Categories > Books > Harry Potter > Lord and Lady Baron Potter
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the HP characters
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Harry pointed both hands towards the castle. White beams of magical energy erupted from his hands and exploded into white flashes when the beams reached the already installed wards. The beams became stable and Harry continued adding more beams to the castle. Slowly the color of the beams changed from white to gray and the explosions stopped. The wards around the castle were clearly visible surrounding the castle, and the gray light covering the wards changed color again, from gray to light green, until they became transparent.
The wards that Harry was installing were much more lethal. This was one of the more important defenses for the castle. If someone were to activate the wards, someone who was not mean to be there, it has the capability of killing any intruder on site. This process was a bit easier Harry to accomplish and did not take so much energy away from him.
Harry continued to work on the active wards until it was dark. When he was finally finished, he went inside the castle, where Ginny, Mrs. Weasley, and Headmistress McGonagall were waiting for him. All that was left was the installation of the blood wards and Harry wanted to finish that task before heading back to the Burrow.
Harry asked the woman to make a small cut in their arm. Harry touched each small cut with his wand and went outside again. He pointed his wand towards the castle again, and for the last time that day he installed his last ward covering the castle. This was his strongest ward he could make, based on the blood between mother and daughter, parent and child. After he was finished, he went inside to eat dinner in the great hall of Hogwarts.
"Aren't you tired, Harry?" Ginny asked. "No, I'm not as tired as I was before Gin. I think it has something to do with Hogwarts. The castle is supplying me with magical energy I need to complete the wards. I would never been able to last as long as I did before without its help; I would have been depleted of all my magical energy after a minute of casting."
"And how do you know all those wards Mr. Potter", Headmistress McGonagall asked with her eyebrows raised.
"I didn't know them, Professor. However, Hogwarts is part sentient, and I had the feeling of what I needed to do. I did not use any incantations; I willed the magic or wards on its place. "
"What do you mean with willing, Mr. Potter?" Headmistress McGonagall asked unbelievingly.
"I'm not really sure, Professor. I knew what kind of wards I wanted to place around the castle. I was not totally sure how to install the wards, but I felt something whispering to me as if it was guiding me and giving me the information I needed. I don't think I'd be able to duplicate any of this anywhere else."
Ginny was looking at Harry and was thinking how he never ceased to surprise her. She was so proud of the young man that she passionately loved. She shook her head and turned to speak with the headmistress." Professor, may I ask why you asked the Percy and the twins to teach Business Studies? I can sort of understand why you would ask Percy, but Gred and Forge too?"
"Well for many years Hogwarts has offered their students other study subjects than the conventional ones already in place. Professor Dumbledore tried not to add too many extra subjects because of various reasons, but the main reason was the rise in costs to teach them. Extra classes mean we'd have to hire extra teachers and to pay these teachers we would have to raise the student tuition."
"Yes, Ms. Weasley, before you ask me, we have more teachers now, but the costs for students will not go up yet.
"George and Fred Weasley will cover the practical business part of the course, and Percy Weasley would cover the ministerial part of the course. I understand from them that they want to divide the students in three even groups and rotate the groups."
Harry looked shrewdly to Headmistress McGonagall. "You said that we need to have our N.E.W.T.S. in order to teach at Hogwarts. However, the twins do not have their N.E.W.T.S. either. "
"But they hope to have their N.E.W.T.S. on the 25th of August, Mr. Potter. And I truly hope that you and Ms. Weasley will have them as well!" Headmistress McGonagall answered with a smile.
"Why on the 25th of August?" Harry asked with a frown.
"That is the date the ministry has scheduled for the N.E.W.T.S. exams. They are specifically set up for students who had failed or missed their N.E.W.T.S the first time around. Fred and George are all set and scheduled to take the exam."
Harry stood up from the table. "Well tomorrow is going to be a busy day for me. I have to give the wards a final run through and make sure they're operational and I still have to show Moody how to use the control rooms." Harry stood and bowed to McGonagall, "Professor". He held out the hand to Mrs. Weasley and Ginny, and teleported them back to the Burrow.
