Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale.
In the morning, Bonnie had Harry and Hermione up and ready early again, and it was fun to see the formidable Madeye Moody being cowed by a house elf, because Bonnie kept pushing him until he was ready. Andi was ready before the rest of them, but then eighteen years of trying to get Dora ready on time had made her quite organised.
The first inking anyone else in the Wizengamot chamber had of what Amelia Bones was doing was when the ticket was read out, 'Insults and threats against the Head of four Noble and Most Ancient Houses and the Heir to another Ancient and Most Noble House by the Head of a greatly inferior Noble House, and related matters.' Dumbledore tried to demand an explanation for the wording of the ticket but Amelia cut him off, pointing out that he must recuse himself as Chief Warlock for this session due to his known relationship with and support for the accused, and that he would also be required as a witness in this matter. Dumbledore tried to refuse but was shouted down by the majority of the Wizengamot, members of the light and neutral factions who were angry that he had gotten his pet Death Eater off of any charges and in fact prevented him from being questioned by anyone as the Chief Warlock, and members of the dark factions who could sense blood in the water and that this may well come back at Dumbledore himself.
Dumbledore grudgingly stood down and accepted that his only role in this session would be as a witness, while Griselda Marchbanks stepped in as the Acting Chief Witch for the session as the most senior member of the Wizengamot. The choice of Madam Marchbanks worried some of the factions, because it was well known that she would be unyielding on matters of protocol, but there was no way of challenging her as protocol demanded that the most senior member of the Wizengamot took up the position of Acting Chief Witch or Wizard.
Amelia managed to hide the satisfied smile on her face as Madam Marchbanks was accepted as the Acting Chief Witch from most people in the chamber, but Harry caught it and felt relief wash over him, as that meant that so far at least this was playing out as Madam Bones had planned it. Dumbledore made a play at being made Snape's advocate, but Madam Marchbanks just frowned at him and asked whether he'd forgotten that he was to be a witness in this case as she dismissed his petition.
The next play was Amelia's as she called for Harry to be officially recognised as the Head of the Noble and Most Ancient Houses of Potter, Peverell, Gryffindor and Slytherin, and the Heir to the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. That caused a stir but Madam Marchbanks allowed it as this underpinned the nature of the charges. Most in the chamber were shocked when the magic upheld all of these titles. When Amelia called for Lady Granger to also be officially recognised as a related matter, Madam Marchbanks was dubious but allowed it due to her respect for Amelia. If anything, the Wizengamot members were even more shocked when the magic upheld this unknown's right to claim the titles of Head of the Noble and Most Ancient Houses of Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff and the Noble House of Granger, and Heiress to the Noble and Ancient House of Moody.
Madam Longbottom stood at that point and asked for a clarification on a point of protocol, when she was given leave to continue she dropped a cat among the pigeons. "Madam Chief Witch, does not protocol require that any seats in contention be excluded from voting until such time as they have been resolved?"
Madam Marchbanks didn't need to check that. "Yes, Madam Longbottom, that is correct."
"Well then, any seats occupied for the Houses of Potter, Peverell, Gryffindor, Slytherin, Black, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff and Granger must be vacated for this session, must they not Madam Marchbanks? I see Baron Moody here and am aware that there is no question of his right to the seat for the House of Moody but I believe that the rest of the seats are in question."
Madam Marchbanks looked around the chamber and saw that, indeed, the seats for every house except for Granger were currently occupied. "Agreed, Madam Longbottom, the seats for the Houses of Potter, Peverell, Gryffindor, Slytherin, Black, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff will be vacated and no votes will be accepted from those seats until their rightful holders have been accepted."
Outrage broke out around the chamber and the Aurors had to step in to regain the peace. When the holders of those seats had been removed and the noise had died down, Harry asked if he may say something. Madam Marchbanks quelled the new outbursts at that and gave Harry leave to continue.
"I am unsure as to the proper protocol here, Madam Chief Witch, but as I have been accepted as the Head of the Houses of Potter, Peverell, Gryffindor and Slytherin, am I allowed to proclaim my proxy for those seats and allow them to vote in my stead at this time?"
"Yes Lord Potter, that is quite acceptable."
"Thank you Madam Chief Witch, in that case I proclaim my guardian and regent, Baroness Andromeda Tonks, my proxy for those seats."
(One of the things they'd done the day before was to formally allocate a Barony to Andi in a move to strengthen her position in Noble House Politics.)
It only took a look from Madam Marchbanks to quieten the outbursts and she said. "So be it, Baroness Andromeda Tonks holds the voting proxies for the Houses of Potter, Peverell, Gryffindor and Slytherin!"
She smiled as Hermione raised her hand. "Yes, Lady Granger?"
"May I also do the same for the proxies for my houses, Madam Chief Witch?"
"Of course Lady Granger."
"Thank you Madam Chief Witch, I hereby proclaim that my guardian and regent, Baron Alastor Moody, holds my proxies for the Houses of Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff and Granger."
Madam Marchbanks nodded. "So be it, Baron Alastor Moody holds the voting proxies for the Houses of Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff and Granger!"
There was a brief delay as the clerk of the court recorded the changes and Andi took her seat in the Potter box. There was considerable muttering going on around the chamber as these moves had just significantly changed the balance of power in the Wizengamot.
Amelia's next move was almost as shocking when she asked Harry and Hermione, as the highest ranking people involved, whether they objected to being questioned under Veritaserum to ensure the veracity of their statements. When they both assured her that they had no issues with that, she then proposed that the use of Veritaserum be allowed for all witnesses for the duration of the session. Even Madam Marchbanks questioned the need for that, but Amelia insisted that without surety of the witness statements, they could not unearth the truth of what happened. Madam Marchbanks put it to the vote and with Andi and Alastor holding Harry and Hermione's proxies and the Black votes disallowed, it scraped through.
