Mafalda Hopkirk took her job very seriously, except for on Christmas mornings. The first Christmas that she worked in the department she was sent out to Kent to cover up a large amount of accidental magic. The parents of the girl were confused, as could be expected, and lead her to where their three year old daughter was gleefully shredding and propelling wrapping paper around the room. With a smile she removed the memory of her visit from Dan and Emma Granger and left quickly to let young Hermione play.
A year later she was called to the same house. Instead of going in she disillusioned herself and peaked in through the window. She watched for a few minutes before turning and leaving quietly. The year after that the same thing happened, then a few months later she was promoted. Now no one responded to accidental magic in Kent of Christmas morning, but Mafalda would still watch the magic detectors dance as Hermione played.
Today was the first Christmas in all those years where the meter didn't move at all. Mafalda knew this day was coming, it wasn't hard for Mafalda to learn that Hermione was at Hogwart's now, most of the wizarding world would recognize her face simply due to her attachment to Harry Potter. Magical education almost invariably marked the end of accidental magic. Mafalda knew this, but it didn't stop her from shedding a tear at the end of an era.
HPCOC
Harry caught himself staring at his pile of presents again, one of them specifically. The Marauders gave the girls and himself a large flask full of memories, they said it was the story of their animagus journey, which explained all of their smirks and half laughs the other day. He was down to the last gift from people he actually knew, this one was from Luna.
He was about to tear the paper when he heard a squeak from his left and got crushed by a Hermione Hug. Harry laughed into her hair and wound his left arm around her to return the hug. He could hear Tonks tear paper hastily and the chuckles that caused around the room turned into full laughs as she grabbed Harry as soon as Hermione released him.
When Harry finally extricated himself he shot a grateful glance to Gwenog, who was smiling smugly as if to say 'I told you so'. Smiling to himself he removed the wrapping paper and lifted the lid off of Luna's present. He gasped involuntarily at the artistry of the figures in front of him. The nine members of Harry's court as well as Luna and Ginny were lined up in a neat line all finely crafted out of wood and delicately painted. Harry immediately noticed the portkey on the one of him, a long life of celebrity made him quite familiar with them. Oh, goody! This should be fun! Harry smiled excitedly and checked to make sure he had his wand and vial of elixir.
"Wow, these are really cool!" Harry exclaimed. No one is touching me, this is as good of a time as any. Harry reached out to take the portkey with his left hand. "Look, she gave the one of me a duck bill!"
Huh, Harry thought, looking around as he drew his wand after landing. Who'd've thought I'd end up here again.
HPCOC
"HARRY!" Hermione screamed as the box of dolls hit the floor. Time blurred over the next few minutes as complete chaos broke out in the room. Hestia had her head in the fireplace and Gwenog was frantically writing something. Remus and Andromeda were casting spells over the other dolls and the box. Sirius finally broke her out of her daze by shoving her mirror in front of her face. Hermione reached up to take it with arms that she just then realized were wrapped around a similarly panicking Tonks.
"Call Susan and get Amelia here as quickly as you can." Sirius commanded. "We'll get him back, don't worry."
Hermione nodded and took the mirror. "Susan." She called shakily and waited for her friend's face to appear.
HPCOC
"Headmaster!" Hestia's head yelled from inside the fireplace.
"He's in McGonagall's office dear." One of the former headmistress's portraits said.
"Thank you." Hestia said quickly and withdrew from the fireplace. After throwing another pinch of Floo Powder on the fire she stuck her head back in and called. "Hogwart's Transfiguration Office."
"Oh, good morning Hestia." McGonagall said surprised.
"Is Dumbledore there?" Hestia asked impatiently.
"I'm here." Dumbledore moved into view, with a serious expression. "What's wrong?"
"Someone's taken Harry!" Hestia cried.
"Step back, I'm coming through." Dumbledore nodded.
HPCOC
Harry only survived his first trip here with the aid of the Weasley's semi-sentient invisible flying car. This time it was just Harry, his wand, and the whole nest of Acromantula. The giant spiders were, fortunately, far more surprised at Harry's arrival than Harry was. Unfortunately they don't stay surprised very long. Harry thought as he leaped to his left to avoid a thick strand of web that fell from above. A flick of his wrist sent a cutting curse back in the same direction and Harry was rewarded with a hiss of pain.
