To Ride the Carousel Again

Chapter 20

The rights of all recognizable characters belong J.K. Rowling.

And she can disperse them as she wants.

Just a nice, normal school year. Right?

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Approx. 5,900 words

/*

"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 detection spell we can find."

/*

Two nights later, Hedwig floated into Harry's dorm room. She gave a quiet bark as she headed to land on him where he was sitting on his bed.

Taking the letter from her leg, he did not need the coloured border to tell him this was a missive from Andromeda Tonks. He had specifically sent Hedwig to her last night after asking his familiar to stay with the Tonks until they needed to send him a letter.

Dear Harry,

My informant tells me tomorrow morning the Dailey Prophet will

headline a story about how you have somehow become Lord Potter.

He also told me the article is not very flattering.

Humpf. Wonder if Skeeter wrote the story? he thought.(1)

Your Friend

"Nothing I can do about it tonight," he mused as he petted and made much of just how smart his girl was. "Neville and Susan have done their best to prepare me for this. I suppose I could get someone to wake her up and tell Hermione. But then she will probably start fretting. She's already practically frazzled from spending too much time researching all those detection spells. Probably best to let her sleep, and we'll face it in the morning. Except for . . ."

"Hedwig, do you think you could get a message into the Hufflepuff girls' dorm?"

/*

Wednesday, September 16, 1992

/*

Harry tried to take his own advice but slept badly. Even using his rudimentary occlumency skills, it took a while to fall asleep.

Harry was up before six o'clock. After a quick shower and tooth brushing, he took his new trunk out of the pocket of his old Dudley hand-me-downs, placed it at the end of his bed and enlarged it.

He quickly (and messily) transferred all his old trunks 'stuff' into the first compartment. Opening the second compartment, he now had his closet and wardrobe dressing room open. Taking brand-new socks and underwear from their drawers, he pulled them on.

New spelled wrinkle-free black pants and a silk maroon-coloured shirt that fit him followed. A silk tie in Gryffindor colours was next and then a highly polished pair of those very comfortable Madame Malkin's shoes were last. Lastly, he donned his new silk Hogwarts robe with the Gryffindor coat of arms on the right, and Potter coat of arms on his left chest.

He tapped his wand on the Potter crest and muttered the Notice-me-not spell. He could still see it, but others should not.

Lastly, he cleaned out his old book bag and transferred the 'not junk' stuff into the new backpack he had bought last summer.

"So, what have I forgotten?" he thought as he tossed his old book bag into his old trunk and Reducio'd. He would pitch it into a trash container later.

"Aha! Glasses."

Pulling a glasses case off a shelf, he could now debut his new enhanced glasses for someone besides Hermione. Hedwig had brought them almost a week ago, and Harry and Hermione had found an unused classroom on the fourth floor for Harry to familiarize himself with their various functions. He thought the enchantments were great, but he was going to need lots of practice to make them give him an advantage over his enemies. And Fumbledork also.

A tap with his finger on a 'decorative' rune on the righthand corner of the frame made it easier to 'see' through disillusionment charms. If the disillusioned person moved, the rippling of the air around the charm field became noticeable.

Tap an inch back along the ear bow and the colour of a spell, especially of one being used against you, was enhanced and made crystal clear. It would be a large help in identifying the spell being shot at him.

Another inch back, and Harry could see at night better than an owl. Very good for sneaking around, but very bad if someone lit up a Lumos. He would be blind for over a minute which would be enough for him to be killed twenty times over.

A tap from his finger on the upper left corner of the lens frame would show him the past and future trajectory of a solid object thrown or blasted at him.

Another finger tap an inch back along the left earbow, and his glasses could magnify distant objects like he was wearing Omnioculars like he had at the Quidditch World Cup in two years.

Those last two settings were why his glasses were banned from Quidditch play.

The third spot on the left ear bow just in front of his ear was an 'enchanters special'. It was a request Harry had made to the magical optometrist and it created an invisible tiny mirror in each lens that tracked his eye movement. Anyone who was deliberately trying to look at him square in the eyes would get his gaze reflected back.

