August 15, 1994

"Not. One. Word."

Of all the things… That's it. He was never, ever going to transform where someone might spot him. Ever. He would just claim defeat, or perhaps claim to be something no one could see. Could people have a thestral as an animagus form?

Perhaps he should do it again just to be sure…

"Alright, so I got the snacks… Ivy, what is that?"

"It's a lion."

"Yes, I can see it's a lion. I meant, what is a lion doing here?"

"That's Draco."

Harry looked at the lion and then back to Ivy. "Is it really? Well, that sure explains a lot now, doesn't it."

The Draco-lion huffed, presumably unamused at Harry's conclusion.

"So who's going to turn into an eagle then? Or a snake? Might as well aim for the whole set."

Ivy rolled her eyes at him and Draco-lion pouted. Not an expression he had seen on a lion before, but this was Draco, so it somehow fit.

August 18, 1994

"So, I heard you got your form down. That was fast."

"Yes, well, I'm quite good at transfiguration."

"Uh-huh… So what are you then?"

Draco remained silent and Blaise slowly brought an eyebrow up.

"Ivy?" Blaise said, turning towards her. "Care to share?"

"Can't," Ivy said succinctly.

"You're a lion, aren't you," Neville chimed in.

Draco glared at the wizard who had apparently recently decided to embody Gryffindor courage and not be frightened by anything, including Draco's most impressive glare.

Blaise outright cackled. "Of course you are. Merlin, we match, don't we. First my patronus and now your animagus… What's next, Neville turning into a cobra?"

"I think he'd be more of a python if you ask me," Ivy interjected.

"That's not the point," Draco said in something other than a whine. "Can youpleasetry to focus on the problem at hand?"

"Which is?"

"Me."

"Well, you said it, not me," Blaise muttered.

Draco needed to practice his glare. It was having absolutely no effect on any of them and this was becoming increasingly problematic.

August 25, 1994

Thomas paced nervously, looking at his watch for what had to be the twentieth time that hour. Not that Percy had been counting or anything.

"When are they going to get here? I thought they would be here by now."

"You do realize this is my family you're talking about, right? Everyone besides Mum is coming, plus Granger, who I'm fairly certain Ron has a crush on, plus the Peverells, plus adjacent Peverells, plus the Blacks, plus Luna, plus Burke who insisted on accompanying Luna, plus the Diggorys who somehow got roped into organizing the portkeys for the entire lot."

"And they couldn't have just met everyone here?"

"What are you so nervous about, anyway? I thought you'd be more nervous at Adélie coming than Ivy."

"Adélie isn't going to give me a look of disappointment while something explodes in the background."

"Touché."

"Hey, Thomas, right? Are you okay?"

Thomas turned his head to see Percy's brother. "What? Yes, I'm fine, it's fine. Nothing is wrong, why would you say that?" He was fairly certain he had kept out at least forty percent of the hysteria from his voice, so kudos to him.

"Right… How about you just sit down for a moment…"

Thomas let Charlie help him onto a stool.

"Are the others with you?"

Charlie shook his head. "Just Bill. The others will be along any moment. Didn't fancy going by portkey myself."

Thomas nodded absently.

"Are you sure you're alright?"

"Salut, Thomas. Ah, qui est ton ami?"

Thomas hopped right back off the stool. "Salut, Adélie. This is Charlie Weasley, one of Percy's older brothers. Charlie, this is Adélie Fortier, my, er, girlfriend."

Charlie looked amused but thankfully didn't say anything. Thomas could only thank Merlin and hope all future meetings between Adélie and everyone-but-most-especially-Ivy would be as painless as this.

"Bonjour, Mlle Fortier. Pardonne-moi, mais mon français n'est pas si bon."

Adélie let out a slight laugh. "I speak English."

"Better than I speak French, no doubt," Charlie said with a grin.

And, well, no one appeared ready to argue that.

"So, when will I meet yourpetite soeur?"

"She means Ivy," Thomas said quickly at Charlie's raised eyebrow.

"Oh, I'm sure," Charlie replied, with a grin that was not discomfiting. Not at all.

Thomas, entirely off his game apparently, and unable to make a suitable reply, chose instead to offer his arm to Adélie and walk in whatever direction might eventually land them in the same place as Ivy. Any direction worked, really. They'd run into her sooner or later. And later might not really be that bad, after all…

"Est-ce un bon petit ami? Parce que je peux te venger s'il ne l'est pas."

