Chapter 14: The Plan

Everything was quiet for a number of weeks. Harry became far more relaxed about his situation, even though his letters to the Minister were ignored, and Sirius Black was no closer to a trial. His plan was coming together, Tracey and Neville had settled back into their friendship as Hermione holed herself up in the library on occasion, and nothing ever came of his late-night exploration. All was well in the world of Harry Potter, but for one thing.

Today was Valentine's Day.

Harry felt he was too young to make any sort of fuss over Valentine's Day; Neville, Tracey, and he had agreed to give each other friend cards and nothing else. The school was less accommodating.

Harry arrived early as per usual to Charms, typically it was just him and Flitwick for a few minutes. As he approached his usual desk during Charms, he saw Sally-Anne Perks stretching over to place a card in a pile that had formed on his desk, her face as red to the point of reaching infrared. When he looked at her exasperatedly, she noticed him, her head popping up.

"Eep! H-Harry! Happy Valentine's!" she squeaked out from her desk next to him.

The rest of the room was empty except for an equally embarrassed Flitwick who pretended not to see Harry or Sally-Anne.

"Happy Valentine's Sally-Anne," Harry said as warmly as he could muster without giving her the wrong idea.

He picked up the pile of cards and arranged them neatly on his desk. When class started and Flitwick began to lecture, he began to open and read them. Sally-Anne's was in the center. He got to hers, and Sally-Anne twitched, loudly moving her chair, and causing the whole class to turn towards her and Harry.

"Mr. Potter," said Flitwick with an amused glint in his eye, "Is there any relevance to my lecture to those cards you are reading?"

"Well, Professor, the intentionality you're going over has a great deal to do with emotional states. I was considering the differences between infatuation and love," Harry joked. Professor Flitwick occasionally used him to break the class up. It tended to bring the class back into focus, so Harry rolled with it when Flitwick called him out.

"Ten points to Ravenclaw for your cheek Mr. Potter. Good you learn the difference early, judging by your pile," said Flitwick as the class burst out laughing. Sally-Anne chuckled along too, her neck a deep hue Harry had never seen before.

Harry kept reading until he got to a familiar name, Susan Bones. He arched an eyebrow; this was the last person he expected to be sending out cards to boys. Very unlike her. The card was completely in Susan's style though.

"Potions buddy! Just sending a friendly card for my good friend and reason for my good potion grade. Happy Valentine's, YOUR LOVE,

Susan Bones"

Harry noticed the 'your love' part was in someone else's handwriting and chuckled. He was keeping this to torture Susan with. When he looked over to Susan, Hannah Abbot winked at him and gave him a thumbs up from right next to her. Susan was too busy focusing on the lecture to notice.

# # #

Just after lunch; Neville, Tracey, and Harry walked outside along the lake towards their spot on the grounds. The lake completely froze over sometime in December, and the trees had formed icicles. The definition of a winter wonderland, only magical and near a scary foreboding forest.

Neville shivered, and came to a halt. "Harry, it's freezing."

Harry rolled his eyes and blew some hot air at him using his wand. Tracey was alright, though he didn't see the stone he had gotten her for Christmas, so he did the same for her. The two of them looked haggard and it had been a negotiation to get them outside.

"Did we want to avoid Valentine's or not? Come on, we've gotta keep our image as the unpopular cool kids," Harry complained about their reluctant attitudes.

Tracey moved beside Harry and took his arm. "You could go back Neville. Harry and I will go to our spot, on Valentine's Day, alone, together." Tracey looked up at Harry, their eyes met, they communicated wordlessly.

"True. Neville, you could go spend your time with Hermione in the library if you're too cold—on Valentine's, alone, together." Harry nudged Neville slyly.

The whites of Neville's eyes seemed to expand in panic. Were he a horse, his mouth would have been foaming. "N-no! I'm g-good! Not cold at all. Hermione is so busy, I wouldn't want to bother her!"

