Reading Time: 114 Minutes

Title: A Puckish Turn of Fate
Author: MeyariMcFarland
Fandom: Harry Potter
Genre: Family, Fantasy, Humor, Kid!fic, Paranormal/Supernatural
Relationship(s): Gen, background pairings
Content Rating: PG-13
Warnings: major character death, slavery (canon–house elves), Violence-Against Children (canon)
Author Note: House Elf point of view, House Elf grammar (lots)
Beta: Batspit
Word Count: 60,740
Summary: It was being a Very Not Good Thing that Winky had to save Old Master Crouch’s seat for the silly World Cup instead of taking care of Young Master Crouch. She was being a Good Elf, so she was Doing As She Was told. Until Dobby’s Great Harry Potter was admitting that he was not knowing about the Old Bond to Dobby. That was not being right. Not at all. Winky was going to have to fix it, one way or the other.
Artist: Mizu Sage

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9. To Gather a Soul

“This is not being good, not at all,” Winky complained as she folded Master Harry’s laundry. “We is already gathering up so much of the nasty-bad-wrong Dark Lord’s bits and pieces, but it is not reducing the nasty-bad-wrong magic stinking up the Elf Stream.”

“I knows,” Tilly agreed as she wrung out and dried a big stack of student pants. “Yous boys is doing good, but they has not been finding all the bits yet, has they?”

“No,” Winky agreed with a little huff. “Winky is going to have to being the one fixing it. She can see already. Her boys is not having the finesse to handle such things.”

Tilly giggled, elbowing Winky while grinning brightly. “No finesse but they is having lots of power. And getting more powerful every day. Momma is going to be giving Tilly the strongest little sibling, isn’t she?”

They shared giggles together over the laundry while Dobby wailed in the Elf Stream about mean ladies and Kreacher grumbled as if he wasn’t going bright mint-green as he worked on cleaning the attic of Grimmauld Place.

Courting really was being far too much fun. Winky was so glad that Master Harry was approving of the idea of Winky having more babies. Old Master Crouch had gone white as a sheet at the very thought of it, and he’d refused to allow any such shenanigans. Sadly, even old Mistress Crouch hadn’t been approving of the idea, though she was being more on the side of ‘we is both too young for such things’ than on the side of ‘no, I will not allow it’.

Ah, well. Winky missed her old Mistress. She still felt bad about failing Young Master Crouch. But he had been going mad for years and years before the terrible incident with the Longbottoms being tortured. Old Master Crouch had been flatly refusing to listen to Winky.

And old Mistress Crouch had been too sick to be making him listen.

“I is getting maudlin,” Winky declared as she popped all of Master Harry’s things back to their proper places in his trunk. “Not enough work, that’s what this is being. Winky is getting back to work.”

“Is no good getting maudlin,” Tilly agreed. She hugged Winky and then nodded firmly. “Momma must go to be doing all the things.”

“Winky will,” Winky declared.

Potter Keep was not needing much in the way of care. It was being well closed up before it was being abandoned by the previous generations. The grounds was needing a great deal of work, yes, but Winky was not being a groundskeeper. She was a nanny and a personal maid and Master Harry’s official First Elf.

Which meant that it was being Winky’s responsibility to be sorting out threats to Master Harry’s safety. The nasty-bad-wrong Dark Lord was one such threat. Winky would have to be asking Heir Bill more questions about what their tests had been showing.

The other big threat, at least as far as Winky was concerned, was being Dumbledore. She stayed by Master Harry, invisible of course, during dinner that night. There was being a very worrying sort of anticipation on Dumbledore’s magic. Like something extra big was coming.

He was still not talking with Crazy-Eye Moody who was being every bit as bad a teacher as Corban Yaxley pretending to be Crazy-Eye Moody. Yes, he was teaching the children the spells they was needing to know, but he was shouting and scaring the children and talking about Unforgivables in ways that made Winky want to set his peg leg on fire.

Except not, because that would be mean. But she might be stealing his pants from him if he was not stopping with the far-too-detailed stories of what the Unforgivables was doing to people he had been working with in the Aurors.

All of Winky’s worries about Crazy-Eye Moody went up in a puff of outrage as Dumbledore announced that there was going to be a Tri-Wizard Tournament at Hogwarts.

At Hogwarts—Dumbledore’s eyes and his magic both stared right at Master Harry as if he was being old enough and trained enough to be competing in such a thing!

There was being a real expectation in Dumbledore’s magic that Master Harry would being a part of it. That he would being right in the thick of it. Winky narrowed her eyes at Dumbledore, poking both Dobby and Kreacher who popped in silently and invisibly to narrow their eyes at Dumbledore, too.

None of the other kids was noticing that Master Harry was sitting too-still and too-quiet during the excited discussion after that.

Winky patted his back gently, getting a wash of gratitude and quiet dread from Master Harry.

The three of them popped to the Come-and-Go room, which was actually being almost all cleared out. There was being a big stack of boxes which was needing hinges and latches fixed, a pile of pillows right up to the ceiling, and twenty neatly sorted stacks of books that should being added back to the library.

“Dobby tried,” Dobby complained. “Dumbles has forbidden these books from being in the library. Mistress Pince cannot even be adding them to the lower levels of the library what are not being open to the students anymore.”

“Cannot be,” Winky said thoughtfully as she eyed the piles.

“Cannot,” Dobby confirmed with a scowl.

“Then they can being claimed,” Winky said, to both Kreacher and Dobby’s amusement. “Master Harry can always be donating them back to the library once Dumbles is no longer Headmaster. He will be living much longer, after all.”

“Only if Dumbles is not getting Young Master Potter killed,” Kreacher said with a scowl as he obviously and obnoxiously polished his Time Keeper on a very nice handkerchief with the Black seal embroidered on it.

Dobby glowered at him for it. Only for a moment, because Kreacher’s words was mattering much more than his posturing, especially since Winky was firmly ignoring both Dobby’s rugged Outback uniform and Kreacher’s Continental uniform. Master Harry was always going to be more important than boys courting.

At least until Master Harry was being safe. Then they could be properly courting Winky with all the dramatic crazy magic wildness that entailed.

Both Kreacher and Dobby shivered with anticipation.

“All right,” Winky said. “Dobby is adding the books to Master Harry’s library. The ones that is being useful for him in next couple of years is going into trunk or little library trunks. The rest is going to Potter Keep.”

“This is being a good plan,” Dobby agreed.

“Kreacher is talking to his master and telling him about the Triwizard Tournament,” Winky continued. “He is going to be very, very clear about the magic threat in Dumbles eyes and aura.”

“Yes, Kreacher will,” Kreacher agreed with a narrow-eyed little snarl. “Kreacher will being very clear with Lord Black, very clear indeed.”

Winky was definitely not noticing that Kreacher was thinking of all kinds of ways to make sure that Master Harry’s Dogfather sat still and listened to him, including glueing him to the wall. She just nodded her approval.

“Winky will be going and finding the nasty-bad-wrong magic that is still stinking up the Elf Stream,” Winky decided.

She rolled her eyes as both of her boys shouted objections, complete with waving arms and bouncing up and down and tears dripping down their cheeks.

“Boys,” Winky huffed at them. “Winky is going to find them. Winky is not being stupid enough to try and capture them herself. She will be taking it to Heir Bill and making him do the capturing. This is being exactly what curse breaking teams is supposed to be doing, once the cursed thing is being found. I is just going to go find.”

“Oh,” Dobby said, wheezing as he bent over and put his hands on his knees. “Oh. Oh, oh, oh. Okay. Okay, Dobby can. Dobby can be handling that. Dobby is being fine. Just fine.”

Kreacher buried his face in his handkerchief, shaking just as badly as Dobby. He wasn’t saying anything out loud, but his distress was loud enough in the Elf Stream that he was not needing to.

Winky rolled her eyes at both of them before popping off to Gringotts. The Elf desk goblin was being perfectly happy to send her off to Heir Bill who was writing up notes in his office. Heir Bill smiled as Winky popped in.

“Winky,” Heir Bill said with a bright, welcoming smile that perfectly matched his magic. “What can I be doing for you?”

“You has excellent grammar!” Winky exclaimed, clapping her hands.

“Thank you,” Heir Bill said. He laughed. “I’m afraid I’m not good at keeping it up for long. But I do try to greet people properly.”

“You is a very good boy,” Winky said because he was not just being good in this moment, he was good all the time. It was being quite rare, especially of wizards.

Heir Bill went beet red. “Oh. Um. Thank you. Really. So, um, what did you need?”

“Winky is still feeling nasty-bad-wrong things in magic,” Winky said. “Especially linked to Master Harry. She is deciding that she is going to go find the nasty-bad-wrong things and then she is going to be asking Heir Bill and his team to come and deal with them. Winky is being a nanny and personal elf. She is not being a curse breaker of any kind.”

The blush on Heir Bill’s face faded as soon as Winky started explaining. He nodded quite seriously, sending off a quick note through the goblin’s very efficient message system before standing up and waving for Winky to come with him.

They were going deeper into the bank, down several levels to where the stone walls was holding warmth from the deeper, hotter earth below. It was not bothering Winky, of course, but Heir Bill started sweating by the time they reached the room he was aiming for.

“Our tests show that there are two more pieces out there,” Heir Bill said. “One of them is definitely here in the bank, in one of the vaults. We’re narrowing down which one it is currently.”

“Must be Lestrange,” Winky said thoughtfully, tapping her finger against her chin. “Is not being anyone else that the nasty-bad-wrong Dark Lord was trusting. Mistress Bella was being a Black. She was having a trust vault. Winky is not knowing if it was being reclaimed by Lord Black, but Kreacher would being able to find out.”

“Good point,” Heir Bill said, making a note as Kreacher popped into Lord Sirius’ office to stand on his thighs while shaking him until Lord Sirius yelped in fear. “We can check that out.”

“Does Heir Bill have ideas where other piece is?” Winky asked, not showing her amusement at the way Kreacher stood on Lord Sirius’ desk, threatening him until he was writing a permission slip to allow Heir Bill to check Mistress Bella’s trust vault.

“We’re fairly certain it’s somewhere in the neighborhood of Little Hangleton,” Heir Bill said.

He knelt down to show Winky the tests they had done and how it all mapped out over a map of the Island. It did look very much like the last piece was being somewhere in Little Hangleton. Winky hummed and nodded thoughtfully.

“Okay,” Winky said. “Then Winky will be going there and checking for any nasty-bad-wrong spots. She is being very good at finding such things. Winky already promised her boys that she would not being the one to capture the nasty-bad-wrong thing. That is being Heir Bill and his team’s job.”

“Yes, it is,” Heir Bill said with a big grin. “Courting going well?”

Winky giggled. “They is so silly. Winky is having so much fun. And they is getting nice and strong. Is going to be even better when their magic is getting wilder. Winky is looking forward to it, yes, she very much is.”

Heir Bill clearly knew just what Winky was talking about because he cleared his throat and tugged at the neck of his shirt while blushing brightly. It was not being nice to tease a nice man like Heir Bill, but Winky was wanting to. It was being cute.

But Heir Bill was learning proper grammar so Winky just giggled as she patted his hand.

“Kreacher has permission!” Kreacher shouted as he popped in with the note from Lord Sirius. “Heir Bill is to be checking Mistress Bella’s vault right away! Now!”

Heir Bill’s eyebrows went up. His lips thinned as he tried, unsuccessfully, to fight off a grin.

“I see…” Heir Bill’s voice broke on a barked laugh. “Ahem! I see what you mean, Winky. I’ll deal with this. Do be careful. If you can narrow it down to one building or even one corner of the town, we can go from there.”

“That is being perfect,” Winky said.

She popped out before Kreacher could do more than wail about Winky being in danger. Boys. Winky was not being the reckless one. That was being both of them.

Little Hangleton was being filled to the brim with nasty-bad-wrong magic.

It was being old magic, generations old. It was also being new magic, within the last couple of years. And it was being older magic, too, from before Master Harry’s parents was being murdered. Winky cocked her head to the side, feeling out the magic from her spot in the dreary little park at the center of Little Hangleton.

The big Gaunt mansion up on the hill was holding most of the really old magic. Winky shook her head. The nasty-bad-wrong magic she was looking for couldn’t be there. It wasn’t being strong enough or old enough.

There was being some hints of nasty-bad-wrong in the graveyard, too, but those was being so new that Winky couldn’t believe that they was being the nasty-bad-wrong object, either. Someone had clearly been doing things they should not have been doing there, but that was not being Winky’s problem, so she ignored it, too.

That left a little house, more like a shack than anyplace that Winky would be considering a decent home. It was having two very tall chimneys on either end of its tall, peaked roof. The windows was being odd triangle-shaped ones that was opening in the middle so that the windows would be almost impossible to prop open. They would always be swinging back down to smack you in the nose so it would being easier to just leave them closed.

The shake shingles on the roof was sagging. The ones on the sides of the shack was mostly falling off. Even from a distance, Winky could be smelling the mildew and rot inside of it.

Lots of work there, for an elf with a very strong constitution and a master what was wanting to restore an old house, but Winky was not being sure it would be worth it.

Because the nasty-bad-wrong was being right in the middle of the shack.

Winky popped back to Heir Bill who was waiting for the goblins to open up Mistress Bella’s trust vault for a good, solid search.

“Winky is locating the right place,” Winky declared.

Kreacher was staring at her in awe, hands clutched to his chest.

Heir Bill was staring, too, more in surprise but a good bit of awe bloomed in his magic as he was registering what Winky said.

“That was very quick,” Heir Bill said, turning to his supervisor. “I didn’t honestly expect it to be that quick.”

“No, neither did I,” Gravelvoice said in an appropriately gravelly voice. “Well, take two of the team and deal with this vault. The rest of us will go with Winky to Little Hangleton.”

“Yes, sir,” Heir Bill said. “We won’t let you down.”

It was taking almost the whole rest of the night to be breaking down the wards around the nasty-bad-wrong ring. Winky narrowed her eyes when she saw it, but she was not saying anything about what the stone in the ring was.

That was not being any of her business. Master Harry might be having the Cloak, but he was not going to be getting the Stone or the Stick if Winky was having anything to say about it. Her sweet Master Harry was going to be growing up and siring as many babies as possible for Winky to raise, yes, he most certainly was.

No fancy cup, from Mistress Bella’s vault, or nasty-bad-wrong polluted Stone, from the Gaunt shack, was threatening her Master Harry’s future. No, indeed.

“Huh,” Heir Bill said once Gravelvoice and his team returned with the Stone and it’s nasty-bad-wrong ring setting. “That’s a strong one. Different, too.”

“Different or not, is not Winky’s problem,” Winky declared. “When is the ritual to destroy them all going to be? Winky needs to be guarding her Master Harry to make sure that none of the nasty-bad-wrong magic is going after him.”

Gravelvoice tapped his claws against the hilt of his sword as he considered the objects and the two soul orbs. “It will be soon. I will check with the ritual team. This will be very difficult to keep contained.”

Winky snorted, crossing her arms over her chest. “Dobby! Kreacher!”

Both of them immediately popped to Winky’s side, staring at her with eager eyes and excited magic thrumming through them.

“What else is needed to make sure that this is happening right?” Winky asked.

Dobby frowned. “Is probably needing Professor Flitwick. He is close to Master Harry. He can be serving as the Hand of Prophecy if is needed. Master Harry can be giving Professor Flitwick command of the doing. Would being very honorable for him and for Master Harry.”

“Hm, good point,” Gravelvoice said, eyebrows going up in approval. “Very good point, indeed.”

“Kreacher and Dobby should be taking part in it as well,” Kreacher said with a little nod to Winky. “Not only because we is courting and thus is very strong. Will be making us even stronger, too. No, we should be taking part in it because Dobby is Master Harry’s Secret Elf and Kreacher is Master Harry’s godfather’s elf. We is supposed to being the ones to take risks to be protecting him.”

“Oh, very good,” Winky agreed. “That would be making the magic really strong. Winky approves. And with Winky by Master Harry’s side, as he is being safe in Hoggywarts with all its wards and its love for him, that will being the very safest place for him to be.”

Heir Bill and Gravelvoice exchanged looks, a bit wide-eyed and with their eyebrows raised in surprise, but that was being fine. Wizards and goblins was not being as deeply entrenched in the Elf Stream as elves was. They could not be seeing and feeling and just knowing what was needing to be done. They was needing to do magic and math and testing to learn.

“That is what we is doing,” Winky decided. “Can being done tonight? Sooner it is being done, the sooner Winky can get everything properly and fully cleaned up.”

Dobby nodded his agreement. “Taking too long is being silly. We is having everything but Professor Flitwick. Dobby can be going and telling him that he is being needed. Will only take a minute. All of his little Claws is sleeping or at least reading in bed while they is reading.”

Gravelvoice shook his head. “Very well. Go notify Flitwick that we need his presence at the bank. We’ll get the ritual chamber prepared. Bill, make sure that these are secured for transport to the ritual room.”

“Yes, sir,” Heir Bill said. “Right away.”

And that was being that.

Winky nodded approvingly before popping back to her Master Harry.

He was sleeping nice and deep, tucked into his bed at Hogwarts. Normally, Winky would be wanting him to be safe at Potter Keep, but tonight it was being better that Hogwarts was watching over him.

