Chapter Eight
Chapter Eight
He saw one of the twins lean out of an open upstairs window. “Harry!” He leaned back in to yell, “George, it’s Harry, let him in will you?” A moment passed, then there was the scuffle of things being moved, and the door opened to reveal a shop engaged in the chaos of packing, towers of boxes everywhere he looked. Several half packed ones appeared to have been shoved aside to allow the door to open inward. George looked exhausted, with dark circles under his eyes, and Fred didn’t look much better when he trotted down the stairs and joined them. Harry closed the door behind himself. The twins temporarily transfigured a mop, broom, and bucket into chairs, offering one to Harry as they sank onto them. They all leaned back and looked a bit sadly at each other.
“How’s it been going for you two?” Harry asked. “It looks like you’ve been at it all night.” They looked even more shattered once they’d stopped moving, and Harry abruptly worried for his friends. Usually, they thrived on chaos; They evaluated, made a plan, generally completely on the fly, then acted, unworried about potential disaster and finding a bit of fun even in times of stress. He hadn’t given it any thought, but he would have expected to see them excited and near boiling over with ideas, not this. Harry didn’t mean to deny the situation was grave, and the time limit was demanding, but what he saw in their faces wasn’t in character.
“Family drama,” Fred said, trying to wave it off.
George huffed, and expanded “Mum’s flipped her wig, demanding we just abandon the shop to help pack up at home, then wanted us to front up to Dumbledore and run his errands.” Fred grimaced at that. “It’s like we have nothing else we’re responsible for that doesn’t revolve around what she wants and needs. She can’t get her head around we have a business that’s our future. We absolutely want to support the family, but she’s got Dad, Bill, Ron and Ginny all dancing to her tune right now, and we have things that need to be done, too.” Harry internally winced, thinking that no, she most definitely didn’t have Ron, dancing or otherwise. “She keeps going on and on about Percy doing more than his share, and yeah, he’s definitely running flat out, but our lives include more than just the Burrow.”
Fred chimed in, “Besides, the last thing in the world either of us want is to be at Dumbledore’s beck and call.” Harry was startled and blinked a couple of times at that.
“I never knew you guys had a problem with him,” he said. “What’s the issue?”
“More like what isn’t the issue, Harrikins. He’s Cornelieus Fudge all over again, only smarter and a bit less easy to bribe. I will never understand why more people can’t see that he’s a manipulative, self important old man who doesn’t have ‘The Greater Good’ in mind at all. If a plan doesn’t feed his ego in some way, it’s clearly an evil practice and must be stamped out. I don’t know if you ever knew, but there used to be a bunch more elective classes at Hogwarts. Ever since he became headmaster, back when Merlin roamed the earth and Sanskrit was still in use, that number has dropped; we checked the records. Career counselling used to include dozens of people stopping in to talk about their jobs and provide guidance. All that’s gone, Charlie only remembers a ministry employee dropping by for a dry as dirt lecture, we didn’t even get that. He said nobody ever told them what non-mainstream careers were out there, he only found out he could get a job at the reserves by chance. Newt scores are down by 23% from fifty years ago. He’d dumbing down Britain, and we don’t know if it’s on purpose or just a happy benefit for him.” Fred sounded bitter and resigned. “Most of Britain’s just like mum, thinking the sun shines out his arse and if he said it, it must be true.”
