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Chapter 11
Harry read over the letter he had gotten from Sirius again. After the attack on Harry's relatives, the Grangers were all for stepping up their home security to deal with any wayward wizards in masks that may try to come calling. For now, Sirius had moved in with them while he had his old family home in London redone to make it livable for regular people. Sirius would keep them as safe as possible while he was living there, but as it was a mundane home he was limited in what wards he could put up.
Once his childhood house was fixed up, the Grangers would move in there and would be safe, and the only disruption to them would be a slightly longer commute to work. Also, Emma would have to catch her soap operas on the middle-of-the-day repeat in the office, because Sirius's childhood home didn't have electricity. There was some question about what to do with the Grangers' house. They didn't want to rent it out, because if the house was attacked then it would be just like they had killed the renters, so they would need to leave the house empty, which was also galling as they would still need to pay the council tax on the house until they were sure that they could move back in.
The main reason for the letter was to tell Harry and Hermione that they wouldn't be able to go to London this Christmas. The Granger house, with its lack of strong wards, would be way too tempting a target for the Death Eaters if Harry was there, or even if Hermione was there. It was obvious to anyone that if Voldemort had Hermione as bait instead of the Dursleys, Harry would walk right into any trap that was set. Harry didn't mind where they got together: London, Hogsmeade or even in a muggle tent in the woods. He only cared about who was there with them. Hermione was a little disappointed, as after last year she was looking forward to traditional Granger Christmas, but she agreed with Harry that the right people being there was more important than anything else. Besides, she confessed to Harry that the Potter house was starting to feel like her home as well; if things went the way they wanted it to, then it would be just as much Hermione's (and Fleur's) as it was Harry's.
The question Harry had to answer for himself, however, was should he invite Dudley? On one hand, it would definitely serve the git right to need to stay at school because there was no one outside it who wanted him. On the other hand, it would give Harry the opportunity to see if Dudley would be willing to be civil without any commitment beyond a few weeks before he went back to school. Or he could completely ruin Christmas for everyone. More importantly for him now, though, was how he was going to handle Christmas for Tracey. She also was in the same position of having her first Christmas without her family, Harry would have to talk to Daphne and see if she had any plans with Tracey this Christmas. If Daphne had invited her to spend the break at the Greengrasses, or maybe given how Daphne's grandfather Warlock Greengrass had reacted to Tracey, Daphne was planning to remain at the castle with Tracey so they could pretend everything was fine. Luckily, the idea of having at least seven and maybe up to eleven people in the house for Christmas was one that Dobby and Sassy would love. Harry was just glad that the house was substantially bigger on the inside, or it would be impossible for everyone to fit.
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It was a few days before everyone was leaving for Christmas when Umbridge finally managed to corner Hermione for something: bumping into her while walking around a corner. Harry knew that was what happened because it was partly his fault, he and Hermione were talking and she was looking at him and not where she was going. Of course, bumps like that happen all the time at Hogwarts and probably most other schools on the planet. Most people brushed it off, apologised to each other, and forgot about it to move on with their day. Umbridge, however, was determined to launch an all-out attack on Hermione.
She grabbed Hermione and dragged her to her office while going on about how Hermione was going to be expelled for attacking her so brazenly in the hallways. Harry and Hermione both protested that is was a simple accident and couldn't possibly be considered an attack, but Umbridge merely told them in her sickly sweet voice of hers that "it is the school inspector and the Ministry who would decide if something was or wasn't an attack, and as Miss Granger struck me I am well within my rights to declare that an attack."
They only stayed at Umbridge's office for a few moments as she picked up a form from her desk drawer, then they were off up to the headmistress office. The entire way Harry was trying to work out a way out of this, only thinking of one thing and hoping it would be enough. The gargoyle slid aside at their approach and Harry tried to give a worried Hermione. Umbridge stopped right outside the headmistress's door and, after straightening her pink on pink on pink robes, she knocked and waited for Professor McGonagall to invite her in. That surprised Harry, as Umbridge didn't strike Harry as the sort of person who showed courtesy to anyone she considered lower than herself in the pecking order. This implied that Professor McGonagall may actually be of some help.
