Author notes
I do not own Harry Potter
My English is atrocious... whatever that means.
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Draco & Ginny
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Previous episode of Lies, More Lies and Even MORE Lies
"Giuseppe, I have to tell you something."
"What is it Luiza?"
"Huanito is not your son, he is your... brother!" Cue dramatic music.
In today's episode of Lies, More Lies and Even MORE Lies
"Honey, I'm home!" Draco Malfoy walked out of the fireplace and immediately ducked a Reducto aimed at his head. "At least she isn't using Unforgivables"
Avada Kedavra
"Should have kept my mouth shut." Draco complained as poorly aimed Killing Curse blown up a vase standing on the fireplace.
"I hate you Malfoy!" His wannabe assassin, formerly known as Ginevra Molly Weasley, became visible.
Draco fixed the damage. He thought about sitting but decided against it as it would limit his ability to dodge, rather than that he positioned himself behind large chair that could provide some cover against Killing Curse.
"Weasley, I know you are stupid but even you had to notice that your name is now Malfoy."
"Ha! Who is stupid? You just called me Weasley you idiot!"
"Well fuck. I was calling you that way for nearly seven years, it's hard to change this habit. And you should stop trying to kill me. Doctor said that stress is bad for our child."
Ginevra huffed and sat on the couch still playing with her wand.
"Like you care about 'our' child. If he dies you will be able to divorce me and marry that bint Parkinson. That's what you wanted to do all the time!"
"Oh I do care. Thanks to 'our' little Scorpius my father is securing many alliances with Light sided families. Thanks to Malfoy money Prophet is portraying us as romantic couple forced by two evil men – Dumbledore and Voldemort to fight against each other. Now Dumbledore is loosing his support every day."
"What?! I will tell my father about this! He will uncover your lies!"
"My dear wife, your father was first one to join. Dumbledore promised him part of the Potter fortune, now with it gone he doesn't have reason to support old man any longer. Now your father is supporting Traditionalists as he was before Dark Lord rose to power."
"How do you know that? It was supposed to be a secret... wait, you have been feeding Potter your own potions! That's why he broke up with me! It's your fault you damn bastard!"
"I beg your pardon but I do know who my parents are. Also yes, I tried feeding Potter love potions. As you have noticed this plan to get his fortune has failed."
"But why? You are a guy, no one would believe that you two love each other."
"You would be surprised how many people would love to see the two of us together. It would be so romantic, members of opposite camps during war find love in the arms of the enemy, not only that – they are both same sex! Only more popular pairing is me and that mudblood Granger. But with Potter I could find some stupid law that would force him to marry me due to my Veela heritage, thus giving me control over his fortune."
"Veela heritage? Who are you trying to fool. There is no such thing as a male Veela."
"Dear Ginny, I suspected you are an idiot, but you had to open your mouth and prove me right. How do you think little Veelas are made? Daddy Veela meets mommy Veela and nine months later baby Veela is born. Don't tell me you thought that little Veelas are found in cabbage?"
"No... of course not. I just never heard about male Veela, that's all."
"Well, male Veelas do not have avian forms and allure so it's not surprising that they are ignored."
"So... 'dear' husband, how was your day?"
"Oh, the usual. Some mudblood has taken Black seat and renamed that lordship to White, he then killed Lestrange when that idiot challenged White to a Honor Duel."
"Does this mean that this White guy now has Lestrange seat?"
"Really? You serious? What was your family doing for the past eighteen years? No one explained you how Wizengamot works? And you call yourself a pureblood?"
"My family was ancient when your ancestors have arrived to Britain with their tails behind their legs so do not insult my heritage you half-breed!"
"Now you speak like one of us. No, if Honor Duels gave winner title of the looser people would be killing each other day and night until there would be only one. One Lord to rule them all."
"What happened after Lestrange got himself killed?"
"Dumbledore went into his 'poor man, killed in such a horrible way' only to get shot down by White who asked old man if killing Lestrange in non-horrible way would be alright. After that we went to normal business. With votes my father secured we managed to pass Muggleborn Registration Act. White voted in it's favor, which is quite strange when you remember that he got his seat from Potter."
"Who is this White? Is he handsome?"
"According to father White isn't his real name. He changed it before coming to Britain to unsure that his actions here don't affect his brother's business in America. I only know that White doesn't have proper magical education, he only used two spells during duel. Father will try to secure alliance with him, despite his name White uses dark magic without issues. He finished off Lestrange with a Killing Curse."
"Another dark wizard."
"Oh would you stop that already? Less than ten minutes ago you have thrown a Killing Curse at me!"
"You have no proof that it was me!"
"There was no one else inside!"
"It could be one of the house elves, or assassin, or Lord Nabilius! He broke into Gringotts and destroyed Hogwarts. Breaking into our house should be easy for him."
"Very funny. I know it was you!"
"Can you prove that?"
And so the life of Ginevra Molly Malfoy and her husband Draco Weird Name Malfoy continued.
Next episode of Lies, More Lies and Even MORE Lies.
"Draco, I have to tell you something."