While Winky waited for the boys to destroy the nasty-bad-wrong bits and bobs of the Dark Lord, Winky set to work warding Master Harry’s trunk so that Friend Ron could not be randomly poking through it. He was being polite so far, but Winky was not being the trusting sort. No, she was not.

Her Master Harry’s thing was going to be safe, just like Master Harry. Winky would make it happen and no one had better be getting in her way.

***

“Sir, I’ve got an odd question before the ritual.”

“The elves?”

“Hah, yeah. Um, are they actually that much more powerful than a normal elf? Or is something else going on?”

“Ah, Bill, you are too young to remember the last time a house elf was formally courted. It was… inspiring the chaos they caused. Winky was vicious and powerful and as dangerous as Hungarian Horntail in heat. She drove her courters until their magic was so strong that it threatened the Statute of Secrecy.”

“…And Harry’s okay with this? And Sirius? No, what am I saying. Of course they’re fine with it. Harry would just want Winky to be happy with a new baby and Sirius would be in it for the chaos itself.”

“Exactly.”

“It will help with the ritual, right?”

“I doubt we could do it so quickly and simply without them. We would have to wait for the proper astronomical convergences, make huge sacrifices or pull in a truly massive coven to accomplish it. One horcrux? A simple matter. Two? More complicated, certainly, but not that bad. No, the issue here is the sheer number of them, the weight of the prophecies pushing down on them, and the fact that we have two shades to deal with. All from the same misbegotten fool. We need the power that only courting elves could bring.”

“It won’t hurt Winky’s chance of having her baby, will it?”

“Oh, no, not at all. I imagine that those boys will come out of it two, maybe three times as powerful. It’s how elf magic works, always swelling to fill the need.”

“…forever?”

“No! Oh, no, not at all. Their magic will blend together when it reaches it point, sparking the soul and magic and life of a new child in Winky. All the excess will blend into the baby. The stronger they are, the stronger the child will be. It’s not the only way house elves can breed but it does produce the strongest, smartest, best elves.”

“Huh. And Winky is Harry’s.”

“Which means the baby will be a Potter elf, too. Yes, quite canny of the boy, but that’s the Potters for you. They’ve always been good at increasing their power and wealth.”

“Right. Well. We’d best get to work before they get back.”

“Indeed. I don’t fancy being flung about the ritual room by a frustrated, horny elf.”

 

 

10. To Snip a Thread

Professor Flitwick was being more than a little flustered as he pulled on his robes and smoothed his hair down. “This is so odd. I can’t imagine why they would need me in the middle of the night.”

“Dobby can be telling you,” Dobby said, rocking up on the toes of his lovely steel-toed work boots, “but not here. Must be waiting until we is getting there.”

“All right, then,” Professor Flitwick said. “Off we go. Gringotts!”

The portkey caught Professor Flitwick and whisked him off to Gringotts, to the outer chamber of the ritual room that Gravelvoice had been setting aside for the ceremony. Dobby popped after him. There was being no reason for Dobby to be suffering through a portkey. Popping was being a much superior method of traveling with much less swooping and looping and flying through space.

Dobby was not being certain why wizards was so fond of portkeys and floo and apparition given how inferior they was being, but maybe they was just liking to be disoriented when they was going somewhere.

Either way, Professor Flitwick greeted Gravelvoice properly in Gobbledygook before turning to Dobby with a confused frown.

“You is being asked to take up yous magic and yous arms to protect the Great Harry Potter,” Dobby explained with a formal nod to Professor Flitwick who sucked a sharp breath between his teeth. “The Great Harry Potter is having a vast destiny with prophecies both from both wizard-kind and goblin Seers. He is being destined to be the one to destroy You-Know-Who, which he has been doing already. But You-Know-Who was trying to cheat death, so he was creating horcruxes. They has all been gathered by Winky and her suitors, one of which is being Dobby. As the Great Harry Potter is but a child, and Winky is his First Elf, she is asking Dobby, her suitor, to be asking you, the Great Harry Potter’s teacher, to be working with the goblins to destroy the last remnants of You-Know-Who.”

Since both Professor Flitwick and Gravelvoice was looking kind of like Dobby had bludgeoned them with a shovel halfway through his carefully crafted little speech, Dobby gave them a moment to parse it all out. It was being a pity that so few people learned proper grammar.

Once they nodded sharply that they’d finally gotten Dobby’s meaning, Professor Flitwick with a very determined stare and a delighted little twirl in his magic, Dobby continued more familiarly. Formal was being Kreacher’s thing, not Dobby’s.

“Winky is already doing the hard part,” Dobby said with a happy sigh for how wonderful she was being. “She was making the soul orbs and getting both Kreacher and Dobby all wound up so we is having the magical power to resist and control the horcruxes. She is so amazing.”

“She certainly is,” Professor Flitwick agreed firmly enough that he really meant it instead of just humoring Dobby the way most wizards did. Good goblin blood in him, that was being the difference. “I do hope you succeed in your courtship, Dobby. And yes, of course I’d be delighted to be Mr. Potter’s Hand in this matter of Fate.”

“Dobby is thanking you!” Dobby said, clapping his hands.

The ritual room was already set up with the proper circle and spells. It was being a totally new ritual chamber, freshly cut from the living rock. Dobby would have been sweeping up the gravel and bits of sand from the corners, maybe smoothing out the roughly hewn walls, but it didn’t seem to be mattering to the goblins.

Their magic hummed with the rightness of destroying something old and evil in a space that was fresh and new. Which was being fair, honestly. Dobby was just of the opinion that neatness was important, not that it was being his place to be commenting.

All of the bits of You-Know-Who was sitting on the floor in the center of the circle, which Professor Flitwick was checking out very carefully before taking his spot as the Hand of Fate. Every rune was being verified. Every circle was studied and approved of. Professor Flitwick was even nodding firmly at the piles of sand and gravel.

Professor Flitwick was liking it, so they was staying. Every bit of the circle bloomed into shimmering blue light as Professor Flitwick was approving them.

The gravel was staying gravel.

So untidy.

Heir Bill was at the edge of the circle opposite Dobby, grim and determined and the only fully human wizard there. The other curse breakers in the ritual ranged around the circle, each in their own little circle with protective runes that gleamed like blue fire under their feet.

Despite You-Know-Who being in pieces and bound to objects, dark magic drifted inside of the circle like smoky clouds from a smoldering fire.

But it was not being You-Know-Who trying to break free. No, that was Fate itself pressing against the ritual circle and the magic of all of them working together. Fate was more tricksy than the Wheezy twins and more powerful than even the Elf Stream.

An elf could try to fight magic. He could wrestle with giants or attempt to drain the ocean if he was courting hard enough. If Dobby tried hard enough and believed strongly enough, Dobby knew he could be warping time and space and making miracles happen.

It was being part of what elves did, after all.

But no elf was being fool enough to fight Fate.

She was demanding a battle and they was going to have to fight it with everything they was having. Nasty-bad-wrong You-Know-Who and his Dark magic against all of them and Light magic; that was what was at stake tonight.

As Kreacher checked his completely unfair, cheating like a cheater Time Keeper, Professor Flitwick nodded his approval and raised his wand.

“At the stroke of midnight,” Professor Flitwick announced.

“So mote it be,” Gravelvoice agreed, raising his staff at the same time as all the other curse breakers, including Heir Bill who had a very nice wooden staff with inlaid lines of mithril curling down its shaft.

“So mote it be,” Dobby agreed as he raised his hands and mustered all the magic that he had between himself, Kreacher and Winky.

And Master Harry who stirred in his sleep only to sigh as the Potter family magic took up the weight of the circle.

“Is very good,” Winky said firmly from her post guarding Master Harry as he slept in his bed in Hogwarts. “Winky is very pleased with what Gravelvoice and Heir Bill have been doing.”

“Is very good,” Kreacher agreed as if he was surprised that they was capable of it instead of being a Gringotts curse breaking team. “Is time to focus and protect Lord Sirius’ heir.”

“Yes,” Dobby agreed.

He was not being the sort of elf who was taking part in such rituals. Old Master Malfoy had an elf for rituals. She hummed in the Elf Stream, peeking at the circle and then ducking down into the Elf Stream where it was being safe. But before she was hiding, she added her approval of the circle, too.

All the other elves on the Island hid in the Elf Stream, leaving it flowing freely through Kreacher to Winky and then on to Dobby.

It was being that way because even though Winky had the title of First Elf, she was not actually being Master Harry’s First Elf. That was Dobby who was sneaky and got First with his Old Bond. Dobby wasn’t allowing himself to preen as the Potter Magic flowed smoothly and naturally through him into the circle, not even when Professor Flitwick’s eyebrows went up in surprise.

Whatever Professor Flitwick was realizing from that smooth, smooth supply of magic, he was not commenting on it.

Kreacher counted down the seconds in the Elf Stream. On the stroke of midnight, Professor Flitwick began the chanting, supported by the curse breakers who was filling the air with booming voices and pounding magic. Heir Bill’s magic flowed outwards into the circle like a bolt of silk cast out to be cut into the finest gown.

Dobby was spinning their magic, the elf magic, into a net over the circle to being sure that nothing of You-Know-Who or his Fate escaped.

The Potter magic was settling onto Professor Flitwick’s shoulders like a cloak, wrapping him up in its power and history. He shuddered but did not stop with the chanting. His focus was staying perfect, stabbing like a sword at the nasty-bad-wrong of the horcruxes and the Darkness.

Magic throbbed in Dobby’s ears. He was gritting his teeth and holding on. Off in Grimmauld Place, Kreacher groaned and bowed his head, but he was not letting his magic stop flowing into Winky’s hands, either.

She was sitting, straight and prim in her so-beautiful Continental uniform, by Master Harry’s bed. The curtains around his bed was not even ruffling. Winky kept the magic so calm, so strong and focused and pure, that there was being no sign at all of just how much she was pouring into Dobby.

“You is not giving in,” Winky said matter-of-factly as if she was not shivering with the rising power of Fate pushing back against all of them.

“Dobby is not,” Dobby agreed.

And he was not. He was not being the sort of elf who was normally part of rituals like this. Dobby was an elf who was breaking things and making things. This was being a different sort of breaking, a different sort of making. Instead of Dobby doing the breaking and making with his own magic and hands, he was having to give everything to the circle and to Professor Flitwick.

Whose mustache bristled, blue sparks coming off the tips. Whose eyes glowed from within with blue and green and gold and red and yellow magic. Whose voice was not slowing or hesitating at all as he was chanting and waving his wand over and over and over in just the right ways to be gathering all the magic.

Into a sword.

That stabbed at the soul orb, shattering it. Into the other soul orb, rendering it to dust. Into the cup which fell into two perfect halves. Into the diadem which shattered into all its many component jewels and bits of glittery metal.

And into the ring.

The Stone was hopping out of the ring, Death magic swirling peaceably over its dark grey surface.

Then the ring melted into a puddle of gold.

All the pieces of You-Know-Who rose up out of the wreckage. They was merging together into a tortured shade that screamed as it scrambled at the Stone as if it was being able to use the Stone when it was being dead.

Dobby was glaring at the shade, but he was not losing his temper at the remnants of the nasty-bad-wrong man who had hurt his Master Harry a long time ago. No, he was not. Dobby kept the magic swirling, kept the net over the whole circle so that when the shade wailed and tried to fly away, to escape from Professor Flitwick, it smacked right into Dobby’s net.

Which bulged and then snapped back, sending the shade tumbling back down onto the debris where the focus on Professor Flitwick’s magic was the strongest.

Dobby, Kreacher and Winky all groaned as Fate hammered on all of them.

The Dark magic of the shade’s fate roared and charged at the Light magic of Master Harry’s fate.

They crashed into each other. Dobby was not knowing what anyone else was seeing, but to his eyes it was being very like watching a huge black dragon smash into a huge yellow-and-green dragon. They was clawing at each other, biting and kicking and roaring defiance as the Dark fate and the Light fate tried to be tearing each other apart.

Winky was being very far away. So was Kreacher. The bank, the ritual, all of it was being so very, very, very far away from Dobby. None of it was feeling as real as the fates battling each other.

But he could be hearing Professor Flitwick’s voice.

And he could feel Kreacher’s magic throbbing as it grew inside of him to answer this need of Winky’s.

And Winky was there, too, even if she was so far away.

Prim and proper and as strong as the whole world.

Dobby sucked in a breath and let it out slowly as he was holding on.

Because beside Winky, sweet, beautiful Winky, was Dobby’s Great Harry Potter.

And no battle would ever be too much for Dobby if he was fighting for his Great Harry Potter.

Suddenly, so abruptly that Dobby almost was falling flat on his face, the Dark fate collapsed in a rush of magic leaving this plane. The Light fate bloomed outwards like a huge old oak tree growing in the space of moments.

Dobby was opening his eyes.

He was not sure when he was closing them, but he was opening them again. The ritual circle was not glowing anymore. Professor Flitwick was kneeling, panting harshly. Heir Bill had collapsed to his hands and knees. All the goblins, even Gravelvoice, was on one knee as they was panting, too.

All the stuff in the center of the circle was just being… stuff. Jewels and bits of metal and all.

The Dark magic was being gone.

“Is gone?” Dobby asked. He was just barely managing to sit down on his bottom instead of falling on his face.

“Yes,” Professor Flitwick said, laughing a little. “Yes, it’s done. He’s gone for good. That was… I’m very glad that Winky asked me to be Mr. Potter’s Hand. I wouldn’t have wanted the poor boy to attempt that.”

“No,” Gravelvoice agreed. “It would not have gone well.”

“That was… that was harder than I expected,” Heir Bill admitted as he wiped the sweat from his face with one shaking hand. “I didn’t expect it to take a full hour.”

Dobby flopped backwards on the floor, not listening to them as they was discussing what had happened from their point of view. They was not seeing the fates, obviously. And they was definitely not seeing magic dragons fighting. If they had been seeing it, they would have been mentioning it for sure.

No, Dobby was focusing on Winky who was still sitting next to Master Harry.

She was still sitting stiff and serious.

And mad.

Very, very mad. Furious even. Dobby was not expecting that Winky would be so mad when they was fixing the problem.

“That is being because the problem is not being fixed,” Winky said so snippily that every single elf other than Kreacher, who was face-down in the kitchen at Grimmauld Place, and Dobby winced as they once again hid in the Elf Stream.

“What is you saying?” Dobby asked. “Nasty-bad-wrong magic is gone. Dark Lord’s shade is gone. Master Harry is being safe now. Isn’t he?”

“No,” Winky said, rage thrumming through her. “You is tired, but you is not that tired. You is looking at the magic around Master Harry. You is looking at Master Harry’s fate.”

Dobby was not being any kind of a fool, so he was shutting his eyes and looking.

Then his magic was throbbing with fury because there was still nasty-bad-wrong fate wrapped around Master Harry.

It was not being Dark magic, though. It was being Light magic.

Nasty-bad-wrong Light magic was curling around Master Harry, visible now that the shadows of the Dark Fate and the Dark Lord’s shade was being gone. It was being under the magic left from Master Harry’s parent’s sacrifice. The Light magic was shaping not just him but his parents and Master Harry’s Dogfather and all the Hogwarts elves and Professor Flitwick and so many, many, many others.

“How is Light magic going nasty-bad-wrong?” Kreacher asked as he hauled himself upright again. “Is always fading when it is finishing its work. Is like a mist burned away by the sun. Cannot be staying once is done working.”

“Winky is not knowing,” Winky said.

Dobby almost ducked down into the Elf Stream to escape Winky’s fury. Even though she was saying it so matter-of-fact and was sitting so still and straight and proper, it was feeling like she was half a second away from erupting like a volcano all over Hogwarts.

Worse, through Winky, Dobby could feel that Hogwarts was being nearly as mad as Winky. He was not able to tell exactly why. He was being too tired for that right now, though his magic was swelling inside of him to match the increased need he’d had.

Once he was getting back to Hogwarts, Dobby was asking Hogwarts just what was being the problem. Before Dumbledore could be waking up. Hogwarts could be speaking in much more explicit terms when there was not being any wizards or witches awake to overhear. Especially when Dumbledore was being asleep.

He was nosy and Hogwarts was not liking it when headmasters was getting into her business.

“Not yet,” Dobby agreed. “But Dobby is suspecting that Winky is right in the middle of it. You is in the middle of the Leader of the Light’s place, after all.”

“Ohhhh,” Kreacher breathed. “That is not being good. That is not being good at all.”

No, it was not good.

Unfortunately, Dobby was having to sit up and pay attention to Professor Flitwick and Gravelvoice and Heir Bill. He could not be running straight back to Master Harry’s side to protect him and investigate what was going on with the nasty-bad-wrong Light magic.

“I is handling it,” Winky told Dobby and Kreacher. “You is doing your tasks. Winky will be calling on you when she is needing you.”

“Okay,” Dobby said. He bit his lip as he sat back up. “Winky is being careful?”

“Winky is being sneaky and not letting anyone know what she is doing,” Winky promised. “Even sneakier than Dobby.”

“That is being good,” Kreacher said. “Kreacher is asking Lord Sirius. He can be doing sneaky things here, asking questions and finding out just how far back the nasty-bad-wrong Light magic goes. Kreacher is remembering things old Master Arcturus used to be saying about Dumbles and Grindelwald. He is remembering things that was rumored.”

Dobby nodded, very slightly. “Dobby is remembering those things as well. Plus lots and lots of articles that was being written about how Great and Powerful Dumbles was. He is thinking that Dumbles might not be wanting to give all that up.”

