09. Cleaning House

Hedwig launched himself off of HtB's shoulder a few moments after the boy started off with Hermione and Ron to their first class of the day. The professors would probably get a bit tetchy if the boy walked into the class with Harry on his shoulder. Plus, he had a very important letter to compose and deliver before lunch.

As he winged back towards the Entrance Hall, he heard one twin saying to the other, "There's more to that bird than meets the eyes, isn't there?"

"True, my ugly twin, true," was the wondering response.

Even more fortuitously, today's first class after lunch included Herbology for the Slytherins. Another reason to get this done as soon as possible.

Draco was going to gain a few decorations on his robes.

With luck, he wouldn't notice the smears on the back of his robes until someone told him about them later. Being blue made Harry nearly invisible against the sky, now that he knew the difference between sky-blue and medium grey. With that minor alteration, he didn't have to worry about Draco seeing him and connecting the dots.

Definitely, fun times were in store for the future for Harry. He wanted to see if he could manage to hit the inside of Draco's back collar so it would run down his back inside his robes.

He would save that tactic for special occasions.

He wondered if he could train any other owls into using Draco as a target? Perhaps if he offered them bangers as rewards? Coming in low and fast enough, not even him constantly having an umbrella-shield over his head would help. Plus, for a Second-year, maintaining such a spell for a long period of time was difficult.

Making him carry a muggle umbrella every time he left the castle would be delightfully ironic. A wizard forced to use muggle means for protection!

Delicious.

It was certainly fun to think about.

-===(o|o)===-

"Hedwig," one of the twins said, puzzled and frowning.

"In exchange for an unspecified big favour in the future," said the other slowly, also frowning.

"Will act as our courier and drop potions or spelled items on targets we specify," said the first one.

"As long as he agrees that the target is deserving of being pranked?" finished the other.

HtB nodded. "That's what he says."

The two looked at each and shrugged. They had spent hours trying to think of a way to bribe the owl, but really, what could they offer him? He already ate like a king in the Great Hall. If he wanted something when he wasn't at Hogwarts, finding a tasty rodent anywhere in England wasn't that difficult. He didn't care about galleons or jewels — what would he spend them on? Getting a wand? Riding the Knight Bus? Buying new robes or potions? A solid gold owl's stand? Dating?

"Sure," they said in stereo.

HtB and Harry nodded. Harry said, "Krek?"

HtB nodded again. "I didn't forget," he said, nodding. "He also said you should work hard at getting your OWLS and NEWTs."

Harry nodded.

At their incredulous looks, HtB grinned and then continued, "Yes, he knows you don't care about those, you want your own business."

Their jaws dropped. They hadn't told anyone else of their aspirations — except their compatriot, Jordan — how had a bird guessed that?

"But he said that if you don't at least get four or five OWLs, each, and the same for NEWTs, you'll find it much harder to get financing for your business in the future. It doesn't matter how clever you are, the OWLs and NEWTs give you a track record your investors can see. A track-record that says, 'Yes, I started and finished these, so I can do the same with my business plan.' Otherwise, the bloke with the money won't think you can do anything, that you're offering a dodgy scheme just to scam his money. Get it?

"So, Hedwig thinks that one of you should get OWLS in Charms, Transfigurations, Runes, DADA, and Potions, while the other concentrates on DADA, Potions, Herbology, Runes, and Arithmancy. It would be better if you both did Arithmancy, but that's just his suggestions. Or even if you both got OWLs and NEWTs in all of those. Take a good hard look and decide!"

The two exchanged wide-eyed looks.

"He also suggested you check out repetitive trap-spells, potions activated by a spell after ingestion or being splashed with a second, or combinations of those."

"Are you listening, dear brother?"

"Every word, brother dear, . . . every . . . word."

They stared at the Hedwig incredulously.

"Oh, and you might want to see if you can make a potion that reverses someone's sex for an hour or a day." He glanced up at Hedwig on his shoulder. "He says he expects that the older students, and married couples, especially, to be interested in them." HtB frowned at that. "Don't know why anyone would do that," he shuddered, "but, hey, what do I know?" He paused a moment. "He says that sex is determined by the 'x' and 'y' chromosomes. If you have 'xx', you're a girl and if you have 'xy' you're a boy. Ask Hermione for more details"

The two were staring at HtB incredulously.

