To Ride the Carousel Again

Chapter 19

Disclaimer: If it's a recognizable character, the rights belong to JK Rowling.

Lord Potter? Workin' on it

Apologies for being two weeks late. The usual excuses. Bad wifi and a wonky after an update computer

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Approx. 5,800 words

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Harry thought for a few minutes. "It's not like Monday is a critical day. Whether I announce it, or let it slide a few days, the time is past where the Great Fumbledork can have my lordship annulled."

"I'll take as many days as you can give me, Neville. You're probably correct when you think that I will be a disaster at trying to copy Malfoy as a role model."

/*

It was Sunday after lunch and Harry and Hermione were waiting on the fifth-floor corridor, right-hand side, awaiting Neville. They were surprised to see him accompanied by an auburn-haired witch they both knew. Hermione had interacted with her in their only shared Hufflepuff class, Herbology, and some impromptu library study sessions. She considered her something between an acquaintance and a possible friend.

Neville looked very nervous. Harry reckoned it was because he had brought another person into the know about the new Harry. Without asking Harry's permission.

Harry figured, after a moment's thought, that without his having lived before, he probably would not be upset with Neville.

He did not know the Bones Heiress had been hostile to him after the Parseltongue incident, and the 'stealing of Hufflepuff glory from Cedric' after the Tri-Wizard champions selection. Yet, he would bet the Longbottom heir had some very good reasons for the Bones heiress accompanying him. Like that alliance, he knew nothing about.

"Gods, this is getting so-o-o complicated. I'm angry with people who have done nothing to me, yet, and if I do this right, they should have no reason to become hostile to me."

Before Neville could say anything, Harry held up his hand and called for a Hogwarts elf. As twice before, the elf Guerna appeared, and soon another almost dozen trackers were removed from the group's possessions. This time Harry had brought several small blocks of wood made from smashed desk parts in an abandoned classroom and after a quick Coloverta had the elf transfer each person's tracking charms to their personal-coloured block.

There were no listening charms found this time.

And Harry did not notice the looks the two females gave him about his casual use of a fourth-year-level colour-changing spell.

Susan Bones looked like she was about to explode in anger as the trackers were revealed, but a nudge and a look from Neville managed to keep her quiet.

He then dropped the blocks into his previously re-transfigured silver and acromantula silk bag and closed it.

Still quiet the foursome made their way to another abandoned room Harry had found on the fourth-floor corridor, and with an Alohamora from Hermione, they entered their new training room.

The dust was mostly gone and the broken furniture was stacked in a corner. Hermione was visibly surprised to see five chairs and a small table in the room. Looking at the slightly smug Harry, she now had a good idea where he had disappeared after breakfast.

The chairs resembled the ones found at the Gryffindor common room study tables. They should be just uncomfortable enough to require a Cushioning Charm after an hour or so of sitting.

Hermione spent a moment examining the chairs that she was sure Harry had transfigured. Did he have any idea just how difficult the size of each chair transfiguration was for a second year? And he had done five of them?

What the brilliant witch didn't know was that Harry had also spent part of the time writing to Lupin and Tongueripper that he was delaying his big Lord Potter reveal to obtain some coaching on how to act. And for them not to jump the quaffle toss.

"Hello, Susan," she said with what she hoped was a welcoming smile. With her distinctive hair hanging down her back in a single plait and her bright blue eyes, the girl would become an attractive teenager in coming years.

Hermione, like every other girl in the lower years, had immediately noticed that Susan Bones and Lavender Brown had both had a development spurt over the summer.

The boys noticing of their development was relatively straightforward. Curiosity, nudges, and waggled eyebrows. The girls had been harsher, with whispers and remarks of potion use or engorgement charms on their chests.

Hermione took a brief moment to wonder how the two girls were coping with the whispers and glares of jealousy. All the Secondary school drama and they weren't even teenagers yet.

Recomposing herself she looked at Susan and with mock seriousness said, "How did Neville manage to persuade you to help us turn Harry into a civilized person instead of the knuckle-dragging Crabbe or Goyle replica he now resembles?"

