Harry Potter

The Founders Four

By JadedofMara

Chapter Six: Preparations and Conversations

To be perfectly honest, Harry was very glad that he hadn't had to do any talking as of yet. This whole situation was awkward enough without having to be the one explaining. And some of the stories were just far too personal. Ginny's and Ron's and Hermione's private feelings and losses could easily be left out of any grand, all-encompassing story of their adventures, but none of his could be. Harry felt very exposed.

He cast a thankful glance at Hermione and Ginny, and they smiled at him. Ron winked.

+Look at Dumbledore+ sent Ron gleefully. Harry looked. The man had sat back in his gilt chair, his elbows on the chair's arms, fingers steepled. He was, at that moment, looking over his spectacles, staring rather fixedly at nothing. +We've stumped him+ said Ron, who was clearly happy with this development. +He doesn't know what to do.+

+You know+ said Ginny rather acidly. +For once, Ronald, that might actually be a bad thing.+ If they had been speaking normally, Ron would have snapped his mouth shut. As it was, he shot Ginny a glare, and settled back in his own chair, stroking Geiror's head.

Geiror made a contented sound somewhere between a purr and a coo, and in Harry's lap, Sshycien laughed. /Strange sounds you Warmbloods make. Salazar, you are really the only Warmblood I have ever met who can produce a decent sound./

Harry laughed lightly, glad for this interruption of some of his darker thoughts, and suddenly, he felt all eyes on him. Damn. /Well, you know, Sshycien, I do try my best./

Sshycien's coils tightened around Harry's wrist. /Of course you do/ Sshycien hissed amusedly, his tone that of a pleased grandfather. Harry scowled.

/Shut up, you/ he huffed irritably. Sshycien laughed. Muttering in Parseltounge about crazed, millennium-old snakes and their superiority complexes, and thereby causing Sshycien to laugh even harder, Harry raised his gaze to Dumbledore, who was staring at him in rather avid fascination.

"So," began Ginny, noticing Harry's uncomfortable expression. "I suppose we'd better decide how to proceed. We can't very well stay in your office until we figure out how to get back—if such a thing is even possible. We're going to have to reveal ourselves to the wizarding world sometime or another, and seeing as we're all dead in this world, twice over, I'm not entirely sure as to the best way to carry on."

Dumbledore looked away from Harry now, his expression pensive. "It all depends on what you think is best, of course. Your families—" Ginny and Ron sat a little straighter "—would be very happy if you were presented as your current selves, but we would need to invent a plausible way for you to actually have been alive all this time. Conversely, you could remain the Founders, brought through time by a freak accident with Priori Incantatem, but then you would have to be 'sent back' to 'your own time' at some point."

Ron nodded sagely. "And then, of course, there is the question as to whether we will be staying here permanently, or only for a few days. I could try to find out, if you'd like."

Dumbledore looked confused, but Hermione lifted her head slightly. "You do that, Ronald. And I'll meet with the Arithmancy professor to go over my calculations; see if we even have that option."

Dumbledore looked from Ron to Hermione and back again. "I'm curious. Just how would you be 'finding out' what you will be doing?"

Ginny grinned at Ron slyly, who looked rather ashamed. "Ron here is a rather gifted Seer."

Dumbledore gave an, "Ah," and sat back in his chair, settling into thought. Hermione pursed her lips.

Harry shot her a glance. +Still think Divination's a bit 'wooly', Hermione?+

Ron and Ginny snorted. Hermione narrowed her eyes, but gave no other sign that she had heard. +It has its uses, I suppose+ she sniffed.

Fawkes, who had returned from his mysterious errand to 'Professor Vector-Black'—who Harry had a sneaking suspicion was the Arithmancy professor—sometime in the middle of Ginny's account of the Department of Mysteries fiasco, let out a long, quavering note. Raethiel, Hermione's gyrfalcon (who was currently perched on one of the many silver, puffing instruments in Dumbledore's office) gave a loud shriek, and Geiror added his own big voice(a sound half-way between a lion's roar, and the screech of an eagle) to the sudden cacophony of sound. The fact that two of the three birds in the room were raptors, rather than songbirds, appeared not to have occurred to the animals themselves.

"Shush, Raethiel," soothed Hermione, effectively calming the bird. Geiror quailed under a harsh glare from Ron.

Ginny frowned. "What's got into them?"

The door banged open, revealing three men. Harry and Ron shot to their feet, hands on their swords, wands already drawn. Ginny pulled her dagger left-handed, and thrust out the hand with her Healer's Runes, and Hermione reached back for an arrow from her quiver. Herana, Ginny's badger, drew back her lips in a snarl; Raethiel cawed loudly and flapped up to the ceiling; Geiror reared up on his hind legs, roar/shrieking again, his big wings outstretched and very nearly knocking Ron in the head; Sshycien slunk to the floor and rose up, hissing and baring his fangs.

Dumbledore stood suddenly. "Gentlemen!"

The three men reeled back shock plainly showing on their features. "Uh… Sorry, Headmaster," faltered the taller of the three, adjusting his glasses, eyes wide. "We'll just, uh… wait… Outside. C'mon, guys."

And then they were gone, as suddenly as they had arrived.

Ron sat heavily in his chair and ran a hand over his eyes. "I guess that settles it. There's no way we can be our present selves now, not without a big show of leaving and coming back again."

Dumbledore nodded. "Those were the Marauders. It's going to be all over the school by breakfast."

Harry nodded slowly, knowing that Dumbledore spoke the truth from his own experiences with the Hogwarts news wildfires. Then, his brain kicked in.

"The Marauders!" he exploded, standing so forcefully that his chair toppled with a loud crash. "Who were those men?"

"Those men were our Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor, our Transfiguration Professor, and our Auror in Charge, the Deuling instructor." Dumbledore looked at him strangely.

"Respectively, Remus Lupin, James Potter, and Sirius Black."