Harry Potter gets smart and takes control - The Goblet

Chapter 55 Life Goes On...

His heart felt heavy, his stomach a lead pit.

Neville would never get his Herbology mastery then. Fred and George may not manage to open their own business. Hermione would never manage to get any creature rights or become Minister for Magic or whatever she ended up settling on. But they still had time to fix it. At least for them, it wasn't over yet.

Gods, if Rita Skeeter got ahold of that information, that they'd been un-housed, even if they managed to reverse it, their lives would be done. There would be no future for them.

They'd need to talk to Luna, to get it out first, or get their names protected. They'd have to try and spin it in their favour so that it painted Gryffindor as acting unfairly, which they had...

Goddess, what had he done?

He kept reading. Apparently, once the house made a decision, it was meant to be reported, so that if the un-housing became permanent, it could officially be enforced by the Head of House.

Well, McGonagall didn't seem to even notice! So they obviously hadn't bothered to tell her. Why not? Why had the Gryffindors been so quiet about it?

On the bright side maybe if she didn't know it wouldn't to be enforced... But by the looks of it, even if it wasn't enforced, it would still automatically go on his, and his friend's records...

But they still had time to reverse it for his friends, their un-housing was still new, they still have time to fix it.

But if un-housing was so severe why had no-one informed her, why didn't they make sure of it? How much was it automatic? They couldn't possible just not have known how bad it was? Like he hadn't?

"We have a problem," Harry said turning to Hermione, who looked up from the book she was reading.

"What's wrong?" She asked, putting a bookmark in her book when she saw his expression.

So he explained, and they sat huddled in front of the fire for a long time pouring over the charter; extracting every scrap of information on the un-housing, on any options they had, trying not to catastrophise or dwell.

They wrote to Fred, George and Neville on their discoveries as well as to Luna. If un-housing really was that bad, they'd be in a world of trouble if Skeeter got ahold of the story. Better to take a preemptive strike and spin it in their favour.

They made a subsequent plan to get re-sorted. To try and avoid the damage done by the un-housing. The trick would be however, persuading the required amount of heads of houses. They needed the support of at least three heads. Re-sorting could be done, but it was unusual. It could not just be done on a whim.

They fell asleep planning and studying the charter, not wanting to get caught out by anything else. They woke up briefly to Dobby and Winky tucking them into bed before drifting off into a troubled sleep.

*

It was Tuesday again when they woke, dressed and climb out of the trunk. They returned to the room at Morbid's just in time to see their past selves vanish. It was strange feeling, the remains of the time magic swirling around them and vanish.

Hermione had been very quiet on their run over the rooftops. It was just a short run; they still had to eat and meet Bill. But after being in the trunk all day, Harry had itchy legs.

Her silence was starting to worry Harry. Was she regretting siding with him over Gryffindor? He was starting to wonder if she'd go back to Gryffindor instead of risking a poor mark on her record and the possibility of failure, of not being employable when they finished school. He hoped for her sake that she'd go back to Gryffindor and avoid it all, but the selfish part of him hoped she stayed on his side.