Hours later
The Hogwarts Express arrived at Hogsmeade. Harry, Hermione, Luna and Neville were among the last to board a thestral-drawn carriage.
When the foursome walked into the Great Hall, they saw Ron already sitting at the Gryffindor table. He was looking at Harry with a haughty expression—Are you ready to apologise and to grovel yet?
Harry thought, Ron, if that is what you're waiting to hear, you'll wait a long time.
Ginny, meanwhile, was glaring painful death at Hermione.
Harry and Hermione were walking up to two empty places on the left-side Gryffindor bench, but were not yet sitting, when an unwanted voice yelled out—
"POTTER! YOU ARE NOT WEARING PROPER HOGWARTS ROBES TO THE WELCOMING FEAST. ONE HUNDRED POINTS FROM GRYFFINDOR, AND A WEEK'S DETENTION WITH ME!"
Harry was annoyed. The firsties had not even walked in yet for their Sortings, and Snape already was pulling shit on him. (Oddly, Snape was sparing Hermione.) Harry looked at the High Table—Dumbledore was looking back at him, with eyes a-twinkle, but McGonagall's place was empty.
Harry glanced at the part of the wall where the four House hourglasses were mounted. The Gryffindor hourglass had no rubies in the bottom, and "-100" was displayed underneath.
Hermione hissed.
Dumbledore, who could have cancelled this ridiculous points-loss with only a few words, stayed silent.
Harry looked at Snape and said, "I've claimed the title of Lord Potter, and I now wear the Lord Potter ring. Hermione and I are married; she is now Lady Potter. In the circumstances, the Hogwarts Student Handbook, 1938 edition, allows us to wear formal robes as befits our station, instead of Hogwarts robes."
Hermione pulled the handbook out of her beaded handbag, opened the book, and said cheerfully, "The rule that my husband cites is on page 6, if anyone wishes to look it up."
Dumbledore said jovially, "I'm curious, Miss Granger, how you came across a copy of the Handbook."
Hermione replied, "Please address me as 'Mrs Potter,' headmaster. Or 'Lady Potter' during formal occasions. As for the Handbook, I did not find it in Flourish and Blotts, because this book isn't sold in Flourish and Blotts for some reason. Nor was it included in any letter from Hogwarts that I ever received during any summer hols. Instead, the Handbook was found here in the castle."
"Where in the castle was the book found, Mrs Potter? Who found the book? Only students whom I allow, are permitted in Hogwarts during the summer break."
Ignoring the question, Hermione said, "What is odd is that this 1938 edition seems to be the most recentedition. I couldn't find a Handbook published after 1945, the year you became headmaster, Professor Dumbledore."
Then Hermione looked at Dumbledore and said, "As for how the Handbook fell into my hands, I don't remember." Hermione did not bother trying to sound convincing.
A second later, Hermione said, "Whoever is trying to read my mind now, I'll thank you to stop it." Students gasped. Harry noticed that Flitwick and Sprout turned to look at Dumbledore.
As Hermione sat down, Harry said, "As for your assigned detention, Professor Snape, another portion of the Handbook applies here. Hermione, read the rule about Heads and prefects."
Hermione flipped pages for a few seconds, then stood and read aloud, "Whilst it is fervently hoped that the Head Boy, Head Girl and the twenty-four prefects all have a solid knowledge of the rules in this Handbook, sometimes this is not the case. Should points wrongly be taken or a detention wrongly assigned for conduct that this Handbook allows or that a professor allows, then the taken points must be restored, the detention must be cancelled, and the headmaster must inform the overzealous Head or prefect of the Handbook rule or the professor's rule that was overlooked."
Harry said to Snape, "In short, I'm Lord Potter, and I won't serve detentions for dressing like Lord Potter, because Hogwarts in 1938 said I may."
Snape's grin was evil. "The rule talks about points and detentions that are assigned by Heads and prefects. It says nothing about when a professor punishes a student."
"The handbook says nothing there, yes, but the book does address the problem of bad professors"—Snape scowled—"elsewhere. Hermione?"
Hermione read from the Handbook again: "If a student feels that an act of discipline by a professor is undeserved, the student may appeal to the deputy headmaster, then to the headmaster, then to the Board of Governors. Whilst the appeals process is carried out, the points-loss and/or assigned detentions shall be held in abeyance."
Harry turned to look pointedly at the Gryffindor hourglass (which still displayed "-100"), then he looked at Dumbledore. "The hundred-points loss is not in abeyance."
