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Chapter Twenty

The next few days were filled with confusion and chaos, all classes were cancelled while the professors sorted out the mess. Many of the public areas of Hogwarts were damaged in one way or another. And the house elves were having trouble getting the blood out of the floors for some reason. And, as usual, Gilderoy Lockhart was missing.

Harry settled in the Juku, in one of the comfortable reading chairs, to have a good think. He didn't even look up when Hermione wandered in grumbling about canceled classes and idiots. He'd catch up to her later.

After a few more minutes, Harry went to his desk and pulled out a stack of reports. This was one of the parts of his life that he truly didn't like, distilling all the clutter of facts, figures and details into a coherent whole. A whole that would lead him to his quarry. But he did what needed to be done to get his job done.

Harry jumped a bit as Hermione leaned over his shoulder, like she'd done a hundred times before, to see what he was working on.

She exclaimed, "Oh, Death Eater habits and habitat?"

"Yes, Miss Nosy, exactly. You don't want to know what I'm going to do with this information."

"No, I don't. But ... you know ... I really don't care either. If you do something nasty to one of them, it can't be anything worse than what they've done, or are planning to do. So ... let me help you." Hermione just took his notes and started looking them over. Harry let her. He was really interested in what she might come up with.

It didn't take her long to condense his notes and the notes of his Father, Brother and Sanu Hisoka, his lawyer and Ito Ken-ichei into a plan of action that made him grin.

"Hermione, remind me never to piss you off. This is really good." He flipped through the pages. "It'll take me a while to do all this but ..." he snickered. "It's going to be fun. Only one question ... why not just burn Parkinson House down?"

Hermione smoothed her robes, a sly, self-satisfied smirk on her lips. "Because the Parkinsons are house proud. If you burn it down, they'll just rebuild; better and bigger. But, if you just really trash the place, they'll have to clean it up. Hurts more. And a warning, next time we might just actually burn it down."

Harry let Yusuke out a bit. "With them in it. I see."

Hermione shivered but soldiered on. "Yes. Also, I don't want to know exactly what you're trying to accomplish. And I don't want to know how. But ... if it's to do with stopping Voldy-what's it..." She snickered slightly as she used one of Fudge's pet names for Voldemort. "I'll help you as much as I can. Ok?"

"Ok. Thank you. It is to do with stopping those idiots. They're ruining our business in this country. They're also a real threat to world peace. The Ministry trying to take over my holdings in this country just stepped up our timetable a bit. We weren't planning to do anything with him until I was a bit older, but needs must." He picked up the papers, tidied them and put them all into a folder. "If we're done here?" Hermione just took the folder and put it on her desk. "I see. I have something to do on Saturday. Will you and Neville be ok, or do you need an escort?"

He didn't jump when a voice from Neville's desk said, "Escort."

Hermione shrieked, clutching at her heart. "Damnit, Neville, make a noise, will you?"

Harry just smiled at Neville, he was learning well. He'd heard him come in, but Hermione hadn't.

Neville got up and ambled over to the desk. He picked up the papers and flipped through them quickly. "Seems good to me. But there's a few names missing."

"No, just put off. I'm not going after the inner circle until I've shut down the outer ones. Not good tactics." Harry patted Neville on the shoulder. "Thanks anyway."