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This Harry Potter story was written for fun. All rights belong to the wonderful lady (JK Rowling) who gave the world Harry Potter to read and enjoy.
"Regular conversation."
Printed Word in letters and newspapers.
{Parseltongue conversation}
[Iggy talking with Harry and Neville.]
"The Sorting Hat speaking and pontificating."
In March, Neville and Harry were working on a charms assignment while Luna, Ginny, and Colin were being quizzed by Hermione about DADA shields and battlefield healing spells, when Ron Weasley ran into the Gryffindor Common Room and shouted, "I have been here for the last hour! Don't matter what anyone says, I have been here!"
Everyone ignored him and Ron ran on up to the fourth-year boy's dorm. The evening passed without any more interruptions and when the students retired to their different dorm rooms, Harry and Neville discovered that Ron was already in bed asleep.
[Something fishy about this deal,] Iggy commented.
[What does fishy mean?] asked Neville.
Harry grinned as he said, [Calling something 'fishy' means something is strange or odd.]
Iggy smirked (mentally) and replied, [Strange is Ron Weasley having his homework finished.]
[The twins probably got some trick or joke set up for tomorrow morning and Ron doesn't want part of the blame,] Neville said. [They've been too quiet.]
Iggy thought about what Neville said about 'too quiet' and wondered why he had not been able to find Lady Hogwarts for some time. Once the boys were asleep, he went around the castle looking for her again.
At breakfast, there were miniature Hufflepuffs students and leafy Ravenclaws students at the two tables. The Puffs were only half their regular height and the Claws were covered with branches of leaves on their heads.
"Professor Sprout is not too upset and Professor Flitwick is working with the puffs on how to cast the necessary charms to be able to climb the stairs with their heavy textbooks," Hermione reported after her trip around the Great Hall gathering information.
Harry watched Ron closely and noticed the boy was careful not to turn his back on either of the twins. After a few minutes, he whispered, "My bet is that Ron somehow messed up the spells the twins were preparing. The jinx for leaves was supposed to be on the Puffs and the other one was supposed to be on the Claws."
Luna laughed and agreed, while Hermione considered the notion that Ron had mangled one of the productions for Fred and George. The twins were pranksters and took great pride in their major jinxes–hitting two houses the same night was certainly a major prank.
At lunch, the jinxes had been dispelled and the twins were quiet. Ron was only half his normal size and his red hair had been transformed into the limbs of some shrub with bright red leaves. Someone helped Ron climb up onto the bench at the Gryffindor table and he scrambled on up to the tabletop and after ten minutes, he laughed and ran down the length of the table to knock plates and goblets off and into the laps of Fred and George.
"I guess it was too much to hope Ron would remain a studious kid," Hermione said. "I miss Percy…"
Iggy chose that moment to state, [Something is going on with Lady Hogwarts. She is hiding something from me.]
[Mum says that every woman is allowed to have secrets,] Neville replied. [She won't teach anyone her howler spell and swears it's a secret for her daughter.]
[Daughter? Is Mum preggers?] asked Harry.
[Not that I know. Ugh… I don't want to think about…] Neville grimaced. [Can we talk about Lady Hogwarts?]
Harry turned toward Luna and quietly asked, "Luna, have you 'talked' with Lady Hogwarts lately?"
"Sure. We talk just about every day," Luna explained. "In history class I sit in a chair at the back of the room with my arms touching the wall the whole time."
"Has she said anything about anything not being okay? Is she okay?"
Luna smiled and replied, "The lady says that she is fine, her plans are moving along very well and that you are the perfect champion."
"Do you…"
Shaking her head, Luna replied, "No, I don't know what she's planning. But I trust her to know what she's doing,"
[Iggy, I trust Luna's feelings about things,] Harry said after thinking about the conversation.
[Still, there's something weird here,] the entity in the magical cloak replied.
[This is Hogwarts and the place is full of witches and wizards,] Neville added. [Of course, there's something weird going on. Cursed books, dementors, and toys bouncing off the walls of the headmaster's robes–that is 'normal' for Hogwarts.]
++***++ Change
During the break from school between the Winter and Spring terms, Harry and Neville returned to Longbottom Hall to spend time with their family. The elves took the boys to Potter Manor every other day where they worked in the greenhouse and rose garden. There were frequent visits by the adolescent dragons as well as the new family of Common Welsh Greens living in the forest.
They spent one day with Padfoot in the south of France. The day began with an early morning portkey to a reception centre in northern France. Then they took a second trip by portkey to the south of the country where the Black family manor was located. Upon arrival, the Longbottom family learned that Narcissa and Remus had become a couple during the winter, Draco was present and enjoying Ted's lessons in magical law versus muggle law, and Padfoot spent about half the day as a man and the other half as a dog.
"Where is Aunt Andromeda, today?" asked Harry after he received a tongue bath from Padfoot.
