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Chapter 17 - Tweak the nose of the dreadful spindly killer fish

Saturday, December 21, 1996A few minutes before one, Professor McGonagall walked up to the entrance door to the board room. Harry was sitting in the hall, relaxing on one of his conjured armchairs, reading a small book. He looked as if he hadn't a care in the world.

"Ready, Harry?" she asked. He nodded, lowering his book to be polite. She said, "The board is comprised of seven members, of varying ages and varying walks of life. They will be sitting behind a table, acting as a sort of tribunal. Please be careful of what you say."

"Nowadays, Professor, I am always careful of what I say. It is others who seem to fling words about in wild abandon." He looked at her pointedly, and she had the grace to look away. Harry stood and vanished his chair, tucking his book in some mysterious place in his robes. Shocking his professor, he stepped in to give her a quick peck on the cheek before stepping to the door. "Shall we?"

"Cheeky monkey," she mumbled as she passed him; but he could see she was struggling not to grin.

"Ah, Minerva, good of you to join us." This from a sour, nasty-looking man of stubbly brown hair and effete demeanor. "And you must be Mr. Potter," he said, looking down his big nose at Harry.

Harry just stood and looked at him. Neither glaring nor flinching, he met the gaze of the man who was trying to establish himself as an authority figure.

"Well?" said the man.

"Well, what?" said Harry.

"Well, I asked you a question, young man!"

"No, you didn't. You made a statement."

The man began to get upset, and the effect on his already-reedy voice was not flattering. "Now, look here--"

"Why?" interrupted Harry.

The man sputtered for a moment, caught by surprise and not pleased about it. "B-- Th-- Why?" He looked around the table for support, finding it mixed. "Don't you know who we are?"

"No, of course I don't," said Harry. "You didn't bother to introduce yourself."

"We are the Hogwarts Board of Governors!"

"Alright," Harry answered, looking quite serene. "That is what you are, not /who/. Who are you?" He heard a snicker to his left that was quickly covered by the clearing of a throat.

"I just told you who we are!" came the reply, in a voice that was beginning to get positively whiny. "Listen, you impertinent little--"

"Who's impertinent? You wish to question me, and I asked who you are. What could be more pertinent? Who's little? I am legally an adult, and bigger than you, from the look of things." That snicker came again. "I still don't have an answer, by the way. I would like to know the name of every person in this room."

This time, the response was a deep, gentle laugh from Harry's right. "Well played, young man. Hah, well played indeed." Harry turned to see the speaker, who was awizard in his nineties, still handsome. "I am Obadiah Throckmorton. The gentleman turning too puce to talk over there is Erkan Rumspigot." Raising his eyebrows, he turned to the woman on his right.

"Evadne Pocock." Short, shapely and fashionable.

"Porpentina Clench." Normal height, obese and brassy. She had short and thick hair.

"Ramsey Fitz-Loosely." Early forties, very tall, thin and sour.

"Typhoon Blackstump." Booming voice, normal height and noble. Quite old, perhaps 100.

"Elsie Panderbody." Mid-fifties, short, slender and homely. Her hair was silvery and bobbed. She had intense blue eyes.

Harry bowed to the assemblage. "And I am Harry Potter. Very pleased to make your acquaintance, I'm sure. Especially you, you and you..." he said, pointing at three people; who immediately froze in place. "Aurors!"

Four invisibility cloaks were pulled off to reveal four aurors, who had been standing quietly in the large room all along.

Harry pointed again, and said, "Erkan Rumspigot, Porpentina Clench, and Ramsey Fitz-Loosely have identified themselves by name. I identify them as Death Eaters. You may have them."

There was an outcry, of course. "By Merlin!" from old Blackstump, while Elsie fainted dead away right next to him. The aurors checked the forearm of each of the three that Harry had pointed out, showing the room the dark mark on each before putting the apparation manacles on and taking their prisoners away.

"I knew there was something I didn't like about that guy," said Harry. "Well, for the rest of you, perhaps we should get on?"

Throckmorton laughed again, this time leaning back in his chair. "By Merlin and by Jove! Ha, no wonder! That jackass rubbed everybody the wrong way." Clapping his hands, he said, "Let's get back to it. Shall I?" he waited for dissent, and there was none. "Very well. Mr. Potter, we've had formal complaints lodged from the Parkinsons. They claim you damaged their daughter's magic. Can you confirm or deny this?"

Harry nodded. "Mr. Throckmorton, I did not damage Pansy Parkinson's magic; I removed it entirely."