"What is it father?"
"I am not your real father. Your real father is... Dumbledore"
"Nooooooooo!" Cue dramatic music.
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Fred & George
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Inside old muggle bunker located several miles away from Ottery St Catchpole Fred and George Weasley were discussing their finances. The bunker was used to conduct more 'interesting' experiments, the shop in Diagon Alley was very well known place and doing those experiments there could attract too much unwanted attention. True, they were doing some experimenting there but it were harmless pranks, something that was widely accepted and ignored by this point.
"Things don't look good brother."
"I agree, we can't continue spending money like this. The official income barely allows us to pay day to day expenses, no way we can use that for more interesting things."
"True. It hurts me to say that, but our mother was right. Using joke shop as a cover up was not very good idea from the financial point of view. Kids buying our products are limited in their spending by what their parents give them and our jokes are not very popular among adults, especially parents."
"Don't say that. The shop is a great cover for our illegal dealings."
Technically speaking Fred and George Weasley didn't break any laws. Magical Britain had no laws about producing and selling magical weapons or other combat items, mostly because no one ever came up with such idea.
And so two brothers started making magical weapons. Hats that give temporary invisibility, bracelets that create shields and allow person to attack with wand, necklaces that revives person after being hit with a stunner, robes that can survive getting hit by weak slashing curses, wand handles that prevent person from being disarmed, small explosives that cause blinding light, powder to reveal invisible persons lurking around and many, many more. Those items weren't 'weapons' in a normal meaning of the word as it's hard to arm a wizard in a something better than a piece of wood that can kill with two words and some fancy hand waving. It's not easy to be a weapon dealer when every eleven year old kid is armed with a lethal weapon.
"Yes, but it sucks as a legal source of income. Not only that, due to Riddle's death we now do not have an illegal source of income."
"What about this Dark Lord in south east Europe? His name is Gargamel or something."
"He's a small fry. His forces, if you can call them such, are more annoyance than a threat to anyone. He is also broke so no money from him."
"It leaves us with Lord Nabilius."
"I doubt he needs our help. I am quite sure that he either has other sources or his own people make all the things he needs. Not only that, no one knows how to contact him! So we have no way to offer our products to him, it's not that we can put ad in the Prophet."
And another pain of weapon dealers. The government won't pay you, they will simply confiscate your stuff and use it for free. The good guys won't pay you, they will expect to be supplied for free to 'fight against the evil'. This leaves only the bad guys, they usually have money and by default are outlaws so breaking some additional laws (that didn't even exist in Britain) isn't a problem for them.
"This leaves us with our usual clients, but they have no need for our products."
"So let's create a situation when they will need to buy our items. Lord Nabilius stays quiet for now, probably preparing something big. We on the other hand can cause some mayhem in his name, it's not that he can go to DMLE and say 'Hey! It wasn't me who blown up those shops in Diagon Alley!'"
"Those shops like... Zonko?"
"And several others. We would need some mercenaries to attack population, only stunners and some other nonlethal curses. After that mercs can run free and rob everyone around. It should create enough chaos for our clients to return to us."
"Nonlethal? How do we explain that? All other Dark Lords killed as many people as possible."
"And all of them have failed. Lord Nabilius is smarter, he doesn't wish to kill random people, it's hard to rule an empty country. We will tell that to mercenaries and add penalty for causing death during raid. We will have to hire someone outside Britain, local mercs are to dumb to complete such a difficult job."
"I will check our contacts."
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Mysterious Person
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Mysterious Person in black robes and hood over the face appeared from nowhere in the middle of Harry's hotel room.
"Who are you?" Hermione immediately raised her wand but the figure was faster.
Stupefy
Hermione tried to dodge incoming spell but after a year of quiet living and peace she was out of shape. The spell managed to hit her causing her to fall to the ground unconscious.
()()()
15 minutes earlier.
On the other side of the planet on a small mysterious island on not so mysterious Pacific Ocean near quite mysterious Japan a very mysterious person wearing a black robes was watching digital counter.
"Soon the entire world shall be mine! My ultimate weapon is nearly complete! Muahahahahaha!"
On the counter numbers were decreasing.
3...
2...
1...
DING!
The sound spread out through entire compound, Mysterious Person took out a plastic cup from The Ultimate Weapon of Mass Destruction aka microwave oven and looked at it.
"Ah... instant ramen." Mysterious Person ate the ramen and left The Mysterious Laboratory aka the kitchen.
The walls of The Mysterious Secret Base were made of black basalt. The island was created due to volcanic eruption. Rocks under the surface of the sea made it nearly impossible to reach it that way, not that anyone had any reason to try as the entire island was barren. The secret base was build over a decade ago with magic, most of it was underground but some elements like a hidden helipad had to be placed on the surface. The living area was large enough to hold hundred people in comfortable conditions, only limiting factor were supplies. Right now only three people were living there, soon it would be only two. The base was protected by multiple wards, but it's biggest protection was secrecy. It wasn't possible to spot it from air, magical detectors couldn't pierce thick basalt rocks and there were no wards on the surface for them to spot. The base even had a secret underwater dock for small submarines allowing supplies to be delivered underwater with completely non-magical means.