Harry ducked under a bite directed at his head and set that spider of fire before banishing it back into the horde. A sharp burning pain in his left arm told him that one of them had gotten lucky and ripped his arm open with a claw. Worse though was causing him to drop the doll, which he needed to return without raising suspicion. He never saw the face of that spider but he managed to get one of its legs with a reducto before it disappeared back into the swarm.
With a thought Harry focused his metamorph talent and stopped the bleeding before throwing himself into the fight with reckless abandon.
HPCOC
"Where is he?" Tonks screamed as Shacklebolt escorted Luna Lovegood and her father into the room.
Luna burst into tears as her father placed himself protectively between the girls, glaring angrily at Tonks. Shacklebolt also glared but yelled back too. "Ms. Tonks, now isn't the time for blind accusations. We don't know that Ms. Lovegood had anything to do with the portkey!"
"What ever." Tonks muttered looking down in equal parts shame and anger.
"Madam Bones is right over here, if you'll please follow me." Shacklebolt lead the Lovegoods away.
"It'll be alright Nym. The Headmaster has the instruments to track a portkey, he'll find Harry in no time, we just have to give him a second to get back with everything." Hermione whispered calmingly to the girl in her arms.
HPCOC
Harry panted as he watched what remained of the acromantula swarm run away. With a shuddering sigh he dropped into a sitting position and allowed the dome of fiendfire, that he had erected around himself, die away. Harry never understood why that spell was considered dark. Probably just another case of the Ministry being afraid of what most people had a hard time controlling.
That's funny. Harry laughed as a he remembered how Hermione had invented that variation of the spell to help Ron overcome his crippling phobia so that the three of them and Ginny could clear this very forest of those very spiders, just a few years before their kids started school. I owe older Hermione so much. Now where did that portkey land?
Harry had picked up a few more small injuries during the fight and a few of them objected to Harry standing up again. Ignoring the mutinous parts of his body Harry cast a locating charm and groaned when it told him the doll was under a pile of dead spiders.
If Harry knew more about arachnid anatomy he would have noticed that the abdomen of the bottom most spider was badly damaged. If Harry had noticed that he would have taken more care while levitating said corpse.
Harry was walking towards the doll when he heard a loud crack above him. The abdomen of a giant spider landed between him and the doll before bursting open and showering the area in spider guts. As Harry fought the urge to throw up he lost concentration on the levitation spell and the upper half of the spider dropped like a rock. Having shifted slightly in the separation the spider's top half landed behind Harry but bounced towards him, knocking Harry face first into the abdomen.
Scrambling away from it as fast as possible, Harry managed to get a few feet away before he lost his breakfast. Head, neck and shoulders all covered in unspeakably disgusting goo Harry looked around for his wand, scourgify was now his highest priority despite how much it would hurt his wounds. Find wand, reverse polarity on the portkey and go home. Hardest step is the first. Harry thought miserably as his eyes landed on the burst abdomen. Oh, you've got to be shitting me.
Harry took a few deep fortifying breaths and rolled his sleeve up with a grimace.
HPCOC
Dumbledore had been rushing around his office and private study for several minutes desperately searching for all of the rarely used instruments he needed. Not for the first time Albus wondered why he never got around to researching a spell to do this job without all of the extras. Now where did I put that dimensional clamp?
He yanked open a drawer on his desk to search there when he noticed that his portkey detector had indicated the arrival of a portkey within school grounds, twelve and a half minutes ago. Wide eyed he checked a second device that was designed to track magic on the grounds, it showed that a massive amount of magic had been used deep within the Forbidden Forest starting from just over twelve minutes ago to four minutes ago. A quick glance confirmed that no portkey had left.
"Fawkes!" Albus shouted as he copied the coordinates and moved towards a map of the grounds. Behind him his second device flared softly. "I need you to take me...here!" Albus finished by pointing at a place in the forest. His portkey detector triggered again as Fawkes swooped down and flashed away with the Headmaster.