Umbridge marched Hermione into the round room ignoring Harry who walked in behind the two, having had to let Hermione and Umbridge up the spiral stairs leading to the office first just because of how little room there was on those stairs. Umbridge slammed down the piece of parchment she had brought from her office down on Professor McGonagall's desk. "This beast just attacked me in the hallway, under the provisions of the last educational decree I demand that she be expelled from Hogwarts, her wand snapped, her memories wiped, and as she poses to great a risk to the Statute of Secrecy, shipped off to a magical animal preserve."
Umbridge sounded so smug as she said that Harry wanted to hex her, but knew if he was to do that then Umbridge would actually have a legitimate case to pursue him with. "Professor McGonagall, as Warlock of the House of Potter, I dispute this charge and, as is my right, I call for arbitration before the Wizengamot. Now I have informed you of this, any move to follow through with the demands of the school inspector would legally be considered witness tampering." There weren't many rights Harry had as an underage Warlock, but the right to call for arbitration was one of them.
Harry saw as comprehension of what he was doing passed over both Hermione's and McGonagall's faces, as well as the sheer panic leaving Hermione as she settled into extreme anxiety and Professor McGonagall giving Harry a warm look for a second before she turned to Umbridge. "Looks like my hands are tied, Delores. Mr Potter is correct that now he has called for arbitration there is nothing I can do until the Wizengamot determines if Miss Granger is guilty. Unless you think your ministerial decree trumps the laws of the Wizengamot?"
Harry wasn't done yet, and he had no intention of having Hermione stressed until the Wizengamot found the time to hear the case. He still had a few cards to play. "I have two questions, professor," she nodded for him to continue. "First, unless convicted of a crime, I believe it's only legal to snap a wand and wipe a student's memory if they are a muggleborn with no avenue for alternative magical education. Is that right?" The headmistress confirmed it was, and Harry let out a sigh of relief. That meant that in the worst case scenario Hermione would leave and be at Beauxbatons with Fleur. It wasn't ideal, but it was a good safety net and it gave Harry the room to move that he wanted. "Secondly headmistress, I was wondering if you know anyone who has a pensive. Tonks told me about how the D.M.L.E. collect memories and review them when investigating a case and I saw exactly what happened."
Harry had to keep from smirking as Umbridge butted in. "I think you will find, Mr. Potter, that memories are not permitted evidence before the Wizengamot. Memories are too easily altered for them to be considered reliable."
He still let the anger he was feeling at how this toad had treated Hermione and Fleur seep into his voice. "Who said anything about showing the memory to the Wizengamot? I was going to show it to every reporter in the country. I will fill the papers with stories about how the school inspector is abusing her authority to attack Triwizard champion Granger. How you are taking a simple bump in the hallway, an accident that happens to students every day, to further your own delusion of what makes a person worthy of respect. I will show them your pattern of attacking both my betrothed partners and have the papers question why the Ministry is letting one of its employees abuse the power the Ministry gives them to try and destroy the family I am building for myself. And when I'm done, the only job you'll ever be considered for at the Ministry is mopping the floors." The most impressive part was that Harry had managed to say all that without raising his voice.
Harry didn't know this, but the look he gave Umbridge was the same look he gave Voldemort as they duelled. It was a look that said he was going to do everything he could to destroy the person. Umbridge in that moment could easily see Harry whipping out his wand and sending a cutting curse at her neck like he tried to do to Voldemort. "And if I drop the allegation?" she asked carefully.
Unfortunately, if Umbridge dropped the allegation the press wouldn't have any interest in the story. A Ministry stooge throwing their weight around and nothing happening isn't going to sell any newspapers. Maybe if Harry could still call the arbitration he could get them interested, but if Umbridge dropped the accusation there would also be no case to arbitrate. It was a stalemate, and Harry could see Umbridge work it out as he did. She knew that as long as she withdrew the accusation then Harry was stuck, the only way he could retaliate was if he were to attack her himself and that just wasn't going to work.