"Hello pumpkin, where are you going?" Mysterious Person was interrupted by a tall blond female.
"I am returning to Britain to join Dark Lord and aid him in his conquest of that country."
"That's so sweet. Don't forget to pack your warm underwear and write to us before your wedding. Daddy would love to meet Harry."
"I'm not wearing any underwear mummy, it would only come in the way when I will be seducing Dark Lord."
"Of course sweetheart, how silly of me. Have a safe trip."
Mysterious Person hurried toward her destination. It was a small room without any kind of furniture, the walls were covered in various arcane runes and drawings, on the floor was a large pentagram surrounded by two circles that had long rune words written between them. Mysterious Person entered pentagram and took out the wand. After many complicated wand movements and long chanting in a language slightly resembling Latin Mysterious Person vanished in a flash of light.
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Lord Castor White
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Harry considered his day quite successful, he killed one ex-Deatheater, pissed off the entire Wizengamot and the Minister. Rest of the Wizengamot session was rather boring, people all over the place were arguing about some new law that required muggleborns to prove that they have at least one magical parent or grandparent, without that they would be denied magical education. The official reason behind the law was that muggleborns without magical relatives are stealing purebloods magic. It was so stupid that only purebloods would believe it,
Harry started reading the law to see what it was really about. After short lecture he found the real reason – money. Ministry or rather their employees wanted some additional source of income and such law would get them one, namely bribes. After muggleborn was denied education a Ministry employee would show up and inform the parents that without magical education the child would probably die, then the employee would show slightly illegal and expensive way to get the accepted into Hogwarts Harry suspected that with access to Ministry records they would make one grandparent a squib thus allowing the muggleborn to receive education or do nothing at all, it's not that muggleborn's parents could go to DMLE with this. The whole 'stealing magic' was justification for Wizengamot members who would love to see muggleborns denied the education at Hogwarts.
Right now fellow Wizengamot wasn't arguing whether or not accept muggleborns into Hogwarts (they agreed to not accept them), but what to do with untrained 'wizards'. Harry almost laughed at their logic – according to them muggleborns get their magic by stealing it from purebloods at Hogwarts, yet now Wizengamot argues what to do with accidental magic done by untrained muggleborns who never visited Hogwarts and by Wizengamot's own logic couldn't even HAVE magic at their disposal.
Harry watched the discussion for over three hours, three hours of constant shouting, bickering and name calling. Three hours and they couldn't reach any decision. Malfoy's faction wanted to keep those muggleborns in special camps where accidental magic would only harm other muggleborns. Dumbledore wanted to leave those muggleborns alone, when they die Ministry will cover up everything with obliviations, just like they did since introduction of Statue of Secrecy. Both factions lacked majority and tried to convince neutrals to their point of view. Usually neutrals would vote same as Dumbledore only to get some money from Dark families to change that vote, now Dark families didn't want to spend their limited supply of money and neutrals knew that. Due to this neutrals could actually vote like they wanted to, the problem was most of them didn't know what they wanted. To be honest, Harry had enough.
"SILENCE." The entire hall become silent as Harry shouted with spell magnified voice, he canceled his spell and continued. "Thank you. Now, I understand that Lord Malfoy wished to create concentration camps for muggleborns. I will tell you something, it won't work. Building and maintaining those camps will be expensive, you have to feed people inside, pay the guards, obliviate ALL muggles that knew about those missing kids and what do you get in return? Nothing. I will ask you Lord Malfoy, who is going to pay for that?"
Many people were nodding, none of them had thought about financial aspect of Malfoy's idea. The Minister was angry as it would be Ministry who had to complete this entire idea and he didn't wish to waste founds on such thing, there were more important things to be done, like replacing tapestries, or chairs, or a new private bathroom for Minister.
"Now, Chief Dumbledore's idea also has this little problem – who is going to pay for that? Please remember that not all accidental magic is lethal, it could be years for those kids to kill themselves. Years during which Ministry will have to cover every bit of magic they do. Right now we have enough obliviators to keep deliberate magic a secret, will there be enough of them to jump all over the Britain many times a day to cover up accidental magic? I ask you again, who is going to pay for that? Chief Dumbledore? I rather doubt it." Harry sat down. Many people liked those ideas... as long as they didn't have to pay for them. Besides being Lords they were working in Ministry or had family working there, this meant that almost no one wanted budget cuts to pay for some elaborate scheme.
"Lord White, you pointed out important issue. The Ministry does not have enough funds for Lord's Malfoy camps, neither we have enough funds to double or quite possibly triple number of obliviators. Unless Ministry receives additional funds from taxes put on Lord's properties and business we have no way to enforce this new law." Mentioning taxes created many angry murmurs. "Quiet please, Lord White, do you have any idea how to deal with our new problem?"
Harry didn't think of that, now they will want HIM to fix everything... he felt like he was back at Hogwarts and there was new monster lurking around and everyone wanted Boy-Who-Lived to kill it... again.