Tracey linked arms with Neville, putting herself in the middle of the two boys and steering them in the direction of the lake. "Good! Let's go!"

They walked arm in arm until they came to the spot where Harry had built up the firepit. Tracey and Neville gasped. Where they would have been expecting a ring of stones under a sheet of snow, instead there was a small domed earthen shelter with a chimney sticking out where the firepit would have been.

"It's not much, only enough room for five. For now, at least. Want to see the best part?"

Harry took out his wand with a flick of his wrist and began to wave it as though he were conducting. The earthen shelter sank slowly into the ground, leaving only the original firepit in place. The roof of the shelter was indistinguishable from the ground from which it came.

Neville walked to where the roof had sunk and stomped, only to hit solid ground. Tracey walked over to the firepit and examined it.

"Can you sink it with people inside?" she asked.

"Yes! But if you have a fire going, smoke will come from the firepit. I haven't found a way around that," Harry bit his thumb in concentration.

Harry flicked his wand again, the ground churned upwards, knocking Neville off-balance. Neville scrambled away as the shelter rose in a cloud of dust. Tracey slid down the domed structure. It was only as tall as a human adult, with an entrance half that size.

"Harry! This is amazing!" Neville said as he crouched to look inside.

"Just torches a ceramic floor, and pillows…" Harry grumbled, "Let's go in."

They entered one at a time. Inside was a decent sized space for them to sit and little else. It was like the inside of an earthenware vase, with a firepit in the middle. He hadn't tried space expansion or anything else on the structure. Instead, he focused on keeping it a secret space first and foremost.

"Harry, this level of Transfiguration-" Tracey said with wonder and a hint of worry with a pillow in hand.

"It's fine."

"It's fine Tracey. We knew Harry was advanced. This could be done by a third-year," Neville said laying down comfortably on the other side of the pit.

Tracey glared at Harry, ignoring Neville's comment completely. She sat down in a huff and took out a book with her name on it, his Christmas present. Harry rolled his eyes and took out the other copy.

"However much you reveal, I know you're further along. Be safe Harry," it read.

Harry wrote back, "It's misleading. Don't worry Trace."

They closed the books, and put them away before Neville noticed. Harry hadn't told him about Tracey's present. He didn't know why, it just felt wrong to let Neville in on it.

Harry circled the fire, putting himself on the other side of the room. Neville and Tracey sat up in attention from across the fire, which crackled and sprayed embers upwards, it cast an eerie shadow.

"I've been laying a secret plan for the summer. Tomorrow is when it all comes together. I'm telling you this because I don't want you to look for me. The crowd of the first Hogsmeade trip after Valentine's is going to be huge. I plan to use that to slip out."

"Do you want us to help?" asked Neville.

"Yes." Harry nodded. "I need to prepare before curfew. Tell them I didn't feel right. Have it seem like I'm avoiding Valentine's Day to make it more believable. Tomorrow, I might need you to distract whatever teacher is guarding the exit."

# # #

Hours later, Neville had to go to History of Magic class, Tracey left with him. Harry lowered the shelter into the ground as he watched them disappear into the distance. The second they disappeared he sprinted towards the Whomping Willow, a large pack in hand. He dodged underneath the flailing branches and slid into where the map had said there was a tunnel entrance which lead to the shrieking shack.

"Lumos!" Harry's wand lit the tunnel as he ventured forth.

As the end of the tunnel sloped upwards, it came into a boarded-up room with broken furniture and glass everywhere. Everywhere that stains didn't touch, the dust did. Harry threw the pack down while snapping his wand into his hand. The pack opened and a tent began to take shape in the center of the room where the pack once stood.

"Part one, down," said Harry.

# # #

The next day Harry woke as early as curfew would allow him. All of his roommates were asleep. Today was the day his elaborate plan bore fruit. Forgetting breakfast, Harry sprinted through the halls to get to the statue of the one-eyed witch. Luckily it was close, and with how early in the morning it was, he encountered nobody.

