Hermione snorted again and raised her wand to her throat. "Sonorus." She said and when she spoke next her voice was amplified. "Game! Harry has the snitch."
A few muttered expletives came from the other side of the pitch where Draco and Charlie were stalking something that appeared to not be a snitch, after all.
"Master Harry?" Balin turned to Harry after looking at the other dwarves. "I think I can safely say that very few of our Company are interested in watching you play quidditch and I think that even fewer are interested in playingquidditch."
"Everyone to their own, Balin. Hermione's into books, Lavender's into clothes, Fred and George are into pranks, Severus is into potions, I'm not. Quidditch and teaching are more my things." Harry shrugged.
Harry watched as Hermione and Draco exchanged their marriage vows and bonded themselves to each other for life. His heart filled with joy and peace at their expressions of love and happiness.
"If only Ron were here to see that." Charlie nudged at his shoulder. "He wouldn't be whinging about nasty Slytherins and how heartless they are. Draco's feelings are more visible than a bludger to the face."
Harry snickered. "And wouldn't his father be disgusted with that?"
"Not at much as he'd be disgusted with Draco marrying a muggleborn." Sirius added from behind them.
"Hush." Remus tapped them on the shoulders.
"Sorry, Remy." The three wizards muttered but Charlie nudged Harry with his shoulder again, gave him a cheeky grin and mouthed 'who's next?'.
"Ah, Master Harry? Thorin would like a word, when you've time. We have a few… concerns about the route to Erebor." Balin said after approaching Harry and Sirius, as they sat in the garden near the pavilion's open-air kitchen.
"Concerns with the route? Um…" Harry bit his lip.
"Lavender, Padma and Parvati were dealing with that, weren't they?" Sirius asked.
"Yes, I think they were… Balin give me a few minutes to round up one or more of the girls. What say I meet you and Thorin down by the creek? In say… fifteen minutes?" Harry asked.
"That would be fine, Master Harry." Balin gave a short bow and continued on his way towards the communal kitchen.
By the time Harry had located Lavender and the Patil sisters and gently chivvied them along to the creek, Thorin, Balin and Dwalin were waiting for them. Harry conjured seating for them all and a table for the girls, smiling as Lavender sat between Padma and Parvati and pulled the table towards them.
"Thorin? Balin mentioned you have a concern with the route to Erebor. Lavender, Padma and Parvati are our… travel consultants." Harry smothered a chuckle at the sideways glare from Padma.
"We do, Master Harry." Balin nodded. "It's partially to do with the route and partially to do with the flying issue itself."
"Ah. Should we get Katie, Angelina and Alicia involved?" Harry asked.
"No, Master Harry, it's not about being able to fly but… some of our lads… they're not happy about going so high. We'd have to be… The trees of Mirkwood are oaks, most oaks reach forty feet in height, but the ones there have been encouraged to grow by the elves, they're more likely to be sixty to eighty feet tall. None of our lads… barring Fíli, Kíli and, surprisingly, Ori… are comfortable going that high, not for the length of time it will take to cross the forest. Then there's… convenience…" Balin flushed slightly and avoided looking at the three witches, "breaks to take into consideration. We feel that we need to eliminate the direct route across the forest, as the preferred route."
"Bugger…" Harry muttered, earning himself an absent-minded smack on the shoulder from Padma, who was closest to him. "Alright, what does that leave us with?" He asked the three witches.
"Hmm…" Lavender spread out a map and tapped it in two different places. "Well, we have the road option, but we don't like that option, given that we'd have to either, travel at night or under disillusionment charms the whole way."
"Why?" Harry asked.
"The road is patrolled by the elves. A convoy of thirty-plus brooms, up to ten flying sofas and at least a pair of carpets… It's going to visible, Harry, really visible." Parvati answered and Harry snickered at the image in his mind. "Unfortunately, elves are really good at using bows and arrows. The chances of them firing on us are… bluntly? Over ninety percent."
"Ouch." Harry's snickers stopped and he winced.
"Yes, exactly." Parvati nodded.
"So, where does that leave us?" Harry asked.
"The only other option is going around the forest." Padma answered.
"Around the forest?" Harry repeated.
"Yes, either north or south. Going south is going to make the distance about… a thousand miles to Erebor." Padma explained.
"Oh, Merlin…" Harry whined, and his head fell into his hands.
"Going north is only going to add about fifty miles to the trip." Lavender added.
"Fifty?" Harry's head rose quickly.
