A massive Thank You to all of my brilliant supporters, with a shout-out to Gini Eatan, TypistTyphon, Titanium winx, Tasty Muffin, Joe Foster, Silver1119, Joel miller, sam, Jimmy Adams, Jo Daviz, LegendaryWasabi, and Optimum Prime. I would really struggle to keep this up without the support you guys give me. I really don't say it enough you guys are amazing
Chapter 23
Saturday was the oddest day of the week for Harry and Hermione. Sure they helped set up the furniture at another Parents' Day, but today it was their parents' turn to come and speak to their professors. So while they had breakfast and helped set up the hall as normal after that they were completely excused from the Prefect duties. Instead Harry, Hermione, and all the other sixth years made their way down to the castle gates where they would be meeting their parents or guardians.
The friends all grouped together both eager to see their families and nervous over what their professors would tell their parents. The only two not nervous were Daphne and Tracey, as they didn't really have much of a relationship with their legal guardian. Though that of course was a source of melancholy all of its own.
Understandably the security of the gate had been drastically upgraded since yesterday. There was now a full squad of seven D.M.L.E personnel standing guard, watching for a Death Eater attack. A couple of them were even watching Harry, Hermione and Neville in case they did anything, understandable given that there were a number of people Harry and his allies were feuding with on the guest list. Someone must have looked over the list of people who would be there that day and after what happened at the Quidditch match didn't want a repeat performance.
He didn't know if it was by luck or design but all of Harry's allies arrived in the first group. Dan and Emma were there for Harry and Hermione. Sirius was there for Daphne and Tracey and Madam Longbottom was there for Neville. Seeing the older women with the stuffed vulture on her hat gave Harry a little trepidation, this was his first time seeing her since he made his declaration in front of the Wizengamot and she had supported him by committing herself and her family to his blood feud. Now he had a meeting arranged with her for later today. A meeting where she was going to want something he couldn't give her.
Harry was distracted from his thoughts by Emma pulling him into a motherly hug. Once she had gotten one from her daughter, Hermione had been taken by Dan freeing Emma to search for another target and Harry had been it. It didn't seem to matter to either Dan or Emma that they had seen them only a few days ago for the Quidditch match; they were acting like they hadn't seen them for months.
"So any fall out from what happened?" Emma asked Harry quietly as they were close enough not to be overheard.
"Some. Most of it is nothing but we are going to need to talk to Madam Augusta Longbottom later." He nodded to the woman who Emma hadn't spoken to since just after Harry had first come to live with them.
"Why?" Asked Emma confused.
"Remember what happened to her son and his wife, Neville's parents?" Harry asked and Emma nodded. It was a difficult thing to forget. "The man we caught was one of the people who did it. I'm pretty sure they are going to ask, demand and out right beg for us to hand him over to them for let's say old school justice." Harry admitted. "Honestly if it wasn't for the contract with the goblins I would probably do it."
Harry didn't even realise how icy his voice got as he said that but Emma did. She was a little worried for Harry. This war was pushing him and Harry was rising to the challenge. While she couldn't be prouder of everything he had done not only to protect himself but to build himself a family and protect them, a family she was very glad to be a part of. Yet at the same time she had trouble imagining that timid half broken boy she had taken in over three years ago being able to so casually consider giving a man over to be killed and possibly tortured first so easily. Sure part of it was that the boy was growing up but she worried about what was going to be left of that sweet boy after this was all over.
Then Hermione came and pulled Harry away from her mother and put his arm around herself so she could lean into him. It was so smoothly done that the two of them must have done this hundreds, possibly thousands of times. Something they were so comfortable with they did it without conscious thought. Yet at the same time Emma couldn't help but notice the goofy grin that came over Harry's face as Hermione did that, in one second Harry had gone from a warrior who was a poster child for P.T.S.D stressors, back to being a goofy teenage boy. Emma gave an internal sigh of relief. As long as Harry had his family to ground him and give him some normality he would be fine.