"Oi !" a trying hard to look offended Harry exclaimed. "I do not follow that prat Malfoy around attached to his bum. How can you claim I'm one of them?"

Still seething-about-the-tracker-charms, Susan took a breath to center herself before glancing between Harry and Hermione before saying, "Neville persuaded me. I had to take an oath to help him with Potter under the old Potter-Longbottom-Bones-McKinnon Alliance protocols. Then he tells me Harry has somehow managed to make himself Lord Potter!"

"Harry, after watching you last year, I can tell you that we are going to have our work cut out for us to improve you into a true Lord of the Wizengamot."

Before the mildly glaring Harry could respond to her barb, Neville entered the conversation. "Y-y-y-y-es he is a rather lumpy bag of slump. She may have been blunt about it, Harry, but she does have a point. Among the first lessons an heir, or heiress, learns is to stand commandingly straight and not f-f-f-fidget," he said with a glance at Susan.

Neville's nerves were showing.

Susan chimed in again, "Next is how to walk. Particularly, how to walk into a room, and have everyone feel the presence of a Head of House."

Harry was about to exclaim in disbelief that he was going to have to learn how to walk? When he caught Hermione nodding in agreement out of the corner of his eye.

Turning towards her, he tried to convey his disbelief and hurt that she was not only agreeing with the others on him being a 'lumpy slumpy', but that she was virtually forcing him to become something she had just criticized a few days ago.

"Yes, Harry," she said with a rueful grimace. "You are going to have to learn how to act as a Lord with a seat on the Wizengamot. I know you want to be "just Harry," and that you hate the attention your fame gives you."

"Now, if you add powerful Lord Potter of the Wizengamot to your persona, sadly, I don't think the attention will ever go away, and you are going to have to learn to live with it."

She turned squarely to face him, her mien dead serious. "We both read in your library that the ancestors of the Potters have been a force to be reckoned with in Britannia even before the Romans left Britain over fifteen hundred years ago."

"If I am correctly translating the Latin that some of those scrolls are written in, I think your one hundred times great-grandfather commanded a Roman fort along the River Severn, protecting the area from raiding Celtic warriors from the mountains of what's now Wales."

"You read some of the reasons why the House of Potter is a Most Noble House besides being a Most Ancient one. Most Noble usually means the House has performed as warriors to the King or Wizengamot several times over."

At that point, Susan could not contain herself any longer. "Is that true? My Aunt Amelia has always told me the Potters were an old house, but you really can trace your ancestors that far back? Our Most Ancient and Most Noble Bones family has mentions of Hadrian's Wall hundreds of years before we became the first warriors to join with the four Founders against an early attack on the castle. Earl Godric Gryffindor persuaded the local king to make my distant ancestor a Laird. Our main branch of the family moved to Cambridgeshire in the early fifteen hundreds."

Somehow Neville moved or something and drew everyone's attention. "House Longbottom had hundreds of years of history before leaving Danemarch to join the Viking invasions and Danelaw of the late eight hundreds. Although we didn't have much prominence before we supported William during his consolidation of his kingship after the invasion of Sweyn the Second in ten sixty-nine."

"We were only an Ancient House until we picked the winning Lancastrian side during the War of the Roses and were ennobled by the new king, Henry the Seventh. Seventy years later, Arklud Longbottom was second in command at the Battle of Gurkluk Tor when a wizard army defeated the goblins under Blacktooth the Rotten and we were elevated to Most Noble by a grateful Wizengamot. Of course, the pressure applied on them by the winning commander, Harlach Potter, had something to do with that."

Harry noted that as he was talking about a subject that he knew well, and got wrapped up in the subject, his nervous stutter disappeared.

Neville shrugged and looked a bit abashed as he added, "W-w-w-e became Most Ancient over a hundred years ago by being an Ancient House that survived another thousand years."

Harry was in mild shock. Having read about his distant ancestors was one thing. Somehow, by talking about their own families, the other two heirs had made his seem more real.

