-Crouch Family manor
Voldemort looked upon the twisting body of Bartimous Crouch Senior, Minister for Magic, pawn and possibly broken tool.
The child like body of the homunculus had the face of an old man with the burning eyes of a demon, yet Lord Voldemort was not the true horror of the room, that honour lay in the lap of Bartimous Crouch Senior, Minister for Magic.
Voldemort hissed his way through charms in parseltongue even as his child like hands fumbled with his wand to carve runes into the very flesh, such flesh as was left, of the Minister. In the end he hurled down his wand and hissed at his followers.
" Ignorant child, you have cost me a tool worth more than you are. Shave his head, for you will need his hair, and then go plant him in the back yard." Voldemort hissed, too tired to shout, to defeated to care.
Barty Crouch Junior licked his lips, "Do you mean kill and bury him my Lord?" He said eager to murder his father for the eternal glory of his Dark Lord.
Voldemort found the strength to summon his wand wordlessly. Speaking once, he spent the last of his strength on education. Perhaps he should have been a good Dark Arts instructor after all. Instruction did have a joy of its own, old man Dumbledore wasn't always wrong.
"Crucio!" The red bar connected the Dark Lord to Barty Crouch Junior.
"Plant him, as in set him upright and leave him standing on good soil, with adequate sun. You sent your father to order the Goblet of Fire to choose Harry Potter as Hogwarts champion, and now, now my captive and enslaved Minster of Magic is more than half way turned into a tree. He will be a tree, an ash I think, and a particularly long lived one that offers no little protection for this manor and all who shelter here.
If I am going to have a Minister of Magic to betray the Ministry to me and deliver Harry Potter, you are going to have to take the HAIR that I told you to cut, and polyjuice yourself as him. Something you can only do while his both still alive, and at least remembers being human. How long that will persist now that his ass is ash I do not know. This is fairy magic, so they would be most amused if he always remembered he was a man."
Lucius No Name, once Malfoy watched Barty Crouch writhe in pain and his brow furrowed with an unasked question.
"Out with it Lucius. Since you are going to have to muddle through the polyjuice for this idiot. He was always useless in anything that didn't require active spellwork, you have earned at least an answer."
Lucius blurted out his question. "When Bartimous Crouch Senior used confundus on the goblet of fire to insert Harry Potter as the Champion of Gringotts, even his mediocre magic was able to do it. Barty Crouch Junior using his father under the Imperius just tried to confundus it again to ignore the Hogwarts students who got their names in and choose Harry instead, and the goblet turned Bartimous into a tree. What changed."
Voldemort chuckled. "You never took Arithmancy, just ancient runes. Sloppy scholarship gets witches and wizards killed. There is a power in numbers. We stole this cup thousands of years ago, the Cauldron of Dagda, the cauldron the FOUR cities used to settle their battles between champions. When we used it, we bent it to our will in the TRI wizard Tournament. We lulled it to sleep, its four cities called it to war no more, it dreamed its way through the years as our Tri-wizard tournament was only close enough to leach off the magics, not strong enough to wake it. Three schools, and it followed the rules we fed it for Three schools, always and forever waiting the call to wake for the war of the four cities to resume, but we would never be stupid enough to let it."
Voldemort suddenly remembered, then pointed his wand at Barty again. "CRUCIO!"
Barty screamed, and in the hellish light of the sustained red beam the Dark Lord's face lit with joy.
"Then this idiot's father gave it a fourth city again. No longer did it sleep and dream the pale copy of the Tri-Wizard cup and sip gently from the souls of champions we fed it, now it waked again, and not just anywhere, we planted it inside the biggest confluence of ley lines in all of Magical Europe, inside the most powerful concentration of wards and magical blood in all of Europe and woke it up.
Invited into the heart of defenses I left for last in my war plans at my peak, defenses Grindelwald never planned on facing head on, it comes awake for the first time, actually singing its joy to again receive the souls of four champions battling for the four sacred cities of Tuatha DeDannan and this idiot just tells it to forget what I told you, go back to sleep, be a good little cauldron and do what the humans tell you.
Dumbledore could not make it let go now, and I would be far too wise to try. Were any of my beloved inner circle bound to this damned thing, I would bless them for their sacrifice and move on. The wise do not meddle in the doings of the ancient fey. The days of champions strong and wise enough to succeed were gone before we began writing down the lies we call history."
Turning to Lucius, he smiled a more human smile.
