Knowing and Changing
Chapter 13: Letters
Harry was pacing the Room of Requirement, hands wringing together in front of him as his friends… new family watched him, concern etched onto their faces.
"We can't do this, right? It's stupid. Writing to Dumbles and Voldie for our heirlooms," Harry shook his head and ran his fingers frustratingly through his hair.
"They are rightfully ours, Harry. And there's nothing they can do about it," George said softly.
"I know. But there are actually many things they can do about it, and I don't like the thought of any of it. And the Potters, how are they going to react? I mean we don't know them, or do any of you know them?" he looked at his family.
"The Potters support Dumbledore, to some extent. I don't believe they idolise him as much as their son does, but they don't have as much of a reason to do so," Regulus said, "They seem to be good people, though they spoiled their son a bit too much, and they understand the way our society works, participate in it even. So, theoretically, they should give you the cloak. But I'm not completely sure,"
Harry nodded, swallowing deeply before going back to his pacing.
"Harry, we need to do this," George said, "Perhaps we should have done it as soon as we arrived, but… The things we need to do will be a lot easier if we had two sets of the Hallows,"
"The Hallows?" Barty said, looking between the twins with a raised, concerned eyebrow.
"Please don't tell us you mean the Deathly ones," Severus drawled, though his eyebrows were scrunched together, worry lines on his forehead.
"Well, we are Peverells, and they are the ones who originally had them," Harry said, sighing tiredly as he dropped into an armchair.
"And you already have one set of the Deathly Hallows?" Regulus said, worrying his lip between his teeth.
"Yep, the set from our original timeline. But according to… people, we are able to have two sets, for the purpose of saving the world, of course, though I assume that when we are done we will be able to keep both sets, so long as we want to. Not too sure," Harry shrugged.
"So, you're saying the Potters, Dumbledore, and The Dark Lord all have a Deathly Hallow?" Frank asked, "Do they know what they have in their hands?"
"Dumbles certainly knows that he has the elder wand. The others, probably not. Though it strikes me as odd that no one has questioned how the Potter's invisibility cloak has lasted multiple generations," Harry said.
"An invisibility cloak?" Severus said nervously.
"Hm, the invisibility cloak of all invisibility cloaks," George said.
"So, that would be how they are able to sneak up on me all the time," Severus mumbled, a shiver going down his spine.
Harry smiled sadly at Severus, "That and the Map they're making. Though I am sure given all of our skills we can make our own one,"
"And what does the Dark Lord have? I'm not caught up on this Hallows business," Alice said.
"The Resurrection Stone," Harry said, "Though the name is a bit of a misnomer since I'm pretty sure you can't actually resurrect anyone with it. Just speak to them for brief periods of time,"
"And you've spoken to people with it?" Lucius said, an eyebrow raised.
"Mhm, did I not mention that stuff when I ranted about everything on the train?" Harry sighed again, "Is this stupid? Should we just, not request them back?"
"Do we truly need another set of Deathly Hallows?" Regulus asked.
"They will come in spectacularly handy. And it will be nice knowing that Dumbles and Voldie don't have direct access to one of them, each, and that Potter won't be able to sneak up on us too easily," Harry said.
"Well, we could just write to the Potters. Then we can, somehow, win the wand from Dumbles, and just find the stone," George suggested.
"Finding the stone isn't the issue, I know exactly where it is," Harry said, "But it is also the reason Dumbles was dying in my sixth year. He touched it without checking for curses and removing them,"
"What would be more dangerous? Winning the wand and finding the stone? Or you writing to them and asking for them, which is your right?" Lucius said, "The Dark Lord might be insane, but he is trying to fit in with the purebloods, he knows the hierarchy and how it works, and he tries to uphold it. Wants to uphold it. The stone may be a horcrux, but if he knows it's a very valuable heirloom to you then he will think it unlikely you will destroy it. In fact, he may even think it's safer with you than where it currently is, because no one would think to look at two teenagers who have nothing to do with him other than being very distant relatives,"
"And with the wand, disarming or killing Dumbledore at this time will be incredibly difficult, as well as hard to come back from in terms of your reputation. At least until we have destroyed his," Narcissa said, "Unless no one knows it was one of you two. In any case, Dumbledore may be a master manipulator, but if you do it right, he will have no choice but to hand over the wand. In order to keep up his reputation, of course, because it is frowned upon to keep people's heirlooms from them. So, either he does it without the fuss and no one knows what the wand is, therego everyone is safe and just as oblivious as always, or you kick up a fuss because he is refusing to give you back your heirloom, and people ridicule him for such a disrespect to one of the oldest families, whether they know about the true power of the wand or not,"
"But if they threaten either Dumbles or Voldie, they will be in more danger, won't they?" Regulus worried.
