Chapter 15 - Challenges Part 1
DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Harry found himself in the dark. He quickly lit the torches in the chamber and walked towards the middle of the chamber to take a really good look. He decided to take his time and gather his thoughts. Harry knew that this was going to be the training chamber for his army. Harry knew that he already spent an awful lot of flux time training. If he wanted to have enough life left to see his grandchildren, he had to moderate his flux time from now on. This is why he wanted Neville and Luna up to speed. They would take the weekends to train the others, while they would learn more from him in real time. With some modifications this place would be ideal for that purpose.
Harry needed a way to get his students in the Chamber of Secrets without being detected. The best way to accomplish this was to create his special portkeys using his patented neutrino apparition signature. Unlike his and his wife's ring, he was going to make some minor modifications to the portkey ring. Harry felt that except for his immediate family and a very few select group of people, these portkey rings would contain a runic summoning charm that would be impossible to see or break unless they knew the spells in high parseltongue.
This way if by some fate of chance one of his soldiers betrayed him, he would be able to get the portkey back from anywhere in the world. As before all he had to do was imprint his apparition signature in a crystal, cast some special runes, and let the person's raw magic replenish the crystal's energy. The main crystal would contain his apparition signature, with a permanent locking charm. The surrounding four crystals around the main acted as the magical storage and discharge medium. It supplied the main with the energy to activate the apparition signature. A second charm was layered on the main crystal locking charm in order to allow the input of co-ordinates. This could be done via a mental picture, or grid co-ordinates. The ring should be able to complete four portkey transports before being recharged. The base of the ring needed to be made of Naquadah.
Harry devoted a lot of time on how he wanted to alter the chamber. He needed to make it even bigger, add some portals and re-configure the front door. Only a parseltongue could get in. However he wanted to change the password to high parseltongue. This way only he could open the door. Not even snake face would be able to get in this way. After about 15 minutes, Harry had managed to change the password. It had not been too difficult since no one expected the heir of Salazar Slytherin to want to change the password, therefore no special locking charms were put on the password.
When he was done, Harry turned around, and began making a mental picture of how he wanted the new training area to look like. He could use expansion charms, but he didn't want to waste valuable crystals, Naquadah and magical energy. He needed all of these resources towards building his trunk manor, wands, portkeys and other weapons. Besides, there was more than enough space underground to expand the chamber by simply removing more stone, and building re-enforcing buttress.
His first problem was to find a place to banish the rock. Thank God he had quite a bit of practice at mining. He knew that the English strata were made up of many different layers of lime, sandstones and granite mixed with large underground caverns interspersed in the strata. He simply had to find an underground pocket to banish the granite.
He made his way to the center of the chamber and sat down in a lotus position. He relaxed his mind and entered his magical core. He then pushed his magical sense to the surrounding chamber and below. At roughly two kilometres beneath him and about three kilometres to the left laid a huge empty cavern. He let his magical sense explore the cavern and quickly managed to build a three dimensional picture of the underground cavern. Harry then triangulated its position with respect to the chamber. Once he had a clear idea of the co-ordinates, he stood up and went to face the left wall of the chamber. Harry took out his new wand, and began mining the walls. He used simple reducto to pulverize chucks of walls and banished the rock into the underground cavern. Every ten feet Harry transfigured supporting struts.
By 11:30, he was feeling quite exhausted and decided to call it a day. He figured he was halfway done excavating and building support for the left chamber wall. He had a week to get this finished, and he planned on spending all of his free periods down here finishing his training chamber. Deciding that he was too tired to even apparate himself out, he used his wedding ring and portkeyed himself to his trunk manor by the lake. Within seconds, he was standing in the trunk's portkey room. Harry made his way out of the portkey room and proceeded to the kitchen to get himself a light snack. After taking down some pepper up potion and energy boosters, he made his way to one of the bathrooms. He took a quick shower and made his way to the master bedroom.
Being very careful not to make a sound, he approached the bed and noticed his wife sleeping peacefully with her beautiful dark hair falling around her face. He stripped down and took his naked self in between the sheets. He came into a lotus position, and began clearing his mind and sorting all of his memories and putting them into their proper folders.
When he was done clearing his mind and sorting his memories, he laid himself to bed and decided to see if some of his magical energy was still present in Dumbledore's mind. He wanted to see if his theory on inserting a Trojan would work. Harry figured that Dumbledore was merely days away from completely purging his mind of his raw magical energy sphere. Harry pictured creating a mind link to Dumbledore similar to the one he had with Voldemort. The only difference was that this link would be temporary.
Slowly Harry felt himself falling towards a dark tunnel. Harry had figured out that creating a mind link was no different than apparating. You were simply connecting two things in time using magic as the transport medium. You simply had to be very clear and focused as to where you wanted to go. After a while, Harry felt himself connecting to a residual ball of raw magic which he recognized as his magical signature buried deep in Dumbledore's consciousness. He felt himself connect with his magic, he felt as if he was in a small spherical chamber. From what he could tell, Dumbledore was indeed close to eradicating the last remnants of his raw magic. He stood in the sphere thinking of the best way to get out of it without making Dumbledore aware that he was in his head. Creating a door, was definitely out of the question, it would be far too suspicious and would definitely rouse the old coot.
After some thinking, he decided to create a crack in the sphere. He knew that this would only further the destruction of his raw magical sphere, but it also had the advantage of fooling the old coot into thinking that he had caused the crack in the sphere. This would also be a much more subtle way of accessing Dumbledore's memories. It was much easier for him to create a crack in the sphere. Harry didn't have to push against his magic. All he had to do was to call some of it back to him since it had a natural affinity for him at any rate.
Harry carefully called some of his magic until he saw crack forming like a spider's web. He allowed the crack to grow until he was sure that it was big enough to allow his conscious mind to slip through. He made his mind tune out all emotions, and pictured a serene desert landscape under a full moon. He then allowed his conscious mind to push through the crack and gently float down through the layers of Dumbledore's subconscious. Harry was careful to not apply any pressure. He soon found himself absorbing interesting bits of information.
Harry smiled to himself. He now knew the coordinates to Dumbledore's manor. The old boy must have been thinking of home. He was now able to pick up bits of information relating to Potter. How very interesting, Harry thought to himself. If Dumbledore thought that his little plan to make him drop his lawsuit would work, he was severely delusional. Harry also realized that Dumbledore was asleep, however he felt the old man start to wake. Harry knew he had to get out, he had counted on Dumbledore being asleep, and his gamble had paid off, however with Dumbledore being consciously awake, he stood a real chance of getting noticed. Harry knew his own limitations, and he was not stupid enough to underestimate the old coot. Harry felt that he had enough information to come up with a counter plan.
Harry carefully pulled his consciousness back through the crack and inside his own magical sphere. He then made his way back through the temporary link and after what seemed a long trip, made his way back into his own mind. He made sure that the link was completely destroyed and catalogued the information he had gained. He realized how tired he was and thanked god that his first class would not be until 1:00 pm. He didn't have his schedule yet, but Harry was still able to get the info on his future timetable from Dumbledore himself. No doubt the old coot had a say in it. Well, he thought, it looks like I'll be dealing with Snape after all. Through the link Harry found out that Snape was going to teach DADA. What fucking joy, he though. Well no one said you had to attend class. With that thought and others, Harry fell into a deep sleep.
Xiana woke up at around seven o'clock the following morning. She turned and looked at her husband. She couldn't help herself and smiled watching him sleep. She could see his brows furrow, it looked like he was trying to solve a difficult problem. Even in sleep she though, her husband seemed to carry the balance of the world on his shoulders. Xiana remembered not hearing Harry come in last night. He must have been busy at school she thought. She normally woke up earlier than this, but she could tell that her body was changing, and that it needed more rest. She subconsciously brought her hand to her belly and started rubbing it. Xiana felt a lot more randy which she attributed to being pregnant; then again she was just deluding herself. Truth be told, she simply enjoyed making love to her husband. He was so considerate of her needs and pleasure.
