Disclaimer: All HP characters are the property of JKR, the WB, and respective publishing companies - this is nothing more than a simple FanFiction that I have written. I have made no money from this or any of the other stories I have posted on this or other sites.

A Gryffindor Conundrum

Harry James Potter, Lord of the Ancient and Noble Houses of Black and Potter, Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, former Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Order of Merlin – First Class, and Witch Weekly's latest Bachelor of the Year (for the sixth year in a row), stumbled across the threshold of Number Twelve Grimmauld Place carrying a large box upon which a glass bottle balanced precariously. The world weary teen had barely taken two steps into the house when he heard a series of loud pops and close to a dozen house elves appeared around him in a circle. Before Harry could even think to protest, six pairs of hands wrested the box and the bottle from his hands while another three pairs dragged him into the ground floor parlor and shoved him into the nearest chair. Several elfish finger snaps later, Harry was out of his work robes and into a dressing gown with his favorite fuzzy slippers on his feet. In one hand he now held an open bottle of butterbeer and in the other he had a warm plate piled high with grilled roast beef sandwiches that smelled heavenly.

Sighing, Harry managed to refrain from protesting his royal treatment from the elves he'd freed from the various Death Eaters and corrupt Ministry officials he'd captured just two years earlier. He'd been fighting a losing battle with the forty odd beings from the moment they'd shown up on his doorstep just six short months after he'd defeated Lord Voldemort. The twelve that had greeted him at the door just now, which included Dobby, Winky, and Kreacher (the first three house elves Harry had ever met), were the ones that were most adamant about serving Harry personally and the minuscule little bundles of power were persistent and highly competitive.

At least they no longer try to help me out when I'm in the shower or going to the bathroom, Harry thought to himself as he leaned back in his chair and lifted the bottle in his hand and contemplated the pleasantly warm amber colored liquid as he stirred the bottle gently with his hand. It was one of the only two direct orders that Harry had been able to enforce upon the excitable little demons; never enter the bathroom when he was inside and never follow him when he was working (the second one having come about during his first month on the job as an Auror when two or three of the determined blighters kept popping up at the worst possible moments and taking out whatever crook or witness Harry was talking to at the time).

At least the rest of the elves that had attached themselves to his family were content to cook, clean all three of his houses, maintain the gardens, and donate their services to all of Harry's friends – most especially the Weasleys because they were such a large and messy family. Harry wasn't certain what he'd do if all of the house elves were as insistent upon serving him as those that had greeted him at the door were – he was certain that there'd be far more fights breaking out on an hourly basis then there already was.

Settling his plate of sandwiches on his lap, Harry picked one up and prepared to take a bite when his attention was drawn to the group of elves that had taken the box and bottle he'd brought home from the Ministry today. With a heartfelt sigh, he deposited both the plate and his butterbeer on the table beside his chair as he stood up to deal with the former memorial of his defeat of the dark lord and his minions.

"Be careful with those!" Harry ordered sharply as the elves silently fighting over control of the large box tipped it precariously from side to side. "If even one of those prisoners escape, I will be most unhappy."

Several terrified squeaks were issued forth from the overly eager elves and the box rocked sharply before it was gingerly dropped onto the nearest table. All twelve of the elves then vanished immediately, their fear of angering Harry far greater then their desire to serve his every need. Harry sighed and dropped back into his chair as he glared at the offending box containing the transfigured farm turned prison as he reclaimed his bottle of butterbeer and took a long drink. He was just leaning back in his chair and reaching out once more towards his plate of sandwiches when he felt the hook of a Portkey coupled with the disorienting swirl of a time distortion.

A seeming eternity passed before he landed roughly on an empty stretch of cobbled road beside a huge forest. Groaning in agony, Harry sat up and took stock of his battered body and promptly threw up as a wave of nausea and dizziness swept through him. At least an hour had passed before he felt well enough to try sitting up again, his entire body stiff and sore. He spent a few minutes taking stock of the many aches and pains he felt, but thankfully he only found a few bumps and bruises as opposed to broken bones.

Gingerly he climbed up onto his feet before staggering towards the forest line so he could lean up against the nearest tree trunk while he caught his breath and tried to determine where he'd ended up. He was just starting to search along the road with his eyes when he heard something in the distance. At first he couldn't quite place the odd thumping and clopping sound, but after a few minutes it dawned on him that what he was listening to was the sound of hoof beats traveling upon the poorly maintained road.

Harry tensed and reached in to wrap his fingers around his wand, which he kept in a special pocket he'd sewn into the inner left sleeve of his Auror robes. As he felt the smooth warm handle slide into place in his palm, he saw a group of horses canter into view – each with a strangely dressed rider perched upon their backs. Aware that wizards no longer rode anything so mundane as an ordinary horse, Harry angled his wand hand so that both his hand and his wand were hidden from view in the folds of his robes as the strange group slowed to a stop just a few paces in front of him.

The lead rider, a fierce looking bloke clothed in tooled leather wearing a rather cruel looking sword at his hip, studied Harry with beady black eyes. The man reminded Harry of Severus Snape, his former Potions Professor, with long greasy black hair and a sallow complexion. The man's disdainful glare was even eerily similar to the taciturn professor's and the revelation sent shivers up Harry's spine as he tried to appear as none threatening as possible.