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The next day Harry arrived at Hogwarts and he was sitting at the teachers table eating his breakfast and waiting for Mad-Eye Moody to arrive. As the new security consultant of Hogwarts, he wanted his input on the control room and the newly installed wards surrounding the school. Although Harry was satisfied with the protection the school needed he was curious as to what the old warrior had to say about the upgrades.
There was another reason Harry was waiting for Moody. The twins were scheduled to arrive at Hogwarts any minute now and after the last prank they pulled on everyone he was looking forward to see if they had anything up their sleeves today and he was definitely not going to miss a moment of it.
After 30 minutes of eating his breakfast and reading the Daily Prophet, the main doors of the great hall opened with a loud bang. A disgruntled red-faced Mad-Eye walked in bristly, his magical eye swirling in its socket. "Who redirected the floo?" he screamed. Headmistress McGonagall stood up from her chair. "I beg you pardon?"
"I said who redirected the floo?" Mad-Eye roared.
"That would be me", Harry replied quietly.
"And why the hell would you redirect the floo?"
"Eh ... security?"
Mad-Eye was quiet for some seconds ... both of his eyes were studying Harry intensely.
"Security? You mean you want to redirect all of Hogwarts floo traffic into the stables with pigs, filled with shit and mud! Why not redirect the floo traffic to the deepest dungeon where we can watch them for 24 hours ... what about that!" he snarled at Harry.
Harry was surprised. He did not redirect the floo traffic to the stables, because only the house elves would have access to the stables, and he had no idea where the stables were. "Stables? I did not do such thing. I redirected the floo traffic to the front of the gates of Hogwarts" Harry replied incensed.
"And why is it then that I landed on top a mountain of slop, surrounded by 30 pigs? Before I recognized the pigs, I thought they were transfigured death eaters and killed them all."
"You what? You killed our pigs?" Headmistress McGonagall yelled at Mad-Eye. "And what are we going to eat", she sneered.
"Pigs could be transfigured death eaters, headmistress. It was better to be sure then not!" Mad-Eye replied harshly. "And what to eat? I am sure that ..."
"Well you can rest assured that you will not be eating any meat for the first months to come, because no one will be eating any meat because you killed them all! Really Moody, how could you?" boomed Headmistress McGonagall throughout the hall.
"Well ... it was Potter who redirected the floo" Mad-Eye replied flustered.
"That is not true", Harry replied exasperated. "I did not redirect the floo traffic to the stables; I don't even know where they are!"
"Then you made a mistake in redirecting the floo, Potter!" Mad-Eye replied with a smirk.
Harry glared and walked up to the old Auror, "Understand this Moody, if pigs fly, then I made a mistake ... but PIGS DO NOT FLY!" Harry exclaimed excitedly.
Headmistress McGonagall had quieted down a bit. "Is there any pig left to recover the meat from, Alastor?"
"No, I killed, burned, and tore them into pieces. You never know what is hiding inside the body of a pig", Mad-Eye replied. "CONSTANT VIGILANCE", he barked with a gruesome grin.
Headmistress McGonagall sighted. "In that case you will not eat any meat this year, Alastor", she whispered, but Alastor heard anyhow. "That is alright, Minerva. I never eat in public places and I will never accept food from anything, which is not under my control. I get my own food, thank you," he whispered back, his magical eye was wildly whirling in its sockets.
Harry heard someone sniggering in the Gryffindor corner of the great hall. Harry looked up, but saw no one. Suddenly he understood what was happening. The twins ... they redirected the floo traffic to the stables and were hiding somewhere to admire the result of their prank.
Harry looked at Mad-Eye, who was staring into the great hall attentively. Obvious he had heard the sniggering as well. Slowly Mad-Eye took out his wand from his sleeve and pointed it towards the Gryffindor table ... he murmured something under his breath and looked expectantly for the results.
At that moment, two very surprised, disheveled, red haired young men flew from under the Gryffindor table to the teachers table in great speed ... their arms were wildly flapping and screamed in anxiety.
"HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELP"
The twins were flying at high speed towards the teachers table ... at the last moment they stopped ... ten centimeters from the table, still floating in the air. Mad-Eye gave a swish of his wand, and the twins crashed on the ground in a heap.
"OOPHF that hurt", Fred said. "Yeah, that's right", George helped. "What did you do that for, Mad-Eye?"
