Ch. 17 — And the Children Shall Lead
"Definitely not fake," Potter said firmly to Sharptooth. He sighed and looked at Goblin. "Is the gold we brought you fake? Has it vanished yet? Did it turn into anything else when you melted it? Did anything happen when you cast the most powerful finite you could manage? Can you even detect any spells on it? If it doesn't have any magic in it, it can't be fake."
The Goblin scowled and sat down again. "Wizard magic is involved," he said accusingly, still extremely unhappy, but unable to refute anything the Captain had said. "Things produced by wizard magic are of lesser quality."
Potter said nothing to that, just closed his eyes and dug his knuckles into his temple. He looked like he had mother of all headaches. "Hermione, tell him about muggle diamonds — and rubies."
"Diamonds? Rubies?" the Goblin snapped, turning to her.
She sighed deeply. "In the muggle world," she started lecturing, "scientists — I guess you'd call them alchemists — grow diamonds and rubies in factories." she said. "They are called Synthetic Diamonds and Synthetic Rubies."
The Goblin leaned back and looked quite sceptical.
Granger ploughed on, "They start with a seed, a tiny, almost microscopic, diamond, and then add carbon particles to it under high pressure and high temperature. They almost literally 'grow' a diamond. And, being muggle, it is entirely non-magical in the process."
She opened her purse and rummaged inside for a moment. She drew out an earring, a ruby stud. "Here," she said, and laid the earring on his desk. "This is a synthetic ruby gem. Aluminium-oxide with chromium, no inclusions or faults."
He picked up the earring and examined it closely. He opened a drawer and pulled out a magnifying glass and resumed his examination.
"The only way you can tell it is synthetic is because it doesn't have inclusions. Made entirely by muggles, using no magic whatsoever. Just high-heat, high-pressure, raw aluminium oxide, and raw chromium." She paused. "They discovered how to do it in the early 1900's." She smirked.
Sharptooth looked up at her with narrowed eyes, and set the earring and magnifying glass down.
"What we do is similar," she concluded. "The result is still real. A perfect ruby. It just wasn't created by nature and mined the old-fashioned way." She leaned back a bit in her chair and closed her book.
The Goblin drummed his desk with his fingers for a while and then leaned in, staring at Potter. "And you can produce any element this way?"
"More or less," Potter said, and opened his eyes. "Just nothing containing magic. In almost any quantity. So, galleons are starting to be less a necessity and more a nuisance to us. But we still need them to deal with the wizarding world."
The Goblin stared at him, hard. "You talk as if you're not part of that world, anymore," he said accusingly.
Harry shrugged.
The Goblin sat back, a finger to his chin. He had a look of distaste and shrewdness. "Gringotts will consider what you have to offer. There are materials we might be interested purchasing, even if they are . . . synthesised. We will contact you at a later date."
And that was it, apparently.
"The remaining gold bars?" Granger said. "Shall we take them to the muggle world?"
Sharptooth scowled at her.
Her expression of mild interest didn't change.
"You may continue to bring in gold bars." He scowled at her. "But only individuals. And at a ten-percent discount."
She nodded.
Potter stood up, with a slight sway, and started for the door. Jordan and Granger were close on his heels as he left the room. Josephine followed them, glad to be away from the Goblin and discussions of manufacturing rare gems as easily as baking a cake — just in hotter ovens.
"Harry?" Granger asked once they were all in the hall and the door closed behind them. "Are you alright?" She sounded very worried.
They started slowly to follow their Goblin guide back to the lobby.
"You're looking kind of pale there, Captain," Jordan agreed, just as worried.
"My head is killing me," Potter answered, pressing his forehead with his palms, head tilted back as if looking at the ceiling. "Voldemort must be really pissed about something."
Josephine couldn't help but miss a step at hearing that name. She almost tripped. He knew what that evil monster was feeling?
The Captain took a deep breath and straightened. "You think that was right, telling him what we did?" he said uncertainly.
