Chapter 12: Brooms and Scars
Ginevra Molly Weasley, better known as Ginny by her friends and family and as Gin by her boyfriend, was the happiest girl in the world right now. She was returning from the quidditch camp with a sealed envelope she was going to hand to her parents, that had the youth contract for special training with the Holyhead Harpies. All her brothers qualified for contracts, even Percy who didn't take the opportunity like his siblings preferring academic pursuits. The twins took the offer from the Pride of Portree and Ron taking the offer from his favorite team the Chudley Cannons. Her boyfriend Harry Potter decided to take the offer from the Falmouth Falcons. Her friend Demelza decided to keep her company in the Harpies as well.
After she went home and unpacked her trunk with her new cleansweep 7, the league allowed the children to keep the brooms they supplied. Looking at her window she saw some owls with mail. Ginny didn't know what those mails were about, so in her curiosity, she opened one of the envelopes, one that spat bubotuber pus on her face. Ginny then saw a howler that opened itself and screamed, "I KNOW YOU ARE A GOLDIGGING WHORE, YOU ARE A BAD INFLUENCE IN HARRY POTTER! MAKING HIM TAKE QUIDDITCH INSTEAD OF WORKING AS A PILLAR OF SOCIETY, I'M GOING TO FIND POTTER AND FLUSH HIM OF THE LOVE POTIONS HE HAS BEEN DOSED OF!"
Molly heard the howler screaming at her daughter and rushed quickly to her room, there she found her daughter, rolled up in fetal position on the floor, with boils on her face and her hands burned. She quickly picked up her daughter and took her to St. Mungo's.
Some hours later Ginny woke up and saw Harry and Ron watching her. "What happened?" she asked.
Ron answered, "The daily prophet published an article slandering you. Some people in the pureblood circles didn't like that Harry doesn't have any interest on being in the high society."
Harry then added, "Some people in response to the article sent you harmful mail, most of that mail opened automatically, hurling harming substances to you."
Ginny then decidedly declared, "we need to do something about this. We should expand the Hogwarts times to a real newspaper. But we need journalists that aren't students."
Harry then said, "We should hire Sirius' girlfriend's sister, she was a classmate of Ted."
Ginny's eyes lit up, "Sirius has a girlfriend?"
"Yes, she is a muggle, they are opening a beer brewery near Ballycastle."
"Did you bring my mirror? I want to call Luna."
"Of course, Gin, take it." Harry handed the mirror.
"Luna Lovegood," Ginny told the mirror, a minute later Luna's face appeared on it.
"Ginny! I've heard about you being the victim of pinkie pie conspiracy," said Luna in her weird dreamy voice.
"Luna! We need to upgrade our school newspaper to a national one! We are going to call it, the Hogsmeade Times," Ginny declared.
Harry reacted to this and said, "I can ask Sirius to give us resources to make it free for a month, so we can get clout, then we can charge around the same as the prophet for subscription and for copy, or maybe make it a little cheaper so it is more attractive as a news source".
Ginny then replied, "Harry! I think the first edition should be an interview with you!"
Luna from the mirror nodded in agreement with the redhead, then she disappeared. After a minute she came back with a piece of parchment and a quill, "Harry Potter, is time for your interview!"
Harry sat down in a bench with Ginny's mirror in hand, and started answering questions for Luna's interview.
Harry was a teenager with a mission, destroying Malfoy's influence, he found out from Cedric that the captain for Ravenclaw's quidditch team was Roger Davies like the last timeline. Harry set up a meeting with Oliver, Cedric and Roger to give them a present.
"Captains, you must be asking about why I gathered you here. Sirius made a deal with The Firebolt Company some time ago and got a boon for that, he got twenty one brooms of their starting model that recently came into circulation, The Firebolt," Harry announced.
Oliver smiled and said, "Great brooms for the best quidditch team at Hogwarts".
Cedric said, "Thanks Harry!"
Roger then questioned, "Why are you doing this, Potter?"
Harry answered, "You know that the talentless hack Malfoy bought himself his place in the Slytherin quidditch team, I want to humiliate him".
Roger then commented, "I don't understand the animosity between you and Malfoy. I remember people saying that you rejected his offer of friendship, and then you constantly attacked him until the incident where you lost Gryffindor 150 points happened".
Harry frowned and said, "It wasn't like that. Malfoy in the first train ride made his offer of friendship, I rejected it because he reminded me of my cousin that was a bully, and I was correct because in that moment he insulted my friend Ron. Then he decided to make schemes to have me expelled, until that incident".
Roger then retorted, "I don't believe you. The Malfoys are a family that are in high esteem with the minister. I've never seen Draco bullying anyone. We reject your gift of those stupid brooms. I know you were a spoiled brat that lived as a prince, and when you knew that Draco didn't like you, you started a war against him. I'm sad that Ravenclaw stopped the war against you, because you deserve it, and I'll make sure you suffer," then he stormed off.
