Ministerial Interference Hermione watched in some confusion as the Minister of Magic entered the hall, gesticulating vigorously as he had a hissed, incomprehensible discussion with the small group of important seeming wizards surrounding him. A knot of teachers entered the hall, but remained apart from the Ministry group. No announcements were made, no explanations offered. A small commotion ensued at the Slytherin table, and with everyone's attention instantly focused on it, it required only a bit of watching to realize that individual Slytherins were being taken one at a time out of the hall, and returned a short time later. She noticed Malfoy get very smug when one of the Aurors whispered to him before leading him out, even as rumour reached the Gryffindor table that the students were having the level of their power tested, a test that the Ravenclaws were claiming had not been performed for over a hundred years. His expression on returning was rather pouty, and she got the impression that he had not done as well as he had expected. Looking over at the professors, Hermione noted a fair uniformity of expression; apparently the professors did not approve of what was going on. She also noticed that some students were getting skipped, but she was not the first to understand why. It was the Slytherins themselve, apparently, that first twigged to the notion that only the purebloods were being tested. There were no mudbloods in Slytherin, of course, but the few half-bloods, and even the relatively new purebloods were being skipped over. The new activity fueled rampant speculation, especially as several returnees confirmed the power testing, and Harry was dropped as a focus of comment. Hermione was amused by this, as she was fairly certain that whatever the Ministry was here for, it was tied to Harry, which only made their testing methodology more silly, as they would have skipped him even if he had been present. She was so focused on observing the aurors, the professors, and watching Fudge, who seemed to get continually redder and more nervous as whatever he was looking for continued to not appear, that she felt a physical jolt, as if she had touched a live electrical wire, when something touched her hand. She had made no sound, and was immensely grateful, both for managing to keep from squeaking, and for the intense attention everyone else was giving to the aurors, who had just taken the first pureblood Ravenclaw for testing. She barely held in a cry of shock in spite of herself when she discovered the touch had not come from a neighboring Gryffindor trying to get her attention, but from a tiny, blue, three-inch high pixie, wearing Slytherin green, and smiling up at her from a distinctly familiar Harry-like face, albeit an undeniably feminine one. The tiny Harry-ette was holding a roll of parchment as wide as she was tall, and once she saw Hermione's eyes on her, she promptly let it fall against Hermione's hand, and dashing across the table, made a leaping dive right into Hermione's robe pocket. Suppressing another startled shriek that threatened to burst forth at Harry's dive, Hermione glanced around, and once assured that no-one was paying her the slightest bit of attention, she carefully unrolled the parchment. The note was, of necessity given the small amount of parchment the tiny Harry could carry, quite short and to the point, merely confirming the sprite's identity as a part of Harry, and that what it heard, he heard. It asked Hermione to keep her near, if she could bring herself to forgive him, that he might know if she were in danger. When she rolled up the parchment and slipped it into her bag, she noticed the tiny winged Harry's face peering up at her from her pocket. Long experience with Harry meant she knew exactly what sort of a guilt-trip Harry would be putting himself through, though she still had no idea how he had done it, nor even really what he had done, beyond apparently causing her to experience an impossibly realistic erotic dream, and showing her a love she had never expected to receive from him. She smiled at the little woman, and carefully, gingerly brushed her tiny cheek with the pad of her forefinger. The tiny, feminized face of her friend lit up with an almost incandescent glow. Hermione felt something land on her shoulder, and had to suppress her urge to whip her head in that direction, or swat at it, both of which would have drawn undesirable attention. "Don't worry about me," a tiny voice whispered into her ear, sending an involuntary and irrepressible shudder through her. "I'm invisible and mostly intangible, and Moody's not here, so we're safe. What's going on?" Not wanting to talk, but knowing that writing anything would be too noisy, and would attract too much attention, Hermione slipped a book out of her bag and opened it. No-one would pay any attention to the bookworm reading, she was sure. She rested her hand on the page, as if she was keeping her place, and shifted slightly, letting her