Author's Note: Thank you so much, livvylane, for reviewing! I will certainly try to keep updating quite quickly, at the very least weekly, usually faster.
Welcome back, everyone! This chapter came slightly later than I intended, because I was conciping the plot of the next six books! The (preliminary!) titles can be found on my profile, to give you a foretaste of what's to come.
"Everything worked just as you predicted it, Ragnuk," reported Gorniak. "One of our Gringotts members, Dudek, killed Susan Bones and allowed the wizards to capture him. The AWA-members we installed in high positions at Gringotts have prevented everyone else from apologizing publicly, just in case. Macmillan reacted with the announcement to take Gringotts under control."
"Excellent! Let them do it! Now we just have to wait. No further assaults, we aren't ready for an open conflict, not before all Gringotts goblins and smiths are behind us. But that won't take long. Soon our AWA, our Anti-Wizard-Alliance, will be an unstoppable force!" said Ragnuk, who was just enjoying raw meat with roots. "I will contact Urguk for the Gringotts goblins, he will certainly join us after this affront. Golod, the chief smith, won't be that easy to convince, because he is dealing with wizards and earning much gold with it. We will have to bribe him…"
"Bribe him? But where do you want to get the money from?" asked Gorniak.
Ragnuk laughed cruelly. "Where do you want to get the money from?" he repeated disbelievingly. "Before Dudek killed Susan Bones, I had him emptying Hermione Weasley's vault. She has been annoyingly deescalating so far, so we needed to turn her against us."
O
Albus was in a very good mood. He had received a letter from his parents, who were both very proud that he had been sorted into Ravenclaw. Furthermore, they wanted to know all about his first classes and reminded him that Hagrid had invited him for tea.
Scorpius was very happy about his letter from home as well. His parents both expressed how proud they were about him being a Ravenclaw. Specifically his father, whose reaction Scorpius had been unsure about, stated that he couldn't imagine a better house for his son. Quentin, on the other hand, hadn't gotten a response at all.
The flying lesson was far less exciting than Albus had expected. They were only allowed to hover a little over the ground, which was of course ridiculous for Albus, who had already been playing Quidditch with his brother for years. Scorpius seemed similarly bored, while Quentin had no problems to stay on his broom, but was highly concentrated and somewhat cramped.
Albus was surprised, however, how well the muggle-borns were doing. Adnan Whitaker sat on his broom as if he had done nothing else but flying in his whole childhood, and Leon Strelka was surprisingly agile in the air for someone that fat. It seemed to Albus, that talent was much more important for flying than experience.
The other lessons were more interesting for Albus. Muggle Studies, which was mandatory for all students since the Second Wizarding War, was taught by the Hufflepuff Head of House, Professor Botwright. It was absolutely impossible not to like her, and the things she told them about muggles were curious enough.
Herbology he found less fun, because he didn't really like to grapple with plants. On the other hand, Professor Longbottom was always nice to talk to. Quentin felt similarly, whereas Scorpius loved the subject and soon became Professor Longbottom's favourite student.
In Defence Against the Dark Arts they learned the Disarming Spell, "Expelliarmus", which Albus immediately could perform without difficulties. Apart from that, however, the DADA lessons were still comparatively boring, as they were only talking about creatures like Doxies or Gnomes. When he asked Professor Smethwyck when they would start to learn duelling, Smethwyck only growled at him to wait for the next year.
Albus' favourite subject by far was still Transfiguration. Thrilled, he listened to Professor Arringtons explanations.
"Modern Transfiguration can be divided into four branches: Transformation, Vanishment, Conjuration and Untransfiguration, in ascending order of difficulty. Transformation is the most common among those. That's also what you'll do this year. It is a form that causes things to actually change from their original state into another or alters the form of them. Transformation has some sub-branches, for example Switching or Human Transfiguration. You'll learn more about that later. Vanishment, obviously, is the art of causing objects to vanish. It's moderately difficult, and certainly much easier than Conjuration. Conjured items are formed by pulling together particles to create the object we desire, essentially opposite to the way in which items are vanished. You won't be able to do that before NEWT-level. Finally, Untransfiguration is by far the most difficult branch of Transfiguration. It has not yet been entirely explored and has still some mysterious aspects. With Untransfiguration you intend to undo previous transformations. Maybe the most gifted among you will learn more about that in your seventh year."
