Hermione and Harriette The story begins with Hermione Granger, who went looking for the long lost little sister of Harry Potter, one Harriette Potter. She discovered this sister first by name in an old dusty book in the Hogwarts library, then she cast a spell upon herself which got her here, to this place, a little town inhabited by strange individuals, which is where she actually met Harriette. Harriette had been sent there to escape Voldemort himself, it was thought. One trouble was, Hermione left all of her books of spells, incantations, potions and charms at Hogwarts and had not a clue how to get back there, or how to bring Harriette with her. "Harriette Potter, how good it is that I found you. I know your brother Harry, wonderful fellow that one. Now, all I have to do is figure out how to get you back to where Harry is, to Hogwarts." Hermione tried to explain things to Harriette. "Who is Harry Potter? And I don't need to go to Harry, I am happy here. I run errands, sweep floors, manicure nails. Lots of nails to manicure here, you wouldn't believe how much work these dragons and werewolves need. Pedicures, too. And what is Hogwarts? Doesn't sound very nice to me." Harriette was content right where she was. "Hogwarts, the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, is the most famous school of its kind. You are a little young to be a student there, just nine, but you can live there anyhow if we can get you back. Meanwhile, aren't some of these people dangerous? Don't they try to hurt you?" "Coo, yes, but I stay on my toes. Dragons aren't too smart, neither are the fat old knights. I got my wits and fast feet. Do you want to stay where I live? I have a little cupboard-under-the-stairs at a Chinese restaurant." Harriette sounded a little like Harry himself. Hermione took her up on her offer to sleep in her cupboard-under-the-stairs at the Chinese restaurant. Harriette Potter pointed out to Hermione that the Chinese restaurateur would charge her to stay there in the cupboard, but she could work for her keep, like Harriette did. "His name is Chiang Fat-So, but everyone calls him Fatso. The name of the restaurant is Fatso's Chinese Restaurant. He is a good man, and works harder than anyone." Hermione was tired, so both girls went to sleep. In the morning there was a tap-tap-tapping at the cupboard door. Harriette opened it, and there were two owls! "Blimey!" she exclaimed, "where did they come from?" Hermione said one was Hedwig, Harry's owl, and it had a letter for her, which she opened. It was addressed to: Hermione Granger, Cupboard-Under-the-Stairs, Fatso's Chinese Restaurant, By the Shores of Gitche Gumee. "It is from your brother, my best friend, best boy friend that is. I have girl friends, too. Well Harry is not a boy-friend, just a friend-boy." Hermione opened the letter and it said, 'Here are some seeds. Plant them and they will grow a spell book, potion book, charm book and an incantation book for you in about a week. Your own were too heavy for Hedwig to carry. And money. Here are a couple hundred little gold coins for you and Harriette. Best, Harry Potter.' What does your letter say, Harriette?" asked Hermione, seeing that the other owl had a letter addressed to Harriette, this one from Hagrid. "Ummm-m-m, I dunno, I cannot read, Hermione," answered Harriette. Hermione opened it up and it simply said, 'I will come for you when you are ready. Hermione will teach you everything. Sincerely, Hagrid' Hermione then went to Fat-So and offered him one little gold coin per day for herself and Harriette so they would not have to work. He was happy to accept the money, but on seeing all the work he had to do Hermione said she would do his accounting for him. She was good with ciphers. Harriette still wanted to help clean the restaurant up a little, and they were both given all the leftovers they wanted, to eat. The two girls went outside, and found a pair of worn-out brooms beside the trash. "You can learn to fly one of these, Harriette," suggested Hermione, "what you do is lay it on the ground beside you, hold out your hand, and say the magic incantation, 'UP'" Hermione started to say the magic word for Harriette to follow, but the brooms leaped up into both girls' hands. "The same thing happened to your brother Harry," commented Hermione, "I was not sure you were destined to become a witch, but now I am sure you are. Now push off with your feet, and steer with your weight." They flew around the town for a little while, then out of the valley and over a row of hills, where they found a little stream. They landed, took off their clothes and bathed in the stream. "Ooohh-h, this is cold, but it feels good," Harriette exclaimed excitedly. They washed the clothes they had on, dried off by lying on a rock in the sun, got dressed again, then went flying around long enough to dry off their clothes and their hair. Returning to the town they put their brooms away, and Harriette said she wanted to do some work, for her regular customers, so the two girls went out together. "Sir Endur, Sir Finity, how about a manicure today? All that fighting, scratching at your smallpox and everything, you need a little work done to look your best? Okay, maybe