C O Potter
Year Four
Chapter 25
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True to her word, Hermione had sent Hedwig with a letter to Minerva first thing in the morning, even before they had gone for their run. Hedwig was waiting for her at breakfast, Minerva had agreed, and set the appointment for them that Friday morning at Hogwarts, about 10:00.
All of the teens were sitting around in the living room just talking and being teens. The Wizarding Wireless was acting as background music when Fred made a comment, "We need a cool name for our group! Last year at school, we helped stop some terrorists!"
"Okay, what were you thinking?"
"I was thinking that it should be something with Cici's, Ced's, and Vic's initials."
"You mean CCV?"
"Closed caption video?"
"What's that?"
"Don't worry about it."
"Cool Club Vigilantes?"
"What?"
"Oh! I like 'C' Cup Vixens!"
"Oh! I like it too!"
"Not all of us have a 'C' cup!"
"There's a potion for that!"
"There is? Really?"
"Yeah!"
"Where do I get it?"
"Wait, is it safe?"
"Who cares?"
"Where can I get some?"
"How long do I have to take it?"
"Worked for me!" she hefts her breasts for emphasis.
Ced buries his face in his hands.
Fred and George's eyes are wide open, their mouths are hanging open. Julia reaches over and closes Fred's mouth.
"Uh, sorry," he said to her.
All of the girls burst out laughing at them.
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Friday morning, they stepped through the floo into Minerva's office.
"Excellent timing! I would like you to meet, Amber Davis. Miss Davis is a fourth-year transfer student from the United States, she has been sorted into Gryffindor House. Miss Davis, this is Cecilia Ramos, also from the United States. Would you three like to show her around the school, while I discuss the necessary business with your parents?"
"Sure professor, we'd like that!" Cici spoke for the group of them.
"We'll see you later, mum, dad," Ced told them.
The four teens started down the circular stairs that led to Professor McGonagall's office.
Once in the hallway, Amber stuck out her hand and said, "Hi! I'm Amber."
"Hi, Amber, I'm Vic."
"Hi, I'm Ced."
"Where're you from?" asked Cici.
"San Francisco, the bay area. And you?"
"My parents moved here from Tucson, AZ."
"Wow! I hear it gets really hot there!"
"From what I remember it does. I've lived here since I was ten."
"My parents moved here for a tech company that is working in Ireland."
"Oh wow! So, you're, muggle-born?"
"Yeah, in America we call them No-Majs, is that a problem?" Amber asked defensively.
"No, not with us, my parents are muggles too." She told a little white lie.
"Okay. This is some really ancient castle! The pictures in the book don't do it justice!"
"You read, Hogwarts a History?"
"Yeah, my parents got it for me when they found out that they were getting transferred. It's a lot different than the school I was going to. My old school was Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the American wizarding school, its located on Mount Greylock in Massachusetts."
"Oh, okay." It didn't mean anything to her. International history, like the international news, wasn't very important in Magical Britain. "Well, this is the entrance to the Gryffindor common room. You have to give the portrait of the Fat Lady the password." Cici gave the last known good password, and the Fat Lady looked at all of them. "We're giving her a tour of the school," Cici told the portrait.
"Okay, dearie." She liked Cici, she didn't let the boys push her around, she swung open for the group of students.
They walked through the common room, the fire in the fireplace was out, the furniture was up against the walls, and the rugs were removed. The lights came on for them to help with what little light was getting through the castle windows.
"The boy's dormitory is to the left, and the girl's dorms are to the right. You'll have Rose and Angel in your dorm with you, they're our cousins."
While the girls showed Amber the girl's dorm rooms, Ced went and checked on the married quarters. There was still only one walk-in closet, one chest of drawers, and just the one dresser. If push came to shove, then on the first day of school, he would just conjure and transfigure what they needed. The girls were waiting for him as he exited the quarters.
"Oh, what's in there?"
"That's where we stay, we're helping the Headmistress and our Head of House with a special project," Ced told her.
"Oh, what's the project about?" Amber asked curiously.
Cici said, "Soul-Bonded couples."
"Those aren't real! Everybody knows that! That's just something the romance writers use to sell more books!"
"They still want us to do it, so we do it. Plus, it gets us special sleeping quarters so that we're not disturbed as we dig through some really old tomes."
They showed her the Astronomy Tower, the Owlery, and they stopped by the Hospital Wing. They waved at Madam Pomfrey, who when she saw that they had a guest with them just waved back. Then they showed her where the different sets classrooms were located. They stopped by the Great Hall and then down into the Dungeons where the Potions classes were, and where the Slytherins had their common room.
"You know, you should just hang out with us for the first couple of weeks. You can meet us at the train station, and we can ride to school together!" Vic suggested to her.
"I think that I'd like that," Amber told them, happy that she was making some new friends fairly quickly.
"Where are your parents now?" Ced asked her.
"They had to take care of an emergency at work." Her tone became depressed.
"What do your parents think about you being a magical, a witch?" Cici asked her, changing the subject to something, happier.
"They're not really happy about it. They're supportive of it. But because magic and electricity don't mix really well. The first time that I had an outburst of accidental magic, I ruined all of the electronics in the house. All of the TVs, all the laptops, all the computers, everything! Including their new hi-tech refrigerator!"
