A New Tournament (Harry Potter & SG:SG1)

[Xx_BoneIdle_xX]

He was so bloody fucking done with this place!

Click to shrink...

It seems like the author agrees with you (since he trashed the place quite good imo)!

 

[Aleh]

"Here, Harry. I believe this now belongs to you," he said

Click to shrink...

"I took it from him, so yes, it once was, but no more. It was mine from that point to this, and now it is yours, Harry. Take care not to lose it."

Click to shrink...

he might as well of did

Click to shrink...

"might as well have done"

Faux

Click to shrink...

Fawkes.

Luscious

Click to shrink...

Lucius.

And the above is a very tiny sample of what stood out to me when I read this chapter (on mobile, or I'd have kept a running tally).

 

[killgore444]

Thanks.

"might as well have done"

Click to shrink...

Were was this one in the story?
I've reread it so many times this last week, my eyes are just skimming over the words at this point.

Thankfully, all I've got left is a POV from Rita Skitter and some notes before posting on FFN.

 

[Aleh]

Were was this one in the story?
I've reread it so many times this last week, my eyes are just skimming over the words at this point.

Click to shrink...

Here:

Even as the blast was still echoing though the castle, two more Death Eaters came flying in on brooms, Nimbus 2001s if Harry wasn't mistaken. Flitwick cast a 'Densissima' charm on the air in front of one of them, turning it into a viscus mass, similar to thick, invisible syrup. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem, just slowing you down and making you work to move, but at the speed they were flying, he might as well of did a bellyflop off Gryffindor tower onto the ground. He smashed into the glob, losing consciousness, before slowly sinking to the bottom of the mass, and then falling to the ruble strewn ground.

Click to shrink...

Thankfully, all I've got left is a POV from Rita Skitter and some notes before posting on FFN.

Click to shrink...

I do hope there's a proofreading step in there somewhere.

 

[killgore444]

Here:

Click to shrink...

Thanks.

I do hope there's a proofreading step in there somewhere.

Click to shrink...

There is, me rereading it a dozen times and hoping that I see the mistakes before my eyes start to glaze. I've sadly had a lot of trouble with the proofreaders I've had in the past. Honestly, it's one of the reasons I started to post here before I update on FFN.

 

[killgore444]

A very very rough draft. But I wanted it out before Christmas. So Happy Christmas Everyone.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII​

​

Rita Skeeter was not having a good day. Or rather, she was no longer having a good day. It'd all started early this morning when that stupid little mudblood shite managed to scoop every actual real reporter the Daily Prophet had on it's staff and found out that Harry Bloody Potter had been at Nurmengard visiting none other that Gellert Grindelwald. Making it worse was that she had already made arrangements with Fudge to openly get her past Dumbledore's ban on her presence inside Hogwarts in a couple of weeks. She'd been so looking forward to rubbing his face in on that point.

But oh no, Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore couldn't have that! After some incident at Hogwarts involving Lucius Malfoy's son nearly getting expelled, Dumbshite Dumbledore had made a statement that NO press would be allowed on school grounds. That the Weighing of the Wands would take place in Hogsmead, and that a press conference would be had at that time with a single representative from each magical media outlet from each country with a student competing. Details of press being allowed to watch the tournament itself would be made available at that time.

So she had decided that the only real response to that was to sneak into the school and do a little bit of investigative reporting. What she'd found out throughout the day had been nearly a dream come true. Potter and friends were actually missing, even if Potter at least had been spotted several times. Horrific levels of violence between the houses that had left over a dozen spending the night in the infirmary. The Malfoy Scion was very close to being not only expelled, but arrested and sent to Azkaban for possession of several dark artifacts of a nature to allow him to dominate and control members of the opposite sex. She had nearly broken her cover and accidentally transformed laughing so hard at that. Now Malfoy was in a desperate race to insure that his brat would be allowed to stay out of prison, much less stay in school long enough to take his O.W.L.s and be considered a wizard when he turned seventeen.

Evidently even Fudge had limits on what he'd take bribes to allow. Although, to be fair to Lucius, she was pretty sure that it was a case of the Prophet's senior editor seeing blood in the water. Fudge wouldn't be willing to go so against the public outcry over someone having the ability to rape their daughters with impunity after all. Rita rather doubted Fudge would survive if he was really that dumb.

It was kind of sad actually, that the most normal thing was Mad Eye Moody. No rants about conspiracies to murder him. No random attacks on people. Nothing except him being thrust right back into being an Auror. He'd actually been placed in charge of the other Aurors that had, for 'Some-Reason' been placed on school grounds.

Still though, the one thing that information had eluded her on was the one thing she'd came here for. Potter!

Other than finding out he was missing, she'd had very little luck getting any details about him. She'd overheard the little half-breed goblin telling the other Teachers that he and Snape had just missed him when delivering an invitation to a mudblood. There was a rumor that he'd been seen in the rather seedy and dark leaning Madam Walpole's bookstore she'd overheard from a couple of Aurors. Combine that with the whole visiting Grindelwald thing, and it put Saint Potter in a whole new light.

And quite apart from the idea that little Saint Potter was visiting the devil himself, there was all sorts of questions about HOW Potter was able to make the visit. One, the power of the Goblet was supposedly able to keep those bound to it within a very short distance. Which would have actually ruled out the trip to Knockturn Alley as well. Then there was the apparent fact that he'd done it without the permission of Dumbledore, much less his assistance. Even if he could Apparate despite his age, it's not like Nurmengard advertised its location.

It'd been after midnight when she'd finally found Potter wandering around after curfew. Following him had been surprisingly easy for someone who had a reputation for moving around unseen. It was almost has if he WANTED her to follow him. That really should have been her first clue-in that things were about to go bad.

She'd watched with some amusement the meet up with the Weevil brat. While she found their discussion rather amusing, and Very MALE, the blood-traitor's comments about He-who-must-not-be-named rather scandalise. She'd need to spice up their conversation a bit though. Add in a few lines about how heartbroken poor Harry was, and the entirety of the magical world would be at the blood-traitor's throat. There really weren't that many of her readers who were intelligent enough to understand that this was how teenagers acted. No, she was sure she could turn Ron Weasley into a demon as far as her readers were concerned.

Seeing Potter disarm Dumbshite was thrilling. And also rather chilling when one considered what she knew about his activities this past weekend. If the Great and All Powerful Dumbledore couldn't take Potter has a teenager, who would be able to beat him as an adult? She actually thought about writing a piece about how the Darklord had sensed Potter's evil nature, and had only attacked his family to protect the magical world. She dismissed it almost immediately. Even her readers weren't that dumb.

Lost in her own thoughts, she almost missed the conversation with Dumbledore and was taken off guard by the references to the Deathly Hallows. Potter had two of them, and Moody had the third?! No, wait, Potter has said six pieces to the set.

It was a shock when Moody showed up and Potter almost immediately attacked him. Surely he wasn't so power mad as to go for the third piece right in front of Dumbledore? Moody turning into Crouch jr however sent her back, and nearly caused her to once again accidentally transform back into her human shape. She watched in awe as Crouch cast the Killing Curse at Dumbledore, and was just as shocked as everyone else when Potter cast a shield that protected him.

She'd debated staying with Potter or watching Crouch and his friends duel Dumbledore. But in the end, she decided the duel would be more interesting then watching two kids run away from a fight. She'd give Dumbledore credit, if only to herself, he was in fact a Grand Warlock with a mastery of battle magic that defied her understanding of the term. Alone, against six opponents and lacking a wand, or any other focus, he was still winning.

Using only runes he'd drawn in midair, he'd managed to utterly destroy one of them, and knock out two others when THE Explosion happened. Both sides had been knocked on their asses when the entire floor, for lack of a better term, rippled. She'd taken shelter from the fight in a tiny cranny where the archway met the ceiling so she could watch the fight. But the walls and ceiling hadn't been immune to the blast and she'd been knocked silly when the stone she was clinging to gave way and fell.

When she came to, she realized that she'd missed the end of the duel. Crouch and friends were all laying around either dead, or knocked out and bound. She tried to find the Eye, but gave up under the assumption that Dumbledore wouldn't have left one of the Hallows sitting around untended were anyone could find it. It was that that made her pause, no one had come to Dumbledore's aid, even after he had requested it. That and the blast had come from somewhere. This put a little more energy into her movements. Not only was she missing the story, but there were Death Eaters about, and despite her being sympathetic to their anti-mudblood views, she wasn't a Death Eater, so they wouldn't ignore her.

Deciding to go back to her insect form (when had she became human?), she was greeted by incredible pain, sticking her halfway through her transformation. It took her a couple of seconds to understand what happened; she'd broken several bones. She'd need to sneak out of the castle in her halfway state to get to a point she could disapparate from so she could get to an unlicensed healer she knew. She couldn't transform in either direction now.

Trying to sneak as a three foot tall, half insect wasn't easy. Especially since none of her limbs were at the same level of transformation. Her left lower leg was completely human (if somewhat shorter), her lower right leg was mostly insect, but had a human foot. All her other limbs were similarly mismatched, as were her eyes, making it hard to see. So she was completely surprised when she was smacked in the back of the head by something hard, dropping her to the floor.

"Dobby apologizes to Miss Dung Beetle. But Dobby can not allow Miss to spread her filth on the Great Harry Potter. Therefore Dobby must regretfully remove the poop eater from being a threat."

WHAT THE HELL?!?! Did a bloody fucking house elf attack her? And a clothed elf at that. Mentally cursing every person who had ever freed an elf, she tried to grab her wand with one of her mismatched hands, but the fucking elf just swatted her arm, snapping yet another bone and making her fling her wand away.

OK, she'd need to actually use her charm on this creature. 'Worst case scenario' she thought to herself, 'it casts an Oblivate on me and I'm revealed as an animagus. I've still got my notes in my bag, and my quill was still dictating everything I saw, so I'll still be able to get my story and even get this filthy thing destroyed.'

That was when she noticed it was reading from a small, muggle style notebook, muttering to itself. "Forgetting something. Dobby is forgetting something. Oh, here it is. Remember to take the filth eater's bag before killing her. Yes, she must be told that she is going to die and why." With that, it flipped it's notebook closed and vanished it away before walking up to her with and casting a cutting hex at her, cutting through the strap on her bag and going deep into her shoulder.

"Stop, please, I'm begging you." she tried to cry out, but it came as only a whisper of pain. "Please!"

"Dobby is very sorry, but even Miss Dung Eater must understand that the life she has chosen, to destroy the lives of others, would one day bring her to her death. Dobby is most regretful, even if Miss has earned her pain and death for the misery she has inflicted on others. But that misery wouldn't have led to her death this day if Dobby hadn't had the realization that Miss Dung Beetle's words would have a two percent chance of causing most of the human race to be destroyed. So while Dobby must punish himself most strenuously, he must still kill Miss now."

"Two percent? You're going to kill me over something that likely won't even happen?" What the hell, those where minuscule odds. Surely her life was more important than that? Seeing someone approach them, she tried calling for help. "Please HELP! An elf is trying to kill me. Please help me." She again tried to call as the ghost of the Bloody Baron floated down the hall.

"May I inquire what is going on here? A House Elf trying to kill a hum… …well something?"

"Lord Baron sir." The fucking creature began, "This woman is a direct threat to several students here at the school, and I've reason to believe that she could likely cause what the muggles call, A Mass Extinction Event. Therefore I believe that she represents a threat more severe than the Death Eaters who have attacked this night." The creature said with far more respect then it showed her, while levitating up it's notebook for the ghost to read. "I became aware of this possibility when, under the influence of Felix Felicis, I visited Professor Sybill Trelawney and received a true prophecy from her."

As it fished it's rather self righteous excuse, the ghost just stared at it for several long moments before nodding and gliding over to her. "Since she is an enemy of the school, I'll make sure she can not come back as a ghost." He explained as he stuck his hands into her chest, increasing her pain immensely. "It is the duty of the Ghost Council to this, so no one should be suspicious. And maybe future reporters will figure out that writing stories trying to drum up support for exercising us from our homes is a very unwise thing to do."

"Please! You can't do this. You can't…"

"Miss Dung Beetle, Dobby has gone through much effort to make sure the enemies of Hogwarts were revealed now, before they could do much harm. On a night when the students were all protected, and there was extra help in the Castle to help defend it." Waving the notebook around again, it continued, "Dobby has put much effort into insuring that the bad evil wizard pretending to be Professor Moody was tricked into revealing himself to the Great Harry Potter and Albus Dumbledore. Dobby has had much work making sure that the Auror patrols heard things that made them pause in their routes so they would be in the best place to defend the students and school. Everything that has happened this night, has been part of Dobby's plan Miss Dung Beetle. Now Dobby has much more work to do this night, and Dobby must end this before Dobby is discovered. Goodbye Miss filth eater."

The last things Rita Skeeters ever saw was the Ghost of the Bloody Baron washing his hands in her chest and a large stone falling at her face.

~

 

[killgore444]

The path to Harry's wish fulfillment chapter :
Getting Ron back as a friend! Complete.
Proving he wasn't some stupid schmuck to be pushed around! Complete.

Step 1 of getting undeniable proof that he didn't enter himself in the tournament!
Step 2 of getting whoever did enter him DEAD!
Step 13 and 14 of acquiring the skill and power to WIN!
Steps 9 thru 15 of getting enough respect and fear from people!
Step 5 of gaining political power.

0011001100​

'Yam Securitas', 'Felidia', 'Cerise Protego', 'Engorgio Incendio', 'Finite Miscugliem' and 'Finite Invocazionum' are all my own inventions, even if both protego and incendio are cannon spells.

'Ex nihilo' is the incantation I made up for the cannon spell Dumbledore uses to conjure stuff from nothing.

'Alchemyst' is a spell I'm less sure of. I've seen three different HP stories have something similar, (A)D&D, both 2nd, 3rd also had spells that did something similar (and that's were I THINK the incantation came from), as did PFrpg and MtA.

Pretoria: from Backward-With-Purpose-Part-I-Always-and-Always chap 38
Inobservatus chapter 39 of Seasons-of-change
Acer Gelu is from Larceny, Lechery, and Luna Lovegood! chapter 61
Scindo from chap 13 of Kicking-Gotham
Densissima from chap 58 of Intensity
Avea Apara from Intensity chap 7
Agni Incaendium from I-Still-Haven-t-Found-What-I-m-Looking-For chapter 12
Acme from Make-A-Wish chapter 38


Thank you Aleh for you help. Honestly, your going over and pointing out my mistakes in grammar/spelling is the reason I post here before posting on FFN. Once I post there, I don't like to do edits. It's why I ignored stuff from chapters I already posted.

​

So, what does everyone think about part 3 of chap 7? Or just the chapter in general?

I'm hoping this puts paid on the idea that I'm following the story without deviation despite Dobby and Harry altering everything. Some things will follow cannon religiously simply because they were set up before the story divergence. For all that people complain when a story has the same tasks as the book, that shit was set up before the school year even started, they just had to get an extra dragon when Harry was added. Although he's going to handle them differently. If nothing else, fake Moody isn't around to offer advise anymore.

That having been said, the actions they have taken HAVE had major impacts on how others have acted. Dumbledore and Madam Bones are actually working together and Dumbledore is no longer worried that she's just a stooge for Fudge (he was the one who appointed her after all). Bones is no longer worried that he's just a senile old man who needs to be removed, though she IS still worried about his mental health, it's more worried about stress. She's also starting to think outside the box.

Dobby and Winky have got a whole bunch of irons in the fire. They tricked Crouch and Voldemort into revealing themselves when they were weak and the good guys were strong. And in the Christmas spirit, Dobby's got himself a list of who's naughty and nice, and isn't the least bit scared to check people off the first list. Of course, one wonders why his notes said he should explain to Skeeter WHY he was killing her before he did so.

Hermione's ordeal will be explained next chapter.

This is the point where I planned to have Harry seriously reconsider his desire to stay at Hogwarts and in England. So while I do in fact intend for him to remain British, he is going to be waffling a bit. After all, he's got three really good reasons to move to America right now (and a lot of good reasons to want to leave). Of course, he's still bound to the tournament, so Dumbledore has till the end of the year to convince him to stay. Harry also still has a pocket full of dead basilisks.

Ron is in trouble. He's always been at the edges of Harry's adventures up to now. And while violence hasn't actually been that rare, deadly violence has only been used by him against giant spiders up till now. Now he's killed his fellow human beings and has to deal with that emotionally (and legally). While most of the people he killed were in the heat of battle, Crabbe was a flat out murder of a prisoner who had surrendered. Murder that took place in front of his sister and brothers, a quarter of the students (EVERYONE in Gryffindor), his head of house and the Deputy Headmistress and a member of the Ghost Council. A free PoV to the first person to guess how I intend to Try and get Ron off that legally.

Ginny, Fred and George are suddenly looking at their younger brother and his friends in a whole new light. While their epiphany started in chapter two, this chapter sent it spiraling. The twins especially are dealing with the realization that if it came to a straight up fight, Ron would likely wipe the floor with them. All three of them are now wondering how much of that resentment Harry brought up in chapter two is going to turn into aggression from Ron now.

The rest of the students just got a (not so)pretty good look into the Trio's adventures. The younger girls especially need only look at Hermione to now understand what standing next to Harry might cost them, and why being the 'Damsel in Distress' for their hero, Harry, to rescue is probably a REALLY DUMB thing to wish for. Plus a lot of them have to now figure out how to get blood and entrails out of their clothes (that's a student chore since House Elves don't touch clothes). Oh, everyone in Gryffindor can now see Thestrals.

Professor McGonagall has just had the same realizations as everyone else, but has the added burden of arranging mind healers for her entire house and wondering if she needs to start protecting her students FROM the Trio as well. Combined with what Hermione told her (when she told her off), McGonagall is wondering if she really just failed them.

Next chapter is mostly going to be repercussions and more world building.

BtW, what do you all think of my world building? That is the other major reason I post here. I may regret this, but I actually want to know what you think about things like what Nick and the Bloody Baron did. About how I set up things with House Elves and the law, and the Department of Mysteries. Things like that.
​

killgore444

"If you're calling reality a hateful, cruel, and jealous place... then I cannot honestly refute your statement."

"Don't try to understand women. Women understand women, and they tend to hate each other."

