Hey everyone. Long time no see. Sorry that I haven't written in a while, but a shout out goes to those that have reviewed lately that has helped me bring my mind back onto this story. So without further ado:

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry potter.

Chapter 9

Explanations

Last time:

"Harry, thank you for saving me." Hermione said. She hugged him and immediately her voice entered his head. Oh Harry I promise that I will protect you from all future manipulations. But why aren't we in the girls bathroom and where did all of that magic come from?

Harry gasped, pulled away, and then turned around. "Mione is that you?" Hermione gasped and then Harry understood. "NICOLAUS!"

Saying Harry was in shock was an understatement. Standing in front of him wasn't the eleven year old Hermione that he had been taking care of, instead standing in front of him was the Hermione that he had confessed to before going off to his death and had watched him die right in front of her. Standing there was the woman he had fallen in love with but let go so that his supposed best mate had a chance for happiness.

"Harry? My Harry?" Hermione stroked Harry's cheek with tears in her eyes. Harry nodded and hugged Hermione close. "Harry, thank Merlin."

Oh how cute. The cute twosome finally together at last. They sprung apart and looked to where the light came from, and standing there was the astral body of Nicolaus. Hi you two, glad to see you two are doing well.

"I thought you said that she was going to be going to the underworld." Harry stated.

"That was originally the idea but then something happened that we did not expect. She ended up dying from fighting Voldemort right alongside Neville but took a killing curse from Bellatrix while saving Neville. Because of that she was given the same choice as you, and like you she chose to come back and change her destiny."

"So, is she also wearing earrings that allow her to remember everything?" Harry asked.

"You also have earrings?" Hermione asked. Harry cast the revealing spell on his ears so that she could see his earrings, only for her to giggle. "They don't look bad exactly, but I just don't think that they suit you, but… what can we do?" Hermione also performed the revealing spell on herself and showed Harry her piercings.

"Should we be expecting any others to come back in time to help us out, or are we the only two?" Harry said curtly.

Nick snapped his finger and a clipboard appeared in front of him and then he flipped through the papers and clicked his tongue. "No, not that I see here, but as you know things can change and people can earn a choice for actions they have done. As the old saying goes 'for every action there is a reaction', or something like that." He chuckled. Suddenly there was a beeping and he looked at the watch on his wrist. "Oh crap, I'm late for an important meeting."

"Then get going don't want to keep you from your important date." Harry stated.

Seeing the humor Nick disappeared saying, "I'm late, I'm late, for a very important date." This left Harry and chuckling and then they looked at each other.

"I take it that I'm now going to have to explain a few things." Harry guessed.

When Hermione nodded the door bust open and Ronald busted in. "Don't worry I'm here… to…what is going on here?" He shouted.

A minute later a bunch of professors also flooded in lead by Albus Dumbledore. "Well, well, what do we have here? I do believe that we have three friends who have worked together to take down a rouge mountain troll.

"Excuse me but…" Harry started.

"I believe that some congratulations are in order and I also believe that an award should be given to services to the school." Dumbledore interrupted.

"I'm sorry, but…" Harry tried to say, but Dumbledore put his hand up.

"Oh don't be so modest young Harry; I'm sure that you helped our young Ronald here in some way."Dumbledore stated.

Harry had gotten tired of this he waved his hand below his belt and silently cast the silencing spell on the old geezer. "I'm sorry professor but you have it all wrong. You see Ronald insulted Hermione earlier today and my friends and I, which doesn't include Ronald, went looking for her and then when we were approached by Professor McGonagall. She explained to us that the troll had gotten loose in the school and I went looking for the troll, because maybe it would lead me to Hermione."

"And why would you do that?" Dumbledore asked.

"I thought that I would distract it and let Hermione get away, but she wouldn't leave me to fight the troll alone. After we knocked it out Ron came through the door and saying something about coming to save us, and not long after he came through the door the rest of you followed."

