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Chapter Text

Tuesday, 7 July 2015

It had been about a week and a half.

A week and a half since Susan had finished her last OWL exam (and Merlin did she hope that she did well on those). A week and a half since Harry Potter and his closest friends had stormed out of the Great Hall and out of Hogwarts at dinner, leaving behind only a vague note for the DA that Potter’s godfather Sirius Black and Professor Lupin were being held hostage and that the DA shouldn’t do anything. A week and a half since Lord Voldemort’s return had been splashed over the front page of the Daily Prophet, having attacked the Ministry with his Death Eaters, only to be stopped by Potter and his friends along with Dumbledore.

And in that time, a lot had happened, starting with a meeting of the DA…

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Saturday, 27 June 2015

“So,” Harry Potter began, bringing the assembled Defense Association to silence as they eagerly awaited Potter’s side of the recent events. The boy in question was looking exhausted, his eyes surrounded by dark circles and his usually strong posture replaced with a slump. Still, Susan had no doubt that even now, he could take on any two members of the DA and pull out a victory.

“I’m sure you all heard about what happened last night.” Potter chuckled slightly. “The Prophet, as usual, is only half accurate at best. I figured you’d want to know what had really happened…”

Potter began to weave a story of a vision from Voldemort, a mirror call from Lucius Malfoy, a confrontation with Umbridge in which Draco Malfoy had been tricked by Potter into switching sides, playing on his loyalty to the Dark Lord’s cause. His friends took over as they described their trip to London, their rescue of the hostages from the Department of Mysteries, and finally their battle in the atrium, which was displayed via Pensieve.

Susan, like most of her fellow Defense Association members, was completely in awe. Never before had she seen such an example of magical combat as the duel of Voldemort against Potter, Granger, and later, Dumbledore. Yes, intellectually, she had known that Potter and his friends were skilled and powerful fighters, but seeing the memory of the battle really put it into perspective how dominant a single wizard or witch could be against numerous lesser opponents.

“Now that we’re in open war, things are both more and less dangerous,” Granger declared. “Less dangerous because the government is actually trying to do something to stop the Death Eaters, but more dangerous because Voldemort no longer has a reason to hide. That being said, I want to advise you about a function of your DA coins. They will work as what the Muggles call a ‘panic button’ – if you tap the Hufflepuff segment three times in a row, or any part of the coin seven times in a row, it will let the six of us know that you’re in trouble and create a magical beacon for us to find you. It should work through most wards short of a Fidelius.”

“Enjoy your summers, everyone!” Harry said. “And be sure to stay safe!”

As Potter stepped off his platform, Susan saw the boy approaching the Slytherin contingent. She overheard what sounded like Potter apologizing to Nott for getting his father arrested, but Nott ended up thanking Potter. Susan shuddered at the thought of growing up with a Death Eater as a parent – someone cruel enough to become one would probably be cruel in general. So lost was Susan in her thoughts that she didn’t see Granger approaching her until the Gryffindor bookworm was nearly on top of her.

“Bones. Bones!” Granger called.

“Sorry, Granger, I was thinking about something…”

“Happens to me all the time,” said Granger. “Now, what I said about the panic buttons applies doubly to you. Harry and Neville all but endorsed your Aunt to be Fudge’s replacement as Minister, which is good for the country, but puts her and you at risk.”

“I’m used to being in danger because of her position,” Susan admitted. “I’ve had a bodyguard outside of Hogwarts ever since Aunt Amelia became the Head of the DMLE, which was annoying at first, but, as I said, I got used to it.”

“Well, Voldemort is a different level, so I want you to take this,” Granger said as she held out a circular, red object. “It’s a panic button like the DA coins are, but it’s one of a kind, so if you hit it, we’ll know that it’s you being attacked. It also has an experimental feature that will let you describe what’s attacking you and send it on to us – you’ll have about ten seconds to speak before it sends.”

“Wow – that’s… thank you.” Of all the people in the DA, she was getting the special version? Well, it was really her aunt that was getting it, but it still felt nice to have her own help line straight to the Boy-Who-Lived and his best friends.

Susan just hoped she wouldn’t need to use it.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Tuesday, 7 July 2015

Susan hadn’t had the need to use it yet. Her aunt had had Susan spending most of her time within the ancient protections of Bones Manor while she dealt with cleaning out Fudge’s corruption from the Ministry and organizing the Ministry’s response to You-Know-Who’s return. The Death Eaters whom Potter and his friends had captured had all been tried and sent to Azkaban, but Aunt Amelia worried that the formerly unescapable prison would soon let the prisoners loose upon the magical world once more.

With nowhere to go, Susan was bored. She had no official homework to do, seeing as she didn’t know which NEWT classes she would be taking come fall. The only homework she’d been assigned was some physical exercises set by Ginny Weasley and theoretical reading assigned by Granger. So she spent a few hours every day running around the halls of Bones Manor and a few more reading books from the Bones library, but that got old after a while, leaving Susan extremely, utterly bored.

Susan smiled at the sound of the Floo activating. Very few people had access to Floo into Bones Manor, and really only one person did. Her Aunt Amelia was finally, finally home!

“Auntie!” she cried as she ran into the receiving room to welcome her aunt home with a massive hug. “Did you have a good day at work?”

“It was okay,” Aunt Amelia answered. “I finished the last of the paperwork for the captured Death Eaters, and I got the authorization for lethal force approved for the Aurors.”

“Not the Unforgivables, though?”

“Not the Unforgivables. I don’t know what Crouch was thinking there; I still maintain it was a step too far.”

“Well, Soopie made a wonderful roast for dinner, Auntie, and—”

Susan froze at the sight of her Aunt’s face. “What’s wrong?”

“Someone’s attacking the wards,” Auntie snarled. Rushing back to the fireplace, she tossed in a handful of Floo powder, which caused the fire to turn not green but an angry red. “Floo’s down.” Auntie waved her wand furiously in the air. “Spells are up to block apparition and portkeys – powerful ones, too.” Aunt Amelia allowed herself a moment to look at Susan tearfully before she schooled her face into a determined scowl. “Go upstairs and hide, Susan. I’ll do my best to keep you safe… If we don’t meet again in this life, know that I love you and will always love you, until Arthur’s rebirth and forever after.”

In any other situation, Susan would have laughed at the common wizarding phrase, knowing that the Excalibur was in fact being wielded by one of her schoolmates. But now, she could only cry as she rushed up the stairs to hide in one of the guest bedrooms. As she ran, she felt something bump against her side – the panic button that Granger had given her, which she kept in her pocket at all times!

Susan turned to go find a window facing the front of the manor. Peeking out of it, she saw her worst nightmare – You-Know-Who had personally come to call, with six of his Death Eaters in tow.

“You-Know-Who and six Death Eaters at Bones Manor,” she whispered frantically as she pressed the button to summon help, help that would hopefully save her aunt’s life. “Floo, apparition, portkeys all blocked. Me and Aunt Amelia here alone. Please help.”

Nothing happened, at least not that Susan saw. You-Know-Who kept waving his wand as layer after layer of the wards shattered in bursts of magical light. Her Aunt Amelia had exited the front door of the manor, having donned her battle robes and withdrawn her wand from its holster.

“Please, please come quickly,” Susan whispered as she felt the last of the wards protecting the Manor fall. Ten minutes had passed since she’d sent out the distress call.

“Amelia Bones…” Voldemort’s sibilant voice carried across the distance between him and Susan. “So brave of you to try to organize the Ministry fools against me… But Lord Voldemort does not tolerate those who would oppose him… Be honored that Lord Voldemort has come to deal with you personally…”

“You killed my brother, you monster!” her aunt shouted in defiance. “You destroyed thousands of lives! I will fight you until my very last breath.”

“I expected nothing less…” Voldemort said before launching a wordless spell at her aunt, who countered it with a Protego shield, which shattered upon contact. Going on the offensive, her aunt a trio of spells back at the master of dark magic, who batted them aside with a laugh.

Her aunt was good – Susan knew this. The duel she watched was an amazing show of magical prowess, exceeded only by the Battle of the Atrium and the final duel between Dumbledore and Grindelwald (and Susan still had no clue how in the world Potter had gotten even a partial Pensieve memory of that). But Voldemort was toying with her, and it seemed like the other Death Eaters were eager to join in.

“Please, please come,” she whispered again.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Hermione Granger’s relationship with her parents was complicated, and not just in the normal ways that any teenage girl has a complicated relationship with her parents. Both her mother and her father had always worked long hours at their dental practice, though they did their best to give Hermione their love despite that. When they discovered Hermione was a witch, it created a divide between them, a gap that the family of three struggled to bridge.

With Hermione away at school most of the year, she struggled to connect to her parents when she returned to the normal world. She especially struggled to share the more dangerous elements of her Hogwarts experience. Her first two years had seen her almost killed by a troll and then petrified by a basilisk. But they had also seen her making friends that she would do anything for.

Their family trip to France before her third year had helped a little, as had the linked journal she had sent them that Christmas. Eventually, they had come to a few realizations as a family. First, the magical world operated on a different set of rules and standards than the normal one. Second, Hermione had unknowingly made herself a target the moment she befriended Harry Potter. This couldn’t be undone, not that Hermione would even if she could, so the best thing to do was for Hermione to learn to defend herself. Third, Hermione would become a legal adult in the magical adult a few weeks into her sixth year at Hogwarts, and had always been mature for her age besides. Her parents trusted her to choose her own best path forward.

All of this was why, when Hermione told them that Voldemort had returned, they had considered having her withdraw from Hogwarts, but she ultimately convinced them that disrupting her magical education and taking her away from her friends was a bad idea. And when she explained the events of Ministry, they were not as angry as they could have been.

“We’re not happy that you went off to fight terrorists,” her mother had told her, “but we’re quite glad that you have an invulnerable suit of armor to keep you safe.”

Since coming home, Hermione had been nervous. With no homework to distract her, all she could focus on while her parents were away at work was the war. Harry was split between worrying over his godfather and Remus’s recovery and panicking about the horcrux in his scar. Neither Dumbledore (who Hermione thought had known for several months, the secretive old goat) nor the Asgardian Library (as perused by a surprisingly dedicated Thor) held an answer to the problem. Ginny was focused on supporting Harry and Luna. Ron was managing the installation of the Mordor-Hogwarts secure Floo. Neville was spending time being lauded by his grandmother, an unusual experience for the boy, and helping Luna through her recovery from the battle. The time magic stunts she’d pulled had helped them win, but she was now paying a hefty price for them.

Ron had said in one of their discussions that Voldemort would have to make a strike soon to restore his forces’ morale after the devastating defeat at the Ministry. Hermione only hoped that this counter-strike would fail.

Hermione was startled out of her thoughts by a loud mental ping, one which meant only one thing – a DA member had activated their panic button. In fact, it was a very particular panic button, the one given to Susan Bones. Pulling out the enchanted device designed to receive the distress signal from Bones, she tapped it to listen to the message.

“You-Know-Who and six Death Eaters at Bones Manor. Floo, apparition, portkeys all blocked. Me and Aunt Amelia here alone. Please help.”

“Iron Witch Activate!” she shouted, letting the armor envelop her. Activating the armor’s invisibility feature, she raced out the back door of her house and forced herself into the sky.

Normal brooms could only go so fast. Even the Firebolt maxed out around 240 kilometers per hour, which would take a good two and a half hours to cross England. Ron had made modifications to the usual broom propulsion charms that would allow a flier to reach up to 1000 kilometers per hour in clear air, nearly the speed of sound. It would only take Hermione about fifteen minutes to reach the location of Bones’s beacon, far quicker than the process of creating a map-coordinate portkey.

“Rose,” she said as the land flew under her.

“Yes, Hermione?” the voice of Harry’s noncorporeal daughter answered.

“Please let the others know that Voldemort is attacking Bones Manor with six Death Eaters. I am going to help. And pass on the coordinates so they can make a portkey – but make it a slight distance away since there are anti-portkey spells in place.”

“Understood. Good luck, Aunt Hermione.”

“Thanks, Rose.”

Hermione took deep breaths to calm herself as the minutes of flight passed agonizingly slowly. This would be the first battle she ever entered without the backup of her friends. Sure, she knew she had invulnerable armor, but against Voldemort, nothing was certain.

A beeping alerted her that she was approaching the location of the distress call. Hermione angled her flight downward to where she saw a single figure facing several others with flashes of spellfire.

“Goodbye, Amelia Bones…” Hermione heard Voldemort say. “Avada Kedavra.”

Hermione pushed her suit to cross the last few dozen meters between her and the battle in less than a second, and she landed just in time to intercept the green spell light. Focusing on the power of the Ring of the Dwarves, she commanded the earth beneath the Death Eaters’ feet to rumble, causing them to stumble as she sprayed them with Stunning Spells from her wrists.

“Hermione Granger,” Voldemort snarled as his four still-awake servants regained their footing and revived their comrades.

“Leave, Tom,” Hermione said in the commanding tone she’d perfected in the DA, leaving her arms behind her back. “You’ve lost the day. More reinforcements are coming in minutes.”

Of course, Hermione doubted that Voldemort would actually retreat so easily, especially not after being called by his original name, so she’d taken the opportunity to subtly levitate Director Bones’s wand back to her as well as casting a few healing spells in the older witch’s direction.

“Don’t call me by that filthy name,” Voldemort shouted as he sent a wall of flame at Hermione. It was so intense that she could feel the heat despite the cooling and insulation charms built into her armor. She countered by raising a wall of dirt from the ground between them, which got blasted apart. Hermione transformed the rubble into spikes and sent them hurtling not toward Voldemort but toward his Death Eaters, who were forced to counter them in between dealing with Amelia Bones’s renewed offense.

Hermione was pushed several meters backward by a violent gust of wind from the Dark Lord’s wand. Activating her armor’s flight abilities, she elevated herself out of the air stream and countered by sending a flock of conjured falcons to attack Voldemort. Though the Dark Lord handled them easily, it gave Hermione time to manipulate the ground beneath her enemies’ feet to restrain them. While it worked on the Death Eaters, trapping their feet, Voldemort lifted himself into the air, showing off that he too could fly without a broom.

Hermione spared a moment to shoot some Spell Arrows toward the Death Eaters below before a powerful water attack forced her attention back on the Dark Lord. Hopefully, the elder Bones would be able to survive the lesser opponents she faced.

Knowing that her own power would run out far faster than Voldemort’s, Hermione thrust her wrists into the water stream and activated their electric shock feature, forcing Voldemort to disengage as current flowed toward his wand hand. Pressing her advantage, Hermione sent additional volleys of Spell Arrows at Voldemort, which he deflected with a wind charm.

“You may be powerful in your armor, little witch, but one day I’ll get you outside it and claim it for my own…”

“Never,” Hermione vowed fiercely as she sent a wave of conjured metal spikes at Voldemort from all sides. He surrounded himself in a spherical shield, causing the spikes to bounce off harmlessly.

“Perhaps I cannot beat you right now… but neither can you beat me, and your precious Amelia Bones isn’t doing nearly as well.”

Hermione gazed down and saw, to her dismay, that Bones was desperately struggling against four opponents, with two Death Eaters out of the fight. She tried to send spells down to attack the Death Eaters from above, but Voldemort cast a shield to stop them.

“No, I think that today will be a win for me,” Voldemort said with a smirk as he created giant hands of water to grasp at Hermione. She let the Dark Lord spin and shake her around for a bit as she focused on the Ring of Dwarves and the ground beneath her. The dirt, bending to her will, formed into pillars that shot up beneath the Death Eaters’ feet, giving Amelia Bones a chance to take a breath, regain her own footing, and get another Death Eater with a curse to the left leg. With her recently eaten lunch coming ever closer to Hermione’s mouth, she turned her focus back to her own battle, transfiguring the water hands into steam.

Righting herself, Hermione took a moment to let her stomach and inner ear re-settle while she ordered her armor to bombard Voldemort with minor spells.

“That was just uncalled for,” she muttered as she resumed the offensive with a Blasting Curse and a Draconifors cast at Voldemort’s robes, both of which were countered easily as Hermione was forced to use her magic to part a powerful wind that was pushing her toward the walls of Bones Manor.

“I believe it’s your turn to look beneath you, Tom,” Hermione taunted as she pushed her armor to charge Voldemort mid-air. Her foe dodged out of the way and glanced at the battle on the ground.

Thanks in part to Hermione’s intervention, Amelia Bones was now down to just two opponents, which soon became one as a Death Eater was hit with a Stunner, disarmed, and wrapped in chains. Bones dove to the side to avoid an orange curse from her last opponent before recovering with a powerful barrage of curses. In a reversal of roles, Hermione used her armor to block Voldemort’s attempt to intervene by raining curses on Bones from above.

“Ron’s coming,” Rose’s voice informed her softly. Hermione knew that with her boyfriend’s help, they could drive Tom off by force, but she didn’t want to take the risk.

“As I said, Tom, you’ve lost the day. Amelia Bones is safe. The cavalry is coming. Leave.”

“Very well, Hermione Granger. But we will meet again, and you will not do so well.”

At that, Hermione felt the anti-apparition and anti-portkey spells fall as Voldemort apparated away. Hermione lowered herself to the ground to meet an exhausted Amelia Bones.

“I hope I won’t get into too much trouble for underage magic,” Hermione asked as she ordered her helmet to disengage.

“In trouble, Miss Granger?” Director Bones asked. “You just saved my life and Susan’s by fighting You-Know-Who himself. No, I don’t think you’ll be in trouble. But how did you know to come here?”

