How Harry Turned Hogwarts Around

By: White Angel of Auralon

Fandom: harry potter

Summary: Wizard lack common sense. Hermione had declared that in their first year at Hogwarts. Well, even after the war, with Voldemort dead, wizards refused to change the things that were important to prevent events that led to the war in the first place to repeat themselves. Time for Harry to make sure, at the right time and place, to teach them.

Status: Completed

Fic type: Books/Harry Potter

Pairings/Main char.: Harry P.

Published: 2014-08-24

Last updated: 2014-09-21

Words count: 23,210

Chapters count: 5

Converted using www.FF2EBOOK.com
Date: 2020-09-15

1. Chapter 1

Hi everybody. I have to admit that I'm currently behind with writing the new chapters for my other stories, so right now I first need to get a bit farther with them before I can update them. So please don't be too disappointed if your favourite ones need a little longer for their update. This story will hopefully tide you over the wating time. And it's already complete, so I will update it each weekend from now on.

I don't own Harry Potter or any of the known characters, only this nice Little idea.

Idea: What if Harry decided that the Problems of his world won't be able to be solved in his present, even if Voldemort was defeated? What if there were so many deep problems that were caused by a certain attitude that was allowed to fester for ages that Harry decided some correction was needed? Another attempt at the time travelling idea.

How Harry Turned Hogwarts Around

Chapter One

Harry Potter had won a war. He had won it three years ago. Many people would think he would be happy, but there were too many things that had happened over the years that angered him, that made him sad and that were idiotic and could have been prevented with a bit of common sense. Something Hermione had once said wizards horribly lacked. Well, she was right, but sadly she seemed to have contracted some of that disease, if her going out with Ron was any indication. Really, she was a highly intelligent girl that loved to study, was ambitious and wanted to change the wizarding world to be more modern. Ron on the other hand was lazy, hated studying and only really showed his cleverness while playing chess or discussing Quidditch strategies. Don't get him wrong, they were his best friends and he wouldn't give them up after all they had been through together, but right now Harry was fed up with things.

People seemed to simply forget what the war had cost and more importantly why. Oh sure, those that had lost family members wanted to see those guilty at Azkaban. But the Ministry was barely cleaned of bad influences at all. Most bureaucrats had survived and were already at work securing their jobs by destroying evidence. No paper trail, no conviction. People like that had stepped aside and let Voldemort rule their country by just murdering the Minister of Magic. They had done what they were told and didn't even think that what they did was wrong. And the stupidity started at Hogwarts.

But Harry had a plan. Hermione would surely try talking him out of it, but Harry didn't want to have to deal with things in the now. It was too painful. Seeing how everything he had fought for was undone or ignored by those that were allowed to get away with crimes thanks to having money and being purebloods. Oh, nobody called it that openly, but it was what really happened. And he was sick keeping quiet, like they seemed to expect from him. Like Dumbledore hadn't harassed them after Voldemort's temporary fall in 1981. But not with him.

Problems were in the past and needed to be solved there. People needed to learn common sense and he would be the one to teach them, even if they didn't want to learn. The means to do so? A highly forbidden time turner from the Department of Mysteries. Really great where you can get with an infallible invisibility cloak when the whole personnel of the Ministry is away and celebrating that they got rid of Voldemort again. And many pretending to be equally happy to not get accused of being unmarked Death Eaters. The thing that made this time turner unique was that some crazy witch had experimented with the time sand and managed to let it take you back one year for each turn. Really, why the unspeakables had never used that thing was a mystery to him.

They could have changed so many bad things. But no, common sense problem again. They feared that there would be time paradoxes and rather than acting against evil, they decided to just watch. Bastards. Harry had packed all the essentials into a few magical trunks, the multi-compartment variant, that he had shrunk down to the size of matchboxes. He had books on which companies would be successful at what time, results of Quidditch games, the remainder of his family fortune after the goblins had robbed him blind, calling it reparation for destroying their entrance hall with the dragon, and some books about subjects that really interested him. Many not really acquired the legal way, but hey, who cared if he took them away from the Death Eater manors? Purebloods hoarded rare books with nearly forgotten magic to prevent that muggleborns could learn more about magic than them. Another part that Harry planned to change.

The things you needed to succeed with a plan like his were gold, well, he could multiply his within a few months to the size he needed and he wouldn't store it at Gringotts, the gnomes in Switzerland were much more reliable and they offered much better interest rates to you, stubbornness and a certain disregard for the rules. Well, Harry had got the last parts confirmed many times over the years. He also had a few sets of clothes in his backpack, the trunks had been difficult to carry at a time, so he had taken a page out of Hermione's book and enlarged it, both magical and muggle to better blend in as he also planned to get a small fortune in British Pounds to not have to rely on exchange rates that were crooked, so he had similar books about muggle sports and businesses. Harry would only regret not getting to see his godson grow up, but after finding out that Ginny was slipping him love potions to win him over, he decided that he really needed to get away.

Harry had left a letter with instructions of what to do with the few things he owned in case something happened to him. He didn't really think that it was necessary, as he planned to change time, but you never knew. Teddy was to inherit Grimmauld Place and Hermione and Ron got the vault at Gringotts where he had had to leave five hundred galleons per the vault agreement that each customer had to sign. Family vaults had to hold a minimum of five hundred galleons, any other vault had to have either a balance of fifty galleons half of a year or a monthly income of at least twenty galleons. Which even the worst-paid workers in Knockturn Alley got paid.

Finally Harry decided he had everything and took the time turner into his hands. He turned it around twenty times and then let it spin. He vanished from the spot to never be seen again in this time.

Albus Dumbledore looked at the young man who was applying for the position of Potions teacher. In fact he had been tempted to let Severus Snape take the job to make Voldemort believe that he had managed to place a spy into Dumbledore's stronghold Hogwarts, but the qualifications that the young man in front of him could show were really impressive. He had a certificate of mastery from the Ulysses Dagworth-Granger. The highest lauded Potions master of Europe. Together with a letter of recommendation from him, which was incredibly rare.

"Mr Peverell, I'm highly impressed with your qualifications. Your grades in your NEWTs combined with your Potions mastery indeed make you a very remarkable young man. How come that you decided to teach instead of taking up research into the subject like most masters do?" Dumbledore asked, "Especially as you're just twenty one?"

The young, raven-haired man smiled winningly. Dumbledore had never seen him, but he thought that there was a vague similarity with the Potter family, which wouldn't be too strange as he knew that the Potters were descended from Ignotus Peverell.

"Well, it's kind of like revenge against my old Potions teacher. I want to show him up by proving that with a completely different way of teaching I can by far surpass the numbers of students that gain an OWL or NEWT from my classes," Harold Peverell replied.

His green eyes sparkled with mirth.

"He always declared that I had no talent for Potions and was an arrogant dunderhead. So I simply had to prove the opposite and I even got my mastery way earlier than he did his. I'm the youngest Potions master in all of Europe in five centuries!" He stated proudly, "The only one that got his earlier was Nicolas Flamel, but he was simply a genius at Potions and Alchemy from the time he was a small child and got massive support from his family, so I can accept losing against him."

"Yes, I think Nicolas would be hard to surpass in his best areas. If you don't mind, how did your Potions teacher conduct his classes?" Dumbledore asked.

"He spelled the recipe at the board, told us that ingredients were in the cupboard and then walked around the classroom like a bat out of hell, belittling all those that didn't manage to produce perfect potions. Then he played favourites with those students from families he was friendly with and ignored if those students bullied others. I was one of the students he didn't like because he didn't like my father. Well, I still managed to get my NEWTs, even if it was complete self-study, and then I proceeded to gain my mastery. As you know, you can do self-study or apprentice under a master. With the current war going on, self-study was much safer and I only had to set up a date for a group of Potions masters to test me for my abilities and knowledge. Well, you've seen the results," Harold commented.

"Indeed. A mastery with distinction is exceptionally rare," Dumbledore agreed, "Well, Professor Slughorn will retire at the end of the school year. I would like to let you take over from next year on. If you'd like to I can arrange for you to meet with Professor Slughorn to see what teaching plans he used in his long career."

"That's nice, Professor Dumbledore. I'd like to see where I can take over parts, but mostly I'll work with my own curriculum. Thank you for giving me the job," Harold said.

"I doubt I could get an equally talented young man as you for the job, even if I continued looking, and this way I can concentrate on other issues. For example getting a stand-in Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher for the last three months of the school year," he sighed.

"What happened?" Harold asked concerned.

"He got into a raid of the Death Eaters in Diagon Alley when he was visiting Gringotts and was severely injured. He won't get out of hospital for two months and then he'll have to slowly regain his ability to walk normally thanks to getting a prostheses. But getting a teacher for that class on short notice is really hard," Dumbledore explained.

"Well, if it helps you, I could stand in for the three months. You know that I got an O in my NEWTs in Defence and while I don't have a mastery in the class yet, I am close to that level," Harold offered.

"Really? That would indeed be great. Thank you. I really want the children to be trained properly, as sadly outside of Hogwarts they'll need those abilities badly," Dumbledore said relieved.

"You're welcome. I don't like how the Death Eaters and Voldemort fight and involve innocents all the time. Helping the children be safer is the least I can do," Harold answered and noted the proud smile on Dumbledore's face.

This had been easier than he had thought. Changing his name to Harold Peverell was a simple ritual. As he was of Peverell heritage, and he hardly could say that his name was Harry Potter, he had looked up a way that would make others believe him without a doubt that he was Harold Peverell. It had been in a book he had taken from the Notts after the battle of Hogwarts. And now he had not only stolen Snape's position from him, preventing that the git helped Voldemort from inside Hogwarts to destroy the country, Harry really saw the way how Snape prevented that more students could become aurors and healers or Potions masters as sabotage in the name of Voldemort, he had also got into Dumbledore's good books. Now, as a teacher at Hogwarts, he could start changing all the things that, in the long run, would make all the difference.

"Please listen a moment," Dumbledore called out hitting his glass, "As you know, Professor Hambroke was injured during a visit to Diagon Alley in a Death Eater raid. I'm happy to tell you that the healers have announced that he's doing well in his recovery and will be able to leave the hospital after only two months instead of the four they had originally predicted. Now for the rest of the year I want you to greet Professor Peverell as the stand-in teacher for Defence Against the Dark Arts. From next year on he'll replace Professor Slughorn, who has voiced his desire to retire after over fifty years of teaching at Hogwarts."

The students gave Harold polite applause and he waved at them. He noticed that some girls were checking him out. Well, he was the youngest among the Professors and he was good-looking. Not that he would ever start a relationship with a student. That was unprofessional and would only cause trouble for him. He had already prepared his classroom to get the students in fighting form. After teaching the DA this would be easy.

Harry waited under a disillusionment charm for his sixth year class. There were only twelve students that had managed to get the E required for the course at NEWT level. Harry planned to soon found a duelling club modelled after the DA to give more students the chance to learn the basics of protecting themselves. In fact his classroom was full of nice nasty prank traps to make them all realise to be more vigilant. The first spell he used, once the class completely sat on their chairs, was a silencing charm, cast silently on each of them. The next one that activated on half of the class was a tickling hex. Then he fired stunners from behind them and felled five within three seconds. He was amused by them trying to scream, but not being able to do so, being silenced, or others trying to dodge, but being hindered by the tickling charm.

The next thing they all noticed was that they were stuck to their chairs, which made six more easy prey. Now only one boy was left who had managed to break the legs of his chair off and had ducked behind a table for cover. Sadly he couldn't even manage a shield charm silently. Finally Harry got him with a full-body bind spell. Harry undid the disillusionment charm and walked to the board while enervating the fallen students, but he didn't cancel the silencing charm.

"Well, that was pathetic. You're sixth-years and can't even defend against simple stunners when I silence you. Not to mention that you were overwhelmed by a tickling charm, which is first-year level, and couldn't undo it. You panicked, and, if this had happened in a Death Eater raid, we would be writing your epitaphs now. You're NEWT level students and the shield charm is third-year level at most. Normally I expect a second year to learn that spell well enough to hold up against one normal stunner. You should by now be able to not only hold a spell for ten strong spells, but also do it silently and instinctively. Next to that you didn't even check for any kinds of spells on parts of the room. I prepared all your chairs with sticking spells to make you even easier prey for me. Half of the chairs I also randomly trapped with tickling charms. Now, this is how we're going to do this.

