Harry and the Pirates

by Technomad

Chapter 49

Things Go Better With…

Madame Pomfrey was not pleased at all. Harry was not the only person who had been adversely affected enough to require a checkover, and he had to wait a while for his turn. Finally, the school Healer had him in her office, as she ran her wand over him to run diagnostics. "Dementors…around a school!" she muttered. "Of all the damn-fool ideas I ever heard in all my days, this takes the cake! Albus needs his head examined, if you ask me! As if Sirius Black would come within a hundred miles of this place!"

"Why do they think that Sirius Black would come here, ma'am?" asked Harry.

Not pausing in her work, Madame Pomfrey said: "Before he broke out of Azkaban, he was heard muttering 'He's at Hogwarts, he's at Hogwarts,' so the fools at the Ministry think he may be coming here to try to get you." She paused, giving Harry a shrewd look. "He was your parents' Secret-Keeper, you know. And he betrayed them to You-Know-Who."

"Oh, did he now?" Harry was very interested in this bit of news, and rather hoped that Sirius Black would indeed put in an appearance. He decided that he had a great deal to talk about with Mister Black. Or, rather, Harry would be doing the talking, while Sirius Black did the "scream in pain until you answer my questions" part.

When he was finally released from the dreaded hospital wing, Harry scampered for his cozy dormitory. He needed to talk with his friends, and soon!

First on the order of business, Harry decided, was tracking down whoever had been cruelest to Luna, and making an example of that person, before extracting the names of others who had been implicated. He knew Luna would be no help; she didn't see things the way others did. So he turned to the next best alternative. When his redheaded quarry was alone with him, in one of the side rooms the Slytherins used for studying, he began his investigation.

"Ginny, can you tell me what Luna might have meant when she said that she knew what it was like to be made fun of?"

Ginny looked wary, then puzzled. "What do you mean, Harry?"

"When we were in Roanapur, we told her that calling Miss Balalaika 'Fry Face' to her face made her very angry…"

Ginny turned even paler than before, remembering when she had met Balalaika, and her horror at Balalaika's scarred face. "Those poor Muggles! She'd be so beautiful without those scars!" She reflexively touched her own face. Harry remembered that Aunt Petunia had mentioned, more than once, that women took threats to their looks with great seriousness. Even when killing themselves, they would generally select a method that did not involve disfigurement.

"I don't know just why they couldn't do more for her. I have heard that she was lucky just to be alive, and that Soviet medicine wasn't the best. But that's neither here nor there." Harry gave Ginny a very stern look. "Luna said she'd never do that, because she knew all too well what it was like to be made fun of." Harry leaned in closer. "Tell me, Ginny…tell me the truth! Who's been harassing Luna?"

"Why do you ask me?" asked Ginny.

"You're a girl, you share a dorm room with Luna, and you would see things that we guys don't and can go places we can't go. If someone's been harassing Luna, we need to make it stop…right straight now!"

Ginny looked around, blushing, but there was no escape. "Well…it's mainly a bunch of the Gryffindors. My twin brothers are the ringleaders, but there's a bunch of them who do things to her. They hide her books and gear when they can get at them. If she leaves her bag where they can find it, they'll steal her homework so she has to do it over again. They make up horrible little poems about her, about how she's crazy and is going to end up in St. Mungo's mental wards, or how she's a Slytherin and all Slytherins are criminals. Things like that."

"And you didn't think to mention it to us?" Harry was furious, but he remembered how Balalaika dealt with that sort of thing, and consciously emulated her; outside, he was very calm, but a distinct edge had come into his voice, and (had he but known it) his eyes were like green fire. "You do know that Professor Snape is a big one for Slytherin solidarity. If I were to let him know about this, he'd take care of business, but he'd also come down on you and the other girls for not reporting it earlier." Ginny looked slightly green around the gills at that thought. "Of course, we can take care of things ourselves and not bother the poor old man. God knows, in his twilight years, he deserves a little peace and quiet."

"Oh, we can take care of it ourselves," Ginny assured him, nodding her head rapidly. "No need to bother the poor old Professor! Uh-uh! No-sir-ee!"

Harry smiled rather grimly to himself. He had figured that invoking the intervention of their House Head would get him the results he wanted. "Good. Then let's go talk to the others who went to the Chamber, and we'll see what we can do for our sister-in-arms." Had he but known it, his tone was very like Balalaika's soft purr when she was laying down the law. Ginny had never dealt with Balalaika, but she knew that Harry meant business.

When he got them together, the other Chamber of Secrets veterans were all as outraged as Harry himself. Even Draco Malfoy (the boy was a twit and a clown, but he'd gone down there, too; Harry did not believe in depriving anybody of properly-earned credit) was angry. Harry had noticed that no matter how badly Draco behaved to other boys, he was almost always a gentleman to the girls.

Ron stared at his little sister in horror. "Ginny…why didn't you tell us all this earlier? Why didn't you tell me?" His mouth tightened. "I never thought I'd say this, but at this moment, I'm kind of ashamed of being a Weasley! Those jackasses! How dare they mistreat that sweet helpless girl?"

"We're Slytherin House. An attack on any of us is an attack on all of us!" Dudley was probably the angriest of them all. His hands worked and flexed as though they were around the throat of one of Luna's tormentors. Harry was very glad that he was not the target of Dudley's rage. His cousin wasn't quite as smart as he was, but he was hell-on-wheels in a fight, and had no give-up in him at all.

"Yes, we're Slytherin House. We do not go charging in like impulsive Gryffindors." That was Hermione. "We gather intelligence, we choose our targets for maximum impact, we gather our strength…and then we strike with overwhelming force!"

