ᵇᵃⁿᵏⁱⁿᵍ ᵒⁿ ʰᵉʳ ; ʰᵃʳᵐⁱᵒⁿᵉ

Chapter Nine

In Scotland at this time of year, there are less than seven hours between sunrise and sunset. How anyone living further north than us copes with winter is beyond me. Therefore it was a great relief to take in the bright lights of London for a few days earlier this week. Sections of this story were written on the rail journey to and from Kings Cross station, partly due to a certain train company's less than truthful claims of on-board free wi-fi. On connecting my iPad, I soon discovered that only the first fifteen minutes were free (which didn't even cover the inevitable train delay). You were then 'invited' to pay up to a fiver an hour after the initial free period. With this incident firmly in mind, I would like to take this opportunity to state categorically that I do not own Harry Potter, nor make any money from my writing.

On a completely different note, I finally got to see DH2 as it was released on blu-ray. Thought the two movies were actually better than the last book but that isn't exactly a ringing endorsement considering my opinion of Deathly Hallows. What stood out for me though was a line beautifully delivered by Alan Rickman in the Snape memories section. Snape confronts Dumbledore with the fact that he has been raising Harry like a pig to slaughter, a claim Dumbledore doesn't even attempt to refute. I really can't equate this, and some of Dumbledore's other actions to those of the 'great light' wizard Albus is portrayed to be? I've tried a couple of times to write a 'good' Dumbledore but I see the character as a ruthless bastard who will do anything to ensure what HE thinks must be done actually comes to pass. I don't set out to deliberately 'bash' anyone, I just go where my thoughts and writing takes me. Enough of my drabbles so on with the story, and I really must post a massive 'chapter ending cliffie' warning here.

Chapter 9

Harry came out his bedroom next morning to find Hermione and Tonks eagerly trying to sort through a mountain of books that hadn't been there when he went to bed last night. As he had just woken up, Harry felt he could be excused for asking the obvious question. "Where did this lot come from? Did you two do a midnight raid on the library?"

"Trust me Harry, you wouldn't find most of these in the Hogwarts library. Not even in the restricted section. Tonks said some of the books have the Black family crest on them."

As a cup of tea appeared on the table in front of him, Harry knew just who to ask about the book mountain mystery. "Dobby, what do you know about these books?"

The little elf appeared at once and offered an explanation. "Dobby and your godfather were talking last night, he tells Dobby there are many books in his family library that might help Harry Potter."

"So you went and got them?"

"No Harry Potter sir, Dobby is a Potter elf but his friend Winky was wanting a new family. She was very happy to bond with your godfather and join his family. Winky was able to take Dobby to the Black library and we brought all these books to help Harry Potter. There are many more left and we will bring others when you finish with those ones."

Dobby popped away and Harry immediately expected an explosion from his betrothed because Sirius had bound Winky to him. The explosion never materialised though as Hermione had her full attention on the visible results of that bonding. Personally Harry thought Dobby was doing more to promote Hermione's idea of Elfish Welfare than all her badges and hat knittingcombined. He had no doubts that Sirius had about as much choice in bonding with Winky as he had with Dobby. The little guy was just wonderful at looking after his family, and it would appear he did the same for his friends. He would lay odds that Winky would now be looking after Sirius but that Dobby would still be popping by there most nights. Theirs was certainly not a master / slave relationship and Harry was very happy about that.

"Harry, some of the stuff in here is brilliant. Some of it is absolutely brutal too."

"Hermione's right, there's a lot of stuff in here that even I've never seen before."