I own nothing.

Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum

-Chapter Twenty-Five:

Minerva stared at the building in front of her and scowled. She knew that no matter how necessary she felt this was, it was going to be a severe irritation. She pushed the door open and stepped into the business. "Sal!"

"In back!" the man called. Minerva made her way through the aisles and the proprietor with his boots up on his desk. "Minnie!"

"Hello Sal," Minerva replied tightly.

"What can I do for you?" Sal asked as he swung his feet down.

"I've been led to believe that you sell dragon skin vests," Minerva stated.

"Well, that's one way of putting it," Sal answered.

"How would you put it?"

"I sell the finest dragon skin vests in Eurasia," Sal said happily. "Some of my Yank friends would argue, but I don't really have to worry about bullets around here like they do, so I figure its apples and oranges."

"How humble."

"Humble doesn't win you business and inferior products don't win you repeat customers in this line of business," Sal stated firmly. "I know some of the other guys. They're nice. They've never caved in a wall and dashed into a room to take out the bad guys before they realized what's happened."

"Ah yes, skull cracking. Your chief talent."

"My chief job, at the behest of the fine government of this isle. Both of them. I have many other talents."

"Such as?" Minerva asked, curious despite herself.

"I'll have you know that I've taken up expressionist painting," Sal said firmly. He grinned broadly and pulled out a pair of glasses from behind the counter and a tall bottle. "I've actually sold a few!"

"You are the only student I've had, past and present, who I still don't know how much of what comes out of your mouth is complete bullshit," Minerva admitted. That was why she had always erred on the side of bullshit.

"Yeah, my ex-wife mentioned that at the divorce hearing," Sal admitted. "Anyway, I don't crack skulls. Skull cracking is for amateurs. I am a professional. I crack knee caps. You can do that over and over again. Skulls, you eventually make a mistake and they forget about their childhoods."

"Charming," Minerva commented as she eyed the bottle of Macallan. "At least your taste has improved."

"Sure," Sal grunted as he poured two glasses. "It's not like this is one of the bottles I keep around to impress people or anything."

"I see." Minerva accepted her glass and took a sip.

"So, you poach my students and within two days you suddenly need a dragon skin vest," Sal commented as he drank as well. "They must have worked you over pretty good."

"I think you're a little full of your abilities as a teacher," Minerva stated. "I demonstrated the weaknesses in your abilities."

"Oh," Sal replied. "You took them all on, huh? That's a horrible idea, but I can't say that I haven't done something similar myself. . .probably a few too many times. How bad did they get you?"

"I was fine," Minerva growled.

"Yeah, I've played that game too," Sal replied. "Must have been pretty bad. Is Poppy's wrath at people putting themselves in danger still horrifying to behold?"

"Hm," Minerva grunted. Sal laughed.

"You know," he began, "we haven't played in a long time. Those kids are getting there, I'm kind of curious if you still are."

"Thirty percent off when I beat you?" Minerva asked.

"Twenty percent for the fight," Sal argued. "Fifty percent if you beat me."

"When," Minerva corrected. "Shake." They shook and sipped their glasses. "Also, perhaps you could teach your next proteges some subtlety."

"What?"

"You don't think that swaggering around covered in scars and constantly staring down everyone around you to attack you could lead to problems?" Minerva asked. She stared at the scar covered, tattooed, arrogant asshole with a mohawk in front of her. "Oh, right. You were one of two SPIE operatives to be revealed and the other one was revealed because he lost a leg."

"Not my fault," Sal insisted. "Maximus was in one of the meetings we busted up and all the other Death Eaters gave up enough information to get off. I wanted to wipe all their memories, but then the gold began to flow very quickly, if you know what I mean."

"You arrested your own younger brother?" Minerva asked in horror. She had heard the rumors about the Death Eaters that had disappeared into custody, never to be seen again. Or even the Death Eaters who had simply disappeared.

"Not that there is any paperwork to prove. . .anymore," Sal stated. "To be fair, I had been disinherited for about a decade at that point. As far as my family was concerned. . .I wasn't family. At least until I arrested Max. All of the sudden it was: "brother!" this and "brother!" that. Then mom and dad found out that Max had disappeared and suddenly they were pestering me non-stop." Sal sipped his glass. "God, I loved it when I brought down that wall and found them on the other side." Minerva stared at the man is silent horror. "What?"

"You arrested your entire family?"

"I arrested Death Eaters," Sal stated. "It's not like I was trying to go after my ex-family. Besides, you have no idea how many Argentinians I've killed and I actually liked them. They were just soldiers like me, not terrorists trying to raze my home to the ground. My family was nothing to me, just as they made clear that I was nothing to them until they wanted something."

"I see," Minerva replied. And she really did. Perhaps she had been too hard on the man.

