11. Bombs Away!
Harry was surprised when he headed for Hogsmeade after dinner that evening. One of the regular Hogwarts owls joined him. She watched curiously as he landed on the roof of The Three Broomsticks, dug out a galleon and his destination slip, and flew down to street level. He raised his right wing. Apparently, the magic to call the bus counted his wing the same as his leg for holding a wand — go figure. A moment later there was a Bang! and the Knight Bus rolled down the street.
Stan hopped out and gave his spiel, then looked down at Harry offering his galleon. He bent down and took it, and gave Harry his change. Harry then flew up into the bus. Stan jumped back, startled, when the other owl, whom he hadn't noticed on the roof's edge above, followed Harry inside.
The owl stared up from one of the armchairs at Harry, who was hanging upside down, like a bat, from the brass handhold-bar. It was easier to just start that way. Harry stared back at the owl, puzzled.
Surprising everyone, the Hogwarts owl flew up and landed a bit further down the handhold-bar.
"Ern?" Stand said. " 'hat owl just flew in wit' out paying."
"Did it give ya a destination?"
"Uh, no?" He climbed back into the bus and stared at the two owls.
Ern turned around to look at Harry. "Is 'e wit' you?"
Harry shook his head.
Ern stared at the new owl, then shook his head. "If'n 'e doesn't want ter go somewhere, I guess we can leave 'im."
He turned back to the front. "Where'd tha other want?"
"Blackpool."
With a lurch, the bus shot into motion.
Ten minutes later, he flew away from Stanley Park to the Promenade.
The other owl remained behind.
It took an hour. Most of that was because of the photos both the clerk and the customers in the store insisted on taking. Finally, they finished and the clerk rang up his purchase of a box of zippered plastic bags. With those in claw, he flew out and back to the park. He stashed his purchase in his mokeskin bag so no one would figure out why he had visited the city.
The other owl was still in the Knight Bus when he boarded it. She definitely looked a bit sick to the stomach. He had never seen an owl noticeably turn green, before.
When they arrived at The Three Broomsticks, the other owl fluttered out behind him, doing a good imitation of a dizzy and very drunk owl. She flew up and into the pub's owl window, clearly intent on sitting still for a while, without the world spinning around her, before heading back to the castle
Harry shrugged and continued on his way.
Over the next couple of days, he had HtB cast expansion spells on the insides of seven of the plastic bags. It was really weird to see shrunken objects through the sides of the clear-plastic. But they did give a very . . . clear . . . idea of how much room there was inside the magicked bag. Which Ron summed up as, "Wow! That's a lot!"
HtB quickly learned how much magic he needed to get the desired enlargement-enhancement. The boy, and Hermione when he told her what he was doing, wanted to know what Harry wanted with plastic bags that could hold a hundred gallons of water.
They didn't look like they believed him when he said the water was to put out forest fires.
They accepted his explanation for the impervio spells on an equal number of cloth bags a bit better. He planned to put the plastic bags inside the cloth ones, to protect them and prevent unexpected spell-interactions. What he didn't tell them was that he put the duplicated cloth bags over the plastic bags so people wouldn't stare when he brought them out.
Once he had all seven bags in his package harness, he set out for a petrol station for filling them. Then it was on to the Rookwood mansion.
He hovered as he dropped the first fire-bomb, finited and incendioed it, and then went to the next point. Dropping the next four was just as simple. That last corner was difficult because the petrol at the first outside corner was quite hot, and the last outside corner was quickly matching it. The updrafts and cross-drafts made it difficult to fly. He had planned to drop a seventh in the middle of the mansion, but that wasn't possible with the six fires burning fiercely. If he tried, he might not make it out alive.
When he flew high enough so that he didn't have to worry about smoke or flames, he missed the house completely. The heat distorted what he was looking at, especially with the smoke half-obscuring things. That was why he missed, he decided, definitely not his fault.
Well, that gazebo had been falling apart, anyway.
-===(o|o)===-
While Harry was occupied with very un-owl-like thoughts of long-convicted Death Eaters, and scheming to rob them blind, HtB, Hermione, and Ron had quickly settled into the Hogwarts routine of classes and assignments. Harry had Quidditch practice taking up his time. For Ron. now that HtB had introduced the concept of handicapping, it was chess that took his attention. Games that lasted for an hour between Ron and anyone else became possible. There were no more five- or ten-minute massacres such as everyone had seen last year. Which had made them very reluctant to play back then — nobody likes being the victim of a massacre in any game.