tomorrow." Harriette had spoken to two of her regulars. She and Hermione walked a little farther, then met one Lady Kaledarae, new in town. "Ma'am, your ladyship, would you like a manicure? My friend will do a pedicure for you? Dragons need lots of work on their nails, biting and scratching, clawing all the time. Okay? Coo!" Harriette and Hermione went to work on the fine lady, doing her nails, claws, even offering to polish the scales on her back, but she declined, she did not want to get undressed in public. "I hope she gives us a ruddy good tip, Hermione, so do a good job." Both girls worked hard, doing their best. The dragoness, Lady Kaledarae did indeed pay them handsomely, two silver coins each. Hermione and Harriette then wandered the town, until they found a bookstore with a small children's book section. Hermione bought an arithmetic book and two readers with lots of pictures, both for Harriette. "You will have to learn to read and do arithmetic, Harriette, before Hagrid will come and get us. What is this 'Shores of Gitche Gumee' that was on the address of the letters that the owls brought us?" asked Hermione. "Oh, that is the river that runs past the town, the Gitche Gumee River. People say that it is haunted, or enchanted, and there aren't any bridges across; but the werewolves can swim across. Humans don't, they are afraid. But we flew across it on our brooms, didn't we?" Harriette was excited about being a witch. "Okay, let's go down to the river; we need to find a stick to make a wand for you. We could buy one at Ollivander's if we were there, but we aren't, so we will make a wand for you." Hermione named a number of the trees they saw while walking along the river, Maple, Beachwood, Oak, Holly, Briar, while Harriette repeated the names, memorizing them. "A-hah! Try this one, Harriette," Hermione said excitedly, handing a stick to her young friend. It was a hickory stick, recently blown down by the wind, dry but not rotted, nice and straight. Harriette waved it about, and sparks flew from its tip in her hand. "Ohh, I love it, Hermione," she exclaimed. The two headed back to Fat-So's Chinese restaurant, but on the way there stopped a fine looking unicorn, Harriette asking him, "How about a shine, clean up your hooves, sir, brush your tail, the works, good job?" The unicorn was persuaded, and the two girls went to work on his hooves, mane and tail, brushing his coat thoroughly. Hermione polished his horn. It had blood on it, like he had been fighting with it. "Ruddy dragon I would say, bet you gave him what-for, right-y sir?" The unicorn did not answer, and Hermione learned unicorns are not very talkative, especially about their personal lives. Hermione saved several strands of hair from brushing his tail, and as soon as he had paid them ten bronze coins each they were on their way to their cupboard-under-the-stairs. Home again, Harriette went to work on her arithmetic and reading, learning words for things they saw every day. She picked up reading rapidly, especially when Hermione said she herself had learned to read when she was four. "Learn all that, and we will buy you some books about fairies, goblins, trolls, witches and all. Books by Hans Christian Anderson, The Brothers Grimm, stories about King Arthur, Merlin, Morgana la Fey, wonderful people, all of them, Harriette. I grew up on them, their stories." Hermione was working on the hickory stick, cutting it a little shorter, scraping the bark off of it with a sharp rock, shining it with furniture polish and wrapping the ends tightly with the unicorn hair. She even put an ivory tip on the base of it that had once been a cigar holder. "There you go, Harriette, now watch me." Hermione took her own wand and drew a circle on the side of their cupboard. A hole appeared, letting in fresh air from the outside. "Now, you can always close up a hole by drawing a line from the edge of the circle to the center, like this." Hermione closed up the circle, and the hole vanished. "Oh, I love this," excitedly exclaimed Harriette, making a few circles on the wall and closing them back up before Fat-So saw them. "Try this, now," suggested Hermione, and drew a circle on the floor. A hole appeared, and she swept the loose bark and dust from making the wand into it, and it all disappeared. She then closed the hole back up. "Just don't put anything valuable into the hole, or you will never get it back. Now you go ahead with the reading and arithmetic, I want to go out and find an owl for us." With that Hermione went out back, got the discarded broom she had used earlier, and went across the Gitche Gumee river, looking for a baby owl. She soon found one, but it could not fly yet, and Harriette showed Hermione what good a single chopstick could be. She took a sharpened one out of her hair and threw it, like a dagger, bagging a mouse in the restaurant kitchen, and gave it to her owl. She had named the owl Ludwig, hearing that her brother Harry Potter's owl was called Hedwig. "Hedwig and Ludwig, maybe they will be a couple," she speculated. Harriette wanted to go out and try to earn some more money, and in a local estabishment they came upon an unsavory individual, who was being a little