"The goal for each of you by the end of the year is being able to produce the most common defensive spells well enough that you can cast them in a split second silently. I'll expect you to read up the theory behind the spells in your free time, with the war going on outside of Hogwarts, it's too important to get you up to date in the practical area. So this class will be one of your hardest and most taxing. You'll be driven to your limits, but if you persevere, I'll guarantee you that most normal Death Eaters outside of Voldemort's inner circle won't be a danger for you if they don't get the drop on you," Harry stated, which made the students perk up after some seemingly shrieking at hearing the name.

"One thing I can't stand is fearing to hear Voldemort's name. While doing that outside of Hogwarts would be stupid, as Death Eaters can locate you by saying the name, you only cripple yourself by getting into panic from just hearing the name. Panic kills, a name doesn't. And as long as the Ministry doesn't fall, he can't put a true taboo on his name that would break all kinds of wards except those anchored to strong runic arrays and old ones like here at Hogwarts. I won't ask you to follow my example to say the name, but stop with the ridiculous nonsense of calling him He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named or You-Know-Who," Harry declared.

One girl raised her hand and Harry ended the silencing charm on her.

"What should we call him then, Professor Peverell?" She asked.

"Good question, Miss?" Harry asked.

"Wilkins, sir," she answered.

"Well, Miss Wilkins, the man known today as Voldemort, which, by the way, means flight from death in French, and was created from an anagram of his true name, was born Tom Marvolo Riddle. From what I could find out about him, his mother was a daughter of the poor and nearly squibbed Gaunt family named Merope and a very attractive muggle aristocrat called Tom Riddle. He was a very gifted student at Hogwarts when he attended at the end of the thirties and the beginning of the forties. There's even an award for special services to the school in the trophy room. I don't know what he did to get it, but knowing who he became, I have doubts about the validity of the award," Harry explained.

"How do you know?" Miss Wilkins asked shocked.

"The Peverell family tapestry. The Gaunts are a bastard line from a disgraced son of the Peverells with a daughter of the Slytherin line. I'm the head of the Peverell family as there are no other adult members of the main line. And if a member of a family takes on another official name, it is shown on the tapestry. So I can assure you that Voldemort isn't some super pureblood wizard, just a very smart and dangerous halfblood wizard who knew how to use his charisma and power to get himself an army of brutes that don't mind committing crimes against humanity. He's a terrorist, not some heroic leader of the purebloods like his side likes to present their cause. They're murderers, rapists and thieves, nothing more and they deserve a lifetime in Azkaban. That's my opinion about them," Harry informed the students and then took off the rest of the silencing charms and dispelled the sticking charms.

"Okay, let's get down to business. Divide in pairs and one side of the room will shield, preferably silently, and the other will shoot stunners. I'll go around and correct. After five minutes change positions. After another five we'll go on to the next spell. You'll be in for a lot of practicing till the end of the year, but it'll pay off, that I can promise," Harry said and soon the students set to work.

Harry walked along the line of students shielding and gave hints how to better focus their shields and how to get the trick about silent casting. Then he corrected some with their stunners and after five minutes they switched. Thankfully they could at least produce somewhat acceptable stunning spells and shields, even for most only verbally.

The next charm Harry had them work on was the disarming spell, which two boys scoffed at before Harry disarmed them silently and told them that they would only get their wands back after performing twenty push-ups. They protested, were hit with stinging hexes to the rear and then gave in. After all, what could they do against their teacher when they didn't have their wands?

Harry quickly established his rule in the Defence classroom. He didn't have the time to work slowly with the students, so he needed to cram as many vital spells into their heads as possible. He won Professor Flitwick over for the duelling club and it was held every Tuesday evening in the Great Hall. Contrary to when Lockhart had tried holding one, Harry and Flitwick had set up twenty smaller duelling platforms with normal wards to prevent straying spells. The intention of the club was after all teaching spells and how to duel and not causing accidents.

"Now that you're all here, I'll tell you the rules of this club. No dark magic allowed. Anybody using it, gets one month of detention and loses a hundred house points, no discussion, and the wards around the platforms are set up to register it immediately and the deductions will happen automatically. So if you don't want to explain to your housemates why you lost them the house cup with your stupidity, you better heed that warning. A second use will get you suspended for a month, no exceptions either. And by the way, dark magic lets your brain rot. Just look at Bellatrix Lestrange, one of the leading Death Eaters. That witch is so screwed up in the head she should be kept in a closed ward," Harry commented.

Some students looked at him angrily, probably from Death Eater families, others looked sick ending like Bellatrix. Harry didn't bother to tell them other repercussions of dark magic use for now, there were enough examples.

"So for this club you'll need to be ingenious to defeat your opponents. Professor Flitwick and I will give you a demonstration of how a duel at professional level can look like. As many of you may know, Professor Flitwick has been a duelling champion before he started teaching at Hogwarts and he hasn't lost any of his wicked casting," Harry complimented the small man.

"Ah, thank you, Professor Peverell, but from what I saw in your training with the duelling dummies you're no slouch either. I'm really looking forward to this," Professor Flitwick chuckled.

Professor McGonagall, who was helping out as the referee, started the duel and the students were in awe at the speed and power their two teachers were showing in their duel. Spells flew from both sides of the platform, both trying to hit the other, but where Flitwick only moved within a certain radius of his starting position, Harry was using the whole platform as his playing field. He used any kind of spells from Transfiguration to unusual charms and defensive and offensive spells. After ten minutes they called it a draw, knowing that they didn't have the time to get the duel decided. The students still massively applauded them for the incredible demonstration. It was clear that their two teachers had won a lot more respect now.

They had to restore the duelling platform as both had used spells that had altered its original state. From freezing the ground to tearing parts off to transfigure, they had done all kinds of things to get the upper hand against their opponent.

After the demonstration they set up pairs of students by drawing lots. To avoid problems they had only the fifth to seventh-years tonight. The second to fourth-years would have their club meeting the next evening. You simply couldn't give a group of all years enough attention with just three teachers. Professor McGonagall observed the sixth-years, Harry had the fifth-years and Flitwick the seventh-years. They each had six platforms to work with and the club went a lot better than the one Harry remembered from his second year. The students worked concentrated and the threats given at the beginning were taken serious. After all, not only were the points and a possible suspension at stake, but nobody wanted to piss their teachers off after that demonstration.

And that was the first chapter. Next one coming up next Sunday.

2. Chapter 2

Hi everybody. As promised, here is the next chapter. Work on my other stories is progressing, but not at the point where I can update yet. Thanks to all those that left a Review to the first chapter. Over a hundred reviews for just one chapter. Awesome! Now I hope you like this new chapter as well. Enjoy.

How Harry Turned Hogwarts Around

Chapter 2

Harry, after reading the book about duties and rights of teachers at Hogwarts, started changing more little things. The first thing he arranged together with Hagrid was making the way from Hogsmeade Station to Hogwarts safer. If anybody wanted to attack the students, the time they spent on the thestral-pulled carriages was a major security risk. The next part was lighting the path down to the boats for the first-years. It was idiotic to have children that had no magical training and wouldn't even know the lumos charm walk down a dark, narrow and slippery path. And that with only Hagrid having a lantern. Not when you could easily avoid that problem with magic. Harry suggested that Hagrid installed a handrail so that the children could hold onto it in case the ground was wet on rainy days. With some lanterns every five metres the path was much more secure than before. Not to mention that Hagrid came up with the idea of installing a roof over the path as well on his own, inspired by Harry's idea of making the way safer and less unpleasant.

Then Harry got Professor Flitwick to help him charm the areas behind the doors into the castle. For the Entrance Hall they placed charms on the stones within the first four metres behind the door to dry shoes and summon any kind of mud into boxes that Mr Filch only needed to empty once a day. This way he saved a lot of work cleaning, which earned Harry the favour of the sour man. All other entrances got similar charms for two metres behind the doors. It lessened the tension between the students and the caretaker a lot.

The next part was that Harry got all the other teachers to let him deal with the punishments during detention. After telling them what he had in mind they all supported him. Harry had always thought that it was stupid to give students simple cleaning jobs. That was simply dull work and they didn't learn anything from it. Not to mention that it was a lot more effective to let the house elves deal with that. No, Harry invented the educational detention. For example, students that cursed others in the corridors as a prank or with malicious intent got to go through his drill course. It consisted of making them run laps around the Quidditch pitch while he asked a question that needed to be answered every minute. For a wrong answer the students got to run another lap. The detention was over once twenty questions were answered correctly. And the questions could be from any class and not restricted to the ones the student in detention took.

So if somebody for example didn't take Muggle Studies, but a question of that subject came up, well, bad luck. If they got the answer wrong, they had to run another lap on top. After Harry had put a group of fifth-year Slytherins and Gryffindors through that for an hour and the word of it spread, most students thought twice about hexing others for whatever reason. It also made many students take their studies more serious, as that was the only way to end those detentions. Laps around the Quidditch pitch may be okay for the Quidditch players, who normally ran more, if they were serious about winning the Quidditch cup or going professional, but normal students didn't have that stamina. A normal round around the pitch took about two to three minutes, so the minimum the students would run were seven laps. The Quidditch teams normally did ten to fifteen for warm up.

But even the Slytherin beaters Connolly and Avery were out of breath once they finally finished their detention with Professor Peverell. Their future Potions Professor already established his reputation as a strict sadist. Well, sadist to those that broke the rules badly. The drill course was only used for the harsher rule-breaking. Not having your homework done got you forced study sessions for a week. After all, the time you had after classes would normally be more than enough to get your homework done if you didn't leave it for the last moment and if you didn't waste it slacking. Each teacher took turns in overseeing those study detentions. They organised it that all those that got the study detentions had them at the same time. The only real requirement was that the teacher prevented that the student did anything that had nothing to do with his work. And in case that there simply were problems with the material, tutoring could be arranged, but normally that was spotted in class.

Next to forced study hours, Harry also asked if it wouldn't make sense to set up a few study rooms in the empty classrooms, because it was hard to concentrate on your homework in the loud common rooms and you couldn't even discuss things if you were in the library with Madam Pince always shushing the students doing their work there. The rooms would be equipped with the most common reference books used for homework in a year, so they would need seven of the rooms to cover all years. More specialised books could be read in the library, but it would make things a lot easier for the students that needed a bit of quiet to concentrate on their homework. The reference books could simply be copies of the original book in the library, as Madam Pince knew replication charms for them that would give them cheap copies that wouldn't have to be treated too carefully, which for many children was always difficult. Even if you didn't want to, it could happen that a page was stuck and you accidentally caused a tear.

The rooms were warded against magic use, so fights between houses could only escalate in physical force, but with Harry's drill course punishment it was a calculable risk. Mostly the students would simply study in peace. Anybody disturbing the rooms would be given detention. Not in the way of talking normally to your friends, but by discriminating against others, insulting students or attacking them. Playing around in there was also forbidden. For making sure the rules were followed, Harry found the perfect solution. The ghosts. The study rooms were open all day till a quarter to nine in the evening for the students up to third year, and till a quarter to ten for up to seventh year. This way no student would be caught outside their common rooms after curfew. Each ghost had agreed that it was a wonderful idea to set up the rooms and to spend some time each day in one.

They had their own schedule for who watched which room at which time, but with one of the ghosts there, they didn't need to have prefects do that job or one of the teachers that already had little time. And the ghosts were more than happy to help out.

Professor Dumbledore liked the idea that with the rooms set up for each year there would be more inter house unity. In fact especially the younger years quickly realised that all the prejudices were stupid and that a truce in the study rooms really was no big sacrifice. In fact many students used the opportunity to ask others that they knew were good at a subject some questions about parts they hadn't understood fully in class or where to find certain information. It was what Harry had hoped to happen. While older students were already caught in their ways, you could influence the younger ones. And by forcing them to be nice to use the rooms, you took away a lot of arguments about not wanting to spend time around this or that house.

