This Harry Potter story was written for fun. All rights belong to the wonderful lady (JK Rowling) who gave the world Harry Potter to read and enjoy.
Scared by the power of new goblin wards, Ogden Standish tries to make much of the threat of wards and the mystery of 'toads' in Dumbledore's office. When he demands the ministry act against the goblins and Dumbledore endorses the idea, Harry makes the two old wizards look foolish.
There are many meetings in Gringotts as the summer ends and the Department of Mysteries begins to ask questions about Tom Riddle and last summer's fires. And Draco Malfoy takes his father's ramblings to heart.
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Chapter 40 Wards, Dragons, and Toads*(+++++)*
SCENE New Wards Around GringottsThe Daily Prophet made much of the Gringotts press release announcing the new, improved wards that the bank would sell and install for any witch or wizard with sufficient galleons. The goblins refused to reveal the process or spells that were used to create the wards but they invited anyone with interest to come to the bank and 'experience' them.
In the week following the announcement, many ministry officials did visit the bank for personal business or to test the new wards. Several wizards and witches who claimed to be 'light' found the wards to be very uncomfortable and escaped Gringotts as quickly as possible. Wizards who wore the dark mark found it possible to enter the bank only when they were seeking funds from their vaults or planned to conduct honest business.
Discussions at the Ministry about obtaining these wards for the ministry building were heated with more than a few wizards pointing out that government might come to a halt if enough wizards were unable to come to the office and the Wizengamot.
Standish Ogden snarled, "You're fooling no one if you think that the Ministry can function without some dark deals every day!"
SCENE "Kill the Dragons! Kill the Goblins!"The wizards who were 'uncomfortable' behind the new wards began a campaign of whispers across the floo and in person to create support in the ministry to demand that the goblins take down these powerful protections around the bank. And Standish worked harder than any other wizard to make everything a plot by the goblins against wizards.
It was just a week before the beginning of another year at Hogwarts when Dumbledore appeared in the Wizengamot with a terrarium housing two large and ugly toads.
Rising to speak, Standish Ogden pointed at the terrarium and claimed that the goblins had used their dragons to transform wizards into toads practicing how to take over the whole of Magical Britain.
"I demand that the Ministry force Gringotts to kill these nasty dragons that are lurking underneath the bank!"
In rebuttal, the ministry's official liaison with the goblins rose to explain that Gringotts was by treaty a separate realm of sorts within Britain and only answered to the Muggle Queen.
"You're just a dirty filthy mudblood yourself!" Ogden screamed out. "You want to see the purebloods killed by the goblins!"
When Minister Diggory rose to response, Ogden continued venting, "And Diggory is a secret muggleborn too!"
The chief warlock, Daniel Greengrass forced silence on the Wizengamot and forced Standish Ogden to remain in his chair or be expelled from the chamber for the remainder of the day.
Albus Dumbledore rose to speak and was recognized. In his carefully crafted sentences that followed Ogden's diatribe, Dumbledore sounded reasonable in his demands that Harry Potter be brought before this chamber to explain how the two toads came to be transfigured and sent to the headmaster.
"We need a reasonable explanation of this new, terrible goblin magic that has deprived Britain… that has captured these two wizards in the shape of toads," Dumbledore said in conclusion.
And so, a polite but formal request was sent to Chief Ragnock at Gringotts Bank that Harry Potter make himself available for questioning by the Wizengamot immediately. Per the treaties between the Ministry and Gringotts, there was no reason to delay the request so Harry was summoned from the 'nursery'.
Within fifteen minutes, Harry Potter, Felicity, Ironstream and a dozen goblin guards used a portkey to appear in the atrium of the Ministry. Ministry workers scurried out of the way as Aurors appeared to escort the boy-who-lived into the Wizengamot chamber.
Before Dumbledore could take command of the situation, Amelia Bones stepped into the centre of the stage, and directed the Aurors to step back while Ironstream directed the goblins to maintain their positions around Harry and Felicity.
