Madame Bones left Dumbledore to immediately file the form for custody of Harry, and while on the way out she reflected on just how the conversation had gone.
She felt she had handled it poorly, and she knew exactly why, while accusing Dumbledore of many things, she couldn't help but feel responsible herself, all the while thinking of what she could have done differently. She had failed that boy who was right now in her home with her niece. It hadn't been herself originally that had agreed to allow Dumbledore to handle Harry Potter's well being and safety while keeping the ministry out of the loop. That had been the previous Head of the DMLE, but when she did get the job she had done nothing to change that, trusting that Dumbledore knew what he was doing. He had seemed so wise, so capable, he had always seemed that way when she was at Hogwarts...
Now she knew that that trust was unfounded, at least as far as Harry was concerned, but was she any better than him? She could have done something, she should have done something. Yet she was reminded once again that she could not change the past, only try to make things better now. She promised herself once again that she would take care of and protect him to the best of her ability.
She had at least managed to get Dumbledore to talk, usually he was pretty close lipped about anything he did not want to reveal and he certainly wasn't happy about telling her anything. She probably could have gotten more out of him since she felt like there was still more he was not telling her, particularly when it came to Snape, but she had chosen to let the matter go, at least for now, since Snape was still currently unavailable to be questioned and she had been just happy to gain custody of Harry.
She hesitated going to file the paperwork as she could have just handled it all herself, but it would be technically illegal for her to accept her own adoption, and she felt strongly that the person that would be handling it could be trusted.
When she finally got to child protective services, run by just one woman, owing to the small amount of magical children in Britain, she approached said woman, Becky Fawcett, a middle aged woman who had a daughter currently in Hogwarts a few years older than Susan.
"Becky," Madame Bones informed her holding out the custody form, "I need you to sign this for me."
"You know your signature would work just as well as mine," Becky said.
"Not if I am the one taking permanent custody," Madame Bones announced.
Becky seemed surprised, but grinned nonetheless, "I had no idea that you were planning to adopt again."
"Its not a complete adoption, just custody," Madame Bones declared, "a formal adoption would conflict with a previous contract that is in place on behalf of the child."
While she didn't tell Becky, the reason why she had chosen to allow Dumbledore to retain guardianship was so that Harry would still be eligible to marry Susan, as the particular contract that had been signed between Harry's parents and Susan's would become null and void under such conditions. She had only originally asked for full guardianship because she knew that Dumbledore wouldn't allow it. He enjoyed far too much being Harry's representative in the Wizengamot for that. It was a calculated move on her part to ask for it however, knowing that if she threatened to take that from him, that he would be more likely to hand over only custody of Harry to her, and feel like he had still kept what he really wanted, while she got what she really wanted.
She handed over the contract to her, after which Becky began looking it over before her eyes widened.
"This form is for Harry Potter," Becky stated.
"That is correct," Madame Bones agreed.
"I was informed that the Harry Potter case wasn't supposed to be dealt with by the ministry," Becky answered.
"That position has been changed in light of recent events," Madame Bones answered.
"What kind of events?" Becky queried, now even more curious, "is it anything I need to concern myself with?"
Madame Bones thought about it for a moment, while she would have liked to keep Harry's situation a secret, she realized that since she would be the one taking custody of him, she would be legally obligated to leave it in the hands of someone else as it would provide a conflict of interest. She wouldn't ignore such a law either even if she was sure she could get away with it, every law that she expected everyone else to follow also applied to her.
"While I would like to handle this matter personally, yet since it would be a conflict of interest for me, I'll allow you to do your job and take over the Harry Potter case. Even as your boss I'll expect you to treat me the same way you would with anyone, is that understood?"
"I'll do my best," Becky stated, "so what makes you think that Harry Potter's living situation should be changed and placed into your custody?"
"I would appreciate it if you would swear a wizard's oath not to reveal the following information to anyone," Madame Bones requested.
"Very well," Becky said, now looking even more interested about just what all of this was about, and raising up her wand, "I Becky Fawcett do solemnly swear up on my magic that I shall never reveal the following information I am about to hear to anyone, so mote it be."
