Authors Note's: Hola, The Rotten Writer, here once again with another chapter of Soul Scars for you guys. I gotta say, I'm sorry gang. First and foremost this chapter gave me a lot of trouble, and honestly, I'm still not entirely thrilled with it. It just feels off to me and I don't like that but it's been over three weeks since my last update and that's annoying me even more. It really fought me tooth and nail and on top of the difficulty with the chapter itself, life just got away from me, as it happens. So apologies for the delay but here it is.
It's a lot more setup stuff and I think I might actually skip ahead with the next chapter and jump right into the start of year three with the next one. Really the summer months where not as much happens give me the most trouble. At least during the year there's active stuff going on and that's easier to work with. There's not really a lot to be said about the chapter itself so I'll move us along without further ado.
Disclaimer: Seriously, I still own nothing. Moving on.
Here is chapter 30 of Soul Scars.
Soul Scars Part Three:
The Greengrass Problem
by, Rtnwriter
There were few things in the first ten years of Harry's life that afforded him the opportunity for quiet, peaceful reflection. The hours, sometimes days, that he spent locked in his cupboard under the stairs were typically marked with pain and fear. Out of the cupboard, he had to be careful of what he said, what he did, how he moved or acted, just to avoid drawing attention to himself.
He could only remember two things from those years that ever gave him any peace. Number one was that quiet part of the day, just before dawn, that he'd told Susan about. Unfortunately, he was rarely able to truly enjoy those times while he still lived at the Dursley household.
The second thing was the Surrey Public Library. Dudley would never have been caught dead in a library, so it was a safe place for Harry to hide when Dudley and his friends were after a round of Harry Hunting. That safety alone made the place a wonder for him, but the books, the books opened his world to something beyond pain, fear, and hunger.
There, he found freedom, adventure, heroes and villains, friendship, and love. He found new knowledge and ideas. New ways to look at and think about the world around him. Not even discovering that magic was real and that he was a wizard could quite compare to the hours that he spent reading and just sitting quietly and thinking in that library.
Now, though, he had found something else that let him think, let him consider his life and what was happening in it.
He truly felt that the exercise routine that he'd started was a godsend and he made another mental note to thank Healer Gant for insisting on it. He was running five miles nearly every morning, followed by a series of body weight routine was so ingrained by that time that, while his body was active, he could let his mind wander.
Two days after his 'breakthrough' in regard to his wantless magic, progress was still slow, at best. He had found that just overpowering his spell attempts wasn't always good enough. In fact, it still, frequently, didn't work at all. Some curses and hexes worked just fine, while others did nothing. Simple charms were coming easier and easier but the more complex ones just fell apart and transfiguration was proving to be simply impossible.
He couldn't even do the first year matchstick into a needle!
He shook his head as he finished his run and took a drink of water before he stripped off his sweat soaked shirt and began a set of pushups, once again letting his mind drift where it would.
Hermione woke them all up the other night as an emotional shock ripped its way over their bond, bringing them each from a dead sleep into instant wakefulness. Harry had his wand blank in hand and was heading for the Floo before Susan and Amelia had been able to stop him from storming through into the Granger residence. He'd been unsettled and still had a niggling sensation at the back of his mind over the entire situation.
Something about the emotions he'd felt coming from Hermione that night didn't feel right to him and he couldn't put his finger on why. Shock, anger, nervous anxiety… Some quality of those feelings just seemed strange to him in some way that he couldn't identify and, aside from annoying him to no end that he couldn't put name to it, it left him feeling like something strange was going on.
Thinking of Hermione led his meandering thoughts to his other two girls. Images of cold blue eyes and honey blond hair flitted through his mind even as he imagined he could almost detect the scent of pine and fresh strawberries. Daphne confused Harry to an extreme degree. Even though their bond and friendship had deepened, she was still a study in contradictions. One moment, warm, helpful, and comforting, her feelings on display to them all. The next moment she became guarded and evasive as her Occlumency came down and her emotions became fiercely controlled.
Susan was another enigma, he realized, his glowing gaze flicking to his right where the girl in question was in the middle of a set of sit-ups. He technically spent more time with her than he did with Hermione or Daphne since they both lived in the same house, but he thought he might actually know less about her than he did the other two girls. He knew that she felt things, deeply. Susan was a girl that wore her heart on her sleeve, incredibly loyal and protective of those she felt close to but also empathetic and caring in a way he'd never seen before.
But her wants? Her dreams of the future? He realized he had no idea. Harry frowned, not noticing that he had suddenly stopped in the middle of his own sit-ups as he contemplated the issue for a time.
"Harry?"
He blinked as he voice reached him and the far away look in his eyes vanished as he focused his attention on her once again.
She was still sitting on the grass, knees drawn up with her feet flat and leaning back with her palms braced on the ground behind her. The position had her chest thrust up and out and for a moment he could stop his eyes from trailing down her body, lingering slightly on the way her damp long sleeved shirt clung to her rapidly developing curves.
He suddenly shook himself and snapped his gaze away as his face flushed a brilliant red and he threw himself back into his interrupted workout, hoping she hadn't noticed. As distracted as he was, he completely failed to see the pleased smile that stole over her lips at his reaction.
"Just thinking," he muttered, wondering why his mouth was suddenly dry.
Susan briefly contemplated teasing him but decided she would be nice and threw him a life line to grasp onto instead. "About this afternoon?"
He slowed, frowning as that thought blew all others from his mind and he found himself nodding, slowly.
"I'm just not sure I'm going to like what Dumbledore has to say for himself today. I'm not exactly looking forward to it, but I need to know, one way or the other." He thought again of the list he'd compiled of questions he wanted to put to Albus Dumbledore about the happenings of the last couple of years and really hoped that it wasn't as incriminating for the old man as it all seemed. For all his mistakes the Headmaster was a powerful wizard, and potentially a powerful ally as well. He didn't know if he could trust the old man as far as he could throw Hagrid, but he was willing to give him the opportunity to explain.
None of that did anything to calm the anxiety he felt over the whole situation, however.
Susan gave a sad little nod as the two of them climbed to their feet, Harry walking over to pick up his discarded shirt. "I can understand that, but you'll know in just a few hours, so no sense agonizing over it now, right?"
"I guess," he muttered and went to pull his shirt on. Before he was able to, though, she stepped closer to him and grabbed his arm, causing him to give her a questioning look.
She stood close enough that, in the cool early morning air, she could feel the heat radiating off of him as she shifted her weight nervously from foot to foot, her eyes tracing over the scars that littered his torso. He was just about to say something when she suddenly seemed to reach a silent decision and squared her shoulders.
"I wanted to thank you," she said, her gaze moving up to meet his.
Now he was confused. "For what?" he asked.
"For this." She placed her hand on his chest, warmth seeping into her glamour covered fingers. She could feel the large scar on his chest against her skin and the still rapid beating of his heart under her hand. "For listening to me. For not hiding from us. I… it really means a lot to me."
The sincerity in her voice was nearly overwhelming and he was at a loss for how they had suddenly moved to this topic. While he was trying to think of how to respond, she kept talking.
"I also wanted to apologize. I… we, that is, Hermione, Daphne, and I, haven't been very fair to you. We're pushed and been demanding, especially with…" She trailed off, fingers absently tracing the scar under her hand where she still held it against his chest.
"We have," she insisted when he made to protest. "We have, and that isn't fair. What we've been keeping from you since the day we met… we've had good reasons for it. I haven't always agreed with those reasons, but they were still valid, anyway." She licked her lips, nervously, but her eyes never strayed from his for even a moment.
"We've been talking it over, off and on since that day, but it never seemed like a good time to tell you. Now I think there's never going to be a 'good time' and the longer we wait the worse it will be.
"So, I'm going to talk to them, today, and see if I can convince them that we need to lay it all out. I can't promise they'll agree but… well I think they will. If they do, we'll all sit down and talk it over before Hermione leaves on her vacation with her parents, okay?"
Of all the things Harry might have expected her to say to him, that would have been extremely low on the list. But the nervous tension he could feel rolling off of her gave him pause, just as he was about to agree.
"Why are you so scared?" he asked, lifting his hand to place it over hers on his chest.
That was not a question that Susan wanted to answer, but she took a deep breath and did so anyway.
"I'm scared, because I know you're going to be angry. You're going to be upset and you'll have every right to be. Mostly, I'm afraid you'll hate us. More than just about anything, that terrifies me."
He thought about that, staring off into space for a moment while he absently rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb.
"Maybe you shouldn't tell me, then?" he offered. "Don't get me wrong, I don't like how I've been kept in the dark here. But, honestly, with everything that's happened to us over the last two years, I'd actually forgotten all about it. It hasn't been a problem before and I don't like seeing you worried. Maybe it would be better just to let it lie?"