Chief Warlock Greengrass thanked Ironstream for bringing Harry Potter to the chamber and then verbally recognized Felicity as the witch who was Mr Potter's guardian. With her permission, he explained the concern of members of the Wizengamot that the two wizards were permanently transfigured as toads.
"The goblins did something terrible!" Dumbledore announced without permission to speak. "This is unknown magic that can't be dispelled!"
"For Merlin's sake…" shouted Harry Potter who walked into the well and bowed to the Chief Warlock. "Lord Greengrass, as the Headmaster well remembers, the first spell I was taught was finite incantatem to dispel the compulsion spells he keeps casting on everyone."
Then Harry looked at Standish Ogden and said, "Sir, I hope you've been checked not to be under compulsion to aide Dumbledore."
"What?" replied the old wizard in surprize. Standish turned toward at Dumbledore ready to unleash his rage on a new target.
"I believe the headmaster is losing his magic," Harry continued. "Allow me."
With a simple flick of his magic wand, the boy-who-lived cast finite incantatem on the terrarium. With bright white light, both toads transformed back into wizards; as they enlarged, they filled the glass case, tipped it over and everything fell to the floor of the Wizengamot.
"How is this possible?" demanded Standish Ogden.
Harry shrugged, a very muggle-like gesture, before he said, "I guess I should have put 'em on the floor…"
Dumbledore approached the boy his hand out, "Give me your wand! What secret spells did you cast?"
Backing away from the headmaster, Harry said, "No! You always want to get your hands on my wand but no wizard is supposed to allow that!"
"Give me the bloody wand!" Dumbledore commanded taking a step closer to Harry as he brandished his funny wand. Before Dumbledore could do something foolish, Felicity pushed her way through the goblins.
Only a foot from Dumbledore's face, she shouted, "Don't touch Harry!"
While Dumbledore frowned, he did back up and Director Bones placed herself between Albus and the boy while Aurors helped the two transformed men back to their feet. Felicity came to Harry's side and placed an arm around his shoulders. Her wand was in her hand and pointed directly at Albus Dumbledore.
"Are you sure you won't transfer to Beauxbatons?" she asked loudly enough for everyone in the Wizengamot to hear.
"Headmaster, no one ever asks to hold another witch's wand unless that person is an Auror investigating a crime."
Then Bones asked, "Do you think Mr Potter committed a crime?"
"Someone imprisoned these two wizards for a month as toads! The boy sent them to me with a cheeky note at the end of July," Dumbledore complained.
"And what did you do?" Bones inquired.
"I tried to dispel the magic multiple times but it was too strong," Dumbledore replied.
"And how many days did you attempt this magic? Did you consult with others?
"No, I had other engagements."
"You mean you had vacation plans and left two wizards as toads while you rested in Majorca… or was it Shangri-La this year?" Bones explained to the members of the Wizengamot in the chamber.
"And then suddenly, just before the begin of the new school year, you and Mr Ogden decide to make this an issue for the Wizengamot."
"My vacation doesn't signify…"
"Possibly, but I am surprized that upon your return yesterday, the condition of these two 'toads' suddenly became a major concern of yours, warranting the gathering of the entire Wizengamot!"
Standish Ogden chose that moment to shout, "The boy is being taught dark magic in the caverns underneath Gringotts! He must be saved from the goblins."
Bones turned to Harry and asked, "Mr Potter, have you been learning any Dark Magic this summer?"
"No ma'am. I have studied potions for healing, arithmancy and maths, transfiguration, and charms. We went to see the Royal Navy ships at Plymouth, went on picnics, and I got to fly a lot."
Bones glanced around at the chamber, the members were either bored or smiling to hear the boy-who-lived tell about a pleasant summer. "And it appears your transfiguration lessons have been very successful if you're able to turn two wizards into toads."
