Harry blinked as he found himself back in the Gryffindor common room facing an angry red faced Ron. He wasn't really sure he cared but he asked anyways, "What's the matter?"
Ron's expression if anything got even angrier before he shouted, "Is it true?"
"Is what true?" Harry had no idea what Ron talking about or why he was screaming in the middle of the common room with people watching the conversation like it was the most interesting thing around. He also wasn't quite sure why Ron was shorter than he remembered or maybe he was taller than he remembered.
Ron shouted, "First you get Cedric killed then Hermione, Luna and Sirius in the Ministry, now you're cheating on my sister with Lavender. It's bad enough that you have to corrupt my sister, now you have to steal my girlfriend as well?" Ron snorted, "Draco is right, you're the Slut That Lived."
Harry's fist was already halfway to Ron's face before he even realized what he was doing. He wasn't sure where the anger was coming from but right then he didn't care. Having Ron of all people shouting at him in the middle of the common room wasn't helping his mood in the least. He was starting to hate getting tossed into the middle of things when he 'woke' up. Hearing Ron's nose breaking was oddly satisfying.
Ron stumbled and fell on his ass. "Bitch!"
Lavender stalked up and shouted at Ron, "Fuck off Ron, I'm sure she's a better shag than you are. Not that I would actually do that to Ginny you bloody idiot. I can't believe you would pull this shit today of all days. By the way we're over arse licker." Lavender looked at Harry, "Sorry about that Alex." She turned and stormed toward the girl's dorms.
Harry glanced down and realized that sure enough he was currently female which sort of helped explain the reasoning behind Ron talking about corrupting his sister. That didn't explain the rest of the details like how he had supposedly gotten Hermione and Luna killed or well much of anything considering how different the last two worlds had been. He had to remind herself that he didn't know what had happened in this world, he didn't know enough to justify beating Ron to a pulp no matter how good it would feel, "Grow up Ron."
Harry stalked after Lavender hoping that the other girl would lead her to the proper dorm as he actually had no idea where Hermione's room was. Thankfully it wasn't that hard to catch up with Lavender. "Sorry about that..."
Lavender snorted, "Ron's a jealous shit, he should know better than to listen to Seamus. I think he's still annoyed that you turned him down when he asked you to the ball back in fourth year. As if you and Hermione weren't going to go to the ball." Lavender winced as she realized what she had just said, "Shit, I'm sorry Alex..." She trailed off as she realized that she had just reminded Alex that the love of her life had died a couple of months previously.
"I don't know where things went wrong..." Harry was just glad that he spotted a recognizable trunk next to one of the beds. Not that it was all that hard as there was a Firebolt lending up against the wall near his bed. He walked over and looked at the trunk, 'Alexandra Lily Potter' was written in large glittery letters on the beaten up trunk. Between the broom, the trunk and the last name on said trunk he was fairly sure that it was his alternate's bed. He sat down on the bed and sighed in relief when Lavender didn't give her a strange look for sitting on the wrong bed or anything.
Lavender sighed, "Last year with Umbridge. She was a horrible teacher, even worse than Quirrell and it was almost impossible to understand him with his stutter. At least Snape knows his stuff for defense even if he's still evil. Ron wasn't that bad until you went off to the Ministry... he wasn't the same after that. Maybe he suffered brain damage from the brains attacking him or maybe he just realized being friends with you meant serious danger rather than just a free ride in the spotlight or maybe he just finally gave up his crush on you. Hell, I don't know Alex. I thought we were finally doing okay, then Seamus starts up with his rumors and there you have it."
"I don't know." Harry curled his legs up to his chest taking care not to crush his new breasts. "I just feel rather lost."
Lavender said, "At least it's the weekend."
"Thankfully." He was just glad that he had a couple of days to try to sort things out before he had to attend classes. He stood up and walked over to the full length mirror near his bed and looked at himself. Alex's dark red wavy hair came down to her decently large breasts. Her eyes as far as he could tell were the same as his own though she didn't seem to need glasses which was a nice change. He was rather glad that Alexandra was tall, athletic and had a nice figure with decently large breasts that she probably got from her mum. He stared at Alexander's face, 'Nice creamy pale skin, a cute nose, bushy eyebrows and a smile that probably breaks hearts, no wonder Ron's a bit angry that she's not interested in him in that way.' He reached up and pulled his hair up a bit so that he could check to see if he had the familiar lightning bolt scar. 'I was almost hoping it wasn't here, no wonder she keeps her hair down like this.'
In short she was movie star gorgeous despite the strange scar and the fact that the robes hid her legs she could tell that she had long legs by how the robes clung to her hips and her height. She even made the wand over her ear appear cute rather than silly or strange. He was going to have to enchant a wand holster though so he didn't get used to reaching up to his ear to grab his wand because he really doubted that a wand would stay in place without long hair to hold it.
Lavender asked, "What's up?"
Harry asked, "What do you mean?"
"I mean I think this is the first time I've seen you look at a mirror for more than two seconds in six years. Do you have any idea how annoying that is? No pimples, no zits... nothing but perfect skin and hair?" Lavender smiled to take the sting out of her comments even if they were true.
