Honor Among Thieves
Chapter eleven
xxx
"Quiet. I said quiet, you insufferable little brats!"
Snape glowered at the returning horde of Slytherins. He hated first years. They were always so annoyingly loud and irritating. 'Excitable' the other professors called them. Thankfully, his own serpents tended to grow into some degree of proper decorum by third year, while the other Heads of Houses had to deal with it until the children grew out of it in fifth or sixth year... if ever they did.
Of course there were always exceptions... those few who were thankfully quiet and either never caused trouble or were sufficiently subtle in their troublecausing that they were never caught, right out from their sorting.
He knew that the Gryffindors would roam the halls of Hogwarts after dark, looking for that quiet trio in the back. They were most displeased that the latest Potter had 'betrayed' them by being sorted into another house, and would torment him and his two friends if they ever caught them, out of some ridiculous desire to make him 'repent' and request a resorting. He couldn't prove that Dumbledore's machinations were behind this... but he had his suspicions.
Of course, he knew perfectly well that Dumbledore had been prodding the elder Slytherins as well. Most of them hadn't exactly been pleased at Potters sorting either. However, the more intelligent were not swayed enough to act against a member their own house under the orders of a Gryffindor, no matter how powerful and influental, or how much they despised the younger boy in question. The less intelligent ones, who had been swayed, were kept at bay by the simple expedient of the trio sleeping somewhere other than the assigned dormitory for their years. They could be living anywhere in the labyrinthine dungeon area, and only luck would allow the gorrillas to find them.
It was a much more intelligent decision than he'd expected from the Potter-spawn, so he'd no doubt that it was one of the girls' ideas.
Snape's blisteringly caustic 'welcome back' speech wound to a close and he stalked back to his chambers. And sighed. He hated to admit it, even mentally, but Potter was... was... not quite as much of a complete and total dunderhead as he had expected him to be before the school year began and... he was not an absolute failure at brewing potions, which had been completely unexpected. No doubt Lily's mental genes were making up for the fact that the boy had had the bad taste to be born a near-mirror image of James.
And he wasn't simply apt in Potions either. James had only been slightly above average in his classes, except for Transfiguration, in which he'd been clearly above average. Lily, however, had focused in Charms, but did much better than James, scorewise, across the board. Top ten overall, easily, across her entire seven years of schooling.
Harry was currently in the top five high scoring of Hogwarts first years, placing just fifth, behind his two friends, Malfoy, and that Gryffindor girl Granger. Having four out of the top five for first year be in Slytherin was excellent bragging material for in the staff lounge, though it would no doubt shift once the Ravenclaws started hitting the books in earnest. It always did.
Nevertheless, he found himself in turmoil. On the one hand, he typically made a point out of ensuring that Slytherins could handle Potions class with him, and assumed that the other heads did so as well. Also, if someone had even the slightest hint of talent in his house, he would to his best to polish at it, in the hopes of discovering a diamond in the rough... a possible new Potions Master in the making.
On the other hand, this was James foul spawn he was talking about. But it was also Lily's. But he saw James every time he looked at him, despite the longer hair, and had enough problems with the Occlumency lessons and normal Potions classes with him. He'd no intention of pressing the matter with extra potions lessons as well. But...
He paused, and his gaze swung to the cabinet where he stored his old schoolbooks. He weighed this new idea for a moment, then nodded. That would do... he would arrange for a couple of his old books to fall into Potters hands and see what happened from there. If the boy proved himself too much of a dunderhead to take advantage of the opportunity... well, he'd simply not deign to arrange for more to be found.
He withdrew a quill and began carefully penning a note with his off hand as the students went to bed. In the morning, one of the school owls would drop it off at Harry's plate in the great hall. It would be amusing to watch the reaction.