Cedric then asked curiously, "What really happened in that incident of the 150 points?"
Harry then explained, "The short version is that Hagrid received a dragon egg, we had to convince him of getting rid of the dragon. We asked Ron's brother Charlie for help, the dragon bit Ron, so during the night me and Hermione smuggled the dragon. Malfoy found out about this and told McGonagall, she thought we were pranking Malfoy, so she deducted 50 points to each of us. Longbottom tried to warn us about Malfoy and was caught out of bed and McGonagall took 50 points of him as well".
Oliver then commented, "That seems harsh for a supposed prank. I still remember that you almost resigned from the team".
Harry then added, "That wasn't the worst part. The worst part was that we were sent to detention to hunt something killing unicorns. I almost died as well."
Oliver and Cedric looked stupefied by the last revelation. They stared Harry awkwardly for five minutes until Oliver then said, "Anyway, now we have seven extra brooms. What do we do with them? We need some worthy opponents in order to impress the scouts, even if we were already scouted by teams in the quidditch camp."
Cedric then had an idea, "We can still humiliate Malfoy with those seven firebolts, we can arm a second Slytherin quidditch team to cause infighting in Slytherin."
Harry then said, "I'll talk to Tracey. She can see which Slytherins would be willing to do this, there is a probable possibility that the Slytherin quidditch team is pure nepotism, so the more talented and skilled Slytherins probably aren't in the team".
Oliver chimed in, "I think Gemma would help as well".
Harry then asked teasingly, "How is your relationship with Gemma?"
Oliver then said, "I'm watching her at the final of the youth dueling tournament".
Harry woke up the day of his birthday with a headache, he quickly got up and looked at himself in the mirror, he saw that the scar was swelling up and looked ready to burst up. He quickly walked in direction to Sirius' room, but when he was half of the way to reach it, his scar exploded. As Harry fell, he heard Sirius rushing towards him.
At the same time that was happening, in a certain castle in the Scottish Highlands, two professors were having a conversation.
"Professor Dumbledore, my dark mark has been fading since the beginning of the year. What does that mean?" Inquired the potions master.
The headmaster wisely replied, "Severus, you must understand that I don't know everything. But that is something we need to observe. That coincides with reports I've receiving that Voldemort's presence in Albania has been fading. I don't know why. If the mark fades completely, I'll investigate a certain place that was of interest to Voldemort."
"Does that mean that the dark lord is dying?" Snape asked.
"Probably, but I'll have to be sure. I don't know how Voldemort has survived all this time, and I'd have to investigate why his method of immortality is failing. But as soon he is confirmed as dead, you'll free from your duties at Hogwarts and live your life." Dumbledore replied.
Back at the Kiln, a few hours later, Harry slowly opened his eyes, as he woke up he saw Andromeda looking worried at him.
"Andy? What happened?"
"Harry, your scar exploded, you lost a lot of blood. You'll have to rest until tomorrow. We can't celebrate your birthday with you in this state. But your girlfriend in a floo call stated that she wanted a joint birthday party with her in her house, so the celebration is in two weeks," Andy replied.
Harry grinned, "Great, that will be fun!"
The door to Harry's room opened and Sirius entered with a Eureka! Face.
"Harry, I think I know what happened," announced Sirius.
"What?" Harry blurted surprised.
"You remember that Death mentioned that the soul shard you were worried about wasn't a horcrux, just before we were sent to the past, right?" Sirius asked.
"Yeah, I remember that," Harry replied.
"Remember that there was a protection that was in your relatives' house that was active because you lived where someone with the blood of your mum lived?"
"Yeah, but in the summer because of Dobby's doing, I stopped thinking that as home during that summer because of what happened in my birthday," Harry said.
"The protection only lasts one year unless, you recharge it while living there AND you think it as home for at least a week," Sirius continued.
"What does it have to do with what happened?" Harry asked.
"We'll get there, the thing is that the protection at the Dursley's was also powered by your mother's sacrifice, and we know that in the other timeline, her protection even protected you from the killing curse, remember that you weren't able to be killed by Voldemort because he became your anchor to life because of your blood. The thing is that the Privet Drive protection weakens your mum's protection," Sirius said.
"That means that my mum's protection recovered full strength and expelled the foreign soul fragment. But why didn't it happen in the other timeline, when the Privet Drive protection faded because I became of age?"
Sirius started to hypothesize "That was probably because the soul shard was anchored by Voldemort's horcruxes as well. Nagini was destroyed after your death. You weren't a real horcrux, Voldemort never performed the horcrux ritual with you. Well, another reason may be that Voldemort having your blood and being your anchor also weakened the protection. After Andy and I destroyed the horcruxes at the Gaunt shack, Voldemort lost his anchor to the mortal plane. He is slowly being forced to move on. I don't know if he needs to return to a body or not to be completely destroyed, but right now, I believe Voldemort is the least of our problems," Sirius concluded.
