Reviews
Alan
Dumbledore seems to have some sort of power over lesser witches and wizards. Harry actually declares Dumbledore to be the greatest sorcerer in the world to the Horcrux in the Chamber despite having no evidence of this. In fact, given that Dumbledore wasn't able to solve a problem a 12-year-old boy dealt with, the evidence suggests that Dumbledore is rather a poor excuse for a wizard.
Harry defeats Voldemort more than once and people don't go around doing whatever he wants. There has to be some sort of brainwashing going on.
Playing with Fudge could be fun and he does seem to need someone to think for him.
I'm more of a Warhammer fan so I'd use Black Templar Space Marines models against Death Eaters and try to give them working flamers so they can go around shouting 'Burn the Heretics!' as they set bad guys on fire. Warhammer is also British and so there are shops full of those models all over the country, and Halo didn't come out until 2001 so no one has models from that franchise to sell.
Spiritblade89
You're in luck here is more of the story.
Shadowpawzzz
You're welcome.
kent-jensen
Good to know.
Mugen-Muse
Dumbledore had nothing to do with Zabini taking an interest. Not everything that happens in the wizarding world is due to Voldemort and Dumbledore.
I too think that Dumbledore is doing something to people to make them trust him. Clearly, it doesn't work on everyone and it is possible for his control to fail as proven when Fudge turns against him. I think it is partly that everyone got used to Dumbledore taking charge when dealing with Gridlewald and later Voldemort, and so everyone just let him carry on. He might also have some hidden power to influence people.
Dumbledore still thinks that he can win Hiddleston over despite what happened with Mungdungus. He overestimates his ability to charm people.
I think manipulating Fudge is the way to go. Maybe the MC can actually make the Minister somewhat of an effective leader.
lazyguy90
Messing with Fudge seems to be a popular idea.
Buildingcross
That would never work for reasons I'll mention in this chapter.
Crossworld 1 - Harry Potter
Part 34
Cokesworth. Muggle Britain.
The novelty of getting out of the school and seeing the little settlement of magical people had not been lost on most of us who had just started our third year of schooling at Hogwarts. I had little interest in the village I'd visited before when sneaking out of the castle. I'd only gone alone because I'd wanted some people to see me in the village so that I would have an alibi later.
I didn't think I'd need one because while I was about to go and commit a serious crime there was no reason why anyone would suspect John Hiddleston or Tom Hiddleston of committing it. Still, it was best to be careful so I made sure to attract the attention of a few classmates and to have them see John Hiddleston meeting with an illusion of Tom Hiddleson before I'd disappeared from sight and turned myself into a magical creature.
Before leaving the charming little village I'd quickly grabbed some treats from the sweet shop as well as some other bits and bobs to give to the students I tutored so it would look to them as if I'd spent some time checking out all the shops. It was important for me to keep up appearances as people rarely looked beneath the surface. As long as I gave the impression that I was just a third-year student then this was what people would see.
"Here we are Spinner's End," I said to Cortana "The childhood home of one Severus Snape".
The Spinner part of the street name made me wonder if in times past the people living had been heavily involved in cotton or wool spinning. The houses here looked as if they could have been built as homes for workers who spent their time labouring away in a textiles plant for some British caption of industry.
It was raining heavily and it was already getting dark this evening, yet there were a few people on the street, and if not for my ability to create illusions the sight of me would have drawn a lot of attention as I'd arrived in this town as a Thestral before taking the form of Kol the Red Mage, who was the real me if any of my identities could be considered to be so.
As for why I'd travelled here as a Thestral, that was because they had an inbuilt ability to find places and while in that form I could make use of that ability to go where I wished even if I'd never been to that place before. Since I'd never been here before and couldn't remember the place I'd not been able to teleport to this street. It hadn't taken a while to get, so it was good that getting back would only take a few moments.
Now I had taken the form of Kol the Red Mage and this appearance would have also caused people to stare at me if I could be seen because not many people wear chainmail in this day and age. Nor do they openly carry a sword at their side. Hopefully, I wouldn't need my weapons or my armour, but it paid to be careful.
It wasn't that late as the flight here had only taken a few hours, and I enjoyed flying as an animal, but there was some light spilling out of the houses where there were gaps in the curtains so no one had gone to bed yet. Given the thick curtains, it seemed to me as if the people of Cokesworth didn't want to acknowledge the world outside their homes if they could avoid doing so. Not that they blamed them as this muggle neighbourhood was a poor one. There was a lot of litter and unattended bins here. I was used to having more pleasant surroundings.