He had ordered a pair of non-prescription glasses for Hermione to wear with all the enchantments he had and was eagerly awaiting their delivery. They should they keep Dumblydorko and The Snivellus out of her mind, and allow him to have someone he could talk with about his problems.

Harry often had to fight down a grin whenever he thought that between his Lordship ring and now his glasses, what could happen to The Dungeon Bat or the Self-Awarded-Great-Manipulator if they tried to Legilimency him unobtrusively now!

Lastly, a push on the nose piece made the glasses non-summonable and removable only by him. He remembered all too well losing his glasses in the Chamber and the Graveyard and becoming so blind he should have died.

His panic at being essentially blind led to the basilisk biting him as he frantically searched for his glasses on the floor after he tripped. He could now remember the pain as a venom-injecting fang ripped through his back and out his chest was worse than a Voldemort Crucio. So, he pondered, his old glasses were possibly the reason he died his first go around in the Chamber.

Harry took one last look at himself in the full-length mirror of his number two trunk compartment. About the only thing he recognized about himself was his untamable hair and his green eyes.

Yet he thought he may be short, skinny, and ridiculously young, but the clothes did give him an outward dignity. Now all he had to do was back that up with some acting.

And ruthlessly groin stomp anyone plotting to remove his new emancipation. It was that or utter humiliation, a return to the Dursleys, and his failure of all that he had promised his parents.

Stuffing his father's invisibility cloak into an interior pocket, he closed and locked his trunk.

As he turned he saw Neville looking silently from his bed across the room. Harry saw the surprise in Neville's eyes, but since the heir knew the plan, it disappeared quickly.

"Today, eh?" he said quietly. The others were still asleep and neither boy felt like putting up with their questions right now.

Harry gave a single firm nod back, already engaging his Lord Potter persona.

As he entered the common room from the boy's dorm steps, he could see Hermione sitting on a couch in front of the roaring morning fire in the fireplace, a large tome in hand.

She looked up, and seeing his bearing and how he was dressed, she paled and seemed to curl in on herself.

She still had not recovered when he sat (stiffly) beside her.

That simple action had her clutching her book to her chest, but she still remained silent, merely continuing to stare at him.

Harry finally decided to speak. "You knew this day was coming. Why do you seem so depressed?"

Hermione stared back, "It's real now. Now you have to act like one of 'them'.

"Only among those who will not take me seriously if I don't," was the quiet reply. "Besides, it's not like I could avoid taking the acting lessons needed to create Lord Potter."

He gestured at himself. "If you didn't want to create this, why did you drive yourself so hard on the 'making of Harry into Lord Potter'?"

Hermione looked like she wished Harry had never asked the question, and she looked guilty.

Harry merely kept looking at her expressionlessly.

Hermione collapsed into herself like a punctured balloon.

"Remember on the express when you said that you wanted to make things fair and equal for muggleborn's? That statement stirred me. I desperately wanted to join you on the journey to that destination. And now I feel I have at least started on the voyage."

"But a couple of days ago I realized that I was becoming someone I don't like. I find I'm trying to turn myself into an Eminence Gris," she said so quietly her voice was almost a whisper.

Harry had no reply except to look puzzled.

His bushy-haired friend sighed and shook her head. Tears were starting to pool in her eyes.

"I find I'm trying to manipulate you into being this champion for equal rights, not just following you. I find myself planning to become the power behind the throne, to push you from behind or offer advice from the shadows."

"Now that I see what we have created, I don't think I like myself at the moment." This time her words came out as a whisper.

Harry gave her his infamous crooked smirk. "I think that Heir Longbottom and Heiress Bones had a fair amount to do with turning me into this over-dressed ponce you see before you. In fact, I have a bone to pick with all three of you."

Hermione goggled at Harry in mild shock.

"You've all spent so much time on this Lordship stuff, I've barely made any progress in my occlumency studies these last two weeks. And you know The Twinkly-Eyed-Tyrant-of-Harry-Potter's-Summers will have me up in his office faster than Ron eating a plate of breakfast this morning."

