Chapter Text
A grateful shout-out to Tyrannic_Puppy for ideas and reminding me not to rush things. Thanks. :)
Harry used the hour's time difference between London and Milan to purchase another trunk from mister Trubshaw, exactly the same as the one he already had, and copied the layout from his own trunk to the new one. Once that was done, he transferred everything from Luna's room to the corresponding room in the new trunk. He replaced the potions workstations and the ingredients, which made the nice lady at the apothecary very happy. He even copied the potions books and the gym equipment.
With all that finished, he walked over to Gringott's and sat down in the lobby.
"Dobby!" He called quietly.
Dobby appeared almost instantly, with his incessant eager little smile. "What can Dobby do for Mas- Friend Harry?"
"Unless she's in class, please quietly kidnap Luna and bring her here?"
Dobby nodded and popped away.
Several of the people in line at the bank began to stare at him, so Harry pointedly ignored them. Thankfully, Dobby arrived with Luna only a few minutes later.
"Harry!" Luna smiled, "This a strange surprise."
"Kind of a sad one as well." Harry held out the new trunk to Luna, and she took it from him with a confused frown. "Hermione and I are moving to Italy." He explained, "You can still write any time, and I have no doubt we'll see each other on holidays and such, but Hogwarts is just too stupid for us to stay. So, because I didn't want to interrupt potions practice or Defense Club or anything, I hoped you'd keep the spirit alive so to speak. I moved everything from your room in my trunk to your room in your trunk, so there you go. You might want to leave it in the room all the time, or maybe get Neville to carry it back and forth in case you get locked out of your dorm again."
"I would much rather have my friends." Luna replied with a sad smile.
"You still do, of course." He smiled back, more upbeat than he actually felt, "Just not every day at school. Come on, one last thing to do and the reason I asked Dobby to bring you." He held out his hand, and Luna gladly held it as he gently pulled her into the queue.
"What is the last thing?" She asked.
"Neither Hermione nor I will have anything to do with Hogwarts anymore, but we both wanted the end of year tournament to still have its prizes, so we agreed you would be the best person to oversee the handling of the prizes. The trophies themselves will still come to me, but it will be no hardship to come see you and pass them on." Harry smiled at her.
Luna bit her lip as her eyes went misty. "Why me?" She asked softly.
"Truthfully, it was a close thing between you and Nev. We know you'd both be extremely fair and honourable, and genuinely enjoy the tournament for what it is, win or lose. We chose you because this way you're in control of who can enter the trunk, and anybody with something mean to say to you can find themselves shut out. We also know that anyone blowing sunshine up your skirt just to get in will be seen through immediately. That part Nev isn't so great at just yet."
She grinned back at him then. "I think he'd be cute in a skirt."
Harry winced as that image assaulted his mind. "That's between you and him, Luna. I don't want to know."
Luna giggled.
When it was their turn at the counter, they opened a new vault with Luna as the only person who could access it, and then Harry transferred a hundred thousand galleons into it.
When Luna turned a shocked frown on him, he just smiled. "Enough to fund the tournament for a few years, and some... discretionary funds, to be used as you see fit." He grinned.
"Harry!" Luna admonished, "You shouldn't be so frivolous with your -"
"Hermione already agreed." Harry interrupted her, knowing Luna was parroting Hermione, thinking he was acting on his own.
"Oh." She relaxed. "Well if she already said it was alright..."
"She did. No doubt you'll talk to her about it the next time we get to see you." Harry grinned a huge smug grin.
"Well thank you. Please make sure you thank Hermione for me as well. I'll write, but it's not the same."
"No, that's true. Dobby! We'll still have holidays though." Harry knelt to ask Dobby to return Luna when he popped in next to them.
He kept smiling until they were gone, and then sagged with a heavy sigh. "Winky!"
Once back home, the first thing he did was hug Hermione until he felt a little better.
There was a very long conversation after Dobby and Winky fetched Hermione's parents from England. They had both always wanted to live somewhere warm and exotic like Italy, but couldn't get over the fact of learning another language whilst starting over from nothing. So, over the next week, Harry and Hermione with the help of their new runes teacher, created small amulets for Ed and Audrey with Italian translation charms embedded so they could speak and understand the language. That, combined with Harry's happily funding their relocation, resulted in Ed and Audrey moving into their villa the day after the translation amulets were finished and confirmed working. As soon as they were settled, Harry and Hermione set about magically protecting both villas.
