BTW: If anyone's wondering how come Amos didn't become a Death Eater with his friends, it was because he failed the test. He was fine at attacking little girls but when he tried Muggle Baiting against adults and they stood up to him he wet himself and made a big mess because he started blowing everyone up in a panic. In the early days of the Wizards War of the Seventies Riddle and the Death Eaters were more selective so Diggory was rejected for being too much of an obvious coward because that wasn't the image they wanted to project.
Usual disclaimers, no rights to any HP characters portrayed, and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale, it's fiction but not a kid's story. There will probably be changes made over the first hour or so as I find things that didn't come out quite the way I wanted.
Millicent knew that they were in trouble the moment she reached the Head Aurors' Office, because it wasn't Rufus sitting behind the Head Auror's desk, it was a big black skinned Auror who she knew by sight but had never bothered learning his name. When she demanded to know what he was doing there and where Rufus was, he chuckled. "Damn! I should have known better than to bet against Director Bones when she wagered that those would be your first words!"
His amusement disappeared abruptly. "This is my office now Madam Bagnold, and Mister Scrimgeour is currently being questioned about illicit activities. Now…. What are you doing in my office and what do you want with the Head Auror? Even if I didn't know that you have already officially handed the Minister for Magic's title over to Minister Weasley, you should know that you no longer had the authority to initiate any new official business once the new Minister was elected."
She immediately backed down and tried to find a way out of the situation she'd gotten herself into. "Oh I'm so sorry, I was just surprised not to find Rufus here. You see he's been a family friend for quite some time and I needed someone to talk to because I just had a nasty shock, apparently Delores Umbridge wasn't the witch I thought she was and Director Bones has arrested her."
He gave her a thin smile, saying "Really, an old family friend? That's odd as Rufus has never mentioned it and being the name dropper that he is I would have sworn that he would have told everyone if he were a family friend of the Minister..." as he quite obviously jotted that down to add to Scrimgeour's questioning.
Ex-Minister Bagnold decided to get out of there before she gave him anything else to use against her. "Perhaps he was trying to respect my privacy Auror, anyway as Rufus isn't here I won't take up any more of your valuable time." And with that she bolted.
Kingsley Shacklebolt chuckled again and pulled out his communications mirror to fill Amelia in on what had just happened, swearing under his breath as he belatedly realised that she'd won the bigger bet she had with him as well, because Bagnold had been in his office less than ten minutes after she left the Minister's office.
She pretty much went into hiding after that, so it was days before she found out that Minister Weasley's new Senior Undersecretary was actually Auror Investigator Alice Longbottom, or more to the point Countess Longbottom, Consort of the Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Longbottom. Trying to start malicious rumours about the fact that the new Minister was filling the key positions in the Ministry with his allies didn't work as well as she expected, as most of the people she was trying to get on side just laughed and asked how that was any different from what every other Minister did? The fact that half of them were saying that Umbridge obviously belonged in Azkaban and it was suspicious that she hadn't sent there long ago was an even bigger blow to her long term plans, because obviously having the stupid witch associated with her had turned key players in Magical Britain against her.
It didn't take Bagnold's people in the Ministry long to decide that they didn't like the new Minister for Magic at all, because Arthur turned everything upside down, starting the day he took over. Fudge was arrested and put in a cell beside Umbridge, Scrimgeour and the Head of the Floo Network Authority, and most of the faithful found themselves dismissed from the Ministry in the first week.
What they couldn't work out was where Weasley's people had gotten their information from, because they had been assured that the records used against them had been removed years ago. This was because most witches and wizards avoid any unnecessary work, so delving into the underlying controls of the Wizengamot and Ministry records system would never occur to them. There was also the fact that one of the first things anyone employed in the records office was made to do was to swear a magical oath not to divulge any details of how sensitive records were secured, and this was done by burying them in the archive system where a copy of all official records was automatically stored when they were created, so the archive system wasn't mentioned.
Their teams had spent months going through the records of what everyone in the Ministry had been doing, so all of Bagnold's key people were either arrested or dismissed, depending on what information they found on them, in the first week of Arthur's administration. The people they replaced them with were mostly Demi-Britons, and they had a simple answer for anyone who tried to argue about these new people coming in and taking over the senior jobs they'd been waiting to become available. "Do your job or you'll be replaced too! You're paid to work, not sit there and argue about what you think you're entitled to when you haven't done anything to earn it."
