Chapter Twenty Six - Neville Gets Smart
Disclaimer: The Harry Potter universe belongs to the proverbial Duchess of Magic, JK Rowling, Scholastic, Bloomsbury, Warner Bros and some other high falutin' companies. No matter how much I whine about not owning anything related to the HP universe, other than a few fanfic plots, I do not profess to own - and would never dream of making any money off - JKR's wonderful world... Damn it!
Chapter Twenty Six - Neville Gets Smart
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―==(oIo)==―
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Upon waking on the morning of their tenth day under time dilation, Frank and Alice had only just moved to their 'recliners' when one of their two Healers, the physiotherapist one, walked in with a smile on his face.
"You've received mail," he said.
Receiving the letter, Frank glanced at it and said to Alice, "It's from the young Lord Potter - Harry. This was obviously sent on the evening of the first full day outside; so, don't expect much."
Frank quickly opened the letter to find 'don't expect much' was wrong. It might not have been anywhere near as long as the previous letter, which gave them a background on everything relevant that had happened since they'd been attacked, but it was long enough.
As he started to read he said to Alice, "He's timed it at fourteen hours after we were taken from Saint Mungo's. At least, that was the time when he started to write.
"Looking at the length I'd say it took him... and Hermione... about another one to two hours - half a day to a full day of time in here."
Alice patiently waited for him to read the single sheet letter by browsing through old copies of the Daily Prophet that had been brought in with them. A full month's worth had been brought in.
She read with her attention only partially on the Prophet article she was trying, and failing, to read and recall. Her real attention was actually on her husband's facial reactions to what he was reading. Pride, anger, joy, consternation, amusement all flittered across his face. He even chuckled a few times.
When he'd finished he sat back with a look of concerned relief on his face before he then passed the letter to his wife.
"He's given us a long background on his friendship and interaction with Neville," he said, handing the letter over. "Plus, much more."
Without a word, Alice eagerly accepted the letter and began to read.
When she finished, she set the letter down on the low table between their recliners.
"Frank?" she asked.
"Yes, dear?"
"Young Harry is to get anything he wants - forever," she firmly stated.
"Yes, dear," said Frank, still reviewing the letter in his mind and in full agreement.
"As for your mother..." she almost snarled, spitting out the last word.
"We will be going with the young Lord Potter's plan," he firmly returned. "He deserves our support in that. And mother deserves the... very loud and verbal public spanking she's receives from me, with it."
"Good," Alice firmly, almost viciously, agreed. "Then, when we get her back to the Hall, she gets another one from me."
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―==(oIo)==―
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Though Harry now knew Dobby had somehow tagged him with an elvish monitoring charm he couldn't locate or dispel, he still tried to beat the little elf down to cook breakfast. He quickly and quietly dressed, not even bothering with a shower first, before racing as silently as he could down to the kitchen.
He hadn't beaten him yet, but considered the challenge of doing so not yet ended. He also knew Dobby, though he wouldn't say anything, thought it hilarious.
He was greeted by a smirking house elf, who stood in the middle of the kitchen floor with its arms crossed looking up at him while holding a pair of kitchen tongs. He heard the sound of sizzling bacon, smelled waffles being cooked and saw a pot containing scrambled eggs on the stove, among others.
When he sighed, that smirk on the elf turned into a mischievous grin.
He took a quick trip around the various dishes being prepared, checking them - even the tea was currently steeping - and turned a resigned pout on his elf. "Fiiiine," he sulked.
Not saying a word and not altering his expression one whit, Dobby just pointed with the pair of tongs towards the dinette.
As Harry walked out past the counter he said, "I could always fire you, you know!"
He and Dobby both knew the threat was an empty one. And Harry never threatened 'clothes'.
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―==(oIo)==―
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Harry had been about to sit at the small table before he decided that, since his plan didn't work, he'd go and have a shower now. He knew Dobby would simply put everything under stasis until everyone was ready for breakfast.
What he didn't know was that Dobby decided to go ahead and pop food down to the aurors in the servants' quarters. He'd been doing it since the first day, anyway.
All the aurors knew that, if they had a shift at the Grangers that occurred across the breakfast period, they'd get a 'Dobby' breakfast. Now none of them ate before starting their (early) morning shift. Even those going off-shift got a breakfast before they left. The same also happened at lunch. And the lucky ones got a 'Potter' dinner if they were on the evening shift.
Unknown to the Grangers, their servants' quarters had become something of the place to be if you were a member of the Potter Protection Detail, as it was now known.
Unbeknownst to the core of the PPD the common room in the 'Quarters', as it was known in auror-speak, was also becoming known to the 'higher-ups' in the DMLE. Rumours, by their nature, have a chance to get around. The PPD were bragging to their fellows and their fellows were grumbling about it.
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―==(oIo)==―
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As they were sitting for breakfast, all four 'official' residents were just finishing when Monica asked, "What are everyone's plans for the day?"
"A lazy one," Wendell immediately replied.
