An Incomplete Potter Collection ch Collection 4
XXX
Harry/Gabrielle: Malfoy's Beat-down
I Plead Awesomeness
Seriously Draco
The Trouble with Souls
Dark Magic
Golden Rulers
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
XXX
XXX
Story: [Harry/Gabrielle: Malfoy's Beat-down]
Summary: A somewhat unusual duel in between Draco and Harry, on Gabrielle's behalf.
Genre: Action
XXX
Harry's luck was bipolar.
He could walk straight into the worst kind of situation, without receiving any warning whatsoever, and he could walk straight back out, bloodied and exhausted, but very much still alive.
Thus, Harry shouldn't have been surprised when it turned out that he'd been accidentally married to a girl that hadn't even entered puberty, all because he hadn't wanted to risk her dying.
Of course, most people didn't actually know about Harry's bipolar luck and were as such completely baffled at how the situation had resolved itself. Which was why Harry was now standing in front of Draco Malfoy, waiting for Professor Flitwick to sound the start of their formal duel.
Harry might not be particularly pleased at the idea of marrying a girl he barely knew when he hadn't even lost his first kiss, but he'd be damned before he let Malfoy get away with mocking an innocent little girl who'd spent most of their 'wedding night' curled up and silently crying into her covers at being separated from her parents and elder sister.
Harry was still a virgin, but he was 'expected' to spend the night in bed with his 'wife', and he hadn't really been able to veto that, so he'd tried to dry the girl's tears and soothe her into peaceful sleep. Because she was an innocent, and he didn't like to see her cry, whether it be from sadness or fear.
No, Harry wasn't going to allow someone like Malfoy to spit at a girl who'd had no choice in the matter, and whose only crime was that she'd been born as the beloved sister of one of the Champions of the Triwizard Tournament. Which was why he'd declared a formal duel between the Families of Potter and Malfoy, despite Dumbledore's grandfatherly protests and Snape's insulting sneers.
Hogwarts as a whole seemed rather cautious of Harry when he'd ignored the wishes of the professors and simply glared down anyone who dared to open their mouths in defense of Malfoy's actions.
Apparently, being exposed to the benches and the five tables in the great hall rattling as they trembled against the stone floor, the banners above them billowing in the sudden wind, the candlelight flickering, and the glowing green eyes of an enraged Potter as Harry explained to them that he was not going to let this slide, had convinced most of the students present that perhaps there was a reason for Harry's continued survival beyond his bipolar luck.
Gabrielle herself had seemed rather humbled at her husband's furious display of power.
The signal sounded, and Harry sidestepped the Expelliarmus that Draco sent his way, answering it easily with a Reducto to the boy's left arm, breaking the bone, and drawing the first blood of the fight. Of course, since it was a formal duel, it followed the rules of 'to a yield or to the death' rather than any of those that the professors might've wanted to impose.
As Draco cried out in pain, Harry threw a Silencio at him, quickly followed by a Sticking Charm on his opponent's wand. Leaving him, as a 'surprising' side-effect, incapable of surrendering.
The expression that flickered across Harry's face, easily convinced those who'd seen it that he knew exactly what he'd just done, and had in fact been planning on doing so from the very start. And even for those who hadn't seen the expression, his next actions would probably have made them come to the same conclusion.
A weak Reducto barreled into the young Malfoy's chest, definitely bruising, and most likely fracturing the boy's ribs. It was immediately followed up by a Rictumsempra, causing the Silenced Slytherin's eyes to go wide in agony as he contorted himself in Silenced laughter.
An Incendio started a fire in the blond's carefully arrayed hair, before another Reducto broke the boy's foot. An Aguamenti put out the fire before he was burned too badly, and just as he breathed a sigh of relief at the Tickling Charm finally running out, Harry sent a Tarantallegra at him, forcing the boy to put his weight on his damaged foot as he danced without control.
By now, the eyes of the observers were wide. Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, was torturing a fellow student with children's charms. It was an awe-inspiring display of creativity, a horrifying display of merciless cruelty, and a touching display of protective loyalty towards his young wife.
Harry side-stepped a desperate counter-attack from Draco, and followed it up by hitting the now-crying boy with a Supersensory Charm. Then he hit the boy with a Slug-Vomiting Spell before adding a Sonorus and a Cantis to the slugs that now littered the ground, causing them to sing loudly enough to compare to thunder.
This caused Malfoy to forget his attack-attempt in order to spend his time trying to keep his eardrums from rupturing under the brutal assault of sound.
In a twist of irony, Harry continued his torture by sending the same Tooth-Growing Spell that Draco had once hit Hermione with at the boy. And then hitting the immense teeth with a Glacius, causing them to be nearly encased in a block of ice, before returning to his trusted Reducto, shattering the boy's teeth completely.
The agony that followed was probably not on par with the Unforgivable Cruciatus Curse, but considering that it'd been caused by spells that were mind-numbingly legal, it was far more unsettling.
Adding another Tarantallegra to make sure that his opponent didn't accidentally fall to the ground and risk that the professors might call the match as a win preemptively, Harry wondered what kind of horrors he could create from the average spells that he'd acquired over the years. He didn't want to hit Malfoy with something actually substantial, as that might make people assume that the inbred Slytherin was 'worthy of it', but wanted instead to humiliate and torture him with spells that most people considered harmless.
