Chapter Six: Lord Darkbane
A number of years had passed since Harry had defeated Lord Moridane. Harry had since become extremely well known and was often called on for help from other wizards and witches. In the past, Godric Gryffindor had usually been the one called upon to help fight Dark wizards or to provide counsel to magical communities who wanted to protect themselves. The ailing Founder had begun to defer these requests to Harry. Soon these requests began coming directly to him.
Harry, known to the magical community as James Darkbane, was soon regarded as being a power to be reckoned with. He did his best to help out when needed, but often was frustrated as this consumed his time and kept him too busy to make significant progress in finding a way back to the future. On the other hand, he couldn't deny that what he asked to do needed to be done.
Harry's only consolation was that though nearly twenty years had passed since he had arrived in the past, he had yet to age a day. He still appeared to be only sixteen years of age, though he had long since taken to wearing clothes that made him look older and more dignified. Sometimes he used glamour charms to age himself so that he would be able fit in more comfortably with his older peers.
His duties at Hogwarts also kept him busy. He was still an extremely popular professor among his students. He still only taught the first years and second years but had gladly switched to teaching Charms and Defense rather than Potions and Transfiguration. As Godric got older, Harry also found himself occasionally teaching the older Defense classes as well.
He also found himself privately tutoring the occasional student on the subject of Defense. He was always glad to do this because he reckoned that they would leave Hogwarts when they got old enough and lessen the demand for his help from magical communities. Many of these students went on to be great and powerful wizards. This proved to work out and Harry soon found himself with enough time to make progress on his time travel studies.
Travelling to the past proved easy to learn, once Harry had found the appropriate spells in the ancient texts he had acquired. Unfortunately, there didn't appear to be any established way for travelling to the future. Harry had concluded that he would have to learn the theory behind the time travel spells he had thus learned and see if he couldn't manipulate a new spell to get him to the future.
More time passed and Godric became quite frail. Godric had insisted on Harry continuing to wear Hufflepuff's yellow jeweled ring, even after Moridane's death. This, combined with Godric's trust of him put Harry in a position of leadership, power, and trust where he soon became the one who managed the day to day business affairs of Hogwarts so as to spare Godric the exertion.
This was a positive thing for the school. Harry wasn't necessarily the shrewdest administrator, but he did have a foreknowledge of what would come to pass in the future. He was thus able to make many arrangements, implement several policies, and make important decisions that benefitted Hogwarts in the long run.
One action that Harry proactively took proved to be extremely beneficial for the school. In the past, ownership and dominion was established by those who conquered. Harry knew that in the future, things would change and the government would only recognize ownership by those who could produce documentation. He also knew that it would be important for Hogwarts to have a clear status with regard to how much power the magical government had over it.
Knowing this, Harry approached the fledgling Ministry of Magic and Wizengamot. By invoking Gryffindor's and his own influence, calling in favors, and also by using a bit of coercion, Harry was able to officially establish that Hogwarts and its property was independent from the Ministry and gained a certain sort of protected status for Gryffindor and himself.
Harry did not stop there. Though Hogwarts was in Scotland, Harry approached both the King of the Scots and the King of the English in secret. Harry performed a few favors for them and in return, they signed some very bizarre treaties with him. The King of the Scots granted Gryffindor a title of nobility and ownership of all the land Hogwarts was on and near. The King of the English guaranteed the same should the English ever gain greater prominence over the Scots in any way.
Godric Gryffindor thus became a lord. The ailing Founder was quite proud of this and it seemed to energize him to a small degree. Harry had primarily accomplished that for the sake of Hogwarts, but he was extremely pleased to see that it brought a smile to the Founder's face.
Lord Gryffindor did not live to enjoy his title of nobility for very long. During an especially harsh winter, he finally succumbed to old age. The term was not supposed to end for another week, but Harry sent the students home for the holidays while he mourned. He felt as if he had lost a father.
On the January day on which the holidays ended, Harry found himself in his office contemplating his future. He had levitated one of the chairs from in front of the fireplace to a position in front of the opposite wall which was almost all windows.