Of course, Snape didn't know that something else would be happening that morning as well, or he'd have put it off for a day or two.
xxx
Hermione was frustrated. She'd been excited when she'd been sorted into Gryffindor, yes, because she'd read all about it in Hogwarts, A History, and Gryffindor sounded like the best option, but she hadn't realized that the book itself had been written by... a Gryffindor. As such, it had been notably biased towards that house.
Frankly, she didn't think she would be able to take it much longer. If she'd been able to make just one friend within the house on her intellectual level, or at least someone willing to sit still and listen to her expound upon such and such or whatever, it might have been different but... not one person in her year in Gryffindor was interested in education, it seemed, and they'd begun actively avoiding her to escape her lectures.
Well, wasn't that nice. Now she was outcast in her own house. Dandy. She'd even tried to make friends in the older years, but it apparently just Wasn't Done... and neither was making friends outside the house. So... she'd made arrangements to change houses.
Most of the school was surprised when Dumbledore got the hat out and set it on a stool in front of the staff table. Upon the explanation that there was to be a Resorting, though, something that hadn't been done in decades, heads swung expectantly towards Harry. He cooly stared them down as the pause lengthened and Dumbledore coughed.
"To clarify... it is miss Granger that has requested a resorting. Miss Granger, if you would please...?"
She stood and walked to the front, ignoring the shocked stares coming from the table she'd just left. Why would anyone want to leave Gryffindor? McGonagall, at the staff table, was just as thunderstruck. With miss Granger leaving, the average score in first year would be dropped to less than half what it had been. Brr...
Back again, Miss Granger? Ah, but I did warn you that Gryffindor might not be the best place for you. Ah... I see you've been reading up more on the other houses. Good for you.
Lets see... I've already looked over most of this. You would be a good Ravenclaw, yes. But... no. No, I think I know just where to put you, if you can keep from questioning my decisions this time.
It'll be a little harder than you might prefer, and under different circumstances I wouldn't even consider... but let's not talk of that. I hope you do better in SLYTHERIN!
The hall was silent as Hermione took a place at her new table as Snape let loose a smug little smirk. Five out of five, now, and the top scorer to boot. Dumbledore coughed again.
"And now, since the hat is here and waiting, if anyone else would like to request a resorting? Anyone at all?"
It was not missed that he was staring directly at Harry. Nor was the way that Harry was ignoring him as he sipped at some sort of... tea? How did he have that, when everyone else was waiting for any food whatsoever.
HUFFLEPUFF!
While the staring match continued, Neville had trundled up to the hat. Eyes turned to him and he smiled sheepishly. Then the morning owls descended and chaos reigned for a few brief minutes.
Harry handed the package attached to his letter to Ranma, who tucked it somewhere... he wasn't sure quite where. Hmm... the handwriting wasn't anyone he recognized, and it was unsigned. Something about noting his 'Potential' and giving him a gift. How nice.
By the time the hall had settled down, Harry was back to sipping at his tea. A pot and two more teacups had appeared from somewhere about Ranma's person as well, and the other two had joined him while everyone was looking the other way.
Dumbledore finally got control of the chattering horde and they simmered down into silence.
"Ahem. Like I was saying, if anyone... anyone at all..." They weren't buying it. He was staring directly at Harry the whole time. "Wishes to be resorted, they need only ask me. If that is all? Very well... breakfast is served."
xxx
"Well... this is interesting."
It was a free period, and they'd directed Hermione towards a few of the less prejudiced of her new house before settling in to a spare room to take a look at the package of books.
Just normal school books for Hogwarts, but with writing in the margins.
"I have to admit, this 'Half-Blood Prince' person seems to know what he's doing."
"But it could be hogwash. Only one way to be sure."
Fifteen minutes later, they'd set up two cauldrons. One was making a simple potion using the instructions from the book, and one was following the instructions scribbled in the margins.
The results were good. The one following the Prince's instructions was of obviously better quality, if only by a little, but that was enough. Both potions were disposed of, and they spent the rest of the free period copying out the Prince's potion instructions from the book, as well as little spell incantations scrawled in the sides. Over the next few days, they would work out what the spells actually did, and how the differing instructions affected the brewing of potions.
