Reddit Prompt: Second Task Discoveries

by annasfanfic

Harry makes a discovery that someone really should have told him about much sooner. I may write more of this later or I may not. Let me know what you think.

Reddit Prompt:

Harry reached the hostages. There were four people tied to the bottom of the lake. A girl who was obviously a relative of Fleur, Cho Chang, a girl who looked familiar but he didn't know and never talked to, and Hermione! Harry rushed to free her when he was stopped by the merpeople.

"You take only your own hostage." The merman shouted at Harry before pointing him to the girl he didn't know. Why would she be his hostage over Hermione, his best friend?

After another 20 minutes getting back to the surface. Harry finally made it and the girl he was bringing woke from her sleep.

"Um hi? My name is Harry, sorry about this. I'm not sure why you were held hostage."

The girl rolled her eyes. "Real nice Potter. You haven't said a word to me in 4 years and now you pretend you don't even know your own fiancé. Merlin, if I wasn't stuck with you I'd hex your shoes into weights and watch you drown here "

Harry just gaped like the fish he was swimming with. "My what?"

My work:

This has not been betaed and fair warning there is some cursing and Snape bashing. For those who are reading my other stories they are not abandoned. This is just something I read on reddit which took my imagination by force. I will go back to my other stories some time in the next few months.

She studied him with contempt, clearly not impressed with him. "Fiancé," she said slowly as if he would understand better if she said it slowly.

At his uncomprehending look, she just huffed and began to swim towards the stands while he stared after her.

"Did you not know you were engaged?" the small girl that looked like Fleur asked curiously.

"I am not!" he exclaimed though he was not so sure now, especially after her response.

She giggled and said, "Even I know that you are engaged."

He gaped at her as she too began to swim back to the stands. After floating there feeling more lost than he had at any point in the tournament he eventually began to swim back too.

He was the last to reach the stands and found the girls being checked over by Madam Pomfrey. He distantly accepted Hermione's hug and then the hug and kiss from Fleur, though he could not help but notice that the girl who claimed to be his fiancé did not look happy about the kiss.

He barely listened to the points, only absently noting that he had been second in the ranks as he had saved two of the hostages.

Then everyone began to disperse, and he nearly lost track of the girl, but he managed to catch up with her and say, "Come on, we need to talk."

She gave him an unimpressed look but followed along easily enough. After some searching, they found an empty room on the ground floor.

She settled gracefully on a chair and he studied the girl for a moment. She was pretty enough, he supposed. Not athletic, like Cho, but slim. She had an oval face with small blue eyes and thin lips. Her blond hair was still wet and stuck to her head. Her tie was blue and bronze on her regulation Hogwarts uniform.

"Are you just going to stare at me?"

He grimaced and said, "Why would you claim to be my fiancé?"

Her eyes flashed with anger and she stood, "Claim? We have been engaged since infancy and you say that I am claiming to be your fiancé!"

His eyes widened, "What? What do you mean that we have been engaged since infancy?"

She opened her mouth, then suddenly closed it and studied him for a moment.

After a time, she said suspiciously, "You claim not to know?"

"No!" he exclaimed.

"How can you not know?" she asked, clearly perplexed.

He floundered and his mind flashed back to the Dursleys. If they knew they would take great pleasure in letting this be sprung on him in exactly this way. It was entirely possible that they did not know though.

"I— I did not even know that infant engagement is legal," he said quietly.

She frowned, "What do you mean? How could it not be legal?"

"Well, it is not legal in the muggle world and— and I was raised in the muggle world," he admitted. He had never hidden that fact from anyone and yet almost no one seemed to know it about him.

She exhaled and sat back down, less graceful now. "I will write my father, he will send, or more likely bring here, the engagement contract."

He stared at her, his mind spinning. After a minute of awkward silence, he admitted, "I do not even know your name.

She huffed, "Of course bloody not. It would be too much to hope that you even know me. My name is Ariana Greengrass."

"I did not know that the Greengrass in my year had a sister," he admitted again.

She shook her head and said, "She does but her name is Astoria. They are my cousins; my father's younger brother's children. As for me, I have an older brother named Daniel and a younger brother named Richard."

He nodded slowly as he tried to incorporate that in his knowledge of her, what little he had. Quietly he asked, "What year are you in?"

"Fifth," she said softly.

Well, at least there was not that much of an age difference.

He bit his lip but at last asked, "Do you know why my parents engaged us? I mean theirs was a love match."

She grimaced, "You really do not know anything, do you?"

He shook his head, feeling even more lost, and now dread, than he had before.

After a moment she stood and smoothed out her robes, "I will allow my father to tell you this. I will send him a letter at once, he should be here in a day or two."

With that, she left the room leaving Harry staring after her. For some reason tears formed in his eyes and he wiped furiously at them.

Writing a letter sounded like a good idea and there was only one person he could write to whom he could learn more about his parents from. He hurried out of the room and up to his dorms, ignoring the congratulations of the other students.

A party was already beginning in the Common Room but he ignored it and hurried up to the dorm room where he hurriedly wrote Sirius a note. Hedwig was, as usual, right there ready the moment that he wrote a letter and he passed it off to her.

Then he collapsed onto his bed turning everything he had learned in his head repeatedly.

Merlin, he was engaged.

Since infancy.

The thought kept repeating in his mind until the door suddenly opened and Ron stepped in, a large smile on his face. "That was brilliant mate! You should be downstairs celebrating!"

He stared unseeingly for a moment before asking, "Did you know that I am engaged?"

"Of course, is that why you are hiding up here? She is a bit of a stick in the mud but she is also rather pretty, all those Greengrass girls are. Surely you can have some fun with her if you know what I mean."

Harry just stared at him and the smile on Ron's face faded and after a moment his jaw dropped, "Buggering hell! No one told you!"

"No, no one told me. I did not even know that it is legal," he said, feeling rather hopeless now.

Ron walked in all the way and closed the door behind him then sat on the bed beside Harry shaking his head, "I guess I should have realized a long time ago but Merlin, I did not expect you not to know about her. I mean everyone knows!"

Harry glared at him, "Since when do I know what everyone else knows?"

Ron nodded, still looking shocked, "I mean you are right, but still!"

"Merlin," Harry muttered as he collapsed back against his pillow. "Is there anything else I need to know? Something everyone else knows?"

Ron was quiet for a moment and Harry narrowed his eyes, "What?"

"Well, it is just— you have to marry her when you turn seventeen."

Harry sighed and closed his eyes, "Of course I do. That is only three years away."

"Yeah," was all Ron said.

After a long moment of silence Harry asked, "So does everyone have these? Do you?"

"No," Ron refuted. "Only– well– crazy rich blokes like you."

Harry sighed again and said, "I think I just want to be alone."

"Yeah, all right, just, if you need anything just come see me."

Harry nodded absently and rubbed at his face.

His mind circled the drain after that, wondering what on earth was going on in his life that he had managed to live to fourteen years old without ever knowing that he was engaged. Why had no one told him? He did not even know that magic was real, let alone that he was engaged! This was the kind of thing people needed to tell him!

His mind kept circling back to Hagrid, who had introduced him to the magical world. Did he know?

With little else to do, he forced himself to stand up and leave, pulling the invisibility cloak over him so that he would not be spotted in the Common Room.

It was hard to walk through the now positively packed Common Room but eventually, he made it down to Hagrid's hut and knocked on the door.

Hagrid greeted him cheerfully and ushered him in settling him at the table with tea and a rock cake which Harry fruitlessly tried to soften by dunking it in the tea.

"Hagrid, did you know that I am engaged to Ariana Greengrass?"

Hagrid smiled at him, "O' course! Fine young lady she is! Top of her class in Care of Magical Creatures! So good with all tha animals!"

Harry swallowed and, his appetite lost, he dropped the rock cake in his tea and slumped against the back of his chair. "Why did you not tell me?" he asked plaintively.

Hagrid frowned, "Ya mean ya didna know?

"No, Hagrid. I found out today."

"Those bloody Dursleys," Hagrid mumbled then promised, "If I'da known I woulda told ya."

Harry let out a slow breath. So, it was the Dursleys' fault. Everything was easier when it was their fault, he admitted to himself.

"Do you know why my parents engaged me off as a literal infant?" he asked.

Hagrid shook his head, "Nah, 'fraid not."

Harry accepted this and stared listlessly at his cup. Hagrid, sensing his upset, began to chatter about the various creatures he cared for. Harry let it wash over him and forced himself to engage in the conversation to distract himself.

He ended up missing dinner but he was not all that hungry. As the sun was setting, he put on his cloak and went up to bed.

The next morning he could not avoid breakfast, not with a full class load that day, so he allowed himself to be dragged down to the Great Hall. He spent breakfast nibbling at his food and staring at Ariana who was easily chatting with the people around her.

He spent the rest of the day in a fog, his mind returning repeatedly to the knowledge that one day soon he would have to marry to a stranger.

His first class was History so that was not so much of a problem but then he had Charms and Potions after that and he did poorly in both classes. He only lost a few points in Charms but Professor Snape was not so forgiving about him nearly melting a cauldron and assigned him detention for next week and a five foot essay about the Potion. Which was just great. Really, how could this day be any worse?

As he was leaving the class a first year ran up to him and passed him a note from Professor McGonagall while gushing excitedly about the task the day before. Harry nodded along absently as he read the note.

Mr. Potter,

Please come to my office at once.

Professor McGonagall

Dread pooled in the bottom of his stomach and he walked slowly to Professor McGonagall's office with his friends beside him speculating on what she wanted.

When he knocks on the door it immediately swings open revealing Professor McGonagall who eyed them all for a second before saying, "Mr. Potter is all that I require. You two are dismissed, Mr. Weasley, Miss. Granger."

They protested, of course, but Harry just shook his head, "It is fine. I will meet up with you later."

Then Professor McGonagall stepped aside to allow him into the room to reveal Ariana and an older man who can only be her father.

His feet felt like lead weights as he dragged himself into the room.

The man was glaring at him angrily and Ariana did not look any happier.

The moment the door shut the man began to speak, "So you claim not to know about the contract?"

"Yes, sir," he replies quietly.

"Balderdash! How could you not know?"

Harry grimaced, "My aunt and uncle are muggles and never even told me that magic is real. If they even knew about it, they would probably find it funny to make me find out at the last minute."

Mr. Greengrass looks outraged but not on Harry's behalf, "Mr. Potter! Stop this at once!"

Mercifully Professor McGonagall came to his rescue, "I am afraid that Mr. Potter is correct. The muggles he lives with are vile. They never told him about magic and he is probably right that they would have found it funny not to tell him about his engagement."

Mr. Greengrass blinked in surprise and considered that for a moment before saying, "Then why would no one tell him when he learned about magic?"

"Everyone assumed I knew," Harry said. "Even Hagrid, who told me about magic, assumed I knew about– about the engagement. No one ever tells me anything because they all assume I know when I do not."

Mr. Greengrass leaned back looking shocked and Ariana looked uneasy while Professor McGonagall looked unhappy as she agreed, "Yes, that about sums up Mr. Potter's life up to this point."

The room descended into silence then and Harry began to shift uncomfortably.

After a long time, Ariana said, "Maybe it would be best to show him the contract, papa."

Mr. Greengrass nodded slowly and pulled a scroll out of his pocket, then offered it to Harry.

This contract signed on 1 February 1950 between Fleamont Potter and Andrew Greengrass is to organize a blending of the two families by marriage. A male child and a female child, the first children of each generation that match the descriptions listed below, will marry on the seventeenth birthday of the younger of the two children. The blending of the two families will commence from this day hence to last for a thousand years, to be renewed at the families' discretion.

Blending is defined as the two families' businesses will work together as if they are one business making decisions that affect any of the businesses or families together. All products between the two families will be provided with only a three percent increase in the base cost at most. Profits will be shared at a sixty-forty basis with the favorable share being for the family who owns the business and the less favorable share being for the other family. Both heads of the family will vote together on the Wizengamot on all things. As needed the family heads may sit in the Wizengamot seats interchangeably and may make business and family decisions for the other at the discretion of the current Head of the Family.

The children who are to be married must be a male and a female and must be of the direct and main family line. The children are to have no more than a twenty-year age gap between each other. The female child may not be in the direct line of inheritance of her family. If the female child is in the direct line of inheritance, then the next oldest female child is to be substituted. If no children match this description in this generation, then the children of the next generation may be married with no penalties. This is to be true for the following generation as well. If, by that point, no suitable children are achieved then the contract is to be considered void without consequences. The specifics of the marriage contract will be decided between the two sets of parents in the six months leading up to the marriage.

If, for any reason other than the one outlined above, the contract is not fulfilled then the contract is declared broken and the family responsible for the break will forfeit all of their businesses and their Wizengamot seat to the other family.

Fleamont Potter 1 February 1950

Andrew Greengrass 1 February 1950

Beside each signature was a bloody fingerprint.

Harry read through the contract twice then numbly passed it back to Mr. Greengrass, his head spinning all the while.

One thing was clear, his parents had no choice in the matter. His grandfather had signed away his life and, if there had been any suitable children available, it would have been his father who would have been forced to marry a Greengrass.

"So, you have not been snubbing my daughter," Mr. Greengrass said.

Harry frowned, "Snubbing? What? No!"

"Good, good. We thought– but if you truly did not know that explains a few things. I suppose you must have a post ward stopping all post coming through, as well? Ariana used to write when she was younger and was always hurt when you did not respond."

Harry frowned in confusion, but Professor McGonagall saved him once more, "The post ward was cast by the Headmaster. It only allows people he knows or expects post from to come through."

