Sympathetic Properties

by Mr Norrell

Having been treated as a servant his entire life, Harry is more sympathetic when Dobby arrives, avoiding Vernon's wrath and gaining a bit of freedom. That freedom changes his summer, his life, and the world forever. A very long character-driven story that likes to play with canon.

23. When Pigs Fly

AN: This has got a bit of something for everyone, no matter what story line you're most interested in. It also happens to be the longest chapter so far too; almost as long as the last two chapters combined.

Anyway, let's get to this.

.o0O0o.

Almost an entire day with the bank's doors closed had put the Ministry into quite a state of shock. To preserve the security of their plans what limited floo access there was had been blocked up so that no word about what was happening would spread beyond the bank's triple double doors… but something wasn't right.

'Had Bankor said something when he flooed to inform them that I'd be arriving?' Barchoke wondered, and not for the first time, but he doubted it more each time he thought it. Bankor had been in charge of the crowds that morning and had stood strangely resilient – polite, yes, but still resilient to demands.

The Ministry had been like a vat of molten gold when he had stepped through the floo, the dross of the Goblin Liaison Office swarming around him like impurities bubbling up to the surface ready to be scraped off. Perhaps that had been why the foul Umbridge woman had shown up at the bank; there was no one who matched the definition of an impurity more than her.

All goblins knew of her – everyone who wasn't strictly human knew of her if they had the tiniest bit of intelligence – and the measures she's taken to make life more difficult. There had long been disgruntled voices saying they should end all dealings with her if she made any more moves against them. Regardless of her position in the Ministry or how it might strain the relationship between the two peoples, Barchoke was hard-pressed not to agree with them. They had been rolling over for wizards for far too long.

Impurities had their uses though; if you knew what you were looking for they could tell you everything you need to know. Gringotts maintained a gold purity standard of ninety-nine point nine five percent. Point nine nine was possible, and even achieved in the smelting process, but they added their own distinct impurities back into the mix; impurities never found in any smelting process ever devised or gold vein ever discovered – none they knew of at least.

While their knowledge of magic was severely limited, their records were clear about some things: alchemical gold was either pure dreck – the result of mixtures made by charlatans using concentrated urine to dye lesser metals to look like gold – or they were absolutely, positively, one hundred percent pure, there was no in-between. That was how they would prove what was real and what wasn't: impurities.

The Umbridge woman had run off and given the Minister of Morons an earful of how "disrespectful, insolent, and seditious" they had been at the bank. Perhaps he should thank her, just to infuriate her more; it had guaranteed him an immediate meeting with the man after all. Perhaps it was hearing of the "outrageous action against her" that kept the Minister so calm; the calm of a warrior on his toes. Strange the man had always seemed so blundering and flat-footed before, but he was not the only one who had changed.

Umbridge had expected to see him cower and quake, to stammer his apologies for them treating her so, and to tell them all he knew. Bankor might have done it yesterday had he been here, but it would not be coming from him today. She had not been pleased to have been sent away like a cart operator before an Overseers' meeting either, but he had the leverage here and he would only speak to the Minister himself. It was astounding how one good merger could change a goblin's perspective. They should have done it years ago.

The wizard he had been stuck with had proven so ignorant it was astounding. Perhaps he should stab Umbridge instead of thanking her, only he had left his dagger in his desk because even having it wouldn't send the right message. Cornelius Fudge had never once thought about where gold came from, why it was valuable, why having more was a problem, or the fact it wasn't found as coins. For one brief moment Barchoke thought it might've gone better with her still there, just so she'd know how deep the dragon dung she had stepped in really was, but she was such a contrarian she would have just called him a liar and demand he say it wasn't true.

"–We've recalled our overseas operatives who're qualified for the task and will be briefing them this afternoon," Barchoke said, detailing the finishing touches of the Gringott's gold-integrity plan. "With luck, before long they will come up with a faster method of determining whether any of the gold we have has been artificially created," he tried to give a reassuring smile there; he didn't feel that successful at it. Even with luck they still may be checking impurities for the better part of a year, if not longer.

He wondered where all the artificial gold created during Flamel's Famous Folly had actually gone. The records they had were mostly silent on it. It had been split up and distributed around Europe, that much was clear, but what had Gringotts done with their share? Surely the I.C.W. would want to know when they arrived. Had they taken the hit on their currency evaluation, melted it down, and mixed it into their own supply or had they done something else?

Barchoke remembered all the tiny touches of gold that could be found around Gringotts if you knew where to look. The gilding on chairs and tables, how the tiling on the floor and grooves between slabs of marble were all filled in with tiny amounts of gold, even the better sconces and lighting on the upper levels were made from it – perhaps that's where all that created gold had gone. He would have to have them check.

Still, checking impurities for years really was lucky when compared to some scenarios that had kept him up last night: tellers passing out leprechaun gold for people to use in their daily shopping and the havoc it caused when it disappeared by the day's end, cart operators exploiting their position to switch cartloads of galleons for fakes without anyone being the wiser, or – Gotts forbid! – their auditor teams opening the most high-wealth vaults only to find them standing completely empty. Even with his secretary beside him it had not been a restful night.

Fortius Quo Fidelius; Strength Through Loyalty – or, more accurately, "the more faithful, the stronger." That had been the Gringotts mantra – the guiding principle of the entire goblin people – for nearly a thousand years. Ever since the day they had been forced from their halls by the Humbling of the Half-wit, his head decorating Hog's Head Hill as the rest were forced to march across two countries to make a new life for themselves here, that principle had always worked – the price for betraying it: death.

The more faithful – the more dedicated – a goblin was to a cause the stronger that goblin became and the higher their rank. For most this took the form of a dedication to the function of their job above anything else, for some a dedication to their family, and for the goblins of upper management, dedication to the gold and the treasures they kept safe, for the role they played in a society which spurned them but nonetheless carved out a niche for their people to fill.

The dedication to the value of that gold had caused the last goblin king to lose his head too, but how strong could they possibly be without someone to rally around? And how could you name any goblin a king without having him betray that position and become loyal to only himself? Dark thoughts, Barchoke knew, but it was a tired and grumpy goblin who was sitting in one of the plush seats in front of the Minister of Magic's desk.

The seats might've been too soft and the carpets pointless and thick – besides to keep the noise down in an area where financial dealings were supposed to be done in secret, why would you need one? – but besides that it was an office to be admired. It clearly communicated wealth and indolence, though Barchoke thought to a human mind it might be the curious thought that nothing was beyond this man's control. Why else would he have windows enchanted to show himself looking down from hundreds of feet in the air?

"Well that's – that's certainly good," the portly Minister said, as if he had actually understood a thing he'd said. "The sooner we get all this behind us the better."

"Indeed," Barchoke agreed with what he hoped would be a jovial grin. "So while I concede Overseer Gutripper wasn't the most pleasant to Madam Umbridge–"

"That man's an Overseer?" Fudge cried curiously.

How anyone could think a bank on goblin land, staffed by goblins, using gold minted by goblins wouldn't actually be run by goblins was beyond anything he could imagine.

"That goblin is, yes," Barchoke said through a thin smile that showed only his tiny teeth. "He's most competent when it comes to Security, and he's adamant the doors remain closed while the investigation is underway, and you must see that until additional measures are taken it really would be best for us all. While we at Gringotts are eager to get back to business once all this is done, we are absolutely committed that this threat must not become an outright catastrophe for the economy of wizarding Britain," the Overseer said, returning to his prepared remarks.

"To that end we've drawn up a list of – recommendations," he slightly corrected himself as he withdrew the list from his coat pocket. At Bankor's urging he was not to use the word 'demands.' "–That we suggest you have the Wizengamot take up tomorrow and immediately pass covering everything from exchange rate freezes, price fixes–"

"–Are you sure all that's necessary?" Fudge asked, looking more than a little unnerved at having to take on such a complicated issue himself. Back again was the bumbling politician.

"If you want to avoid chaos breaking loose as everyone pulls their money from the bank, jacks up prices, and starts robbing and killing each other in broad daylight with the international community watching while we're left powerless to know whether any of that gold is actually worth anything at all?" Barchoke asked rhetorically before thumping the list down on the Minister's desk. "Yes."

The truth was that the new control measures they were employing at the bank would keep the killing to a minimum and chaos mostly to the international marketplace, provided the Ministry not override everything and pass a law ordering them to open their doors that is.

"I just… I never thought that Dumbledore would ever do something like this," the Minister said finally, as if he had been personally hurt on the matter. "What has he said about all this?"

For a moment Barchoke saw an slight ripple behind the Minister. It had happened a time or two before but once the man had sent Umbridge away and made sure they wouldn't be disturbed it had seemed overly rude to question him about their security measures. If these people didn't care enough to guarantee their Minister's office was secure then why should he? …Besides the fact he was sitting in it that is.

"Goblins are not interested in what a guilty person says unless it's a confession, evidence to implicate others, or can be used to make sure the whole thing doesn't happen again," the Overseer said, giving the Minister a brief synopsis of the goblin justice system as he stared at the window behind the human. He desperately missed his Concealer and was starting to feel edgy without it. "We are more interested in seeing them punished."

"Yes, well…" the Minister hemmed and hawed.

"The International Confederation of Wizards is sure to deal with Dumbledore once we raid Flamel's compound," Barchoke said tersely. "They're sure to get to the bottom of why he did it."

'Dumbledore is mine,' Barchoke inwardly raged.

He didn't like the thought of his prize being snatched away by someone else but while the old man sat on his wrinkly butt at Hogwarts or at the Ministry he couldn't be touched. Barchoke couldn't even kill the man inside the walls of Gringotts without sparking an inter-governmental incident that might trigger another war.

Lester had been carefully setting up what promised to be a solid case for the boy which would drag Dumbledore's name through the dirt. Add that to this latest revelation about his plot to spirit the Sorcerer's Stone away from Gringotts and it would certainly light his legacy on fire. That wasn't enough though; it didn't reach the level of personal satisfaction Barchoke had been waiting for all this time.

Once Dumbledore was taken then perhaps he could travel to Geneva, bribe the I.C.W. guards that held the man, and slash his throat knowing that even if he followed soon afterwards that vengeance had been served. …Or perhaps he should just poke Lester to get on with what he was doing, accept he had done his best, regrow his hair, go about making a few Acquisitions with Trixie, and settle down to quietly run Gringotts for the next decade or two. But why did that feel like failure?

"R–raid it?" the shocked Minister asked. "The I.C.W. is coming here? Why wasn't I informed? We have plenty of Aurors and Hit Wizards we could use for the job."

Barchoke almost groaned; the idiot didn't even know he was being informed when he was being informed. He had been hoping they wouldn't hit this snag but that relied on the wizards actually knowing their own history, and these people seemed to revel in the thought that nothing existed before the day they were born. Still, some of the tiny details weren't well known even among his kind, fastidious about these things as they are. By luck, his suggestion yesterday to bring in the I.C.W. for the raid had actually turned out to have been required based on one interpretation of the Agreement.

"This is in no way intended to be a slight against your Ministry, Minister" he said cordially, lying through his teeth. The last thing they wanted was the Ministry mucking things up. "This protocol was established by the Flamel Agreement between the Goblin Nation – as it existed at that time – and the Federation of Warlocks, the international organization that grew to become the International Confederation of Wizards some two hundred years later.

"The Wizards' Council which governed the magical affairs of England at the time," Barchoke explained, "was the predecessor of your own Ministry of Magic and a signatory on the treaty, as was the Wizards' Council which did the same for the Kingdom of Scotland."

"But there is no Kingdom of Scotland," the Minister said with a confused look on his face.

"There once was but records indicate it was dissolved in 1707 when the two countries merged to form Great Britain," Barchoke continued. "Both Wizards' Councils were disbanded and their seats incorporated to form the modern Wizengamot."

