Disclaimer: I'm too young to be Rowling so there is sadly no way Harry Potter is mine…
Placing:29years after the war– and 6 after the first..
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sSsSsSsSs
ON THE INSIDE
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"He's far enough away now," Draco commented.
He was watching Florean Fortescue who had talked with them, brought them their ice-cream and then had gone to help other customers.
"Alright," Harry said and pulled out a few scraps of paper. He selected one and put it on the middle of the table.
Luna looked it over.
It was a simple scrap of paper with nothing on it to see.
"Huh," she said. "Nice work."
"You think so, too?" Harry asked satisfied. "I worked on it myself. Took me some time."
Luna hummed in interest.
"Used it before?" she asked interestedly.
Harry waved it off.
"A time or two," he said. "Tweaked it in the last week a bit more. I liked the results."
"Oh," Luna said in interest.
Harry gestured towards the paper filled with nothing but the slightest magical impression of squiggles.
"Activation first, then explanation?" he offered.
Neville and Draco looked the paper over as well. There was interest in Draco's eyes, but a bit of none-understanding in Neville.
"Would be better if it really has to do something with what I think," Draco finally agreed, but there was greed in his eyes. "Any way that I could take the design and tweak it for myself?"
Harry looked the other boy up and down.
"For what would you need it?" he countered.
"Wackspurt elimination," Draco replied without even looking at Harry. Instead his eyes were still fixed on the piece of paper with greed.
Harry frowned.
"Huh," he said. "I think you need to elaborate on it."
"Misperception," Draco said, as if that explained everything. "And maybe some falsified memories in some cases. I need to look at the sequence first to determine what it actually can be useful for."
"Huh," Harry said, looking thoughtfully at the paper in front of him. "Misperception is definitely possible. How far do you want to go with the falsified memory thing? A simple change or a full Oblivate-like thing?"
"The last thing could also be archived with Swooping Evil venom," Luna intercepted with a dreamy expression. "Diluted, of course."
For a moment, both, Harry and Draco looked at her thoughtfully.
"You are aware that we have basically no legal way to get to that venom and even illegally might be impossible," Neville felt important to point out.
Draco looked thoughtful.
"The Swooping Evil... it's considered evil, isn't it?" he asked.
"Sure it is," Luna answered unconcerned. "It's an idiotic perception. It's definitely anything but evil – and only dangerous if you don't know how to work with it."
At that, the three boys looked at each other with slight concern in their eyes.
"Luna, dear," Harry finally decided to say. "You know I love you, but… just now you really gave off some dangerous Hagrid-vibes."
The other two nodded, clearly a bit concerned.
Luna blinked dreamily before she crooked her head thoughtfully.
"Hmm," she said slowly, before agreeing. "Might have gone overboard a bit."
The others nodded emphatically.
Then, before they could go into more of Luna's concerning lapse in judgement, Draco decided to answer Harry's question.
"I thought about a minimal change in perception," he said. "Just a change between seeing it as theft or loss and agreement."
"Huh," Harry said. "Never thought about that."
He looked thoughtful.
"It would need to be a direct influence…," he continued. "I might need to change some corner points but otherwise… hmm… yeah… might be possible…"
Neville looked from one boy to the other, then he decided to step in.
"Activation first," he intercepted.
Draco pouted.
"But…"
Neville tried to look as stern as he could while nodding towards Fortescue.
"I think we shouldn't chance it, should we?"
Draco pouted some more.
"But… we're adorable," he complained. "I doubt they would see us as anything but harmless even if we'd go and… I don't know… Avada Kedavra someone in front of them, maybe?"
"Huh," Harry said, with interest in his voice. "Have you tried already?"
Neville stared at the interested-looking Harry, the contemplative-looking Draco and spacy-looking Luna and decided that he had to be the adult this time around.
"Activation, now!" he ordered sternly.
Draco sighed, but Harry shrugged and then slapped the piece of paper.