"She's in London with Dora. They are moving her here permanently," Draco explained as Harry threw the ball for the large Grim to chase.
Sirius appeared at lunch, and once again Harry was smothered with hugs and a few kisses on his head from the much-improved Lord Black. They talked about his classes and the blasted Tri-Wizard Tournament. When he heard about Alice's charmed howler and the multiple 'gifts' it had delivered to Dumbledore, Sirius laughed aloud.
But it was sharing copies of the photographs from the Christmas Ball that pleased him the most; the looks on the faces in the crowd when they saw 'Lily Potter' on Harry's arm and the particular looks on the face of Severus Snape as Lily whispered to him were favourites for Lord Black.
"What did she mean about him dying soon?" Sirius asked quietly.
Harry grinned and explained, "Hogwarts was using her memory of how my Mum looked when she walked in on my arm. And she despises Severus Snape but she has no clue when he will drop dead. She just wanted to scare him."
They were only visiting for a single day this spring but Harry and Neville were promised two weeks with Sirius in summer. Lord Black was satisfied with the arrangements and told Harry, "I want to see you before your birthday. Then in August, you can be a regular teenager–chase girls at the beach and pretend to do your homework."
Frank and Alice assured Harry that the family would have some vacation time in August but they intended to surprize the boys with their destination.
After a pleasant day with Sirius Black, Harry watched his godfather transform back into the large Grim and turn to chase the ball thrown by Draco.
++**++ CHANGE SCENE
Gathering a large collection of perfume bottles in his arms, Harry Potter hurried from the still room to the secure room Dad had constructed in the centre of the house. Each bottle was carefully numbered and were arranged neatly and numerically by the elves. Neville was taking a last pass through the greenhouse talking with the elves about fertilizer and water.
Alice and Frank waited patiently until both boys were ready to floo to Kings Cross Station for the return trip to Hogwarts. Seeing both boys climb on board the train, they waved good-bye and then returned home.
On board the train, Harry sat next to the window and watched the scenery passing the train when Iggy spoke, [I am wondering what is going on with Dumblemore and Lord Volde-shorts. This third task takes place just three days before you leave for the summer and I am concerned that one of the two dark lords will make a move against you at the third task.]
[I've made a mockery of the whole tournament,] Harry replied. [Dumblemore still begs Mum and Dad to return his 'wand'.]
[He might get desperate,] Iggy replied.
[There's been nothing from Dark Shorts,] Harry continued. [But you're right. Dumblemore won't make a move but Dark Shorts probably will.]
[What is Voldie-shorts goal?] asked Neville, joining the conversation.
[He is a spirit,] Harry said. [Will he possess somebody again?]
[Possession always ends when the body falls apart and dies.]
[Is there any way…wait, can we do an exorcism and send him on to hell?]
Iggy frowned and replied, [Hogwarts and I both went over all those ideas back in your first year. He was after the Philosopher's Stone in the first year–it creates an elixir that keeps you alive for hundreds of years so long as you keep drinking it.]
[Can you come back from being dead?]
[Not fully,] Iggy replied. [The idiot dark lord made soul jars and that's what is keeping him around. Hogwarts thinks that most of them are gone now. There was a piece of his soul in Harry's scar but we moved it into a pottery jar with Draught of the Sleeping Dead that put the piece to sleep. The book that possessed Ernie McMillian was another piece but it escaped and fled. There was a diadem, that's fancy head gear for a lady to wear at a party. That one Lady Hogwarts transfigured into that gold bust in the Entry Hall.]
[So, these things were scattered around Britain,] Harry said. [How many did he make? How can we find them?]
[I am working with Lady Hogwarts now,] Iggy replied.
++***++ Soul Jars
The current Dark Lord manifestation laboured to take another breath. Elmer Gantry was a weak wizard to begin with and despite attempts to brew strengthening potions, the body was failing. Barty Crouch, Jr., sought another wizard who would be suitable for his master to possess until the end of June.
"Master, possess me!"
"I can't Barty. I must have a strong, capable servant to complete the ritual with the blood of my enemy, bone of my father, and flesh of a loyal servant,"
"My flesh?
"Yes, I must have a finger from you as well as my greatest treasure to create a new body to inhabit."
Hearing this, the loyal Crouch was pleased with the idea of providing a finger to the ritual that would restore his master to corporeal form.
Tom Riddle knew there was a single horcrux left–the Gaunt family ring hidden near the mansion where they were spending the winter. He considered approaching one or more of his other Death Eaters for aid but Crouch's descriptions of how they had all paid off the government for their freedom and had not searched for him in the intervening dozen or so years. The cup was gone, the diadem, his diary, something with the boy Potter, and the remanent that had died first.
'I inhabited the locket for fifty years and only the ring is left. Once I have a body again and grow stronger, I shall make new soul jars and hide them better next time. And my 'loyal' followers will pay in blood and gold for their lax service once I am in a body once again,' Tom decided.
