HP 11

When Carl walked in the Great Hall at the beginning of his sixth year, he was surprised to see Fleur Delacour sitting next to Professor Flitwick up at the professor's table. She saw Carl enter and gave him a smile and a wink. Carl returned the smile warmly.

He hadn't seen Fleur since she left at the end of his fourth year, but they had kept up a correspondence by letters over his fifth year. He knew she was working on getting her Charms mastery, so he figured she had some deal with Flitwick to continue studying at Hogwarts. Although why she would want to return to the cold climate of Scotland, Carl couldn't fathom.

Unseen by Carl, Hermione and Luna exchanged conspiratorial glances when they saw Carl and Fleur's interaction.

Carl only found out later that Fleur had also been corresponding with Luna and Hermione. Fleur had missed their group, and Carl especially. Eventually the three women had conspired to have Fleur apprenticed under Flitwick for the next few years while she attained her mastery, and given the chance to fit into their dating trio, to make it a quad.

And, surprisingly to Carl, Luna and Hermione were not against bringing Fleur into the relationship. When Carl found out about their machinations, he couldn't help but wonder if it was the magic and his perks that caused Carl's abnormal luck with ladies in magic focused worlds. First the BtVS world, and now the HP world, the girls he hung around just seemed to be predisposed to group relationships.

Not being a complete idiot, Carl went with the flow and welcomed Fleur in as if she had always been part of the group. He naturally informed Fleur of the Jumpchain and what would likely be their future, if they chose to join him in world jumps sometime in the future.

To his surprise, Fleur didn't even hesitate and agreed to join them. She said she would be a fool to pass up all that knowledge, adventure, and excitement he offered.

And so Carl's sixth year was going nice, with no crazy shenanigans. Aside from having three girlfriends to keep happy, and who kept him happy.

Then one day in October Harry got called in to the Headmaster's office for a meeting. Carl wondered what that was about, but didn't pay it too much mind until Harry rejoined the core WDS group.

"I figure Dumbledore is off his rocker." Harry blankly stated when he arrived. "He told me that Voldemort was still alive, somewhere out there. He told me he had to start preparing me for our confrontation, and that I was the chosen one of prophecy to end Voldemort's evil. So he started some history lessons about some bloke named Tom Riddle that Dumbledore said became Voldemort."

Carl sighed in exasperation. The plot was raising its ugly head, trying to get things "back on track". He looked over at Hermione, Fleur, and Luna, who were the only ones he had shared the information about the Horcrux and the original plot with.

He saw that the girls agreed that they would have to have a talk later about just how much to share with the group.

"Harry. Who else was in your meeting with Dumbledore?" Carl asked.

Harry blinked, nonplussed. "Er, it was just me and Dumbledore."

Carl sighed at the oblivious nature in which Harry said that. It was just another piece of evidence how neglected he had been growing up that he saw nothing strange about not having his guardians with him for that meeting.

"Harry, if Dumbledore is calling you in for some meeting, at the very least your Head of House should be present for the meetings." Carl explained to Harry. "And since your Godfather and Uncle are always here in Hogwarts, there is no reason they shouldn't be involved in the meetings. Furthermore, if Dumbledore thinks that Voldemort is still alive out there, and thinks he's going to be a problem you have to deal with, then by damned sure your guardians should be involved. Maybe even the DMLE should be involved too. But at the very least, your guardians should be."

Carl saw the realization start to dawn in Harry's face. He blamed Dumbledore's "trust me" aura. So many people simply went along with what Dumbledore assumed was the way it should be without stopping to think about it, or think about alternatives.

"Why don't we go meet your guardians to talk about this. Voldemort is certainly not something that you should have to deal with alone, if he really is out there. And don't worry, you have us to help too." Carl urged Harry, and was echoed by loud agreement from everyone in their group. Harry was very moved by his friend's show of loyalty.

When everyone started trooping out of the room to meet with Sirius and Remus, Carl motioned for Hermione, Luna, and Fleur to hang back for a bit.

"What do you think?" Carl asked his girls. "How much should we reveal? I mean, if we don't at least prove that Harry doesn't have a Horcrux in his head, then Dumbledore will probably not ever let Harry go."

