To Ride the Carousel Again
Chapter 26
'Tis fated I shall never have any Harry Potter rights.
They belong to JKR and others.
Take a deep breath and let's try to sort what has happened.
Been a strange month. No notices on my email for favoriting or following since 6/13.
Gmail hates me, or hates FFN. Not bad here. Only took a bit more than 5 weeks since CH 25.
The next chapter (27) has been killin' me. Might just publish the dreck so I can move on.
And my grammer/spell checker has decided to want just too much personal info they can sell. Scroom.
Approx. 5,300+ words.
/*
Continuing Wednesday, September 23, 1992
/*
"What is it you want me to tell you, Lord Greengrass? I mean, it is a wonderfully thrilling tale, and Heiress Greengrass went over her suspicion of what happened at its ending. However, I do not see what telling the House of Greengrass the actual, and frightening true story does for us."
Harry paused for a moment trying to give his words weight and gravity. "What do you, and more importantly, what do we get from telling you, our deeper secrets?"
"After all, I think your daughter has already told you her source of information is fatally . . . flawed.
/*
Everybody had reacted to Harry's last statement. It was just a matter of degree. Neville almost jumped in his seat. His gran had stiffened a bit before nodding approvingly, and Solicitor Tonks had merely had her eyes widen a bit.
Her lack of strong reaction made Harry figure, "She's a Black by birth. I would be afraid to find out what would break her façade."
Lord Greengrass had taken Harry's last question well, considering it would have been borderline insulting in well-bred, Pureblood circles. He factored in age, lack of experience, nerves, and decided there was no insult intended.
In fact, in one fell swoop, he had just been invited to take a chair at the bargaining table, told the price of admission, and, surprisingly, he could think about his answer. The offer would remain open.
Lord Greengrass slowly stood and said, "Lord Potter if I have some time to review my knowledge, I would want to meet again with you in, say, two months? Prior to the November 'Mot meeting, perhaps?"
"That would work well, Lord Greengrass," replied Harry.
With a bow, Greengrass turned to leave, making Neville, the junior person present, scurry to open the door for him.
As Neville returned to his chair, Harry turned to Neville's Gran and Solicitor Tonks. "Regent Longbottom, Madam Tonks, obviously there are more things occurring than my becoming Lord Potter, starting the re-activation of the Alliance, and kicking Dumbledore in the teeth as often as I can."
"At the moment I am at a loss how to find the time and privacy to give you a brief on all that Greengrass thinks he knows, what he does not know, and something that is so dangerous to know, I would not tell you even under Alliance Oath. Perhaps during Yule break we can sit and get everyone on the same page."
"At the same time, I know it's not fair, but I would appreciate that in the near future, for you to tell Neville and I everything you know about Lord Greengrass and those he associates with."
OooooovvvvvoooooO
As he expected, Harry was neatly ambushed by Hermione as soon as he entered the common room. He then spent a half hour telling her what happened, and then another half hour answering her questions.
He emphasized how Susan's Aunt had seemed to become if not an ally, at least favorable towards him.
He actually boggled her mind as he recounted Lord Restrum making himself look like an idiot. She grilled him on the Veil room, got him to comment on the chains on the accused's chair almost seemed to know who was guilty or dangerous.
/*
Thursday, very early
/*
In the early morning light, Madam Tonks lay next to her husband and thought about Harry. The young client had just freed her cousin from the hellhole of Azkaban, and had the guilty betrayer of his parents executed. And while engaged with that feat, had pulled the curtain back on several very questionable decisions by the Ministry and the sitting Chief Warlock.
The unforeseen consequences of those actions were going to reverberate through the government for some time.
/*
Amelia Bones, Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, had arrived very early and had been sitting at her desk for almost two hours. The parchmentwork caused by the new Lord Potter and his revelations would become a legend eventually.
She may be short on sleep, but the smile of satisfaction the last two days of work had put on her face would scare the rookies if they saw it.
Losing the thousand galleons Lord Potter had backed his bet with was a disappointment. However, having a marked Death Eater and betrayer passed through the Veil, an innocent man rescued from Azkaban, and the chance to verbally smack that arse Malfoy around in public; was a memory to cherished. It was well worth the loss.