Mr. Greengrass nodded, "As you did not know Ariana, or even of her, you could not receive post from her."

"Right," Harry muttered faintly as he accepted the new knowledge blankly.

"Well then what will happen now is that you two will properly learn about each other, write each other during the summer, that kind of thing," Mr. Greengrass said.

"Papa, I do not think he knows anything about the family businesses or the Wizengamot. Could you teach him?" Ariana said.

Mr. Greengrass nodded while Harry reeled at the thought of having businesses and something to do with the Wizengamot which Harry knew in a distant sort of way was a form of Parliament in the magical government. "An excellent idea, Ariana!"

Then Mr. Greengrass began to ramble about searching the Potter Library in the Potter Manor for Potter History Books and about summer lessons on business and the Wizengamot. Harry just stared at the man, his mind not really able to absorb any more information than it already had.

"Do you have a subscription to the Daily Prophet?" Mr. Greengrass asked after.

"What?"

The man frowned, "Were you listening?"

"Of course!" Harry exclaimed even though much of what the man had said had already fallen out of his head. "I just was not expecting a question. No, I do not have a subscription."

"We will have to sign you up for one, then, along with a Wizengamot circular. It is important for a young man of high station to know about current events. I expect you to read it cover to cover, more than just the sports and gossip section."

Harry nodded slowly wondering when he would have the time to do that. He was already busy with tournament preparation and school. How would he have time for more stuff?

Professor McGonagall cleared her throat and Mr. Greengrass startled then nodded, "Of course, it is rather time that I leave. I will post you those books and letters as soon as I can."

Harry nodded, "It was uh– good to meet you."

"It was lovely to meet you as well. I must say it is a burden off of my mind that you are not snubbing our family after all the trouble that your grandparents went to link our families so closely."

"Right," Harry said, having no idea how to respond to that.

"Well, have a good day then," he said before turning to his daughter, "Have a good day, dear." He kissed her on the cheek then flooed out.

Ariana hesitantly walked up to Harry and offered him her arm and he stared at her blankly for a moment before she said, "You are supposed to offer me your arm."

"Right," Harry muttered and did that.

"Perhaps I will write him to send you a book on etiquette as well," she said as she led them out of Professor McGonagall's office with a nod to the Professor.

"Right," was all Harry muttered.

He was led to a courtyard where there were many people sitting about. Harry felt all of their eyes on him and shifted uncomfortably even as he sat down on a bench beside Ariana.

"So, what is your favorite class?" she asked.

"Uh, Defense. You?"

"Potions, Herbology, and Care of Magical Creatures, as they are all relevant to our future lives."

"They are?" he asked, feeling rather stupid as whispers raced around the courtyard.

"Of course, the Greengrasses own the largest Potions ingredients producing fields and barns and the Potters own the largest Potions producing companies."

Harry stared at her for several seconds, "Oh. Okay."

"How do you feel about Potions?"

Harry grimaced, "Snape hates me. I always receive a Poor in his class, no matter what I do." It suddenly occurred to him that if everyone knew everything about him and his businesses then Snape probably knew that he had Potions companies and probably took great pleasure in failing him and he scowled.

Ariana scowled too, "Well I will tutor you in the class. We will train you to receive at least an Acceptable on your OWL next year so you can take your NEWT through self study so that you are prepared for your companies. How are you in Herbology and Care of Magical Creatures."

Harry shrugged, "I have an O in Care and an EE in Herbology."

"Good, that is good to hear," she said before pulling out a planner and scheduling meetings with Harry on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays to discuss Potions. That felt like a lot, but then again he was apparently supposed to run multiple companies to do with Potions and was currently receiving a Poor in the class.

Merlin, he was supposed to run multiple companies.

"How many companies do I have?"

She wrinkled her nose and said, "Three; one for beauty Potions, one for healing Potions, and one for special order Potions."

"And uh– how many do you have?"

She laughed a little, "None, I am not in line to inherit any."

"Oh right," he muttered, recalling the contract now.

"That said, my father has two Herbology companies and five Care of Magical Creatures companies. One of the Herbology companies is for those that can be grown in fields and the other is for those that have to be grown in greenhouses. The Care of Magical Creatures ones are all split based on the needs of the various creatures."

With that Ariana launched into an explanation of the various different Creatures that her family farmed and how they did so.

Finally, it was dinner time and Harry realized that he had done none of his homework like Hermione would usually make him do after classes on a Friday that way he has the weekend free.

He walked Ariana to her table accompanied by many whispers and as he walked away he heard someone say, "–did not take her to the Yule Ball but now he walks her to the table–" and he suddenly felt very bad, wondering how she must have felt to have to see him do that. Did she take anyone? He had no idea.

As he approached Hermione and Ron he can tell that Hermione is in a snit and the reactions of the table around her are mixed, some looking offended and some looking like they agree with her.

"–ridiculous! Cradle betrothals were outlawed centuries ago!"

Harry swallowed and sat down beside her, "Evidently not in the magical world."

"It can not be legal!" she exclaimed. "There must be a way out!"

Harry swallowed and decided not to voice the thought that he hoped that she was right for if he did have to marry Ariana it was probably not a good idea to make her think he did not want to. It was bad enough that he had not spoken to her for four years or responded to any of her letters. With his luck there would be no way out of the contract.

"It is just the way things are," Ron said.

Hermione was suitably outraged by this and began to lecture him, and anyone that would listen, about how wrong it was to do things just because that was the way things were going so far as to draw a Nazi parallel which was a bit much as far as Harry was concerned.

After dinner, Hermione stalked off, no doubt to study every law book the library was home to. Knowing that he had two three-hour study sessions this weekend Harry forced himself to work on his homework in the library as well, though he did not study near Hermione as she was no doubt taking up an entire table by herself.

By the time curfew was approaching Harry had only got about half of his homework done and he resigned himself to a study filled weekend. Between Hermione and Ariana, he had a feeling that he had a lot of that in his future.

As he was walking back to the Common Room Hermione joined him and said, "I need to see the marriage contract."

"The marriage contract has not been made yet, it will not be until six months before our marriage."

"Well, then how do you know that you have to marry her?" she exclaimed. "If it is just because everyone says so—"

"It is not. There is a 'blending of the families' contract that says that the first male and female children of each family have to marry each other."

She shook her head, "Well then I need to see that."

"I do not have it. Mr. Greengrass showed me it," he said.

"Well, there must be a Potter copy! We must find it so we can find any loopholes!" she said, her voice going a little shrill at the end.

He sighed, "I read the whole thing. It was not very long. The only loophole would be if we were the same gender."

"I need to see it," she said stubbornly.

"Well how do you expect me to find it," Harry demanded hotly, more than tired of thinking about this. "I did not even know it existed until yesterday!"

"I am trying to help!" she exclaimed.

Harry sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, "You are right. I am just– this whole thing is bloody insane. Two days ago, everything was normal, mostly. Now I have a fiancé, businesses, and something to do with the Wizengamot. It is just a lot."

"What do you mean something to do with the Wizengamot?" she asked sharply.

"Merlin, I do not know! It is just something the contract and Mr. Greengrass mentioned."

She studied him then sighed, "We really need to find that contract."

"How?" he asked.

"I do not know, but we have to."

"Well, that is helpful," he muttered before saying the password and entering the Common Room.

The next morning at breakfast he received the Daily Prophet and a large package. Recalling what Mr. Greengrass said he read the whole paper, though he found much of it boring. Hermione eyed him suspiciously and Ron eyed him with confusion. It was not every day that he read the paper, after all, unless it contained something to do with him.

The package, though, was much more interesting containing a diary of Fleamont Potter. After finishing breakfast, he found an out of the way tree by the lake where he could be alone with Ron and the two began to read about Fleamont Potter's Hogwarts years. Hermione, naturally, was in the library looking up marriage contracts.

Fleamont Potter's Hogwarts years were a lot less eventful than Harry's were. That is until his fourth year when Muggleborns started being petrified. Harry read, riveted, as Fleamont who was close friends with several Muggleborns did everything in his limited power to protect his friends.

Then suddenly one of his friends, Myrtle Warren, was killed and Hagrid was found to be the killer. Fleamont believed the story wholeheartedly, though he did not hate Hagrid instead believing that it had been an accident. He believed that Hagrid had somehow found the Chamber of Secrets and had been running around trying to control the beast until he could no longer manage it and was caught.

He also believed that Tom Riddle had known about the beast the whole time as 'he knew everything in the castle' but had been forced to turn Hagrid in when Myrtle died. In other parts of the diary, he described Tom as an okay fellow who was a little haughty but wicked smart and always willing to help anyone with any problems they had.

Harry and Ron shook their heads at the descriptions of Tom Riddle, later to be known as Lord Voldemort.

Also of note in the diary was that while Fleamont was friends with many muggleborns his closest friend was Andrew Greengrass. The two spent all day every day together despite being in separate houses. Andrew Greengrass was in Ravenclaw and was the most brilliant person Fleamont knew, even more brilliant than Tom Riddle. He got twelve OWLs and was top of their class and he dragged Fleamont to be the third in the class. He was regularly compared to Tom Riddle who was a year ahead of them and was already writing scholarly papers by the time he was in sixth year.

That was as far as they got before lunchtime and the two trooped up to the castle in a fine mood, pleased at being able to learn more about the family he would never know.

Hermione immediately homed in on Harry when he entered the Great Hall and said, "You have to speak to Professor McGonagall! She will not help me find your version of the contract because it is none of my business!"

Harry blinked in surprise at his friend but nodded, "I will speak to her after my meeting with Ariana."

Her eyes widened, "You are meeting with her! Oh, Harry, you can't!"

"Why not?" he asked with a frown.

"It will give the impression that you approve of the whole marriage contract!"

Harry sighed, "Listen, I think it is great that you think we can find a way out of it. But I read the contract and I am not so certain. It is best to learn about her now in case I have to marry her than to ignore her and then have a horrible marriage."

"Do not speak like that! We will find a way!"

Harry just shook his head and walked to the Gryffindor table to eat before his tutoring session. Hermione spent the whole of lunch trying to convince him to skip the meeting and to believe that she would find a way out.

When he got up and approached Ariana Hermione joined him and glared at the other girl like she was not also bound by a contract against her will. "You are horrible to approve of all of this! To benefit from all of this!"

Before Ariana could say anything, Harry turned to Hermione, "Leave off Hermione!"

"But—"

"I said leave off!"

She narrowed her eyes but stomped away.

He turned back to Ariana and sheepishly scratched the back of his head, "Sorry about her. If I had known she was just coming over here to yell at you I would not have let her come."

She rose an eyebrow at him but gracefully stood from the table and said, "It is no matter. The jealous will always try to tear the people around them down."

"She is not jealous," he said as he accepted her arm, "She thinks arranged marriages are horrible and immoral."

"How strange," Ariana murmured as she led him through the halls to a part of the castle he had never seen before.

He was led into a classroom which he was surprised to see had many cauldrons scattered amongst the tables with some people already working away.

"Welcome, Harry Potter, to the Ravenclaw Potions Brewing Study Room. You can only come here with me. Now, let us begin."

They spent the next three hours discussing everything Harry knew about Potions which, despite having taken the class for four years, was not much. After a half hour, she pulled down what she called a remedial Potions text that Harry had never seen and set him working on the basic exercises of how to prepare Potions ingredients, wash supplies, and prepare tools.

Somehow, he had never learned things like the fact that if he did not clean each tool he would be doing cross-contamination which would damage the Potions, often in disastrous ways. Worse yet were his techniques for preparing ingredients. Ariana claimed he was worse than the first years and Harry had shrugged and said that he had never learned any of this from anyone which had Ariana frowning.

After they were done Ariana set him homework which was to check out the remedial Potions text from the library and to read it all before their meeting the next day.

So that was what he did. It was mercifully not a long text but it was very informative.

Before dinner, he went to see Professor McGonagall as Hermione had ordered.

"Professor McGonagall? I was hoping that you would know where I could find my copy of the blending families contract."

She frowned at him, "You are not trying to do anything so foolish as Miss. Granger suggested and trying to take leave of the contract, are you?"

He flushed in embarrassment at being caught out, "I– Well–"

She sighed, "I can help you find the contract if that is what you wish, there is likely a copy at Potter Manor, but you should know that contracts like that are signed in both blood and magic."

Harry paled suddenly recalling the bloody fingerprints next to the signatures, "Blood and magic?"

"Yes, what that means is that not only will your magic be forfeited a blood curse will be enacted, in addition to any other consequences there are of the contract. And that is if it does not just outright kill you to lose your magic."

Harry felt dizzy.

So there truly was no choice.

He had to marry her.

"Mr. Potter," Professor McGonagall said softly as she offered him a biscuit which he numbly accepted. "I know such things are hard to accept for the muggle raised but this is how things are done in the magical world."

Harry stared at the biscuit in his hand before slowly taking a bite.

"It will be okay, Mr. Potter. Miss. Greengrass is a wonderful young woman that I am sure you can find happiness with if you try."

Harry nodded slowly then stood, "Thanks, Professor."

"I am available at any time," she said simply, a look of concern on her face.

Harry walked down to the Great Hall as the truth slowly settled into his brain. When he sat down, he found that he still had most of the biscuit in his hand and he absently ate it.

He picked at his food while Hermione chattered about the struggles she was having finding anything about marriage contracts in the library.

She dragged him up when she was done eating, intent on having him help her in the library.

Halfway there, though, he stopped walking and said, "It is hopeless."

"Oh, Harry! It is not! I promise, we will find something and—"

"It is a magical and blood contract."