'The modern Wizengamot you still exclude us from while you deign to give us rules to live by even though we know more about your world than you do,' the Overseer thought sourly.

"Less than three hundred years ago?" Minister Fudge blinked at him. "No, that won't do at all," he said, scratching down notes with a quill. "We'll have to change that so it's always been like it is now. We don't want them thinking they could go off and survive on their own without us to tell them what to do. What would they do without us?"

'Live in a world of lollipops and moonbeams where the streets are paved with gold and cats are fat and plentiful,' Barchoke thought derisively.

Sometimes he wondered why his people wanted to be a part of the Wizengamot at all. If the modern magical morons were content to let these idiots to rule over them then so be it. Maybe his people would be better off moving to Ireland and learning to dance a jig like a breed of enormous leprechauns. If only goblins could so cheerfully erase hundreds of years of history like these wizards were content to do then perhaps he could propose the Irish Option without having his head end up on a pike. Since that was impossible, Barchoke continued to try to get through this meeting.

"As signatories and interested nations bordering Gringotts and Flamel's proposed compound, you were entitled to notification about the breach within one day of our learning of it so you could take appropriate steps to safeguard the value of your currencies," he said patiently. "This is why I'm here today and have provided you with the list of our recommendations," Barchoke pointed to the parchment he provided. "However, since the danger Flamel posed was international in scope," he concluded, "the Agreement stipulated that oversight into the investigation and prosecution of any violators would be in the hands of the Federation of Warlocks – or its inheritor organization, the I.C.W."

"Ah! I see," Minister Fudge said happily, seeming to understand that the whole affair could be settled without him having to do anything himself.

"When it comes to the raid itself, the I.C.W. has been most accommodating," Barchoke smiled.

He had expected the international body to be very cross with them over the entire affair and demand action be taken immediately. And while they were pleased to see a plan so quickly be brought forth and events proceeding apace, it was learning that Gringotts had every intention of turning Flamel over to them, and that Dumbledore was involved in the crime, that had really seen the watershed moment between them.

One day, if things went well, they might actually gain international recognition as an independent sovereign state and use that leverage to overturn the Ministry's stifling regulatory regime. Barchoke tried to rein himself in though by remembering the old goblin adage: 'Never count your Warboars before they can fly.'

"We're using the bank as a rallying point and slipping their wizards in through non-magical means and with our recalled overseas teams so as not to cause a panic amongst the general public," he informed the Minister, knowing there'd be no way the man could stop the process should he try. "The last of which should be arriving within the hour."

"The raid itself we're staging to take place as your Wizengamot meeting is taking place; we didn't want to bother you with such mundane concerns when you have much more important work to be about," Barchoke said, fanning the idiot's opinion of himself as he attempted to slip away with the whole loaf uncontested. "If you wish, I'm available to be on hand tomorrow to address the Wizengamot concerning these matters and to answer their questions," he smiled.

Just then the Minister's chair swiveled slightly to the right as the odd ripple reappeared behind him for a moment.

"No, no," Fudge said with a wave. "It's a big day for everyone tomorrow. I wouldn't want to waste your time in some tedious meeting. I'm sure I can handle things."

Barchoke decided that rudeness be damned, he'd had enough of the human's duplicity.

"Are you sure we're alone?" he asked tersely, pointing over the Minister's shoulder. "There's been something odd going on behind you this entire time."

It was common belief there was another power behind the Minister; it was the only way to explain anything getting done with someone so incompetent in charge. That had been the way of Gringotts the last ten years or so under Grand Overseer Largrot – the Overseers were the ones who'd done everything. What he hadn't expected was to have that other power stand directly behind the Minister in a private meeting.

"Has there really?" Fudge asked with bulging eyes as he turned to look behind him. The odd ripple moved slightly away from him as he swiveled around only to return to place when he sat facing him again.

"I've repeatedly put in a call to Magical Maintenance about it but they can never find anything wrong with the windows," the portly man said with a bit of an annoyed look. "I'm afraid it may be the spell I put on the chair to help with my lumbago. Old Quidditch injury," he explained with a grin Barchoke could spot as false from a mile away, "acts up at the oddest times."

"Ah, right," the goblin said with a grin as false as the Minister's. "This whole thing has gotten us all understandably on edge, and as you said, tomorrow it a big day for everyone, so I suppose we could leave things here for now," Barchoke said standing. "If you have any additional questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to let us know, and of course we'll keep you apprised of the situation as it develops."

The Minister stood with not a twitch of lumbago pain to be seen, and this time with a genuine smile on his face. Barchoke had no doubt it was at seeing the end of him rather than how the meeting had gone. Still, forms of propriety must be observed.

"As always, it's been a pleasure having one of your kind here and we look forward to many more prosperous years of working together," Fudge said, extending a hand.

The goblin took it and replied with one of the nonsensical sayings humans seemed to like from them. "May your gold ever flow," he replied courteously, mentally adding 'and scald, drown, and crush you beneath its molten weight for lying to me, human.'

.o0O0o.

As the door closed behind the grubby little goblin – which in his view didn't merit the honor of such a visit, even in these times – Lucius heard a huge sigh of relief. Withdrawing his wand as he walked around the Minister's desk, he cancelled the Disillusionment Charm which had kept him hidden throughout the meeting.

The feeling, like warm water flowing over him, as the spell was lifted did much to make him feel refreshed after listening to such a tedious conversation, but it was still nice to take the other chair in front of the Minister's desk. No one with his natural nobility and grace would lower themselves to sit in a seat in which a goblin had sat but at least he wasn't slumped over, like the other man was, with breathing so labored one would think he had actually been running.

When would his fellow purebloods learn to hold themselves with the dignity the purity of their bloodline demanded of them? He expected better from a man who called himself the Minister of Magic, but Cornelius Fudge was barely that. If it weren't for Malfoy money spreading through the Wizengamot two years ago the man wouldn't have been Minister at all.

The portly pureblood was precisely what he needed though: smart enough to be grateful, dumb enough to know he needed help, but not too dumb he became willful; easily led and biddable, but someone who could be trusted to continue slowly plodding along the course he was set on and not to bolt at the first shock that came his way. Yes, as far as underlings went the Minister was a well-trained lapdog, not like the thuggish brutes his father had preferred and started him out with, the very same breed he had been employing to protect his own lackluster son.

"I thought we were going to have a one-goblin riot on our hands when he spotted you," Cornelius said as he ran his fingers through his gray hair.

Lucius gave the man what would pass as a sympathetic and not-at-all-indulgent smile which said he had everything under control. The very idea of goblins being anything like the battle-hardened and blood-thirsty warrior race that wizarding tales liked to paint them as was almost laughable, but a well ingrained prejudice was a wonderful thing. If it weren't for how easily it swayed people against the goblin cause, he might have tried to stamp out such incredible tales and erase the "rebellions" from history entirely.

Goblins are bankers; they always had been bankers and always would be bankers – as long as there were no other wizarding options available. He certainly wasn't going to move all his money to France and run back and forth every time he wanted money and wasn't about to suggest anyone else do so either. The family had left there almost a thousand years ago and never looked back; he certainly wasn't going to now. Besides, it was far too easy for troublesome ideas to spread when people dealt with others so unlike themselves; that was one of the true beauties of Slytherin House: a cultural stasis that never changed.

"You handled that well," he told the labored man indulgently.

In truth, the Minister had bollixed up the beginning by trying to repeat some of his concerns as the man's own, but thankfully Cornelius's natural ineptitude had saved the day by giving the goblin an excuse to explain everything over again at length. For such inhospitable creatures they certainly loved to hear themselves talk – at least when they could lecture. It was like they spent the entirety of their lives studying all the insignificant details of wizarding history in the hope of one day playing a substantial role in it. Now there really was a laughable thought.

"So," the pathetic little man whined helplessly at his desk, "what are we to do?"

Lucius smiled and instantly felt poised and energized; this was the part of his life to which nothing could compare. Artfully shaping people and events with mere words and subtle actions gave him a sense of power and pride he got nowhere else. At least it did usually, how unfortunate it was that he could wield so much power over others but be at a loss to change his own family.

It was now painfully obvious that Draco was ill-equipped to play any role in the family's future other than to breed; his mother had corrupted him too much for anything else. It had been troublesome enough getting Narcissa with child the first time just to prevent her from following her sister Bellatrix into the insanity the woman's absolute devotion to this Dark Lord had driven her to.

Perhaps it had been what he had done then, when the first one had proven unacceptable, that had twisted his wife so – she had been unnaturally attached to the girl. Regardless, he knew he wouldn't be able to do it a third time. She saw absolute perfection in Draco and wouldn't be willing to admit anything about him didn't measure up.

Maybe he should go ahead and pair him up with that impoverished shopkeeper's daughter he liked toying with so much. Issuing a new offer to have her as a regular wife rather than the only thing she was fit to be – a temporary breeding vessel, easily tossed aside should anything better come along – should be enough to get any rational father to agree to his terms, even if neither were to have any say in the family's financial affairs at any time in the future. It wasn't as if Lucius was planning to die any time soon.

His own father had been a brutish criminal the likes of the Crabbes and Goyles, so perhaps a bit of earthy humility and reverence added in would make Draco's son better suited for the role he had wanted his own son to play. The bitter disappointment its father felt at having a wasted life might instill a degree of delicacy and eagerness to learn in his future-grandson.

Draco had been born to exercise a different sort of power than him; that much of what the boy's mother had ingrained in him was true, though not the kind they thought. Lucius wasn't about to lift a finger or speak a word to make the possibility a reality though while the so-called Dark Lord was still lurking about somewhere. He would have to make the offer.

Still, Draco wasn't worth worrying over, either he would reform his behavior or he would not, there were matters of actual importance to deal with.

"Dumbledore," the mumbling Minister moaned, "a wanted criminal."

"An internationally wanted criminal," Lucius stressed, "with the I.C.W. eager to nip at his heels."

"This is going to look very bad for me," Fudge said, collecting himself. "All those letters between the two of us. I wish you had never asked me to write for his advice."

"It's always good to know what your friends think," he replied with a smile, "especially when the friend is a rival and doesn't know it."

"I trust your friends in the Wizengamot will see it that way?" the Minister said practically pleaded. "For good or for ill, we can't have the association with Dumbledore continuing any longer. When this gets out it will make everyone question everything," the man exaggerated.

"One thing is true, we certainly can't have the man in a position of power within the Wizengamot," Lucius conceded. "We'll want the scandal to focus on him and his dealings outside of his governmental position. Unfortunately, this will make us look weak to the rest of the country," he pointed out.

"It–it will? But we will have gotten rid of the one responsible and the problem will take care of itself."

"Like it or not, Minister, Dumbledore has become the very image of British power and influence; he's better known around the world than you are," he said, tempering his tone to seem apologetic and kind. "Bringing him to justice has to be done," Lucius continued, "but it will be seen as weakness because it's the I.C.W. and the goblins who are doing it. If we allow the international community to fly through here and do whatever they want, how can we say we're a sovereign people who can manage our own affairs? How can we be a country others should listen to if we're being occupied by a foreign army?"

"Occ–occ–occupied?" Fudge said comically, his eyes bulging.

"That's how people will see it," he warned, and they would if Lucius wanted them to. "Dumbledore may be a fallen and tarnished wizard but he is our fallen and tarnished wizard," he pressed. "That means we cannot give him up to the I.C.W. without a fight."

"Fight them?" the Minister gasped. "The I.C.W.?"

"Not with wands, unless we must," he said placating, "but with words. The I.C.W. has no jurisdiction here, this is British territory and they should be beseeching us to bring this man to justice, not running off in secret with the goblins, and we must give the people of Britain a new hero to rally around, Minister."

