Thank you to all of the people who support my creativity with special thanks to: Rafał Badera, Jo Daviz, Antar Das, LegendaryWasabi, Ibuki Mioda, SvenGTX, Optimum Prime, Jack Schriner.

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Chapter 17

Harry was now sitting in the headmaster's office while a bunch of adults shouted at him and each other. Professors McGonagall and Snape had both come along, and as soon as they were there Snape had stuck his head in the fire and called Draco's mother and the head of the DMLE. Both had rushed to the school after Snape had told them that "Harry Potter had just stolen the magic from Draco Malfoy," only Narsisa Malfoy had called the Minister of Magic first and the man had come running as well, drawing his pink toad with him. Now Fudge was calling for Harry to get the Dementors' Kiss, Umbridge and Snape were egging him on, Narsissa was weeping for her son, Professor McGonagall and Director Bones were trying to get everyone to calm enough to actually get the full story, and Dumbledore was sitting at his desk silently staring at Harry like he had just killed a puppy.

"This is a travesty, I will see justice done for this outrage! He was the last of a pureblood line that has been a part of Britain's magical society for hundreds of years! It will have to be the Dementors' Kiss!" Fudge was shouting at the top of his voice.

"Quite right Minister. Public execution. Bare minimum," Umbridge was failing to hide her glee.

"The boy has been nothing but a troublemaker since he got here. If the headmaster had actually expelled him when I asked then this would never have happened," said Snape as he tried to stir the pot even more.

"Oh shut up Severus, the only thing Mr. Potter has done is to stand up for himself when Malfoy antagonised him. If you had actually disciplined the boy instead of letting him off then maybe Malfoy would have grown up!" McGonagall snapped at Snape.

With all the arguing around him, finally Harry had had enough. "Shut up, all of you, and listen!"

"I am the Minister of Magic and I will not be talked to this way!"

"If you don't listen, you won't be Minister for Magic much longer, because the headline in the Prophet will read something like 'Cornelius Fudge wrongfully executes Boy-Who-Lived!' How long do you think you could survive as minister after a headline like that? Do you think you'd make it a full week?"

"I… but.. preposterous… you broke laws…"

"No Minister, I didn't. And if you actually listen you will understand, but to do that you need to shut up." The man did, and when Snape tried to jump on Harry calling him an arrogant something or other, he was unable to finish as Director Bone hit him with a silencing charm since she actually wanted to listen to Harry's side. "You all know of the attempt on my life where I was poisoned by an Imperiused Madam Rosmerta." Harry paused and everyone nodded. "Well, under the laws that govern the Triwizard Tournament, no member of the host school can try to prevent a selected champion from competing. This was added in the thirteenth Tournament, to prevent students from the host school sabotaging foreign competitors, though was written to include all champions and not just the foreign ones. If there was such an attempt, a champion can ask the Goblet to render judgment. Now petty things like badges, chants, or tripping jinxes wouldn't be enough, for the Goblet to act the person must have done something such as try to kidnap, permanently injure, or kill a champion.

"Draco Malfoy put the Imperius curse on Madam Rosmerta and forced her to try and kill me. And we all saw the evidence. The cup displayed Malfoy's memories of casting the curse to every student, Professor and visitor in the Great Hall before rendering its judgment. So, Minister, not only was it completely legal (and I have copies of the relevant laws ready to be sent out to every paper and radio show in magical Britain, by people I trust), it was also the Goblet of Fire that took his magic and not me. And there is no way for you to keep it quiet that Malfoy was the one who tried to murder me using an Unforgivable Curse. Given these facts, Minister, how do you feel about that Dementors' Kiss now?"

The Minister prevaricated for a bit before conceding that he might have been a little hasty.

Narcissa Malfoy had been crying the whole time since she had heard from Dumbledore that her son had been stripped of his magic. Harry had to give the woman one thing, she loved her son. Now that it looked like the Minister was ready to walk away from the situation, though, she jumped up. "But Minister, Draco is the last of his line, without him the Malfoy name will die out! There are laws that punish anyone who ends a line like this."