“No,” Winky agreed with a little sniff of disapproval. “He might not be wanting to give any of it up. Well. We is having more work to do, so we is going to do it.”

Dobby agreed and stood up, wandering over to listen to the goblins discussing the ritual. He would be listening and commenting, encouraging them to be investigating thoroughly. Whatever Dumbledore was doing, Winky would be figuring it out.

And Dobby would be making sure that Master Harry was safe from the nasty-bad-wrong Light magic just as much as he had with the nasty-bad-wrong Dark magic.

Yes, he would.

***

“Poppy?”

“Severus, what’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen the proverbial ghost.”

“I… your office, please. This isn’t.”

“Hmm, right. In you go. Just sit down. I’ll get you a calming draught and then you can tell me what the problem is.”

“…”

“Now, just breath for me, Severus. In, out, nice and slow. There you go. Taking effect?”

“Hah, yes, of course it is. That’s the strongest version I’ve brewed for you.”

“Well, I wasn’t kidding that you looked terrible. The colors back in your cheeks. Eyes are dilating properly. Pulse has slowed. Your magic has calmed as well. Now, tell me.”

“Look.”

“…!”

“I. I spilled some oil. Just a drop. I managed to neutralize it immediately, but the residue on my hands, my sleeves, had to be dealt with. So I went to change my robes and shirt and…”

“The Mark is gone. You’ve no idea when it happened?”

“No, I do know. It happened in the last hour. Between midnight and 1:03 am. The personal potion I have brewing needed to be stirred continuously during that hour. Before I started, I washed my hands and arms thoroughly to prevent any chance of contamination.”

“And once the hour was up, you did something with the erumpent oil, spilling a drop.”

“Exactly. And the Mark was gone. It’s gone, Poppy. The Dark Lord is gone.”

“Dead, you mean. Fully and completely dead, not hanging on by his proverbial fingernails as he was.”

“Yes.”

“Oh, Severus, that’s wonderful! You can finally be free. I know how much you hate teaching the younger students. Don’t give me that look. I know you wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for your promises.”

“True. But. I still have debts to repay.”

“Well, think about it. At the end of the year, I’ll ask you again if you want to continue. I hope that your answer will be different then. You deserve happiness just as much as anyone else.”

“…Nonsense. I’m perfectly fine.”

“Don’t bother lying to me, Severus. I know you better than that. Now. Off to bed with you. It’s a class day tomorrow. You need your sleep and so do I.”

“…Thank you, Poppy.”

“Not at all, Severus. Not at all. I’m so very happy for you.”

 

 

11. To Find a Lord

“You’re sure you’re okay?” Master Harry murmured as he let Winky comb through his hair, smoothing it with a bit of elf magic and some Sleekeazy Potion. “Because you’re not feeling okay, Winky. Neither is Dobby.”

“Master Harry is not fussing over it,” Winky replied firmly. “Master Harry is just a boy, a child. He is too young to be knowing anything about deep magics or nasty-bad-wrong magic wrapping around peoples. Yes, he most certainly is. Mistress Wheezy was being very firm about that.”

Master Harry was turning to peer over his shoulder, one eyebrow raised at the pure sarcasm in Winky’s voice. His lips was twitching with amusement as his bright green eyes sparkled at Winky.

The Potter Magic was humming, deep and dangerous, inside of him.

“Well, I certainly wouldn’t want to mess with anything too mature for me,” Master Harry said. “How much cover do you need? Do I need to pick a fight with Malfoy or something? Or just be obnoxiously excited the whole Triwizard thing? I can probably convince Hermione and Ron and Neville to come with me to the library to research it.”

“This is being an excellent plan, Master Harry,” Winky replied.

She patted his hair with approval. It was still being a mess, of course. The Potter gifts did not be lending themselves to smooth, sleek, neat hair. But it was being a mess with artistically rumpled curls and waves that was draping around Master Harry’s forehead and cheeks in ways that was making him look stylish.

“Looks good?” Master Harry asked without touching his hair. He hesitated as if afraid that moving or breathing or even asking about his hair would be making it go wildly out of control again.

“Very good,” Winky said approvingly. “You is looking stylishly rumpled instead of just rolled out of bed rumpled. Is an improvement. You should be going to breakfast and eating well. Ask many, many excited questions, especially if Dumbles is there. Winky is wanting to see how he is reacting.”

“Done,” Master Harry said, nodding.

While Master Harry was not noticing it on account of being just a hair too young for such goings-on and also on account of his being a silly boy who was being an idiot about romance, he was getting some very approving looks at breakfast.

Miss Grangy, of course, was polite as she was complementing Master Harry’s hair. Her looks was being a good bit more than just politeness since Miss Grangy was older and definitely into the age when young witches was thinking with their hormones and not with their brains. But that was okay. She was having a good head on her shoulder. She would not be going all boy-crazy, or at least she was elf-like enough that she was only going to be going crazy for the boys who was worth being crazy over.

Like Master Harry.

Little Master Malfoy was tripping and nearly landing on his face when he was seeing Master Harry across the Great Hall. That was setting Dobby to snickering in the Elf Stream. Winky was being just as amused about it. Little Master Malfoy would be having a very long row to hoe if he was wanting to court Master Harry when they came of age, but Malfoys had been doing stupider things in the past.

Friend Ron was looking a little sour while Master Neville was looking a little awed at the change. Master Neville made a point of making a very real and very serious complement for Master Harry’s looks, complete with giving him tea and some foods that Master Harry liked.

Winky was not being sure that she approved of such early courtships, but wizards and witches did tend to be making their matings very young.

Fortunately for Winky’s peace of mind, Master Harry was not taking the complement, or the courting offers, as courting offers. That was good. Winky’s Master Harry deserved the very best mate, but not yet. He was still being a little boy. Winky wanted him to be enjoying his childhood for a while longer before he was diving into courting craziness.

It was about that point that Master Harry set into his excited speculation about the Triwizard Tournament, which pretty quickly was consuming not just his table but all the tables. Even the teacher’s table was filled with quiet mutterings about whether or not it was being a good idea and who the teachers was thinking would be good candidates.

The whole time, Dumbledore was watching Master Harry.

Not obviously, no, but it was being there. Dumbledore’s eyes was staying on the Gryffindor table even when little Mistress Bones was spilling her pumpkin juice all over her clothes and all over her friend’s clothes. The shouting and wails of dismay was capturing everyone else’s attention but not Dumbledore’s.

Every word Master Harry was saying was being soaked up by Dumbledore. His wand, the Death Stick, was sitting on the table next to his hand. Dumbledore was occasionally fiddling with it, running his fingers over it before aiming it slightly to the left or to the right.

When he did, very subtle magic was shimmering around Master Harry’s friends.

Compulsions. Memory charms. Tiny little blessings that was being oddly underpowered only to have them be followed by tiny little curses what set the little blessings off. That was making the children twitchy and cranky, especially Friend Ron who was all of a sudden being jealous of Master Harry for no good reason.

“He is doing something,” Winky complained to Dobby and Kreacher. “Winky is seeing it. She is seeing it right now.”

“He is,” Kreacher agreed. “Lord Sirius was complaining about it this morning.”

He was at the market getting food for Lord Sirius, but his attention was mostly on what Winky was seeing. It was being a good thing that Kreacher was an old, strong elf or he wouldn’t be doing his job properly.

“Master Harry’s Dogfather is seeing the same little curses and blessings battling inside of people?” Dobby asked from the Come-and-Go room where he was busy fixing all the boxes.

“He is,” Kreacher agreed with his attention now firmly on his shopping and his cheeks mint-green. “Master Wolfy is agreeing that he is seeing the same thing many times. Both of them is remembering times when they is doing stupid things for stupid reasons. All was happening after they was interacting with Dumbles. He is doing something, but Kreacher is not knowing why.”

Winky hummed thoughtfully.

She was not following Master Harry to his classes. There was not being a point to guarding him quite that closely. With the nasty-bad-wrong Dark Lord properly gone, there was not being much chance of anyone attacking Master Harry in class. Even Crazy-Eye Moody was being more or less stable in his classes, much to Winky’s surprise.

The parents of the nasty-bad-wrong Dark Lord’s followers had to be knowing that he was being gone for good. Not just being gone, but gone. Actually and forever gone.

There was not being enough time yet for them to be telling their children. Actually, for wizards and witches, there was not yet being time for them to be accepting that the nasty-bad-wrong Dark Lord was gone-gone. Would probably be taking a day or two. Maybe several weeks for the stupider and more stubborn followers.

So yes, Winky was paying attention to who was around Master Harry, but she was not focusing on it closely.

No, she was closely watching Dumbledore.

Because there was being only one person who could be the root cause of the nasty-bad-wrong Light magic still swirling around her Master Harry. No one else was being as strong in Light magic. No one else was claiming to be Lord of the Light magic, not that was actually being a Lord of Light magics. That had not been happening for generations and generations.

For a very good reason. All the elves knew how Lords of Light and Lords of Dark magic was fighting. No one was being stupid enough to be claiming the Lordship for real when they was knowing that it would be starting a war among the wizards and witches that might be causing the death of Magic.

Dark Lords was being dumb enough to do it.

No Light wizards or witches had been dumb enough for it.

Maybe.

Watching Dumbledore made Winky think that maybe she was being foolish. Because Dumbledore was being very serious when he was calling himself a Lord of Light magic.

“But Dumbles magic is not being Light,” Tilly protested from her assigned post in the laundry. “Momma, you is knowing that. He is very Grey.”

“Winky is knowing that,” Winky agreed as she crept around outside Dumbledore’s office, testing all the watching spells and wards and sneaky little blessing-curse bundles that he was setting up to keep people out.

Kreacher hummed as he sauteed mushrooms and onions in Grimmauld Place. “The question is being whether or not Dumbles is knowing that.”

“Winky should be asking Fawkes,” Tilly said, huffing at her laundry. “He is liking house elves. He is very much liking Momma’s Master Harry. Fawkes would be answering Winky if she was asking properly.”

“This is being very true,” Winky said.

There was being no way for Winky to be asking Fawkes while he was being in Dumbledore’s office. Dumbledore was not leaving his office, not for a long time, since Mistress Kitty had set down a mountain of paperwork that was needing to be signed and threatening to be pulling out his beard hair by hair if he was not doing it immediately. Dumbledore had been looking very cowed over that and had promptly been starting in on the stack, so yes, he would be busy for a long while.

So Winky was gathering up fruit for Fawkes, nice mangos and ripe cantaloupe with a perfectly ripe pineapple, before she was going off to the Come-and-Go Room.

“This is looking much better,” Winky said, staring around the now neatly organized and properly clean room. “Is almost a useful place.”

Dobby preened. “Dobby is thanking Winky! Was a very good project. Dobby is sad that it is almost being over.”

Winky nodded thoughtfully. “Is it being almost over? Hoggywarts is making many rooms out of this one. Winky is thinking that maybe they is being all layered on top of each other. They might be all needing to be cleaned and mended.”

Dobby’s eyes widened in shock. Then he gasped and stared around the Come-and-Go room as it wavered between the room he had been spending so much time in to a hundred other rooms, each of which was different and each of which was needing work, too.

Winky winced as Dobby screamed in joy and did a victory dance. “Dobby is taking his shenanigans elsewhere while Winky is talking to Fawkes. Is serious business.”

“Sorry,” Dobby said, giggling and dancing in place. “Dobby is getting the best assignments! He is staying. He is wanting to hear what Fawkes is saying personally.”

They worked together to setup a nice perch for Fawkes, one that had a place for the fruit and good thick bark on the branches so he could be working his claws on it to sharpen them as he wished. Once it was set up, Fawkes flamed in without them even saying his name.

Fawkes chirped and then trilled happily at the fruit.

“Is for you, yes,” Winky agreed. “Winky is having questions, but she is being a good hostess first, as is proper.”

Fawkes trilled a little laugh about that before tearing into the pineapple with delight. Being a good hostess, Winky waited until he was being finished with it before she hummed softly to be catching his attention again.

“The nasty-bad-wrong Dark Lord is being gone-gone now,” Winky explained. “We was thinking that his being defeated, and dead would being enough to clear Master Harry’s Fate, but there was being a second layer of Fate under the Dark one. Winky is wondering if Fawkes is knowing why Dumbles is sculpting everyone with the Elder Wand.”

Fawkes barked angrily, his flames roaring around him as he was complaining about Dumbledore’s absolute belief that he was being the most important and most powerful person in the world. It was all part of how he was working to make himself always in charge. Worse, he was doing it since he was a very young man so there was being layers on layers on layers of Dumbledore’s magic all over the world that was needing to be cleaned up.

“Well, that is not being good,” Winky complained. “Winky and Dobby is not being enough elves to be taking care of that much mess.”

“No,” Dobby agreed, arms crossed over his chest as he glowered. “We is needing more help.”

Fawkes nodded as he was nibbling on the mangos, interspersed with little bites of the cantaloupe. He was chirp-trill-chirping several suggestions about how to be undoing the nasty little things Dumbledore was doing to people without it needing to be another big ritual.

“Oh, that would be good,” Winky agreed even though she was thinking that it was being easier just to be killing Dumbledore than fussing with undoing things that he could be doing all over again in a moment. “You should be eating all your treats and then going to be taking a shite on Dumbles bed. He is deserving it.”

Both Dobby and Kreacher cackled about that, as did Tilly who giggled into her work in the kitchen. Fawkes’ eyes was gleaming brightly at the idea so hopefully he would be doing it.

Not that Winky stayed to continue talking. There was being work to be done and Fawkes was more than able to be making his way wherever he wanted whenever he wanted.

Master Harry was slipping away from the others in the library as soon as Winky was nudging his magic slightly. The others wasn’t noticing, not even with Master Harry’s very nicely styled hair making him look so very good. He was hurrying through the halls of Hogwarts back to his dorm room and then down through to Potter Keep.

“Winky?” Master Harry called as soon as he arrived.

“Winky thanks Master Harry for coming so quickly,” Winky said as she passed him a nice hot cocoa spiced with cloves and cinnamon and star anise. “Winky is finding a problem that is needing work, but she is needing help to be taking care of it properly.”

“Oh, nice,” Master Harry said after sipping the cocoa. “I love this. Make more of it, please. And sure, whatever help you need, we can get it. What do you need?”

“Winky is needing many more elves,” Winky explained.

She took the time to be explaining the entire problem to Master Harry. The Potter Magic took a little bit to react, probably because of the nasty-bad-wrong Light magic mussing it up so badly. But once Master Harry was realizing that his Dogfather and Uncle Moony and all his friends and Master Harry himself was being twisted up in knots by Dumbledore’s nastiness, he was being so furious that Potter magic throbbed through the Keep.

It was being a good thing that Master Harry had instinctively come to Potter Keep for this conversation.

Hogwarts would have been having no choice but to be notifying Dumbledore of the storm in Master Harry’s magic. Potter Keep was having no choice but to keep it very, very quiet, not that Potter Keep was being unhappy about it. Its wards thrummed with the need to be keeping Master Harry’s secrets safe.

Very good work by the goblins, very good indeed.

“Fine,” Master Harry finally was pouting into his empty mug. “I knew I couldn’t trust him. He made it really obvious over the last few years. Just didn’t realize that he was an Evil Overlord instead of a blithering idiot.”

“Now, that is not being nice to blithering idiots,” Winky said with a grin and a wagged finger in Master Harry’s direction. “Dumbles is not blithering. He is being a twinkly idiot.”

That set Master Harry to snickering instead of glowering, so it was being all right.

Either way, Winky put out a call into the Elf Stream for unattached elves who was being willing to work for the Potter Magic and for Master Harry. And who was willing to have an Old Bond that no one was going to be knowing about until after Master Harry was being a full adult.

It was bad enough that everyone was watching Winky and Master Harry because of their Old Bond. If the bad masters like Old Master Crouch or Master Malfoy was realizing that a little boy like Master Harry could support a dozen or more house elves with Old Bonds when they was only able to control two or three with New Bonds, they would be hunting Master Harry down and killing him outright.

The Bad Masters was never liking it when other people was having shinier toys than they had. Or more of them.

It was going to take a bit before they found enough elves who was willing to hide their bonds. Depending on who was deciding to take the leap to Master Harry’s side, it could be four elves or as many as a dozen.

Winky would find work for all of them. Master Harry would be helping, with great enthusiasm. He was already having many ideas thrumming through his magic that felt amazing to Winky.

But the most important work would be helping to stop Dumbledore’s nasty-bad-wrong little spells before someone, specifically Master Harry, was getting hurt. Winky didn’t need to watch or listen long to know that Dumbledore was planning very, very bad things for Master Harry.

Well, not on Winky’s watch. She would be keeping him safe so that she could be having more babies like her girl Tilly. And then, when Master Harry was being a grown-up and was finding his mate, Winky would be raising his babies, too.

All she had to do was keep Dumbledore from hurting Master Harry. Somehow.

Which was neither here nor there when it was time for Master Harry to be heading back to Hogwarts where his friends were looking for him and dinner was about to be served. Winky sent him off, tasking Dobby with picking the proper elves for Master Harry to bond with while she set to work testing a dozen different ideas of how to break Dumbledore’s hold on magical society.

***

“You’re sure about this, Padfoot?”

