"What the fuck!?" Harry shouted as he grabbed the newspaper off the table and started reading.
Child abusers plead guilty to startling list of chargesVernon and Petunia Dursley, of Surrey, yesterday pleaded guilty to a long list of charges of child abuse. Police were alerted to the crimes by the Dursleys themselves after they walked into their local station and gave full confessions to everything they had done to their orphaned nephew, who can not be named for legal reasons. The Dursleys have been sentenced to five years, and leniency was given due to the fact that the Dursleys confessed when there was no police investigation into them, proving to the judge that they were "truly remorseful for what you have done."...Harry didn't bother to read any more; he just stood there staring at the picture of his aunt and uncle in the docks. Hermione rested her chin on his shoulder so she could read the paper and see what had disturbed Harry. Sirius called Harry's name from the other room, sounding concerned. When nobody answered him, Sirius soon came looking to investigate.
Seeing it was the paper that had set Harry off, Sirius took hold of it and pulled it out of Harry's hands. Hermione immediately took the opportunity to encircle her arms around Harry so he was leaning backwards as she supported him. "Are you okay Harry?" She had known the Dursleys weren't great. She had noticed their first Christmas that Harry had eagerly signed up to stay at the school when he found he could, which was definitely a sign that things weren't okay. And then she had heard Harry's complaints about them over the years before she then met Vernon Dursley. Through all that, she had never suspected that anything was bad enough that the authorities would care about, and nothing like what they had apparently admitted to the police.
"I… how many people in the magical world do you think get mundane newspapers?" Harry asked, and it was clear that he was nervous.
"Um. A few? Definitely not many. I also don't think I ever saw a not-Prophet newspaper at Hogwarts."
"But it's not zero and a lot of students are home for Christmas," Harry said.
"Not that many, most of the school stayed at the castle for the Yule Ball, remember?" Hermione tried to reassure him.
"The biggest problem is going to be if someone who does get the muggle newspaper sends the article to the daily prophet for them to investigate," said Harry.
"Harry, you are not named in this article." Sirius said. "How many people in the wizarding world actually know your relatives' names? And I mean their full names."
That finally got through to Harry. Normally he just called them 'the Dursleys' or his aunt and uncle. The only people outside of a few of the professors who would have a significant chance to have heard their full names were the Gryffindors in his year. Of those, the only ones who would have a significant chance to read a mundane newspaper were Hermione and Dean Thomas. Luckily for Harry, Dean was still at the castle so there was almost no chance he was going to read the article.
Hermione felt it as Harry relaxed in her arms. "Sirius, you need to go tell Uncle Charlus what has happened." Hermione looked at her parents, who understood what she wanted and gave her a nod. "Harry can stay here with me while you sort it out. In the meantime, Harry, we are going shopping."
Confused Harry asked "shopping?"
"Yep, you and I will both need a new outfit for the New Year's Eve party and it will give us a chance to talk."
-ϟϟϟ-
While Hermione was dragging Harry around London looking for the perfect outfit, Charlus was taking advantage of the fact that Snape's assessment was being held in his place of employment. He had approached the students at breakfast and found two of-age students from each house, one witch and one wizard, and had brought them to the assessment to testify as to how Snape conducted a regular lesson.
Charlus had offered them five galleons to give their views,, but had also offered to double it if they took a truthfulness potion. Unlike Veritaserum, the potion Charlus supplied, after brewing it in front of the other assessors, didn't force you answer any questions, nor did it compel you speak any more than you wanted to. All it did was change the colour of your skin to indicate if you were telling the truth or lying. Unsurprisingly, only one of the volunteers refused the potion.
Of the eight students, seven of them described a very similar lesson to each other. Snape would write the steps to make the potion on on the board and tell them to do it and would walk about the class, belittling the efforts of any students he didn't like while letting students he did like sabotage the potions of other students, where he would then dock points from the victim for not following directions.