Most of the Pureblood Aurors and Hit Wizards had been dismissed for failing the requirements, and more than a few were arrested as well. John Dawlish, who'd been assigned as the Minister's head bodyguard, had actually been put through the Veil of Death and word was he wasn't the only one. The fact that they'd mostly been replaced with Mudbloods and ex-werewolves was both an outrage and a significant worry to the Purebloods, because it was further proof that their world was falling apart. Everyone knew that the new Minister and the Director of the DMLE were close friends, in fact word was that they were more than that, so having most of the Pureblood Aurors and Hit Wizards thrown out and replaced with that in the first week after he became Minister didn't bode well for the old order who'd been taking the funds meant for the DMLE at all.
Needless to say, the Purebloods who made up the majority of those employed by the Ministry were not happy about these new developments. The fun part of this, for everyone but the Purebloods anyway, was the fact that the only jobs that most of them could get after they were dismissed from the Ministry was as servants for other Purebloods, because the ones who had been abusive to their elves couldn't get the elves to work for them again after Harry freed them from their enslavement.
The elves had been cursed by Salazar Slytherin when he was driven mad with grief by his beloved wife's death. He blamed her death on the elves, deciding that they had failed to do enough to save her, so the curse he placed on them was that they had to bond to humans, to serve them unquestioningly and never act against them, or they would sicken and die. As part of this curse, the elves could hold no magic other than what they drew from the humans they were bonded to, so they couldn't live without a human master. The curse was passed on to all descendents of the elves struck by it, and it was also passed on to any other elves they came into contact with who weren't cursed.
The goblins had suspected Salazar of doing this, as his wife had just died and they couldn't think of anyone else brilliant and deranged enough to do such a thing, but he died himself before they could question him so no-one knew for sure, not until Harry called the heirlooms of his houses to him, because the trunk that held Salazar's personal library was one of the main Slytherin heirlooms. That library included all of Salazar's journals, and his notes for the Elf Curse were in those journals. Salazar's journals were restricted to the Head of the House of Slytherin and in the written form of parseltongue, so only Harry could read them and it was a while before he managed to learn how to read parseltongue properly. Even when he could read them, Harry couldn't work out what some of the last spells recorded were for, so he translated them for Gringott and the other adults and asked what they were meant to do.
When they worked out the intent of these particular spells, they all agreed that the curse needed to be lifted so they spent months untangling Salazar's deranged logic enough to work out how to amend the key parts of the curse enough to free the elves from the either/or choice of serving wizards or dying. When they were confident that what they had would reverse the effects of the curse safely, Emyr insisted on being the one who Harry cast the modified spell on, trying to ensure that Efa would be spared if it didn't work.
Emyr felt something when Harry cast the spell in parseltongue, but still felt a bond to Harry because he loved him, so all they managed to confirm initially was that he could refuse any order from Harry without immediately feeling the effects that had applied to elves if they tried to refuse their masters' orders. Gringott suggested what should be a more effective test, for Emyr to go out and find an elf who was obviously abused by his or her master and have him 'infect' them with the modified curse (they'd left all of the parts of the spell which spread it to other elves intact, only modifying the part that enslaved them to reverse the effect). If it worked and the modified curse 'took', that elf should be able to refuse orders that it didn't want to accept and leave its master with no ill effects, or even strike back against its master if the elf was attacked because their orders were refused.
It didn't take Emyr more than a few minutes to locate an abused elf in Diagon Alley and he went to him, asking him whether he wanted to be free from having to serve his master. When he whispered that death would be better than his miserable existence Emyr clasped his arm and the new 'curse' washed over him, making him drop the parcels he was carrying. The elf's master turned around at the sound of breaking glass to see an elf wearing clothes standing beside his elf, and the parcels on the ground so he started shouting. When his elf had the gall to stand up to him he tried to kick him, but he found himself being thrown down the alley to crash into a shop front by his own elf! Other Purebloods ordered their elves to go subdue the two crazy elves who were attacking their master as soon as they recovered from the shock of the sight, but that just spread the effect much more quickly. A delighted Emyr was shouting in Elvish for them to go and release as many elves as they could from the curse and that anyone who wanted to leave their masters should go to Gringotts so that they could be found new and better homes as free elves.