"I think I finally get why girls are said to be catlike; it's got nothing to do with grace, but how their similar thieving opportunism keeps trying to make off with your stuff when you aren't looking."​

 

[killgore444]

I'm not done with part 1 yet I've still got Hermione to deal with from her Fathers PoV, but I really need some feed back on this. I'm NOT satisfied but not sure how I can make it better.​

A New Tournament
Chapter 8 : ​

Disclaimer: I do not own any of this. All rights reserved to the respective owners of Harry Potter and Stargate: SG1. If I did own any of it, it would have gone very differently.
And probably been not as good.
Summary: A gift from the future provides a little bit of hope in a time of need. OP Harry, Ron and Hermione, but with a plausible background to support it. No bashing, even of disliked characters

00l l l l (_i_) \_!_/ l l l l00​

Dr Phillip Granger was not having a pleasant morning. He'd woken up at five thirty in the morning for his morning run, just like every day since he left the military. Unfortunately, he hadn't even made it out of the house when a strange man, wearing clothes that were at best described as odd, had shown up on his door step.

He hadn't driven there. He had literally shown up on his door step. As in teleported.

It hadn't taken very long for the man to explain that he was a magical law enforcement officer, or a Auror as they were called, and that there had been an… …incident at Hogwarts that involved his daughter. Who was now in their medical wing. He'd quickly woken up his wife, and while she was getting dressed, called their partners at the clinic to let them know Hermione had been injured, and neither he or Emma would be in, and asked them to take their patients for the day.

So here they where, standing outside of the gates to a castle after a gut wrenching trip from a hula hoop after the man double checked to make sure they had their anti-anti-muggle charm tokens with them (they never took them off). Standing next to them was another couple, presumably parents of another student as well as two different Aurors, both watching and watching over them. The other couple had already been here awhile when his wife and him had shown up, and apparently hadn't been escorted here, so were likely magical.

Listening to them 'discuss' things with the Aurors, it was clear that they had known something was wrong without being told by anyone, something about a magical clock, and that they had actually shown up MUCH earlier prepared to help protect the school. But they had not been able to get on the grounds due to the 'Wards' activating and closing the school off. Neither the Aurors or Headmaster felt that it was a good idea to allow anyone in until the grounds had been completely cleared and their identities had been confirmed.

It was several minutes before a rather large fellow approached the gate. He easily topped two meters and had a wild, bushy beard and an almost feral look, except that he also seemed friendly, if cautious at the moment. A quit word in the ear of his wife, imploring her to remain calm and listen to everything said. It was much easier to gather information if you didn't keep interrupting people after all. He was pretty sure Emma wasn't paying any attention to him though.

As the man (giant?) got to the gate, he pulled out a piece of paper and; "Err, hi I suppose. I've been tol' to ask you a few questions, confirm you are who you say you are. Now, Molly, when was the firs' time you got a letter from McGonagall 'bout the twins?"

The redheaded woman looked at the man, and in a rather resigned voice said: "Including their acceptance letter? If not the third day after their first year started. Before you ask, they had somehow managed to sneak tacks onto the chairs at the staff table." It was at this point that Phil finally recognized the other couple as the parents of Hermione's friend Ron that they met shopping for her second year.

The giant then turned to him and Emma; "What did McGonagall transform as a demonstration of magic? And what did she turn it into?"

That had been a rather memorable event Phil thought to himself as Emma spoke up; "She turned a kitchen chair into a lion. May we see our children now?"

With that, the giant man touched the gate and it swung open. Phil assumed the magic recognized him, it would have been horrifying to find out that all someone had to do to open it was touch it. The castle was truly a grand sight, and it was understandable why Hermione loved it so much. She was a history buff he thought, and her school was a beautiful part of history.

As they got closer however, that beauty started to take a darker turn. There were several, thankfully sheet covered, bodies on the grounds. The entrance way seemed demolished, from the inside out, with debris spread out across the grounds at least a hundred meters from the entrance. Large swathes of the ground were charred and grass-less, and one place had what looked like a giant blob of goo, shaped like a oversized scoop of ice cream with another body suspended inside, almost dissolved to it's skeleton and a white mask. More Aurors were walking about, as well as others in different colored robes, taking pictures with old fashioned cameras and doing what Phil assumed was some sort of magical forensics.

Ron's parents clearly recognized the mask as he heard the man mutter 'Death Eater' under his breath even as the woman was looking at the burnt areas and asking how someone could use 'Fiend Fire' on a school with children inside. At the staircase leading up to the front entrance, they could see even more damage, with the doors, and the surrounding stone work, blown off, large cracks in a spiderweb pattern leading out from that destroyed doorway. The balcony at the top step had it's presumably stone railing blown off and several areas looked melted.

Just inside the entrance, they saw someone that could only be Professor Dumbledore based on the way Hermione had described her teachers, his robes, looking as if Liberace had become a wizard, particularly standing out amongst the dismal setting. Turning towards them with a sad and resigned (but thankfully not pitying) look, he spoke; "Mr and Ms Granger, Molly, Arthur, if you'll follow me to the Hospital wing." With that he turned and held up his arm to indicate direction. "I apologize for any abruptness you may have encountered, but under the circumstances, I did not feel like taking any chances with safety."

"What are the circumstances Headmaster? According to our 'Clock', Ron died five times." Ron's father said, making him wonder what exactly was considered normal for the magical world. Evidently Dumbledore seemed to think this was somewhat odd as well from the surprised look he shot Mr Weasley. "It kept jumping between dead and mortal danger for over fifteen minutes. Fred, George and Ginny was at threatened for the same time and jumped to mortal danger at the end, before Ron's hand dropped to injured and the other three dropped back to threatened." He paused to gather himself, "As soon as the hands shifted, I tried to floo here, but the grates were sealed and the outer wards had been brought up. I could see fighting, but couldn't get in to help. Molly had woke up Percy, and then she came here while Percy headed to the office in case the Aurors hadn't been notified."

"Helpful that was." A new person said out of the shadows. A middle aged witch with a Sherlock Holmes style pipe in her mouth stepped into the light. "Albus."

"Amelia, you are of course aware of who Arthur and Molly Weasley are, but this is Doctors Phillip and Emma Granger. They are Hermione's parents." Turning to them; "This is Madam Amelia Bones, head of magical law enforcement for Great Britain." Turning back towards her; "How did questioning Barty go?"

With a glance at the four of them she replied while turning towards the hospital wing herself, but seemed to decide either this was something they should hear, or that it getting out couldn't hurt the case. "Poorly. He has training in Occlumency, which is how he was able to remain undetected posing as Moody, and makes veritserum unreliable, but we did get some things. His father has been arrested for breaking him out of Azkaban, apparently only about a month or two after he chucked him in there to begin with. We recovered the real Moody, thankfully alive, but he's going to be even more paranoid after this. We also figured out what went wrong with his original plan. We owe Dobby and Winky a great deal here."

"They knew what was going on?" The Headmaster asked, and then drew in a breath, "Of course they knew!"

"Actually, from what Barty said, ALL the House Elves knew. They've been actively working against him all weekend. Although Barty has no clue why they didn't inform you or any of the Aurors stationed here. And evidently, both Cedric and one of my Aurors had gotten a warning from Sybill earlier that day, as did Karkaroff and Maxime. So Proudfoot made sure the other Aurors were on extra high alert and Diggory had gotten everyone in Hufflepuff to be on the look out as well. Your guest Headmasters made sure their students were up and somewhat prepared, although we got extremely lucky in that the Death Eaters didn't put much effort going after them as you'd think considering they're out on the grounds. As it stands, virtually all of the Aurors on duty last night reported odd occurrences that led them to be, if not in optimal positions, prevented them from being sub-optimal positions when the Death Eaters made their presence known. And a majority of that can be attributed to House Elves." She said, and after a brief pause with them exchanging a look, asked; "How did it go on your end?"

"I had Minerva contact the board of Governors, to let them know before the Prophet prints the story and to let them know I'll speak with them tomorrow. It's leaving things a little late, but I think the rest of the day will be rather busy. All students and staff have been accounted for, as has all Aurors on site. Miraculously, there was no fatalities among them, and very few serious injuries, all of the injured Aurors have been sent to St Mungos. The only injuries on the student side of things was Harry, Ron and Hermione." The last was said with a look of apology back towards them. "I've gotten memories from almost everyone involved in defending Hogwarts except the children and have spent the last couple of hours reviewing them, if not in great detail, so I have a rough outline of what happened for everyone except Hermione. She refuses to say anything about what happened to her. She did tell Auror Shacklebolt that she will only tell myself, you, Harry, Ron and her parents. Plus one other." Again he said that looking at them, even as he was addressing Madam Bones. "Other than defusing the situation at the entrance to the Gryffindor dormitory, I've spent the rest of the time helping the rest of the staff and Aurors search the castle and grounds for stragglers."

After a brief pause, "I also had to deal with an additional quest that Dobby personally brought in." he added in a subdued voice as he opened the door to what could only be the Hospital wing.

"How did Dobby get…" Madam Bones started to say, but cut off at a shake of Dumbledore's head.

There were about a dozen beds with kids of various ages in them, six visible Aurors, two people who Phil decided had to be school nurses or doctors. And in a separate corner, off by themselves was Hermione laying in a bed and two other boys sitting on the two adjacent beds whispering to each other. Sitting on the bed with Ron was an adult witch listening to them speak to each other. Her presence was clearly not anticipated by Madam Bones or the Weasleys. As both Mr Weasley and Madam Bones sent looks at Dumbledore while Emma and Mrs Weasley hurried over. "As I said," the Headmaster stated, Dobby brought in an additional quest."

Bones just looked perturbed, but Arthur Weasley looked very uncomfortable with her presence. "Why is she here Albus?" he asked.

"Because your son is facing very serious charges Arthur. I assume Harry asked Dobby to fetch her to help defend Ron from being made a scapegoat by the pureblood elite." The Headmaster stated as they walked over, shock showing on Arthur's face. "Ms Zabini, I believe you know most of us here, these are Ms Granger's parents, Doctors Phillip and Emma Granger. Doctors, this is Ms Zara Zabini. Ms Zabini is the best Barrister in Magical England."

As she stood up to shake their hands, Phil got a close look at her. She was a coldly beautiful woman, with long black hair and a face that seemed set perpetually in a cruelly humorous look of superiority. After shaking his and Arthur's hands, she reached out to Dumbledore. "Professor, my clients were just telling me a most fascinating tale. Did you really give permission to an escaped convict to place all the students under the unforgivables?" Yep, Phil thought, his first impression seemed accurate.

Unperturbed, the Headmaster seemed to fully expect her question. "I gave permission to Professor Alastor Moody to place those of third year and above, who had permission from their guardians, under the imperious curse as a means to help them train to recognize when they, or their friends are under it, and to give them a boost in fighting it off. At no time did I suspect Alastor was being impersonated by someone using polyjuice potion," he replied with a obviously fake smile.

"I take it that is your probable defence of Ron Weasley's actions?" Madam Bones said.

"Well, he was noted by a majority of the students and teachers acting in an unusually hostile manner towards his friends for over a week prior. Correct me if I'm wrong Amelia, but is not lashing out at people one of the signs of being under that curse?"

"It is." Bones answered. "I assume you'll also bring up the fact that Crouch was a known Death Eater, and the… …person Mr Weasley murd… …killed, was in fact spilling secrets of his fellow Death Eaters?"

Now frowning at Bones, Ms Zabini continued, "There are a few additional details, not the least of which that Ms Granger had already stabbed Mr Crabbe with the sword 'Kindness', a Goblin steel blade that has been quenched in basilisk blood, so Crabbe had, at most, a minute or two before a very painful death." Those words caused Phil to look over at his daughter, who seemed flustered at their presence here and her mothers doting.

Phil glanced back at Bones and watched as she processed and a grin started to show on her face. "Fuck it! Works for me!" She finally said much to Zabini's obvious surprise. "Crabbe got off on a defence of being under the affects of the Imperious curse. An obviously fake claim since he seems to have jumped to return to He-who-must-not-be-named's service. That and a hefty bribe to the Minister of the time. So Ron using the same defence has a poetic ring to it. Although don't think for a second a majority of the dark leaning purebloods will go for it. Among many other things, they are also hypocrites. Although I will leap to use anything they do to discredit Ron's defence to reopen their old cases."

Phil was wondering exactly what was going on, but Zabini was smirking at Bones now. "If it helps smooth things over Madam Bones, young Harry has offered to brib… …gift various public institutions an amount equal to what Crabbe offered to help smooth things over and show his remorse all those years ago."



edit for a couple of typos.
Edit 2022/07/10. Added a little dialogue and changed a few things, not much though.

 

[AndyDeck]

After a brief pause, "I also had to deal with an additional quest that Dobby personally brought in." he added in a subdued voice as he opened the door to what could only be the Hospital wing.

"How did Dobby get…" Madam Bones started to say, but cut off at a shake of Dumbledore's head.

There were about a dozen beds with kids of various ages in them, six visible Aurors, two people who Phil decided had to be school nurses or doctors. And in a separate corner, off by themselves was Hermione laying in a bed and two other boys sitting on the two adjacent beds whispering to each other. Sitting on the bed with Ron was an adult witch listening to them speak to each other. Her presence was clearly not anticipated by Madam Bones or the Weasleys. As both Mr Weasley and Madam Bones sent looks at Dumbledore while Emma and Mrs Weasley hurried over. "As I said," the Headmaster stated, Dobby brought in an additional quest."

Click to shrink...

Should those two instances of 'quest' be 'guest' instead?

 

[killgore444]

Should those two instances of 'quest' be 'guest' instead?

Click to shrink...

Thank you. How do you like it so far?

 

[DoubleThought]

Is the entire chapter meant to be italicised? It makes it rather hard to read.

 

[killgore444]

Is the entire chapter meant to be italicised? It makes it rather hard to read.

Click to shrink...

Actually, yes it was.
Whenever I do a POV other than Harry, I italicize that portion. It helps create a mental divide between viewpoints. Or so I've been told by other writers who do it. Since it always worked for me, I took up the habit.
It's also supposed to be part of the greater chapter, so it might not look right on it's own.

 

[BomeranG]

Actually, yes it was.
Whenever I do a POV other than Harry, I italicize that portion. It helps create a mental divide between viewpoints. Or so I've been told by other writers who do it. Since it always worked for me, I took up the habit.
It's also supposed to be part of the greater chapter, so it might not look right on it's own.

Click to shrink...

That may look good in a regular chapter, but seeing how an interlude is all someone else's POV, maybe use italics to show it's the words/thoughts of someone other than the chapter's POV character.

 

[AndyDeck]

Thank you. How do you like it so far?

Click to shrink...

It's been interesting, I need to go back and re-read the whole thing now as it's been a while since I read the first part.

 

[killgore444]

I'm having an absurdly hard time writing part 2 of chapter 8. But most of part 3 has been written before chapter 7 came out. So, I decided to go ahead and post part 3 before 2 and get some input into the actual story. I'm not happy with the second POV provided. I think I dropped to much information to the members of the SGC here, but I'm not sure how to rewrite it to introduce what's going on without letting the SGC know to much. And I do in fact have plans for the SGC to be blindsided by magic. Maybe have Ironfeather obliviate them, and that be the reason he was so careless with the discussion in the first place. Not sure. I'm also curious if you guys can spot which parts of the story are important and which are red herrings.

Also, the character of Sammy is something I've seen from 5 or 6 different writers, so I decided to use her. Not sure if that's something new in fanon or I simply missed the episode of SGC were she was introduced.

First Trelawney, then John O'Neill. I'm also going to be updating part 1.


A New Tournament
Chapter :8 [part 3]

Professor Sybill Trelawney was on edge. Something was going to happen, and soon. She could remember when she was a child, sitting on her Grandmothers knee, listening to her try and describe her visions in a way that as a child, she could understand. It hadn't worked then, and in truth, still really didn't work for her even knowing what it was like now. Her Grandmother had patiently explained the difference between a prophecy and the normal way Seers saw the world, how a true prophecy hurt and never made sense. Unlike her normal visions, but those were less reliable or accurate until minutes before they happened.

She knew that Albus didn't believe in prophecy and thought that Divination was a useless class. That all prophecies that were fulfilled were done so simply because people took them serious and acted to fulfill them, completely ignoring the fact that that was a legitimate reason for them to be fulfilled. That if people didn't take them serious enough to act, the prophecy wouldn't be made as the future would be different. He was a great man with out a single doubt. But he had a really annoying habit of always believing he was correct. And Heaven help it if there was a subject that he wasn't good at, he could get more than a little dismissive of it. No one would ever be able to truthfully say that she was dismissive of or didn't believe in Transfiguration. He also thought that most prophecies never got fulfilled, when in reality, every single one had either been fulfilled, or would be fulfilled, even if it was only in a different possibility that had already slipped to the side.

She also knew that he didn't think she knew when she had a prophetic vision, but she did. Or more to the point, she'd figure it out within a few hours. She just didn't remember what her prophecies contained. And that was the problem. She'd come out of them confused and a little panicky and not being able to remember where she was or what was going on. But they always left a sort of aftertaste in the back of her mind that was rather distinctive. It was why she drank so much since the herbs Pomona grew in the restricted greenhouse (the one Albus and Minerva pretended didn't exist) didn't do anything to counter it and mushrooms made her sick. Or at least it was one of the reasons. Her sudden desire to get raging drunk to cover up the weird 'not-taste' was in fact one of the ways she'd come to be able to recognize when she'd had one even if it normally took her a couple of hours and several pints (or less of stronger stuff). Although admittedly, there WERE other reasons she drank so much. Not the least of which was the what she saw as the likely future in her normal sight. And as a result, she'd had more and more days over the last several years where she had had more than she should have.

But no one UNDERSTOOD like she did damn it!

She remembered once, shortly before she applied for this job, walking about muggle London and coming across a shop selling Tellies. She'd never been one for muggle studies herself, and hadn't had a clue what she'd been looking at at the time. But it caught her attention strongly enough that she'd actually gone inside and, in all likely hood, made a complete fool of herself asking the muggle salesman questions.

She couldn't help it though. In the window had been a stack of tellies, not playing the same thing, but rather playing several different, but related things that looked similar. She'd told the poor man that she'd buy one of the things if he could tell her where she could find more like that. He hadn't known what she was talking about, he'd said that they were playing different football games. It's a testament to her state of mind of that time that she always remembered his terminology (she even remembered the names of the teams that he pointed out).

He did however tell her about a new art show at a small local art museum featuring a type of art that was even better. And what she saw there was truly astounding. It all had different labels and names, ASCII art, min/macro, whatever it was called, it all featured small things, such as individual letters or even words, bottle caps, small pieces of art, whatever. But when viewed from farther back, one could SEE. Could see what was meant to be seen.

