15. Auld Lang Syne

_"Harry."_

_"Harry."_

_"Harry."_

_"Pay attention to me or I'll just keep getting louder and Pince will come over and throw us both out."_

_Groaning, Harry marked his page and looked up from reading. While his magical knowledge was far beyond his fellow students' in most subjects, Arithmancy was one area he'd bypassed the first time around and so it was all new material to him. "Yes, Tori?"_

_Astoria Greengrass gave a tug on his sleeve, trying in vain to pull him away from his studying. "Courtney needs your help." Harry opened his mouth to reply, but Daphne's pint-sized doppelganger was already countering him. "She can't come here, that's why I'm here. And I know you don't like her and for good reason, but you're the Head Boy and your job is to help all the students, even the ones you don't like."_

_Conceding that point, Harry sighed and swept his reading into his bag, throwing the strap over his shoulder and gesturing for Astoria to lead the way. She did, grabbing his hand and leading him out of the library, down several flights of stairs, past where Lara was ducking into the Hufflepuff common room, and down into the dungeons where the Slytherin common room was. Despite his dislike for the girl in question, Harry started to get worried. What the hell had she done to herself that had her stuck in her dorm? Or at least that was where he assumed Astoria was herding him._

_"Potter's a poof." Astoria looked sheepish at the password, ducking her head slightly to pass through to the common room. "Sorry. Draco sets the passwords and… well, Draco's Draco." Draco was also waiting for them on the couch in the center of the common room, holding court over his assorted flunkies. He snarled but Harry just tapped the head's badge pinned to his robe and the blonde wizard slumped back into his seat. "Anyways, Courtney's up in our room. C'mon."_

_Setting foot on the first stair, Harry waited as the staircase gave a tinkling of chimes, recognizing him as a male with the right to access the girls' dorms. Astoria continued on as tour guide, leading him to the fifth year girls' room. Knocking on the door, she leaned against it and pressed her ear to the wood. "Courtney? You decent?"_

_The reply was muffled by the wood and quiet enough that Harry could barely make out the words. "Not really. Not much I can do about it, though." Harry raised a brow at that and Astoria winced before opening the door. It took Harry's eyes a moment to adjust to the bluish-green light filtering in through the windows, the only illumination in the room, and then he spotted a third figure crouching on one of the beds. He continued stare, trying to process what he was seeing, and the girl huffed. "Keep staring, Potter, and I'm going to start charging you."_

_"I'm sorry, but…" Harry couldn't hold it in any longer, bursting into loud laughter as he stared at the petulantly scowling Courtney Feliday. The girl was… well, a mess. Somehow, she'd shed roughly half of her normal height - although thankfully someone had charmed her underwear to still fit properly - and the joints in her legs had shifted to look like a cat's hind legs, leaving her stuck on all fours. And was that a… Harry watched in disbelief as a pale, hairless tail rose into the air and swished back and forth behind Courtney. "How on earth did you manage to..?"_

_"Someone swore up and down that her father had tutored her in human transfiguration this summer and bribed me to be her victim so she could show off to the other girls." Courtney glared at Astoria at that, the svelte black-haired girl slipping behind Harry for protection. "I didn't want to go to Pomfrey or Snape because they'd just send me to McGonagall and half of the house's points would disappear in twenty words or less. So I asked Tori to go get help… and now I've got Harry bloody Potter staring at me in my knickers."_

_Rolling his eyes, Harry slipped Mjolnir out of his wand holster and waved it over her, casting a few diagnostic spells. "Don't worry, Feliday, pasty eighty centimeter tall catgirls don't do anything for me. Your virtue - or what's left of it, at any rate - is safe from me."_

_Courtney arched a brow at that, slit-pupiled eyes following the tip of glowing tip of his wand. "So does that mean other types of catgirls do it for you, Potter?"_

