chapter 17:A New Home

Harry looked up from the letter he had received and grinned.

"Hermione, Nev. What are you doing on Boxing Day or after?"

"Erm, not much." Hermione said slowly. "I have some cousins visiting over Christmas, but other than that…"

"Same here, sort of." Neville added. "Why?"

"The Pottery has been fully rebuilt and linked to the Floo." Harry smiled. "I've still got a few things to do to make it fully habitable, shop for furniture and so on, but after I've finished things off, you can come over for a bit. Hermione, it'll give you a chance to show your parents what magic you can do while Nev, I'm assuming you're linked to the Floo as well?"

Neville nodded. "We are. It's how I got to the station, there's a public Floo just off to one side."

"Hm, useful to know." Harry mused. "You'll have to show me how it's done… okay, possible change of plans. New Year's Eve, care to stay over? When it's time to catch the express, we can Floo to the station directly from the Pottery while your parents simply drive back home."

"Sounds like a plan." Hermione nodded. "I'll need to check with my parents first… it's rather short notice…"

Harry whistled and a moment later, Grace glided in and settled on his shoulder.

"Grace can carry the letter for you if you want." Harry offered. "She'll wait for a reply and bring it back to you, right girl?"

Grace churred in apparent agreement, causing Hermione to giggle.

"Let me get a pen and some paper." She said as she scurried off.

"Nev?"

"Gran is intending to attend the Christmas Ball at the Ministry, which means I need to go as well since I'm the Heir, but I don't think she's got anything planned for New Year." He mused. "Of course, she'll probably insist on escorting me over, so you might want to make sure that everything's as neat and tidy as possible."

"Thanks for the warning, Nev." Harry chuckled. "It's good to have friends…"

"I know the feeling." Neville agreed.

"I'm back!" Hermione called as she re-entered the room, a pad of paper in one hand and a pen in the other. "…erm, what did I miss?"

.

.

Draco looked up from the letter he had received and winced.

"What is it?" Pansy Parkinson asked and Draco fought to smooth his expression.

"My father… will not be allowing me to attend the Malfoy Ball this year." Draco said, his mind flashing briefly back to the meeting with his father just after he had attempted to follow his father's instructions, but before he had finished writing the letter that would have explained why it hadn't been his fault it had failed.

}-{

"How could you have been so stupid?" Lucius whispered. Other men would have shouted, ranted or even screamed but Lucius held himself above such idiots.

He had painstakingly trained himself to control his temper, to make it work for him and now that he was on the receiving end, Draco was unhappily aware

of how much more terrifying near-civility was as compared to unrestrained rage.

"Your task was simple." Lucius had continued, his voice so cold that had his cane not been lying on the table in front of him, Draco would have sworn that he

must have cast a freezing spell. "You were to use the Battlestick I sent you to covertly disable that mudblood who is already making waves with how she is

showing up her superiors. Instead, you try to hit her in the middle of a lesson, under the gaze of Filius Flitwick no less and even though you were on the row

directly behind her… you… missed."

"Someone knocked the desk!" Draco whined, then he cringed under his father's cold gaze.

"I have plans, Draco." Lucius hissed at him. "Many plans. And if I cannot trust you to follow my instructions intelligently… just remember that your mother is

still fertile. You will learn subtlety even if it kills you, and I am currently uncertain that I would care if it does."

Draco felt his face pale. Being seen as disposable was never a good thing among the Pureblood families that hewed close to the Great Dark and many of

those who were seen as such tended to vanish… usually at around the same time that the family in question gained extra powers in magery or reinforced

wards around their mansions.

"You will not try to do anything other than study unless I tell you to." Lucius continued. "You will draw no attention to yourself, except in the fields of scholastic

achievement. You will remain quiet, refusing to rise to the taunts of those less worthy than yourself. And if I find that you have lied to me about anything else…"

Lucius trailed off and Draco stood frozen with fear as his father collected his cane before sweeping from the room.

He was still standing there ten minutes later when his Head of House collected him.

}-{

"Father is displeased about the failure to remove that overachieving mudblood from Hogwarts." Draco admitted, folding up the letter and placing it into one of his inner pockets. "He is working on building up the alliances that would have been his to pluck like ripe fruits had the plan worked."

Pansy frowned. "But… why did it fail?"

Draco snarled his answer. "Potter."

"You want we beat him up?" Vincent Crabbe offered and Draco shook his head.

"No. But Father has a rumor or two he wants placed over Christmas, as well as a story he intends to plant in the Prophet. You see, he has discovered something very interesting… Potter was raised by muggles… "

Pansy screwed up her face in disgust.

"Muggles who have vanished." Draco continued with a smirk. "Potter is emancipated…"

Pansy frowned trying to see the connection and Draco hid a sigh of disappointment that he knew would be hypocritical. After all, he hadn't made the connection that his father had either.

"How do we know Potter hasn't gone Dark and killed them?" He prompted and Pansy's face lit up in realization.

Vincent frowned as he tried to follow the logic, then he shrugged and turned back to his homework.

