Part IV — Stargate
Ch. 30 — Will the Real Dark Lord, Please Stand Up!
Sirius had told him during Easter break that he wouldn't have any "minders" this summer. Sirius had brought his cousin Andromeda, and her daughter Nymphadora "you-better-call-me-Tonks-or-you'll-be-talking-in-a-higher-register-for-the-rest-of-your-life," Tonks back into the Black family. He had instructed Tonks, as a member of the family, not to listen to Dumbledore about anything to do with Harry or the Black family. He then had pointed out how Dumbledore had left him languishing in Azkaban, then did nothing to prove Sirius' innocence when the wizard had escaped. Which Harry had managed to do rather easily.
He backed that up with the numerous Quibbler and The Daily Prophet articles about the Headmaster's failures to protect Harry and the students in Hogwarts in Harry's fifth year. Between looking the other way when the Slytherins cursed the students in other Houses, to allowing the torture of the students in detention with blood quills by the Pink Toad, he clearly did not have the students' best interests in mind.
He followed that up with what they had been doing with the Requirement, under the heading of a Black Family secret. Having Ginny and Luna go several rounds with her on their hoverboards, without their tech-cloaks, had convinced her that they were more than capable of handling the Death Eaters, should any make an appearance. There's nothing like having students still in Hogwarts taking her down in seconds, despite her Auror training, to put things in perspective.
She wasn't a crew member, but she had managed to get the Marines on board to duel her using a borrowed hoverboard.
If she hadn't already signed up to be an Auror, she would have joined the Marines almost as soon as she learned about the D.S.F..
"Mad-Eye" Moody had flatly refused "babysitting-duty," as Sirius had said he called it. The attacks on muggles, muggle-borns, and half-bloods had dropped to nothing since the start of the year. With all the major instigators of such violence either dead via the Veil, in Azkaban, or missing and declared dead by the Goblins, there were no indications that it would be picking up any time soon, either.
The remaining Order members who might agree to the duty would be easy for Harry to evade, with them none the wiser that he wasn't in his room. Especially with some of the gadgets the twins had come up with that simulated the sounds and movements of a person barely seen through a lightly-curtained window.
He wondered if Dumbles — he no longer deserved the respect of being Professor or Headmaster Dumbledore — had discovered that he wasn't at the Dursleys, as he supposed. He was taking a Runabout to Earth, then having Dobby or Winky take him to Number Four Privet for a couple of hours every day to fool his "minders" into thinking he was there full-time. He doubted that the Dursleys even suspected he usually was away most of every day, too.
As annoying as it was to trek to the Dursleys every day, it certainly beat being stuck there! Or even Grimmauld Place. By a huge margin, too. He didn't know what he would have done if he didn't have the Requirement to escape to.
The summer couldn't have started off better, in Harry's opinion. The geeks in the crew went barmy over visiting the various planets. The parents and some of the other crews' relatives were amazed at what they saw. He wasn't really that fascinated, but at least it was interesting. The brief lectures definitely were packed with information he didn't know!
Remus and Tonks had used the tour as an excuse to marry, and declared their honeymoon the most unique experience ever!
He was glad he had managed to convince Madam Bones about the seriousness of preventing the wizards from accidentally revealing the wizarding world through their own stupidity. The only problem would be convincing Minister Fudge. Hopefully, she'd be able to get one of her muggle-born Aurors to coach her into presenting a compelling case to the Wizengamot!
Dumbles had wanted Harry to return to the Dursleys for the month before his July 31st birthday. After that, he wanted Harry to move to Grimmauld Place. Protection from Death Eaters, was the reason he gave — despite the lack of any such activity and the jailing or disappearance of many of the miscreants!
Harry wasn't opposed to the Headmaster's plans, in principle. The Dursleys were behaving quite well and had promised to leave him to his own devices for the most part. Sirius would let him go to the Requirement any time he so desired, as well as visit any of his friends. Or even take in a few movies as Hermione seemed to want him to do. So, pretending to be "under the wing" of the Order wasn't a real hardship.
