Chapter 8:

A Trapped Enemy Strikes

Ever since that meeting, Harry had been followed by his shadow at all hours of the day. And he did mean all.

On the way to classes? Big, purple-garbed African man following him. Meals? Roman emperor crossed with a king of Nigeria standing over him like an audacious sentinel. The man even kept guard over him as he showered and relieved himself. Not in the same room or stall with him as he did so, naturally, but the man would sweep the place before and after, while also waiting for him either just at the bathroom door or in the open doorway to the shower room.

Zero privacy, as such. Zero secret projects and investigations. He still needed to figure out that egg, too, but not with that man around, let alone with Sue and her guard around. Sue, he could really use the help of in that task. The two guards? Not so much.

"How are those clothes standard compliant with a police organization like the Aurors?" Harry asked one day.

"Religious and cultural exemption." Kingsley said, smirking.

Harry had made his annoyance with the conspicuousness of his shadow apparent many times, and yet it continued to grow.

"Can't you just use the disillusionment charm that Professor Flitwick taught us?" Harry asked.

"He taught you all that spell? My goodness, that's a seventh year charm at least, and usually then its not taught well enough to disillusion anything larger than a teacup."

Harry blanched.

"Well… he didn't teach us to cast the spell, he just taught us about it." Harry admitted.

Yeah, that class when Flitwick disillusioned himself with style turned into a lecture on the many forms of invisibility and a discussion on his cloak. Harry actually allowed the diminutive professor to play around with his cloak and demonstrate some charms on it. Ones that worked on disillusioned people, and some that were supposed to work on people beneath the invisibility cloak. They didn't work that day.

Filius had been a good sport and shrugged it off, not wanting to make a scene about how bizarre his cloak was. Maybe he'd been hoping to debunk what he viewed as the hogwash idea that his cloak was special? Well, it was. Anti-invisibility cloaks charms and wards failed against it. Or at least, the simple one he demonstrated did.

"But surely you can cast it on yourself, can't you?" Harry pleaded.

"That's a skill that takes many years of practice to do well enough to hide a moving human being. Even outright assassins usually aren't that good at it. Disillusioned and standing in place? I might be able to manage that. But while following you? Not a chance." He admitted.

Yeah, it did seem like pretty tricky wandwork. Even Hermione and Sue had failed to so much as hide a pin needle with the spell. So he could believe it when a senior Auror claimed he couldn't accomplish such feats with the spell.

"Fine. Just more staring all the way to the owlery." Harry groused.

And indeed the trip was full of staring. Most of which came from the patrolling Aurors, who would naturally find the sole reason for their presence here interesting. For most of them this was plain old curiosity, with a few actually star struck at him being Harry Potter. He also got a few glares, but Harry just assumed they had their PTO or vacation canceled to deal with all of this horse shit. He would be pissed too.

They arrived at the owlery to find it mostly rebuilt from the original stone that was destroyed, with some of the cracks or broken off bits filled with pure white granite. It could only have been a deliberate choice, as they looked like actual scar tissue hewn into the stone of Hogwarts.

It was also full of Aurors, a pair of goblins with mysterious devices. All of them were going over incoming letters and packages, examining them as closely as they were able without opening them. It was like the magical equivalent to x-rays and chemical scans. And once again, Harry knew why.

"Oh, hello Kingsley." Said an Auror who got is own desk, one covered in letters.

He pointed to one half of the table with three large boxes filled with letters, as opposed to the other with many smaller boxes.

"These three here are for mister Potter." The man said.

"Meaning the rest are for every other student." Harry determined.

"You're a popular guy, kid. So, front box is safe letters. Back boxes are ones we have confirmed unsafe to open. Either because of foreign substances, curses or unidentified charms." Said the Auror at the desk, indicating each one in turn. "This box we aren't sure about. Didn't detect anything, but we're always careful with perfume laden love letters and contract envelopes."

"Contract envelopes?" Harry asked.

"Envelopes enchanted to contain contract offers." Said Kingsley. "They have to be delivered by licensed couriers and only then after being certified, and from there must have a verifiable chain of custody."

"So somebody is sending me contract offers of some kind?" Harry asked.

"Well, we know what kind some of these are based on the perfume and matchmaker signatories." Said the Auror. "Those I would recommend not even bothering with. Apparently they're usually sent to your magical guardian, whoever that is, and they've recently opted to let them get sent to you."

Harry's brain immediately jumped to Dumbledore, but that didn't sound quite right. He's only Harry's legal guardian when he is at Hogwarts, as he is also the legal guardian for all muggleborn students when they're at the school, at least in terms of magical law. But Harry'd never received such offers when at the Dursleys, and aside from Dobby's little stunts two summers back, he should have been receiving everything. He usually just trashed fanmail, but he was never hand-delivered any such contracts.

Dumbledore would have told Harry about these offers at Hogwarts instead of just hiding or destroying them. There was only one other person who could have possibly been keeping them from him and it was such an amusing thought he couldn't help smiling.

Had Sirius Black had been receiving love letters, marriage contracts and the like during his entire stay in Azkaban? Was he somehow still, or was his being impossible to contact to most mean that they were all just returned to sender?

"What's so funny kid?" The Auror asked.

"Someone played a prank on me and I just figured out how and why." Harry admitted.

Sirius was sending them all to him. Mostly, he guessed, to get a kick out of the marrige contracts.

"So should I have somebody else open them?" Harry asked.

"The ones we rejected we will burn. The questionable ones you have to open here in front of us." Kingsley said. "If they're laced with love potions or anything dangerous we can reverse it. Or get you to somebody who can."

That didn't sound heartening.

He took up the first letter, one of the plain and unscented ones with a wax seal. The wax seal was made of old and had a monkey's face on it. He opened it and blanched.

