CH 11
Harry - James - Potter - Harry - James - Potter
In the middle of November, the student list was passed around the Great Hall. It was a list that students wrote their names on to indicate that they were not going home for the Holiday vacation, better known as Christmas.
A couple of the Professors were hoping that it would be a student free holiday, but then that's what they hope for every year. It's never happened yet, though. Some students actually preferred to stay at school rather than go home to some gloomy situation. The Headmaster had been surprised when he saw this year's list and young Mr Potter's name was not on it. He shrugged and decided to send the boy the gift he'd prepared anyway.
Harry had been corresponding with his Gringott's Management team throughout the first part of his school year. They eventually managed to have everything squared away and soon he'd been able to liquidate and destroy nearly all of the heinous Dark Assets from the Black Vaults, as well as the Lestrange Vaults. He'd been pleasantly surprised to note that those fell under the Black Family since the main Lestrange Family members were currently incarcerated in Azkaban.
Hufflepuff's Cup was waiting for him in a nearly empty vault. Within the vault there were several sections, each with high protective magics that would never allow the altered artefact from affecting any other in the same vault. So far he'd been able to get the Ravenclaw's Tiara and Gaunt's Ring (without putting it on).
The Diary might have to wait until he was in second year or else for the house-elf Dobby to steal it after it had been given to Ginny Weasley, but before the idiot girl started to write in it. The Locket was something that he could take care of this Yule Holiday. He now had full possession of number twelve Grimmauld Place and it was completely unplottable, but located within a city full of diversions just as he requested his management team to find within his list of empty properties.
Number twelve was just the place that he needed to move into in order to disappear from his Aunt's purview forever. As per the conditions of the note that he'd first taken to Gringotts those few years ago, he knew that he was going to have more freedom to change things. That house needed to be changed and he was just the time-traveler to do it, just not too quickly.
The Horcruxes were being gathered in a centralized location prior to their destruction. Hopefully the Dark Lord won't sense their destruction. He hadn't in the past when Harry had destroyed that diary in his second year. It was very likely that all of those foul devices could be taken care of without the nasty git ever being the wiser about them.
Harry knew that they'd have to be taken care of soon though. So many parts of the same soul in the same location and the Dark Lord might just be able to sense something. Still the boy's scar was useful because he was currently aware of the Dark Lord's thoughts and so far they were all about that stupid Philosopher Stone.
There had been no action on that front, since his friends were not Ron or Hermione this time around, although the girl was beginning to redeem herself by tutoring some of the students in the General Dorms in order to make up for her initial foolishness. However this time Harry was far more aware of something that he'd never noted before or perhaps the truth of the matter was that he'd never paid attention to it since she'd been one of his 'best' friends. Still the fact of the matter was that the girl was irritating and she was beginning to grate on his last patient nerve.
The train ride back to London was long because she was talking at him, not to him, about school and homework and how he had to complete his studies early and that grades mattered. She didn't know and he didn't enlighten her, but his work had been done months ago.
Regulus Black's old school notes were quite informative and some of the Professors were unoriginal in their curriculum. He'd been able to extrapolate the probable homework, do them quite ahead of time and then only need to make minor changes when the true work was finally assigned. It kept his penmanship skills up and he'd been bored at the time anyway. It was either do that or start writing proper defence book.
The only Professor that he didn't have preset work was for Potions Class and that was all right since he kind of liked the class this time around. 'At least Snape is challenging me,' he thought. 'Sneaky bastard is slipping me additional essays at different levels to see where I'm at.'
He snickered to himself, since he produced mixed work whenever that happened. Sometimes the work could be considered genius and sometimes it could be considered, as having been produced by a toddler barely able to comprehend the slightest measure or portion of the potion he'd been assigned. He was just playing with the poor man, but he had to do something to keep that man guessing about his true knowledge of some things.
"Are you listening to me," Hermione asked him for nearly the hundredth time, since they boarded the train.