"Let's see . . . oh!"

"Krek!"

HtB gave the owl a wounded look. "I haven't forgotten!" He said as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of parchment. "I don't know where he found it to copy it from. He said brew this with one of Hagrid's hairs, put it in a goblet of wine, and switch it out with Snape's goblet during a dinner whenever Hagrid is at the table. Try to do it every few days for several weeks. You won't see anything at first, but the results, long-term, should be brilliant, he said."

HtB looked at Harry, puzzled. "He said something about Pavlov's dogs, but I don't get it. Maybe you should ask Hermione?"

One twin took the parchment and started reading, the other looking over his shoulder. Both their eyes suddenly shot wide open when they reached the summary at the bottom. They stared at Hedwig for a moment, before returning to the paper. "Merlin," one of them whispered.

"He'll go spare," the other said.

Then they started laughing and didn't stop for a long time. Tears were streaking down their cheeks; they were laughing so hard. Every time one seemed about to stop, he'd look at his brother, say, "Hagrid!" or, "Snape!" and burst out again. HtB finally got tired of waiting and left.

"Deal!" one of them gasped just before the boy and the bird left the classroom they were using.

"Deal," gasped the other, "Oh, Merlin, it's a deal!"

-===(o|o)===-

Thursday morning's Daily Prophet made Harry just as happy as it had yesterday.

It brought news of the arrests of Simon Avery, Alecto and Amycus Carrow, Mathew Crabbe, Philip Goyle, Walden Macnair, Judas Nott, Andrew Selwyn, and Corban Yaxley. Based on evidence found at their homes, all were probably going to spend between a decade-to-life in Azkaban. After all, if you truly were imperiused into being a Death Eater and doing those terrible crimes, why would you recreate your confiscated mask and costume? Then there was the consideration that because someone always remembered what they had done while imperiused, why hadn't they revealed those secret rooms eleven years ago? If they were truly horrified by their actions under the imperio, as they had claimed at the time, then why would they keep such horrid items secret and not dispose of them? It was all very suspicious!

Not to mention the Dark items and new trophies, some still alive, that hadn't been in the manors when they were searched eleven years ago. Especially as at least one of those trophies hadn't even been born eleven years ago. The accused couldn't very well claim the muggle they had in their secret room had just "wandered in" of their own accord. Not when the manor was specifically spelled to keep the muggles from seeing it, now could they?

It was speculated in the article that the information about those particular arrests might have come from Lucius Malfoy, in a bargain for reduced time and fines. Which would make it easier to get the evidence accepted in the Wizengamot. If he had supplied the information — and it had turned out to be true, given the results of the raids — then whatever he said about his erstwhile friends must also be true, despite their protestations to the contrary.

Blaming Lucius as the source, as Harry had suggested in his letter to Madam Bones, would be like tossing a kneazle among the pigeons. Even if the Aurors had found nothing in a specific Death Eater's manor, just the thought that the accusations might have come from Lucy would sow dissension in the ranks. Someone was ratting them out, and every one arrested so far had been someone Lucius had known in the Death Eater ranks eleven years ago, as well as some of them being good acquaintances today . . . well, enough said, right?

All Bones had to do was not deny that Lucius was the source. Plus, she could encourage her Aurors to mention that the information the rat had had, hadn't extended to the years after Voldemort had disappeared.

It also had the advantage that Lucius could deny it all he wanted, and all the Aurors would have to say would be, "Well, of course he'd deny it, wouldn't he? Azkaban is loaded with criminals who all insist they didn't do what led to their conviction."

It would take Lucy years to regain any Death Eater's trust, if he ever did. Assuming he lived long enough to get out of Azkaban, that is. Harry had some thoughts about how to make sure that never happened. Giving him the Draught of Living Death and sneaking him out came to mind, first.

That had the advantage that everyone would assume he had somehow escaped.

As long as he didn't die, Draco couldn't inherit!

Now, there was a wonderful thought.

Actually, it was a pretty good thought for all the imprisoned Death Eaters who were Heads of Houses, too.

Harry was pretty sure that while Narcissa supported the pure-blood agenda, she wasn't the fanatic her husband was, and thus would be less likely to spend the galleons like water to support Riddle when he returned. She certainly wouldn't invite him into her house as a long-term guest!

