I was having trouble progressing any of my existing stories again so I decided to throw out the latest crazy story idea that came into my head.
As with all my HP stories, it's AU, the core couple is 'arry an 'ermione, though Luna's also there from the start in this one, and she's five months older so that her birthday is about a week before Hermione's to make the core idea work. Also as per usual, if you like Albus Ankles Dumbledore, Molly the Moll Weasley and her two youngest, the Dursleys and a few other characters who are similar, you won't like this, so do yourself a favour and give it a miss. And I've borrowed a few AU character names and themes from my other HP stories.
Usual disclaimers, no rights to existing characters, this is not JKR's HP, the real world or a Disney Princess story and there will probably be a few changes in the first hour or so after it's posted because things invariably look different in the published version and I don't always like the way it came out.
Harry woke up, in the dark and unable to breath and started flailing about in a panic, trying to get out of wherever he was. This tore the garbage bag he was in and he grabbed at the edges of the hole to tear the bag open, sit up and tried to fill his lungs with air. That was when he realised what must have woken him, because he was jabbed in the side…. again, apparently…. and he realised that there was another garbage bag beside him that someone was flailing about in. He grabbed the bag and tore it open, letting the girl inside it sit up and start gulping air as he was… it was Hermione!
Once they'd stopped panicking about suffocating and clinging to each other, it suddenly registered that they weren't twenty one any more, they were little children again. That in turn made them realise that the last thing they recalled about being twenty one was the hated voice of their vindictive bitch of a mother in law…. "I do hope you enjoyed my special Twenty First birthday cake Harry Dear… but we don't need you…. or the Mudblood….. any more, now that my Ginny is the mother of the Heir to the House of Potter, so you're just getting in the way of our living the lives we were meant to. No one could expect my Ronald to stay shackled to a Mudblood who refuses to make any effort to be a proper wife for him after the Golden Trio had been broken up by your tragic death, so she had to go as well…. just like Arthur and his irritating sons in that unfortunate Death Eater attack at Ronald's wedding." They'd faded away to the bitch's grating cackle, accompanied by Ginny's similar cackle and Ron's donkey bray of a laugh.
Okay, their mother in law and loving spouses had obviously poisoned them on someone's Twenty First birthday, so what were they doing here?
The events that brought him here at least were coming back to Harry, he'd stupidly asked if he could have a little more to eat and Uncle Vernon had gone berserk and started hitting him hard enough to throw him around the room, the last thing he remembered was his Dear Aunt Petunia shrieking…. "Oh my god Vernon, you've killed the Freak! What are we going to do when the other one comes looking for him?"
When he told Hermione that she nodded. "My parents had to bring me with them when they came up here for a regional meeting of the dentists' association tonight because they couldn't get anyone to watch me. They sent me off to the library so that I wouldn't embarrass them when they were meeting important people there and a car came careening around the corner and hit me when I was crossing the street…"
She suddenly stopped and checked herself over, but aside from her torn and bloodstained dress and the fact that she was covered in blood and dirt, there was nothing wrong with her, so she waved a hand over herself and Harry to repair and clean their clothing and vanish the dirt and blood that they were both covered with…. That was when they realised that the air was positively thrumming with energy. Harry clambered to his feet and helped Hermione up and they headed in the direction of lights that they could see through the trees. That was how they discovered that they'd been dumped in a copse of trees on the Sunbury Golf Course, and with Hermione's encyclopaedic memory she twigged as to where all that energy was coming from. "Of course! We're right on the Canterbury Ley Line, but I don't remember seeing any reports of it ever being anything like this powerful before."
Okay, they knew when and where they were, and possibly how they'd been brought back from the brink of death, if not from dead itself, but nothing was telling them why they'd been sent back from when they'd been killed at Twenty One to when they were killed at Seven to be revived. Hermione was musing out aloud. "Twenty One is a result of Three times Seven. We've been sent back to the age of Seven, which is a magical number, and so is Three, but how does it fit..."
