Harry ignored the sickening crack as he slammed Draco's head against the floor of the train compartment one final time for good measure. His voice was edging toward shock as he said, "I'm glad that Puck went to get food and wasn't here to see this..."

Hermione stared at Harry and Draco, she had been too shocked at seeing a pillowcase clothed black and blue Luna with a leash around her neck to grab Harry when he lunged for Draco. Not that she thought it would have done any good, by the time she had even started to reach for her wand Draco was already on the ground with Harry kneeling on his chest repeatedly bashing his skull against the floor until it cracked like an egg. "Harry..."

Luna stared at Draco and whispered, "Thank you."

Harry looked at Draco and sighed, "It should feel different, he's dead and I don't feel bad about it..." He wasn't sure if it was shock or the fact that he genuinely felt that the world was a better place without Draco.

Hermione waved her wand, "Evanesco." The splatters on the wall and the pool of blood and brain matter vanished leaving the room clean or at least as clean as it was before.

Luna's voice came out in a raspy whisper which wasn't that surprising considering the bruises on her throat that the ugly locked collar didn't quite hide, "We should do something with his body before someone shows up."

"Let me." Hermione pointed her wand at Draco and turned his body to ash then vanished the ash. "Rest in pieces."

Harry looked away from Draco's clothes on the ground and over at Hermione, "Rest in pieces?"

"I'm not going to cry over someone that had no problems with people killing and torturing muggles and muggleborns or leading a group of Death Eaters into the school."

Luna whispered, "Not that I'm not happy he's dead but he's going to be missed."

Hermione reached down and grabbed Draco's wand then said, "Give me ten minutes then summon me back when the coast is clear. I've got an idea."

Harry said, "Where are you..." He trailed off as Hermione apparated off the train. "Never mind." Technically he could summon her back or trap her in her 'bottle' as needed but restricting her movements made her a very grumpy witch resulted in her being less helpful. He really didn't want to find out how ticked she would be if he purposefully locked her in her library rather than accidentally like when he had told her to get out when she had popped in on him while he was on the toilet.

Luna asked in her creepy whisper, "How is she going to get back here?"

He looked Luna over an winced at how much Draco or someone had worked her over, "She knows how to find me. Mom taught me some healing spells or we can wait for the school nurse."

"It hurts but I'm sort of used to it and I think I might have a couple of broken ribs..."

"It's probably better to wait then." Harry fished through Draco's pockets until he found a Gringotts key and a smaller key, "Is this the key to your collar?" He held the smaller key up.

"Yes."

Harry used the key to unlock her collar, "There we go."

Luna said, "Thank you."

Harry stuffed the collar in his bag so that Hermione could rip it apart later to see what it was charmed with. He collected Draco's coin purse then bundled the clothes and stuffed them in his bag as Puck opened the door and walked in.

Puck stared at Luna in horror, "What happened?"

Luna said, "Harry bought me off my horrible owner. Isn't he dreamy?"

Harry blinked as Luna lied, he guessed that was as decent a cover story for what happened as possible.

Puck stared at Harry, "I thought that was some sick joke when I read it. I mean I know the king is old school and lets people marry way younger than the rest of the world but slavery is horrible."

Harry said, "I agree but I wasn't going to let her old owner mistreat her anymore."

Puck said, "You should free her."

Luna gulped, "I don't have a home to go back to..."

Puck asked, "What happened?"

"My father was printing stuff the ministry didn't like so they fined him an excessive amount for each copy of his magazine, he couldn't pay so they decided to auction me off, he took offense and they killed him for 'resisting a lawful order' when all we were trying to do was flee the country. I wish Daddy would have listened to me years ago when I told him that we should flee but he wanted to let people know that the ministry was wrong."

Puck gasped, "That's horrible."

Luna sighed, "First Mum then Daddy... then I get sold to a horrible family that let Draco beat me, I think I'm cursed..." Luna started crying.

Puck scowled, "We need to tell someone so they can punish your old, owner."

Luna shook her head and wiped at her tears, "There is no one to tell and he didn't do anything illegal according to the ministry. They fired Dumbledore years ago when he protested, everyone that speaks up gets silenced one way or another." She looked at Harry with a rather dreamy yet creepy smile, "But it's okay, I've got a new master."

Harry shivered as he looked at Luna's eyes and realized that there was something broken in her. He suddenly wondered just how much reworking someone had done to Luna's mind. He was hoping that the school nurse could sort her out.