"Fifty." Lavender repeated. "We're a little less than that from the most northern point of the forest. If we go north, the dwarves will be able to stay fairly low, twenty feet is still high enough to avoid boulders and trees and the like, but low enough that if they fall, they're less likely to be severely injured."
"That would be much appreciated." Balin put in.
"But what about the elves?" Dwalin asked. "Won't they still be able to see us?"
"Yes, but as we'll have a clear route, we can increase the speed a little. Shooting an arrow at a moving target is hard enough, firing at one that's moving at fifty-plus miles an hour? That's a whole lot harder." Lavender.
"Huh." Dwalin grunted and nodded.
"Besides, we can have Bill put an early detection ward around the scouts' brooms to alert us and send a warning back to the carpets." Harry suggested.
"And maybe a spotter flying higher above the convoy?" Padma added.
"Or have the scouts far enough in advance that they can order a change in direction for the convoy." Parvati suggested.
"Why not a combination of both?" Dwalin asked. "Four, low to the front, about a mile ahead of the main convoy and two spotters that only stays up high for a few minutes. Rotate them out, the spotters fall back to the convoy, two from the convoy move to scout and two from the scouts moves to spotter."
"Time of rotation?" Harry asked.
"Make it… five minutes?" Dwalin replied. "Any longer and they're likely to lose focus. And I also suggest stops every hour, we're not flyers, not yet. Not really." He huffed. "Keeping flights to an hour? That'll give the lads a chance to touch the ground, walk around, have a… convenience break," he didn't flush, but he did avoid looking at Padma, Lavender and Parvati, "get a drink or sommit to eat."
Harry nodded. "That would… probably be a good idea, only five of us have experience at distance flying and that wasn't brooms." He saw the questioning look from Padma and shrugged. "Fifth year, between Umbitch and the DoM, we fly Thestrals from Hogwarts to London." Padma's eyes widened in surprise. "So, yeah…" Harry went on. "Five-minute rotations and one-hour legs. That work for everyone?"
"And keeping the forest in sight? How close?" Parvati asked, as she made notes.
"I think we should be close enough to use the fringes of the forest as cover, if we run into trouble from the north." Dwalin replied. "I dain't like elves much and they dain't like us, but orcs and goblins, they like 'em even less. They won't stand for the beasts to enter their precious forest. Should give us time to get out of the way and back into the air."
Harry and Dwalin exchange a speaking look before Harry nodded. "We can work around that. I'll see if Remus can modify a notice-me-not charm to make it elf or orc targeted as opposed to muggle targeted."
"It's worth a shot." Padma shrugged. "Notice-me-nots were seventh-year stuff but we never covered them at Hogwarts, the Carrows cut anything privacy related from the curriculum."
"Of course, they did." Harry huffed. "Those are some of the main components of the charms NEWT exams."
"We should ask Professor Lupin to cover them, for the rest of the week. That should bring most of us up to proficiency." Parvati suggested and wrote another note on a separate piece of parchment.
"Yeah, the rest of us can help with that. There's almost enough of us to have one-on-one." Harry nodded.
"Brilliant!" Lavender beamed at Harry.
"Great. Anything else?" Harry asked, before answering his own question. "Oh, sofas. Have your dwarves chosen what they'll be flying? Seated brooms, carpets or sofas?" That question was directed at Thorin, this time.
"They have." Thorin nodded. "Bombur and Bifur would prefer to be on carpets, if there are enough of them?"
"There are." Padma replied. "I'll get one put aside for each of them." And she pulled the piece of parchment that Parvati had last wrote on, over to her and made another note on it.
"Thank you, Miss Padma." Thorin nodded and went on. "Balin, Oín, Gloín and Dori would prefer sofas. Or rather chairs."
"That's fine. They'll need to come to the commissary to pick them out." Lavender nudged Padma and nodded to the parchment, Padma handed her the quill and slid the parchment across to her and Lavender wrote down a few words.
"And the rest of us are quite happy on the seated brooms, although… Fíli, Kíli and Ori would have preferred the quidditch brooms. But as you stated that even your people would not be using them, they have resigned themselves to the seated brooms." Thorin finished.
Harry grinned and tilted his head. "Would they be interested in being reserves for a quidditch team? We'll train them."
"Quite probably… But I'd wait until after Erebor is recovered, give Dori a chance to see that Ori can defend himself, if needed." Balin suggested.
"Fair enough." Harry nodded. "So… what else do we have to do before we can leave?" He asked Lavender.
