Disclaimer: I own nothing; it all belongs to J.K.Rowling. I'm just borrowing the characters to play with for a while. This is for pleasure only, no profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.



CHAPTER FIVE - A Legacy to Uphold

Albus Dumbledore was relaxing in a study on an upper floor of Number 12 Grimmauld Place. His mind was full of thoughts, primarily based upon the young enigma known as Harry Potter. He had already given him a birthday gift, but he wanted to do something more for the young man. He knew how much he hated his fame, and though he was unable to help him out with the majority of that, he did have one idea. He was contemplating obliviating Harry of the knowledge that Harry helped stop and capture Gilderoy Lockhart from obliviating Harry. Albus could then claim that he was the one who stopped the evil make-up wearing missing memory man. Luckily even Albus knew better than to tempt fate with that one. His musings were interrupted by some familiar bellowing from somewhere downstairs.

"Headmaster! Headmaster! Barmy Old Coot?"

Albus wasn't sure how he felt about the respect he seemed to command in Mr. Potter. "Yes, Harry?" Albus yelled back.

"I did it again, Sir. In another pickle!" was yelled throughout the house.

"Is this a pressing matter?" Albus responded with a slight smile. Yelling can be quite exhilarating.

Harry responded back, "Umm, no Sir! She's unconscious!" Albus sighed and heard Harry continue "…again." Albus quickly found his happy place.

"Who are we talking about here, Harry?" Albus inquired.

"Mrs. Malfoy, sir. Or I guess you could call her Cissy, the house elf."

You hear a lot of things in over a century and a half of living. The number of surprises you can find in life are never ending, they just become more infrequent. Unless of course you can count Harry Potter among those people you regularly interact with. And for the first time in his life, Albus considered taking up alcoholism as a hobby.

Apparently it seemed many people were eavesdropping on their conversation, as you could hear a number of thumps, fwumps, twangs, exclamations of "What!", and a smattering of applause too all throughout the house. Albus was a bit perturbed not to hear much laughter, but that quickly ended as people arrived into the den and seemed to guffaw instantly at the sight.

After settling people down, and getting to hear the story from Harry, Dobby, and Winky, Albus decided the best thing to do would be to wake Mrs. Malfoy and see what she had to say about this.

After moving her to the couch, Albus resuscitated her, and inquired "How are you feeling Narcissa?"

She looked up towards Albus Dumbledore and started to cry. "Cissy be bad! Cissy came here wanting to hurt Master!" she blubbered out before grasping onto the Headmaster for dear life and bawling her larger, more bulbous eyes out. Unfortunately no one noticed her reach around the Headmaster, grab a candlestick and proceed to punish herself for being a bad elf. Three good smacks in the form of self-induced bludgeoning to the head and Albus Dumbledore found himself clutching onto a yet again unconscious, but attractive 36 year old woman who thought she was a house elf.

Albus was at a loss. From his understanding of magic, this was completely impossible. Obviously the woman had acquired the mentality of a house elf, and most likely was bound to Harry as her master, but he had no idea the effect it may have had or may continue to have on her magic. Did she have house elf magic? If she was freed would she suffer any detrimental effects? Can she even still be recognized as a witch and not property now if she were freed?

His musings were interrupted by the catalyst of this latest pickle.

"Umm, sir?" Harry inquired. "Can I keep her?"


The man solely recognized by his public identity of Severus Snape arrived back home and ventured down into his self proclaimed Snapecave.

"Damn that Potter!" he exclaimed repeatedly.

He paced around in his anger thinking. 'I am glad the Dark Lord is gone, and I suppose it's for the best I don't have to deal with goody, goody Gryffindors anymore, but still!'

"Damn that Potter!"

You see this bitter childish man was not always this way. Oh no. He was once a young man with hopes and dreams. He wanted to carry his message of Slytherin and snarky sneering Snapeish superiority all across the world. All the plans in his youth were stopped by those dashing young Marauders. It was in the fall of 1991, when he first met the Marauder spawn known as Harry Potter. And it was at this moment the Snaperman was born.

It wasn't even until a little over a year later that he got another world domination plan close to fruition. He had developed a potion that would render the entire castle stuck thinking with a Slytherin mindset. And he would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for those meddling kids. All he needed was some shampoo and boomslang skin and the potion would have been done. Unfortunately he had to venture out into the muggle world for the strange and exotic substance called shampoo, and when he got back someone had stolen boomslang skin from his private stores. He couldn't ever prove it, but he knew exactly who took it. Oh yes, he knew. 'Gryffindor's Golden Boy always has to save the day. Rotten rubbish brat useless ingratiating whelp…'

When that plan failed miserably he began working on his next plan. It was two years later, or approximately a year and half ago. While the rest of the world was busy watching the Tri-Wizard Tournament, Snaperman developed a potion that would make him the supreme commander of all the grindylows in the world. Just as he was about to conquer all the insignificant Potters of the world, his potion became destroyed when he did not have the adequate amount of Gillyweed available. Someone stole from him again. And it did not take a brilliant Potions Master to figure out whom. 'Goody goody, holier than thou, thinks he's better than us…'

But what Snaperman did not know was that he was wrong. He was horribly, horribly wrong. And he had no idea, that his real arch-nemesis had just foiled his plans for the first time. The first of many.