"Sorry, I'm just thinking..."
Lavender snorted, "Don't pay much attention to what Ron says, most people don't think you're a slut. Though Rita tried really hard to paint you that way back in forth year and the Ministry did much the same last year, at least they changed their tune once they realized that You Know Who is back."
Harry grumbled, "Right Voldemort..."
Lavender shivered, "I really wish you wouldn't do that. You and Dumbledore are the only people that aren't afraid to say his name."
Harry noticed how uncomfortable Lavender was and decided to change the subject. "Let's talk about something more enjoyable, like Quidditch."
Lavender snorted, "What's to talk about? Our team crushed Slytherin in the last match. I thought I was going to fall out of the stands because I was laughing so hard when you stole the beater's bat and smashed a bludger into Malfoy's crotch. Then flying in and catching it ten feet from where he was flying was brilliant. In short you were amazing as always."
It sounded like Alex might actually be better at Qudditch than him. He smiled as he pictured Malfoy taking a bludger to his manhood. "Is it mean to hope that the nurse can't fix the damage to Malfoy?"
Lavender laughed, "No but it's probably too much to ask for."
"Probably."
"They've probably hauled the idiot away if you want to skip back down to the library to pick up that book you needed for Snape's class."
Harry asked, "Was there something that you wanted me to pick up for you?"
"Nah, I'll just borrow your books after you finish your essay tonight and maybe your notes if you're feeling generous."
Harry had a feeling that Lavender was just trying to get out of some of the work required but didn't see any harm in it unless he found something that told him otherwise. "We'll see."
He walked over and opened his trunk and sighed in relief as he realized that Alex kept a homework folder and what looked suspiciously like a purple leather bound diary. He tried not to snicker at the glowing glittery letters that said, "Alexandra's Diary." or the smaller black letters under the title that said 'Read at your own risk'. He picked up the homework folder and slipped the diary inside of it. His breath caught when he noticed another dairy that had Hermione's name on it in flowing script. Rather than leather it was made of silver and had rings for the spine. It looked rather expensive. He slipped Hermione's diary into the homework binder then grabbed the Marauder's Map and Alex's invisibility cloak. 'At least some things are the same.' He closed the trunk then looked over at Lavender. "Okay, I'll be back later."
Lavender said, "Don't be late, you've only got an hour before curfew and Snape would like nothing better than to give you detention again."
"Thanks for reminding me." Harry was just glad that Ron wasn't in the common room when he came down. He glanced at the clock on the wall, 'At least it's the same as back home.' He walked out the door and was rather thankful that no one made any snide remarks or said anything as he left the common room and made his way to the Room of Requirement so that he'd have some peace and quiet.
Thankfully for his sanity and other people's health he made it to the door of the Room of Requirement without issue. He walked back and forth as he concentrated on an organized Room of Lost Things where cursed objects went to a clearly labeled shelf with everything else going to clearly labeled shelves or areas depending on size. He muttered as the door appeared. "At least it worked." He opened the door and walked in. He sighed in relief as he looked around at the various shelves filled with old and forgotten charmed items. "Hermione."
Hermione's mouth dropped open as she appeared and saw a gorgeous red haired girl in Hogwarts robes. It took her a second of looking around to figure out that there was no one else around and that the girl felt like Harry. "Harry?"
Harry smirked as he looked Hermione over. He really liked the transparent red mini dress she was wearing with the gold silk leggings that came almost all the way up to her crotch. "I like the new look."
Hermione glanced down at the shimmering nearly transparent cloth her dress was made out of, "It could be worse."
"I don't know, I liked how you appeared the last time around but you're right you, it could be worse."
Hermione glanced around the room, "Any idea why you're a girl this time around?"
"Not really, the other Harry said I'd most likely jump to a world were I was a girl or a world where I was a different hero."
"Name?"
"Alexandra Lily Potter for the who. The where and when, Hogwarts and I'm fairly sure that we're in sixth year as Lavender mentioned Snape teaching Defense."
"What else is different?"
"This world's version of you died in the ministry raid along with Luna and Sirius."
Hermione winced, "Damn."
Harry sighed, "Apparently Alex was involved with this world's Hermione and now Ginny."
"How did Ron take that?"
"Apparently badly. I 'woke up' in the middle of him shouting at me about trying to steal Lavender from him. He shouted that Draco was right about Alex being the Slut That Lived in the middle of the common room. I decked him, I'm not really even sure why, it just seemed like the thing to do. Lavender broke up with him and then I followed Lavender up to the dorm. That's where I found Alex's trunk and I grabbed the diaries and the homework folder."
Hermione said, "At least the wards let you into the girl's dorm."
Harry said, "I hadn't even thought of that. That would have been a pain to explain. I'm supposed to be picking up a library book for Snape's Defense class but I wanted a chance to read my homework journal first and maybe her diary to see if I can blend in better. I also have the other Hermione's diary if you want to read it."
"I probably should, it might give us a better idea about what we're doing."
Harry handed the silver diary to Hermione. "Here."
Hermione took the diary and looked it over, "She had good taste."
Harry smiled, "She picked Alex."