"We must be near the childhood home of the Evans family, where Petunia Dursley and Lily Potter grew up" I mused "Lily Potter must have been like a flower growing out of a bed of weeds".
I had no idea if Snape bothered with muggle repelling wards since he wasn't likely to welcome visitors and his house looked very normal from the outside.
"You need to stay focused" warned Cortana "Snape is not to be underestimated".
She was right. I'd come here to grab my former teacher as he was a former Death Eater, at least in theory, and a Dumbledore supporter, taking him would weaken the forces of both the Bright Lord and the Dark Lord. I would have to kill him after I broke his mind and I needed to break him as he had lots of information about the Death Eaters as well as knowledge of Dumbledore's plans.
Finding out what he knew would take a while since he was also trained in the mind arts, but there were ways around that and Snape didn't have to be useful to anyone afterwards. I felt bad about what I needed to do, but I didn't buy into the idea had Severus's love for Lily redeemed him. So what if had cared about one person and was willing to protect Lily's son? That didn't make him a good person, he'd still joined the Death Eaters and he was a child abuser, his sins had not been washed away and he'd never made any real effort to become a more pleasant person as far as I could tell.
"I can do this," I told myself.
Snape might have been somewhat decent to me, and if he wasn't too damaged afterwards perhaps I'd just erase most of his mind and let him start again in some Muggle mental hospital. At least I could ensure him a peaceful death and I didn't think he had much reason to go on living even how miserable he was.
I used an illusion to change my appearance so that I took the form of a deliveryman and then I knocked on the door. While questioning my presence the former teacher took the box from me, which distracted him long enough for me to stun him, since hadn't been expecting an attack. The box was a portkey to the Chamber and so soon Snape vanished once activated.
A powerful wizard wouldn't be taken out of action for long by a single stunner even once cast by me, and I had no idea if Dumbledore had set up any kinds of alarms to alert him if Snape suddenly vanished, so I knew that I had to move quickly.
When I entered the house I found myself in a tiny sitting room, which felt smaller than it actually was, and there was a sense of darkness here, well more of a gloominess really. The walls were completely covered in books, most of them bound in black or brown leather. Other than that there was a threadbare sofa, an old armchair and a rickety table. Snape clearly hadn't seen this place as a proper home.
"Hard to imagine a child growing up here" I heard Cortana say.
Snape was from this town and given his lack of care for the property it seemed fair to assume that he'd inherited this place from his bastard of a father rather than purchased it.
"I'm going to loot this place as planned," I said.
Since I had a bottomless bag I took advantage of that and as I moved around the small house I began to use magic to take everything that look worthwhile without actually touching anything. I wasn't just planning on killing the Death Eaters I was going to rob them as well.
Before long I found a partly hidden door that lead to a storeroom where a lot of elf-made wine was kept. I took all of that rather than let it go to waste. It was an odd thing to find I thought since I'd never seen any evidence that Snape ever drank wine.
After some more looking around I even found a safe which contained some wizarding coins as well as stacks of muggle notes. I wondered if Snape had been doing some potion brewing on the side that made him some profit or if he'd robbed people during his Death Eater days. Not that it mattered as it was all mine now and I could sort out my loot later on.
I ignored the bedroom and bathrooms since Snape's clothes and personal effects were of no interest to me. Instead, I cleared out the potion's lab before I began spreading some flammable liquids around the building. I wanted the fire that burned this house down to be started by mundane means so as to throw off any magical investigation.
Once the fire got started I triggered my own portkey while feeling glad that one of the reasons portkeys were so regulated was that they were next to impossible to track. The Chamber was secure as long as no one in it attracted the attention of Fawkes so it was a good base to work from.
(Line Break)
Cokesworth. Muggle Britain.
Albus Dumbledore looked at the charred remains of Severus Snape's home and sighed. While there had been no dark mark cast into the sky and the house had burned down due to what the muggles thought was some sort of arson, the Headmaster knew otherwise. This was the work of witches and wizards, perhaps one of the Death Eaters who had escaped justice when Tom Riddle was vanquished.
It was known to many followers of the Dark Lord that Snape had turned his cloak and become a spy towards the end of the war. Snape had been well protected at Hogwarts and had spent as little time out of the castle as possible. With their master gone none of the Death Eaters who had escaped Azkaban had dared to move against Snape for fear of drawing Dumbledore's ire against them.