Puck stared at Luna in horror, "This is normal? We've got to fix this, we've got to let people know about this crap."

Luna whispered, "That's how Daddy got in trouble and it didn't help."

"We can send a letter to the crown, something has to be done."

Harry said, "I agree but we need to research the laws before we get ourselves locked up or worse."

Puck looked around, "Where did Hermione go? She'll back me up on this."

"She had to go grab something."

"They can't expect to get away with this crap." Puck glanced up at her trunk, "Help me get my trunk down..." She trailed off as the door opened up and three redheads walked in. "Hello?"

Harry winced slightly as Ron and the twins stepped into the compartment. Ever since the twins and Charlie had first visited Ginny over the summer he had expected a confrontation with Ron. It was somehow his family's fault that they hadn't released Ginny. While he could see where Ron was coming from to a point, Ginny didn't want to leave Beth and go back to the Weasleys. Considering how overbearing Mrs. Weasley is he didn't really blame her for not wanting to go back. He watched Ron's gaze jump to Luna then back to Harry and get the exact wrong idea.

Ron shouted, "I'll kill you if you've hurt Ginny!"

George merely stunned Ron in the back and lowered him to the ground less carefully than he probably should have, "Sorry about that, he's a bit unhinged."

Fred looked at Luna, "Where is Malfoy?"

Luna said, "He sold me so I don't care. He was a bad master."

George looked at Harry and asked, "How's Ginny?"

Harry said, "Annoyed that she's got another year before she can come but she's got plans to sneak in some training with Sirius and Beth."

Fred said, "Good to hear that she's following in our footsteps."

George glared at Ron, "Rather than the idiot's footsteps. I don't know where we went wrong."

"I blame Mum, she went crazy when she lost Ginny. She pretty much tied Ron to her apron strings. Don't worry we don't blame you, it was better than Malfoy getting Ginny."

Puck asked, "How is anyone all right with this?"

Fred said, "We're not, there just isn't much we can do about it right now. Ginny is safe and loves Harry's sister. She's still going to get to go to Hogwarts."

George smirked, "All things considered, I think she might have the better deal."

Puck put her hands on her hips and glared at George, "How can you say that?"

"She's got a cute nudist girlfriend that adores her and she doesn't have to deal with our mother."

"That's a horrible thing to say about your mother."

Fred laughed, "You haven't met our mother."

George said, "I mean we love her but she's a big unhinged."

"And scary." Fred looked down at Ron, "We should get him back to our compartment before he wakes up and decides to do something else stupid."

Harry said, "That might be a good idea, I've already dealt with enough crap today."

Puck waited until the twins hauled Ron out, "Can you help me get my trunk down? I want to look up some of the laws to see if we can fix this."

Harry drew his wand and floated her trunk down, "Of course I'll help." He wasn't sure if he should be happy that Puck had a better cause than house elf rights this time around but he was.


Gregory Goyle wasn't the smarted wizard around, in truth he was barely a wizard but even he knew that someone flying a broom outside the train in a dark cloak and death eater mask pointing a wand at his compartment was a bad thing. He screamed as the wizard or witch on the broom cast a spell that destroyed the exterior wall of his compartment. He frantically grabbed for something as he felt himself pulled through the air and out of the compartment. He had almost managed to save himself when Vincent Crabbe grabbed his leg in an attempt to save himself. He screamed as he lost his grip and they both fell toward the ravine.

Hermione smirked behind her mask as she saw Theodore Nott come to investigate. She was halfway to casting a summoning charm at him when she noticed that there was a chain on his wrist to the neck of Susan Bones. She swapped spells and used an explosive castration charm on him then flicked Draco's wand at the door to shut and lock it. The door wasn't thick enough to block out Theodore's horrible screams.

She gulped as she looked at the opening in the side of the moving train. 'I hate flying.' She took a breath then flew through the opening and landed in the compartment that Draco had been sharing with Vincent and Gregory. She quickly grabbed the boys' trunks, put her broom under her arm and shifted back to her library with the trunks.

She let go of the trunks and set her nimbus 2000 and Draco's wand on the table then walked into the bathroom under the stairs and looked into the mirror over the sink. She shivered as she pulled her imitation death eater mask off and looked at her face in the mirror. "Same nose, same lips, same hair even the same eyes... Harry might be right, I don't feel different... I know I should but I don't." Mostly she just felt relieved that the two thugs wouldn't be around to torment people anymore. She knew she couldn't judge everyone based on their alternates but those three I'm sure about thanks to some of the stuff James had mentioned about their families and them. She briefly wondered if there was a world where Draco wasn't a monster then decided that she would believe it when she saw it and probably not even then without a lot of evidence.