finger rest just beneath one letter, then moving on to the next. "Can you follow this?" she spelled out, and sighed with relief when the voice in her ear assented. Slowly and carefully, she explained what was going on, as best she could tell. --- Of course, Hermione had no idea how long Harry had been watching her before making a move. Just getting to the Great Hall had been an adventure, as he constantly had to get past pairs of Aurors that were searching the halls. He made extensive use of his ability to drop back into the walls to remain unobserved when he encountered them unexpectedly, and to find paths that would take him around a pair without having to actually pass near them in the open. Small as they were, they quickly learned that the portraits were attracted to the sight of them, to their swift, darting motion, and they had to work hard to remain out of sight, making them suddenly aware of just how many portraits there were in Hogwarts. They had to worry about more than just the portraits identifying them and informing Dumbledore. They also had to be concerned about the portraits excited state attracting the attention of the roving Aurors, and it was with quite some relief that they discovered sleeping spells worked on them; though they avoided their use whenever possible. Leaving a trail of silent portraits would be nearly as bad as a trail of over-excited ones. They also learned that the suits of armor, though internally empty and presumably great for concealing tiny sprites, would move in agitation, and shift about as if trying to scratch an itch or brush away an insect, when they attempted to hide inside. Or at least, the first one did; after that, they did not attempt to use the suits of armor for concealment again. They did find a use for them, by hitting them with a low-level tickling charm to set up a rattle, to draw away the Aurors from the side entrance to the hall, before slipping intangibly through it. Once inside, they had observed Hermione for a while. It took considerable concentration on the part of the still human size Harry's to keep the sprites on task, during both the trek and the observation in the Great Hall, as they felt the instinctive desire to be seen, which made convincing them to turn invisible nearly impossible, to be mischievous, and to cause trouble. Indeed, it was due to one of the sprite's urges that they learned that they could all act as one Harry, in spite of their separation, when they had to suppress that sprite's urge to turn into a nargle and go after Luna Lovegood. Harry, as a whole, was not inclined to find out what would happen if nargles did not, in fact, exist, and he turned into one anyway. Nor did he like the thought of discovering that a nargle's instincts were harmful, or that nargles were real but seven metres tall. Indeed, the sprite's trouble with staying on task made him question whether this was a viable means of watching his friends at all, but in the end, he went for it. The form had the distinct advantage of being, at least one-on-one, about as unthreatening as he could get. If Hermione was deeply troubled by what he had done to her, the last thing he wanted to do was frighten her further by looming over her at his full basilisk height, or even in the form of a normal human, who could potentially overpower her. Facing her in a tiny shape would reinforce that he meant her no harm. Of course, after that, he still needed a form that could get near her and communicate with her, and tests had demonstrated that a human Harry could not clearly understand the extremely high-pitched voice of a sprite Harry, which meant another form had to be chosen, something small enough to be unobtrusive, but capable of being understood. His first thought was a house-elf, but given Hermione's feelings about slavery, he did not want to take a chance on her thinking that he was mocking them. He could just reach out to her mind, but given that he had basically kidnapped her through that very medium, he did not want to attempt communication that way until she reached out to him. Back in the Chamber of Secrets, a flurry of experimentation ensued, as innumerable ideas were tried and discarded. Several varieties of birds, theoretically capable of speech, were tried. Unfortunately, it appeared that their method of vocalization was sufficiently different that speech did not carry over directly. The smaller humanoids, the few that Harry knew about, from pixies to garden gnomes and fairies, were either inaudible, or incomprehensible to a human-scale Harry. The solution came when one of the Harry's remembered that while in the shape of the full-size basilisk they had been able to shift mostly to their succubus form, and that in the tunnels and during the orgy, the human-scale Harry's had been able to take basilisk form. A moment later, one of the watching sprites in the great hall shifted into a tiny succubus. A brief but abortive attempt to then take a normal feminine Harry shape nearly