Hermione said, "I don't have any." Then turned to Harry and asked, "What about you?"
Harry shrugged and replied, "I like Wendell's idea."
"No working on Potter House documents?" she asked.
"Nope," he replied. "All work and no play..."
Hermione looked at the dinette window and suggested, "It looks to be a fine day, outside. We could go for a walk?"
Monica suggested, "What you two probably don't know is that Sunday trading restrictions have been significantly lifted as of this year. Almost everywhere, bar a few small privately-owned stores, now open from ten 'til four in Wimbledon Town Centre and twelve 'til six in London."
Hermione perked right up. "Really?" she excitedly asked.
Monica smirked and replied, "Really."
Hermione immediately swivelled to stare at Harry with a pleading expression.
He took one look at the expression on his girlfriend's face and knew he'd already lost. "Fiiiine," he sighed.
"Yes!" she exclaimed, before jumping forward to kiss him on the cheek.
It said something for their developing relationship that Harry didn't blush to the roots of his hair when she did that. His cheeks only coloured a little.
Hermione wasn't watching Harry's reaction, though. She was watching her father's. And he didn't even blink at seeing his daughter kissing her boyfriend on the cheek.
Monica noticed though. She covered her smirk by taking a sip of her tea.
"I want to be at the Town Centre as the stores open, Harry," declared Hermione. "We need to see about getting you some new clothes."
When Harry gave a pained look and was about to protest, she verbally rode over the top and said, "Don't go giving me that look, Harrison James Potter. Those pants we only just bought for you are already too tight in the waist. And you're starting to show ankle and wrists outside of the cuffs."
With a sigh he said, "Fiiiiine. But... we'll only be getting a few items. And only long pants and shirts. I'm just going to have to get even those replaced within a week or two, if that."
She nodded and said, "Plus a couple of jumpers and a coat. I can live with that... for now."
As Harry looked a little dejected, she turned her attention to her mother. "Wanna come with?"
"No, dear," she replied. "I'm sure you can handle it."
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―==(oIo)==―
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When the Weekend Daily Prophets were delivered the lead story was the disappearance of the Longbottoms from the Janus Thickey Ward at Saint Mungo's.
The story had broken.
"The shops open at ten, right?" he asked Hermione.
"Yes," replied Monica. Hermione was focussed on reading the article 'over' Harry's shoulder.
"Then I need to write a letter to Neville before we go," he stated. "There's time."
As soon as breakfast was done and the dishes banished away by Dobby, the Granger adults moved off to do what they wanted to do, while the two teens collected their stationery supplies. This time, Harry pulled his out, rather than Hermione always pulling hers out.
He quickly had a letter written for Neville.
~ # ~
Neville,
Hermione and I have read the article in this morning's Prophet. We both hope you're doing alright and coping.
The article states they were taken from their beds and no one else was hurt. That implies whoever did this had no intention of hurting anyone - otherwise they would not have gone to the trouble of taking such precautions as they clearly must have done.
As your parents were taken and not harmed where they lay, also indicates there is no intention to hurt or harm them. I mean, really, why take them if the intention was to harm?
That, itself, is good news.
To ensure yourself they are okay, my suggestion is to sight their life-stones in Gringotts. It will let you know so you do not need to worry as much as you likely are now.
I've already lost my parents. Therefore, I really cannot comment on what sort of fear that will lead a person to. However, Hermione tells me that it would be a nightmare she does not wish to contemplate.
If their life-stones still glow you must hold to the hope they will soon be returned to you safe and sound in the very near future. I can see no other outcome.
Harry
'Sometimes, when it is the most darkest, a line appears to guide the way.'
~ # ~
Hermione read it and asked, "You're not adding my name?"
"No," he replied. "I don't want you involved in any of this other than me referring to you in passing. At the moment you are the Lady Presumptive of the House of Potter. You are not a full member of a member House. And, therefore, you are not fully protected by the Charter.
"I do not wish to give Rosier any avenue by which she can take a shot at me. And that includes her trying to use going after you as a way to get me."
When he saw she wasn't going to argue, he called, "Dobby."
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―==(oIo)==―
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Neville hadn't slept well, the previous night. He worried about his parents and he worried Harry had something to do with it.
That morning he and 'Gran' had a quiet breakfast, each lost in their thoughts. Neither ate that much as their stomachs were churning with worry.
When she finished her own breakfast, Augusta rose and muttered, "I'm going to the hospital and, from there, to the DMLE. Stay out of trouble." And left without another word or waiting for her grandson to respond.
About five minutes after she left and just as he was thinking of going out to greenhouses to work to calm himself, a house elf he recognised as belonging to Harry popped in.
It asked, "Mister Neville, Sir?"
Neville frowned in curiosity at it before he replied, "Yes. You're Harry's elf, aren't you?"
"I be Dobby," replied Dobby. "Dobby beings honoured to work for the Great Master Harry Potter, Sir; as his personal elf."
"Why are you here?" asked Neville.