They started by getting statements from the students and Professors Flitwick and Sprout, who had been brought in to testify about what had happened in the Great Hall during Harry's sorting ceremony, and there were quite a few looks at Dumbledore when they reported that he was demanding that Harry be resorted, because people wanted to know why he was trying to interfere with what house Harry Potter, or any other student was in. There were even more looks when the students who were caught out trying to tell a different story admitted that Dumbledore had told them what to say. Most people couldn't work out why Amelia wasn't questioning Dumbledore, but the bright ones in the chamber could see that she was playing a bigger game here.
When Amelia started questioning Snape under Veritaserum, she had little trouble goading him into a diatribe about how Harry was just like his father, and used that to lead into a comment that it didn't appear that he was at all bothered that Harry's father had been murdered by Lord Voldemort which prompted another diatribe, which in turn have her the opening to start questioning him about his involvement in the murders of James and Lily Potter. Dumbledore tried to stop the questioning but Amelia had him bound and silenced.
Of course, Dumbledore and the others had no idea that Amelia had had everything scripted for her by Harry and Hermione. Once she had enough proof to accept that they knew many things that they could not know by any logical explanation, they told her the real story of what had happened in the last cycle, so she knew exactly where to prod to get Snape, and Dumbledore when his turn came, to admit their crimes.
As Snape and Dumbledore's parts in what happened to the Potters and Longbottoms came out, outrage in the chamber increased. In the end the insults and threats against Harry were a nonentity, as Snape had admitted to being a Death Eater who had had an active part in the murders of Lord and Lady Potter and the attempted murder of the current Lord Potter, as well as the attack that had left Lord and Lady Longbottom in a non-functioning state in St Murgo's for the past ten years and Heir Longbottom effectively an orphan.
Madam Marchbanks had to hold the Wizengamot back until the questioning was finished, because they were clamouring for Snape's head. The chamber stilled when Madam Bones finally began questioning Dumbledore under Veritaserum, though the noise grew as he admitted to having used Snape for his own purposes rather than warning the Potters and Longbottoms that Voldemort and his followers were coming after them, or warning so many others of the threats against them before they were killed because he had decided that allowing them to save themselves would jeopardise his plans for his 'greater good'. While she had him under Veritaserum, Amelia made him admit that his 'greater good' was no more than a Pureblood Magical Britain that was controlled by him.
She also got him to admit how many students he'd moulded and/or compelled to follow him while they were under his control at Hogwarts, making a note of how many of them had died in the service of his 'greater good' because they had believed his lies. At that point she brought out the Potters' wills and got him to admit that he had had them sealed because as a witness to the wills, he knew that if their instructions were followed it would interfere with his plans to use their son (the new Lord of four Noble and Most Ancient Houses) as a sacrifice to put Voldemort in a position where he could vanquish him and gain the acclaim he was due as the 'Leader of the Light', because that would have cemented him into the role of the Leader of Magical Britain.
The fact that it was clearly stated in both wills that Peter Pettigrew had been the secret keeper for the Potters' cottage in Godric Hollow contradicted Dumbledore's testimony that it was Sirius Black paved the way to opening the next act of the game being played out, and Pettigrew was brought in for questioning. He testified under Veritaserum that he had been the Potter's secret keeper, that Dumbledore had known because he had cast the fidelius charm, that he had been a Death Eater since he finished at Hogwarts and that he'd taken Voldemort to the Potters' cottage and betrayed them to their deaths. He also testified about how, when Sirius caught up with him, he'd accused Sirius of his own crimes, cut his own finger off to leave it as evidence and cast the spell that resulted in the explosion that killed all those muggles before he escaped in his animagus form.
Amelia gave Arthur a regretful look before she questioned Pettigrew about what his animagus form was and where he'd been hiding for the past decade. Arthur paled when Pettigrew testified that his animagus form was a rat and that he'd been hiding with the Weasley family as a pet of two of their sons for that period. When the derision and accusations started flying, Amelia was trying to work out how to stop this without ruining her case when Augusta Longbottom did it for her, standing up and shouting out that it was well known that Arthur Weasley had to work long and hard hours to support his family and challenging a number of the hecklers about their knowledge of their own children's pets, proving her point when she knew better than them in many cases.
There was a sure fire way of getting the attention off Arthur though and it was something that Amelia was determined to come out, so she launched into questioning Pettigrew about the names of any and all active Death Eaters and Voldemort supporters that he knew of. That made a good portion of the Chamber try to stop her, because they did not want that to come out, but Madam Marchbanks saw where she was going and shut them down. Each time Pettigrew named someone who was in the chamber as a Death Eater or Voldemort supporter under Veritaserum, that person was stunned and bound by the Aurors that Amelia had in the chamber for that purpose. The ones being identified from the dark factions were expected, but the extent to which ranks of the light and neutral factions were also being thinned as a result of that was a surprise to many in the chamber. When she had gotten all of the names she could out of Pettigrew, she put Snape under Veritaserum again and repeated the process with him, and the ranks of those being held for questioning expanded as a result of that.
With a good third of the Wizengamot being held for questioning and the matter being moot as a result of the previous testimonies, she brought Sirius in and questioned him under Veritaserum to confirm that he was not guilty of any of the crimes that he had been accused of and sent to Azkaban without a trial for. She also questioned Cornelius Fudge and Barty Crouch about their parts in Sirius's incarceration and they both admitted that they had fabricated the evidence against him to make it an open and shut case because Crouch had been convinced of Sirius's guilt and determined to put him away.