Once they'd figured it out, and applied that new knowledge to all the potions they made, the quality dramatically increased. And in their research, they'd discovered things that they hadn't known before, like why it was a bad idea to mix the bloods of mammalians and reptilians in potions without some form of stabilizer.
They also started working on teaching Harry the trick of rolling with the blast to safely remove onesself from ground zero. As it turned out though, one of the incantations scrawled in the Princes textbook was a handy little trick for growing back ones eyebrows. All three of them swiftly became fluent in its use.
But eventually, their plans turned from their scholastics back to the race. Harry had to find a rock. A specific rock... he'd no idea what it was supposed to look like except that it would shine red with magic. He had to get to it before his opponent, who they were assuming was Quirrel, did. And they had no idea where the stone actually was.
Well... they didn't know exactly where it was... they did have a good idea though. The third floor forbidden corridor... apparently one of the doors opened up into a room with a Cerberus behind it. That would be a good place to start looking.
xxx
"And just why did we leave my invisibility cloak behind, again?"
"I told you, Harry... too much heavy reliance on a tool like that will make you go soft. And how many months has it been since our last burglary? At the rate this is going, next time we try, someone will be so out of practice that he'll give us away by accident. And what if there's something that can see you through that cloak of yours, and gets you because your off your guard and assume that invisibility will protect you despite your still being able to be heard or smelled, and..."
"Okay, I get it."
"Quiet you two. Alohomora."
The door swung open and they felt a humid breeze accompanying the sounds of deep breathing.
"The Cerberus. Inside... I'll lock the door behind us. Carefully now... we can't assume that it's all they have guarding this thing."
"Yare yare..."
"It's waking up."
Indeed it was. One of the three heads was still partially asleep, but was sniffing their way, and the other two were awake and started to growl.
"Hmmph. I'll deal with this."
Herb stalked in front of the other two and stared down the massive beasts, something flashing in her eyes as her aura formed into the shape of a roaring dragon. Seconds ticked past as the dog stared her down before backing slowly away, still growling.
Ranma stepped past and heaved at the trapdoor.
"Hunh... it's a long way down."
"Maybe there's something at the bottom to break the fall?" Harry asked, walking up to peer down the hole with her.
Ranma nodded. Then stepped back and applied the sole of her foot to the small of Harry's back.
"Waaaaaaaaah! Daaaamn yooooou Raaaanmaaaaa!"
Ranma and Herb listened and he landed on something with an audible 'Whumph'.
"And what would you have done if there wasn't something to break the fall, Ranma?"
"... Brought sake to his grave. See you at the bottom."
Herb shook her head as Ranma hopped down the hole, and swiftly followed, although she was slowing her descent as she fell so that she would have landed softly anyway.
"What the hell is this stuff...?"
"It looks like some kind of plant."
Herb paused as she heard that and landed. The hesitation was just long enough.
"Wha? Tendrils!"
"Devils Snare, It'll strangle you to death! Stop moving, and it'll think you're dead and stop squeezing!"
Ranma and Harry froze, and the tendrils stopped tightening. They didn't let go, though.
"Okay... what do we do now?"
"Devils snare... it doesn't like light or... fire. Oh boy."
They could both hear Herb loudly inhaling.
"This is going to hurt..."
FWOOOSH!
xxx
Moments later, the slightly charred duo staggered through a door, followed by Herb.
"I did apologize..."
"You could have waited a minute! We do know that Lumos spell. That doesn't burn, and it would have been just as effective!"
Herb shrugged and looked up.
"Flying keys. How quaint. And look, broomsticks to catch them with."
"Anyone want to bet that it's not as simple as it looks?"
"No contest. Pick."
Herb tossed the little bit of bent metal to Ranma, who kneeled in front of the next door. After a few minutes, the lock clicked and the door swung open.
"Sheesh... that was only three tumblers. Might as well not have locked it at all."