boisterous. "Relax, mate-y, or we will turn you into a toad," Hermione greeted the elf, named Daemon. He had just asked the two girls to groom his hair and to do a few other things, his nails or claws, and had tossed two beautiful gemstones on the table in his favorite public house where he was having a snack and a flagon of wine. Hermione was examining the gemstones on the table. One was a cubic zirconium, about three and a half carats, not particularly valuable, or so she thought. The other was a fine ruby, however, worth far more than a haircut and manicure by two urchins. "Or back into a toad," giggled Harriette to Hermione, as they started on his shoes, fingernails, toenails and hair. Only one girl could work on his hair at once. "Nasty lice you have here, your elf-ship," commented Hermione, as she picked some of the little thing-ies out of his locks, then sprinkled a magic dust into his hair, "this should get rid of them for good." It would, too. Witches disliked lice more than anyone, and had conjured up cures for them long before the muggle world ever found a de-lousing chemical that did not kill the person faster than it killed the lice. That done, she took a tablecloth off of one of the tables and put it around his shoulders and sprinkled some dry shampoo powder into his hair, rubbed it around a little, then combed and brushed it out. Finally she trimmed it, using her wand as a straight razor, and put a black Scrunchie on his ponytail. She touched up the sideburns, gave him a quick beard trim and was finished at about the same time as Harriette finished his fingernails and toenails. "If you do not mind my saying so, sire, you are paying too much for your wine. Chateau Margeaux this stuff is not, and it is closer to Mad-Dog 20-20, if you have ever tasted the latter." The gentle-drakken looked pleased by their service, and the two went out into the streets again, this time returning to the bookstore where Hermione had found the readers for Harriette. This time Hermione found copies of the Arthurian legends, works of The Brothers Grimm, fairy tales, works by E.T.A. Hoffman and, by sheer luck, Midsummer Night's Dream, Macbeth and Hamlet, all ghostly stories, the last three by Shakespeare. Harriette was learning rapidly, and in a short time had advanced from not being able to read at all, through first readers, and on to literature much beyond her age, of nine years old. Arithmetic was another story, however. She mastered addition and subtraction, but multiplication escaped her totally. It was an abstraction possibly beyond her, at this time. That done, they returned to their cupboard-under-the-stairs. Harriette loved watching Hermione do the accounting for Fat-So, the Chinese restaurateur who was their host. Her fingers flew on the abacus, doing the arithmetic. "How does that thing add or subtract, Hermione," asked Harriette. "It doesn't. You do that in your head and you put the answer into the beads on the abacus," Hermione responded, "people long ago did not have scratch paper, only slate boards or the sand to write in, with a stick. They had to learn to cipher in their heads." "I saw something in the distance, yesterday," Hermione invited, "it is a mountain range, and it might be interesting to go flying there. Do you want to go?" Harriette was ready at the drop of a stone to go flying, so off they went on their brooms, across the river and towards the mountains. They slowly gained altitude, and within the hour were close to it. "You can see which way the wind is blowing by watching the clouds, Harriette. We want to get upwind of the mountain range, for lift," Hermione instructed, and they positioned themselves above the upwind slope and soared the length of the range. There was a castle there, but they stayed just below the cloud base, so if there was danger they could dart into the clouds and hide. They went back and forth a few times, looking over the castle. They could see people below, but could not tell whose castle it was. Hermione was concerned, because in the little town she had seen dragons, werewolves, elves, gargoyles, gnomes, every preternatural life-form except witches and wizards. They were the only two witches there, in fact. Was this by accident or intent? "Let's go back, Harriette, we will return again." Back at the restaurant, in their cupboard-under-the-stairs, Hermione took out a comb and was going to do Harriette's hair, but she screamed. "Don't touch it, please!" Harriette begged, and pulled her bangs down over her forehead. "What is the matter, girl?" asked Hermione, curious. "Somebody marked me, long ago, I don't remember when," Harriette answered, ready to sob. Hermione thought, then asked, "Is it a mark like this?" drawing a letter 'Z' in the air. "Yes, how did you know?" "Your brother, Harry Potter, has a mark just like it. A nasty person, Voldemort by name, made it. People think he was the one who killed your parents and put the mark on Harry, and now on you, too." Harriette let Hermione do her hair now. The mark was just like Harry's. Hermione cut the little girl's hair, but left her bangs long to cover the mark on her forehead. She looked very pretty when they were finished. "We need to go out