That jolted Harry.

"How many of these really old Houses are there?"

Neville unconsciously took a thinking pose, pursing his lips and furrowing his forehead. "There are only seven Most Ancient and Most Noble Houses left in Britannia." Us three, the Black's, the Castleward's, Flint's, a-a-nd Ogden's. The Castleward's are elderly and have no heirs. Their family was targeted and killed by Death Eaters. Their house will die when the last Lord and Mistress pass on."

Susan nodded in approval as though Neville had just answered a classroom question.

"Then there are a few Most Ancient and Noble, and some Ancient and Most Noble Houses. Most of the Wizengamot consists of Ancient and Noble, or Ancient, or Noble. Those are the Houses with voting rights. They get one vote for every Ancient or Noble, and one vote for every Most in their names. There are a bunch of Elder and Magical Houses. They don't have any seats or votes in the Wizengamot."

"It's hard for you to understand, but almost every wizard and witch living in magical Britannia belongs to a House. Family and House continuation are something ingrained in us along with our mother's milk."

Neville's countenance hardened even further. "Bluntly, many older, politically powerful Houses will perform virtually any act that will perpetuate their continuation. And their acts are getting worse as many Houses have a sense of desperation as they have only one Heir. Many Houses went extinct during the War. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and his Death Eaters killed off many Lords and Heirs."

"Gran says it's their own fault. Their inbreeding has weakened their blood and fertility. Also, until Professor Dumbledore became the Leader of the Light, the Lords or Heirs of the Dark families tended to die after they joined Dark Lord rebellions."

Bones picked up the thread. "That's why I agreed to help Neville help you Potter. If we can revive the alliance, we three will have twelve allied Wizengamot votes when we come of age. We will show you later why those twelve votes can be a powerful force."

Hermione suddenly popped in. "How many votes do the McKinnon's add to the alliance?"

The Heirs of Bones and Longbottom merely looked at each other for a long moment. Hermione instantly realized that she had just brought up one of those 'not to be mentioned in society' topics.

Neville grasped the nettle firmly. "The McKinnon family were decimated by the Death Eaters and then Vol . . . V . . . V . . You-Know-Who personally killed the few survivors that were left."

"Gran says he was trying to send a message to the Light that, oppose me and you all die. She says it did not work as planned because it scared the Wizengamot into voting to allow even Unforgivable Curses against the Death Eaters. And suddenly heirs to Dark Houses started dying in battles. That scared them, and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named suddenly found his support weakening."

It took a few moments for Susan to speak into the silence that followed. "The 'Mot is a discussion for another day. Right now, we need to get Harry to the point where he will not accidentally offend any of his peers here or in public. Sadly, most of the House Lords are very touchy when it comes to their own vast importance," she said with a roll of her eyes.

The next two hours were the stuff of boyhood nightmares. He was taught how to walk or stride confidently, as he thought of it. Also, how to stand and/or walk tall and proud and not fidget. Hermione had been given by Susan the job of zapping Harry with a low-powered Stinging Hex whenever his attention wandered, or he became 'slumpy'.

Harry became certain she was positively enthusiastic about her role due to her frustration with his secrecy.

While the physical parts of the lessons were going on, Neville and Susan lectured their captive, er, student, with a bombardment of information on Wizengamot history, politics, alliances, personalities, and which children of importance were attending Hogwarts now.

When Lord Potter complained about how was he supposed to remember all the information they were ganging up to dump on him, the other two turned to Hermione to explain.

"No, Harry, we don't expect you to remember much of what we are dumping on you. However, if we keep repeating the lessons enough times, it's the quickest way to get you to remember most of what they are teaching you."

After two hours, an exhausted and aching 'I-just-finished-a-Quidditch-game' Harry called it quits for the afternoon. He could not even muster a glare when Susan "Heiress Bones to you, Lord Potter," said she had enjoyed the afternoon and they should do it again soon.

Her smirk while saying it left no doubt as to her comment's sincerity.