The house elves were even nice enough to supply the students with cold and warm tea and cold water, as well as fresh fruits for the rooms. It made studying there even more attractive. With the ghosts supervising the rules were followed and slowly perception changed.

Harry was happy to see the results of the end-of year exams. He had already changed a lot of things at Hogwarts in the three months he had taught here and he would continue. While he knew that changing the future in major points wouldn't work, there was nothing to stop him from influencing small things. He couldn't walk up on Halloween 1981 and fight Voldemort himself. He knew that much. It wouldn't work out. But he could see to it that he advised all Order members to always have emergency portkeys on their person and to never leave their wands lying around. That bit could already save his younger self's parents if things went well.

He could also invent amulets that detected the presence of a dark mark in a person's arm. He had worked on them in the future with Malfoy as his guinea pig. So nice of the blond to sacrifice so many hours to support Harry's work. Not that he had had a choice, being stuck at Azkaban for two years for his involvement with Voldemort and Harry being the winner of the war. Harry wanted to know how the damned thing worked and how it sent messages. He also read up on the protean charm and the end result was an enchanted amulet that would softly vibrate on your skin if somebody was around that had a dark mark. The amulet was made from a special material that had soaked in a potion that Harry had created for just this use. Harry needed a week to make a batch of amulets, but they were a hit with the Ministry and the Order of the Phoenix. Harry had shown them to Dumbledore who had asked if he could have some for his Order.

While Harry wasn't a member yet, he was sure that Dumbledore would ask him sooner or later. And by doing small things that would cause waves, which in turn would cause more waves and changes, well, what was wrong about that? Harry's main plan for this time was changing so many little things that it would result in big changes. Seemingly making the walk to the boats safer wasn't important in the long run, but it would reduce opportunities for mocking those that were simply nervous, which reduced tensions before the sorting. The study rooms improved the educational level of a lot of students and reduced problems between the students of different houses. Perhaps nothing major, but every little bit helped here.

Showing bullies that they didn't get away with their behaviour at school would perhaps make them think twice about it, once they were out of school. And from next year on he would ensure that in case history repeated itself, with how Voldemort was reduced to a wraith for years, neither would little Harry be abused by the Dursleys, nor would Britain lose hundreds of students in Potions and therefore important jobs.

Harry grinned when he saw Sirius tear apart Peter's sleeve after his amulet had vibrated at the meeting of the Order. He had hoped it would happen. Now that bastard would face justice. This time he wouldn't be able to betray the Potters.

"Harold, I can't say how glad I am that you invented those amulets," Frank Longbottom said while looking sadly at Sirius, Remus and James, who took the revelation that their friend had become a Death Eater and had given away information to Voldemort extremely hard.

"Me too. At least those scumbags can't hide as easily anymore," Alice agreed fiercely.

The Potters and the Longbottoms had left Harry and Neville behind at Longbottom Manor where the old wards would protect the two Boys, who were currently watched by Frank's parents Augusta and Richard. This had been the first meeting of the Order since the start of the summer break and Harry had been invited after his amulets had given the Ministry such an edge in finally getting results in their persecution of Death Eaters. Now that they could easily detect if a dark mark was close by, they could follow up onto suspicions. They had caught Bellatrix Lestrange when she had used an invisibility cloak in Knockturn Alley. An auror team had felt the amulets, which were given out to all aurors, vibrate and had used wide-area stunners. Bellatrix had been taken by surprise and her shield had been too late.

Five spies at the Ministry had been rooted out already, among them Augustus Rookwood, whom Karkaroff had tattled about last time. And Harry didn't really do that much, he just invented the amulets in the future and then produced them in this time. Really useful. He had also set up a date to be tested for his Defence Mastery. He had simply done Potions first, as he had wanted to show up Snape in becoming the youngest Potions master in Europe in centuries and take that reputation away from him. He really couldn't stand the man. Even if he might have been on their side of the war, his actions hadn't made much of a difference to the better. In fact he had let most of his house follow the dark path and be bullies and bigots. And Harry had seen that some people in there could be different if they were only shown another path.

From what Harry had heard, Voldemort hadn't been happy about his ancestry being revealed. His reputation as the pureblood heir of Slytherin was a major part why he had so much support among the elite. Now that it was known that he was a halfblood with a muggle father, things were a bit harder for him. Some families refused financing more of his war, saying that he should have got better results by now and that they didn't like being lied to. Those were the ones that had wards too strong for Voldemort to bring down without weakening himself too much. Others simply said that they didn't have the money at the moment and it was common knowledge that the goblins had cut any loan business at the moment. So getting more that way wouldn't work.

It had slowed down Voldemort, but it wouldn't last for long. The one thing that would be achieved was that the Ministry wouldn't fall as easily as they could at least find the marked Death Eaters. But Voldemort would soon find out how the aurors were finding his followers and probably come up with a way to avoid the amulets' detection abilities. But the one thing Harry wanted to do is buy more time. The more Death Eaters they could throw into Azkaban, the better the fight went. On top of that Harry was collecting horcruxes and destroying them with fiendfire. He already had destroyed the diadem, the locket, which he stole from Grimmauld Place right under Walburga's nose, and he used an auror raid on Malfoy Manor to steal the diary. Three horcruxes gone. That left the cup in Bellatrix's vault and the ring in the Gaunt shack.

In his time Dumbledore had said that Voldemort wanted to make six horcruxes and accidentally made Harry one. Nagini had only become a horcrux after Voldemort had become a wraith to make the number of seven pieces of Voldemort's soul complete. Harry planned to get the ring over the summer break and he would have to see how to get the cup out of the vault. That was still the most difficult one to get. And he didn't plan on breaking in like last time. It was simply too much hassle.

His plans on gaining more gold were going well. His small changes here and there at Hogwarts hadn't influenced the results on sports at all. How would they? Even if some Quidditch players at Hogwarts got better training by doing his drill course, they wouldn't enter any league until in a few years. And he only needed perhaps three to have all the gold he needed. And his actions didn't influence the muggle world at all. So far he had already doubled his starting capital with bets on muggle football. Of course he didn't overdo it to not let people get suspicious. He had so far correctly predicted the results of two weekends and failed on two others with about half the matches.

Nobody who investigated would see anything wrong with it. They would chalk it off to luck. The really big bets would be made next year on the football World Cup matches. As it only came around every four years, there were more people interested in betting than normally. Harry planned to predict all matches correctly from the get go. And as he didn't really exist in the muggle world, the police, if they would be involved, wouldn't be able to find him at all. And if they did, there were always confundus charms. Just to make them think that nothing was wrong.

The wizarding world would be too stupid to find anything wrong once he started doing the same here. After all, officials would know if he cheated or used magic to influence players or referees. No, there was no necessity for that. As long as the general conditions around the matches stayed the same, the results would match what Harry knew from the books he brought back with him.

He had already taken over two businesses that were in danger of going bankrupt thanks to losing all the business from the people staying away from Diagon Alley. Harry had arranged meetings with the previous owners and managers to change the general problem. All you needed to do was add to your distribution ways. While owl-order service was known, it was too expensive for most people and couldn't be offered in massive dimensions as no company could afford an army of delivery owls. That was simply cost-inefficient. Harry had a solution for that part and he was going to establish the idea. He had already handed in his patent for the necessary utensils at the ministry and had got it confirmed. He was going to revolutionise another part of the ways things were done here.

Harry sat in the office of the owner and manager of Vancor Household Potions. The shop was located in a small side alley of Diagon as he couldn't afford the high rent in the main alley. So far that didn't matter as the families would make the small detour. But with everybody fearing Death Eater attacks, nearly nobody came to the shops in the side alleys anymore. Francis Vancor had founded the shop after Hogwarts. He had one employee that minded the shop while he brewed the basic household potions and sold them with a margin large enough to let him and his employee live from the return.

Harry knew that the shop had been given to Damon Nott for a pittance after the war. Francis hadn't been able to continue, his savings completely gone. Nott had used the shop as a place where he could cover his darker dealings. People didn't know that there were places outside of Knockturn Alley where dark witches and wizards got things, because they didn't want to see it. Nott and other 'acquitted' Death Eaters simply used that ignorance to their advantage. They could after all still buy potions there for acceptable prices and it saved many people brewing those potions themselves. If 'former' Death Eaters were seen there, people simply assumed that they were buying potions as well.

During the second war against Voldemort, businesses like that one were used to arrange meetings, to distribute not-so-harmless potions and dark artefacts. The aurors were already too thin-spread to completely cover Knockturn Alley. How would they keep an eye on all businesses that the Death Eaters owned?

"Alright, let's talk business. I know why you have trouble, but I have a solution. The main reason why you don't earn gold is that you don't get the customers into your shop. Well, the demand for potions at reasonable prices is still there, but people are too scared to come here, so we need to get the potions to them without it causing the prices to increase too much or for it to cut into the profit margin," Harry pointed out.

"But how could we do that, Mr Peverell? I had already thought about offering owl order service, but I can't afford as many owls as would be needed," Mr Vancor admitted.

"That's where I come in, Mr Vancor. I have developed a way to take care of all delivery problems. I already patented the idea, so nobody will be able to steal the way for themselves," Harry said and pulled a box out of his bag, "This is a delivery box. It will be keyed to a master box that will be set up in a secret place. We will set up a laboratory where you and some other proficient potions brewers will prepare the potions that the clients will be able to order. We will expand the selection of potions and not only will we be able to deliver premade potions, but also others on special demand. That's unique and no other business can offer that. I have some very valuable recipes that are known only to me right now as I have developed them myself."

Not completely true, he had got any kind of Potions books and magazines he could find in his time and brought them with him. For example it would be Harold Peverell that invented the wolfsbane potion this time around and not Damocles Belby. But Harry planned to try and hire the man as he clearly was good at brewing and developing potions.

"The delivery service will be separate from this business. It will be an independent company under my ownership. All the businesses that I own majority shares in will get special rights in using the services. Others can also use it as it will be much cheaper than owl delivery, but I'll still make profit with that. Customers will be able to buy the recipient boxes or loan them for an annual fee. The annual fee will be less than what other companies charge for owl delivery of course. As far as I could find out, long-distance delivery costs three sickles. Short distance costs one sickle. Each, of course, per owl used. So, for example, if a student at Hogwarts ordered a book from Flourish and Blott's, he would have to pay three sickles on top of the price of the book," Harry explained, "How often would you say people bought potions a month?"

"I think the regular customers came two or three times, depending on what they needed. Mothers usually got some potions at least once every month for standard problems like cuts and bruises, child appropriate potions against colds and so on. People with sicknesses would come every week to get their prescribed potions. After all Slug & Jiggers charges about double to triple than what I ask for," Mr Vancor said.

"So, if we changed the distribution to delivery boxes completely, we would have a cost equivalent of at least ten sickles per month on average if we did it by owl post. I'll offer the loan of the delivery boxes at five sickles per month, meaning three galleons and nine sickles all year. I'll give a discount for the first two years making it an even three galleons, if they signs a contract for the whole two years in advance. Companies that belong to me will get a master box at their production site to send the finished goods off quicker. Companies not in my ownership will be able to send their products from central points all over the country, one of them of course in Diagon Alley and one in Hogsmeade, but the others in other places.

"For my companies sending the products won't cost anything, for others I'll charge for the service of course. Probably in a few years, when the idea is completely established, more people will simply buy their boxes as the cost for loaning will be higher in the end than buying one. Owls can take care of letters like before, but larger things will be dealt with by my company."

Mr Vancor was impressed by the idea. It was easy and if the man he had sold his business to really could do all of this, it would indeed be a revolution in the wizarding world.

"How would we manage to produce the potions in as large numbers as you suggest? Many ingredients are common and can be stored easily, but others are more difficult and if we expand the catalogue of potions we offer, that could become a problem," Mr Vancor asked.

"Well, that problem is already taken care of. Next to Vancor Household Potions I also bought Stebbins Ingredients Suppliers. I intend to make the two cooperate closely to maximise overall profit. Now I want a complete list of potions you think you can brew on a regular base and how many doses you can produce of them each week. I want to set up a catalogue for this company by the end of the month. The advertisements for the boxes are going to be in tomorrow's Daily Prophet and I think we can start as soon as we have the list ready," Harry said.