There was little question of the vote to officially clear Sirius of all charges against him as the Head for a Noble and Most Ancient House, though getting a ruling of a hundred thousand galleons compensation per year of incarceration for his false and illegal imprisonment was a surprise, as was being awarded half of the worth of the Fudge and Crouch families for their parts in his unlawful incarceration. The amount that was transferred from the Fudge vaults to the Black vaults was to raise questions about where Minister Fudge had gotten all of that money from when it was made known.
Madam Marchbanks supported the contention that Sirius should be allowed to formally claim his titles and holdings then and there, and once he had done so, he also proclaimed Baroness Andromeda Tonks as his Wizengamot Proxy. Between Harry's and Sirius's votes, Andi controlled more votes in the Wizengamot than any other, and when voting with Alastor, and Augusta Longbottom (who also held the voting proxies for the Noble and Ancient Houses of Bones and McGonagall), they could control the vote with so many votes voided because the Wizengamot members were being held for questioning.
As Snape's, Pettigrew's and Dumbledore's parts in this were done, they were called back for sentencing, Snape was sentenced to life in Azkaban and all titles, holdings and wealth of the Snape and Prince families were awarded to the Potter family by right of conquest (this was the accepted term whether they had been bested on a battlefield or in a courtroom), while the Snape and Prince family names were permanently eradicated in Magical Britain.
Pettigrew was sentenced to the Dementor's kiss and to be cast through the Veil of Death, while his order of Merlin, First Class, was officially and publicly revoked. At Harry's suggestion, all titles, holdings and wealth of the Pettigrew family were awarded to the Weasley family by right of conquest and the Pettigrew name was permanently eradicated in Magical Britain.
Dumbledore was formally and publicly stripped of his positions of Headmaster of Hogwarts, Chief Wizard of the Wizengamot of Magical Britain and Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards and sentenced to fifteen years in Azkaban for his crimes against Magical Britain. It was ruled that everything in his possession that rightfully belonged to others was to be returned to their rightful owners (there was a list of known objects that were to be recovered before the rest was sifted through). It was further ruled that all monies stolen from the Potter family and gained through the false and unlawful promotion of the Harry Potter name while he claimed to be Lord Potter's guardian would be recovered and returned to the Potter family. Any and all moneys unlawfully taken from Hogwarts would be returned to Hogwarts. One quarter of his remaining worth would be awarded to the Potter family, and one quarter to the Longbottom family for his part in the near eradication of their families. The other half was to be distributed on an equitable basis between others adversely effected by Dumbledore's willingness to sacrifice anyone else in the pursuit of his own fame and fortune. The Dumbledore name was left intact as there were other members of the Dumbledore family who were innocent of his actions.
Dumbledore looked like a broken man at that point, but Harry and Hermione were waiting for him to play the same trump card that he had in the last cycle, so they were ready when he straightened up and called for Fawkes when he was unshackled. As soon as Fawkes appeared though, Harry cried out. "Fawkes stop! Look inside him and decide whether this man is worthy of being rescued from his fate, decide whether he is worthy of your support!"
Dumbledore grabbed at the phoenix as it stayed just out of reach, shouting. "Fawkes, come here! You must get me out of here!" but Fawkes pulled further back, regarding Dumbledore with what appeared to be a concerned look until he suddenly gave a cry of obvious anguish and burst into flame. Everyone just stared as the flames died out and there was nothing but a cascade of ash to the floor. Dumbledore dropped to his knees and started frantically sifting through the ash, crying out. "Fawkes, Fawkes, what are you doing? You have to get me out of here!" until the Aurors dragged him to his feet and secured him with magic suppressing shackles. The way Dumbledore was mumbling to himself as he was dragged from the chamber made it more believable that he was a broken man.
Professors Flitwick and Sprout took the other students back to Hogwarts via port key after Dumbledore and Snape were sentenced. They tried to insist that Harry and Hermione come with them, but Professor Flitwick got a shock when Harry addressed him in fluent Goblin. "Haven't you worked it out yet Professor? Hermione and I have already experienced this and have to stay to ensure that the guilty are punished and the innocent are protected if we hope to defeat these monsters. I have left an envelope with Professor McGonagall with everything we can tell you at the moment, she should have read it by now. She is now Acting Headmistress and I am sure we will get her confirmed in that position. Please do not be offended but we are recommending that Professor Sprout becomes Deputy Headmistress due to others' prejudices that we will have to fight for a while yet. Do not trust Professor Quirrell as he is possessed by Voldemort, but don't let him know that you know or make any moves against him yet because there are a few other things we need to do before we can destroy Voldemort properly. Luckily he has not found out how to get by Fluffy yet, so that will make him bide his time. I have included details of where I believe Horace Slughorn to be at the moment along with some suggestions on how to sway him to agree to come back. While he is a rather flawed individual, I believe he is the best option for a Potions Master who can bring Hogwarts back up to where it should be. He should not be made Slytherin House Master though as he would further warp the students, Professor Sinistra is a better choice for that, she can lead them in a better direction.That is as much as I can tell you for now, I promise that we will tell you the whole truth when we have the chance, but today, the business here must be addressed while we have the chance. It would be advisable to prevent anyone at the school from sending owls or making floo calls until this business is resolved, I included a note on how Professor McGonagall can do that as the Acting Headmistress, hopefully she has already done it."
Professor Flitwick stared at him for about thirty seconds and then nodded, relying in Goblin. "Very well Lord Potter, we will be holding you to your promise to tell the whole story when the time is right, but I accept that other matters have priority at this time. Please let us know if you and Lady Granger are not returning tonight or will be late, otherwise we will worry about you."
Harry bowed to him, answering him in English. "We will professor, but we expect to be back tonight."