Being caught red-handed, so to speak, and being possible repeat offenders, put all the accused at a severe disadvantage. Especially when they had failed to disclose forbidden items in those secret rooms, which made it doubtful that they had been imperioed all those years ago.

The saying that there's no loyalty among thieves certainly turned out to be true. Each was accusing the others of being the ones who cast the imperio, which meant the only way to get the truth was with veritaserum and pensieve memories.

Normally, the laws had exceptions for pure-bloods. However, with the Wizengamot conservative faction in disarray with so many in holding cells in the Ministry, it would be simple to get the Wizengamot to allow the use of both the potion and pensieve on possible perjurers and definite repeat offenders.

Making it easier to prosecute the accused parties was that if you're in a holding cell or on trial, your relatives on the Wizengamot can't vote! They had to recuse themselves as obviously being biased. With almost a quarter of the Conservative faction removed from the Wizengamot, it would be a doodle to get sufficient votes for an almost fair trial.

Nothing says guilty like everyone watching your memory of torturing and killing a muggle-born or half-blood when there's no one else around to blame. Not to mention the lack of any memories of anyone casting the imperio spell on a fellow Death Eater.

Many of the inner-circle Death Eaters would either be sentenced to the veil or Azakaban, or would almost pauper themselves with bribes escaping one or the other of those two alternatives. The end result, Harry knew, would have a dramatic impact on Riddle's ability to attack wizarding society. At the very least, his money access would be extremely curtailed.

Plus, if it looked as if too many were going to escape justice, then he would take action. A stealth ambush from above should do the job. Getting hit with a stupefy a few seconds before being hit by a portkey to one of the tiniest of the uninhabited Shetland Islands should see them killed by the cold long before they woke. Especially if he could time it for during a storm in the North Atlantic, in winter.

Harry had already left instructions with the Goblins to buy as many of the income-producing businesses as possible from the suddenly galleon-desperate Death Eaters — and to drive as hard a bargain as possible.

The next few weeks looked to be quite busy, indeed, for his account manager.

Harry frowned. Perhaps he should make another sweep through the Room of Requirement for valuables? Maybe he could find some non-wizarding books that the muggles might like? Or some wizarding books for resale? Were there any Goblin artefacts in the Room he could use to curry some favour with the traitorous creatures?

Too bad he couldn't get into the Death Eater Vaults without their keys. He couldn't just fly into one of the mansions and begin hunting for one, now could he?

. . . could he?

His eyes widened. Actually, he could. The Lestrange manor had to be empty, the only living relatives were the three in Azkaban — and they certainly did not have their key with them, did they? All he had to do was find the estate.

He couldn't address anything to the Lestranges, of course, they were in Azkaban, not the manor. Trying to address anything to the building itself, failed, he discovered. So did addressing it to the files in the Lestranges' office, den, drawing room, and several other variations on that theme. He had expected that, but it never hurt to check.

He finally found an address that worked: The Eldest Mouse, The Lestrange Manor. Thank Merlin, they hadn't erected an owl-blocking spell while they were still free. He had tried the Head House-elf first, but either they didn't have any house-elves, or they had all died off.

Still, with an envelope firmly in beak, he had a clear sense of where he needed to go. He stuffed the envelope into his post pouch, and took off just before HtB had lunch. It would have been an over-night expedition, but the Knight Bus had him within a short flying distance in fifteen minutes.

Unfortunately, there weren't any open windows, and the owl-post access was closed. That took a bit of finagling, but using an alohomora followed with an ascendio took care of that issue. Once inside he dropped the letter on the floor. He held his wand in his beak and used a simple find-me vault-key command to have his wand lead him through the house. He was very careful not to touch anything, which made it awkward avoiding the walls with his wings.

The key was in a locked room — and alohomora didn't unlock it. Repeated find-me's allowed him to point his wand at the door's hinges inside the room, and ascendio removed the pins. A banishing charm pushed the door into the room.

The key was in a locked drawer and alohomora failed. Again.

What a bother. This would require a multi-day plan. He would have to do something like he had done to the Gaunt shack.

He went back outside and found a convenient tree. Hovering was possible for him to do, but very tiring.