Harry tensed in his chair, frowning. He was surprised at the drop in test scores, wouldn’t the professors have been all over that? Maybe it was gradual enough that they never realized? Well, not his problem. Except that they were going to be bringing a school. Yeah, so now it pretty much was their problem. Oh, wait, no, happy thought, it was Remus’s problem! But still, he made a mental note to ask for a critical thinking course at some future point. Moving on. He eyed the twins, wondering if just maybe…would the twins be interested? He didn’t know if a joke shop would be a viable option, as they hadn’t yet figured out where they were going, and Harry wasn’t interested in any place overly populated. Would they leave their family behind? Because Harry was not at all happy at the thought of Molly or Ginevra Weasley disturbing his peace and attempting to organize his life. Ginny was still writing Ginevra M. Potter in her doodles, and he’d felt the need to learn how to detect love potions in his tea. He shuddered at the thought. Percy was Percy, and Harry had never really known him other than as prefect or head boy. Bill was nice enough, though he’d never talked to him much, and Charlie was really interesting to talk to, full of energy and stories, the few times they’d been in conversation. The twins had always looked out for everybody and pranked into insensibility anyone known for being a bully. ‘Course, those usually wound up being Slytherins, but it was the thought that counted. Fuck it, he’d offer. They deserved the chance, too.
Harry coughed to get their attention. “So, if you had a different option, that maybe wasn’t completely thought out, or really at all, and that really, is full of kind of unbelievable things that pretty much just happened because people don’t know when to …” he trailed off at the amused looks he was in receipt of. “Um. So, Neville and I, Remus Lupin, my godfather Sirius Black, thirteen house elves, oh and I guess Magical Menagerie and …” He stopped and tried again. “There’s a bunch of us going somewhere else. We don’t know where, haven’t decided yet, but we know we can make it happen. Want to come?” He coughed again, “But um… I don’t wanna split up your family and all, but I’m thinking your Mum would say no or if she did she’d be kind of worse than now, and I really don’t want to encourage Ginny, so-“ Harry was unable to control his unfortunate case of motor mouth until George reached over and stuck his finger on his lips.
“Stop.” Harry kept his smushed lips closed. You, Neville, Sirius and Remus are going somewhere Dumbledore is not, yes or no.” Harry nodded yes. “You have thirteen house elves going with you, yes or no.” Harry nodded yes. “You don’t know where you’re going, but you’re certain you can get there, yes or no.” Again, he nodded. “You would like Fred and I to go with you, yes or no.” And Harry gave a slow nod, eyes fixed on George. “You would prefer Ma and Ginny not go, but is it a deal breaker?” Harry winced but shook his head. George removed his finger and said “Give us a minute,” and he and Fred moved to the back of the store, already in conversation.
Harry rocked his chair back and forth, chewing on his lip and watching Fred and George go back and forth, unable to hear beyond a low murmur. He did catch Bill, Charlie and Ron’s names, but nothing to give context. Minutes passed, with Harry imagining one scenario after another, when the conversation stopped, and the twins returned to their chairs.
Fred began, “We’re interested, and we want to say yes, but we need to talk to Bill first, to see what he thinks. Honestly, we think you’re right and Mum will say no, and there’s no way she’d allow Dad to say yes, either. I know Ron’s your friend,” Harry’s eye gave an involuntary twitch at that, “but Ma’s got Ron and Ginny tied up in apron strings way too tight, and nobody’s heard from Charlie yet.” Worry crossed his face at Charlie’s name. “We don’t know if Bill would want to go, and we think Charlie would probably jump at it, even if he can’t bring his dragons, but we want to talk to Bill. He’ll keep it to himself if we ask him to,” Fred finished.
Harry nodded in agreement with their plans. It would have been hard for them to just fall in with it; their family ties were strong, even if not in all directions. “I’ll likely be in the Room of Requirement at Hogwarts this afternoon, maybe bouncing in and out, but Taddy, one of our elves, will certainly be there and can let you in. Seventh floor, opposite the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy.” He looked around. “Do you guys need help packing? ‘Cause I know this really great spell…”
Harry first asked the twins if they owned the building; he didn’t want to leave them temporarily homeless if they shrunk the shop with all their stuff in it. They looked at him, puzzled and concerned, and George said “No, you do. We bought it with the Tri-Wizard cash you gave us and put it in your name. We’ve been paying you rent for a few years now.”
Harry just sighed. “Dumbledore and his interference in my mail, yet again,” he said resignedly. “Fortunately, that’s not going to be a problem anymore.”