Dobby pulled the envelope Harry had given him to deliver out of a hidden pocket of his pillowcase and offered it. "Master Harry be askings Dobby to be delivering letter to Mister Neville."
A little surprised, Neville accepted the letter and said, "Thank you."
Dobby popped away again without another word.
Quickly checking the envelope over, he noticed it was addressed to him in the scrawl Harry referred to as his handwriting whenever he was quickly writing anything.
Undoing the flap, he quickly unfolded the letter and read it.
By the time he was finished he was full of different emotions. He was grateful Harry had seen fit to write him and figured out using a house elf to deliver the letter got the letter to the recipient almost instantly. Clever, that. And he could see the wisdom of checking the life-stones - which his grandmother had already told him she'd done. He also appreciated his logic of them not being hurt where they lay implied the intent was not to hurt them at all. So, something else was going on.
However, the last line of the letter, below the signature, confused him. Harry was not one, as far as he knew, to write such... wishy-washy... circumlocution.
"Sometimes, when it is the most darkest, a line appears to guide the way," he muttered in confusion. "What, in Merlin's name, does that mean?"
After a long few moments, he still couldn't figure it out.
With a sigh, he muttered, "I need to go work on something in the greenhouses."
He got up and strode from the room, the letter still in his hand. As he walked outside, he stopped to fold it and slipped it into his robes before continuing on.
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―==(oIo)==―
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Harry was thankful that shopping wasn't anywhere the exhausting experience it was when he first arrived at the Grangers. True to her word, Hermione only made him purchase a couple of new pairs of jeans, three long-sleeved shirts, a jumper, a windcheater and a coat.
On the walk back, she said, "We'll have to let the aurors also know you'll need to be going into Diagon Alley tomorrow to be fitted for new robes and other wizarding wear."
"Whaaat?" he exclaimed.
"You have court on Tuesday morning, Harry," she replied. "You don't want to be turning up to represent your godfather in robes that show ankles and wrists, do you?"
Harry sighed and quietly replied, "No."
"Good," she firmly said. "I didn't want to have to argue with you about this. You'd have lost, anyway."
"Damn it," he grumbled.
Once he'd got home he mirror-called his godfather and told him the injustice his betrothed had put him through and was going to put him through again the next day in Diagon.
Sirius had no sympathy for him. Instead, he was all for it.
"Tell her I'll be stopping by after breakfast," he said. "We'll go into Diagon Alley, together. You're not the only one who needs to buy new robes. I've been on similar potions, remember?"
"What are you, part girl?" Harry exclaimed in shock. "It's clothes shopping, Sirius!"
"I'm aware, Pup," his godfather chuckled. "She's also right. The clothes maketh the man, Harry. Your mother told me that, once. She was just as right. I used to pick up more birds when I was dressed as a proper Heir than in jeans, open-collared shirt and motorcycle jacket - my preferred attire of choice.
"If you don't dress like the proper Lord you want everyone to believe you are, the Members aren't going to take you seriously."
"Damn it!" his godson grumbled.
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―==(oIo)==―
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Wanting to relax for a bit after the 'ordeal' of clothes shopping. Harry grabbed his bookbag from where it was currently hanging from the back of one of the dinette chairs from earlier that morning and pulled out parchment, ink and quill.
With them on the table he was quickly into yet another letter to Frank and Alice.
~ # ~
Frank and Alice,
Well, the story's broken. It was in this morning's Daily Prophet. You two made the main story on the front page. Congrats!
Secondly, it's now been about sixteen days for you two. By the time you get this you should have reached eighteen days. Congrats for that, too. You're halfway through.
Now that I know the story's broken I was able to send a letter to Neville. To get it there faster, I used what I term 'house elf express'. In other words, I gave it to a house elf to deliver. That way it got there in a matter of seconds, rather than hours. Why use owls?
To help him not panic so much, I reminded him you both have life-stones in Gringotts and that he should go check them. I also spoke about how, if 'whoever' took you wanted to do you harm, they'd have just harmed you where you lay. After all, it's not as if you could defend yourselves at the time. Why take you unless 'their' intent was to keep you alive?
I know it's going to make him stop and think. It's what I've been constantly quietly encouraging him to do since First Year and actively encouraging him to do since the First Task of the Tri-Wiz and we were all still at the school. Don't just accept things at face value. Think about it, first; really think about it.
Neville might not be a Slytherin. He might not want to think strategically or connivingly. But, as I told him back at school, he's 'supposed' to become the Lord of his House and take Seat on the Wizengamot in less than three years. If he didn't start to learn to do that - to look for hidden meaning and agendas - they were going to, as the saying goes, 'eat him alive'.
I know he's taken that to heart. So I also know he's going to have read what I wrote and be worrying at it like a dog with a bone, because some of it is not written how I would normally write. And he's going to wonder why.
If I'm right, he's going to figure it out either late tonight (our time) or tomorrow morning at the latest. He's going to figure out I had something to do with your disappearance.