"Lord Potter," chipped in Neville, "it is bad form to give Heiress Bones two fingers in reply. It's just not done."

His look of disgruntlement grew ever larger. A grumbling 'Lord Potter' took everyone back to the fifth-floor staircase landing and gave them the wood block with their trackers on it.

When called "Elf Guerna" appeared and Harry had his and Hermione's trackers reattached. Surprising him, both Neville and Bones kept theirs on the blocks.

Susan explained. "I want to find out how long before they get reapplied. Your actions practically scream that you believe it's the Headmaster. I'm going to try some tests on that theory. My Aunt Amelia will be most interested."

Neville's explanation was that his Gran had told him for years that someone wanting to know where you were all the time was a 'Bad Thing' to allow. He would be writing her for advice later that afternoon.

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Later that day.

The room had been spelled with every security spell Hermione and Harry knew. They were quite good. For second years. They were weak to mediocre by adult standards.

Without preliminaries or fanfare, she stood in front of Harry, looked him square in the eye, and demanded, "What is this terrible danger that elf that visited you said Hogwarts will be in this year?"

The ambushed, surprised Harry had to scramble to explain the elf had disappeared when Harry had demanded the same answer.

Merlin, he was getting tired of the lies he was piling up.

/*

The following days followed the pattern of classes, of being Lord Potter lessons, homework, quidditch practice, and helping the firsties with their homework. Somehow the three had been latched onto by that group as mentors, tutors, and the all-around go-to housemates for questions they had.

Luna's thoroughly cheerful, yet zany personality, Ginny's inability to say anything to Harry, some quidditch worshiper named Demelza Robbins, and Colin's inherited Hermione wonder at all that was magic, kept the group lively. Another benefit was that the older students seeing a studious bunch of munchkins were inclined to help them if the Potter band was not available.

/*

No word of his ascension to Lordship was mentioned as the secret held. Harry was happy his quick letter to Lupin had him agreeing to hold off on publicly becoming his Facilitator. Gringotts had kept their silence and the Ministry had kept its ignorance.

Harry and Hermione avoided sitting or partnering up with Ron. His 'angry at the world' attitude had no one wanting to be his partner. In classes where having a partner was mandatory, the professors had to pick someone to be his partner.

Tuesday had been the outlier in that Snape had been in rare form. Apparently having to go a whole weekend without being able to pick on his two favorite punching bags of Neville and Harry had worked him into a ferocity of vileness.

Even Harry's newfound confidence in his potion-making skills, instilled by his tutoring by Lupin, barely kept the pair from melting their cauldron. The Great Bat of the Dungeons was in nastier than usual form as he deliberately lurked over their shoulders as they tried to do their work.

The vial the two hopefuls turned in to Professor Snape rated at least an Acceptable according to their textbook as to its colour and clarity.

Snape stared at the vial for a moment before Vanishing it and stating with his trademark sneer blasting full bore, "Unacceptable. A failing Troll for the day."

The snickering from the waiting Slytherins had been the frosting. Harry had noticed last year that the Slytherins usually let the Gryffindors turn in their finished potions first. That way they could see the grades given by The Snivellus and allowed them to mock the other house for its supposed terrible potion-brewing skills.

He also now knew after four years, nothing would ever change the bitter enemy of his father. Neville unfortunately, had only one year to thicken his skin against the bitter unfairness of it all.

Harry decided he was going to have to do something for his friends about The Snivellus. He just did not know what. The spread wings of the mighty Dumbledore influence had kept him from being removed from Hogwarts for four years previously.

/*

Unknown to Harry, the undercurrents that always flowed through Hogwarts were full of gossipy speculation. His almost blatant growth in stature and maturity had been noticed by the more discerning aspirants of the Mrs.-Degree-Upon-Graduation during the last few days.

He had never thought of the consequence of Healer Tonks giving him his still ongoing potions regime to correct his early years of malnutrition and near starvation. He was becoming taller and less scrawny. His higher-end magical clothing with automatic resizing charms had kept him from noticing.