"Dissendium," he whispered to the statue. The hump opened up and Harry jumped down into another passageway. At the bottom of this passageway though, a bubbling cauldron of grey viscous liquid and some empty vials. Next to them was an open pouch with more seemingly empty vials and some potion ingredients, but if one examined closely, they would find small bits of hair in those other vials. The cauldron was Polyjuice potion, the recipe Harry had obtained from the restricted section.

Harry added one more ingredient and stirred, when he was satisfied, he dressed down to his underclothes.

"Hopefully this is enough Polyjuice even if I'm on the shorter range." Harry meticulously filled the empty vials with the potion, having just enough for six vials. He had purchased the ingredients when he separated from the Davis's in Diagon. Unfortunately, the proportion of the ingredients was all wrong, meaning he'd only had one shot at the potion. Polyjuice ingredients were available publicly, but the whole recipe was very restricted.

After stoppering five of the vials, he opened a hair vial and with a pair of tweezers placed one of the hairs into the remaining open concoction. It turned into a scarlet color and fizzed happily. "Mr. Davis doesn't look half bad… bottoms up!" Harry raised the vial to his lips after a toast. The Polyjuice tasted like cinnamon soda. It took everything for Harry not to gag in surprise as his eyes watered. Harry's skin began to bubble uncomfortably. He raised his hands, it appeared as if bugs had gotten underneath the skin and were crawling. Everywhere they went, his hands grew and changed. Then his vision through his glasses became dizzying and he was forced to awkwardly take them off, mid-change. Harry fell to his knees from the disorientation.

When the process had finished Harry stumbled up straight and grabbed his wand from the ground. He had gotten fancy new robes for just such an occasion. With a wave of his wand the robes grew in size until they were just right.

"Tempus!" The time read 6:20. The timing could not have been more perfect.

# # #

The form of Robert Davis made its way out from behind a barrel in the Honeydukes cellar. He walked up the stairs into the main store which was preparing for the day still. As he opened the door, Harry made himself feel sick by hyperventilating, his face turned red and then green as he pretended to trip his way through the door.

"SIR! We aren't open yet, what were you doing in our cellar?" yelled a pudgy older woman who was using her wand to fold chocolate on a floured surface behind the counter.

"Apparition accident. Many apologies, may I use your floo?" Harry put his hands to his knees in feigned sickness.

"Not splinched are you?" She put down her wand and ran over to Harry, putting a hand on his back. "Do you need me to bring you to Mungos? Of ALL THE DAYS!"

Harry pushed his hand out to keep her away as he bent over. "No, no. Not necessary. I'm just all nerves from the near-miss. This is so embarrassing." He stood up and took a breath.

"Here, take some powder. On the house." The older woman held out a box full of floo powder and gestured towards the fireplace in the back of the room.

Harry took a handful after straightening himself out and smoothing his clothes, and threw the powder into the fireplace.

"Ministry of Magic!" he called out.

# # #

Harry did his best impression of Mr. Davis as he attempted to glide out of the floo. He had naturally good reflexes and balance, but his poise left much to be desired. The ministry opened before him to a giant atrium. Gilded fireplaces ran down the length of it, at the end a massive fountain showing all sorts of magical creatures centered around a wizard holding a wand high into the air. The floor and walls were polished black marble, leading up to a white marble and azure ceiling. Harry took stock of everything, and centered himself.

He refused to let the awe show on his face, any suspicion must be avoided at all costs. Only one or two people loitered around the atrium, exactly as Harry desired it to be. The crowd Saturday after Valentine's so early in the morning was slim. Mr. Davis would also not come to the ministry on Valentine's weekend unless it was an emergency. Harry's shoes clacked on the marble, making far more noise than he was comfortable with. His charm hadn't quite gotten the shoe sizing right; now they were digging into his heel hard. It was difficult being graceful with mis-fit shoes, but the pain kept his focus.

