It was a good thing it was Easter break. Harry didn't think he could have managed to go back into a regular school schedule the day after Azkaban fell. Not just because he needed time to process, but because he didn't want to see the hateful gazes of students that had family members who'd been in the prison when it collapsed.
Remus had taken on the brunt of explaining what had happened while Dumbledore and Dawlish had been unconscious. Harry just interjected a few things he forgot. And the defense professor deliberately skipped over anything about the game system. The way he told it, it wasn't clear why the lich had seen a kindred spirit in the Boy-Who-Lived, though the implication was that it was all about his fame. Dawlish didn't seem to totally buy it, but was worried enough about how close they'd come to a centuries-old dark wizard stealing nuclear bombs to lead a cult to space that he didn't press too hard.
Harry'd given a more thorough accounting to Dumbledore once Dawlish transferred to the auror boat to direct rescue efforts. He had the chat log to cover everything in extensive detail, after all. Taking it all in, the old man made them promise they wouldn't remove anything from the guild vault until he had a chance to accompany them, and then dropped them at the shore while he went to explain the situation to the Ministry.
It was always going to get out, what had happened. The Ministry leaked to the press worse than any government on the planet. Only the members of the Department of Mysteries managed to keep secrets, and if they didn't need to take a magical oath that literally left them unable to speak about their work, they'd have probably gabbed too. With the need to call in and organize dozens of bureaucrats and aurors on a Sunday evening to help look for prisoners that might have survived, it was only a question of whether the news would make the Daily Prophet on Monday, or wait until Tuesday.
Before he got back to Hogwarts, Harry had remembered to hurriedly message everyone to get back into a party led by Lee, so they'd all get the quest XP. They got 2,500 XP for it, which was pretty decent for all that it was only a fraction of the other awards he'd gotten that day. Both Hermione and Ron got bumped to level 4, Ginny finally hit level 2, but the twins and Lee didn't seem to quite hit 6 (though they were presumably close).
"Level Up: Charmer! Level Up: Charmer!" Ron wasted no time in trying, once Harry informed him that they'd leveled. They'd all met up in the Room of Requirement as soon as Harry and Remus returned to the castle. The two had needed to grab food in Hogsmeade on the way back in, since they'd missed the evening meal in the dining hall.
"Only the first one seemed to do anything," Harry told his best friend.
"Sweet! That must mean I'm at twenty like Lee," Ron gave a grin that was significantly more infectious as he was clearly benefiting from whatever perk came with maximum Charisma. Hermione couldn't keep her eyes off of him despite herself, especially when he then said, "Level Up: Bodybuilder!" and once again grew obviously more muscular in moments, straining against his robes.
"You're going to have to get clothes from Charlie at this rate," George observed.
"Guess we're going home for the hols after all," Fred nodded.
"Everyone probably should," Sirius figured. "Don't want anyone having to answer questions for a couple weeks once people find out about the prison." He still had a silly grin on his face that the hated building had been destroyed.
"Level Up: Stoic. Level Up: Stoic," Hermione pulled her eyes off Ron to try her own level up.
"Same as Ron, only the first one took," Harry informed her.
"That's what I expected, but I didn't want to risk not hitting twenty," she nodded. "I'll move onto Perception I suppose. Level Up: Lookout."
"If you're going Perception, I guess I'll focus on Finesse," Harry shrugged. He probably ought to do something about his three lowest abilities, but it was way more interesting to chase capstone perks. "Level Up: Operator. Level Up: Operator." That put him at 17, so only one more upgrade from maxing it out.
He still wasn't sure what exactly Finesse would get him, but Hermione speculated that it would at the very least make it easier for him to perform precise wand movements. It would likely also aid in things like drawing and lockpicking, which he had the general skills for.
"You said I also got a level?" Remus checked. When Harry nodded, he asked, "I don't suppose there's anything in there that's werewolf specific?"
Harry checked, scrolling through looking for anything that he was locked out of because he didn't meet the prerequisite of being a werewolf. Eventually, he answered, "There are a couple to make you a more dangerous werewolf. Increases your magic resistance and damage when in wolf form."
"The Greyback special, I'm sure," the defense professor frowned. "Not exactly what I'm looking for. I'll gamble on being stronger-willed giving me more of a chance of controlling the beast, I suppose. Level Up: Stoic. Level Up: Stoic." He flashed twice after mimicking Hermione, clearly having had 14 Willpower or lower beforehand.
"Level Up: Charmer! Level Up: Charmer!" Ginny quietly whispered, Harry barely noticing her flares of level selection at the back of the group. But she was hoping he'd notice a lot more about her, going forward.
"So what'd you get as loot?" Ron asked, now that all level-ups were accounted for.
"Just some spanners and some metals," Harry admitted, having checked the items he'd shoved into his personal inventory. "I guess he was mostly carrying stuff he could use to work on his machines. But the spanner says it's enchanted to be better at making clockwork, and I do technically know how to repair that." He thought about it for a second, and equipped the oversized magical wrench, admitting, "I don't think this is going to really help me fix somebody's watch, though."
"I wonder what's in the guild vault," Hermione said, having heard about it from Harry.
"Go carefully," Remus cautioned. He wasn't going to outright say to follow Dumbledore's order about not opening it without him, but there could be many cursed objects inside.
"Open Children of the Ark guild vault," Harry checked.
MUST BE IN GUILDHALL OR BANK TO ACCESS GUILD VAULT
"Huh. I have to be in the guildhall or a bank. I guess it's kind of the same as my personal vault," Harry recounted the prompt. "We should probably check to see if the Marauders have a vault, or if we have to build a room for it at the house."