He took a short rest before returning to the castle. He napped until late night, and then headed back out. He got off the Knight Bus an hour's flight from the Lestrange place.

A short imperio at a nearby petrol station just before it closed had a susceptible muggle filling a cheap plastic container with petrol. As before, a feather-light charm took care of the weight. An hour later, he flew in the owl window of the manor, and, minutes after that, was in front of the locked desk. He set down the container on the desk, poked a hole in the side of the container with a talon, and let it start pouring out. He flew to the hall, and sent an incendio at container. The petrol burst into flames with a fumph! He didn't wait around, he headed outside immediately.

He flew around the manor to the room's window and watched from a safe distance. It didn't take long for the fire to melt the container and release a short flood of petrol in the room.

While the walls might have had fire-prevention spells on them, four litres of petrol were not a laughing matter. The desk, rug, paintings, furniture were quickly ablaze. The walls resisted for a while, but no-one coming to put the fire out and years without spell-reinforcement, soon enough had them succumb to the flames.

Sitting in a tree a hundred yards away, he could feel the various spells protecting the house fail, one after the other, as the fire inside spread.

He headed back to Hogwarts. Tomorrow, he would use accio to recover the key. Plus, any loose gems, galleons, sickles, knuts, and anything else that could have value that might have survived the fire.

-===(o|o)===-

The fire had gutted the manor. The exterior walls had had the best spells on them, so they remained intact and in good condition, considering what he had done. The same for the windows and roof. Those spells had made it almost like a fortress.

The insides, though, hadn't faired nearly as well. The floors had survived, but were severely charred. Only the load-bearing walls remained. The desk was ashes, and his first accio inside the room brought the goblin-made key flying. He let it fall to the ground and then checked it for spells. It was clean, so he stored it in his front pouch.

Despite the fact that the Lestrange vault had been packed with galleons and other heirlooms when he, Hermione, and Ron had raided it, the Lestranges apparently kept a very large quantity of valuables at home, too!

He ended up with a huge mound of coins, jewellery, cups, plates, and other items. He had brought his expanded trunk in the expectation he would find some interesting things, but he hadn't expected this! Still, with the aid of shrinking charms, he managed to get it all to fit in his trunk, barely. A simple scourgefy removed all traces of smoke, ashes, dirt, and dust.

He had to nap for several hours to recover from his spell-use.

The trip to Diagon Alley was quick, and soon he was perched on the shoulder of one of Gringotts guards, waiting in line. Once he reached the teller, he hopped off, nodded to the teller, turned and nodded to the guard. He paused a second, stared at the guard, then said, "Krek," and pointed at the front doors. The guard grunted and headed back outside to his post.

Harry turned back to the teller goblin and fished out the parchment he had prepared the night before.

"I need access to this vault," the parchment read. He dropped the vault key to the countertop.

The goblin looked at the letter, and inspected the key. He turned and called, "Slowsword!"

As the goblin hurriedly approached, the teller said, "Take this client to Vault one thirteen." He held out the key.

Slowsword looked at Harry, took the key and hurried off.

Harry looked at the teller, then at the retreating goblin. The goblin was moving too slow for Harry to keep up. He shrugged, then flew over to land on the goblin's head. The goblin immediately began to curse and swing his arms at Harry. Harry hovered overhead, waited until the goblin stopped, and then landed, again. They repeated this several times before another goblin yelled something at Slowsword. After glaring at Harry, he held out his arm.

Harry landed on the offered arm and nodded. It was only then that the goblin noticed that Harry's claws were encased in what looked like gloves for a bird.

Those had taken some work to get made. They were a combination of two spells on two small sacks. After stepping into the sack, the first spell shrank it to form-fit his foot, the second was an impervio. He had no intention of getting burned by the flagrante curse Bellatrix had cast on everything in the vault. He wasn't worried about the gemino curse, he planned to grab the Hufflepuff cup's handle on the fly. Even if the curse reacted, he would be high above and could easily reach the vault door long before the curse became a problem.

The cart ride down was a trial until Harry released the cart's railing and simply flew alongside the goblin steering it.