The one student who differed in their retelling was the Slytherin boy, who sang the praises of Snape, going on for ten minutes about how informative Snape was when he was teaching and how the school was lucky to have such an accomplished Potions Master teaching the students. Unsurprisingly, he was the one person who didn't take the truthfulness potion.
By the time they were finished listening to the students, none of the Potion Masters in the room were happy. Two were absolutely livid; one was Snape who was angry at the students who had told the truth, seeing the Slytherin girl in particular as having betrayed him and the House of Slytherin. The other was former Professor Slughorn who found Snape's utter lack of teaching and responsible supervision an insult to the title of professor. He looked like he wanted to put Snape through the kinds of punishment that Filch often threatened the students with.
After another hour the British addiction to tea came into play, and the assessment was put on hold for fifteen minutes to give everyone an opportunity to grab a cup of tea and to deal with the consequences of their previous fix. When they left the classroom, Charlus found Sirius was leaning against the opposite wall waiting for him, a serious expression on his face and a newspaper rolled up in his hands. "What's happened? Did the Grangers overreact?" Charlus asked, worried.
Sirius gave a half laugh at how wrong Charlus was. "Overreact? Definitely not, when Dan heard why Harry broke Snivellus's nose he shook the boy's hand, told him he did a good job, and invited him to a New Year's Eve party. He and Hermione are out shopping for it right now."
Charlus was still worried, but now he was also confused; if Hermione's parents had reacted well and Harry was okay, what could have gone wrong enough that Sirius needed to interrupt dealing with Snape? And speaking of Snape, he had been just behind Charlus as he walked out of the disused classroom and heard everything that Sirius had said.
"What! That spoiled brat breaks my nose and turns his wand on me and you're rewarding him by letting him go to a party!"
Sirius was tempted to throw the newspaper at Snape over calling Harry a spoiled brat and proving just how delusional Snape was about Harry, but decided against it because he knew that Harry definitely didn't want news of this getting out. After what Snape had done to Moony at the end of the last school year and how much of a vendetta the grease stain had with Harry, Sirius had no doubt it would be all over the school before the end of the day just for Snape's petty revenge. Instead he just looked straight at Snape and said, "Yep, considering he was defending a lady's honour I felt that Harry deserved a night dancing with said lady without you there to spoil it. Now beat it Snivellus, I actually have important business to discuss with my uncle."
Snape's hand twitched towards his wand for a split second before he turned and stormed off down the corridor, his robes billowing behind him as he went. "I can't believe he is still doing the feather light charm on his robes. The rest of us grew out of it in a year."
"I gave up on understanding fashion when Lily came to visit wearing trousers that were three times too wide below the knee." Charlus said.
"Bell bottoms, they were the height of muggle faction in the seventies," Sirius said as Charlus, with a nod of his head, led Sirius back into the classroom he had just left so that they could talk.
"They were a tripping hazard," Charlus grumbled, to which Sirius just laughed.
Snape's defence of his Mastery had turned out to be exactly what Charlus had expected. The grumpy Potions professor had set up four cauldrons and started prepping ingredients. He spent the next few days brewing four extremely difficult potions at the same time. It was one of the first tests potions masters did before they could start the process of gaining the title of Grand Master. Snape's plan was to try and get them to look solely on his skill as a brewer, and it was a good strategy as being an effective brewer was the core of what it meant to be a Potions Master. But it wasn't everything.
Charlus also couldn't help but smile. In Snape's haste to complete every task at the right time for every potion he was brewing, he had fallen back on his bad habits and hadn't used even one of the standard safety charms. This was a rookie mistake, not in brewing but in common sense. He was being reassessed on the grounds of ignoring safety protocols, and here he was making that exact mistake in front of the assessors.
Once they were inside with the door closed, Sirius just handed Charlus the newspaper and the old man winced when he read the headline. "Did Harry see this?" Charlus asked, even though he already knew the answer from Sirius's expression.
"Damn right he did. He was the first to see it and almost had a panic attack over everyone finding out about his life before Hogwarts. Luckily Hermione was there, she was able to stop him from freaking out too much and I'm pretty sure the reason she dragged him out shopping is to distract him from everything," Sirius told Charlus as he stood looking out the window at the Hogwarts grounds.
