8

As we returned from the Granger Family Vacation, I was busy pondering on how to prepare for events in our soon to be near future.

Voldemort had displayed, more than once, effective control of Slytherin's pet basilisk. If we could do the same, we could neutralize his giants in battle, and possibly also the dementors. As, if that basilisk could turn a GHOST to stone, I had no doubts at all it could destroy some parasitic wraiths, and thus we could potentially be rid of those horrid dementors forever.

All of them.

Either the dementors were creatures, or they were some form of undead. Still, it didn't matter much what they were, Slytherin's pet basilisk could get them. It might have to BITE them, if whatever pseudo-sight they used for navigating didn't quite qualify for 'seeing' (And they had to have one. They'd never been said to either run into walls or phase through them, so they had some form of navigation other than 'there is human, go feed!' Curse Rowling for making them eyeless - but then again, ghosts didn't strictly speaking have EYES either, not in any physical sense), but if it's many-years dead venom was still potent enough to destroy horcruxes, by all reports some of the toughest anything around, then it would be potent enough to destroy dementors.

All we had to do was learn how Tom controlled it.

The trouble was, Rowling had never hinted as to how he'd done it.

Oh, it was said, several times, in official materials that only a parcelmouth could control a basilisk. But there was so much that wasn't said (like how they protected themselves from its gaze) that how could anyone trust that was that all there was to it?

I mean, sure, you had to have good eyes to be able to fly a plane. But that did not mean that everyone with perfect vision was a qualified pilot!

It could be something as simple as just being a parcelmouth, and I was sure that had something to do with it. Heck, they even said so, many times. But was that all? Tom Riddle had also shown that some secrets down in that pit below the bathroom yielded to passwords, and he had obviously done quite a bit of research just to find that chamber in the first place, more to have the spoken codes to get things to work for him. In fact he had once confessed in the books, "It had taken me five whole years to find out everything I could about the Chamber of Secrets and discover the secret entrance."

So, what did he know that we didn't?

He MUST have a source of research that other people didn't have, as other people had tried to research too. Tom was not the first to try to find that secret chamber. Others had searched for it, many times. According to Binns, the entire Hogwarts staff had gotten together and made a concerted effort on at least one occasion. And these were not people who were unable to perform research!

So, Tom had followed clues no one else was able to find, just to discover the chamber (and, on that note, I gave myself a reminder to go seeking out any images of snakes in the castle - or better yet, have the house elves map them for me, as there stood a good possibility of those being the 'secret message network' that Tom Riddle had followed on his research quest).

So, what did he know about controlling that basilisk that we didn't?

One thing it could not be was owning Salazar's blood, because Tom had done the controlling while possessing Ginny. Sure, she was a pureblood, so some remote trace of a connection was almost guaranteed. Still, it hardly merited concern, as if only a small trace was required, Harry and I must have remote yet sufficient ties as well, seeing as how we were both related to purebloods.

Tom Riddle himself wasn't a pureblood. So, no, it was probably a combination of parceltongue and passwords, encoded commands if you will, for added security as snake language, while rare, wasn't entirely unknown, and no one wanted a monster of that size and power turning on them just because the person you were trying to destroy had the same ability (unless, of course, Salazar Slytherin was a complete and utter moron - which, with what I knew of wizards, I wasn't about to rule out).

It was the passwords part that worried me, because the 'spirit Tom' from Riddle's diary was totally unafraid of Harry's trying to wrest control of the serpent from him. Which, if it had just been a parcelmouth vs parcelmouth issue, should have been a concern, not the least because Harry was alive and truly there, thus more real, whilst Tom was only a memory given form.

There was also the rather major question as to how Tom had been immune to its gaze. Either that was a parcelmouth thing also (in which case, Harry's averting of his eyes during that fight had been entirely unnecessary), or it required some special preparation, like a potion or spell.

I would assume something along the lines of preparations.

In either case, finding out how Tom had done it was a priority, as immunity to a basilisk's gaze would be a useful attribute to have. But it was going to be a tricky thing to test, as you didn't want to think you had it and be wrong.

Then again, even if you could command the thing, you couldn't really say you controlled a basilisk if looking at it would kill you too. That just made it too awkward for any kind of usage. So there had to be something more there, if immunity wasn't automatic for parcelmouths.

Nor was that the only project on my plate right now. Although, the others just didn't sound as dramatic as using a thousand year old mass murdering snake to slaughter hundreds of undead wraiths.