_"Funny. Here, hold onto this for me for a sec, will you?" Conjuring a ball of Slytherin green yarn, Harry tossed it to Courtney, watching as the girl instinctively rolled onto her back and went to work on it with both her hands and misshapen, cat-like feet. After watching for a few minutes, Harry nudged his companion. "Psst. Hey, Tori. Do you know if any of the girls in the house have a pet cat? Think we can find some catnip to try on her."_

_Abruptly stilling, Courtney glared up at Harry and the giggling Astoria. "Don't you dare, you little bitch. It's bad enough I'm stuck in this embarrassing situation because of you, but if…" After seeing her cat-like eyes and behavior, Harry acted on a hunch and brushed some of her shaggy brown hair aside, seeking out one ear. Just as he suspected, it too was had undergone a cat-like transformation and as he rubbed his fingers along the top, Courtney's eyes rolled back in her head, her grumbling trailing off as she began to let out what was unmistakably a purr. "I haaaaate yoooooou."_

Eyes snapping open as his dream came to an end, Harry lay there in his comfortably warm bed for a moment before groaning and sitting up. So much for a good night's sleep. He really needed to figure out what to do about these dreams of his, he decided. They clearly couldn't be entirely prophetic; tonight's dream had elements that directly contradicted his first dream, to say nothing of the ones he'd had in between. But on the other hand, there were certain common elements and at least two of them seemed to be coming true in the real world…

Sensing his mother's magic somewhere downstairs instead of down the hall, Harry decided to get up and see what she was doing instead of lying in bed and thinking. Grabbing his wand, a piece of parchment, and a quill, he stepped out into the hallway and cracked open Jasmine's door, whistling softly. Hedwig alighted from her perch, crossing the room to land on his outstretched arm. Jasmine stirred but didn't wake and Harry let out a sigh of relief, closing the door and heading down the stairs.

As Harry reached the bottom stair, he turned the corner and groaned as he once again walked in on his mother and Narcissa kissing. The two were almost as bad as Hermione and Ron, he thought in amusement. Flicking his wand, he transfigured Narcissa's robes into a red velvet dress trimmed with white fur. "I saw Mummy kissing Missus Claus."

"Harry!" Pulling away from Narcissa, Lily smoothed down the front of her jumper, slightly askew from the blonde's wandering hands. Narcissa looked, as always, nonplussed about being discovered, calmly using her wand to return her robes to normal. "One of these days, I'm going to make you start wearing a bell."

Harry rubbed his chin for a moment. "Well, I do get on well with Katie, but I'm not sure how I'd go about wearing her…" Lily and Narcissa just stared at him blankly and he blushed. "Right. You don't know the names of everyone at Hogwarts and so that joke falls a bit flat. Katie Bell. She's a chaser on the Gryffindor quidditch team. Wear a Bell. Get it?"

Rolling her eyes, Lily patted Harry on the head before herding Narcissa through the door into the kitchen and gesturing for Harry to follow. He and Narcissa took seats at the kitchen table as his mother put a kettle on the stove, pulling three mugs out of the cupboard and packets of muggle hot cocoa powder. "Moving on… why aren't you asleep? And don't you dare make a noise joke; we put up Silencing Charms this time."

Harry snickered but took pity on his mother, opting to be serious for the time being. "Another weird dream. Figured I wouldn't be getting back to sleep, so I liberated Hedwig and figured I'd send out a letter I really need to take care of."

"Oh? And was my son still a son in this one?" Harry nodded. "Pity. I'd much rather have a daughter." After voicing that odd confession, Narcissa turned to Lily. "If that's the future that comes true, can we have at least one daughter? I'll even let you give her one of those silly flower names your family insists on for its women."

Snorting, Lily crossed her arms over her chest and eyed Narcissa. "Half a mo. 'Silly flower names'? From the woman whose family has had astronomy names for every member for something like five generations?" Then the first sentence hit Lily. "Wait. We could have kids if we wanted to?"