Now that they had a chance to win, more people were interested in playing against Ron, which lessened the pressure on HtB to follow on as Ron goofed off instead of doing his assignments or preparing for classes. It also decreased the pressure on Hermione, who had felt obligated to harass HtB to study the previous year. Ron was almost a lost-cause as far as she was concerned.
Harry contributed his part with an occasional game that always drew a big audience.
The books on how to study and time-management had more than paid for themselves for HtB. He wasn't a schedule fanatic like Hermione, but he was aware of what needed to be done, and by when. To his surprise, the scheduling actually gave him more free time as he never had to rush to catch up on something he had forgotten. Plus, if he finished early, he knew what else needed to be worked on, and got an early start. Or not. He knew he had the time to do it later!
Discovering the proper way to study and prepare his essays was also a huge help. He no longer wasted time flailing futilely during his research and organization. Index cards were suddenly his most important tools!
The professors noticed that this year HtB seemed to have dramatically improved in his written class assignments. Harry forcing the boy to actually read and practice during the summer had substantially paid off. While Hermione didn't suddenly have competition for first place in all their classes, HtB had moved up from below-average to join the top five places in charms, DADA, and transfigurations. In DADA, he had always scored at the top in the practicals, but only average in the theory, but now his theoretical work had been vastly improved to the point that he frequently had the next highest score below Hermione.
Not having to worry about his relatives and their reactions to his grades made a difference, too.
Potions was still a lost cause, however, as any progress HtB had made was not only ignored, but downgraded by Snape. Harry didn't care, although HtB was perturbed. He made HtB contact an independent Potions tutor and sent him copies of their assignments. The boy's stunned expression was quite hilarious at the return of his first Potions assignment from the tutor. Snape had barely rated it an Acceptable, after a series of degrading and caustic comments.
The tutor had returned it with an Exceeds Expectations.
Harry had HtB talk several Ravenclaws, Griffindors, and Hufflepuffs into giving him their copies of the same assignment. Bribery may have been involved.
It was amazing the traction you could get with Honeydukes chocolate.
Harry then took them to the tutor so he could see how Snape graded other students. Not surprisingly, the tutor did not change HtB's grade when compared to the others. He did mention that there were clear differences between the different Houses as to the grades they were given. One common theme, though, was that they were all graded lower than they should have been. Sometimes by a little, sometimes by a lot. From his point of view, the grades were wildly inconsistent.
Huh, so Snivellus didn't hate all the other Houses equally.
Colour Harry stunned . . . not.
HtB was, though. So was Hermione. Well, actually, Hermione was livid at the Professor's obvious biased grading.
There was a clear hierarchy, with Ravenclaw at the top of the three Houses and — guess who? — at the bottom. It wasn't Hufflepuff.
Plus, Hermione's assignment was clearly an Outstanding. However, the tutor had added, he would have warned her that the next time she ignored instructions on length, he would lower her grade for failing to execute the assignment as given. By exceeding the limit, she showed she did not understand the material well-enough to know what was important and what was not.
Quantity did not make up for quality.
HtB passed on the wizard's comments to a horrified Hermione.
Harry shrugged and told the boy to just ignore Snape's grades. Yearly grades only mattered in the form of an indicator of Pass or Fail. It was the grades you got for the O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s that made a difference — and those were graded by the Ministry!
All Snape did was discourage students not in his House from pursuing a career that required potions. Or, if they did want such a career, they had to hire their own tutors after graduating.
HtB, Harry had decided, would continue to send his assignments, and selected others, to the tutor.
Harry didn't mention it, but the main reason they were doing this was to provide a paper trail that proved that Professor Snape was a biased and terrible Professor. Snivellus might be a Potions Master, but he wasn't a teacher.
Harry was hoping the Governor's Board would be outraged at the professor deliberately discouraging future Potioneers when he turned over the comparisons between the scores of the tutor and Snape. If they did nothing, the next step would be The Daily Prophet. Actually, he would make Rita his first stop. He knew that Rita Skeeter would be more than happy to savage Professor Snape as an indirect attack on Dumbledore's competency.