HPCOC
"Finally!" Harry shouted as he pulled his arm out of the goo, wand firmly grasped. Without hesitation he scourgified himself, gasping as it scoured his open wounds. So much for my second favorite pair of pajamas. Harry thought as he looked at his partially shredded and horribly stained clothes. Oh well, let's get out of here.
Harry walked over to where the portkey was a picked up the doll again. Two quick prods of his wand and he reversed the portkey. A moment later it activated and Harry never noticed the burst of flame behind him.
"HARRY!" Hermione's scream let everyone know he was back and a moment later he was knocked off his feet again as she barreled into him.
"Ow." Harry groaned from under Hermione.
"Oh, sorry!" Hermione blushed and stood up quickly then she and Tonks helped Harry to his feet, then they both hugged him crushingly again.
"Ow." Harry groaned but returned the embrace. "I picked up a couple of scratches while I was out. Andi? Are you here?"
"Move away from him girls." Andromeda commanded as she bustled over.
"Do they teach you to bustle in healer school or something?" Harry wondered aloud as Andromeda started her diagnostics.
"Yes." She stated plainly. "We should get you out of public space. You need to get patched up pronto."
"I agree, I think I got some venom too. My fingers started tingling a few minutes ago." Harry nodded and allowed her to rush him off, Hermione and Tonks close behind.
HPCOC
Dumbledore sighed in resignation. "There is nothing more I can do here Fawkes. Please take me to Grimmauld Place."
"Headmaster!" Hestia shouted as he arrived. "Harry's-"
Albus held up a hand solemnly, cutting her off and making her fall silent. "I found where the portkey led. Harry landed in the midst of the colony of acromantula that lives within the Forbidden Forest. I arrived too late, the fighting was over. Harry put up a valiant struggle but when I arrived only corpses remained. I am afraid that the colony carried him off, he's probably already dead." Dumbledore was close to tears by the time he finished.
"I think you're exaggerating a bit Professor." Harry said from the doorway behind him, left arm in a sling. "Although I am very tired." Behind him Hermione and Tonks rolled their eyes.
"Harry!" Dumbledore shouted as he spun around immediately noting the numerous bandaged injuries. "You're alive, but, how?"
"Rode the portkey back." Harry said seriously. "I dropped it almost immediately after I landed and had to fight the colony off to find it again. Otherwise I would have come back as soon as I got a free second. I presume you would like to join the Aurors in my pensieve?"
"If you don't have any objections of course." Albus nodded.
"Feel free. I'm headed there right now." Harry motioned with his free arm, and the two wizards along with Hermione and Tonks made their way into the next room.
"back." Hestia huffed quietly at Dumbledore's back, finishing her earlier statement and crossing her arms.
HPCOC
"I'm so sorry Harry!" Luna cried as she threw her arms around Harry. "I swear I didn't know!"
"Don't worry Luna, I know you had nothing to do with that." Harry hugged her back softly. "I know who did though."
"Riddle?" Sirius asked grumpily.
"Without a doubt." Harry nodded. "He's just narrowed our suspect list down to less than ten too."
"How's that?" Amelia asked, leaning forward.
"I'm sorry to interrupt, but who is Riddle?" Xenophilius asked from his seat.
"Voldemort." Harry said casually then froze. "They shouldn't be here."
"Leaving." Xenophilius said hastily and led Luna out of the room.
"But.." Luna started to protest.
"Not now." Xenophilius said sternly, Luna just nodded knowing there wouldn't be any further arguing.
"You too Shack." Harry said pointedly.
"Madam Bones?" Shacklebolt looked questioningly to Amelia and Dumbledore. "Headmaster?"
"Harry's right." Dumbledore frowned at the boy. "He's already told too many people."
Amelia merely nodded and without a word Shacklebolt turned and left. Amelia cast the standard set of privacy charms and turned back to the room. "So talk Harry."
"The portkey was onto Hogwart's grounds." Dumbledore interjected before Harry could start. "Only a professor can make a portkey onto the grounds."
"Or a staff member." Harry nodded.
"There are more than ten people on the staff Harry." Hermione insisted.