But Dumbles had lost his respect when the wizard still refused to acknowledge that Harry hadn't had a choice about going to the Goblins for help. His so-called "special lessons" had been nothing more than the muggle equivalent of home-movies on Tommy Boy's life. They certainly hadn't improved Harry's low opinion of the Headmaster. Then there was his irrational support of the lowlife that was Snape, whom he still refused to believe had done anything wrong. Plus, he stubbornly refused to believe that the horcruxes had been destroyed. Despite the evidence that the Smith family had their family heirlooms back! He just said that the horcruxes must be other things.
What had sealed the deal, for Harry, was that the incompetent Headmaster still hadn't come clean about Harry being the last horcrux. As a result, anything the old wizard suggested made Harry want to refuse simply because old manipulator had suggested it.
Sirius was helping him with occlumency in the hope that they might be able to drive the soul-piece out that way. It would take him years to master it enough to keep out a determined probe, but casual attempts would be repulsed.
Hermione had managed to neatly circumvent the old wizard keeping him in Little Whinging by having the Dursleys agree that Harry should have a vacation with the Grangers. Handing them a four-hundred-ounce bar of gold the week before — in addition to the promised "weekly" payment — figured prominently in that decision, Harry knew.
He didn't care. Sirius was working with Remus, and doing his best to correct some of the more misguided ideas that the idiots in the Wizengamot seemed to keep bringing up.
It was when they got home to the Grangers after the space trip that things took off like, well, a rocket for Harry. After a perfectly wonderful dinner, followed by an evening of just watching the telly, they headed for the bedrooms.
Harry, of course, had one of the guest bedrooms. Getting a goodnight-kiss from Hermione — it lasted at least an hour, he was sure — was the highlight of the day . . . er . . . evening. Even if it was preceded by a lecture from the parents about one foot always on the floor, and the door always being open. Her father gave him a brief, more personal talk about not pressuring Hermione to do anything she didn't want to do, and that she should decide what steps they would take and when.
Which Harry quite honestly completely agreed with. He had no idea of what was appropriate and what wasn't. The stories his dorm-mates had been bandying about for the last five years were pure fantasy, and male bravado, from what he could tell after a few brief conversations with Hermione.
That she wasn't upset at him leaving the decisions up to her instead of "taking charge," as Dean and Seamus had been insisting girls liked, had been a big relief.
The next morning, he woke early, as he tended to do, and headed for the kitchen. Finding no one else up yet, he did some investigating. Soon he had a pan of eggs, another with rashers of bacon, a small pot with beans cooking, a kettle of hot water, and bread toasting. It had taken a lot of talking over the last year to convince both Dobby and Winky that he occasionally liked to cook. That and the sudden deluge of chores that they had their pick of regarding the D.S.F. had convinced them to allow this little "eccentricity."
A few minutes later, Mrs. Granger came down the stairs, still rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
"Tea?"
"Yes, please." A slight delay, then, "What are you doing?" she was looking at the stove in amazement.
"What I'd be doing at the Dursleys, except this time I want to," he said nonchalantly as he poured the hot water from the kettle into the pot on the table. "Give it a few to steep, and you'll be good to go." After glancing at the stove, and flipping the bacon, he pulled the plates from the cupboards and placed them on the table.
That was when Mr Granger came in. "What's all this, then?" he said looking at his wife.
"Harry apparently decided to fix us breakfast."
Harry shrugged in the background.
By the time Hermione showed up, the delicious smells quickly waking her, most everything was getting placed on the table.
Breakfast was a success, from Harry's point of view, as no one complained. In fact, they actually complimented him! He could feel himself turning red, as a result. The Dursleys had never done that. Instead, they would complain about how long it had taken him to bring everything to the table.
After breakfast, Hermione suggested they visit the Chessington World of Adventures theme park. Harry was ambivalent. He had never been to a theme park, and only knew that Dudley had seemed to like it. His cousin had also enjoyed showing Harry the brochures, and the pictures his mum had taken, and telling him much fun each of the rides were. Which wasn't exactly a rousing recommendation, to Harry. Especially because he was sure the other boy had been exaggerating in the hope of depressing Harry.
Hermione, however, felt it would be a wonderful way to spend the day. By the time they returned, late that evening, he had to agree with her. While not quite as much fun as Dudley had claimed, it was clearly worth returning to in the future . . . several times, probably. In fact, visiting the recreational resort would be about the only thing that could entice him to leave the Requirement, he decided.
