Reading Time: 95 Minutes

Title: Hidden Resources for Young Men of Quality
Author: MeyariMcFarland
Fandom: Harry Potter
Genre: Contemporary, Family, Fantasy, Humor, Paranormal/Supernatural, Urban Fantasy
Relationship(s): Gen
Content Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Major Character Death, canon child abuse and war, grief and mourning, mental breakdown, Dumbledore bashing
Word Count: 115,299
Summary: Six years into Hogwarts and Harry was well used to being shuffled off to Privet Drive for the summer. Oh, traumatic things happened, great events going on, be a good boy and go back in your fetid little box. Not a lot that Harry could do about it yet, but still looked like Harry had yet another miserable summer aimed right at him. Until a letter came by courier from beyond the grave.
Artist: ani

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Part Four: When Change Comes, Adjustments Must Be Made

31. When Receiving a Sudden Gift, Thanks Should Be Given

The screaming stopped.

Draco lay still, arms curled over his head and knees tucked tight to his chest. He’d found a horrible little hiding place inside of one of the wardrobes on the second floor of his father’s mansion. One of the guest rooms with a hint of damp to the walls. The window leaked despite the elves’ best efforts.

No one ever went there except to fuck on the sturdy fourposter bed so Draco could hide in the wardrobe and be safe for…

…oh, twenty minutes or so, normally.

Longer than that and his father would come hunting for him. If Father couldn’t find Draco, then the Dark Lord would send one of the Death Eaters. Aunt Bellatrix was the worst, laughing and randomly blasting places that Draco could be hiding. Greyback was bad, too, always sniffing at Draco’s hair and promising to give him the bite.

Draco breathed quietly, waiting for the screaming to start up again.

It always did. The Dark Lord was… displeased… that no one could find Potter. That he’d fled to Italy to hide behind wards that no one could break. Where the Dark Lord had tortured someone oh, once every three or four days before, he’d taken to torturing people every hour on the hour since the end of school.

Malfoy Manor always sang with screaming anymore.

His body ached. He’d curled so tight in his wardrobe hiding place that every muscle and joint stabbed at him. Draco counted to twenty, waiting for the screams to start again. Then another twenty. Then to a hundred, two hundred, five hundred, a thousand.

Without moving.

No screams.

No moans. No crying. No sounds at all. Father’s peacocks had died months ago, falling to Greyback’s claws and fangs. He’d eaten them raw and bloody, apparently.

Father had complained about it in his letter to Draco.

Draco very carefully lifted his head. His neck popped loudly. Draco froze, holding his breath and breathing as quietly as possible.

No one came. No one screamed.

It took eight more attempts to move without his joints popping before Draco managed to very carefully push the door of his wardrobe open enough so that he could peek into the bedroom beyond.

No one. Nothing. Still dead silent.

Draco’s heart hammered in his ears so loudly that he might not have heard if the screaming began again when he hesitantly, carefully, tearfully opened the door of the bedroom just a crack.

There was the strangest scent of burnt meat. He’d only smelled that once, when Pettigrew caught a pigeon and cooked it very poorly in one of the fireplaces. Burnt to a crisp on one side and still bloody on the other; Pettigrew had shrugged and eaten it with a little quip that he’d had worse. Much worse.

Aunt Bellatrix lay in the hallway, arms flung out and eyes staring blankly at the gilded mural on the ceiling.

Her arm, the marked arm, smoked.

Between her wrist and her shoulder, Aunt Bellatrix’s entire arm had been burned to charcoal.

Draco shut the door and rested his head against the wood. He shook, jaws grimly locked shut so that he wouldn’t whimper or cry or moan. There was no knowing what Aunt Bellatrix had done to deserve that punishment. There was every chance that the Dark Lord would sneer and do the same to someone else.

Possibly Father. Mother.

Draco.

Well, he’d been hiding for too long, so he didn’t have much time left. He had to get out of this bedroom. He needed to look like Draco fucking Malfoy, not a cowering child who hid in wardrobes as the boogeymen hunted for him.

A quick spell wiped all traces of his tears from his face and took the redness and puffiness from his eyes. Another three spells cleaned and pressed his robes. A final one took the sourness of fear from his sweat and his breath.

Draco looked into the mirror on his wardrobe door and nodded.

Then he opened the door to his hiding place and strode past Aunt Bellatrix’s body with barely a glance, just as he was supposed to.

The smell of burnt meat filled the lower levels of Malfoy Manor. Draco’s pureblood heir mask slipped as he found Pettigrew burned from the inside out at the base of the stairs. Greyback, despite not being marked, lay next to the green parlor door, burned as completely as if he’d been doused in liquid silver. Then it was Rabastian, or at least his shoes because everything but his feet had burned away to nothingness.

Draco lost his pureblood mask entirely when he eased open the door of the ballroom where the Dark Lord kept court with his Death Eaters.

“Oh,” Draco breathed, one hand clapping over his mouth at the stench of burnt meat and the sight of so many dead bodies. “Oh, bloody hell.”

Near the throne the Dark Lord used, a pile of simple black robes lay over a mound of ash. Next to that, Draco’s father’s head stared up at the ceiling blankly. One hand and a portion of his hip survived but nothing else.

Draco scanned the room and spotted Death Eater after Death Eater.

“No, Mother…” Draco whispered when he finally found his mother’s shimmering grey dress burned down to just the hem with her best grey silk slippers poking out of the charred hem.

He turned away and threw up what little was in his stomach.

Draco didn’t remember stumbling to the kitchen. One moment he’d straightened up. The next he stood at the door of the kitchen, panting like he’d run pell-mell through the Manor. Six elves lay dead but intact on the floor of the kitchen.

Only six.

“Ivy?” Draco called. His knees gave out. “Oh, please, Ivy. Not you, too.”

A little pulse of magic drew Draco back to his feet. He followed Ivy’s call into the pantry and then back behind a barrel full of pickles. Ivy lay curled in a ball as tight as Draco had been, shaking.

“Oh, oh, thank goodness,” Draco whispered as he scooped Ivy up.

He ran through the Manor, dodging incinerated Death Eaters to the floo room with Ivy in his arms. She uncurled just enough to cling to Draco’s robes. She did not stop shaking.

“Madame Bones,” Draco called as he flung a handful of floo powder into the fire. “Oh, please. Oh, please. Oh, please.”

“Mr. Malfoy, this had better be serious,” Madame Bones snapped as soon as she put her head in the fire.

“Every single Death Eater here has just burned to death along with six of the seven Malfoy elves,” Draco told her. “My, my parents, all of them. And, and… The Dark Lord. The Dark Lord is… I can’t. He’s. I think he’s…”

“Bloody buggering fuck,” Madame Bones whispered as her eyes went wide. “Back away from fireplace, young man. We’re sending a team through.”

”Thank you,” Draco said as he did exactly that.

His legs didn’t want to work so Draco scooted backwards on his arse until he ran into one of the armchairs that Mother insisted, had insisted, on placing in the floo room. Then he leaned into it while rocking Ivy in his arms and whispering utter nonsense to her.

Dawlish was the first through the floo.

“Drop the elf, boy!” Dawlish promptly snapped, pointing his wand right at Draco.

Draco stared up at him, rocking with Ivy in his arms. There were… words he should say? Probably? Something. But none of it came to his mouth or his mind.

“Dawlish, drop your wand or I’ll drop you,” Madame Bones snapped at him when she emerged from the floo. “The boy is the one who called us here.”

“He’s a Death Eater,” Dawlish protested only to freeze, wide-eyed, when Draco started laughing.

Horrible, broken laugh. Draco didn’t want to make that noise. He didn’t want to laugh or cry that way, but he couldn’t seem to stop. Not when Dawlish scowled or when Madame Bones frowned or when any of the aurors who came through stared at him.

“Boy’s in shock,” Mad-Eye Moody said as he levitated Draco into one of the armchairs. “Would’ve thought you lot were trained in how to handle traumatized victims.”

He stomped over and poured a calming draught down Draco’s throat. Then a second one, which actually started to dent the terror and the confusion to the point that Draco managed to stop laughing and crying at the same time.

“Ivy,” Draco said to Mad-Eye. “My elf. She’s… only one left. Will she…? Will she survive?”

“Will you?” Mad-Eye asked Draco in a more compassionate tone than Draco would’ve ever expected.

“I… think so?” Draco ventured, not at all sure that he was telling the truth.

Mad-Eye sighed. “You’ll survive, Malfoy. Not sure you’ll want to, but you will. You made it through whatever this was alive. Now it’s just keeping on. Tell me what happened.”

He waved for the other aurors, Madame Bones and Dawlish included, to go deal with the Manor before summoning the other armchair over so that he could sit and stare at Draco with his sad human blue eye and the whirling magic eye scanning both Draco and Ivy. And the room, though not as often.

“Where do I start?” Draco asked.

“The beginning,” Mad-Eye said.

“Not helpful,” Draco sighed. “I. For me, it began before first year when Harry Potter refused to shake my hand on the train. Or maybe it began when Father told me that the only acceptable house to be sorted into was Slytherin. He said that I would be executed if I went to Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff. He would have come straight to Hogwarts to kill me if I went to Gryffindor.”

“Bit too far back,” Mad-Eye allowed with a grimace. “Start with this summer. What happened after you got home?”

Draco shuddered. “I’ll start with the Christmas hols, actually. I… came home to the Dark Lord who made me kneel at his feet as he held court. He petted my hair and let Nagini, his snake, eat my familiar. He promised that if my parents did well, I would be rewarded with the Dark Mark. Mother looked pleased. Father looked jealous and worried. They didn’t… they didn’t do well with whatever task the Dark Lord gave them.”

“Bloody hell,” Mad-Eye sighed. “So you came back to… torture?”

“Yes,” Draco whispered as he cuddled Ivy who had finally stopped shaking in his arms. She wasn’t asleep. He could tell from her grip on his robes. “When Potter escaped, the torture got. Worse. More often. Hourly instead of every few days. Everyone instead of just one or two who served as examples.”

He swallowed as his heart began to pound just from the remembered fear.

There was something like pity in Mad-Eye’s human eye. Draco found that he couldn’t resent it. He also couldn’t face it, so he focused on Mad-Eye’s three-fingered dueler’s grip on his gnarled wand. Just a flick and Mad-Eye would be able to put a blasting hex straight through Draco’s forehead.

Maybe he would.

It would be nice not to feel this fear anymore.

“I…,” Draco’s voice went hoarse, but he couldn’t change that, not when he had started shaking again. “Today I hid. In a wardrobe. Curled up in a ball and just hid for a while to escape it all. There was screaming. Just one voice at first. Then many. So many. I don’t… know… how long it went on? I can’t. Time is wonky for me.”

“Happens,” Mad-Eye said sympathetically. “We’ll get you to a mind healer. They’ll help fix it.”

“That would be nice,” Draco said with just a hint of the wonder he felt. “Eventually the screaming… stopped. All of it. And I… I stayed hidden. Counted and waited. But. But after a count of a thousand, there was no sound. No screaming. So, I came out to investigate. And… they were all that way. All burnt. Dead. Gone. Except Ivy. My personal elf. They’re all gone.”

When Draco looked up from Mad-Eye’s dueler grip, Madame Bones was there. She’d gone a bit green about the gills. Dawlish stood behind her, sweating and pale as he swiped a hand across his mouth as if he’d thrown up, too. The other aurors clustered behind them looked like they wanted to run for their lives.

“Take him to St. Mungo’s,” Madame Bones told Mad-Eye. “Both of them. I’m going to summon the Department of Mysteries. This is beyond us. I’ve no idea what happened.”

“I would say it was Potter, but he’s gone,” Draco commented as he carefully set his feet back on the floor and stood on his shaky legs. “So, I don’t. Know? Who or what or how. I just…”

“Go with him, Mr. Malfoy,” Madame Bones ordered.

An order. That was good. Easy to follow. Draco followed Mad-Eye to the floo and let Mad-Eye drag him on through to wherever.

As long as it wasn’t Malfoy Manor and he got to stay with Ivy, Draco didn’t care where they went.

Anything was better than his empty, deathtrap of a home.

32. Sudden Revelations Can Cause Reevaluation

Bill sighed as he ran his hands over his face, scrubbing until his skin felt like he was about to peel it right off. Once, back when he’d only heard stories about Harry Potter from Ron, Bill had believed that no one in the world could be as dramatic and prone to bizarre and amazing events as Harry.

That was before Lord Harrison Peverell brought his entire family and his… mess… to Britian.

Days of sorting through accumulated junk mixed with stunning treasures that were studded with the occasional deadly threat. Nights spent dreaming of work and waking up with his heart pounding because he’d realized that oh. Oh! That was what that one particular odd object actually was and ohhhh, they’d gotten so lucky handling it.

But that was just accumulated Peverell, right? Vaults full of the detritus of genius lives all tumbled together. You would expect there to be trash, treasures and Holy Fuck traps.

“You all right there, Bill?” Ivan asked as he flopped down next to bill on the broken-down lounge chair that the junior curse breakers had smuggled into their breakroom so that they wouldn’t have to sit on hardwood chairs with no padding.

“Peverells,” Bill groaned.

Ivan snickered. “What’s His too-young-for-me Hotness done now?”

“You have so many issues,” Bill said before dropping his hands and passing the report he’d been given to share with the curse breaker teams over to Ivan. “His Hotness has done another ritual with the war mages. Flattened him this time. He’s in the healing halls, probably for a week or so.”

“…the bloody hell did he do?” Ivan asked.

While opening the folio to read the report as if it was an unexploded bomb. It kind of was.

”How many horcruxes?” Ivan asked in a squeak a full octave higher than his normal baritone.

“Seven,” Bill said as Mandy, the other Magi on their team shuffled in with Crackskin and Fangtooth plodding along behind her.

“Seven what?” Mandy asked with fully justified wariness.

“His Hotness did a ritual during the dark of the night—” Ivan said, waving his hands at the folio.

“In the middle of the night?” Mandy squeaked as she clutched the back of the hardwood chair she’d been about to turn around to flop backwards in. “Is he crazy? Crazier than we thought, I mean.”

“At the request of Albus Dumbledore,” Ivan continued as if not interrupted though he did narrow his eyes in an impressive glare at Mandy.

“Why anyone would grant that man’s requests, I do not know,” Fangtooth interrupted instead, smirking with the fang-y tooth on display when Ivan’s glare turned his way.

“To find and destroy the seven horcruxes,” Ivan paused dramatically and nodding approvingly when no one said a word as they were too busy picking their jaws up off the floor, “that You-Know-Who created.”

“Which he did,” Bill emphasized. “He succeeded. Flattened him. He’ll be in the healing halls for at least a week, but he did it. You-Know-Who was burnt out. All his horcruxes were torched, apparently literally. And there are… indications… that everyone with the Dark Mark or magically claimed by You-Know-Who might’ve died with him.”