“That was me,” Susan Bones called as she exited the manor’s front door. “She gave me something that could call her and Potter and their friends, and when the attack started, I used it.” She turned to face Hermione and bowed her head. “Thank you so much for coming, Granger.”

“You’re welcome, Bones. I promised, after all.”

The elder witch looked between the two students with curiosity. “You never said you knew Potter or any of his group well.”

Amelia Bones was an ally that their group needed to have, Hermione realized. “You can explain the basics,” Hermione told Susan, allowing the bonds of the secrecy contract around Susan to relax. Behind her, she heard someone land on the ground. “Meanwhile, I have a boyfriend to meet.”

“I see you didn’t need any help, ‘Mione,” Ron said as he shrunk his hammer.

“It was close there,” she answered, “but I was able to keep Voldemort occupied while Madame Bones dealt with the Death Eaters, at which point he retreated. You can watch later.”

“I look forward to it,” Ron said with a smile before acknowledging the other witches present. “It’s good to see you safe, Susan, Director Bones.”

“Could we portkey?” Hermione asked as they walked away. “I’d rather not do another transonic flight, not after being shaken like a ragdoll by Voldemort.”

“Like a ragdoll?”

“It was fine,” Hermione reassured him. “I had to focus on the Death Eaters for a bit. Good news is that the armor worked perfectly...”

The two Bones witches watched as Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger vanished in a swirl of light.

Chapter Text

Thursday, 9 July 2015

Harry hated seeing Sirius and Remus like this.

When he had first met his godfather, the man was still convalescing from his time in prison, but he had always a beacon of hope for Harry, hope to get away from the Dursleys. When he had first met Professor Lupin, the werewolf was recovering from a full moon, but he proved his strength soon after. Now, though, the pair of wizards who were nominally Harry’s guardians were now in Harry’s care as they recovered from their day in as captives of the Death Eaters.

The pair spent most of their time in their beds at Grimmauld Place. Despite its dark aura, the Fidelius-warded safehouse was the most secure place for them to recover. Knowing their main house to be a compromised location, Headmaster Dumbledore had gone himself to retrieve various personal effects for Sirius, Remus, and Harry.

The full moon on 1 July had been particularly bad for Remus for several reasons. Madam Pomfrey had forbidden Sirius from joining the werewolf in his animagus form, and Professor Snape had determined that the Wolfsbane would react badly to several of the medical potions that Remus was taking. On top of all this, Remus was still suffering from silver poisoning due to the Death Eaters’ use of the element that was every werewolf’s weakness to torture him. The howls of a wretched wolf had echoed through Grimmauld Place that night.

“How are you feeling?” Harry asked his godfather as he helped the man take his morning potions.

“Every day a little better,” Sirius said with a groan as Harry helped him sit up.

“I’m so sorry—” Harry began as he looked at his godfather’s pitiful form.

“Don’t be,” Sirius said firmly. “It wasn’t your fault that we got captured, and I’m sure Remus is telling you the same thing. We were ambushed outside our house. You went above and beyond to get us back, kid, and the only reason I’m doing even as well as I am is because of your work, not just that night but every night and day since then.”

Harry readjusted his godfather’s blankets as he considered what his godfather was saying. It wasn’t the first time he’d heard it – from Sirius, from Remus, from Ginny, from Rose, and from all of his other friends. But Harry knew the real reason he was letting himself wallow in unfounded guilt – to distract himself from the horrible truth he had learned after the battle.

He hadn’t told Sirius or Remus yet. He said to himself it was because he didn’t want to upset them while they were recovering, but that was just an excuse not to talk about it, as if talking about it would make the problem less real. No, Harry decided, he had to face the truth some time. And that time was in about fifteen minutes.

“Do you think that you’ll be able to walk about today?” Harry asked.

“Maybe this afternoon,” Sirius responded.

Harry picked up his godfather’s empty breakfast plate and carried it down to the kitchen. Strictly speaking, he could have ordered Kreacher to do it, but Harry didn’t like interacting with the surly elf – not only did Kreacher always choose to insult him, but the relationship between Sirius and Kreacher reminded him far too much of the relationship between himself and Uncle Vernon. At least his relationship with Dobby was one of mutual kindness and care.

After scrubbing the plate down and putting it into the sink, Harry made his way to Grimmauld Place’s sitting room, the usual place for war meetings to be held in this house. And the meeting Harry was about to attend was most certainly a war meeting.

Dumbledore arrived first, stepping neatly out of the Floo in his dark purple robes covered with neon green owls. Harry really, really didn’t get the old wizard’s fashion sense.

“Harry,” he said with a nod as he took his seat.

“Headmaster.”

“I believe we’re waiting on one more.”

Just as the Headmaster spoke, the Floo flared again, letting Hermione step through. She looked very good in a Muggle blouse and shorts, and Harry could see the belt containing her inactive armor around her waist. After a brief hug, the two friends sat on a sofa opposite Headmaster Dumbledore.

“First, let me congratulate you, Miss Granger, on your actions to save Amelia Bones two days ago. Her continued survival and work in the Ministry is a boon to the Light.”

“Thank you, Headmaster.”

“Your armor is very impressive,” Dumbledore complimented her. “I am curious how you managed to make it, if you wouldn’t mind.”

“Not at all, Headmaster,” Hermione answered, smiling at the praise from the illustrious wizard. “It’s made of an alchemical alloy I developed to resist magic, strengthened by spells and enchanted with a rune pattern designed by Harry.”

The exact details, of course, would remain a secret. Anything they shared with the Headmaster could in turn be shared with the Order, which inevitably contained spies for Voldemort.

“There is something I’ll need your help with later, though, Harry.”

“Did something break? Do I need to fix anything?” The armor was supposed to last hundreds of battles. If something about the enchantment was failing after just two, well, that was a huge problem.

“No, just an idea I had… Anyway, on to the actual reason we’re here.”

“Yes,” Dumbledore agreed. “Five hundred sixty-one pieces of Tom’s soul. I never would have thought that even he would go that far… or that a soul could even be split that many times.”

“The problem,” said Harry, “is that there is simply no way to find and destroy them all without alerting Voldemort. If there were seven, like sixteen-year-old Tom had originally considered, then a small team could go and destroy them all in a month or so. Even if there were twenty-nine, it would be doable. But hundreds – someone would slip up and alert him.”

“Not to mention, there are probably some locations that we just can’t reach,” Hermione added, “in the middle of an enemy stronghold or on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean or stashed away in a warded box and thrown into a volcano.”

“I have to agree with your assessment,” Dumbledore said. “If Voldemort were to learn that we were hunting his horcruxes, he would secure them even more strongly or worse, pursue further methods of immortality of which we know not.

“My original plan was to share my research concerning Tom Riddle’s past with you, Mr. Potter, during the next school year and to enlist your help to hunt down however many horcruxes he had made. I had reason to believe that Tom may have confided the previous Head of Slytherin and Potions Professor as to his plans, and so I was going to ask you to recruit him to his former position and retrieve the relevant memory. With this new information, though, many of my plans have gone out the window. We must try to capture and contain Voldemort, for his death is no longer an achievable goal.”

“Actually, his capture isn’t achievable either,” said Harry. “Even if we somehow managed it without him escaping, he would just kill his current body and get himself a new one. And, according to Ginny’s memories, even if we managed to keep him permanently unconscious, he has protections that would destroy his current body anyway.”

“So our only hope, really,” Hermione declared. “is some sort of spell that will destroy every horcrux at once.”

“You petitioned the Asgardians for aid once before,” Dumbledore said. “Could you not ask their help again?”

Hermione shook her head. “The Bifrost delivered a box of books to my backyard a few days ago – a copy of everything Thor could find in Asgard’s library on soul magic, as well as the Allfather’s research notes from when he was creating the horcrux tracker. Apparently, Odin was originally hoping to find a way to destroy every horcrux at once, but he wasn’t able to do that and had to settle for tracking them instead. And he called the tracker the most challenging magical task Asgard had faced in the past millennium, save for the reconstruction of the Bifrost Bridge.”

Harry and Dumbledore’s eyes widened. If the task of tracking horcruxes was comparable to the rebuilding of the legendary Rainbow Bridge that connected the Nine Realms, how hard would it be to achieve the end of Voldemort’s immortality?

“So we have a problem that stumped the millennia-old King of Asgard,” Harry said sadly. “And, we have this.” Harry placed his right index finger upon his signature scar. He hadn’t gotten any visions or sensations through his link with Voldemort since Rose had helped expel his possession at the Ministry.

“I have to wonder, though,” Harry continued. “You were surprised about the 561, but not this. Did you know, Headmaster?”

“Harry, my boy…” the old wizard began in a placating tone.

“Yes or no, Headmaster,” Harry said. “Did. You. Know?”

“I knew,” Dumbledore admitted, and Harry saw red. Dumbledore knew that Harry would have to die to kill Voldemort, and he hadn’t shared that. Of all the secrets the man kept, that was by far the worst.

“How long?” Hermione demanded angrily, coming to Harry’s defense. “And when exactly were you going to tell him?”

“I’d started to suspect toward the end of the Triwizard Tournament,” Dumbledore said, “though I was unable to confirm it until just before this past Christmas. As for when I was going to tell you… well at first, I had a theory that if you went to your death willingly, Harry, by Voldemort’s Killing Curse, with Voldemort’s soul in you and your blood still in him, that you might be able to return to life. It was a mere supposition, an educated guess by an old and learned man, but I thought it your best chance.

“Then Voldemort came back using another’s blood, and I started looking for another solution in the hope that I could present it to you at the same time I told you of the existence of the horcruxes. For much of the two months I was on the run from the Ministry, I was hunting down every word that had ever been written about soul magic in the hope of finding an answer. But alas, the true masters of the soul were the druids, and their tradition was entirely oral.”

“What about non-human sources?” Hermione asked. “The dwarves knew quite a bit about druidic traditions that we didn’t.”

“The dwarves?” Dumbledore questioned.

“Long story,” Harry said. “We can look, but I don’t think they knew much about the druids’ deeper secrets. House-elves? Everyone underestimates them.”

“Ask Dobby,” Hermione agreed. “There are also centaurs, goblins, merfolk…”

“Merfolk!” Harry exclaimed. “Murcus might have a solution, and you wouldn’t have even had a chance to ask her, Headmaster, since she lives at Hogwarts. Besides, there’s something she told me once… ‘We were there when the first of the high elves awoke, and the first druids came to us to learn their craft, though they took it far beyond anything we ever did.’”

“I must admit, I did not consider asking Merchieftainess Murcus,” Dumbledore admitted, “though I was not aware you had interacted outside the Second Task.”

“She invited me back to speak with her more,” Harry said. “And if there is no solution for us on Earth, well… Thor’s going hunting across the universe for answers to another question. He’s promised to look into ours as well. There are countless worlds out there… more than just Earth, more than just the Nine Realms under Asgard’s protection. Surely, somewhere out there, there is an answer. And I have to believe that if we can’t find it, then Thor will.”

“I will do my best to share your optimism, Harry, though I do wonder exactly where you found the knowledge of the fallen dwarven civilization.”

“As I said, Headmaster,” Harry answered, “it’s a very long story, but to make it short – I visited Mordor last summer and found far, far more than anybody realized was there.”

Dumbledore’s piercing blue eyes scrutinized Harry for a moment before turning away. Clearly, the man had decided that he wasn’t going to try for any more of Harry’s secrets today.

“One more thing, Headmaster,” Hermione said as the man stood up to depart.

“Yes, Miss Granger?”

“Harry and I would like to join the order. So would Ron, Ginny, Neville, and Luna.”

“As I said last summer, Miss Granger, I cannot allow you and your friends into the Order while you are still underage.”

“And despite that,” Harry countered, “we stopped Voldemort’s resurrection four years ago, and again three years ago, and captured a Death Eater two years ago, and I did both last year, and I got you to safety in April. And a few weeks ago, the six of us rescued two Order members, captured an army of Death Eaters, and revealed Voldemort’s return. And, Hermione singlehandedly fought off Voldemort on Tuesday.”

“And most importantly,” Hermione added, “it’s either Neville or Harry who will end up winning this war, and they can’t do that if they’re being kept in the dark like you’ve been doing to Harry.”

Dumbledore scowled. “Very well. I will allow Harry to attend if I get Sirius’s permission as his guardian. And I have no doubt he will inform the rest of you of anything he hears.”

“Thank you, sir,” Harry said graciously as the man turned to depart. “Have a good day.”

“You as well.”

Harry stayed silent until he was quite sure that Dumbledore had left, and without leaving any listening spells.

“I know I said this already, but I am so, so proud of how well you did against Voldemort, Hermione.”

“Thanks, Harry,” she said happily. “It was a hard battle. And can I just say how amazing Madame Bones was? I mean, she took down six Death Eaters with just a little help from me, and that was after having held off Voldemort and those Death Eaters for a good five minutes beforehand.”

“Wow. I’m not sure I could do that without my Shield.”

“To be fair, your entire fighting style is based around that Shield.”

Hermione had a point. While he could duel without his Shield, he far preferred having the solid defense of his rune-enchanted weapon on his left arm while he flung spells with his right.

“Speaking of that fight, you mentioned that you had an improvement you needed me to make to your armor. What’s the problem?”

“To be frank, Harry, the problem is that the armor we made is too good.”

“Too good? How is that a problem?”

“Because it means that I can only use a few of the features at any one time. I mean, you remember what happened when I tried to activate them all at once.”

Harry winced at the memory of Hermione doubling over in pain from the strain of focusing on seven things at once.

“I can use maybe three of them myself at any one time. With some serious training, I might be able to get up to four.”

“I see the problem. Even though you’re the only one of us to have actually beaten Voldemort one-on-one, your armor was designed to take on large numbers of weaker opponents. And if you can only use half your weapons at any given time… What’s the solution?”

“I was thinking that we might take a bit more inspiration from Tony Stark, and create an AI copilot. Initially I was thinking of linking Rose into the armor’s enchantments…”

“But she’s really not made for combat,” Harry said.

“That’s what I thought.”

“Not to mention, even the few things she did for us in the Ministry – pinging the twins, helping me draw the runes, and driving Voldemort out – took a lot out of her. I’m not sure she could handle being a full-time combat AI.”

Harry reached for his connection with his daughter and sent the question to her.

“I’d rather not, dad,” Rose’s voice came into his mind as a response. “I was created to satisfy my Purpose, and to do anything else is a challenge.”

Harry relayed Rose’s response to Hermione.

“My next thought was that magical portraits are kind of like artificial intelligences, but then again, if all portraits are like the ones we’ve met, I’m not sure I’d want one riding around with me in battle. So what I’d like to ask you to do is to create one from scratch.”

“I’m not sure that’s possible, Hermione. It took Tony Stark and millions of pounds worth of computer servers to create JARVIS. Even with magic, I’m not sure I can do the same – I’m no Tony Stark.”

“It’s an interesting idea, dad,” Rose said in Harry’s mind, “and one that I wouldn’t mind helping you with. I think we can do it. Besides, I’m seventy years old. I wouldn’t mind having a child of my own.”

“If you really think we can do it,” Harry thought back at her, “I’d love to work on that project with you.”

Harry re-focused on the real world. “Rose is far more enthusiastic – she thinks that creating a magical AI is a real possibility for the two of us. So we might have a solution for you. Just don’t expect it to be soon.”

“Of course not, Harry, and besides, I hope I won’t be going in battle for a while.”

“I hope not either. With his failures at the Ministry and now Bones Manor, we can hope that Voldemort and his Death Eaters will be taking some time to regroup.”

“We can hope,” Hermione agreed.

Chapter Text

Sunday, 5 July 2015

Ron smiled as he sat down for a Sunday dinner at the Burrow’s crowded table. He hadn’t had a chance to have such a meal in several years, from his perspective. But now, the entire Weasley family was together, if only for one night – one beautiful, lovely, warm summer night within the Burrow’s loving walls.

He took his usual seat with his sister taking the seat directly to his left. Opposite them sat the twins, returned for the evening from their apartment above Diagon Alley’s newest and hottest storefront, Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes. The family patriarch took the head position with his wife to his right. Percy had returned to the family fold and was squeezed between their mother and Ginny, while Bill and Charlie, the first back in Britain on Order of the Phoenix business and the second just home for a weekend visit, took the remaining seats on their dad’s left.

When he was younger, Ron was often jealous of others’ wealth, comparing his family’s rickety house to the grand homes of many other families. Yet his experiences as a friend of Harry had taught him how much value their was in friends and family who would stand by you always. And so, Ron couldn’t help but smile at seeing the Weasley clan reunited.

He was smiling for another reason – today marked the last day of his and Ginny’s grounding for running off to fight Death Eaters. It was only one week of grounding since they’d had a very good reason to do so (namely the rescue of Sirius and Remus) and since they’d managed to get out alive and mostly unscathed. To be fair, the grounding hadn’t been that bad for Ron since he had communication mirrors to talk to his girlfriend and to his best friend. Ginny’s grounding had been even easier since she’d convinced mum to let her visit her best friend Luna to support her convalescence and Grimmauld Place to support Harry in caring for Sirius and Remus.

“So, Dad, Percy,” Charlie asked. “I’ve heard the Ministry is still in an uproar.”

“I’m afraid that’s partially my fault, Charles,” Percy said without a hint of remorse. “After I provided evidence of the outgoing Minister’s wrongdoings to Madame Bones and explained my motivations to her, she tasked me to help her determine what actions of Fudge’s were problematic or illegal.”

“When will Fudge be out?” Ron asked.

“The vote of no confidence is this Friday, I believe,” his dad answered.