Evadne Pocock spoke up, "Oh, but seriously... you don't mean--"

"Yes, Ms. Pocock. She is a squib, now and forever."

"You expect us to believe that a mere student could--"

"I am not a 'mere' anything," interrupted Harry. "I am a man, a wizard, last living heir of Godric Gryffindor, Lord Potter and Lord Black, and the grown-up version of the Boy Who Lived. I'll thank you not to condescend, madam."

"But... Mr. Potter, you can't just... we can't have you just making squibs out of the wizarding student body!"

"Why not? Which school charter rules or laws state so?"

The outburst from the four remaining board members was subdued, but intense, as they talked amongst themselves. Of course, there were no laws or school rules preventing such a thing. Although the rituals for stripping magic were forbidden and taboo as dark, no such rituals had been used.

After a few minutes, Harry spoke again. "May I have your attention, please?"

The group stopped as if slapped; being reminded that they were here to investigate the Parkinson 'squibbing'.

Harry said, "Moments before I came to this meeting, I received confirmation that Nibelung and Peony Parkinson, Pansy's parents, have both been convicted as Death Eaters. As all of her living relatives are in Azkaban, Pansy is now a ward of the state." He did not wait for their outraged comments to die down. His voice got colder and quieter, compelling them to listen. "Pansy Parkinson now owes me a wizard's life debt. That's right, I saved her life. If I hadn't taken her magic, she would have been coerced into taking the Dark Mark, and I would have had to kill or capture her just like her parents.

"Listen carefully, please," he said even more quietly. "There shall be no more of this pure-blooded bigoted bullshit on my watch. I will publicly embarrass everyone around me who speaks it aloud. I will smack down, hard, anyone who attacks or bullies because of it. Right now, and after I kill Voldemort, and every day thereafter.

"Christmas break is here; the students are going home on Monday. If there is nothing else, I'm sure Professor McGonagall has more important things to attend to."

***

The operation of the school went on as normal, mostly, until that Monday when it was time for the students (and some of the staff) to leave for the Christmas holiday.

Hermione had been fit to be tied when she'd found out that Harry had already learned the entire year's Arithmancy and Runes -- her two best subjects -- and he had never even taken the courses! It didn't take long for him to figure out that she was hurt because he didn't need her help with homework anymore, and he was even helping others with theirs in the common room.

But she had stopped in mid-rant and gone absolutely gooey when Harry told her,"Hermione, I need you for you are, not what work you can do for me. You're not my homework-slave." She ignored the catcalls it engendered when she jumped into his lap and laid a lip-lock on him, right in the middle of breakfast.

At nine-thirty, Harry intercepted her in the entry hall. She was chewing her bottom lip. "What's wrong?" he asked quietly.

"Two things, really," she said, "and they're both rather private."

Harry waved and surrounded them with a notice-me-not charm and a privacy spell that not even Moody's magical eye could get through. He took her hand and said, "Tell me."

"Well, the first is... I mean... well, my mother is going to know I'm not a virgin anymore."

"Okay, and...?"

"Harry, my mother will probably be okay, but my father is going to flip."

"Okay, then I'll go with you. Do you think you did anything wrong?"

"No!" she exclaimed. "Why? Do you think it was wrong?"

"Of course not, Hermione. It is the most right thing that there is in this world." She blushed. "But that's not the point. The point is, if you don't think it was wrong, then why do you feel guilty?"

"Harry, you don't know what it's like to be an only girl child of a protective father. It doesn't have to make sense, but he's going to flip anyway."

"Then," he said with a straight face, "there's only one thing we can do: suicide."

Her eyes shot open in shock for just a few seconds, until she realized he was joking. Beginning to smile, she said,"Oh, you..." while playfully punching his arm -- before snatching it back in alarm. "Ow!" she said, rubbing her knuckles. "You burned me!"

"No, Hermione. You burned you. Punching is not flirtatious, or cute, or playful. I have constructed my shields to prevent such abuse. By anyone. But I'm truly grateful that you didn't hit very hard."

"Why not?" asked a surly Hermione.

"Because I suspect you would probably be wounded. Now, I'll go with you as far as Hogsmeade train station. I would have taken you home the same way Itook you to my place, but you're a prefect and they expect you on the train."

"I know. There won't be a meeting, but they still hope I'll keep order. I don't know why; prefects certainly haven't been able to keep order for the last six years."

"That's the spirit," said Harry. "What's one more installment of mayhem in the grand scheme of things? C'mon, I'll carry your stuff."