Chap 24 Review Responses are available in my forums. The mathematical brain fart in Chap 24 was corrected, thanks to those who caught it.

Chapter Twenty-Five: Legacy

On the last Saturday of November, Harry, Luna and Hermione met Dumbledore on the seventh floor before the portrait of Barnabas the Barmy. "The Room of Requirement, Harry?" the Headmaster said.

"I believe so," Harry said. "I've been feeling it for months now, but only when Draco was in working on his plan to kill you. That's when I figured out where it had to be."

Harry paced in front of the room three times and a moment later the door opened. They stepped into a cavernous room many times larger than could fit in the space it actually occupied. "There's the vanishing cabinet he's planning to use to bring Death Eaters through," Harry said, pointing casually at the large cabinet. "I come up and break it again every few days, but I plan to let him finish it in May or June. I've told Snape, and now you, that if you truly wish him to live you will simply get him out of the country. Otherwise he will die when that cabinet opens."

Dumbledore stared at the cabinet with an open expression of dismay.

Harry lifted his wand and closed his eyes. A moment later, a silver diadem came flying into his hand. "And here it is," he said. He placed it on a nearby pedestal. "So, Professor, what are your suggestions for destroying it?"

"That's Rowena Ravenclaw's diadem!" Luna explained.

"Yes, it is," Dumbledore whispered. "Well, I know Fiendfyre and Basilisk venom will destroy them."

"Hmm, I wonder if a beam of plasma in a magnetic containment field will work?"

"What?"

Harry activated a lightsaber, flicked it quickly over the Diadem, and stepped back as a howling dark cloud of smoke rose up from it. "And that's that," Harry said with a satisfied nod.

The Headmaster stared at the ligthsaber in shock. "Amazing, isn't it," Hermione asked the old wizard. "That everything he's spoken of wasn't a delusion, but real."

"Indeed," Dumbledore whispered.

"So, the diary that almost killed Ginny," Harry said. "And this. What else?"

"The ring that did this to me," Dumbledore said, holding up his hand. "Also destroyed. Next is the Hufflepuff cup."

"That's in Bellatrix Lestrange's vault," Harry said, drawing on Bellatrix's stolen thoughts.

"Of course you would know that, having read her mind," Dumbledore said. "There is also the snake you told me about. I suspect there is a locket hidden in a cave he used to terrify his fellow orphans. And, of course, the last was you, yourself, the destruction of which allowed you to return to us."

"A shame, that," Harry said lightly. "I wanted to use the Chamber of Secrets this morning, thinking it would make a good base of operations for the Order once I take it from your cold dead hands. It wouldn't open for me."

Dumbledore closed his eyes. "Are you really so eager to see me die, Harry?"

"Not at all. I just utterly, completely despise pointless suicide, which is what you are doing."

"I see."

"I'll miss you when you're dead and rotting, Professor," Luna said solemnly. "I'll make sure the Quibbler prints a lovely article about your role in the Rotfang conspiracy."

"That is quite the comfort, Ms. Lovegood. Thank you." Dumbledore sighed bitterly. "Well, the Diadem is gone. Amelia can handle obtaining the vase. And you and I will seek the locket. Perhaps this weekend?"

"I can't, I've got another meeting with my solicitor. I think the locket will keep for the moment, to be honest."

"Fine. Good evening, then."

The headmaster left, pausing only to glance at the Vanishing Cabinet a moment. "I feel sorry for him," Hermione said.

"I don't," Luna said. "He has given up fighting and is choosing instead to lay down and die."

"I thought you said you weren't a fighter?" Hermione said.

"Did I? Well, truly I am not. I cannot kill, but that does not mean I will not defend. Professor Dumbledore does not even wish to do that any longer."

~~Broken~~

~~Broken~~

On the first weekend of December, Archibald Harrison Grunning III rolled ponderously into the conference room of Grunning's Drills for a meeting with the sole surviving grandchild of his good friend, Walter Evans.

At seventy-seven years of age, Archie Grunning was well in decline physically. His great girth over much of his life had given way to rolls of fat that hung loosely off his wide-set bones. His large lump of a head was marked by liver spots, burned off melanomas and two rolls of fat at the back of his neck that gave him a slightly grotesque, ribbed appearance, most especially when he perspired from between the rolls.

For all his decline, however, Grunning's small, close-set eyes were shrewd and thoughtful as he settled with an explosive groan behind his desk. In minutes, he would finally meet Dursley's dirty little secret—Walter Evan's last living grandson.

"Mr. Grunning, your guests are here," Delores said from the receptionist area.

"Thank you," he said as he pulled out a cigar. "Send them on in two minutes, please."

