Author Note
I do need a proofreader if anyone has the time. The next chapter is almost ready to go.
Reviews
Night-Stryder
To start with I'm Welsh, not English. Here in the UK, we have both colleges and universities, when I was educated I left High School at 16 and attended college for a couple of years while still living with my family as the college was local. After that many people go on to university only I didn't. Also, the term college is used in the names of some private boarding schools which is what the canon Hogwarts most resembles. In this story, I call Hogwarts a college because when I was 17 I attended college, but it does function somewhat like a university or a boarding school.
Gforce1000's Rule 34 Economy CYOA V 0.4 - World 1 - Harry Potter
Part 4
Hogsmede. Wizarding World.
Any student could come to the village at the weekend so as to enjoy the village and what it had to offer. This meant that the businesses here mostly catered to the students, at least a couple of days out of the week. Overall this arrangement ensured that the stores and such got enough business to stay open, but not so as much that drove the quiet life seeking inhabitants away as during the week things stayed peaceful and not many students would be around during the holidays.
It was also a nice break from the school as while Hogwarts was an amazing place even it could get boring if you never went anywhere else. I imagined that the students who'd been going to the magical college for years were glad of a break from their studies. Even we first years had quite a lot of studying to do even if there wasn't much spellcasting going on. I wasn't doing as well in class as I would have liked. I was turning out to be an average student, but it was still early days. Had I been surrounded by 11-year-olds I felt sure I'd be top of the class.
According to tradition, Hogsmeade was founded in the 10th or 11th century, around the same time as Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, by medieval wizard Hengist of Woodcroft as he was fleeing persecution by Muggles. Something I'd read about since History of Magic class was something the smarter student didn't bother attending once it became clear that listening to that ghost drone on and on was a total waste of time.
I'd also learned that in 1612 a goblin rebellion took place in the vicinity of the village. Hogsmeade served as the wizards' headquarters during the rebellion. That I'd heard Binns mention before I'd gotten and walked out of the classroom along with the rest of Ravenclaw's first years. The older had warned us about the ghost, but until you'd heard him speak you didn't get how pointless he was.
At the weekends the students frequented the High Street in the village, which contained the named speciality shops and pubs you read about in the books, such as Zonko's Joke Shop and Honeydukes. Otherwise, they wandered on to observe the infamous Shrieking Shack, something Raven and I had gotten around to doing this weekend.
"And that's the Shrieking Shack," I said repeating some information I'd heard from another student "Its suppose to be the most haunted place in Britain".
Which was completely untrue. The Shack wasn't even haunted. It had actually been used to contain the werewolf Remus Lupin during the full moon while he was attending Hogwarts. I wondered if he was still using it or just locking himself up somewhere while under the effects of the Wolfbabe potion, or maybe he ran wild his mind gone. There were supposed to be werewolves in the Forbidden Forest, I wondered if that was true.
"Actually Hogwarts is the most haunted place in Britain," Rachel told me.
I knew that but I didn't comment on the fact, instead, I changed the subject as the shack was rather dull.
"Can I tempt you to a spot of lunch?" I asked.
It was about the right time and my temptation proved to be successful so we headed for The Three Broomsticks which was a popular inn and pub here in the Wizarding World and like in the books/movies it is often frequented by students from the neighbouring Hogwarts.
"Shame it isn't snowing" commented my consort.
Yes, it did seem to be one of those places that should have snow, but while it was chilly day there were no chances of the white stuff falling on today as the sky was very clear.
When we got inside I felt how much warmer the inn is when compared to the outside world. It was also rather crowded within, and a bit smoky, but otherwise clean and welcoming. A mirror behind the bar reflects the cosy atmosphere, and I could see that drinks such as Butterbeer and Firewhisky being served as well as shots of gillywater, tankards of Mulled Mead, glasses of red currant rum, and even more drinks, many of which I'd sample while staying at the Leaky Cauldron and found not to be to my taste.
The Three Broomsticks is owned and operated by Madam Rosmerta who was far too busy to see to us personally, but the pub had waitresses who got around to serving Raven and I before too long. Which was fine as we were in no rush. We had to find seats first and while the pub was crowded it seemed to be as big as it needed to be some sort of magic at play I figured.
"Sometimes I have to remind myself that I'm really here," said my companion "I'm glad you picked this place to start your adventures".
