Smelly Fourth Year.

All rights for the Harry Potter Characters and story belong to JK Rowling. These are just sandcastles built along her beach that will disappear when the tide changes. Thanks for the great story she brought to the world.

Summer after Harry's third year at Hogwarts begins with lower floors of Hogwarts filling with poisonous, caustic gas rising from the Chamber of Secrets. Elves save furniture and portraits but can't get anyone to pay attention to warnings. Several individuals enter castle but none of them ever leave. Dobby visits Harry Potter and word gets out. But Dumbledore doesn't pay any attention to warning.

Fourth Year with a Definite Odor

Albus Dumbledore ignored the warnings shouted by the goblins.

Despite the annoying voices of the goblins shouting about danger, the headmaster resolutely walked on toward Hogwarts. If he'd paid attention, Albus might have noticed that none of the goblins would step inside the gates. But he was blind to their actions and deaf to their advice. With Severus Snape at his side, Dumbledore was determined to enter his castle and disprove the stories in the Daily Prophet.

'The little buggers made up a problem to be able to bill the Governors for more galleons. And nothing the Daily Prophet prints is ever true,' he told himself. 'Dangerous atmosphere in Hogwarts? Hogwash!'

Albus stepped to the castle's front door and motioned for Severus to pull the door open. The blast of the foulest smell he'd ever experienced slapped Dumbledore in the face and made him stumble backward. While the headmaster coughed and staggered away from the door, the cloud of stench flowed out into the courtyard. The other side of the door flew open, and the noxious green air flowed out faster and spread across the grounds.

Glancing back at the doorway for one second, Albus was shocked to see Severus on the ground. The potion master was twitching violently and screaming as his face melted away.

"Don't let the gas touch you!" shouted Blooddagger, who with the other goblins ran toward Hogsmeade. Minerva McGonagall, Pomona Sprout, and Alastor Moody fled with the goblins, but Filius Flitwick remained near the shocked headmaster, getting him beyond the gates. As the gas approached them, the half-goblin levitated the headmaster and himself and moved along the path toward Hogsmeade. After one hundred meters, the feet of the pair returned to the path. Filius immediately began walking and encouraging Dumbledore to follow him.

Dumbledore stared at green gas that lay close to the ground for a moment before he followed Flitwick. And he kept looking back every few steps. The green mists did not pursue them but flowed steadily toward the Forbidden Forest.

'How did this occur?' the headmaster wondered.

CHANGE SCENE: Elves Climb Higher July 1994

Just two days after the headmaster and the last of the professors left Hogwarts for their summer holidays, the house-elves discovered a problem they couldn't resolve. Worse still, both Headmaster Whiskers and Professor Sour Kitty were beyond the limits when any of the house-elves could find them and pop over for a visit. (The headmaster and deputy headmistress weren't part of any family to the elves; they were just inhabitants of Hogwarts).

For the first few days, the odor was annoying but mild and persistent. The smell seemed to emanate from somewhere on the second floor, so the smell flowed down into the first floor, then the ground floor and dungeons. Quickly, the elves recognized that the gas was corrosive as well as smelly. They avoided the bad air and quickly moved everything out of the dungeons except for Professor Evil Grease's private office and laboratory.

No elf was allowed in that office or laboratory for any reason – even if the castle was on fire.

However, the furniture and portraits in the Slytherin dungeon, the fixtures from the potions classroom, and the ingredients in the storage cabinet were all moved to empty rooms on the fifth floor. The Hufflepuff dorm was moved just as quickly, and then the kitchens were evacuated to the fifth floor in the area of the empty rooms where the elves stored much of the food fed to the students during the year.

At the end of the week, Hasenpfeffer, the head elf ordered the library elves to put the entire library into statis and seal it away. Wards and runes were activated that sealed the library's windows, floors, and walls from all intrusion. The library's main door and emergency exits were transfigured by elven magic to become part of the stone walls that surrounded the valuable books, scrolls, etchings, and paintings in the thousand-year-old library.

Hogwarts had never fallen to an invading army of Vikings, Englishmen, Roundheads, Jacobites, or wizarding army who fought in Scotland. Therefore, it contained many original scrolls from Alexandria, Rome, and Constantinople. The journals of Merlin and Morgana, as well as the original writings of Sir Isaac Newton and William Shakespeare, were stored safely at Hogwarts. Once sealed, only the librarian could lower these wards with the help of the elves.

The Great Hall was sealed as well, and the doors transfigured into stone.

Over the weekend, all furniture and artifacts on the ground floor and first floor of Hogwarts were relocated to the fifth floor. On Sunday, when the relocated portraits proved quarrelsome without end, Hasenpfeffer and the elves moved them to the sixth floor where there were clean but deserted rooms that no one would search. With the doors closed, none of the elves was subjected to complaints by the wizards and witches trapped inside their picture frames.