Thomas took offense to that. He was a perfectly good fake boyfriend, thank you very much. He resisted the urge to stick out his tongue at Ivy. He was supposed to be an adult now. And also that would probably just fuel Ivy's teasing further.

"Oui, il est très attentionné."

Adélie looked far too amused for him to find any comfort in that statement.

"Bien, bien. Alors, quand allez-vous vous marier tous les deux?"

Thomas's brain came to a halt even as he caught sight of a tiny smirk on Ivy's face. There wasn't even a look of innocence on her face to make him think that maybe this wasn't going to end in disaster. No, she was planning something, and she knew exactly what she was doing.

"Peut-être dans quelques années."

That was a vague enough answer on Adélie's part. He could live with that.

"Ah, ça veut dire que vous arrêterez les fausses rencontres, non?"

How Ivy had managed to plaster on a look of perfect innocence on her face just in time for that question he had no idea. He felt his face heating up, and he heard laughter coming from his now least-favorite Weasley. Percy at least had the decency toattemptto hide his grin, even if Charlie was doing no such thing.

Adélie laughed because of course she was finding this incredibly amusing. "Penses-tu que je devrais?"

"Tout à fait. Ce serait dommage si tout cela était gaspillé."

Why had he even bothered?

"You do realize youareactually dating her, right?"

"What?"

"Well, that seems like a lot of effort to go through just to convince me you had a girlfriend."

"It wasn't you I was trying to convince, per se…"

"And obviously you like her, and she likes you, and you've been dating for a while now, so all I'm saying is I hope you are aware of that fact."

"I'm not sure that I…"

"You're dating."

"Am I?"

"Yes."

"Well, alright then."

Ivy looked rather proud of herself and Thomas acknowledged, (safely within the realm of his own mind), that she had probably masterminded this entire thing. Somehow. He should probably talk to Adélie a bit more on the subject, though…

"This place isincredible," Hermione said between gasps of wonder at the vastness of the tent's interior. "It's just like the TARDIS."

"The what?"

"It's a muggle thing," Hermione said with a wave.

Ron leaned over to Ginny. "Did you know muggles had that sort of thing?"

Ginny shook her head, eyes slightly wide. "Maybe Dad knows about it? We could ask him later."

"Yeah, alright."

"Oh, I missed you all."

"Ivy, you saw me yesterday."

"I wasn't talking to you," Ivy said, sticking her tongue out at Draco.

Neither of them noticed Pansy's Cheshire grin as she stood behind them. She'd have to thank Hermione for lending her that book. Muggles were terribly boring as a whole, but at least some of their literature was interesting enough.

"Is there anyone else coming?" Finnegan asked.

"Yeah, where's Longbottom anyway?"

"Letchworth," Ivy answered promptly.

"Sorry, what?"

"Hertfordshire. He wanted to tour the greenhouses there."

Pansy ignored the looks of disbelief among her fellow classmates at the thought that Longbottom would rather spend a day looking at experimental magical flowers than attend the largest sporting event in Europe. Well, as far as the magical side of things was concerned. She really had no idea how well attended those muggle games were, but honestly, they couldn't be all that popular, could they? All they did was kick a ball. One, single ball. With theirfeet. But Longbottom? Had no one been paying attention the last few years? Honestly, as if he would voluntarily choose quidditch over plants.

She scoffed at the very idea.

She and Longbottom may not have that much in common, but they could at least agree that quidditch was somewhat overrated. To be completely truthful, she was just here so she wouldn't have to hear about this secondhand for the next year. She was smart like that.

Also, she needed as much time to observe Draco and Ivy as possible before school started back up. Perfect matchmaking schemes tooktime.

The game went almost exactly as Harry remembered it. Actually, if he were to focus hard enough on the memory he might not find any major differences in the way the actual game was played. The before and after parts could differ greatly and that would be fine by him, but the game itself went as expected. Krum caught the snitch, Ireland won, cheers all around.

And so maybe he made sure Ludo Bagman didn't get away with giving the twins Leprechaun gold, and perhaps Ivy spent a good twenty minutes speaking the Bulgarian Minister of Magic in rapid Bulgarian while completely ignoring a flustered Cornelius Fudge, and it was quite possible that a couple of witches ended up with some nasty, (if ultimately harmless), jinxes courtesy of Luna, who did not appreciate people flirting with her husband.

