One of the Death Eaters who was killed by Harry Potter and Tonks was Sam Flint, who was elderly Daphne's first husband in the original timeline.

Chapter 17
Muggle London

Still Sunday afternoon, 21st July
In Diagon Alley, London

Kingsley Shacklebolt could not believe his eyes. And now, after hearing the Weasley twins' tale, Shacklebolt could not believe his ears either.

The Aurors had Apparated into Diagon Alley, expecting to face off against Death Eaters in another life-or-death battle.

But instead of the arriving Aurors hearing spellfire, the taunts of Death Eaters and the screams of civilians, the Aurors had arrived hearing only the cawing of crows. Within seconds, the Aurors had come across a quiet crowd of civilians, all looking at something.

The "something" turned out to be thirteen dead Death Eaters on the ground, and a shop wall that was splattered with blood and grey specks. Amongst the dead, Kingsley noted three men in particular: a young man who looked like the older son of Linus Flint, the blond-haired tosser who was the son of Lucius Malfoy, and Fenrir Greyback (who had died by two gunshots).

Witnesses claimed that all this carnage had been achieved by only two people: Harry Potter and a mysterious Polyjuiced woman who looked like Bellatrix Lestrange.

Now one of the Weasley twins pulled on Kingsley's sleeve. "We need to talk to you—"

"—but not where other Aurors can hear," the other twin said. Both twins looked serious.

Kingsley walked the twins about thirty yards away from the other Aurors. As the three men walked, one of the twins said, "Where is Auror Tonks? You two always work together."

Shacklebolt was puzzled now, because the twin who just had spoken was grinning, as though he knew a delightful secret.

Kingsley answered the question: "Tonks isn't here now because she has the day off."

Now it was the other twin who was grinning like he knew a secret: "Oh, too bad. Poor Tonks has missed all the excitement."

Annoyed, Kingsley demanded, "So what do you two want to tell me that's so secret?"

The twins answered—

"Bellatrix—the real one—isn't lying there because—"

"—the one Death Eater still alive Portkeyed her out of—"

"—there. But she was dead when he took her."

"How do you know this?" Kingsley pressed. "Why do you think she was dead, not Stupefy'd?"

"We saw her head explode—"

"—right after the other Bella fell down."

"The fake Bella's gun went off, and we figure—"

"—our favourite madwoman was shot in the back—"

"—of the head."

The twins said in chorus: "It was disgusting to see."

"Wait," said Kingsley, as he felt a hunch. "The Polyjuiced Bella fell down? Did someone trip her?"

Now both twins were grinning. The twin on the right said, "Yes, the Polyjuiced woman hit the ground, but we can't tell you why."

The other twin said, "We were a bit busy at the time."

Kingsley asked, "You were helping Harry and To—the woman fight Death Eaters?"

"Kingsley!" the twin on the left said, in a tone of exaggerated disappointment. "Fight, us? You know we never do the expected thing."

The twins then explained that during the firefight, they were both Disillusioned and were shooting Parselmagic tracking charms, which each was attached to a grain of sand, at every Death Eater.

Now both twins looked at Kingsley with deadly serious expressions. The twin on the left said, "You can't write down anywhere that we saw Bellatrix die, because so far as everyone else is concerned, we weren't there. You also can't write down that Harry ordered us to shoot tracking charms at the wankers."

"He's right," the other twin agreed. "Anything juicy written down in any Ministry report, we figure Voldy knows in less than a day."

"I promise," said Kingsley, "I'll leave you two out of it. One last question: was the Polyjuiced woman carrying a blue wand?"

Now the twins were grinning again. "Wouldn't a blue wand mean—"

"—she was an Auror? No, she was carrying a regular brown wand."

After the twins walked away, Kingsley thought, If it had been Albus who had surprised fifteen Death Eaters today, now all the Death Eaters would be laughing and drinking firewhisky, back in Malfoy Manor, and all the dead people here would be Muggle-borns, blood-traitors and Aurors. Instead, it's the bad folks who are dead, whilst innocent people are healthy. The Order of the Phoenix and the Aurors both are better off with Harry Potter leading the Order.

An hour later, in Malfoy Manor

The only Death Eater to survive the disaster in Diagon Alley had been a student in Snape's house of Slytherin until a few weeks ago.