“Correct, father, and the election of the replacement Minister will occur two weeks later,” Percy added. “Hopefully, Madame Bones will be chosen for the post.”

“I hope so, too,” Ginny said.

From there, the conversation turned to his dad’s increased workload in monitoring and regulating enchanted objects, especially ones claimed to be protective. The twins were eager to announce that they’d received a large order from the Ministry for their Shield Hats as well as inquiries into the other products that Ron and his friends had used during the Battle of the Ministry. Bill shared that he was going to be continuing to stay in Britain, working for Gringotts and helping the Order’s war effort, while Charlie was returning to Romania – dragon sanctuaries were valuable targets for dark lords, and with Voldemort openly returned, every wand was needed to keep the dragons safe and out of his hands.

“So, what are you two doing this summer?” Bill asked.

“Staying home and staying safe,” his mum immediately responded.

“Actually…” he countered.

“Oh, no,” his mum said fiercely. “You’re not going off to fight Death Eaters or some nonsense like that.”

“No, I’m not,” Ron agreed, “but Harry… inherited a very heavily-warded safehouse last summer, and he’s asked for my help in getting it set up. Just like we did for Headquarters last summer.”

“Headquarters is under a Fidelius held by Albus Dumbledore himself,” his mother argued. “Some random safehouse that Harry owns is hardly going to be as safe as that.”

“It’s safer, actually,” Fred spoke up.

“The strongest wards in the world,” George added as Ron and Ginny nodded.

“The strongest wards…” Bill repeated. “Wait. Do you mean Mordor?”

“Harry is the third and current holder of the wards of Mordor,” Ginny affirmed. “Has been since his birthday last year.”

“But… how?” Bill asked incredulously. “Nobody has been able to get into there for over a century!”

“The previous ward holder chose him as his successor,” Ginny said, as if it was a simple thing. Well, to the Golden Light, it absolutely was, but to outsiders…

“I’ll be perfectly safe there,” Ron assured his mother. “More than at either the Burrow or Headquarters. Nobody who means me harm will be able to get close – the protections are absolute. And I won’t even be using my wand.” In fact, the reconstruction of the stone fortress would require the power of the Ring of the Dwarves embedded in Mjolnir 2.

Bill nodded in agreement. “Warders and ward-breakers have spent more than a century trying to get through those protections, ever since Sauron fell. If those same wards are intact, then not even You-Know-Who and all his armies could break them.”

“And what are you planning for your summer, Ginny?” his dad asked.

“Well,” his sister answered with a smile, “I’m going to spend some time with Harry, of course, and with Luna while her magic’s recovering. On the more serious side,” she continued as her expression sobered, “I have quite a bit of research to do, and no clue where to start beyond the notes we were promised.”

“What are you going to be researching?” Percy asked, his eyes alight with interest.

“It’s a secret,” Ginny said seriously.

“Less than a dozen people know,” Ron added, “and Dumbledore would prefer if it were even less, but since we found out on our own, he’s not going to turn down our help.”

As expected, invoking Dumbledore was enough to satisfy the older half of the Weasley family.

“Is there anything we can do to help?” said his father.

“Even if you can’t tell us the details, we can help you find resources,” Percy added. “The Ministry’s archives are extensive.”

The four youngest Weasleys exchanged a series of glances as they tried to decide what to do. If any word got back to Voldemort about what they were looking into, he might try to pursue other methods of avoiding death of which they had no knowledge.

“Druids,” Ginny ultimately said. “Anything whatsoever related to them and their offshoots around the world.”

“And please, please, try not to let anybody else know,” Ron added. “Not even Madame Bones, Percy. Not any of your colleagues, Bill. If this gets back to the wrong ears… it would be beyond disastrous.”

Ron made a mental note to ask Rose if she could spare some power and attention to making sure that no news of their research made it to Voldemort’s ears. It wasn’t exactly within her original purpose, but it was close enough that he thought she might be able to make it work.

As the dinner wrapped up and the Weasley family split to go their separate ways, Ron and Ginny secured reluctant approval from their parents for their summer activities. Ron was looking forward to his.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Monday, 13 July 2015

The castle of Mordor had exactly one full-time resident, one Theodore Nott. Despite being the son of an Imperius-acquitted Death Eater, he had joined the Defense Association last year and done quite well. Despite his parentage, he had never once spouted blood purist rhetoric, interacting with his muggleborn, half-blood, and blood traitor fellow students with respect. He had never shown any signs of duplicity, and he’d even voluntarily affirmed under a lesser truth spell that he had refused to inform on Harry’s movements during the hostage crisis at the end of the year. And so, it was not in any way a hard decision for Harry and his friends to approve of Nott’s request for sanctuary during the summer.

Nott’s original accommodations consisted of a room in the interior of the fortress proper, a transfigured cot to sleep on, meals prepared and brought by Dobby, and the assurance that Mordor’s wards would let him use his wand as needed in his daily life without triggering the Trace.

Nott had not idly enjoyed Harry’s hospitality. By the end of his first week in the fortress, he had created a fairly detailed map of the fortress’s interior and the overall grounds, marking well the contents and states of each room and secondary building.

On Ron’s first day portkeying into Mordor, Nott had been there to greet him and give him a grand tour. On his second day, Nott and Ron had helped the DA members who had come to set up the Mordor end of the Hogwarts-Mordor secure Floo connection. Now, Ron and Nott were fully able to travel back and forth between the designated fireplace in Mordor (located in a medium-sized chamber in the center of the first floor of the main fortress) and the designated fireplace in the Chamber of Secrets (located in a meeting room commandeered by the Floo group on the Chamber’s second floor). For the rest of that first week, Ron followed Nott’s map and guidance as he used his hammer to repair the worst damage to Mordor – both natural and from the final siege of Sauron’s War. Somehow, over the course of that week, Nott the Slytherin acquaintance became Theo the maybe-friend in Ron’s mind.

Ron activated his portkey after breakfast on Monday, returning to the Floo room, where, unsurprisingly, Theo was waiting for him.

“How was your weekend?” Ron asked.

“Boring,” Theo admitted, “but better than the alternative. And I did some work on those room allocations we talked about.”

“How many in the fortress?”

“I think we can fit a good two thousand people in here and still have plenty of room. You won’t even have to shift many walls,” Theo said, earning an impressed look from Ron. “Not to mention, there are still all those extra buildings outside.”

“Speaking of those, I think it’s time I dealt with shoring those up, isn’t it?”

Theo handed him a few sheets of paper – the Slytherin boy had grown to appreciate the non-magical writing medium as an alternative to wizarding parchment. “These have my notes on the damage I spotted in each building.”

“Thanks, Theo,” Ron said with a smile.

“See you at lunch,” Theo called as he split ways from Ron. “I’m going to check out the dungeons some more.”

“Of course you would, you Slytherin,” Ron retorted lightly as he made his way to begin the day’s work. For each building, he started by examining it in several ways – with his eyes, of course, with the extra senses he gained in the Rite of Air to visualize the whole structure at once, and by casting certain spells he’d learned or created to find hidden defects. After comparing his observations to Theo’s, he used the Ring of the Dwarves inside Mjolnir 2 to repair and strengthen the building’s structure until it was whole and sturdy again. The process would have been tedious drudgework were it not for the efficiency granted by the use of magic and the sense of satisfaction that came from seeing a broken building be restored to perfect condition through Ron’s will alone.

After fixing three buildings, Ron noticed that he and Theo were not alone in Mordor – a very familiar figure was kneeling in the soil in the area that had been blocked out for farming.

“Neville!” he called out.

It took a bit for the boy to respond, causing Ron to approach him in concern, but before Ron could reach him, he turned toward Ron and said, “Hi, Ron.”

“Are you okay?”

Neville waved dismissively. “I was fine; I was just focusing on the Earth.”

“You’re trying the Rite?” Ron asked. “How’s it going?”

“Slow,” Neville admitted. “Extraordinarily, excruciatingly, lethargically slow – and I should really thank Hermione for all those words, because you can’t imagine how slow it is. But taking care of plants requires care and patience, too. I know that I can do this.”

“If anyone can connect to the Earth, I have no doubt it’s you, Nev,” Ron said. Even if his friend was far more confident than he used to be, a bit of help here and there never hurt. “Your grandmother let you come?”

“Gran was never mad at me about the Ministry,” said Neville. “In fact, she was proud of me for once – proud that I was fighting for what’s right, proud that I took on Bellatrix Lestrange. She said that I could get my own wand now.” Neville drew a familiar amateur-made wand. “I might go get an Ollivander’s, but this one has worked just fine since Hermione made it for me. The hard part was convincing her that I wanted to spend the summer on an Herbology project. It was only when I argued that it was for the war effort that she supported it.”

“Mental,” Ron muttered. “My mum was the opposite – all about keeping me and Ginny safe. I get it, I do, but the two of us were fighting off hordes of Death Eaters a few weeks ago. She can’t force us to stay behind a dozen Protegos in the name of safety – we can defend ourselves and she knows it. But I suppose that’s how she shows she cares.”

“Almost lunchtime,” Neville said, checking on his watch. After briefly closing his eyes and pressing his hand to the ground, he followed Ron’s lead back toward the castle, where Theo and Dobby were no doubt waiting with food.

“How’s Hermione?” Neville asked. “I mean, I’ve seen her messages, but you were there at the battle.”

“She came out with nothing worse than an upset stomach,” Ron assured him. “The armor is beyond good.”

“Hermione and Harry and Luna did an amazing job with it,” Neville agreed. “I think Voldemort will hesitate to confront her openly again.”

“Which raises the question of what subtler moves he’ll make next. And I don’t think we’ll find out until it’s too late.”

The two boys walked through the hallways of the fortress, now lit with a few enchanted torches.

“You did a really good job with the repairs,” Neville said.

“Thanks. And you should tell Theo, too – he put a lot of time into the project. But there’s quite a bit to do yet. Hermione has promised to come over and help when she’s not busy with her other research.”

“She does have a knack for detailed transfigurations that, well…”

“I’ll freely admit that my girlfriend is better than me in that area. When it comes to creating the furnishings, I’ll absolutely be wanting her help.”

“Even with the whole DA, though,” Neville pointed out, “it’s going to take a while to get the whole place ready to be lived in.”

“Theo estimated two thousand people. That’s two thousand beds and closets, hundreds of toilets and showers, a massive kitchen… We might need to lean on Tony Stark for help. The Muggles really know how to make lots of things.”

“Mass production, I think, is the term,” Neville agreed. He had taken Muggle Studies as one of his electives. “And furniture isn’t the only thing we need to make lots of.”

“What?”

“Spell Arrows,” Neville said, “and the mini Spell Darts that go into Hermione’s armor. She went through several days’ worth of work in a ten-minute battle.”

“True,” Ron agreed. “That’s the downside of the Spell Arrows – each one takes time and skill to make. We have a huge stockpile, but that will deplete quickly if we start using them in battle after battle.”

“And I don’t think Tony Stark will be able to help us with that,” Neville said wryly.

“So, magical mass production? I suppose that’s another project for us. Or really for Harry and Luna, since such a thing would probably require some heavy-duty runes work.”

“Isn’t Harry already working on another project for Hermione?”

“We still have some time before the war escalates to the point where we’re running out of Spell Arrows. And once we get back to school, we’ll have access to the time dilation again.”

Ron paused to note down what they’d discussed in the group’s linked journals, while Neville went ahead to greet Theo and Dobby. The three wizards and one house-elf enjoyed a simple but filling meal before going their separate ways once more – Ron back to his repairs, Neville to his plants, Theo to his dungeons, and Dobby to his cleaning and cooking.

As Neville resumed his task of sowing food crops, he entered the meditative state described in King Dain’s knowledge crystal and resumed his ‘conversation’ with the Earth. While Ron had described his experience with the Air as being a rapid fire back and forth, Neville would often have to listen for a day just to get a single message from the innate spirit and intelligence of the Earth, and focus on a single idea for hours in order to respond. Yet, slowly but surely, Neville thought he was making progress toward completing the Rite of the Earth.

In the end, though, if Neville knew anything, it was this – if you tend and care for the Earth, it will care for you in return. That was the unspoken secret of Herbology that so few people really understood. And it would be the key to his success.

Neville was jolted out of his reverie when he noticed that the sun was nearly at the horizon. Gently bringing the Rite to a pause, he stood up and gazed over everything he’d planted today. His hands were dirty and his knees soiled, but he had a wide smile on his face.

He couldn’t wait for tomorrow.

Chapter Text

Sunday, 19 July 2015

“Hello, Bill,” Ginny called as she came down the stairs for breakfast. Her curse-breaker eldest brother, accustomed to rising early to explore tombs, was already done with his morning meal and reading Warding Monthly in the sitting room.

“Good morning, Ginny,” he answered. “Sleep well?”

Ginny briefly thanked her mother as she served her a plate before taking it and sitting across from her brother.

“Very well,” she said. “Do you have anything planned for today?”

“Not much,” Bill said. “Just a dinner tonight.”

“With Fleur?” Ginny asked teasingly.

“Yes,” said Bill as he blushed, and Ginny smirked. She really was happy for Bill. Though Fleur had a snooty exterior, her relationship with Ron had proven that she was far, far more than her Veela face.

“Is it weird,” she wondered aloud, “dating Ron’s ex?”

“Engaged, actually,” Bill corrected, “if tonight goes well.”

“Oh!” Ginny squealed. “I hope it does.”

“And yes, it’s a bit weird, and we’ve talked about it, but she’s been very good about keeping her relationship with Ron distinct from her relationship with me. And I’ve done my best not to be jealous of my little brother.”

“That’s great,” said Ginny with a wide smile. “I was wondering if you could help me out today with something.”

“Sure,” Bill agreed amiably. “What do you need?”

“I need your curse-breaking skills,” Ginny explained. “There are some dark artifacts that I need to hunt down for Dumbledore.”

“You’re fourteen!” Bill protested.

“I’m… uniquely suited for the task,” Ginny argued, “and I’m very good. And I also have this.”

Ginny summoned her sword and let Bill examine it. As soon as he saw the writing on it – “Take me up” on one side and “Cast me away” on the other, his eyebrows flew upward.

“The Excalibur?” he asked. “I know the papers said you had some sort of magic sword, but… And Mordor? How many other legendary objects have you and your friends come across?”

“Many.”

“Alright,” he said, “I can see how this might give you an advantage. But I still think the Headmaster should be the one handling this.”

“He has other things to worry about,” Ginny said.

“Fine,” Bill relented. “What is the object?”

“It’s a signet ring, cursed by Voldemort, and probably hidden behind traps he created as well. It’s in a town called Little Hangleton.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The Ring was the second Horcrux Ginny was going to retrieve. The first had already been retrieved from Grimmauld Place of all places in an incident that involved Kreacher, Mundungus Fletcher, and a whole lot of catharsis for Sirius over his dead little brother. It had been placed in a box that the entire Golden Light had warded to block the horcrux’s mental influence. They didn’t want a repeat of the diary, no thank you. When it came time to study the horcrux locket, they would place it inside somewhat more temporary but equally powerful protection spells in a specially designated room of the Chamber of Secrets.

Already, Bill had dismantled three outer wards on the path from the main road toward the derelict shack indicated by the Asgardian horcrux tracker. Ginny hadn’t had to do much except keep an eye out for any unwanted observers.

She was also keeping a line of communication open to Rose in case she needed to call in the cavalry. But that would mean that the horcrux hunt had been discovered before it had even begun, which would spell disaster for the war.

“I could use your help,” Bill said, turning Ginny’s attention back to where he had paused in his work. “These hedges are enchanted to attack anyone who tries to get through them, as well as to resist most forms of destruction. But I figured…”

“Say no more,” Ginny said happily as she swung the Excalibur through the cursed plants. The powerful sword slid through the living barrier with ease, creating an opening wide enough for Bill and Ginny to rush through, even as it tried to regrow itself to close the hole.

“That certainly would have come in handy a few times when I was in Egypt,” Bill mused as he continued to do his work. Every ten minutes or so, he would ask for Ginny’s help, either with the Excalibur or with spells.

“That’s not your wand,” Bill pointed out the first time he asked for the latter.

“It’s a Hermione-made backup,” Ginny explained. “Trace-free.”

“The more I hear about what you and your friends have been doing, the more impressed I am.”

Two hours after arriving in Little Hangleton, the siblings finally reached the doorway of the shack.

“Needs a particular language to open,” Bill concluded after a few minutes of analysis. “Probably Parseltongue, given… that.” He gestured lazily at the well-preserved body of a snake that had been mounted on the door. The grotesque decoration was certainly Voldemort’s style.

“Should have brought Harry,” Ginny muttered before pointing the Excalibur at the door.

“Go ahead,” Bill said tiredly, and Ginny sliced around the door frame.

“Excalibur trumps enchantments,” she declared as she let the sword rest by her leg.

“Let me take the lead again,” Bill ordered, and Ginny stood back to let him into the shack first. When she entered, she saw that the shack had a spartan interior – an unused hearth on one wall, a few dusty and broken-down pieces of furniture, and a simple wooden table in the center, on which the object they were seeking was sitting alone.

Bill was already moving to reach toward it, which seemed strange to Ginny given the caution he had displayed previously, throughout their excursion.

“Have you checked the table for curses?” she asked, but Bill hardly paused in his movement toward the ring, not listening to her at all.

“Shit,” she swore as she rushed toward the table, lifting her sword in the process. She knew that horcruxes had the ability to influence minds, and this one seemed intent on getting Bill to touch it.

Ginny was fast, but Bill had a head start. The only thing that saved her brother was the fact that Excalibur gave her longer reach. As the tip passed Bill’s outstretched hand just a few inches from the ring, Ginny swung it, hoping just to get the ring away from Bill’s grasp.