"Well, it was the truth," Granger said firmly. "And you're right, we'll only make enemies if we start out lying to them. If we bring things here, someone's eventually going to look deeper — and notice he didn't deny any of your counter arguments, so we know they were already suspicious. But the truth is in the atomic structure. To anyone who looks that deeply, it's obvious everything we make is artificial. It's simply too perfect to be natural. Natural always has intrusions and defects of one kind or another." She shrugged. "Nature is sloppy." Then added. "So, we didn't have a choice, not really."
"Right," Potter said. "Right," he muttered a second later. They continued walking. "Should we get a gold bar from the muggles and use that as our pattern? That way it would have imperfections."
Jordan rubbed his forehead. "That would remove the possibility of analysing a bar and tracking it back to us — and allay any suspicions."
Hermione frowned and nodded slowly. "We should do that for all non-crewmember transactions in the wizarding world. Except the fact our employees are bringing in gold bars instead of galleons is not suspicious at all, right?"
She sighed. "The muggle gold market wouldn't notice us, but having so many established wizards and witches suddenly showing up with pounds to exchange for galleons would quickly get the Goblins enraged, I'm sure, at us trying to get around their suspicions on the gold bars."
Harry sighed. "Maybe we should open a grocery store or restaurant? Turn food into galleons?"
The other two just looked at each other and shrugged.
Jordan grinned. "Well, we certainly don't have to worry about Gamp's Law, do we?"
Hermione smirked. "All we need are 'perfect' samples . . .."
"Maybe sell ready-to-eat meals that are put under a stasis as soon as they are replicated?" Lee suggested. "Restaurant-style meals at grocery-store prices?"
Josephine quietly trailed after them. She couldn't help but wonder — money was a nuisance instead of necessary? Just how wealthy these were kids? And not to worry about Gamp's Law? Just what could they do? Or, perhaps, maybe she should ask, what couldn't they do? And just how powerful did that make them? Both literally and metaphorically!
It still wasn't making any sense to her. Not only that they were doing all these things, but that no one, absolutely no one, seemed to notice. Except her. Was she really the only one involved that was an adult? Something like this, like what they were doing, should be supervised! But . . . it was just . . . just these kids, doing this, having this power, right?
It was almost a relief to see the Captain doubting himself, even if only for a moment. Asking for advice, checking to be sure he wasn't making a mistake. Unfortunately, his advisors were all his age, so the accuracy and pertinence of said advice was more than a little bit suspect.
She really needed to sit down and talk with her daughter!
Once in the Gringotts lobby, Lupin hurried over and asked, "How did it go?"
"There'll be other meetings, unfortunately," Potter said tiredly. He looked at Granger and Jordan almost hopefully. "You don't need me for anything else, right? We finished here?"
"We can handle it," Jordan said quickly, with all the assurance that a teenager could have, falsely confident he could handle anything.
"Yeah, we can do this," Granger said, almost as firmly, and tentatively touched Potter's hand. She gave a quick glance at the two adult wizards with them. "Harry . . . we can do this." She smiled at him, and again glanced at the two older wizards.
Potter slowly nodded, and turned to Lupin and Moody. "Any chance of a little shopping before we go back to my godfather's place?" he asked wistfully.
Moody and Lupin exchanged looks. Lupin sadly shook his head. "No lolly-gagging, too dangerous," Moody said sharply, in a no-nonsense tone.
Potter sighed disappointedly, and then followed the two adult wizards out of the bank.
Jordan's and Granger's smiles disappeared as soon as their Captain had his back to them. Their faces were lined with worry as they watched the three leave. Josephine stared at them and the wizards leaving, and frowned deeply.
Before, she'd thought that they were Harry Potter's bodyguards, to keep him safe. There were all those terrible, and conflicting, rumours, after all, so he probably needed them one way or the other. Now though . . . no, they were not with him by his choice, today, that much was evident.
"Where is he being kept," she asked slowly, because she was positive that that was what it was — that he was being kept somewhere where he wouldn't willingly go if it was up to him.
"At least now he's with his godfather," Granger said darkly, her expression angry, but a bit relieved. "but it's still difficult for him being so isolated."
"His family aren't nice people," Jordan agreed, grimly, with a similar expression. Then he shook his head. "Come on," he said curtly, "Let's go back to the shop."
Josephine was surprised to see that the shop was closed, with a sign declaring, "Out to a Late Launch, Will Rocket Back!"