There was a barely visible, white flash that seemed to consist out of glowing runes, a slight magical hum and then nothing.
"Huh," Draco said with admiration in his eyes and his unhappiness forgotten. "Handy."
"Isn't it?" Harry asked happily. "I haven't found something yet that can actually see it."
"Moody's eye?" Luna countered, her eyes on the scrap of paper.
Harry grinned like a Cheshire cat.
"Nope," he replied happily. "Moody doesn't see it."
Draco whistled impressed.
"Damn, I hate to admit it, but you're good, Potter," he said, his eyes on the paper.
Luna looked at the paper as well.
"Sweet," she said. "That also the reason why the magical world thinks your aunt died in the fire while she's currently on trial in the muggle world?"
Harry shrugged, unrepentant.
"I wanted her to suffer," he said. "But I definitely didn't want certain wizards getting wrong ideas."
Neville blinked.
"Wrong ideas – how?" he asked confused and Harry waved it off.
"Like freeing my aunt from prison so that they can eventually send me back when they find me," he explained. "Or some such. It would be so troublesome if I'd had to keep an eye on auntie while working just to ensure that she stays where she should."
Draco and Neville exchanged a surprised look with each other.
"You think that's a possibility?" Neville asked.
Harry frowned, thought it over and then shrugged again.
"Who knows," he said. "But better safe than sorry and all that."
"So, you think it's a possibility," Neville concluded.
Harry just sighed.
"Of course, it is," Luna agreed without Harry having to say anything else. "Harry is a year or two too young to live by himself and the current Headmaster of Hogwarts might try and have a say in that as well."
At that, the other three children looked at her with a frown.
"Current Headmaster?" Draco voiced what everybody else thought. "Are you planning something that we don't know?"
Luna blinked innocently.
Harry on the other hand scratched his head.
"I thought she mean 'current' as in 'he wasn't Headmaster when we came from'," he said with a frown. "And not 'current' as in 'we go and kill him tomorrow'."
"You are aware that people don't have to die to lose their jobs, do you?" Neville pointed out with a frown. "Not everything is the extreme of live-or-die."
"Well," Draco countered. "I doubt that robbing him blind would make him lose his job."
Neville stared at the other boy incredulously.
"You are aware that there's something called press and defamation of character?" he pointed out while wondering what the other two had been doing in the last few years that they didn't come up with that solution first.
Then he remembered that Harry was basically something like a Master Assassin and that Draco was more or less known to rob former Death Eater's blind when nobody looked.
"Forget it," Neville decided. "If we plan something for the current Headmaster of Hogwarts, I will do the planning."
"Current as in 'Headmaster-right-now' or current as in 'Headmaster-until-we-remove-him-in-whatever-odd-way-you-decide-on'?" Harry tried to clarify.
For a moment, Neville's nose crinkled at Harry's wording, but then he decided to let it slide and instead thought about the question itself.
His face turned thoughtful the moment he thought about it longer.
"Well…," he said slowly. "Strategically speaking… removing him… well… it might not even be such a bad idea, you know?"
The other two boys turned and looked at him, Draco looking especially incredulous.
Neville shrugged.
"Strategically speaking, removing Dumbledore from Hogwarts would ensure that when we have to go there, Harry wouldn't be under such scrutiny in school," he pointed out. "It would give us some more freedom… if we need it, that is? I mean… we want to change things but… theoretically we could do it even without going to Hogwarts?"
The others exchanged thoughtful looks.
"Sure we could," Harry agreed. "But… you know that it wasn't our decision to come here… or to try again…"
At that, all faces turned towards Draco who scowled at them.
"What?" he asked unhappily.
"Well… what kind of changes did you actually imagine before we went back in time?" Neville asked.
Draco scowled some more.
"Well, I definitely didn't plan for us to be toddlers, so I doubt we can manage my changes right now!" he countered unamused.
Harry blinked and looked down on himself.
