FicWad

Chapter 5


"Looks good, Harry!" Mary Sue nodded as he adjusted his headband so that it covered his scar.

"So," Harry took a deep breath, "I can't go back to Privet Drive, you're now my legal guardian, we're still waiting on a plan, and I have no place to sleep tonight," he summed up his situation. "Brilliant!"

"We'll take rooms here at the Leaky Cauldron," Mary Sue shrugged. "It's not like we're broke."

"Harry, you can't stay at the Leaky Cauldron," Dumbledore informed him. "It's not safe."

"Excuse me, but you're not Harry's legal guardian," Mary Sue corrected. "I am. If I say we're staying at the Leaky Cauldron, then that's where we're staying."

"You do realize that there are dozens, if not hundreds of Death Eaters searching for you at this very moment, Harry?" Dumbledore tried to reason with the boy. "You must accompany me back to Hogwarts immediately. It's the only place your safety can be assured. You can live there until term begins on September first."

Harry turned to scan the room for potential Death Eaters. He considered that if he were looking for someone, the bar of the Leaky Cauldron would be his first stop, if only to ask around for leads. His black-clothed companion had other concerns.

"Free room and board?" Mary Sue asked Dumbledore.

"I shall withdraw funds from Harry's trust account to cover his expenses."

"No deal!" Mary Sue shook her head. "If you're going to imprison someone 'for their own safety' you can't make them pay for it."

"Harry would not be 'imprisoned,' I assure you!" Dumbledore took offense at the insinuation.

"Would he be allowed to leave whenever he wanted to?"

"Of course not! There are Death Eaters about!"

"If he can't leave, then he's a prisoner," Mary Sue asserted. "We get free room and board or you can forget it."

"I wasn't including you, Miss."

"I am including me!" the Girl-in-Black shot right back. "Harry is still a child! He needs to be with his family! That would be me!"

"You're not..."

"This sparkly dust you sprinkled all over us says that I am!" Mary Sue plucked a speck of the dust from her shoulder and smiled up at the old wizard.

Harry, who'd been following the conversation as if it were a tennis match, pinched a bit of the dust from his own shoulder. "We're family," he nodded and then looked up at the Headmaster expectantly.

"Harry, this is most irregular!"

"What else is new!" Harry rolled his eyes. "My guardian is right: it would not be in my best interests to be separated from my family. We're a bundled deal it seems. Both of us or neither of us."

Dumbledore scowled over the tops of his spectacles, his twinkly eyes glaring first at one, then the other of the two youths before him as he considered his options. This Mary Sue had far more chutzpah than an eleven-year-old girl had any right to possess. Worse yet, she was right! As Harry's official guardian, Dumbledore could not legally go against her wishes in matters concerning Harry. How had she maneuvered him into this position, anyway?

Dumbledore was not the Leader of the Light for nothing! No mere girl was going to get the better of Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore! Of that he was certain.

"Are you familiar with Floo travel, my dear?" he turned to Mary Sue.

"Of course!" she rolled her eyes.

"Excellent! I will Floo with Harry to my office at Hogwarts. You will follow directly behind. Is that clear?"

"Crystal!" Mary Sue smiled as she followed the pair across the barroom to the Floo fireplace.

"Hogwarts Headmaster's office!" Dumbledore commanded as he held Harry's arm tightly and tossed some Floo powder into the fire. The two disappeared in a flash of green flames.

"Hogwarts Headmaster's office!" Mary Sue repeated carefully.

"Um, where's Mary Sue?" Harry asked after waiting an appropriate length of time for her to appear.

"Oops!" Dumbledore chuckled slightly, "I forgot! My Floo is warded against unauthorized entry! I have no idea where your young witch might have been deposited."

Mary Sue knew exactly where she'd been 'deposited' as the Headmaster liked to call it. His Floo redirect shunted unwelcome visitors directly to the Atrium of the Ministry of Magic. Spitting mad, the Girl-in-Black picked herself up, brushed herself off, and marched back up to the Floo fireplace that had just ejected her. "Zonko's Joke Shop, Hogsmeade branch!" she called out as she tossed in more Floo powder and stepped into the green flames.

"Dissendium!" Just over an hour later, the statue of a one-eyed, humpbacked witch creaked open and Mary Sue stepped out into Hogwarts' third floor corridor. Seconds after that, Fwooper song could be heard faintly throughout the castle. That brought Peeves running, of course - or 'floating' as the case may be.

"Peeves!" Mary Sue grinned evilly as she untied the rope on the sack that she'd pulled behind her along the length of the tunnel from Hogsmeade. "I trust that you know what to do with these?" She held out a dozen dung bombs in one hand and a dozen smoke bombs in the other. "If they should find their way to the Headmaster within the next ten minutes - and me with them - then the rest of the sack is yours."

"Peevesy likes!" the poltergeist took the offered bribe. "They's all just finishing a wee lunch in the Great Hallsey."

Mary Sue followed at a sprint to keep up, but Peeves cheated by taking a shortcut while she had to wait for the shifting staircases. By the time the Girl-in-Black arrived at the Great Hall, the smoke was already thick, as was the stench. Pulling her Order of the Phoenix headband down over her nose and mouth, she entered, emerging from the smoke screen in front of the High Table where Dumbledore was standing and pointing his wand at Peeves, who was floating up somewhere near the enchanted ceiling.

Swish! A mithril sword hissed through the air, cutting through not only the dense smoke, but also about thirty years of beard growth. "Oops! Is this yours, Headmaster?" a girl's voice drew the tall wizard's attention away from the poltergeist. "It's kind of hard to see in here."


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"I was defending my ward, Headmaster," Mary Sue explained once the smoke had cleared, more or less. "I heard cackling and I feared Harry was being attacked by ghosts. I started swinging at the first wispy gray thing I saw. Of course, none of this would have happened if the Floo system had not gone all wonky," she added with a knowing smirk.

"How so?" Dumbledore eyed her suspiciously.

"Well, I would have been here at the start of the attack and I wouldn't have had to go charging in through blindingly thick smoke," she shrugged innocently.

"How did you manage to enter the castle?" the Headmaster demanded. "You should have been stopped by the wards!"

"Albus? Is it true that this young witch is Harry Potter's legal guardian?" the Deputy Headmistress interjected.

"Er, yes," he reluctantly admitted.

"Then Hogwarts would have permitted her entry if she were here to protect her ward, who I believe is a guest of the school?"

"But what am I to do about my beard?" the Headmaster held up two feet of severed facial hair.

"Sticking charm?" Harry offered, stepping up beside his guardian.

"Actually, sir, you look decades younger without it," Mary Sue smiled her most winningest smile.


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