He cut his cigar, lit it, and blew a bellow of smoke into the air of his already musty office. It was a common tactic he used to put potentially hostile interviewees off their guard. In fact, he rarely smoked any more, since his doctor assured him it was killing him. However, everything else also appeared to be killing him, so at the moment he didn't rightly care.

Two minutes to the second from when Delores called, the door opened and that damned solicitor walked in, dressed as if he walked right off Saville Row. "Mr. Grunnings, Lawrence Bartleby. It is a pleasure to finally meet you in person." He did not even blink at the smoke.

He stepped forward and offered a hand. Obliged by politeness despite his normal inclination, Grunning stood and met the grip as firmly as he could. Bartleby stood to the side after shaking and said, "May I also present Mr. Harry Potter, his wife Hermione Potter, and their friend Luna Lovegood."

And so we finally meet, Archie thought. Potter too was dressed sharply, as were the two young ladies at his side. His first thought was that Harry had his grandfather's sharp green eyes, and he could also see Walter in the turn of Potter's nose and the shape of his chin. And then he realized what it was he heard. "Wife?"

The wife, Hermione, appeared to be a girl in her mid- to late-teens with curly brown hair held back in a tightly controlled bun that highlighted her sharp cheekbones. She had the beauty of youth, but with a sharp, intelligent glint in her brown eyes that reminded Archie of himself. But for her to be a wife… "Good Lord, lad, you're not even eighteen. What's this about a wife?"

"It is a long story," Harry said. "Suffice it to say, we are happily married. Thank you for seeing us."

"Sit," Grunnings said, doing so himself with a grunt. On cue, Dolores walked in with a tray of tea and biscuits, which Archie took immediate advantage of. "Please help yourselves. Nothing like a spot of tea to aid conversation."

Potter and his wife politely declined, but the wisp of a blonde girl with the buggy eyes happily poured herself tea and piled half the biscuits onto her saucer. "And what's your story, lassie?"

"I'm Harry's fuck toy," the girl said with a beaming smile.

The wife shook her head and closed her eyes, counting to herself, while Harry just grinned. "It's good to be me," he said simply. At that moment, he looked just like his grandfather back in '52, when he nabbed two birds in one night. If he were a ginger and did not have that black hair, the boy could have been Walter's twin.

"I'd say so," Archie said. "God lad, you look like your Papa just now."

Harry's smile faltered. "You mean Walter Evans? Truly? I didn't even know his name until I found out about these shares."

"Aye, probably not," Archie said. "For fifteen years, I heard nothing but what a bother you were—a thief; a liar; a drugged-up layabout. Dursley never had a good word to say about you. But I never believed him—the man never told a straight truth in his life. He helped drive this company into the ground with his brash manner. We weren't any different from any other company—what put Grunning's apart was out hands-on touch. But Dursley…damned his black soul. If he hadn't married Walter's daughter and taken control of those shares, I'd have sacked the bastard years ago. Walter would have turned over in his grave if he saw what kind of mother his little Petunia turned out to be."

Potter sat speechless. "What kind of man was he, Walter I mean?"

"A bloody spitfire, old Walt was," Grunning's said. "The man could walk into a bar on any given evening and walk out with any girl he wanted, and at least two blokes bleeding on the floor. We grew up together, he and I. Born during the war, grew up in the rubble after. We went in together right after school—I had the money, he had the brains and the ideas, and together we built this company up from the rubble into something that made things; that put people to work. And now…now we're a year away from closing the doors for good."

Grunnings ground his cigar into the ash tray on his desk, stood slowly and walked across to the window that looked over the production lines. "Twenty years ago, we had five production lines moving five days a week. Now we have two. The roof has leaks all over that I can't afford to repair, and two of the doors in the back won't even open. Haven't posted a profit in three years."

He turned rheumy eyes back to Potter. "So why would you want to buy me out, lad?"

"I need a production line," the boy said. "I have a design for a photovoltaic cell that could revolutionize energy production, but I don't want to sell the patent or license it. I want to own it and build it myself. Bartleby here has the patent pending."

"Just like your Papa. Old Walt wouldn't even consider taking the company public, so it remained a private share company, just the two of us." Grunning walked back to his desk and sat. "I have a son, Robbie. I never did right by him, despite what my wife says. The lad's racked up gambling debts galore. He'd sell Grunnings in the blink of an eye just for scrap and gamble it all away."

"I won't," the boy said. "I will make it great."

Grunnings pressed his intercom. "Dolores, send in the new manager, will you?"