Competency, which Harry was beginning to question more and more. He might be the greatest wizard of the century, but his decisions were showing a distinct lack of understanding and common sense. Whether someone was a good teacher had no bearing on whether they were trustworthy or not. Just consider that one of the best Professors they had had for DADA, in his past, was a Death Eater taking orders from Voldemort! A Death Eater who would have gladly have killed every student he could reach if the order came from his Master.
Thus, a great teacher, but totally unsuited to be a Professor.
Rita would quickly discover that Snape's attitude had been an ongoing campaign. Perhaps he had never given up his Death Eater beliefs? With Dumbledore professing his confidence in the wizard without explanation, that would call his worthiness to be Hogwarts' Headmaster into question. Perhaps he was infatuated with the other wizard? Or even in a relationship? Was he putting his personal relationships over that of making sure his students received an education befitting that of the best magical school in the world?
Juicy, juicy, juicy!
Rita would go to town on the two wizards.
Harry wouldn't feel the slightest bit of regret.
-===(o|o)===-
HtB had never had a birthday party. Despite that, over the summer Harry had managed to convince him that giving a birthday party could be almost as much fun as having one. It took only a few sickles to convince the twins to organize and set one up.
Being able to type-out what he wanted to say made things soo much easier for him to communicate with HtB!
Hermione was surprised beyond measure when she walked into the Gryffindor common room after lunch that Saturday to find that nearly every Gryffindor was present, with an enormous cake as the centrepiece for the room.
The house-elves were thrilled at the extra food preparations — and the copious praise HtB rained upon them.
Harry was tempted to go after the butterbeer, but decided that would attract too much attention. It was bad enough that HtB kept telling everyone that the party was Hedwig's idea. He did, however, manage to hide several bottles with the intention of sneaking them into the clubroom for his later consumption.
He knew that birds could get drunk from eating fermented-on-the-vine berries, so why not butterbeer? He'd save the harder stuff for later.
Hey. Fire Whisky. A fire-breathing owl would put the fear of Merlin into anyone who saw it!
Harry's present to her was the third mokeskin bag he had taken from the Room of Lost Things. HtB had taken it to Professor Flitwick to check over the charms, with a note explaining he had acquired it second-hand.
In keeping with her desire to avoid too much sugar, Harry had HtB pass out Toothflossing Stringmints, Dentifricium Mouthwash, Fairy Spark Dust, and Gentleman's-tooth-pearling-paste as gifts given to her by others. They were both "gag" gifts and not. He knew she would find them in third-year when she went to Honeydukes, and be fascinated with them. She also would pass them on to her parents as examples of what wizards did to keep their gums and teeth healthy.
It might also make her more tolerant of all the sweets that wizards and witches seemed to eat in Hogwarts. Plus, it would make future presents easier for others to get her as she wouldn't be as opposed to sweets as she currently was.
It being Saturday meant the party lasted far longer than it would have normally. Professor McGonagall was the one who shut it down, finally, and sent everyone off to the Great Hall for dinner.
The party restarted when everyone returned after dinner.
All-in-all, HtB later confided to Harry, that he had been right. It was fun to give someone a birthday party.
Hermione stopped carrying her rucksack in favour of her new mokeskin bag. Being able to simply think about what she wanted to retrieve, in addition to having more room than her trunk, made that a no-brainer!
-===(o|o)===-
Over the next few weeks, Harry managed to . . . liberate . . . the portable physical assets of Gibbon, Jugson, and Mulciber. It was child's play to fly in through the owl-window, drop a bag, finite the impervio, then cast incendio at it. Of course, he always dropped a letter that sent the pests fleeing the premises, first.
Mulciber's home required a repeat. The manor's interior was definitely singed around the edges and the furnishings were either charred wood or ash. However, the first time hadn't quite broken entirely through the fire-protection spells.
Still the rewards for his successful endeavours were quite nice. When their master freed them, if ever, they would find empty vaults, and rubble-filled holes in the ground for homes.
Very satisfying.
Rowle and Travers, unfortunately, had family members living in their manors, so he had to leave them alone.
However, he had left alert charms in place on the buildings that would warn him the next time the manors were unoccupied. He'd keep a dozen of the fire-bombs, already prepared, in stasis, in his trunk for that eventuality. Not to mention having them ready when he started his anti-spider campaign.
Still, he had a plan for the Rowles and Travers families. It wasn't as satisfying for him as it would have been to wipe-out them out financially, but manors were not cheap to either buy or build. Doing either would make considerable dents in their cash-on-hand. Especially considering his account manager had managed to lock up the market of available properties using "First Purchase" options. Buying a mansion from Harry would severely restrict their cash-flow for other activities for several decades. It would almost be cheaper to build from scratch. Almost.