It was at that point that Madam Longbottom came walking over, her grandson following behind her. "Mrs Granger, so lovely to see you again, it has been quite a while. I will offer my apologies now, I will admit I cannot for the life of me remember your first name."
Emma smiled at the woman. "No need to apologise Augusta, it has been over three years after all." She was glad Harry had slipped her the name only seconds before. "It's Emma and you remember my husband dan." She pulled Dan into the conversation.
"It's a pleasure to see you again." Dan said with a smile. "Our Hermione has mentioned your grandson a few times in her letters over the last year so I believe they are becoming good friends."
"Neville's letters are the same. He mentions Miss Granger and Mr Potter quite frequently. In fact I received a letter last night that I was hoping we could talk about." Madam Longbottom jumped on the opportunity to talk about what she considered a pressing matter.
Dan had no clue what Madam Longbottom was talking about but Emma gave the woman a nod and said. "I think such a heavy topic is best discussed away from other people. Also probably easier after we have had our interviews with the professors." Madam Longbottom reluctantly agreed and after that they all started their way up to the castle where they could start talking to the professors.
Being in the first group had the advantage that at least for the first professor they chose to speak to there was no queue. So Emma directed her little group of herself, her husband, Harry, and Hermione to Professor Babbling. Not only was she a professor for both Harry and Hermione, but she was their head of house. As such she would be one of the most busy professors here today.
Harry and Hermione both had to sit there and listen as their academic lives were dictated. Dan and Emma were told everything from how often the two got detention and what for to how often they were late handing in their homework. As embarrassing as it was for the two teens it was also a pretty good report. As much as Harry and Hermione got into all sorts of trouble, it was also true that for the most part they weren't normally too much hassle. And when they were, it was often part of something bigger happening outside the school.
That was just their behaviour outside of class. Once they were done with that it was on to Professor Babbling's assessment of each of them in their lessons. Ancient runes was a good place for them to start as both of them were excelling in the subject. It was also one of only two classes where Harry was doing better than Hermione. The only criticism professor Babbling had was for Harry and that was just that he had a slight tendency to get distracted and start jotting down random ideas for rune sequences in the margins of his work. But as he was the best student in the year the professor didn't even recommend he try to stop doing it, only that he should probably try and do such things on a different piece of parchment as his sketched out plans had a tendency to distract her while she was marking his work.
After that they went to Professor McGonagall for Transfiguration. That meeting set the tone for almost every professor they spoke to. Hermione was a joy to teach, always fully engaged in the lesson, and her homework was nearly always done on time.
Harry's reports were slightly less glowing. He wasn't a bad student just not on Hermione's level. But he was a solid Outstanding to Exceeds Expectations student.
Their worst report by far was Snape's. Apparently they both had a habit of disrupting his lessons and handing in subpar assignments. They also both needed a massive attitude adjustment because they were the school bullies who terrorised the students by making them believe they would challenge them to a duel at any moment or that Harry would declare feud on their families. All in all it was a pile of cherry-picked dragon shit that none of them, not even Snape believed.
-ϟϟϟ-
After lunch, Harry, Hermione, Neville, Dan, Emma, and Madam Longbottom were all sat in the Room of Requirement. Sirius had gotten into an argument with Snape that took so long that he was still meeting with Professors to discuss Daphne and Tracey.
Technically as both the Grangers and the Longbottom adults had finished with their meetings they had permission to be shown around the school. The idea was for some transparency on the condition of the classrooms, but the Room of Requirement wasn't out of bounds and they had a talk they all needed to have that they had already put off for far too long today.
Once they were all seated in the circle of comfortable armchairs Madam Longbottom immediately started to talk. "We all know why we are here. In the course of the feud against the Death Eaters, Mr Potter you were recently able to capture an individual. My grandson has informed me that you said it was Warlock Lestrange. Given the history this man has with my house I respectfully ask our ally, the House of Potter, to hand over the prisoner to us where he can face justice for his crimes." It was obvious to Harry exactly what she was trying to do. She was trying to take command of the situation and frame an order as a request. All while dangling a carrot of an official alliance between the two houses.
