Author Note: Harry Potter Vegas edition. Instead of hiding in Grimmould Sirius moves a few of them to Vegas when a chance inheritance comes in.
July 10th 1995.
Harry Potter was awoken in the middle of the night by something moving around his room. He grabbed his glasses and his wand, grateful that he had smuggled it out from under his aunt and uncle's noses to find a small wrinkly being packing his things in his trunk muttering to itself.
"Excuse me who are you?" Harry asked. For some reason the being reminded him of Dobby, which meant harry needed to be careful.
The being turned and hissed at him before saying, "Kreacher is Kreacher. Kreacher sent by ruinous head of House Black. The disgrace who has dishonored the proud blood of Black."
"House Black? Sirius Black?" Harry jumped out of bed in excitement, "Sirius sent you?"
Kreacher looked disgustedly at harry but nodded, "Master of House Black has sent Kreacher to gather Potter and Potter belonging's. Kreacher is to take all of this to place where Master Black is waiting."
"Well c'mon let's get busy." Harry said throwing his clothes on.
Kreacher growled, "Impetuous human." He went back to what he was doing. Which was shrinking and packing everything harry had into a small bag.
"Uh not all of this is mine." Harry said.
Kreacher turned and looked at him. "Is Potter Room. Is Potter things."
Harry did not have much experience dealing with House Elves but thought this one seemed to be taking things literally. So he just smiled and nodded. "Right okay."
Kreacher took and slung the now full bag over his shoulder and with a snap of his fingers harry, Hedwig and even his bed was sitting in a large warehouse somewhere. Harry had not even managed to process the change in location when he suddenly could not breath because someone soft, warm and with a lot of hair was hugging him tightly. A primal part of his mind processed that the person was female and smelled very much like Hermione.
"Oh Harry. I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have listened but he wouldn't take no for an answer. He said it wouldn't be safe and that we had to go into hiding in that place and you'd be brought along when he could." Hermione's words spilled out so quickly they almost tripped over themselves.
Harry grinned in confused happiness at seeing her. Then blushed as he noticed she was wearing a long nightshirt that came to just below her knees and a bathrobe that had come untied.
She glanced down to notice what harry was looking at and pulled the robe shut with a blushing smile of her own
"Glad to see you harry. This is Daniel and Emma Granger. Hermione's parents. You know Remus of course and his girlfriend Tonks." Sirius formally introduced everyone, "And of course your hugmeister there Hermione."
"What's going on?" Harry asked in wonder at the large amount of things being loaded into a rather moderate sized airplane.
"Well I had some news a week ago through Thurban. My accounts manager at Gringotts that my cousin Sam Black from America died and left me his property and businesses and stuff. So I thought a change in venue would be in order for you, and your closest supporter. Especially before Molly and Dumbledore enacted the next stage of their nefarious plans."
"What?" Harry and Hermione both exclaimed.
"I overheard Molly and Albus talking about how this would be an excellent time for the two of you to start 'noticing' the youngest two Weasleys and setting you on the path to marrying them soon." Remus said with a grin, "Molly forgot that even when we are not transformed we have excellent hearing."
"Eww. Ron is like a brother to me. I'd rather not." Hermione said.
Harry frowned, "I haven't even interacted with Ginny enough to know her as anything other than Ron's kid sister."
"Yeah that's the problem." Sirius said, "So I am taking the two of you out of here. Personally I think the two of you make an excellent couple and we are going to America."
"Where at in America?" Hermione asked as she watched her dad's Range Rover being loaded into the airplane.
"Las Vegas Nevada. Apparently I own several hotels, a casino and some kind of ranch." Sirius said with a shrug. "We can work out your holdings and inheritances and stuff once we get there Harry." Sirius said.
A tall blonde, buxom, woman wearing a tight coverall that said Santini Air on the left breast came up, "We almost have everything loaded Mr Black. If you and your friends would like to board now."
"Thank you Candace." Sirius said as he gestured for everyone else to climb the ramp into the back of the four engined proper driven plane. Once inside harry saw six different shipping containers, two Range Rovers, a Renault, A Jaguar, A Porsche, three motorcycles and several dozen bags.
"Did you forget anything?" Harry asked.
"Nope. I even got the Who ham. When they wake up tomorrow they are going to find some very bare walls. Isn't that right Kreacher?"
"Kreacher packed all things Master Black said to pack." The shriveled elf snarled, "Kreacher not like flying. Kreacher go hide in box."
"Okay have fun." Sirius said with a chuckle.
"Oh by the way the plane has had some work done to it so relax." Sirius said climbing the mahogany and maple stairway to the upper deck. "Santini Air is partly owned by you Harry. They specialize in magical transport."
"Even in the middle of the night?" Daniel Granger asked.
Sirius grinned, "ESPECIALLY in the middle of the night."
Harry started grinning when they entered the deeply carpeted luxurious lounge with the leather seats, oak tables and paneling. Taking a seat Harry looked out of the window and saw the building sliding backwards as the plane began to roll forward, soon it was climbing into the night sky over the UK and turning what he thought was west.
"So tell me more about this Las Vegas." He asked finally.
….
"This plane is spectacular!" Daniel enthusiastically declared.
"Thank you." One of the attendants said.
"Yes. Well I suppose all of the crew are fully certified." Emma said watching the tight backside of the attendant swish as she moved to pour Remus his tea.
"Oh don't worry ma'am. We are fully trained and certified to the highest standards. Santini Air is quite concerned with the safety of our passengers." The attendant said with a smile.
Harry chuckled, "I could get used to this."
"Well this is a special VIP charter flight. But as one of the shareholders you would be able to schedule these or other aircraft when you need them." Sirius grinned.