"That's a lot of zeroes." He said as he read the offer of money.

"Let me see that." Said Kingsley as he took the letter. "Wow! That IS a lot of zeroes! What is he offering it for… oh, the cloak of course. Who's it from?"

He turned to the envelope.

"Ah. Sir Meloray. Owner of Meloray Demiguise cloaks." Kingsley read.

Ohh! The symbol on the wax seal was a demiguise. That made sense for an invisibility cloak manufacturer. As did the offer of paying for his, his children's and grandchildren's lives of absolute comfort and ease. He tried to imagine a world where copies of his cloak are readily purchasable and every rich asshole owned one, and only them.

He was sorely tempted. He would be rich and would have this problem taken off of his hands. And let him live like a king forever. But it was his only heirloom he had of his family. Sure, there was the map. But that was a shared creation between the marauders. This was purely of the Potters. And it was one of the most simultaneously powerful and useful magical objects on the planet. Too powerful and too useful of a deus ex machina to lose, let alone hare.

"What is the most polite way to refuse his offer?" Harry asked.

"Send the contract back." Said Kingsley. "Plain refusal without justification. No possible way to offend them."

Harry did that. He simply took an empty envelope, there being plenty around, and put the contract inside of it. He signed his name, wrote down the address listed, and sent it off. He then turned to the boxes of letters.

"Just burn the love letters and return the offers of money." Harry said. "I don't want to deal with any of this. And put anybody mailing dangerous stuff on a refusal list or something if you can."

"We already did that as a matter of course." Said the Auror. "It's just our policy."

Harry nodded gratefully and took the box of approved letters. He smiled at the name Snuffles on one, which he couldn't wait to read in the privacy of a bathroom stall. The next letter gave him pause.

Why would professor Moody write to him? He could just talk to him or hand him a note in class. Ignoring the sense that the Auror might have considered a letter by post more likely to go unnoticed and offer more privacy, he tore it open and began reading.

Mister Potter.

I wish to speak with you regarding your parents and your future. The length of which is uncertain and I wish to make more certain.

It is time somebody finally taught you how to survive, and it seems screaming constant vigilance at you isn't sinking in. I will pick up were Remus left off.

Meet me in my office any time after class. Please bring only your shadow for the first one, as I will be discussing some private matters you may not want shared with your little girlfriend yet.

Signed,

Alastor Moody.

Yet another person who apparently knew his parents. At least this time it wasn't pulling teeth to get out of them, and was being offered freely.

"Are classes out yet?" Harry asked.

"They should be. Why do you ask?" Kingsley said.

"Moody wants to have a chat." Harry said.

They arrived at the defense against the dark arts classroom twenty minutes later – yes, the castle was that big – and found it empty.

"Professor Moody?" Harry called out.

"In my office!" Moody called down.

Harry and Kingsley walked over to and up the curved staircase into Moody's office. There the found him putting his false leg back on, his eye swirling in a cup of water.

"You caught me unprepared. Not many people can say that Potter. Please, come in, sit down. Both of you." Moody invited.

He waved his wand and a table with three chairs opened and set itself in the middle of the room. Moody took this time to put his magical eye back in. He hobbled over to his seat and the two guests mirrored him.

"So. You're up a bit of a creak, have been for a while, and it's clear to all of us you're maladapting." Said Moody. He put up a hand before Harry could object to the coming conversation. "Relax, I'm not going waste my breath with worthless platitudes, or trying to comfort you. I'm the one bastard in this castle who will tell you like it is."

He then cleared his throat and straightened his clothes as if about to make a professional presentation.

"You are in the right. You have been fucked, and you are right to be angry about it, and all of your actions are justified and I respect them, especially as you exhausted all peaceful options well ahead of time, showing more patience than I sure as hell would have." Moody explained. "You owe nobody an apology, in fact, based on what I've heard has been going on in this castle for the last three and a half years, a lot of people owe you apologies. And accolades, but I also hear you're sick of those."

Harry breathed a sigh of relief. Those words were exactly what he needed to hear.

"With that said, as amusing as your rampage of late has been, you are being a bit of an ass and I have the cure." Moody went on. "It mostly amounts to me beating the crap out of you in a dueling pit until you can actually manage to hit me back. But before that, I must reveal a lie. I have deceived you, I do have some platitudes and comforting words."

Harry groaned.

"Relax, it's just stories about your father and his posse. You know James and Sirius both went into the Aurors, right?" He asked.

Harry, had not, in fact, known that.

"Well, guess who was part of their training? I even worked beside your father on a few missions here or there before he went into hiding." Moody went on.

Harry was already hooked, and began leaning forward to listen. He let the hunger to learn more show on his face.

"Well, let me get a pot of tea over here since we'll be here all afternoon." Said Moody as he withdrew his wand.

By now Kingsley had begun to slouch in his seat, as relaxed as a cat.

"Minerva has been drilling into me the proper wand movement for animations. Animations are something I think you might excel at, Potter, so pay attention." He instructed. "You wave the wand up and down like this."

He demonstrated and as he had seen McGonnagal do many times, a tea set came to life and danced towards them, levitating in the air to his directions.

"It helps to treat it like you're choreographing a dance. And a one and a two and a bombarda!"

When his wand came just to Kingsley's chest Moody roared the curse and blasted Harry's guardian right through the office door and over the railing. The animation charm on the cups ceased and they fell to the floor. By the time they crashed Moody's wand was already pointed to Harry's chest.

"Gotta be faster to draw your wand kid." Moody told him, nodding to the pocket where Harry's hand had instinctively gone to but was now frozen. "I apologize for the earlier charade, had to get both of you calm and relaxed. And I tend to get into my acting, it comes from early life theater classes. But enough about me, let's kidnap you!"

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