She felt a tug from Harry. She dropped her mask to the ground, slipped out of her conjured dark robes, focused on Harry and shifted to his location.


Puck looked up when Hermione appeared out of thin air, "You're just in time to help with research."

Hermione asked, "Research? What are we researching?"

"Slavery and how to stop it."

Hermione wondered if she had looked that determined when she was talking about house elf rights back when she had first discovered their plight. If she had it was a wonder that Harry and Ron hadn't run screaming. "I left my notes for that back home."

"You have notes?"

"Of course I have notes. Slavery is a horrible practice that should be abolished."

Luna smiled at Harry and whispered, "Unless you have a good master."

Harry shivered slightly and decided that the first thing he was going to do when he got to the school was have Hermione take Luna to the hospital wing to get checked out, "In that case, can I talk you into making a delivery when you pick up your notes?" He held out Draco's Gringotts key. "I need you to get this to the folks so they can make a withdrawal."

Hermione frowned then smiled as she realized that the key was most likely Draco's vault key. "From the," She mouthed "D" while Puck was distracted working on writing some ideas down, "vault?"

"That's the one."

"I'll tell them." She apparated away to hand the key off to Tonks for a bank raid on Draco's personal account before they realized that Draco was missing or dead.


Harry was a bit startled by the number of students as they made their way toward the boats. There must have been at least two hundred students lined up at the edge of the water and that wasn't even counting the slaves that were in different clothes, everything from pillowcases in a lot of cases to robes to togas. The slaves seemed to range from six or seven to seventeen and span both genders from what he could tell. The fact that there were less boys probably had something to do with the protection that male heirs got as well as the fact that boys weren't allowed in the girl's dorms even if they were slaves. He knew from Lily that eighteen was the max age of slaves that Hogwarts allowed to accompany the students. He blinked in surprise as he noticed that Neville had a pillowcase clad slave girl on his arm. He walked over, "Neville?"

Puck walked over with Harry.

Neville turned and saw Harry and Puck, "Hey Harry, I had this whole that's Lord Neville to you, you unwashed barbarian reply ready but I think I'll skip that because you're with a lady and I don't think she'd understand that I'm just joking."

Harry chuckled, Neville had been on his parent's list of his friends though they hadn't managed to connect up over the summer because Neville and his parents had been traveling. "It's good to see you."

Puck stared at the pretty pillowcase clad girl with long black dark hair that was hanging onto Neville's arm, "Hi... I'm Puck."

Pansy smiled at Puck, "Hey cutie, I'm Pansy but you can call me whatever you want."

Harry stared as he long haired girl and finally placed her voice and face after imagining her with short hair and a sneer on her face. "Pansy Parkinson?"

Pansy shrugged, "That's what they tell me, I've been with Neville for as long as I can remember."

Hagrid's voice cut through the conversation as he yelled, "Six to a boat."

Harry blinked as he noticed that the boats were larger than the ones in his world. "Do you want to share a boat?"

Neville said, "Of course."

Puck climbed into the boat with Harry, Neville and Pansy. "How do you know each other?"

Neville said, "Our parents were friends from school."

Lavender asked, "Do you mind if we sit here?"

Harry looked at Hannah Abbot and Lavender Brown, it was a little weird seeing them without their house colors on their uniforms. "Sure."

Puck stared as she realized that she could see Pansy's private parts with the way the other girl was sitting, "Pansy, I can see..."

Pansy bunched up her pillowcase so that everyone had a much better view of her lower half, "No problem. Anyone want to see if Neville can get me off by the time we get to the castle?"

Puck looked over at Harry, "Am I the only one that thinks the wizarding world is even crazier than the sex obsessed normal world?" While she knew that normal people liked sex and weren't all that body shy the wizards seemed to take it to a new level.

Harry laughed, "I'm starting to wonder myself."

Lavender said, "Nothing wrong with enjoying the view."

Hannah said, "Especially when it's such a nice view."

Neville smiled as he reached down and ran his hand over Pansy's crotch. "Challenge accepted."

Harry made a note to ask Hermione if she had any better theories on why the girls were all sort of twisted beyond the fact that the culture seemed to encourage it. Both the wizarding and the muggle culture seemed twisted and perverted. Hermione was fairly sure that it was because of the long lived king was a pervert but surely there had to be more to it than that. He had been shocked when he realized that one of the cartoons that Beth really liked was basically animated lesbian porn with a dash of magical school girl tossed in for flavor. Heck one of the most popular children's cereal commercials had a hot naked teenage girl selling it.