Let it be known that Harry Potter defeated the scion to the House of Malfoy using nothing but schoolyard inconveniences.
Unfortunately for Harry's creativity, Draco took his moment of pause to finally dismiss the Silencing, whether by accidental magic or silent casting, his first words put an end to their duel.
"I yield!" He cried, his suddenly-lisping voice breaking around a sob.
Harry felt a brief stab of disappointment, but there would most likely come other times to torture the Malfoy heir.
XXX
XXX
Story: [I Plead Awesomeness]
Summary: The graduating class of Hogwarts from the war-time didn't survive without some rather peculiar quirks, and so Harry stands trial... again.
Genre: Humor, Crack
XXX
Harry stared at the judge in disbelief.
"What do you mean 'Fiendfyre is bad'?" He demanded. "Didn't you see how awesome that was?"
"You turned a mountain into glass!" The judge thundered.
"I know! I've been wanting to try that for ages!" Harry responded with a gleeful grin.
"Umm, Harry. Wanton destruction is frowned upon. We've had this talk before, remember?" Hermione tried to rein in her somewhat pyromanic friend.
Harry turned to stare at her, confused. "Why? It's not like I killed anyone that mattered." He pointed out reasonably. "And there were enough muggle-repellant spells scattered around that the muggles will be lucky to recall that the mountain even existed in the first place within the next century."
"Harry, you still blew up a mountain. That's a bit like swatting flies with grenades." Hermione made an exasperated face.
This caused a brief moment of silence. From the purebloods, this was due to them trying to figure out what a 'grenade' was; and from Harry this was due to him imagining himself doing just that, literally.
Until Hermione broke it with a horrified groan. "Harry, don't you dare hunt down flies with grenades, or I swear I'll blackmail Neville into telling Padma!" She hurriedly tried to do damage-control.
Harry blinked, snapping out of his rather pleasant fantasies of wanton mayhem. "You've got blackmail on Neville? What did he do? Was he drunk? Was there crossdressing involved? Can I see the pictures?" He hungrily latched onto the idea of getting his friend to share her stock of blackmail-material.
The judge hammered his hammer – because even if British courts didn't have them in the muggle world, wizards had found the idea of hitting stuff with a hammer far too interesting to pass up, and had immediately incorporated it into their justice system – loudly. "You're in court, Mr Potter! I expect you to act like it!"
Harry frowned. "Can't you see I'm busy here?" He complained. "Hermione will totally Obliviate me of this conversation before we leave the room, so I need those answers now, or I'll never have them!"
"I would not!" Hermione hastily denied the technical charge of Obliviating someone without a license. Even though everyone knew that she was only doing it for show, since most of Hogwarts' war-year's graduating class had gone completely around the bend in some manner, and she had resorted to some rather heavy-handed approaches to keeping them from turning their world into a war-zone. Again.
Harry would miss New Zealand, all those sheep, crying out in unison before suddenly being silenced.
In hindsight, he probably shouldn't have dared Ron to knit all those sweaters. The guy was dedicated. Poor Draco had nearly gotten himself killed opening his Christmas present of a hundred-thousand knitted sweaters, all confined in just enough space to fit an average matchbox. They had been very nicely colored though, much better than maroon, even if it'd taken some extreme prejudice with fire spells to get them to stop trying to attack people.
Really, you'd think that a population that 'mysteriously vanished' would be busy doing cooler things than haunting people's sweaters and trying to drag as many others into the afterlife with them as possible, using nothing but yarn. Nasty buggers, those.
"Silence!" The judge demanded. "How does the defendant plead?"
"It was totally not my fault. They called Hannah not-nice. Wiping them out utterly was the only way to stop her from crying." Harry defended himself.
"He pleads guilty on all charges Your Honor." Hermione sighed. "He also pleads insanity, stupidity, chivalry, pyromania, temporary insanity, bad-hair-day, and 'being Harry'."
The judge gritted his teeth, glaring with his hands twitching in a way as if they wanted to wrap themselves around something neck-sized and squeeze. "The defendant is free to go." He finally ground out, looking as if he wanted nothing more than to draw his wand and hex him into oblivion.
Harry smiled happily up at the man with the hammer before making his way out of the courtroom, humming happily to himself. "Oh, wait, before I forget. I think I heard that Luna is planning on releasing the heliopaths again. Thought you might want to know." He waved cheerfully as both the judge and the jury started screaming hysterically and bolting for cover, whistling contently as he made his way towards where he'd hid his experimental fireworks with a bounce in his step.
XXX
XXX
Story: [Seriously Draco]
Summary: Draco does a Sirius, coming to hate the family-name of Malfoy. Thus begins his quest to become not his father.
Genre: Friendship
XXX
Harry was still actively keeping himself from gaping at the Alley when Hagrid ushered him towards Madam Malkin's Robes For All Occasions.
"Hogwarts, dear?" At his dumbfounded nod, the woman dragged him further into the shop.
"I'll be in the pub, the Gringotts carts don't agree with me." Hagrid told him as he abandoned him to the mercies of the woman.
Harry would probably have cared a little bit more if hadn't been so busy trying to wrap his head around everything that had happened since he'd been introduced to magic.
Another boy was already standing on a footstool, a blank expression on his face that spoke either of absolute apathy to the world, or long habit with their current situation.