Harry was livid inside. He wanted to crush the toad for threatening his Hermione, a thousand ideas warring with each other where he could get even. Some were petty, and some were disturbingly permanent, but all of them would cause more trouble than they were worth. After all, Harry couldn't protect Hermione if he was on the run from the authorities. He ended up walking from the headmistress's office with an adrenaline-crashing Hermione tucked under his arm as she cried into his chest.
-ϟϟϟ-
It was a subdued Harry that took Hermione and Tracey to his Hogsmeade home for Christmas. Originally Daphne was going to stay at the castle and she and Tracey were going to try and have the best Christmas they possibly could. However, Daphne's father had sent her a letter at the last minute saying she had to go home, apparently her grandfather (the Warlock of the House of Greengrass) had demanded her presence at Christmas this year. This had Daphne on edge, because as far as she could work out it could only be bad news for her that he wanted to deliver in person. That of course had all of them worried, but it had Tracey really stressed, and as she was also upset at the fact that this was her first Christmas as an orphan, the poor girl was rather depressed.
Harry was also still pissed off about Umbridge and her attempt on Hermione. He couldn't get past the fact that she had called Hermione a beast and intended to ship her off to a magical creature preserve. She had tried to do that to Hermione and she had essentially gotten away with it, Harry's blood was boiling over it. To a lesser extent, he was also annoyed at Sirius and Amelia's concerns over his safety. Harry was told not to risk taking a carriage from the school to his Hogsmeade house because he would be way too tempting a target for the Death Eaters.
Harry didn't know where Sirius was getting his intel, but Voldemort was having some trouble with getting his recruits back. It was one thing to flock to a suddenly returned and powerful lord, but too many of his men had seen the result of Harry's duel, whether live or plastered all of their newspapers. Their invincible and immortal lord had run from a teenager who had taken his arm. Sirius had told Harry about an old saying, "If you can make a god bleed, he ceases to be a god." That seemed to be holding true for Voldemort, with a lot of his people having become disillusioned with his image. When added to the immediate step up from the D.M.L.E., the result was Voldemort's new campaign of terror getting off to a crawling start. There were more than a few of the Death Eaters (and apparently Voldemort himself) who thought that if Harry was to be killed by Voldemort then it would restore at least some of that image. That was why they had gone after the Dursleys; they needed to kill Harry if they wanted people to be as afraid of Voldemort and his Death Eaters now as they were at the height of the blood war.
So, Harry was using his family gift to step from the castle to his home, making a trip each for Hermione and Tracey as he couldn't take two people with him, or at least not two fifteen or sixteen year olds. It meant revealing his family magic to Tracey but he trusted her. However, one final reason that he felt like this Christmas was going to be the worst he had ever experienced was that Dudley had agreed to spending the holiday with Harry. Apparently the idea of staying at Smeltings where everyone would pity him was worse than even spending a few weeks in Harry's company. All in all, it was as if the universe had conspired to give him what was the worst Christmas ever.
Dobby and Sassy were in charge of bringing their luggage from the castle, so all he had to do was step Hermione and Tracey. Almost as soon as they arrived, all the teens were grabbed in warm and comforting hugs. Dan claimed his daughter for a hug, Sirius pulled Harry into one, and Emma grabbed Tracey. Harry could just hear Emma offer her condolences to Tracey and offer to help in any way she could. As he felt the support of his godfather and watched as Hermione switched from hugging her father to her grandmother, he felt maybe this wouldn't be his worst Christmas ever.