"I know what you mean, something similar happened the first time I had an accidental outburst of magic. It made my dad really mad because he was working on a project for work, and well, he lost it all. He had to go out and buy all new stuff. He told me that if I ever did that again that he would beat me." Cici told her. Ced had never heard the story before. He and Vic exchanged looks. "I think that he was glad that I went away when I went to school. He didn't like how much it cost, but he was glad that I wasn't there anymore." Her tone turned depressed.
"Sometimes, I get those same thoughts."
"How are you going to get home from here, without your parents? How'd you get here? That's a better question."
"Professor McGonagall came to get me. She said that there were things that we needed to do. And she wanted me to meet someone. I guess that was you three."
"So, when are you going to go and get all of your stuff for school?"
"Probably the week before school starts. My parents will just give me a credit card, and then send me down to wherever I need to go, to buy what I need. Their work is really important, and if they do well, there's a really big bonus in it for them."
Vic and Cici saw different reflections of their lives in hers.
"Well if you want, we can all go together! Just floo us and we can meet you there!"
"Just floo you? And meet you where?"
"Let's head back to Professor McGonagall's office, maybe we can catch my parents before they leave," Ced told the bunch of girls.
They hurried back to the Headmistress's office and caught his parents.
"Well, we finished the tour!" Vic said cheerfully.
"Mum, Dad, I'd like to introduce you to Amber Davis. Amber, these are my parents Harry and Hermione."
"It's a pleasure to meet you." Said Hermione.
"Pleased to meet you." Said, Harry.
"It's a pleasure to meet both of you," Amber told them.
"Amber's parents are really wrapped up in their work, and she doesn't know how to floo, or where to buy her school supplies," Ced told them. He didn't want to just come out and ask the girl for an oath of loyalty, they'd just met after all.
"What're you doing Ced?"
"Girlfriend for George!"
"Really? You're playing matchmaker now?"
"Well, before we could allow her to come over to the house, she'd need to give us an oath of loyalty. Do you think that she'd be willing to do such a thing?" Harry asked them.
"What's an oath of loyalty?" Amber asked as she looked at all of the different people around her.
"An Oath of Loyalty is an oath that says that whatever secrets you learn about us, you won't ever share with anyone else. If you do share it with someone that doesn't already know what you're sharing, you will lose your magic forever. Is that acceptable to you?"
"So, basically you want me to keep your secrets? I can do that."
"So, you're willing to take a wizarding oath?"
"Yes, how do I do it?"
Harry walked her through the Wizarding Oath of Loyalty.
"… so mote it be." And she was bound by her magic to the Potter family forever.
"Minerva? What's the apparition point for her home?" Harry asked.
She gave him the location of the apparition point for her home.
"I take it that you three want to show her Diagon Alley? Is that correct?"
"Yes, is that okay with you? We can be home before dinner." Cici told her in-laws.
"Besides, I think that I need to take care of some business at Gringotts," Vic told her in-laws.
"It's okay with us, and I think that it would be good to get that taken care of," Hermione told them.
"Oh! Professor McGonagall, will Vic be able to join us as a fourth-year?" Ced asked the old Scottish witch.
"Yes, Hermione showed me her test scores, and I don't see a problem with it. Have you three gone up to speak with Poppy?"
"We showed Amber where the Hospital Wing was, but we didn't say hi or anything like that."
"Could you please go and visit her, she needs to talk with you." She wasn't going to be the one to tell this new student that her new friends were married. Not her secret to tell.
"Okay, we'll get that done now." And the three of them excused themselves. As soon as they were out of sight of the others, they used teleportus to get to the front doors of the hospital wing. They walked to the office of the Matron to find her behind her desk.
"Hello! I saw that you had company earlier, so I didn't want to invite you in."
"Thank you, but it's all taken care of now," Cici told her.
"I guess that you need to do another physical on us?" asked Ced.
"Yes, in light of your new circumstances, I need to do a quick evaluation of the three of you."
"What do you need us to do?" asked Vic.
"Why don't the three of you each take a bed and I can just run some basic diagnostic tests on each of you. Come on, up you go!"
She started with Cici, "Lady Potter, that is some tan that you have there!"
"Thank you! We spent our honeymoon in the Greek islands!"
"Oh, that sounds exciting!"
"It was! We went for long walks on the beach and went swimming in the sea."
"Wow! Your magical core has grown substantially."
"Really?"
"Yes. Let me check on your other bond-mates." She turned around and checked on Vic's vitals. "Well, I see that you have gotten a tan also."
"Yes, not as dark as Cici, but at least I'm not pasty white anymore."
"Hum, your magical core is a large as Cici's!" she walked around the bed and came over to Ced.
"Lord Potter, it looks like you got a tan also."
"Yes, we had a great time walking on the beach together."
"Well, I see that your core is slightly larger than those of your bond-mates. That's interesting. It's not uncommon in regular magical couples for one or the other to have a larger magical core. So, I don't see a problem in this case. Okay, so off you go! I'll see you during the school year! Oh, and congratulations you three, it couldn't have happened to a better bunch of kids than you!"
"Thank you!" they coursed as they headed out the doors of the hospital.
They teleportused back to the Headmistresses office, they walked in all calm and relaxed.
"So, everything with Madam Pomfrey is okay?"
"Yes, Mam. Everything is okay." Ced told her.