"Now, the challenges and prizes are things the Ministry supplied. The goblet of fire may dictate, but it leaves the logistics to us. The muggles have a saying, "the devil is in the details". I am the devil, so we shall have to tweak these details.
Harry Potter must be a champion like no other, he must shine like the brightest star in the sky, he must become the vision of Hope that Wizarding Britain turns to in its hour of need. When I stretch forth my hand and rip him from the sky, they will know that all hope died with him."
The laughter of Lord Voldemort reminded Lucius, once the Lord Malfoy, why in the height of his power and pride he had crawled on his belly to kiss the hem of his Dark Lord's robes. Voldemort was power, and the world needed reminding.
As an aside he murmured to Lucius. "Do remind Barty to water his father once he is planted in the garden. The sacred Ash trees are all tremendously powerful warding items. Find me a Death Eater with decent Herbology NEWTS. I won't have my best defense suffer from aphids or root rot because none of you idiots studied anything that couldn't scream."
-Outside the DADA classroom, Monday morning.
Professor Snape found himself meeting Professor Sprout as they closed upon the DADA classroom from opposite sides. Pulling up short, and both looking equally embarrassed (for those who could read the microexpressions of a trained Slytherin).
Professor Snape fell back on etiquette, as the esoteric rules of etiquette provided guidance through those social situations that otherwise fell far outside rational judgement as to proper action, as he opened the door and bowed the senior witch through.
Professor Sprout nodded gracefully at the guesture and they both strode to the desk of one slightly bemused Professor Scrimgeour.
"Well, well, two heads of House before class even starts. To what do I owe the honour?" Rufus Scrimgeour had survived as chief Auror under a manifest incompetent minister prone to over-reaction, and a DMLE head with zero tolerance for mistakes. This was not his first rodeo, but he could tell when the ride was about to get bumpy.
Professor Sprout handed over a note. "I thought considering the nature of the note I would deliver it personally, so that any implication that it was a forgery or some sort of joke could be banished before it was raised.
Scrimgeour gave a smile you almost had to be Slytherin to appreciate. He slid the note accross his desk, eyed the two heads of house, then tapped it with his wand and raised the edge of it, keeping the bulk of it face down so no one but him could see it.
Snape was momentarily reminded of professional poker players he had known when he spent a summer playing poker professionally to work on his control of facial expression and body tells for his own political and professional career.
For that reason, the freeze and twitch of eyebrow from Scrimgeour were noted by Snape as being the equivalent of a Gryffindor falling from his seat and shouting in surprise, or a Ravenclaw giving it two full rereads followed by an examination under microscope to be sure no other hidden messages in microdots were concealed inside the visible words. Snape was not dissapointed when Scrimgeour was driven to ask for clarification.
"Mister Longbottom is to be excused from class today because of a critical farming incident? I had noticed Mister Longbottom is reasonably skilled with a wand"
Professor Sprout coughed, and was now blushing furiously for some reason.
Scrimgeour stopped momentarily, knowing he missed something but not what, then continued.
"And had consistently excellent marks in herbology. Am I to understand that he had some sort of accident with farm equipment, was he perhaps unable to handle a plow and accidentally cut off a foot?"
Professor Sprout stood tall and said firmly. "Mister Longbottom can indeed plow a mighty furrow, and his fields are well tended indeed. It is simply that he was so exhausted by his efforts in that field that he requires bedrest, and fluids."
Scrimgour worked hard to decode that, failed utterly and turned to Professor Snape.
"And you Severus, another farming accident? Not terribly Slytherin is it." Scrimgeour said smiling brightly.
Severus Snape eyed his former upperclassman and slid his own note across wordlessly.
Scrimgeour eyed the sealed note, then flipping it face down, tapped it with his wand and bent it up enough to scan the short lines of prose before again freezing and seeing both an eyebrow and lip twitch in an aborted smirk.
"Mister Malfoy is to be excused because he attended a tea party and requires a full day to recover?" Rufus Scrimgeour, a former law enforcement official who had received more sick calls from Aurors than anyone this side of Mad Eye Moody decoded using the code book of his experience, and for once, was incorrect.
"Severus, are you telling me your 14 year old godson is too hung over to come to class. Merlin's beard man, you are a potions master. Do what I did to my Aurors who tried that. Force down a sober up potion, a nutrient potion, an energy potion and a firm stinging hex to the ass for being one!"
Severus Snape drew himself up to his full height, and looked down his nose at the DADA instructor.