"Well..." He paused, everyone was looking at him. The silence lasted for nearly a minute when Harry came up with something. "Let's make them someone else problem. Hogwarts had recently some problems. It is British best (and only, but he didn't say that) school of magic and due to those problems it won't be able to accept muggleborns. Under this pretext we could send muggleborns to some other country and let them deal with the problem." Many approving murmurs could be heard. "I understand that France might not accept them due to language barrier but maybe some Commonwealth country? Australia maybe? It's quite far away and muggleborns would have problems to return to Britain without using magic."
"That's brilliant! It would take months for a ship to get to Britain and then we could just send them back again or even throw them into Azkaban for breaking this law!" Some person whom Harry recognized as Cedric's father shouted. Harry somehow managed to not bash his head over the the counter. His comment about difficulties meant that it would be difficult for an eleven year old kid to buy a plane ticket!
Harry wanted those muggleborns to learn magic in Australia or Canada because in almost every country outside Europe (and some in Easter Europe) 'Dark' magic is taught at local NEWT level equivalent of DADA. It was major reason for ICW to split in two – 'conservative' and 'Light' countries of the Western Europe and pretty much rest of the world. The countries that have left ICW have formed several organizations which later joined with mundane United Nations, magical side was simply called Magical United Nations. Australia was better choice than Canada or US as it was very dangerous continent and many 'Dark' spells were taught at OWL level rather than at NEWT level like in many other Magical UN countries.
With Harry ideas new law was quickly passed. There was idea to create similar law applying to Hogwarts graduates but it was shot down when someone pointed out that those muggleborns could simply leave Britain and it would have negative impact on economy. Either way from the this year Hogwarts will be free from muggleborns.
After the session Harry spent some time with Lucius Malfoy and Dumbledore discussing his past and future goals. He has told them the story about his past prepared by Andromeda. When asked how he got lordship from Harry he explained that he used muggle detectives to find the boy and after the failed wedding he offered Harry enough money to start a life somewhere far away. Dumbledore wanted to know where Harry went but he told him that he wasn't told that. Harry only said that he has means to contact himself if a need arises, those were purely muggle ways of contact and so Dumbledore didn't even understand what e-mail was. Both men offered Harry place in their political block, but he refused to commit himself to one of them, claiming that he only needs lordship to get lower tax rates for his new business.
At the evening Harry finally returned to his hotel room only to find it completely refurbished. In front of him was large modern looking throne padded with black leather and with silver armrests. The person sitting on that throne was wearing long black robes with hood hiding his or hers face.
"Welcome, young Potter. I have been expecting you." The voice was definitely feminine.
"Welcome mysterious girl who is probably Luna Lovegood."
Harry finally recognized this place, his room looked like Emperor's Palpatine throne room on second Death Star, it explained why Harry saw stars rather than London through the window behind the throne.
"Oh, no, my young wizard. You will find that it is you who are mistaken...about a great many things."
"Quite right, if you are Luna Lovegood then you can't be mysterious girl." Harry walked toward the window to look at the stars, the throne turned around to face him. "How did you do that? Is this real night sky or did you just paint it in black and added some light dots to represent stars?" He asked Luna.
"You should be angered that I have captured your friend and not ask me about refurbishing the room."
"Oh, you mean Hermione? She is my assistant, our friendship ended before our third year when she decided to inform Albus Dumb Ledore about everything I did."
"But you could at least play along. Please? Pretty Please?"
"Fine. Oh no, you have captured Hermione. Please do not hurt her." Harry's fake concern could be heard even by very thick people like Ronald Weasley. It caused Luna to chuckle. She then stood up facing Harry and removed hood covering her face.
"You are no fun. Tell me Harry, why are you not in Japan."
"Because I am here?"
"Why are you here then?"
"Because I am not in Japan?" Luna blinked several times and looked at Harry with wide open eyes.
"That's not fair, you are not supposed to use my logic against me!" She waved her wand and room returned to it's previous state.
"Why are you here? I thought you have left Britain for good."
"Isn't that obvious? You didn't come to Japan and because of that the entire bathtub of cream and several bowls of strawberries was wasted. I do not want to hear any excuses, it took me most of the day to prepare new cream and get all the strawberries... again. Remove those clothes so I can properly seduce you."
"No offense Luna, but I heard that relationships based entirely on sex do not last long." Luna dropped her robe onto the floor revealing her entire naked body. "On the other hand you have very convincing arguments to try."
"That's great, I have Hermione chained and gagged inside the bedroom, I hope you don't mind her joining us. The poor girl probably never had any good sex before."
"Luna, do you know she has spent nearly week working in a brothel?"
"Of course I know, that's why she never had any good sex. Why do you think so many purebloods have only one child?"
"I have no counterarguments to that."
Rest of the evening... and night... and morning was spent on very strenuous activities. The tree of them left the bedroom around evening after couple hours of sleep.
"Now that we had some rest, Luna could you tell me why did you come back to Britain?" Hermione wanted some answers.
