To Ride the Carousel Again
Chapter 32
Same disclaimer as Chapter 31
Christmas Day, the Diary
and the opening bell of the Inheritance Trials.
Hermione blindsides Harry.
*/*
Approx. 5,300 words.
"Happy Christmas, Harry," said Lupin. "I had the elves do this after we left. We'll have to tell them they did really well. Now we have a place to put our presents before taking them over to Hector and Helen's house."
Harry just stood there taking it in.
Overwhelmed, he turned and gave Lupin a fierce hug. "Thank you, thank you," he repeated over and over.
December 25, 1992
Christmas day.
Harry was practically ready to combust if his supposed adult minders didn't stop fooling around and get on with the business of getting to the Granger house.
Sirius had apparated in half an hour ago. He was again on an overnight furlough from St. Mungo's to celebrate Christmas with his 'family'.
And right now, he was in full life-of-the-party mode.
He had transfigured and/or charmed himself to have long silver hair, a wavy white beard, and was 'dressed' in what he thought was a Santa costume.
The costume was red and furry white with a wide glossy black belt. but it was a robe that resembled a dress, not the coat, vest, pants, and tall black boots of mundane Santa Claus.
He was toting a brown sack that he was, at the moment, stuffing with presents that had been under the tree.
"Ho, ho, ho!" he cried as he was tossing packages and boxes into the sack.
Harry's problem was the plonker was reading all the tags and speculating on what each one was.
"Ho, ho!" he would exclaim. "Is this rectangular, heavy package a book for the delightful Miss Granger?"
"And what does this large box have in it? It's awfully light. Did you put a FeatherWeight Charm on it? I understand Sirius Black likes presents with a bit of heft to them," he said, giving the box a shake.
It was Harry's turn to exclaim, "Easy there, Santa. That box is as sensitive as Erumpet Horn Fluid."
It was comical how fast Sirius stopped fooling around with the wrapped box and carefully placed it in his bag.
Harry easily suppressed his urge to laugh at his godfather. He wanted to leave now!
When the giddy man-child turned to harass Lupin into 'getting into the spirit of Christmas,' Harry Whispered for Ypres, and when the elf appeared, he quickly whispered in his ear.
With a firm nod, he silently levitated all the remaining presents under the tree and had them all in Sirius' sack before the man turned back around.
He must have seen something in Lupin's face that Harry missed because he whipped around so fast the bag unbalanced him and he had to stagger to keep his balance.
He stared open-mouthed at the base of the tree where the wrapped gifts had been.
With a merry grin on his face, Harry shrugged into his coat, touched Ypres, and said, "Ypres, take me to Hermione. I can't wait any longer for these two flobberworms to get moving. I have presents to unwrap."
A moment later, Harry was standing in Hermione's bedroom a step away from her bathroom door. From the noises coming through it, she was in the shower.
Panicking, he looked down at Ypres. "Why did you bring me here?" he hissed, not wanting to be overheard.
"Master Harald told me to take you to Mistress, not to Mistress' house," was the dignified reply.
Harry could swear the diminutive elf was laughing at him despite no such expression on the elf's face.
Before he could start a whispered tirade against his elf, he heard the water stop running in the shower.
Panicking, he yelled in a whisper, "Get me out of here!"
He instantly found himself standing in the backyard about twenty feet from the kitchen door. Two sudden 'cracks' heralded the aparition arrival of grinning Lupin and the bag-carrying, worried-looking, Sirius.
Without a word, the small group stepped up onto the rear porch and knocked.
Hector opened the door with a cup of coffee in hand. "Hurry in. Even you lot should be cold outside today."
Hanging the two non-Santa coats on some hooks by the door, he pointed them at the tea and coffee pots with cream, sugar and lemon sitting on the counter near several mugs. A few minutes after the three had mugs of their chosen beverage, Helen wandered in to refill her tea mug and then led them back to the sitting room where Santa placed his bag under the decorated Christmas tree.
He then explained that for Harry's first Christmas, he wanted to hand out the presents. "Selfish of me I know, but . . ." He shrugged.