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Mid-July, a few days after the O.W.L. results, Harry got a message that Gringotts wanted a meeting. Harry was still angry that even though he had received Exceeds Expectations for Potions, Snape's refusal to accept anything less than Outstanding scuppered his hopes for becoming an auror. Not that he really wanted to be an auror anymore — waiting out Hogwarts so he could go to the D.S.F.S. Requirement full-time was now his goal — but it was the principle of the thing.
That wouldn't have been a problem except the timing turned out to be terribly inconvenient, they later found out.
They had barely entered the bank when their comm-links started vibrating. Unfortunately, they could only leave things up to the twins. If it was truly a problem that required Harry's immediate assistance, one of the twins would send the over-ride command, and they would just have to deal with the fall-out later.
Then, less than a half-an-hour later, his scar-ache had turned into a full-bore migraine that just would not let up. Something had upset Voldemort terribly; he was simply furious. It had taken hours to let-up.
Later that evening he heard the full details from the twins.
"It was a distress call from Susan," Forge said. "They had just sat down to lunch when anti-disapparition and apparition spells went up. Then spells started splashing against their protective spells. One of her mother's security detail tried to curse her mother in the back, but the vest she was wearing, one of ours, stopped it, and the other aurors put him out of the fight."
"It was Death Eaters, according to what one of the security detail shouted from the front door, she said," said Gred.
"That's when Susan sent the distress call."
"You were in Gringotts."
"Incommunicado."
"So, we closed shop, told Angelina, Alicia, Terry, Ernie, Anthony, and Cho that we would be by to pick them up, and disapparated to Ginny and Luna's places. They had been listening in and were ready moments after we arrived."
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Ginny was securing the last of her armour in place when Fred charged into her bedroom carrying his helmet. They didn't waste time talking. With two of them, it didn't take long to double-check everything. Ginny grabbed her brother's arm, looked up at him and nodded. A moment later they were in a hollow surrounded by bushes and trees. She doubled over, but managed to keep her breakfast down.
"You and Luna start scouting," he said. She nodded unsteadily, activated her tech cloak, and dropped her hover-board to the ground. As she stepped on it, George and Luna appeared. Gred tossed his brother his armoured helmet.
She nodded to the Luna, although the girl could only see her outline, "I'll take east, you go west," she said. And then took off around the mansion they could barely see through the trees. Susan, listening in, told her mother that help had arrived.
Moving quickly, only inches off the ground, it didn't take long for Ginny to find a group of seven Death Eaters hiding at the edge of the mansion's lawn. They never even noticed as she ghosted by them and carefully marked their positions on the tactical map.
She had almost made it half way around the mansion when Luna updated the map with another group of hostiles. Then Ginny found a third group. After marking them on the map, she continued.
Seconds later, she met Luna and they stopped.
Gred and Forge had already dropped off the other four of the crew, and Alicia and Angelina had arrived. The two scouts, their most combat proficient, quickly brought everyone up to date. There were three groups of seven Death Eaters surrounding the house and cutting off escape routes. That actually made things easier for the crew. They split up into three groups of three while the tenth took care of their coordination.
The plan was that as soon as their third arrived, Ginny and Luna would approach the closest group to them. When all three teams were in position, they would hit the Death Eaters all at the same time, so none could warn the others.
It would be just like the drills that had practiced at the Longbottom estate.
The Death Eaters had no idea what hit them. The girls stopped right beside their targets and shot off their stunners at almost point-blank range when the signal came. They used their targets' bodies to hide the flash of red light from the others. The last Death Eater hit the ground before he even realized that his companions had been hit, too.
Rather than simply tie them up with incarcerous, or a similar spell, as the history books said was the aurors' standard operating procedure, they transfigured the unconscious wizards and witch into marbles. It was magically quite tiring for those still in Hogwarts.
Those same history books had told them how other Death Eaters had revived the stunned members, letting them re-join the fight. Which meant a lot of aurors were wounded or killed by the very wizard they had only recently stunned.
The teens were not about to let that happen to them.