Buying that much petrol hadn't been cheap, either. Nine thousand, two hundred litres, total, was a lot of petrol. However, the coinage from the burnt-out manors and their attendant vaults paid for his purchases quite easily, and left him with a handsome profit.
The Goblins, he thought, were thrilled with all the items he was returning to them. He could be wrong, though. It was difficult to tell the difference between a Goblin-smile and a Goblin-scowl, both involved a lot of teeth showing and frowning.
Because of the strain of using imperio to get the petrol, he had to spread petrol acquisition across several week's nights. He always paid, of course. He didn't want any discrepancies causing suspicion and attracting the attention of the bobbies. A petrol station losing that much petrol from its tanks would get investigated. It wouldn't do to have anyone report seeing an owl taking delivery of eight or twelve hundred litres of petrol in two or three plastic, zipper sandwich-bags, either, if a passerby he hadn't noticed spoke up.
Decidedly unusual behaviour for an owl — even with Blackpool's recent experiences.
Like, why would an owl be buying petrol?
The Auror's would notice something like that and begin to put two and two together to get Harry in trouble.
He quickly noticed, however, that each time he called the Knight Bus for one of his trips, there were always a couple of owls joining him, especially on weekends. They sometimes got off before he did, and sometimes not.
It appeared that Hogwarts owls preferred traveling quickly on the dizzy-inducing Knight Bus over flying for hours in freezing weather at night!
No surprise there. The surprise was that they had figured this out.
On his trip to Diagon Alley, after Mulciber's mansion had been burned and suitably pillaged, he noticed some changes had been made to the bus. The brass handhold bar was now wooden and heated. Attached and conveniently placed were a basket of owl treats and a bowl of water. Plus, a donation box was now located behind Ern's armchair! It was labelled, "For the Owls."
After he turned in his trunk to the goblins, and added in the bounties for the returned goblin-made items, he saw that he would have increased his vault's coinage by nearly half over what the Lestranges had contributed, if he hadn't spent so much buying Death Eater business-shares.
That didn't, of course, count what he could get if he sold the family crest-embossed or painted gold and silver goblets, plates, platters, and other paraphernalia he also had collected. Most of those items had had their own impervious and unbreakable spells on them.
It also didn't factor in the coinage deposited to the vaults as the various businesses the Death Eaters owned paid them their profits. All he had to do was to remember to visit Gringotts each month and move the earnings from the six vaults into his.
To bad he couldn't arrange to sell the businesses to Harry and eliminate that monthly chore. On the other wing, some of those businesses were quite shady and he thought that HtB didn't want to own them.
Maybe he could take the money from one vault each month and give it to the Knight Bus for the owls?
He should probably go back to those properties and check for hidden caches of gold and other goods. He wouldn't put it past them to have a hidden room in their basements, like Malfoy had had with his "secret" room under the Drawing Room rug. Only hidden behind the exterior wall of the basement with a stone roof.
A few more firebombs would make sure anything burnable was no longer an impediment.
He had to wonder, though, if the spells protecting the properties from muggles noticing them were on the manors, or the properties themselves? If they were on the manors, did his burning them down eliminate the spells and reveal the property to the muggles? What would they think to suddenly discover this burnt-out property that had never been put on the tax-rolls?
He needed to go back to each and determine the situation. If the spells were gone, he needed to reassert them until he could make sure the land had been scrubbed of magical creatures and items. Once they were cleared, he could release the muggle spells.
Wouldn't that send the wizards into a twist! They would go into a rage to discover that not only were their manors destroyed, but their properties now belonged to muggles!
Now it was reckoning time for the Averys, Crabbes, Goyles, Macnairs, Malfoys, Notts, Selwyns, Yaxleys, and Carrows, he decided.
Yeah, didn't want to miss the Malfoys, Macnair, or the Carrows just yet, save them for last. Nasty pieces of work, all four of them. Malfoy would have to be last, though. It would help maintain the fiction that he was the source of all the bad luck the so-called former Death Eaters seemed to have run into, lately
Even if Riddle managed to return, the most important people in his support network would not be of much assistance. In fact, they would be a drain on whatever resources he might have.
