Mastermind
by Teddylonglong
All recognizable characters belong to J. K. Rowling, and I am not earning anything by writing this story.
I am not a native speaker of English. Please excuse my mistakes.
COMPLETELY AU! Partly OOC.
It is my story, and I intend to write it the way I want it. If you don't like it, don't read it.
Reviews are very welcome, as they inspire my muse. Thanks a lot to the kind readers who commented on the previous chapter!
At dinner time, Ron told his parents, Ginny and Bill the story of Harry's first appointment with the Queen, and everyone was appalled at the Dursleys' behaviour. "He was even dressed in rags," Ron told them, "and he's smaller than Ginny."
"Why don't you bring him here the next time?" his mother suggested. "That way, I can adjust his clothes for him or better yet transfigure them into something nicer."
"Oh yeah, bring him here," Ginny piped up, causing Ron to stare at his sister in shock.
'Oh no, Harry's going to be my friend, not Ginny's,' he thought and suggested, "I'm going to take him to Diagon Alley anyway. I can buy a new T-shirt and trousers for him."
"Ron," his father spoke up, "that's very generous of you, and I appreciate very much that you've bought something for Ginny and the twins from your own money, but you don't have to do that for Harry. Just take him to Gringotts and tell the goblins to lead him to his family vault. The Potters are one of the rich, old families, and Harry will have a lot of money. He can take some from his vault, and then the two of you can go shopping together."
"All right," Ron agreed, smiling.
"How's the Queen now going to get revenge on the Dursleys?" Ginny suddenly enquired, causing Ron to continue with his story.
"She told me that she'd send two guards to take turns staying with Harry during the five months until he's going to leave for Hogwarts," he quickly explained, grinning, only to add, "They're always going to be with him when he's at home and will stay in front of his room, even during the nights."
"Oh Merlin, his relatives will so like that," Molly blurted out in apparent amusement.
"Too bad that they're most likely going to be muggle guards," Bill spoke up, grinning. "Otherwise, it would be especially fun for them."
"Don't tell Dumbledore about this though, Mum," Ron warned his mother, knowing that she for some reason seemed to like the old wizard.
"We won't," his father promised, sincerely.
HP
Two weeks after he had met Harry for the first time, Ron was allowed to take his new friend to Diagon Alley under the condition that they were both covered with Unspeakable robes.
Ron smirked, as he handed Harry the robes. "They think that it might be too dangerous for us without these," he explained, observing impatiently how Harry put the robes on. "All right then, hold on tightly," he instructed the boy and held his arm in a firm grip, before he popped them both to a side street right around the corner from Gringotts.
"This is Gringotts, the wizarding bank," he explained and told Harry that his parents had probably left him a vault full of gold and other belongings. "You better take your hood off here though, so that they can recognise you."
Harry's eyes widened in surprise at the news, however, he obeyed and followed Ron inside, seemingly glad when Ron addressed one of the goblins on his behalf.
"Good day, I hope that your gold is flowing and your enemies fear you," he told the goblin, having heard from Bill how to efficiently get onto a goblin's good side. "Harry Potter wishes to see his vault."
"Does Harry Potter have his key?" the goblin enquired, causing Harry to shake his head, seemingly shocked.
"Very well, a drop of blood will suffice," the goblin mumbled and motioned them to wait until another goblin came and took them to Harry's vault.
Ten minutes later, they were back in the sunny alley, and Ron led his new friend to Madam Malkin, who happily equipped Harry with a new and fitting outfit.
"We'll come back for robes shortly before we go to Hogwarts," Ron told him. "You might still grow until then."
"Hopefully," Harry commented, seemingly happy with his new clothes.
It was in the early evening that Harry returned to his relatives' home with one of his guards in tow and his jeans pockets full of shrunken objects from the magical world, which he only had to tap with his hand to return them to their full size.
"I suggest that you read Hogwarts: A History first," Ron told him, when they separated. "That gives you a good insight into Hogwarts and the magical world."