That made Hermione much happier, and by extension Harry. It also made Ed and Audrey much happier, since their daughter's new school was a day school and they got to see her every day. Well, when she wasn't thoroughly stuck in the school library.
Life ticked on wonderfully until October thirty-first at dinnertime. They had just thanked Chef Winky for dinner and all sat down to eat, when Harry suddenly jerked upright.
"Harry, what is it?" Hermione asked, instantly worried.
"Some kind of binding magic is trying to attach itself to me. I can feel the dementor shield eating it, so it's not working." Harry answered. "There's a lot of it though, and it's making the dementor shield really happy. Oh, there's the last of it. No worries." Harry relaxed again with a smile. "I love that I don't have to worry about things like that anymore. Thanks Spiff."
Hermione smiled with relief and held his hand for a moment. "Thanks Spiff." She whispered.
"What's a Spiff?" Ed asked.
Harry and Hermione looked at each other, and Hermione nodded encouragingly.
"Well..." Harry started, "It's hard to say for sure exactly what Spiff is, but it all started when I was in my cupboard before Hogwarts..."
Harry spilled the whole story, including the scary bits and both of them being dead, but after he got to the fact that both he and Hermione were immortal, that seemed to both freak out and relax her parents at the same time.
Most of that evening was taken up with explaining everything in detail, but once that was done Ed and Audrey seemed more than happy that they'd decided to leave Britain. Audrey felt it was a mature decision, and Ed agreed, though he admitted he understood the urge to stay and fight.
The next morning when Hermione retrieved her Daily Prophet from the Apparating Mailbox, she ran immediately to Harry's villa to show him the headline.
Goblet Of Fire Goes Out!
by Blattery Cockwomble
Yesterday at Hogwarts, an unexplained disaster occurred during the Choosing Of The Champions ceremony inaugurating the 144th Tri-wizard Championship. The Goblet of Fire gave three names for the three Champions chosen, Cedric Diggory for Hogwarts, Viktor Krum for Durnstrang, and Fleur Delacour for Beauxbatons.
The cup then flared a fourth time and spat out a fourth name, Harry Potter! Headmaster Dumbledore called out Harry Potter's name knowing that Harry Potter was not present since the Boy-Who-Fled had left Hogwarts and Britain weeks earlier. Moments after his name was called, the Goblet itself sputtered and flared and seemed to be fighting a violent magical battle. Then there was a huge flash of fire from the Goblet, and the eternal flames winked out! The scrap of paper held by the headmaster of Hogwarts crumbled in his hand and became ash on the floor.
Tests on the Goblet of Fire revealed that the powerful ancient artefact contains no magic whatsoever. All traces of magic in the Goblet have vanished. At this point there are far more questions than answers, but this reporter will stay on the case and deliver those answers as they become available.
For more about the Tri-Wizard Championship, turn to page 4.
For more about the Goblet of Fire, turn to page 8.
For more about the fleeing of Harry Potter, turn to page 14.
Harry started laughing.
"The poor headmaster probably entered my name trying to get me back to Hogwarts under his thumb." He chuckled. "Only to have his plan backfire and get stuck trying to explain it."
"Maybe we should see about getting Italian citizenship sooner rather than later." Hermione said with a frown.
"That's a great idea." Harry confirmed. We should skip off to Palazzo Montecitorio after classes today, and see what we can accomplish. For your parents too."
"Good." She agreed. "That's a plan."
As it turned out, the Italian Magical Government had heard that Harry had switched schools and bought properties in Milan, and had arranged the proper parchmentwork on the off chance he stopped in. The citizenships for all four of them were arranged, approved, and notarized that afternoon, after a quick visit with the Italian 'Minister for the Minority'.
Four days later, they received their citizenship papers in the mail, and Harry had a visitor.
"Sirius!" Harry shouted with glee as he saw the man standing just outside the protections.
"Harry!" Sirius grinned back at him. "I like your new digs."
"Me too." Harry waved his wand to adjust the protections to allow Sirius in.
They shook hands, and Sirius gave him a clap on the shoulder. "Good to see you, Harry. Sadly, I wish I came with better news."
That made Harry frown. "If it's about the Goblet of Fire thing, Hermione and I had a good laugh over it, no harm done."
Sirius shook his head sadly. "No, this is... well, let's get inside and make sure there aren't any hidden ears."
