An Opus Alchymicum Volume 2: The Witch-Consul's Riddle

Harry and Hermione arrive at Hogwarts and unite to uncover the plot focused on the magical school. The Potters now work for the Ministry, an exonerated Sirius joins with Lyra and Mal to chase Dark Forces in the wider world, but the power of the Magisterium runs deeper than they know. Dust, Destiny, and the power of Harmony all clash - in a battle to solve 'The Witch-Consul's Riddle'.

Harry Potter was a bizarre boy in many ways, as far as you or I would be concerned. For a start, he'd spent the first decade of his life living in an underground city, which at least accounted for his pasty complexion. Nine months in the infrequent sun of the British Isles was yet to make much of a dent in that. It wasn't helped by the vivid colours of his jet black hair and piercing emerald green eyes, which drew a stark contrast to his often pallid skin.

But it was the curious, lightening-shaped cut on his forehead - the scarlet scar tissue of which didn't seem to want to fade - that threatened to draw most attention to this unusual young man.

For in the last six months, Harry Potter had become something of a minor celebrity. Now, you wouldn't find him on the couch of breakfast television shows, or handing out the trophy for Best Fork at the Hand-Held Cutlery Awards or anything, but in certain newspapers and magazines it was seen as a waste of precious column inches if his name - or his fascinating story - didn't feature on a regular basis. On a daily basis, if the journalists and editors could swing it.

It was just a matter of sliding him in between stories of rogue trolls terrorising Scottish farmsteads, of the latest form of Muggle-baiting reported by the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts department, or the most recent blockbuster penned by the legendary adventurer, Gilderoy Lockhart.

For that was the most unusual thing about Harry Potter - he was a wizard. His parents were a witch and wizard, his Godfather was a wizard - as well as being a wrongly-accused mass murderer and lieutenant of the Dark Lord Voldemort, though he'd been recently exonerated of both charges - and his legal guardian was a witch. She was also a Professor in the magical subject of Transfiguration, as well as being the Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. And it was in this capacity that Harry was assisting her today.

For Minerva McGonagall had abandoned her usual habit of setting Harry reading and research tasks and instead put him to use doing a spot of manual labour. She thought this was good practice for the arduous essays she was threatening to set him, when he was under her professional tuition in a few months time. For Harry was only about six weeks away from enrolling at Hogwarts himself, and it was in pursuit of that task that he was employed that afternoon.

Though in truth, he could think of better ways to spend his birthday week.

For Harry was sat in their flat in central London, at a large desk under a bay window, that afforded a nice view down the Thames. It was nice and sunny today, and the river rippled bright and blue, while across on the other bank queues had already formed to jump aboard the London Eye, which was rotating in its never-ending circle. Harry watched it a moment and wished he was among them, slurping on an ice cream or a Slush Puppy and enjoying the sun.

But he'd promised Minerva he'd get this task done before he was allowed out to play. And Harry Potter didn't make a habit of breaking his word.

So he went back to it. In front of him he had a raft of different things. Most of the desk was taken up by two stacks of parchment sheets, one of which was used for writing letters and the other that Harry was turning into envelopes. Minerva had shown him how to fold the parchment just so, then when he slid the two sheets of letter-writing parchment inside he had to secure it with a purple-wax seal, which bore a coat of arms of a lion, and eagle, a badger and a snake all surrounding a letter 'H'.

As well as the parchment sheets and the wax sealer, Harry was orbited by a mound of quills, a knife to sharpen the nibs, two fountains of ink, a list of spellbooks and equipment that he had to include in his letters, as well as a roster of names and addresses that he had to send them to. Right now he was carefully scrawling out the postal details for someone called Lisa Turpin, while Sirius nursed a coffee and told Harry who she was.

