My life four yours

[Darkphoenixlady]

Chapter 1

"Stand aside! I will kill him! He is mine!" shrieked Voldemort.​

Harry's hand had closed on Cedric's wrist; one tombstone stood between him and Voldemort, but Cedric was too heavy to carry, and the cup was out of reach —


Voldemort's red eyes flamed in the darkness. Harry saw his mouth curl into a smile, saw him raise his wand.

"Accio!" Harry yelled, pointing his wand at the Triwizard Cup.​

It flew into the air and soared toward him. Harry caught it by the handle —


He heard Voldemort's scream of fury at the same moment that he felt the jerk behind his navel that meant the Portkey had worked — it was speeding him away in a whirl of wind and color, and Cedric along with him… They were going back. [Excerpt from The Goblet of Fire by JKR]

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It's a beautiful day as Mindee Cuckoo is sat on a bench overlooking the reservoir near the Salem Center. Not that she cares as tears stream down her cheeks as the she grieves the death of her boyfriend, Germaine, in yesterday's riots. Coupled with the deaths of Sophie and Esme only a matter of months earlier, it is unsurprising that it is only the presence of her sister clones, Phoebe and Celeste, and their deep gestalt that is giving her the strength to cope as well as she is.


Out of thin air a boy maybe a year or two younger than their year mates appears along with a corpse and a shining cup. As the boy staggers towards them, Mindee lashes out with the gestalt expecting to find an enemy. Instead she finds a mind almost shredded by pain, battered by terror and fear, and torn apart by the sharp grief of loss. As her sisters did for her, so she does for this mind, and pulls it close to share her own grief and show it that it's not alone.

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Harry manages to stagger a few steps away from the Triwizard cup before he's hit by a blinding pain in his head that immediately turns to comfort and soothing. As it reaches out with its own grief, he reaches back with what's left of his reserves and collapses as two pairs of arms catch him.


As they support him, the third mind offers unconditional acceptance and belonging as long as he reciprocates. At the same time it's yearning for something that has been ripped from all three of them. Magically, physically, and mentally exhausted, the tattered barriers that protect Harry's Id, Ego, and Superego that would stand strong in the face of any torture instead collapse in the face of something he has desired for so many years.


As he tries to reach back, the last dregs of his magic is guided by the gestalt to fulfil his desires and fill the hole that was left when five became four, and four became three. While the initial changes have to be mental in order to fit with the others, the gestalt only works because they only differ by their experiences.

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As a fourth mind joins their gestalt, as if it had always been there and they were only waiting to meet them, Celeste scowls at Mindee, "Mindee, what did you do that for?"


"You felt him, her, and it's not like we didn't invite Emma either."


Phoebe rolls her eyes as the boy collapses and his eyes roll back in his head, "It's not like anyone else would give themselves up like that either. Probably won't last either."


Mindee looks towards the X-Corp building that's their temporary home. "We should take him to the infirmary."


Celeste nods, "Emma's contacting the police to check on the body."


As the four of them are rounding a corner, there's a series of three pops surrounding the cup and body.

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Harry briefly wakes up as one of four spikes with grief, she reaches out into the gestalt to offer what comfort she can as Germaine's eulogy is read at the memorial service.

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Emma looks down at the boy that is rapidly starting to look like a clone of hers, "Hank, what's going on?"


Beast grabs the boy's notes from the back of the bed, "Your guess is as good as mine. According to our initial tests, he's not a mutant, yet as you can see. Elixir healed all of the damage he could. We've got scans and blood work that show childhood malnutrition and long term elevated stress levels. Elixir said that there was significant nerve damage, but that wouldn't show up on any of the scans we can do here."


"Could he be a mutate?"


Beast shrugs, "Anything's possible, but I don't think so. The Cuckoo's have said he's regained consciousness a few times over the last two weeks. Not that the equipment we've got here has shown anything. There're some anomalous compounds in his blood, but nothing that we've been able to identify. Even so, his testes have withdrawn and an ultrasound shows the development of a uterus."


"Celeste said that he joined their gestalt."


"Is that even possible?"


Emma looks away briefly with a frown, "In theory, no. You would need to have no sense of self-worth or identity, which should be impossible. Even if you did join, your ego and id would reassert itself in short order. In theory, even just having a debilitating injury like a missing arm or leg could cause them to leave the gestalt. There's just so few examples of a gestalt as long lasting as theirs."


"But each of them have their own personalities."


Emma nods, "I was talking about being able to permanently join the gestalt. Psychics are able to create temporary gestalts, but nobody can subsume themselves enough to make it permanent."


Harry smiles as she reaches out to the gestalt. The smile turns into a frown as a feeling like there's something important she should be remembering intrudes before she falls back into unconsciousness.

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Mindee looks up at Celeste as Harry's Ego reforms. "He was tortured."


"Cupboard?"


Phoebe shakes her head, "Graveyard."


Mindee raises her eyebrows, "I was thinking solitary confinement."


Celeste nods, "All of those. But we are four in one, she isn't alone anymore."


"They will find her."


Phoebe shakes her head, "They will find us."


"We will speak to Emma. What of secrecy?"


"He's back, it doesn't matter."


"Hermione?"


Celeste nods, "Dentists."


Phoebe smiles, "Harry agrees, I've told Emma. She needs clothes."


Mindee nods, "She can use mine until we go shopping."


All three of them say, "We agree, four cannot become three and one."

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As Harry's eyes snap open Mindee walks through the door to her room. Despite knowing that all four of them already know, Harry smiles at Mindee and says, "Thank you. Sorry it took me so long to come back."


Mindee smiles back, "And thank you for helping to fill their void. You're one of us now."


Harry starts dressing as she asks, "Did they find Hermione?"


"They're coming to visit next week."


"I'm never going back."


"I know. We won't let you."


"I'm glad you know what happened."


"Same."


"Quire will never hurt us again. I'll turn him into a teapot before that happens."


Mindee steps to one side as Beast, no Hank McCoy, walks into the room. "Finally awake?"


Harry nods, "I am."


"How are you feeling?"


Mindee says, "She is still dealing with Cedric's death. We are helping."


Harry adds, "Basilisk Venom and Phoenix tears. Not that sort of phoenix."


Mindee nods thoughtfully, "Celeste thinks Fawkes might be a fragment."


Hank rubs the bridge of his nose, "Please remember that I'm not psychic or part of your gestalt."


Harry rubs her scar, "Sorry."


Harry opens her mouth, and closes it so that Hank can ask his question, "Where did you get the scar?"


"A… terrorist killed my parents and tried to kill me as a baby. He failed, and we think he left a connection to me in the scar."


"We?"


Mindee nods, "Yes, it hurts whenever the terrorist is around. Harry doesn't like talking about it."


Hank opens, and then closes his mouth, "Right. Who should I talk to about his malnutrition."


"The Dursley's in England."


"Of course, why didn't I think of that."


Harry giggles, "We're dealing with it. It's harder because it's different to our other upbringing."


Mindee adds, "It's also easier because he's no longer Harry. She's Harry."


Hank nods, "Well, I need to take your feeding tube out. Then we need to find out how complete your change is."


Harry smiles as she turns into diamond for a few seconds, then turns back, "Absolutely. It's a shame the change can't go the other way too."


Mindee nods, "Phoebe would love to go flying with you."


Hank sighs as he leans over and starts to pull the plastic tube out of Harry's nose, "I still need to run the scans. We've never seen a mutant like you."


Harry and Mindee both giggle, "I'm/she's not a mutant."


"Just… turn up for your appointment. Your stuff is in the cupboard."


Harry shakes her head, "Burn it, we didn't pick up my most important possession as we didn't know it was important then."


Mindee nods, "Celeste's got Summers to agree to take us shopping."


Harry adds, "If we do it enough, he'll teach us to drive."


Hank sighs and grabs a tablet, "Fine, before you go I need some details. What's your name?"


"Harry Cuckoo."


"It is? No, I mean what was your old name."


"Harry Potter."


"How old are you?"


Harry smiles mischievously, "I'm the same age as my sisters."


"Fine, how old were you before you met the other Cuckoo's?"


"14."


"What… What was your address?"


"4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, East Sussex, UK."


"Where did you go to school?"


"I'm not allowed to tell you."


Hank's mouth hangs open for a second while he thinks about that. Then he asks, "Why not?"


Mindee says, "The school is in a community that's a bit like the Amish, except secret."


"Fine. What doctor did you go to?"


"He didn't, he didn't have any inoculations either."


"Of course not, why would it be easy."


"Assume that Harry's guardians did the bare minimum they could get away with. That's a good starting point."


Hank growls, "Fine, elementary education."


"Rainbow primary school in Little Whinging."


Mindee adds, "Emma already knows all this. We told her when Harry came back yesterday."


Hank growls and tosses the tablet back on the desk, "Fine, go and do your shopping. Be back here for your first inoculations just before dinner."


Harry nods "Thank you."


As Harry and Mindee walk out with the same gait and body language, Hank rubs his temples.

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Over the next week, Harry gets to experience education and training with the Xavier Institute in person rather than just through her sisters' memories. Here she's just the Cuckoo with a scar, not the boy who lived, or the boy who cheated, or the heir of Slytherin.


However, as with all good things in her life, the day arrives when it might just get torn away. The gestalt agrees that won't be happening, no matter what. And so it is that the four of them are walking out the front door as Hermione and her family arrive in a rented car.


As the car drives around the driveway to the entrance they stand next to each other with their right hand grasping their left wrist and a scarf half over their heads like an alice band that happens to also cover the scar.


Behind them, Emma Frost and Scott Summers both walk out and stop on the veranda. When the car finally stops, Hermione gets out of the rear seat and pensively starts to look around while her parents walk up to the steps.


Together with her sisters, Harry curtsies and says, "Welcome to the Xavier Institute, thank you for coming to see Harry."


As Hermione pensively asks, "Where's Harry?" four invisible people appear on the other side of the car.


As the Cuckoos look straight at them, Emma telepathically lets Scott know they're there as he coughs, "I'm afraid that introductions will have to wait until we have dealt with our uninvited guests."


Hermione's head turns on a swivel as her parents look around with a mildly confused expression. Harry just raises her hand and points at the mind that's second from the left while her sisters point at the other invisible minds. All of them are ready to disable their target at the slightest hint they're about to cast a spell. As her target quietly moves backwards and to the side, Harry keeps her finger pointing at them.


Emma coughs politely, "As you can see gentlemen, we know exactly where you are. If you would be so kind as to drop your invisibility, I'm sure we can all talk like civilised people."


Harry almost smiles as she spots Hermione chewing at her bottom lip in that way she does when she's working on a problem in her head. Celeste gently reminds her through the gestalt that their first priority is the safety of the school and the younger children inside.


As she refocuses her gaze at the point her finger is pointing at, the man on the right removes an invisibility cloak. "Good afternoon, I am officer Hughey. We are here to take Mr Potter into custody on suspicion of the murder of Cedric Diggory and fleeing the United Kingdom."


Emma puts on her business smile, "I see. And do you have a warrant for this? As we rescued Mr Potter after he appeared near some of our students while they were enjoying the good weather. According to our on staff doctor, he was lucky to still be standing as he was showing signs of torture and exhaustion. We have also been in contact with the British Embassy about getting the proper documentation."


Hughey frowns minutely as he glances at one of the invisible people, "Are you sure?"


Emma nods, "Very, I can have our doctor print out a copy of the medical report, if you return with a warrant."


As Celeste detects one of the invisible people about to cast a spell, she pulls the invisibility cloak off them at Emma's prompting, "If you think about casting that, I will disable you."


Hughey gives the cloak on the floor a long look before he says, "I see. I will return at a later date. Please let Mr Potter know that he should stay in the country until we've questioned him about what happened at the end of the tournament."


Phoebe says, "We could show you if you would like. We have examined his memories."


"Not, ah, right now. We would need to extract the memory officially. To avoid tampering, you understand."


Emma nods, "I understand."


"We're just going to use our wands to leave."


Scott shakes his head as Emma points at the gate, "Outside the gates if you will."


Hughey nods and puts his invisibility cloak back on as the other man picks up his cloak, "Of course."


As the four men get close to the gate, Phoebe presses the button to make them open.


As the gates close behind them, Mindee smiles at Hermione, "Don't worry Hermione, you didn't do anything wrong. John Dawlish got his orders from the Minister, who was apparently told by Ludo Bagman, who was told by Arthur Weasley."


Harry steps down from the veranda and pulls the scarf off her head, "Hey Hermione. Miss me?"


Hermione's eyes dart up to Harry's forehead, and she says, "What?"


Harry gives his old grin, "Hey, I fight a troll and I get a best friend. I figure that getting a family is a good trade for fighting Voldemort."


Hermione reaches out her hand hesitantly, "Harry?"


Harry nods, "Yep, no cat hairs involved."


Hermione's dad coughs, "Hermione dear, I was under the impression that your friend was a boy."


Celeste nods, "She was."


Scott sighs and turns back towards the building while Emma says, "There is rather a lot we need to talk about. But first I need to thank you for changing your holiday plans. I can tell that it's put Harry's mind at ease now that you're here. I'm Emma Frost, co-principal of the Xavier Institute for Gifted Children. The man behind me is Scott Summers, the other principal. From right to left we have Phoebe, Mindee, Harry who you already know, and Celeste Cuckoo."


Hermione looks at Harry with wide eyes as her father nods and points at his wife, "This is my wife Jean, and I am Gene. You already know my daughter, Hermione, by reputation."


Emma smiles politely, "I bet that gets confusing at dinner parties."


Jean shrugs, "Only when they're getting boring, it helps that we're both doctors specialising in dentistry."


As Harry takes Hermione's right arm, Phoebe walks down and takes her left arm. "Come on Hermione, while they're doing the polite thing we'll show you to your room. We can also talk about how Harry's changed."


Mindee and Celeste follow up.

 

[Darkphoenixlady]

Characters

Hermione Granger

Abilities:

• Magic: Hermione is a talented witch
• Eidetic Memory: Hermione is able to remember everything she reads. As a side effect, she's struggled to adapt to incomplete or inaccurate information, often placing more weight on the written word than is advisable.
• Psychic Powers: After the Cuckoo's implanted their subconscious knowledge of their own psychic abilities, Hermione's magic modified her brain to be able to use psychic abilities.
• Telekinesis: With her experience with the levitation charm, summoning charm, and knowledge of other spells, Hermione's telekinesis is by far her most developed skill. With effort she can lift 1000lbs of weight. It is unknown if Hermione will be able to do more with this ability.
• Telepathy: Due to the source of her psychic ability, Hermione has telepathy. She can read minds and project her thoughts to others.
• Telepathic Tracking: her telepathy is always active, even when she's asleep. As such she senses all minds within 100 yards and can constantly hear their surface thoughts. She may be able to develop this into Mental Detection.
• Absorb Information: Another uncontrolled ability. Whenever Hermione looks at someone, she automatically begins to view their minds starting with the knowledge they're currently using. With training she should be able to control this impulse, and make it a deliberate and subtle action.

The Cuckoos

In addition to their previous reports, their new member, Harry, adds her own additions.

• Magic: Harry was a powerful wizard before he joined the gestalt, while currently she is the only member with magic we cannot be sure this won't change in the future.
• Telepathy
• Mental Detection: Due to Harry's upbringing prior to joining the Gestalt, they are now constantly aware of the thoughts surrounding them, to the point where they can differentiate different sorts of minds by the way they feel.

Personalities

Overall, the Cuckoo's personalities haven't changed much, though they have spent more time in close proximity to each other. There is also a marked increase in their awareness of their surroundings.

Harry

While her initial personality can't be easily determined due to how tightly the gestalt held together during her initial weeks with the Institute. Her personality has continued to drift closer to that of the other Cuckoo's. According to her friend Hermione, this has made her more outgoing and able to speak her mind while also being less brash and destructively impulsive. She has also taken a keener interest in her studies.

She has also shown a talent and enjoyment of cooking, and has quickly become the most sought out of the Cuckoo's whenever the other potential x-men want snacks.

 

[Darkphoenixlady]

Chapter 2

Hermione looks around the small twin room curiously, her attention constantly returning to the four identical girls sitting on the other bed. If it wasn't for the scar, she wouldn't believe that one of them was Harry.


Eventually she asks, "Why?"


Harry shrug, "We don't know. It should have been impossible."


Celeste nods, "We think it's because Mindee was leading and her boyfriend was killed the day before."


Phoebe adds, "And Harry had just come from a battle where he'd been tortured with the torture curse, and then kept Voldemort from controlling him with the imperious curse."


Mindee holds Harry's hand as she says, "I thought he was an attacker, so I struck at his mind first. But we found fear, exhaustion and loss like our own. So I offered."


Harry smiles, "They offered me a family Hermione, can you believe that. Me, the freak was offered a family."


Hermione's eyes go wide, "Harry, you're not a freak."


Celeste stands up and sits down next to Hermione, "She knows that. But he was told it so much growing up, that he believed it was his name until school. We can talk about it because we are Four in One."


Hermione stares at Celeste with a gobsmacked expression. Eventually she breathes, "How could they?"


"If we ever meet them, we will find out. But we will not seek them out, as we're not sure we could stop ourselves from killing them."