The youngster, Paulus Rookwood, had sat, less than a month ago, for his N.E.W.T. exams; a week after this, he had raped and killed a Muggle uni student, in order to qualify for his Dark Mark. An hour ago, this newly-marked Death Eater youth had braved death by either Harry Potter or the false Bellatrix, in order to bring the corpse of the genuine Bellatrix back to Malfoy Manor—

—but then the lad had been AK'd by Voldemort, after the youth had told the Dark Lord about today's misadventures. Voldemort had not taken well the news that with only one exception, all of his Death Eaters had died at the hands of Harry Potter and a Bellatrix impersonator, and these deaths included Bellatrix and Fenrir.

Upon learning of his own son's death, Lucius Malfoy had sworn a painful death for Harry Potter. Even before Voldemort had threatened Lucius—"Potter is mine, do you understand me? Mine!"—Snape had rolled his eyes at Lucius acting like a drama queen.

But now, after taking a full hour to calm down, the Dark Lord ordered everyone except Snape gone from his throne room.

As soon as only two people were left in the room, Voldemort demanded of Snape, "Was this Dumbledore's idea? Was Potter following Dumbledore's orders?"

"Impossible," Snape calmly replied. "The headmaster would never give orders to kill Death Eaters, even in self-defence; and Potter lately has refused any control by the headmaster."

"So no stunners, no asking for surrender, Potter killing anyone who tried to kill him or the Polyjuiced woman—these all were Potter's ideas?"

"Yes, I believe so."

"And Potter's killing of Draco Malfoy, do you think this was self-defence or vengeance?"

"Self-defence," Snape replied.

"Explain."

Snape then explained to Voldemort, the relationship between Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy. Every time that Snape had witnessed a fight between the two boys break out, Draco had been the aggressor, and Potter always had stopped fighting once it had been clear that Draco had been defeated. At this point, Snape always had pushed for the Potter boy's punishment, because A, the boy was James Potter's spitting image, and so Snape disliked him on general principles; and B, the headmaster's "everyone deserves forgiveness" policies meant that evil troublemakers were never to be punished.

Snape admitted to Voldemort what he never had admitted at Hogwarts: that Potter never had deserved any of the detentions that had resulted from his fights with Draco.

"...In short," Snape concluded, "even if Potter somehow had known that one of the men behind the Death Eater masks was my godson, I am sure that Potter would not have tried to kill Draco until Draco first tried to kill him. Potter is not vicious, and he does not lose his self-control. The same could not be said of my godson."

Eventually Voldemort convinced himself that Potter's great victory earlier today was a freak occurrence, a one-off event. Snape did not argue, but he did not agree either.

What Snape decided was this: What if Draco has taught Potter that, when faced with an implacable enemy, continually playing defence gains you nothing but your own eventual death? What if Potter now is doing what Dumbledore refused to do, planning attacks on the Dark Lord? What if Potter has interpreted "neither can live while the other survives" to mean "I must hunt down Voldemort"?

If this is what has happened, life has just become much more challenging for the Death Eaters, for Voldemort and for me.

The next morning (Monday, 22nd July)

Albus Dumbledore never scowled; he was too conscious of his public image. But as he read this morning's Daily Prophet, he wanted to scowl, fiercely enough to frighten a troll. Half of today's newspaper coverage was about the killing of Death Eaters in Diagon Alley by Harry Potter and "Fake Bellatrix."

Dumbledore wondered why nobody amongst Master Auror Shacklebolt, Senior Auror Hestia Jones and Auror First Class Tonks, all three of whom were Order of the Phoenix members, had given the headmaster a "heads-up" yesterday about Harry's killing spree. Why did Dumbledore need to read this morning's Prophet to find out what Harry had done? But then Dumbledore dismissed the thought—undoubtedly all the Aurors had been busy yesterday.

According to the Daily Prophet, Fenrir Greyback and Rodolphus Lestrange were dead at the scene. Bellatrix Lestrange (the real one) was reported dead. Many current and former Slytherin students were dead at the scene, including Samuel Flint and Draco Malfoy.