Detecting invisibility and making my own brooms could also be lifesavers. The brooms because of mobility, as apparation could be traced and floo was too easily restricted. I could buy my own brooms while the economy lasted, but I couldn't get replacements that way once everything collapsed, and the things did break every so often. Also, our group might grow, post-collapse.

Detecting the invisible, on the other hand, seemed like such an amazingly useful skill to have all on its own, as not only could you deprive your enemy of a useful advantage (and everybody who had them used invisibility cloaks during a war) but you could also coordinate groups of invisible folks on your side.

Luckily for me, the guy who'd had his memories stolen for my predecessor's 'Year of the Yeti' story was one of those rare people who'd been trained to hunt the naturally invisible demiguise, from which invisibility cloaks were made. Unfortunately for me, the original Lockhart hadn't saved the relevant portions of his training on how to do so.

So, even though he'd used those skills in the portions of the story I'd taken inside myself, I did not have full mastery of them, nor an idea how to get it. The best I had was a gift that would flicker on and off from time to time. It was not at all reliable, and without reliability it wasn't terribly useful.

So I had options of either seeking out demiguise hunter training, which was rare and specialized and, if I was thinking right, a couple of years long, or I could ask someone who knew for tips and pointers. The trouble with that was the only person I knew of who could see the invisible without a magical eye doing the work for him was Dumbledore.

And, well, I had elected to tred softly when it came to sharing secrets with Dumbledore. I'd dropped some information I shouldn't have known in order to shock him into revealing or agreeing to things, but I didn't want him to have too terribly good a handle on what I could or could not do, as then he was almost guaranteed to discuss my abilities with Snape, and well you might as well take out a full page ad in the Daily Prophet as far as getting news to the enemy side. Telling Snape might even be faster and more effective.

Traitors were always a threat, and once a traitor, always a traitor. Or, if a man was willing to betray once, he'll be willing to do so again. But we didn't have to guess, we knew from JKR's books that Snape was continually feeding accurate, and vital, plans to the enemy! Right up to the end!

Mad-Eye Moody died because of him, and between the two, I'd choose to have Moody on my side, thank you very.

Arriving back on the ferry from France, the Grangers collected their car from the hotel parking lot (it hadn't been there a full hour), and, before they left, I leaned in the window to say, "You know, what with the madhouse this place is likely to be for me in the near future, what's say we all plan to get back together in another week to go back for another week's vacation? I'm sure by then I could use it. And, if the kids can all pick up a Patronus charm to hold off the Lethifolds, we can even go someplace tropical for a change. How does that sound?"

A firm round of agreement from everyone. Even Ted was looking forward to a second break. So we made a deal to make it happen and I was waving them all a fond goodbye before I'd even realized that Harry and Dora had driven off with them, as just two more members of the family.

Shrugging, feeling it made no difference, I apparated to my penthouse.

Harry should be fine in their care.

Although, I did have to admit that kid had an awful lot of people who wanted him. And, he was sometimes too trusting. But still, unlike with the Marauder encounter, now he had Dora there to guard him.

Harry had never been told by the two surviving Marauders that they were kidnapping him. They just proposed a small walk, and wended their way out of the hospital, by which time they overheard the news by excited and flustered hospital staff rushing about that Gilderoy Lockhart was back in there healing those who'd been deemed beyond hope, and that Frank and Alice Longbottom were up and demanding to go see their son. So, on meeting eyes and making a decision, they'd wandered right back inside.

Harry never even knew he'd been kidnapped, or returned.

They didn't even say those words to me, but I knew, and they could tell I had received their message. They could hardly have evaded my security charms on their way out by accident, after all.

No, it was all done very subtly, and I for one was glad that Harry hadn't suffered any more trauma than the poor kid already had. But I also felt better that he had Dora there to watch him.

So, for me, it was on to a round of awards and getting congratulated by some very self important men. They managed to give me an Order of Merlin, First Class, TWO times, one for each miraculous advance in magical healing, and there were whispers about doing a third, just to cover all of the people I'd personally healed, saying it was some kind of record.

All of this did a great deal to reinforce my Lockhart personality.

I dropped by the hospital to give Sirius a touch of assistance, using a much more minor version of what I'd done before, aiding him to repress memories of Azkaban (but not forget entirely) and reinforcing those memories he'd had from times before - including a great many that exposure to dementors had nearly driven from his mind.