For a moment, she almost accepted that, but then she managed to stop herself and shook her head. "No. No, you deserve to know and it's something you'll find out, eventually, anyway. The fact that you haven't yet, just by sheer accident, is fairly miraculous, to be honest. I would much rather you found out from us than you stumbling over it."
"If that's what you want, I won't try to talk you out of it anymore," he said. "I can't promise that I won't get upset, or even angry, but I can say that I could never hate you, any of you."
She smiled, a small, trembling thing, and gently took her hand back, tugging it out from under his. "Thank you, Harry." She took a deep calming breath and nodded again. "Come on," she said. "Let's go get cleaned up and find ourselves some breakfast, we've got a full day ahead of us, don't we?"
Harry agreed, wholeheartedly, with that idea and let her lead the way back into the house where they split in the upstairs hall to their respective rooms to shower and dress for the day.
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"Well," Griphook said later that afternoon as they all gathered in Sharpshard's office. The two goblins on one side of the large desk observed the six humans in the magically expanded office. Harry, Amelia, Neville, and the girls were seated in a rough 'U' shape in front of them, each waiting expectantly. "Before we get started, Lord Potter, I am pleased to say that the promotion I mentioned before is all set to go through, pending your approval."
"My approval?" Harry asked, startled. "Why would my approval matter over internal promotions?"
"I am not getting any younger," Sharpshard told them. "In fact, I am already quite old, for a goblin. You and Griphook have always appeared to have a healthy mutual respect for each other and with your permission I would like to take him on, officially, as Assistant Accounts Manager with the intent of him, one day, replacing me in managing the Potter Family Accounts."
Harry's eyes were wide. "Are you not well, Mister Sharpshard?" he asked and the aged goblin chuckled quietly, waving away Harry's concern with one hand.
"I am as well as can be expected, My Lord, just old. Rest assured, I do not see myself stepping down for some time yet, just planning for the future. It is always better to have someone who can work well with the client in place as early as possible."
He nodded at that and took a deep breath, tempering his initial reaction to immediately accept as he considered what he'd learned of goblin culture. Accepting too readily would be seen as foolish by most goblins, something that would erode the respect Harry had worked to cultivate. Quickly, he mentally reviewed the limited information he'd gleaned in studying his families financial statements and prepared a few questions.
"Teller Griphook," he started, purposely using the younger goblins current job title as a way to point out that he had not, yet, accepted the idea of promoting Griphook to the new position. "This would be quite a jump, for you, would it not?" It skips over several other steps in the Gringotts Hierarchy if I'm not mistaken?"
"It is, and it does, Lord Potter."
"Then why should I grant you such a gift, as opposed to selecting from an older, more experienced goblin that has already put in their time and earned such a promotion?"
"I have worked with Accounts Manager Sharpshard, closely, since you took up your ring and became the Lord Potter, Head of the House of Potter," Griphook stated clearly and calmly. "I am more familiar with the Potter accounts and assets than any other goblin in the bank save for Sharpshard himself. I am also familiar with your desire for privacy and your exploits in the wizarding world that have brought you to the attention of Branch Manager Ragnok. Of every goblin in service at this branch I am the most aware and most conveniently placed to take over the position as the Potter Accounts Manager in the future."
"Are you as informed as Accounts Manager Sharpshard in regards to my families business ventures and investments?"
"I am fully informed, as far as one can be without the approval of the Lord Potter. I also sat in and assisted with the contract negotiations with the Lady Zabini regarding your business partnership with House Zabini."
"Are you able to invest in muggle companies as well as wizarding businesses?"
Griphook arched a brow. "You have an interest in muggle businesses?" he asked.
Harry shrugged. "I have spoken in the past with Hermione's father Daniel Granger, and he's pointed out to me how much potential there is in the muggle world. I've asked around recently and I don't believe that many wizards have done much, if anything, to take advantage of this market. Lord Greengrass with his business in both the wizarding and muggle worlds is probably the only one I've actually heard of that has a foot in both worlds."
"Gringotts has attempted to suggest muggle businesses to some of our wealthier clients on many occasions," Griphook said, looking excited by the prospect. "We have been rebuffed at every turn in this regard."
"You won't get any arguments from me, only suggestions on where to focus. Muggle technology and communications have advanced dramatically in only the last ten years and they don't appear to be slowing down. I would be interested in you looking at phone companies and computer technology for places to invest in. Are you familiar enough with the technology that you would be able to do this?"
"Any that I am not familiar with I can consult with experts in the field to ensure the best possible information is used in deciding on any future investments," he assured Harry.
At that Harry fell silent and simply studied the little goblin for a moment longer before he broke into a broad grin, purposely showing his teeth and stood, reaching across the desk toward Griphook.
"Griphook, I think we're going to make a killing, so to speak, congratulations on your promotion."
Griphook grinned and accepted the offered hand, his long fingers curling around Harry's as they shook for a moment before Harry returned to his seat.
"Now that that's out of the way, if you could look this over, Lord Potter?" Sharpshard asked, holding over a piece of parchment which Harry took and motioned for Amelia to lean in so she could read over his shoulder..
"Mister Sharpshard," Amelia said after they'd read through it. "This is Gringotts contract for the rendering and selling of the Basilisk corpse currently residing in the Chamber at Hogwarts, correct?"
"It is."
"I don't see anything here that clarifies what Gringotts would charge for this service?"
"After inspecting the memory provided of the battle with the beast, Branch Manager Ragnok has asked that I present the following offer. Gringotts will render, transport, and sell the beast, free of monetary charge, including our usual percentage of the profits generated by the sale, in exchange for allowing us to take the meat for ourselves. Only goblins can actually consume the meat of a Basilisk and it is quite the delicacy to us. We felt that instead of making an offer to purchase it, we might both come out better overall for simply making it an exchange of services in this case."
Harry and Amelia shared a look at that and she gave him a nod. "Considering they'd be the only one bidding on the meat you won't find a better price. They could underbid and you'd have no choice but to sell to them in the end anyway and you'd also be out a decent percentage of the sale on top of what they'd charge for rendering and transport."
"This is more than acceptable, Sir," Harry told his Accounts Manager and the answering grin was feral, at best.
"Thank you, Lord Potter. You have made a rather large number of goblins exceedingly happy today. Professor McGonagall has already agreed to meet us at the gates and will lead the group up to the castle where you, Lord Potter, will escort us all down to the Chamber and we'll get to work."
"Thank you, were you able to get into contact with the other victims that were petrified?" Harry asked.
"Yes, My Lord. All of them will be meeting us there, they were quite eager for the opportunity to see first hand what petrified them."
"Well, then," Harry said as he stood. "No use wasting more time here, let's get this show on the road."
#####
Harry stood by Fawkes' perch, lost in thought while he absently stroked the magnificent bird's head with one hand. The trip into the chamber had gone exceedingly well, he thought, though he had to admit that he was surprised to find Ragnok waiting to accompany their party when they were leaving Gringotts. Harry had learned from their previous meeting and greeted Ragnok in a manner appropriate to his station in the goblin tongue, much to his undisguised delight. After a few minutes spent getting their group organized they took the Floo from a VIP waiting area to the Three Broomsticks in Hogsmead. The look on the face of the woman that ran the bar when the Head of the DMLE, two Lords, a few friends, and more than a dozen goblins exited her fireplace had been absolutely priceless. Harry almost felt it worthy of the pranks his father and his friends had pulled while they were still students at Hogwarts themselves.
Justin Finch-Fletchley, Colin Creevey, and the Ravenclaw Prefect that had been petrified along with Neville and Hermione, a Penelope Clearwater, all met them at the gate and, within five minutes of their arrival, Professor McGonagall was on hand to escort them inside.
They'd trekked their way up to the castle with Colin talking a mile a minute the whole way in his excitement, something that grated on Harry's nerves a bit, but he had to admire how cheerful the kid was after being petrified the longest out of any of them. He didn't seem in the least bit fazed by the experience. With Dumbledore meeting them at the front entrance they made their way up to the girls loo and, at Hermione's suggestion, Harry had asked for stairs in Parseltongue after he opened the chute which resulted in a set of steps growing out from wall of the pipe, allowing them to talk down without getting filthy, as well as providing a more convenient method by which they could leave.
Once the Chamber itself was opened, Harry found himself mobbed by crying witches as they took in the sight of the massive corpse. Even Daphne, who actually witnessed the fight, was brought to tears at the sight, her mind going back to seeing Harry's broken and bleeding body sprawled out on the floor. By the time he managed to calm his three girls, the goblins had already set to work, Ragnok barking out orders in their guttural language.
Those invited to view the chamber quickly left at that point as the goblins began their gruesome task and Harry led the girls out of the Chamber, with him and Dumbledore agreeing to return another time to see if there were any other secrets still left undiscovered.
Now, standing in the Headmaster's office, he had the time to ask his questions, but had no idea where to begin.
"I find, the beginning, to usually be a logical choice," Dumbledore pointed out after Harry expressed that issue in his frustration and he cracked a small smile.
