Gryffindor won their first Quidditch match, Harry and Hermione learned as soon as they opened the portrait hole, as their ears were assaulted with the sounds of a celebration. Unlike the night before Harry had no trouble joining in the revelry, so he and Hermione climbed in and went looking for Ron. As it turned out, he was surrounded by girls, as he was the only unattached male on the Gryffindor team he was getting a lot of attention. Ginny, as the only girl to not have a boyfriend, was also getting similar attention from the Gryffindor guys. When Ron saw Harry and Hermione, his already wide smile stretched into a full on grin. "Neville already told me Sirius and Charlus turned up and you had to duck out early, come sit and I'll tell you what happened!" Ron shouted a little to be heard over the party.
Ron got Parvati to move from her spot on the sofa next to him, but she chose to sit herself in his lap instead, causing Ron to flash her a smile like he had won the lottery. Hermione, seeing that there was only one seat available, decided to copy her roommate, and after manoeuvring Harry to sit next to Ron she took Harry's lap. When she felt Harry's arms wrap around her to keep her from sliding off, she snuggled into his chest. Ron proceeded to give them a full blow-by-blow of the match. He wasn't Wood, but then Wood was a lot more experienced of a keeper. Still, Ron had done well, saving about half of the shots at goal during the game.
There were some who had questioned the number of Weasleys on the team, as Fred, George, Ron, and Ginny made four out of seven,,with two of them other three being the ones most likely to be the future Mrs. Fred and George Weasley. But after today's win, those people who were doubting them would now be keeping their mouths shut. It wasn't favouritism that got every Weasley currently at Hogwarts on the team, it was pure talent.
The party continued for a few hours until Professor McGonagall poked her head in about an hour after curfew and told everyone it was time to go to bed. Hermione, slightly tipsy because someone had spiked the large jug of pumpkin juice the older years were drinking from, gave Harry a good night kiss that guaranteed what he would be dreaming about that night, then made her way up the stairs to the girls' dorms.
-ϟϟϟ-
The next day was Sunday, and while most of the school and their visitors would be going to watch the Slytherin-Hufflepuff Quidditch match, Harry, Hermione, and Ron were going with Sirius and a troop of goblins to harvest the basilisk. Seeing half a dozen goblins with long blades and other tools quickly spread around the school, and news that Harry was going back into the Chamber of Secrets to have Slytherin's monster cut up and harvested for its valuable parts quickly spread around the school. Some of the Slytherins seemed to find it almost sacrilegious and wasted no time in coming to Harry to complain and mouth off. Draco was, as always, the first to come and try to tell Harry he had no right to do it. Harry just ignored him.
After Draco came someone that Harry couldn't just ignore. "Potter, Black, you will stop this foolishness immediately. You have no right to a relic of a founder of Hogwarts. As Head of Slytherin, I claim the basilisk and all its bounty to be the property of the school," Snape yelled as he followed them through the school towards the girls bathroom on the second floor.
"Really sure you want to do that greasy?" Sirius quipped. "Harry's claim is based on the fact that he killed a rogue monster. Are you claiming that this monster wasn't rogue and was the property of Hogwarts all along?" Snape was just about to answer but Sirius cut him off and said, "Careful how you answer now. You claim the corpse for the school, and the school is liable for all the Damage the snake did. Imagine how much the school would lose in payouts to the families of the attacked students? Hell I might even sponsor the lawsuit myself, after all Harry was attacked by it so he would also have a claim. And grouping all the lawsuits together makes it easier to show a pattern and strengthen our case. Can you imagine what the governors would do to a staff member who loses the school so much gold? You'd be fired inside a week." Sirius actually sounded like he hoped that Snape would try to push it.
Snape gave Sirius a look that would curdle milk but turned and strode away from them, his robes billowing behind him as he went.
"Do you ever wonder how he gets his robes to billow like that?" Ron asked as the dungeon bat disappeared around a corner.