"I'll have it ready by then, Mr Peverell, and thank you. You've really given me new hope that I can continue earning my money by doing something I love doing," Mr Vancor said.

"You're welcome, Mr Vancor. I'll send you an owl with a date for the next meeting once I have talked with Stebbins about the cooperation. Which reminds me, I have to go now as the meeting with him is in an hour and I would like to eat something before that," Harry said.

"Of course, goodbye, Mr Peverell," Mr Vancor said a lot happier than at the beginning of the meeting.

The meeting with Mr Stebbins went similarly to the one with Mr Vancor. Now Harry had the perfect starting point to set up a very profitable business surrounding potions. He would have to set up several security precautions, but that wouldn't be too difficult. The two businesses were a perfect starting point to get enough gold to block any kind of stupid legislation that the purebloods could come up with. From his experience and research about the events after the first fall of Voldemort, he would have about two years before people would turn completely stupid again. Thankfully, as he was the one who had invented the amulets that enabled the Ministry to strike back against Voldemort, he had some influence over things. He only had suggested to Barty Crouch, the current head of the DMLE, that they should use the chance that catching the Death Eaters offered to pump them for names of others.

Crouch had immediately agreed, he already had martial law rights, so he could order that part, and with each success he had in capturing more Death Eaters, he was closer to being perfectly positioned once Bagnold retired from the Minister spot. It had the nice side effect that he now questioned every criminal, slightly abusing the rights he had, but hey, if it kept innocents out of Azkaban, who cared?

Harry's last bigger purchase for now was a storage hall in an old, small, abandoned muggle industrial sector. The town it was part of had not been able to keep the businesses there when more and more people moved away, closer to the bigger cities where more work could be found. Companies had either gone bankrupt or had moved their premises. Now Harry owned a large storage hall and he intended to make it the centre of his new delivery service. He would produce the recipient boxes here and have the collection points transfer their orders here to have them delivered to the respective clients. It was fairly simple if you thought about it. It was basically the muggle postal system made possible with magic.

Harry's boxes were made of special wood, which he had prepared with a self-invented potion to be especially receptacle for runic magic. He had learned so much about runes after using the time he spent hiding away from crazy fangirls after the war. The books he took from the pureblood families gave him so much useful knowledge and Runes were essential for him to know. He really regretted having decided to follow Ron into Divination. But he wouldn't complain now, he would simply do what he could. And that was making changes here and there that wouldn't by themselves change history. But in combination they would, which was the great thing. The laws of magic prevented that any wizard or witch that managed to go to a time not their own could change things too much. With a normal time-turner that was limited to eight hours at a time at most there was little damage that could be done; if you didn't kill yourself that was.

So for example you couldn't go and kill a dark lord by marching up to him and shoot him with a gun. Direct influencing of persons also didn't work out too well, magic would find ways to undo your changes somehow. But this didn't fall into that category. He was just setting up a business. And destroying horcruxes also didn't matter as they weren't alive. They were just objects and destroying objects didn't influence the time stream directly. Oh, it would matter in the end, very much so, but besides Voldemort nobody knew about them, so nobody would react to their loss and it wouldn't change the timeline.

Harry knew that even if he could get rid of the worst pureblood fanatics, if the Death Eaters were convicted properly this time around that was, muggleborns would still have trouble finding proper jobs in the wizarding world. This was why he would hire some for his business. They could easily blend in with the locals if they needed to go into town for some reasons. To not make the muggles suspect anything strange going on, Harry planned to settle another business here, this one looking purely muggle. He would only have to make it look as if he produced high quality furniture. He would have lorries transport them to furniture stores. How they were produced didn't need to be known. Just the outside appearance had to be right.

And many muggleborns returned to the muggle world because they couldn't find work in the magical world. Why not combine both? Harry could pay them in either galleons or pounds, depending on preference. And it would undermine the prejudices a lot. After all, who would care about them, if the muggleborns had options outside of the normal businesses in the wizarding world? The only thing that mattered for products that he wanted to sell in the muggle world was that they weren't magical in any way. They could be created with magic helping though. For example potions making furniture sturdier or giving the wood a special shine? He could chalk it up to developments in chemistry.

And that was chapter two. Till next time.

3. Chapter 3

And the next chapter is up. Happy reading.

Harry had already got contracts for box loans with fifty two households. He had helped out making the boxes in the beginning, teaching his new employees how it was done. Each and every employee had had to sign a binding magical contract to not give up any knowledge of the business who wasn't bound by a similar contract. This would protect his insider knowledge and prevent that anybody would try to usurp him. The Ministry for example would be tempted once they didn't have to deal with Voldemort anymore. Thankfully everybody believed Harry to be a pureblood. He never told anybody his blood status, why should he? So they wouldn't go against him simply because he was of 'lower' status than them.

Not to mention that the students would have told their parents by now that he was bloody scary when he was angry. The students would be arriving within the next ten minutes. Word had been passed on that the train had arrived in Hogsmeade and that the students were now taken up to the school by the carriages. And Harry half wished that some Death Eaters would be stupid enough to attack them. The new wards on the carriages would be a nasty surprise for them. Not to mention that he had also placed the same spells that were on the amulets on them. There was a contingent of aurors waiting at the gates to check the students in any of the carriages for the dark mark on their arms if they glowed red. There wouldn't be any warning to the students inside the carriage and Dumbledore had no idea what Harry had done.

The aurors were just there for additional protection along the way as far as Dumbledore knew. They were stationed along the route that the carriages took. The great part in this plan was that the glowing would only start once a carriage passed the first checkpoint, which was after a minute. So those still at the station wouldn't find out about this new feature until it was too late for them. While Dumbledore may not think that those children were lost, Harry thought differently. And he wouldn't risk the majority of the students, just to save those that had murdered from their fate. And to qualify for the dark mark you had to kill an innocent. That was the initiation ceremony. The way you did it was up to you. Draco Malfoy for example had used poison that he poured down his victim's throat.

No, to get this under control you needed to take out the opposition permanently, and if sending them all to the dementors was the way the ministry wanted to do things, then so be it. At least Harry had managed to convince Crouch that the Department of Mysteries should look into finding some kind of ward to keep the dementors inside Azkaban except for when the head of the DMLE took a limited number to escort a prisoner to his trial. While it wouldn't show results quickly, at least it was put into motion. And nearly everybody feared dementors, so the additional security that they couldn't leave Azkaban without the DMLE head would reassure the normal witches and wizards.

Harry wondered how many students had gone over to Voldemort. How many out of fear and how many because of the brainwashing of their families? For now, he could only try to make more of the students realise what they would lose if they were stupid enough to join the Death Eaters. The head auror would announce the results of the checks after the sorting. Many would by then have realised that some of their classmates were missing and speculate where they were. Crouch had already passed a decree that anybody found with the dark mark on his or her arm would be taken in for questioning under veritaserum immediately to find out motivations and other Death Eaters.

Harry pondered how Hagrid would manage the journey in the newly designed boats. Harry had always thought that while going to the castle by boat gave an incredible first view of Hogwarts in the dark, sitting upon the cliff, if it rained, the children would be soaking wet and cold and even more stressed out for their sorting. Not to mention that the chance of some falling into the lake rose. So he had asked McGonagall if she could transfigure the boats to have roofs now. The suggestion had been taken up well, as many teachers could see the advantage in having boats with roofs on them. Professors Flitwick and Cypher, the ones best at Charms and Runes, had then added wards and charms to prevent the boats from falling over and to keep rain and wind out of the boats if the weather was horrible.

While the small boats that allowed up to four children to sit in them were not suited to be transfigured, it was easy to create bigger ones that sat ten children. The boats were kept a simple brown with the mascots of the four houses sitting on the four corners of the roof, showing that they were Hogwarts boats. It was an idea that the other teachers had thought of and made reality and Harry in the end had only needed to give the initial suggestion of giving them roofs.

Again an example how nobody had thought of the obvious. Harry had grinned when Madam Pomfrey had added the wish to have a charm on the boats that would prevent that any student could get out of them before they reached the harbour. She was annoyed having to deal with sick children during the first week, just because they had either been too excited about going to Hogwarts to fall out of the boats, or had been pushed into the water. No matter what, a simple suggestion had solved another small problem of common sense.

Harry was a little surprised to find Bill Weasley among the first years waiting to be sorted. Wow, it was hard getting the idea of the grown-up man, who had been a great curse-breaker, in context with the curious-looking red-haired boy. Bill had to wait for a while, as he was the last one being called and he ended, like Harry knew it would happen, in Gryffindor. He seemed really happy about that. Just when Dumbledore had stood up to give the first part of his normally short welcome speeches before the feast, the doors opened and the head auror entered with another female auror by her side. Harry realised with a start that the head auror was a younger Amelia Bones.

"Professor Dumbledore, I know that the students are waiting for the feast to begin, but may I have five minutes of your time before that?" Madam Bones asked.

"Certainly, Madam Bones," Dumbledore said pleasantly, "Did you find something during the probity probes?"

"That too, but I'll simply give an overview of everything to make a few things clear," Madam Bones said and took a place in front of the head table, "Good evening, everybody, my name is Amelia Bones and I'm the head of the Auror Office at the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Tonight, to make sure that the carriages and the boats reached the school safely, I had a contingent of aurors placed along the route from Hogsmeade to Hogwarts. With the danger of Death Eaters attacking anywhere, we needed to make sure that the students of Hogwarts were safe."

Many whispered hearing that. Some of the older students looked around, noticing that some of their classmates were absent.

"Some of you might have noticed that some students are absent. That's the reason why I'm going to speak to you now. Not only have we looked out for dark objects and forbidden potions, we also looked out for marked Death Eaters," This caused some outcries. A small noise spell got the students silent again. "Some of you may know that the Ministry has found a method to detect the presence of somebody with a dark mark. We used it tonight to root out those students among you that bear the mark of the terrorist Lord Voldemort." Some students shuddered at the name, but Harry had made sure to cure them of the shrieking last year. "The guilty ones have already been arrested and are in holding cells at the Ministry of Magic, waiting to be interrogated under veritaserum according to martial law decree concerning found Death Eaters. The students will be questioned about their motives for joining a terrorist association and the crimes committed in the name of their dogma.

"Be assured that we won't let anybody who murdered, get away with the slap on the hand. I'm telling you this now to avoid rumours spreading, twisting the truth and to warn anybody that thinks the Death Eaters have the right ideas that joining them will only have one result, prison time at Azkaban. Any dark objects and forbidden potions have been confiscated as well and the owners will be contacted and questioned if they haven't already been arrested. That was all I had to say, please enjoy your feast now. Headmaster, thank you for the time to speak," Madam Bones said and then left the Great Hall under the shocked eyes of the teachers except for Harry.

It was clear that they were going over the faces in each house and the many empty seats spoke a clear language how many had fallen into the darkness. Dumbledore just opened the feast. He clearly needed to collect himself before speaking to the students. Perhaps this would give him the needed wake-up call. And nobody could really blame Harry for cooperating with the Ministry.

Harry stood in front of the first-year Ravenclaws and Slytherins. Harry had insisted that he wouldn't put the two most volatile houses together in a class where accidents could happen too easily. Or be caused intentionally. Of all the houses, the Ravenclaws got along with the Slytherins best, as they normally could ignore the idiot ones, and the ambitious ones that wanted good grades to reach their goals were okay in their books.

"Welcome to your first Potions lesson. I'm Professor Peverell and you're here to learn the amazing art of brewing potions. I know that some of you have had a little introduction in brewing and ingredient preparation from your parents, but we'll go over the basics again to make sure that everybody starts at the same level. One thing I want to make very clear from the start. Anybody who messes around in this class and causes accidents thanks to that is going to be in detention on my drill course. I'm known as the most sadistic teacher to all the upper years and those who want to find out the reason why that is the case, will have to ask them," the little speech had the desired effect of making them look worried about messing around.

