Thank you to all of my supporters, with a special thank you to my awesome tear supporters: Jo Daviz, Antar Das, LegendaryWasabi, Ibuki Mioda, SvenGTX, Optimum Prime and Jack Schriner. I love you all. what did everyone think of the art on the other fic? because I will be going to the same artist over the next day or two to get the cover art for this fic

as always chapters 34 and 35 are already up on pat re on just go to their webs sight and a /Lowten to their address. and if you sign up this month you won't have to pay anything for the rest of the year. ;D Na but seriously, as its the start of the month now is a good time to sign up and you won't have to pay a penny till January you will also get access to the high-resolution copy of the art for phoenix wand state away and the one for this fic once it is done so probably next week.

Chapter 33

After Christmas, life at Hogwarts fell back into the routine of classes and preparing for the next task of the tournament. Harry had a few ideas on runic inventions that would help with the task, so that was taking up most of his free time. He was just lucky that Hermione considered sitting quietly with her feet in his lap while he sketched and resketeched runic arrays as 'quality time'. They had written to Dan and Emma and had them send him a few sketch pads and pencils. It was a lot easier to change something he had gotten wrong when you just had to rub out a pencil mark rather than trying to vanish the exact bit of ink that was the mistake. The spell-vanishing ink was made with essays in mind, not runes written in circles.

That wasn't to say that there was no drama; they hadn't been back two days when Rita Skeeter had struck again. After she had revealed the private details of Harry's past to all of wizarding Britain, Harry and Hermione's opinion of the woman had soured a bit. They had always known the kind of woman she was, but it just wasn't as much fun after she had revealed what Harry wanted kept secret. And now she had gone after Hagrid and Madame Maxime.

Hogwarts' giant problem

Dumbledore's tenure as Headmaster of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry has never been without controversy. He has had to hire a record breaking twenty-seven different Defence Against the Dark Arts professors, including ones who have had inappropriate relationships with students, professors who barely know the subject, and now a half-crazy, notoriously pardoned ex-Auror Alastor 'Mad-Eye' Moody to teach the subject. This, however, is nothing compared to the two half giants that are currently in positions of authority over our youth.

The first is the groundskeeper and Care of Magical Creatures professor, Rubeus Hagrid. We can now confirm that he was born to none other than the giantess Fridwulfa, who was a part of the Giant Rebellion of 1931 where she killed six Aurors and five civilians. Hagrid himself has lost his wand privileges, as while at Hogwarts he was found to be keeping a monster as a pet that escaped and killed a first year by the name of Myrtle Warren. As Hagrid lost his wand privileges in his fourth year, he never completed his O.W.L.s, and as such we here at the Daily Prophet must question the man's qualifications to teach not just this subject but any of the subjects currently offered at Britain's best school of magical education. The second half giant is actually the head of one of Europe's greatest schools. Madame Olympe Maxime, the headmistress of France's Académie de Magie Beauxbâtons (Beauxbatons Academy of Magic) is in fact a half giant as well, though in her case both of her parents were half giants rather than one giant and one human.

Giants are notoriously brutal and not particularly intelligent; while outwitting a troll is something that won't pose a giant to much trouble, most of them have trouble understanding words of more than two syllables, and long sentences will just confuse them. Given this, it boggles the mind that anyone would consider employing someone burdened with giant blood to teach...

Harry handed the paper back to Hermione, who passed it to Fleur. "What are we going to do about it?" Harry asked as Fleur was reading the paper, her expression darkening the further she got.

Hermione turned back to him. "I'm not sure there is anything we can do, there is too much truth in the article. Hagrid did get expelled in his fourth year, he hasn't got any formal qualifications, and you can tell just by looking at them that they have some giant heritage. The problem is witches and wizards have the same prejudices against giants as they have against lycanthropy sufferers. They are afraid of them." She tried to calm Harry.

Her words were reasonable, but Harry was having none of it. "We can't just do nothing, Hermione, Rita is practically accusing Hagrid of being out to kill the students. He wasn't responsible for Myrtle's death, we proved that in our second year. It's not right that it is still used against him." The anger in his voice was evident.