"B–but the Agreement thingy he went on about–," Fudge said with a wave towards the door.

"Was written six hundred years ago between four institutions which no longer exist," Lucius said dismissively. "Why take a goblin's word it says what they say it says? And why should we hold ourselves to that Agreement when they're running about in violation of all international norms. Armed raids? Rallying points? Sneaking in through muggle means? What's to stop them from raiding the Ministry while they're at it? If we do nothing against this," he concluded, "then we are handing our sovereignty away without a fight."

"Yes," Cornelius said, pounding his fist onto the desk like he had actually made a decision about something. "They can't come in here and have everything their way, not while I'm Minister of Magic. We'll show them what England's made of."

Lucius smiled, pleased his little lapdog had taken to things so quickly.

"Flamel may be a special case," he said soothingly before ratcheting things up again. "But even then they should have gone through us; it is an insult otherwise. We should be the ones coordinating the attack, not some band of bankers. Dumbledore will be brought to justice, must be brought to justice, but it will be the British Ministry who takes him down, the British Ministry who tries him, and the British Ministry who imprisons him. Once he lives out the rest of his life in Azkaban then the I.C.W. can have him."

"I couldn't agree more," Fudge replied. "We'll call up every Auror and Hit Wizard we have and have them on-hand to protect the Ministry."

"The Ministry won't hold out long if the goblins rush out and take everything else," he pointed out. "It's not just the Ministry we must maintain but our entire way of life; you heard what the goblin said about their sense of justice. Presumed guilt and no ability to present your side? How is that a fair trial? It makes a mockery of everything Wizarding Britain stands for," Lucius said sorrowfully.

"If I were to make a suggestion," he continued. "We should have a strong presence at the Ministry – where Dumbledore will be – in Diagon Alley – where the goblins are strongest – and around Hogwarts itself."

"At Hogwarts?" the Minister asked confused. "Why would they need them there? Surely they wouldn't try storming the castle. It's the safest place in the country."

"And they are not from this country and know nothing about it," Lucius pointed out. "They're already raiding one highly protected compound to get to Flamel, so why would they stop there to get Dumbledore?"

"But... But why would Dumbledore be at Hogwarts?" Cornelius asked. "If he's going to be at the Ministry we can take him in hand then."

"Dumbledore will be at Hogwarts later on because this is about more than just him," he pressed. "It's about sending a message. We are in control here and things will happen the way we say they will happen. Dumbledore will be taken, he will be given all the rights and privileges afforded to such a notable scholar and war hero, and then he will be allowed to return to his school and prepare for the cases against him."

"The I.C.W. won't like that," the Minister said, anxiously tapping his fingertips against his mouth.

"Just as we don't like them being here in the first place," Lucius swatted back. "Let them take offense, they've offended us. Besides," he continued sorrowfully, "we can't let them take him now, there's a child to think of."

Cornelius blinked at him dumbfoundedly for a moment, his mouth still hanging open from the latest agreement he was about to give.

"A child? What–what child?" the confused Minister asked. "Dumbledore doesn't have children; he's that – you know – that other way," he said in an uncomfortable whisper, bringing up a subject most respectable people liked to politely ignore. "They can't have children, can they?"

"There's more than one way for a child to be involved," he said, purposely letting the fear of unspeakably underhanded things linger for a moment before continuing. "But we won't know precisely what the issue behind it is until they have a chance to make their case," Lucius said nebulously, taking a letter from his pocket.

"Now when I heard about the bank's concerns regarding Flamel just last night," he continued in a dramatic tone, "I thought nothing could shock me more. How wrong I was when this arrived this morning," Lucius said as he passed the Minister the parchment.

The Minister's lips seemed to move on their own as he read the letter; it wasn't long before Fudge's eyes bulged incredulously.

"Merlin's beard!" the man cried. "Abandonment, usurpation, fraud, and it's–"

"My thoughts precisely, Minister," Lucius said supportively. "Just when we think Dumbledore could sink no lower it's revealed he'd done so years ago. I, for one, will be pressing hard to have him removed as Headmaster, but there is so much love for the man though that even with this it will be a struggle," he exaggerated.

Truth was the man was not well liked at all except by the public who didn't know him better; not by the I.C.W., if rumblings he had heard over the years were anything to go by, and certainly not by the Board of Governors, the pleasant façade they gave him was all for show. With so many Board members also sharing duties in the Wizengamot, it was convenient for them to have Dumbledore continued to be burdened with the running of the school.

Forced to split his time between Hogwarts, the Ministry, and the international arena the man could never focus all his efforts on any one area for long, leaving the rest of them room to maneuver and get things done without him whenever possible. Undoubtedly it was what led the I.C.W. to jump at the chance to be rid of the man's leadership, only to fumble their way into this ill-conceived goblin raid. Well, they would learn in time; nothing happened in Britain without his own personal approval.

"I expect you'll get one of these soon, if you haven't already," he said meaningfully.

"And what will the Board of Governors do?" Cornelius asked stupidly.

"We'll be complying, of course," Lucius said smoothly, "and I suggest you do the same. With allegations like these, not to mention the issue with Flamel, the Board cannot sit idly by and allow him to sit proxy until the truth is discovered."

And if he had any say that discovery wouldn't be made for quite some time. Slow-walking the child's case through court so every minute detail becomes its own tawdry headline would deepen Dumbledore's fall from grace and turn the boy his insolent son had been so obsessed with into a cute and cuddly child no one need fear at all – or perhaps damaged goods where you never knew when the cauldron would explode would be better. He mentally shrugged, whichever worked would be fine.

With the child's custody case as their fig leaf to hide behind, and it languishing in court, it would give the goblins ample time to work diligently against their own interests. With Flamel out of the picture and Dumbledore needed here for relevant legal procedures, the only thing to keep the I.C.W. interested was the possibility of created gold. This meant that most of their agents would have to be removed and the rest could be confined to the bank itself.

This would keep the goblins checking their gold stockpiles in private so that even before the child's case was decided the I.C.W. would have already left – with Ministry assurance that justice would be done. Then, with the international community no longer looking over their shoulder, Lucius could do whatever he wanted with Dumbledore. In time he would have everything right back to how it was – only without Dumbledore to make a mess of his plans. It had been a long time coming but he was going to enjoy this.

"Absolutely," the Minister agreed. "The Wizengamot cannot allow a proxy to sit in such a distinguished seat while it owes more allegiance to a possible usurper than to the family it belongs to. That should be one of the first orders of business."

With a huff Cornelius began scribbling notes on his bit of parchment as Lucius glanced at the one the goblin had left. Many of the suggestions were going to be necessary, though some were overly cautious while others were either attempts to expand their influence or bald-faced attempts to repeal justified restrictions which had been in place for a century, if not longer.

The insistence that everyone use cheques was sure to rouse peoples' ire eventually, especially if a hefty tax on each transaction was applied, leaving the populace looking forward to the day when hard currency was issued again. The Ministry couldn't allow these goblins to believe temporary changes could become the permanent new reality.

"This would also be a good time to address precisely how to bring these issues up to the Wizengamot in order to maximize the other opportunities this–," Lucius started to say before he was rudely interrupted by a knock on the door.

Soon after, an old bland secretarial witch entered without leave to do so. All of Cornelius's secretaries were old, bland, fat, or ugly. The man seemed to think it would convince his wife he wasn't sleeping with any of them.

"Minister Fudge, the Senior Undersecretary is outside and is quite insistent on meeting with you," the witch Lucius had never bothered to learn the name of said. "Should I tell her you're in a meeting or...?"

"Oh, she's not going to be happy about that Gronntripper goblin this morning still," the Minister said, bemoaning his lot in life.

"Minister," Lucius smiled, an idea occurring to him. "While I appreciate her stalwart support of your positions, perhaps the Wizengamot is not the place for her at the moment," he said meaningfully. "I'm sure her prejudices could be used to much greater effect a little further from home tomorrow."

To the gray-haired, boring, frumpy witch he said, "Send her in."

.o0O0o.

With each step Barchoke took away from the Minister's door he cursed the moronic ineptitude all too commonplace in this "wizarding" world. As the lift which would take him back to the Goblin Liaison Office came into sight he saw Madam Umbridge walking back the way he'd come, still wearing her affront for all to see like it were her ugly pink cardigan.

He smiled pleasantly at her as she passed him by, imagining he had just eaten her cat without her knowing, and he swore he saw her eye twitch. The lift ride was short and while he successfully avoided having a laugh at the woman's expense, the smile he wore when he entered the Liaison Office was genuine. The Office itself started buzzing with activity as soon as he arrived; no longer the pointed questions or critiques they had when he first entered, now everyone was running around like they actually had work to do; it all for show of course.

Unlike the rest of the Ministry, many of these people had been interns at Gringotts of one sort or another before taking their position here. Though they may have forgotten their place, that time would have taught them enough about goblin hierarchy to know some sort of realignment was underway there. The possibility of failure still frightened him, but Barchoke certainly liked the reaction he got from other people as he passed by.

With a swirling, topsy-turvy motion which put the fliplift to shame and somehow banging his elbow while in the middle of all the nothingness, Barchoke flew through the floo and shot out the other end to land hard on his behind. As glad as he was to be back at Gringotts he was even more glad that hadn't happened when he had taken the trip there in the first place.

He dusted himself off as best he could from where he sat and looked up to see a gaggle of curious Overseers watching him, only Overseer Marsh was absent.

"I hate the floo," he groused as Bankor extended a hand to help him up.

"How did it go?" the Little Minister asked.

"Harder to get through than commissions on a dead account," he replied, drawing a few chuckles from those who were former tellers and account managers by describing a long and tediously painful process which ultimately gained you nothing. "Where's Marsh?"

"Doing his investigation, or so he claims," Gutripper sneered.

The head of Security had never liked a non-goblin having such a position with them and he was starting to see his point. Marsh was an old hereditary account, not nearly as flush with cash as others he could name, but well situated in the bigoted society to hobnob with others.

He didn't like what his absence implied any more than how his entire department went home at the end of the day to a place that wasn't within the halls of Gringotts. It was a security concern too long ignored because it had existed for so long. Anyone from his department could have found out about their concerns, investigations, and plans and spread the information faster than a fire in a mining tunnel. But with his position only informally recognized and his own investigation already targeting the Hogwarts Accounting Department, how could he justify sidelining someone of supposedly-equal status?

"Good," he said, thinking on his feet. "Keep him at it until he has something to report. The I.C.W. will want every scrap he can come up with."

'Gah!' Barchoke thought suddenly, remembering back to the confrontation in the Pit last night.

He had been so eager to poke Marsh with hot barbs he had actually told the human he was looking to invalidate transfers. If he put it together with how closely they've been working with the boy – which any idiot could do – they could put together their entire case, and if there was one person who'd most like to see him fail it'd be him. Lester will simply have to get a move on with it now.

"Did–did you have to be making the concessions?" weird little Alkrat asked.

Suddenly paranoid, Barchoke put a finger to his lips, then to his ear, then spun it around to point to the walls of the room they were in to communicate the walls have ears. Though – wait, hadn't Supervisor Braglast been here just a second ago? The dodgy goblin could be anywhere. But where could he take them where they wouldn't be overheard? He didn't want to be anywhere near a torture chamber with Gutripper.

"Ah!" Bankor said, gesturing for everyone to gather around him; Gutripper stayed back where he was. The Little Minister then pulled out a small orb that could easily fit into the palm of his hand and tapped it with one finger to make a little rushing river appear.

'Good Gotts!' he thought 'They come in tiny sizes!'

Faced with not being able to hear, even Gutripper had to join their huddle.

"How bad were the concessions?" the half-blind Overseer asked.

