbledore is no longer a threat to my life, I wish to enact a contract for you to enter Hogwarts and retrieve the basilisk I killed. I also can easily call the Black family’s house elf to retrieve the locket whenever you feel like dealing with it.”

As the three began to go over the details for the Basilisk, an old man that had not long ago woke up from a fretful night’s sleep felt a chill go down his spine. Still angry over learning he had summoned someone that claimed the title he had sought for so long but could never grasp.

Chapter Text

Harry Potter was walking along a street, barely resisting the urge to skip as he thought about all his plans for the upcoming year and the tournament along with it. He would obviously have to allow himself to be entered, so he would have to remain silent about all that, and as soon as Albus called his name on Halloween night, or as the magicals call it, Samhain, most of the plans he made with Gringotts would trigger and Albus would be doomed.

Though right now, he had to act so that he could be with a girl that would actually love him, rather than deal with a fan girl that would sleep around behind his back. Hermione was going places without such underhanded tactics, and his own status would aid her greatly, if only he could prevent Ron from slowing her down by making her drag him along. At least Hermione knew all her kids were his, though she was really upset to learn he had one that wasn’t her’s.

In Harry’s defense when that was revealed, he hadn’t thought Ron had left him to finish the mission alone so that he could get laid. Ron used their friendship to keep him as his partner, ride his coattails through the academy, and convinced him to take plenty of missions that took them across the world, all so he could sneak off and sleep with foreign girls. Before also having the gall to try and blame Harry for his cheating.

Harry would not allow Ron to use them anymore, and he wouldn’t put pressure on Hermione for himself either. And the first step to that, was to provide proper tickets for Hermione, and even get a couple for her parents to come along as well. Albus had rigged the competition for the Weasleys to win, and Molly took advantage and gave up her own ticket, while forcing Ginny to give up hers, so that he and Hermione could join them. Molly had started to potion them starting this summer, amplifying their gratitude to experience something like this, and getting himself away from his abusive relatives for a large part of the summer.

Harry knocked on the front door, and was answered by Alexander, Hermione’s father. And after a quick introduction, Harry was invited in and Hermione was given a shout about him showing up as Jean, Hermione’s mother, made tea for everyone.

Alex had a hard time deciding whether to be smiling or not as his daughter ran down the stairs and threw herself into Harry as her arms wrapped tightly around his neck, the two holding their hug for a good minute. On one hand, he was happy his daughter was making friends, but on the other, it was a boy. So as they sat around the table, Jean serving the tea as they all got comfortable, Alex decided to start the questioning. “So, Harry, what brings you here?”

Harry smiled back, ignoring how strained the man’s own was. “Well, I recall getting some information from my best friend about her family being back from their trip yesterday, so I stopped by to speak with her so we could catch up. I also wanted to invite you all to a magical sport event, The Quidditch World Cup.”

As Harry finished, he pulled out three tickets for the event, as well as two bracelets. “The bracelets are charmed to allow you each to bypass the wards around the event. If you want to join me there, you will need to wear them. These tickets are prime seats, you all will be able to get the full experience.”

Alex whistled as he accepted the tickets and looked them over. “I have only seen tickets like these once, and that snot nosed punk just had them to show off and brag. Is this one of those ‘charms’ things?”

Harry chuckled as he shook his head. “No, the tickets themselves aren’t charmed. The man that runs the stadium the event is held in liked the look of the tickets the mundane had for their own sporting events when he got a peek at one. So he copied it, both to simplify hiding the tickets in plain sight, while also cutting costs by not needing to charm them. People that see one at a distance will just take it for a Premier League ticket, while those that read it will just assume it's a fake event, or a joke item.”

Hermione blinked as her father cleared his throat. “So, taking it as he did his research, these would be more on the pricier end of the seating? How much did these cost?”

Harry chuckled as he shrugged. “I mentioned to my account manager I wanted to go, so he got me the best. I have never actually been to any sporting event before, mundane or magical, so I figured I would invite some people I know won’t be able to join otherwise. Don’t worry though, I have four family vaults with enough money combined to make myself, and several generations after me, comfortably wealthy. I could afford to buy these tickets for the entirety of Gryffindor House.”

All three Grangers nearly choked on air as he said that. Harry chuckled at them as they regained their breaths. “Don’t worry, I have no plans to just laze through life, I still have school to survive after all.”

As her parents chuckled slightly at his presumed joke, Hermione thought over how much that statement held a little more truth than she was comfortable with. Hermione would be lying if she said she hadn’t thought about her feelings towards Harry after the night they saved Sirius, how safe she felt while his arms were wrapped around her as they rode on Buckbeak. And that was just from this previous year.

It was Harry’s idea to warn her about the troll and the one that fought the basilisk alone to protect the school. He is also the only one who tells her he’s grateful for her help with the simple things such as homework. And now, he was spending money to allow her parents to experience some of the magical world with her. She couldn’t ask for a better crush.

As everyone settled down, and Jean noticed her daughter’s eyes get a familiar look, she decided to tease the two. “It sounds like you’re attempting to buy someone’s affection. Should we be worried?”

Alex pouted, though if asked he would say frowned, at his wife while Hermione blushed and tried to deny anything. Harry’s chuckles renewed. “Hey, me and Hermione have all year long at school to develop feelings. The only ones that I might have to buy approval from would be you two. So should I ask if it’s working?”

Jean laughed as Alex snorted out his laughter, doing his best to resist. Hermione’s blush covered her face and began to descend down her neck at this point. Alex patted Harry’s shoulder. “I don’t think I’m ready to let her go yet. But if you keep this up, I might agree to hand holding. In all seriousness though, should we be worried about anything between you two.”

Alex was looking directly into Hermione’s eyes when he said that, clearly asking her if everything was alright with her. Alex’s main concern was dealing with whether Harry was pressuring Hermione into anything, especially since he apparently had the money to burn to do so.

Noticing Alex’s question was more directed to Hermione than himself, Harry stayed quiet. Hermione just shook her head as she took a deep breath. “There isn’t anything to worry about at all, this is the first time I have ever seen Harry flaunting any money around, and he’s doing it for me. I have mentioned once or twice that I wished you guys could experience more of the wizarding world with me, because I can’t really cast magic here at all.”

Harry cleared his throat at that. “I do have a bit of a solution for that as well, if you care to hear it.”

Noticing he had all three Grangers’ attention, as well as Hermione’s exasperated raised brow expression as she was thinking he had some scheme cooking up in his head. “As I said, I just recently got into contact with my account manager, and learned that I own a couple houses. And I recall someone saying that I had an open invitation to visit, so I would like to return the favor. If for whatever reason you all decide you want to experience more of the magical world, you're more than welcome to call one of my house elves to give you a lift over.”

Before any of the Grangers could say anything, Harry handed Hermione a slip of paper before he continued. “To be able to visit, you must first read this slip of paper. It has a fidelius secret written on it, that’s a charm that prevents anyone from finding it, magical or mundane. Greyclay, Mwippy, Jaylee, Bob, Dobby.”

As Harry stopped at the last name, the one Hermione recognized from their second year, five short creatures popped into their living room, all greeting Harry as master Harry Potter. Though Dobby looked like he was physically stopping himself from adding more to his title than just master. The first three had similar appearances to one another, indicating family relations if Hermione was to guess, as the tallest one was wearing a suit, while the next two were wearing maid outfits. Bob’s outfit looked like it was supposed to be a suit similar to the taller one’s, but he chose not to wear the overcoat. Dobby was wearing his own little outfit that could only have been designed by himself, with the socks on his ears and the toddler shirt with a dinosaur on it.

Harry wasn’t paying attention to the Grangers’ reactions. “Guys, this is my best friend Hermione and her parents, Alexander and Jean Granger. They each have open invitations to visit Potter Manor despite my current whereabouts. If you hear them call for you, you have my permission to respond as I trust your judgement whether to fulfill their order or not.”

Hermione blinked, a bit torn on how she should feel. “Um Harry, what is all this?”

Harry smiled at her. “These are my house elves. They are the ones that have been taking care of my properties since the death of my parents.” Gesturing to each as he introduced them, “this is Greyclay, the head house elf, think of him as the Alfred to my Bruce Wayne, and these two lovely ladies are Mwippy and Jaylee, Greyclay’s twin daughters. And this is Bob, he was named by my father and Sirius when he came to live with them, and spent most of his time with them. Some of their bad habits may have rubbed off on him. And this last guy here is Dobby, I told you all about him before Hermione.”

As the five elves bowed or curtsied to the Grangers, Hermione blinked as she sighed. “Harry, I have read through several books in Hogwarts’ library, and the only things I have found out about house elves lead me to believe they are slaves. Wouldn’t it be better to let them be free?”

Hermione would have been a bit more disappointed in Harry, if he hadn’t looked so fondly at each of them as he introduced them. Harry frowned as he shook his head. “Hermione, house elves have a symbiotic relationship with magical families, they form a bond and leech off their magic to live. Freeing a house elf is a death sentence, or it would force them to form a bond with a less respectable magical, such as someone like Malfoy who forced Dobby to iron his hands and shove his head into the oven as punishment.”

All three Grangers looked a bit disturbed by that bit of information so Harry moved on. “If it makes you feel better, the Potter family has a side vault with Gringotts set up, that Greyclay has the key to, that they can use for their own comforts.”

Harry decided to wait to inform Hermione that that vault was the only reason Greyclay and them were even alive to greet him when he took ownership of Potter Manor, seeing as Dumbledore had sealed all access to the regular Potter vaults and his old accountant wasn’t the main accountant when it was set up by his ancestor. Gripcrush only got the position through inheriting it from his father, and would have handed the position off to Griphook when he met his end. Well, both members of the Grip Clan were executed for betraying his family and plotting to dishonor another clan, both being heavily dishonorable actions.

The Grangers each nodded, Hermione happy to know that there was reasoning behind why the house elves were in the positions they were in and that Harry appreciated the ones that worked for him. Her parents were mostly happy to be learning more about the world their daughter was getting mixed up in.

So, with the introductions out of the way, the Grangers wound up agreeing to go to the Quidditch cup, and even decided to go for the full event. Which entailed a weekend camping trip in a magical tent that Harry had from when his father was young.

Four days before the event, both Harry and Hermione received a letter from Ron inviting them to the exact event Harry had done so not long ago. Ron never replied after they sent their responses back about already having tickets, so they would never know about Ron pouting about missing the chance to impress them, particularly Hermione.

Ron had been really annoyed that he couldn’t join them in their mission to rescue Sirius, the only thing that annoyed him more was seeing Harry get all googly eyed at Hermione afterwards. Ron was starting to feel like Hermione was attempting to steal his best friend.

Ron would never be dumb enough to say it to his two friends, but he and Ginny had grown up being told stories about how Ginny would one day marry the famous Boy Who Lived, and Ron could marry anyone he wanted. So, obviously the girl that’s caught the eye of the famous boy that is already spoken for should obviously be good enough for him, right?

So for the two to reject his offer of tickets just so they could get their own, without even inviting him along. Despite, according to Harry’s letter at least, that Harry just bought the tickets so he and Hermione could join them all at the event when he read about them winning their tickets from the Ministry Lottery. Though he spent a couple minutes blaming the Daily Prophet for telling his friends about their luck before he could, he still went back to being angry at Harry for flaunting all his money.

Despite Ron having had a full week since he was told to invite them, but procrastinated for too long. He also wouldn’t admit that this would be the first time Harry had ever used his money for something big like this, and he didn’t even do it for himself, but Hermione and her parents and to spend time with the Weasleys.

=-=-=-=-=Day of the Quidditch World Cup=-=-=-=-=-=

When Harry had first shown the Grangers the tent, they were all shocked. How a seemingly unassuming tent could be basically the size of a large house was amazing, not quite the mansion Harry had shown them before they portkeyed over, but still really nice. They all had to portkey over from his mansion because of the statute, which was rather uncomfortable, but they have been able to enjoy just camping out here and just speaking and interacting with everyone else that showed up early. Not many of them realized the two were mundane, mostly because they were distracted by Harry’s fame.

When they got the tent set up, Harry had convinced Alex and Jean to take the master room because he wanted to take his father’s old room. It kind of helped that he suggested Hermione use Remus’ old room, which would put the master bedroom in between them, which actually made it harder for the two adults to not agree.

The main reason for the layout was simple stability. The master bedroom that Harry’s grandparents had used was the larger room, and so the four other rooms that were meant for the four Marauders, were placed on either side of it, James and Sirius to one side, Remus and Peter to the other. Each marauder had decorated their own room to match their personality, leading to Remus’ to have plenty of books that he could enjoy when he needed alone time, most of which Hermione had never read.

Hermione did enjoy reading some of them but since they were Remus’, she would have to contact the man if she wanted to borrow any. Apparently, while Sirius was given sanctuary and adopted by Harry’s grandparents, Remus and Peter were also always welcomed to their home and basically had second bedrooms with them.

Hermione didn’t mention she got curious about Peter’s room and found it was empty of anything, leaving her to guess Harry threw it all out or possibly burnt it.

Alex has found the past week to be rather enjoyable with Harry, despite the lingering discomfort of realizing his baby girl was growing up, he saw the looks the two kids sent one another when they thought no one was looking. Throughout the week he has spent his free time learning all about quidditch from Harry, and wound up explaining a bit about the mundane sports the boy hadn’t understood.

The man had wound up with the impression that the boy was treated poorly by whoever raised him, noticing the flinches and stiffness in Harry whenever either of the older grangers raised their voices even slightly. Then there was that moment when Harry flinched and covered his head when Jean dropped a pan.

Harry waved it off as not important, having explained that he already got away from his relatives thanks to his account manager. Although they dropped the subject, all three Grangers were adamant about him talking with someone about it, and Hermione had tried to talk with him about it every other night when they managed to have a one on one. Despite her father hiding around the corner to make sure nothing inappropriate happened while her mother spied on them as well for the same reason, but with an additional purpose.

As the four were bonding some more on the morning of the match, as Alex was actually cooking on the grill with Harry, they were interrupted by a couple redheaded people. Arthur Weasley was ecstatic when he noticed someone else was grilling the muggle way, and recognized them almost immediately. “Harry, good to see you, and you as well doctor Granger. Ron mentioned that you managed to get yourself some tickets when you found out we were going to be here, glad we managed to find you.”

Harry smiled genuinely, knowing Arthur had no part in his future misery. Molly had gone behind his back and hadn’t even conversed with him about any contract. Though he was almost sure that Molly had something to do with them crossing paths here, he couldn’t reveal what he knew yet. Arthur would be furious with Molly, who would tattle to Dumbledore, who would make his life miserable again.

Meaning he had to continue to smile for the three pieces of shits that were walking to catch up with him with the rest of his family.

Arthur looked between the two of them as Hermione and her mother stepped out carrying some plates for their lunch. “I didn’t know muggles were able to come to these things.”

Harry chuckled to draw attention to himself. “Actually, there are bracelets you can buy or rent that protect you from anti-muggle charms. It didn’t cost much, so I asked my godfather if he could help me with getting a set for them when he got me the tickets.”

Harry didn’t want to mention having contact with his account manager in front of Molly, he couldn’t trust the woman not to report anything to Dumbledore. Molly had no way to contact Sirius to verify his claims until the end of the upcoming school year when Dumbledore scams Sirius out of his home. And by then it wouldn’t matter what Molly told the old bastard.

It took everything Harry had to not hex Ron as the boy walked over. “Is this also his tent?”

Harry only shrugged. “Technically. He was how I got it, but it had belonged to my grandparents. It was the one they used when they all came to watch the games, it even has their name plaques on the doors as their marauder nicknames.”

Harry didn’t have to mention that, but decided to as a way to avoid speaking too much with Ron, especially alone. The twins fell right for his plan, hook, line, and sinker, as the two were suddenly hanging off his shoulders. “Did we hear that right, little Harrikins?”

“The Marauders’ nicknames?” “Does that mean you are aware of who they were?”

Harry chuckled at their back and forth, having no real clue how to tell them apart. “Why, of course I would know of the marauders, I am after all the son of Prongs. Which reminds me, I have business to talk with you two about if we get the chance.”

Fred and George looked to one another as they silently spoke with their facial gestures, somehow having an entire silent conversation within moments despite not saying any words. Molly was looking at the grill Harry and Alex were cooking on. “Well, it doesn’t look like you all are eating a proper meal, lucky that I brought some extra in case anyone got hungry.”

Harry had to utilize all of his new yet considerable occlumancy shields as Molly pulled out a picnic basket with a possible expansion charm, that he knew was filled with potioned foods. He couldn’t let on that he knew she was going to try and poison them, which was why he took precautions and laced their own foods with antidotes. Their breakfast was filled with anti-love potions, and if that wasn’t enough, he had requested some anti-potion charms be placed on the anti-anti-muggle ward bracelets, as well as on Hermione’s necklace.

Harry had gotten it and claimed it as a birthday gift for her, and before he gave it to her, he had Bloodybreaker get a goblin forged enchantment that would prevent the potions from taking effect. Of course Harry never realized that as he asked for protection, he said he was willing to pay whatever to protect her. So his goblin accountant just threw on all the protections so he could charge Harry more.

What? Harry might have saved his honor, but he was still a goblin. Harry got what he paid for, he just hadn’t realized he was paying top galleons for higher quality enchantments that would protect her from any and every mind alteration known to the goblins. The bracelets weren’t strong enough to add more than a couple enchants, but they were strong enough to protect the two dentists for the weekend in the magical world.

Hermione was showing Ginny the necklace after the girl noticed and asked about it, causing the girl to send Harry a pleading puppy-eyed look that he pretended not to notice. Molly had started to pull things out of her basket as Harry interrupted her. “Actually Mrs. Weasley, we were just having a light lunch in preparation for the celebrations tonight. I found out that after the game, almost everyone celebrates by selling foreign dishes. My godfather made sure I had plenty of money to try as much as I could handle and then some, so we wanted to explore and try a bunch of them later.”

Molly barely caught herself before she gave a snarl. Knowing to look, Harry caught it though pretended not to. That meant that he had probably been right that she potioned the food, though that didn’t stop Ron from still eating his share, causing her to have to cook them again later when Hermione was willing to eat her cooking.

As the morning moved on, Harry dragged the twins off to talk with them about their future business, and offered to invest in them. He had to word it carefully, because he didn’t recall if they mentioned it or not, he just knew they were going to be a success despite all their setbacks, which he decided to help mitigate. The twins were slightly resistant, before Harry went into detail how investments worked in the mundane world. Apparently the twins were more focused on their products, because they weren’t fully prepared to handle the business side of things. And so at the end of their talk, Harry was the proud owner of twenty percent of their business.

He also shared his banishment bag with them, and just as Hermione when she found it, they were shocked he managed to make it. So, he had to explain how he was forced to do extra study in runes due to McGonagall sending a response about how Dumbledore didn’t think it wise for him to drop divination, no matter how he worded the letter. Thankfully even with being denied the switch, he would only have to put up with the stupid class for two months, but he didn’t tell anyone that tidbit.

As everyone made their way up the stands, the heads up from Harry’s ghost gave him the advantage to know how long to dawdle and where to end up being cornered by Fudge, who took every chance he could to further his own agenda by leaching off of others’ fame. This confrontation had two reasons, the first was to reveal that the tickets Harry got for himself and the Grangers were different from the ones the Weasleys ‘won’. The second was to cause Fudge to be too pushy for Molly to make any arguments to separate Harry and Hermione’s parents.

Molly would obviously plan to convince Hermione’s parents to trade off their tickets so that Ron and Ginny could join Harry and Hermione in the better seats so the friends could all be together. But Fudge was an idiot that loved to hear his own voice, so all Harry had to do was keep his back to Molly so she wouldn’t have reason to believe he was aware he was cutting her off, while Fudge would just do it because he was an ignorant ass. So, keeping the conversation going until Fudge dragged Harry and the Grangers away to their proper box that they ‘coincidentally’ shared with the man was easy enough.

Molly would complain and whine about it all, and probably throw a tantrum, but as long as Dumbledore does what he usually does and ignores the woman, the most Harry would have to worry about would be dodging spiked food for the next couple months when they reached Hogwarts. His future self warned him about that, Dumbledore plans for him to be dead so as long as he potions Harry to knock Ginny up before his seventh year or Voldemort’s return, whichever comes first, the old goat doesn’t care.

But Fudge dragging Harry away, causing the Grangers to follow since he was holding their tickets, was Harry’s plan from the very beginning. And as Harry was introduced to the other politicians in the box, he surprised everyone when he spoke fluent Bulgarian. Fudge was pleasantly surprise when the Grangers spoke fluent French with the French delegate that showed up to watch the game, Harry’s guests allowed Fudge to look both inclusive when they all realized Hermione was a mundane born, as well as cultured when they were fluently translating for Fudge so he didn’t make a fool of himself, causing Fudge to happily include them.

Harry was just happy Umbridge was nowhere in sight, or he would have had to do something to shut her up. Maybe she will end up in the same pitfall Dumbledore would fall into, she does have a proxy vote she is blackmailing to use after all.

Harry wasn’t too happy, though he was respectful, when Lucius was introduced to them. And the man was surprisingly civil towards the Grangers, though Alex did become curious about something. “I recall our almost first meeting in Diagon Alley, you and Mister Weasley were rather hostile towards one another, why was that?”

As Lucius took a deep breath obviously not wanting to answer, though not for the reasons most would think, so Harry decided to. “I did some research into that actually. Three generations back, the Weasley family made a betrothal contract with the Malfoys but then the betrothed heiress of the Weasley family went and got pregnant from a different man and broke the contract. The Weasleys refused to pay the recompense, the Malfoys declared a blood feud, the Weasleys enacted a blood curse. The blood curse can only be ended with the feud, and the feud can only end with the completion of the marriage contract. So, the Weasley family has to pay the Malfoys recompense for the broken contract, or Draco has to marry Ginny.”

Everyone looked at Harry in shock over that, Lucius having never been able to figure out most of the details himself, his grandfather being too bitter to explain most of it, leaving the details to be lost to time. But, since the Weasleys were rather poor, there was no chance to solve the problem that way. And Draco looked disgusted with the thought of having to marry a Weasley.

Hermione looked really curious now. “Where did you find that information Harry?”

