Common Sense: The Odd Ideas File

The Seven Harry Potters Redux

A/N: A lot of the events in DH had stupid or catastrophic consequences. Canon Harry isn't the brightest wizard of the age…but what if he were a touch more suspicious and clever. A collection of scenes retold plus some new ideas.

A blend of humor and horror.

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

Harry Potter was aghast as he looked at six other Harry Potter's standing around in various states of undress. One doppelganger seemed inordinately interested in his new body's male equipment: George Weasley, bastard.

"Mine works the same as yours, boyo. It'll be five galleons for that handjob, George," Harry said, more than a bit annoyed. George immediately stopped his obviously suggestive 'self examination.' "And, Granger, stop ogling Ron…it's actually my nude body he's refusing to cover up. Get dressed the lot of you!"

Harry swiveled and began glaring at Alastor Moody, who seemed rather amused in a gruff sort of way.

"Whose bollocks of an idea was this?

Moody's eye swivels over to where the former Mundungus Fletcher is standing. That was the fatal fact that would prevent Harry from ever going along with it. Now he just needed to convince everyone else.

"And when did he have it? When Dumbledore was still alive?"

Mundungus seemed to nod, but he seemed a touch confused. Figures, useless old fall-down drunk.

"No. Absolutely not. We won't be doing anything Dumbledore knew about then…."

"Why not?" Moody growled.

"Because Dumbledore – for some half-arsed reason he never mentioned – trusted Snape. He probably told Snape all our plans…and guess who Snape told?"

A whole room full of jaws hit the floor.

Hagrid was the first to recover. "Thumpin' good wizard, I al'ays knew you'd be Harry. Thumpin' good." He sounded like he had tears in his eyes.

"Well damn. What do we do now?"

Hermione-as-Harry raised his hand (and seemed inordinately interested in the hair Harry had in his armpits for some inexplicable reason) and then said, "We travel the Muggle way."

Harry smiled. That sounded better to him. "I'll call a cab or two. There's a bus stop four blocks away. We can escort everyone out that way. I'll even ride with Hagrid on his non-flying motorcycle…."

Moody snarled. "But what if Snape did tell Vol… Err, You-Know-Who?" Harry thought it strange as to why Moody refused to say Voldemort's name. Had he always been this squeamish?

"We leave some gifts behind," Fred-as-Harry said. "We brought along a special selection of our best items."

Harry dug around in an odd looking bag and dragged out a few multi-colored potions. Mundungus had several illegal artifacts on his person and Moody had eight knives and three spare wands. Fred and George dumped out an average-looking backpacks and a small mountain appeared on the floor, everything from the fireworks they'd used on Umbridge before they'd fled Hogwarts and the swamps they'd pioneered to Peruvian Darkness Powder by the jarful and a rather large vial of a strong love potion.

"We could go to Vegas on a haul like this," Bill Weasley said. It got a few laughs from the people who actually knew what Las Vegas was.

They roughed out a plan over the next five minutes…and then Harry-as-Harry had to threaten to punch Fred unless the boy stopped humpinh Petunia's couch while half clothed. "Hands off the merchandise, Fred. Dung, you'll never be young again. Stop fantasizing; and I want to see everything you stole from the Blacks in the next day or else I'm going to sic my friend Dobby on you." He shook his head and sighed. "Bloody bunch of wankers and perverts I have for friends…."

He walked over and dug out an old phone book and began dialing. He needed a few cabs and to figure out where the bus lines went. He was just glad he'd asked the questions he'd asked. The magical folks Harry knew got far too caught up in magic for their own good. Flying a broom was great fun…but not exactly the safest way to flee in the face of a likely enemy force.

Harry would just have to inject a bit of common sense into the things they were doing….

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

Voldemort's forces were high over Surrey awaiting what they assumed would be Harry Potter and escort. But nothing came…as night drew closer, suddenly a huge array of multi-colored lights erupted just below the cloud cover.

"Down," Voldemort screamed. "Down now!"

The thirty-odd Death Eaters, plus a free floating Voldemort, made their way down past the cloud cover. The Dursley house, now visible for the first time in more than a decade, was in a massive firefight. The house itself seemed enshrouded in a massive black cloud. Huge arcs of spellwork leaped from the darkness and colored the night sky.

"The blood wards have broken, as our spy claimed. Into the house. Kill everyone there, but not the Chosen Bastard. I reserve him for myself."

The Death Eaters swooped down and landed all over Privet Drive. They dropped their brooms and prepared their wands. As a troop, they stormed over to Number Four, were enveloped in the cloud of darkness that began just inside the property line, and then bumbled their way on the lawn. More than one screamed or moaned in pain when they ran into or fell on something. A precious few managed to make it inside the small, perfectly average home in the Muggle subdivision. It was, if possible, even darker inside.

The furniture had been rearranged inside and all of them seemed to collide into everything they found inside. No one could see any spellwork happening…but it had been so obvious from the outside. Was the battle over? Who had been fighting inside this muggle house?

Stan Shunpike – freed from Azkaban only to be placed under the Imperius Curse – was the first to discover one of the gifts left behind inside the house. He tripped over something and fell…and fell…and hit water. Water! What was a big vat of water doing in a Muggle house? Even though the curse that had settled into his mind, Stunpike knew this was wrong. Then he felt something bite his leg. He screamed. And then something else bit him. It would be a long time in coming before he discovered that the portable swamp he'd landed in had been improved to include snapping turtles and rather vicious fish known as piranhas. Fred and George had designed this particular item for the war effort.

Stunpike managed to get out of the swamp after a few dozen bites and passed out on the floor from blood loss. Luckily for him, Voldemort managed to clear out the darkness powder ten minutes after his Death Eaters entered the inky area. He discovered a scene of devastation on the front lawn. There were garden implement scattered everywhere and a bunch of unconconscious Death Eaters had obviously stumbled on them. None of the injured one would awake. Voldemort examined the residue on a rake. Draught of Living Death. They people who'd come for Potter had been prepared to set up an ambush….

Voldemort frowned. Snape had been right about the date, but wrong about the means of egress. What did that mean?

He didn't stop to ponder. He entered the house and dispelled the remains of the inky darkness. He saw a second scene of devastation. One of the Imperius'd conscripts was bleeding to death on the floor. Voldemort cast a wide area clotting charm and stunned the young man. Another few were already dead. They'd tripped on furniture and fallen onto daggers and knives. Rodolphus Lestrange had fallen on some foul, mouldering sweater which had strangled him to death. Bellatrix Lestrange had picked up a wand – obviously not her own – in the chaos of a darkened room and had had her had blown apart by some kind of curse.

Voldemort did what he could. Bellatrix was dead, though. Of the thirty he'd brought only eleven were even conscious at this point. A full nine were dead, three of them in some kind of magical swamp near the kitchen of this disgusting little home. And they'd caught nothing of the Potter brat.

Voldemort decided to push up his plans at the Ministry. He needed better information. He needed Trace information.

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X