Chapter 10 - 10 Return of the Marauders

A week after the first task brought forth three problems of different types, but unignorable all the same. The first was that there was a Christmas Ball and which Harry had to attend. He asked Hermione as the only girl of his age he knew well and after flustering for a few minutes with some excuses which ended in Harry promising to get her a dress, she accepted. She was going home for the Holidays but Harry begging on his knees and promising bribes of her choice of books for Christmas presents had successfully convinced her.

The second, and slightly larger problem was the details of the second task. The egg once opened had a recording of a shrieking sound. According to a few books Harry knew, the only species that sounded like that were banshees and mermaids above water. Once submerged, the clue became audible and Harry figured he would be given an hour to find something, or someone, taken and placed in the black lake. Hermione and Neville both blanched at the idea and said they didn't want to be hostages, even fake ones.

The third, and comparatively largest problem was the issue of the unidentified animagus hiding in the dorm. The youngest redhead brought out his rat and Harry saw it for the first time that year during the party. The exotic energy it contained was certainly that of a wizard. Harry hadn't noticed it before because it was such a weak wizard he thought it was one of his classmates of his year. If it was anything else, this problem would not rank higher than the other two, but Harry's father told him that Peter Pettigrew, the man who actually sold him out to Voldemort, was a rat animagus. The fact that the redhead's pet was missing a toe sealed the deal.

All three problems required a large amount of preparation. Harry would have to ask McGonagall for permission to head to Hogsmeade with Hermione as he heard there was an excellent tailor there but no one below third year was usually allowed to go.

As for the second task, Harry decided to continue the theme of muggle toys. He first considered submersible drones, but the drones wouldn't be able to do much even if they found a person. Harry decided to go for broke and just get a personal submersible vehicle for himself and outfit it with extras. However, likely to prevent cheating or exploration prior to the event, Harry figured some time before the second task, the black lake would be closed off. The task was in February, so just to be safe, Harry would have to acquire and outfit a sub, then transport it secretly to the black lake in a place it could be hidden, all before January.

The last problem was the most delicate. Harry discreetly borrowed an owl and sent a letter to his Gringotts account manager that Peter Pettigrew had been found alive and asked for arrangements to be made for the freeing of his godfather. He already received a reply instructing him to capture the rat in a week and to get Amelia Bones involved as Sirius was her betrothed.

And now Harry found himself in front of the star of Hufflepuff, Cedric Diggory, and asking, "Would you be able to get Susan Bones? There is a matter I need to speak with her about."

Cedric thought on it for a moment before answering back, "Um, sure. Oh yeah, have you figured out the clue yet?"

"Yeah, it's mermish. Open the egg under water. Basically someone we each care about will be taken as a fake hostage and thrown into the black lake and we'll have an hour to rescue them. My muggle toys don't do underwater so I'm still thinking up ideas."

Diggory was more than a little surprised Harry not only easily figured it out, but was willing to give the summary to him. He'd check it out himself of course, but having three full months to prepare certainly helped him.

A few minutes later Susan Bones, a short but cute redhead came out of the dorms. "You wanted to see me Potter?"

Harry nodded and said, "This is going to get very complicated so don't jump to conclusions before I'm finished. First, what do you know of your aunt's relationship with Sirius Black?"

She looked offended for more than just a moment but held her tongue about why Harry was asking such a personal question for now. "She doesn't speak of him much, but what happened really hurt her."

Harry nodded. "From what I've seen of the arrest records, Sirius literally shouted, "I killed Lily and James," to the sky which seemed to be enough for everyone to simply skip giving him a trial and he was sent directly to Azkaban."

Susan nodded. More than a few knew that Sirius never had a trial but there were over a dozen Aurors cited as witnesses to his confession so it didn't seem to matter back then.

Harry continued, "The reason he said that was because it was his idea to change the secret keeper from himself to Peter Pettigrew. Turns out Peter was the traitor, and if Sirius hadn't suggested the swap, my parents might still be alive."

Susan scowled at Harry because it was far more likely this was a cruel prank at her aunt than it was the truth.