"Huh," he said thoughtfully. "I looked like that as a toddler?"
Neville stared at Harry.
"You… know we aren't really toddlers, do you?" he asked, feeling a bit out of his depth with Harry's reaction.
Harry shrugged.
"Well," he countered. "It's not as if I really bothered to look up the date. I mean, what for? I already knew my new goal so I definitely didn't need to know my age to archive it."
Neville opened his mouth, just to close it again with a snap.
"I'm… not going to argue with you about something like that," he decided. "I'd sooner go insane than winning anyway. You're stubborn like that."
Harry hummed in agreement.
"Well, I want to save my Mummy," Luna piped up in that moment. "She dies when I'm nine."
Draco shrugged.
"Well, I won't get in the way of that plan," he assured her, before adding. "I want Potter to take care of my Father – if not now, then some time in the future. Well… except you find another way that ensures he's not in the way and won't make a mess of our planned future."
"So, we have a future planned?" Luna asked with interest in her dreamy eyes.
Draco just stared at her in defiance.
"One without the Dark Lord and those idiots that killed my wife and son?" he offered unhappily.
Harry scratched his head.
"Well…" he said slowly. "Theoretically, we had that where we came from as well… I mean, I killed the last of those who killed our families just days before we went back and I killed Voldemort quite some time before that…"
"Not the same," Draco countered. "I might not be able to get back those I lost, but at least some of those killed will end up alive if we change the events now instead of when it's already too late."
Harry frowned.
"Like Hermione and Ron?" he asked thoughtfully. "Hmm… I might need to go to Hogwarts after all, if just to play match-maker, but sure, I see what you mean…"
Then he stopped.
"But… I mean… what if I think that they never were the perfect match? I mean, those two… I don't even want to know how often they squabbled."
Neville shrugged.
"Well, does it matter if they get back together?" he countered. "Shouldn't it be enough that they will end up still alive in the end?"
Harry blinked.
"Huh," he said. "Might."
"Good," Neville said. "So… our goal is to stop all that idiotic squabbles about blood purity, stop dear old Voldemort and hence stop those idiots who attacked the train as well… did I miss something?"
"My Mummy," Luna pointed out immediately.
"I'm not adding personal goals or we're going to sit here until tomorrow," Neville countered.
Luna thought about that for a moment.
"True," she finally agreed. "But… does that mean that Dumbledore might count as a personal goal as well?"
Neville frowned.
"Does anybody have Dumbledore on his personal goal's list?" he asked the others.
Harry scratched his head.
"While I wouldn't oppose to taking him out if one of you wants to, I always thought it was too much of a hazzle for me to be angry at him. He's been keeping secrets, sure, but… well… good intentions, more or less, I guess."
"The road to hell is paved with good intentions," Luna pointed out with dreamy eyes.
"Sure," Harry said. "But… I'm not in charge of hell, you know?"
Luna hummed and Neville decided to ignore that comment in favour for other important things.
"So… Dumbledore – removal from Hogwarts, yes or no?" he asked. "I mean, having him gone might help if we decide to go to Hogwarts later on–"
"Will that be a group decision?" Harry interrupted him.
"Yes," Draco decided. "I'm not suffering there alone between real toddlers."
"Why would you suffer alone?" Luna asked dreamily.
"Because I, for one, want to go to Hogwarts," Draco replied haughtily. "I want to use my time there to see who else I might have to keep an eye on as future wrackspurts."
"Hmm… sounds sensible," Harry agreed. "Luna is good, but sometimes finding my own nargles is fun as well."
"So…" Draco looked at the others.
Harry shrugged.
"Aw, heck, yeah, I'll come with you," he agreed. "And we'll need Luna… so that means that Neville no matter what he wants has to go by default."
Neville huffed.
"As if I'd let you three go alone if I could help it," he countered. "No way. You need someone who can keep you in line at least a bit!"
Harry and Draco looked at each other and shrugged, not disagreeing with Neville's evaluation.