Within ten or fifteen minutes every elf in Diagon Alley had been released from the curse, but it was heartening to note that half of them had been well enough treated that they chose to stay with the ones who had been their masters. The other half (and a good number of those who stayed with their masters) popped off to release other elves, and by the end of the day hundreds of elves had popped into Gringotts, looking for the new homes that Emyr had promised. Most of these were sent off to the Potter properties to rest, recover and get themselves dressed properly while the family dealt with the furore in the wizarding world. A week was enough to see most of Britain's elves 'infected' with the cure for the curse so that they were freed from their enslavement, and another two weeks had enough elves outside of Britain infected to ensure that the spread couldn't be stopped. None of the family questioned the goblins' records which told them that it was spreading much faster this time than it had nine hundred years before, because the elves were actively trying to spread the cure, and the goblins helped with their floo and port key transport networks which allowed the elves to reach other countries before the news.
The arguments over this in the Wizengamot had actually turned more of the established families to Bagnold's factions' side for a while, because many of the wealthy houses who had relied on their elves for the decadent lifestyle they enjoyed were enraged that they suddenly had no-one to do everything for them. These houses demanded that whatever had been done to their elves be reversed and their property be returned at once. They didn't appreciate it at all when Sirius roared with laughter at that.
"The Djinn has been released you fools, and none of you will ever be capable of putting it back into its bottle! The true heir of the deranged wizard who placed that curse on the elves before he died nine hundred years ago found the notes for the curse when he was accepted as Head of the House. He is a true and good wizard who was outraged that his ancestor could unleash such an abomination on a magical people, so he sought assistance to modify it enough to free the elvish people and correct the wrong his family had done. As you can see he succeeded in his quest because the elves are now free to make their own choices."
He paused and looked around at the shocked, angry and confused looks on the Wizengamot members' faces, smirking as he continued. "What many of you may not know yet is that not all elves have left the families they served, because some of them were being treated fairly by their families. So, if the rest of you ever want the elves' help again, you're going to have to start emulating those families. You're also going to have to pay them and give them decent working conditions, time for themselves and the rest of the things that humans expect."
That of course resulted in another eruption of complaints, threats and demands, and Griselda decided to add a dig. "Well I can attest that not all the elves have left, because my Betsy has chosen to stay with me. Things are much as they were before, but now Betsy tells me if she doesn't want to do something and we're discussing what she will be paid and what days she will be taking off for her personal time." The others in the family had to cover up their smiles at that, because they were all having those discussions, but they weren't having much luck in convincing the elves to take fair pay and time off, as they all seemed to believe that token amounts of time and money were more than enough.
Now, over a year later, nearly half of the elves of Britain were working for their families and businesses and they were working with the goblins to help the elves create an Elf Nation. As with so many events over the past two years, the ones who were most upset about this were the wealthy Purebloods who used to control Magical Britain.
Harry and the others were working hard while this was going on, but then Harry, Hermione and Luna especially were no strangers to hard work. As soon as Harry came out of that intensive reconstruction session two and a bit years ago, the three of them dove full on into the physical torture sessions that the goblins called warrior training. They had all remained on the potions that helped them grow bigger, stronger and faster since then because they were being prepared to face Riddle and other enemies, so Harry was now at least two foot taller and had filled out quite a bit from that tiny, frail little waif who had suddenly appeared in front of the Grangers' car that day. Hermione was around the same height as Harry, but she hadn't grown as much as him because she hadn't started out stunted by malnutrition. Luna was smaller but then she was a year younger than Hermione. Remus and Alastor pushed Sirius and Emmeline to join them and the kids in the training sessions as soon as they and Sirius came out of their reconstructions too, because as a Defence master and top Auror they understood the links between physical and magical strength and endurance.