With that thought she looked at the clock again and knew she had tons of time. Xiana began kissing her husbands lips, and then moved to his neck. She could hear Harry starting to moan. With a smirk she moved down to his muscled chest and started kissing his nipples. Harry began to moan harder. Xiana slowly moved her way to his abs. By this time her husband had a full erection. She started to slowly stoke his phallus, after more moans on his part she straddled him and started rubbing herself against his erection. By this time she was moaning herself. This went on for quite a while, she looked down on her husband when his eyes flicked open and Xiana noticed a very hungry look in his eyes. She decided to properly greet him and said "Hello beloved, how are you on this fine morning." She teased.
Harry was now fully awake and in the heat of passion. He looked at his gorgeous wife with a huge grin on his face and said, "I am in heaven I think. This is far better than an alarm clock any day, love."
Harry started to slowly kiss his wife's neck and slowly worked his way to her breast. He gently stroked and massaged her nipples. He brought his lips to her nipples and suckled and teased the tips with his tongue. He could feel his wife rubbing herself against his erection at a much quicker pace. He kept on kissing her nipples and suddenly felt his wife grab his erection and guide it inside her. She slowly lowered herself to allow her muscles to adjust to his size, and began riding him. Due to the angle of penetration, Harry was now massaging her G spot to his wife's great satisfaction he could see. He noticed his wife biting her lower lip and moaning with desire. He kept the rhythm going until his wife climaxed. He followed suite not long after and came inside her. Xiana could feel his rhythmic pulsing. When they were done she pulled out and collapsed on his chest.
God it felt so good making love to her husband. She looked at him and noticed a look of concern and said, "What's wrong love?" she said with apprehension.
Harry looked at her and looked like he was debating with himself and finally said, "Making love like this is not going to hurt the baby is it?" Xiana looked at him and burst out laughing.
Harry looked at her with a slight hurt on his face, Xiana was quick to notice it, and came over and kissed him solidly on the lips, she pulled away and gave him a long explanation about sex and pregnancy. She also described a woman's libido during pregnancy and what they could do while having sex. Harry looked back at her and said "I sure have a lot to learn, don't I?"
Xiana replied "No worries love, you will eventually figure it all out." She looked at him with a smirk. He looked back at her and smirked himself. He grabbed her by the waist and pulled her onto her back and began tickling her. Xiana went into a fit of giggles and finally called uncle. Harry smiled and released her from her torture. She grabbed him by the head and forced him down to a passionate kiss. Harry returned the gesture with equal passion. After some serious kissing, they broke apart.
Harry managed to say, "Well love it's time to get going as much as I hate to do it." Harry sighed and went for a quick shower. Xiana waited for Harry to finish and then went to get herself ready. When they were done with their morning ritual, they both portkeyed to the Potter castle and had breakfast with Remus. Over breakfast they all discussed the day's agenda.
It was decided that Xiana and Remus would go investigate a failed muggle newspaper agency in London. That particular agency was not too far from the Leaky Caldron. The idea was to buy newspaper agency, renovate, print and shock the shit and complacency out of the wizarding world. According to Sun-Tzu the war of words is just as important as physical battle. There is only one way to fight propaganda and it's with irrefutable information. If negotiations went smooth, the Scorpion Sorcerer was going to have a vehicle to educate the inbred purebloods.
Harry explained that he had found the perfect place to train his troops. He told them about the Chamber of Secrets, and what his plans were. He also told them about his little excursion into Dumbledore's mind the previous night and the information he had gathered. Remus was the first one to say
"Cub, will you be able to get back inside the old coot's head in the future?" Harry looked at Remus hopeful expectation and was forced to let him down.
Harry replied, "Sorry Moony, but this was a one time shot. I noticed that he has almost completed purging his mind of my raw magical energy. I was forced to crack open the last remnants of my magical sphere that I put in his head in August in order to gather bits of information. I have no doubt that by this weekend, he will have purged the last bits of my raw magical energy. No matter though, I have the information I need to screw his plans." Harry finished with a smirk on his face. Remus and Xiana looked at each other, and knew perfectly well what that smirk meant. They simply smiled at each other and went back to eating their breakfast.
Remus was looking at his cub, and knew damn well that Harry had developed a devious plan to deal with Snape and the Headmaster. One thing Remus knew for sure, underestimating his cub was an extremely dangerous proposition at best. They finished breakfast and Harry went to find Dobby and Winky for some information. Harry wanted to make sure that the other meteoric sites were mined of Naquadah. He would extract the Naquadria at a later time once he had the Naquadah mined. Naquadria was locked in the Naquadah anyway. He didn't want to send Dobby and Winky since they needed to build more trunk manors. He wanted to know if there were more elves who wanted to be bonded and get out of Hogwarts. He would ask Dobby to find any free elves who wanted to be bonded again.
Harry entered the kitchen and spotted Dobby. Dobby looked up and immediately dropped what he was doing and came over to greet his master. Dobby looked at his master and said, "Hello Master Harry Potter greatest wizard sir, how can Dobby assist you sir?"
Harry smirked at his elf's antic and said "Dobby, do you know if there are more elves looking for work. I need my top elf's to look after Xiana, the castle and building new trunk manors. I have other work that needs doing, and I only trust elves to do this work properly." Harry finished and saw the deep look of respect that Dobby was giving him. Harry could see his favourite elf scrunch up his face and think hard. After what seemed like a minute, Dobby came out of his trance and said,
"Master sir, Dobby knows of at least four more elf's that be needing a new home and master sir. I would be glad to contact them for you sir?"
Harry replied," Dobby I would be very happy to meet them. I will get in touch with you this Friday and we can meet them one by one, how does this sound? "
Dobby replied, "That is being perfect master Harry Potter sir. I believe that they will join our group sir." Harry got down on his knee and gave the little elf and quick hug. His little buddy had watery eyes. Harry really loved Dobby. He knew that he would always have a very special connection to the elf. Harry could see and feel the deep-seated loyalty emanating from Dobby. Harry mused that elves had to be the most under estimated magical creatures in the wizarding world. Once again in his eyes, the wizarding world was showing its utter stupidity.
Harry thought that if he won this war, the elves were going to have a much different deal than they currently have in the wizarding world. With this thought in mind he went to greet Anubis and Hedwig. When he reached them he petted Hedwig and asked her if she would like to stay at Hogwarts with the other owls. She hooted showing him that she would indeed like to stay at Hogwarts for a while. He was going to apparate with her to Hogwarts later this morning. Harry then turned to Anubis and said.
sss Hello great one, would you like to come with me to Hogwarts today? sss
sss Yeesss masssteer, I would welcome the action sss
Harry smiled down at his friend. Anubis was very straightforward. He needed to ask him another question.
sss Great one, do you know how many more of your kind there are and where can I find them. We need to repopulate your species, and I think you would welcome companionship sss
Annubis raised his head and nodded towards his master in pleasure, and said sss Massteer, I know where to go in the great heat to find my kind. sss
Harry replied, sss Very well, at the end of this month we will go late at night and find them and bring them here. sss
Harry felt that he owed it to the ancients to keep their work from going extinct. In any case, there was a very good chance that his children would be able to speak parseltongue, and being bonded to a temple snake would give them a huge advantage in security and they would need one of them to learn high parseltongue and the ancient dark arts when the time came. With this thought, he picked up Anubis and wrapped him around his torso. Harry's next item on his agenda was to contact his hacker friends. Harry had been thinking some more about Voldemort's finances and came to the conclusion that snake face had to be doing business in the muggle world somehow to finance his war. The wizarding population was not big enough to garner the finances needed to support a full blown war effort.