Harry thoroughly delighted the twins when he taught them the Pack! Spell, making sure he didn’t trigger the spell himself while doing so. They looked at their seven closed and locked trunks, and the three boxes that apparently hadn’t fit in amazement. “Harry, where have you been all our lives?” they asked in concert.
Harry laughed and headed for the door. “Oh, and you’re going to get that rent money back,” he said, stepping out before they could argue. He smiled as he moved a mental galleon from column A to column B, paying himself for the building.
He used the Leaky to floo back to Hogwarts, hiding in the incoming crowd that was thick and heavy, moving in ponderous steps, as he darted for the stairs, hearing conversations in multiple languages behind him. He was glad that at least some portion of the wizarding world outside the UK had made it. He did his best to remain unidentified, he did not want to deal with Dumbledore, or any other well meaning but annoying interference. He’d already mentally separated himself from the main group, and wanted to focus on Clueless’ wants and needs. He had an absent thought about what else he might own that he didn’t know about?
He walked back into the room, throwing himself into his desk chair. “Okay, what did I miss?” he asked.
*-*-*-*-*-
Remus brought Harry up to speed on the fact that somehow, Remus owned Hogwarts. Harry tried, he really did, but gave up trying to follow the family tree, with its convoluted intermarriages of the Slytherin line and the Hufflepuff line, which somehow also included a squib descendant of Gryffindor who’d all but adopted him into the family, and the descendant of a second cousin by marriage of the last of the Ravenclaw line. He threw up mental hands and decided that if Hogwarts thought Remus owned her, that was probably good enough for the Pack! spell to be going on with. He sat and considered this for a bit, opening his mouth to ask a question, then closing it before doing so. He repeated this a few times. Remus owned a school. Remus owned THE school. He finally asked Remus, “Is it still a school if it gets stripped of everything? Because we kind of might want to prevent that. I mean, I’m all for the refugees taking the perishables and such, but I can’t see they’d have an overriding need for the school supplies here, when there should be plenty of businesses packed up and able to supply them on the other side until they’re able to stabilize themselves, right? Oh, and the twins are maybe gonna come, too.”
Remus paused at the non-sequitur, then mentally shrugged. It was Harry, after all. “They’d be welcome, and I hope they do; they have unique ways of looking at magic. I used to set their defence essays aside for later reading when I could take time to follow their logic. They were fascinating.” He briefly gathered his thoughts to return to the school, “Back to the first point, can we prevent the school being looted? Hat, are there any options Hogwarts can enact, or is this on us?”
Hat hummed a moment, communicating with Hogwarts. “She’s able to lock doors and such, and now that Headmaster Lupin been awarded ownership,” Harry choked at Remus’s new title, and Remus went pale in shock. He gave a quiet hrmph at that, he still didn’t completely buy the story but would roll with the result, “she’s free to disobey the former headmaster if she chooses. I wouldn’t recommend making a pitched battle of it, not unless it concerns the library, but I expect with the elves’ help, we can be sneaky in other ways. If several of the elves could visit the main classrooms and storerooms, moving furniture and supplies to unused parts of the castle, we could give the impression those supplies were already gathered rather than missing. Especially in the case of the storerooms.”
Six elves stepped forward, saying they had worked at Hogwarts before and knew where to go. They promptly popped out.
Hat went on, “For the Library, Hogwarts could lock the doors, and if you like, she could assign armor guardians, but that would certainly indicate something was afoot.”
Remus grinned. “And this is where Marauder skills come into their own.” He turned to Deesy. “Deesy, could you get me a largish sheet of parchment, a brush and some ink?” He gave Harry a wink, waiting with a sunny smile until Deesy popped back in with the requested items. Cheerfully humming to himself, he painted a quick sign, drying it with his wand. “Hat, please have Hogwarts lock the library doors in five minutes. Deesy, could you please pop to the library and let anyone inside know that the library will be closing in a few minutes, and all books are to be set down so they can be packed up. Once everyone is out, please stick this to the outside of the door.” He handed Deesy a sign that read “Library in process of being readied for packing, books will be available after the evacuation is complete”. He explained, “If you show people something they expect, they’ll move on, going about their business without asking questions. Everyone will think someone else ordered the books packed up and brush it off as not their concern, it’s been handled. And we didn’t even have to lie.”