Once that was done, they dropped the Death Eater marbles into a bag woven of alternating layers of nanotubes with silver and gold wires in the middle. With several hundred layers, the bags were impervious to finites or any magical spells. And the bag's material was still only as thick as normal parchment and as flexible as silk!
By the time they were finished, so were the other two groups.
The girls had to hurry. As soon as the aurors in the house realized the Death Eaters had stopped out-right attacking the shield-spell on the house, they'd break the anti-disapparition spell, and come out of the house looking for trouble.
They rendezvoused back at the hollow they had been at, then the twins and Angelina and Alicia grabbed one of the others, each, and disapparated, loudly. Ginny and Luna took off on their hover-boards to put as much distance between the mansion and any arriving "official" rescuers as possible.
With their comm-links providing visuals, it was simple for the twins to apparate to the others once they were several miles away, and return them to their homes.
It was all over in under fifteen minutes, from start to finish.
Gred and Forge were almost too exhausted to talk, afterwards. Invigoration draughts kept them awake, and they had refrained from using magic as much as possible. Angelina and Alicia did most of the clean-up work.
It took an hour to restore all twenty-one Death Eaters, take their wands, remove their masks, and take pictures of their faces and their full bodies, with the tattoos clearly on display. Then they were transported to the RoR, locked into two of the barracks rooms on the D.S.F.S. Requirement, and left to awaken when the stunners wore off.
"We had prepared meals for them after we closed the store that evening, but when we looked in the rooms, first, there was nobody there!" Gred said, and acted surprised.
"I guess they must have thought they could just disapparate away," Forge said, as he waved an arm, "because they couldn't feel any disapparition wards." He shook his head sadly at his failure to keep the prisoners secured on the ship. He was unhappy they had lost the prisoners, but not unhappy that they were gone for good.
Harry arched his eyebrows in disbelief. "But don't you need a wand to do that?"
"Backup wands," Gred said quickly, slapping himself in the forehead and extending his arm over his head. "Of course! I remember now! Many of the Death Eaters in the first war always carried backup wands." He smiled weakly as he huffed in pretended exasperation.
"Right," Harry said dryly. They twins weren't dumb, they had figured this all out earlier when they first discovered the 'brig' was empty. "All of them?"
"Portkeys? They must have had portkeys!" Forge said, as if just thinking of the possibility. "They did that, too, in the first war."
The two stood, hands on hips, and shook their heads, synchronized, in opposite directions.
The twins always went over the top with their acting skills. It was how you knew they were acting.
Harry sighed and looked at the hologram of the two standing in his room.
They knew from the purchase of a few international portkeys that those might be able to go to the other side of the world, but they just didn't have the necessary oomph in magic to carry anything two point five billion miles! If they could, then the crew wouldn't need the Room of Requirement to access the Requirement!
Plus, he doubted anyone had the magic, themselves, to apparate such a distance, either. In fact, according to the books they had read, not even Dumbledore or Riddle could apparate to much more than a thousand miles, the length of Britain, never mind a million or billion miles.
That's why the vanishing cabinets had blown up . . . blown in . . . destroyed themselves. They simply weren't designed for such huge distances.
So, today, Uranus had briefly gained twenty-one micro-satellites that had then plunged into its atmosphere.
In view of what had happened to the twins' father, he supposed he should be glad they simply hadn't tossed the marbles out the airlocks. This way, they could keep their consciences clean. They hadn't deliberately killed the wizards; the wizards had killed themselves through ignorance. If the arrogant idiots hadn't acted pre-emptively, this wouldn't have happened. And there had been no way to warn them beforehand, either.
As tired as the twins were, it was quite likely it simply hadn't occurred to them at the time to leave any warnings against trying to leave for the wizards to find when they woke up.
Still, the twins had set the wizards and witches up for fatal failures, and they would have to live with that. He didn't think they'd mind, not in the slightest. They hadn't deliberately done anything wrong, after all. And the victims were confirmed murders and rapists.
Plus, it wasn't as if the Death Eaters didn't deserve what they had brought on themselves. All things considered; they had gotten off lightly. Their deaths, while terrifying, had been quick, unlike most of their victims.