"Draco Malfoy attended a tea party last night, the after effects of this will require at least a full day's bedrest, a number of calming draughts and no little amount of advanced occulmency, psychotherapy and perhaps memory charm surgery to recover from. The only thing that he drank was tea."
Pomona Sprout now looked at Severus with alarm, suspicion dawning on her. She asked carefully of Snapes dignity and the student's privacy.
"Severus, would I be correct in assuming that a number of the ladies at this tea party were of the sort that one can never know what will offend, nor what exactly the consequences for such offences could be, beyond alarming?" Pomona offered gently.
Severus spared her a glance and nod. "Three rather complicated and demanding ladies, and one that while less demanding is rather more complicated.
Pomona Sprout nodded, then turned to Professor Scrimgeour. "Professor Scrimgeour, my Neville only had to deal with three complicated ladies in his farming incident. If young Draco had to deal with four his House Master is doing his due diligence in keeping him from class today."
Scrimgeour could not keep the smile from his face now, his smirk making Snape twitch.
"That must have been some tea party!"
Scrimgeours chuckles drove Snape and Sprout from his office as the DADA instructor settled in to what he just knew would be an interesting day.
-DADA First Class, First Year Griffindor/Ravenclaw
Professor Scrimgeour was less than happy to see Delores Umbridge in pink that should be regulated by the Ministry as an offensive weapon file in after his first year students.
Scrimgeour shoved the sunflower in the clay pot to the corner of his desk before walking around to the front of the desk and perching on it.
"Good morning class. Now today I was supposed to begin teaching you about the terrible magical dangers of Grindelows, but they are found at the bottom of the Black Lake and not wandering around Hogwarts hallways, so I thought we would begin with something of rather more imminent need, and something that is within the power of beginning first years like yourself."
Delores Umbridge spoke up from the back. "Hem Hem, the Ministry EEK!"
Delores Umbridge attempted speech ended in a screech as Scrimgeour tossed something gold and shiny at her head, which fell off her raised handbag to the desk.
"What did you throw at me? Do you know who I am?" Delores began.
Scrimgeor smirked and silenced her brutally. "A throat lozenge for that annoying cough, and you are not the DADA instructor, and this is the DADA class, so you will provide a moral example to these students by opening your ears, shutting your mouth and respecting the authority granted me as the instructor of this class."
While she gave her impression of a toad looking for flies, mouth flapping open in shock, then slamming closed, only to open again in more shock as she slowly processed her feelings like a machine a few cogs short of a full clockwork, Scrimgeour continued.
"You may have noticed that Hogwarts has been infested by fairies of all kinds. Now the stock and trade of the minor fairies is illusion. The reason they went away when our ancestors got here is simple."
Scrimgeour pulled out a knife from his left wrist sheath.
"Iron." Fairy magic is easier to work than ours. They don't need chants, they don't need wands, they don't even need potions, because all the low level fairy magic relies on the Unreal. The reason they fled before our ancestors is this."
Scrimgeour tapped the sunflower pot on his desk with the flat of his knife and instantly it was a little green fairy with an evil looking face. It shrieked and sprinted out of the room as Scrimgeoru smiled.
"Iron defeats glamours made only with the Unreal, so you will find most Aurors have an iron knife or three on their person, and more often than not, iron toe and heel caps on our shoes and boots. Nothing like going to step on a stair that isn't there to ruin your whole day." Scrimgeour smiled in memory.
Scrimgeour pulled up a box that must have weighed about sixty pounds.
"I had Professor McGonagall transfigure a few hundred rings out of some iron I had the Goblins send over. You will get in the habit of touching anything you eat or drink with this, you will touch your wand and books with this each and every time you pick them up or you may one day find yourself in a fight with a fairy and the wand in your hand is a piece of celery, a breadstick, or a rather confused gnome."
He smiled. "If you are interested, I can give you the case files for the Aurors those happened to. Not pleasant reading and don't look at the pictures before lunch or bed time."
"PROFESSOR SCRIMGEOUR!" Delores Umbridge warned, "That information is restricted by the Ministry. It is only released for Auror training because the Head of the DMLE has stood on her legal right to refuse unless a full wizagamot endorses the restriction, and certain factions refuse to cooperate. There is no reason to teach this antiquated and outdated nonsense to our children. You will teach the ciriculum or you will be fired.
I will not have this school made a laughingstock in front of all of Wizarding Europe while we are hosting the Tri-Wizard Tournament!"
Scrimgeour looked at Umbridge who was waving her wand at him. He smiled and stood back, taking a single iron ring from the box.