The three kids were all far stronger and faster than they looked, because the goblins' physical education regime of work until you drop, then get up and do it again was as effective as it was punishing. Goblins weren't inherently stronger and faster than humans (no matter what wizarding lore stated), they worked damned hard to develop those advantages, and their training methods worked just as well for the few humans they shared them with, as did the goblin growth potions that they had developed for their warrior training, the purpose being to help them grow bigger, faster and stronger so that they could become more effective warriors. (This was why the warriors from their leading families such as Gringott's were generally bigger than other goblins. It was a matter of family honour that they be respected as warriors so they started the warrior training and potions as soon as they could walk, that and the fact that they were more likely to be challenged to duel for their positions.) As such, except where the potions were addressing a pre-existing condition such as the severe malnutrition that Harry and Sirius had been suffering from when they rejoined the magical world, the goblin potions required a considerable amount of physical exercise to stimulate growth while they were building muscles and reflexes.
While goblins chose physical fitness and combat with sword, dagger, spear and axe over magical combat, witches and wizards had become dependent on their magic for nearly everything, so physical fitness was a concept that had been forgotten by most of the wizarding world, but while the other children were included in the warrior training, for six months only Luna had made a serious effort and joined Harry and Hermione's training sessions morning and night every day. (Dora tried, but she had had difficulty getting away for the training as much as she'd like when she was at Hogwarts before Harry and the others arrived) This meant that the three of them just kept growing bigger, stronger and faster so at first glance they now looked at least three or four years older than they were, but so far the others had only grown a little bigger and stronger and looked more normal for their ages.
They also had the first two Elven warriors in nine hundred years training with them, Efa and Emyr, who had been accepted to bond to Harry at his birth but were blocked from finding him by Dumbledore when he had him taken away from the cottage where his parents were killed.
Being released from the elves' curse allowed Efa and Emyr to choose whether or not to attack wizards and other beings, and they fully understood what the goblins, Remus and Alastor were saying about physical strength equating to magical strength, so they joined the warrior training so that they would grow in size and strength and protect Master Harry and his mate better. This in turn resulted in another first, because with Director Gringott's wholehearted support, Balrog and Gamling became the first goblins to willingly bond with a wizard since Salazar cursed the elves with the abomination that Harry and the others had finally reversed. Along with Remus and Alastor, Balrog and Gamling bonded to the Head of the House of Potter as his and his mate's champions, because this would allow them to sense if Harry or Hermione were in danger and come to them.
Roger and Jean also joined them in the warrior training as much as they could because it was one of the few things they could do with their daughter as it was mostly non-magical. They both threw themselves into it whole heartedly and became a lot fitter and stronger as time went by, and as dense muscle mass weighed more than flabby flesh, they got noticeably heavier too. Roger finally noticed this one day when he was helping Jean to her feet and tried to give Harry some fatherly advice, quietly warning him that it was a bad idea to tell girls that they were putting on weight because they tended to get upset about it, but Jean heard and she laughed at him.
"Do you really think that the girls would worry about that Roger? For a start, they're nine and eight, and they aren't getting heavier because they're fat, they're getting heavier because they're growing taller and building up muscle as they develop the strength, speed and skills needed to put trained adults on their arses in a blink of an eye. Hermione and Luna are both trim, taught and terrific, something I've heard Harry telling them more than once…."
She stopped at that and turned to Harry. "Harry, Roger does have a point in regards to girls who have put on weight due to puppy fat as they go into puberty, as commenting on their weight in those circumstances is likely to upset them, so do try to be diplomatic there. But here, you and the girls are being weighed and measured every week to track your development so Hermione and Luna are quite aware that they're heavier than they look. Just keep telling them how you appreciate the way they look and everything will be fine Sweetie."
After a hug for Harry she turned on her husband. "In fact you'd do a lot better if you followed Harry's example Roger Granger! If you'd told me that you liked the way I looked now that I've trimmed down instead of worrying about dancing around the fact that I'm getting heavier as I build muscle, I'd be less inclined to prove to you that I'm quite capable of putting you on your arse!"
Roger looked for some support from Harry, but saw that he was on his own because Harry was making it clear that he was staying out of this. He had to shake his head as he conceded Jean's point, how the hell could the boy know so much more about handling women than him at eight for god's sake?