She stopped speaking at once, the blood draining from her face. "No," she whispered.

He nodded slowly, "I forgot but there were bloody fingerprints on the contract."

"Oh Harry," she whispered before pulling him into a tight hug.

With little else to do besides reading Fleamont's diary, which had lost its shine after learning that he had entered the family into a magical and blood contract, he finished his homework that evening, though Hermione had to correct a lot more of it than usual. All the while she sent him pitying looks.

Harry was relieved when he was able to escape to his bed.

Unfortunately, he did not sleep much, instead, it felt like the diary of Fleamont Potter was burning a hole into him from where it was locked in his trunk. When he eventually fell asleep, he slept fitfully with visions of Ariana and excerpts from the diary haunting him.

The worst part was that Harry could already see part of why Fleamont had done this. He had loved Andrew Greengrass like a brother and had wanted to make it a reality. With the culture of 'this is just the way it is' he could almost see how this was a natural conclusion of that.

Ron dragged him down to breakfast the next morning after he took an abnormally long shower to try to wake himself up. At breakfast, he drank an abnormally large amount of tea.

Even with that, he found himself drifting off as the three of them sat hopelessly around the lake after breakfast was over. At one point Hermione assured him that she would go into law when she was an adult and make such contracts illegal. Ron pointed out that they would have to grandfather existing plans in so that no one lost their magic due to the law which had Hermione scowling but nodding in agreement.

By the time lunch started, he was feeling much more rested and he spent it reading the newspaper as he had not that morning. Or rather skimming it. It was really boring.

Being rested, though, did not mean that Harry felt up to meeting up with Ariana and he put it off as long as he could until she came to retrieve him.

At least the tutoring was not overly difficult with them simply doing the rest of the exercises in the book they had started the day before.

As they left the Ravenclaw Brewing Room she asked, "Has something happened?"

"What do you mean?" he asked a little disinterestedly.

"You seem very– upset."

He grimaced, not sure what to say that would not offend her. "I– Do not worry about it."

"Very well. I suppose it is a little early to take each other into each other's confidence."

He nodded slowly and separated from her, "Thank you for the lesson. I will see you Wednesday."

"You do not want to meet up before then?" she asked.

He grimaced again and she rose an eyebrow, "Evidently not."

He sighed, "It is just– I never even imagined being married and now, all of the sudden…" he trailed off.

She studied him for a moment before saying, "I suppose that I understand. After what I thought was you ignoring me, I did not particularly want to marry you."

"But we do not have a choice so we should learn about each other like your father suggested," he said unhappily.

She nodded, "Yes. How about we meet twice a week in the library to study together? Say Mondays and Thursdays? The rest of our time can be our own."

"Okay," he agreed before parting ways.

When he laid down for bed that night, he once more felt like the diary of Fleamont Potter was burning a hole through him and before he knew what he was doing he had pulled out the diary and began to read it.

It was less enjoyable this time. Part of it was just that he was no longer so excited to learn about the man who had sentenced him to an unwanted marriage. The other part, though, was that Fleamont's interest in Potions really picked up as he got into advanced classes and much of the diary was now dedicated to Potions theory that he could not hope to understand.

Then, just like Harry would be, on 3 June, his seventeenth birthday, Fleamont married Euphemia Rookwood. It was an arranged marriage, like Harry's, and thus far Fleamont had not spoken of Euphemia even once in the diary. Euphemia was nearly ten years Fleamont's senior and the diary spoke extensively about how awkward everything was, including their time in bed which had Harry blushing furiously and putting the book away.

Long after the diary was put away though the thoughts haunted him. He had known something called sex happened between men and women but he had never known the mechanics of it. Now he knew the mechanics of it in great detail, more than anyone would ever want to know about their grandparents' sex life.

His dreams were once more extremely confused and he woke up sticky and embarrassed.

He struggled through classes that day and was barely awake during his study session with Ariana which was made much worse by what he read and now knew he would have to one day do with her.

At dinner that night he received a letter from Sirius telling him to meet him in the Common Room that evening at midnight so there went his plans to go to sleep earlier.

He forced himself to keep reading Fleamont's journal while he waited for Sirius to floo in. Mercifully the sex parts quickly tapered off but there was still some awkwardness between Fleamont and Euphemia.

Then Fleamont went back to school for his final year of Hogwarts and the Potions theory was back. Harry found himself more grateful than he would ever have thought he would be for Potions theory.

The worst happened when, on 23 January, Fleamont's father Charlus died of a sudden heart attack while shopping. He was an old man by then, having had Fleamont late in life, but prior to that he had no health problems whatsoever.

The diary spoke extensively about every memory Fleamont had of his father and Harry found himself tearing up at the descriptions of having a parent. It was everything he had ever hoped for and it hurt worse than he had ever imagined it would.

"Harry! Are you okay?"

Harry's head shot up and he saw Sirius's head in the fire once more. Quickly he closed the book and wiped his eyes.

"Yeah! Yeah, I am fine. Just reading a sad book."

Sirius gave him a strange look but said, "Okay. So you said you had some questions about James and Lily?"

Harry nodded and collected his thoughts, "I was wondering, were they a love match?"

Sirius smiled, "Oh yeah, they were deeply in love."

"Oh, that is great," he said relieved.

"Why do you ask? Is there someone you love?"

Harry frowned, "No but– did you know that I am engaged?"

Sirius frowned and thought, "Yeah, I suppose I did. I just forgot. Sorry, my head is still a bit of a mess."

Harry's heart hurt at the thought and he rushed to reassure him, "That is okay. I was just wondering. At first, I was confused why they would be in a love match when they arranged my marriage, but then I learned that it was actually my grandfather Fleamont."

"Your parents loved you. I am sure they would have been happy to have let you pick your wife if you could."

Harry smiled, happy at the thought, "That is good."

"Your father was actually betrothed too, now that I think about it."

His heart skipped a beat in excitement, "How did he escape it?"

Sirius's face turned grim, "She died when she was only twelve, we were fifteen."

"Oh Merlin," Harry whispered.

"Yeah, your mother was a big help when we could not be. No matter what Pete, Remus, and I did James was inconsolable. But your mother, Merlin, she was brilliant. She had this way of making people smile no matter how they were feeling. It was enough to make us forget that we had spent the first five years of our time at Hogwarts fighting."

"Why were you fighting?"

Sirius grimaced, "Snivellus. We fought with him all the bloody time and she called it bullying when he gave just as good as he got."

"Snivellus?"

"Yeah, Severus Snape. Lily and he were close until he called her a mudblood at the end of fifth year."

Harry's jaw dropped, "My mum was friends with Professor Snape?"

"Ugh," Sirius said, "I forgot the berk was a Professor."

"He is a berk. He is failing me in Potions just because he hates me," Harry said with a scowl.

"Maybe I should have a word with him," Sirius growled.

For a moment Harry reveled in having someone want to defend him before reality hit him, "You cannot! He will have you arrested!"

"Are you sure? I don't mind reminding him why he should fear me," Sirius said, clearly looking for a fight.

Harry spent the next twenty minutes talking Sirius down before he was finally able to go to bed.

Right before they parted ways Sirius said, "Your next Hogsmeade weekend is the 19th, right?"

Harry eyed him warily as he suddenly recalled that Sirius had written him asking for those dates. "Yes."

"Excellent, meet me at the stile after Dervish and Bangs at 2 o'clock."

"Sirius! You are not coming back, are you? We just went over this, you will be arrested!" Harry exclaimed.

"Calm down, I will be Snuffles the whole time, no one will think I am anything other than a loveable stray."

Harry sighed in frustration. He did not have the energy to fight with Sirius about this anymore. "Yeah all right. Good night."

As he lay down for bed, he turned over everything he had learned in his head.

It was clear that if his mum thought what the Marauders were doing was bullying then Snape probably did too, whether it was or not. Snape had been forced to witness as his friend who had helped defend against his supposed bullies suddenly became friends with and then married one of those bullies.

I don't mind reminding him why he should fear me, Sirius had said. It sounded exactly like something Dudley would say about him.

Was his father a bully?

The thought was hard to process and Harry fell into another fitful sleep.

The next morning Harry was half asleep as he ate his breakfast when the Daily Prophet was delivered. Without glancing at it he removed it from the owl's leg and set it down even as he continued to eat.

It was not until Hermione nudged him and said, "You should look at the cover," that he did exactly that.

The Boy Who Lived Raised By Muggles?

Did Not Know He Was Engaged?

Below the article was Rita Skeeter's tagline and a picture of him looking clueless.

He was suddenly wide awake as he heatedly read through the article. The sources quoted were people he had never heard of before all saying that they had heard about it from a trusted source. At one point Rita Skeeter said, "The muggles, if they even knew of the engagement, would have found it funny not to tell poor, young Harry Potter about the engagement or magic," and suddenly Harry knew exactly who had told everyone about his upbringing.

Anger filled him as he looked up and found Ariana reading the paper with a concerned look on her face. Her father had been going around telling people about everything. Why? Why the bloody hell could nothing stay private for him?

As he was staring at her a familiar, dreaded voice said, "Mr. Potter."

He took a calming breath and turned around to find his least favorite Professor, "Yes, sir?"

"Your detention is tonight after class," was all he said though he looked insufferably smug as he walked away.

Harry groaned and turned back around to let his face fall onto his plate, exhaustion once more hitting him. It was not until Ron nudged him and informed him that he had a package that Harry pulled his head off the table.

Harry accepted the package from a familiar looking owl and opened it to find that it was another diary, that of Dorea Potter. He had yet to finish the diary of Fleamont Potter but he did not really want to either so he happily accepted the diary.

Then it was off to classes for the day. His last class of the day was Potions and his exhaustion was wearing on him but he now had a new found determination to be good at the class so he worked past the exhaustion and used the techniques that Ariana had taught him for ingredient preparation. He thought the result might not be as bad as it usually was.

Then he had no choice but to do his homework as some of it was due the next day and he would not have time after his detention.

All day, even while he was in the library, people were whispering and staring at him even more than was normal. He had never hidden that he was muggle raised but it seemed that no one had really believed it until the paper had written about it. Now everyone believed it and seemed to pity him for it.

He was almost relieved when his detention started as he was at last free of the stares and pitying whispers. The fact that he now knew some new methods for cleaning cauldrons made the detention go by much faster, something that clearly displeased Snape.

"Finally studied for the first time in your life?" the man growled after Harry announced he was done.

Feeling smug he nodded, "Yes, sir."

"Perhaps you will not completely fail my class this year then."

Harry just shrugged. Despite his poor technique he always managed to receive at least an Acceptable in the Ministry administered end of year exams. According to Hermione, the year round grades were to show what level of understanding you were at and to guide you in studying for the end of year exam. That was good because if the grades had actually counted for something he would have been held back until he could manage a passing grade in Snape's class which seemed like it would never happen.

He was dismissed and he went straight to bed, exhaustion completely overwhelming him.

The next day there was another article in the Daily Prophet about him and he groaned as he stared at the picture of his uncle waving a gun around looking like a madman outside Number 4 Private Drive. His face was visibly purple and it was a lucky thing that you could not hear his shouting because he was no doubt cursing up a storm.

The Boy Who Lived's Family Mad!

It felt like there was a block of lead in his stomach as he read the article which explained in great detail how Rita had found the Dursleys in the phonebook and gone to speak to them about Harry's childhood.

She met with Petunia Dursley first who was happy to expound on how much of a freak Harry and anyone with magic is. She apparently went off on a twenty minute tangent about how much of an unwanted burden he was until Vernon had arrived home and immediately found his gun and pointed it at Rita threatening her, even though it was still bent from Hagrid.

Harry could not eat at all after reading the article and he just wanted to disappear as the whispers around the hall exploded into a loud cacophony of noise that the teachers spent nearly ten minutes forcibly quieting down.

He had Charms and Transfiguration that day and mercifully both Professors controlled their classes with an iron fist when needed, which it most certainly was that day.

After class, he met up with Ariana who gave him a pitying look but said nothing on the matter and instead led him up to the Ravenclaw Potions Study Room and began teaching him another seemingly remedial text on Potions interactions.

He had read a bit about them in various texts at the library and Hermione had lectured them on them more than once but he did not really understand them very well. So, even though he felt stupid learning from remedial texts, he studied hard so that he could properly understand things.

The next morning there was another article about him, this time with an interview with Mrs. Figg who was apparently a squib and had never told him.

The Boy Who Lived Abused!

Mrs. Figg lived a block away from him and had babysat him many times over the years so she was the perfect person to talk about the fact that Harry was unnaturally skinny, always hungry, and always bruised from being beaten up by his cousin and family. The fact that it was only his cousin who beat him up was missed as the article proclaimed that Harry was being most severely abused by his family.

With a groan he dropped the newspaper article and headed to class with his head held high, ignoring the wall of noise that he left behind him.

He was the first one there and he dropped into a seat with his friends hovering worriedly behind him.

"That woman!" Hermione exclaimed, "Oh I am going to kill that woman! Spreading lies like that!"

"Hermione, they are not lies," Ron said quietly.

"Of course, they are! To think Harry is being abused! How ridiculous!"

"I rescued him from the Dursleys before second year," Ron said firmly.

Hermione hesitated, "Wait, what?"

Harry let his head fall to the desk while Ron explained about the bars on Harry's windows, the cat flap on his door, his things locked in the cupboard under the stairs, and the flying car.

Harry could hear Hermione crying by the end of it and he just groaned in frustration.

Finally, class started and Professor McGonagall once more ruled the class with an iron fist. After class was over she instructed Harry to stay behind which resulted in many whispers and stares.