Connie had told her Monday night how the Potter kid had stepped between her and Malfoy when it looked as though the blond shite-stain might do something stupid. Robards had followed up with considering how Potter had acted for the past two days, when he hit puberty, he was probably going to grow large brass ones.
She had been hard put not to agree. However, since the boy was quickly becoming a close acquaintance of her niece, maybe a word in his ear about how much she loved Suzy and the things she could do to someone who mistreated her . . .
"Is this how fathers worried about their daughters?" she thought.
After a sizable swig of coffee, she settled back to again dealing with the pile of parchment Potter had created, literally overnight.
/*
Another early riser, Albus Dumbledore, was also seated early behind his desk in the headmaster's office at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. At the moment he was analyzing a parchment from Wizengamot Services showing the vote totals, who had voted, and how they had voted on yesterday's setback for his Greater Good plans.
Fortunately, Black had blamed himself and his friends for the change in secret keeper plans. And any scans done at St. Mungo's now would not find the old, weak compulsions placed on three of the four Marauders to change their original plans.
Two were forever where they could not talk, but the third had the almost certain potential to bugger up his decades-long planning. His plans were all built around a weak, confused, and grateful boy who would look upon Albus as the kindly grandfather figure who had caused him to be rescued from his abusive relatives.
Which to his satisfaction, Harry had done everything he wanted last year.
Black had been a spirited, brave young man who showed little reverence for the wisdom of his elders who had years of experience. (He was a bloody irredeemable prankster!) Having an immature, young man who was much too (here he had to stop to remember a term from his younger days.) 'flash' raising the lad would not fit Albus' plans.
No, this would not do. Something had to be done. Having Potter claim his Lordship was bad. Albus could see that getting young Potter to return to his relatives for the summer holidays would be an almost impossible sell. And if he tried to lay some compulsions on young Harry, Albus would bet that Head of House ring he was wearing would reject the spell and the young lord would know what he had attempted.
And worse, even with him staying in the castle during Yule, the boy would be out and about going to his Wizengamot duties. Sharp eyes would be watching the Lord Potter situation closely to see if they could pry him away from the headmaster.
Seeing how Harry greeted his godfather, his being influenced by Sirius Black could become calamitous. Albus did not want decades of planning for the coming Greater Good to be wasted.
The plan must be followed. He had shaped and refined it for too long to modify or abandon it now.
He, the Great Albus Dumbledore, Defeater of Grindelwald, would not allow his plan for the Greater Good of Britannia to be cast aside by immature, unreasonable juniors.
He would have to come back to that problem later. His treatment of the new Lord Potter had not gone unremarked and he was going to have to spend time answering, deflecting, or obfuscating questions he did not want asked of him.
Why had his new association with Neville Longbottom and Granger suddenly led to this unwanted independent streak? And what had happened with Ronald Weasley that suddenly Harry was on the outs with the fine lad?
/*
Ron Weasley was sleeping hard and snoring loudly. He would be well rested today as he had been put to bed early.
Percy, Fred, and George had sat him down in an unused classroom after dinner last night and told him what had happened.
The Thick One was probably the only Gryffindor not to connect up the loudly proclaimed disappearance and murder of Scabbers the Rat, and the next day discovery of a rat animagus that turned out to be the betrayer of the Potters. Slowly and carefully, Percy had Ron read what the man Pettigrew had done to the Potters. Then he made sure Ron actually paid attention to the magical pictures from the Daily Prophet of a rat transforming into a man. He forced the younger brother to actually say out loud what he was seeing.
Ron sneered at all of it. He loudly proclaimed it was all fake, something Potter had made up to get attention for himself.
The three older brothers said not a word as they looked at each other. All the excuses they had made over the years for the spoiled youngest Weasley son, and his general all-around idiocy, were fast disappearing. Thoughts of looking for obvious flat spots on his skull to check if he had been dropped on his head as a baby flitted through all their thoughts.
"Right," said George, and promptly Stupify'd Ron.
He then turned to Percy. "Didn't Harry tell you he thought Scabbers had been maybe potioning Ron? I think we should take him to see Madame Pomfrey first thing in the morning. She will not appreciate being disturbed now. Something like this that can probably wait."