He didn't mind that part one bit. He got to see Luna use some of her more creative spellwork and also didn't have to deal with the awkward situation that was being flirted with by another human being. Win-win, in his opinion.

And watching Ivy dance circles around Fudge, who probably hadn't even realized what she was doing, was also amazing. He was so proud.

And the twins hadn't lost their entire savings, which was good. He probably should have focused more on not encouraging gambling as a means of income, but ensuring a favorable outcome was fine too, right?

So really it had been an excellent day.

That, of course, meant that disaster was imminent. Fate really did seem to have it out for him like that.

The first time around had been death eaters, which was why Harry now found himself standing menacingly behind a table.

He had never been the tallest person, so he wasn't sure how to come across as intimidating, but looking out over the number of former death eaters he thought they looked suitably intimidated, so something must be working.

"And what is going to happen tonight?"

One brave and/or idiotic soul raised a hand. Lucius resisted the urge to roll his eyes, but if nothing else this proved the Dark Lord had recruited from all houses.

"Nothing?" the wizard said.

"Precisely," Lord Peverell-Slytherin replied, far too cheerily.

Lucius had to hand it to the man. If he ever wanted a change of occupation, Dark Lord would probably suit him just fine. He was sure as Hades convincing enough.

"And can anyone tell me what 'nothing' entails, exactly? Anyone? No? Well then, let me spell it out for you. 'Nothing,' means you will restrict your alcohol intake to the mildest levels of intoxication. 'Nothing,' means you will not cause trouble or mayhem in any way, shape, or form, particularly outside of your own tents. 'Nothing,' means there will be no compromising of the Statute of Secrecy. 'Nothing,' means you will not do anything that will cause the lovely Madam Bones or anyone from the Auror's office any headaches tomorrow. 'Nothing,' means that undernocircumstances am I to hear ofanyonewearing a hood or a mask on these or any other premises. Understood?"

A few guilty-looking faces.

Hrn.

And here Lucius thought Henry was just being paranoid.

August 26, 1994

"Let me preface this by saying it wasn't me."

Harry hated literally everything about that statement and glared at Barty to properly express that. "Let me guess," he said dryly, "someone is walking around wearing a Death Eater mask?"

Barty shrugged. Harry groaned. It was a moment that he could have lived without.

"It's one in the morning. Couldn't they have at least done this at a respectable time? Now I'm going to be up the rest of the night dealing with this…" Harry glanced around because there was a chance Ivy could hear. A small chance, but that was not a risk he was willing to make. Instead, he mouthed the words, ignoring the roll of Barty's eyes.

Finished with his diatribe, Harry scowled at the floor for a moment before grumbling out, "Suppose we'd better go deal with this."

"Have fun with that."

"We,Barty."

"It wasn'tmyfault," Barty complained.

"And I'm supposed to care about that right now, am I?"

"This is why I'm Luna's minion," Barty muttered before following Harry out of the tent.

"Peverell."

"Scrimgeour."

"An interesting end to the evening's festivities."

"Indeed."

Harry hated this; the back and forth, the innocuous pleasantries alongside the ruthless observation meant for catching even the slightest hint of lie or weakness. It was politics, but somehow meatier. Less haughty sniffs and more watching for a twitch of a hand that might mean a wand drawn and a spell to be dodged.

He was not going to get along with everyone, and not everyone would approve of him. He knew that, he had had extensive experience with that (his entire life up to this point, in fact), yet Harry found himself wishing that for once he could just sit contentedly on the sidelines and watch the action play out. Of course, he probably wouldn't be able to sit idly for long, especially given his lack of practice doing so, but it'd be nice to have the option.

But instead, here he was, six o'clock in the morning, running on no sleep, talking with a clearly suspicious Head Auror.

Because that's what he needed in his life right now, he thought with a mental eye roll.

And also, there had better not have been anyone he spoke to yesterday involved in this little terrorist disaster because Merlin help them if they were. Harry certainly wouldn't.

"Just once couldn't the person suspicious of my every move be someone whose face I don't already have less than stellar memories of?"

"Would that really make it better?" Barty asked.

"That's literally what I just said."

"Yes, well, just think about it for a second."

Harry did not want to think about it. He wanted the blood supremacist idiots who had ruined his night to turn themselves in so he could take a nap. Merlin, not even thirty and he was already looking forward tonaps. Ivy must never know. He was in no way ready to suffer teasing from her on gettingold.