In all, after my visit, I had a much more happy and feeling himself Padfoot who was far less ragged and depressed than in the series. Such a change it was that even the Mediwitches agreed to rush ahead his release date, after some observation to make sure he didn't regress.

Being much more himself than usual, he started to observe the nurses just as much if not more than they were observing him, and he'd be chasing some skirts before they let him out of there (with lipstick on his face).

And, unfortunately, I got tagged with another 'medical advance' - this one for treating patients of dementor exposure, and I almost had Fudge chasing me around about that third Merlin.

So, another round of making speeches, posing for photos and giving out autographs consumed the next few days. However, the publicity was nice for my books, and I did still manage to fit in a project or two on the side, mostly in the evenings when I had more time.

Writing the book about Harry's life with the Dursleys was no trouble at all, as I already had a good outline and impression of what I was going to write, and I had his memories there to help me by granting specific instances. But I made Harry help me to write it, as he needed the experience, so I spent most of my evenings over at the Granger house getting him to help me. This also had the salutary effect of making both him and his family realize what I had saved him from, and how much better (if false) things were for them now.

However, with Harry being slow about writing, yet needing the experience, I drew on my art lessons as the sword-wielding Frenchman, and did what all good French artists would abhor by drawing manga with those skills.

Moria surprised me by looking over my shoulder, then asking what came next. This astonished me somewhat, as I'd been doodling scenes from my fanfics and these were all well established characters. So, I got on the phone to buy her the original sets, as that way she could understand what I was doing, or at least the points I was departing from.

Only... nobody sold them.

Getting back off the phone to a major publisher, who'd never heard of Rumiko Takahashi, Clamp, Kosuke Fujishima, Naoko Takeuchi or most others I was familiar with, I grabbed a coat and went out to check some retail stores and talk with some college anime nerds.

Nobody had ever heard of Ranma 1/2, Cardcaptor Sakura, Ah! My Goddess, Sailor Moon, Tenchi Muyo, Evangelion or any other series I was familiar with, major or minor. There weren't even some classics, like Bubblegum Crisis.

Heck, some of the major GENRES didn't exist!

The classic Magical Girl show, originally touched off by the popular Sailor Moon (or so I'm told) had never made an appearance here. And most anime made the Star Blazers and Voltron vintage stuff look revolutionary. Don't even ask about Robotech or Gundam.

It was an entirely different world, and their entertainment, though similar most of the time, was different.

Less... energized, at least from my perspective.

This even proved true, on investigation, of muggle films. The big thing in the theaters was along the lines of Three Men And A Baby. Special effects had never made that huge surge in the sixties and seventies, and they were all stuck using trapdoors, smoke and puppets on wires like a remake of the Wizard of OZ. It was a 1940s film world, only dark like the 90s.

Star Wars, Star Trek, Matrix... none of these had ever appeared, were even possible to film under their current limitations!

They couldn't even film Superman. Heck, to do BATMAN right was outside of their ability! Although those, and other classic heroes, did exist in comic book forms, pretty much unchanged from what I knew.

Not to say that I knew a great deal about them, however.

Schwarzenegger had died in his twenties without leaving his native Austria, George Lucus was (I would later find) a gas station attendant... they didn't even have Monty Python here! (although that lay within their technical ability at least, if not their writing one) Tom and Jerry was about the limit of their cartoons, although Disney classics seemed to be chugging along fairly well, and from the posters outside the movie place Gone With The Wind was in its fourth remake and Hollywood was about to come out with Rocky IIVX...

Talk about low creative energy!

They had DVD storage technology, just nothing I would consider worthy of putting on a disk. Photoshop and its equivalents had never appeared, so people still trusted a picture to never lie.

Playstation games were more along the lines of Pong and Space Invaders than anything I'd associate with the set.

It was odd to say the least.

I had heard of that 'Different realities vibrate along different wavelengths' possibility, where authors and writers from one universe who were slightly out of tune with their own could pick up something from another, and from that compose their stories. I'd even used some references in my fanfics. There were a few times that I'd made reference to being from an 'observer' universe that had no super heroes, only comics about them.

Perhaps that was a more valid theory than I'd thought?

