Chapter 762 - Ch: 15-17

Chapter 15: Girls in White Dresses

Reviewers of the previous chapter (Chapter 14) commented that it was their understanding that a wards-wall in canon had a hemispherical (dome) shape. Perhaps they're right; I simply don't recall that book-canon specified a shape. As for movie-canon, several readers told me that Hogwarts's wards-wall is dome-shaped—but again, I don't recall this from any movie.

In any case, I'm keeping my wards-wall cylindrical in shape for the manor houses of the wealthier families, because 1) this shape creates more drama. After Harry kills Voldy, will the DMLE arrest Harry because he has used the secret information that was hidden by "Code FW"? Will the Obliviators Obliviate him? 2) Harry outsmarts the cylindrical wards-wall in Chapter 14 by being brave and clever. The stories that have been remembered for centuries, such as the story of Perseus and Medusa, are remembered not because of any plot gimmick, but because the hero was brave and clever.

I want to explain why Harry was the first to discover the height of a wards-wall. In Chapter 14, I calculated that Harry rose to a height of 950 feet above the ground. To give perspective, it looks to me as though in the movies, the highest part of Hogwarts's Quidditch pitch, the seats-towers, is only about 50 to 100 feet above the ground. In the movies, Hogwarts SOW&W looks like it is 300 or 400 feet tall. Enemies on broomsticks might attack Hogwarts by approaching from above—meaning, approaching at a height above 400 feet—but would any attacker think, Let's approach at a height of 960 feet and see what happens? I can't imagine this.

Chapter 15

Girls in White Dresses

Still Thursday, 18th July

Potter Manor

Harry announced that he had more work for Bill to do than today's experiment; at least one of Bill's tasks could not be begun until after Hermione had crafted her Height In Digits charm and Harry had translated the charm into Parseltongue. Even on days when Bill would be idle all day, he would remain on call at the rate of forty galleons (and a knut) per day. Once Harry announced all this, Bill said goodbye to the teens and Apparated home.

As soon as Bill left, Harry asked Greyclay to bring him the pleats-folded letter and the book-letter, both from the future. After receiving a nod from Daphne, Harry handed to Neville the copy of the letter that elderly Daphne had written. Within seconds of beginning the letter, Neville gasped.

When Neville finally finished reading, he looked shocked.

With a finger, Harry tapped the cover of the book-letter, but he did not open the book. "This was sent to me by my future self, via Daphne. As much as I trust Daphne, Hermione and you, Nev, nobody but me will see inside this book for at least twenty years. In twenty years' time, I figure the two histories will be so different that elderly Harry's information won't be useful to anyone else who reads this book."

Neville nodded, still looking stunned.

"One thing I was told about the other future, Nev, that you'll want to know. Not quite two years from now, Voldy makes a major assault on Hogwarts, with Death Eaters, werewolves, vampires, giant spiders, trolls, and giants—it's nasty. Many good people die, though not the four of us plus Bill—all five of us defend Hogwarts and live to tell the tale. But during this battle, Voldy brings his big snake with him, named Nagini. That creature is frightening to look at. Anyway, during the battle, somehow the Sword of Gryffindor appears in your hand. When this happens, you, Nev, run over to the big snake and, without hesitation, behead it with Godric's sword. Not only does this prevent future deaths by Nagini, but this helps to defeat Voldy. Your other, older self is a hero, Nev."

Neville looked stunned. Hermione looked stunned as well. Daphne's mouth hung open.

Neville asked, "What happens to me? The other me. You say I live?"

Harry smiled. "You do. Eventually you marry Hannah Abbott. Sometime after this, you become the Herbology professor, and the grandfather of Holly Longbottom, a future potions mistress."

Neville looked down. "I must be honest with you lot, sometimes I've wondered if my being sorted into Gryffindor was a mistake." Then Neville's chin came up, he pulled his shoulders back, and his back straightened. "The other Neville was brave; this Neville will be brave too. You can count on me, Harry."

Daphne walked up to Neville and said solemnly, "Heir Longbottom, every bad thing I ever have said or thought about you, I now apologise for."

Solemnly, Neville said, "Apology accepted, Heiress Greengrass."

Harry also made a copy of "future Hermione's mind-magic-protection rune sheet," gave it to Neville, and explained how to use it: "...If someone tries to use Legilimency on you, you'll hear two little bells ring, one bell by each ear."

"Does it work?" Neville asked, as he looked at Hermione in amazement.

Harry said, "Judging by Dumbledore's frustrated facial expressions, oh yes, it works."

Hermione grinned.

At this point, Neville and Daphne made their goodbyes; Daphne said goodbye to Harry with a kiss on the lips.

After tea, Hermione vanished into the Potter Library, where she set about inventing the Height In Digits charm. Harry had no idea what was involved in inventing a charm, so he had no guess how long it would take. The start of the next Hogwarts term was in roughly six weeks; Harry hoped that Hermione would finish the Height charm by then.

That evening, in Greengrass Manor

During tea time, when the family was gathered together, Daphne asked her father, "How are the betrothal negotiations with Harry coming along? Are they done?"

Astoria grinned. "Ooh, somebody is in a hurry to wear a betrothal ring!"

Cyrus Greengrass answered Daphne's question: "Almost done—another few days, I think."

Daphne asked, "Have problems come up? Snags, with him or with you?"

"No, young Harry Potter has not threatened to walk away even once." Lowering his voice, Cyrus added, "The lad has no idea at all how to be a cutthroat negotiator, even with his solicitors coaching him." Now speaking at normal volume, Cyrus said, "His contract terms all have been reasonable, so I have made no threats to walk away."

"So what's the hold-up? Why is this thing taking so long?"

"The 'hold-up' is that whenever I owl a letter to his solicitor, it takes a while before I am owled a reply. I suspect that young Harry Potter, never before having negotiated anything as consequential as a betrothal contract, is consulting with many magicals who are older and wiser than he, before the lad authorises his solicitor to reply to me."

"So when I board the red train on the first of September, I can announce my betrothal?"

"Oh, the situation is much better than that. Except for one minor issue that is yet to be decided, your betrothal contract has been finalised, and awaits only being calligraphy-quilled and being signed by young Lord Black and myself."

Opal Greengrass said to her elder daughter, "I am truly surprised that you have no second thoughts about marrying Harry Potter."

Daphne beamed. "On the contrary. Yesterday Harry did something amazing, and I decided that being married to him was going to be an adventure. Besides the fact that he's such a good man."

Astoria asked, "What did Harry do yesterday that was so amazing?"

"I can't tell you," Daphne replied. "He made everyone there take an Unbreakable Vow."

Nobody in the family was foolish enough to ask An Unbreakable Vow about what? But after some seconds of stunned silence by the entire family, Daphne's mother asked, "Are you all right with this?"

Daphne grinned like the Ice Queen's happy twin. "I am definitely all right with this. Listen, the next Hogwarts term starts on the first of September, and I predict that by then, you will have heard an astounding rumour, which Harry Potter will be the cause of. Harry Potter is an amazing person, and I am so pleased that one day I will marry him!"

Then Daphne looked at Cyrus Greengrass and requested, "Father, after the meal, may I speak to you privately?"

A half-hour later

Daphne was meeting with her father Cyrus in his study.

Daphne was determined not to show it, but she was nervous. She was maybe only minutes away from her father threatening to disown her.

Daphne took a calming breath and said, "Father, you remember that Harry received a 73-page letter from his older self, and Harry is trying to prevent bad future events from happening?"

When Cyrus nodded, Daphne continued, "Today Harry mentioned a 'Battle of Hogwarts' that happens two years from now, in that other history. Voldy, leading a big army, attacks the school."

Cyrus looked confused. "This is amazing, to be told about an alternate history, but why are you telling me this?"

"Because today Harry mentioned that, amongst the people defending Hogwarts, was I, two years older. Which shocked me to hear. Traditionally, Greengrasses are neutral—but older-I wasn't sitting on a hilltop, watching the battle, older-I was in the thick of it."

"Thankfully, not as a Death Eater."

"Father? Erm..." Here goes.

"Yes, Daphne?"

"I won't be surprised if, sometime before the first of September of this year, Harry attacks Voldemort—"

"Attacks Voldemort?" Cyrus repeated, his eyes wide. "Merlin."

"—but it probably won't happen till after Harry and I have announced our betrothal. And if so, erm..."

Cyrus said, "When Harry faces the Dark Lord, you intend to stand at Harry's side, instead of watching from a hilltop."

Huh? He looks calm. Why isn't he yelling at me? "Yes, I intend to fight alongside Harry. But my stance will hurt this family. Dark families will be less willing to trade with the Greengrasses, who no longer will be seen as Grey."

"True. And perhaps you expect me, as Lord of House Greengrass, to order you to be elsewhere on that day? Lest I disown you?"

Gulp.

Cyrus smiled at Daphne. "But as your father, such an order would be selfish of me. Because I'm sure that Miss Granger will be standing next to Harry when the day comes to fight the Dark Lord, hm?"

Daphne nodded, confused. Why is he mentioning Hermione?

Cyrus continued, "But if you aren't there with the two of them, when Harry faces the Dark Lord, you shall be labelled a coward, and this slander will follow you all your life."

Cyrus laid a hand on Daphne's shoulder—which was the Pureblood equivalent of hugging Daphne. The gesture was completely not what Daphne had been expecting. "When—not if—you face the Dark Lord's minions whilst you're shoulder-to-shoulder with Harry Potter, I'll be more worried about some thug avada-ing you than I'll worry about Malfoy and Flint boycotting me. But on that day, I'll also be feeling proud of how brave my daughter has become."

Daphne threw her arms around her father and hugged him fiercely. She felt such a sense of relief.

9 p.m., in Potter Manor's library

Harry found Hermione in the library and said to her, "I'm going to bed. I have to be at the Ministry in the morning for the Pink Toad's trial."

Hermione marked her place with a bookmark, then closed the book she was reading. She asked, "Would you like me to come with you?"

With relief, Harry said, "I'd like it quite a bit."