While the Wizarding World had its issues and dangers, as everywhere else did, choosing to come here had made a lot of sense. Aside from its magic being super useful and relatively easy to learn, at least according to Rachel, this setting had many pleasant sights and some of the people weren't too annoying to be around.
"I'll have the Shepherd's Pie with a Garden Salad" I ordered when a waitress found her way to us.
Since I now had such a good body it seemed wise to try to keep in good shape by eating my greens and getting some exercise. I didn't know for sure if the CYOA would maintain my physical form or not. I should see the device for more details, but I worried about using it here as Hogwarts was supposed to do something bad to muggle tech. That might not apply to the device or matter while in the village, but I saw no reason to take risks when I could check over Xmas. I should have paid more attention to the device when I'd got it, but I'd been worried about getting the huge eye's attention. That thing really freaked me out.
Once Miss Roth had made her order, we got to talking about stuff that didn't matter and for a while, I forgot about schoolwork and dark wizards. It was a pleasant afternoon.
(Line Break)
Hogwarts. Wizarding World.
"Fred, George!" I called out.
The two redheaded twins stopped halfway up some stairs upon hearing those words and turned to face me, before making some remark about first years and their cheek because I'd not called them Mr and Mr Wesley. I ignored this as I had important business to discuss with these two 'gentlemen'.
It was actually pretty hard to track down people from a House here at the college that wasn't your own, I mostly shared classes with Hufflepuffs, but outside of meal times I rarely saw those students who I didn't share a common room or a classroom with because the school was just so large and the class sizes weren't that big. I wondered if that something to do with people not wanting to have children while a scary dark lord was running around killing people or if magical people just didn't have lots of kids.
"I want to buy the map from you," I told the young wizards.
They exchanged looks and talked to it each other in the way that only twins could even while not actually speaking.
"What map?" one of them asked.
I didn't know which of them was which, and nor did I care enough to find out. They meant little to me. Perhaps later I would have a use for them, but for now, there was only one thing I needed from them. Other than that they were unimportant to me, well not unless they wanted an investor in their joke shop.
"The Marauder's Map," I said, "Don't bother denying it I know all about it. I even know the real names of those who made it".
They exchanged looks again. Wait, was twin telepathy a real thing in this world? Again this was something to look into at a later date.
"Why do you want it?" one of them asked.
That was not their concern, although the answer should be self-evident as it showed the secret passages and the locations of people within the castle, this would make it much easier for Raven and me to sneak around. Plus there was someone within the castle that I wanted to find.
"How much do you want for it?" I asked, "I have plenty of money".
Since I knew they wanted to start their own business, and because they were older in this timeline they might be looking for an investor. Someone with enough wealth to give the starting capital they needed for the creation of their joke products.
"I don't know," one twin said, "It won't be cheap".
Money didn't concern me, but I resisted the urge to offer a lot of it as they might demand more, or come with more things to sell that I wouldn't need, leading to them bothering me. Best to get this deal over and done with as quickly as possible.
"One hundred Galleons" I was told.
Given the exchange rate, which I had checked, a Galleon was worth between five and six muggle British pounds, depending on the exchange rate, and in 1991 five pounds went a lot further than it would in years to come. Galleons were not actually pure gold, or to be more precise they were but the goblins did something to increase the volume of the gold so as to make them look bigger and more impressive than they really were. This was why no clever person had ever melted them down to sell the gold to the Muggle for British pounds they could use to buy more galleons. So what they'd asked for was about 5 hundred pounds and that was a lot of money for a college student who had to live off his trust fund.
"That's a lot of money," I said, "I can pay in instalments".
They exchanged looks yet again.
"We need an investor for some projects were working on" I was told.
The shop joke shop in Diagon Ally that sounded like something fun to help bring about. My guess was that they would use the gold I gave them to create prototypes for their products so as to create interest in their joke stuff and to start making enough money to rent out space for a shop once they'd left this college.
"How about I pay you an agreed-upon amount at the start of every term" I offered.
My trust fund got added to at the start of every term so as to pay for school supplies and so on. Knowing how much I would have was what allowed me to bargain.
"Okay give me the map," I said once payments were agreed upon.
Clearly, they weren't willing to part with it right now.