“Moony, you’ve watched the memories just like I have. You’ve seen the spells on both of us. And on everyone else we’ve checked.”

“I know. I know. It’s just.. why would he do that?”

“Who knows why that twinkly bastard does anything? I don’t give a flying fuck why he did it. I just want to know how to fix it.”

“Mm, point. Unfortunately, I don’t think we’re going to have any success unwinding the mess he’s made of our magic without understanding the why. None of my diagnostics are showing anything helpful.”

“Crap. And none of my spells are breaking any of it. How can he be this strong?”

“I wish I knew. At least now I understand why I kept running off to talk to the werewolf packs even though it never did any good. Dumbledore tweaked the spells on me, and I couldn’t help myself.”

“And every instance of me being a blithering idiot was preceded by Dumbledore having one of his bracing little talks with me. While fiddling with his wand.”

“Every one?”

“Yeah. …What? Why are you looking at me that way?”

“Oh, just remembering that… interaction… you had with Marlene McKinnon.”

“…”

“It was memorable. Especially the way she slapped you so hard you had a bruise for a week despite all the bruise balm you put on it.”

“…”

“The ringing in your ears from her howlers over the next month was pretty memorable, too.”

“…I hate you.”

“I love you too, Padfoot, but really now. You’re an idiot all the time. Dumbledore just makes it worse sometimes.”

“Uuugh!”

 

 

12. To Bind an Army

There was being Great Wisdom in the Old Ways.

Dobby had always been knowing that. All the elves was knowing it. It was being part of who and what a house elf was.

If you was being a house elf, you was born in the Elf Stream. You was growing up connected to magic so deep that it was being part of yous very soul. You was seeing, with yous own soul, just how well things went if the Old Ways of loving and following and respecting Magic was followed, and just how bad things went when you was not.

Dobby was still not realizing just how good the Old Ways were until he was set the task of finding Master Harry a bunch of new elves very, very fast.

“You is being very sure that this is being necessary?” Itzy was asking as they was waiting in Master Harry’s dorm room for Master Harry to get back from breakfast. “We is more than willing to be waiting to be sworn in.”

Itzy was very formal, even more formal than Kreacher since he was starting to court Winky. He was also being very short, so Dobby was not worrying about Winky choosing him. Not that Itzy was seeming at all interested in Winky, as unfathomable as that was being.

Itzy was far more interested in Crow, which was just being the craziest thing ever.

“No,” Dobby declared. “Must be sworn Potter Elf or you is not getting into Potter Keep. The wards is very strong and very carefully constructed and the Potter Magic is being even more serious about keeping Master Harry safe than we is being.”

Crow blew a raspberry from her perch on Master Harry’s trunk. She was lying on her back, one knee up and the other ankle draped over it in a pose that was almost human it was being so causal and rude. Where Winky was having her lovely lace-trimmed mob cap, Crow was wearing a bright blue bandana that she was twisting into a turban with two knots right over her ears.

It was very odd, but it was going well with the blue plaid miniskirt she was wearing. The lime green scarf she was wearing as a top was not matching either of them, but Dobby was thinking the not-matching was the point with Crow.

“Crow is feeling it,” Crow declared as she stared at Dobby all upside-down and odd. “The Potter Magic is wanting us there as soon as possible.”

“Is still not possible until we is getting everyone sworn to Master Harry,” Dobby declared.

That was being enough for Itzy who sighed. It was not being enough for Crow who groaned like she was being a teenager instead of a fully grown elf who was looking for a new home. If she was not feeling like just what Master Harry and the Potter Magic needed, Dobby would have been sending her on her way right then.

Just idly considering it was making Dobby’s magic itch inside of him, so no, Crow was being a Potter Elf even if she was being even more unconventional than Dobby, darn her anyway.

Not that he was being jealous of Crow for being so cool.

Of course not.

Off in the corner, hiding in the shadows like he was made of shadows, Zing was humming and then nudging the others. Dobby nodded. He was feeling Master Harry approaching for a bit. Crow started and swung her feet around so that she was sitting up properly. Thank goodness for that. Bitsy, Itzy’s brother, popped in to fidget behind Itzy.

They wasn’t looking at all alike, other than both being substantially smaller than most other elves. They was having different noses and different ears and different eyes and different toes, too, which was odd. Most siblings’ feet looked alike at least.

“Lenny, you is needing to be here,” Dobby called to the final elf who was still off fixing the boxes that Dobby was finding in the third layer of the Come-and-Go room.

“But there is still boxes,” Lenny protested as he popped in with a frustrated scowl. “I was not being done fixing them.”

“There is being other things which is needing fixed,” Dobby said. “And you is needing yous Old Bond to Master Harry before you is rushing off to fix things.”

“Fine,” Lenny huffed.

Actually huffed because he was being ridiculous about being the Best at Building and Fixing All The Things. Dobby sighed. They was needing someone who could fix all the things but the elves who was being the very, very best at it was not ever wanting to do anything other than fixing things. Lenny was very much one of those elves. Very strong, very good at what he was doing, but no flexibility outside of it.

Dobby was keeping all that firmly inside of his head. There was no need to be spewing all that over the Elf Stream, especially with Master Harry dashing into the room.

“No time,” Master Harry wheezed as he held out his arms to Itzy and Crow and Bitsy and Lenny and Zing. “I want you as my elves. Will you be mine?”

The Potter Magic was swirling hard and fast in Master Harry’s dorm room, urgent-urgent-urgent. Dobby peeked and then winced because there was being a small army of other boys coming up the stairs from the Great Hall. In just a minute, there was going to be so many people in the Gryffindor Tower.

“Yes,” Itzy declared as he gripped Master Harry’s hand. “I is.”

The Potter Magic was all but grabbing him it was so eager for him.

“Me, too!” Crow said as she flung herself into his lap and then was hugging him so hard that Master Harry wheezed and laughed as the Potter Magic seized her, too.

“Please?” Bitsy asked, biting his lip and then gasping as the Potter Magic surged around him.

Lenny just nodded, patting Master Harry’s shoulder. He was at least smiling as the Potter Magic accepted him. Zing was poking his head out of the shadows to grin and wink at Master Harry who laughed approvingly as the Potter Magic shimmered over Zing for a moment before turning him very, very invisible indeed.

“Ninja elf,” Master Harry said. “That’s awesome. Okay, everyone, Winky has plans that she needs help with. I want you to help her as much as you possibly can. Lenny, when you get a chance, I’d really like it if you’d offer to help the Weasley family with their house. It’s kind of… lopsided.”

Lenny beamed. “Lenny will be doing this thing.”

“Go to Gringotts for now,” Master Harry said. “I need Silverclaw to give you the Secret of Potter’s Keep before you can go there. It’ll just take a minute for me to get there. Later tonight I’ll want to talk to you all between your work. Be careful. Be quiet. Don’t let anyone know that you’re Potter Elves yet. It’s gotta be a secret for now.”

Because Dobby was picking the very best elves for his Great Harry Potter, they was all nodding and disappearing immediately. Dobby blew out a breath and then laughed as Master Harry patted his back fondly.

Then Master Harry was hurrying through the gate to Potter Keep and taking the Floo straight to Silverclaw’s office where Silverclaw was giving the others the secret of Potter Keep. Then they was popping Master Harry back to Potter Keep and he was running back through the gate back into his dorm room just before the other kids was arriving downstairs in the Gryffindor common room.

“Wow, so much running,” Master Harry wheezed as he flopped on his bed. “All right. Dobby, make sure the others know what they need to do. Let me know if you or they or anyone needs anything.”

“Dobby will,” Dobby promised.

Of course, it was going to be Winky who was setting the tasks for all of Master Harry’s elves. She was being the one truly in charge, but that was only because she was being the very best and most beautiful of house elves anywhere.

Winky rolled her eyes at Dobby as she worked with Tilly on Master Harry’s laundry under the eye of Dumbledore who’d “wandered by” to see how the Hogwarts elves were doing.

“Is there a problem?” Dumbledore asked Winky.

“Boys,” Winky replied with another roll of her eyes. “Always thinking that pretty words is being the way to win their love’s hearts. So silly. Pretty words is just words. Is the doing of things which is winning a house elf girl’s heart.”

“Dobby is so silly,” Tilly giggled. “Though you is being the prettiest and best house elf.”

“You is biased,” Winky teased, tugging one of Tilly’s ears gently. “You is Winky’s daughter. Of course you is thinking Winky is the best.”

Dumbledore opened his mouth. Dropped it open, really, as if he was not being aware that Winky and Tilly was family. Wizards. Always so bad at seeing the ties that was binding people together.

Honestly though, Dumbledore was being the very worst at seeing family. It was being very sad, if only Dumbledore was thinking family was anything anyone should be caring about. At least, it was shooing Dumbledore away from Winky so that she could be leaving the laundry to Tilly.

They was meeting in Potter Keep, of course. It was being the only truly secure place. Winky huffed as she popped in, fierce and lovely in her lacy Continental uniform.

“There is being many things wrong with Dumbles,” Winky declared. “Many things. I is needing so much help to be keeping him from hurting our Master Harry.”

All the other Potter Elves popped in, grim and determined other than Crow who grinned and wiggled her ears at Winky.

“I is already having two suitors,” Winky declared to Dobby’s great relief. “I is not needing a third right now. Would be too destructive and Crow is showing up too late.”

“Maybe Crow should be looking for suitors,” Crow replied with a little sniff of disapproval that was all disappointment hiding from view.

“You is asking Master Harry if so,” Winky said with a grim little smile of satisfaction. “Crow’s baby would be younger, but it would being good for Winky’s baby to have a younger sibling.”

Both Itsy and Bitsy was looking sort of terrified about that idea, but Zing was grinning like he was thinking that it would be a very good idea for two elves to be having babies at once. Dobby was staring at Zing in horror, but Zing was just shrugging and humming behind his black ninja mask. Because he was getting a ninja outfit to wear already.

It was not surprising. Master Harry had been very much liking Zing’s sneakiness. Adding official sneaky uniform was just making it all the better, really.

“I is having tasks for all of you,” Winky said with a firm nod that made the lace on her lovely mob cap bounce. “Lenny, the wards of Hogwarts is not being done well. The Hogwarts elves is not able to make fixes. Dumbles has forbidden it. You is not a Hogwarts elf. You is Master Harry’s elf. You is commanded to fix the wards of Hogwarts so that Master Harry will be properly safe. Zing, you is to help Lenny make the fixes sneaky. It should not being too hard for you to be doing that.”

“Very simple,” Zing agreed. “I is teaching Lenny how. Sneaky fixes is the best fixes. You is getting much more done that way.”

“Ohhh,” Lenny breathed with stars in his eyes. “Lenny is looking forward to learning how to be fixing even more things.”

“Good,” Winky said. “Itsy and Bitsy, you is taking care of Master Harry himself. Winky is doing her best, but he is needing a proper butler and he is needing a valet so very much.”

“Bitsy is not wanting to say anything but yes, he very much is needing a valet,” Bitsy agreed with a little grimace of dismay.

“Itsy will be butler,” Itsy decided after a look at his brother that was so deep into their shared magic that Dobby was not even feeling what they was thinking to each other. “Is much that must be done at Potter Keep to be making it right for Master Harry. That is being better work for Itsy.”

“Mm,” Bitsy agreed. “Bitsy will be valet. Is being a good arrangement.”

Winky nodded approvingly. “Crow, you is responsible for keeping Master Harry safe from Dumbles sneaky spells and plotty plots. Zing, you is working with her on that, too. The keeping safe is the big job for both of you. Is many little jobs that will be hiding the big job, but the key is that you is to keep Master Harry safe from all of Dumbles plottings and spells and stupid prophecy nonsenses.”

“Crow can be doing this,” Crow said with a confident grin. “Crow is very good at blocking spells and plots and stupidness.”

“Zing will be glad to be helping with that, too,” Zing agreed with a little look at Crow that implied he was thinking more about the working with Crow part than the keeping Master Harry safe part, but that was fine. What elf wouldn’t be distracted by a fine, strong female elf thinking about having babies?

Especially since they was all having Old Bonds and thus was being free to be making babies at will instead of needing permission from their master.

Winky studied them all. “Is big things coming. Bad things. Winky is seeing it in Dumbles magic and the ways he is sculpting everyone’s behavior. She is thinking that he was planning to use the Triwizard Tournament to pit Master Harry against the nasty-bad-wrong Dark Lord, but that is not happening now.”

“Cannot be,” Crow agreed. “Nasty-bad-wrong Dark Lord is gone-gone. That was being very fine work, too.”

Dobby preened, not that either Winky or Crow paid any attention to him. It was being fine. Dobby was taking the praise for what it was, honest appreciation of a job well done. He would be winning Winky’s hand as the courtship continued. It was not being time for winning yet, not with the wild magic so low between the three of them.

“But what can Dumbles be doing with the Tournament?” Lenny asked with the confusion of a fixing elf who was not fixing anything.

“Could be breaking the protections and making Master Harry participate against his will,” Zing said thoughtfully.

“Events could being made more dangerous than Master Harry could handle,” Crow agreed with a grimace of distaste. “Though it might be killing Master Harry to do so.”

“No, no, he would not be risking Master Harry that way,” Itsy declared. “He is not being stupid. If he is going to be doing anything, it would be trapping Master Harry to compete, then giving him no support or teaching, and then setting things up so that Mastery Harry has to fight against the dead-dead nasty-bad-wrong Dark Lord.”

Bitsy frowned. “But nasty-bad-wrong Dark Lord is dead. Cannot be fighting anyone. Is obvious.”

“Not to wizards,” Winky explained, patting Bitsy on the shoulder gently. “Wizards like Dumbles is being kind of blind and very stupid about seeing things. Is like big blind spots that they is not admitting they have.”

“Oh,” Bitsy breathed with a vaguely sickened expression on his face. “That is being so sad. Bitsy is not understanding how they is managing to keep living if they is that bad at things. Is so very obvious that nasty-bad-wrong Dark Lord is dead.”

Dobby nodded because yes, it really was, but unlike Bitsy, who was the youngest of all of them and not very experienced in anything besides being a valet, Dobby had far, far, far too much experience with just how blind wizards could be. Sad, but true. They was blind like naked mole-rats dragged out of their tunnels into the noonday sun.

None of which was really mattering right that moment. What was mattering was that Winky was having a plan to keep Master Harry safe from Dumbledore’s stupid plotty-plots that was not going to accomplish anything.

“Dumbles is very interested in the Triwizard Tournament,” Winky continued. “Winky is very sure that Dumbles is Planning Things. Stupid things, but still things. We is going to have to work together to be making sure that Dumbles is not getting Master Harry caught up in the Tournament.”

“That is for big kids,” Lenny protested. “Full grown, not for scrawny little boys who is not yet noticing that courting is a thing.”

“So true,” Winky sighed, shaking her head sadly. “But it is being a good thing for Master Harry to get to be a little boy for a while longer, so no one is to be telling him just how many wizards and witches is being interested in courting him.”

Lenny nodded with a little frown while Crow groaned dramatically while tugging on her ears as if this was the worst prohibition she was ever hearing in her entire life. It was mostly being for show, of course. Her magic echoed with the agreement that Master Harry was honestly just being a little too young for such things yet, but Crow was having fun with the drama, so Winky just flipped a hand back at her to dismiss her for show.

Two unrelated female elves in the same household was being a lot of excitement that Dobby was not being used to. It was interesting, though, especially since it was very, very, very clear in the Elf Stream that neither Winky nor Crow would be letting any of the boys to be acting the same way. It was just for girls.

“Bitsy will have to go through all Master Harry’s things to see that they is not spelled,” Bitsy mused while steadfastly ignoring the drama between Winky and Crow.

“That is being a very good idea,” Itsy agreed. “Itsy will do the same with all the places Master Harry goes and all the things he is touching.”

“Lenny will work on Hoggywarts,” Lenny decided. “It is needing help to keep Dumbles nasty-bad-wrong Light magic from hurting everyone but especially Master Harry.”

“Crow is putting ants in Dumbles mail,” Crow huffed.

“Crow can be going to Gringotts and getting stacks of un-banishable junk mail by the ton,” Dobby said with a huge grin and wiggle of his ears that made Winky start snickering. “Is not even very expensive.”

“There is being a house fund for anything we elves is needing to buy,” Winky said with a pious expression that was not hiding any of her approval for that plan.

“Zing is finding out just how he is doing his nasty-bad-wrong magic and then breaking it,” Zing said, startling them all because he’d disappeared so thoroughly that they’d all forgotten that he was there. “Zing is liking being the Potter Ninja Elf! He is liking it very, very much!”

Dobby was huffing at him along with Itsy, but Zing wasn’t caring. He was just grinning into the Elf Stream and then disappearing into the shadows again like the sneaky Ninja Elf that he was. It was being a very nice role. Dobby was almost being jealous of him for it but being the dashing and proactive Secret First Elf was better.

And listening to Kreacher whine and grumble in the Elf Stream about Winky being distracted from their courtship was being much, much, much better than being a sneaky Ninja Elf. Even if Zing did get to be extra super amazing sneaky like Dobby used to be when he was a Malfoy elf.

Winky and the others leveled flat stares at Dobby.

“You was never being sneaky, Dobby,” Winky said with her hands on her hips. “You was thinking you was, but you wasn’t. You was being the absolute worst at being sneaky.”

“Lies!” Dobby wailed, tugging at his ears in horror.