"Mr. Weasley, Miss. Granger, when I say that I wish to speak with Mr. Potter I mean alone. It is not an open invitation to join for anyone."

"Well, we are not just anyone, are we? We are his best friends!" Ron exclaimed hotly.

Professor McGonagall stood firm though, "Be that as it may I am only speaking to Mr. Potter, now I suggest you run along before you get detention."

"Go on, it is okay," Harry said, not feeling up to whatever the Professor wanted to speak about but knowing that he had no choice and it would be best not to start a fight with her.

With grumbles, Ron and Hermione walked off and, with a flick of the Professor's wand, the door slammed closed behind them.

"Now, despite the Headmaster's attempts to hold them off the Ministry is demanding that you have a meeting with the Hit Wizards this evening after dinner."

Harry groaned and Professor McGonagall said, "You need not worry, I was once a Hit Wizard and I can tell you that they behave with the utmost professionalism. Nothing you say will be spread around and they will do everything in their power to protect you."

That made him feel better though it really should not have as the next day the Daily Prophet came out with another article.

Boy Who Lived in a Cupboard!

Anger filled him and without thinking he lit the Daily Prophet on fire. Around him, there were shrieks and screams. A nearby prefect put out the fire and ordered a loss of ten points, not that Harry cared.

As he was preparing to leave the Hall, early once again, Ariana approached him and informed him that she was going to write her father to have him sue the Hit Wizards which did make him feel a bit better.

That evening, after he finished the last of his homework for the week, he finally sat down with Dorea Potter's diary in his bed with the curtains pulled closed.

It was meant to distract him from everything going on in his life right then and it did so right from the start because he learned that Dorea Potter was not born a Potter, but a Black. The thought of being in the same family as Sirius, even distantly, filled his heart with warmth.

The Black family was dark in every way imaginable filled with fights and drama that inevitably led to dark magic being cast, which they taught their children from a young age. Dorea, though, had no desire to have anything to do with dark magic, something only her father seemed to understand. So, when she was in her second year, he arranged her marriage to Charlus Potter, a light family, despite the outrage it caused within the family.

It was too late to do anything though, as he had signed the contract magically and in blood. So, Dorea happily got to know the slightly older Charlus Potter and quickly fell in love. She used him as an excuse to avoid dark magic training and she never practiced it at Hogwarts, despite being ordered to by her mother.

Harry read the diary late into the night, enjoying getting to know his great grandmother and, by extension, his great grandfather. They seemed to enjoy each other's company immensely and spent as much time together as possible.

Dorea's best class was Potions as well, which was no doubt where Fleamont had learned it from. Right from the start Dorea talked about Potions and she did so in such a way that Harry found himself learning rather a lot.

He did not know when he went to bed but eventually, he did manage it.

He skipped breakfast the next morning, instead, going to sit under a tree by the lake and continued to read about the sweet Dorea Black, even taking notes on the Potions theory she discussed. It eventually reached things he did not understand but he was not upset by this. He knew that he would come back to it eventually and would use it to help him study in the future.

She married Charlus Potter in April of her sixth year. Shortly after she graduated the two of them started a special order Potions company to accompany the healing Potions company that the Potters already ran. He realized that either his father or Fleamont had started the beauty Potions company as Dorea and Charlus showed no interest in such things.

Harry had nearly finished her diary by the time lunch rolled around but he regretfully allowed Hermione and Ron to drag him into the castle for lunch. They had saved him a few things for breakfast but, considering he had a tutoring session after lunch, he supposed he should have a proper meal.

Before their tutoring session began, Ariana led him to a nearby alcove and said, "My father has put forth his name as your new guardian. It would help a lot if you wrote to the Head of the Hit Wizards and requested that you be placed with us. Your opinion and name mean a lot."

Harry swallowed. The Hit Wizards had promised that he would never have to see the Dursleys again but he had not really believed them. Now, faced with the possibility of that being true, he had no idea how to react. He had hoped to live with Sirius last year but that was looking less and less likely. Did he want to live with Ariana and her family?

Well, it was sure to be better than the Dursleys, he reasoned.

"All right. I will," he said at last.

"Good. Also, my younger brother wants to meet you. Can you spare some time after our tutoring session to meet him?"

Harry shrugged, "Sure."

"Excellent," was all she said before leading him back to the Ravenclaw Potions Study Room.

She was surprised and pleased to learn that he had been reading Potions theory since they had last met about Potions on Wednesday, even if it was in the form of reading Dorea's diary.

Harry found himself enjoying Potions away from the glares of Professor Snape under the gentle guidance of the top Potions student in the fifth year. They made three first year Potions that day and Harry was certain that he had done much better than he had before. Ariana promised that they would move on to the second year Potions the next day and gave him another homework assignment which was to read as much of the book she picked out for him as possible. Though given how thick it was he was sure that it would take longer than the last book she had him read.

Then they went down to the North courtyard where the first year Ravenclaws were discussing the theory behind the tap dancing charm which Harry recalled he did particularly well on so, after introductions, he began to discuss it with them as well. They seemed very excited to meet him and hear his advice, all except for her brother Richard who glared at him the entire time no matter how he tried to include him.

After the conversation wound down Ariana excused the three of them from the rest of the group and they went for a walk around the lake.

Deciding to be direct about it he asked, "So, why do you dislike me so much?"

Richard and Ariana looked surprised at the question but then Richard said heatedly, "You ignored my sister for fourteen years and now you expect a warm welcome? Well, it will not be happening!"

"Richard, he did not know about the engagement," Ariana chided him before Harry could say anything.

"How could he not know? I know Catherine very well and she is three years older than me!"

"No one told me," Harry said patiently.

Richard studied him and then asked, "Why would no one tell you?"

"Richard! Surely you have seen the papers!" Ariana said.

"Yeah, it is all over the school how much my relatives hate me," Harry added.

Richard grimaced and said, "Malfoy said that it is because you are so unbearable to be around."

Harry scowled, Malfoy had said nothing to Harry directly but, evidently, he had been talking behind Harry's back.

"Malfoy hates me almost as much as Snape hates me. You can not trust anything he says."

"Why would you even listen to Malfoy? He hates our family," Ariana asked sounding genuinely confused.

Richard flushed, "He said I am not so bad."

"Then he is trying to get family secrets out of you. Stop talking to him," Ariana said firmly.

"He is my friend!"

"He is a fourth year talking with a first year, no fourth years are friends with first years. He is trying to take advantage of you."

Richard scowled at her, "He said you would say that!" With that, he stomped off.

Ariana sighed, "It seems I have a letter of my own to write."

"Sorry, Malfoy is always being a jerk," Harry apologized, knowing that the other boy was probably trying to get under Harry's skin.

"That is not your fault. My father will sort things out," Ariana said.

"When you write him thank him for the diaries he found for me please."

She gave him a strange look, "Just write him yourself. He would be pleased to receive a letter from you."

Harry flushed at not having thought of that himself, "Okay."

"And do not forget to write Head Hit Wizard Leonardo Lawrence."

"Right, I will not forget," Harry said, a little embarrassed because he had already forgotten.

After that, they parted ways to go write their respective letters.

He spent the evening reading and taking notes on the book Ariana had recommended he check out and found himself learning a lot. It made him wonder why Snape did not teach any of it, instead expecting them to just know it without any guidance.

As he ate dinner, he contemplated what he knew about Snape.

Snape thought Harry's father and his friends were bullies. Snape's friend who had helped defend against his bullies went and married one of them. Then they had a kid. Now that kid was in his class for at least five years. That kid was going to one day be responsible for several Potions companies.

No matter how you sliced it Snape was an ass. Instead of being the bigger man and teaching Harry impartially, he treated Harry terribly, occasionally taking points off for things like breathing.

That was not even mentioning how he treated Neville. Had Neville's parents bullied him too? It really did not matter what the answer was because he was so horrible to Neville that his biggest fear was Snape. His uncle had thrown him out a window but Snape was Neville's biggest fear.

It was also clear that the man just hated teaching. Instead of assigning a textbook that would help them learn, instead of lecturing them on how the Potions worked, instead of correcting their mistakes, he was content to destroy any love of Potions that he could find. It was a miracle that Ariana was top of her year in Potions as it was obvious that the man wanted to tear down all of the students in each of his classes that were not Slytherins.

It was not like he was doing the Slytherins any favors either by not correcting their mistakes, giving them all O's for no reason, and not teaching them any better than he taught anyone else. That was not even mentioning taking their side when they clearly did something wrong. How was that preparing them for the real world?

No, Snape was an ass, there was no way around it. He hated Harry and Harry hated him and nothing was going to change that.

As they walked up to the dorm Harry relayed everything he had learned about Snape over the past week. Hermione found the entire thing completely unfair and Ron was muttering under his breath about how awful Snape was.

"We have to do something," Hermione said with certainty. "I have complained to the Board of Governors about him every year for how he treats Harry and they always ignore it."

"What can we do though?"

Hermione thought about it some and, once they were settled into their favorite seats in the Common Room, said, "We talk to our least favorite reporter. She may be awful but she has a huge reader base and she has torn down reputations in the past for less."

Harry grimaced, "Really? Rita Skeeter?"

"As much as I hate to admit it, she is probably right," Ron said.

So, they drafted a letter to Rita Skeeter explaining everything the man did wrong in the school and everything Harry knew about his past. With Neville's permission, they even mentioned that he was some of the students' boggarts because he was so cruel to people.

Unhappily Harry signed off on the letter and Hermione went to post it as Hedwig was busy with Harry's earlier post.

To distract himself he finished Dorea's diary.

He had previously stopped right before the birth of her son Fleamont when she was nearly eighty years old, which was crazy as he had never known that magicals could have children that late in life. The entries became less frequent after that as she was very busy. She spoiled him constantly and refused to allow her birth family to have anything to do with him so that he never had to learn dark magic from them.

Then it reached Charlus's death. It was clear this hit her very hard and Harry found himself crying along with her as she wrote out paragraph after paragraph about her misery. She began to write nearly every day addressing each entry to Charlus. She updated him on Fleamont's grades, current events, how the companies were doing, and how her research was going.

It was clear each day was a chore for her and that her only joy in life was Fleamont.

Then, suddenly, the entries stopped and Harry knew that she must have died.

He sat in his bed with the curtains closed and cried for the great grandmother he would never know. She had lived to be around a hundred and ten, which considering Dumbledore was over a hundred and thirty and considered to still be in his prime meant that she had died far sooner than she might have otherwise. Regardless of the actual cause, it was clear that she had died of a broken heart.

He suddenly decided that he wanted to finish Fleamont's diary if only to honor his grandmother who had loved Fleamont dearly.

He was thrown right back into heartache as he had stopped reading in the midst of Fleamont's grief about the death of his father.

Upon graduating Fleamont took over as Head of the Potter family as his mother was clearly struggling with it. On her encouragement, he began to experiment with Potions and soon discovered a very powerful hair Potion that worked on nearly everybody's hair except his own. He used the Potion to found a new Potter business around beauty Potions and spent the next few years creating new potions and improving on old ones.

Then tragedy struck again, his mother Dorea got Dragon Pox and died after only two weeks of having the disease, far earlier than normal.

The day after the funeral Fleamont became fixated on family and it only took three days before he decided that he wanted his closest friend Andrew Greengrass to be family. They barely negotiated the contract, only doing the bare minimum that their lawyers demanded, then signed it with magic and blood.

Harry sat back against his pillows and sighed to himself. After a moment he took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes tiredly. He had stayed up too late reading again but learning about his family was more important to him than sleep.

He knew the feeling of being alone without family while still having some living family. It was obvious in the diary that Fleamont found no comfort in Euphemia and had gone to the only other person he felt was family to make it official.

Harry considered Ron to be his brother and Hermione to be his sister. Would he have done what Fleamont did and blend their families? Probably not, if only because he was now suffering due to Fleamont's actions.

That said, he understood the desire to have a close family once more, especially given the depth of Fleamont's grief. The man had never fully recovered after the death of his father and the loss of his mother had been even harsher.

With a sigh, Harry lay down and tried to sleep. All he could think about, though, was how miserable Fleamont and Dorea had been at the loss of their family. He slept poorly that night.

The next morning there was another article about him.

The Boy Who Lived's Family Arrested!

Rita had managed to get a clear picture of them being dragged out of their home by the muggle police. Two of the police officers had black eyes and foul scowls.

The article reported that as the Dursleys are muggles they legally have to be prosecuted by the muggles which meant no Dementor's kiss for them. Harry, despite hating his family, was glad for that. Distantly he wondered what would happen to Dudley but decided that he did not really care.

He spent the morning being beaten soundly at chess by Ron then the afternoon in another Potions tutoring session with Ariana.

He liked Ariana, he decided. Not like liked, and definitely not loved, but he did like her as a person. She was very clearly brilliant and kind. Despite it being her OWL year, which he was given to understand was a very difficult year, she was very heavily focused on helping Harry improve. No matter what questions he asked or what wrong answers he gave she never had a harsh or unkind word for him.

She also seemed to have forgiven him for not knowing about her until a few weeks prior, which spoke very well of her.

That evening both before and after dinner he continued to read Fleamont's diary.

It was obvious that Fleamont felt better about his life now that he had Andrew Greengrass as his family. Within a few months, Andrew and his wife Amelia Greengrass nee Malfoy had a son named Daniel. It made Harry wonder why Malfoy hated the Greengrasses if they were family. Perhaps it was due to Harry but Harry had the feeling that it was something else entirely.