Narcissa nodded. "Are you a witch or aren't you? There are potions and charms for everything, dear. We're lucky that we're both women because we have options that a pair of men wouldn't. For instance, we could…"

"Right, whoa, how about you save the discussion of non-traditional magical reproduction for when her son isn't in the room. I may be old enough to hear this, but it doesn't mean I want to." His mother and her lover both had a laugh at his expense as Harry laid out the parchment and got to work, pointedly ignoring them. "By the way, Mum, if I don't come home on New Year's Eve Day, look for me in the backyard of Greengrass Manor."

"Oh?" Harry nodded and continued to write, his mother circling around to peer over his shoulder. "You want to use her vague offer to bring a guest that is more politeness than an actual offer as a way to bring another girl to her house for the night?" Lily let out a low whistle. "At least we know why you were sorted into Gryffindor now…"

The next day, two nights before he was scheduled to visit the Greengrass Estate for New Year's Eve, the family's pudding was disrupted by a soft pop and then a knock against the backdoor of the house. Harry looked up away from his conversation with Hermione and frowned at the sight of the headmaster waiting outside. Well now. This was just plain irregular. What did Dumbledore want?

Lily got up and answered the door, gesturing for her former headmaster to enter the dining room. "Albus! What can I do for you? I haven't heard from you since Samhuinn, if I remember right."

"Ah, it would seem that unlike my own, your memory is working quite well these days. No, I've come to speak with you and your husband about your son." Dumbledore's eyes took in the assembled crowd in the dining room before his gaze landed on one particular Potter and he inclined his head slightly. "With young Harry included, of course."

Oh, this could not be a good thing. Harry looked around the table at his sisters and Hermione before nodding towards the door. "Jasmine, out or I won't let you use my Nimbus for the rest of my vacation. Rose, out or I won't let Jasmine use my Nimbus and she'll take it out on you because she'll know it's your fault. Hermione, can you hover dessert out into the sitting room?" Hermione nodded and drew her wand, leading the way as the twins slunk out behind her, shooting him glares in between curious looks at the famed Hogwarts headmaster. Soon, though, it was just Harry, his parents, and the headmaster. And wow, not even the vaunted Albus Dumbledore cared about illegal underage magic. Interesting. "Headmaster Dumbledore. Have a good Christmas?"

Dumbledore nodded, conjuring up a seat across the table from Harry. "Indeed I did. Alas, I still have yet to convince people that all I truly need these days are nice warm socks and so I received far too many expensive gifts, but it is the thought that counts, I suppose." His gaze flickered over to the door through which the others had recently passed. "You're just as capable a leader at home as you are on the field, it appears."

"With all due respect, headmaster, I'm sure you're not here to become another member of Harry's Angels." At the confused look of his parents and Dumbledore, Harry gave a Gallic shrug. "Turns out that after the trolls, Hermione and my other friends conspired to organize a not-so-secret society to protect me from myself. They've decided to call themselves Harry's Angels. It's touching, in an odd sort of way."

Leaning back in his chair, Dumbledore shook his head. "It is always important to have friends willing to watch one's back, Harry, but you are quite right in assuming that is not why I'm here. No, I wanted to discuss the idea of you potentially testing out of your year and joining the second years at a minimum, if not higher. I have discussed you with every one of your teachers and with the exception of Professor Snape, all of them recognize you are performing far beyond your peers at present. You must be terribly bored."

Harry winced as his father fixed him with an incredulous stare; his mother, after all, knew about his real age and true experience but that Harry was so gifted was news to James. And it meant he was going to have to try and sell the story he'd given Luna to his perceptive father and the headmaster directly, rather than letting them read it in _The Quibbler_ first and then tackling it at some point down the road. "The problem, Headmaster, is that Rensaren's got a bit more to share with my brain than I let on after Halloween. I've got Prue's entire life at my fingertips and considering people at the time thought she was a goddess… turning a matchstick into a needle or levitating a feather isn't terribly difficult for me, no. But my knowledge starts becoming less useful as we get further into school; Hogwarts wasn't even around back then and the OWLs and NEWTs certainly weren't. There are loads of spells I don't know that I need to for either real life or the exams, and I don't want to risk missing out on them even if nine out of every ten classes puts me to sleep."