Harry smiled as he shrugged. “My ancestors have made it a habit to record every altercation between any families that they witness, and my great grandfather was the one who wrote this one down. Greyclay has kept the journals in perfect condition. My grandfather had planned on approaching the two when he found out Arthur and Molly were going until they had a daughter and Lucius was expecting a boy. But then Voldemort managed to surprise him with a full assault, the battle raging for several hours of him and my Grandmother, Dorea Potter nee Black, both taking down dozens of death eaters before Voldemort attacked personally when they were showing signs of their old age and growing weary from endless combat. That False Lord sacrificed dozens of his men to take them down.”

As Lucius thought over the information about his own family that Potter just explained, he also filed away that Potter claimed Voldemort as a False Lord rather than a Dark Lord. Which to anyone else would be insignificant, but to a politician that kept with the traditionalist view and knew plenty of terms those on the light side have tried to bury, those words had very different meanings.

Draco wished he was able to verify the level of validity to Harry’s statements. The records of blood feuds were only ever kept within the family, so if no one wrote down what caused them, no one would be able to know how to break them. The ones that caused the feuds usually didn’t want to end them, but apparently Potter’s ancestor was in position in comparison to both the Weasleys and his family to know what caused, and how to settle, both the Malfoy blood curse and their family feud.

Draco wouldn’t ask it out loud, at least not until he could personally verify the truth to Potter’s words himself, but would he be willing to put up with the little Weaslette to break his family curse? He knows his mother and father had tried several times after his birth to have more kids, but would he be willing to sacrifice his own chances for a better woman? Could he ask his own kids if he was unwilling to put up with marrying a Weasley? Would one of those boys even have a kid his could marry?

Fudge shuffled about, fiddling with his hat in his hands a bit as he spoke up. “Well, that’s interesting. Maybe we can hear about more of your family history at a later date, the game is going to be starting here soon and we don’t want to miss it, do we?”

Harry smiled, nodding as he led the Grangers to their seats. Harry’s future self didn’t go into detail of everything unimportant, and he counted the game among those facts. So, Harry was able to experience the game as any other fan not in the know could. Though he did have to explain the Veela to the Grangers when they asked why several men were practically jumping out of the audience to get to them, which meant that when Alex asked about how he could resist it, Harry had to explain he asked the goblins to add a mind protection enchantment to his bracelet.

This actually earned him a kiss on the cheek for thinking to protect her parents more than they thought to while they were here. Harry quietly mentioned that he had a slight fear that some of the bigoted members of their society would try something, a specific toad woman that thankfully didn’t show up was the first to come to mind.

As the game ended and everyone settled down, Harry and the Grangers wound up meeting back up with the Weasley family. Though Ron almost started a fight with Draco when the boy was not far behind the Grangers.

Lucius watched curiously as Harry pulled the Weasley family away from them when the boy looked between Arthur and himself. So, as Potter gave him a smile and nod, he straightened up his robe, hearing the familiar sound of crinkled paper. Pulling it out, he found a message from Potter that read, ‘take some time to think about what I’ve told you and talk things over with your family. I will talk with Arthur about giving you the benefit of the doubt in case you approach him about it.’

Lucius actually thought over everything he learned from Potter and recalled several of his plans for the night. Maybe he should rethink things, if Potter was going to give him this chance, maybe he should step back and reanalyze everything. Because if he could get the future Lord Potter to at least turn the Potter family seat neutral when he took it back from Dumbledore, things might start to get better without all the violence.

=-=-=-=-=Chapter Over=-=-=-=-=

Chapter Text

Harry was a bit jumpy as he sat in his tent. Something must have changed because there was no attack, although Junior did escape and cast the dark mark into the sky. The problem was with Lucius canceling their night of fun, because he actually had hopes of dealing with a bunch of those fools all at once.

He has been wracking his brain for what he could have done, but the only thing that came to mind was when he mentioned Lucius’ family history. But he couldn’t for the life of him figure out why that would cause Lucius to cancel the attack. There wasn’t even any way for him to find the information either, because he only got told the rough outline for his school year and a couple of important events that happened in between and after.

Did him revealing how to break his family curse spark a change within the evil man? Could Lucius be a better person if he only tried? Harry will always have his doubts after what he has dealt with from Draco, but he has been wrong before, and there is a really good chance he will be again. Harry doesn’t believe everyone can change, but maybe the current Lord Malfoy had a chance to be a better person. He would have to get the man’s side of things to get a real opinion on things, but hopefully, this doesn’t alter his plans for the upcoming year.

Looking around, Harry began to lose himself in the thoughts of his current place and desires. The tent was separated into basically three sections by the main foyer. With a travel-enabling enchant for the elves, there was no need for a kitchen when the elves could just pop in and out with meals, he and Alex had done the barbequing because Harry had admitted in passing that he always wanted to experience something like that, just some male bonding over simple things that. While he wouldn’t have experienced it if his father had raised him, he was raised mundane so the desire was there. A chance to know on some level, how it felt to have a proper father figure.

As Harry was stewing, Hermione decided to walk over and sit in the chair across from him. “Harry, I can see how troubled you are about things, and it has been happening a lot lately. Don’t think I didn’t notice your actions towards the Weasleys today either, you gave credit to Sirius for the tickets rather than your account manager.”

Harry took a deep breath, before letting it out in a long, frustrated sigh. “I didn’t lie to you, I got into contact with my account manager and found out some very disturbing details concerning my accounts. For starters, I had to go to Sirius’ account manager because mine was stealing from me.”

Hermione gasped, though held her questions as Harry continued. “I also found out that Dumbledore has been lying to and stealing from me as well.”

Hermione shook her head. “Harry, are you sure about this?”

Harry didn’t feel too down when Hermione asked that, she did believe in Dumbledore a lot, just like the rest of the world. “Hermione, I have documented evidence, proof that Albus Dumbledore has been planning to take over my family vault and lay claim to my family grimoires and heirlooms. He messed with my cloak, stole my blood for devices in his office to monitor me, plotted with the Grip clan of Gringotts to hide my heritage and rob me blind. He has been allowing my legal guardian to rot on the streets and waste away so he can retain his hold over my life. Forces me to live with people that smack me with a frying pan because I left the bacon cooking for too long, whip me with a belt when they think something is the fault of my freakishness, refuse to let me do my homework because it relates to said freakishness while the third one gets his three friends, two of which are bigger than Crabbe and Goyle, and gang up on me to beat me into the ground.”

Hermione was trying not to cry as Harry finished and was now standing and taking deep breaths to try and keep his anger under control. “So, Dumbledore is horrible, don’t trust him. What does he have to do with the Weasleys?”

Harry took a final deep breath as he looked Hermione over, noticing she was processing all that but wasn’t wanting to lose focus of her original question. She wanted to figure out why he was avoiding his other friend, to help him there, because she couldn’t help him with his issues with the headmaster. “Molly has been working with Dumbledore to force me to marry Ginny and turn the Potter family into a cadet family of the Weasleys, which would mean me losing all my family vaults, and would give Dumbledore the opening he wants to enter and take all of my families’ grimoires for himself and cancel the Albion family protections on them so he could read and steal all of my ancestors’ hard work. The Weasleys would get a large amount of the money and I would lose all my family history. I would be a no name unless I willingly accepted the Weasley name.”

Hermione looked at Harry in horror as she stopped being able to hold back her tears.

Harry decided to move on. “I have been dealing with countering their plans, and the first thing I did was get a new account manager. That account manager was able to bring to light several shady things about my old one, and was able to fix what we could for now. I have plans that I have set in motion, the beginnings of which were to counter Molly from slipping me potions.”

Hermione gasped at that. “How do you counter that?”

Harry smiled. “There are enchantments that are available for a price that counter all forms of mind affecting magics.”

Harry gave her necklace a pointed look at this, though he failed to realize where he would be looking if he did so, causing Hermione to cover her breasts. “How did we go from talking about dark plots to you staring at my chest?”

Harry blushed as he choked on air. “No, your necklace, I had it enchanted to protect your mind from invasion and potioning. Not that I am complaining about your figure, you’re beautiful.”

Hermione blinked at Harry, squirming a bit at his words. “I appreciate the sentiment, but I know I’m not pretty. Thank you for thinking about protecting me though, I really appreciate it.”

Harry took a second to organize his thoughts as he sat down. “Hermione, I want to talk with you about my current position. I am heir to an ancient and noble house, as well as three most ancient and noble houses. Potter, Peverell, Gryffindor, and Black. When Sirius accepted being my godfather, he took a blood oath, which makes me his son and heir. As soon as I get him free, he will be publicly recognized as Lord Black. If I claim more than just my Potter seat, I will need a wife to continue each family name. Daphne Greengrass is already in a contract with the Black family from a previous generation’s contract. So I am already forced to marry her, and if I don’t speak up, or Sirius remains on the run, Draco will inherit the Black name by default with my claim assumed to have been rejected. But if I claim the Black heirship, I will be forced to claim the other two, meaning I must find two more wives, or allow the Wizengamot to find wives for me.”

Hermione blinked in shock. “That is completely barbaric.”

Harry nodded. “Yeah, these are ancient laws that we are forced to deal with. Most of the time, to avoid looking like a perverted prat, people will just accept whatever family line they inherit from their parents. But ever since one such perverted prat that thought himself a ladies’ man before he was proven wrong, thought he lucked his way into a harem situation when he found he could claim two ancient and noble houses. So he convinced his father, who had a seat on the Wizengamot, to get a law passed that allowed the Wizengamot to force a marriage contract to keep the lost families from dying out. What the guy didn’t know was that the only women the Wizengamot would force a contract with him, were women that put their names forward to continue the lines. He wound up married, and forced to have an heir and a spare, with two women that were two and three times his age. But ever since then, the Wizengamot has used this law to set their families up with suitors that would normally be out of their reach socially.”

Hermione shifted slightly, physically uncomfortable at the thought. “So, if you want to keep Sirius’ family name and fortune from being abused by Malfoy, you have to claim your right as heir. And because you’re doing that, you automatically claim your heirship of Peverell and Gryffindor as well. All this along with your Potter heirship means you must continue those lines and keep them separate by Wizarding law by having a wife for each. And if you want a normal family, a wife with kids and a picket fence and all that, you would have to let Malfoy walk around like he is even more important than he is.”

Harry nodded. “It is actually a bit more than that. The Black fortune is the largest in all of magical Britain, and their political influence is frightening in and of itself. If Draco continues as heir unopposed, his father will have full regent rights, meaning he will be able to use that fortune and influence to aid Voldemort if or when he returns. If I claim heirship, Sirius’ lack of trial will be exposed, because if he actually had one and was convicted the Albion family magics would have rejected him as Lord and I wouldn’t be able to claim heirship. I have no real choice but to claim the heirship for Black, because doing so will guarantee Sirius will be freed and that fortune and power will stay out of Voldemort’s hands. I had hoped you would be willing to be Lady Potter, but if you don’t want to I won’t force or coerce you in any way.”

As Hermione looked into the nearby fireplace, Harry continued. “Every single person, including Ron, the first thing they want to talk about is my scar and remind me that my parents were dead. You were the first person to merely acknowledge that you read about me, introduce yourself, and show me a proper spell before talking about how excited you are to be able to learn magic. You have never called me the boy who lived, which has only reminded me that my parents didn’t. You tend to give me advice and explain things so they are easier to understand after Ron distracts me every chance he gets.”

Hermione turned back to him, seeing him give her a vulnerable smile. “You were also the first person to show she cared at all about my health. You weren’t always the best at communicating with me about it, but I do accept some fault there with how I acted with the firebolt, but don’t think I don’t notice you moving food around so I have the healthier foods nearby. But my feelings have really developed recently, especially when you ignored your fear of heights just to help me with Sirius.”

As Harry was taking a breath, Hermione started before he could continue. “The only reason I was able to ignore my fear was because you had your arms around me. You make me feel safer, than my fears can scare me. I feel like I want to spend my life with you, and even if we do have to deal with all this multiple wife stuff, I would rather you spend your life with girls that won’t take advantage of you. Especially someone like some of the girls I have been overhearing on the gossip vine last year. Did you know that there is talk between some of the girls about what they would do with your money if they married you? Whether they do or don’t mean to imply anything cruel about it, those kinds of girls are the last kind you need to deal with.”

Harry wondered if he ever did learn about them in the future. Hermione pulled Harry up before pushing him towards his room. “We should really get some rest though, we will have to be extra careful when talking about these things while at Hogwarts, but we will figure out what we can do to prevent him from robbing you of everything that ties you to your family. It’s practically a crime to destroy history in any form.”

Harry chuckled as he nodded, wondering how she would take his meddling in history, before he was surprised when Hermione kissed his cheek. “I have read about situations similar to yours before, concerning the whole multiple wives thing, and although I never expected to be in a position to decide that, I will think about it. I like you, Harry, a lot, and I would love to be with you. Maybe I will be able to accept it all if I can get along with the other three in a civil manner. I won’t know until I try, so maybe we can make an attempt, and if it doesn’t work out, we can stay friends if I just can’t handle it.”

Harry gave her a small hopeful smile. “I would love nothing more than that. I find myself falling for you, but the last thing I want is for you to force yourself to do things you don’t want to do just for my sake. I want you to be happy, I hope you won’t hold it against me if I say I hope you can be happy as a part of my family, but if this situation isn’t the one you want, then I will just be happy keeping you as my best friend.”

Hermione nodded as she turned to the other side so she could get some rest before they went home, leaving Harry to do the same. Alex and Jean, who were peeking out the door to their own room, both were dealing with their own thoughts about the situation, thinking over what advice they could give if or when Hermione came to them with questions.

=-=-=-=-=a couple days later, on the Hogwarts Express=-=-=-=-=

Harry smiled as he stopped at a cabin with a single occupant, before stepping in and asking, “hey, Luna Lovegood right? You mind if we join you here, your’s is the first one with room and I rather not risk losing the chance to sit.”

Luna nodded. “If you wish to join me you are welcome, and yes, I am Luna Lovegood.”

Hermione blinked as she noticed the slight guarded look the girl had. “Well, I am Hermione Granger, the boy that talked with you first is Harry Potter, and this boy behind me is Ron Weasley.”

Luna nodded as she ignored the annoyed look Ron gave her. “Yes, the Weasleys are actually neighbors of mine and Harry Potter is rather famous. I even have some experience being him.”

While Hermione shifted a little uncomfortably as the thoughts of things such as polyjuice came to mind, Harry just smirked and raised a brow at the girl. Ron scoffed as shook his head. “Loony here used to always play with Ginny, and the two would always imagine that she was Harry rescuing Ginny. Mental if you ask me.”

Hermione blinked as she looked between the blonde and redhead, though Harry decided to scoff at Ron. “Well, with all those stupid books about me, it was only a matter of time before I met someone that pretended to be me.”

Luna smiled at him. “Well, if it helps you feel better, you can pretend to be me.”

Just as Ron scoffed, Harry was quick to speak before he could insult her again. “Well, does that make you me once again? Or do you want to pretend to be someone else? Or would we be twins? Always wanted a sibling myself.”

Luna giggled slightly as she nodded. “I wouldn’t mind a sibling myself either.”

Harry shrugged as he plopped down next to her. “Alright then, so if we are doing the whole sibling thing, I guess that makes me Harry Lovegood then.”

While Hermione was confused over Harry’s actions, Ron was just exasperated. “Oh, enough Harry. It’s just Loony Lovegood, just ignore her and let her read whatever crazy things her loon father puts in their magazine.”

Harry’s eye twitched at Ron. Harry knew Luna already had to deal with plenty of people hurting her, and he wouldn’t be one of them. Most of them were only guilty of ignoring her, but he planned to help and protect her, because he knew she would be one of the most loyal and truest friends he will ever have.

Harry gestured towards the copy of the quibbler that she had in her hands. “May I?”

Luna shrugged as she passed it over, and watched as he read over the articles. “Crumple Horned Snorkacks?”

Luna gave a short almost exasperated sigh as she ignored Ron’s condescending look. Hermione just had a curious look about her as she wondered what a Snorkack was. Before Luna could start talking to cover up her discomfort, Harry continued. “Snorkacks are just Snorkacks, the horns only gain the crumpled look when they are female because they allow their infants to teethe on them. The more crumpled the horn becomes, the more infants the mother has, while the males use their own horns to defend their family from predators.”

Luna and Hermione blinked in surprise, wondering where Harry got that information.  Ron looked at Harry with utter disbelief. “Mate, you can’t believe that malarkey, nothing in that thing is real.”

Harry just raised a brow at Ron. “Sorry Ron, but I recently got my hands on a book from Sirius that claims to have been written by Merlin himself, and I don’t think he would be crazy. He goes into some detail about alternative planes of existence, and the special ability some seers have to peek into them. It’s a rare and powerful gift that Merlin himself had, that allowed him to view and identify things such as wrackspurts and humdingers. I’m telling you mate, there are even a couple races of dragons that exist within another plane that we can’t see.”

Hermione’s eyes were wide at the mention of a book written by Merlin, while Ron just looked grossed out from reading when you didn’t need to. Harry handed the paper back to Luna as he pulled out some galleons. “Well, didn’t expect to use this for a subscription, but I have plenty.”

While Ron sneered at his words, the doorway opened as Draco poked his head in. “Wow, I stop by to give my usual greeting and I find you paying a girl Potter, something you want to tell us?”

As Luna did her best to ignore the implied insult, Hermione gave Draco a dark look as Ron tried to not snicker at Luna’s misfortune. Harry however was quick to fire back. “Hey, everyone loses a bet every now and then, I just so happened to bet the next person to enter wouldn’t be uglier than the last bloke, but you proved me wrong.”

Hermione and Luna smiled at his quick defense of Luna. Ron gave up trying to hide his snickering at that, always willing to laugh at Draco despite the hidden insult of Harry calling him ugly as well that he missed.

Draco snarled as he stopped his natural response. Taking a deep breath, Draco calmed himself before he went further. He had come to have an actual conversation with Potter, but old habits were hard to break. “I guess I deserved that, however, I was hoping to have a proper conversation with you before we get to Hogwarts.”

Harry blinked as he looked between his friends, including his newest. “I see no problem so long as you remain civil.”

Ron scoffed. “You can’t expect a snake to be civil, let alone remain.”

Harry discreetly sighed in exasperation before giving Ron a smirk. “Exactly Ron, take these and head out to get us some snacks from the trolley, and maybe by the time you get back, Draco will run out of insults.”

Ron laughed a bit as he caught the small bag and walked off to find the trolley, seeing this as a way Harry used to insult the blond ponce. How long did they think he would take at the trolley to grab a snack and come back?

Harry stopped chuckling as Ron left, and ignored the sneer Draco was giving him as he spoke. “So, with Dumbledore’s little spy gone, what did you want to talk about Heir Malfoy?”

The three Slytherins were all shocked at what Harry said, while Luna merely blinked. “You appear to have fewer wrackspurts than usual Harry.”

Harry gave the girl a smile as he pulled her into a one armed hug. “Thanks Luna, glad to know my new method of dealing with them is working for me. So, Draco, what brings you here?”

Draco looked to Hermione, hoping for an answer in some form, but was only met with a mirrored image of confusion. “My father requested I ask you about a term you used to describe the Dark Lord and where you heard it from. False Lord.”

Harry blinked as he shrugged. “I heard someone else call him it and it just sort of stuck. Though now that I know it’s a rather important term, I might just do a bit of my own research into it.”

Draco nodded. “It’s a term used to refer to a Lord of at least Ancient and Noble status who did something that Lady Magic deemed so horrible she rejected their claim of Lordship. Saying the Dark Lord was a False Lord, made my father look into something, and so, he asked if you would be willing to share your reasoning.”

Harry smirked as he decided to throw Lucius a bone. “As long as the information doesn’t get out, I could give you a message for him.”

Draco nodded. “Jungy.”

As Draco said the name, a house elf popped into the cart, before he nodded towards Harry. “Potter here has an important and private message for my father, please deliver it with all post haste.”

Harry blinked in surprise as he noticed the elf was in great health, before he leaned towards the little guy and whispered. “H.R.C.X. Multiple.”

As Harry moved back from the elf, he turned back to Draco. “That should be enough of a hint for your father to figure it out, and I warn you Malfoy, if your father does, yet still chooses to side with the fool, you might want to convince your mother to take you to live in France before things blow up in their faces. Things are set in motion that will see an end to this foolish war that that False Lord has been clinging to like a bratty child.”

Draco normally would have said something, but the strength and surety within Potter’s eyes right then and there, made him believe. “I will keep it in mind.”

Harry smirked as Draco slowly turned to leave, before he turned just his head back. “Looks like I did beat Weasley to finish, the fool either wasn’t smart enough to find the trolley, or he is enough of a slob to be eating you out of that little pouch of money you handed to him.”

Harry shrugged. “That’s why I handed him a small pouch full of galleons. If he didn’t get distracted with stuffing his face, he possibly got distracted showing off with it. Could even be getting flirted with into buying a snack or two for a random pretty face.”

Luna chimed in as Draco snorted before leaving. “I can see it.”

Hermione looked between Luna and Harry, before directing a question at the latter. “So, already scouting someone?”

Harry blinked as he looked at Luna, who stared back while starting to stiffen and look a bit guarded. Harry smiled at her and gave Hermione a shrug. “Well, she is attractive and fun from what I have seen from a distance, I haven’t seen anything to complain about. She has proven to have a rare and powerful ability similar to my Parseltongue, so I can only imagine if a child between us could inherit both and be able to talk with snakes from a separate plane.”

Luna pouted at the two, looking a bit uncomfortable. “What are you talking about?”

Harry smiled as he raised his hand to show his heir ring, which shifted into different heir rings. “Hermione was teasing me about how I need multiple wives. She was teasing me about how friendly I was being with you, even though I was mostly doing it to stop Ron from bullying you.”

Hermione decided to interject here. “I hope you realize that I fully plan on asking about that book.”

Harry blinked as he chuckled. “Sorry, but you will have to convince me to make you Lady Peverell in that case. That book is a family grimoire written by Merlin Peverell, and yes, he is that Merlin. It does mention both Arthur and Morganna, though he does go into ogling towards the latter on occasion.”

Luna and Hermione actually giggled at that, just as Ron stepped back in. “Hey, looks like Malfoy isn’t as bright as he claims if he ran out of insults in just that little bit of time.”

Harry decided to ignore the fact that Ron wasn’t tossing him the change and didn’t have nearly enough snacks to count for a quarter of what Harry gave him, which means that Ron ate what wasn’t there on his way back, or used some to show off to someone that was already there. And what was left of the lipstick on his cheek and the chocolate on the corner of his mouth told him it was both.