Professor Flitwick reached up to squeeze his shoulder, saying. "Take care Lord Potter." before he left the chamber with Professor Sprout and the other students.
Questioning the Wizengamot and Ministry members who were captured because they were known as Death Eaters or Voldemort supporters took most of the day, and the number trebled as more names came out in the questioning. The Death Eaters were either sentenced to life in Azkaban or the Veil of Death, depending on the severity of their crimes. After hearing of the atrocities that they had committed, the vote was for the Veil of Death for most of them, usually preceded by the Dementor's Kiss as just going through the Veil seemed too easy after what they had done. Their Wizengamot seats, titles, holdings and wealth were all seized and allocated to the families of their victims or the Ministry and with few exceptions, their family names were eradicated in Magical Britain.
Voldemort's other supporters weren't dealt with quite so harshly, most of them got terms in Azkaban, but few had committed crimes sufficiently onerous to merit being sentenced to go through the Veil. Varying percentages of their families' titles, holdings and wealth were taken for compensation to their victims or the Ministry and only a small number of their family names were eradicated.
As they were being sentenced and taken to Azkaban, others already there were being brought back for trial, both Death Eaters being retried and ones who had been sent to Azkaban without trial. Most of the Death Eaters brought in from Azkaban were sentenced to the Dementor's Kiss and the Veil of Death after they testified to the true nature of their crimes under Veritaserum. Their families' titles, holdings and wealth were seized and reallocated to their victims, or to fund the Department of Magical Law Enforcement's efforts to effectively deal with threats such as them. (Fudge's eyes had gleamed when he saw the fortunes going to the Ministry until Augusta proposed that a ruling be made that this money carefully controlled and only be used in the fight against threats of a similar nature and it was passed.)
After they heard the Lestranges' testimony, it was ruled that all titles, holdings and wealth of the Lestrange family was to go to the Longbottom family by right of conquest and the Lestrange name was eradicated. Bellatrix cackled madly as she was dragged out of the room to be given the Dementor's kiss and thrown through the Veil with her husband and brother-in-law. As a result of their testimony, it was also ruled that two thirds of the remaining worth of the Crouch family go to the Longbottom family as compensation for Barty Crouch Junior's part in the attack and torture of Lord and Lady Longbottom.
When Antonin Dolohov was questioned, they extracted the names of the others who had been involved in the murders of Fabian and Gideon Prewett and it was ruled that the majority of the titles, holdings and wealth of the five families would go the Prewett family, while the family names of the five Death Eaters were eradicated. All five were sentenced to the Kiss and Veil.
Arthur Weasley received a note at that point advising him that the current Head of the House of Prewett was his second son Charlus, but he had not yet accepted his title so he was most probably unaware of this fact. He was also advised not to mention the monies received by the Prewett family to his wife or anyone else until after he had gone to St Mungo's and had himself officially tested for potions poisoning and illegal charms. When he looked up in confusion, he saw Amelia Bones looking at him with a grim, regretful expression. Arthur nodded at her hesitantly and she returned the nod.
The rest of the day was much the same, listening to stories that were assured to give them all nightmares and determining the most equitable distribution of what was being seized from the monsters.
By the end of the session, the population of Azkaban had actually been reduced, and nearly all of the marked Death Eaters had been put through the Veil of Death, so that they couldn't be broken out and used in Voldemort's new rise as they had in the last cycle.
One person who was part of the Death Eater circles who was granted leniency after being questioned was Narcissa Malfoy. The Malfoy name was eradicated in Magical Britain and all of their titles, holdings and wealth confiscated, but Harry and Hermione believed that there was a chance of redemption for Sirius's cousin, so they arranged for her to be brought in and questioned under Veritaserum in front of the Wizengamot. Enough were convinced by her testimony that she hadn't committed any onerous acts that she was made free to go.
Harry had primed up Amelia before the Aurors went to Malfoy Manor to collect her, so she had Kingsley Shacklebolt retrieve Riddle's diary that would have been used to possess Ginny Weasley in a year's time while he was there and ask Narcissa whether there was anything in the house that should be reported. Even though she didn't know that Lucius had already gone through the Veil, she showed them the vault full of dark objects and some of the Aurors were left there to organise the removal of them. That act of good faith stood her in good stead when she was in front of the Wizengamot.
Some tried to say that she had followed her husband's path and was therefore culpable, but Augusta Longbottom stood and reminded them that their society upheld the rule of the husband over the wife, and therefore a wife who disobeyed her husband was generally punished and often cast out. She stopped and looked at ones she knew had families. "The leverage generally used against women in our society is our children, threats of harm to them or having them removed from us is usually enough to make us comply. Can any here say that they would refuse to do something when faced with a threat to their children?" Some still tried to argue, but most conceded her point and Narcissa was set free.
The last act of the session was to get Madam Marchbanks confirmed as the Chief Witch of the Wizengamot. She argued against this at first, but she gave in to Augusta and Amelia's reasoning in the end. One thing that she did insist on was to have a meeting with the two young people who had apparently engineered this, the most telling strike against the enemies of Magical Britain in its history.
When they left the Wizengamot, Sirius, Narcissa, Amelia, Alastor, Andi, Dora, Harry and Hermione went to Black House in Grimmauld Place to retrieve the horcrux that had been made out of the Slytherin locket and leave one of the trunks there to serve as a secure portal. They assured the Black's house elf Kreacher that what was in the locket would be destroyed as Master Regulus had ordered him to do, and Sirius ordered him to clean the house and move all of the dark objects to the cellar as someone would be coming in to remove them. The last thing they did before they left was remove Sirius's mother's portrait from the wall (having an unspeakable with you can be handy, as they tend to know spells that others don't) and took it to Gringotts to be put into the Black vault.