and get you and me both some new clothes, maybe tomorrow. Your dress is too small and is worn out, and you and I both need other things, new knickers, socks, sandals, everything. Maybe tomorrow or the next day, okay?" Harriette thought this would be fun. "Can we fly back to that castle again?" Hermione said yes, but was a little afraid it belonged to Voldemort himself, and that could be dangerous. Hermione and Harriette started out their next day doing some odd chores for Fat-So, their host. Hermione paid him his little gold coin for their daily stay there. These were not the gold Galleons used by witches and wizards, but another smaller and thinner coin. Harry had sent Hermione a couple hundred of them by owl when she arrived here in this town, by the Gitche Gumee River. Hermione finished the accounting she was doing for Chiang Fat-So, and Harriette some cleaning. They decided to go out and do some shopping for clothes they both needed. "How do you tell a diamond from a cubic zirconium?" asked Harriette. "I am not sure," responded Hermione, "I have never actually seen a diamond. But I read where nearly all diamonds have little imperfections you can see in them with a magnifying glass, and cubic zirconium does not; it is man- made, in muggle factories. I looked at the one that elf-gentleman, Daemon, gave us, and it was perfect, so I assumed it was not a diamond. Who would have a perfect diamond in a town like this? I suppose you could try scratching a glass window with it. A diamond would cut glass, but the zirconium would wear out really quick. Let's see." Hermione took the clear stone out of her purse, and drew a circle with its sharpest point on a small window in the shop where they were looking in at new clothes. A disc of glass fell out in her hands. "Lord love a duck," exclaimed Hermione, "it is a diamond, after all, and a good one at that. We have to go tell that elf-fellow he made a mistake paying us so much money." Hermione put the piece of glass back in the window, and then had Harriette take out her wand and seal it around the cut edges, making it look like nothing had ever happened. "You can work magic on things, Harriette, but not on people, not on muggles, anyhow, like on Fat-So or the other ordinary mortals in the town." The two went inside, where they selected two cute embroidered denim sleeveless dresses for Harriette, and a blouse and some tee shirts to wear under them. They both needed new knickers, socks, Scrunchies, barrettes, undershirts and sandals. Hermione's gray skirt-and-top was fine, but she picked out a pair of shorts to wear when she was laundering it. They found a couple of dorm-shirts to sleep in, paid for it all, and returned to their cupboard-under-the stairs. There, they put the new things away and got a change of clothing and headed out, on their brooms, to the river a few miles across the Gitche Gumee, where they bathed, sunned themselves dry and changed into clean things. It surely felt good to Harriette to have something new on. She had worn cast-offs for as long as she could remember. Back they returned to the cupboard-under-the-stairs, where both were going to do some reading, and Harriette work on her arithmetic, when a tap-tap- tapping was heard on their little door. Outside was an owl, with a note to Hermione from Albus Dumbledore, the headmaster himself at Hogwarts. "Bloody pestilence!" Hermione exclaimed, "himself wants me to return to Hogwarts to explain what I am doing here. I do not know how to get to Hogwarts. In fact, I am not sure where we are. We could be in Xanadu, for all I know. Hagrid sent us a note, days ago, and said he would come for us when we were ready, that is all I know. Well, I will just have to write Dumbledore a letter explaining all that." Dumbledore's owl and Ludwig found each other, and were talking in owl-talk while Hermione wrote the headmaster of Hogwarts a note on the backside of the parchment he had written her on. "Dear your-lordship," she began, "I cannot come back to Hogwarts at this time. I don't know the way, and besides I am busy with Harriette Potter, the little sister of Harry Potter, teaching her how to read, write and cipher, and study history, so she can get into Hogwarts when Rubeus Hagrid comes for us. She is only nine, but she loves reading 'Midsummer Nights Dream,' and has started memorizing 'The Raven,' by Edgar Allen Poe. I taught her to fly on a broom, and we discovered what might be the castle of 'He Who Must Not Be Named,' mister Vee. I made her a wand, hickory with unicorn hair, and she can mend broken glass and do other things with it. If you-know-who lives in that castle, Harriette wants to deal with him proper-like, since he killed her parents and made the ugly mark on her forehead, one just like Harry Potter has. (Signed), Hermione Granger." "There, I hope that keeps Master Dumbledore out of our hair for a while," Hermione stated, then she and Harriette both took sharpened chopsticks and threw them, dagger-style, at two fat mice and fed them to the two owls. She gave the parchment to Dumbledore's owl and put him on his way back to Hogwarts. The two girls decided to use the rest of the day flying to the castle on the mountain ridge in the