She suddenly stopped and turned to Harry. "Oh no… Luna! It was her Twenty First birthday party! They killed her too!"
At that Harry realised that he'd somehow blocked out the fact that their best friend Luna had been there as well, and Molly was saying with obvious sarcasm. "I'm so sorry Luna Dear, but I needed something that would get these two here for a surprise party and your birthday was the perfect opportunity…." then she cackled "But there's no place in our world for something like you either! Quite aside from all your ridiculous ideas and made up creatures, those flashes of true sight that you have sometimes could have caused a lot of trouble for us if you'd suddenly started talking about us getting rid of these two."
When he said what he'd remembered Hermione nodded, then went on. "I'd lay money on the fact that Luna has come back as well Harry, which means that there has to be something or someone behind all of it…. But why?…."
She stopped and looked at him again. "We've been sent back to fix everything that happened last time Harry!"
Harry spat out. "Shite! Didn't we go through enough last time? Why does it always have to be me… us?"
She hugged him and murmured into his shoulder. "I don't know why they've sent back Luna and me, but you seem to be the Fates' favourite chew toy Harry…. you know that it was always going to be you!"
She felt him nod resignedly as he sighed. "Yeah I know, I just wish they'd find themselves a new chew toy Mione….. At least we'll have someone worthwhile with us to help save this damned world this time and not the walking stomach."
At that point they saw a bicycle heading towards them and retreated into the copse again. Once the security guard on the bicycle had passed, Harry took Hermione's hand and Goblin apparated them both into the Gringotts banking chamber. It wasn't long before they were surrounded by the expected hedge of spear tips and axes and goblins demanding to know how they'd gotten in there, but there was silence when Harry barked in Common Goblin. "Quiet! Someone go and tell Over Chieftain Gringott that Duke Potter is here to see him!…."
When no-one moved or said anything, just staring at him in shock, he barked again. "Are you all deaf? YOU! Go to Over Chieftain Gringott and give him my message NOW!"
As the Goblin warrior ran to do as he was told, he was wondering what in the Seven Hells was making him take orders from a human, but knew instinctively that he was doing the right thing.
Even so, he was shocked when instead of taking his head off for waking him in the middle of the night at the orders of a human, the Over Chieftain grabbed the first leggings and tunic that came to hand and threw them on as quickly as he could, demanding to know. "Where is he?"
The other Goblins were just as shocked when the Over Chieftain arrived at the run and skidded to a halt in front of the humans, then bowed low to the male, saying "I greet you Duke Potter. I am quite relieved to see you alive and well, as our instruments indicated your death earlier tonight." in High Goblin (which the warriors didn't understand).
Harry returned the bow, replying in High Goblin. "I greet you Over Chieftain Gringott. Unless I am mistaken, your instruments were correct, but I believe that this is all part of some plan of the Fates, because my soul mates and I were killed on this day fourteen years in the future and two of us at least have been cast back to occupy our recently killed bodies here."
"Who killed you fourteen years from now, who killed you tonight, what happened to your other mate and how did you know how to apparate in here and call for me?"
"We were all killed on my other soul mate Luna Lovegood, the Countess Hufflepuff's, Twenty First birthday by Molly Weasley and her two youngest children, Hermione's husband Ronald Weasley and my wife Ginevra Potter... We should have been suspicious when Molly insisted on having us all over for a surprise party for Luna's Twenty First birthday because they have always ridiculed her, but I at least believed that she was being nice because Luna worked with Hermione and she was Hermione and my closest friend. Hermione and I were both killed tonight, which is Luna's Seventh birthday, by my non magical maternal Uncle, Vernon Dursley. I do not yet know what has happened to Luna, she often exists on both sides of the veil so hopefully her body here did not need to die for her to be sent back. As for how I knew how to apparate us into the banking chamber and call for you Over Chieftain, I have no idea, because I do not recall knowing anything of who I truly was, my connection to the People or how to Goblin apparate or speak High Goblin, or Low Goblin for that matter, or the fact that Hermione and Luna were my soul mates in the world we have been cast back from. I was an Auror and I often worked with Hermione and Luna in the Department of Mysteries on my investigations. I must presume that the Fates gave me this information to enable us to get on the right track to fix things this time, because as Hermione has said, I appear to be the Fates' favourite chew toy."