Sirius had called for and received the dissolution of Narcissa's marriage to Lucius Malfoy so Narcissa was a Black again, and as Malfoy Manor had been claimed as part of the penalties on Lucius, he offered to let her stay at Black House, though he warned her that it would be in a terrible state. When Narcissa asked whether their house elves had been included in what was claimed and it was confirmed that they were not, she said that the Malfoy house elves could help clean up Black House.
What they saw at Black House confirmed what Sirius had said, so Narcissa called the Malfoy house elves to her and informed them of the fall of the House of Malfoy, telling them that they were Black elves now. She then had them pack up her and Draco's personal belongings and bring them to Black house, before she set them to work cleaning the house. Some items had to be later retrieved from their personal belongings as they hadn't been Lucius's to give and were part of what had to be redistributed, but for the most part they managed to keep their things.
As they'd observed throughout the day, Madam Marchbanks had a mind like a steel trap, and she didn't turn a hair when it was proposed that the meeting be held in the office of the Chief Goblin of Gringotts. Harry and Hermione were present, along with Andi, Alastor, Dora, Amelia, Augusta and Sirius.
As they sat down, Amelia handed Griselda the transcripts of what Harry and Hermione had told her the previous day, and after reading for a while she looked up at the two so-called children and simply said. "You two have been through all of this before."
Harry looked at Hermione and she nudge him to respond, so he nodded. "Yes Ma'am. We don't know how it happened but we were thrown back to the start of Hogwarts after we were killed by our spouses and mother-in-law."
"You say that you don't know how, but don't mention why, does this mean that you do know why?"
"Well we presume it's to stop two crazy men from killing thousands of people and destroying our world."
"Two… One is obviously Voldemort, who is the other, Dumbledore?"
Harry nodded. "Yes, between what he did, and didn't do, he was responsible for almost as much of the suffering and death as the one he claimed to be opposing so far and in the years to come."
"Claimed to be opposing?"
"Well he never went up against him directly himself and prevented people on his side from fighting against him effectively. For the next seven years his plan was pretty much to put me up against Voldemort year after year through my time at Hogwarts. I wasn't supposed to survive that though, he was quite miffed when I kept cheating death, especially after he so carefully set it up to make sure that I was ignorant, beaten and broken by the time I arrived at Hogwarts."
"You implied that Voldemort is a current threat, aren't you supposed to have killed him?"
"I didn't do anything to him Ma'am, Mum, and maybe Dad as well, created some form of protective charm that apparently worked well enough to reflect the curse Voldemort threw at me back at him and destroyed his body. I just wish Mum had stepped aside and let him as he told her to, I might have still had her if she had."
"What do you mean destroyed his body Lord Potter, don't you mean killed him?"
"No, he took measures to anchor his soul to prevent him dying and he managed to exist as a shade. Over the years, he survived by possessing animals and people but they never lasted. At one point he was relying on unicorn blood to prevent himself fading away, but he managed to create a new body at the end of my fourth year through an ancient rite."
"You know too much about things that no-one should know of young man. What were these measures he took to anchor his soul?"
Harry looked at Gringott, who nodded and pressed a button, speaking quietly into something as Harry responded. "There is a process that allows you to tear your soul in two and anchor one half into another object. The process involves murder and it's supposed to involve a complex ritual, but at least one time he appeared to manage it by accident..."
At that point, a goblin entered the room carrying a tray with the four horcruxes that they had recovered on it, the diary, the locket, the diadem and the cup. Madam Marchbanks was forced to let go of any doubts as these foul objects were brought into the room. She was at once being repelled by their foul nature and compelled to grab them.
When he saw the point had been made, Gringott nodded at the goblin and he turned and left to return the objects to the warded container that prevented people from being effected by them.
Griselda looked at them wild eyed. "What in Merlin's name were those disgusting things?"
"They were the objects holding parts of his soul that I was referring to, well four of them anyway. We know of two more objects, plus the wizard that his shade is currently possessing. According to what we know, we have to destroy the six objects before we try to kill the wizard who is the host if we want Voldemort to be gone for good, but we have one little problem."
Hermione arced up at that. "Little problem? It's a bloody big problem and we're not going there unless we have a guarantee that you're going to survive it!"
Griselda was looking between these children who were sounding like a married couple. "What are you two arguing about?"
Harry looked at her. "We have to retrieve one more object that's hidden in Voldemort's grandfather's house, but the problem is, the last object is..."
"It's Harry! When Voldemort tried to kill him, the curse rebounded, but Voldemort's soul split and one part was lodged in Harry. So now we have to work out how to get it out of him without killing him!"
She burst into tears and buried her face in Harry's shoulder. The others watched the pair without saying a word for a while, then Madam Marchbanks cleared her throat.
"I'm sorry, but did you say that you were killed by your spouses? How in Merlin's name were you two ever married to anyone else?"
Hermione straightened up and wiped the tears from her face before she turned to face the old woman. "In the world we just came back from, we were being potioned from the time we started at Hogwarts. Someone wanted to get their hands on Harry's family's money, so with Dumbledore's help he was being set up from before we got to Hogwarts. I quickly became a problem because we were friends and they could see that we liked each other, so they started potioning both of us to keep us apart. Harry was being focussed on a girl who was a year behind us and I was being focussed on her brother who was in our year. They kept increasing the potions to override our growing feelings for one another and after a few years they started introducing lust potions to tie us to the ones they wanted us concentrating on. As soon as we were old enough for marriage, they started feeding her fertility potions so that she'd get pregnant to force Harry to marry her. At that time I was just being fed lust potions so that her brother could use me as his reward for keeping me out of the way, but then they found out that I was the head of three houses and had lots of money too, so they dumped the plan to get rid of me as soon as Harry was married to her and they had their hooks into his money and started feeding me fertility potions as well so that I'd marry the brother as soon as possible so they could get their hands on my money too. I was six months pregnant and married to the brother when I was doing my NEWTs, but I still got 'O's, she was five months pregnant and married to Harry at that time. After the babies were born, they waited long enough to make sure they'd be OK and then killed us together at a family dinner with our mother-in-law. It should have occurred to us that it was suspicious that our father-in-law wasn't there..."