The next day, she suggested they stay home and make use of the pool in the back-garden to teach Harry how to swim. That would give her parents a chance to check in with their Dentistry for any emergencies before they left for their French vacation. And to ensure Harry wouldn't drown when they went into the water at the beaches.
It also gave her a chance to show off her transfiguration skills by changing a pair of his trousers to swimwear. Being seventeen meant she didn't have the trace on her wand, anymore. That meant her home was registered as "wizard or witch in residence" and any magical activity was ascribed to her.
When Hermione came out of her room wearing a bikini, his eyes practically popped out. It wasn't that he hadn't seen a bikini before, it was that this was Hermione in a bikini!
It was really difficult to keep his eyes from wandering, but she didn't seem to mind that much. She even seemed to like his reaction at standing there, gobsmacked, when she had first come out of her bedroom. It took several moments before he recovered enough for them to head outside. He thought his heart would stop when she asked him to put suntan lotion on her back.
Fortunately, his swim trunks were baggy and didn't reveal too much.
Eventually, they managed to make it into the pool.
Hermione was quite effective at teaching, it turned out. Especially when she decided to use a reward system — a kiss after a suitable time spent practicing. By lunchtime, he had made fair progress, and she was spending more time rewarding than teaching. While she prepared their lunch, he spent a few minutes in the bathroom taking care of a certain problem that the water had managed to disguise — at least he hoped she hadn't noticed.
Still, there were no obvious signs of how much he enjoyed kissing when he returned to the kitchen — except swollen lips on them both.
By the time the Grangers returned, Harry was no longer in danger of sinking like a rock in water. He could float on his back, do a reasonable sidestroke, and not panic when his face unexpectedly went underwater.
It was when they went to France that things went from spiffing to absolutely brilliant.
In France, it seemed, it wasn't unusual for some of the girls and women on the beaches to be topless!
At first, he didn't know where to look, and he was worried Hermione would get angry with him. He actually began to sweat when her mother took off her top. He stared at Mr. Granger in a panic, not knowing what to do or where to look. What would the man do when Harry looked at his wife's . . . jubblies? How long was too long to look at a girl or woman who was topless? Was he going to be yelled at?
When Hermione took off her top, he fainted.
When he woke up, it was to Mr. and Mrs. Granger laughing at him. Hermione wasn't laughing, although she was giggling.
Mr. Granger then sat down beside him as Hermione and her mother went down to the water. He gave Harry a nice, short, talk about the proper etiquette in ogling — his word — topless girls and women on the beach. It was okay to look, they expected you to look. However, gazing for more than a few seconds became staring, and that was not okay.
To put in a way he would better understand, Mr. Granger said, "Just as it's okay for someone to glance at your forehead scar," he looked at Harry under his eyebrows, "but for them to stare, fixedly at it for long periods of time is intrusive, unwanted, and very rude. Or to make a fuss about it being visible."
Put that way, Harry resolved to not stare. It wouldn't be easy, but he would do it.
"However," Mr. Granger continued, "regarding Hermione, she's a different story. Hermione is an adult now," he looked sad at that proclamation, "and she's your girlfriend." He stopped and stared steadily at Harry. "She will set the limits for what she considers a reasonable amount of staring. However," and this part he was very firm about, "when girls or women are talking, keep your eyes on their faces at all times! Topless or not!"
In Harry's opinion, needless to say, that vacation set a very high mark against which to measure all other vacations. Between the beaches, Hermione being topless, restaurants, Hermione being topless at the beach, sight-seeing, museums, Hermione being topless at the beach, and hotels, and living like a normal person instead of being locked in a room all summer, what else could you expect?
Especially, Hermione being topless at the beach.
██:::::██:::::██
Returning to the island was a bit of a let-down, at first. That lasted only as long as it took Hermione to return to her campaign of making him a competent swimmer, with proper incentives, of course. Which now included her being topless the entire time they were outside by the pool.
Unfortunately, British weather interfered all too often, and they ended up inside on the rainy days. Those days weren't wasted, however. The two spent the afternoons watching the movies that Harry had never had a chance to see. Distractingly, Hermione continued her practice of remaining topless.