Thankfully, the green noxious gas did not rise above the ceiling of the first floor that weekend.

Monday afternoon, the elves noticed that the moveable staircases from the ground to the first floor collapsed into thousands of stones and dust. Peering over the railings of the second floor, Hasenpfeffer noticed that the wooden doors and railings of the first floor were gone as well.

"Hows can I get help? Who will listen to an elf?" Hasenpfeffer asked the other elves. It was Dobby Elf (maybe Potter Elf) who suggested that he could visit Harry Potter and ask for advice.

"No, no, no! Dobby knows Headmaster Whiskers ordered youse stay away from Dobby's friend this summer," Hasenpfeffer reminded the elf who sighed sadly but nodded.

The next morning, the elves detected the approach of a contingent of goblins on the road from Hogsmeade, marching toward the castle. Hasenpfeffer popped from the kitchens now on the fifth floor to the road in front of the goblins. He waved his arms and shouted, "There be danger! Hoggiewarts be full of dangerous green smoke! Stop! Listen to Hasenpfeffer!"

However, the goblins didn't stop, and they stepped around Hasenpfeffer before they knocked him down and stepped on him. At the gates to the castle, Hagrid opened the gate and announced, "No one's in the castle."

"We don't need help from any wizard," one goblin replied. "We're here to clean up the wards. The Board of Governors ordered all the wards to be fully powered."

"Did the headmaster tell me about this?" Hagrid asked himself while the score of goblins hurried by without further discussion. The groundskeeper returned to his summer job of hunting and caring for the Forbidden Forest.

Among the members of this team were Nailsplitter, Hardcase, Granitefoot, and Bucklewheat, the goblins who took bribes and payments from Dumbledore to fix the books at Hogwarts and steal from the orphaned Harry Potter. They also rigged the wards protecting the castle to remain at half power or less each year.

The leader of the goblins pulled on the castle door, made a terrible face, and muttered, "This human nest smells worse than normal."

The goblins laughed as they piled into the castle, the last one pulling the door closed behind her. In less than a minute, if anyone had been close, they would have heard a goblin beating on the door attempting to leave. Then the noise stopped, and all was quiet again.

The elves moved everything from the second and third floors to the sixth and seventh floors, ignoring the unhappy portraits in the rooms on the sixth floor. The fumes and green gas rose into the second floor, eating away carpets, wooden doors, and staircases. The elves continued their work on the upper floors of Hogwarts and hoped that someone would come along to remove the terrible green gas out of the dungeons and lower floors.

"Headmaster Whiskers and Miss Mean Kitty stay gones long time this summer," Hasenpfeffer reminded the other elves. "They's say to prepare for busy year next year with visitors, dragons, and reporters."

When the second contingent of goblins arrived – looking for the first goblins who'd never returned to Gringotts, Hasenpfeffer again tried to warn them not to open the door. This team included the last two goblins 'bought' by Dumbledore, Clawfoot and Hangnail. Like the first team, these goblins ignored the elf, and marched inside, though the very last goblin managed to dash back outside before collapsing. The corpse melted away within an hour and left a helmet and broadaxe that survived longer than the clothes and wooden handle of the ax. But the next morning, even the helmet and ax-head had dissolved away.

The third group of goblins with a few human curse breakers arrived but they didn't enter the grounds. Hagrid, who spent almost every day in the Forbidden Forest at this time of year, didn't interact with the second or third group of goblins. Standing a good distance from Hogwarts and using muggle binoculars, the goblins surveyed the castle. They noticed that the door of the castle was not closed properly. When they conjured a wind to blow across the door, it opened, and the goblins observed the green fumes flowing out.

"Is that some cleaner the elves are using?" asked Blooddagger referring to the green mist. He was the leader of this group of goblins and human curse breakers. The goblins were surprised when one of the curse breakers caught a whiff, turned, and ran for Hogsmeade. The wizard did stop twice to heave on the side of the road for a moment but hurried back to the village.

Pulling back on the spell for creating the wind, the goblin wind blew in the opposite direction and the door slammed shut. The other members of the team beat a hasty retreat and Gringotts issued a press release stating there were problems and mysteries at Hogwarts.

Finally, Hasenpfeffer got Hagrid's attention and tried to talk to the groundskeeper. The half-giant couldn't really hear the elf's voice – it was too high-pitched and too low to the ground. So, he just patted the little fellow on the head and returned to his hunting – the spiders were out of control this year without the predator that once lived under the castle to thin their numbers.