distance, again. They took off flying on their brooms and, within the hour, were getting close to the castle. They kept between the afternoon sun and the castle, so they were nearly impossible to see by anyone down there. They flew as close to the castle as they dared. It certainly looked scary, like someone evil lived there. "How would we ever get inside, Hermione," asked Harriette. "I don't know for sure. It would be risky, but we could go in through the storm drains, or through the roof, or any of the doors in the courtyard. Trouble is, if we were caught it would be curtains for us. Maybe we could drop something on it, or give the people inside a disease or something, like the plague or smallpox." An idea was brewing in Hermione's mind. "Or maybe I need to teach you about levitation," she finished talking to Harriette, and they returned to the Chinese restaurant. Safely back in their cupboard-under-the-stairs, Hermione took two owl feathers and placed them on the floor in front of them. "Now take your wand, concentrate on the feather in front of you and say, very clearly, 'Wingardium Leviosa.'" Hermione's feather rose slowly into the air, and she guided it around the little room. Harriette did the same. At first it did not work, but as soon as she learned to say 'Leviooo-o-o-sa' correctly she could move the feather around at will. Hermione checked the pots where she had planted the seeds to grow new books of spells, charms, incantations and potions, and the books were done growing. She picked one, leafed through it, and decided it looked fine. Paper comes from trees, so why not books grow on plants? Sounded logical, for a witch at least. "Now try it on a book, Harriette," she suggested. Harriette concentrated on the book, then pointing her wand said, clearly, "Wingardium Leviosa," and the book rose slowly into the air, where Harriette guided it about the room, then placed it neatly on their bookshelf with the rest of their books. She was happy with herself, and Hermione congratulated her, "Way to go, girl," giving her a hi-five. Harriette and Hermione went into town and found the elf, Daemon, in the tavern. They were going to try to return the expensive diamond to him, but he was engaged in an important-looking conversation with another gentleman, and looked like he did not want to be interrupted by two little girls. They continued around the tavern for a few minutes, however, hoping to pick up a little conversation about the castle they were so intent upon checking out, but heard nothing. Humans simply did not cross the river, and knew nothing of the place. That, or if they did go near it they never returned. They then returned to their cupboard-under-the-stairs and did some reading, Hermione in her new books of spells, potions, incantations and charms, Harriette enjoying reading Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream. "I love Titania, the fairy queen," extolled Harriette, "and all the little kids. Puck is cute, the way he can fly around the world in the blink of an eye. I wish Oberon would not pick on Titania, though, that is so mean." Little Harriette was reading material that older children could not manage. She played with her owl, Ludwig, who was starting to fly. Harriette would throw a sharpened chopstick, striking a mouse, and Ludwig would fly over to it and eat it. Soon he would be able to catch his own mice. "Let's practice up on levitation, Harriette," suggested Hermione; "I think we are going to need it in the near future, against the castle." Hermione did not explain her plan yet to Harriette. She was still working on it. Instead she got out their two games of checkers and Chinese checkers, sat the boards in the center of their floor, and the two girls proceeded to play the games using only their wands, moving the checkers and marbles without touching them with their fingers. Levitation was becoming second nature to Harriette; good thing, she would need it very soon. After the games got boring they both wanted to go flying. They got on their brooms, and Hermione suggested they try flying as much as possible without using their hands, "Just hold on with your heels tucked under the broom, lean forward to go down, lean backwards to go up." It was easy after they both got used to the idea. Sometimes they might need both hands for something else. They flew around, went to a farm and picked up a cow, one girl levitating one end, the other girl levitating the other end. The cow did not panic, in fact she did not even know her feet were off the ground until she found out she could not reach the grass with her mouth. The girls then put her back down and over-flew the town. "Your brother, Harry Potter, plays Quiddich without holding on to his broom with either hand," Hermione pointed out to Harriette. Harriette was impressed and encouraged. The townspeople did not look up much. It was a dangerous place, and people tended to watch behind themselves, and into dark doorways, watching for danger. Hermione then suggested they go back to the castle, on the mountain ridge. "I am getting an idea, how two little girls, you and I, can take out this entire castle, Harriette, and get even with the man who killed your parents