"The question I've been avoiding is how do I get out of his office with some of my secrets intact and most of my memories unchanged."

Hermione just stared. In the last few weeks, Harry had shown her a different Dumbledore than she had revered. He had proven his paranoia had a large basis in fact. She was at the point where her intellect believed Harry, but her childhood buildup of automatic respect for those in authority because they had shielded her from the worst bullies was involved in a hard-fighting rearguard action.

"You could ask Professor McGonagall to go with you. The Hogwarts Rules of Staff and Student Conduct state that any time a student is called before the Headmaster, he can request his Head of House be present as his advocate," she recited from memory.

"Really?" he asked in wonder. "There are rules of student conduct? And there's a book with those rules in it?"

She nodded affirmatively.

Catching movement out of the corner of his eye, he turned to see Neville entering the common room from the dorm hall.

As he stood he quietly said, "Remember that book. I think I'm desperately going to need it this year."

He extended a hand to help Hermione up. "Shall we head down for breakfast early today? I understand it's going to be . . . interesting."

Harry had not noticed that nearly a dozen older students had quietly filtered into the common room and most of them had heard his announcement. This of course focused their attention on the stylish, and expensively, dressed second year.

The room was so quiet that the leaving trio could hear the speculative comments, "Is that Potter? Where did he get those expensive robes? Oh, Merlin. The Potter fangirl club is going to go crazy."

The last comment was completely unexpected and caught Harry's interest.

As the three of them left the portrait hole Harry looked at the other two. "Do either of you know what the Potter Fangirl Club is?"

Both of his companions blushed bright red.

Neville, who was coming out of his shell after a couple of weeks of exposure to the new Potter personality, looked as though he could not understand the question.

Hermione took several deep breaths to compose herself for what she was positive was going to be an embarrassing revelation.

Harry was meanwhile having to curb his urge to explode with laughter at his two friends. He had learned about the fangirls in his fourth year. He was pranking his friends and they would not know it until . . . .

That reminded him. Now was the time to send a letter telling Solicitor Tonks to let slip the Dogs of Law to bite, harass, and bring down those who had made a small fortune off his name with those ridiculous books. He was sure she eagerly awaited his owl.

He returned from his thoughts just as Hermione managed to find her voice.

"Harry, there is an unofficial group, um, that meets to talk about The - ah, The-Boy-Who-Lived and his, . . um, amazing life. You have to understand, that until last year, no one had seen you for a decade. All the wizarding world had was a description of you, Professor Dumbledore's assurances that you were well, and then there were all those Harry Potter books. They told everyone you lived a life of luxury in a magical castle, had scads of magical companions, and went on wonderfully merry adventures with them."

Harry looked right at Neville when he replied. "And my appearance last year was overlooked or ignored because no one wanted their fantasy to end?"

Neville suddenly looked thoughtful. (A look he was wearing more and more, Harry thought. He also thought it suited him)

"That's an interesting insight, Lord Potter, er, Harry," Neville said slowly.

"And add in a weak avoidance charm," Harry also spoke slowly while thinking the thought through, "and nobody thinks much about my appearance. Therefore, you end up with everyone thinking they know me, but mostly overlooking me. Then add the Curiosity Suppression Charm laid on me, the Wit Dulling Potion, and then mix in my upbringing that wants me to stay safely in the shadows so no one notices me."

Neville looked as though he had been hit with a Confundus Charm at the amount of information Harry had just dumped out.

"Huh, I created my own 'notice-me-not' zone," Harry mused aloud. "I was successful in what I wanted, and I did not realize it at all."

Hermione spoke up a trifle bitterly. "Don't forget to add in that Ron was right nasty to anyone that tried to get close to you and then you end up getting shunned because someone you call your best friend can be just plain mean and jealously guards his being the only access to you."

Neville gathered up his Gryffindor courage with both hands, stiffened his back, and looked Harry right in the eye. "It took saving Hermione from a troll to break her into your tiny circle of those you think of as friends. And Ron is still mean to her fairly often."