"Bullshit!" Harry shouted at the top of his voice. "Your little shitbag of a son is guilty of an Unforgivable curse and attempted murder. That is a mandatory life sentence in Azkaban, not much chance to sire an heir there. But as he no longer has magic, I'm sure you can bribe enough people to reclassify him as a muggle to keep him out of there. If he were to marry a witch and have magical children, then they can continue the Magical House of Malfoy. This way the brat can still try and make something of himself instead of dying from Dementor exposure."

Harry's words didn't exactly have a calming effect on Narcissa Malfoy, who instead lunged at him. Her long nails caught his face, leaving three bloody scratch marks on his cheek before the woman was stunned by Director Bones. Harry agreed with the director when she suggested that pressing charges for Narcissa's attack on him was a bad idea, and after a quick bit of field healing from the former auror, the stinging feeling in his cheek died down to barely noticeable. Narcissa was revived and Snape was volunteered by Dumbledore to escort the woman to the hospital wing where she could see her son. The two left, but not before Snape unloaded another barrel load of his vitriol on Harry.

There was still more arguing and debating to be done in the headmaster's office, and over the next couple of hours it was decided that Harry would go to the D.M.L.E. and give his statements and Director Bones would stay in the school and do a fast preliminary investigation. If everything was as Harry had said, then he would be returned to the castle that night while the aurors did a more in depth investigation. If the quick investigation threw up any red flags, then Harry would be spending his time in a D.M.L.E. holding cell during the investigation.

As he had thought, Harry was back in the castle by ten o'clock that night and found a worried but very relieved Hermione once she saw him. As he expected, he had to deal with one of Hermione's rib crackers she called hugs before being subjected to what felt like a million questions. Harry carried Hermione over to one of the sofas and sat there answering as many of her questions as he could, telling her what had happened from his point of view.

"Honestly Hermione it was nothing, they had to wait for Sirius to get there before they could ask me any questions, and once he was there I just told them about finding the right in our reading of the Triwizard rules and laws and how I invoked the Goblet to test the Hogwarts students. There were a load of clarification questions and I had to go over everything about six times, but eventually Director Bones got back to the D.M.L.E., and after she talked with the people who were interviewing me they quickly decided to send me back here. There will still be a full investigation, as we guessed, but we know that won't turn up anything. What happened here?"

"Well, Madam Bones and another auror selected me and a bunch of students who were of age and interviewed us. They wanted to know what the of-age students saw exactly, and they wanted the full story from me. They just asked us each questions in the Transfiguration classroom." Hermione explained her part.

"Why only of-age students?" Harry asked.

"Professor McGonagall had to sit with me just as Sirius needed to sit with you, but no need to worry about that if the person you are asking is of age." Hermione shifted as she spoke so she was now using his lap as a pillow.

"And as they let me go I'm guessing that everything went smoothly here?"

Hermione nodded as her only response. The two quickly found that sleep was overtaking them, and without a conscious thought decided to spend the night right where they were. Harry drew his wand, and with a few waves his feet were now elevated on a padded foot rest, the back of the sofa he was sat on was transfigured to lean back like a recliner, there were a bunch more logs on the nearest fire and a blanket found its way over Hermione.

-ϟϟϟ-

The next few days were hectic. The darker students were terrified of Harry, afraid that he could do to them what he had done to Malfoy, Whereas the lighter students (while cautious) thought that what Harry had done was justified. The D.M.L.E. were of course there, going over everything doing their investigation, but it seemed that the investigators agreed with Harry and Hermione's interpretation of the law. What they had done was legal, though Harry wouldn't be surprised to hear that more than half of the investigators signed a motion to update the laws to make it illegal in the future. A bunch of Unspeakables also came to examine the Goblet of Fire. They didn't say it, but Harry suspected that they wanted to discover if Malfoy's magic could be returned to him, or if it could be given to someone else. Harry doubted that; if he was right, then the fire spirit that lived in the cup had 'eaten' the magic and it no longer existed as a separate entity to the spirit.