/*
Susan Bones was dreaming about how handsome Harry had looked dressed in his Wizengamot robes a few days ago. In the dream, it seemed alright to be pressed against his remembered body on the floor. She would be both mortified yet strangely wanting to feel him hugging her again when she remembered her dream after waking.
/*
Neville lay in his bed and stared across the room at Harry's bed. His evolving friendship with the green-eyed trouble lure was something he had hoped would happen last year. However, Weasley had worked very hard at driving everyone else away from getting friendly with Harry.
From the story they told, it had taken the near death of Hermione to crack the shield Ron had built around Harry. And even then, the redhead had constantly picked on her. And to hear him brag, you would think that it had been only him and Harry that had done something spectacular at the end of last year.
But something had happened this year. Suddenly Ron had turned into, if possible, an even worse person than he had been. And that had led him to falling out with both Harry and Hermione. Also, with him gone from the trio, Harry had reached out to him, HIM, for advice and somebody to learn things from.
Even though he was just laying there in bed, Neville felt a swell of pride over his teaching and being an advisor to the now Lord Harry (oops, Harald) Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived.
Which led him down another thought path as he figured he was only one of four people who knew Harry wasn't Harry. He had another name, just like Neville's middle name was Hakon, (1) and it was something that called to him from his Viking ancestors. The warriors who had built House Longbottom and defended it.
Seeing him right a grievous wrong over the last three days had made Neville see that there could be justice and right in the world. He was used to his Gran coming back to their manse venting about the venal and greedy idiots who ran the Ministry. Seeing it work the way it was supposed to made twelve-year-old Neville feel that someday with Harry, Susan, and others, they might become something like a new Knights of a Wizarding World Roundtable.
/*
Daphne Greengrass was still asleep, but that was because she had stayed up too late analyzing the long letter her father had sent her immediately after his meeting with Lord Potter. On the surface, it looked like a regular parent/daughter/heiress letter.
It had some political overtones such as his personal observations of the Pettigrew revelations and especially the freeing of Heir Black which had Potter's wand signature all over it.
However, that was not all. He had enciphered the code words needed to reveal the extensive hidden part and she had read it three times while sitting behind the closed, spelled curtains of her bed to parse out what Lord Greengrass had written about what Lord Potter had said, not said, inferred, and not inferred.
Essentially, she had been given orders by her Head of House to get as friendly and close to Potter and Longbottom as possible. He had admonished her though, what he wanted was a fact-finding task, not an espionage mission.
/*
Hermione had just entered the common room. Usually, she was down earlier to enjoy the peace and quiet that allowed her to do some uninterrupted reading or thinking. And to wait for Harry. He was also usually an early riser.
She badly wanted some contemplation time. She desperately needed to orderly file all the chaos that Harry had caused since her whirlwind birthday party. No, she retreated from that. Friday, with the very pretty Daphne Greengrass, had started the landslide of things to consider.
Saturday, she had been buried in Wizengamot law research when Harry had practically bullied her into going with him to what turned out to be her birthday party. He had then spent the night ratnapping Scabbers from Ron.
And then Sunday proving he hadn't.
She was not quite believing in Harry's script.
He had deliberately not told her about seeing the rat animagus transform into a human a couple of weeks before. Rather un-Harry like, he didn't tell her anything he had seen. He had not told her about his instant suspicion that this was a rat form of Pettigrew, or that he had read about this Pettigrew being the true betrayer of his parents.
He didn't ask for her advice or input on how to capture and keep an animagus from escaping. And then he had the foresight to get Susan's aunt involved. Which again was interesting to her mind. She had watched as whatever Harry had said to her that morning had convinced her to go along with Harry's plan.
She intellectually understood that both Dumbledore and Snape could pick up her memories if she looked them in the eye, but it still hurt that Harry did not trust her enough to confide in her.
Which led her to thinking that same foresight had gotten a quick trial for his Godfather, Sirius Black. At first, she thought that Harry had figured out a way not to ever return to his relatives. But that theory fell apart quickly as her law reading proved becoming Lord Potter meant he no longer had a magical guardian and could now live wherever he wanted.