"Good, Voldemort was a problem but aside from being a powerful wizard, he was just the result of the bigger problems and not the cause. Now the biggest problem is that the influence Malfoy has at school is still very big. Even with all our efforts with the Hogwarts times, many of the non Gryffindors still have a negative perception of me even if they don't think I'm the next dark lord because I live with you. If this doesn't get better, I'll have to take drastic measures. I'm glad that my scar is going to start to fade right now, " said Harry, then he remembered something, "Sirius. Does that mean I lost the ability to speak to snakes? Well, I didn't test that in the other timeline, but this ability may be useful now."
Sirius listened and replied, "There is only one way to verify this," he took his wand and cast "serpensotia," a small snake appeared in the room, "Harry, talk to it".
Harry talked to the snake, Sirius and Andromeda heard just hissing and observed that the snake started to behave in a manner that was unlike a snake, clearly obeying whatever Harry was saying, then the snake just went through the door and left, "Great, it works!"
"What do you intend to do with that?"
"It'll come in handy if Malfoy's influence increases."
Harry and Ginny's joint birthday party came. The renegade inner circle, that is, the Gryffindor quidditch team, Lee Jordan, Cedric Diggory, Penelope Clearwater, Gemma Farley, Tracey Davis, Natalie Fairbourne, Demelza Robins and Luna Lovegood were all invited. Some people from quidditch camp were also invited like Kyle's group. Ginny's oldest brothers Bill and Charlie took breaks from their jobs abroad in order to visit.
The party was going well without any major incidents, until the gift exchange happened. But the incident wasn't because of any of the gifts. It was because when Harry and Ginny were exchanging gifts with each other, they kissed. At that moment Bill and Charlie coughed in protest. Then Bill stood up and approached Harry, "What are your intentions with our sister, and why aren't the rest of my brothers surprised of this?"
Harry replied, "I've been dating her since the summer before her fist year".
That was the wrong thing to say because Bill then screamed "Whaat?" then he pointed his wand at Harry and said "Explain".
Ginny saw that and sent Bill a bat bogey hex.
Bill was rolling on the floor with bat bogeys on his face, "Where did you learn this?"
Ginny then laughed, "From the book you gave me as a present the first Christmas after you went to Egypt!"
"I gave you that book as a joke, firefly! I didn't expect you to learn anything from a book with spells in Greek!"
Ginny then said, "You'll stay away from my boyfriend!"
Charlie in the other side of the room asked his brothers, "Why aren't you saying something about this?"
Percy replied, "Because we approve".
Charlie then surprised blurted, "What? You are the person I expected the less to accept this!".
Ron then approached Ginny and whispered in her ear, "I think is time for you to reveal your secret to our parents and oldest brothers".
Ginny nodded in agreement, so Ron relayed Ginny's agreement to Percy, who then took center stage and announced, "We are having a Weasley family meeting in Ginny's room. Harry and Sirius must also go there".
The elder Weasleys stood up and approached Percy asking him why did he want a family meeting, Percy only answered that it was a secret, a very important secret.
Ten minutes later the entire family was gathered in Ginny's room, Percy then cast a privacy charm.
"Percy, dear. What's this all about," Molly asked.
"Is about Harry and Ginny, they have a secret, a secret that has been around a year. Is the reason they are so close right now," Percy explained and then signaled Sirius to take the word.
"There are two secrets, hidden with the fidelius charm. One secret is about me and the other secret is about Harry and Ginny," Sirius announced.
Harry then revealed Sirius' secret and then Sirius revealed the young couple's secret. Then the young couple and Sirius took turns to explain the situation to the Weasley parents and the two older brothers.
"… so, our goal now is to destroy the Malfoy family and their influence," Sirius finished explaining.
"Things are somewhat different right now, so our future knowledge has become mostly useless right now. We have a big problem right now and that is that Malfoy is still the leader of the Hogwarts board of governors and he has minister Fudge in his pocket. Well, in reality, Malfoy is the real minister of magic with Fudge as his public face and puppet," Harry observed.
"At school we are performing a mission of humiliating Draco Malfoy, without harming him physically. I think that if we harm him physically, Lucius Malfoy with get a pretext to take over Hogwarts and mold it at his image," Ginny explained.
Arthur then explained, "What can we do for help?"
Sirius replied, "For now, just be aware of what is happening and look for people in the ministry that are in our page."
Arthur asked in response, "This was why you were having those Christmas and Easter parties with ministry employees? I thought it was because you wanted to open your dojo business".
Sirius replied, "The dojo business was just a vehicle to increase our influence. But the Malfoys are still a bigger influence and are dangerous. Our current goal is to make my cousin in law, Ted, the minister of magic. We want to use the conspiracy Lucius wanted to start against your family, against him".