Then he's going to have to face a dilemma. That dilemma is whether or not to tell his 'Gran'.
He might not know which way he'll decide, but I do. He will show her the letter and explain to her how he 'figured' out I'm partly responsible for you going missing. I know he'll do this because, even with our friendship, he has a strong sense of both family honour and respect for those in authority.
But, that's okay. He'll be right to tell her.
Then Augusta, the Slytherin she is, is going to 'figure out' I took you to stop her putting 'Uncle Algie' in the Longbottom Seat as Proxy. She's going to believe I'm holding you hostage somewhere. I want that misdirection.
Augusta's problem is, while that might be the sort of thing a Slytherin would do, it's not the sort of thing a Potter would do. As I said in my first letter to you, I might have supposed to have gone into Slytherin, but there was a reason the Hat allowed me to go into Gryffindor. I'm more a 'front you full on' sort of guy, than to do something so mean and dirty.
In reality, I want Neville to figure it out. I want him to know that, even with his Slytherin grandmother with her decades of political shenanigans under her belt, he discovered the truth first. And I also don't want him to worry about you any more than he has to. If it saves him even one day of worry, it's worth it. He knows I would never harm you.
I was going to use her trying to install Algernon into the Seat to 'out' the mongrel as having already tried, twice, to kill your son. But, I've now had longer to think about it and believe you would want that dubious honour for yourselves. I think it would hold more weight if you were to go after him as Lord Longbottom in defence of your Heir Apparent, than me as someone who is obviously in conflict with the supposed Regent of your House.
I'll leave the choice of whether or not the man faces justice for what he did, to you. I strongly feel you have the greater right and I will abide by your decision.
Work hard, you two. Get fit and get ready. When you come out during the early hours of the morning on Tuesday, there will be only a few hours until Sirius's trial before the Wizengamot. That's going to be fun - not for the members, but for everyone else who'll be watching.
Right after that is the general meeting of the Wizengamot, when I believe Augusta's going to try to install Algernon.
That's when I think you should make your move.
Harry
Oh, and Hermione sends her regards.
~ # ~
While he'd been writing, Dobby delivered to him yet more quarter-cut sandwiches. He hadn't even noticed he'd been eating them until he reached for one and realised the plate was empty.
Hermione, who had been reading his letter over his shoulder as he was writing the last two short paragraphs, smirked at him and whispered in his ear, "Want more sandwiches, Harry?"
He frowned, grumbled a little under his breath about evil witches and almost sulkily replied, "Please."
She gave a short and light laugh and called, "Dobby."
"Yes, Miss-tress Herm'nee?"
"More sandwiches for the 'hungry beast', Dobby," she snickered.
"Yes, Miss-tress Herm'nee," replied the elf.
Harry was just going to ignore the sandwiches, which appeared a few moments later, but... they looked so goooood...
Dobby took the letter to Gringotts a few minutes later. After he left, Harry looked at the wall clock in the kitchen and realised his estimation of their having reached the halfway mark was going to be pretty accurate.
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Neville had been inside, seen his grandmother talking to his Great Uncle Algernon, her brother, and left again. He didn't like the man one bit. He was the man who had tossed him off a pier in Blackpool and then later dangled him out a top floor window at Longbottom Hall by his ankle before actually dropping him. If it wasn't for the fact he experienced a sudden bout of Accidental Magic, he'd have died.
Harry was right. The man should have stood trial for both events. He was, after all, the Heir Apparent of a Noble and Most Ancient House. That his grandmother did not pursue the matter was quickly becoming a bone of contention for him.
Instead of remaining in the Hall he returned to the greenhouse and summoned Fluxy there.
"Fluxy," he called.
"Yes, Master Neville?" it asked.
"I shall be having my lunch out here, Fluxy," he said. "Please organise it."
"Yes, Master Neville," replied the elf with a little bow. "But you alreadys be missing lunch. Fluxy makes you some sandwiches."
His late lunch of sandwiches appeared on a plate next to his main workbench only a few minutes later.
As he ate, he pulled Harry's letter of that morning out of his pocket and gave it a second read. He knew there were clues to some other, hidden, message contained in what Harry wrote, but he still couldn't figure it out.
He also knew he would. He just needed time for his mind to put the pieces together.
However, if he couldn't figure it out by that evening, he'd send Fluxy to Harry with a short letter telling him. But, that was a last resort. And he wasn't ready to throw in the potion neutraliser yet. This was something he knew Harry thought he could accomplish. And, if Harry thought so, it must be right.
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―==(oIo)==―
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When Frank and Alice received Harry's letter - Alice reading first this time - she said to Frank, "Harry thought we'd receive this one right on about the halfway mark, Day eighteen. He got that right."
Frank smiled back and continued to use the wand blank he was given to practice his spell casting. They'd been given them a few days ago, when the Healers thought they were now ready to begin mock-duelling.