"I will make you a wager. Why don't you attempt to banish these rings. I will not block or shield them in any way. If you can manage a simple third year banishment, and since you work for the Ministry you must have least got above a troll on your charms, I will stop all mention of fairy magic in DADA for my entire time here at Hogwarts.
Of course, if you can't you must leave my classroom and stop interfering in my instruction." Scrimgeour said sweetly.
Umbridge took her wand in two hands, muttering to herself for about a minute as she rehearsed the incantation and practiced the wand movements to be sure she remembered. Finally, with a look of great seriousness, she finally cast the long form banishment, seeking to utterly unmake the rings.
"non est amplius!" She chanted and waved her wand.
In an easy underhanded motion, Scrimgeour tossed the iron ring to bounce off her madly waving wand.
In a flash, the wand was now a somewhat longer and thicker implement, a rather personal item used with far more discretion in very private, or at least intimate settings.
"My wand!" Screeched Delores Umbridge.
"Actually, that is a sex toy, and entirely inappropriate to share with a class of first years. I would suggest you find an iron ring of your own, and test your purse whenever you are foolish enough to put it down on or below a table, as fairies do love their little jokes, and your actual wand is no somewhere in the castle in the hands of a fairy with decidedly adult tastes, unless that item might also have been in your purse? In which case test everything in your purse, as your wand may no simply resemble a makeup compact, tissue paper, or another sex toy."
Umbridge shot from the class, her face matching her dress. Scrimgeour continued his lesson, passing the box of rings around so students could find one that fits.
"The magic we teach you is slower, more complicated, more energy intensive, and requires a focus like a wand or potion until you get very good, but the magic channels the unreal to make real effects. It is not defeated by the touch of cold iron. In a castle full of fairies, you do not trust toilet paper you have not tested with cold iron, lest you find it was poison ivy some fairy thought would be fun to make look like toilet paper."
Scrimgeour smiled. "First and last lesson of Defense Against the Dark Arts, 'CONSTANT VIGILENCE!"
The class of first years jumped. It made him laugh. He was going to enjoy his year teaching he thought. It gave him a chance to do unto others what Mad Eye Moody so enjoyed doing unto him when he was a trainee auror.
Rufus wondered briefly how the old bastard was doing.
-Family Picnic, Little Hangleton
Alastor Moody stumbled as he walked, "Damn that Potter."
Sirius Black laughed, unsympathetically. "Voldemort cut that leg off you before Harry was even born, you can hardly blame him." Sirius laughed, and BG, his basilisk hissed laughter.
"I bloody well can!" Alastor snarled. "This is my sixth new leg since Harry and his pet squirrel went and gave me a magical tattoo, now I need a new one again."
Narcissa sighed. "How are Miss Granger and Lord Potter responsible for your prosthetic woes?" Narcissa asked, stroking Stheno's head, the basilisk she had named for Medusa's sister in Greek Mythology.
Moody stopped and reefed up his pantleg, showing a prosthetic that started just above the foot.
"The damned thing's been growing back since she stitched me up. I can feel my eye socket getting uncomfortable too as that is starting to regrow. Cursed wounds don't heal, everybody knows that, so it isn't like I can get prosthetics that adjust for me having a bit more leg every time I wake up!" Moody chortled happily.
Sirius snorted while Narcissa stopped in shock. That was impossible. Cursed wounds do not regrow. Like the wounds she had taken from Draco's birth, the magical costs pain in flesh and blood were permanent. Everyone knew that. She felt the runes in her skin, and felt the magic move inside her in a deeper and more potent current than she had ever known prior to binding herself to Harry's clan. She might have to start practicing her contraceptive charms again. She had known since Draco's birth she could never be pregnant again. If Moody could regain his eye, and leg, Narcissa might just have to start practicing her contraceptive charms again.
Or not. She had enjoyed motherhood, it was just Lucius that was a mistake. Well, Beltane was coming. Miracles can happen, and mother magic did love her little jokes.
Sirius stopped. "Bugger. Missed it again. I know the shack is here. I arrested Marvolo Gaunt for raping a Muggle back in 78, he got off, but then again it was old man Nott who was the judge, so not much of a surprise. I swear we have walked past it three times at least."
Mad Eye stopped and smiled. "I have had enough walking, I don't care what they hid it behind, once you know its there, you can break it down. Brute force doesn't get half the credit it deserves."