A few minutes later, a narrow-shouldered Indian man with a magnificently large, bristling mustache and bottle-thick glasses that between them completely dominated his face, walked in. "Yes, Mr. Grunning?"

"Junjeelal, meet Harry Potter and his girls, and their solicitor Mr. Bartleby. Potter is the grandson of Walter Evans. This is Jaleel Chandrakar—I just hired him to replace Dursley. He's done as good job as he can; maybe bought us six months of operation or more, but Dursley dug a deep hole and it's been hard to climb out."

"A pleasure to meet you," Chandrakar said with a clipped Indo-Anglo accent.

"Potter here was about to tell me why he wants to buy out the company."

The boy did not even bat an eye. "Mr. Chandrakar, are you familiar with photovoltaic technology?"

"In passing, yes," Chandrakar said. "I have a degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Mumbai and studied some designs."

"Excellent," Harry said. "I have designed a photovoltaic cell that is able to derive power from 100% of the solar EM spectrum. It has a total photon to electron conversion rate of 99%, and in conjunction with a capacitor, sensing field and transmission system, it has the potential to revolutionize energy production around the world."

The engineer stood speechless for a moment, before he reached up and twirled his thick mustache. It looked vaguely sinister in a cartoon-like fashion. "That is…quite the claim, Mr. Potter. Quite the claim indeed. How old are you?"

Harry stood from his seat and walked to the skinny man's side. He spoke directly into Chandrakar's ear; when he sat, Chandrakar was stammering.

"Well, Junjeelal?" Grunning said. "Is the lad onto something?"

"Excuse me, Mr. Grunning. Yes, yes. If the design meets his claims…it would be quite the breakthrough. Something like that, when proven, would have a huge profit margin."

"Thank you, Junjeelal. You can go."

The production manager gave a curt nod and left, muttering to himself. "What'd you say to him, lad?"

"I told him a little bit of what makes my design different. I intend to keep a closed lid on this. I want the design as patented and protected internationally as possible, and I've already built-in some protections that will make it very difficult for someone to copy the design. But rather than build a new facility and hire new staff and go into debt in the process, I want to start in the black. This company would let me do just that."

Archie nodded, casting his thoughts about. "Dursley told me you were going to a reform school."

It was Potter's wife who snorted. "Harry and I met at an exclusive school in Scotland that his parent's trust fund paid for."

"Not a surprise," Grunnings said. "Last valuation of this company was six million sterling—mostly for materials and the premises. You own half of it already through the Evans' shares. What do you have for my half?"

"Two million," Harry said. "Every penny from the Evans trust and a good portion from my parents, but it's my cash."

"Quite the gamble to put your own money on the table," Archie said. "You buy these shares, you're liable for every penny you put in if the company fails."

"It's a gamble I'm willing to make," Harry said.

Archie finished his tea. "You make this company great, Mr. Potter, and I'll give you my shares for a million and a half. Use the rest to lay down what you need to get started. Our sales staff is weak at the moment, so you'll need to hire a new sales manager."

"I can do that," Harry said with a confident smile. "And now that we're in agreement…would you be willing to tell me a little about my grandfather?"

~~Broken~~

~~Broken~~

The paperwork to transfer the shares arrived two days later via owl. They were accompanied by a letter from Bartleby giving a comprehensive summary of the contract along with all the necessary petitions to change Grunning's Drills to a privately owned company under the joint ownership of Harry and Hermione Potter. Luna was not listed simply because concubine (nor fuck toy) status was not recognized in her Majesty's government as family relation.

In school, they continued to go audit classes while Harry trained Hermione, and now Luna, in the meditation techniques necessary to open their mind to learning. Luna actually mastered it much faster than Hermione, given her history with the Force.

They received correspondence from Chandrakar two weeks into December that they were ready to look at the solar panel design and determine the necessary production facilities. This time, Luna stayed alone in the castle while Harry and Hermione left after dinner, taking Harry's broom to the ward line through a heavy snow before they apparated to Grunnings in Little Whinging.

Chandrakar met them at the doors of the building, smiling and chatting happily about company morale. Grunning himself made the announcement earlier that he had accepted a buyout from the grandson of his deceased partner, and foresaw the company doing great things. The production lines were closed for the day, but they walked by them regardless to one of the defunct lines.

"I read through your business plan and congratulate you on it," the engineer said. "The empty lines are a good place to start." They met a second man there—a tall man with Nordic coloring and a second chin despite being thin. "This is Nils Baar. Nils, this is the new owner, Harry Potter and his lovely wife, Hermione."

"A pleasure," Baar said.

"What is your position here, Mr. Baar?" Hermione asked.