Dumbledore squeezed his eyes shut, mourning all the misguided young men who had been killed before they turned to the Light. Harry had done this—Harry and Hermione.

(The Prophet had made wild guesses about who "Fake Bellatrix" might be. But to Albus, it was obvious that if Harry handed Miss Granger a vial of Polyjuice and a loaded Muggle weapon, Miss Granger would follow Harry into cold-blooded murder without a qualm. Albus Dumbledore had no doubt at all: "Fake Bellatrix" was actually Hermione Granger.)

Dumbledore thought, Harry should be ashamed of himself for taking advantage of that overly-trusting Muggle-born girl, to lead her into unforgiveness and murder.

Harry was going dark, it was obvious to Dumbledore; and Harry needed to be saved from himself. If gentle words would not turn Harry from his path to evil, the Greater Good required that more forceful measures needed to be taken.

Dumbledore made plans.

Later

Dumbledore sent Fawkes to deliver a parchment to Harry with the message, "Harry, I must speak to you immediately about an urgent matter." The message was booby-trapped with a mild Compulsion charm so that Harry would pick up the parchment and read it aloud; and with a Portkey to the Headmaster's office that activated when Harry spoke the last word, matter.

Once Harry would be surprise-transported to Dumbledore's office, Dumbledore planned to find out how Harry killed all those Death Eaters so quickly, then planned to Obliviate the knowledge from Harry's mind so the boy could never do such a barbaric thing again.

What actually happened then, turned out to be a bit different.

Instead of Harry being magically brought to Dumbledore's lair, Harry got Dobby and Kreacher to elf-pop Dumbledore to the Grimmauld Place cellar and into the cellar's dungeon, naked.

Naked Dumbledore was put inside an eight-feet-by-eight-feet-by-eight-feet cage; just outside the cage were two grinning house-elves, and a chair that had all of Dumbledore's clothing piled upon it.

(The excuse that Kreacher gave for all of Dumbledore's clothing being piled on the chair outside his cage, instead of being worn on Dumbledore's body inside the cage, was that Dumbledore had hidden Portkeys embedded in his clothing.)

Kreacher said to the defenceless headmaster, "Longbeard tried to sneak into Black Family townhouse six days ago. Good news: Where you wanted to go is where you are now, and you are Master Lord Black-Potter's special guest."

Dumbledore gulped.

Dumbledore soon learnt that Black Family magic on the cage bars meant that he was compelled to answer, truthfully and completely, every question he was asked by a house-elf. The naked headmaster told the house-elves many, many diamonds of information that before, he had always kept secret.

Harry ordered the house-elves to Obliviate all of Dumbledore's memories of today; and furthermore to bespell Dumbles to make him unable to cast mind-affect spells till Harry would give him permission in person.

Then Dobby elf-popped Dumbledore back into his office in Hogwarts Castle. At Harry's request, Dobby vanished the office's most recent copy of the Daily Prophet, so that today's chain of events would not repeat themselves.

Meanwhile, in Muggle London

This morning, Harry had owled Hermione, Daphne and Neville to tell them, "I have some errands to run in Muggle London. I'd enjoy your company. Meet me at the Leaky Cauldron at 10 a.m.?" (To Hermione's note, Harry had added, "If you say yes, Dobby will be your 'chauffeur' to the Leaky.")

All three of Harry's friends said yes; so at 10:04 a.m., Harry led his three friends out of the Leaky Cauldron and to the kerb of Charing Cross Road.

Hermione was happy and smiling. Neville and Daphne looked nervous.

Harry pointed to where a taxicab was parked just to their right. Through the windscreen, Harry saw the taxi driver sitting behind the steering wheel and looking at the teens. Harry said to his friends, "These two parking spaces right here have Muggle Notice-Me-Not and Muggle Avoidance charms on them. If you come out here and find anyone parked in those parking spaces, the driver is a squib, or else a Muggle-born who has left the magical world."

Daphne asked, "Does this happen a lot, Muggle-borns going back to acting Muggle?"

Both Harry and Hermione said, "Yes."

When everyone was inside the taxi

Harry was sitting to the driver's left; Hermione sat behind the driver, whilst Neville and Daphne sat to Hermione's left.