Then he caught Dora smirking at him and groaned, as he should have known. They may be distant cousins but the bright teenager obviously regarded Harry as a beloved little brother, so she must have been coaching him on how to avoid the mistakes that all the older male idiots kept making. Roger shook his head in admiration because he had to admit that it was certainly working, Harry was doing and saying all the right things to keep the girls (including Jean) happy, while 'older and wiser' males like him just kept putting their feet in their mouths.
He nodded to Dora to acknowledge a masterful job as he idly wondered how well young Bill stacked up against Harry in this regard. Bill was an incredibly mature young man, after all he'd fought to try and save his family from adult conspiracies since he was a small child, but could he have worked this out for himself? Roger shook his head and made an effort to drop that line of thought because his ego had taken enough of a battering from being bested in this by a brilliant eight year old with a little coaching from the fair sex, he wasn't sure it could handle being made to accept the fact that someone who had just turned eighteen had managed to work out women when he couldn't at twice his age.
To get his mind off that, Roger thought about the other side of the kids' combat training, the magical defence training that Remus, Alastor and other wizards and witches were giving them. This training was something he and Jean could generally only see in the results of the explosions and such, not the magic itself, but Remus, Alastor, Sirius and Emmeline did what they could to explain it to them while they were doing the warriors training together. Those four had all thrown themselves into the warrior training and encouraged the rest of the family to do the same, because as they explained to the kids, physical strength and stamina generally translated to magical strength and stamina, and the speed and agility developed in the warrior training was just as much an advantage in magical combat as it was in physical combat.
The others had also tried to explain what an unbelievable step Alastor had taken in trusting the goblins' curse breakers and healers enough to put himself in their hands to heal the curse damage from the Wizarding War so that his body could be reconstructed whole again. The only thing he had made them leave was the magical eye that gave him the name Mad-Eye, because that gave him a significant advantage. In a rare open moment, Alastor had nodded to Harry and told Roger what had moved him to take that step. "It was the lad Roger. He has half of this world against him and he'll need all the help we can give him if he's to survive what's in front of him. I knew that I could protect him far better whole than I could have, damaged as I was, and I trusted Gringott to do what was best for him as well. It was awful hard to give in to the wee people's ministrations like that but I just kept tellin' meself that Jamie's son needed me, and I must admit I feel better than I have since I was a lad meself now."
Harry, Hermione and Luna's day started normally, with Crookshanks jumping up onto the bed to wake them before dawn, and as usual when they didn't get moving quick enough to suit him, he shifted into his Mngwa form, making it impossible to ignore him. With that they got up, quickly getting dressed, putting on their running shoes and joining Dora, Remus, Alastor, Efa, Emyr, Balrog and Gamling in the common room to they could pop down to the lake's edge together to begin their warm-up lap around the lake before they got into the real training. The rest of the group joined them sometimes, but only the core group never missed training.
They popped straight into the training room when they returned to the castle, quickly donning their armour to begin the sparring sessions. When they started two years ago, they wore no armour and used lightweight wooden swords, but they'd added the armour and real weapons as they built up the muscle to handle them. Only Balrog and Gamling could move as fast as they needed to in full chain mail and plate armour, but they'd been doing this every day for over fifteen years and were rated among the best warriors of the Goblin Nation.
Once the training session was finished, they all got cleaned up and headed down to the Great Hall, pretending that they'd only just gotten up like the other students. As usual, Percy bore the brunt of the twins' jokes, with only Dora and Penny doing anything to try and make them tone it down until Harry decided that it had gone far enough and flashed a look at the twins. Even if the younger boy hadn't been noticeably bigger than them, they'd been in warrior training with him and knew that he could hurt them quite easily and effectively if he chose to, so that flash of annoyance in his green eyes was enough to make them stop the teasing and be nice to Percy. Percy was still a little pompous and annoying at times, which was why Harry let them go for a while, but most of them knew that this was only a defence mechanism, it was his ego trying to cover up the fact that the younger children made him feel inadequate because he was struggling to keep up with them. The fact that he'd already given up even trying to keep up with Harry, Hermione and Luna just made the sting worse.