"If someone was suspicious of you and you had no idea who they were, you lose your advantage," Barty continued, entirely unaware of Harry's sudden awareness of his (hopefully) slow yet inevitable progression towards death. "If you know who they are you can formulate a plan to deal with it."

"Like how I did an excellent job of making sure Dumbledore didn't get suspicious of me at all?" Harry deadpanned.

"Well…"

Harry sighed. "I understand your point, and it is valid, I just wish this world with stop with the eerily similar events already. Scrimgeour is just the latest. Sure, it's not the same, but I could have done without any interactions at all."

"Well, at least you're dealing with it."

"I'd rather not."

"Better you than Ivy."

"Fair point."

"Hey, Harry, remember when we were both insane?"

"Now is really not the time for this, Barty."

"But you do remember, right?"

"I rememberyoubeing insane."

"Oh no, it was definitely both of us."

"We remember the past few years very differently."

"I'm just saying, is this going to cause a relapse for you?"

"I wasn't insane."

"…"

"And I'm afraid to ask, but why would you think that?"

Barty handed him a list. A list of names, a few of which were ratherfamiliar…

Harry did not have a talent for languages as Ivy did, but when it came to a certain selection of words from various languages he did all right.

August 27, 1994

"Madam Bones will see you now."

Harry smiled at the secretary and walked the increasingly familiar path to the office of Amelia Bones.

He was greeted by three suspicious looks. The one from Scrimgeour was unsurprising. The one from the Minister was a tad more surprising, but then again in the thirty-six hours since the disaster at the World Cup there had already been an uptick in whispers about Fudge getting ousted from office. The man was bound to be suspicious of anyone he could possibly conceive of as being a future political hindrance to his own potentially jeopardized career. So yes, not a huge surprise there either. But from Madam Bones? Although hers seemed to be directed more at the plate in his hands and…

"Er, Luna said I was probably stress baking," he said awkwardly, putting the plate of pastries on the table.

The look on Madam Bones' face quickly turned to one of amusement, though the two wizards looked like he had just announced that the Ministry atrium was full of stray cats, not that he knew from experience what that looked like or anything.

(It had been pigeons, actually.)

At the continued silence Harry cleared his throat and sat in a chair. That seemed to stir the others back to the present and the awkwardness dissipated slightly.

"So what can I do for you?" he asked, directing his question to Madam Bones. He didn't particularly care to hear what Fudge or Scrimgeour might want from him.

"Anything more you can tell us about the incident at the World Cup."

"Right. Well, I don't know what's happened since I went home, but if there's anything I can add to my report from yesterday morning I'd be glad to help."

"Who led it?"

Harry blinked at Scrimgeour's sharp question. "I don't know," he replied. "Did you not find someone? I thought you already had suspects. I have a list of some names if you need them," he continued, reaching for his pocket.

Madam Bones held up her hand. "That is unnecessary, but thank you."

She and Harry both seemed comfortable ignoring the scoff that came from Scrimgeour.

"Corban Yaxley has been arrested for inciting the Neo-Death Eater violence at the World Cup."

"Isn't he an actual death eater though?"

"Never convicted, but yes, he was."

Scrimgeour snorted. "What, he not one of your little 'friends?'"

Harry did not appreciate that question and leveled a look in Scrimgeour's direction to convey that sentiment. "No. It's hard to be friends with someone with whom you fundamentally disagree with."

"And what sorts of disagreements might those be?" the Minister chimed in.

Harry stared at Fudge because Fudge was an idiot and Harry was quickly losing whatever patience his baking spree had brought back into his life.

"People who think Voldemort was somehow in the right are not people I'm going to ever agree with, are they." It wasn't a question, and Harry dared anyone to refute that statement.

No one did.

"Now that we have that settled," Harry said in a falsely cheerful voice, "you said Yaxley was arrested? Does that mean he led it?"

"It would appear so," Madam Bones replied with a slight smirk Harry chose to believe was due to the nervousness that seemed to be quickly overtaking Fudge. Even Scrimgeour looked like he'd rather not be here at the moment.

"So what can I help with then?"

"Do you know the location of any of these people?" Bones said, sliding over a list that was nearly identical to Harry's.

Harry perused the list for a moment. "No; no; no idea who that is; probably in Vienna; no; fairly certain I heard they were headed for Manchester after the World Cup; I'd check Ipswich for that one; no on those three; again, don't know who that is, or that one either; London; London; London again; probably drunk somewhere in Knockturn; and doesn't he work in the Ministry a few floors down?"