Gringott barked a laugh at that. "From what you have told me Duke Potter, she may well be right…. But she does not appear to understand what we are saying so perhaps you should introduce us and then we can go back to my chambers and see what has happened to your other mate."
Harry nodded and turned to Hermione. "Hermione, may I present Over Chieftain Gringott the Seventh, Leader of the Goblin Nation of the Britain and Director of the Gringotts Banks that control the finances of the Magical World and its Barclays Bank subsidiary in the Non Magical World…."
He then turned to Gringott. "Over Chieftain Gringott, may I present Lady Hermione Jean Granger, the Countess Ravenclaw-Dagworth, the brightest witch of our generation and the elder of my two soul mates."
Hermione spun to stare at him in shock at that introduction, because it was only when he said it that she realised that he was correct on all points.
Gringott shocked the Goblin Warriors present even more when he bowed low to Hermione. "It is my great pleasure to meet you Lady Hermione, and I look forward to our having a long and mutually beneficial relationship. I realise that this must all be quite a shock to you, so may I suggest that we retire to my chambers so that Duke Potter and I can fill you in on the your position in our world and we can confirm that your other soul mate, the Lady Luna, is alright?"
Hermione curtsied to him on autopilot and then allowed Harry to take her by the hand and lead her off, only half registering the fact that he obviously knew where he was going or that he'd pressed a cup of mulled Butterbeer into her hands after he sat her down on a couch in Gringott's chambers.
Harry had managed to get her to drink some of the Butterbeer and eat some of the food that had been laid out for them on the table in front of the couch by the time Gringott returned, dressed as one would expect the leader of the Goblin Nation and the Magical World's Banks to be dressed, with Luna and her parents. Gringott got himself a drink rather stronger than what the children were having and settled down in an armchair across from the two couches to wait for the children to finish assuring each other they were okay, waving Luna's parents to a seat on the second couch. Luna had also had a near death experience earlier that night as she was caught in the blast when one of her mother's experiments went wrong, and like the others she'd come back remembering how they were poisoned and killed by the Weasleys on her Twenty First birthday.
When the three children had taken their seats on the couch, with the girls sitting either side of Harry holding his hands, Gringott began to speak. "I can see from the look in her eye that Lady Luna knows what I am about to tell you… Xenophilius have you also seen this, and have you told your wife Pandora?"
"Xeno and Pan, please, Over Chieftain Gringott, I have seen that we will all be having quite a lot to do with each other so the simpler forms of address will be easier…. As to your question, I have seen some of it and our Luna has told us more, that was why we were expecting your people to arrive."
Gringott nodded. "Good, and I take your point about forms of address, so here in my chambers you may all call me Gringott, but unfortunately in front of my people I will have to maintain my image as the leader."
"Very well, I will primarily address my explanation to the Lady Hermione, but if anyone else requires clarification on any points speak up..." Everyone nodded and he went on.
"I can see that you have accepted the Duke's explanation that the three of you are soul mates my Lady, so I will not waste time trying to explain that, I will focus on his position in our world and what I see as being the direction we need to go in to help prepare the three of you for what is in front of you…."