"You wish to keep her?" Albus asked.

"Yes sir. I have a number of ideas, where it would be quite useful to have Cissy around. I mean, certainly there are some things she can do, that my other two elf friends cannot." Harry kept his mild-mannered face in place, even though inside his mind was dreaming up schemes to eventually drive Draco to his own special room in St. Mungo's.

Albus pursed his lips thoughtfully, looking right at Harry to try and determine his motives. Harry may not have realized it, but with his magical growth spurt he seems to have instinctively made an Occlumens shield that was as far as he could tell completely impenetrable. The innocent look on the boys face wouldn't fool anybody, but there honestly wasn't a whole lot that could be done. There were so many unknown factors in this situation. Finally Albus thought ahead to what Harry's final two years at Hogwarts would most likely do to the Headmaster.

Albus responded with a resigned look on his face and sheepish shrug. "Meh." He then proceeded to the kitchen and grabbed himself a bottle of firewhiskey.

Harry couldn't take it and one of the most evil scary grins swam across his face before he realized everyone was staring at him with wide eyes. He quickly reassumed his innocent look, grabbed his unconscious Cissy by the hair, and dragged her up to his room. The crowd in the den shifted only to watch him go and remained silent, listening to each thump her limp body made as it was dragged up the stairs.

Harry's head peeked around a corner at the top of the stairs and he looked at the still stunned crowd. "Hey Tonks, Hermione, Ron, Ginny. You guys coming?"

This snapped them all back into motion, as the four mentioned hurried up the stairs and the rest of the people just left the room shaking their heads.

"All right guys. Now that the whole Voldie situation has been cleared up, I think it's officially time that the new generation of the Marauders reasserts control of the school. There were four of them, all Gryffindors, and during their school years they were the best of friends. Hermione, Ron, Ginny it is our duty now to live up to my personal legacy."

"Hell yeah!" Ron exclaimed.

"Language!" Hermione scolded though she was nodding in accord.

"Friggin' sweet!" Ginny exclaimed.

Hermione really wasn't sure if she should scold for that language or not.

Tonks smiled and looked happy and said "That sounds great, Harry! But I'm not sure exactly why I'm a part of this new generations founding meeting."

Harry smiled at her. "Oh, I know you're not a student, so you cannot be an official Marauder, but having you around helps me think up the naughty stuff. That and you can help me train up Cissy back there." Harry said pointing over his shoulder at the slightly bruising but still unconscious house woman elf.

Tonks mind hung up on the naughty stuff and started thinking about what kind of training Harry's newest bonded would be getting and was unconsciously blushing. A lot. She snapped out of it when she realized Ron was snickering and everyone else was staring at her.

"Harry! You know you cannot keep a slave! You've got to free her and help her out." Hermione self-righteously exclaimed.

Harry tilted his head a bit and said "Honestly Hermione," Ron seemed to hmmph indignantly at Harry's foray into his own trademark response. "You know I'm not going mistreat her….well too much. And you know what she's done and believes. She's the one who ran barging into my home in the middle of a ceremony I was performing. She brought this on herself. And once I tell her to stop punishing herself, it doesn't seem to be hurting her."

Hermione remained firm, "But Harry, she has free will and should be free to use it. I mean for God's sake she IS a human being!"

Harry seemed to shake his head. "No Hermione, she's much more than that. She's a Black, of which I am now the Head of the Family, and should be held accountable to me. She was partially my responsibility before she became my bonded house elf. But far more importantly, we absolutely must remember she is, also, … Draco's Mum."

Ginny and Ron broke into similar evil grins. Tonks could only shake her head at the fate that had befallen her officially favorite aunt. Of course considering her Dad was an only child, and her only other aunt killed Sirius, it wasn't exactly a title worth too much respect. Hermione seemed a bit more reticent than the others but even she couldn't contain all the giggles and cackles escaping her.

Harry looked to his team and said "Alright guys, we got one month before term starts. We need to become animagi, get our nicknames, and start stockpiling prank plans. This is almost going to be too easy, and I almost wish Snivellus hadn't been fired, but we still have plenty of targets. My initial impression is that we should kick off the welcoming feast by pranking the professors."

Hermione looked horrified at the thought, but knew she was outnumbered and outgunned here.

"Now how about we get some background information on our overall target number 1: The Ferret."

Ron looked at Harry questioningly, "What do you mean?"

Harry smiled and said "Ron do you remember the last time you wet the bed?"

Ron quickly blushed, looked away, and shook his head.

Harry was staring intently at his Cissy and said "Well, I'd imagine that's something a mother would surely remember."