After that third visit by goblins with curse breakers and the press release, rumors spread in London and throughout Magical Britain. Finally, an article appeared in the Daily Prophet about the mysteries at Hogwarts when no one is there.

Rita Skeeter appeared at the gates and interviewed Hagrid; he mentioned seeing goblins come to clean the walls or halls or pipes…maybe. She waited until his attention was elsewhere to transform into her Animagus form and fly through the bars of the gate and investigate the windows and doors. Finally finding an open window on the fourth floor, she entered the castle and flew down to the lower floors, seeking the missing goblins. Rita was never seen again.

SCENE CHANGE: One Good Thing

In the quiet of the hours between midnight and dawn, the elves who are awake, spend their time trying to save the staircases from the second to the third floor. The fumes from the green noxious smell appeared to be rising into the second floor as the bodies of the goblins dissolved and added to the mixture. There were signs that the bottoms of the doors and the staircases on the third floor were beginning to dissolve. The staircases on the ground floor and first floor had collapsed. All of the doors had dissolved away as well. The elves worried that the staircases between the second and third floors would collapse within days.

In the silence of the night, along a third-floor corridor between the Entrance Hall and Gryffindor Tower, the statue of the one-eyed, hump-backed witch slid almost silently to the side. From a secret passageway that begins in the cellar at Honeydukes' Chocolatier in Hogsmeade, slid a large viper. Once a beautiful woman by day, the maledictus was now cursed to remain in the serpent form forever. Her tongue constantly tasted the air and though she immediately complained of the stench in this castle, a high-pitched voice coming from the passageway ordered the giant snake to be silent.

The fact that the viper and voice hissed at each other sent shivers down the spines of the three humans who followed her out of the passageway. The first wizard was a shorter, squat man with the facial features of a rat. He carried the infant abomination that alternated between hissing at the viper and commanding the three wizards.

"Wormtail, I am pleased you got us into the castle undetected," the infant told the wizard carrying him.

"Where is the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets, my lord?" asked the taller wizard walking behind the first pair. This was Barty Crouch, Jr., the dark lord's most devoted follower who was free after 13 years under his father's imperious curse. Bartemius Crouch, Sr. followed silently at the rear. The father was enthralled by the imperious curses of the Dark Lord and his own son.

"On the second floor," the infant replied. "We go down the stairs here and we'll be there very quickly. There is enough treasure there to finance the war without Malfoy or Nott."

"My lord, the smell is very strong," Pettigrew complained and coughed. The homunculus of the Dark Lord could not smell anything, but he allowed the three wizards to affix the bubblehead charm around their heads to manage the smell.

{That doesn't help me!} complained the viper. The dark lord threw his hand up and the viper rolled around in agony for a moment.

Hurrying along the hallway to the staircase, the party began their descent, the viper moving in front, her eyes lidded with an inner eyelid to hide her pain. She felt the vibration of the staircase first and sped her descent, not caring for the others in her party. She slid off the staircase and into the green vapors that could not be seen in the darkness of the night. But the viper could taste the poison, acid, and death that came for her.

Writhing in agony, her head was underneath the staircase when it collapsed, killing her instantly and throwing the wizards and homunculus down the deep stairwell. The wizards and homunculus fell all the way to the entry hall of Hogwarts and landed on the hard stone floor.

Broken and shattered bones prevented anyone from rising again. Peter Pettigrew landed on top of the Dark Lord's brittle infant form, smashing the bones and organs that had been forced to continue functioning after the stillbirth. His broken neck meant Peter died instantly.

Father and son Crouch lay there for an hour as their skin and muscle were eaten away by the corrosive mists. When the bubble head charms simultaneously failed, they each tried to take a breath to scream in pain, but the mists immediately wiped away their nostrils, throats, and lungs. Perhaps they gurgled but very quickly their forms melted away, like the goblins before them. The mists settled on the bodies of the rat-man and stillborn child, melting them away.

One extraordinary thing occurred in this peculiar setting of a noxious fog dissolving away life, when the spirit – the last piece of the dark lord's original whole soul – rose from the body of the collapsing infant, it was wrapped in the green poisonous fumes as well.

The remnant was trapped.

It dissolved.

On the fifth floor, one of the elves working on barriers to hold back the mists heard the noises made as the stairs collapsed and the bodies hit the floor far below. She woke Hasenpfeffer and explained, "There be wizards sneaky sneaking into Hoggiewarts in the darkest night."

The head elf consulted with the wards and then said, "Stupid wizards come in the middle of the night and not see the gases that eat them alive. Stupid wizards."

Then the head elf rolled over and went back to sleep. He had a busy day planned for tomorrow and needed his sleep.