If Harry knew one thing, it was that Voldemort was as sick as they come. Any business he was into would most likely be illegal and hurt muggles at the same time. Voldemort was many things, but stupid was not one of them. Most of his illegal money would most likely be deposited in secure muggle banks. The money also needed to be laundered before being brought back to Gringotts. He most likely had a top secure vault at Gringotts under a pseudo name. Trying to get information from the Goblins concerning large vaults was impossible.
They were completely indifferent to wizards, and their ministry. Goblin rules applied to the wizarding population equally. Making an appeal that he was looking for a vault belonging to Voldemort wouldn't matter one damn bit to them. Harry understood why that was, if they started pandering to one side or another, they would lose credibility and profits. To a Goblin, that was hitting two major pillars of their beliefs.
Harry needed to first find out what business Voldemort was into, find out who the players were, where the money was located, and which Gringotts vault he was laundering the money into. Once he had this information, he needed to eliminate the players, drain Voldemort's accounts and shut down his businesses. The plan was simple; however its execution was going to be a real bitch. He went to his computer and hooked up to the Internet. Once he was hooked up, he sent an e-mail to his hacker contact.
TechnoMage
I have another little job that requires very specific skills. I need you to assign some of your members to doing a little research for me. I have already sent you £20,000 pounds via mail order. It is sitting at your drop box. If you need more, let me know. I need you to research the Internet for some shady businesses. I need to know what they do, where they are located, and if you are able to crack into their computer system. If you are able to crack their systems could you please copy any information available and send it to me via e-mail. When you are done get back to me. To get you started look under the following pseudo name:
Riddle, Voldemort, Marvolo, Salazar, Basilisk, Muggle, Dark Arts, and Slytherin. If you dig up anything, I need contacts and addresses if you can get them. Don't worry as per our agreement; I have used your program to encrypt this message. You know how to contact me; I'll be checking my e-mail regularly.
Good Luck
Sincerely
Scorpio
Remus happened to be passing by the library when he saw Harry playing with that machine of his. He came over and said, "Harry, are you still playing with that machine again?"
Harry looked back at Remus and replied, "Mooney, one thing I learned this summer was that this is much more than a simple machine. This machine provides information, and knowledge. Knowledge is power. I'll find sometime and introduce you to the muggle Internet system. It is far more efficient than owls Remus. With this machine I have knowledge available at my fingertip from around the world."
Remus perked up at that and said, "Well, I have always been interested in muggle inventions. This look's like a good one to know." Remus told Harry he needed to get going and walked off to find Xiana.
Harry sent his e-mail and made his way up to his master bedroom to get dressed. He decided on a pair of Armani charcoal pants and a royal blue silk shirt with silver images of a stag, grim and a wolf. He changed his earring for a sapphire and put his katana in place with a disillusion charm. He was wearing his basilisk boots. His decided to leave his hair in a ponytail and cap the end with a silver scorpion stinger. He took one last look in the mirror and liked what he saw. He decided to leave his basilisk robe for today. He could always apparate back to get it if he needed it.
Harry decided to apparate into moaning Myrtle's bathroom. No one ever went there and it was close to the great hall. He pictured the bathroom and in the blink of an eye he found himself standing by the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets. Harry smiled and knew that if Dumbledore ever found out that he could apparate within Hogwarts, he would shit himself. Harry exited the bathroom and made his way to the great hall. The moment he entered, he noticed quite a few people turn towards him. He looked at some of them and smiled and others he sneered at.
Harry looked around and noticed that he was a bit early, however the food was still laid out on the table. With that in mind he made his way to the Gryffindor table and sat down. He decided on some chicken and roast potatoes with gravy. Hogwarts had a very healthy meal plan. Halfway toward his meal, he noticed Ginny coming to the table. She noticed him and gave him an awkward smile. Harry looked at her and knew from looking into her face that she desperately wanted to talk to him. Harry suddenly knew that he had to talk to her and explain some things. Ginny was petite but she was a powerful witch and had lots of potential. Harry had to make a concerted effort to win her in his camp. Everybody that was denied to Voldemort or Dumbledore only re-enforced his cause. Harry decided to strike up a conversation by saying.
"Hi Ginny, come over here I have not seen you since my last meeting with the bird club."
Ginny smiled at his description of the order of the Phoenix. Truth be told, after the revelations concerning Dumbledore and Harry, her sympathy actually laid with Harry. The problem was her family. She did not want to become a black sheep. That being said, she owed Harry a life debt. God she was so frustrated with everything. She needed to talk to someone about this. Why was life so damn complicated she thought. She made up her mind and said.
"Hi Harry, it's really good to see you. How are you holding up?"
Harry replied, "I'm fine Ginny, I find that personal freedom really agrees with me."
Ginny returned, "I wouldn't know about that Harry, I have not been paroled by my family yet."
Harry noticed a real sour look in her face when she mentioned that last bit. Harry used his Legillimens ability and carefully sorted through her surface memories. After a few seconds he pulled back deep in thought. Harry now understood the deep conflict that Ginny was going through. She loved her parents very much and wanted to believe them when they agreed with Dumbledore. Her head and soul told her that Dumbledore was wrong for betraying Harry like he did. She thought that if there were other members of her family that thought like her, then she wouldn't feel bad about standing up to her parents. Harry decided to help her out and said.
"Ginny, I can tell from your face that you have conflicting thoughts regarding me. Why don't you write to Bill? You need to sort out your feelings, and I think Bill can help you do that. Bill knows a lot more about what is going on and I think he can help you sort out your feelings. Once you have talked to him, come and see me next week. I am sure we will have lots to discuss." Harry was about to ask her another question when the traitors decided to show up.
Ron was talking to Hermione as they made their way to their table when he saw Ginny talking to the next would-be Dark Lord. Dumbledore seemed to hint that Potter was turning dark. Who was he to question one of the greatest wizards of the age? Ron felt that Potter was being a coward for not accepting his fate. Who would not want to save the wizarding world and go down in history as a hero he thought. He could protect them all by his sacrifice. How dare Potter question Dumbledore's judgement on this issue? He looked at Hermione and from the look on her face she seemed to be thinking the same thing. Ron knew that Hermione respected Dumbledore's judgement in these matters.
Ron was fuming by the time he reached his baby sister. How dare she talk to him? He finally said.
"Ginny get away from him this instant. Mother would not be pleased to find out that you were talking to the next Dark Lord." Ron plastered and evil smirk on his face and decided to taunt his ex-best friend. He was going to try and see if he could get him a detention. He was a prefect after all, he was sure Dumbledore would agree.
Ginny turned around red in the face and said, "Ron, I'll talk to anyone I want, do I make myself clear! You are not my guardian, and you better remember that, or you will find out real quick what my modified bat bogey can do." Ginny was furious by now. How dare he of all people tell her what to do, she thought.
Ron sneered back at her and replied, "I may not be your guardian, but if you don't want a howler from mom, I strongly suggest that you not talk to him."
Ginny was now seething. She stood up and slapped her brother across the face as hard as she could, much to Ron's surprise. Ginny said "Don't you dare black mail me brother dearest." She spat the last words at him. She turned around and stormed out of the great hall. By this time the little confrontation was starting to gather some onlookers.
Harry looked at Ron and smirked at him, before going back to his meal. At this point Ron was furious. The thing that pissed him off the most was to be bested by Potter.