"Fair enough," he agreed with a shrug and moved over to drop into a chair, notepad coming out of his pocket as he started working his way down his list. "There are some things I've noticed that don't exactly make sense to me, and I was hoping that you might be able to clear things up," he started.
"If I can, I shall do my best to do so." Dumbledore leaned back in his seat, sherbert lemon in his mouth and his hands folded on top of his long beard as he waited.
"Last year. You knew I wasn't the Heir of Slytherin, I couldn't be, but you did nothing to stop the insults and comments from the other students. Why?"
"As painful, or distasteful as it sometimes is, people do have the right to freedom of speech. I cannot punish someone for saying something that they hold an opinion about."
"Maybe. But you could have made a statement, telling people that I wasn't the Heir, that I couldn't be. That might have gone some way toward getting people off of my back about the whole thing."
"Perhaps," the old wizard admitted. "But I could not be sure of that. And the talk would possibly have only shifted direction to how you are getting preferential treatment. Not something I believe you would want."
Harry winced at that but couldn't help but agree with that assessment, so he moved on to his other concerns.
"Aren't Hogwarts Wards designed to warn the Headmaster when dark artifacts or magic enters the school? Should you have been aware of the diary?"
"I was aware that something had come onto the grounds the night of the opening feast. However one thing people tend to forget is that, while the wards around the school are extremely old and powerful, they are not infallible. What even more people do not know, and what I will have to ask that you never share, is that they are actually far less powerful than people think."
"How do you mean, Sir?" Harry asked, frowning in confusion.
"In another time, yes, the wards would have told the Headmaster of the school exactly where the item was the moment it came onto the grounds. However over the centuries many of the control runes used in the creation of the original ward scheme have eroded or otherwise become worn. The wards are still strong and will protect the castle against an attack, but many of the more subtle wards simply do not work as they once did. Not anymore. While I knew something had some onto the grounds I did not know where it was, I did not know who had it, or even what it might have been, just that it felt very dark."
"Why didn't you just have the students belongings searched?" Amelia asked.
"And what if they were able to hide or otherwise prevent us from discovering the item?" Dumbledore countered. "They would have been more cautious in the future as they would now have been forewarned that I knew something was amiss. I had informed the portraits and the ghosts to keep their eyes open and to inform me as quickly as they could if they noticed anything out of the ordinary. Alas, young Miss Lovegood somehow managed to avoid being seen while she was under the diary's thrall."
Harry glanced at Amelia, who had a pained expression on her face. "He's not wrong," she admitted. "He's not entirely right, but he's not wrong. You should have contacted my offices, Albus. We could have helped and done something about the situation."
"Perhaps, however I felt it was too great a risk to take the chance of warning the perpetrator that I was onto them, as it were."
"What about the incident with the stone in our first year?" Harry asked the question that really most bugged him.
"What about it bothers you?"
"I… I just…" Harry took a deep breath and pushed forward. "I feel like it was all a test. Security measure that a bunch of first years were able to get through protecting one of the most valuable magical artifacts ever created? I'm sorry but that story just doesn't hold water. And how could you not have realized that Quirrel was possessed?"
Dumbledore sat forward, resting his elbows on his desk. "Once again, the wards did not inform me, or were not clear enough and I had no way to know for certain. As far as the Stone itself… You feel as if I set the whole thing up to test you? Perhaps to see how you might behave considering the prophecy?" he asked.
"It's the only thing that I could think of. There was no way the measures you put in place to protect the Stone were going to be effective. So how are we to believe that you were actually trying to protect such a valuable artifact?"
The aged wizard carefully studied Harry for a moment before he spoke. "I can see how you could have reached that conclusion, Lord Potter," he admitted. "However, I believe you'll find the actual reasoning to be far less… manipulative, then you believe. I am not the puppet master many believe me to be, nor the chess master, using people to reach my own ends. You are correct, in that, the measures used to protect the stone would never have stopped anyone with any real determination, but they weren't really meant to stop, and they also weren't meant for you."
"I asked the other professors to help me with those measures for two reasons. One, I could not, in good conscience, hide what I intended to hide within this school without their knowledge. They needed to be as aware as possible in order to help protect the students that might have been tempted to take a peek into the area. The second reason that I asked, and why their measures really would not have stood up to much concentrated effort by a determined thief was, though Professor McGonagall and Professor Flitwick and the others are accomplished witches and wizards, true masters of the craft in their chosen fields, they are not experts in security."
Harry was confused for a moment before he felt a sudden spike of understanding across the bond mixed with surprise.
"Are you kidding me?" Hermione burst out. "The security measures were so simple because they were set up by amateurs?"
"Quite correct, Miss Granger. I would offer points to Gryffindor, but, alas, class is not presently in session. It is true. While Professor Flitwick, for example, is a Charms Master, he really does not understand what is required in high end security, such as what would be offered by a curse breaker or warder. That is why the measures were so simplistic. In truth, I did not expect them to be particularly effective, it was the final obstacle, the mirror, that was the true security for the Stone."
"But why do it at all? What was the point to having the Stone here? And why that year? It all seems very convenient that as soon as I re-enter the wizarding world there's suddenly all this activity involving Voldemort. There wasn't anything for the ten years before that, was there?"
"No, there was not, per se. Not of any noticeable degree, at least. I do feel that I might have found some evidence of his movements over the years but they were always very small and easily explained away through other means so I cannot be certain. As to why then… well, you said it yourself. That was when you re-entered the wizarding world."
"Huh?"
"I believe that Tom has been biding his time, waiting and gathering his strength. Before you came to school, you were hidden from our world, relatively safe in the muggle world. I say relatively since as badly as you were treated with your relatives, you were still safe from anyone magical that would intend to do you harm. I let it be known, subtly, that I would be protecting a valuable artifact at the school. I did so in the last area where I suspected Tom to be hiding. I felt that it would be sufficient bait to draw him to the school. Both the opportunity to be near the Bow-Who-Lived, who he views as a threat, and the chance to potentially regain his power. I had intended for the other professors security measures to slow him down, just a touch. When he encountered the mirror I knew he would be unable to break the enchantment, and that would give me time to attempt to trap him. I had a trap laid, hoping that if I could capture that wandering spirit and lock him away somewhere, I might be able to circumvent the prophecy that he so believes in, and thus spare you having to deal with it in the future. I must say, that I did not account for you and your friends."
"You've got a lot of nerve setting up such a dangerous situation in a school full of children, Albus," Amelia practically snarled.
"And I take full responsibility for that. However, I surmised that Harry's return to our world would be quite the potential draw to Tom, and I did the best that I could to attempt to capture him and remove the danger that he represents."
"Why didn't you talk to me or to anyone at the ministry?"
Dumbledore lowered his head slightly, peering over his half moon spectacles at her. "Would you have believed me? Our entire world believes that Voldemort died on that Halloween night. I am known to be a bit eccentric, but if I started talking about how Voldemort was still alive and was only gathering his strength to return again even I would be unable to withstand the political and public backlash that would ensue."
Amelia scowled but had no ready response for that and simply settled on glaring at the aged wizard.
"So it really is all a coincidence?" Harry asked.
"There's no such thing as coincidence. But at the same time that doesn't mean it's a conspiracy or manipulation against you."
All eyes turned to stare at the shelf on the far wall where the sorting hat rested. No one moved for several moments before the rip in the hat's brim opened again and its voice once more filled the room. "Destiny. Fate. These are words that you humans throw around willy nilly, as if they're concrete terms. Everyone has a destiny. Everyone has a fate. But within that there is still choice and free will. What'd I tell you during your sorting, Lord Potter?" the hat asked and Harry frowned, unable to answer the question.
"I told you, that you are a nexus. There are some people in the world within the tapestry of fate, around which momentous events will transpire. You are one such individual. There are actually several such people in this room, right now. You are by far the strongest of them in this instance. You might as well get used to strange things happening around you with little to no explanation. It's going to be happening for a long time whether you like it or not."
"But why me?" Harry almost demanded. "What's so great about me?"
"To quote the Bard, 'Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.' You, Lord Potter, I believe, will be a victim of all three."
Silence reigned again, broken only by the sound of Harry muttering darkly under his breath, until Hermione couldn't hold it in any longer and hesitantly asked, "you know Shakespeare?"
"Well, of course I do, Miss Granger," the hat replied. "He was a wizard, after all."
With that, the hat went still and the rest of them got a quiet laugh out of Hermione spending the next ten minutes badgering the silent hat to tell her about Shakespeare.
Eventually, Daphne and Susan directed the flustered and frustrated girl back to her chair and they were able to conclude their conversation.
"I hope that I have been able to satisfactorily answer your question?" Dumbledore asked and Harry, almost reluctantly, nodded.
"You still made plenty of mistakes, Sir, but I honestly can't hold that against you, can I? I make more than a few mistakes myself, so it'd be pretty hypocritical of me to hold those against you, wouldn't it?"