"I did what?" Mad-Eye asked surprised and innocently. "You mean that flying you did? I thought it was one of your famous pranks?"
Fred and George looked at each other. "I think we've been had, dear brother of mine".
"Yes dear Fred, it looks like it. Why would anyone pull a prank on us? We are professors, for goodness sake."
"It is the old age, George. It makes them barmy and draft", Fred said, while looking warily to Mad-Eye.
"Barmy ... you say I am barmy?" Mad-Eye growled and stood up from his chair, his wand in his right hand and a table knife in his left. I'll teach you barmy, boys!" A quick movement of his left hand sent the knife flying and with a small swirl of his right hand, a spell sent the knife towards Fred. The twins ducked under the teacher's table and stayed there for several seconds to see what would happen next.
"This is outrageous, it is a scandal. I have no words ... this is so disgusting!" Percy Weasley walked into the great hall, totally covered in brown, stinking dirt, his head red as a tomato. "Who redirected the floo? And why would anyone redirect it to the pigsty! Percy looked up and saw the twins beneath the table, looking at Mad-Eye and then at him, big grins covering both faces.
"YOU ... YOU TWO DID THIS," screamed Percy. "This is outrageous! Headmistress, this is unacceptable!"
The twins held out their hands, and crept from under the table and stood in front of Percy. "No Percy, Harry redirected it. Harry redirected the floo traffic and Moody was only testing the floo traffic. So don't blame us ... blame Harry and Mad-Eye!"
Percy looked dumbstruck to the twins. "Who?" he asked, temporarily forgetting about the smell and the dirt. He looked at Harry in surprise. "You did that?"
Harry smiled, his eyes twinkling and pointing to Headmistress McGonagall. "No Percy, I did not such thing. The headmistress ordered us to redirect the floo. I would never think about something so appealing...err...I mean so appalling."
Headmistress McGonagall looked at Harry with eyebrows raised, but said nothing. Mad-Eye was snorting now. "That is the biggest cock and bull story I've ever heard, Potter. You better come up with a better one."
Headmistress McGonagall pointed her wand to Percy. "Scourgify" she exclaimed and the dirt on the clothes of the smelly Percy disappeared. "I think, gentlemen, that we have some business to discuss" she said, looking to the twins and Percy. "I assume that you two have some work to do with the security of Hogwarts." She stood up from the table and walked towards the corridor, which leads to her office, with the twins on her heals. Percy followed more slowly, staring to the backs of the twins, while fingering his wand.
Harry also stood up from the table and addressed Mad-Eye. "The headmistress was kind enough to assign some empty rooms for security control of the castle, and I want to go ahead now and install the control rooms for you, Mad-Eye. Shall we go to the rooms and see what we can do?"
Mad-Eye growled something under his breath and stood up as well. "Let's get to work, Potter. I want to have the monitoring charms everywhere, and I want to have them working before the twins are finished with the headmistress."
The two of them left to the security rooms in the seventh floor of the castle, where Harry started to work on creating a magical control room. After two hours of work, he finished the control room, and started to work his way throughout the castle casting security and monitoring charms.
At dinnertime, Harry was finished with the installation of the security charms and spells. His work lead through the castle and now it is time to introduce the full security system to Mad-Eye Moody and the headmistress.
After dinner, he took Mad-Eye Moody and Headmistress McGonagall up to the seventh floor of the castle, where the control rooms were located. The entrance of the control room was opposite the paining of Hugo Marie de Vries. When Harry, Mad-Eye Moody and Headmistress McGonagall entered the control room, Headmistress McGonagall could not help to gasp.
"Mr. Potter ... this is amazing what you have done!"
She looked around and paid attention to look to the walls. "Are those screens muggle televisions, Mr. Potter?"
"Yes and no, those screens you are seeing are monitor screens for different sections of the castle ... outside as well. Let me give you a tour."
Harry pointed to the wall towards the large screens. "Here you see nine large screens, which are displaying a section of the castle. As you see, every screen contains a map of Hogwarts, and within the maps, you can see dots of different colors and a label beneath the dots. Every dot represents a creature; this could be an animal, a human or other, as long as it is alive."