"I am the assistant production manager under Junjeelal here. It is my job to acquire the necessary materials and ensure we have the appropriate facilities while Junjeelal oversees all day-to-day production matters, since we intend to continue our current product line for the moment."

"You're new," Harry guessed.

Baar looked surprised a moment. "Well, yes. I worked with Junjeelal at Aston Martin, but left a year or so after Ford purchased it. He told me that he needed me here for an exciting new opportunity."

Harry nodded and then pulled out his diagram. "Well, here it is. Bartely managed to expedite the patent and has others pending overseas, so we are ready to go."

He spread the diagrams out, and then gave them a notebook listing the needed materials. The two engineers studied the diagram in silence for the longest time. "This is…remarkable if it works," Baar said. "I've never seen this type of chemical combination used in photovoltaics. What made you veer away from silica?"

"Silica only absorbs a specific range of EM wavelengths," Harry said. "This synthetic material absorbs the full range from the infrared to ultraviolet without the need for the boron and is very easy to fabricate from carbon. It also has a ten year senescence—meaning a built-in market to replace it—and it dissolves into biodegradable material and hydrogen. To outsiders attempting to see how we're doing it, it will look like we're using silica just like most other producers. So what we will need is a clean room to create the absorbing material and the individual cells, and then the production line for the assembly of the modules themselves."

"Soleil Industrie," Baar said immediately.

Chandrakar smiled. "Indeed."

"Share, please?" Harry said.

"A small solar energy company went into receivership in France six months ago," Baar said. "Junjeeal mentioned that you planned on exploring photovoltaics so I did some ground research on production methods when news about Soleil came up in a trade periodical. Their management was embezzling government grants. But the point is, they have a fully automated production line they purchased on grant from the European Union that they can no longer use. Most importantly, it was an EU grant rather than a French grant, so we qualify to file for the equipment under that same grant. We could get the robots for less than it will cost to set up the clean room here."

"How much do you think they would take for it?" Hermione asked.

"We would have to dip into the company funds heavily since it is a matching grant," Chandrakar admitted. "But it would give us almost instant production capability once we create the first cells. We're talking four separate manufacturing robots plus the actual production line itself. A hundred thousand pounds out of our own company funds to match the grant. "

"Do it," Harry said.

"What do we have to do for the grant?" Hermione said.

"Show that we will be producing a clean energy source," Chandrakar said. "Even with the grant, there will be a steep expense. We are talking about three hundred thousand pounds of machinery. We must prove that we have sufficient capital to make the purchase. Still, we can also look into local grants. The Crown has grant programs for clean energy."

"Send everything you can think of to Bartleby," Harry said. "In the meantime, Baar, I need you to go visit the bank that owns the defunct factory. You're right—it's too good an opportunity to pass up. We might even consider purchasing the facility for future expansion. Gentlemen, you are on the ground floor of something significant. Make this happen, and you're careers will skyrocket."

They continued to make plans late into the evening, until at last they had a solid plan of business written up. As Harry and Hermione apparated back to Hogwarts and mounted Harry's broom for the return to the castle, Hermione was silent. "What are you thinking?" he asked.

"We're going to run into logistic problems," Hermione said. "We want to maintain control of the company, but we can't do that at school, especially at a school where they can't contact us. The kind of hands-on management we want is a full-time job."

Harry considered it as they flew. Moments later, they flew not to the castle doors, but directly to the window of their room which they had left open for just that reason. Luna was inside at their small dining table, food laid out and charmed to stay warm.

"How did it go?" she asked.

"Very well," Harry said. "Any ideas how to set up a communications line into Hogwarts so we can actually run our company?"

Luna shrugged. "A charmed mirror combination made to look like a muggle video phone?"

Harry and Hermione stared at the girl as Luna calmly started piling food onto their plates.

"Luna, how do you even know what a video phone is?"

"I saw a video phone when father took me to see a most wonderful Muggle cinema called Total Recall. It was quite funny, actually. The actor did not speak English very well, I'm afraid, but he made such funny faces at the end of the movie. It looked like Nargles were eating the back of his eyes."

"That movie came out six years ago," Hermione said.

"Yes. It was not a very nice theatre we saw it in. There were other movies with the same man. Did you know he also got pregnant in one movie? What a silly idea, men having babies. Why, the whole race would grind to a halt if men had to have the babies, and where would the babies come out?"

"You know she's brilliant," Hermione said to Harry. "I like to think I'm a smart witch, but Luna frightens me, sometimes."

"We'll get it done," Harry said. "And after dinner, I think we owe Luna a reward for her suggestion."

"Oh," Luna said, wide-eyed. "Really? Because I would love some pudding."