A little over a year and a half later, after the fall of He-who-should-not-be-named, she'd gone back and asked where she could acquire one of those pieces, fully expecting to have to use various spells to confuse and confound the muggles, but had been pleasantly surprised when she'd been told that they'd taken that particular show down, and the various artists had donated their works to be sold as part of a fund raiser. She'd been even more surprised when it turned out the lady was the mother of a muggleborn, and could recognize galleons and was easily able to convert to muggle money.

She was really proud of this art work hanging on her bedroom wall. Up close, it was the words to several different speeches and sayings of a famous muggle leader from the America (unfortunately, it was the only one that hadn't already been sold that she could afford at the time), but as you got further away, you could see an image of what she presumed to be the man, one Abraham Lincoln, until you got far enough back and you couldn't even tell there were words on canvas, it was just a picture of a man with a top hat.

Filius and poor Quirinus (back when he taught Muggle Studies) were the only two other Professors who'd ever seen it, but neither of them had ever asked about it. To her the artwork was about her sight. It was how she SAW things. All of the various possibilities, even the possibilities that weren't actually possible. Whether because someone had already died, never been born, or what have you, she still saw them as possibilities. She could, with some concentration, look in close and follow an individual piece of what she saw, like that old muggle telly, but would lose track of the bigger picture.

The art wasn't a perfect analogy, it wasn't moving like the telly was. But it worked. She could pull her gaze back and see further into the future by watching the pictures all combine into what was the most likely outcome. That outcome being the largest of her minds eye tellies. It wasn't perfect either however. More often than she cared to admit, her mental telly would fall over and be replaced with one that had been one of the smaller ones in the stack, as some event derailed what was the most likely outcome and replaced it.

Sometimes, when those former lead possibilities fell, they landed in such a way as to remain a possibility. Sometimes still in line to still be possible in the future, but normally off to the side and one of the 'Not' possibilities. Other times however, the possibility simply vanished. Like a bit of smoke on a breeze, and she had no idea why there was a difference. Confusing, and more than a little aggravating to be sure, but still relatively easy to deal with. But what happened last Friday however:

THAT!
WAS!
NOT!
NORMAL!

Her internal stack of tellies had completely exploded. ALL possibilities that had been laid out in front of her that had been possible, were no longer there. Ironically, she could still see possibilities from before Friday that had never actually been possible, those weren't affected, but everything not off sideways in time, but that had been directly forward of her in time, THAT was gone. A cataclysmic forfeiture of Fortune and what was no longer allowed to be. A conscious decision by an intelligent being or beings of some sort, that had altered the very fabric of time and the tapestry of Fate. Like an angry half-giant child throwing a porcelain plate at a wall, so too was existence smashed, destroying all that was knowable.

The headache from that alone was enough to get her to journey into town to the Hogs Head to visit Albus's brother and get some of the, well, not good, but strong stuff. She'd needed to be able to pass out as Poppy wouldn't give her any more dreamless sleep potions just because Poppy was afraid she was addicted to them. And as nice as Pomona's herbs where, they made her dreams stronger, not weaker.

On the way back to her chambers however, she'd had one of her prophetic visions. There had been an encounter with a rather strange House Elf wearing the most outlandish get up, and then confusion. He'd helped her get back up to her bedroom and had even, against the wishes of Poppy, acquired a few dreamless droughts for her. That had been nice of him, although she thought that the first prophecy she made after 'That Friday' (she didn't consider that Friday despite the fact it was only a couple of hours after) would have been of major importance and should have been witnessed by Albus, or even Minerva or Severus instead of a House Elf. Oh well, she'd had a few others over the next couple of days as well.

There was that encounter with the youngest Greengrass girl, Astoria and her friend and fellow second year Slytherian, Elisabeth Valentine. They'd looked rather confused and unsure how they should react. Even more so than she normally felt after a prophesy, but they were still young and she could relate to how they felt. Then there was that encounter with the School Champion, Cedric and the Auror who had been dragging Diggory to the nearest Professor (that just happened to be her), although that same House Elf had been guiding/directing them into her path, but she was pretty sure he had left before it started. Both Diggory and the Auror had looked scared witless afterwards, so she'd been easy on Diggory and just given him a couple of detentions helping out the Elves in the kitchen for whatever he'd done wrong as an apology to him.

Then there had been the encounter with that stupid turd of a git Igor Karkaroff (she still remembered what he was like when they were students) and the other Headmistress from Beauxbatons, Madame Maxime. That particular prophecy must have been really good, because when she came out of it, Olympe was backed up into the hallway wall, and she had Karkaroff on his knees gasping in pain while she was gripping his arm, his sleeves burned away to reveal that ugly ass scar/brand on his arm. That one, while satisfying on it's own, would have been so much better if she remembered what she told him. As it stood, he had collapsed onto the floor in shock and pain after she had let go of him. They'd both been rather surprised when she offered them a good day before turning around and heading back to her chambers.

There had also been an encounter with Severus in there somewhere as well, but she didn't think whatever she told him had been as catastrophic as he had merely looked annoyed, not scared or outraged. The encounter with the rather infamous Weasley twins had gone rather strangely as well. When she had come too after that one, the two of them had looked a strange mixture of thrilled, angry and subdued and had launched into questioning her about what she had said. When it had become clear she had no idea what they were talking about had asked her if it was bad luck or something to tell a seer what she said in a prophecy or not. That had been rather thoughtful of them, so she was quick to award them thirty points each. Not many people when confronted by prophecy are all that considerate to the Seer, not even Albus.

Honestly, she'd had more prophecies in one weekend than in the five years previous. She was so grateful classes had been halted for a couple of days after the attack. She was sure that if she'd had anymore encounters with students she'd have had even more. As it stood, the couple of extra days gave her a little bit more time to add possibilities to her internal stack of tellies, which seems to decrease the likelihood of a prophecy somewhat for some reason. She wasn't sure why that seemed the case, but she wasn't going to complain as more and more possibilities stacked up in her Mind's Eye and blocked the Path of Prophecy.

Unfortunately, today, the first day back, includes fourth year Divination class. Potter and friends! Well, technically just friend now, but She was still in her visions even if she wasn't in class anymore. Potter! The very last thing she had seen on her old telly stack had been Potter. Older and in rough shape, but unbeaten even as he died. Only it included everyone in the world not just dying, but being erased as if they had never been.

And that terrified her in a way that He-who-must-not-be-named never could.

And the VERY first thing she had seen in her new stack was the SAME vision of Potter, but only Potter. An older Potter, unbeaten, but in the process of dying, surrounded by a globe of light with what looked like tentacles wrapping around him as if to ease his pain and smooth out his path to the afterlife. The old Potter family motto came to her: 'The final enemy to be defeated is Death.' When she'd been young and had read a book about the ancient families she'd thought that particular motto had been rather dumb (not that the Potter family was unique in that or anything). But her grandma had simply sighed and said she'd understand when she was older. She now understood what her Grandma had been trying to say, because that particular motto was making a lot more sense now.

Making Potter and friends so much more terrifying to her was the changed nature of her visions of their future. Where before, she would see visions of them struggling and suffering to destroy He-who-must-not-be-named and his followers. Now she saw them blowing through them like a stiff wind scattering dry leafs, displaying a level of skill in both magical and muggle duelling she never would have believed possible, even if for some reason, they seamed to be backed by none other than Gellert Grindelwald. Only to then face a much more terrifying enemy falling from the sky like the legends of fallen Angels being cast from Heaven and reigning terror upon the Earth. And this was an enemy they NEEDED Potter in order to defeat.

What's more, she knew she was not alone. Even though there was only about a hundred or so people in the entire world capable of seeing truly prophetic visions as opposed to normal divination, but she knew beyond a doubt that every single one of them had shared her vision and was having just as much difficulty with having visions as she was. At least the ones in the current possibility. Normally, a True Seer could enter her mindscape and cast her thoughts out so that other True Seers could see them as a possibility and respond in kind, thus having a conversation with each other, as if being able to edit a show on the telly that they all could see, or however each of them saw the possible futures. None of them where doing this now. Not yet anyway. She figured she'd wait for a week or so before trying herself if no one else did it first. The True Seers in other possibilities knew that something had happened and were talking to each other, but she, along with everyone from this possibility was abstaining for a while.

She turned to the trapdoor wondering not for the first time if it was to late to engage it's secondary destination and leave Hogwarts behind. But no, she couldn't do that. She'd seen what could happen if she didn't at least try and prepare some of them to be able to handle the future. Besides, the wards here were better than nearly anyplace on Earth, and certainly the best of anywhere pleasant to reside.

She felt a little guilty about not telling Albus about her trapdoor. It was a weakness in the school wards and she knew it. But she had never seen a vision of anyone discovering a way to exploit it. She could after all, change the destination the trapdoor lead to at will. How it worked she didn't know, magical theory had never been her strong suit, and she'd barely scraped an acceptable in Charms, but it bypassed the wards without any problems. Before she moved here, she'd had need to use it a few times and had tricked Death Eaters Into climbing through it to get to her. Since she could have a different destination for each side. Each time she'd done this, she'd used her sight to send them somewhere rather dangerous, but varied it each time. Of the five times she'd done this, only one Death Eater had ever returned to England, horribly scarred and broken, the others had simply died.

It was time. With a sigh, she set the two sides to link to each other and become, essentially, a normal physical trapdoor that happened to include a magical rope ladder. Watching the students climb up never got old. With all the stairs in Hogwarts, one would think they'd be in better shape by now. Then 'They' emerged. Potter and Weasley. Both of them subdued but respectful and alert, both moving as if they were the most dangerous people here. A detail that the rest of the class seemed to agree with them on. Both have the gift, and strongly as well. Ron much more so than Harry, but Harry was the strongest in school who didn't have the last name Weasley or Lovegood. All of Ron's brothers and his sister though, were stronger than Harry, even if NONE of them seemed to be using their gift. A detail that infuriated her, but she did her best to hold that in. Little Luna was at least making use of her gift even if she wasn't in her class.

As the class settled into their seats, she cast her mind back to when she was little sitting on her Grandmothers lap listening to Grandmother talk to her, trying to comfort her and shield her eyes from the sinister mist that seemed to be overtaking the memory. 'Listen to me Silly,' Grandmother would say using the nickname for her, 'Sing that little tune you love so much.' And she would, even as the mist would coil around her throat, she would sing for her Grandmother, knowing on some level that Grandmother was simply trying to distract her from what the mist was doing. Pretending to the point that she convinced herself that the words coming out of her mouth were those of her favorite song, she forced herself to relax into her Grandmothers arms, hands covering her ears while turning tear streaked eyes into the shoulder of the only person to ever comfort her when the mist came as hands rubbed her back and soothing murmurs were felt in her chest more than heard, she'd continue to 'Sing' until the lyrics of the song would fly from her mind and she'd fall silent. Then Grandmother would look at her with that sad smile; 'Wake up little Silly, you are needed in the present.'

With a start, she came out of her daydream of a memory into a room that she barely recognized. It was her classroom, there was no doubt about that, but everyone seemed different than when she sat down after they entered. They were all staring at her in shock for some reason. She must have falling asleep and started to snore or something. She shook her head, trying to clear away the last bit of mental fog from waking up and noticed Potter staring at her, anger raging behind brilliant, nearly glowing green eyes, even as plates stacked on shelves began to crack from someones (his) barely contained magic. Ron came to his senses first and grabbed hold of Harry, stepping between him and her and pushing him back towards the trapdoor. "Let it go Harry!" Ron said loudly, "We'll deal with this. Just let it go for now! Please!" He then turned to the rest of the class: "Neville, the trapdoor! No one speaks of this! Do you all understand?!?!"

The rest of the class gave shocked and mumbled replies of agreement as Longbottom opened the trapdoor for them to descend, Harry gave a snarl of rage before turning and, despite everyone knowing it was impossible, disapparated with a shockingly loud crack that somewhat muffled the shattering porcelain as the plates and teacups all shattered. Ron let out a curse and jumped through the trapdoor, not even bothering with the ladder and could be heard running away, presumably after Harry. Neville sighed as he turned to Seamus and Dean; "I don't suppose you'd be kind enough to gather our stuff would you?" Not waiting for an answer, he then climbed down as well and was shortly heard running away.

At that, the rest of the class turned their attention back towards her. Grimacing at a sudden headache, and knowing she'd need to inform both Albus and Minerva of the behaviour of those three she simply dismissed the class early and made sure that Seamus and Dean actually gathered up their dorm mates things. Why was she so prone to these accursed headaches? She REALLY needed to get a drink. And why did it seem like she had some sort of weird taste stuck in her head? Like a bad tune that will haunt you for hours on end. And why did she have the feeling that that was important for some reason?

llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

John O'Neill entered the restaurant with a yawn on his face. It was early in the morning in Colorado Springs and the temperature was a balmy thirty seven degrees. He was meeting his 'Old Man', the infamous (in some VERY SMALL circles) Colonel John "Jack" O'Neill and his girlfriend and fellow clone, Sammy's progenitor Major Samantha Carter for their semi-monthly get together. He was a little early and hadn't seen the cars of either Sammy's guardians or Jack. Figuring he'd wait at the counter until they showed up he slid up next to an old Indian, or rather old Native American. Jack had long ago figured out that they were normally much less PC than the average white man about it, and in general wouldn't hesitate to start to crack jokes about the names. But the ones who did get uptight about would really get uptight, so in general he tried to keep it PC until he got to know who he was dealing with. Not always easy since, even though he was technically only about a year or so old, he was physically fifteen, but shared the memories of a man who had been old enough to fight in Vietnam, and all that that entailed for his upbringing.

The waitress, who knew him by now, walked over, a Coke already in her hands. "Eating alone John, or waiting for the Colonel?"

"Waiting. But it'll be a table for six today. The Major is also coming and Sammy and her guardians will be here as well." Taking a drink from his glass, "Thanks." Noticing the old Indian giving him an odd look, John held up his hand; "John O'Neill, two L's. Nice to meet ya."

Glancing at his hand just long enough for it to start to get awkward, he finally relented; "John Ironfeather. You've aged well."

"I'm Sorry, what?"

"I'm the Headmaster of a school Mr O'Neill, I'm very good at reading teens and preteens. You are older than you look. But also younger I think. Very unusual. Have you simply had a life that required you to grow up fast, or do you simply enjoy really good genetics and age slowly?"

"I was kidnapped by an alien and experimented a while ago." John replied, trying to make it sound sarcastic and making his discomfort with this sudden conversation show through. How had this old man figured this out?

The old man was looking at him with his head tilted to the side, his beak like nose giving him a decidedly bird of prey look. A look that was making John feel like a mouse out in the open being looked at by a hawk. That was not a feeling that he was used to. "Do you play poker? I bet you'd be good at it." John was thrown by that strange nonsequitur and it must have shown. "I couldn't spot any tells saying you were lying or truly being sarcastic. So either you have indeed been kidnapped by aliens or you are a master of the Bluff." He said as explanation in a clearly amused voice.

"I'm sorry, but who are you and what are you doing here?" John ground out. This was not going right and he was trying to figure out if Mr Ironfeather was being honest or was part of a leak in the SGC. It wasn't good if anyone outside knew about him or Sammy.

"Professor John Ironfeather, Headmaster of Cliffside boarding school at your service." He said holding his hand out, laughter dancing in his eyes. "As for what I'm doing here, I'm sitting here talking to you and drinking a cup of coffee while I wait for the parents of some of my students to decide if they are going to allow their children to go to Great Britain or not."

Now it was John's turn to stare at the hand for several long moments. "John O'Neill, high school student, hockey champion and alien experiment." He said finally shaking the professors hand. John was about to go on when he noticed someone he recognized and hadn't expected to be there approaching: "Master Sergeant Siler! What are you doing here?"

Siler turned to him with a start as if just now noticing him, making John even more uncomfortable, that meant Siler had been meaning to speak to Ironfeather. "O'Neill? I wasn't expecting you here." Siler said before turning back towards the old man and holding out some documents. Well, at least Siler didn't think he needed to hide this from him. And since Siler knew who he really was, he knew that he likely couldn't take John by himself. "We have some more questions about security at that school in England and about recent events there, but Megan has her heart set on going and can't stop talking about it. Plus, as you mentioned, she'll need to spend at least two semesters at other affiliated schools before she graduates, and you said this counts. You'll be able to get them home for Christmas right?"

"Technically, it's in Scotland, not England. Our rules say students must spend at least one semester each at two different schools. This will only count as one of them." The Professor said as he read through the forms, and John could see that they did appear to be permission forms of some sort. "As for getting them back for Christmas, there is the Yule Ball they have to consider. I'll see if they can bump the date of that to a couple of days before Christmas instead of the night before. Otherwise, you might have to deal with your children wanting to stay for the ball. Sorry, but if I can't convince the other Headmasters to change the day, I can't guarantee anything in that regards. As for safety, I'll be dealing with that personally, but have assurances from Albus of his cooperation with the head of law enforcement there and extra security arrangements being made with the governments of both France and Norway for the tournament. So there will be a lot of security there."

John was no longer thinking that Siler was involved in betraying the SGC, which would have been even worse than when Colonel Makepeace had turned traitor, but was now even more curious as to what was actually going on. Unfortunately, the professor was standing up to take his leave and head back to where John could see several pairs of adults sitting at a large table along with a woman who John was certain was Mrs Siler. Fortune however seemed to be on his side.

"Siler?!?" Turning towards the entrance as Siler went to attention, thankfully NOT calling out, John saw his original walking through the door along with the rest of the party. "Mini me." Jack said with a nod towards John.

"Hey old man, you're late." He said to the Colonels irritation, "Jack, meet Professor Ironfeather, Headmaster of the school Master Sergeant Siler's daughter Megan attends. Professor, meet my uncle, Colonel Jack of the Crippled Knee."

Based on the sudden intake of breath from Sammy and her guardians, as well as the coughing fits from both Sam and Siler, there was no way Jack was going to be living this one down any time soon. Glancing at Ironfeather, John noticed that while he was amused, he was also giving them all a piercing look, and he seriously wondered if the good professor could actually read minds. "When you guys are done sergeant, why don't you and your wife join us? It's been a while since I've been allowed on base, and I'd like to hear how everyone is doing from someone other than the second in command." John was really hoping that both Jack and Sam caught the intended meaning of interrogation time.

In the mean time, John intended to have fun at Jacks expense.

 

[killgore444]

It's been awhile.
Like a majority of people I think, I've been spending the vast majority of my free time watching war news. And what free time hasn't gone into that, has gone into my campaign, so I'm really behind on writing.

In any case, for those of you who are still interested, here is part 2 of chapter 8. I still don't have a name for it. Remember, this comes before my last post.