"All right Mastermind. Thank you so much for everything. I can't wait to come back here next Friday," Harry replied in clear enthusiasm.
"Me too, bye," Ron replied, smiling under his hood.
HP
One day, Croaker gathered Ron and Sphinx in his office and informed them, "As Zeus told you a few months ago, Voldemort appears to have made Horcruxes."
Ron gave the older wizard a questioning look, and Croaker explained, "To make a Horcrux, he split a part of his soul off, which is then housed in a certain container, so that in case he dies, part of his soul is still alive. This is what probably happened, so right now, his soul is probably searching for a way to get a corporate body in order to once again become a normal human being."
"So that means that according to the prophecy, Harry has to kill him again," Sphinx spoke up, matter-of-factly.
"Well, in principle yes," Croaker admitted. "The problem is that we believe that he could have made more than one Horcrux, up to six, probably."
"And how do we know that, and where can we find them?" Ron enquired, causing Croaker to sigh.
"My colleagues are now looking for them, and in fact they already found one. We hope to be able to locate them all during the next couple of months, possibly before Voldemort somehow finds his way back into the open."
"I hope so," Sphinx added, sighing.
"There's something else that I'd like to discuss with the two of you," Croaker continued. "It's just two more months until you'll be students at Hogwarts, and we need to decide if and how to go on with your Unspeakables training. Is it all right to believe that you're both interested in continuing being Mini Unspeakables?"
"Yes!" The children's affirmative response came automatically and simultaneously.
"Very well." Croaker nodded, seemingly contented. "I shall speak with the headmaster in advance and inform him about the matter. I wish you to come here on three evenings a week, preferably on Monday, Wednesday and Friday after dinner. During these evenings, you will first be given the information from our morning meetings, and then you'll have training with Horus and myself. In addition, you'll still keep up with your visits to the Prime Minister and the Queen, which I have moved to Saturday afternoons. Do you agree with all of this?"
When both children voiced their agreement, he continued, "Seeing that there is that prophecy about Harry Potter and Voldemort, I suggest that you keep an eye on the Potter boy, provided that it's possible, depending on which houses you get sorted in. I suppose that Dumbledore will see to it that he's going to be trained, but if necessary, we have to teach him accordingly. Anyway, I ask the two of you to take care of him without him knowing about the matter."
"We'll do that," Ron promised, quickly. "I know him quite well already, since we've been meeting every week for three months now."
HP
Ten-year-old Harry Potter sighed in anticipation as he readied himself to travel to London together with his guard like he did every Friday afternoon. Until about three months ago, he had been living in the cupboard under the stairs, had barely received any food apart from bread and the occasional slice of cheese and had been forced to wear his fat cousin's hand-me-downs. He had not even been aware that he was a wizard. His relatives had always called him a freak who wasn't wanted by anyone.
Then one day, his life had been completely turned around, when the Queen of all people invited him to visit her. On that occasion, he had learned about magic, had met a boy of his own age who was a wizard like himself, while the Queen herself was a witch, and he had received a huge surprise upon realising that he was in fact the heir of a very old and rich, magical family.
Before he returned to the Dursleys' house, the Queen had assigned him two of her guards to always stay with him in his relatives' house. His relatives had been horrified. They hurriedly had made Dudley's second bedroom available for him, had bought him proper clothes to wear, and the guards had made it very clear that he was to eat three full meals a day.
What made Harry the happiest, however, was the fact that he was able to meet with the Queen and Mastermind on a weekly basis. They told him a lot about the magical world, and the Queen even went as far as lending him a book about some aspect of magic every week. Moreover, they assured him that he would leave the Dursleys and go to a magical boarding school from September onwards.
'I can't wait to go to Hogwarts,' Harry thought, wondering if he would have gotten to know about Hogwarts at all if not for the Queen and Mastermind.