After all, with active wizards running about, this world actually had a great deal more energy in play than my own did. Perhaps those worlds that had real super heroes didn't need to view comics about them as much? Or maybe it was that whatever energies caused those heroes to arise also put a damper on 'hearing' things from other places? After all, if you turned up the volume on your stereo it was hard to hear anything else going on across the street.

Maybe.

It was a theory. All I knew was that the local manga and films were about as interesting to me as sucking on wet cardboard. I'd feasted on far better than this from what was available at home.

So, returning from a frantic couple of hours checking in at all known sources to give a report to the Grangers about not finding what I was after, I got captured by Moria who again asked me what came next, only now both Harry and Hermione were interested too, and Ted and Miranda were somewhat awed by my artwork as they looked over what I'd left behind with them.

So, getting a wild hair, I decided to tell them. I took the next day off of my Ministry and public duty rounds, and toward evening presented them with a copy of the very first Ranma 1/2 manga this universe had ever seen, doing the story over again from the beginning, suitably altered to suit my tastes.

Hey! If I was going to do it I was at least going to enjoy it! And there were some things that irked me about the originals, else I wouldn't have been writing fanfiction.

It was an instant smash success around the Granger household.

Upon being successfully captured by doe-eyed younglings who pleaded with me not to stop telling those wonderful stories, I decided that if I was going to be roped into doing them all again I might as well publish them, as that way I could at least make some money to use to fuel the war against Voldemort.

So, I used some of that gold from the submarine, bought out a publisher, and a good distributor, and an interest in a chain of bookstores, too (it was amazing, the worth of a gold coin, if you didn't exchange it through goblins), and now under a crushing weight of business loans, set them to publishing manga for me, hoping that all went well.

It had better, or I'd be financially crushed.

On that note, I made certain to hit Slughorn up for a dose of Felix Felicis before I signed the contracts or loan notes. Then I gave them the beginnings of three or four series.

It would be more later.

OoOoO

I returned home the next day to find a letter from Dumbledore in the in box (I kept one enchanted else I'd be plagued with owls fluttering around my head all day) and it was terse, brief, and contained a portkey that was due to trigger in a little less than half an hour.

It was time for my talk with the Flamels.

First, I scribed off a quick note to Tonks, sending it by owl to get another plot of mine moving. "Hello, Dora. Would you be a dear and go out shopping for a half dozen packs of marshmallows and transfigure them all into big, nasty, hairy spiders for me? I'll need them in an hour or two, so if you could drop them by my house? Thanks, Gilderoy!"

I arrived in a small, walled courtyard festooned with plants, and no sooner did I do so than the house shook with a shout under a Sonorus charm. "Go away! We don't want any more well-meaning gold diggers, distant relations or friends of Albus Dumbledore!"

Ah. From this I perceived that I was not the first one Albus had sent here.

"And what about people here to do you a favor?" I called back in good humor.

A door in the house this courtyard faced swung open, revealing an old man with a scowl on his face. "Favor?" He snapped in a confrontational tone of voice. "Let me tell you something, my lad. The last 'favor' anyone in the wizarding world did for me was when Albus somehow convinced me to let him take over guarding my stone for me. And you know what he did? Destroyed it! It was 'for the greater good' he said! My property couldn't be allowed to exist because it was too tempting to Dark Lords, he said! And the stinking son of a malodorous hooker did so without even asking me! Just told me after the fact that my wife and I were doomed to die, as he hadn't given us enough warning to prepare a replacement ahead of time. NO! That's the last FAVOR anyone in the wizarding world will ever do for me!"

Okay, I'd wondered about that. Dumbledore's eye-twinkling declaration of 'my friend and I have had a little chat' to Harry was often a euphemism people used for 'we had a big argument'. Now I knew why.

And why did it not surprise me that Albus was willing to do things that left those who'd trusted him swinging in the breeze like that? But I had to speak quickly lest Flamel duck back inside, ruining my last chance.

"Don't be so sure," I pulled his Philosopher's Stone out of my pocket and showed it to him, holding it up in the light.

He froze as if pinned in place, squinting at me in disbelief.

I held it out for him to take, saying confidently, "It's the original. I switched it with a fake before Dumbledore came on the scene, fearing he'd do exactly as he did and destroy what he found. You'll find it unchanged from the moment I first saw it. I came here to return it, hoping that you'd be generous on it's recovery. All I ask is that you teach me how to make my own."

Nicholas came scuttling over and received the stone from my hands. Looking it over, he blinked up at me with a complete lack of hostility. "Come inside."