"Where can I take you folks?" the driver asked. Harry noted that he spoke with a "Pureblood accent"—the same accent as what Neville and Daphne had, as well as Draco, Pansy, and the Patil twins.

Harry pulled a business card from his shirt pocket. "Please take us to Reginald Smythe's Gentlemen's Clothiers," then Harry read off an address.

Hermione giggled. "With a name like that, I'm guessing they don't sell blue jeans and t-shirts!"

The taxi driver laughed. "In that part of London? Not hardly."

As soon as the taxi pulled out into Charing Cross Road traffic, Harry asked, "Neville? Daphne? Either of you ever been out in Muggle London before?"

"Harry!" Hermione hissed. "The Statute!"

"It's all right, miss," the driver said. "The International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy doesn't stop you from mentioning magic near me, because I'm a squib." He rotated the inside mirror to look at Daphne. "You look like Opal Bulstrode. Are you related?"

Daphne, looking stunned, replied, "I'm her daughter."

Neville said, "Erm, to answer your question, Harry—no, I've never been in Muggle London before."

Daphne said, "When I was in primary school, we once rode through Muggle London in a carriage. We weren't allowed to get out of the carriage; and the carriage had a silencing charm on it, we were told, so that Muggles outside the carriage couldn't hear what we said. We were disappointed we didn't see any witch-burnings."

"Oh, blimey," Hermione muttered.

Harry asked, "So, driver, now that you've seen both the magical world and the Muggle world, what do you like about the Muggle world?"

"Computers!" the taxi driver answered. "At home I have a PC clone that runs Windows 95, and it's brilliant!"

Neville said, "Hermione, help?"

Hermione said, "A computer is a Muggle machine that runs off electricity, and it acts like it can think. It doesn't think, but it acts like it can. On a computer, you can play games, keep financial records and write essays that print out being neat and legible—no ink spots."

The driver nodded. "I relax in the evening by writing programs—programs are like spells for a computer. I wrote a program recently called LEVIOSA. It creates random bubbles that rise up from the bottom of the screen, but I can grab a bubble with my mouse and drag the bubble around the screen. It's just like you lot can point at a real bubble with your wand and make the bubble move around."

Hermione smiled at the back of the driver's head. "Programming is tricky to learn. Be proud that you've learned it, sir."

The driver said, "I also use my computer to access the Internet. The Internet—how to describe it?—lets you send messages, with lots of words and pictures, anywhere in the world at 186 thousand miles per second. Think of international Portkeys, that aren't restricted by number, aren't restricted by who gets one, and lets you travel from anywhere in the world, directly to anywhere in the world—and the only restriction is that you only can Portkey to where you're standing in front of cork message boards. You can Portkey to a message board in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and you can read the message board and even add your own messages to the message board, as easily as walking into another room of your flat."

"I suppose," Daphne said dismissively, "this would be interesting if you couldn't Portkey to Buenos Aires for real."

"Ah, but here's the rub, young magicals. If you really think there are witch-burnings in London in the late twentieth century, then you will scorn Muggle computers too. And the Muggle internet. But you scorn these things at your peril. Because thanks to the internet, you need only one Muggle on the planet who discovers that magic is real, and within hours, thousands of Muggles know the secret. Maybe this first Muggle witnesses two drunken wizards shooting spells at each other, then he writes on the internet about what he sees. Obliviating him afterwards, if you even can find him, won't solve your problem of Muggles now knowing about the wizarding world."

"That's ridiculous!" said Daphne. "Now you're fear-mongering."

"No," said Hermione, looking shaken, "he's right. As computers get cheaper and cheaper, more and more Muggles will own a computer, so more and more Muggles will surf the internet. Which means that when the day comes when one Muggle knows about the magical world without us telling him, soon all the Muggles will know, and this will happen during our lifetimes. Which is an event the wizarding world"—Hermione locked eyes with Neville and Daphne—"absolutely is not prepared for."

A half-hour later
Inside Reginald Smythe's Gentlemen's Clothiers

Harry at the moment was wearing a white dress shirt (that required cufflinks), and grey wool slacks. He announced to his friends, "Hopefully this is the final fitting."

When Harry and the tailor agreed that the slacks and the white shirt both fit Harry perfectly, Harry pulled on a grey dress coat—a grey swallow-tailed dress coat.