After making her oath, Madame Bones quickly cast an anti-listening charm before beginning. It was a risk that she was telling Becky, but she felt that she could be trusted, a model employee and known to be very trustworthy and fiercely loyal to the light side, her husband had even been killed during the first war with Voldemort.
She told her everything that she knew for certain, that Harry Potter was abused and mistreated by his Muggle relatives, and that such abuse wasn't reported. Everything else, including the stuff about Severus Snape's involvement she left out, as even she was skeptical about Dumbledore's explanation, and she would be getting to the bottom of it, just in her own way.
However Becky handled everything well, she obviously had had cases of abuse in the past, even though she was obviously still abhorred by it anyway.
Madame Bones showed pictures of Harry's back, where the highest concentration of scars were visible, along with her relating some examples of abuse that Harry had shared.
"I'll be sure to keep all of this secret," Becky declared, "and I'll be looking into it, you can count on it. In the meantime however I see no reason not to grant you custody of the boy, following an investigation as to the accusation of abuse inflicted by his previous guardians, and making sure that you are providing a safe and proper environment for him."
Madame Bones nodded, she had at least undergone the last part back when she had taken custody of Susan after her parents were killed, and knew what to expect and what would be required.
"Very well then, in the meantime I'll make sure that the documents you've provided are kept extra safe and not here as an added precaution," Becky continued as her voice than faltered as her emotions got the best of her previously business like tone, "and I'm so sorry that this could have happened to Harry Potter, if any child deserved not to be treated in such a way... Well I'm at least glad he'll be with you now, you seem to have been such a good parent to Susan after her parents died..."
She wiped a tear from her eyes, and Madame Bones conjured up a tissue for her and gave it to her. She knew that Becky and Susan's mother had been friends at Hogwarts, so she could see why it might have affected her so.
Now however she felt like she had made the right choice trusting Becky and by the time she left, she felt that she would have everything in hand.
Apparating home after that, Madame Bones quickly found Susan, Harry, and the other girls in the library currently trying to finish some homework that had been given to them over the break.
"Well?" Susan asked as soon as she saw her.
Madame Bones smiled, "I've been given custody."
Susan ran over to hug her, which she returned before beckoning for Harry to give her one as well.
He did so reluctantly, looking nervous not that she could blame him based on his past, but he did so anyway.
The hug was brief but it still ignited once again within her the maternal instinct that she was already beginning to develop for him.
"I'm so sorry Harry," she whispered to him.
"Sorry for what?" he asked.
"For failing you and having you live with the Dursleys all that time," she answered,
"How could it be your fault?" he asked, "and because of you I'll never have to be with the Dursleys again."
Glad that he bore her no ill will, she still promised herself that she would somehow make it up to him.
DUELDUELDUELD
The next day the 4 students got aboard the Hogwarts express and went back to Hogwarts, and while Harry still felt strange about suddenly finding himself living with the Bones, he had to admit it was way nicer than living with the Dursleys. Susan and he were already great friends, and Madame Bones once he had gotten to know her seemed really nice.
It seemed things were finally seeming to settle down and get good for him, no more Dursleys, no more must win duels for him, no more trolls to fight, all he was expected to do now was do his homework, practice dueling, and enjoy time with his friends.
Of course such a life would always be too boring for Su. She wanted action, danger, thrills, adventure, and she kept begging him to explore the castle with them. Finally he relented and agreed to go with her, along with Susan and Pansy one late night, perhaps an hour before curfew where most students and teachers had already turned in for the night.
They went through much of the castle and then started making their way up a certain staircase and Harry suddenly realized where Su was going.
"Please tell me you're not trying to go where I think you're going," he asked.
"Hold on," Susan said, realizing where they must be headed by now too, "you're trying to go to the 3rd floor corridor aren't you?"
"I just want to check it out, just one quick peek," Su begged.
Susan looked extremely reluctant and so did Pansy, and once Su realized things weren't going to go her way, she grabbed Susan's wand from her hand.
"Hey!" Su yelled.
"Guess you've got to catch me first," Su said, running away up the stairs, followed by a slower Susan, not used to doing as much running.