Hermione laughed, "Just because I think Puck is cuter than your normal look though I have to say you make a very hot girl."
Harry smiled at Hermione, "Let's grab some chairs and get reading then we can use a time turner and pick up the book from the library."
Hermione walked over and grabbed a rather large old ugly chair that looked comfortable. She dragged it over to a clear space, "Can you hit that with a cleaning charm? I left my wand in the library."
Harry pulled Alex's wand out from behind his ear and looked at the familiar wand with a smile, "At least some things stay the same." He pointed it at the chair and silently hit it with a cleaning spell. There we go."
Hermione smiled as she sat down in the chair, "There's room for both of us."
Harry snuggled in next to Hermione and started to read Alex's diary.
Thirty or so minutes later Hermione stopped reading and asked, "Anything so far?"
Harry said, "A couple of mentions of wandless magic that she could pull off before Hogwarts."
"Like what?"
"Floating things, summoning things, banishing things and apparently a strange reflective shield that reflected the force used against it."
Hermione frowned as she tried to remember ever hearing about that type of shield charm, "Is that even possible?"
"Apparently, it was nasty enough to land Vernon in the hospital when he tried to shoot her with a shotgun."
"Wow..."
Harry sighed, "Apparently Dumbledore showed up and threatened fire and brimstone on them if they didn't behave. After that things went smoother, in other words she had three meals and they tried very hard to ignore her which is still about a thousand times better than what happened with me. She had a best friend Chelsea that she just about lived with before the girl moved away a couple of weeks before Hogwarts when her parents got divorced."
Hermione asked, "What happened?"
"I don't know, it was just mentioned as a side note when she mentioned her visiting during the summer."
"Does it say what they did?"
"Chelsea's mother was a receptionist and her father was a martial arts instructor which is where Alex picked up some self defense training. I'm surprised they managed to sneak that by the Dursleys but apparently as long as she wasn't doing freaky things or showing Dudley up in something they didn't care enough to investigate what she was doing with her time. She has a couple of pages about being dropped off and exploring Diagon Alley by herself and how much fun she had. At some point she runs into Hermione and her parents and they take exception to the fact that the Dursleys basically let an eleven year old run around without supervision so they scooped her up, got her ice cream and then helped her finish her shopping. It was apparently love at first sight on Alex's part." Harry was just glad that she seemed like a sweet kid despite everything she had to deal with growing up.
Hermione smiled, "Same, apparently the other me was just as taken with Alex. Not that she had figured things out by that point though the silly hearts around the edge of any page that talks about Alex are a decent indication."
"You should pop back to the library and get the girls. This place seems safe enough and this way they'll have a chance to stretch their legs."
Hermione frowned, "Let's check on the diadem first, then we can let the girls out."
Harry winced, "Right, I'd forgotten about that." He got up out of the chair and walked over to the cursed section of the room. Sure enough the diadem was sitting next to a cursed Frisbee. "It's here."
Hermione said, "Let's find an iron box and send it to Dumbledore."
"What if he's evil like the last world?" He was really hoping that he wasn't evil as it would make things a lot easier.
"Just about everyone was evil in that last world, I don't think that counts. Besides you said that this Dumbledore stepped up and dealt with the Dursleys."
Harry grumbled, "More or less." He wished his own Dumbledore had stepped up and threatened them with death and dismemberment if they didn't feed him properly. He could have forgiven them for the cupboard but trying to starve him to death at various points was unforgivable. Then again he wasn't sure how much Dumbledore actually knew about his home life. There was always a chance that he had only gotten involved because the hospital had admitted Vernon for something freakish. "We can box it until we do some more reading. I want to see some of the more current entries before I send it to Dumbledore."
"I guess that's reasonable. I admit that I'm curious about what else is different."
Harry walked over and transfigured an iron poker into an iron lock box about the size of a loaf of bread. "There." He floated the box over to where the diadem was, opened the box with a flick of his wand then flicked his wand and pulled the diadem into the box. Another flick of his wand shut and locked the box.
Hermione looked at the shelf of cursed objects, "We should probably toss up an age line."
Harry set the box on the ground next to the shelf, "Do you even remember how to do that?"
Hermione laughed, "I've cast it a bit lately."
"Why?"
"I've got a bunch of nasty things in my library. The girls are curious Gryffindor or Ravenclaw types, I really don't want them deciding that I'm joking about the dangers and deciding that they are good enough to deal with stuff."
Harry sighed, "You've got a point."
Hermione shifted to her library to collect the girls and a time turner.
Harry stared at the area where Hermione vanished, "Apparently she gets to keep her clothes in this world. At least she's wearing something fun." He smiled as he walked back over and picked up the homework folder and diaries. He glanced toward the entrance and decided that they needed a change of scenery as it wasn't fair to expect the kids to stay out of trouble without something to keep them busy. He walked out of the room. He held the image of the sorted Room of Lost Things in his head then he added some details to the mental image. Once he was happy he started walking back and forth.
Hermione reappeared with Luna, Puck, Gabrielle and Ariel. "Welcome to..." She trailed off as she saw the large squishy kids playground filled with childproof playground toys. "That's not how I left it."