Which she was virtually certain would be Potter Manor. She hoped so. It would mean she could see Harry during summer hols, and he surely would let her read some more books in that wonderful library he had.
After a few moments her thoughts shifted. Harry had known an awful lot about two people he had not met since he was a baby, and had followed his mother's supposed journal without question, and apparently did not need any help deciding that what everyone else knew was wrong.
Part of his acting much more intelligent, and willing to investigate oddities he found, she was willing to put down to his discovering and somehow purging a Wit Dulling potion from his body. Also, somehow over the summer he said he had a Curiosity Suppression Charm removed.
But where had his leap in maturity come from? And knowledge? He suddenly was remembering everything from class.
Neville had described to her the meeting of Harry and Sirius Black on the floor of the Wizengamot chamber. Neville said it was like the meeting of long separated brothers, rather than the first meeting of Harry with someone he should not be able to remember.
She just could not shake the idea that in the tumbling dice game that was Harry's life, he was suddenly rolling winning numbers because he had loaded the dice. But how?
AND why was he not questioning her about the Why of last year's adventures that he had tasked her with finding answers to? Did he already know the answers?
Her mind skittered away from that thought.
/*
Luna Lovegood was wide awake, trying not to become frustrated because she could not get a clear answer from the wrackspurts. They would not show her what that black-edged, grey cloud over Hogwarts meant.
/*
Harry woke up after a fitful night's sleep. He did not have nightmares, but the Veil kept whispering to him to wake up and listen.
He mentally ran over his short list of 'to do' things that he had for today. After classes, gather with Susan, Hermione, and Neville to further debrief the trial and Greengrass' visit. Catch up as much as possible on his school work after having missed two of the last three days.
Sliding out of his four-poster, he went to his trunk, opened the third compartment. Once at his desk there, he opened the blood- locked drawer and hauled out a folder to lay on the desk.
Checking through the folder, he pulled out the goals he had written down as he remembered them as laid out for him by Upper Management. (He had left the original at his manor for safties sake.) Grabbing a biro, he started he started writing the goals he had achieved in a muggle, spiral-bound, divided-by-subject, red-covered notebook.
1: Become friends with Dobby. Complete, as long as I can free him.
2: Get the goblins working for him as Heir and Lord Potter. Need more leverage with Tongueripper. The
gain of profit seems the only way of getting more than grudging cooperation out of him.
3: Become Lord Potter, and break Dumbledore's control of him. Completed.
4: Gather friends and allies at school. Moderate success. Firm allies in Bones, Longbottom.
Possible ally in Greengrass. New friend in Luna Lovegood.
5: Possible other allies. Regent Longbottom, DMLE Head Bones, the Tonks family.
6: Getting Lupin as a mentor/adult he can talk to. He was considered the intelligent Marauder.
7: Capture Pettigrew and use him to free Sirius. Last time I kept the rat from being killed by
Lupin and Sirius. The scum of the earth had thrown the chance away by reviving Voldemort. Success.
8: Free Sirius Black. Godfather and adult. His only family member who wanted him as family. Success.
9: Explore that strange Come-and-Go room the house elves had shown him. It might not be as secret
as the Chamber of Secrets, but it was warmer and a lot less creepy.
10: Kill Horcruxes. He hadn't killed one yet, but he had it, and it would not terrorize the school this time.
Time spent— less than 8 weeks at Hogwarts.
As Harry stared at the last line, with Sirius saved, it was time to start serious planning on his basilisk problem. Oh, and try to find the diadem horcruxes thingy that is supposedly hidden here in the castle.
Yeah, maybe hunting that diadem would let him not think about the basilisk.
OooooovvvvvvoooooO
Continue Thursday, September 24,1992
Hermione passed Harry her newspaper as soon as he showed up at the Gryffindor table. She had finally caved, now that Harry was a Wizengamot member, and ordered a subscription. And had promised retribution upon Harry if he teased her about paying for 'that owl cage liner that's not worth two knuts.'
Harry had wondered how high the foo-foo-rah would be this morning. He thought the insanity about the Tri-Wiz had been bad. That paled compared to the mayhem caused by the Prophet headlines that covered over half the front page.