Not that he would ever complain.
Truthfully, some of the movies he barely noticed as he was too preoccupied with a certain witch's . . . superstructure . . . as Sirius would term it.
Hermione didn't seem to mind if he missed most of the movie, and they had to watch it a second or third time. She would slip on a sundress, or shorts and a blouse with bra, just before her parents came home from work.
Harry always had to give a disappointed sigh when she came back to the sitting-room fully-dressed. He didn't know what to do with his hands or mouth, anymore.
His birthday was a well-attended party at the Weasleys. Almost everyone who was a crew member managed to drop by, if only for a short time and a piece of cake. Dobby and Winky were in heaven. Between baking, running errands, fetching and returning guests, they actually had to recruit a bit of help from the Hogwarts elves. Who were more than happy to pitch in, considering how slow things were in the castle during the summer.
Dumbles was a bit put out at Harry for going on vacation with the Grangers. He seemed to think that Voldemort, whom he still refused to call Tom Riddle, was merely hiding, waiting for Harry's guard to drop. Once Harry was relaxed enough, the Death Eaters would swoop in to get him, he claimed. Then it would be over for Harry, and Voldemort would take over the rest of the wizarding world.
Why the rest of the wizarding world wouldn't fight back he refused to explain, saying that he would tell Harry when it was time.
Sirius, however, had been in complete agreement with Harry. Vacation with Hermione or stay locked in a room at the Dursleys? Only the brain-dead would choose the latter! The same for the plan to lock him up in Grimmauld Place the rest of the summer after his birthday.
Plus, on his birthday, Dumbles had no more authority over Harry than he did over any adult person in England, Scotland, Wales, or Ireland! That is, Harry was happy to say, none whatsoever!
██:::::██:::::██
Then their letters for the coming year came in.
Stunningly — not — Dumbles had again over-ridden Professor McGonagall, and offered the Head Boy position to Ron. He had also handed him the position of Quidditch Team Captain.
At first, Harry had been furious, when their letters had arrived. However, moments later, Lee had called him over the Comm, starting with "Admiral. . .." Harry had quickly realized it wasn't important that he get the Head Boy or Captain of the Quidditch Team. In ten years, no one would ever remember whether he had been a Team Captain or Head Boy, or not. No more than most remembered the position Ludo Bagman played for the Wimbourne Wasps. They would, however, remember Harry as the first ever Captain of the Requirement, the first Captain and Admiral of the Defensive Space Force.
And, perhaps, the saviour of the magic world if his plans for moving the magical creatures to a new world panned out.
Plus, it was something Ron had as his heart's desire, according to the Mirror of Erised, Harry remembered. Harry's ego wasn't so fragile that he couldn't let his best-mate achieve one of his fervent Hogwarts dreams.
Just being Seeker, again, was good enough for him.
Sirius took both Harry and Hermione to the Ministry on the First of August, where Hermione and Harry received their apparition licenses. Then they went to Bill Weasley and Fleur Delacour's wedding at the Burrow later that day.
██:::::██:::::██
It was during one of their visits to Neville after his birthday that it happened.
Neville's parents were gradually . . . "waking up." That is, they were more cognizant of their surroundings, now, and could follow simple conversations. They no longer seemed to think that what they were seeing and hearing were merely dreams or vivid hallucinations. Regrettably, they still tended to drift off in the middle of a conversation.
Sometimes Harry wasn't sure they understood what everyone was talking about.
In any event, they were on the mend. Neville was ecstatic that they consistently recognized him, and no longer forgot who he was, why he was around, or asked to see their baby son.
Harry and Neville were explaining, again, how the Portable Medical Problem-Solver device they had found had been the breakthrough for the two cursed individuals. After nodding she understood, Neville's mother had looked out the windows for several minutes. It was long enough that they thought she had gotten lost in her own head again, when she turned back to Harry.
"Why don't you use that Healer . . . thing . . . to get rid of your scar, Harry?" she said softly.
The three others stopped and stared at each other.
Harry had forgotten to breathe. He just blankly stared at his witch. Hermione's eyes were as wide-open as he had ever seen. After a moment's silence, Neville sighed loudly. "The most obvious answer," he muttered as he shook his head.