The four thought about it for a while.

"Why don't we at least have them do scans of Harry's scar? That should prove that he no longer has a Horcrux there, and so he won't need to be sacrificed." Hermione offered.

Luna and nodded in agreement, but had some more to add. "We shouldn't show the rituals to anyone, especially the one you used to kill Riddle. We don't want the ministry or Dumbledore to come after us. But if they find out he does not have that piece of nastiness in his head, it should make them back off from him a bit."

"The mysterious nature of the missing Horcrux will likely distract Dumbledore from focusing on him as he goes to research it. It will give him something to focus on. As long as he doesn't have any evidence that any of us were involved, then we should be fine." Fleur added on.

"Sounds like a plan." Carl agreed. "At the very least, having Sirius and Remus backing Harry up should make it harder to rope him into some scheme or other."

The four of them left to hurry catch up to the rest of the group. They arrived just as Harry started explaining to Sirius and Remus what had happened with Dumbledore.

After the explanation, and Carl telling Sirius and Remus about how they had gotten rid of the dark magic in Harry's scar without going into detail about the rituals used, Carl could see that the two adults were fully on board with protecting Harry. They were especially against the idea of just chucking Harry at Voldemort, if he was still around, all alone without backup. After some promises not to relay information about the rituals to Dumbledore, the two adults were all set to beard the old man in his den.

"Stay here for a bit while we go have a talk with Dumbledore." Sirius said. Carl could see he could barely contain his anger.

"Why don't you at least get Professor McGonagall to join you? She is the Deputy Headmistress and Harry's Head of House. She would be a great help to have on your side." Carl suggested before the two men could depart.

Carl chuckled when he saw the two men's faces at the idea. Their expressions were similar to Fred and George's before they pulled a prank. Evil smiles that promised retribution slowly grew on their faces.

"Good idea. Let's just see how he reacts to having his own professors keep him in check on this." Remus muttered before the two professors departed on a mission.

The group settled down in the DADA teacher's office, waiting for the professors to return and share the news. Some pulled out a book to read, others started playing a game, or practicing their magic spells.

Over an hour later, Sirius, Remus, and McGonagall walked into the room. Everyone paused what they were doing to hear the news.

Professor McGonagall looked over the group sternly. "You all did the right thing by bringing this issue to the attention of the professors. 10 points to each of you." She then looked at Harry. "Mr. Potter, if you receive a summons to the headmaster's office at any time, be sure to seek me, Professor Black, or Professor Lupin out first. We will accompany you to any future meetings."

Harry agreed to what Professor McGonagall demanded, and the WDS departed to continue their studies in their clubhouse.

Despite the scans showing that Harry's scar was clean of any magic, Dumbledore continued to insist on his meetings. Harry would continue to meet with Dumbledore over the year with his guardians and Professor McGonagall present. He would then share the background that he learned about Tom Riddle with the senior members of the WDS. There was no sense in scaring the younger years by talking about Voldemort.

Carl found the information that Dumbledore shared in the meetings interesting, but a bit useless. Riddle was already dead and gone from the world, so it was a pointless exercise.

However he and his girls didn't want to get the unwanted attention from sharing with the old man how they accomplished Voldemort's end. And if they didn't share the method, they knew the old man would never let it go until he got an answer. So they left the whole thing alone.

XX

It wasn't until March that Carl finally finished his Arithmancy calculations on Slytherin's vault. He, Fleur, Hermione, and Luna had double checked everything three times, to make sure it wouldn't blow up in their faces.

Carl then spent his spare time crafting the various ward stones that he would activate in sequence to disarm the defenses of the vault. He had everything ready by the second Saturday in May to open the vault.

"Every time we come down here I feel like Indiana Jones." Hermione muttered to Carl and Luna as they were walking through the Chamber of Secrets.

"More like Laura Croft." Carl responded.

"Who?"

"Video game character. Think of a female version of Indiana Jones that runs around with short shorts and has two big pistols strapped to her legs. Very sexy. But not as sexy as you three." Carl cheekily answered.