"We should speak with Madame Maxime." Fleur spoke up after she had finished reading the article. "She has experience fighting for the rights of people who aren't considered fully human. It is one of the reasons people on my mother's side of the family hold her in such high esteem. If anyone will know how to handle this, it's her." Fleur's trust and respect in her headmistress was evident in her tone, and Harry was reminded of when he and Hermione used to see Dumbledore that way. However, since Fleur had come into their lives, their image of Dumbledore had started to crumble as it was revealed to be nothing but a fragile veneer covering a lot of bad decisions.

Deciding that it was worth giving up a little of their training time to go see Madame Maxime straight away, else they might be too distracted to train, Fleur led them down to the Beauxbatons carriage. Harry had never been in there before and was surprised by just how roomy it was inside. The inside was decorated in the same French style that he had seen in the French Ministry of Magic: a lot of whites and creams accented in gold, and it gave the brightly lit rooms an open spacious feeling.

It turned out that Madame Maxime wasn't in the carriage, but one of Fleur's classmates pointed her towards where the Beauxbatons winged horses were being kept. They went to look where Fleur's classmate indicated, but didn't find Madame Maxime with her horses either; instead, she was bashing on Hagrid's front door. "Hagrid, stop being ridiculous and open the door!" The literal giant of a woman shouted as she banged on the door, but there was no reply from inside save the excited barking of Hagrid's dog Fang.

Harry considered just leaving and letting the woman deal with Hagrid, but Hermione didn't seem to agree with his idea. She set herself and matched right up to Hagrid's door, and with a quick "Excuse me" to the foreign headmistress, Hermione started knocking on the door. "Hagrid! It's Hermione, stop wallowing in your self pity and open this door. I don't care who your mother, father, or even who your second cousin thrice removed is! No one gets to choose who their relatives are. So stop your sulking, and we will help you sort this out." Madame Maxime had looked like she wanted to stop Hermione at first but seemed to change her mind halfway through Hermione's rant.

Hagrid, however, remained silent and didn't open the door. Hermione didn't accept that. "Hagrid, open this door or I will!" He didn't, so she did. First, she tried Alohomora, but that didn't work. Apparently Hagrid had made it so his door wasn't susceptible to a first year spell. So Hermione used a spell Harry had never heard of before ("Bombarda!") and blw the door off of its hinges. Inside, Hagrid was sitting in one of his over-large chairs, just staring at a bucket-sized mug of tea. He hadn't reacted to Hermione blowing the door off its hinges more than to just look over at Hermione for a couple of seconds and give a muttered hello.

Harry, Hermione and Madame Maxime all went to start comforting Hagrid while Fleur, not knowing the man very well, decided not to introduce herself and instead focused on repairing the door. "Rubeus, you can't stay hidden away like this. Your students here seem to have no problem with our heritage, Dumblydore has already told me your job is safe, and nobody who knows you will care one bit about the lies printed in that rag," Madame Maxime said as she sat across from Hagrid.

Hermione took Hagrid's third chair, but sat to the one side as the chair in question was wide enough for the three teenagers to share. "Madame Maxime is right, Hagrid. You have nothing to fear, and hiding away like this will just make people think you should be hidden away." Hermione comforted the man. During this, Harry had been busying himself making everyone a cup of tea. He filled Hagrid's copper kettle from the barrel of drinking water Hagrid kept outside his door and hung it over the fire to boil. While he waited for the water, Harry set about cleaning cups and locating Hagrid's stash of tea bags.

Hagrid finally spoke, startling everyone as he had been essentially silent until now. "You don' understand. Everyone knows now, they will be looking for any reason ta come after me. Then it'll be just like a few years ago. I won' even do anything then it will be back ta Azkaban. No trial, no defence, just taken away in the middle of the night, not even a chance ta say goodbye." Hagrid's voice was monotone and lacked any of the big man's usual warmth.