She looked at Madam Marchbanks. "He didn't know anything about it, he is a good man that she's kept under control by potioning him continuously for the last twenty five years or more and was still potioning seven and a half years from now."
"So yes, I was married to and had a child to another man and Harry was married to and had a child with another woman, but nothing we felt for them was real, they kept upping the doses of the love potions to try and drown out what Harry and I felt for each other. I was kept away from him for seven and a half years and I won't lose him to some bloody solution meant to save everyone else now!"
Hermione drew a breath and then looked her in the eye. "I know that you see us as a couple of eleven year olds because that's what we are on the outside, but on the inside Harry's eighteen and I'm nineteen, and you better believe that anyone who tries to take us away from each other will be in for a fight. You should know, Harry killed a fully grown mountain troll and Voldemort's host when he was eleven, and a seventy foot, thousand year old basilisk when he was twelve. He drove off a hundred dementors by himself when he was thirteen and won the Triwizard Tournament and successfully duelled Voldemort when he was fourteen." She looked at Alastor. "You respected him and said that he was better than many Aurors at fifteen, that was after we'd had to deal with Barty Crouch Junior polyjuiced as you for a year..."
She suddenly stopped and looked at Harry. "Oh no! Crouch! We forgot about him!"
Amelia tried to calm her. "Hermione, relax, Barty Junior is dead..."
"No he isn't! His mother was dying when he went to Azkaban, so at her request his father used his position to force things through so that she could visit him. They used polyjuice to trade places and she was buried as him when she died soon after, Barty Senior paid a healer to declare her dead after their son supposedly died in Azkaban, then held a fake funeral and kept his son imperioused for thirteen years at home. As I recall Barty Junior should be at the Crouch house now, he is normally kept under a cloak of invisibility and their elf, Winky, looks after him."
Amelia asked Gringott if she could use his floo and he waved her to it. When she came back, Hermione said. "When you take Crouch down, I want Winky to come to us. She was terribly mistreated by Crouch even though she was devoted to them."
Harry hugged her and she kissed him on the cheek before turning back to the others. "My point is that we may look like kids but Harry can beat most adults and many Aurors and I'm not that far behind him. We may have been older in the last cycle, but don't forget that due to our family magic we are far stronger magically than we were at this age there, physically stronger too. No-one is sacrificing Harry this time and if Molly Bloody Weasley gets anywhere near either of us, I'll kill the bitch!"
Amelia stared at her. "Of course! That's why you told me to send Arthur to St Mungo's and tell him not to tell her about the money that came to the House of Prewett, she's the one who did this to you!"
She hesitated. "So who?..."
"Ron and Ginny, from Harry's run in with him on the Hogwarts Express I doubt that he's redeemable, I don't know about her, but she isn't our problem!"
"What about the others?"
"I don't know about Percy, but she told us that Arthur and his sons, that is Bill, Charlie and the twins, didn't know anything about it and I believe that because they always stood by us."
"His sons? Then who's are the others?"
"I don't know, that is something that Arthur will have to work out after he sorts out the current mess if he wants to know."
Amelia shook her head. "Poor Arthur… He's a good man, he doesn't deserve this, doesn't deserve her."
Griselda spoke up then. "Molly Prewett was always a useless little slut, I'm surprised that she can say that Bilius is Arthur's, the way she was trying to bed most of the boys at Hogwarts. It makes sense that she's a potioner though, potions was the only subject she was ever any good at. I should have realised that she had an agenda."
She shook her head. "Anyway, Lord Potter, Lady Granger, you've convinced me. I will work with you to bring these factions down and make our world safer. I'm actually looking forward to it now."
Harry nodded to her. "Thank you Madam Marchbanks. Our first priority is to get rid of Voldemort and his followers, but there are plenty of other problems in front of us. Half of the ones who sided with Dumbledore are almost as bad as Voldemort's supporters. Fudge and Delores Umbridge became an even bigger problem in a few years because they had the Ministry behind them. Unbridge tried to kill me by sending Dementors after me in the Muggle world. Rufus Scrimgeour replaced Fudge as Minister and everyone thought he would be better but in some ways he was worse. You've got some bad eggs in your department aside from the Death Eaters too Madam Bones, John Dawlish and his cronies were personal enforcers for Fudge and Umbridge. The Improper Use of Magic Office is only used to attack Muggleborns and try and keep them down or get rid of them so that they can't challenge the Purebloods. The Office of Magical Transportation was compromised for quite a while so the Floo network was being turned off or listened to. The Magical Creatures Department seems to be trying to start another war by treating goblins and centaurs as nothing but animals. That's pretty much the same as they treat Muggles for that matter, and it's even worse for werewolves, they stop them getting jobs so they can't afford wolfsbane, don't have homes to lock themselves away safely at the full moon, the Ministry seems to be trying to force them into dangerous werewolf modes so they can have an excuse to eradicate them."
The adults were looking at Harry with concern because he was painting a very bleak future.
Andi suddenly stood up. "OK, we need to get these two home to bed. They may be older on the inside but they've still got eleven year old bodies that need their rest." the others agreed and started to head out. Gringott pretended to remember something and called Harry and the others back, so that they could use the trunk floo to get back to Hogwarts and Black House. Amelia flooed back to the Ministry with Madam Marchbanks and Longbottom and then used the trunk floo to get back to Bones Manor.