"And what makes you think that you that you could take on a fully grown mountain troll by yourself?" Professor McGonagall asked. "You're just a first year student, albeit a very talented one, what did you think that you could do?"

Dumbledore went to speak but Harry cut him off, "let me turn that question around and ask two questions myself. Why would you send students back to their common rooms with just some other students and no teachers to protect them when it would be easier to protect all of them in one area that is big enough that you could have waves of spell casters and the other is why is there even a dangerous magical creature like that around the school?"

Dumbledore's mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water. "The reason I sent the students back to the common rooms was because the troll wouldn't be able to find them so that we wouldn't have to worry about people panicking. Then to answer your other question, this is a magical area and I have no control as to what creatures come into the area."

"That's bloody bull shit." Harry accused. "It should be the headmaster's duty to always make sure that the students are safe and that means that there shouldn't be deadly magical creatures that could just wonder onto the school grounds."

"What are you talking about Mr. Potter?" Professor McGonagall asked.

Professor Snape stepped forward. "Don't take him seriously Minerva, he only being a spoiled brat like…"

"SHUT UP SVEN!" Harry yelled with a fire blazing in his eyes that sent a shiver through Snape. "I am my own person and I will not tolerate you discriminating against me just because of what my father did to you in the past. The past is the past and you just need to let it go."

Snape was in shock and grabbed Harry by the collar. "How do you know that name?"

"It was in my mother's childhood diary." Harry smirked. Then he noticed the small flicker of fear pass over Dumbledore's face and Snape dropped Harry and grabbed his hand like it had been burned.

McGonagall cleared her throat. "Getting back to the issue at hand Mr. Potter; I noticed that you said creatures, exactly what did you mean by that?"

"Did you know that there is an acromantula colony hidden inside the forbidden forest?" Harry stated. "You know the funny thing about spiders, when they are small they have enough food with all the flies flying around. But what do you think is going to happen when they are bigger than three full grown men and finally run out of food in the forest, where do you think they will go for food?"

"But Mr. Potter..." Dumbledore started.

"Albus Dumbledore." Professor McGonagall belligerently said. "If what Mr. Potter said is true you are going to have to explain yourself. Now what other creatures are there that I should know about."

"What creatures do you know about professor McGonagall?" Harry asked.

"I know that we used to have our care of magical creatures classes go into the forest for their studies as long as they stayed out of the centaurs' territory. Why is there something more dangerous in there?" Harry reached into his bag and pulled out a small book and a notebook and handed the book to her. When she took a look it she waved for Harry to follow her. When she saw that everyone else was going to follow she narrowed her brow. "I only want Harry to come with me, everyone else can leave."

"Sorry professor, but I would like for Hermione to come because we need to explain a few things." When Professor McGonagall nodded they followed her and together the three of them went to her office. Along the way they ran into Miss Norris who started meowing. "Get out of here you stupid cat." Harry barked.

When they arrived Professor McGonagall sat down and motioned for them to take a seat. "Now do you want to explain why you have a book on ancient folklore?"

Harry set his notebook down in front of her. "It all has to do with some research that I have been doing this last month. When Professor Dumbledore told us about the forbidden forest I looked into it and I found a book that also stated, that until 1943 the care of magical creatures class allowed students to go into the forest freely to study as long as they stayed out of the centaurs; area. Then about 5 years later they had it to where they could only go in as long as they had a teacher present. Then finally in 1956 the Headmaster at the time started the rule that forbid students from going in there all together due to accidents."

"Wait did you say 1956?" Professor McGonagall asked with shock in her voice.

"That's right." Harry nodded. "Why is something wrong?"

"No it's nothing." She shook her head. "But that is beside the point. What does ancient folklore have to do with all of this?"

"It's this." Harry opened the notebook and placed it in front of her.

She looked down and her eyes went wide. "You can't be serious; there are bean nighe in the forest?"