The Longbottom heir paused. "I guess what I'm trying to say is, outside of a talent for playing chess, your Ron has no redeeming values as a friend to a Lord of a Most Ancient and Most Noble House."

That statement plummeted Harry's mood. Harry just did not have the emotional make-up to abandon a friend like brushing dirt off his hands.

His inner, unhappy thoughts carried the three into the Great Hall doors. At that point, Hermione discretely tugged on his arm to bring his attention back to the outside world.

"Lord Potter," she hissed.

Harry automatically snapped into what he still called 'ponce' mode. Back straight, stride becoming confident, face mostly emotionless. He became an important young man in no particular hurry to be somewhere.

And his entrance was noticed.

"Ahh, there she is," he thought catching sight of the Heiress Bones sitting with her friend Hanna at the Hufflepuff table.

"I don't know why I was worried Hedwig wouldn't be able to deliver my message last night. She must be like that thing I heard about the Royal Mail. Neither snow nor rain nor hail or dark of night stays these men from the swift completion of their appointed rounds." (2)

Seeing them, Harry turned and approached the two Hufflepuffs at their table. Her school robe looked a bit different today. Maybe she had 'heiress-ed up' a bit for the day?

He saw the two pairs of eyes widen as they saw him tap his chest with his wand and the Potter Crest briefly appeared on his robe before another tap disillusioned it again.

"Heiress Bones, Miss Abbott. You two are looking particularly lovely today. I would like to sit with you, but I suspect we would get many rude stares that would ruin our appetites."

That comment caused both girls to look around, catching many students staring at them. Most quickly averted their eyes, but many rudely kept watching.

With a slight bow, (a bow very few noted was the exact angle of a lord leaving the presence of an heiress) Harry and his accompanying Gryffindors returned to the path leading to their table.

Harry was moderately surprised to see Luna, Ginny and a few other first-years already sitting in their usual spot in the second-year section.

"Luna," said Harry with a smile for them, "What brings you down here so early?"

With unwonted seriousness his blonde friend replied. "The Blibbering Humdingers told me that something exciting was going to happen this morning. I see from the Potter Crest on your school robe you have ascended to the lordship of your house. That should upset some Black Chigoolie-infested people."

Harry was hard put to not gape like a fish. How had she . . .

Pulling himself together, he said, "Heiress Lovegood, I have been given to understand The Daily Prophet will be announcing my status to our world this morning. I believe that if I don't show that I am Lord of the Most Ancient and Most Noble House of Potter, there are those who would disparage my suitability and fitness for my ascension."

Harry gave both her and the slack-jawed Ginny his most roguish crooked grin. "Besides, I have grown tired of wearing my cousin's hand-me-downs. They just don't fit the new sense of style I'm developing this year. No more grunge."

Raising his nose in the air and trying to sneer, he continued, " I shall become a ponce like Malfoy."

The last of Harry's none-too-quiet pronouncements brought snorts, snickers and giggles from several nearby people. Luna surprised him by laughing out loud. He was vaguely surprised by her laugh being pleasant and not young girl screechy.

With a final grin at the blonde, he tapped his school cloak and the coat of arms designating him to be Lord Potter reappeared.

The three second-years sat down with their backs against the wall. Harry in the middle, Hermione on his left, and Neville on his right, and they started filling their plates. The frantic whispering going on in the Hall was interrupted occasionally as someone would rush off to spread the word that Harry Potter thought he was Lord Potter.

Hermione, as Harry had foreseen, promptly started badgering him about what spell he had used to hide the Potter crest, and how he had made it reappear silently. Harry quietly told her about the Notice-Me-Not Charm and Finite. He also promised to teach her the spells.

The staff table was filling up as professors wandered in. Those who didn't immediately notice Harry were soon nudged, physically or magically, into taking in his appearance.

Nobody did more than look until Professor McGonagall arrived. She soon observed Harry's school uniform changes as she always checked on her Lions as soon as she seated herself.