But that wasn’t what happened at all.

As soon as the blade impacted the ring, the horcrux began to emit a horrible scream as it expelled black smoke. Bill suddenly snapped out of his trance and backed away from the table in horror. A few seconds later, the display was over. What remained of the ring was a twisted remnant of its former self (though the stone set in it remained untouched).

“Thanks for the save, Ginny,” said Bill shakily. “What in Merlin’s name was that?”

“Can’t say,” she said. “Ask Dumbledore. He probably won’t even be happy that I brought you, but…”

“You absolutely shouldn’t have come here alone.”

After taking a minute to steady himself, Bill waved his wand around the partially destroyed ring. “There’s a nasty withering curse on this,” he reported. “If you hadn’t been there to destroy it – well, I would have died.” A few more muttered incantations later, and he relaxed. “It’s safe now.”

Ginny levitated the ring off the table and into the bag she had specially prepared to transport a live horcrux. Even with a dead one, it was best to take precautions.

“Let’s go home,” she said, and the two Weasleys reversed course out of the abandoned, derelict building. At her request, Bill did his best to minimize the trace they left, just in case Voldemort came looking. By the time they got out, it was nearly four in the afternoon.

“Thank you so much for this, Bill,” Ginny said.

“It was a challenge, to be sure,” he responded. “Now, I have a proposal to get ready for.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Saturday, 1 August 2015

“Happy birthday once more, Harry.”

“Thank you, Headmaster.”

Harry and Neville’s joint sixteenth birthday party the previous had been an undeniable success. All of their friends had shown up, along with most of the Order of the Phoenix. Mrs. Weasley had baked them a massive, delicious cake. Padfoot and Moony were both recovered enough after a month of convalescence not only to celebrate with Harry but to get into a small prank war with the Weasley twins. Luna, too, was fully recovered and back to her usual self.

“Please don’t do that again,” Harry had begged her after greeting the Ravenclaw girl with a hug. “I know that winning would have harder—”

“Impossible,” Luna had corrected.

“Impossible,” Harry had admitted, “without what you did, but it took you out for a month. I’m not sure I could bear it again.”

“I’ll do my best,” she had answered, “but that’s all I can promise.”

Now, Dumbledore had shown up again at Grimmauld Place, dressed in a mauve traveling cloak.

“I have need of your assistance, if you’d be willing,” he said.

“What do you need?” Harry asked. He still wasn’t happy with the Headmaster’s choice to conceal his scar horcrux, but they’d come to a truce for the sake of the war effort.

“I believe I mentioned in our discussion last month that I had been planning on recruiting the former Head of Slytherin because I thought he might have information on the number of Tom’s horcruxes. Although we have that information already, I still believe he is needed. After all, Hogwarts always needs at least one new teacher.”

“Didn’t you say he was a Potions Master?” Harry asked.

“He is,” Dumbledore affirmed. “One of the most skilled in the world. He’s even managed to brew a cauldron Felix Felicis once, which not even Severus has achieved.”

“But—” Harry protested. Didn’t they need a Defense Professor? And then he realized. “You’re finally giving Snape Defense, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Dumbledore agreed. “If all goes according to plan, Professor Snape will take the Defense Position this year.”

“Even though it’s cursed?”

Dumbledore nodded gravely. “Even though, the time is approaching where he may be needed elsewhere.”

“I suppose,” Harry agreed, “that it’s time.”

Dumbledore led the way out of Grimmauld Place and stopped on its front stoop. “Have you ever Side-Alonged before, Harry?”

“Sirius and Remus have Side-Alonged me a few times.”

“Very good.”

Harry grasped the Headmaster’s proffered arm. The old wizard spun on his heel and popped away, pulling Harry along with him through apparition’s characteristic tight tube.

They arrived in a nondescript Muggle small town. Harry let Dumbledore lead him down a series narrow street toward one particular stone house.

“What exactly is the name of the wizard are we going to meet?” Harry asked.

“I suppose I never did give you a name,” Dumbledore said as they arrived at the house’s front stoop. “He is Potions Master Horace Slughorn. Oh, dear.”

“What?” Harry asked as he drew his wand and prepared to open his Shield. Then, he spotted the front door of the house, which was entirely off its hinges.

“Lumos,” Dumbledore incanted, and Harry let him take the lead as they explored the trashed house. The furniture was destroyed, a chandelier fallen and shattered, and the walls coated with blood. But still, something didn’t seem quite right.

“Yes,” Dumbledore said lightly, “something horrible happened here.”

Harry was taking his own look around. Dumbledore was nowhere near serious enough for someone whose longtime colleague was dead or captured. Something had to be wrong here. “It looks like there was a fight,” Harry mused, “and then Slughorn was taken away. But the blood… it’s all in one place. Some of the shrapnel should be bloody, and it isn’t.”

“Well deduced, Mr. Potter. In fact, he’s still here somewhere.”

Dumbledore went and poked his wand into a stuffed armchair, which transformed into a heavyset old man. Harry’s eyes widened at the impressive self-transfiguration.

“There was no need to stick the wand in that hard,” he complained as he massaged his belly and stood back up.

“You already knew something was wrong, didn’t you, sir?” Harry asked.

“Yes,” Slughorn agreed. “What gave it away?”

“My dear Horace,” Dumbledore explained, “if the Death Eaters really had come to call, they would have left the Dark Mark over the house.”

“Wouldn’t have had time for that anyway,” the Potions Master muttered.

The two wizards worked together to repair the room and siphon up an extremely valuable flask of dragon’s blood. With that concluded, Slughorn finally turned his attention to the third person his room.

“Oho!” he exclaimed. “Is this…?”

“Harry Potter,” Dumbledore introduced him, “meet Horace Slughorn, who, as I’ve said, is one of the world’s best Potioneers and an old colleague of mine.”

“You flatter me,” Slughorn said, “but I’m afraid that you’re still not going to persuade me. The answer is no, Albus.”

“Then we might have a drink, at least?” Dumbledore offered. “For old time’s sake.”

It quickly became clear that Dumbledore was getting nowhere in his quest to recruit the man, and Harry lost what respect he had gained for him. A castle of teenagers had worked day in and day out to prepare for the war, and here was Slughorn, hiding out in Muggle homes.

“Why did you even allow this, Rose?” Harry wondered in his head.

“Sorry, Dad,” she answered back quickly, sounding chagrined, “but with the war coming, I’ve had to let little things go by the wayside to save energy for when it matters.”

“Fair enough.”

When Harry tuned back into the real-world conversation, it was to join in the mutual disdain for one Dolores Umbridge.

“She was a woman who got off on abusing her students,” Harry added in venomously, “and hid behind bureaucracy and the Ministry to get away with it.”

Dumbledore stood up suddenly.

“Are you leaving?” Slughorn asked hopefully.

“No,” Dumbledore said. “Might I use your bathroom?”

“Second on the left down the hall,” Slughorn said helpfully, though he was disappointed.

The remaining two wizards sat in silence for a while.

“I know what he’s doing,” Slughorn said, “why he’s brought you.”

The man’s eyes grew teary as he looked at Harry’s face.

“You look very much like your father,” Slughorn said.

“But with my mother’s eyes,” Harry answered, finishing the sentence he heard from everyone who had known his parents. “I’ve been told.”

“Yes, well… you shouldn’t have favorites as a teacher, but… she was one of mine.”

Harry enjoyed hearing the potioneer sing his mother’s praises. Too often, people compared him to his father and not his mother – even Sirius and Remus did that, though it was understandable given that they knew James better than Lily. As Slughorn continued his reminiscence (including a brief, uncomfortable show of blood purism), it eventually turned to a well-practiced litany of all of Slughorn’s famous former students. And Harry realized exactly what he had to say.

“And all these people know where to find you, to send you things?”

“Of course not,” Slughorn said morosely. “I’ve been out of contact with everyone for a year. But still, it’s smarter to stay out of things, keep my head down. To join the faculty would be tantamount to declaring my loyalty to the Order of the Phoenix – and I don’t fancy their mortality rate.”

Harry considered arguing that not every professor was part of the Order. Flitwick, for instance, wasn’t officially a member, even if he had fought against both Grindelwald and Voldemort. Neither were Babbling, Vector, Sinistra, or Sprout, from the ones Harry knew for certain. Yet Slughorn had a point – going to Hogwarts meant declaring a side.

“There is no neutrality, I’m afraid,” he said. “Tom Riddle isn’t the kind of wizard who would allow it.”

Slughorn paled at the mention of Voldemort’s true name. “Who is Tom—?"

“Don’t pretend you don’t know, Professor,” Harry chided, “that despite all your connections, despite having taught him in his youth, you wouldn’t have been able to figure out Voldemort’s true identity.”

Slughorn shuddered at the Dark Lord’s chosen name.

“It is one of my greatest shames, Mr. Potter,” Slughorn admitted.

“You couldn’t have known,” Harry reassured him. “Not a single person did.”

“Dumbledore did,” Slughorn retorted.

“Dumbledore is Dumbledore. Dumbledore, the first one to ever truly oppose him and the only one he ever feared.”

“Perhaps not anymore,” said Slughorn. “Your and your friends’ showing at the Ministry, from what I read, was extraordinary.”

“Then you should come to Hogwarts,” Harry argued. “Dumbledore will be there. My friends and I will be there. Flitwick will be there, and he was at the last battle of the Grindelwald War, as you probably know. The Order of the Phoenix will defend it and its ancient wards will protect it. It will be far safer for you than running around the villages of Britain, hoping that the house you’re staying is never attacked for real. And all Dumbledore is asking you to do is to teach.”

“Very well,” Slughorn relented, just as Dumbledore returned from his ‘bathroom’ trip.

“Well, Harry, we have imposed on Horace long enough. I suppose it is time for us to leave.”

“I’ve agreed to do it,” Slughorn said, and Dumbledore beamed.

“Wonderful,” he said. “Then I shall see you on the first of September.”

As they returned to Grimmauld Place, Dumbledore warned Harry that Slughorn liked to collect promising students into his Slug Club and that he would likely see Harry as the crown jewel of his collection. That, Harry decided, would certainly make life interesting in the upcoming school year.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Saturday, 15 August 2015 (roughly)

Thor had spent ten Xandarian days on the capital planet of the Nova Empire. Still recovering from the attack of the cruel warlord Ronan the Accuser, it was notable to Thor as the current resting place of one of the Six Stones.

Midgard, Asgard, Knowhere, Xandar. These were the places that housed the most powerful objects in the universe. He had already visited the Collector on Knowhere to ensure the security of the Aether, the liquid form of the Reality Stone that he had fought alongside Harry Jamesson of the Potters. The Royal Vault of Asgard, which housed the Tesseract which in turn contained the Space Stone, remained ever secure. And the Vision that he had helped his shield-brothers Tony and Bruce forge on Midgard had proven its worth in battle as a guardian of the Mind Stone.

Yet Thor’s study of the events on Xandar had shown a worrying trend. The leader of the Guardians of the Galaxy who had repulsed Ronan’s attack and withstood the Power Stone was a Midgardian-Celestial hybrid. This gave all four of the known Stones a connection to the most primitive of the Nine Realms.

He considered seeking out these Guardians for their perspective on the events of Xandar, but the Nova Prime had warned him that they were barely reformed criminals and would likely not be receptive to his questioning.

And so, the first son of Odin (the only son of Odin) set out on his multifaceted quest – to discover the truth of who was manipulating events surrounding the Stones, to learn where the remaining two might be hidden, and to find the secrets of soul magic that might help Harry defeat the abomination.

Calling for Heimdall, he let the Bifrost whisk him away to his next destination.

Chapter Text

Monday, 24 August 2015

Padfoot and Moony were immensely proud of Harry, and Harry was equally proud of himself. After all, he’d managed to get eleven OWL’s, albeit not all with O’s.

Late last year, he and Hermione had gone to McGonagall, asking her to let students sign up for OWL’s they hadn’t taken the classes for. Desperate for the chance to perform any act of rebellion against Umbridge (except, you know, actually stopping her from hurting her students), she was not hard to convince.

Most of the DA’s Muggle-raised got an easy OWL or NEWT in Muggle Studies. Harry took Arithmancy and Ron took Runes since they had learned most of the content of those courses from each other and Hermione. And Hermione herself signed up for Divination, figuring that with the Chamber, she could at least memorize the theory even if she struggled with the practical.

The end result was that Harry’s OWL result was as follows:

Ancient Runes…                               O
(Because if he could design Hermione’s armor, he could get an O on this test.)

Arithmancy…                                   A
(Because learning through osmosis on a subject he never really tried to study could only do so much.)

Astronomy…                                   E
(Because it, frankly, had never interested him much.)

Care of Magical Creatures…            O
(Because years of tea with Hagrid.)

Charms…                                       O
(Because Flitwick was an awesome teacher, and everything about enchanting involved Charms. The Protean and Patronus Charms earned extra credit.)

Defense Against the Dark Arts…    O
(Because – let’s face it – he dueled Voldemort 2 on 1, and taught the subject at the NEWT level.)

Herbology…                                  O
(Because Neville wouldn’t accept anything less.)

History of Magic…                         E
(Because interruptions from Voldemort don’t make it easy, and he was never strong in the first place.)

Muggle Studies…                          O
(Because he was raised in the Muggle world for over a decade.)

Potions…                                      O
(Because fake Occlumency lessons with Snape could actually be surprisingly informative.)

Transfiguration…                          O
(Because McGonagall and Hermione ensured it, not to mention all his practice while building the Chamber.)

Eleven OWL’s, seven O’s – and for a person who only took nine classes – was quite impressive, and had earned a massive party at Grimmauld Place for him, as well as for Ron and Hermione, who had also done quite well. (Neville had a separate celebration with his grandmother for his good OWL’s, though he’d only gotten an E in Transfiguration and Potions.) Ron had scored similarly, but with O’s in Arithmancy and History and an E in Runes, Muggle Studies, and Potions. Hermione had scored O’s on all of the exams except her E in Divination, which she had gotten through a combination of her prodigious memory for facts and lessons from a bemused Luna on how to sound prophetic.

Now, the four rising sixth-years had chosen their courses for the upcoming year. All four had chosen to stay in the main wand classes. Neville had chosen to add Herbology to that load, of course, along with Care of Magical Creatures. Harry added Potions and Runes, while Ron took Herbology and Arithmancy with plans to self-study History. Hermione only added Potions and Arithmancy, though she planned self-study in the Chamber on several other subjects.

With their classes chosen, McGonagall had sent them their booklists. Harry had already read the book for Runes class, which was disappointing, but Advanced Potion Making proved to be an interesting read at first glance when Harry picked up a copy from Flourish and Blotts.

The downside of the trip was, of course, the perennial thorn in their side, Draco Malfoy. They first encountered him when they went to get some new robes for the new school year.

“If you’re wondering what the smell is, Mother, a Mudblood just walked in,” he drawled.

Harry sighed. How was it, he wondered, that despite all the challenges he had faced, all the enemies he had defeated, Draco Malfoy managed to remain the most persistent thorn in his side?

He repressed the urge to send a hex or two the way of his Slytherin classmate from his bracelet as Madam Malkin chastised the arrogant boy for his language.

“I thought you’d know better than to repeat the rhetoric that got your father in Azkaban,” Hermione shot back. “I wouldn’t be so eager to join him.”

“Don’t you dare threaten my son,” Narcissa growled at Hermione, “or it will be the last thing you do.”

Harry was about to laugh off her threat when he remembered exactly who she was – the sister of Bellatrix Lestrange, the most lethal fighter on the side of the Dark save Voldemort himself.

Madam Malkin tried to intervene to deescalate things, but if there was one thing that could make Harry and his friends lose their cool, it was Malfoy. The insults flew back and forth fast and furious, though they (hopefully) all knew better than to be the first one to draw a wand. The confrontation ended with the two Malfoys storming out to patronize Twilfitt and Tattings, a higher-end robe shop, instead.

“We truly are sorry, Madam Malkin,” Neville apologized, which seemed to appease the seamstress, but Harry had another goal in mind. Departing the shop quickly, he followed the Malfoys down Diagon Alley.

“Malfoy!” he called out, causing the still-angry witch and wizard to turn to face him. “Draco,” he clarified. “We need to talk in private.”

“About what, Potter?” Malfoy Junior asked as they let Harry approach.

“What happened with Umbridge,” Harry replied.

Mrs. Malfoy sent a questioning look at her son. Maybe he hadn’t told her exactly what had gone down in Umbridge’s office the day before the Battle of the Ministry?

“What about it?” Draco asked as they moved out of the main thoroughfare.

“I’ve been thinking about what went down that day the whole summer,” Harry admitted. “You didn’t have to stop her from casting Crucio on me. It was a courageous act, even if it was all to help along Voldemort’s plans.”

Harry saw Draco wince and rub his left forearm at the name of the Dark Lord.

“Don’t say that name, you idiot,” Draco chided.

“I’m trying to be nice here,” Harry muttered, though the Malfoys could still hear him. “Anyway, I realized that I do owe you one.”

The Malfoys looked an odd mix of disgusted and excited to have him in their debt. “I read and heard what you and your friends did at the Ministry. You could have stopped it yourself with your silly shield.”

“You’re right,” Harry agreed. “Everything that happened that morning, from the moment the Inquisitorial Squad confronted us to the moment she pointed her wand at me, was because we allowed it to be so. And that’s not arrogance but simple fact. Still, you made the brave choice, which means something to me. Which is why I’m giving you this.”