"I… see. This is indeed disturbing news, Harry." Dumbledore leaned forward, peering over the top of his glasses at Harry. "Not only do you have access to magic far beyond what a person of your age and maturity should, but Thor and Prue were most certainly not 'gods' content to sit back and enjoy worship. Tell me, how many of those memories involve war and all its cruelties? No, this will simply not do. If needed, we can ask Ollivander to craft a wand for you from scratch no matter the cost and charge it to Hogwarts, but I can't in good conscience allow such an item cannot remain in the hands of someone this young. Harry, I must ask you to surrender the wand in question." Heh. No. Harry shook his head and Dumbledore turned to his parents for reinforcements. "James, Lily, surely you see that this would be for the best."

Just as eagerly as James shook his head, Lily made her unwillingness to consent known. "I refuse to cripple my son's magic just because you think it's a good idea, Albus. The wand picks the wizard and this was the only wand in Ollivander's that was compatible with Harry. I won't turn my son into a squib just to make you happy. End of discussion."

Much to Harry's surprise, it was his father rather than Dumbledore himself who came to the defense of the idea. "C'mon, Lily. This isn't Fudge or one of his lackeys trying to give us advice. It's Albus Dumbledore. I'm sure that if he says we can find another wand that's as good or even a better match for our son that it's true. And I can't say I'm too keen on some old bat with a goddess complex sticking herself into our son's head. It's not natural."

Lily let out a snort as she looked over at her husband. "I'm getting a lecture on 'natural' from the man who likes to ride a broom and turn into a stag? Besides, you weren't there when we went through all of Ollivander's looking for this wand. Why should Harry give up his wand and hope that Ollivander can come through in the future when none of the wands in the shop responded to him? What possible combination could there be that's not already there, unless we want to try a more exotic core than unicorn, phoenix, or dragon in a wand for Harry? Besides, he's gotten this far with it and he's not running around trying to… I don't know, rule the world or kill his classmates or something."

Wincing, Harry held up his hand. "I've zapped Neville pretty good with electricity. Although in my defense, he was threatening to attack Hermione and Daphne."

"Not helping, sweetie." Lily flicked her wand haphazardly at him and Harry narrowed his eyes as he felt his lips disappear, cutting off his ability to speak. "The family will take responsibility for anything that Harry does, and remove him from the school if it becomes necessary. Is that good enough for you, Albus? And so help me God, James, if you dare open your mouth against your own son's welfare, you can sign up for triple shifts from now until the end of January."

Dumbledore sighed and pulled a tin out of his robes, removing a lemon drop and popping it into his mouth. "I dare say that conversations like this make me miss the days when you were a far more tractable and innocent first year, Lily my dear. That would be an acceptable state of affairs while I research the matter further, as long as Harry visits a friend of mine at St. Mungo's this summer. Not for testing or anything along those lines, before you concern yourselves. My friend worked with many of the soldiers who came back from the war against Grindelwald with… difficulties. I simply wish to have him assess how Harry is handling the foreign memories, nothing more."

Flicking his wrist, Harry let the wand in question jump into his hand and wordlessly cancelled the charm on his mouth. While he wasn't too terribly worried, having both a copy of what would here be 'Neville's wand' as well as Mjolnir upstairs in a locked box under his bed, he liked the idea of keeping Rensaren as well and was glad his mother was coming to his defense. But… "You want me to see a shrink?"

"I do believe he prefers to be called a Mind-Healer just like his fellows, but you can ask him about that during your first session if you wish." Dumbledore's gaze turned to James and Lily. "I allowed Remus to attend Hogwarts in spite of his condition, as long as he followed certain guidelines. I am willing to accommodate the needs of my students, but only as long as they do not pose a threat to the student body as a whole. Harry will need to attend counseling or he will not return to Hogwarts next fall."