Hermione stacked a Muggle spiral notebook and pen on top of the bookmarked book. Now Hermione stood up and—after smirking at the portrait of James and Lily Potter in the library—snogged Harry like she meant it.

After Harry and Hermione exchanged a few more words, Hermione walked out of the library, putting extra sway in her hips, as she headed towards the guest bedroom.

The next day (Friday, 19th July), 8:58 a.m.

The Wizengamot chamber

The Ministry of Magic

Harry and Hermione were sitting in the visitors' gallery because Harry, whilst twice a Lord, had not yet taken his seat in the Wizengamot. (Nor did Harry plan to claim his seat for a while yet.)

All but one of the chairs that had been reserved for seat-holders had someone sitting in it; Augusta Longbottom, Arthur Weasley, Cyrus Greengrass and Lucius Malfoy all were present.

Harry and Hermione were sitting in the section of the visitors' gallery that was reserved for trial witnesses; otherwise it was doubtful that they could have found a seat—both the regular visitors' gallery and the press box were packed.

At 9:00, Dumbledore walked into the chamber and took his place as Chief Warlock. He looked over at Harry with his "disappointed grandfather" look. After two seconds of this, Harry ignored the man for the rest of his time there.

Dumbledore made announcements, then conducted Wizengamot business that Harry paid no attention to. At 9:03, sonorus-amplified Dumbledore called out, "Bring out the prisoners!"

The prisoners turned out to be Umbridge, as Harry had known, but also Cornelius Fudge.

Fudge came out quiet (and looking nervous), but Umbridge was yelling at her Auror escort, "I demand you release me at once! I am the Senior Undersecretary, and I will have your jobs for this!"

"No, Dolores," Minister for Magic Rufus Scrimgeour said loudly. "You were the Senior Undersecretary. I sacked you when you were arrested, remember?"

The Toad scowled.

Then Minister of Magic Rufus Scrimgeour acted as prosecutor in the trial of the two defendants: "Dolores Jane Umbridge, you are accused of two counts of murder of a pureblood, namely Denise Slughorn and Paul Macmillan; two counts of murder of a halfblood, namely Nigel Jones and Leona Prewett; one count of attempted murder of a halfblood, namely Harry James Potter; one count of injury to a halfblood without provocation, namely John Longbottom; and thirteen counts of using a restricted item on magical children, namely a Blood Quill. Cornelius Oscar Fudge, you are accused of being an accessory after the fact to the attempted murder of Harry James Potter by Dolores Umbridge; and for abuse of office, namely putting Harry James Potter on trial in front of the Wizengamot for underage use of magic and for using magic in the presence of a Muggle, when the facts pointed to his innocence. How do you plead?"

"Not guilty," Fudge said.

"I've committed no crimes," the Toad said. "But if I did, I had good reasons!"

Harry watched the trials closely and, when his memories were played in the projection pensieve, was called upon to give a Wizard's Oath that his memories were true and unaltered.

Hermione was less involved in the proceedings—sometimes she watched the trials, sometimes she wrote in her spiral notebook, sometimes she consulted the thick book that she had brought from the Potter Library, and sometimes Hermione stared into space.

Meanwhile, it turned out that Dolores had been a naughty girl. Since even Harry knew that the Ministry always promoted purebloods over halfbloods, how had Dolores Umbridge, a halfblood, risen to the top? By amazingly good luck: The person most likely to be given the promotion that Dolores coveted, would lose his job or would die due to "an unfortunate accident." Except that, when the DMLE took a hard second look, each "accident" was not accidental at all. As for the torture with the Blood Quills, trial testimony revealed that all of the Pink Toad's child victims at Hogwarts, except for Harry Potter, had been first- and second-year Muggle-borns.

Was Cornelius Fudge an accessory to Harry Potter's attempted murder? The prosecution could not prove that he had done anything else beforehand than to echo the words of King Henry the Second ("Is there no one who can rid me of this troublesome priest?") After Harry's Dementor attack, Fudge had collected the Dementor paperwork that Umbridge had filled out (but Fudge had not destroyed the paperwork). Fudge had maybe made threats to Amelia Bones and the DMLE; but since Amelia Bones now was dead, Fudge's threats of a year ago could not be confirmed. However, Harry being tried before the Wizengamot for underage use of magic and for using magic in the presence of a Muggle, when Fudge knew that the charges were baseless—that injustice was well documented, and the responsibility for the kangaroo court fell all on Fudge.

Scrimgeour called for the verdicts on Fudge first. For the crime of being an accessory to the attempted murder of a halfblood, most of the Wizengamot seat-holders (including Arthur Weasley, Augusta Longbottom and Cyrus Greengrass) voted "Not Guilty." For the crime of abuse of office, most of the Wizengamot voted "Guilty"—except that Lucius Malfoy and six other seat-holders voted "Not Guilty."

Dolores Jane Umbridge was found guilty on all counts, by a vote of the majority of the Wizengamot—except that for each charge, Lucius Malfoy and his six best mates in the Wizengamot voted "Not Guilty."

Cornelius Fudge was sentenced to five years in Azkaban.

For Dolores Umbridge, there was no question that her sentence would be death—but death by the Veil or death by being Kissed?

Chief Warlock Dumbledore, with eyes a-twinkle, turned to the visitors' gallery and said, "One of Miss Umbridge's victims is in this room now: Harry Potter. Harry, won't you show that you are the bigger man and ask the Wizengamot to forgive Miss Umbridge's misdeeds?" Seeing Harry's scowl, Dumbledore amended his words: "Or can you at least be generous enough to ask the Wizengamot to give Miss Umbridge a less than deadly sentence?"

As Harry stood up, he thought, Be firm with underminers. Aloud, he said, "How curious, Albus. Another of the Pink Toad's victims is named Longbottom; I'm curious why you haven't asked Regent Longbottom if she forgives Umbridge and will accept a mere slap on the hand as Umbridge's punishment."

Before either Dumbledore or Neville's Gran replied, Harry continued, "What you call forgiveness, Chief Warlock, I call permissiveness. I have discovered that misplaced forgiveness does not cause less crime in a society, it causes more. At Hogwarts, one brat there attacks me repeatedly—because he knows he never will be punished for his misdeeds." Harry looked into Lucius Malfoy's eyes and continued, "I see no way that these attacks will stop, short of me killing the brat or him killing me; I expect the Hogwarts faculty to keep being useless at protecting me." Then Harry turned back to Dumbledore. "If the brat did kill me, would you stand where you're standing now, Chief Warlock, and embarrass my friend Hermione here if she would refuse to forgive my killer?"

Harry sat down then. The chamber was completely silent—

—until Lucius Malfoy raised his wand and was recognised. "I do not expect Harry Potter to call for forgiving anyone for anything. Especially after I witnessed Harry Potter cast the Cruciatus Curse at someone."

Everyone was talking then—but Minister Scrimgeour talked loudest: "Lord Black-Potter, is this true? Did you really do such a vile thing?"

Harry stood up again. "It happened on 18th June, in the Department of Mysteries, right after Bellatrix Lestrange killed Sirius Black, my godfather. I pointed my wand at Bellatrix and I said 'Crucio,' but nothing happened. Bellatrix laughed at me then, saying, 'You have to mean it, boy.' She escaped before I could decide to speak the spell again.' "

Harry then bowed his head. "I shall accept whatever punishment is due me."

Lucius said, "I demand that Harry Potter be arrested and tried right now, for casting an Unforgivable."

"No, Lord Malfoy," Scrimgeour said, "Harry Potter attempted to cast an Unforgivable, but did not succeed. Attempting an Unforgivable is not a crime."

Scrimgeour's ruling ended the excitement in the Wizengamot chamber, except for Umbridge's actual sentence and execution. The Pink Toad was sentenced to be Kissed.

Harry and Hermione left the visitors' gallery before Umbridge's sentence was carried out.

A minute later

In the Atrium of the Ministry of Magic

Rita Skeeter tried to grab Harry and pull him off to the side for a "private interview." Harry yanked his arm away, saying loudly, "Don't bug us, Rita."

Rita's face turned white. Perhaps because there were many other reporters within earshot, if Harry or Hermione decided to reveal that Rita was an unregistered beetle animagus?

Rita stammered, "But Harry my dear, the public wants to hear your side of today's events, in your own words."

Hermione snorted. "In his own words? Are you sure they'd be his?"

Then Hermione shifted into a shrill voice: "The vicious gossip wracked her gormless brain, twisting her once-plain face that now showed the ravages of time, as she consciencelessly crafted another cockamamie libel against Harry Potter, the one public figure who never has hurt the public."

By now, all the other reporters were laughing. Rita slinked away.

What followed was a brief press conference—

Reporter 1: "Are you satisfied with the punishment that Dolores Umbridge received for trying to murder you?"

Harry: "I was surprised, but not shocked, to learn that she had murdered people, besides torturing me and attempting to kill me by Dementor's Kiss. So for what she did, nobody but Albus Dumbledore would argue that she was punished too harshly."

Harry rolled his eyes then.

Reporter 2: "What is the situation between you and Headmaster Dumbledore? Everyone believes that you admire him. Not so?"

Harry: "I did admire Dumbledore, until I learnt a few weeks ago that A, he illegally appointed himself my magical guardian, back in 1981; B, as my supposed magical guardian, he has looted thousands of galleons from my trust vault with no justification; and C, the day after Voldemort murdered both my parents, Dumbledore gave me over to the quote-unquote care of my mother's Muggle sister and her husband, even though both my mother's will and my father's will stated that Petunia and Vernon Dursley were not to get guardianship of me in any way, shape or form. There's a lot more I could tell you, D through Z, but I'll stop with this: I do not now trust Albus Dumbledore at all."

Reporter 3: "Are you close to announcing who will be the future Lady Black? Or is Miss Granger the future Lady Black-Potter?"

Harry grinned and said, "Hermione, you want to take this?"

Hermione said, "Harry is close to announcing whom he will betroth besides me. Here's a hint: She's not a Gryffindor."

Reporter 4: "So Susan Bones then?"

Harry and Hermione both grinned but did not reply.

About 11:30 a.m.

Potter Manor

Fifteen minutes after Harry and Hermione had flooed back to Potter Manor, Hermione walked up to Harry, looking proud of herself. "I did it."