"Now, today we'll work on a very easy potion, one that most won't call a true potion, but with this one we can practice the preparation techniques and stirring rules very well. Today we're going to make specialised lemon drops," Harry announced to the shock of the class, "Yes, you can use brewing skills to make sweets if you're good enough and know what to do," he chuckled.

He pointed at the ingredients he had spread out on the teacher's desk. Behind the desk was a screen which Harry tapped with his wand. Now it showed the image of the ingredients on the table double the size of the real thing.

"These ingredients are very commonly used in potions. Your recipes will often tell you to use a certain technique to prepare them. Slicing, dicing, powdering, cutting something open and a few others. Then there are simmering, boiling and different colours of the potion, after a certain stage is finished, to be considered. Potions is a class where you'll need to learn a lot of basics if you want to ever understand this class. And you can only be good if you understand why you use an ingredient in a potion. A very good start is looking up the properties of ingredients, for example in One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi. I personally have found writing cards like I would a cheat slip to work out perfectly. On a cheat slip you need to concentrate on the important basic Information, because it can't be too big, or a teacher will find it.

"So, if you want to adopt the method, feel free, just don't let me catch you using cheat slips in exams. If you have a card box and look up information during normal classes, I don't mind though. You're here to learn how Potions work and how to brew them. If it helps you to understand the material better, you can use whatever method you like, just as long as you don't endanger yourself and others. Let me show you a simple mistake with a potion that will come up in a few lessons time," Harry said and brought a cauldron from the back, "This is a properly brewed boil cure potion up to the point where you have to add porcupine quills."

Harry placed the potion in front of the teacher's desk and placed a shield charm around the cauldron. He waited until the potion was boiling and then threw the porcupine quill into it. The colour of the potion changed immediately and it shook a little before exploding and melting the cauldron to the shock of the students.

"Lesson number one: Always heed the warnings in your textbook, they are there for good reasons. Porcupine quills react extremely violent if you don't take your potion from the heat and wait a little before you add them. You saw the result. The consequences of making that mistake will only be burns in this case, as the potion and the ingredients have no chance of ever going poisonous, which is a reason why it is a first year potion. Still, getting the hot potion all over you hurts, and we don't want any accidents here if we can avoid them. So please concentrate on your work here," Harry said sternly and all students nodded after that very intimidating demonstration.

After that Harry showed them how to properly prepare different ingredients and then let them practice for the rest of the first period of class, walking around, giving tips and correcting where they did things the wrong way. The second period he let them brew sour lemon drops. He planned to gift some of them to the headmaster as a joke. The others the children could keep for themselves. Especially first-years liked their sweets. And if they copied down the recipe and made more later on, who was he to discourage practice as long as they went to the Potions classroom and asked him to use it? At the end of the class he was sure that they had got his message and would not fool around in his class.

Potions classes for the students turned into the most feared, but also a well-liked class. All students knew that fooling around in Professor Peverell's class was idiotic and would earn you detentions from hell. But everybody was also in agreement that he was a really good teacher and explained the class really well. The older students said that he was a lot better as a teacher than Professor Slughorn had been and explained more things. While his homework rivalled the detentions from hell in difficulty, he always gave them two weeks to prepare proper essays. His standards were high, but if you simply did your work on time, you had nothing to really fear. And if you paid attention in his class, you normally had about half of the information you needed for your essays ready. And, contrary to other teachers, he had also given them a lecture on how he wanted the essays he set up to look like.

He didn't truly care how long they were as long as they held all the relevant information, were understandable and didn't go more than five centimetres over the set maximum length. At least in case of the first and second-years. The older students were required to keep to the maximum length. Anything beyond that length, written in normal writing and not miniature, would be ignored. It upset some Ravenclaws, but honestly, who wanted to read countless overly long essays? Another change in how Potions classes were run, was that Professor Peverell offered hours where students could use the classroom to practice their brewing under his watch. He wouldn't really tell them if they did it right or wrong, but he would stop catastrophic mistakes.

Harry stood in front of the prefects of all houses, all three years. He had watched how they did their jobs and he had to say that he wasn't impressed with them. Not only were the first-years still getting lost all the time, there were a number of them that abused their authority. So Harry had asked Dumbledore to be allowed to show the prefects why they should take their duties serious.

"Alright, I think you don't know why you're here, so I'll be nice to tell you. You have been given prefect status, including several privileges, but also duties, because your heads of house thought that you were up to the task. Sadly I've seen many of you ignoring the jobs you should be doing. Prefect duties don't just include patrols in the evenings to help the teachers catch students out after curfew, you are also meant to be good examples of how a student should behave. Mr Jackson for example," Harry looked at the startled Ravenclaw sixth-year prefect, "I've seen you hogging lots of books in the library and refusing to let others share them because supposedly you needed them for your homework. Even you, as a dedicated Ravenclaw, can't read more than one book at a time. Depriving others of material for homework isn't something a student in general, but especially a prefect should do. If you need a special passage of a book, make a copy with the copying charm. For up to five pages you won't have trouble with the library books doing that. Next example is Mr Valoris," He looked at the worried looking fifth-year Gryffindor prefect.

"Especially in the first month here at Hogwarts first-years tend to get lost. When you come across them, even if you're not on patrol duty and with your friends, your job is to at least give them directions to the place where they want to go. Normally you should show them the way. And Miss Thanes, if I ever again see you refusing to help a student from another house than Slytherin again, you'll lose your badge," Harry addressed the seventh-year Slytherin prefect sternly, who shrank under his glare.

"Now, as you're all more or less guilty of neglecting your duties, you all earned one of my special detentions," Harry said grinning evilly to the groans of the prefects, "I've also been creative over the summer break and come up with some more variants of my drills. Just running is boring all the time, so I've set up a special room with Professor Dumbledore's permission. Follow me."

Harry walked down a corridor and then opened a door on the right side at the end of said corridor.

"This has once been a training room for fencing when Hogwarts still taught that subject. I've remodelled it to be closer to a modern gym." All around the room were different contraptions similar to muggle training machines, but these ones operated on magic or would be moved with simple muscle power. "For the next hour you'll work out on six of these machines. Each one for ten minutes while you wear these special masks," He held out blank white masks that would cover the whole face, "You'll be shown questions that you have to answer. The masks are charmed to not let the others hear you answering. You have to answer at least twenty questions correctly to end the detention at the end of the hour. If you don't, well, you'll stay until you do answer twenty questions. The masks are charmed to fall off after one hour is gone if the twenty questions are answered correctly. If not, they'll stick to your face until I either remove them, or the question quota is fulfilled. After all, a prefect has to at least be above average in his studies to be a good role model for the younger students," Harry said cheerily.

The prefects groaned. They knew that there was no getting out of this. Harry knew that they would think twice not taking their job serious in the future. Especially once the soreness from this training would set in.

To Harry's entertainment the gym found much appreciation with the Quidditch teams and some muggleborns that liked the idea of being in shape and training their bodies like they had seen athletes in the muggle world do. The effect on the other gender's appreciation of their looks was merely a bonus. Well, it would be once they got more training in. Right now there was only some interest in the fact that they took the time to work on their bodies. On the Voldemort front there was a bit of progress, but not enough to really win the war. Right now it was more like a stalemate of both sides. The Ministry could prevent the total take-over, but they couldn't arrest all the Death Eaters. And from what Dumbledore had told the Order, Voldemort was working on finding a way to hide his Death Eaters better again.

So right now any big operations were on hold. There was no doubt that Voldemort would act soon, but how and where was anybody's guess. The Potters and the Longbottoms were hidden under the Fidelius charm with Dumbledore as their secret keeper. While Harry doubted the wisdom in that, at least Dumbledore wouldn't want to deliver the two families to Voldemort. He didn't know about the incidents of the future like Harry after all. Harry meanwhile had plans to use the next Hogsmeade weekend to get the ring from the Gaunt shack. He had only done a bit of reconnaissance so far, as this was the one horcrux he knew nothing about how Dumbledore had got it in the future.

He was using his free time to look up the results of his diagnostic spells about the wards around the shack. While he could easily get rid of anything that was set up using parseltongue, he had kept that ability even after the soul piece in his scar had been destroyed, there were some others and Harry wasn't a professional curse breaker. He knew a bit about wards and runes, but he wasn't a professional in that area. He was still studying more as he found the subject fascinating. He had found out that he liked learning now that it wasn't necessary to survive and he could simply follow whatever caught his fancy.

He would be well-prepared to go after the ring. He also would make sure to have precautions taken against any kind of compulsions on the ring to avoid Dumbledore's fate. And once he had the ring, it would be back to hitting the books as his date for his Defence Mastery test was going to be in November.

And another chapter done. Till next week.

4. Chapter 4

And here is chapter four. Enjoy.

Harry stared down the group of Slytherin seventh-years that had tried to curse two second-years. The two Hufflepuffs were muggleborns and the Slytherins had decided that they could get away with their plan. Sadly Harry had rescued the Marauder's Map from Filch's office and kept it activated on his desk to keep an eye out for trouble. Thanks to his knowledge of the secret passages of the castle, he was at the scene only half a minute after the Slytherins had fired the first curse. He could see the trembling of the Slytherins and the relief of the Hufflepuffs.

"I think you were aptly warned against doing something as stupid as this," Harry addressed the Slytherins coldly while holding all their wands in his hands.

He looked at the first one.

"Let's see what kind of spells you thought appropriate to use on fellow students," Harry conversationally mentioned and cast priori incantatem on the wand, "A tripping hex, nasty, especially when used with odds of seven against two from seventh years against second years. Thankfully, for you that is, Wispers, that'll only earn you four weeks of detention with me. The headmaster won't expel you over a tripping hex, even if the circumstances are nothing but revolting."

Fergus Wispers shivered at the thought of having to go through four weeks of torture under Professor Peverell.

Harry repeated the process six more times. Four of the others had only used mean spells, but ones that could be chalked off in the prank spells department, nothing that left permanent damage. They also earned themselves four weeks of detention. The last two were nastier.

"Now what do we have here? A blood boiling curse, Donovan. That curse is dark and you'll get expelled for it, if I have anything to say about it," Harry promised making the boy, whom he had silenced like the others and bound in ropes when he had arrived, shudder at the cold green eyes boring into him, "And your sulphite acid curse also will lead to the same, Macnair. I can see that it thankfully only hit the wall, you could have killed them, had it hit. These spells aren't anything that should be used against another being. I guess I should call some other teachers to get you secured for the DMLE."

Harry sent his stag patronus off to call the headmaster and some other teachers. The two second-years looked at him in awe.

"Wow, what was that spell?" Danielle Waterflower asked.

"That's the patronus charm. It's normally used to repel dementors and lethifolds. In fact the charm is the only thing that can protect you against a dementor. Next to that it can also be used to send short messages," Harry explained.

"When will we learn that?" Eric Brackwood asked.

"It's part of the NEWT curriculum in Defence Against the Dark Arts. But if you want, you can practice on your own. Just don't overdo it and have chocolate ready to help you regain energy that you will use up. The incantation is 'expecto patronum' and you have to concentrate on the happiest memory you have. Don't be discouraged though if you can't get it right immediately. I needed about half a year to get it right," Harry told them smiling.

"We will, thank you for helping us, Professor Peverell," Eric said smiling too.

"You're very welcome," Harry replied, then hearing footsteps coming closer.

When the people arrived, he was surprised to find James Potter and Sirius Black among them.

"Harold, what happened?" Dumbledore asked.

"I came across these seventh-years cursing these two second-years. I stepped in and bound the attackers. After checking their wands I gave five of them that used lesser curses four weeks of detention and I'm taking fifty points from each of them," Harry answered and he knew that the outcries would be massive at the next mealtime, "Their spells, while nasty to be used when you outnumber your opponents, can be classed as prank spells. Things like tripping jinxes, spells that make your trousers drop and let your hair grow into your face at high speed."

Harry noticed that James and Sirius looked slightly ashamed, realising that they had done the same to others during their school days.

"Donovan and Macnair though used dark spells. Donovan's wand tests positive for a blood boiling curse and Macnair's for a sulphite acid curse. My recommendation is turning them over to the DMLE and expelling them from Hogwarts," Harry looked at Dumbledore with a hard look in his eyes.

Dumbledore looked at the students with great disappointment.

