Harry Potter and the Mirrors of Madness Part 3 (Patreon)

"This is obviously a prank," Molly complained, wondering how the twins had pulled it off.

"Just because I played a couple of pranks in school, doesn't mean I can't be Sirius when the situation calls for it," Sirius told her with a slight smile.

Molly turned and glared at Mundungus. "Did you sell them polyjuice?"

"No," Dung replied, voice heavy with annoyance, having already told her that he hadn't sold them polyjuice several times. "Do you have any idea how much polyjuice is going for right now? Harry and Hermione wouldn't buy it and your children couldn't afford it."

"Polyjuice wouldn't allow them to fake the fading magical residue from Harry's scar," Albus cut in before Molly could start ranting. "They also wouldn't be able to fake having each other's memories. As strange as it sounds, I think we'll have to believe them about being from another world or rather several other worlds."

"How do we send them back?" Molly asked, knowing how much she’d miss her children if they’d gone missing.

"They want to stay," Sirius told her.

"You can't be serious!" Molly snapped.

"Last I checked," Sirius replied with a smirk. "Joking aside, they don't have any family or reason to go back and even if they did, we don't have the ability to return them which means they're staying."

Molly scowled at Sirius. "There's no way that Ron and Ginny don't have family that would take them in."

"Just because you're related to someone by blood, doesn't mean you're family," Sirius argued.

"How did they even get here?" Dung asked, sensing a chance to make a lot of money if he could figure out how to replicate the portals and visit other worlds for ‘souvenirs’.

"I'm guessing Professor Dumbledore's alternates had something to do with it," Sirius lied.

"I'll have to find my old notes," Albus mused, thinking about the portal he'd created by accident back in sixty nine while discovering new uses for dragon’s blood. "Sirius has already generously agreed to allow the children to stay here as long as required and I don't see a problem with them attending classes in the fall."

"The minister is going to cause trouble when he learns about the other Harry," Arthur warned.

"Fudge needs to pull his head out of his arse," Sirius argued, wishing they had someone more reasonable in charge so they could get rid of Voldemort and his lackeys and possibly get himself a fair trial.

"Unfortunately," Albus agreed. "Luckily, the minister has no authority over which students Hogwarts admits or rejects."

"Until he passes another educational decree," Shacklebolt piped up.

"As much as I wish that Fudge would see sense, the more of his influence he wastes passing educational degrees that are magically unenforceable, the better," Albus stated, knowing that the ministry had very little legal authority in Hogwarts or Hogsmeade thanks to ancient magically binding treaties and compacts that Fudge had obviously never read.

"What are we going to do about the children?" Molly asked, trying to get things back on track.

"From the little that Sirius shared, they've been through a significant amount of trauma the last couple of years, we should let them relax and recover during the rest of summer break," Albus told the group, fairly sure the best thing for the children was simply to spend time with their friends.

"If they really are who they appear to be then we need to figure out what happened in their worlds, Ron just said that we'd all died," Molly argued.

"Try to remember that they're not actually your children," Sirius warned her.

"What does that mean?!" Molly snapped, glaring at Sirius for daring to tell her she was not to care for one of her blood.

"I mean, you have no legal authority over them and if you want some type of relationship with them you should probably try to take a step back and avoid smothering them," Sirius told her, trying to avoid causing another argument that would quickly spiral out of control.

"He's right," Arthur cut in before Molly could start. "They lost everything and smothering them isn't going to help."

"I wasn't smothering them," Molly said defensively.

"Speaking of pushing things," Sirius cut in, ignoring Molly's delusions, "please stop trying to get Harry to do chores. He's done enough to last a lifetime at the fucking Dursleys and I doubt the rest of the children are going to put up with it. I didn't say anything before, because he needed a distraction, but his friends are going to need his emotional support. I've already told Kreacher to clean the place top to bottom so don't bother."

"I thought you wanted to let the house rot?" Tonks asked before Molly could build up steam for another row.

Sirius scowled as he thought about the cabinet. "That was before something in the hall cabinet exploded."