Fleur and Madame Maxime looked shocked at Hagrid when he admitted being sent to Azkaban without a trial. Harry and Hermione, though, were kicking themselves for not remembering that little fact, Harry more so than Hermione as she at least had the excuse that she was petrified at the time. Madame Maxime looked scandalised. "Surely not! They couldn't send someone to that hell without a trial, without evidence!"

Everyone was surprised when Harry laughed. After a few moments, he got himself under control and turned to Madame Maxime. "You obviously don't understand the British Ministry, they gave my godfather to the Dementors for thirteen years without a trial, and as for evidence, the wizard he was accused of killing, they didn't even have a body because the man is still alive. I actually asked an Auror last year how they could send Hagrid to prison without a trial, and he said they could do it because Hagrid has a conviction on record and didn't need a trial. The best part? Hagrid didn't even do the crime he has a record for. The Ministry didn't even bother to get a statement from the poor girl's ghost about how she died. They just pinned it all on Hagrid because he had an acromantula as a pet," By the end of it, Harry was ranting and his raised voice was joined by the screaming of the kettle whistle. "...no one even bothered to check if an acromantula had a way to petrify people, as that was what most victims suffered before Myrtle died. Not a mark on any victim, and the Ministry blamed it on the acromantula who kills with venomous fangs! No, it was a bloody giant basilisk that was left there until it started going after students again in our second year."

Madame Maxime was stunned but she latched on to one bit of information. "Monsieur Potter, are you saying there is a basilisk in this school? If so, I need to get my students away from here."

Hermione laughed, but it wasn't a happy laugh. "The basilisk is dead now. Harry took exception to it petrifying me and killed it."

That shocked Madame Maxime into silence. The teens expected that; learning that an unqualified boy of 12 killed a basilisk tended to do that. What surprised them was that Hagrid was just as surprised. "Wa? But Dumbledore only said that you had found the chamber," he nodded to Hermione then to Harry. "And you were able to open the chamber with parseltongue. He never said that you were the one who killed it."

Madame Maxime broke in with another more pressing question from her point of view. "How does a second year kill a basilisk?" She sounded like she had just been shown that two plus two equals Zee and was trying to wrap her brain around the concept.

Seeing that they would all need an explanation before they could return to the matter of helping Hagrid, Harry explained everything from his point of view. He told them about the diary, about his fight with Tom, about the basilisk, even about getting a fang in the arm and being saved by Fawkes. That Harry had barely avoided dying seemed to help Madame Maxime slightly; it wasn't that she liked the idea of Harry almost dying, but it did make more sense to her than the idea that a twelve year old could battle such a creature and just walk away from it. During his explanation Harry had finished making the tea, and after passing it out he was now on Hagrid's third chair sandwiched between Hermione and Fleur, who had both already heard the story of the basilisk before (though not in as much detail in Fleur's case) and they were now hugging the life out of him. "But as interesting as all that is, how is it going to help deal with that article?" Harry asked when he finished his tail.

That got everyone thinking, including Hagrid. Apparently listening to Harry tell a tale of fighting a monster had given the man something else to focus on, and while he wasn't happy he wasn't just moping anymore. After a few minutes Madame Maxime spoke up. "You have a working relationship with this journalist, don't you Harry?" She seemed to have an idea.

Harry waved his hand in a yes/no/maybe sort of way. "We did, then she went behind my back and published a piece on what my life was like when I lived with my relatives. I haven't spoken to her since."

"Maybe you should. I read the article you are referring to and the woman, while going behind your back and publishing what you would want to keep private, also went out of her way to defend you in that article. Do you think that she would be interested in a story about a fifty year old murder, a wrongful conviction, and a second case in as many months of someone being sent to Azkaban without a trial?" Madame Maxime asked after taking a sip of her tea with 12 teaspoons of sugar in it, though Harry was unsure of how sweet that actually was given how much larger the cups were than the regular ones.

