Now that Hermione was seventeen she was having fun telling Harry and Ron what to do. Nothing serious, just silly things. And when they refused she would joke that "children should do what adults tell them." Sometimes they played along, especially if they could work out a way to do what she said but not do what she meant, but usually Harry would just throw a cushion at her and it nearly always ended up with the three of them laughing at the ridiculousness of it.
September passed into October and with it all hope that sixth year wouldn't be too bad died. Every professor they had was piling on a lot of work. All with the same excuse, "We have a lot to cover before you sit your N.E. ." That wasn't the worst of it however. It seemed that whatever the death eaters had been doing since Sirius had used Harry's idea to stop the attacks whenever someone broke the taboo was finished and they were back to attacking people.
The difference was now they weren't randomly attacking people who said the wrong thing. Now they were doing planned attacks. Homes, businesses, whatever they thought would cause the most disruption. From what the trio could work out from the reports in the Prophet, the death eaters seemed to be more focused on punishing magical Britain for not accepting Voldemort as their new ruler than they were about capturing a country with a working economy.
The Aurors were having a terrible time responding. About every three days there would be an attack. The death eaters would apparate in, immediately start brute forcing the wards and would all disparate or port key away as soon as even a single Auror arrived at the scene. Far too often the wards went down and the building was destroyed before the Aurors had a chance to arrive.
The Aurors were often later than they wanted because the death eaters would send out multiple small groups to attack at the same time and one large group. All the people being attacked would call the Aurors and the main attack would be lost amongst the multiple calls.
Nobody could work out any kind of pattern to the attacks. They would be in Doncaster one attack, Cardiff the next, one of the Hebrides after that. It was like they had a list and someone was pulling names out of a hat. Because of that the Aurors couldn't work out any kind of way to get ahead of the attacks.
The one upside was that Director Bones had finally met with the goblins and they were hashing out the details for the assault on the old ministry. The plan from what Harry had heard from Charlus was particularly brutal. The goblins didn't do stunning spells and refused to work with any Aurors still playing kids games. The plan going in was going to be to kill as many death eaters as possible.
Harry and Hermione were working on a system to inform the curse breakers when it was time to destroy the horcruxes. Charlus had already signed off on using fiend fire on the cottage to destroy them. The only point of contention was the sword of Gryffindor. The curse breakers had used it to destroy a cup that was in the bank vault of the Lestrange family. The goblins saw it and claimed it was a stolen goblin artifact and they wanted it back.
They hadn't forced the issue as it was agreed by everyone involved that the sword was needed to destroy whatever horcrux was in the old ministry with Voldemort. However the matter wasn't forgotten and Charlus was of the opinion that more than one goblin planned to disappear the sword as soon as it had been used to destroy the horcrux.
For the curse breakers, Harry and Hermione needed something simple and fast that wouldn't look like much or raise any notice in the field but would be unmistakable to the curse breakers. Something that didn't take a lot of skill and energy like a Patronus message or even a wand so that the goblins could use it as well.
They settled on stone bead bracelets and necklaces. It was simple enough, you could enchant two things so that anything that happened to one would happen to the other. And what the two of them did was pair up lengths of string and cast the enchantment on them. Both pieces of string would then be threaded with stone beads. This way when one of the people wearing a bracelet or a necklace broke the string by giving it a solid pull the paired one that was part of the alarm in the cottage would go off. The strings of beads in the cottage would be hovering over a musical cymbal. When the string broke the stone beads would fall and make a lot of noise on the musical instrument. It was crude, but it was instantaneous, effective and didn't require a wand.
It was on the second Thursday of the month when Ron was pulled out of class by Professor McGonagall. Harry felt his stomach drop as he saw that Professor McGonagall wasn't alone. Just outside of the classroom, waiting for the professor and her brother was Ginny. Harry saw Ron's face go white as he saw his sister waiting. Immediately everyone assumed the worst.
The Weasleys would definitely be on the death eaters targets list. But they hadn't expected the Weasleys to be attacked. The Burrow was almost as well warded as Potter manor. The Weasleys may not have had the gold to hire a warder to protect their home, but they had Bill, and warding and destroying wards were part of being a Gringotts curse breaker/treasure hunter. You had to know how to build a ward before you could know how to destroy one safely.
Yet even if the Burrow was safe, the Weasleys weren't always there. They had to leave the safety of their home often. Maybe one of them had been caught while at the Ministry or shopping in Diagon alley.
Harry, Hermione, and Susan weren't able to concentrate for the rest of the class and as soon as professor Flitwick let them go Susan, worried about Ron, rushed out pulling Harry and Hermione along with her. Once they were alone Harry pulled out the Marauders map and used it to find Ron.
He found Ron's dot in the headmaster's office and immediately sighed in relief. Not only was Ron and Ginny there along with Professor McGonagall and Headmaster Greengrass, but the entire Weasley family was there as well. Arthur, Molly, Bill, Percy, Fred, and George. Charlie was currently in Romania so his absence didn't mean anything. Whatever had happened the family was alive. As long as that was the case everything else could be managed.