"If you can wait a few days we'll knock off some of the price" offered one of the twins" but only if you tell us the real names of the people who made the map".
While I could do that I didn't want them to know that the map was Harry's by right since he was Padfoot's son. I had to handle this carefully. However, they didn't know Potter at this point so perhaps it didn't matter to them but they were surprised when I mentioned James Potter.
Oddly they didn't remark that the man known to some as Wormtail was sharing a dorm with their brother. It might not show Wormtail if he was in Ron's pocket or if he was in his rat form maybe? Hold on didn't he pass Harry in a corridor while in rat form one time? Didn't Scabbers vanish for the most part when Harry had the map? Perhaps he knew some way of hiding from the map, but it wasn't something that worked all the time.
If I got lucky I would discover some of these answers for myself, and hopefully, I could capture Wormtail. That was part of my plan, and I had things well in hand. No sense letting Black suffer if I could so easily get him freed. But this was really only a bonus as what I actually wanted was the possibility of entering Number 12 Grimmauld Place in the future in case I needed to get my hands on a certain locket and getting into the house would be way easier if Sirius Black owed me for helping to set him free.
(Line Break)
Hogwarts. Wizarding World.
Once we'd somewhat settled into being members of Ravenclaw House my harem girl and me, my consort as she wished to be titled, found our way to the Room of Requirement and used it as a meeting place while we looked through the piles of junk the room contained. I didn't know if the room could provide anything you asked for, within certain limits as it didn't provide food, or if it simply used the stuff that had been dumped in her since the school opened to make the rooms you desired, but I suspected that in this version of events it was the later.
My explanation might seem false considered that if required the room could fill itself with chamber pots just because some old man needed to whizz. Only if you thought about it the school wouldn't have always had modern style plumping so once upon a time every teacher and student would have made use of a chamber pot which then became unneeded and had to be stored somewhere. They could easily fill a room.
By looking through the piles of junk Raven and I found the Diadem Horcrux, but since we had no way of destroying the corrupted magical artefact we wisely left it alone. Raven spoke about performing some sort of exorcism in an attempt to get rid of the soul fragment, but that would require some research and this was fine I saw no reason to rush.
You could take things out of the room. We discovered this because we found some valuables such as old watches, loose change in the form of a few sickles and mostly knuts, a few rings, earrings, bracelets, necklaces and so on. The kind of stuff that turns up in lost property and it all might be worth something in trade in this world or another.
Raven and I could have spent a few weeks just sorting through the debris created by a thousand years of teaching people. Most of what made up the piles of junk were bits of broken furniture or otherwise worthless rubbish. By the looks of things, quite a few tables had been ruined by potions eating through the wood and they must have been some nasty potions if the teachers couldn't simply fix the damage.
I found a few things worth keeping such as silver fountain pen that some Muggle-born must have wanted to use instead of a quill. Since there was no actual rule about using quills I figured that the pen would be good even if I could only use it to make my coursework easier to on me. I also found an expensive-looking gold pocket watch. Raven chided me for just taking stuff without checking for curses so I was careful from that point on levitating objects into an empty trunk so that Raven could later check them using her powers.
After leaving the room and re-entering The Room of Requirement had provided us with a training area much like the space that had been used by Dumbledore's army in the Order of the Phoenix movie/book. There was a moving dummy here, which was a piece of magical machinery designed for the purpose of helping a professor to teach Defence Against the Dark Arts. It had a likeness of a follower of the Dark Lord Voldemort and it was bewitched to roll around on its own accord, as such it was an excellent target for those who sought to improve their combat spellcasting.
Judging by the information that was painted on the back of the dummy this device had been produced for Hogwarts by some company that I had never heard of back in the 1970s. Which was when Riddle had been at the height of his power. It made sense that the students would have trained to protect themselves against these dummies at that time, and judging by the state of the dummies they'd seen some action. I wondered how many students had batted this training device around while it was used in many a Defence Against The Dark Arts class.
It seemed likely that sometime after the dark lord's downfall, the dummies had been put into storage, and while I was only making use of one of them for now I imagined that they'd see use again before my time in this world were up as while I needed to help take down the Dark Lord it wouldn't just be me doing the fighting. I should think about starting up something like Dumbledore's Army or encourage Potter to do it so that the students could better defend themselves, but first I'd need to learn to protect myself.
