Struggling to stay awake, Karen called for Ceeley before remembering that she should be asleep. Staggering to her feet, and fighting off the tiredness caused by her suddenly lowered magic levels, she gathers up Ginny, and then finds the house-elf shivering in a foetal position clutching it's baby. Sighing, she looks around and spots an access tunnel between two shops and half drags, half carries Ginny over to it, her sleeping form a dead weight before coming back for the house-elf. Shivering slightly in the cool night air, she lets her magic unfurl just enough to feel the seductive pull of The Dream, but not enough to go anywhere. Once the pull passed she let go of her control with a sigh, and felt as though she'd just had a triple expresso with an equal amount of sugar. As soon as she did the house-elf stopped shivering and leaned into her.

Calling out to Ceeley once more, she was about to give up and find a payphone when a sleepy Ceeley popped in.

"Missy Books calls for Ceeley?"

"Sorry for waking you up, would you be able to get us home please?"

"Ceeley cans be doing that." With that she popped the group out of the tunnel and into the room they were using for meditation. The room itself was bedlam as Molly was bound and silenced in a corner while Gosling was treating a couple of injuries on Petunia and Amelia was trying to calm Arthur down. As soon as the pop of their entrance registered, Arthur looked over and then rushed over and gathered Ginny up in a hug, tears openly streaming down his face. A set of complicated expressions passed over Molly's face as she saw that her daughter was safe.

"She'll sleep well till morning, so can we get one of the healers to look her over before we put her to bed, and then I think we should talk about what she did. Briefly, and you can also tell me why I shouldn't be trying to hurt Molly over there."

"Karen, it's ok, she reacted as any mother would to the idea that someone had hurt one of their children. It was only a couple of love taps, and Vernon gave me worse."

"No it's not ok, I don't care the Vernon gave you worse. I don't care that you came back without her Daughter. You came back, you were exhausted, and the head of the DMLE was right here. Just because something is understandable doesn't make it excusable."

Amelia said from behind Karen, "She's right, it doesn't matter why someone is the way they are, or did something, the law expects everyone to be able to control themselves enough to think things through. If it got to trial, she would probably get some sympathy for distress, but given how bad the courts are it's more likely that the fact that she's a pureblood witch and you're just magical would matter more. Ceeley's just finished making tea, and I elected to come and get you."

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After they'd had a cup of tea and Karen had relayed what happened after Petunia left, which everyone agreed that Ginny had been very lucky that she'd broken free then and not a couple of seconds later. The subject then turns to the shivering House-elf that hasn't let go of Karen.

"Ceeley, would you mind coming here?"

"What can I do for you?" she carefully enunciates.

"We need your help with this house-elf."

"She doesn't feel like other house-elves, her magic is too open for house-elves like me."

"What do you mean?"

She thinks for a moment, "We are like Bright witch and book witch, 'cept we only open our magic when we have to, and only as much as we need to. If we don't magic goes faster than we can get it back. Though Soopy and Ceeley be lucky, we's probably able to not hold magic all the time, but now used to it."

"So you think that she's starving for magic, and it's only being around me that's allowing her to live at the moment."

"Not like starving, more like breathing."

Everyone looks at each other, as the situation for house-elves becomes more apparent.

"Ceeley, would you come here and open up your magic so that if it's not enough you won't die?" Petunia asks.

"Ceeley would rather not, but Ceeley is willing to try for you."

Petunia feels a slight dip in her magic that quickly recovers and a tension that she didn't even know was there seems to lift off of Ceeley's frame, a look of amazement coming over her face. The elf that's holding on to Karen looks up at Ceeley and reaches out her hand towards her, before saying something that none of them understand. She says something else, and Ceeley just looks confused, but reaches out her hand. The other elf grabs Ceeleys hand and suddenly the magic in the room surges as Petunia's magic flares to compensate for the sudden and deep drain she experiences. Amelia lights the tip of her wand in time to see Ceeley and the other elf disappear. A couple of moments later Ceeley reappears with the other elf that looks distraught and is babbling something.

"Oh, lovely. We have a house-elf that needs to live in a magical area, but the only people with what I'd believe to be enough magic to sustain her without dying themselves live in a muggle area." Amelia puts her head in her hands.

"How about we start out with giving her some food and drink, then see how things look in the morning. As both Dudley and Ginny were there, so if we could work out how to get her to use one of those plates we could find out if they've got a high enough density to cope. If they do, and Molly and Arthur are willing to take her under their wing, she could have a home with them while she learns about this world. Ceeley could you get her something to eat, a human portion.