"We are already going to be in plenty of danger, already are in plenty of danger. Us wanting our heirlooms won't make too much of a difference, other than us having more of a chance of winning when we have them," George said, patting Regulus' thigh comfortingly, "This is the safest way to get them, Harry. Yes, it draws attention to us, but attention is going to be on us at some point, anyway. Dumbles already has his attention on us. He can't expect we will truly understand the power of the wand, he will probably just think we are stupid teens who want our old family heirlooms back. And he has to give it back if he doesn't want us to kick up a fuss and start ruining his reputation, at least not this soon. And Voldie, he is trying to understand the purebloods and what they value. Heirlooms is one of those things. If he doesn't give us what is rightfully ours then we can quite easily tell those purebloods that he is a half-blood who doesn't truly care and he will lose followers, potential followers, and his own standing. It is for the best that they give us what we want, if they want to, for now anyway, keep doing what they are doing. They can't even begin to know what we are planning yet, and Voldie doesn't know what the stone is, if he did I doubt he would have turned it into a Horcrux. But he will, hopefully, think it unlikely we will destroy it, since we are going to so much trouble to get it back,"
Harry nodded and ran his fingers through his hair again, breathing somewhat shakily.
"This is the safest route," Harry said, "But it can still go tits up. If it draws too much attention to us…"
"It will, undoubtedly, draw attention to us. And perhaps not the best kind," George said, "But on some level we want their attention on us, so that we can end this stupid war. And, Dumbles thinks we are young and naive. He will probably try and talk us out of it, but we are too young and naive to give up on having our heirlooms back. And Voldie will think we are stupid teens, though naive for other reasons. He doesn't know the power of the stone, but he will see us trying to work our family back into society and, if he is truly trying to recruit purebloods, he will need to show that he is in favour of that. The only way he can do so is to comply. He can't possibly think we will destroy our heirloom, he will think it safe. Hopefully,"
"Hopefully," Harry breathed.
"I suppose, whilst we are waiting for responses, we can spend our time preparing, training for any possibility," Severus suggested.
"That sounds like a good idea, yes," Harry chuckled darkly, "Right, let's write these blasted letters then, and hope that everything doesn't go to shit quite so soon,"
They all moved to sit around the round table in the centre of the room and worked together to word the letters just right before Harry, George and Severus made the trek to the owlery to post them, using school owls rather than Hedwig, who was in their dorm. Harry just couldn't risk losing her again.
"Fuck," Harry breathed as they watched the owls fly away in three different directions.
"Indeed," Severus smirked.
George chuckled, "We will be fine. We are more powerful than either of those bastards. Even more so when we all work together,"
"And we have something they don't have," Severus hummed, and smiled slightly when the other two looked at him with raised eyebrows, "A family to fight for,"
Harry smiled at Severus, too many emotions fluttering through him, guilt being a large one, fear being another, but he tried to push it all aside as he realised that the other boy was right. They had a family to fight for, the two Lords of things had nothing.
"Shall we go and do some training then?" George said.
"That sounds like a brilliant idea," Harry said.
So the three made their way back to the Room of Requirement for an intense training session with their family. And they hoped, prayed really, that things wouldn't get too much too quickly.
Hiya, how are you all?
I hope you enjoyed the chapter. Feel free to share your thoughts on what is happening. Or what you think may happen. Or even what you would like to happen. I would love to know what you think, even if it is just something small, so long as you would like to share.
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