Sirius cast a few detection spells when they were inside the living room, and one of them Harry was unfamilar with, so Sirius taught it to him right then. Harry re-cast everything Sirius had with about twenty times the power, and Harry's new home registered clean of any listening charms or devices.
"Right." Sirius flopped on the sofa. "I've spent the last few weeks popping in and out of the Ministry - British Ministry that is - with Amelia Bones. She'd had some Aurors quietly nab old mate Snivellus – Snape - and he'd had quite a bit to say under Veritaserum. Turns out there was a prophecy about you and Moldyshorts. Snivellus heard part of it as it was being given, and ran to his master with it. That's what got your parents a visit from Voldywarts."
Harry sat down heavily. "A prophecy. Mum and Dad were murdered over a prophecy."
Sirius nodded sadly. "I have to admit, I went a little spare when I heard that. Luckily Amy was nice about it and didn't have me locked up. Anyway, as she knew some people in the Unspeakables, she went to inquire about the prophecy, since the Department of Mysteries documents and keeps all the prophecies that occur. Well, she got a look at the book that records them, and this particular one was given by Sybil Trelawney - who I understand is the Hogwarts divination professor - to Albus Dumbledore."
"Dumbledore? He KNEW?" Harry suddenly found a great deal of anger inside himself.
"Hold on to that anger for a bit, it gets worse." Sirius said darkly. "Apparently the Unspeakables had also been studying a black book that was seized in the Hogwarts raid. It turned out to be a container for a piece of a soul. Three guesses who the dark magic soul book belonged to."
"Wartyshorts?" Harry growled.
Sirius chuckled. "Wartyshorts. I like that one. Yep, got it in one. So when Amy told me about it, we figured that must be how he's accomplishing his so-called immortality."
"Because a bit of him was stuck in a book and kept the rest of him from passing on?" Harry guessed.
"Exactly." Sirius pointed at him. "So, long story short, Amy and the Unspeakables collaborated to devise a way to detect any other objects that Wartyshorts might have made. Amy tied that in to the magic detection grid, and wouldn't you know, there were four spots lit up like a beacon - one of them my own house!"
"You were living with a piece of -"
"Yeah, don't make a big deal out of it, I hated that place when I was growing up there, so I didn't notice hating it any more." Sirius pulled a grimace. "After I made the House Elf cough up the thing and brought it to Amy, we went about collecting the others as well, mostly successfully."
"Mostly?" Harry asked.
"It wasn't easy to get the goblins to give up the one in their vaults. Luckily, it turned out to be in my cousin's vault, so with some creative interpretation of contract law I had her declared a traitor and her possessions forfeit. Amy had a squad of Aurors smash a little shanty in Wales and pull out another, and the last one we can't seem to find. We know it's at Hogwarts, but even though there have been several searches for the item, we can't seem to find it."
"Have you asked the elves?" Harry suggested.
"I thought of that, I honestly did, but all the Hogwarts elves answer to Dumbledore, and that's exactly who we don't want getting wind of it." Sirius sighed.
"How about a former Hogwarts elf?" Harry grinned. "Dobby!"
Dobby appeared nearly instantly. "What can Dobby do for Ma... friend Harry?"
Harry explained the situation, and asked if Dobby knew of any place at Hogwarts where something could be hidden from people looking for it.
Dobby nodded. "The Come and Go room hides things. Many things."
"Brilliant, Would you do me a favour then and - just a sec." Harry took out his wand and transfigured one of the sofa cushions into a large sack and another into a long pair of tongs. "Would you grab the thing from the come and go room that stinks like it has a piece of Voldewart's soul in it and bring it here please?"
Dobby's eyes grew a bit larger at the request, but he nodded with a fierce expression once Harry was finished. "Dobby knows that stink. Dobby will be right back." He took the sack and the tongs, and disapparated.
"Tea?" Harry asked.
"Won't say no." Sirius replied with a grin.
Harry went to put the kettle on, and in no time they were enjoying a nice cuppa. Dobby returned after Harry sat back down, and held the sack out toward him in his oversized fist.
"Dobby is victorious!" He proclaimed.
Harry grinned, and patted him on the back. "Great job, Officer Dobby!"
Dobby surrendered the sack to Harry with a gravely proud expression before he popped away again.
Harry upended the sack onto the sofa between him and Sirius, and a beautiful platinum and sapphire tiara fell out to rest with a menacing quiet.