"Ah. And now, an oversized board game. Can any of you play chess?"
There was a long moment of silence before Ranma coughed.
"You mean... with or without cheating?"
"Without."
"Then no."
"I never learned how the game works..." Harry admitted sheepishly, bringing a groan from Herb.
"If it were Shogi or Go, that would be one thing, but I've never played this. I'll have to remedy this. On the other hand, we can still cheat."
Ranma nodded and began climbing a pillar. Harry tried not to stare, as he'd seen this before, but watching her clutch to the stone and then scuttle across the ceiling like a spider was awe inspiring. The chess pieces were moving ominously, but could apparrently not leave the board.
Ranma dropped down on the other side and Harry sighed as Herb lifted him up by the back of his shirt. He seemed to be spending a lot of his time off the ground lately. Ranma caught him with a grunt and Herb began making her own way across. By this time the pieces were silently screaming at them and rattling their weapons, but they weren't within range so they slowly began to simmer down as they opened the door.
And noted the troll on the other side. Ranma whistled softly.
"Damn..." Harry muttered. "This one's at least twice the size of the one at Halloween."
"Quiet!... We're just lucky it's sleeping. We have to get through here without leaving any noticeable traces, remember? Leave it... crap! It's waking up! Knock it out, but don't kill it!"
Ranma slammed a fist between the trolls eyes and it swiftly returned to slumber.
"Let's keep moving."
The next room was interesting, in that there were no obvious traps... but Ranma and Herb's danger senses were still making themselves heard. And to good use as well, as the moment they approached the line of bottles in the center, two walls of fire sprang up in front of the doors.
"Well isn't that just dandy. More fire."
"I have no problems with fire."
"Yeah, me neither. Phoenix pill and soul of ice and all that. Harry, though..."
"Obviously, one of these potions will grant him at least temporary immunity to fire. To be specific, this small one here."
"How do you figure that?" Harry interrupted in shock. She'd only glanced at them.
"Because the little one is giving off a cool mist, and the stone it is sitting on is covered with a light frost."
Ah... so it was. Harry blinked, wondering why he hadn't noticed that.
"See you on the other side." Herb said before following Ranma through the flame.
Harry shrugged and picked up the little bottle, noting that it felt like a block of ice in his hand, and took a tiny sip. It felt like all the blood in his body had turned into icewater, and his muscles into a semisolid slush. He ignored the discomfort as he replaced the bottle and stepped through the fire.
xxx
The last chamber had old, partially crumbling pillars holding the cracked roof up. To all three of them that screamed 'it's a trap, the roof's going to fall in, RUN!'... But they held their ground, waiting. No puff of dust from the cracks... no ominous rumbling... no creaks from the crumbling pillars... no, they were good for now.
"What's the mirror for?" Ranma wondered.
Harry was tired, frustrated, slightly singed, had been tossed around like a rubber ball, was sore, and was still shivering from the effects of that stupid potion. He wanted to find the stupid rock and get out of here, visit the kitchens for a slice or two of that pie they'd served earlier, then go back to the dungeons and sleep.
His reflection in the mirror smirked at him and he stiffened, recalling one of Ranma's anecdotes about a 'mirror clone'. He was ready to run at the first sign of danger... or lechery. But all that the reflection did was reach into its side pocket... And pull out what looked like a very large ruby or garnet, grinning. Then it dropped it back into the pocket.
Harry's own pocket sagged with the added weight and his eyebrows arched as he pulled it out to confirm that it was the rock he'd seen in the mirror, and that it did glow with an apparent inner fire.
"Well... that was easy. Now for stage two!"
"Stage two?"
"You didn't think that that rock was the only reason we came down here, did you Harry? If it was, we would have just powered our way through."
"Watch and learn..." Ranma muttered, as she and Herb drew their wands and turned to the door.
They began casting, explaining what they were doing as they did. A simple 'tripline' ward, to let them know when someone entered, and who it was. Then... they stopped.