"Harry my boy—"
Harry said coldly, "Address me as 'Lord Potter.' I've nevergiven you permission to call me by my first name."
Dumbledore said in a condescending tone, "Lord Potter—"
Professor McGonagall entered the Great Hall, whilst levitating a stool that had the Sorting Hat laying upon it.
McGonagall scowled at the Gryffindor hourglass, then spun to face Snape. "Severus, what did you do?"
Snape replied, "The brat was acting arrogant, just like his father. I took points and assigned detentions, as is my right."
Hermione said, "Professor Snape disciplined Harry, but not me, for wearing Head of House robes instead of Gryffindor robes. This even though the Hogwarts Student Handbook says Harry can wear either type of robes because he's Lord Potter now."
McGonagall glared at Snape and said, "Speaking as deputy headmistress, whatever detentions you assigned Lord Potter are cancelled. The hundred points that you took also are undone."
The Gryffindor hourglass now showed "0" underneath, the same as what was under the other three hourglasses.
Dumbledore said, "Minerva—"
Ignoring Dumbledore, McGonagall continued, "Severus, please wait till the children at least have eaten dessert before you invent more reasons to punish my Lions."
Dumbledore said, "Minerva! I will allow your overruling of Severus's disciplining of Harry this time. But I say, yet again, that I've complete trust in Severus and his punishments."
Throughout the Great Hall, students groaned.
Harry had remained standing all this time. Now he looked at Snape and said, "Maybe the headmaster's trust means that when I start filing complaints about you with the Board of Governors, you'll keep your job. If you've done nothing wrong, you've nothing to fear, right? Of course, Lucius Malfoy no longer is on the Board, so who knows how my complaints will be heard?"
Snape snarled, "Are you threatening me, Potter?"
"Twenty points to the High Table. Oi, it's not like you'll treat me worse now, right? Nothing would delight me more, Professor Snape, than for me to see you expelled in disgrace from this school."
Professor McGonagall said, "This is disgraceful. The first-years are waiting whilst we argue." She now hurried to the Entrance Hall.
As she passed by Harry and Hermione, McGonagall said to Harry, "I heard that on the train, you two introduced yourselves to the first-years. Prefect duty suits you, Lord Potter." Then for some reason she turned and shot Dumbledore a look.
Right afterwards, Professor Flitwick jumped down from his seat at the High Table, and hurried through the Great Hall. He moved to the Ravenclaw table, no surprise, and spoke briefly with Luna; but then he rushed over to the part of the Gryffindor bench where Harry and Hermione by now had seated themselves.
Flitwick said to the Potters, barely above a whisper, "You need to know, Lord Potter, that Minerva put herself on the line for you. She actually resigned after the headmaster decided he was going to appoint Mr Weasley as Lady Potter's prefect partner." Flitwick chuckled. "The headmaster persuaded her to tear up her resignation, but she drove a hard bargain."
"How hard?" Hermione asked.
Grinning Flitwick replied, "The fifth-year Slytherin prefects are Minerva's choices instead of Severus's."
Harry sighed. "Let me guess: Malfoy and Parkinson?"
Flitwick nodded. "He's called Draco Black now, but yes."
Harry looked at Hermione and Flitwick and groaned. "Draco and Pansy as prefects, Ron as a prefect, and me as a peon—Gryffindor and Slytherin would have been at war continually. What was the whiskered clown thinking?"
McGonagall led the first-years into the Great Hall then. Flitwick returned to his seat.
The first-years were Sorted. Every time a Muggle-born firstie was Sorted, Harry and Hermione not only applauded, but the Potters stood to applaud.
Oddly, none of the Muggle-born firsties were Sorted into Slytherin.
Ten minutes after the start of the Welcoming Feast
Dumbledore walked to the podium and said, "Whilst all of you are enjoying good food and are getting to know your first-year housemates, I want to introduce to you two new professors. Professor Grubbly-Plank now is teaching Care of Magical Creatures. Professor Grubbly-Plank, is there anything you wish to say to the students?"
As the students clapped, the female professor stood up, curtseyed to the students, then sat back down, all without saying a word.
Dumbledore then said, "Also, the new Defence Against the Dark Arts professor is Senior Auror Nigel Grenwick. For one year, he is on loan to us from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Let us welcome him now."
Harry noticed that as the Weasley twins clapped, their faces looked nervous. The applause from some of the Slytherins was less than polite.
Then Senior Auror Grenwick rose to speak. His Auror-red robes were as noticeable as Snape's always-black robes.