Narcissa raised an eyebrow, offended at the thought of abandoning subtlety and secrecy before they had even begun, but she could not detect the place she knew to be there either. With a sigh, she gestured to Alastor to proceed.
Alastor hissed to Connie " $ Watch my back, I am going to have to give all my concentration to this. $"
Alastor Moody's basilisk Connie (Short for Constance Vigilance) hissed back " $ If I kill it, you will bring it home for me to eat! $"
Moody laughed and cuffed the snake affectionately. "No work for free, and Death Eaters tend to be well aged and marbled."
Narcissa massaged her forehead. "Alastor, you are a bad influence on your basilisk."
Whatever else she had to say stopped when she saw the runes Alastor Moody was scratching in the ground with his battle staff. He went on a long time, and she began to become alarmed. Little Hangleton was the middle of nowhere as far as Wizarding Britain was concerned, but the level of magic Alastor was preparing to unleash would not be out of place to destroy a warded manor, or Ministry office tower, not simply a random bit of English countryside.
"Tempestas ignis!" Moody roared, and his staff burned rose-gold as the runes in it glowed and smoked channelling too much power, the runes in the ground echoed those on the staff, and the ones that Moody's will created in the air. A storm of fire, a hurricane of flame that sucked at the air to the point it became hard to breathe destroyed everything including the soil to the depth of about four inches as it raged for about two minutes where a mushroom cloud of fire rose to the sky, and trees bent and broke in the howling wind that replaced all the oxygen burned in an inferno little different than a small nuclear device.
A small square of land remained in the center of of the storm, its outer three layers of wards having failed, but the inner ones having held. It's charms against detection had been stripped away in the firestorm, or overloaded temporarily to the point that the crumbling shack that had once been a two story manor house of the Tudor style was now visible.
Before it on the ground were dozens of snakes, vipers of all kinds that rose and hissed their defiance and fury.
Sirius, Narcissa, and Moody stepped forward and began chanting in parseltongue, each of them working at different wards, wards the master of this house had woven in magic he knew without a doubt he was the last person in England who could speak.
Voldemort never shared his gift, it was what made him special. The downfall of Slytherin's holy legacy was his own houses love of secrecy. The same gift given to a Hufflepuff Harry Potter had resulted in the almost forgotten legacy of Slytherin from again spreading through the great and soon to be great houses of Wizarding Britain.
Sirius was the most powerful, Alastor the most experienced, and Narcissa the most sensitive and subtle. Voldemort was the most powerful single parselmouth to exist since Salazar Slytherin himself. He was not even close to powerful enough to stand against these three acting in concert, and the wards that he had woven had only their fixed strength and purpose, not a living mind to counter the forces pushing, pulling, weaving, and short circuiting the fine network of interlocking power that warded the residence from intrusion. It fell in less than ten minutes. Honestly, Narcissa was pacing herself for hours, but she had limited experience with parselmagic.
"That seemed, easier than expected." Narcissa offered carefully.
Sirius laughed and slapped her back. "Yeah, that old time snaky goodness really adds some oomph to the old spell slinging."
Narcissa winced. "I have to keep reminding myself you are a functional adult, Lord of the Wizagamot, and leader of this mission. I keep fighting the urge to ground you and assign etiquette and behaviour homework."
Sirius chose to rise above this remark. "$ Basilisk cavalry, charge! Go forth and snack upon the forces of darkness for they are full of evil and vitamins! $"
A few dozen vipers slithered forth from Voldemorts final redoubt to defend the ancestral manor of the Heir of Slytherin.
Three juvenile basilisk slithered to the charge, and when they rose, eyes open and blazing, the remaining serpents fell stiff and lifeless.
Humming happily, Sirius stowed them in his storage bag. " $ Petrified, they keep better that way. Good job girls! $" Sirius chortled, he then shot a glance at Narcissa.
"And you thought I was a bad influence on our basilisk." Turning to BG he hissed. "$ Whose my best girl?"
BG stood upright and struck, burrowing her head into Sirius side hissing " $BG is Best Girl $"
Narcissa shared a long suffering glance with Stheno. She stroked the basilisk gently. "$ Do not listen to the Dog Father. He is a leg humping idiot, even if a fine wizard and warlord. You are a serpent of breeding and culture, and your deportment reflects on your lineage which goes back on both sides to the most ancient and honoured lines. $"
Stheno hissed quietly. " $The Venomed One is wise. That black spotted one is mine. It smelled tastiest and I got it first. $"
Narcissa stalked over and pulled the indicated snake from Sirius grasp with a glower, then hissed back to her basilisk.