Harry pulled a simple wristband out of his pocket. Draco wrinkled his nose at the sight.

“It’s a one-use emergency portkey,” Harry explained, “that you and only you can use, and will take you to a place that no witch or wizard other than me knows about. It has a few wards, some supplies and a bit of money.”

Both Malfoys looked gobsmacked.

“Why?” Mrs. Malfoy asked. “You hate my son. Why would you do this?”

“Partially so that he can’t claim the debt later,” Harry admitted. “Partially so I can claim the moral high ground. And partially because, despite everything that’s gone on between us, he’s still my classmate, who is currently hosting Voldemort in his home. And don’t deny it – we both know it’s true.”

Harry turned away from the pair. “The debt is paid, Malfoy. Please try not to do anything evil.”

Harry nodded in satisfaction as he rejoined his friends, who were about to enter the twins’ shop. It had taken him an hour to set up the safe spot at the clearing where he’d dueled Steve a few months ago. He had done it mostly for the first reason he’d stated – so that in the future, Malfoy wouldn’t be able to hold it over him or his friends. Though he tried to have sympathy for his classmate’s situation, he found it really, really hard given their history. Not to mention Malfoy’s suspicious behavior regarding his forearm…

It was amazing to see the twins’ business, which they’d spent hours planning in the Chamber, come to life. Mrs. Weasley, though, wasn’t nearly as impressed, especially when she saw their advertisement for U-No-Poo.

“They’ll be murdered in their beds,” she gasped.

“They’ll be fine,” Ron reassured her. “Their wards are top-notch, and I think the Death Eaters will hesitate to go after any Weasley after the Ministry…”

Of course, their tour of the twins’ shop was cut short by a suspicious sight – Malfoy was scurrying off on his own. It surprised Harry that his mother would have let him out of her sight after her earlier behavior, which made him wonder what was going on. Putting on his Invisibility Cloak and grabbing one of the twins’ Extendable Ears, he followed his classmate as he entered Knockturn Alley and paid a visit to Borgin and Burkes. It took Harry some time to get the Extendable Ears extended, meaning that he missed most of the initial part of the conversation. Still, what he did hear was worrying – Malfoy was able to cow Borgin into submission by mentioning Fenrir Greyback.

After Malfoy left the shop, Harry quickly returned to his friends, who thankfully had made excuses for his brief absence. He would certainly need to speak with them later.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“That’s concerning,” Hermione said as the Ministry Six withdrew from the Pensieve where Harry had placed his memories of interacting with and spying on Malfoy.

“What did you think about the emergency portkey?” Harry asked. “I know I should have consulted you…”

“It was the right call,” said Neville. “A lot of old pureblood families take debts like that very seriously, and it’s good that you made sure to resolve it before Malfoy could hold it over us.”

“I just hope it won’t come back to bite us,” Ginny grumbled.

“It won’t,” Luna assured them. “Probably.”

“But let’s talk about what you saw at Borgin and Burke’s,” Hermione said. “It certainly seemed fishy to me.”

“That shop has a lot of dark artifacts,” Ron pointed out. “Maybe he’s out for some sort of revenge for his father.”

“Malfoy?” said Ginny. “Do you think he could actually do anything?”

“We should take it seriously,” Neville argued. “He was pretty quick on the draw when we confronted Umbridge, and his father’s a Death Eater—”

“And I think he’s become one, too,” Harry interrupted, which caused Ron to laugh.

“Malfoy?” he said. “A Death Eater? He’s sixteen! You think Voldemort would let him join?”

“We’re sixteen,” Harry pointed out, “and Voldemort saw what we could do.”

“And Tom was sixteen when he made a horcrux and opened the Chamber,” Ginny added.

“Besides,” said Harry, “hear me out here. We saw how Draco was about his left arm in Madam Malkin’s and again when I said Voldemort’s name. And he was able to scare Borgin, who no doubt has a lot of scary customers. And he was able to name-drop Fenrir Greyback.”

Hermione was nodding along to his reasoning. “Isn’t Greyback one of Voldemort’s top enforcers? I doubt that a sixteen-year-old could call on him for his personal vendettas, not unless he had some serious backing.”

“You may be right,” Ron said soberly. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have dismissed you so easily.”

“Malfoy as a serious threat is laughable,” Harry allowed, “but then again, so were we until we showed the world what we could do in June.”

“Luna, can you… can you see what his plans might be?” Ginny asked hesitantly.

The seer shook her head sadly. “My sight isn’t reliable beyond a day or two out. I only get random flashes or the occasional True Prophecy of events further out.”

“Well then,” Neville said. “I guess we’ll just have to wait and try to figure out more.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Tuesday, 1 September 2015

The adults that Harry spoke to were far less receptive to his theories about Draco Malfoy’s potential Death Eater status, but he remained entirely convinced, especially when he remained in his compartment on the Hogwarts express instead of using his prefect status. (And why did the teachers not take that away from him after how he abused his Inquisitorial Squad status last year?)

Hermione, Ron, and now Ginny were off being prefects, leaving Harry, Neville, and Luna to their own compartment. Now that Harry was publicly beloved again and Neville and Luna were celebrities, they were bombarded with visitors, but they only accepted members of the DA, who were assured that the defense club absolutely would be continuing in the coming months.

The other visitor they accepted was a third-year girl carrying messages for all three of them from Professor Slughorn, inviting them to lunch in his compartment.

“The Slug Club is back in business,” Harry said as he and his friends walked toward Compartment C.

“Why don’t they have lunch on the train always?” Luna wondered aloud. As usual, her questions were extremely insightful – it made no sense that the hours-long train ride would not offer an actual meal instead of just a cart full of candy. But before Harry could figure out an answer, they had arrived.

Hermione, Ron, and Ginny had also received invitations – clearly, he wanted to gain favor with the Ministry Six, and it would not do exclude any of them.

Slughorn served up a luxurious luncheon as he spoke with each and every one of his invited students, though the conversations were rather one-sided for the most part. Slughorn loved to talk about the people he had mentored. It became clear that other than the six of them, the students in their compartment had earned their invitations by being related to very famous people.

Eventually, though, it came time for the six friends’ interrogation.

“And of course,” Slughorn said jovially, “we have the Boy-Who-Lived and his famous companions. I feel like we barely scratched the surface this summer, my boy. They’re calling you the ‘Chosen One’ now, you know?”

Harry nodded. “I do. It’s not my favorite title, but I accept it.”

Harry mostly let the Potions professor chatter away, making sure to give his friends their due props as appropriate. He did make it clear, though, that the Prophet was very much not exaggerating when it came to what they’d done that night at the Ministry – six students had taken on three dozen Death Eaters and captured them all, in addition to fighting off Voldemort himself with a little help from Dumbledore. He was proud of what he and his friends had accomplished, what they’d become, and he wouldn’t let Slughorn belittle it.

Eventually, though, the interviews ended and Slughorn began to wax poetic about everyone he’d ever taught who was famous. The litany went on for hours and hours, and Harry saw that he was not alone in wanting to leave but being unable to do so for the sake of politeness. When the conductor called out half an hour to Hogsmeade, Harry and his friends excused themselves at last to change into their school robes.

Having already changed, Harry instead followed Blaise Zabini back to his compartment, donning his Invisibility Cloak and apply a Disillusionment Charm for extra safety. He needed to figure out what Malfoy was doing, and bragging to his friends at the start of the school year might be his best shot. Activating his flight belt to hover, he slipped into the compartment behind his Slytherin yearmate and listened to what Malfoy had to say.

Malfoy was not as loose-lipped as he could have been, but he all but said that he had been given a task from the Dark Lord to complete this year. Death Eater or not, it was clear that the Slytherin boy was fully devoted to Voldemort’s cause and would not be turned from it.

He shook his head as Malfoy left the compartment without glancing once in his direction. He hadn’t learned a single useful thing.

Rejoining his friends as they climbed on the carriages to Hogsmeade, Harry told them what he’d done. They were all disappointed that he hadn’t really learned anything new, even if he did confirm that Malfoy was doing something for Voldemort. They weren’t happy with how he’d done it, either.

“That was a big risk, Harry,” Ginny said to him, “even if you did take precautions. If Malfoy had realized you were there, it could have ended pretty badly.”

“You’re right,” Harry agreed.

“Promise me that you’ll be careful spying on him in the future,” she asked.

“I promise.”

The Sorting proceeded as always, but most of the school received quite a shock when it was announced that Snape was the new defense professor. Had they not been warned ahead of time, Harry would have been equally shocked by the new development.

With the professor that hated him teaching his favorite class and his rival plotting on behalf of Voldemort, Harry wasn’t looking forward to what this school year would bring for him and his friends.

But they’d handle it together.

Chapter Text

Wednesday, 2 September 2015

After two months away, Harry was glad to be back in the Chamber of Secrets, his real home away from home. Still, it wasn’t exactly as it was before. Walking into the main meeting room, he was met with a huge sign in his best mate’s handwriting that read, “Do not go further until you’ve spoken with Ron Weasley.”

He gazed to his right at the author of said message, raising his eyebrows as he gestured at the sign. “What’s going on?” he asked. “What did you do to the Chamber?”

“I… expanded it,” Ron explained. “Among other things.”

“Such as?”

“We now have a two-kilometer running track,” he said. “It can be accessed with doors every third of a kilometer, all of which lead to the same locker room.”

“Must be a pretty big locker room,” Neville said.

“Actually, it isn’t,” Ron replied. “The doors are right next to each other.”

It took a moment for Harry to wrap his mind around what Ron had said, and his girlfriend was even more confused.

“How would that even work?” she asked. In response, Ron pulled out a massive parchment, upon which was shown the most confusing map Harry had ever read.

“Let me tell you about non-Euclidean geometry,” he said with a smile.

Now, space-distorting magic could do some pretty weird things; this was something Harry already knew. He himself had helped create a trunk that could be carried by hand but contained the twins’ entire storeroom on the inside. Still, some of what Ron was showing them was far, far weirder. There was a triangle of straight hallways with ninety-degree corners between them, a staircase that you could climb up or down for a few stories and reach your starting point, and even crazier constructions. Harry could only look at the floor plans for a few minutes before his head started hurting.

“Why did you do this?” Neville asked.

“And when?” Harry added.

Ron smiled sheepishly. “I did this over the summer once the Floo system between here and Mordor was installed, and once the major construction was completed. As for why, well… first off, it was fun, getting to explore the more esoteric uses of space magic. I mean, we have expanded trunks, expanded rooms, the Floo network, the entire layout of Hogwarts – why not take all of that and make something truly awesome?

“And more seriously, this is the ultimate defensive measure. If Hogwarts falls, and if the Chamber falls – then anyone who hasn’t memorized this map will get hopelessly lost, while we’ll be able to get everything and everyone out of here.”

“I think that even people who have memorized the map will get hopelessly lost,” Ginny countered.

“It’s easy as pie!” Luna exclaimed. The blonde Ravenclaw had come down on her own from Ravenclaw Tower. Harry smiled at her bemusedly. Of course, she of all people would be able to understand Ron’s crazy creation.

“Don’t worry,” Ron said. “I’ve put up directional signage to help the DA get around. But I can destroy it at a moment’s notice.”

“Well,” Neville said, “you’re the one who has to explain all of this to them.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Saturday, 12 September 2015

The DA were far from pleased with having to entirely re-learn the new and more confusing layout of the Chamber of Secrets. Still, many of them saw Ron’s point about security, and within a few nights, they had mostly figured out how to get around.

Ginny in particular warmed to the new layout quickly. She needed a place to store and research Voldemort’s horcruxes that was secure above and beyond the safety of the Chamber. Ron had designated a horcrux room that could only be reached through a specific sequence of turns – anyone who tried a different sequence would find themselves in a maze and eventually spat back out in the main meeting room. Only the six of them (and Rose, technically) knew the right combination to reach that room.

Running the DA didn’t actually involve much defense instruction any more. Snape was surprisingly competent as a Defense Professor, far better at teaching that subject than he ever was at Potions. Still, Harry ran workshops on spellcasting and dueling to help the DA members keep their skills sharp and to improve them far above and beyond what the normal curriculum taught.

At the moment, Harry was supervising a two-on-two fight with Cho Chang and Marietta Edgecombe on one side and Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnigan on the other. The seventh-year Ravenclaw pair had a clear upper hand over Harry’s dormmates, though both pairs of best friends were showing excellent coordination. On the Ravenclaw side, Chang was handling defense using a mix of transfigured objects and Shield Charms while Edgecombe sent a creative mix of hexes, jinxes and curses at the Gryffindor boys. Dean and Seamus had a more mixed strategy, with the two wizards swapping between offense and defense. It made them more flexible, but also left openings…

Just as Dean was transitioning from defense to offense, a Jelly-Legs Jinx from Marietta slipped through his shields before Seamus could block it, sending him to the floor as his lower body gave out from under him. Before Dean could recover, Cho suddenly went on the offensive, driving Seamus back, stopping him from using his signature fire spells from regaining the initiative. Sure enough, as soon as he sent a gout of fire toward his two opponents, Cho doused it with an Aqua Eructo while Marietta used the opening to Stun him. Dean managed to regain his footing but quickly fell under a similar onslaught.

“Victory for the Ravenclaw ladies,” Harry declared as he revived his dormmates. “You did very well, Cho, Marietta. You should work on making all your attack spells nonverbal, though, Marietta. I was still hearing about half of them, and every spell you can do without the incantation is one more spell that your enemy will have trouble countering. And Cho, you should try to reuse transfigured barriers instead of making a new one for every spell – it will save energy. Still, overall, an amazing job.”

Both girls nodded at Harry’s advice and smiled at his praise, for they deeply respected his expertise in magical combat.

“Dean, Seamus,” he addressed his two roommates in turn, “you did really well, especially against opponents who are older and know more spells than you. Your swapping strategy is actually better than Cho and Marietta’s choice of sticking with pre-determined roles – that is, if you can do it right. After all, if you get separated from your partner, then you’re comfortable both attacking and defending. But you need to make sure to guard yourselves better during the transitions. You saw how all it took was a single spell to slip through your opening, and you were done.”

“Got it, Harry,” Seamus said. “Thanks for watching the duel.”

“No problem, mate,” Harry answered with a smile. “You two are getting really good.”

Looking around, Harry saw that there were no more of his classmates wanting him to supervise their duels, leaving him with time to himself. He had already completed his Potions homework from Slughorn. The connection-making professor had already proven himself a superior brewer and teacher in his first sixth-year class. His friendly demeanor made all of his students comfortable in the Potions classroom for the first time, and he proved himself fair to every house by rewarding Hermione’s excellent Draught of Living Death with a vial of Felix Felicis. All of the Ministry Six were already salivating at what they could achieve using the famously difficult potion, and they weren’t going to waste it on just any day.

Making his way along the new route to his private study in the Chamber, he reached out with his mind to contact Rose. A few seconds later, her illusionary form appeared in Harry’s vision walking alongside him.

“Hey, dad,” she greeted him with a smile.

“Hi, Rose,” he replied happily. “How are things?”

“Everything’s going pretty well,” she informed him. “The Statute is safe as always, and nobody’s been paying too much attention to the elder Weasleys’ research on the druids.”

“That’s good to hear,” said Harry, but he wanted more than just that. “And other than that?” he asked. “Are you doing well, you know, as a person? You’re more than just the Statute.”

“I’m fine, dad,” she reassured him. “I’ve been reading some mystery novels lately, which are fun, even if I have to make a point of not looking into anyone’s mind to spoil the ending.”

“Which authors?” Harry asked. “Agatha Christie? Edgar Allen Poe? Someone more modern?”

“I’m more of an Arthur Conan Doyle fan,” Rose admitted. “I can really connect with Sherlock Holmes’s character. We’re both able to see far more than anyone else, and we both use it to do some real good in the world.”

“It’s awesome to hear that you’re finding ways to enjoy yourself,” said Harry. “I know that your Purpose is your Purpose, Rose, but from the moment I knew you were sentient, I’ve always wanted you to be more.”

“And speaking of that,” Rose said, “I’ve had some ideas for baby names.”

“Baby names?” It took Harry a second to realize what she meant. “For the combat AI project?”

“I was thinking an acronym, like Tony Stark uses.”

“Such as?”

“MARC,” Rose declared. “The Magical Assistant for Reconnaissance and Combat.”

Harry considered Rose’s idea. “Not a bad name,” he said as he thought it over. “One syllable, a meaningful acronym, and didn’t Hermione say that she’d prefer a male voice for her assistant?”

“She did. I think it was mostly to contrast with mine.”

“Probably,” Harry agreed, “although you never know.”

Harry stepped into his office to examine the large magical crystal that would house MARC’s consciousness. It would eventually be shrunken and slotted into Hermione’s armor. “Now, let’s get to work. I think we’re a few weeks from bringing MARC online, though it will take some time to train him up.”

Even with the power of magical runes, it was a challenge to create something that would be able to adapt itself to new situations. Their goal for MARC was something that would not just be Hermione’s targeting system but Hermione’s partner in combat, keeping an eye on the entire battle to let her know what she needed to worry about while letting her use her suit’s capabilities to their fullest. Nevertheless, Harry and Rose were making good progress in the months since they’d started work. The runes he’d be carving today were designed to let MARC remember past battles. Future runes would let him take that information and use it to improve his own abilities.

Harry conjured a massive whiteboard so he and his daughter could sketch out and debate the runic patterns they would be using today.

“Let’s start with our notes on King Dain’s crystal,” Harry said. “That’s probably the most efficient storage medium I know of, magical or Muggle…”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“And… we bind everything together with the Fifth Connective Rune.” Drawing his wand, Harry cast a Protean Charm, his last of the day.