That had clearly changed. Someone was moving openly and Dumbledore had a list of suspects that he was already taking people off due to muggle methods being involved. As clever as it was to make it harder to track any magic used by setting the place on fire with muggle made chemicals, this was something Voldemort would not lower himself to do.
The same was true for most of the Death Eaters, if only because few Purebloods would even know what Muggle products to use. Add to this the lack of any traces of dark magic and it seemed unlikely that Snape had been targeted by a Voldemort or any of his followers. If anything this was likely the work of a Muggleborn witch or wizards, and while they weren't normally the kind of people who committed crimes of this kind, they were far more likely to use muggle methods to try to clear their tracks.
Acknowledging the idea that either a muggleborn or a half-blood with experience with the muggle world was behind this didn't exactly narrow down the list of suspects. It actually led Dumbledore to start up a whole new list, which included a lot of former Hogwarts students who had graduated from the school in the last decade as well as victims of the Death Eater's raids. Given that this happened on a Hogsmede weekend it was even possible that several older students had worked together to target the former teacher.
Snape had never been a well-liked man. His abrasive attitude hadn't made him any friends and he was a poor teacher even Albus would admit that. If not for the need to keep Snape close by the Headmaster never would have employed the man, but he'd needed a strong ally to be in charge of Slytherin house in order to keep some sort of control over the older students, and Snape had been a useful follower. If a few students failed or never took Newt level potions class then that was a sacrifice made for the Greater Good.
While outside of the house the Headmaster had questioned a few of the active members of the community about what they thought had happened and had even skimmed the surface of a few people's minds. They were under the impression that Severus Snape worked as a chemistry teacher at a remote boarding school in Scotland. Which wasn't that far from the truth.
Because of the use of chemicals to start the fire as well as a lack of anything inside the house, the police had a theory that Snaped had cleared out and then burned his own house down for insurance money. Severus had loathed his father and this was his father's house, a home he barely spent any time in, and the local people knew that, so it wasn't a big surprise that the police had come to this conclusion.
The fact that the house had been cleared out of anything connected to the magical world, at least as far as Albus could see, convinced Dumbledore more than anything else that no Pureblood was behind this. They weren't above looting and there had been things worth taking, but none of the Death Eaters would bother to hide the existence of magic as they were foolish enough not to care if the statute was put in peril. Many muggle-borns and half-bloods knew better and didn't underestimate the danger non-magical people could pose to a witch or wizard.
Snape really hadn't done himself any favours by being so abrasive to everyone. There were years worth of students and parents who wouldn't mind getting back at the teacher not to mention the victims of Death Eater raids who might have been biding their time before striking at a vulnerable target. If only he'd been able to stay at the castle, but the board of governors had turned on him, and Dumbledore had needed to focus on maintaining his grip on the Ministry.
Something Mundungus was grateful for. Dumbledore hadn't sent the crook to Godric's Hollow, he hadn't needed to. It was a shame that the criminal who was in debt to the Headmaster hadn't gotten inside the property and gotten a good look around.
Albus knew that Snape hadn't responsible for the deed that got him sacked and he wondered if that event and this one were connected or not. They didn't seem to have anything in common as far as the old wizard could tell other than Snape being the target.
He was going to have to request that Mad-Eye come and look into this. The lack of magic involved would make finding a trace of Snape almost impossible, but if anyone could find the potion's master then it would be Moody. Dumbledore could normally call upon others, it was just that no one else would really care enough to put any effort into searching for Snape, and besides he didn't want to ring any alarms.
Snape might not be dead. He might have escaped and gone into hiding. That was the only hope Dumbledore had for his friend's safety and he knew that it was a small one. Most likely the poor man was dead and this meant that Albus might have lost one of his strongest allies.
(Line Break)
The Chamber of Secrets. Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
A few days after I'd grabbed Snape I waved my wand at the newly made corpse that had been the wizard called Severus Snape. In the end, I'd killed him with a potent poison while keeping him knocked out and now his mortal remains had been transfigured into something I could safely bury in the Forbidden Forest without having to worry about some animal digging it up for a meal. I didn't want Hagrid stumbling across any of the leftovers.