"I stopped after your fourth repetition," Harry stated truthfully. "I'll do my work when I please and I don't need your bloody notes to study. Quit trying to shove them at me and don't you dare force them on any other student either or else I'll report you for a different kind of sabotage." He stared at her and she blushed at having been found out. "Don't you know by now, any notes you give us and state that they are copies are destroyed?"
Hermione glared at him and said, "I work hard on those notes and to make copies for everyone in the General Dorms."
"We don't want them," Harry told her truthfully. "We've told you repeatedly that we don't want or need them and yet for some reason you keep trying to get us to study from them. We're not daft you know. We can tell that half of what you're giving us is hippogriff turd and the other half is just as untrustworthy."
"Why didn't anyone mention…" she began.
"We have," Harry told her. "Did you think we were just joking about it because that would just make you extremely naïve?"
"I had thought that they were starting to trust…m..me," she said tearing up and wondering if that would work against someone that was supposed to be her friend, although if she turned her mind to it, the Boy-Who-Lived had never declared friendship with any of the first years.
Harry turned away from her pleading and tearful looks with a snort. "Not going to work on me," he said. "I know crocodile tears when I see them."
Hermione then kicked the seat in front of her, crossed her arms and pouted silently for the rest of the trip, which unfortunately was more than half over.
Draco, Neville and Blaise, plus most of the first years had selected to sit elsewhere away from 'The Granger', as they called her. Harry had found his car first and had chosen to allow the girl to sit with him when the trip started out, but now he was sincerely regretting it. Still the built up frustration would help him to expel some serious magical energy and the house was going nearly be gutted from it.
There were sometimes no options left to a Witch or Wizard, if the property they inherit is steeped in Dark Magics. Gutting was an acceptable method of cleaning out the Darkness that can become imbedded into a place. Luckily the townhouse was in a predominantly Muggle area of London and that meant that any local noises like a lorry back-firing or the sound of a low flying plane could be used as the excuse that many Muggles would believe when magical cleansing was about to happen.
Harry planned his days carefully, as there was actually a parade that would be going by that area of town and near the townhouse two days after he fully claimed it. It would be a perfect time for an all out magical cleansing. His management team had the permits and everything was ready. But first he had to get there and convince Kreacher that he was the new Master of the House. The House would obey him, but the aging and nearly insane House-elf was another matter entirely.
He watched as the train neared the platform and sighed in relief as the girl gathered her belongings and raced to beat the other children off the train. Her mother was standing there waiting for the girl and soon they were away. He shrank all of his belongings. He called Rose to handle them for the time being while he made his way through the streets to catch a cab to get to Grimmauld Place.
One final hour later, he paid the cabbie and walked up the lane to number eleven Grimmauld Place, where the hidden magics of number twelve sensed a Master coming home. Number eleven and number thirteen spread exposing the hidden number twelve. As soon as Harry stepped onto any of the two lanes to the Muggle abodes, he disappeared from sight and the whole Muggle World forgot that he'd been dropped off.
In the Wizarding World, he disappeared from the tracking system that Dumbledore had set up. The old man was fully aware that Privet Drive was not unplottable, it was just non-findable by conventional Wizarding methods. So he assumed that the boy was back with is 'loving' family and did not feel the need to check up on the boy.
Harry opened the door of the townhouse and stepped into a world of dusty, unhealthy gloom and then he muttered, "Well that's going to change immediately."
"Who be ye," a gravelled old voice asked from the shadows just outside of the initial entrance light.
He'd been coached on how to claim ownership and that had to be done before answering any direct questions posed by anything within the house, including the existing staff. The fact was that his next act was the answer that the creature needed anyway.
He took out a small silver and goblin refined 'Lantha' ore dagger. He carved a rune of home ownership on the palm of both his hands and then quickly placed the bleeding appendages on the first doorway frame of the house. The lane gate did not count, but the main house door did.