Rose nodded in satisfaction at the finished product. They had worked on the project for hours and mostly completed the memory segment of MARC’s construction. They still needed to iron out the retrieval runes, but that could wait for another day.

Bidding his daughter farewell, Harry turned his attention to his next priority – the mystery of Draco Malfoy. The Slytherins in the DA had tried to get information from Draco about what he was doing, but all they could do was confirm what Harry and his friends had already figured out. Draco was plotting something, almost certainly on behalf of Voldemort. Still, Harry had one more trick up his sleeve.

He reached into his desk and pulled out the Marauders’ Map.

He hadn’t had much need to use the genius creation of his father, godfather, and Uncle Moony. Now, however, it gave him the ability to track Malfoy without risking himself like he had on the train. Theo Nott had reported that Draco had disappeared on Friday and Saturday evening the previous week, possibly to work on his secret task. And so, now was the perfect time to figure out where Draco was hiding whatever dark artifact from Borgin and Burke’s that he was working on.

The Map had its limits, though – although it would show every person in the school, it didn’t make it easy to find a single person. This meant that Harry had to scan the numerous tiny names spread across the Map’s surface in the hopes of locating Malfoy’s. It was finding a needle in a haystack, but Harry was confident that he could do it, even if it took some time.

He wasn’t in the Slytherin Common Room, which was the first place Harry checked, nor anywhere in the dungeons. Harry systematically scanned upward, failing to find Malfoy in the Great Hall, or on any of the first few levels. As Harry moved to scan the upper levels, he thought that he saw ‘Draco Malfoy’ moving in the corner of his eye, on the seventh floor. But when he focused on that section of the map, the name was gone.

“Or maybe it wasn’t there in the first place,” Harry growled frustratedly. “I must have been just imagining things. Why couldn’t Padfoot and Moony and dad have figured out a search feature for this thing?”

After finishing his scan of the upper floors, Harry closed the map with a muttered “Mischief Managed”. Clearly, Draco had managed to avoid his search somehow, either by sneaking out to Hogsmeade or moving between floors while Harry wasn’t looking. Stowing the map away, he decided that the mystery of Draco Malfoy would have to wait another day.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Sunday, 20 September 2015

Over the summer, Harry hadn’t gotten nearly as much as he’d hoped out of being a member of the Order of the Phoenix. The group’s meetings were more like motivational rallies, with most information and tasks flowing through Dumbledore personally. Harry saw the value in having a secure organization, but worried that without its lynchpin, the group would collapse entirely. He wasn’t quite confident enough in his relationship with the Leader of the Light to bring that up, though.

Though he couldn’t attend Order meetings while at Hogwarts, the Headmaster had agreed to meet with Harry occasionally to update him on the state of the war.

“Voldemort has not made any open moves lately,” Dumbledore reported, “but I suspect he will make a large push soon.”

“A breakout from Azkaban?” Harry suggested. “All of his most loyal are in there now that the last trials have concluded.”

“Most likely,” the Headmaster agreed. “Professor Snape has indicated as much, though the details of the attack are a tightly-held secret.”

“Is there nothing we can do about it?” Harry wondered. “I assume you’ve alerted Minister Bones at least.”

“Amelia was already aware that Azkaban was a major target, and she’s done the best she can to protect it. But with the loyalty of the dementors suspect and few people able to counter Voldemort directly, we are in agreement that the fall of Azkaban is inevitable.”

Harry groaned. So long as Azkaban was a revolving door for Death Eaters, the war would be even more impossible to win than it already was.

“At what point do we start using lethal measures?” he asked.

“My boy…” Dumbledore admonished him.

“My friends and I captured every single Death Eater at the Ministry with minimal injuries,” Harry said, “and in a few weeks, or a few months, they’ll be back out there torturing and murdering and serving their Lord just like before.”

“I know, Harry, but to kill with magic – it’s a slippery slope that I’d rather not go down.”

“What would Auror Olorin say?” Harry asked. “I know you fought together against Grindelwald, that he threw himself in front of a spell to let you defeat that Dark Lord.”

Dumbledore drew his wand, the one he had won from Grindelwald, and gazed at it sadly. “Jean-Baptiste Olorin was a warrior, through and through, but I have tried to be a schoolteacher first and foremost. To keep children from becoming killers. And yet… he would say what you are saying, what Minister Bones has been saying. That this is war, that death is a part of that. I just hope you and your friends can avoid it for a while longer.”

“I hope so, too.”

The aging Leader of the Light sat opposite his possible successor for a while in silence.

“I’m concerned about Draco Malfoy,” Harry said. “And not because of any of our childish rivalries. I’ve seen some convincing proof that he’s at least working for Voldemort, if not a fully marked Death Eater.”

Dumbledore nodded gravely. “It would not surprise me,” he said. “Tom never had any compunction about using children to achieve his goals. I will keep an eye on him, and have Severus do the same. But there are many secrets of Hogwarts that neither of us know which Tom might have learned.”

“I understand, Headmaster. And thank you for taking me seriously.”

“I have long since learned better than to dismiss you, my boy.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

As Harry walked out of his office, Albus Dumbledore let himself express his surprise at the boy’s resourcefulness and ingenuity. That he had managed to deduce on his own much of what Severus had told him was a testament to Harry’s potential. Still, he knew what Severus had sworn to do, and so what had to be done. The value of a skilled and highly-placed spy in the Death Eaters’ organization was far greater than that of an aging headmaster.

He marked off another day on his calendar. One fewer day until Draco Malfoy completed whatever plan he had to assassinate him. One fewer day until he moved on to his next great adventure. One fewer day until he died at Severus’s hand to stop Draco Malfoy from becoming a killer, just as he’d told Harry.

One fewer day until Harry would have to take his place as the leader of the fight against Voldemort.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Thursday, 1 October 2015

When the Daily Prophet came one morning just over a week later, the headline was the one that Harry had been expecting and dreading for months.

ATTACK ON AZKABAN
Death Eaters Freed!
Dementors Abandon Prison!

Harry sighed in resignation.

“Here we go again,” Ron said.

Chapter Text

Saturday, 31 October 2015

“You know,” Harry said to Ron and Hermione as they exited the Chamber on the morning of 31 October, “maybe this will be our first smooth Halloween at Hogwarts.”

“I wouldn’t count on it,” Ron grumbled. “I mean, five Halloweens, five disasters. The troll, the Chamber, Pettigrew’s break-in, the Goblet, and then Hermione getting a torture detention with Umbridge. At some point, you have to acknowledge that there’s some cosmic force determined to screw up this holiday for us.”

“Luna aside,” said Hermione, “I’m not a huge believer in divination, in signs and portents and superstitions. But when it comes to Halloween – I’m going to be ready.”

“There is some good news,” Ginny said as she jogged up from behind them. Harry spun around to give his girlfriend a light good morning kiss before offering his arm to her. “It’s the first Hogsmeade trip of the year today.”

“First since Umbridge banned me after the Quibbler article,” Harry added in. “I’m looking forward to treating my queen to a date.”

“Still, you should be cautious,” Ron warned. “It’s Halloween, and something is likely coming. From Malfoy, or Voldemort, or perhaps something entirely separate.”

“I refuse to let that prick get me down today,” Harry said. Malfoy had been a nuisance – the entire Golden Light – the entire DA, really – were sure that he was up to something. But the Marauders’ Map had only showed him disappearing occasionally from one of the corridors on the seventh floor. The same corridor, actually, that was giving off a signal on the Asgardian horcrux detector. And yet – a careful examination of that corridor showed no hidden rooms, passageways, or other concealed items. Not even Luna’s Sight could figure out what was going on. The only thing they hadn’t tried yet was physically following him, but that risked revealing more than they already might have that they were onto him.

Ron said nothing more, because he knew that Harry had still taken the warning to heart. The war never took a day off, a date in Hogsmeade notwithstanding.

“Don’t worry, Harry,” Ginny said to him. “It’s going to be a wonderful day.”

They both did their best to believe that.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

After breakfast, the six friends walked through the gates of Hogwarts, getting their passes checked by a surly Argus Filch, before sharing a carriage to the village of Hogsmeade. Upon arrival, they split into couples, with Harry taking Ginny on a walk, Ron taking Hermione to the book shop, and Neville and Luna going to visit the herbology shop.

“The weather is surprisingly nice here today,” Ginny said. Her appearance was made even more beautiful than usual by the wide smile on her face and the extra effort she’d put into styling her hair. The red locks fell in long waves to the girl’s shoulders, framing her face wonderfully.

Harry, likewise, had put effort into his appearance. Though his hair refused to be tamed in any way whatsoever, Harry made sure to put on some of his best casual robes and his nicest wand holster. His girlfriend certainly seemed to appreciate the look.

Though their walk was mostly a casual, romantic stroll, it served the secondary purpose of patrolling the borders of Hogsmeade for security. Voldemort had taken to attacking wizarding settlements both in Britain and continental Europe with armies of various magical races, particularly giants and dementors. In the event of such an attack, Harry knew that he and his friends would be the first line of defense while the DA got the rest of the students and adult civilians back to the safety of Hogwarts Castle.

Boyfriend and girlfriend traded jokes and stories to pass the time as they enjoyed the beauty of Hogsmeade Village and its surrounding countryside. As Harry finished laughing at a hilarious story of one of the twins’ earlier attempts at pranking Percy, he glanced at his watch – it was just past eleven o’clock.

“It’s less than an hour to noon,” he informed his beloved. “Want to swing through Honeydukes before lunch?”

“I’m always up for some sweets,” Ginny answered with a grin. Harry let her lead the way as she skipped toward the Hogsmeade candy shop.

They stuck together as they browsed the store’s selection to get their favorites – Pepper Imps and Sugar Quills for Ginny, Chocolate Frogs and Every-Flavor Beans for Harry. The store’s owner, Mr. Flume, was overawed at getting to serve the Boy-Who-Lived and his girlfriend, another Hero of the Ministry. He tried to let them take their purchases on the house, but they insisted on paying him – it would not do, after all, to let themselves get the ‘big heads’ that Snape always accused Harry of having due to his celebrity.

While normal etiquette would have Harry carrying all of his date’s purchases, magic let him drop the bags into a space-expanded pocket until they got back up to the Castle. Hands unencumbered, he led his girlfriend to where their friends were expecting them for lunch at the Three Broomsticks.

Hogsmeade’s main restaurant was already crowded when the couple arrived. Harry could spot many of his friends from the DA enjoying their lunches, as couples or with friends. He wasn’t surprised to see most of his Hufflepuff yearmates sharing a table; that house tended to stick together, after all. He was more surprised to see a familiar girl of Chinese descent sitting at a small table opposite her long-time boyfriend, now graduated from Hogwarts.

It was somewhat ironic, Harry thought, that he had become closer to Cedric Diggory when the Hufflepuff Head Boy joined the DA than he had when they were both Triwizard Champions. But back in his fourth year, the champions were all so focused on their own victory to do what the Tournament was intended for – to make connections, to build bridges, to become friends. In the DA, though, Harry and Cedric grew to respect each other as leaders and like each other as friends. (Harry still couldn’t believe that his daughter had just revealed herself to Cedric, but he had to admit that her choice was excellent.)

Letting go of Ginny’s arm, he waved excitedly to Cedric to get attention. The former Head Boy beamed back and gestured for Harry to come over, which he did, with Ginny following closely behind.

“Hey, Cedric! Hi, Cho.” Harry said. His voice was full of joyful energy at seeing his friend again. “How are things going?”

“Pretty well, Harry,” he said with a smile. “My job is going pretty well.”

“International Magical Cooperation, right?” Harry asked.

Cedric nodded. “The department’s still in upheaval after the mess with Crouch Senior and then Fawley being Imperiused and now the whole world being in a panic over You-Know-Who… It’s hard work but I’m doing a lot of good, building a lot of bridges for Britain to the rest of the world.”

“Because we’ll need them,” Harry said.

“Yes,” Cedric said, “we will.” Suddenly, the boy’s eyes lit up. “Oh, and speaking of connections – I don’t think I even told you this, Cho, but I saw Viktor again!”

“Krum?” the Ravenclaw girl asked. “Really? What was he doing in Britain?”

“Yeah, he was accompanying a Bulgarian delegation on some sort of global goodwill tour. It was good to catch up with him. You know, he asked after Granger.”

“You told him that she’s with my brother now?” Ginny asked, staring Cedric down.

The boy nodded at her hurriedly. “Yes, I told him that. I don’t think he was after her romantically – just wanted to check in on her after reading about the Atrium. And speaking of Quidditch – did you really turn down Quidditch Captain?”

“I told him so,” Cho piped in, “but he didn’t believe it. Even if I think the whole thing is insane.”

“You know why I made that choice, Cho,” Harry said. “I talked with Katie Bell and Professor McGonagall over the summer, and we all agreed to let Katie have the captaincy for the year.”

“But—” Cedric protested. “Every Hogwarts Quidditch player wants to be captain! And it has so many perks!”

“I have more important things to worry about,” Harry said, “and Katie deserved it.”

“Fair enough,” Cedric relented.

“Anyway,” Harry said, “I’ll let you two get back to your date. And owl me, Cedric! We should definitely keep in better contact! There’s something that I’ve come across that I think you could do very well.”

As Harry and Ginny walked through the Three Broomsticks, they paused to converse with more of their classmates and fellow DA members, including Marietta, Daphne, Theo, Colin, Susan, and more. By the time they made it to the table where Ron, Hermione, Neville, and Luna were sitting, it was about a quarter past noon.

“Who knew you were such a social butterfly?” Ron asked.

“Not me,” Harry replied. “To be honest, I was just saying ‘hi’ to everyone I recognized and ended up in three-minute conversations with each one of them.”

“I can’t believe how many friends we made in the DA,” Ginny said. “I remember back when it was just the eight of us…”

“Those were simpler days,” Hermione said, “but I have to admit that I far prefer having the support of our friends.”

The six friends tried to ignore the stares of some of the patrons as they ordered from Madam Rosmerta and enjoyed their food, simply for being a change from the usual meals at Hogwarts. The elves worked wonders, but variety is the spice of life.

It was as Harry was taking he last bites of his meal that his girlfriend noticed something out of the corner of her eye and broke into a grin.

“Ron, look!” she said, and Harry turned as well to see what Ginny wanted to show her brother.

“It’s Bill and Fleur!” Ron exclaimed as he waved down his elder brother and his ex-girlfriend, who would soon be his sister-in-law.

“Hey, kids,” Bill said genially as he sat down, pulling out a chair for his beautiful fiancée. “How’s it going?”

“Things have been quiet lately,” Ron said. “The war’s been staying away from Hogwarts, for once.”

“That’s good,” said the eldest Weasley brother. “Gives all of you time to actually be kids for a little while.”

“Oui,” said Fleur. “Your childhood never comes again. Even when I was my most driven, preparing for the tournament, I remembered to let myself enjoy it.”

“Don’t worry, Fleur,” said Ginny. “We have plenty of free time outside of our classes and our research.”

“Speaking of that,” said Bill, “how’s that going? Have you gotten what you wanted out of that… thing?”

Ginny growled from her throat. “There’s still no progress – or only slow progress, really.”

“Actually…” Harry piped in, looking at his fellow champion. “Could I have a few moments of your time, Fleur. In private?”

“Very well, Harry,” she said, giving her fiancé a kiss on the hand. “Lead the way.”

Harry first went to the bar.

“Madam Rosmerta,” he addressed the proprietor. “Could I borrow a private room for a few minutes?”

The barmaid nodded silently and handed him a key marked with the number 6.

“Thank you,” Harry said, before leading Fleur to Room 6. Shutting the door behind the two of them, he cast every privacy ward he knew.

“What do you need to talk about?” Fleur asked.

“Two things, really,” Harry said. “First of all, your grandfather – your father’s father – was Adrien Delacour, right?”

Fleur nodded. “Oui, that was his name, though he died when I was very young. What about him?”

“Then would I be correct in saying your family possesses a certain magical crystal with power over the Statute Secrecy?”

The part-Veela’s eyes widened. “How do you know of this?” she demanded. “It is a family secret – not even maman or Gabby know of it; I was only told when I was fifteen.”

“Well, do you know the story of how your grandfather got it?” Harry asked.

“Oui, he was given it during the war against Grindelwald by a young man who carried a letter of introduction from Albus Dumbledore himself. A few months later, on the Solstice, Grindelwald’s alliance with the non-magicals suddenly stopped and faded into distant memory for all save my grandfather.”

“And he only saw that young man one other time – just before the famous final duel that ended the war.”

Fleur nodded.

“I know this because that young man was me.”

“How?”

“Time travel,” Harry answered simply. “Very complicated, even by my standards.”

“For that young man to be you… I know time travel is possible with magic, but I would have thought it impossible on such a scale. Then again, how else would you have known about the crystal? And I have long learned that the impossible holds little meaning with you and your friends.”

“We do seem to stumble into improbable circumstances,” Harry admitted. “The reason I brought this up is, well, because I want to make sure that you guard it with everything you have. If Voldemort or any of his Death Eaters get ahold of that crystal… there will be nothing stopping him from wreaking devastation on the Muggle world. Nothing to stop him from starting a war that will end millions, billions of lives on both sides of the divide.”

“My father taught me much about the Muggle world,” said Fleur, “and I know of its dangers, of the atomic weapons they have.”

“So you know how important the Statute is now.”

“I do. Though I am curious, how does the crystal work? My father did not explain much.”