Hermione nodded. "When Duke Potter..." Harry went to say something and Gringott smiled. "Harry, accepts his titles, he will officially be the head of two of the oldest and most powerful families in Magical Britain, and two others that are almost as powerful. His Potter bloodline goes back to before the first Druids in Britain, when the aes sídhe mixed their blood with the humans to create magical beings who could guide humans down a better path than the one they appeared to be taking. For the last two and a half millennia, Harry's line has worked to keep the humans moving forward, and has helped protect the fae from humans as well. In the late Sixth Century, his family's magical bloodline became Noble in Owain mab Urien after Urien Rheged took Morgan Le Fey as his Queen and as their eldest son, Owain became the next King of Rheged. In the Ninth Century, the Kings of Britain bestowed the title of Earl of the county palatine of Hen Ogledd, essentially 'Earl of the Old North', on the Head of the Potter line to solicit the Druids' support in dealing with their enemies. Then, when the title of Duke came into use in Britain in the Fourteenth Century, the Earl of Hen Ogledd's title was commuted to the Duke of Hen Ogledd by Edward the Third in an attempt to create a viable foundation for Magical Britain and the County became a Duchy Palatine. They have held both the title and Duchy since then, though their family name has changed to Potter. Another one of the original Druid families were the Peverells, they also became Noble in the Sixth Century and in the early Ninth Century, the Kings of Britain bestowed the title of Earl of the County Palatine of Mercia on the Head of the Peverell line to solicit their support in the Midlands, and Edward the Third commuted that to the Duke and Duchy Palatine of Mercia as well. The Wizarding World believes the House of Peverell to be extinct, but they are wrong, because the Peverell line was merged with the Potter line some time in the Fourteenth Century so the House of Peverell was taken over by the Potters, and Harry is also the direct descendent of Noble and Most Ancient Houses of Gryffindor and Slytherin through his parents. This means that Harry only has to accept his titles to formalise the fact that he is Duke Potter-Peverell and Head of the Most Noble and Most Ancient Houses of Potter and Peverell, and the Earl Gryffindor-Slytherin and Head of the Noble and Most Ancient Houses of Gryffindor and Slytherin ….." Gringott paused and frowned, and they found that a Goblin frown can be almost as intimidating as a Goblin smile.
"Harry is also second in line to the titles of the Duke of Powrys and Wessex and Head of the Most Noble and Most Ancient Houses of Black and Glynn, which were the other two original Druid Lord families who had their titles commuted to Duke and County Palatines made into a Duchy Palatines. We are trying to get to the bottom of that because according to the rules of the Wizarding World, those titles should have been stripped from the first in line for those titles, who has named Harry as his Heir, if he was guilty of what the Wizards say he was guilty of. But aside from his Noble titles, Harry is the Head of a number of Most Ancient and Ancient Druid Houses, the most notable of those being the Most Ancient Druid Houses of Le Fay and Emrys, and as I said, Harry's family have been the protectors of the fae for over two and a half thousand years, so they own much of the business enterprises that the fae are involved in. One of Harry's ancestors was responsible for getting Gringotts Bank and the Goblin Nation of Britain created and as a result of that the Goblin Nations have allotted nearly half ownership of the Gringotts Banks and the subsidiary we created at the end of the Seventeenth Century to manage our dealings in the non magical human world, Barclays Bank, to the House of Potter. This means that the Potter family is far wealthier than the Wizards know, though what they do know about has been enough to have them trying to get their hands on the Potters' money since the night the previous Lord and Lady Potter were killed."
"I know that you didn't miss what Harry introduced you as… would you like that explained?"
"Yes Please!"
"Very well, we will need to perform inheritance tests to confirm it, but I am sure that it will confirm the information that you have been given, because the Fates appear to be stacking the deck this time to ensure that they get the result that they are after. The Inheritance test will show who they came from, but I suspect that we will find that your Countess Ravenclaw title has come through your mother, because there has never been any indication of a link to Ravenclaw in the Dagworth or Dagworth-Granger bloodlines, which the Magical County of East Anglia, including Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Middlesex and Cambridgeshire as it it was defined at the largest extent of East Anglia, has come to you through…..."