Harry noticed this and said, "I wouldn't bring this up if I didn't have evidence. Pettigrew is alive, and I know where he is."

Her scowl lessened to a degree before she asked, "And what do you want me to do?"

"Contact your aunt and bring her here without raising alarms. Once here, I swear I will bring her directly to Pettigrew. I don't know if he will be armed or not but he won't be expecting to get caught."

There were of course several ways to contact Amelia Bones, the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement without going through her niece. But they were all about as subtle as calling a fire truck by pulling the fire alarm.

Susan asked a few more questions and Harry answered what he could. She said she would send her aunt a letter and bring her here in an hour.

Harry had chosen Saturday for this plan simply because the redhead with the pet rat usually spent it playing games with their other roommates and the rat seemed to be caged up during this time.

Harry stayed in the Great Hall with a book on runes laid out at the Gryffindor table while Susan waited at the other table. An hour passed and the doors of the great Hall opened to reveal a slender redheaded woman wearing an Auror's uniform flanked by two others wearing the same uniform.

Harry walked right up to her and introduced him, "Ms. Bones, thank you for coming, I'm Harry Potter."

The woman's passive face arched an eyebrow. The Daily Prophet articles recently were most confusing as they claimed Sirius Black had secretly escaped and was responsible for Harry's vanishing act a year prior while everyone thought he was dead. The post first task article also claimed it was Black's idea to use muggle toys to complete the task. Amelia was uncomfortable reading those articles as she knew they could not be true and also knew that Sirius would have enjoyed reading them himself. That last realization truly hurt.

The head of the DMLE said, "I do hope you understand the severity of your claim Mr. Potter. One way or another I will be taking someone to my holding cells today, and if a word of what my niece has written is untrue, I can promise that someone will be you."

Both Aurors flanking Madame Bones flinched at her scowl which wasn't even directly at them. Harry remained unphased which Ms. Bones noticed either meant he was a very good liar, or perhaps...

Harry said, "I understand Ms. Bones. Please follow me and I'll explain on the way."

Harry led the group up to the Gryffindor tower with Susan and a few others in tow, wondering what was going on.

Harry explained aloud for everyone along the way, "According to a letter I found, Peter Pettigrew was the Secret Keeper. It was Sirius's idea. A giant prank on You Know Who and the Death Eaters. If a Secret Keeper is killed, those who were given the secret become Secret Keepers themselves. Sirius knew he would die before giving up his friend's lives, so he told everyone he was the Secret Keeper so that he would be targeted, and if he actually did die, others who knew the secret and were more inclined to share it wouldn't be able to."

Harry didn't see it but Amelia's face frowned in realization and a little bit of shame. It was exactly something Sirius would do and if the secret was only given by parchment, no one would know who the actual Secret Keeper was.

One of the Auror's spoke up, "But he confessed."

Amelia answered back, "If it was Sirius's idea to use Peter, he would have felt responsible for their deaths regardless. Something that would have become known had he been given a trial."

The other Auror said, "But those muggles he killed."

Harry said, "If Peter survived, then the question of who actually killed those muggles is no longer certain."

By this time they had reached the Fat Lady's portrait and Harry said, "Balderdash." The Fat Lady looked questioningly at the guests but as they had Auror robes, she did not hesitate to open up.

Before the group could enter the common room, Harry said, "Wait here a moment."

He then walked up to the redhead playing Chess and said, "Would you mind bringing your rat in his cage? I saw something unusual about him. He might be special."

The redhead looked confused for a moment and said, "Scabbers? Special? Not that dingy old rat."

"How old exactly is that rat?"

The redhead looked pensive for a moment and answered back, "Ten years I think."

Harry smiled back and said, "Rats normally die of old age after two years. Can you please fetch him?"

The redhead looked more confused but said, "Alright," before heading off to his room.

Amelia and the others heard the conversation and Harry motioned for them to enter.

Harry said, "The only thing they found of Peter was a toe and according to the letter my mum wrote, Peter was an unregistered rat animagus. The rat he's bringing is missing a toe on its front paw and as you heard, it has been with his family for ten years."