"So, ready to fight?" Sal demanded, "or are you getting slow in your dotage?"

"I will grind you into the dirt," Minerva growled. Nope. Not too hard. Actually, she should have been much harder. Sal had had everything coming.

(:ii:)

"So," Hermione commented. "Have you thought any more about the second task?"

"Well. . .no?" Harry ventured as he leaned against the fence around the screwt enclosure. "Why? We already figured that out."

"Well, you all decided on a baseline," Hermione answered. "Don't you think there might be better ways?" Harry shared a look with Ron.

"What is Viktor up to?"

"Nothing," Hermione said quickly. Harry and Ron glanced at each other again and they both turned on the witch. "So! I think you should stop trying to kill Dudders!"

"Well, that's a hell of a thing to say to distract me," Harry commented. "I'll allow it, but only because I want to watch you squirm trying to come up with reasons for that."

"No, really," Hermione said. "Look at him!" They all turned and stared at the largest screwt. His carapace with lined, pitted and blackened and his back two legs on the left side were lame. As they watched, another screwt approached Dudders from his blind side. The screw whipped around with terrible speed and immediately began savaging the smaller beast.

"And then Connery got too close to Harry's monster and was mauled to death," Seamus stated as he noted those events in his official screwt observation diary. "Well, that's the end of that."

"Uh, sorry?" Ron said.

"No worries," Seamus replied. "Thanks guys." They watched him walk away and turned back to where Dudders had begun to eat Connery. Nobody bothered writing that down. Dudders had proved that screwts were cannibals in his first week of life.

"As I was saying, you've been trying to kill Dudders for months and now he is the largest and most aggressive screwt here," Hermione pointed out. "Maybe we should stop while we're ahead."

"But we've managed to chip away at him," Ron argued. "He's blind and lame on one side. When he tries to kill Harry, we can use that." The screwt glanced up from his meal and caught sight of them. It's mouthpieces worked furiously and it let out a guttural roar that none of the other screwts had ever made. Harry immediately vaulted the fence.

"Oh, no! I've fallen into the screwt enclosure. He's coming right for me!" Dudders shuddered and a cloud of sparks burst forth from behind the beast. "Come on!" Harry's glowing wand slashed and a stream of guttural Vulgar Latin burst from his mouth as Fleur's battering ram spell shot forth. It hit Dudders full in the face and was deflected into the ground. The mighty beast was knocked onto its tail and, in a burst of flame, it shot into the sky like a firecracker.

"Did you just teach Dudders to fly?" Ron called.

"Oh, dear," Hermione added.

"Dudders!" Harry roared, falling to his knees and shaking his fists at the rocket propelled screwt. Fortunately, he wasn't so distracted that he didn't notice a smaller screwt scurrying towards him. His next spell caught the creature in the face and sent it tumbling end over end until it finally landed on its back. It's legs twitched for a moment before stilling.

"And then Scorpio attacked that mad man and had its face replaced with a two-foot-wide, one-foot deep crater," Draco stated as he wrote that in his observation journal. "Then he died." The screwt's legs twitched and Draco barreled into the fence, barely being held back by Crabbe and Goyle. "And then he died!" the blond shrieked at the monster. Scorpius twitched one last time and finally went limp. "Good!" Draco picked up his journal, dusted it off and turned on his heel to strut off. Ron and Hermione watched the Slytherin swagger away.

"Does it seem like Malfoy has been under a lot of stress recently?" Ron asked.

"Please, don't say that around Harry," Hermione stated. "We do not need to deal with a murder charge right now."

"Dudders!" Harry howled. "You can't fly! Stop flying! If you don't come down here this minute, I will tear you tail off and beat you with it!"

"He's probably not helping his reputation here," Ron commented.

"Nope," Hermione agreed.

"Dudders! If you come down here right now, I promise I'll stop trying to kill you!" Harry shrieked. The screwt continued to fly and Harry's outstretched arms fell as he slumped. He was silent for a moment. "I can't believe Dudders is flying."

"Let's see," Ron said, "we've had denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. That's all five stages of parenting."

"You mean grieving," Hermione corrected. "That's the five stages of grieving."

"You have met my brothers," Ron stated. "That's the five stages of parenting."

"Ah," Hermione agreed.

"Dudders!" Harry whined.

"Harry!" Hermione snapped, making everyone present from Hagrid to the screwts to Harry flinch.

"What?" Harry demanded as he rose to his feet.

"Medicine!" Hermione ordered. "Also, duck."

"What?" Harry asked even as his body followed orders and dove to the ground. Dudders flew through the air the last Potter had previously occupied and slammed into the ground. The massive beast tumbled end over end before coming to a rest on its back. "Oh. Thanks." Harry hopped back over the fence and they watched as another screwt approached Dudders.