The best part happened the day after Harry had turned Malfoy into a squib. Harry and Hermione were walking around the castle avoiding the attention from the rest of the school, when suddenly there was a popping sound and Dobby appeared in front of them. In less than a second the elf had grabbed onto his legs and was joyfully saying "Thank you" repeatedly.

"Dobby? What happened?" Hermione asked the elf, as Harry was too surprised to do anything.

"Harry Potter is saving Dobby, first Harry Potter is killing bad master then he-" Dobby started but Harry quickly covered the elf's mouth with his hand, and after looking around to see if there was anyone around they pulled the elf into a nearby out-of-use office. As soon as the door was closed, Hermione started casting every privacy ward she knew. Once she was done, she nodded to Harry who removed his hand from Dobby's mouth and asked, "Dobby, what makes you think I killed Lucius Malfoy?"

Dobby looked at Harry confused. "Dobby is knowing because Dobby was there, Dobby is watching as the great Harry Potter sir is stopping old bad master."

That worried Harry and Hermione, they had both thought that being under the cloak had protected them from being seen. "Dobby, can you tell me exactly what you saw?" Harry asked.

"Dobby is not seeing anything, Dobby is feeling it. Mr Harry Potter sir and his Grangy was being stealthy and when bad master was hurting muggles, Harry potter sir stopped bad master from ever hurting Dobby again." Dobby was looking nervous now.

"Did any other elves sense what we did?" Hermione asked openly, there was no point in pretending now.

"Dobby is not thinking so, but even if they did, they is not knowing how the great Harry Potter sir's magic feels. So they is not knowing it is you." That caused the two teens to sigh in relief; sensing that he was in the clear now, Dobby continued. "And now you has freed me from young bad master. Dobby is free."

"But Draco is still alive, wouldn't you still be bound to him?" Harry asked.

Dobby shook his head excitedly. "Bond is requiring magic. No magic, no bond."

"I would have thought it would transfer to Narcissa then." Hermione questioned.

"If young bad master be's dying then yes, mistress would be inheriting Dobby. But young bad master is still alive so no inheritance, but bond also broken so Dobby is free," The little elf started dancing as he said he was free.

Harry suddenly had an idea. "Dobby, why don't you work for me? I'll even pay you five Galleons a week." If Dobby worked for Harry, then he could order the little guy to never talk to anyone about how Harry had killed Lucius.

The elf lit up at that, but decided he would negotiate his pay. "One Knut a month!"

The two negotiated for twenty minutes before they settled on five Galleons a month and Dobby was required to spend one day a week not working. Hermione tried to persuade Dobby to accept higher offers, but he outright refused to even consider what Hermione wanted to pay him (10 Galleons and two days off a week). Secretly, Harry was happy about that; not that Dobby didn't deserve it, but Harry was still in school and paying that much for anything when he didn't have a job would be difficult.

Harry had enough gold on him to pay for the elf's first month, as soon as the elf was officially in his employment he said. "Right, Dobby, while you work for me you must never mention to anyone that I killed Lucius. I'm serious, I could get into big trouble for that." The elf nodded and Harry smiled at him. "Thank you Dobby."

-ϟϟϟ-

After two days, Harry had his first lesson with Snape since the incident, and it was enough to prove that Snape, while unable to punish Harry for what he had done to Malfoy, was set on punishing Harry as much as possible. Harry was the last one into the dungeon, but only by about half a second as he walked in with everyone else. That didn't seem to matter, as Snape snapped out as soon as he walked in the door "Potter, 10 points from Gryffindor for being late to class." That set the tone for the rest of the lesson.

"Potter, ten points for disrupting the class," when Harry sneezed.

"Potter, ten points for an untidy uniform," when Harry's shirt became untucked as he reached for an ingredient on a higher shelf.

When Harry had replied, "Yes sir," Snape's response was "and another ten for talking back to a teacher."

When Harry didn't say anything at the next point loss, ten points for chopping his ingredients in the wrong order when it was the order they went into the potion that mattered, Snape barked out, "And another ten points for ignoring a Professor when they're speaking to you."