Merlin. All this for slightly advanced skills and a few spells he'd taken from a Norse woman with a goddess complex. Suddenly, Harry was very glad indeed that they didn't know the full extent of his knowledge and powers and that he hadn't come right out and confessed his true origins to either the headmaster or his father. Forget counseling, he'd be locked in St. Mungo's in the bed Frank Longbottom had occupied in his old world. And how the bloody hell had they gotten from Dumbledore wanting to push him up a few years to wanting to throw him out of school? What a mess. "I'll go in exchange for a meeting with Tiresias Rolfe."

"How do you know of Tiresias?" Harry arched a brow and waited, Dumbledore eventually sighing and nodding. "Very well. I'll contact him as soon as I return to the castle."

_Blinking the spots out of his eyes, Harry reminded himself for the fifth time that night that he really ought to keep his eyes closed when teleporting himself using lightning. It took a further moment to shake off the odd tingling in his limbs, still a sensation he found unusual even after a month of jumping all over Britain to fight Voldemort and his Death Eaters but a welcome change from the squeezed feeling of apparating. Then and only then did he assess the situation, trying to figure out what Moody had sent him to handle._

_The Greengrass Estate, or what was left of it, burned in front of him. Whatever the Death Eaters had done here, they hadn't managed to disturb the ward stones, turning the Greengrass's own defenses against them: the wards blocked all inbound apparition and portkey travel, cutting them off from any hope of rescue. Thankfully, though, one of the house elves had been ordered to flee and seek help and had thought to come to Hogwarts. That elf had found Dobby, Dobby had found Harry, and Harry… well, wards weren't a problem that troubled Harry._

_Pulling his invisibility cloak on and casting a flame-freezing charm on himself and the cloak, Harry slipped through a massive hole that had been blasted in the north wall and entered the house, moving slowly as he sought out signs of life. The first person he found was the corpse of a man he was guessing had been Mr. Greengrass, likely a victim of the killing curse given that his body had no marks on it. Mrs. Greengrass was a few feet away in the same state. But the question then became… where were their daughters?_

_Harry got a hint in the form of voices from further in the house: three gruff and distinctly male ones along with one shrieking, terrified female one. Holding out his wand, he tapped the tip against the floor and focused some of his magic down the length. While the Marauders had relied on layers and layers of charms work on enchanted parchment, Harry had learned to do the same thing through pure magical brute force. "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."_

_Even though the truth was quite the opposite, tendrils of lightning began to flicker out across the floorboards, drawing the layout of the house and marking out not four but five dots in the next room. Daphne Greengrass was up against the farthest wall, while her sister Astoria was in the middle of the room surrounded by… Draco Malfoy, Gregory Goyle, and Vincent Crabbe._

_There was another high-pitched shriek and then the meaty slap of a fist meeting flesh. "Shut up, you little slag. The more you struggle, the more we'll make it hurt. And keep those eyes open or I'll crucio you again, Daphne. If we let you live through this, maybe next time you'll think twice before defying the Dark Lord the way your parents did."_

_Any doubt as to what was about to happen was dispelled when Harry heard a zipper being lowered. Gritting his teeth, he focused his will and the wand in his hand shifted into a massive warhammer. Oh, this would not do at all. Not one bit._

_Passing through the doorway, Harry decided the two brutes would go first so he could take his time and enjoy Draco's death. Slowly circling around them, he winced as Draco used a series of low powered cutting curses to slice through Astoria's clothing, leaving her naked and bleeding from a series of thin cuts that crisscrossed her body. Harry's rage grew; no girl deserved to suffer through what Malfoy was planning for her. And none were going to. Not on his watch. Moving closer, he tugged down the hood on his cloak before tapping Crabbe on the shoulder. "Wotcher. Is this a private party?"_

_"Potter!"_

_"Wow. After nearly six years of school together, you actually remember my name. I'm shocked." Twirling the warhammer with a grace that seemed impossible for its size and weight, Harry brought his weapon up and slammed it into the frozen Death Eater's skull. The back caved in under the hard strike, killing Crabbe instantly. "Too bad nobody's going to remember your name after tonight." Pulling Mjolnir free with a wet squelching noise, Harry lunged forward and took Goyle out of the equation with a swipe that caved in his chest and sent him flying across the room to hit the far wall. That just left… "Evening, Malfoy."_