Before Hermione can respond, Phoebe softly says, "Hermione, they hurt us. They hurt us badly. When we say we are four in one, it is not an idiosyncrasy. We are four bodies and one mind."


Harry continues, "We are also psychic. Unlike Professor Xavier, we cannot stop using our telepathy. We are polite and ignore what we 'hear', but we still hear it. You might have heard of Magneto or the X-men?"


Hermione thinks for a moment and then nods before she looks up at Harry, "Harry, are you a mutant?"


Harry shakes his head, "No Hermione, I'm not. Accidental magic at my age, who'd have guessed it."


Celeste quips, "Next you'll be telling me you still wet the bed."


Harry laughs, "I'm not 'poor liddle Duddikins' who needed mummy to take him to the toilet until he was six, and still wet the bed when he was 8."


Hermione makes a face, "Eww, really?"


Harry nods, "Yep, really."


"Wait, you're distracting me."


Mindee nods, "We are, and it's working. Think of our telepathy like being in a bar. If you're sitting next to a table where they're talking loudly. You can't help but overhear them, even if it's a private conversation. So you just ignore it."


Harry laughs, "No, there aren't any books on it. At least not books you can buy. We know that some organisations have manuals to help train their staff to have quieter thoughts."


Hermione grabs a pillow and throws it at Harry, "Stop doing that."


Phoebe shakes her head, "We can't, any more than you can stop yourself reading or doing math problems when you see them. You were Harry's best friend, and we'd like to keep it that way."


Harry continues, "But part of that is that we can't pretend. We are still Harry, but we're more than just Harry."


Hermione looks at Harry, and then deliberately looks at Mindee, "What's it like?"


Mindee smiles, "There are no secrets, even though we have our own thoughts. But we're never alone. We don't need to worry about misunderstandings, hiding problems, or any of the common communication problems that people have. Any of us could lead the gestalt, but we don't because that's how we became three in one. We work together and decide on what we're going to do."


"It sounds nice, I wish I could experience it."


Celeste rubs Hermione's back in circles, "You couldn't. You'd need to let go of all of your barriers, and give yourself over to the gestalt entirely. Most psychics can only manage a few minutes, maybe up to an hour before their ego and superego reassert themselves."


Harry nods, "In fairness, Voldemort did most of the tearing down before I got here. Then you offered me a family if I just let go. So I did."


Hermione looks between the four girls, "But why are you a girl now?"


Mindee says, "So that our memories match up. Could you imagine walking if one leg was sometimes six inches longer than the other? That's what it would be like for us."


"Right, ah, what do you do here?"


Celeste squeezes Hermione's shoulder comfortingly, "The same sort of things you do at Hogwarts. And to answer the questions you wanted to ask. I can't see why you couldn't develop telepathy, and yes we can help you learn how to be less loud with your thoughts. It took Harry over two weeks to finish changing. Yes, she was unconscious the entire time, apart from a few moments where she reached out to support Mindee."


Harry nods, "That's a good idea, we agree that my magic likely kept my ego and superego suppressed until we no longer needed to worry about dysmorphia. We'd start by sending you thoughts rather than speaking out aloud."


Phoebe adds, "It probably couldn't be written down in a way that would actually help people learn."


As the Cuckoo's fall silent, Hermione asks, "Why not?"


Together, the four of them say, "We could teach you how we do it, and you could try to write it down. Call it an experiment if you will."


Hermione chews her bottom lip as she thinks about her answer. Eventually she says, "Do it."


They smile as their eyes glow blue, "Done."


"Really? I didn't feel anything."


Rather than speaking, the four of them send, 'We have been doing this for practically our entire lives.'


Hermione's expression turns shocked and puzzled as she fails to respond. After another couple of attempts she eventually says, "How? Why can't I..."


'We gave you the knowledge to recognise your own thoughts. We do not want to drive our friend insane. And because you're not psychic yet. That's the experiment.'


"What do you... Wait, yet?"


The four of them wait patiently as Hermione works through the problem in her head.


While she's thinking, the door slams open and Emma storms in, "What did you do?"


The four Cuckoo's looks up at her and say, "What she wanted us to."


Emma pinches her nose, "Mindee, explain."


Mindee smiles, "We taught her how to be psychic. She didn't want to lose the person she considers to be her only friend, and felt that this would drive her away from us. Normally, this would be ridiculous, but Hermione thrives on understanding the world. Primarily through books."


"You can't just teach someone to be psychic."


"We know, but Hermione isn't just someone. Hermione has magic."


Emma opens her mouth to say something and then snaps it shut as her head snaps up to look at Harry. "It looks like we need to revisit Ethics then."


Harry smiles, "We informed her of what we would do, and waited for her to give us a reasoned answer."


Hermione nods absently, "They did. It feels weird, like I'm missing an arm."


A writing box floats out of Hermione's suitcase, and hovers in the air for a moment, before it drops back down as Hermione stares at it, "How?"


Celeste says, "You already know how to levitate things, so that part was easy."


Emma puts her hands on her hips, "Is she going to start randomly turning into diamond?"


The Cuckoo's shake their heads, "No, we didn't teach her that. One experiment at a time. Besides, Hermione likes her body."


"Hermione, I can try to remove the knowledge if you'd like."


Hermione looks startled, "No! Uh, I mean. No, I want this."


Emma stares at Hermione for a few seconds until Hermione jumps and says, "Stop that!"


Turning on her heel, Emma walks out the door. As she's pulling it closed behind her, she looks back and says, "I'll be seeing all five of you for Telepathic Ethics. Now I need to explain this to your parents."

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Over the next week the Cuckoos and Hermione spend an hour a day with Emma Frost learning about Ethics, and working through real world examples.


After Hermione starts manifesting telepathic powers after a good nights sleep, and an epic 'discussion' with her parents. Where they eventually agree to enrol her at the institute for holiday classes. On the basis that at least they can see what she's learning from this. Emma starts tutoring Hermione in how to limit her growing telepathy, and how to tune out the thoughts around her. Most of which is spent both building a new habit to keep her eyes downcast, and learning how not to do a deep dive on everyone she looks at. Though her ability to send thoughts is comparatively weaker than expected.


After an aborted attempt to visit New York City as a family, Jean and Gene both spend their days doing the tourist thing, while Hermione spends time with the Cuckoo's venturing into Salem Center, and getting used to the summer season crowds. As, while she's unlikely to ever be a powerful telepath, her passive range is still 100 yards.

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On the day before Harry's birthday, the Cuckoo's and Hermione all look up as a mind appears outside the grounds of the X-Corp building. Mindee, closes the lid on the piano she was playing, and turns to face the others, "I guess it's time then."


Harry nods, "Together."


Celeste nods, "Always."


Hermione frowns as she closes the book she's reading, "What's going on?"


Nezhno, a Wakandan student that had taken to sitting near Hermione whenever she was in the library, asks, "Is it something we need to worry about?"


Harry shakes her head, "Officer Hughey is back with a warrant for my arrest. He doesn't seem happy about it."


Nezhno frowns, "Why would they want to arrest you?"


"They claim that I murdered a student at the end of a tournament."


"Did you?"


Harry shakes her head, "No, I survived the resurrection of a terrorist, Cedric was killed seconds after we were teleported there."


Hermione nods as her hands shake slightly, "It was awful, we were sat watching the maze for hours after Delacour and Krum were retrieved. Then Professor Moody's, ah, disguise failed and he turned into a Death Eater in front of everyone. At the end of term, the headmaster told everyone that the terrorist was back. Then a couple of weeks after we got home, the newspaper claimed that Harry murdered..." She covers her mouth with her hands.


Celeste, as the closest Cuckoo, reaches over and pats Hermione on the knee, "Hermione, it's not your fault."


Nezhno frowns, "Why haven't we heard anything?"


Phoebe glances at Hermione, who nods slightly, "There is a community of magic users that separated from normal society 300 years ago. They have made secrecy their highest law, and frequently used mind wiping to ensure that secret is kept. They have ways of detecting people that are born with the same mutation, and force them to join their community or have their mutation bound."


As Emma walks into the room, the Cuckoo's stand up together, "We're ready. We would like Hermione to come with us, as she was watching at the end of the tournament."


Emma hesitates for a second, "That is not my decision. Hermione is a minor. She would need her parents permission."


Hermione looks up, "Mum and dad were having a day in today. I'll go and ask."


Emma shakes her head, "I'll ask, you still don't have enough control to avoid invading their minds. You can go down to the entrance hall and wait with the Cuckoo's if you wish."

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The click of Emma's heels is loud on the marble flooring as she follows Officer Hughey through an underground complex somewhere in Washington DC. Behind her, the gestalt and Hermione are quiet as they're helping Hermione ignore the background murmur of the surrounding thoughts. It's clear from the hubbub of anticipation, that the trial is going to be far more public than normal. Fortunately, the only person outside the DMLE that is aware of Harry's new appearance is Officer Hughey.


When they arrived in the DMLE, there had been a brief period of confusion when Harry didn't match her photo. Something that was quickly cleared up after Harry revealed her scar, and the Aurors did a minor ritual with a drop of Harry's blood to compare her magical signature with the reference they obtained from the UK. Something that took longer than expected, because the British had already snapped her wand.


As they're led into an antechamber, Emma looks at her charges and the surroundings, and wonders if this is the ultimate result of isolating a community, and if this is the sort of world those like Magneto really want.


Harry breaks the silence by asking, "Will we be allowed to take a truth serum?"


Officer Hughey shakes his head, "Veritasium is a controlled substance, and cannot be used in open trials. If I had my way, we'd have brought you in for questioning first, then we might've used veritasium. Might not, as you're still under age."


Emma looks pensive, "Will they be allowed to give evidence?"


Hughey nods, "That at least is a given over here. Should be over there too, but they still have their Star Courts. For what it's worth, I don't think she did it. I saw the report they did of the wand we found. Honestly, we thought the body was Miss Potter based on the spells used."


Hermione glances up in interest, before screwing her eyes shut, "You can do that? See the previous spells I mean."


Hughey nods, "It's not exactly common knowledge, but yes. Stronger spells can be detected for longer. Though, as long as a wand hasn't been used, the forensic record can still be read. If you take NEWT Arithmancy, they cover it in the second year. At least over here they do."


Celeste muses, "I wonder if it's too late to change our OWLs."


Hughey narrows his eyes and looks between the person he thought was Harry and Celeste, "Even if it is, you can self study and take them with the ICW at the end of August, with everyone that's retesting their OWLs. I thought she was Harry."


Harry nods, "I am. But we are of one mind."


"That's just great, this is why we need time to do proper investigations, and not half ass things. When you say of one mind, what do you mean?"


Emma indicates the four of them, "They mean it literally. They are part of a gestalt hive mind. They explain it as a bout of accidental magic when the Cuckoo's offered safety and comfort."


"Of course it would be. And nobody responded because they'd have assumed the responding officers encountered something. Right, I'll need to speak to the court before you're called in."

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════​

After a period of time, the doors to the antechamber are opened and an Auror in black robes says, "Miss Potter and her twins are required in the court."


Emma stands up with the Cuckoo's, "I am their legal guardian."


The Auror nods, "You may come too."


The five of them are led into a large crowded room with a hanging balcony that's also packed full of spectators. At the front of the room is a large three tiered desk that towers over the clear area between the crowd and the desk. Dominating the free space is a large ornate silver circle that's inlayed into the floor, there is scarcely a part of it that isn't covered in silver runes. Opposite the circle is a smaller chalk circle with a wooden chair sat in the middle of it.


On the far side of the circle is a long table with two familiar minds that are sitting next to another three people. On this side of the circle is a table with a single individual.


The Auror that brought them in guides them over to the mostly empty table. As they approach, the man stands up an conjures a chair for each of them, "I'm sorry we haven't been introduced. I'm your defense lawyer, Alfred Bartlett. I've been spending the entire morning reading through the British trial transcripts. Which basically amount to, your wand was found with the body, so you did it. Which one of you is Harry Potter?"


Harry raises her hand, "I am."


"Do you have any evidence that would help your defense?"


"We were told that you could extract memories officially. So I offer my memories of the event. I'm also willing to enter a binding magical contract to prove I didn't do it."


Alfred looks alarmed, "We don't do that for a trial."


Harry shrugs, "I've only been aware of the magical world for four years sir."


Emma holds up a thick folder, "We also have Harry's medical records from the examination and treatments we made."


Phoebe adds, "Our friend Hermione Granger is also willing to give her memories of two events, one at the end of the tournament and the other at the end of the school year where the headmaster made a statement. She was part of the audience."


Alfred nods, "Not as good as a Veritasium transcript, but still better than nothing. When you're called on to give your memories, you'll need to sit in the chalk circle. It will block your twin bond, so that the twin can't modify the memory. There is a chance that the bond will break, so think before you confirm that you want to offer your memory."


The four of them nod, "We are willing to take the risk."


If Alfred was going to say anything else, it's cut off by a witch in officious robes coming out of a side door, "All rise for Justices Kisiner, Lisset, and Carson, along with ICW observer Wentz."


At the introduction of the last person, Alfred lets out a long sigh of relief.


Once the judges have taken their seats, and the introducer has set up a scroll with a quill hovering over it. The central judge calls out, "This is the case of the United Kingdom vs Mr Harry Potter. Mr Potter is charged with one count of murder and one count of using an unforgiveable. How does the defendant plead?"


Alfred stands up, "Not guilty your honors."


"And where is the defendant?"


Alfred indicates Harry with one hand as he picks up a sheet of parchment, "This is Miss Potter and her sisters. I have the Auror's verification report here. From the scant time I've had with my client, I understand that it occurred as a bout of accidental magic after she escaped from whatever situation killed the other person. We also have the no-maj medical report of Miss Potters condition upon her arrival in the USA."


The judge nods and glances over at the other table, "Yes, there are a lot of irregularities in this case. Does the prosecution have anything to submit to the court?"


One of the men at the other table stands up, and with a British accent, says, "We have already submitted the court documents from Mr Potter's trial. We also have a number of character statements that show he is of low moral character and known for making up fanciful stories."


As both men approach the desk, the head judge mutters, "This'll be good."


While the judge flicks through the documents, Alfred whispers, "Do you have anything to counter the character statements?"


Phoebe nods, "We are willing to give memories about any specific events, as is Miss Hermione Granger, a friend of the accused, and a student at Hogwarts."


Eventually, the judge looks up, "There are rather a lot of character statements here. Including the Minister of Magic. Mr Bartlett, do you have anything to say about these?"


Alfred stands up, "I'm afraid we cannot comment on the contents of those statements, as we have not had the chance to review them. However, my client is prepared to offer memories about specific events. We also have a member of the audience of the final task of the Triwizard Tournament, along with an end of term statement by the Chief Warlock. She may also be willing to provide corroborating memories of specific events too."


The judge nods and taps the pile of statements with his wand so that 1/2 of the pile goes to each of the other two judges. "Well, lets start at the top and look at the charges. Bailiff, if you please."


The auror that introduced the judges walks across the circle, "Miss Potter, please take a seat in the in the circle. You will be required to take a potion that will leave you slightly docile, this is to make it easier on both of you as your memories are extracted."


Harry nods as she stands up. As it occurs to the gestalt, Harry leans over and whispers to Alfred, "Can I provide memories that call into question the character of the character witnesses?"


Alfred whispers back, "Only if they are in reference to a specific event, as they're not here to defend themselves."


Harry nods and gracefully walks over to the chair before sitting down daintily. As she does, she's pleased to note that whatever the circle is supposed to block, it isn't affecting the gestalt. Celeste suggests that it might be isolating Harry's magic, and the gestalt uses psychic energy. The gestalt comes to an agreement, before withdrawing to a background level.


As it does, Harry shivers and resists the urge to hug herself as she's left mostly alone in her head for the first time since she woke up.


The bailiff nods and says, "The circle is working as intended. Bring in the Healer and Court Legimens."


Over the next few minutes, Harry is fed a potion by a healer that leaves her feeling floaty and only semi aware of what's going on. When someone asks her to think about the moments before she picked up the Triwizard cup to the moment she met her new family, the gestalt helps her hold back at the clumsy intrusion into her mind. It's like Hermione looked at her for all the subtlety it holds. It's also not psychic.


A little bit later, they ask her to remember rescuing Ginerva Weasley, then the moment Snape said she'd been confounded when they rescued Sirius. It only takes a little prodding from the Gestalt to include the time loop. Then they ask about the first Care of Magical Creatures lesson. Finally, they ask her to remember the moment the goblet of fire chose her name after she couldn't remember ever entering her name.


When they feed her a second potion, she flees back to her sisters and the Judge gives her an apologetic look as the other three hug her.


Once they've had a moment to recover, the Judge looks at the court Legimens, "In your professional opinion, have any of Miss Potters memories been falsified or tampered with?"


The legimens shakes his head, "No your honors."


The Judge looks at the two lower judges, "Well, I've seen enough. What about you?"


One of the judges taps a couple of sheets of parchment, "I would like to see the evidence that the witness has. She was also in a few of the character events, so I would like to see her memories of the same events."


"Agreed, Bailiff, call in Miss Hermione Granger."


As the bailiff walks over to the antechamber door, the Cuckoo's send, 'Remember that Hermione doesn't know how to hold back yet.' To Emma.