"There were no concessions," Barchoke replied, "he made no demands at all, which means whoever tells him what to think hasn't told him what to do yet–"

"–So we should expect demands to come in the next hour or so," Bankor finished for him. "You seem to imply though he knew why you were there before you arrived but not exactly what you would say when you got there."

"Some of his questions at the beginning sounded rehearsed and only half remembered, and then the usual wizard stupidity kicked in and I had to explain everything under the sun," he informed them. "And he was much too calm about the whole affair, and though he denied it, I know there was someone else in the room with us."

"And you didn't gut them?" Gutripper asked, looking for a moment like he was going to do that very thing.

"You can't gut someone in front of the Minister of Magic," Bankor chided. "It's very bad form. Plus, it would have to be a human, and he'd be sure to take it amiss."

"And that's not even considering the fact we're smuggling in a small army of foreign wizards, plus the ones who work for us," the portly Slaggran wheezed.

Barchoke had to agree, saying it that way made it seem like they were trying to overthrow the Ministry, and things were bad enough as it was. They didn't need to add killing humans into the mix.

"Whether we had to or not," Bankor cut in again, "the Ministry isn't going to like the I.C.W. operating on what it considers their soil or having to go by our list of recommendations–"

"They're going to strike back at us for making them look weak," Gutripper mused, his good eye darting around as he made his bloody calculations for any Guard deployments he may have to make.

"An actual strike by Aurors or Hit Wizards is highly unlikely," the Little Minister said, making placating gestures to the lean and scarred Enforcer. "–Though we should be prepared just in case. Anything they try would most likely be regulatory-based, not acting on our suggestions and the like."

"Which–which–which would be the disaster for everyone," Alkrat interjected in his funny little accent. "Surely they must see."

"We need more leverage," Barchoke said finally. "We need some way of saying it doesn't matter if they don't like it, they have to listen when we speak."

"Good luck finding it," Slaggran wheezed morosely.

After a moment a thought occurred to him.

"What do you mean, 'what it considers their soil'?" he asked Overseer Bankor.

"The Ministry claims all of England, Scotland, Wales, and the northern bit of Ireland as its sovereign domain," Bankor shrugged as if it were obvious.

"It can't claim us," Gutripper said with a glint in his eye.

"The treaties between us all reinforce our autonomy, as long as we follow their banking and creature laws," Barchoke stated the obvious.

"Yes, which applies to Gringotts and Below," Bankor agreed, "but I naturally assumed they'd be extending their claim to Flamel's Compound after the raid."

"Gah!" Barchoke gasped, not quite sure if he actually said it or not. "We'd be losing six hundred years of investment into the place; we can't let them take it."

"You want to claim land?" Director Fillast asked astonished. "Real, above ground, land?"

"The what is the problem?" the foreign goblin asked, gaze darting about looking for someone who'd explain it to him.

"No goblin's claimed land for a thousand years," Gutripper said, looking at him like he'd risen above himself. "Even the land this bank was built upon was gifted to us."

"I want us to claim everything we may have a right to," Barchoke said, knowing he was now in it so deep the only way out was to keep punching through. "–And everything we don't have a right to, we should claim that as well. That's the only way for us to get even half of what we want."

"But how're we gonna stop them from taking it?" Slaggran asked.

"Bankor," he said, pointing to the goblin in question, "you've gotten on well with these I.C.W. types. We need from them an international acknowledgement that the Compound is now – and has always been – outside the jurisdictions of England, Scotland, and the modern Ministry of Magic."

"That's going to be a big job," the Little Minister moaned. "Surely Marsh might get on better with those wizarding types? And there might be an issue with who might have had claim to it before we put Flamel there. Some parchment or other might be lying around in some archive somewhere."

"That's the Ministry's problem, not ours," Barchoke rebutted. "And even then we can raise issue with how genuine that is. And I don't want Marsh or any other human anywhere near this if we can help it; their loyalties would be split. I'm prepared to accept an acknowledgement that for the last six hundred years the island, Compound, and everything derived from the opportunities we gave Flamel are ours because we are the ones who negotiated the deal and paid to maintain it."

"Humans always demand a price though," Slaggran wheezed, his stomach beginning to rumble. "They can never just give us what's ours."

That was certainly true; the human refusal to see how they had a right to anything was at the root of virtually every conflict between the two peoples.

"Those Continental types like knowledge more than the Ministry types do, don't they?" he asked Bankor.

"There are several wizarding institutions said to be quite highly regarded–"

"–Then they're going to be interested in everything that Stonemaker's been up to, interested in, or doodled on a scrap of paper over the last six hundred years," Barchoke cut back in. "And we're not just talking about the Stone, we don't know what's been going on there. We guarantee them the ability to study whatever Flamel might have come up with in return for their agreement the Compound and all the intellectual rights are ours, then we can move forward to discuss royalties on any new devices made, finance offers to make them–"

"It'd be using their own greed against them," Fillast said approvingly. "They'd have to agree to give us what we definitely want just for the hope of getting what they might want, and if there is anything there we might just recoup our losses for having Flamel there in the first place. It's genius."

"Better to barter with part of what you might get than to stubbornly continue to claim everything you used to have but will never get again," he said with a smile.

"But that still doesn't mean the Ministry will even bother looking at an agreement," Slaggran huffed, ever the optimist. "And that's provided we even get one, and provided the I.C.W. doesn't just take what they want or strike a better deal with the Ministry. So how are we gonna make anyone live up to their word?"

There was no way they had established enough trust with the I.C.W. to get anyone there to sign anything binding on such short notice, so something guaranteed to give everyone pause would be needed to get things done. But what?

If they all hadn't been huddled up together none of them might have noticed, but just then a small square section of the solid marble floor popped up and scooted to the side. Out of what appeared to be a solid vertical shaft climbed Braglast, the Supervisor of Dodgy Deals. And as soon as he pried his little legs out he dropped the section back in place where it melted back into the rest of the floor without a hint of a disturbance.

"How in Gotts name does he do that?" Barchoke asked the goblin's brother, Fillast.

Rather than answer, Fillast pointed to his brother who was still sitting on the floor. Out of his pocket the silent goblin took out a small bit of metal and presented it to him.

'What am I supposed to do with a child's toy?' Barchoke wondered, debating whether the silent goblin had lost his mind.

It was a Warboar, or what passed for it nowadays. A little metal pig with wings and a place to mount a little goblin warrior on its back, though this one was obviously missing. As failed ideas go it was one of the Halfwit's better ones, and one he was actually starting to carry through with before the Humbling, if you believed what those records said, but it wasn't like they could ride into battle on the back of a–

He looked over to Overseer Gutripper.

"I've got an idea."

.o0O0o.

Hermione had an odd, almost pained, look on her face as she made her way back to him.

"You sure you don't mind, Harry?" Percy asked.

"What? Oh, no. You can borrow them," he said to the oddly enthused Prefect. "I haven't even looked at them yet."

"Then I'll be careful with them," the boy said pompously, "I know how some people can be about their books." Percy's eyes darted to Penelope who was standing beside him, who promptly smacked his shoulder.

"Just because I don't want your gigantic thumbs smearing my notes doesn't make me fussy," Percy's girlfriend chided.

"Well, if you didn't write them in your books–," the older boy said as they started to walk away.

"They're my books, my notes, and I'll write them where it's convenient," Penelope said with finality.

Harry couldn't tell if they were poking fun at each other or were really having a spat. He pushed it aside though as Hermione joined him looking troubled.

"Are you alright?" Harry asked.

"No, I think my brain is numb," she replied, giving her forehead a little massage.

"You haven't been near any goblins, have you?" he asked, remembering the odd feeling from the questioning they had the day before.

"Harry, the last thing I need right now is someone else speaking in non sequiturs."

"What?" Harry asked, not even knowing what that meant.

"I took the chance on making a new friend," Hermione explained. "But this girl, at times I don't know if she's daft or deep. In the end it was just… tiring."

Harry sympathized; his attempt didn't go so well either. While it wasn't exactly the same, Katie Bell was kind of the same way. She might sit there like a bump on a log during the bleary-eyed early morning Quidditch team meetings but once the sun was high in the sky her energy had her all over the place. The only one who seemed to be able to keep up was the new kid, Colin Creevey, who was excited about everything.

"Then why'd you stay over there so long?" he asked, knowing that if he hadn't begged off to stay behind with the blissfully sedate Weasleys he'd be back in the Alley looking at the Nimbus 2001 again with the other two still yammering away like Barchoke and Lichfield on a busy day.

"First the crazy-eyed woman from the bookshop came in," his girlfriend explained, "and I was already feeling kind of sorry for Luna, but then it got even worse–"

"Wait, Luna?" he asked. "As in Luna Lovegood?"

"You know her?" Hermione asked, looking somewhat concerned.

"She was Ginny's friend," he replied, an idea forming in his head before it was violently shoved aside. "Hang on, is she a Hopeful?"

Hermione froze a bit and seemed uncertain as to what to say.

"Possibly?" she replied, obviously in the tricky position of not wanting to lie but not necessarily wanting to tell him the whole truth.

It was only then Harry realized he'd already known what the truth was. He had never met her and never seen the girl in yellow before, so she couldn't have been at Hogwarts with them. This means she had to be in same year as Ginny and Colin, the year he had stopped the transfer to pay for. Looking at his girlfriend now it seemed obvious what Hermione was torn about was wanting to protect him from feeling guilty about not paying for Luna's schooling while at the same time thinking it'd be a nice thing for him to do, but didn't want to sway him into doing it by saying anything.

When he thought about it though, he already had a reason to help her out. If he could pay for Ginny's schooling in return for having a place to stay then he could easily pay for Luna so Ginny could have a friend. And while he might not be able to settle things between Molly and Mrs. Lovegood, he just might be able to get her to let Luna come back over if he asked. It's a much better solution than keeping her away from him like she was a prisoner in her own home. Besides, it was the right thing to do.

"I need to talk to Professor McGonagall," he said, scanning the thinning crowd for the woman in question.

"Harry," Hermione said tentatively. "You know you don't have to. It's not your responsibility to pay for everyone who can't afford to go on their own. There must be some sort of home schooling curriculum she could do."

"I know I don't have to," Harry said as he spotted McGonagall. "And I'm not doing this because I feel guilty or anything," he paused to get what he wanted to say down just right.

He told her about what Bill had said, how being the only girl in a house full of boys hadn't been easy on Ginny and then he went and made things worse. And while he did feel – regretful – for isolating her, at the time it felt like it was the only thing he could do. If he could undo it and make Ginny's life a bit better by getting her back in touch with an old friend then it's what he was going to do. It would certainly make her first year at Hogwarts better too. Strangely enough, Hermione seemed to accept that.

"It actually might be good for her too," she said with a concerned look on her face. "And her dad runs a magazine," Hermione smiled, her eyes starting to brighten as she worked through the problem, "so if we put it in terms of an investment into the company–"

"Then Barchoke and Lichfield might go along with it," Harry finished for her. "That's brilliant."

Lichfield had said they'd be pushing things to get the Ministry to go along with a rental agreement since he was younger than thirteen, but had liked the idea of putting people back on the land since it showed that he had his own ideas about how to run things. Since everything he's heard about grown-up stuff otherwise has been 'Account this' and 'Investment that' – like it or not, obviously this sort of thing was going to be a big part of his life after he graduated – so maybe they could squeeze this one in too since it was also for a good cause.

"Where's Lichfield?" he asked, thinking it would be a good idea to run this by the grizzled old bailiff.

"He went off with the creepy woman in green," Hermione said, taking his hand and pulling him towards McGonagall.

"Don't you think we should run this by my lawyer first?" Harry asked, careful not to step on her eagerness.

"Before we talk to Luna or Mr. Lovegood, absolutely," she agreed. "But as the only other available outside adult, it won't hurt to see what McGonagall thinks about it."

