Ch36

Harry – who had spent the night before his return to Hogwarts at the Burrow so he could go with the Weasleys, Hermione, and Neville – woke up to the familiar sounds of Ron and Hermione bickering. Seriously, why had it taken him so long to realize that those two had unresolved sexual tension up to their ears? Ah, right, the same reason it had taken him six years to realize Ginny liked him: he was oblivious as hell back then.

"If you ask me, Mr. Crouch is very lucky no one at the Daily Prophet knows how mean he is to elves!" Hermione was saying angrily.

"What are you talking about?" Ron replied, sounding exasperated. "He was very nice to her! He let her stay in his tent during the Match because she was scared of heights and everything!"

"He doesn't PAY Winky," Hermione snapped. "Therefore she's his slave."

"No one pays House Elves, Hermione," Ron retorted. "That's the point of having a House Elf!"

"Harry does," Hermione pointed to him as he came into the room.

"Leave me out of this," Harry requested but went unheeded.

"Yeah, well Harry's not exactly a shining example of normality, is he?" Ron pointed out. "Besides, from what I can tell Dobby's pretty off, too."

"As much as I hate to get involved in your little lover's spat – and believe me, I DO hate to get involved – Ron has a point," Neville said, presumably drawn to the kitchen by the sound of shouting. "Most House Elves get offended if you try to pay them. They don't want to be free."

"So you're saying it's alright to enslave an entire race of magical creatures?" Hermione demanded angrily, turning on him.

"I'm not saying anything of the sort," Neville held up his hands in a placating gesture. "But that's House Elf mentality. If you gave them all clothes today and forced them to take payment for their work, less people would want them and they would be very unhappy. You want change, you need to change people's mentality first."

"Hmph."

"Besides, since House Elves are always enslaved and Mr. Crouch didn't seem to be very abusive when you guys met Winky, I don't anyone – least of all the Daily Prophet – really cares," Harry pointed out.

"Harry, Mum wanted me to give this to you," Ginny came up behind him and dumped a parcel into Harry's hand.

"Oh, um…thanks, I guess," Harry said, a little confused. "What is it?"

"Mum figured that since you were running around with Sirius all summer you wouldn't have had time to do your school shopping so she got some gold out of your vault and did it for you," Ginny explained.

"Why does your mother have access to my Gringott's vault?" Harry asked immediately.

Ginny shrugged. "Who knows?"

"Seriously, I need to see a list of who's authorized because really, the only one who should be able to access it is me and, because of my minor status, my godfather," Harry decided.

Ginny sighed loudly. "Why do you always make everything so difficult? Can't you just be thankful that she got your school supplies for you?"

"I would," Harry admitted. "Except that I already paid Dobby to do it for me."

"Oh," Ginny said. "Well, that's kind of awkward…"

"Oh don't worry," Harry waved it off. "I can just sell them throughout the year to anyone who needs to replace any of their supplies. It will be much faster than Owl Post. And that's really an idea…"

"Well…at least you're making the best of everything," Ginny said doubtfully.

"This means I've got two sets of dress robes…" Harry mused. "I'm only ever actually going to wear one, though…Hey, Ron," he called.

"Yeah?" Ron, who had returned to bickering with Hermione, looked over at him.

"Due to a shopping error, I now have two sets of dress robes. I only need one set. Do you want to borrow my second set?" Harry offered.

Ron made a face. "Harry. You know how I feel about chari-"

"Laundry!" Mrs. Weasley announced, walking into the room and handing robes to the occupants.

"Mum, you gave me Ginny's new dress," Ron said, holding a long, maroon velvet dress robe with a moldy-looking lace frill at the collar and matching lace cuffs out to her. Harry wondered vaguely why Molly always tried to make Ron wear maroon. It wasn't like she didn't have the exact same hair color; surely she realized he looked horrible in it by now? Was the maroon really the only color available on sale? Couldn't she use a spell to change the color?

Ginny snorted. "Please. I wouldn't be caught dead in that."

"Then what-?" Ron began, eying the dress robes nervously.

"Ginny!" Molly scolded. "Those are your new dress robes, of course."

"Right," Ron nodded. "Harry, is your offer still open?"

"The offer I made two minutes ago?" Harry asked rhetorically. "Of course."

"Great," Ron looked relieved.

"What offer is this?" Molly asked curiously.

"Harry's lending me his spare set of dress robes for…whatever we need dress robes for," Ron explained.

Molly's mouth became a thin line. "He most certainly is not. You are going to wear these dress robes and you are going to like it, young man!"

"Mrs. Weasley," Harry cut in hesitantly, hoping the Weasley matron wasn't about to bite his head off.

"Yes, Harry dear?" she asked warmly.