"Video games." Hermione scoffed.

"What are video games?" Luna asked.

"I'll show you later, Luna. And they get a lot better than they are now, Hermione. In like 20 years you'll find it hard to find someone who doesn't play at least some kind of electronic game, even if it is only solitaire on their computer or phone."

"Hmm. You say these video games become very popular?" Fleur asked.

"Yeah, it becomes a huge industry." Carl nodded.

"Then we shall have to invest in it. The Delacour family has remained politically powerful in France in large part due to our large coffers. And our coffers continue to grow because we continue to invest in the explosively growing industries in the muggle world. So we shall emulate the Delacour's success, and reap the rewards." Fleur finished with an amazingly sharp grin.

"That sounds like a plan." Carl chuckled. Investing wasn't something Carl had really thought about, since he would be gone from every world after only 10 years. But since Fleur was invested in the idea, and it was an industry that became more profitable and popular as technology advanced, Carl was all for it.

Carl helped the three ladies climb up into the mouth of the statue and into the area where the vault was. After a quick scan to make sure nothing had changed since the last time they were there, the small group started placing the wards stones.

"Everyone ready?" Carl asked once they had finished.

After a chorus of yeses from the girls, Carl activated the ward stones. As each defense was disarmed, Carl activated the next part while Luna, Fleur, and Hermione monitored and adjusted the process to make sure nothing unexpected happened.

It took more than twice as long to disarm Slytherin's vault defenses than it took to disarm Riddle's defenses on the Gaunt shack, and there were four people working on Slytherin's vault, while Carl had soloed the Gaunt shack. But they eventually cleared away all the defenses. While the process was tense, there weren't any unexpected explosions or crises arising. Which meant that the group did the Ward Breaking job properly. A tense but smooth operation was a job well done.

In order to play it safe, they set up the Ward reading stones once more to double check that there weren't any more hidden defenses or curses on whatever was inside the vault.

Once they were assured that it was safe, Carl cracked open the door. Taking a look inside, Carl whistled at the treasure they had found. He felt like the kids in that movie Goonies when they arrived at the pirate ship and saw all the gold and jewels, but times that by more than a hundred.

Before they moved in, Carl made sure to do one more scan now that the vault door was open to make sure there were no curses that were sneakily activated once the door opened. He may have been a bit excessively paranoid, but better safe, then sorry.

After an hour spent looking at the treasure, Carl was amused to see how impatient his girls were. He kept his own impatience in check by deciding to be amused by their impatience. Which earned him a couple shoulder slaps and a few stinging hexes, but it was all in good fun.

Finally, with the all clear, the four moved inside the vault and just basked in golden light.

There were enormous mounds of gold and barrels of gems of all kinds. There were shelves full of books and scrolls under preservation runes. Cracking open some crates, Carl saw various ores and ingots, and some metals that he didn't even recognize. It was a treasure horde.

"This is amazing. I'm sure I can add some of these ores and metals to my farms to produce." Carl excitedly said as he looked over the magically imbued metals.

"Books. Library. Mine." Hermione drooled.

"Sparklies!" Luna cheered while playing with the gems.

"Yes, sparklies." Fleur joined Luna in playing with the barrels of gems.

"I can probably pay off the goblins a few years early with my cut of the gold." Carl laughed. "We'll all get an individual copy of the library. And the ores and gems I think we should keep instead of selling. What do you say?"

"Yes!" Luna didn't want to let go of her prizes.

"Many of these would make excellent jewelry." Fleur agreed with Luna.

"Well, we have a nice secure place to keep them here, once we place our own wards." Hermione absently stated while greedily running her hands over the book titles.

"That is a very good idea. We need to figure out a way so you three can get in here on your own if we're doing that. Maybe there's secret passages that leads outside of Hogwarts? Portkeys? Or something else?" Carl trailed off in supposition.

"We'll figure something out later. For now, I'm looking at this library."

Carl, Fleur, and Luna chuckled at Hermione, who joined them a moment later in good humor. Everyone was in a good mood with their new treasures.