"Fuck! Harry was supposed to be here in the castle during all this, well away from everything," Charlus swore as he ripped the newspaper apart in frustration.
Sirius turned to face him. "You knew!? You knew what they did and you let them live. They kept him in a fucking cupboard and treated him like a Malfoy treats a house elf. I'll fucking kill them myself."
"Sirius, wait," Charlus ordered and Sirius obeyed. "First, don't think I knew about this for long. I only learned something was wrong a few weeks ago and I had to investigate. That wasn't quick. I kidnapped the two of them and shoved Veritaserum down their throats and got all this a few weeks ago. I also found they were charmed. It wasn't heavily, but they WERE charmed never to see Harry as family. Given that Harry's treatment was brought about by charms, I thought it might be too much to kill them. I couldn't take them to the DMLE without my kidnapping them coming out, so I removed the old one and put my own compulsion on them, pushing them to go to the muggle police, turn themselves in, and confess everything they had done." Charlus told Sirius.
"It's no were near enough," growled Sirius.
"Think about it, lad. Who put the compulsions on them in the first place?" Charlus demanded.
That stopped Sirius. "What…wait, you don't mean?" Sirius asked and Charlus gave him a nod. "The only ones who knew where Harry was were Dumbledore and McGonagall, so it must have been one of them. Minnie would never do anything like that so that just leaves…"
"Dumbledore, exactly. And now I have a paper trail that proves that Harry's home life was bad, and I have Ministry records proving that Dumbledore was the one to put him there. One sworn statement that I found a compulsion charm on the Dursleys will be all I need to spin a tale that has people asking some very hard questions of Dumbledore and get him kicked out of the school. And given everything that has happened to those three kids since they arrived here in September ninety-one, he needs to go. I don't know what is going on with Dumbledore, but he obviously isn't focused on protecting the school. Now, I want to make sure that someone I approve of is in possession to take control of the school before I act. It would be pointless to do all this only for a blood supremacist to take over. So you tell me, is that a good enough reason to leave those two pieces of human filth live?" Charlus let the hate and the loathing he was feeling fill his voice for the last sentence.
Sirius was taken aback at first but quickly thought through everything Charlus had said to him, and he now understood exactly what his uncle was planning and why. By the time he was finished thinking it through he only had one question for Charlus. "So what do you need me to do?"
"Good lad," said Charlus before explaining.
-ϟϟϟ-
Harry collapsed on the Grangers' sofa with a few bags of clothes at his feet. "Have fun?" Emma asked, eyeing the exhausted teen.
"Hermione has been lying to me all these years. She pretends to be all sweetness and nice, but in reality she is a dark and evil witch," Harry moaned. "She treated me like a dress up doll for hours. 'Try this on Harry,' 'How does this fit Harry?', 'that's not your colour Harry.' And she ignored my pleas for mercy."
Hermione returned from the kitchen carrying two large glasses of orange juice, handed one to Harry and sat down next to Harry on the sofa. "Oh don't act like such a baby, it was only a few stores," she huffed, causing the adults to laugh.
In all honesty, it hadn't been that bad of a trip. They had gone to a mundane bank so Hermione could withdraw some money from an ATM using a card her parents had given her, and then they had gone to Diagon Alley so that Harry could visit Gringotts before a few clothing shops. It was mentally draining more than anything else, because clothes Harry thought were perfectly fine for him hadn't met with Hermione's approval. In part it was because Harry was so used to wearing his cousin's cast-offs that regular fitting clothes felt uncomfortably tight and constricting by comparison.
Still, Harry was rewarded by Hermione modelling her outfits for him, and he was sure some of the outfits she had tried on were just to get him to blush. There was one with such a low neckline and short skirt that it bordered on indecent, but she had just struck a few poses for him asking his opinion before changing out of it and adding it to the discard pile. "So what did you get?" Emma asked, prompting Hermione to start going into detail about everything they had bought.