Harry ran after her as well, but he had never been able to catch Su either, she could have outran any student in a race if she was in his muggle primary school, including the boys.
He finally caught up to her however in front of a door, and grabbed Susan's wand back.
"Sorry to ruin your fun," he declared.
"I got you right where I wanted didn't I?" Su grinned, and he suddenly realized that they were now inside the 3rd floor corridor, right at the end. Pansy and Susan came up huffing and puffing right after him.
At least the 3rd floor didn't seem all that interesting, it was entirely vacant, and the one thing that might have been of interest to Su, the door they were now standing in front of, appeared to be locked.
"Alohomora," Su yelled at the lock just then, instantly dispelling his relief.
The lock gave way and Su opened up the door.
None of them could resist peering inside, and were shocked to see that they were staring at 3 somethings, or possibly just one something, 3 gigantic dogs heads that immediately began snarling and snapping at them.
Susan and Pansy both screamed in terror, but fortunately none of the dogs heads could fit through the door, which would have made him wonder just how it had gotten inside in the first place had he not been so busy trying to shield and protect both Susan and Pansy in case one of the dogs heads somehow managed to fit through anyway.
Su cast a spell at it and managed to keep it at bay long enough for her to close and lock the door again.
"What on earth was that?" Susan asked breathlessly.
"A cerberus," Pansy informed her, still shaken up herself, "a giant 3 headed dog, my dad tried to buy one once as a guard dog."
"Well whatever it is or what its doing here, we might want to get out of here," Susan said.
He was inclined to agree with her, but then Su suddenly stopped her, "are you mad? He's so cool! I was starting to think this school might be getting boring again, but obviously somebody's been holding out on us, a cerberus right here, I want to fight him."
She seemed eager to open up the door to do just that, but he grabbed her before she could.
"Come on Harry, it'll be fun," Su begged, "I promise we'll stay behind the doorway where its safe, and we won't permanently hurt it, I just want to see if we can knock all of its heads out or something."
"You've got to be joking," Susan said, "you actually want to fight that thing?"
Before Su had a chance to reply however, they heard the sound of footsteps coming towards them. They all ran and crouched behind a pillar, him and Su, and then Pansy and Susan on the other side.
Looking at the person they were surprised to find that it was Quirrell.
He appeared to be talking to himself, and replying as if somebody was talking to him, but from what they could tell he was alone.
"We'll get through this time master, the stone will be yours soon," he said just loud enough for him to hear, then paused for a second as if someone was replying to him, before he said, "no one has spotted us on my way here, I was most careful, the portraits have all been frozen."
He paused for a moment longer than said something else in a voice too low for him to understand.
Quirrell then opened up the door, which immediately caused the cerberus inside to begin barking again, and Quirrelll tried doing what Su was going to do, stand behind the door and subdue it somehow. From his vantage point he couldn't tell exactly what Quirrell was using, but it appeared not to be effective and suddenly there was a howl of pain as Quirrell fell down on one knee, before having to force the cerberus back and lock the door.
"Yes master I know I have failed," Quirrell said, seeming to be begging, "just one more chance, I know I can get Hagrid to tell us what we need to know."
He paused for another moment longer before finally getting up and walking away from them, and as he passed failed to notice them as he was currently still looking down at an injured arm with blood currently seeping from the wound.
"What was that all about?" Susan asked after he had gone.
"I don't know but I'm not going to stick around to find out," Pansy declared, leading the way back down the corridor, trying to be slow enough to keep from catching up to Quirrell.
After they finally got down again, however, they all voiced aloud what had just happened.
"I think its fairly obvious," Susan said, "Dumbledore has left something in the school to be guarded by that cerberus, and Quirrell wants it."
"You would think that Dumbledore would be smart enough to hide valuable objects away from school children, as well as dangerous monsters guarding them," Pansy commented, "that's just asking for trouble, some reckless student is bound to try to find out just why the 3rd floor corridor is forbidden."
She looked pointedly at Su, who she wasn't happy with into tricking them into following her right now, but Su still seemed too keyed up by the events they had just gone through to notice.
