To Ride the Carousel Again
Chapter Seven
Disclaimer: Standard. JKR reaps all, corporations reap the leftovers.
I reap nadda.
The Manse and The Solicitor
/*
About 6,000 words
/*
Monday afternoon, August 3, 1992
Harry was back in his room at the Leaky Cauldron after visiting Gringotts, wistfully staring at the sheet of parchment in his hand. There might be further bits of help his mother could give him in the future, but at the moment, this bit of parchment was going to be hard to beat.
Fourteen-year-old Harry, unlike twelve-year-old Harry had traveled by floo and portkey. Admittedly, all three occurrences had been very bad to completely disastrous in his second and fourth years, so nervous trepidation was the order of the afternoon.
This very important parchment sheet from the front of his mothers' journal were his instructions on how to turn his Heir ring into a portkey that should take him to the Potter Manor. Sort of. At least close by.
He made a point of clearing all the furniture in the room off against the walls, leaving a large open space for his return. It seemed silly, but he was not sure how he would be returning to his room.
He checked that he had his wand, wallet with muggle money, Gringotts bag with wizarding money, and a couple of wrapped corned beef sandwiches and a tin cup in his backpack. He had no idea if there was food where he was going.
Hermione would be proud of him. He was planning.
His nerves were leading to him stalling, which made him angry at himself. "Gryffindor's forward," he thought, and stalked out of the pub, and to the Alley's designated apparition point. He didn't know whether a portkey from a room at the Leakey Cauldron would be noticed or tracked, but why take the chance?
Reaching his left hand to grasp the ring on his right hand he said, "Historic roads, take me home."
He immediately disappeared in a whirling flash, spinning through the aether to a spot a couple of hundred miles away.
His landing was normal. He went sprawling into the grass along a dusty macadam road that had a fenced forest along one side and a grain field of some type along the other.
As he picked himself up and started brushing off his pants, he looked to his right.
Nothing. Just a road disappearing in the distance.
He looked left, and there was another road crossing his road.
He walked over to it and looked around getting his bearings.
"Hmm, it's noon-ish, if I put the sun at my back, I should be walking north towards that gate I need to look for."
Putting action to words, he started walking along the road in the hoped-for direction. He started counting his paces, as he had figured that one thousand six hundred forty feet would be about eight hundred twenty paces at his newly reduced size.
He was wearing the same muggle clothes he had worn to Hermione's and with the summer sun beating down, he was soon feeling hot. He stopped to pull his floppy grey wizards' cap from his backpack and that gave some relief to his baking skull.
The road he was walking on had a tall grass field on the left and a dry-stone wall that was taller than him on his right. He was over five hundred paces when he lost count due to being startled by several large birds exploding out of the tall grass to fly away from him. He briefly panicked about the lost count, but soon managed to convince himself that his pacing accuracy probably wasn't that good anyway.
A few minutes later he found a rusty old black iron gate in the wall between a pair of brick and stone pillars with a truly massive padlock and chain holding the gate closed. It resembled the written directions. Looking closely at the lock he could see the depression his mother had written about. Taking his Heir ring, he mated it to the depression in the padlock. A muted flash and the chain disappeared as the gates swung open.
After Harry walked through, the gates closed and the massive chain and padlock appeared once more. With a shrug, he started up the rough, weedy, unimproved two-track that was almost closed off by the encroaching trees.
He had walked about a hundred yards when he felt some sort of a magic field wash over him. Immediately, the rutted path became met a smooth crushed stone drive. In the distance, through the trees, he could vaguely make out a building to his left.
Deciding against heading directly for the building, he soon lost sight of it as the drive curved right. Another couple of minutes' hike suddenly had him appearing in front of what Harry could only think of as a palace.
The Manor had three stories that he could see. The front showed two long, massive wings that stretched over a hundred feet on either side of the doors. The walls were made of fitted, worked stones in various shades of grey. There were dozens of large, white-painted windows everywhere. The graveled drive swept around in a curve to the left in a circular driveway that led to the main doors. Harry could almost imagine a carriage and a pair of matched horses dropping off some distinguished visitor.
