Dangerous Discoveries

A/N: Disclaimer's in the first chapter.

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January 16 - February 28, 1995

The first thing Harry did the next day when he was awake enough to concentrate, was try to see why Voldemort had stolen Dumbledore's wand. He really, really, really wasn't expecting the answer he got.

In among the manic, cackling, megalomaniacal and distinctly unhinged mental celebrations of his triumph, Harry found a thread of thought that, had he ever been permitted to read fantasy books, he would have compared to Gollum with the One Ring. Harry fought his way through the morass, following that thread, and found ... a children's tale about extra-powerful magical artifacts.

Harry was rather disinclined to believe such rubbish, but it was clear that Voldemort did believe. Very strongly. Enough so that he presumed the stone in the ring he'd made into a Horcrux was one of these 'Hallows', and Dumbledore's wand the other. He'd never been able to find/fixate on a suitable 'cloak', however.

Right now, Voldemort was in transports of joy over having two of the Hallows, and well on the way to presuming himself invincible on top of being immortal. Not good. He was also contemplating ways to be rid of one Draco Malfoy without arousing the ire of his (rather rich and influential) parents, since evidently the only way to control the wand was to kill the previous owner. That, Harry didn't have too many quibbles about, given what Draco had done. However, as he followed the thread of thought about the wand, he discovered that while the wand may not be some super-powerful artifact, it had definitely changed hands ... a lot. Voldemort had been able to trace its ownership back a couple hundred years in his search for it. Every owner had been killed ... always in a way that either did not involve a duel, or involved them getting hexed from behind unawares ... and the wand stolen from the body generally before it could cool, though a few had, like Voldemort, resorted to grave-robbing to get it. That kind of history could make a guy wonder, especially considering what little knowledge Harry had of wands said that a wand wouldn't operate as well for someone other than its rightful owner.

The stone had, at some point, ended up in the Gaunt family. Voldemort had been unable to discover how, mostly because by the time he realized what the ring was and investigated, the only person who could tell him was dead. There, it had passed down from father to son for generations, until Voldemort discovered it (and the Gaunt shack) in his late teens, after he'd made the diary horcrux, evidently. Tom had stolen it from its rightful owner, not knowing at that time what it was, after killing the Riddles (his father and grandparents) and framing his Gaunt relation for it.

Harry pulled out of Voldemort's thoughts and sat there on his bed, contemplating. Voldemort, contrary to what he thought, didn't actually have the stone, thanks be ... IF it was what Voldemort thought it was. Harry sighed, and then did something normally reserved for Hermione ... he got dressed and headed for the library. Time to see if he could find the book the tale of the Hallows was in, as he didn't trust Voldemort's rather scattered, shattered, and more than slightly crazy recall.

He finally found the book three days later, buried in a nook along with a small selection of other children's books that were evidently intended for recreational reading. He read through the relevant story, and discovered that Voldemort had actually remembered the whole of it correctly. He put the book back, then headed off to walk and think.

Did he tell anyone? If so, who? On the one hand, finding out that the Elder Wand (and the Resurrection Stone) were apparently real might be important. On the other hand ... given the history of the wand in particular, it might be a better idea to keep his mouth shut. And too, there was the fact that the cloak had, evidently, been lost to time, so far as Voldemort knew. He'd certainly not be able to find out anything from a children's storybook about it!

It was apparent that Voldemort intended to keep Draco alive for a while, so there was no immediate threat to the ferret. He should probably mention at least that to ... nevermind. There was no one to pass on the message, not with Snape having retired from spying. Damn. Well, sort-of-damn. Harry didn't feel too terribly about the ferret getting his, not after four years and a bit of his attitude, and then the bloody bastard letting Voldemort's army in and killing Dumbledore. Harry might not be all that happy with Dumbledore, but killing someone by shooting them in the back was just not on.

In the end, he decided to keep the news to himself ... after all, there really wasn't anything anyone could do at this point. Voldemort had the wand, and he had Draco. And even if Snape hadn't been retired from spying, there would have been nothing he could have done about either part of that without forfeiting his life. At this point, Voldemort and his wand were now Harry's problem, if the prophecy were to be believed.

About the time Harry came to that decision, he and the rest of the underage New Marauders had learned how to apparate properly. The vote for Minister was held on the twentieth of January, and Amelia Bones was confirmed as Minister, her proactive stance on Death Eater and Voldemort related issues proving to be highly popular. It didn't hurt that she was also sensible and fair-minded.

In the last days of January, they got some very, very welcome news ... Helga Hufflepuff's cup, made into a horcrux, was found. The goblins, who'd been the ones to find it, had been well-pleased with themselves. It had, apparently, been stashed in Bellatrix LeStrange's vault for safekeeping. The discovery inspired Sirius to check the Black vault for the missing locket, to no avail, though he did turn over a raftload of Dark items to the goblins and the Ministry team that was dealing with them. The cup was stripped of its horcrux, and, like the diadem, put on display in the main hall. It was, perhaps, not the wisest thing to do, but there was precisely nothing that Voldemort could do if he found out about it. The only horcrux still in his control was whatever had been crammed into Nagini.