"Dorenavent," Harry said in perfect French, which was the native language of the Black Family. "Cette maison et toutes les choses lié à cette maison m'appartient, seulement. Je suis le Maître." Then he hissed it out in Parseltongue to seal the deal and link the house to him and his magics alone. (…From this day forth. This house and all contents linked to this house belong to me, alone. I am the Master…)
His magic merged with that of the House and he fought for ownership against the Dark Magics imbedded in the foundation of the place. This was just a minor battle, as the major ownership ritual was going to take place in two days. He needed to do that so that Rose could become the Head Elf for this location, which he was planning to call home for the next few years.
It was a matter of only a few minutes, but the young boy of seemingly eleven years of age, won the first round. The house-elf hidden in the shadow shrieked and ran away. The boy only shrugged and called for Rose. He placed his blooded hands on her duty marks and she was finally able to see the place.
(…Master Harry this place is not fit for you…) She signed with a frown on her face.
"I know," Harry said. "That's why we're going to clean up the kitchen first and the library." He looked at her scandalized face and then explained. "We've a ritual to do, but can only do it in two days when the Ministry permits become valid. Before that time we can clean what we can first and I have something that I need to hunt down in the drawing room and take to the Vault, you do know what I'm talking about."
Rose frowned not liking this situation, but nodded her head, since her Master had explained about the magic and the evil inside some particular items. (…What of the other elf in this place?…)
"I will deal with him in my own time," Harry told her. "Just do what you can for the time being. A clean kitchen and the library will be best for us at this point in time. We'll pitch the tent in the library for sleeping in for the next two days. It will help to shield us from the house while we sleep."
She nodded her head, looked in the kitchen and blanched. She looked back at her kind Master with horrified expression at the work she was about to do.
(…Garbage day is tomorrow…) He grinned at her cheekily, as he left her to hunt down the Locket Horcrux. The elf huffed and stepped into the mess, while the Master of the House explored some of the rooms that he hadn't been permitted into in the past.
Harry then let his feet carry him to where the soul piece of the Dark Lord's soul resided. He opened the cabinet and as soon as he had his hand wrapped around it he was attacked by the near insane creature that was once the personal elf of Regulus Black. He kept his hand firmly closed, even after the house-elf latched onto his hand with a vicious bite.
He opened his eyes, which glowed with his inner magics and he said in a gentle soothing tone, "I know why you do not want me to take this," he stared at the startled creature. He cupped the poor things slovenly head and said, "I'm taking over the task that you've been assigned. Let me have it and let go. There is more than just this one that needs to be taken care of, so let me do it right."
Kreacher keened with the need to be of use and this boy who was now his Master was forgiving him through his magics. The house-elf felt a kind of peace settle over him. He let go and asked, "How did yous know?"
"Use your magic and see me," Harry gave the poor thing permission to look at the scar. The house-elf trembled when it realized just who was the Master and he was scared. The boy nodded and said, "I claim your task and I promise to do my best to destroy HIM, as your Regulus wanted."
Kreacher had tears in its eyes and nodded.
Harry apparated out of the house and into his Gringott's management team's office closet. They had set that up for him so that he could come and go from his meetings without being detected by the Witches and Wizards that were always on the lookout for the Boy-Who-Live.
"Son of a…" he swore and pulled out a clean handkerchief from his pocket. He wrapped up his hand including the locket.
"Rose," he called out to his primary house-elf. She popped in and gasped silently. "No time. Snowfyre please write this down for me and let Rose take it to Professor Snape at the school."
"Go ahead sir," the female goblin said.
'Dear Sir,
I know that you did not expect to hear from me so soon after having left the school, but I'm in need of medical attention. I was bitten by a near-feral creature and need a potion to stave off infection, a blood replenisher and either a skin grafting potion or something to close the wounds once cleaned.