"That's it?"
"Hardly." Herb grinned. "It's just that we won't need the wands for the rest.
"See this paper?" Ranma explained, pulling a sheet of paper from wherever the hell it was that she kept things on her person, along with a barrel of brightly colored plastic bombs that couldn't possibly have been hidden in her robes. "It's enchanted. Watch... tear it in half like so... set one piece on fire..."
"And the other burns at the same time..." Harry whispered, looking between the burning pieces of paper and the barrel of bombs. "Don't tell me..."
"Hell yes! And this room is just perfect... take out the pillars all at once, and it drops hundreds of tons of stone and earth on the vi-Target!"
"And we can't just... I dunno... let Quirrel frustrate himself by searching this room for the rock when it's not in here?"
Herb wisely decided to stay out of this discussion.
"If we kill him off thoroughly, that's one less possible enemy in the future."
"Why do you always have to go straight to killing people off? Couldn't we just leave them be and not have to kill anyone?"
"HA! Look who's talking, mister 'slayer of the feared dark lord while still in diapers'! You're right on the top of the hit list of every bad wizard looking to make a name for himself out there."
"Well... true, but..."
"But nothing."
"Well why do you always go for bombs then? I mean... if we have to kill this guy, couldn't we just slip him some sort of undetectable poison or something?"
"Harry, Harry, Harry. You have to learn that, in day to day life, there simply is no problem that can't be solved with the application of explosives. Say someone throws a rock through your window, or a car passes you on the highway. Just-"
Herb finally broke up the discussion.
"Alright, we've come to the conclusion that Harry's a poisoner in the making and Ranma seems to have no morals or ethics left worth mentioning, so lets get on with this."
Both parties scowled and huffed. But once they got to work, it was surprisingly easy to rig the room to blow. The stone the pillars were made of actually appeared to be decomposing as it crumbled, and could easily be carved out with one's fingers. The bombs they had on hand were small, incredibly simple, and largely ineffective, but they would be more than enough to do the job.Especially with half a dozen embedded in the bottom of the pillars and layers of three or so imbedded in the soft stone every foot or so for as far up as they could reach.
What they lacked in quality could very nearly be made up for in quantity. Sure there were wards on this room... ancient ones... that looked like they were going to fail any day anyway. They would just be helping the progress along.
However, planting the many, many bombs was busy work, wrapping tiny pieces of paper around their fuses to light them all simultaneously even more so, and by the time they were finished... they had an hour, perhaps less, before their 'dormmates' would begin to wake up.
It wasn't like none of them had pulled all-nighters before... but they weren't used to it anymore. This would be hitting them hard, even with supplemental potions they had brewed beforehand for just this reason.
Fortunately, nobody seemed to notice their weariness. They stopped off in the Slytherin dungeon just long enough for them to quickly change their clothes, chug potions that turned their faces red and made steam shoot out of their ears, and wait for Harry to carefully conceal the stone they'd just burgled in with their dwindled supply of valuable jewelry and gemstones, easy camoflauge, and went to breakfast. If anyone took note that the three Slytherin first years looked a little more tired than usual... well, maybe they were up too late studying last night. They were, after all, first years and probably hadn't learned yet how to pace themselves. Nothing to worry about.
Of course, if they were not so good with their studies of Occlumency, the game would have been given away the first time they met Snape or Dumbledores gaze, and they would have been in a very great deal of trouble indeed. In fact, the only reason they weren't discovered was because they had taken much harder to the study, in private and away from prying eyes, and had taken a completely different turn to it than normal.
Normal occlumency... well, it would be best to equate the mind to a scene to explain it. A meadow of tall grass and trees, for instance, infested by small, furry creatures representing memories. To someone who knew what they were doing, it was a simple matter to tell what animals would be nearby in such a meadow and where. Equate that to a Legilimencer glancing through the mind and taking note what was inside.