As it turned out, it didn't matter what McGonagall thought at all.

"A very kind and admirable idea," their professor said approvingly. "And were this during the school year, one I'd happily award points for, but Mister Lichfield has already beaten you to it."

"What do you mean?" Harry asked, remembering the man putting himself forward yesterday to be the guardian-he's-never-had. The last thing he needed was to trade one old man spending his money without him knowing for another one, regardless of whether he later approved of it or not.

"It seems as though his family prepaid for a tuition quite some time ago and never had a chance to use it," McGonagall explained before continuing in a more moderate tone. "I'm surprised at what I haven't been hearing though. So far no one has said a thing about–," she seemed to struggle for a moment, "–your current legal issues with the Headmaster. I must admit, when I presented you the opportunity to meet with the Hopefuls I was somewhat concerned–"

"–That I'd rail against Professor Dumbledore, make the Hopefuls feel horrible for what he's done, and make them feel like they have to hate him on my behalf?" Harry finished for her.

"Well, yes," McGonagall said uncomfortably. "That was sort of the idea I had in mind."

Harry shrugged.

"Yeah, I had thought about doing that," he admitted.

He had particularly liked the idea of doing so just after she had brought up the meeting. He had even gone so far as to imagine himself coming up with some sort of grand speech against the old man that moved them all to righteous anger against him. Even in his imagination though words failed him and it just kind of boiled down to, "But you've got to believe me, Dumbledore's evil!" and that would've made them think of him as some loony kid who's gone off the deep end.

"These people didn't know what was going on any more than you did," Harry explained. "So why make them feel horrible about not knowing when it's not going to do any good? And since everything is going to come to out into the open eventually anyway, I might as well let them hear about it from someone neutral rather than shouting at them."

McGonagall looked at him as if trying to determine if he was having her on.

"That's a very – mature way of handling this, Mister Potter," she said finally as he looked over to see Hermione's smile of approval. "I would hope this maturity doesn't go to waste though," McGonagall continued.

Suddenly his mind was full of visions of the mountains of notes she'd be expecting him to take in every class, how scoring nine-out-of-ten on a test would be seen as him falling short of his potential, and how Oliver Wood's desire to win the Quidditch Cup would be nothing besides her fixation on them doing the same. Harry swallowed; maybe this was going to be a truly terrible year at Hogwarts after all.

"There isn't going to be any more little adventures out of you two and Mister Weasley, are there?" she asked wearily, deflating the tension and sounding as if she wanted just a nice, quiet year.

"Well, we didn't exactly plan on having the last one," Harry said in their defense. And nobody had been thinking of it as an adventure when they were sneaking past Fluffy to stop Lord Voldemort from getting the Stone in the first place; they were far more worried about getting out of there alive.

"And we did try to warn you beforehand," Hermione added in a please-don't-send-us-to-detention kind of way that made him smile.

It did at least until her eyes snapped to his in a way that instantly let him know what she was thinking. They hadn't warned anyone at Hogwarts about Dobby's warning. While 'Tell Professor Dumbledore' might be crossed off their list for obvious reasons, it was impossible to make the case not to go with the second option: 'Tell Professor McGonagall,' when she was standing right in front of them.

Explaining Dobby showing up at Privet Drive to deliver his warning and how he sussed out that it was the Malfoys he was talking about proved an easier thing to do a fourth time around. Last night, while Ron, Fred, and George had thought it was great he tricked Malfoy into selling Dobby to him, they were of the opinion that he'd been trying to prank him into staying home in the first place. McGonagall reached a similar conclusion.

"Aside from continuing the feud between you," she said with a look speaking to how useless it'd be for her to even try to get them to set their differences aside, "I really don't see what sort of trouble a Second Year could cause. Of course," she continued after a moment, "I would have said the same about a group of First Years last year. I'll pass your warning on to the other members of the staff, but I doubt it'll amount to anything besides the vague threats of a disgruntled boy. There are rules even young mister Malfoy cannot break with impunity."

"Do you think it could be Malfoy senior Dobby was talking about?" Hermione asked the professor. "Draco's always threatening to go to his father when he doesn't get his way and he did have a fight in the street with Mr. Weasley yesterday."

McGonagall stared briefly into space for a moment as she attempted to imagine that.

"I find that very hard to believe," she said finally. "Not that I doubt your veracity, Miss Granger," the professor went on to clarify, "I find it puzzling why anyone from the Ministry would become physically violent with someone with so much influence there and I can think of no reason for Lucius Malfoy to do the same. Nevertheless," McGonagall continued, "he has even less reason to cause terrible things to happen than his son does, since that would put his position on the Board of Governors at risk."

"He's on the Board of Governors?" Hermione asked shocked.

"He's the Chairman of the Board of Governors," their professor replied.

"What's the Board of Governors?" Harry asked confused. Hermione had mentioned it earlier but had never explained what they did.

"They're Dumbledore's bosses," his girlfriend explained crossly. "They oversee the general management and well-being of the school. Our tuition goes to pay his salary."

"No wonder Malfoy walks around like he owns the place," Harry agreed. He didn't like the idea of a Malfoy being in charge any more than she did.

"While that's essentially true," McGonagall said in a tone that attempted to regain control of the conversation. "There are actually a number of families with spots on the Board."

"Rich pureblood families who all think mine is lower than dirt," Hermione muttered mutinously to herself. Harry was starting to get a little concerned about her; whatever had sparked the change in Hermione was clearly gaining steam.

With a quirked brow McGonagall glanced over to him, sending his stomach plummeting to the floor. What Hermione said perfectly described at least one of his ancestors, and maybe more besides. It really made him feel the lack of information he had about his family in a new way. Lichfield had said he didn't want him to get a big head about things but what exactly wasn't the old man telling him?

"No matter what more recent times have made of things," McGonagall said, addressing Hermione again. "Hogwarts was not established to be an instrument of discrimination and bigotry. There is a limit to what one person – even one as influential as Mr. Malfoy – can do on their own. I can't see anything he could hope to gain by causing trouble at Hogwarts, except…" she trailed off thoughtfully.

"Except?" Harry prompted.

"–Except I don't think it appropriate to discuss Hogwarts internal politics with you," she responded quickly. "Not at this time."

If he hadn't been looking for a hint of it Harry would have completely missed it.

'Oh crap,' he thought. 'I'm going to be a Hogwarts Governor.' At least he probably would be as soon as they considered him an adult when Lichfield won the case. 'What's the point of learning to do magic if I'm going to be stuck in meetings for the rest of my life?' Harry mentally groaned.

Out of spite he thought of letting Barchoke do it for him just to make things as unpleasant for Malfoy as possible. He was starting to think being a grown-up was highly overrated.

'And so much for being just Harry,' he thought sourly. 'Pigs would fly first.' Between the Boy-Who-Lived and who his relatives were – both the Dursleys and the family he never knew – it looked as though that dream had never been possible in the first place.

"It looks as though more people are getting ready to leave. If you'll excuse me," McGonagall said as she disappeared to play hostess.

"I wonder what she meant by that," Hermione said.

'And what about Hermione?' Harry thought with a squirm in his stomach. She had already compared the bunch of land his family owned to him being 'landed gentry;' would she even like him when she found out it was true? He felt sick, and if someone came up to him just then and offered to take it all away but let him keep the one bit with Hermione he liked – Harry'd probably let them do it. He didn't want to lose his first girlfriend before they had their first real date.

She looked at him quizzically. Had he waited too long to answer or was she piecing together what McGonagall said too?

'Just think of something else to say!' Harry yelled in his head.

"So where's that Luna girl?" he asked, desperately hoping to divert her attention away from McGonagall.

If the girl had made her brain go numb before then perhaps his girlfriend wouldn't be able to put too much thought into things, though with Hermione it'd probably just delay her for a while. And then she'd be mad he didn't tell her, tried to hide it, and didn't trust her. Harry almost sighed, how did having a girl you liked become so complicated?

"Oh, she's over here," she said with a look on her face like she didn't know if this was a good idea or not.

The girl in question turned out to be standing with a similarly blond man Harry took to be Luna's father. Both were staring out the window into the alleyway below while looking through makeshift binoculars made from of butterbeer bottles.

"Luna?" Hermione said, drawing the girl's attention away from whatever it was they were looking at.

The girl scanned them with her butterbeer binoculars before taking them down and replying.

"Hello again, Hermione Granger," Luna said.

The Lovegoods must not have washed the bottles out before reusing them because the girl had a filmy dark circle around her right eye like she'd been punched in the face. It started to leak down her cheek almost instantly.

"Luna, this is Harry Potter," Hermione said gesturing to him.

"Yes, I'm sure someone had to be," the girl said oddly. "We didn't have to be here, you know," Luna confided in them.

"I'm sorry?" he asked, not understanding what she was saying. Did she mean they could have turned down the invitation or referring to the fact that she wasn't really a Hopeful after all?

"Yes, I'm pretty sure it must be your fault," Luna agreed with a smile. "Do you like to toss pebbles?"

Harry was beginning to rethink the wisdom of this idea and wondered how Ginny had become friends with the girl in the first place. He looked over to Hermione at a loss of what to say next.

"I don't think I quite know what you mean," he replied.

"Hm," the blonde girl said thoughtfully. "Dad, do you think he could have some kind of infestation?" Luna asked the man with shoulder length candyfloss hair next to her.

"What's this?" the man asked, turning to look at them. "Infestation?"

Mr. Lovegood's slightly crossed eyes bulged when he saw Harry.

"Azubah," he said curiously, craning his neck so his head could move a bit closer without having to take a step. "Green eyes do indicate a fondness for infestations," Luna's father concurred. "Do you have an urge to laugh or smack yourself in the face?" he asked Harry seriously.

"Only recently," he said honestly. Part of him found the conversation too ridiculous to believe while the other wanted to give up and walk away.

"Itchy flaky scalp?" Mr. Lovegood asked, one eye flickering to the scar on Harry's forehead.

Hermione now looked preoccupied with not trying to laugh. He could only imagine what he looked like.

"Not really," Harry replied before deciding to toss the man a bone. "It does sometimes hurt right here though," he said, indicating the scar in question.

"Ah," Luna's father said sagely. "You could be infested with Gurklekins."

"What are gurklekins?" Harry asked before he could stop himself.

"They're tiny smoke-like creatures with spidery tentacles," he replied, wiggling his skinny fingers like they were spiders themselves. "They like to inhabit scars to lay their eggs. Having one on the head could leave you open to Wrackspurts."

Luna nodded.

"Yeah, I heard you have to watch out for those," Harry said politely.

"You're in luck though," Mr. Lovegood went on with barely a pause. "The treatment for both is similar. Gurklekins hate love and Wrackspurts dislike positive thoughts, so I suggest spending lots of time thinking about the person you love," he said cheerily. "Though I would do so alone unless it explodes and gets all over you," he hastened to add. "The Gurklekin nest, that is. Although for particularly tough cases you'll want to combine it with a kiss."

"I could help you with that, if you like," Luna suggested nebulously.

"I don't think that'll be necessary," Hermione was quick to cut in.

Luna blinked at her a moment before turning back to him.

"You do like tossing pebbles, don't you?" she said with those very large eyes of hers that were somehow still less creepy than Ginny.

Just like that they had gone right back to the beginning again. Luckily her father was there to clarify.

"Tossing pebbles in the pond, changes all of which we're fond," he said in a sing-song voice which made him sound like a grandfather clock.

"Oh!" Hermione exclaimed, finally coming to the rescue. "It's a saying meaning everything we do causes ripples which changes everything else, like 'You can never step in the same river twice,'" she explained.