His father had made it very clear that he wasn't expected to think, only to guard Malfoy and send him regular reports on his actions.

Reports that would then be passed to Lucius Malfoy.

.

.

"Mum! Dad!"

Hermione sprinted forwards and hurled herself into the welcoming embrace of two adults. The man had close-cropped dark hair that still hinted at the natural curliness while her mother had long, straight brown hair that reached past her shoulders.

"Harry! Neville!" Hermione called, waving them over from where they were standing by the portal, Hermione having forcibly dragged them through behind her. "Mum, Dad, meet two of my best friends, Harry Potter and Neville Longbottom. Sue and Padma are staying at Hogwarts, but you should be able to meet them when school ends. Harry, Neville, these are my parents, Ronald and Joan."

"We've heard quite a bit about you both." Ronald chuckled, offering his hand to the boys. "It's good to put faces to the names."

"We do need to get going." Joan said apologetically. "But I'm looking forwards to seeing a real magic house soon."

"Then I'll see you on New Years Eve." Harry smiled. "I hope it goes well."

"Bleaugh, Perdita's visiting." Hermione moaned. "It won't go well."

Ronald laughed as he towed his daughter away and Joan nodded to both boys before scurrying after them.

"So, Nev. The room?" Harry prompted and Neville jolted back to reality.

"Huh? Oh, right. Yeah, we have to go back through."

Harry followed Neville back onto the platform, then through an inconspicuous door into a room with a dozen fireplaces. Neville walked to the nearest one and took a pinch of powder from the bowl affixed to the mantelpiece.

"You throw the powder in, state your location as clearly as you can and then step in when the flames turn green." He explained, then he threw the powder into the fire, causing it to flare up. "Longbottom Manor!"

The fire turned green and Neville strode into it, vanishing in a flash of light before the flames died down again, reverting to their normal appearance.

"Well, time to try this." Harry whispered to himself as he took a pinch of powder and threw it into the flames like Neville had done. "The Pottery!"

The flames turned green and Harry stepped into them. For an instant, they seemed to wrap around him, then he was whirling through nothingness, brief glimpses of views from fireplaces passing in front of him. His memory helped him take in dozens of different rooms, some of which had people in and one of which had a man and a woman… celebrating.

An instant later, a fireplace expanded before him and Harry found himself launched across the room, sliding to a stop against the far wall.

"Well, that was quite impressive." A familiar voice noted and Harry sat up, looking round to see Axefist returning his gaze from the depths of a deep, wing-backed armchair. "I've never seen anyone come out of a Floo quite like that before."

"Yeah." Harry groaned as he slowly pulled himself to his feet. "I think I'll be taking the Knight Bus back to the station."

"There's a trick to using the Floo." Axefist noted as he extracted himself from the comfortable chair. "You keep walking. It apparently bleeds off momentum or something, although given how fast you came out I'd advise running."

"Thanks." Harry said as he finished checking that he hadn't come to harm. "Did the items I requested arrive?"

"They did and they are awaiting assembly in the null-room." Axefist supplied. "The pantry has been stocked up under stasis charms, the items from the Potter Vault placed in the respective rooms and the Quidditch Pitch has been tested and found acceptable."

Harry raised an eyebrow inquisitively, something that he had been practicing ever since Snape had used the very same expression on him one class. Axefist seemed to color slightly.

"The team believed in being very thorough?" He offered and Harry smiled.

"Then thank you."

"The anti-portkey ward will raise once I depart." Axefist stated, pulling out a small baton. "Any other requests before I go?"

"Yes." Harry said, looking around at the well-finished room. "Pay everyone involved a bonus of… an extra three percent. And five for yourself."

Axefist nodded. "Very good. Just so that you know, the secret door in the basement has been repaired. Here are the instructions on how to open it, the builders accepted Obliviations after finishing, so they don't know it's there. Once I get back, I'll be receiving a targeted Obliviation so I don't know it exists either. That letter will tell you where the secret switch is."

Harry looked down at the sealed envelope in his hand and when he looked up, Axefist was gone.

"Well…" He said after a long moment. "May as well check it out, then I have some digging to do."

.

.

Harry put down the large rocket ship and stepped back. A moment later, the ship seemed to shiver, then it rose slightly, a hologram appearing between it and Harry.

"Hello, my son."

"Hello." Harry said automatically. "Ah, are you a recording?"

"I am an Artificial Intelligence, one programmed and enhanced by the original Jor-El with a copy of his personality." The holographic figure stated. "My primary mission is to provide you with the resources and support that you will need. In the main cargo compartment is a nanite forge that once activated, will create a building for you to use as your headquarters. Jor-El selected the University of Applied Sciences as the blueprint for the building."

"Ah." Harry thought fast. "Erm, you may want to change that. You see, we're underneath my current house… can you create this building underground?"

Jor-El froze for a long moment. "Affirmative, although defensive capabilities will be significantly reduced. Query, sensors indicate the presence of multiple technomagical-equivalent protective shields of uncertain function."

Harry stared at the hologram. "Ooooookay. I think we need to have a long talk."