_Jerking himself away from Astoria as if she'd suddenly transformed into one of Hagrid's skrewts, Malfoy tried and failed to combine a fierce glare with his furious efforts to tuck himself back into his pants. "Looks like you lot have a guardian angel. That's okay, we've already made our point." Smirking, Malfoy raised his wand and gave them a casual wave. "Have a good evening, ladies."_

_As Malfoy gathered his magic to him and tried to apparate away, Harry's lips twisted in a smirk of his own as he thrust his free hand out, gathering his power and waiting for a moment before pulling. There was a flicker of motion as the blonde-haired Death Eater momentarily disappeared before reappearing with a scream. "Oh, don't leave now. The party's just getting started, Draco."_

_Waving his hand, Harry conjured a robe and dropped it over Astoria's nude form before summoning her wand to him. Daphne was under a silencing charm and needed to be unpetrified as well, but soon it was three of them against one Death Eater… and Harry was going to make sure that Draco Malfoy didn't escape to try something like this again. "Oh look, I found this extremely lifelike practice dummy. Who here wants to learn how to cast the Unforgivables?"_

"Harry?" Blinking, Harry looked down into the wide silver eyes of Luna and shook his head to clear it. "Are you alright?"

How could he have been stupid enough to think he could come here and spend time around the Greengrass family, and not be assaulted by memories from his past? Harry nodded, though, knowing he couldn't actually explain his problem to Luna or any of the others without opening up another can of worms and revealing he'd lied in his interview with her. "Fine. She just reminds me of someone from you-know-who's memories."

Turning back to the girl waiting and watching him with wide eyes, Harry pasted a smile on his face. "It's nice to meet you, Astoria. Don't mind me. I'm getting a little odd in my old age, like Dumbledore. Do you know where your sister is?"

"You're eleven, Harry. If you're getting weird it's because you're crazy, not because you're old. Even I'm smart enough to recognize that." Astoria led them through the house to the living room, where Hermione, Su, and Daphne were already settled. Harry and Hermione had split up earlier that day, Hermione flooing to Su's and then on to Daphne's while Harry picked up Luna. Evidently her companion for the evening hadn't taken as long to get ready… which was odd, given Su looked a great deal more sophisticated and made-up than Luna did. "Next time, you can wait by the floo by yourself, sister. Your friends are weird. And I want that galleon on my nightstand by tomorrow morning." Grumbling under her breath to herself, Astoria turned and left the room.

There was silence as Daphne rose from the couch, approaching Luna and circling her the young blonde slowly. After two laps of long inspection, Daphne nodded to herself. "With a little work, you'll do. I suppose. You overload on shades of a single color too much; even if you are in Ravenclaw, we'll need to wean you off wearing this much blue at one time. But at least I'm being given good material to work with. I could have another Hermione on my hands."

Hermione bristled and glared from her spot beside Su on the couch. "Hey!"

"Hermione, darling, I love you but if I didn't think you'd put me in the hospital wing for it, I would stun you, give you a makeover, then burn all your clothes and replace them." Daphne paused and thought for a moment. "Quite possibly use the Imperius Curse to 'convince' you to use makeup each morning, too. Although I think there are will-weakening potions I could use instead that are slightly more legal. The only reason I'm not nagging you about your appearance is because Su seems to be making it her mission and she's a bit more patient with you than I'd be. I mean really, you came to dinner smelling like a locker room more times this term than I cared to count. Do you know what you're doing to my reputation?"

"I'm on the quidditch team! We practice before dinner!"

"So is Harry. And three other girls. And they all manage to smell decent when they show up to eat."

Deciding to rescue Daphne from a fight that shouldn't occur until both girls were old enough that mud and bikinis could be involved, Harry pulled a package out of his pocket and cancelled the shrinking charm. "Speaking of fashion… here you go, Daphne. Happy Christmas, albeit a few days late. I wanted to be here when you opened it so I could show you the charms on it."