"You'd think they would have learned by now," Ron commented.

"Yeah," Harry agreed. "I'm kind of worried how much smarter Dudders is than all the rest."

"Again, that might be on you," Hermione commented. The other screwt prodded Dudders for a moment before the larger screwt's tail came down and punched clean through the smaller one.

"And then Augusta got Dudders'd and died," Neville said as he wrote in his journal. "Just like almost every other screwt."

"You named your screwt after your grandmother?" Ron asked.

"She's the scariest thing I could think of," Neville stated.

"Oh," Harry grunted. "Makes sense."

"Ya alright?" Hagrid rumbled as he came over.

"Just fine," Harry grumbled.

"Make sure you're more careful," Hagrid stated. "I think you scared the screwts when you fell in." Harry turned back to the enclosure and several of the screwts scuttled away at his attention. "Don't want to cause them undue stress, do you?" Harry took a deep breath.

"I can't be annoyed at you," he grumbled. "You're too innocent."

"Thanks!" Hagrid boomed happily, clapping Harry on the back and nearly hurling him back into the enclosure.

"So, about the second task. . ." Hermione began.

"If it will shut you up about a problem that we have a solution to, we will discuss it after dinner," Harry growled.

(:ii:)

Harry stared at the book laid out on the table before him. "Hermione?"

"Yes?" the woman chirped happily.

"If you don't explain why I'm staring at a post-Hogwarts thesis on self-transfiguration right now, I am throwing all these books in the fire," Harry stated.

"No!" Hermione yelped. She snatched the book at of his hand with shocking speed and cuddled it to her chest protectively. "You wouldn't!" she gasped, clearly horrified and scandalized as she rocked the book like one would a small child.

"I wouldn't throw you in the fire with them," Harry corrected. "I will throw them in there with a smile on my face."

"Okay," a voice broke their argument. "I was going to ignore this, but then you started threatening violence." They all looked up to see Neville standing before them. "Is McGonagall following you around again?"

"No," Harry grunted.

"Then why are you having a secret meeting here?" Neville asked reasonably.

"This isn't a secret meeting," Ron grumbled as he leafed through a book. "This is about the second task."

"That's next week," Neville stated. "You still haven't figured it out?"

"We figured it out about a week after the first task," Amalie said. "We had a meeting with everyone and came up with a solution."

"Then why are you studying?" Neville reasoned.

"Because Hermione said that Viktor has come up with something different and apparently that means that we have to come up with something new," Harry growled.

"I said no such thing!" Hermione insisted.

"But you have a solution," Neville ventured.

"Yup."

"Have you tested it?"

"Yup."

"Did it work?"

"Yup."

"You have heard of good enough, haven't you?" Neville asked, rounding on Hermione.

"We just have a baseline," Hermione grumbled from behind a book.

"What do you say, Neville? Give us a hand?" Harry asked. The common room went dead silent as everyone stopped even pretending that they weren't paying attention. Neville stared at them suspiciously for a moment before he finally sat down. And like that, the rest of the students swarmed around. Harry felt a weight lift off his shoulder and he dug under the table for another glass. "Here."

"Thanks." Neville poured himself a few fingers. "So, what's the task?"

"The headmasters are going to steal something from every champion and give it to the merpeople in the lake," Harry stated. "We have to go get it."

"I'm going to guess that it's something emotionally important, right?" Neville asked. "They seem like they'd be into that."

"We though the same thing," Ron admitted.

"What about a bubblehead. . ." Neville trailed off as Ron and Harry glared at Hermione. "So that's the solution that works, but isn't good enough?"

"Yup," Harry grunted. "You have any ideas on something that could let you stay underwater for a while?"

"What about a scuba tank?" Seamus asked.

"A what?" Neville asked.

"It's a tank of air that muggles use to go diving," Seamus asked.

"Underwater?" Neville asked. "Why?"

"Well, he learned it when he was in the navy, but now he does it for fun," Seamus explained.

"We thought about that," Hermione stated, "but the bubblehead is safer."

"Thanks though," Harry said. They were talking to him and he wasn't going to give them a reason to stop again, damn it! He glanced at Neville and found the man staring off into the distance as he sipped his glass. "Neville?"

"I'll be right back," Neville shot to his feet and disappeared up the stairs. He reappeared with a book twice as thick as any on the table in his hand. He sat back down and poured over the index. "I got this from Professor Moody," he commented. He flipped through a few pages. "Here. Gillyweed."

"Is that a weed that lets you grow gills?" Harry ventured. Neville nodded. "Who names this stuff?"

"It also webs your fingers and toes," Neville stated as he set the book down. Harry stared at the picture in horror.

"So, you use it to make a potion, right?"

"Nope. You're just going to have to force it down," Neville stated as he took another sip from his glass.

"I'm going to need a few drinks before this."