Emma's eyes widen and she leans over to whisper in Alfred's ear, "Miss Granger is an untrained telepath, she might accidentally lash out if they give her the potion. If they are willing, I can help hold her powers in check."

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After Hermione gave her memories and verbal testimony, the judges withdrew with the memories and evidence for a few hours. Long enough that the gestalt has separated enough for Mindee to stay with Hermione as she copes with the feeling of having her memories rifled through by a non-telepath.


As the Judges file back in, the three Cuckoo's sit down with the others. The judge looks around the courtroom that seems even more crowded than it was earlier. "We have reviewed all of the evidence provided. We find the defendant not guilty on all counts and are dismissing the charges with prejudice. We urge the ICW observer to censure the British government for their appalling lack of due process. They should also pay to replace Miss Potters wand at the very least."

 

[Darkphoenixlady]

Chapter 3

A few days later, the gestalt has relaxed enough that Mindee and Phoebe are both catching up on the episodes of Glee that they missed while Celeste is spending her time more productively in the library.


Harry and Hermione are both browsing a small supermarket in Salem Center, looking for ingredients.


Hermione smiles as she watches Harry pick up a bag of almonds and looks at it speculatively, "I didn't know you could cook."


Harry hums, "Mmm? Oh, I didn't exactly talk about my home life. It, wasn't pleasant. He was first forced to start cooking when he was four. Nothing too dangerous, just peeling and washing potatoes, stirring batter, that sort of thing."


Hermione cocks her head, "That doesn't sound so bad, I remember doing that with mum and dad."


Harry nods, "It doesn't does it. But I had to do it for every meal, and if I got it wrong, I was punished. I was six when I could reach the hob without a step, that's when they started me cooking their breakfasts. By the time I was eight, I was cooking most of their meals for them. What do you think your parents would prefer, an Almond dream chocolate cake, or Death by chocolate fudge cake?"


Hermione's eyes snap up to look at Harry as she tries to process the sudden change in topic, "I... Um. We didn't exactly have sweet stuff growing up, as they're dentists. Doesn't it bother you that they did that?"


Harry nods, "A little, that's why we were so close. We had to process what happened to him. Dr McCoy is the one that suggested I try and reclaim the things they did to me. Hmm, I could do a bitter chocolate beetroot cake, maybe add some carrot to add sweetness. What about you? How are you dealing with the fact they're going home on Sunday?"


Hermione looks back toward the front of the shop wistfully, "I wish I got to do more with them. I don't think I realised just how different having powers was to having magic. I mean, I read a bit about mutants during the holidays before. But, it's like we don't do magic, so why couldn't they just not use their powers."


Harry nods and grabs her hand, "It's the difference between knowing and understanding. Come on, we can get the ingredients another day. We need to go now."


Hermione looks around as Harry starts pulling her towards the exit, "Harry, what's going on?"


"Hermione, keep your head down, and walk fast but casually."


"Harry, you're scaring me."


"Good, longer strides and relax your shoulders. I'm trying to save us from a beating."


As they're approaching an alleyway, a man wearing a leather jacket steps out with a wide smile, "Well lookie what we have here, a mutie and a mutie-lover. A pair of dykes too."


Harry doesn't even hesitate as she shouts "Run!" and yanks on Hermione's hand.


Hermione stumbles into a run, as the man reaches out to grab one of them. They've only gone a couple of dozen yards before Harry yanks her to the right and they come to a brick wall. As Hermione stumbles to a halt, Harry leaps for the drain pipe and scrambles to the top of the wall.


"Hermione, give me your hand."


Hermione nervously glances back towards the entrance of the alleyway where she can feel people approaching.


Harry snaps, "Hermione!"


Hermione spins around and spots Harry's hand before she jumps for it. Harry pulls her to the top of the wall with a grunt of effort, "We need to jump. Hermione, you can do this."


Hermione looks down at the grass on the other side of the wall, and then glances back at the alleyway as Harry jumps down.


"Come on Hermione, I've got you. You rode buckbeak, so you can do this."


Hermione nods firmly and pushes herself off the wall with her eyes closed. Harry barely manages to catch her before she twists her ankle, and immediately drags her into a run again. At the other end of the garden, they unbolt the side gate and Harry drags her through before continuing to run for several minutes through multiple twists and turns.


By the time they stop, Hermione's lungs are burning, and she can barely stand. As she goes to sit down, Harry gently takes her hand and starts walking, "Don't sit down. It will make you sick."


"How. Do. You. Know?"


Harry smiles wryly as her eyes scan the street, "Harry hunting. Dudley's favorite game when we were growing up. Sorry I didn't spot them sooner."


"Why. Didn't. We. Just. Stop. Them?"


"I caught one of them thinking about the cameraman just before we left the store. Scott's on his way with Celeste."


"How?"


"We always know where we are Hermione. How are you doing?"


Hermione just stares at her as she continues to draw in great gulping gasps of air.


It takes a few minutes for Scott and Celeste to get to them and pick them up.

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A few hours later, Hermione looks up from the book she's trying to read. A few seconds later, Scott Summers sits down next to her.


"Are you ok?"


Hermione looks back down at the book with unseeing eyes as she tries to come up with something to say.


Scott gently says, "Is this the first time you've faced discrimination?"


Hermione shakes her head, "No, but…"


"It's the first time it's been more than words?"


Hermione shakes her head, "At school, because I didn't grow up in that community. But it was never more than a few pranks."


Scott nods, "But this is the first time there was a real threat of violence."


"I don't understand why I froze."


"Hermione, everyone either freezes or fights the first time. It's why the X-men train, and why we encourage all our students to train too, even if they don't want to join the team."


"But Harry didn't."


"But Mindee, Phoebe, and Celeste all did. Hell, I did too. Harry had a hard life before she came here. I don't know the details, because that's between Harry and her therapist. I do know that she faced many situations similar to that one born out of normal human hate. In that respect, her story is no different to many of the other mutants that board here. It's also different when you're going into a situation where there could be danger, compared to danger coming for you when you should be safe."


Hermione's mouth snaps shut, and she looks up at Scott in surprise before her gaze snaps back to her book, "Sorry."


Scott chuckles, "It's ok, that's why we're here after all."


"How did you know I was going…"


"To bring up some of your adventures? Because that's what happened to us when we were in High School. We wore masks at the time, but we still went out and tried to help where we could. But Professor Xavier is a known mutant, so the institute was a target. It took several attacks before we started responding quickly."


"How? I mean, I can't control my power."


"Join the others in the rec room or outside. You can take the book with you if you want. If you stop hiding, then the others will start trying to make friends with you. Maybe get to know the other Cuckoo's too, as they're all different. Also remember that Dr McCoy and his staff are here to help."


"How long does it take to get control?"


"It depends on the power. Psychic powers like yours? Years. Powers like mine or Rogue's? We can't control them, we've had to learn to live with them. From what I understand of your powers, you have a combination of both."


Hermione nods, "My telekinesis is stronger than the Cuckoo's, and Emma says I should be able to control my automatic deep dive."


"At least you already know how to differentiate yourself from everyone else. I remember in the early days, when Jean first developed telepathy, she'd occasionally mistake other thoughts for her own. It's why Professor X created the psychic course before…"


Hermione nods, "Where is he anyway?"


"He's gone to Genosha to help with the rebuilding. Emma's still scrambling to come to grips with his notes, that's why you're the only psychic she's teaching at the moment."


As the conversation turns to other things, Hermione finally starts to relax.

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Over the next week Harry starts to receive owls and hawks with letters of support and thanks attached to their legs. At first they only appear at night, but after the Cuckoo's respond to the first few with a brief thank you letter, they seem to decide that the grounds of the X-Corp building are safe to deliver to, and the number of letters quickly balloons to one or two an hour, and gets to the point that the other students go from thinking that it's a fun anachronism to being suspicious of what's going on.


On Thursday, Harry received an official letter from the magical government. This contained a voucher for a new wand along with directions to the magical district in New York.


Which is how the Cuckoo's, Grangers, and Emma Frost find themselves standing on Morris Park Ave looking at what appears to be a hoarding on a vacant lot. Hermione takes her wand out of her handbag and taps it to the padlock on the door three times.


Phoebe shakes her head when everyone else just stares at the door and strides through the apparently solid door. Harry and the other Cuckoo's share a glance before she says, "I guess we're doing this then."


One by one, they walk through the barrier, though Jean and Gene need to be led through, as they can't feel the minds on the other side of the barrier that allow the others to push through the repelling wards.


As they appear on the other side, they all pause to look at the street in front of them. What appeared to be a vacant lot is now a wide street with an eclectic mix of late Victorian to mid-1920's buildings all laid out for nearly a 1/4 mile. Halfway down the street a white marble building stands a whole storey above the other buildings.


Emma is the first one to say, "Well, this isn't what I expected."


Gene nods as he looks around, "It's certainly cleaner than Diagon Alley."


Hermione huffs, "Dad! That's just the Leaky Caldron. The rest of the alley is fine."


Jean raises her arm and hesitates for a moment before she gives Hermione a sideways hug, "You know he's just funning you honey. You know we've missed you these last couple of weeks."


Hermione looks up at her mother and briefly sees the love and uncertainty that she's feeling. As she looks away, Jean gently touches her chin to turn her back, "Hermione, I don't want you to look away. You are and always will be our daughter. I can't say we're comfortable with the mind reading, but at least it's something we can understand and speak to your teacher about."


Hermione closes her eyes and leans against Jean as she sees the fear, uncertainty, and loss that caused her parents to draw away from her as she became part of the magical world.


Celeste turns to the others and says, "I'll stay with them, you go and get Harry's wand."


The other Cuckoo's nod and start walking down the street, while Emma takes a moment to register what was said and hurry after her charges. As they're walking down the street, Mindee hurries over to a store that has a violin playing itself in the window. In the corner of the window is a wooden board with "Self tuning instruments available. Ask inside for details."


As the others join her, Mindee says, "Can we get one please?"


Harry smiles, "We might need to wait till we get to the UK, as I don't know if I can access my money here."


Phoebe adds, "We want a tent too, remember?"


As Mindee turns away she wonders, "I wonder if they sell sheet music too."


Harry shrugs, "I don't know, I've never been able to really look around the magical shops."


After a couple more detours to look at a luggage shop that advertises a home in a trunk with a no-maj friendly compartment and a dressmakers with a selection of dresses in the window. The group finally arrive at the wand shop.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════​

They walk into the shop that's lined with boxes in neat columns with a parchment label indicating a length in inches at the bottom. An ancient man who's back is bent with age looks up from a broadsheet, "Ah, Miss Potter and her twins. I've been expecting you. Though I recall there's supposed to be four of you?"


Emma frowns and asks, "How did you know?"


The man snorts and folds his broadsheet before placing it on the table. In the bottom corner is a small picture of Harry standing up from the chair in the court room and running over to the other Cuckoo's. Below the picture is a headline that says, Potter reveals – The patronus charm.


"You might have been a household name in Britian, and a minor celebrity over here before your trial. Since then, The New York Ghost has been running an article a day about the things revealed in your memories. If it was a weekend, I'd imagine you'd have been mobbed by gawkers and well wishers already. As it's not every day that they can meet someone that has made history three times in their life for doing the impossible."


Mindee asks, "What are those things?"


"Why, surviving the killing curse, entering into a twin bond, and having a twin bond with no-maj's. I dare say I wouldn't be surprised if one day I was helping you chose your own wands. It would only be one more impossibility to add to the list."


As the photo Harry reluctantly returns to the chair, Harry tears her eyes away from it and takes the voucher from her purse, "Um, I received this yesterday."


The man nods, "I was expecting that, as I'm the only wand maker in New York that works with other materials. Though I prefer wampus cat fur. I prepared a replacement wand just in case your changes aren't as deep as they appear."


As the man grabs a cane and totters over to a cabinet, Phoebe asks, "What do you mean?"


The man leans down and takes a wand out of the cabinet, "My dear, I've been making wands for nearly 100 years. Back when I started they called me Jonker the Joker because I was a new-maj. Since then I've seen all sorts come into my shop, and one thing sticks out. Repeat customers fall into one of two categories, they either work in a profession where wand breakage is a risk. Or they've gone through a life altering event, and their original wand no longer works for them. Here you go, see if that works for you."


Harry reaches into the box and pulls out the wand only for it to feel like a lifeless stick.


Jonker nods, "As I thought. If you still had your original wand, I have no doubt it would still continue to be loyal to you. Holly is ideally suited to those who need help controlling their anger and impulses. Especially if they are likely to be the victim of fate. When paired with a phoenix feather, they become particularly picky about who they choose."


Emma cocks her head slightly and asks, "Are wands sentient?"


"Of a sort. Or rather many people believe that magic itself is sentient. As with so much of magic, you can study it and come up with rules for how things work, and still it will surprise you. Well, let's start with the Wampus Cat fur wands, as I have more of those. Wampus fur is known to be good for spells that affect the mind, and is a favorite of oblivators across the country. Though it tends to be a solitary cat, and well suited to those who work alone, or tend to be withdrawn. However, that aspect is often overshadowed by the wood. This is a Holly and Wampus wand, 9 3/4 inches."


Harry lifts up the wand, which tingles in her hand, "Why is it shorter?"


Jonker takes the wand back, "Why, because you have changed too. Lets see, you have entered a twin bond with three others. Cedar is well known for its loyalty, lets see if it translates to you. Though it favors those who are both perceptive and insightful."


Harry takes the wand, and gives it a little wave, only to feel like the wand pushes back.


"I see, maybe vine?"


Over the next half an hour Harry goes through most of the different types of wood.


As Celeste walks in with the others, Jonker looks between them curiously, "Maybe, maybe. This is a rare wood that I tried working with in my youth. Silver lime works best for Seers and those skilled at Legilimency. Alas the wood became hard to get hold of before I settled on Wampus cat fur and wand quality stocks haven't yet recovered. I don't know of any wand maker that's read the tales of Beedle the Bard and hasn't tried to make a wand with Thestral tail hair. But alas the warnings by other wand makers are true, and it is a most difficult material to work with. I suppose it's no surprise that of all the wands I tried to make, only the pine and silver lime lasted to be matched. And the pine burned up when it was first picked up. It is said that only those who have seen and accepted death can master a Thestral hair wand. Go on, give it a wave. If it fails, then I will become one in a long list of wand makers that has failed to make a Thestral hair wand."


As Harry hesitantly picks up the wand, it thrums loudly in her hand, before a shower of black sparks leaps from the end.


Jonker nods, "Interesting, cast a spell."


Harry searches her mind for a spell to cast, before she looks at her sisters and smiles. Pulling up all the feelings of love and acceptance she's felt since she joined the gestalt, Harry points her wand and says, "Expecto Patronum."


She's only slightly disappointed when an octopus forms instead of her father's stag. Though the spell takes a little extra push as though her wand isn't completely happy with her.


Gene and Jean both stare at the glowing creature with a look of awe while the other Cuckoo's all crowd around Harry and hug her while they send their own feelings back. If anything the octopus becomes brighter as they do.


Emma tears her eyes away from the construct and licks her lips, "Do you. Ahem. Do you know where we could get some money changed, and how to stop letters from arriving at all hours of the day?"


Jonker coughs, "That is a very impressive display of magic Miss Potter, might I ask you to end it now?" As the patronus disappears he adds, "I dare say you won't find a better match in my store. As for your question Madam, Forgotts is the local wizarding bank. Though there's a wizard run bank in DC if you wish to take the floo. For postal matters, you'd be better off speaking to the post office further down the street. You can't miss it, as it has large open windows on the second floor."

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════​

While the Cuckoo's are looking at clothing, due to the fact that Emma didn't bring enough money to afford an instrument, trunk, or tent. Hermione, Jean, and Gene walk over to the bookshop. Well, Hermione drags Jean and Gene over to the bookshop.


Hermione walks up to the counter where the attendant looks up from some paperwork, "Excuse me, do you have any books on twin bonds?"


The attendant chuckles and points to a table with several displays of books, "You and everyone else. That's our Harry Potter special. 10 Sprinks off anything on that table."


Hermione walks over to the table and immediately picks up one of the last two copies of 'Bonds, Debts, and Marriage'. She also grabs the book that purports to have the patronus charm in, along with a copy of "Fantastic Beasts and where to find them".

 

[Darkphoenixlady]

Chapter 4

The twin bond is a rare phenomenon whereby the magic of identical twins is intwined in the womb. Even rarer are the twin bonds that survive to adulthood. Revered in India and by Native populations around the world, these blessed individuals are well known for becoming mediators because of their hallmark ability to share their thoughts across distances that would make legilimency impossible.


An interesting point of international law is that once a twin bond has been legally recognised, all nations are required to take reasonable steps to protect it.


Excerpt from Bonds, Debts, and Marriages

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Halfway through August the Cuckoo's celebrate their 16th​ birthday. On the same day they receive two official bits of post while Hermione receives a single letter. A fourth hawk delivers a letter to Emma Frost.


The first letter is from Ilvermorny, the East American school of magic. In the letter they apologise for being unable to offer continuing tuition due to her current enrolment in Hogwarts.


The second is a large bundle of letters from Britian, including her book list for 5th​ year. She's just opened a letter from "Snuffles" when Emma sends a message to the Cuckoo's "Harry, Celeste, Mindee, Phoebe, please join me in my office."