A moment later the redhead brought the cage containing Scabbers and Amelia quickly took it from him. When she looked at the rat within, it looked back at her and backed into a corner.

She gave a cruel smile at this and directly reached into the cage and grabbed the rat. She let the cage fall with her other hand before grabbing her wand and tapped the rat.

A moment later the rat enlarged into a grotesque fat man. The cruel smile deepened as she practically sneered, "Hello Peter."

Before the man could even whimper, a Stunner was sent by another Auror.

Harry quickly thought of something and said, "If you take him back to the Ministry, Galleons will likely be used to delay his questioning before removing the source, just like they were to keep my godfather from a trial. Would it be possible to question him in an unused classroom before taking him away?"

Madame Bones considered it and was disappointed to admit Harry wasn't wrong. Although not compliant with regulations, she wasn't going to let Sirius stay in Azkaban for another moment if she could.

Another Auror said, "I did bring Veritaserum. A witness would be required but if we call McGonagall and Dumbledore, they'd fit the bill I'd think."

Amelia said, "I do believe Dumbledore has a Floo in his office. Using it to leave but doing a few things with the Headmaster as witness before we head out would not be unacceptable."

The Aurors left with Peter floated out with magic and the common room remained silent for only a moment before bursting into questions. Harry did the best he could to answer and promised the redhead he would replace his pet.

The events that followed were somewhat summarized by the Daily Prophet. "Posthumously Awarded Order of Merlin Third Class winner found alive as a Marked Death Eater!"

The testimony given under veritaserum proved he killed those thirteen muggles and framed Sirius Black who was never the secret keeper to begin with. He was the one who led Voldemort to Godric's Hollow that night and ran away when his master was vanquished.

Harry's concern about Pettigrew however proved accurate when the rat reportedly escaped custody with help from an unknown ȧssailant. Luckily the earlier Testimony was enough to warrant the trial of Sirius Black who was found innocent of all charges and admitted into St. Mungo's Wizard Hospital for care.

As if trying to make up for the blunder of imprisoning an innocent man and allowing the guilty party to go free, the Minister of Magic in his great wisdom thought to ȧssign a hundred Dementors to guard the school in the case of Pettigrew's return.

Harry was conflicted over that last part. His quest very clearly said to master the Patronus charm which he did a week into the first year, but would that have been needed if Harry hadn't captured Pettigrew? He thought the Quest wasn't a self fulfilling prophecy. Then again, perhaps he would have needed it anyways. He still hadn't defeated Voldemort and it was said the man could control the blasted things.

Of the Quest requirements he had for the year, mastering the Patronus charm and defeating the Basilisk were the only two things he had completed. He still didn't know anything about the Philosopher's stone he was supposed to protect. Sure, academically he knew it apparently could turn base metals into gold and produce an elixir that would heal any wound and stop a person from aging for a time. He also understood in all likelihood Voldemort wanted it and Harry had to stop him from getting it. But how? Harry had no idea where the thing was.

If he were Dumbledore or Nicolas Flamel, he'd give it to someone and ask them to hide it, obliviate that person of the knowledge they had of it, then when the time was needed he could ask them where they would hide it if they did have it. Using that method, Dumbledore could even have told Hagrid to hide it in the forbidden forest and obliviated the knowledge of doing so from Hagrid. There were too many perfectly undefeatable ways to protect something using magic and if Dumbledore hid it, there should be no way for anyone to find it right?

Of course, this was under the ȧssumption that Dumbledore was competent. Harry's stomach felt cold when he thought that his ȧssumption relied on this for some reason.

At the moment what he knew was that Quirrel wanted him dead and likely entered Harry in the Tournament. However Harry had no proof one way or another that Quirrel was connected to Voldemort or not. He knew someone opened the Chamber of Secrets and although Harry took care of the Basilisk, the culprit remained unknown. Harry kinda hoped that was Quirrel as well but he couldn't rush to judgement.

Worst case scenario, Harry would have to fight Voldemort, Quirrel, whoever released the Basilisk, an army of Dementors, all of Voldemort's Death Eaters, and Peter Pettigrew all at once. Oh, and if any of them got the Philosopher's stone, Voldemort might end up immortal.