"He puts a feather light charm on them," Sirius answered. "It was the fashionable thing to do when we were in school. Harry, one of your mother's friends Pandora was the one who started it. She wanted her robes lighter because we had a hot summer, but everyone thought it looked good so soon everyone was doing it."
Harry didn't care about Snape's robes at all, but he was happy to learn something about his mother. "But why did you stop Professor Snape? If he had claimed the corpse, you would have been able to get him kicked out of the school. You said yesterday that you wanted that."
"True, but that would have put the carcass in legal limbo while who owned it was sorted out. During that time, it would be in the ministry and would start to go missing. Some bureaucrat would say that this part or that part was too dangerous to be out in public, and people with sticky fingers would help themselves to more valuable parts. We need the hide as soon as possible if we are going to make Harry a set of duelling robes from it in time for the first task." Sirius explained to Hermione who nodded her understanding.
"You're talking like the basilisk is worth a lot of money?" Harry asked.
"It is, Heir Potter," One of the goblins said. "The specimen is almost one thousand years old if the story of it being left here by Slytherin himself is accurate. That makes it big and full of Magic. Warlock Black said he is having duelling robes made for you. One set of robes would be worth almost twenty thousand galleons. And a sixty foot basilisk might have enough hide for ten sets of robes. Now, the hide is not worth as much unworked, but it is still about two thirds to three quarters the cost. That's just the hide; if you and your guardians decide to, almost every part of it can be sold or it has some use or another. The venom is prized by curse breakers for its ability to destroy cursed objects, the heartstrings can be used in wands like dragons'. The list is extensive." Harry did some quick mental math and came up with high end values of a hundred and fifty thousand galleons from just the hide. He resolved then that he would speak with Grandfather Charlus about it because it was honestly too much money, it was almost three quarters of a million pounds.
The actual trip to the chamber was uneventful, but the harvesting of the basilisk was genuinely interesting if more than a little gross. There was some commotion from everyone, including the goblins, when they actually saw the size of it. Apparently it was one thing to be told Harry had killed a sixty foot long snake with a sword. It was something else entirely to see the snake itself. Ron just stood there, mouth open in shock. Hermione burrowed herself in Harry's chest, needing to be reassured he was okay. Sirius pulled Harry and Hermione into a hug; Harry doubted he intended to include Hermione in the hug but she was clinging to Harry so tight she was included. During Sirius' hug he was vowing to Harry that he would do everything he could do to keep Harry safe from now on.
The team of goblins, however, had a very different reaction. They all congratulated Harry on proving himself to be a true warrior. One of them even said he was going to place a bet on Harry to win the tournament. Apparently, according to that particular goblin, a bunch of school kids didn't have a chance against a true warrior like Harry. He chose not to say anything about being called a warrior by the goblins. He knew they were a rather warlike people, and so denial of the title might be seen as insulting, and he also didn't want to come off like some kind of bragging fool like Lockhart. If the goblins thought what he did was impressive, then let them. Personally Harry just thought he was bloody lucky he wasn't dead.
-ϟϟϟ-
Over the next week, Harry's life fell into a routine. He would attend his classes as normal, and then he would have an hour to himself to relax. After that he and Hermione (and maybe Ron depending on if he had Quidditch practice) would meet up with either Sirius or Charlus to practise for the tournament until dinner, after which was homework. Ron as usual put his homework off to the last minute, but both Lavender and Parvati were volunteering to help Ron with it, so he wasn't pestering Hermione for her help, which was good for her as she was starting to show signs of stress.
Harry understood she was worried about what would happen at the first task, he was as well, but Hermione was throwing herself one hundred percent into finding ways to keep him alive. She was even learning the spells that Sirius and Charlus were teaching Harry, and he suspected it was so that if he needed help she would be prepared to jump in and help him. That's not to say Ron wasn't helping him, he was. However, the difference was that Ron was also focusing on his Quidditch training and getting a break twice a week. Also, Ron seemed to have more of an unshakeable faith that Harry would be okay. "Harry is always fine, and he is already more prepared for this than anything else we have done," Harry had heard his red-haired friend say to Hermione on a few occasions.
