"And how can I help with that?"
"You are betrothed to Lord Greengrass' girl — the troll slaying princess." Peregrine smiled. "A word from you to Lord Greengrass on behalf of our Hobby…" the man trailed off.
Ah. So this was about Astoria. "The most I can do, in regards to that, is to write you a letter of introduction when Lord Greengrass starts accepting proposals, which I gather won't be for quite a long time. Until then, it would be up to your boy to not incite my future sister in law's dislike, because I can guarantee you, the surest way to kill any possibility on that front would be for Astoria to not want it."
"A letter of introduction would be welcome."
"And of course, Lord Greengrass would be more likely to entertain proposals from houses who are more closely aligned with him, politically." Harry let that hang in the air for a moment.
Peregrine Harper eyed Harry thoughtfully. "Why did you decide to vassal a muggleborn?"
Behind the privacy of his mask, Harry flashed a grin.
Unlike the Harpers, the Bells lived in a tumbledown stone house with a slate roof in the former industrial town of Cokeworth and were famed for resenting their former business partners for it.
Unlike the Harpers, the Bell's wards were applied directly to the walls of the house, allowing Harry, with two shiny new enchanted earpieces in pocket, to walk right up to the door to knock. He'd sent an owl ahead of him, so they knew he was coming, although, unlike the Harpers, he hadn't received a reply back.
A suspicious eye poked around the door. "Yes?"
"Mrs Bell? Lord Slytherin. I—"
The door slammed in his face. The wards bristled with ill intent.
Harry stared at the blank door blankly for a full thirty seconds.
Friendly. He frowned. Maybe more extreme persuasion methods, then? Mister Bell worked as a production line manager for Honeydukes and Mrs Bell worked part time at Witch Co. A word to Jacob to lean on his buyers to lean on the Bells…?
He smirked. Or… maybe…
Katie Bell left the great hall after dinner, determined to get some practise in before curfew. It sucked that she couldn't afford a better broom, so she just had to make every practise hour count.
"Miss Bell," a voice called.
Katie Bell started. She was being addressed by none other than the ice-princess of the Gray, Daphne Greengrass. She composed herself. "Heiress Greengrass — can I help you?"
Daphne Greengrass smiled. "Yes, actually. How would you like to earn some extra pocket money?"
Katie's ears pricked up, thoughts of replacing her old comet flashing through her mind. "I'm listening."
Harry climbed into his trunk happily inspecting his two, brand new, miniaturised communication mirrors in earpiece form. Between the miniature Granger milled runes, the charms, the enchantments, and the alchemy, they'd managed to put together a device that allowed two people to talk to each other over distances of up to five-hundred metres. They hadn't tripped any intellectual property spells and, so long as they kept Katie sweet, they had all the contacts needed to manufacture en masse if needed. Thank Merlin for cash strapped teenage girls.
He landed in his large comfy armchair opposite Hermione and Daphne with a satisfied smile. "We have everything we need." The two girls exchanged a glance.
"So," Daphne started, "how are we going to get past the fidelius around the stone?"
Harry started drawing a diagram in the air between them with his wand. "Here's a diagram of the location. We have the pipe, which we use to enter the corridor next to the muggle studies defence, leading straight into the potions defence and the fidelius trip wire. Straight after that, we have the final mirror room, which also contains the fidelius charm and the rune stones that maintain it."
The girls nodded.
"What we need to do is disable those rune stones and plant a set of rune stones of our own, which I will then use to cast my own fidelius charm, thus locking Dumbledore and Voldemort out from the room, and giving us as long as we like to work on cracking the final defence."
Hermione looked puzzled. "But wouldn't we forget everything to do with the stone and the room the moment we enter the ward in the potions room ?"
"Yes." Harry nodded. "And getting around that little problem won't be easy. But because of the way Dumbledore set this up, not impossible. Because this isn't an 'always active' fidelius charm, we can study the layout of the room before hand using Daphne's Eye of Kilrogg, and then create written instructions that we follow exactly to disable the stones once the fidelius is tripped."
Daphne frowned. "But, we wouldn't have any reason to follow the orders." "The fidelius only works to cause you to forget things directly relating to the thing it protects. We should be able to train ourselves to follow written instructions from ourselves or me that we don't remember writing or being told about and not have that skill overwritten by the charm."
Hermione sucked in her breath. "That sounds really dangerous. wouldn't that leave us vulnerable to someone impersonating us and ordering us to do things by simply leaving us a message in our writing?"
"Yes. Which is why we secure each message with a fidelius ID check. You know how we use the fidelius to scan the local area for listeners, by having a non-secret keeper attempt to speak the secret out loud?"
The girls nodded. "Well, only a secret keeper can write down the secret they hold, so if each of us is made the secret keeper for a separate fidelius charm, we can use it to authenticate any written message from any of us by writing down the secret at the end of the message."
Hermione nodded slowly. "So, we train ourselves to unquestionably obey messages with a certain code like, 'step-by-step order,' or something, along with an authenticated ID.
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