-===(o|o)===-
The twins provided some much-needed recreation for Harry during his times between . . . freeing . . . the assets of those five Azkaban Death Eaters.
With his . . . prodding . . . they talked an older student into expanding a bag for them. With bag in harness, he flew several missions for them to acquire sweets from Honeydukes in Hogsmeade and potion ingredients from Slug and Jiggers Apothecary and prank items from Gambol and Japes in Diagon Alley. While the proprietors of those establishments were a bit suspicious of the quantities ordered, the return addresses for them all were far from Hogwarts, to someone named Jack Black, in London.
They didn't know, of course, that all Harry had to do, as an owl, was go to those return addresses, but once there, he was free to pick them back up and continue on to Hogwarts.
It helped that he had perfected his colour-changing charm so that he could appear as a Spotted Brown or Spotted Grey owl. He used the solid Grey for trips on the Knight Bus, at first, but as the other owls started to use the bus, he began to alternate his colouring to throw off suspicions on his behaviour.
The twins were deliriously happy with the spoils he brought them. Buying in bulk was also helpful in that they got better prices on everything, and were able to sell the sweets and more mundane pranks to raise money for their other purchases.
HtB — at Harry's insistence — had generously funded their purchases with the understanding they would pay him back later as a partner in their business when they left Hogwarts. This was outside the funds Harry supplied for certain pranks on selected individuals. Those were his pranks and it would be unfair to expect the twins or HtB to pay for them, he reasoned.
Besides, he wasn't exactly lacking for money, and it was all Death Eater money, anyway!
Snape was not reacting well to the potion the twins were slipping into his goblet. Because their spells registered it as a "helpful medicine", the house-elves were happy to assist. The Professor now sat as far from the half-blood giant as he could get. He even seemed to be trying to time his meals to avoid seeing Hagrid.
That played nicely into the other pranks they had set up. Such as the random trap-spells — "silly walk" and hair-colour charms — on certain tiles in the dungeon corridor floor outside his office and the Potions classroom. Nothing spoils a dramatic entrance more than a silly walk while you're sporting florescent-blue hair. Neither of which you notice unless someone directly tells you. Which no one wants to do when the Professor gets angry and takes points from the messenger, as if the spells were his, or her, fault. Slytherins were spared the point-taking, but not his acid tongue.
Malfoy also fell victim to a few spells keyed to his favourite foods. His were more subtle, as he actually had friends who would warn him when things weren't right. The spells took longer to make themselves apparent, and happened at random intervals. Such as his hair colour slowly turning grey, his eye-colour momentarily flashing red, or the backs of his robes becoming briefly transparent to reveal his pants. They could happen at anytime over a period of days or weeks.
That, of course, didn't take into account his robes being decorated by a certain bird every time he ventured outside the castle.
Harry's favourite one, though, he saved for Professor Lockhart.
It was a spell that caused one to be more truthful in what they said. It could be consciously over-ridden, so it was worthless in a court. But if you were unawares? It was a great party-spell at embarrassing people when they said what they really thought about someone.
Harry had HtB pay a young witch to go up to the Head Table at dinner on Friday when the Headmaster was present. He slyly hit Lockhart with the nearly-transparent spell from above as he walked into the Great Hall that evening. Then, a few minutes later, the girl asked him to autograph one of his books for her to send to her sister. While he was grabbing his quill and setting the book on the table to sign it, she innocently asked, "Did you really do this?"
He started signing his signature with all the loops and curls he usually used. He immediately, and distractedly, said, "Of course not, dear. After I learned all I could from the witch who did do this, she had a hairy chin, you know, I obliviated her. Just like my other books. There you go!" he said as he finished with a flourish of his quill. He blew softly on the signature to dry the ink and handed the open book to her.
Then he looked around at the stunned faces at the Head Table. "What?" he said curiously. He reached up and patted his hair. "Is something wrong?" He looked down at his robe to see if he had spilled anything on it.
Harry recast the spell, reinforcing its effect, followed a moment later with a sonorous. He was carefully balancing on an overhead beam. He was confident no one would notice the spell shooting down from directly above the Head Table. They all would expect a spell to be at floor level — where people were standing or sitting.
"Are all of your books from the experiences of others," asked the Headmaster quietly.
"Naturally!" Lockhart declared, his voice carrying easily across the entire hall. "I merely take credit for the achievements of other wizards and witches. Much easier, and safer, than actually doing anything. Takes less time, too."