Two minutes later a bundle of Hermione energy came thundering down the stairs and into the sitting room and glomped onto Harry with a high-strength hug.
Harry's case of nerves at almost being caught in her bedroom evaporated under the calming scent of her shampoo and soap. The thought crossed his mind that standing here with his face buried in her hair could be all the Christmas present he would ever want.
Sirius gave them about one minute before loudly announcing, "Presents!"
With burning faces, the two burrowed into a nearby loveseat. They did not notice but all the adults saw that they never lost contact with each other. And half the loveseat was unused.
Padfoot started handing out the wrapped gifts, starting, he claimed, at random.
Harry sat and watched, not bothering to unwrap any gifts passed to him. He was enraptured by the way each person did their unwrapping.
The way everyone thanked whoever gave them the gift, including 'Santa', gave him a small ache in the middle of his chest.
His friend, normally a very neat, controlled person, was a paper-spewing tornado. A lot of her paper ended up scattered around the loveseat like large confetti.
Lupin slowly and neatly unwrapped each present and examined it as though it was precious to him. It was with sudden insight, that he realized that for over a decade, the werewolf had not had anybody to sit and celebrate with, never mind exchange presents.
The Grangers quietly opened their presents admired them, and then showed them off the everyone else. It was Helen who noticed that their matching jumpers had magical instructions. She started to get Hermione's attention, then seeing she was staring open-mouthed at a freshly paper-stripped opened box, desisted until later.
She quirked an eyebrow when her daughter launched herself, scattering her opened presents, into a tight hug with the boy seated next to her. The girl had not shown whatever it was in the box, but it must have been very special.
He was still of two minds about all the protections against mind intrusion he had paid to have enchanted into the semi-precious stones of the necklace.
Real gems would have worked better, but the sharp eyes of the other females in the school could probably spot real from fake at twenty paces. And semi-precious stones could be friend appropriate, and not a declaration of other intentions.
He had had it made from white gold, which looked like silver, with a large ovoid non-faceted garnet flanked by a pair of non-faceted ovoid golden beryl's. She was in Gryffindor after all.
The new necklace was a more powerful version of the one he had given her for her birthday. This version could stop most medium-strength and some higher-power curses and hexes. It would also heat up if Legilemency was cast on the wearer. It would not stop the spell but the warned girl would be able to drop her eye contact.
Sirius had taken off his Santa coat to put on his Harry gift, a black, angora wool jumper. It was the softest woolen material he had ever felt. Considering the wealth of the Blacks, that was saying something. Besides, Azkaban had left him with what he felt was a permanent chill that reached down into his soul. This simple muggle jumper seemed to ease that ache a bit.
Almost all the presents had been opened when Harry noticed he was getting odd looks from everyone.
"Aren't you going to open any of your presents, Harry," came Sirius' confused voice.
Bewildered for a moment, Harry realized that he had been enjoying watching everyone else open and admire their gifts so that he had forgotten that he even had any to open.
The first year he had been at Hogwarts, he had gotten his flute from Hagrid, Hermione's chocolate frog cards, fudge and a Weasley jumper from Molly, and his father's cloak returned by Dumbles had been the first Christmas presents he had ever received.
He just wasn't used to family Christmas mornings. He usually sat in his bed, in the Gryffindor dorm, munching on candies, and carefully opening his few presents slowly to make the happy feelings last.
Harry just looked back at the others helplessly, indicating the trembling young witch hugging the stuffing out of him.
Sirius, being Sirius, said, "Harry you're supposed to give girls happy gifts, not ones that send them off on a crying bit."
Harry slowly and carefully, so as not to disturb the still-clinging Hermione, opened a large box from the adult Grangers.
He was surprised to find a complete tuxedo. The pants, belt, shirt, tie, and jacket were easy to decipher. He had no idea how to wear the shirt studs, cufflinks, vest, and cummerbund, or even what they were called.
At his helpless look, Hector said, "We have an invite to a party in a week and we wanted you to come with us. I'll explain more later."
Hermione, now paying attention as he started on her present, wanted to smack him silly as she could tell he was slowing down his unwrapping just to tease her. He slowly took out the expensive-looking watch and admired it before placing it on his wrist.