"Were you able to figure out what was in the cabinet?" Shacklebolt asked.

"Yeah, Kreacher was suspiciously happy about the cabinet exploding so I ordered him to tell me why. Apparently my brother wasn't as much of a tosser as I thought," Sirius admitted reluctantly, not quite sure how to feel about his brother now that he knew he'd died trying to do the right thing.

Tonks frowned slightly. "Mum barely talked about him."

"I'm not surprised, he was always going on about how we shouldn't have to hide and about how we were better than muggles and halfbloods and foreign wizards and other species and everyone really," Sirius replied with a shrug, wondering if things would have been different if he'd taken the time to knock some sense into his brother. "Kreacher admitted that Regulus had stolen one of Voldemort's artifacts in an attempt to make sure Voldemort could be killed and died in the attempt. Regulus had ordered him to destroy it and to not tell anyone about it."

"Aren't you his master?" Molly asked.

"Reluctantly," Sirius replied, unwilling to get into all of the reasons that he hated Kreacher. "Just because he can't lie if I ask him a question directly, doesn't mean he has to volunteer information."

"Have you figured out why the artifact exploded or why Snape's dark mark burned?" Arthur asked.

"I'm still looking into what caused the pulse of magic that destroyed the artifact and Snape's dark mark," Albus admitted, fairly sure it was also responsible for destroying Harry's connection to Voldemort. "Severus is talking to some of his contacts. If we're lucky the destruction of his dark mark could be a result of Voldemort dying."

"I doubt we're that lucky," Tonks grumbled.

"Unfortunately," Albus agreed. "I'll know more when he reports back. Can I talk you into keeping an eye on the children and making sure they don't get into more trouble than they and Sirius can reasonably handle?"

"Sure, I can show them a couple of tricks," Tonks replied, figuring the kids would let something slip if she didn't push.

"Reasonably handle?" Molly asked.

"They need to blow off steam and I'd rather not push either Harry to the point where he decides to sneak off to explore London before the trial," Albus replied, more worried about Fudge's stupidity than he cared to admit.

"I'll help," Bill offered, figuring he could probably get Ron and Ginny to share a little about what they’d been through.

"Fine," Molly grumbled, unhappy about the entire situation. In her opinion, the children shouldn’t have to worry about anything more than schooling and chores, but that wasn’t possible with all the dark wizards about these days and it was making her wand hand itch.

0o0o0

"What was so important that I had to delay meeting with the minister about Potter's trial?" Lucius demanded once Severus closed the door, having gotten his message right before he was going to head to the ministry.

'So much for everyone having problems with their marks,' Severus mused, knowing that Lucius wouldn't be worried about Potter's trial if something had happened to Voldemort or his dark mark. "I wanted to pass on a bit of information about Potter that would make it easier to convict him."

"I'm all ears," Malfoy replied with a smile as he turned to grab his glass of brandy off the table.

Severus used the distraction to draw his wand and hit Lucius with a stunner, causing his 'friend' to collapse unconscious. "Change of plans," he muttered as he pulled a spare wand out of his pocket, knowing that Voldemort would kill him when he realized that he didn't have the dark mark anymore so his utility as a spy was pretty much over. Of course with that no longer being a factor it left him much freer to act. "Obliviate," he whispered as he erased Lucius's memory of their conversation and the fact that he'd received a message from him in the first place.

'You're lucky I need you alive,' Severus thought as he reached down and forcibly yanked a couple of hairs out of his scalp, less than happy about the man's lack of parenting skills as he'd had to put up with his godson acting like a brain dead Gryffindor for the last four years because of him.

'Sorry Albus, we tried it your way.' Severus pulled a vial of polyjuice out of his pocket, dropped the hair into it then drank it after a couple of seconds. He twitched when his flesh shifted and his face changed. He capped the vial and stuck it in his pocket then used his extra wand to transfigure Lucius into a naked doll, causing his clothes to deflate.