The home within was not what one would expect of a man who had infinite gold at his disposal. It was merely a warm and cozy home, which was often the sort of pleasure the rich denied themselves, then wondered what was missing from their lives after having chosen to live in museums.

There was a cauldron bubbling over a fire, one with a sapphire blue syrup churning inside. An old witch stood by it, stirring, who looked up in disbelief when I stepped inside.

Nicholas flashed her the stone, and quietly went about obscure preparations, gathering odds and ends from around his kitchen. "We were preparing a new Stone of our own, on the off chance either of us lived long enough to see it completed. You can have that one."

"Thank you," I said with a deep and respectful bow. "But I find knowledge to be equally precious. So I hope you'll be kind enough to explain how a Stone of this sort is made?"

"It's not hard." He shrugged. "All you need are six smurfs."

I nearly shot my tongue across the room in my surprise. Instead, I dabbed a bit of something off my lip with a handkerchief and delicately asked, "Does the name 'Gargamel' mean anything to you?"

Nicholas and his wife looked at me sharply once again. Then Nicholas gave an uncaring shrug. "It's not like it matters, but that was a name I once tried to be a Dark Lord under. I wasn't very successful."

"And, Azreal was your familiar? A cat?" I probed, quite in spite of myself.

"Yes," the former Gargamel shot a confused look at me out from under his brows. "How did you know about that? That was six hundred years ago?"

I coughed delicately before replacing my handkerchief in my sleeve. "Sorry, I am somewhat fond of history, and the only stories I've read concerning smurfs also had a wizard in them, always trying to catch them, and the wizard and his familiar had the names I've just given you."

Weird what you could catch from Saturday morning cartoons. I was positively weirded out by having the bad guy of a kids show standing before me now. It made me wonder for a second how Handy and Brainy and Smurfette and all them were doing, and which ones he'd caught to make his stone out of.

Nicholas snorted, bringing a pot filled with odds and ends over to the fire to hang beside the sapphire-liquid-filled one. "I'd like to see that history, as I'd never heard of it before now."

I actually blushed, and focused on playing with the cuff of my sleeve. "Yes, well, unfortunately the only name I recall is 'The Smurfs'. But I was a child at the time. It had something about a Prince Rohan in it as well."

Nicholas and his wife met gazes, then simultaneously broke out laughing. "Oh! That's a name I haven't heard in... oh, it's been a long time." The former Gargamel wheezed in good humor, weak from the effects of his laughter.

With that, we settled down to pleasant and congenial conversation.

OoOoO

On my way back to Hogwarts I was considering many things, not the least of which was how I'd hide the brand new Philosopher's Stone Nicholas and his wife promised to give me once they'd completed it (they didn't need two), and how to use it while keeping it out of sight.

And, out of the hands of people like Dumbledore.

The former Gargamel and his wife had actually been stellar company, quite knowledgeable and a very good teacher on a wide range of subjects, including the formulas for how to use the Stone. It turned out that the elixir produced by the Stone only delayed old age, extending the lifespan while preventing the drinker from growing any older. But it didn't make you any younger. It was rather close to an equivalent for a Potion of Longevity out of 1st Ed D&D. So, I'd shared with the couple a good dozen ideas off of which youth potions might be based out of my Dungeons and Dragons experience, and they'd promised to work on them, taking over that project for me with a will.

Good. One more thing off of my 'to do' list.

And, in return for my assistance there they had also shared with me other secrets, one of which turned out to be an item on my 'I don't know how, but if I get a chance it would be good to do this' list.

In Rowling's 'Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them' she lists a humble animal called a Murtlap, which she describes as a ratlike animal living in the coastal areas of Britain, and the only useful or interesting feature about this creature is a growth on its back resembling a sea anemone.

However, that growth really was an interesting feature, as once pickled and eaten it provided resistance to curses and jinxes. And the only side effect noted was that an overdose would lead to unsightly purple ear hair, which immediately caused me to wonder why Moody didn't have hairy, purple ears.

Well, whatever, I wasn't ever going to accuse JKR of being consistent. But I first read that book staring at an item never developed in any of her novels, or fanfics that I knew of, that took the worst threats of the series and gave you resistance to them. Oh, sure, everyone with any sense wore armor, but this gave you a measure of protection worked into your very tissue!

That could be done IN ADDITION to armor! And it was selective! It didn't make you resist all magic, stopping useful stuff like healing spells and the like, only bad stuff: curses and jinxes!