Ivan’s jaw dropped for that bit. “Page two?”

“Four,” Bill corrected. “Page two is about the two living horcruxes. One was Harry Potter. Lord Peverell somehow got in touch with him, transferred the horcrux that’s lived in his scar since his parents were killed into a different vessel—”

“How?” Mandy whispered as she finally collapsed into her chair. “That’s… how? How he’d find Potter so quickly? Bill! That’s…”

“I know,” Bill agreed. “I know. I just. Peverells? I think it’s a Peverell thing. Anyway. Page three is about how he actively participated in the destruction ritual from the inside with a bloody trident made of his own magic.”

Bill nodded as Mandy and Crackskin grabbed for the folio, wrenching it out of Ivan’s hands.

“You know,” Fangtooth commented as he used their unofficial-official tea kettle that wasn’t supposed to be in breakrooms by policy to brew up the sludge that Goblins considered to be proper tea, “they’re going to have to refight the tournament. No one will be satisfied with their ranking after a performance like that from a prospective apprentice. That’ll be entertaining at least.”

Bill would’ve laughed until he cried over that one because what Fangtooth considered entertaining usually involved bloodshed, screaming in terror and the occasional lopping off of limbs in ways that prevented the limb from being reattached. But their supervisor arrived with their assignment for the day, small wooden boxes, so they all groaned and complained as they made their way to the Peverell vault to find all the small wooden boxes that they could.

Ten hours later, with three breaks, one for a standing-up meal and one for putting out fires on themselves and the surrounding junk, and one for the rather nasty cut that Bill got on his cheek when a fist-sized wooden box tried to eat his head, Bill waved to his team and stumbled to the floo.

He would’ve apparated normally.

Normally.

Not… not today. Not for the last few days. The exhaustion rode Bill’s shoulders like the twins used to before the got so gangling at eleven that their legs dangled on the ground when they grabbed him. He stumbled out of the floo to quiet.

Quiet voices, quiet discussion, Mum humming happily in the kitchen as she washed dishes and cleaned the counter. Even quiet up the stairs, so the news must not have gotten out yet.

“Oh, Bill,” Mum said as she came to tut over him, brushing off the soot and shaking her head at the cut on his cheek. “Welcome home. Eventful day?”

Bill’s laugh burst out of him, broken and jagged enough that Mum’s eyes went sharp and alert in that dueler way that Bill had learned to avoid when he was only three years old. He was an adult, though, so he nodded towards the kitchen table where a plate full of Mum’s cooking waited under a stasis spell for him.

“It’s… I’m sure I’ll be all over the news as soon as it’s confirmed,” Bill said as he flopped at the table, “but Lord Peverell’s done it again. Apparently, Dumbledore went to Lord Peverell and asked for help with the whole horcrux issue. He… Lord Peverell did a ritual. Found and destroyed every single horcrux. There were seven, Mum. Seven of the damned things and Dumbledore had to know all along.”

Oh.

That was anger.

He breathed, slow and careful, as Mum stared at his face with the Worried About You frown that preceded patting and reassurance and clucking that you were too young to fuss over such things. Thankfully, she didn’t start with the clucking before Bill got his anger back under control.

“Bill, I don’t know what a horcrux is,” Mum said slowly as she pushed his dinner over at him with a significant nod.

“Great,” Bill complained. “Right. Okay, so, let me explain.”

Not in any great detail.

Mum absolutely didn’t need to know the real contents of the horcrux ritual. Bad enough to tell her that it required a murder and splitting chunks off of your soul. Mum most certainly did not need to know anything more than that.

It would just make her rage that much worse. Bill would rather not know the details, personally, even though they’d all been briefed on it during their standing-up five minute meal between small wooden boxes.

Took about half an hour between wolfing down his dinner. Bill had no idea what he ate once the plate was clean. The tea, a nice soothing chamomile from Mum’s garden, warmed his hands as he watched Mum pace back and forth in the kitchen while hissing angrily.

“He had to know!” Mum said, voice low enough that it shouldn’t notify anyone else in the house that she was on a tear. “He must have known the entire time.”

“It would’ve been obvious to any kind of health scan when Harry was a baby,” Bill confirmed between sips of his tea. “Madame Pomphrey probably wouldn’t have noticed it. She’s just a mediwitch. But any other kind of scan? It would’ve been glaringly obvious, Mum. He knew. He knew the whole time.”

“When he could’ve just pulled that thing out of Harry?” Mum spluttered only to pause when Bill shook his head.

“Mum, the only way to destroy a horcrux that I’m aware of is to destroy its vessel,” Bill said. “I mean, I haven’t worked extensively with them. I’m not senior enough to learn that yet. Not even Lacey Black would’ve been tapped for that. It’s a war mage thing. But from everything I’ve heard, it’s hugely damaging to pull a horcrux from it’s vessel. A living vessel? The Goblins might know how to do it safely, but I’ve not heard that it’s even possible to create a living horcrux so I just don’t know.”

Mum stared. “So… Lord Peverell did something… impossible?”

“Or something wildly illogical and incredibly creative,” Bill agreed. “The thing is, Lord Peverell and Chieftain Ragnok are old friends. If Dumbledore had just asked the Goblins at any point, Chieftain Ragnok would’ve gone to his friend and his friend would’ve gone all thoughtful and they would’ve solved the problem.”

“Harry could have been saved,” Mum whispered as she collapsed into the chair opposite Bill.”Years ago.”

Bill nodded. “At any point. From the time his parents died up until the day Harry ran, Dumbledore could have asked for help properly and it would’ve been taken care of. Maybe not rapidly, but it could’ve been handled.”

Mum shut her eyes as she breathed slowly, pressing one fingertip after another against the tabletop in her old meditative technique for controlling her temper. Took eight rounds of her knuckles going white before the pinched look around Mum’s mouth went away. Took another six rounds before she sighed and leaned back in her chair to stare blankly at Bill’s empty plate.

“I am so mad at that man,” Mum admitted quietly.

“You’re not alone in that,” Bill said. “So’m I. My whole team. The Goblins looked half a breath away from a rebellion when I flooed home. It’s… So much misery over so many years. So many people hurt and killed. So much damage done, all because Dumbledore has to be the smartest, most powerful man in Britian.”

“My brothers,” Mum whispered. “Amelia’s whole family. The entire McKinnon clan, wiped out. If You-Know-Who’s horcruxes had been dealt with back then, how many people would still be with us?”

“Well, if Lord Peverell’s father was as creative as he is,” Bill said, shrugging one shoulder when Mum frowned at him. “I mean, Lord Peverell is something like seventeen, eighteen at most. Possibly sixteen. I’ve not heard confirmation of his age. And if his dad was laboring against dementia for a long time…”

“All right, maybe it couldn’t be done until Lord Peverell was an adult,” Mum allowed. Grudgingly. “But the point stands. He plays games with people’s lives.”

Bill nodded before swallowing down the last of his chamomile tea.

That was the core of it. Dumbledore looked at the world and saw an endless sea of pawns for him to manipulate into position. Bill had understood that even when he was at school. Back then, Bill had thought that it was appropriate given how powerful and wise and all-seeing Dumbledore was.

Now?

“Dumbledore can’t be trusted with the fate of a pygmy puff,” Bill said bitterly as he stood up to take his dishes to the sink, “much less the fate of the entire magical world.”

Mum laughed. “Oh, you’re very right about that. Just leave the dishes, dear. I’ll get them. I’m a bit too angry to go to bed yet. You should try to get some sleep.”

Bill groaned. “I know, I know. Tomorrow’s another day of ridiculous Peverell vault adventures. I almost wish I’d gone into the Ministry like Percy did, except no. I’d’ve gone batty in hours if I had.”

The familiar complaint from every bad day at Gringotts soothed Mum into a little laugh. She kissed Bill’s uninjured cheek, insisted on smoothing some of her bruise balm over the cut, and then shooed him off to bed like he was a little firstie about to go off to Hogwarts for the first time.

It felt good. A bit smothering sometimes, yes, but tonight?

Tonight, getting to come home to a home-cooked meal and his mother’s love was a huge relief.

Did nothing for the rage simmering under Bill’s exhaustion, but it was what it was. He shook his head before flopping face first in his bed still in his clothes. Wrinkled robes were a Tommorrow-Bill problem. Today-Bill just wanted to sleep.

And punch Dumbledore in the face.

But sleep was better and much more important. Would that he could see Dumbledore’s face when he found out that Lord Peverell had done exactly what Dumbledore never even tried to do.

33. To Properly Handle Issues, Asking For Help is Vital

Albus sighed as he settled at the tiny round table that graced his room at the Hog’s Head Inn. He’d not wanted to impose on Aberforth, but what choice did he have? It had been decades since Albus had a house of his own. The house they’d shared as children with Mother and Arianna had long since been sold to give Aberforth the money he needed to buy the Hog’s Head.

He would need to find a house eventually. Soon, actually. Albus had thought about going ahead and finding a nice plot near the edge of Hogsmeade. Building a house for himself would be a nice little project that could visibly fill his time.

Research into what spells to use would make a nice cover for the research he needed to do to meet Destiny’s demands.

And Molly’s demands, too.

She’d flooed and sent a dozen owls over the last two days, demanding progress that Albus simply didn’t have. That had always been the problem with Molly. She expected quick turnaround no matter how impossible the task was.

Aberforth’s elf popped a half-English breakfast onto Albus’ table, complete with a nice steaming pot of tea and the latest edition of the Prophet.

“Well,” Albus sighed once he’d poured his tea and eaten a slice of toast topped with scrambled eggs and beans, “I suppose I should see just what Lord Peverell’s done now.”

He grimaced before he even opened the paper.

Seeing that young man’s face smiling back at him…

…Albus truly needed to be honest with himself, taking care to study his emotions before tucking them away behind his struggling occlumency shields where inappropriate memories and feelings belonged.

The last few weeks had strained his shields badly. Every day since Harry left, keeping everything locked away had become harder and harder. It was a strain not to think of the bad things from his childhood and the wars. Even worse was the strain of not thinking about all the good things that led him to question his path.

Really, questioning was so very dangerous.

It wasn’t Lord Peverell as a person that he objected so strongly to. Lord Peverell was a gregarious, kind, intelligent young man, exactly the sort of person who made the world a better place when given money and power.

That wasn’t Albus’ problem.

As much as Albus loathed to admit it, Lord Peverell was the new Albus Dumbledore. Young and dashing, with a bright smile and engaging manner which drew everyone in, Lord Peverell charmed all those around him. Even Albus had felt the draw as he watched Lord Peverell feeding his little niece.

“Getting old is awful,” Albus complained to his paper as he flipped it out of the tight roll the elf had put it in.

“What?” Albus asked, spluttering as he scanned over the paper’s headlines. “House Peverell ritual leaves Lord Peverell in healing halls? Seven horcruxes destroyed? What?”

YOU-KNOW-WHO DEAD! screamed the headline of Rita Skeeter’s latest article.

Readers, today I bring you bombshells. As you know, House Peverell’s very own Lord Harrison Peverell has come to Britian and set all of our heads a-whirl. Unsurprising with a young Lord that dashing and that powerful. But this morning the Daily Prophet had a bombshell that will knock everyone across the world on their rears, for Lord Peverell has defeated You-Know-Who in a single bloody ritual.

How? Well, come with me as I tell you the tale of a burgeoning war mage facing down our own Boy-Who-Lived’s enemy for the good of all Magi.

Albus skimmed over the next several paragraphs, looking for actual information mixed into the purple prose. Unfortunately, Rita was in a lather, so it took six full paragraphs before he found a nugget of real information.

“He went to Potter Sanctum and extracted the horcrux?” Albus yelped as he stood up with the paper still gripped tightly in his hands. His chair toppled backwards, nearly tripping Albus when he started to pace across his little room. “That isn’t possible! I. I thought it wasn’t possible. I thought… I thought the Goblin lied. Was it… actually something that could be done all along?”

Albus read the rest of the article, heart sinking as Rita made it clear that not only was it perfectly possible remove the horcrux from Harry’s scar, the other objects that Tom had used for his horcruxes had been liberated and were in the process of being cleansed prior to being reunited with their proper owners.

“One night,” Albus murmured as he collapsed on the end of his bed. “It took Lord Peverell just one night.”

Decades. Albus had been working on blocking and hopefully eventually stopping Voldemort, Tom, for decades. Plotting, gathering power, fighting battles that left both sides with dead people. Years upon years of struggle and…

…Lord Peverell solved the whole problem of Voldemort and his Death Eaters in just one night.

“He must… he must have gotten started the moment I left Gringotts,” Albus said as he read another article about the efforts going on to clean up Malfoy Manor.

Most of the Death Eaters had been there. Some were still at home. Some had been traveling. As it stood, every single Death Eater was gone.

“Oh,” Albus breathed as he straightened up, “Severus!”

It took just a moment to tidy his room and put on fresh robes. Albus hurried down the stairs and out of the Hog’s Head because he knew just how scathing Aberforth would be if Albus apparated inside the building. The last time Albus had done that, he’d gotten a vicious lecture from Aberforth that lasted more than an hour and a half covering all the ways in which Albus had disturbed Aberforth’s guests.

Spinner’s End stood silent and dark as Albus hurried up the path. He’d been here many times over the years but never without an invitation. Albus would’ve gone through the floo; less likely that he would be spotted by Severus’ Muggle neighbors. Unwise to attempt it, though. Severus had told Albus that he would never go back to teaching and had no interest in contacting Albus in any way after Albus was removed as Headmaster.

“Severus?” Albus called as he knocked on the door carefully.

Severus’ wards, usually so deadly that they reacted with lethal force to a bird flying into a window, didn’t respond at all.

The door was open, unlocked.

Albus carefully pushed the front door open.

A smell like poorly cooked meat filled Severus’ tiny entryway. The whitewashed walls had a grungy sort of feel to them, grayed by time and too many scorgify spells without proper followup scrubbing. When Albus cautiously entered the narrow living room, a pile of ashes in a nest of black, threadbare robes was all that greeted him.

“Oh, Severus,” Albus whispered.

He searched the house, of course. Just in case. All of Severus’ wards and traps were predicated on the assumption that he would be alive to power them. None of them reacted to Albus. Not even the ones protecting Severus’ bedroom with its narrow, hard bed covered by too many thick blankets that had gone a bit tatty at the edges from repeated washing.

His potions lab lay silent, the fire out.

No potions waited for Severus to return which was the most telling detail of all.

“As if I would ever allow one of my incomplete potions to survive me,” Severus had sneered several years before Harry Potter came to Hogwarts. “If I die, all of my cauldrons will automatically banish their contents. All the current potion ingredients will be destroyed. And any incomplete potion notes will be transferred to my vault, to wait for a worthy potioneer to claim them.”

Albus’ shoulders slumped as he stared at the silent, still, empty potions lab.

Severus was truly gone.