Harry showed the two girls the map and pointed out the names in the headmaster's office. He watched as the same wave of relief washed over them.
"What should we do now?" Harry asked.
Susan answered "Well we don't know anything. They could be five minutes or they could be all day. They could take Ron and Ginny out of the castle for a while. The best thing we can do is go to class and Harry can check his map between lessons. Though I'm free until after lunch, what of the two of you?"
"Same. We are both free." Hermione answered. "Normally we would go to the library to work on our homework. Why don't you come with us? We can work on the homework Professor Flitwick just gave us and Harry can keep his map open on the table. That way if Ron gets out soon we can go meet him."
That was accepted as the plan and the three of them set off to the library. Once there they set to work creating an outline of what their essays needed to cover. After about fifteen minutes Susan grabbed Hermione's arm and pointed to the map and Ron and Ginny were now leaving the headmaster's office. A few quick nonverbal spells from Hermione had all their things packed up in seconds and they rushed out to go meet their friends.
They caught up with the two red heads just outside of the Gryffindor common room. Ron looked like he was in shock and Ginny looked like she had been crying. Susan asked "What's happened?" While Hermione pulled Ginny into a hug.
"O-our home is gone. The death eaters destroyed it. Everything we had is gone."
"They killed Erroll. And our goat. Oh god, the chickens." Ginny started listing off the pets. It was proof of just how close Susan had gotten with Ron that she didn't need to ask who Erroll was.
"Were are we going to live now?" Ron asked but it was clear that he wasn't expecting an answer.
It was clear that both of the Weasleys were devastated by the news, even if they were both processing that devastation in different ways. Harry realised that what the two of them needed right now was somewhere they could break down and process in private without causing a scene. And as great the Gryffindor common room was, it was probably the worst place for them right now. Yes they would need the support of their friends but too much too quickly would just make things worse.
Luckily when your grandfather was basically your parent and also a professor you had access to some parts of the castle most students never see. Professor Potter would be teaching for the rest of the day, which meant that grandfather Charlus's rooms would be free. So that is where Harry led them all.
They were a little cramped for seating, there were five of them and there were only four chairs. However Harry and Hermione soon solved that, each transfiguring one of the chairs into a sofa. Harry's looked more comfortable but Hermione's looked like it belonged with everything else in the room but everyone was too focused on Ron and Ginny to consider how two people casting the same spell could end up with such vastly different results.
Hermione directed Ron and Ginny to sit while Harry focused on making everything more comfortable. A fire to ward off the chill of a Scottish October, setting the kettle to boil while adding teabags to a tea pot, swiping his grandfather's good biscuits.
Soon the room was warm and Harry was serving the tea. The three friends set about helping the two Weasleys to cope with the loss of their childhood home
-ϟϟϟ-
Charlus wasn't expecting to find his rooms full of teenagers when he stopped by during lunch. His last class had been a bunch of second years and one Gryffindor muggleborn had rightly taken offence to a Ravenclaw calling her a mudblood loud enough for everyone to hear. Unfortunately before Charlus could get up out of his chair and go deal with the Ravenclaw as a professor, the Gryffindor, who was fairly decent at potions, grabbed a few ingredients off her desk, pressed them into a ball and retaliated by throwing that ball into the Ravenclaw girls cauldron.
The Gryffindor witch had intended for the potion to explode over the Ravenclaw, knowing it would make a mess and a bit of a smell but basically being harmless. Unfortunately what she got wrong was the scale of the explosion. It didn't just splatter the Ravenclaw bigot but half the class including himself as he had been on his way to discipline the bigoted witch. Now after assigning both witches detentions, one for hate speech, the other for blowing up his classroom, Charlus wanted a change of robes. Cleaning charms were good but he was sure he could still smell it.
As soon as Charlus opened the door and saw the teens, he could tell something was off. While they had been laughing just before they opened the door one glance at the faces of the Weasleys told him they were laughing through tears. The whole scene begged one question. "What happened?"
"Death eaters destroyed our home last night. Apparently mum and dad were out visiting Bill and weren't there to raise the alarm. Everything we owned is gone. They even destroyed the vegetable garden and killed our fruit trees. We have nothing left." Said Ginny. Recounting what her parents had told her earlier.
Charlus was stunned. He knew that Weasleys were targets just like he and his family were but he hadn't expected this. In hindsight he should have, they were at war after all, but the Weasleys had such strong wards thanks to Bill. "Give me a few minutes to change and then I might have some ideas."
He stepped into his bedroom and closed the door. He dumped his dirty clothes in a hamper and then stepped into his bathroom and into the shower. He didn't have long for a shower even before this crisis was put in front of him but thankfully magic, while not always comfortable, was often very quick. He conjured up a few brushes for scrubbing his body and a few quick spells had them doing the job on their own giving him a few moments to think and come up with a plan.
About five minutes later Charlus was washed, magically dry and had on a fresh set of robes. More importantly he had a plan. He stepped out and found the kids still there waiting for him. They all had expectant faces like they just knew he would have the answers. He appreciated their faith in him, especially Harry's given what his life had been before but at the same time Charlus could admit to himself that he felt the pressure. Nobody could be perfect all the time and eventually he was going to fail these kids. Though it wasn't going to be today.