The arched main doors were a dark blue painted wood with a heavy visible, yet matched grain, maybe twelve feet in height and almost ten feet across.
Instead of rushing to the doors, Harry just stood there for several minutes soaking in the sights before him. This was where he had lived for most of his first year of life, and now he was returning.
The trees and shrubs were roughly pruned. The emerald lawn was trimmed, the drive was without the holes of neglect and was bordered by cut stone kerbs to keep the always invasive grass at bay. The fountain in the center of the circular drive was dry but looked clean.
Now that he was actually here, his nerves were tempting him to delay his final claiming of Heirship by continuing to walk around the house on the part of the drive that followed along the right side of the house around towards the back.
With a thought of "We've been Gryffindors forever," he walked up the eight steps to the large doors. He contemplated the two large bronze Gryphon-shaped door knockers.
"Well, I don't own the place. Yet," he thought. With that, he raised up the right-hand knocker and rapped it sharply on the door twice.
He waited, then waited some more. Just as he was about to make another plan, the right-hand door opened and a house elf appeared in the opening.
Suddenly, the elf shouted, "Master Harald! You're back!" and with that the elf surged forward and clung to Harry's leg, babbling happiness to it.
Another elf appeared in the door way opening. This one was more restrained.
"Master Harald, it is good to see you have returned to your home." The elf spoke with dignity.
"My name is Ypres. I am your butler, major domo, and yard maintenance person." It seemed from his clothes he had been fulfilling his yard duties when Harry arrived.
He detached an obviously female elf, who was dressed as a maid from a BBC period piece, away from Harry's leg. "This is Peama. She is the general maid, and the designated lady's maid for your wife."
"But I don't have a wife," he said in almost desperate confusion to the pair. The only house-elves he had met were Dobby and Winky. They were nothing like this pair.
For some reason, Harry thought Ypres looked tired and careworn. Peama seemed younger, yet now that her first flash of happiness was gone, she seemed more dull and tired, her cheer a bit forced.
"At your age I should hope not," stated Ypres archly. "Mistress Lily would be most disappointed if, to use her words, 'some gold-digging harlot' had managed to get her hooks into you at your age."
Harry just stood there in shocked surprise at the words of his? house elf. For a wild second, he even thought from the way Ypres had talked, his mother was still alive.
"No, that's impossible," he realized.
"Would young Master like some tea?" Ypres inquired.
"Yes, yes I would," replied a still-trying-to-gather-his-wits Harry.
The two elves led Harry through the house to the back where most houses had their kitchens. The first thing he noticed was an inlay of a gryphon rampant on the entrance floor. It almost looked like a very realistic painting covered by glass. On the wall across from the door was a rendering of what Harry assumed was the Potter crest.
It showed a golden gryphon with a sword in a raised forepaw, and crossed wands over its back. When examined closer, there was a stylized, triangular-shaped mountain, a stream, and a collection of clay pots and plates under the raised forepaw. Some Latin phrase arced overall. "Siempre Contra los Opresores" (1)
As he walked, the fit and finish of the interior screamed quality and old money. Every surface was clean and the stone floors were … … clean but not polished. The rugs looked clean but aged.
Harry did notice that all the paintings were asleep and many of the EverLast wall sconces were not lit.
He was led to a small alcove just off the kitchen and was seated by Ypres at a small circular light-yellow painted wooden table that had four matching chairs. Tea and biscuits appeared a few seconds later.
After pouring tea, and adding cream, Harry settled back to let his brain catch up as he admired the view of the garden through the windows.
After a couple of minutes, Harry came to a decision. "Ypres, Peama, please come out here and take a seat."
The two came out of the kitchen and when Harry gestured at the chairs, Ypres snapped his fingers and the pair of elves were sitting on high stools that brought them to a natural sitting height for the table. Harry noticed that Ypres was now clothed in a butler suit. A glass pitcher of some dull green liquid came into view that they poured into cups and took a sip with looks of satisfaction as though it was fine tea.
"I can only stay for a few hours. I have to leave before certain people, who do not have my best interests at heart, begin to wonder where I have disappeared to," he said. "What do I have to do for the Manor to keep its secrets? I believe there is a Fidelius Charm on the property to keep wizards out, and I assume something else keeps the muggles out."