He stopped and looked at Luna then. "Mind you, there was never any indication of any significant links between the Lovegood or Cathbad lines and the Hufflepuff line either, and our little Luna is apparently Countess Hufflepuff now, so who knows what games the Fates are playing? But as with Harry, you will have a number of Druid Houses as well, I know for a fact that there are some Ancient Druid Houses attached to the House of Dagworth-Granger, and I would be very surprised if there weren't older and more powerful Druid Houses attached to the House of Ravenclaw… On the matter of the three of you being soul mates, we do not need to do any testing because I can see the links between you…."
Xeno nodded at that, because he could see the links between them quite clearly too, but Gringott faltered then, and it was plain to see that he didn't want to pass on some other news. This was starting to frighten Hermione and she blurted out. "What is it Uncle Gringott?"
As a newspaperman, Xeno dearly wished that he could share the image of Gringott at that point, because no-one had ever heard of Director Gringott, Head of Gringotts and the Goblin Nation of Britain, being flustered, but that was definitely what he was!
Xeno and Pandora shared a smile at the way this sweet child had thrown the Leader of the Goblins (it was well known that he was the most influential of the Goblin leaders) off by calling him 'Uncle'. What they didn't know was that it wasn't the first time a human child had called him that, but it was the first time anyone but a Potter infant had.
In her worry, Hermione missed all this and said it again. "What is it Uncle Gringott, please tell me!"
That was enough to pull him out of his state and he gave her a kindly look (well a kindly Goblin look, it would have frightened most people). "It is your parents Lady Hermione…. After reporting that you had gone missing, they reportedly just went home as if nothing were wrong and they have not called the human police to ask for more news of you since then… Do you want to be taken home with some of our healers to check on them? Something must have been done to them to just leave like that, there is no way that any parent could forget their child like that…."
Hermione tried to speak, and then suddenly threw herself into Harry's arms to cry her eyes out. When she had control of herself again, she turned back to Gringott and shook her head at him.
"No Uncle Gringott, that will be exactly what they're trying to do. They've seen me as little more than a potential embarrassment since I started calling my toys to me as a baby… They wouldn't let me go out and play with other children or go to pre-school for fear that I'd do something else unnatural which would reflect badly on them. By the time I started school, I was years ahead of the other children because studying was the only thing I was allowed to do, and they gave me a lecture about making sure I didn't do anything to draw attention to the way I was every morning before I went to school…. No, what they will be doing now is trying to work out how to milk this for the maximum benefit to their image, the poor couple who's darling little girl just disappeared from the room they left her in just next to where they were having their dentists' association meeting. I can assure you that me walking in the door would be the last thing they'd want to see Uncle Gringott, so if you're planning on making somewhere for Harry to live and be trained to get ready to take on this world as I'm sure you are, can you make room for me there too, please?"
At that, Xeno and Pandora saw something even more shocking than a flustered Goblin leader, because Gringott was crying! For sure, he was enraged that any parent could do that to a sweet child like this, and they wouldn't be at all surprised to hear of a non magical dentist couple meeting a grizzly fate in the not too distant future, but his heart was obviously breaking for her. When he could speak again, he nodded. "Of course my child, there will always be a place for you in our world!"
No-one felt up to talking after that, so he had someone take them to chambers that had been set up for them for the night, growling in Goblin that if the children wished to stay together for comfort, they were to be allowed to!
Luna just kissed her parents goodbye and skipped after Harry and Hermione, taking Hermione's other hand when she caught up to them.
The next morning, Harry, Hermione and Luna met two very unusual elves. For a start, they looked nothing like House Elves, as they were between five and five and a half feet tall and had attractive human features. They also spoke much better than any elves they'd met before, but the female tore into Harry for failing to call for them as soon as he was taken to that terrible place. When they'd managed to calm her down, they were properly introduced, she was Efa, while the male was Emyr, he was a few inches taller than Efa and more muscular. Efa and Emyr were mates and they had been accepted for the privilege of being bonded to Harry at birth to care for and protect him, so when the Master and Mistress took him away from Potter Manor when he was less than six months old and then they were killed and he disappeared, it had been terribly hard on them, especially Efa. Once they'd managed to convince Efa that Harry hadn't known how to call for them when he finally left the wards of the cottage at Godrics Hollow, they all sat down to plan how they would manage this. They were all happy to see Hermione looking a lot better after spending a night with her soul mates, but she managed to make Gringott cry again by running up to him and hugging him, with a heartfelt. "Thank you Uncle Gringott!"