"I already told Harry, he didn't come to Japan so I had to come to Britain to seduce him." Luna said as if it was most obvious thing in the world.
"This doesn't explain anything, why Harry was supposed to go to Japan?" Hermione wasn't surrendering that easy.
"That was my plan until Andromeda visited me after the wedding." Harry explained.
"According to my mommy Harry would leave Britain that day. After arriving to Japan he would inform Daily Prophet about real identity of Lord Nabilius. The fact that average wizard like Ronald Bilius Weasley managed to break into Gringots would cause massive damage to Goblin banks. Many people would withdraw their money feeling that they are no longer secure, this would cause Goblin Nation to not buy back Gringotts from British Ministry. Without those money Ministry would have to increase taxes, they wouldn't tax purebloods because it's simply not done, but taxes for muggleborns and half-bloods would skyrocket. Due to this nearly all muggleborns and half-bloods would leave within two or three months, even Voldemort wasn't able to create such exodus. Without nearly 80% of population British economy would be more dead than Snape's sense of humor. This in turn would cause many purebloods follow muggleborns and leave, before end of the year British magical population would go down to less than three thousands. Ministry would be gutted and without formal government Malfoy or some of his friends would try to take over. The following civil war would wipe out British magicals within next couple years."
"Well, that's not that bad." Harry was wondering if he did the right thing by staying.
"Really? Without Ministry the civil war would cause Magical World to be exposed, it would result in a continent wide war. The war with muggles would wipe out two thirds of magicals living in Europe, rest would be forced to leave."
"Fine, you have convinced me."
"Luna, how do you know that? Are you a seer?" Hermione wasn't satisfied with those answers.
"My mother is."
"But you told us she died."
"Don't be silly Hermione, such thing like accident wouldn't kill a seer. Dumbledore wanted her gone because she was looking into Harry's location and Sirius imprisonment. I knew about Dumbledore's manipulations way before I arrived at Hogwarts, but mommy told me not to reveal anything as I also would be forced to fake my death. Pretending that both of us are dead would have negative effect on daddy."
"So why did you come to Hogwarts?"
"I was hoping that Harry would get super magical powers, or maybe discover that he is the heir to a dozen extinct families and take over Wizengamot, or maybe that he is the heir of the founders and owns Hogwarts, or convince Goblins to aid him in his quest to destroy Dumbledore and Voldemort, or maybe that Harry is actually from the future where Voldemort was defeated by Killing Curse that rebounded at him due to some silly set of circumstances like Harry becoming master of Voldemort's wand by defeating Draco Malfoy."
"How could I become master of Voldie's wand by defeating Malfoy?" That was the most stupid way to defeat Voldemort Harry heard.
"I told you it was due to some silly circumstances. No one would ever believe such silliness. Wands changing ownership after their owner was defeated in some way? It would cause total chaos, every time someone would be disarmed he would have to buy a new wand as the old one would not work for them properly. Add some other means of 'defeating' someone and people would loose control over their wands every couple days without even knowing to whom the wand belongs now. Only someone writing books for children would came up with such a silly idea, possibly to keep main character from actually killing anyone and having bad guy commit suicide."
"So you expected me to defeat master manipulator with over a century of experience, multiple friends in high places, large amount of loyal followers and reputation of most powerful wizard in the Europe, or as British would say – in the entire world?"
"As I said, some deus ex machina would do entire job for you. My other hopes was you getting help from various people like Amelia Bones, Lucius Malfoy, Bellatrix Lestrange or maybe even Tom Riddle who somehow got his entire soul back and decided to not become Voldemort again."
"Amelia Bones? Like hell she would help me. I wrote to her during my fifth year when Umbridge was torturing me with Blood Quill. She bluntly told me it's not her problem and if I waste more of her time she will throw me into Azkaban. I later overheard Susan saying that thanks to my naive action her aunt now has a nice blackmail material against Fudge and Umbridge. She probably tried to use this material to become Minister of Magic but Voldemort crossed those plans by killing her."
Hermione was shocked. "What? Amelia Bones? Everyone was always saying that she was firm but just and that you can trust her to do the right thing."
"Isn't it the same thing as with Dumbledore? Everyone is singing his praises, but all he do is manipulating people from shadows to do the job while he gets the credit." Harry answered her.
Luna continued. "I waited till beginning of your sixth year hoping that you would get Black estate and use it to fund your quest against Voldemort and Dumbledore, or summon a daemon to help you in fight, or escape to South America and become curse breaker, or start traveling the world as a mysterious Dark Lord, or inherit Azkaban for some reason, or my favorite where you and Hermione become world class thieves and Ron becomes Dark Lord of sex."
"Well... the last one almost happened. Ron is a Dark Lord, he just doesn't know it yet. By robbing Gringotts and Hogwarts I could be considered a world class thief. The rest of them is quite interesting, I only do not know how inheriting Azkaban would help me in a fight against two Dark Lords."
"Well, if you inherited Azkaban it would have a secret nation hidden there with huge disciplined and devoted to you army."
"That sounds... convenient."
"Deus ex machina usually is."