Harry tried and probably failed in his attempt to not look like he was paying too much attention to the show as the boat headed toward the castle.

Puck kept one eye on Pansy while she enjoyed the boat trip. 'There is obviously something wrong with the slaves.' She shivered as she wondered if they used magic to condition them or something.


The Sorting Hat looked through Harry's memories, 'Hmm, not a bad mind, you're not afraid of hard work, you could be good in Slytherin but you'd probably kill half the house before Christmas. Alas poor Draco I knew him well or not at all actually.'

Harry mentally asked, 'Are you going to tell the Headmaster about that?'

'Don't worry, you don't have a reason to try to set me on fire. I don't share secrets. Let's see, I think we'll have to go with' it shouted, "Gryffindor."

Harry headed over and joined Hermione, Neville and Puck who were already at the Gryffindor table. He was just glad that they weren't waiting on the sorting to be done before they could eat. The great hall looked a lot larger than he remembered it and there were far more tables. He whispered, "How many students are there?"

Hermione whispered back, "I did a rough count earlier, I'm guessing about two thousand students."

Harry whispered, "That's insane. Is Luna okay?"

"She'll be fine, Pomfrey wants to keep her overnight. Now hush, I want to hear the rest of the sorting."

Harry glanced up at the staff table that had over four times the number of staff members as his world's version of Hogwarts. 'This is going to be different.'

There weren't all that many surprises about where people he recognized from his world ended up. Sadly Ron still ended up a Gryffindor despite his crazy obsession, apparently he wasn't smart enough to end up in Ravenclaw, no real surprise there, had no cunning or loyalty so the only choice for the poor hat was Gryffindor thanks to Ron being stupidly brave and prone to leaping before looking. He was just hoping he didn't share a dorm with the walking dead man otherwise there would be some issues as he still hadn't really forgiven him for killing him the last time around.

Dumbledore stood up, "I have a few start of the term announcements, first of all let me assure you that we will be investigating the attack on the train earlier today. Speaking of dangerous things, the third floor corridor on the right hand side is forbidden to anyone that does not wish to die a most tragic death. The forbidden forest is also forbidden to all students unless accompanied by a staff member. One more announcement, I shouldn't have to say this but here at Hogwarts we treat people with respect no matter what their social class, mistreatment of slaves while within these halls will see you kicked from these halls with your wand snapped as quickly as I can arrange it." He looked over the crowd. "Your heads of house will explain sleeping arrangements for the male pets. Now let us sing the school song before the prefects show people to their dorms."

Harry winced as almost two thousand people started singing the school song at different speeds, volumes and differing levels of ability most of which went from horrible to merely bad while the sadistic headmaster smiled and gestured wildly. Harry blinked as he noticed something that annoyed him, 'The bastard is wearing earplugs.'


Harry looked at the small dorm room that he was assigned, apparently this Hogwarts had went with two or three person dorms over trying to fit a bunch of students in one room. There was one large dorm room where the male slaves got a bunch of bunks. The female students got cots or were expected to sleep with their owners. Harry stared at the painting on the wall of a girl's locker room and shower. "How much did you have to bribe McGonagall to get this room?"

Neville said, "I might have given her a bottle of Scotch."

Harry smiled as several half naked girls entered the frame of the painting. "How much was the bottle and do I need to give you some coin?"

Neville laughed, "Don't worry about it, I nicked it from my Grandmother's liquor cabinet."

Harry smiled as he thought about the changes between this Neville and the Neville in his world. Having his parents still around had done him a world of good in so many ways. "Cool."

Pansy giggled as she rolled around naked on Neville's bed, "This is way better than being in the same dorm room as Ron. The guy seriously dislikes you for some reason."

Harry sighed, "Yeah, my parents bought his sister Ginny when she got auctioned a couple of years ago, his mother and Ron are still bitter about it. Never mind that Ginny just adores my sister and doesn't want to go home."

Neville snorted, "Or the fact that if they hadn't bought her the Malfoy's would have."

Pansy smiled at Neville, "I'd hex anyone that tried to steal my Neville."

Neville said, "I like you too Pansy."

Harry glanced toward the bathroom, "I'm just glad that we've got private facilities."

Neville said, "One of the reasons that the school is the best around. Well that and the teachers are all top notch."