"I really don't need two sets but I currently have them. If I don't let Ron use them than chances are I'll just end up giving them to Dobby and they're too big for him to have any real use for, so he'll probably cut it up and use it as a cleaning cloth and this material is far too nice for that," Harry said earnestly.

"Well…" Molly looked like she was relenting.

"Besides, you should see Ginny's robes," Ron pointed to his sister's very pretty royal blue dress robes.

"Ginevra," Molly gasped. "Where did you-"

Ginny shot a glare at her brother. "There was a sale going on," she lied, still refusing to admit she had money for fear her parents would try and make her wait until she was of age to access it so she'd be responsible with it. Well she didn't want to be responsible, she wanted to get out of wearing maroon to…whatever they needed dress robes for.

"We WILL talk about this later, young lady," Molly promised as she swept out of the room.

Ginny snorted. "When? I'm going back to Hogwarts tomorrow."

"She is really scary," Hermione said quietly.

"Oh, are you two still in the room?" Harry asked, looking over at her and Neville. "Why haven't you said anything for the past ten minutes?"

"We know better than to invoke the famous Weasley temper," Neville explained. "You know, she really reminds me of my Gran sometimes…except more maternal."

"Famous Weasley temper?" Harry repeated incredulously. As his four friends nodded, he started laughing. "Guys, Mr. Weasley is one of the most even-tempered people I've ever met. The one with the temper is Mrs. Weasley and she's a Prewett, so wouldn't it be the famous Prewett temper?"

"I...guess," Neville conceded, looking like he couldn't care less.

----

At Platform 9¾ the next day, Bill and Charlie were having great fun teasing their younger siblings. Except for Percy, who was too busy trying to be a responsible adult and actually working. Clearly this is a sign that Percy hates his family and is just looking for an excuse to throw them over.

"I might be seeing you all sooner than you think," Charlie said, grinning, as he hugged Ginny goodbye.

"Why?" Fred asked keenly.

"Are you going to be in Britain for Christmas?" Harry asked innocently.

"…Let's go with that," Charlie replied. "After all, if it were for any other reason at all, I wouldn't be supposed to say as it's…what was it… 'classified information until such time the Ministry sees fit to release it.'"

"Kind of makes you wonder, really, why in the world it's such a big secret. I mean, anyone even vaguely connected with the Ministry knows but the Hogwarts students can't?" Harry complained.

Charlie eyed him curiously. "How do you know-"

"I know everything," Harry said seriously.

"I thought that was your scar," Hermione said.

"My scar is a part of me," Harry shrugged.

"Really, because when you were claiming that you weren't psychic earlier-" Hermione began.

"Stop nitpicking," Harry told her, ignoring her outraged gasp and turning back towards the adult Weasley boys.

"So you know why I sort of wish I was back at Hogwarts this year," Bill said, looking almost wistful.

"WHY?" George asked impatiently.

"Probably because being an adult sucks," Harry guessed. "Although since he's a travelling curse breaker I don't see why he'd want to go back to Snap-er, exams."

"You guys are going to have an interesting year," Bill defended. "I might even get some time off to come and watch a bit of it."

"A bit of what?" Ron demanded.

Neville shrugged. "Who knows? Every year Harry has is pretty interesting and since no one actually tried to kill Harry last year – except possibly Professor Snape for giving Sirius ideas – this year should be twice as deadly."

"How does that even work?" Ginny asked quizzically.

"It's Harry," Neville said, as if that explained everything. Which it kind of did.

"Thanks for having us stay, Mrs. Weasley," Hermione said.

"Yeah, thanks for everything," Neville added.

"Oh, it was my pleasure, dears," said Mrs. Weasley.

"Oh, sure it's her pleasure when it's Ron's friends," Fred muttered.

"But when WE want to have people over it's always 'we'll see'," George added.

"Or when I want to have friends over it's 'Ron's friends are around your age' or 'Luna lives right over the hill'," Ginny contributed. The twins glared at her for breaking their rhythm. "Sorry."

"It's blatant favoritism, that's what it is," Fred sniffed.

"Too right, Fred," George agreed.

"No, it's because last time Lee Jordan came to visit you blew up the house," corrected Mrs. Weasley.

"We only blew it up a LITTLE," Fred insisted.

"And it's not like you didn't fix it in five minutes anyway," George finished.

"Anyway," Mrs. Weasley sighed. "I'd invite you all for Christmas, but…well, I expect you're all going to want to stay at Hogwarts, what with…one thing and another."

"Oh come on!" Ron moaned as they went to go find a compartment. "Mum knows, too? She's not even in the Ministry! Can't you just tell me what it is, Harry?"

"I could," Harry agreed. "But I don't want to."

"You're not letting them know about the Triwizard Tournament?" Luna's ethereal voice came from behind them.

"Nope," Harry said cheerfully.

"What's a Triwizard Tournament?" Hermione asked, looking a bit irritated not to know when clearly everyone else did.