CHANGE SCENE: Consequences

There were several events that night associated with the melting away of Tom Riddle's soul remnant. In Surry, a teenager had a moment of pain as an evil spirit was ejected from the scar on his forehead. There was a bit of mess on his sheets and in his hair in the morning but for some reason, his aunt, uncle, and cousin treated him much better the next morning.

A house elf in a decrepit townhouse in London celebrated when a locket was suddenly cleaned of the taint of the Dark Lord. He noticed how dirty his house was and set to work cleaning for the first time in a decade.

Inside Hogwarts, on the seventh floor, a diadem was cleansed of the same taint. The castle itself would bring the headwear to the attention of someone next year and restore Ravenclaw's Diadem to her house.

In an overgrown and avoided part of the wood near the town of Little Hangleton, a ring was cleared of the taint and the screaming spirit took the curses embedded in the ring with it to the next great adventure. The remains of the shack crumbled, and the vipers spelled to remain and protect it, scurried away, their instincts to feed and mate restored.

Within Gringotts, where the king of the goblins, Ragnock raged and threatened to behead entire families as proof of betrayals and bribes came to light with new account managers taking over positions for goblins who had disappeared at Hogwarts, no one noticed the slight disturbance within the vault of Bellatrix Lestrange. A cup shivered for a moment and a spirit was ejected to dissipate.

The slight movement of the cup triggered a Geminio hex on a nearby coin that duplicated itself, upsetting an entire stack of coins and setting off a cascade of hexes and duplication inside the vault. Within ten minutes, the vault was packed full of cursed items that kept trying to duplicate without success. The cursed items began to feed off each other and the original items – gold, jewels, and valuable artifacts. By the next day, the vault was empty – even the cup was gone, eaten by the cursed magic.

Tom Riddle had just returned to England from Albania with Peter Pettigrew and his new viper familiar. Now the evil wizard and his Horcruxes were dead and gone forever.

SCENE CHANGE: Inheritances

Amelia Bones was surprised when Rufus Scrimgeour brought the latest magical death notices from Gringotts to her attention the next week. The goblins had complete control of wills and inheritances. There was an extensive list of strange deaths among the goblins and five wizards/witches that caught the Director's attention; Rita Skeeter, Bartemius Crouch, Sr., Bartemius Crouch, Jr., Peter Pettigrew, and Tom Riddle.

Looking up at the Head Auror's face, she asked, "Does anyone but you look at this list in the department?"

"A few up-and-coming Aurors look at it occasionally."

"But no one on the minister's staff?"

"Only if you bring the announcement of someone's death to the attention of the minister or his toad," Scrimgeour replied. "Fudge's toad will look it over for an opportunity to steal an inheritance for her boss."

Folding the parchment and sliding it into a drawer, Amelia said, "Look for trail records for Sirius Black. Something's not right here. And have a team check for any unusual activity among the pardoned death eaters.

After another moment, she added, "I'll make an inspection at Azkaban and check the arm of a few prisoners."

"Stay away from Bella, Director. If that last name is who we think it is, she might have nothing left to lose."

The inheritance department at Gringotts, once under the supervision of brothers Clawfoot and Hangnail who disappeared at Hogwarts, was now managed by Ragnock himself. The department found itself dealing with an extinct magical house after the death of both father and son Crouch. The automated letters that always went to Albus Dumbledore with all the relevant information about heirs and connections to other families were not sent this time and Gringotts would settle the Skeeter, Crouch, and Riddle estates without interference by the headmaster.

Other departments pursued misappropriated school funds, stolen funds from the Potter estate, and bribes paid to goblins and received from humans. Investigations led to Cornelius Fudge, Dolores Umbridge, and Lucius Malfoy for other bribes and shady dealings.

Using proprietary goblin magic denied to humans, Ragnock determined that the Crouch estate should go to the first magical descendant of Lavinia Crouch, a squib placed in a muggle orphanage in 1915. This woman was tracked by the same magic to have had one daughter, Elizabeth Spencer who married Thomas Evans and had two daughters, Petunia and Lily. The younger sister had proven to be a witch and her son, Harry Potter was alive.

The goblins summoned the house-elf from the Crouch home and informed the grieving elf that she still had family in the boy wizard named Harry Potter.

"But hows do I find him? He's be hidden away!" she wailed, fearful of losing her magic and life before she could find her new master.

"Go to Hogwarts and talk to the elves. They might know him."

CHANGE SCENE: Disturbing Stories

The Daily Prophet continued to run the story about the mystery at Hogwarts – goblins vanishing inside the castle and never being seen again. They reported that intrepid reporter Rita Skeeter had gone to Hogwarts to investigate and had never returned.

No one thought to call a house elf and ask what was happening.