exposed her, as it drew in the nearest other Harry-sprite, doubling her size. A quick return to succubus form stopped the shifting, and going back to the sprite form split him again, allowing him to regain a four inch tall succubus form. They went ahead by leading with a Harry-sprite. As there had been no blue-skinned Harry's at the orgy, they hoped the sprite would be properly unthreatening, as the demonic Harry certainly would not be. The succubus Harry went invisible and followed the sprite in as soon as they collectively felt the warmth of Hermione's smile of forgiveness. Settling lightly on her shoulder, she slid through Hermione's bushy hair, careful to avoid stepping on any of the strands as she made her way to Hermione's ear. Hermione was quick to work out a way to communicate surreptitiously and effectively, but what she was communicating was not answering Harry's more pressing questions. What was Fudge doing here? What were they searching for, and what did it have to do with him? More to the point, perhaps, what would they do if they did not find him . . . and what would they do if they did? Neither Harry nor Hermione had any idea. --- The aurors were only just reaching half-way through the Ravenclaw purebloods when there was a disturbance at the doors to the Great Hall, and in moments, the full attention of the Hall was focused on the auror who had just entered, and was now speaking quietly but urgently to Minister Fudge. Fudge's characteristic bowler hat was observed to visibly vibrate as the short, stocky Minister fairly shook with agitation at what he was hearing. In moments, he burst into obvious shouting, red-faced in his fury, but none of his rant was heard, as apparently a quick-witted auror had cast a privacy ward. "Oh, this is not good," murmured the succubus Harry, into Hermione's ear. Some of his other selves had been creeping into the rafters throughout the hall, and at least one was within the ward that was cast, so of all the students there gathered, only he and Hermione had any clear idea what the commotion was about. "Whatever brought the Ministry here apparently triggered detectors all over. There are representatives from other Ministries and nations gathered outside the Hogwarts gates. The old guy, I think he's an Unspeakable maybe, is saying that it is legal because of some treaty, but the Fudge is raving about repelling an invasion." Apparently the hasty warding spell had its limits, though, and Fudge exceeded them before Harry could continue. "What the devil do you mean Dumbledore's gone out to greet them?" Fudge's shriek at the news was high and piercing, but the students got no further news from him. Even as he spoke, he had turned and was running out of the Hall, hand on his hat holding it in place. --- Meanwhile, other Harry's had succeeded in finding that same grouping of foreigners, by flying overhead. Several shifted from bat-form to miniature succubus form, as they settled in the branches overhead, looking down at the steadily growing crowd outside the gates. Foreigners were not the only ones there, as he recognized Rita Skeeter and her photographer, and guessed that several of the other more normal looking individuals were also from the British press. There were several groups there, that seemed both unrelated, and somewhat at odds. He recognized the paired red and white-blond of Bill Weasley and Fleur Delacour near a small group of goblins. Most of the groups, however, held no-one he recognized. There were two groups that he was sure were Oriental, several had people with coffee colored skin, and one group had deep black skin. Even as he was observing this, another party arrived, in a massive carriage pulled by a truly enormous horse with eight legs! Two of those that piled out of the carriage had blond hair, the other five had burnished red hair the color of fresh copper. In the distance he saw Dumbledore approaching, and further behind him, the short, stout, bowler-clad figure of Fudge had just appeared at the doors. Even as the first distant cries from Fudge could be heard, though not yet made out, unless one's hearing were better than that of the tiny Harrys, Dumbledore reached the gates, and they were flung wide before him. "Welcome, welcome," he said jovially. The largest of the copper-haired men strode forward, a man as tall as Dumbledore, widely built. He wore a massive hammer at his side, and in his belt a short blade in a plain sheath, and his clothes were leather, lined in fur. "Merlin's Foretelling is upon us, Dumbledore," he stated forcefully, "The Stones say the Event occurred here. Will Britain stand by Merlin's Pact?" "By my authority, Britain will stand," Dumbledore responded firmly, ignoring the shriek of dismay of Fudge, near enough now to hear their raised voices, but too out of breath to get his own voice to carry the distance. Somehow, Harry was reassured by this. Anything the Fudge was so against was probably a good thing, and most of these new visitors at