Also, the first half of this, had almost no extra work done to it. My normal habit was to write a section and then spend about a month or 2 adding things and changing conversations to make it flow better. But what little free time I devoted to writing, I just didn't do that for the first half of this, so comes across as more telling rather than showing. I think I did a better job on the second half. I had someone tell me to just add partial conversations, rather than the entire things. Bits and bobs to give people the jist of what was being said, but then telling them the details to avoid drag.

Let me know if it worked.


llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

Harry woke with a start. Something was different. Automatically grabbing his wand, even before his glasses and glancing around, trying to make sense of the curtains and the sounds of people talking and arguing on the other side of them, for a long moment before a rush of memories from the night before hit him. Sitting up quickly he suddenly noticed two additional figures besides Ron and Hermione. One was clearly Dobby, the other was a tallish woman with long black hair and a look of pure amusement on her vaguely familiar face.

Jumping to his feet, but not actually raising his wand, Harry was uncomfortably aware that in his and his friends state, she could already have easily killed them. "Er, hi." he said instead, any shot at eloquence having fled the room long before he woke up. His words must have woken the others, because he saw her gaze shift to them and her smile turn to a slight frown with a look at Ron, and then a sudden slight gasp as Hermione turned to face her.

Shit! Forgot about that. He'd only applied a few basic 'Episkey' spells to close the wounds and stop her from bleeding so the damage was still clearly visible. It was Ron's voice how ever that spoke up next; "Who're you?" He asked in a strained tone of voice that left Harry with little doubt he had his wand pointed at her. Harry however, never glanced away from her.

Dobby however, decided to try and keep things peaceful. "Dobby being introducing the lady barrister, Miss Zara Zabini. Dobby contacted her about an hour ago to work for the Great Harry Potter and his friends Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger. Dobby be noticing many Aurors swarming Hogwarts, and Harry Potter and his friends have many bad wizards as enemies. And since too many Aurors are being ready to take gold instead of evidence when trying to solve crimes, Dobby be thinking that 'The Trio' be needing a barrister, so Dobby be bringing Miss Zabini right here. And Miss Hermione Granger should be noting, Miss Zara Zabini is being one of the people she should be telling what really happened."

Harry finally took his eyes off Miss Zabini to stare at Dobby, for some reason, his mind hooking on to the way he called them 'The Trio.' Looking back at Miss Zabini just in time to see her hold out her hand. "Greetings Mister Potter, as Dobby said, I'm your Barrister now. Nice work with the curtains by the way, but you do know that the right supersensory charms can see through them correct?"

"The 'Avea Apara' I cast should block that. Being on the inside, we can cast them and see through the curtains, but the dome would stop their spells from seeing in." He replied. "Sorry, but this is somewhat unexpected. Normally when things like this happen, we just get sent to the Headmasters office, so I'm… …We're not used to having to deal with barristers and Aurors."

"Do your adventures normally result in bodies littering the school?" she asked.

"You'd probably be surprised." Ron said causing her to snap her head in his direction, as much in surprise at his actual words as to his tone of utter defeat. "Although, this time, it does seem worse than normal."

""Yes" She said slowly, with growing hesitancy in her voice, "Yes this is definitely worse." Shaking her head, she continued with the same tome she started with. "Now, I assume we are in the Gryffindor common room correct? I've never been here before and Dobby popped me in here directly bypassing everywhere else. So I'll need at least a basic run down of what happened and what your involvement was so I can shatter the plan the ass outside the dome has to arrest you three and blame it all on you."

Harry quickly cast a 'One way wall' charm on the curtains, a spell that makes a wall transparent from one side, and looked around the common room. There was several people in the purple robes of an Auror doing the mysterious work of law enforcement, throughout the world, collecting evidence. Along with them, Harry saw Professor McGonagall, but no students, they must have been sent upstairs to their dorms. It was still dark out the windows, so unless they slept the entire day through, it'd only been a few hours since they'd basically collapsed. Professor McGonagall seemed to be arguing with one particular arrogant looking Auror, so he assumed that was who she was talking about.

"Ok, what do you need to know?"

llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

"If it helps smooth things over Madam Bones, young Harry has offered to brib… …gift various public institutions an amount equal to what Crabbe offered to help smooth things over and show his remorse all those years ago." Those words, coming from the mouth of Ms Zabini seemed almost musical to Harry. The look on Madam Bone's face was priceless. The look on Mr Granger's was less so. Harry hoped he'd understand when it was explained to him later, he didn't want to cause a schism between Hermione and her parents.

Waking up having Blaise's Mum standing over them had been unnerving. Having to tell her what happened was much more difficult than he thought it'd be. Watching her eviscerate the Auror by the name of Dawlish, who wanted to arrest them and throw them into Azkaban was beautiful, although it became clear she would have failed in the face of his obstinacy without Dumbledore arriving in a, not quite visible, but clearly felt, aura of power. It had been awe inspiring in several ways. First, gone was the kindly old man routine that Dumbledore puts on so people forget just how powerful he is. He entered the common room in a storm of anger at what Dawlish was doing, towering over everyone (even though he was normally not the tallest person there), power flowing out from him in nearly tangible waves, a shimmer, like hot air over pavement, was visible to the naked eye. Some of the Aurors in the room actually dived for cover, and all of them had backed up at Least a step or two, with Dawlish falling over backwards, dropping his wand, and proceeding to scooch back until he hit the edge of the spell dome protecting the Trio and Ms Zabini and was forced to stop.

After what seemed like several minutes of heart stopping tension, but was likely only a few seconds, the aura of power seemed to dissipate into nothingness as if it had never been, and the slightly absent minded and kindly old man act was back, the Headmaster ever so politely 'Suggesting' that maybe Dawlish should go out onto the grounds and help his fellow Aurors search the near forest areas, leaving absolutely no doubt there wasn't even a hint of a suggestion involved.

The look of relieve on the other Aurors faces after he left (fled) was in equal measure amusing and disturbing. The fact that they didn't seem to like Dawlish and were bothered by his actions was good, but that they didn't seem to be willing to interfere wasn't. The Headmaster and Ms Zabini shared a look that seemed to communicate something similar, although he was clearly disturbed and or frustrated at her presence, but only said a single word, "Dobby?" Glancing around, Harry noticed the elf was gone, but Ms Zambini simply nodded. "Very well." He continued, "I believe you three are expected in the hospital wing. Aurors Proudfoot and Tonks shall escort you there."

And with that, he left and presumably, the two named Aurors stepped up to escort them. The male, Proudfoot was an older man of indeterminate racial background, and more than his share of scars. It honestly made Harry wonder how anyone was ever fooled by Lockheart, since it seemed like everyone who ever stood up to darkness had scars. The girl was rather tall, and slightly amusing, even if she was trying to be deadly serious. Hair that seemed to shift from neon blue to dark purple to Weasley orange to snow white to jet black in a slowly spiraling cycle. Her Auror robes appeared several sizes to short, as if she had just had a major growth spurt like Ron. And she was the single clumsiest person Harry had ever met. Harry had to wonder how she had survived traveling up and down Hogwarts staircases for seven years as she seemed too familiar with the layout for her to have attended another school.

All three of the adults were quiet on the way down, and all six of them where watching out for any remaining dangers. Once they arrived at Hospital wing, Madam Pomfrey had bustled them over to a set of beds set off to the side away from everyone else. As always, when multiple groups with little previous contact meet, new illnesses spring up and as such, there had been something going around the school since the other two schools showed up so there was several students in beds, as well as two other Aurors on guard duty. She quickly ran some diagnostic spells on them and cast several spells on Hermione having breathed a sigh of relief over her injuries looking far worse than they actually were, although she still looked terrible, although Ron got a confused frown when she checked him. She then got the three of them set up with hospital wing bed clothes via switching spells, told them she'd be back in a bit to deal with Hermoine's scars and stepped aside giving the four of them space to talk.

Ms Zabini rather cheerfully set up a set of anti eavesdropping spells while shooing the two Aurors off to the side so they could talk in private, and even asked Harry to duplicate the one way wall spell on the curtain. After that,she started to question them again, but in much more depth. Were before, she just wanted to know enough to be able to confuse and disrupt Dawlish, now she wanted in depth answers. And many of those answers led to even more questions. And those answers led to even more, and many looks of confusion and outrage from her as well. For instance, a comment she'd made about Lucius Malfoy and their readily apparent distrust of him led to a discussion about their second year and Lockheart, the Diary and the Basilisk, with Harry and Ron making a couple of jabs about how Not-Voldemort/Riddle had tried to weaken Ginny's will by offering to kill off several of her tormentors from Slytherian and her managing to resist. Even going so far as to offer to kill Draco as the Malfoy family have been enemies of the Weasleys for generations.

Since her son Blaise was in Slytherian, this one struck close to home for her. Not that Harry was going to push it, she WAS helping them and the two of them where basing what they said on things Riddle had hinted at, but not outright stated and Ginny herself had alluded to, but again, never directly said. Ms Zabini did add Ginny to her list of clients however, payed for by Harry. It was also clear however, that they didn't have enough time to go over everything in detail, so she tried to keep things on track. Harry had to answer a LOT of questions about the weekend and what he'd been up to. And more importantly HOW since he was supposed to be bound to a short distance from school. His reply that he'd left a part of himself behind had received a raised eyebrow (causing Hermione to mutter a Spock joke), but Harry wasn't about to elaborate on that one.

He also claimed he didn't know the reason why Grindelwald had really helped his Mom when she asked, but did make several allusions to all of the Death Eaters claiming Voldemort was the most fearsome Dark Lord of all time when he never even managed to take over a school much less an entire country, were Grindelwald had managed to take over two thirds of the world and had at one point, dueled every single member of the Archmages Council, five at the time, as well as three of the other four Dark Lords active then. And he was actively fighting a war against all nine of them simultaneously, so Grindelwald really wasn't all that impressed with Voldemort, and maybe, just maybe wanted to tweak his nonexistent nose a little.

Harry wasn't sure if she believed him or not, but she didn't have any other explanation and didn't seem willing to push. He did however tell her about being the heir to the Grindelwald line, again leaving out that he was an actual descendant. He also told her about being Sirius's legal heir and that Lucius Malfoy had been robbing him for over a decade and had somehow convinced the Wizengamot to make Draco the heir and for Narcissa to be the regent. When he mentioned how much money the Goblins said Malfoy owed him, she'd admitted to having him as a client, though stated that she had already decided to drop him over the Basilisk issue, so the loss of his ability to pay her wouldn't be a factor.

Hermoine said that Dobby told her to only tell Harry, Ron, her parents, Dumbledore, Madam Bones and now Ms Zabini what happened and she'd prefer to do it all at once, repeating what she'd told the Aurors upstairs in the common room.

For Ron, she got really in depth, he was her actual client here, and the one who would need the most defense. Not helping this matter was that Harry wasn't sure Ron felt he should be defended, although there was no way in Hell Harry was going to abandon him after just getting him back. Zabini did seem to latch on to fake Moody's class on the Unforgivables, and it was clear that was going to be the case she would make. For all Harry knew, it might have even been true.

During all of this, Harry had been intermittently reading his How To book whenever she was questioning the other two, something that caused all three of them and the two Aurors, to look oddly at him (if for different reasons). Having whispered to it the question on how to do what Dumbledore did upstairs with the aura of power. The Book had responded with the title; How to project and Use a Nimbus of the Archmage. It was surprisingly easy to do, and it's effects were rather nice, if somewhat absurd. At it's base, it was essentially a variant of the Servo Stellas spell, which serves to overpower spells cast after and makes them harder to resist and break. But unlike casting the spell twice, which would only use the best or most powerful casting, the Nimbus was compatible with the spell, as well as the Rune of Power which did something similar. Yeah, he was learning this one. There was also several additional effects, such as the illusion of height and an increase to basic charisma and mental affinity.

This was only eight pages long, so took Harry about fifteen minutes to read it AND absorb the knowledge. For shit's and giggles, he passed the book and glasses to Ron, who gave him a really weird look when he did so, when she stopped asking him questions and went back to questioning Harry. Ron passed them to Hermione when he was done, having figured out at least something about how the glasses worked at least. Who knows, maybe they're legendary items all purebloods knew about. Of course, he'd asked the book in Alterian so Ms Zabini wouldn't know what he said if she heard, and putting on his old glasses so he could see, he noticed the title was in Alterian, so maybe Ron just figured they were glasses of translation or something.

For her part, Hermione pulled a notebook out of her purse and started to copy the book and right out notes, then passed them back. She at least seemed to be in a better mood now, finding what the book said highly amusing. It was a couple of hours before Dumbledore showed back up with another lady who Harry was positive was Susan Bones's aunt as well as both Ron and Hermione's parents. Harry quickly suppressed a twinge of jealousy about the absence of Remus and Sirius even though he new full good and well Sirius couldn't be here at all and Remus would likely be having problems with the Aurors. Unbidden, Dobby's comment about several Aurors seeking gold rather than evidence sprung into mind.

llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

"I'm sure that that will not be necessary Ms Zabini." Dumbledore answered. That was somewhat of a shame, when he'd been asking questions of the Book about things like practical political assassination and how to get rid of Lucius Malfoy and Snape, bribery had come up several times and Harry had been hoping his first foray into that particular skill set would have someone with actual experience overseeing it. Oh well.

"Now, we do need to go over just what you three have been doing all weekend." Madam Bones said.

"Relevance?" Ms Zabini asked.

With an annoyed look at her Bones replied; "If the fact that they've come into center of an episode that has left over two dozen dead bodies spread throughout Hogwarts isn't enough, how about the fact that there as been a nationwide search for them all weekend?" Her words caused Hermione's parents to look up sharply, evidently THEY hadn't been informed of that. "And in at least Harry's case, that search was extended onto the Continent. So do NOT give us any crap about Relevance Ms Zabini! It's entirely relevant and there is absolutely no way that the Wizengamot is going to allow that to go unquestioned."

llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

Madam Bones was staring down at the bag she was holding (but not in), holding it as far from her body as she could, a look of terror on her face as she seemed unable to decide if her mouth should remain open or closed and Dumbledore was looking off to the side of the room pinching the bridge of his nose. "How many basilisks did you say was in here again?" she was finally able to get out. Harry glanced at Ron and Hermione's parents, Mr and Mrs Weasley were staring at the bag aghast while Mrs Granger were just looking confused, although Mr Granger was had a look of bemusement on his face as he watched the wizarding adults.

"I'm not really sure." Harry answered, "Well over a hundred, but only about half are full adults, the rest are juveniles. There's also about the same number of young… What do you call child snakes? Anyway, about the same number of babies to children not quite up to juvenile age."

"Um, Harry…" Mr Weasley started before cutting off and rethinking what he was going to say. "Harry, a little over a century ago, there was a group of a little over thirty people who started a group that specialized in killing basilisks. Do you know how how many they killed?"

Harry was saved from having to say something when Mr Granger said "I'm going to guess somewhat less than a hundred from the way you are all looking at the bag."

"Seven Dr Granger." Dumbledore said before looking back at Harry. "Over a twenty year period they killed seven of the things before the four survivors finally gave up, their last mission having killed twelve of their compatriots Harry. If there are indeed over one hundred basilisks, juvenile or not, in that bag Harry, you have very close to doubled the number of basilisks provably killed in the entire recorded history since their creation was invented." Dumbledore seemed to pause before, lips twitching, added, "Of course, the Ministry offers a hundred thousand galleon bounty on any basilisks killed, so…"

"You might have to wait on collecting the prize money Harry." Madam Bones said seeming to finally be coming out of her shock. "The Ministry really doesn't have that much money available to it. Of course that will give Ms Zabini here an additional defense for you since any attempts to go after any of you three can simply be made to look like an attempt to not have to pay up. They'll also try and claim juveniles aren't adults, so should be worth less."

"Does that mean the one I killed down on the chamber will be worth more? It was after all, a thousand years old. And had lived all that time leeching off the ward structure of Hogwarts, so was arguably worse than a normal, if really over sized basilisk."

"That thing really was immense." Ron added. "I really wouldn't be surprised if you were able to walk down it's throat without even being to touch the roof of it's mouth at the time Harry."

"I stabbed it the brain through the roof of it's mouth Ron." Harry replied, "I was able to reach it. Actually, WAS I ever paid for that one? I didn't know about any award, so never thought to ask."

"That's actually a good point Mr Potter." Ms Zabini said before turning to Madam Bones, "And I assume they'll be no issue with paying Harry for any of the unknown spells he demonstrated or taught people during the battle."

"I had the Ministry deposit it directly into your account at Gringotts Harry. And the defense from the Killing Curse alone has a well known, five million galleon reward for inventing. Any attempt to not pay out would result in riots should it be discovered." Dumbledore answered with a snort as, much to Harry's surprise, Percy Weasley walked into the infirmary and said something to Proudfoot and Tonks.

"When you're examining them," Harry said to Madam Bones, pointing at the bag. "Be careful. They were all under the influence of Felix Felicis. The set up Voldemort had set up actually had the eggs in Felix Felicis when the toad was sitting on them."

It was at that that Percy got to them with Bones not sure if she should address Harry or Percy, who was looking VERY upset, but it was Percy who next spoke, cutting off all other discussion. "Fudge just had Mr Crouch Kissed. Both of them actually. Him and his son."

The simultaneous shouts of outrage and surprise from not just the Weasleys, but Proudfoot, Tonks, Dumbledore and Bones was very loud. "He doesn't actually have the authority to do that does he?" Hermione asked.

"No! No he does not!" Ms Weasley stated.

"Iffy on Junior." Bones said, "He was technically speaking an escaped convict."

"Was he?" Dumbledore asked. "If my memory serves, Barty Crouch Senior remained head of Magical Law enforcement for just under a year after he sent his son there. If he sprung him within that time frame, than Barty might have actually quietly used his legal authority to have him removed."

"If so, than Fudge committed murder." Tonks said out loud. "Actually he committed murder with Barty Senior irregardless, since he hadn't been found guilty by the Wizengamot."

"Kind of like Sirius." Both Harry and Ron muttered together causing all three of the law enforcement to look at them. But before anyone could ask, the Minister chose that moment to enter the infirmary escorted by Dawlish, grins of triumph on their faces.

Before either one of them could say anything however, Bones looked at the other two Aurors. "Proudfoot, Tonks, place the Minister under arrest for the illegal kissing of two untried suspects." She said very loudly so the other Aurors who were standing guard before they arrived would also hear (along with all the other kids in the infirmary).

Fudge immediately began to sputter, but Dawlish got mad enough to get stupid. "The Minister doesn't need the Wizengamot to have convicts Kissed Bones." He said with a sneer. "And you know it. Now stand aside. You're likely to be replaced after this, you don't want to get arrested as well."