The four of them glance at each other before they smoothly get to their feet, or stop what they're doing, and walk towards the building together.


A few minutes later they're standing in front of Emma's desk while she reads a letter written on parchment. On the desk beside her is another sheet of parchment with a passport sat on top of it.


After a moment, Emma looks up and picks up the other sheet of parchment, "I've just received a very interesting letter. Do you know what it says?"


When the Cuckoo's say nothing she continues, "It claims that as Harry is my daughter they have taken the liberty of providing a no-maj passport and have sent instructions to Ilvermorny to enrole you for the remainder of your magical education. Do you know why they would think this?"


Harry speaks for the Cuckoo's, "We're sorry, this is as much news to us as it is to you."


Mindee adds, "We got an apology letter from the school. They couldn't enrole us."


Phoebe shakes her head, "Though we're a little upset that it was addressed to Harry Potter and Twins."


Celeste finally drops the bombshell, "We've also noticed that someone is trying to send Harry negative thoughts and emotions."


Emma leans forward, all thought of their parentage forgotten for the moment, "Why didn't you tell me about this before?"


Harry shrugs, "It is clumsy and easily blocked. It also only happens when Harry, I am alone."


Emma puts her head in her hands, "Cuckoo's, if you are being psychically attacked, you need to let me know."


"We don't think it's psychic."


"I'll be the judge of that, now let me in please."


The Cuckoo's consider the request for a moment, before agreeing to let her try, and pulling away from Harry enough that her thoughts are comprehensible to Emma. They watch curiously as Emma slips into Harry's mind with an almost undetectable touch, not looking at her thoughts and memories, but instead comparing their feel to that of the gestalt and what's left of Harry's original psychic imprint.


After nearly half an hour, Emma sits back in her chair with a disgruntled sigh, "I can't find anything. Which means they're either more subtle than me, or…"


"We think it is magical in nature. We could feel the intrusion at the court, but it didn't feel like a psychic attack."


Emma nods, "I should have thought of that. You said you got letters?"


Harry hands over the letter from Hogwarts, "We haven't finished reading the others."


Emma scans the list and notes the 'and twins' that was added to the address by hand. With a sigh, she pulls a brown manila folder out of her drawer and places it on the desk, "I was going to give this to you later Harry. These are your new documents, including a temporary passport. I need to arrange things with Scott so that I can leave for a week or so. I'm currently planning to fly to the UK in 10 days time, on the 23rd​. That will give us just over a week to get all your new paperwork finalised and deal with whatever we need to in the magical world."


Mindee, Celeste, and Phoebe ask, "Will we be getting new passports too?"


"No, because you're already US citizens. Your permanent visa's are one of the things that I need to chase up in the next few days."

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════​

10 days later, while the plane is circling Heathrow, Hermione closes the textbook by Professor X she's been reading on and off since a few days after Emma started teaching her. "This is impossible. It doesn't make any sense."


Emma telepathically sends, "Of course not. It is an aid to the course, not a replacement."


Hermione reflexively sends back, "Why even have a book then?"


Emma smiles thinly, "Why do they have books on art techniques? You are trying to do a college course when you haven't even finished elementary school. That's even assuming you're capable of everything that Xavier covers. I've already told you repeatedly that this isn't like magic or science. As a field of study, it's more like gymnastics or athletics. What you practice is what you're good at. I believe I've already told you this."


"Yes, but…"


"Hermione, why is this such a problem now when you were far more accepting of it in America?"


"I…"


"You don't have to use words. Let me in and I'll help."


Hermione nods and tries to pull back on her instinctive rejection of another person's thoughts. As she does, Emma murmurs, "Well done, it's better to be too closed than too open."


After a couple of minutes Emma pulls back, "You're not going to be alone this year. You can already feel the minds around us, which is part of why you're so anxious, as there are a lot of people on this flight. You've also been practicing reaching out to other people to form a limited gestalt. Finally, if you suddenly work out how to modify memories, the Cuckoo's are competent at doing the same. So they should be able to fix it. If they can't, then we should have Cerebro back around Christmas, so you can ask me for help. I won't fix it for you, but I will guide you in fixing it yourself."


Hermione looks down at her hands, "But I don't want to hurt anyone."


"Hermione, what have you learned about intent?"


Hermione dutifully recites "Accidents and mistakes happen, and should be treated with compassion while learning to do better from them. Deliberate actions should be judged by the circumstances surrounding them. Was it an attack, self-defence, or defence of others, or maybe even something benign that had unforeseen side effects? Was it proportionate, and how well trained are they?"


Emma says dryly, "Well done, you've managed to remember the textbook. Now, in your own words, what have you learned about intent."


When Hermione hesitates, Emma says, "That right there is what you need to work on. You're no longer a child, but you're not yet an adult. The adult world isn't one of hard and fast rules. Christ, someone should have taught you this already. In Elementary School, being able to follow the instructions is praise worthy…"


While Emma is lecturing Hermione on the things she should have learned, the Cuckoo's reach out towards Harry's old home, briefly touching each mind until they find her relatives, who are shopping for Dudley's school things. Once they do, they briefly look at their motives before implanting a command into Vernon's mind. Next time he has the whole family in the car, and he's been driving at 70 mph or more for half an hour, he'll fall asleep for two minutes.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════​

At the airport the group is met by a Frost International owned Limo that then takes them to The Langham where Emma has booked a suite of rooms on the top floor.


That evening, Jean and Gene join them for dinner before walking home with Hermione babbling excitedly about being made a prefect, and everything that she's been learning.


The next morning, they've barely stepped out of the hotel in order to go to the passport office, when a white owl flies down from the roof of the hotel.


Emma quickly throws up a telepathic illusion as the four Cuckoo's look up and say "Hedwig!"


Hedwig flares her wings and circles the four in some confusion before landing on Mindee's shoulder. Phoebe and Celeste both chuckle as Harry pouts and Mindee says, "She likes me best."


Emma sighs as they fuss over the albino owl. "I guess I need to arrange a falconry licence too then. Didn't your godfather say that your stuff had been taken to his house?"


Harry nods, "He did."


"Well, as Hedwig is here, maybe you could have her deliver a message to meet us in Regents Park tomorrow."


Harry nods, "We'll need some stationary as we only have our phones."


Emma rolls her eyes and gestures to the limo that's waiting for them, "I'm sure there's some stationary in there. Otherwise we can ask the driver to buy some while we're getting Harry's permanent passport."


On the way to the passport office, Emma calls Frost International and tasks her PA to see about arranging licences in the UK and USA to keep birds of prey. At the same time the Cuckoo's write a note to Sirus on some Frost International letterhead that they've torn the top and bottom off.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════​

After Harry's passport has been ordered on a three day service, and her dual nationality registered, the group heads to Diagon Alley.


Halfway to the bank, Hedwig swoops down and lands on Celeste's shoulder. Celeste reaches up and scratches Hedwig's breast before taking the piece of parchment she's holding.


Unfolding it, she reads.


Prongslet,


Unfortunately I cannot meet you as Snuffles is known. Moony will meet you in the rose garden instead.


Snuffles


After reading it she passes it over to Emma, who glances at it before putting it in her purse.


Once they reach the bank it doesn't take them long to reach one of the tellers.


Without looking up the teller grumbles, "Business?"


Emma gives a tight smile, "Currency Exchange."


The goblin looks up, "Buying or selling?"


"First of all I'd like to know the exchange rate."


"£4.90 per Gallon to buy, £4.60 per Gallon if you're selling."


Emma nods "Do you buy 24k gold?"


The goblin pauses, and then climbs off his chair before climbing back up with a sheet of parchment, "42 Gallons per oz if you're selling, 44 if you're buying."


"Troy ounces?"


"Yes. Are you making an exchange today?"


Emma nods, "I am, but I am considering my options for the future. Would you do a better rate if I sell 100 oz of gold?"


The goblin scowls, "42 selling and 44 buying."


Emma takes 8 £50 notes out of an envelope, "I'd like to exchange £2000. How often do your rates change?"


"Daily for pounds. Gold is fixed." the goblin grumbles as he takes the money and waves his hand over it. Then he counts out 20 rolls of coins, plus an additional 8 gallons and some knuts and sickles.


As Emma looks between her bag and the coins, the goblin says, "We can sell you a sack for a sickle."


Emma hands each of the Cuckoo's 4 rolls each and puts the rest in her purse. As she's doing that she asks, "How would I go about making larger purchases without carrying around dangerously large amounts of money?"


"We offer a vault transfer service for 15 sickles, for another 5 sickles we can write the contract for you."


"And how would I open a vault?"


"You couldn't."


"Why?"


"New vaults are only available to of age magicals. You are not magical."


Emma turns away, "I see, come along girls."

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════​

Over the next few hours Emma and the Cuckoo's visit just about every store in the main alleyway. In each store she talks to the owners about their products and buys something from each one. By the time they get to the bookshop, they've discovered that the Ministry has restricted the sale of expanded items to tents (they buy one with a kitchen, bathroom, bedroom with two bunkbeds, and a lounge, for 40G) and small trunks (they buy the largest four they can with built in wand activated shrinking and feather weight charms) .


The British press hasn't published anything about Harry's change in status, though they were forced to have a retraction of her murder charges printed in the Daily Prophet.


The cost of production of most items is close to the cost of materials, with only the enchantments significantly adding to the cost.


Lastly, they learn that some of the staff would be interested in being paid gold to produce unenchanted items for sale in the mundane world. Though they are never explicitly asked about it.


Eventually though, it's time for them to return to the hotel for Hermione's lesson.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════​

"Good evening Hermione, did you have a good day?"


Hermione slumps down on the chair, "Mum and dad were working. I spent most of the morning reading in the park and trying to pull back my telepathy. I got a letter from Sirius with Hedwig, and ended up at... his house. They, they wanted me to stay there. They said it's too dangerous for me to be with mum and dad."


Emma nods thoughtfully, and takes a wrist holster from her purse, "Here, put this on."


Hermione looks confused as she takes the holster, "What?"


"Your wand is a weapon, you should always have it available. You can set it up for cross draw or spring loaded. I've ordered some stilettos for Celeste, Mindee, and Phoebe, as they don't have wands. I think that tomorrow we're going to spend the day in the park until we meet Mr Lupin. You'll be practicing with us."


Hermione leans forward excitedly, "What will we be doing?"


"Two things. You'll be blindfolded, and you'll be given targets to find. The second thing is learning how to absorb information from someone you're not looking at. I think that will help you get a feel for what you're doing."


Hermione's shoulders slump, "Oh."


"Tonight you're going to be working on getting faster at responding to an unwanted intrusion. While I'm working with each of them, the other Cuckoo's will be looking for your most embarrassing memories. Like when you peed the bed at your grandmothers when you were 7."


As Hermione's face flushes and she buries her head in her hands, Emma turns towards the Cuckoos, "I want you to each write a few paragraphs summarising what we learned this afternoon, and how it could be used. Also, take turns gently looking at Hermione's mind, and be obvious about it."


Harry and Celeste both put down their books on 3rd​ year arithmancy and runes. At the same time Phoebe turns away from a particularly violent game of checkers she's playing with a wizarding chess set, and Mindee puts down the violin she's been inspecting.


Hermione glances at the books in surprise, "Runes and Arithmancy?"


Harry nods, "We want to self study and take our owls in August next year. He didn't know that they had uses that were taught at NEWT level. Though, he'd have probably still gone along with Ron because he was afraid of losing his first friend."


"When you say he?"


Celeste prods at Hermione's mind looking for her memory of drinking polyjuice.


Emma looks over at Mindee, "Midee, earlier today you helped create an illusion that Hedwig wasn't there. I want you to see if you can erase your presence from everyone in the room. It's similar to creating an illusion, but rather than adding information, you're removing it."

 

[Darkphoenixlady]

Chapter 5

Emma says, "There's a man with a stone in his shoe. What did he have for breakfast?"


Hermione grimaces as she tries to find the mind that Emma's talking about. She breathes a sigh of relief when she finds him just as he's sitting down. She's still trying to get past his grumbling about blisters, and what he wants at the sandwich shop, when a strange mind walks into her range. Almost immediately she loses the man as her attention is drawn to the mind. Emma's mind touches hers and it takes her a moment to recognise the light touch as a request.


When she stops trying to push it away, Emma sends, "Good, repel first then allow in. You lost focus, now find the man again."


Hermione mentally groans, "But I think that's Professor Lupin."


"I know, and the girls are coming back. You still need to tell me what he had for breakfast. And he's leaving."


Hermione curses as she tries to find the mans mind again. What she thought was a reasonable range in New York is turning out to be pitifully small when it takes a couple of minutes for someone to walk from one edge of to the other.


She loses focus again when four identical minds enter her range.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════​

The Cuckoo's run into the rose gardens from the tennis courts with their rackets still in their hands. As they're running, Phoebe shouts, "Snuffles! Snuffles, here boy!"


As Remus looks up, Celeste catches his eye and runs over, "Hello sir, have you seen our dog Snuffles? He's about this tall, black and fairly stocky. Only he chewed through his lead while we were playing tennis."


Remus looks nonplussed and says, "I'm sorry miss, but I haven't."


Harry walks over and gives a dramatic sigh, "That's a shame, I was sure we'd find someone here that could take us to him. It's almost like he flew off in the middle of the night."


Remus narrows his eyes, "Harry?"


Celeste chuckles, "Took you long enough."


Mindee and Phoebe walk over and loop an arm through either side, "Come on, we're sitting over here."


As Remus is being led over to Emma and Hermione, he asks, "Wait, which one of you is Harry?"


Mindee chuckles, "That would be telling."


Remus stumbles, "Oh, Sirius is going to love you."


They just smile as they continue to lead him away while they discretely modify the memories of a couple of watchers so that they see them running further into the park shouting for Snuffles and see Remus walk over to a seat on the other side of the rose garden and sit down.


As they get closer, Emma glances up and sends, "Very well done, but you missed one."


At the same time, she says, "You must be Mr Lupin."


Remus nods, "You have me at a disadvantage."


Emma smiles, "Emma Frost, I see you've met my daughters."


"You hardly look old enough to have such lovely daughters."


"Why thank you. Hermione, it's time to go."


Hermione breathes a sigh of relief as she takes the blindfold off, "Thank god, my brain hurts."


Remus jumps slightly as he notices Hermione's presence for the first time, "Miss Granger, I wasn't expecting you."


Hermione opens her mouth and hesitates as she remembers being chased by a mob, and the times she's been called a mutie or mutie-lover on the odd occasion she ventured into Salem Center with some of the other students. Especially Nezhno, who seems quietly studious like her, and even helped her out with a couple of meditation techniques. "I enrolled at a school for gifted children over the holiday, as that's where Harry ended up. Emma's been helping me catch up to where I should be."


Emma nods, "While we would normally prefer our students to be around full time, I know that they have other gifts that need nurturing too. I know it's quite a workload, but her parents agree that Hermione is more than capable of keeping up over the school holidays."


Harry grabs her bag and says, "Shall we go and see my godfather now?"


Remus pointedly looks at Emma's heels, "It's a half hour walk. I'm sure I can take the kids and save your feet."


Emma smiles, "I'm sure I'll be fine. Besides, they are my responsibility."

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════​

As they approach the number 11 Grimald place, Emma winces and looks at the space between 11 and 13, "Interesting, someone seems to have hidden number 12."


Remus yelps, "What?"


"I can feel the minds between the two buildings."


The Cuckoo's glance at each other before holding hands. A few seconds later they say, "We can feel them too. It's hard though."


Emma nods, "Something's trying to make us forget they exist. I've not come across anything like this since I had to face Casandra when she took control of Professor X."


Remus looks wildly between Emma and the Cuckoo's "What? How?"


Emma smiles, "I am an omega class telepath, there is very little that can affect my mind if I don't want it to."


The Cuckoo's say, "He is going to report this to the headmaster."


Emma nods, "That would be problematic. Let's just forget we had this conversation."


Hermione looks at Emma in shock, "But why?"


"What do you think would happen if someone found out that we could work around whatever's protecting the building? A protection that I wouldn't even have noticed if there weren't people inside."


"I uh."


"I'll tell you what happened in the USA when they found out that there were people that could bypass even the best government security. You've experienced it yourself. People fear things they don't understand and can't control. It doesn't matter that there's perhaps two dozen people in the world that could do this. Or that it's only by working together that the Cuckoo's are approaching a near Omega level of power. They'd start viewing all telepaths as dangerous. That's one of the reasons why some knowledge is best kept hidden. Now, do you understand, or should I remove the knowledge from your own mind?"


Hermione hesitates, and Emma adds, "Bear in mind, you are likely to come across information like this yourself while you're learning to control your abilities. So learning to judge what can and can't be shared is absolutely essential."


"But where does it stop?"


Emma laughs, "Isn't that the big question. Why do you think we're teaching you Ethics? You will make mistakes, and emotions will cloud your judgement occasionally. But as long as you don't lobotomise someone, we can heal the damage. We'll talk about it later, and I'll give you some exercises to work through at home."


Remus shakes his head, "Sorry about that, I, um…"


He pulls out a slip of paper and cups it in his hand, "Read this."