Snape's mind had been a great source of information, not just on the subject of potions, which was knowledge I could get from the notes he'd left lying around in his lab, he'd also been privy to a lot of what the Death Eaters got up to during the war and he knew a great deal about Dumbledore's plans as well.
Most of the information on the Death Eaters was out of date and as such not very useful, but I'd seen enough to know that Snape had murdered many people and performed lots of crimes. He'd done bad things for Voldemort and for Dumbledore.
What I learned about Dumbledore did interest me even if it was mostly confirmation of things I already knew. The Headmaster was indeed raising the Boy-Who-Lived as a willing sacrifice who would place himself in front of a Killing Curse so as to render Voldemort mortal enough to die. He assured Snape that it was the only way to bring down the Dark Lord.
Dumbledore was willing to let many others suffer in order to test the Chosen One and he was working to ensure that Harry Potter would become one of Dumbledore's loyal followers. Not that this was going well due to my alterations to the timeline and it sickened me that the Headmaster was using a child as a weapon against an enemy he should have dealt with decades ago.
"The old man needs to die" I declared.
Despite it seeming as if I was alone I hadn't been talking to myself.
"Going to poison his sweets?" asked Cortana as her image appeared nearby, an image only I could see.
That was a terrible idea and I got the sense that she'd been joking.
"Poison won't work with Fawkes around," I said while thinking over my options "Even basilisk venom can be countered by a phoenix's tears".
Even a knife in the back might not work since that bird would just appear and take Dumbledore somewhere to get medical attention and wizard's were more robust than muggles. Unless it was Fawkes burning day which was due sometime this year if I remembered the events of the Chamber of Secrets book correctly then the bird couldn't aid Dumbledore. However, I didn't know the date of the burning day so I'd have to kill Dumbledore in a way which ensured that medical attention would be useless.
"I'd be an idiot to try to take him on magically, he's got more than a century on me when it comes to using magic and the Death Stick" I mused out loud "So I'm thinking of using a muggle method, only I can't frame a Death Eater for that".
It would be great if I could make people think that Lucius Malfoy had killed Dumbledore, that would leave me clear to wrap the Minister around my finger as Tom Hiddleston for as long as it served my purposes. He was already writing to me about how certain departments were underfunded and needed support while subtly, at least by his standards, enquiring about my views on certain topics.
"Malfoy would never be direct and he'd never use Muggle methods" reminded Cortana "So you can't just have him appear at the school and start throwing curses around".
While I would no doubt do a better job than Draco Malfoy when it came to trying to murder the Headmaster he was virtually untouchable while in the school. Most of the teachers would fight for him, a lot of the students thought he was the best wizard since Merlin, and he had a thousand eyes spying on people for him thanks to the castle's many portraits.
I could try to lure him out of the school and then change into a basilisk. If I could get him cornered he'd have no way to prevent us from making eye contact. Even a killing curse to the back, while I was hidden under illusions, might work if I could actually perform the killing curse. I just didn't have the aptitude for the dark arts. I didn't hate enough to empower such spells.
There were other spells that could kill, but if I killed him then what? In the book series Voldemort took over the country pretty damn quickly once Dumbledore was out of the way as such getting rid of the Headmaster might not be such a good idea as long as the Dark Lord was around.
"Perhaps you should go after his power base instead" suggested my AI companion "You've already undermined his authority with that book".
Not that publishing the book seemed to have made much of a difference outside of the governors getting involved with the running of the school. Dumbledore still had enough influence to get his minions out of jail with ease and even Fudge was happy to accept that the Headmaster had good reasons for doing what should be considered illegal.
"I need to deal with Mungdungus," I said "I'm sure that Zabini had nothing to do with Dumbledore, but that thief might, even if the Headmaster just took advantage of the situation to put the crook more in his debt".
As much as I loathed the Bright Lord I had to admit that sending a black widow type after me just wasn't how he worked. He was far more likely to try to get me thrown to prison than killed and then try to offer the means to redeem myself so that he comes off as the good guy.
"Get some of his people in trouble between taking down Death Eaters it will sow confusion and make it harder for anyone to predict your next move" I was advised.
Abducting and killing Snape could be the start of that plan and I didn't need to do anything drastic yet. Potter wasn't that important while Voldemort was hiding out in a forest and I'd made sure it would be hard for the Dark Lord to return to a proper body
"I'll go after Dung next" I decided "Not right away, it's too well known that I have a reason to go after him. After the holidays I take care of that filth".