"I'll be right back," Hermione blurted out, jumping to her feet. Grabbing her wand, she disapparated. It was less than a minute later that she apparated back with one of the PMPSes under her arm.
Harry quickly relocated to a nearby couch and laid down. She placed the box on his chest and activated it. Neville's parents watched interestedly.
"Detecting foreign substances — attempting to identify. Identification failed," she read out-loud as it immediately went to work.
"Detecting destructive nerve toxins. Attempting identification. Identification failed." She paused.
She raised her eyebrows. "Detecting destructive muscular toxin. Attempting identification. Identification failed." Another pause.
"Detecting destructive skin toxin. Attempting identification. Identification failed." Her eyebrows went higher.
"Detecting unknown substances." She gave a slight nod.
"Comparing to normative baselines." Another nod.
"Begin treatment? YES/NO?" Hermione pursed her lips.
"I suspect," she said thoughtfully, "that the destructive toxin being detected is the basilisk poison, and one of the unknown substances is phoenix tears."
The two adult Longbottoms looked surprised and startled, obviously wondering how that had happened, and if they had heard correctly.
She sighed. "Until we can get a firmer handle on that, I don't think we should mess with this right now," she said shaking her head.
Harry bleakly nodded. "It's . . . better to wait until we know more. I've survived this long, it's silly to rush ahead."
Sighing sadly, she pressed the red, "No" circle.
She stared down at the box, surprised.
"What?" Harry said.
"It's . . . asking . . . 'Localized Treatment Only?'" She gave him a lost expression.
Harry raised his eyebrows. That was a new response! "I'd think we should see what happens next," he said, with a mild bit of trepidation.
She pressed the green circle.
"An image of your body is here, and it says, 'Touch area of interest'" Her brow furrowed in concentration. "I'm touching your forehead, about where the scar is."
"It says 'Scanning. Detected foreign substance contaminating bone structure and skin. Remove foreign substance, remove scar tissue, reconstruct surrounding tissue to normative levels?" She gasped. "It has a closeup 3-d image of your scar and the surrounding tissues in red!" She gave him an enquiring look.
Harry took a deep breath. "Say 'yes'."
Hesitantly, she touched the circle.
Nothing happened, at first. Then his scar tingled for a moment as the device had the master unit under the mountain by Hogwarts beam away the tissue. Harry felt dizzy for a moment, as if something heavy had been lifted, a weight he hadn't ever realized was there. He frowned and blinked. "Something changed, but I don't know what," he said tentatively.
Then, abruptly, a cloud of black smoke materialized over his head. It formed into a caricature of Voldemort's snake face, screamed, and dissolved into thin air.
Everyone had jolted back at the sudden appearance of the ghostly smoke.
"That was in there!?" shouted Neville's father as his mother held a hand to her chest in shock and surprise.
Hermione quickly had her wand out and scanned Harry. "Everything seems the way it was before," she said nervously. She glanced at the PMPS. "It says, 'Finished. Continue with Local Treatment in New Location?'"
This was enough adventure for one day, Harry decided. He mutely shook his head. "I think we've scared the Longbottom's enough for one day, right Neville?" He glanced at the appalled expression of the two adults, Mr. Longbottom was holding his wife in his arms as she buried her head against his chest.
The other boy mutely shook his head, and looked at his shaken parents.
"Why has no one ever realized that was there?" Neville's father finally demanded. "Are all the healers incompetent? The nurse at Hogwarts should have detected that thing at the very first mandatory complete physical!"
Harry stared at him. "Mandatory physical? I don't think I've ever had such a thing at Hogwarts," he said, surprised. "Madam Pomfrey has always treated me for whatever problem landed me in the Hospital Wing, and nothing more!"
After a moment, Harry scowled. "I think Dumbledor might have known the very night my parents died," he said darkly. His mind began to race, connecting events and facts in ways he had never considered before. Had the horcrux been muddying his thinking before now?
The other four gave him disbelieving looks.
He looked back at them and rolled his eyes. "Do you really think Madam Pomfrey would not have investigated a scar that never heals? That she doesn't know any spells to detect dark curses? That she didn't tell Dumbles what she had found? At the very least, as soon as Sirius became my guardian, she should have told him what she knew about my scar! She hasn't said a word." He glared out the windows for a moment.