I'd been practising the stunning spell, also known as the Stupefying Charm, or simply as a Stunner for short, it was a charm that stunned the target, rendering them unconscious. This charm was exceptionally useful in duelling, as it could quickly end a duel without causing lasting damage hence it was favoured by Aurors who wished to make arrests rather than create corpses. The spell also had the ability to halt moving objects and the counter-charm to the Stunning Spell was the Reviving Spell something Raven and I would need to learn once we started casting the stunning spell at each other during a practice session.
An important thing to remember about this spell was that the use of multiple Stunning Spells cast simultaneously will amplify the effect. This was particularly useful towards creatures with Spell resistance, such as dragons, trolls, giants and half-giants, but might result in injury for ordinary individuals. Aside from that, it was rather easy to reverse the effects of the spell so I would need something more dangerous when it came to proper fights as I might end up facing more than one foe in a battle.
Another spell I was intent on learning was the Disarming Charm (Expelliarmus) this was a charm that forced whatever an opponent was holding to fly out of their hand. It was common to see this spell used in duels to make an opponent lose their wand. Since most wizards and witches couldn't do much in the way of wandless magic disarming them meant they were next to helpless and from there it was pretty easy to finish them with something more lethal or confine them in some way.
Attacking in a fight wasn't the only thing I was focusing on. I wanted to master the Shield Charm (Protego) this was a charm that protected the caster with an invisible shield that reflected spells and blocked physical attacks as well. Conjurations may sometimes rebound directly off it back towards the caster, or in other cases, may ricochet off in other directions or dissipate as soon as they hit the shield, it was hard to predict which but as long as the spell kept me safe then I'd be happy with it. However, this shield isn't completely impenetrable, as it cannot block the Unforgivable Curses and my dragonhide jacket wouldn't help against them either.
"James, we need to talk about our plans," Raven said.
Since I only knew a few spells I didn't have much to throw at the dummy as such I gave my consort my full attention when she spoke. I'd promised her that I would listen to her advice as she was the head of my harem even if only contained her so far.
"Yes, we do" I agreed.
I began to spread some maps out on a table provided by the room. One was a map of London and I'd highlighted Grimmauld Place, which was a street in the London Borough of Islington mostly inhabited by Muggles. The Black family residence was located at number twelve and in the books/movies it served as the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix.
The second map which I laid out had until recently belonged to some students of this school. So as to activate it I took out my wand, touched the parchment lightly, and then I spoke.
"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good," I said.
At once, thin ink lines began to spread like a spider's web from the point that my wand had touched. They joined each other, they crisscrossed, they fanned into every corner of the parchment; then words began to blossom across the top, great, curly, green words, that proclaimed:
Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs
Purveyors of Aids to Magical Mischief-Makers
are proud to present
The Marauder's Map.
"Since we have no way of destroying Horcruxes, at least not yet we should focus on some of the important events that will happen soon and our plans to change things" Raven was now saying "Those include the Quidditch Match and the Troll incident at Halloween".
To my complete lack of surprise she already had ideas on how to handle both. In case Potter fell off his broom we both needed to learn the Slowing Charm (Arresto Momentum) which was a charm that could be used to slow the velocity of an object. Raven had looked it up and found that it was taught in second-year Charms class, but it wasn't complex so we should learn to cast it now, and given my fear of falling to my death it might serve my owns needs one day, or at least give me some peace of mind whenever I was up high.
"As for the Troll," she said next "That will be tricky".
A Troll was a magical beast of prodigious strength and rather infamous stupidity. In fact, they are so synonymous with stupidity, that they actually have a wizarding exam failing grade named after them. They are dangerously violent and incredibly aggressive, and they engage in unpredictable behaviour, as such, they are often compared to giants. Though often derided as stupid, trolls are obviously intelligent, and somewhat sapient beings. This can be seen in their wielding of weapons as well as their habit of dressing in animal skins, the creation of which requires some tool us. This indicates that trolls are equal to Stone Age humans even if my ancestors at that point probably had more language skills.
"The Hermoine Granger of this world isn't going to be crying in the toilets," I pointed out "She's a grown woman, not a little girl".
Raven looked disappointed in me.
"You don't know much about women" she stated, "and is the Ron Wesely of this world any less of a little git than in the books?".