He strode into the elevator, barely managing to catch what floor his destination lay. Following behind him, a fat woman dressed similarly to Tracey's grandmother, if she had been hit with a spell to turn all of her clothing pink. An attendant in the elevator nodded to Harry with a smile, and looked ready to say something, but was silenced by the appearance of the woman behind him. The attendant looked just out of Hogwarts.

"Mr. Davis, Madam Umbridge," the attendant greeted, "What floors then?"

Harry could feel his heartbeat in his neck. "Department of Transportation please."

"The first floor, of course, Minister's priority if you would," the woman commanded with a nasty smile in Harry's direction.

Damn! Damn! Damn! Of all the people, a potential enemy and someone who ran into Mr. Davis every day! He wasn't trying to create problems for Mr. Davis, this could be bad.

"Robert, you look downright displeased to see me. Sneaking in on a day off, people might think you're-up-to-something," Umbridge said in a sing-song voice as she grabbed onto a golden strap that hung from the ceiling. She was taunting him, he couldn't draw attention to himself, or take risks with Mr. Davis's reputation or job. The first floor should be the minister's office. He froze, there was nothing he could say!

The elevator lurched downwards and then sideways catching Harry by surprise. With his changed proportions and lack of knowledge about the crazy elevators, he was thrown to the floor, bashing his knee.

"First floor!" the attendant called out, "Mr. Davis? Are you alright?" the attendant reached out a hand when he saw Harry in the form of Mr. Davis sprawled on the floor.

Umbridge stepped out of the elevator laughing as she flipped her hair. "My goodness, such suspicious behavior. Have you been in the drink? I'll be looking into what you're up to in the Transportation Department Robert, mark my words."

Harry's mind raced; he couldn't very well follow through on his plan. Even if he succeeded it would put all the blame on Tracey's father. He wasn't willing to go so far.

"Let being Undersecretary get to her head she has," the attendant grumbled, "twat. Never liked that Delores Umbridge."

Then, like a floating beacon of hope, Harry saw movement out of the corner of his eye. It was a hair, floating slowly to the floor. He snatched it from the air greedily.

"Kid, is there anything monitoring the elevators or Ministry Atrium? For security purposes?" Harry asked carefully, grabbing the attendant's hand to help himself up.

"It's Umbridge's word against yours, I won't say a word about your stumble Mr. Davis," the attendant reassured as he patted Harry's robes for dust.

Harry couldn't help but appear shocked. Completely lacking in security. No wonder they said a children's school was the safest place and they rely on goblins to keep their money safe! He took a vial of Polyjuice from out of his robes and threw the hair in as the doors closed. It turned a sickly green color, Harry pinched his nose and downed it, all in front of the attendant who stared at him open-mouthed.

"Confundus!" Harry pointed his wand at the defenseless attendant boy, it hit with more force than Harry intended. Doing the spell at the same time as he was changing form to Delores Umbridge was taxing.

"Where am I? What happened?"

Harry turned his robes an awful shade of pink. He didn't bother to change the form; her fashion was terrible enough for him to get away with it. The attendant opened his eyes and rubbed his head from his place on the floor.

"You just saw Robert Davis stumble drunkenly," said Harry, "Now take me to the Transportation Department this instant! Minister's Priority!"

"Yes ma'am," the attendant muttered.

# # #

Harry came out of the lift as Delores Umbridge, Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic, and bitch in pink. All Harry knew was that she abused her power and was enemies with Mr. Davis. His plan was coming together more perfectly than even he had anticipated. It cost him an extra Polyjuice, but it was worth it.

Papers flew into the lift, but the lift attendant stood there with a slightly blank expression. Harry felt a little guilty, but reassured himself that Umbridge would take the blame if anything went wrong. Any memory he would have of Mr. Davis would be thrown out worst case. A slight bit of memory work, and he would remember Delores Umbridge just having cast a Confundus at him.

Copying Delores Umbridge's haughty demeanor, he stomped towards his final destination. The floor was a maze of cubicles and offices in what looked like a boring muggle office… awful carpet and all. The difference being flying papers were moving around on their own initiative and some kind of overgrown plant had taken over an office to Harry's immediate right.