It was another few years before Fleamont had a child and, of course, that child was James Potter. At the same time, Andrew had another son, Richard.

As the years passed both Fleamont and Andrew despaired of ever having a daughter. They both kept trying with no success. When it was clear that neither were going to have a daughter they began to arrange marriages for their sons. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately in Harry's case, only a few years after arranging the marriage of James to Cecilia Foxgrove she died while on a winter vacation to the Netherlands in an accident.

Slowly, shortly after that, unease began to creep into the writings as important people began to disappear. Then muggleborns and muggles began to be targeted as well.

Suddenly, all out war broke out in 1978, the same year that James graduated.

Fleamont wrote of joining a group called the Order of the Phoenix and helping fight the Death Eaters.

One day he wrote in shock about James suddenly marrying a muggleborn despite there being talks for him to marry another member of the Foxgrove family. Nothing had been signed yet but it was a serious snub to the Foxgrove family.

He wrote angrily about Lily sneaking her way to the top with her feminine wiles but, slowly, she began to warm on him as she helped invent new and exciting potions and spells.

Then, suddenly, the entries stopped.

Fleamont Potter had died, though how exactly was not clear.

Harry sat back in bed and wiped his eyes. He may not like the man very much, he had made questionable choices and had questionable ideas, but he had loved him like the grandfather he was.

He had never even known that Harry would exist.

The next day, after speaking with Hermione about it and finishing classes for the day, he went searching through the archives using the search spell Hermione had recommended.

It took some time to sort through the results but he soon found every Daily Prophet that had mentioned Fleamont Potter.

His birth announcement, his marriage announcement, the announcement of the blending of the families contract, and an article for each of the Potions he had invented were all duly read, copied, and then put away.

The very last mention of him was his death announcement.

Fleamont Potter died on 23 February in a Death Eater attack against a muggle village where he valiantly defended the occupants.

Harry sat back in his chair, his eyes watering.

Hermione squeezed his shoulder and Ron looked grim as he said, "At least he died a hero."

Harry nodded slowly but said nothing, instead copying the article and putting the original paper away.

He tucked each of the copied articles in the diary of Fleamont Potter.

"We should do our homework," Hermione said.

Harry took a deep breath then said, "I promised to meet with Ariana today."

"We will come with you," Ron said firmly which made him feel a bit better. At least he had his friends.

The next morning he received two letters and a package.

The first was from Leonardo Lawrence, the Head Hit Wizard. He began the letter by apologizing for his Hit Wizards' actions in leaking his interview with them and he was currently working to find out who exactly had leaked it.

Then he said that he was pleased to hear from Harry about his preferences in regard to his guardianship. Since he was over the age of twelve his opinion counted for a lot and the Hit Wizard said that, in all likelihood, that was where he and his cousin would end up.

Harry grimaced at the thought of having to keep living with Dudley. He had really hoped that he would never have to see him again.

Unhappily he set the letter to the side and began to read the second.

It was from Daniel Greengrass, Ariana's father. He politely acknowledged the thanks Harry had sent him and informed him that he would keep looking for other books and diaries about the Potters and in the meantime, he should read the book he had sent along with the letter.

Harry tore off the wrapping from the book and found it was titled The Proper Comportment of the Esteemed Young Man.

Harry groaned and stuffed the book and letters into his bag. Even Hermione did not seem interested in reading the book.

Potions went poorly that day with Neville blowing up his cauldron. Some of his blown up Potion went into Harry and Ron's potion which caused it to blow up too. Snape shouted at them for nearly ten minutes before at last allowing them to go to the Hospital Wing, but not before removing a huge amount of points and giving Neville detention which nearly made Neville cry.

Harry almost spit out his Pumpkin Juice the next morning at the title of the latest Daily Prophet article.

Death Eater Potions Professor Tortures Students

The article quickly clarified that Professor Snape did not use torture spells, instead mentally torturing the students to the point that he was their boggart form for several students. It went on to suggest that Snape was deliberately sabotaging their Potions lessons to ruin the nation's potion supply. It demonstrated this by accurately describing what an average Potions class looked like, including the points off for breathing.

"Merlin, Snape is pissed," Ron said.

Harry glanced up at the Head table and found the man looked angrier than he had ever looked as he read the article.

It did not take long for the Great Hall to descend into chaos and the Professors had a hell of a time trying to bring order to the room. Professor Snape was particularly harsh, insulting everyone who crossed him and handing out detentions like they were candy.

Hermione was particularly smug as they walked to class.

"I did not know Snape was a Death Eater," Harry commented.

"Me either," Ron agreed. "Wonder how he got the job."

They had no more time to discuss it after that as they had classes and then Harry had Potions tutoring with Ariana.

Ariana had opinions about Snape too, it seemed.

"A Death Eater teaching Harry Potter! Really?" she said as they walked to the Brewing Study Room.

It seemed she was not alone as the next day was an expose about how Professor Snape treated him.

Harry Potter Targeted By Death Eater Professor

It started by describing their last Potions class in such excruciating detail that Harry found himself wondering if she had an invisibility cloak and had been there. Then it had gone on to list his Ministry Standard Exam grades and his grades in the class, comparing the vast discrepancy. It asked how Harry was supposed to run three Potions companies with such a poor teacher. Then it listed James's, Fleamont's, and Charlus's OWL and NEWT grades to prove that he should be getting those grades as well.

After that, it informed readers that Snape had been acquitted of being a Death Eater for spying for Dumbledore but it questioned the truth behind that as it was clear from his behavior that he was not on the Light's side.

When he looked up from the article, he found Snape glaring at him while Professor McGonagall spoke to him with a severe expression on her face. He looked away from where Snape was trying to kill him with a look to find Hermione smiling smugly at the article.

"Did you write Rita Skeeter again?"

She flushed but nodded, "Yes, it is just so unfair how he treats you."

Harry sighed but supposed that he could not really blame her. If he had thought of it himself he would have as well, if he did not dislike Rita Skeeter so much.

He had to focus after that as he had a pop quiz in Transfiguration and a hex deflection test in Defense Against the Dark Arts.

The next day he received something rather strange in the post from an owl with a purple collar on with a W stitched into it.

"That is a Wizengamot owl! Why are they sending you post?" Hermione demanded.

"I kind of need to read it first to know," Harry teased as he accepted the purple envelope and opened it.

Hermione read over his shoulder as he examined it.

Wizengamot Heirs Circular

What followed was a dry recitation of what laws were currently up for debate in the Wizengamot and where to find more information about each law. Harry was bored quickly and passed it over to Hermione who read it intently, fascination on her face.

As they walked to History of Magic she passed it back and said, "You must have a seat on the Wizengamot, that is the only reason you would receive something like that."

Harry nodded, "I guess I knew that."

"You did? Why did you not tell me?" she demanded.

He shrugged, "I guess with everything else going on it slipped my mind. But the diaries kept mentioning it and now that I think about it the contract and Mr. Greengrass both mentioned it too."

"You should have mentioned it! That is a very important position!"

Harry shrugged, "Well it is not like I can sit there right now; Mr. Greengrass is sitting on my seat right now, I think."

"What? Why?"

They entered the class then and lowered their speaking volume to whispers.

"It is the blending of the families contract. It means we have to vote the same way and can sit on each other's seats."

"That is so restrictive though. How bizarre. We should really look at that contract to see what else it says," Hermione replied.

Harry shrugged and began to explain all he knew about the history behind the blending of the families contract and what it actually said.

"We need to speak with Professor McGonagall after classes this evening. We need to find that contract," Hermione said firmly.

Harry murmured his acceptance and then Hermione said, "There are only fifty members of the Wizengamot, thirty three of which are hereditary. That leaves seven seats for the heads of each department, a seat for the Minister, and the last nine are appointed by the Minister of Magic. There is also a Chief Warlock but they do not vote and only lead the body."

"They are the most important governing body in the country," Hermione continued. "While the Ministry of Magic enforces the laws the Wizengamot makes the laws and there are very few restrictions on what can and can not be made into law."

He nodded along absently and Hermione sighed in frustration, "What I am saying is that it is very important and you need to read that circular and take things seriously."

Harry sighed and pulled the circular back out to read it.

It was really very dull.

The centaurs were petitioning for more land but were unlikely to be given any.

The standard thickness of a cauldron's bottom was up for debate with various different options available, each with its own strengths and weaknesses.

There were twenty two different trials coming up in the next month, none of which required the full Wizengamot to meet. Three to seven judges would be assigned to each trial during the next session.

A law on crup registration was coming up.

Harry suddenly sat fully upright at the last law that was listed.

Werewolf Control and Restrictions.

It was a horribly restrictive law that would cut the number of jobs werewolves were allowed to have in half. They would have to be stuck in five by five foot cages for the entirety of the transformation regardless of if they were on the Wolfsbane Potion or not.

Harry seethed as the list went on and on.

His mind raced trying to figure out what to do and Hermione, sounding smug, said, "You should write to Mr. Greengrass and tell him how you feel."

Immediately Harry pulled out a piece of parchment and wrote an impassioned plea to Mr. Greengrass to please vote against the law with Hermione adding helpful points as he wrote. Immediately he went to post the letter with Hedwig and he was late to Charms class, though he only lost a few points so he did not feel so bad about that.

Potions was the final class of the day and was an absolute disaster. Snape was visibly furious and took points off of Harry for his untied shoe, for the smirk on his face, and for walking too slowly to his desk. He breathed down Harry's neck the entire time, whispering about Harry stealing from his Potions cabinet and talking to the press, even threatening to poison him with truth serium, and he was so close that it got in the way of Harry's stirring. Every move he made was criticized and he lost more points in a half hour than he had in a month.

When Harry went to pour the Potion in its bottle Snape stopped him and informed him, "That Potion is a total failure. Zero points." Then he vanished the Potion and stalked away seeming pleased with himself.

Harry seethed the entire time and felt like punching Snape in his stupid, crooked nose. He only managed to stop himself because he knew Snape would like nothing more than to have Harry in detention for the rest of term.

He stalked to the library trying in vain to calm himself down. When Ariana caught sight of him she frowned and demanded to know what had happened.

Harry easily railed against Snape until he ran out of steam at which point Ariana had a suggestion, "Go to Professor McGonagall. She looked furious yesterday morning and she will probably be furious to learn what he has done."

Harry was rather doubtful about that but Ariana talked him into it.

Harry was shocked to learn that Ariana had been correct. After reciting the facts of the lesson to Professor McGonagall she awarded him fifty points for good behavior, hopefully negating the points that Snape had taken off, and promised that this would not happen again. And if it did she would, as his temporary guardian, grant him the right to miss the class from then on out to take private Potions lessons.

Harry admitted that Ariana was already tutoring him and he was learning more from her than he ever had with Professor Snape.

"Very good. I am glad to hear that you two are doing so well. Now if you will excuse me, if there is nothing else, I must speak with Professor Snape."

Harry went back to the library feeling much better and sat beside Ariana who smiled at him and introduced him to her friends.

Before he left Ariana reminded him to read the etiquette book which had Harry sighing but agreeing.

The etiquette book was boring in an entirely different way than the Wizengamot circular had been.

It started with the basics.

No really, the extreme basics; walking.

There were pictures of people walking, a lecture on why perfect posture was important, and exercises to improve posture. There was even a diagram about walking speed and which speeds were appropriate for which situations.

Ron, who was seated nearby reading a chess magazine Harry had gotten him a subscription to for Christmas in their second year, laughed when Harry showed him the entire chapter that was dedicated to walking. It was, admittedly, a short chapter. But still, really?

Harry had no hopes for the book improving and he was proven correct when the next chapter was both much longer and about eating.

Harry sighed and collapsed back onto his pillows.

Eating.

Merlin save him.

He flipped unhappily through the book.

Eating.

Respecting and speaking with elders.

Small talk.

Listening and note taking of lectures.

Writing letters.

Being a guest.

Hosting guests in general.

Hosting guests as an heir.

Hosting guests as the Head of a family.

Courting and Arranged Marriages.

Curious, Harry began to read the last chapter. It suggested that those in arranged marriages ought to treat their partner like they were courting. Then it went on to describe the whole process in incredible detail.

Dates, presents, and compliments were all described in great detail. Included in that was how to learn more about your partner without being obvious about it.

It was all so stiff and formal and Harry sighed after he finished the chapter, closed the book, and sat back in his bed.

By now Ron had moved on to playing a chess game by himself, no doubt knowing Harry would not agree to play another game today after being soundly beaten earlier.

"There is a Hogsmeade weekend next week, right?"

"Hmm? Yeah, I think so," Ron agreed not taking his eyes off the board.

It was clear to Harry that this is what Ariana expected of him. He had already disappointed her for the entirety of their respective lives and, having seen both ends of the spectrum of arranged marriages in his grandparents' diaries, he really did not want to spend the rest of their lives disappointing her.

With a sigh, he opened the book back up and began to read again, paying proper attention to everything it said now even if he thought it was ridiculous.

As he finished the unreasonably long book the others were preparing for bed and he thankfully tossed the book away from him.

Neville caught sight of it and shook his head, "That book is bloody awful."

"Tell me about it," Harry complained. Then a thought occurred to him and he asked, "Are you engaged?"

Neville looked surprised but nodded, "Yes, to Susan Bones."

"Do you do all that courting stuff with her?" he asked.

Neville shook his head, "No she uh– she thinks I am dull. She always leaves when I try to talk to her."

Harry frowned, "That is tough luck. I am sorry."

Neville shrugged but it was clear that it hurt him.

The next morning Harry received two letters.

The first was from Professor McGonagall and simply said to meet her after breakfast, the second was interesting, however.