"Seeing as nothing like that happened you have left?"
"Yes. You didn't seem to notice Dumbledore's manipulations so I decided to leave. I am truly amazed that you managed to kill Voldemort without dying and returning to life with deux ex machina's help. They are not very reliable, you know."
"Wait Luna, Harry did die during Battle. He was hit with Killing Curse in the chest, there is no way he could survive that!" Hermione almost shouted.
"Don't be silly Hermione, of course he survived that. If he didn't we wouldn't have such a wonderful sex, ghosts are rather poor lovers." Luna giggled.
"Girls, stop that. I survived and if you are nice I will even tell you how I did that. Now we have more pressing matter to discuss. Lord Nabilius needs to cause some mayhem and I have idea where to strike, I need your help to figure out how."
"Oh, I love mayhem and destruction. What are we doing, My Lord?" Luna said with a cheerful smile.
"We are going to…" Harry whispered into Luna's ear.
"Yay!" Luna was jumping from excitement.
"What about me?" Hermione huffed.
"Well.. you will try to dissuade us from doing this so I will keep it a secret."
"What? I would not! I can cause mayhem and destruction!" Hermione said with outrage in her voice.
"After which you run to nearest figure of authority to ask for forgiveness." Harry said.
"Don't worry, mu trust in figures of authority is now over. After Dumbledore put me under Imperius and thrown to that place I lost all trust in people like him. So please, tell me what kind of chaos and mayhem you want to cause?" Hermione almost begged.
"Fine, I am planning to..."
()()()
Draco & Ginny
()()()
"Nooooooooo!"
"Draco." Ginny shook her husband. "Draco!"
"Wha? What happened?" Draco woke up. He was sitting on a couch in Malfoy mansion, an empty bottle of Firewhisky was standing on a table next to him.
"I don't know. I just arrived and heard you screaming."
"I had a nightmare. It was terrible."
"Poor Draco. Dify."
Small House-elf appeared.
"Yes, Mistress?"
"Unpack my bags in my room and prepare a bath for two of us."
"Yes, Mistress." With a pop elf and all shrunken bags disappeared. Married life certainly suited Ginevra. Gone were jeans and home-made sweaters. Ginevra was now wearing expensive black robes, silver and gold jewelry, make-up and had fashionable hairstyle that looked like someone tied her hair at random places on her head, but as every male knows - you don't discuss with fashion.
"So Draco, tell me what happened in your dream." Ginny placed herself on couch next to Draco and started to play with his long silky hair.
"Terrible. You were acting like that mudblood Granger, completely ignorant about our world. I had to explain you Veelas, Wizengamot, Honor Duels and current political situation. You acted like you didn't even know that our fathers are now allied!" Draco almost shouted last words.
"Truly terrible. Let me guess, I was wearing those cheap clothes I had at Hogwarts?"
"Yes, exactly that. You even tried to assassinate me, you missed me from ten feet! At some point I suddenly found myself with my father in his office. He told me that Dumbledore is my real father, for some reason I started shouting. Why would I do that? If Dumbledore was my father I could get huge amount of political capital from that."
"Don't worry Draco, it was all a dream. Now our bath is probably ready so let's go and have some fun."
()()()
Diagon Alley, three days later.
()()()
Two dozen black robed people apparated directly into Diagon Alley. They were all masked, but while Deatheaters wore large domino masks, those people were wearing gray cloth with large black stains covering their entire face. If one looked closer he could see that those large stains were constantly changing their shape and location. People around them looked at newcomers not knowing what to expect. For several seconds entire Diagon Alley stood still, then the leader (or so witness thought) shouted:
"For Lord Nabilius!"
The hell brook loose. Masked attackers were throwing spells left and right, over a dozen people were hit with their first barrage. People started to running away, many screamed, children cried. Due to chaos many people swarmed Diagon Alley exit only to be easily picked up by attackers, there was no place to hide or dodge. Within two minutes only people in Diagon Alley were Dark Lord followers, they didn't lost a single fighter as no one tried fighting back.
Half an hour later Albus Dumbledore and Minister of Magic Rufus Scrimgeour arrived to witness destruction personally. Many shops in alley were burning, Zonko was completely destroyed. The street was littered with bodies, most of them lied next to entrance to Leaky Cauldron. Very few people managed to escape. Aurors accompanying them scattered to see if there were any survivors, Albus and Rufus only stood on the outskirts under privacy charm.
"I told you Rufus, we need to send search parties to the mainland, The New Chosen One has to be found."
"I understand Albus, but it would be easier if you told us WHO are we searching, I can hardly send Aurors to every brothel in Europe and have them ask girls working there if they are destined to fight Lord Nabilius. Unless you have better idea that is?"
"We have to search for person who... 'took' Chosen One from her place of residence."
"Yes, that would make things easier if we knew how that man was called! We have his description, nothing more."
"Dear Merlin. So many dead, Rufus you have to find Chosen One, without her we stand no chance against this evil. See this young man?" Albus pointed at man lying next to them. "He was a very talented muggleborn, Head Boy during his seventh year and now he is lying here dead."