"That would probably help," Neville stated. "If it's bad enough that the book mentions the taste and the texture, it's going to be really bad."

(:ii:)

"Sal!"

"In the back!" Sal called. He glanced up as his business associates appeared from the shelves. They had that look. "You need something?"

"Gillyweed," Harry stated firmly.

"Oh," Sal grunted with a flinch. "Oh."

"That bad?" Harry asked.

"So much worse," Sal said. "What's wrong with the bubblehead charm?"

"I wonder," Ron commented, glancing at Hermione, who resolutely refused to meet anyone's eyes.

"I need three doses," Harry stated.

"Three?" Ron asked in alarm.

"Two for me and Hermione to test and one for the competition," Harry explained.

"I never agreed. . ." Hermione trailed off as Harry slowly turned to stare at her.

"Tell you what, I'll throw in the taste and smell killing potion for free," Sal offered. "The texture is on you though." Harry froze, his face almost comically surprised.

"That exists?"

"Yep."

"Does Madame Pomphrey know?"

"Yep, but if you didn't suffer, would you learn?"

"I'll take a few of those too, with an option for more."

"If Poppy finds out, I will deny knowing that you even exist," Sal stated.

"That's fair. None for Hermione."

"But!"

"No," Harry stated, silencing the woman with a look again.

"See if I help you again," Hermione pouted.

"Help me find a new and more horrible solution to a problem we already solved?" Harry asked.

"Of course it sounds bad when you put it like that," Hermione grumbled. They glared at each other for a long moment before turning to Sal at the same time.

"We'll be in the basement!" they announced in unison. Sal, Luna, Amalie and Ron watched them stalk off.

"This used to be such a quiet group," Ron commented, "just meandering along, sometimes arguing, stumbling headfirst into danger and surviving by. . ."

"Surviving by?" Sal ventured.

"Actually, I have no idea how we survived. . .well, anything."

"C'est la vie," Amalie replied. "Until it ends anyway."

-End

(:ii:)

-Author's drunken rambles. Surprise! So, I missed my usual update, but fuck it. The world's spiraling, so I might as well throw this up a week late instead of waiting for the next scheduled date. Why not? Who cares? Do I care? Am I sober enough to care?

The answer is no. Or is it? I really don't know. I'm super drunk. Am I trying? I have no idea. Do I care? Fuck yea I care. I love all of you.

So, funny work stories. I told you guys, I moved from warehouse-ish work in retail to warehouse work for my state. Basically, we get food from the federal government and then we organize that food and provide it to schools, state run buildings like jails and charities/foodbanks. Socialism! How evil! How dare we make sure that people who can't afford to feed themselves and their families get food? Don't we know that starvation is nature's way of weeding out the weak? That's why kids and old people starve first.

Sorry. Went a little political there. I mean, America only brags about being the richest country in the world while Americans are actually starving to death. Leave the politics at the door. Mentioning starving children is such a communist move. What do you want, sympathy? Why are you trying to make me feel bad about people starving?

Sorry. Forgot I was supposed to be an American capitalist first and a human being second.

Anyway, I've got my warehouse buddy, three drivers who will absolutely help without being asked if they aren't driving and a manager who worked his way up from my position to boss and will absolutely jump on his old forklift and fly around the warehouse doing everything me and my buddy do in half the time whenever he gets the chance. Oh, and despite giving each other shit constantly, we all get along.

Basically, my job is as close to the perfect warehouse job as possible. I work with good people. We do good work. Our boss is good people who understands the job. That's perfect.

So, one of the "problems" is that our radio only gets one station. That station is a pop music mix station.

Is it a problem? That depends. Some of our delivery drivers certainly thought it was a problem when they walked in and found two men screaming mm-bop and no, I'm not going to google that to find out the spelling because I don't want to be bombarded by Hansom music twenty years after they were relevant.

Also, ever since Top Gun 2 dropped, the Righteous Brothers have been back in rotation. Two men singing You've Lost that Loving Feeling isn't gay. Tom Cruised proved that when he sang it with Anthony Edwards aka Goose. Two men singing a duet on a love song is totally not gay.

Two men dancing the YMCA while on "separate" forklift might be a different matter, but who am I to judge?

Anyway, in fanfic news, this story now has a tvtropes page. I've been cited and recommended on tvtropes before and that's awesome. To have someone actually go out of their way to make a whole page on this gibberish is mind blowing to me.

So, if you're a troper, check it out and see what you think.

I won't lie, it's kind of weird to have someone else go beyond reviewing and actually go out of their way to talk about the simple tropes of my story. It's weird and humbling as shit.

I appreciate the fuck our of that. Make no mistake, I absolutely love it.

Love you. Fuck you. Wear a mask and wash your damn hands.

-Uncle Jack