"Hm," Luna said thoughtfully. "I don't know if that's precisely true. If you could somehow travel back in time to visit the same moment over again," she said curiously. "Then I suppose you and you could step into the same river at the same time, but at different times and all over again at once. But I don't know how you would do that," she finished with a shake of her head

"I'm sure the Ministry would know," her father said. "They have a secret underground research area deep within the Ministry. They study these mysteries, you know," he said with googly eyes.

"Right," Harry said.

Finally giving up any hope the conversation would bring up the topic on its own, Harry decided he was going to have to do it himself. He still had a wrong to undo.

"Mr. Lovegood, I have a question to ask."

.o0O0o.

'Never go anywhere with a woman,' Lichfield grumped as he shuffled a bit in his seat. Having been a widower for so long he had forgotten this age old bit of wisdom. 'It always takes three times as long and she'll have to go to the loo twice.'

That second part was certainly true, though he doubted the sincerity of the first trip. Perhaps it had been his recent dealings with Moody but he had suspected the woman of some sort of ploy to double-back and spy on the boy. As soon as she was out of sight he had closed, Locked, and Imperturbed the door to the meeting room and stood vigil outside it with a Supersensory Charm on; nobody was sneaking up on him again.

After several minutes Rita Skeeter finally reappeared looking huffy. Though she agreed to move their meeting somewhere else, she did not look happy about it at all; so much for this being a mutually beneficial and cordial meeting from the get-go. The slimy reporter definitely had the feel of an obstinate renter; she was going to have to get stomped on a bit before she cooperated.

The Three Broomsticks wasn't as lively and boisterous as he would've liked, most who were going about their business in Hogsmeade were ending their midday meals, but it was loud enough and their table off in the corner would insure they had some privacy. Well, they would have privacy once the woman returned from the loo again.

He was pretty sure she was doing it this time out of spite, and to see how much he wanted to talk for his own reasons. She hadn't been gone long enough to make him fear she'd tried to double-back again but if she didn't show up again soon he'd–

Lester spotted her as she finally reappeared.

'Ah, there she is,' he thought, but of course the woman had to waste even more time picking up a drink for herself before she made her way over. He could have groaned; he could feel himself getting older by the second. 'Hurry up, woman!' Lester wanted to yell.

Before she had gotten halfway to their table she had dug out the Quick-Quotes Quill of hers and stuck it to her lips. For anyone dumb enough to be distracted by the reporter and not to stop things before it started, the quill would write down whatever the reporter wanted so quickly you didn't have a chance to tell what it was until it was too late. This little insect was definitely getting stomped on by both boots.

"So precisely what is your relationship with Harry Potter?" the odious woman asked as she slipped into the opposite side of the booth with a predatory look on her face.

As her quill began to scratch out whatever lie she was going to try peddling next, his hand darted out and pinned it to the table. If he hadn't needed what was in her head and what she could do for the cause he would've been glad to be rid of her.

"You have something against my quill, sir?" Rita asked testily.

"I have something against you," Lester gruffed forcefully.

"Against me?" she asked. "What have I ever done–"

"I would have figured someone in your position would've learned a lesson from Lockhart," he said, overriding her.

"What are you talking about? I'm the one who wrote the article," she reminded him. "What lesson am I supposed to learn?"

"That if you go out of your way to print lies," he said threateningly, "that there's always someone out there ready to tear you down."

He knew that he had hit the mark when she took a quick sip from her greenish drink.

"Surely there's some young reporter out there who'd jump at the chance to make their name by taking down someone as notorious as–"

"I see your point," Rita said quickly, looking around uncomfortably before continuing. "Why did you want to see me?"

"Because, to answer your question," he began as she took a soothing drink. "I'm the bailiff for the Potter Estate."

The woman almost choked as she tried to inhale her beverage into her lungs.

"So he's been in your care all this time," the woman said when she recovered. "There were ridiculous reports he'd been sent to live with muggles."

For a moment he had the urge to say 'they prefer non-magical people.' It was astonishing how quickly that had become a habit; but the boy was right, Dursleys deserved no such respect.

"No, he hasn't," Lichfield corrected for the record before continuing. "I actually met the muggles in question," he said with a very dissatisfied look on his face, "but that's another story, and if you want any of those you're going to have to do something for me."

"I'll sit on the story I was going to write on him today," Rita was quick to say. "A little fluff piece, but sure to make the front page; nothing would sell papers like he would," she said as she began her pitch in earnest, hoping she could save it. "Just a playful little piece about a day out shopping with his little girlfriend before attending a belated birthday party with his many friends at Hogwarts. Though it would really go over well if I perhaps 'oversaw' a little chaste kiss before they left? You know; first love and all that."

"Cute," he said dryly. "Really makes me feel all warm and fuzzy."

That wouldn't have been a bad story to get out there if they had needed any good press, but with everything the kid was about to face he deserved to have one area of his life that was private.

"Why would you want to print a slop story like that for," he asked, "when the truth is so much more brutal and fun?"

That got Rita Skeeter's eyes to pop.

"And you'd tell me the truth on that?" she asked greedily as she groped for her quill again.

Lichfield held up his hand to stop her.

"In time," Lester agreed, before pointing at the quill and Rita's hand inched away from it again. "You play by my rules and you'll hear all the sordid details from someone who knows them all. Of course, you'll never hear them from me," he said meaningfully.

"Of course," she agreed with a smile that showed her gold teeth. "Of course, of course. It wouldn't do to taint someone as well-connected, principled, and–"

"–Ruthless as I am?" he finished for her, making her go a little green around the gills.

"I was going to say 'respected,' but that works too," Rita said with a pleasant smile. "It's only natural you wouldn't want your name to appear in the paper – unless it's in its official capacity somehow," she added quickly so as not to exclude herself from being able to print any future story which may have him in it for a good reason. She may be odious, but she was smart.

"Good to see we have an understanding," Lester said with a nod. "I've got a couple of things for you that'd be of immediate interest: how to follow up on Lockhart to turn those 'doubts' of yours into genuine concerns, then there's something happening tomorrow that'll blow everyone away – and you were curious about what's going on at Gringotts, right?" he asked knowingly.

"Absolutely," the woman said in a covetous whisper. "What do you want? Money? Bear your child? I'll do anything."

'Merlin's messy morals, the woman's worse than I thought,' Lichfield looked at her oddly. Still, it worked for him, but even if he were interested in what she offered, offering it like that would've made him not want it.

"Nothing so burdensome or so costly," Lester said politely. "A small percentage; I'm not greedy. Granting you such unparalleled and exclusive access to such a wealth of information," he said, stressing the words which were sure to make the reporter even more ready to go. "–Comes with a great deal of responsibility. I've got to know you won't twist the stories into something they're not."

"Of course," Rita breathed, looking at him like he was the most desirous man in the country; it was damn freaky.

"Wonderful," he said, more than a little unnerved.

"Mipsy," Lester called. To the elf that popped up beside him he said, "My briefcase, please."

As quick as a flash his briefcase was on the table and from inside it he produced two documents thick with legal talk.

"What's all this?" Rita Skeeter asked, quickly scanning the parchment in case something leaped out at her as provocative.

"I had a chat with someone in our legal department and it turns out one of them knew a good deal about the laws around publishing," Lester said with a gleam in his own eye now. "This is a binding exclusivity contract with a non-disclosure agreement on you for your sources and stiff penalties should you break it or use anything I give you out of context to imply anything that isn't true."

"Binding?" she asked shocked. "No reporter would ever agree to such an infringement on their liberties. You could make me write anything you wanted."

"No reporter has the reputation you do for twisting facts to fit the story you want to sell," Lichfield batted her Bludger back to her. "If you don't want the Binding to go active, don't break your word and force me to go to the Ministry to have them Bind you into retracting everything. That'll make us both look bad. Besides, what other reporter is going to have such a well-placed source walk up and hand them a crate full of Snitches?" he asked rhetorically.

"And with stories like I'm giving you," he continued on to say, "you're going to want to know that everything you print is true. This contract guarantees I give you truthful information, so if any young reporter comes sniffing around looking for lies, you'll walk away smelling like roses. But you've got to stay away from the kid," Lichfield said forcefully. "He deserves to have a private life, even with everything else going public."

Luckily for Lester he had opted not to know certain tiny details about the first story he was going to give her so he could imply heavily and still claim to believe what he was telling was the truth. It could well be true, not that she would particularly care. It was sure to boost circulation either way and any reason for a correction would just expand the scandalous story even more.

Rita looked down at the parchments again, this time seeing the opportunity they held and no doubt weighing it against permanently putting the Boy-Who-Lived tantalizingly out of reach. The girl of his was right though, Lester saw it now. The Boy-Who-Lived had to die.

"And you can guarantee these stories are explosive and accurate?" she asked.

"They're jaw-droppingly shocking, morally outrageous, and completely world-changing," Lester said teasingly. "And every word of it's true. Wouldn't you like to be the one to give the world the real story of Harry Potter?" he asked twirling a Blood Quill between his fingers.

"You're damn right I would," she said, plucking the quill out of his hands and making her mark on both copies of the contract. "Magical signatures alright, since anonymity is an issue?"

"Works for me," he nodded, taking the quill to make his scratch while she signed with her magic. Only blood and magic were needed for the Ministry to Bind anyone if it came to that, so using no names was a nice precaution. When they were done, he called Mipsy again to take his copy to the office.

"So? Tell me everything," Rita prompted, placing the Quick-Quotes Quill back to her lips again.

"You need a new quill," Lester said, plucking it away again and tossing it back at the handbag from whence it came. "Using that one's lazy and makes you look untrustworthy. Use mine," he offered, producing a small quill and ink set.

"Those are horribly mundane," she tsked. "I haven't had to use one since I started out."

"Oh," Lester said, feigning the rediscovery of a long forgotten memory. "That's right; you started as a court reporter, didn't you? I think I read somewhere you covered the trial for Sirius Black."

"If you want to call it that," she dismissed with a wave. "It was over in a flash, everyone knew he was guilty. I'm not quite sure how it even started, I think we were there for something else," the woman said curiously. "You know what they say about Memories, 'To really remember you have to dive in,' and who has time for that?" she asked. "Anyway, it launched my career."

"I'd love to get the memory from you, on behalf of the Family," Lester said. "I'm sure the boy will want to see the man who betrayed his parents taken down for himself one day. And as someone who met him a time or two, I'd be interested in seeing it too," he said honestly. "Actually, that brings to mind another enticing story – that's still connected to the boy," he added quickly lest she get antsy. "I uncovered it when looking into other things and I think it'll really prime the public for what's to come."

Rita looked at him for a moment before speaking.

"If it's suitably salacious, you've got yourself a deal."

"I knew I'd like working with you," he said with a mischievous grin. "But I'm going to need you to do some things for me. It's got to run in tomorrow's Daily Prophet and you have to make sure no one around the individual gets their copies until – say, ten o'clock?"

The corners around her mouth tightened, the woman didn't like making promises.

"I'll see what I can do," Rita said. "But it has to be good."

He nodded.

"Tell me," Lester said conspiratorially. "What do you know about Ida Beeman?"

.o0O0o.

Lying on her bed, Ginny beat her fists and drummed her feet against the mattress as hard and as fast as she could. Life was so unfair! Harry got to come and go as he pleased, spending two days in a row having a grand time in Diagon Alley with whirlwind shopping sprees, adventures at the bank, getting to look at all the best Quidditch gear money could buy, having all the ice cream and sweets he could eat, and getting to meet all sorts of interesting people. Meanwhile she was alone and unwanted and the most exciting thing that's happened to her was that elf-thing of his falling on her head!