That he was only a Firstie last year had kept them reined in. That and the problem that he had no parents or other family to provide leverage into his life had kept any aspirant family from moving onto attempting to enact favorable for them, unfavorable for Harry, betrothal contracts.

That and the fact that everyone knew Albus Dumbledore was the boy's magical guardian. Everyone who was anyone knew the elderly hero of Wizarding Britannia could not be bribed or cajoled into anything that he would consider 'Old Families' trying to use Harry for their own improved financial and social standing purposes.

Hermione was not the first who twigged to the subtle gathering of older, but not too much older, witches along the corridors they usually followed from class to their next second-year class.

It was the sharp eyes and gossip-minded brain of Lavender Brown that the honour went to. And Thursday evening after Harry's Lordship class, she inadvertently tipped off Hermione with some rather blatant vamping at Harry as the new trio walked in through the magical guardian painting.

Hermione watched in increasing ire as the short-skirted, top-three-blouse-buttons-undone, newly buxom blonde sashayed down the girl's dorm steps directly up to Harry, which was difficult, as she was simultaneously attempting to bounce her firmly thrust-out chest while swiveling her hips in her high heels.

As she neared Harry, she stumbled, (It was so well done, Hermione could not tell if deliberate or accidental.) and had to latch onto The Boy Who Lived to keep from falling.

The result was Harry instinctively wrapping his arms around the giggling, eye-batting, make-up-plastered, well-endowed pre-teen who was wearing a ton of perfume, just as she accidentally-on-purpose pushed her chest into him.

Which made him gasp in surprise, therefore inhaling a large amount of her strong perfume, with the result of making him violently sneeze into Lavender's hair.

Snickers and some titters were breaking out from those nearby that had seen the incident. Harry was past turning as red as Weasley hair, one batch of which was attached to the youngest Weasley who was glaring death at the forward older girl.

The comment that saved the situation came from Parvati who rushed over commenting, "See, I told you that you needed more practice wearing those heels. See what almost happened?

Thanks, Harry. Otherwise, she might have had a nasty fall."

At her remark, a lot of the gathered rolled their eyes, but except for one crass male voice, "Well, you got into his arms, snog him already!" It appeared most of those clustered about seemed prepared to look at it as a humorous incident by a young girl doing something dumb.

Lavender meanwhile, just had to make one last effort at salvaging something out of her big play that had gone awry.

She squeezed him even tighter and opened her mouth to acclaim him being a gentleman who had saved her from a nasty fall when Harry sneezed again. Right in her hair.

It was too much for the embarrassed and now grossed-out twelve-year-old. She hurriedly grabbed Parvati's arm and headed for the girl's dorm stairway.

Harry suffered from a third sneeze as he finally had an arm free to grab a handkerchief out from one of his voluminous school robe pockets.

As he tried to surreptitiously clean his face, he was checking on the students around him. The younger ones were looking at each other, eyes asking what had just happened. The middle years were mostly quietly snickering, and the older Gryffindors were giving him a whole variety of looks.

Most were laughing, but a few of the older girls were shooting him with stealthy, calculating looks.

Hermione latched on to Harry's and Neville's hands and towed them to the couch with the facing chair that was off to one side of the fireplace.

Hermione sat next to Harry on the couch and gestured Neville into the chair. If anyone had been paying close attention, they could have noticed that the boys sat stiffly in true Lordship fashion. Surprisingly, Hermione did the female version. She had taken some lessons from Susan on how heiresses were supposed to comport themselves, and the three bodies were still running on deportment lessons they had left only fifteen minutes ago.

Hermione looked at Neville. "Heir Longbottom," she said so quietly he hardly heard her, "was that some type of Pureblood thing that Lavender just did?"

Heir Longbottom re-ran the scene in his head for a moment then replied. "No, I think it was a young girl who should know better trying to make a foolish attempt at getting the Boy Who Lived as a boyfriend."