The questioning look he gave the two house elves was answered with nods.
Ypres then said, "Master Harald needs to recharge the wards soon. They are so weak, they did not tell us you were here."
"Yes, that will be important. I will soon have a nosy old coot who will try very hard to keep me from returning here. He is powerful, and I have a growing feeling he does not have my best interests at heart. If he does not interfere, I intend to bring a guest with me tomorrow about time for morning tea."
Harry stood and backed up, spreading his arms to his sides. "To help me not get trapped by that one whose long, crooked nose has-not-been-broken-enough, I need you to check me for tracking charms. I've been told you will find some."
Ypres jumped down from his stool and started making slow passes with his hands over Harry's body. Harry saw a bright, light blue glow from the upper left of his glasses. ("Damnit. Gotta remember to get new glasses too!)
When Ypres was done, Harry grabbed his backpack off the floor and started taking things out of the pockets. He enlarged his trunk and emptied it onto the floor. He took his invisibility cloak out of a side pocket and held it up.
Ypres restarted his hand waving again and more light blue spots glowed.
When the elf was done Harry was astounded by all the tracking charms on his stuff. Glasses, comb, hair brush, tooth brush, hand mirror, wrist watch, non-enlarged old school trunk, wand, and to top it all off, the cloak had not only a tracking charm but what Ypres called a 'see-through' charm.
"My father's invisibility cloak and that white-whiskered wanker just had to mess with it!" Harry fumed. "That's the only way the cheater could see through it!"
A seething Harry then enlarged his old trunk and Ypres did his magic again. The interior lit up like a fireworks show. Quills, inkpots, folders, every First-year book, almost every article of clothing, (Including holey socks? Eew.) double size Dudley belts, school shoes, his Weasley Christmas jumper had three trackers for Merlin's sake!
"That fake grandfatherly old bastard." Harry was raging by now. Magic was rolling off him in a steady stream like lava from an erupting volcano.
"Master!" Ypres jumped in front of Harry to get his attention. "Please stop, master. If you keep going you will exhaust yourself and you will not be able to perform the duties you need to perform, here, now."
Harry worked at using his hard-won fourteen-year-old Tri-Wizard mind-calming skills fifteen-year-old Hermione had drilled into him.
Ten minutes and a cold butterbeer later, Harry was back to sitting in the alcove again while Ypres removed most of the tracking charms. "Leave some on, and put them in a box the charm cannot be found through," Harry had instructed. "I'll use them later as decoys to make him think I'm where he wants me to be. Meanwhile, I get Hermione to learn, and teach me, wizarding detection and removal charms."
"Until then," "Ypres, is there any way you or Peama could come to Hogwarts and check me for trackers that might get attached to me when I'm at school?"
"No, Master," the senior elf looked wretched. "We do not have permission to enter the castle wards. An elf bound to you personally could when called, but we are bound to the Potter family and do not qualify."
"That's alright, Ypres. It may take a while, but I think I might have a solution to the problem in a few months," Harry said. "Meanwhile, what was it you said earlier? I have to do something while I am here?"
"Yes, young Master, you must take over the Head of House duties," the suddenly majordomo-suited elf replied. "Come with me to the Lord's study. You have work to do."
Following his majordomo up the central grand staircase to the second floor. Then turning left down that corridor, Ypres stopped at the second elaborately carved door on the left.
Suddenly, Ypres stood tall and still. "Master Harald, only the Lord of the house or if the Lord is not available, the Heir may enter this room. I or Peama cannot enter it alone, even for cleaning."
"You must enter alone, and I will try to guide you to perform the duties you must to take control of the estate. First, open the door. Since your magical signature is unfamiliar to it, it will take a blood sample."
"Who invented all these blood identifications? Some family that has a demented mosquito on its coat of arms?" thought Harry.
Carefully, even though he knew it would not help, Harry lightly grabbed the door handle, and as predicted, he felt a small jab into his hand. With a small delay, the door swung open on silent hinges.
With trepidation looming in his mind, Harry slowly eased into the room.