All that effort to help Severus redeem himself after his youthful mistakes, gone. Albus had spent years, so many years, battling against the board to keep him in Hogwarts. He’d gone up against the Wizengamot. Against parent after parent after parent who objected to Severus’ stern teaching style.

And now all of that turned out to be wasted effort.

Albus sighed as he slowly made his way back to the living room where Severus’ floo was now completely unlocked.

“I… wanted so much more for you, my dear boy,” Albus murmured as he took a pinch of floo powder.

The Severus that would forever live in Albus’ memory sneered. How many times had he scoffed at Albus? Told him that all those efforts to protect Severus had nothing to do with him, only with Albus’ guilt for what had happened to Gellert, Arianna and Tom?

“You speak of second chances as if they’re holy,” Severus had said when Albus escorted him to the dungeons at Hogwarts to the room that would become his. “I wonder who exactly you think you’re saving, Albus Dumbledore. It certainly isn’t me.”

Albus’ hands shook hard enough that the pinch of floo powder cascaded down to the floor.

Severus had been right all that time, hadn’t he?

None of the effort that Albus put in to protecting him, the effort he put into trying to give the Death Eaters a chance to return to proper society, had been worth a thing. It was all just a sop that Albus had pushed out into the world in an attempt to forget just how little he, personally, deserved the second chance that he’d gotten.

The second pinch of floo powder went where it was supposed to. Madame Bones answered and then sighed when Albus informed her of Severus’ death.

“I’ll send a team to examine the site and deal with the remains, Mr. Dumbledore,” Madame Bones said so crisply and so emotionlessly that she must have said it a thousand times over the last day and a half. “Please exit the premises without doing magic. Thank you for informing us.”

“Of course,” Albus said.

He left Spinner’s End. Apparated back to Hogsmeade. Slowly shuffled in and sighed when Aberforth raised an eyebrow at him.

“And what’s got you dragging your heels?” Aberforth asked with the scowl that said that he didn’t actually want to know.

“I’ve wasted my entire life, Aberforth,” Albus said. “Everything I’ve attempted to build is worth nothing.”

Aberforth huffed as he swabbed the counter with a damp rag. “I could’ve told you that decades ago. The morning bunch should be here anytime. If you don’t want to be mobbed with questions about what happened, you’d better get upstairs.”

Albus went.

How could he answer anyone’s questions? Albus wasn’t the one who did anything. All he’d done was run around like a chicken with its head cut off searching for Harry, and then shamefully ask for help from Lord Peverell. The one who’d fixed it all, who’d saved not just Harry but also the entire world, was Lord Harrison Peverell.

Albus settled at his little table once more. The paper was still there, titles blaring at him in enormous font. Aberforth’s elf had been through cleaning, so his bed was made and the chair sat properly upright.

Yet again, Albus had no effect at all. Everything that he’d done was easily dusted up and put away like a child’s toys that the nanny elf decided needed to go back in the trunk once playtime was over.

How many mistakes had he made over the years?

For that matter, how had everything gone so very wrong?

Albus hummed and looked out the window towards Hogwarts’ gleaming ramparts. Perhaps he should finally start opening all those doors in his mind. One was supposed to, after all. Leaving the doors closed forever was not accounted to be the healthiest choice.

“Explosive” and “deadly” were the warnings that Albus had received when he first learned the art, not that he’d paid heed to his instructor. Not on that front. Daily review was so excessive, after all. A waste of time. Better to save things up for a more congenial time, one free of distractions.

Like now, perhaps.

“Well, I suppose I finally have time to sort through it all,” Albus said with a wry little smile. “I’d best work on that. It will take quite some time to review all the memories and experiences I locked away.”

He closed his eyes and entered his mindscape, hand already reaching out for the most recent door. Time to sort himself out since the world no longer needed Albus.

Several hours later, Aberforth poked his head into Albus’ room because his elf said that his genius of a brother hadn’t moved in hours. Albus didn’t move.

Not even to breathe.

Tracks of blood ran down Albus’ cheeks like tears. Other tracks dribbled from his ears and the corner of his mouth.

“Bloody hell, Albus,” Aberforth sighed as he studied his brother’s dead body. “Still leaving messes for me to clean up, damn it all.”

34. A Young Person of Quality Must Choose Their Own Path

Hermione stared up at the ceiling of Ginny’s room, eyes burning with both suppressed tears and exhausted rage. Everything would be fine. She didn’t need to worry about anything. Molly had it all under control.

“I am seventeen years old,” Hermione whispered to the ceiling. “I am not a child.”

Granted, Hermione desperately wanted a more-adult adult to ask questions of. With Harry gone, hidden away behind his island’s defenses to the point that not one of Hermione’s letters had gotten through to him, there was… so little reason for her to be here at the Burrow.

Ron?

Oh, please. Molly seemed convinced that Hermione would settle down to marry Ron and have a dozen kids with him. Ron obviously agreed with her. He’d made some effort since Harry ran away to be better, but he was still jealous, short-tempered and incredibly boring.

The whole Weasley family was the same: boring.

They looked at magic, glorious, incredible magic that could do literally anything you put your mind to, and then… did laundry. Mopped the floor. Knit sweaters. Made toasters work on magic, as if it wasn’t a simple matter of heating up metal for a period of time.

All Ron wanted was a boring, small life that was just like his parents’ boring small life. A dead-end job in a department that accomplished exactly nothing with a wife who stayed home with the kids. That, and only that, was Ron’s greatest dream.

“I cannot do this anymore,” Hermione whispered to the ceiling as dawn turned the ceiling golden after a night of dark grey and black shadows. “I just can’t.”

It was simple enough to ease out of bed. Hermione went to the bathroom, got cleaned up, changed into jeans and a T-shirt with a cardigan overtop purely because Mum didn’t like Hermione to go out in such informal clothes. She would object to the jeans, frankly, if Hermione wasn’t heading into Magi spaces.

Her trunk was already packed. Hermione hadn’t unpacked it. There wasn’t room for Hermione’s things in Ginny’s messy room. Yet another sign of how little Hermione, herself, mattered to the Weasleys.

A tap to the lock shrank her trunk which let her put it in her pocket. Everything else, including all her books, was already in her handbag.

Hermione looked around Ginny’s room. Other than the camp bed she’d been sleeping on, there was no sign that Hermione had ever been there.

She quietly stripped the bed and folded the blankets at the foot of it, just to be nice.

Then she headed downstairs to the fireplace, unsurprised to find Molly yawning as she started breakfast in the kitchen. Pots drifted through the air as ingredients flew into them. The tea kettle rumbled on the hob while Molly absentmindedly waved tea tins and mugs out of the cabinet over the sink.

“Hermione,” Molly said, blinking at her. “Goodness, what are you doing up so early?”

She waved a hand and a second mug drifted down out of the cabinet to fill with Molly’s favorite Earl Grey tea. It was already brewing in the blue teapot. On the counter, the green teapot filled itself with Orange Pekoe while the tiny white teapot had Arthur’s delicate white tea waiting for when the water in the kettle cooled enough not to slaughter it.

All that on top of sausages starting to fry and toast cooking itself on the hob, underlaid by the thick spice of pumpkin juice.

Hermione sighed. “I can’t do this, Mrs. Weasley. I’m going home.”

“What?” Molly asked with much more alertness this time. “Hermione, dear, whatever is wrong?”

“I’m seventeen years old, Mrs. Weasley,” Hermione said as her fingers clenched painfully tight on her handbag’s strings. “I’m going home. I want to see my parents, talk about my path in life. I… will not be back. The only reason I ever stuck around was Harry, you know. He was my very first friend and like a brother to me.”

“But… what about Ron?” Molly spluttered. “I thought that the two of you might… that someday…”

Hermione just stared at Molly. Silent. Flat. Waiting.

Molly grimaced and sighed. “I suppose I was dreaming up castles in the sky. Do you want me to tell Ron that you’re breaking up with him?”

“Molly,” Hermione said, shaking her head in utter dismay, “we were never dating. We’ve never properly courted at all. Not in the Magi style, not in the Muggle style. Yes, I did spend time with him. Yes, he seemed to think that I was available for kissing. I always said no. I want a true magical marriage and that requires chastity until marriage. I’ve never kissed anyone in my life.”

Victor had tried. Hermione had deflected and explained that she wanted a true magical marriage, thereby discovering that magical marriages were actually a real thing instead of just something she made up in a wild attempt not to have Victor’s tongue down her throat.

Ron had certainly made noises like he thought that they should kiss to “test their compatibility”. Of course, when Ron said “kiss” he meant a lot more than just a kiss.

Molly’s eyes went wide as Hermione explained. Then she puffed up with fury when she realized that Ron had been lying to her. And, possibly, that Ron had been pushing for sex before marriage. Molly was strangely prudish in many ways that Hermione found uncomfortable on the regular from a woman who also talked freely about “harvest rituals” that were thinly-veiled excuses for orgies.

“I’ll deal with him, dear,” Molly said. She huffed and then hesitated. “You truly don’t intend to come back?”

“Not to live,” Hermione said with a little shrug. “The only thing that bound me to Ron was Harry. I’ve more of a relationship with Ginny than with Ron. We shared a dorm, after all.”

“Do visit, at least,” Molly said as she grabbed Hermione for a hug that Hermione would’ve refused if she’d been given the chance. “You’re a good girl, a smart girl. You’ll go far, I’m sure.”

Hermione thanked her. Then she used the floo to go to Diagon Alley. Through the Leaky Cauldron and onto the Tube; the trip home took just under forty-five minutes.

Walking from the station to her parent’s house felt odd. In Magi spaces, the smells were all incense and perfumes. Slowly striding up the street to home, Hermione’s nose filled with car exhaust and the smell of tarmac slowly heating as the sun rose. How had she forgotten that smell? There was nothing like it.

But Hermione spent as little time in the Muggle world as she possibly could since she was eleven. No wonder she’d forgotten the smell of her neighbor’s old pink rose bush and the little deli up the block that served Qahwa, Arabic coffee so sweet that Hermione had always thought that it was blended with actual fruit. The aroma of the Qahwa filled the whole neighborhood.

Hermione smiled as she passed the deli.

It’d been so long since she really looked around the neighborhood. The transition from row houses into detached homes with tiny postage stamp yards happened two blocks from her parent’s home. Trees appeared like mushrooms sprouting up from the sudden grassy verge between traffic and the sidewalks. All the unevenness of old concrete smoothed out into perfectly level concrete newly laid.

Mum had complained endlessly about the new sidewalks in her letters last year. So much noise, so much disruption. Hermione could understand it, but honestly, it was nice to be able to stroll along without tripping on a broken bit of sidewalk every meter or so.

The Granger house was a modest two-story brick with a green roof and white-painted windows. Mum and Dad had left the brick natural, in part because painted brick could be such a bother with the upkeep but mostly because Mum got in a huge row with their nextdoor neighbors over how the neighborhood should look.

Mum had won. The big ornamental cherry tree with the burgundy leaves still stood between the two houses and the elm that Hermione had accidentally encouraged to grow unnaturally quickly still stood on the front lawn. Between the two trees, the Granger house had a welcome pocket of cool shade from the summer’s heat.

“Mum? Dad?” Hermione called. “I’m home.”

The house smelled of freshly toasted sourdough and strawberry jam. Hermione smiled at the sharp scent of ginger chai from Mum’s morning cuppa. Dad must not have gone to work yet even though he normally took the morning shift at their clinic. She could smell his cheap instant coffee still.

“Hermione?” Mum called back, coming to the entryway to stare at her in surprise. “Goodness, I thought you’d intended on staying with the Weasley’s for the summer.”

Hermione started to explain but all that came out was a muffled sob as she started crying. Half an hour later, Hermione finally stopped crying once Mum plopped a good cuppa in her hand after dishing out all the patting of Hermione’s fractured nerves that her Mum could handle.

Both Mum and Dad frowned over the garbled notes that Dad had made from Hermione’s babbling explanation. It was such a mess. She hated explaining things while sobbing.

“So,” Dad said slowly as he studied his notes, “your friend Harry took a runner and is now well out of the mess he’d been embroiled in since he was a toddler. That meant that Headmaster Dumbledore got ousted from all of his positions and put in charge of figuring out how to deal with the Magi’s little Dark Lord problem. He turned to Lord Peverell, wise of him, that. They’re amazing inventors, the Peverells. Had no idea they were Magi, though.”

“Darling,” Mum said, patting Dad’s arm to redirect him from going on and on about the Peverells as he always did.

Finding out that Peverell Industries, owned and run by Peverell family members, was actually a Magi-based company? That’d been a shock. Half of Hermione’s trips to Europe had involved going places where Peverell Industries had done this or that, usually with the cooperation of local governments, environmentally concerned corporations and the occasional artist with a brilliant idea.

Dad’s fascination with everything Peverell had meant that Hermione had assumed that there was no connection between the Magi and the Muggle versions. Even now she couldn’t be sure. Something to investigate, perhaps.

Later.

“Sorry,” Dad said with a wry little grin. “Lord Peverell did something, no one knows what, which was ridiculous and impossible which not only eliminated the Dark Lord problem but also all his followers. And now you’re home because… why?”

Hermione laughed a little. “Well, I guess I did a better job explaining than I thought. I just. I can’t… do things like that anymore. The Weasley way, I mean. They live such small lives, Dad. Mum, it’s like your cousin Angie. All that intelligence, all that money, and all she wants is to have five kids and keep house. The whole of Magi society in Britian is the same way, and I never really let myself see it until Harry was gone.”

“I have said a few things about that,” Mum said in her smugly pleased tone because yes, she had said it about ten million times over the years.

Hermione rolled her eyes. “I just realized at dinner last night that the entire Weasley family had already slotted me into place as the next Molly. I was going to marry Ron, have as many kids as possible, and do exactly nothing with my life while he got a dead-end job somewhere that barely let us make ends meet. And I can’t do that. I just can’t!”

Both Mum and Dad looked so utterly appalled that something inside of Hermione unclenched. She sagged back on the couch; mug of tea clutched to her chest.

It was okay.

Hermione wasn’t wrong. The whole thing that Ron had planned out wasn’t where Hermione should go. She’d let Harry be her guide to how to live and he’d followed Ron, but now Harry was gone, and Hermione could…

…breathe.

Be herself.

Have dreams instead of settling for a small life and a small husband and a small home where she did exactly what the previous generations had.

“Sweetie,” Mum said cautiously, “I know you’re fond of Ron.”

“Oh, Mum, really,” Hermione scoffed. “I was fond of Harry! He was the one who was fond of Ron. Just as Harry was my first friend, Ron was Harry’s first mate. There’s been not one letter. Not a message. Not even a floo call. Harry’s gone. He’s safe, truly safe now. And I just… have no reason to tolerate Ron Weasley’s jealous, lazy, stupid arse anymore.”

Mum spluttered into laughter, trying to muffle it with her fist. Dad didn’t bother. His laugh boomed through the room, making Hermione grin into her mug of tea.