And Harry had a ball to attend, a submarine to build, and training to do.

At this point Harry was tempted to ask a teacher for a Time Turner, but that would constitute ȧssisting a student with the Tournament so they couldn't do it.

Harry wondered at this point if faking his death, again, would be easier than Hell Mode. Harry already found the part of the settings that would turn things into ranked dungeons and Harry turned it off forever. Even if there were fabulous prizes at the end, Harry didn't want to have to go through something like this again, ever.

Harry decided for the final boss he would cheat as much as possible. Like stocking up on one use overpowered items and filling his inventory with them. Harry had to create them, but he was coming along. He was tempted to buy a gun or a pile of grenades, but unless he built them from scratch himself, the exotic energy he released would change the physics of them and likely prevent them from working or worse, would make them go off prematurely.

It was a little known fact that magic shields didn't protect against bullets. Most Magic shields were designed to block magic. There are in fact spells that repel or block arrows, but the force of a bullet was 20 to 70 times more condensed than a primitive arrow and Harry hadn't found a single spell he felt capable of stopping one. In order to have a magic proof gun though, Harry would have to rune inscribe the bullet, the shell, and every single individual part of the gun. He would also have to make and press his own ammo for that to work, he couldn't buy his own. Thanks to that, he couldn't simply whip a gun out of his inventory and pop Voldemort between the eyes. Well, he could, if he suppressed his own exotic energy to the level of a non-magical. But then obviously he couldn't use magic. Perhaps as a Plan 'M.'

Harry also had that treasure trove of nice things he looted from Salazar's study. Going over those tomes on Parsel Magic Runes made Harry feel like Christmas had come early. There was also a large amount of very nice Ritual magic and Blood Magic tomes. Harry was sure whoever controlled the Basilisk didn't know of that room or those books would have been taken long ago.

The problem oddly enough was that very few of those nice things, even the blood magic, were of any use to Harry at the moment. Since Harry's blood turned back into magic particles and faded away a few minutes after leaving his body, any blood magic Harry performed would not last longer than a few minutes. This did however provide some opportunities. Blood magic, even using your own, was illegal in Britain with very few exceptions. But if he didn't need the effect to last long, Harry could potentially perform blood magic and later there would be no evidence. This meant although Harry couldn't use any of the really powerful blood magics with long term effects, he could use short term effect ones like those that boost magic and such free of risk.

The Parsel runes were more useful for Harry's hobbies and he already incorporated them into his magic resistant rune scheme to place on electronics. It was thanks to that his helicopters could even fly in proximity to a dragon without getting fried as dragons practically emit a medium level spell's worth of exotic energy just from breathing. Harry really wanted a magic proof rune scheme but even months of Paused times turned up no way to create one with just what he had.

Harry however didn't let all his worries get him down, not today, for today was a very special day. It was the last class of the last day before the Winter Break and it was also Potions class with Snape.

Hermione fidgeted every so often at the beginning of class but luckily the potions professor's attention was on Harry so he missed the signs of nervousness. The professor had placed his cauldron on the fire a few minutes ago and was currently berating everyone except Draco for not being perfect, even making up things to accuse people of as he pleased.

"Potter, your ingredients look like they were sliced by a blind drunk." He pointed his wand at Harry's ingredients and cast an Incendio charm, burning them all to a crisp. "5 Points from Gryffindor for wasting ingredients. You'll receive a zero for the day."

Suddenly Snape heard a sound that was forbidden in his classroom. A snicker. He turned to face the sound but found not one, but several people seemingly trying to hold back their laughter. He sneered and said, "What could possibly be so amusing?"

One of the slightly braver Slytherins pointed at Snape's cauldron. Snape turned and saw that his cauldron bore several words that glowed in bright pink letters. "Snape treats me horribly, no wonder he doesn't have a girlfriend."