Evening was approaching, and it was snowing. Harry supposed he would have to look after Hogwarts for a time. It wasn't that hard. He didn't suppose that he'd have to do much more than he already was doing. There was nothing else to do. He wasn't able to travel to the future yet.
He looked down at one his hands. On it was three rings. Gryffindor had known that his time had come. He had handed over his own Founder ring and Ravenclaw's to Harry, pleading with him to keep them and Hogwarts safe. He also told Harry to keep looking for Slytherin's ring and reminded Harry that it was all right if he travelled to the future as long as he kept the rings safe.
Harry had accepted and given the old man his final peace. Now, it was weighing down on him. What would it be like to return to the future with the rings? What would he have to do? Dumbledore probably already had everything under control.
That caused him to wonder. Was he now the Headmaster of Hogwarts? Gryffindor had never called himself Headmaster. He was just one of the people who had founded the school and was naturally in charge of things.
A small cough abruptly startled Harry. "If you please, milord," a house-elf addressed Harry, "everyone is awaiting you in the Great Hall."
Harry turned his head and stared at the small house elf. "Pardon me?"
"The teachers and students are gathered in the Great Hall for a feast that we house elves have prepared. They're waiting for your arrival to start," squeaked the small creature.
"Thank you for informing me," Harry said absently. "You can go back to what you were doing or have a rest. Do whatever you've a mind to." The house-elf would probably go and find some work to do. Harry reckoned it didn't matter as long as the house elf was happy.
The house elf beamed at him and then disappeared.
Harry supposed he would have to go down to the Great Hall. He didn't understand why they were having a feast. Everyone was usually too tired to do very much by the time they returned to Hogwarts after the holidays. Harry wasn't against food, though.
He soon found himself outside the main doors to the Great Hall. They automatically opened to admit him, one of the consequences of his wearing the Founder rings. As soon as he walked in and was noticed, the students stood and began to cheer and chant. "Dark-bane Dark-bane!"
Harry was shocked. What was this all about? He quickly made his way to the table for professors and found his fellow teachers who were also standing, but clapping instead of cheering. There was only one chair open. It was the center one where Godric had formerly sat. It wasn't the same chair though. It was high-backed and painted black. Having no choice, he took a seat.
This seemed to be a signal and the students stopped cheering and sat down. One of the other teachers remained standing and started giving a long speech about how Harry would be a fine Headmaster and that the students were extremely lucky. By the expression on the faces of the students, it seemed apparent that they agreed.
Harry decided that he needed to find a way back to the future soon. At least his friends wouldn't act like he was some sort of spectacular wizard when he didn't feel like he was one. The speech soon ended, and the Great Hall was again filled with a great deal of cheering and applause from everyone. Thus commenced Lord Darkbane's reign over Hogwarts.
~!~!~!~!
Hermione, Ginny, and Ron had doubled their efforts in the Lord Darkbane research effort. In return, they had soon been able to conclude that the Hogwarts library simply did not hold any information regarding Lord Darkbane. Hermione and Ron had developed a great deal of interest in the subject based on the information that Snape had shared at the Order meeting.
Ginny had doubled her efforts because she had begun to believe that the Lord Darkbane possibility might be a dead end with regard to searching for Harry. She was hoping to quickly establish once and for all whether there was a connection so that they could move on to better possibilities.
The anger and annoyance that Ginny had felt for Ron and Hermione was still there, but Ginny had opted to shove it aside and ignore it. They were all working for the same thing and Ginny supposed that it would be easier for everyone involved if she would just let a few things slide.
At Hermione's urging, they were on their way to Professor Dumbledore's office to report their progress and tell him what they thought needed to be done and to get permission to do it. "Let me do the talking," Hermione told the two Weasley siblings.
Ron and Ginny rolled their eyes and shared a rare look of mutual amusement for their common friend and made comments to the effect of that they would let her do the talking as usual.
They were soon discussing the situation with Professor Dumbledore and as planned. Hermione was speaking. "The library here is primarily focused on magic and magical theory," Hermione explained. "There isn't very much history and a complete lack of primary sources."
