Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling; various publishers including, but not limited to, Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books; and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

A/N: Happy Wednesday (at least, it's still Wednesday here). Question for y'all - is it really so odd to watch Stephen King's It, Kingdom of the Spiders (mid-to-late seventies spider flick starring William Shatner), Ella Enchanted, Murder at 1600, and M. Night Shamalan's The Village all in the same day? Mom said it was.

Shades of Gray

Chapter Nine: Letters and More

Harry woke to the sound of tapping on his bedroom window. He peeled one eye open and ascertained that Hedwig had managed to find him. Blearily, he climbed out of bed, padded across the smallish room, and opened the window. Hedwig swooped in and perched on the back of the desk chair. Harry relieved her of the reply to his own letter. "Thanks, Hedwig," he said. "I'll try to get restocked on treats soon. In the meantime, I'll bring you some of my breakfast. Will that do?" The bird ignored him in favor of grooming her wings.

Shaking his head at her, he detoured into the bathroom attached to his bedroom. Cleaned and dressed, he made a mental note to look around for a washing machine or its equivalent – he'd forgotten to have the house elves do his laundry before leaving Hogwarts and was now wearing the last of his clean clothing. His owl had moved to perch on the bed's footboard, so Harry sat at the desk to read his letter.

Harry,

Thanks for thinking of me. I'll admit I was surprised to see I'd gotten a letter from you. Aunt Amelia was surprised, too. She'd known you were in my class at school, but didn't figure that we knew each other since we're from different Houses. I had to explain to her about the DA and why it was needed. She very nearly swore out a warrant for Umbridge after hearing about the detentions! Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if she did and just didn't tell me about it. I don't know if you knew or not, but Wayne Hopkins wound up in detention with her almost as often as you did.

Anyway, about what you asked about. I don't really know anyone personally, so I took your questions to Aunt Amelia. She's got some really good ideas. It's all on the second page.

I'm pretty sure I managed at least an E on my DADA OWL, thanks to you and the DA. Do you know if you'll be continuing it next year? I hope you do. Even if we manage to get a good teacher, they don't have enough time to go over everything in detail like we did in the DA.

Hope to hear from you again,

Susan Bones

Harry smiled to himself. He'd known when he'd sent his request that Susan wouldn't really know much about what he was asking. She'd done exactly as he'd hoped and taken his questions to her aunt, who just happened to be the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. He flipped to the second piece of parchment.

Mr. Potter,

While I am surprised that you apparently know my niece better than I had previously assumed, I must offer my thanks to your foresight in helping her study for her OWLs. My connections at the Ministry indicate that your defense club is responsible for some of the highest scores recorded for that particular test in the last fifty years. Of course, this conclusion is based off of internal memos and gossip, and therefore is not official. Official announcements will be released one week after the OWL results are given to the students themselves. I will be working with Susan during the course of the summer to ensure her skills in this area do not fade from lack of use, and I must offer my further thanks for giving me the idea: Your assumption is correct. An underage witch or wizard may use magic during the summer holiday, as long as they are supervised by a licensed instructor. Feel free to pass this information along to any of your friends who might be like-minded to yourself.

Before I attend to the other inquires you have posed, I do have a request: Dumbledore, acting in his capacity of the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, has refused repeated requests from my department and the Department of Mysteries to interview you or any of your fellows who managed to hold off the Death Eater attack a few weeks ago. Now, I do not wish to alarm you – it is clear from the testimony of both the captured Death Eaters and the adults which eventually showed on-scene that you and your friends were acting primarily in self-defense. Asklepios Croaker and I simply wish to ascertain how you managed to get into the Ministry, so that protections can be put in place to avoid anything similar happening again in the future. You will not be prosecuted for your actions, and both Croaker and I are willing to make an Unbreakable Vow to that effect, should you require it of us. I eagerly await your reply.

Now, to your own questions.

As I mentioned above, you are certainly able to hire a tutor for the summer without violating the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery. I daresay you will have no shortage of replies should you do as you mentioned and place an advertisement in the Prophet, but might I suggest that you consider one of the following before resorting to such drastic action?

Orlia Malthus – fully qualified to tutor in charms, transfiguration, and formal dueling.
Pete Smith – transfiguration, potions, and charms.
A. Dunbarton – mind-magics, wards and set-spells, arithmancy, and runes.
Alicia Sparrow – potions, dueling, and defense.
Umberto Ortiz – defense and charms.
Francine Gelladdy – transfiguration, potions, and arithmancy.
Cora Pyria – healing, defense, and mind-magics.
Jeremy Nuno – dueling and runes.
Hans Meyer – defense, wards and set-spells, potions, and dueling.