Getting the cup was rather anti-climatic. He waited for the goblin to open the door, flew in and circled at the ceiling until he saw the cup. A quick dive, grab, and he was soon out the door. Unfortunately, the gemino curse was on the cup, too, so he left behind a trail of duplicated cups raining to the floor behind him. Once out of the vault, he circled back and forth down the cartway, waiting for the curse on the cup to exhaust itself.

Slowsword watched, scowling.

Once the curse was done, he landed in the cart and pulled his bag and an acromantula silk bag out of his owl-post pouch on his back. He manoeuvred the bag over the cup, put it in his mokeskin bag, and then put that back in his front pouch. He looked over to the scowling goblin, who was standing by the open vault door, staring at him.

"Are you done?" Slowsword said sarcastically.

"Hoo," Harry said and nodded.

On the ride back, he just held on to the back of the cart. He slightly opened his wings to catch a bit of the breeze as they travelled. Surprisingly, that made it easier to maintain his balance.

Once they were at the top of the caverns, he switched to the goblin's arm again. The goblin handed him his key, which Harry took in his beak. The goblin carried him back to the main lobby. Harry promptly flew to the goblin at the desk at the rear of the lobby. He landed on the edge of the desk, set the key down, and fished out another parchment from his back pouch.

This one read, "Separate this vault's contents into two sections: First, goblin-crafted items, less the coinage and this key; and Second, coinage and everything else. Here is the key. You may keep any goblin-made items in the first pile. If there is a bounty for any such returned goblin items, use it to pay any fees you are charging me. Give me a list of any of the goblin-crafted items with protective or detection spells; I might wish to rent them for my lifetime.

If there are any items with harmful curses, hexes, or jinxes — defensive, offensive, or otherwise — in the second section of items, remove the spells. The fees for these are to be taken from the vault's galleons — at the bulk, quantity, or hired rate, whichever is cheapest, overall, for handling the items appropriately. After the items are safe to handle freely, move them to my vault. If necessary, upgrade my vault.

"I want the same actions taken with the items in this trunk, and the trunk returned to me with five thousand galleons and five thousand Pounds Sterling, if that total is available from the coinage of the key's vault. If not, then as much as is available.

"Send an accounting of what was done, and what was deposited into my personal vault, and its new monetary totals, to Hedwig Potter, care of Harry Potter, Hogwarts.

"Retain both keys here for me to retrieve, later."

While the goblin was reading the letter, Harry pulled out his key and the trunk of stuff he'd taken from the Lestrange manor. He placed his key on the trunk, and waited.

The goblin studied him through narrowed eyes after he finished reading the letter.

Harry pushed forward the miniaturized trunk with the key on top with one foot. "Krek," he said.

The goblin straightened. "It will be done," he said sharply.

If his calculations were correct, HtB, his children, and his grandchildren would never have to work unless one of them wanted to do so. That didn't account, of course, for the income from the properties he intended to acquire from the desperate Death Eaters. Plus, there were still the Dolohov, Gibbon, Rookwood, Travers, and Mulciber manors and vaults to plunder. All of them were in Azkaban, and, as far as he knew, they had no other relatives.

Harry nodded and then flew towards the front doors. He timed his glide so that he followed a wizard. He was close enough to exit behind them without being noticed by anyone except the goblin guards. Or the few wizards and witches that happened to look at just the right time.

He caught the Knight Bus back to Hogwarts.

Now all he had to do was collect Slytherin's Locket from Grimmauld Place, and figure out how to get the Horcrux out of Harry without killing him.

Once those were accomplished, then the next time Voldemort tried to change hosts, he would end up dying without his anchors to hold him back. Hopefully. At the very least, he would then be mortal.

In the meantime, Harry had to wait until Sirius was in shape for a conversation — and prepare for tomorrow at Hogwarts.

-===(o|o)===-

Waiting for the Slytherins to show up at the Quidditch Pitch Saturday morning with their new Nimbus Two Thousand and One brooms was boring. Fortunately, Wood's yelling at the approach of the other team gave him plenty of warning. He hovered behind them, a dozen or two feet in the air, hiding with a disillusionment charm, wand in foot. Taking careful aim, he hit Draco in the back with a cute little spell he had discovered years ago. It was great for pranks on annoying pillocks.

It was subtle, and unnoticeable when first cast. It messed with the body's inner-ear balance-system. Five minutes after getting hit with it, you started to get a tiny bit dizzy if you moved too fast. It slowly built up over the next hour until just standing without falling was impossible. Lying down, it felt like you were about to fall off the ground.

