12

"How did your exam go?" Sirius asked once Harry got back from the Ministry.

"Easier than I expected. Professor Babbling must have really wanted me to get an Outstanding, because I was overprepared." Harry replied. Of course, thanks to Da'Roir and his constant Occlumency practice, his memory was damn near eidetic these days, so that had probably played a part too.

"Your parents would have been so proud." Sirius stated with a big grin. "Not only are you a suave ladies man, but you're also a bookworm."

"Somehow I get the feeling that my mother wouldn't have been too happy about a lot of the things that dad would have been."

Sirius snorted. "You got that right, but teenagers are supposed to be rebellious anyway."

Harry nodded and changed the subject. "I'm going back to Grimmauld Place tomorrow."

"Did you already finish that book you took?"

"Of course not, that thing is huge." Harry refuted. "I just figure that I might as well start relocating the library and any other interesting bits so that I won't have to keep going over there all the time."

Despite Sirius' hatred of Grimmauld Place and the jokes he'd made made on their first visit, he had no intention of either selling it or destroying it. He wouldn't live there and planned to empty it of everything that had some worth, but he would keep it around. If nothing else, it would make for a good hidey hole and fallback location if it was ever needed as such and Teeny would be happy with the extra work of of maintaining it. He still had trouble wrapping his mind around the idea that more work made house elves happy, but he supposed that he didn't have to understand it as long as it made the helpful little creature happy.

"Want me to come with you?" Sirius asked, as if they weren't dicussing what was essentially the robbery of the ancestral home of his family.

"If you want." Harry shrugged. "You might be able to identify some of the cursed objects, but it's not neccessary."

"Why do you want those anyway?"

"Practice."

"Practice?"

"Unraveling the spells on cursed or enchanted items is a great way of learning how to apply them."

"Errr, Harry, you do know that it's usually the job of Curse-Breakers with years of training to do that kind of stuff?"

"What's your point?"

"You're not a trained Curse-Breaker."

"So?"

"I really wish you'd get some safer hobbies, Harry."

"It's not like I'm going to blunder about blindly, I'm not a Gryffindor."

"That was low."

Sirius decided to come along for the looting expedition, having nothing better to do anyway.

With them was also Teeny, levitating three chests behind her; one for books, one for cursed objects and one for regular stuff.

They'd barely started cleaning out the library when Kreacher showed up, worked up into a proper house elven hissy fit.

"Where is it?!" The demented little elf screeched.

Sirius looked bewildered, but Harry instantly guessed what Kreacher meant.

"You wouldn't happen to be talking about a heavy golden locket with a piece of Voldemort's soul stuck in it, would you?" He asked.

Teeny gasped at the utterance of the Dark Lord's name. Kreacher snapped his mouth shut and glared.

"Kreacher, what do you know about that locket? How did it end up in this house?" Harry pressed.

The house elf stayed mulishly silent.

"Answer him!" Sirius snapped angrily.

And so Kreacher started talking, resentfully and unwillingly at first, but soon becoming overwhelmed with emotion as he began to describe the sacrifice that Regulus had made.

When the tale was done, Sirius had gone very pale. "I had no idea. I thought that Reggie tried to back out and got killed by the other Death Eaters."

"Master Regulus was brave and kind!" Kreacher asserted fiercely. "Kreacher wants the locket back! Kreacher promised to destroy it!"

"Kreacher, the locket isn't the only one of those items." Harry said carefully.

The house elf was visibly shocked by this. "Bu-but master Regulus said that if Kreacher destroyed it, the Dark Lord would be defeated."

"He made more than one. I've already destroyed two and we have no way of knowing how many were made." Harry told him.

"You know how to destroy them?" Kreacher asked with desperate hope, latching on to the part that was most important to him. "Kreacher tried and tried, but nothing he did would damage it. Kreacher couldn't fulfill master Regulus' last order."

Harry knew that the house elf desperately wanted to fulfill that order, but the locket was simply too valuable to destroy right now. "I can, but first I need to see if I can use it to locate any others. It won't do us any good to destroy one only for there to be more."

Fortunately, house elves were perfectly capable of seeing reason. "Kreacher understands." He said despondently.

Harry then kneeled on the floor so that he was more level with the small being and spoke in a softer tone. "Kreacher, did Regulus leave behind anything that might help us destroy all these things? Voldemort is still out there and it's only a matter of time before he comes back unless we find them all."

"Filthy halfblood won't steal it?" Kreacher asked dubiously, having no idea what to think of this wizard that had lowered himself to a house elf's level.

"Kreacher." Sirius interjected with a sigh at the house elf's seemingly reflexive bigotry. "Harry is going to inherit the Black family, so everything will belong to him anyway. I've certainly got no intention of fathering any heirs of my own."

Kreacher's ears drooped a bit, obviously upset by that. He'd served the Black family for decades and didn't want to see it go extinct, but he considered Regulus' last wishes to be more important.

"Kreacher will bring it."

The house elf popped away and returned a minute later, holding a book with a black and purple cover.

' Secrets of the Darkest Art ' the title read, and Harry knew instantly that he would find what he was looking for in it.

"Master Regulus read this book and told Kreacher to hide it before going to the cave, so Kreacher hid it." The house elf explained.

"I've never seen that book before." Sirius commented, looking at it warily.

"Master Regulus stole it from the Lord's private study." Kreacher explained with a mutter.

Sirius blinked. "Huh, that was ballsy of Reg. Gramps wouldn't have been happy about that."

"Master Arcturus was not." Kreacher said flatly.

"Thank you, Kreacher, this is exactly what I needed." Harry interjected, having leafed through the book a bit and seen that it was full of some of the most despicable magics he'd ever laid eyes on.

"Filthy halfblood will destroy it?"

"As soon as I can determine how many of these things there are." Harry confirmed and then paused in thought for a moment. He had initially been dismissive of the belligerent house elf, but after what he'd just heard, he could see that there was more to him than the outward bitterness. Even his bigotry seemed more like something that he just did without really believing it. And there was that idea that he'd been considering…"Kreacher, would you like to come work for me?"

Both Kreacher and Sirius were visibly shocked by his question and Sirius wasted no time in giving voice to his shock.

"Harry, do you really want him working for you?" He asked incredulously.

"Why not?" Harry asked in turn. "He's been nothing but loyal to your brother and deserves better than to be left abandoned in an empty house."

Kreacher visibly swelled with pride at the words.

Sirius threw his hands up into the air in exasperation. "Fine then, you can have him if you want to deal with his muttering."

Harry simply nodded and turned back to the house elf. "What do you say, Kreacher? Would you like to come work for me?"

Kreacher was surprised at actually being asked what he wanted, but nodded all the same. "Kreacher will serve the filthy halfblood."

At that point Harry realized that he already had one house elf, who had been as silent as a mouse the entire time. "Errr, I hope you don't mind, Teeny?"