Monday came, and Harry, Ron, and Hermione tracked into the empty classroom they were using for training. The three of them were surprised because both Sirius and Charlus were there, when up until now there had only ever been one or the other, and they both had rather grim expressions on their faces.
"Who died?" Ron asked, trying to lighten the mood somewhat, but the looks that Charlus and Sirius gave Harry killed the humour before it could start.
Harry was worried now and asked "What's wrong?"
Charlus pulled an open letter out of his pocket and held it up so Harry could see what it was. "I got this letter from Molly this morning. I had asked her to write to her son Charlie and ask him to recommend some spells and strategies for dealing with large animals. Given he works on a dragon preserve, I guessed he would know a few and I wanted to cover all our bases for the tournament. She got a letter back from him last night. He said he couldn't help without breaking a magical contract, but that he was going to be in the country for a few days starting from the twenty fourth until the twenty eighth, and that he hopes he will have enough time away from work to pay her a visit."
It was Hermione who understood first. "No. No no no. They wouldn't. It's a school tournament, they wouldn't."
"We think so. And that's what we are going to assume going forward," Sirius answered her.
From Hermione's reaction, both Harry and Ron were able to peace it together. Charlie was going to be in the country for the tournament, Charlie worked in Romania on a dragon reserve, Harry was going to have to fight a dragon. Harry felt a sudden need to sit down, and Hermione was instantly by his side checking to see if he was okay. They were forcing him to fight a fucking dragon. It was insane. For a moment he wanted to run, to get away from this insane school and the mad magicals. However, almost as soon as the thought crossed his mind, he dismissed it. While he could easily live in the muggle world, that world had nothing to offer him. He would have his memories of his friends, his grandfather, his godfather, and his girlfriend wiped away, then be returned to the Dursleys were he would be treated like a slave until he was thrown out on the streets at the age of eighteen.
No, the magical world may be insane but there were people here he cared about, and of them Hermione was the only one who could function in the mundane world. Besides, magical people may be insane, but magic itself was amazing. The magical world was his home, and he wasn't going to run away from his home. Still, even if he resolved not to run, there was the matter of a dragon that was going to try to eat him in three weeks, so no one was surprised when Harry started feeling sick and as though he couldn't breathe. His heart was racing like it knew his end was coming and it wanted to use the little time it had left to fulfil a lifetime's worth of heart beats.
Hermione was the first one who recognised that Harry was having a panic attack. She took his hands in hers and started trying to get Harry to focus on her. Luckily, Charlus had expected such a reaction, and while wizards didn't deal with panic attacks the same way muggles did, like most areas of medicine and healing the magical world was the more effective of the two. Charlus pulled out a vile of potion and passed it to Hermione. "It's a calming draft, get Harry to drink it."
Hermione did just that, trusting an unlabelled potion from Charlus much more than she would from anyone else. She popped the lid and held it to Harry's lips and with a little soft encouragement he drank down the liquid. Harry's panic attack subsided in moments, and it was a far calmer but still scared Harry that pulled Hermione into a much needed hug.
"When you're ready Harry, I have a plan for how you can deal with a dragon," Sirius offered up in a reassuring tone.
Harry took the next few minutes, and Hermione helped to get him centred again. Ron obviously wanted to help but didn't really know what to do, and Sirius and Charlus seemed to understand that all they would be doing is crowding Harry so they left it to Hermione. Once Harry was back on an even footing and was ready to continue, but still holding Hermione's hand for comfort, he turned to his godfather and asked, "So what's this plan then?"