The two had been practicing with them, as often as possible, ever since. They were even starting to remember spell chains they'd developed together and used while as aurors fighting Death Eaters. But, those chains were more coming as a result of muscle memory - that is, their hands and wrists flowing from one spell into another without conscious thought - than mental memory. Each time one of them reflexively performed a spell chain they'd mentally forgotten about, they stopped to write down what they remembered of the movements, then the identity of the spell from the movement and muttered incantation. It was a back-to-front way of doing things, but it was working for them.
They'd both also been told by their physio-Healer that, if they were able to go through a mock-duel for a minimum of three minutes, they would be given actual wands. The wands might not be their own, but at least they were real wands.
What they didn't know, until they were actually handed them about two hours later, were they were very close to their originals.
When Alice, looking in wonder at the wand in her hand, asked, "How?"
No one failed to understand the question was actually, "How did you find a wand that so closely resembles my own; and how did you know what mine was?"
"Apparently Lord Potter found out from your son," replied the main healer. "Your son was using Frank's to start with. So, he knew what it was - Oak and dragon heartstring. On finding that out, he asked him if he knew what his mother's was. Neville told him - Birch and unicorn tail hair.
"From that we acquired wands that closely matched those two descriptions from a wand crafter."
"Well, they're a bloody good match!" declared Frank. "Mine may even be a better match to me than my own!"
"Mine might, but I don't think so," replied Alice. "However, 'tis damned nice to have a wand in my hand, again."
"Hear, hear," muttered Frank.
He looked to the Healer and asked, "And this was young Harry's... Lord Potter's idea?"
"Yes," the healer replied. "Bloody good one, too.
"Now for the second part," he continued. When both were looking at him he said, "He's also arranging for your own wands to be collected from Longbottom Hall and brought down here to be waiting for you as soon as you leave. Lord Black will be meeting you outside and waiting to hand them to you.
"Don't ask me how he's going to accomplish that, because I have no idea. But, with what he's accomplished so far, I have no doubt he's going to pull it off."
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―==(oIo)==―
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Early that evening at the Department of Mysteries, Scimitar was sitting before his boss's desk.
"You're sure it was the young knight?" he asked.
"Yes," replied Croaker. "One of our paid informants among the goblins informed us and another confirmed it. The dog was waiting for them when they arrived and it's been paid for by the young knight direct from his vaults and via a boon the Goblins owed the House of Potter."
"Bloody hell! A boon?"
Croaker nodded.
"So," said Scimitar. "He figured out the Longbottoms were not suffering from overexposure to the Cruciatus, but were under a curse. That curse was likely put on them by the Mad Bitch. He had Black find the book in the Black library. Black found it and the counter-curse.
"With that information and knowing the old dragon would block him in the name of the House of Longbottom, he organised for the Longbottoms to be secretly removed from Mungo's and taken to Gringotts.
"And you're saying they've gone in to the Gringotts time dilation chamber?"
"Yep," replied Croaker. "They're due out during the early hours of Tuesday morning. That'll give them just enough time to be brought up to speed and readied for the fuddy-duddy meeting, which'll start with the trial of Black for breaching the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Statute."
"The young knight's going to make a big play with the Longbottoms either just before or during the meeting," he suggested. "But, what?"
"Our analysts think it is highly likely he's going to have the Rosier woman publicly and resoundingly slapped down by her son. It's quite clear he truly hates the woman for what the Heir Apparent of the House has had to go through under her dubious regency," Croaker replied with a shrug. "Personally, I think they're right."
"Un-believable," muttered Scimitar. "Are we sure this boy is only fourteen?"
"Marked as his equal," replied Croaker.
Scimitar winced.
_‗_
―==(oIo)==―
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Neville was all set to give up and send Fluxy to Harry with a message when, while he was doodling with his quill and ink on a parchment in the greenhouse he was currently within, he realised what he was doing.
Looking down he saw that he kept drawing two lines, one after the other. A pair per line before moving down and doing the same thing again about half an inch lower.
Eyes widening, he quickly snatched the letter from Harry out of his pocket and read it again.
Sometimes, when it is the most darkest, a line appears to guide the way.
"That should be 'light', not 'line'," he muttered "'Sometimes, when it is the most darkest, a light appears to guide the way'. That makes much more sense!
"So... 'line' is the key."
He then looked over the letter and realised Harry had underlined two parts of different areas in the letter.
"'You do not need to worry' and 'they will soon be returned to you'," he muttered.
Eyes widening again in shock he reread them more clearly for himself, "'You do not need to worry, they will soon be returned to you.'
"Mer-lin!" he exclaimed. "He did it! Bloody hell, Harry took them!"
He quickly looked around to make sure he hadn't been overheard. His heart was pumping away in his chest in shock. He quickly started to pack away his tools and notes to run inside, before he suddenly stopped.
'Wait!' he thought. 'Harry knew I'd figure it out. He probably hoped I'd figure it out before now and I was just too stupid to. So, why did he want me to know?'
Slowing down and putting things away properly, he continued to think it through.