Hermione drew her wand, then said "Height in digits," as she made a wand-movement that Harry had not seen before.

A voice like a male BBC presenter said, "Four."

Hermione bent at the waist, and lowered the wand to the floor. "Three ... two ... one ... nothing," the unseen BBC presenter said.

Hermione resumed her normal posture, with her wand held normally. "Four," the presenter said again.

"Let's climb some stairs," Hermione said.

Minutes later, Harry and Hermione, both panting, had reached the top floor of Potter Manor. When Hermione laid her wand-hand on the waist-high railing, the unseen BBC presenter said, "Five-one."

"Height, silence," Hermione said, then moved her wand higher and lower. The BBC presenter did not speak.

Harry said to Hermione, "I was worried whether you could complete the spell in six weeks. You did it in one day. Once again you amazeme, Hermione."

Harry then put his mouth where his flattery was, and snogged Hermione mightily.

Soon afterwards, Hermione taught Harry the tricky wand-movement for the Height In Digits charm, then he tried to cast the charm himself. For Harry, the wand's height of "five-two" was announced by the same invisible BBC-presenter voice as when Hermione had cast the spell.

Ten minutes later, after both teens had walked down the stairs to the ground floor, Hermione gave Harry a five-foot-long parchment that represented the "bones" of the charm. Hermione explained—

If a charm's name could be compared to the name of a recipe, the bones of the charm could be compared to the text of the recipe. If a charm's name could be compared to a computer programme's name, the bones of the charm compared to the programme's source code. Since it was Hermione who had written the bones for the Height In Digits charm, Harry knew it would take him a while to translate Hermione's words into Parseltongue—Hermione never practised brevity whenever she picked up a quill.

Among the 73 pages in elderly Harry's book-letter, he had written a tutorial for translating spells into Parseltongue, and a Parseltongue-English dictionary. Young Harry went into his bedroom, shut the door, pulled out the book-letter, and began translating Hermione's words.

Harry finished the Parseltongue translation about 7 p.m. that same day. In Britain in July, at 7 p.m. he had several hours of sunlight left.

The wooden box on Potter Manor's Quidditch pitch still was "warded" by the invisible, inflatable cylinder. Harry, by using his broom, his Parseltongue "See Wards" spell, and his Parseltongue-version "Height In Digits" charm, was able to discover that the height of the invisible, inflatable cylinder was §nine-five-one§ (951 feet).

Then Harry got curious, what the height of the permanent cylindrical wards for Potter Manor were. It turned out that they weren't as energised as the wooden box's wards—Potter Manor's wards went up only 905 feet high.

By sunset, Harry was back in Potter Manor, floo-calling Bill to come by the next morning to do more experiments.

After Harry floo-called Bill, Hermione wanted Dobby to elf-pop her back to the Granger house. Just before Hermione left, she said to Harry, "You're not even sixteen years old, yet you know the most valuable secret in Wizarding Britain: where protective wards don'tprotect."

Harry nodded. "It's a big responsibility."

The next morning (Saturday, 20th July)

Hermione, Daphne, Neville and Bill had returned to Potter Manor. Those four plus Harry were in the kitchen, drinking tea, when—

Pop. Dobby appeared in the kitchen, next to Harry. Dobby had a Gringotts key poking out of the sock on his right foot; in one hand he was holding a fat sack of coins; in the other hand he was holding a thick stack of pound-sterling notes. Harry took the three things from Dobby and thanked the house-elf, who popped away.

Harry pocketed the Gringotts key, then put the coins-sack and the stack of notes on the table in front of him. He looked at Daphne and Hermione. "Ladies, if you knew beforehand that I would battle Voldy at a certain place and a certain time, would you stand with me then, or would you seek safe shelter?"

"Pfft," Hermione said, "do you need to ask?"

"Stand with you," Daphne said.

Hearing Daphne's words, Neville's eyebrows shot up.

Bill said, "This is ... quite Gryffindor of you, Heiress Greengrass."

Daphne gave Bill a crooked smile. "You intended that as a compliment, so thank you."

Harry slid the bag of coins across the kitchen table to Daphne, then walked over and placed the pound-notes on the table in front of Hermione.

The kitchen was silent; two young men and two young women stared at Harry in open curiosity.

Harry said, "I need only send one letter to my solicitor to pass on to Lord Greengrass, and another letter to my solicitor to pass on to Professor McGonagall, and my betrothals will be negotiated, except for the signatures. Daphne and Hermione, I want to announce my betrothals at the Daily Prophet office in person, a few days from now—and I want both of you there with me. Expect to be photographed."

Daphne asked, "And the money is for what, exactly?"

Harry said, "In your sack, Daphne, are a hundred galleons. Hermione has five hundred pounds, the Muggle equivalent. When we walk into the Prophet offices, be wearing new robes or a new dress, new shoes and new jewellery. Maybe put up your hair. Figure that whatever photo or photos the Prophet prints will be reprinted in Witch Weekly and Teen Witch Weekly, so don't give their readers any cause to snicker at you."

Hermione said, "You want me dressed up Muggle, Harry? A summer dress, with stockings and heels? Not dress robes like what Daphne will be wearing? Or for this kind of money, maybe I should wear an evening gown instead?"

Harry slapped his forehead. "I'm sorry, I wasn't clear. Half of the money I gave you is to go towards what you wear to the Daily Prophet offices. The other half of the money is for you each to have a second brand-new head-to-toe outfit, which I also want ready to wear when we three visit the Prophet."

Bill looked confused. "Your two betrothed will be changing clothes when the Prophet snaps their photos? Why do this?"

Harry wanted to slap his forehead again. "No, Daphne and Hermione won't wear their second outfits till later, but I want all the dressmaking done earlier. And as for how I want Daphne's second set of robes, and Hermione's second dress or gown to look, I have firm ideas in mind..."

A minute later, Daphne and Hermione exchanged glances. Daphne asked, "Will two days be enough, if we pay extra for rush service?"

Hermione said, "Muggles will need longer. Three days?"

Harry said, "Let's plan on our drop-in visit to the Daily Prophetoffices to be Wednesday afternoon, the 24th. Each of you have both outfits ready by then."

Daphne and Hermione exchanged glances again. Hermione said, "Erm, Harry? The second dress you want made for me, the white dress. And the white dress robes for Daphne—are these to be our wedding clothes? I thought we weren't marrying till after seventh year."

This time, Harry did slap his forehead again. "No, they're not for your weddings. But your specially-commissioned white clothing willbe for a special occasion—a day that neither of you shall ever forget."

Then Harry looked at Daphne. "You advised me that, as the Boy Who Lived, to plan other people's impressions of me whenever I'm in public. Also, you said, 'Be theatrical.' Now I'm taking your advice."

Hermione looked at Daphne with a puzzled expression. Daphne shrugged, looking just as puzzled.

Hermione and Daphne each kissed Harry on the lips, then left Potter Manor—they each had dressmakers to visit. This left only Neville and Bill as Harry's visitors.

Soon afterwards, the three young men walked out to the Quidditch pitch, to do more experiments with wards, using the wooden box and the wardstones that Bill had brought yesterday.

Yesterday, Harry was told, Bill had configured the wards in a "mother-daughter" arrangement: seven "daughter" wardstones in a circle that formed the base of the invisible, inflatable cylinder; and a "mother" wardstone in the centre that sent commands to the other seven wardstones. Harry had not noticed the "mother" wardstone yesterday because the wooden box had covered it up.

Today, Bill dropped the wards on the wooden box and set the seven outer wardstones aside. By using the remaining wardstone that still lay under the wooden box, Bill set up new wards and a new Fidelius charm that were shaped like a dome.

With a new Fidelius charm on the wooden box, instantly Harry forgot where the box had been before.

Bill confided the Secret of the wooden box's exact location to Neville (but not to Harry), then Harry climbed on his broom and tried to sleuth out the wooden box's location.

Harry failed utterly. Every square inch of the Quidditch pitch looked like it should; nowhere did Harry spot any dome-shaped distortion.

Then Harry and Neville tried, working together, to guide Harry so that he was hovering above the dome he could not see. This turned out to be a harder task than expected—Neville would suddenly start coughing and choking in the middle of a sentence. But eventually Neville assured Harry that he was above the wooden box.

Harry fired a Colour-Change Charm straight down.

All of Harry—his hair, his skin and his clothing—promptly turned purple. Harry's broom also was purple. The wooden box, Neville informed purple Harry, was unchanged.

When Harry and his broom had regained the colours that Nature intended, and Harry had climbed off his broom, the three young men talked.

Harry said, "If Malfoy Manor has dome-shaped wards, there's no point to me flying high. Flying high or flying low, I can't outsmart the Fidelius and I can't avoid the nasty wards, when those wards are dome-shaped."

Bill shook his head. Bill told Harry the Secret, so that Harry could see the wooden box, then Bill muttered a Gobbledygook spell so that the dome-shaped ward-wall was semitransparent blue. Bill said, "Notice how the wall passes closer to the corners of the top of the box? Same with a building—the ward-wall passes close to the corners of the roof. This gives attackers on brooms an obvious place to attack. If the attackers on brooms can punch through the dome, then can punch through the roof, the attackers hold the advantage when fighting inside the house."

"Dammit!" Harry said. "If cylindrical wards have a weakness against high-flying attackers, and dome-shaped wards can be taken out by low-flying attackers, how do I defend Potter Manor?"

"Why not use both?" Neville asked. "Put a dome over Potter Manor, then put a cylinder around the dome."

Bill took the seven wardstones that he had set aside, and placed them in a circle just outside the dome.

Then Bill took down the dome-shaped wards. Bill magically connected the eight wardstones in a "mother-daughter" configuration, but gave no power to those wards.

Bill had to Apparate away then, to fetch a ninth wardstone. After Bill returned, this ninth wardstone was placed on the ground so that it almost touched the "mother" wardstone. One minute later, the wooden box was double-shapes warded.