Ypres's voice came from the doorway. "Stand in front of the portrait of the gryphon and take out your wand. Now, do precisely as I say, young master."
He slowly walked up to a painting of a snarling gryphon rampant, of approximately five by four feet. The eagle front of the beast, the beak, talons, and feathers looked amazingly life-like. The rear lion part of the body had the tan fur, rear legs, and tail of a lion
After licking his suddenly dry lips, Harry nervously asked, "I don't suppose you want to tell me what will happen if I mess this up?"
"No, young Heir, I do not. However, do not touch the frame with your hand. Now, tap your wand on the following parts of the gryphon. The upper claw of the raised foreleg, followed by the top of the head, then the tuft of the tail, and lastly the chin."
Harry managed to do all four taps without missing or adding an extra rap, and with a soft click, the portrait unlatched and opened slightly. Harry unthinkingly reached to swing it open.
"NO!" yelled Ypres. "Do not touch the picture's frame!"
Harry had frozen at the loud instruction just a fraction away from touching the gilt frame around the picture.
"Oops!"
"Young Master, carefully use two or three fingers to touch the gryphon, and only the gryphon, and push the picture back until it clicks again."
Harry complied.
"Now, young Master Harald," came Ypres' voice again. "Using a finger, reverse the order of the wand taps that unlocked the guardian. Chin, good. Tail tuft, good. Head and now top claw of . . . very good." This time the portrait, picture, guardian? swung open all the way.
In the recess was a vertical bronze cylinder, about four feet across, with a stone sticking slightly out of the top, rose to shoulder height. The cylinder walls were about six inches thick, and the polished, blue-flecked black stone was covered with softly glowing runes.
"Take the knife there on the side and slice the palm of your hand and rub the blood all over the top of the stone," came the instructions.
"God's damnit! Blood for this, blood for that! Small wonder that British wizards always look pale and unhealthy. They never have enough blood in their bodies!"
Grabbing the small, black glass knife, Harry winced as he slit his left palm, and then trying to ignore the pain, he smeared his blood all over the top of the stone. The runes seemed to greedily suck in his blood, so he kept rubbing more and more blood over the now softly thrumming stone. The stone seemed to keep asking for more, and Harry kept giving, his whole world narrowing down to rubbing, rubbing his blood on the stone.
Suddenly, the voice of Ypres registered in his consciousness. "Enough, young Master Harald, enough! Please go to the desk and remove the large book from the second drawer down."
Staggering like a Confunded hippogryff, a bleeding Harry complied, flopping the book onto the desktop. The book automatically opened to a page. On it was a list of names of those allowed to enter Potter Manor.
Fumbling for the large, elegant, red quill that appeared between the pages, Harry had to focus hard on reading the page in front of him. He felt as though he was going to pass out, but the need to get this, whatever it was, finished drove him on.
Seeing the neat row of names, Harry asked Ypres, "What do I do now?"
"Run a line through those you want to remove from access to the estate, then either leave or write in the names of anyone you want to allow or bring here.
"Right. Albus too-many-middle-names Dumbledore, a line. Sirius Orion Black, he stays. Remus Lupin, hmm, too beholden to Dumbledore. He gets a line until he proves differently."
Others may have been listed for guardianship in the will, but until he knew better, they all got a line.
When he reached the end of the names he carefully added "Hermione Jean Granger, Neville Hakon Longbottom," and placing the quill in the book, he closed the cover and put the book back in the drawer.
"Master Harald, please close the picture again."
Harry did so, and he could see the wardstone sinking down just before the picture closed.
"Will Master Harald give his majordomo permission to enter his study?" asked Ypres.
For some reason, this seemed to be a formal request, so he responded in kind. "The elf, Ypres, Major Domo to the House of Potter, is granted entry into the master's study."
The little elf walked into the room. It was a dignified walk, the type of walk that showed he was an important elf. "First give me your hand."
When Harry complied, the elf waved his hand over it and the bleeding stopped. Next, the elf handed him a red-liquid-filled potion vial.
"Blood replenishing potion for you, young Master."
After Harry had grimaced the potion down his throat, he rested a minute before Ypres cleared his throat.