"I see," Dumbledore said slowly, looking at each of them over his spectacles. "Are you saying the search is over then?"
"Not at all," Hermione responded. "The Ministry archives have a great deal of material that may contain information on Lord Darkbane. As I understand it, many of the pureblood families feel that it gives them status to have their personal papers donated to the Archives. If Lord Darkbane was the Headmaster of the chief magical school in Britain for nearly a hundred years, surely there are people who knew him personally and far more that knew of him."
Dumbledore nodded his head in agreement. "You are of course completely correct, Miss Granger. In addition to that, the record kept by the house elves indicated that Lord Darkbane was often at odds with the Ministry. This would surely be recorded in the Ministry archives as well."
Convincing Professor Dumbledore that it was necessary to search the Ministry Archives was no problem. The difficulty arose when it came to determining whether Ron, Hermione, and Ginny should go themselves. Dumbledore wasn't eager to see them miss any classes. Luckily for them, the Ministry archives were open on Saturdays for a number of hours. Professor Dumbledore agreed to let them go for a visit on the next Saturday provided that they were caught up in all of their classes.
In the days leading up to their first visit to the Ministry Archives, Hermione visited the kitchens a number of times to refer to Hogwarts THE History for dates and possible names of Lord Darkbane's contemporaries. A closer study of what the history had to say about Lord Darkbane did not shed much light on him other than revealing that he had been an outstanding and proactive headmaster. Hermione was quite impressed with the foresight Lord Darkbane had displayed in making some of his decisions.
The day to visit the archives soon came and they met Mr. Weasley in Professor Dumbledore's office. Mr. Weasley had been chosen to escort them to and from the Ministry Archives.
"Thank you for coming today, Arthur," Professor Dumbledore said warmly. "I realize that you must have things to do, so perhaps you can drop them off at the Archives and arrange to meet them at a specific time for their return."
"That sounds fair enough," Arthur said cheerfully. He turned to the three teenagers. "What time shall I come along to pick you up?
Hermione quickly specified that closing time would be perfect.
They soon found themselves at the Ministry of Magic where Arthur promised to meet them by the fountain when it was time for them to leave. As it was a Saturday, hardly anything was going on. The lift took them down to the entire floor that composed the Ministry Archives. They found the archives nearly abandoned except for a middle-aged man who served as an archivist. They soon got his attention, and he vaguely instructed them on how to find what they were looking for, taking no interest whatsoever in their subject.
Because Hermione was familiar enough with libraries, his lack of attention didn't hinder the three teens in the least. It took her only a few moments to discover that they had to look through a special card catalog that had an entry for each person mentioned in any document, book, or record.
She was soon thumbing through the aforementioned catalog with Ginny looking over her shoulder. Ron had wandered off and was looking at a special display that had been set up nearby showing various types of armor.
"Darkbane, James," Hermione said, reading aloud from one of the cards. "Do you think that this is the right one? I don't remember the Hogwarts history detailing that his name was James."
"It's the only Darkbane in there," Ginny pointed out. "I doubt that it's a very common name."
Hermione quickly agreed with Ginny, and they removed the card from the catalog. There didn't appear to be anything on the card, but as soon as Hermione tapped it with her wand, a list composed of several hundred entries began scrolling down the page. Further taps of the wand either froze the list or accelerated the speed at which it scrolled.
Ginny was excited, but Hermione more so. "Ron!" she exclaimed. "Get over here, we've found a ton of references."
They were soon writing down all of the call numbers for each entry on Lord Darkbane and splitting them into three sets. They presented these lists to the archivist who didn't seem especially thrilled at having to retrieve so many things. He soon set them up with a few of their requests to keep them occupied while he pulled out the rest from the vault.
Some of the documents were very exciting, others proved to be a waste of time. For instance, after searching through the diary of one wizard who had spent the summer working for an apothecary, Ginny was disgusted to find a single entry concerning Lord Darkbane. "The Hogwarts potions master ordered supplies to replenish his stocks. The order was authorized by Lord Darkbane, so I charged it to the Hogwarts account." The diary nearly found itself thrown across the room as a result of Ginny's disgust.