The other six men perched upon the remaining horses appeared just as… barbaric looking as the apparent leader, though their hair was neither as dark nor as greasy as the one man's. They were studying him with gazes just as cold and calculating as the first man though and the shock of it set warning bells off inside Harry's head as he shifted his body into a more protective stance.

"Good evening, gentlemen," Harry greeted the men neutrally as he gave them an easy smile.

Unfortunately this only made the group appear more hostile as several of the riders drew their swords from their scabbards with a hiss of metal on leather. Knowing that his wand was no match for seven blades intent upon separating his head from his body, Harry did the only thing he could think of… he gave the group of barbaric men a cheeky grin, bowed low with a flourish of his cloak, turned on his foot, and disapparated away.

A few dozen miles away from the angry unwashed riders, Harry reappeared with the softest of pops at what should have been the entrance to the Ministry of Magic. What he found instead were the smoldering remains of a large village that had been burnt to the ground sometime within the last week. As he stared at the destruction with an open mouth he witnessed a scattering of filthy men and women digging through the ruins salvaging what they could.

Confused and uncertain of what was going on, Harry slipped back into the nearest shadows and apparated away to his house on Grimmauld Place, only to find himself right back at the edge of the forest where he'd first landed. He knew it was the same place because the same hostile group of savage horsemen was still present. Knowing something was desperately wrong with his magic or the world, Harry disapparated once again.

This time, when he rematerialized, he didn't immediately open his eyes to take in his surroundings as he feared what he would find. He knew exactly where he was supposed to have ended up, but due to the other apparent misses, he feared that this place too would not be where or what it was when he last visited.

Finally, knowing he couldn't just stand there for the rest of his life with his eyes closed, Harry slowly opened one eye and scanned the area in front of him. When everything appeared as it was supposed to, he opened his other eye and let out a sigh of relief even as a fond grin sprouted on his face. Whistling a jaunty tune, he cheekily saluted the pair of winged boars that guarded the entrance to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and strolled between the two statues as he made his way up the winding path towards the entrance of the castle.

As he got closer to the huge castle, Harry began to notice little differences between the castle in front of him and the castle in his memories. The first thing he noticed was that the vines ivy growing up the sides of the wall only covered about two feet of the wall, instead of nearly three-quarters of the wall around the front door. The second was that the front doors were made from iron, not wood. Slowing to a stop, Harry began scanning the land surrounding the castle and quickly noted other little things that didn't match up with his memory. The edge of the Forbidden Forest stretched far beyond its previous boundaries, the Quidditch Pitch couldn't be seen at all, the Black Lake was far larger than it should be, and Hagrid's hut no longer appeared to exist. A sense of foreboding filled Harry's heart as he continued to catalog other equally disturbing discrepancies.

"What the hell is going on here?" Harry muttered as a stiff breeze swirled around him and stirred his robes.

At that moment, the great door slammed open with enough force to shove Harry backwards several feet until he fell on his arse. Looking up he caught sight of an auburn haired man wearing a maniacal grin.

"Where have you been, Salazar! I've been trying to track you down for the past month! Classes have already started and poor Helga has had to deal with her badgers as well as your snakes! We feared the worst we did when we heard the rumors of your estate being burnt to the ground. Did any of your children make it out alive?"

Harry gazed up at the man with growing horror, his eyes filling with abject terror as his heart struggled to keep beating.

"No… no, no, no, no…" Harry whimpered as he covered his ears and closed his eyes. "This isn't happening! Nooooo!"

"Master Harry Potter, sir, yous must be waking up nows," A squeaky voice barked in his ear as he felt an arm shaking him.

"D… Dobby? Is that you?" Harry gasped out as he sat up so fast he smacked heads with the usually excitable elf.

"Yes, its being Dobby, Master Harry Potter, sir. Yous be falling asleep on yous chairs again."

"Oh, thank Merlin it was just a dream! It felt so real," Harry breathed as he clutched at his rapidly beating heart and stared around the familiar room.

"That's because yous be drinking the Wheezy's Befuddled Beers, theys switched out the butterbeers this morning but you drank some before we discovered the trickery."

"Say what?" Harry growled as he stood up and snatched at the butterbeer bottle he'd been drinking out of earlier. Sure enough, there on the label was the Weasley's trademark triple W logo with a small blurb about the product being guaranteed to send the victim into dream state where they'd experience a nightmare based upon their thoughts at the time they took their first sip. "I'm going to kill them…"

Buried beneath a pile of research notes in the back room of their shop, a pair of identical twins suddenly shivered as a chill crept up their spines. Both boys looked at each other and swallowed nervously.

"We're so dead…" Fred whispered.

"He's going to kill us for sure…" George agreed.

"Wonder what he saw…"

"I don't think it matters…"

"We'd better lock the Floo…"

"And close the shop…"

"At least until he can see the humor in the prank…"

"Can we afford to wait that long?"

"We don't have a choice."

"True enough, brother of mine."

"Shall we blame it on Ron?"

"Works for me!"

AN: Well there it is… the sequel to A Slytherin Ending… I had originally wanted to make it much longer and more involved but my muse killed the plot bunny half way through the story and I decided it was best to give it a simple burial instead of dragging it through the mud any further. I may revisit it at a later time and flesh it out a bit more if the bunny is resurrected at some point in the future. Hope ya'll enjoyed the story! - Jenn