"I'm a fan so far, what do you think about the third floor corridor being out of bounds?"

"It's probably got something dangerous in it. I figure the defense teacher will have it sorted before the week is out."

Harry shrugged, "Probably." he mentally added 'not' because Quirrell had his familiar purple turban which probably meant that Voldemort was sort of alive in this world. He was just glad that 'Draco' had been seen in Diagon Alley after Harry killed him, talking about selling off everything he had and running for the hills because someone was trying to kill him. It was nice to have metamorphmagus friends. He added get Tonks something nice to his mental to do list right after steal the Philosopher's stone.


Hermione laughed slightly as Harry handed her the Philosopher's stone. "Ten minutes, I was expecting it to take longer."

Harry said, "Half the challenges were the same, a couple of them were different but they weren't really hard. That last challenge just required repeating that I wanted to find the stone without using it in my head while looking at the mirror. Never mind that I'll eventually want to use it."

"It makes me almost miss Snape's logic challenge."

"Just a bit, I'm just glad that we could just skip the chess set by flying over it."

Hermione said, "One of the few things Ron was good at."

"Why don't you stash the stone in your library just in case we're caught on the way back. I'll summon you back once I'm clear then we can go loot some dark stores."

"Sure. Don't shoot me when I come back, I'll be in costume." Hermione smiled as she shifted to her library to find a place to keep the stone.

"Costume, right..." Harry pulled the hood up on his father's invisibility cloak and snuck back toward the entrance where Fluffy was hopefully still sleeping peacefully. From there it was only a couple of hallways and a staircase to where the vanishing cabinet was. From there it was just a short jump to the other vanishing cabinet and a treasure trove of dark arts books and objects. Sure he wasn't a fan of the dark arts for the most part but there was always a chance that he could find a ritual or something that might help him increase his magical powers that wouldn't blacken his soul. He wasn't really expecting anything but it should be a fairly easy way to get some books to help fill out Hermione's library.

Harry smiled in relief as the charmed box was still playing music as he flew up toward the trap door. While he loved flying on a broom the fact that Lily knew a way to fly without one was awesome. 'Best spell ever Mum.' He flew to the door to the chamber then took out his copy of the Marauder's Map and checked to make sure that the coast was clear. He smiled as he turned and summoned the music box. 'No reason to get close to Fluffy in case he wakes up from his nap.'

Two minutes later he reached the vanishing cabinet. He quickly checked to make sure none of the portraits could see that particular area then summoned Hermione. He stumbled back in shock and reached for his wand as a Death Eater appeared out of thin air. He had almost fired off a curse when his mind caught up with the fact that an actual Death Eater wouldn't be able to apparate into Hogwarts nor would they have a reason to be wearing thick dragon hide gloves or carrying six large bags that were probably charmed to hold a great deal more than they should. "Shit, Hermione?"

Hermione held up her hands and said, "Don't shoot." with a touch more amusement in her voice than Harry thought the situation warranted. He glared at her, not that it helped because his hood was up which meant that she couldn't see him. "Not funny."

"I told you I'd be in costume. I figured I'd take a leaf out of their book and do some public relations damage on the off chance that I'm seen robbing the place." Hermione didn't want to be seen at all but wanted to be prepared on the off chance that she was seen.

"Good luck."

"Thanks." Hermione stepped into the vanishing cabinet and out the other vanishing cabinet in Borgin and Burkes. 'I don't hear an alarm yet but that doesn't mere there isn't one.' She quickly went to the shelf that contained books and stuffed them into one of the bags. Once that was done she started unloading the shop's shelves into her bags.

Harry sighed as he settled in to wait for Hermione's return. He didn't like the fact that he couldn't help but he didn't have the ability to escape anti apparition wards and he was fairly sure that the shop would have gone out of business years ago without some rather nasty security wards. That didn't stop him from feeling like crap as he waited for Hermione to either shift in or come through the vanishing cabinet. He was getting rather nervous by the ten minute mark, by the twenty minute mark he was seriously considering jumping through the cabinet when Hermione reappeared. "Are you okay?"

"I don't recommend looting a dark shop without dragon hide gloves but I got everything looted and stashed in the library without injuring myself."

"How much is left?"

"Not much, I grabbed everything I could see with a couple of summoning charms then I blasted apart his back wall and looted some more stuff in the concealed backroom before I had to retreat."

"Retreat?"

"Yeah, apparently blowing apart walls caused alarms to go off." She smirked, "Who knew."