Fleur wasn't at the house yet, as it would take some time for her to get there from France. After all, even if Portkeys and Floo were quick, bureaucracy was never anything but painfully slow. So even though Fleur was leaving Beauxbatons the same day and she was an hour ahead in France, she still had to get through both the French and British ministry. Plus, Fleur would have to wait for the scheduled portkey from France to Britain, and he had no clue what time that was. Luckily for Harry, Dudley wasn't going to be getting there until the next day, when he and Sirius would need to go collect him from outside King's Cross Station. Everyone settled in and started catching up while they waited for Fleur, with Sassy serving everyone a mulled apple juice that was delicious and festive along with setting out a plate of mince pies.
Tracey hadn't really spoken in depth with Sirius before, even though he was her new guardian. The two spent ten minutes being awkward with each other, as Sirius didn't have any frame of reference on how to connect with a teenage girl as a full grown man, and Tracey was too aware that she was talking to Warlock Black, who held a hereditary seat on the Wizengamot. Eventually Harry took pity on the two and told Tracey that, despite the fact that Sirius was the Warlock of the Black family, she needed to remember he was a Gryffindor who never grew up. He also told Sirius that Tracey was nuts for Quidditch and wasn't the stereotypical teen girl who was only interested in makeup, hair charms, and dress robes. That got the two to relax a little, and while Harry didn't think they would be as close as he and Sirius had gotten, it looked like they would get along fine.
It wasn't until early evening that Fleur Floo'ed into the Potter house, and if it wasn't for a mirror call Hermione had gotten earlier from the French witch telling them that there were some delays in the British ministry then they would have started to worry. The blond Veela found herself sandwiched between her two betrotheds as soon as they saw her; speaking almost daily but it was no substitute for an extended amount of time in each other's company.
"So what was the big delay in the Ministry?" Sirius asked Fleur once Harry and Hermione had left her mouth free for talking instead of kissing.
"Someone was apparently killed by a snake in the Ministry this morning. They were searching the building for the snake and weren't letting anyone leave. Some of the aurors were even talking like it might have been a murder," Fleur told them. "Oh, and Auror Tonks told me to tell you all she says hello."
"Why would a snake attack be considered murder?" asked Emma, who had stepped up to give Fleur a hug. After they had spent a lot of the summer together the two women got along quite well.
"I'm not sure," Fleur admitted. "I just overheard a few conversations. Maybe because the snake can't be found? Maybe they think someone summoned one and dismissed it? I know they were checking some wands. I was fine as I wasn't in the country yet, I was just waiting for them to open the Floo again."
Harry remembered the only lesson in duelling he had ever had and how Malfoy had summoned a snake and how it had been destroyed just as quickly. It would be a particularly Slytherin tactic, and someone who was a Parselmouth like him or Voldemort would have a particularly easy time using such simple spells to murder someone. Did this mean Voldemort had gone to the Ministry? And if he had, was he there to murder the man or was he there to do something else and who ever the poor soul was he had just gotten in the way?
He tried to think of the people he knew who worked in the Ministry. There were Tonks and Director Bones, but Fleur had spoken to Tonks and she had also referred to the victim as a he, so Director Bones was fine. There were Mr. Weasley and Percy, but Harry had trouble thinking of why anyone would go out of their way to kill them. Percy was a low level staffer and Mr. Weasley's department was considered unimportant to most witches and wizards.
They had a wonderful dinner made by Dobby and Sassy as they caught up on everything that had happened since the summer. Dan and Emma would be moving into Grimmauld Place after Christmas, they were a little stressed over the move but apparently Dobby and Sassy had been doing a lot of the actual moving work. Jean was still working with her local women's institution to sort out their accounts. Harry couldn't understand it, but the older woman seemed to enjoy the accounting. Sirius had actually found himself a job taking on a few shifts at Zonko's. Harry was sure his love of pranks would have him advising customers on pranks in no time. Fleur was focused on her N.E.W.T.s, but she had also applied for a British work visa and a job at Gringotts. As she was betrothed to two British magicals the visa was mostly a formality, and it was just waiting for the bureaucracy of the ministry to rubber stamp it.