My plan wasn't to kill that sorry excuse for a wizard. He was a petty crook. I'd give him the Lockhart treatment and let him spend his days in a mental hospital with no memories of the wizarding world or maybe I'd frame him for a crime that Dumbledore could simply sweep under the rug, like robbing the Ministry itself. Was that kinder or crueller I didn't know, it just didn't feel as bad to me and I had some morals. I didn't kill people just for being pains in my backside.
"Going after his people won't be enough" I reasoned "I need to drive a wedge between Fudge and Dumbledore and find a way to take Fudge's leash off Malfoy if only so I could hold it for a while".
This would take some careful planning I would have to expand upon my existing schemes. This really was a lot of work and it would get in the way of my students, but I needed to keep Dumbledore off-balance even if wasn't worth trying to kill him. I might still do that if given a chance, but for now, it did look as if taking control of Fudge was the only way to weaken Dumbledore's position.
(Line Break)
Quidditch Pitch. Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
"He's a better flyer than me" I commented.
Gryffindor versus Slytherin was the first Quidditch match of the year and due to the rivalry between the two houses, there was a lot of tension in the air before the match started. I thought that the Gryffindor versus Slytherin match should be at the end of the year as it seemed more dramatic that way, but perhaps that would be a bad idea given how hostile the two houses could be to each other. If they had all year to build up the tension they might start cursing each other even more.
"Well, you can't be the best at everything" Hermione Granger pointed out.
I'd never thought that I was. I didn't get the best marks in any of my classes aside from Defence Against the Dark Arts, and I wasn't taking as many classes as most students in my year, nor did I do very well in herbology due to a lack of interest in the subject. I barely even paid attention when in Astronomy because I didn't believe in horoscopes or Mars's influence on Uranus in May, or whatever we were supposed to care about when staring at the sky. I mostly kept an eye out for UFOs, and so far no sign of any flying saucers near Hogwarts.
Okay so I was very good at duelling and I didn't have to study much since Cortana could memories stuff for me, but that hardly mattered.
"Being the best isn't the issue," I said to the young witch "I promised Professor Flitwick that the Quidditch Cup would be remaining in his office".
I intended to keep my promise as staying in Flitwick's favour mattered to me. Not only was he tutoring me in duelling I felt sure that other Head of House would have insisted on me taking two electives. Besides, I rather liked the teacher even if he seemed to turn a blind eye to bullying. That might partly be due to him having some faith in his students rather than him not caring if Luna Lovegood was made miserable.
"Didn't you teach him everything he knows about being a Seeker?" asked Luna "I watched you two flying and Harry Potter listens to you".
With his natural talent, he hadn't needed much coaching. The boy had no fear of flying and he seemed driven to live up to his father's reputation as a Quidditch player. He'd be better off trying to emulate his mother in my view, but given how everyone kept comparing him to his father when they mentioned his parents at all, it made sense that Harry would try to follow in James Potter's footsteps.
"The student quickly surpassed the master," I said by way of answer.
Not that I could take much credit for Potter's skill on a broom or his growing prowess with duelling even if I was the person he often got paired up against during the duelling lessons.
"You'll always be my favourite Seeker" stated Luna.
Harry wasn't the only problem in keeping the Quidditch Cup Flitwick's office. Gryffindor had some good Chasers too and while the goals they scored might not seem to matter much it was the overall amount of points earned over the whole season that decided which team got the trophy. I could catch the Snitch every time, but if Gryffindor got more points overall they'd get the cup and they were scoring lots of goals.
"Thank you, sweetie," I said to Luna "You'll always be my favourite Magizoologist".
The small witch didn't simply accept my word on that.
"What about Newt Scamander?" she asked.
He was rather awesome.
"You're cuter than he is" I reminded her.
She accepted my reasoning because she was totally adorable, and soon our attention was back on the match. Dobby had decided not to interfere which was good as I had no desire for Harry to spend any time in the infirmary during this timeline. It was no surprise to me when Harry catch the Snitch as the other Seeker wasn't even as good as Draco Malfoy.
"I'm going skiing with my parents in the alps," Hermione told me as the crowd began making their way back to the school "Would you like to come with me?".
This was unexpected and I wasn't sure what to say. Granger had become far less annoying now that she listened to me and had stopped trying to show off her intelligence every time someone so much as looked in her direction, however, I wasn't sure that I wanted to spend that much time with her.
