Harry Potter and the Prince of Slytherin

Chapter 7: Little Hangleton

6 August 1994
"Blackstone Manor"
7:00 p.m.

At long last, Harry and his friends' summer lessons had ended, but the Brain Trust wasn't quite done yet. On Saturday, August 6th, the two exhibition matches held at Hogwarts took place before sizeable audiences, and Harry took great pride in informing Dumbledore how much money had been made for the Hogwarts General Fund. Hermione had not attended the matches, but that was not terribly surprising. House pride was barely enough to induce the witch to come to the Gryffindor matches, after all. Instead, she spent part of the day at a Muggle library, though she did join Harry and her other friends for a final dinner party. Apparently, Harry had taught Buttercup how to make pizza and tacos, to the confusion and then delight of the Purebloods in attendance.

If any of Hermione's friends noticed the file folder that she had brought with her and handed off to Harry upon arrival, no one commented.

During the dinner, Harry officially announced that "Blackstone" would be the new name of the former Potter Manor. Ginny Weasley had proposed it, as Black was Harry's surname now and he was heavily integrated into House Black. The suggestion had won her a hefty gift certificate to Honeyduke's, which she looked forward to trying out, as she was a rising Third Year and would finally get to visit Hogsmeade.

"Well, legally, anyway," she admitted with a smirk. "I am a Weasley, after all, and the Twins told me where a few secret passages are. I'm pretty sure Ron and Percy are the only ones to have never snuck over to Hogsmeade without permission."

Ron was not present to respond to the dig as he had declined to come to the party claiming a prior engagement. He did, however, send a very nice thank-you note to Harry for allowing him to join Harry's study group over the summer. Harry hoped he would be able to have at least a cordial relationship with Jim's best friend despite the Oath of Enmity.

More than the Manor's name had changed. Going with Ginny's suggestion, Harry had arranged to have the sandstone walls of the former Potter Manor transfigured into a jet black. He'd also assisted Regulus in taking stones recovered from Chevenoir's fireplace—the only part of the original structure to survive its destruction—and using them to make a small black rock garden behind the house as a memorial to Arcturus Black. Sirius had been deeply moved when he saw it.

After dinner, the group retired to the Great Hall, which had been set up as the nerve center for Eye-Spy Productions. The room was presently home to an assortment of mirrors all of different sizes, each of which had been prepared to replay the day's Quidditch matches from different angles. The Brain Trust would review the playback on each screen and discuss their plans for editing them together. Harry made some comments but mentioned that he wouldn't be available the next day to help with the editing as he had a meeting with Lucius Malfoy about financing.

"That's okay, Harry," Sue said amiably. "Keeping our backers happy is probably as important as what we'll be doing."

Harry laughed, and so did everyone else. All except for Hermione, who merely smiled and nodded as the two of them made eye contact. Everyone headed home around 9:00 p.m. Hermione was the last to leave, and she paused at the Floo.

"Good luck," she said quietly before leaving. Harry quickly went up to his room and opened the folder containing Hermione's research.

"Yeah," he muttered to himself. "We'll probably need it."

Meanwhile at 4 Privet Drive

"The meal was delicious, Mrs. Potter," Ron said politely. "What was it called again? Pasghetti?"

"Spaghetti," Lily replied with a smile. "Although, I think Jim called it pasghetti for a while when he was about four or so."

"Muuum!" Jim wailed at his mother's attempt to embarrass him. Lily and James just laughed.