After this, they tried to transform forks to quills. Albus concentrated deeply and imagined the quill, so he could clearly see it in his mind.
"Calamo verto!" he said forcefully, and again he succeeded at the first try. Professor Arrington seemed genuinely impressed by this, as none else was able to complete the task. Quentin's feather had four tips instead of one, while Scorpius' was metallic and silver. Others completely failed to change the form of their forks at all.
Having to practice much less than his classmates, Albus had more free time, which he used, being a true Ravenclaw, to do some additional reading. He went in the library and borrowed some simple books on Transfiguration and Defence Against the Dark Arts. While his classmates finished their regular homework, Albus was practising more difficult transformations and tried out a few handy jinxes and easy curses, like "Rictusempra", "Locomotor Mortis" or "Petrificus Totalus". Sometimes Quentin joined him, whereas Scorpius usually needed a little more time for his essays.
Soon it became clear to Albus that Transfiguration and Defence Against the Dark Arts were his strong suits. He was also quite good at Potions, Herbology and Muggle Studies, even though he wasn't that excited about those. Only in Charms he was sometimes struggling a bit, and History of Magic with the indestructible Professor Binns just bored him to death.
Quentin's skills were much more balanced, he did well in pretty much every subject, although he didn't really like Potions and Herbology. On the other hand, he had a special affinity for Charms. Scorpius loved Potions and Herbology above all, but had serious problems with Transfiguration.
Sometimes, Albus paid the Gryffindor table a visit to see his brother and his cousins Freddie, Roxanne, Louis, Dominique, Molly and Lucy. While he liked the most of them, he had never gotten along with Uncle Percy's daughters, Molly and Lucy. Molly was in her sixth year and still struggled to do simple spells, whereas Lucy, a fourth-year, was the polar opposite and frequently had magical outbursts. Both were mentally more instable than ever, after her mother had died, and Albus avoided their company.
He also got along surprisingly well with the Slytherins. He regularly met Rose und got to know her friends, Phobos Nott and Sebastian Selwyn, who both seemed to be quite nice. Phobos even told him that Leon Strelka was obsessed with the thought to attack him, Quentin and Scorpius, and practised duelling like a dog with Zacharias Myers and Aurora Dindane, his friends.
"Don't expect me to help you, I can't act openly against my own housemates, or I'm their next target," Phobos said. "Be careful, though. I may not be able to warn you in time, so you'd better be prepared. They got really good, Strelka already knows curses that aren't taught until the OWLs."
Albus thanked Phobos and told himself to talk to Quentin and Scorpius about that at the earliest opportunity.
Every Friday afternoon, Albus, Quentin, Scorpius and Rose visited Hagrid. Scorpius had been unsure if he should accompany them, because apparently his father had advised him to stay away from Hagrid. In the end, Albus and Quentin could convince him otherwise, and Hagrid didn't seem to mind at all that Draco Malfoy's son visited him.
"I'd like ter see how your fathers will react when they find out that you two are friends. S'posse they wouldn' mind, nowadays. Don' get me wrong, Scorpius, but your father used ter be quite a piece of work, back in the days," he chuckled.
"An' you ended up in Slytherin, Rose. Don' worry about that. Look at Snape, for example, a great man, after all, and a Slytherin."
Albus, who had heard the same sentence many times from his father, rolled his eyes. Quentin smirked, but Hagrid didn't notice.
When they returned from Hagrid's hut towards the castle, it was already getting dark. Suddenly, a terribly familiar voice said: "Well, well, the pure-blood princes." Leon Strelka was blocking their way, flanked by Zacharias Myers and Aurora Dindane.
"Shit," murmured Albus and whispered to Quentin: "Run to the castle and get a teacher."