“Thank goodness,” Dad said, grinning at Hermione. “We’ve been so worried about you just falling into a relationship with that boy. You could do so much better. If you’re not going to be Mrs. Ron Weasley—”

“Ugh! Daddy!” Hermione protested even though it made Mum laugh harder.

“What will you do?” Dad asked seriously enough that it drew Mum’s laughter to an end.

Hermione licked her lips and bit the bottom one as she swirled the remnants of her ginger chai. A wordless little bit of instinctive magic heated the tea back up to the proper temperature, filling her nose with ginger and spice and the smell of home.

“I’ve spent my entire schooling following,” Hermione mused. “I’m not sure… how I could lead, with the prejudices of Magi society. But. I was thinking of going to Gringotts. I might try and talk to one of the Peverells to see what they would recommend. It would, at the very least, not be the exact same advice that I’ve gotten from everyone else.”

“Good plan,” Dad said, waggling a finger at her as he bounced on his couch enthusiastically. “Very good plan! We’re taking a day off today, planned on going out for lunch and a movie since we thought you’d be gone the rest of the summer. What say we all take ourselves off to Diagon and see what the Peverells might have to suggest?”

Hermione drank the last of her tea before nodding slowly. Then more firmly. A day with her parents? Plus, advice that might actually be useful instead of the same old nonsense? With her parents there to comment?

“Sounds good,” Hermione said. “Let me go slip into a skirt instead of these jeans and we can be off.”

“I’ll put on a skirt, too,” Mum said as she gathered up their mugs. “Dear, you’d best put on your nice linen pants. They’re much more formal, even in summer.”

“Excellent!” Dad exclaimed as he bounded towards the stairs. “I wonder if I can ask questions about some of their European ventures while we’re there.”

Mum and Hermione exchanged amused glances. Well, maybe Hermione would get some useful advice. At the very least, she would have a day with her parents and not with the Weasley horde trying to transfigure her into a new edition of Molly bloody Weasley against her will.

35. House to House Relations Must Be Carefully Handled

“Well, once more into the chaos, shall we?” James said to Oliver as they headed out of Gringotts and down the marble stairs into Diagon Alley.

“If we must,” Oliver sighed, obviously not at all enthused about the idea of dealing with people.

But then Oliver never did enjoy dealing with people. James wasn’t too fond of it, either, but he made an effort so that he could protect his twin from the nonsense that people always threw their way. Once, oh, two weeks or so ago, that meant letting their uncle strangle and beat James instead of attacking Oliver.

Now it meant being on the lookout for Rita Skeeter and her ridiculous quill before the woman could concoct some ridiculous monstrosity of an article about them being secret lovers or some such nonsense. As if they didn’t have the exact same face, the exact same hair, and even the exact same magical auras.

Horrible woman. James completely understood why Lacey loathed Rita Skeeter.

“She’s got to be here,” complained a ginger young man with two older twin brothers who were equally ginger and utterly uninterested in whoever “she” was. Or where, maybe.

“Ronald Billius Weasley,” one of the twins said disapprovingly enough that Harry’s former friend Ron Weasley flinched. “You lied to all of us about dating Hermione. You lied to Mum and said that she’d agreed to marry you. You lied to Harry that the two of you were in love. You’re not going to hunt Hermione down. Mum and Dad have already told you to leave her alone.”

“But, but, but I have to explain to her, George,” Ron whined like a two-year-old denied a treat. “I know she really cares about me. We just haven’t, you know, discussed it.”

“Don’t,” the other twin who had to be Fred snapped at Ron. “If Hermione actually felt like that about you, we’d all have heard about it extensively. She would’ve asked a million questions. I don’t know why we believed you. We’re not even here for that. Quit trying to distract us from our errands, Ron.”

James sucked a breath between his teeth, turning to stare at Oliver who was wide-eyed and more than a little bit appalled.

They hadn’t had much time to talk to Harry before his latest stunt put him in the Healing Halls, but he’d spent their first night as Peverells explaining the whole thing where he’d been abused by his aunt and uncle, beaten up on the daily by his cousin, and treated like a criminal by his whole neighborhood.

And how his very first friend, Ron Weasley, had turned on him over and over and over again because he was jealous.

Of Harry’s money, which came from all of his relatives being dead. His fame, which nearly got Harry killed multiple times. Of the “special treatment” Harry got, none of which Harry ever asked for.

That’d been…

…an uncomfortable sort of discussion, honestly. The parallels between the way Harry’s relatives had treated him and the way that their uncle treated them whenever their grandmother was out of the house was way too close. Abuse was abuse, apparently, no matter whether there was magic involved or not.

Really, they’d made the right choice when they spotted Lord Harrison Peverell walking up Diagon Alley, golden-brown hair gleaming in the sun as he smiled like the nicest, kindest, most gregarious person ever. Pretending to be his cousins had been just what they should do.

And maybe, just maybe, this was something that they should do something about, too.

Harry didn’t deserve to deal with this, not while he was healing up.

“I’m sorry,” James said in that “not sorry at all” tone that Lacey always used when she wanted to cut someone off at the knees, “are you referring to Hermione Granger? Muggleborn friend of Harry Potter?”

All three Weasleys froze for a moment. Then Ron lit up while looking around as if he expected Hermione to appear out of thin air. Fred and George, who made an effort to look identical that neither James nor Oliver did, scowled and grabbed Ron’s arms in perfect unison.

“Yes!” Ron exclaimed, trying to shake his brother’s hands off. “Have you seen her?”

“No,” Oliver said.

“And I wouldn’t tell you if I had,” James finished for him.

Ron rocked back on his heels, eyes wide. “Um…”

“I just couldn’t believe that I was overhearing someone plotting to, what?” James turned to Oliver.

Oliver shrug. “Sounded to me like intimate fraud for her side of things coupled with legally actionable fraud in presenting the “relationship” to your family as established when it wasn’t.”

“That’s what I thought,” James agreed. “Very bad idea. Very bad. You can end up in a lot of legal trouble doing things like that.”

Ron scowled at them.

Oh, no wonder Harry always caved. That scowl promised such retaliation. Verbal and emotional, potentially physical. Ron’s brothers had worried expressions but given that they had Ron’s arms, they couldn’t see the threat that Ron Weasley was when his ideas were challenged.

James flicked out the little mirror that Amal had gotten them for communicating with each other while out. He didn’t activate it. He just reflected Ron’s face back to the twins before Ron could adjust his face to something more appropriate.

“You’re a threat,” James told Ron baldly. “You, personally, are a threat to Ms. Granger. I’d suspect that you’re a threat to Mr. Potter as well given that you don’t seem to be able to handle anyone challenging you.”

“What the bloody hell?” Ron squawked. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”

He squawked in earnest when Fred and George hauled Ron back and away from James and Oliver.

“James and Oliver Peverell,” Oliver said with a mocking little bow. “We’ve… dealt with… people like you before. Entitled, greedy, jealous.”

Their uncle, obviously. But also quite a few people who’d come to Gringotts in an effort to attach themselves to House Peverell over the last few days.

“Ron, you’re going home,” George snarled as Fred nodded and spun the two of them away in a brutally abrupt side-along. He sighed and rubbed one hand over his face. “I’m sorry that you had to see that.”

“No, it’s fine,” James said. “Really, we’ve dealt with that kind of nonsense before. I’d strongly suggest warning Ms. Granger that your brother still has interest in her.”

“Intent,” Oliver agreed. “Very worrying intent.”

Fred apparated back in right next to George, using him as the focus for his arrival in the same way that James and Oliver were learning to do it. He looked blackly furious but a quick touch from George and a shake of his head was all it took for Fred to shed his bad mood.

“We’ve got to warn Hermione,” George told Fred.

“Yeah, Mum’s going to send an owl,” Fred agreed. “She’s reading Ron a riot right now. I wish I knew what went wrong there. I thought they were so close.”

So had Harry. That was the thing. In their late-night discussion, Harry had lamented that he wouldn’t ever be able to tell his best mates what he’d done. He’d been clear that Ron would turn on him in an instant. That he wouldn’t be able to keep the secret unless he had an unbreakable vow. And he’d been very clear that Hermione would probably think that the whole thing was somehow improper, that Harry had cheated.

It wasn’t cheating if you succeeded. Anthony and Emily were both painfully clear on that. If you made it work, then it was okay. As long as you weren’t blatantly breaking the law, whatever it took to solve the problem was what it took.

“We’ve not met many other Magi twins,” Oliver observed.

Whatever had been going through Fred and George’s minds, it apparently evaporated as they started in unison before turning to stare at James and Oliver with such shock that yeah, they hadn’t met other Magi twins, either.

It was a thing, according to Lacey. Most Magi didn’t have twins. There was something about the magical core forming in the babies that meant that only one twin survived the pregnancy. It took very powerful parents for twins to be born and even more powerful family magic for them to be twin-bonded.

“We know one other pair,” George said after a long moment of mutual staring. “The Patil twins. Their family is from India, loads of twins, apparently.”

“Oh, absolutely,” James said. “Goodness, the magic there is so strong.”

“Never been,” Fred said, glancing at the people passing by as if he was worried about being overheard. “We’ve discussed it but it’s not in our budget, unfortunately.”

James nodded, waving for Fred and George to follow them. In part because twins, duh. But also, because frankly James wanted more information about the whole Weasley situation. Harry would wake up soon. He would ask. James wanted something solid to tell Harry, if at all possible.

“You can always apply for a grant,” James suggested. “Our coz’ is all about helping people accomplish their dreams.”

“How much interest would there be on it?” George asked warily.

“Grant,” James corrected with his biggest grin. “Not loan. You’d write up a proposal, send it in, and it would be reviewed by, oh, probably Lacey.”

Oliver nodded. “Lacey. Definitely Lacey. She’s… strict. So, it’d need to be a proper plan with rationale and where you’d want to go and what you’d expect to get out of it. But after that, Harrison would probably take one look and go “Yes! Worthy idea! Let’s do it!” And then you’d get money to go to India to meet other Magi twin-bonded pairs.”

Actually, James was going to suggest to Lacey and Amal that they do exactly that. You know, set up a whole grant program with guidelines and various sizes of grants that people could apply for. Sure, some people would want millions of galleons to live off of or to do huge projects that normally only the Ministry could handle. But others might just want a couple hundred galleons for a better cauldron so that their home brewing business could upgrade a touch.

“…I love the idea,” Fred said with hope shining through the horrified conviction that it couldn’t ever happen, “but Mum would go spare. More spare. Completely spare.”

“So, wait until you’re legal adults and do it then,” Oliver suggested. “I mean, honestly, if you’re adults, you get to choose what you do in life, no matter how your parents object.”

Fred and George exchanged a look, opaque to outsiders but clearly communicating with each other from another twin’s point of view. When they turned back to James and Oliver, their faces went stern, focused, very serious.

Very adult.

Oh, huh. They were already adults, but their mum wasn’t treating them that way.

“Yeah,” Fred confirmed with a grim little nod. “We’re eighteen. Mum keeps treating us like we’re eight. Got our own business and everything, but it’s not a real business. Not to her.”

James blinked several times. “Which one?”

“Weasleys’ Wizarding Wheezes,” George said proudly enough that both he and Fred lost that grim look.

“Oh,” James breathed as Oliver’s grin made an appearance. “We love your stuff. So many amazing ideas. You’re practically Peverells with all the creativity.”

Both Fred and George went as red as their hair. James grinned along with Oliver. Maybe this was something that they should run by Harry, Amal, Emily, Lacey who was going to twist James’ ear for not keeping a lid on his sense of mischief.

But come on!

Weasleys’ Wizarding Wheezes!

“You know,” James said slowly as he turned to Oliver who was already bouncing up and down in their shared excitement.

“House Peverell hasn’t given its endorsement to anyone yet,” Oliver continued, rubbing his hands together in delight.

“There might just be a business opportunity here,” James finished. “We’ve errands. You’ve errands. Would you be free in, oh, two hours?”

Fred and George exchanged the same excited, bouncing with delight look, grins blooming on their faces.

“Absolutely,” Fred declared.

“We’ll be at Gringotts,” George continued.

“On the dot,” Fred finished.

“Or earlier,” George said, laughing a little. “We’ll bring our catalog with us.”

“And a few of your ideas in development,” James said, waggling a finger at them. “That’s important, too.”

Oliver nodded. “Looking forward to seeing you, then.”

The four of them made a production of shaking each other’s hands, in part because Rita Skeeter had finally shown up. Without her quill, darn it. James really wanted to steal that thing, purely to cause her trouble.

Then they split up and headed off on their respective errands.

Not necessarily what they’d been sent out to do, but James was quite certain that Harry would approve. And appreciate getting a bit of information on what his former best mates were up to. And if it also helped the newly reinvented House Peverell establish itself in Britian, well, that was all to the good.

36. Becoming an Adult Means Establishing Your Own Direction

“Do come along, Neville,” Gran said once he’d landed at the public Apparation point nearest to Gringotts. “It wouldn’t do to be late to our meeting.”

“Yes, Gran,” Neville said.

There were days.

Days when Neville dearly wanted to tell Gran that she was a smothering, overbearing, pain in the arse. There’d never been a day in his entire life when Gran had looked at Neville and actually seen Neville.

No, she saw Dad.

Dad’s jaw and Dad’s hair and Dad’s magic and Dad’s wand, up until Neville finally got his own bloody wand. Sure, and Gran promptly sneered every time Neville pulled his own wand out, too.

Back when he was younger, it’d been crushing.

Now?

Neville stood a full head taller than Gran, twice as wide at the shoulders, and his greenhouses were a damn sight more productive and profitable than hers. Not something that either of them ever mentioned, but Neville quietly gloried in the way that Gran had to crane her neck to meet his eyes anymore.

Not really the best thing to be pondering on the way into a meeting with House Peverell, but honestly. “Do come along, Neville” like he was a naughty crup. Or a toddler.

Gringotts looked better than Neville expected. Still chaos, of course. House Peverell’s vault issue was huge enough that Neville expected they’d be at it for the rest of the year, much less the rest of the summer. One didn’t sort out and properly index a vault in less than three months when it was a standard ten-by-twenty.

From what Gran had heard through her sources, the new Peverell vault was one of the interconnected vault complexes that totaled up something like a hundred acres, all stacked high throughout.

“Do y’suppose they’ve gotten the entry vault sorted yet, Gran?” Neville asked as they waited for one of the Goblins to come take them to their meeting.

“Not yet,” Gran said with the look of doom for his diction. “Apparently, they had a bit of a problem with a trapped book. And then another problem with small storage boxes.”

Neville winced. Merlin only knew what might’ve been in those boxes. Sometimes they got secondhand boxes for shipping produce from the greenhouses that weren’t properly purged of all previous spell work and yikes.

Not a good thing.

“Lord Longbottom?” a stern young woman with shoulder-length sandy-blond hair and a steely gaze asked.