HEIR SIRIUS BLACK INNOCENT!
ILLEGALLY INCARCERATED
FOR ELEVEN YEARS!
Ministry to pay compensation
Potter betrayer Pettigrew sentenced
to the Veil
Death sentence carried out within hours
Death witnessed by Lord Potter and Heir Black
The mild roar as anyone with a paper was surrounded by people demanding to see the newspaper's articles. The noise continued unabated as his fellow students looked at him while talking about the stories or kept talking loudly while pointing at him.
Oddly, the articles were fairly accurate. His breakfast ended up frequently interrupted as a phenomenon happened to Harry that had never occurred before.
It started with Susan Bones and her friend Hannah coming over to the Gryffindor table and after politely asking for space, sat down across from Harry and Neville. Susan then started questioning them on the Daily Prophet's reporting accuracy.
An occasional stammering Harry for once did not have to act at being a twelve-year-old. No one except Hermione had ever questioned what the Prophet reported on him. Was this a result of his make more friends effort?
When Greengrass and her shadow Davis came by and sat down for a brief interrogation in the same vein as the two Hufflepuffs, he was somewhere between astounded and flummoxed. When he managed to ask her why was she doing this, and wouldn't she get in trouble with the rest of Slytherin House?
She actually smirked at him and said, "A true Slytherin never gets in trouble for gathering information anywhere she can. Malfoy can rant all he wants. Most of the house will quietly applaud my Slytherin cunning on being able to have a conversation with the new, powerful member of the Wizengamot."
That comment did have Harry blushing, and Hermione fighting a frown.
And through it all, the gathered around First Years (some who were calling themselves The Potter Proteges.) were enthralled. The ones who had some political acumen from their parents tried to keep the newcomers to the magical world apprised what all the excitement that seemed to swirl around Harry was all about.
OooooovvvvvvoooooO
The furor over the new Lord Potter quieted down over the course of a week.
Harry attended his classes as if it were normal. He was number one in his year with his practical wand work, but he had never applied himself to learning the theory before. He had occasional flashes of theory remembrance, but for the most part half of each class was new. He found he had to actually study and do research if he wanted outstanding marks instead of coasting along as he had the first time.
Of course, having Hermione Granger as his best friend and study partner helped his learning ability immensely. Not being pressganged into playing chess and listening to constant quidditch talk meant he had the time to pay attention to the girl who could explain complicated magical and spell theory to him.
Reading letters from fellow 'Mot members soliciting his support for various legislative bills was occupying an annoying chunk of his time. He was letting his advisors read all the correspondence and listening to their advice.
And every time he just wanted to be shot of whatever they were discussing, he told himself that was what they were there for. Advisors were for advising.
Such as the advice Susan relayed from her aunt. He had hired a company that promised, backed by near foolproof oaths, that they would intercept any harmful or tampered mail and make sure it was decontaminated before passing letters or packages on to Lord Potter. And pass any harmful items on to the DMLE so they could track, investigate, and perhaps even arrest the senders.
A side effect of hiring the company to check all his mail was their discovery of a mail redirect charm on him that he then had removed. Suddenly he was being swamped with mail sent by admirers, hucksters and some of that mail that was passed to the DMLE because of being outright dangerous to him.
Harry was exchanging mail with Lupin to see if he had to hire an assistant to deal with the mail created by his new fame.
Ron had disappeared less than a week after the execution of Pettigrew. He had spent a couple of days in the infirmary, then left the castle. Percy and the twins were tight-lipped about what had happened to him, but said he was in St. Mungo's for treatment.
Quidditch practice under Oliver Wood had started and the practices given by their winning obsessed captain were long and wearing. Having come close last year to winning the Quidditch Cup had raised his fanaticism to new heights.
And Neville and Susan were not going to let him backslide. Sometimes joined by the two friendly Slytherins, two evenings per week were given over to continuing comportment and society studies with them. He worked at not noticing that he was more nervous and out of sorts when Hermione was not there to shield him from occasional probing information seeking questions from the green and silver wearing pair.