"Boost Beorn's boundary wards. Modify the sofas… or chairs… for the dwarves and those of us that don't want to ride brooms or carpets. You get to explain to Buckbeak what's happening, so he doesn't try and follow us. Dwalin wants to check that we're all up to level with our weapons. The quidditch queens want to test us all on the seated brooms. Frank wants us all to go through the gauntlet again. Miss Sissy wants to do health scans on all of us, seems Fleur is pregnant, and Miss Sissy wants to make sure that no-one else is and that no-one else is ill, either. We need to restock our travel larders. Work out who is travelling where. Work out who's on the scout/spotter rotations schedule and in what order. And pack, of course. Each of us have a trunk, so we can shrink our cottages and put them in the trunks, shrink the trunks and either put them in a belt like you've got, or into a satchel for carrying." Lavender replied.
"That last one should be up to each person. You all know the risks of carrying things in a bag. If you get captured, you may lose the bag. The belt is the safest option, but have we got enough for everyone?" Harry queried.
"Not yet, we don't. But we should have by the weekend." Parvati answered. "Hermione, Justin, Lee, Auror Longbottom, Professor McGonagall and Headley are working on them. Apparently, either the Unspeakables or the Aurors gave Hermione a training memory of how to make them and she's shared it with some of us. Padma and I will be helping them with making some undetectably extended bags, just small ones, but big enough to carry a traveller's pantry, some water and a few personal things."
"Excellent." Harry beamed at the girls. "Who's doing what?"
"Bill and Professor Snape are seeing to the wards." Lavender answered. "Colin, Dennis and Euan will help the dwarves, and us, pick chairs or sofas for the trip. Fred, George, Professor Lupin and Mr Black will do the modifications. You get to explain to Buckbeak that we're going to look at a new territory. The Quidditch Queens are on broom testing. Frank and Dwalin are on weapons and gauntlet testing. Miss Sissy and Fleur are doing the health checks. Everything else? We should talk to Hermione and Draco, she's the one in charge of scheduling and he's the one in charge of the commissary." Padma and Parvati nodded in unison.
"Cool. Do you need me or Thorin or Dwalin for that?" Harry asked.
"It would be helpful to have Master Dwalin and Master Bombur. Auror Longbottom will want to talk to Master Dwalin and Draco will want to talk Master Bombur about supplies." Lavender replied. "But you need to talk to the hippogriffs. They need to stay where they're protected, at least until the dragon is dealt with."
"Ugh… Do I have to…?" Harry whined.
"Yes, you do. Oh, and you need to have a chat with Justin, he's got a surprise for you." Lavender smiled at him prettily.
"Oh, god… What now?" Harry whined.
"Oh, no, this is a good thing. You'll like it." Padma gave him a beaming smile.
"Okay… that's not instilling any confidence in me." Harry warned.
"You come back and say, you didn't like it… and mean it… and I'll make you a treacle tart every day for a month." Padma offered.
"…oohh…" Harry breathed out in a silent exclamation.
"Yeah. You go see Justin." Padma nodded
"Okay…" Harry nodded back.
Harry entered the library building and made his way through to the classrooms at the back.
"Hello?" He called out rapping his knuckles on the doorframe.
"Yes?" Hermione opened the door. "Oh, Harry, hello. What's wrong?"
"Um… according to Padma, nothing. She told me I needed to speak to Justin, something about a surprise?" He grimaced and tilted his head.
"Ah… Yes… Just a moment." Hermione turned to the room behind her. "Justin? Harry's here to ask about He- his surprise. You want to deal with that, please?"
"Sure. I can do that." The Hufflepuff stood up and crossed the room. "Come on, let's have a little bit of a walk. I need to check on a clutch of owlets. They're fledglings that aren't far off leaving the nest permanently."
"Uh… sure…" Harry shrugged.
As they crossed the field, Harry wondered what Justin had in store for him. They entered the tower that housed the owlery, Justin held back his smirk by sheer willpower. Bare seconds after Harry entered through the door there was a screeching sound and a thump as something landed, hard, on Harry shoulder. Harry's knees threatened to fold up under him as nearly ten pounds of something descended onto one of his shoulders.
He turned to look at it and all he saw was a face full of white feathers, before a new sound registered in his ears.
"Hoot!" The deep breathy hoot was intimately fixed in his heart.
"Hedwig?!" He gasped and tears began to run down his cheeks.
"Hoot!" His first and dearest friend hooted and began to preen his hair.
"Hedwig! No! It's messy enough without your help." He uttered the familiar objection and just as familiarly, she ignored him and continued to preen him.