"$ You are a Black, Stheno. Never forget, we always get what is owed us. $"
Moody and Constance were at the front door, hissing at each other before Moody simply levitated her through the window to deal with what she sensed inside. A few minutes later, Moody splashed a potion on the door and let it slowly dissolve before stepping through.
It was the work of minutes to unwind the wards around the boards in the floor, the only warded section of floor actually sped up finding the hiding place thanks to Alastor's eye.
"That is the nastiest curse I think I have ever felt. Even knowing it is cursed, I really want to put on the ring." Moody laughed happily as he trapped the hovering ring inside a warded box, that he put inside another warded box, that he put inside a warded chest.
Sirius looked at the chest, and felt the roiling coils of serpents in his mind finally relax. The occulmency of his parselmagic had never been tested strongly before. Sirius wiped the sweat from his face.
"Do you remember how I said we could handle this ourselves, no need to involve the kids." Sirius said slowly.
Moody growled. "And I said these are too bloody dangerous to mess with outside a full ritual circle, with Harry and those little monster friends he keeps picking up."
Sirius winced then grinned.
"I may, just may mind you, have changed my mind. I don't think I want to attempt that one without Harry and his full inner circle, and as big of an outer circle to contain it as I can beg, borrow, or steal. I figure Hogwarts, because if we do it inside the wards, chances of Old Voldy feeling it are lower." Sirius said.
Narcissa leaned down to Stheno and hissed. "$ See Stheno, even Dogfather can learn new tricks.$"
Moody nodded. "That curse, the one that wants you to put it on, I barely was able to hold it off, and I'm about the most experienced this side of Dumbledore. There is a magic in that damned ring that is unlike the other Horcrux. Something that seeps past the shields. I don't know how we are going to get past that 'put me on' compulsion long enough to cleanse the ring."
Sirius shrugged. "The kids have been doing all right so far. We will just leave it to them, I trust their instincts." He thought for a second.
"This one is Voldemorts frigging house ring, I don't care if we just have all the basilisk kids get together and spit on it until it dissolves and Voldy comes scooting out to avoid the burn. We don't really need to be careful this time."
Sirius closed his eyes. "Still, that magic, the bit that you can't block out. I swear I know it. I swear I can remember its feel, like on my physical skin before. I swear to Merlin I have never even seen that ring before, but I swear I know that magic like the back of my hand."
Had Dumbledore been there, he might have been able to shed light on that familiarity. Dumbledore and Grindelwald had spent their youth researching and chasing the Deathly Hallows, and Dumbledore came to understand the Potter invisibility cloak was one of them. Sirius had pranked enough under its cover to know the touch of its magic intimately.
Perhaps more than Dumbledore, or Voldemort, Sirius recognized instinctively the touch of another Deathly Hallow, the Resurrection Stone set into the Gaunt family ring as its crest. Since Dumbledore had chosen, as always, to keep secret from his closest allies the truth about their own tools and weapons, he had never shared with the Potters or Blacks the nature of the Potter Family cloak. That the holder of the Elder Wand, was about to have all three Deathly Hallows present in his own school would remain a secret from Dumbledore, not because anyone thought to keep it from him, but because he never gave them enough information to know that all three pieces of a power that was beyond Voldemort or Dumbledore would be in Hogwarts, if only someone knew to unite them.
Everything has its cost in magic. Even silence.
- October 30, the day before the Goblet of Fire champion selection.
Sirius had owled with the good news, so Harry had contacted Professor Sprout who had activated whatever sort of witch wireless handled the "hey we are gathering on Samhain night to practice forbidden rituals, dance around the fire, kill a bit of the Dark Lord's soul, and its pot luck."
This had left Harry with a connundrum. Hogwarts was essential to the defense of Britain which Harry had accepted had fallen to his clan. His clan, human, goblin, viper, basilisk, united in common cause to not only defend the magical peoples of Britain from Voldemort, but to rebuild a better society than the corrupt and slowly dying one they had now.
He had restored the Hufflepuff cup to Professor Sprout, and the Amulet of Slytherin to Professor Snape, two of the sacred four object of Hogwarts were restored, and given to those he trusted to actually defend it, but they were outside the clan.
Could he afford it. The foundation of the Blood Purists political power had always been political marriage, for magic and the ancient families respected ties of blood and power beyond any sort of lesser treaty or pledge. He would not bind anyone through marriage, he loved his freedom too much to ask to buy or sell another person into bondage simply to bind two houses.