Harry frowned and explained, "They came to Gringotts and tried to kidnap my familiar."
"What?" asked several other wizards. "Gringotts?"
"How do you know this?" Bones asked the boy.
"My account manager and Felicity questioned them," Harry replied. "Dumbledore sent them."
"I never did any such thing!" denied the headmaster.
"Then why did Shacklebolt leave his DMLE cloak behind when the owls threw him out of the owl tower?" asked Harry. "The owls like it and won't return it. I asked…"
"What?" asked Bones. "His cloak?"
"What did you do, Dumbledore?" asked Chief Warlock Greengrass.
"I didn't…"
"Yes, you did!" shouted Dedalus Diggle, as Elphias Doge nodded his head. "Dumbledore sent us with Arthur Weasley and Roger Mortimer to get Shack into the bank under his invisibility cloak to get hold of Potter's owl."
"You were told by Albus Dumbledore to…"
Dumbledore had his wand up and trying to cast a spell but Bones grabbed the old wizard's arm, plucked the wand from his hand, and pushed Dumbledore to the floor.
"Put him in restraints," Bones ordered an Auror who hesitated for less than a second to follow the orders.
Kingsley Shacklebolt was standing with the other Aurors when Bones turned on him, her wand in her hand. "What did this wizard order you to do?"
Shacklebolt had managed to hide the loss of the cloak until now but realized his 'goose was cooked' so he confessed, "Albus Dumbledore needed some hostage to force Potter to bend to his will. Someone that would make the boy obey his orders… to kiss Dumbledore's… feet. He couldn't touch any of the students and had to settle for the owl familiar."
"I was to stupefy the owl and bring her Hogwarts," the Auror said as Harry Potter growled as he'd heard Remus do from time to time.
"Put him in a holding cell, take his wand and everything that identifies him as an Auror!" Bones ordered as more Aurors appeared and led Kingsley Shacklebolt away.
"But the boy's using dark goblin magic!" Standish shouted. "How else did he turn Diggle and Doge into toads that Dumbledore couldn't undo?"
Bones asked, "Mr Potter, may I see your wand to determine what spells you cast this summer?"
Glancing up at Felicity, who frowned but nodded, Harry offered Amelia Bones his wand. She was the first person to touch it other than Harry since Ironstream checked it the year before.
The director of the DMLE spoke as she cast a standard revealing spell, "For the record, Mr Potter cast a simple finite incantatem to release the transfigured wizards, Doge and Diggle. The other spells include transfiguration and charms exercises that any magical child behind wards would have been practicing this summer."
She handed the wand back to Harry and asked, "I didn't see any DADA spells here. What would Professor Moody say about you slacking off this summer?"
Harry smiled and said, "When Susie visits the bank, we've have lessons in defence with Professor Moody."
Her eyebrows shooting upwards, Bones managed to close her mouth before turning back to Dumbledore and shaking her head.
"Headmaster Dumbledore, I highly recommend that you go to St. Mungo's and have a complete physical examination. Mr Potter was able to dispel the transfiguration that held your 'toads' in their terrarium for the last month with a simple finite incantatem. If your core is wearing out…"
"My magical core is fine!" Dumbledore said. "Ogden is correct! They're teaching the boy dark magic at Gringotts! It's the dragons!"
"Kill the dragons!" shouted Ogden. "Kill the goblins!"
Truly fearing for the lives of his brothers and sisters, Harry Potter gripped his wand tightly and reviewed the spells he knew would blast that old man into the benches behind him hard enough to break his bones while Felicity tightened her grip on her ward.
"Don't do anything," she whispered. "You know that nothing and no one can make it to the nursery! And the elves will pop them to the island if they must hide!"
Harry's eyes promised the old wizard pain and Standish Ogden fell silent seeing the power flashing in the green eyes that suddenly reminded him of his dead daughter's bright eyes.
