Imagine: The List
Fic posted by members of Vo's Imaginings YahooGroup

Story Notes:

AU AU AU


 

Everybody in the burrow is nervously waiting as house elves begin bringing people in for the party. Ron hugs Hermione like he hadn't seen her on the train home from Hogwarts a few days ago. The hug he shares with Harry is just as heartfelt and Harry hugs Hermione and Neville.

 

Sheriff Carter takes off the baby carrier on his chest, handing Michael to Samantha Granger.

 

"He's getting so big. Pictures just don't do him justice."

 

"I know, it's been so long since Zoe was that age." Sheriff Carter warms a bottle and allows Michael's grandmother to feed him. "He's already trying to grab the cats tails when he's lying on a blanket on the floor, even if he hasn't mastered crawling yet."

 

In a corner of the burrow, Harry's telling Ron, Neville, and Hermione about the classes he'd signed up for at Tesla. "I'm going to be taking both the European and American OWLs in June."

 

"Damn Mate, you're cracked." Ron sighs. "And so am I, I'm studying hard to take the Egyptian OWLS and NEWTS through Gringotts. Though not at the same time."

 

"Are you working for them again this summer?"

 

"Yes, I really enjoyed what I was doing last year. . .once I got my stupidity knocked out of me. Bill's convinced I've got a real gift for finding things, so I'm going to take the formal tests and apprentice myself to Gringotts after graduation if they'll take me."

 

"Are you still trying to do two years of classes in one?" Harry looks at Hermione.

 

"Yes, Headmistress McGonagall says that I have a good chance of it. I'm working hard and doing two years worth of assignments. If I pass all my tests, I'll be joining the others as a seventh year next year. It will be a year's less money Mum and Dad have to pay for my schooling." Hermione knows even with the scholarship money is tight. Ron looks at her and accios some information from his trunk, copying it before sending it back up to his room.

 

"Gringotts has a massive library and are always looking for researchers. The bigots in the Ministry wouldn't let you do anything since you're muggleborn but you could go far at Gringotts. They'd pay the costs of putting you through university." Hermione takes the information, hope rising in her eyes. "Mum and Dad are going to be busy this summer. They're buying out a practice with the Goblins help and hope to have everything finished by September."

 

"All you need is your OWLS to work for Gringotts, you're old enough to apparate to classes and work and still be at home. I can't see you on a dig like Bill and I, but you'd be back at the bank researching what we find. A good half of the researchers have muggle jobs so you could do both." Hermione thanks him and starts to read.

 

"What happened to Professor Snape?"

 

"He's a wonderful researcher, but not a teacher. He's working with Gringotts doing research now that he's out from under both Dark Lords." Ron says. Hermione wants to say something but after reading all that Dumbledore had been doing she realizes he was as dark as Grindelwald and Voldemort.

 

"What about you Harry, are you working during the summer?"

 

"No, I was too busy working on classes so I could join the other students this year. Before that I was being tutored in both magical and mundane classes. Ohhh," he reaches in his pocket and brings out some books, tapping them larger. "Copies of the books I've been using since last Christmas." Hermione touches them, then shrinks them again and puts them in her pocket.

 

"You're growing up, you'd have sat right down and started reading." Ron chuckles.

 

"This is a party and there's more to life than my classes." Hermione says firmly. The others nod. "Neville, yours has some information on the botany degrees available through GD that would work with a herbology apprenticeship."

 

"Thank you Harry."

 

After the party Harry and the others head to one of the houses he has in Europe for a few hours sleep before going to visit Madam Bones and Susan. He takes her copies of the books he uses too and both women thank him before they eat lunch.

 

"How is Hogwarts?"

 

"Interesting. Between the death eater purges and the huffy parents who don't want to pay good money for their children to learn 'muggle' subjects a lot of the Slytherins are gone and so are some of the upper classes in the other houses. McLaggen from Gryffindor?" Harry nods that he knows who Susan's talking about. "He was pulled out of school because the failed all his classes, idiot was so convinced that magic was everything he wouldn't study any of the new material. Most of the students realized how badly off we are and threw themselves into studying but not some of the more hidebound idiots. Not that they're a great loss, they were little better than squibs and are already married off to others just like them who also want to live in the past. . .not the future. They won't be sending their children to Hogwarts, not that they won't be having anything but squibs. The 'purebloods are soooo much better movement is dying out, they've lost their power base and they're losing their magic."

 

"A bit brutal but the honest truth." Amelia says. "We've got lists of sympathizers that we're watching, if they cause trouble they're automatically sentenced to Azkaban for the rest of their lives after their magic is bound. Whatever happened to that idiot Fudge?"

 

"He was charged and convicted, sentenced to the rest of his life in prison where he had to work. He blathered on about how this was 'unfair', he was the Minister of Magic, and when he caused trouble got stuck in solitary. He's not a model prisoner, but he knows if he doesn't work it will be worse for him. He's still whining about having to work."

 

"Couldn't happen to a nicer waste of flesh." Amelia snorts. "Susan, take your new books to the library and show Harry what you're learning at Hogwarts this year, the rest of us need to talk about things you two don't need to hear about." The two teenagers nod and head off to the library.

 

"You brought all your books with you for break?"