"I'm massively disappointed that you would do something like this. We'll see what the questioning of the DMLE will bring and then I'll decide your final punishment," Dumbledore said, "You'll be held in the guest quarters until we have aurors here to take you with them. Eric, Danielle, you can return to your common room. I'm sorry you had to experience this."

"Okay, Professor Dumbledore. And nothing really bad happened because Professor Peverell was there quickly," Danielle answered.

Dumbledore smiled and the two second-years left, undoubtedly going to tell their housemates how their Potions Professor had saved them.

The group consisting of Harry, James, Sirius, Dumbledore and McGonagall transported the caught seven students to the headmaster's office. Sirius immediately went to call some aurors and requested that they bring veritaserum. Harry could see that Dumbledore wasn't happy about this, but he honestly couldn't care that he had to do something he didn't like. Those students should know that actions have consequences and yet they seemed to have got away with too much all their lives to not have realised that before. A few minutes later two aurors and Amelia Bones stepped through the floo.

"What happened?" Bones asked seriously.

"I came across these students attacking two second-year Hufflepuffs. I disarmed and bound them immediately and then checked their wands for the spells they used," Harry answered, "Five of them fall under what can be brushed off as prank spells, but two were dark spells. The sulphite acid curse and the blood boiling curse."

Bones' eyes hardened. Those two curses were nothing that could be taken lightly.

"Which of them used them?" She asked.

"Everard Macnair and Cadmus Donovan. I think we should question them all under veritaserum to find out the motives for the assault," Harry suggested.

"But they're minors," one auror protested.

"No, all of them are of age. That means they should have known that they would be held completely responsible for their actions. Especially after the speech Madam Bones gave at the first day of school," McGonagall countered.

"I completely agree, Professor McGonagall," Bones stated.

She had the aurors dose Donovan first with the potion. Then she ordered one of them to set up an auto dicta quill to document the questioning.

"Questioning at Hogwarts of seventh year Slytherin students Cadmus Donovan and Everard Macnair for proven assault on two second year Hufflepuff students. Depending on results questioning can be extended to the five other attackers in the group. Wands of the accused were found with the blood boiling curse and the sulphite acid curse being used last. Interrogator Amelia Bones, head of the auror office. What's your name?" She asked the first one.

"Cadmus Donovan," was the monotone answer.

"What's your birthday?"

"4th November 1963."

"Why did you attack Eric Brackwood and Danielle Waterflower?"

"They're mudbloods and don't deserve to learn magic."

"What kind of injuries did you intend for them to get?"

"I wanted them dead to set a sign for the other mudbloods to leave the Wizarding world. We don't need them and they should all die for trying to pollute our bloodlines."

The teachers looked grave and disgusted with that blatant hatred against other students.

"Who taught you the curse?"

"Lucius Malfoy," he answered.

"How did you get in contact? He left Hogwarts years ago?" Madam Bones wanted to know.

"He was the trainer for the potential Death Eater recruits."

"So you are a Death Eater?" Madam Bones asked harshly.

"Not yet. I didn't go through the initiation ceremony yet, but it'll happen over the Christmas break."

"What is the ceremony?" She asked.

"I was told to capture a mudblood and show him or her their true place in our world."

"What did you plan for that?" She asked looking sick.

"I planned to catch one of the female mudbloods in sixth year that think that they are equal to us. I'd take her before the dark lord and then show her why that is ridiculous. Mudbloods are only good as whores or slaves. I'd have my way with her and when she was used up I would dispose of her. That'd guarantee me the dark mark."

The ones listening were looking green, except for two of the other students that is. They seemed to suppress their agreement with what was said.

"Do you know the names of other Death Eaters than Lucius Malfoy?"

"Yes."

"Which people do you know are Death Eaters or training to become Death Eaters?"

Donovan started listing about ten names that he knew, most of them potential Death Eaters. Madam Bones told the aurors to put magic suppressing cuffs on Donovan's hands. She repeated the interrogation with Macnair and got similar results. As she had seen the silent agreement with the sentiments on the face of Syrus Sneer she extended the questioning to him and found out that the only reason his wand hadn't had a dark curse on it was that he was too smart to use something like that at school after the warning at the beginning of the school year. He had planned to bide his time until he could prove his loyalty to the dark lord and the 'true cause' without the fear of repercussions. Until then he would collect information on Dumbledore and the other teachers, especially Professor Peverell, against whom the dark Lord had a grudge, and aid the dark cause by that. He was also arrested. The other four told that they only wanted to teach the mudbloods a lesson, but not to kill them.

They were given a severe warning to truly think about their outlook on life. As thanks to the veritaserum they had been proven to not having planned to kill, they got off with the four weeks of detention under Harry and the loss of points. Madam Bones and the aurors took the two that had planned to kill the younger students and the identified spy away for trial in front of the Wizengamot.

Harry watched the group of students that had managed to land themselves in his detention run around the Quidditch field, masks on their faces. They would learn to think before doing something stupid next to using their free time usefully for studying. He had long suspected that the lack of time-consuming free-time activities was one reason why so many students at Hogwarts turned to acting out. If you thought about it, having only seven members on a Quidditch team per house, when you normally had about a hundred students in each, if you excluded situations like the war they were in currently, was too small a number. And there weren't many clubs that didn't have to do with classes, so only a handful of students would join them, mostly the Ravenclaws.

He would have to create more clubs that interested a higher number of students and where more students could join. He thought back to the clubs that were offered at muggle high schools. There were several sports clubs, music clubs, theatre clubs, game clubs and so on. Perhaps if he could set up more of them, over time things would get better at Hogwarts. While he could assure some discipline, the students needed a positive outlet for their energy. Children didn't do well if they only had to study and perhaps a few hours to play games in the common rooms. Especially if they only had the same games all the time. He would have to see which muggle sports he could bring to Hogwarts, perhaps in slightly different form to make them appear more magical.

He didn't think that there would be much opposition from the other teachers. The duelling club was still going well and it helped, but it was only one evening the week per year group. The second to fourth-years were on Tuesday evening, the fifth to seventh-years on Thursdays. Perhaps they could arrange for a junior Quidditch league and a senior league. That would make matches fairer and it would include more students. Next to that he thought that he could modify volleyball to be more interesting. If you created a reduced gravity field for the game, there would be more strategies you could use. He would have to talk to Professor Cypher to see if it was possible to set up a field for volleyball in a large empty classroom.

Harry stood in front of all assembled students in the Great Hall. He had asked Professor Dumbledore to be allowed to announce the new clubs that the teachers had agreed to set up, many seeing the wisdom in giving the students more outlets for their energy.

"I know you are all curious to what announcement I have. Over the last weeks the teachers have noticed that many of you have too much energy that isn't spent by studying and playing some games. Sadly we don't have more than one Quidditch team per house, so only seven players get to play and that's one point we're planning to change," Harry started, having the full attention of the students.

"Several of us teachers have discussed what kind of activities we can offer for you to spend your free time with that have nothing to do with any classes that are taught at Hogwarts. A number of new clubs will be started from the beginning of next week and they are open to all students, the same rules that are to be followed in the study rooms for each year will go for them as well. Now, I said that we will give more students the chance to play Quidditch. We have agreed that the best way is by starting a second team per house. One team will be for the older students, meaning those fifth year and above and the second one for the younger years, meaning fourth year and below.

"Contrary to previous years, even first-years get the chance to try out for the younger team if they have shown during the first two flying classes, which will be held before the try-outs for the younger teams, that they can safely fly on a broom. If a first-year is chosen for a Quidditch team, the broom rule for first-years will be waved. But only then. The others will still have to wait for their own brooms till second year," Harry warned and he saw many appreciative faces in the crowd.

"The next important change is that the try-outs will be watched by the head of house and Madam Hooch. The captains will have to justify their choices for the position, which will prevent that a captain only accepts his friends on the team and will give the house the best team possible. For the younger teams Madam Hooch will also assist with the training," Harry needed to wait for some angry outcries to stop before continuing. One glare at the culprits was enough to make them shut up.

"The first club that will start is the music club. In this club you can decide if you want to learn an instrument of your choice or, if you already play, either practice with others to form an orchestra or just do solo performances. The existing choir will of course continue, but be part of the music club. The next club is a theatre and literature club. In this club students will read and discuss popular books and plays and work on setting up a play themselves. Both the music club and the theatre club will get opportunities over the year to present their work at school celebrations. If the theatre club wishes to give plays at other times as well, that will be arranged. Any club that you attend will also be noted on your report card and will count as extra credit if you apply for a position later on. Engagement in extracurricular activities is always seen positive.

"The next club will be a sports club. The club will be led by a teacher and there will be a number of fun kinds of sports that haven't been offered at Hogwarts so far and we'll try to show you a lot of activities to enjoy. So even if you don't get onto the Quidditch teams, you get the chance to be active. If you have ideas for games to play at the sports club, please approach the teacher in charge and we'll see how we can realise the suggestion. Now our gamekeeper, Hagrid, has also offered that those students that are interested in magical creatures can join a creatures club, which will include things like riding hippogriffs or thestrals, how to train creatures to help wizards do work and so on. I think you'll find something you would like to do and I hope you'll enjoy the opportunity. Thank you for your attention. Detailed descriptions of all clubs are in pamphlets that we placed in all common rooms. If you want to join a club, please sign up on the lists that have been put onto the notice boards in your common rooms. You can join at any time, but to give the teachers in charge of the clubs a chance to prepare, it will help a lot to have an estimate number," Harry pointed out and went back to his seat at the head table.

Now they just needed to wait how things would work out. Some students wouldn't be changed by this, but it would set a base for the other students to do something useful that they liked to do with their time. More clubs would probably be started over time, but with the number of clubs that they had now, they could cover a lot. Let's see pureblood idiots argue with teachers that certain people shouldn't be allowed in a club. They would lose. And Dumbledore had agreed to involve some outside helpers with things like the theatre and music clubs. It would make Hogwarts a lot better. And none of this was such a major change that he was prevented from doing it. He had placed the idea of clubs that weren't about subjects like the Charms club or the Herbology club among the teachers and the idea had been taken up happily. It had snowballed and many had brought up their own ideas.

Harry looked down onto two destroyed items grinning. He had finally done it. He had destroyed the last two horcruxes. Getting the cup out of the Lestrange vault had been incredibly difficult, but thanks to the security precautions not being as strong as they had been in the second war, he had managed by using some good old muggle make up. Goblin security didn't detect non-magical means of disguise. Harry had managed to capture Rastaban Lestrange when he had been in Hogsmeade. Feeding the man a potion that would make him follow each of Harry's orders had been easy. The potion had about the same result as the imperius curse, but it didn't hold the same penalty. Mostly because most people didn't know it existed. It had been in one of the family grimoires that Harry had taken in the future.

It had been used to make slaves obey their masters' orders centuries back. Even the family who the grimoire belonged to hadn't really known the potion. It showed how many didn't care reading all the secrets of their families anymore, only those things that were more recent and that they could use to get what they wanted. Rastaban had presented the vault key to the goblin with Harry standing next to him and the two had then been taken to the family vault. The dragon was again pushed back with the clankers and the goblin opened the vault for them. Rastaban first collected about two thousand galleons in a bag and put the golden cup on top. Then he took out a second bag and filled it with sickles and knuts.

Once he was done, they all returned to the surface. Harry took the two bags from Rastaban and put a portkey onto him that would deliver him into the atrium of the Ministry. The rest he would leave to the aurors.

The wards surrounding the Gaunt shack had been immense, but nothing he couldn't overcome. It showed that Voldemort had set them up early on, when his knowledge of dark arts and wards hadn't been as extensive as it was these days. Most relied on his ability of parseltongue, but Harry had that ability as well, so he could disable three of the main wards easily. They were basically standard anti-intruder wards that were on every wizarding home, but them being set in parsel made it very difficult to break them for any wizard without the ability. Harry had levitated the ring from its hiding place under the floorboards into a bag to not be hit by the curse.

Now both items were destroyed, only the ring of resurrection had survived. Harry secured the stone, knowing that it needed to be protected properly. Now the only problem was killing Voldemort, the one thing he couldn't do in this time. He would have to depend on others to do that job.