Hermione was babbling about it being made with stainless-steel, and shock resistant with day and . . . Harry shut her up by pulling her into a tight-copied-from-Hermione hug.
Sirius' present was a bunch of Zonko's prank items. The man looked so worried about whether Harry would like the present that Harry went a bit overboard praising how "they were just what I needed."
Some spell and fiction books from Lupin. A special potions book and a Gryffindor scarlet and gold knit watchcap were Hermione's further contributions to his present haul.
Neville's and Susan's presents showed they had put some actual thought into picking what to give. Neville sent a tome on 'Preparing Plants for Potions', while Susan had sent him a book titled "Great Magical Families of Britannia, 1842-1992".
Luna had sent him a subscription to the Quibbler.
Greengrass and Davis had combined to give him a very nice tie clip with a prowling lion as the decorative front.
Harry had to laugh at himself as he went through the minor gifts from acquaintances as most of them sent him only slight variations of the candies and chocolates he had sent them.
While he had been finishing up his unwrapping of presents, Hector had slipped away upstairs to the study and was getting the big reveal present to Sirius and Lupin warmed up and loaded to play.
Seeing everyone was looking at him as he finished off his last gift opening, he realized it was time to stun his godfather with muggle technology.
"Sirius, Lupin, we have one last present for the two of you. Follow me," he said as he stood up to head upstairs. Hermione flew up the steps ahead of the others.
He had to almost literally push the two wizards through the doorway into the study. They had stopped in amazement at the sight of Hector, as he controlled his avatar as it jumped, kicked, and fireballed its way across the huge television screen, collecting coins, smashing bricks, and stomping koopas.
As soon as he died, Hermione started with her character, Luigi, and worked at getting farther across the game screen than her father.
To Harry, it was obvious that the two Grangers had spent time practicing over the last day and a half.
He also thought that the watchers would be bored after a short while, but they stayed, shouting advice and groaning in defeat when someone else lost their last screen life.
Even Harry found himself shouting advice to Padfoot as he was first shown how a controller worked and then set off across the land to try to rescue his Princess Peach.
Harry felt he was constantly finding himself getting Sirius to calm down before his excited magic trashed the rather delicate electronics he was dealing with.
After an hour, he felt it was safe enough to head down to the kitchen to start breakfast for the enthralled players. He was seriously thinking that if he didn't provide food soon, the group would stay in front of the game screen until they passed out from lack of food and sleep.
He easily found the usual morning ingredients in the cupboards and refrigerator. He figured a simple English Breakfast would be best. Shredded potatoes, sausages, rashers of bacon, and eggs were all soon on the gas hobs. Slices of bread were set to brown in the toaster.
The smell of the frying meats that could wake the dead from a sound slumber apparently could also rouse the game-stupefied zombies upstairs to come down for sustenance.
The Grangers sat around the table after the two 'fizzing' adults rocketed off back to the study. They had decided to let the others play until they couldn't focus on the screen anymore because after they left, the games would be all theirs for the rest of the night.
As the four of them sat around the table, Hector looked at Harry and said, "How soon do you think it will take those two to somehow get electricity and somehow find a way to cancel magic in a part of your manor?"
Harry could not stop the grin from spreading across his face. "No idea. But knowing how much a big kid my godfather is, not long."
Oooooo vvvvvv oooooO
The weekend after Christmas had the two families passing time at each other's houses.
At the Grangers, they did some preliminary scouting of the building in the financial district they would be visiting, bought a pair of Nokia wireless phones, and added a couple of video games to their collection. Harry figured Mario Kart would be a hit with his manic flying motorbike godfather.
All in all, Harry was impressed that his godfather could stay away from the electronic games for long enough to help in the planning. AND he had managed NOT to fry the games console or the telly. Yet.
At the manor, it was the wonders of research for the females that access to the Potter Library granted. The men, and sometimes Hermione, spent time in heavy review of the nine investment portfolios, looking for the poorest performing investments.