'It's so much easier to travel with Mastermind,' he thought, when he got into the government's car together with his guard. 'It takes an hour for the driver to get us to Buckingham Palace, but if Mastermind was here, we'd be there in a blink. It's cool how he can just pop us somewhere, although he's only ten like myself. I wished he could teach me how to do that,' he thought, longingly, however, knew that Mastermind was not allowed to teach him magic that he had learned with the Unspeakables. 'I hope I'll get to know who he really is when we're at Hogwarts,' he worried, while he absentmindedly observed the landscape flew by on their way to London.
"Don't worry, I'm going to wait for you on the muggle platform at King's Cross," Mastermind promised, when Harry voiced his concerns a few hours later. "Are you up to flying?" he then enquired, only to add, "Today, my older brothers are going to come back from Hogwarts, so my parents and my little sister are going to King's Cross to pick them up. So we could go to my home and fly for about an hour."
"I'd love that," Harry replied in surprise, recalling that Mastermind had told him once that his mother was not supposed to know about him because she might speak to Dumbledore about him, which might get them into trouble. "Are you sure that it's safe though?" he asked, worriedly.
"Of course," Mastermind replied, reassuringly, "and if anything happens, we can just pop away at any time."
HP
Ron loved to fly, and during the last few months, he had been missing his brothers badly, not only because of the entertainment by his twin brothers, but also because he loved it if everyone flew together.
He noticed that Harry eyed the broom with apparent apprehension. "Are you afraid?" he asked, compassionately. "You don't have to. It's great fun." He carefully showed his friend how to mount his broom and take into the air, only to realise that Harry seemed to be a natural flyer. 'He's at least as good as Ginny and me,' he thought in disbelief.
"You're a great flyer," he commended the other boy, when a sudden thought crossed his mind. 'I just hope that he won't get a spot on the house Quidditch team while I end without one.' While he was absentmindedly looking for the Snitch that he had released a while ago, he became so wrapped up in miserable thoughts that he became inattentive and suddenly felt himself losing the grip on his broom. 'Oh no!' he thought, panicking.
"Mastermind!"
While Ron was tumbling downwards, he heard Harry's shout, causing him to realise, 'Yes, I'm an Unspeakable and can pop myself.' Shortly before crashing into the ground, he managed to pop himself to the ground, where he sat down in shock.
'Stupid me,' he thought. 'If Harry's better, then I won't mind. I'm an Unspeakable, and I can do things that others can't.' With that idea in the front of his mind, he felt his jealousy towards Harry vanish.
"Mastermind, are you all right?" Harry enquired in apparent concern, giving him a strange look that Ron dismissed as fear.
"Yes, I'm fine. Sorry for scaring you. I just didn't pay attention," Ron replied.
"Your hood," Harry suddenly said, pointing at Ron's head.
'Oh no, my hood's come down while I was falling,' he realised and quickly pulled up his hood, before he once more took into the air.
Two minutes later, Harry managed to catch the Snitch, and Ron commended him greatly, feeling very happy for his friend that he seemed to like flying and was good at it.
"We can always go flying when we're at Hogwarts," he said, casually, as he put the brooms back into the cupboard. "Let's return to Buckingham Palace. I so love that strawberry cake that they made for us the last few times."
"Yes, their cake is always delicious," Harry agreed, smiling.
HP
Harry readily held out his hands for Mastermind to pop them back to London. 'He looks nice with his red hair and the funny speckles on his face,' he thought. 'Too bad that he always has to wear his hood. I wonder if he's going to wear his Unspeakable robes at Hogwarts, too.'
"No Harry, no one must even know that I'm an Unspeakable," Ron replied, seemingly shocked when Harry voiced his question. "You mustn't talk about it to anyone, do you understand me?"
"I promise," Harry reassured his friend, smiling.
HP
'Harry's really nice,' Ron thought, feeling very happy to have found such a great friend. 'I just wished I could meet him more often.' While Ron spent the whole day in the Unspeakables office together with Sphinx, either training or going on small errands for Croaker or the others, Harry had told him that he was outright bored during the holidays.
"Is there any way we could use the summer holidays to give Harry some training, too?" he once asked Croaker and explained, "Before, the Dursleys used him as a house-elf, but since the Queen's guards have come to stay with him around the clock, he has nothing to do but to read his books."