This was exactly how Harry expected this conversation to go. Which was not exactly a comfort because there were plenty of ways he could see this going very wrong. "Respectfully Madam Longbottom, that just won't be possible." Harry said.
He was going to say more but Madam Longbottom cut in. "Make it possible." She obviously wasn't accustomed to people telling her no.
Harry gave her a stern look. He respected the woman but he wasn't going to let her browband him. "When I said it won't be possible I meant it. While legally the son of a bitch is in my custody, when I moved him to my goblin-run facility certain contract clauses came into play. I can't remove him from that place until he as the warlock of House Lestrange has signed an unconditional surrender to the house of Potter. Upon which the goblins I have contracted to work for me will be entitled to their compensation. Removing him early requires that I recompense what they lose out on. Now I don't have the ability to cover that and I seriously doubt the Longbottom family would benefit from draining their assets to avenge themselves on only one of the people responsible for your family tragedy."
"If you can't afford to pay off the goblins, what are you paying them with?" Madam Longbottom asked confused
Harry considered for a moment but decided to tell her. "Looting rights to any and all goblin-made artefacts held in any vault Warlock Lestrange has access to."
That was enough to get Madam Longbottom to stop and think. Goblin-made artefacts went for a premium. Any equivalent to them that the goblins would accept would require literal mountains of gold. "What of after he has signed the surrender?" She asked.
"After there is a lot more room to manoeuvre. The original plan was to hand him over to the D.M.L.E. He is an escapee from Azkaban so he has an immediate execution order on him. It would be the kiss but the dementors left with Voldemort and are in hiding. I doubt it would make any difference if he was handed over to you for execution." Hermione said joining the conversation.
Harry saw Emma wince a little at her little girl so casually talking about handing over a man to be executed. Harry though got it. Hermione had been involved with too many fights with the Death Eaters, seen too much of the outcomes of their authorities to have any sympathy for them. Harry was sure even Emma understood that, it was why she didn't raise any objections. Still it wasn't a pleasant thing to see that your seventeen-year-old daughter was involved in such things.
Harry decided to redirect the conversation to something he wanted to talk about even before the attack a few days ago. "Speaking of the feud, Madam Longbottom I understand you are the one behind organising the random witches and wizards who joined our side and arranging the attack on Malfoy manor."
Madam Longbottom got a feral grin. "Yes, the Malfoys were hosting a number of the people who escaped Azkaban. Including the Lestrange's. I thought removing one of the largest places they had to house those animals would make things more difficult for them all as a whole and honestly bringing down the Malfoys' precious manor after he had done the same thing to so many other families was rather cathartic."
"I had no clue the Malfoys were housing the escaped prisoners but now you said it I'm not surprised. However, what I am considering is their assets. If we can capture them and have them sign a magically binding unconditional surrender we can completely strip them of all their assets. In the case of the Malfoys, that's a lot of gold we can use for our side. Also could you imagine the look on Lucius Malfoy's face if instead of burning it down we turned his precious manor into cheap apartments for hard up first generation, or stripped it of all its magic and turned it into a mundane orphanage." Harry tried to persuade her. "I know you didn't have any way to capture them before now but I can arrange a delivery of the specialised portkeys the goblins created."
"Is that what you did with the Carow assets?" She asked.
"Honestly we haven't done anything with those assets yet. There wasn't really that much of them as far as liquid assets are concerned. And we haven't really had the opportunity to audit the rest. As to the liquid assets I ve actually offered that to their daughters. The Carrow twins have an opportunity to put aside their parents' rhetoric. But to do that they need to not fall back into that group. That means being able to finish their education without incurring the debt of a family like the Malfoys. So most of it is in a bit of a limbo at the moment. I believe they have a house that could be sold but I have no idea what the market is like selling homes right now."