Yet the goblin way; an existing Goblin clan was different, it worked much like a noble house did as far as birth, marriage and adoption being the paths in to membership, but goblin law was different for clan founding. In a clan founding, a Clan Lord chose and a Clan Lady marked those whom they would bind to the clan as founding members. All of those would give their blood and magic to the clan, all of those would share in the blood and magic of the clan.
With goblins, the level of magic on an individual level was a lot smaller than a fully trained witch or wizard, but collectively, as the goblin wars had shown, they could get awfully close to matching the best the wizarding world could send against them.
Harry had been building his clan, weaving goblin, witch, wizard, rock viper, basilisk, all without care for any consideration other than will they stand with me, and will they respect all the others who do?
Was it time to reach upwards, rather than just across to his own family and friends. Should he bring in Professor Sprout and Professor Snape? His instincts told him that returning the Founders gifts to their house members was half a bond, and his work was not done.
He could not choose. He was not alone, he was Hufflepuff, they didn't make these kids of decisions alone. He sent his Patronus to Hermione in the girl's dorm.
"Hermione, I think we need to grab Neville and Mille and meet with Professor Sprout and Snape about joining clan and coven."
Harry had said it, and once his Patronus slithered off through the walls to Hermione and Noodle where one revised and the other napped, it felt right. He shot off another one to Milicent.
"Millie, I think you need to grab Professor Snape and bring him to Professor Sprout's office. It is time we bring them all the way in. Clan and Coven."
Professor Snape regretted many of his life choices. Becoming a Death Eater was one, calling Lilly Potter a mudblood in fifth year was another, revealing Sybill Trewlwany's prophesy to the Dark Lord was a third, but the one that weighed upon his will to live the most was assigning his Gryffindor fourth years a two foot parchment essay on preparation and uses of Mandrake root.
Ronald Weasley came from a line that had produced genius like William and Charles, had produced talented plodders and pendants like Percy, underachieving and misdirected menaces like Fred and George, and quietly brilliant witches like Genevre.
Severus own love life was somewhat more desolate than the High Arctic in midwinter, but he understood the theory well enough to realize that the odds of anyone seducing Molly Weasley from out from under Arthur, where she presumably spent a great deal of time considering the vast number of Weasleys, was vanishingly small, so Ronald should possess the same basic ability as the rest of his mannerless but talented ilk.
Snape was considering the very real possibility of Changelings. Ron Weasley could easily be some Fairy's idea of a joke, the real Ronald Weasley living like a fairy prince beneath the mountain while the cleverly transformed garden gnome made to look like a wizard was left in the cradle to fool the Weasleys and eventually write essays to torment one Severus Snape. Considering all the fairy nonsense going on right now, Severus was indeed considering it more possible than this essay was coherent.
He scanned the essay on Mandrake, and a single random glance was already too much for his well organized and disciplined scholar's mind.
"Well its a plant right? But screams, so you got to like put on earmuffs and stuff before you pull them out or you can like die or have Sprout go all mental and make you weed the herb garden in detention. You can't just use a stunner, or the Mandrake explode, Sprout will go spare and then you end up in the hospital ward wondering how a trowel got up there in the first place, and you have no idea how painful it is when they pull it out again."
Snape would almost rather share a cup of coffee with Sirius Black than read another inch of Weasley wisdom, but he was spared from that by a knock on his door.
Flicking his wand to drop the wards and open the door, he raised one eyebrow slowly for effect so his Slytherin could understand how important her answers to his next questions were for her future health and happiness.
"Miss Bulstrode, I trust you have a good reason for being out after curfew. I note that you are a fourth year, and while a candidate for fifth year prefect next year, you are not one now." Snape drawled casually, dropping Weasley's essay with some relief.
Milicent Bulstrode had come to his house a thuggish looking girl with a perpetual scowl who looked like a somewhat better carved copy of Crabbe or Goyle. She had flowered to become a witch of both power and intellect, an amazonian figure that in no way fit the Slytherin aesthetic of delicate blossoms, being a brutal double headed battle axe in a forest of delicate rapiers, yet her confidence and undoubted grace gave her a compelling power that arrested the male eye in a way few of the well bred and pampered young ladies of his house could equal. Power was attractive, ambition was attractive, ruthlessness was attractive, and in a house where status and standing was a game that consumed ninety percent of everyone's energy and effort, someone who honestly could not care less what her lessers thought of her was irresistibly attractive.