Other entries proved to be rather amusing. One witch wrote in her memoirs, "My boyfriend was in a rival house at Hogwarts. Thus, it became necessary for us to meet secretly lest our relationship be discovered. The Astronomy Tower was the ideal location. Unfortunately, we soon discovered that in response to reports of excessive love making on the Astronomy Tower that particular week, Lord Darkbane had assigned Peeves to stand watch at night and equipped said poltergeist with a self-filling bucket of ice cold water."
Ron was laughing out loud at hearing that. Hermione and Ginny disapproved greatly. "You wouldn't find that so funny if you were the one getting ice water dumped on you," Ginny informed Ron.
Hermione was particularly annoyed that a professor could be so cruel and irresponsible. She was in for a further shock from another document that Ron found. The document revealed that Peeves had taken up residence in the Hogwarts castle on direct invitation of Lord Darkbane.
Ron and Ginny agreed with Hermione that it seemed that Lord Darkbane was rather extreme. However, Ginny's private opinion was that there was hardly a better way to deal with misbehaving students than setting a worse behavior problem on them.
Before long, the time arrived for them to return to Hogwarts. Mr. Weasley was waiting for them at the fountain, and they were back in Professor Dumbledore's office shortly after that. Mr. Weasley bid them a good evening and left them alone with the aged headmaster.
"Did you discover anything?" he asked them.
Ginny had been the best at keeping track of everything useful they found, so she answered first. "We found bits and pieces here and there where wizards and witches mentioned small things about him. It appears that he was the sort of person that most people kept their distance from. We found more things detailing how people were affected by what he did, but not so much of them speaking to or seeing him directly."
Ron and Hermione agreed that was what the sum of their information was so far. Dumbledore told them that it was a good start. He reminded them that the important thing was to see if anyone mentioned the magical objects in which Voldemort was interested or if there was any record of Lord Darkbane crossing paths with a lone time traveler.
They committed to being more specific in their research the next Saturday and it wasn't long before they were back at the archives. They continued to find the same sort of things and were soon becoming rather frustrated. It was Tonks who picked them up from the archives the second Saturday, and she offered to take them to Diagon Alley for some ice cream on the way home. They were soon discussing how things were going with her.
"I'm beginning to get the impression that no one ever saw Lord Darkbane's face!" Ginny declared. "There's so much information on him, but he still seems completely anonymous to me."
Hermione piped up and expressed her personal regrets that they had not developed photography earlier. "I bet we could have learned a lot about Lord Darkbane by just looking at his picture."
"Have you looked for a portrait of him?" Tonks inquired.
"Magical portraits weren't especially popular until later," Hermione said. "Lord Darkbane lived during the time of the Founders and there aren't contemporary portraits of them either. From what we've found, I would venture to say that it would be pretty difficult for a painter to get near Lord Darkbane anyway."
They were all silent for a moment, but Tonks spoke up again. "I've just remembered that one of my friends from Hogwarts is an historian attached to the office of the Minister of Magic. If Lord Darkbane was the Headmaster of Hogwarts, surely he crossed paths with the Minister of the time."
"I don't see how he could avoid it," Hermione agreed.
"I'll talk to her and see if she has access to anything that is more useful than what you've been finding." Tonks promised. "It can't hurt."
Ron, Hermione, and Ginny were not especially hopeful that anything would come of that inquiry as they had previously met with a lot of drudgery, but they were agreeable to letting Tonks inquire so long as she was discreet about it.
On the Wednesday following, they were summoned to Professor Dumbledore's office shortly before dinner. Tonks was there and looked quite excited. Dumbledore was looking more lively than usual, too. "I've hit pay dirt!" Tonks announced to them. "My friend looked up Lord Darkbane and you'll never guess what she found."
None of the three teens could guess and Hermione impatiently urged Tonks to hurry up and tell them.
"A pensieve memory!" Tonks declared.
"Since when does the Ministry keep those around?" Hermione asked.