Ron narrowed his eyes and in a lisping manner said, "You stay away from my sister if you know what's good for you. I'll not have her be corrupted by a coward such as you. "
Harry slowly looked up at his former best friend and replied, "Gee Ron, how long did it take you to come up with those lines. I'll bet you stayed up all night rehearsing that one, after all we all know that you aren't the sharpest tool in the shed. Now if I had to hazard a guess, I would say that the beaver next to you must have helped you. Yeah, that's it. Now if you don't mind, I am trying to eat my meal in peace, so if you don't want to get hurt make like the wind and blow away."
Harry went back to his food. He was eating with his left and made sure to keep his right hand underneath the table where he slowly managed to pull one of his new wands out of his right boot. Harry made sure to not let anyone see him. He just waited for Ron to eventually loose it and curse him. Harry had a little surprise for him.
By this time Ron was fuming, and Harry noticed that Neville, Luna, Blaise and Brianna were all present. If things got out of hand, he needed witnesses. He made sure to take a quick peek at Snape who was looking at him, as if expecting something. Harry turned his head and looked at Ron with a smirk on his face, which he knew would only infuriate Ron.
Ron's face by now had taken on an almost puce like color. Ron looked down at the insufferable bastard and pulled out his wand and said, "Twenty points from Gryffindor. You are going to apologize to Hermione or so help me god I am going to let you have it."
Harry just looked at Ron and shaking his head with a smirk on his face and replied, "Carrot head, why don't you put the stick away, you are only going to blow some brain cells trying to come up with a decent curse." Before Ron could blow his hair off, Hermione put a hand on Ron's arm and kept him from hexing Harry. Harry knew what was coming next. Hermione replied in her usual know it all tone and attitude.
"You have changed Harry. There was a time where you would have done the right thing over the easy thing. There was a time when you would have risked your life for us. There is still a chance for you if you come back to the order. All can be forgotten. Dumbledore is not going to try to sacrifice you now. We can train you to properly face the Dark Lord. Do what's best for the wizarding world Harry. Listen to your conscience, you know deep down that I am right about this."
Harry looked at her straight in the eye and then started laughing as hard as he could. Hermione looked like she had been slapped in the face. Finally Harry got himself under enough control and managed to say with a sneer on his face.
"Gee Hermione, how much time did you spend with that old bastard to come up with your little speech. It's obvious I have to spell it out for you. First, don't worry, I'll take care of Voldemort because I learned long ago that the cowards of the wizarding world will never stand up for themselves and fight for their beliefs. When I am done with Voldemort however I'll make sure that the rest of the wizarding world remembers me. Second, I will never again allow ANYONE to control me, especially that bastard. Third, I suggest you take your pompous, self-righteous, know-it-all fucking self and get the hell away from me. Make sure to take your inbred pureblood boyfriend with you."
Harry heard Anubis through his mind link telling him that fire head was about to curse him. Harry mentally smirked at Anubis description of Ron.
As predictable as the rotation of the earth, Ron Weasley blew his hair off, and launched a flipendo curse towards Harry. Harry expected this to happen and managed to layer two spells, and silently cast protego and merde-effreno. Harry was very thankful that he was able to cast most of his spells silently.
Ron's spell hit Harry's shield, and was throw back toward Ron with Harry's second spell disguised in the flippendo's signature. Ron was hit square in the chest, and was thrown back over the Hufflepuff table and landed on his back. The next thing that happened was Ron loosing control of his bowels. The stench became immediate and overpowering. Some people began loosing their dinners. Hanna Abbot and Christine Johnson were the first. Harry made sure to quickly slip his new wand back inside his right boot.
Harry looked around and saw the shocked look on many people's faces. The next thing that Harry knew was that McGonagall and Snape were by his side. McGonagall with a deep frown and tight lip manage to utter with great difficulty.
"Mr. Potter what is the meaning of this disgraceful behaviour."
Harry replied, "My dear professor, you witnessed the whole thing, surely you have an idea of what happened, or has the headmaster given strict orders to turn a blind eye to attacks made on a student who happens to have Potter as a last name?" Harry sneered.
Snape was the first one to reply, "See Minerva, the little brat is no better than his useless father. His ego is just as big. It's a good thing that he is no longer with us, I don't think that our world could handle two gargantuan egos at the same time" He spat.
Harry by now had had enough, it was time to make these useless peons feel a little pain. Harry brought out his dementor replicating aura and concentrated on Snape. The effects were immediate. Everyone around Harry began feeling cold, and those nearest to him began feeling as if they would never be happy again. The biggest effect was on professor Snape. The man's face was contorted as if he was remembering a horrific experience. Snape fell down on one knee. His hands were balled into fist and were pressing against his temple.
After about twenty seconds, McGonagall who was by now shaking horribly managed to get Harry's attention by yelling for him to stop. Harry stopped projecting his dementor aura and looked at her straight face. Minerva could see his green orbs glowing with power. She managed to regain enough control of herself and weakly told him to go see the Headmaster. By now her breath was fast and shallow. Harry stood up leaving the rest of the hall gaping at him and at Snape's almost unconscious form.
Everyone was shocked except Neville, Luna, Blaise and Brianna. Blaise already knew why it was a very bad idea to piss off his brother in law. Blaise looked at his sister and her eyes told him that she thought the same thing. Blaise noticed that Harry didn't even draw his wand out and yet had over a third of the Gryffindor table along with two teachers, incapacitated. Now that Blaise thought about it, he remembered seeing something similar during Harry's battle in France. Blaise wondered if he could learn to do this. In battle this could be a definite advantage.
Harry left the table with a sneer and made his way out of the great hall to go talk to the meddling fool. Harry had not meant to let things get this out of hand, but where Snape was concerned it became an almost impossible task to keep one's cool. That was one bastard he was going to take out of action real soon he promised himself. Harry finally made his way to the headmaster's office. He stood in front of the gargoyle and realized that McGonagall never gave him the password. The last thing he wanted to do was to keep guessing the stupid password.
He searched his memory from his mind link the previous night and realized that he already knew the password. Harry stood in front of the statue and said, "Smarties". The stone statues moved out of the way and Harry climbed the stairs. As he approached the top of the stairs, he realized that the headmaster was already sitting there. They left almost at the same time, Harry began thinking that there might be another secret passage way that did not even show up on the Marauders map. This might be worth investigating. Harry was pretty certain that it was not apparition on the headmaster's part. After all according to "Hogwarts, a History" it was supposed to be impossible to apparate within Hogwarts.
Albus Dumbledore looked at the young man entering his office, and could not help feeling angry at how this young man had completely destroyed his carefully laid out plan. Valuable pawns had been sacrificed to get the young man where he wanted him, and in the space of one summer it had all been for nothing. Now he even admitted to himself that he was scrambling for damage control, and so far was not succeeding very well.
Albus had initially counted on his former best friends to help bring him back into the fold, but it seemed that the young mans loathing at their betrayal ran far deeper than he ever imagined. Albus for the first time had a really good look at the young man and noticed how much he had changed. Long gone was the scrawny young boy who left his fifth year. The person standing in front of him was confident, muscular, and exuded an aura of power. It seemed that Harry no longer wearing his cousin's cast off.
Albus also realized that he could no longer get an idea of what he was thinking. The last thing he wanted was a repeat of their last confrontation back at Grimmauld place. Upon closer inspection he noticed an earring in the shape of a scorpion made of sapphire quality gemstone. Albus was beginning to get an uneasy feeling at this point. He decided to wait a little bit and then ask him about it. There had to be some significance to this. Albus finally decided to break the ice and said.
"Well Harry, it would seem that you are off to an explosive start to your school year. I would have thought that you would have waited at least until the end of this month before getting into trouble. Now we need to discuss what to do about your attack on Mr. Malfoy last night and on Mr. Weasley and your professors during lunch time."