Grenwick said, "I've learned a lot, the hard way, about how to fight Dark wizards and witches. I pledge to do my best to pass on my knowledge to all of you, whether you're a first-year or a seventh-year. But I've more to tell you right now than about the DADA classes that I'll teach this year.
"The headmaster has made me a professor of sorts this year; as such, I can give House points, take House points and assign detentions. But I can do more than only these things. Notice the red robes? I'm a Senior Auror—which means, if you seriously cross the line, I can arrest you."
The Great Hall was dead silent.
"Here's my standard. If you cast spells in my class that I didn't ask for, or if you cast spells in the corridors and I catch you, I'll take points and assign detentions. If you cast spells here in the Great Hall, I figure you want to get caught, and I'll let the regular Hogwarts professors discipline you. However, if you seriously injure someone—meaning, your magic hurts someone, and the injury is bad enough that the victim needs to go to the infirmary—I'll arrest you. I'll arrest you in my classroom, in the corridors, in the Great Hall, anywhere I see you break the law."
The Great Hall was stunned silent.
"Just so I'm clear: I'll arrest you only if both conditions are met: your spell causes pain or draws blood, and your spell requires an infirmary visit. A stinging hex will get you only points taken and a detention from me, not an arrest, because a stinging hex doesn't mean a trip to the infirmary. If you charm someone's hair purple, they'll need to go to the infirmary to get this fixed, but the hair-colour change doesn't hurt. So I won't arrest you for a purple-hair prank. But if I see blood or I hear groans of pain, and Madam Pomfrey needs to treat the victim, you're going to be wearing special wrist-covers."
"Bollocks," a male voice said. "The party's over."
"Finally, I should mention the Body-Bind Curse and Incarcerous. For the first-years, these are two spells that leave the victim unable to move. Which means that the victim can't shield against other spells or dodge other spells. I just told all of you that normally I won't arrest you for casting a Stinging Hex at someone, I'll only take points and give detentions. However, if you've already made your victim unable to move, you then causing him or her any pain—by jinx, by hex, by punching the victim's shoulder or slapping his face—will get you arrested."
Grenwick looked about. "I'm not really part of this school. My ultimate boss is not Headmaster Dumbledore, it's Director Bones. None of the professors here, including McGonagall and Dumbledore, can order me not to arrest someone, or to release someone after I've arrested him or her. Sure, the headmaster can cancel my points taken and he can cancel my detentions—but if I say to you, 'You're under arrest,' the headmaster has no control over what happens to you afterwards."
Down the table from Harry, Ron said to Dean or Seamus, "I'll bet the Snakes are shitting their underwear right now."
Grenwick concluded, "Remember this: If you're a bully, if you make other students' lives unhappy for no reason, I'llmake your life unhappy; and I have no favourites."
As soon as Senior Auror Grenwick sat down, Harry—who was looking quite sharp in his Lord Potter robes, if Hermione's and Luna's reactions were any guide—rose and asked, "Headmaster, may I address the room?"
Dumbledore, his eyes a-twinkle, replied, "You may, Harry."
Harry walked forwards and entered the gap between the High Table and the four House tables. Harry Sonorused himself, then turned to address the students—
"You students who are Muggle-born first-years can see that I'm not wearing standard Hogwarts House robes. These robes say that I'm Head of House Potter, also a student in Gryffindor House, also a prefect.
"Usually for a Hogwarts student to wear Head of House robes, three things must have happened. One, the student has been declared to be the Heir or Heiress of his or her House by the Head of House. Two, the previous Head of House has died. Three, the student is of age—in the wizarding world, generally this means age seventeen.
"I can tick off two of the three boxes—but I'm not seventeen. In fact, I was born in 1980, as the seventh month died." Harry glanced at Dumbledore, who was scowling. "So how am I considered to be 'of age' at fifteen? You first-years might not have heard this story, but last year Hogwarts hosted a tournament for three magical schools. The prize offered to the winner was a thousand galleons—five thousand quid—and 'eternal fame and glory.'
"The details of the tournament don't matter, except that the tournament was potentially deadly, so supposedly the only students who could enter the contest were students 'of age'—seventeen or eighteen—and supposedly they had to volunteer to be in the tournament. Supposedlythese rules would be magically enforced; then a magical device, the Goblet of Fire, would choose the best student from each school.
"The Goblet of Fire was supposed to pick the best student from each of the three school participating. Instead, the Goblet spit out four names. The fourth name was me, aged fourteen then."