Scrimgeour nodded, though apparently it was a painful gesture to make. Harry felt no sympathy.

"Right then. Well, you might check, because honestly, he's probably stupid enough to try and come into work after something like that. Let's see… No on those; Pretty sure he's in Tywyn; and… let me check on this one."

Harry conjured a patronus, letting his inner teenager preen slightly at the begrudgingly impressed look on Scrimgeour's face. "Go to Lucius," he instructed the panther. "Do you know the whereabouts of Ivan Fairclough? If so send it to Madam Bones' office, would you?"

A moment of silence followed the departure of Harry's patronus.

"So, anything else?"

Harry held back a grin at the sight of Scrimgeour, who looked like he was half a second away from having an eye twitch. Harry had much experience with those and enjoyed seeing it on other peoples' faces.

"Thank you for your help, Lord Peverell," Madam Bones said, with a conspiratorial smile. "That is all."

Harry returned her look with a grin, understanding now why she had asked him there. The look of very reluctant respect on Scrimgeour's face coupled with the look of hopeful anxiety on Fudge's helped solidify his opinion that she had some motive or other for wanting to lessen Scrimgeour's suspicion of him, and he wasn't going to get in her way. Her motive for including Fudge in the meeting was less certain, but perhaps she was just annoyed with the Minister. Merlin knows they all were, these days.

"I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed."

As the words left Harry's mouth he desperately wished he could take them back. He sounded far too much like a parent or teacher to be standing there talking to a few wizards who were all at least a decade older than him.

"I take it you don't want us recruiting anymore then?"

"I never wanted you to in the first place," Harry said, quite unimpressed with Lucius at the moment. "So yes, please stop."

"Well technically most of those were Alden's recruits," Simon chimed in, probably wary about Harry's reaction due to the previous…issues Harry had had to deal with already this summer when it came to Lord Parkinson's mistakes.

"Don't blame Burke for your own ineptitude," Lucius bit out.

"I'm too old for this," Alden muttered.

Harry sighed. Apparently he needed to play authority figure a little longer.

"At least none of them tried bringing Yaxley into the fold."

"What fold? There is no fold."

"There absolutely is a fold," Barty argued, "but Yaxley wasn't part of it."

"And that's supposed to make me feel better?"

"Means they have some sense, at least," Barty said with a casual shrug.

Harry refused to let Barty have the satisfaction of drawing another eye twitch from him.

August 29, 1994

"So… The Triwizard Tournament."

"Should we make a plan?"

"That would be best, yes."

"I'll grab the Book."

"Is there a chapter for that?"

Luna gave him a fond, indulging sort of look.

"So Luna and I have been discussing the Tournament, and how best to deal with it."

"Oh, so am I entering?"

"No," Harry and Luna replied simultaneously.

"The idea is to not get entered at all," Luna said.

"Barty won't be entering you, so no need to worry about him, and he will also be ensuring the goblet does not get tampered with."

"Does he know he'll be doing that?" Ivy asked, amused.

Harry pressed on. "Of course, Fate seems to hate me in particular, and by extension you, so we still ought to prepare for the worst."

"We have a list of ideas for preventing entry here," Luna said, handing Ivy the list, "as well as plans in case of forcible entry here," she finished, handing over a second list.

Ivy perused the lists, making small little sounds of acknowledgement at certain places.

"Well? What do you think?"

"Fine? I think it looks fine. I mean, my plan was sort of to just blow up that bridge if someone forcibly apparates me to it, but this could work too."

Harry forced himself to take a breath. "I'm happy you approve," he managed to get out.

Ivy hmmed. "Well, I don't think there is all that much reason to worry. I'll be fine. I have you two, after all."

While nice, warm, fuzzy feelings filled Harry's chest at that display of trust, he still made a mental note to encourage the development of greater self-preservation instincts.

As Ivy left he remembered to call out, "Explosions are for emergenciesonly," because that was important.

"We're going to have to deal with the Tournament, aren't we." It wasn't even a question, more of a statement of probability at this point.

"It does seem likely, yes," Luna replied.

"When did we get to be such pessimists?"

Luna shrugged. "Refusing to acknowledge something does not make it any less real."

They sat in companionable silence for several minutes before Harry spoke again.

"Do you think I could just steal the goblet?"