Harry hissed, "Are you mental?"

"Nope, it got me an entire extra shelf of books and a bunch of other things dangerous enough that Borgin keeps them locked up in a secret room. Besides, it let Borgin see a 'death eater' robbing him before I banished a table into him then stunned him. I image that's going to cause people some issues. I blasted the door apart to confuse things then shifted out with the cabinet."

Harry looked at the vanishing cabinet, "You should probably grab this one just to be on the safe side."

Hermione walked over and grabbed the cabinet, "Call me when you get to the Room of Requirement."

"I thought the plan was to actually get some sleep tonight." He was sort of looking forward to snuggling a little before he fell asleep.

Hermione snickered, "Sleep is for the weak. Besides, looting the Room of Requirement will give me plenty of stuff to sort through for the next couple of weeks while you're sleeping considering I don't sleep."

Harry sighed, "You just want to look through all of the books there."

"Yep." Hermione stuck her tongue out as she shifted with the second vanishing cabinet back to her library.

Harry muttered, "We need to hire a curse breaker." as he pulled out his map and started working his way toward where he was hoping the room of requirement was.


Harry yawned and glanced around the strange room he found himself in. "Are you done yet?"

Hermione said, "Close enough, I already relocated the books, gems and anything else particularly valuable. I'm glad that you remembered that you could have the room sort things because it made it a lot easier to know what to grab and what to leave."

"Or where to put the cursed objects." Harry stretched as he sat up on the bed he had commandeered for a nap once he realized that Hermione needed him to stay in the room so that she could shift back and forth to her library as she looted the Room of Lost Things. "Is it morning yet?"

"It's just before dawn, we should probably get back to the dorms just in case McGonagall is planning to hand out schedules before breakfast."

Harry yawned as he pulled his map out of his pocket, "That works for me. How long do you think it's going to take to go through all of the books?"

"Weeks or months." She snickered as she headed toward the door. "Hurry up sleepy head."

"Just because some of us still have to sleep." Harry frowned as he checked his copy of the map, "There are a fair number of people walking around already but we shouldn't have too many issues getting back."

Hermione said, "Good."


Harry was glad that they had hustled as he had barely had time to put his father's cloak in his bag and sit down in the common room before McGonagall stepped through the entrance. "Morning Professor."

"Good morning Mr. Potter and Miss Granger. Please don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions about the school Miss Granger. I know transferring schools can be strange." She smiled slightly as she walked over to the table and started spreading out the first year schedules.

Hermione said, "Thank you, I'm having fun so far." as she stood up and walked over to the table.

Harry smiled slightly as he followed suite. He was actually curious to see his schedule. He knew what classes he was taking he just didn't know who he had for teachers or how they fit together in the day.

McGonagall handed Hermione her schedule, "Here we are. I believe this is yours Miss Granger."

"Thank you Professor." Hermione looked her schedule over with excitement.

McGonagall smiled as she found Harry's schedule in her stack and handed it to him, "Here you are Mr. Potter. Tell me if you have any questions."

Harry looked over the schedule and just about dropped it in shock as he saw Dumbledore listed for his Defense against the dark arts class. "Dumbledore teaches?"

McGonagall laughed, "He likes to stay busy, he teaches a Defense Against the Dark Arts class, one transfiguration class and two alchemy classes. He'll probably be teaching a dueling class later in the year if he has the time."

Harry was just glad that he didn't have Quirrell or Binns for professors. "That sounds fun."

"Yes." McGonagall sighed, "Before anyone else gets down here, I'd like to ask about your new pet and her injuries. Specifically the fact that she used to be used by one of our missing students."

"Malfoy sold her to me like that on the train. Normally I don't believe in buying people but the price was right and he obviously didn't treat her well. I'm hoping that the nurse can figure out what's wrong with her."

McGonagall said, "In addition to several injuries that she healed Miss Lovegood has an almost lethal amount of the potion used to control slaves in her system."

Harry scowled as he thought about Malfoy, "That explains a lot. The nurse can fix that right?"

"She gave her a potion that should reduce the levels to something a lot safer."

Hermione asked, "How long will it take to flush the potion from her system completely and undo the damage?"

McGonagall sighed, "While I don't approve of the things the law allows their use which means it's up to Harry to decide that as her new owner."

Harry scowled, "I'd much prefer that we get rid of the potion completely, fix anything else that was done to her and give Luna the chance to make up her mind on where she wants to go. If she wants to leave then I'm more than willing to help her get set up somewhere else, if she wants to stay then I'm more than willing to let her."