"They don't," Tonks explained. "This case was special. There was a hostile takeover of the Ministry from within. One of the Minister's undersecretaries decided that he wanted to be Minister, and he used one of his memories to prove to the Wizengamot that the man he wanted to replace was a fool. The memory is labeled 'Minister Smythe confronts Lord Darkbane.'"
Ron, Hermione, and Ginny were all excited. "Did your friend view the memory?"
"I don't think so," Tonks said. "I told her that you might want to come in and see the memory yourself and she said that would be all right."
They immediately turned to Professor Dumbledore to ask if this could be arranged. He smiled at them and assured him that everything was already taken care of. "Tonks has set up an appointment," he told them. "Generally this sort of thing isn't accessible to the public, but her friend is willing to bend the rules as long as you come at a time when no one else is around. You'll have to go directly to the Ministry after your last class on Friday."
Tonks soon had to leave. Ron, Hermione, and Ginny were quick to assure Professor Dumbledore that they hadn't fallen behind in classes. Dumbledore was pleased, but not surprised. He then gave them detailed instructions about viewing the memory.
"The words exchanged between Darkbane and Smythe are probably irrelevant," he told them. "The primary opportunity you will have is to see if there is any basis of fact behind the magical objects he was rumored to posses. When Darkbane appears in the memory, try to check his hands for the three rings and see if you can find the hourglass that he supposedly carried on his person. Then try to assess whether there is anything special about them."
The three of them left Professor Dumbledore's office in high spirits. The next two days of classes passed slowly for them and it seemed an eternity before Tonks picked them up and took them to the Ministry near closing time.
They were escorted into the Minister's offices without any serious problems, though they nearly ran into Percy Weasley, who always stayed late. The friend of Tonks seemed especially anxious that they not be discovered by him or anyone else.
Ron, Hermione, and Ginny were soon ready to peer into the pensieve bowl which already had the memory in question swirling about.
"I took a look right before you came," Amy, Tonks's friend, told them. "I sure wouldn't want to be on Lord Darkbane's bad side. Why were you researching him?"
Ron and Hermione looked at each other but Ginny spoke up casually. "It's just a stupid history project. Everyone else got the good subjects."
Amy seemed to accept this and displayed sympathy for them. "Just hop on in. Tonks and I will stay out here and wait for you. I'm afraid that it isn't a very long memory. I hope it's proves to be helpful for your project."
"Thanks," Hermione said for them right before they entered.
The memory started, and the three found themselves standing outside of Hogwarts as it had been nearly a thousand years previous. There were several men present and with them was a caged goblin. Two or three of the men seemed to be in charge of the cage while another two or three were dressed in fancy robes. From what was going on, all three teens assumed that the goblin had just barely been caged.
An older woman exited the castle and ran up to them. "What are you doing?" she demanded.
One of the men in fancy robes spoke. "This goblin is suspected of being part of a rebellion conspiracy," he said pompously. "As you know, I take a dim view of goblin rebellions."
"That must be Minister Smythe," Ron commented as the woman and man began arguing.
"You have no right to come here and arrest a goblin!" the woman declared.
The man snorted. "I'm the Minister of Magic; I'll do whatever I feel is necessary."
"We'll see about that!" the woman retorted. "I'm going to go tell Lord Darkbane!" She then turned and began making her way back to the castle.
Minister Smythe sighed and beckoned his two finely dressed cronies to follow him to the castle as well. "I doubt that Darkbane cares," he casually told them. "He hasn't left the castle in years. That woman is going to create trouble, though. We'll smooth things over before we leave."
Ron, Hermione, and Ginny followed everyone into the castle. The woman was standing in the entrance hall with two or three professors having an argument. "We can't let the Ministry get away with this!"
"It's the Ministry," one of the other male professors argued. "I'm sure they're just trying to do their job."
"Arresting goblins from the Hogbottom Forest is fine and well," another one said darkly, "but what if they start arresting wizards and witches from the castle?"
Minister Smythe soon stepped into the fray and made it worse. The argument escalated until some of the professors were even yelling at each other and the Ministry. Smythe and the Ministry officials did nothing to calm anyone and were expressing their opinions just as loudly.