"Right I have done some thinking and realised that the situation isn't as bad as you might initially think. What you need to remember is that building a house is extremely cheap, and your family still owns the land to build it on." Charlus started to explain.
Hermione however interrupted. "What do you mean building a house is cheap. That would cost thousands of galleons."
"Maybe in the mundane world it's like that but not in the magical one can you figure out why?" Charlus asked.
Hermione just looked confused but it was Harry who worked it out. "Transfiguration." He exclaimed out loud. "You can literally transfigure any old rocks and gravel together into stone blocks, any old twigs and trees into wood you need, and because they are the same materials as the end products they won't change back."
Hermione saw where Harry was going and added, "Of course, and because of that the cost of the materials goes way down. You can even salvage glass bottles from the mundane world to create windows. Use permanent sticking charms instead of cement and nails. The only real expense is getting enough stone and gravel to build the walls."
"You can usually get that from goblins and dwarfs. They create a lot of it while they mine. Way more than they could ever use." Ron said. "It's literally trash to them. But even if mum and dad can get the materials, it's going to take months to build a new house. Where will they, we, live in the meantime?
"Well I have two potential solutions to that and maybe even a third. I think the best bet is that Sirius owns a house that's sitting empty. He has been fixing it up but he doesn't want to live there. I will write him and see if he will be willing to let your parents borrow it for a while. If he can't for some reason, I will invite them to stay at the Manor. It's only Sirius there at the moment and it's way too big for just him. And if your parents refuse I will lend them the tent we used for the world cup. Though if I know Molly and Arthur they may already have a plan on what they are going to do."
"Now off to lunch, the lot of you. You need to eat and keep your strength up. And Ginny, Ron, don't forget that home isn't about things. It's about people. That doesn't mean you don't get to be angry at the loss of your possessions, just don't forget what you still have. Your family is okay, everything else can be fixed." Charlus told them
The teens filed out to go to get something to eat and Charlus began composing a letter to Sirius.
-ϟϟϟ-
It turns out that Molly and Arthur did have a plan. Unfortunately for them it was to stay with Molly's Aunt, Murial Prewett. Charlus had known the woman for years as a client back when he was still an apprentice brewer. And to say he wasn't at all surprised to have Molly and Arthur jump at the chance to leave her home said more about her personality than he could ever say without descending into vulgarity.
Arthur thought he could have a new house ready by Christmas. Especially with Bill, Percy, Fred, and George's help. Especially Bill's, according to what Arthur said in a letter, Bill was owed a few favours from some goblins and was calling them in to get enough stone together.
Honestly considering everything that had happened the time line sounded pretty good. A new house by Christmas, and the vegetable garden would be producing food again by next summer. The only drawback was the Orchards, even with magic they would take years to grow back.
The one upside was that now the Weasleys could actually plan what their house was going to look like. The original had been a mishmash of rooms added as the family grew and needed more space. Now Arthur knew how big his family was and was actually going to plan around that. A kitchen designed with cooking for large family gatherings in mind, a dining room that was going to be big enough to host all the kids, their partners and kids that coming years would shortly bring. No more need for Molly to climb four flights of stairs to look for her son's forgotten laundry. It was never going to be Potter manor. And knowing Arthur it would still have some element of Weasley whimsy. Yet the impression Charlus got from Arthur letters was of a far more dignified home that would stand the test of time. Something Bill would be proud to inherit one day.
Hopefully this war would be over soon. The goblins were itching to go and recover their ancestral stronghold. Though the date that had been settled on sent a shiver down the man's spine. October 31st, Halloween. Maybe Harry was right and the day was cursed.
-ϟϟϟ-
Meanwhile many miles south Dumbledore hummed to himself as he picked through the ash that was once the Gaunt family home. Potter's curse breakers had done a sloppy job in his opinion. There was a lot that could have been learned from this place. Emphasis on the past tense, there was little that could be gleaned from the ash of fiend fire. So much valuable intelligence, gone up in smoke.
He slowly swept his wand back and forth over the ashes sweeping them aside looking for anything that had survived the fire. That's when he saw it glinting in the midday sun now that the layer of ash had been removed.
"I knew it." Dumbledore chuckled to himself as he levitated up the unusual gemstone. "Ogden's memories were right, it was here. And fiend fire would never be a match for something created by a god, an aspect of reality given form and voice. The resurrection stone will out live life itself. Only when the last spark of life left the universe would the power of death fade and with it the Stone." He was monologuing to himself because he hadn't had anyone to talk to for three days as he searched for the stone.
"Now I have two of the three pieces. One more and I will be able to fix it all, make it all worthwhile. Now all I need is for the prophecy to be fulfilled, then I will be able to claim the cloak without fate getting in the way. The Potters curse breakers have a plan for the horcruxes, the Aurors have a plan for the death eaters. There will never be a better opportunity for young Harry to fulfil the prophecy and come out the victor. It's a slim chance, but not hopeless. Sometimes hope is all you need. Well hope and lemon drops." He smiled to himself as he worked out just how he was going to pull this off.