Harry Potter and the Magic of Books Part 19 (Patreon)

Madam Umbridge whined under his breath, “Couldn’t he have sent someone more important than a creepy house elf?”

Lucius plastered a fake smile on his face as he watched Kreacher straighten the speech that he was preparing to read. “His letter said he was quite ill but wanted to see to his wealth before he died. No doubt he ordered his elf to repeat his message exactly. Just have patience.”

“The donation to the ministry better be worth it.”

Draco scowled. “He better not give away my gold.”

Kreacher looked over the group of forty highly influential wizards and two witches impatiently standing around the Black family dining room for his speech. Everyone that was here had been personally invited because they were some combination of family, corrupt officials, Death Eaters or helped Voldemort’s cause. At least three of the board of directors of Hogwarts were here in addition to Lucius Malfoy. “Kreacher has been ordered to truthfully read the last Will and Testament of Arcturus Black. If Narcissa Black and Draco Malfoy would please come to the front of the room.”

Draco stood up and strutted up to the front of the room with his chest puffed out as much as he could.

Narcissa Malfoy followed him up to the front of the room with a slight scowl on her face..

Kreacher picked up the two keys sitting on the podium that Arcturus had crafted for the occasion and handed them to Narcissa and Draco. “Keys to something precious.”

Draco took the key with a smirk.

Narcissa took the key. “Tell him thank you.”

“Of course, as you’re not part of the game for the rest of his money, you’re free to go. Portus.” Kreacher announced with a wave.

Lucius’s eyes widened as his wife and son vanished before his eyes. “What is the meaning of this?”

“Mister Draco and Lady Narcissa have already received their share of the Black family fortune. The rest of Lord Arcturus’ vast wealth will be given to the winner of his challenge.” Kreacher picked up a glass orb with fire burning inside of it off the podium.

Madam Umbridge scoffed, “You expect the Ministry to participate in some game?”

“If you want his gold then yes, he does.”

Lucius snapped out, “Get on with it then.”

“The challenge is simple, anyone that gets out of this room alive will be rewarded.” Kreacher tossed the orb at the ground and used his elf magic to apparate out of the house through the Black family wards and back to the Black family mansion before the orb shattered on the ground.

Arcturus asked, “I trust it went as planned?”

Kreacher ignored Sirius as he looked at Arcturus. “Kreacher did as instructed sir.”

Arcturus dusted his hands off. “Excellent work Kreacher. I think it’s time I had a talk with the arrogant toerag that thought he was getting my gold.”

Sirius smiled as he followed Arcturus toward the dungeon.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Draco glared at the various people in the room that had chained him to a chair in the middle of the dungeon. “When my father hears about this.”

Sirius said, “Your father is dead.”

Draco shouted, “You’re lying!”

Harry said, “He’s really not. I was watching the whole thing on my magic mirror.”

Arcturus said, “He was burned to death after Kreacher gave you the portkey.”

Draco’s face lost what little color he had. “Why?”

“I could give you a few different reasons, starting with because your father was a Death Eater but I’ll be honest, I had him killed because he tried to kill me. You’re a pathetic disappointment, my father this, my father that. From what I’ve heard, you barely know how to use a wand.”

“They don’t let us use magic before Hogwarts.”

“Your father is a piece of shit criminal, you’d think he’d get something right but no, he can’t even do that correctly, too busy I assume. Your aunts knew more spells before they got to Hogwarts than most third years, sure Bella was a bit crazy but she was fun, at least until Hogwarts…” Arcturus sighed. “I still think she got cursed somewhere along the line. Her marriage to Lestrange didn’t help either.”

Sirius wasn’t sure, she’d always been a little crazy as far back as he could remember.

“Back to your issues though, you can’t ride a broom worth shit and you’re spoiled rotten and haven’t had to work a day in your life.”

Draco looked confused. “I’m a Malfoy, Malfoys don’t work.”

Arcturus snorted. “Oh please, spare me your father’s shit. Your father worked at making money, he worked at it a great deal, he wasn’t all that good at it but he tried. You’re just too stupid to understand.”

“How dare you!”

“How dare I tell you that you’re a pathetic piece of shit and that your father did you no favors? Ah well, I’m old, one of the perks about being old is that you get to be honest with shitheads. Now, you have three things I want.”