"What do you plan for the Lestrange gold? They are one of the richer pureblood houses." Madam Longbottom asked.
"Well, probably set aside some to cover whatever has been spent on this feud, then buy a bunch of the Ministry war bonds." Harry explained his thoughts. "The point of the feud when I decided to do it was to give the Ministry Aurors more leeway to investigate. They were hampered from causing certain people trouble because of their political influence and the lack of evidence. Their refusal to defend themselves from the charges cut off their support in the Wizengamot and Ministry as well as creating reasonable suspicion."
Nevil nodded. "And that is why you accused Warlock Greengrass first. You knew he would give the vow and create a clear line between how the guilty and innocent act."
Hermione nodded. "That and he needed a solid kick to his ego after what he did to Daphne." no one said anything to Hermione's comment but nobody disagreed.
The silence stretched out for a minute before Madam Longbottom broke it. "If my group captures anyone I want to be the one they surrender to."
Harry looked at Hermione, this was a big decision. Then he turned back to Madam Longbottom. "I think I will need a minute to talk this over with my family."
Madam Longbottom agreed and Harry, Hermione, and Hermione's parents all huddled over in the corner of the room.
"Okay, what are the ups and downs of this?" Asked Dan.
"Well for one if the Death Eaters they capture are surrendering to the House of Longbottom it will mean that Madam Longbottom gets to keep the gold." Said Emma. "That much is obvious."
"But that also gives her incentive to capture them. As long as the goblins still get their artefacts I don't see this being an issue with them. Though any agreement we make here will have to be subject to their approval." Said Hermione.
"To be fair I think this is in part because she is funding the group of volunteers with the Longbottoms gold. I can see how she could be worried about how it's going to affect her finances." Harry said.
"What about politics?" Asked Emma. "Don't you have some control over some voting because house carrow surrendered to you?"
Harry nodded his head "Yeah I control their house vote. They don't have a seat on the Wizengamot so it's only for public votes such as who the next minister of magic is or if the Wizengamot makes a public vote on something. It's basically for my lifetime or until I decide the house can be trusted to manage their own affairs again. If they surrender to House Longbottom then they get the votes."
"Only I don't know who's lifetime they are tied to. Technically Madam Longbottom is in charge but she isn't the Warlock, that's Neville's father. I bet we would see a lot of debate in the Wizengamot over that point."
"As to how it would affect us politically it would reduce the amount of direct power House Potter could collect, but it could also reduce some animosity. I'm sure there are people who won't like the House of Potter essentially getting to choose things like who the next minister of magic is. Especially as I'm also the Heir Black and will inherit Sirius's seat on the Wizengamot if he never has a kid of his own. Having that split between houses Potter and Longbottom could help keep any accusations of House Potter taking control down to a minimum."
"Perhaps you should take control then rebuild the system from the ground up." Joked Dan.
"Too much paperwork." Responded Harry. Getting a light chuckle from the group.
They talked about it a bit more. Harry wanted to call Fleur and ask her opinion but she was currently at work and couldn't be disturbed. Sirius likewise was still busy so it was up to them. Decision made, they all sat back around the table.
"We agree it's possible but there would have to be conditions." Said Harry.
It was clear that Madam Longbottom had experience in the political and business arena because at the mention of conditions she simply looked curious, she wanted to understand the conditions before deciding if they upset her. "And what would these conditions be?" She asked carefully.
"Well first is that the goblins must agree. Not only does this not work without them but they had my word on what they got from this before I declared the feud. I won't be made a liar."
"Disappointing that you don't put your allies ahead of the goblins but I expected this condition. What else concerns you?"
The conversation went on for a while longer, the Potter's side having a few more concerns such as treatment of minors of a surrendering house. Madam Longbottom was agreeable to them all save for one. Harry wanted Neville to become the figurehead for the Longbottom family if for no other reason than to keep the surrendering houses subdued for longer. Madam Longbottom however had refused to do anything that would dispose her son of the title of House Warlock. To do so would be admitting, if only in a small way, that he wasn't ever going to get better and she couldn't do that.