"Next time," he said mildly, and rubbed his aching scar, "leave a message on the wall of the room that disapparating will appear to work, as they will leave the room, but that they will die, anyway. The same for portkeys. And make sure that you accio all wands and portkeys before you put them into the room."
The twins nodded. "Excellent ideas, Captain!" Forge said.
"We promise to do that, next time," said Gred, and both nodded eagerly.
He sighed. "Convert one of the barracks into two brigs, one for men and one for women, with access to separate bathrooms in both. Then have Alicia or Angel set the ship's systems . . . the ship's computer, to provide three meals a day, automatically, when anyone is in one or both of the brigs. Oh, and put those warnings on all four walls."
He sat cross-legged on his bed a moment longer, thinking. The less direct interaction they had with the Death Eater prisoners, the safer they would be. On the other hand, letting them kill themselves and doing nothing to warn them didn't feel right, either.
"Oh, and line the walls with the ship's hull material so they can't blast their way through the walls if any of them are any good at wandless magic."
He sat a moment longer.
"Do we know who they were?"
The twins gave him vicious smiles. "Some were middling wizards and witches we've heard mentioned before, but we didn't know them any better than that," said Forge.
"Others, we'll have to look around and see if we can figure them out. We have pictures of them, so that will help a lot."
"But we do know that Goyle, Crabbe, and Nott, Seniors, were among the attackers."
Harry nodded slowly.
"And Susan's Aunt?"
The twins exchanged glances.
"She suspects something is up," came Susan's voice from the comm-link. "She's seen me wearing my spacesuit and doesn't buy my claim that it's a Hufflepuff jumpsuit and the latest fashion in school for the House. When they first attacked, I ran for my armour and tried to whisper into my communicator, but I think she might have heard some of what I said. The armour is a bit harder to explain. Especially after I practically forced her to wear that vest this summer.
"We're both glad she did, now, though," she added in a relieved tone.
"She was really suspicious when I told her help had arrived and then we couldn't see anyone. But, in the absence of any footprints or other evidence," she continued, "besides that of the Death Eaters, she can't do more than suspect there was a better reason than the aurors arriving scaring the Death Eaters away. And with all the other spells being fired by the Death Eaters, and not knowing who they were, she has nothing to indicate that they didn't just leave."
Harry nodded. "Well-done. Congratulations to the Defence team that went into action today. It was well-planned, well-executed, and more than fast enough for the situation. Excellent emergency work. I'm proud of you all.
"The next time you're all at Neville's, I'd like those who were in the response team to give a moment-by-moment description to the rest of what happened, from each of your perspectives, followed by a critique of what you think you did wrong and what you should have done to make things safer and faster for yourself and your teammates.
"Then, pull out the pensieve and go into it to actually see what happened, and compare that to your descriptions. Look for details you missed. We should probably write all that up, too. And for the people who weren't there, watch the pensieves and see if you can come up with suggestions to make yourselves safer."
He sat a moment longer, then said, "Any questions?"
There was silence.
"It looks like we're going to have to become a bit more . . . prepared, as things like this are probably going to become more common. Everyone, put your heads together and let's see what we can do. For example, should we always have a team ready? Or should we just assign a group to be on-call and rotate that? How will we handle this while most of us are at school?"
There was silence and even the twins were looking a bit surprised.
"Okay, that's all. Captain over and out." He tapped his communicator and waved goodbye to the twins as they faded from view.
From the Tuesday Daily Prophet, the next day, all anyone outside of the crew knew was that there had been a daring daylight raid on the head of the Ministry's Department of Magical Law Enforcement's house, Amelia Bones, by persons unknown. But the arrival of the Aurors had spooked the bandits off and there had been no casualties on either side. Or rather, no known casualties among the attackers.
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Unfortunately, Voldemort's loss of his attack team did not put him very far off his schedule — not yet, at least. Gringotts sending out Change of Head of Family letters to a number of the missing wizards' pure-blood and half-blood families, didn't put him in a better mood. A few of the wizards had been important lieutenants or sponsors — or both — of his. In many cases, the death of those Death Eaters cut him off from funds for his "activities." Most of the new heads of their families were underage. They had regents who would not fund expenses that weren't direct maintenance for the respective family's investments, businesses, and properties.