“He wouldn’t know,” said Harry, “I only told Adrien enough to get him to agree to hold it. The spell, as I cast it during my trip to the past, has five components – an anchor and a control crystal for the wizards, the same for the Muggles, and a central control crystal to connect them all together. The anchors draw on the belief of the masses to power the spell – one was attached to a famous Muggle war hero, and the other to Dumbledore’s beard, actually. The control crystals are an intentional weakness, like the Secret-Keeper for the Fidelius, that allows the spell to be stable.

“I enchanted the Muggle’s crystal to explain the basics of the magical world to its holder and bypass all Muggle-repelling spells, and I gave it to a Muggle woman that I knew would found an organization to protect Muggles from powerful threats that they wouldn’t normally be able to fight or even understand. And I gave the magical crystal to your grandfather, knowing that one day, it would be passed on to you. Because in your time as my opponent in the Tournament and as my best mate’s girlfriend, I learned that I could trust you. To keep it safe, to make the right choices.”

“I thank you for your trust, Harry.”

“You more than earned it Fleur. And besides, it was best to keep the spell’s physical components in different countries – one in Britain, one in France, one in America, and one in the Arctic, actually.”

“And the central crystal?”

“Oh, that? That’s stashed in Nepal somewhere.”

“Oui, that is a good choice. No magical is getting it any time soon.”

“Exactly why I chose it.”

“You said you had several things to discuss?”

“Ah, yes. I was wondering if you could look into something for me.”

“What do you need to know?”

“Do the Veela have any unique knowledge of soul magics, or druidic magics?”

“I am only quarter-Veela,” Fleur said, “so I have not been told all the secrets of my grandmother’s race, but I will ask. I know of one, though – a Rite of Fire that only the most powerful and courageous of Veela attempt.”

“I’ve heard of the Elemental Rites,” Harry said. “I saw records of two different variants for Earth, the chieftainess of the Merfolk in the Black Lake told me about how she performed the one for Water, and Ron managed to reconstruct the one for Air. I wouldn’t mind seeing the one for Fire, just to complete the set, but it’s not what we’re looking for.”

“No,” Fleur agreed, “you said you wanted knowledge of soul magics.”

“I know it’s an obscure field, but no normal magic is going to work to stop Voldemort.”

“I will see what I can find out,” Fleur said.

“Thank you so much,” said Harry gratefully. “Now let’s get back to our Weasleys.”

After taking down all of his privacy spells, Harry exited the private room along with Fleur, making sure to drop his key back off with Madam Rosmerta. Fleur went back to Bill, and the older couple departed soon after. This left the Ministry Six to enjoy the village of Hogsmeade alone. After visiting a few more stores and refusing to set foot in Zonko’s out of loyalty to the twins, the group decided to walk back to the castle instead of taking a carriage.

They were only a minutes out of Hogsmeade when they heard a massive commotion from behind them. The six of them instinctively fell into a battle formation, with Ron using his Air powers to take the lead and Hermione preparing to summon her armor at a moment’s notice.

It didn’t take long for them to see the cause of the ruckus. Katie Bell was arguing with her friend Leanne, a Hufflepuff and another DA member.

“It’s nothing to do with you, Leanne!” Katie shouted. She was holding a strange wrapped package.

Leanne grabbed at the package, but Katie yanked it away from her friend’s grasp, the wrapping falling open in the process.

Suddenly, Katie Bell flew up into the air, her arms stretching out and the package falling to the ground. An eerie, dark aura surrounded her as she let loose a bloodcurdling scream. Harry whipped out his wand to summon her back down, but his spells were rebuffed by the dark curse that had a hold on his friend. Meanwhile, Ginny, Ron, and Hermione surrounded the package while Neville and Luna went to comfort Leanne.

After a minute, the dark spell stopped and Katie fell back to the ground, comatose but alive. As Harry called Ron to fly her back to Hogwarts for emergency treatment, he had only one thing to say.

“I hate Halloween.”

Chapter Text

Saturday, 31 October 2015

The fallout of the attack on Katie Bell was hectic.

Auror Nymphadora Tonks, whom Harry had briefly seen as he was heading toward the pub a few hours earlier, quickly arrived at the commotion. Questioning a teary Leanne, it was revealed that Katie had acquired the package during a restroom break at the Three Broomsticks. Katie was oddly insistent that she had to deliver it to someone, leading to the argument with Leanne that culminated in Katie’s being cursed. Tonks and Hermione both came to the same conclusion – Katie had likely been placed under the Imperius to deliver the cursed package to some unknown target.

The trained investigator moved next to the cursed object, which Hermione and Ginny were still keeping watch over. On closer examination, it brought up an old memory for Harry.

“I think I recognize this necklace,” he told Tonks.

“How so?” she asked professionally, taking notes with a Dictaquill on a piece of floating parchment.

“The first time I used the Floo when I was twelve, I accidentally landed in Borgin and Burke’s when trying to get to Diagon Alley. Lucius and Draco Malfoy were there selling some objects, and Draco pointed out this necklace. Borgin said that it was cursed and had killed numerous Muggle owners.”

“Hmm,” said Tonks. “I’ll look into that.”

Just then, two professors came running down the road from Hogwarts – McGonagall and Snape.

“Mr. Weasley said that you saw what happened to Katie Bell,” the Deputy Headmistress said.

“They were,” Tonks replied. “I’ve been doing a preliminary investigation.”

“Very well,” said McGonagall before turning to the students. “What happened?” she asked demandingly.

Harry quickly repeated everything that he had already told Tonks, as well as what Leanne had shared. The Hufflepuff girl was distraught at what she’d inadvertently caused, and everyone could see that they’d be getting no more out of her.

“Take her to the Hospital Wing,” McGonagall ordered in one of the kindest tones Harry had ever heard from the stern professor. Neville and Luna guided the girl back up the path to the castle.

Meanwhile, Professor Snape had conjured a piece of fabric and bespelled it with what Harry thought were protective spells. He used it to grab and wrap the necklace.

“I shall be taking this back to Hogwarts for examination,” he declared.

Tonks looked like she wanted to protest this, and Harry kind of agreed – the necklace was evidence in a major crime and should be taken into Auror custody. Then again, Harry remembered what had happened last year to the Auror evidence room. Perhaps it was safer with Snape. Either way, the metamorphmagus didn’t speak up against Snape, especially with McGonagall backing him. Instead, she silently gathered up her notes and apparated away.

“Professor Dumbledore needs to know about this,” Harry commented.

“The Headmaster is away until Monday,” McGonagall informed him, “and I will inform of it when he returns. Now let us go back to the castle.”

Harry, Hermione, Ron, and Ginny couldn’t help but follow along behind the professor as she strode briskly toward the castle gates.

“I think this might have been Malfoy’s first strike,” Harry said softly.

Ron nodded in agreement. “If his goal is to kill someone inside Hogwarts for Voldemort, then having Katie deliver that necklace to them would be a way to do it.”

“But to cast the Imperius, and so subtly…” Ginny shuddered. “If he did it, he’s far more competent than any sixteen-year-old ought to be.”

“Those are very serious accusations you are making,” Professor McGonagall said sternly as she came to a halt at the castle gates and turned to face them. Harry thought they’d been speaking quietly enough to avoid her attention, but clearly not. “For one, I know for a fact that Mr. Malfoy could not have done this – he was in detention with me for failure to complete his last two homework assignments in Transfiguration.”

Hermione was the one to speak up in Harry’s defense. “We do have quite a bit of evidence, Professor, albeit circumstantial, that Malfoy is actively working for Voldemort. He may at least know something.”

“I will keep that in mind,” McGonagall said curtly. “Now, I need to go check on Miss Bell. Good day.”

The quartet walked in the opposite direction as their Head of House, heading toward one of the entrances to the Chamber of Secrets.

“It was just a theory,” Harry groused. “She didn’t need to be like that.”

“It’s not your fault,” his girlfriend reassured him. “You know that she hasn’t been a fan of yours ever since you started standing up to her during the Tournament.”

“Ever since our first year, really,” Hermione said. “I mean, fifty points each for being out past curfew when she only took twenty from Malfoy? Accusing you of playing tricks on Neville? Sending you into the Forbidden Forest at night?” The bookworm shuddered. “That particular nightmare of a detention was the reason I started losing my faith in authority.”

“Seeing as we may not be able to count on her,” said Ron, “we’ll need to keep a closer eye on Malfoy ourselves. After all, there’s a good chance that she’s right and Malfoy didn’t give the necklace to Katie directly. Still…”

The friends were silent for a minute or so as they walked into the entrance hall of the Chamber of Secrets. Harry glanced at the giant dual clocks displayed prominently on the wall next to the metal shield he’d made in the First Task. One displayed the real time, the other displayed ‘Chamber Time’, a count of days and hours since the time dilation spell had first been cast. Seeing what both clocks displayed, Harry realized that it was the perfect opportunity for something he’d been preparing for nearly a week.

“On a far better note,” he said, “could you meet me in my workroom in about two hours Chamber time, Hermione? I have something I’d like to show you.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The workroom that had been primarily used by Harry Potter since the Chamber’s refurbishment currently contained three individuals. One, of course, was Harry Potter himself, currently performing a detailed examination of one of his projects, one that was nearing completion. The second was not a human being but the illusory projection of one, the avatar used by the sentient spell dubbed Rose Potter to communicate with her father and his friends. And the third, well, was quite similar to the second, though it had not quite yet gained sentience.

“Everything matches my plans and notes,” said Harry, “and every part of the design has been confirmed individually through small-scale tests.”

“I concur,” Rose said. “I think we’re ready, dad.”

“Are you ready to be a mother?” Harry asked.

“If I were subject to human incest taboos, I would find it quite unusual to be creating new life with my own father,” she said jokingly, and Harry scrunched his face in disgust.

“Did you have to go there, Rose?”

Harry’s daughter smiled. “It’s the little things in life,” she said. “Grossing you out makes my day.”

“And you’re wrong, Rose,” Harry said. “We’re not quite ready – there’s still one more thing missing.” Harry glanced at his watch. “Though not for long.” A knocking was heard on the workroom’s door. “Ah,” he said as he went to open it and welcome Hermione Granger in, “right on time.”

“Hi, Harry,” she said. “What do you need me for?”

“Remember what you asked me for early this summer?” Harry said. “It’s ready.”

“The AI for my armor?” she asked excitedly, nearly squealing. “You managed to do it?”

“Me and Rose – mostly Rose, though.”

“Give yourself credit, dad,” Rose countered. “You had many of the key ideas in getting this off the ground – and you did all the carving and spellcasting.”

Hermione gazed at the large crystal appraisingly, taking in all of the runework covering its surface. “This is amazing. But how did you do it? And how will it fit in my suit?”

“The second one’s easy, Hermione,” Harry replied, pointing to a spot on the crystal. “This rune is tied to a reversible shrinking charm so it can slot into your suit, but still let me do maintenance on it as needed. As for the first… well, I’ll let the mother-to-be explain.”

“Dad and I drew from a number of sources as we sought to create this artificial magical intelligence. Magical portraits seemed like a worthwhile avenue, but in the end, the spells you use to make one are more just creating a shallow copy of the subject’s personality. A customized chatbot, if you want to use the non-magical term. It was far from what you needed.

“Instead, we looked toward Muggle artificial intelligences for inspiration – specifically, Tony Stark’s research in creating JARVIS and his successor, FRIDAY. Stark didn’t publish much about his work, but what he did provided a framework for us to build on. Harry wrote to him via Steve for a few additional hints.

“And of course, I myself was an inspiration. Even though I was an unintentional emergent intelligence rather than a deliberately created one, I still did a lot of self-reflection to figure out how my own thought processes worked and how to translate those into our creation.

“We drew from a few other sources – Neville’s notes on Dain’s knowledge crystal for an understanding of how to create magical memory storage, and dad’s notes on the Choosing Stone for ideas on how to translate algorithms into runic structures. We called in Ron to help with some of the spells we needed as well.”

“And the end result was this,” Harry said, gesturing at the crystal. “We’ve named it the Magical Assistant for Reconnaissance and Combat. MARC.”

“An acronym,” Hermione noted. “I like it.”

“We thought you would,” said Harry. “He’s a powerful, adaptive artificial intelligence which will be able to learn from you and help control your armor in battle. We’ve provided it with some starters – languages, a few primers on magic and the magical world as well as the non-magical world, a few memories from Rose that she thought would help his first moments of consciousness, and of course, his Purpose to guide his existence.”

Hermione smiled. “That’s exactly what I wanted.”

“Now, Hermione,” Rose spoke up. “There are a few reasons we wanted you to be here for MARC’s first awakening.”

“For one,” Harry said, “we’re damn proud of what we’ve accomplished here with our hard work.”

“Yes, that,” Rose continued, “but far more importantly – MARC was built to be your companion, friend, and shield-brother in battle, Hermione. His Purpose, the core of his very existence, will be you. Just like mine is the Statute of Secrecy.”

“And that’s a heavy responsibility,” Harry added. “I trust you, Hermione – absolutely, unconditionally, without hesitation – but I need you to be sure of the commitment you’re about to make. To wake MARC up means a promise to him that he will always be able to fulfill his Purpose.”

Hermione sighed heavily. “I understand, Harry, what you’re asking of me. And I won’t make that promise lightly.”

Hermione quickly pulled out a journal and wrote a short note in it. He thought he recognized it as one that linked just to Ron. Harry didn’t begrudge them that – he had no desire to see their love notes back and forth any more than Ron or Hermione wanted to experience the full depth Harry’s affections for Ginny. And Harry was glad that Hermione was seeking the support of her boyfriend before making such a momentous commitment.

“There are other options,” Harry said. “MARC is as much my son – and my grandson – as Rose is my daughter. If you say no, Rose and I can probably whip up a more limited intelligence in two or three weeks, given everything we’ve learned in making MARC. And we can find another Purpose for MARC, to give him life.”

“We’ve been very carefully, actually, not to give MARC any sort of awareness as we made him. To be stuck in a half-aware state, unable to communicate or interact with the world, unsure of what you are… my early years, the ones before I first communicated with dad, were far from pleasant. I chose to spare my son the experience.”

The workshop door opened again, and Ron came rushing in. Quickly, Harry, Rose, and Hermione explained the choice that was facing her.

“I think you should do it,” Ron said immediately. “You’ve never been one to abandon a friend, Hermione; you wouldn’t abandon MARC.”

“He’s right,” Harry said, “we’ve been together, the three of us, since the troll, ‘til basilisks do us part.”

Hermione chuckled at Harry’s joke before steeling herself. “I promise you, Harry Potter, Rose Potter, that I will provide your son with a Purpose for as long as I am alive.”

“I know you will, Hermione,” Harry said with a smile, before walking over to the crystal and pressing his wand into a particularly prominent rune. He did not speak any incantation aloud; instead, he simply pushed his magic into the crystal and whispered.

“Wake up, MARC.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

In a place that was not a place, a consciousness suddenly came into being. It could feel information flooding into its newly formed mind – several languages in which to communicate, books worth of information about various things, especially something called ‘magic’, and an innate understanding of his nature that it could not quite explain. And after all of this, there came a single page that stood out to it, as if it was highlighted for its attention.

Hello, and welcome to consciousness.

Your name is Magical Assistant for Reconnaissance and Combat, which can be shortened to MARC.

Your creators are Harry Potter, a wizard, and Rose Potter, an artificial intelligence similar to yourself in some ways, though with a different origin.

You were created for Hermione Granger, a witch and a friend of your creators. Your Purpose is to be her partner and assistant in combat, to help her use her enchanted armor to its fullest capability.

As it – no, MARC – understood its Purpose, something clicked inside it. It knew that it had to have a Purpose, something to drive its actions.

Your current physical form, a rune-enchanted crystal, has the ability to let you observe your surroundings and to project an illusory image and voice. You are free to choose a humanoid avatar to interact with Hermione, Harry, and other biological intelligences. You were conceived as using a male human avatar, but you may choose a different avatar if you wish. Memories from Rose should help you choose and project your avatar.

When you are ready, you are welcome to communicate with the outside world. Harry, Rose, and Hermione will be there.

MARC saw no reason not to use a male human avatar as his creators intended. He processed the memories from his creator Rose on how to do this. While his creator was immensely powerful, MARC’s available magical power was far more limited; he did not think that he’d be able to create the detailed humanoid illusions of which she was capable. Instead, he merely selected a male voice compiled from several in the memories he had inherited.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“Hello, Hermione,” a fairly deep, male voice emanated from the crystal. “Hello, Harry and Rose. I am MARC.”

“Hello, MARC,” Hermione replied. “I’m Hermione. It’s good to meet you.”

“I’m Rose,” the elder intelligence greeted. “How are you doing, MARC? Are you having trouble creating a visual image?”

A glowing maroon orb appeared, hovering above MARC’s crystal and pulsating as he spoke. “I’m afraid I don’t have the power to make such detailed illusions as you, Rose. But if a visual manifestation would make you more comfortable, I hope this will suffice.”

“We should have remembered that,” Harry said. “Oh, and hi, MARC. I’m Harry. And, since he wasn’t in your initialization file, this is Ron Weasley. He’s Hermione’s boyfriend, and he helped craft a whole lot of the spells that went into your creation.”

“Boyfriend…” MARC said. “Term for human romantic relationship, indicating a closeness above and beyond normal friendships, including activities aimed toward eventual biological procreation. It is good to meet you, Ron.”

All three humans in the room blushed heavily at MARC’s description of Hermione and Ron’s relationship. MARC seemed to notice as well.

“Did I say something wrong?” he asked.

“Review information on ‘tact’, MARC,” Rose ordered.