And that is chapter number four done. One remains now. Till next time.

5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Harry looked over the reports of his businesses. The number of rented post boxes had gone up to one hundred and thirteen households and seventeen had already bought a box. The option to get things delivered without the risk of them being intercepted from the owl was another boon that Harry hadn't calculated for in the beginning, but it was working well. And his contracts for the boxes stated that any kind of dark objects would be taken out and handed over to the Ministry of Magic with information about the user.

Harry didn't want that his delivery system was abused by the Death Eaters. Mr Vancor had reported that the orders for potions had gone up again and the new specialised assortment was tested by some, but didn't bring in much business yet. That wasn't too strange, as people first wanted to test the quality of the potions they sold before they would trust them with procuring difficult potions of good quality. But he had calculated that it would take one or two years to really get that part started properly. He had the patience to wait for it bringing in profit.

The cooperation between the supply department under Mr Stebbins and the potions department under Mr Vancor was working, as it should, to his satisfaction. With lists of needed ingredients and an estimate when new ones would be needed, Mr Stebbins could calculate more stable than before. Next to that many private clients were happy to get the ingredients they needed for private brewing quicker than before, if they had got the delivery boxes. Harry had heard from some of his students that their parents had got a box to test it. Hogwarts would have bought one if he didn't donate five of them to the school. One for each common room and one for the headmaster. He also had a private one in his rooms for his personal deliveries.

He regularly helped with brewing high level potions that were to be delivered to clients. His two brewers were normally too busy with the regular orders to have much time for specialised orders. He didn't mind, he liked doing it and knowing that through this he not only got richer, he also cut off a lot of potential income for the Death Eaters now and in the future. It was funny to think that a Death Eater's plans, namely Draco Malfoy, had led to the development of the boxes. They were based on the vanishing cabinet that had allowed the Death Eaters to get into Hogwarts. But where those things only had two parts, his delivery boxes were different. It all depended on the runes and the set-up.

He had a master box that received things from a number of other boxes. So far he could connect thirty boxes to a master box. He was working on increasing the number, but for now that was more than enough. His facility had enough space to hold all the master boxes that he needed. And if this would become as successful as he hoped in a few years, there were options for him to buy more storage buildings in that village. The major was happy enough to have income from a business there again. And as it was cheaper to buy raw materials from the muggles, other small muggle businesses profited from delivering things like wood, cloth and other things for Harry's cover of a furniture production company. It wasn't a lot yet, but hey, everything needed to start small.

Harry was tense. It was really the date. Halloween. This day in this year had started the misery that his life had become. Voldemort had attacked his home after Pettigrew had betrayed them. Pettigrew wasn't the secret keeper though. Dumbledore was. For both the Potters and the Longbottoms. The discovery of Pettigrew's betrayal had made them all go under the charm. He only hoped that it would be enough. He suspected that, if the two boys that the prophecy could refer to were out of his reach for too long, Voldemort could come up with schemes to draw them out in the open. At least their parents, which would in return mean that somebody would have to take care of the boys if that plan succeeded.

The whole day he waited for any alarm to be sounded. Around seven in the evening the expected attack happened. Voldemort seemed to really like the symbolism that Halloween held. Three attack points were confirmed. Diagon Alley, St. Mungo's and the Ministry itself. The aurors would be needed to prevent the takeover of the Ministry and perhaps some could be spared for St. Mungo's. That meant Diagon Alley would be destroyed. Even the Order of the Phoenix couldn't defend two locations in sufficient numbers. Even if Harry had prevented the death of the Prewett twins. While Fabian and Gideon had suffered severe injuries and had spent a month at St. Mungo's, they had survived and were back on their feet. Many others he hadn't been able to save. He had tried, but he didn't know how they had all died.

He had never truly asked about those circumstances, as it was a hard topic for those that had survived the first war. Only Mrs Weasley had once told him the date when her brothers had died after he had been gifted with Fabian's watch for his seventeenth birthday.

Dumbledore organised that those teachers that weren't part of the Order stayed to protect Hogwarts in case Tom planned a fourth attack and then the rest left to help out at St. Mungo's. It was the more important target in all ways. Even if the take-over of Diagon Alley would be a massive blow for the Light.

Harry was a force of nature. He had already downed fifteen Death Eaters during the last thirty minutes and his area of the fight was nearly secured. It really seemed that Voldemort planned to make this a day of horrors. Contrary to others in the Order that tried to keep to stunning their opponents, Harry used another method. They had come to kill innocents and helpless, sick people. They would pay the price this time. He had long since realised that ideals were nice in times of peace and when you had a limited number of opponents, but in a full-out battle, you better made sure your opponents stayed down or you wouldn't see another day. He tried to avoid killing, but successfully debilitating was okay in his books.

He could see Sirius and Remus fighting back to back a short distance away from him. They were doing well with their teamwork. Their opponents fell quickly and efficiently. While they might not use the kind of spells Harry used, his were massively painful, they also didn't use stunners. Harry remembered how Remus had once told him that the time for disarming was over. His reaction had been so naïve. Remus had been right, in a battle disarming charms didn't help you. Even stunners didn't do you much good. It only came to bite you in the back. The next two Death Eaters fell to bone-breaking curses and their wands met the same fate as all others. Cutting curses. It was very efficient as most Death Eaters were useless without their wands and getting new ones was nearly impossible for them with the Ministry posting aurors around the known wand makers to look out for those having the Dark Mark.

Finally the last Death Eaters that were still standing realised that this was a failure and took emergency portkeys to escape. The Order members took care of any injuries that had been suffered and took the ones that had fallen to another area than the fallen Death Eaters. The good thing was that this time the numbers of fallen Death Eaters far outnumbered the losses on the Order's side. The sad thing was that the Order was much smaller and couldn't take losses well. He looked over the corpses on their side. Dorcas Meadows, Edgar Bones and Dedalus Diggle as far as he could see. He sighed. It really wasn't right that because of one madman and his followers so many good people had to die.

He took the prepared potions from his belt and started handing them out to other Order members. He himself downed a pepper-up potion and made sure all those that weren't badly injured got one as well. He doubted that this was the end of today's fighting. And, from the twenty Order members that had come here, it seemed only thirteen were in any condition to fight. Four of them needed medical treatment first though. So nine people in fighting condition if something happened in the next hour. Not a good situation.

The nine Order members that were still in fighting condition were suddenly called by Dumbledore to assist in defending Hogsmeade that had become the fourth target about an hour after the first three attacks had started. A clever plan. Voldemort had made sure that his opposition had already somewhat exhausted themselves and then launched the next number of attacks. And from Hogsmeade it was only a short distance to Hogwarts itself. Voldemort might fear Dumbledore, but if he managed to have the old man use up his magical reserves ahead of their possible duel, he had a much better chance of winning. He was decades younger than Dumbledore after all.

Harry decided to not let him win that game. He took charge of a group of Order members that he knew had had enough of letting the Death Eaters always kill their friends and get away with it. The group of seven included Harry, Sirius, Remus, Marlene McKinnon, Fabian and Gideon Prewett, who despite healer's orders had still come to Hogsmeade, and Ashley Phillips. They cut a line of destruction through the Death Eater ranks. The most efficient way of taking them out was breaking their wand in two after bringing them down. That and summoning any second wands to make absolutely sure that they wouldn't come back into the fight.

Some might die from lack of quick medical treatment, but they were the aggressors. Not the Order. The fight took another hour, but they won and the group of seven just had to deal with some less severe injuries. Harry handed out essence of dittany and helped treat the injured. The surviving Death Eaters were tied up and kept under anti-apparition spells until the aurors could collect them and send them to prison until their trials. The Ministry would need a lot of veritaserum, but Crouch shouldn't have any problems using it after such a massive assault. Harry feared that victim numbers would be very high, considering that they probably had lost many people in Diagon Alley, which had been the least protected place.

Harry pondered how he had been able to fight off all the Death Eaters. Normally that should have fallen under not being able to change major things in the past. But perhaps it was countered by only being part of a group that had fought anyway. He had certainly not been the only one that had brought down high numbers of Death Eaters, even if he was one of the most successful. For this Halloween his count was four dead Death Eaters and twenty arrested ones in need of medical treatment. While Crouch was a little bit miffed that they couldn't prove the kind of spells used from the broken wands, Harry had successfully pointed out that with veritaserum they could get that information anyway and the broken wands ensured less casualties on their side than leaving a potentially lethal weapon available to the Death Eaters.

And they had brought down more Death Eaters with that method than the aurors, who had permission to use the unforgivable curses in battles against Death Eaters. The one question everybody wondered about was why Voldemort hadn't appeared at any of the places that had been attacked. What had he been after?

The answer to that question was found out early the next morning when Dumbledore checked on the two couples under fidelius. There had been a massive battle. James and Frank had died fighting, protecting Lily, Alice and the babies. It was an unanswered question how Voldemort had managed to get into the safe house that the two couples used, but they suspected that he had managed to get the information from Dumbledore through a trick. From the look of things Lily had again sacrificed herself to protect her son and godson while Alice had laid bleeding in the hallway in front of the nursery. Quick help had managed to stabilise her and she would be okay in one or two weeks.

Thankfully Harry's work in destroying the horcruxes had worked out perfectly, because they found Voldemort's corpse lying in the nursery from the rebounded killing curse. It was still a tragedy that they had lost the Potters and Frank Longbottom. But the nearly vanished Dark Marks on the arms of the Death Eaters that were caught told them that Voldemort was truly dead. Dumbledore had brought Alice, Harry and Neville to Hogwarts to have them treated in the hospital wing. Though when he suggested leaving Harry with his maternal aunt to give him protection from those that might come after him, Sirius, Remus, Marlene and Harry protested.

Sirius, because he was Harry's godfather and named by his parents to take care of Harry should anything happen to them. Remus, because he knew that James and Lily had chosen Sirius as Harry's guardian. Marlene, because Lily had told her how her sister hated magic, because she was jealous of Lily's talent to use it, which she couldn't, and would definitely not be able to love her nephew and give him a good childhood. And Harry said that it was cruel to take a child away from anybody he knew and leave him without contact to those people among those that didn't like his kind. Under the onslaught of protest Dumbledore caved in, even if he tried claiming that the protection was more important. It might have to do with Marlene threatening to show him exactly what she thought of sending a helpless baby to magic hating muggles.

Remus, Sirius and Harry wisely retreated into the furthest corner of the room, wands ready to use shield charms if Marlene completely snapped. She had a bad temper when she was angered. Even if Sirius looked like a lovesick puppy seeing her lay into Dumbledore. Well, he was her boyfriend after all.

Investigations into the coordinated attacks revealed that Voldemort had managed to keep one spy perfectly hidden at the ministry. A low level clerk in the archives. Nobody had thought to check those employees with veritaserum, as long as they didn't have the dark mark. And frankly, they didn't have the time to check every single person. They had secured the most important departments first, but nobody had thought the archives that important. It was a mistake. The information that could be found there, while normally not fully up to date, could help organise hits on critical locations. Especially if one of the things that the spy had managed to find were blue prints from the time the Ministry and St. Mungo's were founded and which held all emergency evacuation routes. Diagon Alley had been planned as a target because Voldemort had been aware that his followers would be able to get a high number of kills there if he had others attack the higher ranked targets. Hogsmeade was to make sure nobody checked the Potters and Longbottoms.

Just a diversion.

From the things found on Voldemort's corpse they found out that he had a bottle of polyjuice potion on him. Testing the potion showed that the form he took was that of James Potter. He must have searched one of the places where the Potters had hidden before to get some hair for the potion. And Dumbledore confirmed to have given James one slip of parchment with the address, as James had asked him to let them be able to show it to another they wanted to be able to visit them. It was very simple and very brilliant. It showed that the charm had its fault if the secret keeper was tricked. And Voldemort had faced James often enough to believably pull the ruse off.

With a little reminder to the Minister and Crouch by Dumbledore, there weren't any Death Eaters pleading imperius curse successfully this time around. The DMLE accepted their story on the surface, but forced three drops of veritaserum down everybody's throat that was suspected in the attacks. Some were even cleared of the charges against them. But most joined their fellow Death Eaters at Azkaban. The aurors also had an easier time rounding up other Death Eaters with the names given up by those captured. It would still take years to completely deal with the aftermath.