By the end of the lesson Harry had lost 120 points for Gryffindor, but if he was honest Harry didn't care. He had much more important things to focus on rather than the House Cup. The third task was approaching, and with it Harry's shot at Voldemort and ending this before it had even really begun. Yes, he couldn't kill Voldemort until they had tracked down Hufflepuff's cup, but being alive and being able to lead a bunch of bigots in a war were completely different things.

However, with the exception of Hermione, Harry's feelings on the matter seemed to hold no sway in the decision of the rest of the Gryffindor fourth years. As a whole they went and complained to Professor McGonagall about Snape's unfair treatment, so the professor had no choice but to call Harry to her office and hear his side of the story. After she had offered Harry his pick from a tin of Scottish short end biscuits, she had him recount his experience with Professor Snape.

"Well, after I was on time for class, he docked ten points for me being late."

Professor McGonagall jumped in and asked, "Just what do you mean you were on time? I need more details."

"Well I was queueing up outside the classroom with all the other students waiting for Professor Snape to open the door. The whole class walked in, each person only a second or two behind the one in front of them, and while I was the last in the queue it was less than a minute after he had opened the door. Half the class was still finding their seats and in no way an unreasonable time to enter the classroom." Harry explained in detail and Professor McGonagall took notes. They were there for over an hour, going over everything every single point loss from that lesson and got almost all of them overturned. Even the ones that weren't overturned, like the one for the untucked shirt that he was technically guilty of, were reduced to a more reasonable level, most commonly a single point. There was one unfair point loss, though, that Professor McGonagall didn't touch, and he couldn't stop grinning when she told him why then swore him to secrecy.

-ϟϟϟ-

Snape was in a rage as he stormed through the castle. Students with red, yellow, and blue-trimmed robes started out of his way, and while normally he would take a vindictive pleasure in that, this time he was far too focused on his destination. Once he reached the door he was looking for, he banged quite harshly on it. However, the way he conveyed his anger was in stark contrast to the calm voice that called out, "Come in Severus."

He threw the door open and stormed into the office, finding Minerva McGonagall sitting behind her desk looking at him. "Do you want to explain to me why I have half of my Slytherins in the common room complaining about you taking points from Slytherin unfairly?" He struggled not to shout at the woman who was both his professional superior and someone who was his teacher when he was in school.

"I have no clue what you mean, Severus," she said calmly and Snape was too agitated to notice she was holding back a smirk. "Surely your band of attention-seeking trouble makers are just complaining about justly deserved punishments."

"How are these punishments justly deserved?!" Snape was losing his battle with himself not to shout.

"Because they all need their egos deflating."

"Bullshit, and even if that were true, that's no excuse to dock points from students for being late to class when they were on time!"

"Oh? But isn't that the same standard you set in your class? If you can behave that way to Mister Potter and my Gryffindors, then I can and will do the same to your Slytherins."

Snape reared back as though Professor McGonagall had slapped him. "Potter is-" He started but Professor McGonagall cut him off.

"Mr Potter is one of the quietest, most studious students in the school, and while he is far from perfect, he has done nothing to warrant this kind of treatment from you."

"He stole my godson's magic!"

"Your godson tried to kill him! Perhaps if you had done your job properly and actually punished Mr. Malfoy for his rule breaking and bullying, then he wouldn't have thought of using Unforgivable magic to attempt the murder of a student that had done nothing to him! If that same student hadn't watched you do everything in your power to bully Mr. Potter by constantly taking points when it wasn't deserved, then maybe he wouldn't have thought bullying Mr Potter was acceptable! This entire situation is something you could have prevented, Severus, if you had only done your job, rather than trying to take revenge on a child for what the father whom the boy doesn't even remember did to you at school! Now grow the fuck up, go return the points you took from Mr Potter - and publicly, just like when you took them - apologise to him, then I will restore the points to your Slytherin students. Now, get the hell out of my office!"

Snape retreated from the office and McGonagall closed the door with a flick of her wand then slumped down in her chair. It took her a few minutes to calm down after blowing up at her colleague, but as she thought back on it she smiled a little. That man had had that coming for years.