Sirius grinned slightly and pulled a snitch out of his pocket, held it up for Harry to see, and said. "This." Everyone looked at him as if he was insane, but he didn't seem phased at all by that. "Now, I don't know how much you know about dragons but the biggest problem when dealing with them is that their hide is incredibly resistant to magic. You need about half a dozen wizards all casting the same spell on them at the same time to overcome this. It's why Auror and duelling robes are made from dragon hide. But it's only their hides that are magical resistant. There are points on a dragon unprotected by their hide, the eyes and mouth being the main ones. So we will be focusing a lot of your training over the next three weeks on your aim. If you can bullseye a flying snitch, then you can hit a dragon's eye or send a spell into its open mouth."
Sirius cast an Engorgio charm on the snitch until it was the size of a beach ball, then set it flying around the room. "Well you three, the goal is to hit it with a colorization charm. Do you all know it?" All three of them nodded. "Good, Harry you can cast in green because of your eyes, Ron you can cast in red because of your hair, and the lovely Hermione gets to cast in blue as I know it's your favourite colour. Once you can all hit the ball consistently with it at this size, we will make it smaller and do the exercise again. Hopefully by the time we get to the first task you'll be able to hit the snitch at its regular size," Sirius finished explaining.
The exercise was rather easy at first, the beach ball size of the snitch being hardly any challenge for the teens. But true to his word, Sirius quickly started to reduce the balls size. When it got down to the size of a *football, they were missing half the time and that seemed to be a good size for them to be practising at. But as Sirius said, it was "a good start, as the inside of a dragon's mouth is a good target and the ball was already a smaller target than an open dragon mouth." Considering the best opportunity to cast a spell into a dragon's mouth was right before it was about to breathe fire on you, this wasn't comforting, but it was the start of the training.
After that grandfather Charlus took over the training for the day. He gave them five minutes to get their breath back and have a drink of water, then he had them all listen to him. "I'm going to teach you all a spell. This spell is a restricted spell, it's not illegal to know or to use, but you won't find it in any book of spells legally published in Britain, because this spell is one that can easily kill and has little use outside of killing. Harry and Hermione, as members of the House of Potter you would have both been taught this spell at the age of seventeen for self defence, unless you proved yourself to be too irresponsible to be trusted with it. Due to the tournament we are bringing the time table up a bit. Ronald, I don't know if the Weasley family knows the spell, or if they make a habit of teaching it to people, but as you are likely to fall into trouble alongside Harry I won't have you unable to defend yourself and your friends. Now, I am trusting you each to exercise your judgement on when it's appropriate to use such a spell. If I find out any of you have misused the spell I'm about to start teaching you, I will drag you to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement myself. This is serious business, is this understood?"
They all replied in the affirmative. Hermione was almost too nervous to learn the spell after Charlus's little speech; she almost seemed weighed down by the idea of learning something so potentially dangerous. But she had people to protect and she wouldn't let her fear stand in her way of getting a tool to do just that. Ron seemed almost eager to learn, excited by the idea of knowing such a powerful spell. Harry split the difference between his two friends, he didn't have the reservations Hermione had (he was after all going to face a dragon in three weeks and he didn't think a stunning charm was going to cut it), yet he wasn't as excited as Ron. He just felt determined.
-ϟϟϟ-
Sirius took the lead in training the three teens over the next two weeks, giving Charlus time to work on other things, like dealing with the paperwork he was getting from Gripsack, Anne Twist. All of the stores who had Harry Potter endorsement signed in their windows with the exception of the ice cream parlour had removed them. Ms. Twist had recommended Harry take a photo with the owner of the ice cream shop that he could display alongside the endorsement. Charlus considered it, it would legitimise the ice-cream parlour and show that Harry was willing to play the game. He would have to talk to Harry about it, but it looked like he could draw a line under the endorsement stuff and call it a win.