"It seems simply casting spells at it doesn't appear to work," Su stated, "I wonder if physical weapons would harm it, like maybe if I got my daggers and I..."
"If you had tried to attack it like you were going to do, you would have ended up like Quirrell and gotten bitten or probably worse," Susan reminded her.
"Well there's always a little risk in every endeavor," Su countered.
"I think we need to go tell Dumbledore what we found at any rate, I'm sure he'll be interested to know about Quirrell," Pansy suggested.
He and Susan both agreed.
"Well if we tell him that means admitting that we were in the 3rd floor corridor where we weren't allowed," Su concluded.
"Better than having one of his teachers be a potential thief," Susan replied, "besides we'll just tell him it was all your idea."
She grinned wickedly and forced the rest of them to follow her to Dumbledore's office.
They didn't know the password, but fortunately Dumbledore was only just coming down.
"Ah, what can I do for you?" he asked.
"We were just wondering if you were trying to protect anything on the 3rd floor corridor?" Harry asked.
Dumbledore showed just a twinge of surprise before saying, "what makes you think that?"
While still slightly afraid of being punished, they related to him the story of seeing Quirrell there trying to get past the cerberus.
"So if you really do have anything there I think you might want to move it since Quirrell obviously knows where it is and he should be able to get past whatever defenses you have eventually," Harry finished, "also you might want to do something about your teacher."
"There's nothing to worry about," Dumbledore informed them, "I have everything well in hand."
"Well that's reassuring," Su said sarcastically.
"I think you should have a little faith in me, and I'll also expect you to show me more respect young lady," Dumbledore scolded her, "now as for the rest of you, I don't want to hear any more of this, this does not concern any of you. If I find that you are trying to investigate further, or interfere with any of my plans I shall have to give you all punishments."
Dumbledore left them there, with all of them extremely annoyed with him.
"Well what do we do now?" Pansy asked.
"Its quite simple, we investigate further," Su told her.
"You heard what Dumbledore said, he said that he had everything handled and that we would be punished if we tried to interfere," Susan said.
Harry knew that Susan had never been one for rule breaking, something that she had inherited from her aunt, while Pansy on the other hand usually had the same thinking. As for himself, he had learned long ago from the Dursleys that he would be punished if he was either good or bad, and so had learned to at least try not to get caught, and at least break rules that needed to be broken. The no meals for a week punishment for example. He would have starved to death had he followed that rule, but fortunately learned to slowly accumulate food that would not be noticed missing, and then hide it in his cupboard in preparation for those times.
Su of course, would break every rule in Hogwarts for an adventure, who tried to argue with the other two girls to no avail. Finally it appeared she dropped the subject, even though Harry seemed suspicious why she had given up so quickly
DUELDUELDUELD
Meanwhile Lucius Malfoy was currently still pondering how to deal with the Potter situation. It was a complete disaster for him. Now Parkinson seemed to have fallen out of his graces so much that he was now in talks with Dumbledore. Indeed, several of the last few bills he had tried to enact were rejected by Parkinson, bills that he had supported before. He simply could not allow this occur, but the only way he could see to get him back over to his side was get Parkinson's daughter back, and Parkinson himself seemed to think that his failure to do so was a sign of weakness on his part, or at least he alluded to that by making several snide comments about the subject whenever he was around him.
He also realized he could no longer rely upon his idiot of a son to handle the situation, he would need to deal with it personally, yet exactly how he wasn't sure. The obvious and easy answer would be too simply kill him but that would be hard to pull off as well. It would be too difficult to try anything at Hogwarts with Dumbledore there, so that meant he would need to try to get him while he was gone for summer break, which provided additional problems as he still did not know where he was. He'd invested a considerable amount of time and money trying to find Harry Potter's location for the last 10 years to no avail, and he couldn't see how that would change now. Yet as he was beginning to despair, he was alerted to the presence of Nott just outside his anti-apparition wards on his home.
Allowing him to continue, and waving off the additional defenses, he opened the door for him, and Nott shook his hand.
"Lord Malfoy," he said respectfully.
"What brings you here?" Lucius asked in a polite tone, always having respected Nott for his dueling prowess. He was in fact the wizard who had trained his nephew Theodore Nott.