-ϟϟϟ-
The next day, Harry and Sirius waited outside King's Cross for Dudley. He wasn't expected to come out of the regular Kings Cross Station, instead coming from the underground as the train to the place his school was located went to Piccadilly Station. However, Sirius only knew the Kings Cross Station (or more specifically, Platform 9¾), and getting Sirius to Piccadlilly would have been harder than getting Dudley to King's Cross, so Dudley was taking the underground and meeting them. Apparently that was also 'less risky' than having Harry take a trip on the underground. Sirius actually wanted Harry to stay in the house while he collected Dudley, but Harry was the only one Dudley would recognise so his presence was needed.
They ended up having to wait an extra twenty five minutes before Dudley came out of the entrance to the underground. Harry had to look twice at him before he recognised him. The last time Harry had seen Dudley had been Harry's thirteenth birthday, when his cousin had decided that Harry was to make his favourite meal and then have to watch while everyone else got to eat it except him. Dudley had been almost as wide as he was tall, and the first word that would come to mind when you looked at him was Fat, with the capital F. However it had been over two years since then, and it looked like sitting down and stuffing his face hadn't been his main priority for a while. While his cousin was still far from skinny, he seemed to have lost maybe half of his body weight and had even put on some muscles. As Harry looked at Dudley, his mind settled on two opposing thoughts: 'maybe he has changed,' and 'great, just what I need, a Dudley with a stronger punch.'
Harry didn't know it, but Dudley was just as surprised at seeing he wasn't the skinny runt in oversized rags Dudley remembered. Harry was now average height, if a little on the lower end of average. His skinny frame was now covered in wiry muscles and wearing what looked like fashionable men's clothing. Smeltings was a private school where Dudley was actually one of the students from a comparatively lower income family. That ment that plenty of the boys at his school wore higher end fashion when not in their school uniform, and Harry's clothes looked like they would fit right in with some of those people, the ones who bragged about spending summers in places like France. Not necessarily the most expensive, but still fashionable. However, the biggest change in Harry was that he didn't look ready to run or afraid Dudley would attack him. Instead Harry looked confident, and Dudley didn't think Harry would run from him ever again.
"Dudley." Harry's voice had no inflection to it whatsoever as he walked up and greeted his cousin, honestly not sure how he wanted to greet the boy who had both just lost his parents and who had tormented Harry for ten years.
"Harry." Dudley was equally noncommittal.
They stood there looking at each other for a full minute before either of them said or did anything. It was Harry who broke the silence first. "You lost weight."
"Oh, uh, yeah. I took up boxing, really helped. You look like you put on some weight… good weight I mean, muscle not fat." Dudley stammered.
"Not being starved helped. And there was this school competition last year I ended up involved in, lots of training for that. Not really trying for it anymore, but the normal training I do for Quidditch keeps my muscles from shrinking." Harry didn't bother explaining what Quidditch was and Dudley didn't ask.
Harry introduced Dudley to Sirius, who was rather cold with the boy he had heard about bullying his godson. When Dudley asked where they were going, he was surprised to learn that Harry had a house in Scotland. He was sure if his father had known anything about such a house it would have been sold long ago. What worried Dudley more was that they weren't taking a train, bus, or a car, but that they were travelling by 'freaky magic'. The idea of willingly walking into a fire and instead of burning just being teleported somewhere else seemed crazy and impossible. But crazy and impossible was also how Dudley would have described the events of the last time he had seen his cousin: his father thrown across the room, an exploded door, a dead bulldog, and his aunt stuck to the ceiling all in what was probably a hundred seconds after Harry had been pushed too far.
They went through Kings Cross and onto platform 9¾. Harry gave Dudley a bracelet that let him get past the muggle repelling charm but he still needed skin to skin contact with Harry to pass through the barrier between the platforms. The magical platform had a couple of magical fireplaces connected to the Floo network for magical families to access the station without having potentially thousands (when you count students and parents) of witches and wizards walking through the muggle train station.