At the ministry for Magic, Arthur Weasley brought his youngest son to work with him one day to take him to Saint Mungo's for a check-up – Ron's appetite continued to grow and this summer, he threatened to eat them out of house and home.

In the cafeteria for a mid-morning snack with his older brother Percy Weasley, they talked about the mystery at Hogwarts, and Ron asked, "Is the smoke green? That's like the basilisk Harry killed in the Chamber of Secrets at the end of our second year."

A reporter for the Daily Prophet overheard Ron's comment and bought some biscuits for the teenager and asked about this story.

"Potter said the monster was huge. Bigger than most dragons in the books. We figured it was Salazar Slytherin's familiar or something left over from when the school was built," Ron explained.

The reporter was not the gossip monger that the vanished Rita Skeeter had been and talked to Ron for a long time. The boy's younger sister had been involved and according to Ron, Harry Potter used the Sword of Gryffindor to kill the beast. Looking at the skeptical Percy, the reporter asked, "Were students petrified last year and then restored at the end of the school year?"

The former head boy nodded and said, "Let's get my father involved in this interview. Ron's underage and you can't print anything he says without my dad's consent."

Arthur, Percy, and Ron were interviewed for another half-hour in Arthur's office. The Daily Prophet ran a front-page article on the coverup of petrified students and unreported events involving other students at the school.

The appointment with the healers at Saint Mungo's proved that Ron was manifesting some ancestry with creature blood (probably troll or giant).

"He'll easily grow to be 305 centimeters tall – almost the size of a troll. And he'll weigh in at 180 kilograms," the healer said. "And you'll see when he's seventeen if he is as resistant to magic as a creature."

"Oi, what's this mean?" asked the confused teenager.

His father replied, "You'll be very good as a bodyguard, Ron."

The healer whispered, "And witches will certainly be interested in you."

The following morning, Amelia called Arthur to her office to get to the truth of the matter about the petrifications at Hogwarts. He returned home and brought his four youngest children to the ministry and allowed the director to interview Ginny (without Molly present). Fred, George, and Ron were in the room to provide any details that their sister missed. The young witch admitted to waking in the Chamber of Secrets and seeing the giant beast dead nearby. Harry Potter was present with the Sorting Hat and the Sword of Gryffindor. He was her hero because he got her, her brother, and Gilderoy Lockhart out of the chamber using Fawkes, the phoenix that lived in Dumbledore's office.

Amelia Bones frowned – something that every wizard and witch in Magical Britain knew signaled trouble for someone. She turned to Arthur and asked, "Where will I find Harry Potter?"

While his father tried to deflect the question, Ron spoke up, "Dumbledore keeps him locked up with muggles all summer. They hate him, don't feed him, and beat him."

Ginny added, "They don't let him study."

Uncomfortable now, Arthur said, "I'm sure the children are exaggerating, and the headmaster says it is the safest place for him."

"No. I ain't exaggerating," Ron argued. "We told you about the bars on his windows two years ago and you know Harry had to run away last year. All you gotta do is look at Harry and you know he ain't getting fed right."

"Ron, that's not true," insisted Arthur.

Ron argued, "Dumbledore makes Harry go to his muggle relatives each summer. He won't let the boy-who-lived spend his summers any place else."

Now Fred and George made their contribution to the conversation, "Yeah, Harry has to spend his holiday in Muggle Azkaban while the headmaster goes someplace tropical and gets naked massages."

"WHAT!" shouted Arthur, growing distributed with the conversation.

Bones asked, "Who told you that?"

Fred pulled a full-color brochure for Happy Ending Retreat, an adults-only resort on the magical island of Saint Stephan in the Caribbean. "We found this on the floor of the Great Hall just as school ended."

"It fell from Professor Dumbledore's robes," added George.

Director Bones had the twin slip the brochure into an evidence bag and Arthur cast scourgify charms on the hands of both teenagers. (George deserved all the credit for the ideas and text but Fred was the twin to create the pictures and layout of the brochure when they decided to prank the headmaster.)

SCENE CHANGE: Harry's Summer

Staring out the window of his uncle's car, driving back to Little Whining, Harry sighed silently. Another year at Hogwarts ended and this one was disappointing – his godfather was on the run.

His uncle wasn't noticeable upset today and Aunt Petunia seemed more introspective than usual. He had heard her mention a memory of Lily at the same train station and hoped it meant she was remembering something good. He was allowed to keep his trunk in his room so he could do his summer homework (and he was 'encouraged to help Dudley with maths). Surprisingly, he was fed and given only a reasonable amount of chores.

"None of the freaks threatened us this trip," Petunia mentioned.

"What do you mean? Please. Tell me what you're talking about?" Harry begged.