Harry got back onto his broom. He repeated his trick from yesterday, of rising on his broomstick and of feeling for the inflatable cylinder, till he could not feel the cylinder anymore. Harry then repeated his trick from yesterday, of rotating his broom then flying forward, till he suspected that he was inside the cylinder and was hovering over the wooden box.

But unlike yesterday, today Harry could not outsmart the Fidelius charm. The wooden box stayed invisible to Harry, no matter where he went on his broom or what he did.

Harry gave up then, with a smile. When he was back on the ground, he told Bill and Neville, "Lesson learnt: I can outsmart the Fidelius charm on cylindrical wards, but not on double-shape wards."

Then Harry, grinning, looked at Bill: "One last thing I need for you to do, before I send you back to Gringotts: Upgrade Potter Manor's wards so that Lucius and Draco Malfoy can't do to me what I plan to do to them!"

Chapter 16

Bellatrix v. Tonksatrix

Meanwhile, elsewhere in Wizarding Britain

Still Saturday, 20th July

Owls delivered to subscribers, copies of this morning's Daily Prophet. Two of the subscribers were Lucius Malfoy and Albus Dumbledore. Voldemort promptly "borrowed" Lucius's copy of the wizarding newspaper before the blond-haired man had a chance to read it.

The big news that was reported was about Umbridge's and Fudge's trials in the Wizengamot, the "one-minute trial" of Harry Potter for the crime of casting an Unforgivable at Bellatrix Lestrange, Harry's and Hermione's verbal clash with Rita Skeeter after the trials and the Golden Duo's improvised press conference afterwards.

Voldemort was annoyed that Fudge had been sent to Azkaban, because after Fudge's release, Mr Green Bowler would never again be trusted with an important office. What's the use of having a bribable official if he's so far down the pecking order that he can't do anything important after he's bribed?

Voldemort was even more annoyed at the execution of Dolores Umbridge—a Pureblood Supremacist with an immoral heart, yet not a marked Death Eater, who was highly placed in the Ministry. Umbridge was the perfect person to carry out Voldemort's wishes after he took over the Ministry. But sod it all, now this part of Voldemort's plan had been burnt to ashes.

Voldemort was disappointed that Harry Potter had not named his second betrothed yet. How could Voldemort make plans to kidnap Potter's second betrothed if he did not know the girl's name or where she lived?

(Harry Potter's second betrothed was not Susan Bones. This young Pureblood heiress was quoted in the Prophet as saying that Harry Potter had not contacted her to discuss marriage.)

Meanwhile in Hogwarts Castle, Dumbledore mourned that Umbridge had been killed by Kiss, rather than thrown into Azkaban where she would have the time to repent of her evils. Dumbledore thought that Fudge's sentence was fair.

Dumbledore thought that Harry Potter should have been fined and briefly imprisoned for attempting to Crucio Bellatrix Lestrange. Albus's "We should forgive and forget" philosophy never had applied to Harry Potter, and never would, but Albus did not see the unfairness of his attitude.

Albus was furious about what the Daily Prophet had written about him, Albus Dumbledore, the Leader of the Light—

"During Umbridge's trial, it was clear, though puzzling, that Harry Potter scorned Albus Dumbledore. After the trial, Harry Potter informed the public why he scorned Albus Dumbledore. Now we scorn Dumbledore too. The 'Leader of the Light' is a child abuser by proxy, and a thief."

After reading this, Dumbledore was more determined than ever to get his hands on Harry and to bend the boy to the headmaster's will. The longbeard's plan still was that he would send Harry out to battle Voldemort and to die, followed by Dumbledore rushing in, defeating the now-exhausted Dark Lord and being proclaimed a hero (again)—and the headmaster refused to accept the lightning-bolt-scarred teen thwarting Albus's plan for eternal glory.

Tonks owled Harry to write, "I now can both look like, and talk like, Aunt Bella."

Harry immediately sent away Dobby to deliver a message to Tonks: "If you're off work, go into work just long enough to grab your service pistol and to bring it home. If you're at work now, take your service pistol with you when you finish your shift. As soon as both you and your service pistol are at home, call for Dobby. He has two things to give you."

The next morning (Sunday, 21st July)

After Bill finished upgrading the wards on Potter Manor, he removed the wards on the wooden box, whilst Harry wrote a letter to Gringotts. Included in the letter were 1) an authorisation for 170 galleons and three knuts to be transferred from the Potter family vault to Bill's vault; 2) Harry's statement that the special project for which he had hired Bill, was complete; thus Gringotts was free to rehire Bill without compromising the goblins' neutrality.

As Harry handed the letter to Bill, he said, "One hundred seventy galleons sounds like a lot of money, but for what I learnt because of your work, the money is a bloody steal!"

An hour later, at Potter Manor

In the book-letter that elderly Harry had written to young Harry, amongst the things written down was a list of Parseltongue spells. One of them was §Point to Parsel§, which gave the distance in feet to where a Parseltongue spell had just been cast, and which created a floating green arrow that pointed towards the origin of the Parseltongue spell.

Alas, Harry had already discovered that when he tried to locate a just-cast Parseltongue spell that had been cast someplace under a Fidelius charm, Harry got invalid variations in the distance and bearing. When he sampled some of those vectors and tried to plot them on a map of Great Britain, the results were useless. One of his black dots on the map claimed that a Parseltongue spell had been cast in the North Sea.

But this morning, something different happened. Fifteen Parseltongue spells were cast behind a Fidelius charm; but suddenly all fifteen spells were mappable, and all fifteen spells were moving together.

Harry watched the fifteen Parseltongue spells—which by now Harry had figured out, caused black-smoke flying—move to London's Diagon Alley, then end.

Fifteen Death Eaters had just made a surprise attack on Diagon Alley. Harry thought, This time, it'll be they who get the surprise.

Harry summoned Dobby, and gave him messages to be quicklydelivered, to Tonks and to the Weasley twins.

Harry's message to Tonks ended with "...Don't forget the 9-millimetre silver bullets and the Felix felicis potion."

(The Liquid Luck potion had been brewed in France and had been purchased in France by Fleur Delacour, with galleons out of Harry's vault. Nobody in Wizarding Britain knew that Harry had a vial of this potion, and nobody in Wizarding Britain knew that Harry had given the potion-vial to Tonks.)

Meanwhile, elsewhere in Wizarding Britain

When newly-minted Aurors Second Class graduate from the Auror Academy, each new Auror is issued a convincing-fake police or constable badge for some British city, and each is offered a service pistol to carry (provided the Auror buys a holster for the pistol).

Almost all new Aurors decline the offered handgun; many, in fact, feel insulted by the offer—"Are you saying my wandwork isn't good enough to put down a Dark Wizard?"

But rookie Auror Don't-Call-Me-Nymphadora Tonks had accepted the offered pistol and, once a month thereafter during her Auror career, had taken her pistol to the Hit Wizards' firing range.

Why do the DMLE Hit Wizards have a firing range? Because each Hit Wizard is required to carry and to maintain a service pistol, and to be an Exceeds Expectations shot with his pistol. The reason for this rule is a simple one: Whilst a cast spell moves faster than a running man, a bullet moves fifty-six times as fast as a spell.

So for several years now, Tonks once a month had taken her pistol to the Hit Wizards' firing range. Nowadays Tonks was merely an Acceptable-level shooter; but on the other hand, the Auror Corps did not require her to be even a Dreadful-level shooter. Tonks had improved noticeably since her first time on the firing range; she felt content with this.

When Dobby appeared in front of Tonks, she was in her flat in Muggle London. Hurriedly Tonks metamorphed herself to look like Aunt Bella, transfigured her Muggle clothes to look like Aunt Bella's distinctive black robes, then ran into her bedroom. She pulled her service pistol out from under her pillow, and hurried to swap out the gun's regular bullets for silver bullets. Once this was done, Tonks set the safety switch on the pistol, shoved the pistol into a pocket of her black robes, then gulped down the entire Felix felicis potion.

Tonks looked into her bedroom's full-length mirror; Bellatrix Lestrange looked back. Tonks giggled her aunt's giggle, then said with her aunt's voice, "Ooh, we are about to have fun."

Tonksatrix waited till the Liquid Luck potion's effects hit her brain, making her feel invincible; then she Apparated to Diagon Alley.

Meanwhile, in Diagon Alley, London

Harry and Dobby appeared in front of two Death Eaters who were dragging a Muggle-dressed girl towards an alley. Harry yelled at Dobby, "Save the child!"

Harry thought, Let's see whether the—

"It's Pot—!" a tall, thin Death Eater yelled. Harry's spell beheaded him.

—prophecy's words, "Either must die at the hand of the other," mean—

A different Death Eater pointed his wand at Harry and yelled, "Avada Kedavra!" Harry sidestepped the green spell, then exploded his would-be killer's chest.

—what I think those words mean.

Seemingly from nowhere came a clang sound near Harry. The sound was quiet enough that only a few people could have heard the sound; only Harry and the Weasley twins knew what the sound meant.

Bang! A pause. Bang! Harry heard two gunshots from ahead, close nearby.

The Death Eaters froze, shocked at the distinctive sound of a Muggle firearm in their midst. Harry was merely surprised, not shocked, so recovered faster. In the next second, Harry dropped another Death Eater.

Then Harry found himself facing an unmasked woman in black. Between the woman's curly wand and her evil grin, Harry was sure that he was facing Bellatrix, not Tonksatrix.

Bellatrix alternated between looking at Harry in front of her and something behind her.

Seconds earlier, elsewhere in Diagon Alley

Pop. Tonks-as-Bellatrix appeared close to the group of Death Eaters; but by amazing luck, all of the masked and black-robed men had their backs to her. The sounds of spellfire and masked bigots yelling, covered up the sound of Tonksatrix's Apparating into Diagon Alley.

But two Death Eaters, if they were here, would not be wearing masks: Fenrir Greyback and (the genuine) Bellatrix Lestrange. Tonksatrix's assignment was to eliminate one or both of them.

Tonksatrix ran forwards, past the cannon-fodder Death Eaters, and ran around a corner. She came face to face with Fenrir Greyback. Each of his powerful hands was gripping the arm of a crying child. Seeing the woman he clearly thought was Bellatrix, Fenrir grinned a sexy smile.