"Here, here's your list of school supplies that you'll need for your fourth year." She handed each of them their Hogwarts letters.
"Excuse me, may I borrow your floo to make a call?" asked Ced. "I want to call George Weasley, and see if he can join us at the Leaky Cauldron, and spend the afternoon in Diagon Alley." He explained further to the Headmistress.
"That'll be fine. Keep it short though, please."
George said that both of his parents were at work, but that he and Angel would be able to meet them at the Leaky Cauldron in fifteen minutes.
Ced looked at Amber, "I don't have to be home until whenever. My parents don't get home until nine, ten o'clock at night if they come home at all." She told them.
If she stays with this group of kids, she'll be okay, thought Minerva. What's happening with families these days? Miss Vane turned out okay, well Lady Potter turned out alright.
Ced turned back to Professor McGonagall, "May we use your floo to go to the Leaky Cauldron, please?" being polite didn't cost anything extra, and always helped to get what you wanted. She nodded to him that it was okay.
Ced turned to Amber and explained how to use the floo, and what to expect.
Harry and Hermione stepped through the floo together, "It's lunchtime, and we decided that we would like some beer battered fish and chips, with a butterbeer to wash it down with. Leaky Cauldron!" He told his son as they stepped into the floo.
"And that's how it's done." He told her.
Cici and Vic went next, then Ced sent Amber through by herself, he reasoned that Vic and Cici were there to catch her when she got spit out. Then he followed just a moment later after saying goodbye to Minerva.
"Hi, Tom!" Ced said cheerfully.
Tom just nodded his head and pointed to the room in the back of the tavern.
Harry ordered fish and chips for all of them, and a round of butterbeers too. They all started talking to each other, the three girls talked amongst themselves, Ced spoke with his parents to learn what all had happened in the Headmistress' office. Harry started to explain that Minerva had initially been reluctant to let Vic skip a grade, but had given in quickly when she saw her perfect test scores, and who had graded her tests.
A few minutes after they had gotten seated, and started talking, the door to the room opened, and George and Angel joined them in the private room. Angel spotted Cici and move to join her at the table, George spotted the new girl with the light brown skin colour in the room. She wasn't as dark as Cici by any means, but she was darker than Vic, and her bushy hair was a medium brown, full of tight soft curls. She was the most beautiful creature on the planet! All he could do was to stand there and stare at her. He didn't even know that he had stopped moving and was just staring at her.
Ced got up and moved next to George, "Mate, if you keep drooling like this, you're going to scare her away!" he whispered in his ear.
When did Ced walk over to him and start to talk to him?
"Mate, close your mouth! If you get drool on her, you'll scare her away! You don't want to scare off, do you?" Ced asked him humorously.
George shook his head no.
"Then close your mouth, and I'll introduce you to her."
George closed his mouth and nodded his head. He was speechless in the presence of such beauty. She was perfect. She was flawless!
Ced had to nudge him to get him to move. By this time everyone in the room was watching what was going on.
Vic leaned over to Amber, "I think he likes you!" she whispered.
"I think I like him too!" she whispered back. "He's so different than all those knuckledraggers back at my old school."
"Knuckledraggers?"
"Yeah, you know, the guys that pound on their chest and grunt for answers? They think that they can club a girl over the head and drag her back to their cave?"
"We know the type," Vic told her.
"Amber, I'd like you to meet George. George, this is Amber."
"You're so beautiful!" George blurted out.
"Thank you!" Amber said quietly, starting to blush.
"George, would you like to sit next to Amber?" "Would you like to referee their first conversation Mon Amour?"
"Yes," George said.
Ced let all of the girls sit together, he sat next to his mum. Tom, the barkeep, had added two extra meals and two extra butterbeers to the order. He knew that Harry was good for it, and to keep his business he would eat it if need be, literally. It was food after all!
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After lunch, and after Harry had paid for the meal, and after all of the teens had said thank you to Harry and Hermione, they went their own ways. Angel tapped on the bricks in the correct sequence to get them to open up and reveal Diagon Alley, just after they crossed through the magical opening, Vic saw George reach out and take Amber's hand.
"So far so good!"
Ced and Cici both turned to look, Ced was holding Cici's hand, and Cici was holding Vic's hand as if it was the most natural thing in the world to do.
"Hey! We need to go into Gringotts for a moment. Where do you want to meet up?" Ced asked the others.
"How about the bookstore? Then we can go get a mani-pedi! We haven't had one of those in a while!" Angel said.
"Ooo! I like that idea!" said Vic. It had been a while since their last professional mani-pedi.
"Okay, we'll meet you at the bookstore!" said Cici.
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They entered Gringotts and were immediately led to a private room. They thanked the goblin in his native tongue. He bowed in response to their level of respect. Soon Manager Ragrok entered the room. Traditional greetings were given, and bows exchanged.
"Lord Potter, Ladies Potter. How may I help you this afternoon?"
"I would like to add them to my vault," Vic answered him.
"I believe that it would be more conventional to join the accounts and vaults together. If you wish, you may maintain two separate vaults, or you could just be cosigners on each other's accounts."
The threesome talked about it telepathically for just a moment. Then Ced answered him, "I think that we would like to merge the accounts and the vaults together. We would also like to keep the current interest rates that we have negotiated. If I am correct, we'll be reducing our fees by only having the one vault, is that correct?"