Despite being more used to kindness than the Black family elf, Teeny was also caught a bit off guard at being asked such a thing. "No, Teeny doesn't mind, as long as Kreacher stops calling master a filthy halfblood. Master Harry is best master!" The last was said quite fiercely.

"Actually, I kind of like it." Harry admitted.

"You like being called a filthy halfblood?" Sirius asked in disbelief.

"Not by everyone obviously, but coming from Kreacher it just sounds right, like Kreacher wouldn't be Kreacher if he wasn't calling me a filthy halfblood." The younger wizard explained.

"Kreacher will continue calling the filthy halfblood master a filthy halfblood." Kreacher nodded decisively.

"You're weird, Harry. Really weird."

The creation of a Horcrux is among the highest forms of sorcery, the manipulation of the soul.

First, the caster must cause a break in their soul. This can be achieved through various means, but they all circle back to the destruction of innocence. The simplest way of achieving this is through cold blooded murder of one who has done the caster no harm, the more harmless the better. Alternatively, killing a close friend would have even superior results.

Once the soul has become fragmented, a piece can be brought out and bound to an item. This is no simple matter, as only those with great souls are capable of listening to the echoes of magic within themselves and splitting apart a fragment.

The item used is also important. It can be no mundane thing, but something of great personal significance, else the soul fragment will not bond with it. Choose the item with care.

Once the Horcrux is created, the item used will become nearly impervious to damage as it takes on some of the indestructible properties of the soul. Be wary however, of methods that destroy magic, as they will sever the tie between the soul and the item.

Take heed that this sacrificial mutilation of one's soul may affect the flesh as it does the spirit and can never be undone.

The separated soul piece within the Horcrux will remain unchanged while the creator does not. Should you wish to return the fragment to the whole, you must do so quickly or it will become alien to you and resist.

The Horcrux should never be allowed in the presence of other witches or wizards, as it will attempt to regain a body through possession. Those with strong souls of their own may resist, but the weak will succumb and become vessels. Should this occur, the Horcrux will be far more vulnerable to destruction and may even become your enemy.

Harry shut the book with a frown and thought about what he'd just read.

There was nothing written there that was immediately helpful and the book obliquely implied that making more than one Horcrux was a bad idea. Voldemort had clearly disagreed.

Still, surely the separated soul fragment retained some link to the other parts of itself? That would be the sensible assumption, but there had been times in the past when magic and sense remained unrelated.

Either way, coming across this bit of knowledge had been less useful than he had hoped, and he didn't even have any guarantee that the author was entirely correct. He would still need to experiment on his own. For all that having a piece of someone else's soul to play with was a great opportunity, he couldn't help but feel anxious. He was not under any illusion of being ready for a wizard the likes of Voldemort and would have dearly liked to just drip a few drops of basilisk venom on the damn locket and be done with it, opportunity be damned.

"Any luck?" Sirius asked the next day.

"No." Harry grimaced. "Nothing I've tried so far has achieved a damn thing aside from giving me a headache from spending all that time resisting the compulsion to put it on."

"Maybe we should just destroy it?" Sirius suggested. "It's too damn dangerous to keep around if you're not getting anywhere."

"And then what? Hope that any other Horcruxes are just going to drop into our lap like this one did?" Harry grumbled.

"Harry, I know that you don't trust him, but Dumbledore knows Voldemort better than anyone, he might have some idea of where to find the others. If there even are any others."

"I'm not talking to him except as an absolute last resort. The old man is playing his own games, the full extent of which I can't see. He'd just pump us for information but give nothing in return."

Sirius would have liked to argue that point, but he couldn't. Dumbledore had indeed kept things very close to the chest for as long as anyone had known him.

"Besides, I didn't expect it to be easy." Harry went on. "Maybe I just need more knowledge on magic and souls before I try again."

Sirius rubbed a hand over his face tiredly, wondering at what strange twists life could take that would lead to his godson messing around with Voldemort's soul.

"At least take a break." He finally said. "You haven't done anything to relax since the summer started."

"Studying magic is relaxing." Harry replied mildly. "And I've gone on a date with Dora."

"Go on another one."

"I will, but not yet. I have business to tend to first."

"I still can't believe that you're working out business deals at your age."

"You should be doing it too." Harry pointed out. "The Black family is in an even worse situation than Potter."

"Meh." Sirius shrugged, obviously uncaring. "I'll just leave it all to you. That way, House Potter gets elevated to Noble and Most Ancient status and Black goes extinct. Everybody wins."

Harry shook his head with an exasperated smile. Sirius' resentment for his family was boundless. He was going to deliberately wipe out his family name just to spite the dead. Well far be it from him to protest the free windfall.

"In that case, you can try your hand at explaining to Kreacher how mounting his head on a wall isn't an honor while I'm off listening to lawyers." The old Black family elf was incredibly stubborn and set in his ways.

"He's your elf now." Sirius pointed out cheekily. "He won't listen to me anymore."

Arranging a consultation with a wizarding lawyer wasn't too difficult thanks both to prior experience and Harry's personal status, but the muggle side was considerably more problematic, even without the need to skirt around the subject of magic. Nonetheless he had eventually managed it and taken his four prospective business partners to see both so that they could discuss the terms of their contract.

Those two meetings had taken up the the whole morning, leaving all five of them tired and hungry, so Harry had offered to treat them all to lunch.

Which was where they were now, the food had been eaten and the dishes taken away, leaving only the notes they'd taken from the two meetings on the table.

Quite a few of the things that had been discussed was stuff that they could easily agree on. Things like all five of them getting regular finance reports and being able to request a full accounting at any time and for any reason.

Of course, not everything was agreeable to all of them.

"I don't like this." Jade was saying with a scowl. "We've already talked about the Right of First Refusal so that we can't sell to anyone without your permission and I get why that would be a good idea, but there's a bunch of other things here that give you way too much power."

"Such as?" Harry asked mildly, seeing that the others agreed with her.

"I think that the one that bothers us the most is you having supermajority." Tiana said delicately. " It essentially gives you the last word on everything."

"Not everything." Harry said defensively.

"Riiight." Bryanna drawled. "We just can't sell or dissolve the business without your say so."

"That's pretty much just an extension to the Right of First Refusal." Harry countered.

"And this non-compete clause that makes it illegal for us to start up a similar business if we decide to leave?" Isabel asked.

"That's for your benefit as much as mine." Harry pointed out.

"What about this Capital Expenditure Approval thing then?" Tiana added. "We'd have to ask you for permission every time we want to spend some gold."

"Only for the larger scale expenses. That's my gold that you'd be working with and I don't want to hear that you spent a large chunk of it or even went into debt without my knowledge." He argued back.

"You'd lose that privilege once you lost majority ownership then?" Isabel asked stiffly.

"Not completely." He admitted. "I'd be willing to change the terms so that Bryanna and Tiana together could overrule me, but I'd still have to be consulted before it was done and I'd retain the right to buy back those shares at need."