"Silence!" ordered Chief Warlock Greengrass and there were no more voices or noises heard in the chamber of the Wizengamot. He considered his options but then decided to take decisive action.
"As Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, I do hereby name Standish Ogden and Albus Dumbledore as agitators in this chamber. I order them to be ejected and not allowed to return to the Wizengamot until there is a unanimous vote by all remaining members to readmit them."
"You can't do this to me!" Dumbledore exclaims. "We have to approve the Hogwarts budget tomorrow!"
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SCENE: Gringotts MeetingsThere were several meetings that occurred in Gringotts as the summer holidays came to an end.
First, Bill Weasley returned from his year of 'exile' in Iceland with excellent performance reports with his use of and improvement of cave banishment charms to enlarge existing caverns. His boss, Sowsbreath, met him and provided him with a charmed ring that would deflect any compulsion back upon the caster but make them turn different colours.
"Who ever attempts to cast the compulsion will spend the next twenty-four hours red, or blue, or green… maybe striped," Sowsbreath told the curse-breaker. "This is new so make certain you accurately report how well it works."
"Thanks Boss," Bill said. "What's my next assignment?"
Pleased at the young wizard's work ethic, Sowsbreath said, "You can take up to two weeks off now and then head for a promising dig in Italy. We think we've found the tomb of an Etruscan king-wizard and there'll be prizes buried there for certain."
"The Romans would have given anything to have found that tomb," Bill remarked. "Let me have a day or two to check on my family. The kids are headed to school on the first and I can leave that same day."
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In another office, while waiting for Sowsbreath, Severus Snape met with Jasper Hewitt, and his boss, Andrew Lovett from MI-5. The potion master's first summer with a muggle chemistry lab and a fully stocked wizarding potions lab was promising for developing muggle versions of three magical potions; hangover cure, hair relaxer, and tooth decay restoration. They were three simple potions and the process for muggle duplication would give them a process for future development of other, more difficult potions.
"Have the apprentices proven to be good men and women?" asked Hewitt.
Snape didn't sneer but merely inclined his head and replied, "I expect to see substantial progress from them when I meet with them at Christmas."
Lovett kept his face neutral but his thoughts were, 'That's high praise from Severus Snape. He'll wonder what training the muggleborn were provided after leaving Hogwarts and begin to implement the scientific method in his classes. Win-Win for everyone.'
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Ironstream looked up from his desk as a wizard was escorted into his office; Gilderoy Lockhart was always overdressed for any occasion with enough makeup to boost profits at Miss Puttyroots Shoppe of Beauty for a quarter.
"And what can I do for you, Mr Lockhart?" Ironstream asked as he ignored the man's nervous tick.
"I need your help, Ironstone," Lockhart replied.
Looking up from his paperwork, the goblin frowned, but replied, "Ironstream."
"Sorry?" asked the flustered Lockhart.
"My name is Ironstream. Ironstone was the name of my great-grandfather who helped dig this cavern from the rock underneath London, almost five centuries ago."
"My apologies sir, I was going off the top name on the side of the door…"
"What can I do for you Mr Lockhart?"
"As I said, I need your help."
Ironstream lay aside his brio (he loved the muggle equivalents of a hundred quills for the cost of a single, cheap quill).
"Mr Lockhart, you are trying my patience! How can I help you today?"
"I need to vanish from London, from Magical Britain… today."
"But I thought you were beginning a year as the DADA professor at Hogwarts on the first?"
"There are other considerations…"
Ironstream's eyebrows rose to considerable heights as Lockhart revealed a most unfortunate series of events that made him the target of two angry families.
"And which lovely lady will be making the trip with you?' Ironstream asked as he reviewed the list of Lockhart's assets that could be easily liquidated to provide ready cash.
"I… I believe I must flee to safety by myself and contact them again… in a few years."
Ironstream tapped his fingers on the parchment for a moment and made the 'faux-author' a decent amount of galleons for the global copyright for all his titles.