Harry went through the fire first so that he could show Dudley that he wasn't burning to death, and with Dudley's luggage so that Sirius wouldn't have to cope with Dudley and his things in the Floo with him. He once again ended up sprawled across the floor when he exited the Floo, thinking to himself how he was really starting to get annoyed with magical travel as he picked himself up and cleaned himself off with a wave of his wand. As he was in Hogsmeade, it was impossible for the Ministry to tell he was the one doing magic, so he didn't see any reason for him not to. Dudley came through the fire a few moments later with Sirius, and Harry couldn't help himself from chuckling when his cousin ended up sprawled on the floor just like he had.
Introducing Dudley to everyone was somewhat mixed. The look of shock on Dudley's face when he introduced both Hermione and Fleur as his future wives was satisfying, especially as the two looked absolutely gorgeous today as Fleur had helped Hermione get ready for the day. That the two girls looked down on Dudley as they had heard the truth from Harry was also rather fun. Dan, Emma, and Jean were more forgiving, blaming Dudley's parents for the way he was growing up. That's not to say they were warm, but they lacked the rather open hostility that Hermione and Fleur had.
It was Tracey that was the surprise. Where the others saw the boy who hurt Harry, someone whose circumstance and Harry's good nature had brought him into their proximity, Tracey saw someone her age who had also just lost his parents to the same monsters that had made her an orphan. She saw someone whom she could understand and who she hoped could understand her. Harry just hoped that Dudley didn't do anything that would upset Tracey, though he was careful to quietly let slip to his cousin that she wasn't interested in guys at all to stop him doing something incredibly stupid. After all, Dudley went to an all-boys school and Tracey was better looking than a lot of girls.
Dudley was dismayed to discover that there was no television, no telephone, and the radio only picked up magical stations and required a wand to turn on or change the station. He couldn't even go into the village and buy sweets because the shops around here didn't accept pounds and pence. Dudley did have a Game Boy with him, but Harry warned him that if he turned it on the magic in the house could fry it. The only real activities Dudley had were talking, reading, or exploring the large house that seemed to have a freaky floor plan.
After dinner Harry showed Dudley where he would be sleeping, leading the boy up to the top floor. Potter House only had three bedrooms and one of those was Harry's, one was now Fleur's, and one was James's old room so it was off-limits. What they did have was six expanded wardrobes set up. Each one had one larger room and nine smaller easily configured rooms off the larger one. One wardrobe was where the Marauders had set up a den, and Sirius and Remus's rooms were in that wardrobe. One was where the grangers had made their space, and Tracey had set herself up in another with all the furniture from her family home. Sassy had set Dudley up with a room in the Grangers wardrobe. With Hermione, Jean, and Dan and Emma, they were using three rooms as bedrooms and two as bathrooms, so there was plenty of room. Plus, Harry was happier knowing that Dan, Emma, and Jean would be there to watch him.
Harry watched Dudley as he showed him into the room with the wardrobes, pointed at one of them and said, "You'll be sleeping in there." Harry had purposely not told Dudley that they were bigger on the inside, a small vindictive pleasure at all the time Harry spent sleeping under the stairs in Privet Drive. Dudley's eyes went wide as he looked at Harry, both in anger but also resignation. He opened the door to the wardrobe and stared in shock at what was clearly set up as a living room.
"What, did you think I was gonna make you sleep in a cupboard? What kind of monster does that?" Harry said, and instantly regretted it as he saw the look of pain on Dudley's face. Despite how horrible they had been to Harry, to Dudley Harry was poking at the raw wound of the loss of his parents. Harry felt like an ass even as another part of him screamed it was deserved after the years of hell Harry had suffered.
Dudley looked at Harry and just said. "Asshole," before walking into the wardrobe.
Harry couldn't disagree, so he showed Dudley where his room was and excused himself to go do some thinking. This was definitely going to be his worst Christmas ever.
A/N
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