AN: Edited as of 8:20 PM. May 4, 2013. GMT 8+
Final scene changed. Tinkered with some of the dialogue though more on format than anything.
Enjoy, and tell me what you think of it!
Chapter 9: The New Year
December 27…
"I suppose you're wondering why you're here," Fudge began coolly, "instead of a cozy little cell in Azkaban."
Lockhart remained silent, but failed to suppress a shiver down his spine.
The Minister of Magic smirked. "You're lawyers are good," Fudge leaned forward, "but we both know the court will rule guilty. Dumbledore's influence," he said grudgingly, "will only ensure it."
"That and I kicked your lawyer's ass in court." Harry piped in cheekily.
Fudge pinched his forehead and massaged it. "Why are you here again?"
"A representative for the Prosecution must be present when an offer to settle is made." Gilderoy perked up and straightened his posture. Harry grinned like a Cheshire cat. "One would think you'd be more familiar with the law, sir. After all, you are the Minister." Harry drawled out.
"What offer?" Gilderoy interrupted eagerly before the Minister could retort.
Fudge glared at them, but nonetheless slid a piece of parchment across the table.
Potter one-Fudge nil.
Gilderoy grabbed it hastily. His eyes darted suspiciously between the boy and the Minister before he allowed himself to scan through the parchment. "This is…" He paused, looking for the right word.
"A piece of parchment." Harry supplied sarcastically, earning him a scowl from his professor turned convict.
"Most generous of the Ministry." Fudge offered politely in turn.
Lockhart frowned and read over the terms once more, mentally weighing his options. "Your only way out of Azkaban." Harry said with finality. "Those terms offered are non-negotiable, Mr. Lockhart. Unless you wish to conduct research on the Dementors for your next highly fictionalized novel, I suggest you accept them." Harry placed a quill in front of him.
Lockhart did not grab it immediately. "It says here that I must render community service." He raised a brow at them. "What kind of community service are we talking about and for how long exactly?"
Fudge cleared his throat loudly and glanced at Harry nervously. "You are considered a rather…adept practitioner of Memory Charms, correct?" Lockhart didn't respond. "The Ministry has deemed you to be a useful asset. We could certainly use your expertise in a number of projects on going,"
"And the Prosecution," his eyes darted to Harry, "agreed to this?" Lockhart asked skeptically.
Fudge cleared his throat loudly. "The Prosecution pushed for this."
Lockhart sighed. "I suppose I don't really have a choice in the matter."
"You don't." Harry agreed. His smile, if possible, grew even wider once Lockhart signed his name in elegant script. "That's a magically binding contract by the way. You break the terms, you die." Based from his tone, one would never imagine he was talking about something so serious.
A burst of warmth spread through Lockhart's chest as the magic binded him to the deal he had agreed to. "Why do I feel like I just made a deal with the devil?" He muttered to himself.
Harry smirked viciously as he overheard the words. "You might have been better off if you dealt with him instead of me." He turned to leave, but paused just as he touched the handle. "It will be in your best interest to read through the terms again. Just to make sure you understand what you've gotten into." He advised. He looked Lockhart in the eye. "I'd hate for you to suddenly drop dead one day."
Fudge was annoyed, yet impressed at the same time at how well Harry had handled the situation. "It's your life you signed over." He shrugged nonchalantly, pushing back the parchment for Lockhart to peruse. He stood up and tipped his bowler hat and left, leaving a distressed man behind.
Hogwarts, Headmaster's Office…
"I trust you enjoyed your visit to Gilderoy?" Dumbledore popped a lemon drop into his mouth and savored the sweet with his tongue.
"He agreed to the offer, just like you said he would." Harry reported, taking a seat across his mentor. He politely refused the customary offering of sweets with a wave of his hand. "I don't really see how he could be useful though."