"As so many of my mistakes impacted you so directly I could not begrudge you the desire to hold at least a few of them against me," Dumbledore admitted. "But I do thank you for that. We do still have your promise to the hat to discuss, which we can do once the school year resumes. If there is no other business I do have several other appointments that I must endeavor to keep this afternoon."
They all stood and bid the Headmaster goodbye before making their way to the door leaving him alone in his office with just the hat and Fawkes to keep him company.
#####
Lord-Who-Lived to Receive Highest Honor
By, Senior Editor Barnabus Cuffe
It has come to our attention, here at the Daily Prophet, that the young man responsible for the peace our society has enjoyed for the last twelve years, Lord Harry James Potter (12), is being awarded the wizarding world's highest honor, an Order of Merlin, First Class.
Finally, you must be saying, he is receiving the award that should have been given to him over a decade ago. It's about time.
Right?
Wrong.
It is with no little amount of surprise and even some horror that I must reveal to you, dear readers, that this previous year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, something terrible, and altogether horrifying happened. For much of the year, mysterious attacks were taking place, attacks which resulted in the petrification of five students.
Yes, petrification.
It was believed, for some time, that young Lord Potter, might have been responsible for the attacks as it was revealed during the course of the year that he is a Parslemouth, able to converse with snakes at will, an ability long believed to be synonymous with dark wizards as the two most famous users of this ability are Salazar Slytherin and You-Know-Who himself. After hearing the story, however, I cannot begin to believe that Lord Potter is anything but a hero, a belief obviously shared by the Ministry as they have seen fit to award him the Order of Merlin for his actions.
The story is long, and complex, and I shall not go into the details at this time. There were be a series of articles over the next week to explain the entirety of the events that took place but suffice it to say there was a beast, a terrible creature released from the fabled Chamber of Secrets, a supposedly hidden chamber built by Slytherin himself before he fled the castle a millennia ago. As the legend goes, Slytherin left a monster in the Chamber so that in the future his Heir could release it to cleanse the school of those he deemed tainted, or inferior.
The creature, was a Basilisk.
Yes, a Basilisk. I cannot express how shocked I was to hear the story, a story which has been confirmed through numerous magical means.
As it goes, students were taken into the Chamber a month before the end of the school year and Lord Potter, at great risk to himself, found the entrance and descended into the chamber to do battle with the perpetrator. In the end, the Basilisk was defeated by Lord Potter's own hand, a hand that wielded the Sword of Gryffindor as he slayed the beast and rescued his friends and classmates.
Headmaster Albus Dumbledore himself put forth Lord Potter's name to receive the Order after hearing the story, witnessing a pensieve memory and, earlier this summer, descending into the chamber himself along with high ranking officials of the Ministry and several Hogwarts Professors to see the body of the great serpent.
At twelve-years-old, Lord Potter single handedly killed a one of the deadliest creatures known to wizardingkind, and the most impressive specimen in known history as well. Measuring just short of seventy feet in length it is the largest Basilisk ever recorded.
The ceremony for the awarding of the Order will be by invitation only and is set to take place in the second week of August, as of the time of this writing. Keep your eyes on this publication for further details of this momentous occasion.
On a more personal note, I, for one, would like to thank Lord Potter for his actions. A large number of children were placed in harms way last year, and he protected them all at great personal risk to himself. I do not have children of my own at Hogwarts, but I have many friends that do, and I cannot imagine the devastation they would have felt if they had been forced to bury their own child.
Thank you, Lord Potter, and congratulations on your upcoming award. You have more than earned it.
Azkaban Breakout!
By, Senior Editor, Barnabus Cuffe
Deemed impossible. Never before accomplished. It has finally happened. An inmate has escaped the feared Azkaban Prison. And worse, I fear I must say, the escapee is none other than one Sirius Orion Black. Yes, the same Sirius Black that betrayed the Potters nearly thirteen years ago. The same Sirius Black who later killed another of his closest friends one Peter Pettigrew along with twelve muggles, killing them all with a single curse.
There has been no word from the DMLE on just how Black might have made good his escape. The last person to speak to the infamous wizard was none other than our very own Minister Cornelius Fudge, who said in a statement: "I visited the prison just last week during one of my routinely scheduled inspections. Black spoke to me when I passed his cell. He seemed far more lucid than the others stuck in that place and calmly asked if he could have my copy of the Prophet that I happened to be carrying with me that day. Said he missed doing the daily puzzle."
As some may know, constant exposure to the Dementors, the guards that keep the inmates in their cells at Azkaban, has been known to drive many a weaker willed witch or wizard to madness. It is the opinion of this paper that any wizard able to keep his sanity after more than ten years around such horrifically dark beings as the Dementors must be quite the dark and dangerous individual in his own right.
Word has already been given to the Muggle Prime Minister, something that some members of the international community are less than pleased with but Black is a clear and present danger to anyone and everyone. His image is being released to muggle news sources as well to ensure that as many as possible are keeping an eye out for this most dangerous individual.
It is not known, at this time, if Black has managed to procure a wand, but the ministry, and in particular, the DMLE, urge our citizens to consider him armed and extremely dangerous. Should you happen across him you should in no way attempt to apprehend him yourself. Instead it is urged that you contact the proper authorities immediately so that they can handle the situation…
The Bonded Lord
By. Rita Skeeter
I am sure that many of you out there must be wondering what is meant by the headline of this article. Well, I shall explain. One of the most romanticized concepts in all of the wizarding world is that of the near mythical Soul Bond. The bonding of two soul mates on a level that most couples could only dream to achieve. And why does this matter? Why is it a news worthy thing to write about?
Word has reached our offices from that great bastion of knowledge and education, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, that during the last term it was announced to the students at large that our very own, Lord Harry James Potter (12) is a part of just such a bonding of the souls. But of course, he couldn't be a part of anything so mundane as to simply be bonded to a single witch. Oh no. Lord Potter appears to be part of the first ever four way bond in all of history.
Yes, you read that correctly.
Sources tell me that at their sorting two years ago three first year girls were denied by the sorting hat and stood off to the side as the hat refused to sort them into a house. Not until then Mister Potter took his turn under the hat were they directed to all four sit and be sorted simultaneously. The hat was apparently lowered over their heads and after a few minutes the girls sitting to either side took his hands in theirs while the third placed a hand on the back of his neck and witnesses say that all four began to glow, each a different color. The exact colors for each individual is apparently uncertain as I have heard conflicting reports on what those were.
Suffice it to say, it is likely that this is when the bonding occurred.
And who? Who, you say are these young ladies, these witches that have just broken the hearts of many a witch the length and breadth of our great nation?
First is a young woman from a powerful and influential family, Miss Susan Bones (13) niece to Madam Amelia Bones, the current Head of the DMLE.
Second is one Daphne Greengrass (13). Many of you may know that the Greengrass family has long been suspected of dark leanings.
Third is a young muggle born witch by the name of Harmony Granger (13) She has been described by fellow students as frighteningly intelligent if a bit plain and apparently quite ambitious as well seeing as linking herself to a Lord of a Most Ancient and Noble House should see her status in our world catapulted to heights far beyond what she would ever be able to attain on her own.
But wait. You must be wondering. Isn't Soul Magic outlawed in nearly every country in the world, including our own?
Why, yes, dear readers, yes it is. And since the only recorded Soul Bonds ever involved soul mates who had known each other for many years before their bonding, how could these witches have ensnared the young lord so quickly? What did they do to ensure the formation of such a bond, and have the already completed it? What must their parents and guardians think of these young witches practicing such illegal magics?
I do hope that Madam Bones does the right thing and looks past her familial attachment to her niece and launches a thorough investigation into this situation. I will not traumatize my readers by speculating on what depravity three ladies might get up to with a single wizard, but I must wonder which of the young women were the first to bring the others into their plan. Miss Granger with her loose muggle morals? Or was it perhaps the dark aligned Miss Greengrass?
Only time, and investigation, will tell, and I assure you that I will do my utmost to bring you everything I can discover in regard to this situation as it unfolds…
#####
Amelia sat at the kitchen table, glaring at the morning edition of the Daily Prophet. She was sorely tempted to set the offensive rag on fire, if she was being completely honest with herself. Every day for the last three days had been one article after another focusing heavily on Harry and that one about the bids' bond… she'd had to actively talk herself out of running off and hexing Skeeter into the next decade. The temptation was still there.
A clattering of footsteps caught her attention and she quickly flipped over the paper, setting it face down and looking up just as the door leading out to the back patio opened and five sweaty kids walked in, chattering quietly amongst themselves as they entered the room.
"-ow much?" Neville was asking from the back of the group.
"A thousand Galleons," came Harry's answer. "The twins wrote me last week, said they were all going on a family vacation to Egypt to visit their oldest brother, Bill. He's a curse breaker, apparently, and works for Gringotts."