"Yes, but we can remove Professors Dumbledore, McGonagall, Flitwick, Sprout, Babbling and Vector, and Madam Pomfrey for various reasons, mainly not being weak willed enough and not wanting me to be harmed." Harry listed, ticking off fingers. "Professors Trelawney, Burbage, Sinistra, and Lockhart along with Mr. Filch, Hagrid and Madam Hooch are possibly too weak willed to trust. Snape might want me to be harmed enough, but probably not."
"Professor Snape." Dumbledore corrected automatically. Tonks' jaw dropped in disbelief.
"With Voldemort being who he is we can probably discount Filch and Hagrid since they're a squib and half-giant respectively." Harry thought out loud. "Burbage too, he would never want to be anywhere near the muggle studies classroom. Trelawney, Sinistra and Hooch are all good targets because they spend a lot of time outside of observation, but I doubt you can find a mind weaker than Fraud Lockhart's."
"So we have four good suspects to search." Dumbledore nodded. "I'll start searching their quarters as soon as I get back to the castle."
"Wait? He's allowed to call Lockhart a fraud without any correction but he says Snape and you knee jerk." Tonks said in exasperation.
"Professor Snape." Dumbledore corrected automatically, then stopped and blinked in confusion. "Huh, that's weird."
"That explains so much." Harry sighed, shaking his head.
"What do you mean?" Dumbledore frowned.
"You're a creature of habit." Harry shrugged. "Don't worry about it. There are far more important things to do right now."
"Right." Dumbledore nodded and started to leave.
"Wait!" Harry stopped him and paused for him to turn around. "Didn't you want to see the fight?"
"Later." Dumbledore nodded and left.
"So what now?" Tonks asked quietly.
"Now you let the adults do their respective jobs and everything is dealt with by the time you get back to Hogwart's." Shacklebolt smiled assuringly. "For now why don't you three take Ms. Lovegood and get some hot chocolate?"
"Sounds good." Harry replied and hopped out of his chair. "Let me know when things spiral out of your control and I'll save the day."
"Wait, leave the memory Harry, we'll take a look now." Sirius suggested.
"Sure thing Padfoot." Harry drew the memory out and dropped it into a rapidly conjured vial. Harry's pensieve might only be able to fit a couple people but the Black Family pensieve could fit the whole group.
"Oh, I don't know if you should go to that boy's party tomorrow either, it might be hard to explain so many fresh bandages." Sirius added as he caught the vial when Harry tossed it.
"You might have a point, but I should be able to cover them all by morning." Harry nodded. "But if I can't then I totally agree."
HPCOC
"That was a stressful day." Harry noted lamely as the last of the Aurors left and the sun was setting.
"We should do something fun." Hermione suggested.
"Remus said those memories were funny." Tonks nodded. "We could watch those."
"Sounds good to me." Harry said and turned to shout across the room to the adults. "Any old people who would like to attend are more than welcome to join the three of us in the pensieve for a session of trouble forgetting distractions and Marauder based shenanigans."
The three of them made their way over to the pensieve and Harry removed the memory of the fight and poured in the new ones. Sirius, Remus and Gwenog joined them, and together the six dropped into the past.
"This was the first time we made the potion." Sirius said as the silver fog faded to show a summer day. "This is Potter Manor, somewhere to the North of here. When Harry reaches his majority the spells will trigger and he will learn the location, then he can tell us."
"No Sirius, it's three times clockwise before you add the chameleon skin and then three times counter clockwise." Memory Remus scolded.
"He's never going to get it right." Memory James chuckled.
"Bet I get it right before you do!" Memory Sirius challenged.
The memory swirled back to silver and cleared again revealing the young Marauders in an empty classroom at Hogwart's, frost covering the windows. Memory Remus was walking in with a small box and the other three were almost bouncing with excitement.
"So what animals did you pick?" Memory Remus asked brightly.
"My name is Sirius Black, I got fur from the biggest black dog I could find." Memory Sirius said proudly and held up a small bag.
"I yanked some fur off the stuffed brown bear in my dad's study." James grinned.
"Lion." Peter shrugged nonchalantly.
"How did you manage to get lion?" Memory Sirius asked stunned.
