However, a situation has arisen which I believe you would appreciate being made aware of. The department of magical trade, possibly influenced by external parties, has authorised a 24/7 manned goods inspection post for all goods bound for Gairsay island. Much to my shame, this inspection post is manned not only by humans, but also by Goblins. We have attempted to make inquiries as to where this post is, so as to better foster communication between the ministry representatives and our project managers, but we have been unsuccessful in doing so. I believe the inspection post has been concealed with a fidelius charm, hence my suspicions about external influence. Because of this development, I am required to remind you that any goods bound for Gairsay island that would not pass ministry inspection should not be included in any shipments. This includes: Cursed items, illegal rune stones, inappropriately charmed muggle items, muggle items not on the cleared list for magical possession, regulated magical creatures, restricted items for which you do not hold the appropriate licences, banned books, sufficiently large quantities of do-not-stockpile items, items for which another house has been granted a use monopoly or, indeed, anything that you would not be happy to become part of official ministry documentation.
May your gold flow and your enemies suffer,
Ragnok Boneslicer, Account Manager, Chief of the Boneslicer Clan. It was night. Harry was sitting crosslegged on the floor of his Hogsmeade apartment. He put down the letter and frowned.
So, Dumbledore had decided to spy on his manor construction, mmm? That was annoying. The Headmaster hadn't yet made a move on Harry Potter, but Lord Slytherin, apparently, was fair game. It didn't feel good having the fidelius charm used against him so much.
He didn't have anything at the moment that would cause the inspectors issue, apart from personal items like his cloak, but… when the Grangers were to move over to the island, which he wanted them to do as soon as the wards were up…. Well, the Grangers had enough muggle equipment and runed trinkets to keep the departments of trade and muggle affairs busy for months — not to mention that so much of it was explicitly being used to circumvent intellectual property spells — and a lot of the Granger's stuff wouldn't react well to having magic used on it directly. He'd have to have a chat with them about it — come up with some way to smuggle their stuff onto the island when the time came.
Harry turned the letter over on the floor and focused back on the occlumency exercises from the book Hermione had tracked down for him. Never again, he'd vowed. He never again wanted to be that helpless in the face of being trapped. Once was already one time too many. He'd figured his first freak out was because he'd almost been caught. Simple solution to that — don't get put in those positions. But that had turned out not to be the case. That overwhelming feeling of panic could be triggered by other, far more innocuous things, and that was not acceptable.
He turned in on himself and started to split his consciousness in two, the first step of the treatment.
Hermione was busy learning the basics of obliviation.
Daphne was busy learning to work from instructions under the influence of fidelius magic.
They were on schedule to make an attempt on the mirror room on March 28, exactly one week before the duelling tournament.
The main question still rattling around in Harry's mind, even as it sunk deeper and deeper into his occlumency induced trance, was, 'would Dumbledore try anything before then?' Dumbledore watched the Slytherin breakfast table from his large throne at the front of the great hall. Specifically, he watched the fourth goblet from the end, currently in front of one Harry James Potter. As necessary a solution as Azkaban was, it was far less likely to work if one of his rival factions swooped in to support the boy. Framing someone for a crime they didn't commit was tricky business. After all, the whole point of the law courts was to find out the truth.
For his plan to work, he first had to isolate Harry Potter from the Gray and the Dark and watching the way Heiress Greengrass had fawned over the boy in the hospital wing, had hopefully given him the key.
The great hall started to fill for breakfast. Harry ate next to Hermione, enjoying the mindless chatter of his sort-of innocent peers, interspersed with the occasional political barb or well veiled insult. This was the Slytherin table, after all. The current topic of conversation was the Slytherin-Hufflepuff quidditch match, which Slytherin had won, but which still put them eighty points behind Gryffindor for the Quidditch Cup.
Despite John's loss at the Gryffindor-Slytherin match, his twin brother's performance against the Ravenclaws had more than made up for it, and it was looking less and less likely that Slytherin would win when all was said and done. That would all change next year of course, when Harry's red headed spitfire took to the skies around Hogwarts. He'd make sure of that, even if he had to beat Flint into the ground and set Alex on the Bloody Baron. Harry took a sip of his pumpkin juice and froze with the goblet still to his lips. The scent of fresh grass and snow filled his nostrils. Mmmm… so nice. His invisible Head of Slytherin House ring heated up on his finger, ancient magics doing battle with a far inferior foe. He put the goblet down and adopted a good natured look of mild concussion. The trick, of course, was not to act in any way like he knew what he'd just drunk.
Harry's mind raced. Payoffs and prices. Causes and consequences. Pull, and then, when they're least expecting it, push.
He pulsed a series of magical signals into his lightning bolt ring and watched momentary looks of concern and worry flash across both Hermione and Daphne's faces before they returned back to their normal and icy public personas. Harry put his chin in his hands. And didn't Daphne look utterly enchanting this morning? The way her silky blonde hair flowed down her shoulders, the way her cute nose twitched slightly when she gave a disapproving sniff, the way her ice-blue eyes sharpened, lance-like, when casually dismissing some sycophantic comment. He let out an exaggerated and very visible sigh. That was young love, after all.
It was such a shame he couldn't kiss her. Lord Slytherin would get ever so pissed if he did that, wouldn't he? Oh, yes. Heh. Yes, he certainly would.
"Harry?" The twins looked up from their workbench in surprise.
"Hi there," Harry half descended the stairs of the Twin's work trunk. "I'm going to need to exercise the map clause of our agreement for the next few hours."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Ready to lose yourself in an epic tale? Download the full PDF now and start reading from page one!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
https://fictiontopia.tiendup.com/