"That would let you keep control even as a minority holder." She said with a scowl. "You could take back majority ownership at any time if you didn't like their decisions. The way it's worded, you could even force us to sell everything to you whether we wanted to or not."

"I wouldn't do that unless some circumstance forced me to." Harry insisted. "I'm not looking to swindle you out of anything here. Like it or not, but the more say I have in things, the less chance there is of some third party sticking their fingers into it. As long as it looks like you have no control, you'll be safe from any outside interference."

"And what assurance do we have that you won't just take everything for yourself once we start turning a profit?" Jade demanded.

"None." Harry retorted flatly, starting to get irritated. "What you do have is a near certainty that some snobby pureblood is going to think that a bunch of uppity mudbloods and halfbloods have no business being successful and working to shut you down. I want the final say on any major decisions for the same reason. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I'll be taken a lot more seriously than you."

Seeing Jade bristle in a way that signaled an impending loss of temper, Bryanna quickly intervened. She grabbed hold of Harry's hand to draw his attention and spoke in a much softer tone of voice.

"Harry, if we agreed to a contract like this, we'd be placing all of our ambitions in your hands. Can we trust you that much?" She asked.

Harry took a deep breath to calm down, reminding himself that Isabel and Jade didn't know him. It grated to have his motives questioned like this, but it wasn't surprising. He wouldn't be enthused about entrusting his future to a virtual stranger on nothing but faith either.

"Yes, you can trust me." He assured her. "I want to be kept involved and informed, but for the most part I'll be a silent partner in all but name unless something requires my input."

"I don't suppose you'd be willing to swear an Unbreakable Vow to that effect?" Jade interjected waspishly, still a bit steamed from the earlier near-argument.

Harry looked at her as if she was an idiot. "I wouldn't swear an Unbreakable Vow to not burn down an orphanage with the children still inside it. I'll never agree to turn my own magic into a chain around my neck, no matter how good or benign the reason seems, especially not for something this trivial."

People who swore careless oaths always seemed to end up tripping over them eventually.

Jade backed off, taken by surprise at his vehemence.

"His word is good enough for me." Tiana jumped in. "We can trust him."

Bryanna quickly backed her up and the other two backed down. They weren't happy about it, but they would go along with it.

"Alright, good. We'll put together a proper contract later and look it over again, and after that we'll go to Gringotts to open up a company vault."

"A company vault?" Bryanna repeated.

"Yes, a company vault." Harry confirmed. "One that all of us have equal access to and which will be used exclusively for business related expenses and the payout of salaries. Much easier to keep everyone honest that way."

This time they all agreed without issue, fortunately. Isabel and Jade left together after that, leaving only three people at the table.

"So, Harry… What do you say we go seal the deal somewhere more private?" Bryanna asked coyly, placing a hand on his thigh. Tiana did the same on his other side.

Harry was getting some very pleasant flashbacks to his first Hogsmeade visit and what had happened afterwards, but it was with a sigh and a heavy heart that he grabbed hold of their hands and removed them.

"I'm sorry, girls, but I'm in a relationship now."

Both were visibly shocked and a bit disappointed, but soon sprouted conniving grins.

"And who is the lucky lady that caught your interest?" Bryanna asked.

"I don't really think you need to know that." Harry evaded.

"I bet she's older than us." Tiana declared. "Is she older than thirty?"

"I'm not telling you." He insisted.

"Not older than thirty then." The former Slytherin nodded, making Harry wonder how she had come to that conclusion. Granted, it was the right conclusion, but he had no idea what made her so certain. "She has to be somewhere between twenty and thirty then."

"Why does she have to be between twenty and thirty?" Harry asked, bewildered.

"So she is between twenty and thirty!" Bryanna exclaimed,

"What?"

"Did she go to Hogwarts with us?" Tiana continued to press.

Harry paused in thought for a fatal moment. Tonks had just graduated by the time he'd arrived, so she would have been three years above Bryanna and Tiana. It was highly likely that they had known of her since Tonks was not exactly inconspicuous.

"Aha! She did go to Hogwarts with us!" Bryanna crowed, seeing his small pause as a confirmation. "That puts her between the ages of… twenty-four and twenty."

"Probably closer to the lower end of that." Tiana advised. "No matter how smooth Harry is, I doubt a woman ten years his senior would be willing to get into a serious relationship with him right now, even six would be pushing it. Of course, she could just be after his money, but we already know that Harry wouldn't be duped into something like that, don't we?"

"Good point." Bryanna conceded before turning to the baffled Harry, who could hardly believe the weird chain of logic that was leading them to quickly eliminate potential girlfriends with almost frightening accuracy. "Did you sleep with her yet?"

"That's none of your business." He said irritably, immediately regretting his impulsive answer.

"Ah, not one of the school sluts then, since you couldn't have been with her for long." Tiana nodded sagely.

"I think we can safely eliminate some of the more mousy ones too." Bryanna added.

"That's true. So, a woman in her early twenties that is neither a slut nor a mouse. Someone that wouldn't be interested only in his money and confident enough to attract attention." Tiana summarized and postulated.

"Is she a blonde?" Bryanna asked.

Harry answered with stony silence, refusing to give any more hints by speaking.

"Brunette?"

More silence.

"Redhead?"

Even more silence.

"Maybe it's that Metamorphmagus?" Tiana said with a snicker, quite obviously joking.

Harry twitched. The girls noticed.

"No way…" Bryanna said slowly. "You're dating Nymphadora 'don't call me that' Tonks?"

Harry pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed in resignation. "Yes, I'm dating Nymphadora Tonks."

"In retrospect, that should have been our first guess." Tiana said after a moment. "Just think about it. She's a twenty-one year old that can make herself look forty at will. He can have his cake and eat it too."

"That's not why I'm dating her." Harry grumbled.

"We know, Harry." Both girls said soothingly. "But you have thought about it."

"Of course I have." He said with an eyeroll. As if it was possible to avoid thinking about it. He wasn't a eunuch.

"Well we hope things work out for the two of you."

"Thanks, and I'd appreciate if you don't spread it around. The last thing I need is to have that bitch Skeeter making more disingenuous assertations in the Prophet ."

"Don't worry, Harry, we won't say a word."

A few days later, Harry once again found himself in the Ministry for his Arithmancy OWL.

This one was almost entirely theory and was somewhat more difficult than the one for Ancient Runes, but he was confident in the results all the same.

The Governor of the Wizarding Examinations Authority, an ancient witch by the name of Griselda Marchbanks, approached him once he came out of the test chamber.

"Mr. Potter." She said neutrally, much to Harry's private relief. One or two of the examiners had been rather less than professional around him. "First I would like to laud your academic achievement. It has been many years since the last time that a student sat their OWLs early."

"Thank you." Harry replied with a nod.

"You will receive your results by owl at the end of July the same as everyone else." She went on.

"Ah, it may be better if I stopped by to pick them up myself." Harry interjected.

"Why is that?" She asked, puzzled.

"Owls have had trouble finding me for over a year now." He explained.