Please hand them over to Rose, she's my house-elf or else allow her to bring you to me, but above all do not alert the old goat perched on the seventh floor. If you do this for me, I promise you that I'll translate, free of charge one potion recipe from that book I know you're hoarding from the Restricted Section.
Harry
PS – Don't ask her questions if you cannot understand Sign Language.'
"We could bring you those things," Hardwood said.
"I know, but I want access to that book I discovered," Harry told the goblins. "It's written in Parsel-script and that dungeon bat of Hogwarts is hoarding it. I can't access it, even to produce a copy of it."
"Ah," Ironfist said. "But what of that," he pointed to the locket in his hand.
Harry grinned and said, "I might tell him about it or I might not. In the meantime bring me a Dark Concealment bag."
Griphook left and returned quickly. None of the goblins wanted to touch those particular Dark Artefacts, so they were placed in independent concealment bags that Harry personally took to the vault being used to store them. Just had he put the bag in his pocket his Potions Professor strode into the office following Rose's rushed speed.
"Mr. Potter," he said in a near caustic tone, until he noted the wound. He tsked and then said, "You should have just gone to St. Mungo's."
"Right," Harry said in a sneering tone. "To have them gape at me. Perhaps all rush to heal me and bungle the job. No thanks, I don't trust them."
"And I'm supposed to believe that you trust me," Snape looked at the boy in the eyes.
"You're here aren't you," Harry said.
"I believe it has little to do with trust and more to do with your offer," the Potions Master said. "You promise to do the translation?"
"Of course," Harry said with grimace as the man flushed the bite marks with a slightly bubbling potion and then gently wrapped up the wound. "On my mother's honour, I promise," he sighed as the throbbing in the wound eased up. "Thank you sir."
Severus was about to hand the boy the book and then asked, "Why your mother's honour and not your father's?"
"Don't know my father," Harry told him evenly and truthfully. "I know more about my mother just by the fact that she gave up her life for me."
"You're father did the same," Severus told him.
Harry looked away and then said, "He told her to take me away and run." He paused and then fingered his scar. "I can feel her sometimes, so I know more about her than I do him, just by these feelings I have." He looked at the man who was stunned by what he'd heard.
"You…remember… that night," the man asked.
"It's just a nasty dream that I sometimes get," Harry said. "Don't worry sir, there's no value in it other than the fact that I know my mother loved me, despite the lies that had been told."
"Lies," Severus asked. "Who lied to you?"
"It doesn't matter now," he looked at his bandaged hand and said, "Thank you for this sir."
The Potions Master wasn't a spy for nothing. He knew perfectly well where he was and what his eyes were taking in while he talked to the Boy-Who-Lived. However he wasn't about to breath a word of this to anyone. He took out the infamous little book called, 'Poshuns & Kures: A treatise of the Ten Most Popular of 238 B.C. by Salazar Slytherin'.
He handed the book to the boy and said, "I want the entire section dedicated to Werewolves."
"Yes sir," Harry said, as he took the book and hid it in the pocket of his robes.
"I'll see you back at school in January," Severus told the boy. He then handed a small potions satchel to Rose and said, "Extra cleaner and dressings for the wounds. If you run out, come to me and I'll replenish it. There is also a fever reducer in there and a couple of 'Children's Dreamless Sleep' too, just in case. Only half of those are to be taken, if he has trouble falling asleep. They're portions are limited just in case there is an adverse reaction to any of these, come and get me no matter what, if there is a reaction. Understood?"
Rose nodded and the man left them to their business. She looked at her master and asked. (…Was it safe to let him know about this?…)
"Yes," Harry nodded. "That man was a spy for the Light. He feels the need to atone for a bad decision he'd made when he was younger and we are going to let him do it. He'd never harm me because of my mother." He then looked at Griphook and said, "We need to go to the Vault and then I need to return home in order to strengthen the wards. Can't have the Ministry finding me, now can I?"