Chapter Text

Dumbledore was happy to be back, after spending a full week running to and from meetings with two foreign schools to set up for the tournament, things were starting to go his way. After his failure with that summoning charm Fudge and Delores pressured him into performing for them, he had several nightmares about his past mistakes.

His plans for the last summer had had a wrench tossed into them, as he has been having trouble keeping in touch with Sirius after the man flew off on Buckbeak. Apparently the man had gotten Harry some tickets for himself and the entire Granger family to go to the World Cup, which messed with his and Molly’s plot to ingratiate the two to the Weasleys and allow the woman to start their potion regimen. The only information he has been able to get so far is Sirius doing his best to make up for lost time.

What he wouldn’t learn however, is that Sirius was getting messages from his account manager asking for approval for Harry’s spending, which he just approved automatically after he realized Harry was spending the Black family funds to spoil himself and his friends. Walburga would be rolling over in her grave if she knew Sirius was allowing a half-blood to waste Black family funds on a mudblood, her muggle parents, and blood traitors. He found it to be a wonderful prank of epic proportions on pretty much the entirety of the family that he thought cast him out for not siding with a psychopath.

Harry just took advantage and gave Sirius credit for everything he was getting, and as long as he never mentioned he wasn’t living with the Dursleys or had accepted his heirships to certain people for the next two months, he would be golden. Hermione was, is, and always will be on his side and would never expose his secrets to anyone. She liked Harry more than she respected authority, and if that didn’t count as professing her love for him, he would eat his wand.

Luna was a gamble, but Harry’s future ghost had informed him she was someone he could trust wholeheartedly. She was being bullied and just wanted a friend, even Ginny, who at first just wanted there to be another girl to play with, started to pick on her. But the main issue for Luna, was the fact that Cho Chang was one of her main bullies, and that blinded Harry for most of his early years considering his crush on the bitch. His future self always regretted ignoring her issues when he was in Hogwarts. And Harry refused to repeat his apparent mistakes, trusting Dumbledore and ignoring Luna were two of his biggest, according to his future self.

Dumbledore watched the children as they finished their meals, his eyes drifting over to Harry to find, once again, he was wearing too large clothes and had an obvious slouch in his shoulders. That Granger girl was rubbing his shoulders in an attempt at silently comforting him as Ronald half ignored what the two were saying.

Dumbledore proceeded to sneak a peek at his ‘old friend Mad-eye Moody’. The man hadn’t done nearly everything he was supposed to when they met up, which told him it wasn’t his old friend that sat in that seat. Thinking over what it could possibly be, he could only believe that it was a death eater that escaped prison time, and was planning to use the tournament for some nefarious reason. Maybe whoever it was would enter Harry into this tournament, allowing him to test the boy to see what he is capable of. He would have to wait to see what they did if or when they entered him, and if they wanted him to make it to the end and kidnap him for any reason, maybe Harry would die, fulfill the prophecy, and he could be done with all this sooner rather than later.

He would have to add stress onto Harry to ensure he would need a method to relieve it, and with the Yule Ball being a part of this tournament, well if they end up going a little too far, who could blame them? Harry could die in this tournament after all.

Harry Potter probably wouldn’t have realized it if he hadn’t already been told about everything before, but his teammates from the house quidditch team, specifically the three chasers, were all really upset at the loss of the sport for the year. Well, at least he would be able to fix that.

So, the next day at dinner, Harry acted like he came to a hard decision, taking a deep breath before he stood from the bench and made his way up to the head table to speak with Dumbledore. “Excuse me, headmaster.”

Dumbledore looked Harry over, noticing how he looked slightly nervous, but was still proving his house placement by bravely confronting him. Maybe he could throw the boy a bone, not like he couldn’t at least hear him out. “Yes my boy?”

Harry took another deep breath, making sure he wrung his hands, displaying his lack of any heir ring, having taken them off for this task to hide that he had them from Albus’ prying. “I was thinking things over last night, and after writing some things out to see if it would be doable, which I found it would be, I was thinking that we could still hold the quidditch tournament alongside the Tri Wizard.”

Before Snape had the chance to speak up and insult the boy, Albus decided on a plan. “Well, the main reason we had to cancel quidditch was due to the stress it would cause the teachers to deal with both tournaments, so if you would be willing to take over the responsibility, I don’t really see how different it would be from having some pickup games throughout the year.”

Harry nodded as he acted excited Albus was hearing him out and looked to be agreeing. “Well, since this wouldn’t be a school tournament, but a student sponsored one, we could even have more teams than just the house teams. The house teams would likely all want to continue to support their house names, but I could work in an extra team or two if there were some students that want to join but haven’t had the room to join the house team. The extra teams can even pull from all houses, and I can send a letter to both the other schools to invite them to bring a team to enter as well. As long as the teams enter their team name before the first of October, I could even finalize the tournament brackets and schedule the games around the tri wizard challenges.”

Dumbledore was all smiles as he nodded, ignoring the sneer he could practically hear and feel from Severus as the man became annoyed with Harry. “As long as you do not interfere with the tri wizard tournament events, I see no reason to not allow this, though I will insist that none of the students that are champions be allowed to enter. Can’t have a student fall from their broom and be unable to enter the challenge. It would be a disaster.”

Harry nodded excitedly. “Thank you for understanding headmaster, I know three members of the Gryffindor team had aspirations to go pro after Hogwarts, so I know they will appreciate this chance.”

Dumbledore merely smiled as he stood and announced his decision to allow Harry to host a student sponsored quidditch tournament. Albus allowed Harry to explain a little before he waved them off to bed. Apparently the boy was serious about allowing extra cross house teams, all they had to do was get their friends that were rejected from the main house teams together and think of a name.

Albus wouldn’t have guessed, but there were several girls from Slytherin that were excited to get the chance to enter their own team into the tournament, the house team having been captained by several sexist boys for the last several generations.

As the nights moved on, Harry had gotten the team rosters for each of the house teams, himself being the seeker for house Griffindor didn’t stop a couple of people from trying to poach him much to his teammates’ ire. Alicia had basically made the Weasley twins swear to be his bodyguards to prevent anyone from kidnapping him.

McLaggan had tried to form a team but failed, he was just not charismatic enough to get an entire team together. While Tracey had gathered a team of girls, even some from other houses, to join her newly dubbed Young Harpies team, she even got Ginny to be their seeker. One person that surprised him with her joining that team was Luna as a chaser.

Luna didn’t want to go pro or anything, but she had decided to join so she could help out and hopefully make some friends. And it was going great, since she actually had gained some friends that were grateful for her helping them, though Cho had to go and make sure she knew her place.

Which is where we find Harry now, having used the Marauders’ map to notice that Luna had been locked out of her common room, before he used his invisibility cloak to swoop down and rescue the girl before she got in trouble and was unable to stay on her new team.

As Harry dropped the hood from his cloak, allowing his head to be visible, he spoke up. “You shouldn’t really be out here, you know.”

Luna jumped slightly with a gasp as she looked over Harry’s floating head. “An invisibility cloak? You must get into and out of a lot of trouble with that.”

Harry shrugged as he opened it and began to pull Luna along with him as he hid them, pulling Luna along back to the Gryffindor common room. “Yeah, a cloak that can hide you from even death itself is pretty handy.”

Harry knew that implying the Deathly Hallow connection of his cloak would distract the girl enough to get her to safety. Harry’s future self had mentioned that some of the prefects weren’t as nice to Luna when they caught her, but she would be safe for another half a year or so before they tried anything filthy with her. Apparently, a mother will always rant at anyone willing to listen in the afterlife about how their child was poorly treated. And Luna’s mother was willing to tell him about every terrible thing those filthy brats did to her baby girl and when they did it.

Harry’s older self wasn’t willing to go into detail, but he did mention that he had to do something for her before the year was up, because if she was left alone, when they came back from Yule break, she was going to be hurt irreversibly.

So, Harry’s solution was to keep Luna protected from the Raven’s nest of vultures, by bringing her into his part of the lions’ den. As Harry took the girl back to his common room, he explained all about the cloak, how it was a family heirloom and was indeed Death’s cloak, although he accidentally let slip he knew the location of the other two as well. He got her to promise to keep the information to herself, but he wound up explaining that he had the Resurrection Stone in his vault, while Dumbledore held the Elder Wand.

Luna actually began to cry when Harry almost immediately approved her request to use the stone. He admitted that he had used it once to say goodbye to his own parents after the goblins he paid to retrieve it removed the horcrux from it. Though considering the Stone was protected by Death itself from being infected with any curse, it was a simple manner to dunk the ring in basilisk venom and allow the ring part to melt off the stone.

Ever since that night, Harry simply dragged Luna around with him as if she were a Gryffindor, and if anyone ever questioned him, or tried to stop Luna from spending the night in Gryffindor tower, he threatened to quit quidditch, and snap his broom.

It took both Angelina and Katie to keep Alicia from killing McLaggan after he tried to physically drag Luna out of the tower, as the twins stopped Harry from following through with his threat to break his firebolt.

Alicia only had to threaten to kick Ron off the team to get him to stop bullying Luna.

McGonagall and Flitwick showed some concern when they noticed Harry basically dragging Luna to Gryffindor tower every night, and when they tried to get Luna back to her old accommodations, Harry stepped in again. He simply demanded they show him the rule that said she wasn’t allowed to stay in Gryffindor tower, he wouldn’t allow them to drag her away.

Harry and Luna both wound up in the headmaster’s office after their heads of house decided to get the matter settled officially. Because there was no rule preventing Luna from being in Gryffindor tower, but there was a rule for Luna to have room in Ravenclaw tower. Harry argued that means that sleepovers were allowed, and even encouraged when he showed the teachers that guidelines for such things existed. Of course Harry being civil and calm headed when he talked this over with them both and the fact that nothing untoward was happening, just Luna crashing on their couch or joining the girls in their dorms when Harry suggested that.

Harry did feel a little bad for partially manipulating Alicia, the girl being the Quidditch Team Captain, but he was doing it so a young girl’s suffering would end. And after the first night of the quidditch girls doing the big sister thing, they switched to supporting him in keeping her there. What kind of marks did they find on Luna to cause them to no longer be iffy or uncomfortable with basically kidnapping Luna from the rest of Ravenclaw?

Harry stood with Luna as the teachers talked with Dumbledore. “So, we are curious about your take on the situation Albus.”

Albus nodded, thinking over everything. “We can’t have a Ravenclaw spending every night in the Gryffindor tower, it’s just not done. If she chooses to spend the night with her friends once, maybe twice a week if she behaves, I see no problem. However, she must show support to her house and the friends she has there.”

Albus found this to be acceptable, he didn’t truly care for Luna’s situation, but he has already compromised on the quidditch situation and couldn’t give in here as well. He couldn’t be seen as too soft.

Harry instantly clamped down on his emotions, his face turning completely blank as he began to talk. “If you are so against Luna as a Ravenclaw being in Gryffindor tower, then you will have to just re-sort her into Gryffindor. Because I will not allow you to force her back into that tower with all those bullies.”

Harry had tried to keep from mentioning the bullying, but needs must be met. If Harry allowed this arrangement, Luna would be given one or two nights a week of peace, but the bullying would get worse for when she was there. They may even escalate sooner and be worse later, if the teachers had stayed out of this and just allowed Luna to keep hiding with the lions, things wouldn’t have reached this point.

McGonagall was shocked, but Flitwick was angry. “Are you telling me that my ravens are bullying Miss Lovegood?”

Despite Luna clinging to his arm and shaking her head, Harry continued. “How do you think this whole thing started? I found her being locked out of her common room, her shoes stolen, and curfew approaching. So, I gave her asylum within Gryffindor tower so she would have a comfortable place with a warm blanket to sleep. She and I slept in the common room on a couple of the couches that night. The nights after however, I was able to convince my teammates, Alicia, Angelina, and Katie to allow her to rest in a proper bed. I believe they describe it as having a little sister to coddle.”

Dumbledore just shook his head sadly, speaking up before Filius could. “It upsets me to hear you say such things about your fellow classmates, Harry my boy. If such things were indeed happening, Miss Lovegood would have told us and we would have handled it.”

Harry looked Flitwick in the eye but said nothing, causing the half goblin to look back on every conversation he had with Luna, especially in her first year. “She has.”

Noticing McGonagall gesturing for him to continue, despite Albus frowning over the direction things were going, he did so. “Miss Lovegood here came to me within her first week, told me something happened to her shoes, and because we found them in the common room, I never really thought much about it. Though I do recall several times when I found Miss Lovegood outside the common room rather early and in the same clothes as the day before a couple of times there was some damage to her clothes. Each time she told me the knocker was acting weird, and each time we got to the tower nothing was wrong.”

Harry scoffed. “If someone was smart, they would have made the charmwork temporary, long enough to make Luna lose faith in getting back in, but weak enough that the magical signature would be gone by time she was found and returned. Or maybe it was simply a curse on herself to make her hear incorrectly.”

Luna shook her head, having given up on stopping him. “It was the first one. I have protection charms to prevent the second from my father.”

Albus decided to stop them before they went further. “Now, now, no need to lose our heads over a little pranking. I know for a fact that your father had his fair share of pranks growing up, but to be so harsh for another’s is simply petty.”

Harry tried his best to prevent himself from glaring. “My father was a bully. Him as well as his three friends were all bullies. Sirius and Remus have both admitted it to me personally. And I would think that if my father was alive, he would have the courage to admit his shortcomings as well. But even they wouldn’t steal a younger year’s clothing, before throwing them outside the common room and blocking their entry while it’s this bloody cold. Their victims had places where they were able to be safe, all I am doing is offering Luna that same courtesy, seeing as the usual spot for that safety is where she is the least safe.”

Albus sighed as he noticed his teachers beginning to side with Harry. “I am sorry you feel that way my boy, but until we have a look over everything, Miss Lovegood will return to her usual schedule, and be sleeping in her dorm room.”

Harry shrugged. “Then re-sort her.”

Albus sighed, doing his best to hide his frustration. “I am sorry my dear boy, but it’s not that easy.”

The headmaster was cut off by a surprising voice, the Sorting Hat scoffed at that. “Actually Albus my boy, that decision falls to me. I can easily re-sort any who I feel I must. And because I feel their argument is valid, I actually support this re-sorting of Miss Lovegood.”

Albus sighed in frustration. “I feel you should all learn to forgive others, and give them a chance to prove they have changed. So no, I will not allow a re-sorting.”

Harry glared, and before anyone else could get a word in, Harry smirked as he spoke up. “If you refuse to re-sort Luna, I guess that I can’t feel safe here. If you don’t want to re-sort Luna into Gryffindor so that I can protect her, I will snap my wand myself and leave Magical Britain for good.”

Everyone looked at Harry in shock, especially Dumbledore. “Don’t be radical, my boy. If you did that, you would be obliviated of all knowledge of magic. You would rather go to a muggle school than here?”

Harry actually sneered when Albus called him ‘his boy’ again. “I am willing to threaten with snapping my own wand, because that would mean you having to deal with the press discovering why I did it. Since before I am obliviated for quitting Hogwarts, I will make sure to get the information to the press so they know why their hero chose mundane over magical. Because Albus Dumbledore refuses to protect his students, so how could I feel safe here?”

Before anyone could say anything, Luna’s tie shifted to Gryffindor red. “As I was about to say, Albus has no control over who, why, or if I can re-sort anyone. If I ever go crazy, I can shuffle students around randomly to my fabric’s content. I sort you where you will grow and expand on who you are, but there have been times when I put you elsewhere to protect you from some who would be your enemy. I have done it before, and I will do it again, but only when I decide it is needed. Godric would proudly smile as he accepted the young raven into his den, and he would guide her to the best of his ability. While Rowena would make sure her Ravens understood that she was truly and deeply angered by them. None of the founders would settle for any of this pandering the current Headmaster preaches. Either you punish the wrong and allow them to learn their lesson and grow like a proper teacher, or you step aside and allow proper instructors to do their job Albus.”

Harry nodded in thanks towards the hat. “You do so much for me, yet I can’t find something to return the favor. First giving me the sword to put down a poor creature, and now you help with protecting my friend.”

The hat moved his flaps in a manner close to a shrug. “Think nothing of it, it’s my duty, privilege, and honor to place every student where they can grow feeling happy and protected. And right now, Luna’s safe place is with you, Harry Potter.”

As the Hat got his say in, McGonagall decided to end this meeting. “Well, it looks like everything is in order then. It’s nice to have you in the lion’s den, Miss Lovegood. I hope my lions will treat you better than your last housemates. And I will make sure they all know that bullying will not be tolerated. Everyone deserves to feel safe with their family that lives here with them.”

Flitwick cleared his throat, looking like he was actually holding back some tears. “It is a sad day when I have to watch one of my ravens be moved for their own safety and wellbeing, but I guess I can trust Mister Potter to make sure you are actually safe, since I have failed you. I will be having some serious talks with my other Ravens Miss Lovegood, don’t you fear, and if I have a say about it, they will at some point apologize.”

As the teachers allowed Harry and Luna to walk out, Harry ignored the glare Albus aimed at him. He didn’t have any fear of him canceling the quidditch tournament, he already sent out the invitations to the other schools, who were excited for the chance for their students. So, if Albus canceled it, he would be punishing the entire school, as well as insulting their guests before they even arrive.

Albus’ glare turned downwards to his desk as everyone left. Harry must have just been threatening that because it would be a media shitstorm if the Boy Who Lived broke his own wand and left magical Britain because of him. All to protect a young friend from being bullied.

That would give the board of directors the nudge they needed to remove him from his spot, as well as destroy all his plans. If Harry snaps his wand that is the same as renouncing his heirship to the Potter line, which would cancel his own guardianship and revoke all his decisions concerning the vaults. The goblins would end up putting a block on the vaults until such a time as another can claim the heirship, which would mean he would never have access to the Potter knowledge. As old as he was getting, he always had a sore spot for being denied the chance to learn the secrets of the older houses, and Charlus had always been against him. If Albus hadn't snuck up on Grindelwald when he had, Charlus would have moved in and killed the man himself, and Albus would have still been a nobody.

He would have to do something about this, maybe have the account manager lower the boy’s trust fund, make him experience less money than what he has been allowed the last couple of years. Though he already makes Harry believe he has limited funds by not mentioning he had a main family vault, filled with books full of lost knowledge and grimoires with who knows how many secrets within.

As Harry was leading Luna back to the common room, she actually stopped walking as they reached the stairs. “Are you ever going to explain why you’re doing so much for me? All this is good, I can’t imagine what could have happened to make you decide to be so nice to me. Was what Draco said on the train true then? Do you just want to drag me off to a broom closet?”

Harry could hear the fear in her voice, realizing that he would have to do something before he lost her. So he spoke low enough to hide his words from what paintings were nearby. “If you want your answers, I will need a bit more trust from you.”

Harry led Luna, not to the common room or the nearest broom closet like Luna had expected, but to the seventh floor hallway with the painting of Barnabas the Barmy and his ballerina trolls. Pacing back and forth under the curious gaze of the young girl, before she was surprised by a door. “Welcome to Rowena’s Room of Requirement. Come here and pace back and forth three times thinking about what you are in need of and it appears.”

As Luna followed the boy into the mystery room, her fascination making her forget about her caution, she found what appeared to be a forest with a cozy campfire, but with two nice armchairs for them to sit in. Luna almost gave up on decorum when she noticed several rabbit-like creatures with cat features and horns that could only be snorkacks. There was even one with a couple babies hanging from her horn like Harry mentioned on the train.

Harry chuckled when he noticed Luna physically holding herself back from going to the critters the room conjured for her on his request. “I figured you would be more comfortable surrounded by animals that are known for their protective behavior. This room is able to recreate their habitat and give us a look at them, but it cannot alter their nature. If I attack you, they will attack me.”

Luna blinked at that, noticing there were several young ones that weren’t attached to a momma’s horn getting close and sniffing at her feet, while several were looking weary at Harry, not looking to approach him at all. Seeing her confusion, Harry decided to elaborate. “From all the abuse I have dealt with, all the pain I have suffered, I have lost the spark they are drawn to. You still have your innocence of heart, and are willing to forgive, a bit too easily if you ask me. But I am someone that has hardened his heart and cast aside easy forgiveness in order to bring justice to this world. Albus Dumbledore has been plotting to murder me, Snape and Pettigrew were both instrumental to my parents’ murders, and I have suffered under the unfair hand of my muggle relatives for far too long.”

Luna shifted a bit uncomfortably as she wound up sitting down on the grass as several of the critters crawled to her shoulders to growl at him as she began to feel some fear. The tiny guy on her lap that squeaked as he growled at Harry was far too adorable for her to remain scared though.

Harry sighed sadly as he let his walls down for the moment. “These creatures are drawn to the kindness one gives unconditionally, they practically feed off emotions like that, and where your own would be considered a nice juicy apple, maybe a little dented and bruised from all the cruelty you’ve faced, mine would taste more sour. You might find some that enjoy my emotions, but not many.”

As Harry sat down on the ground, Luna scooted closer till their knees touched. “If you are still able to remember there is a line, you always have the option to turn around and look for it. And when you find it, it’s a rather easy step to cross back over it.”

Harry blinked as Luna used the little bunny kitten hybrid to boop his nose with theirs, causing him to chuckle slightly. “Thank you. I haven’t told Hermione this yet, but I know that if I continue like I am with you, I will just scare you away into the arms of a possible tormentor. At the beginning of the summer, Albus performed a ritual to summon Sirius Black, but one of the components was wrong and the spell locked onto me while I was under my cloak. Now, since Albus has the Elder Wand, aiming a powerful summoning spell through Death’s Cloak, he wound up tapping into the magic of the Hallows and used the Resurrection stone’s power to summon someone from Death’s plane. He wound up summoning a ghost of myself from the future, who came and warned me about all the nefarious plots that surrounded me. With this information however, also came some information about my regrets, one of which was allowing you to suffer silently throughout your Hogwarts years.”

Luna silently looked down to avoid eye contact, until Harry stroked her chin as he raised her face back up to look her in the eye. “In the future, you have proven to be one of the best friends I could have ever asked for. Loyal and true enough to make Helga proud, with wit to match Rowena, bravery to cause Godric to bow, and even cunning to make Salazar notice. And I sat back in fear and self pity, allowing those brats to hurt you without doing anything to help, even after we started to be friends next year.”

Luna and Harry both wound up crying. Luna, due to being confronted with someone’s regret over not doing better by her, and Harry for the same regret that caused him to hate his future self on some level. Harry’s future self had told him he allowed her to be hurt, warned him she would be hurt horribly and irreversibly after this Yule break, and even told him she had admitted to him that she had watched the light leave her mother’s eyes when she lost her. Luna deserved better from someone that called her a friend, for if he allowed her to be hurt in such ways, how could he call himself such?