"You'll find John," Dumbledore said, "that you are quite incorrect regarding both the authority of the Minister in this regard, but also the status of either of the Crouches regarding being convicts. Indeed, just yesterday, Barty Crouch Senior was a member in high standing of the Wizengamot, I'm quite sure him even standing trial would have been noted in the Prophet, much less the Chief Warlock, myself, being informed."

"DAWLISH!?" A new voice yelled from the doorway as a tall male Auror who reminded Harry very much of a stalking lion entered alongside another black man who was also an Auror, both looking rather perturbed at Dawlish. "What exactly are you doing? You were told to help out on the grounds."

"I'm fulfilling my duty!" Dawlish yelled. "Unlike you lot!"

Harry saw red at that point. With a mental shift to the left, he had just read about, Harry called forth an Aura of the Archmage. "Fulfilling an attempt to garner gold from a Death Eater you mean!" Harry growled, voice trembling with thunder looking down at the suddenly small Dawlish. Harry winced at himself, this was far to theatrical for his taste, but it seemed to make his point as everyone else in the room except for Ron, Hermione and Dumbledore all stepped back (Harry saw several of the other students who had been watching things since Percy walked in fall out of their beds).

"Did you think we wouldn't fight back you bloody moron?!" Ron shouted from Harry's right side, his own aura sparkling, his already tall form now towering over everyone in the room by a wide margin, smoke twirling from his body and hair waving with the shimmer making it look like flames. Hermione with her own aura up was on Harry's left side, but she said nothing, her aura highlighting her scars and hair, giving her a wild, dangerous look.

Dawlish, Harry noticed, was once again on the floor, trying to crawl away. At least he was on his back, keeping his eyes on them as he scooched away. Fudge didn't even have that much dignity, crawling away on his knees. Shaking his head, Harry began to understand how people like Voldemort could so look down on other people. With that thought, Harry mentally shifted back to the right, and drew the aura back within himself.

Dumbledore summoned the wands from Dawlish and Fudge even as Hermione and Ron withdrew their own auras and handed them to Madam Bones. Slowly, she turned from the three of them and looked back at Dawlish. "Shacklebolt, Tonks! Place the Minister under arrest like I said earlier. Place John Dawlish in holding until we can determine if he had anything to do with the illegal Kissing of two suspects. Irregardless, his days in law enforcement, much less as a Auror, are over. Rufus?"

With a shake of his lions mane, the tall Auror took his wary eyes off Harry and looked at Bones. As Hermione was climbing back into bed, Ron sitting at the foot of her bed and Harry sitting on his own, he began to talk. "We were able to identify that thing we found in the corridor. It was Skeeter. Turns out she was an unregistered animagus, dung beetle to be exact. Appears she got injured, tried to transform and got stuck midway. She then took a piece of falling masonry to the head. Death was likely instantaneous after that, but she was crawling around for sometime before that. The blow to her head was likely NOT an accident. She has a cut on her shoulder consistent with a Sectum Hex. Looks like she had a bag. We suspect she had seen one of the Death Eaters faces, or had been following one of them in bug form when they attacked and he killed her and took any evidence she had had on her before killing her."

"So in addition to everything else, the Prophet will be after us for not protecting their reporters despite the fact that she was illegally using unregistered alternate forms.?" Bones sighed, pinching her nose.

"Oh no Ma'am. They're going to be flying off their collective handles claiming we're lying over the fact that two of their other reporters were wearing Death Eater robes and had wands that showed evidence of using the killing and pain curses."

"Two of them? Any chance of being able to round up all of them as suspects?"

With a smirk, the other man answered, "If it'd been their old chief in charge, then I'd say we do it anyway. But the new guy in charge over there hasn't had enough time to fall under the thumb of Malfoy or his ilk yet, so I'd say let's not give them a reason to speed that up. Especially with the way they've been covering the Malfoy family all weekend, it doesn't seem like Lucy is anywhere close having hooks in him yet. Of course with Moody of all people having been switched out with a fake, and it being a fake that arrested the brat, it's likely the runt will get off."

Harry jerked in surprise at that, Draco got arrested? He glanced over at the other two, surprise clearly visible on their faces as well. "I'll be finished here in a bit, tell everyone I'll hold a Press conference at three this afternoon." Bones said dismissing him.

As he was walking away, Percy looked at her, "If the Minister has been arrested, does that mean his firing me isn't valid?"

"Unfortunately, he actually didn't need a reason to end the employment of anyone at the ministry. I'm pretty sure whoever replaces Crouch will understand why a junior member of his team wouldn't have recognized that he had been Imperioused and will be willing to hire you back though."

With a look of resignation, Percy nodded. "Actually Percy," Harry began, "You got all outstandings on your NEWTs right?" With a nod from his head Harry pulled a vial of the potion from his pocket. "This is a sample of Felix Felicis I got out of the birdbath Voldemort was using as a basilisk incubator. As you can see, there is shell and scale fragments and maybe other contaminants in it. Any chance you can figure out what affect it'll have on the potion?"

"I'm not a Potions Master Harry." Percy said, with a frown, clearly complimented Harry thought that highly of him, but thinking he had to turn him down.

"True! But I only know two. Professor Dumbledore is clearly to busy, and I have zero trust in Snape."

"Professor Snape!" Dumbledore said.

"I'll call him professor when he acts like one." Harry said. Turning back to Percy, "Anyway, like I said, no trust in Snape. I know you were dating that Ravenclaw girl last year, Penny? And I know you're good at research like most Ravenclaws are, so I'm willing to pay both of you a descent amount if you need to bring her into it. If not, I'm also planning on hiring someone to do research on all the new astronomy discoveries made by muggles in the last couple of years, and what affects they'll have here on Earth in regards to magic. But maybe, just maybe, what affects the planets, including Earth will have on magic performed in space or on other planets within the solar system."

"Planning on building a space ship there Mr Potter?" Mr Granger asked, half in jest, half clearly curious.

"Already have the plans for a gate-ship and the materials. Getting the more specialized equipment for certain parts together now, and have already began construction of the hull. Programming it, and testing it will be an issue, but I'll work that out when I come to it. And if it looks like it'll be a no go on space flight, knowing the affects on magic of all the little planetiods and major meteorites will have will still be worthwhile. Let me know what you need for lab space, I'll work something out."

"Thank you Harry!" Percy said, putting the vial into a pocket on his upper robe, "Neither of us will let you down." With that, Percy walked away, clearly noticing Madam Bones and the Headmasters desire to continue their interrogation.

With a look at Mr and Mrs Weasley, Dumbledore sighed, "Molly, Arthur, I'm going to have to ask you to step away for a bit. Ms Granger has some questions that she needs to answer and she's made it quite clear who she'll answer in front of."

With a nod of their heads, they walked away and Dumbledore cast a series of privacy spells, all of which Harry was surprised he recognized. "Were did you three learn to do that?" he asked, voice gentle but firm. "And if you knew, why haven't you used it before?"

"We didn't know before." Harry answered. We were just really impressed with how you handled Dawlish earlier, so we figured if we could learn how to do that, we'd have a lot fewer problems from people like Malfoy. Well, Draco anyway, Lucy would still make himself be a git."

"So that's what you three were passing each other earlier." Ms Zabini said, reaching down to Hermione's bed and picking up her notebook. "You three were figuring out how to do what the Headmaster did earlier. What language is this? Some of these Runes I recognize, most I don't." She asked, awe coming through in her voice.

Harry wondered if it was the first time she'd shown an honest emotion that wasn't amusement at another persons mistakes. "It's Alterian. The language of Merlin." He answered even as he watched Dumbledore take the notebook and start to look through it. "I have a couple of books written by Marin, daughter of Emrys Myrddin Wyllt and his wife, Marion Myrddin Wyllt nee Caledonensis in my family vault. Together they formed the legend of Merlin."

Harry saw everyone's jaw drop again and smirked. "And why exactly would you have such historically important and valuable documents in your family vault Harry?" Bones asked, edge creeping into her voice.

"Probably because she put them there when she married Ignotus. It was after all, his family vault. And if you think for a second I'm going to give up a family heirloom of that magnitude, you're very much mistaken." Harry said, allowing an edge to creep into his own voice to equal Bones's. "It's so ironic that the individual everyone in the magical world idolizes to the point of deification, to the point that all four houses claim him as a member of their own house despite the fact that he was alive five hundred years before Hogwarts was built, wasn't even a wizard. He was a muggle pretending to be a wizard. The Great and all powerful Merlin, was playing a prank on the entire magical world. A prank his wife, who was in fact a Witch, aided and abetted him in." Harry continued laughing, "According to Marin, her father always maintained that he wasn't even human, but was a race known as Alterian. She wrote her books in the language he taught her. That and Nox, a different race, which he also taught her."

"Ignotus Harry?" Dumbledore asked.

"The same one we kind of discussed before Crouch made himself known last night." Harry answered noticing Ron's start of surprise as the name Ignotus clicked with him.

"You have an exceptional lineage Harry." Ms Zambini said, "It's almost a shame I have a son instead of a daughter."

'You have know idea' Harry thought to himself even as he said out loud, "Even though my Great Grandparents, the the parents of Charlus Potter, were a muggle RAF pilot from America and a squib daughter of a dying line?" Harry asked, watching her jerk in surprise. "My Grandfather was adopted into the Potter line by Fleamont and Euphemia Potter after their son Harold had been killed in a German bombing, and that the son of a recently deceased war hero named Lt Harold Potter had been born with magic. His mother was a squib from the line of Ignotus. I believe they always pretended that Charlus was the son of their own son Harold. And any spells to detect lineage would come back with the name Harold Potter now that I think about it."

"Technically speaking Harry," Mr Granger said, "You'd actually be an American citizen then."

Hermione's "DAD!" was simultaneous to Madam Bones groan.

"While this is truly fascinating, and I do mean that. But unfortunately, I have a lot to do at work today and evidently Ms Granger here will only answer me out of all the other law enforcement here. So Hermione, what the hell happened to you."

"Nothing." Hermione said. "Nothing happened, it's all fake. At least for me. Winky and Dobby said that there was bad people making bad people plans and that a lot of good people would die horribly if the wrong things happened. So they devised a plan to make sure that the wrong things didn't happen. But part of that was making the bad people waste time looking for other bad people and to blame these non existent bad people for any interference to their plans. Their words, not mine." Hermione said when she got strange looks. "So I spent the weekend in the hidden library of Rowena Ravenclaw reading her journals and practicing acting the part of a traumatized and abused girl. Hopefully I did a good enough job that anyone working for You-Know-Who will be wasting time trying figure out who kidnapped me rather than spending more time plotting ways to bring down the Ministry."

"All of my injuries were very carefully made to make me look as ragged and pathetic looking as possible when I showed back up. So if you could, don't let on that that's what's going on to anyone at the Ministry." She said, looking directly at Madam Bones.

Harry looked over at the adults and suddenly realized something. They had actually been concerned about them. Harry had fully expected the Grangers and Weasleys to have been concerned about their children, but this was the first time Harry really understood that most of the adults in Harry's life actually cared for him personally. Not just as a student or the friend of their son, but actually CARED what happened to him. To them all.

Ron's sudden exclamation brought Harry's thoughts back to the real world. "That's what Dobby meant! Dobby, he said something about trying to get 'The Boss Lady' to have Nymphy and Kingly to act out an investigation for Missy." He said before looking at Madam Bones and asking "Do you have anyone who could match those names too?"

"Yyyeeesss… Yes I do. If you'll excuse me, in addition to everything else, I now have a pair of Aurors to brief on a completely fake investigation they'll be pretending to run." With that, she turned around and walked away rubbing her forehead. Harry was watching her as Madam Pomfrey handed her what appeared to be a pain relieving potion as she was walking past her. Harry wondered if she even remembered what she was carrying in the bag anymore.

Harry looked back at Dumbledore just as he asked Hermione, "Dobby?"

"I dealt with Winky mostly, but yes, Dobby. Why? I take it he's had other interactions with people other than us three?"

"Oh, yes Ms Granger, yes he has. If you'll excuse me, I to need to make it look like I'm getting ready for an investigation into the events of your kidnapping in addition to everything else. Perhaps when we're done after this is all over, you'll be kind enough to show me to Ravenclaw's Library. Unless you have recently found out that you are descended from Rowena."

"You'd have to ask Dobby and Winky. They said the only way in or out was through Apparition/disapparition. Hey, Harry, Ron, let's start looking for any secret Rooms Gryffindor or Hufflepuff left."

"For Godric Gryffindor, you need look no further than my office Ms Granger. As for Helga Hufflepuff, if you do find anything, please let me know." With that, Dumbledore turned to walked away but was stopped by Harry.

"Professor?" Harry began, "What school am I competing for?"

The Headmaster turned back and answered, "Rivers End from the States Harry. Why do you ask?"

"It just seems like if I'm representing a different school, I should at least know it's name, and maybe something about. Who knows, not looking like a Hogwarts student might help sooth people over the whole two competitors from one school thing."

"I shall contact my colleague Chief Ironfeather as soon as possible then Harry. If you'll excuse me." With that, he turned and walked away, also snagging a pain relieving potion from Madam Pomfrey as he left.

As soon as the Headmaster was out the door, they were joined by Mr and Mrs Weasley and Madam Pomfrey, who was carrying a suspiciously large number of vials on a tray. This was going to be an even longer day than he'd thought when he woke up.

llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

It was Tuesday, and the three of them were sitting at the table in the Dining Hall, the students had just now been let out of their dorms. After getting healed, Hermione, who much to the surprise of her parents, had asked to keep the scar on her face as she liked the look. When she'd complained about her missing hair however, Ron had come out of nowhere when he offered to restyle her hair. When everyone just stared at him he responded with; "What? You've all met my brothers right? Fred? George? How to make my hair normal again was one of the first bits of actual magic I learned after I got a wand. I woke up far to many times with my hair turned into a turtle shell or something to not learn that spell."

So Hermione was now sporting a buzz cut on one side of her head, over the scarred side, and the other side had much shorter than her old hair, but still not quit shoulder length hair with a lose wave to it, giving her a very punk look making her joke about getting a tattoo. And since most wizards and witches would get scars removed if they could, it made it seem like she now had a curse scar, giving her a more intimidating look. Emphasis on the word more, she still wasn't exactly all that intimidating even then. At least Harry didn't think so. And it was clear Ron just thought she was cute. Glancing around the infirmary, it was pretty clear everyone else around thought she was however. And since they were behind anti-eavesdropping wards, they didn't know it wasn't really a curse scar. Something to think about Harry thought to himself.

Madam Pomfrey had then insisted that all three of them spend the night, and spent a suspicious amount of time dealing with Ron. Harry suspected he knew what had Poppy so concerned with what her spells were detecting from Ron, but there was no way in hell he was going to tell her that Ron had died several times, and it was only his soul and mind transferring to a duplicate that had saved his life. Ron knew, at least Harry thought he did. Since she hadn't actually been attacked, Hermione's parents had opted to not stay the night, and with a, sort of, stern warning to her to be careful, asked Auror Proudfoot to help them return home, and left with the Weasleys.

So they'd spent the night under the same force dome as the night before, much to the irritation of Madam Pomfrey who had had to resort to using a House Elf to apparate in to give them potions and make sure they actually drank them (Harry suspected that was the only reason she'd actually let them leave in the morning).

It did however give the three of them a chance to really talk. It'd been a difficult talk, but they'd managed. Harry had had fun describing his weekend to them, even if he left out a few details like being biologically related to Gellert Grindelwald. Oddly, Ron was mostly interested in the island with the giant bear, although since Harry demonstrated the metal refilling charm, Ron was probably hoping to end his families poverty. Hermione had, of course, been most interested in his new book collection. Both of them had been staggered with how much money he'd spent on books.

But both of them had been beyond staggered when he told them about THE Book and Glasses. Hermione didn't even accuse him of cheating, as long as he let her use them sometime.

She'd been somewhat less thrilled about the girls however. Ron found her reaction rather funny. But unbidden came the memory of day dreaming about Hermione kissing some of the other girls. And Harry had to wonder if he was just imagining some of the odd looks Hermione had given him when he'd described meeting Vanessa, Joan and Lea. Also unbidden, and less welcome came the thought that the potion was capable of altering peoples preferences.

He'd also described some of the other magic he'd learned, and Harry just knew he was going to be roped into teaching them some of it. Most of it likely. It was Ron however that was most interested in the spell that granted someone the knowledge of fictional characters however, not Hermione. He'd wanted to use it to gain the skills of fictional Archmages from books. Hermione had of course poo poo'd the idea, pointing out that the description flat out stated it wouldn't teach you any spells. Ron's response was; "So, there is a lot of other skills regarding magic that have nothing to do with spells. At least not directly. There's tactics and identification of spells. Even if the spell won't teach you the incantation of a spell, it sounds like it'll teach you what spells actually are out there. Then you can ask the How-To Book to learn the incantations. And that's not even going into knowledge about politics or the hidden places of the world. I wonder if any of the places from books that are hidden by a Fidelius that are real and really hidden by a Fidelius that a character knows about, would the spell grant that knowledge as well?"

"But the spell says it takes total concentration though." Hermione said, "How would you retain the knowledge?"

"Not sure about that part. Maybe a memory-skill engram potion like what we used as kids to learn to read and write." Ron had said. "What? You don't think Mum trusted us to go to a muggle school growing up did you? Can you imagine nine year old Fred and George at a school surrounded by muggle kids with them trying to practice calling up accidental magic at will? How about someone like Malfoy? Talk about a disaster waiting to happen."

Hermione had immediately borrowed the book and glasses to learn how to make memory-skill engram potions while they discussed other characters they could learn. Both Harry and Hermione's knowledge of fictional characters worth while for this was limited however. Hermione just hadn't been interested in that type of books when young, and Harry's uncle and aunt had actively prevented him from reading such useless garbage. And what they did know, wouldn't work do to the engrams only copying memories, not the super powers, even if the spell itself granted the powers.

"Listen to this you two." Hermione said, " 'When making this potion, care must be taken to insure that only the skill or knowledge itself is passed on. Any feelings you have, or stray thoughts you think when extracting the skill to be copied may be present in the potion. Such foreign emotions and thoughts will cause headaches and distress in whoever takes the potion. And, especially in the case of children, cause the imbiber to develop thought patterns similar to the person who's memory has been extracted.' It sounds like this would make someone crazy if done wrong. And might explain some of the really messed up believes of the more die hard pure bloods if they were given these as children that hadn't been purged of stray thoughts or emotions."