None of the crew doubted he was furious at the situation. He couldn't threaten the regents as there was no guarantee that a new regent would be any more malleable than the previous one.
Word was slowly coming out about nearly two-dozen pure-blood families missing relatives under mysterious circumstances — families that were considered dark and supporters of the pure-blood agenda.
The Daily Prophet began to report mysterious disappearances and unusual illnesses and accidents. Most of the "accidents" and disappearances were muggle-borns, while the illnesses seemed to afflict only the half-bloods.
So, no one could figure out what has happening.
"Captain," came a worried inquiry from Dennis, one day. "What if they attack our families while we're at school? How will we know they need help?"
"Can we leave a modified comm-link with them?" asked Colin. "Like the one you gave your godfather? It wouldn't have to do much — it'd be just a 'panic' button for them." Their concern was clear to all. And it brought home to them all that their families soon would be vulnerable.
"Even with the improved protective spells we all installed on our homes, if the aurors take the normal fifteen minutes to respond," Colin added worriedly, "it will give the Death Eaters plenty of time to break through the spells."
Harry knew they couldn't always blame the aurors for that delay. With floo-connections blocked, anti-disapparition, and anti-portkeys spells deployed, the aurors really had no way of knowing anything was wrong until a neighbor noticed and sent a message. The muggle-borns had to depend on the Department of Magical Catastrophes to notice the spellwork in a muggle neighborhood and notify the Aurors.
"Perhaps," Susan cut in, "I could convince my aunt to take a receiver that would alert her? The Death Eaters won't know to block our comm-links, and she could put together a rapid-response team, or two, and get someone onsite in only a few minutes?"
"Lee? Hermione?" Harry said. "Any thoughts?"
"It's definitely doable from a tech view," Lee said.
"We could hide the receiver as a fancy quill and inkpot holder. A gem glows, she knows there's something happening and can chase out anyone who shouldn't know before turning on the speaker. We could even have several gems in case he tries simultaneous attacks."
There was a momentary pause.
"Make it a pocket watch, with a directional voice spell for the one holding the watch. The gems could denote the hours," came someone's voice. "That way she could always have it with her and no one would ever suspect she wasn't merely checking the time."
"Merlin!" came one of the twin's voices, "make them all pocket watches, one for everyone, then if someone was attacked somewhere other than their home, they could always call for help."
They discussed the matter for a bit longer. "For the moment," Hermione suggested, "the original response team will have to be our First Response Team, until we can get a few more volunteers." She stopped and he could hear her sigh. "Hopefully, we won't need all that many. That should hold us at least until the aurors pick up the ball and start to run with it."
"We," said George "will start hunting up the muggle-borns who have already graduated."
"We'll tell the owners of the new watches," said Fred, "to spread the word to other muggle-borns that 'panic-button' watches are available.
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Three days after the visit to Gringotts, Lee brought in a box of pocket watches to the Enterprise Store. He grinned at Josephine. "These are gifts to every muggle-born or half-blood who comes in, to celebrate the new store. They are alarm watches to alert us that the owner is under attack by Death Eaters."
She stared at him, stunned.
He grinned more. "They can have a watch for each member of the family, so if one is at work and the other shopping, they both still have protection." He smirked. "The Ministry doesn't think they deserve protection, so we're picking up the slack." He gave her a long look. "If you think someone needs one of these, give them one. If they want more, go right ahead and give them a few more."
He stashed the box under the counter beside the register. She took one for herself and her George. They were quite nice pocket watches, actually, with day, date, and weekday displayed, as well as the time. Setting off the alarm was difficult enough that it would not happen by accident.
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The business with the crew, the Enterprise shop, Harry Potter, Gringotts, and panic-watches kept Josephine's mind whirling for days. There were layers and layers to this that she had no idea how to untangle, or even where to start. She kept returning to Harry Potter, the Captain of his crew, being ushered away . . . as if he were a prisoner being escorted, rather than celebrity being protected. Or a Captain with his crew.
Of everything that had happened so far this summer, that was what took over her spare time — of which she had plenty. Harry Potter was . . . he was . . . he was a lot of things. Saviour of wizardkind from . . . Voldemort. Just thinking the name made her shudder. But her daughter said his name, and so did the rest of the crew. So, Voldemort. She shuddered.