“What’s that?”

“Your family’s gold. Second, your father had a compartment under his drawing room, I want the contents and third, I want your house elf freed.”

Draco’s eyes widened as he remembered Dobby, if his father was really dead he could order him to help. “Dobby!”

Sirius rolled his eyes as he gestured and silenced Draco a second before Dobby appeared..

Draco tried to shouted, “Kill them!” but nothing came out.

Dobby asked, “Why do you have Master Draco tied up?”

Sirius smiled at Dobby. “We’re playing a game.”

“Oh, he plays kick Dobby a lot sir.” Dobby grabbed his ears. “Dobby shouldn’t have said that.”

Harry used a bit of wandless magic to untie Draco’s shoes and loosen them. He smirked at Draco, “Really? Kick the house elf, how do you play that?”

Draco tried and failed to shout, “Like this.” as he kicked his foot at Harry. His eyes widened in surprise as his shoe actually flew off toward Harry’s face.

Harry reached out with his magic hand and pulled Dobby in front of him.

Dobby squeaked as he brought his hands up in front of his face to protect himself and caught the shoe almost by accident. “You… Dobby has been given clothes. Dobby has been given clothes! Dobby is a free elf!”

Harry smirked as he levitated Dobby back to the ground. “You’re welcome Dobby.”

Sirius laughed as he cancelled the silence spell on Draco. “That was beautiful Harry.”

Draco glared at Harry. “You bastard! Give him back!”

Dobby glared at Draco. “Dobby is free elf. Draco shouldn’t be talking about Mister Harry Potter sir like that.”

Arcturus laughed. “I think that’s the first time I’ve seen a house elf given clothes that way before.”

Draco glared at everyone. “You still can’t get into the manor without my help.”

“Actually, that’s not true. If you die then Narcissa gets everything. After that if she dies, then everything defaults back to me. Which means that if you don’t cooperate, we have no reason to keep you alive.”

Draco glared at Arcturus. “Why do you want the family gold? Father said you had almost as much as we do.”

“I’d be rather surprised if I didn’t have more than you, after all I didn’t have to bribe my way out of Azkaban or fund a madman’s doomed crusade. Now, the reason I want the drawing room vault is because he has something in there that will help me kill Voldemort.”

“He’s dead.”

“Mostly dead actually but he killed my grandson Regulus. That type of shit isn’t allowed.”

Draco glared at Arcturus. “You killed my parents, why should I believe you?”

“No, I killed your worthless piece of shit father, he wasn’t a Black. I kept your mother safe. In fact she’s in the next cell over, she can hear everything we’ve been saving, she’s just not able to say anything right now.”

“Mum!”

“So, here’s the deal, if I get everything I want, you can keep part of the gold and accept banishment. If I don’t then I’ll merely banish you so I can get what I want and you’ll have nothing.”

“You can’t do that…” Draco trailed off suddenly unsure of everything for the first time in his life.

Harry asked, “Dobby, do you know a way to get things into the manor through the wards?”

Dobby smirked slowly. “Dobby is still keyed into the wards sir. If old master was alive he could change that but he is dead sir.”

“Excellent, can I trust you to clear out the vault under his drawing room floor?”

Draco glared at Dobby. “Don’t you dare!”

“Dobby will be right back sir.” Dobby snapped his fingers and vanished with a smile.

Arcturus shook his head. “And that is why you treat house elves with respect, so that if something goes wrong, they’re a valued member of your household and not a hostile powerful magical creature that wants to kill you.”

“They’re just property!” Draco screamed.

Arcturus sighed. “How did my family drop to this level of stupid?”

Sirius shrugged. “I’m not sure, Mum was a nutjob but at least she knew the value of teaching us magic before Hogwarts. Of course, after I was sorted into Gryffindor and removed all doubt that I’d see the ‘true’ path she got worse.”

Harry asked, “Where should I send Draco?”

Sirius said, “Let’s haul him over to where Narcissa is chained up then you can take him to some Dungeons & Dragons world, there are enough evil wizards there that it shouldn’t matter.” He drew his wand and hit Draco with a stunner.