"Professor McGonagall once told me that she had asked Dumbles about my scar. He told her that he wouldn't have removed the scar, even if he could. He said," and Harry said the next part in a mocking tone, "'Scars can come in handy.'" Harry snorted angrily. "He knew exactly what it was and had no intention of doing anything." He gave the others a baleful stare. "I think he intended for Voldemort to kill me, and then he could kill Voldemort." Although, some of what Dumbles had said seemed to contradict that.
"No!" said Neville's mother in dismay, aghast at the thought. Her husband looked equally dismayed, but it was warring with outrage.
Harry looked over at Hermione, who looked just as upset. "Makes a lot of sense when you know what we know, doesn't it?" he said pointedly. "Such as why he never bothered giving me any training? Why waste time and effort on someone who was just going to die, anyway?"
He looked back at the two parents. "If you really want a dark point-of-view, isn't it suspicious that although he promised to come to my parents' aide if they should be attacked, just as he did you, when the fidelius failed, he never showed up?" He paused a beat. "But who does show up? Hagrid, who doesn't have a wand, is forbidden from using a wand, and has zero battle skills? He can't even apparate! How is he supposed to help my parents fight Death Eaters and Voldemort? For all he knew, they could have been waiting for him in an ambush!"
He gritted his teeth angrily. "So, if it is an ambush, it's Hagrid who dies and not Dumbles, who is apparently inconvenienced by having to battle Death Eaters."
Harry grinned savagely. "However, Hagrid is intensely loyal to one person above all others on Earth — Dumbledore! No matter what, Hagrid will always defend Dumbles, and come to his aid. He would never suspect that Dumbles considers him expendable."
He gave them a vicious look. "Dumbles had the time to track and find Hagrid, but not the time to help my parents? What's up with that? No one seems to know where he was that night. Not even the people in his Order of the Phoenix. Was he sitting at Hogwarts, enjoying a cuppa tea or hot chocolate while Voldemort was killing my parents? Perhaps he was reading an exciting book and didn't want to leave off in the middle of a paragraph or chapter!"
Harry shook his head angrily. "Unless Dumbles knew my parents were already dead, and he wanted someone else to be the one to find their bodies." He looked at them bleakly. "If Sirius hadn't given him his motorcycle, how would Hagrid have gotten me to safety? Taken the Knight Bus? Now, there's a mode of transportation known for its safety!" he said derogatorily.
"Or maybe he could have used the floo. I suppose that might have worked," he mused. "Except the floo was a known danger, people have been snatched right out of it! How would Hagrid have fared if the Death Eaters had done that!?" he almost shouted the last.
Harry started pacing, waving his arms. "Maybe this was all his plan from the beginning. I know from Sirius that two families were in hiding because Tommy-boy was looking for them in particular. From his spy he learns that it's the children that have the wanker's interest." He glanced up at the Longbottoms, "Neville and me. Maybe Dumbles knows why, maybe he doesn't — but there's a reason why. He finds an obscure spell called a fidelius, it seems perfect. The secret keeper can't be violently forced to reveal the secret, nor can anyone who has been told the secret. The spell even persists after the caster dies." He looked out the windows a moment. "So, tell me, why did the fidelius stop working when my parents died? Hagrid found the house easily enough, and I doubt he had been told the secret! For that matter, how did Hagrid get there if he didn't know where it was? Why was Hagrid told to take me to Dumbles? How did Dumbles know my parents were dead and that I wasn't?"
He frowned. "I guess he could have had alarm charms on them to monitor their health," he mused.
"But still, as long as one of us was alive, the fidelius should have hidden me in the wrecked house."
He shook his head.
"That doesn't explain why he took me from my godfather and left me with my relatives. Sirius and the rat didn't have their confrontation until days later." He squinted at the floor in concentration. "He did it because he wanted to control me."
He spun around to face them. "And we know how well that worked out, don't we? I arrived beaten and abused, afraid to reveal how smart I was, desperate for acceptance from anyone willing to show it." He resumed pacing. "Easily controlled and manipulated to his desire."
Everyone was staring at him in shock.
"And now, even though we've sorted Tom and his horcruxes, he's still trying to control my life!"
