Chapter 8:
Legal Trap
Edited/Proofread by Demon Ging
Sneaking out of the castle was as easy as ever. Invisibility cloak plus Marauders Map equaled free reign of the castle.
Of course, he was pretty sure Dumbledore now knew of it, thanks to Snape, and likely had a way to fool it. It was only a suspicion because he encountered the old man on the astronomy tower during one of his nightly trysts despite the map showing him in the dungeons just minutes earlier. So yeah, he wanted to avoid the detention-happy headmaster for the foreseeable future. Amused with Harry's antics though he clearly was, his attention also came with a healthy dose of concern and preventative actions for future, more dangerous antics.
Thanks to said headmaster his week had been horrendously busy, between sneaking out to have a chat with the entire centaur tribe regarding their acromantula and bugbear problems, taking Dumbledore's advice to contact multiple solicitors to find out who the absolute best and absolute worst of the lot were—he hired both of them, and his detentions in the owlery he'd barely had time to mail order a money exchange with Gringotts for tonight's antics.
Speaking of.
Tonight's antics were taking him outside of the safety of Hogwarts, beyond Hogsmeade, and out into the big, wide world. So far, he faced no such issues and made it all the way to the Whomping Willow without incident. From there he suffered the indignity of crouching through the tunnel for a half hour and squeezing through a boarded-up window but he was finally in Hogsmeade. A hop and a skip to the property line later, out went his wand arm.
Bang!
"Welcome to the Knight Bus..."
"Yeah that's great Ernie, get me to the nearest muggle city," Harry said, dumping the requisite change into Ernie's bucket with a slight tip.
"Oh hey, Nev—can I still call you Nev?" Asked the offensively pimpled conductor. "And Ernie's the driver, I'm Stan, you right bleeding asshole."
"Right! And yeah sure," Harry said. "And I'll take more of that hot chocolate."
"You said nearest muggle city? Shopping for something you can't buy in Hogsmeade are ye?" Stan said as he poured the hot chocolate into an unlidded cup. "Not to worry we get students needing help with that all the time."
"Righto. Hardware store specifically," Harry confirmed.
"Righto Nev. We'll be there in a bang," Stan told him before banding on the front window. "Hear that, Ernie?! Off to the nearest hardware store. He paid extra so make it a priority."
Bang!
Bang!
Harry stepped out of the Knight Bus seconds after walking in, his head completely drenched in hot chocolate. His mop of hair had soaked most of it up and was now conveniently dribbling it down his face where he could lick up some dredges on his lips.
De-licious.
He was deposited in front of a big white building with a blue strip at the top whose white letters declared it "Highland Industrial Supplies".
Perfect.
"Thanks, Stan, thanks Ern. Expect to hear from me again in about an hour," Harry told the pair.
"Righto Nev. Take it away Ern!"
And the knight bus was gone with a fourth loud bang.
Harry shook his head at the controlled chaos that was the purple triple-decker and turned to enter the hardware store.
Margerie Eldenberry of Leachkin had a rat problem.
Now, normally that didn't bother her much. She just put up with it and went about her day. But when her daughter, also named Margerie, wrote saying she was bringing her granddaughter—also named Margerie—to visit she knew she had to finally do something about it. And so she took the bus all the way into Iverness for the only hardware store open at this late hour.
Her hunt for mousetraps hit a snag when she read the instruction on the bag of the box that detailed how the glue traps killed the rats slowly her heart went out to the poor creatures. Maybe if she checked on them often, she could mercy kill them with a knife? But that could still leave it suffering all night if it caught one while she was asleep.
Her reverie was interrupted when a young man, seemly drenched in coffee, came up beside her to look at the sticky mouse traps. Seemingly oblivious to her existence he mumbled to himself.
"Hmmm. Way too small. Wonder if I can just buy the glue in these things," He mumbled to himself before kneeling down to check the lower shelves for such a product.
Finding none, he took his cart and wheeled around to exit the aisle. Her curiosity getting the better of her she followed him and watched from a distance.
His next stop was the roof sealant section where he collected and compared different buckets of sticky substances. He seemed most conflicted between choosing from wood glue and genuine pine tar, settling in the pine tar.
From there she watched him go down the aisle for industrial cleaning chemicals.
"Meh. I already killed with chlorine gas, so that's already tired out. The people will want to see something new," He said dismissing an enormous container of liquid bleach.
Margerie barely managed to stop the gasp from escaping her throat at the boy's casual admission to murder but kept her composure and continued watching.
He reached for the Ammonia next.
"Let's see, how toxic are you... keep out of reach of children... burning eyes, throat, respiratory tract, and permanent blindness and ling damage? It's a good start," He decided to add that to his cart as well.