Harry wiped her tears. “I don’t want to hate myself, and I can’t call myself your friend if I sit back and allow you to be hurt when I can do something to stop it. And if that entails me having to threaten the most powerful wizard currently in Magical Britain, then I will. I almost failed you once, let me do better now.”

Before Harry could pull away, Luna leaned forward and gave him a kiss. “Alright, I will trust you for now Harry Potter, but you have to promise to let me help you as well. I don’t like suffering, it hurts too much to see it either in myself or others, so please, let me help you when I am able to.”

Harry wound up hugging Luna, both of them holding the other in their arms for a good thirty minutes before a certain snorkack started to chew on Luna’s earring, causing her to remember where she was.

Harry chuckled as he guided Luna out of the room, though he did stop in shock when he heard Luna behind him. “It’s okay little one, you should go back into the room and stay with your family.”

Harry cleared his throat in shock as he stopped her. “Luna, nothing the room makes can leave it. If that little one followed us out, it somehow came from the other plane.” Harry turned his head slightly to the side as he began to think a bit more. “Unless the magic of the room that created the image of it somehow allowed it to use its ability to feed off our emotions and it ate enough that it actually gained enough magic to create a physical form. This means that Rowena created a room that could either summon creatures from the alternate planes, or create powerful enough fakes that they could use abilities that make them real, bypassing all manner of laws, both legal, physical, and moral.”

Luna looked just as shocked as Harry did, though his next words changed her shocked look. “Either way, we can’t put the little tyke back in there, it would be a cruel and tortuous method to kill the poor thing.” Harry poked and squeezed the little thing’s horn. “I guess you will just have to keep the little girl as your familiar. I can somewhat sense a bond forming between you two, so she must have been feeding off your emotions specifically.”

Harry barely had time to finish speaking before Luna pulled him into another kiss, this one deeper and filled with love than the quick one she gave him to show her appreciation earlier. Before the girl immediately switched to cooing and kissing and baby talking with the little snorkack as she rubbed their noses together.

Harry blinked as he mechanically walked back to the common room, following right behind Luna. “I should accidentally use Hogwarts to break Gamp’s Law more often.”

Chapter Text

As Harry and Luna made their way to the common room, they were greeted by several of their housemates wondering about what happened at the headmaster’s office. Though their plans to interrogate the two ended when the girls caught sight of the creature in Luna’s arms, which caused most of them to move forward and coo at the thing. Ron and Ginny both looked disgruntled when they learned it was a snorkack, neither willing to admit they were wrong when they bullied Luna over believing in it.

Hermione confronted Harry about his absence, taking advantage of Ron throwing a tantrum and pouting in a corner about being wrong to get some answers. Though when she got a closer look at Harry, she had a different question. “When did you start wearing glitter lipgloss?”

Harry blinked in surprise as he felt his lips before wiping them on his sleeve. “Luna and I had a heart to heart after we left the headmaster’s office, and when we found the snorkack, while already emotional from our talk, she overreacted and kissed me when I suggested she keep and care for the critter when we couldn’t put it back where it came from. She is the most knowledgeable about them after all.”

Hermione pouted a bit as she realized Luna took Harry’s first kiss. Though with what has been happening for the past month, she couldn’t blame the girl for falling for Harry, but that meant she missed her chance to be his first with something. At least it would be easier to get to know and even get along with Luna than Daphne. She still hasn’t figured out why Harry doesn’t want to approach her about their betrothal yet, the only information Harry would give her was that he couldn’t have it be known he was the Black heir until Albus no longer had authority over him. The man would do something to hurt the Greengrass family in order to control who Harry married, and he might use the situation to steal even more from him. Or he would investigate deeper and learn about their plots and do something drastic to prevent himself from losing power.

It had been a challenge to get Hermione to understand, but in order for her to sort her own feelings out, she needed to interact with the girls that Harry is obviously going to end up in a relationship with. She wants to be with Harry, but she needs to know that she, as a muggleborn, wouldn’t be bullied by the other girls. He made it perfectly clear that she should worry about her happiness over his.

McGonagall stepped into the common room looking a bit annoyed, though she sighed when she noticed Harry and Luna there. Obviously she was looking for them to make sure they came back here, and went looking when they weren’t here after she had thought she caught up, but since they got here only slightly after curfew, she would overlook it this time. Though the extra pet was something she decided she had to confront them about. “Miss Lovegood, where exactly did you get that animal?”

Before Luna could defend her new pet, Harry spoke up. “It’s called a snorkack, and it’s her familiar that bonded with her on our way here. We had to spend a little time talking about its home or owner, but couldn’t figure out what to do about an animal popping up out of nowhere, so because it had already started to form a familiar bond with Luna, we figured she would be able to care for it.”

McGonagall nodded. “Well, I will have to talk with Dumbledore about this and we will have to send a missive to the Ministry to register it if it really is a familiar bond as you claim.”

Harry glared as he snorted. “Now you want to follow protocol, when it involves anyone other than myself, the rules are always different I guess.”

McGonagall looked taken aback by that. “What do you mean, Mister Potter? I have always followed the school charter bylaws.”

Harry chuckled as if she said a good joke as everyone watched from the sidelines, clearly confused about where things were going. “Besides when it comes to me. My first year when you took fifty points from Me, Ron, and Hermione each for only being out past curfew. Which is actually through the bylaws against the point system rules. According to those, we couldn’t lose more than ten points and get detentions depending on how late we were out. But you took fifty from each of us, and sent us out into the forbidden forest with a single teacher. Which I should point out, isn’t against the bylaws since they were written when it was an enchanted forest not a forbidden one, leaving a single teacher to take four students into the forest was against it. Night time predators have always been a risk, and anytime we are supposed to enter the forest at night, the bylaws state there has to be one teacher to every two students. You have been breaking the charter bylaws whenever concerning me ever since first year. Not to mention the one you broke over the summer.”

McGonagall looked shocked as that was brought up, and noticed that everyone was actually glaring at her. “Mister Potter, if that were the case, then why didn’t you say anything back then? And if you also wouldn’t mind explaining since you apparently know so much about the Hogwarts charter’s bylaws, which one did I break this summer?”

Harry smirked as she asked. “You should read them, the teachers all have a book that is supposed to be available that even Dumbledore can’t remove or mess with in the teacher’s lounge. But it would be rather hard to know these bylaws sooner when the book, Hogwarts: Our Founding Charter, was removed from the suggested reading material. I had to actually go to Knockturn Alley to find the book, since someone has done something to prevent Flourish and Blotts from stocking them. But the bylaws state that every student has the option to change their electives up to the summer of their fourth year. So before now, when I requested to switch from Divinations to Ancient Runes, you denying me even the chance to test out was against the bylaws.”

McGonagall shifted uncomfortably at Harry’s response, trying her best to ignore Hermione’s gasp of horror that someone was doing something to prevent people from getting such important public knowledge. “Mister Potter, I have no idea where you got these wild accusations from, but I will not stand to be questioned like this.”

Harry smirked as he decided to speak up when she stopped to take a breath like she usually does to prevent herself from being worked up and her accent showing. “Then fact check me. Like I said, there is a book of the bylaws in your lounge, and you have full authority to double check it. Unless you want to punish me for no reason other than mentioning you breaking rules to treat me particularly harshly throughout my time here, just like Snape.”

McGonagall blinked at that. Before she looked away and thought over her actions. She remembers all the times that Severus had antagonized the marauders and claimed the role of the victim. She knew for a fact that those situations weren’t as black and white as everyone likes to think, or Snape claims. “You know what, alright then. I will go and read up on the bylaws and get right back to you Mister Potter. Whether to issue punishment for your sass, or to issue an apology if warranted.”

Harry was all smiles as McGonagall answered his challenge. “To confirm your own footing before charging ahead? So Ravenclaw of you Professor.”

Minerva rolled her eyes at her student, deciding to just go read that book, leaving the common room as everyone stared in surprise over everything they just watched.

Harry shrugged as he looked around to everyone. “What? She is reasonable and I didn’t lose my head and escalate, I debated with her over facts that she hasn’t read over in a while. So, who wants to see the schedule I made for the quidditch tournament? I finally got the responses from Durmstrang and Beauxbatons, and each school just plans to enter a single team each. So we can expect to face the best of the best they have to offer, as if you just took all the best players from our school and mashed them onto a single team.”

Fred decided to get a shot in at the expense of the other teams. “So the Gryffindor team then?”

This got laughs from everyone, as Harry nodded. “Yeah, I went with random matchups, but decided to do something special for the first match. I figured we could welcome the other two schools with a grudge match, the Young Harpies vs Slytherin.”

As the Gyffindors stayed up and talked a little longer about quidditch, Minerva was finding out that Harry was right, and that she broke the bylaws by allowing Albus to dictate her response to Harry wanting to switch out of Divinations, all the while Albus continued to fume and plot on how to punish Harry without the fallout hitting himself.

All in all, McGonagall chose to apologize publicly, or as public as the Gryffindor common room was at least, and return the hundred and twenty points she unrightfully removed from their first year. Although she was surprised when he just shrugged off Albus refusing to allow him to switch his electives, explaining that everything would have been harder on him if he had managed to switch, so Albus had accidentally prevented him from overworking himself.

He even mentioned that he should thank the headmaster.

Harry smirked as Albus looked rather smug when they were at dinner that night; it might not have shown in his expression, but his aura showed enough. Harry actually kissed Luna on the cheek when she explained that to him when they had a moment alone. Harry had been so lost when he had to rely on his extreme emotions beforehand, but with Luna able to read auras with her natural born sage sight and willing to help him out, Albus was easier to work around.

Though as the days grew colder, and the arrival of the other two schools were getting nearer, the hype around the first match was getting slightly worse. Harry was forced to refer to the bylaws again when he told the members of the Young Harpies that if the Slytherin team continued to harass them, they could seek refuge within other houses. Which caused the Young Harpies’ supporters, which was pretty much every female from Slytherin, to stop eating with the rest of their house. Even driving some to sleep over with the other houses, mostly Hufflepuff since the Ravenclaw had developed a bad reputation after their bullying was exposed, and Gryffindors were notorious for their dislike of Slytherins in general.

Harry did his best to stamp that out, having already defended several Slytherins from the hidden bullying from members of his own house. It was actually shocking to Harry when he learned it wasn’t the twins that caused most of the bullying. Don’t get him wrong, Fred and George were always up for pranking, but they didn’t discriminate, they targeted everyone. True champions of chaos those two were. They also didn’t get too harsh on the younger years, and their pranks were easily reversible the younger their target was. They also knew how to target who, because most of the Slytherins were spoil sports that didn’t know how to take a joke.

But eventually, things would settle down and the Slytherins would go back to normal after the game tomorrow, hopefully. Today, they were forced to stand outside and watch for the other schools. Where Harry was able to demonstrate a new use for the patronus charm. With a combination of intent and chant alteration, Harry showed Flitwick how he turned the guardian summoned from a dementor repellent spectre, to a warmth radiating spectre.

Harry did have to deal with several questions when it was revealed his deer changed into a dragon. Harry shrugged the change off as something he didn’t know about the patronus, seeing as the guardian was supposed to be a representation of yourself. Although his patronus might have changed into something completely different if he had actually lived through what he was working to prevent, but with how things are, he is proud to be represented by the mighty dragon. Because in Luna’s words as she clung to his arm, he has a hoard to protect, and she is just happy to be one of his treasures.

Harry hadn’t realized how often he turned red as Luna hugged his arm more often. He even found Hermione being a bit clingy recently, as the girl managed to start getting along with Luna when she learned that the girl had a special ability and a strong inner eye for divinations outside Trelawny’s teaching capacity.

Hermione had been a bit ecstatic when she found divination was more than she thought, and it was just the teacher that was bad for the class. Luna had even switched out of the class after the first week.

And as the schools showed up, they were surprised by the welcoming committee including a ghost like dragon that radiated heat. It was actually pleasant enough that the Beauxbatons students hung around to greet their fellow guests so they could inspect the creature.

Finding out that the beast was a new form of the existing patronus charm was something that caused everyone to heap loads of praise on Harry, Fluer even mentioning that Gabrielle would be so jealous to not be there when she found out the name of the creator. Harry just shrugged as he responded. “I really wish people wouldn’t focus on that title because of how it makes me feel, but I can’t really turn away a child, now can I. If she gets the chance to visit you while you’re here, I am more than willing to say hi.”

And he was so glad to have the language learning spell from the future, although painful and requiring a potion, he still had two more potions to use. Apparently, in the future Hermione becomes so frustrated with the language barrier existing, she takes some notes from Snape, Dumbledore, and even wound up getting some help from Nicholas Flamel, and eventually developed a potion, that in conjunction with a spell would allow you to force all the knowledge to learn an entire language with a simple night of rest. He already used two to teach himself Bulgarian and French in preparation for this tournament, and he was just cautious about discovering a side effect of doing it too much. Maybe he should show it to Snape so he could see it develop more? Let people get paid to discover those.

Dumbledore found the appreciation and applause to be satisfactory, as Harry wound up being the only one that noticed him almost sidelining Harry’s contributions to the quidditch game the next day. Or the quidditch tournament as a whole, apparently believing it punishment for Harry’s defiance with Luna.

Harry took a deep breath, letting out just enough frustration at his actions so Dumbledore felt he was getting to him. The headmaster would be satisfied with this, for now, and as soon as the day after tomorrow rolled around, and his name came out of the cup, it would be too late for Dumbledore to do anything… Harry idly wondered when he started to sound like a villain. Oh well.

=-=-=-=Sorry, but I’m skipping the game. Young Harpies win=-=-=-=

The boys from Slytherin were in a foul mood, Draco particularly salty towards Ginny as the girl just didn’t know how to be a good winner. Although no one could blame the Harpies for being a bit gloaty, since the whole premise of them wanting to start their team was to prove to the Slytherin boys they deserved to have a chance to join the team.

The visiting schools had been happy to have their visit celebrated with a game, and were happy to have the week to scout out the field before their own match. Harry had to explain his reasons for this because he offered to open the tournament up to an extra team, because he knew there were some students that wanted to enter but couldn’t because of the limited spots. So, he opened the chance for other teams because he knew there weren't actually enough backup players to form more than a single team and he quietly admitted that he noticed the sexist exclusions by the Slytherin team and figured the girls deserved a chance to prove themselves.

He was right, because it was actually just three players that were not Slytherin on the team, and Luna only joined because she wanted to make friends by helping them out. That was actually the story behind their second beater as well.

But that tournament was taking a backburner tonight, as everyone was gathering around to see who became the champions for the Triwizard tournament. And everything was going just as his future self said it would, Krum, Fluer, and Cedric. And as Dumbledore stood there and prattled on, everyone watched as an extra name popped out of the goblet, slowly followed by the headmaster calling out Harry’s name.

Harry had to frown, narrowing his eyes as he had to look like he hadn’t expected this to happen, despite knowing everything that was going on. He had a role to play.

Slowly making his way up to Albus, Harry held out his hand. “You mind giving me the entry?”

Albus was frowning, though raised a brow as he handed the slip over before Harry stepped into the back room. Fluer frowned in confusion as she addressed Harry. “What is it, do they need us back out there?”

Harry sighed as he decided to answer her immediately instead of dawdling. “Someone entered me in an attempt to murder me, somehow making me a fourth champion. But they will be able to fix this easily.”

Harry was stopped from reassuring them further as the teachers rushed in and Albus grabbed his shirt and began to ask him how he entered. Harry wondered how his older self let this happen to him, but Harry felt threatened more than he thought he would. Because he subconsciously pulled his wand and casted a shield, pushing the entire group of teachers that were crowding him off. “For starters, there is no reason for all of you to jump down my throat. Just tell me I am too young and let me head back to my common room to disappoint my house.”

Snape actually blinked at that, with Karkaroff and Maxime nodding in agreement. “That actually sounds rather reasonable.”

Harry nodded. “Yeah, the rules for entry were clear, I am underage, I didn’t enter myself, and this entry lacks a school name. All of this easily means that I am free to leave.”

Albus frowned as the other headmasters nodded, actually agreeing to let the boy walk out of there. “I am sorry my boy, but whether you wish to enter or not, your name came out and entered you into a binding contract. If you try to swindle your way out, you will lose your magic.”

Albus was slightly frustrated over things, because Harry had whether knowingly or not, pulled Karkaroff and Maxime to his side, doing exactly what he had planned to do and get the others riled up against him. Harry had easily accepted being disqualified, and readily put forth a solution to fix everything. But he couldn’t allow Harry to lose his magic before he had his battle with Voldemort, so he had to make sure Harry didn’t do anything stupid.

What Albus didn’t realize was that the contract with the goblet didn’t matter in legal affairs of the Ministry or Wizengamot, just the recent contracts made in preparations for this tournament. The goblet only did as it was told, and didn’t care who entered, just that they gave it their magic if they failed to fulfill it.

So as Albus, Crouch, and Bagman overruled Karkaroff and Maxime to remove him from the tournament, Harry resisted the urge to smirk, resulting in him looking like he was disgruntled. “Fine, I guess you will be looking into who entered me, seeing as this has become an account of attempted line assassination.”

That caused everyone to choke on air, as Crouch stuttered out. “What do you mean, Mister Potter?”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Well, I guess I can give you a headstart, I have the top three suspects if you want them. But I didn’t enter, this is a tournament known for killing fully prepared students and I am not a fully prepared student. So, as the last member of the Potter family this is an attempt to murder my line, ergo, line assassination.”

Crouch nodded a bit nervously as he began to sweat. “Alright, we’ll look into this. Just for prosperity's sake, who are your suspects?”

Harry shrugged. “Snape is third, Albus is second, and Moody is first.”

Everyone was left speechless. None of them expected that list, let alone in that order. Cedric recovered enough to ask a question. “Why is Snape only third?”

Snape actually snapped out of it at that, not knowing whether he should be flattered or insulted to be behind the other two. Harry shrugged. “He’s a bully that believes those fictional children’s books, and refuses to believe that I am nothing like my father, he just wants to bully someone that looks like him to make himself feel better, to try and feel like he is getting back at him. Albus is on the list because he has been doing a lot to attempt to kill me already. Hiding a fake philosopher's stone here behind a giant cerberus, ignoring the thousand year old basilisk and letting everyone bully me because I’m a parselmouth, allowing dementors to hunt me for whatever reason instead of taking actions with the teachers that know the patronus charm to prevent them from doing so. And Moody is on that list because he’s the DADA teacher, who has earned their first place spot because each so far has tried to murder me already. Quirrell because he was possessed, Lockhart because he was a fraud and didn’t want me to expose him so he tried to wipe my mind and feed me to a basilisk, and Remus forgot his wolf’s bane, and transformed and attacked me.”

Albus decided to step in here. “I am very disappointed in you Harry, to accuse me of such things is not very mature. I must insist you stop exaggerating these things.”

Harry shrugged. “Insist all you want, you force me every year to return to an abusive family who’s favorite form of punishment is to lock me in a room and refuse to provide food. Those crimes are shared by you and the only thing stopping me from pressing charges is because you literally have everyone that could do something about it in your back pocket. If anyone asked, I would say you're the most successful dark lord in history.”

Harry knew he was pushing it, but the looks on everyone’s faces as Albus frowned further was priceless. The shock and disgust they aimed at Albus, would ensure the man was distracted enough as he protected his own reputation from Harry’s accusations.

Bagman laughed nervously to draw everyone’s attention. “Well, now that all that is settled, let’s move on.”

Harry rolled his eyes as he interrupted. “The first task is about bravery, we are only allowed our wands when we enter. The problem you are running into Bagman, is you haven’t changed anything about the tournament, have you? Well, the first challenge has always been a battle, you guys might have done something to make it easier, but it has always involved a fight with a s,large creature. I would suggest you learn some spells to counter f,fire breathing, because a lot of large creatures breathe fire… Are we dealing with drag?”

Before Harry could continue, Snape snapped. “For crying out loud Bagman! This is painful to watch, will you stop reacting to every little thing Potter says.”

The other three champions, as well as their headmasters and head of house turned in shock at Snape’s yelling, just to see a cowering Bagman.

Snape answered when Pomona cleared her throat. “The idiot was exaggerating his reactions as Potter was speaking, allowing the boy to realize that he was on the right track. The idiot acted excited as a fanboy when Potter continued to guess correctly. The fool is as easy to read as a child’s book and I was actually feeling real pain as I watched it all happen.”

As everyone turned to Harry, the boy shrugged. “He’s right, Bagman is easy to read, and was so disappointed when I tried to get disqualified and he has been very expressive throughout the conversation, which allowed me to map out his reactions. He’s obviously a fanboy of those fictional books.”

Seeing as the first task was out there, Bagman tried his best to fix his mistake, and get everything back on track, only for the three champions to look at all of the judges as if they were insane, while Harry just walked out.

Cedric cleared his throat as he moved to leave as well. “We probably should have thought better before entering.”

Fluer nodded. “Yes, we really should have. That man is an idiot, and we were foolish enough to put our safety in his hands.”

Krum nodded. “Agreed.”

Harry had to do his best to get his giggles out as he was alone in the halls, only allowing them out as he got away from the paintings. Everything went as he had planned.

As Harry stepped into the common room, he had to resist the urge to sneer as everyone acted like he was some returning hero. “Shut up! I didn’t enter my name, this is another attempt at killing me, just like the last three years that I have been here. So if you all are just going to celebrate someone trying to kill me, you can celebrate without me.”

Harry walked past everyone, simply going to his dorm. As Harry stepped in, he rolled his eyes at the pouting Ron. “Why didn’t you at least tell me?”

Harry flopped down on his bed as he answered. “I didn’t enter myself into this tournament.”

Ron scoffed at him, though Harry never heard what he said afterwards because he closed the curtains and went to sleep. Happy to know his trunk was safe in shrunken form under his pillow.

In the morning, Harry woke up to Luna cuddling into his side, causing him to smile as he woke her up. Both went down and decided to wait with Hermione as others started to wake up. Harry finally got the expected infuriated response as Alicia stepped down the stairs and walked right over to him. “Alright, what is your malfunction? Do you not understand how serious an issue you getting into the triwizard is for us? We are down a seeker.”

The people that had been waking up eventually registered what she had said. Harry smiled as he nodded. “So you finally understand why I was so frustrated, yet it took you sleeping on it to figure it out?”