“Ah, yes,” Neville said. “This is my grandmother, Dowager Augusta Longbottom.”

“A pleasure,” the young woman said. “I am Lucinda Peverell. Please call me Lacey. If you’ll follow me, I’ll escort you to the meeting room we’ll be using.”

Normally, Neville would’ve taken the escort thing to be a bit of a snub. Not old enough or experienced enough to make your way through Gringotts’ halls, you know.

Not today.

The halls were crammed. Utterly crammed. Goblins rushing about with paperwork. Other Goblins rushing about with crates and boxes. Still other Goblins, some in full war mage armor, stomping about while levitating what looked like furniture that’d come to life with a taste for human flesh and blood.

“Bloody hell,” Neville murmured to Lacey after a team of four war mages cleared the hallway by shoving literally everyone up against the wall so that they could levitate out a charmed necklace that snapped and sparked as it tried to reach out to strangle every single person it passed.

“I know,” Lacey sighed. Totally exhausted. “That thing was supposed to be destroyed three generations ago. Got shoved in one of the hazard vaults and forgotten instead.”

“Oh.” Neville grimaced. “And then dumped in with the rest of the stuff? Hope no one got hurt.”

“Two broken arms, three near garroted, and one Goblin who’s getting a promotion and commendation for suppressing the thing long enough for the war mages to get there,” Lacey confirmed. “Right, we’re just up the hallway and to the left.”

It was a new perfectly circular conference room, freshly carved from the living stone. Neville hummed, taking in the rubble in the corners of the room, before studying the contents.

Three stone tables spaced equal distances from each other and the door. On each table was a small trunk, no, vaults. Three small vaults with mithril bands and locks holding them shut.

Seed vaults.

“Oh!” Neville breathed at the same moment that Gran clutched his arm. “Those…”

“Seed vaults,” Lacey confirmed. “We have no confirmation or information of when they came into Peverell possession. No idea of what they contain. All three of them are locked with not just physical locks but also herbology spells that no Peverell alive has been trained on.”

“Really?” Neville asked, surprised. He stared at Lacey who shrugged. “I would’ve thought that you had someone trained in everything.”

“Four generations ago, certainly,” Lacey said. “Right now, only Lord Harrison has any interest in gardening and he’s more into food production and growing ornamental flowers. Sweet peas and roses, in particular, though he’s fond of iris and wisteria, too. Like much of the rest of the magical world, we’ve… been a bit depopulated over the last couple hundred years.”

Neville wrinkled his nose as he tried not to grimace. That was a particularly polite way of saying that the last few wars had killed huge swathes of the population. Pity that it’d taken out Peverells along with everyone in Neville and Harry’s family.

“So, what’re you asking of us?” Neville asked as he caught Gran’s arm to keep her from going to poke at the seed vaults. “Open and catalog? Grow what’s inside? Full contract for production with sales to appropriate markets with royalties?”

Lacey laughed softly.

Despite how stern she was, her laugh was a gentle one. Made Neville want to stare at her, but that was likely to get him a lecture from Gran when they got home, so Neville just waited as Lacey shook her head and smiled wryly up at Neville.

“The hope is that you’ll be able to open and identify today,” she said. “Once we have access to an inventory, we’ll discuss what to grow and what to sell or destroy with Lord Harrison. Well, we’ll discuss it after he’s out of the Healing Halls. He’s in a healing coma at the moment.”

Neville frowned. “I hadn’t realized that it was that bad. Will he be all right?”

Lacey nodded. “Lord Harrison is… well. Getting him to sit still and relax is almost impossible. He’s moving from the moment he wakes up until far too late at night. The healers put him in the healing coma just to be sure that he doesn’t exert himself too early in the healing process.”

“Ah,” Neville said as he tried not to laugh. “I have friends like that. They’re… very annoying whenever they get hurt.”

Gran huffed. “You can just say Mr. Potter’s name, Neville.”

“Oh, no,” Neville laughed. “Harry’s absolutely that bad. Worse, really, because he was so horribly abused. I was actually thinking of Susan. Madame Bones’ niece, Susan Bones. She’s just… all go, no stop, all the time.”

Both Gran and Lacey snickered over that. Neville would bet that both of them had spent enough time around Madame Bones to know that it was just a Bones family thing.

Either way, Gran took the seed vault to the far right. Neville took the one to the far left. Lacey stayed well back by the door, watching them carefully with her wand at the ready just in case something went horribly wrong.

Always possible with unknown seed vaults.

One didn’t create a seed vault for beans, after all. They were used for dangerous plants that needed to be kept isolated from the environment, all sources of food, water and air, or magical encouragement to grow. Neville had a personal seed vault back home. So did Gran, though hers was far more focused on potions ingredients than Neville’s collection of lethal XXX-level plants.

“Wow, this is securely locked,” Neville said as he reviewed the lock’s requirements. “I don’t have all the certs needed for this one, Gran. I’m not sure your current certs are enough.”

“Really?” Gran asked, abandoning her seed vault to come over to his side of the room. “Oh. Oh! Well, this one will need some diagnostics. If the lock is that tightly bound, the contents are sure to be deadly.”

“Yeah, that was my impression,” Neville agreed. “Yours?”

“Puzzle lock,” Gran said with a glare of pure hate at the rightmost seed vault. “Perhaps you’ll have more success.”

Neville happily switched over to that one, poking away at the lock until he figured out exactly the right sequence of spells, touches and seals needed to open the thing. Thankfully, the lock wasn’t degraded at all, so it popped up a hopefully full listing of the seeds inside.

Cowsbane, already budding and deadly. Six different varieties of venomous tentacula, two of which Neville had never even heard of before, which meant that there was no antivenom for them. Eighteen fanged geraniums and two soul-eater wild rose bushes and a mimblemortia which was just…

“Oh, shite,” Neville yelped, backing off from the seed vault in shock. “Gran! This one has seedlings. XXXX seedlings.”

“Lock it back down!” Gran snapped at Neville though she didn’t lift her head from the work she was doing on the other seed vault’s extra-complicated lock.

Good on Gran. If it had a lock like that then the contents had to be even worse than Neville’s nightmare of a vault.

He hurried to do so, very aware of Lacey standing at the door radiating both concern and intent to kill. Which would very much not be good with the contents of this vault. Neville waved at her to stand down, which she absolutely did not do until Neville got the vault locked back tight.

“Do not cast any magic near or at this one,” Neville warned Lacey. “All the plants in this would grow explosively. It might be enough to take the entirety of Gringotts out.”

Lacey blanched as she moved her wand behind her thigh.

“Yeah,” Neville agreed. “Let me see what I can make of the third vault. That one is going to need to be opened cautiously with a full team. Probably ICW support, honestly. It’s beyond even us.”

Which was saying something.

Something horrible. Who the bloody hell had put that vault together? And why?

Well, didn’t really matter all that much when he had a third vault that needed to be opened up and checked out. That was a simple matter compared to the other two. It just wanted magical confirmation that Neville had the proper herbology certs before it popped up a lovely, detailed list, complete with notes on where and when each seed block had been gathered.

“Oh, nice,” Neville said as he studied the notes. “Your ancestor was a brilliant note-taker. We’ve got full provenance, Gran. Seeds from all over the world from, goodness, I think she was a collector. These are all harvested from other people’s collections.”

Pansy Peverell, the author and owner of this particular seed vault, apparently earnestly enjoyed collecting rare heirloom varieties of beans.

Beans.

All kinds of beans. Magical, not, thought extinct and possibly actually extinct everywhere but in this particular vault.

Wait…

Outright stolen and noted as such from the Goblin’s reserve up in Finland!

Neville goggled as he realized that it wasn’t just that one batch of beans that’d been stolen. All of the beans had been stolen.

“What the bloody hell is wrong with this woman?” Neville spluttered. “These are all stolen! Every single batch of beans.”

Gran turned to stare at Neville with as much shock as he’d ever seen on her face. “Beans?”

“Beans,” Neville confirmed. “Magical and Muggle. It’s all beans. And all stolen. Pansy Peverell was, apparently, utterly batty about beans. Last batch of beans to be put in was back in the forties, back before the war heated up.”

Lacey groaned, shoulders slumping as she rubbed her face with her free hand. “I just… for fuck’s sake.”

Neville managed not to snicker at her obvious dismay. Mostly because Gran looked just as appalled as Lacey, but hey, at least they had one vault figured out. Not one seed in Pansy’s vault was dangerous. They were all good food seeds, so maybe Neville would get to meet Lord Peverell later.

You know, once he was healed up and allowed to be conscious.

Either way, Gran finally figured out how to get the inventory on the other vault which showed a whole long list of the most deadly seeds on the planet, some of them not just forbidden to own but also thought to be destroyed down to the last seed generations ago. The inventory showed that the vault had been put together back about five hundred years ago with the vault and lock replaced repeatedly over the years.

Not by any Peverells. All the magical signatures on it were Malfoys up to the very last one.

“So, one of your relatives either stole it or won it in a bet off the Malfoys,” Neville observed once Gran locked the thing back down properly.

“Looks like,” Lacey agreed. “We’ll be sending that one and the seedling vault off of to the ICW to deal with. We’ve more than enough explosive issues to deal with without that kind of nonsense.”

“Fair,” Neville agreed. “Well, do please tell Lord Peverell that I’d love a chance to grow some of the beans. The Ever-Glowing Fairy beans are apparently quite lovely. Not good for eating but they’re quite ornamental. And I’d fancy a chance at crossing the beefsteak lima beans with some of my personal stock of monster reds.”

“Oh, that might be very interesting,” Gran said, nodding thoughtfully. “Might end up too tough for eating.”

Neville shrugged. “Worth a try. They’d require hell’s-own fertilizing and a stupid amount of space.” He grinned at Lacey’s curious look. “Each individual monster red bean is the size of my head. The pods are twice as long as I am tall. But they’re useful in a number of ways. I do think crossing them with the beefsteak lima would result in softer and slightly smaller beans which is why I want to try it out.”

“I’ll let Lord Harrison know,” Lacey promised. “Thank you for your assistance, Lord Longbottom, Dowager Longbottom. We’ll definitely keep you on tap for any more…” she waved a hand and rolled her eyes, “herbology issues we come across in the vaults.”

And that was about that.

Lacey escorted them back out of Gringotts past the masses of stressed out, overworked Goblins and Magi, letting Neville and Gran make their own way once they were at the lobby. Maybe next time he’d get to meet Lord Harrison. Neville was honestly curious just what the man was like, though if Neville was lucky, Lord Harrison wouldn’t be as high-energy as Susan.

She was exhausting all by herself. He couldn’t imagine two of them in the same place at the same time. Ugh!

37. Knowing One’s Limits is Very Important For Success

Theo’s fingers shook. Continuously.

It was nothing new, of course. Father had never stinted on the cruciatus for Theo’s many and varied failures to measure up to Father’s new standards for the Nott family. Any time that Theo had displayed too much independence, Father’s wand had come out, and Theo had spent a period of time screaming until his lungs gave out.

So yes, his fingers shook as he carefully drank down the nerve soother that his personal and only surviving Nott house elf had brought for him.

“Master will be okay?” Apa asked, peering up at Theo nervously.

“I will,” Theo promised. “It’s just a floo trip to the Alley. A visit with the Goblins. I need to go, one way or the other, and hopefully this will net us two birds with one stone.”

Even after watching Father burn from the inside out until all that was left was his shiny leather shoes, Theo couldn’t break the habit of speaking obliquely.

To be direct was to risk Father’s punishment. A lifetime spent watching one’s words didn’t end just because one’s torturer died a well-deserved and incredibly painful death.

Draco hadn’t seen.

Or heard much.

Theo had checked on that as soon as he possibly could. Unlike Theo, Draco had been hiding when it all happened, which meant that he’d not had the slightest clue of how miserable his mother and father’s deaths truly were.

Draco hadn’t asked. Theo hadn’t told him.

And he never would.

Between the two of them, Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy had turned Draco’s mind into a globe made of soap-bubble-thin blown glass. The least little bump would shatter him utterly. Even when they were first years, a simple refusal to shake Draco’s hand had set Draco to raging for weeks and crying himself to sleep for months.

It had only gotten worse since then.

Thankfully, Draco was under the care of the best mind healers that the newly liberated Malfoy money could buy, so Draco would get better soon.

Hopefully.

Theo, on the other hand, had never been allowed to have any kind of weaknesses. While Father had never stinted on “discipline”, he’d also insisted that Theo learn occlumency before he even got to Hogwarts. There had been regular mind-healing appointments with a Dark-aligned healer. Regular health checkups that carefully dealt with all of the aftermath.

Frankly, Theo needed to make the time for a proper daylong session with his healer who had, miraculously, survived the Dark Lord’s death. Putting off the healing he needed was foolish.

When one had an incomplete and aching vassal bond pulling at one, weakness was not something one could afford.

Thus, the trip to Gringotts.

The Nott account manager, Stoneskin, had Theo’s updated account books ready. Removing his father from everything was a nontrivial task.

Removing all of Father’s stupid decisions was much more monumental.

They reviewed everything and changed everything immediately. Theo absolutely was not going to stay invested in Father’s chosen-for-blood-status companies. They had terrible returns on investment and were mostly illegal, to boot.

Diversifying into Muggle industries was deeply satisfying on a personal level. If Theo wasn’t fully aware that Father’s very soul had been consumed by the Dark Lord in a vain attempt to preserve his unnatural life, Theo would enjoy the idea of Father’s soul spinning in its nonexistent grave.

He’d had Apa throw Father’s ashes into the ocean instead of interring them.

As if that man would ever be a proper Nott. No, Theo had no regrets for denying his father a place in the Nott crypt. Theo’s ancestors had been loyal vassals of the Potters. Interring his father’s ashes would’ve been an insult to everyone who’d come before both Theo and his father.

“Well, this looks like it’s a good start, Stoneskin,” Theo said once they’d gone through everything. “Can we meet again in a week? A month? Which would be better for accomplishing it all?”

“Let us meet in a month, Lord Nott,” Stoneskin said. “There is a great deal to accomplish here.”

“Perfect,” Theo said.

He paused before he stood, accepting the narrow look that Stoneskin leveled on him.

Stoneskin was ancient for a Goblin, easily over five hundred years old. He’d been handling the Nott accounts for the entire time, even though the Potters used Silverclaw as their account manager. Theo rubbed his shaking hands together and then just shook his head.

“Is it possible for me to talk to Silverclaw, Stoneskin?” Theo asked, shaking hands on display instead of firmly latched around his folio or his quill. “I was… hoping… to address the vassal bond issue.”

Both of Stoneskin’s patchy white eyebrows went up in surprise.

“I was given to understand that there was no vassal bond issue anymore,” Stoneskin ventured eventually.

“Hm, well, Father certainly claimed it,” Theo said with a grimace of distaste that made Stoneskin’s lips twist in a smirk. “But he lied. He felt it quite acutely as he was cast out personally. I’ve always felt it was… possible… for me. Potter never seemed interested, though.”