"Transportation" read a sign to Harry's left. He followed it until the narrow office floor gave way to cheap orange tiling, which opened up to a room of four windowed booths. As Harry entered the room, the booth furthest to the right lit up.

"Ma'am, can you hold on? We're busy with the apparition testing. We have to get these portkeys preapproved just in case another student makes it across the country by accident. It'll be a fifteen-minute wait," said a bored-looking middle-aged woman who was completing a crossword at the booth.

"Ahem!" Harry pretended to clear his throat.

The blood rushed from the woman's face. "D-D-Delores! How can I help you?!"

"I have a squib great-aunt in need of services…" Harry trailed off as he examined the crossword maliciously.

The woman at the booth threw the crossword under where she was sitting in a hurry. "W-we can do whatever you need, right at her address, no problem!" she squeaked.

"I suppose I must complete some elaborate paperwork," Harry made an exaggerated sigh.

"No! Not at all, Madam Undersecretary, you represent Mr. Fudge in these matters! Anything you want requires no further approval!" The woman was wild-eyed in her desire to please.

Harry narrowed his eyes dangerously. "Nobody needs to know about this family matter."

Squibs were often a source of embarrassment for wizarding families. Keeping a squib secret was not unheard of, and especially not in political types.

"No! You weren't even here! No paper trail, whatever you want Madam Undersecretary!"

# # #

Sweating profusely, Harry made it back to the Atrium as Delores Umbridge. The risk was being seen by Delores Umbridge. The benefit was, heading to Diagon as Mr. Davis was previously the riskiest part of the plan. Plus, he didn't want to waste precious Polyjuice. Before anything else could go wrong he grabbed floo powder and threw it in a leaving fireplace.

"Diagon Alley!" Delores Umbridge's grossly high-pitched voice echoed out.

He popped out of a public fireplace on the Alley, across from Gringotts. The crowds were enormous even this early, Valentine's Day weekend was huge for the stores. Mrs. Davis's tea shop would be insane no doubt.

The Undersecretary could not be seen too widely. Thanks to the summer escape, Harry knew Diagon Alley like the back of his hand. He ducked into an empty alleyway which would end at Nocturne Alley, very few would come through this way, and even less would cooperate with the Ministry.

The first thing he did was discolor his robe back to black. The next was to cover himself completely in a cloak from out of the bag he kept on his side. He had no desire to appear as Delores Umbridge, but he wouldn't waste a Polyjuice turning back. At most, he would have to wait twelve hours, just barely enough time. Considering his inexperience, Harry expected he may have only hit the minimum threshold of an hour, meaning he was due to change back at any moment.

He slid back into the packed street, slipping into the crowd as he had become accustomed to during the summer. He needed to prepare multiple contingencies, some as Delores, others as himself. If Dumbledore caught on to Harry Potter's appearance in Diagon Alley, all the better. The loopholes of the use of underage magic flew through his brain. Potions, most magical transport, and some innate abilities. He had the end of the escape plan, the problem was ensuring he could leave Privet Drive under threat of Uncle Vernon, and without setting off the trace.

From what he gleaned off Dumbledore's chat with Tom, the wards at Privet Drive would recognize his proximity. Also, no ward was infinite, it depended upon magic of some kind. His lack of proximity might damage the ward over time. Dumbledore was overworked and careless, if Harry checked the box once, it would give him far more lead time. Then, there was the possibility of someone else being sent to watch him. Harry grimaced from under the hood.

At the end of the summer, Harry took an enormous sum of galleons from his account. They remained in his trunk, another sticking point. To escape with his trunk without alerting people watching him, and sneaking from a house with a maniac Uncle who could just as well lock him and his things away… Difficult.