She then looked at Harry as though he were a student doing a bad job with a transfiguration spell. Exasperation mixed with fatalism.

She stood and strode over towards Harry, who upon noticing her, quickly stood and stepped to meet her thinking, "Lesson number six. Do not let anyone dominate you physically so they can talk down to you."

"Good morning, Deputy Headmistress McGonagall. Is there a problem?" Harry spoke into the dead silence of the Great Hall as everyone in the hall strained to hear what promised to be a memorable conversation. Or at least one they should report to their parents.

"Mister Potter, why are . ."

"Excuse me, professor. Is this classwork related?" Harry asked as he looked up at her rapidly pinching face.

The visibly surprised woman recovered rapidly from the rarity of having a student interrupt her.

"No, it is not," she responded, but before she could get any further, Harry interrupted her again.

"Professor McGonagall, is this related to your being the Head of Gryffindor House of which I am a member?"

Quite a few gasps and mutters bounced around the Hall at the gall of the slight of build, skinny kid known as Harry Potter, dared to interrupt the Dragon of Transfiguration for a second time.

A now glaring Minerva McGonagall started a third time. "Mister Potter, I want to . .."

As the standing boy interrupted McGonagall for the third time, a susurration flowed through the room.

"Ah," he said feigning innocent surprise. "Then this talk would involve your Deputy Headmistress position. If that is so, I prefer being addressed as Lord Potter."

He finished with a tone of finality, "Therefore, how may I help you, Deputy Headmistress McGonagall?"

Minerva McGonagall thought she had seen most of the strangeness that Hogwarts had to offer. However, watching as the slight, painfully shy loner who only seemed to have two friends in the whole school, suddenly transformed himself into a young aristocrat-acting Lord had to be getting near the top of the list.

"But young Mister Potter couldn't be a Lord, He was too young. Perhaps someone had conned the lad into believing he was a Lord instead of being a Heir. He could probably claim that."

It was then she finally diverted her attention from his face and noticed the Potter Family crest opposite the Hogwarts crest on Harry's school robe. The shield part of the crest did not have the bar on it, which signified he was the Heir.

"Oh, Merlin. If he thinks he can get away with wearing that, he's got another thing coming!"

The aged witch was winding herself up to not-so-kindly inform her wayward student just how severe the penalties for impersonating a Lord were, and how had he ever thought that he should do such a foolish thing when Harry held up his left hand.

Her flickering glance at the movement turned into a hard sustained look at the ring that had just appeared on his finger. Her brain had trouble computing what her eyes were seeing. That ring with the Potter crest worked into it could not be faked.

It was not the Heir ring she was looking at. Young Harry Potter was wearing the Potter Lord's ring.

She stood frozen staring at the ring for a few moments. Gathering her scattered wits, she said, "May I inquire as to how you came by that ring, MiLord Potter?"

Deciding he was not done torturing his Head of House, Harry responded, "The usual way, Deputy Headmistress McGonagall. I fulfilled the necessary requirements needed to obtain the privilege of wearing it."

"Will that be all?" Harry finished.

McGonagall gave a firm nod of her head, turned and leaving behind a look that said she wanted to question him some more, before returning to her seat at the staff table.

Her friend Filius leaned over to speak to her, but she stopped him with a look.

"Yes, it's real. He is Lord Potter. I wonder how many of Albus' plans just were Bombarda'd into flinders just now?"

Flitwick stared at her.

It was Severus Snape arriving that provided the next entertainment for the students. The potions professor had just arrived and before pouring his breakfast cup of tea, he realized that something had the students riled up. In all the houses.

Firming up his usual scowl of surliness, he started running his gaze over the seated rows of students. It only took about ten seconds for him to zero in on the Potter brat.

It took him another ten seconds for him to see why the talentless schoolboy was attracting so much attention. It appeared that he had dressed in something besides his usual charity bin apparel, and had let it go to his ego-inflated head.

Ahh. He could see now that he must have found out about his being the Potter Heir. Those looked like expensive robes and though his angle was bad, that looked like the heir's crest on his robe.