Quentin nodded and sprinted past Dindane towards the castle. "Not so fast," laughed Strelka. "Locomotor Mortis!"
Quentin saved himself with a dive behind a tree, and the curse missed him. Albus and Scorpius also drew their wands, and the air was filled with colourful flashes.
"Expelliarmus," cried Albus, aiming at Strelka.
"Protego," shouted Strelka.
Albus was shocked. He had considered 'Protego', the shield charm, to be much too difficult for a first-year. His disarming charm rebounded from Strelka's shield and instead hit Scorpius, who was caught completely off-guard. Quentin took revenge with a well-aimed disarming charm at Myers, whose wand flew through the air just like Scorpius' before and landed in the grass. Clenching his fists, Myers stormed towards Quentin like a madman, but Albus took the chance and hit him with a body-bind curse. Turning around, he saw that Dindane had done just the same with Scorpius.
"Locomotor Mortis," he cried, aiming at her. The jinx hit Dindane with full force; her legs clapped together and she fell to the ground.
"STOP!" thundered a deep, angry voice. Albus, Quentin and Strelka, who were still standing, turned around in unison. Hagrid trudged towards them. "You again," he bellowed at Strelka. "Quentin attacked you yet again, I s'ppose?"
"Not quite, Professor," said Strelka. "Myers, Dindane and I were going for a walk, when Potter suddenly spotted us and blocked us our way. He and his accomplices then started to curse us. We only defended ourselves."
"It was just the other way round," cried Albus, boiling with anger.
"Enough," said Hagrid. "You will now apologize ter each other. If I see something like this once again, we will go to the Headmistress. Now shake hands."
Disgusted, Albus took Strelka's fat hand. Both let go very quickly.
"Finite," said Albus, freeing Scorpius, while Strelka was doing the same with Myers and Dindane. When they turned around to finally head back to the castle, Albus for a second saw a pair of yellow, slanted eyes in the shrubs near the greenhouses. When he looked there again, the eyes had vanished.
O
Harry was sitting in his office and leaned back, relieved. The goblins had accepted their decision to take Gringotts under control surprisingly calmly. There had been no incidents at the official takeover, supervised by the Aurors.
To give them the chance to keep their face, Ernie had negotiated with the goblins about the height of the compensation. Besides, he had called the takeover an "only temporary security measure, until the murders of the past few months are solved."
Of course, the goblins had criticised the Ministry's decision sharply and threatened with economic sanctions.
But, apart from that, everything had been relatively quiet and there hadn't been any real riots so far. Harry put a bonbon in his mouth and sighed.
Suddenly, the door burst open, and Hermione stormed in, so that Harry choked on his bonbon with shock.
"My vault at Gringotts has been emptied!" she shrieked, her hair flying everywhere. "That must have been the goblins, before they left Gringotts. I can't believe it! Those long-fingered beasts! Ernie and Percy were quite right about taking Gringotts. Who knows, whom else they have mugged!"
"Whoa, calm down, Hermione. We'll examine that," said Harry, mildly surprised. "We mustn't lose our head now."
"Yes - yes, you're right, of course. We can't risk an open confrontation," she sighed, "it's very possible that we are dealing with single perpetrators here anyway. But when the public gets wind of this…"
"What do you want to do, Hermione, Fudge things up?" asked Harry. "No, we have made transparency our main maxim when reforming the Ministry."
"If you say so," she groaned. "But above all, we must maintain close diplomatic contact with them. A further escalation has to be prevented at all costs," she added, suddenly being quite the politician again.
"That's the spirit," agreed Harry.
O
"Good morning. Before we start, do you have any questions on the last lessons?" asked Professor Arrington.
Albus raised his hand tentatively.
"Mr Potter?"
"Professor Flitwick told me that my willpower wasn't going to help me much with Charms, Sir. He said it is very important for Transfiguration, though. On the other hand, in the formula we discussed, willpower doesn't appear. Now, my question is: How does willpower influence the effectiveness of a transfiguration, Sir? Is it part of my concentration?"
"Excellent question. Five points to Ravenclaw," said Professor Arrington.