"I do believe I've finally found what we've been looking for all this time," Nott admitted.
Lucius caught his breath, scarcely able to believe that he was referring to what he was hoping he was referring to.
"I've found out where Harry Potter is going to be staying over the summer," Nott claimed.
"How did you come by this information after so long?" Lucius demanded.
"I don't know where he was staying in the past, but I know where he is going to be at least for a portion of the summer," Nott replied, "as you know I'm part of the international dueling committee and I've learned that Potter is planning to compete in the competition next summer."
"So," Lucius said, "there's bound to be tight security for something like that, and tons of wizards, all of them very capable duelists around him, it would be suicide to try something there."
"Normally it would be, if it weren't for the fact that I managed to get myself put in charge of security for the event."
He grinned maliciously which caused Lucius to adopt a grin of his own.
"I can have the boy assigned to stay in a location far away from most of the other competitors and also put up the various shields and protective spells myself so as not to arouse suspicion should the building be inspected yet also be very easy for me to take down when the time comes. The competition should last 3 weeks which should give us more than adequate time for us to pull it off.
"You have done me a great service," Lucius bowed, "I'll see to it that 500 thousand galleons is deposited into your account and another 500 thousand is deposited after the deed is done."
They both then gathered together to discuss just what the plan would be.
DUELDUELDUELD
Deep into January, Draco got another visit from his father in the Slytherin common room.
"Hello father," Draco said, bowing respectfully.
"Hello Draco, I expect that your schoolwork has been up to par for a Malfoy?" his father asked.
"It has father," Draco stated.
"I am however greatly concerned that you have shown no inclination to change the Parkinson situation," his father said.
Draco blanched, he really hadn't.
"Its just that Potter is so good a duelist, nobody can beat him," Draco argued, "after what happened with Nott I can't get anyone to agree to duel him."
"Draco, come now, surely you must have realized by now that there is more than one way to get Parkinson back," his father claimed.
"The only other way I've thought of is if Potter were killed in some way," Draco admitted.
"Desperate times call for desperate measures," his father stated, "I had hoped at first before you arrived at school that he might become an ally to you and the Malfoy family but since he has rejected the offer he is now nothing more than a liability. He must be terminated."
"You wish me to kill him father?" Draco asked, not capable of hiding the shock from his voice. Dueling him was one thing, but murder? He didn't like Potter but he didn't think he could simply outright kill him."
"What if I am caught? I'll be expelled," Draco claimed.
"That is why I will be taking care of it for you," his father replied, "he is too safe here at Hogwarts but I have found my way around it."
"What is it father?" Draco asked.
"Nothing for you to be concerned with," his father chided him, "let's just say I've recently learned where he'll be staying over the summer, and I'll be taking care of him there personally."
"Personally?" Draco questioned, his father never did anything personally, for him to take such a risk meant he wanted no screw ups, and regarded it to be of utmost importance. He had had no idea his father felt that strongly.
His father soon turned to asking him about his schoolwork again, and Carloman, the invisible man, took the opportunity to report it to Dumbledore.
…."so you see Dumbledore," Carloman continued with what he heard, "he's evidently found out where Harry Potter is going to be living from now on."
"This is why I should have been the one to manage Harry Potter's affairs," Dumbledore grumbled aloud, assuming at once that it had been something that Madame Bones had done for Harry Potter's new living situation to be known so easily "fool of a woman Madame Bones, I manage to keep his location a secret for 10 years and she can't even manage a month! Well now I suppose I shall just have to tell her her house is compromised and.. Wait did you say that Lucius Malfoy would be handling it personally?"
"He did say that," Carloman said.
Dumbledore couldn't resist such an opportunity, he had been been trying for years to get Lucius Malfoy nailed for something, this was his chance. He wouldn't be telling her anything, instead he'd find out himself where she lived and have look outs set up outside where they couldn't be spotted and wait for his nemesis to come to him. It would be perfect, a plan that Madame Bones would never approve of if she knew but a perfect plan nevertheless. When Lucius Malfoy finally came, he'd be waiting for him."