Harry did not believe that he could hate anyone more than Voldemort. However, the headmaster was now a close second to be sure. Harry knew that the headmaster was playing his little games, and was going to try to get a confession out of him. After what seemed like a minute, Harry said.
"My dear Headmaster, It would seem that again you did not bother gathering the facts and simply assumed that I was guilty or you simply choose to ignore the evidence. I know you were in the great hall just now, and you know that I never raised my wand. It was one of your prefect puppets who drew his wand on me, remember?" Harry waited a moment to let his words sink through.
Harry continued by saying, "As for your precious potions masters, he insulted my parents and I still did not raise my wand to him. Yet, you sit here accusing me. I wonder what you are really on about headmaster, perhaps you are trying to find a way to remove my leverage over you and are willing to use any transgressions to do it. Now headmaster, if we could please dispense with the bullshit, I find that I no longer have any patience with these fake pleasantries. "
Albus saw that Harry would not easily buckle under pressure. Perhaps the boy could be angered into revealing some of his secrets. Finally, Albus replied with a sickly smile.
"You are being very eloquent in your arguments Harry. However, the fact remains that you still attacked a teacher even if you were not using a wand. If you could explain what you did, perhaps I could find myself forgetting that this unfortunate incident ever occurred."
Harry replied, "Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. I'm sorry headmaster but a true sorcerer never reveals his secrets. Before you go any further with your implied threats, I'll tell you right now that I will go straight to the board of governors and present them with my memories of the event. That with a copy of my bank documents showing your transgression in regards to the ancient and noble house of Potter should be more than enough to get you kicked out of this school as headmaster and maybe as chief warlock." Harry said the last bit with a feral grin on his face.
Dumbledore's face suddenly went white and was taken back by the sheer hate he saw in Harry's eyes. After a minute he finally said, "You have changed Harry, and not for the better in my opinion. Is there no love left in your heart Harry? Because you know as well as I do that this is the first step towards the dark side."
Harry stared hard at the headmaster and started chuckling and finally managed to say, "Well, that's a little rich coming from the so called great light wizard sitting across from me. I wonder headmaster if any of your indiscretions ever came to light how many people would still think of you as a light wizard. Let's face it, deep down you are no different than Voldemort. You play people as if they were pawns on a chessboard. If there is one thing that I condone my parents for, it is for listening to your advice in the first place. They trusted you without question, to their ultimate downfall. I have no intention of repeating their mistakes. Since we both know very well what your ultimate plan was for me, you don't have a leg to stand on calling yourself a light wizard. So by all means, call me dark all you want; I would rather be called dark than blindly follow a semi senile, manipulative, egotistical, power hungry maniac like you."
Harry could see the fury building in the headmaster's face, and to add insult to injury Harry could hear Phineas in the background hooting and hollering at the headmaster telling him how badly he had been put in his place by a sixteen-year-old brat. Harry had a wolfish grin on his face. The headmaster turned around and yelled at Phineas to shut up or else. Dumbledore turned towards Harry and stood while pointing a finger in Harry's direction and said.
"I will not be talked to in this manner by the likes of you. You will show me respect."
Harry was about to reply when Fawkes suddenly left his perch and landed on Harry's shoulder much to Dumbledore's dismay. Harry looked at Fawkes, smiled and replied, "Temper, temper mon Capitaine. In my eyes respect is earned and not blindly given due to someone's titles."
Albus realized that the boy had skilfully turned the tables on him by baiting him and making him loose his temper. My, my Albus thought, what a conniving little Slytherin you are becoming my dear Harry. The headmaster made a great show of sitting down and taking deep breaths as if he was dealing with a way ward child.
Albus decided to change tack and with a smile he said, "Please accept my apology for my previous indiscretion, these last two weeks have been a trifle difficult for me. Now perhaps you could shed some light on your relationship with this Scorpion Sorcerer. Severus witnessed the Scorpion Sorcerer fighting death eaters at your house not too long ago. You are also wearing an earring in the shape of a scorpion?"
Harry chuckled and pointed towards his scar and said, "He can't get through to me any more, but that doesn't mean I haven't tried getting through to him. The best times are when he's especially happy or angry. I can sometimes break through his barriers undetected. I saw what happened at Azkaban this summer."
He dropped his hand and shook his head. "This is just going to continue, headmaster. Voldemort is going to keep gaining new recruits, and few or none of his men are going to be taken out of the equation. It's no wonder you people were losing last time."
Dumbledore's frown deepened. "Harry-"
Harry's face hardened and said, "Do not ever call me Harry again. It's Mr. Potter to you."
Dumbledore frowned and looked into Harry's eyes and said, "Very well Mr. Potter. Now as I was saying" But he was interrupted by Harry once more.
Harry wouldn't hear it. "No, headmaster, I know what you will say. The truth is that under Fudge's incompetence and you trying to take over St-Peter's job at the pearly gates we are going to lose this war. The time has come for change, and the Scorpion Sorcerer is just the wizard to do it. Voldemort and his Death Eaters are not criminals to be punished with time in prison; they are soldiers on the opposing side of a war. You would do well to take a good long look at wars in the muggle world. When they fight a war, they understand that victory lies in defeating your opponent, not imprisoning him. Prisoners are taken, yes, but you cannot hope to capture an entire enemy force. It's an impossible task, and Voldemort's was just going to keep gaining supporters until the Scorpion Sorcerer showed up to scare them off. Under Fudge's and your actions, all they saw ahead of them if they got caught is a slap on the wrist and a short term in prison. Under the Scorpion Sorcerer actions they fear death and mutilation"
"Dear boy," Dumbledore protested, "We cannot sink to their level. If we do, we are no better than them."
"We are a free people, headmaster," Harry replied. "But if we are not willing to fight, to die, and yes, even to kill to defend that freedom, then we have no right to being free." Harry looked straight into Dumbledore's eyes and said with as much conviction as possible "You may not be willing to go that far, but the Scorpion Sorcerer is. I am willing to follow him and use any weapons necessary to defeat those bastards, even using the Dark Arts if necessary. I believe a muggle by the name of General Douglas MacArthur once said something to the effect of, ""It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it." A fitting quote don't you think."
Dumbledore stared at the young man for a moment, then rose and said, "I can only ask you to please reconsider where you are heading Harry. You know how important you are to the wizarding world. I would be ashamed if they thought that you were destined to be the next Dark Lord. Here is your time table. I will make sure that no disciplinary actions are taken against you this time. However, consider this a fair warning that I will no longer be lenient towards you."
Harry recognized this as a dismissal and picked up his time table and headed towards the door just as he was about to turn the door handle he turned around and said, "Just so you know, if I see for one second that any of your teachers are subjugating me to unfair treatment I will officially pull out of this school and hire private tutors until my NEWT's come about. I will then go to the board of governors and have you removed as headmaster. As for the rest of YOUR wizarding world I frankly don't give a shit if they burn in hell. Perhaps, when Voldemort has exterminated all of these cowards, I'll step in and take care of him. This way I kill two birds with one stone. "
Albus fell back in his chair and ran his hands over his face. He was getting a serious headache. He now knew that Harry was lost for good. There was no hope of getting him back under his control. He heard Phineas say, "You have made a real mess of it now Dumbledore. Our world will be lucky to survive this catastrophe."
Albus replied with raised eyebrow, "Maybe the best way to handle this is to let him take care of Voldemort. When he has completed his task we will make our move in and contain him."
Phineas replied, "You keep on believing that. Personally I think you will become a portrait much sooner than you think." He left his portrait and a very annoyed and a very pissed off headmaster.