"What's all this?" Amelia asked while Susan started passing out cold glasses of water to the rest of them. Discreetly, she tapped the side of her tea cup with her wand and gentle wisps of steam began to rise from the surface of the dark liquid.
"The Weasley's won the Prophet's Grand Prize draw," Hermione explained. "Neville asked about the twins coming over to celebrate his and Harry's birthdays this weekend. Harry was just explaining how the extended Weasley clan is out of the country and won't be able to make it for the party."
"And the party is on your birthday this year," Neville reminded him. "We had the big party on mine last year so we're switching things up."
"I remember, Nev." Harry grinned brightly at his friend and sipped from his water.
The five friends joked and laughed for a few minutes longer while Amelia slowly sipped at her rewarmed tea until Neville glanced at his watch and winced.
"I've got to get going," he said, setting down his empty water glass. "Gran wanted my help after breakfast and I've still got to shower and get ready for the day. I'll see you all tomorrow?" The last was said over his shoulder as he was already heading out of the kitchen and Harry and the girls called out their agreement and goodbye's as he waved back at them and disappeared toward the Floo.
"Sounds like our cue to go get cleaned up too," Susan said, tugging at the neck of her damp shirt, wrinkling her nose in disgust. "We're a mess." With that the four of them made their way upstairs, Harry heading into his room while the girls each took their own. Though they tended to end up in the same bed when either Daphne or Hermione stayed over at night, each girl did have their own room with an accompanying en suite.
Left alone, once again, Amelia sighed to herself and looked down at the newspaper. She really couldn't put off telling him for any longer. She just so hated to add more worries to the weight he already carried, especially after seeing how cheerful and happy he was of late.
"Dammit," she muttered. "Is that kid ever going to get a break?"
#####
"Are we sure?"
Harry looked up from his desk at the sound of the voice. Even muffled he would never mistake Hermione's voice for anyone else's.
"We have to, Herm… ou know it's the right thing…"
That was Susan. He frowned, wondering what they could possibly be talking about on the other side of his bedroom door. He'd just finished his shower after their morning workout and had dressed comfortably and casually in slacks and a dark blue long sleeved shirt. His feet were bare and he'd just decided to work on a letter to Luna when he'd noticed their voices.
Standing, he padded quietly over to the door and reached for the knob.
"But is he ready for it? Is he going to hate- holy crap!"
Hermione's worries altered abruptly into a startled exclamation as he pulled the door open to find all three of his girls standing in the hall outside his room, each one dressed in a thick terry cloth bathrobe that nearly brushed the floor. They had their hair tied up in loose, messy buns at the back of their heads and each appeared to be freshly out of the shower.
He expressly did not consider what they may or may not have been wearing beneath their robes and simply arched a brow at them as Hermione attempted to recover from the fright he'd caused when he'd yanked open the door.
"You know," he said, a smirk tugging at his lips. "If you don't want someone to hear you three chatting away, you might not want to have the discussion right outside that persons door." He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the door frame, studying them with an amused expression on his face.
"You scared me!" Hermione blurted out, swatting his shoulder several times as he laughed.
"It's not my fault," he reminded her and she only scowled at him for a moment before Susan nudged her shoulder and her complexion suddenly paled a considerable amount.
Harry peered at her for a moment before moving his gaze to Susan and then to Daphne, taking in the nearly identical pensive, and even slightly fearful expressions they wore.
"This is about that thing you guys have been avoiding telling me about that you said you were going to talk them into finally coming clean on, isn't it?" Harry asked, staring straight at Susan and she nodded, slowly.
He took a deep breath, apprehension filling him all of a sudden for a moment before he pushed it away and nodded.
"Well, you'd better come in then."
Nodding quietly the three of them filed past him into the room as he stepped aside and once all three of them had entered, he let the door swing quietly shut behind them.
#####
The first explosion shook the house and, despite none of the wards or alerts going off, Amelia had her wand in her hand and was sprinting from her study as fast as her feet could carry her. She met the girls in the hallway, each wearing far less than she'd ever seen of them, a long bathrobe over their shoulders but open in the front and she knew immediately what must have happened.
"You told him?" she practically barked out and the three of them flinched so she took a moment to take a deep breath as another explosion rocked the manor. "You told him." It wasn't a question that time and her voice was much softer with the repetition as the girls nodded, tears brimming in their eyes.
"He didn't say anything," Hermione murmured, her voice almost lost in the echoing roar of another explosion.
"He's upset."
"He's pissed," Daphne corrected sarcastically.
"But not at us," Susan interjected and Amelia glanced her way with one arched brow. "Well… yeah, he's mad at us for not telling him. But this anger… it's unfocused. It's not directed at something specific. He's just… well, yeah, he's pissed off."
"I'm guessing he went out back?"
They nodded again and she hesitated for a moment before gesturing to them.
"Get dressed and… and just keep back, okay? Let me try talking to him."
A third nod and moments later the three of them had disappeared into Susan's room.
As she made her way down the stairs another explosion rocked the house, the sound of it growing louder and louder as she drew closer. In between the explosions she could hear curse after hex after jinx being cast, each one hissing through the air and a series of pops and cracks echoed through the back yard as a result.
When she stepped out onto the back patio, Harry stood just a few feet onto the grass, a series of dummies she knew hadn't been there earlier lined up about fifty feet away from him as each exploded or was immolated or torn to pieces one after the other. She stopped about ten feet away from him, tapping her left palm with the tip of her wand several times as she considered the situation. Power rolled off of him in waves that she could actually see distorting the air around him. She was sure his eyes must have seemed like two emerald infernos in his head from the magic coursing through his body.
But just blowing up targets wasn't going to be enough…
Harry spun, rotating on his left heel and his right hand came up as he felt it approaching. Magic shimmered into existence around his hand for the briefest of moments and he just barely deflected the low powered cutting curse that had been heading his way in time to duck as three more curses ripped through the air where he'd been standing.
He rolled quickly to his feet and took in the sight of Amelia Bones standing twenty feet away from him on the grass, the glowing tip of her wand pointed in his direction and her face set in an emotionless mask as she lifted her left hand and curled her fingers in a 'come and get it' sort of gesture. Without thinking his hand came up and in seconds a half a dozen curses left his palm. Tripping jinxes, tongue locking hex, knock-back jinx, disarming charm, stunning charm, jelly legs jinx.
None of them struck as Amelia exploded into motion, spinning, ducking, weaving and dodging with such grace that for a moment Harry was stunned. Until a low powered bludgeoning charm caught him in the chest and knocked him arse over teakettle. He rolled, dodging three more spells he didn't recognize and came up on one knee sending back another tripping jinx and a leg locker curse.
Amelia shielded the tripping jinx and actually batted the leg locker aside with the tip of her wand as she started to advance on him. Her wand seemed alive in her hand, dipping and weaving like a snake, striking out in lightning fast flicks of the tip of her wand as a veritable rainbow of spells spewed forth.
Harry's breath burned in his throat and his muscles protested the action, already exhausted from the unusual activity. It reminded him strongly of the battle in the Chamber and he realized he was lucky that it ended when it did. None of his exercises had taken into account this type of activity, and while he was definitely in better shape than he'd ever been in his life, there was no way he could keep up this kind of frenetic activity for long.
It all ended when he rolled across the grass again to avoid a cyan green spell that he'd never seen before and before he'd done more than rise to his knees the glowing crimson of a stunner caught him right in the face and he slumped back onto the grass as darkness overtook him.
Amelia waited for a few moments, her wand still held out in front of her, breath slightly elevated and a thin sheen of sweat on her forehead as she observed the prone form laid out on the grass, looking for any sign that he might be playing possum. When he didn't leap up and continue to attack after a few seconds she lowered her wand and made her way over to him, carefully laying him flat on his back and checking him over for any injuries before she pointed her wand and cast a reviving charm.
Harry's eyes popped open and he blinked several times, squinting against the bright sunlight above before his narrowed eyes landed on her concerned blue gaze.
"Dammit. I just got my arse nailed to my head as a hat, didn't I?" he muttered and she burst out laughing for a moment, reaching down to grab his hand and yank him to his feet.
"You actually didn't do too badly," she disagreed as she pulled him into a hug. "You managed to dodge a fair number of spells I wouldn't have expected from a beginner, so color me impressed."
He grumbled under his breath, but gratefully returned the hug for a few moments before she stepped back and led him over to the patio table and chairs, pushing him, none too gently, into one of them before taking another for herself. She called for Binky, giving him a few moments to gather his thoughts as she requested something cool from the little elf and when she finally placed a bottle of chilled butter beer in front of him, she sat back and took a long sip of her own before she started.
"They finally told you about the scars, huh?"
Harry shot her a look. "You knew, too?" He snorted and answered himself in the next second. "Of course you did, the scars were what tipped you off that Susan was bonded to someone."
"And the scars were really how we knew just how bad things must have been for you at your relatives," Amelia added. "I understand you've got to be furious, and you have every right to be, but what are you mad about, exactly?" she asked.