Harry - James - Potter - Harry - James - Potter
Two days later the streets of London were filled the joy and merrymaking of the season. The magical permits and exceptions from the Ministry of Magic were in full force. As long as the townhouse made comparative noises and flashes of light without causing the Muggles to panic because something unnatural was occurring, then the Ritual of the New Home Owner could be done.
This ritual was not easy to do, because it did require a level of adult magic that was difficult for any child to manipulate. Unless that child's magical channels had been forcibly opened at an age too early to be considered reasonable. Not many could handle the consequences, however becoming the vessel for a portion of someone else's soul, helped the Boy-Who-Lived to harness his abilities.
Again the memories of the three hundred plus years of the old prisoner, helped too. His knowledge and instinctual abilities were key to changing the wards, upgrading the security of the place and it ensured that the entire time that the Ritual took place, the townhouse could still never be traced or plotted on any map. His pent up feelings and frustrations were used to gut the house of its Dark Magical Influence and the spray of magical light into a festival night air. It allowed a complete cleansing to be done.
Harry lied down inside the circle of power that he'd called up and smiled. The house belonged to him now. If he chose, now, to free his godfather from that same prison, then the man would have a truly safe house to protect and heal him. He sighed at the thoughts of lost or wasted time because Pettigrew had gotten away from them in his third year.
The Dark Lord only truly returned when Crouch Jr. had escaped his father's clutches. 'I don't know what Pettigrew was doing during my third and fourth year,' he thought. 'But I can bet that he'd been hiding out most of the time or perhaps he'd been hunting down the ghost and the snake.'
Number twelve Grimmauld Place was now a magical edifice of a strong decidedly neutral magical alignment. It was as though no family had been living there, leaving their magical footprints on the place for years.
"Rose," Harry croaked out in his thirsty, ritual induced voice. "Kreacher," he called to the true house-elf of the place. The two popped into the still slightly glowing room. They fully realized then just how powerful their Master was. Rose had suspected this long before now, but Kreacher was shivering in fear because he'd bitten the boy a couple of days ago hadn't even punished himself for being bad.
"Enough Kreacher," Harry said. "No elf, bonded to my Family is permitted to do harm to another or themselves. I've forgiven you for this small wound because I know the pain that you were in made it difficult to see another path." He sat up and then opened the magical circle, effectively cancelling the seals and letting more of his magic mix with the House now that it was slowly coming back to life.
He allowed them to get him to bed. They tucked him in with their unique form of magic and his two snakes slithered into bed with him to share his magic and warmth. "This will become a fun house," he told them. "First we clean things and those portraits that wish retire," he yawned. "We'll make a true gallery from one of the larger rooms. Maybe the Master bedroom, since I don't want to sleep in there."
The two elves looked at each other and nodded. That was a good place to start. The cleaning could be done in a shorter time frame with the two of them.
"Guys," Harry called out. "When I wake up can we decorate a tree and put it in the middle of the ballroom, I've always wanted…to…decorate," his voice slowed down and his mind was drifting, but he did manage to get out the final part. "A…Christmas…Tree."
Rose nearly cried right then because she knew how her Master had been treated. Kreacher looked at the hybrid and wondered why she never talked. He listened to her unspoken directions to let their Master sleep. She then pulled out a pad of paper, charmed a quill to write for her and then she explained the house-elf's new bonds that were there on his upper arms just like hers were.
"He uses new and old magics," she started to explain fingering the golden bands that had formed above and below her original bond marks. "He's not like any other Master. The bond marks indicate that you are now a member of the Potter Family."
Kreacher looked at his bands and noticed that his were similar to Rose's. Only he didn't have the gold bands. "You are the Head Elf," he said, using his own instinctive elf memory. "You'll need to teach me to understand that language you use to speak to the Master."
Rose nodded and then she told the other house-elf a bit of how she came to be in the service of her Master, while making a list of things to get in order to help their Master put of his first Christmas Tree.
Harry - James - Potter - Harry - James - Potter
TBC...