Then he frowned, and his eyes narrowed. Harry could see his lips moving as he repeated what he had said to himself. He immediately looked shocked and turned red.
"Oh! I just remembered," he said desperately, "I have an urgent appointment tonight." He turned and rushed to the door at the side of the Head Table, the Professors' entrance to the Great Hall.
He didn't make it.
He was wrapped in ropes and knocked out within three steps.
The Headmaster looked across the hall as he floated the unconscious professor before him out the door. "Starting Monday, and until I find a replacement, Defence Against the Dark Arts classes are to be continued at their regular times. In class, you will quietly read Miranda Goshawk's Standard Book of Spells for your year. A sixth- or seventh-year student shall supervise the lower years. He or she will assign the chapters to be read, the assignments, and grading them, as needed."
Later that evening, Harry gleefully watched as Lockhart, in chains, was removed from the castle by aurors. Lockhart, being a half-blood, would quickly be given veritaserum when he arrived back at the Ministry. By morning, they'd have a full confession of all his misdeeds, as well as a full accounting of the wizards and witches he obliviated.
There would be no jail time besides time-served after they investigated the charges, Harry was sure. Lockhart's fortune and income from the books, however, would be seized and handed over to his victims. Unfortunately, the corrupt Ministry would probably take a large portion of that as a "fine."
The most important part, though, was that Lockhart's reputation would be in tatters. His desire to be in the limelight would leave him in despair as everyone ignored him. He would be forever relegated to history as a fraud, not worthy of anyone's time. In five years, no one would ever remember him.
The perfect revenge on a self-important, puffed-up, magpie pretending to be a peacock, whose only desire was to be on the front-page of The Daily Prophet.
Someone who would have killed two children and allowed a third to die just to get a new book published.
-===(o|o)===-
The Golden Trio loved their new "clubroom", especially after Harry had learned the trick to getting it to open a door directly from the clubroom to anywhere else in the castle. Thus, concentrating on a door to the library created a door in the clubroom wall that opened directly to the library without having to go into the Room of Requirement, first. He immediately taught HtB the trick, who then taught it to Ron and Hermione.
That kept the actual Room of Requirement as Harry's secret!
They no longer had to worry about staying late and getting into trouble for being out after curfew. The clubroom's Gryffindor door opened to inside the portal through the wall behind the Fat Lady's portrait, so it always looked like they were coming in from the corridor outside. Similarly, the library door was opened deep in the library stacks where no one could see it.
Their Parseltongue vocabulary had expanded. Stay, come, wait, you, me, him, her, up, down, left, right, quiet, tree, wood, stone, leaf, flat, attack, and flee were all understood. The snakes they summoned insisted they had terrible accents, but were understandable. The other words Hermione, Ron, and Harry still had varying successes with. HtB had no such difficulties, though.
He was having rather spotty success with the endeavour at creating doors to the clubroom. Sometimes an owl-door opened and not a regular door. Once he got the castle to consistently cooperate, he wanted to create a permanent third door to the kitchens.
If it all worked as he hoped, the Room of Requirement being used by someone would not disable the doorways from the clubroom to the other parts of the castle, and back.
He had the feeling it would take more than a few days — and probably closer to a year or two.
But totally worth it!
-===(o|o)===-
At breakfast, one Monday, the students knew something was up. There was a new person sitting at the Head Table, and, unusually, the Headmaster was also there.
Harry was hopping from one foot to another in joy. He recognized the wizard as soon as he saw him. Perhaps, now, he could get the git to help HtB! If the man didn't start paying attention to the boy, Harry intended to set the twins on him. They would be overjoyed at meeting one of their heroes, especially if they managed to prank him.
The stranger wore an extremely shabby set of wizard's robes that had been darned in several places. He had a pale face with premature lines, sported a thin moustache, and looked ill and exhausted. His light brown hair was flecked with grey, which they took to mean he was quite old.
The Headmaster stood partway through the meal, and tapped his goblet. "Thank you for your attention," he said softly, "I would like you all to welcome our new Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor, Professor Remus Lupin."
The man stood and nodded to the students as the Headmaster politely clapped his hands. Hesitantly, the student joined in.
They quickly discovered in class, later that same day, that he knew his stuff! By the end of the day's lesson, he had taught them more than Lockhart had managed in the three weeks that he was their Professor. By then end of next month, he promised they would have covered everything they were supposed have covered, and be caught up with the curriculum for the class. Then things in class would not be as intense as they were.