"What do you mean?"
She shrugged. "Well there's any number of reasons you could be upset. Mad that they didn't tell you. Mad that it happened at all. Mad that people knew more about what was really happening to you than you thought, or that they, or I, told you about."
"You?"
"I told you, the scars were how we knew." Amelia blew out a long sigh, feeling a tension in her shoulders she couldn't quite explain as she tried to articulate what she wanted to express. "I saw those scars appearing on my niece over the years, Harry. Each one hurt her. Not to the extent they hurt you, but they did hurt before they closed up. On our end, all we knew was there was someone out there, and terrible things were happening to him. You should know me well enough by now to understand I'm a woman that likes to do. Sitting around, unable to actually do anything to make the situation better… that was one of the hardest things I've ever experienced. Seeing Susan go through all of that, knowing there was someone else, you, and you didn't have the support that the girls had. You didn't have someone that cared about you, someone that loved you.
"I can't begin to imagine how you're feeling. I didn't agree with the girls keeping things quiet, but they told me last summer that the hat requested it of them so I let things go for a while. I didn't feel it was my place, it wasn't my secret to share, if that makes sense?"
Harry considered that, scowling darkly at the bottle he held tightly in his hands. "I'm not mad at you, Amy," he said, finally. "I'm not even mad at the girls, really. I mean, yeah I wish they'd just told me sooner, but… hell, I don't know how to feel. I think that's what's most upsetting, honestly. I could be pissed about the bond, I could be pissed that they were basically spying on me for all these years. I could be pissed about a lot of things… but in the end it all boils down to, none of us had any choice in the matter, did we?" He finally looked up at her, meeting her eyes for a moment before glancing down again.
"You've said it enough times, the girls have said it enough times, we didn't have a choice in being a part of this bond. I don't like it. I hate that they… they have to deal with this…" he glanced down at his left arm, his sleeves having both been pushed back to his elbows at some point before she'd come out to meet him, and glared at the scar on the inside of his forearm. "None of these are their fault," he whispered. "And I get it, it's not my fault, either. Most of them I didn't do to myself, and even that one I didn't know about this bond or them. Hermione said that in our first year I somehow managed to not add a single scar to our collection. Last year, not so much."
"What does last year have to do with it?"
"I would have tried harder to not get mangled!" he snapped.
"And what would you have done differently?" she snapped right back, glaring at him. "Heading into the Chamber to save Daphne, to protect Susan, and Hermione, and Neville. What would you have done differently? Would you have kept your distance from the Basilisk? Would you not have gone? You added quite a bit to your collection last year, like you said. But what would it really have mattered, one way or the other, if you knew or didn't know at that time?"
He remained silent, unable to think of a response to that.
The two glared at each other for a few moments before she slowly leaned forward, resting her elbows on the smooth glass surface of the table as her gaze softened slightly.
"Look, why don't you tell me what happened. I don't exactly know anything other than they told you. But what did they say?"
He frowned again and she was starting to worry that he'd end up with permanent creases etched into his face before he started talking.
#####
He was nervous in a way he wasn't sure he'd ever experienced before as the door closed and his girls found seats around the coffee table by the fireplace. They looked as nervous as he felt and he couldn't help but feel a bit relieved by that realization. It was nice to know that he wasn't the only one uncomfortable with the entire situation.
Susan was shifting awkwardly in her seat while Hermione kept alternately wringing her hands together even as she fiddled with the sleeves of her robes. Daphne was conspicuous in how still she was, sinking herself into her training, relying on her experience and her Occlumency to not give away how nervous she was. Only their bond and the fact that he knew her well enough let Harry see it for the defense mechanism that it was.
"Are we just going to sit here and stare at each other?" he joked after several silent minutes crept past them but not even a glimmer of a smile touched any of the girl's lips.
"I still don't know that this is a good idea," Hermione muttered.
"We talked about this," Susan shot back. "There isn't going to be a good time to bring this up. There isn't going to be a better time. No matter what we've kept this secret for almost two years now and he deserves to know."
Hermione's face screwed up in distaste but a few seconds later she suddenly seemed to sag in on herself, her shoulders hunching inward as she let out a despondent sigh.
"I know," she whispered, fear and worry bleeding across their bond. "I just-"
"I'll tell you the same thing that I told Susan," Harry said, interrupting her in the process. "I can't promise that I won't be angry, or upset, whatever this is. But I can promise that I won't hate the three of you for it," he said, trying to be as reasonable as he could. "It might take me a while to calm down or to get past it, but the three of you are far too important to me to actually hate you over this."
Cautious relief flowed from all three of them at that, even Daphne, as faint as it was from behind her Occlumency shields, and the each relaxed, almost imperceptibly.
"Well, there's no sense in dragging things out, then, is there?" Susan said, glancing over at the other two girls. "When we were sorted, the hat only asked us to hold back one thing from you, the one thing that we wouldn't tell you about that first night when we discussed our situation."
"The thing that tipped off your parents and guardians about the bond?" Harry asked after a moments thought.
They nodded and Hermione seemed to draw herself up, squaring her shoulders before looking to Daphne. "Daphne?" she asked. "You're our only lefty, would you do the honors?"
Harry frowned in confusion as all three of them held their right hands out in front of them, close together over the table with their palms pointing up and Daphne waved her wand over the extended appendages as she cast a quick 'finite' as if she might not go through with it if she didn't do it as quickly as she could. Each of their hands blurred for a moment as the magic hiding their hands, glamours, he realized, shimmered and shattered, and when they were clear and in focus again he found his mouth dropping open in shock.
Silence stretched between them as he looked back and forth between their hands several times and then at his own scarred hand and forearm, comparing the scars for several minutes before he finally found his voice.
"What the fuck?" he blurted out and, even though Hermione winced, she chose not to comment on his language. "They're the same," he muttered, confusion edging toward panic as he continued to study the identical spread of the scars across all four of their hands. "How are they the same? What the fuck happened?" he demanded, harshly his eyes hard and gleaming brilliantly.
"They're called Soul Scars," Hermione practically whispered, trembling slightly in the face of the growing anger they could feel rolling across their bond and see burning in his gaze. "Remember the hat said we were part of an initial bond?"
He nodded jerkily and his face set into a stony impassive expression as the girls took turns outlining what they knew, how until they completed the bond they would continue to share each others scars.
"So you have all of them?" he practically snarled and they flinched again.
"As far as we know. All but one." Daphne muttered and each of them glanced at the lightning bolt shaped scar where it was half hidden by the fringe of Harry's hair.
They hadn't been a minute into their explanation before Harry had been out of his seat and pacing angrily back and forth in front of the fire. He was tense, and power swirled around him as much as he tried to rein it in. All of them? All his scars they… how…
He shook his head almost violently for a moment before he looked back to them just in time to see them stand and shuck off their bathrobes, letting the thick cloth pool at their feet, their arms at their sides and Harry froze at the sight of them.
Each girl was dressed in a pair of shorts that came to barely mid thigh and a modestly cut bikini top and in that moment a sudden realization clicked into place in Harry's mind, something he'd noticed but never really consciously acknowledged. His girls always dressed to completely cover themselves, like he did. They wore shirts, blouses and dresses with high neck lines and long sleeves and either long trousers or ankle length dresses and skirts. He had literally never seen as much skin as they were showing now, even if they were still modestly covered. That realization was quickly obliterated from his conscious thoughts, however, as his sharp gaze noted each of the scars spread across their skin, from the long mark on the inside of their left forearms to the small slashes across the right side of their rib cage and the long thick scar across their chests from his battle with the Basilisk.
He slowly made his way around the coffee table until he approached Susan and reached out, gently tracing the bumpy burn scar that covered her right shoulder, the tips of his fingers trailing down her arm, gently brushing each scar for a moment before he took her by the shoulders and turned her until her back was to him. The tangled web of scar tissue stood out sharply on her skin and Harry bit back a groan at the sight.
He studied the scars marking their bodies, ignoring the flush in their cheeks at his close scrutiny and finally found himself standing before the fire again, hands fisted in his hair for a moment before he let out a long sigh and his arms dropped, palms slapping against his thighs as he tried to order his thoughts. Two years. Two years they'd been hiding the scars from him all the while pushing and coaxing him to open up, to talk to them, share with them. Hell, after Hermione had woken up from being petrified she'd made him show off his newest scars. Daphne still hadn't told them about her past, except to Hermione when the other girl had been petrified and unable to even hear her. So they'll push me to share everything I want to keep to myself but won't share anything with me? he thought, furiously.
Shame, disgust, pain. They all fell away in the face of a new and simmering anger. His eyes hardened, cold glowing chips of emerald and before they could say anything more he spun and his heel and stalked his way out the room. The fingers of his right hand twitched and his door flew open as he approached and slammed shut behind him, leaving the girls alone to hope that they would recover from this.