"You'd be amazed what the London Zoo will do for a kid who is working on a school project." Peter laughed.
"Let's get on with it then!" Memory Remus tapped his wand to the box. "I solemnly swear I am up to no good."
They crowded around and James and Peter groaned, the vials marked with their names had turned blood red, spoiled. Sirius' was fine and the same black that it had been when he stored it. With a big smirk he picked his vial out and dropped the dog hairs in. "What was that bet again?" Memory Sirius asked and drained his vial, a moment later the yet unnamed Padfoot appeared for the first time.
Memory Sirius as dog danced around yipping happily while James and Peter turned to regard each other. "He never put down any stakes." James frowned. "Did he?"
"Not that I can remember." Peter shook his head.
The potion wore off then and Sirius turned back into his human form. "Then you should agree to my second bet. I bet that you won't be successful until at least your fourth attempt."
"Oh, getting cocky are you?" James laughed. "You're on, stakes first this time."
"Fine, if you lose Peter picks your form." Sirius supplied confidently.
"Fine. But if I win I get to pick his!" James shot back.
"Hey!" Peter objected. "Don't I get a say in this?"
"Fine, you can have the same wager." Sirius crossed his arms.
"You're on!" Peter shouted and all four broke into laughter as the memory faded back to silver mist.
"This next memory is actually before the last." Sirius narrated as the mist cleared to show him opening the box of potions. The memory only lasted a few seconds because once the box was open Memory Sirius took out James' and Peter's potions and shook them vigorously before putting them back and sneaking away.
"Why would you do that?" Hermione asked as the memory swirled again before clearing to show Remus in front of the same box.
"Why not?" Sirius responded as Remus opened the box too. "At the time it was funny."
The angle allowed everyone to see that there were only two vials in the box now. "This is a few months later, James and Peter's second attempts." Adult Remus snickered said as Memory Remus shook both vials vigorously. "We didn't find out until we were compiling these that we both did this."
The silver mist swirled again and settled to show the four teens at Potter Manor again the next summer. Sirius was in dog form dancing around laughing at James and Peter and their second failure. Finally James threw his vial of worthless potion at Sirius. "Shut up!"
Sirius jumped to the side as the vial broke on the ground and continued gallivanting around. Not even thirty seconds later he stepped on a piece of broken vial and transformed back into a human with a shout. "Ow! My pad! Er, foot."
"Padderfoot?" James snickered. "What is a padderfoot?"
"Har har, very funny." Sirius grumbled as he sat down and dug the glass out and the memory faded away again.
"And I never lived it down." Sirius remarked glumly.
"Aww, it's okay Padderfoot." Harry patted him sincerely on the shoulder.
"God damn it!" James yelled as the next memory faded in and out rapidly with just a moment showing James and Peter holding blood red vials again.
"Neither of us did it that time." Remus explained. "We came to the conclusion that they just didn't want to be the loser and sabotaged each others'."
"Hey what are you practicing?" James' voice asked as the next memory came into focus showing Sirius with two glasses, one empty the other full of water.
"Just working on the switching charm." Sirius grinned.
"Good choice, sir." James nodded approvingly. "You going to put something in Snivellus' pumpkin juice?"
"Something like that." Sirius replied as the memory faded away.
"Finally!" James shouted holding up a black vial, again they were at Potter Manor. "It worked!"
"Mine too!" Peter cheered holding up his own light brown vial.
"Do you mind if I go first?" James asked and held up the brown bear hair.
"Wait just a minute." Peter objected and pulled out a small envelope. "You lost, your form is my choice."
"What?" James hollered. "I didn't think we were being serious!"
"Too bad for you, and since you didn't come prepared I guess I just have to use the lion's hair after all." Peter grinned.
"Oh no, if you're picking mine I'm picking yours." James said sternly and stomped over to the window. "ACCIO FUR!"
Memory Sirius and Remus looked like they were having a hard time not laughing, older Sirius and Remus weren't wasting the effort and were laughing heartily. A moment later James and Peter were staring each other down unknown fur in hand and as they started reaching out to drop their selected fur in the others' potion Memory Sirius cast the switching charms, and then again immediately after the fur hit the potion.