"Right away Mistress."

The elf latches onto Karen again when Ceeley pops off, and she carefully picks her up and seats her next to her on the chair. She still hasn't let go of her baby, but Karen is able to see it's face for the first time.

"Healers, I've just remembered, the bundle that she's carrying is a baby, can you check on it's health?"

They start to cast spells at the baby and the mother immediately shields it and takes an aggressive stance, Karen gently puts her hands on her shoulders and whispers reassuring platitudes. Once she calms down a bit, Karen speaks up "Could you try casting them on me first and see if that calms her down?"

Nodding their assent they proceed to do so. After showing no signs of discomfort, Karen nods and they try again on the baby. The mother shakes but doesn't do anything.

"The baby seems to be fine, if a little malnourished. Which probably means that the mother is malnourished too."

Ceeley pops back with a plate of sandwiches, cheese, dried meats and a small salad and tries to hand it to the elf, who looks at it suspiciously.

Karen takes one of the sandwiches and holds it out to Ceeley, "Would you be able to eat it to show it's safe?"

Ceeley looks at Karen with a scandalous expression on her face, "We know it's safe, but she has never been around people like us before, and by the looks of things she's never seen food like this before."

Ceeley grumbles about not being hungry, but does as asked. Once she's finished the sandwich Karen hands a sandwich to the elf, who takes it with greedy hands and tries to stuff the whole thing in her mouth at once, while keeping a wary and guarded look about her. Karen then puts the plate on her lap and carefully seats the elf next to her, before trying to hand the plate to the elf. She pulls the plate onto her lap, and then proceeds to gorge herself. Once she starts trying to hide the remaining food, Karen gently holds her hand and puts the plate on the coffee table with magic.

"I swear I'll never get used to seeing that, the way she doesn't even notice that she's doing it. Even with Dumbledore you can see that he's straining and trying to make it look casual." Molly says from across the room.

Once Karen has got the elf's attention away from the food and she seems more relaxed if still alert, she points at herself and says "Karen."

She then goes around the room and gives out everyone's name, though she refers to Healer Gosling by her last name as she doesn't know her first name. Finally, she points to the elf, who remains silent. She then points to herself and says "I am Karen", before pointing at Petunia who takes the cue and repeats the phrase, finally returning to the elf, who still remains silent. One last time she goes round starting with Petunia "Their name is Petunia", and ending up with the elf again, who responds with "Aityo"

"Hello Aityo, Ceeley will show you a nice place to sleep." Karen also mimes her actions the way she would to a hard of hearing child.

Ceeley pops away and Karen says to the rest of the room "I think we should all get some more sleep, or any in my case, so that we're not relying on coffee to stay awake tomorrow." While the witches and wizard look a little confused at why you wouldn't just use a pepper up potion, they do get the idea and everyone heads to a bed.

As their going upstairs Petunia comments, "I bet that unspeakable will be kicking themselves when they find out that we brought an elf back." Amelia laughs behind her.

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Harry wakes up in the night as his magic flares, looking around briefly he goes back to sleep. The next couple of days go well as the exam season starts up. Harry is a little concerned about Lavender and Parvati, and by extension Ron, as they seem to be worried about something and getting back really late. It all came to a head around a week before the end of term, they'd finished their exams and the headmaster was called away for an emergency at the Ministry.

Harry woke up at the faint sound of Lavender waking Parvati up, following them downstairs he saw that they'd met up with Ron and arguing with Neville.

"Look Neville, we need to go as Snape is trying to steal the stone."

"What stone?" Harry fades into his male form as he speaks up behind them.

"The Philosophers stone, the headmaster's looking after it for Nicolas Flamel."

"Oh, I thought it was something important. We accidentally found that just after Christmas, and forgot about it till Easter. That's why we had to go home in a hurry."

"I don't believe you" Ron spoke up

"Look, just send someone up to wake Hermione up and ask her."

"Can't you do it?" Parvati whined.

"What's so hard about waking up a girl?" Ron butted in obnoxiously.

"Does that mean that you're volunteering?"

"I would, but I can't go up the stairs." He rebuts.

Harry shakes his head, "Mipsy."

"Observant Master calls?"

"Would you be able to do me a favour and take Ron up to the dorm room so that he can wake Hermione, Lavendar and Parvati will go up first to guarantee his behaviour."

"Mipsy is not allowed to do that."

Harry absently rubs the place his scar used to be, "Would you be able to bring Hermione down and lay her out on the couch over there then?"

"Mipsy can do that." A quick couple of pops later, a sleeping Hermione is lying on the couch.