McGonagall smiled in relief, "I'll let the nurse know. She'll probably need another day in the infirmary in that case."

Harry said, "Thank you. I'll check on her after classes today."

Puck walked down the steps where she had been eavesdropping for the last little bit, "How come no one stops the slavery?"

McGonagall sighed as she turned to look at Puck, "A couple of reasons. It's a very lucrative business for the ministry. They also use it to keep control of the wizarding public by holding the threat of stealing their children over them. To most wizards it's little different than owning a house elf these days."

Puck scowled, "That doesn't explain why people haven't stopped that either."

"For the most part house elves view their owners as their family. They don't want to leave anymore than you would want to leave your home."

"But I'm not a slave."

"House elves can if given a reason twist orders but you're right they have less of a choice. That doesn't change the fact that they generally don't want to be free. It's one of the reasons that most wizards and witches don't push for them getting their freedom."

"What's the other reason?"

"Greed and the fact that most wizards wouldn't pay a house elf to clean or take care of things which would cause a fair number of house elves to starve because they couldn't find paying work."

Puck said, "That's barbaric."

"It is but the system is corrupt and they have the support of the aurors which makes it rather difficult to do much about how corrupt they are. You should look over your schedule." She walked over to the next table and started laying out the second year schedules.

Puck sighed as she realized that McGonagall had already given up on fixing the issue. She walked over and picked up her schedule and looked it over.

Harry asked, "Classes?"

Hermione said, "Lots." She was just happy that she didn't have to sleep otherwise catching up over the summer would have been really hard in a couple of subjects.

Puck handed him her schedule, "Here."

Harry compared the schedules and smiled when he realized that he shared all of his classes with her. "They line up."

"Good. Maybe you can tell me how I ended up with auto shop?"

McGonagall said, "Much like Mr. Potter here you wrote down that you wanted to take as many classes as you could. That and you're muggleborn."

"What's that have to do with it?"

"The professor only accepts muggleborns or half bloods that can pass a test or students who have taken muggle studies and gotten an acceptable or better. That limits the number of people that can take the class which means that we pretty much dump all of the muggleborns into the class to fill it. That's not a problem is it?"

Puck shook her head, "No, I was just curious. There wasn't a book, just a journal requirement."

McGonagall nodded, "You'll basically be using the standard book of spells and some other spells he'll show you. It's a little more open ended than some of the other classes but I think that you'll enjoy it."

"Thanks for the explanation."

"That's what I'm here for."

Harry asked, "Shall we head to breakfast now?"

Puck said, "I could eat."

Harry held out his arm for her and his other arm for Hermione. "Then let's go."

Puck laughed as she took his arm while Hermione took the other, "Let's go." She was just happy that she had already made some good friends.


Puck looked at the large tent set up on the way toward Hagrid's hut, "Is this the right location?"

Hermione looked at her revised schedule, "It should be."

"I'm still surprised that you're taking a class with us."

Hermione shrugged, "I had a free period and the class is open to all years." Mostly she had just wanted one class with Harry and Puck so that she had time to get to know Puck.

Harry looked around at the students waiting outside, most of them looked at least second or third year while several of them were older. "I don't think there are that many first year students here."

Fred Weasley smirked as he looked up from his schedule, "That's because there aren't. Auto shop right?"

Harry said, "Yep, first year auto shop."

"Yep, you're good."

"Then why are you here?"

A tall black haired man in a trench coat, top hat and with what looked like steam punk goggles stepped out of the tent, "Because mixing the years together means that there are plenty of more experienced people around to help you. I am Professor Frankenstein, yes, yes I'm related to that Frankenstein."

One of the other first year students asked in fear, "You're related to the monster?"

"No the scientist. Get your facts straight kid. So if everyone will step inside I will explain a little bit about the course."

Harry stepped inside the tent into the largest wizarding tent he had ever seen. He was fairly sure that you could fit a football field inside the tent. There were a couple of dozen piles of scrap spaced out on the field that might generously be considered cars in a couple of cases. "Wow..."

Hermione's gaze jumped to a desk sitting not far from the entrance of the tent with a large number of pamphlets on it that looked like repair manuals for various types of cars.

One student asked, "What's with all the junk?"

The professor laughed as everyone filed in, "Yes, it's rather large and yes there is a lot of junk scattered around the field. That junk is what you're going to be working on for the rest of the year or until you finish. There should be no excuse for not completing at least one car."