Gabrielle's eyes lit up, "Fun!"
Harry smiled as he noticed that all of the girls were wearing the same style of sheer red mini dress with golden silk leggings. "Hi ladies."
Ariel looked around nervously, "Is it safe?"
"I thought everyone needed a fun day after being stuck in the library for so long." Harry gestured to the side of the room the playground was on. "The playground side is for kids and is safe. The other side," He gestured at where all the shelves and other piles were, "is for Hermione and me. It isn't all that safe yet so please don't come over here without one of us. The bathrooms are on the playground side so you should be fine." He pointed to the small park style bathroom building behind the playground.
Puck pouted as she looked at all of the books that were stacked on the shelves in the area that wasn't safe. "Books?"
Hermione reached out and ruffled Puck's hair, "You can look at them after I've gone through them and decursed everything." Hermione gestured at Harry, "Everyone this is Alex, she's a friend of mine." She already taken Luna and Puck aside and explained about who Alex was but she didn't want to confuse Gabrielle and Ariel needlessly. Especially since she was hoping that Harry could swap to look like his normal self once he got a handle on Tonk's abilities.
Luna tilted her head as she looked at Harry's female form, "Cute but I think you need to take off all of your clothes before we can make a fair comparison for which of you is cuter."
Puck laughed as she hugged Hermione, "I like Hermione more."
Hermione smiled as she hugged Puck back, "Thanks, I love you too."
Ariel looked out from behind Hermione, "Are you sure it's safe? Bad people hang around playgrounds."
Harry said, "We made sure there aren't any bad people around."
Ariel looked up at Hermione and asked, "Is it okay?"
Hermione said, "It's okay. It's a special type of playground."
Puck held out her hand, "It's safe, I promise."
Gabrielle asked, "Can you tell us a story?"
Puck held out her free hand to Gabrielle and said, "I can do that."
Luna walked over and hugged Harry, "I still love you."
Harry smiled as he reached down then up her mini dress to rest his hand on her bare bottom. "I love you to Luna."
Luna wiggled her bottom against his hand, "How long are you going to be a girl?"
Harry sighed, "I'm not sure. I'll have a better idea once I've looked through her journals and her class notes."
Luna asked, "Do you need help?"
Harry glanced over at Puck and the other two girls, "Probably but why don't you help Puck with the girls while I go visit the kitchens and get some food."
Luna said, "I could eat."
"I thought you could."
Hermione asked, "What do you want me to work on?"
"The age line around the cursed stuff then look over the journals or sort through the stacks for useful books."
"I'm on it." She walked over and started looking through the other Hermione's journal.
Harry gave Luna's bottom a gentle squeeze then a pat before he pulled the Marauder's map out of his pocket, he tapped the map with his wand, "I solemnly swear that I'm up to no good." He smiled as the map activated and showed the castle. He checked to make sure that there wasn't anyone around the door to the kitchen then he pulled up his cloak's hood and flame teleported to the door. He reached out and tickled the pear so that the door opened.
Dobby stared as Alex's head appeared out of thin air, "Dobby is happy to see Mistress Alex. Is there something I can help with?"
Harry glanced around the various house elves as they went about their cleaning tasks. "I'm having a little get together with some friends, I was wondering if you had some leftovers."
The head off nodded, "How many Lady Potter?"
"Six. I don't want to cause any trouble."
"No trouble at all."
Harry was rather amazed at how fast the elves could toss together six plates of delicious looking leftovers. "Thank you."
The head elf smiled, "If it is okay then we must be getting back to work."
"Thank you." Harry floated the plates and left the kitchen before flame teleporting back to the Room of Requirement with the food for the girls.
Six hours of reading journals, a couple of twists of the time turner, a quick trip to the library and two flame teleports and a password later and she was floating the black box up the stairs to Dumbledore's office.
Dumbledore smiled at Harry, "Ah Alex, what brings you here at such a late hour with a present no less?"
Harry smirked, "I found two of Voldemort's horcruxes."
Dumbledore coughed in surprise, "What? Where?" He also really wanted to know the how as well because he had been looking for them for months without much success.
Harry glanced over at a happy looking Fawkes. Seeing Fawkes looking happy and free of any runes or obvious bindings made Harry feel a lot better about his plan to take the horcruxes to Dumbledore. "I'd rather not say as technically speaking I might have had to break a school rule or two in order to get them."
"I see." Dumbledore looked over his glasses at Harry.
"I said might..." Harry was fairly sure teleporting to number twelve for the locket counted as breaking school rules. While he doubted that Dumbledore would call him on it he really didn't want to admit that he had the ability to leave the school whenever he wanted and he sure as hell didn't want to admit how he had that ability. He was fairly sure that he was going to have nightmares about the rituals when he actually stopped to sleep now that he wasn't under the influence of the evil wards or at least that was what he was trying to convince himself of. He wasn't sure how much that was his own anger and frustration at a screwed up world and how much he had been influenced by the so called evil field if there even was such a thing in the first place.
"Are you sure that they're horcruxes?"