As the team all started to argue and go over what they could do, they were going to be forced to allow McLaggan to be their seeker, mostly because Ginny’s transfer was impossible due to the rules Harry had set long before anything related to his tournament was set in stone. But Harry met them halfway, because the teams weren’t locked to their own houses due to the nature of his tournament not being school sponsored, but student sponsored. So if they could find a seeker from another house, they could ditch McLaggan.

Alicia actually jumped forward and gave Harry a kiss on his cheek for that, and immediately rushed to the great hall to try and find a replacement. And she was never happier that her team’s game wasn’t until December. Harry had revealed after the previous game that the next match was going to be Beauxbatans versus Durmstrang this Saturday, because it would be the most even playing field they would have. Each team would be given at most two days to familiarize themselves with the field, and having their match early would give them a grace period to familiarize themselves with the other students to mitigate some, if not most of Hogwarts students’ home field advantage.

But everything had started to calm down, with Draco only being so antagonistic with how Harry has been handling their rivalry lately, and with the champions explaining to their friends and fellow students his willingness to be disqualified, but the judges denying in fear of the contract ripping his magic away. Harry being the hero that he was would be a serious blow to public morale and opinion towards the school if he lost his magic because of them. So he was forced to remain after someone entered his name.

It also helped him when it came out who he suspected had entered him, with a lot of people now being suspicious of Dumbledore, because he was the one to place the defenses around the goblet, meaning that it would have been easy for him to enter Harry as he did so.

Harry had to hold in all his excitement and only show confusion when Hedwig set a small, but wide, package in front of him at breakfast the morning of Friday. This caused everyone to look at him in confusion, wondering what he ordered and from whom, Harry was so happy with Hedwig’s timing since the teachers were all present and watching him as he opened it, pulling out a large golden trophy with goblin silver engravings. It simply stated Tri Wizard Quidditch Cup. The thing that caused everyone to drool over it was the fact that it was filled with Galleons.

Harry barely had enough time to set the trophy down when the questions started, Ron, who was sitting across from him since Luna sat to his left and Hermione his right, was the person to lead the charge. “What is that?”

Harry smiled, barely keeping himself from looking up at Dumbledore, already knowing the man was paying super close attention. “Well, I sent a letter to my account manager about what I would want to offer for my tournament, but I couldn’t commission it without approval from my guardian because of how expensive it was. Whoever claimed guardianship over me set it up to automatically decline any purchase over a certain amount. But ever since Samhain, I have been emancipated, so my account manager must have decided to go through with my request despite the delay.”

Dumbledore’s eyes widened, but before he could gather his thoughts, Fred asked the next question. “So, this is what we get if we win?”

Harry shook his head. “The trophy was meant for the school to hold onto until the next tournament was able to be held, while each player gets a specially designed ball. But I am guessing you are more concerned about the bit of galleons that are sitting in the cup, right?”

Seeing nods all around, Harry chuckled as he tapped the trophy with his wand, causing a golden hoop, three golden quaffles, two golden bludgers, and a silver snitch to start flying around it. “The first thing is these balls and the hoop are charmed to follow and twirl around the person that wears the corresponding badge.”

Everyone watched as Harry pulled a badge off the base of the trophy, showing that it simply said Triwizard’s Top Keeper, the hoop swirling around him as he stepped back. “Other than that, the galleons are the rewards for the entire team, and the winning school. In the case of a Hogwarts win, I figured the cash prize would go to the sponsor for the team. So, the head of house for each of the house teams, and the Harpies had designated madam Hooch.”

Everyone was waiting with bated breaths as Harry settled down, just looking at them all curiously, until everyone blurted out. “How much!?”

Harry laughed at their enthusiasm. “There’s seven hundred and fifty for each player on the winning team, and a thousand for the winning sponsor.”

Hermione was the only one to gasp as she muttered her answer, even though she might have just shouted it with as quiet as the hall was. “That’s six thousand, two hundred and fifty galleons that the goblins fit into that thing? There has to be an expansion charm on it to only have just enough to appear over the top.”

Ron fell backwards in a faint, everyone across the hall began to look at the trophy in an all new light, each of them now feeling very enthusiastic about winning that trophy. Karkaroff had simply been satisfied with the eternal glory from Krum winning the Triwizard, but now he was actually wishing his star quidditch player hadn’t been chosen. A thousand galleons and fame of winning a watered down version of an old tournament, was nothing compared to him getting a thousand galleons, a trophy, and being the winners of the first ever cross school tournament for quidditch. If the tournament was brought back, there would be more chances to win it, but you could only ever claim to be the first once. And with his star player already in the tournament, that battle was going to be a major uphill one.

The Beauxbatons students and headmistress weren’t overly competitive, but they were efficiently motivated. The team they brought were just as excited as the Hogwarts students now, since they were under the impression there wouldn’t be a real prize for their tournament at first, they thought it would be fun, but weren’t expecting there to be much to gain other than bragging rights about how good they were. Now there was something at stake, and they would do their best to prove they were better.

Harry, after noticing everyone getting worked up, decided it was time to drop the bombshell. “I just hope things work out so that I can keep my tournament going.”

“What do you mean!?”

Everyone had asked that, and that is including the professors at the head table, other than Dumbledore. “What do you mean, what do I mean? The little slip of paper that forced me into the Triwizard was agreed by the Ministry official, the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, as well as my Wizengamot approved guardian, whos the headmaster, that it was a valid entry, meaning that the information on it was valid. They said I have to be an adult to enter, so I was emancipated, and since there was no school listed, that also means that I was expelled. Since I am no longer a student and am now Lord Potter, I have to go through proper channels to get my tournament legalized. I plan to go and speak with the Ministry later today and get the paperwork sorted out to save it, and I also have to stop by Gringotts to speak with my account manager about the Potter family accounts and if anything requires my attention, can’t have some old betrothal sneaking up on me, I might be forced to marry Pansy if I don’t look into that as soon as I’m able.”

Dumbledore almost lost his lunch as he heard Harry’s plans. He had to shut down his access to his vaults, he had to get the boy back into his school, he had to remain his legal guardian. If each of those were to be lost, his manipulations of the boy would be revealed and he would lose everything. Turning slightly to Minerva he whispered. “Minerva, I must ask you to watch over the school for a moment, I have business to attend to. Maybe I can fix Mister Potter’s problems without him having to leave and miss his classes. A boy shouldn’t be thrown out and left to fend for himself because of an old man’s mistake. I shall be back soon, and hopefully with good news of Harry’s return to school.”

McGonagall nodded, hoping that Albus could fix the poor boy’s situation.

Chapter Text

Albus Dumbledore looked across the members of the Wizengamot, sitting tall with a concerned grandfatherly smile plastered over his face. It had been several hours since he had learned of Harry’s emancipation and expulsion, and it had been almost physically painful to him. “Hello esteemed members of the Wizengamot, I called you all here today to speak about a grave error that has happened to one of my students, who now looks at having no home or guiding hand in this frightening world.”

While some looked like they were buying it, the entirety of his minions, others still looked annoyed over being called this early. Cyrus Greengrass and Amelia Bones were each looking at the man with suspicion while Lucius Malfoy narrowed his eyes. Cyrus gripped his robe pocket, where sat an inconspicuous letter he had just received earlier at breakfast.

And as this meeting moved on, he found that it held more truth and provided more insight to issues than Albus was revealing.

=-=-=-=At Hogwarts, during Lunch=-=-=-=

Everyone was enjoying their time, several still talking about the trophy Harry had shown off that morning, as McGonagall suddenly stood up, knocking her chair over. The students turned to her in curiosity, the teachers in concern as she began to get them all to follow her.

Everyone was then drawn to the front of the Great Hall when the doors slammed open to reveal a group of goblins walking up to them. The front goblin, very few recognized as Bloody Clutch. “Greetings Minerva McGonagall, we are just here to retrieve a couple items stolen from a vault of my top client.”

Draco stood up and was about to say something, until Harry Potter beat him to it. “Ah, Bloody Clutch, good to see you again. I take it everything has been going well?”

Bloody Clutch only nodded. “It indeed has, Lord Potter. All of the items that have been stolen from you that were in the house owned by Albus Dumbledore were easy to retrieve after the idiot lost his magic. And now, I am here with a group to retrieve the basilisk from the chamber while my fellow clan members retrieve what else was stolen that the man hid within his old office.”

At the goblin’s words about Albus, both losing his magic as well as having been stealing from Harry, both students and faculty alike stared in shock. Even Snape, who would call Harry out about being a pampered brat, was unable to say anything.

McGonagall was the first to regain control of herself. “Excuse me, Mr. Potter? But what is this goblin talking about?”

Harry chuckled as he looked between them all. “Well, if I have to explain everything. When the Triwizard tournament was brought back, the Ministry and Wizengamot both agreed on the rules of entry. This means that when they agreed to the age restrictions, anyone who wasn’t of age couldn’t enter. So, upon declaring my entry valid, they agreed I was of age and therefore emancipated, giving me full legal rights as an adult. And considering Albus is not here and my request for my accountant to retrieve all my stolen property has been approved, he obviously tried to have my emancipation revoked.”

McGonagall gasped as she put the rest together. “And revoking your emancipation could be seen as interfering with you participating in the tournament, meaning that Albus was trying to break a contract empowered by Lady Magic, meaning he has become a squib.”

“Muggle.” Noticing everyone turned to him, Bloody Clutch chuckled darkly. “You foolish wizards are all the same, Lord Potter here appears to be one of the few exceptions, but you are all so arrogant to believe rules don’t apply to you. I had a man on the inside when it all went down, and through his reports, Albus, all his flunkies, and a good portion of the idiots he fooled with platitudes, all lost their magic to Lady Magic herself, making them fully muggle, if they had just broken an oath to their fellow magical they would be squibs, but Lady Magic herself? No chance for half assed punishments.”

Harry chuckled again. “Wanna bet the idiots are all pestering the nearest muggle trying to figure out how to get back to the alley?”

Bloody Clutch scoffed. “I don’t take sucker bets, we goblins all believe every single one of you wizards are idiots. Hell, your muggle studies course is so far out of date, I wouldn’t be surprised if they end up in an insane asylum.”

As Harry and Bloody Clutch chuckled over the misfortune of their enemies, Draco finally decided to speak up. “I didn’t know you were the account manager for the Potters along with the Blacks, Bloody Clutch. I guess your two top clients are.”

Draco was cut off as Bloody clutch laughed loudly in his face. “You sound as if you believe I run the Malfoy accounts. I enjoy bursting everyone’s bubble, so I guess I can tell you to your face child. Lord Potter is heir Black.”

Draco’s jaw dropped, looking between the two in shock. “Don’t be ridiculous. Potter has no claim to the heirship whatsoever.”

Bloody Clutch chuckled as he answered, guessing that Harry hadn’t informed anyone about his heirships, allowing him to be the one to rip this brat’s hopes and dreams apart. He would have to thank his now favorite client. “Wrong, Lord Sirius Orion Black was just given his trial and found innocent after the long ass delay that Albus Dumbledore orchestrated so he could steal from Lord Potter indefinitely. Harry Potter, as Sirius Black’s blood adopted child and grandson of Dorea Potter nee Black, holds all the Black blood required to be accepted as heir Black. Your father is already under suspicion for theft, so please give me reason to drag you to Gringotts to answer goblin justice.”

Draco tried to scowl, only for it to look like a pout. Harry, deciding to back up his account manager, lifted his hand to reveal the Black heir ring. “Sorry Draco, but I don’t plan on allowing my godfather to rot away on the run just because pathetic children want to be bitter.”

Harry hadn’t named anyone, but his eyes narrowed at Snape, causing the man to scowl back.

Everyone was interrupted again as several goblins walked through the doors, several of them carrying several stacks of books, a pensieve, and a golden chair that was slightly smaller than the one at the table there. “We got all the Potter grimoires from the hidden room, and even found several other grimoires that belong to other families. We shall sort them out when we return to gringotts and ensure they are returned to their proper owners.”

Clutch nodded. “Good work Gang Fang. When we accomplish our quest to retrieve the basilisk carcass, we will join you.”

As the goblins all activate portkeys, the doors were pushed open slowly this time, allowing a disheveled and half dead Albus Dumbledore to step through. The old man noticed several goblins porting out while holding specific items he had not wanted to lose. “What are you doing with those? Return them at once!”

Another goblin walked over and grabbed the chair from the head table before portkeying out as well, none of the goblins paying the old man any mind. Harry was busy looking at Albus in shock. “How the hell did you manage to get here in such little time? You were all the way in London.”

As Albus tried to straighten himself up, trying to look somewhat dignified, he gave Harry his patented disappointed grandfather look. Before it was ruined as Kingsly was tossed through the door by a couple goblins, before one walked over and whispered into Clutch’s ear. “Apparently, he was side-alonged by this minion.”

Harry scoffed. “Should have known, even when he is at his lowest, he still has his blowhards. Maybe one of these days they will blow too hard and he can just die.”

The goblins laughed at that as Harry chuckled. “So, how does it feel for a muggle to apparate Dumb door?”

Albus took a deep breath as he did his best to resist sneering at Harry. “Harry my boy, I am so.”

Harry scoffed as he cut Dumbledore off. “Albus my boy, I am so disappointed in you, taking my grimoires without permission, stealing galleons from my vaults, kidnapping me, leaving me ignorant and allowing me to burn bridges without care. And now you are going to make excuses to blame me, for you, tricking all those people from the Wizengamot into losing their magic. This is all your fault Albus, no one else’s. Face it, you are the villain here, because as you noticed the risk to your grip over my life and your machinations to murder me fall apart, you screwed up. And now you will never have the chance to destroy what I’ve built for myself. I am free of your manipulations.”

Clutch started to snarl as he stepped forward. “Gringotts has also found several cases of theft by you Albus, so I guess I can hand this missive over.”

As Bloody Clutch handed over a letter, the goblins began to walk through the door, followed by Harry. Albus opened and read the paper, finding out it held all the crimes he committed with the help of the old Potter account manager. From behind him, he heard another shout from Bloody Clutch. “And don’t worry, I have taken the time to send a copy of that missive to each news outlet and several important members of the Wizengamot to save you the trouble of contacting to inform them.”

Dumbledore blinked in shock, barely noticing the fading laughter of goblins and a single boy. As he looked up, he found nearly the entire hall staring at him in shock, some with a bit of pity.

Bloody Clutch wanted to parade the carcass through the halls of Hogwarts, so all could see what he faced to protect them, and so they would not underestimate him in the tournament. Which Harry had to resist laughing at, as all the Slytherins in particular were shocked as they watched it be carried out.

Harry also wanted Crouch Jr. to see his master’s pet, letting Tom realize his plans to use the creature were hollow threats. Harry would be surprised if it changed much, because he would simply downplay the story a bit, while everyone else would exaggerate. As long as he gave ‘Moody’ the true story, Tom would underestimate him still and give his plan a chance to work.

When Voldemort receives word that his greatest enemy was out of the picture and the boy that ended his reign last time would be bumbling through the competition with more luck than skill, Tom would be so confident in his victory, he might even attack Hogwarts that day.

Except Harry planned to use someone else’s blood instead of his own, someone he knows is weak. He has already been using small medical spells to gather it throughout the year.

Although, something else Harry has been doing, is writing up notes on a potion from the Peverell vault and ‘forgetting’ them at select locations, and now that he has been outed as heir Black, he expects to be confronted soon.

“Potter.”

Harry chuckled as he turned to find Daphne Greengrass walking towards him. “Yes, what do you want, heiress Greengrass? If it’s about Salazar’s basilisk, I am pretty sure there are enough stories about my battle going around. Last I heard of the gossip, I summoned Merlin himself to battle it as I had an epic showdown with Salazar himself.”

Daphne rolled her eyes as she tried to glare at him. Even she found that one ridiculous, and could tell Harry saw more humor in it, verifying the invalidity of the tall tale. “I want to talk with you about your Black heirship. My father has signed a contract that forces me and my sister to wed you, me as your lady Black and her as a concubine for heir Black. And while you are an improvement over Draco Malfoy, I didn’t want to risk you going after Astoria before I spoke with you.”

As Daphne pulled her wand and held it under his chin, she continued, her voice still calm and collected, precise as a knife. “Touch my sister at all, and I don’t care what happens to me due to that contract, I will kill you.”

Harry smirked despite feeling the sparks of magic on the wand. “I am aware of the contract, and I will be perfectly honest with you. If I wasn’t under threat of a bunch of old bats forcing me to marry ladies of their own house so they could bleed my families dry of money, knowledge, and history, I would be happy just marrying you and you alone. I would surely be upset to not be with the girl I currently have feelings for the most, and even the girl I have recently been spending time with.”

As Harry spoke, Daphne withdrew her wand. His plight was real, she would know and understand why he would be cautious of the Wizengamot pulling that stunt. Who knows, maybe if Dumbledore found out about it, he would force Harry to marry girls he wanted him to so he could scam the rest of the grimoires from all his vaults. Albus was not spared when an emergency Prophet was sent out during Harry’s little adventure with the goblins, so everyone knew the man had been slowly emptying Harry’s heirlooms, grimoires, and money from the Potter vaults.

The old man’s tantrum when he couldn’t get into his old office was caught and gossiped about from the ghosts. It took McGonagall setting up herself as temporary headmistress before he could enter. Anything that happened after was a mystery, because the ghosts didn’t hang around long enough to hear anything, and Albus hadn’t left the office yet.

Apparently, in order to enter any doorway that required a password, you needed to allow the entryway to pull some magic from you to identify if you actually have permission to enter. Most students were allowed entry to plenty of areas, the limitation was placed there to make it harder for muggles to invade the castle. So, Dumbledore now had less magic than the squib Filch, which gives credit to Bloody Clutch’s words about Lady Magic making Albus a muggle. The man having so much trouble getting around in his old age lately would also credit it, though he has been undergoing some treatment to help him survive the change.

“So, I have your word you won’t touch Astoria despite what that contract says?” Daphne was doing her best to get a vow from the boy, planning to make sure her sister would live as long as she could, and if she were forced to give Potter a child, it would surely kill her.

Harry blinked, before he shrugged. “How about this, if you find me someone to test a potion I found in the Peverell vault, then sure. I will even give an unbreakable vow to not lay a single finger on her without her full cognitive consent.”

It was Daphne’s turn to blink in surprise before nodding. “What kind of potion?”

Harry shrugged as he pulled out his notebook that caused Daphne to shift in curiosity. “Why is your notebook shaped like a dog bone?”

“It reminds me of my godfather, he’s a dog animagus so I got this as a joke item and just haven’t gotten the chance to tease him with it yet. Might have to get another, since I have been taking more notes than I thought I would be.”

Daphne began to glare at him. “You have been leaving those notes behind on purpose, as hints to get me to help you.”

Harry shrugged. “Took you long enough, have you even been reading them? In the Peverell vault there was a potion made by a new-blood. She was best friends with a member of the family and they helped her develop a potion that could get rid of a blood curse. And because she was not only a woman but a muggle-born as well, her creation was dismissed and someone killed her trying to steal it. The Peverells protected her work, but only managed to secure a single bottle of the potion, while the rest were destroyed in the scuffle, along with her notes.”

Daphne was starting to get jittery, barely able to keep her composure as she listened to Harry prattle on about one of his family histories. She really did want to believe the potion could do what he said, but the potion even being usable after all this time from how old the Peverell line was, let alone the fact it was the only bottle in existence. But if it did work, her sister could live past the expected age of twenty. But what if they could study the potion and duplicate it? What if they took too long to do so and Astoria died because of the wait?

Daphne took a deep breath as she squared her shoulders. “My sister Astoria has a blood curse, if you are serious about the potion curing it, I will do whatever you want.”

Daphne stared Harry in the eye, showing her strength of will to allow him to do whatever he wanted with her if he cured her sister. Her belief he somehow knew about her sister and was leaving clues for her to figure out he had a cure, made her believe he was plotting and wanted something from her. And she was willing to pay any price for her sister’s health.

Screw the world and the others within it, they have not done anything to help Astoria, someone out there was the very cause of her suffering after all.

Harry smiled as he reached into his robe and somehow pulled a golden goblet from his pocket within. A goblet that Daphne never thought she would see, Helga Hufflepuff’s goblet that was able to feed an army with a single bowl of stew. “Just the answer I was hoping for.”

Noticing the girl’s confusion, Harry chuckled before he continued. “The greater good is a lie crafted by Dumbledore and Grindelwald to further their goals of world domination, believing in them would lead this world to ruin with them leading the charge to death’s embrace. Being selfless enough to ask for your sister over yourself, caring more for your family than others, you are the kind of woman I would love to mother my children. Having never met you before, I had to see what kind of person you were. The other girls I desire for my ladies are well acquainted with me already, but you were a wild card. Though now I can ask you to introduce me to a Slytherin girl that would enjoy being Lady Gryffindor, and yes, I want to make a Slytherin Lady Gryffindor just to piss off Albus.”

Daphne chuckled at that. “He really has done a lot to you huh?”

Harry scoffed as he nodded. “I spent my entire life living with relatives that abused and neglected me. The biggest thing they’ve done was lock me in a cupboard under the stairs and forget to feed me, but that never stopped them from going overboard in their other punishments. Dudley and his gang commonly chased me down and beat the shite out of me. Vernon would use his belt whenever I proved to be smarter than that idiot, I so obviously cheated. Petunia smacked me whenever I screwed up the meal they were forcing me to cook for them, with a frying pan the first time and would have possibly used it again if I hadn’t gotten a concussion. Then again, four year olds are so fragile.”

Daphne blinked back tears as Harry told her all that. “Having a hard time believing in all honesty. What kind of person would do all that?”

Harry shrugged. “The kind that had their hatred of me amplified by dark magic to the point they barely cared about my physical health. They hated me, no doubt, but they wouldn’t be that stupid unless the dark aura from the horcrux in my head and the botched half assed job from those blood wards Albus set up hadn’t fucked them up further. If Albus and Tom hadn’t destroyed my life, the Dursleys would have just snarled at me and treated me like any other brat they hated. But the dark aura from my scar, and the amplification from the illegally and improperly placed blood wards, amplified the negative feelings towards me. Albus had tried to put me where I would be safe, but he screwed things up when he decided he wanted to be the vanquisher of Voldemort. He might have expected to cause my death, but he needed me alive for his plans. I had to die when he needed me to die, or else all he worked for would go to waste.”