It was during one of these sessions that Neville dropped the Bombarda Curse on "Lord" Potter. Neville had strolled into their fourth floor "Lord Potter's Room" with an almost maniacal smirk on his face. Harry could tell Heir Longbottom was about to enjoy something immensely. And it would be something Harry was not going to like.
"MiLord Potter, the Regent Longbottom mentioned in her latest letter to me that as you have joined the Wizengamot, it will be incumbent upon you to attend the Ministry Yule Ball. With the companion of your choice, of course."
The reactions of both girls told Harry this was not a prank. Susan started to squeal before slapping both hands over her mouth. Hermione was obviously surprised by Neville's announcement.
The surprised Harry reacted in typical Harry fashion. By getting angry at the Ministry. "No way! I'm not going to some poncy ball. There will probably be dancing and little tea cakes, and I'll have to put up with Malfoy's all night? No, nope, not doin' it!"
Susan reacted with shock. Neville just kept grinning as Harry reacted exactly as he thought he would. Hermione stamped down on her first reaction.
She clamped her mouth shut before saying that she thought his knee-jerk reaction was silly. He had created this situation by himself. No matter how desperate he had been to get free of the headmaster's control as his magical guardian, his plan escape plan had created this problem. It all meant that as becoming a player in the Big Boy Game with the Big Boys, he had to follow those Big Boy rules as to how their game was played.
Until he became the biggest boy in the neighborhood, and could fold, spindle and mutilate the rules to his advantage.
This was not a problem that had to be solved tonight. They had over two months in to find a solution.
Harry grudgingly nodded his assent when Hermione mentioned her postponement solution, but added that he wanted this possible ball attendance to be kept among themselves as he had no desire to have every girl in Hogwarts pull a "Lavender" on him trying to get asked to the ball.
There was another reason Harry asked the other three to keep quiet about all this. They thought he was being a bit silly, but Harry remembered the chaos of needing a date for the Tri-Wizard Yule Ball.
Which led his thoughts to how Hermione had looked as she descended the stairs to the common room that night. Which was followed by recalling how she looked during the ball itself. Happy and bubbly and looking as though she was having the time of her life, until Ron the Mini-Dementor had struck and ruined the ball for Harry, Parvati, Padma, and most of all, his supposed friend, Hermione.
The 'What was he going to do,' struck several times over the next weeks. Which irritated him to no end. How could he concentrate on finding his soul mate when all this fancy, poncy stuff kept getting in the way?
In his small bits of spare time left over, Harry started on a part of Upper Management's suggestion that he make the effort to meet students from other houses. He started talking with other non-Gryffindor students before or after class about gathering together to play Gobstones or Exploding Snap in some place besides their common rooms or the Great Hall.
This was a deliberate campaign by him to try and gather other students who might not turn on him at a whim because of anything bad that happened to him. Especially if the teachers abandoned him like they did after he outed himself as a parselmouth or after his name came out of the Goblet of Fire. It would be a long-term campaign over years, but then he figured he had years before he might need a lot of goodwill.
He figured he would start with the First Years. They were the ones who most missed their friends who had been sorted into other Houses, and would therefore latch on to a plan that made it easy to gather in a place where they could talk, play, and have eleven-year-old-type fun.
Harry thought he had just the spot. Fluffy's room.
He figured it was large enough for his planned purpose. A sticking point was that when he brought the idea up to Neville and Hermione, Hermione mentioned that she had read that any type of student gathering needed a teacher to officially watch over the group or the official sponsor of the meeting area could get some sixth or seventh-year students to monitor the room.
Problem was, the older students were not going to do any monitoring for free. Maybe a mysterious benefactor could spare a few galleons to get the monitors some amount of payment. He sure as hell figured Snublysnore wouldn't get the school to pay for it. In fact, Harry would bet that would be the first excuse he would use to refuse allowing the gatherings to occur.
As a way to gain followers and influence the younger year students, he could perhaps take them on a guided tour of the Stone's underground room complex. Just like for him, it could become part of their Hogwarts experience they would never forget.
A/N:
Yes, Neville's middle name in canon is Francis. (BTW, Vance McGill caught I had changed this way back in Ch. 7)