"Well." Harry said, "The spell does grant you the knowledge from you're own perspective, so any stray thoughts and emotions would be your own, and not foreign. So as long as we only drink it from our own spell enhanced memories, we should be good. I'd actually rather not have some of these skills be available to anyone else anyway. Except maybe Neville, he was after all, the other person Grindelwald said matched the terms of the prophecy, so getting him up to speed would probably be a good idea. I just wish he'd told me what the prophecy actually said. But he won't tell me until I get my Occlumency up to snuff. So, yeah, we need to get Neville in on some of this at least."

"I agree," Ron said. "You two have any ideas about what characters we could learn from muggle fiction? Pretty much every character in wizarding stories is either based on real people or all have the same skills outside of actual magic spells."

"Well, I'd already thought about people from the tellie who keep space ships repaired, like Star Trek or Star Wars. Even if the fictional skills are complete BS, it translates it into real world equivalents. It was how I was planning on making the space ship I mentioned. Maybe healing the muggle way as well, I'm sure there are plenty of doctors in fiction. The one I'm actually curious about is if the spell can grant the skills of a arcade game character. If so, then I'd like to try someone from Mortal Combat. We'd have to practice the physical movements, but having that level of skill fighting would be handy. And even better, I overheard Dudley's friend mentioning once that almost all the characters in that game have magic. That means when the spell translates the skills, it'll have our own magic worked into the hand to hand skill. And maybe it'll allow us to learn characters from the games the girls showed me. Is a game book close enough to a fiction to be considered?"

Hermione popped up with, "Well, most comic book characters aren't useful, since almost all of them have super powers. But Batman would be good. Not only would we get extreme fighting skills, but he's also a trained investigator, which we seem to spend most of the past years trying to figure out what was really going on, with some highly embarrassing mistakes. So having Sherlock Holmes level detective skills would be nice. We could also learn characters from movies like Jason Bourne, or James Bond, or any of the military action flicks from America about their elite forces. Maybe even learn several different characters who specialize in fighting so we get all of their techniques. We could also try and learn some stories from the alien races Harry mentioned. If they traveled to Earth, then their fictional characters would probably have a pretty good basis for actual space travel, leaving less room for interpretation."

And so it went until late in the night when they finally went to sleep, Ron and Hermione sleeping together without even thinking about it. Harry doubted either of them even realized they did it, and had teased them when they woke up, much to their embarrassment. Although Harry noticed them eyeing each other more then normal, and both kept blushing whenever one of them caught the other looking.

Madam Pomfrey had released them, in a somewhat irritated way, but they were escorted back to Gryffindor Tower by Auror Proudfoot, who had returned sometime in the morning. And who had only answered a few of their questions. No, Minister Fudge wasn't still detained (unfortunately), his allies (those he was a crony too) had got him released, although he was being actively kept out of Law enforcement, and had been told rather bluntly that any more interference would result in Aurors treating him as a direct and immediate threat to themselves and others, and cast spells as such. It was also highly likely that Madam Bones was going to call for an election in the coming session of the Wizengamot.

Yes, Draco Malfoy had been arrested after his belongings had been searched and he'd been found in possession of several very nasty and highly illegal items of a dark and sexual nature. He claimed that they weren't his and he was being set up, but it didn't seem like anyone actually believed him. Harry wasn't so sure about that, he personally didn't think Draco was brave enough to try and use anything like that for fear of it not working and having whoever he tried it on beating the crap out of him. Not that it mattered, fake Moody had been the one who did the search, and it was likely that his father would manage to get him off on that alone.

Why yes, there had in fact been a nation wide search for the three of them all weekend long, thank you very much for showing up safely, or at least somewhat safely. Since Proudfoot hadn't been in a position to hear their interrogation, the only Auror who actually KNEW what they'd been up to was Madam Bones herself, he quickly backtracked on his sarcasm not being sure that they hadn't in fact, been kidnapped and escaped.

No, he didn't know why Hermione's parents hadn't been notified, Ron's had known because his Mum had been there when Hermione had gone missing. Yes there was several articles in the Prophet about them. And finally, yes, Aurors would be stationed at Hogwarts for the remainder of the year. And not just those from the British Ministry either, but some from France and Norway (where Durmstrang was located) would be there as well.

With that, they'd got to the Fat Lady's portrait when it dawned on the trio they didn't know the password. A quick, whispered Expositus however, and the Fat Lady blurted out the password, "Bloody fuc'n 'ell" which Ron repeated in the exact same voice and tone the Fat Lady had used. Proudfoot had been staring at them as they had walked in. Clearly he didn't know that spell.

Inside, they'd been greeted to complete silence for over a minute. It was finally broken when Harry, who'd been looking at each small cluster of people in turn, landed on the second year girls, who'd gone very pale and ran screaming up the stairs to their dorm. Proudfoot snorted at that, and left them to go talk to another Auror who was sitting in the corner, causing Harry to wonder if all four houses were getting guardians, or just Gryffindor.

With a nod from Ron at Neville, and then into their corner, Ron walked away to ask Neville to join them. After they joined Harry and Hermione, Harry cast the privacy spells yet again, and Harry had given Neville a VERY edited account of his weekend. With much focus on what Grindelwald had said about the prophecy. Neville had been truly shocked to find out he was a possible candidate for a prophecy and was very grateful to them over being offered some training from them as soon as they figured things out, and he'd suggested that they offer that training to everyone else in Gryffindor as well. "I know you don't like your fame Harry," he'd said, "but like it or not, you three have become the student leaders in Gryffindor. More so than any of the Prefects or Headboys or Girls have ever been. And you three also clearly have skills everyone here needs. Not just me Harry."

After that, he'd gone back over to talk to Dean and Seamus leaving Harry to ponder what he'd said. The elves had brought breakfast and lunch to the dorms, but Dumbledore's voice had come, and he'd said that Dinner would be served in the Dinning Hall that evening. The first time the students had been let out since Sunday night. And so they'd been escorted to the dining hall by Aurors, and yes, the other three houses did in fact have escorts as well. So did the other two schools as well, although their escorts were wearing different colored robes, so Harry assumed those were the Aurors from France and Norway respectively.

It wasn't even remotely surprising that everyone was staring at him. The Prophet had run several more articles about the battle, and they'd featured heavily. The articles had even been surprisingly accurate for the amount of information the paper actually had, MOSTLY avoiding their usual hearsay or reporting their opinions as if they were facts. So, not surprisingly, the three of them had several empty seats around them.

Once everyone was in and seated, Dumbledore had risen, given a short speech about what had actually happened the night of the attack. Thankfully leaving out most details. Most, not all. Harry and Ron had both received special mentions for demonstrating rare spell combinations and casting techniques as well as knowledge of lost or newly invented spells. They were also given special awards for service to the School and in the protection and defense of their fellow students. All told, the two of them received over four hundred points (which curiously, were the only points on the board), special awards, and a promise that their names would make it into the next update of Hogwarts: A History. Harry could only assume Dumbledore was mad at them for some reason because of that, although he supposed Ron would be happy, it was something no one else in his family had achieved.

Dumbledore had then explained what they had learned from Crouch before he'd been Kissed about putting Harry's name in the Goblet and hexing it so it'd think four schools were competing. Why he wanted that was unknown, at least so Dumbledore claimed. But that extra protection beyond what was originally planned for the contestants would be put in place in case he'd just wanted to hurt or kill the contestants.

He then explained that he'd been in contact with Professor Ironfeather from the United States, and was the head of their Department of Magical Education. And that Professor Ironfeather would be arriving the next Monday along with several students from the States even though Harry was already their chosen Champion. And even though Harry was competing for the School 'Rivers End', it was the U.S.'s head of education and Headmaster of the School 'Cliffside' that would be coming due to strange rules enacted by America's DoMRM.

He then explained that the three Headmasters had decided that, despite the fact that the attackers had mostly ignored the other two schools, and only sent a few people to attack them, that there could be no assurance that that would be the case if there was another attack. As such, the students from the other schools would be moving into guest dorms being set up by the House Elves and that Aurors would be manning the battlements for the remainder of the year.

And finally he'd added that classes would be resuming the next morning, and that starting the next day, students would once again be allowed to roam the castle, but were still not allowed out onto the grounds. With that final statement, he'd sat down and summoned the food.

The House Elves had outdone themselves in the quality of the food and taste, yet it was apparent to everyone who'd been here more than a year, that it wasn't up to their normal feast level. Harry wasn't sure if that was because of the short notice to get ready for a feast, or that they were just super busy helping out around the castle. In either way, there wasn't anywhere near the normal level of variety of choices available, but what they did have was very good.

The three of them were quite while eating, only talking amongst themselves a little. And not talking to anyone else at all. For a change, Ron and Hermione were getting stared at more than Harry. Ron for rather obvious reasons, probably the same reasons he seemed so lost in thought. For Hermione, it was probably as much to do with her new look as to all the rumors about what happened to her he could overhear being bandied about between tables. The super-sensory spells came in really handy. Were normally, the whispers were a persistent and unpleasant background noise, now he could actually hear what was being said, and get an idea of just how bad the rumors actually were.

After a few minutes of this, Harry found the need to firm up his new Occlumency shield he'd been working on. He'd started working on Occlumency Saturday night after he'd got back from Nurmengard, so it'd been more than twenty four hours since he'd read the books on Occlumency and tips on how to build mental structures and memory palaces, so the automatic success provided by the glasses was gone, but it still left him with around two thousand hours worth of practice in using those skills. On the other hand, this WAS the first time he had to USE those skills.

Harry began to firm up the walls on the inside and going over his false world/memory palace. One of the books had talked about the pro's and con's of imagining yourself in the world as apposed to remaining an outside observer looking in. For shit's and giggles, he cast Kage Bunshin no Jutsu on his mental self just to see what would happen, making sure to look around in case it created an actual physical duplicate that he'd need to reabsorb before anyone figured out what was going on. He knew there was no chance no one would notice, not with how much they were being stared at, but if it happened fast enough people wouldn't have a clue what had happened.

It didn't create a physical being, but he did get a second mental self. Now he could get the benefits of both being in the construct and looking in from the outside without the disadvantages. He also figured he shouldn't create more than three or four until he knew what the side affects would be, if any. It was weird already Harry decided. Were as a physical duplicate would only grants it's memories to him when they merged, the mental duplicates all shared instantly and completely. It was like Harry had four brains, all working together and sharing instantly, but each able to think and act independently as well.

While he began to shore up his mental defenses, his three duplicates doubled down on doing what had caused Harry to need to shore up his defenses in the first place, and all cast several super-sensory charms. With three of his duplicates, who all had his full mental capabilities, and didn't have to worry about pretending to not be doing something, being the ones who were paying attention to the surrounding conversations, Harry was quickly running out of reasons he should care about his fellow students. He'd about attacked Cormac McLaggen right then and there when he'd overheard a comment from him about how he'd like to do to Hermione what had been done to her as well.

His head HAD snapped up at that causing everyone around quickly look at him, as if trying to decide if they should dive for cover. He had eyes only for McLaggen at that point however. And he tried to make his dislike and anger at him make itself clear in his stare. It seemed to work, as McLaggen had turned his face down and was staring directly at his food for over a minute before one of his fellow fifth years told him he needed to go sit at the far end of the table alone and not speak to anyone anymore. Or better yet, not speak ever again. As McLaggen was walking away, the general conversation had shifted to; "Holy shit, can he HEAR us?" He made a point of looking at each person who said that as almost every single one of them had looked at him as soon as the said it. Most of them stopped talking after that. Something Harry was sure, was noted by both teachers and Aurors in the Hall.

Meanwhile, he was also working some more on his shield. His mental structure wasn't based on Hogwarts like he figured most of the wizards and witches he was likely to have use Legilimency on him would be using. Something one of the books had actually mentioned as being very common. Instead Harry had based his around an 'Astra Portus' from the Alterian language. In order to access his mind, someone would have to navigate through a forest to find a specific clearing. The forest was based on the the Forbidden Forest however, it being the only forest Harry had ever been in. There was a Hogwarts castle in his memory palace, however it was a trap. Filled with death traps and beasts that would rip intruders apart (kind of like his time here). But most people would just assume they needed to find where in the castle his memories were stored.

In actuality, they'd need to go to the clearing that Snape and Quirrell had been talking in when Harry had been watching during his first year. There, they'd find the Ring and control. Like the castle, most of the six point, seven point as they did still need to figure out the origin point tab as well, addresses led to more traps. It was only dialing a specific seven, or eight point, code that would allow them to access his actual memories however. But even this, Harry was working on, and trying to build up defenses on that end as well in case someone figured it out on chance.

It was kind of funny how close his mental images of the Astra Portus he got from reading and learning the Alterian language was to the show 'Extreme Wormhole' and made him stop eating for a minute or so and ponder that. Was it possible that someone had actually discovered an Astra Portus here on Earth and was using it? And if so, why make such a campy show on the tellie about it? "Hermione, add the characters from the show Wormhole Extreme to our list of characters to learn."

"That stupid thing Harry? Why?"

"It's to similar to an actual Astra Portus to be completely a coincidence." On seeing her and Ron's look of confusion, he remembered that they had only been reading the book in Alterian about fifteen minutes or so and hadn't been under the influence of the potion at the time, so probable didn't know what an Astra Portus was. "Err, I'll explain later ok." He said as he saw a couple of people he didn't want to talk to heading his way.

Surprising, it wasn't Malfoy and his Bookends, Crabbe and Goyle, it was his Bookends and Nott, or the Nutbag as most of his fellow Gryffindor fourth years called him. It was also clear, both from the way they were walking, and an overheard bit of conversation that it was Crabbe who was leading this. Malfoy was apparently still on the outs with his fellow Slytherin, and Nott, while clearly the instigator, wasn't in charge. At least not yet. A glance around using a quickly cast super-sensory charm granting three hundred sixty degree vision from one of his duplicates showed that all of the teachers and Aurors had noticed, and two Aurors and both Snape and McGonagall were getting out of their seats to intervene if necessary.

"You three get lost coming back from the bathroom or something?" Harry asked as they got within talking range.

"You're dead Potter!" Crabbe snarled as they got right next to the table, red faced with rage.

"Funny, you'd think I would have noticed." Harry replied with a smirk, almost hoping he'd try something so he'd have an excuse to punt his ass across the Hall before remembering that his father had just died, and it was clear he was blaming Harry. Which was dumb on several levels. With a groan Harry just said: "Spit it out Crabbe, you're clearly not capable of using your brain." Adding under his breath; "And here I had decided a couple of weeks ago you were the smart one of your group."

Hermione heard him however: "Crabbe? Smart? Harry! Why would you ever think that?"

"He was never around whenever Malfoy got in trouble." Harry responded. "I always envisioned him and Goyle sitting around working Malfoy into a lather and setting him lose on people while claiming that whatever he was going to do required stealth and guile so they needed to stay back. Just a mental image I had. Guess I was wrong." Crabbe was getting more and more red faced, although from the uncomfortable look on Goyle's face, and the suddenly wary glance Nott was giving the other two, Harry thought it might have been closer to the truth than he'd thought.

"I said you're DEAD!!!" Crabbe screamed and went for his wand. Before he could even try and go for his own, one of his mental duplicates, who had mental versions of his wand already out, had cast Expelliarmus and Crabbe's wand went sailing into Harry's empty hand even as the two Aurors had leapt over and grabbed his arms and pushed his face down into the table.

Crabbe went still with shock, and there was dead silence throughout the Hall. One of the Aurors was looking at him, glancing down at Crabbe's wand in Harry's hand, and back up to Harry's face several times before looking at his partner. "No spell cast, subject was disarmed by intended victim, let him up slowly."

With that Crabbe was slowly let up, his face clearly still shocked at how easily he'd been disarmed, yet despite that, he was still able to get out: "He's no victim. He killed my father."

Ron's "No he didn't you bloody stupid git, I did!" probably didn't actually help, as Crabbe immediately began to struggle again, if only slightly. With a glance at Goyle standing there, Ron continued; "I also killed his father as well! But that's what you get when you come into a school And Start Trying To Kill Kids, JUST FOR SHIT'S AND GIGGLES! How many people died at the hands of your precious father during the last war Crabbe? How many kids? How many tortured? Tortured at the wand tip of your fucking daddy. And for what? So he could get it up for your mum when he got home?"

"Was I under the Imperious curse?" Ron asked, venom dripping from his voice causing Harry to fear that all of Ms Zambini's work was about to be undone. "I honestly have no fucking clue Crabbe. But you see, that's the thing, unlike your piece of shit father, who went crying 'Wa wa wa' to the Ministry about how they were Imperioused into doing bad things, I know it's nearly impossible to tell if you've been hit with it unless it's something so awful, or so opposed to what you'd normally do, such as killing a loved one, which your daddy really had a thing for making people do from what I heard growing up. That's what it takes to know you've been hit with it."

"Everyone tells me I showed all the signs, so yeah, I probably was under the influence since your precious daddy was spilling all the beans to try and save his own skin. Because, like fuck loyalty or anything for your daddy." Ron finished, face every bit as red as Crabbe's was. "Jesus Christ you moron, why the fuck would you even consider attacking any of us, right in front of the teachers and Aurors? Especially since you attacked someone innocent of the crime you claim happened! Did your daddy beat you into submission to the point you still have to follow him now that he's dead?! Or was your daddy's dick that good that you'd take that kind of risk for?"

"RON!!!" Hermione shout perfectly timed with McGonagall's "MR WEASLEY!"

"You done Ron?" Harry asked, smirking despite how close Ron's comment came to Harry's own upbringing (no dicks though thankfully), Crabbe and Malfoy could bring out the worst in people far to easily. Turning back to the Aurors, "What now? He didn't actually get a spell off, and despite what we all know would have happened if he got his wand out, he CAN say he only intended to threaten me. So what happens?"

"Unfortunately, not much." One of them replied.

"It would be up to his Head of House and the Headmaster!" Snape's voice proceeded his sickly face and rancid hair from behind the Auror. "And with everything that has happened over the weekend, neither of us has much tolerance for imbeciles at the moment." It was weird Harry thought to himself, Snape had his usual look of condensation and contempt, but Harry couldn't tell who it was for at the moment. Harry himself, Ron, the Aurors or his own students, or more likely, all of the above.

When Snape held out his hand to Harry, clearly asking for the wand, Harry pretty automatically began to give it to him. But one of the Aurors reached out and snagged it. "No Severus, I don't think so." Putting the wand into his own pocket, the Auror pushed Crabbe towards a suddenly very hostile Snape. "Vincent Crabbe! You have attempted to attack a fellow student in front of the entire school. Now, do to other things, your attempt failed, but you still attempted it. While we do not have the authority to expel you, we do have the authority to confiscate your wand temporarily. As such, your Head of House will have to give us a list of your classes that require a wand. We'll make sure whoever is guarding those classes will have it, and you'll be granted use of it only for those activities that require it. In a couple of months, say around Christmas, we'll reevaluate your behaviour."