"Hogwarts?" The blond boy questioned, arching a perfect eyebrow at him in a display of aristocratic curiosity.
"Yeah." Harry tried to keep from fidgeting from on top of his own newly appointed footstool.
"Do you play quidditch?" The boy continued, apparently deciding that smalltalk would be more appropriate than standing around in silence.
Harry had never heard of quidditch, but figured that whatever it was it was likely to be much like all the other sports that he'd found in the muggle world. Namely, he'd always get picked last, and no matter what he did once the game started people would find some reason to think that he was an idiot.
"No, I don't." He decided rather quickly, hoping that quidditch wasn't important in the Wizarding World.
The boy gave him a longer look, and Harry got the feeling he was being measured somehow. "Are you muggleborn?"
There was a small moment in which Harry wasn't sure if he was supposed to say yes or no, and he probably waited for a moment too long, because the boy seemingly decided for him.
"Thank Merlin." The boy's perfectly cultured expression of apathy fell apart with a relieved sigh. "You have no idea how annoying it is to make that face." He shot him the smallest of smirks. "My name is Draco."
He blinked, a bit startled by the sudden ease of the boy in front of him. "Harry." He answered. "Why-...?"
"Pureblood mask of apathy. Perfected it when I was seven." The boy made a disgusted face. "It's the only way to deal with my... father, and his colleagues." The title sounded disgusting on the boy's lips.
"You-... You don't get along?" Harry ventured, wondering if the boy could perhaps understand living with the Dursleys.
Something tightened around the boy's eyes. "He killed my mother." His expressionless mask was on again, his fists clenching. "Not that he couldn't bribe his way out of it, the bastard."
And suddenly the world of magic didn't sound nearly as fantastic as it once had.
"I grew up in a cupboard under the stairs." Harry admitted, feeling like he should share something with the boy who looked so horribly angry. "Aunt and uncle hated magic, you see."
Draco blinked, startled out of his internal turmoil. "They did what?" He stared at him with wide eyes. "But aren't muggles supposed to be-... different?" He sounded so horribly betrayed at the statement that it made Harry's heart clench.
"They have good and bad people, I think." Harry hedged, he'd never actually met anyone truly nice, but he was sure they were out there somewhere. "They're human after all."
The boy paused, looking conflicted, before sighing. "Yeah, I guess. I just... hoped, you know?"
Harry nodded, understanding. That was what he'd been hoping about the Wizarding World, too.
Then Harry was suddenly done with his robes, and was moving out of the shop.
"Hey! I'll see you on the Express, okay!" The boy waved, looking after him with the same nervous hope on his face that Harry felt at hearing those words.
"Yeah! I'll see you there!" He waved back, before disappearing away with Hagrid towards Ollivander's.
XXX
XXX
Story: [The Trouble with Souls]
Summary: Harry's reaction to Dementors when they surround him and his friends at the end of Third Year is... new.
Genre: Adventure
XXX
Harry stared in mind-numbing terror as his greatest fear appeared before him. Not by its lonesome, but by their hundreds.
The Dementors had come for their prey. His godfather. His innocent godfather.
"Expecto Patronum!" He tried, but there was barely even silvery mist curling from his wand, let alone something solid enough to drive away hundreds of Dementors.
So they advanced. And for every inch they gained, the feeling got worse, the screaming within his head, the blurring of the edges of his vision, the bone-chilling despair.
"Expecto P-Pat-...!" His voice faded away, hoarse from crying out a spell that wouldn't work, his lips by now too numb from the cold to even form the words properly.
A skeletal hand emerged from within the creature's cloak, and something in him noted dazedly that he'd fallen to his knees before their horrible aura.
He wasn't paying attention to it though, too busy trying to pull himself away from that hand, the hand that was reaching for him. Not Sirius, not his friends, Harry; it was reaching for him.
Its grip was rough, so freezingly cold that its touch felt more like a burning iron than ice.
Its hood was lowered, revealing an eye-less face, and a lip-less mouth. And its shiver-inducingly cold breath smelled like rotting corpses and sickness.
Harry's last conscious thought before The Dementor's lips reached down for his own, was an insanely optimistic thought for the circumstances.
I hope it eats Snape next.
Then the world turned into an endlessly icy ocean of blackness, and he felt himself drown.
XXX
It pulled on him. It pulled and he couldn't resist. It was a bit like falling, just as unstoppable, but more because of the lack of things to hold onto or push away from than in similarity to the inevitability that was gravity.
So he was pulled, desperately clutching for purchase, and drawing ever-closer to the icy horror that he could feel lying in wait just out of reach.
Then his gripping hands found something.
A light, twisted and broken, tainted and sick, but it was there. And when Harry grabbed it, it slowed his movement.
But the pull was relentless, and even as he clung to the small broken little light, Harry knew that it wouldn't be enough, they were still being pulled in.
It was just... Harry didn't want to go to the icy horror, and he was bigger than the little light; more solid, stronger. It was the first time that Harry was ever introduced to 'being the big kid', and he kind of really didn't like the little light, no matter how much it helped slow down the pull. It was a bit like Harry would imagine holding onto someone's puke would feel like, he thought, and that wasn't really a pleasant image.