"I'm not dead." The lying man moaned.
"Nonsense my boy, I said you are dead so please die. You wouldn't want to disappoint your Headmaster and Minister, wouldn't you?"
"I never attended Hogwarts you moron. Now help me or at least call Aurors if you are too dumb to provide aid." The man was clearly in pain.
"I am still British Minister of Magic and you have to respect me!" Scrimgeour shouted.
"I am a tourist! I don't give a shit about your stupid titles."
"Silence! Albus told me you are dead so you are. Now shut up or I will have you thrown into Azkaban." Minister shouted at man-who-was-not-dead.
"Rufus, I do not see how throwing a corpse into Azkaban will help our situation." Dumbledore said trying to calm Minister.
"I am not a CORPSE!" Shouted the man. Dumbledore canceled privacy charms and called out leading Auror ignoring the man on the ground.
"What is the situation?"
"Everyone were stunned. There are no dead, only some wounded. Also all people were robbed. Their gold, jewelry, wands and any other items of value were stolen." Auror reported.
"What do you mean no dead? What about this man? He is quite dead." Minister pointed at the man lying on the ground.
"I am NOT dead."
"The corpse spoke! Minister, did you see that?" Auror was shocked.
"Yes, it's quite annoying corpse. Trying to fool us into believing it is alive." Minister continued.
"Because I AM alive!"
"What kind of dark magic could do that? Minister I and my team are not equipped to deal with this, I think we need to call Unspeakables." Young Auror said.
"Quite right my boy, we have to find out how Lord Nabilius thugs desecrated those corpses, how can dead person speak?"
"I have fallen and broken multiple bones in my body and now cannot move! I am not DEAD. Give me some help you frigging idiots!"
"I shall summon Unspeakables immediately, Minister." Young Auror disappeared with a loud CRACK.
"A screw it, should have never come to this third world country." Another CRACK was heard when man-who-was-not-dead disappeared.
"Dumbledore, did you see that? The talking Inferi apparated! I finally agree with you, we need The New Chosen One immediately, Lord Nabilius can create Inferi using magic!" Minister said with panic in his voice.
()()()
The next day Daily Prophet announced that Lord Nabilius is even more powerful than He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named-Even-After-His-Death. According to Prophet the death toll of the last attack reached over fifty people, attacking forces consisted of over two hundred dark wizards and powerful magic using Inferius. Dark Lord's forces were chased away by brave Aurors aided by Dumbledore in an epic battle that lasted for several hours and destroyed many shops in Diagon Alley.
When Harry read about it he knew something is fishy about it. After speaking with Andromeda and Ted they managed to discover some facts about that event. With Ted's help they tracked one of the Lord Nabilius 'followers'. They didn't find out identity of people who employed those mercenaries but the fact that they wanted Zonko to be destroyed gave Harry and Ted some hints. Ted confirmed that The Twins were supplying less than legal items to various parties during war, now that war ended so did demand for their products, Ted suspected that the raid was a way to bring back some old customers to them.
After discussing this matter Harry and his Inner Circle decided to do nothing, Weasley Twins were causing chaos and those actions maintained reputation of Lord Nabilius as evil nearly omnipotent Dark Lord. And when people finally find out the real name of Dark Lord Harry won't even have to fake any evidence that Twins worked with Nabilius.
Rather than use Lord Nabilius Harry came up with different idea to pass time, he decided to reveal identity of The New Chosen One.
()()()
Three days after attack
()()()
The Identity of The New Chosen One ™ Is Known!
By Randomina Reporterus
'The one with power to vanquish Dark Lord arrived
born from the mud on the day pirates talk
born from the mud forged into third part of gold
she shall gain power to vanquish Dark Lord as a white slave
and vanquish Dark Lord as it is a power he knows not
the one with power to vanquish Dark Lord arrived'
That was The Prophecy made by Sybill Trelawney at 28 July 1999. The Prophecy was heard by Albus Dumbledore (Chief Warlock, Supreme Mugwump of ICW, Order of Merlin 1st Class, Headmaster of Hogwarts) and guests of Leaky Cauldron where The Prophecy was made. Immediately after hearing It Albus Dumbledore declared he knew to whom The Prophecy applied and disapparated supposedly to find The New Chosen One ™
During the following weeks Albus Dumbledore refused to give away the identity of The New Chosen One ™ even to the members of Wizengamot or the Minister Scrimgeour himself. There were rumors about The New Chosen One ™ disappearing but Headmaster Dumbledore demented all of them saying that our Savior is simply training for her role as a defeater of Dark Lord Nabilius. Now we know it was a lie. The New Chosen One ™ was residing in prestigious escort agency in Knocturn Alley until her services were permanently bought from said agency by a foreign wizard. Now after three weeks The New Chosen One ™ has send us a letter. This is the entire unabridged letter sent to our redaction.
Dear Daily Prophet and Magical People of Great Britain.