Gringott's keen ears caught a snort of Goblin laughter and he fixed the two younger Goblins who always seemed to be with him with a look that would have sent lesser beings running but they just gave him toothy Goblin smiles. Gringott shook his head, he'd obviously been too lenient with them, but what could he do? They were his favourite little sister's sons. He turned to the children and the others. "You may as well meet these two lazy louts now, as you'll be seeing a lot of them…. They'll be our interface when my official duties prevent me from seeing you, which I am afraid will be quite often, they are Balrog and Gamling, my younger sister's sons. My mate and son both died in childbirth and I can have no children of my own so my sister offered her sons to be blood adopted as my sons so that they can take over from me one day….. This is something I've been planning to offer to young Harry since Lord and Lady Potter were killed, but now I want to offer it to all three of you, to blood adopt you into the Gringott family as well. You see there are limits to what we can do for humans, but if you are a Gringott, it is allowable to extend that support considerably… It has been a tradition for the Heads of the House of Potter to do this, but your Grandfather was the last one who did it because something happened to stop your father coming in to do it Harry…."
Harry stepped forward and bowed deeply. "It would be my honour to be adopted into the Gringott Family Over Chieftain Gringott!"
The girls stepped forward to curtsy just as deeply, echoing Harry's words, and within fifteen minutes, all three of them were blood adopted members of the Gringotts Clan. Balrog and Gamling stepped forward to give each of them a warrior's embrace, saying "Welcome to the family cousin!" in High Goblin, which highlighted another problem, because neither of the girls could speak High or Low Goblin yet, but they tabled that as they tackled the more immediate issues, the first being the fact that Harry at least needed to go into an intensive reconstruction process to correct six years of malnutrition and physical abuse, as well as removing the severe bindings that someone (almost certainly Dumbledore) had placed on his growth and magic, and that would take at least a week or two in the time chamber to complete. Gringott cast a critical eye over the girls, swearing to himself because he couldn't tell whether they needed to be put into a similar program.
Pandora shook her head she caught that look. "No Gringott, the girls are fit and healthy examples of Seven and Eight Year old human girls, but while they don't actually need to be corrected, removing any bindings they may have and spending time in the time chamber getting the full reconstruction therapy with Harry would help them be able to face what's in front of the three of them, and if you can offer a training program that will help make them fitter, stronger and faster, that would be worth considering starting them on too."
Gringott nodded musingly. "Yes, now that they're members of the Gringott Clan, we do have something that will prepare them if they are willing to put enough work into it."
He caught the indignant and defiant looks he was getting from the three children, especially the girls, and laughed. "Yes, we will start them all on that as soon as they finish their reconstruction therapy."
The next order of business was for Xeno and Pandora to sell their house to a fictitious Wizarding couple who would set up monitoring on the Weasley family (to get back at his nephews for laughing at him, he ordered them to be that couple, citing this matter to be too sensitive to trust anyone else with).
At that point, Harry started swearing, using language that definitely wasn't appropriate for a Seven year old, and even though Hermione knew that he was Twenty One on the inside, she still took to task for it until he bit out "The RAT!" Her language was even worse when she got the point of what he was saying.
It took Harry a while to calm down enough to explain that Peter Fucking Pettigrew, the Death Eater who had betrayed his parents to be murdered by Voldemort and then framed his Godfather for killing him and a dozen muggles before scurrying away in his true rat form had been hiding in his rat animagus form with the Weasleys as Percy Weasley's pet rat for years, from soon after he framed Sirius apparently. The adults were having trouble accepting what he and the girls were telling him so in frustration he asked Gringott whether he had anything there that could show human memories like a wizarding penseive. Gringott signalled Balrog to go and get the device to do that.