'Harry's not evil. He didn't do this because he's dark. It was also him who told me to read the...' he stopped again. "The Charter," he whispered. "It's about 'aid'!"
'But, could I dare hope he's found a way to cure them?... No... He's good, but not even Harry's that good... No... This is about aiding the House of Longbottom... He did say in his letter the other day that he would do something that was to aid the House... and that I'd probably not like it... so, no cure, then.
'So. The next question is; how did taking Mum and Dad from Saint Mungo's in secrecy aid our House?'
He returned to the Hall a little later, still full of questions floating through his mind. He also debated whether or not to tell his grandmother. However, he was trusting in his friend and fellow alliance partner-Heir to do right by him, his parents and his House.
He'd sleep on it, tonight. However, if he couldn't figure it out by tomorrow morning, he'd go to his grandmother. She was still, after all, Regent. As Heir Apparent he had a responsibility to the House - friendship with Harry or not.
_‗_
―==(oIo)==―
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Even though he had a restless night, Neville was up early, dressed and waiting down in the dining room when his grandmother entered. She didn't look like she'd slept well, either.
After she sat at the head of the table and gathering his Gryffindor courage, Neville said, "Gran, last night while I was in my bed trying to sleep, I kept thinking about a letter my friend, Harry, sent me."
As she was sitting down she almost angrily said, "What makes you think I want to know anything that boy has sent you?"
Knowing that was Harry's demand of her to relinquish the Seat on the Wizengamot talking, and that she was as worried as he about his parents, he said, "Gran, this is important."
Taking the letter out of the inside pocket of his robes he said, "You need to read this. Once you have I'm going to tell you something about it."
Almost snatching the letter out of his hand, she read through it, frowning.
"And?" she said, trying to hand it back to him.
"Gran, look at the last line. The message at the bottom. Does anything seem wrong about it to you?"
She read it and snorted. "I think the stupid boy meant to say 'light'," she sneered.
"But he doesn't, does he?" said Neville. "Look at everything he wrote in that letter. Does it seem to you he'd get a line like that wrong and not notice it?"
Frowning deeper, Augusta read through the message more carefully. "Alright," she said. "I'll give you that. But, it obviously means the boy must have added it after he probably had to rewrite the letter a half dozen times or so."
He was beginning to lose his temper with her. His lack of sleep had his irritation spiking and temper frayed as quick as her own.
"Gran, stop it!" he snapped. "Look at the letter. He didn't write 'line' by mistake. He meant it!"
"Neville!" she exclaimed, scandalised by the way her grandson was speaking to her.
"He said 'line' because it was a hint, Gran!" he snapped. "He said 'line' because he's referring to the two parts of his letter where he used lines!"
Again, Augusta returned to the letter. This time to read it more closely.
Irritated with his grandmother, he said, "He's saying, 'You do not need to worry, they will soon be returned to you'. What does that tell you, Gran!?"
He watched as his grandmother's face went from confused and irritated, to white with shock, to red with rage.
"That... little... bastard!" she exclaimed. "He's responsible for taking my son! He's responsible for taking your father from us!"
Before he had a chance to say anything she was up, out of her chair and striding for the fireplace with Harry's letter in her hand.
After she left the room, he sank back into his chair with a sigh and sadly muttered, "And my mother, too, Gran."
As he heard his grandmother yelling into the fireplace to 'Amelia', he knew she had called Amelia Bones at home.
"Gods, Harry," he muttered. "I'm sorry about this. I know you sent me that coded message so I wouldn't sorry so much, but House is House."
At least he now knew they weren't taken by Death Eaters, or something, to be held for ransom.
_‗_
―==(oIo)==―
ˇ
After being woken by a floo-call from a very irate Augusta Longbottom, Amelia Bones decided she was up and she may as well head into work.
'That woman might like people to think she was 'light' but she was, when riled, as dark a grey as it gets before being considered 'dark' outright,' she thought. 'Damn it, Potter! What in Merlin's name have you done?'
Once in her office, having flooed directly into her office over the secure floo connection between her home and work offices, she walked out her office door and into the bullpen.
Immediately finding the 'duty senior auror', the magical equivalent to a police 'desk sergeant', she asked her, "Who's on the PPD, right now?"
The senior blinked back once, surprised to see her boss already there, and looked down at her records. "Flamebright, Standish and Patterson" she replied.
Bones frowned for a moment in thought and asked, "Which Seniors or above are here, right now?"
"Shack was floating around a little while ago," she replied. "He was being tailed by Newbie Tonks, as usual. I don't think there are any others 'In', yet."
"Actually, those two will do," said Bones. "Track them down and send them into my office."
As Bones turned away to head back to her office, the Senior Auror firmly replied, "Yes, Ma'am."
As Bones was reviewing her file on the missing Longbottoms, a Lord and Lady of a Noble and Most Ancient House definitely rated her attention, Shacklebolt and Tonks walked in.
"You wished to see us, Ma'am?" asked Shacklebolt. Tonks was standing half a pace behind and on his left, as she should.