Harry, Taddy, and Hat both laughed along with Remus, Deesy, too, giggled as she left.
They finally sobered. “Alright, I guess we’ve put off reality long enough, we really need to get back to work on our boards, and then seriously buckle down on our supplies issues,” Harry reminded them. He walked over and pulled Board #1, Board #2 and Board #4 forward, from where they’d been edged back to the wall, deliberately not looking at board #3.
Board #1
- Where
How- Who
- What
Board #2
- Education
- Species Coordination
- Food
- Communication
- Shelter
- Medical
- Supplies
- Legal/Justice
- Infrastructure
- Security/Defense
- Land Management
- Finance
Board #4
- must support magic
- must be able to supply healing magic for the elves.
“I think board one, number one is still something for later, maybe tonight we can address that. Number two is not an issue. Number three appears to be somewhat in flux and might never be definitive until the final moment, so unless something drastic happens to our numbers, we’ll let that one go, too. Number four, What, short for what do we need. It has a direct relationship with Board #2, so let’s see what we should salvage from there.” He got up and went to his bedroom, returning with another stack of parchment, a few quills and an ink bottle from his school trunk. He sat back down, dropping half the parchment and a quill by Remus on his way. “Board two was assembled under stress, on the fly, and meant to cover issues arising from moving several thousand people. Some of it is still applicable, and some might not be applicable for quite some time. For right now, we’re just going to yes or no if we should be talking about it before we go. One, education, yes or no? You have a school, I vote yes, moving on. Two, species coordination. Remus, you’re a special case and we can address that under medical. Taddy, you’re currently our representative for the only non-humans we have going. Is there anything we need to cover for you and the other elves, things that we need to be aware of before we go?”
Remus had never been around Harry enough to see how fast paced he could be when he got rolling and was both amused and a tiny bit in awe. It was reminiscent of a younger Sirius, and hoped his friend was on his way. He made a mental note to check again at his earliest opportunity. He didn’t want to derail things by interrupting with a Patronus message.
“Taddy is comfortable with things as they are, Harry Potter sir. We’s know we can be discussing things as they happen and Harry Potter sir has already asked Dobby the questions that would be for emergencies.”
Harry lined out number 2.
“Number 3, food, self evident as a yes, moving on. Number four, communication. Remus, thoughts?”
“We have a village, a bank, and a school, and so perhaps have the ability to be self contained, but I would guess we’ll be needing to do at least some travel on the other side, if for no other reason than we want to. Might have to do some immediately if we land in an area that we need to move out of. We have the messenger Patronus that is viable for three to seven hundred miles, depending on power levels, and we have the elves who can pop for somewhere in the middle of that. None of those are 100% reliable if you’re in trouble or out of range. There are the owls, but no guarantee they can navigate in the same manner there and depending on distance could take a while, so for now also to be considered unreliable. If we could recreate Sirius and James’ mirrors, that would be an option.”
Harry added, “How far can tracking charms be monitored? Never mind, that wouldn’t allow for communication. It’d only work for location. So number four is a yes. Moving on. Number five, shelter, we have any number of buildings that will be at our disposal, so no discussion needed, but…” He paused reflectively. “Remus, what if we waited until the owners were gone. Do you think we’d be able to pack up some of the manor houses? Neville might like it if we could give him back Longbottom Hall for his very own.”
Remus sat up at that. “Oh, that’s an amazing idea, and Longbottom Hall shouldn’t be a problem if Neville is available to pack it, he’s the legitimate heir if the rest of the family is gone. I’m unsure of other situations, but we can try. Might not hurt to have a few places we can sell off, if we like.”