Another student said, "Those are rust buckets at best."

The professor said, "Of course they are. It's not any fun if it's easy. They're also missing various parts that you'll have to create in order to get the vehicles working. I know what you're all thinking. You're thinking that I'm mad for expecting you to do a bunch of work for nothing more than a grade, am I right?"

Fred called out, "Yes!" He knew what the deal was as he had already taken the class last year with George and had a blast.

"Well I am a Frankenstein." He waited for the laughter to die down before he looked over the group, "Here is the deal, any group where everyone gets an exceeds expectations or greater in my class gets to keep one of the cars they repair. The rest of the cars will be sold for the benefit of the school. I'll give you a couple of minutes to figure out a two or three person group. Once you have the groups I'll random assign you to a lot number and you can get to work trying to figure out what type of car your pile of junk will become."

Hermione looked at Harry and Puck, "Team?"

Puck grinned, "Yes please."

Harry said, "I'm game."

Hermione said, "That's one way to help the school's budget." She was fairly sure that they could get the wrecked cars for next to nothing and sell the repaired cars for at least a couple thousand depending on the car.

Harry said, "It makes sense. I'm guessing at least half the greenhouses also produce plants to sell."

Puck said, "Yep, it mentions that in Hogwarts a History."

Hermione smirked, "I thought you said you read it."

Harry said, "Fine, I might have skimmed a couple of places."


Luna smiled at Harry as he walked in with Puck and Hermione, "Can you spring me Harry?"

Harry sighed in relief, at least she wasn't tossing things at him or calling him Master. He asked, "Oh?"

Luna pouted, "I don't want to miss any more of your classes."

Harry said, "You haven't really missed anything. We got assigned an old sports car in auto shop, the teacher just went over the first part of the book in our woodworking class. Charms was all about a repair charm, it's fairly easy."

Puck said, "Science was science and the potions teacher spent the first class explaining the theory behind potions which is basically summed up in the first chapter of the book. McGonagall went over the theory of transfiguration."

Harry said, "Defense Against the Dark arts was a lot of fun. I think I'm going to enjoy my year."

Madam Pomfrey came out of her office, "Mr. Potter, just the man I wanted to speak with. You're free to take Luna but she should get plenty of rest for the next couple of weeks and good food. She's a bit on the skinny side. The good news is that I was able to reverse most of the conditioning they inflicted on her."

Puck asked, "Most?"

Pomfrey sighed, "How much do you know about the basic process the ministry inflicts on slaves?"

"There isn't much information about it."

Harry said, "Not a lot, my parents had them skip it for Ginny."

"The basic process that's used the most on girls adjusts their sexual preference toward the bisexual range, increases their exhibitionist tendencies by a fair amount and gives a slight increase in their submissive tendencies with regards to the person they consider their owners. It also comes with cooking, cleaning and tailoring skills. Trying to remove it while she's still sort of unstable from the other potions might damage her skills and or her mind. I can remove it but I'd suggest that you leave it alone as it doesn't really hurt her as much as trying to remove it will."

Luna said, "I'd rather keep my mind intact Harry."

Harry sighed, "We can leave it for now until you're a bit more stable then we'll revisit the issue if you want."

Luna looked at Madam Pomfrey, "Does this mean I'm free to go?"

Madam Pomfrey said, "Yes but I expect to see you back here if you have any headaches or dizzy spells in the next few days."

Luna said, "I will."

Harry said, "In that case, let's go get something to eat."

Hermione waved her wand and conjured a robe for Luna, "This should work until we can find something better."

Luna took the robed and said, "Thank you."

Hermione said, "Don't worry, we'll get you sorted out."

Luna hugged Hermione, "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

Harry said, "Free free to stay with Hermione if you'd feel more comfortable..."

Luna shook her head, "You're not going to hit me and Malfoy never took advantage sexually or anything..."

Puck stared at Luna's naked body, now that she wasn't covered by brusies she was rather cute, "There is something broken in his head isn't there?"

Luna sighed, "That and there is a ritual that he wanted to do later that sacrifices a virgin."

Madam Pomfrey scowled, "Thank Merlin for small mercies."

Harry said, "Makes me wish I could teleport the bastard here so I could kill him." He mentally added again.

Madam Pomfrey said, "You should get this girl some food."

Luna pulled on the robe, "Let's go eat."

Harry offered his arm to Luna and Puck, "Shall we?"

Puck said, "Yep." She was going to have to have words with Harry about Luna's mental state once she could get him alone.