"Merlin's balls, I can feel the thing trying to make me put it on." Sirius edged further away from it. "Don't touch it, whatever -" He was stopped by Harry picking up the crown.
A hideous, pitiful shriek sounded as something black and twisted tried to flood out of the largest sapphire, only to be sucked forcibly into Harry's hand.
Sirius's eyes bugged out of his head as his expression turned horrified.
"What... What the ever loving balls was that?!" He gasped.
"It turns out I have the ability to suck bits of his soul out of things." Harry admitted. "I think it stems from having one attached to me until first year."
"Wait, you what?!" Sirius went from horrified to horrified and enraged.
"At the end of first year I found out that our Defense professor, Quirrell, had Voldiewarts in the back of his head. " Harry explained, "That was the first reason I had to not trust the headmaster, as there's no way he didn't know about it. Well, Voldiemuggins tried to use me to get the bait that the headmaster had for him, but when he touched me it burned him and sucked Voldie out of him."
It wasn't exactly a lie... more like a very abridged version. Maybe someday he'd tell Sirius about Spiff. He was on the short list after the Grangers - who they'd already told - but it was a fair way after the Grangers.
"You can... you can just suck him out of his objects?" Sirius got a strange half-confused, half-devious expression.
"Yeah." Harry confirmed. "No idea how or what happens to him, but yeah."
"Okay. I guess we'll have to bring you the other ones then." Sirius looked gravely at Harry. "I'm honestly not sure whether to be excited or sad that you have to be involved at all. I'm sorry Harry, you should never have had anything to do with any of this."
"Honestly the worst part of my entire life so far has been thanks to Dumbledore. He put me with Vernon and Petunia, he's the one who arranged or ignored all the dangers in the school, and the one who hired a Snape impersonator to replace Snape after he was fired. It's honestly really hard not to hate him outright." Harry frowned as he confided his feelings, and crossed his arms to prevent grumping any further.
"Would you mind if I borrowed Dobby at some point?" Sirius asked.
"Sirius! Dobby's a friend, not a toy that I own! You better not let Hermione hear you talking like that, you'll go home without your happysacks."
Sirius winced. "Alright, let me amend the question to 'Would you be willing to work your magic on the rest of the things Amy has collected'?"
"Sure." Harry agreed, "And I assume you'll ask Dobby to fetch them here at some point because you have some kind of sneaky plan."
Sirius shook his head defensively. " Devious . It's a devious plan. It involves subtlety and misdirection, not crayons and tiptoeing." Sirius pouted.
Dobby popped into existence again in front of them. "Dobby is willing, of course. Dobby gets to strike a blow against the nasty bad wizard! Dobby is just waiting for the chance!"
Sirius brightened considerably. "Thank you, Dobby. All you have to do is show up when I call and bring the trinkets to Harry. I will need to put them back again once they're... empty, of course, but it shouldn't be difficult." He turned to Harry. "You're sure you can do this for three more?"
Harry chose not to tell him that Hermione would probably empty two of them. It was only fair, after all. "Sure. I don't even feel it."
Sirius stared at him for a moment, then shook his head. "Probably something your mother did, if I had to guess. She constantly surprised us with what she could do."
Harry just shrugged.
"Well, I would like to stay longer, but I think I'd prefer to get this 'issue' dealt with, we can muck about after - and make no mistake, there will be copious amounts of mucking about."
Harry chuckled. "If you say so. I think you're just on about nude beaches again."
"I just might be!" Sirius grinned.
Harry rolled his eyes.
"Alright, alright. I'll be off then." Sirius chuckled and clapped Harry on the shoulder. Harry saw him to the door, and watched him apparate away once he was outside the protections.
It was four days later - three and a half days after he'd told Hermione all about Sirius's visit - that Dobby appeared in front of Harry with the same sack and tongs.
"Right." Harry said, and excused himself from the table. Ed and Audrey looked on, though they didn't leave the table to join him like Hermione did.
He dumped the sack onto the floor, and a golden cup, a small gaudy ring, and an even gaudier locket came out.
Hermione picked up the cup straight away, which was accompanied by the same black cloud and horrifying shriek that happened when Harry had grabbed the tiara. Ed and Audrey bolted to their daughter, dinners forgotten, but she just smiled at them.
"No worries Mum, Dad. It's because we're breaking the enchantments that keeps the evil wanker from dying. Harry and I will be fine. We've done it before." She explained.