The occlumency would be like a wall surrounding the meadow, which the legilimencer would have to climb or find a crack in to slip through to the memories within. Typically, the only advancement of occlumency would be how 'high' or 'thick' or 'sturdy' you could make that wall. What the trio did though, was something different. Something sneakier.
They built their outer walls shoddily on purpose, leaving them 'low' and 'thin' and with the equivalent of gaping great holes that anyone could walk through... but it was a ruse. The memory animals in that meadow were the less important ones, day to day trivial memories of things that anyone could learn about on their own, with the occasional falsified memory to replace the ones that were hidden elsewhere. So for instance, if Dumbledore took a look at this section of their mind he could easily tell that they were thieves before coming to Hogwarts, but he would have no way of knowing just how successful their 'business ventures' were, or even that most of them existed, and most of the memories available would indicate that they were, at best, pickpockets living hand to mouth.
Many things were removed completely from this 'meadow' and replaced with easily believable fakes. For instance, replacing everything they'd done over the winter break with images of themselves sunning on the beaches of Hawaii while sipping at tropical drinks with little umbrellas in them. If Dumbledore wanted to delude himself with pleasant falsehoods, far be it from them to stop him.
Of course... if an intruder was determined enough, and actually had some idea of what to look for, they could find the trapdoor at the base of the largest tree in the meadow, with stairs leading down... and here the 'meadow' metaphor runs dry, for one cannot descend underneath a meadow and find an identical one beneath. Let us then consider the next portion of the mind, containing everything they would prefer kept hidden, as an underground labyrinth, complete with traps, twisting and mind boggling tunnels, and mobile guardians to protect these more valuable memories, which could perhaps be equated with the treasures that might be found in such a place.
But like in the real world, one cannot find such a labyrinth unless one already knows its whereabouts. Much like how in reality, a few inches of dirt and grass seeds sprinkled over the top of the trapdoor to enter the place would swiftly provide camoflauge of a nature that thousands of years might be spent before it were accidentally uncovered.
So long as Dumbledore deluded himself and they presented the proper false front in the classes of finding Occlumency a difficult concept to grasp, perfectly believable as few grown wizards mastered either of the mental disciplines, their secrets were perfectly safe.
And so, with months still waiting before final exams and classes, inexplicably, growing more boring as time went on, given that they'd long since mastered everything that the teachers were only just now introducing them to, and the three had finally realized that, aside from the Prince's potion textbooks, they weren't learning anything new. And they'd left all of the truly interesting (read: Illegal...) tomes of magical lore at the manor, so...
Well, the trio bored was something nobody wanted, not even themselves. So they started exploring the castle in their spare time, between classes, and on their days off. Not unusual, as normal students explored Hogwarts as well for the first couple of years and usually stopped after not finding anything interesting. But normal students didn't have throngs of undead insects and damn near every snake from the Forbidden Forest helping them explore.
They found something.
xxx
Now, Hogwarts had, since shortly after its construction, been lauded as not one of, but the finest institute of magical learning in the entire world. Most of the alumni just nodded and accepted that... but some people questioned why.
Was it the teachers?
Well... no. There were a few teachers that were quite competent in their fields of study, but there were a lot more that were merely mediocre and the rest were... hopelessly incompetent, to tell the truth. So no, it wasn't the teachers.
Was it that their students were all of higher grade material, then?
Ah... not really. As Ranma so eloquently put it 'If they're the best school in the country... then why are they so interested in us?' Most of the students at Hogwarts were just as sub par as the average teacher. Crabbe and Goyle spring directly to mind, but they were not the only students that would fail the rigorous entry exams to, say, the Academy of Magics or other places.
So if it wasn't the teachers and it wasn't the students, then what could it be? The Headmaster, maybe?
Well, he had been an excellent Transfiguration professor in his time, and he was loudly considered the most powerful wizard around, period, but... what exactly did that have to do with anything? He didn't, as a rule, get involved with individual students... Harry was the exception to this, as the old man had been eagerly working to ruin every facet of his life since shortly before he was actually born.