"I don't know how to ski," I said.
Hermione seemed to have thought of that.
"Me neither," she told me "That's why we'll have lessons. Then when it's dark there'll be plenty of hot cocoa and a nice fire to sit beside while we read".
That did sound pleasant and perhaps it wouldn't be horrible to get out of the country for a couple of weeks. I'd been meaning to take a break from my projects and to see more of this world. It wasn't as if I had anything planned for the holidays.
"Alright I'll come with you," I said to Hermione.
I doubted that her parents would pay the two of us much attention and Hermione would spend a lot of her time with her nose in a book so I doubted she'd bother me either if I wanted time alone.
"Great I'll write to my parents to let them know you can come along," Hermione said just before she raced off.
I turned to Luna.
"Are you going home this Christmas?" I asked.
She confirmed that this was the case.
"Mum explained to me that Helios should start sleeping through the whole night by then," she informed "I hope by the summer he'll be old enough to go camping".
Going to different parts of the world for a couple of weeks during the summer to look at magical creatures that may or may not exist had become something of a Lovegood family tradition as I understood.
"I'm planning to do a bit of travelling once I leave Hogwarts" I mentioned to Luna "I might be gone for a few years".
There was no sense in me taking my Newts since I wouldn't be getting a job here and if I dropped out at seventeen I would have plenty of time to travel before Luna finished her schooling. Maybe I find some nice girl to drag along with me, or I could have some fun seducing ladies from around the world.
"Keep an eye out for Snorlacks won't you" requested.
I promised that I would.
(Line Break)
Ski Lodge. Switzerland.
I was not regretting coming here with the Grangers as the two parents had basically ignored us once they were satisfied that we could keep ourselves busy and the older Grangers had gotten on with their own business. A quick look inside their minds let me know that Hermione's parents were actually here to do some swinging with other couples that worked as dentists and they were happy that I was around to distract their daughter.
This also helped to explain why neither of the so-called adults had any concern about the fact that Hermione and I were sharing a room. Sure we had separate beds, but that wasn't much of a barrier if we wanted to mess around. Not that Hermione would want to I'd seen into her mind enough to know, she didn't think about boys that way even if she adore me. As for me, I wasn't interested in a girl who hadn't developed. Hermione would be a knockout by the time she came of age, well worth waiting for.
Wisely I decided not to inform Hermione about what her parents were up to since I didn't think she'd know how to process this news given that she'd never even kissed anybody. Instead, I'd played my role and kept her distracted as best I could with skiing lessons, having long dinners with just the two of us, and sitting by the fire with some good books.
I would have admitted if asked that Hermione was the much better company when outside of school. She was even reading fiction with me. I hadn't known she could do that.
Another positive aspect of all of this was that I got to escape the wizarding world for a time. I didn't have to concern myself with killing Death Eaters for XP, Fudge pestering Tom Hiddleston for funding, or think about ways to undermine Dumbledore. I even had time to prepare for the meeting he'd requested between himself and John Hiddleston when I got back to the castle.
"So how come you don't celebrate Christmas?" Hermione asked of me.
As planned well in advance she and I were sipping mugs of hot cocoa while sitting by the fire.
"I grew up in an orphanage so the holidays never much appealed to me" I answered "Besides Xmas has gotten way too commercial for my liking and it's only going to get worse. You get bombarded by it for weeks in advance by the advertisements, but no matter how much you spend it's never going to be as good as you want it to be".
This holiday was different in the magical world because that culture didn't have much advertising when compared to its muggle counterpart. Something I was grateful for and I was having an easy enough time ignoring all the holiday nonsense going on around me.
"Also Santa might be the devil in disguise" I informed.
Hermione was shocked.
"Santa is an anagram for Satan," I said.
Evil can cloak itself in what seems to be good and Santa is a big part of why Christmas become so commercial.
"Don't worry, regardless of my theory about satanic Father Christmas I did bring you a present" I assured Miss Granger.
Before she could enquire about that or my upbringing in an orphanage, which hadn't actually happened, I changed the subject.
"We should practice your occlumency" I suggested.
None of the students I tutored had much skill for it, but Hermione was the oldest and she might begin to master it with enough help. It wasn't as if I wanted to be able to keep looking into her mind and I could never trust her with my secrets as long as her mind was open for other to peer into.
"Alright" she agreed "We have some time before we have supper".
Weren't we so civilized and British?