Harry snorted. "She would love it, especially with the part about Tom Riddle the half blood being Voldemort." Only Hagrid shuddered at the name, Hermione having grown used to it and the French witches never having developed a fear of a name that was made with bad French.

"Well, if that article comes out then it will draw attention to the inconsistency of the previous article and that will call the whole article into question. It will also give the public something else to focus on," Madame Maxime explained.

Harry sighed. He really didn't want to talk to Rita yet, but as they talked more he realised it was probably his best chance to help Hagrid. He hadn't even realised he had made up his mind until Hedwig came flying in through Hagrid's open window and perched herself on the back of Harry's chair waiting to take a letter. Defeated, Harry borrowed some ink and parchment from Hagrid and wrote a note to Rita asking her to come to the school, as he had a potential story for her and gave it to Hedwig to deliver.

Half an hour later, just as Harry, Hermione, and Fleur were leaving, Madame Maxime tapped Harry on the shoulder late enough that Fleur and Hermione wouldn't see him hold back a few moments. He turned to her with a questioning look on his face, but she just smiled reassuringly and in a low voice asked, "Has Fleur mentioned it's her birthday this month?"

Harry shook his head. "No, she hasn't."

Madame Maxime smiled. "Well, it's on the 28th. Do what you like with that information."

Harry nodded and darted off to catch up with his girls, not even noticing that he had thought of Fleur as his, something that would have been unthinkable two months ago.

Rita turned up at the school that weekend. Things between her and the trio were a little frosty at first, but it was also obvious that she didn't expect much else after she had published her story behind Harry's back. Rita didn't apologise for what she had done, but had said that she felt that she had no choice after learning what Dumbledore had done as it called into question his suitability to run a school. Grudgingly, Harry accepted that she had a point and then told her about his second year. She was very interested in the fact that 'He Who She Wouldn't Name' was in fact a halfblood and not a pureblood as everyone believed. Given that he was using a mundane statutory rather than a wizarding equivalent, he was what Harry had taken to calling a cultural first-generation: someone (like himself) who, while having magical parents, grew up not knowing about magic and is left with the same understanding as any other first generation magical. Or, as the blood purists called them, muggleborn and mudblood.

She was also very interested in the fact that Hagrid had been sent to Azkaban without a trial by Minister Fudge. The story that Fudge had put out after the trial of Sirius was that it was his administration cleaning up a mess that was left behind by the previous one and that no-one under his administration would have not been given their rights. That Hagrid was wrongfully convicted wasn't as interesting to Rita, but it was her in for the more fascinating and sensational articles, such as the fact that the Boy-Who-Lived had taken on a basilisk single handed at the age of twelve. At first she had insisted on going to the Chamber of Secrets to see the monster for herself, but decided to just send her photographer down once she saw that getting there involved sliding down an old grimy pipe.

Harry took the man down and opened the door to the chamber, expecting a horrible odor of rotten flesh, but was surprised when he saw that the snake looked exactly the same as when he had last seen it. When he had touched the body, it was as hard as stone; apparently basilisks, or at least ones this old, petrified when they died instead of rotting. Bozo took a few photos of the snake, most of which had Harry standing next to it. Once they were done in the chamber and had used brooms to fly back out, Rita and Bozo left, both looking rather happy with themselves. Harry told Hermione and Fleur about how the basilisk had petrified instead of decomposing and Hermione thought it was poetic justice.

-ϟϟϟ-

Harry and Hermione spent the best part of January, when they weren't focused on the tournament, sneaking behind Ali's back. It wasn't that they didn't want to be hang around when they had the time, quite the contrary actually, but they were focused on putting together something for the girl's birthday. Ali was going to turn eighteen, a huge milestone. Because of that Harry and Hermione couldn't let it pass unmarked. There was surprisingly a lot to do. First, they needed to talk with Fleur for a list of Ali's friends who had come to Hogwarts, then they needed to talk with those friends about some of Ali's likes and dislikes, and they had to decide what exactly they were going to do to celebrate, including planning how they would decorate. It may not sound like too much, but doing that while Still finding time to train for the tournament made everything that much harder.