"You are correct, you would no longer have the fees associated with having a second vault. It is just a matter of adding either Victoria Potter on to your account or adding you two on to her account. I would recommend that you add her to your account for simplicities sake."
"Okay, and will you be able to reissue her debit and credit cards at the same time? Please?"
Vic agreed to be added on to their account and having her stuff moved into their vault. Their vault would now become her vault also.
"Yes, we can do that while we fill out the needed forms. Here is a copy of your latest bank statements." He then excused himself to go get the needed forms for the transfer of Victoria's assets to her new bond-mates' accounts.
Vic looked over her statement, she saw where there was a large deposit from some export company. She did the math in her head, and it was just about right for the exchange rate, everything looked to be in order.
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After the Aurors and the police had gone through her mum's small flat, they let her in to start looking through all of her mum's belongings. It was now up to her to sort out her mum's life. A life that she was unaware of, she had just thought that it was normal. Normal, until she had met Ced and Cici. She just didn't know any different. She saw how trashed the apartment really was. There was empty take away boxes on the countertops and on the floor. She could see the bugs scurrying away as she walked through the mess that she used to call home. She stepped over the trash and walked to her old bedroom. It was so small and dirty compared to what she had now. She saw the dried chicken bones piled in the corner of the room. Her bare, stained mattress laying on the floor, she could see the spring coils through the fabric. There wasn't even a sheet to cover the mattress, or even herself. She had chosen to do this by herself, she had to close this chapter of her life so she could move forward with her new life. She backed out of the doorway and stepped down the hall to the loo. She looked at the loo and saw the filth, she glanced around and saw no bath products at all, not even a roll of paper. She moved back to her mum's room. It was as bad as her room if not worse. The only reason that it could be worse is that there was more stuff in it. She remembered her mum telling her when she would tell her mum that she needed new knickers, to just get a set off the floor. She moved over to the closet and opened the sliding doors to look inside. What she found were piles of shoes and piles of different clothes. She bent over to pick up a shoe, she held it next to her foot, it was too large for her, and she wasn't going to transfigure her mum's shoes to fit her. She turned and picked up a dress, it was stained, and she didn't want to know with what. She looked at the mess on the bed, her mum's bed was always a mess. Just for fun, she levitated the mattress to see if her mum had hidden any money under the mattress, yes, she did! She summoned the galleons into her pocket. She knew from looking at the bank statement that her mum had made regular deposits of similar amounts. All she had to do now was to find the rest of the money in this mess. She decided that if her mum were thick enough to hide money under the mattress, maybe she would hide some under the box springs also. She levitated the box springs off the floor and found the main stash of money in the house. There were several thousands of galleons laying there in front of her. She was going to need help, and she was going to need a lot of it. But the only people that she trusted were standing right outside the front door. Could she humiliate herself by letting them into where she had grown up? She couldn't leave the money, that much she knew, she sat the bed back on the carpet and walked to the front door of the flat. These people had not judged her yet, would they judge her now? She was going to show them one of her darkest secrets, the home that she had grown up in. She opened the door and asked them to come in. Ced and Cici step gently into Vicky's old life. She closed the door behind them. She explained that she didn't know the spells that she needed to recover what she wanted. She led them to her mum's room, and then she levitated the mattress and box spring to show them all the money that was stashed there. Cici took charge and told Ced to keep the mattresses levitated while she looked for a purse in all of the mess. When she saw it, she told Vicky to summon the purse to her. She did, and she looked inside to see that it was empty. Cici explained the spells that she was going to use to make the purse bottomless and weightless. She did it for her and then she told Vicky to summon all of the galleons into the purse. Vicky did this and watched as the gold coins flew into the purse for the next several seconds. When the floor was empty, Ced shook the bed and heard coins rattling inside the mattress. He returned the mattresses to the floor. Vicky went over to the bed and lifted the mattress to look for a cut somewhere, she found it in the head of the mattress. Ced levitated the mattress again and spun it to face her. she summoned the coins into the purse that Cici had charmed. Cici asked her to stand back and then she ejected her wand and flicked it. All of her mum's clothes flew into the dresser, the chest of drawers, and hung themselves in the closet. The shoes even paired themselves and lay neatly. Once all of that had been done, she flicked her wand at the bed, and it made itself. There, with a clean spot, she looked around and flicked her wand yet again, and all of the clothes that just flew into the drawers now flew to the bed and stacked there neatly. They started looking through the drawers, the floor had maybe another hundred galleons laying all around the room. Vicky summoned all of the loose coins into her purse. In the drawers, they found muggle money, some stacked, and most of it crumpled up. She summoned that too. Cici went over to the dresses in the closet, she crinkled her nose at them. Vicky moved to the master bathroom, and looked inside, she would only come in here when her mum wasn't home. She looked around, opened the medicine cabinet and looked inside, she closed it. She looked around again, then she turned to leave. The bonded couple followed her out of the door to the flat. There was nothing in the flat that she wanted or needed anymore. They got to the apparition point, each of them took an arm, and Ced apparated them to Diagon Alley. She led them across the street and up the stairs of the bank. They were shown to a private room. When Master Ragrok asked how he could help her, all she did was to dump the contents of the purse on the table top, the coins rolled and slid off the top of the table and on to the floor. With a wave of the goblin's hand, all of the coins stacked themselves neatly, the paper money laid out flat and stacked correctly, she had just made her first deposit.