There was another shriek as Harry opened the locket, and then another as Hermione grabbed the ring.
"All done." Hermione said, and joined Harry in putting the things back in the sack. He handed it to Dobby, who then disapparated.
"And that should be the end of Wartyshorts." Harry said with a grin. "Sorry to interrupt dinner, we didn't have any way of knowing when the opportunity would happen."
"Wartyshorts." Hermione snickered. “Ew.”
"Well, I think that calls for a celebration, don't you?" Audrey asked. "Gelato and a movie downtown after dinner?"
"Yes!" Hermione shouted instantly.
The rest of dinner was all smiles, and downtown Milan had never seemed so bright or carefree once they arrived in the new Granger vehicle, a brand new BMW M5. Mint chocolate chunk gelato was procured, and Hermione grinned all the way to the theatre whilst she walked arm in arm with Harry as they ate.
Sirius bought himself a villa on the far side of the area, in an expensive neighborhood a month later, and was a regular visitor. When Christmas holidays rolled around, the Grangers, Harry and Sirius, Neville and his grandmother, and Luna and her father all went skiing in Switzerland for a week. Madam Longbottom wasn't interested in the slopes, but she did absolutely enjoy the simplified camera the Grangers loaned her, and she delighted in taking snaps of them as they skiied by. Mister Lovegood was especially prevalent in the pictures due to his enjoyment of the activity and robes and hat that he wore that made him look like the world's tallest ski elf.
Madam Longbottom chortled quietly to herself whenever those pictures were present, so Harry and Hermione made some of them into tree ornaments and gave them as gifts to the Longbottoms and the Lovegoods.
A week into the new year, Harry and Hermione were stunned by the appearance of Hanna and Susan and Daphne at their Italian school.
"Not that I'm not thrilled you're here, but why?" Hermione asked after exchanging joyous hugs with them.
Daphne and Hannah both turned to look at Susan.
"Auntie was none too pleased when you two left, so she started an investigation into why Diggle was acting like Snape." Susan explained, "Over the hols Auntie questioned him under veritaserum. Turned out Diggle was nothing like Snape at all, he was doing it on purpose because Dumbledore put him up to it. Apparently Dumbledore told him it was absolutely imperative that you two specifically be humiliated and demeaned."
"What?" Hermione frowned, "What reason could he possibly have for that?"
"What reason could he have to let a troll in?" Harry answered. "What reason could he have for letting Voldie in and baiting him and all the students with idiotically simple traps?"
Hermione relaxed then. "No, you're right. Nothing he's done makes any sense at all. He's apparently got some kind of agenda he isn't sharing with anyone. Has your aunt checked him for dementia?"
"Probably not, but it's a good idea." Susan grinned in return. "Even if he's all there, his actions paint him as a nutter, and that should give his supporters something to think about. I'll talk to Auntie about talking to the press."
Harry laughed at that. "Thanks for that."
He and Hermione showed the other girls around the school, including the library, and became frequent weekend visitors at each other's homes.
For his birthday, all three Grangers and Sirius took Harry to the Lumpinee stadium to watch some of the people he'd trained with in Thailand in professional fights. Harry absolutely loved it and yelled encouragement from the stands, not that he could be heard with everyone else doing the same.
For her birthday a few months later, her parents and Sirius got Hermione a five-star membership to the Library of Alexandria. Harry took her dancing in Rome. He thought he got the better part of that birthday gift, but nobody was complaining, not even Harry when he spent the next week with Hermione in the famous library, furiously scribbling notes while she quietly read things to him.
For Harry's sixteenth birthday, he got the best gift he could ever receive as Ed Granger walked his daughter down the aisle and stood by as they were married. All their friends from both schools turned up, and in many cases their parents as well. They reserved a seat for Spiff in the front row, and Mister Granger was very happy to defend it from people attempting to steal it.
The reception was grand and beautiful, and stayed a lovely party for almost two hours until it became clear that most of the students had enjoyed the champagne a little too much. On the up side, the elves snapping pics caught one of Neville and Luna snogging, so that was naturally framed and sent to both of them.
Harry and Hermione spent a month honeymooning at different locations around the world, and returned to school in September with smiles that nothing could shift.
When they finished school and graduated on to private projects, they enjoyed a relaxed and happy life with their friends and family. That's not to say there weren't times when they were forced to do things they didn't want to - but like Spiff said, that's another story.
The End.