Once the Cuckoo's and Emma have read the slip of paper, Remus pulls his wand and incinerates it.


Remus says, "Look between houses 11 and 13 and focus on what you just read."


At the same time, Emma sends to Hermione with a tinge of amusement, "With a few more months training, you'll start being able to read secrets like this and make them forget that you've ever seen them. I've never met a telepath that can't. It will take you years to get good at it. Now, how did you fair with looking at Mr Lupin?"


As the house becomes visible to Emma and the Cuckoos, Hermione frowns and sends back, "Do I have to? And looking at him gives me a headache."


Remus starts to lead the group into the house, as Emma sends, "Once you've learnt to control it, no you don't. But it will happen eventually whether you learn it or not. Would you rather learn it under controlled conditions, or after you've just forced someone to love or hate you?"


Hermione's expression turns mulish as she marches through the front door.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════​

As they walk into the dining room, Ron looks up from the sandwich he's devouring and drops it as he spots the Cuckoo's still wearing their tennis outfits.


Hermione glances up and wrinkles her nose, "Eww, Ron you are such a pig."


As Emma walk in behind them in her customary short white dress and thigh high white leather heels, his face goes bright red, and he looks down at the table.


Celeste chuckles and says, "It's fine Hermione, he's just a teenage boy. We wouldn't dress like this if we minded being looked at like that."


Ron's sister Ginerva, on the other hand, looks at the new arrivals curiously. Though her mother, Molly Weasley, walks in with a couple of plates with sandwiches, only to stop stock still as she spots Emma and then the Cuckoo's, "Ginny dear, would you… Ginny! Cover your eyes! Ron, if I catch you peeping your father will tan your hide till you can't sit down. I have never seen such slatternly dresses in all my life!"


Emma arches an eyebrow, "You can't have got out much then."


Remus tries to say, "Molly, they're…"


"Can't have got out much!? You would put Malfoy to shame. Shame on you! And how could you inflict those clothes on your daughters!"


Emma stalks towards Molly, "Who are you to judge the way I dress? Let alone the way my daughters dress when they're playing sports?"


"I am a hard working housewife thank you very much, not some whore who makes her money on her back."


Emma laughs mockingly and pins Molly with a stare, "Oh how cute, you think I'm a whore. Let me tell you something, I could buy out every store in Diagon Alley and not even notice the cost. You are just an ignorant, small minded, woman who believe she has the right to boss everyone around because you shout so loudly nobody else can hear themselves speak."


Molly starts to back up as Emma steps into her space. As she opens her mouth to say something else, Emma raises a finger, "No, you don't get to say anything. I have seen some of Harry's memories of his life, and you featured prominently as a happy place for him. But do you know what? Since she joined the Cuckoo's they've had questions about you. You smother your children with your expectations and anger when they don't fit into the roles you want them too. Yet you dare to call us slatterns."


Whatever else she's going to say goes unsaid as Sirius Black comes running down the stairs, wand in hand. As he appears in the doorway, the Cuckoo's squeal "Snuffles!" and surround him before giving him a peck on the cheek at the same time.


Sirius stands there with a gobsmacked expression as his wand almost drops from his suddenly limp hand.


As the Cuckoo's start to laugh as they pull away, Harry says, "I knew it would work. His face."


Remus glances over and starts to laugh too.


Phoebe nods, "It never would at home."


Celeste shrugs, "I don't know, we managed to fluster Dr McCoy like that."


Sirius looks at Remus with a plaintive expression, "What just happened?"


Remus chuckles, "You just got pranked by your goddaughter."


"But I don't have a goddaughter."


The Cuckoo's all say, "Surprise!"


Hermione looks away from where Emma and Molly have stepped apart, "Harry joined a gestalt with the other three, the American magicals called it a twin-bond. And, no I don't know which one's Harry. When they're like this it's impossible to tell."


Emma smiles, "It's merely exceedingly difficult, but you'll get there."


Molly goes to say something but Emma raises a finger and pins her with her gaze again.


Ginerva asks, "Are you really Harry?"


Harry nods, "Yep. Best thing to ever happen to me."


"But why?"


Celeste says, "Because she's family. We're all orphans."


Mindee adds, "But the magical government thinks that Emma is our mother."


Sirius shakes his head and raises his hands, "Wait, who's who here?"


Hermione sighs and points, "Emma Frost, CEO and majority shareholder of Frost International, a multibillion-dollar company. Celeste, Mindee, Phoebe, and Harry Cuckoo or Potter, depending. And you know me."


"So, how did…" he waves at the Cuckoo's, "happen?"


Harry glances at the other Cuckoo's and they all nod, "Well I managed to get to the cup before Cedric but I saw that he was having trouble with the…"

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════​

They've been joined by the Weasley Twins, and the Cuckoo's have almost finished the story when all six of the telepaths look towards the door.


A few seconds a loud clatter and a woman's voice screams, "Filth! Blood traitors! Kreature remove them from the house!"


A second woman's voice screams back, "Shut up you old hag! Stupid umbrella stand."


A few seconds later the screaming cuts off and the second woman's voice comes closer, "Sorry guys, they were a no show and Remus ran off after a dog that looked like… Who the bloody hell are you?"


Sirius gives a hollow sounding chuckle, "One of those four lovely young ladies is Harry Potter."


Emma helpfully says, "She's the one that likes cooking."


A horribly scarred man stumps into the room with a scowl, following him is a middle aged woman. The man grumbles, "Tonks, what did I tell you about dealing with unexpected visitors?"


When Tonks looks at him, he shouts, "CONSTANT VIGILANCE!"


Everyone around the table jumps, and Molly huffs, "Moody! We have… guests."


"Aye, and I still want to know how they got here without us noticing."


Emma smiles, "That is going to remain confidential. After all, I don't know you. Speaking of which, Mrs Weasley, I believe that you had Harry's vault key last year. Do you still have it?"


"Of course not, I gave it back to the Headmaster."


"And why would the headmaster of a school have Harry's key?"


"The headmaster's a good man."


"That is not actually an answer to my question."


Moody grumps, "It's the best one you're going to get without speaking to Dumbledore."


Emma nods, "I'll leave you the contact number for my secretary, would someone be able to let her know when the headmaster is available to talk. Or Harry's key is ready to be collected. And please remember we're staying in London, so owls are a little conspicuous."


Molly shakes her head, "You can't do that, it's not safe out there. What with You-know-who back from the dead."


Emma looks at Molly in disbelief, and then pinches her nose, "Right, magical community. You're all insulated from the rest of the world. Right, short story, I am a mutant, a rather well known mutant. So are the Cuckoo's. Hermione is a mutate, while Tonks here is also a mutant. The world out there is brimming with bigotry against us. Some of it deserved, but most of it because many mutants look different. Mutants are being attacked and killed every day just because they're different. I-don't-know-who being back doesn't change that. I am not going to hide from this danger, because if I do innocent mutants will continue to be slaughtered."


Celeste adds, "We are also hoping to become members of the x-men, as they helped us and taught us how to use our powers. We're not hiding either."


"To that end, Mr Black, would you mind showing me to Harry's old effects. I have some things I'd like to discuss with you in private. And I'm in a relationship, before you get any ideas."


Sirius looks startled, "Right, ah."


Molly narrows her eyes, "Who are you to say that Harry can leave?"


Emma smiles and draws an envelope out of her purse, from the envelope she takes the letter from the Magical Congress of the USA that informed her she was Harry's mother, and places it on the table. "Legally? Her mother."


Moody stares at the parchment for a moment before he draws his wand and waves it in a complicated gesture and touches the seal. "It's legitimate."


"She's also an American citizen. That's mentioned in that letter too."


After people have had the opportunity to read the letter, Emma puts it away and says, "Mr Black?"


Sirius's eyes snap up from the table and he shakes his head, "Oh, right. Trunk. I put it in his room, as I thought… Sorry."


Once Sirius and Emma have left, Moody stumps to the door along with the other woman, and Molly wanders into the kitchen with the dirty plates. Tonks, on the other hand, spins a chair around and sits on it with her arms over the back.


Ron looks behind him, and quietly says, "Harry mate, you're hot!"


Mindee pats him on the back of the hand, "Keep dreaming. Even if one of us was interested, it's still too soon since..."


Phoebe continues, "Mindee's boyfriend was killed in a riot."


Hermione nods, "Harry and I were almost lynched while we were shopping."


Molly says, "Those muggles are absolute savages."


Harry turns around to look at Molly, "Mrs Weasley, don't pretend that wizards are any better. Not in front of us."


"Well I never..."


"World cup. How many savages attacked innocent people? You're cowering in here because of another such savage. We have worked through a lot of his memories, and we can see the same things happening here as are happening to mutants out there. Remember this, I am not him. I might have lived his life, but I have a new family and we are four in one."


Harry turns back to the table and looks over at Ginerva, "Hey Ginerva, do you have a favorite lip color?"


Ginerva looks down, "Ah, I don't have any makeup."


Celeste looks up in surprise, "Oh you poor thing, every girl should have the basic essentials. Mindee, do you have your makeup bag?"


Harry rolls her eyes, "She's got the shampoo and conditioner. I've got the makeup."


Mindee grabs Ginerva hand, "Come on, do you have a room with a mirror?"


Ron looks a little lost and says, "Hermione, do you want to play chess?"


Phoebe says, "Oh, is it wizarding chess? I'll play."


As they file out, Tonks stands up and walks around the table to sit next to Hermione, and also see the hall. When Hermione keeps reading she asks, "So what's your deal?"


Hermione hums but doesn't look up. So Tonks waves her hand in front of the page.


Hermione jumps and looks up at Tonks, who reels back as though punched. Hermione immediately looks back at her book, and says, "Sorry."


"What in Merlin's name was that? It was worse than my Auror exam."


"I can't control it yet, I'm sorry."


"Right, fine. What are you reading? Anything good?"


Hermione holds the book up, "The latest Magic Kingdom for Sale, Sold book. My head can't take anything educational at the moment."


"Oh?"


"I've just spent the last three hours exercising my brain before we came here."

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════​

Emma briefly looks around the room that Sirius led her to. Green and silver dominate the place with black filling in some details.


As he closes the door behind him, Sirius says sadly, "This was Regulus' room."


Emma turns to face Sirius, "Mr Black, I'll come straight to the point. I would like you to come and live at the institute full time. The magical government has seen Mr Pettigrew in Harry's memories at his trial. I believe it also made the papers too. It's also where Harry's going to spend most of her time during the holidays, as I can't afford to abandon my students for three or four months every year. I need an adult magical so that I can have some protective wards placed over the institute. I would be foolish not to take advantage of them now I know they exist. As a member of staff, you'd also be able to take advantage of the medical and psychological help we have available. Including psychic assistance to repair damage to your mind."


"Call me Sirius. What about the war here? I need to keep Harry safe."


"Very well. Sirius, what exactly can you do here when you don't know how to navigate the mundane world, and you can't navigate the magical world."


"I can, I can at least be here if she needs help."


Emma adopts a gentle tone, "Sirius, even I can see how much this place is hurting you. You need somewhere you can feel safe and call home in order to heal. If Harry is ever in danger at Hogwarts, whatever it is will be over before you can get there. If it's less urgent, then it won't matter if it takes you a few hours to fly here. You can also get a trial in the USA where you can't get one here. Also, if I can get the protections on the institute, then Harry will be safer when she comes home for the holidays."


When Sirius doesn't say anything, she walks over to the trunk and picks up one end of it. As she gets to the door, Sirius whispers, "I'll do it."


Emma looks over her shoulder, "I'll have Hedwig deliver a charged mobile phone tomorrow along with some instructions on how to use it. I'll be heading back to the USA on the 1st. I'll have the limo stop here first. If you can think of a good way to keep in contact with Hermione and the Cuckoo's in the mean time, do give me a call."

 

[Darkphoenixlady]

Chapter 6

That evening Emma's order is dropped off at the front desk. It consists of four thin stiletto daggers, with the cross guards ground off, along with a box of squash balls and a bag of ball bearings.

As Emma's handing out the daggers, she says, "Until you go to Hogwarts, I want you all to keep these on you at all times. I know you all have a small amount of telekinesis, so once you're at school I want you to practice moving the blades around. Wolverine will give you some lessons on their actual use when you come home for Christmas."

All four of the Cuckoo's say, "Yes Emma."

"Good, now each of you write a couple of paragraphs about how the visit with Sirus Black went, and what you noticed. We're going to continue working on your cloaking. Though, be aware of the fact I couldn't feel the painting in the hall. I assume it was a painting anyway, so don't assume that you'll be able to use it to hide from them or similar things."

The four of them roll their eyes, so Emma adds, "Tomorrow's Saturday, and the Grangers have offered to take you around London. I have an allowance for you, but you are to avoid the magical areas of London. On Monday we'll be shopping for your uniforms, so think of the other things you might want. I know you're all teenage girls, and you want to enjoy the last week of your holiday. But remember that next Friday you'll leaving for Hogwarts, and a potentially hostile situation. Once you've passed your OWLs you can be enrolled in Ilivermorny for the last two years of your education, or just continue your normal education. Either way, I expect you to at least get your GED by the time you're 18. But first you have to survive to reach 18, which is why I'm going to keep pushing you and Hermione until you drop. The first part of that is writing those reports, as you will live and die by what you've noticed and what you can prepare for."

Celeste let's out a put upon sigh and asks, "What about Sunday? Do we at least get that?"

Emma shakes her head, "Sunday we're going to a Frost facility with the Grangers so that they can see some of the training that you go through. That's what the balls are for. While Hermione is working on her telekinesis, you'll be working out how to project the illusion of casting spells and making your daggers look like Harry's wand. Harry, I'm going to start with you this evening."

After an exhausting couple of hours practicing erasing their presence from the minds of others, and writing reports, Emma flicks through the reports.

"Phoebe, you mentioned a conversation between Tonks and Hermione, why was it important?"

Phoebe glances at the others before saying, "Um, don't know. I just added it because you don't want us to write the same report."

Emma's eyes seem to take on an unholy gleam, "Never write down anything useless, and never discount anything that you feel the need to write down. Let's start with what drew your attention to the conversation?"

"Ah? Tonk's head rocked back and she swore?"

"Why?"

All the Cuckoos look blankly for a moment before Mindee says, "Hermione looked at her."

Celeste adds, "Tonks said it was worse than her Auror exam."

Emma nods, "What does that mean?"

The Cuckoo's look at each other blankly, so Emma sighs, "It means that she was able to detect Hermione's psychic probe and defend against it. That it was part of an exam implies it's taught formally. That means that there are other people who will be able to do the same. None of you noted that Moody's adapted to his eye, and that it works differently to normal eyes. Something you'd need to take into account when projecting illusions and hiding your presence. You also didn't note that Remus has an abnormal brain that has bestial components to it. That's important if you ever need to affect him in some way, as the further away from your own thought processes someone is, the harder it is to manipulate them. Sabertooth, as an example, is almost impossible to influence or control psychically."

Harry says, "I want to ask why that even matters. But we know you're going to make us feel stupid if I do."

Emma sighs and looks away, "None of you have finished your training yet, but you're going into a situation where a known terrorist is on the loose, and someone blocked your transfer to Ilivermorny. None of the institute teachers can watch over you there, so I'm trying to give you the tools you need to spot danger coming before it arrives. Now for your assignment for the next week, without listening to, or reading, their thoughts. I want you to identify all the staff that work in the Hotel and what their likely job is. No astral projection either. That means paying attention to where they go and who they meet frequently. In business and politics knowing who is talking to who, and when those patterns change, is often more important than knowing what they're talking about. A lesson that has almost bankrupted me twice, and led me into several dangerous situations. Now get some sleep."

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​

After a scintillating Saturday, where they got to harmlessly flirt with a few British guys at a Bistro on Oxford street, they're flown out to a forest in Hertfordshire that has a paintball course next to a large warehouse.

As Gene looks around, he muses, "What sort of company needs a training facility like this."

Emma steps up beside him, "It is an unfortunate fact of life in this world that there are people who are willing to resort to violence in order to gain access to important personnel or secrets. Especially for those in the pharmaceutical and weapons industries. As the first to patent often has at significant advantage over their competition. Frost International is a world leader in both those industries. Our internal security services provide round the clock protection for some of our leading scientists and their families. It is also why we are one of the few organizations in the UK that are licenced to use live ammunition on UK soil."

"So, what's Hermione going to be doing?"

Emma pitches her voice loudly enough for Hermione to hear it, "As Hermione isn't currently able to manipulate a mind, she can't do anything that you could observe. So she's going to be working on her telekinesis. Primaryly with control. We have a basket of squash balls, and in the morning she's going to be trying to control as many of them as she can without crushing them. After a break for lunch, she's going to be going through the course here. She has to aim to hit all of the targets on the course with a squash ball. The Cuckoo's will be working on projecting illusions of them casting spells in the indoor arena. It's one of the skills your daughter might be able to develop once she's learned how to manipulate minds."

Gene shivers slightly, "I can't say I'm comfortable with the idea of manipulating minds."

"The magical communities have many such methods, I was able to acquire a book on such matters yesterday in fact. Honestly, I would much rather such things were in the hands of people that had to actually put effort into learning how to do this, than in the reach of anyone that has completed a basic education. While I am certain that I, or the Cuckoo's could deal with obliviations or mental control. We'd have to be aware of the fact we need to look for it before we could. There's also the fact that telepaths are naturally rare."