"Oiii, Fenrir," said Tonksatrix, smiling back, "I've a message for you."

Tonksatrix kept the smile as she pulled out her pistol and thumbed off the safety. "The message is, 'Go to hell.' "

Bang went the pistol at point-blank range, right into Fenrir's chest. He gasped loudly as he dropped. Whilst he still was falling, before he hit the ground, Tonksatrix—bang—silver-bulleted the big man in the forehead.

The two children pulled themselves free of the dead werewolf's grip and ran away.

Meanwhile, a shocked male voice said, "Bella just shot Greyback!"

A different male voice snarled, "That isn't Bella, that's Polyjuice!" But before his wand killed Tonksatrix, her wand put an overpowered piercing hex into his centre of mass.

Then suddenly the Death Eaters went quiet and still. A baby-talk woman's voice broke the quiet: "Ooh, Harry Potter in front of me, and my goody-goody niece behind me. Decisions, decisions."

Tonksatrix looked over at the source of the voice. Aunt Bella was giving her a goofy smile, but the madwoman's eyes were deadly.

Though Aunt Bella's upper body was facing her niece, her lower body was facing sideways to both Tonksatrix and Harry Potter. Bellatrix's right foot pointed towards Tonksatrix, and the madwoman's left foot pointed towards the left and was planted just in front of her right foot.

The entire strange stance was a dancer's pose; the main reason that Aunt Bella had not been killed before now was that in duels, the madwoman had the moves of an evil ballerina.

At the moment, Bellatrix had twisted her hips so that her upper body was facing her niece. But, Tonksatrix knew, it would take Aunt Bella less than a second to be facing Harry Potter, because Bellatrix would not waste time moving her feet; Bellatrix need only twist her hips in the other direction.

Now Tonksatrix intended to face Aunt Bella and to duel her. But the young metamorphmagus tripped and fell whilst moving her feet.

Two green spells passed overhead, at the space where Tonksatrix's head would have been if she had not tripped. One of those AK spells, the young metamorphmagus was certain, had been sent by her evil aunt.

Tonksatrix had a pistol in her left hand and her personal wand in her right hand. She put out her wand-grasping right fist to stop her fall—

The plan failed, because Tonksatrix's right arm lacked the upper-body strength she needed now. Tonksatrix's upper body was not prevented from hitting the ground, her upper body merely hit the ground at a slower speed, and her body spun as it fell that last one and a half feet. Tonksatrix's left hip, left shoulder and left elbow hit the ground.

Tonksatrix's left hand still held the pistol. When her left elbow hit the ground, the pistol—bang—fired. The metamorphmagus Auror could not begin to guess where the silver bullet had gone.

Tonksatrix was mortified with embarrassment—she hatedstumbling and tripping—and frightened for her life. She figured that, even with the supposed help of Felix felicis, she had maybe five seconds to live.

She did not take the time to see where her wand was pointed, but yelled "Diffindo!", shoving her magic into her wand. If she was about to die, she would make damned sure that her Severing Charm would take one of the tossers with her!

A Death Eater's wand-arm was parted from his body; blood began spurting sideways as the man screamed. Tonksatrix's Reductoremoved all thoughts of mortal terror from the man's head by destroying his head.

As Tonksatrix hurried to stand, she wondered, Why hasn't Aunt Bella AK'd me in the back?

Bellatrix Lestrange somehow managed to sidestep every one of Harry's deadly spells, even when she was looking elsewhere than at him (like right now). Harry was annoyed. But then, Harry dodged all of Bellatrix's spells, so they were even.

Beyond the real Bellatrix, a woman who looked like Bellatrix's twin, tripped and was falling down. Harry thought, Tonks is in danger, and I can't help her!

Bellatrix twisted her upper body so that she again was facing Harry. She smirked as she said, "Clumsy Nymmie!"

Bang.

Bellatrix's forehead exploded. Without Bellatrix's eyes shifting direction or her facial expression changing, she silently collapsed limp on the pavement.

Thanks to the Liquid Luck potion that Tonksatrix had drunk, Harry saw Tonksatrix stand up without being hit by Death Eaters' deadly spells.

As she stood, Tonksatrix giggled her mad aunt's giggle and said in her mad aunt's voice, "Poor ickle Deathies. You lot keep shooting spells at me and missing. Ooh, it's my lucky day. But I"—bang—"don't miss."

Harry, meanwhile, was taking full advantage of the part of the prophecy that hinted that nobody could kill him before Voldemort got his chance.

The last Death Eater alive did something unexpectedly courageous. Though he was limping from broken bones, he lunged forward, slapped a rope against Bellatrix's corpse, and said "Purity!" Both he and dead Bellatrix were Portkeyed away.

This ended the battle.

Fifteen rampaging Death Eaters, expecting to face only frightened witches and wizards in Diagon Alley, plus maybe Aurors firing stunners, instead faced deadly Harry Potter and deadly Tonksatrix. Only the one Death Eater Portkeyed away, fourteen Death Eaters died (including Fenrir Greyback and Bellatrix Lestrange), and neither Harry nor Tonksatrix suffered so much as a scratch.

The Aurors still had not shown up when Tonks (who now looked like herself again, pink hair and all) and Harry removed the masks from Death Eater corpses. Dead and unmasked were Rodolphus Lestrange and Draco Malfoy.

Dead Fenrir Greyback, it turned out, had been shot in the heart and shot in the forehead.

George and Fred Weasley Disillusioned themselves beside Harry. They each were holding something that looked vaguely gun-shaped, except the barrel was not much bigger around then a nail.

George said to Harry, "We shot all the wankers with the Parselmagic sand trackers—"

Fred now: "—but then you two killed most of them—"

"—which is a right waste of our valuable time, if you ask me."

Fred again: "Still, I did tag the Death Muncher bloke who got away—"

"—whilst I tagged sweet, kind Bella—"

"—so we're still 'on track,' so to speak," said Fred.

All in all, Harry decided, it was a good day for the good guys, and a bad day for Voldy and his minions.

Fifteen minutes later, back at Potter Manor

Young Harry discovered that elderly Harry, in his writeups of various Parselmagic spells, had not mentioned (or had not known) one important fact—

If you put a Parselmagic tracking charm on a grain of sand, then you send the grain of sand to someplace that is under a Fidelius charm, the pointed-to "location" that you get, constantly shifts, and varies by up to ten miles.

Fortunately for Harry, if he knew that an active Fidelius charm was within ten miles of a certain point on a map, he knew exactly how to locate that Fidelius charm (if the Fidelius charm were not dome-shaped).

Sunday afternoon, 21st July

Harry was flying 1,001 feet above the ground, headed towards the general location of Malfoy Manor, and Harry was the most frightened he had ever felt in his life.

For one thing, Harry was about a fifth of a mile above the ground. If he fell off his broom—or was knocked off his broom—Harry would have between seven and eight seconds to improvise a magical self-rescue before he hit the ground. If Harry did hit the ground, the sure result would be instant death.

What also frightened Harry now was the danger of Harry on his broom running into invisible Malfoy Manor wards. Harry was ninety-six feet above the top of Potter Manor's wards-wall, but he had no way of guessing how high up Malfoy Manor's wards-wall went. Harry was sure that if he bumped into the Malfoy Manor wards-wall with hostile intent, the result would be "a most painful death."

Thirdly, Harry was frightened because he faced the danger that if he could achieve hovering above Malfoy Manor on a broom, he might then be attacked by Death Eaters on brooms because Harry's Disillusionment Charm wasn't as invisible as he thought it was. If Harry had to fight as one against many, he would have no hope if the air above Malfoy Manor was the site of an aerial dogfight on brooms.

To distract himself now, Harry made his magic two-way-radio headset call Potter Manor. Then Harry spoke in a code that only magicals could hear (because his "radio" worked by magic), but Pureblood magicals never would understand the conversation—

"Gabrielle, hello Gabrielle, are you there? It's Joxer." Harry Potter calling Base. Come in, Base.

Seconds later, Harry heard Hermione's voice: "Hello Joxer, this is Gabrielle. What are you up to?" Hello Harry Potter, this is Base.

"I'm looking for Xena. I want to give her a hug." I'm still searching for Malfoy Manor.

"Erm, Joxer, I don't think Xena wants a hug from you. She might slice you with her chakram." Meaning, the people in Malfoy Manor won't like you locating them. They'll get violent if they detect you.

"I'll be careful, Gabrielle."

A few minutes later, Hermione said to Harry by magic two-way radio, "Something tells me you're near Xena. Look for her riding her horse Argo. I think she'll stay there till 12:30." You've entered the ten-mile-diameter "Circle of somewhere" on the map that is caused when a Parselmagic tracking charm goes someplace that is inside a Fidelius charm. The centre of the ten-mile circle is 15 degrees to the right of straight ahead.

Harry said, "Gotcha." I acknowledge I'm at the edge of the circle, and will begin to search for Malfoy Manor within the circle.

It was difficult for Harry to say those words calmly. He was scared now.

Harry turned his broom to the right by 105 degrees and began his aerial-lawn-mowing find-Fidelius trick.

Minutes later

Harry was motionless in all six directions. He was so happy, he wanted to sing. I'm alive, and it looks like I'll stay alive!

But Harry did not sing aloud; instead, he said into his headset, "Oi, Gabrielle, I just hugged Xena." I am above two tracker-charmed grains of sand, with no Fidelius Charm hiding the trackers' exact location. Which in turn means I am above Malfoy Manor, which now I can see, and now I am above and inside the Malfoy Manor cylindrical wards-wall.

Hermione replied, "Xena let you hug her? Oh my, this is something I need to record in my scroll. Let me find my quill." I acknowledge you floating above Malfoy Manor. I will try to plot your current location on a map of Great Britain.

Harry was dreading that Hermione would say next, "My quill got snapped in my saddlebag" (I was unable to map your location). Instead, after a time of silence, Hermione said, "It's all written down in my neatest cursive." Your current location is mapped.

Then Hermione asked, her voice worried, "Is Ares in sight?" Is anyone flying out of Malfoy Manor with plans to kill you in battle?