"And just in case it becomes an issue," the other one added. "During all classes, you will be in the closest seat to the professor, and any of these three," he pointed at Harry Ron and Hermione. "Any of these three will be sitting as far from you as possible. If you're caught using another wand, we'll not only snap your wand and expel you, but we'll assume you had hostile, even murderous intent and cast accordingly!" The Auror added, snarling in Crabbe's face. "Oh, also, you're not allowed to wander the castle. After classes, and during any periods you have no classes, you'll be confined to your dorm." The last he added with a smile before waving Snape and Crabbe off, Nott following along like a kicked puppy. Clearly the Auror liked neither Crabbe's father, nor Snape.

But Goyle was still standing there, looking nervous, eyeing the Auror for a moment before turning to face Ron. With a low voice; "Did you really kill my father?"

With a defeated sigh, Ron answered. "Yes. It was in the middle of the fight and…"

"That doesn't matter." Goyle cut Ron off, "But you did kill him?"

"Yes."

"And Bulstrode? Professor Snape told Millicent he had attacked Gryffindor tower and had been found right outside."

"Um, I'm not sure about that one, that could have been either of us. Or the suit of armor or lions Harry summoned."

"Thank you." Goyle said, voice barely above a whisper, relief and gratitude writ large on his face. "Thank you. I'm sure Millicent would thank you as well if she could work up the courage. I…" He cut himself off and stood there for several seconds. "Thank you." And then he turned and walked away, back to his table.

Ron and Hermione's faces were complete shock, and the Aurors "What the fuck?" went unremarked upon. Personally, Harry thought, watching Goyle sit at his table and stare unmoving at his desert, that he had entirely to much in common with Goyle for comfort. And found himself wondering if someone murdered Uncle Vernon, would he feel gratitude as well.


What Hermione's new look is based on

Edit to correct name of person speaking.

 

[moontheir4]

Man, literal years I've been waiting to find out what happened to Hermoine and it turns out to be a red herring. Actually startled a laugh out of me when she said it. Still leaves me curious as to all the temporal activity on campus. While it could be the shadow clones (something I've seen more than once in Naruto fiction was that actually being a space-time technique) Dobby's monologue while finishing off Rita leads me to think otherwise.

Hit most of the fictional characters I'd look at. Maybe Lex, Ras, and Vandal from DC for their talents in scheming, though they do get thwarted often. Littlefinger would be around in the mid 90s, but they'd be less likely to hear about him. Papa Palpatine, completely ignoring the force, that's a consummate politician there.

Woof. CrabbeGoyle thanking Ron for killing his dad. Right in the feels.

"Thank you." Crabbe said, voice barely above a whisper, relief and gratitude writ large on his face. "Thank you. I'm sure Millicent would thank you as well if she could work up the courage. I…" He cut himself off and stood there for several seconds. "Thank you." And then he turned and walked away, back to his table.

Click to shrink...

Pretty sure you meant Goyle there.

Edit: And now that I've actually read part three, I'm thinking it wasn't time travel that caused that disturbance, but the elimination of possible futures...

Edit Edit: Ironfeather felt spot on there, nothing suspicious at all and just the right ambiguous tone I'd expect from someone discussing the magical world among mundanes. Unless you've edited it since you originally posted, I can't see why he would feel the need to obliviate them.

 

[killgore444]

Man, literal years I've been waiting to find out what happened to Hermoine and it turns out to be a red herring. Actually startled a laugh out of me when she said it.

Click to shrink...

Of all the things that have changed from my initial outline, this did not. It was one of the 3 scenes I had partially written when I first started the story. Glad you liked it.

Hit most of the fictional characters I'd look at. Maybe Lex, Ras, and Vandal from DC for their talents in scheming, though they do get thwarted often. Littlefinger would be around in the mid 90s, but they'd be less likely to hear about him. Papa Palpatine, completely ignoring the force, that's a consummate politician there.

Click to shrink...

The only 2 of those I recognize are Lex and Palpatine. I assume Ras is Rasigul from Batman, but not sure. I actually don't know much about DC beyond the basic history that was around in the 80's and the Lantern wars. My lnowledge of Marvel and Image are up to around 2010with a hit in the 90's were I gave up on comics. Really glad I stopped bothering in 2010 from things I've read about since. It's one of the reasons I decided to just have had Hermione not interested in fiction when growing up beyond the really common knowledge like Batman is Bruce Waine, but have no clue about any of Alfred's back story (she might not even be able to name Alfred). And I don't think I'm stretching HP canon by his uncle keeping him from reading such 'useless' garbage.

I'm actually planning on having the girls be Harry's primary source of information on pop culture. But they're only 14, and involved in a high profile career (modeling), and while their budget is as a result, somewhat higher than most teens, they still have limits to what they can purchase do to local availability (comic shops aren't ubiquitous) and time. I am having them be into RPGs since they can bring a few books and dice when traveling and staying in hotels. That way they can stay out of the limelight and still have some fun with each other.

Woof. CrabbeGoyle thanking Ron for killing his dad. Right in the feels.

Pretty sure you meant Goyle there.

Click to shrink...

THANK YOU! That was more than a little embarrassing.

I got to admit, this story has taken a few darker turns than my original outline. I started this story as a spoof of other fanfictions. It's why I did things like make Harry have a dozen homes, but they're all trashed. He's a harem protagonist, but can't engage in sexual activities without McGonagall being alerted by the school wards (at least until he's 15). And why I originally had Hermione turning BI being teased,but never stated outright. Still not sure if I'm ever going to say fully if she is or isn't.

And then 'Story' happened, and it took on a life of it's own.

Goyle and Bulstrode actually being grateful to Ron and Harry for the deaths of their fathers was something I thought about as I killed them when writing. I was trying to decide if I should actually do it, or just leave out any named characters, and lose and plot potential (and not deal with plot complications). But I read a fanfiction that had Goyles father telling Greg that if he didn't end up in Slytherian, he'd kill his mom. So the entire story was from Greg's PoV and had his slow spiral from just trying to fit into the Slytherian mindset to were he no longer cared what happened to his mother and had become a viscous bully. It was only around 2 to 3,000 words per book, and the story was deleted when I was reading chapter 3 [PoA] so I never saw chapters 4 or 5. But it was surprisingly good (either that or it was a case of being REALLY bored as I was snowed in at a motel while on a hotshot and surfing the internet on the Motel computer).

The idea that Goyle and Crabbe are secretly smarter and more cunning than Malfoy, and are always working him up to go get in trouble while they laugh at him was something from a discussion with friends from before the final book even coming out. Actually, I don't even think HBP was out yet. It has been my head-canon every since.

Still leaves me curious as to all the temporal activity on campus. While it could be the shadow clones (something I've seen more than once in Naruto fiction was that actually being a space-time technique) Dobby's monologue while finishing off Rita leads me to think otherwise.

Edit: And now that I've actually read part three, I'm thinking it wasn't time travel that caused that disturbance, but the elimination of possible futures...

Click to shrink...

All of my thoughts on time travel ARE internally consistent, but NONE of the characters in the story know all of the details, and a lot of what they KNOW, is wrong. One of the outtakes from my original outline had Harry getting stuck in a time loop alla Ground Hog Day, at the same time as O'Niel and Teal'c, but decided to drop it. Considering all the issues I have getting content out as it stands, I don't want to get into to many side stories.

Edit Edit: Ironfeather felt spot on there, nothing suspicious at all and just the right ambiguous tone I'd expect from someone discussing the magical world among mundanes. Unless you've edited it since you originally posted, I can't see why he would feel the need to obliviate them.

Click to shrink...

Unless of course that Ironfeather happens to know Legilimency, and is completely aware of what goes on at the SGC from Sgt Syler, and now Jack jr. And is fully aware of just how quickly they can put pieces together.

Of course, that's completely hypothetical. He might have just been channeling the spirit of Kawalsky or Dr Fraiser who was just cracking jokes that Ironfeather was repeating.

~

 

[Kris-71854]

I could see the girls having various series of books. Dune, LoTR, DiscWorld, Lensman, tHGttG, Ring World (Niven/Known Space), Vorkosigan Sage (Cordelia's Honor, and Young Miles), Gold Digger, Honor Harrington, and Telzey Amberdon.

You have 3 girls, and they don't all have to have the same books or exact interests. These being girls, I can see them reading Vorkosigan Sage, Gold Digger, Honor Harrington, and Telzey Amberdon. They have strong female leads and all that.

Telzey Amberdon is an older series out in the 60s and 70s. Basically think psionic rich daddy's girl. Dad is a lawyer. She roams around in her own ship a lot. Psionics is rare, and the government's secret psionics branch recruits the girl. She becomes a secret troubleshooter for those sorts of issues.

Gold Digger has the first two volumes out. Gina Digger is basically what you get if you combined Tony Stark and Lara Croft. Gina is the mad scientist tomb raider. She has a sister that is a fighter. They end up with a magically created sibling who is a blend of the two.

Cordelia's Honor sticks in the memory a bit better. Cordelia is an extremely well-trained ship captain from the most advanced group in the setting. They have some rather open mores as well.

I'd be curious to see Ron and Hermione doing the L2 Lensmen thing. Is it biology or would mind magic be enough to emulate it? Considering SG cross, I could easily see lensmen being a route to ascending.

Dune has lots of interesting characters and themes going for it. I'm curious who they'd pick from it.

I could actually see Hermione mentioning various scifi series that she has heard about and then making a list to skim. She might not have read much fiction, but I'm sure she's walked through those shelves and read most of the titles.

They should pick some characters from Dr. Who.

Would Hermione have watched Blake's 7? She'd be the only one to know of it.

 

[killgore444]

I could see the girls having various series of books. Dune, LoTR, DiscWorld, Lensman, tHGttG, Ring World (Niven/Known Space), Vorkosigan Sage (Cordelia's Honor, and Young Miles), Gold Digger, Honor Harrington, and Telzey Amberdon.

You have 3 girls, and they don't all have to have the same books or exact interests. These being girls, I can see them reading Vorkosigan Sage, Gold Digger, Honor Harrington, and Telzey Amberdon. They have strong female leads and all that.

Telzey Amberdon is an older series out in the 60s and 70s. Basically think psionic rich daddy's girl. Dad is a lawyer. She roams around in her own ship a lot. Psionics is rare, and the government's secret psionics branch recruits the girl. She becomes a secret troubleshooter for those sorts of issues.

Gold Digger has the first two volumes out. Gina Digger is basically what you get if you combined Tony Stark and Lara Croft. Gina is the mad scientist tomb raider. She has a sister that is a fighter. They end up with a magically created sibling who is a blend of the two.

Cordelia's Honor sticks in the memory a bit better. Cordelia is an extremely well-trained ship captain from the most advanced group in the setting. They have some rather open mores as well.

I'd be curious to see Ron and Hermione doing the L2 Lensmen thing. Is it biology or would mind magic be enough to emulate it? Considering SG cross, I could easily see lensmen being a route to ascending.

Dune has lots of interesting characters and themes going for it. I'm curious who they'd pick from it.

I could actually see Hermione mentioning various scifi series that she has heard about and then making a list to skim. She might not have read much fiction, but I'm sure she's walked through those shelves and read most of the titles.

They should pick some characters from Dr. Who.

Would Hermione have watched Blake's 7? She'd be the only one to know of it.

Click to shrink...

As I mentioned to moontheir4, I'm limited to my own knowledge.

It's why I was having Hermione not have been interested in most fiction growing up. And what little wasn't magic centered would have been pre-11th birthday. After she got her visitation, she became very magic centered and consumed ANYTHING that had magic in it trying to get a handle on it. The Narnia series would have been a much more apt choice for her after her visitation. Before that, she was limited both by interest, what she had access to, and by what her parents would ALLOW. Remember, she was only 10 and younger. Books like the Lensmen would have held almost no interest.

As for the girls, there is still the interest issue, even if they have better access than Hermione had. Remember, they're not geniuses like Hermione. While I'm having them be interested in RPGs, they only really have the basic books, and a few supplements. If they're on a shoot, and have to spend a few nights in a hotel, they can whip out 1 or 2 game books and a small bag of dice and have fun throughout the evening without having to deal with the hassle of socializing with people who know they're models or sleazebags etc. But their primary interests are still modeling and basic girl stuff. Working out trying to stay in shape, hair and makeup, boys (and girls since they go both ways) and all the miscellaneous drama that goes with being Freshmen in High School (9th grade).

I was also going to be adding stuff later in the story about what's going on in their homes and school, but considering my issues with getting content out, I'm probably going to drop it.

That having been said, Gold Digger is 1 of the ones I'm familiar with, even if it's from later issues, and Hermione and Ron would absolutely try and build Pebots. Hermione for the intellectual challenge, Ron for the incredible humor factor of having exploding, intelligent remote controlled cars that can stick to walls like Spider-Man. But even here, quite a bit of their skills and abilities are pure magic, or when translated, would be no different than Spock, Scotty or Jordi from Star Trek (TnG). Her archeology training would be about the same as the Dr in the show Extreme Wormhole as well. That doesn't mean they're not going be putting her on the list, after all, with magic being so prevalent in the books, at least a few of the issues the girls owned would have made their way to the second meeting with Harry.

As far as Dune and LotR go, I'm pretty much going to have the girls and Hermione share my opinion that they either were to boring at first to get into (Dune (the first several chapters of Hunt for Red October were easier reading)) or just bad (LotR (I could never get beyond the dude jumping from hilltop to hilltop or the singing undead skeletal warriors)). Honestly, all 3 of them are far more likely to be into Warriors than either Dune or LotR. Of course, with Animagi being a thing, learning how to hunt and fight as a cat might actually be useful.

Edit: And now that I've actually read part three, I'm thinking it wasn't time travel that caused that disturbance, but the elimination of possible futures...

Click to shrink...

By the way, I misread this in my first reply.
The disturbances of time are from several different sources. But most of the current disturbances, including the elimination of different futures, are the result of future Harry traveling back in time. I tried to point out that the Harry in her vision was the future one.

Did that not come across as clear? Should I reword that a little? I'm trying to keep everything from her PoV, so I didn't outright state that it was the same one, but she really does know a fuckton more than anyone else realizes. If you didn't catch it, she CAN sort of talk (more like E-mail) other Seers both in her dimension/universe and other dimensions/universes as well. But I don't think she'd clue in on that, she is after all, basically a druggy and alcoholic (how many of you caught the reverence about her and Sprout?). What do you guys think, was it clear?

Now, if your comment was about how many visions she's having, than yes, it was the elimination of possibilities. She's using her stacks of mental televisions as a form of Occlumency to guard her mind from the Mists and prophetic visions, although she's not truly aware of that. So when her stack of tellies collapsed, the Mist had direct access to her. So she's trying to watch as many different possibilities as she can, trying to rebuild a 'Wall' of televisions to once again act like a wall. Really not sure how to explain that one. But I do think I was clear when describing the experience of having a prophetic vision as being painful, and mindbogglingly terrifying. So much so that she reverts to her 8yo self in her grandmothers arms to not have to think about it.

Like I said above, for a story that was supposed to be a spoof, it has taken some strangely dark turns in the writing.

~

 

[Sowa]

or just bad (LotR (I could never get beyond the dude jumping from hilltop to hilltop or the singing undead skeletal warriors))

Click to shrink...

Since when LOTR had "singing undead skeletal warriors"?

I distinctly do not remember any skeletal warriors, especially singing ones.

(unless you mean some of really terrible adaptations)

I also do not remember non-metaphorical jumping from hilltop to hilltop.

-------------------

Personally I would give decent chance for Hermione liking LOTR.

 

[moontheir4]

Did that not come across as clear? Should I reword that a little? I'm trying to keep everything from her PoV, so I didn't outright state that it was the same one, but she really does know a fuckton more than anyone else realizes. If you didn't catch it, she CAN sort of talk (more like E-mail) other Seers both in her dimension/universe and other dimensions/universes as well. But I don't think she'd clue in on that, she is after all, basically a druggy and alcoholic (how many of you caught the reverence about her and Sprout?). What do you guys think, was it clear?

Click to shrink...

It may have been a reader failure, but I thought it was just a vision of the future. If there were markers to show time travel from a further future as opposed to just visions of a further future I missed them. I'll go back over it when I get more than five consecutive minutes of free time.

 

[killgore444]

Since when LOTR had "singing undead skeletal warriors"?

I distinctly do not remember any skeletal warriors, especially singing ones.

(unless you mean some of really terrible adaptations)

I also do not remember non-metaphorical jumping from hilltop to hilltop.

Click to shrink...

The Undead singing was a thing in the book. While the scene was badly done, the song always stood out as being the only good thing in the book that I read. I don't remember the entire song, but it had the lyrics:

"Till the Sun fades and the Moon is dead.
Still on gold here let them lie,
Till the Dark Lord passes his hand, over dead sea and withered land."

Click to shrink...

The hill jumper was named Bondil or something like that. It's been a while since I last tried to read them again.

I loved the movies (but not the Hobbit), don't get me wrong. The movies were great. The characters were COMPETENT! They were people you could actually like, and in the case of leaders, be willing to actually follow because you believed. Not simply because he was your King, so it's do what he says or you are executed.

In the books, all but Sam are Nobles/Aristocrats, and are grossly incapable and incompetent. Aragorn makes a blazing fire, in a ditch that's only a few feet deep, while being stalked by creatures that are close enough that their outlines can be seen on the horizon. The creatures, all former kings [nobles and aristocrats] are to incompetent to investigate. Those are just a few of the things I read that made me think that if LotR was responsible for saving sci-fi/fantasy as a genera, how the hell did it survive at all.

A few years ago, on Spacebattles of all places, I got into this argument. One of the other people was going on about how great the story was, and how much of the imagery was based on scenes from WW1 and his dealings within the British military. It was during this that I had an epiphany: it wasn't a MISTAKE on Tolkien's part when he made all the noble class characters in his story incompetent, it was an intentional thing he was doing. He was making social commentary on the idiocy of placing people in charge of military formations simply because of who they were born too, rather than competence and training. He was in essence, writing a Bash fic on the way Aristocrats behaved and thought. The reason he had Aragorn light that fire was because he had an officer do something similar.

Still can't get thru the book though.

Anyway, not a fan of LotR.

Personally I would give decent chance for Hermione liking LOTR.

Click to shrink...