"What happened?" She pressed, even more puzzled.

"I don't honestly know." He lied. "The only thing of any real significance was a close encounter with a dementor, but I'm fairly certain that happened afterwards. Nothing really stands out other than that."

Marchbanks gave him a shrewd look, but he gave away nothing.

"Very well then, I will have your results in my office. You may come pick them up at any time after July 27th." She said, apparently deciding not to make an issue out of it.

Harry thanked the old woman again and left, inwardly grumbling about the amount of minor inconveniences his owl problem was causing him. It hadn't been an issue when his only bit of post had been from Luna or Ginny before they'd drifted apart, but given everything that he was getting involved with these days, it was becoming damned annoying.

He didn't appreciate having his time wasted on the minor minutia of the day. Maybe it was time to consider employing a steward or majordomo of sorts? A personal assistant of some sort at any rate. They wouldn't have a much to do just yet, but it looked like his business ventures were all set to start producing quite a bit of paperwork in the near future. Then there was his public image, regarding which he had recently woken up to the fact that it would probably need maintenance. The overblown legend of the Boy-Who-Lived was annoying and the hyphenated title stupid, but it could make for an excellent springboard to replace it with something… realistic and less didn't really have anyone in mind for the job, but it was something to think about.

"Paintball? We're doing paintball?" Tonks asked, sounding surprised and more than a little excited.

"Yep." Harry nodded. "I was thinking of all the places I could take you, like fancy dinners or dancing or whatnot, but then I thought to myself 'would Dora really enjoy that, or would she prefer to shoot high speed balls of paint at my arse?'. The answer seemed obvious, so I went and booked the arena just for us."

Tonks let him know what she thought about that by grabbing his head and pulling him down into a kiss.

"I've wanted to go paintballing for ages, but never had anyone to go with." She explained once she pulled away.

"We'll see if you'll still be excited once I plaster you with paint." He said with a challenging smirk.

"You will, will you?" She retorted with narrowed eyes. "You're clearly forgetting which one of us is the Auror and which is still a student."

"That'll just make my victory sweeter."

"Oh you've done it now. I am going to own you so hard, Potter."

Harry crept around the arena, keeping out of sight in order to properly flank his unaware opponent.

She was dangerous and had a good eye for positioning, but he had something of an unfair advantage. With the two of them being the only people anywhere in the vicinity, he could sense her location clear as day. Thus, he always managed to avoid her line of fire.

And he also had the Cloak of True Invisibility in his Bag of Holding and the ability to use wandless silencing spells. Really, he was cheating his arse off. He justified it to himself with the fact that his girlfriend had combat training and he didn't and wasn't cheating a crucial part of any kind of combat anyway?

Once he was in position a ways behind the tensely crouched figure, he pulled off the Cloak and stuffed it back into the Bag of Holding. Then he raised the paintball gun, took careful aim and fired.

The little ball of paint splattered over the small of Dora's back, joining several of its brothers.

"Gah!" Tonks yelped loudly, turning around and loosing fussilade of paintballs in his general direction. Alas, she hit only the cover that he'd hidden behind.

"That is it!" She shouted. "You're going down!"

Harry's eyes widened in alarm as she stormed towards him, apparently disdaining caution in favor of getting a hit on him. Knowing that he didn't have much time, he made a run for it, firing at her blindly in the hope that she would duck for cover. Judging by the stinging impacts along his back, it hadn't worked.

He kept on running, ducking behind cover as much as possible. He needed to get out of sight so that he could vanish again.

Then he heard a familiar sound. The crack of Apparition. Tonks appeared to his left, shot him a few times with a gleeful cackle and apparated away again.

"What the hell, Dora? That's cheating!" He yelled out hypocritically, rubbing at the places where he'd been shot.

"You're cheating too!" She accused from her new position. "There's no way that you just happened to get behind me every sodding time!"

"Prove it!" He yelled back.

Her answer was a crescent slash of pink paint that he just barely dodged and which had quite obviously not come from a paintball gun.

"How's that for proof, you tosser?"

"Alright, if that's how it's going to be…" Harry mutterered and pulled out his Invisibility Cloak again.

Once more invisible and inaudible, he stalked over to where he was sensing his girlfriend. She looked mildly ridiculous in her paint covered camo overalls and mask, paintball gun in one hand and wand in the other.

Then he laid prone on the ground, poked the barrel of his paintball gun out from the edge of the cloak and shot her square in the arse.

Tonks jumped into the air with a yelp and spun around with every intention of getting her revenge, only to blink in confusion at the empty space.

Suspiciously, she waved her wand and muttered something that he didn't catch. A wave of something passed over him and he abruptly felt exposed despite being invisible. Then she looked right at him and he knew what spell she'd cast. The Human Presence Revealing Spell. He hadn't been sure if that would work even on the Cloak of True Invisibility, but apparently it did.

" Accio Invisibility Cloak ." She hissed.

Harry felt the spell come within the range of his magical aura and resisted it. There was a reason why wizards in duels didn't just summon their opponent's wands and be done with it. Some spells didn't work too well once they entered the immediate presence of other magic users, the basic summoning charm being one of them. It only worked when the caster was significantly more powerful than the target. While Harry wouldn't bet on himself in a duel against his girlfriend right now, he thought that as far as raw power went, he might well be stronger than her. Maybe. It wasn't an exact science.

Tonks was visibly surprised at having her spell resisted though and Harry took the opportunity to fire a few more paintballs at her. In a display of impressive reaction speed, she apparated away before they could reach her.

Figuring that keeping the Cloak around now that she knew he had it was pointless, Harry stuffed it back into his Bag of Holding. No sense in letting it get splattered with paint.

"Alright, Dora, I've put away the Invisibility Cloak. Are you going to stop apparating?" He called out.

"No chance!"

Harry had just enough time to smile wryly when he sensed her apparating again and threw himself to the ground to avoid another crescent of pink paint. He quickly rolled onto his back and opened fire, fully expecting her to apparate away again. She surprised him by taking those hits in exchange for letting fly another slash of paint. There was no avoiding it this time, and he ended up having a line of pink bisect his torso. Then she apparated away.

"How'd you like that?" She gloated from her new position.

Harry decided that revealing one minor legal infraction to an Auror was well worth the price of one-upping her and apparated directly behind her.

This time, Tonks was far too surprised to react as he pulled her into an amateurish submission hold with his arms under hers and his hands interlaced on the back of her neck. She instinctively tried to break out of it, and he grunted in surprise at her strength. She was stronger than he would've given her credit for, but despite the age difference between them, he still had a good four inches of height on her, was male and had a minor magical strength enhancement going for him, so he was able to hold her.

She still had her wand though, which she awkwardly aimed at him and fired a silent Knockback Jinx.

One little known fact about magic was that casting spells in close proximity to other magic users could have some odd effects. The thoughts of the other magic user would intrude on the casting and warp the spell. The stronger the other, the more pronounced the effect.