“I do not believe that Lord Potter had any idea,” Stoneskin said slowly, consideringly as he watched Theo shake in front of him. “Let us see if Silverclaw would be willing to explain. The issues regarding Lord Potter are quite complex.”

Given that Potter had outright run like hell to escape Dumbledore, Britain and the Ministry of Magic, yes, that was an accurate way to put it. Underplayed it quite a lot, really. Still, it got Theo an immediate appointment with Silverclaw who took one look at his pale skin, his eternally shaking hands and the way his magic echoed with pain before scowling.

“You bring the boy here instead of the healing halls?” Silverclaw demanded of Stoneskin.

“He feels the vassal bond,” Stoneskin replied with a scowl of his own.

Silverclaw’s head went back as he stared right at Theo.

From what Father had said, Silverclaw was the Goblin personification of beauty. From the fluff of white hair decorating his head, to the sharp teeth revealed as he snarled at Theo, right down to those silvery claws that gave him his name, Silverclaw was the Goblin’s version of Helen of Troy. Perfect, beautiful, the absolute ideal.

Theo honestly didn’t see it.

But he didn’t need to. All he needed was for Silverclaw to send a message off to Potter so that Potter could make a decision one way or the other about the vassal bond.

“Healing halls,” Silverclaw decided. “Now.”

“Fine,” Theo grumbled. “At least consider sending a note to Potter. I only need him to refuse the vassal bond for the call to end. Second generation, you know. Two denials equals no more vassalage.”

Silverclaw snorted as if Theo was an idiot. “That boy would never turn away a potential bond. You’d best prepare yourself for the exact opposite.”

That…

…well.

Theo’s brain filled with the sort of static that went along with Father’s worst punishments. He frankly hadn’t considered the idea that Potter might actually want him. No one did. Draco tolerated Theo. Blaise, Pansy, Daphne, the other Slytherins in his year; they all looked at Theo as if he was an annoying interruption to their ordered lives.

Which, frankly, he was.

Child of a traitor: how could anyone ever truly trust him? It was in his blood or at least that was the assumption of literally every single person that Theo had ever met in any house at Hogwarts or among Britain’s Magi.

Healer Bannet was in the healing halls, scowling and grumbling as he treated a young Goblin who’d apparently smashed her own hand while hammering an ax in her forge. There was a curtained off bed at the far side of the hall that had so many wards and protective spells over it that Theo assumed on first sight that it held Lord Peverell.

“Why is this one here?” Healer Bannet demanded of Silverclaw and Stoneskin. His eyes swept Theo. “Never mind. Cruciatus damage, torture and PTSD, obviously.”

“Also an aching potential vassal bond,” Theo agreed. “Dark magic residue from multiple spells I was forced to witness and participate in. Oh, and a certain level of malnutrition. Father did not believe in a balanced diet.”

Healer Bannet sighed as he waved Theo onto one of the treatment beds. A second wave of his hand surrounded the bed with curtains and privacy spells. Goblins. Always so efficient. Theo couldn’t help but appreciate it, even though the treatment process was…

…excruciating as always.

Several hours later, after Theo slept off the worst of the treatment and ate a truly prodigious amount of vegetables along with his hearty stew and crusty bread with fresh butter, Theo was allowed to dress and stand.

Lord Peverell’s bed was still sheathed in spells and curtains.

“He will survive, I hope?” Theo asked Healer Bannet.

“Oh yes,” Healer Bannet said with the blackest glare that Theo had ever seen out of a healer, Magi or Goblin. “The idiot absolutely will. And he’ll probably fling himself into another stupid ritual and get himself bashed all to hell again soon.”

Theo blinked. Raised an eyebrow.

He didn’t ask. It wasn’t as though Healer Bannet’s vows would let him say much more than that. And a Goblin would never gossip about a customer in that fashion if they wanted to keep their head attached to their shoulders.

Instead, he hummed and appreciated that his fingers didn’t shake at all as he settled his tie properly in place before putting his robe back on.

“Did Silverclaw or Stoneskin say whether or not I should check in with them before leaving?” Theo asked.

“You should,” Healer Bannet said. He passed Theo the little stone chit that indicated that he was free from the healing halls and now had to go settle his bill. “Silverclaw’s office. He’s waiting for you to be released. I’ll send a message so that he’s ready when you arrive.”

A very junior Goblin with a properly grim expression escorted Theo back to Silverclaw’s office. To his surprise, several Peverells were there. The twins, James and Oliver, had bags full of who-knew-what in their arms. The young woman who’d been identified in the Prophet as Lucinda Peverell was there, too, shaking her head at the twins who grinned like they’d just gotten away with something.

And a grandmotherly sort of woman who had to be Emily Peverell who took one look at Theo before bustling over to settle his robes across his shoulders even though he’d gotten it right all ready.

“Oh, yes,” Emily said once she’d touched him and stepped back. “That’s quite the vassal bond you’ve got waiting there.”

Theo grimaced. “My apologies. My shields are usually rather weak after a healing.”

“Quite all right, dear,” Emily said, waving off his apology. “Silverclaw asked us to take a look at you as I’ve got a vassal bond of my own and the twins are, well, twins.”

“Yeah,” James or maybe Oliver said as he shook his head. “You’re a right mess, you are.”

“Agreed,” Oliver or maybe James agreed with a grimace. “Even after healing, you echo with pain.”

Lucinda Peverell just nodded thoughtfully.

Rather than ask what all that was about, Theo passed the chit to Silverclaw who took it without so much as a single sneer.

“Please take the payment for my healing from my vaults, Silverclaw,” Theo said.

“Already done,” Silverclaw confirmed as expected. “Stoneskin and I arranged for that before the curtains were even drawn. As the Peverells agree that your vassal bond is an issue, a message will be sent to Lord Potter-Black. It may take several weeks to get a reply. You will be notified to come to the bank when it’s time.”

“Understood,” Theo said even though the part of him that ached to be a Potter vassal screamed at the wait. “Thank you for your assistance.”

He bowed to Emily and the twins and Lucinda. And then left Gringotts before he could start cursing the way his father used to. Not the solution he’d prayed for, but at least there was a message to be passed on and the potential that something, someday, might make the aching need go away.

Theo just had to be patient for a little bit longer.

38. Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance

“That man,” Draco grumbled under his breath as he did his best not to wobble as he stomped up the hallway from the carts. “I don’t understand how he could have made that much of a mess of everything.”

Except of course Draco knew. He’d been there, watching and listening and drinking up all of Father’s idiocy and prejudices. Draco had never once questioned Father’s insistence on only investing in Magi enterprises. Specifically Dark-aligned ones.

They’d lost so much money. Completely aside from what Father flung to the Dark Lord and his many cronies, their investments were just… stupidity.

“There are others who agree,” Griphook said entirely too calmly as he paced along at Draco’s side. “I, of course, cannot tell you which Houses or what investments, but our account managers have never been this busy before.”

“And that’s on top of everything House Peverell has you scrambling to deal with,” Draco said with a little breath of a laugh.

He rested his hand against the stone wall. Just for an instant. The healers at St. Mungo’s had fixed all the curse damage Draco had labored under. He’d come to Gringotts and paid for a full purification to ensure that there was no Dark magic contaminating him anymore.

Draco had no reason to feel so wobbly.

Every step felt like the ground might just fall away underneath him.

He really needed a mind healer, too.

“Malfoy.”

Draco started at finding Hermione Granger standing there staring at him with a complicated sort of frown. Rather like he was a puzzle that she didn’t quite understand yet. When Draco turned Griphook was gone, disappeared back into the endless, swirling mass of workers trying to deal with House Peverell’s nonsense.

“You look terrible,” Granger commented. “Though, honestly, you look better than I would’ve expected with everything that’s happened.”

“Thank you so much,” Draco drawled. “You look… surprisingly good. Where’s Weasley?”

Granger’s lips thinned as she looked away, just for an instant. When she met his eyes again, it was like getting hit by a hammer. Powerful, intent, overwhelming especially when Draco felt this wobbly.

“I’ve… well,” Granger sighed. “I discovered that Ron thought that I was going to marry him and become the next Molly Weasley. I’m not, obviously. I have plans for my life, and they don’t include being a housewife. I’ll probably not go back to Hogwarts next year. I’m hoping for a meeting with House Peverell about opportunities to intern with them.”

Draco blinked as he nodded consideringly. “You almost certainly could take your NEWTs right now given how you study. Frankly, I was considering taking them myself. I’ve far too much to do with House Malfoy to play around at Hogwarts house politics anymore.”

“Hey!”

Both Draco and Granger jumped as Neville Longbottom came striding out of the crowd like a tall-masted ship forging through high seas. He smiled brightly at Granger and then bowed casually at Draco.

“Malfoy,” Theo said as he slipped into their circle having been hidden by the growing breadth of Longbottom’s shoulders.

“Nott,” Draco said, nodding at him as he raised an eyebrow in question.

Theo sighed. Still hadn’t resolved the vassal bond issue, then. Pity. Draco knew how it dragged on Theo, not that there was a single thing that either of them could do about it.

“Dealing with Houses?” Longbottom asked.

“And asking questions,” Granger agreed. “You?”

“Seed vaults, actually,” Longbottom said with so much enthusiasm that Draco let himself sigh just as obnoxiously as he wanted to. “House Peverell had three seed vaults locked away in their vaults. Two were… very dangerous. One is full of stolen beans.”

“…beans?” Draco asked.

“Don’t ask me,” Longbottom said. He held up both hands. “I have no idea. Apparently there was a Peverell who decided that she was going to steal beans from across the world. And yes, they’re actually stolen, not just traded or shared. It’s the weirdest thing. But I’m getting some of the beefsteak lima to cross with my monster reds, so I’m fine with that.”

“Interesting choice,” Draco said thoughtfully while both Granger and Theo stared at Longbottom and then Draco like they were batty. “Might actually make the monster reds edible.”

“Exactly!” Longbottom exclaimed. “I’m delighted. It’s going to be so much fun growing them and crossing them. That particular variety of beefsteak lima haven’t been cultivated since about the sixteen hundreds.”

Before Draco could ask Longbottom to keep him up to date on the seed trials, Granger huffed and shook her head.

“How did you get a meeting?” Granger asked.

“That’s what I want to know,” Theo agreed.

“Let’s… discuss this elsewhere, shall we?” Draco suggested because he realized suddenly that he was pressed against the stone wall of the tunnel and they’d created a road block that was drawing more and more glares by the moment.

Fifteen minutes later, the four of them settled comfortably around a private table at Tea and Trivets off Horizont Alley. Not Draco’s normal choice for private discussions, but the food and tea were much, much better than Father’s favorite bar or Mother’s preferred restaurant. Draco had already privately resolved to never, ever do anything that either of his parents would approve of.

They’d lost any chance of his following in their footsteps when they followed the Dark Lord.

“Thank you,” Granger said when the waitress brought a large pot of Earl Grey and one of the truly massive three-story tea trays full of hearty treats instead of sweet ones.

She poured tea for all of them, as neat and perfect as any pureblood daughter drilled on it for years.

“I am so very done,” Granger announced once they’d all sipped their tea and taken something from the tray to nibble on.

“With what?” Longbottom asked, already halfway through his salmon sandwich and reaching for one of the ham and Swiss on rye sandwiches.

“The entirety of Hogwarts educational system,” Granger said, tapping the rim of her cup thoughtfully while staring into the distance between Theo and Draco’s shoulders. “The Ministry. The whole Weasley clan.”

“Did you dump Ron?” Longbottom squeaked just before the question could splutter out of Draco’s mouth.

“Dumping him would imply that I’d ever agreed to date him,” Granger said so acidly that Draco winced.

“Bad form, that. You should at least ask before you start compelling people,” Draco commented before stuffing his cress sandwich into his mouth so he wouldn’t say something else entirely inappropriate.

Granger nodded grimly. “Part of the reason I was at Gringotts today was to be checked for every known method of compelling someone to date another. The other part was trying to get a meeting with House Peverell, but mostly I wanted to be sure that Ron hadn’t… done something.”

That was…

Draco turned to Theo who just sipped at his tea as if this was a perfectly ordinary conversation that one had in public. Not that their room was public, but still. One had to assume that at least the house elves were listening in. Granted, Theo handled everything with that same cold, calculated dispassion, but really. There were limits.

“I… never would have expected those words to come from you,” Draco admitted since Longbottom looked like he was never going to open his mouth again. A man that large should never try and curl into that small of a ball around his teacup.

“Well, Gryffindor is all about war,” Granger said. Her smile might have started a duel if she’d been in Slytherin. “You shouldn’t be surprised that things get… difficult… at times in our tower. Their tower. I truly won’t go back. I always had plans for my life and none of them will happen with Magical Britian being…”

She waved a hand in disgust, dismissing all the things that were wrong with Magical Britian. Draco nodded his agreement, as did Theo. It took a moment for Longbottom to find his spine again, but he sighed and nodded as he took a third sandwich when Theo smirked and offered to let him take Theo’s portion.

“If you don’t want them, I’ll take them,” Longbottom said happily. “I’m starving. Missed breakfast and we’ve been so busy working with House Peverell on the seed vaults that I’ve barely eaten or slept for the last few days. But yeah, there was… never much hope, Hermione. I mean, I tried to tell you that you needed a patron back in first year, but you didn’t listen.”

“I wish I had,” Granger grumbled. “Not that it would matter now. Everything has changed since Harry left.”

Wasn’t that the truth? Draco took a bite from his sandwich and suddenly discovered that he was as hungry as Longbottom. The two of them took turns emptying the tea tray while Theo asked polite questions about Granger’s plans that Granger answered like she was lobbing AK’s into a crowd of mingled allies and enemies.

Educational plans? Reform the entire curriculum for Magical Britain from birth through earning a fourth, fifth, sixth mastery. Thoughts on the way voting in the Wizengamot would change with the Dark Lord gone and House Peverell moved to Britian? Granger had ideas of what the Wizengamot had done, currently was not doing, and what they should be compelled to do in the near and far future.

“We need to put you in as Minister of Magic,” Longbottom said around the last bite of scone.

“That,” Draco agreed as he polished off his tea and then tapped the pot for a refill, this time of a nice chai heavy on the cinnamon and citrus peel.

Theo nodded thoughtfully. “That’s probably something that we could accomplish. If you pass your NEWTs with at minimum E’s, it wouldn’t be hard to get you a patron.”

“I’ll do it,” Longbottom offered immediately. “Not the best choice for someone with your plans, but I absolutely would.”

“House Peverell would be the perfect choice,” Theo agreed. He wrinkled his nose at Draco over the chai. “House Nott is… not a choice, unfortunately. Not the least because it’s just me now.”

“No, not with your potential vassalage to House Potter,” Draco agreed out loud specifically because he was certain that no one had ever explained House Potter’s oddities regarding vassals to Granger.