I didn't know for how long, of course, or any of the specifics, really. Things like the amount of resistance, what kind of harm you'd be avoiding (after all, resistance is not immunity, so logic suggests something would be left), but nonetheless, I'd planned to look into that!

However, the Flamels had already researched that for me. They'd done the work a couple of hundred years ago, and never released it, knowing if they did so it would spread to Dark wizards as quickly as to Light. Quicker, really, the way Rowling wrote it, only Dark wizards ever prepared to fight. The Light stood around waiting to get attacked, but took precious few precautions to protect themselves up until they got killed. Perfect victims, really.

But truly? Light and Dark wasn't the heart and core of it. This was personal for the Flamels.

Actually, on reflection it should have been obvious, but this entire 'people want to steal my Stone' thing was hardly new to the Flamels. As might be reasonably expected, no sooner had he created it than everyone around had wanted to take it from him!

The couple had survived by hiding from and running from practically everyone - and they'd never quite given up on the hiding part. However, soon into their lives of ducking out on Stone-seekers of every type, they'd elected to work on how to defend themselves, and the Murtlap thing had been only one of their first projects! And, they'd long ago perfected a recipe over ten times as powerful as the simple (and known) pickling method.

This, and many other recipes, the Flamels had sworn to each other to keep to themselves for the most part, and they'd also sworn never to let anyone else use their Stone. Then gone ahead and made themselves nearly unkillable, doing a half millennia of research on the subject of protecting themselves, although they did not go the way Moldy had. They didn't go at it from the angle of 'when I die, this will bring me back, and thus I'll be immortal!' gig. No, they'd done it practically the same way I would've in their place, the 'I will layer myself with so many defenses that I'll be so extremely hard to kill that eventually no one will try' approach.

And it worked. It had worked out well for them. The couple were harder to kill than a pair of dragons, and their home riddled with so many defenses that it made Gringotts' most secure vaults look sick.

However, with a perfect defense comes a gradually lessening of dangers, which leads in turn to a relaxing of the mindset that had brought about those defenses in the first place.

I was sketchy on the details of how they'd first met, but when Dumbledore had studied alchemy under them that old boy had discovered a potion that used the elixir of life as a base, but once imbibed made the body as supple as a young boy, eliminating many of the pains of old age.

And, as they had already been of advanced years before Flamel first made the Stone, they had been so grateful they had entrusted it to him to do more research with. And Albus had ended up betraying that trust by destroying the Stone (or so he thought, and told them), for 'the Greater Good' because it would be so wrong if a Dark Lord got it.

Well, no Dark Nobody was ever going to get it from the Flamels. They just weren't! In six centuries, the only person to ever get that Stone from out of their grasp was Dumbledore himself, and he'd done it only to betray their trust. They weren't going to let it out of their sight again.

The couple were extreme duelists, because they'd had to be from all of the times they'd been attacked in public and in private during various attempts to get their Stone. Their home was warded like nobody's business, making a simple Fidelius look like child's play, because again of all of the attempts employing curse breakers to sneak in and take the Stone. And they had started small, but eventually built up a set of personal defenses second to none, to where it really might be easier to kill a nundu than them. Actually, groups large enough to subdue a nundu had tried (about 40 or so at once).

However, by granting Albus the key to their longevity, he had doomed them both to die from the one thing they'd stopped fearing long ago: the end of their natural lifespan. And he'd done so at a time when they were running short on their elixir, so they didn't have time to make another Stone before the years ran out on them.

In gratitude for saving their lives from Dumbledore's (possibly?) well intended murder of them, the pair had agreed to mentor me, effectively adopting me as far as the sharing of secrets went. Unfortunately, there was so much to learn that even with their help I'd be decades catching up to where they were, and still I suspected there would be secrets they'd be keeping back.

I would in their place.

Still, I was quite looking forward to it, as the couple were fascinating to listen to, and had a way with words to go with a wide knowledge base, on top of being nice people, having worked out whatever problems they'd had in their youths long ago.

I found myself wishing Harry would marry as well, as the couple truly suited each other.

Harry.

Well, even I had to admit that I had done a lot of damage to the possibility of Harry ever marrying Hermione, as growing up together they'd find it a little creepy, even though it was not totally out of the realm of possibility because they knew they were not related.