"Lord Potter, it is time for you to call for your ring. You have shown you are worthy of the Potter Lordship by taking control of the manor ward stone, and control of the wards permission book. Those two trials were the final requirements."
"How?" Harry asked.
"Concentrate and call the ring to you," was Ypres's reply.
And that is what Harry did, pouring all his concentration into the summons. Suddenly his left-hand middle finger felt heavier. Harry opened his eyes and there on his middle finger was a large, dark gold and red gem ring, with the Potter crest worked into the gem in gold. He glanced at his right hand, and his fingers there were now ringless.
Harry suddenly screamed in pain as every nerve in his chest overloaded. He felt as though he was being ripped in two before he collapsed onto the floor as consciousness left him.
Harry woke up on the study floor feeling very tired. He looked around the study for perhaps a couch to lie on for a few moments.
"Lord Potter," came the calm measured voice of Ypres. "Please come with me. You have one last duty to perform."
Mentally cursing duty, a tottering Harry followed the elf back through the hall, down the stairs, and into a parlour with a magnificent view of the front lawn and gardening.
There, just as he was about to flop onto a comfortable couch that was seductively calling his name, Ypres said, "Lord Harald, place your right hand on my head and your left hand on Peama's head, and recite the following: I, Lord Potter, reaffirm the bonds of House Potter with the House-Elves known as Ypres and Peama."
Harry did so and as he finished, the thought he might be so tired he was hallucinating. The two elves glowed with a pale green light, and seemed to expand and fill out, losing that worn, tired look.
At that moment, his vision went grey and he collapsed boneless onto the couch. Ypres waved his hands and wriggled his fingers, both straightening Harry out, and conjuring a blanket over his body, and a pillow under his head.
He turned to Peama. "Master is very powerful. Master James and Mistress Lily had put a bind on his magic, but donning his House Potter Lord's ring has broken the binding. He would be powerful if he were a fully-grown wizard. Come, we now have enough strength to properly clean the house now. We will let him sleep until dinner."
Oooooo vvvvvv oooooO
It was a very loggy, groggy Harry that awoke to the gentle voice saying over and over, "Master Harald, you must wake up. It is time for you to go back to your other place. Master Harald, you must wake up. It's time …"
Harry finally managed to wave an arm enough to shut off the annoying voice. He was struggling to sit up when his memories flashed back into his consciousness. The house elves, the tracking charms, the Potter study, the house elves … What had the house elves done?
Slitting his sticky eyes open, he could see at least one part of his memories were accurate. The large Lord's ring of the House of Potter was still on his left hand.
Groaning, Harry managed to swing mostly upright on his second attempt. He could see Peama standing in front of him. Apparently, she had been his alarm clock.
"Would Master Harald like some dinner before leaving?" she inquired.
Harry's stomach growled in response. All that magic he had used that afternoon had left him ravenous, he realized. Standing, he let Peama lead him to the kitchen alcove again where a generous serving of roast beef, smashed red potatoes with gravy, and young peas with small pearl onions were plated for him with an ever-filling glass of milk.
Tucking in, Harry ate while looking out over the back garden. When he started looking closely, he could see the tell-tale signs of minor neglect. Some shrubbery needed cleaner trimming, some flower beds had small weeds, and parts of some paths had grass encroaching at the borders.
By the angle of the sun, he could see it was early evening. A quick check of his broken strap wristwatch confirmed that it was getting to be time for him to be getting back to the Leaky before Tom started wondering and worrying where he might be. The last thing Harry wanted was people wondering to other people where he was, and what might he doing.
"I have to be going", he said. "Ypres, can you take me down to the gates so I can signal for the Knight Bus?"
"Would Master Harald prefer for me to take him back to where he is staying?"
"You can? How?" wondered Harry.
"By elf pop. It is our version of wizard's apparition," Ypres stated.
"I've heard of apparition, but what is it exactly?"
Ypres then had to launch into a five-minute explanation of apparition, how wizards could travel from one place to another very, very quickly.
"So, you say you can take me right into my room at the Leaky Cauldron from here? Alright, how are we going to do that?"