“Oh, I forgot about that,” Longbottom said. He drained his first cup of chai and then beamed as Draco, bemused, poured him a second and then a third cup. “Love that. Good choice. Right, so, I’ll talk to Lacey tomorrow to see if House Peverell will do patronage of up-and-coming young Magi. She’ll find out for sure.”

Granger frowned at the three of them, that one finger tapping at the rim of her cup as she considered what they’d said so far. Draco wasn’t at all surprised when she set her teacup down so that she could pull out paper and a quill for note-taking.

“Right,” Granger said. “Let’s start from the top, shall we? What classes specifically do I need O’s in? What subjects would E’s be acceptable? Are there NEWTs that I should take in addition to what’s on Hogwarts’ list? Once I have that, I’ll want details on what vassalage means to Magi and how the patronage system works.”

Draco nodded as he poured a fourth cup for Longbottom who finally seemed to have slowed down.

“First thing to put on your list for improvements to Hogwarts’ curriculum is restoring the old classes on Magi society, religion and rituals,” Draco said as he poured the last of the chai into his own cup so that Theo could refill the pot with his favorite white tea flavored with grapefruit peel and lavender.

“Oh, definitely,” Longbottom agreed. “That’s so important. Gran flat didn’t believe me when I told her that those classes had been done away with years ago.”

Theo nodded, pouring fresh tea for Granger and himself since Longbottom and Draco both still had the remnants of the chai to drink. “Most of the classes you need O’s in are ones that Hogwarts no longer teaches. I expect that you’d be able to pass them without issue in about two months of study given your general study habits. Take the standard Hogwarts’ NEWTs first, then go back and take the rest over the next six months to a year.”

“Two months between batches,” Draco agreed. “That gives you time to absorb it all.”

Granger scribbled notes faster and faster, capturing everything that they said as Longbottom, Theo and Draco plotted how to set Granger up as the only logical person to put in as the Minister of Magic in, oh, about five years or so. Maybe four if they managed to get House Peverell support.

She’d be the youngest Minister of Magic ever, if so.

“You do need to talk to Susan Bones,” Longbottom told Granger during a lull in the planning. “She was working on the same thing.”

“No, don’t talk to her,” Draco said immediately. “I’ll go talk to her. If we do things correctly, we can alternate between the two of you for decades before the rest of the, the, the sheep in Magical Britian even realize there’s an issue. Both of you want functionally the same things. The worst of the elder generation are dead.”

“Even Gran’s so off-balance from the changes that she’s backed away from politics,” Longbottom agreed while eyeing the tea tray like he wanted to order a second batch to pillage. “We really can wipe the slate clean and start all over again. Hopefully better than what went before.”

“As long as we keep Dumbledore out of it all,” Granger said sharply enough that Draco’s jaw dropped open. “Oh, please. As if Harry and I weren’t painfully aware that Dumbledore was more concerned with being a chess master with our lives than he was in doing the right thing. He’s not allowed.”

Of course, Draco agreed. With a nod and verbally. Theo agreed with that particularly cold, cutting tone of his that meant he was actively considering how to assassinate Dumbledore without getting caught. And then Longbottom swallowed the last of his chai before tapping the tea tray for a refill, this time of sweets.

“He’s lost all his positions,” Longbottom said with the sort of grim satisfaction that Draco was used to seeing from his fellow Slytherins. “Malfoy, see what you can do to make sure that the public fully turns against him. Rumors, gossip, whatever.”

Granger chuckled as she took one of the little sculpted brownies with curls of white and dark chocolate adorned with fresh raspberries. “Don’t worry about that. I have… well. I have that one in the bag, already.”

Her smile was enough like Mother’s when she’d figured out the perfect dress and comment to make to destroy another Lady’s prospects that Draco shivered before shoving one of the tiny cheesecakes into his mouth like he was a Weasley. Ron, specifically.

Yeah, this was definitely a path Draco could take. Should take. One way or the other, neither House Malfoy nor Magical Britain could continue as they had. If that meant throwing himself in behind two women who would reform literally everything in their world, well, so be it.

Better than what his parents would’ve done.

39. A Good Heir Takes Charge of Affairs When Needed

“So, that’s small wooden boxes dealt with,” Bill said, jaw cracking as he yawned halfway through, “so tomorrow we’ll have small metal, right?”

As much as Bill wanted to head straight home immediately, in part to deal with his siblings’ (Ron’s) nonsense over Dumbledore’s death which had just been announced this morning in the early-early paper, knowing what tomorrow would bring was, well, important.

Emily Peverell, who was utterly terrifying underneath her gentle grandmotherly mannerisms, hummed as she bounced on her toes. The outer chamber of the Peverell Vault of Doom, as all the curse breakers had started calling it, was a bit more organized now. Days of concentrated effort had separated out stacks of things so that it wasn’t a huge jumble anymore.

The aforementioned small wooden boxes, most of which were nothing more than boxes created to eventually be spelled in various ways, had been moved to a separate vault in the same complex where the auditors were cataloging each of them and what could be done with them. Books? Already gathered and added to the Peverell library properly. You know, after the trapped predatory books, plural, had been captured.

Furniture was off in a side chamber. Clothes of all varieties had been shifted to a completely separate complex of vaults where the weaver and clothiers’ guilds were having conniptions about the variety and quality of the garments recovered. From cloth-of-gold down to polyester double-knit pantsuits, all kinds of clothes had come out.

And uncut fabric, mounds of jewels both cut and uncut, jewelry by the bushel and so much more.

“I believe so,” Emily said finally. “We’re actually not that far from the first cut being done. Once we have the metal boxes dealt with, we can get chests of all sizes, trunks, and then we’ll be able to start scanning for the invisible items.”

Bill froze along with Ivan, Mandy, Crackskin and Fangtooth.

His team all stormed out of the room, leaving Bill to the formalities of shift change which was… fine. Just fine. Whatever. He just…

Invisible items.

Merlin’s saggy balls, Bill had completely forgotten to consider that it was House Peverell. Of course, they’d bloody well have invisible items spelled so that only the correct signature and spell work could find and reveal them. Which the current House Peverell members didn’t necessarily have because the bloody old Lord Peverell had…

“Urgle,” Bill grumbled at Emily’s grin.

“I’d say that I was sorry,” Emily said only to laugh when Bill glowered at her, “but honestly, I’m not. A multiyear project is a multiyear project, after all. We knew from the start that this would be a rolling disaster. I’m just grateful that House Prewitt and Weasley are so willing to let you help us.”

Bill frowned at her back. And then at her face when Emily raised an eyebrow at him as if he was being ridiculous. After a moment, both of Emily’s eyebrows went up.

“Come with me, dear,” Emily ordered.

Bill, of course, followed her because having grown up with Molly Weasley as a mother, a woman using that tone of voice at him with that sort of sternly disappointed expression meant automatically doing as he was told.

Even if Bill was more than slightly flummoxed by the comment about House Prewitt and Weasley.

They dodged through the arriving curse breaking teams heading into the Peverell Vaults, waved at Anthony Peverell who claimed a delighted hug from Emily before happily getting to work, and then headed down into the deeper tunnels.

The cart Emily claimed took them so deep that Bill’s heart started hammering. He had been allowed down this far once or twice during training, but only as part of the lecture on Gringotts’ permanent vaults that were owned by really old and powerful families that made the Sacred Twenty-Eight look like school children.

House Peverell had one of the most ancient vaults.

Fresh sweat soaked Bill’s shirt to the point that it probably showed through his armored vest. They came to a stop in a nice little parlor with comfortable chairs, two sofas arranged on each side of a low black coffee table that could’ve been used as an impromptu shield during a duel, and Amal Peverell who looked as tired as Bill.

“Emily,” Amal said, blinking blearily at her as he closed the folios full of records he’d been working on. “And Heir Weasley? What’s going on?”

The coffee table had stacks of folios teetering precariously enough that Bill wanted to straighten them up. Emily beat him to it, which made Amal sigh and rub his face. He smiled wryly enough at Bill that Bill turned away to snicker into his fist. When he turned back, Amal looked considerably better, if still flattened.

“That’s better,” Emily said once she’d created properly solid towers of folios instead of wobbly messes about to fall all over everything if anyone breathed wrong. “Come sit down, Bill dear.”

“Ah, thank you,” Bill said as he sat opposite Amal. And then gulped because Emily sat next to Amal which made it feel far more formal than it had before. “Though I’m not sure why I’m here?”

“Who’s the heir to House Prewitt?” Emily asked Amal.

“Ah, I… believe that would be Fred and George Wesley,” Amal said, staring into the distance for a moment. “Yes, it’s the twins. I’m not sure they intend to take it up anytime soon. I’ve seen no signs of that.”

“…I don’t think they know that they’re the heirs,” Bill ventured when Emily stared at him. “I didn’t. Great-Aunt Muriel has never said a thing about it.”

“Dumbledore,” Emily said with an aggravated sigh. “You’ll want to tell them about it. Contact your Great-Aunt, too. And House Weasley?”

“That’s even more muddy,” Amal said as he leaned back against the couch cushions with a tired sigh. His eyelids drooped but only until Emily put a hand on his forearm. Then he sat right back up, blinking repeatedly like he was determined to stay awake.

Muddy was a good word for it.

Bill was the eldest of their branch of the Weasley family, but Dad was the second son, not the first. His uncle had died years ago in a Death Eater raid, and his sons had lived for a few years, siring children of their own, before they were killed, too. The kids had gone to live with their mothers’ families, to be raised in their traditions, not the Weasley traditions.

Which was what it was. The issue was that the Weasley family had never gone by firm primogeniture. It was the oldest male who took up the role of leading the family and making sure that everyone was safe, healthy, happy, all that rot.

Not Dad, obviously. He’d avoided all of that like the mumblemumps. Not Charlie or Percy. Neither of them wanted a thing to do with being head of the House. Apparently the twins would have their own stuff to take care of for House Prewitt which meant…

“Oh,” Bill breathed.

“You?” Amal asked while Emily smiled a vaguely shark-like smile at Bill.

“I… think I’m the only choice, actually,” Bill said. “It’s. House Weasley isn’t true primogeniture. I just… I hadn’t thought about it since we lost our standing several generations ago. Getting it back would be impossible, so I just thought I’d live my life, you know? The Wizengamot isn’t going to let us back in without… prohibitive expenses.”

Emily’s smile went that much more shark-like.

It wasn’t just Bill getting chills up his spine. Amal shivered and licked his lips as he studied Emily with a wary look that Bill wished he could get away with. Didn’t seem wise. House Peverell member getting that kind of look was already a well-known reason for duck and cover for all the teams working the Peverell Vault.

Amal was a Peverell. Let him ask.

“What are you up to?” Amal asked with fully justified suspicion.

“Darling,” Emily said in such an insincere tone that Amal waved his wand to move all his stacks of folios off the coffee table.

The folios shrank and then ordered themselves into a small leather carrying case that Amal promptly stuffed into his pocket. All while frowning forbiddingly at Emily as if her shark smile was the important part, not her grandmotherly expression of mild amusement at the children’s antics.

“Don’t even try that,” Amal huffed. “You’re up to something. Fess up or I’ll go get the kids to mob you.”

“Threatening me with grand-baby time is never going to be effective, Amal.” Emily chortled. She waved a hand at Bill, sending another chill down his spine as the sweat dripped down his spine. “I just had a thought as we finished today’s work, that’s all. You see, with Dumbledore out of power and no longer living, the Death Eaters dead and You-Know-Who gone finally, there’s a political vacuum in the Wizengamot.”

Bill’s breath caught.

He met Amal’s startled gaze before leaning back into his couch’s cushions. That was…

…a very good point.

“We never tried to restore House Weasley because House Malfoy wouldn’t allow us to recompense for our failures,” Bill said, hands shaking. “But Draco wouldn’t, he wouldn’t do that. He’s too busy rebuilding House Malfoy. And, well, most of the Dark houses are the same.”

Emily smiled her shark smile. “Exactly. The entire political landscape of Magical Britian has changed, Bill. We need reformers. We, House Peverell, need reformers who will support Lord Harrison’s agenda in the Wizengamot and the Ministry. House Weasley and Prewitt are uniquely situated to… take advantage of the sea change.”

“Oh, shit, yeah,” Amal breathed as one of those terrifying Peverell smiles bloomed on his face. “That’s brilliant, Emily. Neither House Weasley nor House Prewitt were really damaged by the event. They weren’t involved in any of the political chicanery that came before it. You guys are clean slates. You can do whatever you want.”

That…

Abruptly and with his whole heart, Bill wished that Mum was there to hear this conversation. As Dad had always been the creative one, Mum had always been the more politically minded of the two of them. She might not have played the game unless her kids were involved, but Mum had been raised in the thick of House Prewitt’s maneuvering.

She’d know exactly what to say. Do. Who to…

…make alliances with.

Except that Mum’s knowledge was all based on the old way things worked. Not on this new world where all the old powers had been wiped out and replaced by their new, untried and deeply traumatized children.

Mum couldn’t be the one to do this. Or Dad or even Great-Aunt Muriel.

It was Bill and the twins or nobody.

If House Weasley was going to regain its status, if they were going to build on the basis of their huge family and all the ventures they’d gotten into over the last couple of generations, Bill had to be the one to do it. And if House Prewitt was going to be the powerhouse it once was, it would be the twins who did that.

Maybe, hopefully, with alliances to House Peverell.

“I have to talk to my family about it all,” Bill admitted as Emily beamed her approval at him. “I mean, I guarantee no one is thinking about this yet. But um. Thank you? For kicking me in the arse, that is?”

Emily cackled and clapped her hands while Amal snickered at him.

“You’re welcome!” Emily said with a huge grin that wasn’t at all shark-like anymore. “Once you have an idea where House Weasley is going, do let me know. You’ve been a delight to work with. I have no doubt that House Peverell and House Weasley can be true allies outside of the whole vault mess.”

“Once Lord Harrison is awake again,” Bill said, laughing quietly at the way Amal groaned as he flopped against the cushions of his couch. “Sounds good. I’m going to head home. Seriously, thank you for poking me on this. I just… hadn’t even thought about it.”

“Easy to forget about when it’s never been a possibility,” Amal said sympathetically. “Merlin knows, we’ve got more than a few of our own things like that.”

“May your forgotten issue be smaller than the vault issue,” Emily said.

Both Amal and Bill laughed over that. Bill kept on laughing over it as he used the Peverell floo to head home, which he was deeply grateful for because riding all the way up to the surface, going to the apparation point or to the Leakey, and then home would’ve been misery.

As it was, Bill arrived back home to Ron getting sent to his room because the twins had told on him for trying to trap Hermione in a relationship again by spelled letter which, yikes.

He really did need to take control, didn’t he?

Best start as he planned to continue, then.