"But what am I to do for money later?" the wizard asked.
Ironstream smiled and said, "Why, you must write more books. Perhaps you could write books for witches that detail your many conquests… your beauty secrets and your secrets for keeping the witches at your beck and call."
And so, Gilderoy Lockhart fled Britain before the heads of two powerful Wizengamot families could file lawsuits for attempted line theft. The fact that neither young witch had actually met Lockhart, been seduced, or sent him tear-stained letters asking him to come for her, was never known to Lockhart. The witch who portrayed both young girls was a consummate actress using Polyjuice.
Ironstream had been unable to insert another 'minder' into Hogwarts and he hesitated to allow Harry another year without proper supervision under Dumbledore's control. Lockhart's manufactured reputation as a 'seducer of innocent witches' was totally fiction as far as anyone at Gringotts could discover. For two young witches, just out of Hogwarts, to throw themselves at him had gone to the fop's head for certain.
The threat of fatherhood and time in Azkaban sent the author seeking an escape. As an added bonus, Ironstream was able to acquire rights to the "Boy-Who-Lived" books that would be pulled from store shelves as of this evening. As Lockhart signed away his rights to the books of his adventures (and his Harry Potter fiction), Ironstream remembered the actress declining any bonus pay.
"It was extremely quick and short work… in every way," she explained.
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SCENE: Hogwarts Headmaster's OfficeAfter crumbling up and throwing the letter from Lockhart across the room, Albus Dumbledore held his head in his hands. This summer was one continuous problem without a single success, and now, at the last possible moment, he'd lost the DADA professor who would bring good press to the school (without outshining him).
If he went to Bones, she'd send Moody again and there'd be arguments, reports… a repeat of the previous year. Good test scores weren't worth the hassle of a nosey DMLE.
'Who can I get that I can reasonably control?' Albus wondered. He looked up, wishing for the hundredth time that he still had 'his' pensieve with all the memories of years of students. Looking at his recent rosters – Severus had wanted the position from time to time but trying to replace a professor for potions would be worse than trying to find a new defence professor.
'Lupin! Remus Lupin!' Dumbledore smiled as he wrote a quick note, called Fawkes – the flighty bird actually appeared – to deliver the message.
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Sitting on the sofa in Felicity's quarters, Remus and Harry argued about the purpose of the extra flick of the wand at the end of the Wingardium Leviosa charm. Suddenly Hedwig hooted from her perch in the corner and all six Potter elves popped into the room just as a fireball appeared and transformed into Fawkes. The phoenix deposited a letter in Lupin's hand before gliding over to sit on the back of chair and begin a conversation with Hedwig.
The door opened as Felicity returned from her work day as a healer and asked, "Harry, why is there a phoenix in our lounge?"
"Fawkes brought me a letter," Remus said as he rose to cross the room and kiss the healer on the lips for just a moment.
"Blind! I'm going blind!" teased Harry as his guardian and her boyfriend both blushed. He rose from the sofa to bring Fawkes a handful of grapes from the cooling cabinet.
"A letter? From Hogwarts?" Felicity asked as Harry fed the phoenix under his owl's watchful eye.
Remus smiled as he said, "It appears that Albus Dumbledore finds himself with a spoiled potion still in the cauldron. The day before the new school year, he's lost Gilderoy Lockhart as the Defence Professor and is offering me the position for the whole of the school year."
"The whole year at Hogwarts?" Felicity asked, almost peevishly. "I won't get to see you except for Hogsmeade weekends then."
"You could marry me and we'd have married housing at the school!"
"No!" shouted Harry. "No! No! No!"
"You'd still live in the dorm," Remus told the boy and Hedwig ruffled her feathers as she hooted at her boy. He frowned and fell silent.
"I'm not ready yet, Remus. Ask me again at Christmas," Felicity said as she hugged him. "And next time, let's do this privately please!"