-ϟϟϟ-
Malfoy listened to everything the Potter and his hangers on said to the squibs grandmother from under the large table in the center of the room. Annette had transfigured him into a ferret and then disillusioned him. To get here it had been easy enough to tail Potter and his group. He had managed to slip into the room before all of them when Potter opened the door and he was happy to find the table was one with a hidden support shelf underneath, this meant that Malfoy in the form of a ferret had a close and comfortable place to hide.
Malfoy got more and more agitated as the conversations went on. The Potters, Longbottoms, the mudblood, and her family were all too casually talking about killing or capturing his parents and family.
He waited, listening to everything as they talked and once they were finished he stayed where he was until they were leaving. He honestly would have preferred to wait until after they had left but he was no Animagus and couldn't shift back to a human form without either help or waiting for the spell to burn out. That meant if he didn't want to be stuck waiting for hours then he was going to need to leave when someone else opened the door.
He snuck out at the same time Madam Longbottom was leaving, he wasn't relying on her old eyes being less likely to see any ripples from his disillusionment but at the same time why not take every advantage he could?
Once out of the room he dove into an alcove and waited for Potter and his people to leave. Once the way was clear he made his way down to a room just down from the library where he knew Annette was waiting to transfigure him back. He found her reading a book on the dark arts, and from the amused look on her face it looked to Malfoy that she thought the opinions of the author to be rather quaint.
Malfoy let out a small squeaking that was all he could manage in this form and she looked down at where he was disillusioned. Then looking like she was doing him a great favour she drew her wand and cancelled the disillusion charm. "I hope you have useful information for me." Her tone was cool and detached as always.
Malfoy nodded, then with another wave and flourish of her wand the world around him started to shrink as he grew from being the size of a rodent. His eyes were just about level with the top of the desks when the changes stopped. Malfoy looked down and found he was still in a half human half ferret form. "What the fuck is this!?" He demanded.
"Enough for you to give your report. I will return you to human once you have proved you have earned it. If not I will turn you back into a ferret and you can go try again."
Malfoy wanted to protest but he didn't have his wand, Annette had pointed out he would have no use for it as a ferret so he had left it locked in his trunk. Plus his teeth currently felt really weird; he wasn't entirely sure he could pronounce the curses properly without practice. So he vowed to himself to remember this and to get even in the future as he got on with telling her everything he had heard.
Annette was not happy with the intelligence Malfoy had gathered but was satisfied that he had done the job well enough. So Malfoy was turned back into his normal self. "I will have my father pass this information on to the Dark Lord." Malfoy said as he stood up straight and straightened his robes to their normal immaculate state.
"No need. I will be informing the Dark Lord directly." Annette said.
Malfoy had no doubt she could do this. He had resisted working with her at first but he had gotten a letter from his father that hidden in the letter had basically said Annette was working directly for the Dark Lord. He didn't know what she was doing for him but they were on the same team. Still it wouldn't hurt to make sure she wasn't taking credit for his work.
Almost as if she was reading his mind, Annette said. "Don't worry my little ferret, the Dark Lord is fully aware of your contributions. My reports are very thorough. Now you should run along and inform your father. It's best he gets this news now so that he can contact his sister in law and set about removing what she can from the Lestrange vaults. It may take some creative accounting but the more gold we keep out of Potter's hands the better. Especially with him planning to use the gold for war bonds."
Malfoy nodded. "My father will inform the Dark Lord of everything I tell him anyway." He informed her.
She sighed like she was getting bored. "And he will already know so if your father feels it necessary to waste the time of the most powerful wizard since Merlin himself then on his own head be it. Now go, I have real work to do."
Annoyed at being dismissed so casually Malfoy realised there was still nothing he could do about it, for now at least. So he turned on his heel and strode out of the room. He did after all still need to report his father before the man left.
A/N
Please readers can I have some motion?