But then he paused and asked Emyr to see whether he could get Amelia Bones from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and bring her here without anyone seeing anything…. And without getting himself cursed. Emyr popped off immediately and Gringott and Gamling quickly herded the others into the corner of the office where they could protect them with oversized rune based oversized magical shields that were set up there. They got the shields up just in time because when Emyr popped in, releasing Madam Bones and popping away before she had a chance to turn around, she showed that she was Madeye Moody's protégé alright because she was blasting curses at anything that moved (and quite a few things that didn't) until Gringott's shouting got through to her and she realised that she was in his office. She was still worked up enough to be quite terse as she asked what in the Seven Hells made him think that he had any right to grab her out of her office like that, but stopped, stunned, when Harry stepped out from behind him and said. "Hello Auntie Ami."
There was no question in her mind who this boy was, because she was one of the select few who had known where the Potters were and had seen young Harry as he grew into a toddler, so she knew that voice, those eyes, but the face was off, as he looked like a green eyed copy of James rather than Lily now, and that wasn't something that could have happened naturally. Balrog had brought back the memory projection crystal that was the Goblins' version of a penseive by then, so Harry started putting his memories of events into the crystal to prove to her who he was, then they got to what he'd asked for the crystal for, proof that it had been Pettigrew who betrayed the Potters, not Sirius Black, and that he was still alive. Of course this also required Harry, Hermione and Luna to explain (and show) how they'd been killed by Molly Weasley and her two youngest children on Luna's birthday in Two Thousand and One and then cast back fourteen years into their recently deceased or almost dead Seven year old bodies to be resurrected, and Amelia demanded to know where that fat pig was so that he could be suitably punished for murdering Harry like that, and running Hermione down and killing her as well.
Gringott showed the grim Goblin humour that outsiders were rarely allowed to see when he chuckled at that. "That will not be possible Madam Bones, you see the Dursley family all fell victim to what appears to be a ghastly murder suicide last night. Vernon and Marge Dursley tied up and filmed themselves sexually abusing, mutilating and then killing Petunia and Dudley Dursley. Though we are not certain that they actually meant to kill themselves, as it may have been an attempt at autoerotic asphyxiation that went wrong because they lacked the strength to lift their weight off the ropes."
Amelia gave him a measured look. "I accept that that fat bastard met his just desserts, but did the women and the boy deserve to die that way?"
There was no humour in his grim visage as he nodded curtly. "From what young Harry has told us, Yes! Harry, can you provide memories of what you went through at their hands please? No, wait, Lady Lovegood and Efa, can you take Lady Luna and Lady Hermione to the chamber over there so that they don't have to see this please?"
Even knowing that these two little girls were actually Twenty One year old women who'd seen a lot more than most on the inside, it was impressive to see them facing down the head of the Goblins, as that was something very few Witches or Wizards were capable of doing. Hermione look the lead, but Luna backed her all the way. "No! He is our man Uncle Gringott, and we will see everything that was done to him, and while you're at it, you can show us what was done to those pigs to punish them for it, so we can decide whether it's necessary to bring them back so that we can punish them further…. Yes, things got bad enough in the war to come to push us to study necromancy and use it sometimes to hold back Riddle and his minions…. We know you well enough to know that at least one of our cousins would have been with the Goblins you sent to their house, so we want to judge for ourselves whether they went far enough!"
Hearing those words from the mouth of a little girl chilled Amelia to the bone. If things had really gotten so bad enough in the coming war to make them go to those lengths, it would be far worse than their war had been.
As if she'd heard those thoughts, Hermione turned to her. "Yes Madam Bones, we did have to go that far, because they were making the world hell on earth and it would have been even worse if they'd taken over completely, by that stage they had already taken over the Ministry, Hogwarts and Saint Mungo's, and just about no one was safe from them…." She read what was going across her face. "No, we are all trained Legilimens, but what you're thinking at the the moment is plain on your face, and I wouldn't use that on someone who's on our side, as I hope you are?"