She hugged Harry and hurried to her room to change. It was Harry's last night in London – and apparently Remus's too. When she'd changed and returned to the lounge, Remus had signed the contract and handed it back to Fawkes to deliver. She vanished in a ball of fire, and Hedwig flew out to find her friends to hunt across the city for rats for supper.
"So, where are we going for supper?" Remus asked.
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SCENE: Malfoy Manor'Where is Father this morning?' the boy wondered as he ate breakfast alone. His mother remained within her chambers again this morning. The Daily Prophet lay beside his father's empty plate and Draco knew not to touch it.
Draco spent the summer thinking about his father's stories; stories about the Lord Voldemort, the most powerful dark lord who ever lived. Listening closely to his father's ramblings the young wizard learned that the Dark Lord gathered followers after taking a new name made up of letters rearranged from his birth name.
'I am going to be a great Dark Lord to please Father!' Draco decided. 'And I need to create a new name…'
The boy quickly rearranged his first name to 'Codra' and he thought, 'I like the sound of that… Dark Lord Codra.'
Bu then he ran into problems with Malfoy; he tried several different combinations; 'Foylam… Flamoy… Lamyuf… Almyof.'
'Codra is good enough,' Draco decided. 'Dark Lord Codra!'
He struck several poses in front of the mirror and decided, 'I must hide until I have followers and power.'
Draco summoned the house elf Dobby to help him with a a robe.
"I need something with a hood to hide my face," he told the elf. "Can't you see it, Dobby? In the Great Hall at Hogwarts, I'll walk in with the hood over my head and then, at the perfect time, I throw back the hood and announce 'I am Dark Lord Codra! Fear me!' They'll all fear me before Halloween!"
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SCENE: Department of MysteriesUnspeakable #17 studied the information in front of her again, her thoughts attempting to collate the data.
'There were four mysterious fires on the same day and two of the locations were homes of Deatheaters… All Deatheaters and even the Dark Lord supposedly attended Hogwarts… who was he at Hogwarts?' she wondered.
A long search into the background of the Dark Lord led Unspeakable #17 to a student named Tom Marvolo Riddle who disappeared just after the end of the Wizards War. She connected the name Marvolo to a degenerated family named 'Gaunt' in the same English town as the 'Riddle' family where the third magical fire destroyed the deserted manor house.
When she read the reports written by Aurors after the fires were extinguished, she discovered that the fire originated in the woods and spread to the manor house. In fact, the muggles extinguished the fire without any help from magical officials, another fact that the department would have to investigate – effective muggle methods for fire suppression couldn't be discounted.
A further search among local, faded, tax records proved the thicket where the fire originated belonged to the Gaunt family before being deserted in the 1940s.
She postulated to her colleagues that Lord Voldemort had actually been the son of a woman from the Gaunt line and a muggle squire named Tom Riddle who died along with his parents very mysteriously in the early 40's. Her research showed their deaths were blamed on the last Gaunt wizard who was sent to Azkaban for his crime of killing three muggles with the killing curse; records showed the wizard died in the late 40's.
"The title he gave himself, 'I am Lord Voldemort' was simply the rearrangement of the letters in his birth name Tom Marvolo Riddle," she explained.
"And with all this circumstantial evidence, what is your conclusion?" asked Unspeakable #5.
"Lord 'Moldie' made some sort of container to tie his soul to this existence; in fact, I think he made multiple containers,' explained Unspeakable #17. "When he was 'killed' on 31 October 1981, the wraith of his soul was thrown out into the world. On 1 August of last year, he attempted some sort of ritual to return but botched it. While he fought off death, he pulled the magic from his different containers and each of them ignited, starting the fires in Wiltshire, London, Northern England, and Hogwarts."
"Make an inquiry among the researchers at Gringotts," directed Unspeakable #5. "Share information with them and ask for their observations from 1 August 1991."
"I want something solid before we begin questioning Mr Malfoy and Albus Dumbledore."
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