XX

Several days after Carl, Fleur, Hermione, and Luna had finally cracked Slytherin's vault, Dumbledore suddenly disappeared. No one could find him anywhere. The professors canceled class while they dealt with the search.

They even called in the DMLE, and the aurors started a systematic search of the castle and grounds. There was some excitement the second day when they found the Forbidden Forest full of Acromantula. The search for Dumbledore was put on hold while the DMLE organized a culling and clearing. There was no way they were going to leave man eating spiders in the forest right next to a school with all their kids in it.

After several days of battle, and finally clearing the forest, the DMLE continued the search for Dumbledore. After several days of not finding anything, they left to search in other places around Britain.

The papers ran all kinds of speculation about just what happened to Albus. Without the man himself around to call in favors or defend himself, the paper ran wild with speculation. Some actual real dirt was dug up and presented to the public.

After a couple of weeks of finding no trace of Albus Dumbledore, they announced that he was presumed dead and held a memorial for the man at Hogwarts.

The crowd that came to pay respects to Dumbledore was very large, but not quite as large as it might have been before the DMLE found the Acromantula infestation that threatened the wizarding world's children. Or all the dirt and speculation about his life.

But despite all that, the man still had a large following. There were several speakers that talked about his life and what a large figure he had been in everyone's life. And they gave him a proper send off, leaving a small memorial on the Hogwarts grounds.

Through all of the commotion caused by Dumbledore's disappearance, Carl had an idea about what had happened, but he had no way to prove it one way or another without bringing suspicion to himself, so he just kept his mouth shut.

When everything finally settled down, and the DMLE and ministry workers had gone back to their routine, Carl made a trip with Rover to the orphanage that Riddle grew up in. It took him some time to even find the orphanage. He then spent some time investigating the outskirts of the town that the orphanage was located in, and finally found the magical traces that he was looking for.

Carl found himself standing in front of a cavern wall with faint traces of blood having been smeared on it. Using the idea out of a fic he'd read, he summoned a fish from the ocean behind him. Slicing open the fish, he smeared the fish blood on the wall. Nothing happened.

"Of course not." Carl then took a vial out of his pocket. He'd stopped by a blood bank and borrowed some donated blood. He really didn't want to cut himself and smear his own blood on the wall to open it. He splashed the blood on the wall. The cavern wall vanished. "Looks like it just needed to be human blood."

Carl walked inside, looking around the dark cavern. The floating globe of fire he had conjured earlier lit up the cavern. He could see a lake with a little island in the center. A small rowboat was pulled up onto the island, and a basin was standing in the center of the island. Carl could see a cup lying among the scraps of flamboyantly colored cloth that had been ripped from a robe lying on the island. Carl sighed sadly.

"Well, Dumbledore. You just couldn't let it go. No matter how many signs you had that Riddle was really gone, you just couldn't seem to stop obsessing about it, could you?" Carl said aloud. "I mean, just the fact that all the Death Eaters lost their magic and fell into comas should have clued you in. Then there was the fact that Voldemort hadn't been active or doing anything for so many years."

"But I bet you just felt so guilty over the whole mess that you couldn't stop obsessing and just enjoy the last of your life, could you? Well, I hope in the next life you find what you never could find in this life." Carl finished talking to the memory of Albus Dumbledore, renowned wizard who chased after salvation and forgiveness all his days for the "mistakes of his youth".

Carl turned around and left the cavern. Before departing for good, he set up some ward stones and cast fiendfyre inside the cavern. He stood outside the entrance, watching as the fiendfyre burned up the water in the cavern lake and all the infierus that Voldemort left in wait. Once everything was burnt to ash, Carl let the fiendfyre die down, shut the cavern entrance, gathered his ward stones and departed the place Dumbledore met his end.

XX

Carl, Hermione, Fleur, and Luna spent the summer splitting the treasure up and cataloging and copying the library. Slytherin definitely had a secret way into the chamber that didn't go through Hogwarts' wards. If the books had gone through Hogwarts then Carl would have gotten a copy of them from the Room of Requirement.