Not even his elf crashing the car had been enough to keep him here. How could they let him crash the car and not end up grounded for life? What did it matter if he was a renter or not? He still stayed here and ate their food, and he'd be as good as a member of the family once she went out with him. Surely it counted enough for them to make him stay when she didn't want him to go. Even having him beaten and bruised and needing to be nursed back to health after a nasty Quidditch accident would've been better than having him go, because at least then she'd be the one caring for him rather than letting him go off with the enemy, Hermione Granger.

The girl had probably spent all day holding his hand, batting her eyelashes and sighing, and hanging on his every word while holding herself just an inch away from leaning forward for their first real kiss. That's exactly what she would have done. She must have daydreamed and rehearsed all those things a thousand times or more in the last year alone – even playing out little scenes from the books where the damsel was in distress and he must take her under his protection and provide for her and give her all the fabulous clothes and jewelry as befits her station as his One True Love.

Of course she had never been alone in those daydreams; Luna was always there too as her maid of honor, honorary sister, or even sometimes as another wife of Harry's – though if her mother knew that she would have called her a scarlet woman for sure. But Harry was special though so he deserved to have two wives, and besides, this way they'd really be like sisters.

Luna had never cared for the Boy-Who-Lived though, it's why she had let her borrow her mother's Harry books in the first place. Actually reading them and enjoying them as you were supposed to was the proper thing to do anyway. Who cared about the tiny little things which might be slightly wrong here or there, let alone want to read a book that pointed all of them out? That was just silly.

And the worst part was that the more she thought of it the more like the Harry from the books he was actually starting to seem. He was humble, and modest, and didn't let his great wealth and fame go to his head, but used it for good deeds. And even in his dealings with that girl he'd been the perfect gentleman. He hadn't bragged to his friends and rightly played down both expectations and the significance of the events, choosing instead to keep those emotional treasures in the Vault of his heart since he valued them more than all the gold in Gringotts. It hadn't been his fault her brothers had been children about it.

'But he's focusing on the wrong girl!' she thought again, giving her mattress another hit.

Why was she the only one to see this? Why must Ginny Weasley be the one to suffer so? Why couldn't she ever get a break! She couldn't even be up in her room being righteously angry in peace anymore either after what she had just found out.

How had she been expected to know the girl had lost her mother only a few years ago and could do with some more friends? Well, Harry hadn't expected them to know but he had made sure that elf-thing passed it along when it asked if 'Mister Harry Potter' could invite 'a friend' over for dinner tonight, and now she felt horrible for even thinking that bad things should happen to her, if only to get her away from Harry, which made things even more unjust.

Of course her mother had been so devastated for 'the poor girl' as to agree right away, which had sent her right up to her room refusing to come out. Well, she would be refusing to come out as soon as anyone noticed she was gone. Ginny didn't want to have anything to do with whatever was going to happen tonight. Her mother would fawn all over the girl, Harry would be all caring and sympathetic, and by the end of the night they'd probably be promised to each other and she'd practically be an honorary Weasley. In one fell swoop she'd take her last remaining distinction as the only girl away and snatch everything she's ever wanted out of her grasp!

'Mum would probably have the wedding here at the Burrow too,' Ginny thought grumpily.

She'd dress Hermione up in the same wedding dress she had worn all those years ago with Dad and Ginny would be stuck sharing a room with her, having to listen as she practiced her new name: Mrs. Hermione Potter, and stand next to her in the ceremony as the make-shift maid of honor and disgruntled little sister as she married the boy who was rightfully hers.

'It was just not fair,' she thought sorrowfully. 'I saw him first.'

.o0O0o.

As she watched Harry bid a temporary farewell to the oldest Weasleys as they disappeared through the archway and down Diagon Alley, her stomach finally started to unknit from the uncomfortable situation they had stumbled into earlier. She was still preoccupied with beating herself up about everything though and her thoughts were a complete jumble.

Hermione had to stop doing this to herself. She had known what Harry's overall purpose was in talking with Luna, had known it before they'd talked to Professor McGonagall about her, so him continuing to pursue it when their first plan fell through shouldn't have surprised her. She knew how doggedly he did things when he put his mind to it.

Suddenly inviting her over for dinner had thrown her though, but it might not have been so bad if it hadn't come so soon after she had offered to kiss him. The sudden spike of fear welling up inside her like some ridiculous chest monster ready to rear up and explode out of her mouth and launch itself at the other girl wasn't something she was comfortable with and not the kind of person she wanted to be. Thankfully it hadn't happened or the situation would have been even worse.

Luna had told her that her mother had passed away but she hadn't gotten the chance to tell Harry about it in private yet. How do you tell something like that to someone without it putting a damper on everything or color how they interact with that person? Besides, with Harry no longer needing to even broach the topic of paying for Hogwarts and just going over to meet the strange girl he had heard about, Hermione hadn't thought Luna's mother would've been brought up at all, or if she was Luna would have done it herself. How was she to know it would be a key part of the question Harry had wanted to ask her father?

Mr. Lovegood's face… the way it had crumpled up the instant his wife was mentioned… That was her fault; if she had spoken to Harry beforehand it wouldn't have happened. The look of absolute heartbreak – she didn't know if she'd ever forget it. Was that what love did to you? Even when things went right between two people was that what was waiting for them in the end, that kind of dejected loneliness and despair which seemed to consume your very soul?

But perhaps that kind of visceral response was the exception rather than the rule. Maybe it was only those unlucky enough to actually find the kind of truly deep, meaningful, and abiding connection to another person that everyone strives for that would suffer such a fate. If the situation had been reversed, her own father would no doubt be depressed for quite some time – that's just how he is, he's a naturally caring person – but she didn't want to think he'd be as completely crushed as Mr. Lovegood was though. And if anything could prompt an actual emotional response from her mother she'd hope to find it short of her father dying to know whether it was actually possible.

And while Luna had been able to turn things around after a while by telling her father he was being attacked by the blibbering-humtinger again, Hermione doubted things would be so easy for herself. Harry had been rightfully distraught at bringing up such a painful topic, even going so far as to include Mr. Lovegood in his impromptu dinner invitation he'd been hoping to okay with Mrs. Weasley.

But while his concern had been wholly for their well-being, hers had been split. Of course she would have loved to be able to go to see how Harry and Luna would manage after her father's breakdown, and to be there for them if they needed it, but a large part of her had been worrying over Harry, and not for any reason Hermione had been expecting. That Marjorie girl had said she had "got it bad" when it came to Harry, but watching Mr. Lovegood break down in tears from just the mention of his late wife let her know exactly how bad it was.

When Harry had been in the hospital wing after stopping You-Kn–Voldemort from getting the Stone, she had come to realize how damaging losing Harry that way would have been for her. It would have been like her life had been mangled up. After experiencing what life was like with friends – and yes, there being a boy she kind of liked – going back to the way it had been before would have been terrible, and there would have been no way to know if she'd ever have that kind of thing again.

But that had been before. Now, after all their letters, having actually started to get to know him as something other than just friends, and experiencing the ups and downs of being together for the last two days as a perhaps-technically-official-but-still-sort-of-debatable couple, Hermione knew she'd be a complete wreck if anything happened to him. On the one hand it seemed so natural for it to happen – after all, this was Harry she was talking about – but on the other it was absolutely terrifying.

She had never thought that someone could have so much – control wasn't the right word – influence over her like that, and it was troubling, but not even realizing it was happening and desperately not wanting the source of it to go away was downright terrifying. Was it just some sense of self-preservation and urge to avoid feeling the utter devastation that would come if Harry left that had her reacting like that or was there something more?

There was certainly the possibility he might like Katie or Luna in some way she couldn't compete with, but it felt like more of an irrational fear. The last thing she needed was a green eyed monster about a green eyed boy. Looking at it logically from a distance, Harry only interacted with Katie when it came to Quidditch, and even then the parts they played had nothing to do with each other. Meanwhile he hadn't even met Luna before today, didn't know anything about her, was left just as bewildered at virtually everything that came out of the girl's mouth as she was, and had only initiated contact with her to try and rekindle her friendship with Ginny.

And not that she had intended them to, but it seemed to Hermione that all of her actions thus far had expressed an obvious interest in Harry; an interest he was no doubt aware of. Not only had she told him in writing and received the same in return but his actions clearly said he reciprocated as well, so why was she reacting like this when it came to other girls?

Their potential suitability for a romantic partnership seemed to be the last thing on Harry's mind, if it had even occurred to him in the first place. It really left her with one conclusion: she was letting her own lack of self-confidence poison things with Harry by making everyone else around her into a threat.

She hated that. She had never gotten on well with other girls to begin with, which had made her pre-Hogwarts life a rather frustrating experience since everyone in her school had been girls. The last thing she needed though was to turn all of them into enemies by being a harpy to everyone around her, but how was she supposed to get over the lack of confidence?

This would have been so much easier if there had been other male-female dynamics to observe when she was younger. For the first time she was mentally reprimanding her parents for denying her that opportunity, which was a shame since she quite liked her old school otherwise and missed seeing her teacher-friends there.

"Are you alright?" Harry asked suddenly, drawing her from her thoughts; she'd been too distracted to see him approach.

His green eyes were full of concern, turning her bowels into jelly as this anxiously nervous feeling tingled around her like the urge to jump. The solution was obvious, but Hermione didn't know if she had it in her. If anything was going to demolish the last bit of confidence killing reserve it'd be that, and that would damn her even more – not that she was interested in being saved.

"I'm fine," she lied, or at least exaggerated. She couldn't believe she was going to do this; her hands were starting to feel numb.

"I wanted to say I'm sorry for that thing with Luna," he said, looking abashed.

"I'm the one that should apologize," Hermione corrected him. "You didn't know about her mother and I let you walk into it blindly."

"No, that's not what I meant," he said as he ran a hand through his hair the way he did when he was embarrassed. "I meant for not asking you over before I asked her," Harry explained, turning that stomach jelly into pleasantly warm goo. "I just – there didn't seem any way to bring it up besides saying it straight out as soon as I could."

"They do seem rather unpredictable when it comes to conversation," she said with a smile he'd no doubt take to be connected to the Lovegoods. It wasn't. Harry just admitted she was his first priority, at least in that department. "Besides, it's completely understandable why you wouldn't have asked me first," she continued on to say, effectively letting him off the hook, though part of her hoped it wouldn't be a common occurrence. "You would have had to know my dad and I would be leaving soon."

"Right," Harry said, looking like he didn't want her to go any more than she did. She was definitely going to do it now; how could she not?

"I'm just glad he let her come over," Harry continued, though that sparked concern in her mind as to what the night would be like for Mr. Lovegood without his daughter there now that his late wife had been brought to mind. "What'd you say to Dobby though?" he asked.

"Just something for him to say that'd guarantee Mrs. Weasley would say yes," Hermione said with a bit of a sneaky grin.

If Dobby said it the way she had phrased it then her motherly heartstrings would've been pulled and ready to comfort her when she arrived. The instant Luna appeared though she'd realize her mistake and whatever disagreement she may have had with the girl's late mother would disappear and likely see her take to Luna even more because of the loss.

'Or she could react like Mr. Lovegood,' she thought with a bit of panic.

When the idea had popped into her head to have Dobby blur the identity of who Harry was inviting over, it had been a spur of the moment thing to try to make the Lovegoods feel better; she hadn't thought that it might make Mrs. Weasley feel worse. What if the surprise of Luna showing up and the shock of realizing it was Mrs. Lovegood who had died caused Mrs. Weasley to feel horrible, as if their fight had somehow led to her death?

Instead of a cathartic experience where the Lovegoods and the Weasleys drew together because of a loss, she could be setting Ron's mother up to collapse under the weight of guilt. And what if she didn't react negatively at all? What if she was the kind of person who likes to say 'I told you so.'? Instead of making anything better it could set up a chain reaction to cause an already bad situation go off like a huge emotional bomb! What had she been thinking, doing this when she hadn't met the woman? This was a horrible idea.