Daphne just huffed as she decided to do something weird as she noticed how hard it was for Harry to talk about these things. She hugged him. Daphne being emotional and comforting someone would have left anyone from Slytherin in shock, it even shocked Harry as he took a couple seconds longer to return the hug. Daphne could tell the boy wasn’t used to being hugged by people other than Granger, seeing as he was acting rather awkward.

What Daphne wasn’t realizing was that she had the largest breasts of the three girls he has been hugged by in his life, that he was comfortable being hugged by at least. Mrs. Weasley always made him uncomfortable when she hugged him, because she immediately assumed he wanted her to replace his mother.

Harry didn’t want a replacement mom, he wanted to form a parental bond naturally with a decent woman that proved she wanted to care about him as her child. Not as one of the children. Molly needed to learn to care for all her kids equally instead of doubting them if she ever wanted to form a bond with him.

But yeah, Hermione might be the oldest but she hadn’t been hit particularly hard by puberty yet and Luna has barely started it, while Daphne herself was hit by it hard. And Harry Potter was a growing boy going through puberty himself, so no one could blame him as he took a moment to reboot his thoughts after he was hugged by her.

Chapter Text

Harry sighed as he stepped into the great hall for dinner, the match between Beauxbatons and Durmstrang went well, especially when he showed off the shiny new parchment that said his tournament was approved to go forward. Mostly because Bagman was the one in charge of giving the green light and the man was obsessed with his glory days.

Bagman had also started to drop hints that he would make an excellent announcer, but Harry passed that headache off to Lee to deal with. Currently, Harry had another headache to deal with as he stepped into the Great Hall, walking right up to the head table.

Dumbledore was acting as if he were the headmaster still, even after McGonagall had to rescue him when he was trapped in the office earlier when the man hadn’t showed up at breakfast. Harry was also annoyed about how Dumbledore has been having Minerva send message after message for him to go to the Headmaster’s office.

Harry cleared his throat as he looked at Minerva. “Professor, I really hope you don’t plan to quit Hogwarts as well, since you are apparently allowing Dumbledore to continue to pretend as if he hadn’t screwed himself and a bunch of other politicians over recently.”

Ever since the day before, when Albus lost his magic, Minerva had to deal with basically treating Albus as if he was an invalid. He has been keeping her from doing her tasks that either of her other jobs required of her. It has been so bad, she wasn’t able to really get any sleep last night. Albus had her send out a summons for Harry no less than five times already, each one was responded with a simple question. ‘Who?’

But with Harry asking that question, especially after he revealed he knew Albus was going to screw up the way he did, she was afraid of ignoring his act. And she knew it was an act, because she could tell the boy hated Albus more than he cared for her. At this point, the entire school knew the boy hated Albus more than anything, and would only help her if it caused Albus more grief. “Please explain your reasoning for this mister Potter.”

Harry chuckled as he ignored Albus speaking. “Maybe we can continue this conversation more privately, and when you are finished with your explanation, we can finally have that meeting I have been requesting?”

“I noticed you allowing Dumbledork to remain sitting in the headmaster seat during the game, and even now, he is sitting as if nothing has changed. According to the written contract, that was signed through each school and not personally like the Wizengamot, the headmaster must take the judge seat. And you are acting headmistress until the next is properly chosen.”

Minerva took a deep breath as she watched Harry’s enjoyment at causing Albus grief. The boy knew how the old man was having trouble coping, and if what he was saying was true, she would be punished by the goblet if she allowed Albus to judge in her place during the challenges. So, if she allowed Albus to sit in judgement like he had been suggesting she did, she would be the next to lose her magic. And the two after her if he continued to insist and they allowed it.

Harry laughed a bit louder as Albus looked at him in growing worry. “That is just silly. I am still the esteemed headmaster of this school.”

Harry calmed himself as he decided to correct him. “I would say sorry for bursting your bubble, but that would be a lie and it’s far more fun when the truth hurts all the more. You are muggle Dumbs, which automatically disqualifies you from holding any position within the magical world. Kingsly broke the law when he helped you get back into the school. If McGonagall lets you sit in as judge for her during the tournament, she would be neglecting her duty as the headmistress, which means the goblet would disqualify Hogwarts for cheating and take both hers and Cedric’s magic. Your arrogance and neglect are going to steal magic away from two more people.”

Harry turned around as the rest of the students just looked at the teachers in disgust and irritation. “The thing about it is simple, I enjoy watching you fall apart and lose everything after your manipulations over my life. You have condemned me to a life of pain and suffering, and expect me to be grateful when you only partially free me from that nightmare. You have failed me, my parents, my godfather. Everything you have plotted after hearing that prophecy, all the things you have chosen to do to destroy any chance I had at happiness. I refuse to allow you to erase me or my family from existence, and I shall watch you suffer for as long as these idiots can keep you alive.”

Albus did his best to keep his composure, though without his occlumency it was too much to ask of a man that relied too much on his magic. So, with a look of rage, Albus barely held himself from shouting at Harry. “You are going dark Harry my boy. You should return everything you stole from me, and stop all this nonsense.”

Harry laughed loudly as he continued to walk out. “Listen to my warning or not, I was mostly speculating Cedric being punished, but if you want to take the risk that he wouldn’t be punished for Hogwarts breaking the contract, that’s your choice McGonagall. Good luck.”

Harry stopped as the doors closed behind him, before sighing as his stomach growled. “The sacrifices I make for a dramatic moment.”

As he began to make his way to the kitchens for his own dinner, the doors to the great hall opened once more as Hermione, Luna, and Ron stepped out. While Ron was revving up to rant about his words against Dumbledore, the door was opened again by Daphne, Tracey and Astoria.

Harry now had to thank Daphne for her timing as Ron turned to her. “What do you snakes want?”

Daphne scoffed at him, despite answering. “Potter is my fiance, who I have business with. None of which has anything to do with you, Weasley.”

Ron snarled, though before he could say anything, Harry decided to prevent him from antagonizing the others. “Ronald, shut up and go back to your dinner. You have yet to apologize over your tantrum about me getting roped into this stupid tournament, so you aren’t even welcomed to air your grievances with me anyway. If you haven’t figured it out, you are out of the group until you learn humility.”

Astoria piped up here. “Might want to have him recite the definition of the word to prove he even looked it up.”

Ron glared at the girl, reaching around to pull his wand from his back pocket, Ron was shocked when he felt his wrist grabbed. Turning, he found Harry glaring at him, and you never realize how scary Harry’s eyes can be until he glares at you. The magic flowing from him caused them to glow, giving them a killing curse look, and having that flash in front of your eyes was as disturbing as Harry described it last year.

Harry shoved Ron away from the girls as he continued to glare. “Go back Ronald. Until you can get over this prejudice, I don’t want to see your face.”

Ron almost went for his wand again, before he decided to give up on that. “I don’t know what has gotten into you Harry, but the Harry I know wouldn’t have done all this to the people he respected. He would have never done what you did to Dumbledore.”

Harry sighed in exasperation. “Dumbledore was the one that did that to himself, I just let slip I was emancipated and he didn’t want to let me have any freedom. His plans were to kill me. And apparently you were a part of them. You and your sister.”

Harry made sure to stare into Ron’s eyes, so the boy could see how much it hurt him. “I trusted you, and you planned with Dumbledore to murder me after his marriage contract with Molly gave your family my wealth.”

Ron’s eyes widened in disbelief as he turned to Hermione, only to find her and Luna looking at him, the former in disappointment, the latter with fear. When Ron turned to head back towards the Great Hall, he caught the looks of disgust from the two older Slytherins, while the girl younger than Ginny looked terrified as she clung to her sister.

Ron just trudged past them, barely keeping back the tears he felt were coming.

Harry blinked in honest shock as he watched Ron trudge back to dinner. The boy looked honestly heartbroken, and that was more surprising than anything Harry has seen so far.

Harry sighed as he waved for the girls to follow him, leading them to the seventh floor and to the Room of Requirement. The ones that hadn’t seen the room yet were surprised, and Harry chuckled over their awed stares as they entered to find a replica of his dining room from Potter Manor. As the girls got over the shock, Harry called his elves to deliver a meal since he skipped dinner for dramatic effect.

Sitting at the head of the table, Harry watched as the girls all sat down at the table and were surprised when the elves served them some food as well. Daphne sighed as she decided to get to the point of why she followed Harry. “Astoria and I took the potion, and she has been randomly rushing to the restroom all day, even missing the quidditch game. But since it has calmed down, we think the curse is out of her system. Thank you again Potter.”

Harry swallowed the bite of food he was chewing before he turned to them. “We are engaged, you don’t have to feel obligated to use my last name. You have full permission to use my given name, and that extends to you two as well.”

Astoria giggled as Tracey responded with a smirk. “Well, Astoria is in a concubine contract with you, and if Daphne was telling the truth, I will probably end up as Lady Gryffindor. I still have trouble believing you would marry me just to piss off the old headmaster.”

Harry shrugged as Hermione frowned at him. “Harry James Potter, that is not a good enough reason to marry a girl.”

Tracey laughed as she responded for him. “Better than most mens’ reasons. I am a half-blood Slytherin, the other three houses treat me like I will kill them, and my own house treats me like I am the house pet. The only reason I am even safe is because of how powerful Daphne’s family is and I am her best friend. Believe me, if I didn’t have her, I would be bullied just as badly as you were in the beginning, if not compared to Lovegood.”

Harry blinked as he set his fork down. “Is it really that bad in the snake den?”

Noticing the serious tone Harry was using, actually caused the girls to blink as they gave him their full attention. “If those boys are willing to be that horrible to you, just because of your blood status, I might feel obligated to send a message about bullying to them.”

Recalling the basilisk the goblins decided to parade around the school, making sure everyone knew what Harry slayed at twelve and making all three champions look at the boy with a bit of apprehension and rethink their chances of beating him. Tracey burst out with a laugh as she decided to give the Slytherins a chance. “Hey, as long as you let rumors float about that you will fight anyone that hurts a half-blood or muggle-born you will probably have nothing to worry about.”

Harry shrugged. “As long as people can be safe and you don’t slander me, spread whatever rumors you want.”

Hermione harrumphed as Luna giggled, causing Daphne to turn her attention to the two. “I will be honest, I am kind of surprised that Miss Granger here is okay with sharing you with more than just me and Astoria, who you are bound to through legal contracts.”

Hermione sighed as she shook her head. “I would have rather it just be me, but as long as his other brides don’t treat me like Malfoy does, I can cope.”

Daphne and Tracey blink in surprise before they turn to each other and have a silent conversation. Daphne sighed heavily as she turned to Harry. “Why are you building a harem?”

Harry and Hermione both blinked in confusion, as the two turned to one another before turning back to the others as Harry answered. “I read a book called ‘The Laws of the Wizengamot’ and found that I am forced to have a bride for each house I inherit or the Wizengamot would force me to marry other girls.”

Daphne held her hand out, making a give me gesture, as Harry shrugged and handed her the book. Spending a couple seconds looking the book over, as Tracey peeked at it over her shoulder, Daphne actually giggled. “Where did you buy this thing?”

Harry’s right eye started to twitch as he answered. “I went to Borgin and Burkes, so as to avoid Dumbledore snooping into my purchases from the main bookstore. What, is it full of lies?”

Tracey was still holding her giggles in as Daphne explained, Astoria and Luna were sitting off to the side enjoying bowls of pudding as they watched. “No, it’s rare for the laws to change, especially when the change doesn’t take long to be passed, but this book was only relevant for a single generation because of a single law in it being changed. The very one you are probably thinking concerns you with your multiple houses.”

Harry and Hermione both were pretty much glaring at the book now. “Are you telling me that…”

Daphne actually laughed a bit as Tracey started to have trouble breathing. “This edition of the law book only had a short run, and the next edition only had a single change, so most people lump the two together when they reference this edition. The whole thing was officially named the Srarow debacle, when Augrow Srarow, heir of the Ancient House of Srarow, found out he also inherited the seat of the Ancient House of Vurgrieve and wanted to force girls to love him. The man’s father thought he could trick the Wizengamot into giving his son the right to force some younger girls into marrying him, which didn't work out as you probably already know. Heck, the full story of the law is even in this edition. But the reprint that happened later when it was too late for Augrow to do anything about it, altered the law.”

Hermione spoke up here, ignoring how Harry started to drop his head to the table, repeatedly. “So the law is different? Harry doesn’t have a risk of being forced to marry some random woman that just wants to leech off his wallet?”

Tracey finally got herself under control as she answered. “Basically, you have been panicking over the worst case scenario from an outdated law. The law was changed, so that each member of the Wizengamot could only hold a single seat at a time. So someone could ban Harry from sitting the Potter seat, but he could still show up and use the Gryffindor or Peverel seats. He can also have a proxy for them, but if he does that he can’t sit them during a ban of his main seat. He can also pass on the names as well. So if he married just Daphne, her first child would be the Potter heir, but her next could be Gryffindor or Peverel heir. As long as Harry doesn’t give one of the Lady rings to his houses to another girl, any child he has with Daphne can be heir to any of his houses.”

Daphne nodded, ignoring the look of exasperation on Hermione’s face as Harry continued to sulk, bouncing his head on the table again. “Now don’t get us wrong, Harry being Lord to many houses does give him extra weight to throw around in the Wizengamot, that will cause people to agree with him to win his favor, and it will involve less headache if he chooses to take multiple wives, but if they left the law as it was and they wound up with multiple lordships, they would also have been forced into that situation. And those in power hate it when they are forced in any aspect.”

Harry lifted his head as he glared at nothing. “I requested a copy of that book on recommendation from someone that told me it would help me reclaim control of my life. I paid that asshole top galleon for a book that could tell me everything about the laws of the Wizengamot.”

Luna paused in eating her pudding, swatting Astoria’s spoon with her own when the girl went to steal a bite. “There hasn’t been any change to the laws in the book that would warrant a full rewrite, but they do sell self-updating versions to Wizengamot members. Although, with what you say about Dumbledore, I would figure that he has stolen the copy that belongs to the Potter family. Maybe those goblins managed to find your copy when they got your stolen books back.”

Harry groaned as he now looked more pouty than angry. “Don’t think I haven’t realized you probably knew about this Luna, you could have corrected me any time you felt like it.”

Hermione was doing her best to remain calm, knowing that Harry and her were both duped by an outdated book and a scheming headmaster, Luna’s response actually did make her anger completely leave her. “But if I corrected you, I would have lost my prince charming. Maybe you wouldn’t have introduced me to little Boco, or rescued me from the other Rave.”

Harry interrupted her. “No, Luna. I would have done that for you even if you hated me. I would have done that even if you were Draco Malfoy. You don’t have to date me just to get my help, you are my friend.”

Luna smiled at him as she nodded. “And you are probably the only person in this school I would ever really feel comfortable dating, because you stood up for and saved me, when everyone else would have just left me to suffer alone. Is it so bad that I want to be a part of your life? I like Hermione just fine, she is nice when she isn’t getting bossy, which makes her sound a bit mean. My father and I somewhat count towards the grey, despite my family not having enough prestige to sit the Wizengamot, we do get invites to some events because we run the Quibbler, so I’m not a total stranger to Daphne.”

Daphne nodded. “I am fine with it all, as long as Miss Granger reads and practices some of our etiquette, and realizes she is not some ‘boss’ wife that is in charge of everything.”

Hermione was tongue tied as she blushed and started to deny everything. Harry stepped in and spoke in her defense when he realized she was at a loss for words. “In her defense, she only gets bossy and takes charge when she gets nervous and or stressed. And when it comes to her being bossy with me, I have mental issues I have to work through. Ten years of abuse and depression can really do some damage to your psyche.”

Hermione shrugged as she began to get a bit self conscious about her attitude being pointed out like that. “Well, the only thing I really have is the medical manuals from my parents’ books to go on, and I just use what knowledge I have from those and common sense to help as much as I can. The only way for someone with problems to get help is if they ask for it. I can’t force you to get better, just encourage you to want to.”

Luna and Astoria both looked a little uncomfortable talking about this, while Daphne and Tracey looked at Hermione with a bit more understanding. The two older girls actually felt a small connection with Hermione as they thought about what they have been dealing with when it came to Astoria and her blood curse, while the younger two understood a little with Harry.

While Harry, Luna, and Astoria had vastly different situations, they do have common ground with having traumatic experiences. While Daphne, Tracey, and Hermione knew how hard it was to help someone when they couldn’t really do anything for them.

And Harry decided to fix all the problems, breaking the chains that held him down allowed him to save Luna and cure Astoria. And now he is on the road to recovery himself as his friends each make sure he knows they love him.

Harry sighed heavily. “Well, I guess I have to rethink a couple things. I had even gotten Bloodybreak to send me the betrothal rings to my houses.”

As Harry pulled out a small case, he opened it to reveal eight rings. The four towards the back of the box were slightly larger than the ones towards the front, but there were two rings each for Potter, Gryffindor, Peverell, and Black. Daphne didn’t wait as she grabbed the larger of the Black rings, before she put it and her left hand into Harry’s own. “You have to be the one to place it on my finger for the magic to take effect and it be official.”

Harry smiled as he took the ring and slid it onto Daphne’s left ring finger. Astoria walked over next as she handed him the smaller of the Black rings, while Luna got the larger Peverell ring. Tracey shrugged as she got Harry to put the larger of the Gryffindor rings on her finger, despite him telling her she didn’t have to if she didn’t want to. Tracey just shrugged and gave him a kiss on his cheek. “Like we said, men have had worse reasons to ask a girl for her hand. And if I wait too long for something to come up, I will most likely end up with a guy that just wants to smack me until I can’t protest how he uses me.”

Hermione watched, before she reached forward and actually looked at the Potter ring. “It’s a large step.”

Harry smiled as he nodded. “Since we were wrong about the law, you no longer have to worry if you don’t want to. But I will say, I am of the same opinion as I was the night of the Quidditch World Cup. You were the first person to care about just Harry, despite only knowing things from those books, and I really do want you in my life.”

Tracey cleared her throat a bit. “Making every girl here feel special, Harry.”

Harry nodded, but before he could fully form an apology, Hermione spoke. “Well, our fiance needs to see to each of our individual needs, just as much as he has to our group needs. Doesn’t he?”

Hermione smiled at Harry as she placed the ring in his hand as she held her left out to him, causing him to cry a little as he returned the smile and placed the ring on her finger. “Well, I hope I can be a man worthy of all this love.”

Luna smiled. “A power he knows not.”

Harry blinked as he lost his happy mood and stared at Luna in shock.

Chapter Text

Harry sat there as his face was completely red.

Apparently, letting Luna crawl into his bed at night so she could find comfort was a mistake, seeing as the girl learned that she could learn anything by whispering the right word into his ear. She called him love, he responded by saying the power he knows not. Knowing he muttered random things when she whispered random words into his ear while he slept, Luna learned the entire prophecy.

Harry actually cried at that. He had spent nearly the entire summer, and every moment of free time he had, which was more than normal due to his grandfather having a hidden time turner at Potter Manor, building his physical, magical, and mental prowess. He could probably have dueled Dumbledore with how much he has learned from the grimoires at this point, definitely could take Snape down with ease, and he was expecting to use everything he has to knock Voldemort back into his bottomless grave if his plans there go south.

But everything was useless to the soothing whispers of a cute girl as he slept. If Luna had asked enough of the right questions, which she had asked a couple of, she would know all his secrets.

So, Harry had to explain more to Luna, while explaining everything to the other girls. The Lady rings he had just put on them would protect them, Daphne and Tracey helped him explain how the magical radiance created a magical barrier to Hermione, from mind attacks. As long as Harry lives, Snape couldn’t use legilimency on them and expose him to Dumbledore.

After the full explanation about his future ghost self, what all Albus has done, and what all Molly Weasley had done, Hermione realized that Harry mostly held back telling her about talking about it all, because he couldn’t tell her about it until she either accepted the ring or learned Occlumency to protect herself from Snape and Dumbledore.

On the other hand, Hermione was now pouting. “How did you solve the issue with the time turner that I had? I used it to help last year and it drove me to the limits of my sanity and health.”

Harry sighed as he stopped his own pouting to answer. “I would spend an hour learning from a grimoire, then leave that one there as I went to a different room where there was a different grimoire and use the time turner there. I stayed in the room for the entire hour learning from the second grimoire, before moving to a different room a couple minutes before my past self would enter to read the book I just finished with. By doing this several times, I had a good loop going that took up basically five to six hours of my time every morning and afternoon. I would then have lunch or dinner and take a nap, and wake up and eat breakfast after dinner. It’s easier to handle if you don’t have to deal with the added stress of assignments as well as classes.”

Hermione wanted to cry, barely resisting as she thought about how well Harry handled the whole situation. Though since he had had help devising that schedule from a future version of himself that had who knows how many years to think about it did help her pride a bit.

As Harry finished telling the girls all about how he knew what to do and say to get his freedom from Albus, as well as how he planned to deal with Tom, Luna was frowning now that she had the full picture. “It appears as if nothing in this tournament is very fair. First against you since you were underaged and now against the other champions due to your knowledge and skill.”

Harry took a deep breath, letting it out his nose as he thought over what Luna said. “You make a fair point Luna.”

The girls all blinked as Harry began to tap his fingers against the table, watching as puzzle pieces moved about within his head, fitting where they once couldn’t, the plotting of a boy turned man over summer.

Harry smirked as he opened his eyes. “Fair enough, I might have used my knowledge to give away what the first task was before, but I guess I can ensure they are aware of the dangers and are able to counter them.”

The next day gave way to a surprise as Hedwig, Harry’s unique and easily identifiable owl, swooped down and gave a letter to each of the champions, as she stole a piece of bacon from their plates. Though Fluer was barked at by Hedwig when the girl didn’t have any, though Luna sitting next to her gave her a couple to appease the owl.

Fluer admitted to the young girl that she had never been sassed by an owl before, Hogwarts was just so full of unique experiences. Luna admitted that she squeezed in next to her because she didn’t think she would grab any of the bacon with her background. The French students didn’t appreciate all the greasiness most of the British dishes had, and that included the bacon.

Fluer and the other Beauxbaton students had been concerned that the girl was being bullied again; they did after all, leave the Ravenclaw table for just that reason. No matter her eccentricities, she still deserved to have a peaceful education.

And Fluer was willing to start smacking some bullies around if they were going to prove the same. She would take the girl with her when they left for home if she had to, Gabby would love to have another sister after all.

As the three champions met up with Harry and his girls, the boy led them all to the RoR, making all three champions give similar looks of awe. Harry had set the room up for a large open arena, with a protected room for spectators, where Hermione, Luna, Daphne, Tracey, and Astoria were quick to enter.