"Ravenclaw's Diadem and Slytherin's locket. They feel evil which is why I put them in a metal box. Between that and Voldemort's fixation on Hogwarts memorabilia..." He wasn't going to mention that his magic sight showed them a filled with dark magic.
Dumbledore stared at the box, "Set it on my desk."
Harry flicked his wand and set the box on the table. "I also might know where one of the other Horcruxes is." Harry looked at her feet to keep from meeting Dumbledore's gaze. He was fine if he thought she was embarrassed or something.
Dumbledore frowned, "We'll discuss that shortly." He walked over and examined the two items in the box on the off chance that they were actually what Alex said they were. It wasn't that he didn't believe her it was just that the chances of her actually finding two of them was very low. It didn't take more than a second of looking at them with his glasses to confirm that they were in fact Hocruxes. "I'm afraid, I'm going to have to ask how you found these and where you think the next one is."
Harry gave the most plausible lie he could think of, "Dreams. As for the locket, house elves are useful. The locket was at headquarters."
"How did it end up there?"
"Sirius's brother realized his mistake and stole the horcrux from a cave, intending to destroy it. Something went wrong and it cost him his life but not before he ordered Kreacher to destroy the locket. Sadly, house elf magic isn't up for the task or at least Kreacher wasn't able to destroy it without a wand."
"I see and if I asked if you left the castle's grounds?"
"I would happily say of course not Sir, that would be against the rules, same thing with using the floo without permission. You're probably better off not asking though."
Dumbledore smiled slightly. He was fairly sure that she must have used the floo to contact Kreacher then ordered him to tell her everything he knew about Horcruxes or cursed objects that related to Voldemort. He was a bit disappointed that he hadn't thought to have Sirius ask but he hadn't thought that the house elf would know anything. He walked over to the stand where the Sword of Gryffindor rested, picked it up then walked back to the desk and stabbed both items. While he was sad about damaging Ravenclaw's diadem he wasn't all that concerned about destroying Slytherin's locket even if it was an artifact of the founders. He was just hoping that they could repair her diadem. That said he wasn't risking someone getting cursed trying to cleanse it.
Harry watched as two shades of Voldemort flew out of the broken horcruxes. "I'm glad that I could help. Now if you'll excuse me, I really should go practice my mental defenses so this type of thing doesn't happen again."
Dumbledore asked, "Where do you think the other horcrux is?"
Harry wasn't actually sure exactly where the cup was as the only lead he had on it was that Sirius had mentioned the cup being in Bellatrix's vault in his world. That could mean in her personal vault or just a vault that was connected to her which was why he was going to have to put some work into it. "I've got some people working on it. I'd rather not say more than that because then you would have to answer honestly that you knew something about something that might not be entirely on the up and up Sir. Now if you'll excuse me, I really should get back to my dorm before I'm out past curfew."
Dumbledore sighed, "How long until you hear back from your contact and do I have to mention how dangerous hiring outside help is?"
"Strictly speaking they're not exactly outside help." He'd let Dumbledore make of that what he would. "That said, I really have said too much and don't want them to get in trouble. I should hear back from them by Monday, if not then I'll contact you about what I know."
Dumbledore sighed, "I'd rather you just tell me."
"And I'd have rather not spent my childhood with the Dursleys, I'd rather not have lost Hermione, Sirius and Luna but we don't always get what we want. Now if you'll excuse me, I don't want to be late." Harry turned and stalked out.
Harry knew from reading Alex's journal that she was on the raggedy edge of sanity and that she was only continuing the fight because she wanted revenge on the organization that had killed her beloved. While he didn't think she was actually suicidal her journal had gotten a hell of a lot darker since Hermione died, there was some very vivid imagery about what she was planning on doing to the various death eaters and proto death eaters. He was really damned scary as a girl.
He wasn't sure how much was the grief talking and how much was her honest desire for revenge but she had lists of Death Eaters and their addresses or how to find them. She hadn't recorded who she bribed in the ministry to find the list but the fact that she had a list of targets meant that she was more serious than he had been about ending the problem the first time around. Her last entry had talked about killing Draco today to celebrate Hermione's birthday. The only thing that had saved him was that he still wasn't out of the hospital as he was trying to milk it for all he could. Harry stopped walking as he realized that he had a time turner and an iron solid alibi as long as no one saw his face. He pulled out the list of Slytherin students that Alex had marked down as most likely to turn into death eaters along with insults and spells cast against muggleborns.
He flame teleported back to the Room of Requirement. "Hermione, I need the time turner."
Hermione asked, "Why?"
Harry glanced over at the children that were happily listening to Puck tell a story. He whispered, "I'm going to fix some problems." He handed her the list of death eater wannabes and their list of crimes. "It's your birthday or at least it would be the other Hermione's birthday if she was still alive."
"What's that have to do with the Slytherins?"
"The Death Eaters killed her right in front of Alex. I'm going to kill them, I'm going to kill them all if I can before we jump worlds."
Hermione looked at Harry, "You're not making sense, these people are kids, not all of them are completely evil." She frowned as she saw Draco's name, "Okay, most of them aren't evil."