"But, Professor," interrupted Strelka. "He only asked a question - surely you can't award him points for that?"
"I can, and I will, Mr Strelka," answered Professor Arrington. "Five points from Slytherin for interrupting me and questioning my judgement."
Strelka looked as if he had just been cuffed.
"As for your question, Mr Potter," Professor Arrington continued, "there is a defined amount of willpower you have to overcome for every spell you do. The amount is specific for every spell, but it's fixed. Either you have the necessary willpower, or you haven't. There are no intermediate stages. In short, willpower is a basic prerequisite for your spell to succeed; you could just compare it to the need of pronouncing the incantation correctly, if we exclude non-verbal magic. It has no influence on the power of your transfiguration. You shouldn't confuse willpower and concentration, they are completely different aspects of casting a spell. In general, charms require much less willpower than transfigurations, so you shouldn't put too much in those. Please note, that it is very possible to tire mentally, if you put too much willpower into your spell, without need. In Transfiguration, however, willpower is very important; sometimes it's even the main challenge to manage the required amount, so you still shouldn't take it lightly. You will need equally much concentration in Transfiguration and Charms, though your concentration has to be from a very different kind in Charms. In Transfiguration you focus on the result, whereas in Charms the process of creating something is in the foreground. Did this answer your question, Mr Potter?"
"Yes, it did," Albus said happily. "Thank you."
"Excellent. Today, we'll be discussing the Five Principal Exceptions of Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration. The law itself is simple enough: It states that, in principle, everything can be conjured magically, so to say, 'out of thin air'. More interesting are its five exceptions. Anyone knows them?"
Albus raised his hand, along with Quentin, Rose, Phobos and Strelka.
"Mr Nott?"
"Food, money, knowledge, love and life," recited Phobos.
"That's right. Five points to Slytherin," said Professor Arrington. "Of course, you won't be able to conjure anything until your sixth year, but nevertheless it's important to know the limits of Transfiguration. Ms Burke, Ms Patil, my eyes may not be quite as sharp as they are when I'm an American eagle, but I'm still not blind," he added towards Belvina and Pamela, who had been exchanging chocolate-frog-cards under the table.
"Do this once again in my class, and you'll receive detention. Anyway, as Mr Nott was correctly saying, food cannot be conjured. It can, of course, be summoned or even duplicated, with some limits. Why this is the case, cannot be explained. One should simply take it as an axiom. It makes quite some sense however, as conjured objects will eventually vanish. Imagine food vanishing in your body; this could seriously harm you. Please note that it is of course possible to transform any object, for example your desk, into something, which has the form, consistency and maybe even the taste of actual food. You could transform your desk into an animal as well, of course. Eating this 'fake food' or the animals you transformed cannot be recommended, however, as they wouldn't have the nutritional value you'd expect. Instead, you would be left with the nutritional value of your desk."
At this, Pamela Patil shivered theatrically, as if to demonstrate that she was paying attention after all.
"The second exception of Gamp's Law is money. If you conjure or duplicate money, the result is completely worthless. Personally, however, I have doubts regarding the precise wording of this exception. There was already magic when money didn't exist yet, and Gamp's Law may have been found by Gamp, but it's still an inner-magical law. It has certainly not been made by humans, unless magic itself has been created by humans, which I think we can exclude. So how can money be an exception of a law, which already existed when no one even thought of money yet? My solution would be to extend the second exception and include value in general. There are some problems with that, either, but this is a first year class and I digressed way too far anyway."
Albus was absolutely thrilled. Professor Arrington was talking about his own scientific thoughts on Transfiguration. He told himself to read more about Gamp's Law in the library and compare it to his teacher's idea. Inexplicably, most of his classmates seemed to have stopped listening long ago, judging by the glazed expressions on their faces. Quentin, Phobos, Rose and Strelka were still taking notes, but didn't appear to be too enthusiastic as well.