"Perhaps we should focus a bit more on what you meant when you said they were trying to convince our daughter to be with this Weasley boy."
"Ahh yes. Albus and Molly have this grand plan that their son Ron will wind up with Hermione as his wife for services rendered by him." Remus explained.
"Services rendered? What kind of services?" Harry asked in a rather unhappy tone.
"I'm not entirely certain. All I know is that Albus had promised that Ginny would be pregnant by the end of the year and Ron would have Hermione for the services he's rendered for Albus. I have no idea what any of that was." Remus said with a shrug.
Harry's mouth dropped open as he stared at Remus.
"Well that's one of the oldest tricks in the pure-blood playbook. Probably a good thing we rolled the two of you out when we did or the love potions might have started." Sirius said with a frown.
"You mean love potions are legal in your world?" Emma crossly asked.
Sirius nodded ruefully, "Yes they are legal. So every pure-blood is taught to cast a detection spell over any food or drink given them by someone they do not trust, or we have our elves prepare everything for us."
"And since Harry was never told about any of that, nor was Hermione, this placed them at a greater risk." Tonks said.
"Why wasn't I told about this?" Harry growled. "I mean I can understand why Hermione wasn't with the hate they have for muggles but I thought Ron was my friend and would have told me about this."
"Or Professor McGonnagal. Why she never mentioned this." Hermione added with harry nodding his agreement.
Remus shook his head, "She may not be told everything by Albus. If you'll recall she has not been to any of the Order meetings, plus as a professor we are prohibited from telling certain things by our employment contract."
"You mean you're actually prohibited from telling your students things that could hurt them?" Emma growled.
"The old school is not as good as it used to be." Sirius glumly declared sipping a goblet of something Candace had poured for him.
"Well thank you for kidnapping us then." Daniel said with a shrug, "Although how is this going to help protect Hermione?"
"Ahh you see the MACUSA are not entirely happy with the Ministry right now. So the wheels of government would turn very very slowly if they tried to come and get us legally. If they try to do it illegally then we get to defend ourselves. Americans are very big on being able to defend yourself." Sirius said with a grin. "On both sides of the magical curtain."
Daniel nodded, "And another thing how are we going to explain to the authorities why and how we are in the USA?"
"Oh I've been working on this for sometime. By the time we land at the airport there will be full documentation that is legal for both the muggle and magical governments saying we are new immigrant and have full US citizenship." Sirius grinned, "Plus the Granger Dental Clinic will be operational in a few days."
"With full licenses?" Emma asked.
"Fully legit. Unless you guys were faking it back in the UK."
"No we held full medical certificates. It seems like you've thought this out a great deal." Daniel said.
Sirius sighed, "Not a lot of things to do in Azkaban aside from think."
"So we are just going to give up and walk away from the fight?" Hermione asked angrily. "How is that a Gryffindor act?"
Everyone looked at her before Sirius shook his head, "Okay. I was there in the first war. I fought alongside Harry's dad, Neville's dad. Things are seriously not working out. We should have been able to end this way back then. Only we had a stalemate and lost four good people."
"Four good people?" Hermione softly asked. She knew who two of them were as she glanced at harry sympathetically.
"Frank and Alice Longbottom. They got tricked and tortured into being permanent guests at Saint Mungo's." Remus growled.
"And that is why we are going to work to get Harry and you trained up. I want a list of friends, people you can trust and rely upon. I hope Neville's on this list." Sirius looked pointedly at the two teens.
Harry nodded, "Yeah he's a pretty good guy."
Hermione nodded her agreement, "He just has a bit of trouble with his wand work."
"He's using his dad's." Harry explained.
"Well that's going to have to change. I don't know where we can go to get him a new one." Sirius observed.
"There is a magical shopping district in Las Vegas. And although the Americans find wand use to be a quaint and old fashioned custom I'm sure you can still order one." Candace said from her position by the bar.
"Oh well that's good to know." Sirius said. "So all we need is a list of who to bring over and then we can start giving you guys the training you should have been getting for the last several years."
Hermione blinked, "So we are not giving up on the fight?"
"James told me there was a prophecy about Harry. Albus knows the exact words though. But that is why they went into hiding. James was a great guy but he could trust Dumbledore far too much." Sirius shook his head.
"What about Mum?" Harry asked.
"She was like Hermione. A muggle-born. So she didn't get told the whole picture and had to learn things on the fly. By the time she cut through Albus' bullshit storm it was too late and all she could do was some very nice ad hoc blood magic." Sirius said sympathetically. "Really brilliant to be honest."
Harry looked sadly out of the window as he considered what Sirius was saying.
"Sorry Harry. With Albus or one of his spies underfoot neither Remus nor I could tell you all of this." Sirius gently said.
"I thought he cared. I thought he was looking out for me." Harry said in a flat broken tone.
Hermione unbuckled and went to sit with Harry. Kneeling beside his seat she took his hand and tried to be there for him.
Daniela nd Emma observed their daughter sitting quietly lending strength to the boy who was trying not to cry over finding out the world he lived in was not the one he thought it was. Emma leaned over to Sirius, "I see what you mean." She whispered softly.
"They remind me so much of Lily and James." Sirius blinked back a couple of memories that tried to escape his eyes too.
Review Responses
Atomikboots: Thank you very much.
SMB: That is certainly an interesting theory. Not sure that is the route I will be taking though with this story. Although some of the ideas are not without possibility.
Roon0: yes it is. Fame can be fleeting and the fall painful.
OfficerDonNZ: True. I was watching an old episode of Barnaby Jones and thought about a post Hogwarts story in a Quinn Martin style. Or at least homage to the genre. Definitely about the Ministry.