Harry and Dudley both stared at their friend. For a second, it was like Balalaika was in the room; Harry felt a second's racking homesickness for familiar, comfortable Roanapur, and wished that his longtime employer and mentor was there. But she wasn't, and she had often said that she intended to train up Harry and Dudley not to be dependent on her. "I will not always be here, Harry Yakovich," she had said, her voice solemn, "and I would be less than the best commander I can be to make it so that you and your cousin are unable to act without me. A unit that depends so heavily on one person will fall apart and be defeated should that person fall…and the fortune of war happens to us all."

Ginny quirked a grin. "We may be able to get allies from within Gryffindor itself," she said, obviously thinking aloud. "Not all of them are in on this, from what I've seen…and many of them are still in love with the whole mystique of 'The Boy Who Lived.'" Her grin turned into a smile. "We need to find out just who is and is not in on the whole 'tormenting-Luna' thing. For that, we need intelligence. And that will require sources within Gryffindor."

"I'll find a chance to buttonhole Colin Creevey," Harry said, sighing slightly. The younger Gryffindor was hard to dislike, but his habit of ambushing Harry with a camera every chance he could had worn awfully thin the previous year. However, if his hero-worship of Harry was still there, Harry was quite willing to play on it as shamelessly as need be to get the information they needed.

"Good. And let's think about something really spectacular to do to the people who are actually guilty." Hermione looked thoughtful for a second. "If we can get them on the outs with the Gryffs as a whole, that'll make things easier. We don't want this to become an inter-House feud."

"Good point, that," Harry conceded. He had read Hogwarts, a History, and there had been periods in the past when Houses had been all but openly at each others' throats. The recent Voldemort umpleasantness had put Slytherin into a position where the other Houses tended to ascribe dark motives to anything any Slytherin did. Unfortunately for the Serpent House, the Dark Lord himself had been a Slytherin Old Boy, and had recruited heavily among his housemates.

With that, the meeting broke up, and they all went to bed.

When Harry found him, Colin Creevey was agog at being noticed by "the great Harry Potter." He was a fountain of information, and when Harry explained to him why he was being approached, he was eager to help out.

"Those people are mean to Luna? Why? She's the most beautiful girl I've ever seen in my life! Of course, I'll help you out!"

Harry hid a smile. "Good. I want you to be quiet about this, but gather information about who's been doing what. When you have it, get back in touch with me, and I'll tell you all about my life. To sweeten the deal, I'll have Dudley sit in on the conversation, and he can fill in any details I miss." The enthusiastic little Gryffindor all but bounced off the walls, he was so excited. Harry watched, outwardly calm, inwardly exulting. Gryffindor enthusiasm was no match for Slytherin cunning!

The kids' first real Hogsmeade weekend was approaching quickly. Dudley and Harry put together a very special order, and sent it out by owl, with a money order drawing on the Gringott's account they had set up for their share of the Basilisk money.

A few days later, they got a response. A team of owls flew into the Great Hall and dropped Harry and Dudley off a package, with a letter attached. When they had a chance, they opened the package, and smiled to see a twelve-pack of Coke. "You know, this is one thing I've really missed, going here," Dudley remarked, reaching for a bottle.

Harry wanted to emulate his cousin, but restrained himself. "Let's just split this one bottle, and use the rest for what we planned. The more we have for our free samples, the farther it'll go."

"Good point, Harry," said Dudley. Ceremoniously, they got glasses, and poured half of the Coke into one and half into the other. Then they touched the glasses together. "Here's to success to our new enterprise!" toasted Dudley.

"Vostrovya!" Harry downed the Coke, smiling at its familiar bite.

Luna's eyes lit up when she saw the bottles. "Oh, how lovely! Are you going to be selling Coke here?"

Hermione's reaction was more muted. "My parents are going to kill me when they hear about this! They're both dentists!"

Harry leaned over to Dudley, saying quietly, in Russian: "I hadn't heard that before. Do you think she'll kick over our applecart?"

Dudley replied in the same language: "I don't know. I wish we had known about that before letting her know what we're up to here."

Hermione gave them both a bland smile, and said: "Don't worry, boys. I may not want to participate directly, but I won't prevent you trying to make some money." Harry and Dudley both goggled at her in sheer shock. Hermione had not only understood the byplay, but she was speaking Russian…and speaking it well! Hermione smiled triumphantly at their amazement, and went on, in Russian: "While you were in Thailand, I got my parents to send me to an intensive language course. Twelve hours a day of lessons, language tapes when I was at home, and lots of practice. My vocabulary isn't as extensive as yours is yet, but my teachers say my accent is crisp and clear."

"Well, you could knock me over with a feather! I guess we can't count on Russian to give us a little privacy any more, can we, Harry?" Dudley reached out and gave Hermione a hug. "That said, you must have done a wonderful job! I bet Balalaika would be really pleased to hear you!"

"She sure would!" Balalaika was multilingual, but she was also always a proud Russian woman, and seeing foreigners take an interest in her native language and culture pleased her greatly. Some of the money that Hotel Moscow and Bougainvillea Traders made was put into Russian culture exhibits in Thailand, and funded scholarships in Moscow for aspiring young Thais.

"I got tired of hearing you two nattering away in Russian, so I just decided that I'd do something about it. I also found out that Durmstrang, the Eastern European magic school, uses Russian as its language of instruction, and I may want to go there sometime." Hermione looked rather smug. "There are also some great magical classics in Russian and some of them have never been translated. Even if translations exist, I don't always trust them. There's an Italian saying 'the translator is a traitor,' and I've found out that even between closely related languages, translation can be very tricky."

"That it can," Harry confirmed. He turned to Dudley. "So, I guess from now on out, if we want privacy, we'll have to use Thai."

Hermione gave them both a glare, and they grinned at her.

END Chapter 49