Back at Hogwarts, they sent notes to Filius and Minerva to let them know that they were back, then crawled into bed. Andi and Alastor looked the other way when Harry and Hermione chose to hold each other through the night for comfort, and Andi actually used the trunk floo to get Ted to come over so that he could hold her as she couldn't get what they had to listen to in court out of her head either.
There was something else that they had to see to before they went to bed though, they had to make a nest for the newborn phoenix that they found on Harry's bed when they returned. Everyone had thought that Fawkes had disappeared when she (as Harry discovered when she spoke to him) flamed out of the Wizengamot chamber, but she had looked inside the one who urged her to look inside her last companion, and inside her new companion she found the qualities that had been sadly lacking in Albus Dumbledore for some time, if they had ever been there.
Fawkes knew that she had been avoiding looking too deeply into Albus because he was going down a path that she could not support, but phoenixes are loyal above all else, and she had been hoping that in time he would come back to the right path. It was when Harry forced her to look into him though that she realised that Albus Dumbledore had gone too far down that path to ever come back to the light. She might have left then, as everyone believed she had, but in Harry she had seen a worthy companion with a mighty task in front of him, and with that she chose him.
When she woke in Harry's arms in the morning, Hermione smiled to herself and snuggled into him. This felt so good on so many levels, her eleven year old self felt safe, but to her nineteen year old self this felt so right. This was something that she'd never felt with Ron Weasley, for a start she'd never woken up in his arms, as when he finished with her he just pushed her aside, but made her stay with him in case he wanted more when he woke. What she felt towards him had never been anything other than need or desire, affection or comfort had never been a part of it, how could she have missed that?
Harry's arms tightened around her as he felt her getting upset, and that drew him from his sleep, as he opened his eyes he took in the frown on her face and asked her what was wrong. She struggled with how to answer him, but then she just blurted out. "How could I have been so stupid that I never realised how wrong it was with Ron? Waking up in your arms this morning felt so right and it was only then that I realised that I never felt that with him… How could I have missed that it was never anything but lust and need and desire and that was wrong?"
He shushed her and drew her close. "It was the potions silly, neither of us were given a chance to examine what we were feeling because they kept us dosed up to the eyeballs. I've never felt anything that feels so good, so right, as lying here with you in my arms, but while I was dosed up I was sure that Ginny was my everything. Now that I know the real thing I realise that what I had with her was nothing but a pale imitation of it but then, under the influence of the potions, I had no notion of what I was missing."
She moved up to kiss him. "You're pretty smart you know Harry Potter! Thank you love, I would have torn myself apart over that without you to bring me down to earth."
"Shush I have every intention of being right here whenever you need me, because I'll tell you a secret, there's nowhere else I'd rather be."
She smiled at him and slapped his chest. "Prat! There's nowhere else I'd rather be either. Now we better get up before Bonnie finds us here like this."
Harry shook his head with a chuckle. "You still don't understand house elves love, Bonnie will have already seen us, she would have been checking on us through the night..."
He stopped and cast a tempus spell to check the time, swearing and calling for Bonnie, sending her to Professor McGonagall to remind her to remove the blocks on the owls and floos before the morning owls came so people wouldn't notice.
Before Bonnie popped off to do as Harry bid, Hermione could see that he was right, she was not at all surprised to find them in each others' arms, and what's more she seemed quite happy about it, so she probably saw the good it was doing them during the night.
For all that she'd love to just lay there in his arms and make up for the lost years though, she knew that things were going to hit the fan this morning, so with one last kiss and cuddle, she dragged herself out of Harry's bed and went back to her own room to get ready.
When they went out to the common room, Andi, Ted, Dora and Alastor were waiting for them. They had a brief discussion with Ted about what happened the day before and the things that were bound to come from that before he went back to his place to get ready for work himself, and then they headed down to breakfast.
There was a lot of discussion about what happened the day before in court, but aside from at the Slytherin table, the main topic of conversation was the Headmaster being tried and sent off to Azkaban.
When Professor McGonagall came in, she made the announcement that the Headmaster was gone and that she would be serving as the Acting Headmistress until the new Headmaster was chosen, she also told them that Professor Sprout would be Acting Deputy Headmistress and Professor Sinistra was the House Mistress for Slytherin, and then went on to say that they had engaged a new Potions Master for the school and that he would be starting in a couple of days, adding that their parents would know him as he taught most of them, Professor Horace Slughorn.
When the owls arrived with the Daily Prophet, the hall erupted, because the headline was Dark Lord Revealed. As they scanned through the article, Harry and Hermione could easily recognise Fudge and Umbridge's words behind Rita Bloody Skeeter's sensationalism. The gist of the article was that the trial, which had been nothing more than an attempt to discredit a respected teacher at Hogwarts from the start, had quickly been revealed to be an attack on the very pillars of their society. It might have been amusing how they reframed putting proven Death Eaters through the Veil of Death for the atrocities that they admitted to into Murder! if so many people in the Great Hall didn't seem to be believing it.
The article accused Harry of confounding the entire Wizengamot into stealing the fortunes of the Pureblood pillars of society and murdering them to cover up his crimes, specifically naming ones like Lord Malfoy and Lord Macmillan. The final proof of his evil intent offered was that he had also engineered the fall and imprisonment of the revered Headmaster and Leader of the Light, Albus Dumbledore.
A separate article listed all of those who had been tried and sentenced the previous day, including the sentences that had been handed down. The fact that so many of them were parents or relatives of students currently at Hogwarts led to much angry shouting.