Harry grinned. "Nope, no sign of Ares at all." I see no sign that anyone in Malfoy Manor knows I'm here.

Then Harry said, "Gabrielle, I think I'll head back to camp now so I can tell you all about hugging Xena." I'm headed back to Base.

Hermione said, "I look forward to hearing your tale, Joxer." Then Hermione's voice got mischievous: "By the way, Aphrodite says hello."

Harry heard Daphne's voice yell, "What?"

Harry was grinning like a loon, because he had just accomplished a dangerous mission; so he felt in the mood for making a joke. He said over the magic radio, "You'd let me know, wouldn't you, Gabrielle, if you and Aphrodite had subtext, right?" You'd let me know, wouldn't you, Hermione, if you and Daphne felt lesbian attraction for each other?

When Harry returned to Potter Manor, both Hermione and Daphne hugged him as if he were a returning spy-aeroplane pilot. Both girls also snogged him mightily.

"So," Hermione said, "tomorrow, or Tuesday at the latest, you'll fly over Malfoy Manor and kill the Dark Lord, right?"

"I could," Harry agreed, "but that's not what I'm planning. I plan not merely to kill the Dark Lord, I plan to vanquish him. And I'm going to need mystique for the vanquishing, but it'll take me a little bit to set up the mystique."

Daphne beamed at Harry.

Hermione said, "Erm, I'm lost."

Harry smiled at both girls. "I'm borrowing ideas from both of you. Hermione, you're a planner; well, I've made a plan for Voldy and Dumbles, and I'm carrying out this plan. But Daphne suggested I build up a mystique by being theatrical; and becoming theatrical, and gaining mystique by the time I face Voldy, is another part of my plan."

Harry smiled in reassurance. "You watch, you two. By the time I turn sixteen on 31st July, both Voldy and Dumbles will be yesterday's news."

Chapter 17

Muggle London

Still Sunday afternoon, 21st July

In Diagon Alley, London

Kingsley Shacklebolt could not believe his eyes. And now, after hearing the Weasley twins' tale, Shacklebolt could not believe his ears either.

The Aurors had Apparated into Diagon Alley, expecting to face off against Death Eaters in another life-or-death battle.

But instead of the arriving Aurors hearing spellfire, the taunts of Death Eaters and the screams of civilians, the Aurors had arrived hearing only the cawing of crows. Within seconds, the Aurors had come across a quiet crowd of civilians, all looking at something.

The "something" turned out to be thirteen dead Death Eaters on the ground, and a shop wall that was splattered with blood and grey specks. Amongst the dead, Kingsley noted three men in particular: a young man who looked like the younger son of Linus Flint, the blond-haired tosser who was the son of Lucius Malfoy, and Fenrir Greyback (who had died by two gunshots).

Witnesses claimed that all this carnage had been achieved by only two people: Harry Potter and a mysterious Polyjuiced woman who looked like Bellatrix Lestrange.

Now one of the Weasley twins pulled on Kingsley's sleeve. "We need to talk to you—"

"—but not where other Aurors can hear," the other twin said. Both twins looked serious.

Kingsley walked the twins about thirty yards away from the other Aurors. As the three men walked, one of the twins said, "Where is Auror Tonks? You two always work together."

Shacklebolt was puzzled now, because the twin who just had spoken was grinning, as though he knew a delightful secret.

Kingsley answered the question: "Tonks isn't here now because she has the day off."

Now it was the other twin who was grinning like he knew a secret: "Oh, too bad. Poor Tonks has missed all the excitement."

Annoyed, Kingsley demanded, "So what do you two want to tell me that's so secret?"

The twins answered—

"Bellatrix—the real one—isn't lying there because—"

"—the one Death Eater still alive Portkeyed her out of—"

"—there. But she was dead when he took her."

"How do you know this?" Kingsley pressed. "Why do you think she was dead, not Stupefy'd?"

"We saw her head explode—"

"—right after the other Bella fell down."

"The fake Bella's gun went off, and we figure—"

"—our favourite madwoman was shot in the back—"

"—of the head."

The twins said in chorus: "It was disgusting to see."

"Wait," said Kingsley, as he felt a hunch. "The Polyjuiced Bella fell down? Did someone trip her?"

Now both twins were grinning. The twin on the right said, "Yes, the Polyjuiced woman hit the ground, but we can't tell you why."

The other twin said, "We were a bit busy at the time."

Kingsley asked, "You were helping Harry and To—the woman fight Death Eaters?"

"Kingsley!" the twin on the left said, in a tone of exaggerated disappointment. "Fight, us? You know we never do the expectedthing."

The twins then explained that during the firefight, they were both Disillusioned and were shooting Parselmagic tracking charms, which each was attached to a grain of sand, at every Death Eater.

Now both twins looked at Kingsley with deadly serious expressions. The twin on the left said, "You can't write down anywhere that we saw Bellatrix die, because so far as everyone else is concerned, we weren't there. You also can't write down that Harry ordered us to shoot tracking charms at the wankers."

"He's right," the other twin agreed. "Anything juicy written down in any Ministry report, we figure Voldy knows in less than a day."

"I promise," said Kingsley, "I'll leave you two out of it. One last question: was the Polyjuiced woman carrying a blue wand?"

Now the twins were grinning again. "Wouldn't a blue wand mean—"

"—she was an Auror? No, she was carrying a regular brown wand."

After the twins walked away, Kingsley thought, If it had been Albus who had surprised fifteen Death Eaters today, now all the Death Eaters would be laughing and drinking firewhisky, back in Malfoy Manor, and all the dead people here would be Muggle-borns, blood-traitors and Aurors. Instead, it's the bad folks who are dead, whilst innocent people are healthy. The Order of the Phoenix and the Aurors both are better off with Harry Potter leading the Order.

An hour later, in Malfoy Manor

The only Death Eater to survive the disaster in Diagon Alley had been a student in Snape's house of Slytherin until a few weeks ago.

The youngster, Paulus Rookwood, had sat, less than a month ago, for his N.E.W.T. exams; a week after this, he had raped and killed a Muggle uni student, in order to qualify for his Dark Mark. An hour ago, this newly-marked Death Eater youth had braved death by either Harry Potter or the false Bellatrix, in order to bring the corpse of the genuine Bellatrix back to Malfoy Manor—

—but then the lad had been AK'd by Voldemort, after the youth had told the Dark Lord about today's misadventures. Voldemort had not taken well the news that with only one exception, all of his Death Eaters had died at the hands of Harry Potter and a Bellatrix impersonator, and these deaths included Bellatrix and Fenrir.

Upon learning of his own son's death, Lucius Malfoy had sworn a painful death for Harry Potter. Even before Voldemort had threatened Lucius—"Potter is mine, do you understand? Mine!"—Snape had rolled his eyes at Lucius acting like a drama queen.

But now, after taking a full hour to calm down, the Dark Lord ordered everyone except Snape gone from his throne room.

As soon as only two people were left in the room, Voldemort demanded of Snape, "Was this Dumbledore's idea? Was Potter following Dumbledore's orders?"

"Impossible," Snape calmly replied. "The headmaster would never give orders to kill Death Eaters, even in self-defence; and Potter lately has refused any control by the headmaster."

"So no stunners, no asking for surrender, Potter killing anyone who tried to kill him or the Polyjuiced woman—these all were Potter's ideas?"

"Yes, I believe so."

"And Potter's killing of Draco Malfoy, do you think this was self-defence or vengeance?"

"Self-defence," Snape replied.

"Explain."

Snape then explained to Voldemort, the relationship between Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy. Every time that Snape had witnessed a fight between the two boys break out, Draco had been the aggressor, and Potter always had stopped fighting once it had been clear that Draco had been defeated. At this point, Snape always had pushed for the Potter boy's punishment, because A, the boy was James Potter's spitting image, and so Snape disliked him on general principles; and B, the headmaster's "everyone deserves forgiveness" policies meant that evil troublemakers were never to be punished.

Snape admitted to Voldemort what he never had admitted at Hogwarts: that Potter never had deserved any of the detentions that had resulted from his fights with Draco.

"...In short," Snape concluded, "even if Potter somehow had known that one of the men behind the Death Eater masks was my godson, I am sure that Potter would not have tried to kill Draco until Draco first tried to kill him. Potter is not vicious, and he does not lose his self-control. The same could not be said of my godson."

Eventually Voldemort convinced himself that Potter's great victory earlier today was a freak occurrence, a one-off event. Snape did not argue, but he did not agree either.

What Snape decided was this: What if Draco has taught Potter that, when faced with an implacable enemy, continually playing defence gains you nothing but your own eventual death? What if Potter now is doing what Dumbledore refused to do, planning attacks on the Dark Lord?

If this is how "the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord" is fighting, life has just become much more challenging for the Death Eaters, for Voldemort and for me.

The next morning (Monday, 22nd July)

Albus Dumbledore never scowled; he was too conscious of his public image. But as he read this morning's Daily Prophet, he wanted to scowl, fiercely enough to frighten a troll. Half of today's newspaper coverage was about the killing of Death Eaters in Diagon Alley by Harry Potter and "Fake Bellatrix."

Dumbledore wondered why nobody amongst Master Auror Shacklebolt, Senior Auror Hestia Jones and Auror First Class Tonks, all three of whom were Order of the Phoenix members, had given the headmaster a "heads-up" yesterday about Harry's killing spree. Why did Dumbledore need to read this morning's Prophet to find out what Harry had done? But then Dumbledore dismissed the thought—undoubtedly all the Aurors had been busy yesterday.

According to the Daily Prophet, Fenrir Greyback and Rodolphus Lestrange were dead at the scene. Bellatrix Lestrange (the real one) was reported dead. Many current and former Slytherin students were dead at the scene, including Samuel Flint and Draco Malfoy.

Dumbledore squeezed his eyes shut, mourning all the misguided young men who had been killed before they turned to the Light. Harry had done this—Harry and Hermione.

(The Prophet had made wild guesses about who "Fake Bellatrix" might be. But to Albus, it was obvious that if Harry handed Miss Granger a vial of Polyjuice and a loaded Muggle weapon, Miss Granger would follow Harry into cold-blooded murder without a qualm. Albus Dumbledore had no doubt at all: "Fake Bellatrix" was actually Hermione Granger.)