There are, of course, many more individuals who are Master-level (the requirement for being able to obtain a tutor's permit) in various fields, but I focused on those who have made their living by teaching. Dunbarton, Ortiz, and Meyer are all employed by Meistr-Ysgol Dewiniaeth near Llangynidr in Wales; their school year is slightly shorter than that of Hogwarts – it runs from Mabon through Beltane – and all three have a reputation for taking tutoring contracts during the summer months; Ortiz in particular comes highly recommended. Malthus was in Minerva McGonagall's class at Hogwarts and turned down the transfiguration professorship, leading to McGonagall being placed in the position (from what my mother told me, the two of them had a rather heated rivalry while at Hogwarts, but I've never been able to get Minerva to confirm or deny it). Sparrow, Gelladdy, Pyria, and Nuno are all tutors by trade, with an average of twenty years experience each. The only name I've given you that I hesitated before adding was that of Pete, but Susan assures me that my caution is unneeded; she claims you were rather close to Remus Lupin when he taught at Hogwarts. If this is true, then you understand my meaning without my having to spell it out for you.

Unlike any replies you might get from an advertisement in the paper, I can assure you that no one I've recommended has ever come under the scrutiny of my department for any reason whatsoever, and if any of them support You-Know-Who, then none of the Death Eaters currently in custody know about it.

Moving on from magical learning, I have to admit that there really isn't anything in the magical world like you described. The Heads of magical families manage their own estates, using (or not) the advice of account managers at Gringotts. Said Heads normally select their heir and personally train him or her in the running of things before retiring. Granted, this cannot be utilized in your case. You might actually have better luck checking in the muggle world. Alternatively, since without you, the families you now head would be considered extinct (or nearly so), you can employ the use of a barrister to draft a new Family Writ. In fact, any Head of a magical family is capable of re-drafting a Family Writ at any time, most simply chose not to do so, clinging to their traditions, regardless of how antiquated. One word of caution, however: If you decide to hire an account manager at Gringotts, make certain that any goblin-forged heirlooms you might own are safely secured elsewhere. They seem to think that just because a particular item was made by them it still belongs to them. I've had to intervene at least twice a year, every year since being posted to my position, in getting some goblin-made object or other back to its rightful owner. It's more than just a little frustrating.

Sorry for the side-rant. I'll attempt to avoid such in the future.

I hope this adequately addresses your concerns, and I look forward to hearing back from you in regards to my own inquiry.

Sincerely,

Amelia Bones
Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement

The information on hiring a tutor was very much appreciated, the bit where Madam Bones slipped and called her friend 'Pete' was enlightening, the details regarding a lack of any sort of formal education available for estate management was disappointing, and the info on the OWL results was both surprising and pleasing, but Harry wasn't too sure what to do with her request. He could see the sense in what she was asking for, but he wasn't altogether too certain he could trust her yet, though the part mentioning an Unbreakable Vow – once he'd looked it up in his computer – was a point in her favor. I'll need to think about it. Maybe see if Neville and Luna can be with me if I decide to speak with her in person.

The part about a 'Family Writ' also had him searching through his computer; what it boiled down to was a code of conduct, dating back to when the Head of a Family was the sole law governing that family. He made a note on his ever-growing list to check and see if he could locate the Potter and Black Family Writs.

He was about to start a letter to Neville to set up times the two of them could talk over their communicators when his stomach growled. I wonder if Dobby would like to come work for me? I can't help but think I'd get a lot more done if I didn't have to see about my laundry and whatnot. He headed downstairs. In trying to locate the kitchen, he found that the two archways on the right-hand side of the hallway, as registered by someone coming through the house's front door, lead to a sitting room and a mid-sized library, while the doors on the left-hand side of the hallway opened to a study, a dining room, and the kitchen. Figures it'd be the last room I find. Stuck to the icebox was a note in Snape's distinctive, spiky handwriting.

Potter,

As you will not be the only child Professor Dumbledore has decreed I shall be babysitting this summer, do make an attempt to keep the house tidy. I will return around noon with the other children.

"First I've heard of it," Harry muttered. He idly wondered who else was condemned to suffering under the git while he scrounged up some bacon, eggs, and toast for his breakfast.

While Xenophilius Lovegood was busy setting type for The Quibbler's next issue, Luna crept into the room that used to be her mother's workshop. Nothing in it was changed and she had to stop in her tracks, momentarily overcome by memories yet again. Someday, I'm going to be able to come here and not see it happen. Someday. Luna straightened her shoulders and pushed the memory aside. She strode across the flagstone floor and seated herself at her mother's desk.