But if the light couldn't stop the pull, and he was bigger than the light... could he push off of the little light? Use it to return to wherever he'd been before, back to the safety of no-icy-horror? It would definitely seal the little light's fate, but he might be safe.
Harry was a nice boy, shy and unassuming. But he was a child that had seen despair many times in his young life and still managed to come out kicking. He was a survivor.
So he threw the light at the pull with every ounce of his strength, not hesitating for a moment.
And the icy horror reeled back, because souls weren't supposed to do that. They were supposed to struggle feebly against the pull until there was nothing left but despair, not hurl themselves into the waiting maws with such furious enthusiasm.
It didn't help that the little broken light wasn't so much a soul as it was a twisted shard, and it had a lot of jagged edges.
It was the first Dementor ever known, to die.
A horrible wail, that didn't so much come from its lip-less mouth as it came from magic gone out of control. And then for a brief moment, Harry watched the little broken light hurry back towards him, having bounced against the icy horror rather than get sucked in.
And so, Harry decided that it could be used.
Smiling grimly as blood poured down his face, Harry watched the other Dementors freeze as their fellow creature fell to the ground, a broken shell of what it had once been. Then he pulled back the little jagged light, and more mentally than physically he threw it at the next Dementor.
The horrible wail returned, and another black-cloaked body fell to the ground dead.
Harry's grim smile turned sinister. He wasn't going to wait to be saved, he wasn't going to use a spell to temporarily drive them away, he was going to slaughter them all. Because he was a survivor, and you didn't live very long by letting creatures who tried to kill you escape.
Another throw, another death, and Harry realized that the jagged little light was dying, unable to cope with the repeated impacts.
Harry didn't like the light, and thought its destruction was a perfectly acceptable prize to pay for killing off every Dementor that he could find.
He lost count of how many times he threw it, how many hollow bodies littered the ground, or when exactly they began to flee from him. But finally, the little light could take no more, and ceased to be.
However, it just didn't... disappear. It was still dead, but it wasn't destroyed. It was still a jagged piece of light, capable of being hurled at the Dementors as they tumbled over each other to flee him, but it didn't have that same twisted taint that had originally made him dislike it enough to sacrifice it for his own survival. It stopped being 'the little broken light' and became 'a jagged light', its identity and original purpose lost utterly in the aftermath of such use.
Harry didn't care. It could still kill Dementors, and so he used it to kill Dementors. There was no reason for it to be more complicated than that.
He hurled it at another fleeing back, and was rewarded by another horrible wail of magic.
XXX
When Snape opened his eyes, he'd expected many things.
Originally he hadn't really been expecting to open them at all, what with being stranded together with Sirius Black, and a Remus Lupin not on Wolfsbane during a full moon. But he had woken up, so he'd started considering other things.
Obviously, in the presence of a mass murderer and a rabid werewolf, the three Third Years Gryffindors would've gotten themselves killed. This wasn't all bad, in that he wouldn't be forced to not-hex them whenever they inevitably decided to break the rules for whatever thing they'd thought they ought to be involved with next. But it was bad in that how trying to explain to the Wizarding World in genera the Boy-Who-Lived was an idiot whose life-expectancy Snape personally believed was bound to be insanely short – if for nothing else than his extreme curiosity – would most likely result in him being thrown into Azkaban.
There was also the idea that the only thing left behind from Lily would be dead, which was also bad. But kind of a different sort of bad. It wasn't the logical kind of bad that he'd gotten used to weighing endlessly after being Sorted into Slytherin, but rather a certain emotional bad that he was worried might cause him to act illogically.
Snape hated idiocy, and the idea that he might actively play a part in it by his own initiative was... probably reason enough to hate the idiotic brat all over again.
Still, he'd expected either waking up to bloodshed, or a face full of Dementor – they might be capable of driving away Black, but they weren't really to be trusted within a mile of anything remotely resembling a decent human being.
What he woke up to instead was... strange.
There were black-cloaked forms scattered across the ground, there wasn't any blood that he could spot, there were two of the Golden Trio unconscious on the ground, Black huddled in between them out like a light as well, and Harry Potter stood over them, a blood-crazed grin on his face that sent shivers of terror bubbling down Snape's back.
A scream rendered the night air, and as Snape watched, one last straggling Dementor fell to the ground dead.
Snape turned back to Potter. The idiotic brat that supposedly couldn't even stay conscious in the presence of a single Dementor, and he recalled the hundreds of black-cloaked forms scattered around the grounds.
Green eyes, not only alight with a defensive urge to lash out – that he'd spotted in a mirror a few times over his childhood – but literally glowing with it. And that same wide grin stretching across his lips in a way that made the bleeding gash on his forehead look distinctly eery.
He didn't look like a savior. He looked like a madman, a psychopath, a predator backed against the wall who'd suddenly realized that it could make its attackers bleed.
The boy finally noticed him, blinking slowly, as if slowly beginning to recall that there was something that separated Snape from Dementors, but that he couldn't quite pinpoint yet. The boy was probably in shock then, or something similar, probably only barely coherent, if that.
Obviously, making any quick movements would be utterly foolish, and so Snape stayed right where he was. He wasn't really on civil terms with the boy, so trying to talk him down from whatever stress-induced psychosis he'd landed himself in was probably not an option either. Thus, Snape merely waited for one of the others present to wake.