He tapped his robes with his extra wand and transfigured them into a passable imitation of Lucius' pretentious outfit, knowing that he'd just have to change them again if his plan worked out. He stole Lucius's wand, coin purse and the bag of gold he'd stashed in his expanded pocket then shrank Lucius' clothes and stuck everything in his pockets, knowing he'd need them for the next part of his plan.

0o0o0

"I'm just saying, if we just kill Fudge, we wouldn't have to deal with the trial," Mirror Harry suggested ‘reasonably’.

Hermione looked up from the spellbook that she was reading. "You can't just go around killing people."

"He has an invisibility cloak, it wouldn't be hard," Mirror Hermione argued then sighed when Hermione gave her a less than amused look. "I was just saying it's possible, not that he should."

"It would certainly make it easier. Poison?" Mirror Ginny asked thoughtfully.

Ginny shook her head. "He probably has something charmed to detect poison."

"Accident with the lift?" Mirror Ron suggested. "It would be less suspicious."

"How is that less suspicious?" Hermione asked. "There are all sorts of safety features on lifts."

"Only on muggle lifts," Mirror Ron replied with a shrug, having killed several corrupt officials by sabotaging one of the lifts in the ministry with the use of a timed shrinking charm.

"It's a clear cut case of self defense and Dudley already knows about magic so there wasn't actually a breach of the statute, we don't need to resort to drastic measures," Hermione argued, wishing the wizarding world had therapists.

"Fudge could still cause trouble," Mirror Ginny argued.

"Hermione's right, we might as well try to do things the right way before we resort to drastic measures," Harry argued as Tonks and Bill quietly walked into the room.

"Drastic measures?" Tonks asked with a smile.

"We were discussing the Daily Prophet, I'm not sure if suing them or burning the building down would get better results, what do you think?" Mirror Harry asked, knowing that it was always better to be thought guilty of a lesser crime so they wouldn’t search for a greater one.

Tonks laughed. "As a member of law enforcement, I think I'm contractually obligated to say that you should probably try suing them."

"I doubt it would help, the ministry would probably just toss the case out," Bill pointed out.

Tonks sighed dramatically. "That's not helping."

"We could probably just steal the printing press," Mirror Ginny mused.

Mirror Ron smiled. "Simple and effective and you'd probably just get a fine if they catch you."

"We should probably stop teasing the poor auror," Ginny suggested.

"I don't know, she's pretty cute," Mirror Ginny said thoughtfully.

"What's it like being an auror?" Harry asked, trying to change the subject.

"Honestly? It's not what I was expecting, half the time we catch someone they get off with a warning or a small fine because they know someone," Tonks admitted.

"If that's the case, why bother?" Mirror Harry asked.

"Because someone has to," Tonks replied, having been asking herself that very question a lot lately, thanks to the increasing corruption.

"What is curse breaking like?" Mirror Hermione asked, looking at Bill.

Bill shrugged. "We spend a lot of time researching and trying to avoid getting turned inside out by ancient curses so the goblins can loot ancient tombs and the rest of the time playing cards in a tent while trying to avoid getting sand in things. It's an interesting challenge and it pays well. How did I die in your world?"

"I don't know, you were at a dig, your teammate heard a whooshing sound and when they looked up you were gone," Mirror Ron replied. "At least it was quick, Ginny drowned when Crouch Junior sabotaged the spells keeping her safe in the lake and the aurors killed Mum. Charlie was eaten by a dragon because he got distracted or stabbed in the back and the twins and Dad died to fiendfyre at the World Cup."

"Why would the aurors kill your mother?" Tonks asked.

"She was killing every Death Eater she could and she killed Lucius and Fudge while they were in a meeting, things spiraled from there," Mirror Ron admitted. "My version of Harry was killed by Draco and Hermione might have faked her death. Everything went to shit when I put my name in the goblet."

"No one could have expected that," Ron argued.

Mirror Ron sighed. "Harry knew the damned thing was a trap, he tried to talk me out of it."

"Sounds like a good friend," Mirror Harry offered, wishing things had ended differently with his Ron.