"And Hermione will be able to protect herself?"

"Eventually, yes. Or at least be able to tell that something's changed. Do you want to join me in the second-floor observation room while they get changed?"

Gene nods, and as they start walking towards the large building, Jean asks, "How dangerous is the magical world?"

Emma sighs, "From what I've found out, it's much like the rest of the world. For the most part people live their lives and have families. There's always people everywhere that aren't willing or able to get a normal job, so they turn to crime. Then there are the 'Dark Lords'. Think criminal gang leaders, except because they have powers and are often driven, they are able to terrorise more people than mundane people. But even there, we've got mutant terrorists, and government sanctioned kill bots. Mutants are born every day, and for the most part will never know until they hit puberty and their powers awaken. It's similar with magic, but at the moment the UK is entering a turbulent period, as a terrorist has been resurrected."

"Thank you for looking after Hermione, and letting us see what she's doing."

"It's fine, we'd do the same for anyone else with powers. What we want is for our students to have a safe place where they can learn how to use and control their powers. Unfortunately, not every parent is as willing to allow us to help as you were."

Jean looks out of the window where Hermione has just got back from dumping her bag in the locker room. As Hermione grabs the box of squash balls, Jean says, "It's just, we were losing her. She was always reading her magical textbooks, or wanting to go to Diagon Alley for new books. But we can't even find the place without her help. We normally go to the south of France for our holidays, but when you contacted us and we saw the way her face lit up. It wasn't hard to change our plans. When we saw that kid making ice cubes while another one was making sculptures with blue flames. I imagined that must be what it's like for Hermione at Hogwarts."

Emma nods and walks over to a button set below a microphone on the wall, "Hermione, start out with four balls rotating around you. If that's easy enough keep adding balls until you get to eight. After that, try adding a second ring that's rotating in the opposite direction."

Hermione glances up at the window and nods.

Emma turns back to Jean and Gene, "This is an exercise about spacial awareness, multitasking, and visualisation. Most telekinetics are fine until they need to move their objects in alternative directions."

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​

Albus looks up as Moody stumps into his office, "Alistair, how are things going?"

Moody huffs, "They're not. It's like they're surrounded by a confundus or something. I'm not even sure where they're staying, as I've seen them go into five different hotels across London. I think you need to face facts, whoever Emma Frost is, she can currently protect them far better than we can."

"And you've confirmed that he's with her?"

"She, Harry is definitely a she Albus. Only reason I even know she was there yesterday is her scar. Which she kept covered up."

"Oh dear, the ICW notification didn't mention that."

"Madam Frost did ask to meet with you in order to retrieve Harry's vault key."

Albus takes a small key from his drawer, "Yes, Remus sent me a letter about that."

He turns the key in his hands for a moment before sliding it across the table, "Perhaps you could return it to him. I had hoped to give it back when he reached his majority. But maybe now is a better time."

"She'll want to know why you had it."

"To keep it away from those that might steal from Harry. It was one of the few things I was able to retrieve from the house before the Ministry took over."

"Any particular reason why you won't see them yourself?"

Albus gives a heavy sigh as he looks down at the ruined diary in the drawer, "You know why Alistar, you know why."

Moody quirks a smile, "Then you might want to keep an eye on Miss Granger too. According to Tonks, she packs quite a punch if you catch her eye."

"Truly? It's a shame that such a brilliant mind will never have the opportunity to flourish."

Moody laughs, "You might want to work on your wording before you tell her that."

"I merely meant that natural legilimens rarely achieve the control needed to be trusted around government work. Why, there was a lovely woman who ran a bar in America, she often seemed to know what you wanted to drink before you'd finished deciding yourself. I think we should keep this quiet though. I wouldn't want her to suffer any accidents."

Moody grabs the key and turns away, "Well, don't go telling your pet death eater then."

Albus mildly says, "Severus has my complete trust."

Moody stops at the door, "Well, he doesn't have mine."

As the door closes behind him, Albus turns back to look at the device that used to monitor the wards on Privet Drive. A device that stopped working on his birthday.

 

[Ketheria]

As the door closes behind him, Albus turns back to look at the device that used to monitor the wards on Privet Drive. A device that stopped working on his birthday.

Click to shrink...

I'm guessing you meant Harry's birthday, but the way the paragraph reads implies the wards fell on Albus' birthday…

 

[Darkphoenixlady]

I'm guessing you meant Harry's birthday, but the way the paragraph reads implies the wards fell on Albus' birthday…

Click to shrink...

In that conversation, Albus referred to Harry as a he, even when corrected. But yes, it was Harry's birthday.

 

[Martin Rudat]

That sounds like a fact Harry would be happy to know; her most recent birthday present was a home with her sisters.

 

[Sesparra]

Interesting, very interesting. And nice to see the dear old dumbls is transphobic as well as all his other problems

 

[MaimakteriAnn]

There's always people everywhere that aren't willing or able to get a normal job, so they turn to crime. Then there are the 'Dark Lords'. Think criminal gang leaders, except because they have powers and are often driven, they are able to terrorise more people than mundane people.

Click to shrink...

That is a pretty mealy mouthed defence of entrenched power coming from an xman, ngl. Not a single dark lord shown in cannon afaik is other than a noble.

 

[Darkphoenixlady]

That is a pretty mealy mouthed defence of entrenched power coming from an xman, ngl. Not a single dark lord shown in cannon afaik is other than a noble.

Click to shrink...

Tom Riddle is a self proclaimed Lord. Also, Emma isn't above massaging the facts to fit the story.
Also, what's the difference between a criminal, a terrorist, and a freedom fighter?

 

[MaimakteriAnn]

Tom Riddle is a self proclaimed Lord. Also, Emma isn't above massaging the facts to fit the story.
Also, what's the difference between a criminal, a terrorist, and a freedom fighter?

Click to shrink...

Riddle is the legitimate heir of one of the richest and most respected ancestral power structures in the setting, and all of his followers have current noble titles or defacto rule of a faction.

Also Greenmount is part of a marginalised group now. Massaging the story to protect the ego of established powers when talking to her (supportive) parents doesn't help the argument.

EDUT: also terrorist has a formal definition. And the only death eater aligned groups that you could even argue might come off as freedom fighters from some perspectives are the werewolves and the Giants. Everyone else is privileged and fighting to maintain it.

 

[Darkphoenixlady]

Riddle is the legitimate heir of one of the richest and most respected ancestral power structures in the setting, and all of his followers have current noble titles or defacto rule of a faction.

Also Greenmount is part of a marginalised group now. Massaging the story to protect the ego of established powers when talking to her (supportive) parents doesn't help the argument.

EDUT: also terrorist has a formal definition. And the only death eater aligned groups that you could even argue might come off as freedom fighters from some perspectives are the werewolves and the Giants. Everyone else is privileged and fighting to maintain it.

Click to shrink...

Riddle is the illegitimate heir of the Riddle estate. He is a descendant of the line of Slytherin. The Gaunts were not part of the power structure that you're thinking of.
The people that follow him aren't there to defend their positions. They're there to gain more power, or just because Tom allows them to feed their urges. Their whole rethoric base is based around bigotry and punishing a minority. Aka - the immigrants are taking all of our jobs, and they're not integrating.

 

[Martin Rudat]

Also, what's the difference between a criminal, a terrorist, and a freedom fighter?

Click to shrink...

I'm reasonably certain it's something like: "Are they on the side you support?"

There's a thought that all the past dark lords are failed regime changes, and there are so many past and future dark lords because there's something rotten in magical society to have so many people regularly trying to overthrow it... that or magic leads to megalomania.

 

[Darkphoenixlady]

I'm reasonably certain it's something like: "Are they on the side you support?"

Click to shrink...

And are they fighting for some oppressed or marginalised group in the nation.

There's a thought that all the past dark lords are failed regime changes, and there are so many past and future dark lords because there's something rotten in magical society to have so many people regularly trying to overthrow it... that or magic leads to megalomania.

Click to shrink...

The magical UK is a very racist society, yet their laws insist on allowing muggle borns in. You can see evidence for it in Hagrid's summation of why the statute of secrecy exists, "So that they don't keep asking us for stuff."
Since the statute of secrecy had been erected, there have been around 12 generations of new magicals. Yet (if you accept that Madam Marchbanks is nearly 200), the elders of the community that remembered life before the statute have only been dead for 4-5 of those. When you combine that with their lacklustre history education, and the fact that so much magic that used to be legal now isn't. It becomes very easy to see far right voices becoming louder and more enticing to the scions of once powerful houses. (One that Albus would have been on if his sister hadn't died)

The other side of the coin is that there's a real chance that some magics are inherently corrupting. Because, by using them regularly it becomes easier and easier to find reasons to keep using them. Whether it's because they make life convenient, or because they change the way that you view other people.

In a similar vein, telepathy has a similar erosion of morals and ethics. Simply because it is so easy to take information from peoples minds, or alter them. Even the paragon of virtue, Professor X, has done this for the flimsiest of reasons. That's why one of the classes that Hermione is taking is Ethics.

The final reason for Dark Lords in the UK is that there are people who think, "I could do better than this" but don't have the ability to get into power by normal means.

From what I understand of Tom Riddle, he is part of 2 and 3, as he made horcruxes, and he was also highly intelligent and probably sociopathic. He then built his platform on item 1 in order to attract people with actual political power to his side.

Oh, and in this fic, Grindlewald worked with Hydra and the Red Skull during WWII, which is why he was able to get as far as he did.

 

[Darkphoenixlady]

Chapter 7

On Monday the five of them walk to the Grangers dentistry on Harley Street to pick up Hermione. They then take the tube to Tottenham Court Road, and make their way through to Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions.

As they walk through the front door, Emma smiles and looks at the older woman that's sitting by a desk, "Good Morning Madam Malkin. I believe I spoke to you last week about bringing my wards in for their school robes."

Malkin looks up, "Frost wasn't it? Not often I get muggles making appointments."

Emma gestures to the Cuckoo's, "When you have four young ladies to outfit, it's impolite to surprise a dressmaker. If you have time, would you also be able to provide school robes for Miss Granger as well?"

Malkin looks Hermione up and down, "Just school robes?"

"That's what I was told. The others need a full wardrobe for Hogwarts, as I don't want them standing out for the wrong reasons. They will also need hats and hair accessories that cover the forehead. They must obviously be appropriate for use in the classes as well as around the school."

"I can do the school hat, but you'll need to go to Madam Primpanelle's for other hair accessories."

Emma nods sharply, "Very well. I leave them in your care."

As Emma turns around and sits primly in a chair by the door. Malkin claps her hands twice before pointing her wand at the door to change the sign to closed. "Sue, measure Miss Granger for her school robes. Angela, take the young ladies to the back, they need clothing from the smalls up."

Hermione is almost finished with the measurements, and is currently trying to tear her gaze away from Sue as she runs through the dressmaking spells. Her habit of looking down working against her as she's stood on a stool.

From the other room, Angela yelps, "Oh my, your scar looks just like Harry Potter's."

There's a moment of silence and Sue looks away curiously. Hermione can almost hear the moment when they confirm that she is Harry Potter.

A second later, Malkin's voice comes out sternly, "Hush girl, they are paying customers and we pride ourselves on our discretion. Be glad the store is closed, otherwise the poor girl might not get out of here without being mobbed. If I hear one whisper that Harry Potter was here today, one of both of you will be looking for a new job. As I can't have you gossiping about our customers. Understood?"

Sue calls out, "Yes Madam Malkin."

Hermione asks, "Is she like that a lot?"

Sue nods, "She is, but we get paid well enough. And once I finish me apprenticeship, I'll be a member of the dressmakers guild."

"Is that a good thing?"

"Oh yes, the guild guarantees quality products. I could open me own shop most anywhere in the world."

Hermione nods and goes back to trying to quietly look anywhere but Sue without being rude. Once her robes have been fitted, she fishes out the payment and goes to sit next to Emma.

After a few minutes, she manages to reach out to Emma and send, "How do you do it? Present yourself so differently to everyone?"

Emma's mental chuckle accompanies the thought, "The same way you're talking to me. It takes but a moment to gauge someone's preferences. That and some time spent learning how to present yourself and your speech. I also picked up a trick to speaking the same language as the person you're talking to. But you're not ready for that sort of stuff yet."

"But isn't that wrong?"

"Is it wrong to want to live? Depending on who you ask, the answer you get will change. I would imagine Draco Malfoy would tell you that you should just die in a corner somewhere. Being able to judge the people I'm talking to has saved my life on more than one occasion. It is also the primary way that I'm able to protect the students at the institute."

Hermione falls silent as she thinks about what Emma just said.

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​

During the afternoon, Emma takes the group to a Frost owned factory. There the Cuckoo's are left in the company's resturant, to practice making themselves less noticeable. Their incentive is the rather rough and ready men who keep coming over to flirt at them.

Hermione, on the other hand, is shown to the office that Emma is taking over. There she's tasked with the same thing she was doing in the park. Only with a lot more people around, and instructions like, 'There's a person who's taking Speed, what's their name?' or 'There's a man that has been harassing the female staff. Are they a predator?'

During the afternoon, Emma receives a call to say that a Moody called, and he has the key whenever you want to collect it.

On the way back to the hotel, Hermione and the Cuckoo's are all nursing migraines from having to use their powers to exhaustion. Though they have all succeeded to some extent.

As the migraine medicine, Emma gave them, starts to work, Hermione groans, "Morgana, that was bad. I hope we don't have to do that again."

Emma chuckles, "We're doing it again tomorrow, then we're flying up to Birmingham to check on the factory there."

The Cuckoo's stare at Emma with mutinous expressions, as Hermione plaintively asks, "Why?"

Emma leans forward, "I'm glad you asked. I visit every one of my factories and research centers every year. I do it to check for foreign and industrial espionage, along with workers that are likely to be dangerous to the workforce or the company. As I'm taking over the institute with Xavier's departure, I wasn't sure how I'd be able to keep it up. But this provides a good excuse to get away for a few weeks this year. And yes Hermione, the people I had you looking for were actual problems. I didn't even have any reports on Andrews, so well done."

Hermione flushes with praise, "He was looking at Harry with so much lust I couldn't miss it."

Celeste lifts her head from the seat, "How do you know it was Harry?"

"Her headscarf had moved enough that Andrews could see it. He…he fantasized about popping her a pill and adding a matching scar on the other side while he…"

Emma slides along the seat and puts her hand on Hermione's shoulder, "It's fine, you caught him before he could do it again. He's the reason why we've lost a few promising female staff over the couple of years he's worked at this factory. He's going to go to a local police pub, and brag about how easy it is to his mates. Then he'll try to slip a pill into a police officer's drink and miss because he's had too much to drink. He was also your first success."

Hermione looks over at the Cuckoo's, "Did you notice him?"

They all shrug, "We're used to men looking at us like that. If they try and act on it, we are fully capable of discouraging them."

Mindee adds, "It's one of the things that attracted me to Germaine, he was always more interested in me, not my body."

Phoebe rolls her eyes, "Only if you ignore his fantasies of having the three of us in his bed."

"Those were dreams, he was never like that when he was awake."

Harry smiles, "It would never have worked out anyway, as he couldn't accept that you were part of us."

"You don't know that, you weren't there."

Harry leans around Phoebe to hold Mindee's hand, "No, but you were. We didn't just look at my past. It just helped add context to things we've experienced."

"Ginny."

Harry winces, and counters, "Quire."

"Dudley."

"Stuff."

"Truce?"

"Agreed."

Hermione looks confused and lays her head back against the seat again, "What are they talking about?"

Emma frowns, "I think they just had an argument. Which is a good sign."

"How is arguing a good sign?"

Celeste gives her sisters a disgusted look as Emma says, "It means that Harry's becoming less dependent on her sisters."

Celeste says, "I did not want to know that you both think Blaise Zabini is cute."

Hermione looks up sharply, and then winces and presses her eyes, "Really?"

Mindee and Harry both nod.

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​

By the time the limo pulls up outside Grimald Place, the migraines have receded to a barely noticeable level.

As they get out of the limo, Harry frowns, "I thought we were going back to the hotel."

Phoebe and Mindee both nod, and Phoebe says, "I just want to watch TV and forget about today."

Hermione drags herself out of the car and adds, "Me too. God I never thought I'd ever want to watch TV instead of reading."

Emma seems rather too cheerful as she steps out of the limo, "Moody left a message to say he has Harry's vault key. So I thought we'd pick it up tonight, and give you a chance to catch up with your friends again."

As Emma walks towards the front door, the limo pulls away and the girls start to follow her.

Just after Emma's opened the door, Harry frowns and says, "He's angry about something."

Emma turns around at that, "Inside. Then I'll have a look."

The six of them file into the hallway, and one of the portraits that line the hall remarks, "Are you supposed to be here?"

Emma snaps, "I opened the door didn't I? Now hush, I need to examine Harry's mind."

As she does, the curtains that are covering what appears to be a doorway blast apart, and an old woman with sallow yellow skin and drool dripping down her chin starts screaming incoherently.