She pressed down on the blotter, which resulted in a faint click, then reached over and rotated an empty jar one half-turn clockwise. The catch disengaged, and the blotter rose, pivoting on an unseen hinge along the edge closest to the back of the desk. Underneath it was a slab of marble, carved into a configuration she now knew as a 'keyboard' thanks to her Muggle Studies classes. The characters etched on the 'keys' were not letters and numbers, however, but runes and a handful of other odd symbols. The underside of the blotter was silvered, much like a mirror, but didn't produce reflections.

Luna tapped the carving which looked rather like an upper case 'Q' with its tail pointing straight up. A dual-pitched hum, both so low that it was more felt than heard and so high that it was very nearly completely inaudible, sounded from deep within the sturdy desk. The silvered underside of the blotter darkened to nearly black, then flashed white and began glowing. A moment later, it darkened to black once more, but still glowed. Three rows of white runes filled the topmost portion of the surface area, then there was a bit of empty space, then a rectangle the same size as a single 'letter' blinked about halfway to the bottom.

She typed in a string of commands, then pressed the key which depicted a pair of crossed wands. A pair of concentric circles carved into the stone floor began glowing. Luna only had enough time to verify that her command had executed properly before the radish earring in her right ear began chiming. Sighing, she tapped one of the butterbeer caps in her necklace. "Yes?"

"Is there any particular reason you're toying with your mother's transference station?" The voice was rough, almost as though the man to whom it belonged regularly gargled gravel.

"I'm just checking something," Luna replied.

"And what would that be?"

"I assume you guys saw what happened at the Ministry?" Luna spoke and typed another string of commands.

The man cleared his throat. "Yes, we watched what we could. That doesn't explain why you're tinkering with a class-five restricted interdimensional transference portal."

"I'll get to that in a minute. You saw Harry's godfather get pushed through the veil, right?"

"We did. Oh, so I see… You do realize that you need some sort of anchor to that portal for what you're attempting to be of any use at all, don't you?"

Luna chuckled. "I know, Harvey. And I don't have it yet, but I will soon. I'm simply checking on power-consumption levels right now."

"Should be six erts on standby, ten to twelve during connection, and fifteen to twenty during transference." (1)

"But that's only for nonliving magical matter," Luna countered, still typing. "Mice cause it to spike to thirty. Puffskeins spike to fifty."

Harvey let out a low growling noise. "And just how do you know that, Miss Lovegood?"

Luna smirked. "I snuck home last weekend – Daddy was busy chasing a story on the continent – and checked. Lily told me you guys were going to have issues with your equipment and I couldn't pass up the chance. I figured you'd be less argumentative if I'd already done some of the work."

"Blasted Ravenclaw," Harvey replied, though his tone was teasing. "Tell you what, kiddo, it's coming up on my lunchtime. How about I find something else to do for the next hour? I'll even keep Lily off your back for you."

"Before you go, Harvey, I did have a question." Luna stopped typing and focused entirely on the voice at the other end of her magical communicator.

"And just what might that be, sweetie?"

"You can target-send things to whomever you like, right?"

"If the higher-ups deem it necessary. What did you have in mind?"

"Well, if I can recalibrate the transference circle to accept living magical beings without scrambling them into goo, then I'm going to need the target-info. Besides, he's going to need a way to know we're working on getting him home."

Harvey let out a low whistle. "You think you're close enough for me to be able to get a requisition okayed?"

"I'm certain. Sometime in the next couple of days, as long as Daddy keeps busy enough not to notice me."

"You got it, kiddo. If this works, then the odds that all of it works will skyrocket. I'll run the actual figures through MOTAP – the results should be enough by themselves to be able to get the requisition rubber-stamped. Genius certainly bred true in your case, Luna."

"Mummy was brilliant, yes, but I know I'm nowhere near her level."

"Don't sell yourself short, sweetheart. You're a hell of a lot closer to finishing her experiments than any of us are. I do have to go, though. Look after yourself."

"I always do, Harvey. Let everyone know I said 'hi', would you?"

"No problem."

When the connection went silent, Luna disconnected her end and returned to her work. Most of her attention was focused on making sure she'd typed the needed commands properly, but a sliver was working on a way to get back into the Department of Mysteries to snag a shred of the veil or a chunk of the stone archway supporting it.

Gabrielle didn't get much sleep. She was too excited. Nicole, on the other hand, had dropped off almost the moment they returned from their spontaneous day-trip to Paris and had snored loudly all night long. When her alarm went off at four o'clock, she was already awake and staring at the ceiling. The alarm simply spurred her into action.

Half an hour later, she was dressed and poking Nicole, trying to get her sister-by-choice to stir. After a long ten minutes, the brunette finally managed to claw her way to consciousness. Luckily, Gabrielle was prepared – she immediately handed Nicole a cup of strong coffee.