When they finally copied and translated the books, many of which were in parseltongue, Carl found the clues needed to find the secret passages that Slytherin used, and he was able to key Luna, Fleur, and Hermione in so they too could use them without being a parseltongue.

They also learned a bit of Slytherin's true history, from his own mouth, or pen. The reason he got a reputation for hating Muggleborn was that his wife and youngest newborn son had been betrayed and killed by some muggleborn that they brought in to be taught magic. So he went on a rampage in the muggle world, killing the aristocrats that had used their own children as betrayers.

The great amount of treasures he stored in the vault came from the many wizards and muggle lords that he fought against or stole from over the years. Anyone who he saw as aiding the muggles in their pogrom against magicals became fair game to Slytherin. He would steal their libraries, their gold, and anything else of value in order to beggar anyone who persecuted magicals.

The journal entries ended abruptly one day before he was to pull one final heist. Apparently it had not gone well and he didn't return, leaving his treasure behind with no one aware of it or able to access it. Which allowed Carl, Hermione, and Luna to benefit from everything he had gathered.

With the gold that Carl now had, once the summer began he made a trip to Gringotts.

Strolling inside the bank, he looked over the lobby. Industrious Goblins did their work efficiently at their stations. Wizards and witches waited in lines to conduct business.

Carl made his way over to the collections station. Carl received a few sneers from the Wizards waiting in line. Evidently they thought he was particularly stupid or incompetent to have borrowed money from Goblins. Everyone knew their penalty clauses were ruinous.

Carl didn't even bother giving the wizards a second glance as he arrived at the teller in charge of collections.

"Yes, wizard?" The teller, Tendon-Stripper growled.

Carl smiled at the Goblin. Among the Goblins he interacted with, he had found some he liked, and some he didn't. Knot-Ripper, the first teller he interacted with was an okay bloke in his mind. But this one, Tendon-Stripper, was a jerk. He had worked hard to make the penalties on failing to pay off the contract particularly onerous for Carl. So Carl was going to savor this moment.

"Yes, teller. I'm here to make a payment." Carl smiled innocently.

"Fill out the form, as usual." Tendon-Stripper pushed a form and quill to Carl. The unpleasant Goblin's momentary hope that the human would be reporting that he couldn't fulfill the contract was dashed for another year.

Carl filled out the form, checking the box that indicated he was paying the remaining balance in full, signed it, and passed it back to Tendon-Stripper.

He watched carefully for the Goblin's reaction, and was quite satisfied when he saw the Goblin's jaw drop, his eyes go wide, and a look of horrified disbelief came over his face.

'Ahh, there it is.' Carl thought in satisfaction.

"No! This isn't right!" Tendon-Stripper growled.

"Ah, but it is." Carl stated in satisfaction as he placed an expanded bag with the proper amount of gold on the counter. "Go ahead and count it. I believe you'll find it all there, to the last Knut."

"But there's no way you could have paid back the gold, not with your revenue stream! You must have cheated, or lied on the forms when signing the contract!" The goblin was grasping for straws now. Carl fulfilling the contract meant that the teller would be losing a lot of Carl's gold as well as the loss of his own influence and reputation in the bank when it was told how a human got the better of him.

Carl chuckled. "Ah, but you know that's not true. If I wasn't truthful when signing those forms, a penalty would have been extracted from me. And since that didn't happen, obviously I was completely truthful about what was asked."

"Then how could you possibly have gotten the gold?!" Tendon-Stripper gritted out.

"Ah, well. Not that it's any of your business, really. But I recently came into an inheritance. The gold is mine, free and clear. The payment is yours, honest and clean. The blade is mine, paid and contract fulfilled." Carl smirked at the Goblin as he continued to grumble while counting out the gold.

Carl had no worry that he would try to cheat him on the count. It was in the contract, and Goblins always stuck to the letter of their contract. Even when it almost killed them.

They finished by signing on the "contract fulfilled" line on the contract. The contract turned into a certificate of ownership for Carl. Any Goblins that tried to repossess Carl's blade from that point on would be labeled as thieves, one of the worst insults any Goblin could receive.