Of those in the hall, the ones who were speaking out the loudest against the rhetoric were those who had actually been in the court and had heard some of the testimonies under Veritaserum. Even some of the Slytherins who had been there were saying that the article was ridiculous, they'd heard these people being questioned under Veritaserum and the idea of one boy confounding the entire Wizengamot and all of the Aurors who had been there was ludicrous!
To most in the hall though, the statements of the eyewitnesses were ignored because they were tied up in the sensationalism of the article, and they were getting more and more angry, with those who were arguing against it as well as Harry. Harry went to leave the Great Hall, but stopped and caught Professor McGonagall's eye as he did, she nodded slightly to indicate that she got his message and met him in her office a few minutes later. Harry pointed out that he was worried about the ones who were being attacked because they were arguing against what the article said, especially Neville and Susan, so he asked if they could be moved into the Nobles Tower for protection, for a while at least if not permanently.
Professor McGonagall considered the request and agreed, if she could get their parents' permission. She sent permission forms to the parents of the students who were arguing that the article was nothing but lies with letters explaining what was going on, and she had the signed permissions by the end of the day, before lunch for most of them. So the occupants of Nobles Tower went up by nine that day, Fred and George Weasley from Gryffindor, Neville, Susan and Cedric Diggory from Hufflepuff, Penelope Clearwater and Padma Patil from Ravenclaw and Daphne Greengrass and Tracey Davis from Slytherin.
The tension in the school was only increased when a good quarter of the Purebloods and several of the Half-bloods were informed that their names had been changed due to their family names being eradicated for their parents' or Heads of House's crimes. Some, like Draco Black, managed to take their mothers' family names, but others, like the erstwhile Ernie Macmillan, became No-Names because either both sides lost their names, or they had been cast out of the family to avoid the taint of association effecting the rest of the family. Of course, they laid the blame for all of this at Harry's feet.
Losing their names on top of losing the money and privilege that dictated who they were pushed more than a few of these students over the edge and they attacked Harry, Hermione and those around them. The ease with which Harry and Hermione avoided and rebuffed these attacks unfortunately just proved the Dark Lord stories in the minds of those who believed what was written in the Daily Prophet, and the anger levels rose even more because anyone attacking another student was immediately expelled and had their wands snapped (these rules had always been there but Dumbledore had refused to enforce them). If they were seventeen or over, the attackers were automatically taken away by the DMLE and charged, so some of them ended up in Azkaban with their parents.
As Harry and Hermione attended few classes while all of this was going on, few noticed when Harry disappeared after lunch. He and Hermione accepted that they were doing all of this in a mad rush, but they were determined to collect all of the Horcruxes before Voldemort's followers had a chance to work out what was going on and moved them, so as soon as Gringott had assembled a team to go after what they hoped was the last horcrux, Harry used the trunk floo to go to Gringott's office and meet them. At Hermione's request, he took Bastet and Crookshanks with him to help deal with whatever they may find there.
While he was in Gringott's office, Harry asked him if he could find out what holdings in the Daily Prophet those in their group had, because he wanted to go after the Prophet for printing Fudge and Umbridge's blatant lies like that and painting a target on Hermione's and his backs.
With that, Harry grabbed the port key and went to Little Hangleton with the rest of the team. Bastet and Crookshanks immediately started spitting, because they could sense snakes around them, and that put the goblin guards on alert as the curse breakers tried to decipher the wards. The Mngwas and the guards killed quite a few snakes that came at them, but the curse breakers were having trouble because they couldn't understand what they were seeing.
Harry realised what the issue probably was and asked them to show him how to see the wards. Sure enough, the wards had been cast in parseltongue. While he didn't know anything about parselmagic, with him telling the curse breakers what he was seeing and them explaining how they'd normally handle something like that, they managed to dismantle the wards enough to get inside safely.
The others looked at him strangely when he sent them almost straight to where the horcrux made from the Peverell ring was located, but accepted it when he said that he'd felt it, because once it was uncovered they could certainly feel its foul presence. The ring was quickly tossed into the warded container that they'd brought along for that purpose and everyone breathed a sigh of relief as soon as they were free of its influence.
When they were back at Gringotts and the ring had been put away with the other horcruxes, they sat down to plan the way forward. As far as they knew, they had all of the horcruxes now, because if Dumbledore had been correct in the last cycle, Voldemort hadn't made his familiar Nagini into a horcrux yet. For that matter he shouldn't have discovered her, let alone bound her to him yet. If that was right, they now had the means to destroy Voldemort for good, they could destroy the horcruxes and then destroy his shade that was currently in Quirrell.
Harry was obviously concerned about the horcrux inside him and he really wanted the life with Hermione that had been denied them in the last cycle, so the question was, how could they get it out of him without killing him? Gringott brought the leading experts on the subject in and they proposed extracting the soul fragments from the other horcruxes first and then destroying the soul fragments once they were out.
They pointed out that some of the other containers were priceless artefacts that should be saved anyway, and Rowena Ravenclaw's diadem and Helga Hufflepuff's cup were both complex magical objects, so if they could manage to extract the soul fragments from them without disturbing their magic, they were confident that they would be able to extract the fragment from him without harming him. Harry was a little dubious about that but it was the best option on offer, so they agreed to follow that path.
Once the soul fragments had all been destroyed, the plan was to stun and bind Quirrell and bring him to Gringotts. They would attempt to extract and destroy Voldemort's shade without killing him, and if they managed that he would be tested to determine whether he had been a willing host, or an innocent victim. If he had been a willing host to the abomination, he would be given the Kiss and Veil like Voldemort's other faithful.
If they could do this, they would have managed to eliminate the two biggest threats to Magical Britain, then they would just have to deal with the rest of the rabid Pureblood fanatics who were determined to keep the old ways alive and keep Magical Britain under their thumbs.