and marked you and your brother on your foreheads." "Whenever you are ready," responded Harriette bravely, "just say the word." Hermione explained her plan to Harriette, "We will need to practice up first, on some logs, huge rocks, abandoned buildings, things like that. What we do is go out before it gets light, find the castle and get one of us on each end of it and start levitating it, and carry it out to this lake about ten miles away, on the other side of the mountain ridge, and gently lower it in to the lake. Sound good? We get rid of the castle and all the soldiers, whoever they are, inside. We will have to go back and deal with the basement later, but that should be easy." Harriette was mind-boggled by the idea, but agreed to it. It was a way to rid the world of the man who had killed her and Harry's parents. First, they practiced on a fallen tree. It was big, maybe fifty feet long, and weighed tons. Each girl on her broom, they got on either end and chanted, "Wingardium Leviosa," pointing their wands at the tree. Up it went, staying level, and they slowly flew with it, transporting it to the town-side of the river where woodcutters would find it. Then they went to the base of the mountain ridge and found a huge rock, roughly a hundred feet long and thirty or fifty feet wide and high. It had rolled down the mountain eons ago. Again, carefully, they got on either end and uttered their chanted- spell, raising the rock into the air and transporting it to a small canyon, where they lowered it gently, ever so gently, into the canyon and left it lay there. Back in the town they found an abandoned one-room stone building, like a groundskeeper's apartment, and carefully levitated it and carried it to the back of Chiang Fat-So's restaurant, where they lived, and set it down right against the back, for Fat-So to use to store his brooms and garbage containers in. He should find it useful. That was not too bad, so they finished the day by going to the castle and landing in some thick trees and bushes where they could watch the castle crew carrying out refuse to a garbage dump, downwind of the castle. Some men had just finished, and returned to the inside. The two girls looked carefully from a distance, and saw the bodies of people, men and women, who had died in the torture chambers of the castle. They were horribly mutilated, broken arms and legs, eyes put out. They even found the bodies of little children, just like themselves. "That gent has a thing for little girls, doesn't he?" Hermione observed bitterly. That meant they would have to be especially careful around this place. They did not want to become one of his victims. The bodies were all simply left there in the sun, and were being eaten by ravens, crows and vultures. They returned to the Chinese restaurant, to their cupboard-under-the-stairs that had been their home for these last few months. Hermione guessed that school would be starting up at Hogwarts about now, after the summer vacation. She hoped she would get back there, with Harriette. She loved her school, and missed spending the summer with her family. She and Harriette had both enjoyed birthdays this summer at Fat-So's, and were now twelve and ten. They agreed to go to bed early, and get up before dark to go try to move the castle. Next morning came, and at three a.m. they took off flying, having eaten lightly, and arrived at the castle. There were a few lights visible, but it was so dark no one could see the girls. They positioned themselves one at each end of the castle and, wands poised, chanted "Wingardium Leviosa." Slowly and ponderously, the castle began to rise. The girls did not want to disturb anyone inside, or alert them. They raised it fifty feet into the air and transported it in the direction away from their town, to a lake they had located before, ten miles away. The lake was not all that deep, but it would be deep enough. Carefully, ever so carefully, they approached the lake and lowered the castle down to its surface. By now maybe a few people's ears were popping, from the change in altitude, but no noise was heard, no alarm inside. They lowered the castle into the lake. First the ground level disappeared, the drawbridge with it, then the walls and parapets. The inner buildings also vanished, along with the turrets. The only thing still above the water was the citadel, a heavily fortified tower in the center with the castle-flag on top, now visible in the morning light, with a letter "V" showing inside the coat-of-arms. It, too, disappeared into the murky depths, the castle now settling into the mud at the bottom of the lake. It appeared that if anyone had been alive within, they were now drowned. Good riddance. Harriette and Hermione then flew to where the castle had been standing, to check out the basement. Harriette sensed that possibly He Who Must Not Be Named, Mister Vee himself, might still be alive. They found the ground floor still there, and let themselves in through a stairway into the basement. There were other stairways, down to lower and lower levels, probably to the dungeon itself. Suddenly the ground floor gave away, and came crashing through the floor below, and the floor below that, and