Emma winces and steps up to Harry, as she puts her fingers on Harry's temples the dining room door opens and several people come storming out with wands drawn with various shouts of "Who are you!?" and "How did you get in here!?"

When Harry shakes her head to indicate that it's gone, Emma throws her hand up in frustration and shouts "Shut up!"

Moody shouts, "Wands down, I know them, and somebody shut that damn painting up."

Sirius walks out of the dining room and shouts at the painting, "Shut up you old cow!"

For a moment the woman in the portrait does shut up, at that moment he waves his wand and the curtains close in front of the painting.

Harry and Hermione recognise the headmaster's voice as he calls from the dining room, "It seems like our meeting has come to a premature end."

Emma walks forward so she can see into the dining room, "Don't stop on our account. We're only here to collect Harry's vault key, and so that Hermione and the Cuckoo's can visit their friends."

"It is good that they can take the time to reconnect before school. I understand that you are able to hide your presence. Might you be amenable to using that ability against the Dark Lord."

Emma closes her eyes and sighs. When she opens it again, she shakes her head slowly, "First of all, I am the principal of a school, so I can't remain in the country for long. So, if you are planning an attack, it needs to be soon. Even if that wasn't true, I would need a lot of details before I'd even consider helping."

"Surely working to protect young Harry would be enough reason."

"Mr Dumbledore, I don't believe you have any concept of the issues that I deal with world wide. Or the problems that would crop up if I was to disappear for months at a time. I am responsible for the safety of 187 students. Students that are a target for people who would love to see them wiped out. Unlike some, I take my duty very seriously, and I'm the first line of defense between them and those who hate them. With the Cuckoo's attending your school this year, my presence is even more important, as they are the only other people capable of giving advanced warning of an attack on the school. How about you? What are you doing to protect your students? Not just from outside threats, but also from your own staff?"

Emma turns away from the headmaster who says, "We are gathering allies and intelligence."

Emma rolls her eyes as she says to Moody, "You left a message saying you had Harry's key."

Moody nods and takes the key from an inner pocket, "Here you go lass."

"Thank you." Emma immediately turns around and hands the key to Harry, "Harry, we'll stop by Gringotts tomorrow morning. Once we've seen the state of your account, we can sit down with one of the accountants."

Harry smiles, "We'd like that."

As the others start to file back into the dining room, Emma catches Sirius' arm, "Sirius, if you're not needed in there, we could have a talk."

Sirius glances into the room before saying, "Carry on without me, I'll be upstairs."

When nobody says anything as he closes the door, Sirius says, "That was odd."

Emma smiles, "Don't worry about it, I'm making sure that nobody is going to think anything about our talk."

"What are we going to talk about?"

"You, I promised you healing. I can tell that the last few days have been wearing on you."

Sirius nods and turns towards the stairs. As he's walking upstairs he asks, "How did you...?"

"I'd rather you didn't share this with the others, as it's their own fault if they haven't done any research on who I am. I am one of the most powerful telepaths on the planet. Before they lost two of their sisters, the Cuckoo's could rival me in power. I just made them see what they wanted to see. Hermione is a class two telepath, it's likely she could get to class four or five if she applies herself."

"What does that even mean?"

"Do you know what telepathy is?"

"I... No."

"Telepathy is the overarching art that Legilimency and Occlumency try to duplicate."

"Oh, I didn't see you look in any eyes though."

Emma laughs as Sirius leads her into a library, "Telepathy doesn't require eye contact. Some things are easier with eye contact or physical contact. Such as mental healing."

Sirius takes a couple of deep shuddering breaths and turns to face Emma, "How do we do this?"

"Ideally, you'd be laying down in front of me so that I can put my fingers on your temples. Then I go in and look for any obvious damage to your mind, including missing memories. I won't be looking at your memories, just the structure and state of them. I'll then repair the most damaged parts and leave your mind to heal for a few weeks before we start again. Therapy can help as well."

Sirius pulls his wand and twirls it in one hand before pointing it at a chair. He adopts a roguish grin as the chair turns into an ornate chaise lounge that's long enough for him to lie down on with enough space for Emma to sit with her back supported. "I always wanted to have a lap for a pillow."

"And I am quite happy with my current partner."

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

​

As the Cuckoo's and Hermione reach the top of the stairs, Ginerva pokes her head over the courtesy panel that runs along the hall. "What's going on?"

"Where's everyone else?"

Ginerva points upstairs, "Ron's moving his stuff out of the twins room, as we just finished cleaning out the last of the bedrooms. I wish you were staying with us, as all we've been doing is clean."

Harry chuckles darkly, "I've done enough cleaning to last me until we get our own place."

There's a pair of loud cracks, and suddenly the twins are standing on the corridor, "I thought we could hear your dulcet tones. Uh, one of yours anyway."

The other twin says, "Now that there's no adults around, we'd like to know, what's with the new look?"

The Cuckoo's share a glance, and Phoebe says, "We should at least find Ron, otherwise he'll feel left out."

Ginny giggles, "He's still sore that you beat him at chess last time you were here."

Hermione shrugs as the twins start heading upstairs, "It's probably unfair, as those four share a mind."

Celeste says, "Magicals call it a twin bond."

The twins stop and turn back for a moment, and one of them says, "We have one. But they're not recognised in this country."

Harry says, "Should we?"

Celeste nods, "Additional data."

Mindee rolls her eyes, "We should ask Emma first."

Phoebe adds, "Agreed, ask first."

Ron leans over the courtesy barrier on the floor above them, "Hey guys, what's everyone staring at?"

Ginerva calls up the stairs, "They were just out twinning the twins."

"Whatever, could one of you help me move my trunk?"

The twins hurry to get to their room first, and the winner levitates Ron's trunk out of the room. As they do, Ron moans, "It's so unfair that they can do magic when we can't."

Ginerva rolls her eyes and walks into her room, "He's been like this since you guys left. 'They're so lucky they don't have to keep cleaning.' 'Why can't we leave?' 'I need to practice my chess.'"

"Oi! I haven't lost at chess since Bill left home. And you are lucky you're not here. All we do is clean all day, and mum's always around too."

Hermione rubs her temples as she sits against the wall, "I wouldn't say that. Emma's a slave driver."

Mindee sits next to Hermione while Harry takes a shrunken chest out of her purse and taps her wand against the top. Ron flops on the bed beside Mindee, "I can't see how it's worse than dealing with Doxies and sprites. We even found some pixies in one room, and there's a boggart in a cupboard upstairs." He looks at Mindee, "So, what's it like being a girl."

Mindee giggles, "I quite like it. What's it like being a bloke?"

Harry hands Celeste a plastic bag that says 'Claires' on the side. As she turns back to the trunk, Celeste hands the bag to Ginerva, "It's only cheap stuff, but it should be enough for you to work out what you like."

Ron's eyes follow the bag as he says, "You know what it's like being a bloke."

Harry tosses a thick book at Ron and says, "Catch. She doesn't know what it's like being a bloke, as she's never been one. I don't really know what it's like anymore either."

Ron catches the book and glances at it, "A book? Really? And what do you mean you don't really know what it's like to be a bloke?"

Harry taps her forehead as she shrinks the trunk, "The changes are more than skin deep. I don't just look like a girl, I am a girl. I'd do it all again too."

Mindee firmly turns the book over in Ron's hands as he looks confused and says, "Why would you want to be a girl? Oh, Games of the Masters, 3rd edition. Wait, is this a book on chess?"

Harry looks at her sisters with misty eyes, "Ron, I got a family. Do you have any idea what that means? Of course you don't as you've always had your family. I grew up a slave Ron, and now I'm free. And I have the best sisters in the world."

Ginerva zones back in as she looks up, "Would you be able to teach me how to use this stuff. As the only thing that looks anything like the other girls have is the lipstick."

Hermione stares at the ceiling as she says, "Oh, that's right. They use powders for everything. Well, except eyeliner, which is more like paint."

Celeste nods, "Sure, though you might want to wait until we're at school. I get the feeling your mum won't want to see you wearing makeup just yet."

As Ron hops off the bed with his nose in the book, Ginerva nods, "I guess you're right."

"OW! Stupid door!"

The girls laugh as Ron rubs his shoulder while he walks out.

 

[ptbptb]

Then he'll try to slip a pill into a police officers drink and miss because he's had too much to drink. He was also your first success."

Click to shrink...

Missing apostrophe in "officer's".

With the Cuckoo's attending your school this year,

Click to shrink...

Before they lost two of their sisters, the Cuckoo's could rival me in power

Click to shrink...

As the Cuckoo's and Hermione reach the top of the stairs

Click to shrink...

The Cuckoo's share a glance, and Phoebe says,

Click to shrink...

Spurious apostrophe in "Cuckoos" x 4.

 

[Darkphoenixlady]

Chapter 8

The next morning, Harry is inundated with owls. Each one holding a large packet of shrunken letters. To add to the madness, Hedwig manages to open the hotel window and flies down to sit possessively on Harry's shoulder. Emma herself has one or two owls deliver packages addressed to her.

In the time it takes to divest the birds of their packages, a large enough crowd has formed that Emma has no chance of covering it up. Instead, she plants the idea that a number of the crowd saw a film crew. It will fuel speculation about why the x-men are involved in filming, but that's better than a potential fall back for her students being exposed before the possibility has even been explored.

Once they finally get into the limo and pick Hermione up, she stares at the pile of packages on the stationary bar. Then she forces a laugh, "They got you too?"

Emma nods, "International post."

"But why me? I didn't do anything."

All four Cuckoos look at her, "So you didn't help rescue Sirius and Buckbeak?"

"Not really, Harry was the one that did the important bits."

"You didn't stand with Harry when his name came out of the Goblet of Fire?"

"Well, yes, but that's only because she didn't put it in."

"You didn't discover that the creature was a basilisk?"

"Well..."

"And did you forget that you name is on the court records as a witness?"

Hermione sags, "Oh, right I provided my own memories didn't I."

Emma sighs, "Just to prepare you, but we're likely to be on the news tonight. I don't doubt that there will be a mix of vitriol, speculation, and gossip. Their sister was involved in the destruction of New York City a few months ago, and they were caught up in the riots of Salem Centre. Both of which were highly televised. I am continually thankful that Harry's arrival allowed us to regain a lot of the trust that was lost between us."

Mindee grumbles, "I still think you are responsible for Sophie's death."

Harry puts her hand on Mindee's leg, "At least Emma took responsibility and tried to prepare you for what we might face." Her tone turns bitter, "It's better than our teachers did."

Hermione sounds mildly indignant as she says, "Harry, they're good teachers."

"Hermione, when was the last time one of them took the time to check in on us after something bad happened? Christ, look at how he got on the quidditch team."

"That's, ah, erm, well."

Emma shakes her head, "We're far from perfect, and I've made some very big mistakes in my life. I have no doubt I will make many more. However, I don't think taking you on as my personal students was one of those mistakes."

Hermione looks between Emma an the others, "What did she do to regain your trust?"

After a pause, Celeste says, "She came to help us, no questions asked. Then checked up on Harry every day. Which is more than you or Harry got. It's..."

Phoebe scowls, "What she means is that with Harry's memories, it changed the way we understood our memories."

Hermione starts to say, "You don't sound happy..."

Emma puts her hand on Hermione's knee, "Hermione. I'm sure there's aspects of your life you'd be unhappy with being forced to examine. Just accept that and move along. Especially with another telepath that's stronger than you."

"Why?" she quickly adds, "I mean academically, not practically."

Emma's eyes sparkle with mirth as Mindee chuckles, "I think you just worked it out yourself."

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

​

As Harry looks at the contents of her vault with the others, and Hedwig seemingly glued to her shoulder, she muses that it looks the same, although the piles seem small than they did when she was 11.

As she voices this thought, Emma says, "It's probably just that you're older now. But even if it isn't it's a key holder account so there's nothing we can do about it now."

As Emma pulls out a small digital camera and starts taking photos of the individual piles. Celeste asks the goblin by the door, "Do you know how much is in here?"

The goblin sneers at Celeste, "No. We just provide the vaults."

"Can you find out?"

"Five sickles for an accounting, two Galleons for an itemised inventory."

Emma looks up, "We'll pay for the accounting, to the nearest Galleon. Could you provide a list of all the other services your bank offers."

The goblin promptly says, "Two knuts."

"How soon can you have those done?"

"Present your key to a teller in an hour. We'll take the fee out of the vault."

Emma nods, "Come on, we can spend that time elsewhere."

After an hour trying to find out how to stop them from being mobbed by owls again (own or rent a home that you live in for a few months a year, and set up owl wards), and browsing the bookstore, (Obliviation and you, a guide to keeping our world secret; Protecting your home, a home owners guide to permanent and temporary protections). They head to the Frost facility for another day of headache inducing training.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

​

The day before they're due to leave for Hogwarts, Emma calls the Cuckoo's into her office and sends Hermione out with a list of people to find.

In the room with her is a young man in a dark grey suit and an open brown briefcase sat on the desk beside him.

Emma indicates to the four chairs on the other side of the desk. "This is Andrew Philips, one of my investment managers. I gave him a summary of what you have in your account, and he's spent the last couple of days investigating what could be done with it."

Andrew nods and takes several stapled reports out of his briefcase and passes them out, "I understand that you have about £500,000 worth of gold sitting in a safety deposit box. While that might seem like a large amount of money, it's not so large that you could live off it indefinitely. It's a mistake many working class people fall into when they get a windfall like this. It's slightly better for you, because gold doesn't tend to depreciate in value like cash does. Uh, goes down in value. However, it also doesn't earn you anything either as the value of gold has barely fluctuated in price since the turbulence of decimalisation in the early 70's. What I propose is that you leave between 25 and 50% of the principal as gold as a hedge against the gold market suddenly increasing in value in the next few years. With the remainder, you could invest in companies like Microsoft, Stark Technologies, and Sony. Which, given the growing popularity of the world wide web, are likely to be safe bets for the future. Especially Stark, as their share prices are currently in freefall due to the majority shareholder's sudden departure from the weapons market. However, you shouldn't only invest in growing companies like those. You should also invest in companies that pay regular dividends, like Frost International, General Motors, Hoover, and the like. Long term government bonds are a good low risk investment, as while they don't pay off as much as stocks and shares, they are a guaranteed return at the end of their lifetime"

Harry looks lost as Celeste looks up from her report, "You said that it's not enough to live off. How much would be enough to live off?"

Andrew thinks for a moment, "In the current climate? £5 million in the right investments. That should bring in around £40 thousand a year in dividends. If you want your wealth to continue to grow while you live off it, you'd probably want at least £30 million spread out around the world. That should then insulate you from any sudden shocks in the markets."

Over the next few hours, the Cuckoos take turns focusing on the most mind numbingly boring discussion they've ever been part of. Finally, Phoebe snaps and copies Andrew's financial knowledge right out of his head. Emma gives them a look that says that they will be receiving a lecture later.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

​

Later, in the library at Grimauld Place, Emma looks at the four Cuckoos with a mixture of pride and exasperation.

"First of all, well done on taking the initiative and copying Andrew's knowledge of finances. Xavier would urge me to say 'Don't do it again', but I prefer not to be a hypocrite. Instead, make sure the person you're taking knowledge from is someone you don't mind being like. Knowledge is tied up in peoples personalities, so you can't help but take in some of their personality while you take their knowledge. It's where I got my love of teaching after all."

Sirius frowns from his armchair, "What do you mean taking knowledge?"

Emma gives Sirius a tight smile, "Exactly that, telepathy is more than just Legilimency, as I'm sure our healing session showed you."

"But, isn't that, you know, wrong?"

Harry spots Sirius almost say Dark, so she asks, "Sirius, why do you think it's dark?"

Sirus gives them a long considering look before he stands up and takes one of the books off the shelf. With a deep breath, he says, "The Black family have always been dark, I suppose you could say I'm the white sheep of the family. I'm currently the only person that can safely touch some of the books here. That's why I generally keep it closed. This is the book that I learned occlumency from. This book... It's, not the standard method. It also had rituals for stealing the skills from a victim."

Sirius takes a deep breath and opens the book before flicking through the book with dead eyes. Eventually, he stops at a page and turns it around to face Emma. "This is a description of the ritual."

Emma looks at it before shaking her head, "While we could certainly do something like that. It would be needlessly cruel and expose us too much. It's far easier to just copy the relevant skills and the donor shouldn't even know we did it."

Sirius grimaces, "You're assuming my family left their victims alive."

Emma gently says, "Sirius, our powers don't come from magic. I know that your magic can do many things that mutants can do. But we have to live with our abilities day in and day out. I'm not sure I could explain what it's like for us, any more than I could truly understand my students who now have non-human physiology, or those who command elemental forces. A lot of people in power find telepaths absolutely terrifying."

Sirius dryly says, "I'm sure they have absolutely no reason for that opinion."

"You'd be surprised. Anyway, while I'm sure the Cuckoos are finding this fascinating. I actually was leading onto some other things. The discussion that we had was about your money. While I don't think you should make a decision until Christmas. I am prepared to buy up to half of your Galleons at 44 Galleons per oz of gold. I have also instructed Andrew to buy an additional £100,000 worth of Stark stocks once they reach rock bottom. I expect the price to go up after the Stark Expo in November. If you decide against them, then I'll just keep the stocks myself."