The first place he walked into was Gambol and Japes joke shop. If anything was allowed to be used by underage wizards, it would be the items of a joke shop. In all his time on Diagon, Harry had never visited the joke shop. The shop loomed over the alley with its obnoxious multicolored building, and a laughing animated head on the top, twice the width of the building. When Harry entered, a clown horn went off instead of a bell. It echoed through the almost empty and quiet store. None of the young children, below Hogwarts age, even glanced up.

Harry took to scanning the shelves, searching for anything which might be useful. There were fake animated snakes and spiders, not useful. A joy buzzer with magical stealth, not useful. Then he came across it, conciliatory candy. It was perfect.

"Make your prank victims unable to muster the slightest anger with this conciliatory candy."

Uncle Vernon wouldn't be able to resist an apology dinner, the candies were filled with calming droughts. He would assume Harry was trying to get back into his good graces, back into his pretend prison of scraping by. Unknowingly disarming the man's ability to get after him for a night. He would buy the calming droughts and candies.

Next, he needed something for any watchers…

# # #

He came to the end of the Alley, his form returned.

The Leaky Cauldron's chimney smoked heavily with activity; Harry smiled. Tom was doing well then. His old bedroom in the Leaky Cauldron was home, where not even Hogwarts was. The short time after revealing himself was the happiest period of his life. He stepped into the Cauldron, feeling like a stranger in his own hometown.

Tom was busy preparing for the day behind the bar. The Innkeeper barely had time to look up to see Harry's cloaked form.

"Please tell me that ain't who I think it is," the innkeeper muttered aloud.

"Ah, crap. I knew coming here was a risk," Harry said grinning, removing his hood to reveal his face, scar covered by Tom's birthday present.

Tom looked left and right in a hurry, but there weren't many patrons before the lunch rush, and the drunks from last night didn't react. Harry took a seat at the bar.

"I can't promise I won't say anything to Dumbledore this time," Tom warned.

"That… sucks." Harry swiveled in his barstool as if he didn't have a care in the world.

Tom whispered roughly, "You're trying to run away again, ain't ye?"

"From Hogwarts? No," Harry nonchalantly replied, "I want to borrow your floo powder, and ask if Dumbledore has asked you to coordinate with someone besides Mrs. Figg."

"This ain't right. What are you up to Harry? They don't sell floo to kids, but that wouldn't stop you," said Tom as he leaned forward with a frown.

Harry smiled warmly. Tom was sharp, and better at reading people than even Dumbledore.

"I wanted to let you know that I'll be okay Tom," Harry said. He felt discomfort in his chest. Tom was the first adult Harry felt he could rely upon without deceit. And now he was playing games with the man.

Tom stiffened, staring Harry down. "Fine! Borrow the powder for all I care." He held up his hands in defeat. "If Dumbledore asks, I'm telling him. Don't come back unless you're in real trouble!"

"And if I ask who Dumbledore asked you to coordinate with?"

"So help me kid." Tom clenched his fists in frustration. "Mundungus Fletcher and Arthur Weasley. Okay? Mundungus is a seedy bloke, but don't you be messing with Arthur Weasley! He's a good man! Can't afford hard times neither."

He felt anger come over him. The sonofabitch could stalk and imprison him, but he couldn't fight back? Lots of good men getting in his way lately! Harry grit his teeth. He wanted to send a howler at the bastard Weasley. And then go over to Mundungus and threaten him away!

"Do you ever run into them? I'd like to pass on a message," Harry said.

Tom threw a cloth over his shoulder. "You sure? You're good at hiding it but I saw murder pass through your eyes kid. Maybe you don't want to say something you'll regret."

Harry took a breath. He still wanted to say something, but Tom's care for him calmed him down.

"Tell Mundungus I'm the last enemy he wants to make. Warn Arthur Weasley against listening to Dumbledore on this, and tell him to expect my owl." Harry hopped off the stool he was on. "It was good to see you, Tom."

Harry grabbed a handful of Floo and threw it into the empty pouch he had kept for Polyjuice ingredients. Then he took a final handful and threw it into the fire!

"Zonko's Jokeshop!"