Sirius Black might be a mass murderer and a traitor, but apparently Potter liked him better than he did Snape. Something which Snape actually didn't mind. He'd much rather that the brat get himself killed far far away where Snape wouldn't be held accountable for his death, and – most importantly – wasn't in any way capable of feeling guilty over his death. And the brat befriending a massmurderer that hated Snape's guts since they were school-kids lead him to believe that Harry would at the very least make an effort to disappear out of Snape's life forever. Even if only in the sense that Snape would be killed and that dead people didn't much care about the lives of the still-living ones.
In a perfect world where none of this had happened, Potter would've somehow gotten himself dragged off to Hawaii before he even managed to graduate, Snape would've been honorably-discharged from teaching snot-nosed little brats and allowed to set out and finding himself a proper employment, and he would never again hear of the nosy little shit until Snape died old and wise and respected – after which Potter was technically allowed to visit his grave at some point and tell him that he hated his guts. Yes, that would've been wonderful.
Unfortunately, the world was a place that seemed to enjoy torturing people, and if Snape had to suffer through Potter's presence, then he'd be damned sure that Potter would be forced to say the same.
So he simply met the boy's eerily glowing eyes, and hoped that he would be too confused from his recent madness that he wasn't holding a grudge over the hell that Snape had put him through in class, because Snape couldn't find his wand on his person, and he really didn't want to fight an insane brat who not only actually held a wand but did so in a manner that seemed to be indicating that he'd almost forgotten that it was there, but had still manged to kill Dementors.
All in all, Snape's original assessment of the coming day had been right when he'd opened his eyes earlier in the morning.
This had been a shitty day.
XXX
XXX
Story: [Dark Magic]
Summary: A dialogue between four friends, in the midst of a somewhat violent situation.
Genre: Humor, Crack
XXX
The first thing to remember in a magical battle is quite simply: don't get hit.
This might sound obvious, but it really isn't. Taking a hit means at best inconvenience and at worst instant death, blocking a hit means a brief lull in your own attacks. When this slight lull is multiplied by having numerous people casting spells at you simultaneously, the 'lull' becomes a complete immersion into defensive spells. Thus, don't get hit.
Harry sighed tiredly as he stepped out of the way of another green flash, a little bit disappointed in the Death Eater's lack of creativity.
The sigh turned a little bit frustrated as another Death Eater was caught by the curse, and promptly fell down dead. Honestly, it was like nobody ever taught these idiots anything at all.
Alright, so maybe the Hogwarts curriculum was designed to only teach people spells that allowed them to be properly awed by the half-squibs that was the Ministry, but that didn't mean that people who were planning on using them as cannon fodder could just send them out to die without any directions at all, could it? That was such an utter waste of good property. Or even possibly-useful property.
Everyone feared Voldemort, which was perhaps understandable, considering that the man was both insane, trigger happy, and quite talented. But this was a shameless display of utter incapability if he'd ever seen one.
"It's like he doesn't even realize that even complete and utter morons can be taught how to fight as a group, and thereby actually pose a threat to someone." Harry complained.
There was a short bark of laughter from Neville. "Harry, he's a paranoid bastard, of course he's not going to teach anyone to become competent enough to pose an actual threat to anyone even remotely close to his caliber, insanely magically-enforced loyalty or not." The boy commented cheerfully.
"But they're all just going to waste!" Harry whined. "Why couldn't he have left some of these brainless idiots for us to corrupt? I mean, it's not like he's actually using them for anything."
"Cannon fodder is still 'being used', Harry." Hermione scolded him as she carelessly cut a Death Eater's throat, somehow managing to dodge the sudden spray of blood.
"And do you really want idiotic purebloods as minions?" Luna picked up where the other girl left off, smiling serenely as she turned a man's shoes into acid, before hitting him in the head with a Bludgeoning Curse, killing him as he danced in agony.
Harry pouted as he slit a passing Death Eater's throat. "Well, no. But it's still such a waste." He tried to convey his frustration with the paranoid wanker.
"How about we get you some squirrels, and you can teach them how to chew a man's face off?" Neville suggested as he used a Piercing Charm to splatter some pureblood brain-matter on the robes of a few of the surviving Death Eaters.
"No! We're not giving him any new pets! Not after what he did to those poor poor creatures!" Hermione instantly objected.
"Seconded." Luna agreed, a small frown developing on her face at the memory as she vanished part of a Death Eater's kneecaps, making him fall in front of another uncreative Killing Curse from his peers. "Nifflers aren't supposed to act like that."
Neville suppressed a shudder, and lit a pair of Death Eaters on fire in order to keep the sudden chill running down his spine at bay.
Harry made a frustrated noise. "I already apologized for that! And it wasn't my fault that they thought that the eyes were the most 'glittery' part of the human anatomy!" He argued as he transfigured one of the Death Eater's masks into becoming air-tight, making the man claw desperately at it as he collapsed from lack of oxygen.
"No, we already agreed that that was Dumbledore's fault." Hermione sighed. "But you set a very bad precedent, Harry." She reminded him as lightning flash-fried another Death Eater.
"Dobby certainly didn't help matters." Neville mused.
Everyone fought down a shiver, even Harry. Some things were just not supposed to be seen.