My name is Hermione Granger but you better know me as The New Chosen One, I shouldn't probably use this name as Daily Prophet had it trademarked. Still I am not afraid of legal action against me as I no longer reside in Britain. If you do not believe that The Prophecy (why didn't you trademarked this as well I don't know) refers to me here is it's interpretation.
The one with power to vanquish Dark Lord arrived
Clearly means that person to whom prophecy refers was alive when the prophecy was made. Check.
born from the mud
'Mudblood' is well known insult used for muggleborns like myself, it suggests that me and my parents have dirt or mud in our blood. I won't try to explain how stupid that is as no one could survive with mud in a bloodstream, but I never considered British purebloods to be smart. Check.
(born) on the day pirates talk
It is a little known custom among muggles to give days stupid names, like 'International Talk Like a Pirate Day' which refers to 19th September, my birthday. Check.
born from the mud forged into third part of gold
During my Hogwarts days Harry Potter, Ronald Weasley and me were often called 'The Golden Trio' I think even purebloods can grasp that explanation. Check.
she shall gain power to vanquish Dark Lord as a white slave
and vanquish Dark Lord as it is a power he knows not
the one with power to vanquish Dark Lord arrived
The rest of the so called 'prophecy' claims that I will gain some sort of 'power' that I will use to vanquish 'Dark Lord'. I shall gain that 'power' by being a 'white slave' which is euphemism (Euphemism is a generally innocuous word or expression used in place of one that may be found offensive or suggest something unpleasant. I doubt many of purebloods knew that so I explained it just in case.) for a 'whore'. I am very sorry to hurt your subtle eyes by this very awful word, except I'm not! During that week spent there I have truly gained a new 'power', the power of cynicism. You see, the person who dumped me into that place was no one else than Albus Percival Brian Wulfric Dumbledore. Oh, I am sure he did this for The Greater Good of Magical World or some other bullshit like that, but his action allowed me to see that The Emperor Has No Clothes. To those who do not understand this expression (which is majority of you as it comes from a muggle child story) I will explain – it refers to a situation where majority of people willingly ignore obvious facts. I won't go into details to explain those facts, my new power of cynicism tells me that you will ignore them either way, so if you wish to watch the naked Emperor then so be it. My days of playing a hero are now over.
I will repeat it again as you could miss it – I will no longer act as a typical heroic Gryffindor.
For those who still do not get it:
I WONT FIGHT LORD NABILIUS FOR YOU!
Do not try to look for me, do not try to convince me, do not try to beg. I don't care.
Hating your guts
Hermione Granger
The New Chosen One
Member of Golden Trio
Order of Merlin 2nd Class
Mudblood
Both Albus Dumbledore and Minister Scrimgeour refused to comment.
From more cheerful news Daily Prophet wishes to congratulate everyone who placed their bets on Miss Granger name in our lottery. The winning money can be obtained in our main office in Diagon Alley during working hours.
()()()
1st October, Kings Cross Station, Platform 9 and ¾
()()()
By looking at the crowd on the platform one would not notice that one fifth students of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was gone. From over one hundred muggleborns only three of them were attending this year and technically speaking they were not muggleborns as one of their grandparents was a squib thus making them half-bloods. The person who came up with this new law to get some graft money was now very unhappy. Not even one muggleborn or their parent wanted to pay for 'proving' that their grandparent was a squib. There were more than three muggleborns who actually had squibs in family (or in one case even a witch as a grandmother) but most of them jumped at the idea of studying in Australia. The poor Ministry employee never understood why they would want to switch ancient (but recently rebuilt) castle in Scotland to some modern muggle built school in Australia. The concept of recreational visits to the beach and various activities like sunbathing, surfing, or beach volleyball was almost unknown in Magical Britain. The fact that Australian school charged only one third of what Hogwarts did was only icing on a cake. The Ministry employee who read pamphlets from Australian schools thought that they charge more as he thought that the price was in Galleons. Unfortunately for him the price was in British pounds which was indicated by the £ symbol, the symbol not known by most purebloods.
Right now only people who could be more unhappy than several employees of British Ministry were two magical people working in Australian embassy, they had to visit over a hundred homes to explain the new British Magical law and offer place in one of the Australian schools. After that there were several magical trips to Australia where parents and children could see the schools. Most tasking was explaining to parents and their children that Australia (and rest of the world) is not full of 'evil dark wizards', a very popular opinion among British magical population. It was very difficult task and in the three cases people from Australian embassy failed to convince parents that they aren't second coming of We-Really-Don't-Know-Who (which was true as they truly didn't know who Voldemort was, their primary job was in non-magical embassy). The worst of all was the paperwork.
Some children complained that their friends are gone, some were happy that Ministry dealt with 'mudbloods', some didn't care. As departure hour was coming closer children were boarding the train, goodbyes were said, some last minute hugs exchanged and Hogwarts Express was ready to go. Punctually at 11 A.M. The train gave a loud whistle and... disappeared with a loud CRAK.
()()()
Rest of Author notes.
I do know what 'atrocious' means, thus the warning in the beginning.
As I do not have any good ideas how to deal with our favorite potion master I 'm asking for yours. Most interesting ones will be used.