“Cool. Yes to number five. Number six, medical, yes. Number seven, supplies, yes. Number eight not applicable on this side, and we can bump along for a while on the other, so this is a later problem.” He lined out Legal. “Nine, Infrastructure, probably wouldn’t hurt to have at least some discussion. Number ten, security/defense. We’re going in blind, so yeah, probably best to discuss beforehand. Number eleven, land management. A later problem, we’re just going to have to find out who’s land we land on before we plop down roots so we don’t reenact historical land grabs. Same with finance, there’s no way we’re making any headway on that without some in depth study. Any additions we want to make to our list?”
Remus said, “If there were an area of industry we were decided on now, we should certainly add that as a category.”
Board #2
- Education
Species Coordination (no)- Food
- Communication
- Shelter
- Medical
- Supplies
Legal/Justice (later problem)- Infrastructure
- Security/Defense
Land Management (later problem)Finance (later problem)
Harry thought about it. He was still considering Transportation, he really wanted to keep his new home unspoil…. Oh. Oh yes! “Remus, I know how to figure out how much time we have left. Tracking spells, Remus, tracking spells! I need to take a run back to Diagon. No wait, Calais. You need to take a run to Diagon. I need to you apparate over to Calais and put a tracking charm on something really big and stationary. One that will last at least seventy eight hours. Then head over to Dover and put another one on whatever isn’t going to move, that’ll last as long as possible. One in Nairn would be nice, but we don’t really need it. Can you monitor both? ‘Course you can, never mind. Once you get back here, you need to let me know when the one at Calais dies, should be about twenty five-ish hours, but if it goes longer, bonus! Then we wait for the one at Dover to go. If it lasts more than an hour or two after the one at Calais goes belly up, we have extra innings. Once the Dover charm dies, we’re on borrowed time. Gogogo,” he shoved Remus out the door. “In and out of France, no dawdling. Go!” He hustled Remus faster, ignoring his squawks. “Tracking charms. Whodathunk they’d be our warning bell?” he muttered.
He looked at the countdown clock and cursed. “Dammit. Patronus message to Dean Thomas: Dean, they’re opening the portal shortly, and are going to keep it open for up to 24 hours, if they can. I know it wasn’t the time frame hoped for, but tell them to bring it on in. I’d rather you be safe than not.”
“Hat, do you want to sit down with me and start working through some of our list?” Hat was tentatively in favor of the idea, but warned, “For the best results, you will need to take time to come to a meeting of the involved minds. Forgive me, Mister Potter, if I think you would not be well suited to the task. You are better versed to act on a plan than to lay one out in detail. Or, to be perfectly honest, you act best on no plans at all. While it’s amusing to watch, it will not do for this. Taddy would be helpful, as would I, but neither of us can put it down on paper in such a way that a wizard could easily follow the thought process behind it. I fear you need a well educated muggleborn or half blood to straddle both worlds, and you need one that is going with you, so the first hand knowledge remains with your group. By the process of elimination, you need Professor Lupin. Said task will tie him to the working group, potentially for the remainder of your time here, leaving him unavailable for other errands. You are but one person, and while the elves are a large benefit in immediate assistance and running errands, they’re limited to the magical world. Your errands will increasingly take you outside that world as your resources here dwindle. Consideration must be given to be given to that fact, and soon.”
Harry sat in thought for a few minutes. Could he rely on himself to compensate in full for Remus’s unavailability? He was pretty certain that while he could work with concrete objectives, he knew he would narrow his focus and it would never even occurr to him to get another viewpoint or ask others if they had insight to offer. He opened himself up for discussion only with those he knew well and trusted, which was going to be a problem in the near future. He sighed. No, he couldn’t handle Remus being out of the decision making loop. At least, not by himself. He was going to need the additional hands, and he couldn’t count on the twins just yet. Oh, wait a minute… He nearly gave himself a concussion with the intensity of his two handed facepalm when he realized he had more friends, he did have those he trusted, and why the fuck hadn’t he invited them?