"Her father, Richard, sells second-hand cauldrons ... and insurance for when they fail," Sirius explained. "And at vastly inflated prices, too. He knows the cauldrons are out of warranty and have had their bottoms replaced by some cowboy blacksmith or another, but he makes out like they're brand new! So when we head out to buy your school things next week, don't be tempted by a cauldron from Dick Turpin ... he's a bandit and highwayman if ever there was one ..."

Harry nodded sagely, as he blew the ink dry on the supply list he'd just written out.

"You know, I never can tell the difference between a vial and a phial," he mused.

"One has a 'ph' in it," Sirius funned with a smirk.

"Ho ho," Harry returned in a bored sort of voice. "However they are spelt, what will I use them for at Hogwarts?"

"Potions," Sirius explained. "You'll have to give samples of what you brew to be marked. Just do me a favour, will you?"

"What's that?"

"If you brew anything that hurts, or causes a blemish - like a Boiling Wart Solution or a Pimple Potion - just leave the stopper a bit loose on the container."

"Okay ... but why?"

"Well, that way there's a good chance it will spill all over the teacher when he goes to mark them ... and old Snivellus Snape is owed as much pain as possible."

Harry agreed and scowled at the mere mention of the man. Sirius had told him all about the Hogwarts Potions Master, and his unhealthy obsession with Harry's own mother. He may have worked as a double-agent against Lord Voldemort, but he had started off on the Dark side ... and Sirius insisted that he'd only turned when Voldemort had refused his entreaty to make Lily Potter his reward ... that was more than enough to make Harry despise the man.

"You have to stop calling him Snivellus," Harry smirked. "Or I'll start to. And I don't want Auntie Min to give me detention before I've even arrived!"

"That would be a new record!" Sirius chortled. "Even me and your old Dad didn't manage that one. It would make him proud!"

Harry frowned. "I don't think detention is something to be aspiring for. My Mum certainly wouldn't approve, even if my Dad did."

"No, that's quite true," Sirius grinned. "And she'd cut my gonads off for encouraging such delinquency in you. So lets ... er ... just keep that between us, yeah? A secret between God-relatives!"

Harry guffawed back at him. Then he turned fully in his chair to ask a serious question. "Speaking of my parents, how did their meeting go at the Ministry?"

Sirius took a deep sip of his coffee. "Very well, from what they were able to tell me. Which wasn't very much, as I'm sure you can imagine."

"Are they going to be employed as those ... things, then?" Harry pressed. "What were they called ... undesirables?"

"Unspeakables," Sirius corrected. "And yes, it seems they are. The Ministry sees the benefit of having spies amongst the Muggles who are spying on us, especially two people like your Mum and Dad, who know so much about the operation already."

"But it means they have to stay where they are, and still live in secret?" Harry grumbled.

"It sort of comes with the territory."

"Well it's very unfair, if you ask me," Harry huffed.

"James sees it as a fair deal, and so do I," Sirius disagreed. "They'd have been sent to Azkaban otherwise. What they've been doing could be classed as treason. And as much as our little cover story has made them look like heroes in the defeat of Voldemort, that's just a fallacy, kiddo. Something for the public and the papers ... and for you, don't forget."

"And I don't suppose today's the day where you tell me what really happened there?"

"Nope," Sirius smirked over his coffee. "It's such a good story, it's worth saving for a special time. The birth of your first son, perhaps. Or when the Chudley Cannons win the Quidditch Super League."

"But you said that will never happen," Harry pointed out.

"Exactly!" Sirius boomed. "The Cannons only ever recruit duffers. They are nicknamed 'The Roundheads' for a reason ... because when they last won a trophy, that was the name given to a group of soldiers at the time!"

Harry just shook his head pityingly, as Sirius shook with laughter at his own joke. Harry folded Lisa Turpin's Hogwarts letter down, heated up the wax and the sealer, then pressed the coat of arms into the envelope join. Then he carefully placed the letter into the pile by the fireplace, that Minerva would take to the post owlery later.