Harry was walking down the hall and looking at his watch, he noticed that his Charms class was already over. He had a transfiguration class at three, so he decided to go outside and take an in depth look at Hogwarts grounds and memorize the layout.
London East Side close to the Thames River
Earlier that morning, Xiana and Remus apparated just outside the building they were going to inspect. The building in question was home to a tabloid paper that had gone out of business three months ago. Apparently all of the printing equipment and computer systems were fully operational. They were here to meet the real estate agent in order to inspect the premises. If they liked what they saw, then Xiana would make the decision to buy the place. This was part of Harry's elaborate plan to jump start the war effort. Harry wanted to start a propaganda war with Voldemort, by fighting his lies with facts.
Xiana was looking at the front of the building when she felt nauseous and ran to the side alley. Remus was concerned and followed her there when he saw Xiana vomiting in a trash can. He went to her and cast a cooling charm on her, knowing that it would help. He then conjured a cold ice tea and gave it to her. She took the drink and thanked him. Remus just smiled and said "The little tyke is active I see."
She smirked and said, "Just like the father, a real pain in the butt sometimes."
Remus laughed his head off. He told her the story about Lily's pregnancy and had Xiana laughing by the end of his story. She took his arm and they made their way back to the front of the building. By the time they got back they noticed a woman looking at her watch. They approached the woman and introduced themselves. After some short pleasantry they made their way inside the average size building and began an in depth tour of the premises. After about an hour, Xiana asked the woman if she could talk to her partner for about ten minutes.
The agent was more than accommodating and Xiana took Remus to one of the offices to discuss their proposal. There was no doubt in Xiana's mind that this place was ideal. For one thing the address of the building was 13 Royal Street. Most people in the wizarding world were fairly superstitious. If the building were put under Fidelius charm, no one would think it the wiser if they found no building between twelve and fourteen. No one in the wizarding world would build a building and put thirteen as an address.
The second thing she liked about the place was that it was very modern and had state of the art equipment. The place was not big, but it had a very cozy feeling about it. They could print out as many papers as they liked. They only thing they needed to do was to copy the duplicating charms and find out the Daily Prophet's distribution listings. Between the Daily Prophet and the Quibbler, they could reach a good majority of the wizarding population. The Building itself was in a very well hidden area and the asking price was very reasonable. She would help Harry give everyone a crash course with muggle computers. She had learned from Harry how useful the muggle contraptions could be.
After listing the pros and cons, Remus agreed with her that they should make an offer. If the deal went through, they would pay cash and have Harry cast the dark Fidelius on the premises as he was the only one who could do it. From then on, their operation would be ultra secret and well protected. Luna, Xiana, Remus and Harry would make up the bulk of the editorial staff, but they had other people in mind that could definitely contribute to the paper.
With their mind made up they went to the agent and offered £1.3 million pounds for the building and its facilities. The agent looked quite ecstatic and told them that they would be receiving the deeds via their e-mail address later this afternoon. Xiana was fascinated with muggle technology. Harry was right, muggles were definitely far more advanced in certain areas over wizard kind. Learning from Harry, she had developed a very healthy respect for muggle technology. In many ways they were superior to wizarding means. Of course on many other issues they were remarkably backwards. After signing a plethora of papers, they bid the agent farewell and Xiana apparated to her father's law office. She brought him up to speed on current news and gave him the muggle law contacts. Remus told her that he would meet her back home. Remus said he was going to pay a visit to the twins. Remus had a feeling that the twins would be sympathetic to Harry's cause.
Remus apparated into one of Diagon alley's transit points, and made his way to Wizards Wizarding Wheeze's. After about ten minutes of walking, Remus entered the shop and found himself looking at all of the shelves. The variety of pranks and jokes was truly astounding. Harry was right, the twins were absolute genii. Some of their inventions could be tailored to their uses. After what must have been fifteen minutes, Remus noticed that one of the twins was approaching him with a huge grin on his face.
Fred came over and yelled, "Professor Lupin, what an honour to see you in our modest abode."
Remus smirked and replied, "Well, the pleasure is all mine. Please call me Remus or Moony. I have not been your professor in over two years."
Fred looked at him and frowned, "Moony, I remember that name from somewhere, but I can't place it for some reason."
Remus answered back, "Well, my brothers and I used to be well known in my days, maybe you heard of my name from some third party."
Fred looked at him and shook his head, " No, I pretty sure that you were never mentioned by any of our acquaintances." Fred looked at him deeper and finally a grin came to his face and said.
"I remember your name. It was on the Marauder's map. How in the world did you manage to get your name on one of our most prized possessions?" He enquired.
Remus smiled and said, "Well, I would think that being one of the four Marauders and the charms expert of our group was enough to get my name on that map. Creating that map, proved to be quite a challenge but we managed to pull it off in the end."
Fred looked at Remus as if he was seeing the almighty God. His mouth kept opening and closing but no words came out. Finally Fred bellowed, "George, get your butt out here right now." A few minutes later George came out and said, "Brother Dearest, I have an important potion brewing, what ever is the problem?"
Fred smirked at his brother and said, "Well it seems that our dear professor Lupin has been holding out on us. Right before you my dear brother, is none other than Moony, as in aka the Marauder. "
George looked like he was about to faint. He looked at his brother and together they went down on their knees and hailed Remus as one of their Gods. Remus couldn't help himself at the twins' behaviour and burst out laughing. The twins got back on their feet and George managed to say.
"You must obviously tell us who the other three marauders were. Please tell us." They begged.
Remus took pity on them and replied, "Well Prongs was aka James Potter, Padfoot was Sirius Black, and Wormtail was aka Peter Pettigrew." The last he spat the words. Fred and George looked at each with a look that said they fully understood where the animosity towards Wormtail came from.
Fred said, "Well being that you are one of the Marauders, you get an obvious discount on all merchandise, after all some of these products were copied from some of your guys ideas. Second, what to we owe this fine visit by yours truly."
Remus knew that he had to play his cards real smooth. Remus purged all of his emotions and said, "I am here to talk about Harry, and what Dumbledore did to him. I want to know how you feel about the whole thing."
Fred immediately had a sneer on his face and said, "What we think is that the bloody Order of the Phoenix and the meddling old fool railroaded our partner, that's what we think. To think, that we wanted to join those bloody idiots last year. Thank God, it never came about. I wish we could meet up with Harry to tell him that we believe in him and that we stand by him no matter what. "
George added, "When no one believed in us, Harry was there and supported us. If it weren't for him, all of this would not existent. So if you are asking us where our loyalties lie, then I believe we just gave you our answer."
Remus looked at both twins and saw a determined look in their eyes. After careful consideration he said, "Just so you know. Harry has started training people using far more powerful magic and methods that were ever thought of at Hogwarts. The death of Sirius has affected him greatly. He wants to make sure that all of his friends and every member of his army are able to fight death eaters with weapons that are effective. No matter what you hear, Harry will never be a Dark Lord. He is willing to use and teach the dark arts only to even the playing field. Harry no longer believes in giving mercy to the enemy. Harry extends an offer for you to freely join him. I want to make sure that you understand that there is no pressure here. Harry will still love you just the same if you decide not to join him."
With out a moment's hesitation, both twins said, "We are in. Just let us know what we need to do."
Remus replied, "Don't worry, I'll let Harry know that you are in and he will contact you very soon. For now just carry on as if nothing was out of the ordinary. You must understand that the training you are about to take will give you a whole new definition of magic. The training I went through truly opened my eyes. Harry wants you to know that there is no light or dark magic. There is only magic and intent."
Remus reached in his pocket and threw a diary at them. George caught it and looked at Remus with a frown. Remus smiled and said, "This is my personal diary describing all of the pranks that the Marauder's pulled while at Hogwarts during our stay there."