Aside from when he made his displeasure known though, Harry was generally happy and Remus, Minerva and the others watching him from the High Table were glad to see him acting more his age, laughing and having fun with Hermione, Luna and the rest of his friends. The annoyance at the twins quickly passed as he fondly watched Hermione lecturing, no…. debating with some senior Ravenclaws on an issue and Luna snuggled into him as she leant forward to interject her own points into the… ah... debate. They all knew that Harry would add his two knuts if and when he believed it was needed, as he had already shown quite clearly that he was at the same level as his two brilliant best friends, even before Remus 'let slip' the fact that he was the one who had reasoned out that revolutionary cure for Lycanthropy at the age of six, soon after he rejoined their world.
Others watched the three for reasons quite aside from their brilliance though, because they could see what beauties they (Harry included) were almost certain to grow into. For the adults who knew his parents, there was no question that Harry was Lily Evans' son, though they could see plenty of his father as well. They could see Pandora Cathbad just as clearly in her daughter, though of course with Xeno Lovegood's rather distinctive hair colour. Lily and Pandora were two of the most brilliant and beautiful witches Hogwarts had seen in several decades, as well as being best friends, so seeing their children following in their footsteps was no surprise to the adults watching, and any fool could see that Hermione completed the set, fitting in with them perfectly in every way. Thankfully, for the most part the adults didn't share the thoughts of the ones who watched the three hungrily, as the three captivating children were much too young for the desires that showed on their faces. Unfortunately for them, the eyes of the elite ex-were and goblin warriors who made up the Black Guard assigned to watch over Harry and his family were exceedingly sharp, and they were always watching for any threats to them.
This meant that all of those wizards (and witches) who showed unwholesome intentions towards Harry and the others were marked, so the entire Black Guard watched them like hawks any time they were anywhere near the Lords Group. Given that behaviour of this nature was quite often learned from others, details of these people were sent on to the DMLE to have their families looked into, and the DMLE were currently building cases to charge a number of older witches and wizards with crimes against children. Minerva was also looking for a replacement for one of the wizards on the staff because while they hadn't found any concrete evidence against him, just the fact that he was watching children like that meant that he obviously shouldn't be around children in any position of authority.
Four months into their first year at Hogwarts, most of Luna's predictions on the Hogwarts Express had come about, Luna had been with Harry and Hermione ever since that first night, the other girls often came in with them as well because 'Harry's Haven' (the goblin floo address of his wardrobe trunk residence) had become 'Harry's Harem' according to Sirius. A number of extra suites had had to be added because all of their girls (from Potter Manor as well as Hogwarts) spent most nights there, in the other suites if not in the oversized bed in Harry's suite. It was perfectly innocent because Harry and most of the girls were still years away from reaching puberty, it was just close friends comforting each other in a world that was different from anything like they'd known before, and the older girls decided to turn Harry's Haven into the girls' dorm, seeing as all the younger girls were there most of the time anyway. Daphne's friendship with George was growing, as was Fred's with Angelina and Percy's with Alicia, but that's what they were, because Percy was the only one of them who had reached puberty and one of the things that he had picked up from Arthur was his innate decency.
Luna's predictions for the older ones had been proven correct too, Charlie had turned to Penny and CeeCee had quickly settled in with them, and Hestia was comfortable with Bill and Dora. They had gone further than the kids (except for Harry and the girls sharing a bed), but Bill and Charlie were gentlemen and let the girls set the pace on anything they did, so they were happy to keep their activities to kissing and cuddling.
Another prediction had also come about by Christmas, Minerva and the other Professors' prediction that the kids would be ready to advance a year by then. All the Lords Class students sat their Third Year end of year exams before they went home for the Christmas break, and did well enough that when they came back, the Third Year Lords Class had become the Fourth Year Lords Class. This of course led to quite a bit of complaint and arguing, and Griselda recused herself as Chief Witch for the Wizengamot session on the matter so that she could present the results of their exams as the Director of the Wizarding Examination Authority. Another outcome of this session was that the Director of Magical Education was dismissed because he was one of Bagnold's people, and his sole purpose in speaking seemed to be arguing against the changes at Hogwarts. He never presented any evidence to support his arguments, he just kept saying that the changes were wrong and that they had to go back to the way they were before. Arthur got tired of this and cut him off and dismissed him in the middle of his argument in front of the Wizengamot, making Griselda Director of Magical Education as well as the Wizarding Examination Authority on the spot because the Examination Authority did the bulk of the work performed by the Department of Magical Education anyway.