"Well there's your opportunity. I'm going to sit over here and stay silent." He takes a seat behind the couch so that he can't signal Hermione, and waits.

"Well, go on then." Lavender hisses at Ron.

"What, why can't you do it, she's right there."

"I know what happens so I don't want to. Also you said it's not hard."

"Fine!", he walks over and shakes her roughly.

"Hermione, Waurk, mmmph" He goes flying across the common room and sticks to the wall upside down, duct tape appearing over his mouth as Hermione stirs slightly.

"Hermione, Hermione, we need you to wake up." Lavender croons from behind Neville.

With a yawn she opens her eyes groggily, "Is it morning already?"

Ron's robe falling over his face draws her eye, "What's Ron doing in the… Common room?"

"We need to stop Snape from getting the philosophers stone."

"Oh? Issnot here, we sent it back to the Flamel's at Easter, I'll show you their letter in the morning." With that she stumbled to her feet and went back up to bed.

"Thank Merlin she woke up easily, if harry left before we wake up it can sometimes take two or three of us to wake her up."

"Mipsy, would you be able to get the letter from the top left drawer of her travel trunk please?"

"Mipsy will, but you explain to Observant Mistress why if Mipsy gets caught."

She retrieves the letter which Harry scans over and then hands to the others.

"Can we all go back to bed now?"

The next morning McGonagall stood up at the breakfast table. "Good Morning everyone, if I could have your attention. I would like to hold a moment's silence for Quirrell, as the Head Master returned briefly last night when the alarms we'd placed went off. It appears that he neglected to inform any of the other staff that he was doing an inspection of the damage to that area, and fell victim to the dangers there. As many of you know we borrowed Fluffy from Hagrid to deter students from doing this. Let this be a lesson to you all, we don't tell you to avoid areas in and around the castle for our own enjoyment. Professor Snape has generously agreed to take over the Defence classes for the last week." Snape preened at this.

"As we have rediscovered the charter this year, the heads of houses and I will be going through the points allocations for the year and removing those that were awarded or deducted for unfair or illegal reasons. This is something we will be doing at the end of each year from now on." Snapes mood immediately did a 180 at that news.

"Finally, Rolanda and I have been in talks with the European schools alliance, and have arranged to join the league with Beauxbatons in France, Durmstrang in eastern Europe, O Ateneu in Spain, Scuola Superiore in Italy, and finally Freiberg in Germany. We will need to pick two teams, an A team and a B team. Selection for these teams will only be open to those currently in 4th to 6th year." The cheers from the student's that knew anything about this alliance were deafening, while everyone else looked around mystified. She allowed the noise to continue for a moment before silencing the hall with a cannon blast from her wand.

"The teams will be required to play 10 games over the year evenly split between them, the reason for two teams is that there will be an Away game and a home game going on at the same time. As an incentive, the heads of house and I have agreed that each teacher will be allowed to nominate two students from each year per game to go with the away team to support them, from that list we will all pick 4 students from each year to go. Lastly team member that are picked for the two school teams will not be allowed to participate in the house teams. This is to give other students a chance to shine. Initially we will mandate that there is cross house selection for the first year, but after that it will be a purely merit based membership and the teams will hold trials at the beginning of each year. A selection basket will be on the table here at every meal so you can place the name of the person that you feel will be the best captain in, remember that it doesn't need to be an existing captain, while they will need to have good quidditch skills, their ability to motivate their team is probably more important. There will be an additional charge of 1 Galleon on next years tuition in order to purchase the standard brooms that your teams will be required to use for fair play. Finally for the winning school, each member of the team will be given a medal by the European branch of the ICW as well as 100G to spend on their education. The money comes from the profession clubs all over Europe. The school will also have the prestige of hosting the cup for the year."

"That's all I need to say at the moment, please enjoy your breakfast."

She then stepped down and walked over to the Gryffindor table.

"Miss Granger."

"Yes Professor?"

"I am aware that you have an outstanding detention with Quirrell tonight because he caught you studying material for Charms in his class. I appreciate that you probably finished all of the work for his class early, but you didn't ask if you could move onto Charms. You will be having your detention with Rolanda instead."


AN: For those that are wondering, for house-elves being on this world is like us trying to live at the final camp on Mount Everest. It's possible but it's unpleasant and it will kill you if you try to do too much. Karen, on the other hand, is like the person that has a massive oxygen tank with her and is willing to share it. There are a few places like Hogwarts and Diagon alley that are like the base-camps, still hard to live in, but you can at least do stuff there.