"So," Neville said, feeling a bit desperate but willing to try again. "Dumbledore. Do we remove him? I mean, it would help us when we go to Hogwarts. Harry at least would be less scrutinized. But on the other hand, keeping him there would keep him out of our way while we're still out and about."
The others thought that over.
"It would also change quite a few things in the future if we went and removed him now," Draco pointed out. "And while I like the idea of removing Dumbledore from Hogwarts, I fear that removing him without turning him into a nargle is nearly impossible – and if we did, he would end up a martyr and that's the last thing I want."
"I told you: the press and character assassination," Neville pointed out unhappily.
Draco shrugged.
"He might come back from that," he countered. "He won't come back from being a nargle."
"Not to mention that he'd go and search and find Dudley and then might make me live with him if we removed him otherwise," Harry added, pouting.
"And you don't think Dumbledore won't go looking for you now while he's still at Hogwarts?" Neville countered.
Harry shrugged.
"He'll be more preoccupied and he might hear of it later because he won't hang around the Ministry or its people as much as he would if we removed him," he elaborated. "And the less he hangs around those people, the less he will have the stupid idea of trying to force me to live with Dudley."
"You don't think he'll find your aunt?" Luna asked dreamily.
Harry thought about it before shrugging.
"Even out and about, that would take some time," he decided. "He might, though, if he had that time."
"So… nargle or keeping him where we see him?" Neville asked.
Harry shrugged, before tapping the book in front of him.
"Ledger," he said. "Albus Dumbledore."
The book flattered its pages and then opened upon a new entry, showing Dumbledore's life.
Draco blinked surprised.
"What–"
"Work-hazard," Harry replied absentmindedly. "Need to know everything before I decide anything."
With that, he moved his finger over the pages.
"Hmmm…" he hummed. "Most important thing he ever did was not removing Tom Marvolo Riddle from the orphanage and also ignoring his plea that he didn't want to go back while the bombs fell on London."
The others gawked.
"I'd thought that Grindelwald might have been important as well," Draco finally forced out.
Harry just hummed for a moment, sliding his finger further over the page.
"Nope," he finally concluded. "There were Newton Scamander… the real Director Percival Graves… even Flamel and some others…"
"What?" Draco asked confused.
Harry waved it off.
"Let's just say, there were other people in as good a position as him to take Grindelwald down – and they all would have done it, as well," he replied. "And there's also the fact that he was the one who actually helped Grindelwald to go down the path that he did, which speaks against Dumbledore, not for him, you know?"
"That's an interesting thing to gleam from a book," Draco said and leaned forward to see the pages.
Sadly enough, for him, the pages were blank.
Harrry hummed.
"Sure," he said. "That's Ledger. They're my partner. Like I said, work-hazard and all that."
Draco blinked.
"That book… is a work-hazard?" he asked. "I can't remember that a normal assassin career has an all-knowing-book as a work-hazard."
Harry looked at him innocently.
"It's for my paperwork," he said.
Draco just stared at him in disbelief.
"It's my employer," Harry tried again.
Draco ached an eyebrow.
Harry sighed.
"I'm not a normal assassin?" he finally tried.
For a moment, Draco still stared at him, then he groaned.
"Sure," he said. "Let's go with that."
Harry grinned.
"Back to planning?" he asked the others.
Neville looked from Harry, to the book – Ledger – and then to Luna and Draco.
Luna shook her head.
Neville stared at her a bit longer and then decided to follow her advice.
"Sure," he said. "Let's go back to planning."
For a moment, there was silence around the table when everybody dug in their ice-creams, then Neville decided that it was his responsibility to start the cooperation.
"Alright," he said. "So… who do we need to put on the list for the nargles, who on the list for the wrackspurts and who fits on neither but needs an intervention anyway?"
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Well, the meeting – and some explanation about Harry's relatives.
I hope you liked the chapter.
'Till next time
Ebenbild