Just why, then, was Hogwarts considered the best when all of its facets were merely average?
The fact of the matter is that Hogwarts relied on its reputation to carry it through rough times. Once upon a time, there had been no Statute of Secrecy, but rather the sensible tradition of keeping the fact you could do magic to yourself and trusting that your neighbors would turn a blind eye if they happened to note something unusual. At that time, muggle and wizard relations were much closer.
Not close, you understand... but closer than they were now. At that time, the current monarch had a great deal of say on the schooling of the wizards in his kingdom.
You can already tell where this is heading, am I right?
One by one, for a variety of reasons, the monarchs had had certain specific classrooms and towers shut down and sealed away from the rest of the school. Not to say that it was impossible to get to them... just that all the main entrances had been bricked up and a teacher couldn't lead a group of students through series after series of hidden passages to get into the classroom, or have them climb up walls to get into a tower. It just wasn't done. So the Headmasters and Headmistresses of the time would just sigh, nod, and accept the monarch's ruling, making a note for when it came time to bug the next one about unsealing the classes.
Except...
The reason that the monarch had such power over Hogwarts was that the seal of office had been crafted by wizards. One day, that was lost... tossed into the river Thames by the monarch of the time in a fit of pique. Of course, the muggles built a new one. But without wizarding aid, the new seal didn't have the slightest bit of authority over either wizards or Hogwarts itself. The kings and queens couldn't lock away any more of the curriculum...
But without the seal, they couldn't open anything back up either.
Which meant that large sections of Hogwarts' study programs were suddenly cut out in their entirety, and many special rooms, rooms that were heavily enchanted in many ways but mostly the 'learn in your sleep' kind of enchantments, were left walled up... abandoned... and eventually, forgotten. It had been centuries since one of these rooms had produced a Bardic mage, or a Crafter, or True Alchemist, or given someone the gift of Tongues, or instilled the knowledge of the speech of certain animals, or trained in the use of sword, spear, and staff, and the stables where one would learn to properly ride every creature from unicorn to thestral to hippogryff to griffon to the mighty dragonsteeds had laid empty and gathering dust for ages.
Well. Until now, anyway.
xxx
"So... isn't this interesting. The snakes and spiders agree that there's definitely something inside that tower that we'd be interested in, but they can't say anything more than that. Some sort of secrecy charm over the whole place."
"And the door is locked and the lock melts whatever picks we try to use on it to worthless slag."
"So how do we get in?"
"I'm a bit low on bombs. If it was a stone or wood door that would be one thing, but this is a foot and a half of iron. Energy blasts?"
"On three. One... two..."
"Whoa, wait, Ladies!" Harry interrupted frantically. "If you don't mind my suggestion, our little scouts didn't get inside through this door. As far as I can tell, there's a window outside that's open a crack. If you'd prefer a way in without all the rampant destruction and noise and alerting the whole school to where we are and what we're doing then perhaps we could use that as an alternate route? Hmmm?"
Herb shrugged and dissipated the glowing sphere of explosive energy in her palm, followed more slowly by Ranma.
"Good idea."
"But... I wanted to blow something up..."
Grumblings from the resident sociopath aside, the window was well within reach, but stuck when Harry tried to open it. After watching him fumble with it for a few minutes, Herb bodily moved him out of the way and pulled... accidentally tearing the entire windowframe out of the hole.
Eh... oops?
Still, after hoisting themselves through the hole left and magically levitating the window back into position, they finally took a moment to look around.
"Well, it's dark and cold and everything's covered with white sheets that are themselves covered in dust. The squares on the wall are probably portraits..."
"Is that a piano in the corner? And a harp in the other?"
Ranma summed it most succinctly with "The hells?"
A soft, amused cough dragged their attention to beside them, where an exceedingly pale and translucent woman was standing.