"You can think about that has homework if you want," Professor Arrington continued. "However, for you it is more important to know what Gamp's Law is, to know its Five Exceptions and to be able to explain them, roughly. Life, love and knowledge should be obvious enough; you'll write a two-feet-essay about those three until next week as homework. Class dismissed."
"What do you think about the problem with the money?" asked Albus, while they were returning to the commom room. "Do you think, value is the solution? But everything has a value, after all. How can that be an exception of Gamp's Law?"
"I don't know," said Quentin. "It would be interesting to know the chemical composition of a conjured or duplicated object, though… It can't be the same as the original, because then it would have the same value."
"I have no idea what you are talking about," said Scorpius. "And I understand even less, how you can actually care about that." He knocked with the eagle knocker.
"Imagine, you are in a dark room without doors. How do you get out?" asked the knocker.
"Well?" said Scorpius challengingly towards Albus and Quentin.
"Er..." Albus looked at Quentin, who seemed similarly clueless.
"Tut, tut. Discussing about philosophic, or, as you put it, scientific themes, but not even able to solve a riddle," said Scorpius mockingly. "Stop imagining," he added towards the eagle knocker.
"With the greatest of pleasure, my dear," answered the knocker and opened the door.
"Seriously, how do you know this always so quickly?" laughed Albus.
"Yes, Scorpius, without you, we'd be completely screwed," said Quentin, which caused Scorpius to look a little bit more satisfied.
"Hey, guys," shouted Adnan, storming towards them. "Have you heard? Tomorrow are the Quidditch trials. Are you trying to get into the team? I'll try for seeker!" he added cheerfully.
Over the last years, there had been more and more first-years who were formidable fliers, so the former rule that first-years were not allowed to have their own brooms had been suspended. As they were small and light, first-years were even sometimes seekers for their house.
Quentin and Scorpius shook their heads, whereas Albus nodded eagerly. "Sure! I'll also try out for seeker. Can't wait to play against James! He is the Gryffindor seeker," he said.
"Why don't you try to come into the team, Scorpius? You seemed to be a pretty good flier," said Adnan.
Scorpius blushed and mumbled, "I don't like to be in the spotlight."
"Me neither," said Quentin, covering Scorpius' embarrassment. "Besides, I don't have your talent for flying. If it gets too fast or too high, I get frightened. But I'll be watching you and keeping my fingers crossed, Albus, Adnan."
O
"Welcome to the first council of the Anti-Wizard-Alliance," said Ragnuk. The most high-ranked goblins of Gringotts and the silversmith's were sitting at a huge, round table.
"I am very happy to greet so many new members in our ranks. I think we are all agreeing, that wresting Gringotts from us was the final straw. We cannot accept the domination of the wizards in every sphere of our life. We cannot accept the subjugation of us goblins through the wand-carriers. We cannot accept to be driven permanently underground by our old enemies. This is what the AWA stands for. We have waited much too long. We should have acted long ago… But it doesn't matter anymore. Soon the wizards will do our bidding."
"And what makes you so sure of this?" asked Urguk, the chief of the former Gringotts goblins. "We are still phenomenally outnumbered by the wand-carriers, in total."
"Numbers aren't important," answered Ragnuk. "Our intelligence, thankfully, far outstrips the humans'. Besides, we already have a concrete plan. Harry Potter is the man we have to get under control. As Head of the Auror Office and, more importantly, the 'Boy who lived', he has immense influence at the Ministry and the whole wizarding world. For this reason, we have decided to capture his younger son, Albus Severus Potter."
Many of the goblins at the table murmured surprised.
"He seems to be the most obvious target. He is only a first-year at Hogwarts; once he is isolated from the teachers, he should hardly be a threat. Remember, Harry Potter's greatest weakness is that he cares too much about his loved ones. He would never do anything, which might endanger his son."
"Then, let's lose no time," said Golod, the chief silversmith. "Let's discuss how to capture Albus Severus Potter."
Author's Note: Please review! You are very welcome to ask questions, or tell me if you'd like to see more Albus, more Goblins or more Harry/Ministry. In the next chapters, we'll probably see somewhat more from the Goblins. Every comment is welcome!