Its best feature was that finiting it didn't fix anything. The inner-ear balance system does not immediately reset to normal. Plus, finiting it tmakes it take twice as long to recover as it does to simply let the spell finish.

He stored his wand in his holster. It had taken quite a bit of practice to do that while flying without dropping the wand.

-===(o|o)===-

Bane carefully hid behind a small grouping of trees as he watched the owl in the clearing. It was playing with its stick — wand — again. But it wasn't trying to cast spells.

Instead, it was ejecting the wand from wherever it was hiding it, and then trying to put it back while flying. This was not as simple as it appeared, because, like all animals, the owl tended to go in the direction it was looking.

It takes lots of practice to look at something to one side and still keep walking straight. Many a foal has walked into a tree because they were too busy staring at something else and strayed from the path they were following.

Which made for some interesting loops, twists, and aerial somersaults, for the owl. The owl ploughed into the ground rather frequently, at first. Several times it appeared to try to grab the stick with its wings, ending in a frantic ball of bird, with wings and feathers going every which way, before it bounced on the ground and rolled to stop.

This didn't count the times when it just dropped the stick and had to go get it. Watching the stick fall to track it sometimes led the owl to an up-close and personal introduction to a tree branch or two. Or trunk.

Its cussing seemed to have improved — least-wise the variety of noises it made after each failed attempt had expanded. On the other hand, he had learned to recognize one particular sequences of clack-and-hoot to be the avian equivalent of an alarmed "Oh, shite!"

There was another sequence that might translate to "son-of-a-bitch," or "merlin-damn-it," but he wasn't sure birds understood either concept. Bane was pretty sure the owl called the stick's ancestry into question many times. That was based on how it frequently glared at it, either in claw or on the ground, as it barked, cackled, shrieked, hissed, and bill-snapped.

Finally, after trying for at least two hours, the bird was getting more successes than failures. After three hours, it was successfully ejecting and replacing the stick every time. Apparently satisfied, it rested for several minutes on a branch before heading off to the castle in the distance.

Bane continued his patrol once the owl was out of sight.

He wasn't quite smiling as he worked out how to tell the most amusing version of the events he had witnessed. It wouldn't actually be that difficult.

"The Snowy Owl" stories were quite popular.

-===(o|o)===-

Harry had beaten his head on a wall when he realized that there was one simple and easy bit of insurance against ever losing his wand while flying — tie a string from the holster to the wand's handle! All he needed to do was flex his leg just right, and the holster sucked the string and wand back immediately.

All that time, effort, and bruising, for nothing.

Thank Merlin, no one had been around to see that!

The true advantage to that solution, however, was that it meant his wand could never be summoned from him.

He already had made that suggestion to HtB for his holster.

He started circling over the trio's heads, still disillusioned.

Right on que, Ron went for his wand when Draco called Hermione a mud-blood. That was what Harry had been waiting for. Quick as a flash, he snatched the wand from the boy's hand just as he extended it towards Draco.

It was perfect. Ron's slug-vomiting spell was aborted. In the tumult of accusations and reactions from the rest of the team to the term mud-blood, no one but HtB, Hermione, Ron, and Draco noticed Harry's abrupt appearance and subsequent flight with the wand.

Harry swung around in a tight turn and landed on HtB's shoulder, Ron's wand in one foot. He bumped HtB with his head, and held out the wand for HtB to grab — which he reflexively did.

"Give me back my wand you bloody bird!" Ron yelled, when he saw that HtB had it. He held out his hand demandingly to Harry. Hermione stared, wide-eyed.

Everyone else thought HtB had grabbed the wand, and wondered how he had done it so quickly.

Draco was staring, gobsmacked, at both of them.

HtB shook his head. "You don't want a detention, do you?"

"Go 2 Hagrid." Harry quickly tapped out on HtB's shoulder.

Fortunately, HtB hadn't been too distracted. "Come on," he said, grabbing Ron's shoulder and pulling him back from the confrontation brewing in front of them. Reluctantly, with many a backward scowling glance, Ron let himself be guided away. Hermione, naturally, went with them.