Whilst the tailor checked the tailcoat's fit, Hermione asked Harry, "Are you, erm, going to a wedding?" What she clearly meant was, Are you getting married soon, Harry, and you haven't told me?

Harry answered, "No, I'm taking Daphne's advice: I'm creating a mystique by acting theatrical, and dressing this way will help do this."

Daphne beamed.

Minutes later, Harry had paid for the slacks, shirt and swallow-tailed coat, and had paid for a royal-blue bow tie; and Harry was asking one of the shop's salesmen to teach him how to buy the bow tie. Twenty minutes after this, the four magical teens were outside Reginald Smythe's shop, with Harry carrying a shopping bag.

As Harry was trying to hire his second taxicab of the day, Hermione quietly asked him, "How will buying a swallowtail coat help you fight Voldemort?"

Harry quietly replied, "It won't help me fight Voldy, but it will help me vanquish him."

Harry's friends naturally assumed that the taxi that Harry hired, would take the four of them either back to Charing Cross Road or to a Muggle restaurant with tasty food. Not quite.

After Reginald Smythe's shop, but before Sahib House of Curry, the four teens were taxied to Secret Self Costume Shop.

Harry's friends were confused by Harry going to this particular shop, because British magicals did not fancy Halloween costume parties like American Muggles did; and in any case, Halloween was more than three months away.

Harry merely smiled mysteriously and explained that what he bought here also would help him "vanquish" Voldemort. Hermione, Daphne and Neville all responded with puzzled faces.

Inside Secret Self Costume Shop

Daphne glared at a mannequin in the shop. "Harry," she said, "is this how Mug—how some people think witches dress?"

The female mannequin wore a black, nylon, pointy witch's hat on her head. On her feet, she wore black, quite high-heeled, open-toed shoes.

In between her hat and her shoes, the mannequin wore a tight-fitting, half-sleeved, black dress. The bottom of the dress had a zigzag hemline to suggest that the dress was in tatters; the bottom of the zigzags ended two inches above the mannequin's knees, whilst the top of the zigzags rose almost as high as the mannequin's crotch. A plunging V-neckline revealed cleavage.

Resting against the mannequin's open hand was the handle of a straw broom. In a bin on the floor next to the mannequin, four more straw brooms were on offer.

Before Harry spoke to answer Daphne's question, Hermione spoke: "I'm coming back here a week before my wedding. If this dress and hat are still on offer, I'm buying them for my wedding night."

Harry said, "Daphne, 'some people' don't believe that witches exist; but if witches do exist, they're all evil. So witches all are believed to be bad girls—and bad girls show skin. Thus the costume."

Neville said, "I easily can imagine Romilda Vane wearing this during a Hogsmeade weekend."

Harry had come to the costume shop to buy a Yellow-Caped Hero costume. Harry then had to inform the other three teens who Yellow-Caped Hero was: a comic-book superhero. Harry then had to explain to the others about comic books and comic-book superheroes—

"Dean Thomas introduced me to comic books. The first thing he told me was that they're an American passion, they aren't really a British passion. So if you read comic books here in Britain, some of the spellings are wrong..."

"...Most superheroes and supervillains get their powers from strange science. Yellow-Caped Hero is one of those; he was a scientist who was testing alien artifacts and he was caught in an explosion. A few superheroes and -villains get their powers from magic—the best known being Arcane Doctor Goode and his nemesis, Blakkhart the Sorcerous. Arcane Doctor Goode and Blakkhart both come from a magical society, the Empowered Ten Thousand; but Arcane Doctor Goode prefers the company of nonmagicals, he lives in nonmagical Steel City, all his friends are nonmagicals, and when he has to talk to magicals, he leaves them as soon as he can."

Neville asked, "So one of the ways that Blakkhart the Sorcerous is shown to be evil is that he chooses to keep company with the Empowered Ten Thousand?"

"Exactly. The comic books hint that the Empowered Ten Thousand are degenerates."

Daphne scowled.

Hermione asked, "So the Empowered Ten Thousand don't have a rule like," she lowered her voice, "the Statute?" Speaking normally again, Hermione asked, "Arcane Doctor Goode doesn't get in trouble for doing magic in Steel City in front of nonmagicals?"

