Chapter 75: CH75
Apparently, Tom had sent his Death Eaters to attack the home of the Davises and had just managed to break through the 'surprisingly' strong ward on the property when members of 'Dumbledore's illegal vigilante group, the Order of the Phoenix', as per according to the Prophet, turned up and attacked the Death Eaters.
In the short skirmish, where the order members were obviously expecting the Death Eaters to portkey or apparate out at any moment, they didn't. The anticipation they would and didn't left the Order flat-footed; and, in the skirmish, Diggle was killed by a Killing curse from close range.
The Prophet then went on to say that Diggle had no one to blame, but himself, for getting killed; as the Order of the Phoenix 'has, for far too long, been interfering in the work that is the rightful responsibility of the DMLE'.
Then they called for Dumbledore to be questioned and charged 'for the illegal acts of he and his vigilantes'
After reading it and looking up, Harry looked to Luna and asked, "Why do I know the name 'Davis' from somewhere?"
"Tracey Davis," she replied. "She was a Slytherin in your year, but not one of Malfoy's sycophants.
"Her home has been attacked by Riddle before. That time, her father and younger brother were killed, while she and her mother were able to flee."
Harry, remembering where Luna included that in her scrapbooks, sighed and said, "I'd always noticed there were Slytherins who didn't seem to follow the same agenda as Malfoy. However, when I raised that point with Ron and Hermione, Ron would go spare about how all Slytherins were naturally evil and those who didn't look like it were just better at hiding it that the others; and Hermione would go on about how Dumbledore would let them know if there were ones who weren't likely to follow Riddle. As he hadn't, they therefore must be Riddle followers."
"Actually," she said, "I'd say only about a third of Slytherin students, back then, were going to be followers of Riddle. There was also about a sixth to a fifth of Ravenclaw who were the same."
"In other words," said Harry. "Contrary to what Ronald would keep banging on about, not all Slytherins were 'evil slimy snakes' just waiting for the next dark lord to pop up."
"No," replied Luna, as Sirius said, "Definitely not." Sirius interrupted and said, "You missed the other main article below it, Harry. It's on your second confrontation with Dumbledore and your handling of the Fiendfyre."
Harry looked back down at the newsparchment and spotted it. He didn't know how he'd missed it, as it had a wizarding photo of him wrangling the Fyre.
"Hunh!" he muttered, as he began to read.
Once done he looked up and said, "Accurate enough. Thank Merlin they didn't know about the Warrior's Honour Ragnok declared he had to bestow upon me."
Sirius coughed up his coffee, but at least it wasn't as bad as the previous day's 'effort'.
"He what?!" he spluttered.
As Luna snickered, Harry calmly replied, "He claims I'm now a hero of the Goblin Nation and, as such, just had to bestow a Warrior's Honour on me."
As Sirius stared back, he finally demanded, "In what form?"
"Ummm... A reduction in bank fees of fifty percent, an increase in returns of five percent, free medical treatment for injuries sustained in battle and recognition of my heroism before the goblin High Council," he replied with a shrug.
Sirius just stared back in shock for a long moment.
"Pup!" he finally exclaimed, shaking off the shock. "Bloody... Merlin's hairy nut sac! Do you know what that means?"
"Yeah," he grumped. "At least one poor goblin kid... mup... is likely going to get lumbered with the name 'Harry' until they've earned their blood name. Leastwise, that's what Luna tells me." Developing a pained mien as he put his elbows on the table before resting his forehead on his cupped hands, Sirius almost whined, "It means far more than that, Harry."
"Yeah, I kind of figured that," he said. "Ragnok looked quite irritated when he said he had to do it."
With a sigh, Sirius looked up and said, "It means... the goblins now accept you as a warrior on par with a goblin warrior. No longer will a goblin sneer at you when you enter the bank. They see you practically as kin a goblin in a wizard's body - a fellow warrior.
"You're going to need to be taught how to return a goblin salute. It could be seen as an insult if you don't return such in future.
"More than that, anyone else in the bank at the time is also going to see you get saluted and your returning it." "Ah!" said Harry, now understanding. Then he shrugged and said, "What's done is done. There's no point in crying over spilt potions."
The pained expression didn't leave Sirius's face, though.
At Malfoy Manor, Voldemort read the two relevant articles in that morning's Daily Prophet in reverse of how Harry had read them.
He already knew about the revel - attack - and wasn't interested in what the Daily Prophet wrote about it. They usually got specific important details wrong, anyway; which actually worked in with his plans to sow misinformation in the minds of the masses.
However, the Prophet was accurate with some important details; such as how Dumbledore and Longbottom weren't there. That confirmed Dumbledore was under 'house' arrest at Hogwarts. And, that Longbottom wasn't there, also confirmed to him that Dumbledore was keeping the young man close by at all times; not letting him out on his own.
It was also accurate in that the Order did not drive he and his Death Eaters off. And was also accurate in that the Order were forced to back off and 'hunker down', waiting for reinforcements; which came late. The Order were only saved from imminent slaughter by the arrival of Hammer and her aurors turning up, en masse.
He was more interested in reading the yet another front page article about the young Peverell Lord.
'An interesting way to deal with Fiendfyre,' he thought. 'Starve it of oxygen with an inside-out Bubble-head charm and smother it that way.
'But, for Dumbledore to have been the one who cast it... Not so much a Leader of the Light after all, are you old man?' And lightly chuckled. 'Oh, how the mighty have fallen...'
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