They arrived just in time to avoid Lockhart. As soon as Lockhart left, so did Harry. He had no inclination to hanging around in Hagrid's hut until lunch.

He had something else in mind.

A bit of revenge.

Something he had been planning for weeks.

-===(o|o)===-

An hour later, he landed on the roof of Number Four Privet Drive. One alohomora and ascendio later, he was in the guest bedroom. He dumped a small batch of bedbugs on the guest bed and rennervated them. The slug-a-bed Dursleys were still asleep this early on a Saturday, so he dropped another batch under their beds. His disillusionment charm hid him from them, of course.

A simple anti-pest-charmed trinket next summer would eliminate any problems in HtB's room. Assuming he didn't end up at Grimmauld Place with Sirius.

He flew into the kitchen and deposited ten clusters of stasised and disillusioned cockroaches and silverfish behind the refrigerator and stove, as well as stuck to the bottom of both of them and the sink. Each stasised cluster was sticky-charmed to stay in place until its stasis spell released, which would be at irregular intervals. They also had muggle-aversion charms to prevent their premature discovery.

He scattered a healthy helping of crickets with the same timed-spells in the closets against the back wall so they wouldn't be vacuumed up by accident.

Then it was back to the guest room. A carving spell made a hole in the closet ceiling, where he dumped half-a-dozen mice. They, too, were disillusioned, stasised, and muggle-averted, with the spells set to expire in six, eighteen, and twenty-six weeks. Reparo hid what he had done quite nicely.

Satisfied, he flew outside and restored the window to closed and locked. Aunt Petunia would lose her mind with infestations to her "perfectly normal" house. The repeated sights of pest-control trucks in front of her house would have the gossips in a perfect tizzy over how terrible she must be as a housekeeper! Not to mention their own constant fear that whatever plagued her house might slip into theirs.

Oh, the horrors!

The best part was that no one would ever suspect that magic was involved — except the Dursleys. Even if someone checked them or the house for curses, nothing would show up! Oh, a wizard might detect a few spots with magic, but that was to be expected in a house with a magical child. Children always had magical items they lost in their home, or that they didn't take back to school.

It was quite diabolical, if he did say so himself.

He had considered using fleas, too, but Vernon would probably track them into work and infest the entire company. In good conscience, he couldn't inflict punishment on Vernon's co-workers just to get at the Dursleys.

Vernon's sister Marge, on the other hand, with her, no-doubt, illegal, bull-dog puppy mill? Yeah, she was ripe for a positively vicious infestation. Ticks, too. Especially for Ripper.

Yeah, she was his next stop today. Mice, cockroaches, silverfish, fleas, ticks, crickets, and ear-mites, oh, my! All timed for staggered releases.

He hadn't done this before they left because he didn't want to chance his efforts being detected while HtB was in residence. They'd never believe his claim of innocence. They still wouldn't, but now no one else would believe them.

-===(o|o)===-

At lunch, it was obvious that the Slytherin team was not pleased with Draco's performance at practice. Something about being a terrible flyer, and falling off his broom several times. One of them said the boy had all the grace and agility of a drunken donkey with a broom stuck up its arse. There were serious reservations about the trade-off between using their new brooms and having Draco on the team — they might lose anyway!

Hearing all that put the Gryffindor team in a much better mood.

The whiny prat managed to convince the Slytherins to give him another chance, claiming he must have been cursed. Marcus Flint, the team captain, hit Malfoy with a finite as they left the Great Hall after eating. From overhead, Harry used the same spell as before on Draco while he walked out the Castle doors with the team. They spent some time talking before Marcus Flint once again cast the finite on Draco just before he mounted his broom.

To Harry's delight and joy, the walk to the pitch took just long enough for the spell to throw off the boy's performance on the broom. While nowhere as dizzy as the previous time, an amount unnoticeable while walking, it was decidedly effective at messing with his inner-ear with high-speed accelerations, decelerations, and turns that Seekers normally needed to execute perfectly.

He made a very poor showing in the first few minutes he was in the air, wobbling and weaving uncertainly in high-speed turns. He improved as his sense of balance slowly returned to normal, unfortunately.

The "second chance" didn't last long, and reinforced the team's displeasure with the braggart. The Gryffindor team had the pitch that afternoon, as a result, to Wood's delight.

-===(o|o)===-