Master Harry’s apologetic agreement with Winky and the others only made him wail even harder. How could an elf bear such lies? Utter and complete lies, they was being!

Winky just shook her head and went back to planning how to keep Master Harry safe, as if she hadn’t just stabbed poor Dobby in the heart. Dobby whined one more time and then went back to planning too. No respect for Dobby, no respect at all.

***

“No, I understand that it’s legal mail. It isn’t my mail. That’s the point.”

“I’m terribly sorry, but that isn’t Gringotts’ problem, Headmaster Dumbledore. The mail was properly paid for and delivered. What you do with it after delivery is entirely up to you.”

“But you see, this mail isn’t addressed to me. At all. None of it. So obviously, the Goblins should—”

“The mail has been properly paid for and delivered. Anything further is not Gringotts’ problem.”

“…He ended the floo call! Minerva, he ended the call on me.”

“Yes, Albus, I’m quite aware of that. I’m also aware that I have a great deal of work that needs to be done, including most of your work.”

“Ah. Well. My office is packed from floor to ceiling with un-banishable mail currently, Minerva. I simply can’t handle the regular paperwork right now.”

“Nonsense, Albus. Come. Sit down, right here. That’s my most comfortable chair.”

“Mm, well, yes, it is quite comfortable… Ah. That’s paperwork, Minerva.”

“So it is. And this is a quill. Here’s the ink. Is the table at a good angle? Should I shift it a bit closer?”

“…Minerva, the table’s digging into my stomach. You can stop now.”

“Or maybe you can start signing, Albus. Now.”

“Well, I suppose… that I should, ah, sign these?”

“Yes. You should. As I requested you to three weeks ago.”

“…”

“Very good, Albus. Keep signing. I have a great many pieces of paperwork that I’ve been meaning to go over with you. So good that we now have time to sit down and go through them one by one.”

“…”

“Albus, you’ll either put the wand down or I’ll tie your bollocks in a knot.”

“Right. Yes, of course. Just shifting it to the side. More room for paperwork.”

“Good. Keep signing.”

13. To Guard a Goblet

Wizards was being so weird. Winky had never really been understanding wizards’ fascination with being as flashy as possible when they was doing perfectly ordinary things. It was being so much better to just be doing the thing, whatever the thing was, and getting on with it.

But no, wizards was needing to travel in flying carriages with pretty winged horses and sail in ships that was going under the water instead of over it. All the students around Master Harry was being very impressed, of course. They was being small still, so they was being easy to impress. Master Harry wasn’t being so impressed, but that was having more to do with Master Harry vibrating with nerves so badly that Winky was being a little bit surprised that his feet was not drilling down through the grass towards the bedrock that was supporting Hogwarts.

Master Harry frowned down at Winky.

“Yes, you really is that excited,” Winky said patting Master Harry’s hand fondly.

“Well, it’s cool,” Master Harry said with a silent thanks for her not saying out loud that he was being nervous and afraid, not excited.

“Mm, Winky supposes so,” Winky said with a little sniff of disapproval. “Is being much fuss for not much gain in Winky’s opinion. Winky is not much liking portkeys or the floo, but they is being faster and much more efficient that this is being.”

Even with her eyes and magic focused on Master Harry, Winky was feeling Dumbledore’s attention on them. It was being a very, very, very good thing that they was getting help last night. With Dumbledore watching her and Master Harry this way, it would be very hard to be getting anything done.

Itsy sniffed in the Elf Stream. “He is sticking that big nose in too many places, he is.”

“So many,” Zing murmured from so deep in the Potter Magic that his voice was disembodied, not even a hint of his appearance or presence. “Zing is finding more places he is causing trouble all the time. There is still no reason for it all, but there is much, much, much to be dealt with.”

Lenny promptly perked up about that. He really was one of those elves who could be doing his thing all the time, day and night, with no breaks at all. Master Harry was going to be challenged keeping Lenny busy.

A little laugh echoed in their bonds over that. Master Harry pictured poor Muggles who was having leaky roofs and bridges what was all worn out and about to fall down. Schools for little Muggles with mold and mildew and so many other things that Lenny wheezed while patting his chest from being so overwhelmed with all the things he could be fixing someday.

“Someday,” Winky thought hard at Lenny. “It is not being time for that yet, Lenny.”

“No, no, Lenny knows that,” Lenny said, taking the cup of hot cocoa that Tilly brought him. “Lenny just wasn’t knowing that there was being so many, many things that was needing fixing. Is beautiful!”

“Only if you is getting permission from Master Harry and from the peoples,” Dobby insisted. “Consent is being important. Some people is not liking charity.”

Lenny groaned but nodded that he understood. Reluctantly, of course. Hopefully he wouldn’t be haring off all willy-nilly to be fixing things he shouldn’t be. Zing privately nudged Winky, promising to keep an eye on Lenny so that he wouldn’t do that. And Bitsy promised to be there openly, too, so it should being okay.

Maybe.

Either way, Winky was glad when the headmaster and headmistress of Durmstrang and Beauxbatons emerged from their silly ship and oversized carriage. Their students was following them, all dressed in their finest and looking much, much more impressive that the Hogwarts students because Dumbledore had not been telling them that they should be looking their best.

Master Harry looked his best. Bitsy had been making sure of it that morning. The Wheezy children and Miss Hermione was, too, mostly because they was seeing Master Harry in a proper suit and tie and waistcoat and was deciding that they was wanting to look just as good as he was.

The Slytherins was being impeccably dressed because they was always being impeccably dressed. It was doing nothing for keeping Little Master Malfoy from looking like he was trying to catch flies or to keep little Miss Pansy from looking like she was sucking on a lemon when she was seeing Little Master Malfoy seeing the students coming from Beauxbatons.

She was not being alone in that. Most all of the boys was being silly about the Beauxbatons students, both female and male, but that was being understandable given that Dumbledore was not implementing the wards that would be lessoning the Veela alure enough to keep the boys from going crazy.

Lenny huffed and did it for Dumbledore. He is being the worst. How is they supposed to be learning anything if they is not able to think past their hormones? They is not elves. They is not trained or able to think around supreme sexiness like Winky.

Some elves is not able to think past Momma’s sexiness, Tilly giggled as she poked both Kreacher and Dobby through the Elf Stream.

They is not supposed to be able to think past it, Winky said, lightly swatting Tilly’s hand so that she wouldn’t scare Winky’s suitors off.

Not that Winky was thinking that it would happen. Both Dobby and Kreacher was fully dedicating themselves to the courtship and both of them was getting full approval from their masters for it. It was being far too late for the courtship to fall apart, but there was no reason to let bad habits form.

The teasing in the Elf Stream distracted Winky enough that she managed not to be glaring a hole straight through Dumbledore’s head as the greetings between headmasters happened. It was carrying her all the way back into Hogwarts who was humming and making sure that Dumbledore was not noticing that the Veela alure ward was active.

It wasn’t enough to keep Winky from being fiercely huffy once the Goblet of Fire was brought in and set up.

An age line? Just an age line? How was that being enough to keep Master Harry from being sucked into the Tournament.

I is not liking this, Lenny grumbled. It is old and wobbly. The magic is being all messed up. No one is letting the Goblins fix it. There is being wards to keep them from working with the Goblet! This is being ridiculous.

This is how they is choosing? Bitsy gasped, clutching at his chest while leaning against Itsy because his legs was being too weak in his horror to hold him up. They is all children and this is not magic that is choosing the one who is being the best prepared.

No, Zing agreed. Dumbles is being all over this. His magic is being coiled right into it. There is spells to make it choose by the wrong things, like fame, not by being prepared or special gifted or extra strong. It will be choosing the ones who was most famous and well-liked, not by who it should be.

Winky hummed from her spot next to Master Harry who was doing his best to be acting like everyone else at the feast. Despite the excitement and chatter, Master Harry was watching the Goblet as if he was going to be thrown into it to be burned alive.

It is not mattering how it is choosing, Winky decided. What is mattering is making sure that no one is putting Master Harry’s name into it. Zing, can the Goblet be choosing someone who has not had their name put in?

…No. No, it cannot, Zing said, emerging from the Potter Magic enough to let his excitement at that show to them all. It can only be choosing from the names that was being put into it.

Then we has a plan, Dobby said because they’d all reached the same plan at the same time, together in the Potter Magic.

They would guard the Goblet of Fire during the whole period of submitting names. No one would be putting in Master Harry’s name. No one would be putting in someone else’s name. Anyone underage was definitely not going to be putting their name in, because that was just being stupid right there.

Dumbledore wouldn’t be guarding the Goblet properly.

That just meant that it was up to Master Harry’s elves to do it so that Master Harry could be safe and free for the first time in his life.

Winky played her role, staying by Master Harry’s side through the feast as a gesture of respect to the other schools, not that they was bringing out their house elves and showing off their uniforms. No, only Master Harry was being told to do that. It was not bothering Winky. She had her lovely Continental uniform which was drawing admiring glances from the Beauxbatons students and confused frowns from the Durmstrang students.

At least until the Durmstrang instructor was finding out that Dobby and Kreacher was courting Winky. His very audible gasp and recoil was doing a good job of informing everyone what was going on.

“Uh, mate?” Friend Ron asked in a just barely quiet enough murmur. “Why’re they staring at you like you’re bonkers?”

“Is not Master Harry they is staring at,” Winky said for Master Harry who just shrugged. “They is staring at Winky because she is wearing a perfect Continental uniform and she is courting. Is a very momentous thing, you must be understanding. There is very few baby elves being born in any given generation. Especially ones from Courting.”

“Winky explained that there’s usually only two or three babies coming from courting in a century,” Master Harry confirmed with a little shrug as if he found the blatant listening-in to be a bit odd. “Winky bore the last one. Her name is Tilly. She works here at Hogwarts.”

“Winky’s Momma Courted to make Winky, too,” Winky said proudly. “And Winky’s Momma was a courting baby as well. It is Tradition in Winky’s family. Winky is looking forward to making a little sister or brother for Tilly now that she’s all grown up. Should be lots of fun.”

The shiver of fear that went over the Durmstrang students and instructors was funny. Better was the way the Beauxbatons students nodded approvingly. Headmistress Maxime raised her glass of wine in a toast to Winky that made Winky giggle and blush bright apple green.

“Really, Madame Maxime?” Dumbledore huffed.

Headmistress Maxime smirked at him, looking down her long, beautiful nose. “Really, Headmaster Dumbledore. One can only admire such… ferocity.”

Winky was not surprised that Dumbledore was encouraging everyone to finish their dinner quickly after that. He was always being a party-pooper. Still, it was being a lot of fun to walk by Master Harry’s side as the Durmstrang students paled and then got out of his way. It was even more fun, if embarrassing, the way the Beauxbatons students stared at her admiringly, though the nods of approval to Master Harry for allowing the courtship was being very appropriate.

“Harry, I don’t understand,” Miss Grangy said once they were all back in the Gryffindor tower.

“I is needing to do some work since I was wasting so much time on silly formalities,” Winky said to Master Harry.

He grinned and patted Winky’s shoulder. “Go right ahead. Thanks for sticking with me, Winky. I felt a lot more confident with you by my side.”

Winky popped away and left Master Harry to his rambling explanations and intense questioning by all the Gryffindor students. No way was she getting into that mess. Some things was best being left to the wizards to sort out.

Not many things, but some. Mostly things that was being caused by wizards.

Winky popped to the Come and Go room, surprised to find Dobby there with Fawkes who was being so angry that he was sending up plumes of flame that was actually hot. Dobby grimaced and then started so bad that he was jumping almost as high as he was tall because Zing appeared out of nowhere right next to him.

“That was not being a pop,” Winky observed.

Zing sighed at her, eyes sad over the top of his black ninja mask. “Zing is having to work much harder to be surprising you.”

“Zing is not old enough, strong enough or sneaky enough to be surprising Winky,” Winky declared. “Winky has been raising wizard children and she has raised two children of her own. One of which was being a courtship baby. Zing has centuries before he is being half as sneaky as Tilly when she was wanting to have treats.”

“That is being fair,” Zing allowed but he was sounding very grudging about it. “Lenny is watching over the Goblet now. There is not being any too-young wizards and witches trying to get into it, but that will be happening soon. The Wheezy twins is already plotting.”

“Winky is going to be spanking them if they is not being sensible,” Winky grumbled even though she knew it wasn’t going to work. “Right. We is needing a full guard, all the time. Invisible and hidden, which is meaning you is needing to be there, Zing.”

“Agreed,” Dobby said. “Dobby only summoned Zing because Fawkes is being very upset and wants to be talking to Zing.”

“Zing didn’t do it,” Zing promptly declared but he was looking very shifty so he was being responsible for something.

Winky would have to find out about that later. Not now, not with Fawkes spitting fire and clawing up his very nice perch. Oh. And not while Fawkes was cursing in very vivid ways in phoenix that Winky was not really happy that she was understanding. Having a phoenix materialize inside of ones gizzard was sounding like a very painful way to die.

“Why is Dumbles doing that?” Zing complained.

“Doing what?” Winky asked. “I was just hearing the cursing.”

“Ah, the cursing was only part of the message,” Zing said. “Dumbles is trying to get Headmaster Karkaroff to be admitting that he is working for the Dark Lord. It is not working because of course the Dark Lord is being dead-dead instead of sort-of dead. Karkaroff was showing off his arm where the mark used to being but Dumbles is not believing it. He was using the death stick to compel Karkaroff to be acting like Dumbles thinks he should be acting.”

Winky huffed. “That man is working Winky’s very last nerve. Is he weakening the defenses around the Goblet?”

“He tried,” Zing said, huffing too. “Lenny was there and was fixing it better than it was before as soon as Dumbles turned his back. Lenny is kind of wanting to follow Dumbles around fixing everything he is touching.”

Dobby shook his head only to freeze when Winky hummed thoughtfully. Actually, it was not being a bad idea. It would keep Lenny busy with all kinds of things that needed fixing. His complaining about the broken things Dumbles kept causing or kept making sure stayed broken would give them more ideas about what he was trying to do.

“That is a very good plan,” Winky said. “Once Lenny is doing fixing what he can on the Goblet and the wards around it, Crow is taking his place so Lenny can follow Dumbles and fix all the things.”

“Thank you!” Crow squeaked as she popped in and flung her arms around Winky’s shoulders while bouncing up and down in excitement. “Lenny is almost done. Crow is ready! She is going to make those Wheezy twins think twice six or seven times!”

She popped right back out again, leaving Winky to roll her eyes as she brushed her Continental uniform off and fluffed all the crushed lace.

Fortunately, it was being very easy to free Karkaroff from Dumbledore’s meddling. Winky just made a point of commenting to Madame Maxine while she delivered several treats that was being sent to the Beauxbatons students from besotted Hogwarts boys about how Karkaroff seemed a bit strange. Madame Maxine’s eyes was promptly going narrow and then she was inviting him to take a walk with her and by the time they was back from touring around the edge of Black Lake, Karkaroff was not cursed anymore and both of them was being very well warded against anything Dumbledore could be doing.

Crow’s job was being a lot harder than even Winky was expecting. It was not being bad enough that Dumbledore was interfering. No, there was old Master Crouch making things go odd because of course he did. He was always being stupid about things like this. Winky’s old Mistress would have been beating him about the head and shoulders with books for it if she was still being alive.

Winky made sure that his shoelaces was perpetually untied so that he was always stepping on them and tripping. It wasn’t being the best distraction but Old Master Crouch was not smart enough to realize he was being meddled with anyway. Something blunt was better for him.

By the time curfew was starting, Crow had been joined by Itsy and Bitsy and Zing and Dobby. They called on Tilly who was more than a little appalled, just like Winky, at how many too-young wizards and witches was wanting to throw their names into a deadly tournament.

After curfew, it was the adults who was being idiots.

Dumbledore came through a dozen times over the night, Lenny trailing along behind him invisibly, to meddle with the wards and then re-meddle and then undo and redo them as if he was not being happy with how messed up they was being. Winky was about to tear her ears right off what with all his nonsense.

Mistress Kitty was stomping through and then rousting Dumbledore out several times. That was helping. What was not helping was that the adult students and several instructors was sneaking in every few minutes to throw their own or other people’s names in.

By morning, the Potter elves had collectively stopped three hundred and ninety-one attempts at putting Master Harry’s name into the Goblet. They was all exhausted, even Dobby and Winky. But they had done it which was what counted.

Not one slip with Master Harry’s name went in. Not ones where it was written by someone else. Not when it was one torn off of homework he was turning in. Not ones where people had been spelling the name to look like something else until it hit the flames. Not even ones where Master Harry’s name had been on it, then been erased, and then overwritten.

Winky was taking no chances, no, she wasn’t. Master Harry was not going to be in this stilly Tournament.

It was in the grey murk just before dawn that Dumbledore came marching down the stairs and into the room with the Goblet. He stared at it, a grim look on his face that went something like sad after a moment.

“Such a shame,” Dumbledore murmured as he carefully wrote Master Harry’s full name on a slip of paper. “Ah, I wish it could be different, but it’s not to be. The prophecy must be met. So unfortunate. The poor boy.”

He walked up to the Goblet and carefully let the slip of paper drop out of his fingers.

Winky gritted her teeth and swapped the paper with one that said “Albus Stupid Dumbledore” just before it was landing in the flames.