"Most of them will grow up into Death Eaters, I'll admit that a couple of the names probably don't deserve to die but there are enough on here that need to die that it's worth the effort."
Hermione asked, "Why today?"
"If I do things right than I've got an iron clad alibi with Dumbledore."
Hermione said, "I hate to ask but are you channeling Alex's anger?"
Harry said, "They killed this world's version of you. They're going to pay in the only way they understand, blood and death. We lock them up, they break out, we stun them they awaken them, we hit their hands with rulers and they kill us. They laugh as they hex normal people and pay a fine if they're caught. A fine so low as to be pointless even against the inconvenience or injury of just one victim let alone the dozens or hundreds before they're caught. The really sad part is the fine doesn't even go to the victim if they're normal, it goes to the ministry thus they have no reason to really discourage them from repeating the offense as long as it can be covered up by mind raping the muggle victim."
"So the answer is what? Burn the world to the ground?"
"They killed this world's version of you. For that they die." He was fairly sure that he could deal with the ministry without burning the world down but either way the Death Eaters would pay for what they did.
Hermione sighed as she realized that she wasn't going to be able to talk him out of doing something drastic to the Death Eater wannabes. The worst part was that she really didn't even want to try as she agreed with his point of view. What was the point in playing fair or nice when the enemy had no honor. "No."
Harry blinked, "What do you mean no?"
"I mean no. You're thinking about this like a warrior, kill the bad guy and there isn't a problem."
Harry scowled, "If they're all dead then things will be better."
"Let's ignore the fact that there is no way that you'd get all of them that way. You're not a warrior Harry, you're a wizard. You've got magic, extremely powerful magic, you've got knowledge from a couple of different worlds. It's time we started acting like it. I've got a plan that should deal with a hell of a lot of the problems that currently plague Britain without actually crushing the population of wizards which would make things even worse in the long run."
"What's your plan?"
"Rather than go on a rampage and kill everyone you go on a rampage and transfigure them into wizarding cards."
Harry blinked, "Cards?"
"Exactly. You can collect the cards and then we turn them back one at a time, stuff them full of veritaserum and collect their confessions and their observations about their family. That should give us a fantastic list of who to go after and where. What secrets they have and where they hide stuff. Then we hit their parents and bind them. Then we steal or make copies of family libraries and other things of interest."
Harry laughed, "I knew books were involved somewhere in your grand plan to overthrow the corrupt ministry."
Hermione stuck her tongue out at Harry, "Either that or we just mind wipe them and move them to some out of the way village we buy and hide."
"Why?"
"So they can make babies and increase the population of wizards and witches. We could bring in a couple of smart muggleborn sperm donors and some fertility potions. That would boost the population of wizards and witches by a decent amount without expending all that much effort. Or we could turn a witch into hen and let her lay some eggs then turn her back and turn the offspring into humans, it would be an interesting experiment."
"Right, now who is playing mad scientist. You've given this a bit too much thought haven't you?"
Hermione sighed, "I get bored a lot Harry. Even before I wasn't sleeping I used to come up with ideas for fixing the wizarding world's various issues. Most of them weren't going to ever work because of tradition and pigheaded laws but some of them would work nicely if we ignored the rules and did them anyways. A single muggleborn with a confusion charm and access to a sperm bank could cause the population of magic users to skyrocket. Now picture what you could do if you controlled a town filled with wizards and witches and fertility potions. It wouldn't take long before you've got a small army of magic users. From there we could take over the world. Sadly that's where the plan breaks down, the paperwork would be excessive." She smiled to let Harry know that she was mostly joking about taking over the world.
Harry snickered as he pulled Hermione into a hug, "Thanks, I needed that."
Hermione asked, "Does this mean you're okay?"
"I'm better but that just means I'm not going to be in a rage when I go through the Slytherin dorm collecting people." Harry let her go after a long squeeze.
"I'll settle for that." Hermione handed Harry a silver and a gold time turner, "Each turn of the gold one is hours, each turn of the silver one is fifteen minutes."
Harry took the two time turners, "Thanks."
"Just come back safely." Hermione said, "I think I'm going to take the girls back to the library and put them to bed just in case."
Harry had no intention of dying but accidents happened. "That's a good idea. I'll call you when it's done."
"Thanks."
Harry conjured a dark robe and a white mask. "This is going to be sort of fun." He concentrated and used Tonk's stolen powers to change his hair color to black and mess up Alex's nose, her cheek line and lips a bit. "How do I look?"
Hermione said, "Let me do your hair a different way. That combined with the mask and the robe and you should be okay."
Harry said, "Thanks."
"I'm just trying to keep you from getting killed, especially before I get to fuck your new body."
"I see how it is."
Hermione snickered as she moved behind Harry and started working on redoing his hair. "There is just something about red hair and your bottom. I mean don't get me wrong I love Puck but you're cute."
Harry says, "We can have fun when I get back."
Dumbledore sighed as Snape came rushing into his office not five minutes after Alex had left, "What is the matter?"
Snape said, "They're gone."
"Who are gone?"
Snape snapped out, "The Slytherins."
"What?"
"Every Slytherin that was in the dorms is gone. The portraits are claiming that a Death Eater just appeared out of thin air and started stunning people."