"Not even slightly," Harry said. Then he laughed. "Which is good, considering how many times Arcane Doctor Goode has to rescue his girlfriend, Betsy Bukzim, from evildoers."

Daphne asked, "So why are you buying a Yellow-Caped Hero costume instead of an Arcane Doctor Goode costume?"

"Because the Yellow-Caped Hero costume, as the name implies, comes with a cape."

Later, back in Potter Manor

Harry walked into the library whilst carrying the two shopping bags. He called over his shoulder, "Follow me and I'll explain a bit of what I'm planning."

The Potter Manor library had four walls. Three of those walls were corner-to-corner, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. The fourth wall contained the door in/out, and portraits of Potter ancestors. Harry put down his two shopping bags, summoned a chair from the big table, then Harry removed his parents' portrait from the wall and set the portrait on the chair so that his parents' portrait faced the portrait-wall.

Then Harry said to his friends and to his portrait-parents, "I need to get something from my bedroom upstairs. Be right back."

As Harry hurried out of the library, he heard his portrait-father ask, "Any of you have an idea what Harry is cooking up?"

Neville said, "Just that buying clothes somehow helps him fight Voldemort."

Hermione said, "Otherwise, no clue. It's a delicious puzzle."

When Harry walked back into the library, he was carrying another Reginald Smythe's Gentlemen's Clothiers shopping bag. As soon as Harry walked in, Daphne said to him, "I have a guess what you're up to. If I'm right, Salazar Slytherin would be proud of you for your cunning."

Harry grinned at her. "Well, the Hat did try to put me into Slytherin."

From the shopping bag that Harry had just carried in, he removed a shoebox. From the shoebox, Harry pulled out a pair of night-black, patent-leather men's shoes. Using two sticking charms, Harry stuck the shoes to the wall, just above the floor.

From the brought-in shopping bag, Harry next pulled out a pair of grey dress socks. The socks were stuck to the wall just above the shoes.

From today's Reginald Smythe shopping bag, Harry pulled out the grey wool slacks and stuck them to the wall; the white dress shirt was stuck to the wall above the slacks.

To the left of the white shirt, Harry stuck his new blue bow tie to the wall; to the right of the white shirt, Harry stuck his new grey swallowtail coat to the wall.

Then Harry went back to his carried-in shopping bag and pulled out the last thing inside the bag: a grey hat. But not just any grey hat.

Three flesh-and-blood teenagers and two portrait-parents all stared as Harry carried the hat to the wall and stuck the hat above the white shirt.

Portrait-James said, "That's a strange-looking hat."

Portrait-Lily said, "It's a top hat."

Hermione said, "You'll be wearing a top hat when you fight Voldemort? Honestly, Harry."

Harry grinned at Hermione. "Correction: I'll be wearing a silk top hat when I fight Voldy. Honestly."

Harry looked at his audience and said, "I've run out of wall, so I'll have to do this in stages: first the posh clothes, then the Yellow-Caped Hero costume. Everyone watch now."

Harry pulled out his wand, then cast the Colour-Change Charm on his patent-leather shoes. The black shoes turned snowy white.

Then Harry, as he wand-waved, explained to his audience why he had bought these clothes, what he planned to do with them, and how they fit in with Harry's plan to "vanquish" Voldemort.

When Harry was done with both wand-waving and talking, he looked over at Daphne and asked, "How much of all this did you figure out beforehand?"

"About half of it," she said. "I didn't foresee the 'white' part."

Hermione said, "Now I understand why you wanted Daphne and me to each have a white dress made."

Hogwarts SOW&W, that evening

It had been just short of a fortnight since Bellatrix Lestrange and Narcissa Malfoy had visited Severus Snape at his home in Spinner's End. The two Black sisters had persuaded Snape to take an Unbreakable Vow to help Draco Malfoy kill Dumbledore—which meant that Snape himself would be obliged to kill the headmaster if Draco could not, or would not, do the dastardly deed himself.

Snape had taken the Vow, even though he had figured that Draco would fail at his Dark Lord-assigned task because the blond boy was a coward. Snape had never imagined that the boy would fail as Dumbledore's killer because Potter had killed Draco.