"Wha' 'ime's it?" Nicole yawned.

"About a quarter to five."

Nicole glared at the veela. "We're not scheduled to leave until seven. Why so early?"

"We've already got the portkey. I told Mother and Papa it was set for five-thirty."

Her friend simply blinked at her. "Huh?"

Gabrielle shook her head and urged Nicole to drink her coffee. "Hurry up and wake up. I have something I want to do before we go."

Nicole gulped a couple of swallows from the cup, accidentally scalding her tongue in the process. "Why didn't you do it yesterday? Then I could still be asleep!"

"Because I want a haircut. You know Mother wouldn't approve," Gabrielle made a 'hurry up' motion with her hands. "And Du Coiffeur opens right at six. Madame Mignon herself said she'd make sure my hair was finally manageable."

"Okay, okay, I get it!" Nicole guzzled the last of the coffee and scurried to the bathroom. "I'll be ready in ten minutes!"

While Nicole hurriedly dressed, Gabrielle threw robes on over her powder blue sundress. Her mother would never have approved of the sundress, but the last she checked, Apolline didn't have the ability to see through clothing, so Gabrielle figured what her mom didn't know wouldn't hurt her. She planned on ditching the robes at her earliest opportunity.

Eventually, both girls were dressed and made their way down to the dining room. Apolline, thankfully, was not up yet. Even so, Gabrielle kept her robes on, simply because her father was awake, and if she appeared wearing just the sundress, it would eventually make its way back to her mother. François looked from the girls to the clock on the wall and back. "You two are cutting it awfully close," he said.

"I know, Papa," Gabrielle replied, kissing his cheek. "Thank you again for letting me go."

François smiled indulgently at her. "Not a problem, kitten. You two make sure you stay safe, though."

"Absolutely, Papa."

With that, François stood and hugged his youngest. "I have to go to work, sweetheart. You two have fun." He kissed her forehead and removed himself from the room.

Nicole shared a 'parents are so lame' look with Gabrielle before seizing the coffee pot and setting to leveling out her caffeine levels for the day. They apparated out at five twenty-five and had a light breakfast at a muggle bakery after Gabrielle transfigured the robes into a light jacket that matched her dress. Their luggage was shrunken and secured in their pockets, along with their portkey to London.

Five minutes to six found them standing outside Du Coiffeur, where a pleasantly cheerful Madame Mignon noticed them before they had a chance to knock. Forty-five minutes later, and Gabrielle's long, silky, horribly unmanageable hair was in drifts around the stylist's chair. What was left on her head was short, but still feminine, in small spiky layers that didn't get into Gabrielle's eyes, nor tickle the back of her neck.

The style actually suited her far more than the waist-length locks had; she actually looked her age, perhaps even a year or two older than her sixteen years. It garnered a round of applause from Nicole and earned Madame Mignon a sizable tip.

They passed the remaining time chatting, while waiting for their portkey, a page out of last week's Courrier International de la Magie, to activate.

And then it did.

While Harry was reading a letter from Susan Bones, Gabrielle was getting her hair cut, and Luna was busy rewriting the laws of interdimensional travel, a completely average visitor discovered an open door.

Though there were scents of people, the raccoon could tell that these were passing-through scents. Older scents told her that people denned here in the past, but they weren't here anymore.

She investigated the human-den quite thoroughly, discovering a treasure trove of food – a forgotten bag of candy – wedged between sofa cushions.

Indeed, the nicely dark space under the sofa itself would make a fine home.

She finished moving her three kits in just as the neighborhood around her began to come alive for the day.

A/N2: My usage of 'erts' is not a misspelling of hertz. It's a measure of magical power-drain, comparable to volts in modern electronics.

I also know that raccoons aren't native to the UK, but they have been kept as pets, and a recent article I read online indicates that wild raccoons are becoming an increasing problem in parts of the UK, so I don't think it's too out of the question for what I wrote to be completely improbable.

And is anyone else as jazzed as I am about the new 'moderate reviews' option? I mean, it's brilliant! One of the few changes ffnet has made in the past few years which actually makes sense (and doesn't manage to irritate me right out of my skin)! The fact that I can now delete anonymous reviews which are sheer idiocy (like the ones I harped on a few chapters ago) is fantastic. I don't mind getting constructive criticism (for example, when I first started writing in the HP fandom, I mistakenly had Ginny's name as Ginerva, not Ginevra, and it took someone pointing it out in a review for me to realize the mistake; in AaO, I killed a character in an early chapter, but didn't realized it when I wrote a much later chapter - my reviewers pointed it out to me), but when all you're going to say is 'this sux, your a bad riter' then why bother reviewing at all?