No matter. Once he had him in the potions class, he would show the inept spawn of James Potter just how talentless he truly was.

Seeing the worse-than-usual strings of hatred flash across his sallow face, followed by a look of intense anticipation, Minerva had a slight smile on her face as she sipped from her morning cup of Ceylon Black Tea.

/*

The whispering ramped up as Harry returned to his seat and restarted his breakfast. The stares from other students were an almost physical weight.

"I think the staring, pointing, and whispering is worse than the day after that accursed goblet stuck me in the tournament," he thought gloomily.

By eating small portions, he managed to keep his nerves from emptying his stomach of what little he had consumed.

"That went well with McGonagall. But most of it was due to her being off balance because of surprise. I'll wager the Old Fartledork will be better prepared. Somebody will blab."

/*

It turned out Harry was wrong.

Some urgent International Confederation of Wizards emergency had required his presence in Basel. With Switzerland being an hour ahead of Britannia, he had taken an international floo to the continent before Hogwarts breakfast had started.

The three had managed to have a somewhat stilted conversation about mostly nothing and were nearly done with their early breakfast when the owl mail and newspaper deliveries began.

The cries of "Merlin, he really is Lord Potter! It must be true! It's in the Prophet!" and other such utterances soon echoed around the Great Hall. The Daily Prophet subscribers were surrounded by groups of up to half a dozen all trying to read the front page.

Hermione had never seen a Rita Skeeter 'phony praise with innocent, yet damning, disapprobation' article aimed at Harry before. Harry had been through her poison pen stories, and often outright fabrications, before.

The writing was classic Rita. She had little information to go on as the only words Gringotts had spoken were, "No comment."

The Ministry had turtled up with the same quote as they had no idea that Harry was now Lord Potter. They, as usual, had dropped the quaffle and were trying to bluff their way out of the situation that they found themselves in.

Not having winkled out the information she wanted from Gringotts or the Ministry, the scandal monger had somehow managed to get some quotes from some of Harry's fellow students.

From the quotes printed in the paper, she had to have cherry-picked the people who she allegedly quoted, or have gotten her statements from those whom Harry would consider enemies in years to come. When he knew who they were that is. He didn't recognize most of those quoted.

Elkis Plotsgan, "He's become a known troublemaker in the school in only one year. How could he become a Lord?"

Esmerelda Vancloss, "The boy is an obvious favorite of the headmaster. Has anyone looked into all the house points he was awarded last year for doing something that no one else knows about, or what happened?"

Heir Draco Malfoy of the House of Malfoy. "If the story is true, the scarhead had to have cheated somehow. He probably bribed the goblins to fake the parchment work."

Harry skimmed the next quotes, but they were more of the same. In the meantime, out of the corner of his eye, he could see his friend was about to self-combust.

Her breathing was rapid and shallow, her muscles were suffering from random twitches as she suppressed her near-physical need to snatch the paper from Harry so she could read it. Both to save her sanity and because he wanted to ponder something, he passed the Prophet over to her. Her brain disappeared from the present as she started rapidly reading.

Leaning over towards Heir Longbottom, who was reading his copy of the newspaper, he addressed him as such.

"Heir Longbottom, how upset should the goblins be after having their honor insulted so publicly by our very own Hair Pomade King?" he murmured.

"Lord Potter, they are going to be livid. Lord Malfoy may have to back his stupid son publicly, but in private, he's going to come down hard on the idiot. The goblins have gone to war over less in the past."

He added to those thoughts after a moment. "I would wager there are a lot of senior staff at Gringotts that are urging that they ban Malfoy from the bank for his son's remarks. He may have to do some crawling to keep his access to the bank."

"Humpf. Wonder if I took out an advert in the Prophet swearing I paid no bribes to Gringotts, and stating I was perfectly pleased with the service I have been provided through the difficult efforts needed for me to fulfill the requirements needed for acquiring my Lordship?"

"Maybe," was the more thoughtful than a twelve-year-old should sound reply. "However, they have in the past seemed to be in Lord Malfoy's pocket. He may just bribe or threaten them to not print your advert."