least looked competent, something he could not say for the Fudge or most of his staff. Unfortunately, while the Fudge was charging out into the field to forestall Dumbledore, this left his henchmen in charge of the Great Hall. They were finishing with the Ravenclaws, and would shortly begin on the Gryffindors. Harry understood now that they were taking only purebloods, so they would probably skip him, but he could not hope that they would miss his absence. A sudden cry attracted Harry's attention, and he realized that Luna Lovegood had just been tripped by a mean-spirited Ravenclaw, and the Auror who had her arm firmly in his grip had not slowed. The Auror had taken barely a step forward, stretching Luna's arm forward, where the next step would see either her arm twisted out of socket, or her dragged bodily across the stone floor, and Harry's emotions erupted in rage. Before he realized what he had done, he had grabbed the Auror. Whether fortunately or no, there had been no part of him close enough to stop the man before Luna was hurt more than she had been by falling to her knees, and in his desire to stop the man in his tracks, he had apparently tapped in to another ability of his new form. There in the space between the tables from the stones of the floor a hand had arisen, five feet across at the palm, composed of the very stones of Hogwarts, and grasped the Auror. Knowing that at any moment things could get out of hand, Harry quickly took control of this new talent, and gently raised the floor beneath Luna's knees, while shifting that beneath her feet forward, lifting her smoothly back to her feet, before sinking back in to the stone, and releasing the Auror. The auror stood unmoving, stunned, as indeed was most of the hall, staring in complete disbelief at what had just occurred. Hermione jiggled her head, and the Harry on her shoulder looked down to see her finger twitching back and forth, spelling out 'you?' continuously. "Yes, Hermione, I did not know I could do that until it happened." Hermione suppressed a giggle, staring at the dumbfounded Auror, who finally shifted and resumed his pace at a verbal prodding from Luna, who asked if he was going to lead her out of the hall, in an innocent voice as if none of the preceeding had happened at all. His hand was resting much more lightly on her shoulder now, and he was not pulling her, but still, Harry could not help but turn a bit of himself invisible, and send it down to ride with Luna. Not only would it make sure no retribution was attempted upon her, it would get to watch this power testing that the Aurors were apparently doing. The bit of Harry sent to Luna focused, and with a bit of effort, managed to adjust his succubus appearance to that of a tiny Luna with a crumpled horn in her forehead. She was a bit dismayed when Luna's eyes immediately shifted to track her once she approached, in spite of her invisibility, but was reassured by Luna's lack of an audible response or expression of surprise, and by the apparent inattention of the Auror, who seemed more focused on paying attention to the flagstones in front of his feet, lest they leap up at him once more. The Harry on Hermione's shoulder quickly began a play-by-play as Luna and the Auror passed out of the Great Hall, and were met by an elderly witch, in official-looking robes, though not the robes of an Auror. She walked Luna through casting several smaller spells through a series of hoops, then taught her a simple incantation and had her cast it at an odd metal sphere. On impacting the sphere, it caused all sorts of odd reactions, sending little widgets and other pokey-out things sliding across the sphere's surface, and various dials and indicators twirling about. The old lady looked at the rather tense Auror, and shook her head, at which he visibly wilted in relief. "Alright, gel," he said, "back we go." Luna followed him, a soft smile on her face, her slightly protuberant eyes once more fixed on the tiny Luna figure that had settled on her shoulder. Luckily for Harry, no-one found Luna's pre-occupation at all odd for her, though Hermione was fighting giggles the whole time Luna was walking across the floor, her face turned to look down at her shoulder, paying no attention to where she was going. Once more one of the older Ravenclaw boys tried to swing around on the bench to stick out a leg, but found his feet suddenly affixed to the stone floor by stone hands grasping at his ankles, and froze in fright and consternation. His sigh of relief when Luna passed and the stone hands slid back in to the floor was audible, and garnered him some odd looks from his neighbors, but the Aurors took no notice. Once she was seated again, Luna was quick to offer her hand to the tiny version of herself. Luna-Harry, not wanting to make a scene, shook her tiny head, but when Luna insisted, Luna-Harry grew fearful that they would attract too much attention. She was invisible, after all, and Luna was known to see and talk to