"I still say we should've Obliviated ourselves from witnessing that." Harry tried to keep from gagging, seemingly accidentally moving out of the way of a Bone Shattering curse that instead hit another Death Eater in the neck.
"If we did, there's a chance – however small – that it might happen again." Luna argued. "Would you want to risk the chance of that happening?"
"Can we just stop talking about this? I feel like I'm going to be sick on one of these guys' corpses if I don't get that image out of my head." Neville complained, neatly gutting a Death Eater, before animating his scattered intestines to strangle another one.
"Well... the weather's nice?" Harry tried pathetically, having always been lousy at small-talk.
Hermione groaned. "Harry, we're in Britain, the weather is never nice." She reminded him, as she hit a Death Eater with a skin-flaying curse.
"But then why does everyone keep insisting that it's something worth talking about?" Harry whined, casually decapitating a Death Eater who was looking at him funny.
"People love to complain, I guess." Neville shrugged.
"So they just... complain to each other? Endlessly?" Harry sounded horrified. "But that's like... like acting like the Dursleys."
"Harry, your relatives might be horrible horrible people, but they're also very used to acting like people in public." Hermione reminded him with a sigh as she made a Death Eater implode on himself.
"I still say that we should've just told Dobby that they hated socks." Neville pointed out as he side-stepped another Killing Curse. "Damn, they're amazing at being unoriginal." He breathed in awe as the Killing Curse went on to kill another Death Eater.
"Don't learn from their mistakes either." Luna smiled. "Otherwise they would've tried running away by now." She followed up her argument by sending a few Piercing Charms through a handful of Death Eaters' eyes.
"But, the Dursleys complain even when they're acting horribly? Doesn't that make 'people' horrible too?" Harry tried to wrap his head around this new issue, completely ignoring how his arm was still instinctively killing the Death Eaters in his vicinity in the most casually efficient ways.
Luna hummed happily. "And that's why daddy went insane."
Harry stopped wallowing in his horror as he considered that. "I think... I think I understand now." He nodded thoughtfully.
Hermione groaned in despair. "Dammit Harry! You're not allowed to go insane! The last time you tried that, we had to Obliviate most of Hogsmeade!"
"I'm never allowed to do anything fun!" Harry complained. "I'm not allowed to have new pets, not allowed to go insane... what's next, will I have to pretend to get along with people I don't particularly like?"
Neville split a Death Eater's head open like a melon, before shrugging. "I'm pretty sure my Gran told me that that's how society works."
"Oh, Merlin's soggy ball-sack!" Harry cursed. "Can I at least put another species in charge of the world after we've conquered it?" He pleaded to Hermione.
Luna giggled. "Every magical species that you're not hated by, is too obsessed with themselves to care about ruling the world."
Harry frowned as he cut a man open. "What about the House Elves?"
"Dobby." Hermione reminded him.
Harry made a face. "Oh, right. Well... maybe I can give the world to a non-magical species?" Harry tried.
Neville barked a laughter. "Aren't most of those species less intelligent than Trevor?"
Hermione snorted as she used a fire-whip to decapitate another face-less unimaginative minion. "Trevor has an IQ higher than Crabbe, Goyle and Malfoy all put together."
"That's not fair, Hermione." Luna scolded her gently. "They can't help it that they were born inbred and deliriously stupid."
"They didn't kill themselves at birth and make life more pleasant for other people, though." Harry absently countered the blonde's defense of the idiots, frowning a little at how blood-stained his robes were getting from all of the gore that kept raining down on him from the Death Eaters. "This is never coming out of the wash." He mourned silently.
"I would say something chauvinistic about that, but I like being baritone." Neville mused with a wistful smile.
Hermione made a disgusted noise as she hit a Death Eater in the throat with a Piercing Hex. "Oh please, what's feminine about not wanting to show up somewhere covered in blood and guts?"
"Well, if you're covered in it, it's bound to get into your hair." Luna guessed helpfully, before animating a Death Eater's body into beating its former peers to death.
Neville made a disgusted noise. "Pureblood guts, in my hair? I don't think that's a female thing at all, in fact I'm pretty sure nobody would want that."
"I don't mind the hair so much, a bit of water will clean it out, and if it gets discolored then people will just think my hair is taking after my redheaded mum." Harry shrugged. "But getting new robes? Going shopping for new robes? Using money on something as frivolously pointless as new robes, just because I can't get these idiots to stop bleeding on me?!" He vented his frustration by hitting a Death Eater in the stomach with an Exploding Curse, nearly splitting the man in two, and incidentally getting himself even more soaked in blood and gore.
Hermione laughed at him, far too amused at his sudden moan of misery to not do so.
"Maybe you should try for strangulation instead?" Luna mused.
Shrugging carelessly, Harry conjured a rope and animated it into strangling a Death Eater. It didn't stain his clothes at all. "Thanks Luna." He threw a happy grin at the blonde.
Neville snorted. "Of course he didn't actually think of that previously." He shook his head in mocking awe. "And they call me forgetful."
"Speaking of forgetting things." Hermione began as she disemboweled another Death Eater. "What day is it today?"
"Wednesday?" Neville guessed.
Harry made a frustrated sound. "Dammit Neville! You know that I don't want to know the weekdays! It's the only way to stay immune!"
Neville had the grace to look guilty. "Sorry, Harry. I forgot."