++***++ Predators in the Forbidden Forest
The Forbidden Forest has always been a challenging but balanced ecosystem for the magical creatures that lived there. When any predator became too strong or numerous for the prey animals, magic intervened to maintain the balance. Rubeus Hagrid violated that natural balance with the introduction of the acromantula (giant spiders) when he was a student at Hogwarts. But within five years, Magic (Mother Nature) intervened with the talents of an unusual but versatile creature–the boggart.
Generally, the boggart is a harmless creature but in the presence of sufficient 'enemies' with the same fear, the boggart will take on the characteristics of the enemy's fear and act on them for up to an hour. In the 1940's, there were a small clutch of boggarts living in the forest, but as the acromantula grew in size and number, they began to hunt the boggarts. When captured in a spider's web with spiders approaching the boggart's natural defence was to become the thing the spider feared most–a basilisk. And because there were always several spiders involved in each hunt, the basilisk would stare at the acromantulas, kill them and then feast before returning to its natural boggart form. Well-fed and not hunted, the boggarts flourished and spread out from the Forbidden Forest.
During Harry Potter's third year, the presence of the dementors affected the clutch of boggarts–they lived to experience the feelings of wizards and witches. When the wizards and witches in the castle began to continually repel the dementors with the Patronus charm, the dementors fled into the Forbidden Forest with wild emotions radiating out from them. This affected the boggarts profoundly. Then when Harry Potter used a new spell and set the dementors on fire with Invisible Fire, the whole clutch of boggarts experienced the emotions of the dying dementors for an entire day as the demonic creatures flopped about and burned away. After that event, the boggarts had their own 'boggart'–Harry Potter with a wand pointed at them.
Hagrid was always able to provide boggarts for DADA class and the house elves generally disposed of two or three of the creatures that wandered inside the castle every year. And so it was that the groundskeeper provided a strong boggart in its prime for the third task of the tri-wizard tournament.
++***++ Scene Change
[I don't believe it!] Iggy declared late the afternoon before the third task.
Neville looked up from the library table and caught his brother's eye before he asked, [What don't you believe Iggy? Something good or something…]
[She did it! Lady Hogwarts! She did it!]
Now Harry asked, [What did Lady Hogwarts do?]
Iggy muttered for a moment and waited until Luna Lovegood arrived, out of breath, but smiling when she found Harry and Neville still in their quiet study group. Draco Black watched his cousins carefully and decided that something important was about to occur. He quietly and windlessly cast privacy spells around the table where his cousins sat. They'd tell him anything important later.
"Good, I got here before the potion bottle exploded," the seer said. "Of course, I 'saw' that but still had to run most of the way here to make certain the future came true the way…"
"What's going on Luna?" asked Neville. "Iggy is upset about something."
Harry reworded his brother's comment to be, "Iggy is ticked off, unhappy, rumbling and grumbling."
Luna blinked slowly and visibly swallowed. "Oh dear, that 'upset'?"
[Tell her to get on with it!] the entity in the magical cloak demanded.
"Okay, Luna, what's going on?" asked Harry.
"It was Lady Hogwarts who wanted to corrupt the Tri-Wizard Tournament," Luna said without hesitation. "She wanted to make a farce of the whole engagement. To do that she needed her 'champion' to have extraordinary power matched by a dislike for the headmaster."
Neville and Iggy both waited for Harry's reaction to the news and he waited only one moment before he said, "She's the reason I am in this contest… Lady Hogwarts wanted this."
Luna nodded while Iggy commented, [I pinned her down this morning and she admitted everything. Some kid from Slytherin was under the imperious to put in a slip of paper with Heir Potter's name and she forced the goblet to select a fourth champion–her champion.]
"Why didn't she say anything?" Neville asked Luna.
The Ravenclaw witch sighed, "She just told me a few minutes ago. It was necessary for Harry to be angry and throw his power around to embarrass Dumble… the headmaster with the first and second tasks. Now she wants Harry to put on a full blazing power performance for the third task."
Iggy added, [Lady Hogwarts doesn't know everything. This is likely to be an attempt by the Dark Lord Voldie-shorts to try some magic or implement some plot. Harry will be the target.]
Luna, Neville and Iggy waited for Harry to react to the news that Lady Hogwarts was responsible for his name coming out of the Goblet of Fire. The boy-who-lived began with a small laugh that grew louder. Fortunately, Draco's privacy charm kept anyone outside the immediate area from hearing Heir Potter violate Madam Pence's requirements for quiet in the library.
"This is wonderful! I gotta do something spectacular in the third task then and leave Dumbles with egg on his face." Glancing at his brother, friend and then outwards to include his cousin and friends, Harry continued, "We need a brainstorming session on how to make the third task memorable and front-page news."
++***++ SCENE BREAK