Suddenly from across the table, his friend Luna showed she had overheard the two quietly talking. As she spoke, he became sure she had the hearing of a bat.

"Lord Potter, my father is the owner and publisher of the Quibbler. If the Daily Prophet will not print something for you, he will."

The young girl suddenly placed her right forefinger under her chin. "Well, unless the advert slanders some of the major bribe receivers in the Ministry. He might balk at that. We do try to avoid being labeled as treasonous. It's such a bother dealing with bribery-addicted ministry officials and their tame aurors."

Harry stared at his friend, assessing the unusual, yet seeming genuine offer of help. "Thank you, Luna. I'll consider your advice."

He barely caught Hermione's mutter, "Dear Goddess, we have a true anarchist among us. Keep her away from the Twins."

As the trio of second-year students left breakfast and walked the halls of the aged school, the expected attention followed them everywhere. Conversations ceased at their approach, and any talking was done in whispers, mouths concealed by hands.

There was one pair who did not merely talk about him.

Gliding towards him, wearing what he now recognized as very good quality school robes, with a stern, frozen look on her face was a very pretty girl with long flowing raven-haired curls and brilliant dark blue-coloured eyes.

Flanking her was another young girl with slightly lesser robes, medium length, slightly curled light brown hair, and the same stern/blank look on her face. He would notice later she had nice hazel eyes. What he also immediately noticed was the green trim on their cloaks and their emerald-coloured ties.

Harry could not stop assessing the pair with his sort of fifteen-year-old mind. "Wow, she's going to be as beautiful as Delacour in a few years! And her friend is pretty too."

The taller black-haired girl led the duo into a sweeping curtsy. "Lord Potter, I know we have shared classes, but not met. I am Heiress Daphne Greengrass of the Ancient and Noble House of Greengrass. My companion is Heiress Secundus Tracey Davis of Noble House Davis."

"Heiress Greengrass, Heiress Davis," Harry bowed at the correct angle and replied, "May I present the Heir Neville Longbottom, and Miss Hermione Granger."

His friends returned the original courtesy with a bow from Neville and a shaky curtsy from Hermione.

Greengrass slowly took her wand out but kept it pointed nowhere near the suddenly tense trio and spoke quickly. "May I put up a privacy ward, Lord Potter? I wish privacy for what I want to say."

A sideways look at the other two saw agreement from Neville and uncertainty from Hermione quickly followed by avid interest as apparently Greengrass was going to show her some new magic she did not know about.

"Very well. Proceed Heiress Greengrass of House Greengrass."

Harry's reply was straight out of the PureBlood traditions rulebook.

What Harry had just done was give her permission, and politely added a reminder that as she was now representing House Greengrass, any type of attack or intent to harm him or his companions would be taken as treachery by the House of Potter. And Neville had taught him that 'bad things' usually occurred because accusations of treachery could easily escalate into Blood Feuds.

Greengrass immediately started moving her wand in overhead circles while murmuring an incantation.

She started speaking even as she returned her wand to her robe pocket.

"Lord Potter, before the Headmaster who has claimed to be your magical guardian returns to the castle, I would like to set up a meeting with you as my father has requested me to do."

She stopped speaking as she heaved the quaffle to his end of the pitch.

Harry pondered for several seconds before saying, "Very well. Friday afternoon, half past thirteenth hour, fifth floor, east wing, top of main stairs."'

Daphne merely nodded her acceptance and once again carefully pulled her wand and waved it again with another murmured incantation. There was an audible tinkle as the privacy ward fell.

With nods all around, the two groups headed off to their respective classes.

"Harry . . ." started Hermione.

"Not here, Hermione," he said. "In these corridors, even the paintings have ears."

/*

A/N:

One: Skeeter wasn't 'outed' by Hermione until they were on the Express for home after the Fourth year. You may recall this Harry couldn't return on the Express that year.

Two: He got the quote wrong and who it was about wrong. So what. He's fifteen.