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The goblin returned to the room, "I apologise for the wait, but here are all of the correct forms. Your new debit card and new credit card will be ready when we finish with this." He slid the forms across the table for them to read, they broke up the stack of forms and read them, it was as he said, and they all signed as needed, and were indicated they placed their thumbs. He gathered the forms, stacked them neatly, and as promised another goblin entered hurriedly with the new cards.
"Now, will the bank move my assets to the new vault or is that something that I will have to do?" asked Vic.
"No, mam, the bank will take care of that for you within the next two business days. Everything will be inventoried and accounted for. Any discrepancies will be brought to your attention."
"Thank you." The traditional farewells were given, bows exchanged, and they left to join their friends.
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In the used bookstore, they found George and Amber side-by-side holding hands except when one of them would reach for a book. Angel was nowhere to be seen. When they asked the sales staff, someone said that they had seen a girl matching her description going down into the cellar. They all headed for the basement to look for her. They found her digging through some really old tomes, leather bound, parchment pages, she had a small stack of books set-aside already.
"Look what I found! Someone just dropped this trunk off at their door and left!"
Cici bent over and picked up one of the books, she opened the book and found that it was a diary. A diary that she and Ced had already read. She handed the book to Ced.
"Here hold this."
Ced took the book and looked through it. "Check the whole trunk!"
"What's wrong!"
"That's one of Merlin's diaries." A sombre Ced thought to her.
"Merlin? The Merlin? We need to get all of those books! If those fell into the wrong hands!" she thoughts going into a near panic.
"That's what Cici is doing now." "How's it going, Mi Amor?"
"Fine, there's a couple of other interesting books in here also. There are some junk books, but also a few treasures." She replied chipperly.
"Do you want to just take the whole trunk?"
"What do you think Angel? Do you just want to take the whole trunk?" Cici asked her friend.
Vic squeezed Ced's hand, she had read Merlin's stuff too, there were some very powerful spells in there.
"You know what? Let's just take all three trunks. I looked through the other two for just a moment, and then I looked in here and found that diary."
Angel stood up, she waited for Cici to stand up and move out of the way so she could place the small pile of books back in the trunk and closed the lid.
Then Cici levitated the trunk and asked for some help with the other two chests.
Amber said, "Here let me help you!" and she pulled out her wand and levitated one of the other trunks. She looked at George, like well, get the other trunk!
Without being asked, George ejected his wand and levitated the last trunk.
"There's a lot of Merlin's stuff mixed in there with some other old tomes." Cici thought to her mates.
"How are we going to get them away from Angel?"
Ced thought to his wives, "We trust her enough to keep our secrets, so, do we trust her enough to tell her what she has?"
"I say, we explain it to her. Your parents are going to be interested in this also, especially your mom."
"I agree with Cici. We explain it to her in front of your parents, maybe her parents, if she pays for it."
"I agree with both of you, we just have to be careful if they ask us how we know that it's Merlin's work."
"All of the diaries that I read in the house, had Merlin's name either near the front of the diary or near the back of the diary."
At the checkout register, the clerk didn't even open the trunks to look inside. "Two galleons." Is all he said.
Angel reached into her pocket and pulled it out. "Here you go!"
"Thank you, have a nice day. Next!"
Vic shrunk the trunks for Ced so he could put them in his pocket. Then they turned and exited the store.
"It's mani-pedi time!" Vic said enthusiastically.
They were making a straight line for the beauty salon when a passerby hit George in the shoulder.
"Hey! Watch where you're going! - Punk!" the stranger growled.
"Sorry, I must not have seen you," George said apologetically.
"I'll make you sorry! - Punk!"
"I said that I was sorry, what else do you want?" George asked, trying to avoid a fight.
"I think that I'll just kick your arse!"
George moved Amber behind him, Cici pulled Amber behind her, Ced pulled Amber behind him. The group stepped back and spread out. No one had their wands out yet. They were waiting to see if this could be resolved without the use of magic.
George's back got a little straighter, "And why would you want to do that? What would it prove?"
"To teach you a lesson! Teach you to pay attention to where you're walking!"
"But you're the one that ran into me. I had moved out of your way, and you changed direction to run into me."
"Are you calling me a liar?"
"I didn't say that." George's voice was emotionless.
"So, you did call me a liar!" the guy's wand was in his hand now.
George ejected his wand into his hand. He had been practising for just this moment.
Amber was watching from behind Ced, she had stepped to the side to get a better view, and to hear what was being said. She had watched as George had done everything he could to resolve the problem peacefully.
"I didn't say that," George repeated himself.
The guy jerked his wand up and tried to shoot a spell.
George cast a protego alavaris, this reflected the guy's own spell back at him, then he shot an expulso/expelliarmus at the angry guy.
He held his hand out to catch the guys wand. "My wand, I won it fair and square through the rite of combat," George told the angry stranger laying on the ground, wandless.
The guy tried charging George, "Stupefy," and he sidestepped the falling body. They all watched the body skid to a stop on the stone street.
The Aurors were almost there. The group saw them coming, so they stood there and waited. They had done nothing wrong, so they felt that they had nothing to fear.
"What're you kids doing!" the large, gruff Auror asked them harshly.