Next, he went down the aisle of gardening implements and compared the heft of a pickaxe compared to a shovel. He made a practice swing with the pickaxe before shaking his head and putting it back on the rack. The spade he also tested for swing potential, but the motion resembled somebody striking an invisible person across the face with the broad side.
With a nod and a self-satisfied smile, he added it to his cart.
From there, his shopping list lost all rhyme and reason. He proceeded to add a whole host of seemingly random items to the cart. A two-gallon jug of industrial red dye, a similarly large container of algae remover for ponds, an even larger container of aquatic herbicide, and a toy garden snake he hissed at before adding it to his bag. He then spotted an entire bag with a variety of toy snakes and added that too.
He examined several power-aided tools. The hedge trimmers, the weed wacker, and a chainsaw. He mumbled a complaint that they were all electric and moved on.
"Excuse me, sir?" The boy said, approaching an attendant. "I'm looking for a container for dispersing bug spray, the kind that you can fill entire buildings with."
"You mean fumigation?"
"Yes!" The boy said excitedly with a snap of his fingers. "Do you have any?"
"We have several varieties. What are you fumigating for?" The attendant said as he walked the boy towards the fumigation chemical containers.
"Spiders. Big ones," Said the boy. "And lots of them."
The attendant nodded.
"Right then, I recommend this package. It's not as strong as what you'd need for roaches, but it's also less flammable," Explained the attendant.
"Sooo, this one is stronger and is also flammable?" The boy asked, indicating the other type of container.
"Oh yes. Phosphine can be very dangerous. Flammable and corrosive. I wouldn't recommend it for your purposes," The attendant warned.
"I'll take it," The boy concluded. "There is no kill quite like overkill, amiright? Also, I couldn't find any petrol chainsaws on the floor, do you have any in the back?"
Harry wheeled his shopping art of war-crimes-in-the-making out to the curb and checked to make sure the nosy old lady wasn't still stalking him. Noting that she had fled from the premises to a pay phone, her intentions obvious, he quickly withdrew his wand and cast a confounds on her. Bullseye from 50 meters away, god did he love being Harry Potter. Now he didn't have to worry about the Muggle authorities—only the wizarding authorities he planned to confront today.
With that done he withdrew Sue's gift from his coat pocket. A bag she enchanted herself to work like the tents from the world cup, if not as well. He couldn't exactly crawl into it and take a nap—or maybe he could—he could certainly fit his brand-new chainsaw, pharmacy worth of industrial chemicals, and other miscellany sunk right into the mouth without much trouble. That done he returned it to his pocket and waited for his company to arrive.
The telltale pop of apparition came seconds later.
"Oh hello Aurors. Lovely night to go shopping, innit?" Harry greeted pleasantly.
The pair of red-robed men glanced at each other then back at him.
"Harry Potter?" asked the one on the left as if he couldn't believe he was meeting a celebrity.
"The one and only. Had to do some shopping for the upcoming Triwizard task, wanted to keep it hush-hush, you know?" Harry explained, hoping this conversation wouldn't end in him refusing to sign autographs.
"Well, Mr. Potter, we detected the use of underage magic in this area," The other one interrupted his fanboy partner. "Have you cast any spells this evening."
"Indeed," Harry said without hesitation. "As per the directives of escaping notice from nosy Muggles, I cast a Confundus charm on that nice lady over there."
The Aurors both glanced past him at the clearly confunded old lady who was chewing on a mouse glue trap, and back to him.
"Mr. Potter it is a crime for underage persons to use magic, especially in a highly populated Muggle area. We're going to have to take you in," Said the fanboy Auror with what sounded like an apologetic tone.
"Take me in? That can't be right. As in I'm being detained?" Harry clarified.
They nodded.
"Well then I need to send a message to my solicitors. They'll clear this up in a jiffy," Harry said, before withdrawing his wand and clearly intoning "EXPECTO PATRONUM!"
Dumbledore marched into the ministry holding cells with every ounce of fatigue and annoyment from being woken up and summoned at 10 pm on a Friday night. The one night a week he gave himself to sleep in.
He marched through the security checkpoint, showing them he had no wand to examine and passed an equally annoyed Amelia Bones.
"Regardless of his celebrity status, where does the Minister get off calling us in for a case of underage magic?" Amelia demanded.
"Indeed. I am preferential to allowing students to enjoy a night in the cells when they pull stunts like this, and from what I've been told Mr. Potter didn't commit any crime that cannot wait until the morning to resolve," Dumbledore countered, and he meant every word.
"Then WHY am I here?" Amelia demanded. "If Cornelius thinks he's going to railroad me into pardoning the boy then he's dead wro..."