Dear Mr. Harry James Potter,

After reviewing your case and reviewing the situation of your prospective guardians in great detail it has been decided to place you and your cousin Dudley Dursley in the care of Mr. Daniel Lionel Greengrass. As of today (10 Friday 1995) Mr. Greengrass is your legal guardian and should be consulted on all matters of guardianship.

Congratulations on your new placement,

Head Hit Wizard Leonardo Lawrence

Harry was not sure how he felt about the entire situation but he figured that it had to be better than the Dursleys, even if Dudley was going to be there.

He finished eating quickly and went to meet Professor McGonagall. He was surprised when Ariana and Richard joined him, Richard still scowling at him. Neither had any idea what this was about so they walked in silence, Harry offering Ariana his arm.

When they reached Professor McGonagall's office, they found Mr. Greengrass there waiting for them.

"Ah, hello children. I was just speaking with Professor McGonagall about your Potions class."

Richard groaned, "Snape is being even more of a bastard than usual."

"A point from Ravenclaw for language," Professor McGonagall said though she did not sound too upset.

"Yes, well that is what we were speaking about. For now, you will be doing self study until I can arrange a tutor for you to take private lessons with, which should not take too long. I do believe that it will not be difficult to convince the person I have in mind."

"Who is that father?" Ariana asked.

"Horace Slughorn. He was my Potions Professor and I believe, with the right incentive, he will be easy to convince."

Then he eyed them each in turn, "I need to speak with each of you privately Harry and Ariana please step outside."

They did as they were told and stood outside the Professor's office patiently.

After what felt like an awkward silence to Harry he finally cleared his throat and said, "I uh– I was wondering if you wanted to go to Hogsmeade with me next weekend."

She looked surprised but after a moment nodded, "Very well, that sounds nice."

He let out a relieved sigh. After speaking with Neville the night before he had been concerned that she would say no.

"Did you read that etiquette book?" she asked after a moment.

He scrunched up his face but nodded, "Cover to cover."

"What about Introduction to Potions Interactions?"

He grimaced, "I have been busy, I only got halfway through it."

"Fair enough, it has been busy lately," she said easily. "Perhaps you could spend some time studying it today before our session."

He shrugged, "Sure, why not?"

Then, the door opened and Richard stomped out sending them a venomous glare before storming off.

"Ariana," called Mr. Greengrass and she smiled at him before entering the office.

Harry stood there waiting patiently wondering if he wanted to talk about the werewolves after Harry's letter yesterday.

Finally, the door opened and Mr. Greengrass and Ariana left Professor McGonagall's office.

"Come Harry, let us take a walk. We need to have a long talk and we need not take up more of Professor McGonagall's office hours."

Harry nodded as the line to talk with the Professor was quite long already.

Ariana said she would see him after lunch and went her separate way.

Mr. Greengrass and Harry were quiet until they reached the lake at which point they began to walk around it and Mr. Greengrass said, "So, I suppose you received the letter from the Hit Wizard?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good, good. I was wondering firstly about your cousin."

Harry frowned, "What do you want to know?"

"Everything you can tell me."

Harry was quiet for a minute getting his thoughts into order. "He hates me. It is because of his parents, I think. They raised me, well– you read the papers. He took after them. Unlike what the papers said the Dursleys did not hit me, much, it was Dudley beating me up. Oh, they approved of it plenty but it was mostly him."

"He is a bully and since he is so fat he is usually much stronger than the kids he picks on," he added as an afterthought.

"How does he do in school?" Mr. Greengrass asked.

Harry shrugged, "I did all his homework when we were kids. I had to do worse than him on my own work, of course. He failed all his tests though. I have no idea how he is doing now though."

"I understand. Do you have anything else to add?"

"No."

"I will be arranging a meeting with his school shortly to talk about his progress and to meet him in person," Mr. Greengrass said and Harry just shrugged in answer to that. He did not really care how Dudley was doing in school, frankly.

"Now, how do you feel things are going between you and Ariana?"

Harry grimaced, feeling awkward at the thought of talking about his relationship with the man's daughter with the man.

Mr. Greengrass misinterpreted that and sternly said, "Happiness in marriage is a choice. You must work hard at it, otherwise it will not happen."

"I know," Harry agreed. "I read Fleamont and Dorea's diaries. It is just hard when I never imagined myself being married and now, I suddenly will be when I turn seventeen."

"Have you read that book I gave you?" Mr. Greengrass asked.

"Yes, sir," Harry said.

"Good, that is a good start. I have brought with me another book, this one exclusively about courting and arranged marriages. You should read this as well," he said as he produced a package from his inside robe pocket. It must have been charmed not to show the contents because even as he was pulling it out of the pocket there was no outward indication there was anything in the pocket.

Harry accepted the package and studied the thick package and said, "I will open this later,"

"There is another diary in there for you as well. It took me some time to find the right person who knew the translation spells for it was in Middle English. It is the diary of a man named Reeve Peverell. I choose him because, aside from being the first diary of your family, it also appears to have a self updating family tree within it and it has births going back nearly seven hundred years before Reeve Peverell was alive."

Harry stared at Mr. Greengrass for a moment before asking, "How old does that make my family?"

"Nearly 1500 years old, one of the oldest families in the country who has lived in this country the entire time, right there alongside the Longbottoms."

Harry's eyes widened in shock and without thinking he asked, "How old is the Greengrass family?"

Mr. Greengrass laughed a little, "We are positively children compared to you as our records only go back 500 years."

Harry looked down at the package and wondered what he would find in the diary.

As he stared at it a thought occurred to him, "Can you please find a copy of the contract and send it to me?" He had meant to speak with Professor McGonagall about it the day before but had been distracted by Snape.

Mr. Greengrass's eyebrows rose but he nodded, "Of course. I will make a copy of your copy so that the original does not get damaged."

"Thank you," Harry said softly.

"Now, lastly, werewolves."

Harry swallowed at the way the man said that and prepared himself for a fight, "They deserve rights too, they are just humans who have been cursed!"

"Many consider them public menaces who are intent on destroying the fabric of society," Mr. Greengrass said mildly.

"That is not true!" Harry said fiercely, "If they take their Wolfsbane they are perfectly safe!"

"Fenrir Greyback was among the first to start using the Wolfsbane and he uses it to attack families and children in particular," Mr. Greengrass informed him.

Harry glared at him, "And those children did nothing wrong! By not allowing them to get an education and hold jobs you are pushing them into poverty and crime! They have no choice but to pair with Greyback because they have nowhere else to go!"

"Would you be willing to speak to the papers about this?" the man asked.

"Yes! I will do anything to help them!" Harry declared passionately.

Mr. Greengrass clapped him on the shoulder, "Excellent. That should bring many more to our cause."

Harry, whose heart was beating wildly and who had only moments before been filled with righteous anger, deflated some, "So you will vote against the law?"

"Yes, I will."

Harry stared at him in confusion, "Why did you say all those things then?"

"Those are the talking points against werewolves. If you cannot defend against them, how can you truly hold a position?"

Harry stared at that before nodding slowly, "I guess that is fair."

"Now, unless there is anything else to talk about, let us go to Hogsmeade to summon a reporter to discuss things."

They did exactly that and Harry spent the next few hours being relentlessly grilled by Rita Skeeter about werewolves. By the time he returned to the castle he was exhausted and he collapsed onto the seat beside Hermione, not particularly feeling like eating lunch.

As he forced himself to eat a small lunch Hermione and Ron grilled him about where he had been and then how the interview had gone.

Then it was time for his tutoring session and he was forced to admit that he had spent the whole morning with her father and so had not been able to read any more about Potions interactions. So they worked on other Potions that had interactions he had already read about for a few hours before Harry was dismissed with the expectation that he would read more of the book that day.

Despite his exhaustion, he did exactly that. While Hermione and Ron played chess Harry sat nearby and took notes about the Potions book. He was soon dozing though and Ron woke him and made him go to bed.

The next morning he cursed himself for falling asleep as he had wanted to spend that day reading the diary. He skipped breakfast to study the book for a few hours before he, at last, allowed himself to open the diary he had been gifted.

The History of the Peverell family.

Before we were Peverell we were Blagden. Before we were Blagden we were Ó Dubhthaigh.

As long as there have been people on the British Isles we have been there in some form or another. The family has a long history of magic but has been forced to change with the tides of the nonmagicals. When it became clear that the old Celtic ways were no longer acceptable to the Anglo-Saxons we changed our name to Blagden. When it was clear that the Anglo-Saxon ways were no longer acceptable to the Normans we changed our name once more to Peverell. These name changes occurred by marriage to one of the members of the newly acceptable families.

The Peverell family is an ancient and powerful magical family. Ó Dubhthaigh were a tribe of magic who helped all who needed it. As Blagden we helped found the Wizengamot which rules over all of the magicals in the British Isles even now.

Listed within this diary are family stories that have been passed down through the centuries. Read well, future generations, and learn from your family.

Harry read the diary with great interest. His family was old and had always been dedicated to caring for others. The very first story was of helping magicals and nonmagicals survive a plague that was sweeping the land.

The distance between magicals and nonmagicals was vast back then. Magicals could fly, could heal nearly any illness or injury that cropped up, were clean, and always had plenty of food. By comparison, nonmagicals were practically infants who had no way of caring for themselves.

Regretfully he closed the diary when Ron insisted it was time for lunch as he was very hungry. It was then that he learned that his interview had been published that morning and had caused a huge outroar. The fact that he was not there for it had not helped any and now he was bombarded by people demanding his attention and answers to their questions.

He was hardly able to eat before Ariana was dragging him off for their tutoring session.

Ariana was pleased that he had taken the time to study that morning and the session went very smoothly.

Afterwards he wanted to get right to reading the diary once more but when he went to grab it he saw the other book Mr. Greengrass had given him, Courtship and Arranged Marriages for the Modern Era. Regretfully he grabbed that book and began to read, ignoring Hermione's snort when she saw the title.

It was a dull book and Harry only got through a one chapter before it was time for bed. It began with how to start a courtship which Harry obviously did not need to know so he skipped it.

The next chapter was about the first date which apparently had incredibly high standards and Harry reread the chapter twice to be sure that he got everything. By the end it was clear that he would have to order better clothes than he owned as he was supposed to wear his best clothes that were not formal ballroom attire, in addition to everything else he was supposed to do.

With a sigh, he sought out Lavender Brown, the girl who knew the most about fashion in the school and who intended to be a fashion designer one day and explained the situation to her. She was over the moon at being asked and quickly pulled out several catalogs and a tape measurer and began to measure him while also flipping through the catalogs to gush about outfits.

He impressed upon her that he was buying one outfit for the date and she sighed but helped him whittle it down to one outfit with casual robes. All of his old shoes were deemed too ratty and disgusting, which he could not deny as they were Dudley's castoffs, so she also helped him order new shoes. By the time she was done picking out the outfit and shoes, Harry was spending more on one outfit than he had ever spent on clothes combined.

Technically that did not mean much as the only clothes he had ever bought were his school robes and one pair of dress robes but it still felt like too much to spend, even with Lavender assuring him that this was standard for someone of his station. He supposed that she would know.

"Do you have an engagement?" he asked her before they parted ways for bed.

She laughed, "Me? No, I am just the fourth daughter and sixth child. I have to find my own husband and my own way in the world."

Harry did not know what to say to that and she laughed and said, "It is okay Harry! This way I can do what I want, no expectations. I can be a fashion designer without anyone saying 'Why are you not in the family business?'"

"Oh. That is good then," was all Harry could think to say which had Lavender laughing again.

The next morning he received a copy of the contract and a note from Mr. Greengrass.

While Hermione read the contract avidly Harry read the note which just informed him that from now on his Potions lessons would be with Mr. Horace Slughorn on Wednesday and Saturday evenings. Ariana's would be Tuesday and Sunday evenings and Richard's would be Monday and Thursday evenings.

Harry supposed he would have to find other times to spend with Ariana to become closer to her.

As they walked to their first class of the week Hermione spoke at great length about how unfair the contract was. She found it ridiculous that it was to last for a thousand years, that they were expected to share profits and to vote the same way, no matter their own opinions. "It says nothing about how to figure out who votes which way when you do not agree!"

Harry just shrugged and skimmed through the contract again. It hardly mattered how unfair it was now, not when it was magically binding.

The days passed quickly with Harry reading as much as he could of the diary and the book on courting.

The diary was interesting as, though the magicals lives were only really different in that they learned magic at home, the nonmagicals lives were vastly different. Political upheaval was common and affected everyone in different ways. Spells were both similar and different in that they still mostly used bastardized Latin. The spells themselves were a mix of spells that were not used these days and spells that were used these days and it was fascinating to see what had changed and what had not. The Lumos spell had been in use since the days of the Ancient Roman Empire.

It was not until the tenth century that Hogwarts was founded and they started doing more formal education. Harry's family was among the first to attend Hogwarts.

Also of note were the ways they celebrated holidays. Even the holidays themselves were different. It was strange to read about ancient rituals meant to improve the land, improve fertility, and cause good luck for a family. All of those things were done with spells, enchantments, and potions these days.

The courting book was much less interesting though perhaps more significant to his life. It suggested that he speak to Ariana every day, that he walk her to classes and carry her books, and that he eat meals with her. How he was supposed to get to his own classes on time was less clear. Still, he decided to join her for lunch on Wednesday much to everyone's surprise.

As Harry and his friends were walking to Transfiguration Hermione said, "You are really taking this whole arranged marriage thing seriously."