So now Snape was obligated, by his Unbreakable Vow, to kill Dumbledore.

Snape walked from his office in the castle dungeons to the headmaster's office. Once there, Snape said to Dumbledore, "You are dying, headmaster. The withering curse is killing you, despite my potions."

Dumbledore sighed. "Madame Pomfrey figures I have between one and two years to live. I would like to kill Voldemort before I die."

Snape stared. "Don't you mean, you would like to see Potter, the prophecy's Chosen One, kill Voldemort before you die?"

"Yes, of course, this is what I meant."

"Headmaster, when the pain becomes too much, or if you lapse into unconsciousness, I will kill you painlessly."

"You are too kind, Severus."

Snape did not thank Dumbledore for the compliment. Nor did Snape tell the headmaster the reason for his "kindness"—

If Dumbledore died of the withering curse, instead of dying from Snape murdering him, Snape himself would die in that same minute.

Elsewhere, that same evening

Dobby elf-popped Harry to Gringotts. Harry went into the Potter family vault and walked out with a man's and a woman's Potter betrothal ring. Harry then went into the Black family vault and, similarly, grabbed two Black betrothal rings.

At 7:00 p.m., Dobby elf-popped Harry into the Granger home. Harry and Professor McGonagall officially signed, and all three Grangers also signed, the Harry-Hermione betrothal contract. Harry put the Potter woman's betrothal ring on Hermione's finger, then put the Potter man's betrothal ring on his own finger.

This was when Harry felt a magical shift; at the same time, Hermione gasped. "I felt something!" she said.

Professor McGonagall explained, "You just felt Potter family magic join with your magical core."

Hermione grinned. "Does this mean I can read the Potter family grimoire now, without dying a most painful death?"

The elder Grangers looked puzzled, till Harry explained, "A grimoire is a book of family magic spells. Hermione wants, wants, wants to read the Potter grimoire."

"And the Black grimoire," Hermione said. "Lucky for me, the Weasley twins suggested a way how I can read the Black book."

Professor McGonagall shuddered.

Harry and Hermione shared a long kiss, and Harry drank a glass of wine with the Grangers plus McGonagall. Just before Dobby elf-popped Harry away, Harry reminded Hermione, "Remember that Daphne, you and I will meet up in front of the Daily Prophet office at 10 a.m. tomorrow. Be sure to wear your first of two new dresses."

Dobby then elf-popped Harry to Greengrass Manor. In a ceremony similar to what had been held at the Granger house, Harry and Lord Greengrass officially signed the Harry-Daphne betrothal contract, whilst Opal and Daphne Greengrass also signed. Harry put a Black betrothal ring on Daphne's finger and put a Black betrothal ring on his own finger; again, Harry felt a magical shift. When Daphne came up to Harry to kiss him, Harry was surprised how passionate the kiss was.

Again, just before Harry departed from his (other) betrothed and her family, he reminded Daphne to put on her new clothes and to be standing in front of the Daily Prophet office at 10 a.m. tomorrow.

Dobby then took Harry back to Privet Drive.

In his bedroom at Privet Drive, Harry summoned Kreacher. Harry told Kreacher to visit every member of the Order of the Phoenix except for Dumbledore, Fletcher and Snape; and to tell each visited member that there would be a meeting tomorrow at 7 p.m. at "the usual place."

Then Harry rolled his eyes and added, "And Kreacher, when I say 'Visit every member except for Dumbledore, Fletcher and Snape'—yes, this includes Elphias Doge and Molly Weasley. Sorry."

After Kreacher elf-popped away, Harry went downstairs to fix himself some toast. He was surprised to discover that Vernon Dursley was almost friendly around him—perhaps because both men knew that they would be stuck with each other's company only for another six weeks?

At ten that evening, Harry climbed into his bed at Number 4, Privet Drive, and he made plans for tomorrow.

Hermione and Daphne expected tomorrow to put on new clothes, to walk into the Daily Prophet office and to announce, "We're each betrothed to Harry Potter!" Which Harry would join in on the announcing of. But Harry had something else on his to-do list whilst he was in that newsroom—

Harry planned to issue a public challenge to Tom Marvolo Riddle, a.k.a. Lord Voldemort.