Cedric, the most laid back, was the first to comment. “If only I had known about this sooner, it would have made a lot of my studies a bit easier.”

Fluer smirked as she scoffed. “Yes, studies. I am sure you would have had plenty to study with that Ravenclaw girl you keep making goo goo eyes at.”

Victor and Harry chuckled at Cedric’s stuttering, though when the boy sighed in some disgruntlement, the good mood wound down. “Cho was not very happy when I sided against Ravenclaw for bullying Luna. She expected me to immediately join her in attempting to continue trying to attack her. As if hurting your housemate was something I would have been for. I am a Hufflepuff, I stand by unity and loyalty and will always fight for fairness, and I refused to back her up when she bitched about Luna getting re-sorted and them being punished for it.”

Harry sighed as he stepped over and extended his hand. “For standing with my Lady Peverell, I thank you. If you are ever in need of aid, within reason, feel free to ask it of me.”

Cedric smiled as he let out a chuckle. “Sure, Harry.”

As Cedric gripped Harry’s arm and shook on it, Victor cleared his throat. “Maybe we should get to the main reason you called for us, while headmaster Kakarof believes I am out training, he will get suspicious if I take too long.”

As Fluer nodded in agreement, her own headmistress being more worried out of real concern and caring, she would rather not take all day as well, especially if Harry was right about the dragon.

Harry smiled at them, before he pulled out three medallions. “I called you here for these. These are champion medallions, they represent those chosen by the goblet of fire.”

The three champions looked at the medallions and noticed that each were in the shape of their school’s emblems. Victor cleared his throat. “And why do you have them, why weren’t they given to us when we were chosen?”

Harry chuckled as he shook his head. “Because dear old Albus suspected foul play, because he knew that Mad-Eye Moody wasn’t Mad-Eye Moody. He knew that Voldemort had snuck in one of his death eaters, and he knew that that death eater would somehow get me into the tournament. So, he hid these within his office, lying through omission about them, and all it took was me walking in and snagging them while the old goat was out.”

Each of the Champions glared at the medallions, as Fluer asked. “What are they supposed to do?”

Harry’s chuckle caused all three champions to squirm a little. “Everything, these medallions have all the protections of a lord ring, which would give you extra defense against things such as the imperious curse, prevent legilimency, all that good stuff. They are supposed to prevent sabotage amongst the champions. But since there are only three, Albus will just deny them because there are four of us. What he won’t say is that I can’t technically win.”

The champions were about to accept that they shouldn’t take them if it would cause an unfair advantage, until Harry finished what he was saying. Giving the boy confused looks, he was quick to elaborate. “I was signed up under false pretenses, and a false school. If I win, the victory is considered a draw between you three, because I am representing no one. Albus wants me to win and claim it as a victory for Hogwarts, because the fake Mad-Eye plans to cheat to make me win.”

The other three were now more upset than before with this new information. Victor was the one to speak up with the question. “How did you figure all this out?”

Harry looked far too happy as he answered. “Albus Dumbledore summoned a ghost from the future that decided to ensure I lived past his plans to kill me.”

The three true champions stopped fidgeting at that. It was one thing for Harry to point out he had suspicions about Albus, but to outright tell them the leader of the light within Magical Britain was plotting his death was a bit hard to take.

Harry narrowed his eyes as he shrugged off their disbelief. “I have been taking advantage of my families’ resources to advance my magical education beyond anything Hogwarts could ever teach, and now, I am here to share some of what I was told in order to even the playing field. But before I give you these artifacts, I want you to earn them. A small duel between the three of you and me, and I give you my word that I will reveal information equal to how much you make me work for the win.”

Cedric laughed nervously as Fluer looked insulted. Victor frowned as he stepped forward. “So, we show you humility, and when you recover if your girls don’t answer our questions, you will explain.”

Harry’s smile came back, wider than was comfortable for the three champions. “I have spent six hours, twice a day, for most days this past summer, given the afternoons off on the days I spent with Hermione. And since the start of school in September, I have come here at night to add in an extra five hours everyday before going to bed. So over the summer I added six hundred and sixty four hours at a rough estimation, and an additional three hundred since the start of school. That is roughly forty days of extra training from the grimoires of old and powerful houses such as Potter, Gryffindor, Peverell, and Black. And that is not including all the times I slipped in reading the grimoires while I listened to Binns drone on about this goblin or that rebelion.”

All three champions went back to fidgeting, seeing as those name drops held weight. And if Harry was being truthful, it made them slightly nervous without seeing him in action. Harry took a deep breath as he refocused himself. “I’m not doing this to scare you all into forfeiting, I am doing this so you all understand that I am worth your respect, despite what I do in the challenges. I plan to hold back, but I don’t want you three to feel insulted when I do, so instead of holding your hand and expecting you to trust me, I plan to earn your respect.”

Victor nodded, before he pulled his wand out and aimed a spell at Harry, who was quick to flick his own from its holster. Victor’s curse hit a stone wall and shattered it, but before Victor could do anything else, the stones from it were flung immediately towards the three of them.

As the three scattered, Cedric was forced to roll into a run as he dodged cutting curses that actually chased him. Fluer conjured her own wall for protection, continuing to power the conjuration in order to keep the wall standing despite how many curses were hitting it.

Victor was the only one in position to see clearly what Harry had done, seeing as there were two floating orbs with matching colors of the cutting curses the first was launching at Cedric to keep the boy from catching his breath from the surprise, while other was launching blasting curses at Fluer’s defenses.

And he was the lucky one to receive Potter’s personal attention.

Victor now understood that they were too late to take this as seriously as they should have, but they weren’t out of the game yet. Harry wasn’t a pushover anymore, after he broke the shackles that Albus had placed on his core, destroyed the vampiric wards on Privet Drive, and was purified of the horcrux in his head, he was at full power at last, and this duel was his first chance to test himself.

Using a combination of conjuration defenses and elemental manipulation as he launched fire and lightning at Victor in offense, the professional seeker showed he wasn’t a pushover either as the young man was adept at curses for both defense and offense. They were nearly equal when it came to elemental manipulation as well.

Harry almost cursed when he had to begin defending from two different angles as the cutting curse orb ran out of juice, allowing Cedric to catch his breath and add pressure on him to prevent the creation of another. Harry knew the blasting orb would last longer than the cutting orb, so he was caught off guard as he was attacked by a large fireball.

As the smoke was clearing, the three champions regrouped as they were catching their breaths, Cedric looking at Fluer in shock as the girl had grown feathers from her arms. “Why would you launch an attack like that at him, he could seriously be hurt.”

Cedric never got his answer as the three of them heard Harry laughing, and since none of them were properly ready to continue yet, they nervously turned to see no one standing where Harry had been.

“How did he dodge that?”

It took the three of them a moment to realize they spoke in unison, before Harry suddenly appeared, floating, in front of them. Though the boy was now wearing a silver cloak flowing from his shoulders, a second wand that had three bulges that looked like elderberries in his left hand that also had a ring on the middle finger. The ring was something that Victor almost snarled at, seeing as it was a large smooth red stone with the symbol of the Deathly Hallows on it. “Where did you get that ring?”

Harry smiled as he let them get a better look at it. “This is the resurrection stone, one of the three Deathly Hallows that both Gellert Grindelwald and Albus Dumbledore obsessed over. They were both so obsessed with finding them and becoming the Master of Death, Grindelwald started a war and used the symbol as his own, and Albus stole two, both times causing the death of the previous owners.”

Everyone, including the girls within the protected room to the side, gasped at what Harry’s words meant. He was wearing a cloak, a ring with the stone, and was holding a new weird wand.

Harry chuckled as he watched their eyes widen in recognition. “Yes, since Albus lost his magic, he was unable to prevent me from summoning the wand, I was told where the ring was by my future self so I could get it and purify it of the curses it held, and I inherited the cloak from my father. I am the Master of Death.”

As the champions took a moment to absorb that tidbit, Harry turned to the side as he motioned for his girls to join him. Upon reaching him, Harry dropped the cloak on Luna’s shoulders, before handing her the wand and stone. “You asked to use it before, if you hold all three while you do, your mother’s ghost will not feel pain during her visit.”

Luna nodded as the tears started.

Harry ignored the questioning looks, waving them off from the other champions. “You three forced me to use my MoD abilities, other than that, I was breaking into a sweat more than you guys. Research and practice just can’t compare to practical application, so thanks for helping me see my limits. But back to what you need to know.”

Harry added emphasis to the word need to draw the attention from Luna. “I was given the information about this year, and given a plan to deal with Dumb-door and Moldy-shorts, but that was mainly it. I wasn’t really guided towards much else, other than to break away from Albus’ manipulations, and stopping Voldemort’s resurrection permanently. I don’t think I was able to get enough information as I apparently would have died really early if I followed Albus’ plan. Like, age thirty early.”

The others all cringed at that, knowing that you would die at thirty when particularly powerful wizards usually lived from one-fifty to two hundred years would be soul shattering.

Harry sighed again as he started up before they could dwell. “His plan was straight and to the point, and I followed it to the letter so far, other than doing everything extra, such as getting hitched to Daphne or taking Hermione’s parents with us to the quidditch game. My future self probably hadn’t known about either, seeing as he only found out about all the betrayals not long before he died. He was so filled with anger, I don’t think he even understood why or how things happened.”

The girls and champions watched as things began to slide into place in Harry’s head. They watched as he began to realize how hateful his older self’s words were when he spoke about everything. Would following Albus’ plan had made him the worse version of himself as well as kill him early? Was Harry’s views being colored by the darkest depths of a heart that only got darker as it was torn apart by betrayals?

Thinking over everything his older self explained, he started to take notice that his older self’s plans were made in thought that he would be doing everything alone, and leave everyone else to fend for themselves or burn without a fight.

He explained that he could just kill the dragon, leave Ron to drown, and set the hedges of the maze on fire, which could possibly kill the other three champions.

The group standing around him, did his older self expect him to let them all die, other than Hermione, he hadn’t even told himself much about Luna, other than she would be raped after she returned from Yule break. Did his older self expect him to allow everyone to burn? Could he truly be that evil?

Harry finally realized that he was starting to hyperventilate as several pairs of arms encircled him. Even the other three champions were hugging him, Victor and Cedric included. And he finally noticed that he was crying.

Hermione was the one to ask as she noticed him calming down enough to get control over himself. “What happened?”

Harry laughed a bit. “I just realized my own plan was to let the world burn. My older self that explained everything, he was so full of hate. He told me how to manipulate Albus to lose his magic. I figured out the rest that I know about the tournament, such as McGonagall losing her magic if she let Albus vote in her place as a judge, because I did extra research. My older self’s plan didn’t involve saving Luna from being raped when she came back from Yule break, or saving Astoria from her blood curse, or warning the other champions about the challenges. I had planned to let everyone die as I took you away from everything, leaving even your parents to die.”

Everyone was shocked at his words. But watching as he admitted to what he just figured out, as he stood there crying at yet another betrayal, this time from himself. It was impossible to understand how it would feel, to be betrayed by everyone, before realizing that your own future had made a plan to betray everyone you were coming to love.

Harry reached forward, pulling both Luna and Astoria close, as he began to cry more into their shoulders, repeating just a single phrase. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

Chapter Text

Harry continued to hold Luna and Astoria in his arms, despite having calmed down enough to listen as they asked him to stop apologizing.

It wasn’t too difficult to drag Harry from the room and reset it so they could sit down. The other three champions found it rather interesting to see a common room instead of an arena as Harry sat with Astoria and Luna in his lap as he took a loveseat.

Harry still couldn’t calmly let Luna or Astoria go as he held them in his arms. “When my future self came to tell me about everything, he started by explaining everything Albus was doing to control me. He told me about how Albus was using my accounts, how he bound my magic, how he was keeping tabs on everything I did and bought. How he prevented Sirius from having a trial, how he spoon fed me certain knowledge so that I remained just stupid enough to need more, but not so much that I would question it.”

Harry finally let the two youngest out of his tight hold, letting them decide to stay in his lap on their own. “My future self explained everything that Voldemort would do this year, how he managed to possess a homunculus, get a spy into the school, enter my name into the tournament.”

Fleur, Victor, and Cedric were each rather confused still. All three were wanting to help, but they were lost on what they should say, leaving the entire room quiet as Harry continued. “I explained how this year goes, before explaining everything wrong with the next three years as well. He told me everything that was going to happen, including everything that Dumbledore planned to not tell me. He told me how Molly potioned me and Hermione, how she and Albus planned to destroy my family with a stupid contract. He even told me how to fix everything.”

Harry chuckled here. “Everything with myself at least. He told me who I could trust, and mentioned that they were screwed over by the system as well. I still haven’t figured out how to deal with Neville and his wand issue, other than curing his parents so his dad can deal with the dumb bint that’s his gran. I haven’t even mentioned how to deal with any laws that are ruining our society, like the werewolf one that psycho Umbitch was trying to pass. But apparently, I needed to know that the Black family, that I have full access to the library of, has several different curses for keeping a person alive as you burn or cut away parts of their body. Some even allow you to sew them back together and reconnect the nerves so they feel you chopping away at the same part.”

Cedric leaned over to Victor. “Glad he hadn’t used those during our duel” Victor could only nod.

Harry darkly chuckled as he shook his head. “I don’t even know how much my older self insulting Madam Longbottom was just him venting, maybe she would be kind enough to listen if I explained the situation to her. But my future self was very adamant in explaining how everything affected me. Dumbledore’s plan to stop Voldemort involved me being hit with the killing curse, and the only reason I lived was because of the horcrux in my head.”

Victor actually did interrupt this time. “That would be the dumbest thing you could do.”

Noticing the attention he got, he decided to explain. “The killing curse creates a dissonance between the soul and the body, even if the soul in the horcrux took the hit to move on, it still would have left your body in a state of dying. You would be left living in a body that was slowly decomposing despite your magic keeping it alive. It would be a fate I wouldn’t wish upon Grindelwald.”

Harry’s chuckle sounded more hollow this time. “The killing curse is actually a combination of two spells. The first was used for cattle to painlessly kill it for food, while the second was a ghost dispersion spell. By combining the two, you get a spell that rips your soul out and sends it onto the next life. The body is usually left in an uninhabitable state, and I would end up living like that for over a decade at least, as Molly potioned me to love Ginny and Hermione potioned to love Ron. I don’t even know what happened after my death, what all he found happened after he died. Because he didn’t look, he didn’t care, he just hated everything that lived despite him dying such a painful death.”

Giving another chuckle, Harry looked up into the eyes of other champions. “He never mentioned the medallions, he didn’t know about them. After I exposed myself as emancipated, Albus was supposed to die. I would have killed the dragon in the first task with a spell from the Peverell grimoire, in the second task there is a spell to retrieve a kidnapped love in the Gryffindor grimoire because they would obviously kidnap Hermione after I asked her to the ball. And the third task will be easy because I will have enough control of fiendfyre to set the hedge ablaze and just walk over to the cup and claim it.”

Fleur cleared her throat as she spoke up to interrupt him. “Can we go back to what you said about the second task? Why would you need a spell to rescue a kidnapped love?”

Harry blinked, before nodding after he understood what he left out. “After we take the egg from the nesting mother dragon, the egg has a clue that when you open it under water you can understand. The judges are going to kidnap the person we can’t live without and put them at the bottom of the Black Lake in February. They will judge us based on how long it takes us to rescue them, and the person with the most points from the first two tasks will get to enter the hedge maze first.”

Cedric gulped as he noticed something. “You do realize that if you kill your dragon, they would obviously dock you points since the ministry would have to pay the reserve for killing a nesting mother. And if the second challenge is about rescuing your hostage, basically not going to rescue them but also taking a lazy route might also dock you points, though depending on how far behind you are from the first task it might not matter whether or not they do. If you come in last, and use your plan to set fire to the maze, you would set the entire maze ablaze with fiendfyre while all three of us are in it.”

Harry’s chuckle was hollow again as the proper champions realized that Harry’s future self didn’t care if they lived past the tournament. Noticing his trembles, Luna and Astoria pulled his arms around them as they cuddled into his sides.

Harry took a deep breath as he continued his earlier explanation. “The only reason I knew Luna was going to be raped this year, was because I mentioned her helping me find Rowena’s diadem, which caused me to explain how useful she was. I had thought that I mentioned it all so I could save her from that fate, but it was a side note. I admitted that I thought she got a shitty deal for being raped, and the only thing I know is that she will be after a Yule break. I might even be wrong about it being this one. He never told me what year it happened in, I just figured it was after the ball this year.”

Admitting that had caused a relapse in Harry’s mood as he went back to hugging the two girls, this time rocking back and forth with them.

Hermione was the one to snap out of it this time so she could prevent Harry from breaking down again. “It doesn’t matter.”

Harry shook his head. “The reason I told myself to go where I did to get the law book was because I didn’t care about the marriage law, I overlooked it because it wasn’t important. I told myself about the books so that I could know the laws Albus was breaking so that I could tear into him after he was dead and expose him after his death. I wanted me to murder the old goat and piss on his grave, go on a killing spree in Azkaban to get vengeance on them for what they did to us. I was going to ignore Luna and leave her to her fate and only mentioned her out of slight obligation because she told me about the diadem, bitched about Neville’s gran because she was stupidly obsessed over Frank. I even bitched about the other champions because they were too absorbed about this stupid tournament to realize I trudged through it all like I expected to die. Everyone betrayed me, so I am supposed to kill them all.”

Before Hermione could say anything, Daphne was the one to smack Harry before she pulled her sister and Luna off him. As Daphne sat down, now straddling Harry, she pinned him to the back of the chair. Her position made each of the other people slightly uncomfortable, though Luna pouted at not being the one to do it.

Daphne ignored the others, despite feeling rather embarrassed over her position. “Listen here Potter. That man who explained everything to you, is not you. He was a broken and angry man that got a chance for revenge and he took it. He got his revenge, and now you are taking everything he gave you and rolling with it to make the future a brighter place. You are not him, and you never will be. You made it impossible for you to become him, because you are not jaded enough to let the world burn, nor are you heartless enough to leave us to suffer.”

Daphne gave Harry a quick kiss. “Your future self exposed the villains so you could be free, and you took that chance to become a hero. Our hero. So you better stop thinking you and he are the same, because you will never be exposed to the same conditions that made him what he was. You are being exposed to the complete opposite.”

As Daphne gave Harry another quick kiss, she got off him, as Tracey and Hermione came forward and hugged him as soon as they both could, each planting a kiss on his cheeks.

As Fleur was giggling over the scene, Cedric chuckled. “I don’t know about Vic, but I hope you understand that while I am comfortable enough to give a guy a hug, I don’t plan on kissing one anytime soon.”

Harry actually chuckled honestly as the others all laughed at his joke. “I guess I should get around to explaining my proper plans.”

Seeing everyone nod, excepting that he wanted to change the subject and allow himself time to digest everything personally, the champions trusting the five younger girls to ensure he didn’t procrastinate too much about dealing with his personal issues. They were in a bit of a time crunch after all. “I plan to hold back, I am going to use Parselmagic to get by the dragon, similar to Fleur’s strategy last time when she lulled it to sleep using her Veela allure magic. Just remember that Bagman is loud and obnoxious, and that snoring does cause dragons to puff out fire. Cedric transfigured some rocks for distractions, and Victor used the conjunctivitis curse to blind it, but that caused the dragon to crush its own eggs which cost you some points. Your headmaster is very biased by the way, he’s lucky the goblet didn’t do anything. Although with you having the medallion, that might change, so you might want to warn him about that.”

Seeing the champions all nodding at the strategies, seeing as they had been thinking along those already. Harry decided to get to the main reason he decided to help here. “Last time the hostages, other than mine and Fleur’s, were our dates to the ball, Cho Chang for Cedric and Hermione for Victor.”

Seeing Victor’s raised brow as he shifted his attention between Hermione and him, Harry laughed slightly. Ignoring most of the confused looks he was receiving. “Me and Ron were late in realizing that Hermione was a girl we could ask to the ball and you beat us to asking her.”

Hermione smacked Harry several times in his shoulder as he finished, causing the others to chuckle at the situation. “Me and Ron wound up going with the Patil twins, which reminds me, I owe Parvarti a dance for ruining her night. I feel I also owe Padma one after I asked her to go with Ron, which also ruined hers. Me and Ron were absolute jerks to the girls, especially since I was dealing with depression over believing I was going to die, and Ron was mostly just feeding off my mood. But I needed a date for the opening dance, that feeling bled over to Ron, and that made us ruin two girls’ nights. It was supposed to be a romantic night for every girl, and we ruined it for two of them.”

Tracey was the one to slap Harry upside his head. “Shit happens, quit blaming yourself for shit you haven’t done yet. Ruin one of our nights first, then you can whine about it.”

Harry chuckled as he looked between them. “I have to ask Astoria or Luna, because they won’t be able to go otherwise. Fourth year and up only unless invited by them.”

Astoria and Luna each pouted as they looked at one another. Both wanted to go, but they didn’t want to ask the other not to after watching Harry break down like he had over them.

Fleur cleared her throat. “So, our dates are our hostages?”

Harry shook his head. “Ron as my best friend was mine, your date apparently hadn’t gone as well as Victor’s or Cedric, so they kidnapped Gabby and used her.”

Fleur’s eye twitched. “Excuse me?”

Harry shifted, trying to ignore how deadly quiet it suddenly was. Looking at his girls, he realized that Tracey and Daphne were holding Astoria tightly, while Hermione hugged Luna, as both younger girls looked scared. Each of the older girls however, looked a bit angry.

Looking to Cedric and Victor gave Harry no backup, as each of them looked just as uncomfortable as he did. Harry looked down as he fidgeted. “I… old me had told me that I saved Gabrielle along with Ron because I had taken the poem seriously and thought you wouldn’t get her back. I also now know about the treaty between the Veela and Merpeople and the bloody history between them, and if Dumbledore’s idea for your hostage is the same, your sister might not return if I don’t do something again.”

Fleur took a deep breath as she focused. “So, fuck the first task, what can I do about the second? I will have to swim for…” “an hour.” “An hour in cold water. I am a being of fire and sky, and I am going to be under water for an hour, which means that I will be drained of strength constantly, Gabby will be suffering the entire time, and I…”

Harry and Cedric moved to comfort her. The other girls wanted to as well, but their comfort would have been a bit hollow since they couldn’t do anything. Victor scoffed as he stood up. “These judges think rules don’t apply to them. Since our strengths and strategy with the Dragons differ far too much, we can do nothing about that. But we can do something about the second task.”