"You're not fine," Harry said, catching wind that something could be very wrong.

"No, I'm not," Hermione agreed. "I could've caused something really bad to go wrong."

Once the situation was explained, Harry did his best to be supportive.

"I don't think she'd react like that," he said reassuringly. "She's bound to ask about you when I show up and you don't–"

"Then you can explain the miscommunication, and tell her who's really coming over and see how she responds," she finished for him as she started to breathe again.

"I don't think she'd take back the permission to come over after she'd given it," Harry continued with his brow furrowed in thought. Who would have thought serious critical thinking could make him more attractive? "So I think the worst that could happen is she's unhappy through dinner, but surely she'd see it's better for Ginny to have a friend."

"Of course she would," Hermione said, trying to convince herself and hoping for the best out of a woman she'd only seen once or twice.

Suddenly Harry broke out in a grin.

"What is it?" she asked, eager for a bit of good news.

"I just remembered; there's no way she could be unhappy tonight," he said excitedly. "I told Percy to keep Bill and Charlie a secret. She'll be so happy to see them that she won't care who else is there!"

Hermione heaved a huge sigh of relief.

"Now I wish I could be there just to see her face when they all show up, just to be sure I didn't ruin everything," she said as she shrugged a bit to work out the tension that had entered her shoulders.

"Yeah. Anyway," Harry said in that uncertain way people had when they didn't know what to say, or perhaps had something they didn't want to say.

It was a bit of a shock to realize they were now standing by the fireplace; she hadn't even noticed they had moved. With a lurch in her stomach she knew what that meant: Harry was about to leave.

'This is it,' she thought, now more numb and nervous than ever.

Hermione flexed her fingers to try to get some feeling back in them. Somehow this felt just like being on a diving board, only the worst thing that could happen there was she drowns. That wasn't like kissing a boy on the lips at all, so why should they feel the same?

'It's now or never,' she said to herself, trying to will her body into making the leap. She was going to do it…

'On three,' she thought. 'One,' she breathed. 'Two… thre–'

"So we ready to go?" her father's voice cut in happily, bringing everything to a screeching halt.

'Why did he have to be here!' Hermione thought maddeningly, turning to shoot a shocked and scandalized look at the man.

"If we stay any longer, Mister In-Need-Of-Dentures is going to charge us for another day and you have all the Fun Bricks," the cartoonish dentist explained with an odd look, completely missing her look of damnation.

"I'm just saying goodbye to Harry," she said in a 'could you please go somewhere else?' kind of way.

"Oh, okay then," he said with a smile, and then proceeded to stand there holding their things and watching them.

She could sense growing embarrassment coming from Harry and she gave her father her most 'I can't believe you're doing this to me' look.

"What?" her father asked, with a curious look on his face. "I can't leave. I'd never find this place again, remember?"

Hermione could have screamed or throttled whoever's idea that was. Why couldn't they hide this place with some kind of fake storefront no one would ever need to go into like any sensible person would? At least that way they wouldn't need to hide it from muggles at all. She could have screamed again when a third look the man ignored gave them no increased privacy. He was being such a – such a Dad.

Hermione was not going to let that beat her though; she went right up to Harry and gave him a nice long hug. It might have been kind of awkward and embarrassed, but he did return it.

"I'll see you soon, Harry," she said before she released him, though she knew she'd probably be writing him as soon as she got home.

The embarrassment must've been too much for him to do anything but mumble a response. After he had she turned and stalked to her father, grabbed her things, and left the pub in an outraged huff to wait by the car. How could parents be so dense!

.o0O0o.

Ginny lay moodily on her bed and stared at the ceiling.

She'd been up here for what felt like hours, though if she looked at her clock it'd probably say five minutes had passed.

It was boring being obstinate on your own.

You couldn't play chess or exploding snap without somebody else there to play against.

It made her wonder if Tom knew anything about chess.

Even if he did, he probably wouldn't be able to do it in his head well enough to make it interesting – or whatever passed for a head when you were a book – and she could never remember how the weird move calling system worked for it.

Writing to Tom to complain had been fine at first, but then all the writing made her sleepy and you can't send the message you're purposely excluding someone if they think you're just taking a nap.

Besides, he hadn't been of any help at all. He was still of the opinion that she should let Harry have this first little romance so she could be there to comfort him when it fell apart. Boys were so stupid sometimes.

Ginny cocked her head to one side as she heard someone on the stairs. It had to be Percy; he was the only one with such rapid and prissy footfalls. It'd be just like him to come home and rush straight upstairs to write to his girlfriend. Say what you want about his priggishness, he was a dutiful boyfriend.

She could've wished Harry was less dutiful though, at least when it came to her. No doubt he'd be back soon too and then – No! She didn't want her here, not at the Burrow. This was her home, her place, her family, and Harry belonged to her. She had no right to be here when she didn't want her here.

It didn't matter though, she was coming anyway.

Maybe she should write all of her frustrations out in Tom again and sleep until tomorrow – or next week – or until it was time to go to Hogwarts, she didn't care. What's one day or another to her anyway?

Ginny could just see what she'd write now: 'Oh Tom, the day had started so wonderfully – and then an elf butt landed on me and everything went wrong.' She hoped it was its head rather than its butt, but so far she wasn't having the best of luck. It made her wonder if elf butts were unlucky somehow; Luna would have known.

She should have done what she had wanted to from the beginning and just gone flying, though taking Harry's broom would only have made him hate her more. The ancient brooms Bill and Charlie had left behind were barely fit to fly anymore and probably only good for sweeping out the shed. Still, one of them might have gotten her to Luna's house; she still knew the way.

'And wouldn't she be surprised when I showed up at her window!' she thought.

But unless they could convince Luna's mum not to tell her mum then the whole visit would be cut short. And then she'd either be grounded for the rest of her life or all the brooms they had would be turned into a bonfire for the elf to dance around again.

An indecipherable higher-pitched greeting from below some time later marked her traitorous mother welcoming Harry back. It wasn't fair that she treated him like that, not when he was dating somebody else. That should be saved for when he was her boyfriend, not given out like that when he was with Hermione.

The slow-and-steady creeeak, creeeak, creeeak, of the stairs was the only warning Ginny had. Only her mother creaked like that; but she always called from the foot of the stairs. As fast as she could she rolled off the bed and scrambled to shove her trunk in front of her door and sat on it.

"Ginny?" her mother asked tentatively as she made the light triple-knock she always used unless she was mad.

She didn't respond.

The doorknob turned and tried to open, and she didn't respond to that either.

"Ginny, please open the door," her mother said softly.

Even the sound of her mother's voice didn't sound right today. It sounded like the few times her mother had been wrong about something and hurt her feelings and had to come and apologize to her. And that had always made her want to cry.

'She has no right to make me cry right now!' Ginny thought as tears welled in her eyes. 'I'm not the one who's done anything wrong!'

"I'm not coming out!" she sniffled.

"Ginny, please," her mother softly pleaded.

Ginny screeched as loud and as long and as high as she could; her mother always hated that.

"It's import–"

Ginny screeched again, this time through her tears. Why won't her mother just leave her alone?

"Youhavetocomeoutsometime," the woman said quickly.

"When pigs fly!" she sniffled again before covering her ears and singing the Holyhead Harpies Fight Song as loud as she could. By the time she was finished her mother was gone.

'Good,' Ginny thought. 'Let her be all sad and alone and see how she likes it.'

Maybe more time being sad would make her mother act like she should.

Ginny scrubbed her eyes dry and pulled her knees up under her chin, curling up while sitting on her trunk.

As time dragged on, more and more images of the date that should have been hers floated through her mind. It wasn't the shopping, or the clothes, or anything like that she particularly missed; she would've been happy without any of that.

The Hopefuls would've been nice; meeting all of those new people would've been fun. She just really wanted someone to pay attention to her, even for a little while. She would've been happy just sitting in the Leaky Cauldron holding hands and sharing a smile, she didn't even care with whom. They just had to be nice.

Chasing after Harry was silly, she knew that, but if she caught him then everyone in the world would know who she was. Then she'd be on the front page of the Daily Prophet and girls would look at her all green with envy. They'd cut out the picture and keep it in their bottom drawer, wishing they were her. It'd be the closest she'd ever get to being a Quidditch star like Gwenog Jones.

But now that was all going to be for Hermione to have and she'd be left as one of the faceless others. She was going to be stuck as "the littlest Weasley" for the rest of her life, she just knew it. What a pathetic little thing to be. She hated it.

Why couldn't something just happen to change everything? That was always the best part of the books, when things just suddenly change like that for someone and their life's never the same. Wasn't that what storybook magic was – miraculous change which brought out the best for people? She'd give anything to have it happen to her. But it was never going to happen, not for the littlest Weasley.

Tap tap-tap Tap TAP Tap tap! came the jaunty little knock on the door. How could she not hear a single creak on the person's way up? Everyone made a creak at some point and Ginny knew them all. And what kind of knock was that? It wasn't the knocks she knew from her brothers and Harry would never knock on her door – and certainly not a light jaunty knock like that.

Then it came to her. That was a girl's knock. It was her knock.

'How dare she knock on my door like we're friends! I don't know her, and I don't want to know her. I want her to go away and leave me alone!'

Mouth open to yell through the door, Ginny stopped. This was the girl who couldn't even stand up to a troll. It was time to show her what a true Gryffindor would do when faced with ugly opposition: charge in and show them who's boss. Face set in a Keeper's scowl, Ginny pulled her trunk out of the way and wrenched open the door.

She stood stunned. The person she found standing there wasn't the one she'd thought... but how?

'Was this storybook magic?' she thought numbly. And was it her or for someone else?

"Luna?" she asked, still in shock.

"Hello," the girl said dreamily. "I'm glad to see your mother's wrackspurt infestation's cleared up. She was ever-so nice."

"What are you doing here?" Ginny asked.

"I'm talking to you," Luna replied. "Have you caught her wrackspurts?"

"No, but... Why are you here?" she asked, not that Ginny wasn't glad she was here, but it didn't make any sense.

"Oh, Harry invited me," the other girl explained, "but the way the dirigible plums were blowing in the breeze when we got home told me I should come early."

"So you're a Hopeful?" Ginny asked, her mind coming back to herself.

"I try to be. It's the best way to live I think," Luna smiled.

"So he invited you and Hermione?" she asked.

"No, she couldn't come," Luna replied. "She's a bit rumbly in the pebble department."

"Then why would he–?"

Harry had asked her mum if he could invite someone over, a girl whose mother had died. But Luna was here. Mrs. Lovegood wasn't... She couldn't be– She couldn't be! She just couldn't! Not to Luna!

She was hugging Luna before she even knew she'd moved.

"I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry," was all she seemed able to say as she sniffled once again.

It just couldn't have been to Luna, she was her friend. And then another thing struck her.

"I lost your mother's books," she said.

"Oh that's alright," Luna said as she patted her hair. "I don't think she needs them anymore."

That got Ginny crying. Somehow she knew this was all her fault.

.o0O0o.

AN: Surprisingly, the responses to my experiment last chapter were mostly positive – mainly in the "good" to "mixed" range – so I'd say it was a moderate success. Don't worry; I'm not planning on it being the standard way of doing things from here on out. I'm of the "mixed" opinion myself and this chapter would've been impossible to pull off like that. Looking back now, some of those transitions were as clumsy as a drunken Tonks so I'll either spend more time polishing those next time or come up with some other little cue to signify a shift like that if I ever need to do it again.

One note on an odd turn of phrase in the last scene: the term "bottom drawer" is apparently the British equivalent of a hope chest, and since some people are kind of picky about those things (Merlin knows I would be), I decided to go with the UK term.

Thanks for reading.