#####
"You understand they just want to help you, right?" Amelia tried, gently and Harry scowled at the bottle he still held in his hands.
"Yeah, I get it. But they seem to be expecting a lot from me without giving the same themselves."
"Which is something you'll all have to figure out as you go, but isn't the fact that they told you a good thing? They're starting to open up more, right?"
He frowned at that but couldn't actually refute the statement so he kept his silence.
"I can understand you being upset with them and I'm not asking you to just forgive them and move on, but don't give up on them, either."
When he nodded she sighed and leaned back in her seat. "Thank you, Harry. There's enough to be concerned about already."
"Like what?" he asked, almost afraid to hear the answer and she cast a wordless summoning charm. A moment later an issue of the Daily Prophet landed in her hands and she slid it across the table to him, taking a long pull on her butter beer while she let him read through the articles.
"Seriously, why can't anything ever be simple!" he burst out a few minutes later, throwing the paper on the table. "An Order of Merlin?"
"Highest award given out by our government," she explained. "It actually is quite the honor, and you definitely earned it so don't start whining about it, please."
He scowled at her and she only smirked in response until he huffed and reached out to tap the paper.
"What about this article about Black?" he asked. "What's going on with looking into that?"
"I can't tell you that," she started and his expression darkened even further for a moment before she glared at him. "I honestly can't. It's DMLE business and I can't just talk about these things. Plus, it's somewhat under the table. I'm not going through official channels since our illustrious Minister has decided that there's no way Sirius could possibly be innocent of anything. If I get caught I'll be in more trouble than I know what to deal with."
Harry felt a stab of guilt that swept away the anger and hurt he still felt over the girls admission. "I didn't want you to get in trouble," he muttered and she waved him away.
"It's not about that anymore. If he really is innocent then he needs to be exonerated. What you found lends some doubt and I wouldn't be able to sleep right if I didn't at least try to figure it out. It's my job to look into these things so I'll be doing my job and I'll thank you to leave me to it. I promise I'll keep you informed on what I can but in the meantime Black is out there. He escaped, for some reason, and we don't know what that is."
"What do we do?"
"You do nothing. Finish up your summer. Go back to school. Do not try to find Black."
"But he might-"
"No, Harry," she snapped, cutting him off. "I'm sorry, I can only imagine what this has got to be like for you but you need to leave black to me and my Aurors. I promise, I'll do my best to find out everything we can but you need to stay away from him. The ministry is convinced he'll be coming after you since they still think he's a guilty Death Eater. But even if he is innocent, he still spent the last twelve years in Azakaban with the Dementors, there's no telling how sane he might be right now."
"Summer homework is finished. I'm not talking-to the girls any time soon… I need some time to think about everything. No worrying about Black. I'm not allowed to whine about the Order of Merlin… can I get bent out of shape about Skeeter and the garbage she spewed out onto paper?"
Amelia smirked at the cheeky grin he was giving her and nodded. "By all means. Hating Rita Skeeter is practically a national pastime." She stood and made her way around the table, pulling him to his feet and into a hug. "Life is never easy for you, Kid. But just take it a day at a time and you'll get there. You've got your birthday this weekend to look forward to at least."
His face split into a slightly lop sided grin at that. "Well, yeah, I am looking forward to that, at least."
Amelia wrapped one arm around his shoulder as they walked back into the house. "All right who all is coming?" she asked in a bright, cheerful tone of voice. "Neville, Hannah and Tracey… did you invite Miss Lovegood? I'm sure she'd appreciate a party…"
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The Floo at Greengrass Manor flared brightly and Daphne stepped out lightly into the room, absently dusting soot from her shoulders, her mind occupied with other matters. Harry's birthday was in two days. It probably wasn't the best timing, picking a day so close to his birthday to drop their scars on him, but Susan was right in that there was no real good time for such a thing. Hermione was still having nightmares and kept staring at her at the strangest times, as if she was a puzzle the other girl was trying to solve.
She can't possibly have heard me, she thought for what felt like the thousandth time. There's no way..
"Daphne?"
She halted suddenly as her fathers voice filled the room and looked up, her face settling easily into her mask. The sight that greeted her nearly cracked it but she simply arched one brow at the scene.
"It was a pleasure seeing you, Lucius," Lord Greengrass said, turning away from his daughter to address his guests, Lucius Malfoy and his son, Draco. "The offer is… enticing, I will admit. But as you can understand I do have other interested parties, so I can't agree to anything, just as yet."
"Of course, Cyril, I'm well aware of how the game is played," Lucius answered in a smooth, silky tone as he shook her father's hand. Draco offered his own goodbyes and Daphne smoothly moved aside, making room for them to reach the Floo. She did her best to ignore the way that the younger Malfoy was staring at her, a twisted smirk on his lips.
The fire flared into emerald green and Lucius was swept away after calling out a destination she didn't hear and as he brushed past her Draco murmured quietly under his breath, "be seeing much more of you, soon, Greengrass."
A moment later he vanished as well and she was left staring at the man that helped create her.
"Where have you been?" he demanded.
"I was over at Susan's house. We were making plans for Lord Potter's birthday party this weekend."
He said nothing but his gaze was appraising, as if weighing her answer carefully.
"Christmas," he said, finally. "You remember our agreement, daughter. Your time is running out."
With that, he turned and swept from the room, leaving Daphne standing there with an icy chill flowing through her veins despite the warmth of Summer that filled the house.
#####
The day's after the girls revealed their scars passed by in a blur for Harry. His birthday had been a lot of fun and a welcome distraction from his worries. The air had been tense between him and the girls, something their friends had noticed, but happily none had chosen to comment on the issue and they'd had a pleasant day filled with laughter, games, and good food. They'd all gotten quite a laugh out of one of his presents as well, a biting beast of a book that Hagrid had sent to him. It'd taken Harry, Neville, and the twins to corral and capture the thing, much to the rest of their friends amusement.
But distractions only lasted so long and a week later his mind was still filled, occupied by so many things that he was honestly looking forward to going back to school in a months time just to get away from everything. Not that he had any hope that he'd actually escape any of his problems, they always seemed to know exactly where to find him.
Black's escape.
The girls sharing his scars.
Them not telling him about the scars. Okay, honestly he could understand their reasoning, he probably would have been a complete wreck and blamed himself entirely. And to an extent, he did still blame himself, even knowing that it wasn't any of their faults, but in the end, if they hadn't been bonded to him then they never would have suffered all their lives with those ugly marks on their skin. Hermione's parents never would have feared that their daughter would be taken away from them.
In the end, nearly every problem, and every good thing in his life could come back to the bond and it was all started when Voldemort tried to kill him and instead tore his soul to pieces. Which lead his thoughts back to Black. As the story went, Black betrayed his parents, but according to his parents letters and his mum's journals, there was no way that he could have. So if he didn't, maybe he knew who did?
Harry scowled and sat up from where he'd been lying back on his bed, staring absently up at the ceiling above him with his fingers laced together behind his head. His hands dropped and curled into fists momentarily in his lap.
"I need to talk to him," he muttered. "Whether he did it or not, Black might know what happened. Who told Voldemort about that stupid prophecy? Why did he pick me? Dammit, if he was still in Azkaban, I might be able to talk to thin but he had to go and escape. And why now? After all these years why would he escape now?"
He let out a frustrated growl and punched the mattress next to him before he shoved his way out of his bed and started pacing around in his room. Sitting there thinking was just driving him crazy, he needed to get out, he needed to do something. He was starting to get a handle on his magic, thankfully, Amelia had eventually asked him about the furious display of magic after the girls told him about the scars and, even though he hadn't been consciously aware of what he was doing differently at the time, it had helped him to figure out how to better manipulate his magic without a wand but he still needed a lot of practice. Maybe he should go work on his spells?
Decision made, he strode for the door and pulled it open, slipping out into the hall and making his way toward the stairs when a noise suddenly caught his attention, half way between his room and the stairs leading down to the ground floor.
He suddenly froze stock still in the middle of the hall. What was that? he thought. One thing his years at the Dursleys had taught him was situational awareness. He nearly always was aware of the slightest sounds and changes in his environment and just then he'd heard…
There it was again!
A muffled sob coming from one of the nearby rooms. Amelia and Susan were both downstairs and Hermione was in France with her parents so that only left one possible source.
He took three steps and paused with his hand on the doorknob, hesitating. Should he? He didn't know if he could look her in the eye. He wasn't sure that he would be able to hide how upset he still was, how much their omission had hurt him. He could be honest enough to say that they hadn't lied, they'd told him there was something, just that they couldn't talk to him about it. While he stood there with his thoughts racing through his head the sound came again and he was suddenly moving on instinct as he opened the door and stepped into her room.
"Daphne? What's wrong?" He asked as he quickly crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed where she was lying, curled in on herself with her face buried against a pillow she held clutched in her arms.