Harry's eyebrows climbed his forehead. Hermione nodded in agreement with Neville, who continued. "And when the female population of the castle finds out he is Lord Potter, not Heir Potter, the attempts at seducing him will become bolder, more direct and start having potions, compulsions, and charms added to some of the more unscrupulous family's attempts, . . ."

A blushing, head-ducking Neville continued, muttering, "At least that's what Gran is always warning me about."

Hermione looked sternly at Harry. "As soon as you announce your Lordship, start checking all your food and drink. We already know someone slipped you a potion last year, so it can be done."

Neville looked very curious at the girl's last statement, but kept it leashed and quiet as he said, "According to my Gran a House Lord's ring usually has enchantments to detect poisons, bad potions, or deflect minor curses cast at you."

"Oh, and it should give you protection against Legilimency. That's a technique that can invade your mind so people can learn your secrets."

Harry sat there thoughtfully, His lordship lessons and his friend's comments had just given him an idea about what to do about The Rat. He was going to have to get Hermione to teach him some advanced spells. And hope she would do it without needing a detailed explanation of why he needed to know them. Or maybe he could learn them himself from books he might find in the library?

/*

The feeling of having to take care of The Rat soon had been growing. Harry thought of the feeling as seeing storm clouds heading towards him from the horizon. He was starting to have trouble getting to sleep with Scabbers in such constant proximity. And what had happened three nights ago still left his guts knotted.

Since his Silencio worked well, Harry had quit pulling his bed curtains closed at night. He was lying on his stomach with his head turned towards Ron's bed, idly wondering why the redhead had almost seemed less angry at the world the last couple of days. He kept his eyes half closed and his breathing even just trying to fall back to sleep when he noticed movement from The Rats cage.

Mentally cursing his poor eyesight, there was just enough moonlight to see Scabbers front leg stretch out from between the bars of his cage and start fiddling with the door latch. Suddenly it popped up and the door opened. The open door soon had a rat easing out of it, cautiously sniffing the air, head swiveling, eyes peering everywhere.

He got about a third of the way into the space between the beds when Harry had trouble not yelling in surprise. Suddenly there was a shabby, scraggly-looking wizard in ill-fitting robes standing in the dorm. Harry recognized him instantly from a year ago.

Pettigrew!

How he stopped himself from jumping out of bed and tackling the slovenly-looking animagus, Harry didn't know. A seconds thought and Harry knew trying to capture Pettigrew right now was a bad idea. The shoddy wizard might be weak, but Harry was a scrawny twelve-year-old, caught with no wand in hand and was tangled in his covers against an alert, worried about detection adult wizard. And a year ago, Harry had seen just how quick The Rat was when he was scared.

So, almost vibrating with tension, Harry watched through slitted eyelids as the man found some leftover cake Ron had missed and hungrily ate it. The wizard then proceeded to reach into a robe pocket and pull out a pair of small potion bottles. He could swear he could hear them clink together.

Uncorking them, he poured a small amount from one into the other and placed the larger vial back into a pocket. Easing up to Ron's bed, he seemed to study the boy for a moment. Ron was sleeping on his back and Harry would bet from his breathing he was snoring like a mis-shifted transmission. Swiftly kneeling next to the bed, the man shape dumped the small amount of potion into the boy's mouth.

Something else was dropped into Ron's mouth before the vial was dropped back into a pocket, and suddenly in Pettigrew's place, there was a rat creeping back to its cage in the faint light. Harry was positive he saw the rat lock himself back into the cage.

Harry waited a seemingly interminable time before going to the toilet as an excuse to now close his curtains and set his alert ward. He also made sure his wand was now under his pillow, not on the bedside table with his glasses.

Harry was never happier he now had a trunk that could only be opened by him. And that he knew the alert spell to set on his bed curtains. What he had just seen boosted his paranoia considerably. It was unsurprising that he had trouble falling asleep.

/*

It was a few more nerve-wracking days when as he was seated with Hermione, Neville, Luna, Ginny, and the rest of the first-year usual suspects during the breakfast mail delivery, a very ordinary-looking barn owl landed in front of Harry and extended its leg to him.