So while Tonks had been intending for her spell to only knock back Harry, his desire to keep holding her meant that both of them were hit by the spell.

Harry oofed explosively as he was sandwiched between the unyielding ground and his girlfriend, leaving him short of breath and wheezing.

Tonks had no such impediment and immediately took advantage of his loosened hold to spin around and pull the transparent mask off his face before removing her own.

She was panting as she glared at him, face covered in a light sheen of sweat, but her hair was a happy pink and her dark eyes were anything but angry. Then her hair quickly started turning a flaming red.

Harry expected to be questioned on the matter of his skill with Apparition, for which he had long since prepared an explanation for, but she surprised him by mashing her lips against his demandingly.

Kissing was certainly better than explaining why he knew how to apparate, so Harry returned her affections enthusiastically. The impromptu make-out session soon included groping and began edging towards R-rated.

Deciding not to overthink it, He apparated them both to the master bedroom in Potter Manor.

Some time later, the owner of the paintball arena showed up, saw the inexplicable splashes of pink paint, the discarded masks and paintball guns, missing protective overalls and grumbled something uncomplimentary about long haired punks.

The two of them popped into existence on the carpeted floor and immediately resumed kissing.

Seeing that no slaps were incoming for his presumption, Harry immediately went to work on pulling the unflattering paint splattered overalls off his girlfriend. He growled in irritation as he discovered that overalls were not meant to be removed while horizontal.

The two of them somehow managed to clamber onto their feet while still kissing and groping each other, Dora's wand went flying carelessly into a corner of the room at this point as well. She tugged impatiently at the collar of his overalls and he pulled his arms out just as impatiently. Then they discovered that shoes generally need to be removed first and Tonks kneeled down to get rid of the offending footwear without hesitation.

Seeing her fire red hair bobbing at crotch level while she busied herself with that task had Harry gnawing on his lower lip in an effort to keep control of his lust. To his mixed relief and disappointment, she was done quickly and got back on her feet, though not without giving the bulge of his erection a cheeky kiss as she pulled off the overalls.

That made Harry groan in desire as he kissed her again and then pushed her towards the bed.

Her knees hit the edge and she fell on it with a small gasp. He ignored the urge to climb on top of her again for now and busied himself with pulling her own shoes off, followed by the stained overalls. Only once they were off did he go back to claiming her mouth and laying wet kisses over her sweat salted neck.

They were still wearing far too many clothes though and Harry was out of patience with the practice of removing it normally, so he simply grabbed the collar of her plain T-shirt and ripped it off.

"You animal, I liked that shirt." She gasped and complained in a tone so lusty that nobody could think she was actually displeased.

"I'll buy you all the shirts you want." He growled back and dove into the valley between her bra-clad breasts with his tongue.

He started moving his way further downward, paying special attention to the occasional bruise from their recent paintball match. Wizards and witches were fortunately quite a bit more sturdy than the norm, so the 'wounds' were likely to be more or less gone by tomorrow even without magical healing.

Tonks took his downward movement as an opportunity to divest him of his own shirt, leaving him topless.

Once he got to her shorts, he unbuttoned them impatiently, wishing that he could just rip them off like he'd done the shirt. He didn't bother going one at a time and removed her panties too while he was at it.

The scent of her womanhood drifted to his nose and it was all he could do to keep from instantly indulging his penchant for performing oral sex. The flaming red bush of pubic hair really deserved a comment though.

"So they do match." He quipped instead, smirking up at her.

Tonks stuck her tongue out at him and gained a brief look of concentraction. Her pubic hair receded into her skin, leaving behind a completely bald crotch.

"That's useful." He murmured and leaned in close to take a deep whiff of her scent. Her legs quivered with anticipation.

Then she growled in frustration when he only gave her thighs a kiss and retreated, but he was determined to give her the best night he possibly could and that meant no rushing things.

He stood up with the intent of rolling her over to remove the offending bra she was still wearing, but she sat up at the same moment and started working on removing his own shorts, so he did it while she was busy with that.

His member sprang free of its cloth prison and greeted her enthusiastically. He'd grown considerably in size over the past year and now hung at a respectable six and a half inches. Not any kind of monster cock by any stretch, but he still had a bit of growing to do and he wasn't so inept at pleasing a woman that he felt the need to have some forearm sized monster attached to his crotch anyway.

He closed his eyes and sighed in pleasure as he felt Dora run her hands over him and lean in with obvious intent. Then she gave the tip a kiss and leaned back with a laugh, hair going a bit pinker.

Harry blew air through his nose in an attempt to look angry, but ruined it with the grin he couldn't quite suppress. He moved towards her and she scooted back on the huge bed until they were both somewhere in the middle, where he claimed her lips for another kiss.

The sensations were so much better now that they were both completely naked. She spread her legs and wiggled her hips in an obvious effort to entice him to just enter her, but he resisted. He still wanted to taste her first.

He made another trip down her body, this time stopping to give her uncovered nipples some attention. Once he was back in position between her legs, he gave her slit a slow lick, making a sound of pleasure at the taste of her juices on hs tongue and the sound of her pleasured gasp in his ears.

He kept that up for a minute or so, avoiding her the nub of her clitoris for the moment. He had something special in mind for that.

Dora got impatient with the slow pace though and started trying to pull his head up to the approriate height. He decided to oblige and gave the little nub a flick with his tongue. Her loud gasp told him that he was definitely not the only one enjoying this.

Then he was struck by inspiration.

"Dora?"

"What?" She moaned impatiently, wanting him to put that tongue back to a better use than asking stupid questions.

"Can you make it bigger like you did your nipples?" he asked, starting up at her with shining green eyes.

Tonks was intrigued by the idea and focused for a moment.

Harry watched eagerly as the tiny nub of her clitoris gained enough length to poke out from under its protective hood.

"Perfect." He purred and placed his lips over the newly enlarged organ.

Tonks gave a shuddering gasp and fell back on the bed with her mouth open wide in surprise, vaguely thinking that this idea had either been great or terrible. Maybe both.

Harry took his time in fully establishing the empathy bond that he'd used to such effect on all of their dates so far and only then began to gently manipulate the dense bundle of nerves with lips, tongue and magic.

Tonks spent the next five minutes gasping for air and letting him do whatever the hell he wanted as long as it kept her feeling this good.

Haryy knew that he could have brought her to orgasm already, but he was deliberately prolonging her pleasure. It was only when he heard the first needy whimpers that he stopped teasing her.

"Don't you dare stop!" She threatened breathily when he removed his mouth, though she didn't sound very threatening.

Harry didn't answer her verbally, instead electing to kiss her again and settle himself between her legs. He sank into her slowly, with his magic as much as his member, far too slowly for her tastes if the way she wiggled under him the whole time was any indication.

He started thrusting then, just as slowly as before, being careful not to push her over the edge of climax. Whenever he sensed that she was approaching that crest, he slowed down further or even stopped, just long enough for the tension in her body to recede a little bit.