She looked up at him, tears staining her cheeks. Reaching out to take one of her hands in his he absently rubbed small circles on the back of her hand with his thumb, barely aware of what he was doing, so focused was he on the pain and uncertainty he could see in her face and feel through their link. Her Occlumency had kept so much of her emotions at bay, but this close, and helped by the physical contact, she couldn't continue to hide her emotions from him any longer and he frowned at what he felt from her.
"I don't know what to do," she whimpered.
"About what?" he asked and she hesitated for a moment. "Tell me, Daphne. You guys dropped a hell of a bomb on me the other day and we've all been making a habit of not telling each other things that we probably should. Let's not keep falling into that mistake."
He almost felt bad over using her own guilt against her in this case, but at the same time, as upset as he was with them, as confused as he was over the entire situation, there was nothing he wouldn't do to help any of his girls, even if that meant pushing them.
When she started to talk she was hesitant, but her voice quickly grew stronger
"My father has been pushing me to get you to offer him a betrothal contract for me," she whispered. "I've told him we're too young for that, we're not even sure how we really feel about each other, but he doesn't care. Marriage in pureblood society has little to do with love and is frequently more about the political or financial benefits of the union." She was blushing brightly by the time she finished and Harry was reasonably certain he was too but focused on her voice to try to distract himself.
"Last year, during the Christmas break he gave me an ultimatum. He gave me a year to see a contract offer from you or he'd sell me off to someone else so I would no longer be his problem."
That was really not anywhere near what Harry expected to hear when he'd come into the room and it only added more worries to his already growing list but he kept himself as calm as he could and simply tried to focus on the problem.
"Not even looking at if we would want to be together or get married one day, you still have several months, what is he doing that's causing all this?" he asked with a gesture meant to take in the room and her presence there, crying alone in her bed.
"Father is… he's being entirely unreasonable, and it's only getting worse."
"What can I do?"
"I don't know Harry," she said. "I don't know that there's anything you can do. There are families sniffing around. I've seen the heads of multiple different houses meeting with Father late at night and I think… I'm sure that he's trying to arrange a contract already. Something that will gain the family the most possible prestige and status at the cost of his oldest daughter," she said the last with a sneer of such disgust that he was fairly impressed she managed to convey such emotion in so few words. "The other day, when I went home after we told you about… well, when I got there, Malfoy and his father were just leaving, and the look Draco gave me…" she shuddered and he could feel the revulsion coming from her like a slick, oily sensation that made his stomach churn. "It made me sick," she admitted.
For several minutes Harry sat on the edge of the bed, holding her hand and struggling to find the words that could help all the while firmly shoving aside any thoughts of Malfoy coming anywhere near his Daphne. Oh, he knew enough by then to understand he couldn't just make it better, but there had to be something he could say to help calm her fears a bit so they could think out a solution.
It was times like this that he wished he had Hermione's knack for working out a problem, or Susan's warm and affectionate nature so he could properly convey how he felt to the beautiful, broken girl next to him.
She's broken, too, he thought, suddenly, straightening up as the thought popped into his head.
He shifted back in the bed so that he was sitting up with his back against the headboard and reached for her, wordlessly. Not really understanding what he was doing, but not willing to deny herself some much needed comfort and affection, she crawled over to him and sat beside him, leaning against his side with her ear pressed against his chest, her head tucked under his chin as he gently stroked her hair with one hand.
"There's this guy," he said, suddenly. "He's walking down the sidewalk one day when suddenly, he falls in a hole. It's a deep hole. Damp, dark, and the sides are slick and so steep that he can't climb his way out no matter what he does."
"Why doesn't he use his wand?" she asked.
"He dropped his wand when he fell in, now hush and let me tell the story," he gently admonished her and she smiled, unseen against his chest.
"Where was I? Oh right, so he's stuck in this hole and after a while he happens to look up and he sees an Auror walking by. 'Hey, Sir. Mister Auror,' he calls. 'Can you help me, please? I'm stuck in this hole and I can't get out.' And the Auror, he writes a spell down on a spare bit of parchment and drops it down the hole, then he walks on.
"Well, that's not gonna do the guy in the hole much good so he keeps trying to climb, keeps struggling to get out and he's just digging himself in deeper and deeper as he goes. He looks up again and sees the Minister of Magic walking by. 'Hey! Hey, Minister, I'm stuck down here in this hole, can you please help me out?' And the Minister writes out a proclamation, or a ministerial edict on a piece of parchment, drops it down the hole."
"Why won't anyone help him?" she asked, starting to calm, lulled by the sound of his voice reverberating against her ear and the deep thumping of his heart.
Harry continued talking, "finally, it's been hours, and the guy in the hole is really getting scared. He looks up and he sees an old friend of his from Hogwarts walking by. 'Joe,' he yells. 'Hey Joe, thank Merlin you're here. Look, mate, I'm stuck down here in this hole and I can't get out. I've already asked an Auror and the Minister himself but no one will help me. Can you get me out of here?' And without missing a beat, his old mate jumps down into the hole with him.
"Well, our guy turns to him and he's like, 'What are you, stupid? Now we're both stuck down here,' and his buddy, he says, 'yeah, I know. But I've been down here before, and I know the way out.'"
He fell silent for a moment, his hand never stopping the gentle stroking of her hair as he let the words sink in. "I don't know the way out, yet, Daphne. But I've been down in the dark, in the hole I can't climb out of, for a long time. For me it was a cupboard under the stairs where I was forced to sleep or locked in for hours or days at a time. For me it was my uncle, it was beatings and whippings and… well, I'm out, but I'm still there too. Some days I'm not sure I'll ever really escape it, but since I met you girls, I am starting to understand that there truly is a way out, and if we work together on this, and get Hermione and Susan to help us… there's no hole, no trouble, no problem that we can't solve. There's no way that any of us will let your father do this to you if there's absolutely anything that we can do about it. Do you understand me?"
"Yes, Harry." She took a deep breath, reveling in his warmth and the clean scent of him and let it out in a long sigh as her body relaxed, seeming to melt against him. "You know? You're pretty good at this," she muttered, her eyes slipping closed.
"Good at what?"
"Calming hysterical women."
He chuckled quietly. "I'd have to disagree. I can't handle crying women, scares the hell out of me. But you and Hermione and Susan, you're not just some random women. You're a part of my life and a part of me and I'll always do my best to help any one of you with anything you need."
Her fingers twitched against his chest, plucking at his shirt absently for a moment. "I'm sorry," she whispered, finally. "We didn't mean to hurt you it's just…"
"Don't worry about it," he said, gruffly cutting her off as his muscles tensed slightly beneath her in response to his emotions. "I'm still not happy about it, but it's a small concern in the long run. I'll get over it sooner or later."
They fell silent for a time, and eventually, Harry felt her relax even more against him and her breath deepened and evened out as sleep claimed her. He held her for a while longer as he thought over the situation.
When a possible solution came he had to force himself not to jump up and rush from the room. Carefully, he extricated himself from Daphne's grip and covered her with a blanket before quietly leaving the room.
Downstairs, he saw Amelia sitting at the kitchen table, looking over a stack of documents, but hesitated to involve her, yet. Finally, he found Susan sitting outside by the pool, sunning herself on one of the lounge chairs. He paused for a moment, taken aback at the amount of skin on display, and the fact that she'd obviously cast a glamour hiding all of her scars, but he shook his head and moved over toward her.
She looked over when he dropped heavily onto the chair next to her. She was about to say hello when she saw the pensive look on his face and she sat up quickly, focusing more fully on him and on their bond. "What's wrong?" she asked, searching for his feelings as well as Daphne's and Hermione's. Daphne and Hermione's both felt muted. Daphne, she guessed to be asleep but the feeling from Hermione had been that way since the day after Harry's birthday when she'd left for Paris with her parents. The distance was just enough that the bond wasn't as clear. "Are you worried about Black? We're safe here and auntie has the entire Auror force looking for him."
"No, this isn't about Black." He sighed, wishing that he could tell her his concerns on the subject but Amelia had forbidden him from saying anything as it was all tied into an active investigation and the fewer people that knew right then, the better. He was really getting sick and tired of all the secrets. He pinched the bridge of his nose, attempting to stave off a headache before he lifted his head, his glowing gaze settling on her for a moment before he leaned forward and spoke in as serious a tone as he could manage.
"I need you, please, to tell me absolutely everything that you know about marriage and betrothal contracts. Daphne is in trouble, and, as angry as I am with the three of you, I'll be damned if we let anything happen to her without a fight."
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Author's Note 2.0: Hey guys, this is just to point out, the story about the guy in the hole that Harry tells to Daphne. Totally stole that from an episode of the TV show The West Wing. I paraphrased, of course. I don't remember the title of the episode in question right at the moment but if you've never seen it, find it. It's a fantastic show all about the President and Senior staff working in the West Wing of the White House. Fictional show, of course, and phenomenally written and acted. Check it out.