Harry looked at his younger self who slept deeply in his crib. He was sorry that despite his best efforts Harry was an orphan again. At least this time he would grow up with Sirius. That was a major improvement and Voldemort was gone for good. He had managed to give Harry that. And with Marlene seemingly set on tying the knot with Sirius soon, now that the war was nearly over, as they only needed to get the last free Death Eaters, the future wasn't as unsure. And their position was already much better than it had originally been. And now Harry was in a good position to ensure that the mistakes of the past weren't repeated. He could directly influence how the new generation grew up while they were at Hogwarts. He could show by example that messing up had consequences, but that if you seriously wanted to change, you would be given that chance.

He had three of his 'delinquents' that had asked if he could help them become better in Potions and Defence. Everybody knew after all, that he was as good at Defence Against the Dark Arts as at Potions. His test for the Defence Mastery was scheduled in a month, as it had pushed back because of the cleaning up after the death of Voldemort. He didn't mind. He wasn't in any hurry after all. He had one mastery and he would still be the youngest double master once he passed his test in Defence. The death of Voldemort had at least achieved that a lot of students that had been seriously considering taking the dark mark when they left school, or even before that, were now keeping their heads down.

Simply believing in the pureblood supremacy idea wasn't reason enough to get in trouble with the law after all. And right now news about the death of Voldemort had been in the papers since it had happened. Some Death Eater arrests were also published and it was clear that the Ministry fully intended to end this war properly.

"I'm going to make sure that your parents didn't die in vain, Harry," Harry whispered to the sleeping baby, "When you come to Hogwarts, this place will be very different to how it is now. You can now grow up happily and live a life without fear of Death Eaters and Voldemort."

Then he left the room to continue his quest to change the wizarding world from the beginning. The children would learn to live next to each other peacefully, even if they were in rival houses. And over time those children would rise into positions of power from where they could change things outside of Hogwarts. It wouldn't happen overnight, but with time things would improve. Lots of little changes on the way that Harry could initiate would ensure it. And there were many small projects that he had in mind to make Hogwarts the best school for magic in the world again. The next one was an easy thing to do, as he was sure that Dumbledore would love the idea. Harry planned to set up a kiosk that would open two hours each afternoon after classes let out. There students and teachers could buy things like chocolate frogs, butterbeer and sweets without having to go down to Hogsmeade.

After all, the students could only go on certain weekends and the first and second-years couldn't go at all. So having a place where the children could get some sweets for their free time was a good idea in his mind. And very easy to get done.

Time skip

Harry Potter stood in front of the staff table of Hogwarts, listening to the Sorting Hat singing about the attributes that each of the houses valued. He looked over the teachers that sat behind the table once the hat was done and the other students clapped. He knew a few of them. His godfather and aunt were good friends with some of them and he knew others through his friends' families. There was Ron's uncle, Gideon Prewett, who taught Defence Against the Dark Arts. Even if Uncle Sirius swore that there was another teacher that was much better in the subject than him, but he preferred teaching another class. Next to him sat Grandma Minerva, who taught Transfiguration and had until three years ago been the head of Gryffindor.

She had decided that having three positions at the school was too time-consuming and had therefore handed over the position as head of Gryffindor house to Harold Peverell, another of Uncle Sirius' friends. He taught Potions and Harry had been warned by Bill and Charlie, Ron's older brothers, to not mess around in his class. He was a nice man, but he was incredibly strict in his classroom, thanks to the subject being dangerous. Harry didn't plan to earn himself a detention with him. Even the Weasley twins, Fred and George, knew better than to cross Professor Peverell.

He watched how his best friend Neville was sorted into Gryffindor, to many cheers from there. Harry and Neville had been friends since they had been babies and Aunt Alice had often left Neville with Uncle Sirius and Aunt Marlene when she had to work at the Ministry. Not that they minded. It was a lot of fun to play with many other children. Harry had three pseudo siblings, who were the children of Uncle Sirius and Aunt Marlene. The oldest one was Phoenix, who was two years younger than Harry. Then the next one was Athena and the youngest was Juno. But Aunt Marlene was pregnant again and around Christmas a boy would be born. He was already looking forward to it.

Finally it was his time to get sorted and he walked forward. He didn't like the whispers and stares, but he was used to it by now. He thought it was stupid that people gave him the praise for Voldemort's death instead of his Mum, Dad and Uncle Frank, who had died fighting him. Aunt Alice said that his Mum had used some unknown magic to protect him and Neville when Voldemort had attacked them Halloween 1981. Dad and Uncle Frank had died fighting against Voldemort and had managed to injure him a bit. Aunt Alice had survived that night injured and still had a few scars from the deep cuts that Voldemort's curses had caused. They were the heroes, not him. But wizards and witches all over the country didn't want to listen to that. So he had to deal with it.

The hat was put onto his head and it briefly talked to him. Then he followed Neville to Gryffindor, to his immense joy. He had wanted to be in the same house as his parents, Uncle Sirius, Aunt Marlene, Aunt Alice and Uncle Remus. Not to mention that all the Weasleys were there and he really liked them, even if Percy was a bit stuck up.

Harry watched his younger self get sorted into Gryffindor much faster than he had been. Well, this Harry Potter wasn't a neglected child that wanted to prove himself and who had a piece of Voldemort's soul stuck in his head. No, this Harry had grown up with Sirius and Marlene Black and had had younger siblings to play with and for whom he was the big brother. Sirius and Marlene treated Harry like one of their own and it showed. Harry looked a lot healthier than he had ever been while he was that young.

He reminisced about the things that had been done over the last ten years. He had prevented that Fudge became Minister, as there hadn't been any Death Eaters to sponsor his campaign. He was still in the department for magical catastrophes. Umbridge hadn't risen through the ranks, riding on Fudge's coattails. She was fired for her bigoted opinions in fact. Crouch had tried to become Minister, but again the discovery of his son as a Death Eater had caused him to not get the position. Fabian Prewett had been elected instead, to the surprise of many, as he wasn't even forty yet. Still, he had managed to rise through the ranks of the Ministry in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement as a lawyer and when the retirement of Bagnold had been announced last year, he had thrown his hat into the ring.

Many people remembered how he had fought against Voldemort and his Death Eaters as part of the Order of the Phoenix and many owed him their lives. That kind of PR was very advantageous and it was enough, with some support from his friends, who were also in influential positions, to win the office. He had started some reforms to make the Ministry more efficient and to root out more bad eggs than had already happened after the war.

Harry looked over the class that started this year. While there were only four children more than in his year, thanks to their families not dying in the war, the coming years would be much larger than in the original time-line. Many families hadn't died and there had been a right baby boom after the death of Voldemort. In fact, St. Mungo's had had to do extra shifts in July and August 1982. Many had celebrated the end of the war by making new little witches and wizards.

He looked at his wife who was sitting next to him. He hadn't given much thought to dating when he had arrived. He had had too many things to do to prevent that the wizarding world fell into the hands of Voldemort, and that too many innocent people died while Death Eaters walked away freely after bribing the Ministry. Now though, he couldn't imagine his life without her and their children. Yes, he was a father too now. His oldest child was a daughter called Isabelle and the second one a boy called Stephen. Isabelle was six years old now and Stephen three.

His wife Iris was a witch from Germany, whom he had met during a teachers' conference from different European schools in 1983. Iris Fuchs had taught at the German Schloss Rosenstein when they met. Her subject was Ancient Runes and Harry had been fascinated with the subject since he had won his own war in the future. Not to mention that one of his major businesses was based on runic arrays, namely the delivery boxes, which had become a great hit all over Europe once the war was over.

So they had talked and exchanged stories. It took nearly a year till they started dating, but then they quickly realised that they just clicked. They had married in fall of 1984 and Isabelle had been born nine months later. Right now Iris taught the Ancient Runes class here at Hogwarts. The class being an elective and Professor McGonagall being nice enough to arrange the time tables to enable Iris to look after their children in the afternoon, when they were back from nursery school or, in Isabelle's case, the new magical primary school in Hogsmeade, made this arrangement possible.

Harry too tried having most of his classes in the mornings. He only had afternoon classes twice a week and thanks to classes always letting out at four at the latest, he had more than enough time to spend with his children.

The magical primary school had been an idea of Marlene and Alice, who had fought for it at the Ministry. Their friends had supported them and so, for the first time in magical history in Britain, children from the age of six attended primary school. It was located in Hogsmeade and children learned about the same as muggle children did, with some magical parts thrown in of course. It was a great success so far and more and more parents decided to let their children attend. It wasn't mandatory like it was in the muggle world, but most families realised that having two incomes helped them a lot and many mothers didn't see any problem in letting their children go to school in the mornings and then get them back in the afternoons. After all, they were just a floo call away if anything happened.

Some families tried continuing their ideology of purebloods being superior to non-purebloods, but the Ministry was coming down hard on them. There were fines for using racist vocabulary like 'mudblood' or 'blood-traitor' and the aurors and members of the Magical Law Enforcement Patrol were strict in executing the punishments set for them.

At Hogwarts Harry had managed to create a kind of code of conduct for the students that most teachers fully supported. The only one that thought that they should be more lenient was Dumbledore, but he was overruled by the four heads of houses, which currently were Harry himself for Gryffindor, Pomona for Hufflepuff, Filius for Ravenclaw and Septima for Slytherin. The code of conduct mostly entailed that you had to be respectful to all of the other students, even if you didn't like them. You didn't have to be friendly to those you didn't like, but insulting them or hexing them was strictly forbidden. Arguments that couldn't be solved alone, could be moderated by a prefect or teacher, but even if you didn't come to an agreement, you simply left the other one alone outside of places where you couldn't avoid it, like in classrooms or clubs that both attended.

It worked well enough and with Harry being merciless in his detentions, most knew better than to go against those easy rules. Even Fred and George had learned to not disrupt school life with their pranks. Not only had they gone through the drill course twice before understanding that Professor Peverell didn't joke about being a sadist concerning detention, they also got a personal conversation with him. To the surprise of the Weasley parents, it had changed their plans for the future from having a joke shop to having a shop where they would sell their products that covered all kinds of life, including tasteful pranks. Harry had been frank and told them that they were wasting their potential in just being pranksters and had shown up some examples of what they would be able to achieve, if they put their minds to it. That he had easily outdone them with a prank and told them why they weren't at his level had certainly helped.

From there on they took their studies more serious. They still liked to play pranks, but they kept it to nothing that disrupted classes or the study rooms. And well, if they weren't caught, they had to be good. But more often than not they surprised their teachers with ideas for products and asked if they could create them the way they thought.

Another thing that Harry had made sure of was that he created books with all the knowledge from the books that he had taken from the pureblood manors in his original timeline. Those books were freely available to all witches and wizards and the Hogwarts library had also got some copies for the students to study at their leisure. He didn't tell anybody where he got all the books on spells, runes, Arithmancy and the like, he just said that he had found them and that it would be a waste if they weren't freely available. It didn't hurt that the selling of the books got him more money into his Swiss vault.

The other businesses under his name were also doing splendidly. Peverell Enterprises was the leading company in the wizarding world and could offer products in its portfolio for lower prices than their competition. The potions department had developed several new potions so far and he had managed to get Damocles Belby to work for him. He and Francis Vancor were a great duo and held many new developments to their name. Not that Harry had been idle either. Like he had planned wolfsbane potion was now registered as his invention and he had found a permanent cure for dragon pox. Belby and Vancor were working on a cure for lycanthropy, but their work was still at the beginning. Still, all good things and great inventions needed time and started with a single idea.

Harry knew that he would need the rest of his life to make sure that somebody like Voldemort wouldn't turn up again. But he had managed to get things started and it were the little things, put together, that could make all the difference in the world.

And that was the last chapter. I hope you're not too cross with me for not letting Lily, James and Frank survive, but some things time travel, where you can't change major events, simply can't change. Thanks for all the suppot for this story and I hope you'll also follow my other ones.