Bones looked up from what she was reading and said, "We're going to the Grangers' - Golf Romeo. I had the Longbottom Regent on my floo, this morning, claiming she has proof Lord Potter kidnapped her son and daughter-in-bond."
"With the PPD in place?" blurted a surprised Tonks. "How'd he do that?"
"That's what we're going to find out, Auror Second Class Tonks," she grimly replied.
Tonks blushed when she heard both the unsaid mild rebuke from Bones and saw her senior partner turn to frown at her. 'Oops,' she thought. 'Must learn to keep mouth shut. Gonna get yelled at later by Shack for that one'
_‗_
―==(oIo)==―
ˇ
The Grangers, including Hermione this time, had just sat down for breakfast when an auror raced upstairs from the lower ground floor, barked, "Stay there!" and ran for the door.
"This'll be the aurors coming to question me about the Longbottoms," said Harry. "Remember. I've done nothing illegal and you are required by the covenants of the Potter-Longbottom Alliance to not speak of it."
"We won't lie, Harry," said Wendell.
"I'm not asking you to," he replied. "But, unless you're directly asked, don't volunteer any information."
When the three Grangers nodded back it was just in time for Bones and four aurors to walk in. Harry remembered two being part of their normal contingent of aurors stationed there to watch over him; plus young Tonks, Dora.
"Good morning, Madam Bones," he said. "I think Dobby's made enough breakfast if you haven't―"
She rode over him saying, "This is an official visit, Lord Potter."
"That doesn't mean you don't get to eat!" he said, acting offended. "Wouldn't this be a little early for you, anyway?"
"I was woken, this morning, by a very irate Regent for the House of Longbottom," she almost growled.
"Ah!" he said. "Firstly, let me remind you all that you are currently under protective wards erected for the purpose of protecting the Grangers and myself against ill-intent.
"Madam Bones, you need to calm down. I cannot help you and answer your questions if you don't. You're going to trigger the wards!"
Watching the expressions on the faces of the aurors as he also watched Bones visibly rein in her temper, he saw that all of them had forgotten about the wards he'd told them were on the property.
'Morons,' he thought.
When she locked her temper down, Bones firmly asked, "Did you kidnap the Longbottoms?"
"No," he immediately replied.
When that confused her she looked to the Grangers.
What she saw had her turn back to him. "You're lying," she snapped.
"No, I'm not," he calmly replied. "Would you like me to give a magical oath to that effect?"
"Then why do the Grangers look like they think you are?" she asked.
"Because they know I'm being... what's the word?"
"Prevaricating," supplied Monica.
"Yes!" declared Harry. "That's the word I was looking for. I'm prevaricating."
Bones raised a hand to massage the bridge of nose. But, she was scrunching her eyes so much it didn't shift her monocle out.
"Explain!" she snapped.
"I'm not your tutor in the subject of English comprehension, Madam Bones," he replied. "Nor am I your instructor in the art of asking the right questions. I'm the person who, almost as soon as you spotted me, you decided to interrogate.
"Now, if you wanted to discuss with me what it is you wish to talk to me about, I'm happy to do so. But, you'll need to lose the attitude, first."
Bones stood there staring back for a few moments. 'He's right,' she realised. 'I did. And we did forget about the wards, too. That was stupid.
'We also forgot this is the young man who, as a child, completely and utterly had everyone fooled for years - even Dumbledore. And has made a constant habit of making the rest of us look like... daft morons.'
She gave a mental sigh.
"Good," he immediately said. "Now, if Regent Bones would like to take a seat, I'll tell her something she seems to have forgotten about the Potter-Longbottom Alliance Charter."
'Aaaannd... he picked up the exact moment when I realised I had to capitulate,' she thought.
With a grunt, she indicated one of the spare chairs and asked, "May I?"
"Regent Bones may sit," he replied. "Madam Bones was offered hospitality and decided she was going to be rude. She can stand."
'Now he's making me choose between my titles. But, I need those answers. Stupid, stupid, stupid.'
Her decision was obvious. She had no choice but to sit. She also knew she had to change her approach. She did both.
"Alright, Harry," she sighed as Dobby put a cup of tea before her. "How'd you do it?"
"How'd I do what?" he asked right back.
"How'd you kidnap the Longbottoms?"
"I've already answered that question. I didn't."
When it looked like she was starting to get frustrated again, he said, "You're operating under what appears to be a whole whack of assumptions, Regent Bones. You need to get them out of your head before you're going to get anywhere near where you need to go."
She stared back for a few moments before she firmly asked, "What assumptions?"
"Let's start with the two that immediately arose based on your first question. This is also the point at which you lost, by the way," he said.
"One: You are operating under the assumption the Longbottoms were kidnapped. Where is your evidence of that? And, before you say something utterly moronic like, 'Well they must've been, how else would they be gone?' I'll just say, 'Lack of evidence to the contrary, does not constitute proof of claim. A lack of evidence is just a lack of evidence, nothing more.'