"Both years before, when we waited to pick you up, some wild red-headed freak found us in the carpark and threatened us with her wand. Said we had to pamper you during the summer," Petunia explained. "For some reason, it made your uncle and I both angry."

Harry thought for a moment and shook his head before he said, "Sorry, Aunt. I'll speak to her husband and report her to the magic police. Please let me know if you see her again."

Then one night in July, his scar broke open. When he cleaned up the next morning, he noticed it was much smaller and fading away. Harry Potter grinned at his reflection in the mirror and was glad to go downstairs to fix breakfast.

Later in the month, just before his birthday, two visitors appeared in his bedroom late one night. He recognized Dobby but wondered who the second elf was. She looked very sad and almost ready to fold into herself and vanish.

"Hello Dobby," Harry said. "Are you having a good summer?"

"There's be much to tell you Mr Harry Potters," the elf said. "First be to bind you with Winky who belongs to you now through youse relatives that died away this summer."

Huh?" replied Harry and the teenager concentrated and listened very closely to Dobby's news to ensure he understood everything that the elves had to say. He repeated the most important parts so that Dobby would correct him. Winky stared at the pair – a wizard telling an elf to correct him when he was wrong had never occurred to the elf in her two hundred years serving the Crouch family.

"So, my mum was related to this ministry guy and his son. They died on the same night this summer at Hogwarts. As the next magical relative, I inherited the Crouch estate. I have to go to Gringotts and sign some papers but then their vaults, house, and money belong to me."

"Yes, if youse don't, Fudgie Fudge will take and give some to Toad and some to Malfoy."

Smiling at Winky, Harry asked, "And does Winky wants to become my elf?"

Here Dobby looked sad, but he nodded. Then Harry asked, "I will take Winky as my house elf to keep her strong. But I also hoped you'd work for me, Dobs. Can you share with Winky?"

"Yes, Mr. Harry Potters," Dobby replied all excited. "I hides at Hoggiewarts during school but be your elf."

"Hello, Winky. What kind of work do you like best?" asked the teenager.

The little elf blinked and shyly replied, "Winky likes to clean house, clean clothes, and cook bests. I's not like yard works."

"Then Dobby can be the gardener and you can work inside."

The little elf vanished, and Dobby explained, "She's working now. House be spotless soonest."

"I'll have to tell Aunt Petunia."

"Aunt Lady will like clean clothes, house and meals all cooked by elf. She be very happy wifey-wife too."

"Now, tell me what's going on at Hogwarts."

That's how Harry Potter discovered the story about the poison gas building up inside the castle. The staircases were collapsing, the doors vanishing, because no one would listen to Hosefpheffer, the head elf. Opening his trunk for paper and a brio, Harry composed letters that he and Dobby edited heavily.

"Dobby's not know how to write," the elf confessed.

Harry frowned and said, "We'll have to change that this year."

Once finished with the letters, Harry sent one to Hagrid telling him to stay away from the castle, one to Director Amelia Bones about the elves having all the information she needed on the mist in the castle, and the final one to Hermione asking about decontamination practices for poisonous gas.

'That'll put a feather in her bonnet when she helps Magical Britain,' he decided.

Winky popped in with lunch for her Mr. Harry Potters after putting a spread on the dining room table for his aunt and cousin.

CHANGE SCENE: Gringotts

Winky popped Harry to the steps outside the bank and they hurried inside. No one noticed the boy-who-lived until he stood in front of a teller asking to speak with the inheritance officer for the day. Hustled into the back of the bank quickly, Harry and Winky were greeted by Ragnock. The king of the goblins first apologized for allowing Dumbledore to raid the Potter family vaults so terribly but Gringotts had made good on every stolen galleon, artifact, and book.

"Everything's been restored to your vaults. Headmaster Whiskers will have an unwelcome surprise when he opens his vault statements this month."

Then the goblin explained about the death of Bartemius Crouch, Sr., and his son, Barty Crouch, Jr., on the same night as Peter Pettigrew and Tom Riddle. They discussed the supposed death of the son years earlier in Azkaban but the goblins never registered the death until just the week earlier.

"Riddle died again?" asked Harry. "That's like four times he's died. Why can't he stay dead?"

Ragnock chuckled and replied, "I don't know about the other times. But Gringotts never lists a wizard as being 'dead' until they are completely dead."

Grinning to hear that news, Harry continued, "My elves were worried that Fudge, Toad, and Malfoy would try and steal the Crouch estate from me."

Nodding again, the goblin explained, "Dumbledore and the Ministry would race each other to Gringotts to claim to be executors of estates without wills…and even if there was a will. You've settled the estate by talking with me today."

"But what about keeping them out of the house? I don't need it right now but someday." Harry paused before he asked, "Can I let my godfather live there?"