Amelia revised her earlier thought as she nodded, it was obviously far worse than she could imagine. "Yes Miss Granger, I am, it's just….. What you're talking about is dark magic, and you can't use that without putting a stain on your soul!"
Hermione shook her head angrily. "Have you swallowed that dragon shite from the so called Leader of the Light as well? I thought that you had a mind of your own!" She looked at Harry and Luna. "Perhaps it's already too late to save them, maybe we should just get Sirius out and ride out their war on Isla Negra, or on the Raven and Marie Celeste if they find us there? I for one am not prepared to stay here and watch everyone die again just because they all believe in that old fraud."
That was something that required an explanation. "Would you care to explain that young lady? I do have a mind of my own! But what are you saying about Albus Dumbledore and are you really discussing breaking the one who was proven to have been the cause of Harry's parents' and many others' deaths out of Azkaban and absconding with him?"
Hermione gave the others an obvious 'See?' look and turned on Amelia. "What I'm saying is that Albus Bloody Dumbledore has quite possibly destroyed more lives in the pursuit of his greater good than Riddle has! Leader of the Light is as much of a self aggrandising made up title that he gave himself as Lord Voldemort is for Riddle! And just where was that proven Madam Bones? In the trial that he didn't get before he was thrown into Azkaban to rot forever under the order signed by Dumbledore, Crouch and Bagnold? In the Investigation that never happened because Cornelius Fudge had all the so called witnesses to him killing Pettigrew and those Muggles obliviated before anyone else could ask them anything? You saw the proof that Pettigrew was the one who betrayed Harry's parents to their deaths, and that the bastard's still alive in Harry and my memories! That was what Uncle Gringott presumably got you here for but you refuse to accept the proof that you've seen with your own eyes and believe Dumbledore and his accomplices' lies! For that matter, go to Barty Crouch's house and arrest his murdering rapist of a son and put that bastard through the veil of death before he has a chance to serve his master Tom Riddle again!"
"What are you talking about? Barty Crouch Junior died soon after he was sent to Azkaban!"
"And how do you know that? Oh that's right, you were told so it must be true! If you exhume Barty Junior's corpse at Azkaban and examine it properly you'll discover that it is actually his mother's corpse! They used polyjuice to switch Barty Junior with his mother when you authorised her visit to see her son just before she died. Barty Senior keeps him under an imperious curse but sometime over the next seven or eight years he builds up enough resistance to it to break out of it and goes back to serving his master. Don't take my word for it, go to Crouch's bloody house and arrest the bastard! We heard from him that he'd been kept in the house all that time, Daddy Dearest had their elf Winky throw an invisibility cloak over him if anyone came to the house."
She turned her back on Amelia. "Please Harry, let's just get Sirius and leave! Isla Negra will accept him as the Heir to the House of Black and everyone else has forgotten where it is. She was the one of the strongest ones on our side last time but she obviously believes everything Dumbledore tells her this time."
That pissed Amelia off so she spoke up. "Has it occurred to you that maybe someone made me see the truth of the matter last time, as you put it, just as you're starting to do now young lady? You're just like Lily Evans! You write off anyone who can't grasp something immediately like you can as a hopeless case! Well for your information most people don't have your and Lily's brilliance so we need to work through a process to reach the point you do just like that. Now it would be appreciated if someone could show me their memories of Barty Crouch Junior so I can use that to anchor my thought processes about him to, because that's what plodders like me do."
She saw Hermione switch from angry impatience to remorse in a flash and Harry and Luna give her hugs and kisses to comfort her, then Harry put the memories Amelia had requested in the crystal. As she watched these and the other memories he put in there she was growing more and more angry, not with Hermione though, it was at herself for swallowing Dumbledore and the others' lies and them for playing games that could well destroy their world, just to get more power and glory for themselves.
A/N: In case anyone missed it, Luna is five months older in this version, so she was born on the Thirteen of September 1980.