"You still haven't answered the question." Hermione interrupted the boys' bickering.
"Nargle migration day?" Luna joined in.
"Is it one of those number things? Because I can't keep track of those unless I want to accidentally remember the weekdays." Harry admitted shamelessly.
Neville narrowed his eyes in thought as he hit another Death Eater with a Bludgeoning Hex to the head, cracking his skull. "Wait... is it...?" He turned to Hermione, looking suddenly terrified.
Hermione smiled a sickeningly sweet smile, before nodding slowly.
Neville paled. "Oh crap. Uhh... happy birthday Hermione?"
"Ouch." Harry winced as he realized what was happening to the other boy. "Smooth, Neville."
Luna huffed at him. "Really Harry, you're just as bad."
"Yes, but everyone already knows that, so I can usually just make sure that someone else knows enough to remind me." Harry pointed out with a victorious grin.
"I'm not sure if that's brilliant or stupid." Luna admitted with a vaguely annoyed pout as she dodged another Killing Curse, this time disemboweling the Death Eater who shot it.
"There's a fine line between genius and insanity." Harry reminded her.
Luna hummed thoughtfully. "But how would you know that the spirit hiding in the walls won't drive you insane?"
Frowning curiously, Harry finally shrugged. "Maybe you drill some holes to try and talk to it?"
Hermione made a frustrated sound as she turned from her conversation with Neville. "Luna, Harry, you're mixing the origin of a word with a much-later idiom using that word. They're unrelated."
Neville smiled gratefully at both of them, cheerfully returning to chopping off Death Eater limbs now that the danger of Hermione's anger had been temporarily averted.
"Really? But why would you use a word and make it mean something that it doesn't?" Harry demanded with a frustrated huff.
Hermione sighed. "Words evolve, Harry. Just like the language does. Why do you think 'Smith' is such a common surname?"
Narrowing his eyes in thought, Harry finally shrugged. "Maybe they had lots of sons?"
"Makes sense." Neville mused with a sensible nod.
Hermione huffed as she lit a Death Eater on fire and then put it out with a spray of acid. "Most people named 'Smith' aren't related." She casually shot down their argument. "But when given names weren't enough to separate people – because they were running out of names – people started including titles for their work in their names. And nearly every village had a smith of some sort."
Luna cooed delightedly at learning new things. "So I would be 'Lovegood' because we were famous for being loving and nice?" She asked, cutting off a Death Eater's hands and then suspending him in the air in order to intercept another Killing Curse from one of his allies.
Hermione flinched, looking horribly conflicted. "Uh... yeah... that's... definitely it Luna..." She glanced away from the blonde.
"Hermione, why are you-...?" Harry frowned confusedly at the girl.
"Harry, did you ever listen to those war movies with the girls that barely spoke the language?" She interrupted him.
There was a pause during which Harry accidentally castrated a Death Eater with a Bludgeoning Hex. Then he paled. "You mean-...?"
"Yes." Hermione hurriedly assured him.
Harry looked slightly horrified for a moment, before suddenly realization seemed to dawn on his face. "Oh. So that's why all those spells were in her family grimoire." A somewhat goofy grin slipped onto his face.
Hermione gaped at him.
"What are you guys talking about?" Neville asked curiously.
Harry blinked, turning his attention back to the other male. "Luna's family was very good at love." He answered without hesitation.
Hermione groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Harry, sex isn't love."
"No, but the two of them combined definitely makes both better." He grinned gleefully at the girl.
Neville made a noise that spoke of an incoming headache. "I'm not even going to try to figure out what the two of you are talking about, because I'm sure I don't want to know." Then he turned back to boiling a Death Eater's eyeballs.
XXX
XXX
Story: [Golden Rulers]
Summary: Hermione doesn't like being petrified, and the Golden Trio set out after Second Year with a rather different goal in mind.
Genre: Adventure
XXX
Hermione blinked.
The last thing she could remember was standing in a hallway, looking around a corner using a mirror, and seeing the reflection of large yellow eyes.
So... the Mandrakes must've matured... that was good. But didn't the professors say that it would take until... the end of the year? Did she just... miss her classes? For several months?
And, unlike how Hermione should've gushed in relief at the realization that she was safe, and that she could go see her friends, and that everyone had gotten better, and that everything was fantastic and wonderful in the world... Hermione instead came to the conclusion that she'd just missed several months of her life.
She'd just missed several months of her life, and why hadn't anyone considered buying matured Mandrakes? Why did they insist on growing them? Was it just wizards being backwards again? Was it simply difficult to store them properly? Or was it for some deeper purpose?
Hermione found that she didn't care, because she'd just lost months of her life, because some utter moron hadn't managed to figure out what she – a second year – had done, and begun patrolling the corridors with roosters. And right now, Hermione didn't feel like cheering deliriously, she didn't feel like hugging people, she didn't feel like... something good had happened. She just wanted to draw her wand and hex someone into oblivion, because she'd just lost months of her life.
Carefully crawling out of the hospital bed, and ignoring how Madam Pomfrey began fussing over her wakening patients, Hermione staggered her way towards the door, making sure to snatch up her wand on the way.