She shook as she clutched the slip of paper to her chest, glancing at it to make sure that she had actually been able to keep Master Harry from being entered into the Tournament.

She had.

Dumbledore sighed and shook his head as he polished his glasses and then slowly walked back out of the room, still muttering “unfortunate” this and “poor boy” that, as if he was not the one trying to ruin poor Master Harry’s life.

“Lenny is not liking that man,” Lenny murmured to Winky once Dumbledore was gone.

“Winky is going to grab his privates and tie them in a knot if he is trying to do that again,” Winky snarled. “Is bad enough to arrange things so Master Harry is not treated well. That was Dumbles trying to kill Master Harry himself. Winky is not going to let that happen, no, not ever.”

Lenny nodded. “There is something very, very wrong with Dumbles. Lenny would love to fix it but he cannot. Is not possible to fix if someone is not thinking they is broken.”

Winky huffed but she nodded because that was being true.

What was also being true was that Winky was going to do very serious damage to Dumbledore if he threatened her Master Harry again. She was a strong elf even before the courting began. Now with the courting and the Potter magic and Master Harry’s approval, not even Dumbledore was going to be a threat.

Not for long, anyway.

***

“It iz very strange. Zat you would be… affected zis way.”

“Hmph! Not strange at all. That Dumbledore has his plans. His empire won’t grow forever. With the Dark Lord gone, he needs something else. Someone else.”

“It is certain, then?”

“…”

“Ah, so it is. How very interesting. Ze mark would not fade, not if ze Dark Lord was still living, no?”

“No. It wouldn’t. It didn’t. But we’re all free now. We’re not going back to that… Well. We’re not going back.”

“Mmm, I wonder. It iz part of what gives Dumbledore his power, yes? Ze threat of ze Dark Lord. What would he do to keep zat power?”

“…Anything. To anyone.”

“…”

“…”

“I believe zat I must go check on my students.”

“Mm. Me, too. Be careful.”

“You as vell. Good evening.”

“Mm.”

 

 

14. To Watch a Feast

Twenty-four hours was being a very, very, very long time when you was having to keep watch so that no one could be cheating. Dobby was not understanding at all why the names could not being submitted in one hour. Maybe two hours for those who was being shy. A whole twenty-four hours was outright excessive.

“So excessive,” Lenny moaned from the Come and Go room where he was slowly, exhaustedly fixing boxes.

“Dumbles is wanting it to be more dramatic,” Crow complained from her spot perched up in the rafters. “So that he can being more special and impressive after everyone is all keyed up. Crow is putting ants in his pants, yes, she is. He is earning them.”

“Winky is thinking he is deserving much more than ants,” Winky complained silently from her spot sitting next to Master Harry.

Her thoughts in the Elf Stream was being very, very dark, but Dobby wasn’t at all surprised by that. After Dumbledore tried to submit Master Harry’s name, there was another stream of people trying to put their and other people’s names into the Cup. So many people.

So many, many, many stupid people.

Tilly had helped them keeping Master Harry’s name out. Then the Durmstrang elves was popping in to help, too. Finally, the Beauxbatons elves flounced in, all wearing Continental uniforms that was not being half as sexy as Winky’s since they was having ribbons instead of perfect white lace.

Either way, every house elf was being utterly exhausted. Even the Hogwarts elves was being tired because they had been spending the whole night biting their nails and pulling their ears in terror that someone underage, specifically Master Harry but also a couple dozen of the braver, stupider young students, would somehow be getting entered into the Tournament.

“We was doing it, though,” Dobby said with a tired sigh as Headmaster Dumbledore, Headmistress Maxine and Headmaster Karkaroff all stood and smiled at the gathered, vibrating-with-excitement-and-nerves students. “No one underage was being entered. Master Harry’s name was not being entered, either.”

And really, that was being what counted. The Tournament was being what it was being. It would be dangerous and stupid and pointless.

Master Harry would only be watching it, not participating in it.

They had made sure of that.

Dobby didn’t really listen to Headmaster Dumbledore’s speech. It was being kind of silly, kind of pointless, and far too focused on Master Harry who played the part of an excited young boy to perfection. Master Harry was all fidgeting and grinning as he elbowed Friend Ron who was so excited that he was throwing off magic as if he was swallowing a ley node.

Most of the boys was doing the same thing. Some of the girls was doing it, too, but not as many.

“And now, the selection!” Headmaster Dumbledore exclaimed.

Despite knowing that there was no chance of Master Harry’s name coming out, Dobby held his breath as each of the three champion’s names emerged and flew off to land in Dumbledore’s hand.

“Victor Krum! Fleur Delacour! And our own Cedrick Diggory!”

For a long moment, Dumbledore was staring at the Cup like he was waiting for another name to come out. It lasted long enough that Madame Maxine cleared her throat and nudged Dumbledore with her elbow.

Dumbledore was frowning for a moment, a thunderous, terrifying frown that threatened many very bad things, but then he was putting on a brittle smile as he nodded to the Champions.

“Congratulations to each of you!” Dumbledore said.

He was not meaning it. His magic echoed with how very much he was not meaning it. No one else seemed to be seeing it, perhaps because Dumbledore’s very long, very white, very perfectly groomed beard was hiding how upset he was being.

The whole rest of the feast, Dumbledore was watching the goblet as if expecting another name to come flying out of it.

Dobby wasn’t the only one seeing it. Both Maxine and Karkaroff was side-eyeing Dumbledore. Professor Kitty was so visibly angry at Dumbledore that Dobby could almost be seeing her kitty tail thrashing behind her.

The students was seeing it, too. No one was saying anything, not even Little Master Malfoy who usually couldn’t keep a thought that entered his head from leaving his mouth. Loudly. Little Master Malfoy’s lips went thinner and thinner as he elbowed his friend Pansy who was wearing her archest, primmest, most like Winky in a snit expression.

About the only ones who was not noticing Dumbledore’s focus on the goblet was the Champions, who was being far too excited, and Master Harry who was Not Noticing Anything Unusual At All, officially, as he chattered at Friend Ron and eagerly asked Miss Grangy about past events and beamed at Master Neville who was looking kind of like he’d been stabbed through the heart every time Master Harry smiled in his direction.

“Much too young for courting,” Winky declared.

“Master Neville is not thinking so,” Crow said before Dobby could. “Master Neville is thinking about it really hard. He is just being polite about it since Master Harry really is too young for it.”

“I can hear you guys, you know that right?” Master Harry commented into the Potter Magic.

Winky wrinkled her nose up at Master Harry who grinned at her. “We is knowing that, Master Harry. That is being how Old Bonds is working.”

“What is?” Friend Ron asked.

“The house elves are gossiping, too,” Master Harry said blithely as if he wasn’t being a cheating cheater who cheated to keep people from paying attention to him. “Though it’s mostly about who’s courting who. You know, among the students and teachers.”

“Really?” Lavender Brown and Romilda Vane asked at the exact same time.

“Winky is not sharing house elf gossip with witches,” Winky declared while huffing at Master Harry. “Or wizards, for that matter. Is not appropriate.”

“Aww, but I wanted to know if any of the bets were fulfilled,” Romilda said with an overdone pout that was still cute enough to make Friend Ron blush at her.

Winky wagged a finger at her, stern and so beautiful that Dobby was nearly swooning in his place up in the rafters. “Is cheating. Winky is not helping pretty little witches cheat when they can be finding out by being pretty little witches harder.”

Romilda blinked, giggled and then licked her lips while studying Master Harry like he was being a lone mouse and she was being a hungry cat. Master Harry held up his hands to ward her off, shaking his head.

“No way,” Master Harry declared. “I already know I’m the center of like half those bets. No way am I getting in trouble for breaking them before anyone wins.”

Dobby cheered silently for that, along with Lenny and Bitsy. They was all hugely relieved that Master Harry was not going to be letting those so-inappropriate bets go. He was just not being old enough for people to be betting on who he would be kissing or marrying or frolicking with if he was not choosing to get married.

“Oh, poo,” Romilda complained. “Fine. We’ll just have to try other people because that was an excellent suggestion, Winky.”

Winky nodded firmly and encouragingly at Romilda. “Is always best to play to yous strengths. Is not being many wizards or witches who can be resisting you if the two of you is being extra pretty at them.”

That, finally, sent Lavender and Romilda off to other tables to be flirting and teasing and extracting secrets from all kinds of people. Miss Grangy was watching them go with a faint frown. She turned to Winky, biting her lip as if she was not the prettiest girl in Gryffindor.

“You is not even having to try,” Winky reassured Miss Grangy while Crow huffed and nodded her agreement to Dobby.

Really, Miss Grangy was being the very smartest and strongest and fiercest of witches in Gryffindor. There was no other witch who was coming so close to being like a house elf while still being pretty in the wizard and witch way.

“Oh, well, that’s nice,” Miss Grangy said as a blush swept over her cheeks. “I mean, that you think I’m pretty. I don’t really care about the bets.”

“Hermione, you’re the prettiest girl here,” Neville said in a tone that suggested that he was appalled, absolutely appalled, that she didn’t already know that.

“Yeah, kind of are,” Dean agreed while Seamus was nodding his agreement.

“I mean, if you like bossy,” Friend Ron said only to flinch when Winky was huffing and pointing a finger at him. “Fine. You are. Do we have to talk about this? I mean, what about the Tournament?”

Friend Ron was being very, very good, if very awkward, at redirecting people’s attention. The discussion at the table switched back to speculating about the Tournament. That was carrying over until it was dessert time, and then onwards to the time for everyone to be going back to their rooms.

Winky walked with Master Harry, nodding politely to the Durmstrang elves who was walking with their wizards and witches. She was making a point of curtseying to the Beauxbatons elves, specifically because it was making her lace show up so much better than their ribbons.

Ribbons. On Continental uniforms. Such a silly concept, but that was Fashion, Dobby was supposing. Thankfully, Master Harry was being nicely traditional when it was coming to uniforms so Winky’s uniform was being absolutely perfect in every way just like she was.

Once Master Harry was being safe back in his dorm room with his friends, Winky popped off to the Come and Go Room where everyone was waiting for her. Especially Dobby who clutched his chest and sighed at the way the lace on her cap bobbed as she arrived.

Except Zing. Because Zing was off being Zing about everything.

“I is being sneaky,” Zing protested. “And listening to all the nasty-bad-wrong things Dumbles is muttering into his beard. His is being very nasty-bad-wrong, very nasty-bad-wrong indeed.”

“This is being understood,” Winky replied. “You is to keep watching and keep listening. We is needing to know what Dumbles is going to try if we is going to protect Master Harry.”

Zing nodded, disappearing back into the Potter Magic and the shadows around Dumbledore.

“I is very tired,” Lenny said hesitantly, biting his lip and wringing his hands in the old, bad ways from his previous masters. “But I is not thinking that is why I is having problems fixing the little magics that Dumbles was doing at the feast. So many tiny blessings and curses being thrown around!”

Winky nodded grimly. “Especially after Master Harry is not being chosen. It is not good. Not good at all.”

The lack of a qualifier hit like a punch to the heart, but Dobby couldn’t be disagreeing with that. Dumbledore was Not Good. He was being Light, yes, but he was Not Good At All.

Which was being very, very dangerous for their Master Harry.

“I… Elves is not allowed to be hurting wizards,” Bitsy said with a quaver in his voice and tears in his eyes. “Is not allowed! But I is wanting to kill Dumbledore. And my magic is not hurting for it.”

Itsy wrapped an arm around Bitsy’s shoulders, comforting him while Crow took his hand and patted it gently.

“That is being a good point,” Dobby said slowly. He turned to Winky who was looking a little worried and a lot upset. “Dobby’s magic is not objecting to killing Dumbles, either. Not at all. Even when Dobby was being his sneakiest and baddest for Old Master Malfoy, his magic was being upset about doing bad things. This is… not a Bad Thing.”

Winky’s eyes went wide.

Zing popped in, eyes grim above his ninja mask. “Is not a Bad Thing at all. Dumbles is making plans to potion everyone so that they is believing that Master Harry is being Chosen. And he is going to summon Professor Snape to go and make sure that nasty-bad-wrong Dark Lord is plotting something.”

Dobby pulled on his ears while dancing with frustration. “But nasty-bad-wrong Dark Lord is being dead! Why is Dumbles doing all this?”

To his surprise, Winky hummed.

A thoughtful hum. A considering hum. The sort of hum that made all their magic stir into a raging whirl because while Dobby was secretly Master Harry’s First Elf, Winky was and was always going to be the one in charge.

It was just what Winky was being.

“The why is not mattering,” Winky said slowly.

She held up one stern, elegantly knobby finger when Dobby opened his mouth to protest. He was promptly snapping his mouth shut again because he was not being a fool. The look in Winky’s eyes matched the way the Potter magic was raging. Both was fierce and angry and determined.

“Zing, you is to make sure that Snape is not going to Dumbles,” Winky ordered. “I is not caring how you is doing it. Make sure he is not walking into Dumbles’ office, not until tomorrow.”

Zing nodded slowly, flexing his fingers. “Zing is vanishing his leg bones, then. Is not too hard. The potion he is brewing can be doing that if it is handled just wrong enough. Little Master Malfoy’s friend Miss Pansy is there. She is being perfectly terrible at potions.”

“Go,” Winky ordered.

Without even a breath of sound, Zing popped out. If that was happening, then that would be bringing Mistress Poppy down to the dungeons. It would be attracting lots and lots of attention, especially with the other schools there.

“Now what?” Crow asked.

“The rest of you is going to be making sure that Dumbles is kept distracted,” Winky ordered. “Not hurt. Not buried in mail, not yet. Just distracted. He is not to be leaving. He is not to be brewing anything. He is not to be using his wand if at all possible. Just busy-busy-busy and distracted.”

“We can be doing that,” Dobby agreed while Crow, Itsy, Bitsy and Lenny all nodded. “What is you going to be doing?”

“I is going to be talking to Master Harry about getting permissions to be doing something… that has not been done in a very long time,” Winky said.

She was not saying anything else. She wasn’t needing to.

The Elf Stream carried, quiet-quiet-quiet, the knowledge that once, very long ago back before the New Bonds was created, Masters sometimes sent house elves to be doing killing for them. Back before the Elves was taking vows not to hurt Masters, back before the Old Bonds faded out.

Because it was only Old Bond elves that was having the freedom to be doing something like that.

And it was only the Potter Elves who was having Old Bonds now.

Dobby nodded slowly. “I think… I think it is needed. If was not needed, our magic would be hurting.”

“Magic is eager,” Bitsy whispered, twisting his hankie in his hands the way a New Bond elf would have twisted their ears. “Welcomes the idea.”

“Exactly,” Winky said grimly enough that Dobby shivered at how strong she was being. “Go. Winky is asking. You is taking care to keep Dumbles distracted until he is safe in his bed.”

Dobby went. So did the others. He didn’t know what Master Harry would say, off in the Gryffindor tower where he was whispering with the other boys in his dorm room instead of sleeping. But then, Dobby wasn’t needing to know.

Winky had this.

***

“What happened?”

“I don’t know. Miss Parkinson was receiving remedial lessons and then there was shift in her potion. It erupted so I pushed her out of the way. It splashed my legs instead and now…”

“Goodness, what a mess. Well, I’ll just get you up to the Infirmary, Severus. Miss Parkinson is already in a bed there. The poor girl was quite hysterical.”

“Unsurprising, given Miss Parkinson.”

“So odd that the potion did this. I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

“…It’s rare but it can happen. I’m more curious as to how Miss Parkinson managed it. She doesn’t have the strength needed to do it easily. Unless she put mugwort in too soon. Wait. I think she put it in too soon and put three times the amount, the little fool.”

“Oh, my. Well, let’s get you fixed up. I’m sorry, my friend. You’ve a dreadful night in store for you.”

“…”

“…”

“Ah, if you would, Poppy?”

“Certainly, Severus. I can’t imagine what Headmaster Dumbledore might want you to do at this time of night. Well, it will just have to wait. It’s off to the infirmary for you.”

…

“Zing is almost annoyed they is not noticing him putting the mugwort in. Almost. Fawkes is telling Dumbles?”

“…”

“When Fawkes is stopping giggling, Fawkes is telling Dumbles, then. Fine.”

 

 

15. To Protect a Boy

It wasn’t easy to be waiting for the boys in Master Harry’s dorm room to be going to sleep. All of them, including Master Harry, was being so excited about the silly Tournament that they wasn’t able to settle down to sleep. Winky wanted to be using her magic to soothe them to sleep, but she was not willing to do so.

There must not be any traces.

No traces of Winky’s magic. No traces of Master Harry’s magic. Especially no traces of the Potter Magic which was being so toweringly angry that Winky was being constantly surprised that Hogwarts was not shaking with it.

Eventually, Master Neville was yawning. Just the once, but it set off a wave of yawns that swept over all five boys, circling back around to Master Neville who mumbled an apology between speculation about what the events was going to be.

“We should probably go to sleep,” Master Harry ventured around a jaw-cracking yawn of his own. “It’s really getting late.”

“Mate,” Friend Ron groaned.

Then yawned. Long and loud and hard enough to make tears well up in his eyes. Friend Ron grumbled but nodded that Master Harry was being right.

It was still taking another half hour before they was all tucked into their beds with the curtains pulled.

Fawkes burbled delighted giggles in the Elf Stream as Dumbledore complained bitterly about poor timing and a severe lack of common sense among the potions students.