She groped at his back and pulled on his butt in an attempt to get him to speed up, but he deliberately kept up the torturously slow pace. He felt her vaginal tunnel become tighter and more narrow as her Metamorph ability tried to help her squeeze that extra bit of pleasure from his slow motions, but that just made him go even slower. He wanted them to climax together and she was just going to have to bear with it until that happened. Of course, the sounds of need and pleasure she was making did play a part in that too.

She ran her hands over his runes repeatedly and he knew that she could feel them. Bryanna, Tiana and Zoe had been able to feel them too. Fortunately, the obscuring properties of Arhain left them unable to really focus on that and the knowledge that he had scars all over his body slipped from their minds like a dream.

Harry kept her lingering on the frustrating edge of orgasm for nearly ten minutes before his own pleasure caught up with her. The sudden increase of in tempo caught her by surprise and disrupted the rhytm, but she was quickly pushed over the edge by the sudden increase in stimulation.

When her long denied orgasm was finally reached, she could do nothing but cling to him with her breath stolen from her by the strength of the release she felt. His grunting in her ear as she was flooded with his hot seed only made her own pleasure even greater.

When the pleasure subsided, all the strength seemed to leave her limbs and she collapsed into the bed with a content sigh.

"That was… wow." She sighed out, hair turning a lazy dark blue. "You've obviously had a lot of practice."

"As much as I could manage." He agreed, a hint of smugness in his tone. He was cheating by employing magic to enhance the pleasure, and he was damn proud of it too. All is fair in love and war and all that.

They lapsed into a comfortable silence, during which Tonks kept running her hands over his back. An action that quickly led to a reaction.

"No way." She protested weakly, feeling him previously softened member going back to full size again. "You can't still be ready for more."

"Don't worry, Dora. We can go to sleep if you're too tired for another round." He said soothingly.

Dark eyes narrowed in response.

"You better wipe that smirk off your face and get back to the shagging." Like hell was she going to be that girl, the one that fell asleep while her man still wasn't satisfied.

"If you insist." He sighed theatrically.

Harry woke up at sunrise the next day, as he always did when the Sun roused his magic unless he'd already been awake.

The first thing he noticed was that he was spooning a soft body of the female persuasion and that his left arm was numb from being used as a pillow. The downsides of spooning.

Despite that bit of discomfort, he smiled at the memory of what had led to it. He and Dora had had a good time on their date, then they'd had a very good time after it and then they'd fallen asleep together in a state of utter relaxation and contentment with their magics mingling together.

She was still quite deeply asleep. He could feel it in her magic. The way that the air whistled cutely through her nose was also something of a clue.

Fanciful notions of staying in this emotionally soothing situation aside, Harry really needed to get up. His arm was sore, he was already getting hungry, he needed to make a trip to the loo and his morning wood was terribly distracting.

The last problem had the most pleasant solution, so he leaned forward and started nibbling on Dora's neck, watching in fascination as her natural brown hair developed streaks of color in response.

The Metamorphmagus was apparently either a very deep sleeper or still exhausted from last night's activities, as she failed to be roused by his ministrations.

It took a bit of maneouvering to shift her over to her stomach, applying liberal amounts of spit as lubricant and gently slide back inside.

That did get the sleeping woman to make a noise of mixed confusion and pleasure, but he continued to slowly thrust into her without pausing.

"Harry, the hell are you doing?" She asked blearily, mind not quite catching up to what her body was telling her.

He answered with a slightly harder thrust that made his intentions unequivocally clear. "I was taking advantage of you."

She gave a little gasp at the intrusion and then turned her head to look back at him when he stopped moving. "Well? Who told you to stop?"

When Sirius made his way to breakfast that morning, he was treated to the sight of his godson and his second cousin sitting together in silk morning robes.

"I see that someone's had a good time." He said with a broad grin. "High five, Harry."

Harry raised his arm and gave his passing godfather a high five.

"Did you two seriously just high five each other over me?" Tonks demanded tersely.

"Sorry, Dora." Harry apologized. "It's easier to just give the sad old man what he wants than to see him pout."

"Hey!" Sirius pouted indignantly while the Metamorphmagus snorted.

"He's had no luck with women since being freed you see, so he's resorted to living vicariously through me." Harry continued, making Tonks snicker in amusement.

"You're a horrible godson." Sirius huffed.

"That reminds me, I need to pick up a few batches of contraceptive potion." Tonks said with a frown.

"Ran out of stock?" Harry asked lightly, but felt a frisson of worry.

"Nah, I stopped taking it over a year ago." She replied with a wave of her hand. "It tastes gross and I wasn't getting laid anyway."

Harry felt cold sweat bead on his face at the admission. The one time that he neglected to use the contraceptive spell and it just happened to be with a woman who didn't use any protection. "Errr, Dora…"

"Don't worry, Harry, as long as I use it sometime in the next three days I won't be getting preggers wth your babies." She said with a snicker.

Harry breathed a sigh of relief. He was way, way too young to have kids, accelerated development be damned.

"That was mean." Sirius observed. "I like it."

"You would." Harry shot at him.

The conversation lapsed into silence for a while as they focused on eating, during which time Harry started becoming bothered by something.

Namely, why was his girlfriend not commenting on his illegal use of Apparition yesterday? Eventually, he decided to just ask.

"Hey, Dora?"

"Yeah?"

"How come you aren't saying anything about the fact that I apparated us yesterday?"

"Oh Harry, you really think that you're the first minor to do that?" She sighed. "I could report you for it, but that would mean more paperwork for me and a pointless reprimand from the DMLE for you. The age restriction on the use of Apparition was put into place because only about 30% of Britain's adult magical population is capable of it and stupid kids were splinching themselves all over the place trying to get it right on their own. Just don't do it where people can see and try to pretend that you're having some trouble learning it in a few years."

"Huh." Harry said in response, pleasantly surprised by the pragmatism. Then he leaned in to give his girlfriend a peck on the lips. "You're one cool Auror, you know that?"

"I am pretty damned cool, aren't I?" She preened.

Sirius made exaggerated gagging noises.

"Is the stupid blood traitor choking on something?" Kreacher asked as he wandered into the room, carrying a stack of clothes.

"No, Kreacher, Sirius is just being childish." Harry explained.

Kreacher nodded in understanding and turned towards Harry, depositing his burden on the edge of the table. "Kreacher has cleaned and repaired filthy halfblood master's filthy halfblood whore's clothes."

"Oi!" Harry said sternly, genuinely angry this time. "You can call me and Sirius whatever you like, but you will be respectful to everyone else, especially to Dora."

"Kreacher apologizes." The house elf replied, not sounding especially sincere.

"What was up with that?" Tonks asked in bewilderment after he left.

"Sorry about that, Kreacher used to be the Black family elf, so he's got something of an attitude problem." Harry explained, rubbing his forehead. He really should have expected the crotchety old elf to be rude to guests as well as him.