There were only two more letters to write now. Harry joked to his Godfather that maybe he'd want to hand-deliver the first of them personally - addressed to one Ronald Weasley, as it was. But Sirius politely declined, suggesting he'd rather boil his own head in a vat of molten iron than face Molly Weasley - nee Prewett - by choice. The last letter was to 'Blaise Zabini', a name Harry was glad he only had to write, as he found the very pronouncing of it a challenge.

Harry was about to put away his letter-writing things when there was a sharp pop nearby and Minerva materialised in the flat. By now Harry was used to this abrupt method of appearing and disappearing, but every now and then he still jumped when he wasn't expecting an arrival. This was one of those times.

"You're supposed to warn me before coming home unannounced," Harry fumed crossly. "You could have given me a heart attack!"

"But I didn't, so stop being all pouty and melodramatic," Minerva replied silkily. "And don't put those things away just yet. You may have one more letter to write."

"Who's it to?" asked Sirius. "Enrolment Clearing has to be concluded by May, doesn't it?"

"Ordinarily," Minerva agreed. "But Albus has come into contact with a most extraordinary young girl. A Muggleborn with such natural acuity to magic that Albus is very excited by her. He invited me to watch his third assessment of her ... and he was practically walking on air when he spoke to me afterwards."

"And is she that good?" asked Sirius.

"Better," Minerva smiled. "She showed adroitness to Charms, to Transfiguration and Conjuration, Runes and alchemical theory. All with little or no formal training, beyond personal research, and all whilst borrowing Albus' wand! She's a natural. Sirius ... she conjures the most perfect, flawless portable waterproof fires I have ever seen. And she even makes the flames bluebell purple in colour. I've never seen the like, I tell you."

Harry listened, rapt. Minerva was rarely, if ever, this fevered and impassioned. Harry dearly wished he'd been there to meet this girl, whoever she was.

"So will she be going to Hogwarts?" Harry asked eagerly. He had already pulled a new sheet of parchment towards himself and was clipping the end off a fresh quill. "What's her name?"

"Hermione," Minerva replied. "Hermione Granger."

"Her-my-own-knee," Harry wrote out carefully. Then he simply frowned down at the parchment. "Auntie Min - that doesn't look right. Are you sure that's a real name?"

Minerva looked down over Harry's shoulder with a stern frown. "No, you've spelt that wrong. You'll need to start again."

Harry scoffed and scrunched up the parchment, which went into the waste paper basket with all the equipment sheets he'd accidentally wrote vials instead of phials on.

"How do you spell it then?" Harry asked.

"I - T!" Sirius teased. "That's how you spell 'it'!"

Harry frowned at him. "Auntie Min, isn't there a spell you can do on him to make him less annoying?"

"I spent many years trying, but ultimately failed in my quest," Minerva quipped with a wry smirk at Sirius, who simply barked a laugh in reply. Then Minerva took the quill from Harry and wrote out the name of this curious young witch for him.

Harry cocked his head to read the name. "Hermy-own ... Hermy-one ... that's the real spelling?"

"It's from a Shakespeare play, The Winter's Tale, if I'm not very mistaken," Minerva offered, who was as mistaken only about as often as she was fervoured or could be found belly-laughing.

"If you say so," Harry replied, copying the name onto the parchment letter.

"You'd better wait a moment though, Harry," Minerva advised. "We should wait on confirmation from the Headmaster."

"Confirmation?" Sirius queried. "If this Miss Granger is as good as you say, what's with the delay?"

"Because, as you say, the date for Enrolment Clearing has long passed," Minerva explained. "Dumbledore is putting his case to a hastily convened session of the Board of Governors. Without their approval, the girl doesn't get a place this year."

"But that's just stupid!" Harry argued, oddly keen that this girl be granted a spot at the school. "If she's that good, it should be automatic. It shouldn't be up to a committee."

"I agree, and it probably wouldn't be ... if it wasn't for her blood status," Minerva informed them quietly.

