All Hail the Dark Lord, Or Something Idiotic Like That

Acting the part pt5

A/N: Not my story! Original available on ao3

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When Dumbledore rushed out at the end of the trial, Harry spared one more look up to Percy who gave him a little smile before he left to meet up with Arthur Weasley once more and go home.

****

"You made it back," Ron breathed out when Harry entered his room where Ron and Hermione were both now looking through the mind magic books he'd given them. "I have to admit, I was certain you'd be figured out, mate, and whisked off to be studied by the Unspeakables."

Harry just laughed and fell back onto his bed. "I'm not entirely useless. You have to take into account you both know what's going on, so you notice my oddness more. If you didn't know, you'd just think I was a bit traumatized from what happened at the end of last year or something."

"So, you actually passed as a fifteen-year-old?" Hermione raised an eyebrow in disbelief.

"I looked quite a bit scared, confused, and very concerned about getting kicked out of school," he assured them as he opened the letter from Percy that had been figuratively burning a hole in his pocket since he'd gotten it.

H.

When are you going to Diagon to pick up your supplies for the school year? Do you think you could get away to stop by my flat for a couple minutes? I've been working on something for your birthday.

P.

He frowned, seeming to remember Order members picking up their supplies for them that year. Well, that just wouldn't do. Whatever this birthday present was, he wanted it! Maybe it was Umbridge gift wrapped for him!

Absently, he answered the questions Hermione peppered him with about what they were reading while he found some parchment and wrote an answer to the letter.

P.

It'll take some work on my end, but I'll make sure we're in Diagon on the Saturday before term begins. Of course, I'll be able to slip away; who do you think I am? By the way, I've looped in R. and H. about me, not you yet, but they are on our side. I'm sure R. can cover for me for a while. You do realize it was November when we left, so nowhere near my birthday, not that I don't want the present, mind you. Might it happen to be pink and toad-like?

H.

"Hey, Ron, can I borrow Pig?" He asked after sealing the letter with a spell so that only Percy could read it.

"Where's Hedwig?" Hermione asked while Ron tried to grab the tiny owl that had been zooming around the room in excitement ever since he saw someone grab parchment and a quill.

"I left her with the boyfriend," Harry shrugged and tied the letter to the vibrating owl's leg. "She'll get to stretch her wings more there than here."

"Now...I'm going to need to delegate some plans I have coming up," he decided as the owl flew out the window with a happy loop into the air.

Ron's grin grew wider. "Our first job as servants of the Dark Lord?!"

"Ew, don't even say that," Harry grimaced violently. "You are no one's servants! Let's not get started on that!"

"What are we then?" Hermione rolled her eyes at them and flipped the page.

"I don't know...my friends," he huffed. "Anyway, no, this is actually just a personal wanting to meet up with my boyfriend thing, so do you think you can get the 'adults' to let us go to Diagon to get our own school supplies?"

"Why wouldn't we be getting our own supplies?" Hermione actually looked up from the book to ask with a frown. "We always go to get our supplies before the term starts."

"I don't think they want us to go this year for safety," Harry removed his outer robe to get more comfortable. "At least, that's what I remember..."

"Will we finally get to meet this mysterious person?" Ron took the excuse to put down the book and stop studying for a while.

Harry shrugged. "Probably not...I'll need you to also cover for me, but it shouldn't take long."

"Well...there are some things that picking out for oneself is important," Hermione remarked with a thoughtful nod. "I think we can come up with something. What are you going to be doing since you're delegating this to us?"

"Oh Dark Overlord..." Ron added on with a mischievous grin.

Harry rolled his eyes but ignored him. "Well...I had a bit of a chat with Kreacher last night..." He said as they both grimaced at having to deal with the elf. "Anyway, it went very well, so unclench from all that prejudice you have against him."

"You have to admit, he's pretty bad. Even Hermione doesn't like him," Ron huffed while Hermione actually nodded in agreement at that.

"I think it's how he's been treated though. Ron just thinks that's how he is," she clarified.

Harry did actually agree with that. Kreacher never developed a happy, upbeat personality in the slightest. "Probably some of both actually...anyway, I did learn that elves can see through my glamour, so we have a bit of an elf problem that I'm going to have to solve."

"I don't understand," Ron said in confusion.

"What does that mean?" Hermione added on with a concerned and very suspicious look at him.

"The Hogwarts house elves can see that I'm not a student," he more specifically told them. "And, stop worrying Hermione. I'm just going to talk to Dobby and see if he can smooth things over with them. They tend to mind their own business and not report things anyway, but I want to make sure none of them will run off to Dumbledore. Merlin! I told you I'm not a murdering psychopath!"

"Just making sure," she continued with her suspicious look but picked up the book she'd been reading again.

Harry huffed in exasperation. "I fully agree with you about freeing the house elves, Hermione, and it is actually a part of my long-term plan. If they had been free, then they wouldn't have been in any danger from the ministry when they were finally targeted. However, you can't go about it with SPEW. Forcefully freeing them when they don't want to be free is cruel and not helpful. It's a long-term plan, because you have to start with more rights, access to education, and understanding them more and what they want. If they eventually decide they want to be free, then let's do it in a heartbeat, but until then, we can't just make decisions for them unilaterally and force them into it. That's not helping, that's hurting. We all saw what happened to Winky. They are autonomous individuals that should be treated as such and not as children for us to just make decisions for."

Hermione's mouth had fallen open in surprise, the same as Ron. "Oh..." was all she was able to say as it sank in what she'd been doing by trying to trick them into being free.

Harry shrugged and pulled his firewhiskey out from under the bed. "Anyway, I'll ask Kreacher to go find Dobby at the school and get that handled. Maybe check in on Winky while I'm at it. What do you think is for dinner? I'm loving having your mum's cooking again!"

Ron shook his head still in surprise. "Er...not sure. I think we're supposed to start cleaning the house again tomorrow though, so whatever you need to do, maybe do it tonight while everyone is sleeping."

"Sirius is going to start missing his whiskey," Hermione warned him, but Harry just smirked at her, not concerned. There were too many people in the house for Sirius pin it on him. Moody would most certainly be blamed before he was.