"He may be a fraud, Harry, but he's a very clever man. It is infinitely better that we bring him to our side rather than let him rot in Azkaban. His skill with memory charms, as you have seen firsthand, is remarkable. His popularity, especially among women, is also something to keep in mind. He can be a very powerful ally politically - with the right restrictions, of course. Restrictions, I believe, that we have in place because of this deal."
Harry nodded, but refrained from voicing his doubt.
"Now let us talk about your analysis of Mr. Longbottom. You mentioned there was another anomaly in Neville's case that the Healers couldn't explain?"
"There was a dark aura surrounding Neville's scar according to my rune chain. There are no indications that this has, as of yet, exerted any influence in his thinking, though it is a troubling presence. I…" He paused uncertainly.
"Go on, Harry. Speak your mind." Dumbledore urged.
"I suspect that dark magic may be involved, sir." Harry said.
"I will look into this matter myself." Dumbledore stroked his beard pensively. "If there is something wrong with him, it will be rectified. Now, off you go, Mr. Potter." He made a shooing gesture with his hands.
Harry remained seated, eliciting a questioning brow from Dumbledore. "Sir, don't take this the wrong way, but you haven't exactly taught me anything for the upcoming tournament yet." Not that Harry needed any extra training to sweep the floor with his opponents being a dimension traveler and an apprentice of Nicholas Flamel. Still, it would be interesting to see what Dumbledore, or this version at least, could teach him about dueling.
Dumbledore gave him a grandfatherly smile. "There isn't much I can teach you." He admitted. "Much of dueling is vested in practice and creativity. The latter, you already have in spades if your matches are anything to go by. A normal boy of your age would limit himself to offensive spells and shield charms to win. You employ charms and transfiguration to devastating effect in combat, a trait you inherited from your parents." Dumbledore rose from his high back chair and drew the Elder Wand from his robes. Harry tensed up, thinking he would have to actually go toe-to-toe against the venerated wizard.
"I can give you some tips on the rules though." Dumbledore went through a few dueling poses experimentally. "The rules say that you cannot cast a spell until after you have bowed to your opponent. You know this already of course." Harry agreed silently. He watched Dumbledore curiously as he executed a highly dramatic bow that was composed of many exaggerated wand movements. "What they do allow is for you to begin the wand movement for a spell if it is part of your bow." Dumbledore slashed his wand up, causing a slight tremor through the air.
Harry's eyes widened visibly.
"There are an infinite number of ways one can salute an adversary on the platform. If you can weave wand motions into it, you will gain an edge in being able to case far more complicated spells at the beginning of the fight, while your opponent will be limited to basic ones – shield charms, stunners and the like." Dumbledore leaned forward. "My personal favorite is to place a time-delayed spell somewhere. It is a dead useful charm to learn."
Harry nodded thankfully for the advice. "Just one more thing before I go, Headmaster. See, you know that each House throws a New Year's Party every year right?"
Dumbledore tilted his head. "I may have heard of something to that effect."
"Well, I was hoping to throw one on the Hogwarts grounds. An effort to promote school unity, if you will." Harry explained. "What better way to get everyone together then by throwing what will be the best New Year's party they'll ever experience."
"Well, if it's for inter-house unity and not because of the wager you made with Mr. Diggory then I suppose I can give my consent." Dumbledore smiled mirthfully.
Harry had, in his defense, the decency to look sheepish. "How did you know about that sir?"
Dumbledore chuckled. "Why Harry, haven't you heard? According to the rumor mill, I am now apparently omniscient as well as Merlin reincarnated."
December 31…
The skies were dark and clear that night. Tables were set up on an even patch of ground some distance from the castle, while House Elves milled about setting up things here and there.
"I fail to see how you're going to get everyone here, Harry." Hannah said. "Your preparations are grand and everything, but it's got to be something really big to get the other houses to come to us."
"Why don't you let me worry about that?" Harry nodded to the Weasley Twins as they finally showed up. "Is everything in place?" He asked them.
"Why Harry-"
"Of course-"
"Everything is in place."
"What do you take us for?"
"Amateurs?" They finished together.