The look on the twins face was priceless. They had a look that said if they never received any presents for the next five years, it would not matter. In their eyes the diary that they held in their hands was worth a vault full of galleons. Remus laughed and portkeyed back to Potter castle.
Gringotts Second Floor Department of Curses and Jinxes Bill Weasley's Office
Bill was currently sitting at his desk on his afternoon brake. He was busy reviewing all of the wedding preparations. Fleur and he would be married at the end of this month at Potter castle. Every time he thought of Fleur he had a huge smile on his face. She had a wicked sense of humour. Her laugh always managed to bring a smile on his face. Bill suddenly heard his mail bell go off and watched as a letter with the Hogwarts seal appeared in his box. He broke the seal and started to read, it was from Ginny:
Hi big brother
I just thought I would send you a quick letter to see how you are doing. It's only the second day, here but I can already tell that this year is going to be different, especially after the sorting hat's parting words. I met Harry at lunch today, and he seems different both physically and emotionally. I told him that I was really confused with all that has happened between Ron, Hermione, the order, and him.
I know deep down in my soul and heart that what the headmaster did to Harry was absolutely despicable. No wonder he feels so betrayed. The ones he thought he could trust were willing to sacrifice him on the altar. I would like to support Harry, but I don't want to disappoint mom and dad also. I don't know what do to big brother, I am so confused, and I feel helpless.
Harry suggested that I meet you and talk face to face. Could you come to Hogwarts this Friday afternoon? If you want to come I'll meet you by the lake. Send me a reply.
Love
Ginny
Bill didn't give his sister's letter a moment's thought. He wrote back his reply saying that he would meet her this Friday afternoon by the lake. War was on their doorstep, and the useless curses they were learning at Hogwarts would get them all killed. The only way to ensure her survival was to give her the tools necessary to properly protect herself.
Bill needed to make his sister understand the difference between evil and dark. He only hoped that it would be enough to sway her. He would also tell her that he had joined Harry, and watch her reaction. If she took it badly then he would be forced to obliviate her. However, Bill's gut told him that Ginny would join him. She was spunky, and a very powerful witch. Bill knew that she would make a very good addition to their side. This would also make it easier for him to help protect her. With that taken care of, he went back to work.
The Ministry of Magic
Current Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge sat at his desk contemplating a parchment on his latest popularity rating. With a sneer he took out his wand and cast incendio. The Gods must have abandoned him. It was bad enough back in June when that bloody brat and the old coot had to go and prove him wrong. In his opinion, it would have been much better to ease the public into the current crisis.
Now the whole public knew that he had been proven wrong by that fat head, idiotic little brat. He knew that Dumbledore thought him to be a bumbling fool, but he would show him. He would prove that Dumbledore was not the only one who could make plans. Cornelius knew that he was not in the same class as the headmaster when it came to making plans, but sometimes a simple strategy was often the best.
As for the Potter brat, his plans to get him to Azkaban could wait. He had a much bigger foe to tackle in the form of the Scorpion Sorcerer. The most frustrating thing about the Scorpion Sorcerer was that there was next to no information on him. Not knowing your enemy led one to make stupid mistakes. Anyone who used dark magic like he did had to be a Dark Lord in the making. Of course to date, all he had done was attack the current Dark Lord's minions.
Subtle information had been sent to the Daily Prophet to portray this Scorpion Sorcerer as the next dark menace, but it seemed that the public had other ideas. The current public mood was not very forgiving, and they saw this Scorpion Sorcerer as a man of action who was not afraid to show force against Voldemort. Cornelius knew that if he wanted to stay in power, he had to show that he could be a man of action too.
This task was even more difficult because of Dumbledore and his blasted Order of the Phoenix. God this game was getting so bloody complicated. Well for now all he could do was gather information from his informants and wait for the right time to strike. Maybe with more information he would be able to formulate a decent plan.
Right now educating the public with light spells, and recruiting more Aurors was good enough. Cornelius smiled to himself, when he thought of his metamorphomagus informant currently in her seventh year at Hogwarts. It was a rare talent indeed to be a metamorphomagus. He had approached Auror Tonks earlier about becoming an informant for him, and she had accepted.
Auror Tonks had replaced a Cindy Donovan from Ravenclaw. Cornelius knew the girl's mother Corrine, from his days at Hogwarts. He approached her about using an informant to sit in lieu of her daughter at Hogwarts. He promised her fair compensation for her cooperation. The money would help the family send their daughter to Salem Academy in North Carolina, in the US. Corrine had readily accepted. Now, Cornelius would keep tabs on Dumbledore and the Potter brat. Since he was the minister of magic, he knew that Auror Tonks would never betray him. Cornelius looked at his watch and decided to go seek Weatherby and see if any information had been passed on from his informant.
Hogwarts Headmasters Office
Albus was busy going over some correspondence when he heard the familiar knock at his door.
Albus looked up and said, "Come in"
A 7th year girl wearing Ravenclaw robes walked in and said, "Good afternoon, Headmaster."
Albus smiled and replied, "Ah, my dear Nymphadora, how are you settling into Ravenclaw dormitories."
Tonks looked at the headmaster and gave him a dirty look about the use of her first name, but finally managed to say, "Well things seem much easier second time around. Just so you know that bombastic, ignoramus of a minister of magic sent me a courier asking for some information on you and Harry."
Albus replied, "Good, I am glad to see that our plan is coming together. You can tell the minister that I am busy negotiating the new salary scale with our teachers, and you can tell him that Harry is becoming more withdrawn and aggressive towards his classmates."
Tonks looked at the headmaster and said, "As you wish sir." She bid the headmaster farewell and left to go to her next class. Inside she was seething, if that old coot thought that she was going to set up Harry for him he had got another thing coming. Soon it would be time to seek Harry, and let him know that she is in place at Hogwarts.
Harry had set up the whole thing a week after his blow out with Dumbledore and the Order of the Phoenix. She had been appalled that the headmaster had been so willing to sacrifice Harry. If Sirius had been around he would have killed him.
Harry was Sirius' Godson. In truth, she really liked Harry and considered him like a little brother. To top it off, Sirius had made Harry his heir and therefore the new Lord Black. She was part of the Black family and blood comes first. With that she went to transfiguration, which should be as exciting as seeing paint dry. Oh, well it could be a lot worse. For the most part she was safe here instead of chasing death eaters. In essence she mused, she was getting paid for keeping an eye on her adopted little brother and screwing Fudge and the headmasters plans in the process. Talk about luck Tonks mused.
Later that Evening Chamber of Secrets
Harry was just finishing expanding the right wall and transfiguring the necessary struts. Thank the lord he had his Naquadria wand with him, the power amplification of the wand was truly showing its worth today. Harry had managed to expand the Chamber of Secrets to ten times its original size.
Harry would soon rename the Chamber of Secrets to the scorpion lair. Harry now needed to take care of the serpent statues. He took a close look at them and could not help admiring the statues. The details were truly exquisite. He approached the first statue nearest to him and started to closely examine it. He went to the back of the statue and could make out the scale pattern of the serpent on the stone. Harry was about to banish the statue when he noticed a curious symbol on the hood of the snake.
The marking itself was barely noticeable. The rune must have been burned into the statue and thus was only slightly darker in appearance then the surrounding rock. Harry looked at the engraving for what must have been five minutes trying to remember where he had seen this symbol before. He finally remembered it as a parseltongue rune. Only a parseltongue could activate the rune.