Harry had explained why he wanted to transfer some mundane account money to Gringotts. He wanted the Dark to know a figure of the Light was one of the richest men in Britannia.
Even if he never contributed a tuppence to the soon arising fawning sycophants, it being known he was wealthy would automatically give his words weight, and his opinions a type of validity. It might be wrong, but that was reality.
Sirius had convinced him that with the wizarding population being so small and insular it took surprisingly little money to be considered wealthy. A hundred thousand galleons (£3,500,000) making money from goblin investments, and you were in the top one-half percent financially.
Hector had glomped on to Sirius' pronouncement with the zeal of a man who had seen the light. With a wizarding population of fifty to sixty thousand in Britannia, how many millionaires could there be made or sustained by the money flow of a muggle town of the same population?
Sure, he said, some of the old, smart money was still around. However, how many old houses had been ruined by incompetent heirs, drinking, or gambling problems?
Second, he had plans to get Tongueripper beholden to him for having quickly elevated him back to Senior Account Manager.
Third, after the first task of the tournament, Charlie Weasley had told him that the preserve would sell the remains of the Hungarian Horntail (1) and pay him ninety percent of the value of the sale. The dragon keeper had told him that when a wizard killed a dangerous, wild, Class 4-X creature and above, and you killed it legally, the body was yours to dispose of.
He had never found out how much the dragon was worth before he died, but if he had to kill that damned basilisk, this time he was going to get paid for it, by Merlin!
And he thought he might need the money. Sirius and Lupin both told stories about how Malfoy Golden Fertilizer had grown many a sullied and debased deal in the Wizengamot.
He was sure Dumbledore would disapprove but, the hell with him.
On Monday, the new mobile phones were first used at the Grangers to call Hogham and Hemmish, Solicitors, to set an appointment. The third transfer of their call got them a Mr. Hepplewaite, who on the strength of the various account numbers, set up a meeting for half two, Wednesday afternoon.
Monday afternoon, after the phone call, and a bit of strategizing, Harry figured he had to do something about the diary. Ypres was trying to be a good elf and not complain about the strain his powers were under containing the elf wall the book was now attacking, but Harry could see the problem.
Lupin was off seeing tenants as his Facilitator, Sirius was back to St. Mungo's, so Harry believed he had the privacy he needed.
"Hermione, would you come to the manor with me? I need some help with a transfiguration problem."
A small frown crossed her face. "But, Harry, we finished our trans . . . Of course, let me get my things."
Harry once again didn't know whether to be impressed or scared by his friends' acumen at realizing what he really meant.
A quick elf transport, a fast trip to the study for a large envelope, and with Ypres, they headed on down to the basement.
Harry stopped Ypres before he opened the secret wall to the old safe.
"Hermione," he said very seriously, "This could possibly be more dangerous than going through the traps that guarded the Stone last year."
She looked startled at his words. Yet, with typical Hermione courage, she asked for a few more pieces of information.
"Alright, Harry. Is this the big secret you've been hiding since you became Lord Potter? Is this why I need to learn occlumency?"
"Part of the secret," he replied. "I'm sorry I need you to help me because . ."
He paused, dragging his hand through his hair. "You know what? Let's not do this now. I'll get Lupin to help me later."
He was lying and she knew it. Her first instinct was to let him get away with it. Her second thought was that if this was a large part of what had been troubling him all year, solving the problem now might relieve some of the stress he had been labouring under.
She reached down and gathered his hand between hers as she thought furiously. If this was a secret that could be picked from her mind by Professor Dumbledore or Snape, they both could be in danger somehow.
Keeping her eyes on his face, she was willing to wager that this was a possible dangerous part of his secrets.
"Sorry, Harry," she said quietly, squeezing his shoulder. "I think for your mental health, we should do whatever is you need my help for."
Harry stared at her as his mind raced. If she helped, would this be like telling someone else and be really bad? Erzelkendis had not told him what would happen if he told anyone else.
But his instincts were telling him he needed help. Luna had been able to help him in the bookstore, and they had only just met.
Hermione was his friend, his True Friend. His conviction was firming up. She could help him and Upper Management wouldn't blast her into pieces just because he needed help, would they?