"Pardon me, but art though students here to study the ways of the Bard, here in the Tower of Song? Please say ye 'Yea', for it truly has been far, far too long... But I am remiss, and have not yet introduced myself! Mine apologies... I am the Lady-Professor Harmonious Medley. I do truly apologize for the remiss state of things. Tis been centuries since last a servant of any sort has entered here."
xxx
A.N. Back to seriousness. Relatively serious. Somewhat sirious. Would you believe just a little bit...?
Not sure if I got every bit of Lady Harmonious' old english grammar correct, but it sounds okay. I also have to wonder if I managed to pull Snape off properly. He's a fun character, but a difficult one as well... anyway! As some of you have probably guessed, I've been reading the Harry Potter-Bouquet and Sakura Bouquet splitoff threads.
Lionheart is awesome.
Brief summary of HP-B... Harry is raised by the Noir girls, Kirika and Mirielle. He's suffeciently talented with his gun and knife and wand for backup that shortly before the thread splits to Sakura Bouquet he kills roughly half of an invading force of over two hundred Acromantula by himself. Granted, they aren't all fully grown, but I still find this a damn impressive feat. You try telling me it's not, then you can try playing a level of a video game where you're fighting a hundred or more giant spiders and kill them with a knife, a gun with four clips of ammo (Alt. a bow with four quivers full of arrows depending on the game) and just the lowest level of spells available to your character. And that's just when all you have to do is hit buttons at the right time.
Anyway, I'm deeply considering having Harry and co. conquer a third world country a-la Sakura Bouquet. I enjoyed the theme, very much so, especially when Sirus made it law that every judge in the country had to wear a rubber chicken on their head as part of their uniform, but I'd have liked to see more in the early stages of advancing their carribean island, rather than just some amusing info of what they were doing as the years passed. I wanted to see more of King James' day to day life. Ah well... If I go that route myself, I'll be doing it my way, complete with converting the place to an intermixed magical and muggle culture right under the ministry and Dumbledore and the muggle government's noses. How's that for a coup!
And now, on to other things. I don't know if I addressed it yet, but someone mentioned that the winter holiday seemed to stretch longer than the entire first semester at Hogwarts. Yes. I did that on purpose, to make a point. The point being that, aside from the troll incident, pretty much NOTHING AT ALL HAPPENED in that first semester, which I'll assure you was a real letdown for our protagonists as well. They learned how to turn matches into needles and levitate things. Whoop-de-doo. I believe I mentioned beforehand that they mastered pretty much everything on the first-year curriculum with just a few days alone with the coursebooks and were not aware that Hogwarts seems to cater to the lowest possible denominator. The only thing they learned was Occlumency, which they all three swiftly mastered and improved upon. I'd presume that a martial artist that obviously knows at least a little about meditation would easily take to the concepts of clearing and ordering one's mind.
So yeah... the winter holidays seemed longer because they had a lot more packed into them to write about. The whole holiday was still technically done with in somewhere between two to three weeks. It just seemed like more to the reader.
Moving along again...
To be perfectly frank, I've never actually come out and said that this is a RanmaxHerb matchup. The only thing that comes close to that is the incident with the Count, that only points out that the two obviously prefer women. I haven't revealed yet if they are, have been, or will be together. It could well end up that nobody is paired with anyone.
On the other hand, with the way I've arranged things, it could also possibly end up in something of a freaking huge harem/orgy relationship where every one of the characters pairs up with everyone else. And yes, when I say that I do include the male herd of centaurs, Griphook and his new 'pet', the troll in the slave pits, Draco(na) and Narcissa, and Harry's undead parents. Perhaps throwing in such unexpected twists as Severus, the entirety of the Black family, Nagini, Dobby and Winky, a troupe or two of veela, a circus clown and twelve of his friends whose volkswagen just broke down, and maybe the Hungarian Horntail, Norbert, and the Giant Squid as well, depending on just how cruel I happen to feel at the time.
Yes, I do do this to piss you off. Why do you ask?()