It was early evening before Sirius and Charlus turned up to collect Harry and invite the Grangers out to dinner as a sort of thank-you/apology for them suddenly having Harry for the day when they may have had other plans. They ended up taking a taxi to a mundane Italian restaurant that Dan and Emma recommended. By the end of the evening, when everyone had filled themselves with pasta, pizza, garlic bread, and tiramisu, they all were laughing and having a lot of fun. Sirius and Charlus both reassured Harry that they didn't think what was in the paper would reach the magical world and no one told him that his grandfather was the one behind it.
-ϟϟϟ-
Harry was seated in the living room of the Grangers' house, all dressed up and waiting for Hermione. It was New Year's Eve, and he and Dan were waiting for their ladies to finish getting themselves ready. Just like at the Yule Ball, the women took a lot longer to get ready, leaving the men waiting with very little to do. Dan had pulled a couple of beers from the fridge and handed one to Harry. If he was being honest, the beer wasn't all that enjoyable; it was bitter and he couldn't keep himself from pulling a face after trying his first sip. Dan had just chuckled at him before saying, "It's a bit of an acquired taste, but after a few sips the bitterness mellows out." Harry nodded and took another sip. Dan was right, it wasn't quite as strong the second time, but Harry still thought he would prefer something sweeter. "So Harry, how are things between you and my daughter?" Dan asked.
"Things are great. Why, did Hermione say they weren't?" Harry asked, worried that something was wrong or that Hermione was thinking about breaking up with him.
Seeing how his words were taken Dan quickly walked back what he had said. "No no, it's nothing like that. I'm just being a father and prying so that I can watch out for my little girl." Harry relaxed when Dan explained what he was doing, and he supposed that's exactly what a father might do. He was just taking a sip of his beer when Dan asked, "So are you sleeping together yet?"
Harry inhaled a little in shock at the question, and as he was drinking at the time it wasn't air that ended up on its way to his lungs. He immediately started coughing to clear his airway, and thanks to a fluke of evolution and the fact that beer is carbonated, a good portion of the beer ended up ejecting from Harry's nose.
Dan couldn't help laughing at the sight as he passed Harry a towel. "Sorry kid, I was expecting a spit take, not beer snot."
Harry took the towel and quickly wiped off his face. He wasn't bothered by Dan laughing; he was pretty sure he would have laughed if it was anyone but him. He took a few extra seconds wiping off his face to consider how he was going to answer the question. "I'm not going to answer." Dan raised a single eyebrow in surprise at Harry's answer but he continued. "It's not because I have anything to hide or be embarrassed about, but because I wouldn't want to violate Hermione's trust. If you want to ask anything about that type of thing, ask Hermione."
Dan was obviously surprised by Harry's answer, and honestly a little impressed. Not by the implications that the two teens had done something that was worth being secretive about, he suspected that anything that had done would be quite tame. No, he was impressed because Harry had looked him in the eye as he told him he wasn't going to violate his daughters trust, even though it was clear that he was incredibly nervous about the potential reaction. All Dan could do now was give him a nod and say, "Fair enough."
The two of them sat there in an awkward silence drinking their beers until the ladies came down the stairs fifteen minutes later. Emma was dressed up nicely, but Harry barely even noticed, his attention entirely drawn to Hermione. She was wearing a midnight blue cocktail dress, and Harry guessed that she must have used Sleekeazy's again because her hair was once more tied in an elegant knot that draped over her shoulder.
"Wow," was all Harry was able to say, which had the effect of making Hermione blush.
The New Year's party was just an excuse for a network of private dentists and their families to see each other and blow off a little steam. As was expected of this type of party, while the teens were invited and welcomed, the truth was most of the adults just wanted them to stay out of the way. Harry was introduced to most of the adults there and they all asked him and Hermione the polite questions that were expected of them, but soon the meet and greet part was over and Hermione led Harry to a corner of the room where all the other teens were congregating.