"It's only speculation but with reported cases they have been moving closer to the forest until 1975 when the last reported case came in just outside the boundary of the forest." Harry explained.

McGonagall started flipping through the notebook and was surprised at the amount of dangerous creatures that had the possibility of being in the forbidden forest. The most worrisome for her were the banshees. "How do you know all of this? I am not as dense as some of my coworkers and I know that something is up."

Harry looked at Hermione and nodded. Both of them took their wands out and pointed them at their ears and cast the revealing spell so that their earrings were visible. "We can't explain everything but these earrings allow us to have certain knowledge about future events so that we can change fates of people in the future."

Does that mean that you know what the future will hold?"

"As someone once told me; nothing in the future is set in stone. Whatever path we take is chosen by the decisions that we make along the way." Harry told her. "I have had enough of being led around and fooled into doing what others want so I am changing my path and so far it has drastically changed my life."

"Oh, do you mean by getting adopted by the Granger family?"

"It's only legally arranged." Hermione stated.

"What does that mean?" Professor McGonagall asked.

"What she means is that I was technically an orphan that was residing in the Dursley household under no legal obligation. And what is worse is that they were being paid out of my account to do whatever they wanted and I didn't even see a penny of it."

"Are you saying that you have been living with a family that was being paid to not take care of you with your money?" She asked.

"It's not only that; take a look at the last page of the notebook."

She flipped to it and found nothing but suspecting that it was sensitive information she cast the revealing spell and a folded sheet of paper. She opened it at Harry's nod and found a letter.

Dear Harry

It is my regret to inform you that there have been more discrepancies in your accounts than we originally discussed. Upon your timely arrival at the bank we were able to stop more of your heirlooms from being stolen and used for whatever means.

As you know Dumbledore has been making frequent visits to your vaults and taking precious heirlooms an I have sent out many goblins to try and gather these objects, but one of these objects is a ring that was taken not so soon after your parents left this life. It was a very powerful ring that has been passed down the Peverell line. And after further investigation we have found the box that it was kept in and we will be sending it to you along with a letter that was found with it.

And in regards to the letter that was given to you when you visited we have extended the list of people with keys to your vault to Molly Prewitt, Albus Dumbledore, Petunia Dursley nee Evens, and Cornelius Fudge. All we are waiting for is your order to regain these keys and your fortune, even though you don't care about the gold, and arrest these people for their crimes.

May our gold run as freely as our enemy's blood,

Ragnock Goldhand High king of Goblins

To say that she was shocked was an understatement, she was utterly appalled at what had been going on around this boy, and what is worst was that it had been all spearheaded by the man that she thought that she could trust. "Is there anything else?"

"Much more, but that is all I will share at this time, but let me tell you that everything else will come out soon enough."

~~~…~~~…~~~…~~~…~~~…~~~

Up in Dumbledore's office, Dumbledore was looking across his desk at a very displeased Ronald Weasley. "You're saying that you failed."

"It's not my fault, I wasn't expecting him to be able to take out that mountain troll by himself." Ron said. "But that isn't even the worst of it, he said that he closed off all of the special Weasley accounts and found out about the contract."

"Has there been any word on the adoption papers?" Dumbledore asked.

"No there hasn't, but there should be no problem with them. I should be hearing something from my mother in the next few days. What about the political end of it."

"I've got the minister on board but I wasn't able to get all of the cash I needed so not everyone is on board. Because of that, tomorrow I am going to the ministry to call in some favors."

Ronald smiled. There may have been a few bumps along the way, but the day will soon come that I have everything I ever deserved.

~~~…~~~…~~~…~~~…~~~

Down in the dungeons Snape was having an emotional meltdown. Sven, Sven I haven't been called that in such a long time that I had almost forgotten about it. He opened a drawer in his desk and took out the picture that lay inside. Oh Lily, I am so sorry.

A/N: So how did everyone like it. Review and tell me what you think.