Wow…" Ginny breathed in awe, but her warm brown eyes still betrayed that she wasn't fully convinced of her innocence. Harry sighed. "Look at it this way Ginny. If I had been the one to be possessed by the diary, would you blame me?" "No, of course not!" Ginny looked horrified at the very thought of doing so. "Why? By your logic, even if I didn't know about the diary being a container of a memory of a sixteen year old Voldemort I would still be responsible." Harry pointed out, this time using one of Hermione's favourite tactics, browbeating the opposition with superior logic. Ginny's mouth flapped open and closed for a moment before she sighed and nodded in defeat. "Since when did you start channelling Hermione?" she grumbled good-naturedly. "I haven't been friends with her for just under two years without picking up some of her better traits." Harry replied with a grin, "Now, care to tell me why Gred and Forge are terrified of crossing you?" Ginny grinned shyly at him. "I may be small, but I'm a fairly powerful witch. They irritated me at the start of term and I hit Fred with a Tickling Charm. He had to go to the Hospital Wing to have it removed, George couldn't remove it for him." Harry raised an eyebrow. Rictusempra, the Tickling Charm, was a Second Year spell. How did Ginny know about it? "I pinched Ron's books at the Burrow and had a read of them." Ginny said, having correctly read Harry's questioning look. "Well, Ron wasn't reading them, so all the more power to you." Harry grinned at her, "How useless was Lockhart in your DADA classes by the way?" "He didn't unleash a swarm of pixies in our class, but he was chased around by a Doxy." Ginny grinned back. "Want me to teach you a few spells?" Harry offered, "I've been researching some of them for the last week, since Lockhart was a twit." "If…if it isn't a bother…" Ginny said shyly. "I wouldn't have offered if it was a bother." Harry reassured her and stood up. He moved to a small strip where there was no furniture and beckoned her over. "So then, the first spell I'm going to teach you is one I just hexed Malfoy with not long ago." he told her, "It's called the 'Curse of the Bogies'…" HPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHP At the same time… Gryffindor Common Room With Hermione… Hermione Granger was not happy. Her best friend Harry was being strong-armed into marrying three different witches simultaneously and every jot of evidence seemed to say, quite plainly, that no amount of protesting, procrastinating or predication would get him out of it. She had been delighted when Harry had handed her the self-updating law book, because it allowed her to sift through the entire thing for ways to get Harry out of his predicament. She knew that the Blood Purity angle would be next to useless, thanks to the Merlin Amendment, but she was certain that there had to be some way of escape clause or something. That had been at the start of her search. She had scoured the regular laws for any kind of solution and had come up totally blank. Now she was searching through the section on the ancient laws, thanking Merlin that she could speed-read, and hoping that she could find something to help Harry. 'It's been bugging me for a while, but why was the Bloodline Continuation Act invoked?' Hermione considered, 'Sure, Harry is technically Lord Slytherin right now, but the B.L.C.A. is all about bloodlines, not titles, so why did it activate?' She flicked through the pages until she found the B.L.C.A. pages. Running her finger down the numerous amendments that Merlin had tacked on to the law, Hermione's finger stopped at one particular one entitled 'the Founder's Amendment'. 'In the case that a witch, wizard or other magical human (except a squib or part-human) should defeat the descendent and rightful Heir of one of the Four Founders of Hogwarts thrice and invoke the Line and Lineage Conquering Act as a result, in addition to being the Heir Primus for two other Wizarding Houses of at least the rank of Noble and Ancient, it is decreed that the magical human in question is required to be subjected to this Act of Magical Law. Once the person holding the title passes on and the Founder's title returns to the original line, the new line is to be renamed to include both of the Patriarch/Matriarch's Noble House names. So it is written, so mote it be.' An additional note beneath the law noted that that particular Amendment was considered defunct as all but the line of Slytherin had been made extinct in the male name or died out completely before or after the first hundred years after the death of the last of the Founders, Godric Gryffindor. As of the 1930's, the House of Gaunt, Slytherin's last descendents, died out completely with the death of Morfin Gaunt in Azkaban. Hermione bit her lip almost hard enough to draw blood. This was it. This was the reason why Harry was being forced into the B.L.C.A., why his will was being ignored. It made the bushy-haired girl want to spit out more expletives than Ron had said in the last two years. 'I can't give up. Not when Harry's future could be altered by anything that I discover!' Hermione thought determinedly. She bent over the book with a stubborn set to her jaw, unwilling to yield to the inevitable. HPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHP Later that night… High-Security Wing, Azkaban Prison, Azkaban Island, North Sea The stone cell was filthy with the muck of untold decades, the walls and floor caked in dirt, grease and dust. The only furnishing within the cell was an equally filthy, threadbare mattress laid upon a rusty bed frame, with a thin blanket serving as a duvet. Huddled beneath the bed was a large black dog that had seen better days. Its fur was matted in places and you could see its ribs sticking out from under its skin.
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