Hermione had known the other teens for years, as her parents had taken her to some function or other. She tried to introduce Harry to them, but a short girl who looked to be maybe a year older than Hermione (and either had a very bubbly personality or was suffering from one hell of a sugar rush) leaned in and half said, half squealed. "Ohh Herms, is this the tall, dark, and handsome you were telling me about at the start of summer?"
"Hey Bethany. Yes, this is Harry, my boyfriend." Hermione answered, blushing a little for the second time that night.
"Oh you sure can pick em, girl," Bethany said while looking Harry up and down. Hermione just rolled her eyes at the girl before introducing Harry to everyone. While the teens were mostly strangers, as even Hermione only saw each of them only two or maybe three times a year, it seemed to make it easier for Harry to cut loose a little and have some fun. Why hold back when, to these people, he wasn't the Boy-Who-Lived? He was just Harry, some random guy whom a girl they knew was dating.
As Hermione's dress didn't have pockets, she seemed to have decided pretty early on that Harry's pockets were fair game. It wasn't long before she had stashed her wallet and pack of mints in his jacket pocket. There was a buffet of food that they could help themselves from, but they had to buy any drinks from the bar, so Hermione was dipping in and out of his pockets all evening. There was a DJ playing music, and while Harry and Hermione weren't the first teens to get up and dance, they were probably the best. The two of them had had a few lessons in dancing the classics, and while it was true that very little of the stuff they had learned could be used in the more modern dancing, it did at least give them the confidence that they could move together. So as the time grew later, the two danced their way through at least forty, maybe even fifty songs.
At five minutes until midnight, everyone quickly moved outside. The dentists hadn't hired anyone to let off fireworks, but they were in London so there were plenty being let off by everyone else, and there was going to be an amazing view right where they were. Harry had needed to put his new suit jacket on Hermione to keep her warm. "Ten!" The first call went up from someone.
"Nine"! Harry joined in the count down
"Eight!" Hermione joined in
"Seven!" Pretty much everyone was counting down with them now
"Six!" Hermione quickly pulled a roll of mints that she had stashed in his pocket earlier and unrolled a few.
"Five!" Hermione slipped one of the mints into his mouth, surprising him a little and popped one in her own mouth.
"Four!" It only took Harry a second to realise why Hermione had given him the mint and he smiled at her as wide as he could manage.
"Three!" Harry pulled Hermione in close to him so that she was almost leaning on his chest
"Two!" He circled his arm around her waist, holding the girl who was smiling at him as close as he could
One." Harry didn't even wait for it to get to everyone shouting "Happy New Year!" Instead he leaned in and pressed his lips to Hermione's. As everyone else was shouting and singing 'Auld Lang Syne,' Hermione curled her arms around Harry's neck and pulled his head down towards her, encouraging him to kiss her deeper.
-ϟϟϟ-
It was past two in the morning when the London black cab pulled up outside the Grangers' house and the four of them climbed out, and it was even later by the time they were all inside and Harry and Hermione helped two rather drunk dentists up to bed. Not that they needed a lot of help, they were just a little too unsteady on their feet to risk climbing the stairs alone without worrying about coming back down to them the quick way.
Harry had just finished changing and getting into the guest bed at the Grangers when there was a soft knock at the door, which opened to reveal Hermione also ready for bed wearing a set of thick winter pyjamas. "Shove over, I'm sleeping in here tonight," she said, and Harry's brain pretty much shut down.
"Uh what about your parents?" he asked as Hermione sat on the side of the bed.
"They won't wake up for the rest of the night, Harry. And I want to cuddle." Hermione watched Harry, waiting to see if he was going to shift over or not.
"Just cuddling?" Harry asked, both cautiously but also with a little disappointment as he slid to one side making room for her.
"Just cuddling," Hermione confirmed as she pulled back the covers and got into bed next to her boyfriend. The two teens cuddled up together and got comfortable, and just as Harry was falling asleep Hermione said, "Night Harry, love you."
Harry was already half asleep but he answered, "Love you too Mione."