From a spectator's view it was obvious what happened since Peter's potion went from brown to black and James' did the opposite, but once the fur was in they both had a similar brown color. James and Peter didn't notice the changes and still glaring at each other they clinked their vials together and simultaneously drank them.
A moment later a stag and a rat had replaced them. Peter seemed to be getting angry as they looked themselves over and soon enough they popped back into their human forms. Peter immediately turned and glared angrily at Sirius and Remus. Pointing at James he yelled. "He was supposed to be the rat!"
"Looking back on it, that was probably the worst bet any of us have ever made." Older Sirius commented as Memory Sirius held up his hand defensively.
"If you won you were to pick the other's and if you lost you weren't allowed to pick your own." Memory Sirius said. "You both lost, therefore neither of you could pick your own forms nor could you pick the other's."
"I don't know if Peter ever really stopped being mad about that." Remus observed as the mist swirled again. This time to show the three animagi out playing in the forest during the day with Remus close by reading.
After they watched for a few seconds James' antlers got stuck in the branches of a tree. Thinking quick he transformed back into his human shape. "Where are my glasses?" He asked, squinting around.
"Up there." Peter said pointing and laughing at the pair of glasses dangling from where James' antlers had been. The memory swirled as Peter levitated the glasses out of the tree.
"No, give them back." James begged in his sleep as the next memory came up showing the inside of one of the Gryffindor's boy's dormitory. James was in the throws of a dream while the other three were standing around him laughing. "Please Lily, give them back."
"Give what back James?" Sirius asked in a girly voice.
"My prongs!" James plead. "Give my my prongs back."
"This is the next morning at breakfast." Remus said as the Great Hall appeared out of the mist.
"So I had this weird dream last night." James stated as he ripped open a roll.
"Tell us about it." Memory Remus smiled sweetly.
"Oh, yes, please do." Sirius gushed.
"Well, it started in the common room, Evans grabbed me by the...glasses...and ripped them off my face." James only blushed the slightest amount as he lied. "She then lead me around Hogwart's holding my glasses ransom until I did something."
"Until you did what?" Peter asked smiling.
"I don't know, I woke up before I found out." James shrugged.
"So did you ever get your prongs back?" Remus asked casually.
"Yea, I finally stopped her and persuaded her to return them." James nodded. "What do you think it means?"
"First of all, I think it means you need to ask Lily out." Sirius laughed as James choked on his juice.
"And second." Peter piped up. "It means you have earned yourself a nickname, Prongs."
"What?" James asked confused for a second before realizing what he meant, then buried his face in his hands. "Shit."
"You talk in your sleep." Remus consoled.
"This is the last one." Older Sirius said as the memories reformed again to show three of the four Marauders floating on the lake in a small boat, fishing.
"I didn't know you were allowed to fish there!" Hermione squeaked.
"Yea, sorry about that." Sirius said rubbing his neck. "But that is a different set of memories."
"Where's Wormtail?" Harry asked as he looked at the boat.
"Just wait." Older Remus said as his memory counter part reached down for another worm. Memory Remus sat straight up with a yelp of surprise and tossed a small object out of the boat.
A second later Peter's head broke the surface and he spit out a mouthful of water before glaring at Remus. The shock of surprise wore off and the three in the boat started laughing hard. Remus pulled himself together and started rowing the boat towards the man overboard. "Sorry about that Peter, I thought your tail was a worm, surprised me is all."
"You should really watch where you nap." James laughed and he and Sirius helped Peter crawl back into the boat.
Moments later the group was ejected from the pensieve.
AN:
Review from Pykon: "I always think it funny when people bash religion, then only pick on Christianity. There are other religions out there. Why don't you make a crack about Muhammed? They have a religion also.. or are you afraid just like Comedy Central and end up with a fatwā, calling for your death, just like Salman Rushdie. Come on, do it.. remember "whole religion thing is a bit silly", is what you said."
The answer is simply because I know next to nothing about the other religions. I grew up in a conservative Christian community and a Russian-Orthodox family. If I grew up in a Jewish household I would make fun of primarily them, same if I grew up Buddhist. Although as far as I can tell Buddha was actually a really cool dude.