Arcturus shook his head. “You’ll give him a chance, right?”

“Yeah, I’ll drop him off in a region that’s fighting monsters too horrible to make deals with, by the time he realizes it, he’ll be a hero. That might be a bit of a stretch but we’ll see.”

“Thanks. As much as I dislike it, he’s family. Still, if he doesn’t take his one chance, I’m not going to complain if you leave him there.”

“Understood.”

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I should get back to my room in case someone stops by to ask about the tragic events at the Black House.” Arcturus Black walked off toward the stairs.

Sirius watched the ‘old’ man leave. He was both relieved that the man would be jumping into a book world soon and saddened because the old man was starting to grow on him.

Harry unchained Draco then started hauling him toward Narcissa’s cell.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Moody walked up to where Dawlish was gaping at the destroyed building and snapped, “What do we have?”

Dawlish looked away from the burned out remains of Number 12 Grimmauld place. “We lost over thirty prominent purebloods, including the Under Secretary Madam Umbridge in the blast. We’re still working on identifying the bodies.”

Moody snorted. “Do we know what caused the fire?”

“From what we can tell a spell ignited a muggle gas line and caused the whole house to explode. It’s quite possible that someone protested their ‘proper’ share of the Black family gold. If there are any survivors we haven’t found them yet.”

Moody felt like slapping Dawlish for not understanding that the only way a muggle gas line would explode like he said was if there was a significant amount of gas in the house before the spell set the gas off. He also knew that if that had been the case, the smell should have alerted everyone that something was wrong unless it was a set up and someone used certain spells to mask the scent or contain the gas to ground level. “Has anyone spoken to Arcturus Black yet?”

Dawlish pulled the copy of the will Arcturus had given him from his coat. “That’s the first thing we did. The man is bedridden but he was able to give us a copy of the will that was being read off as well as the guest list. I imagine a lot of the people attending were expecting him to forgive their debts.”

“Idiots, the man is a Black.”

“Several had substantial debts. The ministry alone owes the Blacks a quarter of a million galleons.”

Moody doubted that the ministry had the coin to pay the full amount right now or even a significant fraction of that amount without drastic measures. “What did everyone else get?”

“Most of them received a lump of coal. Draco Malfoy was set to receive 500 galleons to and I quote ‘get the stick removed from his ass’, Narcissa 1,000 galleons to stop bleaching her hair and Andromeda 10,000 for the insult of being burned of the family tapestry by his daughter in law. The family house was supposed to go to Nymphadora Tonks. The lion’s share of the Black fortune will go to Sirius Black.”

“How much was that?”

Dawlish handed the lists over to Moody. “It didn’t say, it just said everything he owned and the title Lord Black upon his death. The goblins would have the complete list but they won’t turn that over to us. Sirius Black and Nymphadora and Andromeda Tonks weren’t at the reading.”

Moody looked the guest list over suspiciously. Every single one of the people on the list were a bit dodgy or related to the Blacks and thus a bit dodgy. “See if you can figure out anything else, this is probably just a case of infernal muggle technology and someone being stupid but the Minister is going to want answers as his good friend Lucius was on the guest list. I don’t suppose you found his body?” He was hoping for something good to come out of this mess of paperwork.

“We recovered his cane and wand held by a crisped hand in the wreckage. They’re still working on identifying everyone but it’s likely he’s dead. The fire was extremely hot and the damage substantial. The only positive thing was that the wards kept the fire from spreading.”

“Right, keep on it. I’m going to go track down Sirius Black.”

“Of course sir,” Dawlish replied.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Sirius opened the door to the potter cottage. “What do you want Moody?”

Moody snorted as he stepped inside. “I want to know how you did it.”

“How I did what?” Sirius asked as he closed the door behind Moody.

“Arranged the death of thirty to forty purebloods at your grandfather’s house.”

Sirius asked as innocently as he could, “What happened?”

Moody snorted at Sirius’s innocent act. “Someone blew up a gas line or at least that’s what Dawlish said happened. There is no record of that house ever getting gas though.”

“Was my grandfather hurt?”

“No, he was bedridden at his manor.”

“Yeah, I think he tired himself out helping Andromeda and myself pick out anything we wanted from the Black family house before he turned it over to Nymphadora.”