"The label beneath the dot displays more details about the creature. For example when it is a human, it displays the name of the person ... and I mean his or her real name. Those screens also recognize if a person is under an animagus form. On these screens, you can activate or deactivate room defenses or offenses. Almost every room in the castle has one or more charms for the security."
"On your right side, you'll see several tables. On those tables, we can enter events into the security system. For example, you might create an alarm when a certain creature is reaching a certain area on the map or you can create an alarm when a certain number of creatures are coming together somewhere in Hogwarts, and much more."
"On the other wall, there you'll see one large screen, which displays the outlines of Hogwarts. Here you can activate or deactivate Hogwarts external defenses. As you can see by the colors surrounding Hogwarts, you have two types of wards, passive and active ones. The passive wards are displayed in blue and the active ones are displayed in red. When the colors are dull, that means that the wards have been deactivated. In addition, you can see on the label a number, which represents a percentage of the health of the ward."
"Please look intently to the red colors, most of the wards are being displayed as dimmed, except this one. That ward immediately reacts when something is firing a spell to the ward. If that's the case, the spell will then be reflected back to the caster. As you can see, every ward has a health label, but it has an extra label as well. On this label, you can see more properties per ward, like the type of ward and its name and the last time it as active."
The headmistress was gaping at Harry. "Did you do all this work, Harry? It is amazing ... I did not even dream that this was possible."
"We are not finished, Professor. We have two other rooms to go."
Harry led them to the adjourning room. This room was the same size as the previous room, except that all its walls were filled with many fireplaces.
"From this room you can access most of the castle. Every classroom is connected to this room, and the people in the security room can access all fireplaces. In order to give someone else access to the fireplace, he or she needs to have permission Mad-Eye. And none of the fireplaces here are connected to the floo, only the internal floo system is working here."
The rest of the day Harry continued showing McGonagall and Moody the ins and outs of the control rooms and went into detail how everything worked. When he was finished he teleported back to the Burrow and sat on the front porch swing. He reflected on all the work he had done to protect Hogwarts and its students. No matter how much McGonagall and Moody praised him and assured him that the school was now the safest place in the magical community, he could not stop the nagging feeling that somehow that statement was going to be put to the test.
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Willem & Carolyn
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Harry pointed both hands towards the castle. White beams of magical energy erupted from his hands and exploded into white flashes when the beams reached the already installed wards. The beams became stable and Harry continued adding more beams to the castle. Slowly the color of the beams changed from white to gray and the explosions stopped. The wards around the castle were clearly visible surrounding the castle, and the gray light covering the wards changed color again, from gray to light green, until they became transparent.
The wards that Harry was installing were much more lethal. This was one of the more important defenses for the castle. If someone were to activate the wards, someone who was not mean to be there, it has the capability of killing any intruder on site. This process was a bit easier Harry to accomplish and did not take so much energy away from him.
Harry continued to work on the active wards until it was dark. When he was finally finished, he went inside the castle, where Ginny, Mrs. Weasley, and Headmistress McGonagall were waiting for him. All that was left was the installation of the blood wards and Harry wanted to finish that task before heading back to the Burrow.
Harry asked the woman to make a small cut in their arm. Harry touched each small cut with his wand and went outside again. He pointed his wand towards the castle again, and for the last time that day he installed his last ward covering the castle. This was his strongest ward he could make, based on the blood between mother and daughter, parent and child. After he was finished, he went inside to eat dinner in the great hall of Hogwarts.
"Aren't you tired, Harry?" Ginny asked. "No, I'm not as tired as I was before Gin. I think it has something to do with Hogwarts. The castle is supplying me with magical energy I need to complete the wards. I would never been able to last as long as I did before without its help; I would have been depleted of all my magical energy after a minute of casting."
"And how do you know all those wards Mr. Potter", Headmistress McGonagall asked with her eyebrows raised.
"I didn't know them, Professor. However, Hogwarts is part sentient, and I had the feeling of what I needed to do. I did not use any incantations; I willed the magic or wards on its place. "
"What do you mean with willing, Mr. Potter?" Headmistress McGonagall asked unbelievingly.
"I'm not really sure, Professor. I knew what kind of wards I wanted to place around the castle. I was not totally sure how to install the wards, but I felt something whispering to me as if it was guiding me and giving me the information I needed. I don't think I'd be able to duplicate any of this anywhere else."