As Victor had everyone’s attention, he decided to explain. “Harry already knows where the village is and said he would show us. We go to the village all together, we grab all the hostages at the same time, and we bring them all back to safety as a team. I can partially transfigure myself into a shark for underwater offense.”

Harry shrugged as he reached into his robe, pulling out the Peverell Grimoire. “I hadn’t thought about sticking it to the man like that, but I do have a strategy for Fleur to use. We can all use it if you want to go with Victor’s strategy?”

Seeing them nod, Harry smiled as he turned to his girls and saw them smiling and nodding. Luna however decided to speak up before they could begin. “I should probably remind you about the medallions and how we have to hand those out, and that our guests need to return before their school heads lose theirs over them taking so long to get back.”

Harry sighed as he nodded. “You’re right Luna, thanks for getting us back on track. Take these and explain to Kakarof and Madame Maxime about what I explained about them so far, let them run whatever tests they feel like to verify they are legit. Same for you and Pamona Cedric, don’t wear them until they can check them over, because we don’t want them overreacting. Because I don’t have one I can’t claim victory if I win, but since Victor will be wearing it, Fake Moody won’t be able to use the Imperius curse in the third task to try and force him to kill Cedric and Fleur so I can win. You guys can race to the finish, but don’t touch the gob…”

Harry paused as he just thought about something. “Actually, I have a better idea.”

=-=-=-=You will find out when we get there=-=-=-=

Harry smiled as he walked into the Great Hall for breakfast the next day, only to find Dumbledore walking over to confront Cedric about wearing the medallion. And that only got worse as he noticed Fleur and Victor walking in wearing theirs as well.

Dumbledore huffed as he put on his best disappointed grandfatherly look as he shook his head at the three champions. “See, Harry has no medallion. I am disappointed in each of you for accepting an unfair advantage against him.”

Karkaroff snarled at the man. Maxime didn’t snarl, her glare was enough to get her message across, she decided to put an end to Dumbledore’s whining. “Actually, our champions each explained the medallions to us, as well as why they weren’t presented to them when they were supposed to be. You denied our champions the protections they should have had from the beginning, just so your school could have two champions.”

Harry decided he could add a couple nails to the geezer’s coffin. “I also have several head of house rings that give me the same protections. So not giving them those medallions gave me an unfair advantage, as well as allow you to claim credit if I won. Those medallions are designed to ensure the champions are recognized by magic as the champions, if they don’t wear them, they will have trouble claiming the trophy from the current holder, which is the hosting school’s who, was, you, Albus Dumbledore.”

The other two heads of schools glared at Albus as the man tried to keep the glare from overtaking his disappointed grandfather look at Harry, who simply burst out laughing in the man’s face as he stepped over to join the other champions, as well as his group of girls, who all decided to join him at Gryffindor’s table.

Harry spoke loud enough for Albus to hear him as he decided to get some final words in. “Maybe you should have been left in mundane London to be dealt with by them. Would have saved us all these issues if you just laid down and just croaked.”

As Harry and them all talked about this or that, Harry explaining a few more details about his plans for the tasks using code words to prevent others from eavesdropping, Ron was resisting going over.

Dean and Seamus were keeping an eye on their redheaded friend, who was acting really twitchy lately. Ron tried to deny needing to visit the infirmary, but was convinced by them to go after breakfast during their first free period. Ron had a free period due to Runes and Muggle studies being the first classes for fourth years, and him not having either.

Ron had watched Harry and Dumbledore as they had their confrontation over some medallions or what not, and was completely baffled by how it made him feel. Normally, he would have marched right over and given anyone that bad mouth the great Albus Dumbledore, even if it was Harry Potter the boy who lived, a rightly earned talking down to.

But his lazy nature was pushing him to shrug it off. It was like he didn’t care that the old headmaster was told off for being a right arse about the medallions.

Oh well, he was obviously still just reeling from seeing a small girl look at him in fear the other night.

Astoria Greengrass had looked at Ron like he was going to attack her, and it was a look he had only really seen when his mother read them those Harry Potter Adventure books when they were kids. During one of them, the author had wanted to try being dramatic, so he had caused Harry to start off losing, being hurt, and through the couple of pages that had the villain gloating before Harry turned the tables on him, Ginny had given their mother the very same look as she had thought her hero was not going to win.

Ron would admit now, seeing as the series continued, that it was ridiculous to think the author would kill off Harry’s character. But at the time, it caused multiple little girls nightmares and almost canceled the series. It was also the time Ron realized the stories were fake, despite what the author or their mother said.

It was like Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, or the Queen of England. Stories made up so people can have a modern hero they knew was real, rather than making one up like the muggles apparently do.

Chapter Text

Fred and George for once were not in a joking mood.

They were just called by their head of house to bring their sister to the infirmary, and the moment they got here they found Ron in the bathroom vomiting, and now Pomphrey was checking over the three of them.

While Ron was taking a purging potion to clear some unhealthy potions from his system, which was obviously given to him by their mother, they were being checked for any potions in their systems.

Thankfully, they were clean.

The twins looked at one another in a bit of disbelief, not believing what they were hearing from McGonagall and Pomphrey.

Later on, as the Weasley children that were left in Hogwarts made their way back to the Gryffindor common room, Fred and George decided it would be a good idea to clear the air between good friends. So, the twins trapped Harry, Hermione, and Luna on the couch, as the rest of the quidditch team filed in around them as well to hear what happened.

And Harry and his two girls looked rather uncomfortable as the Weasleys explained.

Harry sighed in frustration, drawing attention. “Are you telling me that your mother potioned you into being an asshole?”

Ron pouted in annoyance at Harry, and before anyone could speak up to correct Harry, Ron snapped at him. “No, she potioned me into having a crush on Hermione. And now the staff believe that Dumbledore has been potioning the entire school with loyalty potions, which have failed since he no longer has the magic to power them.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “So, you're still going to be an ass and keep claiming I entered the stupid tournament myself?”

Ron pouted as he grumbled. “No, I already figured you hadn’t, I just had trouble acting on it because Dumbledore’s potion kept me from doing anything about it until he gave the okay. Didn’t help that the love potion was making me jealous because Hermione was spending so much time with you.”

Hermione humphed as she crossed her arms. “Why would your mother have to give you a love potion anyways?”

Ron laughed, actually laughed, as if she was telling a joke. Before he realised he was the only one. “You’re serious?”

Harry was quick to the draw as he spoke. “No, Sirius is my godfather, she is Hermione. I know you’re slow, but I didn’t think you were that slow.”

Several people tried to stay serious at Harry’s actual joke, though Ron laughing at it did lessen their anger at what he said before. “I walked into that one. But seriously, we fight all the time, you never let me work at my own pace, you constantly critique what work I actually do. I am a man of action, doing paperwork will bore me to death, and you expect me to write three fourths of what you write, when the teachers only want half of even that. At most.”

Understanding actually started to dawn on everyone as Ron continued. “I end up procrastinating because I need to work under pressure to get things done. I learned this while mum was putting me through pre-Hogwarts prep lessons. Which you would have known about, if, when I had started to notice girls, my mum hadn’t potioned me to get you away from Harry so that Ginny could date him. Or at least that is why I think she refused to allow the rest of us to eat large chunks of what she had brought to the Quidditch game.”

Hermione chuckled. “You’re smarter when you’re not drugged.”

The others snickered at that, even Ron a bit, though a couple didn’t know why. Harry decided to add in his two cents. “I went to Gringotts and had myself undergo a purification ritual, so I knew I had been getting slipped potions. I had thought I was the only one.”

Ginny squirmed a bit as she was starting to get teary. Harry smiled as he nodded towards her. “Sorry I didn’t think that your mother would have done anything…”

Ginny interrupted Harry before he could finish. “Mum didn’t slip me any potion, why would you think that?”

Harry took a deep breath as he looked more serious than before. “Because you have been watching me a lot, keeping an eye on me whenever you think I’m not looking, your mother tried to potion me to like you as she apparently did to Ron towards Hermione.”

Ginny blinked as she shook her head. “Harry, I grew up like many other young girls hearing about how you were this big hero. I am sure if these girls wanted to prove they belonged here, they would be brave enough to admit that they asked their own fathers to write up a marriage contract between you and them at least once while they were young.”

As Harry looked around, a good number of the pureblood and half-blood girls blushed as they avoided eye contact with him. Harry blinked as he turned back when Ginny continued. “I admit I asked my dad about one for Yule once, maybe a second time when I forgot about the first. But I grew up with you as the one person that scared away the nightmares, and I almost grew out of it. Until you proved they weren’t completely fictional.”

Harry blinked as Ginny laughed slightly. “My first year was a nightmare, you were the boy of my dreams, handsome, roguish, humble, kind, and I was just me, a poor blood-traitor. And as I aired my doubts with that diary, and started to lose large chunks of my days, as I fully lost control and began to slowly feel myself die, I opened my eyes to see you leaning over me to make sure I was okay.”

Ginny was crying as she explained herself, letting Harry understand that he... his future self had been wrong to just choose to be angry at everyone. “I woke up with the boy of my dreams having fought the same dark lord that killed his parents to save me. And I was being forced to watch him die for doing so. When Fawkes saved you, I can’t put into words how relieved I was that you didn’t have to die for me.”

Everyone was actually tearing up slightly now. As Ginny continued though, she had a look of horror on her face. “And then I saw the corpse of the other monster you fought to save me. I still have nightmares about it, about what could have happened to you, to me. And then I found out about what Lockhart tried to pull that separated you from them.”

As Harry listened, he started to cry himself a bit. He had never once thought about it from Ginny’s perspective, about how it would feel to her when he risked his life for her. It was really starting to become harder to understand how the future had gotten so twisted, all thanks to apparently two people, Albus and Molly.

Harry was prepared to believe Albus started to potion Molly for loyalty at the start, but he totally believed she was just an obsessive blind follower at this point. No way Albus would put in enough work to keep the howler banshee loyal with potions when the woman was so proficient with them. She prepared all the meals she ate, and didn’t pop up at Hogwarts enough to be able to keep getting dosed regularly.

She also was able to argue with the old man when it was needed, he recalled that much. His future self was sure he caught Molly arguing with Albus on occasion, and that was his reason for believing the Weasley clan was all in on it.

Harry sighed as he looked at Ginny. The girl was still crying, though she was also being hugged by all three of her brothers that were still here with her. “You proved that not everything in those books was fabricated. You are a hero, and I naturally fell in love with you, I don’t want to brew your love for me, I never did. I didn’t want to rip you and Hermione apart, and I still don’t. But I can’t let you believe that my love for you was ever brewed in a bottle. Even if you can never love me back, you will always be the first boy I loved. My hero.”

Harry could only nod as he stared at the four Weasleys. Seeing something his old future self failed to see.

He saw how the Weasleys had their own dark lord to deal with as well. Molly was obsessed with keeping her kids in line, Bill and Charlie made it out before their mother got too desperate to control them, Percy was composed enough that he slipped under unnoticed, and the twins had their twin magic (however that works) to protect them from mind altering potions, as well as being the twin Prewitt heirs.

But Ron was under pressure to do just as good, if not better than his older brothers, while Ginny was the baby girl that Molly always wanted. Molly had given up with proper guidance to control her boys after Ron showed bad habits, while Ginny’s attitude proved to be a similar boon to Percy’s attitude. Ginny was how Molly wanted her to be, she fell in love with a handsome rich boy that Albus was going to manipulate into giving her all his money while he stole his grimoires.

Ron was just a tool for the two to use to separate him from any girl that caught his eye.

Harry took a deep breath as he scratched roughly at his head. “Over the summer I found a vault that Dumbledore was filling for your bride price from my vault that would be opened for your mother’s use when we married under a contract she and Albus illegally made. Albus’ plan was for me to not live long after I graduated, so their plan was to have me marry you quickly, or knock you up early, and watch Voldy murder me so Albus could swoop in and steal the kill and the fame.”

Harry’s words caused everyone to stare at him in shock, and a good amount of horror. “You being a recently widowed mother would give your mother the control she needed over my family to give my grimoires to Albus and possibly cancel the family protections so he could read them, stealing my family magics for his own gain. I also am under the impression that he lied about losing the philosopher’s stone in my first year and plans to make himself the next immortal leader of the light, unless Flamel was smart enough to give him a fake.”

Everyone was now more shocked, except Ron decided to continue. “Holy shite, our mum is Bellatrix Lestrange!”

Everyone gave Ron weird looks, who stood up and held his hands to symbol them to hold it. “Hear me out here, Albus Dumbledore is a leader of one of the main factions, most of the people in his faction follow him blindly. Where the dark used the unforgivables to punish his followers, Albus made sure his followers knew they disappointed him. The thing about it all, Albus has gone on record stating that he forbids the use of lethal force from his followers, so why would he send people into battle against people that do, if not to punish them for their misdeeds? If they succeed, he gets credit for sending the right people, and if they fail and die, they are punished for whatever they did to displease him.”

Everyone was starting to look horrified as Ron began to make sense. “The dark guy has Bellatrix Lestrange as his most faithful follower, she has gone on record saying she was his favorite, and she has done anything she was asked to further his plans. Our mother obeys every command and plan Albus puts forth, aiding him without question simply saying he obviously knows best or has his reasons. Our mother has proven lately that she can be rather crazy when her plans mess up. Take the quidditch cup for example, where she was so angry that dad had to practically put a silencing ward on her when she wouldn’t shut up about Hermione and her parents going off with Harry and Fudge.”

Luna shrugged as she looked between the two boys. “You’re both hired, I will send your theories to daddy to put in the Quibbler.”

As everyone blinked to think everything over, Ron decided to get one last comment in. “By the way Harry, thanks for not letting me be a second third wheel on your date, seeing as both girls would have clung to you. I probably would have been a worse wreck than I am now.”

Harry snapped out of his confusion as he turned to Luna. “Before the whole wand weighing thing, I need you to get a contract from your father about you being the only reporter allowed to interview me, Luna.”

No one had anything to say as Luna was composing her letter, though Fred was the one to snap out of his shock next, with his twin following to do their twin speak thing. “So, is everyone cool now?” “Well, let’s pass out the butterbeer and break out the chess boards.”

Ron groaned as he flopped back into the couch, causing everyone to turn to him as he sat back up and addressed Harry. “I have also been thinking about that as well. Whenever I play chess with you, you don’t improve. You obviously don’t like chess enough to try your best, so every game, despite winning, I have a bad time playing. And while we’re on the subject of things that are slight annoyances, you need to get out and fly more often so that you can get it out of your system when you play quidditch. You tend to get lost in the feeling far too often in the middle of the game and it draws out how long it takes you to find the snitch. Get a hold of yourself mate.”

Harry looked offended. “I am starting to think you also had loyalty potions keyed to me mixed in at varying levels when needed as well as Dumbledore’s.”

Ron just shrugged as he stretched out on the couch with his siblings. “Who knows, I spent at least an hour in the loo blowing chunks, so it’s possible. I know you actually annoy me more now, though not for the whole tournament thing. Kind of stupid for you to enter yourself in your quidditch tournament just to be kicked out for the Tri Wizard, though it would have been a perfect cover if you did want to cheat your way into it. Set up an entire tournament that the champions can’t enter, enter it yourself, cheat your way into the Tri Wizard and allow your entry into the previous tournament be your alibi and reason to deny entering. That would also explain why you postponed Gryffindor’s first match to December, instead of putting your team earlier so you can go flying sooner.”

Everyone shifted uncomfortably as they eyed Harry with some suspicion. Luna blinked as she grabbed another paper, not looking towards Harry’s betrayed look as she started to write that conspiracy theory down.

Harry groaned. “Fine! You all want to know the truth? I knew someone was going to enter my name, so since I wasn’t able to prevent it without looking crazy, paranoid, and or attention seeking, I let it happen. Everything else has nothing to do with me, and yes, I scheduled Gryffindor later so they had time to get my replacement. That is also a big ‘if’ the professors would even listen to my concerns. You’ve seen how they are with me, Albus obviously has been telling lies about me to them and they all think I am some pampered pureblood, despite Albus and Minerva knowing I have been abused all my life by those pieces of filth they left me with. Happy?”

Harry actually stormed up to the dorm rooms. Hermione and Luna were quick to follow, ignoring as everyone started to look uncomfortable, some even glaring at Ron for running his mouth. “What? Not like I forced him to say anything.”

Fred groaned, drawing some attention to himself. “You need to try not to bring up everything that goes through your head Ronald.”

Ron shrugged. “Well the first one got Loony excited, maybe I actually…”

Before Ron could finish the thought, everyone heard Luna shouting from up stairs. “That ship sailed years ago when you started calling me that and shoved me into the river, asshole!”

Ginny suddenly slugged Ron in the shoulder hard enough to get the boy to shout. “That was you? Luna stopped coming over because of that.”

George decided now would be a good time to pop Ron’s redemption angle before he even started to form the bubble. “She is also wearing a ring on her left ring finger, so she is already promised to another my dear baby brother.”

Fred chuckled. “Right you are brother of mine, and I am also pretty sure the matching ring can be found on Harry’s finger.”

Ron pouted. “I don’t think Harry is gonna be able to take two dates to the Yule Ball.”

Everyone, especially the girls, turned back to him. “What?”

Ron looked like a rabbit surrounded by hounds as he looked at the faces of the girls around him. “Yeah… Harry left some of his research papers out, and each school that hosts the Tri Wizard has to host a Yule Ball, it’s why we had dress robes on our school lists.”

The girls were now smiling, actually scaring the boys more, having seemingly just put two and two together.

Up with Harry and two of his girls, the boy was pacing with a large amount of angry stress, as Luna handed her letters to Hedwig, who flew in when Luna opened the window. Harry blinked at that, only to receive a shrug. “She knows when you need her, and since you allow her to deliver my and Hermione’s letters, she can sense when we need her. You don’t have people to mail, so she gets bored rather easily.”

Hermione spoke up as she pulled Harry over to his bed as Luna sat down on his other side. “I think we should really talk about what has been bothering you.”

Luna blinked as she noticed Harry’s hands looking like they were ready to strangle something, rather than simply comb through his hair. Shrugging, and only having past experience by watching her parents, Luna waddled along the bed until she was behind Harry as he spoke. “Ron is my main problem, but Ginny to a lesser degree as well. I don’t understand how I can deal with this. Albus and Molly have screwed up so badly, pissed me off so much, that I clearly have dozens of plans to ruin the Weasley family, and pretty much murder them all. Albus barely survived my murder plot for him, because he cheated.”

Luna grabbed Harry’s hands as she pushed them down, leaving her to start rubbing Harry’s head, running her fingers through his hair, pulling his head to press against her chest every time he went to give her any space.

Hermione chuckled when she noticed what Luna was doing, so she shrugged and started to massage Harry’s right hand and forearm. “Well, Molly and Albus deserve to be left to the wolves from what you’ve said, but it appears the Weasley children honestly haven’t earned your hatred.”

Harry tried to snarl, but with the two girls making sure he stayed in the very relaxing position, it sounded more like a half hearted groan of protest. “My old self was so angry at them. He told me about the many ways I could make them suffer. He told me everything about what they have done, what they will do. I have been going through everything believing that I was going to be forced to kill them, and I was talking myself into actually doing it with the excuse that I had to in order to protect you.”

Luna cleared her throat as she started to rub her way around Harry’s neck, occasionally reaching down the back of his shirt a little. “If it helps, I noted that Ron pointed out unfinished, potioned, food over the summer. If he was dosed with the potions to cause a crush, that’s a weaker, and pretty legal, love potion. But there are rather illegal ones, and one of them actually matches up with Molly’s behavior over the summer. If Ron ate his part of the picnic, yet no one else did, yet Molly refused to let Ron eat anymore than that, I can only guess one potion.”

Seeing the other two giving her their undivided attention, Luna moved back a little as Harry laid his head down in her lap as she went back to rubbing his head, also running her fingers gently along his face. “It actually doesn’t legally have a name, that is how bad the potion is, you have to make a single potion and split it between two people, and if you drink another love potion too soon after taking it, it can kill you. So Ron actually going from crazy to loveless for Hermione would make sense if that were the case, since Molly needs Ron alive. Can’t give his heart away if it explodes after all.”

Harry and Hermione were staring at her in shock, neither able to pay attention as the petite blond began to move her hands into Harry’s shirt and rub his chest. Huh, no wonder her mother was so willing to do this for her father, it’s nice to feel all of Harry’s muscles and even the scars that her fingers run across in their exploration.

Hermione cleared her throat as she gestured towards the door. “Should we warn them?”

Luna shrugged. “It stopped Molly from escalating her potion afterwards, you would need to ask Ronald if you can see the list of potions that were in his system if you want me to give you a serious theory. But alas, I am stuck with just this hypothesis.”

Harry finally snapped out of his confusion enough when he realized that Luna was now laying over him and messing with his pants. “Luna, what are you doing!?”

Luna got up, which allowed Harry to jump up as soon as she was no longer over him, though he now was able to register that his head had been between her thighs. Luna shrugged as she answered. “It’s how my momma helped daddy with his stress when he came back from the office, and it was working on you, so I just continued.”

Noticing that she was starting to look a bit upset, Harry groaned as he reached forward and pulled Luna into a hug. “Luna, I love you, but we should talk with each other before we do that…”

Harry pulled back as he looked Luna in the eye. “You know what you’re doing. You always know what you’re doing.”

Harry narrowed his eyes at her as he noticed her beginning to smirk. “You knew I was going to stop you, so you decided to start, and you wanted me to worry more about your comfort than to worry about my own old self tricking me into becoming a murdering psychopath. What would you have done if I let you continue?”

Luna shrugged. “What would Hermione do?”

Blinking as he just realized she was still there as well, Harry turned to find the girl with her face completely red, as well as catching her breath as she sat there. “Were you just going to watch?”

Hermione blinked as she realized herself that, yes, she had been planning to watch Luna give Harry a blow job. “I think I have some research to do.”

Harry blinked as he felt his own face heat up. “What research?”

His only reply was Hermione slamming the door as she moved faster. Turning back to Luna, he found the girl trying to move his hands around her own body. “Come on, I rubbed along your back and chest, let me feel it happen to me.”

Harry sighed as he simply picked his second youngest girlfriend up and threw her over his shoulder, causing the girl to giggle and kick her legs a bit. “Well, I guess I can have a mental breakdown another day. I need to get you a babysitter and me some sleep.”