Given that I'd paid the ginger prat no attention at all I couldn't say that I knew anything about him. So I'd just have to assume that he was capable of making even older girls go off and cry.
"Besides certain moments can be a part of fate" Raven went on to say "She might come late to the Halloween Feast because she was studying in the library or working on a costume. Which are not mandatory so I will not be wearing one".
Studying late in the library so that she missed the feast did sound like something Hermoine Granger would do, and I also had no intention of dressing up even if that was a school tradition. Halloween was a much more serious holiday in the magical world than in its muggle counterpart, at least here in Great Britain.
"And I'd rather not take the chances with her life as Potter might not be in time to save her," Raven said to me "Besides this is your chance to get in good with her. With the Marauders Map, you can track the Troll and get to her first".
Once I'd saved her life I could easily see us becoming close, and once we'd gotten close I could tell her the truth and hopefully get her to sign a contract. Raven would have a much easier time dealing with the troll, but that was far less likely to end up with Granger as my second consort.
"The only problem is that trolls are hard to harm with magic" I was now getting told "and we can't assume you'll get the chance to levitate the troll's club".
Given that adult wizards can have trouble dealing with trolls there was no way someone with mere weeks of magical education would be able to defeat one.
"If I remember correctly trolls are particularly attracted to unpleasant smells, such as Dungbombs" I mentioned, "Perhaps I can lure it away from Granger if she gets into trouble".
Raven liked the idea and suggested that I come with a few plans just in case. So we headed for the library to find out more about trolls. Along the way, I thought about how there were things I'd like to get involved in. Exposing Scabbers as Peter Pettigrew so that Sirius Black would get out of Azkaban was high on the list and should be done soon.
Also, I should prevent the Chamber of Secrets from opening up during my second year, as I didn't want a giant killer snake roaming the halls of my school. However, I did want a fang from that killer snake so that I could destroy Horcruxes. I might have to let things play out and follow Ginny Weasly down there when she was possessed. Then kill the big snake, not so hard to do if the lore of the creature was correct, destroy the book and save the girl so I could have her as a consort as well if I so desired. Something to think more on later.
But first things first, I wanted Hermione Granger for my harem.
(Line Break)
Hogwarts. Wizarding World.
It didn't take me long to find and then learn the Human-presence-revealing Spell (Homenum Revelio) A charm which when cast correctly reveals human presences in the surrounding environment. The spell that I'd needed to learn in order to expose the rat Scabbers as the Death Eater Peter Pettigrew.
Finding the rat was simple enough now that I had the map. The twins had handed it over for the amount we'd agreed upon and had gotten their first payment. I'd gotten the map cheaply all things considered as was one of a kind, and it was worth every knut as I was now able to track everyone in the castle, not in a creepy way, this map would help me keep people safe, and let me avoid annoying people.
People like that bloody ghost thing called Peeves, he'd throw a water balloon that been full of paint right at me and that would have gotten messy if not for Raven's quick spellcasting. As for Peeves, he looked like a little man with wickedly slanted, orange eyes, who dressed in loud, outlandish clothes including a bell-covered hat and an orange bow tie.
Compared to the other ghosts here in the castle, he was more solid-looking, not pearly white and transparent. He was capable of flight and intangibility, like a ghost, but he could also affect solid objects and make himself invisible. Unlike the ghosts, he could be affected by magic, only nothing you could do to him had any long term effects.
Peeves could not be killed despite not being dead, because he was amortal, which was the principal common trait of non-beings. The best-known examples of creatures in this state were Poltergeists just like Peeves, in a book I'd read they were described as "indestructible spirits of chaos", and are known to differ from ghosts in that they were never alive at any time. Boggarts and Dementors were also creatures that were never truly alive to begin with and seemingly indestructible although they could be petrified by a certain monster I knew about.
Knowing where Granger was at all times allowed me to relax about Halloween, and given that she spent nearly all her time either the common room, a classroom, her dorm room, or the library, she wasn't that hard to track. Not that I needed to track her as Halloween was still some weeks away. Hopefully, she wouldn't discover my sort of stalking in the future as most young women found that sort of thing to be a big turn off.