The talk in the Common Room that evening revealed that the upper years were just as impressed with Professor Lupin.
-===(o|o)===-
Partway through October, Harry started watching Luna at mealtimes. At first, she seemed alright. However, it quickly became apparent that she didn't have any friends. No one ever deliberately sat beside her. There was always an empty spot beside her, the only reason someone would sit there was to talk to the other person seated on the other side of the empty space, turning their back on her.
After a few days, he dropped done to the Ravenclaw table, and held out the message he had typed.
"Hello, my name is Hedwig. I am Harry Potter's owl. How are you doing today? Do you like your classes? If you have any trouble with any of them, I know Hermione Granger or Harry would be happy to help you.
"If you have any trouble finding your shoes, or clothes, ask Pitts, the house-elf, if they are still in laundry. If they aren't there, then ask him if he could find them for you because they are missing from your trunk. If any of your other belongings . . . disappear . . ., tell Professor Flitwick that you suspect the nargles are taking you things because they have disappeared from your trunk, although Pitts, the house-elf, can always find them. The Professor should be able to put a stop to it.
"If he can't, go to Harry and ask for his help.
"In the meantime, tell me about your classes . . ., if you don't mind, that is."
Luna gave him a long, puzzled look after reading his note. He just stared back, with his head slightly tilted.
She nodded. "Well, my favourite class is Charms . . .," she started and began telling him which classes she found easiest and which she did not. Gradually, she began to talk about the things she saw that others said didn't exist. Blibbering humdingers, Nargles, and Wrackspurts were just the beginning.
He was rather startled to realize that he had missed hearing her talk about those creatures. It had taken him years to decipher what she meant. It was only when he had thought back to when she had used those terms, and where she was when she did so, that he had begun to understand what she was really saying. Blibbering humdingers, for example, hung around gossipy girls, Nargles inspired people to be mischievous thieves, and Wrackspurts clouded people's thinking.
Luna was not a confrontational person. Blaming invisible creatures for the actions of the intolerant was her way of coping. There was the possibility that the creatures actually existed, based on a story he had read in The Daily Prophet that Fairy Nargles had been spotted on pensioner's wig! Or, maybe, what she saw were artefacts in a person's magical aura that she had mistaken for creatures, and then named them.
In any case, her blaming the creatures for certain actions people made was as good an explanation for what they had done as anything else. Besides, they made a nice set of codewords. If she spotted wrackspurts, it meant someone's thinking was clouded and that they were not thinking as clearly as they should. If nargles were in the air, the person wasn't being honest about something. Blibbering humdingers meant watch out for the gossips overhearing what you were saying — unless you wanted them to overhear you.
Harry occasionally interjected a hooo-uh, kree, or bill-snap as his contribution to the discussion. She handed him an occasional rasher of bacon or banger as she talked and ate. They both ignored the incredulous looks from the other Ravenclaws.
He planned to regularly stop by at meal times, to keep up to date with her problems. He also planned to send an anonymous note to Professor Flitwick that Luna Lovegood used euphemisms such as nargles for thieves, blibbering humdingers for gossips, and wrackspurts for easily confused people or people whose information you couldn't trust.
He also planned to introduce her to Harry, with appropriate warnings about her unusual approach to life. Plus a few words to Hermione about how she had thought magic was fake until her Hogwarts letter arrived. If everything she once had thought was myth was real, then how could she rule out that what the wizards' thought was myth wasn't also real?
Plus, he would add that Luna might be seeing traces of magic that Hermione could not.
-===(o|o)===-
Thinking on his experiences with the Death Eater homes, he would have to amend his plans for the Acromantulas. It would take more time, effort, and firebombs in the forest, and he didn't want any of the spiders, who clustered in the middle of the swarm, to escape. He would have to ask HiB, Ron, and the Weasley twins for help — if he asked Ron, there was no way the twins wouldn't butt-in. The Weasleys would be staying at Hogwarts, anyway,
If they started dropping the bombs at opposite sides of the Hollow claimed by the giant spiders, the spiders wouldn't all rush in one direction to escape. Fortunately, the webbing itself would help the spread the fires laterally from one firebomb location to the next.
He would need a way to mark where the bombs should be dropped, though. It would be dark, which meant trying to see landmarks was right out. That it was a full-moon night would help, but not a lot.
-===(o|o)===-