"Was there an attack planned?"
Snape shook his head, "No, especially not against the Slytherin dorm. It makes no sense."
"What else happened?"
"The portraits were damaged and the occupants fled. By the time I was notified, the dorm was empty. There was a message scrawled in blood that said the 'Dark Lord will have your loyalty one way or another."
Dumbledore frowned, "We're going to have to alert the ministry. This will cause an uproar."
Snape said, "This is going to end very badly. If people think Voldemort has their children..."
"I know, try to figure out what you can. I need to make a call to the ministry." Albus walked over, grabbed a pinch of floo powder and tossed it into the fireplace only for nothing to happen. "That should have worked."
Snape said, "Unless the floo office at the ministry is down."
"Could Tom have moved this quickly?"
"I don't think so but I'm not sure what else it could be. The fact that I wasn't informed about this is worrisome." He wasn't sure if going back was the best plan if he wanted to live a long healthy life but at the same time not going back with news this bad would probably result in a short life anyways.
"You might not want to go back." He used his wand to send a messages to the other heads of house to check on their students.
Snape said, "If I don't go then he'll know for sure where my allegiances lie."
"Go and be careful."
Snape sighed as he made his way out of the castle to try to figure out what had happened to his students.
Harry woke up from a nice long three hour nap to the annoying hotel alarm clock, he hit the clock hard enough with his fist that it sputtered and died which might have been accidental magic or it might have been because it was a piece of crap clock to start with. He had rented the crappy hotel room with cash. Thankfully the sheets were clean or at least clean enough considering he wasn't taking off his robe. He slipped the gold time turner around his neck then walked over to the fridge and pulled out the box of pizza he had put there a few hours ago. He opened it up, grabbed the last two pieces of pizza and tossed the empty box in the trash. He ate his pieces of pineapple pizza while he planned the next stage of his so called rampage.
The Slytherin dorm attack had gone like clockwork. He had snuck in while invisible, silently cast some muffling spells around the room then proceeded to drop everyone in the common room from stealth and surprise. After showing off his Death Eater costume and scaring the paintings into leaving he had transfigured the students into shiny wizarding cards with their faces on them. Then he had recast his disillusionment charm, collected the cards and cleared out the first two levels of the dorms much the same way as the common room. Then a half twist of the silver time turner, another two levels then a half twist and so on before he had teleported to the muggle hotel that accepted cash and wasn't overly concerned with things like identification.
He had watched half a muggle show that he honestly didn't remember the name of while waiting for the pizza delivery boy to show up. He had paid the guy, asked him if his watch had a timer function then given the teen an extra fifty for his crappy wristwatch when he learned that it did in fact have a very quiet alarm that could be set to go off every seven and a half minutes. He had gotten the guy to set it, taken the pizza and thanked the guy. He had then devoured most of the pizza, set the alarm on the hotel clock for three hours and crashed.
He checked to make sure that he hadn't forgot anything in the hotel room then walked into the bathroom and looked at the less than sparkling clean toilet. "I miss being a guy right now." He looked over at the shower. "This would be easier if I wanted to risk doing magic." He hiked up his robes and his dress, bent his knees and tried to figure out how to relieve his bladder as a girl.
Three minutes later an embarrassed but much more relieved Harry exited the bathroom after tossing the wad of toilet paper in the toilet and washing his hands. "Yuck." He briefly considered coming back at some point and burning the hotel to the ground because it was icky.
He disillusioned himself then he teleported across town then used the time turner to jump back four hours. He took a couple of seconds to get his bearings then he teleported across town to Umbridge's office. He was mildly surprised to find her in her office but not so surprised that he didn't raise his wand and blow a hole through her head before she had even gotten her hand to her wand. "Messy but better than last time."
He swapped his gold time turner for his silver one and started walking through the ministry silently removing the evening staff by turning them into trading cards so that he could collect them for later processing. Every seven and a half minutes the timer went off on his 'new' watch and he gave the silver time turner a half twist. It wasn't quite as good as a time stop spell but it got the job done.
The floo network department was one of the first that he visited and blew to smithereens after collecting a bunch of tools and manuals. The second was the office of underage magic. He wanted to make sure that he was free to move around on the off chance that the trace hadn't in fact vanished because he was over seventeen. After that it had sort of been a blur of destruction and looting as he went from department to department, looting supplies and wizarding cards that used to be people into his bags of holding. He laughed softly as he looted the time turners from the Time Room to make sure that the ministry couldn't screw with him. 'I really need some down time after this. I'm starting to wonder about my sanity.' He figured he had been through too many strange things in too short of time.
The next room was oddly enough through a door that he hadn't seen before. Not that it really should surprise him as it was disillusioned and hidden behind a filing cabinet in the Room of Time. The only reason he had seen it was because of the x-ray vision upgrade to his right eye. Judging by the amount of dust in the room he was fairly sure that the Ministry had forgotten about it at least a couple of decades ago through more likely at least a hundred years judging by the styles of the hundreds of ancient mirrors scattered around the room. Everything from iron framed bubbled glass mirrors to silver and gold mirrors with perfect glass. The mirrors and ancient books promptly went into his cushioned bags of holding. He wasn't sure what they were but they were obviously important if they had their own room in the Department of Mysteries. A room that someone had went to pains to hide. He headed toward the Ministry's Library with a spring in his step.