Avalon Publishing, however, was pushing back. They were claiming that their disclaimer at the start of the books that the books were entirely fictional was all they legally had to do. That wasn't all, the Ministry were claiming that they had the right to declare the Potter cottage in Godric's Hollow as a historic landmark, and they weren't going to be returning it. Charlus didn't hesitate to sign the paperwork that the solicitors had kindly already filled out for him so that he could call both Avalon Publishing and the Ministry before the Wizengamot.
The more complicated matter of one Severus Snape was next. It took Charlus a while to reconnect with his contemporaries in the field of potions. Two he was sad to hear had died, one of which was sadly recent, only a month before Sirius had pulled him from the time storm. It took a lot of letters back and forth before Charlus could ask for a favour, but the catching up was done and it was time for him to move forward.
He pulled out some parchment and started writing his letters to the other grandmasters of potions. Unfortunately, at this level it would require each of them to be sent a personal letter, not just a generic (and then duplicated) letter that was the same to all of them. Charlus was extra careful to make sure he went over every point of contention he had with Snape, such as the fact that the number of students taking their N.E. had dropped considerably ever since Snape started teaching potions, the strain this put the healer profession, and how Britain was starting to fall behind other countries in Potions innovation. He wrote about having to go to Hogwarts and force Snape to allow students to use standard safety charms and how the man was a terrible teacher who obviously needed to be reassessed on his Potions master certification, as he obviously needed more real world experience.
Lastly Charlus also had a letter from Quidditch Weekly. They wanted to interview Harry about losing his place on the Quidditch team, which of course needed Charlus's permission as he was Harry's legal guardian. Charlus actually gave the letter to Sirius and told him to show it to Harry, and the two of them would decide what to do with it. Charlus was really happy he had given Harry and Sirius the decision when they came back to him with their choice: Harry would agree to an interview, but only after the first task and before he started preparing for the second, as he was too busy now to do an interview. Charlus wrote up a letter to the magazine saying just that, and the reply came in a day later saying that the magazine was disappointed not to have an opportunity to talk to Harry sooner but understanding the need to not interrupt training before a big match.
After reading the letter from Quidditch Weekly, Charlus realised he was officially out of stuff to do for a while, and he didn't like it. Ever since Harry's name had come out of the damned fire cup, he had thrown himself one hundred percent into helping keep his grandson alive. Working kept him from feeling hopeless. When he stopped, that's when the darker thoughts settled in, thoughts like, 'You are a failure of a Warlock, the Potter family will die out because of you,' and 'you couldn't keep James safe, what makes you think you can keep Harry safe?' He knew why it was so easy for his thoughts to turn that way. To the world, almost Charlus's entire family had been dead for over a decade, but for him it wasn't even six months yet. He was still very much in mourning, and the grief often pushed his thoughts into a depressive spiral. It was little wonder people often died of a broken heart. Charlus could admit to himself that if it wasn't for Sirius, Harry, and to a lesser extent Harry's friends, it would be the easiest thing in the world for him to lose the will to keep going. Charlus picked up a photo of him and Dorea from his desk and stared at it longingly. Even with everything he had to live for, he could admit to himself that a part of him just wanted it to be over so he could go join the woman who he had pledged his soul to all those years ago.
Charlus got up from his desk and left his office to look for something to distract him. Sirius was at Hogwarts helping Harry train, so there was no distraction coming from there. He considered going to a pub (either the Leaky or the Three Broomsticks), but decided against it as the last thing he needed right now was alcohol. Then he had an idea. Harry's aunt and uncle probably didn't know what was going on with him. Yes, there had been some tension between Harry and his family when Charlus had gone to meet Harry and bring him home, and the fact that they didn't fight for Harry's custody or visitation rights said that things weren't as good there as Harry deserved, but you don't raise a boy for almost a decade without coming to care for him. Charlus would pay them a visit and apologise for the lack of contact and fill them in on what was happening. Maybe they would have some advice on how to help Harry though this, after all they had been like his parents for so long they must know him better than anyone.