After ducking into an empty classroom I again looked at the map, Pettigrew was no longer with Potter and the ginger idiot, anyone who didn't know who Peter really was could be fooled into thinking that he was a classmate of Potter and the ginger moron, which might be why the twins had never investigated Pettigrew. They never noticed Ginny vanishing off the map in her first year so maybe they simply didn't care about their siblings.
While the animagus did sometimes disappear, he didn't register as a separate person when in Ron's pocket I figured, the rat did sometimes go off on his own. I didn't know why or to where, but given that Pettigrew had helped to make this map it made sense that he knew all the hidden passages and so on. He might be sneaking off somewhere to spend time in his human form, maybe to get food from the kitchens, or just to stretch his little legs.
Whatever the reason he was now coming down the corridor, like he had a few times just before lunch, and I was ready for him.
"Homenum Revelio"
The spell worked and while the rat stayed a rat he was easy to track, and I'd gotten a cage for him, from the Room of Requirement, which contained the lost and damage stuff from the thousand years that Hogwarts had been around. It couldn't provide you with anything you desired, but the sheer amount of crap that had been dumped in there over the centuries ensured that if you needed something reasonable, like say a cage for a small pet, you'd get it.
As for capturing the human in rat form that proved to be much easier than expected back when I'd been planning this as Raven (who I needed to think of as Rachel when there was a chance of someone reading my mind) was still able to tutor me in magic, and while preparing for the troll I'd learned a few spells such as the summoning charm and the repulsing charm in case I needed to use the troll's own weapon against him.
My summoning charm needed some work, but it worked well enough as Wormtail was now realising that something was wrong, and he attempted to squeeze his way out of his cage, and when I taunted the rodent he tried to bite me.
"Ha, despite all your rage you are still just a rat in a cage" I teased.
I'd charmed the cage to be unbreakable, I didn't know if that meant you couldn't break it at all, or if magic could still destroy the cage, or how long such a spell would last as the book I'd found the spell within had been rather vague, so with that in mind, I headed right for a certain professor's office. I had a murderer to expose.
(Line Break)
Hogwarts. Wizarding World.
Since I had the map I knew that the Deputy Headmistress was alone in an office. She wasn't my Head of House, but since she was the transfiguration professor and an animagus herself she seemed best qualified to handle this situation. Rather than go off to find Rachel, who was busy in the library, I decided to keep handling this myself.
"Sorry to bother you while you're working, Professor," I said to the cat animagus "But I think a student is in trouble".
That got her attention very quickly, she did care about her students.
"What on Earth do you mean Mr Twycross, is someone hurt?" she asked.
I laid the cage on the table.
"To be honest I'm not totally sure, Professor," I said while doing my best to look somewhat confused "I was trying out the Human-presence-revealing Spell, and I got an odd result. This rat registers as human".
Which was why I'd chosen this woman to expose the crook as if anyone could force Wormtail into his true form it would be another animagus. Besides, I was fairly sure that she'd recognise him despite him being older as he'd been part of James Potter's gang back in their day.
"I know it's possible to turn a person into an animal and I was wondering if any students have gone missing," I said next "Maybe a student in one of your more advanced classes was trying an advanced bit of transfiguration and it won't wrong".
Animagi were few and far between, and while turning someone into an animal was a powerful bit of magic, it was not impossible for a student to learn and having it backfire was also quite believable. Human transfiguration wouldn't be something we'd even begin to look into while in transfiguration class for many years.
The Deputy Headmistress took out her wand and cast the Human-presence-revealing Spell, which registered Wormtail as a human, by now 'Scabbers' was getting a bit frantic because he knew he would soon be discovered.
"How strange" the Professor was saying before she turned her head so as to address me "You were right to bring the rat to me, Mr Twycross, this could be a student, several have gone missing over the decades I've been here, but they all turned up sooner or later, still it's possible that someone has gone missing recently. We don't keep track of you as much as you might think. After all, this isn't Azkaban".
The Deputy Headmistress opened the cage and levitated the rat out of it before dropping it on her desk.
"Now hold still" she instructed.
I was about to attempt the summoning charm in case Wormtail ran for it, but I didn't need to bother, the head of her house was more than capable of keeping the rodent pinned in place and soon the rat was exposed for what he really was.
"Heaven's above is that you Pettigrew?!" I heard the Deputy-Headmistress call out.