Ginny was looking at Harry and was thinking how he never ceased to surprise her. She was so proud of the young man that she passionately loved. She shook her head and turned to speak with the headmistress." Professor, may I ask why you asked the Percy and the twins to teach Business Studies? I can sort of understand why you would ask Percy, but Gred and Forge too?"
"Well for many years Hogwarts has offered their students other study subjects than the conventional ones already in place. Professor Dumbledore tried not to add too many extra subjects because of various reasons, but the main reason was the rise in costs to teach them. Extra classes mean we'd have to hire extra teachers and to pay these teachers we would have to raise the student tuition."
"Yes, Ms. Weasley, before you ask me, we have more teachers now, but the costs for students will not go up yet.
"George and Fred Weasley will cover the practical business part of the course, and Percy Weasley would cover the ministerial part of the course. I understand from them that they want to divide the students in three even groups and rotate the groups."
Harry looked shrewdly to Headmistress McGonagall. "You said that we need to have our N.E.W.T.S. in order to teach at Hogwarts. However, the twins do not have their N.E.W.T.S. either. "
"But they hope to have their N.E.W.T.S. on the 25th of August, Mr. Potter. And I truly hope that you and Ms. Weasley will have them as well!" Headmistress McGonagall answered with a smile.
"Why on the 25th of August?" Harry asked with a frown.
"That is the date the ministry has scheduled for the N.E.W.T.S. exams. They are specifically set up for students who had failed or missed their N.E.W.T.S the first time around. Fred and George are all set and scheduled to take the exam."
Harry stood up from the table. "Well tomorrow is going to be a busy day for me. I have to give the wards a final run through and make sure they're operational and I still have to show Moody how to use the control rooms." Harry stood and bowed to McGonagall, "Professor". He held out the hand to Mrs. Weasley and Ginny, and teleported them back to the Burrow.
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The next day Harry arrived at Hogwarts and he was sitting at the teachers table eating his breakfast and waiting for Mad-Eye Moody to arrive. As the new security consultant of Hogwarts, he wanted his input on the control room and the newly installed wards surrounding the school. Although Harry was satisfied with the protection the school needed he was curious as to what the old warrior had to say about the upgrades.
There was another reason Harry was waiting for Moody. The twins were scheduled to arrive at Hogwarts any minute now and after the last prank they pulled on everyone he was looking forward to see if they had anything up their sleeves today and he was definitely not going to miss a moment of it.
After 30 minutes of eating his breakfast and reading the Daily Prophet, the main doors of the great hall opened with a loud bang. A disgruntled red-faced Mad-Eye walked in bristly, his magical eye swirling in its socket. "Who redirected the floo?" he screamed. Headmistress McGonagall stood up from her chair. "I beg you pardon?"
"I said who redirected the floo?" Mad-Eye roared.
"That would be me", Harry replied quietly.
"And why the hell would you redirect the floo?"
"Eh ... security?"
Mad-Eye was quiet for some seconds ... both of his eyes were studying Harry intensely.
"Security? You mean you want to redirect all of Hogwarts floo traffic into the stables with pigs, filled with shit and mud! Why not redirect the floo traffic to the deepest dungeon where we can watch them for 24 hours ... what about that!" he snarled at Harry.
Harry was surprised. He did not redirect the floo traffic to the stables, because only the house elves would have access to the stables, and he had no idea where the stables were. "Stables? I did not do such thing. I redirected the floo traffic to the front of the gates of Hogwarts" Harry replied incensed.
"And why is it then that I landed on top a mountain of slop, surrounded by 30 pigs? Before I recognized the pigs, I thought they were transfigured death eaters and killed them all."
"You what? You killed our pigs?" Headmistress McGonagall yelled at Mad-Eye. "And what are we going to eat", she sneered.
"Pigs could be transfigured death eaters, headmistress. It was better to be sure then not!" Mad-Eye replied harshly. "And what to eat? I am sure that ..."
"Well you can rest assured that you will not be eating any meat for the first months to come, because no one will be eating any meat because you killed them all! Really Moody, how could you?" boomed Headmistress McGonagall throughout the hall.