“You is enjoying this a little too much,” Winky commented to Fawkes.

Fawkes scoffed into the Elf Stream, flipping his wings as he expressed just how much he didn’t like having Professor Snape at Hogwarts.

That was being justified. The Dark Mark was very nasty. It was leaving such a terrible stain on people’s magic while they was having it. With the nasty-bad-wrong Dark Lord being dead, though, the stain was being gone.

Fawkes rolled his eyes at Winky, fire flaring up a little bit as he grumbled about Professor Snape himself. Terrible teacher with bad lesson plans was being the least of his objections, which made Winky snicker a little despite the storm of angry Potter Magic thrumming under her breastbone.

“He is being a terrible teacher,” Winky agreed. “But you is still enjoying this too much, I thinks.”

“I thinks he is enjoying that Dumbles is being blocked so many ways,” Bitsy offered as he made sure that Dumbles didn’t have enough floo powder to call someone else without going to the supply closet on the main floor of Hogwarts.

Amusingly, Hogwarts was promptly making the little barrel of floo powder disappear into the Come and Go Room where Dumbledore wouldn’t find it, ever.

Winky nodded her agreement, watching silently as the boys in Master Harry’s room slipped into various levels of sleep. Friend Ron was deep asleep instantly, as he always was, while Master Neville slept as lightly as a cat dozing in a room full of rocking chairs. Seamus and Dean was muttering and whistling between their teeth respectively, but they fell asleep deep enough that Winky poked her head into Master Harry’s curtains.

“Home?” Master Harry whispered, glasses still on his face and dressing gown still over his night clothes.

“Please,” Winky whispered.

She popped straight to Potter Keep, heading into the kitchen to make nice rich hot chocolate with cinnamon and a touch of cloves since Master Harry was liking his hot chocolate with a little bit of a bite to it. Perhaps in a few days, after things was settling down, Winky would make it with a dash of cayenne pepper.

“That would be interesting,” Master Harry announced as he closed the gate back to Hogwarts behind him.

He walked through Potter Keep, slow and solemn despite the power of the magic raging around and through him.

As much time as Master Harry had spent pretending to be just another little boy like the other little boys in his dorm room, this was what showed that he was not being like them at all.

Friend Ron would have collapsed wailing if his family magic had been raging this way. Seamus would have been blowing up at least three windows up before he was making the toilets erupt just from the stress. Dean would have been hyperventilating.

Master Neville would have been manifesting a sword from somewhere and stabbing someone. Longbottoms was just being that way when their magic raged.

Master Harry?

He hummed thoughtfully as he sauntered calmly into the kitchen to settle at the wide, comfy trestle table that stood in the middle of the room. His fingers was being perfectly still and confident as he took the mug of hot chocolate. And he smiled as Winky clambered up onto a stool to sit next to him, even though her lace crackled with the rage of her own magic, much less the Potter Magic.

“There’s a problem, I take it?” Master Harry said with those too-old eyes staring over his mug in a lethal smile far too dangerous for a young boy’s face.

But he was not being a young boy, was he?

Never in his life had Master Harry been allowed to be a boy. From the time his parents was dying to save him, he was being forced to be less than a house elf to his bad relatives at the same time as the whole of wizarding England was making him into a myth.

A savior. Perfect and better and somehow more magical than they were being.

Foolishness, that. It was why Master Harry had been so badly treated, why his abuse was not being noticed. It was why he was going years, years without help!

Winky huffed with outrage that it had taken literal years for anyone to be able to help her Master Harry. That it was only house elves and the goblins was not being a good thing, but it was better than nothing.

Master Harry chuckled into his mug of hot chocolate, his personal magic soothing Winky’s outrage. It was calm. Happy. Amazingly, Master Harry was feeling perfectly safe in the middle of the Potter Magic hurricane.

“Really, there is a problem that needs to be fixed, right?” Master Harry said with that too-old look and that too-knowing smile.

“There is,” Winky agreed through her gritted teeth.

Master Harry nodded. “I thought there was. Honestly, I’ve thought there there’s been a problem at Hogwarts ever since I arrived. I mean, I love Hogwarts. It’s beautiful and it was the first place that ever felt like a real home to me until we claimed Potter Keep, but seriously. The stuff that’s happened there? There’s a cancer in Hogwarts. It needs to be cut out.”

Winky breathed a little laugh because oh, her Master. Her brilliant, perfect Master Harry.

What a good way to be phrasing it!

Such a perfect, perfect way to be taking away any hint of resistance Winky and the other elves might be feeling. House elves was supposed to be fixing things. They was the very best there was at finding and removing things which was endangering their masters.

To call Dumbledore a cancer…

…well, that was making Winky’s magic sing instead of rage because it was being so very, very, very perfect. Who could ever object to removing a cancer that was threatening their master?

Very literally threatening.

Dumbledore was cursing into his beard as he was discovering that there was being no floo powder at all for him to use to call someone to make sure that the nasty-bad-wrong Dark Lord was still plotting against Master Harry as he was supposed to be doing.

“Winky agrees,” Winky said, shaking her hands so that the sparks of furious magic would not be scorching the trestle table. “She is being pretty sure that she has been dealing with all the problems that was threatening you, Master Harry. But there is that one left.”

“The other elves are helping, right?” Master Harry asked even though he could be feeling just how much they was helping right now. “Do we need any more? Or would something else work better?”

Winky snorted. “Oh, Winky has a plan. It is being a very simple, very straightforward plan. The other elves can be helping a little bit, but mostly it is Master Harry, Dobby and Kreacher who can be helping to make it happen.”

“Oh,” Master Harry said, blinking at her as he finished his hot chocolate. “Should we notify Sirius? Since Kreacher is involved?”

“…That is not being a bad idea, actually,” Winky said thoughtfully. She was having to shut her mouth to consider it for a moment after her initial rush of ill-considered automatic rejection passed.

“Floo room,” Master Harry announced.

To Winky’s amusement, Kreacher was promptly popping into Lord Sirius’ bedroom and dragging him out of bed as soon as Master Harry stood. By the time they sauntered together to the floo room, Kreacher had dragged Lord Sirius out of bed, down the stairs and into Grimmauld Place’s floo room. Remus trailed along behind them, yawning and muttering sleeping complaints, but he was giving Lord Sirius a dressing gown once Kreacher was letting him go.

“Grimmauld Place,” Master Harry announced as he tossed the floo powder in.

“Prongslet!” Lord Sirius exclaimed. “What are you doing up at this time of night? Too excited over the tournament to sleep?”

“Absolutely yes,” Master Harry replied, laughing and yawning at the same time. “But also no. Winky found a threat against me at Hogwarts. She needs all the magic I can give her, plus Dobby and Kreacher’s magic, too. So I figured you’d want to contribute to the cause, you know, what with Kreacher and the courting being part of it all.”

Lord Sirius blinked, turning to look over his shoulder at Kreacher who was gritting his teeth and pulling on his ears like Dobby was doing off in the Come and Go room.

“How big of a threat are we talking?” Lord Sirius asked.

Winky stuck her head in the silly fire so that Lord Sirius, Remus and Kreacher could be seeing her. “Lethal. Is very dangerous and is very close to striking Master Harry. Winky can be fixing it. Is a very simple fix. But she is needing a-lot-a-lot of power to be doing so.”

Lord Sirius’ sleepy smile went away, replaced by a grim, dangerously determined frown. “You have it, of course. Just channel magic through Kreacher and he’ll pass it to you?”

“Exactly,” Winky agreed. “There is being no danger to you or to Master Harry at all. Not even much to Winky as she caught this before it was getting too bad. Is like cutting out a cancer before it is growing big. Easy when small, almost impossible when big and spread all over the place.”

Lord Sirius nodded. “Right. Well, we’ll get right on that. Prongslet, you can easily push your magic and the Potter Magic into Winky’s hands. Bit harder for me, but that’s fine. It’s simple for you because of the Old Bond, by the way. She’ll hold your magic and the Potter magic for a while, probably clean them up a bit, and then pass them back.”

“I can kind of feel it,” Master Harry said, nodding slowly. “We’ve done little versions of it before, now that I think about it. Not much, just passing her magic so that she could clean stuff up or making something happen easier with her daughter Tilly.”

Remus poked his head into the fire, a kindly smile on his lips even though his eyes was glowing gold even in the green of the floo fire. “Make sure that you’re properly tucked into bed before you do pass your power over, Harry. You’ll likely fall right asleep once you do. It takes practice to do it and stay awake for it.”

Master Harry laughed. “I’m going to fall asleep either way. It’s been such a crazy day with all the Tournament nonsense going on. Anyway, thanks, Sirius. I really appreciate it.”

“You’re my godson, Prongslet,” Lord Sirius declared with a little smile that was crooked and sad but very heart-felt. “That’s just what I’m supposed to do. Go tuck in. Winky will take care of things for you.”

That was being the end of the call, which Winky was being very relieved about.

Instead of Master Harry going back to Hogwarts, he meandered up to the master bedroom which was waiting for him. Winky turned the sheets down, warmed the bed for him, and then tucked him in with a pat on his forehead that made Master Harry smile.

His magic slid into Winky’s hands as smoothly as the Potter Magic didn’t. That was a battering ram straight to Winky’s heart.

She welcomed it, gripped it tight and then opened herself to Kreacher and Dobby who were both already massing more power for Winky to use. Off in Hogwarts, Winky could feel Tilly fretting as she was making sure that Dumbledore was not seeing anyone or being distracted on his way back to his office and the bedroom behind it.

Little Bitsy was making sure that all the portraits was being distracted or looking somewhere else. None of them was getting more than a brief glimpse of Dumbledore being grumpy as he was stomping along. Itsy was helping him by making sure that the three couples being inappropriate in their closets was hearing Dumbledore coming. They froze, silent and as still as only a naughty teenager could be, especially when about to be caught out after hours and with someone they should absolutely not be kissing.

The Potter Magic settled like burning oil into Winky’s magic.

Master Harry yawned hugely, rubbing his cheek against the pillow. “Make sure I go back to Hogwarts before anyone else is up, Winky. Be careful tonight.”

He was asleep before Winky could reassure him, but that was fine. Lenny was already making plans to be the one to wake Master Harry up early, even if he was having to hit the other kids in Master Harry’s room with sleeping charms.

Not likely to be needed.

Not with Hogwarts humming around all the children in a soothing way that made even Professor Kitty start yawning to the point that she was shaking her head and going off to bed with a grumble and a contented sigh.

The students in their dorms was falling asleep. The students in the silly ship and carriage was falling asleep. Then the teachers was sleeping, too, a couple over their grading but most in their beds.

Only house elves was left awake.

House elves and Dumbledore.

Winky pulled on Kreacher’s magic, then on Dobby’s magic. More power was flooding into her, so much that her Continental skirt billowed around her like she was in a storm. When Winky popped to Hogwarts, the Come and Go room boomed with her arrival.

No one else was there. The other Potter Elves was popping to safe places all around Potter Keep as soon as Winky was coming to Hogwarts. The Hogwarts elves was not there, either, because they was knowing when to be keeping their heads down and out of the line of fire. No elf was a fool, but the Hogwarts elves was better than most. They had to be what with all the silly teenagers with their foolish emotions running wild.

Fawkes flamed in to perch on his slightly scorched branch. He chirped cheerfully as he sent phoenix magic to billow around Winky. It sank into her magic, merging with everything that she already had and all that both the Black Family magic and the Potter Family magic could bring to bear.

Her teeth felt like they was about to vibrate out of her jaw, honestly, but that was all right. It was still not as much magic as when the courtship was consummated, though it might just be enough that the courtship would be complete a year or so earlier than expected.

Dobby whooped with delight while Kreacher grimaced a grin that made Lord Sirius shiver and lick his lips. He was not letting go of Kreacher’s hands, though, so it was all right.

“You is making things more complicated with that,” Winky complained. “I is needing to kill Dumbles, you know, not make him come back again.”

Fawkes rolled his eyes. He chirruped about blood clots to the heart, then cooed at the thought of one at the base of the skull, right by the brainstem. He was almost dancing at the thought of one of the blood clots making an artery swell and explode in Dumbledore’s brain.

“Yes, yes,” Winky said, rolling her eyes right back at him. “Winky is already planning on that. Is a very simple method and one of oldest, best ways for an elf to be killing a wizard or witch. Is the magic that is a problem. Winky must be controlling that, and you is not helping by adding phoenix magic to the mix.”

Just because the body was dying did not mean that the mind was dead, nor the soul. Nor, more importantly, the magic. Every elf was knowing that. Bodies was fragile things. Magic was robust. It was striking out, fighting hard to preserve the body if the death was not being a natural one.

So Winky had to be very, very, very careful and even more strong or Dumbledore’s magic might be breaking Hogwarts herself.

Fawkes huffed, flaring his crest and sending a shower of sparks up towards the ceiling of the Come and Go room far overhead. His whole body glowed.

But it wasn’t being a steady glow.

There was a pulse to it. An ebb and a flow that rose and fell, rose and fell. His magic sang very softly of the pulse of magic itself, of the way that a life was growing and fading, of how magic itself was pulsing inside of everyone.

Winky sucked in a shocked breath, automatically thinking on the moment of Tilly’s conception. She and her mates at the time had pushed the magic higher, let it subside a tiny bit, then higher. Wait, push at the right moment. Wait, push, wait, push, until the magic was so very high that it was overwhelming and beautiful and perfect.

“The opposite of Tilly…” Winky whispered, eyes wide and ears quivering.

Fawkes nodded. He burbled and showed Winky the way that Dumbledore’s magic was ebbing and flowing as he stomped into his bedroom and got ready to sleep. It surged with anger, subsided with night clothes, surged with irritation, slowed with a frustrated yawn.

Winky laughed. “Oh, that is so very perfect! Fawkes is the very best helper for murders.”

Fawkes preened proudly, snapping his beak and nodding.

After that it was being easy, really. There was still need for the mountain of magic. Winky needed to be stilling Dumbledore’s tie to Hogwarts so that she would not be hurting Hogwarts when she ended Dumbledore’s life. The wards was needing to be eased bit by careful bit out of Dumbledore’s snoring grip onto Professor Kitty who twitched and grimaced in her sleep.

As the night turned towards past the moon setting and the smallest hours of the morning turned towards dawn, Dumbledore slowly subsided into the deepest sleep. His grumpy grip on his pillow loosened. His magic settled into a drowsy pool.

A tiny blood clot at the base of his brainstem blocked the biggest artery there. Winky ever so delicately weakened the artery wall, allowing it to swell and grow and press against Dumbledore’s brain stem to the point that it was squished.

And then, by himself without any prodding from Winky, Dumbledore stretched…

…bursting the blood vessel and killing himself instantly.

She instantly pulled the last of the wards away from him, snapping them straight to Professor Kitty.

His magic, his nasty-bad-wrong magic slowly bled out into the room where it shimmered like dark-dyed silk before dissolving into sparkles that slowly drifted up into the air where they rejoined the Elf Stream. Winky breathed a laugh as she washed that nasty-bad-wrongness out of the sparkles, restoring it to its original purity.

While she was doing that, as naturally as could be, Dumbledore’s soul was slipping out of his body and moving on.

It was over.

Master Harry was finally safe.

***

“No!”

Minerva bolted upright, flinging her covers aside as she scrambled out of her bed. One hand reached for her wand. It slapped into her palm as she ran, barefoot, out the door of her bedroom and up the hallway towards the Headmaster’s suite.

The halls were dark, not even lit with pink and gold as dawn was still a ways off. In front of her, Hogwarts lit the torches so that Minerva could see where she was going. The gargoyle slid aside, a sad, apologetic look on its face.

When she flung open the door to Albus’ bedroom, there was nothing left.

No magic. No hint of threat or fear or pain. Not even the anger that Albus had been working through over the last day or two. Every trace of what had made Albus into Albus Percival Wulfrick Brian Dumbledore, Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, Supreme Mugwump of the ICW, Grand Sorcerer with an Order of Merlin, even what made him Headmaster of Hogwarts; it was all gone.

Every bit of what made him great and powerful and dangerous to his enemies had disappeared, leaving nothing behind.

All that was left was an old man who had died in his sleep in the wee hours before dawn.

“You… bloody bastard,” Minerva said around the tears choking her. “Ah, damn it all. Still leaving me all your work, too.”

Tilly popped in to pat Minerva’s hip. “We was feeling it, too. Headmistress Kitty is wanting us to clean things up?”

Minerva swallowed down a laugh that was more of a sob than anything else. “Yes. Yes, I suppose so. Bring me my slippers, too, if you would? I need to. I need to tell Madame Maxine and Karkaroff, then contact the DMLE. It’s. Damn the man.”

Tilly patted Minerva’s hip again before popping away.

Minerva’s slippers appeared in front of her toes.

She dried her face on her sleeve, shoved her feet into her slippers, and blew out a long sigh.

“Well, best get to work, then, I guess.”

 

 

16. To Find a Future

“Master Harry, you is needing to get back to Hogwarts right away,” Lenny said as he shook Harry awake.

“Right,” Harry said, yawning as he sat up. “No one noticed I’d gone, right?”

“No,” Lenny said with a bright grin. “Bitsy is fussing about, claiming you is being picky about clothes so that you can be extra impressive in front of the other schools. None of the other boys is questioning his being there or acting as yous valet. Master Neville was asking him for help with his clothes once Bitsy is being done with yours. The others was thinking it was a good idea, too. Bitsy is very happy to be helping them along with Master Harry.”