The rune symbol had many meanings. It could stand for an entrance, a door or a hiding place. Harry took his wand and traced the rune symbol with it, while hissing open, which was truth be told the first word that came to his mind. Harry's leapt back when he heard a scraping sound as if a stone mill had been activated. After a minute it stopped. Harry had no idea what just happened. He walked around the statue and looked towards the center of the chamber expecting some sort of trap door to have opened. To his disappointment he found nothing. He was about to banish the statue when he noticed that the statue's mouth was open.
Harry noticed that there was a jewelled box sitting at the bottom of the lower jaw. He was about to climb up and pick up the box, when his gut instinct stopped him. He decided instead to do a magic scan. Harry brought forth his magical aura reading talent to bear and noticed that the box was layered with no less than seven different kinds of curses and jinxes. Harry closed his eyes and concentrated on his inner mind. He started riffling through his carefully ordered folders until he found his magical signature folder.
Harry hoped that he could recognise the curses put on the box and remove them. After what seemed like fifteen minutes had passed, Harry came out of his self induced trance and whistled loudly. There was no doubt in his mind that what he was dealing with was precious. Maybe it was something left over from the founder of the chamber Salazar Slytherin himself. Some of the curses put on the box were ancient and dangerous as hell. Who ever had put these boxes in there wanted to absolutely make sure that no one got a hold of it.
Harry began the difficult task of removing each curses and jinxes one at a time. He had to be very meticulous and take his time. The curses he was dealing with would kill him if he was not careful. Harry noticed that he was putting a lot of power in removing each curse. The last curse involved a blood ritual. After a solid hour of work he was finished and floated the box down to the floor and opened it. Harry found a large egg. It was jet black with green spots on it. Harry immediately recognized it as a Basilisk egg. Harry read the aura around the egg, but now seemed more confused than ever. The egg had a stasis field around it to preserve it for a very, very long time. However, that was not what intrigued him however. The egg seemed to be emanating a magical aura that belonged to Voldemort. Harry looked at his watch and knew that he had to get moving if he wanted to finish his remodelling.
Harry decided to inspect all of the statues and found two more statues with similar parseltongue runes on the back of the serpent sculptures. He repeated his earlier exploit but found himself removing even more curses. The last serpent required removing no less than 13 curses and jinxes. The last two items were a goblet and a necklace. The necklace definitely belonged to Salazar. Harry knew that these items were important but he didn't know what they were. He needed to do a lot more research to find out what these things were. All three items emanated the same magical signature. He knew that it belonged to Voldemort but there was something else there that eluded him. He knew he has seen it somewhere but couldn't recall it at the moment. Harry decided to transfigure a piece of granite into an obsidian chest and carefully stored the items there.
Harry continued working on the chamber. He had managed to banish all but 6 of the serpent statue. He transfigured the remaining sculptures into scorpions and had four of the statues line up at forty-five degree angle looking towards the centre of the chamber. He made sure that all the water underneath Salazar's statue was purified and put it in the newly conjured marble hot tub in a style reminiscent of the ancient Romans bath house. Harry decided that the mineral hot bath would also act as a medicinal bath. Healing potions would be regularly mixed with the water. Harry knew that the training he had in mind would be brutal and some creature comfort would be very welcomed.
Harry put the other two statues along each side of his newly conjured command chair made of highly polished black and emerald green marble. The statues were transfigured into shiny obsidian scorpions about fifteen feet in length. The back of the high command chair was facing a solid black wall made also of highly polished granite. The wall used to be the face of Salazar himself. The mouth of Salazar that used to be the exit door to the basilisk was now a seamless sliding door. Harry had also expanded the chamber housing the basilisk by mining the inner chamber. The inner chamber was now five times bigger than its original size. The inner chamber was going to be his official command centre at Hogwarts.
The inner chamber was now roughly the size of the DADA classroom. The inner chamber would house all of his electronic surveillance system and he would formulate all of his battle plans from there. Harry conjured a highly polished semi circular table facing the south wall which would contain all of his electronic screens.
Harry also made sure to that the entrance to the inner chamber would be by blood wards and magical signatures only. Harry was now very glad that he had built his trunk manors. The learnings gained from that endeavour were now reaping its just rewards. In building his trunk and with the help of his tutors, Harry now considered himself extremely proficient in the art of charms and transfiguration. His last act for tonight was to move his obsidian box inside the inner chamber and put it against the south west corner. He decided to put the box under the dark Fidelius. Harry had a gut instinct that the box would become crucial later on. Harry had learned to trust his gut instincts.
Harry looked at the time, which was now showing 11:00 pm. He told Xiana that he was going to be late again tonight. She knew that he was remodelling the Chamber of Secrets into his army's training head quarters. Harry looked around and figured that by Friday he would have everything completed. Harry needed to come up with a way to send the listening monitors and the recording video information back to his command centre. Harry had a vague idea of how he wanted to lay out the electronic equipment.
Harry wanted to cut a cable channel into the current rock strata all the way up the large pipe that led into Myrtle's bathroom on the ground floor. North of the sink outside the bathroom window, there was a statue of a Mer Chieftain with a trident raised to the star. Harry had the idea of making the statue hollow and hiding the distribution nodes and the antenna signal amplifiers inside the statue. Harry was going to transform the Trident into a very sensitive antenna for picking up video and cell phone signals from outside of Hogwarts.
Harry also wanted to repeat the same process with another statue. The statue of King Arthur Pendragon was mounted right on the left hand side of the main door to Myrtle's bathroom. The area was perfect because no one ever used this out of the way hall. The statue was close to the moving stairs, the entrance to the dungeon and other classrooms. Before working on the statues, he needed to create the cable channels and then wait for his special order to come from the US. Harry was told that he would be receiving his modified electronics on the third week of September.
Harry ended up ordering two hundred cell phones, ten top of the line battle hardened laptops, fifty video cameras, one hundred listening transducers, a communication console, a video monitoring station, five fifty-six inch screens. Harry's last purchase was a projector with a large screen for the main chamber. The order came close to $2,172,050 US dollars. Harry had a gut feeling that this equipment would prove itself during the coming war. Well it was time to call it quits. Feeling tired again he decided to portkey out of the chamber. He couldn't wait to show Xiana the finished product. Harry apparated back to the trunk portkey chamber and made his way to the kitchen where he met Remus and Xiana.
Xiana said, "Hi love, how was your day?"
Harry made his way to his wife and kissed her soundly and said, "Hi babe, Hi Remus, I had a very productive day today. I told the headmaster, Ron, and Hermione to bugger off. I also made some very solid progress in transforming the Chamber of Secrets. It's exhausting work, but it is coming along nicely. How was your day?"
Xiana replied, "Well Remus and I ended up purchasing a newspaper agency in a nice remote location in London. This means my love that you are going to be busy this weekend putting the place under your parseltongue Fidelius. We figured that within three weeks time, we should be ready to print out our first paper. Remus is supposed to meet his contact on Saturday and get us a list of the Daily Prophet subscribers. When we are done, we will be able to piggy back our paper to every address the Prophet delivers to."
Harry looked at Remus with a big grin on his face and said, "Well done you two. Soon we will be fighting fire with fire. It's time to print the truth that none of them want to hear."
Remus replied, "One thing for sure it will certainly get our world talking. By the way, I met with Fred and George today. I can honestly tell you that they are solidly in your camp, cub. They would make fine additions to the group. They do not trust Dumbledore I can tell you that. You should probably meet them Sunday, that way you can see for yourself if they are acceptable. If they are in, they can start training with the others at night and weekends."
Harry said, "Excellent work, you two. Things are slowly coming together. I'll go visit the twins on Sunday and this will also give me a chance to see Mr. Ollivander. I need to make you guys better wands and also some portkey rings. "
They spent another hour, discussing various logistical issues and nailing down some of the detail work that needed to be carried out. They soon went to bed.