All told it took him four hours or about two minutes depending on how you measured time to loot the ministry to the ground and slip away before the aurors came pouring in. Even that might not have been a problem but he was getting tired of the nearly constant spell casting and wanted to get a solid eight hours of sleep and decompress as he was fairly sure that a whole bunch of shit was going to hit the fan in the morning.
Harry set his pile of bags of holding down in the Shrieking Shack. "Hermione."
Hermione appeared in her sheer red mini dress and gold leggings. "I'm glad to see that you're still alive even if you look wiped out. What happened?"
"I collected the Slytherins, grabbed some sleep in a hotel then I teleported to the Ministry and started collecting people and looting it to the ground. It's surprising how easy it is to get the drop on people when you can turn invisible." He made a mental note to look into absorbing an invisibility cloak if he found another extra cloak. He didn't want to destroy Alex's and he wanted Hermione to have one just in case she needed to appear invisible somewhere.
Hermione snorted, "Don't let it go to your head, you're just lucky that Moody doesn't work there anymore."
"True. As for interesting stuff, there was an entire hidden room devoted to enchanted mirrors. I'm not sure what they do but I figured they had to do something important and it gives you another project."
Hermione asked, "Hidden?"
"It was an invisible door hidden behind a filing cabinet in the Time Room."
"Weird, I wonder if that was there in our world."
Harry shrugged, "No idea, it's something to keep an eye out for the next time we jump."
Hermione asked, "Any books or paperwork on the mirrors?"
"In the bag with them."
Hermione she smiled at Harry, "Have I told you how much I love you lately?"
Harry laughed, "Only because I bring you books."
She smirked, "Details."
"I should go crash before I'm missed, I want at least a couple more hours of sleep before I have to do anything else crazy."
Hermione snickered, "You'll probably want to go back to looking like Alex before you show up in her dorm."
Harry relaxed his metamorphmagus abilities and shifted back to Alex's normal lovely appearance. "How's that?"
Hermione tilted her head, "Much better. See you in the morning Harry."
Harry said, "Kiss the girls goodnight for me."
"I will." She picked up the bags and shifted to her library to start organizing the loot.
Harry dispelled the conjured mask and robes, checked his map then teleported back to Alex's dorm and crashed out after slipping out of her shoes and dress.
Harry yawned as he woke up and saw Ginny's face looking at him form a couple of inches away. "Hi Gin." Thankfully diaries were rather useful for figuring out what Alex had called certain people.
Ginny asked, "How are you feeling?"
"I've been better..." Harry yawned as he sat up and looked at the girl that was resting on top of his covers. She had bright blue eyes, long flowing auburn hair and a devilish smile on her face that reminded him that she was related to the Weasley twins, she was perhaps a little cuter than his world's version or maybe he had just forgotten exactly what she looked like.
Ginny giggled as she let her gaze wash over Alex's naked breasts, "You'll never guess what happened?"
Harry asked, "What happened?"
"Someone attacked the ministry last night."
Harry tried and probably failed to look all that surprised, "Why?"
Ginny looked back at Alex's emerald green eyes, "No one knows but it was in the papers, things were stolen, people went missing. A bunch of Slytherins also went missing from the dorms last night."
Harry asked, "Malfoy?"
Ginny said, "Gone without a trace."
"That's a bit disturbing. Do they have any suspects?"
"The twins think you might have done something to Malfoy but that doesn't explain the rest of the Slytherins. I'm just glad that Dad wasn't there when the Ministry got attacked." He had sent an owl at some point last night to let her know that he hadn't been at work and not to worry which was nice because otherwise she would have been freaking out.
Harry was rather glad that Mr. Weasley hadn't been there as it would have complicated things a whole lot. "I think everyone knows that if I did something to Malfoy he'd be a blood splatter on the walls and I'd be dancing."
Ginny smiled, "Besides, if you really had gotten Malfoy you would have let me have a piece of him."
"Exactly."
Ginny said, "Sorry about Ron."
"It's not your fault that he's an idiot."
"All the same, I'm sorry that he's an idiot."
Harry said, "I've pretty much given up on him having sanity. I mean Lavender is nice enough but she's not you or..."
Ginny sighed as she reached out with her left hand and ran her fingers over Alex's right breast. "I miss her too."
"I know..."
Ginny sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the bed then stood up. "You should probably get dressed."
Harry asked, "Do I have to?"
"Yes, yes you do. I'd like to eat breakfast with my girl and I don't want to lose the massive amount of points that McGonagall would take off if you forgot your clothes."
Harry slipped out of bed and pulled a clean dress out of Alex's trunk and slipped it on. "Let's go."
Ginny laughed, "Shoes?"
Harry sighed, "Fine." He grabbed a pair of sandals and slipped them on. "Let's go." Harry wasn't looking forward to Ginny's reaction when they told her that he wasn't actually Alex.