creatures that no-one believed were there. So she gently climbed on to Luna's hand. Standing beside Hermione's head was odd enough, as was hiding in her pocket, but it was as nothing to standing on Luna's hand. Harry felt dwarfed by her, as when he had faced Grawp, but Luna's serene but interested visage bore no resemblance beyond relative size to that of Hagrid's massive brother. Luna gently set her down on the table in front of her, and Harry was startled to realize that at some point food had been set out, presumably to quiet the complaints of students not used to being forced to sit still with nothing to do for so long, without so much as a droning ghost to listen to. Though he appreciated Luna's offer of a grape from her plate, Harry knew that the sight of a grape hovering in the air, with bites being taken out of it, would be too much for her neighbors to ignore. She giggled involuntarily when Luna shifted and rested her head on her clasped hands, and blew softly against her, ruffling her blonde hair about her crumpled horn. Though gently done, it was akin to a stiff summer breeze, warm, with a hint of moisture, and the strong scent of the bread that was the last thing Luna had eaten. --- Fudge had eventually managed to catch his breath and protest Dumbledore's words, but it was to little avail, for while he had ordered the gates of Hogwarts be closed against the 'foreign invaders,' he was too nervous to try pitting the few Aurors he had with them against so many. If only, he thought, clutching his round stiff hat in nervous tension, he had not left so many inside to start looking for the new power. But that idea sparked a new one, and soon all his political wiles were focused on stalling, on finding and plucking the strings of tension between the various groups. If he could keep them out here tied up in negotiations until his men found which brat got boosted, he would have the upper hand. It would not be hard, surely, to ply some foolish child with promises of wealth and power, and to lay the groundwork so that whatever gifts these foreign devils had brought to curry favor would seem to be his work, and accrue to his benefit and not their own. Inside, as he had directed, the testing of the Pureblood students continued, finished with Ravenclaw now, and into Gryffindor. He shivered inside at the thought of what this was going to cost him, as the testing stone was one of those things the Purebloods disliked and constantly pushed rules and fines against, and there was no exception for the Ministry. The last thing the moneyed and powerful wanted was an instrument that would make merit-based hiring easier. At nearly a hundred galleons per test, at least he had the comfort of Umbridge's insight that such a power growth would necessarily meed to be built on a firm foundation of the best breeding, and that he had therefore ordered the testing of only the Pureblooded students, a move sure to save him many thousands. At the same time, it saved him from his supporters possible anger over being compared with less worthy students. Contrary to Harry and Hermione's initial thoughts, Minister Fudge had not only noticed Harry Potter's absence, he had actually been glad of it, though of course he made a show of being irritated. If he had been there he would have had to test him too, lest the Daily Prophet get wind of their hero being snubbed and take up for him again; but to avoid the obvious singling out of their hero, he would also have needed to test every halfblood as well. That would have dramatically increased his expense. Yet as he stood, safe behind the impregnable gates of Hogwarts (ignorant of the reality that the wall the gate was in did not actually encircle the castle,) arguing semantics with the diplomats on the other side, he saw another figure approaching up the road from Hogsmeade. It was that former Defense professor that had caused such an uproar when it was discovered that he was a werewolf and that Dumbledore had known and allowed him to teach children anyway. "Werewolf!" he gasped, backing away, and forgetting his plans and schemes, he turned and fled. Though he would have loved to have sent his Aurors after the dangerous creature for endangering a public gathering, that would have required opening the gates and losing his bargaining position. The diplomats would have to fend for themselves, and if they fled, it was all to the good for him. The diplomats were quick to react to the fearful warning, and their guards were equally fast on the draw, so that Remus Lupin found himself at wandpoint from over a dozen hard-eyed men before he had gotten within a hundred yards of the gate of Hogwarts. Fudge was not the first to notice Remus, however. That honor belonged perhaps to one of the many squirrelish Harrys watching the gathering and discussions from the trees, or possibly to one of the Oriental contingent, who had reacted to the approaching figure at almost the same moment Harry spied him, though the Harry that saw him