Canon Hermione, maybe. But I do have a slightly different head-canon to her. For one, somehow I got the impression she was Jewish. Not sure how or when that started cropping up, but every time I read the books again, I think of her as Jewish. I don't do it for most fanfiction though. So for me, her logical side would kick in and she'd question the general intelligence of all the characters except Samwise [even in the name Tolkien admits who the smart one is].

It may have been a reader failure, but I thought it was just a vision of the future. If there were markers to show time travel from a further future as opposed to just visions of a further future I missed them. I'll go back over it when I get more than five consecutive minutes of free time.

Click to shrink...

It was supposed to be a vision of the present, [but she wouldn't have known that for sure] what was happening right at that moment. Then it shifts to that now gone world and she sees Harry and an energy being of some sort fading out.

 

[Kris-71854]

I generally liked the Hobbit more. Then again I only liked the Hobbit animated film. The LoTR movie was an entirely different thing than the books. I skimmed a lot of crap from the books.

Crap like poetry and songs. That shit drove me nuts. I didn't notice poor woodcraft as I never was a boy scout or camped any. What got me was that anyone followed Aragorn as a King at all. If I recall things right, his family had been out of that city for generations while the other guy's family had been doing the Seward thing. Not for a few years, or a decade or two. For generations. How the heck does anyone have a clue that Aragorn was this rightful king and all? I don't recall I'm sure it was some minor BS thing.

He was an awesome amazing warrior to hobbits. But you could say the same thing about any D&D ranger to any farm kids that have never left the farm or random city kids reading it as a book. He certainly didn't seem that awesome until he got the movie airbrushing effect.

Actually thinking about it, I don't think there is anyone in LoTR that has any skills that could translate to them. Any of the elves should grant some amazing woodcraft skills. They didn't actually have magic. It was that they were so long-lived that they just made things better due to practice. I don't recall any of the dwarves being amazing smiths either. Gandalf's fireworks were the most impressive thing that he did. Unless you count fighting that one immortal fire demon thing. He played guide rather than actual spell caster.

Oddly, Gandalf might be a way to get ascended knowledge as he was an angel in that setting. Any elves might get them Nox knowledge.

Sighs. I want to point out that the library is a thing. It'd be highly ironic that these model girls end up visiting the library for fiction more than Hermione does. She'd visit the library trying to check out or memorize the reference books.

I didn't get into reading from the library until after college. I was broke. No internet and limited TV. The library was the best to pick up random old scifi series and wade through them. Depending on how fast a reader that you are, you could easily finish a book in 2-3 nights. A good pulp fiction you don't have to think about it. You just read and enjoy things.

I'm not sure that I'd travel with a library book or any hardback books. They actually have jobs. Nicely paying jobs at that for their age. I can see them picking up something paperback to read if they need to travel.

Would they have read any Mercedes Lackey books? I liked Bedlam's Bard setting, Diana Tregarde, and The SERRAted Edge. Elemental Masters was interesting.

Ever read the Darkover by Marion Zimmer Bradley? It's been a long time since I've read any of that. They are more psionic. They went through a war period and after that pretty much banned any weapons that weren't human-powered line of sight. Only swords and arrows. Psionics was just too dangerous/deadly to use in mass.

Bedlam's Bard would be neat if only for a character to pick up musical talent. I don't recall if the bard was able to use it to cast magic or not. He was able to earn a living from it.

Diana Tregarde would be fun for Hermione to go as. To get Hermione to try her, that character is a romance novelist in her day job. Badass witch troubleshooter that gets more people out of trouble than Harry in her night job.

The SERRAted Edge was all about using magic to make race cars. O.k. that was more of a background thing that the main characters could just do. Tannim and the elf race car driver should both be able to do that. The elf one would be vastly better at the transfiguration.

Elemental Masters was about summoners. They were aligned to the basic 4 elements of fire, earth, water, and air. They would summon creatures related to those elements. I vaguely recall them using it for industrial purposes. No telling if that would even work with the local magic.

It'd be interesting if they tried characters from Young Wizards.

 

[killgore444]

Crap like poetry and songs. That shit drove me nuts. I didn't notice poor woodcraft as I never was a boy scout or camped any.

Click to shrink...

I've never thought about it like this, but the first time I ever tried to read LotR, I was actually on a week long Boy Scout Camp, trying to read the book during down times. Maybe that's why that scene stuck out so much. I was literally being trained in woodcraft (by a Vietnam war, Green Beret Vet no less) while reading it.

What got me was that anyone followed Aragorn as a King at all. If I recall things right, his family had been out of that city for generations while the other guy's family had been doing the Seward thing. Not for a few years, or a decade or two. For generations. How the heck does anyone have a clue that Aragorn was this rightful king and all? I don't recall I'm sure it was some minor BS thing.

Click to shrink...

I honestly have never managed to get that far in the books. The only reason I even knew he was the King before the movie came out was because of discussions during games.

He certainly didn't seem that awesome until he got the movie airbrushing effect.

Click to shrink...

Like I said, I liked the movies for this very reason. Although after that argument on SBs, I'm now convinced everyone has been missing Tolkien's point for decades.

Any of the elves should grant some amazing woodcraft skills.

Click to shrink...

Why do you say that? None of them demonstrated any. Skill with the bow and sword would be useful, but game characters would be a better shot there. And even if that doesn't work, several other books have amazing archers and swordsmen, Hawkeye from the Avengers springs to mind.

Sighs. I want to point out that the library is a thing. It'd be highly ironic that these model girls end up visiting the library for fiction more than Hermione does. She'd visit the library trying to check out or memorize the reference books.

Click to shrink...

You nailed Hermione's taste pre-visitation perfectly. After that, she'd have pulled everything the librarian considered age appropriate to check out (actually, does England do PUBLIC libraries or is that a U.S. thing) until she actually managed to get to Diagon Alley and purchase actual books on magic. And per canon, she didn't go for children's books or fiction either.

And no, the girls do not visit the library more than Hermione. They ARE more likely to look at fiction however. But remember, the girls have known about magic for a couple of years now (birth for Joan), and that knowledge, plus access to the head House Elf to answer questions has had an affect on their tastes and interests. While still being typical girls, their interests very clearly fall more fantasy than sci-fi. Narnia is much more likely than Space Wolves. AD&D instead of Battletech (AD&D also only requires a single book and some dice).

I didn't get into reading from the library until after college.

Click to shrink...

Before finishing her Nursing degree, my Mom was a librarian.

I'm not sure that I'd travel with a library book or any hardback books. They actually have jobs. Nicely paying jobs at that for their age. I can see them picking up something paperback to read if they need to travel.

Click to shrink...

I used to travel with hard bound books all the time. The benefits of a game like AD&D is that it only requires two books (PHB & DMG), with 1 other being good, but not actually needed (MM) and a few dice, which if needed they can share. Other games require even less. This allows them to have fun together as most of their traveling would be done together.

Would they have read any Mercedes Lackey books?

Click to shrink...

Yes. As they would Patricia Briggs and the Dresden Files. Although those books would be fairly early in their works. I fully intend to use several Dresden Files spells in the story.

Bedlam's Bard would be neat if only for a character to pick up musical talent. I don't recall if the bard was able to use it to cast magic or not. He was able to earn a living from it.

Click to shrink...

AD&D Bards work perfectly well there. And in all honesty, I only considered music very briefly.

The SERRAted Edge was all about using magic to make race cars. O.k. that was more of a background thing that the main characters could just do. Tannim and the elf race car driver should both be able to do that. The elf one would be vastly better at the transfiguration.

Click to shrink...

I loved those books. Although their experience with magic cars might hold them off on trying to get something similar to work. Although the books were being printed throughout the 90s and early 2,000s, and is right up their interests. I'd forgotten about those books when I was writing up the chapter when the girls were quizzing Harry, even though several of the ideas in the books are part of my story outline.

It'd be interesting if they tried characters from Young Wizards.

Click to shrink...

While the girls Might know them, it's unlikely the Trio would see much value in them since magic doesn't translate, and especially at first, they're going to be going for max value to effort. Low hanging fruit and all that. So people like Spock and Scotty, the scientist from the show Extreme Wormhole, Tony Stark and Batman and a couple of the completely fictional Archmages from Wizarding fiction.A series of books specifically about young people learning about the world of magic wouldn't appeal to them, at least not for this. For this, they want characters who already know.

While I can also eventually see Hermione actually researching good fictional characters to download skills from, that's probably a ways off.

~

 

[Sceptic]

As they would Patricia Briggs and the Dresden Files.

Click to shrink...

Huh, did I forget seeing somewhere that this is an AU set years later than canon? Dresden Files wasn't published until 2000. That would explain one or two anachronisms I noticed in passing in the chapters.

 

[killgore444]

Huh, did I forget seeing somewhere that this is an AU set years later than canon? Dresden Files wasn't published until 2000. That would explain one or two anachronisms I noticed in passing in the chapters.

Click to shrink...

Oh, yeah. Mentioned that in the notes in the early chapters. Not sure that that got said here, or dropped when I reposted the early works from FFN.
Since there is only 1 reference to what year it is in the books, and that isn't till DH, and is easily missed at that (written on a grave stone and I didn't see it), when I began writing, I made it so it was right before O'Neill gets promoted to General in SG:SG1. So yes, people DO have cell phones and pagers, no they are not ubiquitous like they are today. Plus, the SGC HAS been releasing tech for several years at this point, so the world is slightly higher tech level than real life.



Some world building:
Schools
Hogwarts [Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus (Never Tickle a Sleeping Dragon)] is located on Loch Morar [Black Lake]
Durmstrang Dumbledore welcomes Durmstrang's students as "our friends from the North" [somewhere in Norway].
Beauxbatons is located in the Pyrenees mountains of southern France

My world schools
Onigashima is a hidden (legendary) island off the coast of Japan. This is were the hero Momotarō defeated the Oni and built a magic school. Before WW2, Japan's magic school was located in Hiroshima, and was obliterated by the atomic bomb. America built a new school on a small island north of Iwo Jima (Kito-Iwo-Jima) and was the primary source of magical education for Japan until recently, with Onigashima having just opened it's doors this past year. The fate of the school on Kito-Jima is still uncertain.

U.S. magic schools
Ilvermorny was seen as [and was] a puppet organization of the British M.o.M. It did remain as the school of magic for the U.S. until a few years after the war of 1812. The curse England placed on American wizards and witchs meant they could only learn magic from British approved teachers, and Ilvermorny quickly gained a poor reputation for it's treatment of students with many being killed. After the reversal of the curse, Ilvermorny was dismantled down to the individual stones, and many British teachers there were imprisoned inside individual stones that were used to build the lobby of the Department of Magical Education. The wails of imprisoned teachers/murderers can be heard on the day of final testing for new teachers, and are used to remind American teachers that they are not allowed to hold vendettas against any student or favor students by gender, race/species, religion, family or personal politics. Teachers are required to take magically binding oaths to that affect as a result of the actions of English teachers who punished children for their parents refusing to return to the control of the British M.o.M. (purebloods) and wanting to remain free.
Currently there are 7 major schools in the U.S. All schools are named after geological or geographical features with only a few exceptions.

Cliffside is the largest school, and and is considered the main school for the U.S. and is run by the Archmage John Ironfeather who is also the Secretary of magical education. It is located near Colorado Springs Co. And is considered very near the Cheyenne military complex.

Rivers End is located in Louisiana just a little off the Mississippi river.

Lakeside is located in upstate NY.

Headwaters is located in northern Minnesota.


People
The 3 girls. Flanders New York
Vanessa Monroe : white, grey and brown eyes, darkish brown wavy hair, a little taller than Harry. sectoral heterochromia in eyes
Joan Fenn [Squib, born of squibs] : white, with golden brown hair, a little shorter than Harry, blue eyes, daughter of Joseph and Mandy Fenn
Lea Ramirez : Mixed race, looks Korean. Mother was half black/Korean father was hispanic/Vietnamese. Long straight black hair to below her knees.

Terry and Kevin Monroe, Vanessa's parents and guardian of Joan.
Joseph and Mandy Fenn [dead]

House elves
Keeter, [m], the head house elf for Harry
Sidor, [f], perfectionist
Grouchen, [m], somewhat grouchy, mostly after dealing with Sidor, crush on Ketty
Ketty, [f], daughter of Keeter and Sidor, named by Harry as a small child when Harry mistook the baby elf for a kitten.
Sileen, [f], still a child, inherited from family that died off a couple of years ago.
Snaggley and Gongon are the former head elves and Bonner is also dead.

Harry's hidden family
Gellert Grindelwald
Lotar Enns: The Death Knight of Dunkirk
Adelaide (Evensgard) Grindelwald
Annalise (Fein) Enns
Dennis Enns and Emma (Grindelwald) Enns. Both changed to Evens [Lily and Petunia's parents]
Fleamont and Euphemia Potter (adopted Charlus Potter after their own son died who had the same name as Charlus's birth father)
Lt Harold Potter and Desmirlda Peveral Potter
Charlus and Dorea Potter [James parents] Charlus Potter and Dorea Black, sister of Arcturus
Henry Potter [past member of the Potter family, set up Ice Tower]
Emrys Myrddin Wyllt
Marion Caledonensis (Myrddin Wyllt)
Marin Myrddin Wyllt

The Grangers
Phillip [Hermione's Father]
Emma [Hermione's Mother]
Andrew [Hermione's cousin] in S.A.S.

Others
Snapsaw of clan Snarlsmite [Harry's account manager]
Keira the Banshee assistant at Madam Walpole's
Saul Croaker, [the head of the Unspeakables]
Zara Zabini [Blaise's mother] Barrister
Herpo the Foul

Antioch, Cadmus, and Ignotus Peverell – Three brothers who were the original owners of the Elder Wand, the Resurrection Stone, and the Invisibility Cloak, respectively.


Professor Octavius [not cannon, from Backwards with purpose part 1]
Septima Vector [Arithmancy teacher]
Bathsheda Babbling (ancient runes)
Aurora Sinistra [Astronomy]
Charity Burbage [muggle studies]
Wilhelmina Grubbly-Plank
Nurse Wainscott [Madam Pomfrey's assistant, hired sometime after Harry's 1st year] {film only but I like the idea so am using it}
Lucinda Thomsonicle-Pocus [Chief Attendant of Magecraft Provisions] {film only [mentioned only]}
Irma Pince [Librarian]
Wilkie Twycross – Hogwarts Apparition instructor who works in the Department of Magical Transportation.

John Ironfeather: Archmage and Headmaster of Cliffside. Also Secretary of Magical Education
Megan Siler, 4th year at Cliffside and daughter of Master Sergeant Siler of the SGC

The Markum family.
Tracy and Issac (parents)
Mathew (oldest, turns 11 in chap 7)
Eric (second son [10])
Bethany [oldest daughter, 9]
Chad [youngest son, 7]
Deanna and Valery [twins, 5]
Gooey (cat)

Harry's year mates. Were it says [not confirmed], that means that what house they are in I'm guessing at. Not what their names are. The names took me a long time to track down, and I'm pretty sure that some of it came from Pottermore, but not 100% on that. Five boys and five girls per house. Each year has the same number of boys and girls per house, and the same number across the houses.
Gryffindor
1]Brown, Lavender (f)
2]Finnigan, Seamus (m)
3]Granger, Hermione (f)
4]Neville Longbottom (m)
5]Li, Sue (f)
6]Patil, Parvati (f)
7]Perks, Salley-Anne (f)
8]Potter, Harry (m)
9]Thomas, Dean (m)
10]Weasley, Ron (m)

Hufflepuff
1]Abbott, Hannah (f)
2]Bones, Susan (f)
3]Corner, Michael (m)
4]Finch-Fletchley, Justin (m)
5]Hopkins, Wayne (m)
6]Jones, Megan (f) [not confirmed]
7]MacDougal, Isobe (f) [not confirmed]
8]MacDougal, Morag (m) [not confirmed]
9]Rivers, Oliver (m) [not confirmed]
10]Smith, Sally (f) [was originally Georgina] [not confirmed]

Ravenclaw
1]Boot, Terry (f)
2]Brocklehurst, Amanda (f)
3]Cornfoot, Stephen (m)
4]Entwhistle, Kevin (m)
5]Goldstein, Anthony (m)
6]Macmillan, Ernest (m)
7]Patil, Padma (f)
8]Malone, Roger (m) [not confirmed] This is the only one not sure of, may be Michael Corner, but pretty sure that was the name of someone a year below.
9]Moon, Lily (f) [not confirmed]
10]Turpin, Lisa (f)

Slytherian
1]Bulstrode, Millicent (f)
2]Crabbe, Vincent (m)
3]Davis, Tracey (f)
4]Goyle, Gregory (m)
5]Greengrass, Daphne (f)
6]Malfoy, Draco (m)
7]Nott, Theodore (m)
8]Parkinson, Pansey (f)
9]Roper, Sophie (f) [not confirmed]
10]Zabini, Blaise (m)


Smith, Zacharias (m) [a year behind Harry?] (Not sure about this one, but 90% he was a year behind)
Demelza Robbins (f) 2 years behind Harry (from a fanfiction, but forgot which one
Romilda Vane (f) 2 years behind Harry
Brynn Dempsey (f) 1 year behind Harry (not sure were I got this name from)

Thomas, Gary (m) [Was originally Dean's name, I'm using it as Dean's older brother, in 6th year]
Astoria [2 behind Harry] and Ophelia [4 behind Harry (1st year)] Greengrass
Elisabeth Valentine (from HP CYOA) is in the same year as Astoria [2 behind Harry] and in Slytherian.

Cormac McLaggen (m) – Gryffindor student one year above Harry Potter.

 

[Xx_BoneIdle_xX]

Slytherian

Click to shrink...

I have noted that you seem to always refer Slytherin House as Slytherian which always trips me up in all your chapters. Is it intentional or simply how you read it?

 

[killgore444]

I have noted that you seem to always refer Slytherin House as Slytherian which always trips me up in all your chapters. Is it intentional or simply how you read it?

Click to shrink...

Never noticed to be honest. It's how my spell checker has it in memory. Now I have to go and figure out how to change the spelling of a saved word.

 

[moontheir4]

Li, Sue (f)

Click to shrink...

Should be a Ravenclaw†​

Demelza Robbins

Click to shrink...

Actually, a canon character. She was one of the Gryffindor chasers in Harry's 6th year.

The wails of imprisoned teachers/murderers can be heard on the day of final testing for new teachers, and are used to remind American teachers that they are not allowed to hold vendettas against any student or favor students by gender, race/species, religion, family or personal politics.

Click to shrink...

Makes me wish all public buildings could be built from the remains of those who have displeased.