"Ah," Sirius huffed. "She's Muggleborn, didn't you say?"

Harry suddenly understood, and scowled crossly as he did so. The words of Arthur Weasley had sat ugly on his ears for the best part of five months now ... and their meaning hadn't softened in Harry's mind at all.

"So we're back to that stupid Pureblood nonsense again, are we?" Harry fumed. "Cant you do something about that, Sirius? You have your seat on that Wizengamot thing back now. Cant you use that to bring about change?"

"Not on my own, and to suggest it - so soon after being accepted back into society - would be problematic for us both," Sirius replied. "You'll have enough to worry about at Hogwarts without all the blood supremacists giving you a hard time as well."

"I can look after myself," Harry returned stoutly.

"I don't doubt it," Sirius teased. "With your slight frame, you'd be a handful for your average matchstick man. Unfortunately, the people ranged against the idea of blood equality are slightly more formidable."

"Not to mention numerous," Minerva added. "They are far and away the majority in this case."

"Ridiculous!" Harry spat angrily. "Fine. If you don't do something, I will. If it turns out I am as famous as we expect, once I get to Hogwarts, I'll use my position to change the minds of the other kids. They'll listen to me if I'm some stupid kind of celebrity."

"And that would be an admirable use of your fame," Minerva smiled. "Your mother would be proud of you."

Harry blushed under the gaze and praise Minerva was lavishing on him. It totally made up his mind to follow through with his promise ... he just hoped this Hermione girl would be accepted into the school. If she was as good as Minerva said, she'd be a shining example of how dumb the Pureblood Agenda was, and maybe people might think differently if they were exposed to the truth.

Not that Harry would ever dream of using her as a poster child for it or anything. It might turn out that she was as shy and retiring as he was, and she might hate the spotlight, just as much as Harry's brief exposure to it had wrought in him. But still, it might make them alike ... and maybe she'd want to be friends. Harry thought he'd quite like that, and having someone so talented to help him wouldn't be such a bad thing either.

And he did say he wanted to make friends with a Muggleborn as soon as possible. This girl seemed to be the perfect candidate. He wondered what she was like, if she was friendly or not. She was obviously clever and gifted ... and Harry shyly wondered if she was pretty, too. Not that that mattered ... but for some reason he hoped she was. He had no idea why, he just did.

So he sat and patiently waited for the fire to turn green, which it did about an hour later and yielded a single slip of parchment. Harry hurried to Minerva, and read the swirly handwriting over her shoulder without any sort of preamble.

"Great! She got in!" Harry sang. "Can I write the letter now?"

"You certainly can," Minerva smiled at him. "Now you do remember how to spell her name?"

"Auntie Min!" Harry admonished. "Of course I do! But what was her surname, again?"

"Granger. Do you need me to spell that for you, too?"

"Dont even say the words!" Harry shot warningly at Sirius, who had opened his mouth to repeat his earlier joke.

Sirius closed his lips and mimicked locking them with a key. Harry thought there was a fine idea in there somewhere. Perhaps the magical Society for Irritating Noise Abatement could design him a lip-locking curse or something. And maybe if there was no such society, he could look into setting one up. And then this clever Miss Granger could come up with the spell for him.

But that was an idea for later. For now, Harry just wrote out her name, trying his very best to keep his handwriting the tidiest it had been all day. He didn't know why he was doing that either, but it just seemed like the right way to go. The other thing he didn't know, was that in his excitement to write the letter, he'd accidentally forgotten to forge Minerva's signature - as he'd done with all the rest - and signed his own name instead.

Had Harry known about this faux pas, he would have likely chuckled deeply, as he considered quite what Hermione Granger would think when she received her letter signed 'Harry Potter, Deputy Headmistress'. Little did Harry know that when Hermione eventually did tear open the heavy parchment, the very mention of the name 'Potter' would be enough to send her mindless with a giddy excitement ... one that had little or nothing to do with the promise of studying magic.