George gave his side of the story and showed the Auror the guys wand. The Auror rennervated the guy. He took him off to the side while his partner stayed with the kids.
The gruff Auror came back to the group of kids while his partner watched the guy.
"He says that you kids started it, you started calling him names and hit him deliberately."
Ced stepped forward, "At this point, I would like to go ahead and call the guy a liar to his face. We were walking across the street, taking the girls to the beauty salon, when the man deliberately changed directions to hit George's shoulder. George apologised several times, but the guy was bent on making an example out of the incident. George beat him easily in the magical fight that ensued. George used expelliarmus to disarm his opponent."
"Well, I think that we're going to go ahead and take all of you in until we can get this sorted out."
"That'll be fine, I haven't spoken to Uncle King in a couple of months, or to Aunt Tonks, not since the incident when they found an Auror that had turned traitor."
"I remember hearing about that. They said that there were dragons that almost burned them alive."
"Yes, those dragons are my familiars. And they're here in Britain, at this time. Do you know how many other families keep two Hungarian Horntail dragons as familiars?"
"There's only one."
"That's correct."
"You're Harry Potter's son, Cedric."
"That's correct. So, what do I have to gain from lying to you? George? This is George Weasley Jr., and this is his sister Angel Weasley."
"You're Angelina's kids?"
"Yes, sir." They said together.
"Okay, that guy over there is saying a bunch of things that are all lies. We'll take him down to the station and have a talk with him, and if we don't like what he says, then we'll let Tonks have a go at him. You kids go on and have a good afternoon."
"You too, and thank you." They said together.
"Wow! What's that guy's problem?" asked George.
"He just didn't like getting beat by a teenager," Ced told him.
They chatted a little more until they got to the beauty salon. Because it was slow, all of the girls sat there and talked while they got their hair trimmed and their mani-pedi's. Cici and Vic stocked up on beauty and skin care products. They also bought some nail polish for use at school. Ced paid and shrank it down to fit in his pocket. Ced paid for Amber too, they had invited her. Besides, George had a terrified look on his face, because he didn't have any money on him, he wasn't expecting to meet the girl of his dreams, today.
They swung by Madam Malkin's to get their school uniforms and robes. Vic and Cici found half a dozen fancy new bras that they wanted, so they got them too. They decided to wait for a week or so to get their school supplies, the bookstore didn't have all of the needed titles just yet.
To get back to the mansion, they used the public floo network, the floo in the mansion had been warded against intruders' centuries ago. Cici held onto Amber as they flooed home. As they stepped away from the floo, Amber was gawking at the splendour and opulence of the mansion. Ced handed Vic the beauty products to take upstairs as the excuse to go find mum and dad before he pulled out the trunks with the books in them.
"This is where you live?" Amber asked in shock.
"Yes, this is our home, me, Cici, and Vic. George and Angel live someplace else.
"Do you really have two Hungarian Horntail dragons or were you just making that up?"
"No, we really do have two Hungarian Horntails that live with us part-time. They really don't like the winters here, but they come for the Christmas holidays."
She looked at George, he just nodded back to her.
Vic was coming back down the stairs with Hermione, "I hear that you all found some very interesting books today, in the cellar of the bookstore?" Hermione asked. "Let's take them into the library and see what it is exactly what you found."
All of them moved to the library of the mansion and brought three tables close together. Ced pulled out the three trunks and handed one each to Angel, Vic, and Cici. They took their trunks and tapped them twice to re-enlarge them. Then they emptied the contents out on to the tables. They started sorting the books, several of the books were just old books of no particular value. They found four more of Merlin's books, six of his diaries, and then three books written by Godric Gryffindor, four books by Rowena Ravenclaw, two books written by Salazar Slytherin, and half a dozen books by Helga Hufflepuff, almost the complete collection of books by the four founders of Hogwarts.
"How much did you pay for all of this?" Hermione asked Angel.
"Two galleons." Said the shocked girl.
"Well, you got an incredible buy today. This group of books right here," Hermione used her arm to separate the books, "Are worth probably close to a million galleons by themselves. The rest would probably bring in maybe a hundred galleons at an auction."
She waited for the shocked expression to fade a little before she told her the rest of the story.
"Of all of these books, the books by Merlin are by far the most dangerous of the books." They were all looking at her. "The reason for that is that Merlin was a theoretical wizard. He theorised new spells. Some of the spells that he created are still used to this day. Others of his spells are incredibly powerful and very dangerous in their instability. When you read these books, you need to read his diaries at the same time. The diaries will tell you what he was thinking when he was working on that spell, he didn't always get it right, and he got hurt more times than I can remember reading about. There is also a love story in his diaries as he writes about Viviane and how infatuated he becomes with her. The other danger of these books," she paused for effect, "Is if they fall into the wrong hands. Imagine if you will, some dark wizard wannabe gets a hold of these books and turns Merlin's work to evil. I would definitely tell your parents what you have here so they can protect you and these books."
"They're really that valuable? That someone would want to hurt us to get the books?"
"Very much so. They are very good reading, and I would encourage all of you to read them, you will learn a lot about magic and how it works. If you're not comfortable taking them home, then you can leave them here and read them, while you're here. We can even tell Angelina and George that they're here and we are keeping them for you."
"Okay, I'm okay with that," Angel told her, kind of fearfully.