"Sirius Black? He's innocent of the crimes he was charged with so, I'm certain you can let him live there. But you should keep control of who can enter the house. Only you, your godfather, and your elves," advised Ragnock. "Never bring any of his friends inside the wards because they are all Sturrdel-gryhiglzehwe for Albus Dumbledore."

"Uh…I'm not familiar with that word."

Winky blushed and whispered, "It be goblin cussing about humans trying to do bedtime things with boggarts. Be nasty curse word."

Harry thought for a minute and then blushed also figuring out what his elf meant by 'bedtime things'. The goblin grinned and remained silent while the teenager collected his thoughts.

"I will send Gringotts warders with you to renew and strengthen those wards in the next five minutes. Your elf can bring you the ward book and you can strike thru everyone's name and insert yours, Sirius Black, and the elves. No one else can get in then."

"What if I want friends to visit?"

"You or the elves can bring them in for a one-time visit. When they leave, they can't come back inside."

"Brilliant!" declared Harry.

The following week as the news of the death of Barty Crouch, Sr. percolated through the ministry, Cornelius Fudge with his Auror guard visited outside the wards to investigate the decaying wards – he'd seize the property if the wards could be collapsed. Only minutes later, two Aurors were admitted to Saint Mungo's to have serious injuries healed. Amelia and Scrimgeour both pitched fits with the Aurors and with Fudge. The Aurors were reassigned to Azkaban for a month and Fudge lost his 'loyal' Aurors.

Mundungus Fletcher and his son, Suffrage, ventured to the house; if they could finagle their way inside, lots of items could be picked up for quick sale. The father got too close, and the son rushed his father to Saint Mungo's where they treated the wizard for a badly burned scalp. The man's skull was exposed for the remainder of his life, and he wore a hat at all times.

Miffed that a possible free inheritance slipped away from Cornelius (and herself), Dolores Umbridge used a ministry-provided port-key to move her from her home in a dreary part of Gravesend to the high-class neighborhood near Windsor on a Saturday afternoon. She intended to examine these wards herself. After arriving in the area, she walked to the loation of the house behind the wards.

'I'll find the location of the ward stones. They should be weak since Crouch is dead,' she told herself, pointing her wand at the house. It was several hours before an Auror team arrived to determine the discharge of magic in Windsor on 30 July, the last Saturday of the month.

The incident at Hogwarts where the poison mist flooded out into the Forbidden Forest kept every Auror occupied for most of the afternoon. Only after returning to the Ministry did Auror Tonks and Auror Vance get assigned the job of investigating in Windsor. They immediately found the unconscious witch and transported her to Saint Mungo's casualty department.

"What's this one got?" asked the healer on duty. "This is the fourth injury coming from Windsor in just three days."

Tonks reported, "Lost three fingers, her nose, left eye, and left ear."

"Did you recover the lost…parts?"

"No…they burned away."

Needless to say, the news from Hogwarts made the front page of the Daily Prophet and Dolores hid in her home for a month until the healers were able to restore her hair, and fashion a nose and left ear from muggle plastics. Her eye socket they covered with an eye patch.

SCENE CHANGE: Invitation to The Burrow

Harry's birthday on 31 July was the best the teenager ever had. His godfather had been cleared of all crimes from 1981 in a hearing that took place in the DMLE offices without any interference from Cornelius Fudge (without his honor guard), or Albus Dumbledore (hiding from Aurors, goblins, and the general population of Magical Britain). Sirius would require counseling and potions for months but with Winky and Dobby to cart him around (and keep him under control), he'd make his appointments with healers to repair his body and mind for the next six months.

The invitation to stay at the Burrow was politely declined. Listening to his elves, Harry didn't reveal that he was staying at his new house in Windsor with his godfather. Molly made a special trip to Surrey and was arrested for muggle-baiting when she assaulted the housewife in No.6 and the eldest son from No.12 who rode his bicycle along the sidewalk. (Dobby observed the assault and summoned an Auror 'to protect Mr. Harry Potter's family.' Mrs. Weasley was sent to Azkaban for two weeks and would not get her wand back until the first of October.

Arthur still took his children to the World Cup, and they met Harry and his 'crazy' godfather there. After the great Quidditch match, Harry and Sirius returned to Windsor. The Aurors on duty managed to capture the Death Eaters who tortured the muggles and attacked the wizards and witches. There were trials that sent the Death Eaters to Azkaban because Fudge was afraid of attracting the attention of Bones and Scrimgeour again.

By then, everyone heard about the poisonous gas at Hogwarts and the clean-up effort that would be required. The delay of two weeks before opening night for the term was welcomed by Harry and Sirius. They popped over to France for a few days at the beaches in the south of the country, rode bicycles, talked with pretty girls from all over the world, and ate delicious food.

