Ch. 8

xxxxxxxx

Earlier that morning.

*Squawk!"

"Hed, keep it down! Last thing I want is to let them know I'm here!" Harry whispered to the snowy owl perched on his shoulder. She simply gave the lopsided house as cold a glare as she could.

Harry could only shake his head; he didn't know how, he didn't know why, but he was certain Order, Chaos, or one of their pals had a hand in the bird acting like she did when he entered the owl shop while getting his things. She had flown down and settled on his shoulder the moment he entered as if she had been waiting for him.

Outside of that, he let it be. Looking a gift horse in the mouth wasn't his style anyway.

For now his biggest problem lay thirty feet away from his present location

xxxxxxxx

Some back info is required before we continue. Apparently, Cadmus was a staunch believer of home security, a VERY staunch believer. Turned out that the will had the ONLY outside info about the manor. Everything else was secured in a vault inside the manor itself, which was under numerous heavy wards. The full estate was covered with anti-porkey, anti-appiration, and multiple 'notice-me-not' charms and was Unplottable to boot.

Merlin, was it a manor or a bloody fortress!?

Prior to his exit of the bank, Ragnok let him know that only the ring would allow him to bypass the wards onto the property. Of course, he decided to be a wiseass and conveniently left out that it'd put him right in front of the door. A few minutes of cussing and rubbing his sore face later, after abruptly tasting varnished walnut, he was greeted by a pair of rather surly-looking house elves. Though they perked up at the sight of the ring on his finger and quickly let him in.

The two elves soon revealed themselves as grand-kids of the group that were in Cadmus' service: Hugo and Mongo. Harry quickly took a liking to the duo, they had a sense of humor on par with Sirius. After a brief tour of the manor, Harry's remembered Chaos' suggestion: the Aquis Vitae.

xxxxxxxx

The Aquis Vitae, better known as The Vital Waters, was described as repairing long-term damage from disease, malnutrition and the like. It wasn't as bad as ones like Polyjuice and Felix Felicis, needing only a a few days to brew.

The ingrediants..well, they were another story...

"Mongo, while I shred the dried acromantula meat, I need you to mix the powered unicorn horn into the mineral oil and pour it in slowly. After that we wait and see if it turns orange like the directions say." Harry said as he took a carving knife to the chunk of pale grey jerky in front of him.

"Right, Chief." The elf responded, mixing up the liquid.

Before he could add it, Hugo piped up from the supply rack, "Uh, Chief? We got a little problem...no gnome hair."

Harry froze mid-chop. The hairs were one of the last ingredients to add to the potion. "Wha? You sure? Third from the left, fourth rack?"

"Nope.." Hugo held up an empty box, "Nada."

Harry immediately felt nauseous. There was only one place he knew ot that gnomes could be found..

xxxxxxxx

It was that place he was now looking at with Hedwig: the Burrow.

A groan escaped his lips; this was the last place he wanted to be, now or any other time. Unfortunately, it was a necessary evil for now. He had Hedwig settle on top of the outhouse the family stored their brooms in and

"All right, If i remember correctly, their eating lunch right about now. Which means Arthur'll be coming out to the garage to fiddle with his collection afterwards, so we gotta be fast." Moving as quickly and quietly as possible, he scurried over the stone wall surrounding the property. Hedwig hopped onto it to act as lookout while he scanned the area for their target.

Molly Weasley was visable through one of the windows. Thankfully, her attention was focused on scolding the twins for putting hot pepper on Ron's sandwich when he wasn't looking.

He did his best to muffle his laughing at the redhead's expression before spying his target; a gnome busy trying to uproot a turnip from the garden. A quick stunner and Harry was soon kneeling beside it, box and scissors in hand.

xxxxxxxx

Unfortunately, that was when Destiny saw an opening of her own. She was still pissed at the others for ripping her hard work to shreds, but here was a moment to get things back on her track. She had already intended the friendship with Harry to make Ron a better person...it wasn't her fault Dumbledore bribed the boy. Either way, she saw this as she chance and she'd be damned if she was gonna let it slip away. A quick nudge was all it'd take...

xxxxxxxx

Ginny rolled her eyes at the antics of her older brothers, sometimes she couldn't help but wonder if she was adopted. Looking for something to take her attention away from them, she glanced out the window near her mother. When she did, she caught a rather odd sight.

"Mum, why is there a boy in the yard..cutting hair off one of the gnomes?

xxxxxxxx

"Well, that's one down." He said to himself, tossing the small wad of hair into the box. It was probably enough, but he wanted to be sure and started hunting for gnome two.

Or he would have id Hedwig did let loose with a warning screech. Harry gulped when he looked at what had cause her to do that.

Less than six feet away, Molly Weasley was looking straight at him through the now open window, "Ah, bollocks!"

xxxxxxxx

Before anyone starts on me about how long it's been or the length...I've been back in school and between work and such, I haven't had a lotta time to worry about these.

As for length. I'm worried that my comp might be reaching its end (close to five years is pretty old for a comp) And I'm figuring it's best I get something up in case something does happen.

So..now it's a toss up if Harry should try talking his way out of things, or possibly lead some of the Weasleys on a little chase.