"Well ... it was Potter who redirected the floo" Mad-Eye replied flustered.
"That is not true", Harry replied exasperated. "I did not redirect the floo traffic to the stables; I don't even know where they are!"
"Then you made a mistake in redirecting the floo, Potter!" Mad-Eye replied with a smirk.
Harry glared and walked up to the old Auror, "Understand this Moody, if pigs fly, then I made a mistake ... but PIGS DO NOT FLY!" Harry exclaimed excitedly.
Headmistress McGonagall had quieted down a bit. "Is there any pig left to recover the meat from, Alastor?"
"No, I killed, burned, and tore them into pieces. You never know what is hiding inside the body of a pig", Mad-Eye replied. "CONSTANT VIGILANCE", he barked with a gruesome grin.
Headmistress McGonagall sighted. "In that case you will not eat any meat this year, Alastor", she whispered, but Alastor heard anyhow. "That is alright, Minerva. I never eat in public places and I will never accept food from anything, which is not under my control. I get my own food, thank you," he whispered back, his magical eye was wildly whirling in its sockets.
Harry heard someone sniggering in the Gryffindor corner of the great hall. Harry looked up, but saw no one. Suddenly he understood what was happening. The twins ... they redirected the floo traffic to the stables and were hiding somewhere to admire the result of their prank.
Harry looked at Mad-Eye, who was staring into the great hall attentively. Obvious he had heard the sniggering as well. Slowly Mad-Eye took out his wand from his sleeve and pointed it towards the Gryffindor table ... he murmured something under his breath and looked expectantly for the results.
At that moment, two very surprised, disheveled, red haired young men flew from under the Gryffindor table to the teachers table in great speed ... their arms were wildly flapping and screamed in anxiety.
"HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELP"
The twins were flying at high speed towards the teachers table ... at the last moment they stopped ... ten centimeters from the table, still floating in the air. Mad-Eye gave a swish of his wand, and the twins crashed on the ground in a heap.
"OOPHF that hurt", Fred said. "Yeah, that's right", George helped. "What did you do that for, Mad-Eye?"
"I did what?" Mad-Eye asked surprised and innocently. "You mean that flying you did? I thought it was one of your famous pranks?"
Fred and George looked at each other. "I think we've been had, dear brother of mine".
"Yes dear Fred, it looks like it. Why would anyone pull a prank on us? We are professors, for goodness sake."
"It is the old age, George. It makes them barmy and draft", Fred said, while looking warily to Mad-Eye.
"Barmy ... you say I am barmy?" Mad-Eye growled and stood up from his chair, his wand in his right hand and a table knife in his left. I'll teach you barmy, boys!" A quick movement of his left hand sent the knife flying and with a small swirl of his right hand, a spell sent the knife towards Fred. The twins ducked under the teacher's table and stayed there for several seconds to see what would happen next.
"This is outrageous, it is a scandal. I have no words ... this is so disgusting!" Percy Weasley walked into the great hall, totally covered in brown, stinking dirt, his head red as a tomato. "Who redirected the floo? And why would anyone redirect it to the pigsty! Percy looked up and saw the twins beneath the table, looking at Mad-Eye and then at him, big grins covering both faces.
"YOU ... YOU TWO DID THIS," screamed Percy. "This is outrageous! Headmistress, this is unacceptable!"
The twins held out their hands, and crept from under the table and stood in front of Percy. "No Percy, Harry redirected it. Harry redirected the floo traffic and Moody was only testing the floo traffic. So don't blame us ... blame Harry and Mad-Eye!"
Percy looked dumbstruck to the twins. "Who?" he asked, temporarily forgetting about the smell and the dirt. He looked at Harry in surprise. "You did that?"
Harry smiled, his eyes twinkling and pointing to Headmistress McGonagall. "No Percy, I did not such thing. The headmistress ordered us to redirect the floo. I would never think about something so appealing...err...I mean so appalling."
Headmistress McGonagall looked at Harry with eyebrows raised, but said nothing. Mad-Eye was snorting now. "That is the biggest cock and bull story I've ever heard, Potter. You better come up with a better one."