"I can see that." Tonks said, somewhat amused now despite getting called a filthy halfblood whore. "Why do you let him get away with it though?"

"Because he finds it funny to get insulted by his house elf for some reason." Sirius snorted.

"You have to admit that being called a filthy halfblood all the time is more interesting than the near worship you get from most house elves." Harry argued.

"You're weird, Harry." Tonks said, reaching for the stack of clothes that Kreacher had deposited.

"That's what I said!" Sirius chimed in.

"Hmpf." Harry retorted disdainfully.

"He calls this repaired?" Tonks asked wryly, looking at her haphazardly stiched together T-shirt.

Harry sighed and made a mental note to talk to Kreacher about his passive aggressive tendencies towards guests. In fact, he probably needed to talk to him about appropriate conduct in front of and to guests in a very general sense as well."Don't worry about it, I'll replace that for you."

"Oh, that's right!" Tonks exclaimed, eyes shining with delight. "You promised to take me shopping."

Sirius looked at his godson in disbelief. What kind of stupid man says that to a woman?

"Errr, yes?" Harry said uncertainly, a bit unnerved by the look in his girlfriend's eye.

"It's a good thing that it's my day off today." She said, already plotting out a list of shops to visit. One of the often overlooked side benefits of being a Metamorphmagus was the vastly increased ease of clothes shopping.

"Why would you need a whole day for shopping?" Harry asked, bewildered.

Sirius shook his head sadly. Some lessons needed to be learned the hard way. He couldn't help his godson here.

While Harry occupied his time with his own affairs, the plotters and schemers of the Wizarding World brooded on things that were decidedly not their business.

In Hogwarts castle, its aged Headmaster paced in his office and considered the pieces on the chess board.

Voldemort was worryingly silent. There had been no real news of him for some time now. It was always a bad sign when you didn't know what your foe was up to.

The Dark Lord must assuredly be plotting a way to retun to life, but his movements remained elusive. His Horcruxes likewise remained elusive.

On the other side of the board, the Harry Potter situation was looking much better. He had managed to draw out from Remus Lupin a confirmation of a relationship with Nymphadora Tonks. This was good. Excellent even.

The young Auror would give Harry a firm tie to Wizarding Britain and a reason to defend it from the Dark Lord. Even better, she could be recruited into the Order of the Phoenix and bring Harry closer to Dumbledore's sphere of influence. Because of that relationship alone, he was considering reactivating the Order earlier than intended. He could even offer Harry membership despite his young age. Not yet though, the relationship had to mature a bit first and a solid reason for the move given. Harry was far too cagey to miss that kind of blatant manipulation and may be able to sway young Nymphadora to adopt the same distrust towards him as Harry had.

The boy worried him as much as he impressed him. His knowledge and understanding of magic was already frightfully deep for his youth and could only grow deeper with age, though he was blessedly lacking in the cruelty that Tom Riddle had displayed or even the same kind of hunger for power as Dumbledore himself had once had.

The problem was that whatever was driving the boy remained a mystery. Dumbledore did not feel comfortable with the lynchpin of this entire conflict being a mystery. He wanted to trust Harry, he truly did, but what was he supposed to think of a boy just shy of fourteen that felt the need to magically age himself and had already taken a life with no great remorse?

Harry had discarded his childhood and would soon have to deal with the realities of being a powerful wizard. Sirius was ill-equiped to shield him from it and Dumbledore was no longer able.

More than anything, it was the uncertainty of it all that he feared. He feared it, because he could see the makings of either a great hero or a terrible villain in Harry. He feared it, because he had no idea what he would do should things turn ill. He feared it, because he knew that a wizard who truly wanted to become powerful would become powerful no matter what he or the Ministry or anyone else tried to do to prevent it. Delay, yes. Prevent, no. Getting in his way would just make him even more secretive, sneaky and worst of all, resentful.

So he plotted to throw as many good influences and reasons to fight evil into Harry's path as possible and hoped that it would be enough. He hoped that Harry would stand against Voldemort. He hoped that he would die standing against him, because Dumbledore didn't think that he had the strength to kill the boy himself should it come to that.

In the office of the Minister of Magic, a far less intelligent and venerable man was also pacing. Though in his case it was less thoughtful and more fretful.

"I just don't know what to do, Dolores!" Fudge fretted to his Senior Undersecretary. "Surely there should have been some word from Black and Potter by now? Potter was in the Ministry twice since Black's name was cleared but he hasn't come speak to me. What does it mean?"

He had successfully blamed the entire debacle with Sirius Black's unjust imprisonment on former Minister Bagnold and Barty Crouch Sr. Bagnold was obviously not in a position to care, being dead as she was, but Crouch had found his popularity falling even lower than it had in the aftermath of his son being found a Death Eater and had since been shuffled off into some dead end Ministry department that most people didn't even know existed. He had expected that he would be able to meet privately with the Boy-Who-Lived and the new Lord Black, but no such meeting was forthcoming.

"Wasn't Sirius Black always a disgrace to his family?" Dolores Umbridge answered in her simpering voice. "If he were not the last of his family, he would never have been its Lord. Perhaps he doesn't know the basic courtesies expected of him. As for Potter… well, he is only a boy and he grew up with muggles ."

Fudge looked askance at the pink clad woman. Potter was young yes, but a boy? The tall wizard with the too-bright eyes and a sense of power around him was no boy. He had been reminded far too much of Dumbledore when speaking to that 'boy', constantly feeling flustered and out of control.

It was not something that Fudge would admit to anyone, not even to himself, but he hated dealing with powerful wizards and witches. Hated dealing with Dumbledore, who could twist a conversation into twenty different directions and convince you that he always knew best and that you were being childish if you didn't listen. Hated dealing with Bones, whose hard edged personality, rigid inflexibility where the law was concerned and popularity in the Ministry made her a terror to deal with. Now he also hated dealing with Potter, whose legend, wealth, nobility and sheer presence made him a power to be courted, but one who did not seem keen to acknowledge when favors were owed.

Still… Dolores might have a point. Potter was young, and had grown up with muggles. He may well simply not know how the game was played. He would have to be taught then, but how to go about it?

He wished that Lucius was here. Dolores had her uses, but she was not as clever as she thought she was. Certainly not as clever as Lucius Malfoy.

Speaking of Lucius, he still had to extend him an invitation for the Quidditch World Cup that was happening in a month. The Malfoy patriarch had helped him greatly over the years and it wouldn't do to let that friendship go fallow.

Inspiration struck him then. It would insult Lucius, but it would give him an opportunity to feel out Black and Potter. Surely his old friend would understand and accept his apologies if he invited Black and Potter to the Top Box instead?

Of course, there were other problems with the Quidditch World Cup. Namely the fact that Barty Crouch had been one of the lead organizers and was now suddenly no longer involved, nor was the man willing to help since he'd been transferred. Terribly petty of him actually.

"Dolores, do we have anyone to replace Crouch as Head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation yet?"