They went over the trunks one final time, looking for hidden compartments and any other thing that they could have missed. With all of them satisfied, Hermione banished the trunks with a flick of her wrist.
.
After dinner, after hanging out for a couple of more hours, and after George and Angel flooed home, just before Ced and his wives apparated Amber to her home, she asked them, "So, what's your story? Sister's don't hang all over their brothers like you two do."
They were alone in the living room, the Wizarding Wireless, had been turned off, Ced was on the couch with Cici and Vic snuggled up next to him, their legs laid across his and theirs. Cici looked at her as if she was judging her, weighing the goodness in her soul, "Remember how we mentioned Soul-Bonded couples before?"
"Yes, but that's just something that's made up!"
"What do you know about Soul-Bonded couples, that you can say that?"
"Well, I have never read one of those romance novels, but from what the other kids have told me, they don't exist."
"So, you know nothing about Soul-Bonded couples, other than what someone else has said couldn't exist."
"I guess so."
"So, what could we say, to someone that has already made up their mind, that something that they know nothing about, is real?"
With a confused look on her face, she said, "I don't know."
"If we gave you a book to read, and we would want you to read it all tonight, would you do that? Would you read it?"
"Okay, sure." She said not too convincingly.
Vic held out her hand, and a book from the library sailed into it.
"How did you do that?"
"Because, we're something that doesn't exist, in your mind," Vic told her.
Vic's statement just seemed to confuse her more. The two wives stood up, it was time for their guest to go. Amber stood up, then Ced. As a group, they walked to the apparition point for the mansion, they could see the rusted wheels in the fourteen-year-old girl's mind starting to turn. She had, after all, a very full day running around with Vic, Cici, and Ced, and then there was George.
When they reached the apparition point for the mansion, Cici held out her arm for Amber, "But you're too young to apparate! How can you do this?"
"Because we're something that doesn't exist in your mind. Your mind is closed to all of the possibilities. Did you ever really believe that Merlin existed?"
"No, he was just a legend that was made up for bedtime stories."
"Yet, today, you saw and handled some of his books, his diaries! So how can you say that he doesn't exist? Hold on tight."
Amber grabbed Cici's arm in a death grip, and then they were standing in her neighbourhood. A moment later, Vic and Ced were standing next to them. They started walking her home. Talking softly, to avoid attracting unwanted attention. The street was lit with street lights, there was light coming from around the curtains in some of the houses, others had the curtains open, and the light from the homes spilt out from them. The neighbourhood was an upscale neighbourhood, the streets were clean, there were no homeless lying on the benches at the bus stops. They turned and walked up a short path to the stairs leading to the front door. This is where Amber turned to say her goodnights.
"I would invite you in, but my parents." She used as an excuse.
"That's okay, do you want to come over and visit some more tomorrow?" Cici asked her.
"Yeah, sure."
"Okay, we'll pick you up at eight?"
"Okay, I'll be ready at eight."
"Read the book, tonight!" Vic encouraged her.
"Okay! I'll read the book!"
"Goodnight!" the threesome told her.
"Goodnight." She answered them back.
The threesome left holding hands, walking down the sidewalk. Then Ced slipped his arms around their waists, they slipped an arm around his waist.
"You feel pretty real to me!" he said giving them a squeeze.
They squeezed him back, and when they got to the apparition point, they were home, walking down the path to the front doors of their home.
"I don't think that we should tell her that we're a soul-bonded couple/threesome." Ced finally said. "Why do we have to tell everybody that we meet that we're soul-bonded?"
"I agree, let her figure it out on her own. If she doesn't read the book, we'll just ask for it back and put it away."
"I agree, we just put the book back and let her think whatever it is that she's going to think. We don't have to prove that we exist. If you think about it, we hide so that people won't know that we exist."
"True, but I don't regret our friends knowing, I'm fine with that. Let's just see how it goes in the morning."
.
At 7:55 in the morning, the teens were walking down the street to Amber's house. They turned to go up to her door when Amber came out of the house and saw George standing there with a big smile on his face. He was so happy to see her that his smile was infectious.
"Hi!" she said smiling.
"Hi!" he said grinning like an idiot. To him, she was crazy beautiful, prettier than the prettiest flower.
"Are you ready to go?" asked Cici.
"Yes, and you can have your book back. I read it, and I just find it all so hard to believe."
"Okay, that's fine. At least you read it."
"It was actually kind of boring, I mean, I don't know what I was expecting. But it was boring."
"That's fine, it's not for everyone. Did you have it with you? I want to put it back before it gets lost."
"Hold on a sec. let me go in and get it."
"Okay, we can wait a moment."
"I'm not going to spend my time trying to convince her of anything. She might be one of those people that has to see it to believe it."
"Let's just see how it goes. George likes her, and that's a plus."
"Guilty conscience?"
"Some, but I know that we have nothing to be ashamed of."
"He really is a very nice guy. It was good to see him stand up for himself yesterday."
"Yeah, it was. It felt good to see all of that training paid off finally."
"Glad that Auror decided not to haul us in."
"Uncle King would have torn him up!"
Amber came back outside, "Here you go!" and she handed the book to Cici.
"What happened to the book?"
"Oh, sorry, my mom's dog got to it. It must have fallen onto the floor, and he chewed it up."