Carl left the bank feeling very good after having seen Tendon-Stipper forced to fulfill the contract. Such satisfaction!

XX

Once he had full ownership of the blade, Carl decided to formally name his blade the Blue Orchid, based on the rich blue color and flower ornamentation on the tsuba, or hilt guard.

Now that Carl once more had his revenue stream from all the properties that he owned from Monopoly, he felt it was time to get started on building his company. Carl interviewed and hired a CEO to build his company for him during the next year while he finished up his seventh year at Hogwarts.

With the charms that kept muggle devices working in high magic areas and his magic batteries, he charmed his Pokegear/Cell phone to work at Hogwarts so that his CEO, Catherine Grant, could contact him during certain times of the week and over the weekend to give progress reports and get his decisions on issues.

And now that he was hiring people, he finally had a use for his Headquarters building that he got from the HSDK world. Catherine, working out of the headquarters building, had the job to purchase land and start construction on his manufacturing facilities where they would build his magically powered batteries to sell to the muggles.

Over his seventh year, Carl found himself very busy. He was made the Head boy, and Hermione was the Head girl, so he had to help manage the prefects. He had many meetings with his CEO to arrange matters for his company. And he definitely needed to continue having dates with his three girls. One of the things that saved Carl was that the girls enjoyed each other's company and didn't mind keeping each other occupied when Carl had duties elsewhere.

He also spent some time learning to program. By the end of his seventh year he had finished a basic program and database that would make arithmancy much quicker. He just needed to continue improving it.

It was a good thing he had already mastered the Hogwarts curriculum and didn't need more than a couple hours of meditation each night, or he would have been overwhelmed that year. But the results were that when he and Hermione graduated, his company was established, he had a decent number of employees, and the factory to make his batteries was halfway complete.

During the following year after he and Hermione graduated they were either studying at University and taking some classes, sneaking into Hogwarts to spend time with Luna and Fleur, or making sure that his company, MagiBattery Co., was progressing well.

By the time that Luna graduated from Hogwarts and Fleur had finished her Charms Mastery, his company was all set to start manufacturing the rune scheme batteries that converted magic to electricity, with an additional little contract built in. When a customer bought their batteries, in order to activate them they simply had to say out loud the phrase "I believe in Magic" while holding the battery.

The phrase not only activated the rune scheme to power the battery, it worked as an agreement to a small contract compulsion that helped the person actually believe in magic. It was a very small nudge, but the longer the customer used the batteries, the stronger the belief became, until they would treat magic as a matter of fact.

Carl didn't think it was cheating to use magic to help the muggles believe in magic. It was only a very small nudge, and it would take several years before each person's belief in magic was solidified, or so Carl estimated.

Once Fleur and Luna joined Carl and Hermione in university, he no longer had to continue sneaking into Hogwarts, which saved him some time for more studies or snuggles, or other things that began with 'S'. He continued taking classes in university to expand his understanding of the muggle sciences, especially mathematics, physics, and anything relating to computers.

While the science and technology in the Harry Potter world wasn't anything special, it at least gave Carl a good grounding and background in science. He continued to tinker with combining magic and technology, making plans for more products that his company would sell to both the muggle and magical worlds.

Meanwhile his company continued to produce batteries of all kinds. The fact that his batteries never wore out made them very popular everywhere. By the time a year had passed his batteries were so prevalent in the UK and Ireland that he suddenly found himself back in his Warehouse one morning.

"Dammit! A little warning would have been appreciated!" Carl yelled when he realized he was alone and naked in bed between worlds. Sitting up in his bed in the Warehouse he scowled. "Next time I'm waiting to start the exit plan until I'm good and ready to leave a world. Well, guess I'll go take a cold shower and get dressed. I'm suddenly not in the mood anymore for some reason." Carl sarcastically said.

While cooling off in the cold shower, Carl realized that he hadn't accounted for the effect on the muggles that using multiple batteries would have. Or that so many batteries gathered wherever the muggles were would create a bigger "believe in magic" field. It must have had a multiplying effect, to take effect so soon. He had expected a few more years in the HP world.

Carl sighed. The things he only learned after the fact.