She stopped talking when they reached the window overlooking the interrogation room. Inside was Harry and two lawyers. Opposite Harry was the single most renowned, and expensive lawyer in the country interrogating him. Malcolm McGonagall. Yes, that one. On his side, defending him, was Hector Slughorn. Grandson of Horace Slughorn, and widely regarded as the worst solicitor in the isles, he was the second best paid. To those in the know, he was paid to throw cases by pretending to be a bumbling fool and was only hired when the state really wanted to nail someone to a cross.
"Mr. Potter, I insist you sign this affidavit admitting to committing the crime. We are more than willing to drop the charges and let you off with community service, with this being only your third offense," Malcolm pleaded.
"Third offense? I've only performed underage magic once in my life: when I blew up my aunt," Harry said. "I don't know where you're getting a second offense, let alone a third. And honestly, if this is the best the prosecution can get, a lawyer who can't even do basic research like that, then I like my chances."
"Okay. I think I see why we're here," Amelia said. "Will you be jumping in to prevent Malcolm from throttling the arrogant little shit or shall I?"
Dumbledore shook his head, realizing quickly that there was more to the situation than he had been told. And what's more, Harry's quip, though throttle-worthy, was completely correct. He planned this ahead of time and for what Albus couldn't tell.
"All right! I tried to save your arse, kid. Enjoy getting expelled and having your wand snapped over something so minor and stupid," Malcolm surrendered, throwing his hands up in the air and fleeing from the room.
The red-faced anger died down a little when he exited to discover both Albus and Emily waiting on the other side of the two-way window, but his expression didn't soften.
"Who hired you Malcolm?" Dumbledore asked without wasting time. "Who is conspiring to have you prosecute Mister Potter while that waste of space defends him?"
Malcolm raised both palms in the air to signify surrender.
"That's the thing Albus. I wasn't hired by some free Death ater or political sycophant of Malfoys," Malcolm confessed. "The boy sitting in that room hired both of us."
...And here Dumbledore was thinking HIS schemes were oft overcomplicated and convoluted.
"What is he playing at?" Amelia asked. "Does he have some kind of persecution complex? Wants to bleed the public dry of pity by setting himself up with such a lopsided trial?"
Dumbledore shook his head. That definitely wasn't it.
"I think he's hoping to lose this case and get expelled in order to be exempt from future tournament tasks," Malcolm theorized.
That would work. But it wasn't in Harry's nature to run from a fight, even—or perhaps especially—one he was forced into. He was in the tournament to stay now.
"Maybe both of those things, combined with the chance to make the ministry of magic look absolutely horrific in the public eye," Amelia
As if he needed to go to these lengths to accomplish that.
"Those may all be side benefits, but I daresay he intends to win. But what he expects to get out of it boggles the mind," Dumbledore confessed. "I see him wanting to clear his name of the Dobby—a house elf," he clarified for Malcom and Amelia," incident that got him his first write up for underage magic. But is that, combined with the chance to humiliate the people he views as his enemy, the people forcing him into these death games and dirtying his name at every chance, really worth all this?"
The door to the interrogation room opened and out stepped Hector, even more jittery and unconfident than usual.
"Oh thank goodness, you're all here," Said Hector. "Listen, I think this kid is off his rocker and quite possibly needs to be interred."
Dumbledore sighed and thanked his brilliant mind for coming up with the idea to do a psych eval.
"And what makes you say that, Hector? Pleading insanity to win your case? Seems like you're jumping the gun a bit, don't you think?" Said Malcolm.
"The boy just confessed to me that he's supremely confident that he can win, and only hired me to make his victory that much more humiliating," Hector explained.
None of them were able to hide the snort of amusement that brought.
"Oh, har har. Well if that doesn't convince you, the kid also ordered me to schedule an interview with a reporter. Claims it will help him win over the hearts and minds of the public."
Ah. So that confirms one of their theories at least.
"And why does that make him a raving lunatic in your eyes?" Asked Amelia.
"BECAUSE THE REPORTER HE REQUESTED IS RITA SKEETER!"
Become a Patron:
NonsensicalRants
- Patrons who pledge 3 Dollars get all future chapters 2 weeks early and a link to the discord server. They also get access to all commissioned works, which is the only source of X-rated scenes from me. I'm not holding them hostage; I just don't want my name tied to X-rated stuff. I keep it PG-13 unless paid to do otherwise. If enough people pay me, I'll become a fulltime smut writer and make it public. Wear it with pride. It's also just not allowed on FFnet.
- Patrons who pledge 10 Dollars get the right to vote on story choices, what story I update next, and access to the source code for my Fangame projects.
Commission Me:
- I take commissions for $20 per 1000 words, less if you provide me with a half-decent outline. I don't just do fanfiction either. I will ghostwrite what you pay me to ghostwrite.
/NonsensicalRants