“Oh, that’s a good idea. Hopefully they’ll all just assume he’s a Hogwarts’ elf,” Harry said, nodding. “Let’s go.”

He didn’t rush back to the gate. There was no need to. Harry could feel it.

All his life, there’d been a sort of tension buzzing underneath his skin. He’d never known what it was. When he’d asked Aunt Petunia about it, she’d curled a lip and backhanded him for asking freakish questions. His more oblique questions to teachers had given him replies of anxiety, hunger, needing more sleep, and in one highly memorable occasion with his math teacher who’d gone away after attempting to file charges against the Dursleys, brain damage.

He’d gotten smacked, yeah, but not that badly.

Once he got to Hogwarts, he’d asked Madame Pomphrey. Her reply had been a reworked mash of anxiety and his magic growing a bit faster than his body was, which was hogwash if he’d ever heard it.

Research had turned up pretty much nothing. Asking Hermione about it had been a really dumb choice in second year, but hey, she’d enjoyed the research project even though it turned up nothing constructive at all.

Third year, though.

Third year had been really helpful on figuring out the buzzing under his skin. Sybill Trelawney had been an all-around waste as a teacher and was a total fraud of a seer, but she’d blinked like he’d smacked her when he asked one day, just after class while waiting to go down the ladder to escape her incense.

“Oh,” Trelawney had said, staring at Harry through her coke-bottle glasses. “Really? How very odd. Prophecies rarely impart that much power to their designated agents. Yours must be overwhelming. Such a pity. Such a pity that death is the only answer to it.”

She’d shaken her head sadly. He’d stammered a response that garbled “thanks” with “what the fuck”. Then he’d scrambled down the ladder and complained about Trelawney’s nonsense with Hermione and Ron.

It hadn’t been nonsense after all. Interesting. He’d have to have the elves check to see if she acted differently around him now. It would be really fascinating if she stopped doing the “death haunts your heels” thing all the time.

Harry gladly put on the outfit that Bitsy had laid out for him. He was still a little iffy on getting the sleeves settled right at his wrists and making sure that the waistcoat sat right over his shoulders, but Bitsy popped in to make it all fit properly.

“It really is a great outfit, Bitsy,” Harry said as Bitsy carefully folded his pocket handkerchief in a particular and complicated fashion that no one was ever going to see because Harry’s real hankie was tucked into his pocket where he could use it.

“They is seeing it, Master Harry,” Bitsy said once he’d gotten the pocket handkerchief set just right. “Little glimpses of it. The twist at the top is saying that Master Harry is too young for courting. It should be helping.”

“Oh, thank you,” Harry said, one hand pressed over the pocket handkerchief. “I had no idea that a hankie could say things like that.”

Bitsy nodded firmly. “They can be if you is knowing what you is doing. All yous clothes is saying that today. Is going to be a very big day, with many exciting things, so makes sense for Master Harry to be studying making clear that he is not ready for such goings-on.”

“I’m leaving all of that to Winky for now,” Harry agreed with a big grin that made Bitsy giggle.

When he emerged from his trunk, Ron scowled until he saw the pocket handkerchief. Then his eyes swept up and down Harry, noting the cufflinks, the little bar holding Harry’s tie in place and the bit of embroidery on the corners of his shirt collars. Then he started snickering.

“Didn’t think you even knew that stuff, mate,” Ron said through his snort-laughs at Harry’s blush and Neville’s quiet dismay.

“Winky might just possibly have potentially noticed some of the older guest students eyeing me,” Harry said with a little shrug. “And she may have expressed some opinions about that. With books. And a lecture. So yeah. I’m… going to be waiting a bit on that kind of thing.”

“I would’ve done the same thing, mate,” Ron said even though he kept laughing into his fist. “No one in their right mind would go up against Winky.”

His laughter died a quick death because Dean and Seamus demanded to know just what Ron had seen and what they were talking about. Harry made a point to walking a few paces behind them, Neville at his side, as they headed downstairs into the common room.

The Potter Magic hummed welcomingly at Neville who seemed… more there, perhaps?

“The buzz under my skin is gone,” Harry commented very quietly to Neville. “You?”

Neville started. Then he pressed his hand to his breastbone and frowned. After a moment, he sucked a sharp breath between the gap in his front teeth.

“Yeah,” Neville said, staring at Harry. “Me, too. It’s always been there. Something changed. But what?”

“No idea,” Harry lied. “Maybe we can get Hermione to help us research it? You know, outside of researching the Tournament stuff.”

Neville grinned. “I’m sure she’d be delighted to update her records on that project.”

“Which project?” Hermione asked as she bounded up to them from her spot by fireplace.

“The buzzing under the skin one,” Neville explained. “It’s gone away for both Harry and me. No idea why.”

“How odd,” Hermione said. She frowned. “I wonder if it has something to do with Headmaster Dumbledore?”

Ah, Hermione. She was always so very good at spilling every bit of information she had the instant she had a chance. Harry put on his best confused face, the one that always convinced the professors that Harry had no innate sense of magic and no ability to learn anything theoretical, as if he hadn’t been spending every single second since he learned about magic studying desperately theory to get caught up.

Or ahead. Ahead would be nice, though he would have to do a lot more studying for that to happen. Maybe now he could.

“What’s up with the headmaster?” Neville asked with a confused frown of his own.

Hermione pursed her lips, rocking on her toes before she leaned closer so that they wouldn’t be so easily overheard. “I was up early to study and caught the tail end of a conversation between Professor McGonagall and Percy. Apparently, Headmaster Dumbledore died in his sleep last night. It was very peaceful, which doesn’t always happen. I have so much research to do on that! Anyway, Professor McGonagall was chosen by Hogwarts as the new Headmistress, but it still needs to be confirmed by the Board. That should happen later today. She warned Percy that she would be too busy to handle any disciple problems so he’s to go to Professor Sinestra instead.”

As usual, Hermione’s volume grew as she explained what she’d learned. She never had been any good at keeping her voice down but having such important news to share had her all but vibrating out of her skin by the end of it.

Naturally, that brought the other students over so that they could hear.

The speculation ran rampant after that. No surprise, even Neville forgot about the prophecy’s energy buzzing under their skin. It was gone. Why worry about something that was over, right?

By the time they got to the great hall, it was decorated in somber tones highlighted here and there by flitting magical flying pigs. That absolutely had to be something that Dumbledore had set up prior to his death. No one in their right mind would want flying pigs darting across the banners, curtains and tablecloths other than him.

They all settled at their tables, then went very still and quiet as Professor McGonagall came in. She’d switched out her normal heather-green robes and dresses for a muted charcoal dress and a stiffly formal black robe. The tip of her witches’ hat seemed to sag as she came to the throne that Dumbledore always sat at.

Professor McGonagall rested one hand on the back of the throne, then shut her eyes as she sighed.

A quick wave of her wand transfigured the throne into a much plainer chair that was only slightly taller than the ones that the other teachers stood silently behind. Madame Maxine dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief about the size of Harry’s torso while Headmaster Karkaroff’s jaw kept jumping as he swallowed repeatedly.

“It is my sad duty to inform you all that Headmaster Dumbledore passed away peacefully in his sleep last night,” Professor McGonagall announced with suspiciously wet eyes. “Hogwarts has chosen me as the new Headmistress. This should be confirmed by the Board later today during an emergency session. As it stands currently, the Tournament is on hold pending confirmation that the contracts still hold with the Headmaster gone. When we have more information on the Tournament, we will announce it. Classes are cancelled for the day. There will be a memorial service on the lawn this afternoon. Please ask your prefects if you have any questions.”

Even though Hermione knew all of that, she started sniffling. Lavender wasn’t far behind on the tear front. About the same time, Seamus cleared his throat and scrubbed at his face with his sleeve.

Harry put on an appropriately dismayed and saddened expression, even though he didn’t feel any of that. How could he? For as long as he’d been alive, Dumbledore had been the architect of his pain and loneliness. The last few weeks since he’d taken Winky as his elf in an Old Bond, he’d had the freedom to really think.

And honestly?

The rest of the world could mourn Dumbledore all they wanted. Harry was glad that the old man was dead. Whatever the threat was last night, Harry knew that it’d been serious enough to make Winky decide on murder.

Dumbledore had been his enemy hidden in plain sight. He could never and would never mourn for that man.

But he certainly didn’t need to tell anyone at Hogwarts that.

Instead, Harry made a point of patting Hermione’s back as she tried not to cry. His hankie, not the one that Bitsy had folded for him, ended up in Lavender’s hands because she wasn’t even trying to control her tears.

When breakfast appeared on the table, Harry didn’t jump. He wanted to. Not because of the food but because of Zing.

“It was being about you, Master Harry,” Zing whispered into the back of his mind as he slipped a prophecy orb into Harry’s pocket. “It was going dark, fulfilled, last night when Dumbles was dying.”

Harry let his magic hum approval to Zing, very quietly of course, as he started eating the special egg tart that Winky whisked onto his plate. It had mushrooms and spinach and three kinds of cheese in it, which was lovely. That plus a rasher of bacon and a nice big glass of pumpkin juice made for a quiet celebration that no one else was likely to notice.

Afterwards, pretty much everyone in the school migrated outside. None of them wanted to be inside. Harry wouldn’t have minded bringing a book along so that he could study a bit, but it would’ve stuck out if he had.

Even Hermione had left her books behind. Not her complaints about not having books, just the books themselves. Those complaints didn’t last long.

“I’ve never read anything about wizarding funeral services,” Hermione commented while frowning and rubbing her arms as if she was cold. “I’ve no idea what to expect. Do we have to do anything? What happens?”

“It iz not a funeral,” Fleur Delacour interrupted as Neville was opening his mouth.

Harry wasn’t surprised in the slightest that Neville snapped his mouth shut immediately. What was… amusing… was the faintly disappointed expression on Fleur’s face when she saw Harry’s pocket handkerchief and it’s very particular folding.

“It’s not?” Hermione asked at the same time that she smacked Neville’s shoulder so that he would stop blushing and fidgeting.

“No,” Fleur replied. “Zat is a private event zat is invite-only. It will probably be only ze Dumbledore family. Zis will be a memorial. Madame Maxine said zat it iz possible zat zere will be a lighting of ze wands.”

Harry laughed to himself as Hermione promptly latched onto Fleur, asking a million questions almost faster than Fleur could answer them. Not that there was much more to the memorial ritual than asking everyone to light the tip of their wants in memory of the deceased person, but hey, it kept Hermione busy enough that Harry could wander off.

He played a casually cutthroat game of exploding snap with two Beauxbatons students and one of the Ravenclaws. Then he meandered over to where Ron was playing vicious games of wizarding chess with a series of Durmstrang students who looked more delighted by his wins than he was.

By the time lunch rolled around, the rumor mill had changed a day off into a week off, then into the rest of the year, while people were convinced that the new election for Supreme Mugwump would be happening on the south lawn just before Dumbledore’s memorial.

Ridiculous. As if Hogwarts was that important to the whole world.

Either way, just as Harry settled down to his lunch, Lenny popped Harry’s missing vault key into his pocket alongside the prophecy orb.

“It was not being easy to find it, Master Harry,” Lenny commented with a little pat to Harry’s hip. “Lenny had to fix many, many things in Dumbles’ office. They was making it impossible for anyone to be properly taking the Headmaster position. Oh, and now there is being nothing at all which is tracking Master Harry’s health, emotions or magic. Or where he is being at any time. Lenny “fixed” all of them to not track Master Harry at all.”

“Who are they tracking now?” Harry asked silently as he chewed his roast beef sandwich with the special mustard that Dobby made specifically for him.

“They is tracking yous cousin,” Lenny said.

He grinned into the bond as Harry swallowed wrong and almost choked. At least he left Harry alone to choke down his sandwich and battle his very inappropriate laughter. Elf commentary in the middle of that would’ve made it almost impossible to go unnoticed.

“You all right, mate?” Ron asked with a frown that suggested he wasn’t at all sure that Harry could be all right.

“Swallowed wrong,” Harry rasped between sips of pumpkin juice. “Mustard down the wrong pipe.”

That got winces from Ron and Dean while Neville and Seamus grinned at him. They’d clearly never had mustard go down the wrong pipe, especially not really spicy mustard like what Dobby had made for him.

Crow slipped a throat soothing potion onto his plate when no one was looking. Itsy whisked away Harry’s messy hankie and replaced it with a fresh one from Bitsy. And Winky popped in to stand next to Harry with a disapproving frown.

“I is only going away one morning and already you is making messes,” Winky declared as she climbed up on the bench next to Harry.

“Sorry, Winky,” Harry said. He leaned gently into her side, trying to radiate his love for her and all she’d done for him and his approval for how well she was keeping all his secrets.

Winky pursed her lips, but her eyes smiled at him when she nodded. “You should be. Master Harry has listened to what to do at the memorial?”

“Mm,” Harry agreed.

“You know you is to form proper thoughts of the deceased, then?” Winky asked with an arch little smile that made every student at the table pause. “Is not just lighting of the wand. Is making a prayer to Magic for the soul of the deceased. And for the world, too. Is being good form to be praying that Magic will make the world better, using the magic of yous light.”

Harry blinked. “No, actually, I didn’t realize that. Thank you. That’s very helpful.”

And it was. Winky got a whole wave of very well-deserved thanks for her advice. Of course, it meant that Harry had to sit and nod and listen politely as people talked about just what a wonderful, powerful, amazing man Dumbledore had been. To hear everyone else talking, you would’ve thought that Dumbledore was the next coming of Merlin instead of a secret “dark” wizard intent on ruling the world.

But that was fine. If that’s what they thought Dumbledore was, then they would frame their prayers that way and it would all work out.

“But what should we pray? I mean specifically,” Hermione fretted as everyone gathered outside on the lawn where the Board of Directors, the Hogwarts staff and all three heads of the school were waiting with a small army of elves actually visible behind them.

“I don’t know,” Harry said slowly, as if he was actually thinking about it. “Headmaster Dumbledore was always saying that he wanted the houses to work together, for the world to be a better, more open place. Why would you try and be more specific than that? I planned on just asking Magic to make that dream a reality, in whatever way Magic chooses. I’m just a kid. I don’t know what’s needed, so, you know, Magic can do whatever Magic thinks is appropriate.”

“Like being too specific with a genie,” Hermione muttered while nodding urgently.

“Hopefully with less potential for disaster.” Harry laughed as Hermione rolled her eyes at him.

Either way, everyone listened as Headmistress McGonagall read a short, very ridiculous, statement that Dumbledore had left behind in case of his death. Then she bit her lip before directing everyone to raise their wands in memory of Albus Percival Wulfrick Brian Dumbledore, Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, Supreme Mugwump of the ICW, Grand Sorcerer and Headmaster of Hogwarts.

Harry raised his wand along with everyone else, lighting the tip as he prayed to Magic that Dumbledore never, ever, ever be allowed to reincarnate. That his plans, both secret and open, never come to fruition, and that his legacy would be the realization of the stuff he said to convince people to his side, none of the things that he actually did.

Around him, Ron’s lips moved as he whispered his prayers while Hermione had her eyes screwed shut as she prayed so hard that he thought she might sprain something. Neville had a deeply peaceful expression on his face. The twins looked distantly sad while Percy and Ginny both looked devastated.

And Headmistress McGonagall looked determined as the light on the tip of her wand slowly drifted up and away from her.

All around, the lights left everyone else’s wands, too.

Dobby popped in silently next to Harry. Then Crow popped in to lean against his hip while Itzy and Bitsy stood just behind him. Zing popped in and patted Crow’s shoulder, staying to Harry’s right, just behind him. Only Winky popped in front of him, visible for everyone to see.

She raised one finger that glowed at the tip. As soon as she did, all the other elves did the same. Harry was probably the only one who saw his invisible elves glows zip away from their fingers and join Winky’s.

Then her light drifted up off her finger as the Hogwarts, Beauxbatons and Durmstrang elves did.

Harry’s light was the last to leave, swelling as it moved up into the sky. It joined with the elves’ lights, then somehow summoned all the other lights in a swirling mass that looked like fireflies dancing in the sky.

There was a moment where the world seemed to blink, just as the lights coalesced together.

The bond between Harry and his elves rang like a pure, deep-toned bell.

And then everyone lowered their wands and life went on as before.

“That was beautiful,” Hermione said around her sniffles.

“It really was,” Harry agreed. “I wonder if there are any books about that in the library. I mean, we do have the rest of the day off. I think I’d like to learn more. I mean, could I do something like that for my family? It would be… nice… I think.”

For the first time, Ron didn’t scoff at going to read books. Instead he nodded as if that made total sense. Hermione didn’t leap in to take control of the project. She hummed and looked for Fleur, waving her over to repeat Harry’s question.

“I don’t know,” Fleur said thoughtfully. “But I can ask Madame. She may ‘ave some ideas of books you could study.”

“Thank you, I’d like that,” Harry said, beaming.

They trooped off to talk to Madame Maxine together, Harry silently sending his elves back to work. Everything had changed when he met Winky. She’d opened up his eyes, opened his mind, and now he finally had a chance to learn freely, live as he wished, and he would be safer than he’d ever been.

Better still, there was no one to force him back to his horrible relatives anymore. He could go home to Potter Keep and make a true home of his own.

---