"If Master has everything in his backpack, all he has to do is touch my hand, and concentrate very clearly on where our destination is and what it looks like."
Less than two seconds later, Harry was standing in the middle of his room at the Leaky. "So, that is what Dobby did!"
"That was brilliant, Ypres," he said.
"Remember, Master Harald, if you need me or Peama, just concentrate on us and speak our name. We will come to you." And with that he snapped his fingers and disappeared with a very small 'pop'.
/*
A tired Harry Potter contemplated his room. "To do a bit of homework to keep Hermione happy or sleep? That is the question."
Harry decided he could do a bit of his summer-assigned homework. Dragging out his Transfiguration text and his assignment from his backpack, he settled down at the small desk and worked for almost an hour before succumbing to his weariness, and after changing into his sleep clothes he was asleep in less than a minute after laying his head on the pillow.
Oooooo vvvvvv oooooO
Tuesday.
Harry awoke early next morning. He had plans to see Tongueripper and to find a solicitor before he went to Hermione's house.
It was a shorter morning than Harry had allowed for.
When Harry showed Tongueripper his Lordship ring, the goblin had merely growled something incomprehensible and handed over a pair of to-be-signed-in-blood parchments, said they would be filed, then quietly buried, at the Ministry ("We need one month of secrecy," was growled out.) and waved him out of the office.
Exiting the bank, Harry was somewhat lost as he had no idea how to find the solicitor mentioned in his parents' wills.
Looking down the alley, he saw Flourish and Blott's just opening for business. "Maybe they have a business guide for the alley? Kind of like a block of flats directory?" he wondered.
It turned out they did, and for four sickles, ten knuts, Harry had a Diagon Alley business compendium, complete with maps of the alley and its branches.
He found Courter, Hostetler, and Tonks, Solicitors, to be just down the Alley, tucked around the corner of one of the alley's small, off-shoot cul-de-sacs.
Entering the office, Harry walked up to the well-into-middle-age woman with a McGonagall-type bun seated behind a desk. When she asked what business he had there, he gave his name and asked to see Mrs. Tonks.
The immediately flustered receptionist almost knocked her chair over jumping up and disappearing through a door in the wall back of her desk. Less than a minute later, she returned with a tall, regal-looking woman, dressed in black with silver trimmed robes, with dark brown hair caught in a loose, but elegant bun, and piercing grey eyes.
Those eyes raked Harry up and down. Apparently, he passed some sort of test as her voice was quite neutral as she spoke.
"Solicitor Andromeda Tonks at your service, Mr. Potter. Would you please accompany me to my office?"
Harry accompanied her through the door, down a short hall, and into a gleaming dark brown wood-paneled office. In front of the large desk were three comfortable-looking brown leather chairs. In one corner was a small seating area with two of the same chairs with a large sofa grouped around a coffee table, with each piece of furniture having an end table.
Having waved Harry to the center chair, she then asked permission to draw her wand. Herry nodded warily gathering himself to jump aside if the wand was pointed at him. Tonks pointed her wand at an unusual light blue geometric glass-looking sculpture sitting on the right corner of her desk and a blue-coloured spell shot from the wand, impacting the sculpture, and the resultant ricocheted rays of the spell shot into every wall, the ceiling, and the floor.
Replacing her wand within her robe, she said "The office is now proofed against any spying or scrying spell known to exist. That means that anything you say here, cannot be heard by anyone but me. And after you hire me as your solicitor, I cannot speak of your business to anyone else. My Oaths of Office will punish me most severely if I do so."
At that point, Mrs. Tonks leaned forward in her chair and just regarded Harry for a long minute.
"I am almost fifteen years old. I do not have to fidget every time someone does not fill the air with their voice," he thought, forcing himself to remain still and return Mrs. Tonks's look evenly.
The solicitor apparently decided that silence was not going to get Harry started. "Mr. Potter," Tonks began, "it is most unusual to have a twelve-year-old come alone into my office. Are we waiting for your guardian to arrive?"
"No," Harry replied. "I am the person who wants you to become my personal and family solicitor. I was given your name by my account manager at Gringotts and a secondary recommendation by my parents."