She knew that she couldn't hex anyone, because Harry had supposedly vanquished the Beast in the Chamber of Secrets in a rescue of Ginny Weasley, and that meant that there weren't any enemies left for her to take out her angry frustration on. Thus, she couldn't actually hex anyone, but she wanted her wand with her nonetheless.
Madam Pomfrey was thankfully either too understanding or too easily distracted by her other patients to bother her, because Hermione made it out of the Hospital Wing without interference from the woman.
And by the time that Hermione had navigated her way through Hogwarts towards the Great Hall, where everyone was eating by now, she'd gotten a decent handle on how to not walk like a statue. Cured from petrification she might've been, but she was still horribly stiff.
The doors swung open, and there were her friends. The two heroes of the adventure into the Chamber. The two idiots who'd apparently ignored the staff once again in order to rescue someone important to them. But she couldn't really be angry at that, because the staff was apparently consisting of complete and utter morons, even without including the gibbering wreck that was Gilderoy Lockhart.
It was mostly instinct that caused her to ignore her dark-haired friend's aversion to touch and hug him anyway, but when her mouth opened in what everyone who watched was assuming to be silent thanks to his heroics, she instead told him something of dire importance.
"I just lost several months of my life, because nobody in the staff entertained the idea of buying matured Mandrakes."
Harry, who'd been hesitantly responding to her hug, stiffened at her words, before answering her in the same silent voice.
"So?" And despite how it should've sounded condescending, he managed to make it sound like 'and where exactly are you going with this, you-who-are-more-brilliantly-clever-than-me?' instead.
He was really very talented in speaking with his tone. Probably all the experience he got from being bitterly sarcastic about his life.
"I don't know. But I'm not pleased." She grudgingly admitted.
With the tiniest of nods, Harry accepted this message, and she retreated from his arms, turning instead towards Ron.
She was halfway into hugging him and telling him the same thing she'd told Harry when she suddenly remembered that Ron had siblings who would tease him mercilessly for weeks on end if she did something like that in public, not even including an overbearing mother who might get strange ideas into her head that Hermione really didn't want to encourage at the moment.
She shook his hand instead, much to the boy's carefully hidden relief, and gave a tiny jerk of her neck, indicating that he should talk to Harry.
So, when they seated themselves, Ron immediately leaned in closer to them and began loudly explaining what had happened whilst she'd been gone, coincidentally leaving his ear in close proximity to Harry's mouth.
And with Ron's loudness, nobody noticed Harry's brief recounting of their own brief dialogue.
The three of them were going to have a long and serious talk about what the Basilisk-Incident actually meant for the Golden Trio.
Hagrid had been arrested and dragged off to Azkaban without any evidence of guilt; Hogwarts' staff had failed utterly in finding the origin of the creature that a Second Year – no matter how clever – had figured out; despite the Ministry obviously being informed there'd been no auror-presence within the school looking for suspicious people; nobody had considered it strange to wait for the several months it took for the Mandrakes to mature rather than buying them from somewhere else – thus condemning students to losing several months of important school work – and Dumbledore's only action against the Ministry's complaints of his managing of the school had been to run away with Fawkes instead of reasoning with anyone.
It was a list of... very uncomfortable facts. Because even if one or two of those facts could be explained away somehow, all joined together they formed a disturbing picture of the Wizarding World. A picture of incompetence, corruption, and an absolute inability to actually think of what they were doing instead of repeating the same thing over and over.
Hermione had – much like any child – always loved the idea of doing magic, of being inherently more special than anyone else. But this-... dealing with all of this-... the idea that the society which proved how special she was was in itself so-... Hermione was finding herself lost for words.
Ron wasn't entirely sure what she meant when she began to explain how a society should work, having never had any other society than the Wizarding World to consider, but it didn't take him long before he too began to grasp just how badly things truly seemed to have become.
Harry didn't want to see it, desperately longing for a place to belong, and it actually took both Ron and Hermione working together to convince their friend that even if their society was corrupt and horrible and awful, they were Harry's friends, and they wouldn't leave him alone. Ever.
It took Hermione five minutes to figure out where to go next.
"Boys. We're going to conquer the world."
Her two friends turned towards her, looking a little startled at the certainty in her voice.
"Like Voldemort tried to?" Harry asked with obvious reluctance, causing Ron to shiver instinctively.
Hermione made a face. "No. You-Know-Who was a mass-murdering madman. We're none of those things." She took a deep breath. "Politics is out of the question however, because... let's face it, even if we somehow managed to conquer it that way, we wouldn't be able to do anything about how things worked before everyone would start to revolt at us for 'rocking the boat'."
Ron hummed in thought. "That only really leaves violence, Hermione." He finally pointed out.
There was a moment of frustrated silence as everyone recognized that as the truth, and were distinctly displeased with the idea of going to war.
"What if we started a new country, and then just sort-of invaded Britain?" Harry wondered, recalling a lesson from muggle-school and the Romans changing many things upon their invasion of England.
Ron looked confused. "How do you 'sort of invade' a country?"
"International politics." Hermione responded with a triumphant smile.
There was a pause as everyone allowed that thought to sink in properly.
"So... how do we make a country of our own?" Harry finally asked.
Hermione grinned slowly. "There's actually an interesting book about the 'making of Atlantis' in the library."
Ron, uncharacteristically, was the first one to shoot to his feet. "Onwards! To the library!" And then they were off.
XXX