Still, I could hardly doubt that I'd all but shut down any chance he might have had with the person I considered the most marriageable girl in the series. Not just for Harry, but the best match, PERIOD!

For anyone.

She was a hardworking, attractive girl, who had a good head on her shoulders and was loyal, diligent and brave. You couldn't ask for much more than that. And if you did ask, good luck on finding anyone who could deliver.

Now he was left with only second-stringers in the lineup, and of those the most probable was likely to be Ginny.

I'd read many fanfics where those two got together that were well written, logical, believable, even compelling. Sadly, none of those were true about the way Rowling handled the situation.

My only complaint with her Harry/Ginny relationship was that it was rushed almost to the point of insanity. Ginny loved him before she knew him, and why? Because he was famous. She was a groupie, one who knew nothing of him beyond his fame, and avoided knowing anything else about him. She didn't hang out with him at school and was not present on most of his adventures.

She was, in fact, in love with that very part of him he himself detests - his fame. She wasn't even a main character, not even in the books where they 'fall in love', just one of the fringe hangers on. She was background, at best. Then, suddenly, while she's busy snogging every boy in the school, Harry just up and decides that he loves her, out of nowhere, with no reason given.

It was irrational to the point of comedy.

What turned it from comedy to tragedy was that Rowling meant it seriously.

Nothing got developed, it just sprang out of nowhere full-blown. They didn't slowly fall in love, or even get to know each other, really. Frankly, it all made as little sense as those bizarre fanfics that had Draco and Harry suddenly start kissing. Her plot was that poorly developed. Then she started to pair up other characters like she was throwing darts at a board with their names on it. And the 'Ron and Hermione must love each other because they are always fighting' once again had eerie overtones of a Draco and Harry snogfest.

It would be comedic if it wasn't tragic.

No, I am surprised Rowling didn't pair Crookshanks with a major female character. It made about as little sense as any of her other matches, more if you were thinking to pair him with McGonagall.

After all, they were similar races (part of the time) and were opposite genders! Wow! That's as much as some of those others have in common!

And, speaking of her, I was on my way through Hogwarts when once more McGonagall came upon me in the halls. "Ah, Gilderoy. What brings you to Hogwarts today? We are just shutting down for the summer."

I nodded graciously. "So I understand. But I have an appointment with Albus and was hoping to get him to identify this for me while I was there." I held up the cane I'd found in the submarine.

She blinked at it several times, surprised, before turning a shocked look at me. "Where did you get this?"

I made a magnanimous gesture. "Oh, I found it while diving off the coast of Italy. It hasn't corroded, so I feel sure that it's magic. Trouble is, I don't know what it does. So I was hoping he could enlighten me."

"Oh, I know quite well what it does," She told me soberly, still looking over the cane as though she'd seen a ghost. Asking permission with her eyes, she reached out and touched it, and I could see a flare of magic in the jewel on the end as she did. A fond smile came to her face as it reacted thus.

Then her gaze came back upon me. "This is a McGonagall family relic, a cane dating back several centuries to where nobles used such to symbolize their authority. It could even be Roman in origin, but it's been in my family for generations. We gave it into the keeping of a certain submarine captain as collateral against my hand, a loan that was to be repaid by giving my life into the possession of the person who brought us back this cane."

"Then I shall be only to happy to return to you what is yours and call that loan repaid by your stellar company already enjoyed thus far," I presented her the cane, with a small bow to flavor it. "And I shall call myself fortunate to have had this opportunity to do you and your family this service. May your relic be restored to you along with some measure of peace and prosperity."

"Thank you," she accepted it with a smile, favoring me with what almost might have been a grin under better circumstances as she lifted her eyebrow to say. "You know, according to ancient custom, I now belong to you."

I rolled my eyes playfully, returning with humor, "And according to common perception, my life belongs to my fans. But fortunately we appear to be the only ones who know about this, and thus can freely ignore it at our whim."

Her tone grew serious, as she held the cane in both hands, close to her chest as her eyes, dare I say it, grew misty. "Still, such as I am, I am yours."

I returned then with equal seriousness. Taking one of her hands, I kissed it gallantly. "Then all that I shall require of you is a glimpse of that girl you told me of, who once was quite a troublemaker, and Beater for her house team."

She smiled, and dimpled as she did so. "I think that can be arranged."