Harry snorted at their theatrics and waved them away. "Hannah, did you give Neville the invite, like I told you to?"
"Well, yes." She frowned at him. "I don't see why you couldn't have given it to him yourself. You see him more often." She pointed out. "Why do you need him here anyways?"
Harry directed a house elf to grab a few more things from the castle. "Because, this is going to be the party of the year. How could the boy-who-lived not go?" He asked rhetorically.
"So your tactic is to use his fame?"
"Of course not. Not entirely anyways." Harry took a step back and nodded appreciatively to himself as he took in the scene he had orchestrated. "Not bad, Potter. Not bad at all." He praised himself. He looked at his watch, which indicated they had a few hours left until the New Year. Already students from the Hufflepuff house were showing up. A few from the other houses appeared too, having been invited personally by Harry.
"FRED, GEORGE!" Harry called out. The twins looked up and waved at him. He gave them a thumbs up, signaling for them to begin. The two returned a mock salute to him and raised their wands high.
A single fiery streak spiraled up into the air, immediately grabbing the attention of everyone around. It continued to rise, picking up speed until its light was only faintly visible from the ground.
BOOM!
A ring of multicolored light appeared in the sky, capturing the students attention with its brilliant display of pyrokinetics. A wave of "Awwws" were heard as the light faded into the night sky, leaving it as blank as before.
Hannah turned to Harry, who had somehow found the time to grab a sandwich and return while she had been distracted. He swallowed the portion he was chewing on, before mouthing "Watch" to her. She returned her attention back to the sky.
Eerie screeches reached her ears as more lights suddenly shot up into the air, easily recapturing the students' fascination with another bout of light. "What kind of fireworks are those?" Hannah asked, amazed.
Harry smirked. "Those are a little side project I asked Fred and George to do so this is really just the appetizer. Those two are brilliant really! The special effects those two come up with is astonishing. I bet they'll put Dr. Filibuster out of business if they market their product right."
The initial streams of light spiraled each other in a mesmerizing dance. They twisted faster and faster until they reached the summit of their ascent, before colliding into one another to create a burst of blinding light that forced everyone in the vicinity to look away or risk being blinded.
"Ohhhh!"
In place of the explosion was now a giant, animated phoenix in the middle of replicating a series of Quidditch maneuvers. Abruptly, it halted what it was doing and dove straight down.
A few girls tried to shield themselves with their arms, only to find that the animation had pulled up at the last second, performing a perfect Wronski Feint, and now left a streak of magical light just above the crowd, before pulling up once again and mimicking the Phoenix Song. While it was slightly off pitch, the captivated audience clapped loudly, having never seen such a firework that could not only turn into an animated figure but produce sound as well. The phoenix lasted a few more seconds before fizzling out into the night sky.
Anther streak of light shot into the air, and a large fiery ten materialized. The students, realizing its significance counted down with it. "TEN!"
It morphed into a nine. "NINE!" They yelled, synchronizing their shouts with the count.
"EIGHT!"
"SEVEN!"
"SIX!"
"FIVE!"
"FOUR!"
"THREE!"
"TWO!"
"ONE!"
"HAPPY NEW YEAR!"
On cue, loud music, presumably from the collection of one of the muggleborns, began blaring, amplified by a Sonorus Charm. Bottles of butterbeer (or firewhiskey in the case of those past the drinking age) were opened and toasted all throughout the grounds. Dumbledore even showed up and accepted a shot of whiskey himself, much to the surprise of the students.
More streaks of light filled the sky, exploding into figures that matched in complexity the animations of the initial one. Dragons, Pegasi and Unicorns composed purely of light dominated the horizon. There was even a break dancing wizard at one point, which managed to befuddle yet enthrall the purebloods present, while those who were more aware of the muggle dance whooped in appreciation. Red lanterns rose into the sky, charmed to spell out certain words once in a while as they floated together like a flock of birds.
Harry smiled to himself as he took a look at the scene he had created, and took a sip of butterbeer.
Life was good.