Besides, maybe they weren't looking down at him right now?
"Alright, let's set this up." Harry walked back to the stand of swords where that funny vibrating sword was hidden. Bringing it and an empty sword prop back to the wall, he leaned the sword against it.
Hermione watched him quietly.
"Ypres, you know what to do?"
"Yes, Master Harald," came the calming measured reply.
"Hermione, we are going to reveal a diary. It's evil. I want you to be ready to do one of two things. Either place your hand on my shoulder and be ready to push your magic into me like you did to Peama at the manor last summer."
His lips tightened and he grimaced. "Or if things go badly, give me the sword, or if I have been overwhelmed and I collapse, use that sword to stab the diary."
He looked deeply into her eyes. "Do not stop to attempt to save me if the diary has beat me. Stab first, save me later. Got it?"
She nodded, not trusting her voice, but suddenly blurted, "What about Ypres?"
"He knows what is going to happen and how to protect himself," Harry said with a glance over to his surprisingly stoic-looking elf.
Turning around, he snatched up the manila envelope, and with a muttered spell and concentration as great as Hermione had ever seen, he suddenly had a silvery-looking bag in his hand.
Arranging the bag in his hand, he looked at Ypres and nodded.
A finger snap, and the wall disappeared. Harry fought his blossoming headache and grasped the handle of the safe. A brief prick as his blood was sampled (2) and he was opening the heavy door. CH 12
The evil miasma that floated from the safe to surround him even tasted bad. Somehow the effects on him seemed worse than before. Maybe it knew it had been imprisoned?
Harry wasted no more time in speculation. He would've sworn at that moment his skull had been split open from the inside as pain bloomed behind his scar. He was having trouble seeing where the diary was his head hurt so much.
He could feel something in the diary trying to stretch out and contact him.
Suddenly he felt another presence in his body. A presence that seemed to flow through his body up into his scar and take away enough of the pain to let him function again.
He dropped to his knees, lunged into the safe, and scooped up the diary into his silver bag. As he closed the flap, the overwhelming feeling of decay and evil vanished as if it never was.
Realizing the magic he was feeling was from the small hand on his shoulder, he cast a glance over his shoulder and tried to tell her he was alright.
After two failed attempts he turned back and swept the black ash that Luna's transfigured newspaper had become into a pile in the corner. The cleared space was filled with the new silvery bag.
It was the work of a moment to close the safe door and for Ypres to recreate the wall.
With Hermione's arm around his waist, and he was sure Ypres was subtly propping him up also, the three managed to stagger up to the parlour, where the two did a controlled collapse into one of the couches.
A Pepper Up potion followed by a round of strong Darjeeling tea, brought by Peama, raised the two human's energy levels.
Harry calmly waited for what he knew was coming. He had weighed the benefits and negatives of needing Hermione's help. Looking at her now, he decided he had gotten his arithmetic sums right.
Feeling the weight of Harry's eyes on her, she raised her eyes towards him. She actually was not seeing him as she looked. Her mind was rapidly re-examining every strange action that she had seen Harry take the last five months.
He had, it was obvious now, been working to a plan. He had gotten free of his relatives. He had emancipated himself by becoming Lord Potter. Lord Harald Potter. Wasn't that a surprise.
Next, he had somehow captured Peter Pettigrew who had mostly lived as a rat for over a decade. He then parlayed that capture into getting his godfather freed from a prison despite the opposition of Dumbledore and Lord Malfoy, two of the most powerful men in Britannia. A prison that was so bad, the freed man refused to talk about it.
"Oh, yes, let's not forget about the wealth he had discovered his mother had left him in the mundane world." That had been ignored over the last four months and tended to disappear in the rush of the newer revelations.
And now, this last shock to her system. She had felt the emanations from that book. That was darkness and evil in a small package. Yet that small package had almost overwhelmed Harry. She was not sure what would have happened if Harry had lost the battle of wills that had been obviously fought down in the basement, however, she wanted with all her heart to never have to find out.
Even though she had not touched the diary, that thing had felt so foul she wanted to get into a shower and scrub herself pink.