"Two: Your question put to me was one of clarification, which assumed a second point of claimed evidence where such evidence has not been established; that I kidnapped the Longbottoms.
"Now, I'll help you out, Regent Bones, with correcting those two fallacious points put to me as an interrogatory with the actual facts.
"First: The Longbottoms were not kidnapped. They were taken under signed authority of the auspices of the Potter-Longbottom Alliance, where it states in precise terms why and how one House must provide aid to another. And the law, as you should well know, supports me in this.
"Second: Using the auspices of the Charter as aforementioned, I had the Longbottoms removed from Saint Mungo's so that they may receive far superior care than they were, until that time, subjected.
"Third: Because this is an issue relating to the alliance, I cannot talk about it with Madam Bones of the DMLE as you well know. I can, however, talk about it with Regent Bones of the Noble and Ancient House of Bones, a member House of the alliance."
He paused a moment and called, "Dobby."
Surprised by Dobby's foresight, Harry saw his copy of the alliance documents appear on the table before him.
"Thank you, Dobby," he called.
Looking back to Bones he asked, "Do you wish to discuss that with me, Regent Bones?"
Bones sat there and listened as the young man sitting in front of her utterly and irrevocably tore her case apart. And there was nothing she could do about it because she both needed answers and he was right.
She also knew he was right about the section within the Charter because she had spent many hours reading it over and over again, so that the House of Bones would not fall afoul of it under her regency.
She then sighed and quietly said, "Now I know how everyone else felt, when you made them feel like idiots."
"That was not my intent, Regent Bones," he said. "I've just had to put up with, over the past three-plus years, people making somewhat baseless but incorrect assumptions about me and mine. And I'm no longer willing to put up with it from anyone. Even someone, such as you, whom I greatly admire."
_‗_
―==(oIo)==―
ˇ
After the Grangers knew Harry wasn't going to be arrested after all, they soon left and headed for work.
Meanwhile, Madam Bones sent her aurors off to get them away from the table, while Regent Bones decided she was going to sample a Dobby breakfast for herself. She was hungry, after all. She didn't get a chance to eat before she left home, that morning, and would likely not be eating for hours yet if she didn't.
Once the table was cleared from everyone bar Harry, Hermione and Bones, Harry threw up a small area silencing charm.
As she swallowed her first mouthful, Bones asked, "Alright, Harry; where are they?"
"I'm not going to answer that question, Amelia," he replied. "One, it is pointless for you to know because, where they are right now, no one can get in or out of. And, two, if word got back to Regent Longbottom as to their location she would try to get them. If she did, it could cause such a magical catastrophe it will likely kill quite a few people, herself and them included."
"What treatment are they receiving?" she asked.
"Family secret," he immediately replied. "However, I have complete faith it will be successful."
"You believe you can cure them?" she demanded.
"Not me," he returned. "But, I believe the treatment they're currently undergoing will be making their lives a lot more comfortable," he replied. "I doubt, very much, they'll ever get back their full health. It's been far too long now for that."
"Who's treating them?" she tried.
"Medical personnel under non-disclosure agreements," he replied.
With a little head shake added in, she disagreed. "Medical non-disclosure agreements don't work that way. They're meant to stop the medical personnel discussing anything to do with the patient with anyone else."
"This one works both ways," he replied. "The medical personnel wanted protection of anonymity from, especially, Regent Longbottom.
"And, Regent Bones, you're straying far too close to an interrogation, again."
"I need answers to these questions," she frustratedly retorted.
"No, you want answers to your questions," he disagreed. "There's a difference. You have all the information you need already. You've had that since I told you I had the Longbottoms taken from Saint Mungo's under the auspices of the charter of the alliance for their care.
"You know I'm both legally in the right and about what's happened with the Longbottoms. Right then, your investigation ended.
"Everything else has been you just sating your curiosity and having answers ready for when Longbottom goes on her next rant. That is not my concern. However, I've also been doing my best to help you through allaying your fears and providing you answers to your questions; but I will not betray the trust of others to provide them to you when such would be such betrayals."
By the time she left, Madam Director Amelia Bones felt both frustrated and powerless. Harry had neatly countered everything she threw at him with the aplomb of someone both thrice his age and assuredness he was in the right. The bugger of it was, he was.
He then turned around and, without even being asked, gave her a magical oath he had told her the truth for the entirety of the 'discussion'. So, she didn't even have the option to decide he'd lied, which would have allowed her to continue to investigate. He'd neatly taken that away from her.
If she pushed now, she'd be interfering in the lawful practices of one of the major alliances. And that... was 'not allowed'. As Regent of Bones, however, she knew the 'whys and wherefores' but couldn't use that information as Madam Bones of the DMLE. Madam Bones of the DMLE had to keep her nose out of it, which meant the DMLE had to keep their collective noses out of it.
It was the first time in her life that the dual roles of Regent and Auror, let alone Department Director, had come into conflict and she didn't like it one bit.
_‗_
―==(oIo)==―
ˇ