Dumbledore thought, Harry should be ashamed of himself for taking advantage of that overly-trusting Muggle-born girl, to lead her into unforgiveness and murder.

Harry was going dark, it was obvious to Dumbledore; and Harry needed to be saved from himself. If gentle words would not turn Harry from his path to evil, the Greater Good required that more forceful measures needed to be taken.

Dumbledore made plans.

Later

Dumbledore sent Fawkes to deliver a parchment to Harry with the message, "Harry, I must speak to you immediately about an urgent matter." The message was booby-trapped with a mild Compulsion charm so that Harry would pick up the parchment and read it aloud; and with a Portkey to the Headmaster's office that activated when Harry spoke the last word, matter.

Once Harry would be surprise-transported to Dumbledore's office, Dumbledore planned to find out how Harry killed all those Death Eaters so quickly, then planned to Obliviate the knowledge from Harry's mind so the boy could never do such a barbaric thing again.

What actually happened then, turned out to be a bit different.

Instead of Harry being magically brought to Dumbledore's lair, Harry got Dobby and Kreacher to elf-pop Dumbledore to the Grimmauld Place cellar and into the cellar's dungeon, naked.

Naked Dumbledore was put inside an eight-feet-by-eight-feet-by-eight-feet cage; just outside the cage were two grinning house-elves, and a chair that had all of Dumbledore's clothing piled upon it.

(The excuse that Kreacher gave for all of Dumbledore's clothing being piled on the chair outside his cage, instead of being worn on Dumbledore's body inside the cage, was that Dumbledore had hidden Portkeys embedded in his clothing.)

Kreacher said to the defenceless headmaster, "Longbeard tried to sneak into Black Family townhouse six days ago. Good news: Where you wanted to go is where you are now, and you are Master Lord Black-Potter's special guest."

Dumbledore gulped.

Dumbledore soon learnt that Black Family magic on the cage bars meant that he was compelled to answer, truthfully and completely, every question he was asked by a house-elf. The naked headmaster told the house-elves many, many diamonds of information that before, he had always kept secret.

Harry ordered the house-elves to Obliviate all of Dumbledore's memories of today. Then Dobby elf-popped Dumbledore back into his office in Hogwarts Castle. At Harry's request, Dobby vanished the office's most recent copy of the Daily Prophet, so that today's chain of events would not repeat themselves.

Meanwhile, in Muggle London

This morning, Harry had owled Hermione, Daphne and Neville to tell them, "I have some errands to run in Muggle London. I'd enjoy your company. Meet me at the Leaky Cauldron at 10 a.m.?" (To Hermione's note, Harry had added, "If you say yes, Dobby will be your 'chauffeur' to the Leaky.")

All three of Harry's friends said yes; so at 10:04 a.m., Harry led his three friends out of the Leaky Cauldron and to the kerb of Charing Cross Road.

Hermione was happy and smiling. Neville and Daphne looked nervous.

Harry pointed to where a taxicab was parked just to their right. Through the windscreen, Harry saw the taxi driver sitting behind the steering wheel and looking at the teens. Harry said to his friends, "These two parking spaces right here have Muggle Notice-Me-Not and Muggle Avoidance charms on them. If you come out here and find anyone parked in those parking spaces, the driver is a squib, or else a Muggle-born who has left the magical world."

Daphne asked, "Does this happen a lot, Muggle-borns going back to acting Muggle?"

Both Harry and Hermione said, "Yes."

When everyone was inside the taxi

Harry was sitting to the driver's left; Hermione sat behind the driver, whilst Neville and Daphne sat to Hermione's left.

"Where can I take you folks?" the driver asked. Harry noted that he spoke with a "Pureblood accent"—the same accent as what Neville and Daphne had, as well as Draco, Pansy, and the Patil twins.

Harry pulled a business card from his shirt pocket. "Please take us to Reginald Smythe's Gentlemen's Clothiers," then Harry read off an address.

Hermione giggled. "With a name like that, I'm guessing they don't sell blue jeans and t-shirts!"

The taxi driver laughed. "In that part of London? Not hardly."

As soon as the taxi pulled out into Charing Cross Road traffic, Harry asked, "Neville? Daphne? Either of you ever been out in Muggle London before?"

"Harry!" Hermione hissed. "The Statute!"

"It's all right, miss," the driver said. "The International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy doesn't stop you from mentioning magic near me, because I'm a squib." He rotated the inside mirror to look at Daphne. "You look like Opal Bulstrode. Are you related?"

Daphne, looking stunned, replied, "I'm her daughter."

Neville said, "Erm, to answer your question, Harry—no, I've never been in Muggle London before."

Daphne said, "When I was in primary school, we once rode through Muggle London in a carriage. We weren't allowed to get out of the carriage; and the carriage had a silencing charm on it, we were told, so that Muggles outside the carriage couldn't hear what we said. We were disappointed we didn't see any witch-burnings."

"Oh, blimey," Hermione muttered.

Harry asked, "So, driver, now that you've seen both the magical world and the Muggle world, what do you like about the Muggle world?"

"Computers!" the taxi driver answered. "At home I have a PC clone that runs Windows 95, and it's brilliant!"

Neville said, "Hermione, help?"

Hermione said, "A computer is a Muggle machine that runs off electricity, and it acts like it can think. It doesn't think, but it acts like it can. On a computer, you can play games, keep financial records and write essays that print out being neat and legible—no ink spots."

The driver nodded. "I relax in the evening by writing programmes—programmes are like spells for a computer. I wrote a programme recently called LEVIOSA. It creates random bubbles that rise up from the bottom of the screen, but I can grab a bubble with my mouse and drag the bubble around the screen. It's just like you lot can point at a real bubble with your wand and make the bubble move around."

Hermione smiled at the back of the driver's head. "Programming is tricky to learn. Be proud that you've learnt it, sir."

The driver said, "I also use my computer to access the Internet. The Internet—how to describe it?—lets you send messages, with lots of words and pictures, anywhere in the world at 186 thousand miles per second. Think of international Portkeys, that aren't restricted by number, aren't restricted by who gets one, and lets you travel from anywhere in the world, directly to anywhere in the world—and the only restriction is that you only can Portkey to where you're standing in front of cork message boards. You can Portkey to a message board in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and you can read the message board and even add your own messages to the message board, as easily as walking into another room of your flat."

"I suppose," Daphne said dismissively, "this would be interesting if you couldn't Portkey to Buenos Aires for real."

"Ah, but here's the rub, young magicals. If you really think there are witch-burnings in London in the late twentieth century, then you will scorn Muggle computers too. And the Muggle internet. But you scorn these things at your peril. Because thanks to the internet, you need only one Muggle on the planet who discovers that magic is real, and within hours, thousands of Muggles know the secret. Maybe this first Muggle witnesses two drunken wizards shooting spells at each other, then he writes on the internet about what he sees. Obliviating him afterwards, if you even can find him, won't solve your problem of Muggles now knowing about the wizarding world."

"That's ridiculous!" said Daphne. "Now you're fear-mongering."

"No," said Hermione, looking shaken, "he's right. As computers get cheaper and cheaper, more and more Muggles will own a computer, so more and more Muggles will surf the internet. Which means that when the day comes when one Muggle knows about the magical world without us telling him, soon all the Muggles will know, and this will happen during our lifetimes. Which is an event the wizarding world"—Hermione locked eyes with Neville and Daphne—"absolutely is not prepared for."

A half-hour later

Inside Reginald Smythe's Gentlemen's Clothiers

Harry at the moment was wearing a white dress shirt (that required cufflinks), and grey wool slacks. He announced to his friends, "Hopefully this is the final fitting."

When Harry and the tailor agreed that the slacks and the white shirt both fit Harry perfectly, Harry pulled on a grey dress coat—a grey swallow-tailed dress coat.

Whilst the tailor chequed the tailcoat's fit, Hermione asked Harry, "Are you, erm, going to a wedding?" What she clearly meant was, Are you getting married soon, Harry, and you haven't told me?

Harry answered, "No, I'm taking Daphne's advice: I'm creating a mystique by acting theatrical, and dressing this way will help do this."

Daphne beamed.

Minutes later, Harry had paid for the slacks, shirt and swallow-tailed coat, and had paid for a royal-blue bow tie; and Harry was asking one of the shop's salesmen to teach him how to tie the bow tie. Twenty minutes after this, the four magical teens were outside Reginald Smythe's shop, with Harry carrying a shopping bag.

As Harry was trying to hire his second taxicab of the day, Hermione quietly asked him, "How will buying a swallowtail coat help you fight Voldemort?"

Harry quietly replied, "It won't help me fight Voldy, but it will help me vanquish him."

Harry's friends naturally assumed that the taxi that Harry hired, would take the four of them either back to Charing Cross Road or to a Muggle restaurant with tasty food. Not quite.

After Reginald Smythe's shop, but before Sahib House of Curry, the four teens were taxied to Secret Self Costume Shop.

Harry's friends were confused by Harry going to this particular shop, because British magicals did not fancy Halloween costume parties like American Muggles did; and in any case, Halloween was more than three months away.

Harry merely smiled mysteriously and explained that what he bought here also would help him "vanquish" Voldemort. Hermione, Daphne and Neville all responded with puzzled faces.

Inside Secret Self Costume Shop

Daphne glared at a mannequin in the shop. "Harry," she said, "is this how Mug—how some people think witches dress?"

The female mannequin wore a black, nylon, pointy witch's hat on her head. On her feet, she wore black, quite high-heeled, open-toed shoes.

In between her hat and her shoes, the mannequin wore a tight-fitting, half-sleeved, black dress. The bottom of the dress had a zigzag hemline to suggest that the dress was in tatters; the bottom of the zigzags ended two inches above the mannequin's knees, whilst the top of the zigzags rose almost as high as the mannequin's crotch. A plunging V-neckline revealed cleavage.

Resting against the mannequin's open hand was the handle of a straw broom. In a bin on the floor next to the mannequin, four more straw brooms were on offer.