"No, I haven't yet managed find anyone qualified that could be spared from another department." Umbridge answered with a sickly sweet smile.

Of course, when Umbridge said 'qualified', she meant 'of proper breeding'. There actually were a few people who could have taken over for Crouch, but they were halfbloods and had not even merited a glance from her. Bad enough that the Goblin Liason Office had recently been taken over by a mudblood, even if dealing with those disgusting little creatures was about what they deserved, but she would never tolerate having anyone but a pureblood in a post as prestigious as International Magical Cooperation.

Fudge took the words at face value, as he usually did. There was a reason why he hadn't been a Slytherin. This put him in something of a pickle. He needed that post filled soon. It had already been empty for a couple of weeks and the problems were starting to pile up. Because of this, he did something that he didn't really want to do.

"Dolores, would you mind terribly if I assigned you to temporarily take the job? Just until we can find someone else?" Fudge had his faults, his many, many faults, but he was aware of the fact that Dolores Umbridge was not a very likeable woman and would not do the British Ministry's reputation in the wider world any favors in that position. Unfortunately, he needed that post filled and how much harm could she do in the short time that she would hold it anyway?

"Of course, Cornelius, you can count on me." She replied in her typical saccharine tone. She preferred to be the Minister's Senior Undersecretary, but she would serve the Ministry to the best of her ability in whichever position she needed to. Besides, it would give her the chance to put that department to order. Crouch had been distressingly lax with who he had allowed to climb the ranks there.

Over in Malfoy Manor, Lucius Malfoy did not pace. Pacing was for unrefined commoners.

Instead, he brooded in a high backed chair with a bottle of expensive wine in hand.

Sirius Black was a problem. He hadn't been able to contrive a way to get rid of said problem quickly enough, which meant that by now Harry Potter had also likely become a problem already. The inheritance of a family was an entirely internal affair, meaning that Black was not obligated to inform anyone of his decisions regarding who his Heir was, but unless Black was a complete dimwit, he had already designated his godson as Heir.

The only silver lining was that he had not banished either Narcissa or Draco from the family, yet. That at least he would have to send word about. That would have been a disaster. It was still a potential disaster though, and it would remain as such for as long as Black and now Potter lived.

Oh, how he longed for the days when he could have donned the mask and robes of a Death Eater and solved such problems with a quick Killing Curse. It was truly unfortunate that those particular circumstances also brought along the inevitable need to bow and scrape before the Dark Lord. He was much happier with the current state of affairs, despite not being able to personally kill his enemies.

Lucius had been young and more hotheaded when he had joined the Death Eaters. He had wanted to bring back a world where blood meant something. He had learned too late that it would have been wiser to support the Dark Lord from the sidelines and leave the direct involvement to others.

He had heard enough whispers to guess that the Dark Lord was still alive in some fashion, but he would not seek him out. The Dark Lord was powerful, but he was a bungler. Despite his protestations about blood purity and the old ways, the Dark Lord had wiped out numerous distinguished families, both among his enemies and his allies.

Even the damned Potters had been respectable not that long ago. It was only with James Potter and his fixation on that mudblood of his that they'd fallen from grace.

The man's son was a curious thing. A disgusting halfblood, true, but one that promised to be dangerous in the future. Lucius was not so foolish as to dismiss those of lower breeding as being powerless or even useless. Dumbledore was a halfblood and nobody dismissed him. Even mudbloods could be dangerous, though Lucius could only point at James Potter's wife as an example. Subhuman and disgusting, but not powerless. A troll was disgusting too, but it could be dangerous in the right circumstances.

The Potter scion had not yet truly given any real indication of his views. Draco had described him as a reclusive sort, with his only friend being that bizarre Lovegood chit. Had things been different, he might have courted an alliance with him.

Unfortunately, Draco had bungled up his first meeting with him and made the Malfoys his enemies. It would have been so much easier to dispose of Potter had they been allies.

Now Lucius found himself in the unenviable position of having to kill off both Black and Potter without any real means of getting close to them.

On top of that was his concern that one of his more idiotic fellow Death Eaters would eventually catch on about the Dark Lord's continued existence and work to bring him back. Considering that he had gotten the diary destroyed in a failed plot to discredit Arthur Weasley, that could not possibly end well for Lucius. Worse still, he had a dire suspicion that the diary had been more important to the Dark Lord than he had originally thought it to be.

Of course, he couldn't just come out and tell that to the others. None of them could just come out and openly state that they didn't want to support Voldemort anymore. That would be stupidly Gryffindorish, though that was a bit of a tautology in and of itself.

What Lucius needed to do was hedge his bets on the off chance that some dimwit helped facilitate Voldemort's return. He needed to be seen as still championing the cause without actually doing anything himself. That was fortunately something that he was very good at.

The Quidditch World Cup was coming up in about a month. He was actually expecting Fudge to come by any day now with an invitation to join him in the Top Box for the event. He was sure that a few of his more gullible former compatriots could be persuaded into donning their old robes and causing a ruckus. He'd get credit of organizing it and none of the blame since he'd have a nice alibi.

As it happened, his recently purchased house elf brought a letter from the Minister just a few minutes later.

Lucius' eyebrows climbed elegantly up his forehead as he read the letter. Fudge was apologizing profusely for passing him over for the invitation, but he desperately needed to curry some favor with Black and Potter as recompense for the unjust imprisonment, so he was going to invite them instead.

This was… actually very convenient. Oh, he'd make Fudge sweat over the insult later, but this would place Black and Potter in a predictable place and in close proximity to his more gullible Death Eater comrades. Getting them to attack those two would be the height of simplicity. Of course, he'd have to account for the possibility that one or more of them would get captured and questioned, which meant that he would have to arrange things in such a way that none of them could solidly point a finger at him, but that could be done easily enough.

"Hey, Harry?" Sirius inquired with an odd look on his face.

"What?" Harry asked, not looking up from the little magical trinket he'd been staring at in an effort to see what made the magic work and if he could tease it apart.

"Were we expecting post from the Minister of Magic?" Sirius continued, still with an odd look on his face.

"Fudge?" Harry asked, finally looking at his godfather. "Why would that blithering idiot send us post?"

"Apparently we're being invited to attend the Quidditch World Cup as honored guests of the Minister of Magic." Sirius explained.

Harry groaned in irritation. He didn't give a shit about quidditch and didn't want to deal with the Minister of Magic if it could be helped, but he had a feeling that this wasn't the kind of thing that he could just refuse. Not without some damned annoying consequences at any rate.

"I guess that means we're going?" Sirius asked in resignation. Though not the kind of quidditch enthusiast that James had been, Sirius could enjoy watching a match, but this stank of politics all the way through.

"Yes, we're going." Harry sighed.

"Couldn't we just tell Fudge to bugger off?" Sirius was an optimist.

"We could, but I've got a feeling that it would cause us even more problems in the future." Harry was a cynic.

"I hate it when you're right." Sirius grumbled.

"Sometimes, so do I." Harry sighed again.