The first week of February found a tigress prowling around Gryffindor Tower, startling pretty much everyone and scaring quite a few folks out of a year's growth. Like her brothers, her fur was red with black stripes and white markings, rather than the natural orange, black, and white colors. Ginny, amused by their alarm (because really, a tigress, just showing up in the Tower? They should have realized) turned back human and grinned at them.

That left just Neville and Harry to complete their transformations, though Harry was pretty sure Neville would beat him to it, since he'd gotten so far behind everyone else. That thought was born out mid-February when an enormous brown bear joined the ever-increasing menagerie. It made for quite the sight, to be sure, seeing a tiger, bear, badger, ferret, raccoon and an enormous black dog capering about (Sirius had been unable to resist the temptation, not that he'd fought it very hard).

It was at that point that Sirius finally decided to strip Grimmauld place of its rather large and frightening collection of Dark Arts artifacts. He, Remus, Bill, and Snape spent two weekends in succession at the manor, hauling everything out of there. Harry'd been completely shocked when he found out Snape had gone, since he'd figured hell would have to freeze over before Snape subjected himself to the Marauders' company of his own free will. Evidently, he wanted a look at some of the stuff at the Black house bad enough to subject himself to their company. Harry was just glad he didn't have to be there.

Kreacher apparently took great offense to this, screaming to the heavens and obstructing them so much that Harry had to send Dobby and Winky over to assist in restraining the insane house-elf midway through the first weekend. Whatever happenedafter that and during the second weekend, it ended with the quartet returning in pleased triumph ... the de-horcruxed locket in hand.

There was a minor celebration that night, because by everyone's calculations ... they were down to Nagini. The bad news was ... they were down to Nagini. Who, apparently, was never out of Voldemort's presence for more than a few minutes at a time, which made sense given what she actually was (or housed, anyway). Nothing anyone came up with seemed like a good plan to lure Nagini away from her master, so it was looking like they'd have to deal with her with Voldemort present, which would not be easy by any means.

Debate raged on what to do for a couple days, before Harry put his two knuts in.

"Look ... Voldemort wants me. He'll come to wherever I am, sooner or later. And that means here. We've got the home advantage, you guys ... we know Hogwarts better than he does, we've got the place pretty well sewn up ... I say we dig in, plant some surprises, and then I taunt the heck out of him and make him come to me."

Understandably, Sirius and Remus were not fans of this plan, and neither were a lot of other people. Harry remained resolute. "It's the best chance we're going to get." Harry told them. "The way things are now, he can hit and fade into the woodwork almost at will, and we've got no idea where his base is ... this could go on for months. Years. I don't know about any of the rest of you, but I'd really rather not have it go on that long. We arm Hogwarts to the teeth and make him come to us ... it ends things a lot faster. He'll have everyone here! All his Death Eaters, all his allies. He'll think he has us cornered, but the stuff Remus, Sirius, and the twins have been working on ... " Harry grinned. "And I'm betting Professors Sprout and Snape can come up with a few dozen nasties to toss at the bastard and his helpers."

The more they thought about it, the more it seemed like it might work. Dig in here, prepare everything they could think of, and then lure Voldemort to them for one final (they hoped) strike. McGonagall grinned at them at one point. "We can activate the school's defenders as well." She pointed out. "I've always wanted to use that spell. What better time than this?"

That seemed to decide everyone, and they broke up into groups to plan what to do and where.

In the last couple of days of February, Harry found a few books on invisibility cloaks in general that he found ... rather interesting. They were rather temporary things, it seemed. They came in two varieties, charmed or woven. The charmed ones lasted all of two or three years before the charms stopped working or the cloak got torn up. The woven ones (made of demiguise hair) lasted longer, but evidently no more than a decade or so before they started not working. That surprised Harry, since he knew his own cloak had been his dad's, and hadn't even been used in a decade, nevermind being made less than a decade ago, and it seemed to work fine.

Given that the wand and the stone were real, Harry could be forgiven for wondering if his cloak wasn't, perhaps, the cloak. If so ... now he had two out of the three. Of course, it really didn't help that the two he had were the two that weren't really of use in a massive fight. Oh, going around unseen was useful, no three ways about it, but he wasn't exactly intangible or inaudible under the cloak, and in the chaos of a big fight, it'd be all too easy for him to get stepped on, tripped over, or otherwise detected. And the stone ... heck if Harry could find any use for that thing. He seriously wondered why in the name of anything the 'brother' had wanted that thing. It made no sense to him. Oh, it'd be nice to be able to talk to his mum and dad, he wouldn't deny that, but (evidently) raising them from the dead and them not being really 'them' ... that sort of killed the temptation. He'd just settle for hearing about them from the people who'd known them.