Before Harry spoke to answer Daphne's question, Hermione spoke: "I'm coming back here a week before my wedding. If this dress and hat are still on offer, I'm buying them for my wedding night."

Harry said, "Daphne, 'some people' don't believe that witches exist; but if witches do exist, they're all evil. So witches all are believed to be bad girls—and bad girls show skin. Thus the costume."

Neville said, "I easily can imagine Romilda Vane wearing this during a Hogsmeade weekend."

Harry had come to the costume shop to buy a Yellow-Caped Hero costume. Harry then had to inform the other three teens who Yellow-Caped Hero was: a comic-book superhero. Harry then had to explain to the others about comic books and comic-book superheroes—

"Dean Thomas introduced me to comic books. The first thing he told me was that they're an American passion, they aren't really a British passion. So if you read comic books here in Britain, some of the spellings are wrong..."

"...Most superheroes and supervillains get their powers from strange science. Yellow-Caped Hero is one of those; he was a scientist who was testing alien artifacts and he was caught in an explosion. A few superheroes and -villains get their powers from magic—the best known being Arcane Doctor Goode and his nemesis, Blakkhart the Sorcerous. Arcane Doctor Goode and Blakkhart both come from a magical society, the Empowered Ten Thousand; but Arcane Doctor Goode prefers the company of nonmagicals, he lives in nonmagical Steel City, all his friends are nonmagicals, and when he has to talk to magicals, he leaves them as soon as he can."

Neville asked, "So one of the ways that Blakkhart the Sorcerous is shown to be evil is that he chooses to keep company with the Empowered Ten Thousand?"

"Exactly. The comic books hint that the Empowered Ten Thousand are degenerates."

Daphne scowled.

Hermione asked, "So the Empowered Ten Thousand don't have a rule like," she lowered her voice, "the Statute?" Speaking normally again, Hermione asked, "Arcane Doctor Goode doesn't get in trouble for doing magic in Steel City in front of nonmagicals?"

"Not even slightly," Harry said. Then he laughed. "Which is good, considering how many times Arcane Doctor Goode has to rescue his girlfriend, Betsy Bukzim, from evildoers."

Daphne asked, "So why are you buying a Yellow-Caped Hero costume instead of an Arcane Doctor Goode costume?"

"Because the Yellow-Caped Hero costume, as the name implies, comes with a cape."

Later, back in Potter Manor

Harry walked into the library whilst carrying the two shopping bags. He called over his shoulder, "Follow me and I'll explain a bit of what I'm planning."

The Potter Manor library had four walls. Three of those walls were corner-to-corner, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. The fourth wall contained the door in/out, and portraits of Potter ancestors. Harry put down his two shopping bags, summoned a chair from the big table, then Harry removed his parents' portrait from the wall and set the portrait on the chair so that his parents' portrait faced the portrait-wall.

Then Harry said to his friends and to his portrait-parents, "I need to get something from my bedroom upstairs. Be right back."

As Harry hurried out of the library, he heard his portrait-father ask, "Any of you have an idea what Harry is cooking up?"

Neville said, "Just that buying clothes somehow helps him fight Voldemort."

Hermione said, "Otherwise, no clue. It's a delicious puzzle."

When Harry walked back into the library, he was carrying another Reginald Smythe's Gentlemen's Clothiers shopping bag. As soon as Harry walked in, Daphne said to him, "I have a guess what you're up to. If I'm right, Salazar Slytherin would be proud of you for your cunning."

Harry grinned at her. "Well, the Hat did try to put me into Slytherin."

From the shopping bag that Harry had just carried in, he removed a shoebox. From the shoebox, Harry pulled out a pair of night-black, patent-leather men's shoes. Using two sticking charms, Harry stuck the shoes to the wall, just above the floor.

From the brought-in shopping bag, Harry next pulled out a pair of grey dress socks. The socks were stuck to the wall just above the shoes.

From today's Reginald Smythe shopping bag, Harry pulled out the grey wool slacks and stuck them to the wall; the white dress shirt was stuck to the wall above the slacks.

To the left of the white shirt, Harry stuck his new blue bow tie to the wall; to the right of the white shirt, Harry stuck his new grey swallowtail coat to the wall.

Then Harry went back to his carried-in shopping bag and pulled out the last thing inside the bag: a grey hat. But not just any grey hat.

Three flesh-and-blood teenagers and two portrait-parents all stared as Harry carried the hat to the wall and stuck the hat above the white shirt.

Portrait-James said, "That's a strange-looking hat."

Portrait-Lily said, "It's a top hat."

Hermione said, "You need a top hat to fight Voldemort? Honestly, Harry."

Harry grinned at Hermione. "No, I need a silk top hat to help vanquish Voldemort. Honestly."

Harry looked at his audience and said, "I've run out of wall, so I'll have to do this in stages: first the posh clothes, then the Yellow-Caped Hero costume. Everyone watch now."

Harry pulled out his wand, then cast the Colour-Change Charm on his patent-leather shoes. The black shoes turned snowy white.

Then Harry, as he wand-waved, explained to his audience why he had bought these clothes, what he planned to do with them, and how they fit in with Harry's plan to "vanquish" Voldemort.

When Harry was done with both wand-waving and talking, he looked over at Daphne and asked, "How much of all this did you figure out beforehand?"

"About half of it," she said. "I didn't foresee the 'white' part."

Hermione said, "Now I understand why you wanted Daphne and me to each have a white dress made."

Hogwarts SOW&W, that same evening

It had been just short of a fortnight since Bellatrix Lestrange and Narcissa Malfoy had visited Severus Snape at his home in Spinner's End. The two Black sisters had persuaded Snape to take an Unbreakable Vow to help Draco Malfoy kill Dumbledore—which meant that Snape himself would be obliged to kill the headmaster if Draco could not, or would not, do the dastardly deed himself.

Snape had taken the Vow, even though he had figured that Draco would fail at his Dark Lord-assigned task because the blond boy was a coward. Snape had never imagined that the boy would fail as Dumbledore's killer because Potter had killed Draco.

So now Snape was obligated, by his Unbreakable Vow, to kill Dumbledore.

Snape walked from his office in the castle dungeons to the headmaster's office. Once there, Snape said to Dumbledore, "You are dying, headmaster. The withering curse is killing you, despite my potions."

Dumbledore sighed. "Madame Pomfrey figures I have between one and two years to live. I would like to kill Voldemort before I die."

Snape stared. "Don't you mean, you would like to see Potter, the prophecy's Chosen One, kill Voldemort before you die?"

"Yes, of course, this is what I meant."

"Headmaster, when the pain becomes too much, or if you lapse into unconsciousness, I will kill you painlessly."

"You are too kind, Severus."

Snape did not thank Dumbledore for the compliment. Nor did Snape tell the headmaster the reason for his "kindness"—

If Dumbledore died of the withering curse, instead of dying from Snape murdering him, Snape himself would die in that same minute.

Elsewhere, that same evening

Dobby elf-popped Harry to Gringotts. Harry went into the Potter family vault and walked out with a man's and a woman's Potter betrothal ring. Harry then went into the Black family vault and, similarly, grabbed two Black betrothal rings.

At 7:00 p.m., Dobby elf-popped Harry into the Granger home. Harry and Professor McGonagall officially signed, and all three Grangers also signed, the Harry-Hermione betrothal contract. Harry put the Potter woman's betrothal ring on Hermione's finger, then put the Potter man's betrothal ring on his own finger.

This was when Harry felt a magical shift; at the same time, Hermione gasped. "I felt something!" she said.

Professor McGonagall explained, "You just felt Potter family magic join with your magical core."

Hermione grinned. "Does this mean I can read the Potter family grimoire now, without dying a most painful death?"

The elder Grangers looked puzzled, till Harry explained, "A grimoire is a book of family magic spells. Hermione wants, wants, wants to read the Potter grimoire."

"And the Black grimoire," Hermione said. "Lucky for me, the Weasley twins suggested a way how I can read the Black book."

Professor McGonagall shuddered.

Harry and Hermione shared a long kiss, and Harry drank a glass of wine with the Grangers plus McGonagall. Just before Dobby elf-popped Harry away, Harry reminded Hermione, "Remember that Daphne, you and I will meet up in front of the Daily Prophet office at 10 a.m. tomorrow. Be sure to wear your first of two new dresses."

Dobby then elf-popped Harry to Greengrass Manor. In a ceremony similar to what had been held at the Granger house, Harry and Lord Greengrass officially signed the Harry-Daphne betrothal contract, whilst Opal and Daphne Greengrass also signed. Harry put a Black betrothal ring on Daphne's finger and put a Black betrothal ring on his own finger; again, Harry felt a magical shift. When Daphne came up to Harry to kiss him, Harry was surprised how passionate the kiss was.

Again, just before Harry departed from his (other) betrothed and her family, he reminded Daphne to put on her new clothes and to be standing in front of the Daily Prophet office at 10 a.m. tomorrow.

Dobby then took Harry back to Privet Drive.

In his bedroom at Privet Drive, Harry summoned Kreacher. Harry told Kreacher to visit every member of the Order of the Phoenix except for Dumbledore, Fletcher and Snape; and to tell each visited member that there would be a meeting tomorrow at 7 p.m. at "the usual place."

Then Harry rolled his eyes and added, "And Kreacher, when I say 'Visit every member except for Dumbledore, Fletcher and Snape'—yes, this includes Elphias Doge and Molly Weasley. Sorry."

After Kreacher elf-popped away, Harry went downstairs to fix himself some toast. He was surprised to discover that Vernon Dursley was almost friendly around him—perhaps because both men knew that they would be stuck with each other's company only for another six weeks?

At ten that evening, Harry climbed into his bed at Number 4, Privet Drive, and he made plans for tomorrow.

Hermione and Daphne expected tomorrow to put on new clothes, to walk into the Daily Prophet office and to announce, "We're each betrothed to Harry Potter!" Which Harry would join in on the announcing of. But Harry had something else on his to-do list whilst he was in that newsroom—

Harry planned to issue a public challenge to Tom Marvolo Riddle, a.k.a. Lord Voldemort.