Is one of these people supposed to be Lord Darkbane?" Ron asked Hermione and Ginny.
"I don't know," Hermione said. "Amy said she didn't want to be on Lord Darkbane's bad side. None of these people seem especially scary."
"I think he has yet to appear," Ginny commented.
They continued to observe the heated discussion as various students skirted the small group on their way to classes or other destinations. The argument went on for several minutes until the three teens began to fear that they might soon come to blows.
Abruptly, everyone in the group stopped speaking. They were all staring at something behind the teens. Ron, Hermione, and Ginny turned to face the direction that everyone in the group was looking. What they saw caused their mouths to drop open. It was Harry, and he was standing on the grand staircase.
Ginny was the first to realize that Harry and Lord Darkbane must be the same person. His green eyes that she had always adored were now extremely intense and radiated an aura of power. His robes were black with two large bands of white on each sleeve. Though they were normal, if not expensive robes, he wore them as if they were battle robes. All this told Ginny that Harry had changed drastically, but it was the three rings he wore on the fingers of one of his hands that told Ginny that he was probably Lord Darkbane. It didn't take close examination for Ginny to decide that they were clearly powerful magical objects and not just the cheaply charmed rings the Order had assumed them to be.
Ron and Hermione were equally surprised, but they didn't realize that Harry and Lord Darkbane were one and the same until Harry spoke, ending the silence that had began when the professors and Ministry officials noticed him standing on the staircase.
"Is there a problem?" Harry asked in a soft, intimidating voice that did little to hide his irritation. His green eyes bored holes into everyone's skulls while he waited for an answer.
Finally, the woman who had protested the Ministry's actions first spoke up. "They've arrested a goblin they found in Hogbottom Forest. They claim that the goblin was a part of a suspected rebellion."
Harry turned his attention specifically to Minister Smythe. The expression on Harry's face clearly demanded an explanation, and without Harry having to say anything, the Minister started answering. "We're talking about a goblin rebellion, milord. It's my duty to prevent that for the good of everyone."
"Do you have proof of the goblin's wrongdoing? Harry asked.
The Minister didn't seem to know what to say, but finally found something to say. "Well, he's a goblin."
"You have no right to come here and arrest a goblin, especially when you lack sufficient evidence to make a proper accusation. Furthermore, this is my dominion," Harry said. "I will decide when it is necessary to take action against anybody within my borders."
This made Minister Smythe angry. He began to lose his temper and yell at Harry. "I'm the Minister of Magic and you are subject to the Ministry! For decades you have flouted our laws and done as you wished. It ends here!"
Harry didn't bother to raise his voice. "I suggest you go home and do some research. You'll find that your alleged laws are either invalid or protect me from idiots like you. As for you arresting goblins in Hogbottom Forest, you will no longer be able to do that. From this moment on, Hogbottom Forest is Forbidden to you and the Ministry forever. The magical creatures residing therein have my personal permission to kill you or anyone who enters it with hostile intentions in their heart."
"You think you're so powerful!" Minister Smythe screamed, spittle flying from his mouth. "The Ministry will always be here, but you will not. When you die, I promise you that we'll assume control of everything you once controlled and do what we want!"
Harry's right hand that had been at his side twitched ever so slightly. Suddenly, a wand was in his hand and pointed at the Minister of Magic. He began walking toward the Minister, coming down the stairs slowly. The Minister of Magic started stuttering, but Harry kept walking, his green eyes blazing. The Minister's resolve broke, and he turned tail and ran from the castle as Harry continued to follow at a moderate pace.
Ron, Hermione, and Ginny's eyes had long since become as big as tea saucers as they watched the events. The memory ended and the three found themselves back in the office where Amy and Tonks were waiting for them. "Find anything interesting?" Tonks asked.
"Yes," Ginny answered. Because she had been the one to first realize Lord Darkbane's identity, she'd had more time to come to terms with it.
Ron's mouth was open and moving but no words were coming out.
Hermione's mind worked moderately well under shock, and she managed to speak. "We need to get back to Hogwarts. Professor Dumbledore is going to want to hear about what we just saw."