The Cuckoos share a glance, "We are willing to do that."

Sirius narrows his eyes, "Wait, Cuckoo? I thought you were Potters."

Harry stands up and sits on the arm of Sirius' chair to give him a hug, "I'm sorry Sirius, but while we will answer to Potter. I joined their family. I was lucky, I got out. They were killing me and I couldn't even tell."

Bitterly Sirius says, "I can't say I wouldn't have done the same, as i did. I was a little older than you when I ran away from home and your grandparents took me in. Are you happy?"

Harry nods, "I am. There are things that caught me off guard, and moments where we thought I was going to break the gestalt. But I wasn't going to let them go."

"What sort of things?"

"The whole bleeding for five days a month was a big one."

Sirius blanches, and Emma raises an eyebrow, "Was that before you woke up?"

Harry shakes her head, "It was during my first period. I thought I was prepared for it, I wasn't. We all had to confront a lot of things about being women that we hadn't really thought about during that period."

Emma nods in understanding. A moment later Sirius blurts out, "You're not allowed to start dating until you're 30."

Everyone else starts laughing.

Emma gestures over to Sirius, "Sirius is coming with me back to America tomorrow. Don't tell anyone else in the house, as we think they'll object."

Celeste frowns, "Why could they object?"

Sirius grimaces, "I'm the only one that Kreature has to listen to." He takes a deep breath, "I'm going to instruct him to allow them to use the bedrooms and the dining room. I don't think I could make him listen to any other orders."

Sirius reaches down the side of his chair and pulls out a brown paper package, "The Marauders made these in our sixth year to help us coordinate our bigger pranks. This was after your mother turned him down for being an immature bully." He smiles, "In fact I think this was the prank where we charmed all of the suits of armour in the school so that they would waltz with anyone that got too close. I haven't thought about that prank in years. It was only a couple of days after that, that Lily started dating James."

Harry takes the package, "What is it?"

"It's a mirror. We made them in pairs, and this was mine and your fathers pair. If you say Padfoot, then it will make the other mirror vibrate and we'll be able to see and hear each other. The one your holding vibrates if I say Prongs into my mirror.

 

[ptbptb]

Copy knowledge from people you would like to be, after asking permission. If they are decent people and don't think you will misuse it then they will probably be fine with it.

---

Knowledge is tied up in peoples personalities,

Click to shrink...

Missing apostrophe from "people's".

"I can't say I wouldn't have done the same, as i did

Click to shrink...

That should be a capital I. Actually, I'd just drop "as I did". I don't think it adds anything.

Sirius grimaces, "I'm the only one that Kreature has to listen to."

Click to shrink...

It's spelled "Kreacher".

We made them in pairs, and this was mine and your fathers pair

Click to shrink...

Missing apostrophe from "father's"

The one your holding vibrates if I say Prongs into my mirror

Click to shrink...

Should be "you're".

 

[Martin Rudat]

Copy knowledge from people you would like to be, after asking permission. If they are decent people and don't think you will misuse it then they will probably be fine with it.

Click to shrink...

I expect that after some thought, many people would be flattered that you find their knowledge valuable and that you, as a person, have traits that they're not unwilling to pick up. After all, imitation and plagiarism are the sincerest forms of flattery.

Given it's non-destructive, it's not dissimilar to a skill chip in cyberpunk, except you can build on your new knowledge.

I wonder if they can figure out how to impart knowledge.

I wonder how hard it would be to track down a cheerful, venerable female martial arts master or how Flitwick, McGonagall, Pomfrey or Sprout might react to such a request.

I don't know if the Cookoos would want to be gardening experts, but if they can pick up being happy I doubt they'd have any problems with picking up magical gardening knowledge as a side-effect.

 

[Darkphoenixlady]

I expect that after some thought, many people would be flattered that you find their knowledge valuable and that you, as a person, have traits that they're not unwilling to pick up. After all, imitation and plagiarism are the sincerest forms of flattery.

Given it's non-destructive, it's not dissimilar to a skill chip in cyberpunk, except you can build on your new knowledge.

I wonder if they can figure out how to impart knowledge.

I wonder how hard it would be to track down a cheerful, venerable female martial arts master or how Flitwick, McGonagall, Pomfrey or Sprout might react to such a request.

I don't know if the Cookoos would want to be gardening experts, but if they can pick up being happy I doubt they'd have any problems with picking up magical gardening knowledge as a side-effect.

Click to shrink...

The other side of this coin is how many people, especially powerful people, would become paranoid and distrustful about exactly the same thing. Simply because of how they'd imagine they'd use the same ability.

 

[MaimakteriAnn]

Kreature

Click to shrink...

There's always a moment of confusion as I figure out what you're talking about every time I see you misspell Kreacher.

 

[Darkphoenixlady]

Chapter 9

The next morning Harry and Hermione lead Emma and the other Cuckoos to the station. Well, more Harry than Hermione, as Emma has tasked Hermione with finding everyone that's actively looking for them.


Hedwig flitting between the four Cuckoos attracts more than a little interest, and families that are sending their children off to their own schools around the country take the occasional photo.


As they pass through the barrier between the main station and the magical platform, Hermione takes the prefect badge out of her pocket and looks at it with a mixed expression.


Emma waves the Cuckoos towards the train while she takes Hermione's trunk and leads her off to one side. "Hermione, are you alright?"


Hermione looks up and nods a little sadly, "This is the first year that mum and dad didn't come to the station with me."


"Did you want to say goodbye again?"


"Maybe, I don't know." She passes the badge back and forth between her hands, "I'm also not sure if I can be a prefect with how much I need to practice my telepathy on top of OWLs."


Emma leads Hermione over to a bench and sits down, "Why don't you think you can do all of that at the same time?"


"Well, you had me finding specific people, and that took me ages every time. How can I do that and patrol, or whatever else they want prefects to do? That's not counting anything else I need to do."


Emma thinks for a moment. "Ok, this is what I want you to do. I want you to build a reputation for being the biggest killjoy in the school. Whenever someone is thinking about starting trouble, I want you to be there ready to do you prefect duty. At the same time, I want you to learn how to modify the minds of other people, so that if the trouble is too dangerous, you can stop it before anyone gets hurt."


Hermione looks down at her badge, "Isn't that, well, immoral?"


Emma takes a deep, controlling breath. "Hermione, here's something for you to think about. Is it better to prevent a murder and allow the murderer to walk free, or to allow the murder to go ahead and punish the murderer?"


"It, ah. Save them, but the murderer might find someone else."


Emma nods, "That is always a risk, but it's better to save a life now than capture a criminal. Of course, you have advantages that the Cuckoo's and I don't have. As your telekinesis could be used to remove someone from danger. The last thing for you to work on, is how to determine where people are in relation to you." She grimaces, "It is sadly one of those problems that the Cuckoos can't help you with, as they can easily triangulate the location of the minds they feel. I have a feeling that they've started doing it as a matter of course since Harry joined."


"How do I do that then?"


Emma smiles and pats Hermione's hand, "That's for you to work out. You should get to the train."


Hermione nods and stands up as the Weasley family starts making their way through the barrier.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════​

When Harry looks back towards Hermione, Celeste takes the lead and makes her way down the train towards a mind that feels different from the others. Mindee and Phoebe both grab one of Harry's hands and drag her down the train after Celeste, "Harry, she'll be fine."


Harry nods, "I know, it's just I worry about her."


Mindee loops her arm around Harry's back in a half hug, "We know. Like we know that Ron's jealous streak has made you change the way you look at him. Come on, let's get on the train and save Hermione a seat. Besides, we're listening into their conversation just in case Emma…"


Harry nods and matches Mindee and Phoebe's pace, "Thanks, I needed that. And yeah, she's better than McGonagall."


It's not long before Celeste slides open a compartment with only one occupant. "Morning, would you mind if we joined you?"


The blond haired girl, with a wand stuck behind her ear like a pencil, looks up from her newspaper, "I do not believe I would mind."


Celeste steps into the room and takes her trunk out of her pocket and puts it on the luggage rack. The girl watches as the other three do the same thing and then sits down underneath their trunk. Until Mindee cups her hands so that Harry can step in them. Then Harry draws her wand and taps each trunk on the top so that they expand in place.


"That's an interesting solution to the problem. I'll have to ask father to do that for me next year."


As Hedwig's climbing across Mindee and Phoebe's shoulders to get to Celeste. Celeste says, "Hi, I'm Celeste Cuckoo, these are my sisters Phoebe, Mindee, and Harry."


The girl looks at them searchingly, "Are you sure? You look just like Harry Potter."


After a moment, Phoebe says, "Yes we're sure."


Mindee adds, "But Harry used to be Harry Potter."


Harry snorts, "We still answer to Potter in the magical world though."


The girl nods and taps her nose, "That makes sense, it will keep the Rotfang conspiracy guessing."


Celeste nods, "It does that too. It's more that Harry is rather famous, or infamous."


The girl nods, "The prophet does seem rather fixated with him, don't they."


Harry laughs, "I wouldn't know, I haven't seen a copy since June."


"Mmm. How do you know who I am?"


Celeste leans forward, "Who says we do?"


"I don't know, but you seem to."


Mindee shrugs, "We just saw an interesting looking person sitting on their own. We were right, you are interesting."


Just then, the door slides open and Ginerva's voice says, "Are you sure they're in this one?"


In the doorway Hermione nods, "Absolutely. Hey girls... Hi, would it be ok if I left my trunk here? As Ron and I have to go to the prefects carriage."


The girl looks up without blinking, "I have no objections."


As Hermione catches sight of the newspaper the girl's holding, Celeste remarks, "Did you know that The National Inquirer has the highest proportion of accurate sightings of Alien and Mutant encounters? That's across all of the US publications."


Hermione's mouth snaps closed with a click. As she continues to put her trunk up, Ginerva squeezes past, "Oh, you've met Luna."


Mindee smiles, "She hadn't got around to introducing herself yet. Until she did, she was the girl with the interesting jewellery."


Luna cocks her head, "Really? Most people make fun of it."


Mindee shrugs, "Most people can't make their own jewellery either."


Ron pokes his head around the door, "Why are we sitting with Loony?"


Harry frowns minutely, before smiling widely, "We were going to talk about jewellery making, and how to take left overs and turn them into something lovely. Care to join us?"


Phoebe nods, "I've seen some fabulous pieces made from old bottles."


Mindee adds, "I'd love to try shrinking crisp packets, and turning them into earrings."


Ron grimaces, "Um, I have to go to a prefects meeting."


Luna looks surprised, "Can you do that? Shrink crisp packets?"


Hermione turns around from the doorway, where she was following Ron, "Yes, mum and dad did it with me when I was younger after I watched it on Blue Peter. We turned them into keyrings."


As the door slips closed, Ginerva asks, "What did you do that for?"


Ginerva squirms as all four Cuckoo's look at her as one. One of them says, "We have a low tolerance for name calling due to Harry's history. We are still working through the problems it caused him."


Luna looks at the four of them curiously, "You speak as though you're not Harry."


Harry blinks before shaking her head, "No, I am Harry. But I'm not him. I have his memories, but they offered him something he'd yearned for since he could remember. I couldn't join the gestalt without doing so with everything I was. In a very real sense, I died on the shore of the reservoir that day."


Ginerva blurts out, "But what about all those things you did?" Unsaid is, 'What about when you saved me?'


Celeste raises her hand and turns it into diamond, "Ginerva, we'd have still rescued you. If Sophie was still around, we think she'd have done it anyway. She was like Harry in that respect, being the hero because if she didn't, nobody else would. But we'd have done it differently."


Mindee adds, "We'd have also recommended that you got mental healing."


Harry cocks her head, "Did you get healing?"


Ginerva looks away and mumbles, "We went to Egypt, and everyone forgot about it." More loudly, she says, "Why do you keep calling me Ginerva? Everyone calls me Ginny."


"Do you want us to call you Ginny?"


Ginerva opens her mouth and closes it again. Luna observes, "I think she just swallowed a Blibbering Humdinger."


The Cuckoos just smile until Ginerva pulls herself back together enough to say, "Nobody's ever asked before."


Harry smiles, "Well, why don't we start again. I'm Harry Cuckoo, and these are my sisters Mindee, Phoebe, and Celeste."


Ginny smiles, "Hi, I'm Ginny Weasley, pleased to meet you."


Luna beams happily, "And I'm Luna Lovegood."

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════​

An hour into the journey, Hermione and Ron return from the prefect's carriage while the Cuckoos are finishing the lunch Harry prepared in the Grangers kitchen. As Hermione sits down beside Ginny, Ron pokes his head through the door, "You're not going to talk about girly stuff again, are you?"


Phoebe smiles sweetly as she looks up from a book on arithmancy, "You're not going to be a jerk again, are you?"


"I, uh, no?"


"Then we don't need to talk about makeup, or who the hottest boys in the school are."


Ron put Pigwidgeon on the luggage rack before leaning down to heft his trunk off the floor. Harry rolls her eyes and leans down and grabs the trunk with one hand before putting it on the rack as though it weighs nothing.


As Ron flops into the seat beside Hermione, he says, "Cor blimey. You been working out?"


Harry shrugs, "You could say that. Hermione's stronger than I am though."


Crookshanks stares up at the Cuckoos in confusion before jumping up onto Hermione's lap. Grumpily he walks over to sit on Luna as Hermione leans over and grabs the foil tray and a wooden fork, before opening the carboard lid as Ron's stomach grumbles.


"I'm starving, what's that?"


Harry smiles, "Kedgeree, sort of. Gene was kind enough to let me use his kitchen while Hermione was packing her books this morning."


Hermione rolls her eyes as she chews. "You turned up two hours early."


Celeste looks up from her book on runes, "We wanted to get any owl mobbing out of the way before rush hour."


Phoebe adds, "The owl post office said that international post usually only comes from America on Tuesdays."


Mindee nods, "Still got one owl this morning though."


As Ron stands up to get his lunch, Luna curiously asks, "Who from?"


"Honestly, we haven't looked yet, as we didn't want to find out it's another bundle of shrunken letters. We made the mistake of unshrinking one by tapping on it the other day. It's like, a foot thick of letters from people asking us what it's like to join a twin-bond, thanking Harry for standing up to Voldemort and escaping to warn the USA, thanks for becoming an orphan, marriage requests, and requests for tips on how to cast the patronus spell."


Harry groans, "Don't forget the photos."


Ron curiously asks, "Photos?"


"Yep, loads of sausage meat, and requests that I allow them to put their sausages in my buns."


Ron says around a mouthful of sandwich, "Mmm, I love sausage rolls."


Hermione chokes on a mouthful of food and goes bright red.


Luna innocently asks, "What sort of sausages?"


Phoebe stands up and balances on the edge of the chair as she reaches into one of the trunks and pulls out a bundle of photos, "Keep them, we've kept the dozen or so that we think will make good calendar pictures."


Luna folds her newspaper and puts it on the table as she takes the bundle of photos. As she turns the photos over, her eyes go wide, and Ginny leans over to have a look. Ginny's cheeks pink, and she says, "Isn't that a bit small? Oh, it grows."


Luna turns the next one around and looks at it curiously, "How's that one supposed to fit in a bun, it's far too big."


Between bites Ron says, "Can I see?"


Hermione shakes her head desperately as Luna says "Sure."


Ron takes the photo and then spits out his sandwich, "Oh Merlin, I think I'm going to throw up."


Hermione coughs a couple of times and swallows, then says, "Changing the subject, there's two prefects from each house."


Ron nods, "Subject change is good, Ginny stop looking at those photos. You'll never guess who's the Slytherin prefect."


Celeste drawls, "Malfoy and Parkinson?"


"Of course."


Mindee uses the same tone of voice as she says, "Next you're going to tell me Macmillan and Abbott are the Hufflepuff prefects."


"Are you pulling my leg?"


Harry drawls, "Not at all."


Then Phoebe finishes with, "Of course, Patel and Goldstein could be the Ravenclaw prefects."


Luna looks up from the current photo, and in a dreamy voice says, "You took Padma Patil to the Yule Ball last year, didn't you?"


Ron nods, "Yeah."


"She wasn't happy with you because you wouldn't dance with her."


Ron shuffles in his seat as Luna adds, "I wouldn't have minded, as I don't like dancing much."


Harry hisses, "Ron, if you even mention my name I am going to be very put out with you."


Ron's head snaps up just as the door slides open and Malfoy looks in with Crabbe and Goyle standing behind him, "Granger, Weasley. Did your precious Potter decide to run away? Or maybe he decided he needs a better quality of friends."


Hermione shrugs, "I'm sure that Harry's close by."


Malfoy puts on a gracious smile, "I haven't seen you girls before."


Celeste looks up, "American transfer students."


"Ah, well some free advice. Some people make better friends than others. If you don't want a reputation, you'd better choose your friends a little more carefully. Especially now."


"Thank you for your advice, I will give it all due consideration."


As the door closes, Ron explodes, "What was that about?"


Phoebe says, "He's scared, and he's trying to making himself feel better by picking on an acceptable target. Which would have been us if you'd said anything."


"How could you know that?"


Luna says, "The wrackspurts whisper your secrets into their brains."


Hermione blinks and looks at Luna, "That is weirdly accurate while being completely wrong."


Celeste smiles, "We told you, she has an interesting mind."