"We could have him come here every morning after our meeting and teach him Defence and Attack spells," Croaker replied, pensively. "You must not teach him Unspeakable ways of Apparition or Telepathy though. Always remember that he's not an Unspeakable. We can't even invite him to become one, as we'd need his guardian's consent."
"And that's Dumbledore," Ron added, grimly.
"Exactly," Croaker confirmed, smirking. "At least so far. If we find out that he further neglected the boy other than placing him with his atrocious relatives, we might force a change in the guardianship."
"Can you do that?" Ron enquired, wide-eyed, causing Croaker to grin.
"There's almost nothing that the Unspeakables aren't capable of," he assured his Mini Unspeakable. "Before we do anything against Dumbledore though, we should wait how Potter's first Hogwarts year turns out. If necessary, we can still act before the end of the school year. I trust that you keep me informed."
"I will sir," Ron confirmed, before he went to the owl room to send an owl to Harry with the instruction to come to the small park near the Dursleys' house every morning before nine o'clock, as he would pick him up there for training right after his morning meeting from the following day onwards. 'I hope that he'll be happy,' he thought, as he cast the wandless spell at the bird that made it pop itself right to Harry. 'Too bad that I'm not allowed to teach Mum the spell. She always complains that Errol is so slow,' he mused and quickly went to the library to look for Sphinx. 'I hope that she won't mind that I invited Harry here.'
HP
During the following weeks, Ron and Sphinx took turns with Croaker and other Unspeakables teaching Harry. To Ron's relief, they still had much time for their own training, which also consisted of Defence and Attack spells as well as Occlumency and Legilimency.
"It's important that you learn both, although Occlumency is the most important now that you're leaving for Hogwarts," Croaker informed them. "In fact, I've cast a spell at the headmaster that makes him know that you're Unspeakables and will be absent from Hogwarts from time to time, however, that knowledge is buried deep in his mind, and he won't be able to easily access it. You don't want him to actively find out by using Legilimency on you. The Potions professor is also said to be a master Legilimens."
"Won't Harry need Occlumency as well then?" Sphinx enquired in a soft voice.
"No, because I'm going to cast a spell at him that will let him keep everything that he learned here, but buries deep in his mind where he studied during the summer," Croaker assured the Mini Unspeakables.
HP
At Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry, Albus Dumbledore was sitting behind his desk and reached out for the parchment that his deputy was holding out to him with eagerness.
"Harry will attend Hogwarts," he summarized the letter. "Thank Merlin."
"Yes, thank Merlin that he managed to survive his atrocious relatives so far," Minerva replied in an upset tone. "And that they even let him have the letter, even if it was sent through owl post."
"Ah Minerva," Albus replied, leaning back in his seat. "Maybe the Dursleys aren't so bad. You'll see. The child is going to come to Hogwarts soon in any case."
"I believe that we should send someone to take little Harry shopping though, considering that he was raised by muggles in the muggle world," Minerva demanded, causing Albus to let out a deep sigh.
"Oh well, maybe you're right," he concurred for once. "I'll ask Severus to take the boy to Diagon Alley then."
"No," Minerva cut in, seemingly angered. "Not Severus. He already despises the child, although he hasn't even seen him during the last ten years. Please send anyone else. Or I can go myself if you wish."
"I'll send Hagrid then," Albus decided and leaned into the fireplace to summon the half giant.
"Hagrid, tomorrow is Harry Potter's birthday, and I'd like you to go and collect him in the morning and take him to Diagon Alley to buy his school supplies," he instructed the large wizard, knowing that he was absolutely loyal to him.
"Of cou'se P'fessor Dumbledore sir," Hagrid replied, seemingly thrilled at the unexpected task.
HP
Ron felt extremely excited. Today was Harry's birthday, and he and the Queen had thought of a special surprise for the boy. They had invited all children from the old and noble houses, who were going to attend Hogwarts together with Harry and him, to Buckingham Palace for a birthday party for Harry. Croaker had helped Ron to write the invitations and had charmed them, so that no one but the children themselves knew whose birthday party it was. Their parents were only aware that it was one of their future classmates, a member of one of the ancient houses. Even if everyone in Britain's magical world was aware of Harry Potter's birthday, Croaker was a master of his art and had prevented them from making the connection.