“Cut the shit Sirius!”

Sirius shrugged. “What do you want me to say?”

“How about the truth?”

“The truth is, my Grandfather wanted to settle his affairs before he left this world. He wasn’t willing to let his family legacy end up in the Malfoy vault so he wanted to publicly name me his heir so that Malfoy couldn’t steal it. My grandfather has a feeling that Lucius is the one that has been killing off Blacks lately. There have been a lot of suspicious deaths the last ten years. Not that I have a lot of love for some of them but my parents died suspiciously young.”

“So you’re saying you had nothing to do with your grandfather’s plan?”

“I might have helped with the wording of his speech. I suggested giving the Black Family’s house to Nymphadora because I knew it would drive my cousin crazy.”

James walked out of the kitchen. “How are you doing Mad Eye?”

Moody blinked in surprise. “Hazel eyes. You look just like James.”

“Yeah, well we’re related so I guess that makes sense. Harry got Lily’s eyes.”

Moody frowned as he looked through the kitchen wall and saw someone that looked suspiciously like Lily Potter. “What’s going on?”

James smiled innocently at his old friend. “What do you mean?”

“I mean there’s a girl that looks like Lily Potter in the kitchen.”

Lily walked in from the kitchen. “You and that creepy eye.”

Moody snorted. “This eye has helped me avoid death plenty of times.”

Sirius said, “And your leg has nearly gotten you killed a few times. Have you considered retiring?”

Moody glared at Sirius. “Polyjuice?”

“Nope, would you believe that Lily knocked up James’ American cousin at a party?” Lily asked.

Remus laughed as he walked out of the hallway. “You look like you’re about to jump out of your skin Moody.”

Moody reached for his wand over to find it missing. “What the hell?”

Sarah stepped back holding Moody’s wand and turned visible. She waved her finger at him.  “Sorry about that but wands are dangerous.”

Moody stared at Sarah in shock. “That shouldn’t be possible. My eye sees through invisibility charms.”

“I’m a battle Nymph, the day some trinket magic item can see through my invisibility is the day I give up my gym card and go back to magic school.”

Moody turned so that he had his back to the wall. “What do you want?”

Lily said, “You’re the one that was going to draw a wand on someone in their own home.”

Moody glared at Sirius. “How did you do this?”

Sirius glanced at James then Lily as he asked, “What do you think?”

James said, “We might as well tell him.”

Remus walked over and sat down on the couch. “It’s up to you.”

Lily said, “Fine, we came back from the dead. Happy?”

Moody snorted. “That’s impossible.”

“Yep, completely impossible Mad Eye,” James replied cheerfully. “Which means that I can’t possibly know about that night on the peer where you’d drink way too much fire whiskey and ended up falling in. Or that time you spotted a gun on a woman’s leg and got slapped for looking at her arse.”

“How?” His eye spun to look at Sirius through the side of his head. “Did James tell you that story?”

Sirius laughed. “Just now but damn, I sort of want to hear the rest of it now.”

Moody asked, “How is that even possible?”

Sarah said, “Resurrection scrolls. Harry wanted to get his parents back so we got them back.”

“You can do that?” Moody asked in disbelief.

“Not anymore, I burned some fairly serious favors for those. One time deal I’m afraid.” Sarah lied glibly.

“That doesn’t explain why they’re children again.”

Harry walked in from his bedroom and looked the scarred man that his parents had told a couple of stories about over the last few days. “That would be a different magical item that reduces a person’s age and regenerates them.”

“You can regenerate people?”

“I once saw it rebuild a girl’s missing legs. They’d been destroyed by a very nasty curse, this bracelet broke the curse and regenerated her legs and everything else physically wrong with her.” Harry tossed the Loliblade to him. “Just put it on and you’ll see.”

Moody looked down at the bracelet. “If I do this I’ll lose my magic eye.”

“Considering you’re a old friend of my parents, I could always make you some X-ray sunglasses.”

Sirius said, “Or you could just rip your eye out again and enjoy the fact that you have your leg and tip of your nose back.”

Moody scowled at the idea of causing himself that much pain. “How do I know this isn’t a trick?”