“Ah,” MARC said after a moment. “I see. I will make a point to learn more of human social conventions.”

“It was fine, MARC,” Hermione reassured him. “Really.”

“Well,” Harry said, “while Rose and I will want to check in on your progress every now and then, I don’t think you want to stay cooped up in this room for months.”

“No,” MARC said. “I would prefer to go with Hermione.”

“That’s what I thought.” Harry pulled out three stones, handing two to Hermione and placing the third in her right ear, which slightly changed shape to secure itself. “These are earbuds that will let you talk to people privately, MARC.”

Hermione cocked her head slightly. “Got it loud and clear, MARC,” she said aloud.

“And you don’t have to talk aloud, either, Hermione. Just mouth what you want to say, and MARC should be able to pick it up.”

As Harry activated the crystal’s shrinking feature, reducing it to the size of a large grape, he saw Hermione engaging in a conversation with MARC. Happy that his son was already making friends with Hermione, he handed the crystal to her.

“Keep it safe,” Harry said, and Hermione nodded before resuming her chat.

“Do the earbuds need to be near the crystal?” Ron asked quietly. “I mean, it’s Protean, right?”

“I don’t need MARC worrying about the time differential yet,” Harry replied.

As Ron and Hermione left, Rose and Harry went back to the drawing board, pulling up the plans of the Iron Witch Armor. They needed to integrate MARC into its systems.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Sunday, 8 November 2015

Ginny was frustrated. Harry’s MARC project had been completed wonderfully, while her research on the horcruxes was stalling. Currently, she and Luna were reading some Asgardian tomes on soul magic in the Chamber’s library, but the theoretical research wasn’t doing much.

The red-haired witch angrily slammed her book on the table, startling Luna.

“I’ve been at this for months,” she said. “Let’s go take another look at the damn things; maybe we’ll notice something new.”

Luna followed along behind her fuming friend. “Are you sure that facing horcruxes while angry is a good choice?” she asked.

Ginny summoned the Excalibur. “I have this,” she said. “I’ll be fine.”

The pair followed the path to the hidden room where the three horcruxes they’d acquired (not counting Harry himself) were stored. On one heavily-warded plinth, Slytherin’s Locket sat. On a second, the original British Healer’s Insignia created by Mungo Bonham was displayed. Headmaster Dumbledore and Bill Weasley had retrieved it in early October from a cave in Wales. And on a third were the remains of the ring found in Little Hangleton. As soon as Luna set her eyes on the ring, she gasped.

“What is it, Luna?” Ginny asked.

“The ring!”

“What about it?”

“The stone – it has the symbol. The symbol of the Hallows!”

Ginny looked closer at the ring, and saw the same symbol that Luna had drawn for them just before Christmas a year ago. Having only seen it that one time, Ginny hadn’t recognized it when she had seen it again in the Gaunt Shack.

“Could this be…?” Ginny wondered.

“It is,” Luna declared. “The Second Hallow. The Resurrection Stone.”

Chapter Text

Monday, 9 November 2015

The discovery that they had acquired a second Deathly Hallow prompted an emergency meeting of the Golden Light. Six students sat in the Chamber of Secrets, arranged in a circle around the ring. The ex-Horcrux was still contained behind several layers of anti-dark magic spells, just for safety.

“How sure are we,” Harry asked, “that this stone really is a Hallow?”

“As sure as I can be,” Luna said, “without testing it out.”

“And the story warns against that,” said Ron. “The dead should be left to rest.”

For a moment, Harry ignored Ron and reached with his right hand toward the ring. He could see his parents again, and for real – not in a mirror or because of a dementor. He could hear their voices, hear their love and their praise and their worry and all the things a parent could give him that he had never gotten in his life. He just had to use the Stone.

And then, Ginny laid her hand gently on Harry’s arm, and he pulled back.

“You’re right,” he muttered so that only his girlfriend could hear. “‘It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.’ Dumbledore knew that.” He then raised his voice so that his other friends, all concerned for him, could hear. “I don’t think I’ll give in to the temptation again,” he said. “But just to be sure – lock it up tight.”

“I’ll make a special room for it,” Ron assured him.

“So two of the Hallows are definitely real,” Hermione said. “Which implies…”

“That the third one is also,” Luna finished for her. With her wand, she drew again in the air the symbol of the Hallows.

“The True Cloak,” she declared, sketching out an equilateral triangle.

“Which is Harry’s,” Neville said, “and has been passed down through his family from his ancestor, Ignotus Peverell. We figured that out last year.”

“The Resurrection Stone,” Luna proclaimed, inscribing a circle in the triangle.

“Which was set into a signet ring that Voldemort acquired and made into a horcrux,” Ginny narrated. “Another piece of evidence for this being the real Hallow – even with the ring being a horcrux, the Stone itself remained entirely untouched.”

“And,” Luna declared as she bisected the entire figure with a vertical line, “the Elder Wand. The Deathstick. The Wand of Destiny.”

“We determined that such a creation ought to be impossible,” Hermione recalled.

“And yet, it’s actually the Hallow with the most historical evidence,” Ron countered. “There are plenty of stories of mighty witches and wizards wielding a particularly powerful wand, though none in the past century or two. It’s said that Sauron looked for it during his second reign, but couldn’t find it. And we know Grindelwald was a Quester, too, though again, we have no idea whether he had the Wand.”

“If he did, though…” Harry mused. “Accio Pensieve!”

Neville’s eyes widened in understanding. “Then he would have probably used it until his defeat at the final battle.”

Harry caught the Pensieve when it arrived and conjured a table upon which to set it. Depositing his memory of the most famous duel of the last century, he gestured for his friends to review it once more. Personally, he didn’t need to see the memory again; he had studied it obsessively for months in an attempt to understanding the dueling styles of truly powerful wizards like the one he was destined to fight.

Instead, while his friends were viewing the memory again, Harry stared at the symbol Luna had drawn, which was still hanging in the air. It reminded him of something, something that he had seen long ago, long before he had ever heard of the Hallows.

A triangle, a circle, and a line… Passed down from Ignotus Peverell…

Harry thought he knew where he’d seen that symbol before, but he’d need a Pensieve to check. Good thing that he had made more than one. Rather than use Accio again, he simply jogged to the storage room where his Pensieves were kept, extracting the relevant memory on the way. When he reached the Pensieve, he just dropped it in and dove in to reexamine the memory himself…

Past Harry took a step into the vault and moved toward the back, where a few artifacts were on display. There was a display case with all his ancestors’ wands. There was a shelf of books which seemed to include the journals of several of his ancestors, along with some other tomes.

There was a single sword with a placard labeling it the ‘Sword of Ignotus Peverell’. It seemed to be very well-maintained, and it gave off a comforting green glow.

And finally, sitting at the very back, there was a small box, perhaps large enough to contain a book. There was a sigil inscribed on the top – the symbol of the Deathly Hallows, Harry now recognized – and it had three latches on the front. Past Harry tried to open the latches. However, only the middle one would open for him. With the box clearly locked and the goblins not liking wizards using magic within the bank, he decided to leave it be.

Falling out of the Pensieve and back into the real world, Harry retrieved the memory and rushed back to his friends. When he arrived, they were out of the memory and waiting on him.

“Where did you go?” Ginny asked him.

“I had an idea, and needed to use a different Pensieve to confirm it,” he explained, holding up the memory vial in his hand. Harry turned to Luna. “Since you’re the closest we have to an expert on the Hallows, Luna, what did you think?”

“The power Grindelwald wielded with that wand was incredible, even for a Dark Lord like him,” she informed him. “The fact that Dumbledore could only win with Olorin’s sacrifice. And that Dumbledore took the wand from him – the same wand he uses to this day. Even the physical appearance, now that I’ve looked at it closely, matches what legends we have of the Deathstick. I can say, with maybe eighty percent confidence, that the wand owned by Grindelwald and now Dumbledore is the Deathstick.”

“So we have all three Hallows on our side,” Neville pointed out. “That has to count for something. Maybe the whole power he knows not from the prophecy is the ‘Master of Death’ thing.”

“Maybe,” Luna said, though she didn’t sound convinced, “or maybe not.”

“What was it you were checking on, Harry?” Ron asked.

“I’ve seen the symbol of the Hallows before,” Harry revealed, “on my first trip to my family’s vault in Gringotts. There’s a locked box in there, one that I couldn’t open. And it had the symbol of the Hallows on it.”

“And with your ancestor being Ignotus Peverell,” Hermione said in realization, “the same one who owned Luna’s sword…”

Harry nodded. “It might just hold information on the Hallows.”

“The secrets to what being the ‘Master of Death’ really means,” Ginny added.

“Or,” Ron said, “another magical artifact designed to work alongside them.”

“I’ll get it from my vault over Christmas Break,” Harry decided, “and we’ll try to open it. Once we see what’s inside, we can talk to Dumbledore about his wand.”

His friends all expressed their agreement, though Ginny had a question.

“Why not sneak out like you did before and get it this weekend?”

Harry shook his head. “With all the time I spent on MARC, I need to spend some on my schoolwork and studying.”

“Got it,” Ginny acquiesced. “Besides, I think McGonagall is still annoyed with you.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Probably.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Friday, 18 December 2015

True to his word to Ginny, Harry spent most of the remainder of the term with his nose in his NEWT-level books. His only extracurriculars were Quidditch practice and the Slug Club. Even though the Potions Professor was kind of annoying, Harry and his friends had decided that it was easier to go along with most of his antics rather than try to fight him on it.

That was why Harry had asked Ginny to Slughorn’s party tonight. The train to London was going to be leaving the next morning, and Harry and Ginny wouldn’t get to see each other as much as usual over the holiday. So the two of them got into their best dress robes and made their way to Professor Slughorn’s office.

“Come in, come in, my boy,” the old wizard said jovially. “There are so many people I want you to meet.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Harry saw Ginny resign herself to being his arm candy for a while as Slughorn dragged him around to his various acquaintances. Indeed, the first introduction was to an author named Eldred Worple who seemed very interested in writing a biography of him.

“People are craving to know more about you, dear boy, craving!” Worple said. “If you were to grant me a few interviews…”

“While I appreciate the offer,” Harry lied through his teeth. If he were to have anyone write his story, it would probably be Luna. Despite her eccentricities, she was an excellent and engaging writer when she wanted to be. “I think any story to be told about me ought to wait for its conclusion.”

“Ah, yes, my boy,” Worple said. “I see – Sanguini, stay here!”

Harry and Ginny watched Worple wrangle his vampire ‘friend’, though he seemed to treat the blood-drinker as more of a pet to trot out.

“I’d be quite interested, however,” Harry said, “in hearing more about you and Sanguini.”

“It’s true,” Ginny piped in, “we know so very little about vampires from their own perspective, and we haven’t had a chance to read your book yet, Mr. Worple.”

The author nodded, and Sanguini turned to examine Ginny. The vampire spoke for the first time, in a deep voice with an exotic, alluring accent. “I would love to discuss my people with someone eager to learn, Miss…”

“Weasley. Ginny Weasley.”

“Yes,” Slughorn interjected. “Miss Weasley is among my best students – a scholar and an excellent duelist.”

Ginny acknowledged Slughorn’s praise before turning eagerly to Sanguini. “I’d love to learn more about vampiric magic,” she said. “Is it really true that you don’t have souls?”

“A common myth,” Sanguini replied, “perpetuated by those who fear our kind. We have souls, though they are… different from those of most other magical races. It is what grants us many of our unique strengths, and weaknesses.”

Ginny’s eyes lit up in excitement. “So how does this affect the turning process? I know that it has to be willing, and is rather draining on the sire…”

“True,” Sanguini said. Harry saw his eyes wandering to Ginny’s neck, but he wasn’t worried – Ginny had the Excalibur; she’d be fine. “Though many would describe it as a ‘corruption’ of the soul, it is perhaps better described as a reshaping to form the sire bond, alike to how two puzzle pieces might fit together…”

Worple looked quite put out that his vampire tag-along was now engrossed in a discussion of deep magical theory, and Harry could only chuckle. Giving Ginny a small wave, he left her to her conversation and let Slughorn continue to trot him around. He’d come back in a half hour to pick her up for some dancing, or she’d come find him.

Harry tried to be interested in the various people Slughorn was letting him meet – despite the heavy-handedness of the Slytherin’s gladhanding, any of these people might prove to be a worthwhile connection in the coming war. A very interesting encounter with Divination Professor Sybil Trelawney consisted of her foretelling doom for him and chastising him for failing to take her class. Though he was the Chosen One of prophecy, he knew that Luna would tell him all he needed to know about the subject.

Another odd encounter involved his current Potions professor and his former one. Harry had proven his skills to Slughorn early on.

“He’s an excellent potioneer,” Slughorn praised, “nearly as good as his mother was. Some credit must go to you, of course, you taught him for five years!”

Snape and Harry exchanged a series of meaningful looks that were. It was mutually acknowledged that yes, Harry was actually good at potions, that no, Snape didn’t do much to help him outside of a few hints during their fake Occlumency lessons, and that no, it was not worth correcting Slughorn on the latter point.

Slughorn’s eloquence on Harry’s potion-making skills was interrupted by Argus Filch, who came into the party dragging Draco Malfoy by the ear.

“Professor Slughorn,” the caretaker wheezed out, “I discovered this boy lurking in an upstairs corridor. He claims to have been invited to your party and to have been delayed in setting out. Did you issue him an invitation?”

Slughorn shook his head, and Malfoy came clean.

“Fine,” he said, “I was trying to gate-crash. Are you happy?”

Slughorn decided to let Malfoy stay out of generosity and the Christmas spirit, but Snape dragged him away furiously. Seeing a chance to maybe finally get some information on what Malfoy was plotting, Harry slipped away from Slughorn and cast several spells to make himself invisible, silent, and unnoticeable.

Harry pressed his ear against the keyhole of the abandoned classroom where they were meeting in order to listen, and what he heard was concerning. Malfoy was definitely on a mission for the Dark Lord, had apparently learned Occlumency well enough to keep Snape out, had been personally tutored by several Death Eaters, and was in conflict with Snape despite the latter swearing an Unbreakable Vow of all things to protect him.

Harry had heard of that spell. It was one of the few pieces of soul magic still extant, and like most such magics based on a druidic ritual. If the Vow was broken, the penalty was immediate, painful death. There was no way to undo it, no way to get around it – once a Vow was made, the vower had to see it through.

And if Snape had sworn a vow to Narcissa Malfoy of all people to protect her son – then Snape would have to be on his side in whatever he was planning on behalf of Voldemort.

Harry really needed to have a talk with Dumbledore.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Monday, 28 December 2015

Harry had really enjoyed his Christmas at Grimmauld Place. It was a family affair, with Sirius, Remus, and Harry hosting the Tonks family. Everyone had contributed to preparing the holiday feast, and it had turned out wonderfully.

On Boxing Day, Harry had asked Sirius and Remus to accompany him to Gringotts. The security procedures to enter the bank were long and tiresome, and Harry had had to leave his bracelets and shield behind. He hadn’t been happy about it, but he knew that pissing off the goblins would do him no favors at all.

Once he had been actually inside the bank, things had become somewhat easier. All he’d needed to do was to take a short cart ride down to his vault. He had already taken most of the non-monetary items out at various points for research purposes, and the locked box had been one of the few things left. Harry had stowed it beneath his cloak and left his vault, asking for the cart goblin to take him back up.

Now, all eight members of the Golden Light were all assembled in the twins’ bedroom at the Burrow to examine what Harry had retrieved. Harry took the box and placed it on the floor for all of them to look at.

“I can open the center latch,” Harry said as he demonstrated easily flipping it open, “but the others won’t budge for me. I even tried some unlocking spells on them back at Headquarters, and nothing.”

“Let us try,” Hermione said, drawing her self-made wand and pointing it at the box. “It might react differently to us, or we might know a few spells you don’t. Let’s start simple. Alohomora,” she incanted, and the rightmost latch flipped open.

“I… was not expecting that,” she admitted. “I wonder…” Hermione flipped the right latch closed and back open again. Trying the same on the other latches, even the one that Harry had opened, produced no results.

“So,” Fred summarized, “Harry can open the center latch. Hermione can take the right latch. So who can open the left one?”

“It’s Ron,” Neville said immediately, and all eyes turned to him. “It has to be Ron,” he repeated himself, “because, when it comes down to it, it’s always been the three of you. You stood together long before you brought the rest of us in, and you’ll stand together even if the rest of us fall.”

Harry smiled slightly at his formerly shy friend’s eloquence.

“He’s right,” Ginny spoke up. “I’ve known from the start, Harry, that you and Hermione and my brother have a bond that’s as deep as the one you have with me, if in a different way.”

Ron reached in and quickly flipped the leftmost latch open and then closed again, confirming Neville’s theory.

“I suppose it makes sense,” he said. “If the box was designed to be opened by a trio, then that trio would have to be the three of us.”

“The Golden Trio,” Luna agreed. “Open it together.”

Harry lifted the box off the floor and placed it on Fred’s bed. His closest friends came in to stand on either side of him.

“Absolutely, unconditionally, without hesitation,” Harry whispered. Placing his hand on the center latch, he spoke, “On three.” He saw Ron and Hermione reach for their own latches in unison. “One… two… three!”

On Harry’s mark, the trio flipped their latches open as one. The box gently opened itself of its own accord, and they backed away from the magical object, not knowing what it might do.

It did very little except to project a detailed 3D image, just like a Pensieve. It was of a wrinkled wizard with grey hair.

The projection gazed silently out at them for a few moments. It took a deep breath before it began to speak aloud in surprisingly perfect modern English.

“Hello, my descendant.”