CHANGE SCENE: Back to the Beginning

Dumbledore, the professors, and goblins waited anxiously along the path that led to Hogsmeade, to see what happened with the gas. Behind them appeared a group of Aurors who approached the doors of Hogwarts cautiously. They were protected from above their heads to below the soles of their shoes with an impenetrable body bubble developed by the Department of Mysteries for just such instances to deal with poison gases.

The green mist continued to flow relentlessly out of the castle as if being pulled out.

Hasenpfeffer popped onto the path close to Amelia Bones and Rufus Scrimgeour where the elf explained, "The door stays open and all green smells leaving. Only on grounds floor and in dungeons now. Take times to repair and Hoggiewarts needs new doors and stairs all the way to third floor. Bad smells eats all carpets and woods."

"Why didn't you tell Dumbledore?"

"Headmaster Whiskers goes on vacation to hot place every summer and tells Hasenpfeffer not to send no letters for Julys. Like Miss Mean Kitty this year," the elf explained. "And Mr. Hagrid not hear Hasenpfeffer's voice. Giant too high up and not hear elf's voice."

"Did you tell the goblins who came to visit?"

"Yes, but they step on Hasenpfeffer and walk on into Hoggiewarts."

Rufus admitted, "We didn't listen until we got simultaneous letters from Gringotts about two dozen missing goblins and from Harry Potter about the poison gas in the school."

The second team of Aurors rode on brooms above the gas as it moved through the Forbidden Forest. One Auror flew back to report the gas seemed to be seeking out and attacking a clutter of giant spiders. The infestation of Acromantulas was dealt with decisively.

SCENE CHANGE: Late Beginning

It was still ten days before anyone ventured inside the castle's front door. All the windows and doors remained open at all times to provide fresh air – the dungeons provide difficult to clear and the elves resolved the problem by bricking up every entrance to the Slytherin and Hufflepuff dormitories as well as the former location of the kitchen. The Great Hall suffered some damage with the destruction of the giant bejeweled point counters. No one knew the magic that had been used in the 1500's to set up the magical counters and it was lost. Inquiries with other schools were met with silence or diatribes about the primitive conditions in Magical Britain.

The goblins were contracted to build permanent staircases that would not move about, and they crafted beautiful ironworks for the support posts, stringers, risers, railings, and balusters. They did use wood for the treads and completed multiple staircases in six weeks. Again, no one knew the magic to enchant the staircases to move about like before.

Madam Pence, the librarian spent four hours working with Hasenpfeffer to reopen the library. The stasis spells and wards had to be removed in a specific sequence that followed some Dewey Decimal magic to open the library.

The professors complained about the lingering smell of the 'whatever-it-was' that scoured the ground, first, and second floors of Hogwarts down to the bare stone. There were damages to the library or to the Great Hall, although the outermost doors of the library and hall had to be replaced. The new staircases to the first and second floors were sturdy and received rave reviews in the Daily Prophet and the magazine Wizarding Architecture.

With some trepidation, Harry expected to be questioned about the basilisk from his second year, but the wizarding government seemed to focus more on the professional Quidditch matches occurring around Britain. (Attendance at the matches upped tax revenues with ticket and souvenir sales, and food and drink consumption. Sirius Black recovered rather rapidly and dragged a very willing Harry to every professional game. The Dogfather loudly stated he intended to attend every Quidditch match at Hogwarts in the coming year and watch his godson win every game.

New potion professors (a couple) were hired through Saint Mungo's to teach the Hogwarts students. One professor, Florence Hiddleston, would teach the first through fourth years, while the other Mammoth Hiddleston, would teach the fifth, sixth, and seventh years. As soon as they arrived, the Hiddlestons began working with the house elves to brew vats of disinfectant to clean the walls and floors of any lingering gas or smell. Remote delivery of this potion to the closed-off portions of the castle (dungeons) proved ineffective for removing the gas from those areas.

The start of the school year was pushed back to 16 September when newly arrived visitors to the school could not detect any odor of the green gas remaining. Headmaster Albus Dumbledore remained pensive for the whole of the term – the Board of Governors and the Ministry for Magic refused to reconsider hosting the Tri-Wizard Tournament at Hogwarts or allowing any students to participate (at Dramstrung). The expenses for the clean-up, new staircases, etc. drained the discretionary fund for the 1994-1995 school year. The fact that his personal vaults were bare also might have placed on his usual good mood.

For Harry Potter, he never bothered with the bubblehead charm when he arrived and never found the need for it. Harry's fourth year at Hogwarts was delayed because of the smelly gas invasion but then passed quietly and safely. He counted it as the best year yet.