James snorted. “We have wands, you don’t. If we wanted you dead you would be dead.”

Moody reached up and unstrapped his magical eye and pulled it out with a plop. “I don’t supposed you can get me a glass?”

Lily gestured and summoned one from the kitchen then levitated it over to Moody after filling it with water with her wand. “Here.”

Moody plopped his eye in the glass then set it on the table. “How does the bracelet work?”

“You just put it on.”

“I this is some trick, I’m going to be really annoyed.”

Harry shook his head. “It really does regenerate people.”

Moody unhooked his pegleg and leaned it up against the table. “Fine.”

Sarah cast a spell that swapped Moody’s clothes with conjured ones and hid his real clothes behind the couch. She wasn’t sure what he had in the pockets of his robes but he was going to be angry enough with them already without destroying his gear.

He put the bracelet on and twitched as he shifted and changed. He blinked as he realized that he had two eyes again and he could feel both his feet. He nearly passed out from shock as he looked down and saw that he had smallish breasts and was mostly naked. “What the hell?!”

James smirked. “We might have neglected to mention that it also turned you into a girl.”

Remus rubbed his chin. “You know, giving a dangerous weapon to a conscious extremely grumpy master auror might have been a bad idea.”

Moody looked down at his metal covered hands and the wicked looking claws at the ends of them. “How do I fix this?!”

Harry asked, “Which part? The claws or the fact that you’re a thirteen year old girl now?”

Moody glared around the room at everyone. “All of it.”

Lily had to work not to snicker as she looked at the ‘cute’ and seriously angry ‘wizard’. “The claws are easy to deal with, you simply reach down and pull off your g-string and it turns back into a bracelet. The thirteen year old part eventually fixes itself and the female part is fixed by another magic item that we’ll give you once you’re not wearing the bracelet.”

James conjured a robe and tossed it to Moody. “Here, you might make an okay girl but I’d rather not have you wanting to kill me.”

Moody muttered, “Too late.” as ‘he’ pulled on the robe. He reached down and pulled on the annoying piece of half underwear that was trying to go places it really shouldn’t, places he really shouldn’t have. He sighed in relief as the metal vanished from his hands and the annoying piece of underwear vanished. “What the hell is the point of the damned bracelet?”

Harry lifted the bracelet using a magic hand from his ring and pulled it back to him so he could put it in his bag. “You mean besides the fact that it completely regenerates a person? It actually generates a shield around you that’s extremely durable. The downside is that it does a number on your clothes.”

Moody scowled at Harry. “What the hell happened to my vault key?”

“Shit, sorry about that.” Sirius winced.

Lily said, “See, this is why you shouldn’t prank people.”

“I didn’t see you trying to stop them.” Sarah gestured and levitated Moody’s clothes from behind the couch. “Here, I swapped your clothes with conjured ones.”

Moody grumbled as he accepted his clothes. “You’re trying to give an old man a heart attack, aren’t you?”

“Considering you’re a thirteen year old girl right now, I don’t think you can claim heart attack.” Sirius replied.

Moody grumbled, “How do I fix the female part?”

Harry pulled the gender swapping belt out of his backpack and tossed it to him. “Walk into the bathroom and put that on then take it off after it works.”

Moody scowled. “We’re going to have a long talk about everything once I’m back.”

Harry watched him stalk off. “I’m suddenly glad the twins are with Hermione.”

Lily said, “They wanted to do a sleep over and Hermione’s folks wanted to get to know them.”

Sirius said, “I’m sure they’ll have fun.”

“Hopefully not too much fun.” Remus replied.

Harry glanced toward the bathroom. “Not that I don’t want to stick around to hear Moody screaming at you but I should go grab more of Riddle’s little toys while I have the time. Who wants to come with me?”

“I’ll go.” Sarah shrank down, flew up and sat on Harry’s shoulder.

Sirius glanced over at James. “I’d go but I think James would hex me for leaving him to face Moody alone.”

Lily asked, “Do we need to come with you?”

“Nah, I’ve got a plan that should deal with the shack’s defenses without getting too close.”

“Call if you need help, we’re going to try to calm Moody down.”

“Good luck with that, I’d rather deal with the cursed artifacts,” Harry replied as he headed for the door.