With a wicked smile, and hooded smoky glance that could have come from a film noir starlet, Milicent answered back inscrutably.
"Good reasons I do not have. I come with a poisoned chalice filled with temptation and power, I come with secrets freely offered that will put you beyond the laws of the land, and beyond the power of its enforcers. I come to you with the wickedest of all possible offerings; knowledge the Dark Lord would keep for himself, and knowledge the Dark Lord dare not even look upon."
Severus Snape looked upon a 14 year old girl built more like a muggle rugby star than model, and felt the lust rising within him. Not for her body, but for that promised poisoned chalice of temptation and power.
A lesser person would offer the power, tempt with its benefits, and lie or at least conceal its risks and costs until you were safely bound. Severus felt his left forearm itch as he remembered being young, angry, and stupid enough to fall for that trap.
Milicent Bulstrode told him the cup was poison, then whispered of its power. If he took it up, he would have the protection of neither Dumbledore nor Voldemort, and would not need it.
He rose silently, and she stopped smiling. "We go to Professor Sprout's office, and my Clan and Coven would make you an offer."
Snape was no fool, he did the math in a moment and knew what she was offering. Ritual magic was forbidden as was goblin magic. Lilly Evans, whose fall he had been an unwitting and unwilling cause of, had used ritual magic to strike down hid Dark Lord on the precipice of his victory, and the combination of Ritual and Goblin magic had let the Potter brat beat him again and again.
Did the spy want to step out of the shadows, did the tool wish to step forward and fight for himself.
"$ You will know and speak the founders tongue, as will every child you sire. $" Milicent hissed in the Parselmagic that had so impressed Severus in his youth that he signed his life and soul away to its speaker.
"What did you say?" He asked softly, the question dragged unwilling from him.
Milicent smiled. "I made you a promise, and if you follow me, you will understand it too."
Severus Snape found himself following the least angelic looking child in the entire castle of Hogwarts, yet if he was to be honest, she was the perfect serpent to lead him into temptation. Let others follow lust for flesh, for gold, or domination. Severus Snape lusted for knowledge, especially that knowledge that was forbidden to others.
-Office of Pomona Sprout, Head of Hufflepuff
Hearing a knock at her door, she wandlessly flicked it open and sang out "come in, come in. Spare me from correcting Herbology NEWT students who think word salad is a food I value. Look at me, do I look like salads appeal to me?" The round woman chuckled merrily seeing three of her favorite badgers walk in; Neville Longbottom, Harry Potter, and Hermione Granger.
Professor Sprout smiled and asked. "Oh, you look very serious don't you. Why don't you explain the problem, and then what you need from me."
Hermione tried, she really did, but after about five minutes of Harry attempting to explain Voldemort, Horcrux, politics, war, goblin law, economic theory, and the seventh time that he went off topic for unnecessary background information Hermione took charge.
"Harry Potter got the school basilisk pregnant, there are forty babies slithering here and there under the castle and in various manors with no more adult supervision than Harry here, and Sirius Black. We need you to join our clan so you can speak to snakes and provide some sort of parental supervision. Also, we are killing Voldemort. Rather farther along than we thought, but its pretty much what we all came together to do."
Professor Sprout frowned. "I see I am going to have to get together with Hagrid to expand my sex education and birth control charm course to cast a rather wider net than I expected. I thank you for bringing this to my attention Miss Granger. Ten points to Hufflepuff.
Mister Potter, I hope you are taking responsibility for mother and children? I obviously would be more than happy to join your Clan and Coven to see that all Hogwarts children, even the slithery ones, are properly educated. Sirius Black as a parent, I shudder to think."
At that point Severus Snape slinked in, following a beaming Milicent Bulstrode as if slightly embarrassed to be there.
"Ah Severus, how perfect. I was just going to message you. Rather think I am going to need your help in this, all things considered. Sort of as much in your wheelhouse as mine." Pomona Sprout offered cheerfully and Severus Snape eyed the clearly comfortable Hufflepuff House Mistress, and wondered how he had missed the strong current of madness that had clearly been running unnoticed through Hufflepuff his entire career.
Severus asked softly. "When do we do this."
Harry smiled sadly. "We will need mom for this. Samhain night; tomorrow. The easiest day to reach her. We will do the ritual after the feast where the announce the poor sacrificial idiots for the Cauldron of Dagda."
Only Professor Sprout and Milicent Bulstrode could see Professor Snape wince and mouth the word "Lilly" silently.