In the end, what they decided to do for Ali was pretty similar to what Harry did for Hermione, though for different reasons. For Hermione, he had put together something to remind her of holidays in France, for Alison it was a reminder of her home. Harry had resisted at first, not wanting to do for Ali a copy of what he did for Hermione. They were their own people, and he also didn't want to cheapen what he had done for Hermione. Hermione, though, had talked him around, saying that it was just something she and Ali had in common. The biggest changes were that Ali's party was going to have quite a few more people than Hermione's celebration did.

During the time they were planning, Rita's new articles came out. While it did mention that Hagrid was innocent of the crime he was kicked out of Hogwarts for, it focused more on the fact that an innocent man was given to the Dementors with no trial and evidence that was at best circumstantial, and that Harry Potter had been left to face off against a 1000 year old basilisk on his own. Madame Maxime was right, in that the public switched all interest away from a couple of giants at Hogwarts to the fact that there was a creature as dangerous as a basilisk in the school for so long and that the Ministry was sending people to the Dementors without trial. People were terrified that they would get caught up in something, not even do anything illegal, and be sent to that hell without any chance to defend themselves. Harry heard from the twins (who heard it from Percy) that the Minister for Magic was cursing Harry and Skeeter for the article. He had apparently been sent a bunch of Howlers over it and was now opening an enquiry into every prisoner in Azkaban to make sure that there were no more in there without a trial.

The twenty-eighth finally arrived, and after a morning in the library where Fleur and Hermione researched useful spells and Harry put the final touches to the runic arrays for tools he had in mind for the second task. Instead of going down to lunch, however, they made their way up to the room of Requirement to make the final arrangements for Ali's party. Daphne and Tracy arrived the same time as them to help prepare the room, the two Slytherins had been using the Room almost as much as Harry and Hermione had last year so had plenty of practice with setting up the room.

-ϟϟϟ-

Ali was lead into the Room by her teammates, as much as they were pretending ought wise she had worked out that Harry and Hermione had done something for her birthday, why else would they be leading her to the same room that they had all those their impromptu relaxation party the evening before the first task?

So when ali opened the door and found the room filled with all her friends who were here at Hogwarts yelling "surprendre!" [surprise!], she truly wasn't but had expected it enough to put on a convincing act. The room was set up as a large hall, maybe twice the size of a classroom, and there were windows all around that seemed like they looked out on her hometown of Nice. In fact now that she looked it appeared to be the view from the hotel were her father worked. On the south wall there was the view of the coast, with the view of the mountains on the opposing north wall. She even found she could make out where her home was.

Ali turned around to face Harry and Hermione. She pulled the two of them into a hug and started to give them each kisses on the cheek, not air kisses next to the cheek but actually kissing them, and between each kiss she said "Thank you."

Once she was done thanking Harry and Hermione, all her friends from Beauxbatons, including Fleur, Marie, Alexandre, and Justine, as well as her new friends from Hogwarts that she had met through Harry and Hermione like Neville, Daphne, Tracey, Fred, and George all came over to wish her a happy birthday. Ali enjoyed everyone wishing her a good day, but was happy when it was over so she could take the opportunity to grab something from the table laden with food. She looked over what was offered and picked a slice of quiche that she devoured as quickly as manners would allow.

The group spent most of the day in the Room of Requirement, having fun and being the teenagers that they were. Dobby kept the table of food topped up, and in the evening as Ali and some of her friends were of age the little elf had even provided some wine, so all twelve of them were a little tipsy by the end of the night. The party was broken up half an hour before curfew by McGonagall, who pretended that she didn't see any of the empty wine bottles that were lying around. As no one looked like they were to drunk.

A/N

How I got 27 defence professors. LV died at 71, so in 4th year he is about 68. He applied to be the defence professor when he graduated from Hogwarts and again just over two decades later. So 18 to leave school plus 20 is 38 plus two to make it 'more than two decades. So 68yo - 40 = 28-1 because we are in the middle of the year.

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