"Horcruxes?" the two parents exchanged puzzled looks, although they were still horrified and outraged at what Harry was describing.
Harry barely glanced at them. He waved an arm at Neville. "He'll explain." He turned to Hermione. "I have to blow off some steam," he said, flatly. He turned back to the others. "If you'll excuse me, I find I have need to be elsewhere." He gave them a wry, grim smile. "It's not the company, I assure you. It's a meddling old man." He turned and headed for the Floo Room reserved for travelling.
Hermione gave them a quick look, just long enough for Neville to make a 'go, hurry' motion with his hands. Then she ran out of the room after Harry.
██:::::██:::::██
It was another rainy day, so Harry and Hermione were "watching" a movie for the second time. Hermione was successfully distracting him thinking about Dumbledore. Harry's comm-link, sitting on the tea-table, beeped with an alert.
"Admiral?" came Angelina's voice.
Sitting up, Harry said, "Yes?"
"I've been doing some more research on those Stargates? Over."
"Yes?"
"Well, I think we shouldn't ignore them. Just because they aren't useful to us doesn't mean muggles won't jump at the chance to visit other worlds. And I highly doubt Earth, out of the thousands of planets listed in the library, is the only planet with a rising civilization capable of using them. Especially considering many of them were inhabited back then. Anyone, or should I say, anything, could come through the Stargate in the Antarctic at any moment. Over."
He looked at Hermione, who had slipped her bikini-top back on and was muting the telly. She also was slowly nodding her head, a contemplative expression on her face. He sighed. "Right, then. Tell Lee I want him to take whomever he thinks he needs, and a Marine squad or two, however many he thinks would be appropriate, and see about retrieving that gate. If we put it on the moon that should discourage any outsiders from using it, and prevent the muggles from stumbling across it, too."
"Aye, aye, Admiral," she replied happily. "Is that all, sir?"
"Yes, I think so, over and out."
He sighed and his eyes wandered down to Hermione's chest, again. "Where were we?" he said.
She leaned back on the couch. "We should send remote drones through the Stargate to any valid addresses we can find. It wouldn't hurt to start updating the library. Depending on how long the Requirement has been drifting in space, I'm sure many of the stars aren't anywhere near where they were when it was abandoned."
She leaned forward and tapped his comm. "Fred? George?"
It took a minute before either responded, apparently neither was in a place where he could talk.
Eventually, they heard, "Forge, here. What's up, my lovely Commander? Over."
"Angelina brought up the very good point that while the Stargates can't help us, they might be of use to someone else. We could be surprised, to our detriment, at who or what might come out of the Stargate in the Antarctic in the years ahead. So, we're going to get it. I thought we could start sending remote drones through to see what we can see, before it sees us." She gave Harry a quick glance. "You and George, being our current experts at making drones, I thought you might like the challenge of making a drone that could do that. Lee is heading up the retrieval process, so get together with him when he's done, and see what you can do. If you're not interested, let me know and I'll find someone else. Over."
"Aye aye, ma'am. I'll tell Gred! Roger wilco, over and out!"
She rolled her eyes, looked at the clock over the mantle, and sighed. She turned back to Harry with a regretful smile. "Mom or dad should be home soon. Shall we pick something out for the Replicator to send us for dinner? There's that party on the Requirement, tonight."
On hearing what had happened at the Longbottoms, the entire crew had put together a celebration for Harry, on the Requirement, for getting out from under the wand. It would be the entire wizarding D.S.F. group, not just the ones who worked on the Requirement and Galileo.
They hoped that this meant Voldemort was finally vanquished. They'd probably never know for sure, but if Tom was still around, all he had to do was make one small, tiny mistake, and poof . . . he was gone! Considering where they had left him? Yeah, he was bound to make that tiny mistake sometime in the next few thousand years.
On the other hand, Hermione did a commendable job of preventing Harry from thinking about Dumbledore, at all, for many hours at a time. But it was still several days before he could stop thinking of Dumbledore without wanting to kill him on the spot. He was still incredibly angry, but now, at least he wasn't immediately grabbing for his wand. Nevertheless, he had many very pleasant daydreams about slipping a love and lust potion to a male dragon, with Dumbledore as the target.
██:::::██:::::██ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