"You're coming to the party, too, aren't you?" Ron asked Sphinx, still not sure if she was a pureblood witch.
"Of course," Sphinx replied in clear amusement. "I'll see you there."
"All right," Ron agreed, when they both made their way home to get dressed for the party and fetch their presents. 'I wonder who she is,' he thought in excitement. 'At least I hope that I'll recognise her.'
HP
Harry for once used the fireplace to travel to the Queen's Floo chamber. 'Strange,' he mused. Usually, Mastermind just popped them both to Buckingham Palace after their training in the ministry. However, on this day, he had told him that he had to go home for a while and would join him later.
'Oh well, this is by far the best birthday that I ever had,' Harry thought, recalling how Croaker, Mastermind and Sphinx had congratulated him like people talked to others who were worth their birthdays.
HP
While all eleven-year-old pureblood children travelled to Buckingham Place using their Portkeys, which they had received from Mini Unspeakable Mastermind, 'whoever that was', Albus Dumbledore stared at Hagrid in disbelief.
"Harry has gone to visit the Queen?" he asked, incredulously. "And you believed such a thing?"
"Albus, he didn't. That's why he waited until now for Harry to come back," Minerva spoke up, seemingly impatient. "I'll go and ask Arabella. Maybe she knows where he is."
"Leave it Minerva. It's too late to go shopping now anyway. I'll send Severus in the morning," Albus replied. However, before he could prevent Minerva from leaving, his deputy stepped into the fireplace shouting, "Arabella Figg's place."
HP
The Queen made the children introduce themselves to her and to each other, before she made them congratulate the birthday boy and motioned them to take a seat at the large table for tea and cake.
While everyone was enjoying Harry's birthday cake, which was the largest cake that Ron had ever seen, he let his eyes wander over the girls in attendance. 'Susan Bones, Lavender Brown, Daphne Greengrass, Hannah Abbott, Millicent Bulstrode and Pansy Parkinson,' he realised. 'I wonder which of them Sphinx is.' If Sphinx noticed that he gave the girls a questioning look, she did not react. None of the girls showed him any sign of recognition or other – much to Ron's disappointment. 'Oh well, whoever it is, she has to pretend to not know me well,' he thought, 'just like I had to pretend not knowing Harry. I hope I'll get to know who it is before Hogwarts in any case.'
He was brought out of his musings when it was time for Harry to open his presents, which were piled on a side table. Unfortunately, the Queen had to leave, as she had other duties, however, there were a lot of books and other items, which their classmates' parents had deemed useful for a soon-to-be Hogwarts first-year, so that everyone became distracted very fast.
The best present, at least in Ron's opinion, was the one from the Queen: A Nimbus 2000, the newest broom on the market, which only had been released a few days ago. 'Cool,' Ron thought, smirking at Harry's stunned expression.
HP
When Harry walked to the park the following morning, he felt extremely happy, even though it was raining cats and dogs on this first of August. His first birthday party ever had turned out absolutely amazing. The children were all very nice, no one had called him a freak, he had received many presents, and he had returned to the Dursleys with the impression as if he had already gained a few friends.
One of them was Draco Malfoy, a very blonde boy. He had extended his hand to Harry and asked if he wanted to become friends. Delighted, Harry had replied, "I'd like that" and had spent some time speaking with the boy as well as with the other wizards who had been nice enough to come for his birthday party.
'Ron is Mastermind,' he thought, grinning, as he carried his broom along, hoping that Ron would find a way for them to fly after their training.
HP
At the same time, Severus Snape stepped out of Arabella Figg's fireplace. With a flick of his wand, he cleared the soot from his robes, before he grudgingly made his way to the Dursleys' residence to take the child of his childhood nemesis to shop for his school supplies.