Harry grimaced but said, "I have to marry her one day. I read my grandfather's and great grandmother's diaries. My great grandmother actually tried to get to know her husband and wanted a happy marriage and it was. My grandfather ignored his wife and they had a strained marriage that resulted in him looking outside the marriage for happiness and family."

Hermione was quiet to that.

After class, Harry met with Mr. Slughorn in what was apparently his old Potions classroom when he taught at Hogwarts. It was on the first floor and had massive windows which were open. When Harry commented on it, Mr. Slughorn said that ventilation was vital to Potions and he did not understand why Professor Snape taught in the dungeons.

Then he was given a new textbook which a quick skim through proved would be a hundred times better than Snape's choice. They spent much of the first session determining where Harry was in his Potions education and then Mr. Slughorn lectured on some of the things he would be learning. He promised that he would have a curriculum set up by Saturday and dismissed Harry early.

All in all, Harry was pleased with the outcome of the Potions class and he happily sat down and read the portion of the text Slughorn had suggested he read. The short essay that followed was found to be rather easy as well.

The days sped along and on Friday Harry got his new clothes in the post. The next morning, he studied the outfit he was wearing and sighed. He looked ridiculous.

Evidently, Ron agreed as he said, "You look like a posh twat."

"Merlin, I know," Harry groaned as he fidgeted with the outfit. He was wearing a white button up shirt with a light brown waistcoat over it, a light blue tie, black trousers, and over it all was a light brown robe. The boots he was wearing were not comfortable in any sense either and he shifted uncomfortably.

After staring at himself in the mirror for a bit more he opened the stupid book that had suggested he wear his best outfit and stared at the picture that was so similar to the one Lavender had picked out for him. It did not look as bad on the person in the picture as it did on him.

"Come on mate, don't want to be late for your date," Ron teased.

Harry glared at him and Ron just laughed.

As he entered the Common Room Lavender shrieked and rushed him causing Harry to startle in shock. "You look brilliant! So handsome!"

Harry frowned and looked back down at the outfit, "I look ridiculous."

"No, you look amazing!" Lavender refuted as she adjusted the outfit on him. "Greengrass is going to love it!"

"You think so?" he asked, still doubtful.

Lavender finished adjusting his tie and nodded, "It is brilliant! Go see her now and find out for yourself!"

Feeling a bit better Harry walked down to the Entry Hall. As he did so people began to stare and whisper at him and he began to feel uncomfortable once more.

When he reached the Entry Hall where he was to meet Ariana, he began to search for her. He almost missed her as she was wearing a completely different outfit than usual. It made sense, Harry thought distantly as he stared at her in shock. She was wearing a light blue robe with a tight, ankle length flower dress underneath that made her look very pretty.

"Uh," was all Harry could think to say.

Ariana laughed and said, "You clean up very nicely. Now if only you wore clothes have this nice during the regular week."

Harry grimaced, "This was bloody expensive."

"Hence, half as nice," she teased before offering him her arm.

Feeling stupid for having forgotten that he linked arms with her and led the way to the carriages that were to take them down to the gate.

As they sat in silence, he tried to remember what he was supposed to talk about. "Uh, how are your friends?"

She smiled a little at him, "Which ones?"

He wracked his brain, "Uh, Caroline? Miranda?"

"Oh Caroline. She is being a drama queen, as usual." With that Ariana was off, talking about Caroline's attempts to steal Miranda's boyfriend without Miranda realizing it.

"Should you, uh, tell Miranda?" Harry asked as they left the carriage.

"Oh, Miranda knows, she also knows Michael is loyal to her and her alone. She thinks Caroline's attempts are funny."

Harry frowned wondering how that made any sense but did not say so.

As they walked to the village with Ariana chattering about her other friends while Harry tried to commit their names and dramas to memory.

"How are your friends?" Ariana asked as they entered the village.

"Well, Hermione is struggling to get SPEW to work. She probably is not helped by it being called SPEW."

"What is SPEW?" Ariana asked, her nose wrinkled.

Harry grimaced, "It is the Society for the Promotion of Elvish Welfare. It is to help house elves be treated better."

"What do you mean 'be treated better'?" she asked sounding more curious than anything.

Reluctantly Harry explained Hermione's belief that house elves were slaves and about how poorly Dobby had been treated by the Malfoys.

"Why would anyone beat a house elf?" she asked aghast. "They are cute little helpers who never hurt anyone!"

Harry shrugged, "No point asking me why the Malfoys are monsters, I have never known why only that they are."

Suddenly Ariana got a strange glint in her eyes, "Do you think Dobby would be willing to talk to Richard?"

Harry's eyes widened and he nodded at once, "Absolutely!"

"Excellent," she said with satisfaction, "Anything against them can only help."

Harry nodded and led the way into the sweet shop where he bought her every sweet that she looked at or expressed an interest in. She laughed at him for it but seemed to be genuinely pleased by it if the profuse thanks she gave him was any indication.

Then he brought her to the jewelry store and together they picked out a necklace with a blue stone wrapped in copper that was enchanted to keep the wearer dry even in the harshest of storms.

They ended the date at Madam Puddifoot's which the book had recommended by name. It was a cute little tea shop with what turned out to be delicious little cakes that had Harry deciding they would come back on their next date, even if the tea was subpar.

After they walked out of the tea shop they began to say goodbye to each other in the formal way that the book indicated would mean the end of the date. When she kissed him on the cheek, he knew the date had been considered a very successful one by her. He decided to reply in kind and kissed her on the cheek as well which made her giggle.

Harry had to hurry to get back to Hogwarts in time for his Potions lesson and even then he was a minute late. That was due to Hermione and Ron reminding him that he had to meet Sirius at two, which he could no longer do. They promised to pass along his well wishes and tell him everything that Sirius said. Mr. Slughorn just laughed and waved him off when he apologized, though, and Harry relaxed. Potions still made him a bit jumpy these days, even after all the practice he had outside of Snape's class.

"Now," Mr. Slughorn began, getting Harry's attention once more, "You are far behind where my fourth years were. In fact, I would classify you at about midway through third year level. You have some understanding of third year concepts but not enough to be classified as proficient.

"I have spoken with Daniel, that is Mr. Greengrass, and we will be doing Potions lessons all through the summer to get you up to speed. We will have to do this at an accelerated pace so that you are at fifth year level by the time you start your fifth year. What this means is that you will have a lot of homework, more even than you will have in your fifth year."

"Merlin, Snape is that bad of a teacher?" Harry muttered.

Mr. Slughorn nodded gravely, "I am afraid so. It is really quite disappointing as he was one of my best students. A little birdy told me though that he is under investigation by the Board of Governors and may be losing his position."

"That is good," Harry said.

Then the lesson began.

It was fast paced with an in depth lecture of some of the things he apparently should have already known.

The potion he did after the lecture was a complicated one but when he finished Mr. Slughorn nodded and said, "Excellent work, Mr. Potter."

Just as Mr. Slughorn had said he had a lot of homework and he decided to go straight to the library to get it taken care of. It was not so easily taken care of, though, for he had to read twelve chapters and write an essay about each one.

That evening Hermione and Ron conveyed Sirius's pleasure at sticking it to Snape by getting a new teacher and said that Mr. Slughorn was the best of the best. Then they explained everything he said about Crouch, Crouch Jr, Winky, and the missing Ministry witch Bertha Jorkins. Harry agreed it was all very suspicious and agreed to go see Winky and Dobby to deliver the socks Ron and Hermione had bought Dobby.

They ended up being forced out of the kitchens quite quickly after Hermione began to insist that the house elves deserved to be free. Harry only just had time to arrange for Dobby to meet Richard in a few days time before the door closed in their faces.

Much to Hermione's surprise and Ron's displeasure Harry ended up spending all of Sunday in the library taking copious notes and writing extensive essays.

Despite still being jumpy around Potions he was starting to properly enjoy them now. The fact that his family was steeped in history surrounding Potions made it all the more enjoyable. He had never known, for instance, that his mother had invented at least three potions. Two of those Potions were now considered standard Potions for every student to learn and had been taught to Harry without him ever knowing the history behind them, though he used the word taught loosely.

His mum was not the only one who had invented Potions. His grandfather Fleamont had basically created every modern beauty care Potion from scratch. His grandmother Dorea had cured two diseases and created three inoculations that every magical child got at some point in their life either directly after birth or before they entered Hogwarts. His many times great grandfather Lionel had written three books on Potions which Mr. Slughorn had recommended as good reference material.

The fact that Snape, knowing his history with Potions, knowing his mother had invented some of the Potions he had taught, had tried to take away his birthright grated on him like sandpaper on his skin. He must have enjoyed Harry failing at his mother's Potions immensely in a way only a truly sick man could do.

The next day was an article showed up in Witch Weekly about Harry, Hermione, and Viktor Krum suggesting that Hermione, not satisfied with Viktor, was trying to steal Harry from Ariana. The evidence it used was her exclaiming about how horrible arranged marriages and the blending of the families contract were. Hermione seethed while Harry looked up and saw Ariana looking furious too.

Harry quickly stood and joined her at her table. "Nothing is happening between Hermione and I," he tried to reassure her.

"Everyone knows she hates the contract," Ariana ground out.

Harry shook his head, "She just hates to see injustice in the world."

"How is that injustice? How is that any of her business?" she demanded.

Harry grimaced, not particularly wanting to have this conversation in the Great Hall where everyone was clearly listening.

Despite that, he said, "She is my best friend, what is my business is her business just like her business is my business. And as for the injustice… well do you recall how little you wanted to marry me because you thought I was ignoring you? How you felt forced into a terrible situation with no way out? That is the injustice Hermione sees."

Ariana flushed and seemed to calm down some, "Fine. And there is nothing going on between you and her?"

"No," Harry said firmly.

Then one of her friends, Harry thought her name might be Caroline, said slyly, "What about you and Parvati Patil?"

Harry was taken aback at the thought as he had no clue why she would think such a thing until he recalled that he had gone to the Yule Ball together. "We went to the Yule Ball as friends, that is all," Harry replied after a second.

"Yeah, remember they barely danced together at all," a nearby girl whose name he had forgotten said. Did everyone have to pay that much attention to him? He supposed it worked out in his favor this time as Ariana relaxed completely but it was still annoying how much people watched him.

Hermione, however, did not calm down any and spent the day ranting about Rita Skeeter even during class which actually lost her a few points, not that she noticed. She spent the time after classes studying libel laws in the library, or trying and failing to as it appeared the magical world did not have any.

That evening Harry retrieved Dobby from the kitchens to many glares from the other house elves and met up with Ariana and Richard. At first, Richard did not want to believe that his friend would do anything as horrible as beat a house elf but as Dobby showed him the scars that he usually kept covered by the many layers of clothes he wore and as Dobby began to cry at recalling his old masters Richard became convinced.

"I am sorry, Dobby, that you had to go through that," the young boy said.

"Oh Mister Richard is so good! Thank you, Mister Richard!"

He gave him a strained smile and turned to Ariana, "I am sorry that I was talking with Malfoy. I will not do that anymore."

Ariana squeezed Richard's shoulder reassuringly, "You know better now, that is all that matters."

The next morning Hermione received a deluge of post, all of it about how horrible Hermione was. After they had each read a few letters all three of them were seething mad. Ron pulled out his wand and set the lot of it on fire which was a mistake as there was a huge pile of it and so there was a huge fire suddenly in the middle of Gryffindor table.

Ron ended up receiving detention after the fire was put out but he just said, "Worth it," which caused him to also lose a few points.

It took days for Hermione to calm down and begin to plan her revenge which was kind of scary to witness even as he did not know what she was planning.

Harry found himself constantly busy over the next few weeks as the Potions lessons were speeding along at their accelerated pace. He hardly had time to read the diary Mr. Greengrass had translated for him but when he did he always felt warm, even as he occasionally had to ask Hermione about some tradition or spell that he did not understand.

Hermione was, by now, completely convinced that she would go into a job in law helping change magical law to be more modern. She was working to memorize an entire legal text and planned to have them all memorized by the time she graduated which was just frightening.

Ariana, who did not like Hermione much after everything, thought the whole thing was ridiculous.

He would have completely missed the announcement that the werewolf law that had previously been expected to pass had failed if not for Hermione forcing him to read the Prophet. He mostly skimmed it these days as he was too busy to read it all but this article was hidden on the seventh page at the bottom and was very short.

Still, it was nice to know he had an effect on things.

Spring break happened suddenly, as far as Harry was concerned. It was, unfortunately not a break for him as Mr. Slughorn took the opportunity to spring even more work on him so that he spent all day either studying or trying to take his mind off of studying with his friends and Ariana.

It caused him to wonder what to call Ariana. She was his fiancé but it felt strange to call her that. Honestly, he did not even feel he could call her his girlfriend as their friendship seemed to be entirely platonic, which was not encouraging. He did not know how to change that, though, or even if he wanted to.

He found himself falling back to the book on courting and arranged marriages again. A lot of what it suggested sounded like dating and, though it pained him, he decided to try some of it.

They already walked through the halls arms linked but the first time he had offered to carry her bag she had beamed at him.

They had only exchanged a chaste kiss at the end of their first date but now Harry kissed her on the cheek each time they separated which she always returned, each time with a bright smile.

Her smiles were nice, he decided.

Even if he felt awkward kissing her.

Then, for no particular reason, with the aid of Lavender, he sent her flowers. It was not until he received the chocolate eggs from Mrs. Weasley that he realized that it was Easter day. Hermione was very upset to receive a chocolate egg from the woman that was less than half the size of Harry and Ron's.