Headmistress McGonagall pointed her wand to Percy. "Scourgify" she exclaimed and the dirt on the clothes of the smelly Percy disappeared. "I think, gentlemen, that we have some business to discuss" she said, looking to the twins and Percy. "I assume that you two have some work to do with the security of Hogwarts." She stood up from the table and walked towards the corridor, which leads to her office, with the twins on her heals. Percy followed more slowly, staring to the backs of the twins, while fingering his wand.
Harry also stood up from the table and addressed Mad-Eye. "The headmistress was kind enough to assign some empty rooms for security control of the castle, and I want to go ahead now and install the control rooms for you, Mad-Eye. Shall we go to the rooms and see what we can do?"
Mad-Eye growled something under his breath and stood up as well. "Let's get to work, Potter. I want to have the monitoring charms everywhere, and I want to have them working before the twins are finished with the headmistress."
The two of them left to the security rooms in the seventh floor of the castle, where Harry started to work on creating a magical control room. After two hours of work, he finished the control room, and started to work his way throughout the castle casting security and monitoring charms.
At dinnertime, Harry was finished with the installation of the security charms and spells. His work lead through the castle and now it is time to introduce the full security system to Mad-Eye Moody and the headmistress.
After dinner, he took Mad-Eye Moody and Headmistress McGonagall up to the seventh floor of the castle, where the control rooms were located. The entrance of the control room was opposite the paining of Hugo Marie de Vries. When Harry, Mad-Eye Moody and Headmistress McGonagall entered the control room, Headmistress McGonagall could not help to gasp.
"Mr. Potter ... this is amazing what you have done!"
She looked around and paid attention to look to the walls. "Are those screens muggle televisions, Mr. Potter?"
"Yes and no, those screens you are seeing are monitor screens for different sections of the castle ... outside as well. Let me give you a tour."
Harry pointed to the wall towards the large screens. "Here you see nine large screens, which are displaying a section of the castle. As you see, every screen contains a map of Hogwarts, and within the maps, you can see dots of different colors and a label beneath the dots. Every dot represents a creature; this could be an animal, a human or other, as long as it is alive."
"The label beneath the dot displays more details about the creature. For example when it is a human, it displays the name of the person ... and I mean his or her real name. Those screens also recognize if a person is under an animagus form. On these screens, you can activate or deactivate room defenses or offenses. Almost every room in the castle has one or more charms for the security."
"On your right side, you'll see several tables. On those tables, we can enter events into the security system. For example, you might create an alarm when a certain creature is reaching a certain area on the map or you can create an alarm when a certain number of creatures are coming together somewhere in Hogwarts, and much more."
"On the other wall, there you'll see one large screen, which displays the outlines of Hogwarts. Here you can activate or deactivate Hogwarts external defenses. As you can see by the colors surrounding Hogwarts, you have two types of wards, passive and active ones. The passive wards are displayed in blue and the active ones are displayed in red. When the colors are dull, that means that the wards have been deactivated. In addition, you can see on the label a number, which represents a percentage of the health of the ward."
"Please look intently to the red colors, most of the wards are being displayed as dimmed, except this one. That ward immediately reacts when something is firing a spell to the ward. If that's the case, the spell will then be reflected back to the caster. As you can see, every ward has a health label, but it has an extra label as well. On this label, you can see more properties per ward, like the type of ward and its name and the last time it as active."
The headmistress was gaping at Harry. "Did you do all this work, Harry? It is amazing ... I did not even dream that this was possible."
"We are not finished, Professor. We have two other rooms to go."
Harry led them to the adjourning room. This room was the same size as the previous room, except that all its walls were filled with many fireplaces.
"From this room you can access most of the castle. Every classroom is connected to this room, and the people in the security room can access all fireplaces. In order to give someone else access to the fireplace, he or she needs to have permission Mad-Eye. And none of the fireplaces here are connected to the floo, only the internal floo system is working here."
The rest of the day Harry continued showing McGonagall and Moody the ins and outs of the control rooms and went into detail how everything worked. When he was finished he teleported back to the Burrow and sat on the front porch swing. He reflected on all the work he had done to protect Hogwarts and its students. No matter how much McGonagall and Moody praised him and assured him that the school was now the safest place in the magical community, he could not stop the nagging feeling that somehow that statement was going to be put to the test.
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Willem & Carolyn
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