"Make the Room of Requirement a bank," Fred suggested.
"Brilliant!" George followed up. It was rare that he and his brother didn't have the same bright idea at the same time, but he was excited by it nonetheless.
"Yeah, okay, looks like we can try that," Harry agreed, drilling down on the Room of Requirement menu until he found an option. "Everyone out and back in."
When they re-entered the room after resetting it, it was doing a pretty good approximation of Gringotts, sans goblin tellers. "I wonder if we could store stuff here ourselves?" Ron asked.
Hermione figured, "It might be the most secure place in the universe, since it only even exists when someone asks for a bank. Or… it could be easily available to anyone else that requested a room that might include your stuff, the same way you can get all the items in the room of hidden things." She shrugged, "Worth testing, at least."
"Open Children of the Ark guild vault," Harry tried again after walking over to one of the room's spaces set up like a teller's desk, and, this time, it opened. "Woah, that's a lot of stuff," he explained, not really having had a chance to do more than glance at it when they were fleeing the tower. "Though it looks like some of it has icons on it that means it's damaged?"
"It probably was a room on the premises, then," Hermione reasoned. "You should move it all somewhere else before it gets crushed further or gets water damage."
"And the order you move it might be important," Remus added. "If the images you're seeing are serving as a catalog of physical items that are currently crushed under the stones of the tower, removing some may allow the room to collapse more fully." As Harry blanched he shrugged and said, "No pressure."
Sirius also realized, "I don't know if you should pull it all out in here, either, in case some of it is cursed. This school has enough issues with cursed items…"
"Open Marauders guild vault?" Harry checked. Another pane opened that was similar, but noted that it was the other guild. "Oh, neat, we already have one. And it already has some stuff in it. Looks like there's some money, jewels, and a few magic-looking items."
"Hah!" Sirius realized. "I knew there had to be a family vault in the house somewhere! My parents would never admit it, and certainly wouldn't have told me where it was. But now that we know for sure, we can hunt for where it's hidden. And you can just pull stuff in and out of it." He grinned at the idea of having pulled one over on his dead family. "Also, it should be safe to move cursed items in there. Merlin knows we've kept more than a few over the centuries."
"Okay," Harry nodded at the approval. "Okay," he said again, psyching himself up. "Have to do this fast." He moved the two panes side by side, as close as possible, and scrolled down to the books. The skill books were the thing he was most interested in retaining, so he'd try to move them first. "And… go."
Between his maxed-out Agility and newly-high Finesse, Harry's arms were a fast-but-precise blur as he used both hands to grab icons from one guild vault and drag them onto the other. To everyone else in the room it was like he was conducting a symphony, with flickers of objects appearing and disappearing in an eyeblink as they technically materialized in the room in the fraction of a second it took Harry to move them between locations. The appearance of large items like the television mirrors was especially impressive. Sirius winced, hoping that touching any cursed items for such a brief time wouldn't be an issue, since he hadn't realized they were going to actually appear.
It took about two minutes of furious concentration, but Harry managed to get the vault completely transferred over without obviously breaking anything else. This included quite a large nest egg of presumably-archaic galleons, sickles, and knuts, which materialized as a veritable cloud of precious metals around his hand as he swept them from one pane to the other.
"Whew. I need a break," he said, having worn himself out with all the hand waving. It was only for moments, but he had felt the weight of the heavier items. "But I think I got everything."
"We should just go to the house," Sirius figured. "We can search for the physical location of the vault, and then we can scan the room for cursed items instead of relying on Harry's inspection."
"I want to see it!" Hermione invited herself. "My parents aren't expecting me back anyway, and they'd be fine with me going to Grimmauld Place."
"Ours either!" George realized.
"Guildhall trip!" Fred yelled.
"I thought Ron needed to go home for new clothes," Remus raised an eyebrow at the boys. "And I don't feel excellent about absconding with five Weasleys without your parents knowing."
"Dumbledore will smooth it over if mum finds out," Fred reasoned.
"We don't tell her about loads of stuff," George shrugged.
"I'd also like to see the guild hall," Ginny looked winsomely at the defense professor, her newly-raised Charisma making her plea extra effective.
"We can't call ourselves a proper guild without a trip to our guildhall!" Lee concurred and Ron added, "Right?" Their own maxed-out Charisma scores pushing Remus over into agreement.
"Fine. But you're all responsible for talking your mother out of killing me if she does find out." Being around Sirius and all the younger Marauders had really done a number on Remus' intention to be a responsible adult.
"Spring holidays at the guildhall!" Ron cheered.
As they moved off to hastily assemble their belongings for their impromptu departure, Hermione asked, "Are you two going to be able to side-along apparate this many people?"
Remus realized the enormity of what he'd agreed to and just groaned.
And with the end of the Azkaban arc, I need to take a (hopefully brief) hiatus. I like to write at least three chapters ahead to have a buffer, but I've been out of buffer for weeks now. I'm hoping to use the break to stack some more chapters up so there's less danger of a missed week if I have something that keeps me from writing. Please follow if you want to get a notification when the story starts posting again (and remember to make sure your email notifications are turned on, since we may be getting close to the arbitrary reset date that FFnet instituted? I can't even keep track anymore).
This is also an excellent time to review and tell me what you want to see going forward, and what plotlines still need to be resolved.
Note Aug 2023: This hiatus is lasting longer than I planned. A series of time-disruptors cropped up since I stopped writing, not the least of which was a new job last month, so I have not made nearly as much progress as I'd hoped. I'm hoping to get back to a place where I can write regularly again soon, but don't want to start posting the little that I have yet in case I can't keep up the pace.