Snape quickly pointed his wand at the letters and cast a quick cancellation spell at the letters but it did nothing. He then used a cauldron cleaning spell but that too had no effect. The snickering got louder. He turned to Harry of course, but the boy didn't even look up. Harry was staring at his book through his perpetually broken glasses which he still wore to every one of Snape's classes. The fact that he still turned in good work when Snape didn't sabotage him remained one of the great mysteries of Hogwarts.

Snape of course played his part and deducted further points from Harry, his only evidence that Harry did it was his lack of a denial when asked. Of course everyone knew Harry didn't speak in that class so everyone saw it as a low blow.

After class, Harry got the message he was looking for.

*Ping*

[Quest Complete: Heir of the Marauders.

Reward: Animagus Perk]

Harry smiled inwardly. Quest rewards really were quite good. Neville had already turned to Hermione and asked, "How'd you do it Hermione?"

She looked abashed and said, "I used a solvent and chemical that stained his cauldron. The chemicals the stain was made up glowed pink in the presence of pewter at a certain temperature. It wasn't a magic reaction so he couldn't cancel it. And since it was an active chemical reaction, his cleaning spell wouldn't work unless he used it for a few minutes.

Harry put his arm around Hermione and said, "You pranked a teacher, I'm so proud of you."

She looked sideways and removed Harry's arm. "I did lose the bet."

The twins somehow heard about the prank and congratulated Hermione on it after questioning her thoroughly on how she did it. Seems they intended on starting up a joke shop and she'd given them a number of ideas. Oddly enough, Hermione really clicked with the pair as they were both brilliant and knew lots of muggle chemistry along with charms and potions along with their applications.

Hermione actually got the idea for the prank during one of Harry's lessons with her. His Scholar Rank progressed not just when teaching magic, but any subject. Harry abused this of course and brought Hermione's mundane studies up with every week and at the moment she was at freshman level high school in Chemistry, Algebra, Biology, and Physical Sciences like basic physics and geology. Harry was hoping that teaching her enough to get her accredited for a GED by the summer would be enough to get his Scholar Rank to 21. She could then start college level material and by the time she finished Hogwarts, she'd be able to get into any University and do whatever she wanted.

She was Harry's first student and he had already become quite invested in her future so he wanted her to be the best she could be.

After getting Hermione a dress on the first day of the Winter Break, Harry snuck out of Hogwarts and headed to Gringotts to get more British Pounds and eventually bought a personal sub about the size of a motorcycle and a large amount of extras.

Harry invited Hermione to carve the Magic Resistance runes into the submarine parts which she accepted as long as Harry answered her questions.

"I understand how the runes work together, but why does this prevent magic from destroying it? I mean we're using magic to make the runes aren't we?"

Harry considered the best way to translate how it worked and answered back, "Imagine that magic is like water and that electronics don't like water. This castle would be raining all day every day and us students are worse than sprinklers when we use magic.

Hermione nodded and Harry continued, "This rune scheme uses magic to hold back magic. It is basically like covering the electronics in a layer of water then freezing the water into ice. The ice surrounds the electronics, preventing more water from getting in, and the ice itself doesn't penetrate the electronics so they still work because they're not technically wet."

It was actually more complicated than that as the volume the runes prevented the magic from penetrating was not so easily described. However as long as Hermione practiced, she could use these rune schemes in the future herself to prevent electronics from frying around her. Harry already showed her how to suppress her magic like a muggle so she wouldn't be trapped in the magic world like other muggleborns.

The Yule Ball came and went without fuss. Hermione looked as stunning as a twelve year old in a dress could be and Harry looked nice in a tuxedo as well. Hermione enjoyed counting off each person she caught staring at Harry aloud just to mess with him and break the tension.

Before the last day of 2004 the parts of the sub had been inscribed and reassembled, The fully ȧssembled sub could actually be shrunken and re-enlarged without breaking, something he only was able to do with the stereos before. It allowed Harry to bring it to Hogwarts in his inventory and place it in the Black Lake.

The sub had a remote control which Harry used to sink it down and partially bury it.. He could remotely set it to come up when he needed it so he set a timer that would automatically bring it to the surface of the lake near the shore at 11:01am on February 24th, a minute after the first task was set to begin.