Harry Potter's revenge.

The angelic ghost smiled. "Thank you, Harry."

Half an hour later, Harry arrived back in his Hogsmeade apartment to find Macavity on his owl perch and a letter on his desk. He picked it up and read.

Lord Slytherin,

Thank you for your latest gift. Me and Luna went to Michelle McLaggen's Memories in Diagon Alley to watch it. Wow! The photos in the daily prophet are nothing compared to seeing the original memories.

I'm looking forward to meeting Hermione Granger next year. I screamed at the bit where the troll almost smashed the Indian witch and she saved her. I've already met Heiress Greengrass a few times at the winter festival, but it will be good seeing her again too. Luna said she's sure to be in Slytherin because of her contract with you. Is it possible for you to make sure someone goes to Slytherin? I really want to be in Slytherin with everyone else.

Luna also said you were asking if me and her could look through the Black Library for certain things hard to find anywhere else? Sure. We spend most of our days in there anyway. Luna is such a bookworm! Just let me know what you're interested in.

Yours,

Alexandra Patricia Black — Heiress of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black.

Harry grinned. Perfect timing. He penned a reply, enclosed it in an envelope and threw it up in the air, whereupon Macavity caught it in his talons and soared out the window.

Time to get back to the castle. No doubt the next few days would be busy. He'd now be on Dumbledore's radar, no doubt, and he had a critical loose end that needed to be tied up.

A few days later, Dumbledore sat heavily in his large office chair, surrounded by his many gizmos and doodads, read the note he'd been delivered, and sighed. The last few days had been worry, alarm, relief, and unease. It had all started when he'd walked into his potions lesson to find Harry Potter sitting front and centre, in between Miss Greengrass and Granger on one side and Mister Malfoy and Miss Parkinson on the other. Potter still worked alone, but his new seating position—and the apparent acceptance of both the Dark and Gray children of it—had worried him. Next had come the seating at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. No longer was the younger Potter twin the Slytherin pariah. He still sat in the middle of the Great Hall table, but he now received a steady stream of greeters, commenters, and meal guests.

So, he'd spent an afternoon piecing together what had happened through discreet legilimency on the few known non-occlumens in the snake pit and his worry had ratcheted up several notches. Images of Harry standing in the middle of the common room, conjuring way above OWL level, and receiving dignitaries from anyone who was anyone in the pit, gradually formed. Fear. Awe. Excitement. These were the primary emotions of all who'd witnessed it.

Then there were the stories. They flittered through the scraps of memories he'd seen like a torn up newspaper, no one piece giving him the whole, but together painting a picture that was unbelievable and frightening. He hadn't believed them. Oh, he'd been sure there was some truth in them, but no first year could take out an entire duelling team. Not even a first year Tom would have been able to. Not even he, Albus Dumbledore, could have managed that.

But even if there was only a glimmer of truth to the stories, there was only one place he could think of for such ability to come from — the soul fragment in Harry's head. He'd spent two days making contingency plans for what would happen when and if Tom suddenly burst forth from the innocuous visage of the Potter boy, only to be brought up short yesterday morning by a raving and out-of-breath Professor McGonagall.

She'd

observed

the

Gryffindor

duelling tryouts the previous night and the story she told was eerily familiar. John Potter had also defeated all six of his duelling teammates. Oh, the last fight had been more luck than anything else, and the boy'd been near exhaustion, but he'd managed it… just. He'd watched Minerva's memory of the event and it was clear the Gryffindor duelling captain was more skilled than John Potter, but he'd had just enough left in the tank and had pulled out a victory none-the-less.

It was incredible.

It also made it clear the stories about Harry Potter's turn in the duelling arena probably weren't as exaggerated as he'd thought.

Harry and John were twins. Their powers would be similar — their talents, too. Magic worked in strange ways. This wasn't a horcrux thing. This was a Potter twins thing. That had been yesterday morning and he'd been fully ready to up the surveillance on both boys. Then, yesterday afternoon he'd been doing paperwork for the ICW when Trippy, the house elf he'd assigned to Miss Greengrass, had popped into his office crying hysterically.

She'd been caught.

Worse, she'd been caught while Lord Slytherin had been talking with both Miss Greengrass and Lord Jacob Greengrass about family business. Even worse, Lord Slytherin had then ordered the elf to disclose any other spying the elves did and had learned about the elf on John Potter. He didn't even know Lord Slytherin could command the Hogwarts elves.

Dumbledore now held a note informing him that a delegation from the board of directors would be meeting him in minutes. And did he have a story less leaky than the leaky cauldron? Did he hell.

The door opened and three men walked in Jacob, James, and… "Lord Malfoy." He smiled, while inwardly cursing. "I hope you don't feel this matter affected you. I can assure you it didn't. Lord Greengrass, Lord Potter."

They all sat.

"Whether it affected my son and family directly is unimportant. I represent the interests of all the respectable families in our school."

"I hope, Albus," James intoned, "that you have a good explanation for this."

Jacob merely glared. Dumbledore sighed. "My primary concern was their safety. I'm sure you can see after the incident with the troll that my concerns were legitimate."

"I'm offended that my son was not deemed important enough for such VIP treatment," Malfoy drawled.

Lord Greengrass scowled. "And you've had them on our children since the start of term, we know that. And while we know that safety was indeed a concern, that's not all they were doing. You have NO right to spy on the children in your care for political reasons."

"And if safety is a problem," continued James Potter, "Measures should be taken for the benefit of all students, not just a select few, regardless of my family being part of that few."

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