react was sure he could not have seen Lupin, so assumed it was the result of some ward or sensory spell. At any rate, Harry was not about to let his favorite former professor be attacked, and in acting in his defense, set off a firestorm that perhaps might have otherwise been avoided, if the guards had held their fire. This last outcome was doubtful, as the various parties were nervous and on guard, wary as much of each other as of the situation and the peculiar British response. Even as Remus lifted his hands in startled surrender, Harry lifted the ground in a semi-circle between him and the guards into a shield-wall. The conjunction of Remus' and Harry's response made it seem that Remus had lifted the ground in a display of startlingly powerful wandless magic. Their reaction to this presumptive threat, when each of them had been feeling most keenly the risk they were in by gathering such a large group of politically valuable targets in a region rife with rumours of either a Dark Lord's return, or a new one's rising, was swift and crushing, thirty-six spells slashing across the short space to impact the wall. Not a few of the spells crossed paths, forming new amalgams of unknowable results. Harry panicked still further, afraid that his shield could not hold against such an onslaught, and reached out without knowing how, and grabbing Remus, held him tight. Dumbledore was standing closest to the gate, and from his angle, was among the few able to see behind the sudden wall of earth to see a giant hand of stone and dirt reach up from the ground, grab the former professor, and drag him into the ground. Remus was monstrously confused. After the surreal experience of speaking to Harry in what seemed a dream, then to feel his inner wolf in battle with Harry, he was coming to Hogwarts in search of answers. He was far from prepared for the sight of a number of apparently foreign groups between him and the gates, nor to suddenly find himself at wandpoint. At the sound of what seemed to be dozens of shouted spells, more than one of which he recognized as spells for slaying werewolves, when he felt everything go dark, and then was pulled through something at high speed, only to burst into light, he assumed he had died. To be grabbed about the middle by a lithe teenage girl was confusing; that two more piled on a moment later, one as furry as he in wolf-form, though much more pleasantly shaped, and the other possessing dusky red skin, black leathery wings, and black horns splitting her wild locks of black hair was beyond strange. He was lucky in that the three Harrys had near exhausted themselves with emotional turmoil, and had sated their form's instinct on Hermione, so their hugs were possessive, affectionate, and needy, but not sexual. Though tempted to make the sort of comment Sirius would have barked out in an instant, Remus was by personality the shyest and most reticent of the Marauders, and after such a strange sequence of events, and surrounded by unfamiliar teenagers, he bit his tongue. "They tried to kill you," one of the girls murmured, and he nodded, wondering where he had heard that voice before. "They tried to kill you," the furry girl growled, in a tone of anger that felt familiar to Remus, that felt as he might have if someone threatened his pack. "They tried to kill you!" The demonic looking teen stepped back, and watching her, Remus realized both she and the furred girl had tails, though hers was slender and barbed, and the other's was thickly furred like that of a wolf. "You will not harm my own!" All three spoke as one, and Remus felt the sound echoing through the chamber, the echoes causing him to look about and realize he was in a large stone chamber, probably cave, but carved by man, with pillars, a pool, and a statue. "The Chamber of Secrets?" he asked, putting clues together, then looked about, finally paying attention to what his nose was telling him, "Harry?" --- The sound of Harry's shout had come from the throat of every Harry capable of speech, fueled by magical anger, it shook the Great Hall. It echoed down the halls of Hogwarts, leaving Aurors spinning about trying to locate the source. The focus of the shout, as well as the greatest number of collective voices was at the gates where Harrys had gathered, trying to figure out what was going on there. At the gates the echoing voice thundered through the air. the rushing swirl of magic sending the guards tumbling abut like pins in a bowling lane, while the diplomats and other non-combatants were unaffected. The gates of Hogwarts shuddered under the assault as Harry's fury reached through them after the fleeing Fudge, sending the foolish Minister sprawling. The gates fell open, the right gate having lost its lower hinge and hanging askew. Dumbledore twinkled in spite of himself, his hope winning out over his fear. There had only ever been two possible sources of that initial magical surge to his mind, and only one of those would claim Remus Lupin as his.