 

"Yeah, I brought some of them home with me last Christmas break because I wanted a head-start on a paper, when Auntie heard about how far behind Hogwarts was she looked at my books. Our fifth year books were her first year books and she had more classes, those that were geared for students who wanted to go into certain areas. Dumbledore got rid of everything he didn't want the school offering. Those students who started this year are better off, they're getting all this from the beginning while we're having to play catch up." Harry nods. "Yeah, you've been doing the same thing from what Auntie says."

 

"From last Christmas to June I was being tutored six hours a day five days a week in mundane and magical subjects, and I worked independently over the summer so I could take classes with students my own age again."

 

"They don't have houses there?"

 

"No, it's not a boarding school so you have classes with different people. The classes are based on your ability or level of knowledge, not how old you are. Ron says the others are glad they don't have to have classes with Crabbe and Goyle anymore, the class doesn't have to wait for them to get what they're working on."

 

"Talk about students who were no better than squibs." Susan nods. "The only muscles that weren't overdeveloped for those two were their brains. They took an equivalency test to keep their wands and were hired by somebody who needed somebody who was strong as an ox. . .and about as smart."

 

"The teachers been talking to you about plans for your future?"

 

"I'm working on my classes and studying what Hogwarts doesn't offer, Headmistress McGonagall is convinced I'll be able to take the the non-european NEWTS and attend school where I want. I'm interested in spell creation, maybe working for Gringotts. I wanted to work with Auntie at the Ministry but she says that it's no place for me and is getting me to look into other options. They did a lot of cleaning house after Voldemort was taken down but it's still a cesspool of bigotry."

 

"That's what Ron said when he talked to 'Mione about applying to Gringotts this summer after her OWLS. She could make money over the summer, take classes, and still live at home since she'd be old enough to apparate. She could take the other NEWTS in a couple years and take university classes."

 

"Gringotts is going to be a force to reckon with in a few years."

 

"It already is, they just let the Ministry think they're the ones in charge." Harry snorts. Susan thinks a moment of all the changes her aunt has talked about and how often the Goblins have been involved and nods. They settle at one of the tables in the library.

 

"What are you going to do?"

 

"That's something Drs. Stark and Blake have been talking about with me, Sirius, Remus, and Sheriff Carter. I've been so long fighting Voldemort I've got my whole life ahead of me now. I've got to learn everything about being a Lord, but I've got Sirius and Dr. Stark to help me there. I thought about being an auror, Sheriff Carter is the head of Eureka's magical and mundane law enforcement, so he's telling me stories of his life as a Marshal and Auror before moving to Eureka. I'm also talking to the Goblin Elder about where my strengths lie and what I might want to do in the future. Plus there's the rest of the extended family. I have CSI, doctors, law officials. . .I have a good hundred possible futures ahead of me now that doesn't include sacrificing myself for Dumbledore's 'greater good'."

 

"There's already books being written about him and they're talking about a class on Dark Lords throughout history as part of the newly revamped DADA classes." Susan says. "He wanted his name to live forever, he's getting it but not the way he wanted."

 

"Instead of being the saviour of the wizarding world, he's going down as one of the most evil dark lords."

 

A couple days later Harry returns to Eureka. He'd already done all the homework he'd been assigned in Eureka and enlarges the notes and books from Hogwarts for the OWLs he wants to take the end of the school year.

 

"Are we sure that Harry can handle taking two such important yet different tests in the same year?" Carter asks from the couch where he's giving Michael a bottle. Allison is settled in a chair, scowling since being around the baby had made her want another child and a smirking Nathan had obliged her. She was not quite three months along and would be delivering around the time that Harry was taking his OWLS.

 

"Yes, Harry is very smart once he got away from Dumbledore and his loving aunt and uncle. One only wanted him to learn what he wanted and the other didn't want him learning at all because it would upstage their useless bullyboy of a son."

 

"What happened to him? I understand he was supposed to be in a home to lose weight before being sent to a prison for incorrigible boys."

 

"Little bastard attacked somebody and was sent directly to adult prison since he was only in the home because of his age. He kept getting in trouble and losing his privileges. He tried stealing drugs and was caught by a nurse, tried attacking her and now he's in an adult prison for 25 to 50 years doing hard labor. Putting him in the home and a prison for incorrigible boys was a compromise and it failed. The judge who'd tried him was not happy about what happened and really let him know it, he caught a lot of flack for giving him a reduced sentence."

 

"Good to know there's soft-headed judges everywhere." Carter mumbles, jiggling Michael as he fusses in his sleep.

 

"Idiot just saw his age, didn't look at his history." Stark says before he and Allison head to their homes and Carter heads upstairs, putting down the baby before showering and going to bed. The next day he drops the kids off to school before leaving Michael at daycare and heading to the office.

 

"Good morning Auror Tonks." he says when he sees the younger Tonks in his office. "What can I do for you?"

 

"Bringing back the Weasley twins for their Da so they can start work and classes again and passing along information for you from Madam Bones. We're still going through Hogwarts. It looks like that old bastard has been hiding things for years. They hope to get the school cleaned of his shit over the summer then heading off to investigate his other properties. Headmistress McGonagall hopes to be able to step down then for the new Headmaster. She's been working with the teachers already at Hogwarts and the ones coming with him and they hope to make Hogwarts great again. One of the new classes is about what that old Bastard was doing."

 

"Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it." Tonks blinks but nods. "Something that the purebloods in Europe tend to forget since it's not convenient for them."

 

"Absolute power corrupts absolutely." Tonks nods.

 

At Tesla Harry checks his schedule and heads to his history class, bringing out his book and other supplies once he takes a seat.

 

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