down to the lowest level of the basement. There they saw the dungeon and the torture chamber, and the mysterious Mister Vee. He was busy with a victim, but seeing them, he grabbed at his wand. "Stay back, Hermione," Harriette shouted, "This is my battle. He can kill you, but he cannot kill me. He tried once, after he killed my parents." Using her wand, Harriette then knocked the evil wizard's wand out of his reach. He reached for a vial of potion, and Harriette knocked that away, also. Everything he reached for she knocked away with the power of her wand. Facing her, he raised his hands and began an incantation, but Harriette ran full-speed at him and leaped into the air, hitting him in the chest with her body, wrapping her legs around his neck. He toppled over backwards, stunned momentarily, hitting his head, and Harriette reached into her denim dress pocket and took out a sewing needle, threaded with a strong flaxen thread. She sewed his mouth shut so he could not utter his incantation. She and Hermione both heard his screams of pain as the needle pierced his lips over and over, sewing it shut, finally the screams coming only out of his nose. "Do you know what a frontal lobotomy is, Mister Vee? Here, let me show you. It is when you stir up the frontal lobes of the brain. It makes a much nicer person of you. I just read about it last week in a psychology book," Harriette jammed a sharpened chopstick into the evil wizard's nostril and hammered it with the heel of her hand up into the front of his brain and out the top of his skull, "This one is for my mum!" she gloated, "and this one," placing another chopstick in his other nostril and driving it into the other front-side of his brain, "is for my daddy!" Taking her needle and flaxen thread again she sewed the lids of his eyes shut; she finished off, "And these are for the marks you made on the foreheads of my brother Harry and me!" Hermione, seeing that Harriette had her end of things under control, had gone around unlocking dungeon doors with her wand, allowing a few victims to escape. Most were beyond help however, and she simply abandoned them. They were already doomed. She called out to Harriette, "Come on, girl, let's get out of here. This basement is about to collapse. It could bury us all alive." "Help me get this whatever-he-is out of here, then; a decent burial is too good for him," begged Harriette, "and grab one of those bags of gold." The two girls each seized one of two large bags of gold coins, and grabbed the old wizard himself and dragged him up the several flights of stairs, just in time, as the basement collapsed upon itself. The castle had been built by magic, and with the magic gone there was nothing left to keep it there. The hole in the ground that had been the basement and dungeon simply swallowed itself and disappeared. They flew on their brooms back towards their town, carrying the wizard, or what was left of him, between them, holding on to him, and each girl carrying a bag of gold in their other hand. Levitation helped to support the load, but he and the treasure were still very heavy. The gold had possibly been stolen from Harry's and Harriette's parents, they did not know. At the Gitche Gumee River they turned and followed the stream to the Shining Big Sea Water and turned the nearly-dead wizard loose, hopefully to fall into the depths and never be seen again. However, even if he was dead or almost dead, his magic cloak was not, and suddenly he, or the cloak, leveled off in flight, and they saw him go soaring into the distance; soon the evil wizard was out of sight, headed neither girl knew where. Would he ever be seen again? They hoped not, but feared he was not out of their lives for good. Pity. But he was without his army, without his treasure, and without his brain, or the front part of it. He was no longer an immediate threat to them, or anyone else. The two girls then flew back to their Chinese restaurant, to their cupboard-under-the-stairs. It was still early, but both were experiencing a let-down feeling. They had killed a number of soldiers, and possibly Mister Vee himself. At their cupboard, they found waiting for them one Rubeus Hagrid, the man, the very same. "Are ye ready to go to Hogwarts?" Hagrid asked them, then congratulated them on their recent efforts with that castle. "How did you find out about that," Hermione asked him, "we just got done, not an hour or two ago?" Hagrid did not answer, but Hermione knew not much got past Hagrid. Hogwarts?" he repeated, "Are you ready to go?" "Could it wait until tomorrow?" asked Harriette, "we are tired from all we have been doing, and these bags of gold are heavy; my arm is aching a caution." She did not add that she was feeling like throwing up, after all the mayhem she and Hermione had just caused. It is not every day a ten-year-old girl kills someone, no matter how much he or they deserved killing. "That we can manage," Hagrid answered, "I have a few old friends to look up; but be ready to depart at six of the morning, tomorrow, sharp." "If you are going to the public house, do not drink the wine in the casks; purchase instead a bottle of vintage spirits. Dreadful, their common wine," Hermione