"It's a competition that was established seven hundred years ago between Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang. A representative from each school is chosen and the three champions compete in three magical tasks. Ever five years, the schools took turns hosting the Tournament. Several centuries ago, however, the death toll got to be too high and they cancelled it," Neville explained.

"Death toll?" Hermione asked, horrified.

"Well, duh, Hermione," Ron said. "Think how easy it is to nearly die just by going to Hogwarts even WITHOUT the extra danger thrown in."

"That's awful," Hermione whispered. "It's a good thing they cancelled it."

"Didn't you hear Luna?" Harry asked. "They're reinstating it."

"I'm sure Dumbledore has more sense than that," Hermione said skeptically.

"I wouldn't bet on it," Harry muttered.

"It's okay, Harry," Luna told him. "One of these days the power of our insanity will prove to be too much for her and she'll HAVE to believe."

"I know," Harry nodded. "I just wish that day was today."

"…Father says Durmstrang takes a far more sensible line than Hogwarts about the Dark Arts. Durmstrang students actually learn them, not just the defense rubbish we do," Draco was saying as he entered their compartment, followed by his two faithful stooges. "Mother put her foot down though and said no son of hers would ever be caught dead in a Durmstrang uniform. I can kind of see her point, I'll admit. I mean, who wears fur nowadays, really? Still…think of how much fun I could have learning all sorts of Dark spells…"

"So you think Durmstrang would have suited you, do you?" Hermione said angrily. "I wish you HAD gone, then we wouldn't have to put up with you."

Draco raised an eyebrow. "Claws out today, Granger? Are you just sore Durmstrang doesn't accept Muggleborns?"

"No," Hermione denied. "Durmstrang has a horrible reputation! According to Appraisal of Magical Education in Europe, it puts a lot of emphasis on the Dark Arts."

"That's not exactly a horrible reputation," Neville pointed out. "Although the no Muggleborn policy does draw some criticism from the more moderate factions of wizarding society."

"So…going to enter, Weasley?" Draco asked, bored with the discussion of the school he'd chosen not to go to. "Going to try to earn a bit of money so you don't have to make Potter buy you everything?"

"Enter what?" Ron asked blankly.

"You don't know?" Draco looked amused. "Your dad and three of your brothers are involved, how can you not KNOW? What about you, Potter? You never miss a chance to show off, after all."

Harry shrugged. "Probably. I heard they're using an age line to keep anyone under the age of seventeen out, but I'm not exactly going to let that stop me. And as for why they don't know…Luna tried to tell them, but they don't believe her. Which is strange because she's right more often than not…"

"It's because what I say sounds strange," Luna explained. "And to quote my favorite cricket player, 'in an insane world the sane appear insane.'"

"How do you know about the Tournament?" Ginny demanded.

"Wait, you believe Luna and Harry?" Ron asked in disbelief.

Ginny nodded. "I've known Luna for years and everyone knows that the crazier the things that come out of Harry's mouth are, the more accurate they get."

"Point," Neville acknowledged.

"Oh, my father found out about it ages ago," Draco said airily. "He heard about it from Cornelius Fudge."

"That's against the rules because it's supposed to be secret until the time comes for it to be revealed!" Hermione protested. "So what your father did, Malfoy, is wrong!"

Draco stared at her. "Do you honestly expect me to care or something?"

"You should," Hermione said defiantly.

Draco laughed. "My father was accused of being a Death Eater after the Dark Lord fell and that accusation keeps coming up every time someone doesn't like him. As a wealthy, powerful Pureblood lots of people don't like him. When compared to having your father accused of being a terrorist, do you really think it matters in the slightest if he told me about some stupid tournament a few weeks in advance?"

"…It should," Hermione repeated.

"Whatever," Draco shook his head, leaving the compartment, Crabbe and Goyle following silently behind him.

"Do you think Goyle even knows how to talk?" Harry asked idly.

"What about Crabbe?" Ron asked. "I always thought he looked stupider."

"He may not be the brightest guy around," Harry conceded, remembering how he'd managed to kill himself with Fiendfyre he really shouldn't have been casting in the first place. "But he's not THAT stupid."

"Your scar again?" Hermione asked skeptically.

"Maybe," Harry muttered.

"Hey Luna," Ginny asked suddenly. "Do you believe in Harry's psychic scar?"

"Oh no," the blonde girl shook her head.

"Then how do you explain how he always knows everything?" Neville inquired.

Luna blinked. "He's obviously from the future."

Hermione stared at her for half a second before bursting out laughing. "That's even less likely than his scar being semi-sentient."

"Which it totally is," Harry managed to say truthfully, since it was a Horcrux and whatnot, while staring at Luna speculatively.

"What makes you say that?" Ginny wanted to know.

"Well, how else would you explain it?" Luna asked reasonably.