At the same time, she could not help but feel proud of how with her magic mingling with his, they were strong enough to have triumphed over that piece of evil.
She would never be able to articulate why she did what she did next. She got up, sat herself in his lap, buried her face in his chest, and hugged him. Breathing in that undefined scant that was Harry was the balm she needed.
"Yes, this is what I need right now. Hope his legs don't go numb," she giggled lightly in her mind.
An indeterminate time passed. Despite the Pepper Up's they both dozed a bit. Hermione finally stirred herself because her brain had turned itself on again and she felt in her bones that now was the time to get her answers from Harry.
She could feel she was strangely reluctant to quiz him, but, if she didn't do it now, the lack of answers would make her resentful of her secret-keeping friend. Up until now, she had almost convinced herself she was just being nosy.
Not now. That thing had been too scary. It had been way beyond anything a Hogwarts second-year student should ever have to deal with.
She decided to ignore what Harry had gone through at the end of their attempt to save the Philosopher's Stone last year.
Harry's fear, Ypres's caution, the black ash remains, the pain she felt in his scar when connected with him, and the new silvery pouch, told her whatever he had done to contain that thing the first time had failed. And wasn't that silvery pouch thing a nifty bit of transfiguration.
He was definitely going to teach her that spell.
Harry should not have been that skilled. That little piece of work was only the latest bit of spellwork she had seen that was supposed to be advanced beyond Harry's abilities.
He had explained his advanced spellwork away as a result of Lupin's intensive tutoring.
Nope, that bit of blarney was not going to fly anymore.
"Well?" she said in a controlled, neutral voice.
She felt, rather than heard, his heart start to race with the ear placed against his chest.
"Hmmm. Maybe this will work better than sitting across from him in a chair like I was the bad Bobbie interrogator from a telly show," she thought.
"You have something dangerous in your basement. It has obviously been there a while. It looks like you had that book in another transfigured pouch that it destroyed. I will assume that is the object you need a silver-lined, lead box for."
"I believe I can make the assumption that the strange elf named Dobby is familiar with the object, which is why you called him and asked for his help. Dobby is a . . Malfoy? . . . house elf and looks horribly abused."
She could feel as he nodded his head in agreement, his chin brushing through her hair.
"So, we have a Malfoy plot against the school and . . . Do you think this plot has anything to do with the petrified students?"
Harry's chest grunted an "uh-uh" against her ear. Then a "Not now," rasped from his throat.
"Right. You have the 'bad-things-will-occur- artifact trapped in your house. Still not sure about the wisdom of that." (3)
After a moment she continued, "You know Susan Bones. Why haven't you had her contact her aunt? I'm sure that being head of the DMLE means she could get rid of that thing. And investigate Malfoy too."
That elicited another "uh-uh" grunt accompanied by the sweeping of his chin through her hair. From side to side this time.
"So, in summary, you found out about your magical heritage, discovered you had a Manor, and then discovered your mother's treasure. Then you became aware of The Rat, and with a very nifty bit of Slytherin cunning, arranged for him to be revealed as being alive in a way that the Ministry couldn't hide him away, and then got your godfather free from prison and declared innocent of a crime that everybody knew he had been convicted of."
She paused a moment to self-check herself that she had not forgotten anything before continuing. "You know advanced spells, you know, and can use powerful advanced spells. You knew Malfoy wanted to plant that evil little diary on somebody, and you just said that the two brothers that are petrified are not part of the Malfoy plot."
She did not like the picture her logic was painting for her. However, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, . .
"Harry, how old are you?"
She felt every muscle in his body lock up.
"Oh, shitte!"
A/N:
One: Going with the movie version of the first task of the Tri-Wiz. Now Harry knows what to do if he has to kill the basilisk.
Two: The safe door was blood-locked. See Chapter 12.
Three: For some reason, I keep hearing in my head, Hermione's/Emma's 13-14 yr. old voice speaking that last line.
The reveal was supposed to hold off for another couple of chapters.
Da_ muse hijacked the reveal. Muses have no discipline. We coddle them way too much.