Daphne snorted but took the present anyways, flipping it over in her hands a few times. "A likely story. Probably forgot to get me something and you're late because you had to stop at the Alley before coming here." A smile softened her pretend rebuke and she tore through the wrapping paper, letting it fall to the ground as she unfolded the cloak inside. Twisting it back and forth, she let out a soft coo as she admired it. "Harry, this is beautiful. Thank you!"

Draping it around Daphne's shoulders, Harry took her hand and guided it up to the catch. "Gryffindors go forward." The fabric rippled and turned from emerald green to a brilliant Gryffindor red with gold trim. "The grass is always greener." And just as quickly, it turned back to the green that accentuated Daphne's eyes. "I liked the green with your eyes, but figured it was too close to Slytherin colors, so I gave you another option for at school."

"I suppose this is my cue to retrieve your present, hmm?" Daphne's new cloak billowed as she turned and headed for the Christmas tree, bending to retrieve a small package from beneath it. "Happy Christmas, Harry."

Harry was about to open his present when Hermione and Su surged up from the couch, dragging him over and pushing him down in the middle before piling two more presents in his lap and taking up position on either side of him. Starting with Hermione's first, he opened it to find what looked like a pair of rather sporty muggle sunglasses. "They're for quidditch. I got your prescription from your mum and used a magical optometrist to get the right lenses. Was a whole lot cheaper than a muggle would have been. Too bad I can't charge my old friends a finder's fee and bring them to Diagon Alley for new glasses. I'd be rich…"

Switching to the sunglasses, Harry verified the world was just as clear albeit a good deal darker. Turning his head back and forth, they didn't slip an inch and he guessed there were some subtle sticking charms or something on the frames to keep them in place. "Wicked. Thanks, Hermione."

Su's present was a glass disc roughly as big around as his fist, contained in a thin gold band etched with runes. "It's a translation tool. You can run it over books in a foreign language and you'll see English. It only works on Mandarin, Cantonese, French, German, Italian, and Russian, but I think that's enough at our age, hmm?"

Considering he already knew most Scandinavian languages thanks to his special helper and a smattering of other languages from his training in the other universe, that was more than enough in his opinion. "Wow. Thanks, Su. I've been meaning to look into some of the older magical traditions of China ever since you showed me that water spell of yours, but most of the books Hogwarts has aren't exactly accessible to those of us who don't know Chinese. So again, thank you."

"Hopefully you're saving the best for last or else we're going to have words, you and I." Grabbing a pillow from one of the other couches, Daphne placed it atop the coffee table before seating herself so she could watch Harry open her present. "Well, go on. Open it."

Harry eyed her oddly before unwrapping what turned out to be a fairly high-denomination gift voucher to Flourish & Blotts. "Wow. Erm, Daphne, I didn't spend anywhere near this much on your present…"

Running one hand along the outside of her new cloak, Daphne nodded. "I didn't think you would. You're a boy, after all, and your father isn't exactly the traditionalist sort. Learning experience, then. If you're going to mingle with the pureblood families, they're going to expect you to know certain things. Like that you should buy presents that reflect how much money you have, to avoid looking too thrifty. Although you shouldn't go too grand, because then you just look like a show-off. Still, keep that in mind when my birthday rolls around in August, okay?"

"Don't worry, Harry, I'm not going to make you buy me expensive things." Harry had forgotten all about Luna, and looked back over his shoulder to find her hovering behind the couch. Reaching behind her neck, she unhooked something he hadn't even noticed because he'd become so accustomed to seeing on the other Luna: a butterbeer cork necklace. She was wearing two, actually, and one apparently had his name on it. Looping it around Harry's neck, she fastened the clasp and then gave him a quick hug. "I even kept it warm for you."

"Erm… thanks, Luna. It's very nice."

Unlike the look Daphne was giving Luna at the moment…