warned. Hagrid wondered how she knew, but did not ask. "Oh, those bags of gold you have, they belonged to Harry's and Harriette's parents. They are yours now, Harriette," advised Hagrid, "and there is plenty more where that came from." Hagrid then went about his business. Hermione and Harriette gathered their belongings together, then walked into town where they purchased two new suitcases, one for each of them, and a cage for Ludwig, Harriette's owl. He had learned to fly, and would be handy at Hogwarts if they would admit Harriette, even though she was only ten years old. While in town they looked up the elf gentleman, Daemon, and tried to return the diamond to him, saying it was too valuable for two little girls. He would have no part of it, however, and made them keep it. Harriette then gave Hermione the ruby, and kept the diamond for herself. However, she insisted that Hermione take one of the bags of gold. There was more where that came from, Hagrid had told her. They then gathered up a change of clothing and flew to their little river on the far side of the Gitche Gumee River, where they bathed, shampooed and did a laundry, getting ready for the trip to Hogwarts. They were both so excited they thought they would never go to sleep, but as soon as the sun went down they were soundly sleeping, waking up just in time to dress for their six a.m. trip. Hagrid appeared this time, not on a motorcycle but driving an ancient Volkswagen. They loaded their suitcases and owl cage into the back, Hermione gave Chiang Fat-So the last of the little gold coins Hagrid had sent her when she first arrived, bidding him good-day and thanking him for his hospitality, and off they drove, or rather flew, the Volkswagen flying through the sky like an airplane. In a few hours they arrived at Diagon Alley, in London, where Hermione found her family waiting for her to visit for just a short two hours while Hagrid took Harriette shopping. She did not need much, since she already had her wand, money and owl, but needed a cloak, pointy-black-hat, cauldron and a few other things, which Hagrid helped her buy. Then Harriette and Hermione insisted on doing something for Hagrid. They took him into a barber shoppe that provided baths to those in need, and had him bathe and scrub himself head to toe, hair and all. Dressed only in drawers the size of a circus tent, they put him into a barber chair and, while Harriette gave him a manicure and a pedicure, Hermione, using her wand as a straight razor, gave him a hair cut and styling, beard trim, nose-hair-trim and eyebrow trim. The shop owner objected, but seeing how good the girls were at their skills, he was ready to offer them jobs. They then took Hagrid, still only wearing drawers, to an exclusive men's clothing shop and saw him dressed in finery; shoes, socks, shirt and tie, a suit, vest, great-coat and a Homburg (a hat), and gave him a walking stick with an ivory handle. He looked not unlike Prince Albert when they had finished with him. He looked absolutely dignified. Two of their gold coins paid for everything. Hagrid then loaded the two girls and their luggage onto the Hogwarts Express at gate nine and three quarters, saying he had to return the Volkswagen, but would meet them there at the school. He in fact arrived at the school ahead of them and told all to Professor Dumbledore. As soon as the two girls entered the great hall, Hermione apologized for being a few days late for starting the school year. Dumbledore simply waved her to her seat at the Gryffindor table. A not unpleasant lady, one professor McGonagall, escorted Harriette Potter in, where Harriette began to ask Dumbledore if she could enter school there, with her brother Harry, even though she was only ten. "I know a lot, sir, and have studied hard, sir, your excellency, your lordship, sir." "I know all about you, Miss Potter," he responded, pleasantly, and motioned to Professor McGonagall to proceed with the sorting hat. "The sorting hat will know if you, Harriette Potter, should be admitted," the professor pronounced. Harriette sat on the chair per instructions, and the lady in green placed the hat on her head. It mumbled, muttered, stuttered, coughed, hemmed- and-hawed, then finally said, "I place Harriette Potter in ... Gryffindor!" Harry Potter then stood up, waving, and his little sister Harriette came running into his arms, they seeing each other for the first time since he was barely two and she was a newborn baby. Harriette was ready to eat. She had skipped breakfast that morning, she and Hermione were so excited, but Harry introduced her to his best friend, Ron Weasley, and to his other friends. Harriette showed them her wand, the hickory-and-unicorn-hair wand Hermione had made for her, and told how they had levitated an entire castle into a lake. Hagrid had let them both bring their brooms, and Harriette asked when she and Harry could go flying, and if she could learn to play Quiddich with them. Harry Potter was surprised how much his little sister knew already and had done, and asked why she kept a pair of sharpened chopsticks stuffed in her hair. "Never know when you will need them, brother, you never know," Harriette responded cryptically.