I bowed, still holding her hand. "I am deeply gratified." Then, standing up, I asked, "Would now be a bad time to ask you about certain memories? I had an idea to help Harry know his parents better, but I was also hoping for some tips on teaching well, and I was thinking you could help me..."

Soon after, I had a bucket of Transfiguration class memories starring the Marauders in my hands.

We parted as she returned to her quarters, and I to my other plans, quietly thinking about her situation, and the whole 'I belong to anyone who brings us back this cane,' dilemma. Now, hopefully resolved to the good.

It was actually less unique or odd than you might think in magical society.

I actually knew far more than I wanted to about pureblood customs from my various acquired memories by now. And what I'd learned disturbed me.

Like most societies that had grown old, rich, corrupt and decadent, having worked itself into a really skewed values system, the Purebloods were into sexual deviancy in a big way. I suppose when marriage was just a carefully calculated move to make in a huge social strategy game of prestige and power, one where love for your spouse never entered into it, as it was all about forming alliances or climbing social ladders, that it had a corrosive influence on the family and traditional morality.

Thus, a low birthrate, as whatever it was they were doing to relieve stress or amuse themselves very often had little to do with what produced babies.

The Purebloods weren't dying off because their wars were killing them. They were disappearing because men weren't interested in their wives, having other habits more dear to them that I didn't even want to begin to speculate upon, as the mere thought made me sick.

They probably would not have made it this far were it not for the fact that there were spells for men who had no interest in women to artificially inseminate their wives, and this had been done by Lucius on Narcissa (to name one rather well known case as an example) solely because it was 'proper' and an advantageous social move to have an heir, just like it had been a cunning move in the social strategy game to marry her.

This sort of thing had been going on for generations now.

Poor families like the Weasleys amused themselves in a more traditional manner, and couldn't afford the costly ritual components of the artificial insemination spell even if they swung that way.

This was actually a good part of what stopped them from being 'proper' purebloods, at least in some minds.

Rich purebloods like the Malfoys, however, well, from what I overheard Lucius was more interested in Draco than his wife's company, and he'd barely tolerated Narcissa enough to let her live in the same house. Perversely, he also kept her under effective lock and key so she couldn't abuse his position, bringing a scandal down on them by getting together with someone else.

THIS was what was normal and respected! At least as far as the upper crust of pureblood society circles were concerned.

I was almost reminded of that once oh-so-prevalent Chinese tradition of breaking the feet of little girls, bending them in half, and then tying them so they healed that way. It rendered them decorative, and nothing else. Walking was almost impossible, so they became largely helpless and you didn't ever have to be concerned about the little critters getting uppity.

Some people accepted some pretty wiggy stuff as 'normal'.

Apparently the explosion of halfbloods came about as every pureblood who was even remotely normal got involved in a rush to marry muggleborns or full on muggles in attempts to escape the perverse tendencies of their kin (not that I could blame them, as I would've done the same in their place).

This rush had actually made what remained of pureblood society worse as all of the good ones practically fell over each other in attempts to escape it. But I could see why those who'd done it did do it, for all of their sneering at her Andromeda was the only one of the Black sisters to have anything close to a normal marriage.

Lucius had once boasted to Crabb that he'd never even seen Narcissa naked, nor did he ever intend to. I don't know what was wrong with the LeStrange brothers but they were so interested in their twisted little games they'd never bothered to do the heir thing to Bellatrix, not even via spell.

But then, the gossip went they were always into pain in a big way, and rumors held they had a way to rewire the brain to read pain as pleasure and vice versa. And, I had to admit, that could go a long way to explaining the behavior and attitudes of Bella in the series.

She positively adored Voldemort. Why? Well, that bastard did go around causing a lot of pain, and it was commonly known among the ancient families that the poor girl had always been something of an empath. So she'd pick up on not only her own, but the pain of anyone around her.

Ick. These guys really made me sick, you know that?

As a side effect of that, and the Purebloods' traditional control of most of the power in the Ministry through wealth and connections, there were very few laws about what was legal and what was not, as far as relationships were concerned. Although Aberforth had managed to cross one, not with anything HE did, but by casting spells on the goats of another family to get them to talk about what THEY did! Airing in public what everyone preferred to keep behind closed doors.

It was a sick, sick, screwed up pureblood world.

And, what was probably most frightening of all, these guys wanted to be in a position of control so they could call the shots and dictate to everyone else what they could or could not do.

And there could be no doubt they'd be doing so to amuse themselves.