Seeing a Ministry Department Director dismissed out of hand like that took the wind out of the sails of those arguing for the sake of argument against change. This shut them up long enough for Minerva to present the information that the ICW's Education Authority supported moving students forward at the pace that worked for them, faster if they picked things up more quickly and slower if they took longer to learn, along with the evidence from the ICW that the students' results tended to be better when they advanced at the proper rate for them.
The brighter Fourth year students weren't complaining about this group moving up into their year, because while they recognised that they would probably lose the official top spots in the year, they knew that the competition from the younger students and their influence on the teaching practices would serve to push them to perform at a higher level than they would have otherwise. They also knew that their results would have more of an effect on their future than their ranking in the year, so these kids were actually improving their prospects.
One of the main diversions they had from the constant work was spending time with Hagrid and his creatures. They didn't have the wealth of magical creatures that lived at Potter Manor, in fact the more interesting creatures they brought in for Care of Magical Creatures were from Potter Manor, but they shared a love for creatures in general so spending time with them was an enjoyable break from the constant toil. It was amusing to hear Hagrid trying to have a quiet conversation with Remus, because even though he was far more controlled than he had been before Dumbledore's bindings were released, Hagrid's version of a whisper still carried a long way.
"It ain't right for kids like them t' be workin' so hard all the time! They should be at home playin' at their age, not here making the ones who are twice as old as them work twice as hard to try and keep up wi' 'em."
Remus chuckled, because he knew that they were all hearing this. "I hear what you're saying Hagrid, but Harry chose this as soon as he recovered from what was done to him and Gringott told him about his family. Hermione had decided that she was with Harry the first day they met and hasn't left his side since then, and Luna and the rest of them pretty much decided to stick with the two of them. Even Draco decided to stick with the other kids when he was given a choice, though in his case it was more a matter of pride and refusing to be left behind by younger girls to start off with. The point is that we haven't made them do this Hagrid, they chose it, so we're doing what we can to try and help them achieve what they decided to go after. I won't try to tell you that most of our plans to restore our world to what it should be don't hinge on these kids, you've seen yourself how much of what has already happened was because of them, but they chose to do it…." He hesitated and then continued. "Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that they chose to follow the path the Fates have set for them, but the point is that it wouldn't be right to try and take that away from them."
Hagrid nodded thoughtfully, as he hadn't considered that aspect before, so while he still wasn't happy that little kids like these were working harder than most adults he resolved to just try and help them have some fun where he could.
A/N: Yes, Mad-Eye Moody's famous peg-leg and scarred visage have disappeared in this world, though he kept the magical eye because it was right useful. They told us that just about anything could be done with magic so surely someone could find a way to correct curse damage? In this world, the clever little goblins did it for Alastor, but Sirius told them to give up on him after a while when they couldn't find an answer to the curse that had rendered him sterile in Azkaban as he already had an Heir in Harry and Emmeline felt she was too old to start having children anyway. They were certain that the curse had been Malfoy's doing, trying to ensure that Draco would inherit the Black fortune and power, but Lucius was sucked dry and died before they had a chance to get what had been done to Sirius out of him.
And they also managed to reverse the curse on the elves and free them with the notes in Salazar's journal. About half of the elves stayed on with their erstwhile masters as they'd been treated decently, but they were servants now with pay and the same rights as humans, rather than slaves. The arrogant families who had delighted in flaunting their so-called superiority by abusing and degrading their elves however got a rude shock, because they had lost the elves' service forever. They were also fined the equivalent of a fair pay for their elves for as long as they'd been enslaved to them so that their elves had something to live on, and they had to hire witches and wizards to replace them. Most of the witches and wizards hired were Purebloods who had been fired from the Ministry or whatever because they were useless, so the wealthier Purebloods had to hire their own kind to do a terrible job of what the elves did, and pay them much more than the elves for the privilege. For some reason the Purebloods weren't as amused as everyone else was about this.
NB: If goblins can breed with humans (as Professor Flitwick showed), their physiology must be close enough for the potions and treatments that work for goblins to largely work with humans.
Another minor change, back at the start, is that Harry's family actually goes back to the first Druids, two and a half thousand years, but the Druids Council still started two thousand years ago.