Ariana decided to spend the day with them, happily helping him with his Potions homework and sitting closer to him than she normally did. She even bore Hermione's general unhappiness without any complaint, instead spending the whole day smiling.

Harry received the Wizengamot Circular that Friday but, mercifully, there was nothing objectionable about it. Instead, it was simply boring, though Hermione did not agree.

Then the term started back up again and Harry found himself inordinately busy again. With that in mind, he ordered flowers for Ariana every Sunday for three months ahead of time, making sure each one was slightly different.

Ariana loved each gift of flowers and the personalized notes that came with them and spent as much time as she could with him each day, when she was not in her Potions lesson.

Overall, Harry was pleased with how things were going with Ariana. He may not have a choice in being with her but at least their relationship would not be as tense as Fleamont and Euphemia's had been.

Then one day he received a note to meet Mr. Bagman at the Quidditch pitch.

By the time the whole thing was done, Harry was more confused and concerned than he had been before. After learning that the third task was going to be a maze Viktor Krum had pulled Harry to the side to talk about the article in Witch Weekly only for Mr. Crouch to show, then disappear before Harry could return with Dumbledore.

Harry, Hermione, and Ron sent off a letter to Sirius about everything that had happened and later that day spoke to Professor Moody about it as he was the one who went searching through the forest for him. Unfortunately, Moody had not found him and agreed that kidnapping was the most likely thing to have happened to such a deranged man. Then he reminded Harry of the upcoming task which had completely disappeared from Harry's mind in the face of all the drama that had happened.

The next day he received a letter from Sirius that was completely hypocritical as he warned Harry against going out at night or in any way misbehaving. Hermione and Ron agreed, though, saying that Harry had been put in the tournament for a reason and that it was too dangerous for him to go wandering about.

The three spent the next few days studying intensely for the third task with Ariana pitching in occasionally and practicing the stunning spell in particular as Professor Moody had suggested.

Then, during Divination on Monday, Harry had a dream, or perhaps vision, of Voldemort. As he had promised Sirius he went straight to Headmaster Dumbledore's office to tell him what had happened. He found the Headmaster in a meeting with the Minister and Professor Moody discussing Mr. Crouch and Bertha Jorkins.

The Minister refused to see any correlation between the two disappearances and then demanded to see where the whole thing had happened, leaving Harry behind in the Headmaster's office. There he saw, accidentally, the trials of Igor Karkaroff, Ludo Bagman, and Bartemius Crouch Jr.

Mr. Crouch was harsh and cruel with the suspected Death Eaters, including Ludo Bagman who claimed to have simply trusted the wrong man rather than be actively a Death Eater. He was even harsher with his own son who, according to Headmaster Dumbledore, was arrested on very flimsy evidence.

At the same time, he learned about the horrible fate of Neville's parents: tortured into insanity. Harry was so struck by how horrible it was that he took the time to eat with Neville during meals. Neville was a kind, if bumbling, boy who always stood up for those younger than himself who were going through hard times, often to his own detriment.

He did not have much time to spend with Neville though as he had to practice for the Third Task. As it approached the excitement and anticipation for the task grew, despite the fact that exams were also coming upon them quickly.

Ariana joined Hermione and Ron in helping him study for the task, despite the fact that she had OWLs rapidly approaching which were supposed to be devilishly difficult.

When Harry pointed that out, though, she said, "This is what husbands and wives do for each other. You have three years less training than them, you need all the help you can get."

"Besides we will all do very well on our Defense exams. We would never have learned have these spells in class," Hermione added.

Then another newspaper article came out.

Harry Potter "Disturbed and Dangerous!"

It described Harry passing out in class clutching his scar and cited him being friends with werewolves and half giants. Some people at Saint Mungo's claimed it was either remnants of back lash from the killing curse or he was faking it. A supposed expert in Defense Against the Dark Arts claimed that anyone who was friends with werewolves and half giants was extremely dangerous.

Harry sighed in frustration as Malfoy taunted him from across the hall, shouting so everyone could hear it. Malfoy was quoted too in the article explaining that Harry could speak Parseltongue and that everyone believed that he was responsible for all those petrifications when he was a second year.

Hermione seemed to get an idea about Rita Skeeter after Harry mentioned that it was like he was bugged since she also appeared to have been in the classroom when he had his last vision.

As she rushed off to the library to research something Professor McGonagall approached and informed him that the families of the champions were waiting to greet them. Harry was perplexed why she would bother to tell him such a thing as he obviously did not have any family, the Dursleys had been arrested a few months back.

He was about to go to the library too to research more jinxes when Cedric shouted, "Come on, Harry, they're waiting for you.

Confused, Harry went to the atrium and found Mrs. Weasley, Bill Weasley, Mr. Greengrass, and Dudley Dursley all waiting for him. It was clear that they had been having an awkward conversation prior to his arrival.

"Surprise!" Mrs. Weasley said, a strained smile on her face. "We thought we would come and see you!"

"Yes, they appeared to assume that your family would not come to see you," Mr. Greengrass drawled rudely.

"Right," Harry said, "Well it is great to see you! Thanks for coming!"

"How are you doing?" Bill asked. "Charlie wanted to be here but he could not get the time off."

"I am good, better now that you are all here."

Mr. Greengrass walked up and squeezed his shoulder, "I am glad to hear you are doing well. Daniel wanted to be here too but he also could not get off of work."

Harry thanked him and then winced a little as Dudley stepped up with a frown, "He says you could die."

Harry nodded slowly and Dudley said, "I do not want you to die."

Harry stared at Dudley in amazement until Bill cleared his throat and began to ask about various features of Hogwarts that he had apparently been missing.

Harry agreed to give them a tour and, after a slight altercation with Amos Diggory, he did exactly that.

They ate dinner with him which was more courses than usual and Fred, George, Ariana, and Richard all joined them. It was a lively meal and Harry had nearly forgotten that Hermione had a brainwave about Rita Skeeter until Hermione showed up.

"Are you going to tell us—"

But Hermione hushed him with a glance at the adults.

As the meal progressed Harry felt less and less like eating until he was just picking at his food. The thought of the upcoming task weighed heavily on him.

His family, the whole, large group, joined him in walking down to the Quidditch pitch. Before they found their seats Ariana gave him a kiss on the cheek and told him to come back in one piece.

Then the third task started

. . . . .

As nothing is changing from the book, I am not going to try to rewrite the scene with Voldemort.

. . . . .

Harry, after explaining what had happened with Voldemort to Sirius and Headmaster Dumbledore, had taken some Dreamless Sleep in the Hospital Wing. He did not know how much time had passed since then, a side effect of the dreamless sleep, all he knew was that he was woken by the sound of shouting.

"Never in all my years—"

"It is my right as Minister—"

Then the calming voice of the Headmaster cut in, "Minerva I do believe I told you to stay and watch over Crouch."

As Harry sleepily peeled his eyes open his Head of House said, "There is nothing to guard! The Minister had him Kissed!"

"Now see here! It is my right as the Minister to have a guard when questioning a dangerous criminal!" cried the Minister whose face was bright red.

"Ah, but it is not your right to administer the Kiss, is it?" came the silky voice of Mr. Greengrass from beside Harry's bedside reminding him of no one more than Lucius Malfoy. "That right belongs to the Wizengamot alone."

"Daniel! I did not see you there!" the Minister said nervously, obviously trying to avoid answering him.

"Be that as it may, I do believe I have heard more than enough to have you tried for overstepping your rights as Minister."

The Minister looked sick at the thought and exclaimed, "It was an accident!"

"Which makes it all the worse," Mr. Greengrass said firmly. "That you brought the dementor with you without being able to control it, into a school of all places, means that I can now also charge you with negligence."

"He was mad! A criminal!" the Minister cried desperately. "You should hear the things he was saying! That he was acting on You-Know-Who's orders! That You-Know-Who is back!"

"And you did not think to bring an Unspeakable who is an expert on such things to verify the claim?" Mr. Greengrass said archly.

The Minister was not persuaded though, "He can't be back!"

"I suppose it does not matter what you believe, Minister, for you will not be Minister for much longer," Mr. Greengrass said carelessly. "Chief Warlock I do believe you should call an emergency session. We can discuss the Minister's actions and see Harry's memories of the event in question."

"The boy is mad too! You saw the papers this morning! Having turns around the castle and– and speaking Parseltongue!"

"I will thank you not to speak that way about a future Warlock of the Wizengamot, Fudge," Mr. Greengrass replied icily.

Suddenly there was a loud bang and everyone jumped and turned to find Hermione holding a bottle that she had clearly slammed onto the window sill. She flushed in embarrassment and whispered, "Sorry."

Mr. Greengrass was the first to turn away as he turned to the Headmaster and said leadingly, "Chief Warlock."

"Of course, Warlock Greengrass. I will summon a session at once," Dumbledore said genially.

"You can't! I am Minister! I will have you both out before you can think!"

Mr. Greengrass actually laughed at that, though it was devoid of any joy, and said, "Then you know nothing of how the Wizengamot and how it works. It would take a full vote of the entire Wizengamot to get me out of office and I think we both know that would not happen."

The Minister continued to protest that it could not happen, following the Headmaster out of the Hospital Wing. Before he left, he whispered something to Snape that even the Minister could not hear but had Snape looking sour even as he nodded. By the time the door closed, the Minister was practically begging for him to stop.

Mr. Greengrass turned to him and said, "Now I will need a copy of your memory and then you can take some more Dreamless Sleep Potion and get some rest."

"Uh, how do I do that?" Harry asked.

Mr. Greengrass explained how to do so, Madam Pomfrey offered him an empty and sterile Potions bottle, and soon Harry was experiencing the strange feeling of a memory sliding out of his mind. Before he took the rest of the Dreamless Sleep Ariana, who had appeared at his bedside at some point, kissed him on the cheek. Harry fell asleep with a goofy smile on his face.

When Harry woke the next morning, he saw that all of his friends, Ariana included, Mrs. Weasley, and even Sirius as Snuffles, had fallen asleep by his bedside. He lay quietly in bed, his thoughts disjointed and broken. Flashes of what had happened came to him in pieces until Harry was lying in bed crying softly.

All his time at the Dursleys had been good for something for he could cry silently and he woke no one. By the time Mrs. Weasley stirred he had managed to stop crying but she could clearly tell that he had been by the tear tracks on his face for she hugged him tightly.

Slowly his friends woke and were shooed off by Mrs. Weasley to shower, change, and have breakfast. All except Ariana who nearly got into a shouting match with her until Madam Pomfrey intervened and told them both to be silent or be removed from the Hospital Wing.

They both subsided and sat on either side of the bed, not looking at each other. After a long moment Ariana grabbed his hand and squeezed it and Harry felt a little bit better.

Later when Harry would look back on things he would remember that first morning clearly but everything else was disjointed and broken. For some reason, those quiet moments in the Hospital Wing were clear to him. Just Harry sitting with two women who cared for him.

Even the part where Amos Diggory and his wife came to visit him was clear, much as he wished it would not be. The two had cried as they thanked him for bringing back Cedric's body.

Everything, after he was released from the Hospital Wing, was broken up though. One moment he recalled playing chess with Ron and the next he was in the Great Hall trying to avoid the stares.

At some point, Harry learned the outcome of the Wizengamot meeting which was that Fudge was sacked, Amelia Bones as the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement was appointed interim Minister until a new one could be voted on, and a State of War was declared.

At another point, some gave him his thousand galleons winnings from the tournament.

Then suddenly it was the leaving feast. The hall was decked out in black, clearly to honor Cedric. As the Headmaster spoke of hard work, loyalty, and compassion the tight feeling in his chest began to loosen. Slowly Harry began to relax for the first time as Headmaster Dumbledore invited them all to stay whenever they liked.

The next day Harry was all packed and ready to take the horseless carriages down to the train only to stumble back in horror at the sight of black, skeletal, winged horses pulling the carriages.

"What the bloody hell are those?" Harry gaped.

"What? Harry that is just the carriages," Hermione said with confusion.

Ariana, however, shook her head, "No, he is talking about the thestrals. They can only be seen by those who have seen death."

"What?" Hermione gasped in horror while Harry's mind went blank as the image of Cedric lying on the ground, blank eyes staring unseeingly at the sky appeared in his mind.

Ariana pulled him into the carriage and sat him down, his friends warily following as they continued to glance at the, to them, empty space where the thestrals were.

Ariana also had to drag him into a compartment on the Hogwarts Express as Harry was still reeling at the reminder of Cedric.

The ride was a slow one, filled with tension. Hermione eventually revealed that Rita Skeeter would be publishing no more articles about Harry for she had found blackmail on her. It turned out Rita Skeeter was an illegal animagus, a beetle, which was how she kept finding out about secret conversations and describing things so perfectly. Since the sentence for being an animagus was three years in Azkaban Rita had plenty of motivation not to write about them anymore.

At one point Malfoy decided to come taunt them about Voldemort being back and got soundly hexed unconscious, not just by the four in the carriage but also by Fred and George who had followed him.

As the train was arriving Harry handed over the money from the tournament winnings to Fred and George after learning that Bagman had stolen all of their money in a bad bet and was refusing to pay. As the man was on the run from the Goblins for similar bad bets they were unlikely to ever get the money back.

Despite their attempts to not take it, Harry insisted so they could make a joke shop. He was convinced people would need reasons to laugh in the coming months.

Finally, he exited the train and he, Ariana, and Richard were met by Mr. Greengrass and Dudley.

He said goodbye to his friends and started a whole new kind of journey.

Thanks for reading. I may write more of this or may not. It is finals soon so do not expect too much.