Harry drew his wand, and pointed it at the ceiling. "My life would've been much simpler, last Halloween, if someone"—Harry glared at the High Table—"had told me about this a year ago." Harry straightened his posture and spoke formally: "I didn't put my name in the Goblet of Fire, I didn't ask an older student to put my name in the Goblet, and I didn't let an older student put my name in. It wasn't until June of this year that I learnt who entered my name, how he did it and why. I swear these things on my life and my magic."
Light flashed. Harry waited for the gasps and screams to quiet down, then did Lumos/Nox with his wand.
Harry calmly continued, "It turned out that the man who tricked the Goblet was a Death Eater—a lackey of Lord Voldemort named Barty Crouch, Jr. Most of you remember 'Mad-Eye' Moody from last year? He was really Barty Crouch, Jr in disguise. But even before we knew all this, it should've been obvious to everyone that my participation in the Triwizard Tournament was a murder plot. I'm the bloody Boy who Lived—I don't need any more fame or glory. And I'm rich enough that—let's just say I had no reason to risk my bloody life for one thousand galleons.
"Beginning at the minute my name came out of the Goblet, I told everyone in three schools that I hadn't put my name in. Some Ministry idiots flapped their jaws and said, 'You must compete,' but Albus Dumbledore could've overridden them. Except—he didn't. Albus Dumbledore, who at the time was headmaster of this school and Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot andSupreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards, said, 'Harry, you must compete,' whilst notsaying, 'Harry, I believe your claim.' My Head of House, Minerva McGonagall, likewise never said, 'Mr Potter, I believe your claim.' Meanwhile, Ron Weasley was telling everyone that I was a liar and a cheater. Ron Weasley eats like a pig, he's the laziest student in the school and he's regularly tried to break into my trunk, but last year, everyone believed his slanders about me, because he was supposedly my 'best mate.'
"First-years, let me tell you that for a while last year, my life was rubbish. Not only did I constantly feel the mortal terror from knowing that the tournament could kill me—in the First Task, I faced a fire-breathing dragon—but almost the entire school hated me. By early November of last year, my only defenders were Fred and George Weasley, Neville Longbottom and my future wife Hermione, all of Gryffindor; and Luna Lovegood of Ravenclaw. But everyone else? At best they kept silent, and at worst they scorned me. Even some members of the Potter Alliance were saying bad things about me." Harry glanced at Susan Bones and Hannah Abbott, who looked down, ashamed.
Harry said, "When the tournament was all over, it turned out that the tournament was rigged so that I'd win it—as part of a complicated plot by Lord Voldemort to resurrect himself and to kill me. Voldy wound up winning one for two—he's now alive again, but I'm alive too. Alas, Cedric Diggory was not so lucky—Voldy's minion Peter Pettigrew killed Cedric on Voldy's order. As for the thousand galleons I 'won,' I gave this money away; I didn't keep one knut of it.
"But quietly I was awarded another prize, one that I didn't know about till later: By being forced to participate in a tournament of 'of age' students, I became 'of age' myself, as soon as I faced the scary dragon in the First Task. I wonder whether our esteemed headmaster would've arm-twisted me into the tournament, with him wearing a sad face all the while, if he'd realised that he was enabling me to claim my Lord Potter ring thirty-two months early."
Harry glanced at Dumbledore, who was frowning. Harry thought, I buggered your "Greater Good" all to hell, didn't I!
Harry concluded, "So now I'm Lord Potter, and for most of you in this school, second-years through seventh-years, I'm not in a friendly mood. Meaning, anything that you wouldn't dare do to Lucius Malfoy a month ago, don't do to me, or you'll be sorry. Finally, I'd just like to say to Professor Dumbledore and to Professor McGonagall, thanks for nothing. To Ronald Weasley, I say that you are not now my 'best mate' anymore; you now aren't anykind of friend to me at all. You're a liar, a slanderer, a Pureblood bigot and a thief, and I'm done with you. Quietus."
The entire Great Hall was silent when Harry walked back to his bench-place at the Gryffindor table. Five Gryffindors had wands pointed at Ron when Harry sat down.
Professor McGonagall stood up, Sonorussed herself and said, "Lord Potter, I apologise most abjectly for my behaviour towards you last year."
Harry looked at Dumbledore. Dumbledore did not apologise, and he shot McGonagall a glare.
Harry thought, Dumbledore will wait till tomorrow, when students will be thinking about their classes, not about me. Then Dumbledore will come after Hermione and me.