He tried to run again, but I caught him with a stunner before the Death Eater could escape.
"I've been reading ahead," I said to the shocked looking teacher.
Ravenclaw students were known for doing that.
"I'll contact the Aurors," said the Professor after she turned Wormtail back into a rat and put him in the cage "That should secure him into the Ministry can question him. I for one would like to know what he has been doing all these years. He must know that Black is in prison and that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is gone so why was her hiding?".
The dark mark would make it clear that Wormtai had been the enemy, but that still wouldn't prove Black innocent of those murders, it would just mean that they'd think he had a different motivation or Wormtail somehow escaped by turning into a rat. Hopefully, that would be enough for them to reopen his case. As for Pettigrew, he had to be questioned, that was my plan, and since the Aurors were on their way that would be exactly what happened. The fireplace was already being used to call them and the rat in the cage was becoming even more frantic.
(Line Break)
Hogwarts. Wizarding World.
"I made the papers again," I said to Rachel as we sat down for breakfast.
My thinking had been that Fudge would do everything he could to sweep this all under the rug with Black getting a trail sometime soon, but without the public's knowledge. Only someone must have spilt the beans to Rita Skeeter (that person being me) who'd made a very public announcement in the paper. In response to this Fudge had vowed shift action, getting Sirus Black a trail and subjecting Wormtail to the Dementor's Kiss, a death sentence, as it had been discovered that he'd killed all those muggles and betrayed the Potters something that upset a lot of people.
As for me, I was mentioned by name and my previous appearance in the Daily Prophet was repeated, which I felt sure would cause my cousin at the Ministry to finally get around to replying to my letter that I'd sent him over the summer. The paper also let everyone know that I would be getting an Order of Merlin for capturing Wormtail. McGonagall's name was nowhere in the article, and this didn't surprise me since portraying a young wizard as the hero would appeal to her readers more than the truth. Although to be fair she'd told no real lies she'd just omitted a few things.
The award did surprise me. Many years ago an organisation called the Order of Merlin was founded by Merlin in the Middle Ages. Merlin believed that wizards and witches should help Muggles, and, thus, the Order of Merlin established rules against the use of magic on Muggles. As for the award known as the Order of Merlin that was created in commemoration of Merlin and was first given out by the Wizengamot back in the 15th century, but it had nothing to do with helping Muggles.
The Order of Merlin was now an award bestowed upon wizards and witches who have achieved great things for the wizarding world. It had three different award levels: First Class, Second Class, and Third Class. The First Class was awarded for "acts of outstanding bravery or distinction" in magic. The colour of the ribbon for this class was green, which was believed to represent Merlin's Hogwarts house, Slytherin. The Second Class was Awarded for "achievement or endeavour beyond the ordinary, and my capture of Wormtail came under this category.
Finally, the Third Class that was awarded to individuals who "have made a contribution to our store of knowledge or entertainment". The colour of the ribbon for this class was white. Lockheart had one which should clue people into realising that the Ministry was at least smart enough to think that Lockhart's books were in fact fiction, even if they were based on real heroics done by others.
As far as I could tell this award was the wizarding world's equivalent to the Order of the British Empire with the first class being the equivalent to the most senior order: a knighthood. I didn't get a First Class so I couldn't go around calling myself Sir James Twycross, but I figured it would be fun to get people to try.
As often happens with such highly coveted awards, Ministry of Magic favourites seems to receive the Order of Merlin, especially the higher classes meaning the purebloods, more often than one might expect. Notable unworthy recipients include Minister for Cornelius Fudge, who gave it to himself despite his less-than-distinguishable career, the fraudulent Gilderoy Lockhart, the treacherous Peter Pettigrew who at least had his retracted, and Arcturus Black, who was widely believed to have bought it by loaning the Ministry a large amount of gold.
I'd considered refusing the award because accepting it would mean going near Minister Fudge who revolted me because of his actions, but there was a cash reward for the capture of a Death Eater, and more gold was always nice. Besides given the Ministry's incompetence and corruption it was unlikely that they'd reward me for anything else good that I did. Plus Lockhart only had a third class so I'd be able to rub my higher award in his face. Not literally as I'd want to keep it clean.
"Not impressed," said Rachel as she took the paper from me "Get back to me when you've defeated a few more superpowered bad guys".
Perhaps I would.