The original rumours and newspapers said he was a hero returning to the wizarding world from years of special training. Then they said he was a badly behaved liar. Someone who spurned all offers of friendship. He dressed, badly, as a muggle and ignored conventions. He was always getting into trouble.
But Marietta had told her he had fought a troll in First Year to save a witch's life, and Slytherin's monster in Second Year, again to save a witch's life. An escaped murderer broke into Hogwarts to get at him. He'd faced dementor's multiple times. He had been in the Triwizard Tournament, the victim of a plot to kill him that had almost succeeded.
Or he was an attention-seeking, mentally-unstable brat who had broken the rules to get into the Tournament, according to the Prophet.
Marietta said he had seen the return of Voldemort, fought him, and escaped alive. A remarkable achievement for a fully-grown wizard, much less a fourteen-year-old teenager! According to the papers, he had lied about the whole thing.
Except that poor Cho's boyfriend had died. If the ministry thought he had killed the other boy, as rumours insisted, why hadn't he been arrested and charged? But if he hadn't killed the other boy, who had?
A tangled web of contradictions with the truth buried in them somewhere.
But those of his crew she had met admired him — including her daughter — and she considered her daughter a good judge of character. Complicating things was that he had acted nothing like the newspapers had said he had or would. The reports of his behaviour did not match real life, it seemed,
She'd never really thought about all of that before this.
He was a celebrity, every wizard and witch over the age of three knew his name. That probably meant a lot of things she couldn't begin to understand — fame brought a lot of attention and expectations, after all. But he was also the Ministry's number-one target for sneers and slander, and they had been at it for a year and a half, now. It had started during that stupid tournament last year, and it continued even now.
She didn't read the Daily Prophet closely, she used it mainly to just get a feel for what was happening in general. But even so, she saw the jabs, jokes, and even outright slander aimed at Harry Potter. He was the boy who had tried to bring to bogyman out of the dark, and the newsparchment constantly found ways to punish him for that.
She was ashamed to say that, for the most part, she'd believed the lies in the Daily Prophet.
"Marietta?" Josephine asked one morning at breakfast, one of the few times she saw her daughter. "Could you tell me a bit about your Captain? What he's like?" she asked softly.
Marietta hesitated, and looked at her. Then she frowned, and looked away before she looked back at her mother. "He's a fantastic teacher. Always calm, always collected, rarely flustered, loads of patience," she said. "I can learn more about casting a spell in five minutes with him that an hour with anyone else. Otherwise? He's quiet. Supportive. Decisive. Nice. Firm when he has to be. Kind of indulgent a lot of the time . . . mostly quiet these days when he's not teaching."
"Indulgent?" Josephine asked. That was a most curious way to describe someone.
"Back on the — back there," Marietta said. "You know, where we're a real crew, everything's so different there," she said softly. "Everyone is always excited. It's like . . . we have room to be . . . more than we can be here, you know? We don't have to pretend to be less than we really are." She looked at her mother searchingly. "We can just spread out and be. Do the things we find interesting. And the Captain is like . . . he's indulgent with us. He lets us be. He offers suggestions every now and then, but that's all they are, suggestions. Good suggestions, too."
"So . . . he isn't excited?" Josephine said with a slight frown.
Marietta looked down for a moment and thought. "I suppose," she said slowly, "he gets more than enough excitement at Hogwarts — every year a fight for his life, or others." She paused. "He's mostly just quiet there. It's peaceful for him, I guess. I think he likes that, after all the drama he's subjected to in the wizarding world."
Josephine thought about the boy — younger than Marietta! — walking stiff, and yet oddly worn down, between the two professors, as they took him back to wherever their society kept their heroes when they weren't needed. Or wanted.
She wondered just what the real truth was behind Harry Potter.
"I think I really want to see this ship of yours," Josephine mused.
Marietta smiled brightly. "I really want you to see it too, Mum. It's beyond anything you can imagine." Which was saying something considering that the whole family had seen Star Wars, Star Trek, and a host of other science-fiction space movies.
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