"Yeah," Mirror Ron replied with a bittersweet smile. "He had my back every step of the way."

'I should have believed Harry,' Ron thought, feeling a bit guilty over the shit he'd said when he'd thought that Harry had figured out a way to toss his name in and hadn't told him.

"Goblet? As in the Goblet of Fire?" Bill asked.

"Yeah, I almost won, but I caught a curse in the back from Krum at the last second," Mirror Ron admitted.

"Who won?" Harry asked.

"Fleur, she hit Krum in the back after he said something about me needing to watch my back and grabbed the goblet," Mirror Ron replied with a grin. "I don't have any hard feelings, I was just glad to be done with it at that point."

"That's about how I felt when I finished," Mirror Harry agreed.

"Harry got stuck as the fourth champion in mine," Mirror Ginny offered.

Mirror Hermione shook her head when they looked at her. "Harry refused to participate which caused the goblet to kill Crouch and resulted in the school being shut down for the rest of the year. I was looking forward to asking Harry to the ball."

"I'm pretty sure the Blacks have a ballroom or a room we can turn into a ball room," Mirror Ginny suggested.

"We'd need music," Mirror Harry mused, not seeing a problem with dancing with Hermione since he hadn't gotten the chance to dance with his Hermione.

"I have a boombox," Mirror Ron offered.

"A what?" Ron asked in confusion.

"Muggle music box," Mirror Ron replied, making a note to take a trip to London to get everyone some exposure to muggle culture.

"Dining room or drawing room?" Harry asked thoughtfully.

"Drawing room, it's wider," Hermione suggested, deciding that everyone obviously needed a distraction.

0o0o0

Fudge smiled as Lucius Malfoy walked into his office, always happy to line his pocket. "You said you had to way to ruin Potter's reputation."

"Of course," Severus replied as he pulled Lucius' wand and hit the minister with a stunner before he could react, not particularly interested in listening to the idiot bluster or babble on about his latest scheme to discredit Harry. "It involves framing people."

Severus waved his extra wand and vanished Fudge's clothes other than his small clothes then pulled his other vial of polyjuice out of his pocket, walked over and stole a hair from Fudge's head. He added the hair to the polyjuice and drank it with distaste, changing to look like Fudge and stretching his clothes around the middle. He adjusted his clothes with a tap of his extra wand then capped the polyjuice on the off chance that he needed to change into the minister one last time. He put the vial in his pocket then grabbed the Malfoy infused polyjuice from his other pocket and poured the rest of it in Fudge's mouth.

He used a medical spell to get the minister to swallow the potion then pulled Malfoy's shrunken clothes out of his pocket and expanded them. A couple of switching spells later and Fudge was dressed in Malfoy's clothes. He put the vial and wand back in his pocket then picked up Fudge's wand and used a blasting charm to kill Fudge then screamed at the top of his lungs, "Help!" as he ran toward the door.

He burst out into the hallway screaming, "The dark lord is back!" as he ran toward the exit, flailing his empty arms like an idiot as he ran toward the exit, less than happy about trying to run with Fudge's extra bulk while keeping in character. "Malfoy tried to kill me!"

"Arrest him!" Severus shouted as he ran toward the lift and 'safety', wanting to make sure that enough people heard him screaming for blood on his way out. 'I should have just enough time left to order the paper to print a story about Malfoy attacking me and that Voldemort is back before I have to vanish. I should probably look into officially vanishing before Voldemort gets suspicious, at least this solves the problem of a Dart Arts teacher. I’ll need to see if Albus knows of a formula for longer lasting polyjuice.’

0o0o0

Albus smiled as he leaned back in his chair in his office, snapped his fingers, and burned his notes on the prophecy, his smile far less benevolent than his usual expression, despite his joy that Harry was no longer in the line of fire nor had to die by Voldemort's hand for the sake of the wizarding world. "Tom, you were my least favorite student, even with teaching multiple generations of Malfoys. In a better world, with a better upbringing, maybe you could have been someone decent, but alas that world is not this one… and there's no longer a prophecy protecting you, you little shite."