Cici walked over to the low standing garden wall. She opened the book up, and the book started leafing through the pages. It stopped where a page was missing. She looked at the section that was missing the pages. It was on soul-bonded couples. "It's missing pages." She stated flatly. "Bring me the missing pages before I start using all sorts of magic to find them!"
"You can't do magic in public. You're underage! And they'll get you for it!"
"I will ask you one more time before I find those pages myself." The chill in her voice would have made you think Daphne was there with them.
"NO! and you can't make me!"
George stepped away from the girl that he was crushing on.
Cici left the book open to the missing pages. She walked toward the front door of Amber's house.
"The doors locked and I'm not giving you the key! So there!" Amber stomped her foot in defiance.
As Cici stepped on the first step leading up to the door, the door just burst open. She walked inside the house and held her hand out. A moment later, all of the missing pages to the book were flying into her hand. She grasped the pages and turned to leave the house. She noticed that none of the electronics in the house was working anymore.
"Vic, wipe her memory of us just after the incident with the Auror. Everything after that needs to be just a blank. Or just give her a false memory after that point, I don't care which."
Ced pulled George aside so Vic could get next to Amber. Amber was just standing there, shocked at what had just happened to her house. Vic decided to use the damages as part of the false memory she was going to plant. It would be accidental magic that had happened.
"Check for any stolen items that belong to us, too." Ced thought to Cici.
Cici turned back around and summoned any stolen items that belonged to them. Nothing appeared to her. She left the house and repaired the book. As she was shrinking the book to fit in her pocket, Vic was walking Amber up the stairs to her home, she walked her inside and sat her on a chair in front of a blank telly. She stepped back outside, the stage was set to make a false memory real.
Ced had explained what had happened and why they did what they did. George just nodded. "Okay, game faces on, and let's go." He whispered.
George went up the steps and knocked on the damaged door jamb. "Hello! Is anybody home!" he called out.
A dazed Amber came walking to the front door of the house, it was severely damaged and barely hanging on the hinges. "What happened? What are you doing here?"
"We agreed last night that we would come by and pick you up a little after eight," Ced told her.
"Oh, I must have forgotten. What are you doing here?" she asked George.
"Well, I thought that since you and I hit it off so well yesterday, that I would tag along so that I could spend extra time with you. I hope you don't mind!"
"No, no, I liked spending time with you yesterday. I had a lot of fun with you. And when you stood up to that bully, that was really brave of you."
"What happened to your front door?" asked Vic.
"I, I, I don't know?"
"Did you have a burst of accidental magic?" suggested Vic.
"Uh, I, I guess so."
"Did you want us to fix that for you?" asked Cici.
"Could you please?" she asked. She was so confused, she hadn't had a burst of accidental magic in years. She looked around the house, all of the electronics were broken, she guessed that she must have had an outbreak of accidental magic.
Cici had already fixed the front door. You couldn't tell that it had been blown off the hinges in anger. Cici looked around the house, other than nothing electrical working, it all seemed in place.
"What else did you find while you were in her head?" asked Cici.
"Nothing, she can be a little troublemaker but nothing to malicious. She's never hurt anyone, she's never stolen anything."
"Then why'd she rip the pages out of the book? And I don't see a dog."
"She's just one of those people that has to see it to believe it. I think that she took the pages because she knows that we're telling the truth, but she doesn't want to believe us."
"Did you still want to come over? Or did you want to stay home?" asked Ced.
"Would you mind me coming over? There's nothing to do here, and I'm not a big reader, so I don't have any books. I just normally watch TV or play computer games," she looked around the room, "but all of those are broken now."
.
Back in the Potter mansion, Angel, Fred, and Rose were waiting for them. It was taking longer than they had expected to go and get Amber. When they walked through the front doors and thanked Charles, the girls and George went one direction, and Ced went in another direction. He caught Rose's eye and motioned with his head that he needed to speak with them.
Off to the side, Ced told them, "Amber stole some pages from a book that we gave her to read, she literally ripped them out of the book. We were going to tell her that we're a soul-bonded family, we wanted her to read the book because she didn't believe us, we kept giving her hints, but we've changed our minds on that. She's the kind of person that won't believe it until she sees it, so we've modified her memory from just after George stood up to that bully until this morning. Mostly what got changed is what happened after you left last night."
"Wow! That's a little extreme, don't you think?" Rose said.
"Yeah, I was thinking the same, that it's a little extreme." Angel agreed with Rose.
"I can see your point of view, but she's a lot more pleasant person now than she was when we first met her at the door. She was being a vindictive little witch about the pages from the book she took. After Vic modified her memory, she's very pleasant, to George and to us."
"Well, we'll go and see, but can you change it back to what it was before?" asked Fred.
"I think Vic can, we would have to ask her," Ced told them. Then he started thinking how ironic it was, that the girl that had her memories modified without her permission had just done the same thing to another girl.
"True, but she's not trying to kill anybody."
They all went back to join the group and found Amber sitting next to George, holding his hand. Fred had invited Julia to come over and hang out with them. They spent most of their summer this way. Amber's parents yelled at her for ruining the electronics in the house, again. The group had chosen not to invite her to go running with them in the mornings, they had decided that they would wait until school started to invite her along. Nobody mentioned the memory modification again, as promised they took her school shopping, and they met her at the train station for the train ride to school.
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A/N: Please review!
Revised 02.11.2018
And again 01.03.2019