He was wondering if he should take the letter or try to ignore the owl as he didn't recognize it, and he was feeling increasingly paranoid about getting compelled, or contact potioned or something. If Pettigrew had wanted to make Harry's life hell, he was a success.

He may have been writing to the Tonks, to Lupin and Gringotts but they all knew to use Hedwig on any replies to him, and she had been told by her fledgling to bring his mail to him at night in his room. It was one way Harry was trying to keep The Great Isolator from realizing he was in correspondence with people outside of the castle.

Suddenly he noticed the thin subtle green, black and yellow border of the envelope and realized it was from Solicitor Tonks. He quickly freed the owl of its burden, and after a quick look at his name on the envelope, he as unobtrusively as possible slid it into a robe pocket.

Harry had to wait until after lunch to get the privacy he wanted for opening the colour-bordered envelope. He and Hermione ducked into one of the unused classrooms. He had been correct. It was from Mrs. Tonks.

He read it quietly and stared into space for a moment. The impatience was positively rolling off Hermione as she fought herself for control over her hands. She kept them clenched so as to keep from snatching the letter from Harry's hands to read it for herself.

THAT had been one of the most embarrassing moments of her life a few days ago. Late in a deportment lesson from Neville and Susan, the auburn-haired girl had made it a point to take her aside.

Hermione was dead grateful she had split them away from Harry and Neville as the pureblood trainer had quietly and politely informed her that she was going to have to break one of her worst habits.

At Hermione's resentful look, she explained that the bushy-haired girl was going to have to start understanding that sometimes she had to treat parts of Harry as the Lord of a Most Ancient and Most Noble House that he was. And that included not snatching any piece of parchment or any book that Harry was reading that she suddenly thought was interesting.

The thoroughly embarrassed Hermione had protested that she wasn't being nosey, she was trying to help Harry.

"Why?" was the simple question Susan spoke.

"Because he needs me to check his work, or understand some of the things we read in his library. I've found he has no idea what to do and . ."

"Are you his mother or his friend?" was the acerbic question returned.

Desperate to deflect the questioning, Hermione replied, "Sometimes I'm his protector. I mean last year I had to save him from that jinx that Professor Quirrell put on his broom during the first Quidditch match. And I kept him from being strangled by the Devil's Snare last spring."

"Oh, so you're his bodyguard in addition to being his mother?"

"I am not his mother!" was Hermione's hissed retort.

"Then do two things. Let Harry make his own mistakes. You might notice he rarely repeats them. Second, stop acting like every bit of parchment he reads is a piece of parchment you have to read."

Susan closed her eyes for a moment. "Very soon, he's going to have to portray himself as Lord Potter. Having you reaching in to snatch his correspondence away to read yourself will make him look like a bossed-around little boy."

Hermione let the memory fade. Worse was the next memory that popped up. Whenever Neville was around, and Hermione grabbed at Harry's work or letters, he would clear his throat loudly while glaring at her.

Harry must have felt her conflict. He looked over and saw her trembling.

"What's wrong, Hermione?"

She returned to the outside world. "Hmm? Oh, nothing. I was just thinking about something."

Must have been some 'something', he mused. The trembling was easing but her hands were clenched and her lips were pressed together so hard they had practically disappeared.

"Well, for what it's worth, our quiet time is about over. My solicitor has found out that the Daily Prophet is going to 'discover' that I have become Lord Potter in the next few days."

He handed the letter over to her and she speed-read it in a few seconds.

"Oh, Harry," she said, sounding equally hopeful and worried at the same time. "If Neville is right, we'd better start practicing every compulsion and potion detection spell we can find."

/*

AN:

Hermione is still not catching that there is a Lord and Mistress of a House. (See the Castlewards mentioned earlier in this chapter.

I sincerely hope the next several chapters are easier to write than the last four.

They have been a writer's block, time thrash struggle that has eaten up almost all my pre-written chapters. And of course, after an update, my computer went wonko. And so did the camps wifi.

I know any longer than two weeks between updates is annoying. I read a lot of WIP's also.