“Ron, you’re officially forbidden from marrying Hermione Granger,” Bill told Ron. He gripped the Weasley family magic and made the order self-sustaining. “I won’t allow it. Fred, George, you need to talk to Great-Aunt Muriel about the Prewitt heir position.”

Mum and Dad both stared at Bill, along with Ron who’d gone white as milk and Ginny who clutched Ron’s elbow in a way that had to be killing him, not that Ron showed it.

“What happened?” Fred asked, eyes wide.

“House Peverell would welcome alliances with House Weasley and House Prewitt,” Bill announced, “but only if we’re… not following the same old nonsense that happened before. And since I’m the logical choice as Lord Weasley, well, I’m picking it up. No one else can. Or would. If you two pick up the lordship of House Prewitt, we can… make changes. Big changes. Changes that will help all of us.”

Fred and George exchanged one of their looks where they had full conversations without words.

“I’ll call Great-Aunt Muriel and ask her to come over for dinner,” George said.

“Mum, can dinner stretch for her?” Fred asked.

“Oh, of course, yes,” Mum said, flustered but also tearfully proud of the three of them.

Bill waggled a finger at Ron and Ginny. “I want to talk to the two of you about what you want out of life. Seriously, now, not just dreams of who you want to marry since neither of you are getting that.”

Ginny flinched. Ron flushed bright red and then sighed.

“Not like we can get it,” Ron grumbled. “The Wizengamot’ll take all our ready cash if we even try and get reinstated, Bill.”

“No,” Bill said, smiling at the way Dad’s breath caught and the way Percy collapsed into Mum’s rocking chair. “Actually, they won’t. Because Draco is the only Malfoy left, and he spent the entire day investing in Muggle firms. The old factions are gone, Ron. We can get reinstated without the penalties if we move quickly. That’s why I need to know what you want to do and be, both of you. We have a chance, a very narrow window, so we have to move fast and take chances on the future.”

Dad put a hand on Bill’s shoulder, but he didn’t say a thing. He just beamed at Bill as if he was unbearably proud of Bill. A moment later, Ron blew out a breath as he nodded slowly. Ginny licked her lips and then shrugged.

“Quidditch,” Ginny said. “I’ve always wanted to play quidditch.”

“And I,” Ron paused, face going blotchy red as he looked anywhere but Bill’s eyes, “I kinda wanted to learn magical furniture making but no one buys that anymore.”

“I can get you an apprenticeship easy on that, Ron,” Bill said, beaming. “Leave it to me. You’ll be on your way soon. Just work on your grades, please. That will matter. I’ll see if I can get you help on the quidditch side of things, Ginny.”

“On it!” Fred called from the floo. “Great-Aunt Muriel heard, and she’d got loads of contacts who might help out. She’ll be here in a jiff for dinner and plotting.”

There was a feeling to the Weasley magic that Bill hadn’t ever felt before. It took him until after Great-Aunt Muriel arrived with a huge carpetbag full of books, folios and scrolls for Fred and George for Bill to recognize it.

Hope.

The family magic sang with hope for the first time ever. He smiled as they all sat down to eat and plot and share their wildest plans, hopes and dreams. This might work. It would be a lot to do, an avalanche of effort, but it might just work.

40. The Changing Order Requires New Tactics and New Leaders

The private dining room on the third floor of Tea and Trivets made for a lovely place to meet up. Hermione hadn’t expected that it would work out so well when Malfoy suggested it. She’d had an automatic suspicion of the place based on Malfoy’s parents. Which she’d admitted once the waitress left them alone to wait for the others to arrive.

“Fair,” Draco murmured as he smoothed his hands over his much plainer than normal robes. “Frankly, anyplace else would’ve been exactly what you expected. Mother and Father had absolutely execrable taste, no matter what they liked to claim.”

He looked a great deal better than their meeting the other day. Still perfectly sleek with not a hair out of place wearing black, silver and Slytherin green, but Draco’s skin tone was much improved. That faint queasy look about his eyes and mouth at the prospect of eating real food looked to be gone.

“Trying too hard,” Hermione agreed with a faint sense of sympathy for them. “Not to be painfully rude, but I always had the sense that your father desperately wanted everyone to, oh, ignore his past? Or his heritage? I’m not sure which.”

Draco laughed wryly. “Both, actually. The Malfoy line is a newcomer to Magical Britain, as these things go. We’re French, not British. And he urgently wanted people to forget that Mother was ever a Black. Given the relative positions of our families, if Lord Arcturus had ever made an effort, he could have shut down all of Father and Mother’s efforts to support the Dark Lord. He just never did.”

Hermione huffed over that, not that she had time to go on a rant with Neville striding in with Bill at his side, chatting politely at Theo who looked as though he would much rather be anywhere else. Given how profoundly introverted Theo seemed to be, that wasn’t a shock.

What caught Hermione’s breath and fired a sense of hope for the first time since Harry ran was James and Oliver Peverell striding in behind Bill and Theo.

“Door closed?” James asked Hermione as he scanned the room and then nodded approvingly that it really was just them.

“Please close it,” Hermione said. “This is everyone for today. Thank you for coming.”

“After everything that Longbottom said, we could hardly stay away,” James said with a huge grin that his twin didn’t mirror.

Unlike Fred and George, James and Oliver Peverell seemed to go out of their way not to be visually identical. They had different colored shirts, different hair styles, different shoes and very different expressions. When Hermione waved everyone to the slightly larger than before table, James sat next to her while Oliver cautiously sat between Neville and Theo.

“Truly, thank you for coming, everyone,” Hermione said. “I appreciate your accepting the invitation more than I can say.”

“I’d come just for the food,” Neville said with a little grin that Hermione couldn’t help but chuckle at. “But I’m delighted to help with your plans.”

“Do you have plans?” Oliver asked as he accepted the cup of light green tea that Hermione poured for him.

Hermione blushed as Theo, Neville, Draco and Bill all laughed. “Ah. Well. I always have plans. I always have. They’re just… different now than they were before.”

“Huh,” James said as he sipped his green tea and then grimaced at the light grassy flavor. “Is that before Voldemort went down in flames or before we showed up in Britian?”

“It’s before Harry, Harry Potter, ran,” Hermione said. She sighed at the pointedly curious look that James leveled on her. “And no, before you ask, we weren’t dating. I wasn’t dating Ron Weasley either, no matter what he told other people.”

“Everyone,” Neville muttered into his first finger sandwich.

“Everyone,” Draco agreed while Bill sighed, and Theo shook his head in dismay.

“Harry was my very first friend ever,” Hermione explained. “He was the next best thing to a little brother to me. I understand why he ran. I certainly can’t blame him for it. I just… For me, life is divided into Before Magic and after, Before Harry Ran and after. It always will be.”

James laughed so softly, so sadly that Hermione frowned at him.

“Before the Vaults,” Oliver observed as he stared into his teacup as if it held the secrets of the universe.

“And definitely After,” James agreed. “Yeah, I get it. All your plans have changed, haven’t they?”

Hermione nodded. “How could they not? I’d had grand ideas of who and what I would be before I found out about magic. I wanted to be Prime Minister. Then after I found out about magic, I thought that I would be Minister of Magic. Harry… re-centered me. And now that he’s gone, because of Dumbledore and the Ministry and, and Voldemort…”

The shiver of dread that had always swept over Hermione when the name was said didn’t happen. She shook her head once more.

“Now you’re reassessing everything once more,” Theo observed. “Just like us.”

“But not like our elders,” Hermione agreed. “Bill, are your parents doing anything different?”

Bill groaned before tapping his cup to replace the green tea with a stout black so dark that it looked nearly opaque in the cup. He slugged that back in three quick swallows before tapping it again to refill it with the same stout black.

“I think that might be an answer,” Draco drawled. He was perhaps the only one who seemed pleased by the green tea, though it was impossible to tell from Theo’s expression.

“Yeah,” Bill said. He grimaced. “Mum’s all up in the… Merlin’s pants, I can’t even say it. An old group that Dumbledore created, revived when Voldemort resurrected himself and then lost control of. Dad’s more concerned with his work than anything else. He’s already ceded all House Weasley control to me.”

“Really,” Hermione said, fascinated. “It’s not inherited?”

“Not for us,” Bill said. He shrugged. “It’s who takes it up and does the work. House Prewitt is a bit more formal. Has to go to twins or children of twins. That’s why it’s been Great-Aunt Muriel for so long. But Fred and George are on that right now. They have… concerns… about how little Great-Aunt Muriel has been doing for House Prewitt.”

The admission brought a flood of complaints about his parents’ foolishness from Draco. Theo offered a few pointed comments on his father’s repeated blindness to good business practices and the importance of not breaking the law. Neville had several utterly hilarious stories about his Gran’s inability to see that the world had changed, not so much because she didn’t care to change but because she was far more concerned with growing things and managing the Longbottom estates.

“Gran just never has been all that interested in the political side of things outside of picking fights with people she doesn’t like,” Neville said once they’d finished a second pot of much better received Scottish Breakfast tea.

He was three quarters of the way through devastating the tea tray, which had prompted Hermione to order a second one for the rest of them which Neville had beamed over. The last time Hermione had seen Neville eating like this, Neville had grown inches both up and at the shoulder. If he was filling out even more than he already had, Neville was going to end up pushing six foot.

“I thought she took it seriously,” Draco said, frowning at Neville’s rapidly emptying tea tray. “Where are you putting all of that?”

“Growth spurt,” Hermione said before Neville’s shoulders could hunch too much. “Like start of last year, remember?”

Both Theo and Draco hummed and nodded, which made James and Oliver exchange highly amused looks that Bill grinned over. Neville just rolled his eyes at them all. Fair. It wasn’t like he’d chosen to grow up into a mountain of a man, but there he was; big as a house and getting bigger by the day.

“Gran took fighting your family seriously,” Neville told Draco before popping the last bite of scone in his mouth. He barely even chewed before swallowing it down. “Took fighting your whole side seriously. She didn’t actually pay that close of attention to the laws that came in, just who supported or opposed them.”

“And that is why the Ministry is so worthless,” Hermione said before anyone could go off on a rant. “It’s all about scoring points instead of taking care of society and the rule of law.”

“Have to agree with that,” James drawled as he refilled the teapot with something that smelled outrageously sweet. The sheer amount of sugar and cinnamon made Hermione wrinkle her nose at him.

“Oh, me,” Oliver said, passing his cup over for James to fill. “Really, House Peverell avoided Magical Britian specifically because the Ministry is the laughingstock of the magical world. We wouldn’t be here if we didn’t have to be. Are you planning on gutting it or overthrowing it?”

“Both,” Hermione said.

Maybe those disbelieving stares were justified. Maybe. Hermione did understand that it was an issue to outright state that you intended to overthrow the government, but seriously, it wasn’t like the Ministry of Magic was a functional government.

“Huh,” Oliver said after blinking at her for a while. “Well, what do you need to accomplish that?”

“We can’t promise anything ourselves,” James said, also blinking at Hermione and looking virtually identical to his twin for a moment, “but we can certainly argue the point with our cousin.”

Hermione took a deep breath. Studied all of them. And then just went for it the way Harry would have.

“I’ve been researching how the Wizengamot actually works,” Hermione said. “House Peverell has a vote. They’ve not used that vote in, oh, about two hundred and fifty years. House Potter and Black both have votes. Obviously, Harry isn’t going to come back to do his votes himself. I checked and hiis votes and the House Black votes are still valid, though. Given that, and how busy House Peverell is, both you and Harry need proxies.”

“Oh,” Draco breathed as a wicked little grin bloomed on his narrow face. “That’s brilliant.”

“Very nice,” Theo agreed. “Though I wouldn’t suggest that you take all three votes.”

“Definitely not,” Hermione said. “I know that you were able to contact Harry about Voldemort’s horcruxes. If you could contact him again and have him declare me the proxy for his votes, either Potter or Black, that would be perfect. I do think the votes should be implemented separately.”

“I’m Malfoy,” Draco said thoughtfully. “I certainly can’t do it.”

“Nott for me,” Theo agreed. “What about Dirk Cresswell? He works in the office of Goblin relations. My father utterly loathed him.”

“Nice!” Bill said, grinning at Theo. “Dad thinks very highly of Dirk. He’s a very moral, very powerful Magi.”

Draco nodded his agreement. “I’d third that. Father regularly foamed at the mouth about how much he hated Cresswell. He’s a perfect choice for Potter. I’d suggest that you be the proxy for Black, Granger. It could easily be claimed that Sirius wanted you to be fostered by the Blacks.”

Hermione waved one finger at him. “Did a bunch of research on that, too. While I find the entire concept of patronage deeply old-fashioned, I have to admit that it would make a huge difference in my career to have a patron.”

“I’ll do it,” Neville offered.

“Dubious,” Bill said thoughtfully enough that Neville just frowned at him. “You’re too close in age. Unless you’re looking for people to claim that she’s your mistress, I’d suggest someone else.”

James nodded while making a face. “Yeah, have to agree on that one. Which is a bit of a problem, actually. There aren’t many Houses that don’t have very young Lords and Ladies now.”

“Can’t be Malfoy, same reason,” Oliver said as he sipped at his tea.

“I won’t even suggest it,” Draco said, ducking away from Hermione’s automatic glare. “I said I wouldn’t! I’m no idiot. As acrimonious as our relationship has been, that’d be absurd. People would be checking both of us for compulsions and potions.”

Hermione laughed. “True. I think I’ll ask Susan Bones. She might have some good suggestions. It’s not a rush. Patronage is in the three to six month range, not immediately. We need to get into the Wizengamot immediately. There’s a meeting coming up in just a few days and it will be vital to keep them from setting the old order in stone for another generation.”

To Hermione’s relief, every single one of the men nodded their agreement. Complete agreement, even, with no signs that they thought she was overreacting or that she should let someone else handle it.

Better still, Draco and Theo both listened when Hermione talked. They had useful tidbits of information that Hermione hadn’t put into context with her research. By the time their little meeting was over, Hermione had a solid sense of how all of them would react to the various things that she wanted to accomplish.

None of them scoffed at laws to reform how the government worked so that it incorporated more British common law. All of them nodded that the creature laws had to go. Even Draco agreed that house elves needed more protection, while Bill beamed when Hermione said that all the creatures needed to have votes in the Wizengamot and full citizenship.

It was more than she could have ever dreamed.

Not that anything had been established yet, but for the first time since Hermione went off to Hogwarts, she had a plan for the future that she was happy with. It was even a plan that she could see succeeding, complete with actionable SMART goals and timelines and specific allies for each individual step.

Maybe…

Maybe it wasn’t a bad thing that she’d lost Harry. Maybe it was actually a good thing that he’d run away so effectively that no one, especially not Dumbledore, could drag him back. It seemed to have broken the stalemate that had held Magi Britian for generations.

Now all of them, squib, witch, wizard, creature and all, could move forward to a future that was so much brighter than any of them could’ve dreamed just a couple of weeks ago.

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