Harry quickly decided to be a bit open with Madam Tonks. "I have a problem in that I was completely ignorant of magic until I received my Hogwarts letter after my eleventh birthday. And my so-called magical guardian has done absolutely nothing to help me learn about my family, the government, or magical culture.
Therefore, I have decided I need lots of help before I do something that brings attention to the problem of my ambiguous magical guardianship and starts a fight between all those who want to control me."
Harry reached into a pocket of his backpack that was sitting on the floor next to his chair. Removing copies of his parent's Wills, his accession to the Lordship of the Potter House as attested to by Gringotts, and the paperwork dealing with his rentals, companies, and holdings, he passed them over the desk to Mrs. Tonks.
After a short, but intense perusal of the parchmentwork, the older woman raised her furious eyes to Harry. "I now understand why you want to hire me. You do realize that some of your work will have to be pursued very carefully and circumspectly as both the ministry and those that run the ministry will not want this litany of travesties of justice to come to light."
Harry nodded slightly. "I want you to do all the legal work associated with my House. If we can come to an agreement, you will be the House Potter solicitor. You will do all the legal work needed to keep the carrion eaters off my young, tender body as I learn the many, many things that my supposed magical guardian was supposed to have taught me."
Harry was on a roll now. "I want you to keep the whiskered wonk's long, crooked nose out of my business. I want you to figure out ways to get started on freeing Sirius Black. And I want a muzzle put on those unauthorized 'Harry Potter and the This-Editions-Monster' (2) books."
"However," he said after a pause, "most of the actual work will have to be performed after I have returned to Hogwarts."
Harry willed his Head of House ring into visibility. "Gringotts informs me that a lunar month must pass before my claim as an under-aged Head of House will be incontestable."
From the look Andromeda gave Harry she was impressed. "Very well, let me get a copy of our standard client contract, and as soon as we sign it, I will keep all your secrets and do your bidding to the best of my ability."
Mrs. Tonks stood and leaned over his desk with her hand extended. Shaking hands with Harry, she said, "Lord Potter, I believe I will be happy to work with you, and my husband will be demanding I get you over for dinner soon. You have no idea how upset he was with the Old Fool when all my attempts to become your guardian were foiled by his twinkly eye, and his 'For the Greater Good' dragon dung he spewed as he said you needed to be kept safe."
Less than half an hour later, he walked back down the Alley with a signed contract naming Courter, Hostetler, and Tonks as his retained legal representatives.
He stopped at the Leaky Cauldron, went up to his room, changed into his muggle clothes, then transfigured them into casual robes before cleaning up his room, putting everything into his backpack, and going downstairs.
"Well, Tom. Thank you very much for taking care of me during my visit. But I have to return to my house now. This should take care of any charges I have left over," he said quietly while leaving ten galleons on the bar. Having Tom think of Harry as a very good customer was all good in Harry's book.
With a slight wave, he stepped out through the door onto Charing Cross Road, raised his wand, and in less than a minute, he was silently cursing as the Knight Bus flung him around as it performed its usual antics. Physics? We do'an need no stinkin' physics.
While the bus was immobile, dropping a witch off, he removed his earlier transfiguration on his clothes and was ready for the muggle world.
Slinging his backpack over a shoulder, he stepped off the bus where he had boarded it two days ago, and as the bus took off with a bang, he started walking towards Hermione's house.
Suddenly a bushy-haired, T-shirt and jeans-wearing bundle of leaking, angry, sparking magic stepped out of the shadows with her magically fizzing finger pointed right at his nose.
Harry was trying not to go cross-eyed looking at the sparking tip of her finger as a voice so upset it was the coldest he had ever heard hissed, "Harry James Potter, I am so-o-o angry at you! AND YOU'RE LATE!"
/*
A/N:
Yeah, I know the Tonks's careers are usually swapped. This makes it a bit more fun.
One: Always against Oppressors. If Google Translate did its job.
Two: Wanted to write 'This-Months-Alliterative-Monster-Book', but I doubt Harry
knows the word 'Alliteration' yet.
Yay! Minor cliffie. I like minor cliffie's.